Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/416

BAR BARDOZZI,, a learned Hungarian; died in 1819. He wrote chiefly on Hungarian history and commerce.  BARDYLIS or BARDYLLIS, a king of Illyria in the fourth century, who raised himself to the throne from being a captain of brigands. He invaded Macedonia in the reign of Amyntas II., and again in that of Perdiccas III., whom he vanquished and killed, 360. In the following year Philip entered his dominions, and, it is supposed, put him to death.—J. S., G.  BARDZINSKI,, a Polish theologian and poet of the seventeenth century, professor of theology in the Dominican seminary at Warsaw. He translated Lucan's Pharsalia, Boethius' De Consolatione, and the tragedies of Seneca. Died in 1705.  BAREBONE or BARBONE,, a member of the legislative body assembled by Cromwell in 1653, after the dissolution of the long parliament. The royalists facetiously distinguished him by calling the convention Barebone's parliament. Previous to the issuing of the writ which created him, and six other persons of moderate fortune, members for the city of London, he was a currier in Fleet Street. At the time when Monk was in London, Barebone headed the mob who presented a petition to parliament against the recal of Charles II.—J. S., G.  BARELLAS,, a Spanish historian, born in Catalonia in the beginning of the seventeenth century.  BARELLI,, born in Nice; died in 1725; author of "A Biography of the Founder of the Barnabites."  BARENTIN, , keeper of the seals under Louis XVI., was born in 1738, and died in 1819. Succeeding Lamoignon in 1788, he opened, on the part of the king, the second convocation of the noblesse, and afterwards the States General, the three orders of which he exhausted his ingenuity in attempts to reconcile. Mirabeau, and afterwards Garran de Coulon, denounced him as an intriguer, and caused him to be brought before the tribunal of the Chatelet. He was acquitted, and shortly after left France. At the Restoration, Louis XVIII. created him honorary chancellor.—J. S., G.  BARENTIN,, Vicomte de, a French general, born at Paris in 1737; died in 1824. After some service as captain of cavalry in the seven years' war, he was appointed to a command in the Scotch body guard, with which company he served under Condé at the battle of Mittau. He wrote "Geographie Ancienne et Historique, composée d'apres les cartes de d'Anville," 1807.—J. S., G. <section end="416H" /> <section begin="416I" />BARENTIN-MONTCHAL,, lived in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Wrote an abridgment of the Old and New Testament. <section end="416I" /> <section begin="416J" />BARENTS or BARENTSEN,, often surnamed , a Dutch painter, born at Amsterdam in 1534; died in 1592. He was the son of Bernardt Barents, an indifferent artist, who gave him the first instructions until he left for Italy, where he studied under Titian, and acquired a reputation. He painted both portraits and history in the style of his Italian master. He also was a good poet and musician.—R. M. <section end="416J" /> <section begin="416Zcontin" />BARENTS or BARENTZ,, a celebrated Dutch pilot of the 16th century, was a native of Ter Schelling, an island lying off the coast of Friesland, and was also a burgher of Amsterdam. No particulars of his family or early life are known; and it is only from the part which he bore in three voyages of discovery, made in the years 1594, '95, and '96, that his name has descended to us. The name of the famous Dutch pilot, which is variously written, appears to have been, properly, Barentszoon, that is, the son of Barent or Bernard; whence the common Dutch contraction of Barentsz. He appears to have belonged to the humbler ranks of life. Barents was unquestionably a man of considerable capacity and talent, and seems to have possessed, in an eminent degree, the faculty of inspiring the respect, confidence, and warm personal attachment of those who were the companions of his voyages. His determination, perseverance, and undaunted courage, were abundantly evidenced on many trying occasions; and his feats of seamanship will bear comparison with the boldest of those accomplished by our modern navigators. The narrative of the voyages performed by William Barents, from the pen of one who had borne a share in the two later of them, was first published at Amsterdam, in the year 1598, under the following title—"A True Description of Three Voyages by the North-East toward Cathay and China, undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594, 1595, and 1596," by Gerrit de Veer; and an English version of the work, by William Phillip, appeared in London in 1669. We owe to the Hakluyt Society an excellent edition of this work, issued in 1853, and accompanied by valuable illustrative matter. The object which the Dutch sought to attain in these famous voyages had already commanded, during more than forty years, the attention of the maritime nations of western Europe. Sir Hugh Willoughby, in his disastrous expedition of 1553, had visited the coasts of Nova Zembla (hitherto known only to the Russians); and previously to 1584, an English vessel had crossed the sea of Kara, and penetrated as far east as the mouth of the great river Obi. But at this time, and down to the date of the Dutch pilot's discoveries, Nova Zembla (properly Novaya Zemlya, i.e., New Land) appears to have been regarded as an island of moderate extent, the designation being applied to the southerly portion only of the chain of islands now comprised under the name. In all three of the voyages in which Barents was engaged, he acted as chief pilot; not holding, in either case, the nominal command of the expedition. The post of chief pilot was often, however, amongst the earlier voyagers, one of more real responsibility than that of the master of the ship, and hence the frequent cases in which the name of the pilot, rather than that of the commander, became in those days attached to newly-discovered lands and seas. In the first of his three famous voyages (in which four ships were employed), Barents reached the western shore of Nova Zembla in July, 1594, and traced its coasts as far to the northward as a point to which the Dutchmen gave the name of De Hoeck van Nassau (lat. 77° 25´); whence they struggled on against adverse winds, and the obstructions caused by ice, for a considerable distance to the eastward. Upon their return, the seamen employed themselves in lading their vessel with the teeth of the walrus, or sea-horse, which abounds in those latitudes. For the voyage of the following year, the States General equipped a fleet of seven ships, but the enterprise appears to have been commenced at too late a period of the season, and they returned to the Maas without accomplishing anything important in the way of discovery. The coasts of Nova Zembla were found unapproachable from the ice, and even Barents penetrated no farther than the strait of Nassau (or Waygatz), which intervenes between Waygatz island and the Russian mainland. The third voyage (1596) was that most fruitful in discovery, as well as that in which the skill and fortitude of the hardy Dutchman and his companions were most severely tried. The two ships of which this expedition consisted, were fitted out at the expense of the merchants of Amsterdam. Starting at an earlier season than in the preceding year, they had already, by the 1st June, reached so high a latitude as to have no night. On the 9th June, they arrived at land, to which the name of Bear Island was given, from the circumstance of a large white bear being killed there; ten days afterwards, the vessel in which Barents sailed was nearly under the line of the 80th parallel, immediately east of the shores of Spitzbergen, of which extensive group of islands the Dutch pilot was thus the discoverer, and the mainland of which he completely circumnavigated. Afterwards steering, in a lower latitude, to the eastward, Barents again reached the shores of Nova Zembla, and, passing the Hoeck van Nassau of his former voyage, struggled on with much difficulty along an ice-bound coast, until, on August 26th, his vessel arrived at the Ice Haven, where he and his companions "were forced, in great cold, poverty, misery, and grief, to stay all that winter," and whence they did not get released until June 14th of the following year, passing nearly ten months in that dreary and inhospitable locality! This is the first instance on record of a ship's crew wintering within arctic latitudes. The sun entirely forsook them on Nov. 4th; his entire disc reappeared above the horizon on January 27th, fourteen days earlier than had been calculated upon by Barents, as the complete disappearance of that luminary, in the earlier half of the winter, had not taken place until a later date, by several days, than that which his calculations had assigned for it. But the refractive powers of the atmosphere, towards the horizon, were in that age unknown. Several months, however, had yet to elapse ere they could hope to escape from their winter prison. Their ship had been seriously damaged by the ice; but they repaired the two boats which belonged to her, and at length, on the 13th June, prepared to leave their gloomy abode. Barents first drew up in writing, and left in the wooden hut which had so long afforded them shelter, a list of their names, with an account of their misfortunes, and a description of what had befallen them while <section end="416Zcontin" />