Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/426

BAR BARRE,, born at Lille in 1799. He was professor of languages in Belgium. He took part in writing several valuable dictionaries. He also translated several English books, among which we may mention Sir Walter Scott's poems.  BARREAU,, a French heroine, who served with the grenadier battalion of her native district, Tarn, in numerous campaigns of the republic and the empire, and who particularly signalized herself in an attack on the redoubt of Alloqui in 1794; was born at Sarteris in 1771, and died at Avignon in 1843. At Alloqui she avenged with a woman's fury the loss of her husband and her brother, who had fallen by her side early in the engagement.—J. S., G.  BARREAUX,, Seigneur des, born at Paris in 1602; educated at La Fleche by the Jesuits. He affected the philosophy and the tastes of an Epicurean; this led him to change his residence according to the changes of the seasons, and he seems to have lived in the houses of friends or relatives. His winter was passed in the south of France; his summers in the north. At times he went to visit Balzac on the banks of the Charente; and he passed long periods at the house of an uncle at Chevailles-sur-Loire. In 1642 he went to Holland to visit Des Cartes. He finally retired to Châlons-sur-Saone, where he breathed what he called the best and purest air of France, and there he died in 1673. Of his poetry, which was once admired, nothing now remains. He lived himself to survive the verses to which he owed his chief reputation, all but one remarkable sonnet, beginning— " Grand Dieu! tes jugemens sont remplis d'equitè;" and this, he is said, in a death-bed confession, to have declared was not his. Des Barreaux confined his wishes and prayers to three things: "Oubli pour le passé, patience pour le present, et misericorde pour l'avenir."—J. A., D.  BARRE DE BEAUMARCHAIS,, a learned man, born at Cambray about the beginning of the eighteenth century; died about 1757. His works contain some curious bits of literary history. He translated Steele's Christian Hero.  BARRELIER,, a French botanist, born at Paris in 1606, and died 17th September, 1673. He studied medicine, and obtained his diploma in 1634. He subsequently joined the Dominican order, and engaged in theological pursuits, his leisure hours being devoted to botany. In 1646, along with the general of the Dominicans, he visited Provence, Languedoc, and Spain, and made large collections of plants. Afterwards he examined the Appenines, and visited Italy. He resided at Rome for twenty-three years, and founded a botanic garden at the convent of Saint Xyste. He returned to Paris in 1672, and resided in the convent of the order in the Rue St. Honoré, where he devoted himself to the preparation of an extensive botanical work, entitled "Hortus Mundi, seu Orbis Botanicus." A portion of the manuscript had been completed, and some of the plates engraved at Rome, when he was cut off by an attack of asthma. An account of his collections and observations in France, Spain, and Italy, was published by Jussieu, at Paris, in 1714, and contains 334 plates, with 1324 figures. Plumier has named a genus, in the family of Acanthaceæ, Barreliera.—J. H. B.  BARRERA,, a Spanish painter of the first half of the seventeenth century; noted for having, in 1640, opposed a tax before the tribunals, which it was intended to levy upon the mastership of painters.—R. M.  BARRÈRE,, a French naturalist, born at Perpignan about 1690, and died 1st November, 1755. He studied medicine at Perpignan, and was made doctor in 1717. He devoted his attention to botany, and was led to travel in different countries. In 1722 he was sent to Cayenne, where he resided for three years; and he published the result of his researches in regard to the natural history of that part of the world. On his return to France, he became professor of botany at Perpignan. He practised also as a physician, and was subsequently elected dean of the medical faculty of Perpignan. He published several medical and botanical works. In one of these he shows the importance of the knowledge of botany for a physician. A genus Barrèra was established by Willdenow in honour of him.—J. H. B.  BARRETO,, a Portuguese jesuit missionary, born at Montemayor in 1588; died at Goa in 1663. He wrote an account of the missions and of the state of Christianity in the province of Malabar. <section end="426H" /> <section begin="426I" />BARRETO,, Portuguese governor of the Indies, famous for his conquests in Africa, a vast region of which, called Monomotapa, he subjected to Portuguese authority; succeeded Don Pedro Mascarenhas in 1558. Camoens, the poet, suffered some of his interminable wrongs at the hands of Barreto, who banished him to Macao. He died in 1574 while engaged in the conquest of Monomotapa.—J. S., G. <section end="426I" /> <section begin="426J" />* BARRETT,, Wesleyan minister and theological writer, born at Sheffield, October 17, 1808, entered the ministry in 1832, and has been from the commencement of his public life a most acceptable and useful preacher. He is the author of "An Essay on the Pastoral Office," 8vo, 1839; "The Ministry and Polity of the Christian Church," 8vo, 1854; both of which treatises have especial reference to the ecclesiastical economy of the Wesleyan methodists; "Catholic and Evangelical Principles," 8vo, 1843, a work on the tractarian controversy; "Pastoral Addresses," 2 vols., 8vo, 1846, which, from their practical character and devotional spirit, have obtained a large circulation and a well-merited popularity; "Christ in the Storm," 16mo; besides several useful biographies.—W. B. B. <section end="426J" /> <section begin="426K" />BARRETT,, an Irish writer of considerable ability, was born in Cork in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was educated at Wandsworth Common, where he was looked upon as a genius amongst his schoolfellows, having written a play, with prologue and epilogue, which was performed with great success. After leaving school he entered the middle temple, but does not appear to have followed the legal profession. He became connected with the London press, and an author. His first publication was a volume of poems, of which one entitled "Woman," contained some lines of great beauty, which, strange to say, bear so singular a resemblance to some lines of Elizabeth Barrett (Browning), that they have been confounded with them. His next work was a satirical poem, which appeared in 1807, called "All the Talents," in ridicule of the whig administration then formed. His most celebrated work is the "Heroine," a mock romance, in which the absurdities of the school of romantic fiction, then popular, are exposed and ridiculed with great pungency and humour. He also wrote "Six Weeks at Long's," which was very successful, and several political and controversial pamphlets. He died on the 20th March, 1820, in Glamorganshire, of rapid decline, while still occupied in literary pursuits. He was a man of great private worth and attractive manners.—J. F. W. <section end="426K" /> <section begin="426L" />BARRETT,, an English landscape painter, born in Dublin in 1728; died in 1784. A self-taught artist until 1762; in that year he visited London, where, resuming his studies under West, by the advice of so good a friend he was enabled to carry the prize of the Society of Arts. He became a member of the newly-founded Royal Academy, to the development of which he greatly contributed. The works of this artist belong to two distinct styles: of the first, good specimens were to be seen at Norbury Park but a few years ago; of the second, the galleries of the dukes of Portland and Buccleuch can boast of possessing the best.—R. M. <section end="426L" /> <section begin="426Zcontin" />BARRETT,, senior fellow and vice-provost of Trinity college, Dublin, was as remarkable for the extent and profundity of his philological and classical learning, as for the eccentricities of his habits of life and personal deportment. He was the son of a clergyman, and entered college in 1767, obtained a scholarship in 1773, and a fellowship in 1778, and was elected vice-provost in 1778. He spent his life in almost solitary seclusion, devoted to the two passions that absorbed him—reading, and the most penurious hoarding of money—the latter habit being probably induced by the extreme poverty of his early life; yet, with all this, he was a man of the strictest integrity, and never known to commit a dishonourable action. With strong feelings of religion, he indulged in cursing and swearing as a thoughtless habit; he was ever ready to do kind actions, provided he was not called on to give money, and though ignorant of everything that pertained to the most ordinary affairs of life, his mind was a perfect storehouse of strange knowledge, and his memory so tenacious that he could remember almost everything he had seen or read. Dr. Barrett's writings were as eccentric as his manners; he was, perhaps, the last who published a work on astrology, and the "Inquiry into the Origin and Signs of the Zodiac" is as extraordinary an example of learned ingenuity as is extant. For the profundity of its knowledge and number of quotations, it may be placed beside Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. His most important critical work <section end="426Zcontin" />