Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/438

BAR proved fatal. He has published several botanical and medical works. Among these may be noted—"An Essay on the Materia Medica of the United States;" "Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania;" "Elements of Botany;" "Flora Virginica;" "Remarks on the Geographical Distribution of Plants in North America;" "Notes on American Antiquities;" and a "Memoir on Goitre." His writings tended much to illustrate the natural history and antiquities of North America. Barton was instrumental in sending Pursh to explore the Alleghany mountains, and the western part of the United States; he also assisted Nuttall in 1810 to visit the northern and north-western parts of the states. An American genus of plants has been called Bartonia in honour of Barton.—J. H. B.  BARTON,, a member of the Society of Friends, was born in London in 1784. In 1806 he went to Woodbridge in Suffolk, and was employed in a banking establishment there almost to the period of his death. His first volume, entitled "Metrical Effusions," appeared in 1812; in 1820 he published a second volume of poems, which was well received. He afterwards issued some eight or nine volumes in all, one of which, "Household Verses," published in 1845, was dedicated to her majesty; but none of these later works seems to have increased the reputation acquired by his first essays. Bernard Barton was, on the whole, a fortunate man; his poems procured him many friends and correspondents, and the respect and affection of the whole religious world. At the time he seems to have entertained the idea of relinquishing his profession, and betaking himself to a literary life, but was dissuaded by Charles Lamb, who wrote "throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock slap-dash headlong on iron spikes." This was sound advice. Barton had not strength enough to force his way through the press of literary aspirants to any conspicuous position; perhaps he was himself conscious of this; at all events the project was never carried into execution. Sir Robert Peel granted him a pension of £100 per annum. He died suddenly on the 19th February, 1849, of spasm of the heart. As a poet, Bernard Barton is not entitled to high consideration. The gift of genius can hardly be conceded to him. He had no fire, no imagination, no passion; but his mind was cultivated, his heart pure, and he wrote like a good and amiable man.—A. S.  BARTON,, commonly called , an ignorant nun, born about the commencement of the sixteenth century, who being afflicted with epilepsy, or some similar disease, was set up for a prophetess by some political intriguers in the reign of Henry VIII. Two priests, Masters and Bocking, directed her vaticinations; and being violently opposed to the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, they caused their dupe to fulminate denunciation after denunciation against all the promoters of that measure. The imprisonment and execution of all three followed; a monk of the name of Deering, also concerned in the imposture, sharing their fate. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, were both accused of being implicated in the treason of the priests, but the accusation seems to have been true only in the case of Fisher, More having been guilty of no more than an imprudent correspondence with the visionary. It proved, however, the ruin of both.—J. S., G.  * BARTON, P. C., was professor of botany in Philadelphia, and published in 1817 the "Materia Medica of the United States;" and from 1818 to 1824, a compendium of the "Flora of Philadelphia," and a "Flora of North America."  BARTRAM,, an American naturalist of some celebrity, who flourished in the eighteenth century. He was the son of a rich quaker in Pennsylvania, and travelled through various parts of North America, with the view of prosecuting natural history. In 1765 and 1766 he visited Florida. The results of his observations were published. He was a correspondent of Linnæus, who named the genus of mosses Bartramia in honour of him. His works are—"Observations on the Inhabitants and Products of North America," and "Description of Florida." He notices in the latter work, for the first time, the plant called Illicium Floridanum.—J. H. B.  BARTRAM,, son of the preceding, was born about 1739. He early imbibed his father's tastes for botanical research, and accompanied him on his travels. In 1771 he began a scientific examination of Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas, the result of which was published in 1791, and an English edition in the following year. He also wrote an American Ornithology. Died in 1823.—J. B.  BARTSCH,, a Dutch physician, lived about the first half of the eighteenth century. He was a friend of Linnæus and Bœrhaave, who sent him to Surinam to examine the natural products of the country. He died there from the effects of the climate. Linnæus named the genus Bartsia, one of the Scrophulariaceæ, after him.—J. H. B.  BARUCCO,, an Italian painter of the Venetian school, especially an imitator of Palma the Younger. He flourished at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and was a native of Brescia, in which place the greatest number of his works is to be seen.—R. M. <section end="438H" /> <section begin="438I" />BARUCH (Blessed), the friend and amanuensis of Jeremiah, and the supposed author of a book of the Apocrypha which bears his name, was of a noble family belonging to the tribe of Judah. He accompanied the prophet into Egypt in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, after which we find no further mention of him in scripture.—J. S., G. <section end="438I" /> <section begin="438J" />* BARUZZI,, one of the most distinguished sculptors of the day in Italy, is a native of Bologna, and a pupil of Canova, with whom he remained until the death of that great artist, whose group of the "Pietà" he was appointed to finish. Baruzzi has especially distinguished himself in the treatment of female figures, of which he has produced a very large number, all impressed more or less with the characteristic grace of his master. Three casts in the crystal palace at Sydenham, and several marbles in the Chatsworth gallery, are good instances of the superior merit of this eminent sculptor.—R. M. <section end="438J" /> <section begin="438K" />BARWICK,, a physician, born in the year 1619, at Wetherstack in Westmoreland, and died in London in 1705. He studied at the university of Cambridge, and was physician-in-ordinary to Charles II. He has written a "Defence of the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood by Harvey;" and a "Life of John Barwick," his brother, written in Latin, 1721, in 8vo. We also owe to Barwick a book entitled "De iis quæ Medicorum Animos Exagitant," London, 1671, 4to.—E. L. <section end="438K" /> <section begin="438L" />BASAITI,, an Italian painter of the beginning of the sixteenth century. He was of a Greek family established in Friuli, and studied at Venice, where he spent the greatest part of his life in constant rivalry with Giovanni Bellini. His works are remarkable for spirit in the conception, for skilful arrangement in the composition, and excellent design in the execution. His colour, however, although harmonious and fresh, was sometimes feeble and uncertain. The "Saviour at the Mount of Olives," the "St. Peter" at Venice (of which a repetition is now at Vienna), and the "Assumption" at Murano, are considered to be his masterpieces.—R. M. <section end="438L" /> <section begin="438Zcontin" />BASEDOW,, a celebrated German educational reformer, was born at Hamburg, 2nd September, 1723. He attended first the Johanneum in his native town, and then the university of Leipzig. In 1753 he was appointed to a mastership in the academy of Soroe, Zealand, where he, however, soon displayed violent heterodox opinions, and, therefore, was removed to the gymnasium of Altona (1761). We learn from Goethe, with whom he afterwards (1774) became intimately acquainted, and who in his Dichtung und Wahrheit, has given a highly graphic sketch of "Vater Basedow," that he not only was a staunch unitarian, but also used to denounce baptism as a useless custom, and, altogether, by his unbelief gave great offence to all religious people. Inflamed by the Emile, he resolved upon realizing Rousseau's educational ideas, and upon improving the pedantic and inefficient system of tuition then prevailing at the German schools, by a more natural and practical way of imparting knowledge. In imitation of the celebrated Amos Comenius, whose Orbis Pictus had exercised a beneficial and lasting influence upon education, he published in 1771 his "Elementarwerk" in three languages, adorned with one hundred illustrations by Chodowiecki. By these illustrations, the senses of the children were to be worked upon; the languages, dead and living, were to be acquired, not in a grammatical, but rather a conversational way; and the children, by being made acquainted with foreign languages, scenes, customs, dresses, &c., were to be made practical people and true citizens of the world. Basedow resigned his place, and travelled in order to collect funds for the canning out of his schemes. By the invitation of Francis, prince of Anhalt-Dessau, a high-minded patron of learning and the fine arts, he went to Dessau, where in 1774 he opened a model school, called the Philanthropinum. Assisted by eminent teachers, such as Wolke, Campe, Kolbe, Olivier, <section end="438Zcontin" />