Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/574

BER BERNER,, a German protestant theologian, born at Greitz in 1727; died in 1772. Besides some sermons, he published "Der glaubige Paulus in Trubsal und in Aengsten," and "Lebenslauf des Selig. D. Luthers, in Versen."  BERNERS or BARNES,, a lady distinguished as one of the earliest female writers of England, but about whose personal history there is some obscurity, was, it is generally believed, the daughter of Sir James Berners of Berners Roding. If this be true, she must have been born not later than the close of the fourteenth century, for Sir James was, in 1388, beheaded with other corrupt ministers of Richard II. Juliana became prioress of Sopewell nunnery, near St. Albans, where, however, she seems to have devoted herself to quite other occupations than those of a religious recluse. Warton tells us that she "resembled an abbot in respect of exercising an extensive manorial jurisdiction, and hawked and hunted in common with other ladies of distinction." It is in connection with these manly sports that her name has been remembered. Famous treatises concerning hawking, hunting, and heraldry, have been ascribed to this lady. It is most likely, however, that she was the author of those only which refer to hawking and hunting. The earliest edition of the work appeared at St. Albans in 1481, and another edition of it in 1486. In 1496 it was again issued by Wynkyn de Worde at Westminster. The work, last of all, appeared at London in 1595, bearing the title of "The Gentleman's Academie, or the Book of St. Albans, containing three most exact and excellent books, the first of Hawking, the second of all the Terms of Hunting, and the last of Armory; all compiled by Juliana Berners in the year from the incarnation of Christ, 1486, and now reduced into better method by G. M." The part treating of armory was probably the production of a later hand, and this may account for the late date which this editor assigns to the production of Dame Berners, who must, if her parentage be that generally supposed, have either been dead in 1486, or at least beyond the age for compiling "excellent books of hawking and hunting."—J. B.  BERNEVILLE,, a trouvére of the thirteenth century, born at Berneville near Arras. Gilibert seems to have been a man of high rank. He flourished about 1240, and is mentioned in the chronicles of that period. Some of the extracts which we find from his chansons, are cast in the manner of Beranger, and have a mixture of seriousness and levity, which, till one becomes familiarized with it, is often offensive. We have several of Berneville's tensons and twenty-five of his chansons remaining.—J. A., D.  BERNI,, an Italian poet; he was born towards the close of the fifteenth century at Lamporecchio in Tuscany. The family is said to have been noble, and is known to have been poor. He went to Florence in the character and garb of a divinity student, where he remained till he was nineteen, and thence passed to Rome, and lived successively in the household of cardinal Bibbiena, and after his death in that of Ghiberte, bishop of Verona, and datario to Pope Clement. It is hard to ascertain the precise position of a man of letters in an Italian family, but something not much more dignified than the rank of a copying clerk in some public office seems indicated rather than expressly revealed under the sounding titles of secretaries and notaries, which we find given to him. However, in some such way he earned his bread for seven years, and then he obtained a canonry at Florence. Berni was at all times indolent and dissolute, and his disregard of the decencies of life led to his being supposed capable of becoming a convenient instrument of the worst crimes. Stories are told of his being solicited by each of the illustrious cousins, Duke Alexander and Cardinal Ippolite de Medici, to poison the other, and of his being himself poisoned by one of them, for his non-compliance. The characters of all parties in this romance of Italian life are well preserved in these narratives, of which, whether they have any foundation or not in fact, the details are supposed to be disproved by the date of Berni's death, which by most of his biographers is stated to have occurred in 1543; but a chronological register of the canons of the cathedral of Florence fixes it in May, 1536. Berni had given his name to a peculiar description of humorous poetry, in which he excelled. It is called the "Poësia Bernesca." The ludicrous effect produced by the contrast of serious and comic imagery and expression brought together in immediate juxtaposition, which marks his poetry and that of Pulci, is now familiar to the English reader, by the admirable imitations of those Italian masters in Frere's Whistlecraft, Byron's Beppo, and Tennant's Anster Fair. Frere reminds us of Berni's manner, more than Byron. The Latin classics are even more familiar to every educated Italian than the modern poets of his country, and a part of Berni's humour consists in the introduction of passages, the words of which are remembered and the sublimity felt by every one, and then parodying them in a spirit of playful fun. The solemn chants and prayers of the Roman catholic worship are dealt with in the same light and irreverent way by this witty ecclesiastic. In England—perhaps even in Italy at present—Berni is most known by his "Refaciamento" of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, though there seems a great deal of original humour in some of his satires. His praises of a season of plague may be mentioned in proof of this. Public places cease to be inconveniently crowded; one has elbow-room enough in church and market-place; one does not meet his creditors in the street; the most clamorous duns have already gone "whither the dead attornies go," or, at worst, they are afraid to stir out: in short a distressed man—and our poet, like all his brethren, sympathizing with the poor—had in the sickly season the enjoyment of freedom of body and peace of mind.

The "Refaciamento" of the Innamorato is a work of which there is no example, as far as we are aware, in the literature of any other country. Dryden's imitations of Chaucer more nearly approach it than anything we know; but Dryden's tone is at least as serious as that of Chaucer. His Palæmon and Arcite, for instance, is cast in the same mould as Chaucer's; if there be any distinction in this respect, it is that Dryden assumes somewhat of a loftier tone than his master. Both he and Chaucer, in the poems which he has imitated, are fond of arch allusions; sometimes both are unpardonably coarse. But Dryden does not find in Chaucer the same stately patrician tone which Berni did in Boiardo; and thus there is no real or seeming contrast between the ancient and the modern English poet. Between Dryden and Chaucer, however, it must be remembered three centuries intervened; between Boiardo and Berni about half a century.

The "Refaciamento," is a very curious work. There does not appear to be a single stanza, nay, there is scarcely a single line, in which Berni does not seem to have gone over the original poem, infusing everywhere a new strange spirit. We agree with the general feeling of his countrymen, though we know there is high authority against it, in thinking the "Refaciamento" almost infinitely superior to the original poem. The story of Boiardo is faithfully followed throughout; each canto is introduced like those of Ariosto and Spenser, with a stanza or two of moral reflections, suggested by the narrative. Occasionally an interlude, as it may be called, of some length occurs, in one of which we are told a good deal of Berni's own domestic history and habits. We are told by him that his person was "thin and dry;" that his legs were "spare and lean;" that his visage was broad and his nose high; that his eye-brows were sharp, and the space between them narrow; that his eye was blue and hollow; and that he kept himself close shaved, being at daily war with beard and moustache. He describes himself as the idlest wretch under the sun; from the sun itself at all hours he hid himself as much as he could, passing most of his time in bed. Pen, ink, and paper, he describes himself as holding in utter abhorrence, remembering how they wearied him when for so many a long year his daily labour with them bought his bad and bitter bread.

Berni, like most of the scholars of his day, amused himself by writing Latin verse. His Latin poems were published in a collected form with those of Segui, Varchi, and others, at Florence, 1562.—Rose's Orlando Innamorato; Panizzi's Boiardo.—J. A., D.  BERNHARD, count of Anhalt and duke of Saxony, born in 1140; died in 1212. At his death the government of Anhalt passed to his son Henry, and the duchy of Saxony to Albert.  BERNHARD, one of the generals famous in the annals of the Thirty Years' war, was the son of Duke John of Weimar, and was born in 1604. He died in July, 1639.  BERNHARD,, a Polish botanist and medical man of the seventeenth century, was physician to the king of Poland. He published a catalogue of the plants near Warsaw, besides botanical memoirs in the Nova Acta.—J. H. B.  BERNHARDI,, a German writer, was born at Berlin, 1768, and studied philology at Halle, under <section end="574Zcontin" />