Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/621

BIL dépeuplait la Franche-Comté en 1707," and a "Traité du Régime," published at Besançon respectively in 1721 and 1748; but the public library of his native place contains a manuscript treatise on materia medica from his hand.—W. S. D.  BILLET,, of Utrecht, lived at Antwerp in 1662. He painted small figures neatly and delicately. His portrait has been engraved by Peter Balten.—W. T.  BILLI, , born at Guise in 1535; died at Paris in 1581. He was educated in the study of the law, but soon left the pursuit and occupied himself with classical literature. He was an abbé, and had large benefices, the revenues of which were, however, but ill paid, owing to the civil wars of the country. He translated Gregory Nazianzen. This work is highly praised; but Bayle takes some pains to show undeservedly. He published a poem on our Lord's second advent, and "Sonnets Spirituels," which make his name to be still remembered among a host of the French poets.—J. A., D.  BILLICAN,, called also sometimes , one of Luther's earliest disciples, and a distinguished German reformer, was born in Billigheim, in the lower palatinate, near the end of the fifteenth century. His family name was Gerlach. He studied at Heidelberg, and was still residing there when Luther visited the city and university in 1518. Like John Brenz and Erhard Schnepf, his fellow-students, he was deeply impressed by Luther's teaching on that occasion, and from that time was gained to the infant cause of the Reformation. The violent opposition of the university to Lutheranism compelled him to relinquish his office as an academic teacher in 1522, and he repaired first to Weil, and then to the free city of Nördlingen. In both these localities, he preached with great freedom and power against the corruptions of the church, and in the latter city his labours were attended with permanent effects. When the sacramentarian controversy broke out, he was at first inclined to side with Bucer and the Strasburg divines, but afterwards attached himself with decision to the party of Luther. In 1535 he left Nördlingen, and returned to Heidelberg, where he was allowed for some time to occupy a chair of law, and gave lectures on the Decretals and the Jus Feudale. But on the death of Elector Ludwig V., 1544, he was again driven from his favourite university, and repaired to Marburg, where he was appointed to a chair of rhetoric and history; he died in 1554. His published writings were neither numerous nor important, his principal distinction being that he was the reformer of Nordlingen, one of the imperial cities of Germany.—P. L.  BILLINGS,, a navigator of some note, who accompanied Cook in his last voyage, in which he was engaged in making astronomical observations. In 1785 he entered the service of the Empress Catherine II. of Russia, by whom he was intrusted with the command of an expedition fitted out for making discoveries in the Northern Ocean, between Siberia and the continent of America, He discovered a number of islands in these unfrequented seas, and determined the latitudes and longitudes of many places that had been visited, though very imperfectly described, by former navigators. His discoveries were more of geographical than commercial importance, but were highly esteemed by the empress, as contributing to the glory of her reign.—G. M.  BILLINGSLEY,, a mathematician, born at Canterbury about the middle of the sixteenth century. After residing three years at the university of Oxford, he was bound apprentice to a haberdasher in London. He acquired a large fortune in business, and became successively alderman and lord mayor of London. His love of science induced him to take into his house an Augustine friar of the name of Whitehead, who, although a man of learning and talent, had been in necessitous circumstances since the suppression of monastic orders by Henry VIII. This friar instructed Billingsley in mathematics, and at his death bequeathed to the knight his manuscript notes on Euclid. The work which carries Billingsley's name, "The Elements of Geometry of the most Ancient Philosopher, Euclid of Megara, faithfully translated into the English tongue," &c., 1570, embodies these notes, and a prefatory dissertation by Dr. John Dee. Billingsley died in 1606.—J. S., G.  BILLINGTON,, a singer, was born in London in 1769, and died at her estate, near Traviso in the Venetian territory, in August, 1818. Her father, Weichsel, a native of Freiberg in Saxony, was for many years principal clarionet at the King's theatre, and her mother was, from 1765 to 1775, a favourite singer at Vauxhall gardens, She and her brother (who afterwards gained an honourable position as a violinist) were devoted to the study of music in their earliest years, and both performed, she on the pianoforte and he on the violin, when she was but six years old, on the occasion of their mother's benefit at the Haymarket theatre, Miss Weichsel's master for the pianoforte was Schröter, an esteemed teacher, but her father superintended her practice, and this with a tyrannical severity. She became very distinguished as a player, and showed some ability for composition; but her natural endowment of a fine soprano voice was too great a treasure to be left uncultivated, and she was placed under the tuition of Thomas Billington, a double-bass player, a singing-master, and a composer of many glees and other vocal pieces, besides some sonatas of merit. When she was but fourteen she made her first appearance as a vocalist at Oxford, and only two years later than this her instructor eloped with and married her. Billington obtained an engagement for his young wife at the Dublin theatre, where, to her extreme mortification, a Miss Wheeler, who sang in the same opera with her, was received with more applause than she. In 1786 Mrs. Billington followed her rival to London, in consequence of whose previous engagement at Covent Garden theatre she had some difficulty to make terms for a probationary series of performances of twelve nights. She was to have appeared on a Wednesday, but the king, recollecting her celebrity as a pianist, anticipated the commencement of her engagement by commanding her performance of Rosetta in Love in a Village two nights earlier. Her success was prodigious, and the management, which had scrupled to afford her £12 per week, unhesitatingly agreed to pay her £1000 for the remainder of the season, and to give her a free benefit at its termination, which liberal terms were increased by a second benefit in consequence of her unexpected attraction. During this season she studied singing assiduously with Morelli, and, at its close, went to Paris to take lessons of Sacchini; returning from which, she reappeared in 1787 with increased success. The excellence of Mad, Mara was her constant object of emulation, and she esteemed it the greatest compliment she received, that, when she appeared at the Ancient concerts together with this famous artist, the latter showed some jealousy of her rising rival, A scandalous Life of Mrs. Billington, which caused her great vexation, was published in 1791. She retired from public in 1793, and went to Italy to live in seclusion. At Naples, the English ambassador. Sir W. Hamilton, persuaded her to resume the exercise of her profession; and having sung with great admiration before the court, she appeared in 1794 at the San Carlo in the opera of Inez di Castro, composed for her by Bianchi. The death of her husband by apoplexy, as he was handing her into her carriage to go to the theatre, checked the successful course of her performances; and, added to this, an eruption of Vesuvius made the Neapolitans believe that the saints were incensed at their allowing a heretic to sing on their stage. She, however, appeared again, when her remarkable talent triumphed over the popular superstition, and her success was greater than ever. She now fulfilled a succession of brilliant engagements at Venice, Rome, and Milan. In 1799 she married Felisini, a handsome Italian adventurer (better known in England by the name of Felisent), who not only squandered her extensive earnings, but so grossly ill-treated her that, in 1801, she secretly fled from him in company with her brother, and returned to London, The managers of Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres were now both so desirous to obtain her services, that, after great contention, it was arranged by arbitration for her to sing alternately at the two establishments. She appeared in the old English operas, but introduced in these some of the arias that had been written for her in Italy, and she even exceeded her former attraction. In 1802 she sang with Banti and Mara at the King's theatre, and gained new laurels in the competition, especially from the performance of a duet which Bianchi wrote for a trial of skill between her and Mara. Felisini, taking advantage of the peace, followed her this year to England; but some influential patrons of his wife freed her from his persecution, by obliging him, on the authority of the alien act, to quit the kingdom; she, however, remitted him a liberal allowance during the whole time of their separation. The three following seasons Mrs. Billington was engaged with Grassini and Braham, and was the original prima donna in the Italian operas Winter composed for this country. In 1806 she produced for her benefit La Clemenza di Tito, in which she sustained the part of Vitellia, this being the first performance of an opera of 