Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/623

BIN was granted in 1347 to Jehan Biuchois of Chaulny, appointing him drummer to the town of Amiens. This person may have been a relative of Gilles, who may therefore possibly have been a native of Picardy, especially as this department produced several musicians of distinction at the first dawning of the art. Martin la Franc, in his poem Le Champion des Dames, written about 1430, eulogizes Binchois and his music, which, taken with other allusions in the same work, and considering the age of the poet when he wrote, suggests that this composer may have lived till 1420 or later, and may have then been in the service of the duke of Burgundy at Dijon. The importance of Binchois rests upon his having been one of the earliest of the race of musicians to whom we owe the first development of the art of counterpoint; for, though there exist compositions for several voices by Adam de la Hale, of the thirteenth century, and though the English canon, Sommer is y commen in, is supposed to have preceded these, no systematic principles appear to have been established until the period when Binchois wrote.—G. A. M.  * BINDER,, a distinguished German writer, was born at Weinsberg, 16th April, 1810. He devoted himself to the study of theology and history at Tübingen, and was for some time professor of German literature and history at the gymnasium of Biel. He is not less known for his conversion to the Roman Catholic church in 1845, than for his multifarious literary labours. We quote—"Der Deutsche Horatius," 3rd. ed. 1841; "Fürst Metternich und sein Zeitalter," 3rd ed. 1845; "Der Untergang des Polnischen Nationalstaats," 2 vols.; "Allemannische Volkssagen;" "Der Protestantismus in seiner Selbstauflösung;" "Meine Rechtfertigung und mein Glaube," &c. Since 1846 he edited the Real-Encyclopädie für das Katholische Deutschland, 12 vols.—K. E.  * BINEAU,, a distinguished living French chemist, was born on the 18th January, 1812, at Douay-la-Fontaine, in the department of Maine-et-Loire. He is now professor of chemistry in the Faculty of Sciences, and in the École de la Martinière at Lyons, and secretary of the class of sciences in the academy of that city. His writings consist entirely of memoirs on various chemical subjects, published principally in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique; many of them, especially those on ammonia, are of great value.—W. S. D.  BINEAU,, was born in 1805 in the department of Maine and Loire. He was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique, on quitting which he was associated to the body of mining engineers, and rose from rank to rank, until in 1840 he became engineer-in-chief. His published treatise on English railways brought him into notice, and contributed to his election in 1841 as a member of the chamber of deputies for Maine and Loire. In his new legislative capacity he took a leading part in all debates relating to concessions of railways and railway management and finance. In 1848 he was chosen by his native department a member of the constitutional assembly. He was one of the first who attached himself to the prince-president, who in 1849 appointed him first minister of public works. In 1852 he became minister of finance. The principal and characteristic events of his administration were the conversion of the rente in 1852, and the loan of 1854. He died Sept. 14, 1855.—E. W.  BINET,. Little is known of him, but that he lived in the latter half of the seventeenth century. He wrote "l'Histoire des Dieux et des Demons du Paganisme," Delft, 1696. This work is a reply to the Monde Enchantée of Balthazar Bekker, and is often attached to copies of that work.  BINET,, born in Le Beauvoisis, who sought to unite the irreconcilable characters of avocat and poet. The periods of his birth and death are not recorded; he flourished, as it is called, in 1560, and is described by French biographers as less favoured by Themis than the muses. His verses are as little known now as his pleadings. He published an edition of Ronsard's works, and translated from the Latin of Dorat, a book, to which he gave the title of "Les Oracles des douze Sibylles," with portraits of the sibyls, done to the life by Jean Babel; Paris, 1586.—J. A., D.  BINET,, a French jesuit, successively rector of several important houses of his order, and author of a curious book, "Essai sur les merveilles de la nature," which in the space of a century ran through twenty editions, was born at Dijon, in 1569, and died at Paris in 1639. The "Essai" was published at Rouen in 1621, under the name of René François.  BINET,, a French surgeon of the early part of the seventeenth century, born at Saint Quentin in Picardy. He received his education at the college of Saint Côme, in Paris, and afterwards practised for some time in that city. Subsequently he entered the army, and became surgeon-major of the military hospitals, in which capacity he was present at the siege of Rochelle, where he was killed in 1627 or 1628. His only published work is a collection of the anatomical and surgical writings of Germain Courtain, translated into French, published at Paris in 1612.—W. S. D. <section end="623H" /> <section begin="623I" />BINET,, born in 1786; died in 1856, during which year he was president of the Academy of Sciences. Binet was one of the best mathematicians in France; but, like our own Ivory, he never wrote any large substantive work. He had an active share in the publication of the Mecanique Celeste, and wrote many illustrative memoirs. His knowledge was greater, however, than his works. Few ever knew so thoroughly, or could appreciate so well, the labour and services of the great geometers of all ages and nations. This faculty has of course perished with him. After the Restoration he was director of the Polytechnic school; but, his politics not suiting Louis Philippe, he was dismissed in 1830 and succeeded by Dulong. Binet, we suspect, was an absolutist, and clung through public, as well as personal considerations to the older Bourbons. We subjoin a list of the most important of his separate memoirs—Mémoire sur la Théorie des axes conjugués, et des moments d'inertie des corps (Journ. de l'Ecole Polytechnic, t. ix., 1813). Mémoire sur une Système de formules analytiques, et leur application à des considerations géométriques (ibid.); Sur la détermination analytique d'une sphère tangente à quatre autres sphères (ibid., t. x., 1815); Mémoire sur la composition des forces et sur la composition des moments (ibid); Mémoire sur l'expression analytique de l'élasticité et de la roideur des cordes à doubles courbures (ibid.); Mémoire sur les principes généreaux de dynamique (ibid., t. xii.); Mémoire sur la détermination des orbites des planètes et des comètes (ibid., t. xiii.); Mémoire sur la détermination des équations indéterminées du premier degré des nombres entiers (ibid.); Mémoire sur les Intégrales définies eulériennes, et sur leur application à la thèorie des suites, ainsi qu'à l'évaluation des fonctions de grands nombres; Paris, 1840, in 4to; Mémoire sur la Variation des constantes arbitraires dans les équations de la dynamique et dans les formules plus étendues (Journ. de l'Ecole Polytechnic, t. xvii.); Mémoire sur le développement de la fonction dont dépend le calcul des perturbations des planètes, présenté à l'Académie en 1813; Mémoire sur les Inéqualités sèculaires des orbites des planètes (Journ. de Mathématiques, t. v.); Mémoire sur la théorie des nombres.—J. P. N. <section end="623I" /> <section begin="623J" />BINET,, a French litterateur, born in 1729; died in 1812; author of translations of Virgil, Horace, and Cicero. <section end="623J" /> <section begin="623K" />BING,, a French Hebraist, born of a Jewish family at Metz in 1759, acquired considerable reputation in early life by translating into Hebrew the Phædo of Mendelsohn, and afterwards coming to Paris in search of a livelihood, he procured, by some other publications, the friendship of many celebrated men, among others of Mirabeau and Lafayette. He died in 1805. <section end="623K" /> <section begin="623L" />BINGHAM,, a bookseller in Boston, Mass., a teacher of youth, and the compiler of several school-books, which were the principal manuals of instruction in New England schools for many years, was born in Salisbury, Conn., in 1757, and graduated at Dartmouth college in 1782. Except Dr. Webster's famous spelling-book, of which it is estimated that many millions of copies have been published and sold, no school-books have been more popular in New England than Bingham's "American Preceptor," "Columbian Orator," "Young Lady's Accidence," "Geographical Catechism," &c. Bingham also translated and published Chateaubriand's Atala, and wrote a now-forgotten tale called "The Hunters." He died at Boston in 1817.—F. B. <section end="623L" /> <section begin="623M" />BINGHAM,, an English divine, born at Melcomb-Bingham in the county of Dorset, in 1715, rector of Pimpern, and of More Cretchel in that county, is the author of the "History and Antiquities of Dorset." He was a man of a liberal turn of mind, amiable, and exceedingly beloved by his parishioners. His other works are not of much importance. He died in 1800. <section end="623M" /> <section begin="623N" />BINGHAM.—See. <section end="623N" /> <section begin="623Zcontin" />BINGHAM,, sometime governor and representative of the county Mayo in the Irish parliament, was an officer of high rank on the side of James II. at the decisive battle of Aughrim, and contributed much to the issue of the day by <section end="623Zcontin" />