Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/661

BLA church and palace. Some of his pictures are in the churches of Turin. S. Pelagio had his best work—a swooning St. Luke, supported by an angel. He died in 1775.—W. T.  BLARRU,, born at Paris, in the valley of Orbay, between Alsace and Lorraine, in 1437; died at St. Diez in 1505. He was one of the canons of the collegiate church of St. Diez. He was a bird-fancier; collected numbers of these captives, and when they died wrote elegiac verses commiserating their fate. The birds are made say in a line, sometimes quoted as beautiful; which, we hope, however, expresses but a puerile fancy— " Forsitan et gemimus dum nos cantare putatis." Blarru is remembered by his posthumous Latin poem of the "Nanceis." The subject is the defeat and death of Charles the Rash, at the siege of Nancy; his hero is René, duke of Lorraine. Blarru was blind, and so far like the Homer of tradition. The poem, when first published, was praised as equal to the Iliad or Æneid. It is not as entirely forgotten at present as such things ordinarily are. In 1840 it was reprinted, and there are French and German translations of it. There is some evidence that Blarru wrote from his own feelings and observations, rather than from the traditional forms of the writers of heroic verse, in the fact that the habits of birds supplied him with his favourite similes. Blarru wrote French verse, which was never admired, and is now forgotten.—J. A., D.  BLASCO,, born at Chiusa in Sicily and flourished towards the end of the 16th century. Mongitore, a very clever biographer informs us, that Blasco taught belles-lettres and philosophy for more than thirty-five years in Naples, Rome, and Palermo, and that he was still living in the last-mentioned city in 1605. He wrote jocular poetry in the Sicilian dialect, and many of his letters, still unedited, are highly praised by the said biographer.—A. C. M.  * BLASIUS,, a distinguished German naturalist, born at Nymbrecht, in the district of Cologne, on the 7th October, 1809, became teacher of natural history and mathematics at the high school of Crefeld in 1831, and in 1836 professor of natural history and director of the museum and botanic gardens in Brunswick. Professor Blasius is the author of several papers on zoological subjects, published in Wiegman's Archiv, and in the Memoirs of the Academies of St. Petersburg and Munich. His principal works are "The Natural History of the European Vertebrata," prepared in conjunction with Count Keyserling, and "Travels in European Russia," published at Brunswick in 1844, of which he was joint author with Meyendorff, Keyserling, Sir Roderick Murchison, and de Verneuil.—W. S. D.  BLAU,, a German theologian, professor of theology in his native city, Mentz, was born in 1714, and died in 1798. He was among the enthusiasts who flocked into France on the outbreak of the Revolution, anxious to witness the final triumph of liberty; but having been taken prisoner by the Prussians in 1793, his dream of optimism cost him a lengthy imprisonment in a dungeon at Königstein. He was liberated by the French, and appointed a judge of the criminal court in his native city. Died in 1798. His principal works are a "History of Ecclesiastical Infallibility," 1791—a most violent polemic against the church of Rome—and a critical essay respecting the religious ordinances which had been passed in France since the Revolution, 1798.—J. S., G.  BLAZE,, a French litterateur, born at Cavaillon about 1786; died in 1848. He was pupil of the military school of Fontainebleau, and served in the imperial army in Germany, Poland, and Spain. Author of "La Vie Militaire sous l'Empire," Paris, 1837, 2 vols. 8vo.  * BLAZE,, known as , a musical critic, was born at Cavaillon, in the department of Baucleuse, in 1784. His father, Henri Sebastian Blaze, born in 1763, and died in 1833, who, though a notary by profession, was an accomplished musician, and produced several works of importance and merit, at first taught him music. M. Castil Blaze went to Paris to study for the law, but, like his father, he preferred music to jurisprudence, and became accordingly a student of the conservatoire. He was compelled for a time to abandon the pursuit of his predilection, obtained some distinction as an advocate, and returned to his native town with an official appointment. This, after some years, he resigned, and settled himself in Paris, with the determination to attach himself for the future to music and its interests. In 1820 he published "L'Opera en France," a critical view of the state of dramatic music, and in the following year he undertook the musical department of the Journal des Debats, which he conducted for ten years. He was the first person of his period who wrote upon music in France with any competent knowledge of the subject, and his articles had consequently a most beneficial influence upon the general character of musical criticism. On quitting the Debats he was engaged upon the Constitutionnel, and has since contributed musical articles to other journals. In 1821 he printed a "Dictionnaire de Musique Moderne." and subsequently two other works, "Chapelle Musique des Rois de France," and "La danse et les ballets depuis Bacchus jusqu'a Mademoiselle Taglioni." He adapted French texts for several of the operas of Mozart, Rossini, and Weber, and his versions are in general acceptance. He published some instrumental quartettes and other pieces of pretension, besides some chansons, which have had popularity.—G. A. M.  BLÉ,, marquis d'Uxelles, marshal of France, born 1652; died 1730. He was at first destined for the church, but afterwards entered the army, in which he served for thirty-two years, and attained the highest military honours. He was created a marshal in 1703. In 1710 he was nominated minister-plenipotentiary along with Cardinal Polignac, to attend the conferences of Gertruydenberg. Three years later he took part in the conferences at Utrecht, which terminated the war between France and the allies.—J. T. <section end="661H" /> <section begin="661I" />BLEDU,, a Spanish historian, born about 1550 in the kingdom of Valence. He took an active part in the expulsion of the descendants of the Moors from Spain. Author of "Tractatus de justa Moriscorum ab Hispania expulsione," Valence, 1610, 4to; and other works. <section end="661I" /> <section begin="661J" />* BLEEK,, a German theologian, was born at Arensbök in Holstein, July 4, 1793, and studied theology at Kiel and Berlin under De Wette, Schleiermacher, and Neander. In 1823 he became professor extraordinary at Berlin, and in 1829 was translated to a chair at Bonn. His principal works are—"Der Brief an die Hebräer, Übersetzung und Commentar;" and "Beiträge zur Evangelienkritik," 1846, &c.—K. E. <section end="661J" /> <section begin="661K" />BLEGBOROUGH,, an English physician, born on the 5th April, 1769, at Richmond in Yorkshire; received the rudiments of his medical education from his father, an apothecary in large practice. He afterwards went to Edinburgh for two years, and thence to London, where he studied under Sir Astley Cooper and J. W. Cline at Guy's and St. Thomas' hospitals. In 1793 Mr. Blegborough commenced practising in London as a surgeon, and continued thus engaged for ten years, when, having fulfilled the necessary term of study at a university, he took his degree, and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Soon after this he joined Dr. Walshman, a celebrated accoucheur, and continued in the active exercise of this branch of the medical profession until his death, which took place in January, 1827. His writings are confined to a few papers in the medical periodicals, but in the practice of midwifery he held a high position, and he was also a warm advocate of vaccination.—W. S. D. <section end="661K" /> <section begin="661Zcontin" />BLEGNY,, a French surgeon, who enjoyed a considerable reputation in Paris during the latter part of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, was born in Paris in 1652, and died at Avignon in 1722. His history is a curious one. For some years he was clerk to the company of St. Côme, in which position, hearing surgery constantly spoken of, he soon thought himself sufficiently learned to make a figure in the medical profession. To connect himself more immediately with the profession, he is said to have married a midwife, and his first essay in his new mode of life consisted in the construction of bandages for hernia. He is then said to have taken upon himself the delivery of lectures upon surgery, pharmacy, &c., and these measures were attended with such success, that in 1678 we find him appointed surgeon-in-ordinary to the queen. In 1679, in imitation of Bourdelot, he placed himself at the head of a new medical academy which published its memoirs in monthly parts, under the title of "Zodiacus Medico-Gallicus," of which several volumes appeared, until in 1682, from the outrageous manner in which authors of the highest distinction were handled in it by Blegny, its publication was interdicted by the council of state. Even after the issue of this prohibition, the publication was continued for a year, when it was discontinued, and Blegny made arrangements for the publication of his memoirs at Amsterdam, where they appeared under the title of the "Mercure <section end="661Zcontin" />