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BLO BLOND,, born at Frankfort in 1670, and said to have studied in Italy under Carlo Maratti. In 1716 he went to Rome in the suite of Count Martinetz, the French ambassador. At the invitation of Overbeke he went to Amsterdam, and painted small water colour portraits for jewellers' bracelets, rings, and snuff-boxes (one of the earliest allusions to modern water colours.) Finding this required dragon flies' eyes (which are lumps of lenses), he abandoned it, and took successfully to large portraits. He then came to England, and attempted to revive Eastman's plan of copying pictures in colours (the germ of chromos) with copperplates, but ruinously failed, and is said to have died an old miserable man in a French hospital. He was author of a book called "Il Colorito (in French and English), or the Harmony of Colour reduced to Mechanical Practice." He also attempted to organize a plan for copying the cartoons of Raphael in tapestry, which they were originally intended for. The coloured copies of this unfortunate Lunardi of a projector, are said to be good as copies, and of harmonious colours. They were disposed of by a lottery in 1730. They were after Maratti, Cipriani, Titian, and Vandyck.—W. T.  BLONDEL or BLONDELÆUS, a troubadour, born at Nesle in Picardy; lived in the second half of the twelfth century. Celebrated as the favourite attendant of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, the place of whose imprisonment in Austria he is said to have discovered by singing before the castle one of the king's favourite poems. He owes his popularity to Sedaine's Opera of Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Several of the songs attributed to him belong to Robert Blondel.—J. G.  BLONDEL,, a French protestant theologian, born at Chalons-sur-Marne in 1591. After the publication of his "Modeste Declaration de la sincerité et verité des Eglises reformées," 1619, he was named historiographer to the king, and instructed to answer the philippics of Chifflet against France. In 1650 he succeeded Vossius in the chair of history at Amsterdam, an appointment to which he did ample honour by his talents and erudition. His principal works are a dissertation concerning Pope Joan, whom he pronounces a myth, "Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus Vapulantes," and "De formula regnante Christo, in veterum monumentis usu." Died in 1655.—J. S., G.  BLONDEL,, an eminent professor of mathematics and architecture at Paris, in the seventeenth century, wrote a "Comparison between Pindar and Horace," a "Course of Architecture," in three vols., folio; a "Course of Mathematics," the "Art of Throwing Bombs," the "History of the Roman Calendar," a "New Manner of Fortifying Forts," &c. He was director of the Academy of Architecture, and a member of the Academy of Science. He died February 1st, 1686.—T. J.  BLONDEL,, a French physician of the seventeenth century, took his degree at Paris in 1632, became dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1658 and 1659, and died on the 5th September, 1682. He is principally noted for the violent hostility shown by him towards the chemical sect which established itself in his day upon the ruins of the Galenic chemistry, and for the fury with which he opposed the introduction of antimony into medicine. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a very learned man, but tricky and contentious, and the Mercure Galant in announcing his death, remarks that the Faculty of Medicine had cause for rejoicing, as it might hope to enjoy a little repose. The published writings of F. Blondel are of but little importance.—W. S. D.  BLONDEL,, an English physician of French extraction, appears to have graduated at Leyden, where his "Dissertatio de crisibus" was published in 1692, but afterwards became a member of the College of Physicians in London, in which city he died in 1731. His principal work, entitled "The Strength of the Imagination of Pregnant Women Examined, and the opinion that marks and deformities are from them, demonstrated to be a vulgar error," was published in London in 1727, and passed through several editions, whilst translations of it appeared in Germany and Holland. It is regarded as an able refutation of a well-known and still prevalent opinion. Having been attacked by Dr. Daniel Turner in his treatise on Diseases of the Skin, Blondel supported his own views in a second work published in 1729, under the title of "The Power of the Mother's Imagination on the Fœtus Examined."—W. S. D.  BLONDEL,, a French hagiologist, author of "Vies des Saints pour chaque jour-de l'année tirées des auteurs originaux," was celebrated for his bibliographical knowledge. He followed the profession of teacher at Chaillot, and afterwards superintended a printing establishment. Died in 1740.  BLONDEL,, a French litterateur, born in Paris in 1674; died in 1730. He is principally known by an interesting précis of the proceedings of the Academies of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, published in les Memoires de Trevoux, 1702 and 1710. <section end="667H" /> <section begin="667I" />BLONDEL,, born about 1390; died 1461, a native of Normandy. In 1415 his family was displaced by the conquests of Henry V. of England. He wrote Latin poems, which were at once translated and had some reputation; also law tracts in defence of Charles VII. of France against the claims of our Henry V. He was restored by the king of France to his paternal lands in Normandy. Blondel was chaplain to Queen Marie d'Anjou, and preceptor to the dauphin. An allegorical work of his, called the "Twelve Perils of Hell," is now and then looked at. It is referred to 1454 or 1455.—J. A., D. <section end="667I" /> <section begin="667J" />BLONDIN,, a French botanist, was born at Vaudricourt in Picardy in 1682, and died at Paris in 1713. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences in 1712. He was a pupil of Tournefort, and was appointed by him demonstrator in the royal gardens. He made large collections of plants, and wrote several botanical memoirs.—J. H. B. <section end="667J" /> <section begin="667K" />BLONDUS or BIONDO,, the historian, was born at Forli in Italy, in 1388. He composed a history of the world, from. 400 till. 1400. He was one of the pioneers in this kind of research; and his diligence and accuracy in describing Roman antiquities deserve enduring record. The exact date of his death is uncertain.—T. J. <section end="667K" /> <section begin="667L" />BLOOD,, better known as , one of those men whom villany has made famous, and the biographer may not omit to notice. He was born in Ireland about the year 1628, and entered the parliamentary army, and was subsequently made a justice of the peace by Richard Cromwell. Being a man of desperate and dissolute habits, he was always in needy circumstances, and did not hesitate to join the royalists on the Restoration. In 1663 he concocted a plot to surprise the castle of Dublin and seize the duke of Ormond, the lord-lieutenant. His restless and evil spirit was ever plotting; and going to England, he assumed the name of Ayliff, where he again formed the design of seizing Ormond, which he effected by waylaying him on a dark night in December, 1670. The duke narrowly escaped assassination; and though a reward of £1000 was offered, Blood was not made amenable to justice. But the crowning feat of his villany was his attempt to steal the crown jewels, which very nearly proved successful. He gained entrance into the tower in the dress of a clergyman, and had actually got the crown concealed under his cassock. Blood was seized and examined before the king, when he boldly avowed and even justified his crimes, and contrived to impress the king with the belief that he was a brave and an injured man. The result was not only pardon, but a pension of £500 a year, in lieu of the estates in Ireland of which he insisted he had been deprived. He had considerable interest at court till the breaking-up of the cabal ministry. He then again took to his old courses of plotting, and being convicted of a conspiracy, he was committed to the King's bench. While in prison he was charged upon an action of scandalum magnatum at the suit of the duke of Buckingham, and having given bail, was removed to his own house. His health was, however, completely broken down by the effects of his desperate life and the confinement of prison, and he died before the time for his trial, upon the 24th August, 1680. The public would not credit the fact till it was established by an inquest. The qualities of boldness, ingenuity, and courage cannot be denied to Blood; but these qualities, instead of redeeming, greatly aggravated his vices. They made the difference between an obscure ruffian who would have perhaps occupied a line in the Newgate calendar, and a notorious scoundrel who has won a whole page from history, and a stanza from the witty Rochester:—

—J. F. W. <section end="667L" /> <section begin="667Zcontin" />BLOOMFIELD,, author of "The Farmers Boy," <section end="667Zcontin" />