Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/857

BUO He supported himself in honest poverty, chiefly by copying music, until his death, which happened in 1837. Buonarrotti published a "Histoire de la Conspiration de Babœuf."—E. A. H.  BUONARROTTI. See.  BUONI,, a Neapolitan painter, who flourished about 1430. He was a patient disciple of Colantino del Fiore, and assisted him in religiously adorning several of the Neapolitan churches. He died about 1465, after decorating the Restituta church with a St. Francis ecstatically receiving the stigmata.—, his son, was the scholar of Solario, surnamed El Zingaro. He died in 1480.—W. T.  BUONMATTEI,, born at Florence in 1581; died in 1647. His fame rests principally on his grammar of the Italian language, and other philological works. Maffei and Gioberti both consider him the best grammarian of his age.  BUONTALENTI,, surnamed , a Florentine artist, born in 1556. His parents, ruined by a sudden inundation of the Arno, gave their boy into the protection of Duke Cosmo I. Salviati and Bronzino taught him painting Buonarotti, sculpture; George Vasari, architecture; and Giulio Clovio, miniature painting. He became also an engineer, mechanic, and mathematician. As an artist his madonnas have dignity and colour. He died in 1606.—W. T.  BURAGNA,, author of "Il Canzoniere," born at Algheira, a town of Sardinia, in 1632. Died in 1671.  BURCHARD, bishop of Halberstadt in the middle of the eleventh century. He was sent to Rome by Henry IV. in 1060, and in the following year charged to decide, on the part of the emperor, the claims of the two rivals for the papal throne—Alexander II. and Honorius II.  BURCHARD,, first bishop of Wurtzburg, born in England; died in 752. He repaired to Germany about the time that Boniface began to preach the gospel in that country, and gave him his zealous assistance. <section end="857H" /> <section begin="857I" />BURCKHARD,, born at Leipzig in 1773; died at Paris in 1825. His tastes impelled him to the calculating department of the science of astronomy, in which he became so distinguished that, on the recommendation of Baron Zach and La Lande, he received letters of naturalization in France, and was put in charge of the observatory of the Ecole Militaire, after the death of the latter astronomer. Burckhard's chief works are his Treatise on the remarkable Comet of 1770; his Tables of the Moon, adopted by the Board of Longitude, and in the hands of almost every astronomer; and his excellent and most convenient auxiliary Tables. While yet a young man, he translated the first two volumes of the Mecanique Celeste into his native tongue.—J. P. N. <section end="857I" /> <section begin="857J" />BURCKHARDT,, a celebrated traveller, was born at Lausanne in 1784, and studied at Leipzig and Göttingen, where he was held in general esteem for his talents and assiduity. In 1808 he went to England, and in 1809 was sent on an exploring expedition to Africa by the African Society. He first repaired to Aleppo, where, during a residence of three years, he metamorphosed both his outward and inward man into a true Mussulman; an operation which he performed with so much success, that afterwards, when a doubt had been raised as to his creed, he was examined by two ulemas, and by them declared not only a true, but a deeply-learned Moslem. In 1812 he travelled through Egypt, up the Nile to Nubia, through the Nubian desert and across the Red Sea to Mecca, in order to study Mahometanism at its fountainhead. Thence he joined in a pilgrimage to Mount Ararat, by which he acquired the title of hadji, i.e., pilgrim. In 1815 he returned to Cairo, and made preparations for his long-intended journey into Fezzan; when, however, the caravan was just about to start, he died of a fever, October 17, 1817, and was honourably buried in the Mahometan cemetery. All his Oriental MSS., 350 in number, he bequeathed to the Cambridge library. His journals were published after his death at London (a German edition appeared at Weimar); for truth, accuracy, and minute observation they are hardly to be excelled. His "Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys," London, 1830; and his "Arabic Proverbs," London, 1831, are also highly valuable works.—K. E. <section end="857J" /> <section begin="857K" />BURDETT,, Bart. third son of Francis Burdett, Esq., and grandson of Sir Robert Burdett, fourth baronet of Bramcote, in the county of Warwick, was born in 1770. He received his early education at Westminster school, and afterwards at Christ church, Oxford. In 1794 he entered the house of commons as member for Boroughbridge. In 1797 he succeeded to his grandfather's title, his father having predeceased him. About this time he became intimate with the late Mr. Horne Tooke, the celebrated author of Diversions of Purley (see, J. H.), by whom he soon became imbued with strong notions of the necessity of a reform in the electoral representation of the kingdom, although the subject was then in its infancy, and indeed had awakened as yet no public interest. Sir Francis Burdett, with great penetration, foresaw that there would come a time when it would force itself upon the consideration of both houses of the legislature, and he laboured hard, both in and out of parliament, to hasten on that period. He was returned in 1807 for the city of Westminster, which he continued to represent without interruption for thirty years. During the early part of this period his opposition to the governments of Lord Sidmouth and Mr. Percival was of the most formidable character. On April 7th he was committed to the tower for a breach of privilege, but was released on the following 22nd of June. On February 23, 1813, Sir F. Burdett proposed a new regency bill, but without success, though he recommended it by a speech of singular ability. In 1819 he addressed to his constituents a letter on the subject of the recent riots in Manchester; for this letter he was prosecuted by the attorney-general, and being found guilty of a libel, was fined £1000, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment in the king's bench. In 1837 he avowed that a total change had come over his views—that he was satisfied with the progress already made in the cause of reform; and that he had witnessed too many atrocities committed in the cause of reform in the neighbouring nation of France, to wish to see his own country placed in a like predicament. Impressed with this dread of revolution, in July, 1837, he declined to be put in nomination by his old constituents at Westminster, and was returned for North Wilts as a conservative and supporter of the late Sir Robert Peel. He was re-chosen at the general election of 1841; and died in 1844. He was a warm-hearted and benevolent man, a sincere friend, and a perfect specimen of the old English gentleman.—E. W. <section end="857K" /> <section begin="857L" />BURET,, author of "De la misère des classes laborieuses en France et en Angleterre," a thoughtful and earnest work, which grew out of a prize offered by the Academy of Moral Sciences of Paris about 1836, was born at Troyes in 1811, and died in 1842. <section end="857L" /> <section begin="857M" />BURETTE,, a writer upon ancient music, was born at Paris in 1665, where he died in 1747. His father, Claude Burette, was a musician; finding the boy's health too delicate to allow of his being sent to school, he taught him his own art as a recreation. Pierre made such rapid progress that at eight years old he played on the spinet before Louis XIV., and two years afterwards assisted his father in giving lessons on this instrument and on the harp. Notwithstanding this precocious manifestation of musical talent, his predilection was for the study of medicine, and he accordingly entered the college of Harcourt, where he took the degree of doctor at the age of twenty-five. He became also distinguished for his knowledge of the dead languages, as well as those of modern Europe. In 1692 he was appointed physician to the hospital la Charité; in 1698 he was instituted professor of materia medica; in 1701 he was made Latin professor of chirurgery; and in 1710 he was raised to the chair of medicine in the royal college of Paris. His early familiarity with music made this a favourite subject with him in his classical researches, and he accordingly published thirteen works illustrative of the music of the Greeks, including a translation of Plutarch's treatise on music, with an examination of its principles, and copious remarks upon them.—G. A. M. <section end="857M" /> <section begin="857Zcontin" />BURG,, an astronomer of high merit, born at Treves in 1766; died near Clagenfurt in 1834. Having early shown his inclination towards physical research, and a rare industry, he was attached as assistant astronomer to an observatory at Clagenfurt in 1792. He published an ephemeris of considerable value, but his name is chiefly distinguished by his labours on the motions of the moon. In 1798 the Institute proposed a subject of a prize, "To determine, by means of a great number of lunar observations (five hundred at least), both ancient and modern, the mean height of the apogee, and of the ascending node of the moon's orbit." Burg undertook the very difficult and laborious problem, and deduced the desired results from three thousand observations, by a method as original as exact. His only competitor was Alexander Bouvard. The <section end="857Zcontin" />