Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 Part 23 (1/2)

After the concession of responsible government, he devoted himself to bringing about [v.03 p.0248] a good understanding between the English and French-speaking inhabitants of Canada, and his memory is held as dear among the French Canadians as in his native province of Ontario.

See J. C. Dent, _Canadian Portrait Gallery_ (1880). His life, by the Hon.

Geo. W. Ross, is included in _The Makers of Canada_ series (Toronto).

BALE, JOHN (1495-1563), bishop of Ossory, English author, was born at Cove, near Dunwich in Suffolk, on the 21st of November 1495. At the age of twelve he entered the Carmelite monastery at Norwich, removing later to the house of ”Holme,” probably the abbey of the Whitefriars at Hulne near Alnwick.

Later he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, and took his degree of B.D. in 1529. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Cranmer and of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth, and became an ardent partisan of the Reformers. He laid aside his monastic habit, and, as he himself puts it with characteristically brutal violence, ”that I might never more serve so execrable a beast, I took to wife the faithful Dorothy.” He obtained the living of Thornden, Suffolk, but in 1534 was summoned before the archbishop of York for a sermon against the invocation of saints preached at Doncaster, and afterwards before Stokesley, bishop of London, but he escaped through the powerful protection of Thomas Cromwell, whose notice he is said to have attracted by his miracle plays. He was an unscrupulous controversialist, and in these plays he allows no considerations of decency to stand in the way of his denunciations of the monastic system and its supporters. The prayer of Infidelitas which opens the second act of his _Thre Laws_ (quoted by T. Warton, _Hist. Eng. Poetry_, sect. 41) is an example of the lengths to which he went in profane parody. These coa.r.s.e and violent productions were well calculated to impress popular feeling, and no doubt Cromwell found in him an invaluable instrument. But on his patron's fall in 1540 Bale fled with his wife and children to Germany. He returned on the accession of Edward VI. He received the living of Bishopstoke, Hamps.h.i.+re, being promoted in 1552 to the Irish see of Ossory. He refused to be consecrated by the Roman rite, which still obtained in the Irish church, and won his point, though the dean of Dublin entered a protest against the revised office during the ceremony (see his _Vocacyon of John Bale to the Bishopperycke of Ossorie, Harl. Misc._ vol. vi.). He pushed his Protestant propaganda in Ireland with no regard to expediency, and when the accession of Mary inaugurated a reaction in matters of religion, it was with difficulty that he was got safely out of the country. He tried to escape to Scotland, but on the voyage was captured by a Dutch man-of-war, which was driven by stress of weather to St. Ives in Cornwall. Bale was arrested on suspicion of treason, but soon released. At Dover he had another narrow escape, but he eventually made his way to Holland and thence to Frankfort and Basel. During his exile he devoted himself to writing. After his return, on the accession of Elizabeth, he received (1560) a prebendal stall at Canterbury. He died in November 1563 and was buried in the cathedral.

The scurrility and vehemence with which ”foul-mouthed Bale,” as Wood calls him, attacked his enemies does not destroy the value of his contributions to literature, though his strong bias against Roman Catholic writers does detract from the critical value of his works. Of his mysteries and miracle plays only five have been preserved, but the t.i.tles of the others, quoted by himself in his _Catalogus_, show that they were animated by the same political and religious aims. The _Thre Laws of Nature, Moses and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharisees and Papystes most wicked_ (pr. 1538 and again in 1562) was a morality play. The direction for the dressing of the parts is instructive: ”Let Idolatry be decked like an old witch, Sodomy like a monk of all sects, Ambition like a bishop, Covetousness like a Pharisee or spiritual lawyer, False Doctrine like a popish doctor, and Hypocrisy like a gray friar.” _A Tragedye; or enterlude manyfesting the chief promyses of G.o.d unto Man ..._ (1538, printed in Dodsley's _Old Plays_, vol. 1), _The Temptacyon of our Lorde_ (ed. A. B. Grosart in _Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library_, vol. i., 1870), and _A brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan Baptystes preachynge in the Wyldernesse, &c._ (_Harl. Misc._ vol. i.) were all written in 1538. His plays are doggerel, but he is a figure of some dramatic importance as the author of _Kynge Johan_ (_c._ 1548), which marks the transition between the old morality play and the English historical drama. It does not appear to have directly influenced the creators of the chronicle histories. To the authors of the _Troublesome Raigne of King John_ (1591) it was apparently unknown, but it is noteworthy that an attempt, however feeble, at historical drama was made fourteen years before the production of _Gorboduc_. _Kynge Johan_ (ed.

J. P. Collier, Camden Soc. 1838) is itself a polemic against the Roman Catholic Church. King John is represented as the champion of English rites against the Roman see:--

”This n.o.ble Kynge Johan, as a faythfull Moses Withstode proude Pharao for his poore Israel.”

But the English people remained in the bondage of Rome,--

”Tyll that duke Josue, whych was our late Kynge Henrye, Clerely brought us out in to the lande of mylke and honye.”

Elsewhere John is called a Lollard and accused of ”heretycall langage,” and he is finally poisoned by a monk of Swinestead. Allegorical characters are mixed with the real persons. Ynglonde _vidua_, represents the nation, and the jocular element is provided by Sedwyson (sedition), who would have been the Vice in a pure morality play. One actor was obviously intended to play many parts, for stage directions such as ”Go out Ynglond, and dress for Clargy” are by no means uncommon. The MS. of _Kynge Johan_ was discovered between 1831 and 1838 among the corporation papers at Ipswich, where it was probably performed, for there are references to charitable foundations by King John in the town and neighbourhood. It is described at the end of the MS. as two plays, but there is no obvious division, the end of the first act alone being noted. The first part is corrected by Bale and the latter half is in his handwriting, but his name nowhere occurs. In the list of his works, however, he gives a play _De Joanne Anglorum Rege_, written _in idiomate materno_.

But Bale's most important work is _Ill.u.s.trium majoris Britanniae scriptorum, hoc est, Angliae, Cambriae, ac Scotiae Summarium ..._ (Ipswich and Wesel, for John Overton, 1548, 1549). This contained five centuries, but another edition, almost entirely rewritten and containing fourteen centuries, was printed at Basel with the t.i.tle _Scriptorum ill.u.s.trium majoris Britanniae ... Catalogus_ (1557-1559). The chronological catalogue of British authors and their works was partly founded on the _Collectanea_ and _Commentarii_ of John Leland, but Bale was an indefatigable collector and worker, and himself examined many of the valuable libraries of the Augustinian and Carmelite houses before their dissolution. In his notebook he records as an instance of the wholesale destruction in progress: ”I have bene also at Norwyche, our second citye of name, and there all the library monuments are turned to the use of their grossers, candelmakers, sopesellers, and other worldly occupiers ... As much have I saved there and in certen other places in Northfolke and Southfolke concerning the authors names and t.i.tles of their workes, as I could, and as much wold I have done through out the whole realm, yf I had been able to have borne the charges, as I am not.” His work is therefore invaluable, in spite of the inaccuracies and the abuse lavished on Catholic writers, for it contains much information that would otherwise have been hopelessly lost.

A list of Bale's works is to be found in _Athenae Cantabrigienses_ (vol. i.

pp. 227 et seq.). Beside the reprints already mentioned, _The Examinations of Lord Cobham, William Thorpe and Anne Askewe, &c._ were edited by the Rev. H. Christmas for the Parker Society in 1849. Bale's autograph note-book is preserved in the Selden Collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It contains the materials he collected for his two published catalogues arranged alphabetically, with no attempt at ornament of any kind, and without the personalities which deface his completed work. He also gives in most cases the sources from which his information was derived. This book was prepared for publication with notes by Dr R. Lane Poole, with the help of Miss Mary Bateson, as _Index Britanniae Scriptorum quos ... collegit Ioannes Baleus_ (Clarendon Press, 1902), forming part ix.

of _Anecdota Oxoniensia_.

John Pits or Pitseus (1560-1616), an English Catholic exile, founded on Bale's work his _Relationum historicarum de rebus anglicis tomus primus_ (Paris, 1619), better known by its running t.i.tle of [v.03 p.0249] _De ill.u.s.tribus Angliae scriptoribus_. This is really the fourth book of a more extensive work. He omits the Wycliffite and Protestant divines mentioned by Bale, and the most valuable section is the lives of the Catholic exiles resident in Douai and other French towns. He does not scruple to a.s.sert (_Nota de Joanne Bale_) that Bale's _Catalogus_ was a misrepresentation of Leland's matter, though there is every reason to believe that he was only acquainted with Leland's work at second-hand, through Bale.

BALE. (1) (A word common to Teutonic languages, in O. Eng. _balu_, cf.

Icelandic _bol_), evil, suffering, a word obsolete except in poetry, and more common in the adjectival form ”baleful.” In early alliterative poetry it is especially used ant.i.thetically with ”bliss.” (2) (O. Eng. _bael_, a blazing fire, a funeral pyre), a bonfire, a northern English use more common in the tautological ”bale-fire,” with sometimes a confused reference from (1) to evil. (3) (A word of doubtful origin, possibly connected with ”ball ”), a bundle of merchandise, especially of cotton, wool or hay, packed with a cover, or fastened with bands of metal, &c. for transportation; the weight and capacity varies with the goods. (4) (Properly ”bail,” from Fr. _baille_, possibly connected with Lat. _bacula_, a tub), to empty water out of a boat by means of a bail or bucket.

BALEARIC ISLANDS (_Baleares_), an archipelago of four large and eleven small islands in the Mediterranean Sea, off the east coast of Spain, of which country it forms a province. Pop. (1900) 311,649; area, 1935 sq. m.

The archipelago, which lies between 38 40' and 40 5' N., and between 1 and 5 E., comprises two distinct groups. The eastern and larger group, corresponding with the ancient Insulae Baleares, comprises the two princ.i.p.al members of the archipelago, Majorca (Spanish, Mallorca) and Minorca (Spanish, Menorca), with seven islets:--Aire, Aucanada, Botafoch, Cabrera, Dragonera, Pinto and El Rey. The western group, corresponding with the ancient Pityusae or Pine Islands, also comprises two relatively large islands, Iviza (Spanish, Ibiza or, formerly, Ivica) and Formentera, with the islets of Ahorcados, Conejera, Pou and Espalmador. Majorca, Minorca and Iviza are described in separate articles. Formentera is described with Iviza. The total population of the eleven islets only amounted to 171 in 1900, but all were inhabited. None of them is of any importance except Cabrera, which is full of caverns, and was formerly used as a place of banishment. In 1808 a large body of Frenchmen were landed here by their Spanish captors, and allowed almost to perish of starvation.

The origin of the name Baleares is a mere matter of conjecture; it is obvious, however, that the modern Majorca and Minorca are obtained from the Latin _Major_ and _Minor_, through the Byzantine forms [Greek: Maiorika]

and [Greek: Minorika]; while Iviza is plainly the older Ebusus, a name probably of Carthaginian origin. The Ophiusa of the Greeks (Colubraria of the Romans) is now known as Formentera.

_Geology._--The strata which form the Balearic Isles fall naturally into two divisions. There is an older series, ranging from the Devonian to the Cretaceous, which is folded and faulted and forms all the higher hills, and there is a newer series of Tertiary age, which lies nearly horizontal and rests unconformably upon the older beds. The direction of the folds in the older series is in Iviza nearly west to east, in Majorca south-west to north-east, and in Minorca south to north, thus forming an arc convex towards the south-east. The Devonian is visible only in Minorca, the Trias being the oldest system represented in the other islands. The higher part of the Cretaceous is absent, and it appears to have been during this period that the princ.i.p.al folding of the older beds took place. The Eocene beds are nummulitic. There is a lacustrine group which has usually been placed in the Lower Eocene, but the discovery of _Anthracotherium magnum_ in the interbedded lignites proves it to be Oligocene, in part at least. The Miocene included a limestone with _Clypeaster_. Pliocene beds also occur.

_Climate, Fauna, Flora._--The climate of the archipelago, though generally mild, healthy and favourable to plant life, is by no means uniform, owing to the differences of alt.i.tude and shelter from wind in different islands.

The fauna and flora resemble those of the Mediterranean coasts of Spain or France.

_Inhabitants._--The islanders are a Spanish race, very closely akin to the Catalans; but the long period of Moorish rule has left its mark on their physical type and customs. In character they are industrious and hospitable, and pique themselves on their loyalty and orthodoxy. Crime is rare. There are higher schools in the princ.i.p.al towns, and the standard of primary education is well up to the average of Spain. Vaccination is common except in the cities,--the women often performing the operation themselves when medical a.s.sistance cannot be got. Castilian is spoken by the upper and commercial cla.s.ses; the lower and agricultural employ a dialect resembling that of the Catalans.

_Commerce._--Fruit, grain, wine and oil are produced in the islands, and there is an active trade with Barcelona in fresh fish, including large quant.i.ties of lobsters. Shoemaking is one of the most prosperous industries. There is not a very active trade direct with foreign countries, as the princ.i.p.al imports--cotton, leather, petroleum, sugar, coal and timber--are introduced through Barcelona. The export trade is chiefly with the Peninsula, France, Italy, Algeria and with Cuba and Porto Rico. Most of the agricultural products are sent to the Peninsula; wine, figs, marble, almonds, lemons and rice to Europe and Africa.

_Administration._--The administration of the Balearic Islands differs in no respect from that of the other Spanish provinces on the mainland. There are five judicial districts (_partidos judiciales_), named after their chief towns--Inca, Iviza, Manacor, Palma and Port Mahon.

_History._--Of the origin of the early inhabitants of the Balearic Islands nothing is certainly known, though Greek and Roman writers refer to the Boeotian and Rhodian settlements. There are numerous sepulchral and other monuments, which are generally believed to be of prehistoric origin.

According to general tradition the natives, from whatever quarter derived, were a strange and savage people till they received some tincture of civilization from the Carthaginians, who early took possession of the islands and built themselves cities on their coasts. Of these cities, Port Mahon, the most important, still retains the name which is derived from the family of Mago. About twenty-three years after the destruction of Carthage the Romans accused the islanders of piracy, and sent against them Q.

Caecilius Metellus, who soon reduced them to obedience, settled amongst them 3000 Roman and Spanish colonists, founded the cities of Palma and Pollentia (Pollensa), and introduced the cultivation of the olive. Besides valuable contingents of the celebrated Balearic slingers, the Romans derived from their new conquest mules (from Minorca), edible snails, sinope and pitch. Of their occupation numerous traces still exist,--the most remarkable being the aqueduct at Pollensa. In A.D. 423 the islands were seized by the Vandals and in 798 by the Moors. They became a separate Moorish kingdom in 1009, which, becoming extremely obnoxious for piracy, was the object of a crusade directed against it by Pope Paschal II., in which the Catalans took the lead. This expedition was frustrated at the time, but was resumed by James I. of Aragon, and the Moors were expelled in 1232. During their occupation the island was populous and productive, and an active commerce was carried on with Spain and Africa. King James conferred the sovereignty of the isles on his third son, under whom and his successor they formed an independent kingdom up to 1349, from which time their history merges in that of Spain. In 1521 an insurrection of the peasantry against the n.o.bility, whom they ma.s.sacred, took place in Majorca, and was not suppressed without much bloodshed. In the War of the Spanish Succession all the islands declared for Charles; the duke of Anjou had no footing anywhere save in the citadel of Mahon. Minorca was reduced by Count Villars in 1707; but it was not till June 1715 that Majorca was subjugated, and meanwhile Port Mahon was captured by the English under General Stanhope in 1708. In 1713 the island was secured to them by the peace of Utrecht; but in 1756 it was invaded by a force of 12,000 French, who, after defeating the British under Admiral Byng, captured Port Mahon. Restored to England in [v.03 p.0250] 1763, the island remained in possession of the British till 1782, when it was retaken by the Spaniards. Again seized by the British in 1798, it was finally ceded to Spain by the peace of Amiens in 1803. When the French invaded Spain in 1808, the Mallorquins did not remain indifferent; the governor, D. Juan Miguel de Vives, announced, amid universal acclamation, his resolution to support Ferdinand VII. At first the Junta would take no active part in the war, retaining the corps of volunteers that was formed for the defence of the island; but finding it quite secure, they transferred a succession of them to the Peninsula to reinforce the allies. Such was the animosity excited against the French when their excesses were known to the Mallorquins, that some of the French prisoners, conducted thither in 1810, had to be transferred with all speed to the island of Cabrera, a transference which was not effected before some of them had been killed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For a general account of the islands, the most valuable books are _Die Balearen geschildert in Wort und Bild_, by the archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria (Leipzig, 1896); _Les iles...o...b..iees_, by G.

Vuillier (Paris, 1904), the first edition of which has been translated under the t.i.tle of _The Forgotten Isles_ (London, 1896)--and _Islas Baleares_, an ill.u.s.trated volume of 1423 pages, by P. Pifferrer, in the series ”Espana” (Barcelona, 1888). An article by George Sand in the _Revue des deux mondes_ (1841) also deserves notice. The following are monographs on special subjects:--_The Story of Majorca and Minorca_, by Sir C. R.