Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 31 (1/2)
BLUMENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1752-1840), German physiologist and anthropologist, was born at Gotha on the 11th of May 1752. After studying medicine at Jena, he graduated doctor at Gottingen in 1775, and was appointed extraordinary professor of medicine in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778. He died at Gottingen on the 22nd of January 1840. He was the author of _Inst.i.tutiones Physiologicae_ (1787), and of a _Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie_ (1804), both of which were very popular and went through many editions, but he is best known for his work in connexion with anthropology, of which science he has been justly called the founder. He was the first to show the value of comparative anatomy in the study of man's history, and his craniometrical researches justified his division of the human race into several great varieties or families, of which he enumerated five--the Caucasian or white race, the Mongolian or yellow, the Malayan or brown race, the Negro or black race, and the American or red race. This cla.s.sification has been very generally received, and most later schemes have been modifications of it. His most important anthropological work was his description of sixty human crania published originally in _fasciculi_ under the t.i.tle _Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium ill.u.s.tratae decades_ (Gottingen, 1790-1828).
BLUMENTHAL, LEONHARD, COUNT VON (1810-1900), Prussian field marshal, son of Captain Ludwig von Blumenthal (killed in 1813 at the battle of Dennewitz), was born at Schwedt-on-Oder on the 30th of July 1810.
Educated at the military schools of Culm and Berlin, he entered the Guards as 2nd lieutenant in 1827. After serving in the Rhine provinces, he joined the topographical division of the general staff in 1846. As lieutenant of the 31st foot he took part in 1848 in the suppression of the Berlin riots, and in 1849 was promoted captain on the general staff.
The same year he served on the staff of General von Bonin in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, and so distinguished himself, particularly at Fredericia, that he was appointed chief of the staff of the Schleswig-Holstein army. In 1850 he was general staff officer of the mobile division under von Tietzen in Hesse-Ca.s.sel. He was sent on a mission to England in that year (4th cla.s.s of Red Eagle), and on several subsequent occasions. Having attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he was appointed personal adjutant to Prince Frederick Charles in 1859. In 1860 he became colonel of the 31st, and later of the 71st, regiment. He was chief of the staff of the III. army corps when, on the outbreak of the Danish War of 1864, he was nominated chief of the general staff of the army against Denmark, and displayed so much ability, particularly at Duppel and the pa.s.sage to Alsen island, that he was promoted major-general and given the order _pour le merite_. In the war of 1866 Blumenthal occupied the post of chief of the general staff to the crown prince of Prussia, commanding the 2nd army. It was upon this army that the brunt of the fighting fell, and at Koniggratz it decided the fortunes of the day. Blumenthal's own part in these battles and in the campaign generally was most conspicuous. On the field of Koniggratz the crown prince said to his chief of staff, ”I know to whom I owe the conduct of my army,” and Blumenthal soon received promotion to lieutenant-general and the oak-leaf of the order _pour le merite_. He was also made a knight of the Hohenzollern Order. From 1866 to 1870 he commanded the 14th division at Dusseldorf. In the Franco-German War of 1870-71 he was chief of staff of the 3rd army under the crown prince.
Blumenthal's soldierly qualities and talent were never more conspicuous than in the critical days preceding the battle of Sedan, and his services in the war have been considered as scarcely less valuable and important than those of Moltke himself. In 1871 Blumenthal represented Germany at the British manoeuvres at Chobham, and was given the command of the IV. army corps at Magdeburg. In 1873 he became a general of infantry, and ten years later he was made a count. In 1888 he was made a general field marshal, after which he was in command of the 4th and 3rd army inspections. He retired in 1896, and died at Quellendorf near Kothen on the 21st of December 1900.
Blumenthal's diary of 1866 and 1870-1871 has been edited by his son, Count Albrecht von Blumenthal (_Tagebuch des G.F.M. von Blumenthal_), 1902; an English translation (_Journals of Count von Blumenthal_) was published in 1903.
BLUNDERBUSS (a corruption of the Dutch _donder_, thunder, and the Dutch _bus_; cf. Ger. _Buchse_, a box or tube, hence a thunder-box or gun), an obsolete muzzle-loading firearm with a bell-shaped muzzle. Its calibre was large so that it could contain many b.a.l.l.s or slugs, and it was intended to be fired at a short range, so that some of the charge was sure to take effect. The word is also used by a.n.a.logy to describe a blundering and random person or talker.
BLUNT, JOHN HENRY (1823-1884), English divine, was born at Chelsea in 1823, and before going to the university of Durham in 1850 was for some years engaged in business as a manufacturing chemist. He was ordained in 1852 and took his M.A. degree in 1855, publis.h.i.+ng in the same year a work on _The Atonement_. He held in succession several preferments, among them the vicarage of Kennington near Oxford (1868), which he vacated in 1873 for the crown living of Beverston in Gloucesters.h.i.+re. He had already gained some reputation as an industrious theologian, and had published among other works an annotated edition of the Prayer Book (1867), a _History of the English Reformation_ (1868), and a _Book of Church Law_ (1872), as well as a useful _Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology_ (1870). The continuation of these labours was seen in a _Dictionary of Sects and Heresies_ (1874), an _Annotated Bible_ (3 vols., 1878-1879), and a _Cyclopaedia of Religion_ (1884), and received recognition in the shape of the D.D. degree bestowed on him in 1882. He died in London on the 11th of April 1884.
BLUNT, JOHN JAMES (1794-1855), English divine, was born at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffords.h.i.+re, and educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree as fifteenth wrangler and obtained a fellows.h.i.+p (1816). He was appointed a Wort's travelling bachelor 1818, and spent some time in Italy and Sicily, afterwards publis.h.i.+ng an account of his journey. He proceeded M.A. in 1819, B.D.
1826, and was Hulsean Lecturer in 1831-1832 while holding a curacy in Shrops.h.i.+re. In 1834 he became rector of Great Oakley in Ess.e.x, and in 1839 was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Cambridge. In 1854 he declined the see of Salisbury, and he died on the 18th of June 1855. His chief book was _Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments_ (1833; fuller edition, 1847). Some of his writings, among them the _History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries_ and the lectures _On the Right Use of the Early Fathers_, were published posthumously.
A short memoir of him appeared in 1856 from the hand of William Selwyn, his successor in the divinity professors.h.i.+p.
BLUNT, WILFRID SCAWEN (1840- ), English poet and publicist, was born on the 17th of August 1840 at Petworth House, Suss.e.x, the son of Francis Scawen Blunt, who served in the Peninsular War and was wounded at Corunna. He was educated at Stonyhurst and Oscott, and entered the diplomatic service in 1858, serving successively at Athens, Madrid, Paris and Lisbon. In 1867 he was sent to South America, and on his return to England retired from the service on his marriage with Lady Anne Noel, daughter of the earl of Lovelace and a grand-daughter of the poet Byron. In 1872 he succeeded, by the death of his elder brother, to the estate of Crabbet Park, Suss.e.x, where he established a famous stud for the breeding of Arab horses. Mr and Lady Anne Blunt travelled repeatedly in northern Africa, Asia Minor and Arabia, two of their expeditions being described in Lady Anne's _Bedouins of the Euphrates_ (2 vols., 1879) and _A Pilgrimage to Nejd_ (2 vols., 1881). Mr Blunt became known as an ardent sympathizer with Mahommedan aspirations, and in his _Future of Islam_ (1888) he directed attention to the forces which afterwards produced the movements of Pan-Islamism and Mahdism. He was a violent opponent of the English policy in the Sudan, and in _The Wind and the Whirlwind_ (in verse, 1883) prophesied its downfall. He supported the national party in Egypt, and took a prominent part in the defence of Arabi Pasha. _Ideas about India_ (1885) was the result of two visits to that country, the second in 1883-1884. In 1885 and 1886 he stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a Home Ruler; and in 1887 he was arrested in Ireland while presiding over a political meeting in connexion with the agitation on Lord Clanricarde's estate, and was imprisoned for two months in Kilmainham. His best-known volume of verse, _Love Sonnets of Proteus_ (1880), is a revelation of his real merits as an emotional poet. _The Poetry of Wilfrid Blunt_ (1888), selected and edited by W.E. Henley and Mr George Wyndham, includes these sonnets, together with ”Worth Forest, a Pastoral,” ”Griselda” (described as a ”society novel in rhymed verse”), translations from the Arabic, and poems which had appeared in other volumes.
BLUNTSCHLI, JOHANN KASPAR (1808-1881), Swiss jurist and politician, was born at Zurich on the 7th of March 1808, the son of a soap and candle manufacturer. From school he pa.s.sed into the _Politische Inst.i.tut_ (a seminary of law and political science) in his native town, and proceeding thence to the universities of Berlin and Bonn, took the degree of _doctor juris_ in the latter in 1829. Returning to Zurich in 1830, he threw himself with ardour into the political strife which was at the time unsettling all the cantons of the Confederation, and in this year published _uber die Verfa.s.sung der Stadt Zurich_ (On the Const.i.tution of the City of Zurich). This was followed by _Das Volk und der Souveran_ (1830), a work in which, while pleading for const.i.tutional government, he showed his bitter repugnance of the growing Swiss radicalism. Elected in 1837 a member of the Grosser Rath (Great Council), he became the champion of the moderate conservative party.
Fascinated by the metaphysical views of the philosopher Friedrich Rohmer (1814-1856), a man who attracted little other attention, he endeavoured in _Psychologische Studien uber Staat und Kirche_ (1844) to apply them to political science generally, and in particular as a panacea for the const.i.tutional troubles of Switzerland. Bluntschli, shortly before his death, remarked, ”I have gained renown as a jurist, but my greatest desert is to have comprehended Rohmer.” This philosophical essay, however, coupled with his uncompromising att.i.tude towards both radicalism and ultramontanism, brought him many enemies, and rendered his continuance in the council, of which he had been elected president, impossible. He resigned his seat, and on the overthrow of the Sonderbund in 1847, perceiving that all hope of power for his party was lost, took leave of Switzerland with the pamphlet _Stimme eines Schweizers uber die Bundesreform_ (1847), and settled at Munich, where he became professor of const.i.tutional law in 1848.
At Munich he devoted himself with energy to the special work of his chair, and, resisting the temptation to identify himself with politics, published _Allgemeines Staatsrecht_ (1851-1852); _Lehre vom modernen Staat_ (1875-1876); and, in conjunction with Karl Ludwig Theodor Brater (1819-1869), _Deutsches Staats-worterbuch_ (II vols., 1857-1870: abridged by Edgar Loening in 3 vols., 1869-1875). Meanwhile he had a.s.siduously worked at his code for the canton of Zurich, _Privatrechtliches Gesetzbuch fur den Kanton Zurich_ (4 vols., 1854-1856), a work which was much praised at the time, and which, particularly the section devoted to contracts, served as a model for codes both in Switzerland and other countries. In 1861 Bluntschli received a call to Heidelberg as professor of const.i.tutional law (Staatsrecht), where he again entered the political arena, endeavouring in his _Geschichte des allgemeinen Staatsrechts und der Politik_ (1864) ”to stimulate,” as he said, ”the political consciousness of the German people, to cleanse it of prejudices and to further it intellectually.”
In his new home, Baden, he devoted his energies and political influence, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, towards keeping the country neutral. From this time Bluntschli became active in the field of international law, and his fame as a jurist belongs rather to this province than to that of const.i.tutional law. His _Das moderne Kriegsrecht_ (1866); _Das moderns Volkerrecht_ (1868), and _Das Beuterecht im Krieg_ (1878) are likely to remain invaluable text-books in this branch of the science of jurisprudence. He also wrote a pamphlet on the ”Alabama” case.
Bluntschli was one of the founders, at Ghent in 1873, of the Inst.i.tute of International Law, and was the representative of the German emperor at the conference on the international laws of war at Brussels. During the latter years of his life he took a lively interest in the _Protestantenverein_, a society formed to combat reactionary and ultramontane views of theology. He died suddenly at Karlsruhe on the 21st of October 1881. His library was acquired by Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S.A.
Among his works, other than those before mentioned, may be cited _Deutsches Privatrecht_ (1853-1854); _Deutsche Staatslehre fur Gebildete_ (1874); and _Deutsche Staatslehre und die heutige Staatenwelt_ (1880).
For notices of Bluntschli's life and works see his interesting autobiography, _Denkwurdiges aus meinem Leben_ (1884); von Holtzendorff, _Bluntschli und seine Verdienste um die Staatswissenschaften_ (1882); Brockhaus, _Konversations-Lexicon_ (1901); and a biography by Meyer von Kronau, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_.
BLYTH, a market town and seaport of Northumberland, England, in the parliamentary borough of Morpeth, 9 m. E.S.E. of that town, at the mouth of the river Blyth, on a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 5472. This is the port for a considerable coal-mining district, and its harbour, on the south side of the river, is provided with mechanical appliances for s.h.i.+pping coal. There are five dry docks, and upwards of 1 m. of quayage. Timber is largely imported.