Part 58 (2/2)

BASILICA, a s.p.a.cious hall, twice as long as broad, for public business and the administration of justice, originally open to the sky, but eventually covered in, and with the judge's bench at the end opposite the entrance, in a circular apse added to it. They were first erected by the Romans, 180 B.C.; afterwards, on the adoption of Christianity, they were converted into churches, the altar being in the apse.

BASILICON DORON (i. e. Royal Gift), a work written by James I. in 1599, before the union of the crowns, for the instruction of his son, Prince Henry, containing a defence of the royal prerogative.

BASILI'DES, a Gnostic of Alexandria, flourished at the commencement of the 2nd century; appears to have taught the Oriental theory of emanations, to have construed the universe as made up of a series of worlds, some 365 it is alleged, each a degree lower than the preceding, till we come to our own world, the lowest and farthest off from the parent source of the series, of which the G.o.d of the Jews was the ruler, and to have regarded Jesus as sent into it direct from the parent source to redeem it from the materialism to which the G.o.d of the Jews, as Creator and Lord of the material universe, had subjected it; which teaching a sect called after his name accepted and propagated in both the East and the West for more than two centuries afterwards.

BAS'ILISK, an animal fabled to have been hatched by a toad from the egg of an old c.o.c.k, before whose breath every living thing withered and died, and the glance of whose eye so bewitched one to his ruin that the bravest could confront and overcome it only by looking at the reflection of it in a mirror, as PERSEUS (q. v.) was advised to do, and did, when he cut off the head of the Medusa; seeing itself in a mirror, it burst, it as said, at the sight.

BASKERVILLE, JOHN, a printer and typefounder, originally a writing-master in Birmingham; native of Sion Hill, Worcesters.h.i.+re; produced editions of cla.s.sical works prized for their pre-eminent beauty by connoisseurs in the art of the printer, and all the more for their rarity (1706-1756).

BASNAGES, JACQUES, a celebrated Protestant divine, born at Rouen; distinguished as a linguist and man of affairs; wrote a ”History of the Reformed Churches” and on ”Jewish Antiquities” (1653-1723).

BASOCHE, a corporation of lawyers' clerks in Paris. See BAZOCHE.

BASQUE PROVINCES, a fertile and mineral district in N. of Spain, embracing the three provinces of Biscaya, Guipuzcoa, and Alava, of which the chief towns are respectively Bilbao, St. Sebastian, and Vittoria; the natives differ considerably from the rest of the Spaniards in race, language, and customs. See BASQUES.

BASQUE ROADS, an anchorage between the Isle of Oleron and the mainland; famous for a naval victory gained in 1809 over a French fleet under Vice-Admiral Allemand.

BASQUES, a people of the Western Pyrenees, partly in France and partly in Spain; distinguished from their neighbours only by their speech, which is non-Aryan; a superst.i.tious people, conservative, irascible, ardent, proud, serious in their religious convictions, and pure in their moral conduct.

BAS-RELIEF (i. e. low relief) a term applied to figures very slightly projected from the ground.

Ba.s.s ROCK, a steep basaltic rock at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, 350 ft. high, tenanted by solan geese; once used as a prison, specially in Covenanting times.

Ba.s.s STRAIT, strait between Australia and Tasmania, about 150 m.

broad.

Ba.s.sANIO, the lover of Portia in the ”Merchant of Venice.”

Ba.s.sANO, a town in Italy, on the Brenta, 30 m. NW. of Padua; printing the chief industry.

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