Part 76 (1/2)

BLASPHEMY, defined by Ruskin as the opposite of euphemy, and as wis.h.i.+ng ill to anything, culminating in wis.h.i.+ng ill to G.o.d, as the height of ”ill-manners.”

BLATANT BEAST, Spenser's name for the ignorant, slanderous, clamour of the mob.

BLAVATSKY, MME., a theosophist, born in Russia; a great authority on theosophy, the doctrines of which she professed she derived from the fountain-head in Thibet (1813-1891).

BLEEK, FRIEDRICH, eminent German Biblical exegete and critic of the Schleiermacher school, born in Holstein; professor at Bonn; his chief work, ”Commentary on the Hebrews,” a great work; others are Introductions to the Old and to the New Testaments (1793-1859).

BLEEK, WM., son of preceding, a philologist; accompanied Colenso to Natal; author of ”Comparative Grammar of the S. African Languages”

(1827-1875).

BLEFUSCU, an island separated from Lilliput by a strait 800 yards wide, inhabited by pigmies; understood to represent France.

BLENHEIM, a village in Bavaria, near Augsburg; famous for Marlborough's victory in 1704, and giving name to it.

BLENHEIM PARK, near Woodstock, Oxford, the gift, with the Woodstock estate, of the country to the Duke of Marlborough, for his military services in the Spanish Succession war.

BLESSINGTON, COUNTESS OF, an Irish lady celebrated for her beauty and wit; figured much in intellectual circles in London; had her salon at Kensington; was on intimate terms with Byron, and published ”Conversations with Byron,” and wrote several novels; being extravagant, fell into debt, and had to flee the country (1789-1849).

BLICHER, STEEN STEENSEN, Danish poet of rural life (1782-1848).

BLIGH, WM., a naval officer; served under Captain Cook; commanded the _Bounty_ at Tahiti, when his crew mutinied under his harsh treatment, and set him adrift, with 18 others, in an open boat, in which, after incredible privations, he arrived in England; was afterwards governor of N.S. Wales, but dismissed for his rigorous and arbitrary conduct (1753-1817).

BLIMBER, MRS. CORNELIA, a prim school-matron in ”Dombey & Son.”

BLIND, KARL, revolutionist and journalist, born at Mannheim; took part in the risings of 1848, and sentenced to prison in consequence of a pamphlet he wrote ent.i.tled ”German Hunger and German Princes,” but rescued by the mob; found refuge in England, where he interested himself in democratic movements, and cultivated his literary as well as his political proclivities by contributing to magazines, and otherwise; _b_.

1826.

BLIND HARRY, a wandering Scottish minstrel of the 15th century; composed in verse ”The Life of that n.o.ble Champion of Scotland, Sir William Wallace.”

BLINKERT DUNE, a dune near Haarlem, 197 ft. above the sea-level.

BLOCH, MARCUS ELIESER, a naturalist, born at Ans.p.a.ch, of Jewish descent; his ”Ichthyology” is a magnificent national work, produced at the expense of the wealthiest princes of Germany (1723-1799).