Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

V >> Various >> Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4




BURY, JOHN BAGNELL (1861- ), British historian, was born on the 16th of
October 1861, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was
elected to a fellowship in 1885. A fine Greek scholar, he edited Pindar's
_Nemean_ and _Isthmian Odes_; but he devoted himself chiefly to the study
of history, and was chosen professor of modern history at Dublin in 1893,
becoming regius professor of Greek in 1898. He resigned both positions in
1902, when he was elected regius professor of modern history in the
university of Cambridge. His historical work was mainly concerned with the
later Roman empire, and his edition of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, with a
masterly introduction and valuable notes (1896-1900), is the standard text
of this history. He also wrote a _History of Greece to the Death of
Alexander the Great_ (1900); _History of the Later Roman Empire, 395-800_
(1889), _History of the Roman Empire 27 B.C.-180 A.D._ (1893); _Life of St
Patrick and his Place in History_ (1905), &c. He was elected a fellow of
King's College, Cambridge, and received honorary degrees from the
universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Durham.

BURY, a market-town and municipal, county and parliamentary borough of
Lancashire, England, on the river Irwell, [v.04 p.0868] 195 m. N.W. by W.
from London, and 10 1/2 N. by W. from Manchester, on the Lancashire &
Yorkshire railway and the Manchester & Bolton canal. Pop. (1891) 57,212;
(1901) 58,029. The church of St Mary is of early foundation, but was
rebuilt in 1876. Besides numerous other places of worship, there are a
handsome town hall, athenaeum and museum, art gallery and public library,
various assembly rooms, and several recreation grounds. Kay's free grammar
school was founded in 1726; there are also municipal technical schools. The
cotton manufacture is the principal industry; there are also calico
printing, dyeing and bleaching works, machinery and iron works, woollen
manufactures, and coal mines and quarries in the vicinity. Sir Robert Peel
was born at Chamber Hall in the neighbourhood, and his father did much for
the prosperity of the town by the establishment of extensive print-works. A
monument to the statesman stands in the market-place. The parliamentary
borough returns one member (since 1832). The county borough was created in
1888. The corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors.
Area, 5836 acres.

Bury, of which the name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _burhg_, _birig_ or
_byrig_ (town, castle or fortified place), was the site of a Saxon station,
and an old English castle stood in Castle Croft close to the town. It was a
member of the Honour of Clitheroe and a fee of the royal manor of
Tottington, which soon after the Conquest was held by the Lacys. The local
family of Bury held lands here during the 13th century, and at least for a
short time the manor itself, but before 1347 it passed by marriage to the
Pilkingtons of Pilkington, with whom it remained till 1485, when on the
attainder of Sir Thomas Pilkington it was granted to the first earl of
Derby, whose descendants have since held it. Under a grant made by Edward
IV. to Sir Thomas Pilkington, fairs are still held on March 5, May 3, and
September 18, and a market was formerly held under the same grant on
Thursday, which has, however, been long replaced by a customary market on
Saturday. The woollen trade was established here through the agency of
Flemish immigrants in Edward III.'s reign, and in Elizabeth's time this
industry was of such importance that an aulneger was appointed to measure
and stamp the woollen cloth. But although the woollen manufacture is still
carried on, the cotton trade has been gradually superseding it since the
early part of the 18th century. The family of the Kays, the inventors,
belonged to this place, and Robert Peel's print-works were established here
in 1770. The cognate trades of bleaching, dyeing and machine-making have
been long carried on. A court-leet and view of frank pledge used to be held
half-yearly at Easter and Michaelmas, and a court-baron in May. Until 1846
three constables were chosen annually at the court-leet to govern the
place, but in that year the inhabitants obtained authority from parliament
to appoint twenty-seven commissioners to undertake the local government. A
charter of incorporation was granted in 1876. The well-known Bury
Cooperative Society was established in 1856. There was a church here at the
time of the Domesday Survey, and the earliest mention of a rector is found
in the year 1331-1332. One-half of the town is glebe belonging to the
rectory.

BURY ST EDMUNDS, a market town and municipal and parliamentary borough of
Suffolk, England, on the Lark, an affluent of the Great Ouse; 87 m. N.E. by
N. from London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 16,255. It is
pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence, in a fertile and richly
cultivated district. The tower or church-gate, one of the finest specimens
of early Norman architecture in England, and the western gate, a beautiful
structure of rich Decorated work, together with ruined walls of
considerable extent, are all that remains of the great abbey. St Mary's
church, with a beautifully carved roof, was erected in the earlier part of
the 15th century, and contains the tomb of Mary Tudor, queen of Louis XII.
of France. St James's church is also a fine Perpendicular building, with a
modern chancel, and without a tower. All these splendid structures,
fronting one of the main streets in succession, form, even without the
abbey church, a remarkable memorial of the wealth of the foundation. Behind
them lie picturesque gardens which contain the ruins, the plan of which is
difficult to trace, though the outlines of some portions, as the
chapter-house, have been made clear by excavation. There is a handsome
Roman Catholic church of St Edmund. The so-called Moyses Hall (perhaps a
Jew's House, of which there is a parallel example at Lincoln) retains
transitional Norman work. The free grammar school, founded by Edward VI.,
has two scholarships at Cambridge, and six exhibitions to each university,
and occupies modern buildings. The Church Schools Company has a school.
There are large agricultural implement works, and the agricultural trade is
important, cattle and corn markets being held. In the vicinity is Ickworth,
the seat of the marquess of Bristol, a great mansion of the end of the 18th
century. The parliamentary borough, which returns one member, is
coextensive with the municipal borough. The town is governed by a mayor, 6
aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 2947 acres.

Bury St Edmunds (Beodricesworth, St Edmund's Bury), supposed by some to
have been the Villa Faustina of the Romans, was one of the royal towns of
the Saxons. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, founded a monastery here
about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund, who was
slain by the Danes about 870, and owed most of its early celebrity to the
reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king. By 925 the
fame of St Edmund had spread far and wide, and the name of the town was
changed to St Edmund's Bury. Sweyn, in 1020, having destroyed the older
monastery and ejected the secular priests, built a Benedictine abbey on its
site. In 942 or 945 King Edmund had granted to the abbot and convent
jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, and
Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control. Edward the Confessor made
the abbot lord of the franchise. By various grants from the abbots, the
town gradually attained the rank of a borough. Henry III. in 1235 granted
to the abbot two annual fairs, one in December (which still survives), the
other the great St Matthew's fair, which was abolished by the Fairs Act of
1871. Another fair was granted by Henry IV. in 1405. Elizabeth in 1562
confirmed the charters which former kings had granted to the abbots, and
James I. in 1606 granted a charter of incorporation with an annual fair in
Easter week and a market. Further charters were granted by him in 1608 and
1614, and by Charles II. in 1668 and 1684. The reversion of the fairs and
two markets on Wednesday and Saturday were granted by James I. in fee farm
to the corporation. Parliaments were held here in 1272, 1296 and 1446, but
the borough was not represented until 1608, when James I. conferred the
privilege of sending two members. The Redistribution Act 1885 reduced the
representation to one. There was formerly a large woollen trade.

See Richard Yates, _Hist. and Antiqs. of the Abbey of St Edmund's Bury_
(2nd ed., 1843); H.R. Barker, _History of Bury St Edmunds_.

BUSBECQ, OGIER GHISLAIN DE [AUGERIUS GISLENIUS] (1522-1592), Flemish writer
and traveller, was born at Comines, and educated at the university of
Louvain and elsewhere. Having served the emperor Charles V. and his son,
Philip II. of Spain, he entered the service of the emperor Ferdinand I.,
who sent him as ambassador to the sultan Suleiman I. the Magnificent. He
returned to Vienna in 1562 to become tutor to the sons of Maximilian II.,
afterwards emperor, subsequently taking the position of master of the
household of Elizabeth, widow of Charles IX., king of France, and daughter
of Maximilian. Busbecq was an excellent scholar, a graceful writer and a
clever diplomatist. He collected valuable manuscripts, rare coins and
curious inscriptions, and introduced various plants into Germany. He died
at the castle of Maillot near Rouen on the 28th of October 1592. Busbecq
wrote _Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum_ (Antwerp, 1581), a work
showing considerable insight into Turkish politics. This was published in
Paris in 1589 as _A.G. Busbequii legationis Turcicae epistolae iv._, and
has been translated into several languages. He was a frequent visitor to
France, and wrote _Epistolae ad Rudolphum II. Imperatorem e Gallia
scriptae_ (Louvain, 1630), an interesting account of affairs at the French
court. His works were published [v.04 p.0869] at Leiden in 1633 and at
Basel in 1740. An English translation of the _Itinera_ was published in
1744.

See C.T. Forster and F.H.B. Daniel, _Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de
Busbecq_ (London, 1881); Viertel, _Busbecks Erlebnisse in der Turkei_
(Gottingen, 1902).

BUSBY, RICHARD (1606-1695), English clergyman, and head master of
Westminster school, was born at Lutton in Lincolnshire in 1606. He was
educated at the school which he afterwards superintended for so long a
period, and first signalized himself by gaining a king's scholarship. From
Westminster Busby proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in
1628. In his thirty-third year he had already become renowned for the
obstinate zeal with which he supported the falling dynasty of the Stuarts,
and was rewarded for his services with the prebend and rectory of Cudworth,
with the chapel of Knowle annexed, in Somersetshire. Next year he became
head master of Westminster, where his reputation as a teacher soon became
great. He himself once boasted that sixteen of the bishops who then
occupied the bench had been birched with his "little rod". No school in
England has on the whole produced so many eminent men as Westminster did
under the regime of Busby. Among the more illustrious of his pupils may be
mentioned South, Dryden, Locke, Prior and Bishop Atterbury. He wrote and
edited many works for the use of his scholars. His original treatises (the
best of which are his Greek and Latin grammars), as well as those which he
edited, have, however, long since fallen into disuse. Busby died in 1695,
in his ninetieth year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his
effigy is still to be seen.

BUSBY, the English name for a military head-dress of fur. Possibly the
original sense of a "busby wig" came from association with Dr Busby of
Westminster; but it is also derived from "buzz", in the phrase "buzz wig".
In its first Hungarian form the military busby was a cylindrical fur cap,
having a "bag" of coloured cloth hanging from the top; the end of this bag
was attached to the right shoulder as a defence against sword-cuts. In
Great Britain "busbies" are of two kinds: (_a_) the hussar busby,
cylindrical in shape, with a bag; this is worn by hussars and the Royal
Horse Artillery; (_b_) the rifle busby, a folding cap of astrachan, in
shape somewhat resembling a "Glengarry" but taller. Both have straight
plumes in the front of the headdress. The word "busby" is also used
colloquially to denote the tall bear-and-raccoon-skin "caps" worn by
foot-guards and fusiliers, and the full dress feather bonnet of Highland
infantry. Cylindrical busbies were formerly worn by the artillery engineers
and rifles, but these are now obsolete in the regular army, though still
worn by some territorial and colonial troops of these arms.

BUSCH, JULIUS HERMANN MORITZ (1821-1899), German publicist, was born at
Dresden on the 13th of February 1821. He entered the university of Leipzig
in 1841 as a student of theology, but graduated as doctor philosophiae, and
from 1847 devoted himself entirely to journalism and literature. In 1851 he
went to America, but soon returned disillusioned to Germany, and published
an account of his travels. During the next years he travelled extensively
in the East and wrote books on Egypt, Greece and Palestine. From 1856 he
was employed at Leipzig on the _Grenzboten_, one of the most influential
German periodicals, which, under the editorship of Gustav Freytag, had
become the organ of the Nationalist party. In 1864 he became closely
connected with the Augustenburg party in Schleswig-Holstein, but after 1866
he transferred his services to the Prussian government, and was employed in
a semi-official capacity in the newly conquered province of Hanover. From
1870 onwards he was one of Bismarck's press agents, and was at the
chancellor's side in this capacity during the whole of the campaign of
1870-71. In 1878 he published the first of his works on Bismarck--a book
entitled _Bismarck und seine Leute, waehrend des Krieges mit Frankreich_, in
which, under the form of extracts from his diary, he gave an account of the
chancellor's life during the war. The vividness of the descriptions and the
cleverness with which the conversations were reported ensured a success,
and the work was translated into several languages. This was followed in
1885 by another book, _Unser Reichskanzler_, chiefly dealing with the work
in the foreign office in Berlin. Immediately after Bismarck's death Busch
published the chancellor's famous petition to the emperor William II. dated
the 18th of March 1890, requesting to be relieved of office. This was
followed by a pamphlet _Bismarck und sein Werk_; and in 1898 in London and
in English, by the famous memoirs entitled _Bismarck: some Secret Pages of
his History_ (German by Grunow, under title _Tagebuchblaetter_), in which
were reprinted the whole of the earlier works, but which contains in
addition a considerable amount of new matter, passages from the earlier
works which had been omitted because of the attacks they contained on
people in high position, records of later conversations, and some important
letters and documents which had been entrusted to him by Bismarck. Many
passages were of such a nature that it could not be safely published in
Germany; but in 1899 a far better and more complete German edition was
published at Leipzig in three volumes and consisting of three sections.
Busch died at Leipzig on the 16th of November 1899.

See Ernst Goetz, in _Biog. Jahrbuch_ (1900).

BUSCH, WILHELM (1832-1908), German caricaturist, was born at Wiedensahl in
Hanover. After studying at the academies of Duesseldorf, Antwerp and Munich,
he joined in 1859 the staff of _Fliegende Blaetter_, the leading German
comic paper, and was, together with Oberlaender, the founder of modern
German caricature. His humorous drawings and caricatures are remarkable for
the extreme simplicity and expressiveness of his pen-and-ink line, which
record with a few rapid scrawls the most complicated contortions of the
body and the most transitory movement. His humorous illustrated poems, such
as _Max und Moritz, Der heilige Antonius von Padua, Die Fromme Helene, Hans
Huckebein_ and _Die Erlebnisse Knopps des Junggesellen_, play, in the
German nursery, the same part that Edward Lear's nonsense verses do in
England. The types created by him have become household words in his
country. He invented the series of comic sketches illustrating a story in
scenes without words, which have inspired Caran d'Ache and other leading
caricaturists.

BUeSCHING, ANTON FRIEDRICH (1724-1793), German theologian and geographer,
was born at Stadthagen in Schaumburg-Lippe, on the 27th of September 1724.
In 1748 he was appointed tutor in the family of the count de Lynars, who
was then going as ambassador to St Petersburg. On this journey he resolved
to devote his life to the improvement of geographical science. Leaving the
count's family, he went to reside at Copenhagen, and devoted himself
entirely to this new pursuit. In 1752 he published his _Description of the
Counties of Schleswig and Holstein_. In 1754 he removed to Goettingen, where
in 1757 he was appointed professor of philosophy; but in 1761 he accepted
an invitation to the German congregation at St Petersburg. There he
organized a school which, under him, soon became one of the most
flourishing in the north of Europe, but a disagreement with Marshal Muenich
led him, in spite of the empress's offers of high advancement, to return to
central Europe in 1765. He first went to live at Altona; but next year he
was called to superintend the famous "Greyfriars Gymnasium" (_Gymnasium zum
Grauen Kloster_), which had been formed at Berlin by Frederick the Great.
He died of dropsy on the 28th of May 1793, having by writing and example
given a new impulse to education throughout Prussia. While at Goettingen he
married the poetess, Christiana Dilthey.

Buesching's works (on geography, history, education and religion) amount to
more than a hundred. The first class comprehends those upon which his fame
chiefly rests; for although he did not possess the genius of D'Anville, he
may be regarded as the creator of modern Statistical Geography. His _magnum
opus_ is the _Erdebeschreibung_, in seven parts, of which the first four,
comprehending Europe, were published in 1754-1761, and have been translated
into several languages (_e.g._ into English with a preface by Murdoch, in
six volumes, London, 1762). In 1768 the fifth part was published, being the
first volume upon Asia, containing Asiatic Turkey and Arabia. It displays
an immense extent of research, and is generally considered as his [v.04
p.0870] masterpiece. Buesching was also the editor of a valuable collection
entitled _Magazin fuer d. neue Historie und Geographie_ (23 vols. 4to,
1767-1793); also of _Wochentl. Nachrichten von neuen Landkarten_ (Berlin,
1773-1787). His works on education enjoyed great repute. In biography he
wrote a number of articles for the above-mentioned _Magazin_, and a
valuable collection of _Beitraege zur Lebensgeschichte merkwuerdiger
Personen_ (6 vols., 1783-1789), including an elaborate life of Frederick
the Great.

BUSENBAUM (or BUSEMBAUM), HERMANN (1600-1668), Jesuit theologian, was born
at Nottelen in Westphalia. He attained fame as a master of casuistry, and
out of his lectures to students at Cologne grew his celebrated book
_Medulla theologiae moralis, facili ac perspicua methodo resolvens casus
conscientiae_ (1645). The manual obtained a wide popularity and passed
through over two hundred editions before 1776. Pierre Lacroix added
considerably to its bulk, and editions in two folio volumes appeared in
both Germany (1710-1714) and France (1729). In these sections on murder and
especially on regicide were much amplified, and in connexion with Damien's
attempt on the life of Louis XV. the book was severely handled by the
parlement of Paris. At Toulouse in 1757, though the offending sections were
repudiated by the heads of the Jesuit colleges, the _Medulla_ was publicly
burned, and the episode undoubtedly led the way to the duc de Choiseul's
attack on the society. Busenbaum also wrote a book on the ascetic life,
_Lilium inter spinas_. He became rector of the Jesuit college at Hildesheim
and then at Muenster, where he died on the 31st of January 1668, being at
the time father-confessor to Bishop Bernard of Galen.

BUSH. (1) (A word common to many European languages, meaning "a wood", cf.
the Ger. _Busch_, Fr. _bois_, Ital. _bosco_ and the med. Lat. _boscus_), a
shrub or group of shrubs, especially of those plants whose branches grow
low and thick. Collectively "the bush" is used in British colonies,
particularly in Australasia and South Africa, for the tract of country
covered with brushwood not yet cleared for cultivation. From the custom of
hanging a bush as a sign outside a tavern comes the proverb "Good wine
needs no bush." (2) (From a Teutonic word meaning "a box", cf. the Ger.
_Rad-buechse_, a wheel box, and the termination of "blunderbuss" and
"arquebus"; the derivation from the Fr. _bouche_, a mouth, is not correct),
a lining frequently inserted in the bearings of machinery. When a shaft and
the bearing in which it rotates are made of the same metal, the two
surfaces are in certain cases apt to "seize" and abrade each other. To
prevent this, bushes of some dissimilar metal are employed; thus a shaft of
mild steel or wrought iron may be made to run in hard cast steel, cast
iron, bronze or Babbitt metal. The last, having a low melting point, may be
cast about the shaft for which it is to form a bearing.

[Illustration: Female Bushbuck.]

BUSHBUCK (_Boschbok_,) the South African name of a medium-sized red
antelope (_q.v._), marked with white lines and spots, belonging to a local
race of a widely spread species, _Tragelaphus scriptus_. The males alone
have rather small, spirally twisted horns. There are several allied
species, sometimes known as harnessed antelopes, which are of a larger
size. Some of these such as the situtunga (_T. spekei_) have the hoofs
elongated for walking on swampy ground, and hence have been separated as
_Limnotragus_.

BUSHEL (from the O. Fr. _boissiel_, cf. med. L. _bustellus, busellus_, a
little box), a dry measure of capacity, containing 8 gallons or 4 pecks. It
has been in use for measuring corn, potatoes, &c., from a very early date;
the value varying locally and with the article measured. The "imperial
bushel", legally established in Great Britain in 1826, contains 2218.192
cub.in., or 80 lb of distilled water, determined at 62 deg. F., with the
barometer at 30 in. Previously, the standard bushel used was known as the
"Winchester bushel", so named from the standard being kept in the town hall
at Winchester; it contained 2150.42 cub. in. This standard is the basis of
the bushel used in the United States and Canada; but other "bushels" for
use in connexion with certain commodities have been legalized in different
states.

BUSHIDO (Japanese for "military-knight-ways"), the unwritten code of laws
governing the lives of the nobles of Japan, equivalent to the European
chivalry. Its maxims have been orally handed down, together with a vast
accumulation of traditional etiquette, the result of centuries of
feudalism. Its inception is associated with the uprise of feudal
institutions under Yoritomo, the first of the Shoguns, late in the 12th
century, but bushido in an undeveloped form existed before then. The
samurai or nobles of Japan entertained the highest respect for truth. "A
_bushi_ has no second word" was one of their mottoes. And their sense of
honour was so high as to dictate suicide where it was offended.

See Inazo Nitobe, _Bushido: The Soul of Japan_ (1905); also JAPAN: _Army_.

BUSHIRE, or BANDER BUSHIRE, a town of Persia, on the northern shore of the
Persian Gulf, in 28 deg. 59' N., 50 deg. 49' E. The name is pronounced Boosheer,
and not Bew-shire, or Bus-hire; modern Persians write it Bushehr and, yet
more incorrectly, Abushehr, and translate it as "father of the city," but
it is most probably a contraction of Bokht-ardashir, the name given to the
place by the first Sassanian monarch in the 3rd century. In a similar way
Riv-ardashir, a few miles south of Bushire, has become Rishire (Reesheer).
In the first half of the 18th century, when Bushire was an unimportant
fishing village, it was selected by Nadir Shah as the southern port of
Persia and dockyard of the navy which he aspired to create in the Persian
Gulf, and the British commercial factory of the East India Company,
established at Gombrun, the modern Bander Abbasi, was transferred to it in
1759. At the beginning of the 19th century it had a population of 6000 to
8000, and it is now the most important port in the Persian Gulf, with a
population of about 25,000. It used to be under the government of Fars, but
is (since about 1892) the seat of the governor of the Persian Gulf ports,
who is responsible to the central government, and has under his
jurisdiction the principal ports of the Gulf and their dependencies. The
town, which is of a triangular form, occupies the northern extremity of a
peninsula 11 m. long and 4 broad, and is encircled by the sea on all sides
except the south. It is fortified on the land side by a wall with 12 round
towers. The houses being mostly built of a white conglomerate stone of
shells and coral which forms the peninsula, gives the city when viewed from
a distance a clean and handsome appearance, but on closer inspection the
streets are found to be very narrow, irregular, ill-paved and filthy.
Almost the only decent buildings are the governor's palace, the British
residency and the houses of some well-to-do merchants. The sea immediately
east of the town has a considerable depth, but its navigation is impeded by
sand-banks and a bar north and west of the town, which can be passed only
by vessels drawing not more than 9 ft. of water, except at spring tides,
when there is a rise of from 8 to 10 ft. Vessels drawing more than 9 ft.
must anchor in the roads miles away to the west. The climate is very hot in
the summer months and unhealthy. The water is very bad, and that fit for
drinking requires to be brought from wells distant 11/2 to 3 m. from the city
wall.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.