801 



BALCONY. 



BALDRICK. 



William III. the legislature voted the French trade a nuisance, and 

 made the prohibition perpetual. This was to enforce what was called 

 a favourable balance of trade. The notion, we thus see, was not a 

 vague theory, but a mischievous rule of practice, which even in our 

 own time some people regarded with admiration, and would eagerly 

 have laboured to make it a part of our commercial code. They would 

 have the nation to be the lawyer who wants to truck his indentures 

 with the wine-merchant; but because the wine-merchant will not have 

 the indentures, the lawyer ought, according to this, to go without the 

 wine, although he might sell the indentures to the exchange-man, who 

 would thus furnish him with the specie for buying the wine. 



The balance of trade, as understood by those who adopt the theory, 

 is the difference between the aggregate amoxmt of a nation's exports or 

 imports, or the balance of the particular account of the nation's trade 

 with another nation. If the account shows that the imports (valued 

 in money) exceed the exports (valued also in money), the balance is 

 said to be against the nation ; if the exports exceed the imports, the 

 balance is said to be in the nation's favour. This mode of estimating 

 the so-called balance is evidently founded on the assumption that the 

 precious metals constitute the wealth of a country ; when the imports 

 from any country, as valued in money, exceed the exports to the same, 

 also valued in money, the exporting country must part with some of 

 its precious metals in payment ; and, according to the doctrine, must 

 BO far lose by the' trade. The nation had not the means of keeping 

 very clear accounts of these matters, for it had an arbitrary standard 

 of value, called official, which had been in use for nearly a century and 

 a half, and which official value was an ingenious device for perplexing 

 many otherwise simple questions, and for keeping up many absurd 

 prejudices. Now, taking these official or unreal values in connexion 

 with the device of the balance of trade, we find that during the year 

 1833 the United Kingdom gained some thirty-four millions sterling by 

 a favourable balance ; for its imports, or the goods it received from 

 foreigners, amounted to forty-five millions, whilst its exports, or the 

 goods it sent to foreigners, amounted to seventy-nine millions. In 

 1832 the same sort of excess amounted to thirty-two millions, and in 

 1831 to twenty-two millions. If the favourable balance of these three 

 years were anything but a fiction, it is manifest that the nation would, 

 in these three years only, have accumulated specie to the extent of the 

 favourable balance, and this would amount to the sum of eighty-eight 

 millions sterling. But, further, the same favourable balance has been 

 going on for the last half century, or longer ; and the result would be, 

 that all the specie in the world would at the present time be locked up 

 in this island, and that the balance of thirty-four millions in 1833 

 would only be a small addition to the heap. Such a result is impos- 

 sible, for bullion is as much a commodity for sale as corn, and is 

 consequently as generally exchanged. [BULLION.] But if this result 

 were possible, and a nation resolving to sell only for specie, as the 

 Chinese affected to do with regard to tea, could have the power of selling 

 only for specie, this power of turning all its goods to gold, like the 

 game power bestowed upon the wise king Midas, would confer the 

 privilege of being without food, and clothes, and every worldly comfort 

 upon the unhappy inhabitants of such a nation. The truth is, that no 

 commerce is of any value to a country except as it gives the people of 

 that country the power of consuming foreign productions, which they 

 either cannot produce at all at home, or which are produced cheaper 

 and better abroad. It is the power of exchanging the surplus produce 

 of one country for the surplus produce of another country which con- 

 stitutes the ultimate object of all foreign commerce. The profit of the 

 individual merchant is the moving force which impels the machinery 

 of this commerce, but the end is, that each country may consume 

 what it would otherwise go without. In this point of view, every 

 country is a gainer by its foreign commerce ; and if this gain could be 

 estimated by figures, every country which exchanges its products with 

 another country would have a favourable balance of trade : for both 

 individuals and nations exchange that which they do not want for 

 other things that they do want ; and when both parties continue to 

 carry on such exchange, it is clear that both are gainers. Which gains 

 most is a question that cannot be settled, and would be of no use if it 

 could be settled. 



BA'LCONY is derived from the Italian word baled, or palco. (' Diz- 

 zionario della Crusca.') Balcon is often used by Boccaccio in his 

 ' Novelle," from which circumstance we may conclude that balconies 

 were common in Italy at that time. Palco signifies, in Italian, the 

 box of a theatre ; and in the great theatre at Bologna, built, we 

 believe, by Palladio, each box or balcony has a balustrade. [BALUS- 

 THAHE.] The balcony has been much employed in modern edifices. 

 The object of balconies is to give the inhabitants of a house a better 

 view. They are formed nearly on a level with the floors of rooms, and 

 supported on cantilevers or brackets, and sometimes, though more 

 rarely, on columns of wood or stone. The floor of the balcony is laid 

 on ^ie cantilevers, and the sides are inclosed with a rail of iron, or a 

 balustrade of stone. Where balconies are formed, the windows are for 

 the most part made to open down to the ground. In London cast- 

 iron railing, variously designed, is most commonly used. There are, 

 however, balconies with balusters of stone sometimes placed before 

 lingle windows, or continuous ranges of them. The Goldsmiths' Hall, 

 t the back of the Post-office, is an example of the former ; the Crescent 

 at the end of Portland-place, of the latter. Some balconies have a very 



ART* AND SCI. DIV. VOL. I. 



slight projection, and rest not upon cantilevers, but upon the basement 

 wall, as in the Banqueting-house at Whitehall. In Venice there are 

 very magnificent Gothic balconies remarkable for their richness. It is 

 uncertain when balconies were first introduced into England. Some of 

 the old inns, with the galleries round them, are perhaps the oldest 

 examples existing. Elizabethan architecture shows some very elabo- 

 rately designed balconies; but perhaps the nearest example to the 

 palfo of the Italians will be found in some of the colleges of Oxford. 

 Magdalen College contains an example of such a balcony in a pulpit 

 supported on corbels. 



BA'LDACHIN (Baldachino, Italian), a kind of canopy, either sup 

 ported on columns, or suspended from, and used to cover an altar in i 

 Roman Catholic church. The word is derived from the Italian balda- 

 chino, signifying a piece of furniture, which is carried, or which is 

 fixed, over sacred things, or over the seats of princes and persons of 

 great distinction, as a mark of honour. The form, for the most part is 

 square, and the top covered with cloth with a hanging fringe : some- 

 times the fringe is formed of pieces of cloth cut out after the fashion 

 of a banner. The baldachin has been supposed to have been derived 

 from the ancient ciborium (xtSdpiov, a large cup or vase). An isolated 

 building, placed by the early Christians over tombs and altars, was 

 called a ciborium. The modern baldachin is of the same fonn as 

 the ciborium erected by Justinian in the church of Santa Sophia at 

 Constantinople, which was made of silver, gold, and precious stones, 

 and supported by four silver-gilt columns. The baldachin is however 

 deprived of the curtains which in the ciborium were intended to 

 inclose whatever was deemed sacred w r ithin. (' Encyclope'die Me'tho- 

 dique.') The Mohammedans seem to have copied the ciborium in their 

 tombs. (See the domed tombs at Cairo, in the work of the French 

 Institute on Egypt.) The baldachin carried over the host in Roman 

 Catholic countries is not unfrequently of an umbrella shape ; a similar 

 sort of umbrella may be seen on an Etruscan vase. (Millingen ' Vases.') 



The baldachin in St. Peter's at Rome, made by Bernini, is the most 

 celebrated, and is the largest known work of the kind in bronze. The 

 dais, or covering, is supported on four large twisted columns of the 

 composite order, placed upon pedestals of black marble, the dies of 

 which are ornamented with bronze escutcheons. The columns are 

 fluted for one-third of their height ; the remaining part is ornamented 

 with bays and leaves of laurel, combined something after the manner 

 of the columns of the temple designed by Raffaelle in one of his 

 cartoons. The whole work is beautifully executed and highly-finished. 

 Above the columns are four figures of angels standing upright ; at the 

 top of the covering there is a cross, and below the entablature the 

 banner-like cloth fringe of the portable baldachin has been imitated. 

 The plan is square, and the altar stands between the two pedestals of 

 the foremost columns. The height is 126 ft. 3 in. from the floor of the 

 church to the summit of the cross, of which the pedestal is 11 ft. 8 in., 

 the columns 50 ft. 4 in. ; the entablature 11 ft. 6'in., the covering 40 ft., 

 and the cross is 12 ft. 9 in. There were 186,392 Ibs. of bronze 

 employed on this work; the chasing alone cost more than 100,000 

 crowns. The Pantheon was despoiled of its fine bronze ornaments to 

 form this baldachin, and there being more ornaments than were 

 necessary, the remainder were afterwards cast into cannon. 



The baldachin of Santa Maria Maggiore, the next in importance to 

 that of St. Peter's, is a kind of crown supported by four figures 

 standing on columns of porphyry ornamented with bands of bronze. It 

 was made by the Cavaliere Fuga. It is not improbable that the Gothic 

 canopies [CANOPY] over figures of saints and personages of distinction, 

 were intended for baldachins, as they appear to be used as marks of 

 distinction, and not for a covering only to protect them from the 

 weather, as they are placed horizontally on the tombs of kings and 

 queens, and other personages of high rank. (See the tombs of the 

 kings in Westminster Abbey, and the engravings in Stothard's ' Monu- 

 mental Remains ;' Blore's ' Monumental Remains of Great Britain,' &c.) 



BALDRICK, or BAUDRICK (Fr., baudrier), the military belt, 

 band, or girdle, much used by warriors in more ancient, as well as in 

 the feudal times; encircling the waist, or pendant from the right 

 shoulder, and usually sustaining a sword : was sometimes called a 

 baldrick, but the baldrick seems to have differed from the military 

 belt by being uniformly worn over the shoulder and across the breast, 

 and from it a sword was not always slung. Menage derives this word, 

 through the medium of the low Latin baldringus, from the Latin 

 balleus. Ducange derives it through baldrdlus. 



The figure of William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in West- 

 minster Abbey, has a belt finely enamelled with his coat of arms. 

 Various arms are also enamelled on the belt of Edmund Crouchback, 

 Earl of Lancaster's figure in the same church. The effigy of Geoffrey 

 de Magnaville, in the Temple Church, has both a belt and a baldrick, 

 while that of William Longespee has a belt only. But Spenser, in his 

 ' Faerie Queene ' (book i. canto vii.) makes Una to meet a " goodly 

 knight," and 



While 



" Athwart his breast a bauldriok bravo ho ware," 

 "Thereby his mortal blade full comely hong." 



Chaucer, on the contrary, says of the yeoman, the squire's attend- 

 ant, that 



" An home he bore, the baudrick was of grcue ; " 



3F 



