477 



BADALOCCHIO, SISTO. 



BAQLIONE, GIOVANNI. 



479 



expressed as such allegories usually are. There is a richness in the 

 whole by which the eye is attracted, but the flowing and redundant 

 lines which conduce to that impression are at variance with the simple 

 and severe principles of the highest style of sculpture. Bacon had 

 the good sense to disclaim any pretensions to that knowledge of the 

 antique which heVas accused of wanting, asserting that in the study 

 of living nature he sought for excellence where the ancients had found 

 it. But there was another deficiency, which, though he would perhaps 

 more resent on being charged with, and which prevented him from 

 taking a place in the foremost ranks of his art, was no hindrance to 

 that which he perhaps valued more, immediate success and pecuniary 

 profit. His lack of imagination and his want of the refined perception 

 of beauty were indeed among the chief causes of his extraordinary 

 professional success. Bacon's power lay in the plain realities of life, 

 and whatever illustrations he employed were of the most popular 

 character, and understood at once by the multitude. " His Gene- 

 rosity," as one of his biographers has amusingly expressed it, "has her 

 pelican; his Sensibility her sensitive plant, Commerce her compass, 

 and Manufacture her spinning-jenny." Symbols like these lay no tax 

 either on the learning or the imagination of the spectator, and thus it 

 was that Bacon's works became universally popular, while the produc- 

 tions of men of higher qualifications were comparatively neglected. 



In 1780 Bacon received commissions for the monument to Lord 

 Halifax in Westminster Abbey ; the statue of Blackstone for All 

 Souls' < ''.liege, Oxford ; that of Henry VI. for the Ante-Chapel at 

 Eton ; nd for the ornamental groups in front of Somerset House. 

 The recumbent figure of ' Thames' in the court-yard of that edifice is 

 also by him. When it was proposed by Government to erect a monu- 

 ment to the Earl of Chatham in Westminster Abbey, the various 

 artists were invited by the committee of taste to send in designs. The 

 power of deciding on this competition, and of nominating the artist to 

 be employed, was at that time conceded to the Royal Academy; but 

 Bacon forestalled the decision by availing himself of his private influ- 

 ence with the king, and having procured an audience for the purpose 

 of showing his model, obtained his Majesty's commands to make the 

 monument. His academic brethren were deeply indignant at this 

 manoeuvre, but they had too much policy to express their resentment. 

 Subsequently, Bacon, in the true spirit of a trading speculator, actually 

 made a proffer to Government to make all the national monuments at 

 a certain percentage below the parliamentary price. His proposal 

 was rejected, but neither with the promptitude nor the contempt 

 which was due to it. Bacon's rank as an artist has been steadily 

 sinking ; his professional standing was never very high. But hia 

 character, in the private relations of life, was said to be blameless; 

 and although it is admitted that he was somewhat penurious in the 

 management of his household, it is also said that he sometimes gave 

 large sums to public charities. He was eminently loyal, and during 

 the threat of French invasion he had his workmen armed and drilled 

 for military service, and he published some tracts with the view of 

 preventing the spread of revolutionary principles. 



Among the principal works executed by Bacon, may be reckoned 

 the monument to the Earl of Chatham in Guildhall, the monument to 

 Lord Halifax in Westminster Abbey, the statue of Blackstone at All 

 Souls' College, Oxford, that of Henry VI. in the Ante-Chapel at Eton, 

 and those of Howard and Johnson in St. Paul's Cathedral. The two 

 last especially are good examples of the sculptor's power and of his 

 weakness. 



Bacon died on the 4th of August 1799. He had been twice mar- 

 ried, and left two sons and three daughters by his first wife ; by his 

 second, three sons. The works which he left incomplete he directed 

 to be finished by his second son, John Bacon. His wealth, amounting 

 to 60,000i, he divided equally among his children. He was buried in 

 Whitfield's Chapel, Tottenham Court Road, London ; and the follow- 

 ing inscription, by himself, was placed on a plain tablet over his 

 grave : " What I was as an artist seemed to me of some importance 

 while I lived ; but what I really was as a believer in Jesus Chriat is 

 the only thing of importance to me now." 



(Cecil, Memoirs of Bacon ; Allan Cunningham, Britiah Painters, 

 Sculptori, <kc. vol. iii.) 



BADALO'CCHIO, SISTO, an Italian painter and engraver, born at 

 Parma towards the close of the 16th century, was the pupil and 

 for some time the assistant of Annibal Caracci at Rome. He was 

 highly valued by Annibal as a draughtsman, who confessed that he 

 surpassed himself; but in painting he was much inferior to Guklo or 

 Domenichino. His engravings arc not numerous ; the most celebrated 

 are the so-called ' Bible of Raphael,' which he executed in company 

 with Lanfranc, and dedicated to Annibal Caracci ; and the six prints 

 from Correggio's cupola at Parma. Of hia paintings the best was 

 ' Galatea,' in the Verospi Palace at Rome ; a ' San Francesco ' at the 

 Capucins of Parma, was also one of his best works ; but like his friend 

 Lanfranc, says Lanzi, hn always did less than he was capable of doing. 

 The date of hi? death is not known. 



(Unzi, filoria Pittorica, ic. ; Malvasia, Felrina Pittrice ; Bartech, 

 Z Pemtre-Graveur.) 



BAFFIN, WILLIAM, an enterprising English navigator of the 

 17th century. Of his early life nothing is known. In 1612 he sailed 

 in the fourth voyage of Hall on discovery to the north-westward, of 

 which the only account we have was written by him. It ia remark- 



able as being the first voyage on record in which a method is laid 

 down (as then practised by Baffin) for determining the longitude at 

 sea by observations of the heaveuly bodies. In 1613 he went on a 

 voyage to the coast of Greenland, in the narrative of which he notices 

 the extraordinary refraction of the atmosphere, the quantity of which 

 he calculated to amount to 26' as a maximum when a heavenly body 

 is on the horizon. In 1615 he was appointed mate and associate to 

 Robert Bylot on another voyage of discovery, for the account of 

 which we are also indebted to Baffin; and in 1616 he again accom- 

 panied Bylot as pilot in an expedition which discovered and pene- 

 trated to the head of that extensive bay which bears his name. Of 

 this voyage Captain Ross observes that ho found all the positions and 

 descriptions of this able seaman remarkably accurate ; and the accu- 

 racy of Baffin has been attested with equal distinctness by other 

 eminent navigators. In 1618 Baffin was mate on a voyage from 

 Surat to Mocha; and in 1621 he engaged in an English expedition 

 acting in concert witli the Persians to drive the Portuguese out of 

 the Persian Gulf, in the course of which he was killed at the siege 

 of Kismis, a small fort near Ormuz, while employed in measuring 

 the distance from the place, for the purpose of cannonading it. 

 (Purchas, Pilyrimt.) 



BAGGESEN, JENS, a writer of considerable distinction both in 

 Danish and German literature, was born at Corsoer iu the island of 

 Zealand, February 15, 1764, and was educated at the University of 

 Copenhagen. From his earliest youth hs displayed unusual liveliness 

 of imagination, of which, together with satiric humour, his first pro- 

 duction, at the age of twenty, his ' Comic Tales,' gave evidence, and 

 obtained a most favourable reception from the public. Yet he him- 

 self says that he had no taste for the comic ; that in writing his tales 

 he consulted the taste of the public far more than his own, and that 

 he published them for the purpose of paying off his father's debts 

 and assisting the family : from which it would appear that they were 

 left in embarrassed circumstances. His course through life was very 

 unsettled, and he experienced many vicissitudes, arising in a great 

 measure from the want of having a fixed pursuit. Tue prince of 

 Holstein-Augustenborg bestowed on him a small pension. In 1789, 

 being then in delicate health, he accompanied his countryman the 

 young Count Molthe, who was also an invalid, in a visit to Switzer- 

 land, returning home through France and Germany. Of this journey 

 he has given a full narrative, or rather picture, in his ' Labyrinthen,' 

 one of the most interesting of his works, it being, as he himself calls 

 it, his ' Digtervandringer,' or ' Wanderings of a Poet," in which he 

 records his varied feelings, opinions, and contemplations, and portrays 

 his own character. In this work he refers at length to his acquaint- 

 ance with Sophia Haller, the granddaughter of the poet, whom he 

 married at Berne in March 1790, after which event he immediately 

 returned to Denmark. He soon set out again, and after leaving his 

 wife with her family at Berne, visited Paris, where he became acquainted 

 with many of the public characters of the day. On his second return 

 to Copenhagen in 1796 he obtained a professorship at the university, 

 but found it too irksome for his disposition, and as change of climate 

 was thought necessary for his wife's health, he set out the following 

 year for Germany, but lost his wife at Kiel. After this bereavement 

 he proceeded to Switzerland, taking with him his two young children ; 

 and in 1798 again visited Paris, where he married Fanny Reibaz. 

 During his stay iu France, which was prolonged till 1810, he com- 

 posed his chief German poems, one of which, published in 1806, tha 

 ' Parthenais, oder Alpenreise,' an epic idyll, in twelve cantos, after the 

 manner of Voss's ' Luise,' and, lika that, written in hexameters, was 

 most favourably received. His residence at Paris, during a part of 

 which he had been in prison for debt, was terminated iu consequence 

 of his being appointed professor of Danish literature at the University 

 of Kiel. Ho again returned in 1814 to Copenhagen, where he was 

 most waimly received, yet soon embroiled himself iu a violent feud 

 with Oehleuschlager, whom he opposed as the leader of the romantic 

 party iu poetry. This led him again to take up his abode at Paris, 

 making occasional visits to Copenhagen. In 1825 he went to Carlsbad 

 for the benefit of the waters, and was returning thence to Copenhagen, 

 when he died at Hamburg, October 3, 1826. After his death, but in 

 the same year, appeared his 'Adam and Eve,' a most extraordinary 

 subject for a ' humorous epic ;' not less so for being chosen by one 

 who had told the public that he had naturally no relish for the comic 

 strain, in which he nevertheless indulged when on the verge of the 

 grave. The warm-heartedness and enthusiasm of his youth must have 

 been exchanged for a very different temper of mind before be could 

 have brought himself even to the contemplation of such treatment of 

 such a subject, and bis rapturous admiration of Klopstock must, 

 have evaporated altogether. He is said to have left iu manuscript a 

 poem of similar and even stronger character, of which Faust was the 

 hero. His correspondence with Keiuhold and Jacobi, in 2 vols. 8vo, was 

 published by his sons in 1831 ; and a complete edition, in 12 volumes, 

 of his ' Danske Vaerker,' comprising all his Danish poems and other 

 writings in that language, his translation of Holberg's ' Niels Klim ' 

 inclusive, was published by his sons and C. J. Boye, 1827-32. A well- 

 executed portrait of him is prefixed to it. 



BAGLIO'NE, GIOVANNI, a Roman fresco- and oil-painter of the 

 17th century, now better known for his ' Lives' of his contemporaries 

 than for his paintings, though in big time he enjoyed the highest 



