- I 



BALESTKA, ANTONIO. 



BALFOUR. Sill JAMES. 



10S3, and wi buried in the church of St. Jacques t Antwerp. Van- 

 Hyck punted hi* portrait, and it has been engraved by Paul Pontius. 

 The painter. Jan Van Bairn, wai the son of Hendrik. (Van Mander, 

 Lrrr* <lrr SHMm ; Descauips, La Fit da Peinlrr* Flantondi, tie.; 

 Hrinekrn, Dieliontiairt da Atiitto, fto.) 



BALESTRA, ANTO'NIO, a distinguished painter of Verona, where 

 he waa born in 1846. He waa brought up u a merchant, but before 

 hia Slat year he had commenced to study u a painter under Belluoci 

 at Venice, with whom he remained three year*, chiefly engaged in 

 making himself acquainted with the characteristics and methods of 

 practice of the great Venetian masters. He afterwards studied under 

 Carlo Maratta at Rome, and he eventually punted much more in the 

 style of the Roman than of the Venetian painters ; he aimed in fsct 

 to combine the subdued splendour of Venetian colour with the 

 correctness and solidity of design of the Roman school. Balestra 

 waa one of the most able painters of his time, and instructed at 

 Venice a numerous school, in which were educated several very dis- 

 tinguished painters, as Qiambattita Mariotti, Giuseppe Nogari. and 

 Pietro Longhi. Among his chief works are the Descent from the 

 Cross, at Venice ; an altar-piece in thr cathedral of Verona ; a Virgin, 

 at Mantua ; and a St. Theresa at Bergamo. He died according to the 

 best authorities in 174 0. Heineken mentions many prints after the 

 works of Balestra. He engraved also a few plates himself, impres- 

 sions from which are now very scarce and valuable. (Zanctti, IMla 

 Pittura rmciana ; Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, &c. ; Heineken, Diction- 

 noire At* A rtittn, &c.) 



BALFOUR, JAMES, of Pilrig, in Edinburghshire, was admitted on 

 advocate of the Scottish bar on the 14th of November 1730 ; and 

 was afterwards appointed sheriff substitute of the county of Edin- 

 burgh. Having occupied himself much with philosophical science, he 

 early became an opponent of the celebrated David Hume, whose 

 speculations he attacked in tiro anonymous treatises, the one entitled 

 a ' Delineation of Morality,' the other, Philosophical Dissertations ; ' 

 bat his opposition was conducted with so much candour and good 

 feeling, that Hume wrote to him to express his feelings of esteem and 

 request his friendship. In 1754 Balfour resigned his judicial office, 

 having in August of that year been appointed to the chair of moral 

 philosophy, at Edinburgh. This he resigned, in May 1764, fur the 

 chair of public law ; and soon afterwards he published what appear 

 to have been his lectures while in hi< former lituation, under the title 

 of ' Philosophical Essays.' In the spring of 1779 he resigned the chair 

 of public law, and retired to Pilrig, where he died, 6th of March 

 1795, at the age of ninety-two, having spent (says the author of the ' Life 

 of Kames,' who must have known him well) a long life in the practice 

 of those virtues which it was the object of his writings to inculcate. 



BALFOUR, SIR JAMES, of Pittendreich, Lord President of the 

 Court of S--i"n in Scotland, and the reputed author of Balfour' s 

 1 Practicks of the Liw,' was son of Sir Michael Balfour, of Pitten- 

 drrich and Montquhauy, county Fife, and in hit early years received 

 a liberal education for the church, in the course of which he distin- 

 guished himself particularly in the study of the canon and civil laws. 

 The clerical profession in Scotland had long engrossed some of the 

 fint offices of the at at-, and, by the establishment of the Court of 

 Session, bad brought to a favourable termination an arduous contest 

 with the lord jiuticwr for the supreme place of judicature. At the 

 commencement of the Ut formation in Scotland, Balfour attached him- 

 aclf with great cal to the partisans of the reformed doctrines, and 

 evsu joined the conspiracy led by Norman, eldest son of the Earl of 

 Roths*, againat the Cardinal Eeotonn. lieing taken in the castle of 

 St. Andrews when that fortress surrendered to the French auxiliaries 

 in the end of the summer of 1547, he was put into the same galley 

 with Knox, and carried prisoner to France. The cause of Scottish 

 Protestantism seemed now at an rnd, and the partisans of Rome wero 

 filled with einlUtion, bnt their r. joiciug was premature ; the evils 

 inflicted on the reformers proved only aj the process of the winnowing 

 floor, which separates the chaff from the wheat Accordingly, on the 

 peace of 1649, Knox, Balnavis. and other*, returned to Scotland with 

 new ardour in the cau.e of the reformation. Balfonr also returned, 

 bat now that the old faith was in the ascendancy he professed him- 

 -If a Roman Catholic, and even denied that he bad been of the 

 Protestant party; though, as Knox says, his own conscience and a 

 thousand witnesses couM testify the fact. Ho was immediately 

 appointed official of St. Andrews within the archdeaconry of Lothian, 

 and in this situation, with the zeal of a suspected confederate, he pro- 

 oeeded si-offlcio against the poor old priest Walter Mylne for heresy, 

 bsoMM he had given up saying mass, and had him condemned to the 

 flames and burnt. 



On the breaking out of the civil war between the congregation and 

 the queen-regent In 1559, Balfour took the part of the latter ; yet it 

 appears be knew also all the tranwctions of the former, lie rscsped 

 the search of the reformers in Fife in February 1660; and was about 

 the same time appointed parson of Fliak in that shire. Soon after 

 the arrival of the young queen in 1661 be was appointed an extraor- 

 dinary lord of session, and on the 6lh of November 1 563 advanced 

 to the place of an ordinary lord in the same court. On the institution 

 UM Conimiscsries' Court of Edinburgh, in the room of the court 

 UM official of Lothian, be was constituted its chief judge ; and on 

 th* Oth of July 1606 hs was sworn of the queen's privy council. To 



these various employments of privy councillor, judge, and priest, ha 

 seems to have added practice at the bar, for in January 1 566 we find 

 him in the court of justiciary as 'assister' of the crown in the'criminal 

 prosecution against old Andrew BallingaU of Drumbarro, for wilful 

 absence from the 'raid' of Stirling. (Pitcairn, ' Crini. Trials.') He 

 was with the queen at Holyrood on the night of Rizzio'a assassination ; 

 and he shortly after had new honours conferred upon him, the queen 

 creating him a knight, and appointing him lord clerk register, in the 

 room of Mr. M'Gill, who was one of the conspirators, and bad fled. 

 la the same year Balfour was employed with Lesly, bishop of Ross, 

 in preparing, in obedience to a royal commission, a volume containing, 

 for popular information, the acts of parliament passed from 1424 to 

 1564. 



With the quickness of perception characteristic of a thorough 

 courtier, Balfour attached himself to Bothwell, whose increasing 

 influence in the royal closet he was one of the first to observe. He 

 joined in the conipiracy against the youthful Darnley, who, with some- 

 thing like a presentiment of bis fate, now urged the queen to accuse 

 Balfour of being accessary to the murder of Rizzio, and to dismiss 

 him from her council". Balfour framed the bond for mutual support 

 entered into by the conspirators, and prepared the house in the kirk 

 of Field for the execution of the deed, but was not actually present 

 on the occasion. He was however distinctly charged as an accom- 

 plice in the crime, both in the Earl of Lennox's despatch and in a 

 popular placard put up in answer to the government offer of a reward 

 for a discovery of the perpetrators. Bothwell was brought to an 

 early trial, which no entreaty of Lord Lennox, his prosecutor, could 

 stay ; but as the evidence was not ready, his guilt was not established, 

 and he was acquitted. 



On the 22nd of April 1567, the queen, under the influence of Both- 

 well, appointed Balfour captain of Edinburgh Castle, in tho room of 

 Sir William Cookburn of Skirling, to whom she had given it in charge 

 only on the 8th of Mnrch preceding. Both the queen and Bothwell 

 however lived to repent of their confidence, and on their fortunes 

 falling sought to displace Balfour, who now disowned his lieutenancy, 

 and holding the fortress as " full master thereof," began to treat with 

 the associate lords for its surrender to them. On the defeat of Car- 

 berry, Bothwell dispatched a special messenger to the castle for 

 Mary's letters. These Balfour delivered ; but, as Bothwell's influence 

 was now entirely gone, he first sent notice to the associate lords, who 

 watched the messenger's return, attacked him, aud carried off the 

 famous casket with its contents, to which they ever after appealed in 

 proof of Mary's guilt, and in justification of their conduct towards 

 her. Balfour afterwards gave up the castle to the regent Murray on 

 the following extraordinary conditions : 1st, a pardon for art and 

 part in Darnley's murder ; 2nd, a gift of the priory of Pittenweem ; 

 3rd, on annuity to his eldest son out of the priory of St. Andrews ; 

 4th, a large sum (Spottiswoode calls it 50002.) in present hand ; and 

 .1th, delivery of the castle into the bands of Kirkcaldy of Orange, an 

 adherent of the queen's. Murray, on attaining the regency, became 

 on open supporter of the Reformation ; and in his first parliament 

 we find a commission issued, in which lUlfour (now prior of 1'ittcn- 

 weem) is named, to ascertain the jurisdiction of the church "f S. 

 Among other preferments which Balfour managed to obtain was that 

 of Lord President of the Court of Session, to create a vacancy iu 

 which, Bailie of Provand was summarily displaced after two years' 

 occupancy, on the alleged ground of his not being a prelate, agreeably 

 to the institution of the court. In the exciting personal and political 

 questions of that day, no matter what patty had, or app< ami likely 

 to have, the preponderance for the time, Balfour was pretty sure to 

 have a prominent place iu its ranks. Thus, in May 1568, we find 

 him witli the regent in the vanguard at the battle of Langaide, and in 

 the end of the same year he was agitating iu the regent's absence for 

 the restoration of Queen Mary. In the opening of the year 1570 took 

 place the murder of 'the good regent' by 11 anilt n of Kothwellhaugh, 

 an event which appears to have inspired Mary's adherents with great 

 hopes. Of those Balfour was now one; and on the 30th of August 

 1571, he and some others of that side were attainted in a porliament 

 held by the king's men. In September 1.171 Mary waa mode regent; 

 but the aspect of affairs soon changed : an alliance was formed between 

 France and the Queen of England, who also at length openly dcchin-d 

 for the king's party, and lent her powerful aid to place Morton in the 

 regency. Morton, on his becoming regent, endeavoured to effect a 

 settlement with the queen's party ; but all his overtures were rejected 

 by Maitlan.l nn<l Kirkcaldy. Balfour however readily acceded to the 

 triumphant Morton, whom he also endeavoured to conciliate by acts 

 of shameless treachery. He was mainly instrumental in bringing about 

 the concord called the Pacification of Perth, in February 1572, whereby 

 his late coadjutors were again placed at the mercy of the reg.-ut ; and 

 he revealed to Morton that Kirkcnldy's brother was about to land at 

 Blackness with a supply of money from France. In July Ui72 Morton 

 brought hia victims to trial for Darnley'a murder, and had them sen- 

 tenced to the scaffold. Balfour however not only escaped a trial, but 

 the following yrar had his forfeiture annulled anil Inm-.]! > 

 by act of parliament; and iu 1674 the regent committed to him and 

 Skene a design for a general digest of the laws. What progress was 

 made in this matter, and whether Balfour's ' Practicks ' waa the result, 

 does not certainly appear. Balfour soon after repaired to France, dis- 



