657 



BARTAS, SIEUR DU. 



BARTHEZ, PAUL JOSEPH. 



568 



frigates, made a descent on the English coast near Newcastle, and 

 plundered and burnt some villages. On his return homewards he fell 

 in with a Dutch fleet of merchantmen under convoy of several men- 

 of-war, and, according to his custom, made straight for the admiral's 

 ship, but was repulsed ; he however succeeded in taking several of the 

 merchant-vessels. In 1694 he attacked another Dutch fleet under 

 Rear-Admiral Vries, boarded the admiral's ship, and took her, after 

 having mortally wounded the admiral himself with his own hand. 

 This was one of the most desperate fights in which Bart was ever 

 engaged. By this victory he re-took from the Dutch a fleet of 300 

 vessels laden with corn from the Baltic, and bound to France, which 

 country was then suffering under a severe dearth. A medal was 

 struck to commemorate this event, and Louis XIV. granted letters of 

 nobility to Bart and his descendants. In 1697 B;irt was commissioned 

 to take to Poland the Priuce of Conti, one of the candidates for the 

 Polish crown, vacant by the death of John Sobieski ; but the Elector 

 of Saxony was proclaimed king of Poland before the Prince of Conti's 

 arrival. 



The peace of Ryswick, in September 1697, having put an end to the 

 war, Bart retired to live with his family. He died at Dunkerque 

 April 27, 1702, at the age of fifty-one. He was one of the boldest 

 aud moat successful seamen that France has ever produced. He was 

 rough in hia manners and illiterate, but clever, indefatigable, and 

 frank in his disposition. His eldest son, Francois, became a vice- 

 admiral, and died in 1755. 



''.' of Jean Bart, translated from the French [of Andre-Richer], 

 by the Rev. Edward Mangin, M.A., London, 1828; Vandarest, Hixtoire 

 de J'.in Bart ; Biographic Universelle and Dictionnaire Univeriel 

 Jfiitorinue.) 



BAUTAS, GUILLAUME DE SALLUSTE, SIEUR DU, the son 

 of a treasurer of France, was born about the year 1544, at Montfort in 

 Artnagnac, and brought up to the profession of arms, with which he 

 afterwards united diplomacy, and obtained considerable reputation in 

 both. H ing of the reformed religion, he became gentleman of the 

 chamber to Henry IV. during that prince's contest for the throne ; 

 served him in several missions at foreign courts, and among others at 

 the English court, where James I. wished to retain him. He was 

 present at the famous battle of Ivry, where he received wounds of 

 which he died four months afterwards. Du Bartas is a striking 

 instance of the perishable nature of reputation founded on literary 

 fashion and a popular subject. In hU own time his principal work, 

 giving an account of ' the Week, or Seven Days of the Creation,' and 

 founded probably on the ' Sette Giornate ' of Tasso, went through 

 thirty editions in less than six years ; was translated into Latin, 

 Italian, Spanish, German, and English ; and obtained the applause of 

 his most illustrious contemporaries, including Spenser. Yet his name 

 is now almost proverbial for barbarism of style and bad taste, and hia 

 own countrymen treat it with contempt. They accuse him of utter 

 want of judgment ; of low, extravagant, and disgusting imagery ; and 

 pedantic compounds of words, after the fashion of the ancients. 

 What was pedantry however in this respect with Du Bartas, might 

 have helped, in greater hands, to give fire and elevation to the French 

 language, had the idiom itself permitted it. The same compounding 

 of words, which came to nothing in old French poetry, was so warmly 

 received in England, through the medium of Du Bartas's translator, 

 Sylvester, that, in conjunction with the like daring in Chapman's 

 'Homer,' and Sir Philip Sydney's 'Arcadia,' it avowedly helped to 

 enrich the poetry of our native country ; and to Sylvester are traced 

 some of the most beautiful compound epithets of Milton and Fletcher. 

 Yet so little merit in this result had the genius either of Du Bartas or 

 his translator, that in Sylvester's version, which was once almost as 

 popular in England as the original was in France, and procured for 

 him the epithet, after bis own fashion, of ' silver-tongued Sylvester,' 

 are to be found all the absurd and revolting defects noticed by the 

 French critics, in spite of an occasional fine verse or thought, acknow- 

 ledged by the critics of both countries. (Biographic Universelle; 

 Sylvester, Dv, Bartat, &c.) 



BARTHELEMY, JEAN JACQUES, was born at Cassis, near 

 Aubague, in Provence, 20th January 1716. At twelve years of age he 

 entered the College of the Fathers de 1'Oratoire at Marseille, and 

 commenced his studies under Father Renaud, a man of considerable 

 learning. Being intended for the ecclesiastical profession, he went 

 next into the Seminary of the Jesuits, where he studied philosophy 

 and theology, and at the same time applied himself to the Greek and 

 Oriental languages. He afterwards studied numismatics under Gary, 

 a well-known antiquarian. In 1743 he proceeded to Paris, where he 

 made the acquaintance of Gros de Boze, secretary to the Academy o: 

 Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and keeper of the king's cabinet 01 

 medals. In 1745 Qros de Boze took Barthele'my as his assistant in the 

 cabinet, and after Gros' death, Barthele'my succeeded him as keeper 

 Meantime Barthele'my had become known to the learned of Paris, and 

 had written several dissertations on ancient coins, and on the Phoenician 

 Samaritan, and Palmyrene characters. In 1754 he was commissionec 

 by the Count d'Argenson to travel in Italy, chiefly for the purpose o 

 collecting medals for the king's cabinet. At Rome he became ac 

 quainted with the learned Cardinals Passionei, Albani, and Spinelli 

 and was presented to Benedict XIV. He made also the acquaintance 

 of Joseph Simon Assemani, of Boscovich, Piranesi, and other distin 



guished men who were living in Rome at that time. He thence went 

 ;o Naples, and examined the newly-discovered antiquities of Pompeii 

 md Herculaneum. On his return to Rome he was introduced to the 

 >>unt de Stainville, then French ambassador to the papal court, and 

 lis lady, and this acquaintance decided the future destiny of Barthe- 

 e'my. The Count, on his return to France, became Duke of Choiseul, 

 and first minister of Louis XV. In his elevation he did not forget 

 Jarthele'my, for whom he had conceived a sincere esteem, but loaded 

 lim with unasked favours. He bestowed on him several pensions, 

 made him treasurer of St-Martin of Tours, and, lastly, secretary- 

 jeneral to the Swiss and Orison regiments in the French service, which 

 ast situation alone was worth 20,000 francs per annum. Barthele'my 

 made a good use of his income ; he assisted many of his less fortunate 

 Drethren in the career of science, he provided for his nephews and 

 nieces, and himself continued to live soberly and modestly. In 1760 

 le published a dissertation on the celebrated mosaic of Palestrina, 

 which he explained to be an allegorical representation of the arrival of 

 Hadrian in Egypt. The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres 

 received him among its members, aud he contributed many disserta- 

 ;ions to the ' Me'moires ' of that learned body. In 1766 he published 

 ' Lettres sur quelques Monumens Phdniciens et sur leg Alphabets qui 

 en re'sultent.' He next published ' Entretiens sur I'Etat de la Musique 

 Srecque vers le Quatri&me Siecle,' 8vo, Paris, 1777; ' Essai d'une 

 Paleographie Numismatique ; ' and ' Dissertation sur une Inscription 

 Qrecque relative aux Finances des Athdniens.' But the work which 

 lias made his name popular is his ' Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis en 

 Gr6ce,' 4 vols. 4to, Paris, 1788, and 7 vols. 8vo, 1789; a work which 

 for many years formed a text-book in the French classes of most large 

 schools in this country. In his own country the work speedily became 

 extremely popular, and it was long said that the great mass of 

 moderately educated French people derived from it their notions of 

 the geography, laws, polity, commerce, and finances of the Greek 

 republics, and more especially of Athens ; of their education, habits, 

 and manners; their amusements, theatres, games, and festivals; their 

 religious rites ; of their philosophers and their various sects ; the state 

 of the sciences and arts, &c. But the form of the work, though 

 certainly attractive to the general reader, is not well calculated to 

 give sound information in a department of learning so extensive and 

 multifarious. The admixture of fiction with real facts is not very 

 favourable to strict historical accuracy. With regard to the pictures 

 of ancient manners, Barthelemy says himself in his introduction, 

 Such details are but faintly indicated in the ancient writers, and 

 they have occasioned numerous controversies among modern critics. 

 I have long discussed those sketches of manners which I have intro- 

 duced in my work, and I have afterwards suppressed part of them in 

 the revisal, but perhaps I have not gone far enough in the work of 

 suppression." And again, " Had I examined my strength, instead of 

 consulting my courage, and of being led away by the attractions of 

 the subject, I should never have undertaken this work." This 

 ingenuous confession renders criticism superfluous. 



The great French revolution, which found Barthele'my immersed in 

 his favourite studies, deprived him of his income of about 25,000 

 francs ; but this affected him little. The gloom of despondency seized 

 him when he saw his best and oldest friends led to prison, and thence 

 to the scaffold. He himself, then nearly eighty years of age, was 

 denounced as an aristocrat, and suddenly taken to prison. The arrest 

 of the aged Barthele'my however proceeded merely from some obscure 

 informer ; the Jacobins' themselves were ashamed of it ; and Dauton, 

 the celebrated terrorist, procured his release the next day. Citizen 

 Pan!, the pro tempore Minister of the Interior, even offered Barthele'my 

 the place of chief librarian of the Royal, or, as it had then become, the 

 National Library. But he now felt weary of life ; even literary and 

 scientific pursuits had no longer any attractions for him ; and his desire 

 for death was not long withheld. He expired in his house at Paris, in 

 the arms of his nephew, on the 30th of April 1795. He was buried 

 without any ceremony, according to the custom of those times. 



Barthele'my'B ' (Euvres Diverses,' 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1798, contain a 

 life of the author by a brother academician, and a catalogue of his 

 works, notes taken during his journey in Italy, dissertations on the 

 antiquities of Herculaneum and the tables of Heraclea, reflections on 

 some Mexican paintings, and researches on the distribution of the booty 

 in the wars of the Greeks and Romans. Another posthumous work 

 of Barthele'my is the 'Voyage en Italie, imprim<5 sur sea Lettres 

 Originates (Sorites au Comte de Caylus,' 8vo, Paris, 1 802. 



BARTHEZ, or BART3ES, PAUL JOSEPH, a physician and phy- 

 siologist, was born at Montpellier, December 11, 1734. He began the 

 study of medicine at Montpellier, in 1750, and obtained the degree of 

 doctor in 1753. After this he went to Paris, where he made the 

 acquaintance of some of the most distinguished literary persons then 

 in the metropolis. While there he wrote two essays, which were 

 rewarded with'prizes from the Academy of Inscriptions. In 1756 he 

 was employed as physician to the army, which he soon quitted, after 

 being attacked with severe fever, and returned to Paris, where he 

 became associated with the leading philosophers of the day as joint 

 editor of the ' Journal des Savants,' aud of the ' Encyclope'die 

 Mdthodique.' In 1759 he was appointed to a professorship at Mont- 

 pellier. In his lectures he promulgated the doctrines he had announced 

 in his early essays, which he afterwards enlarged and published, 



