887 



BIDLOO, GODEFROID. 



BILDERDYK, WILLEM. 



in prison. His funds being exhausted, he was exposed to severe 

 privations, but was unexpectedly relieved by some pecuniary assistance 

 which he obtained for correcting the press for a Greek Septuagiut, 

 then being printed by Roger Daniel, in London, an employment for 

 which he was singularly qualified. 



In 1051 an act of indemnity and oblivion was passed by parliament, 

 which included all heretical offences. To this measure Bidclle was 

 indebted for his liberty, after a confinement, with a short intermission, 

 of seven years. The first use that he made of his freedom was to 

 collect around him those friends and adherents whom his writings had 

 brought over to his opinions. They met on tho Lord's Day for the 

 purpose of expounding the Scriptures, and gradually formed them- 

 selves into a society on this leading principle, namely, that " the unity 

 of God is a unity of person as well as nature." The members of this 

 society were called Bidelliaus, and from their agreement in opinion 

 concerning the unity of God and the humanity of Christ with the 

 followers of Socinus, they were sometimes denominated Socinians. 

 The name adopted eventually by themselves was that of Unitarians. 

 This was, indeed, the rise of the English Unitarians. Among the early 

 members of this church was Nathaniel Stuckey, who published a trans- 

 lation of Biddle's ' Scripture Catechisms, for the use of Foreigners.' 

 The publication of the two catechisms from which these translations 

 were made brought the vengeance of government agaiu upon their 

 author. He was summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, and 

 on his refusal to criminate himself, was committed to close confinement 

 in the Gate-House. When Cromwell dissolved the parliament, Diddle 

 agaiu obtained his liberty, after ten months more imprisonment ; but 

 his book shared the fate of his former tract, being publicly burnt. 

 Twelve months had scarcely elapsed after this release, whin in conse- 

 quence of an information lodged against him, on account of some 

 expressions used in a public discussion with Mr. Griffin, a Baptist 

 minister, he was committed to the Compter, July 3, 1655. From this 

 prison be was removed to Newgate, and tried for his life oil the 

 ordinance against blasphemy and heresy. His trial was conducted 

 with such indecent haste and such a total disregard to justice, that 

 Cromwell himself interfered, and, in order to baffle the designs of the 

 prosecutors without seeming to yield too much to the more tolerant 

 party, he banished Diddle to Star Castle, in St. Mary's, one of the 

 Scilly Isles, with an annual subsistence of a hundred crowns. In this 

 state of exile he continued for three years, when the solicitation of his 

 friends and change of circumstances induced the Protector to grant a 

 writ of ' habeas corpus," under which he returned, and no charge being 

 preferred agaiust him, he was set at liberty. He then became the 

 pastor of an Independent congregation in London, the duties of which 

 office he faithfully discharged until the elevation of the Presbyterian 

 party, after the death of Oliver Cromwell, induced him to withdraw 

 into the secluiion of the country. The sudden dissolution of that 

 parliament brought him again to London, where he remained till the 

 restoration of Charles II. Biddle tried to evada the threatening storm 

 which fell upon all who dissented from the Episcopalian mode of 

 worship, now re-established, by retiring from public duty, but his 

 caution was unavailing. On June 1, 1662, he and the friends who 

 met with him privately for worship were apprehended and taken to 

 prison : they were fined in 201. each, and Biddle himself iu 1002. 

 Not being able to pay this penalty, he was remanded to prison, 

 where, in less than five weeks, through the pestilential atmosphere 

 of the place and want of exercise, he contracted a disease which termi- 

 nated his life, September 22, 1662, in the forty-seventh year of his 

 age. During his exile he drew up an essay to explain the Apocalypse; 

 and in 1653 he published several small pieces, translated from the 

 works of the Polish Unitarians, among whicli was Przipcovius's ' Life 

 of Faustua Socinus.' All his contemporaries describe him as a man 

 of irreproachable life ; and Anthony Wood, who had no great love for 

 heretics, said of him, that "except his opinions, there was little or 

 nothing blameworthy in him." 



(Toulmiu, Life of Biddle.) 



BIDLOO, QODEFROID, an anatomist, was born at Amsterdam, in 

 1649. He first studied surgery, which ho practised with great success, 

 and was at one time surgeon to the forces. Afterwards he took the 

 degree of Doctor of Medicine, and was appointed physician to Wil- 

 liam III., king of England, upon whose recommendation he was in 1694 

 made professor of anatomy and surgery in the university of Leyden. 



In 1685 Bidloo had published at Amsterdam, in one volume folio, 

 105 plates, representing the anatomy of different parts of the human 

 body, which were admirable as works of art, having been engraved by 

 Lairesse, but in many instances were deficient in accuracy. This work 

 was reprinted at Leyden in royal folio, with 114 plates, and again at 

 Utrecht in 1750, with a supplement. Bidloo accused Cowper, an 

 English anatomist, of having reprinted it without acknowledgment, 

 and with only a few alterations. In this charge there was considerable 

 truth, and Cowper made in reply a very lame defence. Bidloo also 

 carried on with much asperity a controversy with Frederick Ruysch, 

 who exposed several of the errors in his works. Among the other 

 writings of Bidloo are : ' De Anatomes Antiquitate Oratio,' Leydeu, 

 1694, being his inaugural discourse, when he took possession of the 

 chair of surgery and anatomy; ' Observationes de Animalculis in 

 Hepate Ovillo et aliorum Animalium detectis,' Ho, 1693; 'Exercita- 

 tionum Anatomico-Cbirurgicarum Decades Uiuc,' 4 to, 1708, in which 



occur several important remarks on surgical diseases ; and ' Opuscula 

 omnia Auatomico-Chirurgica edita et inedita,' 4to, with plates, 1715. 



Bidloo died in 1713, in tue sixty-fourth year of his age. He had a 

 brother named Lambert, who wrote on botany ; and a nephew Nicolas , 

 who became physician to Peter the Great. 



BIELA, WILHELM, BARON VON, was born at Rosla, near Stol- 

 berg, in the Hurz Mountains, iu Prussia, his patrimonial estate, on 

 March 19, 1782. When he was born Stolberg was an independent 

 state, and he entered young into the Austrian array. He had taken 

 au early predilection for astronomy, as an amateur, and while serving 

 with his regiment at Josephetadt in Bohemia, in 1826, he became dis- 

 tinguished by the first discovery of the comet since called after him. 

 Retiring from the military service, ho continued to take an interest in 

 the science of astronomy, and corresponded with many of the most 

 eminent men of science. He died on February 18, 1856, at Venice. 



BILDERDYK, WILLEM, ranked by his countrymen among the 

 first, by some as the very first modern poet and writer of Holland, 

 and also distinguished by his varied erudition, was born at Amsterdam 

 in 1756. His studies at Leydeu took a very extensive range, for 

 besides philosophy aud languages most of the modern languages 

 included he applied himself to history, archeology, jurisprudence, 

 divinity, medicine, and geology ; and appears, in short, to have left 

 scarcely auy branch of science untouched. It was in the character of 

 poet however that he made his dtfbut in 1776, when his ' Invloed der 

 Dichtkunst,' &e. (' The Influence of Poetry on States aud Govern- 

 ments '), obtained the prize from the Leyden Society of Kunst door 

 Arbeid. Bilderdyk's poem was in some degree a foreboding of his 

 future career, which, it must be confessed, was rather too much iu 

 accordance with the motto of his first Leyden patrons ' Kuust door 

 Arbeid,' or 'Art through Industry,' since, though his productions 

 manifest great industry, ability, aud superior mastery of language, he 

 rarely soars into the more elevated regions of imagination. 



His poem on the ' Love of Fatherland ' obtained him a second prize 

 the following year ; and in 1779 he published his translation of the 

 ' (Edipus Tyruuu is ' of Sophocles, intended to exhibit to his country- 

 men the genuine form and spirit of Greek dramatic poetry, in oppo- 

 sition to the spurious classicality of French models, by a servile imi- 

 tation of which they had enervated both their language aud their 

 taste. About 1783 he began to practise at the bar at the Hague, yet 

 without renouncing his literary occupations, for it was about the same 

 time that, in conjunction with Feith, he undertook not merely to re- 

 edit and illustrate with an historical commentary Van Haren's ' Gcuzeu,' 

 but to reshape the work itself by dressing it up in mora poetical 

 language treatment not a little singular for a contemporary produc- 

 tion whose author was just dead. Thus renovated, the poem first 

 appeared in 1784. Towards the end of 1786 the unsettled state of 

 public affairs induced Bilderdyk to quit Holland and seek an asylum 

 in Germany, where he supported himself by teaching, as he did subse- 

 quently in England. This self-imposed exile lasted nearly twenty 

 years, duriug the first half of which his muse was silent. It was not 

 till 1799 that he produced two volumes of miscellaneous pieces 

 entitled ' Mengelpoesie,' containing a poem on astronomy aud some 

 translations from Ossian. In 1803 first appeared his ' Buitsnleven,' 

 or ' Rural Life,' which is considered by some almost as his master- 

 piece; yet it has no claim to originality, being no more than a fr~e 

 aud spirited imitation of Delille's ' L'Homme dcs Champs.' The same 

 may be said of a subsequent translation by him of the whole of 

 ' Fingal.' On his return to Holland he was received as one whom the 

 nation had reason to be proud of, and was taken into favour by Louis 

 Napoleon (then just made King of Holland), who was desirous of 

 rendering himself popular with his new subjects, and appointed Bil- 

 derdyk his instructor in the Dutch language, and president of the 

 Institute founded by him at Amsterdam, upon the model of the 

 French one. He was thus all at once placed in comparatively prosper- 

 ous circumstances, and his literary reputation was not a little increased 

 also by his ' Ziekte der Geleerden ' (the Maladies of Literary Men), a 

 subject equally repulsive aud unpoetical, but BO treated as to be of 

 powerful though painful interest. Ho next attempted tragedy, aud 

 produced several pieces of the kind, which, although unsuccessful 

 upon the stage, are marked by great poetical beauties. They were 

 published iu 1803, in three volumes, aud amoug them are two by his 

 wife, namely, ' Elfrida,' aud ' Iphigeuia in Aulis.' In 1809 he was 

 thrown into great affliction by the loss of several of his children, aud 

 in the following year the abdication of Louis Napoleon deprived him 

 of his peusion, and he was agaiu in very embarrassed circumstances, 

 and so continued till the return of the Prince of Orange, when they 

 began to improve. A year or two afterwards he removed to Leydeu, 

 where, as he had done all along, he continued to put forth one new 

 production of his muse after another. The noblest of them all how- 

 ever, his ' Ondergang der Eerste Wereld,' or ' Destruction of the First 

 World,' did not appear till a later period. So far from betraying any 

 decline of intellectual power, this tine poem displays more of imagina- 

 tion and invention thau any of his former ones ; but unfortunately he 

 proceeded no further than with five books of it. On the 1 6th of April 

 he lost his second wife, Catherina Wilhelmina, a lady of considerable 

 literary attainments : besides the two tragedies already mentioned, she 

 wrote, among other things, a poem on the battle of Waterloo, aud 

 translated Southey's ' Roderic.' Bildeidyk did not survive her very 



