13 I 



388 



B 1 D 



tlio xieinity in sufficient rniantitr to IK- worked for econo- 

 mical patpMM. One bed passes thrmish I'm- town, iiml 

 then- nre to or three pils nt tin- In ad of il. The same bed 

 continues t > tin- c.iaM ;it (irccnuclilf, where il is worked for 

 burning lime. The anthracite is accompanied by foosil plants. 

 In ls)| Bideford contained 997 nouses and 48-16 in- 

 h.ihiiiinis. of whom 2169 were males, and 2677 females; 

 liij families were employed in agriculture, and 316 in 

 trade, kc. There is a free grammar-school of very anrioni 

 It is not exactly known when it was endowed, hut 

 in 1689 Mrs. Susannah Stuckley Rave the sum of 200/. to 

 be laid out in land, which is now let for 57/. per annum. 

 The salary of the master is 30/. per annum, for which lie 

 teaches ten boys appointed by the corporation. There is 

 a national school, which, according to the last report (1835), 

 had 117 boys and 98 girls; and also a charity- school for 

 writing, reading, and arithmetic : the master has a salary 

 of \Vl. per amium, paid by the trustees of the bridge estate. 

 Thu Dissenters have a school here which contains 100, and 

 the Methodists one with fifty scholars. An hospital was 

 built in the old town for twelve poor families pursuant to 

 the will of Mr. Henry Araory, who died in 1663. In 1810 

 Mrs. Margaret Newcommen left a considerable fund for 

 poor Dissentors in this and the adjoining parishes, ami Mr. 

 John Strange founded four almshouscs in 1646. The lands 

 of the corporation are charged with the payment of I/, 

 a-year to the poor of the borough, and they usually add 

 about 10/., which is laid out in fuel and clothing. 



To the north-east of Bidcford, near the mouth of the 

 river Torridce, is a beach of pebbles about three miles in 

 length, and of considerable depth and breadth : these stones 

 have for many years been used for ballast and paving. The 

 pebbles are generally round or oval, from six to eighteen 

 inches in diameter, and curiously variegated with veins of 

 different colours. On them grows the lichen marintti, or sea 

 liverwort, more commonly known by the name of lavor, which 

 is much esteemed as a p'leasant and wholesome food. It is 

 often packed in pots and sent to London. Opposite this 

 part of the coast is Lundy Island, about five miles long 

 and two broad : its chief inhabitants are rabbits and wild 

 fowl. Although ten or eleven miles from the nearest land, 

 it has several springs of fresh water. According to Risdon, 

 it formerly had a castle on it, which was inhabited ami forti- 

 fied by William Moriscoe, a famous pirate, who, after being 

 for many years the dread of the vicinity, was executed, with 

 sixteen of his companions. The celebrated Sir Richard de 

 Granville, the friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, and the settler 

 of Virginia, resided at Bideford for many years after his expe- 

 dition. In 1591, when Vice-admiral of England, he sustained 

 with his single ship the most glorious and unequal conflict 

 recorded in naval history, against the whole licet of the 

 enemy, and after having repulsed them sixteen times, only 

 yielded when all his powder was spent. He died of his 

 wounds two days afterwards on board the Spanish admiral's 

 vessel. His own ship, reduced to a hulk, sunk before il 

 could get into port. Bidcford was the birth-place of the 

 famous Dr. Shebbeare, who was sentenced to stand in the 

 pillory in 1758 for his political writings. The sheriff, who 

 allowed him as a lavor to stand on llio pillory with n servant 

 in livery holding an umbrella over his head, was prosecuted 

 for not properly enforcing the sentence. (l,\*ons's />'"- 

 tii'iniu ; lifjvirt 'if I/if .Municipal Corporation Coinnus- 

 tionerx : AVat kim's Hislury of liidfford ; Correspondence 

 from HiJfford, <$*c.) 



BIDLOO, GODEFROID, an anatomist, born at Am- 

 sterdam, in 1649; but of wluno parentage or early educa- 

 tion wo can iittd no record. He at first studied surgery, 

 which he practised with great success, and was at one time 

 surgeon to the forces. Afterwards lie took the desiree of 

 doctor of medicine, and was appointed ph\sician to William 

 III., king of England, by whom lie was recommended to the 

 curators! of the university of Leydcn so strongly, as to in- 

 duce them to elevate him to the professorship of anatomy 

 and surgery, in lii'j-i. 



In 1685 he had published at Amsterdam, in one volume 



folio, 105 pUtcs, representing the anatomy of different parts 



of the human body, which were admirable as works of art, 



bavin ngraved by Lairesse, but in many instances 



were deficient in accuracy. This work was reprinted at 



n in royal folio, with 1 11 plates, and again at Ulrethl 



in I"")!), with a supplement. Bidloo aapUMd Cowper. nn 



i-h anutonmt. "f having repimU-1 it without aeknow- 



:ncnl, and with only a .iions. In this< 



there was considerable truth, and Cowpcr made in reply a 

 very lame defence. Bidloo also carried on with much asperity 

 a controversy with Frederick 1!u\ *ch. w .1 nf 



the errors in his works. The other writings of Bidloo are : 

 ' De Anatomes Antiqmtato Orat:o,' Lcjdm, li.'.il: Icing 

 bi* inaugural discourse, when he took pofsession of the 

 chair of surgery and anatomy. ' Vindiciro quarnmdam Deli- 

 neationum Anatomic-arum contra ineptas Animadversioncs 

 Fredcrici Ruysch,' 4to. 1697. 'Observation, -s de Animalculis 

 in Hepate Ovillo ct alionim Animaliiim detectis,' -Ho. ; 

 ' GuillielmusCowpcrusCrimiimLitternrii citatuscoram Tri- 

 bunuli Socictatii Anglic,' 4to. 17('(i; this is the work in 

 which he accused Cowpcr of plagiarism. ' Excrcitationum 

 Anatoraico-Chirurgicnruni Decades Dute,' 4 to. 1708; in 

 which occurseveral important remark- :ises. 



' Opuscula nmnia Anatomico-Chirurgica edita ct inedita,' 

 4to., with plates, 1715. 



Bidloo died in 1713, in the G4th year of bis age. lie had 

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

 nephew Nicolas, who became physician to lYtci 



BIDPAI. With the exception of the Bible there is pro- 

 bably no work that has been translated into so many Iftti- 

 guasres, and at so early an epoch, as the collection o: 

 which passes by the title of the Fables of Bidpai, or 1'ilpny. A 

 tradition very generally received attributes tn the Hindus the 

 first composition of this work, and recent di- ;i Ori- 



ental literature have fully confirmed the truth of this report. 



Fables and talcs in which animals arc intix -du< e \ a-, 

 actors, and in which moral principles and maxims of pru- 

 dence arc inculcated by example and precept, s. cm from an 

 early age to have been current among (lie Hindus. Several 

 collections of such stories, written in Sanscrit, nre still in 

 existence. The oldest of them, ami evidently the parent 

 stock of the Fables of Bidpai, is the work known in ! 

 under the name of the Panrha Tantra, or the ' Five 

 Sections,' so called from its being divided into five books. 

 This work has been translated from the Sanscrit i:.to 

 the Tnmul language, and again from the Tamul into 

 French, by the Abbi: Dubois. An analytical account of 

 it, drawn from the Sanscrit original by Mr. IT. II. \\ 

 is printed in the Transaction* of the Knyal Asiiiti 

 defy, vol. i. pp. 155-200. An abridgment of the Panrlia 

 Tantra, called the HitSpadSsa, or ' Salutary Instruction,' 

 has become nr.iro generally known in Knrope than the 

 original work. It has been translated into Knyli-h bv Sir 

 Charles Wilkins (Bath, 1787, 8vo.), and by Sir William 

 Jones (Works, vol. vi. 4to. edition): several editions of 

 the Sanscrit text have been published. Both the I'unrhu 

 Tantra and the Ili/ufvulfxa consist of prose intermixed with 

 poetry: the stories are told in prose, but the narrative is 

 constantly interrupted by sentences in verso, borrowed from 

 the works of nearly all the celebrated poets that preceded 

 the epoch of their composition. The names of the compilers 

 of the Panrha Tantra. as well as of the lli/iiparlfxa, are un- 

 known. Yishnusarman, who is sometimes called the author 

 of the Hili>/inili f xii, is only one of the principal iiiterl ' 

 in both works, and is the narrator of the greater numbci nf 

 fables contained in them. The age at. which the J'anrfla 

 Tantrn must have been composed can. however, at least 

 approximatively, be determined. In tin- first bo k, ,1 | is 

 sage of an astronomical work by Varahamihirii is cited, 

 which occurs, without variation, in the two best m.-imis- 

 of the original that Mr. Wils, n bad an opportunity of 

 sidling: ami as it is pretty well ascertained that VarAha- 

 raihira wrote during the latter half of the fifth century 

 (.1 \iiilic Research's, vol. ix. p. .'Iti.T : Bohlcn. Dan ii/ie In- 

 Jim, ii. 280), it follows that tl 1'nnrfia Tuntra must lia\c, 

 been composed subsequently to that epoch. According to 

 an anlicnt tradition (recorded in the introduction to the ex- 

 tant Arabic and Persian editioi.s of the Fables of Bidpai, in 

 the Shahnamoh of Firdusi, at d by nearly every orient I 

 writer on the history of the S.issinide dynasty). Barx.njeh, 

 an eminent physician at the court of the Persian 

 Nnshirwan, who reigned between A.D. 531 and 570, \i-:t>d 

 India in searcli, it is said, of a plant which had hern re- 

 ported to | I power of re-luring dead bod-- 

 life, and on Ins rrliirn to l'e.ia, it. stead i>f that fabulous 

 drug, imported into his country a translation into IVhlvi of 

 iociinn of stories now under our consideration. Some 

 circumstances to which Baron dc Sacy draws our attention 



it not unlikely that Bamlyeh may have b, 

 Chri-lian monk. (Seethe Menn,irr prefixed (o De ' 



o| '(', ililali n-a Dimnnh, pp. 3fi, 37.) Certain it is 



