B I O 



416 



n i o 



Campbell, the author of the Political Survey of Great 

 Britain ;' among the other writers were the Rav. Thomas 

 Brought. .11. William Olclvs. and Philip Morant, author of 

 the ' History of Essex.' A new and much extended edition 

 of the ' Bioeraphia Britannica' wus begun in 1778 by tin- 

 late Dr. Andrew Kippis. but was not carried farther than 

 the fifth volume (folio), which brings clown the alphabetical 

 list of names only to the letter F. This edition, beside* a 

 great mass of new matter collected by the laborious editor.- 

 is enriched by communications from Lord Hailes, I<ord 

 Hardwicke (the author of the Athenian Letters') ; Dr. 

 Percy. Bishop of Dromore ; Dr. Douglas. Bishop of Salis- 

 bury'; Sir William Blackstone, Isaac Reed, and several 

 other eminent literary persons of that time. Perhaps the 

 most important body of British biography that has issued 

 from the press, since the publication of the ' Biographia 

 Britannica,' is the work of the late Mr. John Nichols, en- 

 titled ' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' 9 

 Tols. 8vo. Lond. 1812-1816, with the supplement entitled 

 Illustrations of the Literature'of the Eighteenth Century,' 

 5 vols. 8vo. 1817-28. Another work of considerable value in 

 this department is that entitled ' Portraits of Illustrious 

 Personages of Great Britain, with Biographical and His- 

 torical Memoirs,' by Edmund Lodge, Esq., 12 vols. 8vo. 

 Lon. 1823-35. This last-mentioned work is on a somewhat 

 similar plan to the ' Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great 

 Britain.' engraved by Houbraken and Vertue, with memoirs 

 by Dr. Birch, which appeared in 2 vols. fol. in 1752. Nor 

 ought we under this head to omit Mr. Grainger's ' Biogra- 

 phical History of England,' which originally appeared in 2 

 vols. 4to. in 1 7C9, but which was afterwards extended by 

 the author to four 8vo. volumes. A continuation of Mr. 

 Grainger's work, in 3 vols. 8vo., by the Rev. Mark Noble, 

 appeared in 1806. 



( )f general biographical dictionaries, the ' Dictionarium 

 Historico-Geographico-Poeticum,' of Charles Stephens, pub- 

 lished in 4to. at Geneva in 1566, two years after the death 

 of the author, may probably be regarded as the earliest ; 

 but this work, as its title indicates, contained many others 

 besides biographical articles. The same remark applies to 

 the Dictionarium Historicum, Geographicum, Poeticum, 

 Gentium, Hominum, &c.,' of our countryman Nicholas 

 Lloyd, which appeared in folio, first at Oxford in 1670, and 

 again, greatly enlarged, at London in 1686. A much more 

 extended work, of a similar description, is the ' Lexicon Unf- 

 Tcrsale Historico-Gcographico-Chronolosrico-Poetico-Philo- 

 logicum,' of Jo. Jac. Hofman ; the first edition of which, in 

 2 vols. folio, was printed at Bale in 1677. A Supplement, 

 or ' Continuation,' as it is called, of the same extent, fol- 

 lowed in 1683; and, finally, the two publications were in- 

 corporated in a new edition published at Ley den in 4 vols. 

 folio, in 1698. Hofman's work may be considered as the 

 origin of our modern encyclopaedias. Our exclusively bio- 

 graphical dictionaries may be regarded as having been rather 

 suggested by another work which appeared about the same 

 time, ' Le Grand Dictionnaire Historique et Critique,' of 

 Louis Moreri. This work, the first edition of which appeared 

 in 1 vol. folio in 1673, although its contents were also very 

 miscellaneous, was still of a more decidedly biographical 

 character than that of Hofman. Of Moreri's Dictionary 

 there have been about twenty editions in French, the last of 

 which appeared at Paris in 1759, in 10 vols. folio. Upon 

 Moreri's Dictionary was founded the ' Great Historical, Geo- 

 graphical, Genealogical, and Poetical Dictionary,' printed at 

 London in 1694 ; the second edition of which. ' revised, cor- 

 rected, and enlarged to the year 1688, by Jeremy Collier, 

 A.M.,' appeared in 2 vols. folio in 1701. To these a third 

 volume was added in 1705, containing a Supplement by 

 Collier, and, in a separate alphabet, ' a Continuation from 

 tin? year 1688 to this time, by another hand.' The whole 

 was afterwards rcpublishcd, with additions, in 4 vols. folio in 

 17J*. Meanwhile the immortal ' Dictionnaire Historique 

 ct Critique ' of Bayle, originally undertaken with the view 

 of supplying the deficiencies and correcting the errors of 

 Moreri. but which, in the course of preparation, soon as- 

 sumed the form and character of an independent work, 

 i red in 2 vols. folio at Rotterdam in 1697. A second 

 ;i, enlarged to 3 vols., followed in 1702; and a third 

 in 1 7 22, (t -r the death of the author, at Geneva, in 4 vols., 

 the last being a supplementary volume consisting of addi- 

 tional articles which he had left ready for the press. The 

 lii-^t of the old editions of Bayle is tlie fourth, published at 

 Rotterdam in 4 vols. folio in I72U, under the superin- 

 tendence of Prosper Marclmnt, and often called the ' Regent 



edition,' from being dedicated to the Regent of France, 

 Philip. Duke of Orleans; but an edition in 17 vols. vo., 

 has recently been produced at Paris, which, from the anno- 

 tations it contains in correction of tin- origami text, is now 

 the most complete and valuable. Baj K-'s Dictionary, though 

 it contains only a (election of names, is almost <-\c ln-iu-ly 

 biographical. A very indifferent translation of it into Kun"- 

 li-h was published soon after the appearance of the original ; 

 but one much better executed was produced some - 

 after by Peter Des Maizeaux, in 5 vols. folio, Lon<l"ii, 

 1 734-7. To Bayle's Dictionary should be added the Supple- 

 ment to it by Chaufepie, published in 4 vols. folio at Am- 

 sterdam in 1 750. 



The first ' English General (exclusively) Biographical 

 Dictionary' appeared in 1762, in 11 vols. 8vo. 'It is un- 

 derstood' (says the writer of an article ' On Universal Bio- 

 graphies ' in the London Magazine, No. XII. third scries) 

 ' to have been projected and principally written by the Kev. 

 Dr. Heathcote, who, assisted by the late Mr. Nichols, 

 brought out a second edition of the work in 1 2 vols. in 1 784. 

 A third edition in 1 5 vols. appeared in 1 798, under the su- 

 perintendence of Mr. Tooke, the author of the ' History 

 of Russia.' It is the last edition of this work which goes, 

 by the name of Chalmers's ' Biographical Dictionary,' 

 which, having been begun to be published in 1812. was 

 completed in 1817, in 32 vols. 8vo. Chalmers's ' Dictionary 

 is merely a hurried and tasteless compilation, and without 

 any pretensions to be regarded as an authority. It is a 

 better book however than the ' General Biographical Dic- 

 tionary.' of Drs. Aikin and Bitfield in 10 vols. -ito.,'l>egun 

 in 1799 and finished in 1815. Of our smaller English works 

 of this description by far the best is that by the late Mr. 

 John Gorton, published in 2 vols. 8vo. in 1828. This work 

 is executed with very superior ability. 



We have as yet however no English biographical dic- 

 tionary at all to be compared with the great French work, 

 the ' Biographic Universelle,' begun in 1810 and completed 

 in 52 vols. 8vo. in 1828. To every article in this work the 

 name of the writer is affixed ; and the list of contributors, 

 who are in all considerably above 300 in number, comprise-, 

 the names of Biot, Delambre, Lacroix, Malte-Brun, Walcke- 

 naer, Sylvestre do Sacy, Sisraondi, De Barante, Guizot, 

 Cuvier, Victor Cousin, Chateaubriand, Benjamin Constant, 

 Laplace. Mad. do Stael, Delille, and many others of tho 

 most eminent French writers now or lately living. To the 

 ' Biographic Universclle ' may be added the ' Biographic 

 des Hommes Vivants,' in 5 vols. 8vo., or the ' Biographic 

 Nouvelle des Contcmporains,' in 20 vols., works of no great 

 authority. 



BION, a name common to many Greek authors, more or 

 less known to the moderns. They are usually distinguished 

 by their ethnical names. Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 

 vi. p. 629. A.) mentions a Bion Proconnesius, who wrote an 

 abridgment of the work of Cadmus the historian, and he is 

 probably the person cited by Athcnoms (II. p. 45) : accord- 

 ing to Diog. Laert. (iv. 58) he was a contemporary of Phe- 

 rocydos of Syros. 



Bion Borysthenites was a philosopher, who seems to have 

 belonged to nearly all the different sects in succession. He 

 was bom some lime near the 12Cth Olympiad, and is sup- 

 posed to have died about 241 B.C. Olymp. 134. 4. He is 

 mentioned by Strabo (i. 15) as a contemporary of Eratos- 

 thenes, who was born 275 B.C., and of Zeno the Stoic, who 

 died 263 BC. (Comp. Athenccus iv. 162. D.) His father 

 was a f reed-man, his mother a Lacodtcmonian harlot, named 

 Olyrapia. On account of some malpractices in his capacity 

 of tax-gatherer, his father was sold with his whole family. 

 Bion, who was then a child, was purchased by a rhetorician. 

 who made him his heir, and after his patron's death he 

 went to Athens, where he set up as a philosopher. He w;is 

 first an auditor of Crates; then he turned Cynic; after- 

 wards he attended the lectures of Theodoras, and finally 

 became a disciple of Thcophrastus. He was a great jester, 

 and remarkable more for the point than for the good- 

 humour of his witticisms. (Sec Horat. Kpixt. ii. 2, fid, and 

 Cic. Tusctd. ii. 26.) He died at Chalcis in Eubcea. (See 

 Dion. Laert. iv. 46-58.) 



But the most celebrated person of this name is Bion 

 Smyrntcus, the Bucolic poet; of whom however we know 

 little more than that he lived al the same time with Theo- 

 critus and Moschus, of whom the former mentions him 

 in hii poems, and the latter has written an ele^y on his 

 death, lie died by poison. An attempt was made many 

 years ago by Giovanni Vintimiglia to deprive Smyrna of 



1 



