B L A 



477 



B L A 



The ' Philosophical Transactions' for 1775 contain a short 

 paper by Dr. Black, giving an account of some experiments, 

 showing that recently-boiled water begins to freeze more 

 speedily than water that has not been boiled, and he ex- 

 plains the cause of its so doing. The only other paper 

 written by Dr. Black was published in the second volume of 

 the 'Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.' It 

 is an analysis of trie Geyser and Rikum springs in Iceland, 

 in which he found a considerable quantity of silica. 



Dr. Black was never married. He died on the 2Gih of No- 

 vember, 1 799, in the seventy-first year of his age. Dr. Ro- 

 bison (Preface to Lectures, p. Ixii.) says, ' As to the manner 

 in which Dr. Black acquitted himself in his public character 

 of a professor, I need only say that none contributed more 

 largely to establish, and support and increase the high cha- 

 racter which the University of Edinburgh has acquired. His 

 talent for communicating knowledge was not less eminent 

 than for observation and inference from what he saw. He 

 soon became one of the principal ornaments of the Univer- 

 sity ; and his lectures were attended by an audience which 

 continued increasing from year to year, for more than thirty 

 years. It could not be otherwise. His personal appear- 

 ance and manners were those of a gentleman, and peculiarly 

 pleasing. His voice in lecturing was low, but fine ; and his 

 articulation so distinct, that he was perfectly well heard by 

 an audience consisting of several hundreds. His discourse 

 was so plain and perspicuous, his illustration by experiment 

 so apposite, that his sentiments on any subject never could 

 be mistaken even by the most illiterate ; and his instruc- 

 tions were so clear of all hypothesis or conjecture, that the 

 hearer rested on his conclusions with a confidence scarcely 

 exceeded in matters of his own experience.' 



BLACK-ASSIZE, the name given to a fatal assize held 

 in 1577 in the old town-hall of Oxford, situated at that time 

 in the yard of the castle. Holinshed and Stow make par- 

 ticular 'mention of it in their Chronicles, but the best account 

 of it is in Anthony a Wood's History and Antiquities of 

 the University, published by Gutch, 4to. Oxford, 1796, vol. 

 ii. p. 1 88, when noticing the trial of one Rowland Jencks, a 

 book-binder, for sedition. He says ' The assizes therefore 

 being come, which began the 4th of July, and continued 

 two days after in the court-house at the castle-yard, the said 

 Jencks was arraigned and condemned in the presence of a 

 great number of people to lose his ears. Judgment being 

 passed, and the prisoner taken away, there arose such an 

 infectious damp or breath among the people, that many 

 there present, to the apprehensions of most men, were then 

 smothered, and others so deeply infected that they lived not 

 many hours after. The persons that then died,' he adds, 

 ' and were infected by the said damp, when sentence was 

 passed, were Sir Robert Bell, baron of the Exchequer; Sir 

 Nicholas Barham, sergeant-at-law ; Sir Robert D'Oyley, 

 the bigh-sheritf; Hart, his under-sheriff; Sir William 

 Babyngton, Robert D'Oyley, Wenman, Danvers, Fetiplace, 

 and Harcourt, justices of the peace ; Kerle, Greenwood, 

 Nash, and Forster, gentlemen ; besides most of the jury, with 

 many others that died within a day or two after. Abore 

 600 sickened in one night, as a physician of Oxford (Georg. 

 Edrycus in Hi/pomnematibus suis in aliquot libros Fault 

 Mginetcc, edit! Lond. 1588, lib. 2) attested; and the day 

 after, the infectious air being carried into the next villages, 

 there sickened 100 more. The 15th, 16th, and 17th days 

 of July sickened also above 300 persons, and within twelve 

 days' space died 100 scholars, besides many citizens. The 

 number of persons that died in five weeks' space, namely 

 from the 6th of July to the 12th of August (for no longer 

 did this violent infection continue), were 300 in Oxford, and 

 200 and odd in other places : so that the whole number that 

 died in that time were 510 persons, of whom many bled till 

 they expired. Some,' Wood says, ' left their beds, occa- 

 sioned by the rage of their disease and pain, and would beat 

 their keepers or nurses, and drive them from their presence. 

 Others ran about the streets and lanes in a state of phrenzy, 

 and some even leaped headlong into deep waters. The 

 physicians tied, not to avoid trouble,' he says, ' but to save 

 themselves and theirs.' The heads of houses and doctors 

 almost all fled ; and there was not a single college or hall, 

 but had some taken away by this infection. ' The parties,' 

 Wood says, ' that were taken away by this disease were 

 troubled with a most vehement pain of the head and sto- 

 mach, vexed with the phrenzy, deprived of their understand- 

 ing, memory, sight, hearing, &c. The disease also increas- 

 ing, they could neither eat nor sleep, nor would suffer any 



attendants to come near to them. At the time of their 

 death they would be very strong and vigorous, but if they 

 escaped it, then they were to the contrary. It spared no 

 complexion or constitution, and the choleric it chielly mo- 

 lested. That which is most to be admired is, that no women 

 were taken away by it, or poor people, or such that admi- 

 nistered physic, or any that came to visit. But as the phy- 

 sicians were ignorant of the causes, so also of the cures of this 

 disease.' Holinshed says that no child died of this infection. 



It seems more than probable that the distemper which 

 arose on this occasion, was a fever originating in the poi- 

 sonous condition of the adjoining gaol, where the prisoners 

 had been long, close, and nastily kept. Wood mentions a 

 similar event at Cambridge, at the assizes held in the castle 

 there in the time of Lent, 13 Henry VIII., A.D. 1521, where 

 the justices, all the gentlemen, bailiffs, and most who re- 

 sorted thither, took such an infection, that many of them 

 died, and all almost that were present sickened, and nar- 

 rowly escaped with their lives. 



Father Sanders (in his book De Schismate Angl. lib. iii.), 

 noticing the black-assize of Oxford, called it ' ingens mi- 

 raculum,' and ascribed it as a just judgment on the cruelty 

 of the judge for sentencing the bookbinder to lose his ears. 



A contemporary account of the black-assize is given in a 

 letter from Sergeant Fleetwood, recorder of London, to Lord 

 Burleigh, dated 30th July, 1577, printed in Ellis's Original 

 Letters Illustrative of English History (second series, vol. 

 iii. p. 54) ; and another contemporary Account, in Latin, 

 from the Register of Merton College, wife communicated to 

 the Royal Society by professor Ward in 1758, and is printed 

 in the Philosophical Transactions for that year, vol. 1. part 

 ii. p. 699. 



(See also Holinshed's Chron. edit. 1587, vol. ii. p. 1270 ; 

 Stow's Annals, edit. 1 63 1 , p. 681 ; and Pointer's Antiquities 

 and Curiosities of Oxford, 8vo. Lond. 1749, p. 171.) 



BLACKBIRDS (zoology), the English name for birds 

 of the first tribe of the genus Turdus, Linn., belonging to 

 the fifth family (Les Turdusinees) of Cuvier's second order 

 (Les Passereaux), according to Lesson's arrangement. 



But the term Blackbird is more exclusively applied in 

 England to that well-known native songster, Merula vul- 

 garis of Ray, Turdus Merula of Linnaeus, the Schwarz- 

 drossel and Schwarze Amsel of the Germans, Merle of the 

 French, Merla and Merlo of the Italians, and KOTTV<J>OC, or 

 Koaav^og (cottyphus or cossyphus), of the antient Greeks. 



The Blackbird is too well known to require a description ; 

 but a word or two on the subject of its habits may not be 

 misplaced. There are not wanting those who praise the 

 song-thrush at the expense of the blackbird, alleging that, 

 though the former commits depredation in our fruit gardens 

 in summer, it makes amends by its destruction of the shell- 

 snails (Helices aspersa et nemoralis), whereas the black- 

 bird is a most notorious fruit-eater, without any such redeem- 

 ing quality. That the thrush does this service is most 

 true ; but it is not less true that the blackbird is particu- 

 larly fond of the shell-snails, which it devours in the same 

 way with the thrush. In truth, small slugs and shell-snails, 

 to use the expression of a garden labourer, form ' the chief 

 of its living,' while the thrush is equally fond of fruit in the 

 season ; but the plumage of the thrush is in its favour, and 

 it is often pecking away at the fruit without being seen. 

 When disturbed it glides away without noise ; but the 

 blackbird's sharp cry of alarm as it escapes generally strikes 

 the ear, if its black coat and yellow bill have not arrested 

 the eye. Thus much in justice to the blackbirds; for we 

 know of instances where a war of extermination has been 

 waged against them, while the thrushes have been held 

 sacred. 



Early in the spring the blackbird begins to build its nest. 

 A thick-set hedge-row, an insulated close bush, a low ivied 

 tree, are all favourite places. Moss, small sticks, root- 

 fibres, are the materials, with an internal coat of mud-plaster, 

 over which is a lining of fine dry grass. Four or five eggs 

 of a bluish-green, variegated with darker markings, are here 

 deposited. Aristotle (book v. c. 13.) observes, that it lays 

 twice, and Buffon says that the first deposit ranges from 

 five to six eggs, but the second only from four to five. The 

 early season at which it begins to lay is often so cold as to 

 destroy the first brood; moreover, the leafless state of the 

 hedge or bush at that period makes the nest an easy prey 

 to the school-boy. 



The blackbird is in general shy, but there are exceptions 

 to the remark, 



