BACON BAGDAD. 



267 



copyhold from the same duchy at this day. This 

 was formerly an important manufacturing town. 

 During the reigns of Edward II. and III. it was 

 celebrated for the manufacture of linen, which was 

 sold under the name of Aylsham web. Subse- 

 quently the manufacture of woollen articles gave 

 employment to many of the inhabitants, but since 

 the introduction of machinery, this branch of trade 

 has also fallen into decay. Corn and 'timber now 

 form the principal articles of trade. There is a 

 free school, originally founded in 1517 by Robert 

 James, mayor of Norwich, and endowed with 10 



per annum, which has been recently incorporated 

 with the national school. A fellowship in Corpus 

 Christi college, Cambridge, founded by Archbishop 

 Parker, is restricted to a scholar educated in Ayl- 

 sham. The Baptists and Methodists have places 

 of worship here. In the neighbourhood there is 

 a spa, the water of which has been found useful 

 in chronic disorders. The principal seat in the 

 neighbourhood is Blickling House, originally built 

 by Sir John Hobart in 1628, and said to have been 

 the birth-place of Anne Boleyn. Population in 

 1841, 244$. 



B 



BACON, SIR NICHOLAS, the father of the illus- 

 trious Lord Bacon, was born at Chislehurst.in Kent, 

 in 1510, and educated at Cambridge. He applied 

 himself to the study of the law, in which he greatly 

 distinguished himself, and was promoted by king 

 Henry VIII. to the office of attorney in the court 

 of wards, in which office he was continued by king 

 Edward VI., and in 1552 he was elected treasurer 

 of Gray's Inn. He was knighted by Queen Eliza- 

 beth, and in 1558 he was made lord keeper of the 

 great seal. This important situation he held for 

 twenty years, discharging its duties as an able 

 statesman, profound lawyer, and faithful counsellor. 

 He died on the 26th February, 1578-9, equally 

 lamented by the queen and her subjects. It is 

 narrated that when the queen told him that his 

 house at Redgrave was too little for him, he mo- 

 destly answered, "No, Madam; but your majesty 

 has made me too great for my house." He was 

 the first lord keeper who ranked as lord chan- 

 cellor. 



BAGDAD (a.) The city of Bagdad, in Asiatic 

 Turkey, is unhappily subject to visitations of the 

 plague, but that which afflicted it in 1831 was the 

 most severe on record. About the middle of 

 March in that year, it first made its appearance. 

 The population then somewhat exceeded 80,000. 

 Of this number 7000 perished in the first fortnight ; 

 and as this presented a daily average of mortality 

 equal to the maximum in plagues considered very 

 bad, it was, not without reason, hoped that the 

 rage of the pestilence would then subside. It had, 

 however, scarcely commenced. At the termination 

 of the period mentioned, carbuncles began to ap- 

 pear in the patients, and from that time the daily 

 mortality increased with a rapidity truly frightful, 

 until, towards the end of April, it attained the 

 maximum, of little less than 5000 ; and at the termi- 

 nation of the calamity, it was computed that out of 

 70,000 persons, (which allows more than 10,000 

 to have perished from other causes, or to have 

 escaped,) not less than 50,000 persons were destroy- 

 ed by the plague in the two months of its duration. 

 Although this can only be regarded as an approxi- 

 mation, the desolate state in which the city was 

 left shows that the amount of mortality could not 

 Lave been much less, but very probably more. 



This extent of destruction, which, in proportion 



to the population, far exceeds that of any other 

 plague of which authentic record remains, is not to 

 be attributed to any peculiar virulence in the pesti- 

 lential miasma, but rather to concurring circum- 

 stances, which, in the first instance, precluded the 

 dispersion or escape of the people, and, in the se- 

 cond, obliged them to congregate densely in parti- 

 cular parts of the city. In ordinary circumstances, 

 large numbers of the upper classes would have 

 removed to Bussorah, Mosul, or Damascus, and 

 other towns; and the poor would have dispersed 

 themselves in the open country. But at this time 

 the Arabs, scarcely at any time manageable, were 

 emboldened by the knowledge that Ali Pasha of 

 Aleppo was marching upon Bagdad with a firman 

 from the sultan, empowering him to depose the 

 ruling Pasha, and occupy his place. Various parties 

 therefore fixed themselves in the vicinity of the 

 town, for the express purpose of plundering those 

 who might endeavour to escape from the plague ; 

 and, if these were avoided, others lay beyond, who 

 had equally no fear of the Pasha before their eyes, 

 and who, except from such fear, would think no 

 more of plundering a man of all he possessed than, 

 to use their own expression, of peeling an onion. 

 This consideration prevented many from attempt- 

 ing to escape ; and many who were hardy enough 

 to make the attempt soon returned, deprived of all 

 they had taken with them, even to the clothes they 

 wore. Few of those who did succeed in getting 

 to some distance from Bagdad without being 

 plundered, had much cause to congratulate them- 

 selves on their good fortune. The rivers Euphrates 

 and Tigris are flooded twice in each year ; first, in 

 the spring, from the melting of the snows in the 

 mountains of Armenia ; and then, in autumn, from 

 the periodical rains. This year the plague had be- 

 gun to assume its most terrible features, when the 

 rivers overflowed their banks in a manner without 

 recorded or traditional example, laying the country, 

 in the lower part of their course, completely under 

 water. Many of those who were then on their 

 way to other places were drowned ; a few found 

 the means of returning to Bagdad ; and many who 

 saw the waters gathering around them, and 

 equally precluding their progress and return, were 

 enabled to retreat to some rising grounds, where 

 they established themselves, and waited many 



