BARLOW BARNAVfi. 



425 



returned to his native country in the spring of 1805. 

 After visiting several parts of the United States, he 

 purchased a beautiful situation in the neighbourhood 

 of Georgetown, but within the limits of the city of 

 Washingtown, where he built a handsome house, and 

 lived in an elegant and hospitable manner. Early 

 in 1806, he drew up a prospectus of a great national 

 academy, to be established under the immediate pro- 

 tection of the government, printed it at his own ex- 

 pense, and circulated it widely. In March of the 

 same year, the plan was laid before congress, and 

 referred to a committee, who never reported, and 

 the project failed. In 1808, the Columbiad, which 

 had been the labour of half his life, and had been 

 gradually expanded from the Vision of Columbus to 

 the bulk of a quarto, made its appearance in the 

 most magnificent volume which had ever issued from 

 the American press, adorned by a number of fine 

 engravings, executed in London, by the first artists. 

 It was inscribed, in an elegant and affectionate dedi- 

 cation, to Robert Fulton, the celebrated engineer. 

 The high price at which the Columbiad was sold 

 was by no means suited to the condition of the lite- 

 rary market in the United States. Only a few copies 

 were purchased. It was reprinted in 1809, in two 

 vols. 12mo. In the same year, it was republished in 

 London, by Phillips, in an elegant royal 8vo. In 

 spite of these aids, the Columbiad never acquired the 

 popularity which the Vision of Columbus enjoyed. 

 It aspires to the dignity of a philosophical poem, and 

 the narrative part is nearly overwhelmed by political 

 declamation and philosophical discussions, and is 

 deformed by pedantic and uncouth words of the 

 author's own coinage. There are, besides, other 

 faults, both of plan and execution, of a more serious 

 character. After the appearance of the Columbiad, 

 Barlow employed himself in making large collections 

 of historical documents, and preparing the plan of a 

 general history of the United States, a work which 

 he had long meditated. In the midst of these pur- 

 suits, he was, in 1811, nominated by the president 

 minister plenipotentiary to the French government, 

 and soon after sailed for France. He applied him- 

 self with great diligence to the duties of his new sta- 

 tion, and to negotiating a treaty of commerce and 

 indemnification for former spoliations. In October, 

 1812, he was invited, by the duke de Bassano, to a 

 conference with the emperor Napoleon, at Wilna. 

 He immediately set off on his mission, traveling day 

 nnd night. The weather was unusually severe, and 

 the whole country through which he passed, after 

 leaving France, was so wasted by contending armies 

 as scarcely to afford him a comfortable meal. In a 

 state of exhaustion, from want of food and sleep, the 

 sudden changes from extreme cold to the excessive 

 heat of the small and crowded cottages of the Jews, 

 the only taverns in Poland, produced a violent in- 

 flammation in the lungs. He rapidly sank into a 

 state of extreme debility and torpor, from which he 

 never recovered. He died, Dec. 22, 1^12, at Zania- 

 wica, an obscure village of Poland, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cracow. Mr Barlow was of an amiable dis- 

 position : his manners were grave and dignified. In 

 mixed company, lie was generally silent, and often 

 absent. He had no facility or sprightliness of gene- 

 ral conversation ; but on subjects which happened 

 to excite him, he talked with interest and animation, 

 and, among his intimate acquaintance, is said to have 

 sometimes displayed a talent for pleasantry and 

 humour. All of his prose writings bear the stamp 

 of an active, acute, and nervous mind, confident in 

 its own strength, and accustomed to great intrepidity 

 of opinion. His political and moral speculations are 

 often original, always ingenious, but deficient in those 

 comprehensive views and that ripeness of judgment 



which are required by the complex nature of the 

 subjects he examines. 



BARMEN ; a town on the VV upper, in the Prussian 

 duchy of Cleve-Berg, with 19,472 inhabitants. B. 

 contains the principal ribbon manufactories on the 

 continent, comprising linen, woollen, cotton, and silk 

 ribbons of every quality. They are sent into all 

 parts of the world. 



BARNABITES ; regular priests of the congregation 

 of St Paul, thus called from the church of St Barna - 

 bas, which was granted to them. They were esta- 

 blished in Milan, in 1536, and are dressed in black, 

 like the secular clergy. They devoted themselves 

 to missions, preaching, and the instruction of youth, 

 and had, in Italy, where they taught theology in the 

 academies of Milan and Pavia, in France, Austria, 

 and Spain, houses which they called colleges. In 

 France and Austria, this order was employed in the 

 conversion of the Protestants. It only exists, at 

 present, in Spain and some places in Italy. 



BARNACLE ; a multivalve, molluscous, hermaphro- 

 dite, and viviparous animal, belonging to Cuvier's 

 sixth class mollusca cirrhopoda (lepas, L.) The 

 various species of barnacle resemble each other in 

 being enveloped by a mantle and shell, composed of 

 five principal valves, and several smaller pieces, 

 joined together by a membrane attached to their 

 circumference. The mouth, which is oval, has 

 lateral jaws, and along the belly, arranged in pairs, 

 are twelve articulated and fringed cirri or tentacula. 

 The heart is situated under the dorsal part of the 

 animal, and the nervous system is composed of a 

 series of small knots, or ganglia, under the belly : 

 the gills are on the sides. The head of the barnacle 

 is placed downwards in the shell, and the tentacula 

 towards the superior part or orifice. Between the 

 last pair of tentacula is a long, fleshy tube, sometimes 

 mistaken for a trunk, at the base of which, towards 

 the back, the anus opens. The stomach has a num 

 ber of small cavities, formed by its wall, which ap 

 pear to perform the functions of a liver. The intes- 

 tine is simple : the ovary is double, and there is a 

 double serpentine canal through which the ova must 

 pass ; the surfaces of this canal secrete the fecun- 

 dating fluid, and they are prolonged into the fleshy 

 tube, and open at its extremity. Cuvier was the 

 first to give an accurate account of the curious 

 structure of these animals. The barnacles are al- 

 ways found attached to solid bodies, and especially to 

 rocks, timber, &c., exposed to the dashing of the 

 waves. They feed on small marine animals, brought 

 within their reach by the motion of the waters, and 

 secure them by their tentacula, which are expanded 

 and rolled up again with great celerity. They attain 

 a very considerable size, in situations where they are 

 left unmolested, and are occasionally used as food by 

 men. They are, in some countries, supposed to pos- 

 sess aphrodisiac qualities ; perhaps on account of their 

 hermaphrodite nature. We have no knowledge of 

 the cause that originated the fable of barnacles being 

 changed into geese ; though such a fable is still in 

 existence, and naturalists have perpetuated it by be- 

 stowing the name of anas bernicla on a goose, and of 

 anseriferus on a species of barnacle. 



BARNAVE, Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie, deputy to 

 the states general of France, a distinguished orator, 

 and a zealous adherent and early victim of the revo- 

 lution, was born at Grenoble, 1761. He was the son 

 of a rich procureur. He was of the Protestant reli- 

 gion, became a lawyer, was chosen a deputy of the 

 tiers-etat to the assembly of the states general, and 

 showed himself an open enemy to the court. The 

 constituent assembly appointed him their secretary, 

 member of the committee for the colonies, also of the 

 diplomatic committee, and, in January, 1791, their 

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