BIJA-PUR BILE. 



531 



London, on the high north road to York, and near 

 the river Ivel, over which there is a stone bridge. 

 The town is much benefited by its situation, as a 

 great thoroughfare. It has a very modern appear- 

 ance, owing to having been nearly all rebuilt since 

 1785, in consequence of a great fire which swept 

 away 150 houses in the very centre of the place. 

 Its immediate vicinity being particularly fertile, its 

 corn market is deemed one of the largest in England, 

 and its cattle fairs are almost equally celebrated. 

 The church, dedicated to St Andrew, is a strong and 

 ancient edifice, the date of the erection of which is 

 1230. It was formerly collegiate, and several stalls 

 are still remaining. There is little or no manufac- 

 ture here, except that of thread-lace. Population of 

 the parish in 1831, 3226. 



BuA-Ptm, or VIJAYA-FURI ; a city of Hindostan, 

 formerly capital of the province of Beejapoor (q. v.), 

 called t'iziapoor, by the European travelers of the 

 three last centuries. The city is 306 miles N. Se- 

 ringapatam, 384 N. W. Madras ; Ion. 75 47' E. ; lat. 

 16 46' N. It is situated in a fertile plain, and is of 

 very great extent, consisting of three towns within 

 each other : the innermost is the citadel, a mile in 

 circuit ; the next a fort, eight miles in compass ; and 

 the exterior is environed with walls many miles in 

 circuit. But a great proportion of the space is 

 covered with ruins. It is thinly inhabited, but the 

 population is unknown. The inhabitants affirm, that, 

 according to authentic records, it contained, in the 

 time of its prosperity, 984,456 houses, and 1600 

 mosques ; and travelers are of opinion that the latter 

 number is not exaggerated. It was taken by Au- 

 rungzeb in 1689, when, it is said, 15,000 cavalry 

 could encamp between the fort and the city wall. It 

 was one of the wealthiest cities of Asia. The fort is 

 protected by high walls, with massive towers, and is 

 surrounded by a ditch. It has seven gates, and con- 

 tains several cannon of enormous dimensions, parti- 

 cularly one called the sovereign of the. plains. 



BILBOA, or BILBAO, or VILVAO, a Spanish province 

 in Biscay. The capital of the same name, is a sea- 

 port on the Ybaigabal, in a plain surrounded with 

 high mountains; Ion. 3 4' W.j lat. 43" 16' N. ; 

 population, 15,000. It contains about 1200 houses, 

 part of which are built on piles. The harbour is 

 good, and well frequented. Between 500 and 600 

 visit this port annually ; and the yearly export of 

 wool is estimated at 50 or 60,000 sacks, of two cwt. 

 each. The air is healthy ; the inhabitants are strong, 

 robust, and live long. It is well supplied with water 

 and provisions : fish are very abundant ; and the en- 

 virons are fertile in legumes and fruits. It contains 

 five parishes and twelve religious houses. Among 

 the laws peculiar to the town is one against ingra- 

 titude. Its commerce principally consists in wool 

 and iron. 



BILDERDYK, William ; an eminent Dutch poet, was 

 born at Amsterdam, 1750. He studied the classics 

 at Leyden, chiefly under Ruhnken and Valkenaer. 

 In 1776, he obtained from the learned society of 

 Leyden, whose judgment was always respected, the 

 first prize for a poem on the influence of poetry upon 

 government. In the following year, he obtained from 

 the same society two prizes for an ode and a didactic 

 poem, On True Patriotism. Since that period, he has 

 ranked with Feith and madame de Launoy, among 

 the first Dutch poets. The present age is the epoch 

 of the modern Dutch school of poetry, in which, be- 

 sides B., Feith and Launoy, and particularly Belamy, 

 Helmers, Tollens, Loots, van Hall, Kinker, Klyn, 

 and others are distinguished. B. introduced into 

 Dutch poetry iambics and hexameters, rather to 

 show his talent for overcoming difficulties of all 

 kinds than from preference to these measures, whicli, ! 



on the contrary, he declared not admissible into 

 Dutch poetry. In 1780, he obtained a new prize for 

 a poem, on the connexion ot poetry and eloquence 

 with philosophy. He added to this poem, some time 

 afterwards, an important commentary, which showed 

 him to be a man of learning and a philologer. B., 

 besides, devoted himself to law, at the Hague, with 

 great success. On the invasion of the Netherlands 

 by the French, he left his country on account of his 

 adherence to the hereditary stadtholder, and removed 

 to Brunswick, where he studied the German language 

 and poetry, and afterwards to London, where he de- 

 livered, in the French language, lectures on litera- 

 ture and poetry, which were numerously attended. 

 After the new order of things was firmly established 

 in Holland, he returned in 1799, and soon afterwards 

 published some of his principal works. Among these 

 are a didactic poem on astronomy, and the masterly 

 imitations of Delille's L' Homme des Champs, and 

 Pope's Essay on Man. Louis Bonaparte, on his acces- 

 sion to the throne, appointed him his teacher of Dutch, 

 and one of the first members of the national institute 

 founded by him. After the incorporation of Hol- 

 land into the French empire, B.'s muse was silent ; 

 but she rose the more vigorously after the deliverance 

 of his country. Perhaps there is no poem of our 

 time, superior in fire, vigour, and enthusiasm, to 

 Holland's f-'erlossing, the joint composition of B. and 

 his wife, who is a successful poetess. When Napo- 

 leon returned from Elba, B. produced a number of 

 war-songs, which are considered among the best in 

 Dutch poetry. He published his Mengelpoezy (Mis- 

 cellaneous poems, two small volumes, Rotterdam, 

 1823, second edition), which contains some ballads 

 and imitations of Ossian. He died in December, 

 1831. 



BILE ; a yellowish green liquid substance, of a bit- 

 ter taste. Man and many other animals have, on the 

 inferior surface of the liver, a peculiar bladder, in 

 which the bile, formed by the liver from the blood, 

 is preserved. It consists of water and several other 

 substances. The water constitutes the greatest part, 

 and keeps the other parts in a state of solution. The 

 remaining ingredients are a yellow, very bitter, fusible 

 resin, which contributes most to the taste of the bile ; 

 a small portion of natron ; some mineral alkaline 

 salts ; some oxyde of iron ; a small quantity of a yel- 

 lowish substance, which is only partly dissolved in 

 the natron ; and a considerable portion of albumen. 

 Thenard and Berzelius have done much to determine 

 the ingredients of the bile. Its principal use seems 

 to be, to separate the excrement from the chyle, after 

 both have been formed, and to produce the evacu- 

 ation of the excrement from the body. It is probable 

 that these substances would remain mixed together, 

 and they would perhaps, be even partly absorbed to- 

 gether, were it not for the bile, which seems to com- 

 bine with the excrement, and, by this combination, 

 to facilitate its separation from the chyle, and thus to 

 prevent its absorption. Fourcroy supposes that the 

 bile, as soon as it is mixed with the contents of the 

 intestinal canal, suffers a decomposition ; that its al- 

 kali and saline ingredients combine with the chyle, 

 and render it more liquid, while its albumen and 

 resin combine with the excrementitious matters, and 

 gradually render them less fluid. From the late ex- 

 periments of Berzelius on faeces, it cannot be doubted 

 that the constituents of the bile are to be found in 

 the execrementitious matter ; so that the ingenious 

 theory of Fourcroy is so far probable. The bile also 

 stimulates the intestinal canal, and causes it to eva- 

 cuate its contents sooner than it would otherwise 

 do ; for when there is a deficiency of bile, the body 

 is constantly costive. 



Biliary calculi, or gall-stonr s, are sometimes found 



