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BOUKGKS BOW. 



born at liootpdiHr, in 1 GlG. Being poor and without 

 occupation, he enlisted as a soldier. After rereiv HIL; 

 Ms dismission, he visited Italy, mid studied under 

 Sacchi and Claude Lorraine. In 1652, he was driven 

 from the French kingdom by the religious troubles. 

 He afterwards became distinguished in his own coun- 

 try by many great works, among which are the fol- 

 lowing : the Dead Christ, the Adulteress, the Old 

 Kings of Burgundy in the Senate-home at Air. He 

 had no peculiar manner, but he imitated others. He 

 was a good engraver on copper. He died in 1671, 

 while engaged: in painting the ceiling of the Tuileries. 



BOCRUB* ; a city of France, formerly the capital of 

 the province of Berri, now of the department of the 

 ( her, with a population of 16,S50 inhabitants. The 

 cathedral is one of the finest Gothic structures in 

 France. The pragmatic sanction (q. v.) was pub- 

 lished at B. by Charles VII. Louis XL was born 

 then*, and founded ils university in I4G5. It now 

 contains one of the twenty-six academies of the uni- 

 vervity of France. There are some manufactures of 

 silk, woollen stuffs, cottons, and stockings in the city 

 and its neighbourhood, which are disposed of at its 

 annual fairs. The inliabitants are principally support- 

 ed by the nobility and students who reside in the 

 town. It was anciently called Avaricum, and after- 

 wards Bituriga, and was one of the most ancient and 

 best fortified cities of Gaul. It lies 155 miles S. of 

 Paris ; lat. 47 5f N. ; Ion. 2 23' E. 



BOURGOGNK. See Burgundy. 



BOURIUNON, Antoinette ; a celebrated religious fa- 

 natic, was the daughter of a merchant, and bom in 

 1616, at Lille. At her birth, she was so deformed, 

 that a consultation was held whether it would not be 

 proper to destroy her as a monster. She made her- 

 self famous by her restless manner of life, her wan- 

 derings through France, Germany, and Denmark, 

 and by her fanaticism. A collection of her authentic 

 works, in which she displays an animated eloquence, 

 was published at Amsterdam, in 1686, in 21 volumes. 



BOURSAULT, Edme, was born in 1638, at Muci- 

 I'Eveque, in the province of Burgundy, grew up 

 without education, and went, in 1651, to Paris, with- 

 out understanding any language but his own provin- 

 cial patois. Here he learned to speak and write 

 French, and improved so fast, that the composition 

 af a book for the instruction of the dauphin was com- 

 mitted to him. This work, La Veritable Etude des 

 Souverains, pleased the king so much, that he ap- 

 pointed B. assistant instructor of his son. B. declined 

 the office, and also refused to offer himself as a can- 

 didate for admission into the academy, on account of 

 his ignorance of Latin. In his youth, he undertook 

 a poetical gazette, with which the king and court 

 were so much pleased, that an annuity of2000 livres 

 was granted him. But happening to satirize, in this 

 work, a ludicrous adventure, which had befallen a 

 Capuchin, the confessor of the queen caused the jour- 

 nal to be suppressed, and B. himself escaped the 

 Bastile only by the influence of the prince of Conde. 

 Another journal of his was suppressed soon after, on 

 account of a satirical couplet on king William, with 

 whom the French court then wished to negotiate. 

 He was more fortunate in his writings for the stage, 

 and many of his pieces met with permanent success ; 

 among others, Esope d la faille, and Esope a la Cour, 

 which still continue on the stage. His two tragedies 

 Marie Stuart and Germanicus are forgotten. B. had 

 the misfortune to quarrel with Moliere and Boileau. 

 He wrote a severe criticism on the Ecole des Femmes, 

 under the title of Le Portrait du Pemtre. Moliere 

 chastised him in his Impromptu de Versailles. To 

 revenge himself on Boileau, who had ridiculed him 

 in his satires, he wrote a comedy called Safyre des 

 Satyrcs ; but Boileau prevented its performance. 



Boursault afterwards took a noble revenge. He heard 

 that Boileau was at the baths of Bourbonne entirely 

 destitute : he hastened to him, and compelled him 

 to accept a loan of 200 louis d'ors. Touched by this 

 generous conduct, Boileau struck his name from his 

 satires. B. died at Montlugon, in 1701. 



BOOSTROPHEDON ; a kind of writing which is found 

 on Greek coins and in inscriptions of the remotest 

 antiquity. The lines do not run in a uniform direc- 

 tion from the left to the right, or from the right to 

 the left; but the first begins at the left, and termi- 

 nal es at the right; the second runs in an opposite 

 direction, from the right to the left; the/ third, again, 

 from the left, and so on alternately. It is called 

 boustrophedon (that is, turning back like oxen) because 

 the lines written in this way succeed each other like 

 furrows in a ploughed field. The laws of Solon wen- 

 cut in tables in this manner. 



BOUTERWEK, Frederic, professor of moral philosophy 

 at Gottingen, a man of much merit as an academical 

 instructor and a writer on literature, was born, April 

 15, 1766, at Oker, a village not far from Goslar, in 

 North Germany. After applying himself to many 

 departments of learning, jurisprudence, poetry, &<%, 

 he at last became entirely devoted to philosophy and 

 literary history. He was at first a follower of Kant, 

 but finally attached himself to Jacobi. His Ideeciner 

 Apodiktik was the immediate fruit of his intimate 

 acquaintance with the philosophical views of Fr. H. 

 Jacobi. This work was published in two volumes, 

 1799. It was afterwards completed by the Manual 

 of Philosophical Knowledge, (two volumes, 1813 ; 

 2d edition, 1820), and by the Religion of Reason 

 (Gottingen, 1824). In this work, as well as in his 

 Asthetik, two vols. 1806 and 1824, he had to contend 

 with many powerful antagonists. B. has gained a 

 permanent reputation by his History of Modem 

 Poetry and Eloquence, published liSOl 1821, a 

 work which, though unequal in some respects, and 

 in pa rts, ( especially in the first volume, partial and 

 superficial, is an excellent collection of notices 

 and original observations, and may be considered 

 one of the best works of the kind in German li- 

 terature. Among his minor productions, a selec- 

 tion of which he published in 1818, are many es- 

 says, which are superior to the best of his larger 

 speculative works ; for instance, the introduction to 

 the History, in which he gives an account of his 

 literary labours until that period, with great candour, 

 and with almost excessive severity against himself. 

 B. died in 1828. His history of Spanish literature 

 has been translated into Spanish, French, and English. 



BOUTS RIMES (French) ; words or syllables which 

 rhyme, arranged in a particular order, and given to 

 a poet with a subject, on which he must write verses 

 ending in the same rhymes, disposed in the same or- 

 der. Menage gives the following account of the 

 origin of this ridiculous conceit, which may be classed 

 with the eggs and axes, the echoes, acrostics, and 

 other equally ingenious devices of learned triflers. 

 " Dulot (a poet of the seventeenth century) was one 

 day complaining, in a large company, that three hun- 

 dred sonnets had been stolen from him. One of the 

 company expressing his astonishment at the number, 

 ' Oh,' said he, ' they are blank sonnets, or rhymes (bouts 

 rimes) of all the sonnets I may have occasion to write.' 

 This ludicrous statement produced such an effect, 

 that it became a fashionable amusement to compose 

 blank sonnets, and, in 1648, a 4to volume of bouts 

 rimes was published." Sarrazin's Dulot 1'aincu, ou la 

 Defaite des Bouts Rimes, is an amusing performance. 



Bow ; the name of one of the most ancient and 

 universal weapons of offence. It is made of steel, 

 wood, horn, or other elastic substance, which, after 

 being bent by means of a string fastened to its two 



