BURCKHARD BUREAU. 



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afterwards, for reasons that cannot be assigned. His 

 tame began about 1425. He was first registered as a 

 barber in 1432. Some writers have reproached him 

 for shameful vices, and represented him as a low bul- 

 fooc who did every thing for money. Others have 

 defended him. His shop was so famous, that learned 

 and unlearned, high and low, assembled there every 

 day, and Cosmo the Great caused it to be painted on 

 one of the arches of his gallery. It appears here di- 

 vided into two portions ; in one, B. is acting the part 

 of a barber ; in the other, that of a musician and poet. 

 The portrait of B. himself is painted over his shop. 

 It is extremely difficult to decide upon the absolute 

 value of his satires, as the local and personal allusions 

 in them are obscure. They were composed for his 

 contemporaries, with a studied obscurity and extrava- 

 gance of expression. His style is, nevertheless, pure 

 and elegant. His burlesque sonnets are enigmas, of 

 which we have no intelligible explanation, notwith- 

 standing what Doni has done. The narrative and 

 descriptive parts are very easy to be understood ; but 

 the wit they contain is, for the most part, so coarse, 

 that the satire fails of producing its effect. They are, 

 on the whole, lively, but licentious. The best editions 

 of his sonnets are those of Florence, 1568, and of Lon- 

 don, 1757. 



BURCKHARD, John Louis, a celebrated traveller, 

 was descended from a respectable family in Bale, 

 and born in 1784. As he was unwilling to en- 

 ter into the service of his country, at that time op- 

 pressed by France, after having completed his studies 

 at Leipsic and Gottingen, he went to London, in 

 1806, where the African association wished to make a 

 new attempt to explore Africa, from the north to the 

 interior, in the way already trodden by Hornemann. 

 They received B.'s proposal to undertake this journey 

 in 1808. B. now studied the manners of the East, 

 and the Arabian language, in their purest school, at 

 Aleppo. He remained two years and a half in Syria, 

 visited Palmyra, Damascus, Lebanon, and other 

 regions ; after which he went to Cairo, in order to 

 proceed with a caravan, through the northern part of 

 Africa, to Fezzan. In 1812 he performed a journey 

 up the Nile, almost to Dongola ; and afterwards, in 

 the character of a poor trader, and a Turk of Syria, 

 proceeded through the deserts of Nubia (where Bruce 

 iiad travelled beiore him), under great hardships, to 

 Berbera and Shendy, as far as Suakem on the Red 

 sea, whence he passed through Jidda to Mecca. He 

 was now so well initiated into the language and man- 

 ners of the Arabians, that, when a doubt arose con- 

 cerning his Islamism, after having passed an examin- 

 ation in the theoretical and practical parts of the 

 Mohammedan faith, he was acknowledged, by two 

 learned jurists, not only a very faithful, but a very 

 learned Mussulman. In 1815 he returned^ to Cairo, 

 and afterwards visited Sinai. Just before the arrival 

 of the long-expected caravan, he died at Cairo, April 

 15, 1817. The Mohammedans performed his obse- 

 quies with the greatest splendour. He had previously 

 bent home all his journals. His last thoughts were 

 devoted to his mother. B. was the first modern tra- 

 veller who succeeded in penetrating to Shendy, in the 

 interior of Soudan, the Meroe of antiquity (still, as it 

 was 3000 years ago, the depot of trade for Eastern 

 Africa), and in furnishing exact information of the 

 slave-trade in tliat quarter. He found articles of 

 European fabric, such as the Zellingen sword-blades, 

 at the great fair of Shendy. His travels in Nubia, in 

 1815, were published in London (1819) by the African 

 association, with his researches into the interior ol 

 Africa. In 1822 his Travels in Syria was published 

 and in 1829 his Travels in Arabia. In 1830 another 

 volume from his papers appeared, entitled, Manners 

 and Customs of the Egyptians, 4to. 



BURCKHARDT, John Charles, one of the first astrono- 

 mical calculators in Europe, was born at Leipsic, 

 April 30, 1773, and acquired a fondness for astronomy 

 from the study of the works of Lalande. He applied 

 iiimself particularly to the calculation of solar eclipses, 

 and the occultation of certain stars, for the determina- 

 tion of geographical longitudes. He made himself 

 master, at the same time, of nearly all the European 

 languages. Professor Hindenburg induced him to 

 write a Latin treatise on the combinatory analytic 

 method (Leipsic, 1794), and recommended him to 

 baron von Zach, witli whom he studied practical 

 astronomy at his observatory on the Seeberg, near 

 Gotlia, and whom he assisted, from 1795 to 1797, in 

 observing the right ascension of the stars. Von Zach 

 recommended him to Lalande, at Paris, who received 

 liim at his house, Dec. 15, 1797. Here he distin- 

 guished himself by the calculation of the orbits of 

 comets, participated in all the labours of Lalande, 

 and those of his nephew, Lefrangois Lalande, took an 

 active part in the observatory of the ecole militaire, 

 and translated the first two volumes of Laplace's 

 Mecanique Celeste into German (Berlin, 1800). Be- 

 ing appointed adjunct astronomer by the board of 

 longitude, he received letters of naturalization as a 

 trench citizen, Dec. 20, 1799. His important trea- 

 tise on the comet of 1770, which had not been visible 

 for nearly thirty years, although, according to the cal- 

 culations of its orbit, it should have returned every 

 five or six, was rewarded with a gold medal, by the 

 institute, in 1800. This treatise, which proposed 

 some improvements in Dr Olbers's mode of calcu- 

 lation, is contained in the Mem. de Clnstitut, 1806. 

 During this year he was made a member of the de- 

 partment of physical and mathematical sciences in the 

 academy; in 1818 was made a member of the board 

 of longitude, and, after Lalande's death, astronomer 

 in the observatory of the military school. In 1814 

 and 1816 he published in French, at Paris, Tables to 

 assist in Astronomical Calculations. He also wrote 

 some treatises in von Zach's Geographical Epheme- 

 rides. His labours in the board of longitude were 

 particularly valuable. He died in 1825. 



BURDEN, or BURTHEN; 1. the contents of a ship; 

 the quantity or number of tons which a vessel will 

 carry ; 2. the part of a song which is repeated at 

 every verse or stanza, is called the burden of the song, 

 from the French bourdon, drone or base, because 

 they are both characterized by an unchangeable tone, 

 and bear upon the ear with a similar monotony. 



BUREAU ; a writing-table ; afterwards used to sig- 

 nify the chamber of an officer of government, and the 

 body of subordinate officers who labour under the di- 

 rection of a chief. Bureau system, or bureaucracy, is 

 a term often applied to those governments in which 

 the business of administration is carried on in depart- 

 ments, each under the control of a chief; and is 

 opposed to those in which the officers of government 

 have a co-ordinate authority. Sometimes a mixture 

 of the two systems is found. Thus the business of 

 the executive branch of government may be carrim 

 on by bureaus, while the administration of justice is 

 in the hands of co-ordinate judges. The bureau des 

 longitudes, in France, corresponding to the British 

 board of longitude, is charged with the publication of 

 astronomical and meteorological observations, the 

 correction of the astronomical tables, and the publica- 

 tion of the Connaissance des Temps, an astronomical 

 and nautical almanac. (See Almanac.) According 

 to the parliamentary usage of France, at the opening 

 of each gession, the chamber of deputies is divided 

 into nine bureaus, composed of an equal number of 

 deputies, designated by lot. Each bureau appoints its 

 i own president, and discusses all matters referred to it 

 1 by the chamber separately. A reporter is appointed 



