BAR 
"rated genius, if not the most sublime frag- 
ments of ancient poetry now extant, are the 
poems of Ossian the son of Fingal, a king of 
the Highlands, who flourished in the second 
or third century, lately collected by Mr. 
Mac- Pherson, and by him translated from 
the Erse or Gaelic language into English. 
The reputation, influence, and power of 
this order of men were formerly very high, 
they were courted by the great, and seated 
at the tables of princes. Their power in 
exciting the courage and rousing the fury of 
armies is universally recorded, and generals 
have often confessed themselves indebted 
for victory to their heroic strains. They 
were not unfrequently chosen negotiators 
with the enemy, and the deeds of the day 
were in the evening recorded in their songs ; 
and the fame of their fallen heroes perpe- 
tuated by their praise. 
BARGAIN, in commerce, a contract or 
agreement in buying and selling. Hence, 
to buy a good bargain is to buy cheap. 
Bargain is also an agreement to give a 
certain price ; and there are three things re- 
quisite to make it complete and perfect. 1. 
The merchandise sold. 2. The price. 3. 
The mutual agreement or consent. 
The merchandise sold ought to be cer- 
tain, the price of the thing sold should be 
paid in current money, otherwise it would 
be an exchange ; and the consent ought to 
be equally free, on both sides, from error 
and violence. If then there happens to be 
an error in the substance of the thing 
bought, it makes the bargain void ; but if it 
lies only in the quality of the thing sold, it 
does not dissolve the bargain, provided 
there be no voluntary fraud on the side of 
the seller. Thus, if I design to buy pewter, 
and instead of that, the person sells me lead, 
the sale cannot stand good, because I was 
imposed upon in the very substance of the 
thing I wanted to buy. But if I designed 
to buy a clock that went tree, and it does 
not prove so, the bargain ought to stand, be- 
cause I was deceived in the qualities only of 
the thing sold to me. 
A bargain and sale of lands, &c. in fee, 
must, according to our law, he in writing, 
indented, and enrolled either in one of the 
courts at Westminster, or in the county 
where the lands lie, before the custos rotu- 
lorum, and justices of peace. A warrant 
and covenant may be inserted in a bargain 
and sale, but the deed is good without any 
such addition ; and if it be made for money 
and natural affection, the estate yriil pass, 
though you do not enrol it. 
BAR 
BARGE, in naval affairs, a boat of state 
and pleasure, adorned with various orna- 
ments, having bales and tilts, and seats co- 
vered with cushions and carpets, and 
benches for many oars; as a company's 
barge, an admiral’s barge, &c. It is also 
the name of a flat-bottomed vessel employ- 
ed for carrying goods in a navigable river, as 
those upon the river Thames, called west 
country barges. 
BARILLA, in the arts, is an alkaline 
substance, prepared principally in Spain 
and Italy from sea-plants, which are there 
cultivated for the purpose. The discovery 
of the use of these plants was made by the 
Saracens in Spain, who called the particular 
plant from which they extracted it kali, 
which, with the addition of the Arabian arti- 
cle al, gave rise to the term alkali. The ba- 
rilla is obtained by cutting down the plant 
when it has attained its full height, and 
drying it ; after which it is burnt, and 
during the operation the ashes harden into 
lumps or cakes. This country is supplied 
with barilla, chiefly from Spain, the island 
of Teneriffe, and Sicily. It is used by glass- 
makers, soap-boilers, bleachers, and in 
other manufactures. 
BARK, in vegetable anatomy, a term 
which denotes the exterior part of vegeta- 
ble bodies; which is separable from the 
other parts of the plant, during the season 
of vegetation, but at other times requires 
maceration in water, or boiling ; and when 
detached by any of these means, the fine 
connections which unite it to the wood are 
destroyed. When bark is thus separated, 
and seen by means of the microscope, it ex- 
hibits parts differing much in structure and 
use. These have been divided into the 
cuticle or. epidermis ; the cellular envelope 
or parenchyma, and the cortical layer and 
liber. The epidermis is a thin transparent 
membrane, which covers all the outside of 
the hark. It is pretty tough. When in- 
spected with a microscope, it appears to be 
composed of a number \>f slender fibres 
crossing each other, and forming a kind of 
net-work. It seems even to consist of dif- 
feient thin retiform membranes, adhering 
closely together. This, at least, is the case 
with the epidermis of the birch, which Mr. 
Duhamel separated into six layers. The 
epidermes, when rubbed off, is reproduced. 
In old trees it cracks and decays, and new 
epidermis are successively formed. This is 
the reason that the trunks of many old trees 
have a rough surface. The parenchyma 
lies immediately below the epidermis ; it is 
