i8 BID 
fire and exhort their pariihioners to obferve them as they 
ought ; which is required by our canons. 
BID'DLE (John), one of the mod eminent Englifh 
writers among the Socinians, was born at Wotton-under- 
Edge in Gloucefterlhire, and educated in the free-fchool 
of tliat place. Being a promifing youth, he was taken 
notice of by Lord George Berkeley, who allowed him ten 
pounds a-year. This caufed him to apply vigoroufly to 
his ftudies ; and he was, while at (chool, author of a 
tranflation of Virgil’s Bucolics, and of the two firft fatires 
of Juvenal. He continued at fchool till he was thirteen 
years of age. However, having manifeded in that early 
period a .lingular piety and contempt of fecular affairs, he 
was fent to the univerdty of Oxford, and entered a dudent 
in Magdalen-hall. In 1641 he was chofen mader of the 
free-fchool of Glouceder, and-was much edeemed ; but, 
falling into fome opinions concerning the Trinity diderent 
from thole commonly received, and exprt (Ting his thoughts 
w;ith too much freedom, he buffered various perfecutions 
and imprifonments in the time of the commonwealth. Du¬ 
ring one of tliefe confinements, being reduced to great in¬ 
digence, he was employed by Roger D miel, of London, 
to correct the impreflion of the Greek Septuagint Bible, 
which that printer was about to publifh. In 1651, the 
parliament paffed a general ait of oblivion, which redored 
him to his. full liberty. He was again imprifoned on ac¬ 
count of his tenets ; and at lad the proteitor Cromwell 
banifhed him for life to St. Mary’s cadle in the ifie of 
Scilly, and fent him thither in October 1655, and he was 
allowed one hundred crowns a-year for fubfiltence. In 16 58 
he was fet at liberty. After the federation of Charles II. 
lie was fined in iool. and each of his hearers in 20I. to lie 
in prifon tdl paid j which being put in execution, he con¬ 
tracted a d feafe in prifon, of which he died, on the 22d of 
September, 1662, in the forty-feventh year of his age. 
His life was publifhed in Latin, in 1682, by Mr. Faring- 
ton, of the Inner Temple, who reprefents him as poffeffed 
of extraordinary piety, charity, and humility. He had fo 
drong a memory, that he retained word for word the whole 
New T.edament, not only in Englifh, but in Greek, as far 
as the fourth chapter of the Revelations of St. John. 
To BIDE, v- a [ bidan , Sax.] To endure; to fuffer; 
commonly to abide: 
Poor naked wretches, wherefoe’er you are, 
That bide the pelting of this pitilefs dorm 1 Shakcfpcare. 
7b Bide, v.n. To dwell; to live; to inhabit: 
All knees to thee fliall bow, of them that bide 
hi heav’n or earth, or under earth in hell. Milton. 
To remain in a place. To continue in a date.—And they 
alfo, if they bide not dill in unbelief, (hall be grafted in. 
Romans, xi. 23.—It has probably all the fignifications of 
the word abide ; which fee. 
BI'DEFORD, anciently written Ry-the-ford, is a fea- 
port town in the north of Devonfhire, with a market on 
Tuefdays, and three fairs in the year, viz. February 14, 
July 18, Snd November 11. It obtained its name from its 
fituation, there being a fording-place juft above the town, 
which Was, before the eredtion of the bridge, the common 
palfage from one fide to the other, the town being fituated 
on both Tides of this river; about three parts lying on the 
Hope of a pretty deep hill on the wed fide, and the re¬ 
mainder at the bottom of a hill on the ead fide. The two 
divifions are joined by a bridge which has twenty-four 
arches, and is of confiderable length. This bridge was 
built in the middle of the fourteenth century, by the do¬ 
nations of the principal perfons in Devon and Cornwall, 
particularly thofe of the Granville family, who were many 
years uninterruptedly lords of the place. Bideford fent 
members to parliament in the reigns of Edward I. and II. 
but in confequence of poverty obtained leave to be releafed 
from what, in thofe days, was accounted a grievance. It 
was incorporated by charter in 1574, but the great exem- 
plificatipn and enlargement of its privileges was by James I. 
;.n 1610. This charter grants the burgefies a power to ar- 
B I D 
red. in the borough for any fum without limitation ; and 
appoints for its government, a mayor, recorder, feven al¬ 
dermen, ten capital burgeffes, a town-clerk, and two fer- 
jeants at mace. In 1661 Bideford gave a baroniai title to 
John Granville, earl of Bath, and in 1711 to George Gran¬ 
ville, created lord Lanfdowne. For about a century it 
enjoyed a very confiderable foreign trade, principally to 
Virginia and Newfoundland. Since 1760 its commercial 
intercourfe has been much abridged ; though there is a 
profpedt of its riling again. Here is a very excellent quay, 
a noble river, and every advantage necellary for carrying 
on an extenlive foreign trade. Few towns in Devonfhire 
are more healthy or pleafant. It is didant 208 miles wed 
from London, and forty from Exeter. Large quantities 
of coarfe earthen-ware are manufactured here, and carried 
to various parts of England and Wales. Many cargoes of 
oak bark are annually exported from lienee to Ireland and 
Scotland. The parilh church is a plain neat ftru&tiire. 
Here is a free grammar-fehool, well endowed ; and a free- 
fchool, for inftrudting boys in writing, &c. The market 
is large, and well fupplied with corn, cattle, and all kimjs 
of provifions. This town formerly exported large quan¬ 
tities of herrings to different parts of the Mediterranean, 
but that trade ceafed many years ago. 
Bideford, a town of the United States of America, 
near the mouth of Sako river, in Maffachufetts : twenty 
miles fouth of Brunfwick. 
Bl'DENS,yi [fo named from the feed being termina¬ 
ted by two teeth or awns.] In botany, a genus of the clafs 
fyngenefia, order polygamia aequalis, natural order com- 
politae oppofitifoliae. The generic characters are—Calyx : 
common imbricate, ereCt ; leaflets often equal, oblong, 
channelled-concave. Corolla : compound uniform, tubu¬ 
lar ; proper one-petalled, funnel - form ; border five-cleft, 
ereCt. Stamina: filaments five, capillary, very fhort; an¬ 
thers cylindric, tubular. Pidillum : germ oblong ; dyle 
fimple, the length of the ftamens ; digtnas two, oblong, 
reflex. Pericarpium : none ; calyx unchanged. Seeds : 
folitary, obtufe, angular; down with two or more awns, 
oblong, ftraight, acute, rough-hooked backwards. Re- 
ceptaculum: flat, chaffy; chaffs deciduous, flattifh.— 
EJfential CharaElcr. Calyx, imbricate. Corolla, fometimes, 
but feldom, with a flofcule or two in the ray. Seed crown¬ 
ed with eredt, fcabrous, awns. Receptaculum, chaffy. 
Species. 1. Bidens tripartita, or trifid water-hemp-agri- 
mony, or bur-marygold : leaves trifid, calyxes foinewhat 
leafy, feeds erect. Root annual. Stem from one to three 
feet high, upright, branched ; the branches oppofite, 
roundifh, moderately grooved, reddifh, folio, fmooth to 
appearance, but dightly rough to the touch. Leaves 
fmooth, trifid, and (ometimes quinquefkl, deeply ferrate; 
the uppermoft undivided, either indented at the edge or 
entire, and not unfreqnently edged with hairs Flowers 
yellow, terminating, drooping a little. Seeds wedge-ob¬ 
long, three-fided, flatted a little, fmooth, livid, having 
two awns arifing from two of the oppofr e angles, and ge¬ 
nerally a fhorter one from the middle of the back; they 
are hooked or barbed downwards. This fpecies is o~bvi- 
oufly diltingui(bed from the fifth by its trifid leaves, a cha- 
racler more to be depended on than the uprightnels of its 
flowers. It is alfo much more common, with us at lead. 
That is generally found in water ; this more frequently, 
occurs on the borders of ponds, rivulets, &c. where it 
flowers in Auguft and September. This plant dyes a deep' 
yellow. The yarn or thread mud be firft deeped in alum 
water, then dried and deeped in a decodtion of the plant, 
and afterwards boiled in the decoition. Since it is found 
by a chemical analylis to poflefs much the fame qualities 
as verbejina acmella, it is probable that it might have the 
fame good effects in expelling the do.ne and gravel. The 
feeds have been fometimes known to deftroy gold fifh, by 
adhering to their gills and jaws. 
2 Bidens minima: leaves lanceolate fe'flile, flowers and 
feeds erect. Dillenitis firft marked this for a diftinct fpe¬ 
cies. Haller thought it to be no more than a variety of 
1 the 
