persons at Rome, and in every part of Italy. His penciling was so exceedingly neat, and his touch and coloring so very delicate, that he was frequently employed to paint on jasper, agate, porphyry, &c.

BIEEZ, a town of Poland, in the palatinate of Cracovia, remarkable for its vitriol mines.

BIELAU, a considerable town of Silesia, in the circle of Reichenbach, containing between 6000 and 7000 inhabitants, who are chiefly employed n weaving serge, fustian, and muslin, and export great quantities. It contains several good houses, with four Catholic and Lutheran churches, and castle.

BIELEFELD, a town of the Prussian states, the capital of the county of Ravensberg, in the grand duchy of the Lower Rhine. There are 5500 inhabitants, who conduct flourishing manufactures of leather, soap, woollen stuffs, linen, and thread, along with excellent bleaching grounds. The trade in linen is large, and at one time brought yearly into circulation half a million dollars of foreign money. Twenty-two miles north of Lippstadt, and twenty-five east of Munster.

BIELGOROD, an old town of European Russia, near the southern borders of the government of Kursk. It was built by the grand duke Wladimir in 990; is an archbishop's see, and contains 9000 or 10,000 inhabitants, who carry on a good trade in honey, wax, tallow, leather, and soap. This town submitted to the arms of Potemkin in 1790, and is sixty-eight miles southwest of Kursk.

BIELLA, BIELA, or BIOGLIO, a small populous town of Piedmont, the capital of a small district, called from it the Biellese. It is partly on the summit, and partly on the declivity of a hill near the Cervo and Opora, and divided into Upper and Lower town, containing four churches and four monasteries. Population 8250. Twentyfour miles north-west of Vercelli, and thirty-five N. N. E. of Turin.

BIELO-OZERO, or BIELOSERSK, i. e. White Lake, a lake in the government of Novogorod, European Russia, so called from its bottom being of white clay. It is about thirty miles long, and eighteen broad, and receives a number of small streams; the Scheksna flows from it southward to the Volga. This lake abounds in fish; and on its south bank stands the town of Bielosersk.

BIELOPOLJE, a town of European Russia, in the government of Charkov, with 9050 inhabitants, who are engaged in agriculture and the distillation of brandy. Eighty-eight miles N.N.W. of Charkov, and 555 S. S. E. of St. Petersburgh. BIELOSERSK, a town in the government of Novogorod, European Russia, on the south bank of the lake of Bielo-Ozero. It is the capital of a circle, and consists of the fortress and the suberb; having 2800 inhabitants, who support themselves principally by fishing. Sixty-four miles north-east of Vologda, and 220 E. N. E. of Novogorod.

BIENNE, a district of Swisserland, between the lake of that name, and a branch of the Jura range of mountains. It was annexed to the canton of Bern by the congress of Vienna in 1815, and is in extent about 150 square miles; the

population nearly 6000. The bishop of Basle was the former sovereign, under whom it presented the phenomenon of a Protestant state, having a Catholic ruler; but his power was materially limited by the privileges of the people. Forming an important pass into Swisserland, it was early taken possession of by the French in 1798, and when annexed for awhile to their empire, was included in the department of the Upper Rhine.

BIENNE, or BIEL, the capital of the foregoing district, is situated on the Suss, at the northern extremity of the Bienne lake. It has about 2700 inhabitants, who carry on various manufactures of iron, wire, leather, and chintz. The town is about fifteen miles north-west of Beru.

BIENNE, LAKE OF, in the above district, is about nine miles long and four broad, lying north-east of that of Neufchatel, with which it is connected by the river Thielle. The scenery on both sides is highly picturesque, interspersed with vineyards, country houses, &c. The town of Nidau is a pleasing object on its eastern shore. Near the southern extremity is the island of St. Peter, sometimes called Rousseau's Island, from its having been the place of that philosopher's residence; who was so partial to this spot, that he deemed the two months he spent there, 'so happy,' he says, 'that he could have passed his whole existence there, without even a momentary wish for another situation.

BIEN'NIAL, lasting or continuing two years; from bis two, and annus a year.

:

Then why should some be very long lived, others only annual or biennial? Ray on the Creation. BIENNIAL PLANTS, plants that last only two years. Numerous plants are of this tribe, which, being raised one year from seed, generally attain perfection either the same, or in about the period of a twelvemonth (a little less or more), and the following spring or summer they flower, and perfect seeds; soon after which they commonly perish or if any survive another year, they dwindle, and gradually die off; so that biennials are always in their prime the first or second summer. Biennials consist both of esculents and flower plants. Of the esculent kinds, the cabbage, savoy, carrot, parsnip, beet, onion, leek, &c. are biennials. Of the flowery tribe, the Canterbury bell, French honeysuckle, wall-flower, stock, July flower, sweet-william, China pink, common pink, matted pink, carnation, scabious, holly-hock, tree mallow, vervain mallow, trec primrose, honesty, or moonwort, &c. are all of this tribe; all of which being sown in March, April, or May, rise the same year, and in spring following shoot up into stalks, flower, and perfect seeds in autumn; after which most of them dwindle: though sometimes the wall-flowers, holly-hocks, carnations, and pinks will survive and flower the following year; but the plants become straggling, the flowers small and badly colored; it is therefore eligible to raise a supply annually from seed; although wall-flowers, carnations, and pinks may be continued by slips and layers.

BIER', Ang.-Sax. bæran, to bear; from to bear, as fcretrum, in Latin, from fero. A car

But the white shroud, and each extended tress, Long-fair-but spread in utter lifelessness, Which late the sport of every summer wind, Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind; These and the pale pure cheek, became the bier— But she is nothing-wherefore is he here.

Byron's Corsair. BIER, was in former times, more particularly

used for that whereon the bodies of saints were placed in the church, and exposed to the veneration of the devout. This is also called, in middle-age writers, lectus, feretrum, lectica, and loculus; and was usually enriched with gold, silver, and precious stones.

BIERS, among the ancient Romans, were different according to the rank of the deceased. That whereon the poorer sort were carried was called sandapila; that used for richer persons, lectica, lectica funebris, sometimes lectus. The former was only a wooden chest, vilis arca, which was burnt with the body; the latter was enriched and gilded. It was carried bare, or uncovered, when the person died a natural and easy death; when he was much disfigured or distorted, it was veiled or covered over.

BIERON, or BIHERON (Mademoiselle), an ingenious Parisian lady, was born in 1719 and died in 1795. She studied most of the fine arts with success; but is chiefly deserving of notice for her knowledge of anatomy, and the curious models in wax of various parts of the animal structure, which, together with her paintings on vellum of subjects belonging to natural history, are preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Paris. The empress of Russia bought several for her cabinet, now in the Museum of Natural History at Petersburgh.

BIESBOSCH, a lake or arm of the sea, between Dort and Gertruydenburg, in South Holland. It was formed by the bursting of the dykes in the year 1421, when seventy-two villages with their inhabitants (which, including the peasantry, are said to have been 100,000 in number,) were suddenly overwhelmed and destroyed. The only remains of this once fruitful tract are a few islands. It is supplied with water from the Maese, and gives rise to the broad water of Holland's-diep, or Haringsvliet.

BIEST'ING, n. s., byrting, Saxon. The first milk given by a cow after calving, which is very thick.

And twice besides, her biestings never fail To store the dairy with a brimming pail. Dryden. BIETIGHEIM, a town and upper bailiwic of Wirtemberg, at the confluence of the Metter and the Enz. It is the seat of an ecclesiastical

Here is a handsome stone bridge across the Enz The territory is fertile in wine and fruit: fifteen miles north of Stutgard, and thirty S. S. E. or Heidelberg.

BIFA'RIOUS, adj., Lat. bifarius; twofold; what may be understood two ways.

BIFASCIANA, in entomology, a species of phalena tortrix. The anterior wings, testaceous; two oblique bands, and mark at the apex, brown. Inhabiting Europe.

BIFASCIATA, in concnology, a species of bulla, somewhat tapering and white, with two broad reddish bands at the aperture. Also a species of cypræa, of an oblong form; color, purplish, with a straw-colored and narrow white band. Also a species of nerita: color, black; with two hoary bands and white tip. A native of India.

scarabæ is that inhabits Coromandel: on the BIFASCIATUS, in entomology, a species of thorax is a triple protuberance, with an erect rufous bands. Also a species of dermestes, of a horn on the head; wing-cases, black; with two black color: a native of the Cape of Good Hope. Also a species of bostrichus, found in Siberia; color, black; wing-cases, yellow; with two bluishblack denticulated bands. Also a species of cryptocephalus, inhabiting Africa.

BIFASCIELLA, a species of phalana, tinea; wings, glossy; with two bands of white, the hinder one interrupted; head, rufous: a native of Denmark.

BIFERÆ, plants that flower twice a year, in spring and autumn, as is common between the tropics.

BIFEROUS, adj. Lat. biferens; bearing fruit twice a year.

BIFFA, in middle-age writers, a machine for casting stones and darts, having a movable counterpoise, which turned round its yard.

BIFID, adj. Lat. bifidus, a botanical term; BIFIDATED. divided into two; split in two; opening with a cleft.

reduvius: color, black; with a rufous band on BIFIDUS, in entomology, a species of cimex the wing-cases, and an erect bifid spine on the scutel. Inhabiting China.

BIFOLD', adj. Lat. from binus and fold; twofold; double.

If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows are sanctimony,
If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This is not she: O madness of discourse!
That cause sets up with and against thyself!
Bifold authority,

Shakspeare. Troilus and Cressida. BIFORIS, in natural history, a species of echinus, having at the base five furrows, and ten flexuous radiated lines; and two oblong perforations near the vent. BIFORM, Bis and forma; double formed; BI'FORMITY. having two shapes.

And from whose monster-teeming womb, the earth Received what much it mourned, a biform birth. Croxall. Ovid. Met.

Strange things he spoke of the biformity
Of the Dizonians.

More. Song of the Soul.

BIFRONS, in entomology, a species of brentus, inhabiting Cayenne: color, black; wingcases, striated; with glabrous yellow spots. Also a species of ichneumon: color, black; the front, white, with a black spot beneath the antennæ. Also, in natural history, a species of nereis, a native of the North Sea. It is depressed: peduncles, with a simple setigerous papilla, cirrated above. This creature is continually in motion; about an inch long, of a brownish color; head, white; eyes, four; cirri, seven; body, attenuated at both ends, and consisting of fifty-six joints.

BIFRONS, in ancient mythology, an appellation of Janus, who was represented with two faces, as being supposed to look both backwards and forwards, to time past and future; though other reasons for it are recited by Plutarch. Sometimes he was painted with four faces, and styled quadrifrons, as governing the four seasons.

BIFRONTED. Bis and frons. Having two fronts; double fronted.

Lictors, gag him: doé;

And put a case of vizards o'er his head, That he may look bifronted as he speaks. Ben Jonson. BIFURCATED, Į Lat. from binus two, and BIFURCATION. Sfurca a fork. Shooting out by a division into two heads; divisions into two; opening into two parts.

The first catachrestical and far derived similitude, it holds with man; that is, in a bifurcation, or division of the root into two parts. Brown's Vulgar Errours. A small white piece, bifurcated, or branching into two, and finely reticulated all over. Woodward.

BIFURCATUS, in entomology, a species of cimex oblongus, inhabiting Germany: color, blackish; abdomen, pale yellow, and bifurcated. BIG' v & adj. Big may be a prefix to BIG'GER, or almost any thing. Its etyBIGʻLY, mology is uncertain; but its BIG'NESS, meaning, from usage, is obBIG BELLIED, vious enough. Skinner deBIG BONED, rives it from peg, Danish, BIG NAMED, which signifies the belly. BIG-SOUNDING, Perhaps, says the etymoloBIG'SWOLN, gist in the Ency, Met. it is BIG'UDDERED. from the Ang.-Sax. bycgan, byggan, to big, to build. Jamieson and Ritson both agree as to this usage of the word. How

ever, it cannot be restricted to enlargement by building. It takes an infinitely wider range; thus it signifies comparative bulk, greater or less; teeming, pregnant, great with young, tumid, full of something, and desirous or about to give it vent; distended, ready to burst; used often to express the effects of any passion; great in air and mien; proud; swelling; consequential, not the ox which is great, but the frog that apes the ox; that would be great, but is only big; yet is it sometimes used in a better sense, as great in spirit; lofty; brave.

How else, said he, but with a good bold face, And with big words, and with a stately pace?

Spenser. If you had look'd big, and spit at him, he'd have Shakspeare. Winters' Tale,

run.

In his prosperous season, he fell under the reproach of being a man of big looks, and of a mean and abject spirit. Clarendon.

To grant big Thraso valour, Phormio sense, Should indignation give, at least offence. Garth. Would'st thou not rather choose a small renown, To be the mayor of some poor paltry town; Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak; To pound false weights, and scanty measures break? Dryden.

We pursued our march, to the terror of the market people, and the miscarriage of half a dozon bigbellied women.

The great, the important day,
Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome.
Might my bigswoln heart

Addison.

Id.

Id.

Vent all its griefs, and give a loose to sorrow. A troubled ocean, to a man who sails in it, is, I think, the biggest object that he can see in motion.

Spectator.

BIGA, in antiquity, a chariot drawn by two horses abreast. Chambers observes it ought rather to be written Biga, in the plural; being derived from bijuga, two horses joined by a jugum, or yoke. Chariot-races, with two horses, were introduced into the Olympic games in the ninety-third Olympiad: but the invention was much more ancient, as we find that the heroes in

the Iliad fight from chariots of this kind. The moon, the night, and the morning, are by mythologists supposed to be carried in bigæ, the sun in a quadriga. Statues in bigæ were at first only allowed to the gods, then to conquerors in the Grecian games; under the Roman emperors, similar statues, with biga, were decreed to great and well-deserving men, as a kind of half triumph, being erected in most public places of the city. Figures of biga were also struck on their coins.

BIGA, BIGATA, or BIROTA, in writers of the middle age, a cart with two wheels.

BI'GAM, Δις and γαμεω, twice and to BIG'AMOUS, unite in marriage. A bigame, BIG'AMIST, is either a man or woman BIG'AMY. who has been twice married, whether the first spouse be living or not. This is the precise meaning of the word; but it is now applied only to those who have contracted matrimony twice, and where all the parties are alive. This is both a civil and canonical of fence.

A beauty-waning and distressed widow
Seduced the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension, and loathed bigamy.

Shakspeare. Randal determined to commence a suit against Martin, for bigamy and incest. Arbuthnot and Pope. By the papal canons, a clergyman that has a wife,

cannot have an ecclesiastical benefice; much less can a bigamist have such a benefice according to that law. Ayliffe. Bigamy, according to the canonists, consisted in marrying two virgins successively, one after the other, or once marrying a widow.

Blackstone's Commentaries. BIGAMY properly signifies being twice married, but with us is used as synonymous to polygamy, or having a plurality of wives at once. Such second marriage, the former husband or wife being alive, is simply void, and a mere nullity, by the ecclesiastical law of England; and yet the legislature has thought it just to make it felony, by reason of its being so great a violation of the public economy and decency. Whatever specious reasons may be urged for it in eastern nations, it never obtained in this part of the world, even from the time of our German ancestors, who, as Tacitus informs us, 'prope soli barbarorum singulis uxoribus contenti sunt.' It is therefore punished by the laws both of ancient and modern Sweden with death. And in Britain it is enacted by stat. 1 Jac. I. c. 11, that if any person being married, do afterwards marry again, the former husband or wife being alive, it is felony, not within the benefit of clergy. The first wife In this case shall not be admitted as an evidence against her husband, because she is the true wife; but the second may, for she indeed is no wife at all and so vice versa, of a second husband. The 18 Eliz. c. 7, s. 2 and 3 (a statute not noticed by Blackstone), inflicts the punishment of branding in the hand, and imprisonment for any term not exceeding one year; and by 35 Geo. III. c. 67. s. 1. bigamy is subjected to the same punishments with grand or petit larceny, the effect of which is, that the burning in the hand may be commuted for seven years' transportation, and the limit to the duration of the

imprisonment is wholly taken away. The statutes, however, against second marriages, excepts persons whose first husband or wife has been absent for seven years, without the knowledge of the party remarrying, though that absence be within the king's dominions; or has been absent out of the kingdom, whether with or without the knowledge of the party remaining in England. It is also no offence to marry during the life of a first husband or wife, where there has been a divorce of a former marriage; or where that marriage has been declared void by sentence of an ecclesiastical court.

BIGARII, in antiquity, the drivers of BIGE, which see.

BIGATI, in antiquity, a kind of ancient Roman silver coins, on one side whereof was represented a biga, or chariot drawn by two horses. The bigatus was properly the Roman denarius, whose impression, during the times of the Commonwealth, was a chariot driven by Victory, and drawn either by two horses or four; according to which it was either denominated bigatus or quadrigatus.

BIG-BONE CREEK, a river of Kentucky, which falls into the Ohio, so named from the large bones found near it.

BIGGA, a small island of Scotland, in Yell Sound, among the Northern Shetland Isles: one half of it belongs to the parish of Delting, and the other to that of Yell.

BIGGAR, a parish of Scotland, in the county of Lanark, about six miles long from east to west, and three and a half broad from south to north, forming a kind of irregular oval. The tradition is, that a battle was fought near it between the Scots under Sir William Wallace, and an English army of 60,000 men, wherein great slaughter was made on both sides.

BIG'GIN. Fr. beguin. A child's cap, says Dr. Johnson. Beguins, from whence it is derived, were an order of nuns, who wore the peculiar kind of cap, which has obtained this designation.

Sleep now!

Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet
As he, whose brow with homely biggin bound,
Snores out the watch of night.
Shakspeare.

from thence have been brought up to the very strong

You that have sucked the milk of the court, and

meats and wine of it; been a courtier from the biggin to the nightcap (as we may say); and you, to offend in such a high point of ceremony as this? and let your nuptials want all marks of solemnity. Ben Jonson.

Mr. Gifford interprets the phrase from the biggin to the nightcap,' from infancy to age.

BIGGLESWADE, a market town of Bedfordshire, on the river Ivel, over which there is a handsome bridge. It was almost destroyed by fire in 1785, when property to the amount of £24,000 was consumed. The town, however, has been much improved since. It is one of the greatest barley markets in England. It is five miles south-east of Bedford, and forty-five north of London. Inhabitants, about 3000.

BIGHORN RIVER, one of the North American rivers, which rises in the Rocky Mountains, near the sources of the Platte and the Yellowstone, and having passed through the eastern

range of these mountains, joins the latter in the forty-seventh degree of latitude. It is navigable for canoes to a great distance, and flows through a fine open timber country.

BIGHT, n. s. It is explained by Skinner, the circumference of a coil of rope.

BIGLAND (Ralph), an English herald and topographer, was a native of Kendal in Westmoreland, and appointed garter king at arms in 1780. He died in 1784, having employed himself in making collections for a history of the county of Gloucester. His son Richard published from his MSS. in one volume folio, the first part of the Antiquities of Gloucestershire. 1792.

BIGNON (Jerome), a French writer, born at Paris in 1590. He made great progress under the care of his father, in philosophy, mathematics, history, civil law, and divinity. At ten years of age he gave the public a specimen of his learning, in a Description of the Holy Land; two years after he published a Discourse concerning the Principal Antiquities and Curiosities of Rome, and A summary Treatise concerning the Election of Popes. Henry IV. now desired to see him, and appointed him page to the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII. He wrote at this time a Treatise of the Precedency of the Kings of France, which he dedicated to Henry IV. who ordered him to continue his researches, but the death of that prince interrupted them. In 1613 he published the Formula of Marculphus. He was, in 1620, made advocate general in the grand council, then counsellor of state, and at last advocate general in the parliament. In 1641 he resigned his offices in favor of his son, and was appointed chief keeper of the king's library. At last this great man, who had always made religion the basis of his virtues, died with the most exemplary devotion, in 1656, aged sixty-six.

BIGNONIA, in botany, trumpet flower, or scarlet jessamine: a genus of the angiospermia order and didynamia class of plants; ranking, in the natural method, in the fortieth order, personatæ: CAL. quinquefid and cup-form: COR. bell-shaped at the throat, quinquefid, and bellied underneath. The siliqua, bilocular; and the seeds with membranous wings. Of this genus Linnæus enumerates seventeen species; of which the following are the most remarkable: 1. B. catalpa, a native of Carolina, Virginia, and the Bahama islands. It has a strong woody stem and branches, rising twenty feet high, ornamented with large heart-shaped leaves, five or six inches long. 2. B. capreolata, or tendril bignonia, a native of North America, a fine climber, which rises by the assistance of tendrils or claspers. 3. B. radicans, the climbing ashleaved bignonia, is a native of Virginia and Canada. It rises thirty or forty feet high, having pinnated opposite leaves of four pair of serrated lobes, and an odd one. 4. B. sempervirens, or evergreen climbing Virginian bignona, is a native of Virginia, Carolina, and the Bahama islands. 5. B. unguis, the claw-bignonia, a deciduous climber, is a native of Barbadoes and the other West India islands. It rises by the help of claw-like tendrils, the branches being very slender and weak; and by these it will overtop bushes, trees, &c. twenty or thirty feet high.

VOL. IV.

BIGOIS, a nymph who is said to have written a book in the Tuscan language, concerning the Art of Interpreting Lightnings. This was kept at Rome, in the temple of Apollo, with others of a similar nature.

BIGORNEAU, in natural history, a name given by Bellonius to that genus of cochleæ, called the simi-circular mouthed, or semi-lunar kind, including the nerita.

BIGORRE, a former county of France, which now forms the department of the Upper Py

renees.

BI'GOT,
BIGOTED,

This word cannot be traced. It is supposed by Camden and BIGOTTICK, others, to take its rise from some BIGOTICAL, Occasional phrase. The French BIGOTRY. apply it to one superstitiously religious, and to a hypocrite. A man devoted unreasonably to a certain party; prejudiced in favor of certain opinions; a blind zealot. It is used often with to before the object of zeal; as a bigot to the Cartesian tenets.

Presbyterian merit, during the reign of that weak, bigotted, and ill-advised prince, will easily be computed. Swift.

Bigoted to this idol, we disclaim

Rest, health, and ease, for nothing but a name.

Garth.

BIGOT, in Italian bigontia, is used to denote a Venetian liquid measure, containing the fourth part of an amphora, or half the boot.

BIGOT (Emeric), the son of John Bigot, Sieur de Sommeuil, one of the most learned and most honest men of the seventeenth century, was born at Rouen, in 1626. His love of learning diverted him from public employments. He applied himself solely to the sciences, and greatly increased the magnificent library left by his father. He had a weekly assembly of literati at his house besides much correspondence with those abroad. M. Menage and Nic. Heinsius were his most intimate friends. He translated Palladius's Life of St. Chrysostom from the Greek; concerning which a curious anecdote is recorded in the Hist. des Ouvrages des Sçavans, for Feb. 1690, p. 267. 'Mr. Bigot's design was to add the Epistle' from St. Chrysostom to 'Cesarius, which he had found in a library at Florence, to the Life:-but it appeared so express against transubstantiation, that the examiners obliged him to suppress it'. He was very modest, and an enemy to controversy. He died at Rouen, December 28th 1689, aged sixty.

BIGOT (William), a learned French physician and philosopher, under Francis I., was born at Laval, in Maine, in 1502. He was unfortunate almost from his birth: fourteen of his family died of the plague, of whom his nurse was the last. The neighbours being afraid to take care of hin,

K