Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 Part 14

5. BAHR[=A]M V. (420-439), son of Yazdegerd I., after whose sudden death (or a.s.sa.s.sination) he gained the crown against the opposition of the grandees by the help of al-Mondhir, the Arabic dynast of Hira. He promised to rule otherwise than his father, who had been very energetic and at the same time tolerant in religion. So Bahr[=a]m V. began a systematic persecution of the Christians, which led to a war with the Roman empire.

But he had little success, and soon concluded a treaty by which both empires promised toleration to the wors.h.i.+ppers of the two rival religions, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Bahr[=a]m deposed the va.s.sal king of the Persian part of Armenia and made it a province. He is a great favourite in Persian tradition, which relates many stories of his valour and beauty, of his victories over the Romans, Turks, Indians and Negroes, and of his adventures in hunting and in love; he is called Bahr[=a]m Gor, "the wild a.s.s," on account of his strength and courage. In reality he seems to have been rather a weak monarch, after the heart of the grandees and the priests. He is said to have built many great fire-temples, with large gardens and villages (Tabari).

(ED. M.)

BAHRDT, KARL FRIEDRICH (1741-1792), German theologian and adventurer, was born on the 25th of August 1741 at Bischofswerda, where his father, afterwards professor, canon and general superintendent at Leipzig, was pastor. At the age of sixteen young Bahrdt, a precocious lad whose training had been grossly neglected, began to study theology under the orthodox mystic, Christian August Crusius (1715-1775), who in 1757 had become first professor in the theological faculty. The boy varied the monotony of his studies by pranks which revealed his unbalanced character, including an attempt to raise spirits with the aid of _Dr Faust's Hollenzw.a.n.g_. His orthodoxy was, however, unimpeachable, his talent conspicuous, and in 1761 he was appointed lecturer on biblical exegesis, and preacher (_Katechet_) at the church of St Peter. His eloquence soon gave him a reputation, and in 1766 he was appointed professor extraordinarius of biblical philology. Two years later, however, the scandals of his private life led to his dismissal. In spite of this he succeeded in obtaining the chair of biblical antiquities in the philosophical faculty at Erfurt. The post was unpaid, and Bahrdt, who had now married, lived by taking pupils and keeping an inn.

He had meanwhile obtained the degree of doctor of theology from Erlangen, and was clever enough to persuade the Erfurt authorities to appoint him professor designate of theology. His financial troubles and coa.r.s.e and truculent character, however, soon made the town too hot to hold him; and in 1771 he was glad to accept the offer of the post of professor of theology and preacher at Giessen.

Thus far Bahrdt's orthodoxy had counterbalanced his character; but at Giessen, where his behaviour was no less objectionable than elsewhere, he gave a handle to his enemies by a change [v.03 p.0212] in his public att.i.tude towards religion. The climax came with the publication of his _Neueste Offenbarungen Gottes in Briefen und Erzahlungen _ (1773-1775), purporting to be a "model version" of the New Testament, rendered, with due regard to enlightenment, into modern German. The book is remembered solely through Goethe's scornful attack on its want of taste; its immediate effect was to produce Bahrdt's expulsion from Giessen. He was lucky enough at once to find a post as princ.i.p.al of the educational inst.i.tution established in his chateau at Marschlins by the Swiss statesman Ulysses von Salis (1728-1800). The school had languished since the death of its founder and first head, Martin Planta (1727-1772), and von Salis hoped to revive it by reconst.i.tuting it as a "Philanthropin" under Bahrdt's management. The experiment was a failure; Bahrdt, never at ease under the strict discipline maintained by von Salis, resigned in 1777, and the school was closed. At the invitation of the count of Leiningen-Dachsburg, Bahrdt now went as general superintendent to Durkheim on the Hardt; his luckless translation of the Testament, however, pursued him, and in 1778 he was suspended by a decision of the high court of the Empire. In dire poverty he fled, in 1779, to Halle, where in spite of the opposition of the senate and the theologians, he obtained through the interest of the Prussian minister, von Zedlitz, permission to lecture on subjects other than theology. Forced to earn a living by writing, he developed an astounding literary activity. His orthodoxy had now quite gone by the board, and all his efforts were directed to the propaganda of a "moral system" which should replace supernatural Christianity.

By such means Bahrdt succeeded in maintaining himself until, on the death of Frederick the Great, the religious reaction set in at the Berlin court.

The strain of writing had forced him to give up his lectures, and he had again opened an inn on the Weinberg near Halle. Here he lived with his mistress and his daughters--he had repudiated his wife--in disreputable peace until 1789, when he was condemned to a year's imprisonment for a lampoon on the Prussian religious edict of 1788. His year's enforced leisure he spent in writing indecent stories, coa.r.s.e polemics, and an autobiography which is described as "a mixture of lies, hypocrisy and self-prost.i.tution." He died on the 23rd of April 1792.

See life, with detailed bibliography, by Paul Tschakert in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_; a more favourable account is given in J. M. Robertson's _Short History of Freethought_, ii. 278.

BAHREIN ISLANDS, a group of islands situated about 20 m. east of the coast of El Hasa, in the Persian Gulf, a little to the south of the port of El Katif, which, if rightly identified with the ancient Gerrha, has been celebrated throughout history as the mart of Indian trade, the starting-point of caravans across Arabia. The largest of the group is called Bahrein. It is about 27 m. long from north to south and about 10 wide--a low flat s.p.a.ce of sandy waste with cultivated oases and palm groves of great luxuriance and beauty. The rocky hill of Jebel Dukhan (the "mountain of the mist") rises in the midst of it to a height of 400 ft. The rest of the group are of coral formation. The next island in size to Bahrein is Moharek, curved in shape, and about 5 m. long by m. in breadth. It lies 1 m. to the north of Bahrein. Sitrah (4 m. long) Nebbi, Saleh, Sayeh, Khasifeh and Arad ( m. long) complete the group. Of these minor islands Arad alone retains its cla.s.sical name.

The climate is mild, but humid, and rather unhealthy. The soil is for the most part fertile, and produces rice, pot herbs and fruits, of which the citrons are especially good. Water is abundant. Fish of all kinds abound off the coast, and are very cheap in the markets. The inhabitants are a mixed race of Arab, Omanite and Persian blood, slender and small in their physical appearance; they possess great activity and intelligence, and are known in all the ports of the Persian Gulf for their commercial and industrial ability.

The sea around the Bahrein islands is shallow, so shallow as to admit only of the approach of native craft, and the harbour is closely shut in by reefs. There is very little doubt that it was from these islands that the Puni, or Phoenicians, emigrated northwards to the Mediterranean. Bahrein has always been the centre of the pearl fis.h.i.+ng industry of the Persian Gulf. There are about 400 boats now employed in the pearl fisheries, each of them paying a tax to the Sheik. The pearl export from Linja is valued at about 30,000 to 35,000 per annum.

The capital town of Bahrein is _Manameh_, a long, straggling, narrow town of about 8000 inhabitants, chiefly of the Wahabi sect. Manameh is adjacent to the most northern point of the island, and looks across the narrow strait to Moharek.

Fish and sea-weed form the staple food of the islanders. The water-supply of Moharek is probably unique. It is derived from springs which burst through the beds below sea-level with such force as to retain their freshness in the midst of the surrounding salt water. Scattered through the islands are some fifty villages, each possessing its own date groves and cultivation, forming features in the landscape of great fertility and beauty. Most of these villages are walled in for protection.

The Portuguese obtained possession of the islands in 1507, but were driven from their settlements in that quarter by Shah Abbas in 1622. The islands afterwards became an object of contention between the Persians and Arabs, and at last the Arabian tribe of the Athubis made themselves masters of them in 1784.

The present Sheik of Bahrein (who lives chiefly at Moharek) is of the family of El Kalifa. This ruling race was driven from the mainland (where they held great possessions) by the Turks about 1850. In the year 1867 the Persians threatened Bahrein, and in 1875 the Turks laid their hands on it.

British interference in both cases was successful in maintaining the integrity of Arab rule, and the Bahrein islands are now under British protection.

To the south-west of the picturesque belts of palm trees which stretch inland from the northern coast of Bahrein, is a wide s.p.a.ce of open sandy plain filled with gigantic tumuli or earth mounds, of which the outer layers of gravel and clay have been hardened by the weather action of centuries to the consistency of conglomerate. Within these mounds are two-chambered sepulchres, built of huge slabs of limestone, several of which have been opened and examined by Durand, Bent and others, and found to contain relics of undoubted Phoenician design. Scattered here and there throughout the islands are isolated mounds, or smaller groups, all of which are of the same appearance, and probably of similar origin.

(T. H. H.*)

BAHR-EL-GHAZAL, the chief western affluent of the river Nile, N.E. Africa, which it joins in 9 30' N., 30 25' E. The Bahr-el-Ghazal (Gazelle river) is a deep stream formed by the junction of many rivers, of which the Jur (see below) is the most important. The basin of the Ghazal is a large one, extending north-west to Darfur, and south-west to the Congo watershed. The main northern feeder of the Ghazal is a large river, whose headwaters are in the country west of 24 E. where the Nile, Congo and Shari watersheds meet. Reinforced by intermittent streams from the hills of Darfur and by considerable rivers flowing north from Dar Fert.i.t, this river after reaching as far north as about 10 30' pursues a general south-easterly direction until it joins the Ghazal 87 m. above the Deleb confluence (see below). This main northern feeder pa.s.ses through the country of the Homr Arabs and Bahr-el-Homr may be adopted as its name. On many maps it is marked as the Bahr-el-Arab, a designation also used as an alternative name for the Lol,[1] another tributary of the Ghazal, which eventually unites with the Bahr-el-Homr. The Bahr-el-Homr in its lower reaches was in 1906 completely blocked by sudd (_q.v._) and then brought no water into the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The Sudan government, however, sent engineering parties to remove the sudd blocks and open out a continuous waterway. [Sidenote: Chief affluents.] This Bahr-el-Homr is the only affluent of [v.03 p.0213]

importance which has tributaries coming from north of the main stream; the rest of the very numerous affluents have their rise in the hilly country which stretches from Albert Nyanza in a general north-west direction as far as 23 E., and forms the watershed between the Nile basin and that of the Congo. The most westerly is the Lol or Bahr-el-Arab. It rises, as the Boro or Telgona, in Dar Fert.i.t, and receives from the south and south-west the Raga, Sopo, Chel and Bongo. Dem Zobeir, formerly the chief station of Zobeir Rahama (_q.v._), is near the Biri tributary of the Chel, in 7 40'

N., 26 10' E. The Lol maintains a fairly straight course east to about 28 E., when it turns north-east, and in about 28 E., 9 N., joins the Bahr-el-Homr. The chief of the southern affluents, and that tributary of the Ghazal which contributes the largest volume of water, is the Jur, known in its upper course as the Sue, Swe or Souch. The Sue rises north of 4 N.

in about 29 E., within three or four days' journey of the navigable waters of the Mbomu, a northern sub-tributary of the Congo. After flowing north for several hundred miles the Sue, now the Jur, is joined on the left bank, in about 7 30' N., 28 E., by the Wau, a considerable river whose headwaters are west of those of the Jur. The united stream now turns east and joins the Ghazal through a lake-like expansion (see below). The town of Wau (7 42' N., 28 3' E.), on the Jur, is the capital of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Meshra-er-Rek, the chief station and trading centre of the first European visitors to the country, is on a backwater south of this lake. Between the Jur and the Nile, and following a course generally parallel with these rivers, several streams run north from the Congo-Nile watershed and join the Bahr-el-Ghazal. The Tonj, the most westerly of these rivers, joins the Jur a little above its confluence with the Ghazal. The Rohl (or Yalo), farther east, empties into a wide channel known as Khor Deleb, which joins the Ghazal some 9 m. above Lake No, and from the confluence the stream is known as the Deleb. Lake No is little more than a depression into which the waters of the Ghazal system pa.s.s near the point of junction with the Bahr-el-Jebel. The lake is about 7 m. long from west to east, and the Bahr-el-Jebel, after pa.s.sing through its eastern corner, changes its name to Bahr-el-Abiad or White Nile.

In their upper courses all the southern affluents of the Ghazal flow across a plateau of ferruginous laterite, their valleys having steep banks. North of 7 20' N. (where rapids interrupt the currents) the valleys open out and the rivers wind in tortuous channels often choked by sandbanks. This alluvial region, flooded in the rainy season, gives place about 9 N. to a sea of swamps, forming in fact part of the huge swamp region of the Nile (_q.v._). Through these swamps it is almost impossible to trace the course of the various rivers. The Bahr-el-Ghazal itself is described as a drainage channel rather than a true river. From the confluence of the Lol with the Jur, above which point none of the rivers is called Bahr-el-Ghazal, to the junction with the Nile at Lake No, is a distance of about 200 m. Just above the Lol confluence the Jur broadens out and forms a lake (Ambadi) 10 m.

long and over a mile broad at low water and very much larger in flood time.

This lake is the home of many sudd plants of the "swimming"

variety--papyrus and ambach are absent. The _Balaeniceps rex_, elsewhere rare, is found here in large numbers. At first the Ghazal flows north with lagoon-like expansions having great breadth and little depth--nowhere more than 13 ft. Turning north-east the channel becomes narrower and deeper, and is characterized by occasional reaches of papyrus. Finally, the Ghazal turns east and again becomes broader until Lake No is reached. As a rule the banks in this section are marked by anthills and scrub. The anthills in one valley are so close together "that they somewhat resemble a gigantic graveyard." (Sir William Garstin). The rise of the Ghazal river in flood time is barely 3 ft., a depth sufficient, however, to place an enormous area of country under water.

_Exploration of the River._--Rumours of the existence of the Bahr-el-Ghazal led some of the Greek geographers to imagine that the source of the Nile was westward in the direction of Lake Chad. The first map on which the course of the Ghazal is indicated with anything like accuracy is that of the French cartographer d'Anville, published in 1772. The exploration of the river followed the ascent of the White Nile by the Egyptian expeditions of 1839-1842. For a considerable portion of the period between 1833 and 1865 John Petherick, a Welshman, originally a mining engineer, explored the Ghazal region, particularly the main stream and the Jur. In 1859 a Venetian, Giovanni Miani, penetrated the southern regions of the Ghazal basin and was the first to bring back reports of a great river (the Welle) flowing west beyond the Nile watershed. In 1862 a Frenchman named Lejean surveyed the main river, of which he published a map. In 1863 Miss Alexandrine Tinne (_q.v._) with a large party of friends and scientists ascended the Ghazal with the intention of seeing how far west the basin of the Nile extended. The chief scientists of the party were the Germans, Theodor von Heuglin and Hermann Steudner. Considerable additions to the knowledge of the region were made by this expedition, five out of the nine white members of which died from blackwater fever.[2] Georg Schweinfurth (_q.v._) between 1869 and 1871 traversed the whole of the southern district, and crossing the watershed discovered the Welle. The efforts to destroy the slave trade in the Ghazal province led (1879-1881) to the further exploration of the river and its tributaries by Gessi Pasha, the Italian governor under General C. G. Gordon. Wilhelm Junker (_q.v._) about the same period also explored the southern tributaries of the Ghazal. These were carefully surveyed, and the Jur (Sue) followed throughout its course by Lieutenant A. H. Dye and other members of the French mission under Colonel (then Captain) J. B. Marchand, which crossing from the Congo (Oct.

1897) reached Fashoda on the White Nile in July 1898.

Like the Bahr-el-Jebel the Bahr-el-Ghazal is liable to be choked by sudd.

Gessi Pasha was imprisoned in it for some six weeks. The river became almost blocked by the acc.u.mulation of this obstruction during the rule of the Mahdists. In 1901 and following years the sudd was removed by British officers from the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the Jur and other rivers. Uninterrupted steamboat communication was thus established during the flood season between Khartum and Wau, a distance of some 930 m. In 1905-1907 R. C.

Bayldon, a British naval officer, Capt. C. Percival and Lieut. D. Comyn partly explored the northern and western affluents of the Ghazal, and threw some light on the puzzling hydrography and nomenclature of those tributaries.

See NILE and the authorities there quoted, especially Sir William Garstin's _Report upon the Basin of the Upper Nile, Egypt_, No. 2 (1904), and Capt.

H. G. Lyons's _The Physiography of the River Nile and its Basin_ (Cairo, 1906); also _The Geographical Journal_, vol. x.x.x. (1907).

(W. E. G.; F. R. C.)

[1] The Lol is also called the Kir, a name given likewise to the lower course of the Bahr-el-Homr. The confusion of names is partly attributable to the fact that each tribe has a different name for the same stream. It is also due in part to the belief that there was a large river flowing between the Bahr-el-Homr and the Lol. This third river, generally called the Kir, has proved to be only the lower course of the Lol of Bahr-el-Arab.

[2] Including Miss Tinne's mother and aunt and Dr Steudner.

BAHUT (a French word of unknown origin), a portable coffer or chest, with a rounded lid covered in leather, garnished with nails, used for the transport of clothes or other personal luggage,--it was, in short, the original portmanteau. This ancient receptacle, of which mention is made as early as the 14th century--its traditional form is still preserved in many varieties of the modern travelling trunk,--sometimes had its leather covering richly ornamented, and occasionally its interior was divided into compartments; but whatever the details of its construction it was always readily portable. Towards the end of the 17th century the name fell into desuetude, and was replaced by "coffer" (_q.v._), which probably accounts for its misuse by the French romantic writers of the early 19th century.

They applied it to almost any antique buffet, cupboard or wardrobe, and its use has now become hopelessly confused.

In architecture, this term is also used for a dwarf-wall of plain masonry, carrying the roof of a cathedral or church and masked or hidden behind the bal.u.s.trade.

BA[H.]YA, IBN PAQUDA, a Jewish ethical writer who flourished at Saragossa in the 11th century. In 1040 he wrote in Arabic a treatise, _Duties of the Heart_. This book was one of the most significant and influential Jewish works of the middle ages. Ba[h.]ya portrays an intensely spiritual conception of religion, and rises at times to great heights of impa.s.sioned mysticism.

[v.03 p.0214] The Law, in the rabbinical sense, was reverenced by Ba[h.]ya, and he converted it into part and parcel of the Jew's inner life. The book is divided into ten parts:--the Unity of G.o.d; Contemplation; Wors.h.i.+p; Trust; Consecration; Humility; Repentance; Self-Examination; the Ascetic Life; the Love of G.o.d. Some selections from Ba[h.]ya's work have been rendered into English by E. Collins.

(I. A.)

BAIAE, an ancient city of Campania, Italy, 10 m. W. of Neapolis, on the _Sinus Baia.n.u.s_, a bay on the W. coast of the Gulf of Puteoli. It is said to derive its name from [Greek: Baios], the helmsman of Ulysses, whose grave was shown there; it was originally, perhaps, the harbour of c.u.mae. It was princ.i.p.ally famous, however, for its warm sulphur springs, remarkable for their variety and curative properties (Pliny, _Hist. Nat_ x.x.xi. 4), its mild climate, and its luxuriant vegetation (though in summer there was some malaria in the low ground). It was already frequented, especially by the rich, at the end of the republican period; and in Strabo's day it was as large as Puteoli. Julius Caesar possessed a villa here, the remains of which are probably to be recognized in some large substructures on the ridge above the 16th-century castle. Baiae was a favourite residence of the emperors. Nero built a huge villa probably on the site now occupied by the castle. Hadrian died in Caesar's villa in A.D. 138, and Alexander Severus erected large buildings for his mother. Baiae never became, however, an independent town, but formed part of the territory of c.u.mae. Three gla.s.s vases with views of the coast and its buildings were published by H. Jordan in _Archaologische Zeitung_ (1868, 91). The luxury and immorality of the life of Baiae under both the republic and the empire are frequently spoken of by ancient writers.

Near Baiae was the villa resort of Bauli, so called from the [Greek: Boaulia] (stalls) in which the oxen of Geryon were concealed by Hercules.

By some it is identified with the modern village of Bacoli (owing to a presumed similarity to the ancient name), 2 m. S.S.E. of Baiae; by others with the Punta dell' Epitaffio, 1 m. N.E. of Baiae (see G. B. de Rossi in _Notizie degli scavi_, 1888, 709). At Bauli, Pompey and Hortensius possessed villas, the former on the hills, while that of the latter, on the sh.o.r.es of the Lacus Lucrinus, was remarkable for its tame lampreys and as the scene of the dialogue in the second book of Cicero's _Academica Priora_; it afterwards became imperial property and was the scene of Agrippina's murder by Nero. It was from Bauli to Puteoli that Caligula built his bridge of boats.

Of the once splendid villas and baths of Baiae and its district, the foundations of which were often thrown far out into the sea, considerable, though fragmentary, remains exist. It is not, as a rule, possible to identify the various buildings, and the names which have been applied to the ruins are not authenticated. At Baiae itself there exist three large and lofty domed buildings, two octagonal, one circular, and all circular in the interior, of _opus reticulatum_ and brick, which, though popularly called temples, are remains of baths or _nymphaea_. The Punta dell'

Epitaffio also is covered with remains, while at Bacoli are several ruins--to the north of the village a small theatre, called the tomb of Agrippina; under the village the remains of a large villa; to the E. the remains of a large water reservoir, the so-called Cento Camerelle; to the S. another with a vaulted ceiling, known as the _piscina mirabilis_, measuring 230 by 85 ft. The villa of Marius, which was bought by Lucullus, and afterwards came into the possession of the imperial house, was the scene of the death of Tiberius. It is sometimes spoken of as _Baiana_, sometimes as _Misenensis_, and is perhaps to be sought at Bacoli (Th.

Mommsen in _Corp. Inscrip. Latin_., x., Berlin, 1883, 1748), though Beloch inclines to place it on the promontory S. of Misenum, and this perhaps agrees better with the description given by Phaedrus.

Baiae was devastated by the Saracens in the 8th century and entirely deserted on account of malaria in 1500.

See J. Beloch, _Campanien_ (2nd ed., Breslau, 1890), 180 seq.

(T. AS.)

BAIBURT, a town of Asiatic Turkey, on the direct carriage road from Trebizond to Erzerum, situated on both banks of the Churuk river, which here traverses an open cultivated plateau (alt.i.tude, 5100 ft.), before turning east. It is the chief place of a kaza under Erzerum; the bazaar is poor, and there is no special industry in the town. The houses run up the hillsides on both banks of the river to a considerable height. On an isolated ma.s.s of rock, on the left bank, is the old castle, with extensive walls partly ruined, built originally by the Armenians and restored by the Seljuks. The princ.i.p.al gate with some Arabic inscriptions stands at the S.W. corner. There are remains of a vaulted chamber, a Christian church, a mosque and two covered staircases to the river. A fine view is seen from the summit over the plain and the Pontic ranges to the north. The population numbers 10,000, mostly Turkish with some Armenians. The place was occupied by the Russians under General Paskevich during their invasion of 1829, and was the farthest point westward then reached by them.

(F. R. M.)

BAI[D.][=A]W[=I] ('Abdallah ibn 'Umar al-Bai[d.][=a]w[=i]), Mahommedan critic, was born in Fars, where his father was chief judge, in the time of the Atabek ruler Abu Bakr ibn Sa'd (1226-1260). He himself became judge in s.h.i.+raz, and died in Tabriz about 1286. His chief work is the commentary on the Koran ent.i.tled _The Secrets of Revelation and The Secrets of Interpretation (Asr[=a]r ut-tanz[=i]l wa Asr[=a]r ut-ta' w[=i]l)_. This work is in the main a digest of the great Mu'tazalite commentary (_al-Kashsh[=a]f_) of Zamakhshar[=i] (_q.v._) with omissions and additional notes. By the orthodox Moslems it is considered the standard commentary and almost holy, though it is not complete in its treatment of any branch of theological or linguistic knowledge of which it treats, and is not always accurate (cf. Th. Noldeke's _Geschichte des Qorans_, Gottingen, 1860, p.

29). It has been edited by H. O. Fleischer (2 vols., Leipzig, 1846-1848; indices ed. W. Fell, Leipzig, 1878). There are many editions published in the East. A selection with numerous notes was edited by D. S. Margoliouth as _Chrestomathia Beidawiana_ (London, 1894). Many supercommentaries have been written on Bai[d.][=a]w[=i]'s work. He was also the author of several theological treatises.

See C. Brockelmann's _Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur_ (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 416-418.

(G. W. T.)

BAF, JEAN ANTOINE DE (1532-1589), French poet and member of the Pleiade, was born at Venice in 1532. He was the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baf, who was at that time French amba.s.sador at Venice. Thanks, perhaps, to the surroundings of his childhood, he grew up an enthusiast for the fine arts, and surpa.s.sed in zeal all the leaders of the Renaissance in France.

His father spared no pains to secure the best possible education for his son. The boy was taught Latin by Charles Estienne, and Greek by Ange Vergece, the Cretan scholar and calligraphist who designed Greek types for Francis I. When he was eleven years old he was put under the care of the famous Jean Daurat (_q.v._). Ronsard, who was eight years his senior, now began to share his studies. Claude Binet tells how young Baf, bred on Latin and Greek, smoothed out the tiresome beginnings of the Greek language for Ronsard, who in return initiated his companion into the mysteries of French versification. Baf possessed an extraordinary facility, and the ma.s.s of his work has injured his reputation. Besides a number of volumes of short poems of an amorous or congratulatory kind, he translated or paraphrased various pieces from Bion, Moschus, Theocritus, Anacreon, Catullus and Martial. He resided in Paris, and enjoyed the continued favour of the court. He founded in 1567 an _academie de musique et de poesie_,[1]