Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 29

BLOOM (from A.S. _bloma_, a flower), the blossom of flowering plants, or the powdery film on the skin of fresh-picked fruit; hence applied to the surface of newly-minted coins or to a cloudy appearance on the varnish of painting due to moisture; also, in metallurgy, a term used of the rough billets of iron and steel, which have undergone a preliminary hammering or rolling, and are ready for further working.

BLOOMER, AMELIA JENKS (1818-1894), American dress-reformer and women's rights advocate, was born at Homer, New York, on the 27th of May 1818.

After her marriage in 1840 she established a periodical called _The Lily_, which had some success. In 1849 she took up the idea--previously originated by Mrs Elizabeth Smith Miller--of a reform in woman's dress, and the wearing of a short skirt, with loose trousers, gathered round the ankles. The name of "bloomers" gradually became popularly attached to any divided-skirt or knickerbocker dress for women. Until her death on the 30th of December 1894 Mrs Bloomer took a prominent part in the temperance campaign and in that for woman's suffrage.

BLOOMFIELD, MAURICE (1855- ), American Sanskrit scholar, was born on the 23rd of February 1855, in Bielitz, Austrian Silesia. He went to the United States in 1867, and ten years later graduated from Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina. He then studied Sanskrit at Yale, under W.D. Whitney, and at Johns Hopkins, to which university he returned as a.s.sociate professor in 1881 after a stay of two years in Berlin and Leipzig, and soon afterwards was promoted professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology. His papers in the _American Journal of Philology_ number a few in comparative linguistics, such as those on a.s.similation and adaptation in congeneric cla.s.ses of words, and many valuable "Contributions to the Interpretation of the Vedas," and he is best known as a student of the Vedas. He translated, for Max-Muller's _Sacred Books of the East_, the Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (1897); contributed to the Buhler-Kielhorn _Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde_ the section "The Atharva-Veda and the Gopatha Brahmana" (1899); was first to edit the Kaucika-Sutra (1890), and in 1907 published, in the Harvard Oriental series, _A Vedic Concordance_. In 1905 he published _Cerberus, the Dog of Hades_, a study in comparative mythology.

BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT (1766-1823), English poet, was born of humble parents at the village of Honington, Suffolk, on the 3rd of December 1766. He was apprenticed at the age of eleven to a farmer, but he was too small and frail for field labour, and four years later he came to London to work for a shoemaker. The poem that made his reputation, _The Farmer's Boy_, was written in a garret in Bell Alley. The ma.n.u.script, declined by several publishers, fell into the hands of Capell Lofft, who arranged for its publication with woodcuts by Bewick in 1800. The success of the poem was remarkable, over 25,000 copies being sold in the next two years. His reputation was increased by the appearance of his _Rural Tales_ (1802), _News from the Farm_ (1804), _Wild Flowers_ (1806) and _The Banks of the Wye_ (1811). Influential friends attempted to provide for Bloomfield, but ill-health and possibly faults of temperament prevented the success of these efforts, and the poet died in poverty at Shefford, Bedfords.h.i.+re, on the 19th of August 1823. His _Remains in Poetry and Verse_ appeared in 1824.

BLOOMFIELD, a town of Ess.e.x county, New Jersey, U.S.A., about 12 m. W.

of New York, and directly adjoining the city of Newark on the N. Pop.

(1900) 9668, of whom 2267 were foreign-born; (1905, state census) 11,668; (1910), 15,070. Area, 5.42 sq. m. Bloomfield is served by the Erie, and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railways, and by several electric lines connecting with Newark, Montclair, Orange, East Orange and other neighbouring places. It is a residential suburb of Newark and New York, is the seat of a German theological school (Presbyterian, 1869) and has the Jarvie Memorial library (1902). There is a Central Green, and in 1908 land was acquired for another park. Among the town's manufactures are silk and woollen goods, paper, electric elevators, electric lamps, rubber goods, safety pins, hats, cream separators, brushes and novelties. The value of the town's factory products increased from $3,370,924 in 1900 to $4,645,483 in 1905, or 37.8%. First settled about 1670-1675 by the Dutch and by New Englanders from the Newark colony, Bloomfield was long a part of Newark, the princ.i.p.al settlement at first being known as Wardsesson. In 1796 it was named Bloomfield in honour of General Joseph Bloomfield (1753-1823), who served (1775-1778) in the War of American Independence, reaching the rank of major, was governor of New Jersey in 1801-1802 and 1803-1812, brigadier-general in the United States army during the War of 1812, and a Democratic representative in Congress from 1817 to 1821. The towns.h.i.+p of Bloomfield was incorporated in 1812. From it were subsequently set off Belleville (1839), Montclair (1868) and Glen Ridge (1895).

BLOOMINGTON, a city and the county-seat of McLean county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 125 m. S.W. of Chicago.

Pop. (1890) 20,484; (1900) 23,286, of whom 3611 were foreign-born, there being a large German element; (1910 census) 25,768. The city is served by the Chicago & Alton, the Illinois Central, the Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati & St Louis, and the Lake Erie & Western railways, and by electric inter-urban lines. Bloomington is the seat of the Illinois Wesleyan University (Methodist Episcopal, co-educational, founded in 1850), which comprises a college of liberal arts, an academy, a college of law, a college of music and a school of oratory, and in 1907 had 1350 students. In the town of NORMAL (pop. in 1900, 3795), 2 m. north of Bloomington, are the Illinois State Normal University (opened at Bloomington in 1857 and removed to its present site in 1860), one of the first normal schools in the Middle West, and the state soldiers'

orphans' home (1869). Bloomington has a public library, and Franklin and Miller parks; among its princ.i.p.al buildings are the court house, built of marble, and the Y.M.C.A. building. Among the manufacturing establishments are foundries and machine shops, including the large shops of the Chicago & Alton railway, slaughtering and meat-packing establishments, flour and grist mills, printing and publis.h.i.+ng establishments, a caramel factory and lumber factories. The value of the city's factory products increased from $3,011,899 in 1900 to $5,777,000 in 1905, or 91.8%. There are valuable coal mines in and near the city, and the city is situated in a fine farming region. Bloomington derives its name from Blooming Grove, a small forest which was crossed by the trails leading from the Galena lead mines to Southern Illinois, from Lake Michigan to St Louis, and from the Eastern to the far Western states. The first settlement was made in 1822, but the town was not formally founded until 1831, when it became the county-seat of McLean county. The first city charter was obtained in 1850, and in 1857 the public school system was established. In 1856 Bloomington was the meeting place of a state convention called by the Illinois editors who were opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (see DECATUR). This was the first convention of the Republican party in Illinois; among the delegates were Abraham Lincoln, Richard Yates, John M. Palmer and Owen Lovejoy. The city has been the residence of a number of prominent men, including David Davis (1815-1886), an a.s.sociate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1862-1877, a member of the United States Senate in 1877-1883, and president _pro tempore_ of the Senate in 1881-1883; Governor John M. Hamilton (1847-1905), Governor Joseph W. Fifer (b.

1840); and Adlai Ewing Stevenson (b. 1835), a Democratic representative in Congress in 1875-1877 and 1879-1881, and vice-president of the United States in 1893-1897. Bloomington's prosperity increased after 1867, when coal was first successfully mined in the vicinity.

In the _Transactions_ of the Illinois State Historical Society for 1905 may be found a paper, "The Bloomington Convention of 1856 and Those Who Partic.i.p.ated in it."

BLOOMINGTON, a city and the county-seat of Monroe county, Indiana, U.S.A., about 45 m. S. by W. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1890) 4018; (1900) 6460, including 396 negroes; (1910) 8838. It is served by the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville and the Indianapolis Southern (Illinois Central) railways. Bloomington is the seat of the Indiana University (co-educational since 1868), established as a state seminary in 1820, and as Indiana College in 1828, and chartered as the State university in 1838; in 1907-1908 it had 80 instructors, 2051 students, and a library of 65,000 volumes; its school of law was established in 1842, suspended in 1877 and re-established in 1889; its school of medicine was established in 1903; but most of the medical course is given in Indianapolis; a graduate school was organized in 1904; and a summer school (or summer term of eleven weeks) was first held in 1905. Dr David Starr Jordan was the first president of the university in 1885-1891, when it was thoroughly reorganized and its curriculum put on the basis of major subjects and departments. The university's biological station is on Winona Lake, Kosciusko county. Among the manufactures of Bloomington are furniture and wooden ware. There are valuable limestone quarries in the vicinity. The city was first settled about 1818.

BLOOMSBURG, a town and the county-seat of Columbia county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Fis.h.i.+ng Creek, 2 m. from its confluence with the Susquehanna, and about 40 m. S.W. of Wilkes-Barre. Pop. (1890) 4635; (1900) 6170 (213 foreign-born); (1910) 7413. It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Philadelphia & Reading, and the Bloomsburg & Sullivan and the Susquehanna, Bloomsburg & Berwick railways (the last two only 30 m.

and 39 m. long respectively); and is connected with Berwick, Catawissa and Danville by electric lines. The town is built on a bluff commanding extensive views. Among the manufactures of Bloomsburg are railway cars, carriages, silk and woollen goods, furniture, carpets, wire-drawing machines and gun carriages. Iron ore was formerly obtained from the neighbouring hills. The town is the seat of a state normal school, established as such in 1869. Bloomsburg was laid out as a town in 1802, became the county-seat in 1846, and was incorporated in 1870.

BLOUNT, CHARLES (1654-1693), English author, was born at Upper Holloway on the 27th of April 1654. His father, Sir Henry Blount (1602-1682), was the author of a _Voyage to the Levant_, describing his own travels. He gave his son a careful education, and is said to have helped him in his _Anima Mundi; or An Historical Narration of the Opinions of the Antients concerning Man's Soul after his Life, according to unenlightened Nature_ (1679), which gave great offence by the sceptical views expressed in it.

It was suppressed by order of the bishop of London, and even burnt by some over-zealous official, but a re-issue was permitted. Blount was an admirer of Hobbes, and published his "Last Sayings" (1679), a pamphlet consisting of extracts from _The Leviathan. Great is Diana of the Ephesians, or the Original of Idolatry, together with the Political Inst.i.tution of the Gentiles' Sacrifices_ (1680) attracted severe criticism on the ground that in deprecating the evils of priestcraft Blount was attacking Christianity itself. His best-known book, _The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus_ ... (1680), is said to have been prohibited in 1693, chiefly on account of the notes, which are stated by Bayle (note, _s.v.

Apollonius_) to have been taken mainly from a MS. of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Blount contributed materially to the removal of the restrictions on the freedom of the press, with two pamphlets (1693) by "Philopatris," mainly derived from Milton's _Areopagitica_. He also laid a successful trap for the censor, Edmund Bohun. Under the name of "Junius Brutus" he wrote a pamphlet ent.i.tled "King William and Queen Mary Conquerors." The t.i.tle-page set forth the theory of the justice of t.i.tle by conquest, which Blount knew to be agreeable to Bohun. It was duly licensed, but was ordered by the House of Commons to be burnt by the common hangman, as being diametrically opposed to the att.i.tude of William's government on the subject. These proceedings showed the futility of the censors.h.i.+p, and hastened its overthrow.

Blount had fallen in love with his deceased wife's sister, and, in despair of overcoming her scruples as to the legality of such a marriage, shot himself in the head. He survived for some time, refusing help except from his sister-in-law. Alexander Pope a.s.serted (_Epilogue to the Satires_, Note, i. 124) that he wounded himself in the arm, pretending to kill himself, and that the result was fatal contrary to his expectations. He died in August 1693.

Shortly before his death a collection of his pamphlets and private papers was printed with a preface by Charles Gildon, under the t.i.tle of the _Oracles of Reason_. His _Miscellaneous Works_ (1695) is a fuller edition by the same editor.

BLOUNT (or BLUNT), EDWARD (b. 1565?), the printer, in conjunction with Isaac Jaggard, of _Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. Published according to the true Originall Copies_ (_1623_), usually known as the first folio of Shakespeare. It was produced under the direction of John Heming (d. 1630) and Henry Condell (d. 1627), both of whom had been Shakespeare's colleagues at the Globe theatre, but as Blount combined the functions of printer and editor on other occasions, it is fair to conjecture that he to some extent edited the first folio.

The Stationers' _Register_ states that he was the son of Ralph Blount or Blunt, merchant tailor of London, and apprenticed himself in 1578 for ten years to William Ponsonby, a stationer. He became a freeman of the Stationers' Company in 1588. Among the most important of his publications are Giovanni Florio's Italian-English dictionary and his translation of Montaigne, Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, and the _Sixe Court Comedies_ of John Lyly. He himself translated _Ars Aulica, or the Courtier's Arte_ (1607) from the Italian of Lorenzo Ducci, and _Christian Policie_ (1632) from the Spanish of Juan de Santa Maria.

BLOUNT, THOMAS (1618-1679), English antiquarian, was the son of one Myles Blount, of Orleton in Herefords.h.i.+re. He was born at Bordesley, Worcesters.h.i.+re. Few details of his life are known. It appears that he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, but, being a zealous Roman Catholic, his religion interfered considerably with the practice of his profession. Retiring to his estate at Orleton, he devoted himself to the study of the law as an amateur, and also read widely in other branches of knowledge. He died at Orleton on the 26th of December 1679. His princ.i.p.al works are _Glossographia; or, a dictionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language, now used in our refined English tongue_ (1656, reprinted in 1707), which went through several editions and remains most amusing and instructive reading; _Nomolexicon: a law dictionary interpreting such difficult and, obscure words and terms as are found either in our common or statute, ancient or modern lawes_ (1670; third edition, with additions by W. Nelson, 1717); and _Fragmenta Antiquitatis: Ancient Tenures of land, and jocular customs of some mannors_ (1679; enlarged by J. Beckwith and republished, with additions by H.M. Beckwith, in 1815; again revised and enlarged by W.C. Hazlitt, 1874). Blount's _Boscobel_ (1651), giving an account of Charles II.'s preservation after Worcester, with the addition of the king's own account dictated to Pepys, has been edited with a bibliography by C.G.

Thomas (1894).

BLOUNT, SIR THOMAS POPE (1649-1697), English author, eldest son of Sir Henry Blount and brother of Charles Blount (q.v.), was born at Upper Holloway on the 12th of September 1649. He succeeded to the estate of t.i.ttenhanger on his mother's death in 1678, and in the following year was created a baronet. He represented the borough of St Albans in the two last parliaments of Charles II. and was knight of the s.h.i.+re from the revolution till his death. He married Jane, daughter of Sir Henry Caesar, by whom he had five sons and nine daughters. He died at t.i.ttenhanger on the 30th of June 1697. His _Censura celebrorum authorum sive tractatus in quo varia virorum doctorum de clarissimis cujusque seculi scriptoribus judicia traduntur_ (1690) was originally compiled for Blount's own use, and is a dictionary in chronological order of what various eminent writers have said about one another. This necessarily involved enormous labour in Blount's time. It was published at Geneva in 1694 with all the quotations from modern languages translated into Latin, and again in 1710. His other works are _A Natural History, containing many not common observations extracted out of the best modern writers_ (1693), _De re poetica, or remarks upon Poetry, with Characters and Censures of the most considerable Poets_ ... (1694), and _Essays on Several Occasions_ (1692). It is on this last work that his claims to be regarded as an original writer rest. The essays deal with the perversion of learning, a comparison between the ancients and the moderns (to the advantage of the latter), the education of children, and kindred topics.

In the third edition (1697) he added an eighth essay, on religion, in which he deprecated the multiplication of ceremonies. He displays throughout a hatred of pedantry and convention, which makes his book still interesting.

See A. Kippis, _Biographia Britannica_ (1780), vol. ii. For an account of Blount's family see Robert Clutterbuck. _History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford_ (1815), vol. i. pp. 207-212.

BLOUNT, WILLIAM (1749-1800), American politician, was born in Bertie county, North Carolina, on the 26th of March 1749. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1783-1784 and again in 1786-1787, of the const.i.tutional convention at Philadelphia in 1787, and of the state convention which ratified the Federal const.i.tution for North Carolina in 1789. From 1790 until 1796 he was, by President Was.h.i.+ngton's appointment, governor of the "Territory South of the Ohio River,"

created out of land ceded to the national government by North Carolina in 1789. He was also during this period the superintendent of Indian affairs for this part of the country. In 1791 he laid out Knoxville (Tennessee) as the seat of government. He presided over the const.i.tutional convention of Tennessee in 1796, and, on the state being admitted to the Union, became one of its first representatives in the United States Senate. In 1797 his connexion became known with a scheme, since called "Blount's Conspiracy," which provided for the co-operation of the American frontiersmen, a.s.sisted by Indians, and an English force, in the seizure on behalf of Great Britain of the Floridas and Louisiana, then owned by Spain, with which power England was then at war. As this scheme, if carried out, involved the corrupting of two officials of the United States, an Indian agent and an interpreter, a breach of the neutrality of the United States, and the breach of Article V. of the treaty of San Lorenzo el Real (signed on the 27th of October 1795) between the United States and Spain, by which each power agreed not to incite the Indians to attack the other, Blount was impeached by the House of Representatives on the 7th of July 1797, and on the following day was formally expelled from the Senate for "having been guilty of high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public trust and duty as a senator." On the 29th of January 1798 articles of impeachment were adopted by the House of Representatives. On the 14th of January 1799, however, the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment, decided that it had no jurisdiction, Blount not then being a member of the Senate, and, in the Senate's opinion, not having been, even as a member, a civil officer of the United States, within the meaning of the const.i.tution.

The case is significant as being the first case of impeachment brought before the United States Senate. "In a legal point of view, all that the case decides is that a senator of the United States who has been expelled from his seat is not after such expulsion subject to impeachment" (Francis Wharton, _State Trials_). In effect, however, it also decided that a member of Congress was not in the meaning of the const.i.tution a civil officer of the United States and therefore could not be impeached. The "conspiracy" was disavowed by the British government, which, however, seems to have secretly favoured it. Blount was enthusiastically supported by his const.i.tuents, and upon his return to Tennessee was made a member and the presiding officer of the state senate. He died at Knoxville on the 21st of March 1800.

For a defence of Blount, see General Marcus J. Wright's _Account of the Life and Services of William Blount_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., 1884).

BLOUSE, a word (taken from the French) used for any loosely fitting bodice belted at the waist. In France it meant originally the loose upper garment of linen or cotton, generally blue, worn by French workmen to preserve their clothing, and, by transference, the workman himself.

BLOW, JOHN (1648-1708), English musical composer, was born in 1648, probably at North Collingham in Nottinghams.h.i.+re. He became a chorister of the chapel royal, and distinguished himself by his proficiency in music; he composed several anthems at an unusually early age, including _Lord, Thou hast been our refuge; Lord, rebuke me not_; and the so-called "club anthem," _I will always give thanks_, the last in collaboration with Pelham Humphrey and William Turner, either in honour of a victory over the Dutch in 1665, or--more probably--simply to commemorate the friendly intercourse of the three choristers. To this time also belongs the composition of a two-part setting of Herrick's _Goe, perjur'd man_, written at the request of Charles II. to imitate Carissimi's _Dite, o cieli_. In 1669 Blow became organist of Westminster Abbey. In 1673 he was made a gentleman of the chapel royal, and in the September of this year he was married to Elizabeth Braddock, who died in childbirth ten years later. Blow, who by the year 1678 was a doctor of music, was named in 1685 one of the private musicians of James II.

Between 1680 and 1687 he wrote the only stage composition by him of which any record survives, the _Masque for the Entertainment of the King: Venus and Adonis_. In this Mary Davies played the part of Venus, and her daughter by Charles II., Lady Mary Tudor, appeared as Cupid. In 1687 he became master of the choir of St Paul's church; in 1695 he was elected organist of St Margaret's, Westminster, and is said to have resumed his post as organist of Westminster Abbey, from which in 1680 he had retired or been dismissed to make way for Purcell. In 1699 he was appointed to the newly created post of composer to the chapel royal.

Fourteen services and more than a hundred anthems by Blow are extant. In addition to his purely ecclesiastical music Blow wrote _Great sir, the joy of all our hearts_, an ode for New Year's day 1681-1682; similar compositions for 1683, 1686, 1687, 1688, 1689, 1693 (?), 1694 and 1700; odes, &c., for the celebration of St Cecilia's day for 1684, 1691, 1695 and 1700; for the coronation of James II. two anthems, _Behold, O G.o.d, our Defender_, and _G.o.d spake sometimes in visions_; some harpsichord pieces for the second part of Playford's _Musick's Handmaid_ (1869); _Epicedium for Queen Mary_ (1695); _Ode on the Death of Purcell_ (1696).

In 1700 he published his Amphion Anglicus, a collection of pieces of music for one, two, three and four voices, with a figured-ba.s.s accompaniment. A famous page in Burney's _History of Music_ is devoted to ill.u.s.trations of "Dr Blow's Crudities," most of which only show the meritorious if immature efforts in expression characteristic of English music at the time, while some of them (where Burney says "Here we are lost") are really excellent. Blow died on the 1st of October 1708 at his house in Broad Sanctuary, and was buried in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey.