an unnatural restraint upon the imagination, and productive of a monotonous melody.-Thorough bass. (See Thorough bass.-Bass cliff is the character put at the beginning of the stave, in which the bass, or lower notes of the composition, are placed, and serving to determine the pitch and names of those notes.-Basso concertante (Ital.) is the bass of the little chorus; the bass which accompanies the softer parts of a composition, as well as those which employ the whole power of the band. This part is generally taken by the violoncellos.-Bass-counter or contra-bass; the under-bass; that part which, when there are two basses in a composition, is performed by the double basses, the violoncellos taking the upper bass or basso concertante.-Basso recitante (Ital.); the bass of the little chorus. (See Basso concertante.)-Basso repieno (Ital.); the bass of the grand chorus; that bass which joins in the full parts of a composition, and, by its depth of tone and energy of stroke, affords a powerful contrast to the lighter and softer passages

or movements.

BASS-RELIEF (Ital. basso relievo); synonymous with relief; figures, more or less elevated, in stone, plaster, clay or metal, upon a flat surface. Bass-relief properly signifies the least elevation; haut-relief, or alto relievo, the highest, in which the figures project half of their apparent circumference from the back-ground. The ancient artists, and the modern who have followed their principles, generally used, in their reliefs, only a single ground; but Bernini, Algardi, Angelo, Rossi, and several other modern artists, worked in several; that is, their objects appear on several back-grounds. Among the ancients, we find bass-reliefs in the pediments and friezes of temples and houses, on altars, triumphal arches, monuments (e. g., sarcophagi), on shields, vases, and other implements composed of hard and strong materials. The bass-reliefs found by von Brondstedt, Cockerel, &c., in the temple of Apollo at Phigalia, and sold to the British museum for £15,000 sterling, are celebrated, as are also those on the column of Trajan. Among the famous modern bass-reliefs are those of Bandurli, Ghiberti and Lucca della Robbia, at Florence. Some of the finest bass-reliefs existing are by Canova and Thorwaldsen.

BASS'S STRAITS; a channel, which separates N. Holland from Van Diemen's Land; 120 miles broad; lon. 147°30′ E.; lat. 40° S. BASSA; a country on the west coast of Africa, about 400 miles south of Sierra

Leone. It came into notice by a grant of land, which the American colonization society recently obtained there from the king. The Bassas are described as without civilization, like so many other Negro tribes of the west coast of that part of the world. (See Liberia.)

BASSAN (whose real name was Giacomo de Ponte); a painter; born in 1510. He was surnamed Bassan from the place, Bassano, where his father lived. His pictures are scattered all over Europe. He painted historical pieces, landscapes, flowers, &c., and also portraits; among others, that of the doge of Venice, of Ariosto, Tasso, and other persons of eminence. He lived to the age of 82, dying in 1592. Several of his best works are in the churches of Bassano, Venice, Vicenza, and other towns of Italy. He left four sons, who all became painters. Francesco was the most distinguished of them.

BASSANO, a commercial city in the Venetian delegation Vicenza, on the Brenta (lon. 11° 43 E.; lat. 45° 46′ N.), has spacious suburbs, and 9600 inhabitants. Its 30 churches contain beautiful paintings. A stone bridge, 182 feet long, unites the town with the large village Vicantino. The climate is very favorable to the cultivation of the vine and olive. The trade in silk, cloth and leather is active, and Remontini's printing-house furnishes beautiful printed works and engravings. Napoleon made B. a duchy, with 11,000 dollars yearly income, and granted it, in 1809, to his minister of foreign affairs, Maret. (q. v.) Near B., Sept. 8, 1796, Bonaparte defeated the Austrian general Quosdanowich. This town must not be confounded with Bassanelle, on the lake Bassano, in the papal territory, capital of a duchy of the house of Colonna.

BASSANO, duke of. (See Maret.)

BASSET; the name of a game at cards, formerly much played, especially in France. It is very similar to the modern faro. Severe edicts were issued against it by Louis XIV, and it was afterwards played under the name of pour et contrc. De Moivre, in his Doctrine of Chances, has calculated many problems connected with this game.

BASSET-HORN, the richest of all windinstruments (called also cornet, by reason of its curvature), is believed to have been invented in Passau, in 1770. It was afterwards perfected by Theodore Lotz, in Presburg. It is, properly considered, an enlarged clarionet; and, notwithstanding the difference of its form, it resembles that, not only in its qualities and tone, but

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also as regards its intonation, the mode of holding it, and fingering; so that every clarionet-player can perform on it without practice. Besides the mouth-piece, by which the intonation is given, it is formed of 5 pieces-the head-piece (called the barrel), 2 middle pieces, the trunk and the bell, which is usually of brass. It has 15 ventages, of which 4 are provided with open, 4 with closed keys. Its compass is 3 octaves, from lower F in the bass, to double C of the treble. It is seldom used in the orchestra; however, it is found in Mozart's requiem and some other pieces. The basset-horn may also be used as a bass-instrument.

BASSOMPIERRE, François de, marshal of France, one of the most distinguished and most amiable men of the courts of Henry IV and Louis XIII, was born in 1579, in Lorraine, and descended from a branch of the family of Cleve. After travelling through Italy, he appeared at the court of Henry IV, where his taste for splendor, play and gallantry made him conspicuous in the feasts and sports of the capital. In 1602, he made his first campaign against the duke of Savoy, and fought with equal distinction, in the following year, in the imperial army, against the Turks. His love of France soon called him back; he aspired to the hand of the daughter of the connetable de Montmorency, whose charms had excited the most violent passion in Henry IV. B. yielded to the solicitations of his king, and renounced his intended union with her. In 1622, Louis XIII appointed him marshal of France, and became so much attached to him, that Luynes, the declared favorite, alarmed at his growing influence, insisted upon his removal from the court, leaving him the option to accept either an embassy, or the chief command of an army, or the office of a governor. B. decided upon an embassy, and occupied this post successively in Spain, Switzerland and England. After his return, he entered again into the military service, and was present at the siege of Rochelle and Montauban. The cardinal Richelieu, who soon after obtained entire control of the king and the country, feared the boldness of B. and his secret connexion with the house of Lorraine; whose machinations served him as a pretext for sending B., in 1631, to the Bastille, from which he was not released till 1643, after the death of the cardinal. He died in 1646. B. studied, in his youth, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine, and the military art. During his detention, he occupied him

self with his memoirs, and the history of his embassies in Spain, Switzerland and England, which sheds much light on the events of that time.

BASSOON (Fr. bas son, low sound); an instrument which forms the natural bass to the hautboy. It is played, like that instrument, with a reed, and forms a continuation of its scale downwards. The reed is fixed to a crooked mouth-piece, issuing from the side of the bassoon. There, keys communicate to the ventages, which otherwise are too remote for fingering. It was formerly used as an accompaniment to the hautboy, from which it was termed basson de hautbois. But it is now so far improved with keys as to be susceptible of being played solo. Its compass is three octaves, from double A in the bass to a in the second space of the treble; and its designation generally is the F or bass-clef; yet, in the higher passages, for the more convenient arrangement of the notes, the alto, or tenor-clef, is often used. It consists of four tubes, bound together like a fagot. Hence the Italians term it fagotto, and from them the Germans fagott. In music designed for wind-instruments, it usually forms the bass. There is a modification of this instrument, much lower and stronger in its tones,-the bass-horn,which, in field music, has of late been substituted for the serpent.

BASSORA, or BASRAH; a city in the Arabian Irak, situated on an arm of the Shat-ul-Arab, about half way between the junction of the Tigris with the Euphrates and the Persian gulf; 210 miles S. W. Ispahan, 600 S. E. Aleppo; lon. 47° 30′ E.; lat. 30° 31' N.: pop. estimated by Heude, in 1817, at 80,000; by others at 40, 50 and 60,000. The Shat-ul-Arab is formed by the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, and is navigable for vessels of 500 tons to Bassora, 70 miles. Merchants from Arabia, Turkey, Armenia and Greece, also Jews and Indians, reside here. The English and Dutch have consuls here, and their ships come from India loaded with merchandise. The Arabs have more power than the Turks, and the language of the former is chiefly spoken. The prince pays but little respect to the Ottoman court.-The city is surrounded by a wall about 10 miles in circuit, from 20 to 25 feet thick. The houses are generally mean, being constructed of clay, with a small proportion of bricks; and the bazars, though containing the richest products of the East, are but miserable edifices. Almost

all the inhabitants of the city are connected with trade, and its commerce is extensive, as it is the grand emporium for all the produce of India sent to the Turkish empire. The trade of the interior is conducted by means of caravans to Aleppo and Bagdad. The town is unhealthy, the environs fertile. As to the religion of the inhabitants, besides Mohammedans, there are Syrian Jacobites and Nestorians, and monks from Europe, besides some modern Sabeans, called disciples of John.

BASSO RELIEVO. (See Bass-Relief) BASS-VIOL; a stringed instrument, resembling, in form, the violin, but much larger. It has four strings and eight stops, which are subdivided into semistops, and is played with a bow.

BASTARD. The Romans distinguished two kinds of natural children-nothi, the issue of concubinage, and spurii, the children of prostitutes; the former could inherit from the mother, and were entitled to support from the father; the latter had no claims whatever to support. Is non habet patrem, cui pater est populus. The Athenians treated all bastards with extreme rigor. By the laws of Solon, they were denied the rights of citizenship. A law of Pericles ordered the sale of 5000 bastards as slaves. What rendered these regulations more severe was, that not only the issue of concubinage and adultery, but all children whose parents were not both Athenians, were considered bastards at Athens. Thus Themistocles, whose mother was a native of Halicarnassus, was deemed a bastard. The law, as might be expected, was often set aside by the influence of powerful citizens. Pericles himself had it repealed in favor of his child by Aspasia, after he had lost his legitimate children by the plague. The condition of bastards has been different in different periods of modern history. Among the Goths and Franks, they were permitted to inherit from the father. Thiery, the natural son of Clovis, inherited a share of his father's conquests. William the Conqueror, natural son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, and of Arlette, daughter of a furrier of Falaise, inherited his father's dominions. He called himself Willelmus, cognomento Batardus. The celebrated Dunois styled himself, in his letters, the bastard of Orleans. In Spain, bastards have always been capable of inheriting. The bastardy of Henry of Transtamare did not prevent his accession to the throne of Castile. In France, the condition of bastards was formerly

very different in the different provinces. Since the revolution, it has been regulated in a uniform manner by the general law of the kingdom. The Code civil thus fixes their rights: If the father or mother leave legitimate descendants, the bastard is entitled to one third of the portion he would have inherited had he been a lawful child; if the father or mother die without descendants, but leave ascendants, or brothers or sisters, then he is entitled to one half of such a portion; if the father or mother leave no ascendants nor descendants, nor brothers nor sisters, he is entitled to three quarters of such a portion; and if the father or mother leave no relations within the degrees of succession, he is entitled to the whole property. These regulations do not apply to the issue of an incestuous or adulterous connexion. The law allows no civil privileges to individuals who owe their existence to the violation of human and divine laws; it grants them only support. According to the ancient customs, the bastards of kings, acknowledged by their fathers, were princes; those of princes were gentlemen. Several distinguished men, and fabulous heroes, have been bastards-William, who conquered England; Dunois, who delivered France; the duke of Vendôme, the duke of Berwick, the marshal Saxe; Bacchus, Hercules and Romulus.-By the common law of England, a child born after marriage, however soon, is legitimate, or at least he is presumed to be so; for one born in wedlock, and long enough after the marriage to admit of the period of gestation, may still be proved illegitimate, in case of absence and non-access of the husband, and under some other circumstances. According to the common law, a bastard is not the heir of any one; and, on the other hand, his only heirs are his children born in wedlock, and their descendants. According to the Roman law, one born out of wedlock might be legitimated by subsequent marriage and acknowledgment of his parents. In 1236, the English prelates proposed the introduction of the Roman law, in this respect, into England, to which the nobility made the celebrated reply, Nolumus leges Angliæ mutare (We are unwilling to change the laws of England). This rule of the civil law has been adopted in many of the U. States. In Louisiana, it was naturally adopted as a part of the civil law, which is the basis of their code. The rule, that an ante-nuptial child is legitimated by the subsequent marriage of his

parents, and by being acknowledged by his father, has been engrafted into the laws of Vermont, Ohio, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee. In Tennessee, application is made to a court for a decree of legitimation, or to the legislature for an act to the same effect. Many of the states, as North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana, provide that illegitimate children shall be the heirs of the mother, with the limitation, however, in some of the states, to the case of her having no legitimate children. The laws of some of these states also provide that the illegitimate children of the same mother shall be heirs to each other.

BASTIA; the former capital of the island of Corsica (lon. 9° 26' 30" E.; lat. 42° 41′ 36′′ N.), upon a hill in the northeast part of the island, in the shape of an amphitheatre. It is badly built, has narrow streets, a strong citadel near the sea, a spacious, but not very commodious harbor. The inhabitants (11,400) carry on a considerable trade in hides, wine, oil, figs and pulse. The stilettoes manufactured here are held in great esteem by the Italians. In 1745, B. was taken by the English, but restored in the following year to the Genoese. In 1748, it was unsuccessfully besieged by the Austrians and Piedmontese; in 1768, it was united with France. It afterwards fell, for a short time, into the power of the English. On the new division of the French territories (1791), B. was made the capital of the department of Corsica, of which, at present, Ajaccio is the capital.

BASTILE; formerly a famous castle in Paris, in which state-prisoners and other persons arrested by lettres de cachet were confined. These letters of arrest were issued in the name of the king, but the names of the individuals were inserted by the ministers, who were the depositaries of these letters. Of the origin of this custom, we may perhaps find the explanation in Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix, where it is said, "Honor is the virtue of monarchies, and often supplies its place." A nobleman was unwilling to be dishonored by a member of his family. Filial disobedience and unworthy conduct were not uncommon among the over-refined nobility of France. In such cases, fathers and relations often requested the confinement of the offender, until the head of the family should express a wish for his release. At first, this privilege was

limited to the first families in the country. The next step was, that the ministers of government considered themselves entitled to the same privileges as heads of families among the nobility. If an of fence was committed in their offices or households, which, if known, would have cast a shadow upon the ministers themselves, they arrested, motu proprio, the obnoxious individuals, and often made use of their privilege to put out of sight persons whose honest discharge of duty had excited their displeasure, or who were acquainted with facts disgraceful to the ministers themselves. It sometimes happened that no further examination of the prisoners was had, and the cause of their detention no where recorded. In such cases, an individual remained in prison sometimes 30 or 40 years, or even till his death, because succeeding officers took it for granted that he had been properly confined, or that his imprisonment was required for reasons of state The invention of the lettres de cachet immediately opened the door to the tyranny of ministers and the intrigues of favorites, who supplied themselves with these orders, in order to confine individuals who had become obnoxious to them. These arrests became continually more arbitrary (see Cachet, Lettres de), and men of the greatest merit were liable to be thrown into prison, whenever they happened to displease a minister, a favorite, or a mistress. When, in the beginning of the revolution, the people destroyed the Bastile (the prison of individuals of rank, or of those whom individuals of rank would not, for good reasons, bring to trial in a lawful manner), they found but few prisoners, but enough to prove to the nation the danger of the continuance of despotism in civilized France. It also became known, that the kings of France had never obliged their ministers to give an account of the use of their lettres de cachet. Alas for the good old times! (See Iron Mask.) The story which Mercier tells of a prisoner, who had been confined in the Bastile for 47 years, and, when he received his liberty, on the accession of Louis XVI, wished to be carried back to confinement, is very interesting.

BASTINADO, or BASTONADO; a punishment used among the Turks, which consists of blows upon the back, or soles of the feet, applied with a light wooden stick, or with a knotted string.

BASTION (bulwark). In order to defend a place which is surrounded by a rampart and a ditch, it is necessary that

every point at the foot of the rampart, in the ditch and before the citadel, should be, as much as possible, commanded by the cannon of the works. This is effected by breaking the line of fortification, so that a defence sideways may be attained. Before, and for some time after the inven tion of gunpowder, it was thought that towers, standing out from the wall, would answer this purpose; but these soon gave place to the spacious and projecting bastions or bulwarks, which consist of two flanks, that serve principally for the defence of the neighboring bastions, and of two faces, which command the outworks and the ground before them. The wall between two bastions is called the curtain. These bastions are built in very different ways. Some are entirely filled with earth; some have a void space inside; some are straight, some curved, some double, some have even three or four flanks, one over the other; some have, and some have not, fausse-brays (see Fortification); sometimes they have casemates, destined for the retreat of the garrison, or for batteries; sometimes cavaliers (q. v.) or orillons (q. v.), &c. In modern times, among the fortifications built according to the system of bastions, those on the plan of Cormontaigne and the modern French works, are considered best adapted for defence. They are spacious; the flank of the side bulwark, which is perpendicular to the prolongation of the face of the principal bulwark, is not farther distant than a gunshot (300 paces) from its point; it is also straight, and orillons, and other artificial contrivances, are banished.

BAT; an order of mammiferous quadrupeds, characterized by having the tegumentary membrane extended over the bones of the extremities in such a manner as to constitute wings capable of sustaining and conveying them through the air. The name of cheiroptera, or handwinged, has therefore been bestowed on this order. It comprises a great number of genera, species and varieties; among which are to be found some most singular modifications of structure, in the form of the wing membranes, the figure and expanse of the ears, and the remarkable membranous appendages to the noses of various species. All the bats are either purely insectivorous, or insecti-frugivorous, having exceedingly sharp cutting, and acutely tuberculated jaw teeth, and the whole race is nocturnal. They vary in size from that of the smallest common mouse up to that of the gigantic ternate

bat, whose body is as large as that of squirrel. The smaller species are abundantly distributed over the face of the globe; the larger appear to be confined to warm and hot regions, where they exist in great numbers, and are very destructive to the fruits. The purely insectivorous species render great service to mankind by the destruction of vast numbers of insects, which they pursue with great eagerness in the morning and evening twilight. During the day-time, they remain suspended by their hooked hinder claws, in the lofts of barns, in hollow or thickly-leaved trees, &c. As winter approaches, in cold climates, they seek shelter in caverns, vaults, ruinous and deserted buildings, and similar retreats, where they cling together in large clusters, and remain in a torpid condition until the returning spring recalls them to active exertions. We here observe the admirable arrangement of the great Author of nature, who has rendered it neces sary that these animals should be torpid during all the time that their appropriate food is not to be obtained. In warm climates, where a constant succession of insects occurs, the same species of bat, which, in a cold region, would become torpid, continue in activity throughout the year.-Bats enjoy the senses of sight and hearing to a considerable degree of perfection, but the acuteness of their sense of touch is perhaps unequalled throughout the whole extent of animal organization. In consequence of the great expansion of integument forming the exceedingly delicate membrane of the wings, ears and nasal appendages, bats are able, even when deprived of their eyes, to fly in such a manner as to avoid every obstacle. Silk threads, small sticks, or obstructions placed across the course of flight of a bat purposely blinded by taking out its eyes, are avoided with the most surprising dexterity, and advantage is taken of any space to pass between without touching them. Every inequality in the ceiling of a hall or chamber is avoided in the same way. The reaction of the air against the membranes is sufficient to warn them of any obstacle, however slight, and enables them to turn, lower themselves, or draw in their wings, so as to clear the body, without the least appearance of effort. These soft, velvetlike wings also enable them to fly without noise, and, although their motion is unsteady and wavering, they advance with exceeding swiftness. From a flat or level surface, it is very difficult, though not