throne; thus acting, as the Russians observed, like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left. On the invasion of Russia by the Poles, in 1610, he found himself deserted by his subjects, and he was at last seized by a band of conspirators, who, after forcing him to assume the monastic habit, sent him in chains to king Sigismond, whose son, Ladislaus, was laying claim to the Russian throne. Schuiskoi was sent to Warsaw, where he shortly afterwards died in prison, probably by violence.

BASIL, (Valentine,) a celebrated chemist and alchemist, whose history is obscure. His name, however, appears in the most prominent manner in the history of chemistry and alchemy. Many have supposed it entirely fabulous, whilst others have conceived the real name to be hidden under some hermetic allegory. Among the advocates of the latter opinion the celebrated Boerhaave and Stoll are enrolled. Vincent Placcius assures his readers that the real name of Valentine Basil was Tholden, and others have stated it to be John Estchenreuter. Tollius has attempted to resolve the name by reference to the Greek and Latin languages; hence he gives as the mystic explanation of Basil in the Greek, Royal, and Valentine he derives from the Latin Valendo. These united he regards as the symbol of power, which gives the regulus for the penetration of bodies. Authors are almost as little agreed as to the period in which he lived, or the profession to which he belonged. The emperor Maximilian took great pains to discover to what monastery he was attached, the general opinion being that he was a monk. His researches, however, were not successful. He has been stated to have been a Benedictine belonging to the monastery of St. Peter at Erfurth. A monastery of this description did exist at this place, although the authors of the article Basile in the Biographie Universelle have treated it as a chimera. Mollenbæck learnt from the prior of the monastery that no such name was entered on their records. If, however, his name be disguised as above conjectured, these inquiries cannot determine the question. The general opinion is, that a person called Basil Valentine really existed; that he was born at Alsace, on the borders of the Rhine; and that he travelled in his youth into Flanders and England, and that he also made a painful pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. This information, which constitutes all that

is really known of him personally, is derived from his celebrated work, the Currum Triumphale Antimonii, in which he says, "I am a man, religious, incorporated in a most holy order, in which I will persevere as long as it shall please the omnipotent God to animate this miserable body with vital spirit;" and in another place, he says, I, Basil Valentine, by religious vows, am bound to live according to the order Benedict;" and, in his last will and testament, he calls himself a 66 Cloysterman." His period

66

of existence must be referred to the fifteenth century, perhaps towards the latter part of it, as he speaks of the French malady as the Newe FrantzosenKrankheit, Frantzosen, Frantzosen-Sucht, newe Krankheit der Kriegs-Leute, newe Kriegs-Sucht. He appears to have lived to a great age, for he returns thanks to God for his preservation, " till this my great age and lowest weakness." The style of his writings is rude and deficient in order; he is the first, however, to make any extended application of the principles of chemistry to the science of medicine; but it is effected by a most extraordinary mixture of devotion, mysticism, and astrology. The manner in which he speaks of the professors and practitioners of medicine is not a little curious. He addresses them as poor miserable creatures, with great pretensions and little experience, who write long prescriptions, on large portions of paper; and of the apothecaries he says, that they boil their medicines in porridge-pots of a size sufficient to cook victuals for great lords entertaining more than a hundred persons. He conjures them to cast off their blindness, and study by his faithful mirror. He contended that divine revelation was necessary for the discovery of the philosopher's stone. He held the purification of gold to be analogous to the condition of the bodies of man and of animals, and he conceived antimony to be the agent upon which both could be operated. He makes many curious reflections on the importance of the metals, and their application to the arts. He was the first to give antimony internally, and he speaks of its various preparations still employed in medicine, by the terms of glass of antimony, emetic (or tartarized) antimony, &c. &c. The name antimony was first given to the substance now known under that appellation, by Basil Valentine, who in his search after the philosopher's stone was in the habit of extensively using it

to flux his metals; and throwing a parcel of it where swine were accustomed to be fed, he found that those who partook of it were violently operated upon by it, but that afterwards they grew fatter; whereupon he exhibited it as a cathartic to the members of his fraternity, in the expectation that it might be equally serviceable to them as to the pigs. The experiment, however, did not succeed so well, for it was said that those to whom it was administered died. Hence it was called antimony, as being destructive to monks. In the year 1566 the French parliament altogether interdicted the employment of antimony as a medicine, and exactly a century after ordered its use, but forbidding any one to administer it but in accordance with their advice and permission; and they called upon the physicians to meet and discuss the quali

ties of this medicine.

There can be no question but Basil's knowledge of chemistry exceeded that possessed by others of his day, and that many discoveries were made by him, which have since been improved upon, and are now medicinal preparations in constant use. Of these, it is sufficient to mention the sulphuric æther, vinegar from honey-water, and sugar of lead, litharge, fulminating gold, many mercurial preparations, &c. He seems also to have had precise notions on the importance of air to the sustaining of animal life, and he speaks of the death of fishes ensuing when the entire surface of a tank of water, in which they were included, was frozen over. He conjectures the air to be the source of vital heat. From this brief statement, it will be evident that he was a man possessed of considerable knowledge, and that in his writings will be found many things of importance in the history of chemical philosophy. His writings are numerous, and among those chiefly worthy of notice are, Philosophia Occulta, Lips. 1608, 8vo; De Primâ Materiâ Lapidis Philosophici, Eisleben, 1603, 8vo; Azoth Philosophorum, seu Aureliæ Occultæ, &c. Francof, 1613, 4to; Paris, 1624, 8vo; Apocalypsis Chemica, Erfurt, 1624, 8vo; De Microcosmo deque magno Mundi Mysterio et Medicinâ Hominis, Marburgi, 1609, 8vo; Triumphwagen des Antimonii, allen, so Grund der Uhralten Medicin suchen, &c. Lips. 1604, 8vo, (this has gone through repeated editions, and been translated into Latin, French, and English ;) Scripta Chymica, Hamb. 1700, 8vo.

den

BASIL. Biographies of other Rus

sians of this name will be found under VASSILI.

BASILE, (Giovanni Battista cavaliere di,) a celebrated Neapolitan poet, born at the end of the sixteenth century. He became afterwards count of Torone, and an intimate friend of Ferdinando Gonzaga, duke of Modena. He belonged to many of those literary societies which flourished then in Italy. His works in the Tuscan dialect are very numerous. He has enriched the Neapolitan dialect (the oldest of Italy) with a work, popular up to the present time, entitled I Cunto de li Cunti, overo le trattenemiento de Peccerille, published under the name of Gianalesio Abbattutis, Jornate cinco, Napoli, 1644, 12mo. tales, which Italian authors consider to be perhaps superior to those of the Arabian Nights, with a minute detail of all the words, proverbs, and the whole manner of speech of the Neapolitans. (Glorie de gl'incogniti di Venezia. Biografia degli Uomini illustri del R. di Napoli, where a portrait of him is to be found. Toppi, Bibl. Napol. Mazzuchelli, &c.)

It contains

BASILE, (Adriana,) a Neapolitan poetess, sister of the preceding, learned in letters, an excellent musician, and moreover distinguished by her great beauty. Contemporary writers are full of her praise, and a work was even published on that account, Il Teatro delle Glorie della Signora Adriana Basile, alla virtù di lei, dalle cetri de gli Anfioni di questo Secolo fabricato, Venice, and afterwards reprinted in Naples, 1628, 12mo. She herself published a work of poetry, but which even Toppi could never see. (Toppi, Bibl. Napol.)

BASILE, a native of Albania, who in the seventeenth century bought of the Ottoman court the government of Moldavia, and by the influence of money was allowed to exercise the most culpable acts of tyranny with impunity. His subjects rose against him, and drove him away. He obtained in the first instance some assistance from Bogdan-Kiemielnisky, whose daughter he had married, but he was afterwards deserted even by his father-in-law, and died in obscurity. (Biog. Univ.)

BASILE, (Giovanni Battista,) of Catania, in Sicily, and a canon of the church of that city, died 1692. Besides several MSS. on the affairs and the families of that island, which are preserved in the chapter of that church, he published Discursus super Concessiones Ter

....

rarum per Episc. Catanenses, &c., Catanæ, 1685, folio. Another Basile Battista, of Palermo, has published an Idyll in the dialect of Sicily, La Siringa, Palermo, 1613, 12mo. Under this pseudonyme, two other Sicilian poets have published their works-Giuseppe di Montagna, who published La Cuccagna conqiustata, Poema Siciliano, Palermo, 1640, 8vo. Gio. Batt. del Giudice wrote I Battillo, Poema Buccolico, ibid. 1686.

BASILE, (Gennaro,) a Neapolitan painter, who settled at Brünn, in Moravia, and lived about 1756. His best picture is the altar-piece in the chapel of the chateau at Seeberg, in Salzburg. Most of his works remained in Moravia. (Nagler.)

BASILE, (Domenico,) a Neapolitan poet, who translated Guarini's Pastor Fido into the Neapolitan dialect, printed in that city, 1628, 12mo. (Quadrio.) BASILI, (Pierangiolo, about 1550about 1604,) a painter, a native of Gubbio, was first a scholar of Felice Damiani, and afterwards studied under Cristofano Roncalli, whose manner he followed, though in a more delicate style, and combined in his own much variety and grace. His fresco paintings in the choir of S. Ubaldo are highly esteemed; and at S. Margiale, there is a picture in oil by him, of our Saviour preaching, with a beautiful portico in perspective, and a great number of auditors. The figures are small, and like those observed in the compositions of Albert Durer. (Lanzi, Stor. Pitt. ii. 112. Bryan's Dict.)

BASILICO, (Jerome,) a jurist of celebrity in the seventeenth century, who was a native of Messina, and for some time practised as an advocate in Sicily, from whence he went to Spain, where he was judge of the supreme court in 1669, and died at Madrid in the following year. In addition to his legal acquirement he was well versed in polite literature, and was a member of the academies of Messina and Palermo. His works are, 1. Four Academical Discourses, published separately; Gli Anelli di Sant' Agata, Mess. 1654; Il Fato Nemico all' Armi Frances in Sicilia, Palerm. 1655; Le Dame Guerriere, Palerm. 1661; La Ruota degli Amani Avvenimenti, cioè la Divina Providenca Scherzante nei ragiri degli Affari dell' Universo, Palerm. 1662. 2. Gli Applausi della Sicilia al Governo Eccelentissimo Signore D. Francesco Gaetano, Duca de Sermoneta, Mess. 1663. 3. A Panegyrick on Charles II. of Spain, in Italian and Spanish, 1666. 4.

Panegirito scritto a Gio. Everardo Nitardo, Confessore della Regina, Madrid, 1668. 5. Decisiones Animales Magnæ Regiæ Armæ Regni Siciliæ, Florence, 1691, fol. (Biog. Univ.)

BASILICO, (Ciriaco,) a Neapolitan writer of the seventeenth century, who translated into Italian verse the Satyricon of Petronius and the Moretum attributed to Virgil. (Biog. Univ.)

BASILIDES, a Gnostic, who lived and taught in the first half of the second century. He professed to have received his system of theosophy from Glaucias, a disciple of the apostle Peter, and interpreter of his secret instructions; but no such interpreter or secret instructions are mentioned in ecclesiastical history. That he came from Syria to Alexandria, according to an account which makes him the scholar of the Gnostic Menander, or that he was by birth a Persian, are facts admitting of much greater doubt, than that of the near connexion of his doctrine with the Syrian Gnosis, or the Persian Dualism; for he sets out with the supposition of two opposed principles, the Good, or Supreme Being, and the Evil principle of darkness, whose kingdom was the province of matter. From the good principle proceed, says this system, immediately the spirit, (vous,) and mediately the six powers or æons, reason, understanding, wisdom, power, righteousness, and peace. From these proceed descending systems of beings, each system consisting, like the first, of seven individuals, and forming altogether the three hundred and sixty-five heavens, of which the kingdom of light is composed; and which, according to some writers, are denoted by the mystical word ABPAZAE, so often occurring on Gnostic gems, &c.; and the letters of which, according to the numerical values, make up the number already mentioned, three hundred and sixty-five. The harmony with which the various heavens reflected the image of the Most High God, remained undisturbed so long as the kingdom of light was divided from that of darkness; but when the darkness began to be aware of the kingdom of light, from the brightness of the last order of the heavenly kingdom shining over to it, this darkness began to strive after a union with the light; and thus certain powers of the heavenly, or spiritual kingdom, being drawn down into a union with matter, the visible and sensible world was produced. Of this world, says the system of Basilides, the

ruler and governor is the first æon of the last, or lowest heaven: he is, indeed, the creator of it, according to the conditions already mentioned; and this creation happened in accordance with the will of the Supreme Being, but not with a full understanding, on the part of the creator, of his superior's ideas. From this imperfect understanding on his part, the creatures subject to him are not able to reach to a union with the higher systems of the heavenly kingdom without extraneous help, which was given by the first-born of God—the vous, which descended upon Christ on his baptism at the Jordan. The purification and ascent of the soul, considered as an emanation of the divine light defiled by its union with matter, is to be accomplished by a successive passage through various stages of existence, each of which includes the retribution for the life led in the stage immediately preceding; until at last it obtains a union with the highest order of the kingdom of light. The writings of Basilides appear to have consisted of a Gospel, and twenty-four books of Commentaries upon it. Fragments of these are to be found in Clemens Alexandrinus, Epiphanius, and Grabe Spicilegium. (Ersch und Gruber.)

BASILIO, (Giovanni,) a Paduan cosmographer and jurisconsult, who flourished about the year 1310, and was prætor of Rimini, where he died. (Mazzuchelli.)

BASILISCUS, brother of the empress Verina, wife of the emperor Leo, the Thracian. The military reputation which he had gained in his youth against the Scythians, occasioned his being appointed to the command of the mighty armament fitted out at Constantinople, A. D. 468, for the reconquest of Africa from the Vandals; but the surprisal and defeat of the expedition, (the equipment of which is stated to have cost more than 5,000,000l. of modern money!) was attributed to the incapacity or corruption of its leader, whose pardon was with difficulty obtained by the empress from her husband. After the death of Leo, A. D. 474, Basiliscus was encouraged by his sister to assume the imperial purple in opposition to her son-in-law, Zeno; but he was unable to maintain himself in the usurped dignity, and his overthrow was followed by the execution of himself and his whole family. (Marcellinus. Gibbon. ch. xxxvi. 39.)

BASILIUS, (P. de Glemona,) friar of the order of strict observance, and a

French missionary in China. Having, after a protracted study of the Chinese language, found that the dictionary hitherto considered the best (Tching tsú thoung) was but imperfect, he composed one about 1726, to which he gave the title, Hán tsú si Ĭ. This excellent work was soon acknowledged as such, and a great many MS. copies of it circulated in China, as well as in Europe. It was also translated into Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and French. When the original MS. of Basilius had been transferred from the Library de Propaganda Fide of the Vatican to Paris, M. de Guignes, jun. published it under the title, Dictionnaire Chinois, François et Latin, d'après les Ordres de S. M. l'Empereur et Roi Napoléon le Grand, Paris, de l'Impr. Impér. 1813, in large fol. Julius Klaproth published a Suppl. au Dict. du P. Basile de Glemona in 1820; both are very costly and laborious works.

BASILIUS, (Stephanus,) by some called Stephanus Balás, born at Clausenburg, in Hungary. He studied several years at Wittemberg, and was a staunch protestant. Some authors even say that he sided with the Socinian opinions of Blandrat and Franciscus David. He spread the tenets of the reformed religion widely over Hungary, as well by his preaching as by his writings, and gained whole cities to the new creed. (Horányi, Mem. Hung.)

BASILY, (Francesco,) a distinguished musician, and the son of a musician, born at Loretto in 1766. He was a pupil of abbate Tannacconi at Rome, and became a master of the chapel at Foligno. Here and in Macenata, he composed several cantate and many operas. He was also a composer of church music, of which several pieces have been printed in Florence, Leipzig, and Milan. (Schilling, Univ. Lex.)

BASIMOFF, BASMOFF, or BASHENOW, a Russian architect. He studied abroad, and returned in 1765 home, when the academy of Petersburg elected him a member. He made a plan for the rebuilding of the Cremel, but the enterprise was dropped. He built subsequently several good edifices, and died as vice-president of the Imperial Academy in 1798. (Nagler.)

BASIN, (Thomas,) an eminent jurist, bishop of Lisieux, who was born at Rouen, was magister in Paris, and professor of law at Louvain, where he was so highly esteemed, that Charles VII. appointed him one of his council. Louis XÎ.,

however, banished him, after which, according to Savigny (Gesch.), he was again professor at Louvain, and held the situation of vicar-general at Utrecht. Another account styles him "episcopus et dux Lexoviensis in Armorica, ac postea episcopus Cæsariensis," and asserts that when Charles, the son of Louis, wished to recall him from Utrecht, to which place he had been exiled, he refused to return, and died there on the 3d of December, 1491. (Val. Andreas, Fast. Acad. Lovan.)

BASING, or BASINGSTOKE, (John,) an English scholar of considerable celebrity in the thirteenth century. He studied first at Oxford, then at Paris, and afterwards, in his zeal for the cultivation of the Greek language, he went to Athens. He returned thence to England, bringing with him many Greek MSS., and according to Matthew Paris he introduced into England the Greek numerals. (De quibus figuris hoc maxime admirandum, quod unica figura quilibet numerus repræsentatur; quod non est in Latino vel in Algorismo. M. Par. p. 721.) Basingstoke's learning obtained for him the acquaintance and esteem of some of the most distinguished men of his time, and in particular of Robert Grosteste. He was made archdeacon of Leicester, and died in 1252. He translated a Greek treatise on grammar into Latin, which he entitled Donatus Græcorum, for the use of his pupils, and was the author of several theological treatises, particularly one De Concordia Evangeliorum. (Tanner.)

BASINIO DE BASANII, a very distinguished Italian Latin poet of the fourteenth century, born at or near Parma, about the year 1425. Remarkable for precocity of talent, he received his first instructions from Victorinus de Feltra, and was taught Greek at Ferrara by Theodorus Gazæus. He also studied with success philosophy and mathematics. His first patron was Lionel d'Este, to whom he dedicated his first poem, the Meleagrides, and who appointed him professor of Latin eloquence at Ferrara. The troubles of the time drew Basinio into politics, the result of which was his being obliged to take shelter at the court of Rimini, where he was munificently rewarded for his talents by the duke Sigismond Melatyta, in whose praise he wrote the poem entitled Hesperides. He died in 1457, when one of his poems, the Argonautica, was but partly executed. He also wrote Astronomica, in imitation

of Aratus, and Isottæus, or a collection of elegies in praise of Sigismond's mistress, Isotta. His works have been printed both separately and collectively, the latter in two vols, 4to, Rimini, 1794, edited by Laurenzo Drudi. (Biog. Univ. Suppl.)

BASINUS, or BISINUS, a king of the Thuringians, with whom Childerich, king of the Franks, took refuge when driven from his own kingdom by his nobles for his debaucheries. Childerich repaid his protector's hospitality by seducing his wife Basina, whom he persuaded to accompany him on his return to his kingdom, where she bore him the famous Chlodovic, the founder of the French monarchy. Basinus avenged himself on his treacherous guest by an invasion of his territory, part of which he ravaged cruelly; but in 461 he was obliged to acknowledge the superior power of Chlodovic, the son of his rival. He had himself three sons, Baderich, Berthar, and Hermanfried, the last of whom suffered himself to be persuaded by his consort Amelberg, a Vandal princess, to murder his brother Berthar, for the sake of possessing his share of the kingdom. He subdued Baderich also, by the help of his step-brother, Theodorich, king of the East Franks, but was at length punished by him for his double fratricide. (Ersch und Gruber.)

BASIRE, (Isaac,) an English theologian, born in 1607, in the island of Jersey. He was for some time master of a school at Guernsey, but afterwards obtained various benefices, and about 1640 he was appointed chaplain to Charles I. His loyalty made him obnoxious to the other party, and he took shelter with the king at Oxford. When that city surrendered, he resolved to leave England, and he conceived the idea of going to preach the doctrines of the English church in the East. Quitting England in 1646, he travelled through the Morea, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, and was received with distinction by the patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch. After remaining some time at Aleppo, he travelled on foot with a party of Turks to Constantinople, and from thence he went into Transylvania, where the prince George Ragotzi II. made him professor of theology in the university of Weissembourg, then newly founded. He had held this place seven years, when the news of the restoration caused him to return to England, where he was restored to his benefices, and appointed chaplain to Charles II. He died in 1676. His principal works are a