as a term in such games as poker, where “to bluff” means to bet heavily on a hand so as to make an opponent believe it to be stronger than it is; hence such phrases as “the game of bluff,” “a policy of bluff.”
BLUM, ROBERT FREDERICK (1857–1903), American artist,
was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 9th of July 1857. He was
employed for a time in a lithographic shop, and studied at the
McMicken Art School of Design in Cincinnati, and at the Pennsylvania
Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, but he was
practically self-taught, and early showed great and original
talent. He settled in New York in 1879, and his first published
sketches—of Japanese jugglers—appeared in St Nicholas. His
most important work is a large frieze in the Mendelssohn Music
Hall, New York, “Music and the Dance” (1895). His pen-and-ink
work for the Century magazine attracted wide attention, as
did his illustrations for Sir Edwin Arnold’s Japonica. In the
country and art of Japan he had been interested for many years.
“A Daughter of Japan,” drawn by Blum and W. J. Baer, was
the cover of Scribner’s Magazine for May 1893, and was one of
the earliest pieces of colour-printing for an American magazine.
In Scribner’s for 1893 appeared also his “Artist’s Letters from
Japan.” He was an admirer of Fortuny, whose methods somewhat
influenced his work. Blum’s Venetian pictures, such as
“A Bright Day at Venice” (1882), had lively charm and
beauty. He died on the 8th of June 1903 in New York City.
He was a member of the National Academy of Design, being
elected after his exhibition in 1892 of “The Ameya”; and
was president of the Painters in Pastel. Although an excellent
draughtsman and etcher, it was as a colourist that he chiefly
excelled.
BLUMENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1752–1840), German
physiologist and anthropologist, was born at Gotha on the 11th
of May 1752. After studying medicine at Jena, he graduated
doctor at Göttingen in 1775, and was appointed extraordinary
professor of medicine in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778.
He died at Göttingen on the 22nd of January 1840. He was
the author of Institutiones Physiologicae (1787), and of a
Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie (1804), both of which were
very popular and went through many editions, but he is best
known for his work in connexion with anthropology, of which
science he has been justly called the founder. He was the first
to show the value of comparative anatomy in the study of man’s
history, and his craniometrical researches justified his division
of the human race into several great varieties or families, of
which he enumerated five—the Caucasian or white race, the
Mongolian or yellow, the Malayan or brown race, the Negro or
black race, and the American or red race. This classification has
been very generally received, and most later schemes have been
modifications of it. His most important anthropological work
was his description of sixty human crania published originally
in fasciculi under the title Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum
gentium illustratae decades (Göttingen, 1790–1828).
BLUMENTHAL, LEONHARD, Count von (1810–1900),
Prussian field marshal, son of Captain Ludwig von Blumenthal
(killed in 1813 at the battle of Dennewitz), was born at Schwedt-on-Oder
on the 30th of July 1810. Educated at the military
schools of Culm and Berlin, he entered the Guards as 2nd
lieutenant in 1827. After serving in the Rhine provinces, he joined
the topographical division of the general staff in 1846. As
lieutenant of the 31st foot he took part in 1848 in the suppression
of the Berlin riots, and in 1849 was promoted captain on the
general staff. The same year he served on the staff of General
von Bonin in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, and so distinguished
himself, particularly at Fredericia, that he was appointed
chief of the staff of the Schleswig-Holstein army. In 1850 he
was general staff officer of the mobile division under von Tietzen
in Hesse-Cassel. He was sent on a mission to England in that
year (4th class of Red Eagle), and on several subsequent occasions.
Having attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he was
appointed personal adjutant to Prince Frederick Charles in 1859.
In 1860 he became colonel of the 31st, and later of the 71st,
regiment. He was chief of the staff of the III. army corps when,
on the outbreak of the Danish War of 1864, he was nominated
chief of the general staff of the army against Denmark, and
displayed so much ability, particularly at Düppel and the
passage to Alsen island, that he was promoted major-general
and given the order pour le mérite. In the war of 1866 Blumenthal
occupied the post of chief of the general staff to the crown
prince of Prussia, commanding the 2nd army. It was upon
this army that the brunt of the fighting fell, and at Königgrätz
it decided the fortunes of the day. Blumenthal’s own part in
these battles and in the campaign generally was most conspicuous.
On the field of Königgrätz the crown prince said to
his chief of staff, “I know to whom I owe the conduct of my
army,” and Blumenthal soon received promotion to lieutenant-general
and the oak-leaf of the order pour le mérite. He was also
made a knight of the Hohenzollern Order. From 1866 to 1870
he commanded the 14th division at Düsseldorf. In the Franco-German
War of 1870–71 he was chief of staff of the 3rd army
under the crown prince. Blumenthal’s soldierly qualities and
talent were never more conspicuous than in the critical days
preceding the battle of Sedan, and his services in the war have
been considered as scarcely less valuable and important than
those of Moltke himself. In 1871 Blumenthal represented
Germany at the British manœuvres at Chobham, and was given
the command of the IV. army corps at Magdeburg. In 1873 he
became a general of infantry, and ten years later he was made a
count. In 1888 he was made a general field marshal, after which
he was in command of the 4th and 3rd army inspections. He
retired in 1896, and died at Quellendorf near Köthen on the 21st
of December 1900.
Blumenthal’s diary of 1866 and 1870–1871 has been edited by his son, Count Albrecht von Blumenthal (Tagebuch des G.F.M. von Blumenthal), 1902; an English translation (Journals of Count von Blumenthal) was published in 1903.
BLUNDERBUSS (a corruption of the Dutch donder, thunder,
and the Dutch bus; cf. Ger. Büchse, a box or tube, hence a
thunder-box or gun), an obsolete muzzle-loading firearm with
a bell-shaped muzzle. Its calibre was large so that it could
contain many balls or slugs, and it was intended to be fired at
a short range, so that some of the charge was sure to take effect.
The word is also used by analogy to describe a blundering and
random person or talker.
BLUNT, JOHN HENRY (1823–1884), English divine, was born
at Chelsea in 1823, and before going to the university of Durham
in 1850 was for some years engaged in business as a manufacturing
chemist. He was ordained in 1852 and took his M.A. degree
in 1855, publishing in the same year a work on The Atonement.
He held in succession several preferments, among them the
vicarage of Kennington near Oxford (1868), which he vacated
in 1873 for the crown living of Beverston in Gloucestershire.
He had already gained some reputation as an industrious
theologian, and had published among other works an annotated
edition of the Prayer Book (1867), a History of the English
Reformation (1868), and a Book of Church Law (1872), as well as
a useful Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology (1870).
The continuation of these labours was seen in a Dictionary of
Sects and Heresies (1874), an Annotated Bible (3 vols., 1878–1879),
and a Cyclopaedia of Religion (1884), and received recognition
in the shape of the D.D. degree bestowed on him in 1882. He
died in London on the 11th of April 1884.
BLUNT, JOHN JAMES (1794–1855), English divine, was born
at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, and educated at
St John’s College, Cambridge, where he took his degree as
fifteenth wrangler and obtained a fellowship (1816). He was
appointed a Wort’s travelling bachelor 1818, and spent some
time in Italy and Sicily, afterwards publishing an account of his
journey. He proceeded M.A. in 1819, B.D. 1826, and was
Hulsean Lecturer in 1831–1832 while holding a curacy in Shropshire.
In 1834 he became rector of Great Oakley in Essex, and
in 1839 was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity at
Cambridge. In 1854 he declined the see of Salisbury, and he
died on the 18th of June 1855. His chief book was Undesigned
Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments
