Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/814

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BULLION—BULL RUN
791

of Cappel (11th of October 1531), in which Zwingli fell, he left Bremgarten. On the 9th of December 1531 he was chosen to succeed Zwingli as chief pastor of Zürich. A strong writer and thinker, his spirit was essentially unifying and sympathetic, in an age when these qualities won little sympathy. His controversies on the Lord’s Supper with Luther, and his correspondence with Lelio Sozini (see Socinus), exhibit, in different connexions, his admirable mixture of dignity and tenderness. With Calvin he concluded (1549) the Consensus Tigurinus on the Lord’s Supper. The (second) Helvetic Confession (1566) adopted in Switzerland, Hungary, Bohemia and elsewhere, was his work. The volumes of the Zürich Letters, published by the Parker Society, testify to his influence on the English reformation in later stages. Many of his sermons were translated into English (reprinted, 4 vols., 1849). His works, mainly expository and polemical, have not been collected. He died at Zürich on the 17th of September 1575.

See Carl Pestalozzi, Leben (1858); Raget Christoffel, H. Bullinger (1875); Justus Heer, in Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (1897).  (A. Go.*) 


BULLION, a term applied to the gold and silver of the mines brought to a standard of purity. The word appears in an English act of 1336 in the French form “puissent sauvement porter à les exchanges ou bullion ... argent en plate, vessel d’argent, &c.”; and apparently it is connected with bouillon, the sense of “boiling” being transferred in English to the melting of metal, so that bullion in the passage quoted meant “melting-house” or “mint.” The first recorded instance of the use of the word for precious metal as such in the mass is in an act of 1451. From the use of gold and silver as a medium of exchange, it followed that they should approximate in all nations to a common degree of fineness; and though this is not uniform even in coins, yet the proportion of alloy in silver, and of carats alloy to carats fine in gold, has been reduced to infinitesimal differences in the bullion of commerce, and is a prime element of value even in gold and silver plate, jewelry, and other articles of manufacture. Bullion, whether in the form of coins, or of bars and ingots stamped, is subject, as a general rule of the London market, not only to weight but to assay, and receives a corresponding value.


BULLOCK, WILLIAM (c. 1657–c. 1740), English actor, “of great glee and much comic vivacity,” was the original Clincher in Farquhar’s Constant Couple (1699), Boniface in The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), and Sir Francis Courtall in Pavener’s Artful Wife (1717). He played at all the London theatres of his time, and in the summer at a booth at Bartholomew Fair. He had three sons, all actors, of whom the eldest was Christopher Bullock (c. 1690–1724), who at Drury Lane, the Haymarket and Lincoln’s Inn Fields displayed “a considerable versatility of talent.” Christopher created a few original parts in comedies and farces of which he was the author or adapter:—A Woman’s Revenge (1715); Slip; Adventures of Half an Hour (1716); The Cobbler of Preston; Woman’s a Riddle; The Perjurer (1717); and The Traitor (1718).


BULLROARER, the English name for an instrument made of a small flat slip of wood, through a hole in one end of which a string is passed; swung round rapidly it makes a booming, humming noise. Though treated as a toy by Europeans, the bullroarer has had the highest mystic significance and sanctity among primitive people. This is notably the case in Australia, where it figures in the initiation ceremonies and is regarded with the utmost awe by the “blackfellows.” Their bullroarers, or sacred “tunduns,” are of two types, the “grandfather” or “man tundun,” distinguished by its deep tone, and the “woman tundun,” which, being smaller, gives forth a weaker, shriller note. Women or girls, and boys before initiation, are never allowed to see the tundun. At the Bora, or initiation ceremonies, the bullroarer’s hum is believed to be the voice of the “Great Spirit,” and on hearing it the women hide in terror. A Maori bullroarer is preserved in the British Museum, and travellers in Africa state that it is known and held sacred there. Thus among the Egba tribe of the Yoruba race the supposed “Voice of Oro,” their god of vengeance, is produced by a bullroarer, which is actually worshipped as the god himself. The sanctity of the bullroarer has been shown to be very widespread. There is no doubt that the rhombus ῥόμβος which was whirled at the Greek mysteries was one. Among North American Indians it was common. At certain Moqui ceremonies the procession of dancers was led by a priest who whirled a bullroarer. The instrument has been traced among the Tusayan, Apache and Navaho Indians (J. G. Bourke, Ninth Annual Report of Bureau of Amer. Ethnol., 1892), among the Koskimo of British Columbia (Fr. Boas, “Social Organization, &c., of the Kwakiutl Indians,” Report of the U.S. National Museum for 1895), and in Central Brazil. In New Guinea, in some of the islands of the Torres Straits (where it is swung as a fishing-charm), in Ceylon (where it is used as a toy and figures as a sacred instrument at Buddhist festivals), and in Sumatra (where it is used to induce the demons to carry off the soul of a woman, and so drive her mad), the bullroarer is also found. Sometimes, as among the Minangkabos of Sumatra, it is made of the frontal bone of a man renowned for his bravery.

See A. Lang, Custom and Myth (1884); J. D. E. Schmeltz, Das Schwirrholz (Hamburg, 1896); A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man, and in the Journ. Anthrop. Instit. xix., 1890; G. M. C. Theal, Kaffir Folk-Lore; A. B. Ellis, Yoruba-Speaking Peoples (1894); R. C. Codrington, The Melanesians (1891).


BULL RUN, a small stream of Virginia, U.S.A., which gave the name to two famous battles in the American Civil War.

(1) The first battle of Bull Run (called by the Confederates Manassas) was fought on the 21st of July 1861 between the Union forces under Brigadier-General Irvin McDowell and the Confederates under General Joseph E. Johnston. Both armies were newly raised and almost untrained. After a slight action on the 18th at Blackburn’s Ford, the two armies prepared for a battle. The Confederates were posted along Bull Run, guarding all the passages from the Stone Bridge down to the railway bridge. McDowell’s forces rendezvoused around Centreville, and both commanders, sensible of the temper of their troops, planned a battle for the 21st. On his part McDowell ordered one of his four divisions to attack the Stone Bridge, two to make a turning movement via Sudley Springs, the remaining division (partly composed of regular troops) was to be in reserve and to watch the lower fords. The local Confederate commander, Brigadier-General P. G. T. Beauregard, had also intended to advance, and General Johnston, who arrived by rail on the evening of the 20th with the greater part of a fresh army, and now assumed command of the whole force, approved an offensive movement against Centreville for the 21st; but orders miscarried, and the Federal attack opened before the movement had begun. Johnston and Beauregard then decided to fight a defensive battle, and hurried up troops to support the single brigade of Evans which held the Stone Bridge. Thus there was no serious fighting at the lower fords of Bull Run throughout the day.

The Federal staff was equally inexperienced, and the divisions