wrote Life of James II., and Original Letters written to the Earl of Arlington (1712). The latter consists principally of letters written from Brussels giving an account of the important events which took place in the Netherlands during 1674.
His second son, Whitelocke Bulstrode (1650–1724), remained in England after the flight of James II.; he held some official positions, and in 1717 wrote a pamphlet in support of George I. and the Hanoverian succession. He published A Discourse of Natural Philosophy, and was a prominent Protestant controversialist. He died in London on the 27th of November 1724.
BULWARK (a word probably of Scandinavian origin, from bol or bole, a tree-trunk, and werk, work, in Ger. Bollwerk, which has also been derived from an old German bolen, to throw, and so a machine for throwing missiles), a barricade of beams, earth, &c., a work in 15th and 16th century fortifications designed to mount artillery (see Boulevard). On board ship the term is used of the woodwork running round the ship above the level of the deck. Figuratively it means anything serving as a defence.
BUMBOAT, a small boat which carries vegetables, provisions, &c., to ships lying in port or off the shore. The word is probably connected with the Dutch bumboat or boomboot, a broad Dutch fishing-boat, the derivation of which is either from boom, cf. Ger. baum, a tree, or from bon, a place in which fish is kept alive, and boot, a boat. It appears first in English in the Trinity House By-laws of 1685 regulating the scavenging boats attending ships lying in the Thames.
BUMBULUM, Bombulum or Bunibulum, a fabulous musical instrument described in an apocryphal letter of St Jerome to Dardanus,[1] and illustrated in a series of illuminated MSS. of the 9th to the 11th century, together with other instruments described in the same letter. These MSS. are the Psalter of Emmeran, 9th century, described by Martin Gerbert,[2] who gives a few illustrations from it; the Cotton MS. Tiberius C. VI. in the British Museum, 11th century; the famous Boulogne Psalter, A.D. 1000; and the Psalter of Angers, 9th century.[3] In the Cotton MS. the instrument consists of an angular frame, from which depends by a chain a rectangular metal plate having twelve bent arms attached in two rows of three on each side, one above the other. The arms appear to terminate in small rectangular bells or plates, and it is supposed that the standard frame was intended to be shaken like a sistrum in order to set the bells jangling. Sebastian Virdung[4] gives illustrations of these instruments of Jerome, and among them of the one called bumbulum in the Cotton MS., which Virdung calls Fistula Hieronimi. The general outline is the same, but instead of metal arms there is the same number of bent pipes with conical bore. Virdung explains, following the apocryphal letter, that the stand resembling the draughtsman’s square represents the Holy Cross, the rectangular object dangling therefrom signifies Christ on the Cross, and the twelve pipes are the twelve apostles. Virdung’s illustration, probably copied from an older work in manuscript, conforms more closely to the text of the letter than does the instrument in the Cotton MS. There is no evidence whatever of the actual existence of such an instrument during the middle ages, with the exception of this series of fanciful pictures drawn to illustrate an instrument known from description only. The word bombulum was probably derived from the same root as the βομβαύλιος of Aristophanes (Acharnians, 866) (βόμβος and αὐλός), a comic compound for a bag-pipe with a play on βομβυλιός, an insect that hums or buzzes (see Bag-Pipe). The original described in the letter, also from hearsay, was probably an early type of organ.
(K. S.)
BUN, a small cake, usually sweet and round. In Scotland the word is used for a very rich spiced type of cake and in the north of Ireland for a round loaf of ordinary bread. The derivation of the word has been much disputed. It has been affiliated to the old provincial French bugne, “swelling,” in the sense of a “fritter,” but the New English Dictionary doubts the usage of the word. It is quite as probable that it has a far older and more interesting origin, as is suggested by an inquiry into the origin of hot cross buns. These cakes, which are now solely associated with the Christian Good Friday, are traceable to the remotest period of pagan history. Cakes were offered by ancient Egyptians to their moon-goddess; and these had imprinted on them a pair of horns, symbolic of the ox at the sacrifice of which they were offered on the altar, or of the horned moon-goddess, the equivalent of Ishtar of the Assyro-Babylonians. The Greeks offered such sacred cakes to Astarte and other divinities. This cake they called bous (ox), in allusion to the ox-symbol marked on it, and from the accusative boun it is suggested that the word “bun” is derived. Diogenes Laertius (c. A.D. 200), speaking of the offering made by Empedocles, says “He offered one of the sacred liba, called a bouse, made of fine flour and honey.” Hesychius (c. 6th century) speaks of the boun, and describes it as a kind of cake with a representation of two horns marked on it. In time the Greeks marked these cakes with a cross, possibly an allusion to the four quarters of the moon, or more probably to facilitate the distribution of the sacred bread which was eaten by the worshippers. Like the Greeks, the Romans eat cross-bread at public sacrifices, such bread being usually purchased at the doors of the temple and taken in with them,—a custom alluded to by St Paul in 1 Cor. x. 28. At Herculaneum two small loaves about 5 in. in diameter, and plainly marked with a cross, were found. In the Old Testament a reference is made in Jer. vii. 18-xliv. 19, to such sacred bread being offered to the moon goddess. The cross-bread was eaten by the pagan Saxons in honour of Eoster, their goddess of light. The Mexicans and Peruvians are shown to have had a similar custom. The custom, in fact, was practically universal, and the early Church adroitly adopted the pagan practice, grafting it on to the Eucharist. The boun with its Greek cross became akin to the Eucharistic bread or cross-marked wafers mentioned in St Chrysostom’s Liturgy. In the medieval church, buns made from the dough for the consecrated Host were distributed to the communicants after Mass on Easter Sunday. In France and other Catholic countries, such blessed bread is still given in the churches to communicants who have a long journey before they can break their fast. The Holy Eucharist in the Greek church has a cross printed on it. In England there seems to have early been a disposition on the part of the bakers to imitate the church, and they did a good trade in buns and cakes stamped with a cross, for as far back as 1252 the practice was forbidden by royal proclamation; but this seems to have had little effect. With the rise of Protestantism the cross bun lost its sacrosanct nature, and became a mere eatable associated for no particular reason with Good Friday. Cross-bread is not, however, reserved for that day; in the north of England people usually crossmark their cakes with a knife before putting them in the oven. Many superstitions cling round hot cross buns. Thus it is still a common belief that one bun should be kept for luck’s sake to the following Good Friday. In Dorsetshire it is thought that a cross-loaf baked on that day and hung over the chimneypiece prevents the bread baked in the house during the year from “going stringy.”
BUNBURY, HENRY WILLIAM (1750–1811), English caricaturist, was the second son of Sir William Bunbury, 5th baronet, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, and came of an old Norman family. He was educated at Westminster school and St Catharine’s Hall, Cambridge, and soon showed a talent for drawing, and especially for humorous subjects. His more serious efforts did not rise to a high level, but his caricatures are as famous as those of his contemporaries Rowlandson and Gillray, good examples being his “Country Club” (1788), “Barber’s Shop” (1811) and “A Long Story” (1782.) He was a popular character, and the friend of most of the notabilities of his day, whom he never offended by attempting political satire; and his easy circumstances and social position (he was colonel of the West Suffolk Militia, and was appointed equerry to the duke of York in 1787) enabled him to exercise his talents in comfort.
