728 IIILLEL MILLIARD D'AUBERTEUIL Euphrates, and amid the ruins of Babylon; pop. about 7,000. It is a quiet, peaceable place, with well supplied bazaars, but greatly decayed from its importance under the Sassanide shahs and the caliphs, when it was also remarkable for one of the most flourishing communities of the Babylonian Jews. It is supposed by some writers to have been the place where the He- brew captives carried off from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar were chiefly established. IIILLEL, a rabbi and president (nasi) of the sanhedrim of Jerusalem, who flourished in the latter half of the 1st century B. C. He is dis- tinguished from other rabbis of the same name by the surname of Hazzaken (the Elder). He is also called the Babylonian from his native country. Admired for his humanity, mildness, and love of peace, he is also celebrated as the reformer and great propagator of the study of the traditional law, the results of which were afterward collected under the title of Mishnah by one of his descendants and successors in the presidency of the sanhedrim, Rabbi Judah the Holy. Hillel's school flourished especially during the reign of Herod the Great, the rival school being that of the austere Shammai. Be- sides the legal decisions of Hillel, various sayings of his are preserved in the Mishnah, as well as numerous anecdotes in the Gemara, all of which express his love of men as well as of study. It is he who, being applied to by a pagan for in- struction in the Mosaic law, replied : " ' Do not to others what you do not like others to do to you,' is the essence; everything else is but comment." Another Hillel, who flourished about the middle of the 4th century, was the author of the existing Jewish calendar. HILLER, Ferdinand, a German composer, born in Frankfort, Oct. 24, 1811. His father, a wealthy Jew, fostered his disposition for music, and he received lessons in succession from Hoff- mann, Schmidt, Vollweiler, and Hummel. At the age of 10 he was first heard as a pianist, and at 17 published his first composition, a quar- tet for piano and strings. He next spent seven years in Paris, devoting himself to the study of classical music, where he was heard with Liszt, Kalkbrenner, and later with Baillot the violin- ist, acquiring much reputation as a virtuoso. In 1836, returning to Frankfort, he was made director of the Cdcilienverein. During the succeeding 15 years he lived successively in Milan, Leipsic, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Paris, and London. Finally in 1852 he settled at Cologne, where he has since remained. At Milan he brought out his opera Romilde ; at Leipsic, in 1839, his oratorio Die Zerstorung Jerusalem*; at Dresden his two operas Der Traum in der Christnacat (1844), and Kon- radin, der letzte Hohenstaufe (1847). In the winter of 1843-' 4 he directed the Leipsic Ge- wandhaus concerts. In 1847 he was made music director at Dusseldorf, in 1850 chapel- master at Cologne, and in 1851 director of the Italian opera at Paris. His compositions com- prise operas, symphonies, oratorios, trios and quartets for stringed instruments, and a large number of songs and pianoforte pieces. Among his later works is " Nala and Damayanti," a cantata brought out at the Birmingham festi- val in 1870. He holds honorable rank among modern German composers, and his critical writings are also esteemed. BILLBOUSE. I. James, an American states- man, born in Montville, Conn., Oct. 21, 1754, died in New Haven, Dec. 29, 1832. He gradu- ated at Yale college in 1773, of which institu- tion he was treasurer from 1782 till his death. He studied law, and took an active part in the struggle of the revolution ; was a member of congress in 1791, and in 1794 was chosen a member of the United States senate, where he remained for 16 years. Resigning his seat in 1810, he was appointed commissioner of the school fund of Connecticut, and continued to act as such for 15 years. II. James Abraham, an American poet, son of the preceding, born in New Haven, Sept. 26, 1789, died near that city, Jan. 4, 1841. He graduated at Yale college in 1808, and in 1812 delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa society a poem entitled " The Judgment, a Vision " (New York, 1812). He engaged in commerce in New York ; in 1819 visited England, and published in London his drama of " Percy's Masque," which was reprinted in New York with changes in 1820 ; and in 1822 removed to a country seat near New Haven, where he passed the remainder of his life. In 1825 he published his second drama, "Hadad;" and in 1839 a collected edi- tion of his writings appeared in Boston, under the title of "Dramas, Discourses, and other Pieces." It included, besides several polished prose compositions, "Demetria," a domestic Italian tragedy, which he had written in 1813. BILLIARD, Nicholas, an English miniature painter, born in Exeter in 1547, died in 1619. He was by profession a jeweller ; but having a taste for painting, he studied the works of Holbein, and became noted for his minia- tures. He painted Mary, queen of Scots, Elizabeth several times, James I., and other eminent persons. BILLIARD D'AUBERTECIL, Michel Rene, a French author, born in Rennes, Jan. 31, 1751, died in Santo Domingo about 1785. He prac- tised law in that colony, and published on his return to France Considerations sur Vetat pre- sent de la colonie franpaise de Saint- Domingue (2 vols., 1776), which exposed official abuses and was suppressed by the authorities. He visited the United States during the revolu- tionary war, returned to Santo Domingo, and is said by some to have been assassinated, by others to have been executed. His principal works are: Essais Jiistoriques et politiques sur les Anglo- Americains (Brussels, 1782), and Histoire de V administration du lord North depuis 1770 jusqu'en 1782, et de la guerre de VAmerique septentrionale (London and Paris, 1784), the accompanying financial statistics be- ing also published separately.
