Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/268

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Bulteel
262
Bulwer

The works which may with considerable probability be assigned to Bulteel are the following: 1. 'London's Triumph, or the Solemn and Magnificent reception of that honourable gentleman, Robert Tichburn, Lord Major; after his return from taking his oath at Westminster, the morrow after on the lord mayor and the Worshipful Company of Skinners to which he belonged, contains an account of the traditionary origin of London, of the antiquity of its government, and of the power and munificence of its citizens. It describes in glowing terms the reception of the mayor by Lord-protector Cromwell, and the various pageants on that festal day, when 'all the nation seemed to be epitomised within the walls of her metropolis,' 2. 'Berinthea,' written by J. B., Gent., 1664. It is described in the preface as a 'Romance accommodated to History,' and the wars and adventures of Cyrus forming a groundwork for the imaginary incidents, it may be looked on as one of the earliest examples of the historical novel. 3. The 'Amorous Orontus, or Love in Fashion,' is a translation of Thomas Corneille's 'Amour à la Mode,' the original plot of which was borrowed from 'El Amor al Uso' by Ant. de Solis. It is written in heroic verse, descending often enough to doggerel, yet enlivened here and there by pointed epigram, and not altogether deserving of the verdict 'miserable poetry,' with which it has been branded (Biog. Dram. ii. 25). It was published in 1665. Genest (Hist. of the Stage, x. 140) says it was never played; but the title-page of the later edition, 1675, entitled, 'The Amorous Gallant,' contains the words 'A Comedie in heroick verse, as it was acted.' 4. In 1668 appeared 'Rome exactly described,' being two discourses of Lord Angelo Corraro, ambassador from the republic of Venice to Pope Alexander VII, translated by John Bultell, Gent. In the dedication of this work to Mr. Matthias van Benningen, he attests to the value of Corraro's observations, 'that politique astrologer,' one 'who judges with that liberty of truth, natural to all republicans.' The sincerity of this sentiment is doubtful. 5. At all events in 1683 his apology for dedicating his translation of Eudes de Mezeray's 'General Chronological History of France' to James, duke of York, is that 'crowned heads make the subject thereof.' 6. In the same year, 1683, appeared the 'Apophthegmes of the Ancients, taken out of Plutarch and others, collected into one volume for the benefit and pleasure of the Ingenious.'

This list probably represents only a part of Bulteel's published writings. In the dedication of the last-mentioned book he refers, but without titles or description, to other works to which he has not affixed his name.

[Biog. Dram.; Genest's History of the Stage, x. 141; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 420, ii. 252; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit Mus. Cat.]

A. M-l


BULWER, EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON, Lord Lytton (1803-1873). [See Lytton.]

BULWER, JOHN (fl. 1654), physician, was the son of Thomas Bulwer, a physician He devoted much attention to the discovery of methods for communicating knowledge to the deaf and dumb. Dr. John Wallis claimed to be the originator in England of the art by which the benefits of instruction are bestowed on the deaf, but it would seem that this honour is really due to his contemporary Bulwer. Wallis introduced his first deaf pupil, Mr. Whalley, before the Royal Society in 1662, after a year's instruction, but fourteen years previously Bulwer had published the first edition of his curious and suggestive work, 'Philocophus, or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friend,' in which he records many remarkable cases, several being within his own experience, of what had been accomplished for the education of the deaf. His proposed method of instruction included the visible language of signs and gestures, and the labial alphabet, or reading the movement of the lips and articulation. In estimating his claims to originality, however, it must be borne in mind that he was acquainted with some, at least, of the discoveries made by the Spanish Benedictine monks, Pedro Ponce and Juan Paulo Bonet, and he had certainly heard of the case, reported from Spain by Sir Kenelm Digby, of the younger brother of the constable of Castile, who was taught 'to hear the sounds of words with his eyes,' Bulwer was the first to recommend the institution of 'an academy of the mute,' and to notice the capacity which deaf persons usually possess of enjoying music through the medium of the teeth—a fact which, in the early part of the present century, was turned to excellent account in Germany, principally by Father Robertson, a monk in the Scots college of Ratisbon, by whose exertions a new source of instruction and enjoyment was thus opened up to those otherwise insensible to sounds. It is very strange that Bulwer, whose earlier treatise on the 'Natural Lan-