His son, bearing the same name, continued the paternal career with success, and died in 1822, having executed many plates for several learned societies of London.—R. M.
BASIRE, Isaac, an English theologian, author of "Diatribus de Antiqua Ecclesiæ Britannicæ Libertate," and of "A History of Presbyterianism in England and Scotland," was born in the island of Jersey in 1607. He held various benefices till about the year 1640, when he was appointed chaplain to Charles I. After the surrender of Oxford, where he had taken shelter with the king, he quitted England, travelled through the Morea, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, and finally settled in Transylvania, where he was made professor of theology in the university of Weissemburg by Prince George Ragotzi II. The news of the Restoration caused him to return to England, and he again became king's chaplain. Died in 1676.—J. S., G.
BASKERVILLE, John, the famous printer, was born in 1706, at Wolverley in Worcestershire. We find him at the age of twenty keeping a writing-school in Birmingham, and afterwards, as a japanner, displaying peculiar taste and skill in that branch of business, and by it acquiring considerable wealth. He built a handsome house, and paraded a costly equipage. In 1750 he turned his attention to printing and letter-founding. Caslon had previously effected some improvements on the Dutch types, but Baskerville excelled him in the form, elegance, and sharpness which he gave to the letters. In 1756 appeared his first book, a quarto Virgil, and others followed in rapid succession. By his taste and ingenuity, he brought the art of printing to a degree of perfection never before attained in this country. His endeavours did not, however, bring him much compensation. He spent £600 before he could produce one letter to please him, and he spent thousands more before he got any profitable returns. He latterly wished to get quit of the printing business altogether; and after his death his types could not find a market in this country, but were sold to a literary society in Paris for £3700. Baskerville died without children, January 8, 1775. In his will, executed two years before, he avows his disbelief of christianity, nay, his contempt for it. According to the instructions contained in the same curious document, he was buried under a windmill in his own garden. His dwelling-house was destroyed in the riots of 1791. Baskerville was vain and somewhat peevish, fond of gold lace on his dress, and of driving a beautiful carriage, each pannel of which was a separate picture executed by himself as a japanner. His editions of several of the classics and many English works, such as a folio Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, Newton's Milton, and Congreve's works, are still prized for their beautiful typography.—J. E.
BASMAISON, Pougnet Jean de, a French lawyer, born at Riom in the sixteenth century. He enjoyed much consideration, and was twice deputed to wait on Henry III., relative to the affairs of his province. He is the author of some legal tracts.
BASNAGE, the name of a distinguished protestant family of France of high social rank, and which produced many men of eminence as scholars, lawyers, and divines:—
Basnage, Benjamin, was born at Charenton in Normandy in 1580. His father had been a refugee in England; had preached for some years in Norwich; and at the time of his son's birth was minister at Charenton. Benjamin succeeded him in this charge, which he continued to fill for the long period of fifty-one years; during the whole of which time he took an active part in the public business of the protestant church of France. He was the author of a valuable work, entitled "Traité de l'Eglise." He died in 1652.
Basnage, Antoine, eldest son of Benjamin, was born in 1610, and became pastor of Bayeux. He suffered imprisonment for some time at Havre de Grace, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and at length escaped to Holland, where he died in 1691, as pastor in Zutphen.
Basnage de Flottemanville, Samuel, son of Antoine, was born at Bayeux in 1638, and was educated, as so many of his ancestors had been, for the Huguenot ministry. He accompanied his father in his flight to Holland, and succeeded him in his charge at Zutphen, where he died in 1721. He distinguished himself by his learning, and by the acuteness of his critical researches in the history of the church. He wrote an important work, "De Rebus Sacris et Ecclesiasticis Exercitationes Historico-criticæ," Traject. 1692, in which he pointed out many errors in the Annales of Baronius. Another of his works was entitled "Annales Politico-ecclesiastici annorum DCXLV a Cæsare Augusto usque ad Phocam," Roterod., 1706, embracing similar corrections of Baronius. These works were not merely polemical; they had a positive value which is still recognized. He wrote, also, an ethical treatise, "Morale Théologique et Politique sur les Vertus et les Vices de l'Homme," 1703.
Basnage du Fraquenay, Henri, a younger son of Benjamin, was born at St. Mare in Lower Normandy in 1615, and rose to be one of the most eminent lawyers in France. He was admitted an advocate of the parliament of Normandy in 1636, and was engaged in almost every important cause. After honourably maintaining his position in the midst of the persecution which drove so many of his family from France, he died, 20th October, 1695. His complete works were republished at Rouen in 1709, and again in 1776.
Basnage de Beauval, Jacques, the most eminent writer of his family, was the oldest son of Henri, and was born at Rouen, 8th August, 1653. Destined for the protestant ministry, he studied at Saumur, Geneva, and Sedan, and succeeded Stephen le Moine as pastor in Rouen, in his twenty-third year. He devoted his subsequent studies chiefly to ecclesiastical history. In 1685 he fled to Holland, where he became pastor of the Walloon church of Rotterdam. In 1709 he accepted a similar charge at the Hague, where he lived on intimate terms of friendship with the grand pensionary Heinsius, Bayle, and many other distinguished statesmen and scholars. His character stood so high, even with his enemies, that he was employed by the French court to negotiate an alliance with Holland in 1717; and for his valuable services on this occasion, he was rewarded with the restoration of all his forfeited property in France. He died December 22, 1723. His great merits as a church historian are acknowledged even by Roman catholic writers. His principal works were "Histoire de la Religion des Eglises Reformées," intended as an answer to Bossuet's Histoire dés Variations, &c.; "Histoire de l'Eglise depuis Jesus Christ jusqu'à présent," Rotter., 1699, 2 vols. folio, including the earlier work before mentioned; "Histoire de la Religion des Juifs depuis J. X. jusqu'à present pour servir de Continuation a l'Histoire de Joseph," Rotter., 1707; "Antiquités Judaiques, ou Remarques Critiques sur la République des Hebreux," 2 vols. 8vo, 1713.
Basnage, Henri de Beauval, brother of Jacques, was born at Rouen in 1656, and followed his father's profession of the law. He became an advocate in the parliament of Rouen, and fled in 1687 to Holland, where he died at the Hague in 1710. He wrote a work entitled "Tolerance des Religions," which appeared in 1684. He also edited a journal which was intended as a continuation of Bayle's Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres. It was entitled "Histoire des Ouvrages des Savants."—P. L.
BASQUE, Michael le, a celebrated captain of buccaneers, who, at the head of six hundred men, took possession of the towns of Maracaibo and Gibraltar in the Gulf of Venezuela. Their booty was estimated at 400,000 crowns.
BASS or BASSIUS, Henry, a German physician, born at Bremen, 1690; died in 1754. In 1713 he went to Halle, where he studied under the celebrated Hoffman. In 1715 he went to Strasburg, and two years afterwards to Bâle, where he studied particularly anatomy and surgery. Taking his degree at Halle, he was nominated, sometime after, extraordinary-professor of anatomy and surgery, a position that he filled till his death. He has written, "Disputatio de Fistula ani feliciter Curanda," Halle, 1718. Macquart translated it into French; Paris, 1759, 12mo. The author compares in it the methods adopted by the ancients with those in use at the present time, and seems to have found great uniformity between them. "Observationes Anatomico-Chrirurgico-Medicæ," Halle, 1731, 8vo: in this work the author has given several good figures and descriptions of various instruments of his own invention. "Tractatus de Morbis Venereis," Leipzig, 1764, 8vo. He has also written in German some commentaries on the surgery of Nuck, which was printed at Halle in 1728, 8vo.—E. L.
BASS, Edward, an American theologian, first bishop of Massachusetts, was born at Dorchester in 1726, and died in 1803. He enjoyed considerable celebrity as a canonist.
BASS, George, the discoverer, whose name has been given to the strait which separates Van Diemen's land from Australia. He was a surgeon in the English navy, and went to New South Wales, in company with the celebrated Flinders, seven years after the colony was founded. Having in the two previous years
