yet in his boyhood when an affair of honour, in which he was unhappily concerned, obliged him to withdraw from court for a short period. Colonel at fourteen years of age, he was rapidly raised to the rank of lieutenant-general, and on the death of his father in 1592, the king gave him the title of admiral. This title he exchanged in 1594 for that of marshal; in 1595 he was named governor of Burgundy, and in 1598 raised to the peerage. With an ingratitude, however, which is commonly found in the history of court favourites, he had hardly received the highest honours of the state, when he entered into treasonable practices with an agent of Spain. His intrigues were immediately discovered, and generously forgiven, but being renewed in 1601, and carried on perseveringly for some months, the patience of his benefactor was exhausted, and in July, 1602, Biron was executed in the Bastile.
Biron, Charles Armand, duc de, born 1663; died 1756. In the reign of Louis XIV, he attained, by distinguished services, the rank of lieutenant-general, was wounded at the siege of Landau, and under Louis XV. was created a marshal of France.
Biron, Louis Antoine de Gontaut, duc de, fourth son of Charles Armand, born 1700; died 1788. He served with distinction in Italy, Bohemia, and Flanders, and latterly became a marshal of France and governor-general of Languedoc.
Biron, Armand Louis de Gontaut, duc de Lauzun, and afterwards duc de, nephew of Louis Antoine, born in 1747, was employed in 1779 to head an expedition against Senegal, Gambia, and other British settlements in Western Africa, to which he had directed the attention of government in his "L'Etat de defense de l'Angleterre et de toutes les possessions dans les quatre parties du monde." This enterprise being successfully concluded in that year, he went to America, and took part in the war of independence, distinguishing himself in several important actions. On his return to France the constituent assembly, of which he was a member, gave him a command in the department of the Nord. In July, 1792, he was named general of the army of the Rhine, and in 1793 appointed to command the army encamped at Rochelle. Here the insubordination of his troops, and other difficulties of his position, caused him to demand from the revolutionary chiefs leave to resign, but this demand was refused, and on being repeated was held to be evidence of treason. He was accordingly consigned to the abbaye, and in December, 1793, adjudged to the scaffold.—J. S., G.
BISACCIONI, Count Majolino. This illustrious man was born at Ferrara in 1582. Having received a very liberal education under the assiduous care of his father, a poet, and professor of rhetoric in the college of Jesi, he went to the university of Bologna, and took out his degree of LL.D. The times in which he lived being very boisterous, and war raging with fury from one end to the other of Italy, he was compelled at first to enter the military career, and took service whilst only sixteen years of age under the Venetian republic. Having had an affair of honour with Alexander Gonzaga, his superior officer, he was forced to leave the States of the Church, and went to Modena, where he practised as a barrister. His reputation as an orator drew the attention of the reigning duke, who appointed him governor of Baiso. Accused of having fired at some one, he underwent imprisonment, and his innocence having been well established, he was raised to a higher post, which he filled until the prince of Corregio intrusted him with the civil and military direction of his principality. His enemies succeeded anew in having him arrested; but he was again set at liberty, and received farther proofs of affection from that prince. He was afterwards induced to accept the rank of lieutenant-general in the troops of the cardinal bishop of Trent, and at the siege of Vienna in 1618, being then in the service of the prince of Moldavia, he bravely defended, with Count Buquoy, the commander-in-chief, and five other officers, the bridge of that city, attacked by a Bohemian regiment, until the Austrians came to their rescue. He was several times at Rome as minister plenipotentiary from the court of Savoy, whilst he was serving in the Piedmontese army under the name of Count St. Giorgio. Being rather advanced in years, and wearied of military life, he retired to Venice, where he wrote the best part of his works, principally historical. He also wrote for the stage, and has left many plays and novels, forming altogether twenty-nine volumes, besides many manuscripts on political and military subjects yet unedited. Whilst he resided in Venice, apparently retired from the political world, he forwarded the interests of the French court so much, that Louis XIV. appointed him one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, raised him to the rank of a marquis, and created him a knight of the order of St. Michael. All these honours and titles did not, however, hinder him from dying in the greatest misery on the 8th of June, 1663.—A. C. M.
BISCAINO, Bartolomeo, a Genoese historical painter, born 1632. He learnt drawing from his father, a landscape painter, and colouring from Valerio Cartelli. A good designer and an excellent engraver. There is a Biscaino at Devonshire house, and several at the gallery in Dresden.—W. T.
* BISCHOF, Carl Gustav Christoph, a German chemist, mineralogist, and geologist, professor of chemistry and technology in the university of Bonn, was born at Nuremberg in 1792. After completing his studies he became a private tutor at Erlangen, and obtained the above-mentioned chair at Bonn in 1819. His principal writings are—a "Stoichiometrical Text-book;" a "Text-book of Chemistry," Bonn, 1824; "Researches on the Internal Heat of the Globe," published at Leipzig, in German, in 1837, and in English, greatly improved, at London, in 1841; and a "Text-book of Physical and Chemical Geology," in two volumes, Bonn, 1847-55. The latter work is one of vast importance to the progress of geology. Besides these and some other independent works, Bischof is the author of numerous memoirs, published in various scientific journals, and relating to a great diversity of chemical, physical, geological, mineralogical, and mining subjects.—W. S. D.
BISCHOFF, Gottlieb Wilhelm, a German botanist, was born at Durckheim in 1797. He studied botany under Koch and Martins, and became professor of botany at Heidelberg. He is the author of works "On Cryptogamic Botany;" "On Medicinal Plants;" "On the Linnæan system;" on "The Elements of Botany;" and on "Botanical Terminology."
BISCHOFF, Theodore Ludwig Wilhelm, a German botanist, published at Rouen in 1829 a treatise on "The True Nature of the Spiral Vessels of Plants."
BISCHOFF VON ALTENSTERN, Ignaz Rudolf, a distinguished German military surgeon, and professor of therapeutics and clinical medicine at Vienna, was born on the 15th August, 1784, at Kremsmünster, where his father was a professor of modern languages. He received his education first in his native town, and proposed visiting Vienna for the study of the law, when his taste for natural history led him to turn his attention to medicine. In 1808 he took his degree as doctor of medicine at Vienna, where he had acquired a considerable practice, when, in 1812, he obtained the professorship of clinical medicine and therapeutics in the university of Prague. To these he added the post of chief surgeon to the general hospital in the year 1816. In 1825 he was appointed an imperial councillor, and professor of clinical medicine, pathology, and therapeutics at Vienna, where he was afterwards raised into the ranks of the nobility. He died on the 15th July, 1850. Bischoff Von Altenstern, is regarded as one of the first of German surgeons and medical teachers, and he is especially noted for his treatment of nervous fever, in which he has done good service to the progress of medicine. Of his writings, the earliest, entitled "Observations on Typhus and Nervous Fever," was published at Prague in 1815, and was followed by several other works of a similar nature, including one on the "Recognition and Treatment of Fevers and Inflammations," published at Vienna in 1823. He also wrote on "Chronic Diseases," and a work on the "Practice of Medicine, Illustrated by Cases," which appeared at Vienna in 1823-25.—W. S. D.
BISCHOFSBERGER, Barthelemy, a Swiss historian, born in 1622; died in 1678; author of a history of Appenville.
BISCHOP, Cornelius, born in 1630, and a disciple of Ferdinand Bol; a pupil and imitator of the weird lights of Rembrandt. Bischop imitated the imitator in colour, style, and manner, and by his (Bischop's) imitators, a very low class indeed, was considered not much inferior to Bol. Louis XIV. purchased a candle-light picture by him, and the king of Denmark was also his admirer. The French critics praise him highly, but he is generally pronounced heavy in composition, and lumpy in expression.—W. T.
BISCHOP, John de, a painter of landscapes and history, born at the Hague in 1646; died in 1686. By profession an advocate, delighting in the rich yellow tone that old gold alone possesses, he was an amateur of singular talent, imitating the pencil drawings of the old masters with the unerring fidelity of a forger. Bassano, Tintoretto, the Caracci, Veronese, Rubens, Vandyck, were all under his thumb. In Pilkington's day, his
