Part 17

are not mistaken in rhythm, nor to be scanned by forcing them to obey the conventional stress. They are instances, and _Paradise Lost_ is full of such, of Milton's exquisite art in ringing changes upon the metrical type of ten syllables, five stresses and a rising rhythm, so as to make the whole texture of the verse respond to his poetical thought. Writing many years later in _Paradise Regained_ and in _Samson Agonistes_, Milton retained his system of blank verse in its general characteristics, but he treated it with increased dryness and with a certain harshness of effect. It is certainly in his biblical drama that blank verse has been pushed to its most artificial and technical perfection, and it is there that Milton's theories are to be studied best; yet it must be confessed that learning excludes beauty in some of the very audacious irregularities which he here permits himself in _Samson Agonistes_. Such lines as

"Made arms ridiculous, useless the forgery-- My griefs not only pain me as a lingering disease-- Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine-- Justly, yet despair not of his final pardon"--

are constructed with perfect comprehension of metrical law, yet they differ so much from the normal structure of blank verse that they need to be explained, and to imitate them would be perilous. A persistent weakness in the third foot has ever been the snare of English blank verse, and it is this element of monotony and dulness which Milton is ceaselessly endeavouring to obviate by his wonderful inversions, elisions and breaks.

After the Restoration, and after a brief period of experiment with rhymed plays, the dramatists returned to the use of blank verse, and in the hands of Otway, Lee and Dryden, it recovered much of its magnificence. In the 18th century, Thomson and others made use of a very regular and somewhat monotonous form of blank verse for descriptive and didactic poems, of which the _Night Thoughts_ of Young is, from a metrical point of view, the most interesting. With these poets the form is little open to licence, while inversions and breaks are avoided as much as possible. Since the 18th century, blank verse has been subjected to constant revision in the hands of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, the Brownings and Swinburne, but no radical changes, of a nature unknown to Shakespeare and Milton, have been introduced into it.

See J.A. Symonds, _Blank Verse_ (1895); Walter Thomas, _Le Decasyllabe romain et sa fortune en Europe_ (1904); Robert Bridges _Milton's Prosody_ (1894); Ed. Guest, _A History of English Rhythms_ (1882); J. Mothere, _Les Theories du vers hereoique anglais_ (1886); J. Schipper, _Englische Metrik_ (1881-1888). (E. G.)

BLANQUI, JEROME ADOLPHE (1798-1854), French economist, was born at Nice on the 21st of November 1798. Beginning life as a schoolmaster in Paris, he was attracted to the study of economics by the lectures of J.B. Say, whose pupil and assistant he became. Upon the recommendation of Say he was in 1825 appointed professor of industrial economy and of history at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. In 1833 he succeeded Say as professor of political economy at the same institution, and in 1838 was elected a member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. In 1838 appeared his most important work, _Histoire de l'economie politique en Europe, depuis les anciens jusqu'a nos jours_. He was indefatigable in research, and for the purposes of his economic inquiries travelled over almost the whole of Europe and visited Algeria and the East. He contributed much to our knowledge of the conditions of the working-classes, especially in France. Other works of Blanqui were _De la situation economique et morale de l'Espagne en 1846; Resume de l'histoire du commerce et de l'industrie_ (1826); _Precis elementaire d'economie politique_ (1826); _Les Classes ouvrieres en France_ (1848).

BLANQUI, LOUIS AUGUSTE (1805-1881), French publicist, was born on the 8th of February 1805 at Puget-Theniers, where his father, Jean Dominique Blanqui, was at that time sub-prefect. He studied both law and medicine, but found his real vocation in politics, and at once constituted himself a champion of the most advanced opinions. He took an active part in the revolution of July 1830, and continuing to maintain the doctrine of republicanism during the reign of Louis Philippe, was condemned to repeated terms of imprisonment. Implicated in the armed outbreak of the Societe des Saisons, of which he was a leading spirit, he was in the following year, 1840, condemned to death, a sentence that was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. He was released by the revolution of 1848, only to resume his attacks on existing institutions. The revolution, he declared, was a mere change of name. The violence of the _Societe republicaine centrale_, which was founded by Blanqui to demand a modification of the government, brought him into conflict with the more moderate Republicans, and in 1849 he was condemned to ten years' imprisonment. In 1865, while serving a further term of imprisonment under the Empire, he contrived to escape, and henceforth continued his propaganda against the government from abroad, until the general amnesty of 1869 enabled him to return to France. Blanqui's leaning towards violent measures was illustrated in 1870 by two unsuccessful armed demonstrations: one on the 12th of January at the funeral of Victor Noir, the journalist shot by Pierre Bonaparte; the other on the 14th of August, when he led an attempt to seize some guns at a barrack. Upon the fall of the Empire, through the revolution of the 4th of September, Blanqui established the club and journal _La patrie en danger_. He was one of the band that for a moment seized the reins of power on the 31st of October, and for his share in that outbreak he was again condemned to death on the 17th of March of the following year. A few days afterwards the insurrection which established the Commune broke out, and Blanqui was elected a member of the insurgent government, but his detention in prison prevented him from taking an active part. Nevertheless he was in 1872 condemned along with the other members of the Commune to transportation; but on account of his broken health this sentence was commuted to one of imprisonment. In 1879 he was elected a deputy for Bordeaux; although the election was pronounced invalid, Blanqui was set at liberty, and at once resumed his work of agitation. At the end of 1880, after a speech at a revolutionary meeting in Paris, he was struck down by apoplexy, and expired on the 1st of January 1881. Blanqui's uncompromising communism, and his determination to enforce it by violence, necessarily brought him into conflict with every French government, and half his life was spent in prison. Besides his innumerable contributions to journalism, he published an astronomical work entitled _L'Eternite par les astres_ (1872), and after his death his writings on economic and social questions were collected under the title of _Critique sociale_ (1885).

A biography by G. Geffroy, _L'Enferme_ (1897), is highly coloured and decidedly partisan.

BLANTYRE, the chief town of the Nyasaland protectorate, British Central Africa. It is situated about 3000 ft. above the sea in the Shire Highlands 300 m. by river and rail N.N.W. of the Chinde mouth of the Zambezi. Pop. about 6000 natives and 100 whites. It is the headquarters of the principal trading firms and missionary societies in the protectorate. It is also a station on the African trans-continental telegraph line. The chief building is the Church of Scotland church, a fine red brick building, a mixture of Norman and Byzantine styles, with lofty turrets and white domes. It stands in a large open space and is approached by an avenue of cypresses and eucalyptus. The church was built entirely by native labour. Blantyre was founded in 1876 by Scottish missionaries, and is named after the birthplace of David Livingstone.

BLANTYRE (Gaelic, "the warm retreat"), a parish of Lanarkshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 14,145. The parish lies a few miles south-east of Glasgow, and contains High Blantyre (pop. 2521), Blantyre Works (or Low Blantyre), Stonefield and several villages. The whole district is rich in coal, the mining of which is extensively carried on. Blantyre Works (pop. 1683) was the birthplace of David Livingstone (1813-1873) and his brother Charles (1821-1873), who as lads were both employed as piecers in a local cotton-mill. The scanty remains of Blantyre Priory, founded towards the close of the 13th century, stand on the left bank of the Clyde, almost opposite the beautiful ruins of Bothwell Castle. High Blantyre and Blantyre Works are connected with Glasgow by the Caledonian railway. Stonefield (pop. 7288), the most populous place in the parish, entirely occupied with mining, lies between High Blantyre and Blantyre Works, Calderwood Castle on Rotten Calder Water, near High Blantyre, is situated amid picturesque scenery.

BLARNEY, a small town of Co. Cork, Ireland, in the mid parliamentary division, 5 m. N.W. of the city of Cork on the Cork & Muskerry light railway. Pop. (1901) 928. There is a large manufacture of tweed. The name "blarney" has passed into the language to denote a peculiar kind of persuasive eloquence, alleged to be characteristic of the natives of Ireland. The "Blarney Stone," the kissing of which is said to confer this faculty, is pointed out within the castle. The origin of this belief is not known. The castle, built c. 1446 by Cormac McCarthy, was of immense strength, and parts of its walls are as much as 18 ft. thick. To its founder is traced by some the origin of the term "blarney," since he delayed by persuasion and promises the surrender of the castle to the lord president. Richard Millikin's song, "The Groves of Blarney" (c. 1798), contributed to the fame of the castle, which is also bound up with the civil history of the county and the War of the Great Rebellion.

BLASHFIELD, EDWIN HOWLAND (1848- ), American artist, was born on the 15th of December 1848 in New York City. He was a pupil of Bonnat in Paris, and became (1888) a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. For some years a genre painter, he later turned to decorative work, marked by rare delicacy and beauty of colouring. He painted mural decorations for a dome in the manufacturers' building at the Chicago Exposition of 1893; for the dome of the Congressional library, Washington; for the capitol at St Paul, Minnesota; for the Baltimore court-house; in New York City for the Appellate court house, the grand ball-room of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the Lawyers' club, and the residences of W.K. Vanderbilt and Collis P. Huntington; and in Philadelphia for the residence of George W. Drexel. With his wife he wrote _Italian Cities_ (1900) and edited Vasari's _Lives of the Painters_ (1896), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He became president of the Society of Mural Painters, and of the Society of American Artists.

BLASIUS (or BLAISE), SAINT, bishop of Sebaste or Sivas in Asia Minor, martyred under Diocletian on the 3rd of February 316. The Roman Catholic Church holds his festival on the 3rd of February, the Orthodox Eastern Church on the 11th. His flesh is said to have been torn with woolcombers' irons before he was beheaded, and this seems to be the only reason why he has always been regarded as the patron saint of woolcombers. In pre-Reformation England St Blaise was a very popular saint, and the council of Oxford in 1222 forbade all work on his festival. Owing to a miracle which he is alleged to have worked on a child suffering from a throat affection, who was brought to him on his way to execution, St Blaise's aid has always been held potent in throat and lung diseases. The woolcombers of England still celebrate St Blaise's day with a procession and general festivities. He forms one of a group of fourteen (i.e. twice seven) saints, who for their help in time of need have been associated as objects of particularly devoted worship in Roman Catholic Germany since the middle of the 15th century.

See William Hone, _Every Day Book_, i. 210.

BLASPHEMY (through the Fr. from Gr. [Greek: blasphaemia], profane language, slander, probably derived from root of [Greek: blaptein], to injure, and [Greek: phaemae], speech), literally, defamation or evil speaking, but more peculiarly restricted to an indignity offered to the Deity by words or writing. By the Mosaic law death by stoning was the punishment for blasphemy (Lev. xxiv. 16). The 77th Novel of Justinian assigned death as the penalty, as did also the Capitularies. The common law of England treats blasphemy as an indictable offence. All blasphemies against God, as denying His being, or providence, all contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ, all profane scoffing at the Holy Scriptures, or exposing any part thereof to contempt or ridicule, are punishable by the temporal courts with fine, imprisonment and also infamous corporal punishment. An act of Edward VI. (1547; repealed 1553 and revived 1558) enacts that persons reviling the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, by contemptuous words or otherwise, shall suffer imprisonment. Persons denying the Trinity were deprived of the benefit of the Act of Toleration by an act of 1688. An act of 1697-1698, commonly called the Blasphemy Act, enacts that if any person, educated in or having made profession of the Christian religion, should by writing, preaching, teaching or advised speaking, deny any one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity to be God, or should assert or maintain that there are more gods than one, or should deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, he should, upon the first offence, be rendered incapable of holding any office or place of trust, and for the second incapable of bringing any action, of being guardian or executor, or of taking a legacy or deed of gift, and should suffer three years' imprisonment without bail. It has been held that a person offending under the statute is also indictable at common law (_Rex_ v. _Carlisle_, 1819, where Mr Justice Best remarks, "In the age of toleration, when that statute passed, neither churchmen nor sectarians wished to protect in their infidelity those who disbelieved the Holy Scriptures"). An act of 1812-1813 excepts from these enactments "persons denying as therein mentioned respecting the Holy Trinity," but otherwise the common and the statute law on the subject remain as stated. In the case of _Rex_ v. _Woolston_ (1728) the court declared that they would not suffer it to be debated whether to write against Christianity in _general_ was not an offence punishable in the temporal courts at common law, but they did not intend to include disputes between learned men on _particular_ controverted points.

The law against blasphemy has practically ceased to be put in active operation. In 1841 Edward Moxon was found guilty of the publication of a blasphemous libel (Shelley's _Queen Mab_), the prosecution having been instituted by Henry Hetherington, who had previously been condemned to four months' imprisonment for a similar offence, and wished to test the law under which he was punished. In the case of _Cowan_ v. _Milbourn_ (1867) the defendant had broken his contract to let a lecture-room to the plaintiff, on discovering that the intended lectures were to maintain that "the character of Christ is defective, and his teaching misleading, and that the Bible is no more inspired than any other book," and the court of exchequer held that the publication of such doctrine was blasphemy, and the contract therefore illegal. On that occasion the court reaffirmed the dictum of Chief Justice Hale, that Christianity is part of the laws of England. The commissioners on criminal law (sixth report) remark that "although the law forbids _all_ denial of the being and providence of God or the Christian religion, it is only when irreligion assumes the form of an insult to God and man that the interference of the criminal law has taken place." In England the last prominent prosecution for blasphemy was the case of _R._ v. _Ramsey & Foote_, 1883, 48 L.T. 739, when the editor, publisher and printer of the _Freethinker_ were sentenced to imprisonment; but police court proceedings were taken as late as 1908 against an obscure Hyde Park orator who had become a public nuisance.

Profane cursing and swearing is made punishable by the Profane Oaths Act 1745, which directs the offender to be brought before a justice of the peace, and fined five shillings, two shillings or one shilling, according as he is a gentleman, below the rank of gentleman, or a common labourer, soldier, &c.

By the law of Scotland, as it originally stood, the punishment of blasphemy was death, but by an act of 1825, amended in 1837, blasphemy was made punishable by fine or imprisonment or both.

In France, blasphemy (which included, also, speaking against the Holy Virgin and the saints, denying one's faith, or speaking with impiety of holy things) was from very early times punished with great severity. The punishment was death in various forms, burning alive, mutilation, torture or corporal punishment. In the United States the common law of England was largely followed, and in most of the states, also, statutes were enacted against the offence, but, as in England, the law is practically never put in force. In Germany, the punishment for blasphemy is imprisonment varying from one day to three years, according to the gravity of the offence. To constitute the offence, the blasphemy must be uttered in public, be offensive in character, and have wounded the religious susceptibilities of some other person. In Austria, whoever commits blasphemy by speech or writing is liable to imprisonment for any term from six months up to ten years, according to the seriousness of the offence.

BLASS, FRIEDRICH (1843-1907), German classical scholar, was born on the 22nd of January 1843 at Osnabruck. After studying at Gottingen and Bonn from 1860 to 1863, he lectured at several gymnasia and at the university of Konigsberg. In 1876 he was appointed extraordinary professor of classical philology at Kiel, and ordinary professor in 1881. In 1892 he accepted a professorship at Halle, where he died on the 5th of March 1907. He frequently visited England, and was intimately acquainted with leading British scholars. He received an honorary degree from Dublin University in 1892, and his readiness to place the results of his labours at the disposal of others, together with the courtesy and kindliness of his disposition, won the respect of all who knew him. Blass is chiefly known for his works in connexion with the study of Greek oratory: _Die griechische Beredsamkeit von Alexander bis auf Augustus_ (1865); _Die attische Beredsamkeit_ (1868-1880; 2nd ed., 1887-1898), his greatest work; editions for the Teubner series of Andocides (1880), Antiphon (1881), Hypereides (1881, 1894), Demosthenes (Dindorf's ed., 1885), Isocrates (1886), Dinarchus (1888), Demosthenes (Rehdantz' ed., 1893), Aeschines (1896), Lycurgus, _Leocrates_ (1902); _Die Rhythmen der attischen Kunstprosa_ (1901); _Die Rhythmen der asianischen und romischen Kunstprosa_ (1905). Among his other works are editions of Eudoxus of Cnidus (1887), the [Greek: Athaenaion politeia] (4th ed., 1903), a work of great importance, and Bacchylides (3rd. ed., 1904); _Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch_ (1902; Eng. trans, by H. St John Thackeray, 1905); _Hermeneutik und Kritik and Palaographie, Buchwesen, und Handschriftenkunde_ (vol. i. of Muller's _Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, 1891); _Uber die Aussprache des Griechischen_ (1888; Eng. trans, by W.J. Purton, 1890); _Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee_ (1904); contributions to Collitz's _Sammlung der griechischen Dialektinschriften_; editions of the texts of certain portions of the New Testament (Gospels and _Acts_). His last work was an edition of the _Choephori_ (1906).

See notices in the _Academy_, March 16, 1907 (J.P. Mahaffy); _Classical Review_, May 1907 (J.E. Sandys), which contains also a review of _Die Rhythmen der asianischen und romischen Kunstprosa_.

BLASTING, the process of rending or breaking apart a solid body, such as rock, by exploding within it or in contact with it some explosive substance. The explosion is accompanied by the sudden development of gas at a high temperature and under a tension sufficiently great to overcome the resistance of the enclosing body, which is thus shattered and disintegrated. Before the introduction of explosives, rock was laboriously excavated by hammer and chisel, or by the ancient process of "fire-setting," i.e. building a fire against the rock, which, on cooling, splits and flakes off. To hasten disintegration, water was often applied to the heated rock, the loosened portion being afterwards removed by pick or hammer and wedge. In modern times blasting has become a necessity for the excavation of rock and other hard material, as in open surface cuts, quarrying, tunnelling, shaft-sinking and mining operations in general.

For blasting, a hole is generally drilled to receive the charge of explosive. The depth and diameter of the hole and the quantity of explosive used are all variable, depending on the character of the rock and of the explosive, the shape of the mass to be blasted, the presence or absence of cracks or fissures, and the position of the hole with respect to the free surface of the rock. The shock of a blast produces impulsive waves acting radially in all directions, the force being greatest at the centre of explosion and varying inversely as the square of the distance from the charge. This is evidenced by the observed facts. Immediately surrounding the explosive, the rock is often finely splintered and crushed. Beyond this is a zone in which it is completely broken and displaced or projected, leaving an enveloping mass of more or less ragged fractured rock only partially loosened. Lastly, the diminishing waves produce vibrations which are transmitted to considerable distances. Theoretically, if a charge of explosive be fired in a solid material of perfectly homogeneous texture and at a proper distance from the free surface, a conical mass will be blown out to the full depth of the drill hole, leaving a funnel-shaped cavity. No rock, however, is of uniform mineralogical and physical character, so that in practice there is only a rough approximation to the conical crater, even under the most favourable conditions. Generally, the shape of the mass blasted out is extremely irregular, because of the variable texture of the rock and the presence of cracks, fissures and cleavage planes. The ultimate or resultant useful effect of the explosion of a confined charge is in the direction where the least resistance is presented. In the actual work of rock excavation it is only by trial, or by deductions based on experience, that the behaviour of a given rock can be determined and the quantity of explosive required properly proportioned.

Blasting, as usually carried on, comprises several operations: (1) drilling holes in the rock to be blasted; (2) placing in the hole the charge of explosive, with its fuze; (3) tamping the charge, i.e. compacting it and filling the remainder of the hole with some suitable material for preventing the charge from blowing out without breaking the ground; (4) igniting or detonating the charge; (5) clearing away the broken material. The holes for blasting are made either by hand, with hammer and drill or jumper, or by machine drill, the latter being driven by steam, compressed air, or electricity, or, in rare cases, by hydraulic power. Drill holes ordinarily vary in diameter from 1 to 3 in., and in depth from a few inches up to 15 or 20 ft. or more. The deeper holes are made only in surface excavation of rock, the shallower, to a maximum depth of say 12 ft., being suitable for tunnelling and mining operations.