THE PENNY CYCLOPÆDIA

OF

THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.

BAS

BAS

BASSANTIN, or BASSINTOUN, JAMES, son of the Laird of Bassintin in the Mers,' (Merse?) (Biog. to the Maharattas. In November, 1780, the fortress was treaty of Poonah, Bassein was, however, again relinquished Brit.) He was educated at Glasgow, and afterwards tra- regularly besieged by the British army under General velled, but finally settled at Paris, where he taught mathe- Goddard, and, after sustaining the attack for four weeks, matics and astronomy. Of his personal life we know nothing, but that he was addicted to astrology, and gave Sir 1782, with the Maharatta chiefs, Bassein was once more resurrendered at discretion. By the treaty concluded in May, Robert Melville (see his memoirs or Biog. Brit.) some pre-stored, together with Ahmedabad and our other conquests dictions a little after the time of Queen Mary's escape into in Gujerat, and the town long remained in possession of the England. He returned to Scotland in 1562 and died 1568. Maharattas. In 1802 the Peishwa Bajee Rao fled to Bas(See ASTRONOMY, and place the date there given, 1557, in sein from his rival, Holkar, and sought the protection of the brackets; it is the date of publication of a work.) He was of Murray's party, and a zealous Protestant. British government, with whom he concluded a treaty on the He wrote various works, as follows:-1. Paraphrase sur last day of that year. It was hoped that this treaty would Astrolabe, Lyons, 1555, reprinted at Paris, 1617. 2. Ma- by separating from it the Peishwa, who had been its nominal have broken up the federal union of the Maharatta chiefs, thematica Genethliaca. 3. De Mathesi in Genere. 4. Mu- head; but this chief having subsequently been induced to sica secundum Platonem. 5. Arithmetica. To these works join his former rivals and to organize with them a plan of we cannot find dates. 6. A work on Astronomy, in French, hostility to the English, the whole of his territories were de(presently to be noticed,) translated into Latin by Declared forfeited, and were taken into possession by the ComTournes (Tornesius), under the title of Astronomia J. Bas- pany's government in June, 1818, he becoming a stipendiary santini Scoti, &c., reprinted 1613. his territories. Bassein has since that time remained in of that government, and recognizing this appropriation of the hands of the English, under whom the fortifications have been allowed to go to decay, and the town and port have become of little importance. At a recent date, the town contained a great number of houses in ruins.

There is also a Discours Astronomique, published in 1557, at Lyons, and Lalande gives the title of a Latin version published at Geneva in 1599, and again in 1613. Delambre doubts whether this Discours Astronomique be any other than the original of No. 6 in the list above; and we incline to think he is right, for, independently of the coincidence of editors and dates, this Discours Astronomique appears to be the work of Bassantin's which was best known. It was the only one in De Thou's library, and is the only one in that of the Faculty of Advocates, at Edinburgh. It is the only work mentioned by Weidler, while No. 6 is the only one mentioned by Vossius. Vossius observes that the original was written in very bad French, and that the author knew 'neither Greek nor Latin, but only Scotch.'

country is, on the contrary, flourishing. To the north and
The state of cultivation exhibited in the surrounding
the ship-building establishments at Bombay are supplied.
north-east of Bassein are forests of teak-wood, from which
A considerable part of the agricultural population are pro-
fessors of the Roman Catholic religion, which it is probable
from Portugal.
was introduced among them by the early European settlers

The trigonometry of Bassantin uses only sines. History of British India; Treaties presented to Parliament by (Rennell's Memoir of a Map of Hindustan; Mills's Hisplanetary system is that of Ptolemy, and he was much in- command of his Majesty, 1819; Report of Committee of the debted to Purbach. He adopted the trepidation of the House of Commons on the Affairs of India, 1832, political equinoxes. (See ASTRONOMY.) actual computations; and, in his treatise on the planisphere, He used the sphere in division.) appears to have followed the plan, if not the work, of Apian. (See Biog. Brit.; Delambre, Hist. de l'Astron. Mod., &c.) BASSEIN, a town and port in the province of Aurungabad, situated on the point of the continent of Hindustan opposite to the north end of the island of Salsette, in 19° 20′ N. lat., and 72° 56' E. long. Bassein was once a city and fortress of importance, but, sharing the fate of many places in India, it has suffered from the wars and revolutions to which that country has been exposed, and is now fallen into decay. In the year 1531 Bassein was ceded to the Portuguese, under the provisions of a treaty concluded by them with the sultan of Cambay, and for more than two centuries it remained in the undisturbed possession of that nation. In 1750 the town was taken by the Maharattas, from whom it captured by the British in December, 1774; and in the following March was formally yielded to its conquerors by a treaty made with the Maharatta chief, Ragoba. By the

was

topher's in the West Indies. The town is situated on the BASSETERRE is the capital of the island of St. Chrissouth side of the island, at the mouth of a small river. It contains about 800 houses, many of which are very good, a spacious square, and a small church, and is defended by three forts. It was founded in 1623. The district of Basseterre contains 17 square miles, with a population of 6620 souls. It is divided into two parishes, St. George's and St. Peter's, and sends six members to the assembly-the former four, the latter two. This name was given by the French to the district from its being the lower portion of the island. The vale of Basseterre is exceedingly beautiful and well cultivated. The anchorage is in an open bay, and a continual heavy surf beats on the shore, which is a sandy beach. As this prevents any wharf or quay being erected, the goods are shipped in a boat called a moses, manned by expert laying the broadside of the boat to the beach so as to roll rowers, who, watching the lull of the surf, pull on shore,

VOL. IV.-B

BAS

A fourth species is believed to be the Shea-tree, or African butter-plant, which is so very important an article of African internal commerce; and which it would apparently be extremely desirable to introduce into the West Indies and Bengal, as a new source of internal wealth. plant which is frequently spoken of by Park, particularly at This is the pages 202 and 203 of his Travels in Africa:

The people were everywhere employed in collecting the fruit of the shea-trees, from which they prepare a vegetable butter, mentioned in the former part of this work. These trees grow in great abundance all over this part of Bambarra. They are not planted by the natives, but are found growing naturally in the woods; and in clearing wood-land for cultivation every tree is cut down but the shea. The tree itself very much resembles the American oak, and the fruit, from the kernel of which, first dried in the sun, the butter is prepared, by boiling the kernel in water, has somewhat the appearance of a Spanish olive. The kernel is enveloped in a sweet pulp, under a thin green rind; and the butter produced from it, besides the advantage of its keeping the whole year without salt, is whiter, firmer, and, to my palate, of a richer flavour than the best butter I ever tasted made of cow's milk. The growth and preparation of this commodity seem to be amongst the first objects of African industry in this and the neighbouring states, and it constitutes a main article of their inland commerce.'

tree, has oblong leaves, and a corolla with a very protube-detached figures, or sculpture in the round. In its more parrant tube. It is a native of the mountainous parts of the ticular meaning basso rilievo, low or flat relief, is usually Circars and of Bengal, where it forms a middling-sized tree. appropriated to figures which have a very slight projection Its wood is hard and strong, and proper for the naves of from the ground. Alto-rilievo, on the other hand, is not wheels; its flowers are eaten raw by the natives and by only rounded to the full bulk, but has generally some portions jackals, and they yield by distillation a strong intoxicating of the figures quite detached; and mezzo-rilievo (a style spirit. From their seeds a considerable quantity of greenish between the two), although sometimes rounded to a conyellow oil is obtained, which is found useful for the supply siderable bulk, has no part entirely unconnected with the of lamps; it is, however, inferior to that of the last species. plane surface or ground. A more accurate definition of the It is curious that this oil stains linen or woollen cloth as styles to which these designations refer will result from the animal oil does, while the fatty substance of the B. buty- explanations that follow. The terms used by the Greeks racea possesses no such property, but when rubbed on cloth and Romans to distinguish these kinds of relief cannot perleaves no trace behind. here remarked, that those writers are mistaken who suphaps be determined with complete accuracy; and it may be pose the word Toreutike (TopEvriký) to have been applied by the Greeks exclusively to alto-rilievo, since Heyne, and indeed other writers before him, have proved that the term in any kind of relief. The Latin word corresponding with it was appropriated to carving, and chiefly chasing in metal, anaglypta to denote works in relief in general; and the is cælatura. The Greeks seem to have employed the term ectypa scalptura of Pliny (xxxvii. 10) also means work in relief. The term glypta (from yλúpw, to cut into, to hollow out), with other words formed from the same verb, appears to denote sculpture in the concave sense, intaglio. Herodotus, in a passage of his second book (cap. 138), where we have little doubt that he is speaking of the sunk Egyptian reliefs (which will be mentioned in another part of this article), couples a word formed from the verb yλupw with the word typus (rúπoc): typus itself (perhaps) always 88. Cicero ad Atticum, i. 10.) Italian writers of the time means a work in relief properly so called. (See Herod. iii. of Vasari, it appears, used the term mezzo-rilievo for the highest relief, basso-rilievo for the less prominent, and stiacciato for the flattest or least raised. Whatever the origin of this kind of sculpture may have been, and there is no doubt of its being very antient; an idea will be best formed of its style, as practised by the Greeks, by supposing perpendicular plane. Alto-rilievo is often literally nothing it to be derived from the partial insertion of a statue in a more than this. Applied, however, to a flat surface, the disposition of the limbs, and the actions of the figure become necessarily more or less parallel with that surface, in order sufficiently to adhere to it. The attitude is thus, in a certain degree, adapted or selected. In inserting or embedding a figure in a flat ground, it is obvious, that although it may be buried less than half its thickness, as in alto-rilievo, it figure strictly considered) quite so much, without ceasing to cannot be buried more, nor indeed (the structure of the present the real boundary or profile of the form. In the less prominent kinds of rilievo it is therefore still required that the outline should present the real form, and this principle in its further application excludes, in a great measure, the unreal forms of perspective and foreshortening, which would suppose that the objects are no longer parallel with the surface must in most cases fail to satisfy the eye. The work can on which they are displayed. Attempts at foreshortening only be seen in front, and the appearance it presents is therefore required to be at once intelligible, for no uncertainty can be removed by an inspection from another point ness, need not, however, be real, provided it appear so. The of view, as in walking round a statue. The bulk, or thickcompression of the bulk, which constitutes the various degrees of mezzo and basso rilievo, thus follows the compression or flattening of the action, the characteristic of altorilievo. Lastly, the modifications of which this branch of sculpture was susceptible, were adopted, as we shall see, according to the varieties of light, situation, dimensions, and use.

BASSIGNY, in France, a district partly included in the former province of Champagne, and partly in Le Barrois, now forming part of the department of Haute Marne. It was bounded on the north by the district of Vallage in Champagne, on the east by Le Barrois and La Franche Comté, on the south by Bourgogne, or Burgundy, and on the west by Champagne. It was, according to Expilly (Dictionnaire des Gaules, 1762), 16 leagues, or 44 miles long, and 13 leagues, or 35 miles broad; but he does not state in what direction these dimensions were taken. The superficial contents he gives at 155 square leagues, or 1184 square miles. In the Dictionnaire Universel de la France, the greatest length is given at 20 leagues, or 55 miles, from north to south, and the greatest breadth at 16 leagues, or 44 miles; and these dimensions are independent of a small portion of the district separated from the rest by a part of the province of Burgundy. Several important streams, as the Meuse and the Aube, take their rise in this district. The surface is varied with hills and plains. The air is temperate and healthy, and the soil produces corn, wine, and fruit. There is a considerable extent of wood, and good pasture land. Game, poultry, and fish are abundant.

There are the vestiges of several Roman roads in this country. In the time of the Romans, Bassigny was inhabited by the tribe of the Lingones, from whom the city of Langres derives its name. Langres (population in 1832, 5960 for the town, or 7460 for the commune) was considered as the capital, but Chaumont (population in 1832, 6104 for the town, or 6318 for the whole commune) disputed this title with it. The most important places after these are Montigny le Roi and Nogent le Roi (population in 1832, 2314 for the town, or 2401 for the whole commune), Le Val des Ecoliers, and Bourbon les Bains. The last-mentioned town contains about 3500 inhabitants, and is celebrated for its mineral waters, and its vast military hospital for more than 500 men. [See LANGRES, CHAUMONT, and BOURBON LES BAINS.] (Dictionnaire Universel de la France; Expilly, Dictionnaire des Gaules, &c.)

BASSO-RILIEVO. The Italian term basso-rilievo, or the French bas-relief, is commonly applied to any work of sculpture connected more or less with a plane surface or background, and in this general sense is opposed to insulated *The lieve commune, or common league of the French, is the twenty-fifth

part of a degree.

of figures in relief to be the real wall, or whatever the solid The Greeks, as a general principle, considered the ground plane might be, and not to represent air as if it was a picture. The art with them was thus rather the union of sculpture ditions of painting. That this was founded on the most rawith architecture than a union of sculpture with the contional principles will be evident from a few simple considerawhich they project at once betray the solidity of that surface. tions. The shadows thrown by figures on the surface from In the attempt to represent, together with actual projection, the apparent depth of a picture, or to imitate space, figures which are supposed to be remote are reduced in size; but although thus diminished in form, they cannot have the strength of their light and shade diminished, and if deprived

of shadow by inconsiderable relief, they cease to be apparent | the works suggested abundant variety in their treatment and at all when the work is seen from its proper point of view, execution. The British Museum contains unquestionably that is, at a sufficient distance; having no distinctness the finest existing specimens of this branch of sculpture in whatever in the absence of colour, but by means of light and the rilievi which decorated the Parthenon, or Temple of shade. In short, the art, thus practised, has no longer an Minerva, at Athens. We have here to consider the judiindependent style, and only betrays its inferiority by pre- cious adaptation of their styles for the situations they occusenting defects which another mode of imitation can supply. pied; but in regard to their general excellence as works A passage in Vitruvius proves that the antients were not of imitation, it may also be well to remember that these unacquainted with perspective; and the same author states sculptures were the admiration of the antients themselves. that perspective scenic decorations were first employed by Seven hundred years after they were produced Plutarch Agatharcus at Athens, in the time of Eschylus. How- spoke of them as inimitable works." ever greatly the science may have been advanced by the moderns, this may be sufficient to prove that the absence of perspective in Greek bassi-rilievi was not from an absolute ignorance of its principles, but from a conviction that they would be misapplied in sculpture.

In carefully keeping within the limits, however narrow, which defined the style of rilievo, the great artists of antiquity failed not to condense into that style the utmost perfection compatible with it, while the various applications of

The figures which adorned the pediment are separate statues, although in their original situation, casting their shadows on the tympanum, they must have had the effect of bold alti-rilievi; the circumstance of their being thus completely detached must have given the greatest distinctness to their forms, and as they occupied the highest part of the building, their gigantic size and complete relief made them fully effective at a considerable distance. The sculptures which adorned the metopes, or spaces between the

triglyphs, are in alto-rilievo. Those in the British Museum, representing combats with Centaurs, were taken from the south side of the building: the subjects were varied on the other sides, but they mostly related to the warlike exploits of the Athenians. It has been well observed that the subjects of combats, usually chosen for the metopes in Doric temples, afforded opportunities of composing the figures so as to produce diagonal lines, which effectually distinguished the groups from the architecture, and at the same time had the effect of reconciling the vertical forms of the triglyphs with the horizontal lines of the epistylium and cornice. The compositions in question all fully occupy the space destined for them, and are calculated, from their treatment and relief, to produce the utmost possible effect. Those works which received the open light were thus boldly relieved from their ground to insure the masses of shadow which make them conspicuous: the principle, applicable to external architecture, that projection commands shade, was thus extended to external decorations; and care seems to have been taken to keep the light on the figures as unbroken as possible, especially as the whole series of metopes occupying the external frieze was more or less crossed by the shadow of the cornice. This precaution necessarily limits the attitudes, for many actions equally natural with those adopted

would have projected shadows on the figure itself, thus tending to confuse the forms. A statue which can be seen from various points, and sometimes in various lights, might thus be unfit as to its composition for that intelligible display in one view and under a constant light which rilievo requires. On the principle that high relief is fittest for the open light, the rilievi of the temple of Phigaleia, which are also preserved in the British Museum, are bold in their projections. These works adorned the interior of the cella, but as the temple was hypæethral, or lighted from the open sky, the principles of external decoration were applicable. Had the temple been imperfectly lighted, a flatter kind of relief would have been preferable, and this leads us to consider the style of basso-rilievo, properly so called, the most perfect existing specimen of which is also in the British Museum. It adorned the external wall of the cella of the Parthenon, within the peristyle or colonnade, and was consequently always in shade: the strongest light it could ever receive would probably be the reflection from the pavement below when the sun was highest; but as reflected lights are uncertain, and may proceed from various points, the sculptures in question were calculated to be equally distinct in whatever direction the light was thrown. Their great elevation, and the peculiar angle at which they