Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/424

This page needs to be proofread.
404
BAXTER
BAYADEER

preaching, accusations of heresy were multiplied against him, and after numerous arrests he was brought at latt, at the age of 70, before the tribunal of Judge Jeffreys, on charges of sedition and hostility to the episcopacy, founded on passages in his "Paraphrase on the New Testament." In the trial Jeffreys was a prosecutor as well as judge, abusing the prisoner, insulting his counsel, and imposing a fine of 500 marks, the defendant to lie in prison till the fine was paid, and to be bound to good behavior for seven years. Unable to pay the fine, he was committed to the king's bench prison, where he was confined 18 months, when liis fine was remitted, and he was pardoned through the mediation of Lord Powis. Baxter, though a royalist in his principles and the advocate of an established church, was yet in his tastes and temper sternly puritan. He was a foe to all dissoluteness of life, to all arbitrary measures, to every kind of tyranny and oppression. His opposition to absolute power was uncompromising, and neither fear nor favor could bring him to yield it. He was a mediator among the sects; yet his views were so sharp and positive that he became, in spite of his desire, the founder of a school of theology which still continues to bear his name. Baxter's love for theological subtleties, not less than his restless promptness in taking hold of every subject of religious concern, involved him in perpetual controversy. He had many and noble friends, hut he made a multitude of enemies both in church and state. His works, in every form, from bulky folios to pamphlets, number not less than 168 titles. Most of them are written in English; yet the Methodus Theologiæ, issued in 1674, showed a fair mastery of the Latin tongue. His treatises on "Universal Concord" and "Catholic Theology" failed to produce that harmony among sects which was the purpose of their publication. Baxter was a fearless metaphysician; yet that he was credulous of strange tales, and ready to believe marvels, is shown in his treatise "Certainty of the World of Spirits." The three works by which Baxter is best known are his "Saint's Everlasting Rest," his "Call to the Unconverted," and his autobiography, published five years after his death ("Reliquiæ Baxterianæ: A Narrative of his Life and Times," folio, 1696; edited by Dr. Calamy, 4 vols. 8vo, 1713). The first two of these works have a popularity which remains still undiminished. Doctrinally, these celebrated works are more liberal than his treatises of divinity. His works have been collected in 23 vols. 8vo, and his "Practical Works" in 4 vols., the latter many times reprinted.

BAXTER, William, an English philologist and archaeologist, nephew of the preceding, born at Llanllugan, Montgomeryshire, in 1650, died in London, May 31, 1723. He had few advantages of instruction in his youth; and until the age of 18, when he entered the Harrow school, he knew not a single letter and no language but his native Welsh. In a few years, however, he was noted for his accurate knowledge, not only of the ancient dialects of Britain, but of the Greek and Latin classics. While a schoolmaster in a private school at Tottenham, in Middlesex, and afterward in the Mercers' school in London, ho published most of his works. These consist of a Latin grammar, (1679), two editions of Anacreon (1695 and 1710), two editions of Horace (1701 and 1725), and Glossurium Antiquitatum Britannicarum (1719; new ed., 1733). After his death was published the letter A of a glossary of Roman antiquities, under the title of Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, site Guilielmi Baxteri Opera posthuma (8vo, London, 1726; new ed., Glossarium Antiquitatum Somanarum, 1731).

BAY, an E. central county of Michigan, on Saginaw bay, watered by Rifle river and numerous other streams ; area, 750 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 15,900. The Flint and Pere Marquette railroad extends to Bay City, in the S. E. part of the county, which is also traversed by the Jackson, Lansing, and Saginaw rail-road. Lumber forms the principal industrial interest of the county. The chief productions in 1870 were 9,398 bushels of wheat, 1,799 of rye, 8,458 of Indian corn, 10,008 of oats, 20,505 of potatoes, and 3,538 tons of hay. There were 478 horses, 700 milch cows, 742 other cattle, and 453 swine. Capital, Bay City.

BAYADEER (Port, bailadeira, a dancing woman), a professional dancing and singing girl of India. The bayadeers, more commonly called nautchnees, or nautch girls, are recruited from almost every condition in life, but the better class are generally from the families of merchants and laborers. They are chosen for beauty, apprenticed to dhyas, themselves superannuated nautchnees, and subjected to a course of severe physical training, by which they acquire great suppleness and quickness of motion, and graceful carriage. They are also taught singing and various arts of adornment. The kite dance, in which the bayadeer assumes the various postures of one flying a kite, is among the most famous and popular of her performances. If, as is frequently the case, the nautchnee has been devoted to the service of the gods from her infancy, she enters a temple and becomes a devadasee or slave of the gods, taking rank according to the caste of her family, the importance of the divinity, and the endowment of the temple; here she assists at the formal services of the shrine, celebrates in songs, generally licentious, the deeds of the god or goddess, dances before the image, decks it with flowers, and attends it with dances and songs when it is carried abroad in procession. Devadasees are excluded from ceremonies of peculiar solemnity, such as funeral sacrifices' and suttees. In order to be admitted to the sisterhood of devadasees the nautchnee must be under the marriageable age, and free from physical defect. If of a high caste, she is confined to the inner temple, and as long as