of such inquiries as the following:—"The Determination of the length of the Pendulum;" "The Fixation of the Standard of Length;" "The Determination of the Density of the Earth." Mr. Baily was among the most affable and friendly of men. His table was a favourite one in London; for he knew what the Stagyrite calls true "magnificence"—the fulness of hospitality, as well as its limits. No man was more accessible or more kind. Let a scientific project of any kind, having right, or a high probability of right, at its base, be presented to him—no matter who the projector—he had a word of encouragement as well as honest criticism. Baily could not be a martinet; he lived amidst warmth, and was ever warm himself. Utinam superstes esses! The reader who would know more of this remarkable person, is referred to the tasteful and appreciative memoir of him by Sir John F. W. Herschel, in the Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society.—J. P. N.
BAINBRIDGE, Christopher, archbishop of York, and cardinal of the Roman church, was a native of Westmoreland, and educated at Queen's college, Oxford. After holding various minor preferments, he became dean of Lichfield in 1503, and in 1505 dean of Windsor, and a privy councillor. In 1507 he was made bishop of Durham, and in 1508 archbishop of York. Bambridge was in great favour at court, and Henry VII., with his usual preference for ecclesiastics, employed him on several embassies, as did also Henry VIII. On one of these to the pope, Julius II., he was created cardinal of St. Praxede by that pontiff in 1511. Bainbridge died at Rome in 1514, it is supposed by poison, administered by a domestic in revenge for some blows received from his eminence. Bainbridge was buried in the English church of St. Thomas at Rome.—J. B., O.
BAINBRIDGE, John, a physician and astronomer, born in Leicestershire in 1582. After studying at Cambridge, and taking the degree of M.A., he returned to his native county, where he taught a grammar school, and applied himself to the study of mathematics and astronomy. In 1619 he published "An Astronomical Description of the late Comet, from the 18th of November, 1618, to the 16th of December following," and in the same year was appointed by Sir Henry Savile his first professor of astronomy at Oxford. He published also editions of some of the ancient writers on astronomy, and at the request of Archbishop Usher, "A Treatise on the Dog-star and the Canicular Days," 1648. He left also many unpublished works, which are preserved in the library of Trinity college, Dublin. He died at Oxford in 1643.—J. B.
BAINE or BAYNE, Rodolf, an English philologist of the sixteenth century, author of a Hebrew grammar, and a commentary on the Proverbs, was professor of Hebrew at Paris, and became afterwards bishop of Lichfield. He lost his bishopric at the commencement of Elizabeth's reign. Died in 1560.
BAINES, Edward, author of the "History of the County Palatine of Lancaster," proprietor and editor of the Leeds Mercury, and representative of the borough of Leeds in three parliaments, was born at Walton-le-Dale, near Preston in Lancashire, on the 5th of February, 1774. His father, descended from a family of Yorkshire yeomen, was prevented from settling in business in Preston by a provision of the municipal charter enforced by a conservative corporation; and this event gave him a bias in favour of liberal politics, and against monopolies and restrictions of every kind. The son, Edward, after an ordinary school education, was apprenticed to a printer, who for a while, during the excitement of the French revolution, published a newspaper of liberal views. Being a youth of vigorous talents and an enterprising spirit, he removed to Leeds before the expiration of his apprenticeship, for the purpose of obtaining a more perfect acquaintance with his business; and it was without knowing a single inhabitant, and with very slender means, that he entered the town of which he was afterwards to become a distinguished ornament. Having commenced business as a printer, and being known to several gentlemen of the liberal party as a man of integrity, prudence, and energy, and also a decided friend of freedom and political reforms, he was assisted to purchase the copyright of the Leeds Mercury. This was in the year 1801, when that newspaper had a very small circulation, and, like nearly all other provincial newspapers at that day, was without either editorial article or reporter, scanty in its dimensions, and possessing little that could inform or influence the minds of its readers. Mr. Baines was one of the public writers who, by then abilities and character, raised the provincial press nearly to a level with the metropolitan press; and during almost half a century, by his personal exertions and his pen, he exercised an important influence in the great county of York on behalf of liberal politics and all social improvement. It may give some idea of the increased importance of the newspaper press of England within his day to state, that the Leeds Mercury, which only contained about 21,000 words in the year 1801, after many successive enlargements contained 180,000 words in the year 1848, and that its circulation in that interval multiplied about twelvefold. In many places the periodical press has been discredited by violence, by personalities, or by unworthy subserviency to the views of a party; but Mr. Baines, whilst vigorously defending a liberal policy, and the public men by whom it was maintained, preserved an entire personal independence, as well as a dignified moderation. This course, adopted from principle, proved to be the truest policy, and, combined with his success in business, gained for him the confidence of his fellow-citizens. In an age of improvement, he was one of the first to advocate every measure calculated to correct abuses, to extend popular rights, to spread knowledge and education, to establish valuable institutions, and to ameliorate the condition of the working class. His warm benevolence impelled him to take a foremost part in relieving the distresses of the poor. He was a congregational dissenter, and he co-operated with the friends of religious liberty in advocating the perfect civil equality of all religious communities. In the year 1817, when much distress prevailed in the country, it was not unnaturally accompanied by political agitation. The demand for parliamentary reform, made so many years before by Fox, Pitt, and other statesmen, was revived; and Mr. Baines took a leading part at a great public meeting in advocating the abolition of the decayed boroughs, and the extension of the franchise to the unrepresented towns. The stern opposition of the government provoked public feeling, and demagogues availed themselves of that feeling to stir up the suffering people to meet in large and angry assemblages. Alarmed by these proceedings, and suspecting seditious conspiracies, the home secretary. Lord Sidmouth, employed spies to obtain information; but the spies created the conspiracies which they were employed to detect, and spread abroad rumours of insurrection, which alarmed the whole country. Mr. Baines was happily enabled to trace the proceedings of a spy named Oliver, who had wickedly endeavoured to foment conspiracy in Yorkshire, with the view of drawing some of the most zealous reformers into his net; and the man's machinations being exposed in the Leeds Mercury, the exposure was read in both houses of parliament, by Earl Grey and Sir Francis Burdett, and, as a consequence, the spy-system was exploded, and the public alarm was at once allayed. Among the valuable institutions which Mr. Baines assisted to establish were the Royal Lancasterian School, the Philosophical and Literary Society, the Mechanics' Institution, the Model Infant School, the House of Recovery (or Fever Hospital), the Temperance Society, and many others. And among the national measures which he earnestly advocated from an early period of their discussion, were the reform of the House of Commons, the removal of the test and corporation acts, catholic emancipation, the repeal of the combination laws, the abolition of colonial slavery, the reform of municipal corporations, the removal of the corn laws, the dissenters' marriage act, and the abolition of church-rates. When a proposal was made, which found considerable favour for a time, to remodel the House of Lords, he strenuously combated it, maintaining that the hereditary peerage, however it might be open to theoretical objections, was one of the essential parts of the English constitution. At all times he showed himself as decided in his attachment to the constitution as in his opposition to injustice and abuses. Mr. Baines's active pen was not confined to the editing of his newspaper. Especially after he began to receive assistance from his second son and partner, Edward, he indulged a strong taste for topographical research, by composing brief histories of the counties of York and Lancaster, and afterwards an elaborate and standard "History of the County Palatine of Lancaster," in four 4to vols., with abundant illustrations. From the commencement of the railway system, he actively promoted that improved method of communication. He was a director of some lines, and a shareholder in several; but he never speculated. Being alive to the importance of agricultural improvement, he reclaimed a considerable portion of Chat moss, near Manchester, and in his latter years he took great interest in his farm, which, however, but indifferently repaid a rather
