Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/610

This page needs to be proofread.
BARN-SWALLOW.
532
BARODA.

for their beauty and cheer, but they consume a vast number of small insects which are more or less injurious or annoying. It is most unfortunate, therefore, that they seem an object of especial attack by the English sparrows, which not only seize upon many nests for their own breeding purposes, but wantonly tear many others to pieces, destroying eggs and young as if in a spirit of mere malicious mischief. In this way the barn-swallows of the more northerly States and Eastern Canada have been greatly reduced and in some places exterminated. They depart for the south in flocks earlier in the autumn than do most other migrants. See Swallow and Plates of Swallows and of Eggs of Song Birds.


BAR'NUM. Phineas Taylor (1810-91). An American showman, born at Bethel, Conn. His father was a tavern-keeper; and while attending the village school. Barnum traded with and played practical jokes upon his father's customers. At the age of 13 he was employed in a country store, and at 18 went largely into the lottery business. When only 19, he married clandestinely, and moved to Danbury, where he edited The Herald of Freedom, and was imprisoned sixty days for a libel. In 1834 he removed to New York, where, hearing of Joyce Heth, alleged nurse of Washington, he bought her for $1000, and with the aid of forged documents and puffing, exhibited her to considerable profit. Reduced again to poverty, he sold Bibles, exhibited negro dancers, and wrote for newspapers, until he bought the American Museum in New York, which he raised at once to prosperity by exhibiting a Japanese mermaid, made of a fish and a monkey, also a white negress, a woolly horse, and finally a noted dwarf, styled 'General Tom Thumb,' whom he exhibited also in Europe in 1844. In 1847 he offered Jenny Lind $1000 a night for 150 nights. The tickets were sold at auction, a single ticket bringing, in one case, as much as $650; and his gross receipts for 95 concerts were over $700,000. He built a villa at Bridgeport, in imitation of the Brighton Pavilion, and engaged in various speculations, one of which — a clock factory — made him bankrupt. Settling with his creditors in 1857, he engaged anew in his career of audacious enterprises, and made another fortune. Two of his museums having been destroyed by fire in 1865 and 1868, he established in 1871 his 'Greatest Show on Earth,' a traveling circus and menagerie, with many new features. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1866, but was four times elected to the Connecticut Legislature. His Autobiography (1854, since greatly enlarged) has at least the merit of frankness. In 1865 he published The Humbugs of the World, and in 1869 Struggles and Triumphs.


BARN'WELL, Robert Woodward (1801-82). An American statesman. He was born at Beaufort, S. C., graduated at Harvard in 1821, and was admitted to the bar. He was in Congress from 1829 to 1833, and was Senator m 1850-51. After the secession of the Southern States, he was sent as a delegate to the famous Montgomery Convention, and cast the decisive vote in the election of Jefferson Davis. He was also a member of the Confederate Senate and was twice president of the University of South Carolina.


BAROACH, ba-roch'. A town in India. See Broach.


BAROCCHIO, ba-rok'ke-o, or BAROZZI, Giacomo da Vignola. See Vignola.


BAROCCI, ba-ro'che. or BAROCCIO, -cho, Eederigo. called Fiore d'Urbino (1528-1612). An Italian painter, born at Urbino. He studied with his father, Ambrogio Barocci, a sculptor, and then under Battista Franco. His first work of importance was a picture of Saint Margaret, painted for his native city. He was then invited to Rome, and did some frescoes in the Belvedere Palace and in the Vatican. His two finest pic- tures are in the Chiesa Nuova, Rome, the "Visi- tation" and the "Presentation." Examples of his art may be found in nearly all the galleries of Europe. He painted in the manner of Cor- reggio; but although his work is graceful, it never compares with that master's.


BAROCCO, ba-rok'ko, or BAROQUE, ba-rok' (It., irregular, bizarre), A word used to de- scribe a certain style of architecture or even sculpture of the decadence in Renaissance style. Some writers either confuse it with rococo (q.v.) or make the rococo style a late division of the barocco period. In Italy, to which the term 'barocco' is made especially to apply, it describes the kind of heavy, tasteless, flaunting style, with overgrown details and outlandish shapes, which succeeded the academic style of a Vignola or the purism of a Palladio. It ruled in most parts of Italy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. It was adopted and carried to extremes by the Spaniards. Some late German Renaissance might be so classed, but little in France or in England. It was often char- acterized by heavy bosses and broken lines. In sculpture the works of Bernini and Borromini, with their artificial exaggerations, belong to this style. The term is also used of any work of art of any period that has these characteristics.


BAROCHE, ba'rosh', Pierre Jules (1802-70). A French politician. He was born in Paris, where he became an advocate in 1823, and distinguished himself as a pleader. In 1847 he was sent to the Chamber of Deputies from Rochefort. After the Revolution of 1848 he was elected to the National Assembly. He voted at first with the adherents of the Republic, but soon inclined to the Bonapartists, and later favored the policies of Louis Napoleon. In March, 1850, he succeeded Ferdinand Barrot as Minister of the Interior. In April, 1851, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He became Minister of Justice and Public Worship in 1863, and a Senator in 1864, and resigned his portfolios in 1869. Upon the downfall of the Second Empire, Baroche fled to Jersey, where he died.


BARO'DA. A fortified city of Gujarat, India, capital of a district, and of the native State of the same name. It is 248 miles north of Bombay with which it is connected by railway (Map: India, B 4). It stands on the Vishvomitri, which is here crossed by four stone bridges, one of singular construction — an upper range of arches resting on a lower one. Baroda occupies an important position between the coast and the interior, and has considerable trade in the produce of the surrounding districts, grain, flax, cotton, and tobacco. The city is intersected by two wide streets, which meet at right angles in a central market-place. The chief native structures of interest are the old palace, the Naulakhi Well and the modern Lakshmi Villas palace,