[Bergerac] (11), a manufacturing town in France, 60 m. E. of Bordeaux, celebrated for its wines; it was a Huguenot centre, and suffered greatly in consequence.
[Bergerac, Savinien Cyrano de], an eccentric man with comic power, a Gascon by birth; wrote a tragedy and a comedy; his best work a fiction entitled "Histoire Comique des États et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil"; fought no end of duels in vindication, it is said, of his preposterously large nose (1619-1655).
[Berghaus, Heinrich], a geographer of note, born at Clèves; served in both the French and Prussian armies as an engineer, and was professor of mathematics at Berlin; his "Physical Atlas" is well known (1797-1884).
[Berghem], a celebrated landscape-painter of the Dutch school, born at Haarlem (1624-1683).
[Bergman, Torbern Olof], a Swedish chemist, studied under Linnæus, and became professor of Chemistry at Upsala; discovered oxalic acid; was the first to arrange and classify minerals on a chemical basis (1735-1784).
[Beri], a town in the Punjab, 40 m. NW. of Delhi, in a trading centre.
[Berkeley], a town in Gloucestershire, famous for its cattle.
[Berkeley, George], bishop of Cloyne, born in Kilkenny; a philanthropic man, who conducted in a self-sacrificing spirit practical schemes for the good of humanity, which failed, but the interest in whom has for long centred, and still centres, in his philosophic teaching, his own interest in which was that it contributed to clear up our idea of God and consolidate our faith in Him, and it is known in philosophy as Idealism; only it must be understood, his idealism is not, as it was absurdly conceived to be, a denial of the existence of matter, but is an assertion of the doctrine that the universe, with every particular in it, as man sees it and knows it, is not the creation of matter but the creation of mind, and a reflex of the Eternal Reason that creates and dwells in both it and him; for as Dr. Stirling says, "the object can only be known in the subject, and therefore is subjective, and if subjective, ideal." The outer, as regards our knowledge of it, is within; such is Berkeley's fundamental philosophical principle, and it is a principle radical to the whole recent philosophy of Europe (1684-1753).
[Berkshire] (238), a midland county of England, with a fertile, well-cultivated soil on a chalk bottom, in the upper valley of the Thames, one of the smallest but most beautiful counties in the country. In the E. part of it is Windsor Forest, and in the SE. Bagshot Heath. It is famous for its breed of pigs.
[Berlichingen, Goetz von], surnamed "The Iron Hand," a brave but turbulent noble of Germany, of the 15th and 16th centuries, the story of whose life was dramatised by Goethe, "to save," as he said, "the memory of a brave man from darkness," and which was translated from the German by Sir Walter Scott.