[Bumble, Mr.], a beadle in "Oliver Twist."
[Bunau], a German historian, author of a "History of the Seven Years' War" (1697-1762).
[Buncombe], a district in N. Carolina, for the ears of the constituency of which a dull speech was some years ago delivered in the U.S. Congress, whence the phrase to "talk Buncombe," i. e. to please one's constituency.
[Bundelkhand] (2,000), a territory in NW. Provinces, India, between the Chambal and the Jumna; has been extensively irrigated at great labour and expense.
[Bunker Hill], an eminence 112 ft., now included in Boston, the scene on 19th June 1775 of the first great battle in the American War of Independence.
[Bunsby, Jack], commander of a ship in "Dombey & Son," regarded as an oracle by Captain Cuttle.
[Bunsen, Baron von], a diplomatist and man of letters, born at Korbach; in Waldeck; studied at Marburg and Göttingen; became acquainted with Niebuhr at Berlin; studied Oriental languages under Silvestre de Sacy at Paris; became secretary, under Niebuhr, to the Prussian embassy at Rome; recommended himself to the king, and succeeded Niebuhr; became ambassador in Switzerland and then in England; was partial to English institutions, and much esteemed in England; wrote the "Church of the Future," "Hippolytus and his Age," &c. (1791-1860).
[Bunsen, Robert William], a distinguished German chemist, born at Göttingen, settled as professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg; invented the charcoal pile, the magnesian light, and the burner called after him; discovered the antidote to arsenic, with hydrate of iron and the [Spectrum Analysis] (q. v.); b. 1811.
[Bunsen Burner], a small gas-jet above which is screwed a brass tube with holes at the bottom of it to let in air, which burns with the gas, and causes at the top a non-luminous flame; largely used in chemical operations.
[Bunyan, John], author of the "Pilgrim's Progress," born in Elstow, near Bedford, the son of a tinker, and bred himself to that humble craft; he was early visited with religious convictions, and brought, after a time of resistance to them, to an earnest faith in the gospel of Christ, his witness for which to his poor neighbours led to his imprisonment, an imprisonment which extended first and last over twelve and a half years, and it was towards the close of it, and in the precincts of Bedford jail, in the spring of 1676, that he dreamed his world-famous dream; here two-thirds of it were written, the whole finished the year after, and published at the end of it; extended, it came out eventually in two parts, but it is the first part that is the Pilgrim's Progress, and ensures it the place it holds in the religious literature of the world; encouraged by the success of it—for it leapt into popularity at a bound—Bunyan wrote some sixty other books, but except this, his masterpiece, not more than two of these, "Grace Abounding" and the "Holy War," continue to be read (1628-1688).