Climate, Fauna, Flora.—The climate of the archipelago, though generally mild, healthy and favourable to plant life, is by no means uniform, owing to the differences of altitude and shelter from wind in different islands. The fauna and flora resemble those of the Mediterranean coasts of Spain or France.
Inhabitants.—The islanders are a Spanish race, very closely akin to the Catalans; but the long period of Moorish rule has left its mark on their physical type and customs. In character they are industrious and hospitable, and pique themselves on their loyalty and orthodoxy. Crime is rare. There are higher schools in the principal towns, and the standard of primary education is well up to the average of Spain. Vaccination is common except in the cities,—the women often performing the operation themselves when medical assistance cannot be got. Castilian is spoken by the upper and commercial classes; the lower and agricultural employ a dialect resembling that of the Catalans.
Commerce.—Fruit, grain, wine and oil are produced in the islands, and there is an active trade with Barcelona in fresh fish, including large quantities of lobsters. Shoemaking is one of the most prosperous industries. There is not a very active trade direct with foreign countries, as the principal imports—cotton, leather, petroleum, sugar, coal and timber—are introduced through Barcelona. The export trade is chiefly with the Peninsula, France, Italy, Algeria and with Cuba and Porto Rico. Most of the agricultural products are sent to the Peninsula; wine, figs, marble, almonds, lemons and rice to Europe and Africa.
Administration.—The administration of the Balearic Islands differs in no respect from that of the other Spanish provinces on the mainland. There are five judicial districts (partidos judiciales), named after their chief towns—Inca, Iviza, Manacor, Palma and Port Mahon.
History.—Of the origin of the early inhabitants of the Balearic Islands nothing is certainly known, though Greek and Roman writers refer to the Boeotian and Rhodian settlements. There are numerous sepulchral and other monuments, which are generally believed to be of prehistoric origin. According to general tradition the natives, from whatever quarter derived, were a strange and savage people till they received some tincture of civilization from the Carthaginians, who early took possession of the islands and built themselves cities on their coasts. Of these cities, Port Mahon, the most important, still retains the name which is derived from the family of Mago. About twenty-three years after the destruction of Carthage the Romans accused the islanders of piracy, and sent against them Q. Caecilius Metellus, who soon reduced them to obedience, settled amongst them 3000 Roman and Spanish colonists, founded the cities of Palma and Pollentia (Pollensa), and introduced the cultivation of the olive. Besides valuable contingents of the celebrated Balearic slingers, the Romans derived from their new conquest mules (from Minorca), edible snails, sinope and pitch. Of their occupation numerous traces still exist,—the most remarkable being the aqueduct at Pollensa. In A.D. 423 the islands were seized by the Vandals and in 798 by the Moors. They became a separate Moorish kingdom in 1009, which, becoming extremely obnoxious for piracy, was the object of a crusade directed against it by Pope Paschal II., in which the Catalans took the lead. This expedition was frustrated at the time, but was resumed by James I. of Aragon, and the Moors were expelled in 1232. During their occupation the island was populous and productive, and an active commerce was carried on with Spain and Africa. King James conferred the sovereignty of the isles on his third son, under whom and his successor they formed an independent kingdom up to 1349, from which time their history merges in that of Spain. In 1521 an insurrection of the peasantry against the nobility, whom they massacred, took place in Majorca, and was not suppressed without much bloodshed. In the War of the Spanish Succession all the islands declared for Charles; the duke of Anjou had no footing anywhere save in the citadel of Mahon. Minorca was reduced by Count Villars in 1707; but it was not till June 1715 that Majorca was subjugated, and meanwhile Port Mahon was captured by the English under General Stanhope in 1708. In 1713 the island was secured to them by the peace of Utrecht; but in 1756 it was invaded by a force of 12,000 French, who, after defeating the British under Admiral Byng, captured Port Mahon. Restored to England in
1763, the island remained in possession of the British till 1782, when it was retaken by the Spaniards. Again seized by the British in 1798, it was finally ceded to Spain by the peace of Amiens in 1803. When the French invaded Spain in 1808, the Mallorquins did not remain indifferent; the governor, D. Juan Miguel de Vives, announced, amid universal acclamation, his resolution to support Ferdinand VII. At first the Junta would take no active part in the war, retaining the corps of volunteers that was formed for the defence of the island; but finding it quite secure, they transferred a succession of them to the Peninsula to reinforce the allies. Such was the animosity excited against the French when their excesses were known to the Mallorquins, that some of the French prisoners, conducted thither in 1810, had to be transferred with all speed to the island of Cabrera, a transference which was not effected before some of them had been killed.
Bibliography.—For a general account of the islands, the most valuable books are Die Balearen geschildert in Wort und Bild, by the archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria (Leipzig, 1896); Les Îles oubliées, by G. Vuillier (Paris, 1904), the first edition of which has been translated under the title of The Forgotten Isles (London, 1896)—and Islas Baleáres, an illustrated volume of 1423 pages, by P. Pifferrer, in the series "España" (Barcelona, 1888). An article by George Sand in the Revue des deux mondes (1841) also deserves notice. The following are monographs on special subjects:—The Story of Majorca and Minorca, by Sir C. R. Markham (London, 1908); Illustrationes florae insularum Balearium, by M. Willkomm (Stuttgart, 1881-1892); Monuments primitifs des îles baléares, by E. Cartailhac (Mission scientifique du ministère de l'instruction publique, Toulouse, 1892). The British Foreign Office Reports for the Consular District of Barcelona give some account of the movement of commerce (London, annual). Much of the material available for a scientific history will be found in La Historia general del regno baleárico, by J. Dameto and V. Mut (Majorca, 1632-1650). For the period of Moorish rule, see Bosquejo histórico de la dominacion islamita en las islas Baleáres, by A. Campaner y Fuertes (Palma, 1888). See also the elaborate treatise Les Relations de la France avec le royaume de Majorque, by A. Lecoy de la Marche (Paris, 1892).
BALES [Balesius], PETER (1547-1610?), English calligraphist, one of the inventors of shorthand writing, was born in London in 1547, and is described by Anthony Wood as a "most dexterous person in his profession, to the great wonder of scholars and others." We are also informed that "he spent several years in sciences among Oxonians, particularly, as it seems, in Gloucester Hall; but that study, which he used for a diversion only, proved at length an employment of profit." He is mentioned for his skill in micrography in Holinshed's Chronicle. "Hadrian Junius," says Evelyn, "speaking as a miracle of somebody who wrote the Apostles' Creed and the beginning of St John's Gospel within the compass of a farthing: what would he have said of our famous Peter Bales, who, in the year 1575, wrote the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, Decalogue, with two short prayers in Latin, his own name, motto, day of the month, year of the Lord, and reign of the queen, to whom he presented it at Hampton Court, all of it written within the circle of a single penny, inchased in a ring and borders of gold, and covered with a crystal, so accurately wrought as to be very plainly legible; to the great admiration of her majesty, the whole privy council, and several ambassadors then at court?" Bales was likewise very dexterous in imitating handwritings, and between 1576 and 1590 was employed by Secretary Walsingham in certain political manœuvres. We find him at the head of a school near the Old Bailey, London, in 1590, in which year he published his Writing Schoolemaster, in three Parts. This book included an Arte of Brachygraphie, which is one of the earliest attempts to construct a system of shorthand. In 1595 he had a great trial of skill with one Daniel Johnson, for a golden pen of £20 value, and won it; and a contemporary author further relates that he had also the arms of calligraphy given him, which are azure, a pen or. Bales died about the year 1610.
BALFE, MICHAEL WILLIAM (1808-1870), Irish musical composer, was born on the 15th of May 1808, at Dublin. His musical gifts became apparent at an early age. The only instruction he received was from his father, who was a dancing master, and from a musician, C. E. Horn (1786-1849). Between 1814 and 1815 he played the violin for his father's dancing-classes, and at the age of seven composed a polacca. In 1817 he appeared as a violinist in public, and in this year composed a ballad, first called "Young Fanny" and afterwards, when sung in Paul Pry by Madame Vestris, "The Lovers' Mistake." On the death of his father in 1823 he was engaged in the orchestra of Drury Lane, and being in possession of a small but pleasant baritone voice, he chose the career of an operatic singer. An unsuccessful début was made at Norwich in Der Freischütz. In 1825 he was taken to Rome by Count Mazzara, being introduced to Cherubini on the way. In Italy he wrote his first dramatic work, a ballet, La Pérouse. At the close of 1827 he appeared as Figaro in Rossini's Barbière, at the Italian opera in Paris. Balfe soon returned to Italy, where, during the next nine years, he remained, singing at various theatres and composing a number of operas. During this time he married Mdlle Luisa Roser, a Hungarian singer whom he had met at Bergamo. Fétis says that the public indignation roused by an attempt at "improving" Meyerbeer's opera Il Crociato by interpolated music of his own compelled Balfe to throw up his engagement at the theatre La Fenice in Venice. By this time he had produced his first complete opera, I Rivali di se stessi, at Palermo in the carnival season of 1829-1830; the opera Un Avvertimento ai gelosi at Pavia; and Enrico Quarto at Milan, where he had been engaged to sing with Malibran at the Scala. He returned to England in the spring of 1833, and on the 29th of October 1835 his Siege of Rochelle was produced and rapturously received at Drury Lane. Encouraged by his success, he produced The Maid of Artois on the 27th of May 1836—the success of the opera being confirmed by the exquisite singing of Malibran. Balfe was a prolific composer, as may be seen from the following imperfect list of his English operas alone:—Siege of Rochelle (1835); The Maid of Artois (1836); Catherine Grey (1837); Joan of Arc (1837); Falstaff (1838, Lablache in title-rôle); Amelia, or the Love Test (1838); Keolanthe (1841); The Bohemian Girl, his best known work (1844); The Daughter of St. Mark (1844); The Enchantress (1845); The Bondman (1846); The Devil's in it (1847); The Maid of Honour (1847); The Sicilian Bride (1852); The Rose of Castile (1857); Satanella (1858); Bianca (1860); The Puritan's Daughter (1861); The Armourer of Nantes (1863); Blanche de Nevers (1863). Balfe also wrote several operas for the Opéra Comique and Grand Opéra in Paris, where MM. Scribe and St George provided him with the libretti for his Le Puits d'amour (1843) and his Les Quatre Fils Aymon (1844). His L'Étoile de Seville was written in 1845 for the Académie Royale. The fact that Balfe was an Irishman, who produced operas in English, French and Italian with conspicuous success, is in itself interesting. When to this we add the record of his operatic impersonations on the stage, the European success of his Bohemian Girl, his picturesque retirement into Hertfordshire in 1864 as a gentleman farmer, and above all the undeniable gift for creating such pure melodies as his songs "When other Hearts" and "I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls," it is idle to refuse him a prominent place in the history of music. He wrote much that was trivial, but also much that was enduring. He died on the 20th of October 1870, and was buried at Kensal Green. In 1882 a medallion portrait of him was unveiled in Westminster Abbey.
BALFOUR, ARTHUR JAMES (1848- ), British statesman, eldest son of James Maitland Balfour of Whittingehame, Haddingtonshire, and of Lady Blanche Gascoyne Cecil, a sister of the third marquess of Salisbury, was born on the 25th of July 1848. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1874 he became M.P. in the Conservative interest for Hertford, and represented that constituency until 1885. When, in the spring of 1878, Lord Salisbury became foreign minister on the resignation of the fifteenth Lord Derby, Mr Balfour became his private secretary. In that capacity he accompanied his uncle to the Berlin congress, and gained his first experience of international politics in connexion with the settlement of the Russo-Turkish conflict. It was at this time also that he became known in the world of letters, the intellectual subtlety and literary capacity of his Defence of Philosophic Doubt (1879) suggesting that he might make a reputation as a speculative thinker. Belonging, however, to a