See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (1898).
BURGAS (sometimes written Burghaz, Bourgas or Borgas, and, in the middle ages, Pyrgos), a seaport, and capital of the department of Burgas, in Bulgaria (Eastern Rumelia), on the gulf of Burgas, an inlet of the Black Sea, in 42° 27′ N. and 27° 35′ E. Pop. (1906) 12,846. Burgas is built on a low foreland, between the lagoons of Ludzha, on the north, and Kara-Yunus, on the west; it faces towards the open sea on the east, and towards its own harbour on the south. The principal approach is a broad isthmus on the north-west, along which runs the railway to Philippopolis and Adrianople. Despite its small population and the rivalry of Varna and the Turkish port of Dedeagatch, Burgas has a considerable transit trade. Its fine harbour, formally opened in 1904, has an average depth of five fathoms; large vessels can load at the quays, and the outer waters of the gulf are well lit by lighthouses on the islets of Hagios Anastasios and Megalo-Nisi. In 1904, the port accommodated over 1400 ships, of about 700,000 tons. These included upwards of 800 Bulgarian and Turkish sailing-vessels, engaged in the coasting trade. Fuel, machinery and miscellaneous goods are imported, chiefly from Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom; the exports include grain, wool, tallow, cheese, butter, attar of roses, &c. Pottery and pipes are manufactured from clay obtained in the neighbourhood.
BURGDORF (Fr. Berthoud), an industrial town in the Swiss canton of Bern. It is built on the left bank of the Emme and is 14 m. by rail N.E. of Bern. The lower (or modern) town is connected by a curious spiral street with the upper (or old) town. The latter is picturesquely perched on a hill, at a height of 1942 ft. above sea-level (or 167 ft. above the river); it is crowned by the ancient castle and by the 15th-century parish church, in the former of which Pestalozzi set up his educational establishment between 1798 and 1804. A large trade is carried on at Burgdorf in the cheese of the Emmenthal, while among the industrial establishments are railway works, and factories of cloth, white lead and tinfoil. In 1900 the population was 8404, practically all Protestants and German-speaking. A fine view of the Bernese Alps is obtained from the castle, while a still finer one may be enjoyed from the Lueg hill (2917 ft.), north-east of the town. The castle dates from the days of the dukes of Zäringen (11th-12th centuries), the last of whom (Berchtold V.) built walls round the town at its foot, and granted it a charter of liberties. On the extinction (1218) of that dynasty both castle and town passed to the counts of Kyburg, and from them, with the rest of their possessions, in 1272 by marriage to the cadet line of the Habsburgs. By that line they were sold in 1384, with Thun, to the town of Bern, whose bailiffs ruled in the castle till 1798.
(W. A. B. C.)
BURGEE (of unknown origin), a small three-cornered or swallow-tailed flag or pennant used by yachts or merchant vessels; also a kind of small coal burnt in engine furnaces.
BÜRGER, GOTTFRIED AUGUST (1748-1794), German poet, was born on the 1st of January 1748 at Molmerswende near Halberstadt, of which village his father was the Lutheran pastor. He was a backward child, and at the age of twelve was practically adopted by his maternal grandfather, Bauer, at Aschersleben, who sent him to the Pädagogium at Halle. Hence in 1764 he passed to the university, as a student of theology, which, however, he soon abandoned for the study of jurisprudence. Here he fell under the influence of C.A. Klotz (1738-1771), who directed Bürger's attention to literature, but encouraged rather than discouraged his natural disposition to a wild and unregulated life. In consequence of his dissipated habits, he was in 1767 recalled by his grandfather, but on promising to reform was in 1768 allowed to enter the university of Göttingen as a law student. As he continued his wild career, however, his grandfather withdrew his support and he was left to his own devices. Meanwhile he had made fair progress with his legal studies, and had the good fortune to form a close friendship with a number of young men of literary tastes. In the Göttingen Musenalmanach, edited by H. Boie and F.W. Gotter, Bürger's first poems were published, and by 1771 he had already become widely known as a poet. In 1772, through Boie's influence, Bürger obtained the post of "Amtmann" or district magistrate at Altengleichen near Göttingen. His grandfather was now reconciled to him, paid his debts and established him in his new sphere of activity. Meanwhile he kept in touch with his Göttingen friends, and when the "Göttinger Bund" or "Hain" was formed, Bürger, though not himself a member, kept in close touch with it. In 1773 the ballad Lenore was published in the Musenalmanach. This poem, which in dramatic force and in its vivid realization of the weird and supernatural remains without a rival, made his name a household word in Germany. In 1774 Bürger married Dorette Leonhart, the
daughter of a Hanoverian official; but his passion for his wife's younger sister Auguste (the "Molly" of his poems and elegies) rendered the union unhappy and unsettled his life. In 1778 Bürger became editor of the Musenalmanach, and in the same year published the first collection of his poems. In 1780 he took a farm at Appenrode, but in three years lost so much money that he had to abandon the venture. Pecuniary troubles oppressed him, and being accused of neglecting his official duties, and feeling his honour attacked, he gave up his official position and removed in 1784 to Göttingen, where he established himself as Privat-docent. Shortly before his removal thither his wife died (30th of July 1784), and on the 29th of June in the next year he married his sister-in-law "Molly." Her death on the 9th of January 1786 affected him deeply. He appeared to lose at once all courage and all bodily and mental vigour. He still continued to teach in Göttingen; at the jubilee of the foundation of the university in 1787 he was made an honorary doctor of philosophy, and in 1789 was appointed extraordinary professor in that faculty, though without a stipend. In the following year he married a third time, his wife being a certain Elise Hahn, who, enchanted with his poems, had offered him her heart and hand. Only a few weeks of married life with his "Schwabenmädchen" sufficed to prove his mistake, and after two and a half years he divorced her. Deeply wounded by Schiller's criticism, in the 14th and 15th part of the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung of 1791, of the 2nd edition of his poems, disappointed, wrecked in fortune and health, Bürger eked out a precarious existence as a teacher in Göttingen until his death there on the 8th of June 1794.
Bürger's character, in spite of his utter want of moral balance, was not lacking in noble and lovable qualities. He was honest in purpose, generous to a fault, tender-hearted and modest. His talent for popular poetry was very considerable, and his ballads are among the finest in the German language. Besides Lenore, Das Lied vom braven Manne, Die Kuh, Der Kaiser und der Abt and Der wilde Jäger are famous. Among his purely lyrical poems, but few have earned a lasting reputation; but mention may be made of Das Blümchen Wunderhold, Lied an den lieben Mond, and a few love songs. His sonnets, particularly the elegies, are of great beauty.
Editions of Bürger's Samtliche Schriften appeared at Göttingen, 1817 (incomplete); 1829-1833 (8 vols.), and 1835 (one vol.); also a selection by E. Grisebach (5th ed., 1894). The Gedichte have been published in innumerable editions, the best being that by A. Sauer (2 vols., 1884). Briefe von und an Burger were edited by A. Strodtmann in 4 vols. (1874). On Bürger's life see the biography by H. Prohle (1856), the introduction to Sauer's edition of the poems, and W. von Wurzbach, G.A. Burger (1900).
BURGERS, THOMAS FRANÇOIS (1834-1881), president of the Transvaal Republic, was born in Cape Colony on the 15th of April 1834, and was educated at Utrecht, Holland, where he took the degree of doctor of theology. On his return to South Africa he was ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, and stationed at Hanover in Cape Colony, where he exercised his ministrations for eight years. In 1862 his preaching attracted attention, and two years later an ecclesiastical tribunal suspended him for heretical opinions. He appealed, however, to the colonial government, which had appointed him, and obtained judgment in his favour, which was confirmed by the privy council of England on appeal in 1865. On the resignation of M.W. Pretorius and the refusal of President Brand of the Orange Free State to accept the office, Burgers was elected president of the Transvaal, taking the oath on the 1st of July 1872. In 1873 he endeavoured to persuade Montsioa to agree to an alteration in the boundary of the Barolong territory as fixed by the Keate award, but failed (see Bechuanaland). In 1875 Burgers, leaving the Transvaal in charge of Acting-President Joubert, went to Europe mainly to promote a scheme for linking the Transvaal to the coast by a railway from Delagoa Bay, which was that year definitely assigned to Portugal by the MacMahon award. With the Portuguese Burgers concluded a treaty, December 1875, providing for the construction of the railway. After meeting with refusals of financial help in London, Burgers managed to raise £90,000 in Holland, and bought a quantity of railway plant, which on its arrival at Delagoa Bay was mortgaged to pay freight, and this, so far as Burgers was concerned, was the end of the matter. In June 1876 he induced the raad to declare war against Sikukuni (Secocoeni), a powerful native chief in the eastern Transvaal. The campaign was unsuccessful, and with its failure the republic fell into a condition of lawlessness and insolvency, while a Zulu host threatened invasion. Burgers in an address to the raad (3rd of March 1877) declared "I would rather be a policeman under a strong government than the president of such a state. It is you—-you members of the raad and the Boers—who have lost the country, who have sold your independence for a drink." Sir Theophilus Shepstone, who had been sent to investigate the condition of affairs in the Transvaal, issued on the 12th of April a proclamation annexing the Transvaal to Great Britain. Burgers fully acquiesced in the necessity for annexation. He accepted a pension from the British government, and settled down to farming in Hanover, Cape Colony. He died at Richmond in that colony on the 9th of December 1881, and in the following year a volume of short stories, Tooneelen uit ons dorp, originally written by him for the Cape Volksblad, was published at the Hague for the benefit of his family. A patriot, a fluent speaker both in Dutch and in English, and possessed of unbounded energy, the failure of Burgers was due to his fondness for large visionary plans, which he attempted to carry out with insufficient means (see Transvaal: History).