Barclay de Tolly, Michael, Prince, a distinguished general and field-marshal of Russia, born in 1755. His family, of Scottish origin, had been established in Livonia since 1689. He entered the army at an early age, served in various campaigns against the Turks, Swedes, and Poles, and in 1811 was named Minister of War. On the invasion of Napoleon he was transferred to the chief command of the army, and adopted a plan of retreat; his forces did not greatly exceed 100,000 men, but the Court became impatient, and after the capture of Smolensk by the French he was superseded by Kutusov. Sinking all personal feeling, he asked leave to serve under his successor, commanded the right wing at the battle of the Moskwa, maintained his position, and covered the retreat of the rest of the army. After the battle of Bautzen, in 1813, he was reappointed to the chief command, which he had soon after to resign to Prince Schwarzenberg. He forced the surrender of General Vandamme after the battle of Dresden, took part in the decisive battle of Leipzig, and was made a field-marshal in Paris. In 1815 he received from the emperor the title of prince, and from Louis XVIII the badge of the Order of Military Merit. He died in 1818.
Bar-cochba (ba˙r-koh´ba˙), or Bar-cochebas, Simon, a Jewish impostor, who pretended to be the Messiah, raised a revolt, and made himself master of Jerusalem about A.D. 132, and of about fifty fortified places. Hadrian sent to Britain for Julius Severus, one of his ablest generals, who gradually regained the different forts and then took and destroyed Jerusalem. Bar-cochba retired to a mountain fortress, and perished in the assault of it by the Romans three years after, about 135.
Bar´coo. See Cooper's Creek.
Bard, one of an order among the ancient Celtic tribes, whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honour of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men, generally to the accompaniment of the harp. Their verses also
frequently embodied religious or ethical precepts, genealogies, laws, &c. Their existence and function was known to the Romans two centuries B.C.; but of the Gallic bards only the tradition of their popularity survives. The first Welsh bards of whom anything is extant are Taliesin, Aneurin, and Llywarch, of the sixth century. A considerable lacuna then occurs in their history until the order was reconstituted in the tenth century by King Howel Dha, and again in the eleventh by Gryffith ap Conan. Edward I is said to have hanged all the Welsh bards as promoters of sedition. Some modern attempts have been made in Wales to revive bardism, and the Cambrian Society was formed in 1818, for this purpose and for the preservation of the remains of the ancient literature. The revived Eisteddfodau, or bardic festivals, have been so far exceedingly popular. In Ireland there were three classes of bards: those who sang of war, religion, &c., those who chanted the laws, and those who gave genealogies and family histories in verse. They were famous harpists. In the Highlands of Scotland there are considerable remains of compositions supposed to be those of their old bards still preserved.—Bibliography: E. Jones, Relics of the Welsh Bards; Walker, Memoirs of the Irish Bards; Dottin, Manuel de l'Antiquité Celtique; John Rhys and D. Brynmor-Jones, The Welsh People; D. D. Evans, Ancient Bards of Britain.
Bardesa´nes, a Syrian Gnostic, poet, astrologer, and philosopher, born 154 or 164 at Edessa, died 222. His system started with the statement that from the union of God with matter sprang Christ and a female Holy Ghost, from whom in turn sprang various existences. He propagated his doctrines in Syrian hymns (Hymn on the Soul), the first in the language. His son, Harmonius, was also an able hymn-writer. The Bardesanists maintained themselves till the twelfth century, the later adherents having practically adopted Manichæism.
Bardwan´, or Burdwan´, a division of Bengal, upon the Hugli, comprising the six districts of Bardwan, Hugli, Howrah, Midnapur, Bankura, and Birbhum. Area, 13,850 sq. miles; pop. 8,245,000.—The district Bardwan has an area of 2697 sq. miles, and a pop. of 1,532,500. Apart from its products, rice, grain, hemp, cotton, indigo, &c., it has a noted coal-field of about 500 sq. miles in area, with an annual output of about half a million tons.—The town of Bardwan has a fine palace of the Maharajah and a pop. of 35,022.
Barebone, or Barbone, Praise-God, the name of a leather-seller in Fleet Street, London, who obtained a kind of lead in the convention which Cromwell substituted for the Long Parliament, and which was thence nicknamed the Barebone Parliament. After its dissolution he disappeared till 1660, when he presented a petition to Parliament against the restoration of the monarchy. In 1661 he was committed to the Tower for some time, but his subsequent history is unknown.
Barefooted Friars. See Monasticism.
Barége (ba-rāzh´), a light, open tissue of silk and worsted, or cotton and worsted, for women's dresses, originally manufactured near Baréges. It is now made chiefly at Bagnères-de-Bigorre.