BALFOUR, SIR JAMES, Lord President of the Court of Session; native of Fife; an unprincipled man, sided now with this party, now with the opposite, to his own advantage, and that at the most critical period in Scottish history; d. 1583.

BALFOUR OF BURLEY, leader of the Covenanters in Scott’s “Old Mortality.”

BALI, one of the Samoa Islands, 75 m. long by 40 m. broad; produces cotton, coffee, and tobacco.

BALIOL, EDWARD, son of the following, invaded Scotland; was crowned king at Scone, supported by Edward III.; was driven from the kingdom, and obliged to renounce all claim to the crown, on receipt of a pension; died at Doncaster, 1369.

BALIOL, JOHN DE, son of the following; laid claim to the Scottish crown on the death of the Maid of Norway in 1290; was supported by Edward I., and did homage to him for his kingdom, but rebelled, and was forced publicly to resign the crown; died in 1314 in Normandy, after spending some three years in the Tower; satirised by the Scotch, in their stinging humorous style, as King Toom Tabard, i. e.  Empty King Cloak.

BALIOL, SIR JOHN DE, of Norman descent; a guardian to the heir to the Scottish crown on the death of Alexander III.; founder of Baliol College, Oxford; d. 1269.

BALIZE, or BELIZE, the capital of British Honduras, in Central America; trade in mahogany, rosewood, &c.

BALKAN PENINSULA, the territory between the Adriatic and the AEgean Sea, bounded on the N. by the Save and the Lower Danube, and on the S. by Greece.

BALKANS, THE, a mountain range extending from the Adriatic to the Black Sea; properly the range dividing Bulgaria from Roumania; mean height, 6500 ft.

BALKASH, LAKE, a lake in Siberia, 780 ft. above sea-level, the waters clear, but intensely salt, 150 m. long and 73 m. broad.

BALKH, anciently called Bactria, a district of Afghan Turkestan lying between the Oxus and the Hindu-Kush, 250 m. long and 120 m. broad, with a capital of the same name, reduced now to a village; birthplace of Zoroaster.

BALL, JOHN, a priest who had been excommunicated for denouncing the abuses of the Church; a ringleader in the Wat Tyler rebellion; captured and executed.

BALL, SIR R. S., mathematician and astronomer, born in Dublin; Astronomer-Royal for Ireland; author of works on astronomy and mechanics, the best known of a popular kind on the former science being “The Story of the Heavens”; b. 1840.

BALLAD, a story in verse, composed with spirit, generally of patriotic interest, and sung originally to the harp.

BALLANCHE, PIERRE SIMON, a mystic writer, born at Lyons, his chief work “la Palingenesie Sociale,” his aim being the regeneration of society (1814-1847).

BALLANTINE, JAMES, glass-stainer and poet, born in Edinburgh (1808-1877).

BALLANTINE, SERJEANT, distinguished counsel in celebrated criminal cases (1812-1887).