BIGGAR, a town in Lanarkshire, birthplace of Dr. John Brown and of the Gladstone ancestry.

BIGLOW, imaginary author of poems in the Yankee dialect, written by James Russell Lowell.

BIJAPUR`, city in the presidency of Bombay, once the capital of an extensive kingdom, now deserted, but with remains of its former greatness.

BILBA`O (50), capital of the Basque prov. of Biscay, in Spain; a commercial city of ancient date, famous at one time for its steel, specially in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when a rapier was called a “bilbo.”

BILDERDIJK, WILLEM, Dutch poet, born at Amsterdam (1756-1831).

BILE, a fluid secreted from the blood by the liver to aid in digestion, the secretion of which is most active after food.

BILLAUD-VARENNES, JEAN NICOLAS, “a grim, resolute, unrepentant” member of the Jacobin Club; egged on the mob during the September massacres in the name of liberty; was president of the Convention; assisted at the fall of Robespierre, but could not avert his own; was deported to Surinam, and content to die there rather than return to France, which Bonaparte made him free to do; died at Port-au-Prince (1756-1819).

BILLAUT, ADAM, the carpenter poet, called “Maitre Adam,” born at Nevers, and designated “Virgile au Rabot” (a carpenter’s plane); d. 1662.

BILLINGS, ROBERT WILLIAM, architect, born in London; delineator of old historical buildings; his great work “Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,” richly illustrated; was engaged in the restoration of old buildings, as well as delineating them (1813-1874).

BILLINGSGATE, a fish-market in London, below London Bridge; also a name given to low, coarse language indulged in there.

BILLINGTON, ELIZABETH, nee WEICHSEL, a celebrated singer, born in London, of German descent; kept up her celebrity to the last; died at Venice in 1817.

BILNEY, THOMAS, martyr, born in Norfolk, a priest who adopted the reformed doctrine; was twice arraigned, and released on promise not to preach, but could not refrain, and was at last burned as a heretic in 1531.

BILOCATION, the power or state, ascribed to certain of the saints, of appearing in two places at the same time.

BIMETALLISM, the employment of two metals (gold and silver) in the currency of a country as legal tender at a fixed relative value, the ratio usually proposed being 1 to 151/2.

BIMINI, a fabulous island with a fountain possessed of the virtue of restoring youth.

BINET, a French litterateur, translator of Horace and Virgil (1732-1812).

BINGEN, a manufacturing and trading town on the left bank of the Rhine, in Grand-Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt, opposite which is the tower associated with the myth of Bishop Hatto.

BINGHAM, JOSEPH, an English divine, born at Wakefield; author of “Origines Ecclesiasticae,” a laborious and learned work; lost his all in the South-Sea Scheme and died (1668-1723).