and twenty-four chief burgesses. James I., by a charter dated 1610, increased the number of chief burgesses to twenty-five and instituted a recorder, a clerk of the market, justices of the peace and other officers. This charter was confirmed in 1611 and 1689, and held force until the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, which established six aldermen and eighteen councillors. The borough sent two members to parliament in 1295, and so continued to do until the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, when the representation was merged in that of the county. Barnstaple was once famous for its woollen trade, now entirely declined, and as early as the reign of Edward III. was an important naval port, with an extensive shipping trade. That this prosperity was not altogether uninterrupted is testified by the fact that, at the time of the Armada, the mayor pleaded inability to contribute three ships, on account of injuries to trade consequent on the war with Spain. The Friday market and the annual four days’ fair in September are held by immemorial prescription.
See J. B. Gribble, Memorials of Barnstaple (Barnstaple, 1830).
BARNUM, PHINEAS TAYLOR (1810–1891), American showman, was born in Bethel, Connecticut, on the 5th of July 1810, his father being an inn- and store-keeper. Barnum first started as a store-keeper, and was also concerned in the lottery mania then prevailing in the United States. After failing in business, he started in 1829 a weekly paper, The Herald of Freedom, in Danbury; after several libel suits and a prosecution which resulted in imprisonment, he moved to New York in 1834, and in 1835 began his career as a showman, with his purchase and exploitation of a coloured woman, Joyce Heth, reputed to have been the nurse of George Washington, and to be over a hundred and sixty years old. With this woman and a small company he made well-advertised and successful tours in America till 1839, though Joyce Heth died in 1836, when her age was proved to be not more than seventy. After a period of failure, he purchased Scudder’s American Museum, New York, in 1841; to this he added considerably, and it became one of the most popular shows in the United States. He made a special hit by the exhibition, in 1842, of Charles Stratton, the celebrated “General Tom Thumb” (see Dwarf). In 1844 Barnum toured with the dwarf in England. A remarkable instance of his enterprise was the engagement of Jenny Lind to sing in America at $1000 a night for one hundred and fifty nights, all expenses being paid by the entrepreneur. The tour began in 1850. Barnum retired from the show business in 1855, but had to settle with his creditors in 1857, and began his old career again as showman and museum proprietor. In 1871 he established the “Greatest Show on Earth,” a travelling amalgamation of circus, menagerie and museum of “freaks,” &c. This show, incorporated in the name of “Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson,” and later as “Barnum & Bailey’s” toured all over the world. In 1907 the business was sold to Ringling Brothers. Barnum wrote several books, such as The Humbugs of the World (1865), Struggles and Triumphs (1869), and his Autobiography (1854, and later editions). He died on the 7th of April 1891.
BAROCCHIO (or Barozzi), GIACOMO, called Da Vignola (1507–1573), Italian architect, was born at Vignola in the Modenese territory on the 1st of October 1507. His early work was conducted at Bologna, Piacenza, Assisi and Perugia, until he was summoned to Rome as papal architect under Pope Julius III. In 1564 he succeeded Michelangelo as the architect of St Peter’s, and executed various portions of that fabric, besides a variety of works in Rome. The designs for the Escorial were also supplied by him. He is the author of an excellent work on the Five Orders of Architecture (Rome, 1563), and another work on Practical Perspective (Rome, 1583). To his extensive acquirements and exquisite taste were superadded an amenity of manners and a noble generosity that won the affection and admiration of all who knew him. He died in Rome on the 7th of July 1573. He was an eminent upholder of the classic style at a period when the style known as baroque was corrupting the architecture of Italy. The term baroque owes its origin to the Spanish word barrueco or berrueco, an imperfectly round pearl, and is not derived from the architect Barocchio, whose name so much resembles it. Yet it is curious that it was much used to describe a debased form of architecture encouraged by the Jesuits whose church in Rome was built by Barocchio.
BAROCCI (or Baroccio), FEDERIGO (1528–1612), Italian painter, was born at Urbino, where the genius of Raphael inspired him. In his early youth he travelled to Rome, where he painted in fresco and was warmly commended by Michelangelo. He then returned to Urbino, where, with the exception of some short visits to Rome, he continued to reside till his death. He acquired great fame by his paintings of religious subjects, in the style of which he to some extent imitated Correggio. His own followers were very numerous, but according to Lanzi (Hist. of Painting) carried their master’s peculiarities to excess. Barocci also etched from his own designs a few prints, which are highly finished, and executed with great softness and delicacy.
BARODA, a native state of India, within the Gujarat province of Bombay, but in direct relations with the governor-general. It consists of four isolated divisions, each of which is interlaced in the most intricate fashion with British territory or with other native states. Three of these divisions—Kadi, Baroda and Nausari—are in Gujarat proper; the fourth, Amreli with Okhamandal, is in the peninsula of Kathiawar. The total area covers 8099 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 1,952,692, showing a decrease of 19% in the decade, compared with an increase of 11% in the preceding decade. This decrease was due partly to the famines of 1896–1897 and 1900–1901, partly to the epidemics of cholera and fever which accompanied them, and partly to the plague which attacked the state in as great measure as the surrounding presidency.
The princes of Baroda were one of the chief branches of the Mahratta confederacy, which in the 18th century spread devastation and terror over India. About 1721 one Pilaji gaekwar carved a fertile slice of territory out of Gujarat, and afterwards received the title of “Leader of the Royal Troops” from the peshwa. During the last thirty-two years of the century the house fell a prey to one of those bitter and unappeasable family feuds which are the ruin of great Indian families. In 1800 the inheritance descended to a prince feeble in body and almost idiotic in mind. British troops were sent in defence of the hereditary ruler against all claimants; a treaty was signed in 1802, by which his independence of the peshwa and his dependence on British government were secured. Three years later these and various other engagements were consolidated into a systematic plan for the administration of the Baroda territory, under a prince with a revenue of three-quarters of a million sterling, perfectly independent in all internal matters, but practically kept on his throne by subsidiary British troops. For some time the history of the gaekwars was very much the same as that of most territorial houses in India: an occasional able minister, more rarely an able prince; but, on the other hand, a long dreary list of incompetent heads, venal advisers and taskmasters oppressive to the people. At last a fierce family feud came to a climax. In 1873 an English committee of inquiry was appointed to investigate various complaints of oppression against the gaekwar, Malhar Rao, who had recently succeeded to the throne after being for a long time kept in prison by his brother, the former gaekwar. No real reform resulted, and in 1874 an attempt at poisoning the British resident led to the gaekwar being formally accused of the crime and tried by a mixed commission. The result of the trial (1875) was a failure to obtain a unanimous verdict on the charge of poisoning; the viceroy, Lord Northbrook, however, decided to depose Malhar Rao on the ground of gross misgovernment, the widow of his brother and predecessor, Khande Rao, being permitted to adopt an heir from among the descendants of the founder of the family. This heir, by name Sayaji Rao, then a boy of twelve years in the humble home of a Deccani cultivator, was educated by an English tutor, the administration being meanwhile placed for eight years under the charge of Sir T. Madhava Rao, formerly diwan of Travancore, one of the ablest and most enlightened of Indian statesmen. The result was a conspicuous success. The gaekwar showed himself a model prince, and his territories
