collaborated with J. B. A. Dumas in writing an Essai de statique chimique des ètres organisés (1841), and was the author of Traité d’économic rurale (1844), which was remodelled as Agronomie, chimie agricole, et physiologie (5 vols., 1860–1874; 2nd ed., 1884), and of Études sur la transformation du fer en acier (1875).
BOUTERWEK, FRIEDRICH (1766–1828), German philosopher
and critic, was born at Oker, near Goslar in Lower Saxony, and
studied law at Göttingen. From 1790, however, he became
a disciple of Kant, published Aphorismen nach Kants Lehre vorgelegt (1793), and became professor of philosophy at Göttingen
(1802), where he died on the 9th of August 1828. As a
philosopher, he is interesting for his criticism of the theory of
the “thing-in-itself” (Ding-an-sich). For the pure reason, as
described in the Kritik, the “thing-in-itself” can be only an
inconceivable “something-in-general”; any statement about
it involves the predication of Reality, Unity and Plurality,
which belong not to the absolute thing but to phenomena.
On the other hand, the subject is known by the fact of will,
and the object by that of resistance; the cognizance of willing
is the assertion of absolute reality in the domain of relative
knowledge. This doctrine has since been described as absolute
Virtualism. Following this train of thought, Bouterwek left
the Kantian position through his opposition to its formalism.
In later life he inclined to the views of F. H. Jacobi, whose letters
to him (published at Göttingen, 1868) shed much light on the
development of his thought. His chief philosophical works are
Ideen zu einer allgemeinen Apodiktik (Göttingen and Halle, 1799);
Aesthetik (Leipzig, 1806; Göttingen, 1815 and 1824); Lehrbuch der philos. Vorkenntnisse (Göttingen, 1810 and 1820); Lehrbuch der philos. Wissenschaften (Göttingen, 1813 and 1820). In these
works he dissociated himself from the Kantian school. His
chief critical work was the Geschichte der neuern Poesie und Beredsamkeit (Göttingen, 12 vols., 1801–1819), of which the
history of Spanish literature has been published separately
in French, Spanish and English. The Geschichte is a work of
wide learning and generally sound criticism, but it is not of
equal merit throughout. He also wrote three novels, Paulus Septimus (Halle, 1795), Graf Donamar (Göttingen, 1791) and
Ramiro (Leipzig, 1804), and published a collection of poems
(Göttingen, 1802).
BOUTHILLIER, CLAUDE, Sieur de Fouilletourte (1581–1652),
French statesman, began life as an advocate. In 1613 he
was councillor in the parlement of Paris, and in 1619 became
councillor of state and a secretary to the queen-mother, Marie
de’ Medici. The connexion of his father, Denis Bouthillier
(d. 1622), with Cardinal Richelieu secured for him the title of
secretary of state in 1628, and he was able to remain on good
terms with both Marie de’ Medici and Richelieu, in spite of their
rivalry. In 1632 he became superintendent of finances. But
his great rôle was in diplomacy. Richelieu employed him on
many diplomatic missions, and the success of his foreign policy
was due in no small degree to Bouthillier’s ability and devotion.
In 1630 he had taken part at Regensburg in arranging the
abortive treaty between the emperor and France. From 1633
to 1640 he was continually busied with secret missions in
Germany, sometimes alone, sometimes with Father Joseph.
Following Richelieu’s instructions, he negotiated the alliances
which brought France into the Thirty Years’ War. Meanwhile,
at home, his tact and amiable disposition, as well as his reputation
for straightforwardness, had secured for him a unique position
of influence in a court torn by jealousies and intrigues. Trusted
by the king, the confidant of Richelieu, the friend of Marie de’
Medici, and through his son, Léon Bouthillier, who was appointed
in 1635 chancellor to Gaston d’Orléans, able to bring his influence
to bear on that prince, he was an invaluable mediator; and the
personal influence thus exercised, combined with the fact that
he was at the head of both the finances and the foreign policy
of France, made him, next to the cardinal, the most powerful
man in the kingdom. Richelieu made him executor of his will,
and Louis XIII. named him a member of the council of regency
which he intended should govern the kingdom after his death.
But the king’s last plans were not carried out, and Bouthillier
was obliged to retire into private life, giving up his office of
superintendent of finances in June 1643. He died in Paris on
the 13th of March 1652.
His son, Léon Bouthillier (1608–1652), comte de Chavigny, was early associated with his father, who took him with him from 1629 to 1632 to all the great courts of Europe, instructing him in diplomacy. In 1632 he was named secretary of state and seconded his father’s work, so that it is not easy always to distinguish their respective parts. After the death of Louis XIII. he had to give up his office; but was sent as plenipotentiary to the negotiations at Munster. He showed himself incapable, however, giving himself up to pleasure and fêtes, and returned to France to intrigue against Mazarin. Arrested twice during the Fronde, and then for a short time in power during Mazarin’s exile (April 1651), he busied himself with small intrigues which came to nothing.
BOUTS-RIMÉS, literally (from the French) “rhymed ends,”
the name given in all literatures to a kind of verses of which
no better definition can be found than was made by Addison, in
the Spectator, when he described them as “lists of words that
rhyme to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to
a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the same
order that they were placed upon the list.” The more odd and
perplexing the rhymes are, the more ingenuity is required to
give a semblance of common-sense to the production. For
instance, the rhymes breeze, elephant, squeeze, pant, scant, please, hope, pope are submitted, and the following stanza is
the result:—
| Escaping from the Indian breeze, |
The invention of bouts-rimés is attributed to a minor French poet of the 17th century, Dulot, of whom little else is remembered. According to the Menagiana, about the year 1648, Dulot was complaining one day that he had been robbed of a number of valuable papers, and, in particular, of three hundred sonnets. Surprise being expressed at his having written so many, Dulot explained that they were all “blank sonnets,” that is to say, that he had put down the rhymes and nothing else. The idea struck every one as amusing, and what Dulot had done seriously was taken up as a jest. Bouts-rimés became the fashion, and in 1654 no less a person than Sarrasin composed a satire against them, entitled La Défaite des bouts-rimés, which enjoyed a great success. Nevertheless, they continued to be abundantly composed in France throughout the 17th century and a great part of the 18th century. In 1701 Etienne Mallemans (d. 1716) published a collection of serious sonnets, all written to rhymes selected for him by the duchess of Maine. Neither Piron, nor Marmontel, nor La Motte disdained this ingenious exercise, and early in the 19th century the fashion was revived. The most curious incident, however, in the history of bouts-rimés is the fact that the elder Alexandre Dumas, in 1864, took them under his protection. He issued an invitation to all the poets of France to display their skill by composing to sets of rhymes selected for the purpose by the poet, Joseph Méry (1798–1866). No fewer than 350 writers responded to the appeal, and Dumas published the result, as a volume, in 1865.
W. M. Rossetti, in the memoir of his brother prefixed to D. G. Rossetti’s Collected Works (1886), mentions that, especially in 1848 and 1849, he and Dante Gabriel Rossetti constantly practised their pens in writing sonnets to bouts-rimés, each giving the other the rhymes for a sonnet, and Dante Gabriel writing off these exercises in verse-making at the rate of a sonnet in five or eight minutes. Most of W. M. Rossetti’s poems in The Germ were bouts-rimés experiments. Many of Dante Gabriel’s, a little touched up, remained in his brother’s possession, but were not included in the Collected Works. (E. G.)
