BALBO, Cesare, an important Italian writer and statesman, was born at Turin, November 21, 1789. His father, Prospero Balbo, held a high position in the Piedmontese court, and at the time of Cesare’s birth was syndic of the capital. His mother, a member of the Azeglio family, died when he was three years old; and he was brought up in the house of his great-grandmother, the countese of Bugino, “a noble and proud old lady.” In 1798 he joined his father at Paris. Erom 1808 to 1814 Balbo served ’in various capacities under the Napoleonic empire, helping, at Florence and Rome, to fix the chains of despotism on his country. Gradually, however, his eyes were opened, and, on the fall of Napoleon, he was ready, in various capacities, to serve the cause of his country. While his father was appointed minister of the interior, he entered the army, and undertook political missions to Paris and London. On the revolution of 1821 he was forced into exile, and though, not long after, he was allowed to return to Piedmont, all active service as a statesman was denied him. Reluctantly, and with frequent endeavours to obtain some appointment, he gave himself up to literature as the only means left him to influence the destinies of his country. This accounts for the fitfulness and incompleteness of so much of his literary work, and for the practical, and in many cases temporary, element that runs through even his most elaborate productions. The great object of his labours was to help in securing for Italy that independence from foreign control which, even more than internal freedom, he regarded as the first necessity of national life. Of true Italian unity he had no expectation and no desire. A confederation of separate states under the supremacy of the Pope was the genuine beau ...

BALBOA, Vasco Nunez de, one of the bravest and most successful of the Spanish discoverers of America, was born at Xeres de los Caballeros, in Estremadura, about the year 1475. Ile was by birth a hidalgo, or gentleman, but was in poor circumstances. Little is known of his life till the year 1501, when he was one of the company of adventurers who followed Roderigo de Bastidas in his voyage of discovery to the western seas. He appears to have settled in Hispaniola, and took to cultivating land in the neighbourhood of Salvatierra, but with no great success, as his debts soon became oppressive. In 1509 the famous Ojeda sailed from San Domingo with an expedition, and founded the settlement of San Sebastian. He had left orders with Enciso, an adventurous lawyer of the town, to fit out two ships and convey provisions to the new settlement. Enciso set sail in 1510, and Balboa, whose debts made the town unpleasant to him, managed to accompany him, by concealing himself in a cask which was conveyed from Ins farm to the ship as if containing provisions. The expedition, after various adventures, reached San Sebastian to find Ojeda gone and the settlement in ruins. While Enciso was undecided how to act, Vasco Nunez proposed that they should sail for Darien, on the Gulf of Uraba, where he had touched when with Bastidas. His proposal was at once accepted, and carried out. The new town was named Sta Maria de la Antigua del Darien. Bitter quarrels soon broke out among the adventurers, caused chiefly by Enciso prohibiting all private interchange for gold with the natives. Enciso was deposed from the office of authority which he had assumed, but it was found no easy matter to elect a successor. Nicuesa, in whose province they were, was proposed by several, and was brought from Nombre de ...