BARD, from the Welsh bardd, is the name applied to the ancient Celtic poets, though the word is sometimes loosely used as synonymous with poet in general. So far as can be ascertained, the title bards, and some of the privileges peculiar to that class of poets, are to be found only among Celtic peoples. The name itself is not used by Caesar in his account of the manners and customs of Gaul and Britain, but he appears to ascribe the functions of the bards to a section of the Druids, with which class they seem to have been closely connected. Later Latin authors, such as Lucan {Phar., p. 447), Festus (De Verb. Sign. s. v.), and Ammianus Marcellinus (bk. xv.), used the term Bardi as the recognized title of the national poets oι singers among the peoples of Gaul and Britain. In Gaul, however, the institution soon disappeared; the purely Celtic peoples were swept back by the waves of Latin and Teutonic conquest, and finally settled in Wales, Ireland. Brittany, and the north of Scotland. There is cleaι evidence of the existence of bards in all these places, though the known relics belong almost entirely to Wales and Ireland, where the institution was more distinctively national. In Wales they formed an organized society, with hereditary rights and privileges. They were treated with the utmost respect, and were exempt from taxes O) military service. Their special duties were to celebrate the victories of their people, and to sing hymns of praise tc God. They thus gave poetic expression to the religious and national sentiments of the people, and therefore ex ercised a very powerful influence. The whole society oi bards was regulated by laws, said to have been first dis tinctly formulated by Hywell Dha, and to have been after wards revised by Gruffydd ap Conan. At stated ...

BARDESANES, or Bar Deisan, a celebrated Gnostic, was a native of Edessa in Mesopotamia, and appears tc have flourished during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Very little is known of his life. He is said to have held a disputation with Apollonius, a philosopher in the train of Lucius Verus, and he is known to have written against the Marcionite and other heresies. There is considerable doubt whether he was ever a disciple of Valentinus, but it is acknowledged that he never ceased to belong to the Christian church. However seriously his principles, if rigidly interpreted, might conflict with the doctrines of Christianity, he did not regard himself as opposed to that-faith, and he was generally considered one of its best defenders. He was especially famed for his hymns, fragments of which are still extant. Of his other works there seems to remain only a treatise On Fate, a portion of which was preserved by Eusebius {Prep. Evan., vi. 10), while the whole has been printed from a Syriac MS. with English translation by Cureton {Spicilegium, Syriacum, Lond. 1855). The system of Bardesanes, so far as it can be gathered from the scanty notices of other writers, had many points in common with that of Valentinus, but show’s to an almost greater extent the influence of Oriental mysticism and imagery. He begins, as do all the other Gnostics, with postulating the existence of the Unknown God or Father, the ground of all the forms of being. Alongside of God, and co-existing with Him,—in fact, His necessary shadow,—is vague, unformed, eternal, and uncreated Matter. From this dualism springs the possibility of evil in the universe. Evil is not, indeed, correlative and equally necessary with God, but arises from matter. The Eternal Father, through union with His everlastingly ...

BARDILI, Christoph Gottfried, a German metaphysician, distinguished by his opposition to the system of Kant, was born at Blaubeuren in Wiirtemberg, in 17G1, and died at Stuttgart in 1808. Of his numerous works the principal is his Elements of Logic {Grundriss der ersten Logik, Stuttgart, 1800). His system has had but little influence in Germany, the celebrated Reinhold being the only adherent of any importance. Yet in some respects his ideas opened the way for the later speculations of Schelling and Hegel. He dissented strongly from the Kantian distinction between matter and form of thought, and urged that philosophy should consider only thought in itself, pure thought, which is the ground or possibility of being. The fundamental principle of thought and criterion of certitude was, according to him, the law of identity; logical thinking was real thinking. The matter upon which thought operated was in itself indefinite and unformed, a mere aπecpov, which was rendered definite or took determinate forms through the action upon it of thought. Bardili, however, worked out his fundamental idea in an abstract, one-sided manner. Thought, as conceived by him, had no power of development in it, and ultimately reduced itself to a species of arithmetical computation. (See on his system the notices in Michelet, Geschichte der letzten Systeme, Bd. i., and Erdmann, Versuch einer Geschichte d. neu. Phil., Bd. iii. pt. i.)

BARDSEY{i.e., Bard’s Island), or in Welsh Ynys Enlli, the Island of the Current, is situated at the northern extremity of Cardigan Bay. It is 2∣ miles long by 1 broad, with an area of about 370 acres, of which one-third is hilly. The island produces both barley and oats. On the S.E. side there is a harbour which admits vessels of 40 tons. On the north side are the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, said to have been .founded by Cadfan in 516, which afforded refuge to great numbers of fugitives during the 7th century. The lighthouse has a fixed light 129 feet above high water, in lat. 52° 45' N., long. 4° 47' W.

BARDWÂN (sometimes spelled Burdwan), a division or commissionership in India under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, comprising the districts of Bardwân, Hùglï with Howrah, Midnapur, Bânkurâ or West Bardwân, and Bir-bhüm, lies between 23° and 25° N. lat. and between 86° and 89° E. long. It is bounded on the N. by the district of the Santâl Parganâs in the Bhâgalpur division, and Murshidâbâd in the Râjshâhi division; on the E. by the Presidency districts of Nadiyâ, and the 24 Parganâs; on the S. by the Bay of Bengal, and on the W. by the native tributary state of Morbhanj, and the district of Mânbhùm in the Chhotâ Nâgpur division. In 1872 Bardwân division contained an area of 12,719 square miles, with a population of 7,286,957, inhabiting 25,842 towns and villages, and 1,468,791 houses; persons per square mile, 573; villages or townships per square mile, 2Ό3; houses per square mile, 115; persons per village, 282; and persons per house, 5. The census of 1872 classifies the population of the Bardwân division as follow :—Hindus—males, 3,051,967; females, 3,164,093; total, 6,216,060, or 85 - 3 per cent.: Mahometans—males, 450,103; females,. 479,288; total, 929,391, or 12 , 8 per cent.: Christians. —males, 2352; females, 2053; total, 4405, or ‘1 per cent.: total—males, 3,572,108, or 49 per cent.; females, 3,714,849, or 51 per cent.; grand total, 7,286,957....