BAGE, ROBERT (1728-1801).—Novelist, b. in Derbyshire, was the s. of a paper-maker. It was not until he was 53 that he took to literature; but in the 15 years following he produced 6 novels, of which Sir Walter Scott says that “strong mind, playful fancy, and extensive knowledge are everywhere apparent.” B., though brought up as a Quaker, imbibed the principles of the French Revolution. He was an amiable and benevolent man, and highly esteemed. Hermsprong; or, Man as He is Not (1796) is considered the best of his novels, of which it was the last. The names of the others are Mount Kenneth (1781), Barham Downs (1784), The Fair Syrian (1787), James Wallace (1788), and Man as He is (1792).
BAGEHOT, WALTER (1826-1877).—Economist, s. of a banker, b. at Langport, Somerset, ed. at University Coll., London, and called to the Bar, but did not practise, and joined his f. in business. He wrote for various periodicals, and from 1860 was editor of The Economist. He was the author of The English Constitution (1867), a standard work which was translated into several languages; Physics and Politics (1872), and Lombard Street (1873), a valuable financial work. A collection of essays, biographical and economic, was pub. after his death.
BAILEY, PHILIP JAMES (1816-1902).—Poet, s. of a journalist, b. at Nottingham, and ed. there and at Glasgow, of which he was made an LL.D. in 1891. His life was a singularly uneventful one. He lived at Nottingham, Jersey, Ilfracombe, London, and again at Nottingham, where he d. He travelled a good deal on the Continent. He was by profession a barrister, but never practised, and devoted his whole energies to poetry. His first poem, Festus (1839), is, for the daring of its theme and the imaginative power and moral altitude which it displays, one of the most notable of the century; as the work of one little past boyhood it is a prodigy of intellectual precocity. Along with its great qualities it has many faults in execution, and its final place in literature remains to be determined. It was pub. anonymously, and had great success,