BIRD, ROBERT MONTGOMERY (1803-1854).—­Novelist, an American physician, wrote three tragedies, The Gladiator, Oraloosa, and The Broker of Bogota, and several novels, including Calavar, The Infidel, The Hawks of Hawk Hollow, Peter Pilgrim, and Nick of the Woods, in the first two of which he gives graphic and accurate details and descriptions of Mexican history.

BISHOP, SAMUEL (1731-1795).—­Poet, b. in London, and ed. at Merchant Taylor’s School and Oxf., took orders and became Headmaster of Merchant Taylor’s School.  His poems on miscellaneous subjects fill two quarto vols., the best of them are those to his wife and dau. He also pub. essays.

BLACK, WILLIAM (1841-1898).—­Novelist.  After studying as a landscape painter, he took to journalism in Glasgow.  In 1864 he went to London, and soon after pub. his first novel, James Merle, which made no impression.  In the Austro-Prussian War he acted as a war correspondent.  Thereafter he began afresh to write fiction, and was more successful; the publication of A Daughter of Heth (1871) at once established his popularity.  He reached his highwater-mark in A Princess of Thule (1873).  Many other books were added before his death in 1898, among which may be mentioned In Silk Attire (1869), The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton (1872), Macleod of Dare (1878), White Wings (1880), Shandon Bells (1882), Yolande (1883), Judith Shakespeare (1884), White Heather (1886), Stand Fast Craig-Royston! (1890), Green Pastures and Piccadilly, Three Feathers, Wild Eelin (1898).

BLACKIE, JOHN STUART (1809-1895).—­Scholar and man of letters, b. in Glasgow, and ed. at the Universities of Aberdeen and Edin., after which he travelled and studied in Germany and Italy.  Returning to Scotland he was, in 1834, admitted to the Scottish Bar, but did not practise.  His first work was his translation of Faust (1834), which won the approbation of Carlyle.  From 1841-52 B. was Prof. of Humanity (Latin) in Aberdeen, and from 1852-82, when he retired, of Greek in Edinburgh.  His literary activity was incessant, his works consisting of translations of AEschylus and of the Iliad, various books of poetry, including Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, and treatises on religious, philosophical, and political subjects, among which may be mentioned Self-Culture (1873), Horae Hellenicae, and a life of Burns.  He was an enthusiastic champion of Scottish nationality.  Possessed of great conversational powers and general versatility, his picturesque eccentricity made him one of the most notable members of Scottish society.  It was owing to his efforts that a Chair of Celtic Language and Literature was established in Edinburgh University.