BAKER, SIR SAMUEL WHITE (1821-1893).--Traveller, _b._ in London, and
after being a planter in Ceylon, and superintending the construction of a
railway between the Danube and the Black Sea, went with his wife, a
Hungarian lady, in search of the sources of the Nile, and discovered the
great lake, Albert Nyanza. B. was knighted in 1866, and was for 4 years
Governor-General of the Equatorial Nile Basin. His books, which are all
on travel and sport, are well written and include _Albert Nyanza_ (1866),
_Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia_ (1867).


BALE, JOHN (1495-1563).--Historian and controversialist, _b._ at Cove,
Suffolk, and _ed._ as a Carmelite friar, but becoming a Protestant,
engaged in violent controversy with the Roman Catholics. After undergoing
persecution and flying to Flanders, he was brought back by Edward VI. and
made Bishop of Ossory. On the death of Edward he was again persecuted,
and had to escape from Ireland to Holland, but returned on the accession
of Elizabeth, who made him a Prebendary of Canterbury. His chief work is
a Latin _Account of the Lives of Eminent Writers of Great Britain_.
Besides this he wrote some dramas on scriptural subjects, and an account
of the trial and death of Sir John Oldcastle. He wrote in all 22 plays,
of which only 5 have come down, the names of certain of which give some
idea of their nature, _e.g._, _The Three Leaves of Nature_, _Moses and
Christ_, and _The Temptacyon of Our Lord_.


BALLANTINE, JAMES (1808-1877).--Artist and author, _b._ in Edinburgh,
began life as a house painter. He studied art, and became one of the
first to revive the art of glass-painting, on which subject he wrote a
treatise. He was the author of _The Gaberlunzie's Wallet_ (1843), _Miller