a village of Germany, in the circle of Swabia, situated in E. Long. 2. 30. N. Lat. 48. 40. This village is remarkable for the defeat of the French and Bavarians in 1704, by the English and their confederates under Prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough. The French army amounted to 60,000 veterans, who had shared in the conquests of their grand monarch; and were now commanded by two generals the most distinguished at that time in France, Blenheim, Marshal Tallard and the duke of Bavaria. The former had established his reputation by many victories. He was active and penetrating; his ardour often rose to impetuosity; and he was so short-sighted as to be incapable of seeing objects at a very small distance. The duke of Bavaria was equally experienced in the field, and had stronger motives for activity: His country was ravaged before his eyes, and nothing remained of his possessions but the army which he commanded. The allied army, commanded by Eugene and Marlborough, amounted to about 52,000 men, troops who had long been familiar with victory, and who had seen the French, the Turks, and the Russians, fly before them. Both armies, after many marches and counter-marches, approached each other. The French were posted on a hill near the town of Hochstett; their right covered by the Danube and the village of Blenheim; their left by the village of Lutzenberg; and their front by a rivulet, the banks of which were steep and the bottom muddy. The right wing of the French was commanded by Marshal Tallard; their left by the duke of Bavaria, and under him General Marfin, an experienced Frenchman. Their position being advantageous, they were willing to await the enemy rather than offer battle. On the other hand, Marlborough and Eugene were stimulated to engage them at all events, in consequence of an intercepted letter from Villeroy, intimating that he was preparing to cut off all communication between the Rhine and the allied army. The dispositions, therefore, being made for the attack, and the orders communicated to the general officers, the allied forces advanced into the plain, and were ranged in order of battle. The cannonading began about nine in the morning, and continued to about half after twelve. The troops then advanced to the attack; the right under the direction of Prince Eugene, the left headed by Marlborough, and opposed to Marshal Tallard. Marlborough, at the head of the English troops, having passed the rivulet, attacked the cavalry of Tallard with great bravery. This general being then reviewing the disposition of his troops to the left, his cavalry fought for some time without the presence of their commander. Prince Eugene had not yet attacked the forces of the elector; and it was near an hour before he could bring up his troops to the engagement. Tallard was no sooner informed that his right was attacked by the duke, than he flew to its head, where he found a furious encounter already begun; his cavalry being thrice driven back, and rallying as often. He had posted a large body of forces in the village of Blenheim; and he made an attempt to bring them to the charge. They were attacked by a detachment of Marlborough's troops so vigorously, that instead of afflicting the main body they could hardly maintain their ground. All the French cavalry being thus attacked in flank, was totally defeated. The English army now penetrated between the two bodies of the French commanded by the marshal and elector, while the forces in the village of Blenheim were separated by another detachment. In this distressful situation Tallard flew to rally some squadrons; but from his short-sightedness mistaking a detachment of the enemy for his own, he was made prisoner by the Hessian troops, who were in the allied army. Meanwhile, Prince Eugene on his part, after having been thrice repulsed, at last put the enemy into confusion. The rout then became general, and the flight precipitate. The consternation of the French soldiery was such, that they threw themselves into the Danube, without knowing whither they fled. The allies being now masters of the field of battle, surrounded the village of Blenheim, where a body of 13,000 men had been posted in the beginning of the action, and still maintained their ground. These troops seeing themselves cut off from all communication with the rest of the army, and despairing of being able to force their way through the allies, threw down their arms, and surrendered themselves prisoners of war. Thus ended the battle of Blenheim, one of the most complete victories that ever was obtained. Twelve thousand French and Bavarians were slain in the field or drowned in the Danube; 13,000 were made prisoners of war; and there were taken 100 pieces of cannon, 22 mortars, upwards of 100 pair of colours, 200 standards, 17 pair of kettle-drums, upwards of 3000 tents, 34 coaches, 300 loaded mules, two bridges of boats, and all the French baggage, with their military chest. Next day, when the duke of Marlborough visited his prisoner the marshal, the latter assured him that he had overcome the best troops in the world. "I hope, Sir (replied the duke), you will except those troops by whom they were conquered." The allies, in consequence of this victory, became masters of a country 100 leagues in extent.

**Blenheim-House**, a noble and princely house erected in honour of the duke of Marlborough at Woodstock near Oxford, which with the manor of Woodstock is settled on the duke and his heirs, in consideration of the eminent services by him performed for the public; and for building of which house the sum of £50,000 was granted by parliament, &c.—The tenure by which his grace holds the manor of Woodstock is the presenting at the castle of Windsor annually on the day in which the battle of Blenheim was fought, a flag embroidered with flowers-de-lis; which flag is shown to all strangers who visit the castle.

**Blennius**, the Blenny. See Ichthyology Index.

**Bless, Henry**, painter of history and landscape, was born at Bovine, near Dinant, in 1480. He acquired his skill in the art merely by the strength of his natural genius, assisted by a diligent study and observation of the works of Patenier, without having any other instructor; and at last rendered himself very eminent, particularly by his landscapes. His best performances were bought up by the emperor Rudolph, and they are still preserved at Vienna. His style of composition in historical subjects resembles the style of the Flemish artists of that age, and exhibits a great number of figures finished with extreme neatness. But he crowded several subjects into one design; as in his picture of the disciples at Emmaus, he represented not only that incident, but in different groups disposed in the background, he represented likewise the different parts of the passion of our Saviour. And yet, notwithstanding the impropriety of that manner of composing, his pictures were so delicately pencilled and finished, and his landscapes in particular so agreeably invented, so full of variety, and well executed, that even in Italy his works were in great request, and were distinguished there by the appellation of the owl-painter; for he fixed an owl, as his peculiar mark, in every picture he painted; by which the works of this master are always indisputably known. He died in 1550.

**Blestium**, a town in Britain. Now Old-town, not far from Hereford.

**Bletism**, a faculty of perceiving and indicating subterraneous springs and currents by sensation. The term is modern, and derived from M. Bleton, who for some years past has excited universal attention by his possessing the above faculty, which seems to depend upon some peculiar organization. Concerning the reality of this extraordinary faculty, there occurred great doubts among the learned. But M. Thouvenel, a Frenchman of some consequence and a philosopher, seems to have put the matter beyond dispute, in two memoirs which he has published upon the subject. He was charged by the king with a commission to analyse the mineral and medicinal waters in France; and, by repeated trials, he had been so fully convinced of the capacity of Bleton to assist him with efficacy in this important undertaking, that he solicited the ministry to join him in the commission upon advantageous terms. All this shows that the operations of Bleton have a more solid support than the tricks of imposture or the delusions of fancy. In fact, a great number of his discoveries are ascertained by respectable affidavits. The following is a strong influence in favour of Bletism. "For a long time the traces of several springs and their reservoirs in the lands of the Abbé de Verriens had been entirely lost. It appeared, nevertheless, by ancient deeds and titles, that these springs and reservoirs had existed. A neighbouring abbey was supposed to have turned their waters for its benefit into other channels, and a law-suit was commenced upon this supposition. M. Bleton was applied to; he discovered at once the new course of the waters in question; his discovery was ascertained, and the law-suit was terminated."

Bleton has been mistaken more than once; and our author enumerates, with the fairest candour, the cases in which he has failed; but these cases are very rare in comparison with those in which he has succeeded. Besides, even the mistakes of Bleton do not invalidate the reality of his talents; since a talent may be real without being perfect, or exerting itself with the same success in every trial.

Many were indignant against Bletism because they looked upon the facts on which it is founded as inexplicable. But M. Thouvenel affirms principles, upon which the impressions made by subterraneous waters and mines may be naturally enough accounted for. Having ascertained a general law by which subterraneous electricity exerts an influence upon the bodies of certain individuals eminently susceptible of that influence, and known that this law is the same whether the electrical action arises from currents of warm or cold water, from currents of humid air, from coal or metallic mines, from sulphur, and so on, he observes, that there is a diversity in the physical and organic impressions which are produced by this electrical action, according as it proceeds from different fossile bodies which are more or less conductors of electrical emanations. There are also artificial processes, which concur in leading us to distinguish the different focuses or conductors of mineral electricity; and in these processes the Electrometrical rods deserves the attention of philosophers, who might perhaps in process of time substitute in their place a more perfect instrument. Their physical and spontaneous mobility, and its electrical cause, are demonstrated by indubitable experiments.

On the other hand, our author proves, by very plausible arguments, the influence of subterraneous electrical currents, compares them with the electrical currents of the atmosphere, points out the different impressions they produce according to the number and quality of the bodies which act, and the diversity of those which are acted upon. The ordinary sources of cold water make impressions proportional to their volume, the velocity of their currents, and other circumstances. Their stagnation destroys every species of electrical influence; at least, in this state they have none that is perceptible. Their depth is indicated by geometrical processes, founded upon the motion and divergence of the electrical rays; but there are second causes which sometimes diversify these indications, and occasion seeming errors. These errors, however, according to our author, are only exceptions to the general rule; exceptions which depend on the difference of mediums and situations, and not on the incertainty or incertitude of the organical, sensitive, or convulsive faculties of the Bletonist.

All the hot springs in France, traced by our author from the places where they flow to the places where their formation commences (sometimes at a distance of 15 leagues), led him constantly to masses of coal; where they are collected and heated in batons of different depths and dimensions, nourished by the filtration of lakes and the course of torrents, and mineralized by saline, sulphurous, metallic, and bituminous substances, in the natural furnaces where they are heated, or in the strata through which they flow.

The last and the most singular and important phenomenon which our author met with in the course of his experiments must not be here omitted. Over the veins of iron mines alone the electrometrical rods assume a motion of rotation diametrically opposite to that which they exhibit over all other mines. This phenomenon takes place with the same distinction when iron and other metals are extracted from their mines and deposited under ground. But the most remarkable circumstance in this distinctive action of these metals is, that it has a uniform and constant direction from east to west in all metals, iron excepted, just as iron rendered magnetic has an action directed from south to north. The action of red metals is more palpable than that of the white; but the latter, though weaker, has nevertheless a real existence in the sulphur.

In the supplement to this memoir, there is an accurate account of the processes that have furnished these invariable results. They will naturally suggest, says our author, the idea of constructing an electrical compass, which may be of as eminent use in experimental philosophy as the magnetic compass is in navigation. The natural and spontaneous direction of metallic emanations towards the well being ascertained, it only remains to render them palpable by the construction of an instrument which may be substituted in the place of the electrometrical twig that goes vulgarly by the name of the divining rod.

His analysis of the hot springs of Bourbon-Lancy, Bletonist to the source of which in the great mountains of Burgundy he was led by the electrical sensations of Bleton, shows the great intelligence and sagacity of our author in operations of this nature. He found the origin of these famous hot springs in the centre of an oblong rising ground, full of coal, and commanded on three sides by a group of mountains, of which the greatest part was filled with the same mineral. From a particular case, here circumstantially described, in which the electrical rays of the subterraneous water and those of the adjacent coal crossed each other, our author deduces a very natural account of the errors which may sometimes, though rarely, mislead for a time the greatest adepts in Bletonism, when they find themselves in combined spheres of electrical activity. Another observation, which seems confirmed by several facts, accounts farther for this fallibility; the observation is, that electrical rays, whether direct or collateral, issuing from subterraneous focuses, seem to undergo in certain cases a sort of refraction as they pass from one medium to another, or traverse bodies which differ with respect to the property of transmitting this electricity. In a word, it follows from these observations, that when such privileged investigators of currents or minerals as Bleton are placed upon the electrical spheres of these bodies, they will indicate their situation and their respective depths according to the impressions they feel within themselves, or the motions they observe in the electrometrical instruments which they employ; and if they meet with second accidental causes or complications of electrical spheres, which modify or alter these methods of trial, this will necessarily occasion mistakes in the results of their operations which they may probably rectify; but which, at all events, it would be unjust to lay to their charge, or allege as an objection against the reality of their talent.