that liberty which is exempted from the sheriff of the county; over which liberty the lord thereof appoints his own bailiff, with the like power within his precinct as an under sheriff exercises under the sheriff of the county: Or it signifies the precinct of a bailiff, or the place within which his jurisdiction is terminated.

BALLET, ADRIAN, a very learned French writer and critic, born in 1649 at the village of Neuville near Beauvais in Picardy. His parents were too poor to give him a proper education, which, however, he obtained by the favour of the bishop of Beauvais, who afterwards presented him with a small vicarage. In 1680 he was appointed librarian to M. de Lamoignon, advocate-general to the parliament of Paris; of whose library he made a copious index in 35 vols. folio, all written with his own hand. He died in 1706, after writing many works, the principal of which are, A History of Holland from 1609, to the peace of Nimeguen in 1679, 4 vols. 12mo; Lives of the Saints, 3 vols. folio, which he professed to have purged from fables; Jugements des Savans, which he extended to 9 vols. 12mo; and The Life of Des Cartes, 2 vols. 4to, which he abridged, and reduced to one vol. 12mo.