BASS VIOL

a stringed instrument, resembling, in form, the violin, but much larger. It has four strings and eight stops, which are subdivided into semi-stops, and is played with a bow. BASTARD. The Romans distinguished two kinds of natural children — not hi, the i ue of concubinage, and spuriif the children of prostitutes; the former could inherit from the mother, and were entitled to support from the fatiier; the latter had no claims whatever to support. It non hahet patrem^ cui pater est popuLus. The A then i ans treated all bastards with extreme rigour. By the laws of Solon, they were denied the rights of citizenship. A law of Pericles ordered the wale of 5000 bastards as slaves. What rendered these regulations more severe was, that not only the i ue of concubinage and adultery, but all children whose parents were not both A then i ans, were considered bastards at Athens. Thus Them is toc les, whose motfier was a native of Halicama us, was deemed a bastard. The law, as might be expected, was often set aside by the influence of powerful citizens. Perides himself had it repealed in favour of his son by Aspasia, after he had lost his legitimate children by the plague. The condition of bastards has been different in different periods of modem history. Among the Goths and Franks, they were permitted to inherit from the father. Thiery, the natural son of Clovis, inherited a share of his father's conquests. William the Conqueror, natural son of Robert I., duke of Normandy, and of Arlette, daughter of a furrier of Falaise, inherited his father's dominions. He called himself WiilelmuSy cognomeTUo Batardtu. The celebrated Dimois styled himself, in his letters, the Bastard of Orleans. \n Spain, bastards have always been capable of inheriting. The a bastardy of Henry of Traostamare did not prevent his acce ion to the throne of Castile. In France, the condition of bastards was formerly very different in the different provinces. Since the revolution, it has been regulated in a uniform manner by the general law of ^e kingdom. The code civil thus fixes their rights: H the father or mother leave legitimate descendants, the bastard is entitled to one-third of the portion he would have inherited had he been a lawful child; if the father or mother die without descendants, but leave ascendants, or brothers or sisters, then he is entitled to one-half of such a portion; if the father or mother leave no ascendants nor descendants, nor brotiiers nor sisters, he is entitled to three-quarters of such a portion; and if the father or mother leave no relations within the degrees of sue ce ion, he ia entitled to the whole property. These xegulationB do not apply to the i ue of an inc^ttuous or adulterous connection. The law allows no civil privileges to individuab who owe their existence the violation of human and divine laws; it grants them only support. According to the ancient customs, the bastards of kings, acknowledged by their fathers, were princes; those of princes were gentlemen. Seversd distinguished men have been bastards, among whom, besides those given above, may be mentioned — the Duke of Venddme, the Duke of Berwick, Marshall Saze. By the common law of England, a child bom after marriage, however soon, is legitimate, or at least is presumed to be so; for one bom in wedlock, long enough after the marriage to admit of period of gestation, may still be proved illegitimate, in case of absence and non-acce of the husband, and under some other circumstances. According the common law, a bastard is not the heir of any and, on the other hand, his only heirs are his children bom in wedlock, and their descendants. According to the Roman law, one bom out of wedlock might legitimated by subsequent marriage and acknowledgment of his parents. In 1236 the English prelates proposed the introduction of the Roman law, in respect, into England, to which the nobility made •the celebrated reply, Nolumus leges Anglia mutare (AVe are unwilling to change the laws of England). The Roman law has been long adopted in Scottish law. 91