production of _Carmen_ in
Paris, the genial composer expired after a few hours' illness from a
heart affection. Before dying he had the satisfaction of knowing that
_Carmen_ had been accepted for production at Vienna. After the Austrian
capital came Brussels, Berlin and, in 1878, London, when _Carmen_ was
brought out at Her Majesty's theatre with immense success. The influence
exercised by Bizet on dramatic music has been very great, and may be
discerned in the realistic works of the young Italian school, as well as
in those of his own countrymen.

BJORNEBORG (Finnish, _Pori_), a district town of Finland, province of
Abo-Bjorneborg, on the E. coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, at the mouth of
the Kumo. Lat. 51 deg. 8' N., long. 46 deg. 0' E. Pop. (1904) 16,053,
mostly Swedes. Large vessels cannot enter its roadstead, and stop at
Rafso. The town has shipbuilding wharves, machine works, and several
tanneries and brick-works, and has a total trade of over 16,000,000
marks, the chief export being timber.

BJORNSON, BJORNSTJERNE (1832-1910), Norwegian poet, novelist and
dramatist, was born on the 8th of December 1832 at the farmstead of
Bjorngen, in Kvikne, in Osterdal, Norway. In 1837 his father, who had been
pastor of Kvikne, was transferred to the parish of Noesset, in Romsdal; in
this romantic district the childhood of Bjornson was spent. After some
teaching at the neighbouring town of Molde, he was sent at the age of
seventeen to a well-known school in Christiania to study for the
university; his instinct for poetry was already awakened, and indeed he
had written verses from his eleventh year. He matriculated at the
university of Christiania in 1852, and soon began to work as a journalist,
especially as a dramatic critic. In 1857 appeared _Synnove Solbakken_, the
first of Bjornson's peasant-novels; in 1858 this was followed by _Arne_,
in 1860 by _A Happy Boy_, and in 1868 by _The Fisher Maiden_. These are
the most important specimens of his _bonde-fortaellinger_ or
peasant-tales--a section of his literary work which has made a profound
impression in his own country, and has made him popular throughout the
world. Two of the tales, _Arne_ and _Synnove Solbakken_, offer perhaps
finer examples of the pure peasant-story than are to be found elsewhere in
literature.

Bjornson was anxious "to create a new saga in the light of the peasant,"
as he put it, and he thought this should be done, not merely in prose
fiction