ng is a
speciality. In the vicinity is a cliff or ridge of rock called
Teufelsmauer (Devil's wall), from which fine views are obtained across
the plain and into the deep gorges of the Harz Mountains.

(2) Another BLANKENBURG, also a health-resort, is situated in
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Thuringia, at the confluence of the rivers Rinne
and Schwarza, and at the entrance of the Schwarzatal. Its environs are
charming, and to the north of it, on an eminence, rise the fine ruins of
the castle of Greifenstein, built by the German king Henry I., and from
1275 to 1583 the seat of a cadet branch of the counts of Schwarzburg.

BLANKETEERS, the nickname given to some 5000 operatives who on the 10th
of March 1817 met in St Peter's Field, near Manchester, to march to
London, each carrying blankets or rugs. Their object was to see the
prince regent and lay their grievances before him. The Habeas Corpus Act
was suspended, and the leaders were seized and imprisoned. The bulk of
the demonstration yielded at once. The few stragglers who persisted in
the march were intercepted by troops, and treated with considerable
severity. Eventually the spokesmen had an interview with the ministers,
and some reforms were the result.

BLANK VERSE, the unrhymed measure of iambic decasyllable in five beats
which is usually adopted in English epic and dramatic poetry. The
epithet is due to the absence of the rhyme which the ear expects at the
end of successive lines. The decasyllabic line occurs for the first time
in a Provencal poem of the 10th century, but in the earliest instances
preserved it is already constructed with such regularity as to suggest
that it was no new invention. It was certainly being used almost
simultaneously in the north of France. Chaucer employed it in his
_Compleynte to Pitie_ about 1370. In all the literatures of western
Europe it became generally used, but always with rhyme. In the beginning
of the 16th century, however, certain Italian poets made the experiment
of writing decasyllabics without rhyme. The tragedy of _Sophonisba_
(1515) of G.G. Trissino (1478-1550) was the earliest work completed in
this form; it was followed in 1525 by the didactic poem _Le Api_ (The
Bees), of Giovanni Rucellai (1475-1525), who announced his intention of
writing _"Con verso Etrusco dalle rime sciolto,"_ in consequence of
which expression this kind of metre was called _versi sciolti_ or blank
verse. In a very short time this form w