Balaam (Ba`laam) , a Midianitish soothsayer; for the account of him see Num. xxii.-xxiv., and Carlyle's , essay on the “Corn-Law Rhymes” for its application to modern State councillors of the same time-serving type, and their probable fate.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Bala * Balacla`va