DICTIONARY

OF

NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY

BEAL BIBER

DICTIONARY

OF

NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY

EDITED BY

LESLIE STEPHEN

VOL. IV.
BEAL BIBER

MACMILLAN AND CO.

LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO.
1885

f*r

18

\

LIST OF WEITEES

IN THE FOUETH VOLUME.

0. A

A. J. A. .

T. A. A. . .
P. B. A. . .
W. E. A. A.
G. F. K. B.

E. B

G. V. B. .
G. T. B. .
W. G. B. . .
G. C. B. .
A. S. B. .
H. B. . . .
A. A. B. .
A. E. B. .
A. H. B. .
G. W. B. .
H. M. C. .
A. M. C. .
•T. C. . . .
C. H. C. .
W. P. C. .
M. C. . . .
A. D. . . .
T. F. T. D.
J. W. E. .

F. E. . .
L. F. . .
C. H. F.
J. G. . .
E. G. . .
J. W.-G.
J. T. G..

OSMUND AIRY.

SIR ALEXANDER JOHN ARBUTHNOT.
K.C.S.I.

T. A. ARCHER.

P. BRUCE AUSTIN, LL.D.

W. E. A. AXON.

G. F. EUSSELL BARKER.

THE EEV. EONALD BAYNE.
, G. VERB BENSON.
. G. T. BETTANY.

THE EEV. PROFESSOR BLAIKIE, D.D.
. G. C. BOASE.

. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BOLTON.
. HENRY BRADLEY.
. A. A. BRODRIBB.
. THE EEV. A. E. BUCKLAND.
. A. H. BULLEN.
. G. W. BURNETT.
. H. MANNERS CHICHESTER.
. Miss A. M. CLERKE.
. THOMPSON COOPER, F.S.A.
. C. H. COOTE.
. "W. P. COURTNEY.
. THE EEV. PROFESSOR CREIGHTON.
. AUSTIN DOBSON.

THE EEV. T. F. THISELTON DYER,
. THE EEV. J. W. EBSWORTH.

F.S.A.

. FRANCIS ESPINASSE.
. Louis FAGAN.
. C. H. FIRTH.
. JAMES GAIRDNER.
. EICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.

. JOHN WESTBY-GIBSON, LL.D.

. J. T. GILBERT, F.S.A.

A. G-T. . .
A. G-N. .
G. G. . .
A. G. . . .
E. G. . . .
A. H. G.
E. E. G.

A. B. G. ,
J. A. H.
E. H. . . .
W. J. H.
T. F. H.
T. E. H. ,
J. H. . .
E. H-T. .
W. H. . .
E. I. . .

B. D. J.

E. C. J.
A. J. . .
P. W. J.

C. F. K.
C. K. . .
J. K. . .
J. K. L.
S. L. L.
W. B. L.
M. M'A.
G. P. M.
J. M-L. .
C. T. M.

F. T. M.
J. M. . .
A. M. . .
C. M. .

. MRS. ANNE GILCHRIST.

. ALFRED GOODWIN.

. GORDON GOODWIN.

. THE EEV. ALEXANDER GORDON.

. EDMUND GOSSE.

. A. H. GRANT.

. E. E. GRAVES.

. THE EEV. A. B. GROSART, LL.D.

. J. A. HAMILTON.

. EGBERT HARRISON.

. PROFESSOR W. JEROME HARRISON.

. T. F. HENDERSON.

. PROFESSOR T. E. HOLLAND, D.C.L.

. Miss JENNETT HUMPHREYS.
. EGBERT HUNT, F.E.S.
. THE EEV. WILLIAM HUNT.
. Miss INGALL.

. B. D. JACKSON.
. PROFESSOR E. C. JEBB, LL.D.
. THE EEV. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D.
. P. W. JOYCE, LL.D.

. C. F. KEARY.

. CHARLES KENT.

. JOSEPH KNIGHT.

. PROFESSOR J. K. LAUGHTON.

. S. L. LEE.

. THE EEV. W. B. LOWTHER.

. Miss MARGARET MACARTHUR.

. G. P. MACDONELL.

. JOHN MACDONELL.

. C. T. MARTIN.

. F. T. MARZIALS.

. JAMES MEW.

. ARTHUR MILLER.

. W. COSMO MONKHOUSE.

VI

List of Writers.

N. M.. .
J. B. M.
J. N. . .
J. H. 0.
J. F. P.
K. L. P.
S. L.-P. .
E. E. . .
J. M. K.
J. H. E.
L. S-T. .
G-. B. S.
W. E. S.
W. B. S.
L. S. .

NORMAN MOORE, M.D.

J. BASS MULLINGER.

, PROFESSOR JOHN NICHOL, LL.D.
THE EEV. CANON OVERTON.
J. P. PAYNE, M.D.
E. L. POOLE.
STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
ERNEST EADFORD.
J. M. EIGG.
J. H. EOUND.
LEWIS SERGEANT.
G-. BARNETT SMITH.
PROFESSOR W. EOBERTSON SMITH.
W. BARCLAY SQUIRE.
LESLIE STEPHEN.

H. M. S. . . H. MORSE STEPHENS.

W. E. W. S. THE EEV. CANON STEPHENS.

C. W. S. . . C. W. SUTTON.

H. E. T. . . H. E. TEDDER.

E. M. T. . . E. MATJNDE THOMPSON.

H. A. T. . . H. A. TIPPING.

T. F. T. . . PROFESSOR T. F. TOUT.

E. V THE EEV. CANON VHNABLES.

C. "W CORNELIUS WALFORD.

A. W. W. . PROFESSOR A. W. WARD, LL.D.
M. G. W. . THE EEV. M. G. WATKINS.

F. W-T. . . . FRANCIS WATT.

T. W-E. . . . THOMAS WHITTAKER.
H. T. W. . . H. TRUEMAN WOOD.
W. W. . . WARWICK WROTH.

DICTIONARY

OF

NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY

Beal

Beale

BEAL, WILLIAM (1815-1870), re-
ligious writer, was born in 1815, and edu-
cated at King s College, London, and Trinity
College, Cambridge. He took the degree
of B.A. in 1841 ; in the same year he was
ordained deacon, and he was made vicar of
Brooke near Norwich in 1847. The degree
of LL.D. was conferred on him by the uni-
versity of Aberdeen. He is best known as
the promoter of harvest homes for country
districts in 1854. At Norwich he was vice-
president of the People's College, and corre-
sponding member of the Working Men's Con-
gregational Union. He died in 1870. He
was the editor of the 'West of England Maga-
zine' and author of the following works:
1. ' An Analysis of Palmer's Origines Litur-
gicse ' (1850). 2. ' The Nineveh Monuments
and the Old Testament.' 3. 'A Letter to
the Earl of Albemarle on Harvest Homes.'
4. 'A First Book of Chronology' (1846).
He edited with a preface 'Certain godly
Prayers originally appended to the Book of
Common Prayer.'

[Men of the Time, 7th eel. ; Brit, Mus. Cat.]

A. G-N.

BEALE, FRANCIS (Jl. 1656), was the
author of the ' Royall Game of Chesse Play,
sometimes the Recreation of the late King
with many of the Nobility, illustrated with
almost one hundred Gambetts, being the study
of Biochimo, the famous Italian/ London,
1656. A portrait of Charles I, engraved by
Stent, forms the frontispiece of the volume ;
the dedication is addressed to Montague, Earl
of Lindsey. The book is translated from
Gioacchimo Greco's famous work on chess ;
was reissued in 1750, and again in 1819 (with
remarks by G. W. Lewis). He contributed
a poem to < The Teares of the Isle of Wight
shed on the tombe of ... Henrie, Earle of

VOL. IT.

Southampton, ... as also James, Lord
Wriothesley,' London, 1625 ; a copy of which
is in the Grenville Library. The poem is
reprinted in Malone's ' Shakspeare ' (1821),
xx. 452.

[Brit. Mus. Cat. ; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum
in MSS. Addl. 24489 f. 285.] S. L. L.

BEALE, JOHN, D.D. (1603-1683 ?),
scientific writer, was descended from a good
family in Herefordshire, in which county he
was born in 1603, being nephew of Sir Wil-
liam Pye, attorney in the court of wards
(BoTLE, Works, v. 429). He was educated
first at Worcester School, and afterwards at
Eton, whence he proceeded in 1629 to
King's College, Cambridge, where he read
philosophy to the students for two years
(HAKWOOD, Alumni Etonenses, 228). 'At
his entrance into that university he found
the writings of the Ramists in high esteem,
from which they sunk within three or four
years after, without the solicitation of any
party or faction, or other concernment,
merely by the prevalence of solid truth and
reasonable discourse. And the same fate soon
after befel Calvinism in both universities'
(Bi-RCH, Hist, of the Royal Society, iv. 235).
From childhood Beale had been diligent in
cultivating the art of memory, and he him-
self has left us an account of the marvellous
proficiency which he attained. He says :
' By reading Ovid's " Metamorphoses " and
such slight romances as the " Destruction of
Troy," and other discourses and histories
which were then obvious, I had learned a
promptness of knitting all my reading and
studies on an everlasting string. The same
practice I continued upon theologues, logi-
cians, and such philosophers as those times
yielded. For some years before I came to
'Eton, I did (in secret corners, concealed from

Beale

others' eyes) read Melancthon's Logicks,
Magirus's Physica, Ursin's Theologica, Avhich
was the best I could then hear of : and (at
first reading) by heart I learned them, too
perfectly, as I now conceive. Afterwards, in
Cambridge, proceeding in the same order and
diligence with their logicians, philosophers,
and schoolmen, I could at last learn them by
heart faster than I could read them — I mean,
by the swiftest glance of the eye, without
the tediousness of pronouncing or articula-
ting what I read. Thus I oft-times saved
my purse by looking over books in stationers'
shops. . . . Constantly I repeated in my bed
(evening and morning) what I read and
heard that was worthy to be remembered ;
and by this habitude and promptness of
memory I was enabled, that when I read to
the students of King's College, Cambridge
(which I did for two years together, in all
sorts of the current philosophy), I could pro-
vide myself without notes (by mere medita-
tion, or by glancing upon some book) in less
time than I spent in uttering it ; yet they
were then a critical auditory, whilst Mr. Bust
was schoolmaster of Eton ' (BoYLE, Works,
v. 426).

Beale, who graduated B.A. in 1632, M.A.
in 1636, and was subsequently created a
doctor of divinity, spent some time in foreign
travel, being at Orleans in 1636, when he
was thirty-three years of age. His love of
learning brought him into frequent corre-
spondence with Samuel Hartlib and the
Hon. Robert Boyle. Two of his letters to
Hartlib on 'Herefordshire Orchards' were
printed in 1656, and produced such an effect,
that within a few years the author's native
county gained some 100,000/. by the fame
of its orchards (GouGH, Brit. Topog. i. 415).
In the preface Beale makes the following
autobiographical remarks : ( My education
was amongst scholars in academies, where
I spent many years in conversing with
variety of books only. A little before our
wars began, I spent two summers in travel-
ling towards the south, with purpose to know
men and foreign manners. Since my ret urn
I have been constantly employ'd in a weighty
office, by which I am not disengaged from
the care of our public welfare in the peace
and prosperity of this nation, but obliged to
be the more solicitous and tender in preserv-
ing it and promoting it.'

Beale resided chiefly in Herefordshire until
1660, when he became rector of Yeovil, in
Somersetshire, where he spent the remainder
of his life. He was also rector of Sock
Dennis in the latter county. He was an
early member of the Royal Society, being de-
clared an honorary one on 7 Jan. 1662-3, and

Beale

elected a fellow on the 21st of the same
month. In 1665 he was appointed chaplain
to King Charles II. In his last letter to
Boyle, dated 8 July 1682, he mentions that
he was then entering into his eightieth year,
and adds that 'by infirmities lam constrained
to dictate extempore, and do want a friend
to assist me.' It is probable that he did not
live long after this.

Samuel Hartlib, writing to Boyle in 1658,
says of Beale : ' There is not the like man
in the whole island, nor in the continent
beyond the seas, so far as I know it — I mean,
that could be made more universally use of, to
do good to all, as I in some measure know
and could direct' (BOYLE, Works, v. 275).

His works are : 1. ' Aphorisms concerning
Cider,' printed in John Evelyn's ' Sylva, or a
Discourse of Forest Trees,' 1644, and entitled
in the later editions of that work, ' General
Advertisements concerning Cider.' 2. 'Here-
fordshire Orchards, a Pattern for all Eng-
land, written in an Epistolary Address to
Samuel Hartlib, Esq. By I. B.,' Lond. 1656,
8vo ; reprinted in Richard Bradley's l New
Improvements of Planting and Gardening,'
1724 and 1739. 3. Scientific papers in the
1 Philosophical Transactions.' 4. Letters to
the Hon. Robert Boyle, printed in the 5th
volume of that philosopher's works.

[Information from the Rev. Dr.Luard; Birch's
Hist, of the Royal Society, iv. 235 ; Gough's
British Topography, i. 415, ii. 221, 225, 391,
634; Boyle's Works, v. 275, 277, 281, 346.
423-510 ; Harwood's Alumni Eton. 228 ; Worth-
ington's Diary, i. 122; Birch's Life of Boyle,
115; Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. 212; Felton,
On the Portraits of English Authors on Garden-
ing, 2nd ed. 21 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 447, iv.
256; Addit. MSS. 6271, f. 10, 15948, ff. 80, 136,
138; Thomson's History of the Royal Society.
Append, xxiv.] T. C.

BEALE, MARY (1632-1697), portrait
painter, born in Suffolk in 1632, was the
daughter of the Rev. J. Cradock, vicar of
Walton-upon-Thames. She is said to have
learned the rudiments of painting from Sir
Peter Lely, but it is more probable, as Vertue
thought, that she received instruction from
Robert Walker, and only copied the works of
Lely, who was supposed to have had a tender
attachment to her, and through whose influ-
ence she obtained access to some of the finest
works of Van Dyck, by copying which she ac-
quired that purity of colouring for which her
portraits are remarkable. She married Charles
Beale, the lord of the manor of Walton, in
Buckinghamshire, who had some employment
under the board of green cloth, and took great
interest in chemistry, especially the manufac-
ture of colours, in which he did business with

Beale

Beale

Lely and other painters of the day. His
diaries, from 1672 to 1681, contain notes of
matters connected with art and artists, and
afford the fullest account of Mrs. Beale's life
and works during that period. The extracts
given by Walpole prove that she copied many
•of Lely's pictures, and some of these have
doubtless been assigned to that painter.
'There were above thirty of these pocket-books,
but the greater number appear to have
been lost. Mrs. Beale was one of the best
female portrait painters of the seventeenth
century, and was employed by many of the
most distinguished persons of her time. She
painted in oil, water-colours, and crayons;
her heads being very often surrounded by an
oval border painted in imitation of carved
stone. Her price was five pounds for a head,
and ten pounds for a half-length. Mrs. Beale
died in Pall Mall, London, 28 Dec. 1697, and
was buried under the communion-table in St.
James's Church. She was of an estimable

BEALE, ROBERT (1541-1601), diplo-
matist and antiquary, is said to have been
descended from a family settled at Wood-
bridge in Suffolk. Of his parents, however,
we know nothing but their names, Robert and
Amy. He married Edith, daughter of Henry
St. Barbe, of Somersetshire, sister of the wife
of Sir Francis Walsingham. Apparently, he
very early formed decided opinions upon the
theological controversies of his age ; for he
seems to have been obliged to quit England
at some date during Queen Mary's reign, and
not to have returned until after the accession
of Elizabeth. It is probably to this period
that he refers when, at a much later date, he
writes that in his youth he ' took great pains
in travelling in divers countries en foot for
lack of other abilities.' In 1562 Lord John
Grey consulted him concerning the validity
of the marriage of his niece with Edward Sey-
mour, earl of Hertford, and Beale in conse-
quence made a journey to the continent for the

n -t • i i n 11

character and very amiable manners, and had I purpose of laying the case before the learned
among her contemporaries some reputation as Oldendorpius and some eminent Italian canon-
u poet. Dr. Woodfall wrote several poems in ists. The opinion which Beale formed after

her honour, under the name of Belesia. Her
portrait, from a paint ing by herself, is engraved
in the Strawberry Hill edition of Walpole's
' Anecdotes of Painting.' Portraits by her
of King Charles II., Abraham Cowley, Arch-
bishop Tillotson, and Henry, sixth duke of
Norfolk, are in the National Portrait Gallery ;
•another of Archbishop Tillotson is at Lambeth
Palace ; those of Dr. Sydenham and Dr. Croone
are in the Royal College of Physicians ; that of

~L>^«"U« ~\1T!1"1^! * _. A j l T» i c^ • .1

consultation with these sagacious persons, and
which he subsequently maintained in a Latin
tract, has stood the test of time ; for though a
royal commission, with Archbishop Parker at
its head, pronounced the marriage void, its
validity was established in 1606, and has
never since been questioned.

In 1564 he obtained some post in con-
nection with the English embassy in Paris.
"What was the precise nature of his duties

Bishop Wilkins is at the Royal Society ; that j does not appear ; but they seem to have
of John Milton at Knole; that of James, duke sometimes carried him into Germany. Ap-
of Monmouth, at Woburn Abbey ; her own ' parently, Walsingham found him in Paris on
portrait is in the gallery of the Marquis of i his appointment as ambassador-resident there

j 1 -,T i • . -i * 1 ^* AT /\ T "I 1 • 1 * T j t -

Bute ; and other portraits by her are in the
collections of Earl Spencer, the Duke of Rut-
land, and the Earl of Ilchester.

Mrs. Beale had two sons, BARTHOLOMEW,
who commenced life as a portrait painter, but

in 1570, and made him his secretary. In the
correspondence between Burghley and Wal-
singham of this period he is frequently men-
tioned as carrying despatches to and fro be-
tween Paris and London. He appears to

afterwards studied medicine under Dr. Syden- j have been .'a witness of the massacre of St,
ham, and practised at Coventry : and CHARLES, | Bartholomew two years later (24 Aug. 1572),
who followed his mother's branch of art. He ! which furnished him with material for a ' Dis-
was born 28 May 1660, and after studying j course by way of Letter to the Lord Burghley/
under Thomas Flatnian, the miniature painter [written shortly after the event. The same
and poet, assisted his mother in draperies and ! year he succeeded Robert Monson, then raised
backgrounds. He painted portraits both in I to the bench, as M.P. for Totnes. It must
oil and in water-colours, and some few in ; have been about this time that he was ap-
crayons, but soon after 1689 he was compelled pointed clerk to the council, as in a letter
by weakness of sight to relinquish his profes- j dated 1591 he states that he had then held

won, and died in London, but in what year is
not known. There are portraits of Archbishop

that post nineteen years. In April 1575 he
was sent to Flushing to recover goods which

Burton and Bishop Burnet engraved after him j the Flushingers had seized, consisting partly
by Robert White. of merchandise and partly of property of the

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting (ed. Wor- ; Earl of Oxford ; and in the following year
num), 1849, ii. 537-44 ; Scharf s Catalogue of the he accompanied Admiral Winter to the Low
National Portrait Gallery, 1884.] R. E. G. I Countries to demand the liberation of the

B 2

Beale

English merchant ships on which the Prince
of Orange had laid an embargo in the Scheldt
in retaliation for acts of piracy committed by
English privateers upon Dutch shipping.
The ships were set free at once, but a pecu-
niary indemnity for the detention, which
Beale was instructed to claim, was the subject
of much dispute, and apparently was never
conceded. In June 1576 Augustus, elector of
Saxony, had summoned to Torgau a conven-
tion of Saxon divines for the purpose of set-
tling certain disputed questions of theology, in
particular, whether omnipresence was or was
not an attribute of the physical body of Jesus.
The result of their labours was seen in the
'Book of Torgau,' which, after revision at Ber-
gen in the following year by James Andrea, or
Andreas, chancellor and provost of the univer-
sity of Tubingen, and certain other eminent
theologians, was issued under the title, l For-
mula of Concord,' as the only authoritative ex-
position of the orthodox creed of Saxony. This
work not only explicitly affirmed the ubiquity
of the body of Jesus to be an integral part of
the creed, but declared all such as denied
that doctrine (Oyptocalvinists, as they were
called) to be heretics. At this juncture
Elizabeth saw fit to despatch Beale on a kind
of circular tour to visit the courts of the
Lutheran princes of Germany, and put in a
plea for toleration in favour of the Crypto-
calvinists. We learn from one of his papers
that, for the purposes of this mission, 'he
made a long and winter journey, making a
circuit to and fro of 1400 English miles at
the least, repairing personally to nine princes,
and sending her majesty's letters to three
others.' Elsewhere he says that ' he obtained
that which he was sent for, i.e. that the Elector
of Saxony and Palatine would surcease from
proceeding to a condemnation of other re-
formed churches that did not agree with the
ubiquitaries.' Languet, in a letter to Sidney,
dated Frankfort, 8 Jan. 1577-8, is able to write :
' Master Beale has met with no small difficul-
ties in going through his appointed task, but
by his prudence and dexterity he has so sur-
mounted them that I hope our churches are
saved from the perils which threatened them
from the movements of Jacobus Andreas and
some other theologians.' In the same letter
Languet praises Beale's ' agreeable conversa-
tion,' and 'his character, genius, and manifold
experience.' Beale was at that time return-
ing to England, and Languet's letter, with
which he was entrusted, was to serve as an
introduction to Sidney. Writing of marriage,
Languet observes : < Take the advice of Mas-
ter Beale on the matter. He believes that
a man cannot live well and happily in celi-
bacy.' In another letter he writes that Beale

Beale

'often used to launch out into the praises of
matrimony.'

According to Beale's account he was very
ill provided with funds for this journey, while
his royal mistress, of course, complained of
his extravagance. In a letter to the lord
treasurer vindicating himself from the charge
he says : * And I protest upon my allegiance
that the gifts I gave at the Duke of Brun-
swick's in ready money and money's worth
for her majesty's honour, being her gossips,,
and having had nothing to my knowledge
sent unto them (and in other places), came to-
better than 100/. And whoso knoweth the-
fashions and cravings of these princes' courts
may well see that, having been at so many
places, I could not escape with less. My
charges came in this voyage to 932/. one way
or another. Before my going over I sold a
chain which I had of the Queen of Scots for
65/.' The fact that Beale received a token of
esteem from Mary Stuart is interesting in
connection with his subsequent relations with
that unfortunate lady. During Walsingham's
absence in the Netherlands in the summer of
1578 Beale acted as secretary of state, as also-
in 1581 and 1583, on occasion of Walsingham's
missions to France and Scotland in those
years. In the autumn of 1580 he took part
in the examination of Richard Stanihurst,
the Jesuit, ' touching the conveying of the-
late Lord Garret [Gerald Fitzgerald, Lord
Offaley] into Spain at the instigation of
Thomas Fleming, a priest,' and in 1581
was one of the commissioners who took the
depositions of Edmund Campion before his
trial. It is significant, however, that the
commission under which he acted extended5
only to threatening with torture. When it
was determined to have actual recourse to*
that method of persuasion, Beale's name was
omitted (doubtless at his own request) from
the commission. This yearWalsiiigham, being
appointed governor of the Mines Royal, made
Beale his deputy. According to the latter's
own account he did his duty in this post for
fifteen years, keeping the accounts with regu-
larity, without receiving any remuneration.
Between 1581 and 1584 he was employed in
negotiating with the Queen of Scots at Shef-
field. Caniden suggests that he was chosen
for this business on account of his notorious
bias in favour of puritanisni, designating him
' hominem vehementem et austere acerbum,"
' quo non alter Scotorum Reginse prse reli-
gionis studio iniquior.' However this may
have been, it is certain that he soon came to-
be suspected of secret partiality to the cause
of Mary, and of something like treachery
to the council. Of these negotiations he
gives the following account : ' Six several

Beale

5

Beale

times or more I was sent to the late Queen
•of Scots. At the first access iny commission
was to deal with her alone. Afterwards I
did, for sundry respects, desire that I might
not deal without the privity of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, being a nobleman and a coun-
•cillor. She was with much difficult}7 brought
to make larger offers unto her majesty than
she had before done to any others whose ne-
gotiations I had seen. I was then suspected
to have been, as some term it, won to a new
mistress. Whereupon the charge was com-
mitted to the said earl and Sir Walter Mild-
may, and I was only appointed to attend
upon them to charge her by word of mouth
with certain articles gathered out of the earl's
;and my letters. She avowed all that we had
reported, and, I thank the Lord, I acquitted
myself to be an honest man.'

Beale was hardly fit to treat with a
person of such dexterity and resource as
Mary Stuart. She seems to have contrived
to delude him with the idea that she had
really given up ambition, and was desirous
•only to live a retired life for the rest of her
-days. This appears from the tone of a letter
to Walsingham, written in the spring of 1583.
A year later he appears to have formed a
j uster estimate of the character of the queen.
'* With all the cunning that we have,' he then
wrote to Walsingham, ' we cannot bring this
lady to make any absolute promise for the
performance of her offers, unless she may be
assured of the accomplishment of the treaty.
Since the last break off she is more circumspect
how she entangle herself.'

Next year (1585) Beale was returned to
parliament for Dorchester, which place he
-also represented in the two succeeding parlia-
ments (1586 and 1588). In November 1586
he was despatched with Lord Buckhurst to
Fotheringay, to notify the Queen of Scots of
the fact that sentence of death had been
passed upon her. Early in the following year
Beale carried the warrant to Fotheringay and
performed the ghastly duty of reading it
aloud in the hall of the castle by way of preli-
minary to the execution, of which he was an
eye-witness, and wrote an account. Though
a zealous puritan, Beale seems to have had a
dispassionate and liberal mind. During the
persecution of the Jesuits which marked the
latter years of Elizabeth's reign, he fearlessly
and ably maintained the principle of tolera-
tion, both in parliament and as a writer.
Thus, we know that he published a work
impugning the right of the crown to fine or
imprison for ecclesiastical offences, and con-
demning the use of torture to induce confes-
sion, and followed it up at a later date with
a second treatise upon the same subject. We

cannot fix the precise date of either of these
books, but we may infer that the second was
a recent publication in 1584 from the fact
that Whitgift then thought it necessary to
take cognisance of its existence by drawing
up and laying before the council a ' schedule
of misdemeanours ' alleged to have been
committed by its author, of Avhich the con-
tents of these two works furnished the prin-
cipal heads. What precisely he meant to do
with this formidable indictment (the articles
were fourteen in number) remains obscure.
Probably he wished to procure Beale's dis-
missal from the post of clerk of the council.
If so, however, he was disappointed, as ap-
parently no notice whatever was taken of it.
In the spring of the same year Beale had
shown the archbishop the manascript of
another work which he had nearly com-
pleted, dealing with another branch of the
same subject, viz. the proper prerogative of
the bishops, which the archbishop refused to
return when Beale (5 May) presented himself
at Lambeth to receive it. On this occasion
a great deal of temper appears to have been
lost on both sides, Beale predicting that the
archbishop would be the overthrow of the
church and a cause of tumult, and Whitgift
accusing Beale of levity and irreverence,
speaking in very disparaging terms of his
work, and saying that ' neither his divinity
nor his law was great.' Beale addressed a
lengthy epistle to the archbishop (7 May), in
which he avers that ' by the space of twenty-
six years and upwards he has been a student
of the civil laws, and long sith could have
taken a degree if he had thought (as some do)
that the substance of learning consist eth more
in form and title than matter, and that in divi-
nitie he has read as much as any chaplain his
lordship hath, and when his book shall be
finished and answered let others judge thereof.'
In the summer he served under Leicester
I in the Netherlands during the ill-fated at-
tempt to relieve Sluys, in what precise capa-
city does not appear, but we infer that he was
j employed in connection with the transport
! department. In 1589 he was employed in
| negotiation with the States, and next year
j we find him engaged with Burghley and
Buckhurst in adjusting the accounts of Pere-
! grine Bertie, Lord Willoughby, commander in
: the Netherlands. In 1592 the attitude which
Beale assumed in a debate upon supply,
coupled with an animated speech which he
1 made about the same time against the in-
! quisitorial practices of his old enemies the
bishops, gave so much offence to the queen
that he was commanded to absent himself both
from court and from parliament. In 1592
he addressed a lengthy letter to the lord

Beale

Beale

treasurer, vindicating his opinions on church
government with great learning and consider-
able apparent ability. The same year he was
returned to parliament for Lostwithiel, in
Cornwall. In 1 595 the Earl of Essex appears
to have tried to deprive Beale of his office of
clerk to the council in favour of one of his
own creatures. Accordingly, we find Beale
writing (24 April 1595) a letter to the lord
treasurer, in which he sets forth his claims to
consideration at great length and with no
little emphasis. It appears from this docu-
ment that he had held this office for twenty-
three years, that ' he enjoyed it with the fee
of 50/. yearly under the great seal of Eng-
land,' and that he was then suffering from
several grievous maladies, amongst them
gout and stone. Beale also at this time held
another post, that of clerk to the council in
the northern parts, and resided at York at least
for some part of the year. The emoluments
of the office at York amounted, according to
Beale's own reckoning, to 400/. yearly, though
nominally he had there « but 337. by instruc-
tions only alterable without other warrant or
assurance.' Beale concluded his letter by beg-
ging that on the score of his growing infir-
mities he might be allowed a deputy to do
the business of the office at York during his
absence. His request wras granted, one John
Feme being appointed in the following Au-
gust. In 1597 he was joined with Sir Julius
Csesar in a commission to examine into com-
plaints by the inhabitants of Guernsey against
Sir Thomas Leighton, the governor of that
island. In 1599 he was placed on a special
commission to hear and adj udge the grievances
of certain Danish subjects who complained of
piratical acts committed by English subjects.

In 1600 he was appointed one of the envoys
to treat for peace with the King of Spain at
Boulogne. The negotiation fell through, the
representatives not being able to agree upon
the important question of precedency. Next
year Beale died at his house at Barnes,
Surrey, at eight o'clock in the evening of
25 May. He was buried in Allhallows
Church, London Wall. He appears to have
left no son, but we know of two daughters,
of whom one, Margaret, married Sir Henry
Yelverton, justice of the common pleas in
the time of Charles I, who thus became
possessed of Beale's books and papers, which
were long preserved by his descendants in the
library of the family 'seat at Easton-Maudit,
Northamptonshire. The library wras sold in
1784. The manuscripts are now in the
British Museum. The other daughter, Ca-
therine, married Nathaniel Stephens, of
Easington, Gloucestershire.

Beale was a member of the Elizabethan

Society of Antiquaries, and is mentioned by
Milles in the epistle dedicatory to his ' Ca-
talogue of Honour ' by the designation of
1 worthy Robert Beale, that grave clerk of the-
council,' as one of the ' learned friends ' from
whom he had received assistance. He seems
also to have taken an interest in geographi-
cal discovery; for in Dr. Dee's 'Diary,' under
date 24 Jan. 1582, we read : ' I, Mr. Awdrian
Gilbert, and John Davis, went by appoint-
ment to Mr. Secretary Beale his house, where
only we four were secret, and we made Mr.
Secretary privy of the north-west passage,,
and all charts and rutters were agreed upon
in general.' Such of Beale's letters as have
been printed are dated vaguely ' at his poor
house in London.' He certainly had another
house at Priors Marston, in Warwickshire,
as he is described as of that place in the in-
scriptions on the tombstone of his wife and
daughter Catherine.

Throughout life Beale was a close student
and ardent collector of books. He is the
author of the following works: 1. 'Argu-
ment touching the Validity of the Marriage
of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, with
Mary, Queen-dowager of France (sister to
King Henry VIII), and the Legitimacy of
the Lady Frances, their daughter.' In Latin,
MS. Univ. Libr., Cambr. Dd. 3, 85, art. 18.,
2. 'A Large Discourse concerning the Mar-
riage between the Earl of Hertford and the-
Lady Catherine Grey.' In Latin, MS. Univ.
Libr. Cambr. li. 5, 3, art. 4. This work con-
tains also the opinions of the foreign jurists
consulted by Beale upon the case. 3. ' Dis-
course after the Massacre in France,' 15 pp.
MS. Cotton, Tit. F. iii. 299. 4. ' Rerum
Hispanicarum Scriptores aliquot ex Biblio-
theca clarissimi viri Domini Robert! Beli
Angli.' Frankfort, 3 vols. folio, 1579;
Contents : Vol. i., M. Aretius, Jo. Gerun-
densis, Roderici Toletani, Roderici Santii,
Joannis Vas?ei ; vol. ii., Alfonsia Carthagena,.
Michaelis Ritii, Francisci Faraphpe, Lucii
Marinei Siculi, Laurentii Vail re, ^Elii An-
tonii Nebrissensis, Damiani a Goes : vol. iii.,.
Al. Gomecius De Rebus Gestis Fr. Ximenis
Cardinalis. 5. l A Book against Oaths mi-
nistered in the Courts of Ecclesiastical Com-
mission from her Majesty, and in other Courts
Ecclesiastical.' Printed abroad and brought
to England in a Scotch ship about 1583.
Strype's l Whitgift,' vol. i. bk. iii. c. xii. pp.
211-12. 6. 'A Book respecting Ceremonies,,
the Habits, the Book of Common Prayer, and
the Power of Ecclesiastical Courts,' 1584..
Strype's t Whitgift,' vol. i. bk. iii. c. v. pp.
143-5, 212, vol. iii. bk. iii. nos. v. vi.
7. ' The Order and Manner of the Execution
of Mary Queen of Scots, Feb. 8, 1587.*

Beale

Beale

Strype's ' Annals,' vol. iii. bk. ii. c. ii. p. 383.
8. ' Means for the Stay of the Declining and
Falling away in Religion.' Strype's * Whit-
gift,' vol. iii. bk. iii. no. xxxv. 9. ' Opinions
concerning the Earl of Leicester's Placard to
the United Provinces.' MS. Cot. Galba, c.
xi. 107. 10. ' A Summary Collection of cer-
tain Notes against the Manner of proceeding
ex officio by Oath.' Strype's < Whitgift,
vol. ii. bk. iv. c. ix. 11. ' Observations upon
the Instructions of the States-General to the
Council of State, June 1588.' MS. Cott.
Galba, D. iii. 215. 12. ' A Consideration of
certain Points in the Treaty to be enlarged
or altered in case her Majesty make a new
Treaty with the States, April 1589.' MS.
Cott. Galba, D. iv. 163. In this Beale was
assisted by Dr. Bartholomew Clerke. 13. 'Op-
position against Instructions to negotiate
with the States-General, 1590.' MS. Cott.
Galba, D. vii. 19. 14. i Collection of the
King of Spain's Injuries offered to the Queen
of England.' Dated 30 May 1591. With a
' Vindication of the Queen against the Ob-
jections of the Spaniards.' MS. Harl. 253,
art. 33. 15. ' A Deliberation of Henry Kil-
ligrew and Robert Beale concerning the Re-
quisition for Restitution from the States.
London, August 1595.' MS. Cott. Galba, D.
xi. 125. 16. ' A Collection of Official Papers
and Documents.' MS. Addit. 14028. 17. 'His-
torical Notes and Collections.' MS. Addit.
14029. 18. Letters. Several of Beale's
letters have been printed. They are marked
by considerable energy of style.

[Cooper's Athense Cantab, ii. 311-14, 552;
Burghley State Papers, ed. Murdin, 355, 778,
781, eel. Haynes, 412-17; Digges's Complete
Ambassador; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. ; Mosheim's
Eccles. Hist. (tr. Murdock), cent. xvi. sect. iii.
part ii. cap. i. 39 n: Corresp. of Sidney and
Languet (ed. Pears), 132-6, 228-30; Lodge's
Illustr. of British Hist. ii. 262-70, 273, iii. 109;
Lodge's Life of Sir Julius Caesar, 15 ; Fronde's
Hist, of England, xi. 541, 660 ; Fuller's Church
Hist. (ed. Brewer), v. 15, 22-6; Cal. State
Papers, Ireland (1509-1573), Scotland (1509-
1603), Domestic (1547-1580); Thomas's Hist.
Notes, i. 393 ; Strype's Annals, iii. parts i. and
ii. ; Strype's Whitgift ; Strype's Parker ; Cam-
den's Eliz. i. 260, 338, 445, 457 ; Britannia (ed.
Gough), ii. 178 ; Cabala, ii. 49, 59-63, 86, 88 ;
Nicolas's Life of W. Davison, 64 ; Nicolas's Life
of Hatton, 461; Dr. Dee's Diary, 18, 38, 46;
Zurich Letters, ii. 292, 296, 298 ; Hearne's Coll.
Cur. Discourses, ii. 423 ; Jardine on Torture,
87, 89; Wright's Eliz. i. 480, ii. 244, 254, 354;
Sadler State Papers, i. 389 ; Ellis's Letters (3rd
ser.), iv. 112; Stow's Survey of London, ii. c. 7;
Kymer, xvi. 362, 412; Parl. Hist. i. 883-6;
Moule's Bibl. Herald, 67 ; Harris's Cat. Libr.
Hoyal Inst. 313; Coxe's Cat. Cod. MSS. Bib.

Bod. iv. 8*27; Win wood's Memorials; Hardwicke,
State Papers, i. 340, 342, 344, 352, 357; Bridges'
Hist. Northamptonshire, ii. 163; Atkyns's Glou-
cestershire, 218; Cat. Cot. MSS.; MSS. Harl. 7,
f. 245, 82, f. 43, 1110 f. 102; MSS. Lansd. 27,
art. 32 ; 42, art. 79- 82 ; 51, art. 26; 65, art. 67 ;
67, art. 10; 68, art. 107, 111 ; 72, art. 73; 73,
art. 2; 79, art. 80; 143, art. 59 ; 155, art, 62 ;
737, art. 2; MSS. Addit. 2442, f. 186; 4114,
f. 181, 5935, 11405, 12503, 14028, 14029; Mal-
colm's Lond. Eediviv. ii. 67 ; Cat. Univ. Libr.
MSS. i. 195, iii. 473; Lysons's Environs, i. 22 ;
Madden's Guide to Autograph Letters &c. in
British Museum, p. 5.] J. M. R.

BEALE, WILLIAM, D.D. (d. 1651),
royalist divine, was elected from West-
i minster School to a scholarship at Trinity
College, Cambridge, in 1605, and proceeded
B.A. in 1609-10. He was chosen a fellow
of Jesus College in the same university in
1611, commenced M.A. in 1613, was ap-
pointed archdeacon of Caermarthen in 1623,
and was created D.D. in 1627. Beale be-
came master of Jesus College on 14 July
1632, and on 20 Feb. 1633-4 he was ad-
mitted master of St. John's College, 'per
majorem partem sociorum ex mandate regio.'
In 1634 he was chosen vice-chancellor of
the university. On 27 Oct. 1637 he was
presented by his majesty to the rectory of
Paulerspury in Northamptonshire. He had
also the rectory of Cottingham in the same
county, and in 1639 he was presented to the
sinecure rectory of Aberdaron.

In the year 1642 Beale took an active
part in urging the various colleges to send
money and plate to the king at Nottingham.
Oliver Cromwell, having failed to intercept
the treasure in Huntingdonshire, proceeded
to Cambridge with a large force, surrounded
St. John's College while its inmates were at
i their devotions in the chapel, and carried off'
Beale, whom with Dr. Martin, master of
Queen's, and Dr. Herne, master of Jesus
College, he brought in captivity to London.
The prisoners were conducted through Bar-
tholomew fair and a great part of the city,
j to be exposed to the insults of the rabble,
; and finally were shut up in the Tower.
I At this period Beale w^as deprived of his
' mastership and all his ecclesiastical prefer-
ments. From the Tower the prisoners were
removed to Lord Petre's house in Aldersgate
Street, and on 11 Aug. 1643, after having
i been in detention a year, they were put on
board a ship atWapping, with other prisoners
; of quality and distinction, to the number of
I eighty in all, ' and it was afterwards known,
upon no false or fraudulent information, that
there were people who were bargaining to
sell them as slaves to Algiers or the American

Beale

8

Beale

islands' (MS. Addit. 5808, f. 152). At
length, after a confinement of three years,
Beale was released by exchange, and joined the
king at Oxford. There he was incorporated
D.D. in 1645, and in the following year he
was nominated dean of Ely, though he was
never admitted to the dignity. He was one
of the divines selected by the king to accom-
pany him to Holdenby (±646). Ultimately
he went into exile and accompanied the em-
bassy of Lord Cottington and Sir Edward
Hyde to Spain. His death occurred at Madrid
on 1 Oct. 1651. The antiquary Baker gives
this curious account of his last illness and
clandestine interment : l The doctor, not long
after his coming to Madrid, was taken ill, and
being apprehensive of danger and that he
had not long to live, desired Sir Edward
Hide and some others of the family to re-
ceive the holy sacrament with him, which he
in perfect good understanding, though weak
in body, being supported in his bed, conse-
crated and administered to himself and to
the few other communicants, and died some
few hours after he had performed that last
office. He was very solicitous in his last
sickness lest his body should fall into the
hands of the inquisitors, for the prevention
whereof this expedient was made use of, that
the doctor dying in a ground chamber, the
boards were taken up, and a grave being dug,
the body, covered with a shroud, was de-
posited therein very deep, and four or five
bushels of quicklime thrown upon it in order
to consume it the sooner. Everything in
the room was restored to the same order it
was in before, and the whole affair, being
committed only to a few trusty persons, was j
kept so secret as to escape the knowledge or
suspicion of the Spaniards, and may so re-
main undiscovered till the resurrection.'

Beale greatly embellished the chapel of
St. John's College, and left manuscripts and
other books to the library. His portrait is
in the master's lodge. Sir Edward Hyde, '
afterwards Lord Clarendon, in one of his
manuscript papers styles Dr. Beale his worthy
and learned chaplain, commemorates the
blessings he had enjoyed from him, and be-
moans his loss ; while Baker, the historian
of St. John's, declares him to have been one of ,
the best governors the university or college j
ever had. Contributions of his are found in
almost all the collections of poems published j
on state occasions by the university of Cam-
bridge during his time.

[Addit. MSS. 5808 ff. 151, 152, 5858 f. 194, I
5863 f. 91 ; Baker's Hist, of St. John's Coll. |
Camb., ed. Mayor ; Cambridge Antiquarian Com-
munications?, ii. 157 ; Alumni Westmon. 73, 74;
Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic., ed. Hardy ; Bent-

ham's Hist, of Ely, 231, 232; Bridges's North-
amptonshire, i. 313 ; Cooper's Memorials of
Cambridge, ii. 88 ; Cooper's Annals of Cam-
bridge, iii. 328 ; Prynne's Tryal of Abp. Laud,
73, 167, 177, 193, 357, 359, 360 ; Parr's Life of
Abp. Usher, 471 ; Life of Dean Barwick, 22, 32,
41, 444; Baker's Northamptonshire, ii. 205.]

T. C.

BEALE, WILLIAM (1784-1854), musi-
cian, was born at Landrake, in Cornwall,! Jan.
1784. He was a chorister at Westminster
Abbey under Dr. Arnold until his voice broke,
when he served as a midshipman on board the
Revolutionnaire, a 44-gun frigate which had
been taken from the French. During this
period he was nearly drowned by falling
overboard in Cork harbour. On his voice
settling into a pure baritone he left the sea,
and devoted himself to the musical profession.
He became a member of the Royal Society
of Musicians on 1 Dec. 1811. On 12 Jan.
1813 he won the prize cup of the Madrigal
Society for his beautiful madrigal, l Awake,
sweet Muse,' and on 30 Jan. 1816 he ob-
tained an appointment as one of the gentle-
men of the Chapel Royal, in the place of
Robert Hudson, deceased. At this period he
was living at 13 North Street, Westminster.
On 1 Nov. 1820 Beale signed articles of ap-
pointment as organist to Trinity College,
Cambridge, and on 13 Dec. following he re-
signed his place at the Chapel Royal. In
December 1821 he threw up his appointment
at Cambridge, and returned to London,
where, through the good offices of Dr. Att-
wood, he became successively organist of
Wandsworth parish church and St. John's,
Clapham Rise. He continued occasionally
to sing in public until a late period of his
life, and in 1840 he won a prize at the
Adelphi Glee Club for his glee for four voices,
' Harmony.' He died at Paradise Row,
Stockwell, 3 May 1854. Beale was twice
married: (1) to Miss Charlotte Elkins, a
daughter of the groom of the stole to
George IV, and (2) to Miss Georgiana
Grove, of Clapham. His voice was a light
baritone, and he is said to have imitated
Bartleman in his vocalisation. He was an
extremely finished singer, though somewhat
wanting "in power. His compositions, which
principally consist of glees and madrigals,
though few in number, are of a very high
degree of excellence, and often rival, in their
purity of melody and form, the best composi-
tions of the Elizabethan madrigalists.

[Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal ; Records
of the Royal Society of Musicians; London
Magazine for 1822, p. 474; Records of Trinity
College, Cambridge ; information from Mr. W.
Beale.] W. B. S.

Beales

Bealknap

BEALES, EDMOND (1803 - 1881),
political agitator, was born at Newnham, a
suburb of Cambridge, on 3 July 1803, being
a son of Samuel Pickering Beales, a merchant
who acquired local celebrity as a political
reformer. He was educated at the grammar
school of Bury St. Edmunds, and next at
Eton, whence he proceeded to Trinity Col-
lege, Cambridge, where he was elected to a
scholarship (B.A. 1825, M.A.. 1828). Called
to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1830, he
practised as an equity draughtsman and con-
veyancer. For several years he greatly in-
terested himself in foreign politics. He pro-
moted the earliest demonstration on behalf
of the Polish refugees, was a member of the
Polish Exiles' Friends Society, and of the
Literary Association of the Friends of Poland ;
was president of the Polish National League,
and chairman of the Circassian Committee ;
a member of the Emancipation Society during
the American civil war, of the Jamaica Com-
mittee under Mr. James Stuart Mill, and of
the Garibaldi Committee. It was in connec-
tion with Garibaldi's visit to England in 1864
that Beales's name first became known to the
general public. He then maintained the
right of the people to meet on Primrose Hill, !
and a conflict with the police occurred. At
that time he published a pamphlet on the j
right of public meeting, but it was as presi- j
-dent of the Reform League that Beales be- i
came best known. In 1864 a great political I
agitation in connection with trade societies I
was begun. The first public meeting of the
association was held in the Freemasons' j
'Tavern under the presidency of Beales, who
from that time till his promotion to the judi-
cial bench was identified with the principles
of manhood suffrage and the ballot. In 1865
the association developed itself under the
name of the Reform League. The Reform
Bill introduced by Earl Russell's government
in 1866 was heartily supported by the league,
and after the rejection of that measure by the
House of Commons the league renewed its
agitation for manhood suffrage and the ballot.
Then followed gigantic meetings in Trafalgar
Square, which the conservative government
vainly endeavoured to suppress. Sir Richard
Mayne, the first commissioner of police,
issued a notice to the effect that the meeting
announced for 2 July 1866 would not be per-
mitted. Beales, however, stated his deter-
mination to attend the meeting, and to hold
the government responsible for all breaches of
the peace. This step led Sir Richard Mayne
to withdraw the prohibition, and the meeting
of 69,000 persons was held without a single }
breach of the law. Then came the memo- j
rable 23 July, and the immense gathering

near the gates of Hyde Park, when Beales
displayed great courage and coolness. While
he and the other leaders were returning from
the Marble Arch to Trafalgar Square, the
mob pushed down the iron railings surround-
ing the park, which they entered in large
numbers, but they were eventually driven out
by the combined efforts of the military and
the police. The following day Beales had an
interview with Mr. Spencer Walpole, the
home secretary, and afterwards proceeded to
the park and caused intimation to be given
that no further attempt would be made to
hold a meeting there ' except only on next
Monday afternoon (30 July) at six o'clock,
by arrangement with the government.' The
mission of the league was virtually at an end
when Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill passed in
1867. Beales resigned the presidency on
10 March 1869, and three days later the
league was formally dissolved. Beales was
a revising barrister for Middlesex from 1862
to 1866, when, in consequence of the active
part he had taken in political agitation, the
lord chief justice, Sir Alexander Cockburn,
declined to reappoint him. Mr. Beales was
an unsuccessful candidate for the Tower
Hamlets in 1868. In September 1870 Lord
Chancellor Hatherley appointed him judge
of the county court circuit No. 35, compris-
ing Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire.
He died at his residence, Osborne House,
Bolton Gardens, London, on 26 June 1881.

He published various pamphlets on Poland
and Circassia, and on parliamentary reform ;
also a work on the Reform Act of 1867.

[Men of the Time (1879); Times, 28 June
1881; Irving's Annals of our Time; Annual
Register, 1866. pp. 98-102; McCarthy's Hist, of
our own Times, iii. 360, iv. 80, 84.] T. C.

BEALKNAP or BELKNAP, SIB RO-
BERT DE (d. 1400?), judge, was doubtless
descended from the Belknape found in the
Battle Abbey list of the nobles who followed
the Conqueror into England. Nothing ap-
pears to be known of the subsequent history
of the family until we find Robert de Beal-
knap settled in Kent, as lord of the manor of
Hempstead, in the fourteenth century. Ac-
cording to a deed dated 1 March 1375, Sir
Robert de Belcknappe granted certain lands
near Chatham to the prior and convent of
Rochester; and his parents' Christian names
were John and Alice. A certain Bealknap
appears as a counsel in the year book for
1 346-7, and may have been the father of Sir
Robert. Sir Robert himself is first mentioned
in the year book for 1362-3. In 1365 and
1369 Bealknap was named one of the com-
missioners appointed to survey the coast

Bealknap

10

Beamish

of Thanet, and take measures to secure the
lands and houses in the district against the
encroachments of the sea. In 1366 he was
appointed king's sergeant, with a salary of
20/. per annum, at the same time doing duty
as one of the justices of assize, at a salary of
the same amount. In 1372 he was placed on
a commission entrusted with the defence of
the coast of Kent against Invaders. In 1374
he was nominated one of seven sent ad paries
transmarinas,wiih a special mandate to confer
with the envoys of the papal court, not, as Foss
absurdly says, ' as to the reformer Wicliff,'
who was himself a member of the embassy,
but for the purpose of bringing about a happy
settlement of such questions as involved the
honour of the church and the rights of the
crown and realm of England, and in the same
year he was made chief justice of the com-
mon pleas, but was not knighted till 1385.
In 1381, on the outbreak of the insurrection
against the poll-tax, afterwards known as
that of Wat Tyler, he was sent into Essex
with a commission of trailbaston to enforce
the observance. of the law, but the insurgents
compelled the chief justice to take an oath
never more to sit in any such sessions, and
Bealknap was only too glad to make his escape
without suffering personal violence. In 1386
the impeachment of Michael de la Pole, earl
of Suffolk, for waste of the revenues and cor-
ruption, was followed by the transfer of the
administrative authority to a council of nobles
responsible to the parliament. The king, at
the instigation of his friends, summoned the
judges to a council at Nottingham (August |
1387). With the exception of Sir William
Skipwith, all the judges attended. They
were asked whether the late ordinances by I
which Pole had been dismissed Avere dero- I
gatory to the royal prerogative and in what I
manner their authors ought to be punished.
The questions were answered by the judges
in a sense favourable to the king ; and a for- ;
mal act of council was drawn up, embodying i
the questions and the answers, and sealed '
with the seal of each judge. We learn from
Knyghton that Bealknap protested with some
vigour against the whole proceeding ; but he
yielded eventually to the threats of death
with which the Duke of Ireland and the Earl
of Suffolk plied him. Early next year all the
judges who had subscribed this document
(except Tresilian, who was summarily exe-
cuted) were removed from their offices, ar- !
rested, and sent to the Tower, by order of
the parliament, on a charge of treason. They •
pleaded that they had acted under compulsion ,
and menace of death. They were, however, I
sentenced to death, with the consequent at- i
tainder, and forfeiture of lands and goods •

but at the intercession of the bishops the
sentence was commuted for one of banish-
ment into Ireland, the attainder, however,
not being removed. Drogheda was selected
as the place of Bealknap's exile, and he was-
ordered to confine himself within a circuit
of three miles round it. An annuity of
40 J. was granted for his subsistence. He
was recalled to England in 1397. In the
same year an act of restitution was passed,
by which Bealknap and the other attainted
judges were restored to their rights. This
act, however, was shortly afterwards an-
nulled, i.e. in 1399, on the accession of
Henry IV. In 1399 the commons petitioned
parliament for the restoration of his estates.
He seems to have died shortly afterwards,
since he did not join with his former col-
leagues, Holt and Burgh, when, in 1401, they
petitioned parliament for a removal of the at-
tainder. A case in which Bealknap's wife
sued alone inspired Justice Markham with
two barbarous rhyming hexameters —

Ecce modo mirum quod femina fert breve Regis,
Non nominando virum conjiinctum robore legis.

This lady, who is designated indifferently
Sybell and Juliana, was permitted to remain
in possession of her husband's estates in spite
of the attainder until her death in 1414-
1415. They then escheated to the crown ; but
Hamon, the heir of Sir Robert, at the time
petitioned parliament for a removal of the
attainder, and the prayer was granted. Sir
Edward Bealknap, great-grandson of the
judge, whose sister Alice married Sir W.
Shelley, a justice of the common pleas in the
time of Henry VIII, achieved considerable
distinction during the reigns of that monarch
and of his predecessor, both as a soldier and
a man of affairs.

[Hasted's Kent, ii. 69 ; Duchesne'sHist. Norm.
Script. Ant. 1023 ; Year Books, 20 and 36 Ed-
ward III ; Lewis's Isle of Thanet, 200 ; Rymer's.
Foedera. ed. Clarke, iii. 870, 952, 961, 1007,
1015; Liber Assis. 40 Edward III; Leland's-
Collect. i. 185; Devon's Brantingham's Issue
Roll, 369, 370 ; Devon's Issiies of the Exch. 240;
Stow's Annals, 284; Knyghton Col. 2694; Holin-
shed, ii. 781-2 ; Chron. A. Mon. S. Alb. (Rolls-
series), 380-2; Rot. Parl. iii. 233-44, 346, 358,
461 ; Trokelowe et Anon Chron. (Rolls Series),
195-6. 303: State Trials, i. 106-20; Abbrev.
Rot. Orig. ii. 319 ; Cal. Inq. p m. iv. 7 ; Cotton's.
Records, 331, 540.] J. M. R.

BEAMISH, NORTH LUDLOW

(1797-1872), military writer and antiquary,
was the son of William Beamish, Esq., of
Beaumont House, co. Cork, and was born on
31 Dec. 1797. In November 1816 he obtained
a commission in the 4th royal Irish dragoon

Beamish

Beamont

guards, in which corps he purchased a troop
in 1823. In 1825 he published an English
translation of a small cavalry manual written
by Count F. A. von Bismarck, a distinguished
officer then engaged in the reorganisation of
the Wiirtemberg cavalry. Beamish 's pro-
fessional abilities brought him to notice, and
he received a half-pay majority in the fol-
lowing year. Whilst attached to the vice-
regal suite in Hanover he subsequently pub-
lished a translation of Count von Bismarck's
1 Lectures on Cavalry,' with original notes,
in which he suggested various changes soon
after adopted in the British cavalry. He also
completed and edited a history of ' the King's
German Legion ' from its formation in the
British service in 1803 to its disbandment
in 1816, which was published in England in
1834-7, and is a model of military compila-
tions of its class. After quitting Hanover
Beamish devoted much attention to Norse
antiquities, and in 1841 published a summary
of the researches of Professor Eafn of Copen-
hagen, relative to the discovery of America by
the Northmen in the tenth century. Although
the fact had been notified as early as 1828
(in a letter in NILE'S Register, Boston, U.S.),
it was very little known. Beamish 's modest
volume not only popularised the discovery
by epitomising the principal details in Rafn's
great work l Antiquitates Americans ' (Co-
penhagen, 1837), but it contains, in the
shape of translations from the Sagas, one of
the best summaries of Icelandic historical
literature anywhere to be found within an
equal space. Beamish, like his younger
brother, Richard, who was at one time in the
Grenadier guards, was a F.R.S. Lond. and an
associate of various learned bodies. He died
at Annmount, co. Cork, on 27 April 1872.

His works were : 1. * Instructions for the
Field Service of Cavalry, from the German of
Count von Bismarck,' London, 1825, 12mo.
2. ' Lectures on the Duties of Cavalry, from
the German of Count von Bismarck,' London,
1827, 8vo. 3. ' History of the King's German
Legion/ 2 vols. London, 1834-7, 8vo. 4. 'The
Discovery of America by the Northmen in the
Tenth Century, with Notes on the Early Set-
tlement of the Irish in the Western Hemi-
sphere,' London, 1841, 8vo ; a reprint of this
work, edited by the Rev. E. F. Slafter,
A.M., was published by the Prince Society of
Albany, N.Y., in 1877. 5. ' On the Altera-
tions of Level in the Baltic,' British Asso-
ciation Reports, 1843. 6. ' On the Uses and
Application of Cavalry in War,' London,
1855, 8vo.

[Burke's Landed Gentry ; Army Lists ; Pub-
lications of the Prince Society, Albany, N.Y. ;
Beamish 's Works.] H. M. C.

BEAMONT, WILLIAM JOHN (1828-

1868), clergyman and author, was born
at Warrington, Lancashire, 16 Jan. 1828,
being the only son of William Beamont,
solicitor, of that town, and author of ' An-
nals of the Lords of Warrington,' and other-
works. After attending the Warrington
grammar school for five years he was, in
1842, removed to Eton College, where he-
remained till 1846, bearing off Prince Albert's
prize for modern languages, and the New-
castle medal and other prizes. He entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1846, took
high honours, gained the chancellor's medal,,
and was awarded a fellowship in 1852. He
graduated B.A. in 1850, and M.A. in 1853.
After his election as fellow of Trinity he
commenced a tour in Egypt and Palestine,
and on being ordained in 1854 he spent some
time at Jerusalem, where he engaged ear-
nestly in the education of intending mission-
aries to Abyssinia, in Sunday school work,
and in preaching not only to the English
residents but to the Arabs in their own
tongue. He afterwards acted as chaplain in
the camp hospitals of the British army before-
Sebastopol. In 1855 Beamont returned
home, and became curate of St. John's, Broad
Street, Drury Lane, London, in which parish
he worked with great zeal until 1858, when
he accepted the vicarage of St. Michael's,,
Cambridge. He died at Cambridge, 6 Aug.
1868, at the age of forty, his death being"
hastened by a fever caught in the East.
He was buried in Trinity College ChapeL
Beamont's life was one of unremitting self-
denying usefulness, and in addition to his
successful parochial labours and his pioneer
efforts for church extension in Barnwell and
Chesterton, he was the main instrument of
founding the Cambridge School of Art (1858)
and the Church Defence Association (1859).
He was also the originator of the Church
Congress (1861), in the foundation of which
he was aided 'by his friend, Mr. R. Reynolds
Rowe, F.S.A. His published writings are :

1. 'Catherine, the Egyptian Slave,' 1852.

2. ' Concise Grammar of the Arabic Lan-
guage,'1861. 3. ' Cairo to Sinai and Sinai
to Cairo, in November and December 1860 r
(1861). In conjunction with Canon W. M.
Campion he wrote a learned yet popular
exposition of the Book of Common Prayer,
entitled ' The Prayer-Book Interleaved,' 1868.
Among his pamphlets are the ' Catechumen's
Manual,' ' Paper on Clergy Discipline,' and
i Fine Art as a Branch of Academic Study/

[Information from Mr. W. Beumont and Mr.
E. R. Rowe ; Warrington Guardian ; Cambridge
Chronicle, 15 Ang. 1868-; G. W. Weldon. in the
Churchman, August 1883, p. 326.] C. W. S.

Bean

12

Bearcroft

BEAN or BEYN, SAINT (Jl. 1011), was,
according to Fordun (Scotichron. iv. 44), ap-
pointed lirst bishop of Murthlach by Mai-
col mil, at the instance of Pope Benedict VIII.
This statement is confirmed by what professes
to be a fragment of the charter of Malcolm II
(1003-1029?), preserved in the register of
the diocese of Aberdeen (Registrum Aber-
donense, i. 3), but the genuineness of the
document is called in question by Professor
Innes in his preface to the publication (p.
xvi) as contradicting an older record, printed
in the preface (p. xvii), which gives the date
of the foundation of the see as 1063. In
any case there is no doubt that Bean, or
Beyn, was the first bishop of the see. Dr.
Reeves (Martyroloyy of Donegal, p. 337)
identifies St. Bean with the Irish Mophiog,
the day of both (16 Dec.) being the same.
In Molanus's additions to Usuardus, St. Bean
is distinctly referred to as a native of Ire-
land : ' In Hybernia natalis Beani primi epi-
scopi Aberdonensis et confessoris ' (Marty ro-
logium, sub die). According to Camerarius
he administered the affairs of his diocese for
two-and-thirty years. He is not to be con-
founded with the St. Bean whose day is
16 Oct., and who was venerated at Fowlis
in Strathearn.

[Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis (Mait-
land Club, 1845) ; Collections for Aberdeen
(Spalding Club, 1843), i. 123, 141, 142, 649,
ii. 253, 254, 258; Brittania Sancta, p. 319;
Usuardus's Martyrologium ; Reeves and Todd's
Martyrology of Donegal, 337-9 ; Camerarius's
De Scot. Port. p. 202 ; Forbes's Kalendars of
Scottish Saints, 377.]

BEAKBLOCK or BEREBLOCK,
JOHN (fl. 1566), draughtsman, was born
near Rochester about 1532, and was educated
at Oxford. He is said to have become a fellow
of St. John's College in 1558 and of Exeter
College on 30 June 1566. He graduated
B.A. 29 March 1561, and MA. 13 Feb.
1564-5. Before the close of 1566 he was
dean of his college, and was elected senior
proctor of the university on 20 April 1579,
Ms colleague being Thomas (afterwards Sir
Thomas) Bodley. In 1570 he was granted
four years' leave of absence, probably for
study abroad, and in 1572 received the degree
of B.C.L. from a continental university.
Nothing further is ascertainable about his
personal history.

In September 1566, on the visit of Queen
Elizabeth to Oxford, Bearblock prepared
small drawings of all the colleges, the
earliest of their kind, for each of which his
friend Thomas Neal, Hebrew reader in the
university, wrote descriptive verses in Latin.
The views, which were greatly admired, were

displayed on the walls of St. Mary's Church
for several days, and there examined by the
queen. A carefully executed copy of them,
which is still extant, was subsequently pre-
sented to the Bodleian Library by John
More in 1630; but the original sketches,
having been given to St. John's College, were
granted in 1616 to Sir Thomas Lake, and ap-
parently lost. Bearblock's drawings, with
Neal's verses, were engraved in 1713, at the
end of Hearne's edition of Dodwell's 'De
Parma Equestri Woodwardiana Dissertatio.'
In 1728 they were again engraved in the
margin of a reproduction of Ralph Aggas's
map of Oxford, first engraved in 1578, and
in 1882 they were for the third time re-
produced, with Neal's verses, in a volume
privately printed at Oxford. Bearblock
wrote an elaborate account of the queen's
visit to Oxford in 1566 under the title of
' Commentarii sive Ephemerae Actiones rerum
illustrium Oxonii gestarum in adventu sere-
nissimae principis Elizabeths.' The pamph-
let was dedicated to Lord Cobham and to
Sir William Petre, a munificent benefactor
of Exeter College, but it was not printed
until 1729, when Hearne published it in an
appendix (pp. 251-96) to his edition of the
'Historia et Vita Ricardi II.' Bearblock
refers to the exhibition of his drawings on
page 283. A map of Rochester by Bear-
block, of which nothing is now known, was
extant in the time of Anthony a Wood.
Tanner erroneously gives Bearblock's name
as Beartlock.

[Boase's Registrum Collegii Exoniensis, pp.
45, 207 ; Wood's Athen. Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 577 ;
Fasti Oxon. i. 168 ; Annals of Oxford, ed. Gutch,
ii. 159; Tanner's Bibliotheca, p. 82; Rye's Eng-
land as seen by Foreigners, p. 208 ; Madan's in-
troduction to the reproduction of the drawings
in 1882; History of Rochester, ed. 1817, p. 73.]

S. L. L.

JBEARCROFT, PHILIP, D.D. (1697-
1761), antiquary, descended from an ancient
Worcestershire family, was born at Worcester
on 1 May 1697 (SUSANNAH BBAECROFT'S pre-
face to Relics of Philip Bearcroft}. He was
educated at the Charterhouse, of which he
was elected a scholar on the nomination of
Lord Somers in July 1710. On 17 Dec. 1712
he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford.
In 1716 he took his B.A. degree, in 1717 he
became probationary, and in 1719 actual,
fellow of Merton College, taking his MA.
degree in the same year. He was ordained
deacon in 1718 at Bristol, and priest in
1719 at Gloucester. He accumulated the
degrees of B.D. and D.D. in 1730. He was
appointed preacher to the Charterhouse in

Beard

Beard

1724, chaplain to the king in 1738, secretary
to the Society for Propagating the Gospel in
Foreign Parts in 1739, rector of Stormonth,
Kent, in 1743, and master of the Charter-
house on 18 Dec. 1753. In 1755 he was col-
lated to a prebendal stall in Wells Cathedral.
Bearcroft published 'An Historical Ac-
count of Thomas Sutton, Esquire, and of his
foundation of the Charterhouse ' (London,
1737). He also intended to publish a col-
lection of the rules and orders of the Charter-
house, but was prevented by the governors,
some extracts only being printed in a quarto
pamphlet and distributed among the officers
of the house (GouGH, British Topography,
i. 691). From his account of Sutton, Smythe's
historical account of the Charterhouse was
largely derived. In Nichols's ' Bowyer ' Bear-
croft is spoken of as l a worthy man, but
with no great talents for writing.' Some of
his sermons were published both before and
after his death. He died on 17 Oct. 1761.

[Gent. Mag. xxxi. 538 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd.
i. 650 ; Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesise Anglicanae, ii.
202. In the Eawlinson MSS. fol. 1 6 1 52 (Bodleian
Libr.), where a brief account appears, the date
of birth is given as 21 Feb. 1695.] A. G-N.

BEARD, JOHN (1716 P-1791), actor
and vocalist, was bred in the king's chapel,
and was one of the singers in the Duke of
Chandos's chapel at Cannon. His musical
training was received under Bernard Gates,
and his reputation as a singer was gained in
the representations given by Handel at Covent
Garden Theatre of ' Acis and Galatea,' ( Ata-
lanta,' and other works. The favour of
the public was, however, won by the de-
livery of Galliard's hunting song, 'With
early horn.' Beard's first appearance as an
actor took place at Drury Lane 30 Aug.
1737, the opening night of the season 1737-8,
as Sir John Loverule in ' The Devil to pay/ a
ballad opera extracted by Charles CofFey from
1 The Devil of a Wife ' of 'Thomas Jevons. On
8 Jan. 1738-9 Beard espoused Lady Henrietta
Herbert, only daughter of James, first earl
of Waldegrave, and widow of Lord Edward
Herbert, the second son of William, second
marquis of Powis. After these nuptials,
concerning which, curiously enough, no men-
tion is found in peerages of authority, Beard
retired for a while from the stage, to which
he returned in 1743-4. His married hap-
piness, which is said to have been excep-
tional, was interrupted, 31 May 1753, by the
death of his wife, to whom Beard erected a
handsome monument in St. Pancras church.
She died in her thirty-seventh year. Six
years later he married Charlotte, daughter of
Rich, the manager of Covent Garden Theatre,

who survived him and died in 1818 at the
great age of 92. Beard's reappearance is
said to have taken place at Drury Lane about
1743. He is first distinctly traced at Covent
Garden on 23 Dec. 1743, when he played Mac-
heath in Gay's l Beggars' Opera ' to the Polly
Peachum of Mrs. Clive. Macheath remained a
favourite character with him. Beard stayed
at Covent Garden for some years. On 19 June
1758 he is heard of at Drury Lane, playing
Macheath to the Polly of Miss Macklin. On
10 Oct. 1759 he returned to Covent Garden,
in which he had since his marriage a species
of interest, and reappeared as Macheath.
Polly was now played by Miss Brent, whose
performance of the part wras sufficiently
popular to give new life to Gay's opera, and
obtain for it a run, all but unbroken, of
thirty-seven nights. After the death of Rich,
his father-in-law, 26 Nov. 1761, Beard, who
through his wife became a shareholder in
the theatre, undertook its management.
Shortly after assuming the control, February
1763, he resisted with determination an at-
tempt on the part of rioters, who had been
successful with Garrick at Drury Lane, to
force him to grant admission at half-price
at the close of the third act of each perform-
ance. Certain ringleaders were brought be-
fore the lord chief justice. After under-
going a serious loss by the destruction of
property and the subsequent closing of the
theatre, Beard was compelled to submit. On
23 May 1767, in his original character of
Hawthorne in BickerstafFs opera, l Love in
a Village,' he retired from the stage, for
which loss of hearing had disqualified him.
His death took place 5 Feb. 1791 at Hamp-
ton, in Middlesex, to which place he had
betaken himself upon his retirement. He is
buried in the vault of Hampton church.
Beard enjoyed great and deserved popularity.
Charles Dibdin says that he considers him,
' taken altogether, as the best English singer/
and states that ' his voice was sound, male,
powerful, and extensive. His tones were
natural, and he had flexibility enough to exe-
cute any passages however difficult' {Com-
plete History of the Stage, v. 363). His praise
is, however, established by the fact that
Handel composed expressly for Beard some
of his greatest tenor parts, as in ' Israel in
Egypt,' ' Messiah,' { Judas Maccabseus,' and
'Jephthah.' Churchill celebrates him, and
Davies, who states that Beard excelled greatly
in recitation (Misc. iii. 375), speaks of him as
the jolly president of the Beefsteak Club
(iii. 167). His moral and social qualities are
indeed a theme of general commendation.

[Genest's Account of the English Stage ; Dib-
din's Complete History of the Stage ; Grove's

Beard

Beard

Dictionary of Musicians ; Bellamy's Apology ;
Gilltland's Dramatic Mirror; Thespian Diction-
ary; Gent. Mag. for 1791.] J. K.

BEARD, JOHN RELLY, D.D. (1800-
1876), unitarian minister, born at Southsea,
Hants, in 1800, was sent, at the age of
twenty, to the unitarian college at York,
where he was fellow-student with Dr. Mar-
tineau. In 1825 he took charge of a unita-
rian congregation at Salford, Manchester.
Shortly afterwards he opened a school, where
his son, the Rev. Charles Beard (Hibbert
lecturer, 1883), was educated. In 1838 the
university of Giessen bestowed on him the
honorary degree of D.D. in recognition of his
services to religious and general literature. In
1848 he removed to a chapel built for him in
Strangeways, Manchester, from which he re-
tired in 1864. During his ministry there he
.started a scheme for educating young men
for home missions, which originated the Uni-
tarian Home Missionary Board or College,
-of which Beard was the first principal. In
1862, at his suggestion, was founded the Me- |
morial Hall, Manchester, to commemorate the i
non-compliance with the Act of Uniformity j
of 1662 of two thousand English clergymen, j
From 1865 to 1873 he was minister of a chapel j
•at Sale, near Ashton-on-Mersey, where he :
died in 1876.

Beard's zeal in the cause of public educa- ;
tion led to the reforms adopted of late years j
in the Manchester grammar school, and to j
"the formation of a Lancashire association
for popular education. By the labours of |
Beard and his friends this subject was con-
stantly brought under the notice of the go-
vernment, until Mr. Forster's bill was intro- '
duced. The latter was largely suggested, and
in the main drafted, by some of the earlier
members of the association, founded, chiefly
T)y the exertions of Beard, thirty years be- |
fore. By his writings he also contributed I
'to the cause of education ; he wrote the ;
papers on Latin, Greek, and English litera- j
ture for Cassell's ' Popular Educator,' and, '
with the Rev. Charles Beard, compiled the j
•'Latin Dictionary' for the same publishers. I
His topographical description of Lancashire |
in Knight's ' Illustrated England,' and a * Life i
•of Toussaint 1'Ouverture' (1853), complete
the list of his writings on general subjects.

His theological fervour, inherited from his
ancestor Relly, a universalist preacher of the
•eighteenth century, was shown in his various
religious writings. Chief amongst these are I
his controversial works in defence of christi- i
anity (1826, 1837, 1845) ; many papers in !
the ' Christian Reformer,' the ' Westminster
Heview,' 'Journal of Sacred Literature,'

Kitto's ' Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature,'
Kitto's 'Papers for Sunday Reading,' and
'People's Dictionary of the Bible ' (1847).
He also published ' Handbook of Family
Devotion from the German of H. Zschokke '
(1862), 'Life and Writings of Theodore
Parker from the French of Dr. R6ville '
(1865), 'Autobiography of Satan' (1874),
and many minor theological works, ori-
ginal and translated. Beard was the first
editor of the ' Christian Teacher,' now the
'National Review,' and also started the
1 Unitarian Herald.'

[Manuscript autobiographical sketch in the
possession of C. W. Sutton, Esq. ; Unitarian He-
rald, 1 Dec. 1876, and 4 May 1877; Manchester
G-uardian, 24 Nov. 1876; Manchester Weekly
Times, 25 Nov. 1876; Ireland's List of Dr.
Beard's Works, 1875.] E. I.

BEARD, RICHARD. [See BEEIRD.]

BEARD, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1632),

puritan divine, and the schoolmaster of Oliver
Cromwell at Huntingdon, was, it is believed,
a native of Huntingdon, but the date of his
birth is unknown. He received his educa-
tion at Cambridge, and probably took there
his degree of D.D. On 21 Jan. 1597-8 he
was collated to the rectory of Hengrave,
Suffolk, which he held for a very short time.
Not very long afterwards Beard became
master of Huntingdon hospital and gram-
mar school. It was at this school that
Cromwell was educated in the early years
of the seventeenth century. In a letter
dated 25 March 1614, in the Cottonian
MSS. (Julius, C. iii.), Beard asks Sir Robert
Cotton for the rectory of Conington, being
tired of the painful occupation of teaching.
In 1625-6, as we learn from an indenture,
made 23 March, between ' the bailifs and
burgesses of the town of Huntingdon, patrons
of the hospital of St. John in Huntingdon,
of the one part, and Thomas Beard, doctor in
divinity, and master of the said hospital, and
Robert Cook of Huntingdon, gentleman, of
the other part,' Beard was holding a lecture-
ship at Huntingdon, and his puritan zeal in
his mastership and preaching had given great
satisfaction to the townspeople. 'All the
said parishes and town of Huntington were,'
runs the document, ' for a long time before
the said Thomas Beard became master of the
said hospital, utterly destitute of a learned
preacher to teach and instruct them in the
word of God ; but sithence the said Thomas
Beard became master of the said hospital,
being admitted thereunto by the presentation
of the said bailifs and burgesses, the said
Thomas Beard hath not only maintained a
grammar school in the said town, according

Beard

Beard

to the foundation of the said hospital, by him-
self, and a schoolmaster by him provided at his
own charges, but hath also been continually
resident in the said town, and painfully
preached the word of God in the said town
of Huntington on the Sabbath-day duly, to
the great comfort of the inhabitants of the
said town ' (Add. MS. British Museum,
15665, p. 126 ; SANFOKD'S Studies and Illus-
trations of the Great Rebellion, 1858, pp.
240-1). In 1633 Laud, then archbishop,
.succeeded in putting the lectureship down.

In 1628, when the Bishop of Winchester
•(Neile), who, while Bishop of Lincoln, had j
been Beard's diocesan, was accused before the j
House of Commons of anti-puritan practices, j
Beard was summoned as a witness against
him. According to Cromwell's speech in the
debate on the subject, Beard had been ap-
pointed in 1617 to preach a sermon on the
Sunday after Easter in London, in which, ac-
cording to custom, he was to recapitulate three
; sermons previously preached before the lord
mayor from an open pulpit in Spital Square.
Dr. Alabaster was the preacher whom Beard
had to follow, and so far from agreeing to
repeat Alabaster's sermons, he announced his
intention of exposing his support of certain
'* tenets of popery.' f Thereupon,' Cromwell
•continued, * the new Bishop of Winton, then
Bishop of Lincoln, did send for. Dr. Beard
•and charge him, as his diocesan, not to
Breach any doctrine contrary to that which
Alablaster had delivered. And when Dr.
Beard did, by the advice of Bishop Felton,
preach against Dr. Alablaster's sermon and
person, Dr. Neile, now Bishop of Winton, did
reprehend him, the said Beard, for it' (GrAK-
DINER'S History (1884), vii. 55-6). Before
Beard could give his 'testimony from his
'Own lips,' the parliament was dissolved.

In 1630 he was made a justice of peace
for the county. He was married, and had
: issue. In the parish registers of Hunting-
don are entries of his own and of his wife's
death — ' Mr. Thomas Beard, Doctor of Divi-
nity, was buried 10 January 1631[-2],' and
' Mrs. Mary Beard, widow, 9 December 1642.'
She seems to have been a Mary Heriman, and
to have been married 9 July 1628. Brayley (in
his Beauties of England and Wales, vii. 354)
gives the inscription on a brass in the nave
of All Saints Church, Huntingdon, to Dr.
Beard's memory : ' Ego Thomas Beard, Sacrae
Theologiae Professor : In Ecclesia Omnium
Sanctorum Huntingtonise Verbi Divini Pre-
dicator olim : Jam sanus sum : Obiit Jantiarii
8°, an. 1631.'

Beard's earliest and most famous book first
•appeared in 1597. Its title-page runs thus :
u The Theatre of Gods ludgements ; or, a

Collection of Histories out of Sacred, Eccle-
siastical, arid Prophane Authors, concerning
the admirable ludgements of God upon the
transgressours of his commandements. Trans-
lated out of French, and avgmented by more
than three hundred Examples, by Th. Beard.
London, printed by Adam Islip,' 8vo. It
was in the ' Theatre of ludgement ' that first
appeared the tragical account of Christopher
Marlowe's death. Other editions followed
in 1612 and 1631, with additions. A fourth
edition in folio of 1648 is well known. In 1625
he published ' Antichrist the Pope of Home ;
or the Pope of Rome is Antichrist. Proved
in two treatises. In the first, by a full defi-
nition of Antichrist, by a plain application
of his definition agreeing with the pope, by
the weaknesse of the arguments of Bellar-
mine, Florimond, Raymond, and others,
which are here fully answered,' 4to. Beard
left in manuscript an ' Evangelical Tragoedie :
or, A Harmonie of the Passion of Christ, ac-
cording to the four Evangelistes ' (Royal
MS., 17 D. xvii ; CABLET'S Cat. of MSS. of
the King's Library, 270). A full-length
portrait of Beard is prefixed to the only other
literary production of his calling for notice,
viz. ' Pedantius, Comoedia olim Cantab, acta
in Coll. Trin. nunquam ante haec typis evul-
gata,' 1631.

[Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 396-7 ;
Carlyle's Cromwell ; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum
in Brit. Mus. ; Huntingdon Register.]

A. B. G.

BEARD, WILLIAM (1772-1868), bone
collector, the son of a farmer at Banwell,
Somerset, was born on 24 April 1772. He
received such education as the parish clerk,
who was also the schoolmaster of the village,
could give him. Like his father, he worked
on the land. He married and bought a small
estate, which he farmed himself. Excited by
the tradition that Banwell Hill contained a
large cavern, he persuaded two miners to
join him (September 1824) in sinking a shaft.
'At a depth of about 1 00 feet they came to
a stalactite cave. While making a second
opening lower down the side of the hill, in
order to form a better approach to this cave, he
discovered a smaller cavern containing animal
bones. With some help procured for him by
the Bishop of Bath and Wells (G. H. Law),
to whom the land belonged, Beard dug out
the cavern, and found among the debris a
number of bones of the bear, buffalo, reindeer,
wolf, &c. Captivated with his discovery, he
let his land, and spent all his time in search-
ing for bones and putting them together. He
acted as guide to the many visitors who came
to see the cavern and the bones he collected.

Beard more

16

Beatniffe

He soon learned something of the scientific
importance of his discoveries, and became an
eager collector of the contents of the bone-
caves of the neighbourhood, at Hutton, Blea-
don, and Sandford. He was a reserved man,
of quaint manners, and with a high opinion
of his own skill. The nickname of the ' Pro-
fessor' given him by the bishop greatly
pleased him, and he was generally called by it.
He died on 9 Jan. 1863 in his ninety-sixth
year. He retained his bodily and mental
activity almost to the day of his death. He
was a small man, of short stature and light
build. There is a bust of him in Banwell
churchyard, and an engraving representing
him at the age of seventy-seven in Rutter's
' Delineations of Somersetshire.' His collec-
tion of bones was bought by the Somerset-
shire Archaeological and Natural History
Society, and is now in the museum at Taun-
ton Castle. Some idea of its value may be
gained from the fact that it includes a large
number of the bones of the Felis spelcea, one
skull being the most perfect that has been
found in England.

[Information received from Mr. W. Edginton
of Banwell ; Rutter's Delineations of Somerset-
shire, 147-60 ; Somersetshire Archseol. and Nat.
Hist. Soc.'s Proc. ii. 103, xiv. 160.] W. H.

BEAKDMORE, NATHANIEL (1816-
1872), civil engineer, was born at Nottingham
on 19 March 1816. He began his professional
education as pupil to a Plymouth architect,
and subsequently to the well-known engineer
Mr. J. M. Rendel, whose partner he ultimately
became. Much of the experience he obtained
respecting water supplies and so forth was
gained in works undertaken at this time.
His partnership with Mr. Rendel ceased in
1848. In 1850 Beardmore became sole
engineer to the works for the drainage and
navigation of the river Lee. In the same
year appeared, with the title of ' Hydraulic
Tables,' the first edition of a book which,
under the fuller description of ( Manual of
Hydrology ; containing I. Hydraulic and other
Tables ; II. Rivers, Flow of Water, Springs,
Wells, and Percolation ; III. Tides, Estuaries,
and Tidal Rivers; IV. Rain-fall and Evapora-
tion,' afterwards became the text-book of
the profession for hydraulic engineering. The
above title is that of the third and enlarged
edition, which appeared in 1862. During
the remaining ten years of his life Beard-
more's practice as an engineer was greatly
extended by this work. He died on 24 Aug.
1872, at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, whither
he had moved in 1855.

[Annual Report of the Institute of Civil En-
gineers, 17 Dec. 1872.] A. D.

BEATNIFFE, RICHARD (1740-1818),
bookseller, was born in 1740 at Louth in
! Lincolnshire, and was adopted and edu-
cated by his uncle, the Rev. Samuel Beat-
! niffe, rector of Gay wood and Bawsey in Nor-
i folk. He was apprenticed to a bookseller at
| Lynn of the name of Hollingworth, who was
in the habit of taking four apprentices.
When we are told that all the four were ex-
pected to sleep in one bed, that the sheets
I were changed only once a year, and that the
I youths were dieted in the most economical
manner, it says much for the sturdiness of
Beatniffe that he was the only apprentice
Hollingworth had for forty years who re-
I mained to serve his full time. The tempta-
tions of the hand of his master's daughter,
who was deformed in person and unpleasing
in manners, together with a share in the busi-
ness, were not able to retain Beatniffe in
Lynn. Upon the termination of his appren-
ticeship he went to Norwich, and worked
there for some years as a journeyman book-
binder. His old master Hollingworth, if
harsh, must have been also generous, since he
advanced Beatniffe 500/. for the purchase of
the stock of Jonathan Gleed, a bookseller of
London Lane, in Norwich.

Shortly after this period Beatniffe produced
his excellent little ' Norfolk Tour, or Travel-
ler's Pocket Companion, being a concise de-
scription of all the noblemen's and gentlemen's
seats, as well as of the principal towns and
other remarkable places in the county,' of
which the first edition appeared in 1772, the
second in 1773, the third in 1777, the fourth
in 1786, the fifth in 1795, and the sixth and
last in 1808, ' greatly enlarged and improved.'
This edition extended to 399 pages, or about
four times the size of the first. In the ad-
vertisement the author states that he had
carefully revised every page, ' and by the
friendly communications of several gentle-
men in the county and [his] own observations
during the last ten years greatly enlarged '
it. Improvements and additions were made
by the author to each successive edition, and
most of the places described were person-
ally visited. It is written in a plain man-
ner, and is full of information. Mr. W. Rye
says : ( The numerous editions to which it
ran show it had considerable merit, and in its
notes and illustrations there is much useful
and interesting reading ' (Index to Norfolk
Topogr. 1881, p. xxvii).

His biographer tells some characteristic
anecdotes of the bookseller's unyielding tory-
ism, of his rebuffs to chaffering customers, and
of his unwillingness to supply the London
trade. He preferred to sell to private buyers,
and indeed was often loth to part with his

Beaton

Beaton

v jewels,' as he styled his rarities. Beloe, who
knew him, has described Beatniffe as ' a
shrewd, cold, inflexible fellow, who traded
principally in old books, and held out but
little encouragement to a youth who rarely
had money to expend. . . . The principal fea-
ture of this man's character was suspicion of
.strangers, and a constant apprehension lest
he should dispose of any of his libri rarissimi
to some cunning wight or professed collector.
If any customer was announced as coming
from the metropolis, he immediately added
at least one-third to his price ' {Sexagenarian,
1818, ii. 246). Booksellers have not unseldom
thought it necessary to cultivate blunt and
-eccentric manners ; but Beatniffe's knowledge
•of books, skill as a bookbinder, and business
habits, made him a prosperous tradesman.
For many years he owned the best collection
of old books among provincial dealers, and
was long the first secondhand bookseller
in Norwich. He published a few works.
His first catalogue was printed in 1779, and
his last in 1808 ; they contained many rare
-volumes, which he knew how to price at their
full value. Among the libraries purchased
by him was that of the Rev. Dr. Cox Macro,
•of Little Haugh in Suffolk, who died in 1767,
after having brought together a rich treasure
•of early-printed books, old poetry, original
letters, and autographs. The library remained
unexamined for forty years, when it came
into Beatniffe's hands at the commencement
•of the century for the small sum of 150/. or
160/. On being sold piecemeal the collection
realised nine or ten times as much.

Beatniffe married Martha Dinah Hart, who
died in 1816, daughter of a writing-master
and alderman of Bury St. Edmund's, by
whom he had a son and a daughter. Having
•amassed a considerable fortune, Beatniffe re-
tired from business a short time before his
•death, which took place 9 July 1818, in the
•seventy-ninth year of his age, at Norwich.
He was buried in the nave of the Norwich
'Church of St. Peter at Mancroft.

[Biography by the Eev. James Ford in
Nichols's Illustrations, vi. 522-8 ; see also iv.
746, viii. 491 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, iii. 672,
Tin. 467, ix. 365; Gent. Mag. 1818, ii. 93, 286.1

H. E. T.

BEATON or BETHUNE, DAVID
(1494-1546), cardinal archbishop of St. An-
drews, was the third son of John Bethune of
Balfour, elder brother of Archbishop James
Bethune. He studied at the universities of
St. Andrews and Glasgow, and in his six-
teenth year was sent to Paris, where he stu-
died both the civil and the canon law. About
that time his uncle presented him to the rec-

VOL. IV.

tory of Campsie, and in 1523 he resigned in
his nephew's favour the abbacy of Arbroath,
though the pope dispensed the young abbot
from taking orders till two years later. In
1537 David Beaton was consecrated bishop
of Mirepoix in Foix, and very shortly after
Pope Paul III made him cardinal of San Ste-
fano on Monte Celio. He succeeded his
uncle as archbishop of St. Andrews in 1539,
and was murdered at St. Andrews in 1546.
From a very early age he was resident for
Scotland at the court of France, was made
lord privy seal in 1528, and chancellor in
1543. He was also proto-notary apostolic
and legate a latere from 1543. Till he be-
came primate Beaton was frequently employed
on foreign diplomatic service, for which his
education and abilities specially fitted him.
He negotiated the marriage of James V with
Magdalen, daughter of Francis I, and on her
death he was sent on the commission to bring
to Scotland the king's second wife, Mary of
Guise. He continued his uncle's policy of
knitting closer the alliance with France, and
standing on the defensive against England.
It was due to his influence that James V re-
jected all his uncle Henry's proposals, and
refused to act in concert with him in religious
reforms. On the death of James V in 1542,
Beaton produced a will appointing himself
and the earls of Huntly, Argyle, and Arran,
joint regents. This will his opponents re-
jected as a forgery. Arran was declared
governor of the kingdom by the estates.
Beaton was arrested ; but his imprisonment
was more nominal than real, as Lord Seaton,
to whose custody he was committed, was one
of his sworn partisans, and very shortly re-
stored him to his own castle. It was sus-
pected that his arrest was merely a pretence
to secure him against being kidnapped by the
English. For a short time the English party,
which was also that of the reformers, tri-
umphed. The governor drew the preachers
round him, and two treaties with England
were set on foot. One in July 1543 arranged
the marriage of Mary with Henry's son
Edward; the other concluded an alliance
with England. But no sooner did the cardinal
find himself at liberty than he raised a faction
against the governor and the English mar-
riage. His party mustered in great force, and
escorted the queen and her mother from Lin-
lithgow to Stirling Castle in July 1543, a pro-
ceeding which was approved at the next
meeting of the estates. Arran, too, dismissed
the preachers, and went over to the cardinal's
party on 8 Sept. 1543. The English treaties
were repudiated 24 Sept. 1543, a step which
provoked a declaration of war from England ;
and when Hertford invaded Scotland in 1544

Beaton

18

Beaton

he had special instructions to seize the car-
dinal and raze his castle of St. Andrews,
which Beaton had meanwhile been busily
fortifying, and had made so strong that he
feared neither English nor French. When
the English fleet was seen in the Firth of
Forth, both the cardinal and the governor
hastened out of reach of the invaders,
1544.

As a persecutor the cardinal was even
more zealous than his uncle. His memory
has been held up to execration for his cruel-
ties to the reformers, especially for the burn-
ing of Wishart. But as the reformers were
in secret treaty with England, their political
as well as their religious creed made it im-
possible to let the preaching of their doctrines
pass unnoticed ; and it has now been ascer-
tained that Wishart was a willing agent in
the plots laid by Henry against the cardinal.
George Wishart was the most popular of the
preachers, and had many powerful supporters
among the nobles who upheld them. In 1546
the cardinal called a provincial assembly of
the clergy at the Blackfriars, Edinburgh.
George Wishart was at Ormiston, a laird's
house in the neighbourhood. There he was
arrested by the Earl of Both well, acting for
the cardinal, and brought to St. Andrews,
where he was tried on a charge of spreading
heretical doctrines, condemned, and burnt on
2 March 1546. At this time the cardinal
was at the height of his power. Most of the
nobles were bound to him by bonds of man-
rent or promises of friendship, and he had
just married his natural daughter Margaret
to David Lindsay, afterwards ninth earl of
Crawford. But the friends of Wishart, the
lairds of Fife, were determined to avenge his
death and secure their own safety by getting
the cardinal out of the way before he could
carry out a scheme he had in hand for their
destruction. John Leslie, brother to the Earl
of Rothes, had sworn on the day of Wishart's
death that his whinger and hand should
be ' priests to the cardinal.' This bloody
threat he fulfilled. Entering the castle by
stealth in company with his nephew Norman,
and Kircaldy of Grange, they surprised the
cardinal in his bedroom, murdered him, and
took possession of the fortress, 29 May 1546.
Beaton's greatest gift was the power he had
of gaining ascendency over the minds of
others. He ruled in turn the councils of
James V, of the governor and the queen dowa-
ger, and had great influence with Francis I.
He left several natural children, and the im-
morality of his private life, as well as his
pride and cruelty, has been much enlarged
upon by his religious opponents. After his
body had lain nine months in the sea tower of

the castle, it was obscurely buried in the con-
vent of the Blackfriars at St. Andrews.

[Knox's History, ed. Laing; Sir David Lyn de-
say's poem of The Cardinal ; Keith's Catalogue
of Bishops ; Spottiswood's History of the Church
of Scotland; Sir James Balfour's Manuscript Ac-
count of the Bishops of St. Andrews ; Register of
the Diocese of Glasgow, edited by Cosmo Innes ;
Sadler's State Papers ; Chambers's Biographies
of Eminent Scotchmen.] M. M'A.

BEATON or BETHUNE, JAMES (d.
1539), archbishop of Glasgow and St. An-
drews, was the sixth son of James Bethune
of Balfour in Fife. He was educated at St.
Andrews, where he took his master's degree
in 1493. His first preferment was the chantry
of Caithness, to which he was presented in
1497. He rose by rapid strides to the high-
est honours in the church and state. He was
made provost of the collegiate church of Both-
well in 1503, prior of Whithorn, and abbot
of Dunfermline in 1504. He also held the
two rich abbacies of Kil winning and Arbroath.
He was elected bishop of Galloway, but was
translated to the archbishopric of Glasgow in
1509, and became archbishop of St. Andrews
and primate in 1522. He then resigned Ar-
broath to his nephew David, reserving half
the revenue for his own use for life. He also
held the offices of lord treasurer from 1505,
and chancellor from 1513 ; but he resigned
the treasury on his advancement to the see
of Glasgow, and was nominally deprived of
the chancellorship in 1526, though his suc-
cessor was not appointed till some years later.
During the minority of James V, Beaton is one
of the most prominent figures in Scottish his-
tory. Albany, the regent, withdrew to France
whenever he could ; and though the govern-
ment was nominally in the hands of a com-
mission of regency, the country was distracted
by the feuds of the factions of the Douglases
and the Hamiltons. Beaton, who was one
of the regents, was more apt to stir the strife
than to stay it. When appealed to by Bishop
Douglas of Dunkeld to avert a fray that
seemed imminent, Beaton swore on his con-
science he could not help it ; but as he laid
his hand on his heart to give weight to his-
words, the ring of the coat of mail he wore-
beneath his vestments betrayed that he had
come ready armed for the fray, and provoked"
the retort : f Methinks, my lord, your con-
science clatters.' In the tumult which fol-
lowed, known as ' Clear-the-causeway,' the^
Douglases won the day. Beaton sought
sanctuary at the altar of the church of the*
Greyfriars, and would have been torn from
it and slain but for the timely interference of
Bishop Douglas. At this period the nation

Beaton

Beaton

was hanging in the balance between France
and England. Both countries were eager to
secure Scotland, and each made offers of find-
ing a bride for the young king. Margaret
Tudor, the queen mother, and Angus, fa-
voured England. Beaton threw all his weight
into the French scale, and it was chiefly due
to him that the old league with France was
maintained, and James wedded to Magdalen
of France instead of to Mary of England.
The ' greatest man both of lands and expe-
rience within this realm, and noted to be very
crafty and dissimulating,' was the report of
Beaton which the English ambassador sent
home, and Wolsey, who well knew that all
his schemes concerning Scotland were futile
as long as Beaton was at large, laid many a
crafty plot for getting hold of him. He sug-
gested diets on the border and conferences in
London, at which the chancellor must repre-
sent the kingdom of Scotland, having an un-
derstanding with Angus that he was to be
kidnapped on the way ; but Beaton was too
wary for him. Secure in his sea-girt castle of
St. Andrews, he pursued a policy of his own,
and would not pledge himself to either party.
He kept up direct and independent communi-
cation with France through his nephew David,
who was Scottish resident at the French court.
During the latter years of his life this nephew
acted as his coadjutor.

As primate, Beaton was constant in his
efforts to assert his superiority over the see
of Glasgow. The strife between the two
archbishops led to unseemly brawls at home,
and pleas carried to the court of Rome,
whereof the expenses, the estates complained,
caused ' inestimable dampnage to the realme.'
He also strove to smother the seeds of the
new religious doctrines by burning their most
diligent sower, Patrick Hamilton, lay abbot
of Fern in Ross-shire. He is called the
proto-martyr, as being the first native-born
Scot who suffered death for teaching the doc-
trines which afterwards became those of the
established kirk. He died at the stake in St.
Andrews in 1528. His death proved even
more persuasive than his living words, inso-
much that a shrewd observer counselled the
archbishop to burn the next heretics in the
cellar, for the l smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamil-
ton had infected as many as it blew upon.'
Nevertheless, Henry Forest was burned at St.
Andrews, and Daniel Stratton and Norman
Gourlay at Edinburgh, during Beaton's pri-
macy. Beaton founded the new Divinity
College at St. Andrews, and built bridges and
walls at Glasgow. He died in 1539 at St.
Andrews.

[Register of the Diocese of Glasgow, edited by
Cosmo Innes ; Keith's History of the Church of

Scotland ; Spottiswood's History ; Keith's Cata-
logue of Bishops ; State Papers, Henry VIII ;
Chambers's Biographies of Eminent Scotchmen.]

M. M'A.

BEATON or BETHUNE, JAMES

(1517-1603), archbishop of Glasgow, second
\ son of John Bethune of Balfour, and nephew
of the cardinal, was the last Roman catholic
archbishop of Glasgow, and was consecrated
at Rome in 1552. At fourteen he was sent
to Paris to study, and at twenty was em-
ployed by Francis on a mission to the queen
dowager of Scotland. On the death of his
j uncle, the cardinal, he was in possession of
I the abbacy of Arbroath, but was required to
give it up to George Douglas by the governor.
Beaton was the faithful friend and counsellor
of the queen regent all through her struggles
with the lords of the congregation. He was
a determined opponent of religious reform,
and protested in the parliament of 1542
against the act allowing ' that the halie
writ may be usit in our vulgar tongue.' It
was to Beaton the regent handed the lords'
remonstrance when it was presented to her,
with ' Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil,'
and in the civil war which followed he shared
with the. French auxiliaries all the hardships
and privations of the siege of Leith. On the
death of the regent Beaton went to France
with the French allies, taking with him the
muniments and treasures of his diocese, to
keep them safe out of the hands of the re-
formers. Among them was the Red Book
of Glasgow, which dated from the reign of
Robert III. He deposited these documents
in the Scotch college at Paris, and continued
to live in that city till his death in 1603.
He acted during the whole of that time as
Scottish ambassador at the French court, and
still took a lively interest in the affairs of
Scotland. He also administered the queen's
revenues as dowager of France, and received
a salary of 3,060 livres for his services.
Mary kept up an active correspondence with
Beaton, and was anxious to keep his good
opinion. She wrote to him herself giving the
first news of Darnley's murder, dwelling
strongly on the merciful interposition of Pro-
vidence that had prevented her sharing her
husband's fate. Beaton in his reply points
out to her that to find out and punish the
murderers is the only way in which she can
prove her innocence before the world. In
1598, on account of the f great honours done
to his majestie and the country by the said
archbishop in exercising and using the
office of ambassadoir,' he was restored to his
1 heritages, honours, dignities, and benefices,
notwithstanding any sentences affecting him/
He was as much respected and liked by the

c2

Beatson

20

Beatson

French as by his own countrymen. He held
several French preferments, the abbey de la
Sie in Poitou, the priory of St. Peter's, and
the treasurership of St. Hilary of Poictiers ;
but it was thought much to his credit that he
had sent none of the revenues which he drew
from them out of the kingdom. During his
life Beaton was a constant benefactor to the
Scots College founded in Paris in 1325 for
the benefit of poor Scots scholars, and at his
death he left to it his fortune and his manu-
scripts, including a vast mass of correspond-
ence. These manuscripts, together with the
greater part of the ancient records which he
had brought with him from Glasgow, were,
on the outbreak of the revolution, sent to
St. Omer for safety, and have since been lost
eight of. He died in Paris, and was buried
by his own desire in the church of St. Jean
de Lateran, within the precincts of which he
had lived for forty-five years (30 April 1603).
In his eloffefunebre,whichweiS attended by the
nuncio and many other magnates and a great
concourse of people, he is styled l unique
Phoenix de la nation 6cossaise en qualit6 de
prelat.' Unique he certainly was among the
churchmen of that time in leaving behind
him an unblemished reputation, for even
his enemies could rake up no scandal either
in his private or public life to bring against
him.

[Oraison Funebre by Abbe Gayer, Paris, 1603;
Kegister of the Diocese of Glasgow; Knox's His-
tory with Laing's notes ; Queen Mary's Letters ;
Cosmo Innes's Sketches of E arly Scottish History ;
Chambers's Biographies of Eminent Scotchmen.]

M. M'A.

BEATSON, ALEXANDER (1759-1833),
lieutenant-general in the East India Com-
pany's service, governor of St. Helena, and
experimental agriculturist, was second son
of Eobert Beatson, Esq., of Kilrie, co. Fife.
He obtained a cadetship in 1775, and was
appointed to an ensigncy in the Madras in-
fantry, 21 Nov. 1776. He served as an
engineer officer in the war with Hyder Ali,
although he appears never to have belonged
to the engineers. As lieutenant, he served
with the Guides in Lord Cornwallis's cam-
paigns against Tippoo Sultaun; and eight
years after, as a field officer, was surveyor-
general with the army under Lieutenant-
general Harris, which captured Seringapatam
in 1799. He attained the rank of colonel
1 Jan. 1801.

After he had quitted India, Beatson was
appointed to the governorship of St. Helena,
which he held from 1808 to 1813. The
island, which then belonged to the East
India Company, was in a very unsatisfactory

condition. The scanty population had been
nearly swept off by an epidemic of measles
a short time previously, and, although re-
cruited by emigrants from England and by
Chinese coolies, was in a wretched state.
The acts of the home authorities in sup-
pressing the spirit traffic and other matters
gave rise to great discontent, resulting in a
mutiny in 1811, which was put down by the
firmness of Beatson, who also introduced a
better system of cultivation and many other
beneficial measures. After his return to
England, he devoted much attention to ex-
periments in agriculture at Knole farm near
Tunbridge Wells, and Henley, Essex. He
became major-general July 1810, lieutenant-
general June 1814, and died 14 July 1833.
Beatson was the author of the following
works : 1. ' An Account of the Isles of
France and Bourbon,' 1794, which was never
printed, and remains in manuscript at the
British Museum (Add. MS. 13868). 2. < A
View of the Origin and Conduct of the
War against Tippoo Sultaun' (London,
1800, 4to). 3. < Tracts relative to the Island
of St. Helena,' with views (London, 1816,
4to), and other smaller works on the island
besides contributions to the St. Helena
1 Monthly Register.' 4. * A New System
of Cultivation without Lime or Dung, or
Summer Fallowing, as practised at Knole
Farm, Sussex' (London, 1820, 8vo); and
various papers on improvements in agri-
culture.

[Dodswell and Miles's Alph. Lists Ind. Army ;
Vibart's Hist, of Madras Sappers and Miners,
vol. i. ; Beatson's writings.] H. M. C.

BEATSON, BENJAMIN WRIGGLES-
WORTH (1803-1874), classical scholar, was
educated first at Merchant Taylors' School,
and afterwards at Pembroke College, Cam-
bridge, where he graduated B. A. in 1825 and
M.A. in 1828. He was elected a fellow of
his college soon after taking his first degree,
and was senior fellow at the time of his death
(24 July 1874). He compiled the 'Index
Grsecitatis yEschyleae,' which was published
at Cambridge in 1830 in the first volume of
the ' Index in Tragicos Grtecos.1 An edition
of Ainsworth's ' Thesaurus Linguae Latinae,'
revised by Beatson, was issued in 1829, and
republished in 1830 and in 1860. His other
works were : 1. ' Progressive Exercises on
the Composition of Greek Iambic Verse . . .
For the use of King's School, Canterbury,'
Cambridge, 1836; a popular school book,
which reached a tenth edition in 1871.
2. ' Exercises on Latin Prose Composition,'
1840. 3. < Lessons in Ancient History,' 1853.

Beatson

21

Beatson

4. An edition of Demosthenes' Oration against
the Law of Leptines, 1864.

[Athenaeum, 1 Aug. 1874 ; Luard's Grad. Can-
tab. 1760-1856; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

BEATSON, GEOKGE STEWARD,
M.D. (d. 1874), surgeon-general, graduated
in arts and medicine at Glasgow, where he
took the degree of M.D. in 1836. In 1838 he
joined the army medical department, and
did duty on the staff' in Ceylon from 1839 to
1851. He was surgeon to the 51st foot in the
second Burmese war, and subsequently served
in Turkey during the Crimean war, where
he rendered valuable services in the organi-
sation of the hospitals at Smyrna. After
serving as deputy inspector-general in the
Ionian islands and Madras, he became
surgeon-general in 1863, and was appointed
principal medical officer of European troops
in India, an appointment which he held for
the customary five years. For the next
three years he was in medical charge of the
Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley ; and in
1871 was appointed principal medical officer
in India for the second time. He was ap-
pointed a C.B. in 1869. He died suddenly
at Simla on 7 June 1874. Beatson, who was
an honorary physician to the queen, was
accounted one of the ablest officers in the
army medical service, but it is in the records
of the department, at home and in India,
rather than in professional literature, that
his labours will be noticed.

[Ann. Keg. 1874; Army Lists; Lancet, June
1874.] H. M. C.

BEATSON, ROBERT, LL.D. (1742-

1818), compiler and miscellaneous writer, was
born in 1742 at Dysart in Fifeshire. He was
educated for the military profession, and on
one of his title-pages describes himself as
'late of his majesty's corps of Royal En-
gineers.' It was probably as a subaltern in
this corps that he accompanied the unsuc-
cessful expedition against Rochefort in 1757,
and was present with the force which, reach-
ing the West Indies early in 1759, failed in
the attack on Martinique, but succeeded in
capturing Guadaloupe. He is represented
in 1766 as retiring on half-pay, and as failing,
in spite of repeated applications, to secure
active employment during the American
war. Afterwards he seems to have betaken
himself to practical agriculture in his native
county, his writings on the subject being
such as could have scarcely emanated from
any one not a practical agriculturist. He
became an honorary member of the Board
of Agriculture, of the Royal Highland
Society of Scotland, and of the London So-
ciety of Arts. For the information of the

first of these bodies he drew up an elabo-
rate ' General View of the Agriculture of
the County of Fife, with observations on
the means of its improvement,' which was
published in 1794, and in which he styles
himself ' Robert Beatson, Esq., of Pitterdie.'
In this report he advocated long leases and
the encouragement of small holdings. In
1798 he published ' An Essay on the Com-
parative Advantages of Vertical and Hori-
zontal Windmills, containing a description of
an horizontal windmill and watermill upon
a new construction,' &c. For this wheel he
took out a patent, and a model of it was ex-
hibited in London. To the fifth volume of
A. Hunter's ' Georgical Essays ' (York, 1804)
Beatson contributed practical papers (in one
of them he speaks of having recently made an
agricultural tour in many parts of England)
on farm-buildings, farmhouses, barns, and
stables.

Besides writing on agriculture, Beatson
was the author of several works of much
more general utility. In 1786 he published
in three parts his well-known 'Political Index
to the Histories of Great Britain and Ireland,
or a complete register of the hereditary
honours, public offices, and persons in office
from the earliest periods to the present time.'
It was dedicated to the author's friend,
Adam Smith, who had expressed approval
of the work. From its completeness as well
as accuracy, it is a most useful, valuable, and
indeed a unique work of reference. In 1788
it reached a second edition, in two volumes,
containing nearly twice as much matter as
the first, and a third edition in 1806. In
1790 appeared, in three volumes, Beatsou's
' Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Bri-
tain, from the year 1727 to the present time/
also a useful work, in which the naval element
predominates. To the narrative are appended
lists of the ships in the squadrons and fleets
of France and Spain as well as of Great
Britain during the period dealt with, and
also despatches, state papers, and geogra-
phical descriptions of the places referred to
in the text. In 1807 appeared the last of
Beatson's works, of reference, three volumes
of ' A Chronological Register of both Houses
of Parliament from the Union in 1708 to the
Third Parliament of the United Kingdom of
Grreat Britain and Ireland.' Besides lists of
3eers qualified to sit in each parliament,
bounties and boroughs alphabetically ar-
ranged are given in chronological order, with
;he names of their members in every house
f commons during the period embraced, and
notes chronicling as they arose the changes,
with their causes, in the representation of
each constituency. Election petitions and

Beattie

22

Beattie

the decisions on them are likewise given with
a statement of the elective authority, and of
the nature of the electoral franchise in each
constituency. Beatson was also the author
of a pamphlet on the indecisive engagement
fought off Usliant by the fleets under Ad-
miral Keppel and Count d'Orvilliers— < A
New and Distinct View of the memorable
Action of the 27th July 1778, in which the
Aspersions cast on the Flag Officers are shown
to be totally unfounded.' He died at Edin-
burgh on 24 Jan. 1818. One obituary no-
tice describes him as 'late barrack-master at
Aberdeen.' It is uncertain whether Edin-
burgh or Aberdeen university conferred on
him his degree of LL.D.

[Beatson's writings; Gent. Mag. for April
1818; Annual Biography and Obituary for 1819;
Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors
of Great Britain and Ireland, 1816.] F. E.

BEATTIE, GEORGE(1786-1823),Scotch
poet, was the eldest son of a crofter and sal-
mon fisher at Whitehills, near St. Cyrus,
Kincardineshire, where he was born in 1786.
He received a good education at the parish
school. During his boyhood he was noto-
rious for his frolics and love of practical jokes.
It is also related of him that on Saturday
afternoons it was his delight to wander among
the ' braes ' of St. Cyrus, and that he used to
1 visit the auld kirkyard with a kind of me-
lancholy pleasure.' When the boy was about
thirteen years of age, his father obtained
a situation on the excise at Montrose, and
* young George,' it is said, walked all the way
to his new home ' with a tame kae (jackdaw)
on his shoulder.' After an ineffectual attempt
to become a mechanic he obtained a clerkship
in Aberdeen, but six weeks later his employer
died, bequeathing him a legacy of 50/. Return-
ing to Montrose, Beattie entered the office of
the procurator-fiscal, and on the completion
of his legal education in Edinburgh he esta-
blished himself in Montrose as a writer or at-
torney. His remarkable conversational gifts,
especially as a humourist, rendered him a
general favourite among his companions, and,
being combined with good business talents,
contributed to his speedy success in his pro-
fession. In 1815 he contributed to the ' Mont-
rose Review ' a poem, ' John o' Arnha,' which
lie afterwards elaborated with much care, and
published in a separate form, when its rol-
licking humour and vivid descriptions soon
secured it a wide popularity. Its incidents
bear some resemblance to those of 'Tarn
o' Shanter,' of which it may be called a pale
reflex. In 1818 he published in the ' Review '
a poem in the old Scotch dialect, written
when he was a mere boy, and entitled the

1 Murderit Mynstrell.' The poem, which is
in a totally different vein from 'John o'
Arnha,' is characterised throughout by a
charming simplicity, a chastened tenderness
of sentiment, and a delicacy of delineation
which are sometimes regarded as the special
attributes of the earlier English poets. In
1819 he published also in the ' Review ' the
' Bark,' and in 1820 a wild and eerie rhap-
sody, entitled the l Dream.' He also wrote
several smaller lyrics. In 1821 Beattie made
the acquaintance of a young lady with whom
he contracted a marriage engagement. Be-
fore, however, the marriage was completed,
the lady fell heir to a small fortune, and re-
jected Beattie for a suitor who occupied a
better rank in life. Deeply wounded by the
disappointment, Beattie from that time medi-
tated self-destruction. After completing a
narrative of his relations with the lady, con-
tained in a history of his life from 1821 to
1823, he provided himself with a pistol, and,
going to St. Cyrus, shot himself by the side
of his sister's grave 29 Sept. 1823. Since his
death his poems have gone through several
editions, and a collection of them, accom-
panied with a memoir, has been published
under the title ' George Beattie, Montrose, a
poet, a humourist, and a man of genius/ by
A. S. M* Cyrus, M.A.

[Memoir mentioned above.] T. F. H.

BEATTIE, JAMES (1735-1803), poet,
essayist, and moral philosopher, was born
at Laurencekirk, Kincardine, Scotland; on
25 Oct. 1735. His father, a shopkeeper
and small farmer, dying in 1742, the boy was
supported by his eldest brother, David, who
sent him in 1749 to the Marischal College,
Aberdeen, where he soon obtained a bursary.
At Aberdeen he studied Greek under Thomas
Blackwell, author of < An Inquiry into the
Life and Writings of Homer,' but showed
no aptitude for mathematics. In 1753, having
taken the degree of M.A., and being anxious
to obtain immediate employment in order to
relieve his brother from further expense, he
accepted the post of schoolmaster and parish
clerk to the parish of Fardoun, near Laurence-
kirk. Here he made the acquaintance of
Lord Gardenstown and Lord Monboddo, and
began to come into notice by his contributions
to the 'Scots Magazine.' He had always
been fond of music, and now cultivated it
zealously in his retirement. We are assured
by his biographers that, in his admiration
for the romantic scenery, he would often
stay whole nights under the open sky, re-
turning home at sunrise. The impressions
gained during his residence at Fardoun are
apparent in the descriptive passages of his

Beattie

Beattie

best and most celebrated poem, written many
years afterwards, the * Minstrel.' With a
view to entering the church he returned
during the winter to the Marischal College,
in order to attend some divinity lectures. In
1758 he was appointed to a vacant master-
ship at the grammar school of Aberdeen;
and two years afterwards, much to his own
surprise, was raised, by the influence of a
powerful friend, to the chair of moral philo-
sophy and logic in the Marischal College.
He began to lecture in the winter session of !
1760-1, and for upwards of thirty years
continued to discharge his duties with in-
dustry and ability. There existed at Aber-
deen a literary and convivial club, known as !
the ' Wise Club/ consisting chiefly of pro-
fessors who used to meet once a fortnight at j
a tavern to read essays. Beattie was ad-
' xnitted to membership, and enjoyed the society |
of Dr. Reid, Dr. Campbell, Dr. Gregory, and
other worthies.

In 1761 he published his first volume,
* Original Poems and Translations,' dedicated I
to the Earl of Erroll, consisting of pieces j
contributed to the ' Scots Magazine ' and '
verses recently composed. ' This collection,'
says his biographer, Sir William Forbes, f was
very favourably received, and stamped Dr.
Beattie with the character of a poet of
great and original genius.' The poet, too
sensible to form such an astounding judg-
ment, used in later years to destroy all the
copies that he could find, and only four pieces
from the collection were allowed to accom-
pany the * Minstrel.'

' Beattie's first visit to London was paid in
the summer of 1763, on which occasion he
made a pilgrimage to Pope's villa at Twicken- |
ham. In 1765 he published a smoothly I
•written but inanimate poem, the ' Judgment •
of Paris,' and later in the same year * Verses j
on the Death of Churchill,' a most abusive j
performance which he afterwards suppressed. [
In the autumn of 1765 Beattie addressed a j
letter in terms of extravagant flattery to the i
poet Gray, who was on a visit to the Earl of ,
Strathmore at Glammis Castle. ' Will you j
permit us,' he wrote, ' to hope that we shall '
nave an opportunity at Aberdeen of thanking !
you in person for the honour you have done |
to Britain and to the poetic art by your ines-
timable compositions ? ' In response arrived
a letter of invitation to Glammis; a very
cordial meeting followed, and a lasting friend-
ship sprang up between the poets. A new
edition of Beattie's poems appeared in 1766.
Writing to Dr. Blacklock on 22 Sept. of that
year, he announced that he was engaged on
a poem in the Spenserian stanza, wherein he
proposed to be either ' droll or pathetic, de-

scriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical,
as the humour strikes.' In May of the fol-
lowing year he recurred to the subject :- < My
performance in Spenser's stanza has not ad-
vanced a single line these many months. It
is called the " Minstrel." The subject was
suggested by a dissertation on the old min-
strels which is prefixed to a collection of
ballads lately published by Dodsley in three
volumes.' In 1768 he wrote (in the * Aberdeen
Journal') a poetical address in broad Scotch
to Alexander Ross, author of a poem in that
dialect, ' The Fortunate Shepherdess.'

On 28 June 1767 Beattie married Mary
Dunn, daughter of the rector of the grammar
school, Aberdeen. This lady became some
years afterwards afflicted with insanity, a
malady inherited from her mothei. At first
it showed itself in strange follies, as when
she took some china jars from the mantel-
piece and arranged them on the top of the
parlour-door so that they might fall on her
husband's head when he entered (DYCE'S
Prefatory Memoir to Beattie1 s Poems in the
Aldine Series). Finally she became so violent
that she had to be separated from the family.
Two sons were the issue of the marriage.

Hitherto Beattie had been known only as
a poet ; he now aspired to make his mark as
a philosopher. In his professorial capacity
he had been compelled to make some ac-
quaintance with the writings of Hume, and
he now announced his intention of exposing
the absurdity of that philosopher's system.
' Our sceptics,' he writes to Dr. Blacklock,
' either believe the doctrines they publish, or
they do not believe them; if they believe
them they are fools, if not they are some-
thing worse.' The result of Beattie's in-
quiries was given to the world in 1770 under
the title of an t Essay on Truth.' Being
anxious to sell the manuscript to a publisher,
Beattie had asked his friends Sir William.
Forbes and Mr. Arbuthnot to conduct negotia-
tions. These gentlemen, finding a difficulty
in disposing of the manuscript, determined
to publish the book on their own account,
wrote to the author that the manuscript was
sold, and sent him fifty guineas. The book
was received very favourably, passed through,
five large editions in four years, and was
translated into French, German, Dutch, and
Italian. In the history of philosophy it has
not the slightest importance. The loose,
commonplace character of the professor's
reasoning made the essay popular among such
readers as wish to be thought acquainted with
the philosophy of the day, while they have
neither the ability nor inclination to grapple
with metaphysical problems. Attacks on.
Hume in singularly bad taste abound through-

Beattie

Beattie

out the book. Hume is said to have com- |
plained that he ' had not been used like a |
gentleman ; ' and this probably is the only
notice that he deigned to take of the pro-
fessor's labours.

In 1771 appeared anonymously the first
book of the ' Minstrel,' which passed through
four editions before the publication (in 1774)
of the second book. The harmony of versi-
fication and the beauty of the descriptive
passages have preserved this poem from the
oblivion which has overtaken Beattie's other
writings. Immediately after the publication
of the first book Gray wrote to congratulate
the author and offer some minute criticism.
In a letter to the Dowager Lady Forbes,
dated 12 Oct. 1772, Beattie confessed that
he intended to paint himself under the cha-
racter of Edwin.

His health having been impaired by the
labour bestowed on the composition of the
' Essay on Truth,' Beattie went for a change
to London in the autumn of 1771. Here he
made the acquaintance of Mrs. Montagu,
Hawkesworth, Armstrong, Garrick, and Dr.
Johnson. In one of his letters he writes :
' Johnson has been greatly misrepresented,
I have passed several days with him and
found him extremely agreeable.' He returned !
to Aberdeen in December. Partly for the I
sake of his health and partly in the hope of
improving his prospects, he came again to :
London in April 1773, accompanied by his !
wife. Having called on Lord Dartmouth |
with a letter of introduction, he was shortly
afterwards invited to wait on Lord North,
who assured him that the king should be made
acquainted with his arrival. At the .same
time he became familiar with Dr. Porteus,
afterwards bishop of London. By Lord
Dartmouth he was presented, at the first
levee after his arrival, to the king, and a few
days later he received the honorary degree
of doctor of laws at Oxford. On 20 Aug.
an official letter arrived from Lord North's
secretary announcing that the king had con-
ferred upon him 200/. a year. Shortly after-
wards Beattie paid his respects to the king
and queen at Kew, and was received very
affably. ' I never stole a book but one,' said
his majesty, l and that was yours. I stole it
from the queen to give it to Lord Hertford
to read.' They conversed on the state of
moral philosophy and deplored the progress
of infidelity, the king remarking that he
' could hardly believe that any thinking man
could really be an atheist, unless he could
bring himself to believe that he made him-
self; a thought which pleased the king ex-
ceedingly, and he repeated it several times
to the queen.' About this time his portrait

was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who
generously made him a present of it. In the
picture Beattie is represented in his doctor's
gown, Vith the ' Essay on Truth ' under his
arm; beside him stands Truth, holding in
one hand a pair of scales, and with the other
thrusting down three figures (two of which
are meant to represent Hume and Voltaire)
emblematic of Prejudice, Scepticism, and
Folly. After five months' stay in London
Beattie returned to Aberdeen.

In 1773 Beattie declined the offer of the
vacant chair of moral philosophy at Edin-
burgh ; nor could he be persuaded to accept
a living in the Anglican church. Three years-
afterwards appeared a new edition, published
by subscription, in quarto, of the 'Essay
on Truth,' to which were appended three
essays, ' On Poetry and Music as they affect
the Mind,' 'On Laughter and Ludicrous
Composition,' and ' On the Utility of Classical
Learning.' A new edition of the ' Minstrel,'
together with such other poems as the author
wished to preserve, was published in 1777.
A letter to Dr. Blair, ' On the Improvement
of Psalmody in Scotland,' was printed for
private circulation in 1778, which was fol-
lowed (in 1779) by a l List of Scotticisms,'
published for the use of those who attended
his lectures. In 1780 he contributed a paper
1 On Dreaming ' to the l Mirror ; ' and in 1783
he published ' Dissertations Moral and Cri-
tical,' a book which met with the most en-
thusiastic praise from Cowper, who declared,
in a letter to Hayley, that Beattie was the
only author he had seen l whose critical and
philosophical researches are diversified and
embellished by a poetical imagination that
makes even the driest subject and the leanest
a feast for epicures.'

To seek relief from domestic troubles (his
wife's insanity being now confirmed), Beattie
paid a visit to London in 1784, and after-
wards spent some time with Dr. Porteus
(now bishop of Chester) at Hunton near
Maidstone. In 1786 he published his l Evi-
dences of the Christian Religion,' and in the
following year he came again to London, on
which occasion he visited the king and queen
at Windsor. The first volume of his ' Ele-
ments of Moral Science ' appeared in 1790,
and about this time he superintended an
edition of Addison's l Periodical Papers,'
adding a few notes to Tickell's Life and
Johnson's Remarks. Vol. ii. of the ' Trans-
actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh '
contains some remarks by Beattie l On Pas-
sages of the Sixth Book of the ^Eneid.' On
19 Nov. he suffered a severe affliction by the
loss of his eldest son (aged 22), James Hay
Beattie, a young man of considerable promise.

Beattie

Beattie

In the following April he went with his
second son to London, and spent some time
at Fulham with Dr. Porteus, now bishop
of London. The second volume of ' Ele-
ments of Moral Science,' which contained a
strong attack on the slave trade, appeared in
1793; and in the same year his favourite
sister, Mrs. Valentine, died. His health be-
came now so impaired that he was unable to
attend to his duties and was obliged to en-
gage an assistant. He continued, however,
to deliver occasional lectures until 1797. In
1794 he issued for private circulation ' Essays
and Fragments in Prose and Verse, by James
Hay Beattie ' (published afterwards for sale
in 1799), to which he prefixed an affecting
biographical sketch. Meanwhile his second
son, Montagu, became seriously ill, grew from
bad to worse, and died in 1796. As he looked
for the last time on the body, the father ex-
claimed, 1 1 have now done with the world.'
He was quite stupefied with grief, and for a
time his memory forsook him. In April 1799
he was struck with palsy, which kept him
almost speechless for eight days. From this
attack he recovered, but the malady frequently
returned, and he eventually succumbed to it,
after great suffering, on 18 Aug. 1803. He
was buried next to his sons in St. Nicholas's
churchyard, Aberdeen, and Dr. James Gregory
wrote a Latin inscription for his tomb. In
his later years he had grown somewhat cor-
pulent, but it was noticed that he grew
thinner a few months before his death.

A life of Beattie by Sir William Forbes,
who had much enthusiasm but little judg-
ment, appeared in 1806. Beattie's letters, of
which there is a profusion in these volumes,
are for the most part dull and cumbersome.

[Bower's Account of the Life of James Beattie,
1804 ; Sir W. Forbes's Account of the Life and
Writings of James Beattie,' 1806: Edinburgh
Review, No. xix. The best edition of Beattie's
'Poems ' is in the Aldine Series, edited by Rev.
Alexander Dyce. In the British Museum there
is a copy of the second edition of Forbes's book,
containing manuscript annotations by Mrs. Piozzi,
formerly Mrs. Thrale, who (as we learn from
Boswell's Johnson) once declared that ' if she
had another husband she would have Beattie.']

A. H. B.

BEATTIE, JAMES HAY (1768-1790),
son of Dr. James Beattie, author of the
' Minstrel,' was born at Aberdeen on 6 Nov.
1768. Having received the rudiments of his
education at the grammar school of his native
city, he was entered, in his thirteenth year,
as a student in Marischal College. From the
first he showed premature capacity. He took
his degree of M.A. in 1786. In June 1787,
when he was not quite nineteen, on the

unanimous recommendation of the Senatus
Academicus of Marischal College, he was ap-
pointed by the king ' assistant professor and
successor to his father ' in the chair of moral
philosophy and logic. Although very young,,
he fulfilled the requirements of his position.
He was studious and variously cultured,
being especially devoted to music. But his
career was destined to be brief. On 30 Nov.
1789 he was prostrated by fever. He lingered
in ' uttermost weakness ' for a year, and died
19 Nov. 1790, in his twenty-second year.
In 1794 his heart-broken father privately
printed his l Remains ' in prose and verse,
and prefixed a ' Life.' The book was pub-
lished in 1799.

[Beattie's Life of his son.] A. B. G-.

BEATTIE, WILLIAM, M.D. (179&-

1875), was born at Dalton, Annandale. His
father, James Beattie, had been educated as
an architect and surveyor, but his real occu-
pation was that of a builder. He lost his
life by an accident in 1809. It has been said
that his son inherited from him his classical,
and from his mother his poetical, tendencies.
TheBeattieshad been settled in Dumfriesshire
for several generations. When just fourteen
he went to school at Clarencefield Academy
in Dumfriesshire, and during his stay there of
six years, under the rector, Mr. Thomas Fer-
gusson, attained a competent knowledge of
Latin, Greek, and French. In 1812 he became
a medical student at Edinburgh University,
and took his M.D. degree with credit in
1818. He helped to keep himself at the uni-
versity by undertaking, during a portion of
his college course, the mastership of the
parochial school at Cleish, Kinross-shire, and
other kinds of tuition. Of his university
days he says : ' At college I acquired the
usual accomplishments of young men of my
own humble standing in society. I danced
with "Doigt," wrestled and fenced with
Roland, read to a rich dotard in the even-
ings, and sat up night after night to make
up for lost time, and then took a walk on
the Calton Hill as a substitute for sleep;
but even then, when surrounded by gay and
brilliant companions, I never forgot my reli-
gious duties, and the God whom I remem-
bered in my youth has not forsaken me in
my old age.' He remained for two years at
Edinburgh after taking his diploma, living
chiefly ' out of his inkhorn,' teaching, lectur-
ing, translating, and conducting a small pri-
vate practice. During this period he wrote
1 The Lay of a Graduate,' i Rosalie,' and ' The
Swiss Relic.' He afterwards practised me-
dicine in Cumberland, and in 1822 was in
London preparing to settle in Russia. This

Beattie

Beattie

project he abandoned on becoming engaged to
be married to a young lady of fortune, and 'no
inconsiderable attractions/ Miss Elizabeth
Limner. He accordingly spent three months
in Paris, attending the hospitals, returned to
London, was married in the autumn of 1822, i
and was about to commence a medical practice !
at Dover when he received a summons from the '
Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV), I
to whom he had been introduced by Admiral
Child, a connection of Mrs. Beattie's, to attend
the duke's family on a visit to the courts of }
Germany. At the close of the winter he re-
sumed his studies in Paris, and the next two
years he spent travelling and studying IE
Italy, Switzerland, and on the Rhine. At
the end of 1824 he entered upon a medical
practice at Worthing (the salubrity of whose
climate he recommended in a pamphlet pub-
lished in 1858), but left it in the following
March to again accompany the Duke and j

Duchess of Clarence to Germany. On this

occasion, at Gottingen, he made the ac- |
quaintance of Blumenbach, of whom he says :
1 Though I have been in company with some
of the prime spirits of the age, I have met
none from whose conversation I have derived
so much solid and original information.' He
also busied himself in investigating the medi-
cinal properties of the most renowned Ger-
man spas. In recrossing the Channel in
October on the steamer Comet he was nearly
wrecked on the Goodwin Sands. On his re- i
turn to London he published ' The Helio- I
trope ' and ' The Courts of Germany,' which j
lie completed in a new edition in 1838. \
Early in 1826 he for the third time formed '
one of the suite of the Duke of Clarence on. j
a German visit, and ingratiated himself with !
the Queen of Wiirtemberg, Princess Royal
of Great Britain. When she visited Eng-
land he was sent for to attend her at Hamp-
ton Court and Windsor. He repaid her
majesty's good opinion by a nattering me-
moir of her in 1829. The only recompense
Dr. Beattie ever received for all his services
to the Duke of Clarence, extending over
some fourteen years, including, during three
years, those also of private secretary, were a
service of silver plate and a letter certifying
him to be * a perfect gentleman.' Dr. Beattie,
however, appears to have been grateful. The
duchess added l a pair of bracelets for Mrs.
Beattie, knit by her own hands,' and, after
lier coronation, a gold medallion, as a mark
of her majesty's esteem and regard ; while
the King of Prussia, whom he had profes-
sionally attended, also sent him a gold me-
dallion accompanied by *a complimentary
autograph letter.'

In 1827 Dr. Beattie was admitted a licen-

tiate of the Royal College of Physicians,
London, and established himself in Hamp-
stead, where for eighteen years he enjoyed
an extensive practice. In 1835 and 1836 he
travelled in Switzerland and in the land of
the Waldenses, and in the former year was in
Paris at the time of Fieschi's attempt upon
the life of Louis-Philippe, and in the imme-
diate vicinity of the explosion. He was too
a frequent contributor to the periodicals, and
he published during this period two poems —
' John Huss ' and * Polynesia ' — ' Ports and
Harbours of the Danube,' and a series of de-
scriptive and historical works, beautifully il-
lustrated by his friend and fellow traveller,
the well-known W. H. Bartlett [q. v.], on
' Switzerland,' < Scotland,' l The Waldenses,'
' Castles and Abbeys of England,' and ' The
Danube.' He also edited the ' Scenic Annual,'
for which the poet Campbell was supposed to
be responsible, ' Beckett's Dramatic Works,'
and ' Lives of Eminent Conservative States-
men.' Of the 'Scenic Annual' a leading cri-
tical journal observed, ' The name of Campbell
is a sufficient pledge for its poetic character ; '
while Beattie, in a memorandum for the year
1838, wrote : ' Published " Scenic Annual,"
by which I gained for Campbell 200/. clear ;
all the pieces, three excepted, are mine? ' Scot-
land Illustrated' passed through several
editions, and elicited the acknowledgment
from its publisher, Mr. Virtue, ' that the
prosperity he had attained was mainly owing
to Dr. Beattie's literary assistance.'

In 1833 Dr. Beattie was introduced by her
biographer, Madden, to the Countess of Bles-
sington, and became her very useful friend.
She frequently availed herself of his services
as a poetical contributor to her * Book of
Beauty ' and other annuals, bestowing upon
him in return for his verses ^a large amount
of fluent flattery, and a general invitation
to Seymour Place for any ' evenings between
ten and half-past twelve,' a privilege of which
Beattie could not avail himself in conse-
quence of the state of his eyes. When Lady
Blessington was deserted by many, Beattie
remained her firm friend. Madden tells us
that ' the very last letter, a very short time
before the crash at Gore House, was one of
entreaty for his exertions among the pub-
lishers to procure for her "any kind of literary
employment ; " and the answer to that appli-
cation was a letter of pain at the failure of
every effort to accomplish her wishes.' Beat-
tie's relations with Lady Byron also would
appear to have been confidential. A friend
of Beattie's, whose obituary of him may be
found in the ' Dumfriesshire and Galloway
Herald ' (24 March 1875), says that Beattie
told him that Lady Byron ' had imparted to

Beattie

Beatty

him the true reason of her separation from
her husband, and that it was not the one
given by Mrs. Stowe.'

vDr. Beattie was long intimate with Thomas
Campbell, and was selected by the poet as his
biographer, an office which he discharged in
1849 by the publication of ' The Life and
Letters of Thomas Campbell,' in three vo-
lumes. In 1833 Beattie speaks of Campbell
as coming to take up his quarters at ' Rose
Villa,' Beattie's cottage at Hampstead, where
on former occasions he had experienced much
benefit, and adds : ' These visits in after life
were frequently repeated, and whenever he
found himself relapsing into a depressed state
of health and spririts, " Well," he would say,
"I must come into hospital," and he would re-
pair for another week to " Campbell's Ward,"
a room so named by the poet in the doctor's
house.' In 1842 Campbell's ' Pilgrim of Glen-
coe' appeared, dedicated ; To William Beattie,
M.D., in remembrance of long subsisting and
mutual friendship.' Both as physician and
friend Beattie seems to have been the great
stay of the poet's declining years. On hear-
ing of Campbell's illness in 1844, Beattie
hastened to his bedside at Boulogne, and
never left him again until all was over.
Campbell's cherished wish to find his last
resting-place in Westminster Abbey would
probably never have been realised but for
Beattie, nor would a statue have been placed
in 'Poet's Corner' to his memory had not
Beattie collected contributions to it, and
made good a considerable deficit out of his
own pocket. He was also intimate with
Samuel Rogers, who attributed his longevity
to the care and vigilance of his physician,
and who requested him to perform for him
the same sad office Beattie had discharged
for Campbell — that of closing his eyes in
death. His intercourse with Rogers was,
however, far less close than that with
Campbell.

In 1845 Beattie's wife died, and soon after-
wards he gave up regular practice as a physi-
cian ; but he continued to the close of his life
to give medical advice to clergymen, men of
letters, and others without accepting profes-
sional fees, and otherwise to occupy his time
in works of charity. In 1846 he published,
for instance, a memoir of his friend Bartlett
for the benefit of the artist's family, which
realised 400/., and through his influence
with the prime minister obtained a pension
of 75/. a year for his widow. This was the
last of his systematic literary works, but he
continued to contribute papers to the Archaeo-
logical Society, and to write articles for the
reviews.

Beattie's only strictly professional work,

unless we except his pamphlet on 'Home
Climates and Worthing,' was a Latin treatise
on pulmonary consumption, the subject of
his M.D. thesis at Edinburgh. Some of his
works were translated into German and
French. He was foreign secretary to the
British Archaeological Society, fellow of the
I Ethnological Society, member of the His-
torical Institute, and of thelnstitut d'Afrique,
Paris.

Dr. Beattie lost 7,000/. by the failure of
the Albert Assurance office. This was a
great shock to one of his advanced age, and
probably accelerated his end ; but he bore
the loss with manly fortitude, and all he said
in reference to it (to a writer in the ' Medical
Times ') was that ' he should be obliged to
give up his charitable donations to the amount
of 300/. a year.' Dr. Beattie's own verdict
on his laborious, painstaking, benevolent, and
interesting life, t Laboriose vixi nihil agendo,'
is much more modest than correct. He died
on 17 March 1875, at 13 Upper Berkeley
Street, Portman Square, at the age of eighty-
two, and was buried by the side of his wife
at Brighton. He had no children. It is
understood that he left an autobiography,
which has not yet seen the light.

[Scotsman, 26 March 1875 ; Dumfriesshire
and Galloway Herald, 24 March 1875; Medical
Times, 3 April 1875 ; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel ;
Madden's Literary Life and Correspondence of
the Countess of Blessington ; Cooper's Men of
the Time, 9th edition ; Beattie's Journal of a
Residence in G-ermany ; Beattie's Life and Cor-
respondence of Thomas Campbell.] P. B.-A.

BEATTY, SIR WILLIAM, M.D. (d.

1842), surgeon on board the Victory at the
battle of Trafalgar, entered the service of
the navy at an early age, and saw much ser-
vice in it in various districts of the globe.
In 1806 he was appointed physician to the
Greenwich Hospital, an office which he re-
tained till 1840. He attended Lord Nelson
after he received his mortal wound, and pub-
lished ' An Authentic Narrative of the Death
of Lord Nelson, with the Circumstances pre-
ceding, attending, and subsequent to that
Event ; the Professional Report of his Lord-
ship's Wound ; and several Interesting Anec-
dotes,' 1807, 2nd edition, 1808. He gives in
the book a representation of the ball which
killed Nelson, with the pieces of the coat,
gold lace, and silk pad which remained fixed
in it. The ball Beatty retained in his posses-
sion in a crystal case mounted in gold. Beatty
obtained the degree of M.D. from the uni-
versity of St. Andrews on 14 Oct. 1817, was
made licentiate of the College of Physicians
on 22 Dec. of the same year, and was elected
F.R.S. on 30 April 1818. On 25 May 1831

Beauchamp

Beauchamp

he received the honour of knighthood from
William IV. He died in York Street, Port-
man Square, on 25 March 1842.

[Gent. Mag. (N.S.)xviii. 209; Annual Kegister
for 1842, p. 260 ; Nicholas's Despatches and Let-
ters of Nelson; Munk's Coll. of Phys. (1878),
iii. 177.] T. F. H.

BEAUCHAMP, GUY DE, EARL OF
WARWICK (d. 1315), a lord ordainer, suc-
ceeded his father, William, earl of Warwick,
the grandson of Walter de Beauchamp [see
BEAUCHAMP, WALTER DE, d. 1236], in 1298.
He distinguished himself at once by his bravery
at Falkirk (22 July 1298), for which he re-
ceived grants of estates in Scotland, and he
did homage for his lands 15 Sept. (Hot. Fin.

26 Ed. I. m. 1). He was one of the seven
earls who signed the famous letter to the pope
(12 Feb. 1301), rejecting his authority in the
Scottish question. He also took part in the
next Scotch campaign (1303-4), including the
Biege of Stirling; and, attending King Edward
to his last campaign, was present at his death
(7 July 1307), when he was warned by him
against Piers Gaveston. On the accession of
Edward II Gaveston returned to England,
and dubbed Warwick, in insult, from his
swarthy complexion, ' the black cur of Arden '
(T. WALS. i. 115). Warwick took part in pro-
curing his banishment (18 May 1308), and
alone refused to be reconciled to his recall in
the summer of 1309 (Chronicles, ii. 160).
With Thomas of Lancaster, who now headed
the opposition, and the Earls of Lincoln,
Oxford, and Arundel, he declined (HEMINGB.
ii. 275) to attend the council at York (26 Oct.
1309), and presented himself in arms, against
the king's orders, at the council of West-
minster (March 1310). Here he joined in
the petition for the appointment of t or-
dainers,' and was himself chosen (Chron. i.
170, 172) to act as one (20 March 1310). He
refused the royal summons to the Scottish
campaign (June 1310), busied himself in the
preparation of the ' ordinances,' and attended
their publication in St. Paul's Churchyard

27 Sept. 1310 (Chron. i. 270, ii. 164). On
the return of Gaveston (who had been ban-
ished by the ordinances) in January 1312,
Lancaster and his four confederates took up
arms, seized him, and committed him to the
custody of Pembroke, by whom he was" left
in charge for a time at Deddington Rectory,
near Warwick. At daybreak, on Sunday,
10 June, the Earl of Warwick, with 100
footmen and forty men-at-arms, surprised
him and carried him off to Warwick Castle
(TROKELOWE, 76, Chron. i. 206). On the
arrival of Lancaster, with Hereford and
Arundel, Gaveston was handed over to them

and beheaded by them on Blacklow Hill?
outside Warwick's fief (19 June 1312), the
earl himself declining to be present, and re-
fusing to take charge of the corpse (Chron.
i. 210). Edward instantly threatened ven-
geance, and Warwick and his confederates
met at Worcester to concert measures for
their mutual defence (ib. ii. 182). At tha
head of his foresters of Arden (ib. ii. 184) he
joined their forces at Ware in September, and
remained there during the negotiations of the
autumn, till peace was proclaimed on 22 De-
j cember (ib. i. 221, 225). On 16 Oct. 1313
I the confederates were finally pardoned, but

i1 refused the following year to serve in the
Scotch campaign, on the plea that the f or-
dinances ' had been disregarded (TROKELOWE,
83, Chron. ii. 201). A year later the Earl of
Warwick fell ill and died (10 Aug. 1315),
not without suspicions of poison (T. WALS.
i. 137). His untimely death, at forty-three,
was lamented by the chroniclers as that of a
( discreet and well-informed man' (Chron.
i. 236), whose wise advice had been invalu-
ble to the ordainers, and who had been
unanimously supported by the country (ib.
ii. 212). So highly was his sagacity esteemed,
that the Earl of Lincoln, the counsellor of
Edward I, urged his son-in-law, Thomas of
Lancaster, on his death-bed (February 1311)
to be guided by him in all things (TROKE-
LOWE, 53).

[Chronicles of Edward I and II (Eolls Series) ;
Chronica J. de Trokelowe (ib.) ; Thomas of
Walsiugham (ib.) ; Rymer's 1'oedera ; Dugdale's
Baronage, i. 229 ; Stubbs's Constitutional His-
tory, chap, xvi.] J. H. E.

BEAUCHAMP, HENRY DE, DUKE OF
WARWICK (1425-1445), was born at Hanley
Castle 21 March 1425, and succeeded his
father, Richard, earl of Warwick [see BEAU-
CHAMP, RICHARD DE, 1382-1439], in 1439.
In consideration of his father's merits he
was created premier earl by patent 2 April
1444, and duke of Warwick three days
later, with precedence above the duke of
Buckingham (which precedence was compro-
mised by act of parliament the same year).
He is asserted to have been also crowned
king of the Isle of Wight by Henry (Mon.
Ang. ii. 63 ; LELAND'S Itinerary ; NICOLAS'S
Synopsis, ed. Courthope, p. 500), but for this
there is no evidence (CoKE, &th Inst. p. 287 j
STUBBS'S Const. Hist. iii. 433). He died at
Hanley 11 June 1445, and was buried at
Tewkesbury, leaving an only child, Anne,
who died young, 3 Jan. 1449.

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 247 ; Lords' Third
Report on the Dignity of a Peer, pp. 155, 157,
210.] J. H. R.

Beauchamp

Beauchamp

BEAUCHAMP, SIR JOHN DE, LORD
BEAUCHAMP (d. 1388), minister of Richard II,
was the grandson and heir of John de Beau-
champ of Holt (brother of William, earl of
Warwick). He was steward of the house-
hold to Richard II from his accession ; was
created by him 'lord de Beauchamp and
baron of Kidderminster ' 10 Oct. 1387 (being
the first baron created by patent) ; was im-
peached of treason at the instance of the lords
appellant, with Sir Simon Burley [q. v.] and
others, by the ' Wonderful Parliament,' 12
March 1388, and was convicted after Easter,
and beheaded on Tower Hill

[Thomas of Walsingham (Rolls Series), ii.
173-4 ; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 250 ; Reports on
the Dignity of a Peer. i. 345, v. 81.] J. H. R.

BEAUCHAMP, RICHARD DE, EARL OF
WARWICK (1382-1439), a brave and chival-
rous warrior in an age of chivalry, of an ancient
family, whose ancestry was traced to the
legendary Guy of Warwick, was the son of
Thomas, earl of Warwick [see BEAUCHAMP,
THOMAS BE], by Margaret his wife, daughter
of William, Lord Ferrers of Groby. He was
born atSalwarp, in Worcestershire, on 28 Jan.
1382. His godfathers at baptism were King
Richard II and Richard Scrope, afterwards
archbishop of York, who was esteemed a
saint by the people after he was beheaded for
rebellion against Henry IV. Earl Richard's
first biographer, Rous — who speaks of Scrope
as ' then bishop of Lichfield ' — has been fol-
lowed by later writers hitherto, though a
reference to Le Neve shows that he was not
^a bishop till 1386. We have no record of
Beauchamp's boyhood, but in his eighteenth
year he was made a knight of the Bath at
•the coronation of Henry IV. He succeeded
his father as earl of Warwick in 1401, from
whom he received as a bequest, in addition
to his inheritance, ' a bed of silk, embroidered
with bears, and his arms ' (DUGDALE, i. 238).
On 26 Jan. 1403, when within two days of
attaining his majority, he jousted at the
coronation of Henry IV's queen, Joan of
Navarre. On 13 Feb. following he had livery
-of his lands after performing homage. That
same year he was retained to serve the king
with 100 men-at-arms and 300 archers, John
Lord Audley being then of his retinue, and
was put in commission for arraying the men
-of Warwickshire. He put Owen Glendower
to flight and captured his banner. He fought
against the Percys at the battle of Shrews-
bury (1403), and is said to have been made
knight of the Garter not long after. Some,
however, have questioned this date upon in-
ternal evidence, thinking his admission to the
Border must have been about 1420 ; but if the

accounts of the Wardrobe have been cor-
rectly enrolled, it was at least not later than
1416 (RYMER, ix. 335).

In 1408 he obtained leave of the king to
visit the Holy Sepulchre. He crossed the
Channel and first visited his kinsman, the
Duke of Bar, with whom he spent eight days ;
then went on to Paris, where at Whitsuntide
he was the guest of Charles VI, who, wear-
ing his crown at the feast, caused him to sit
at his own table, and afterwards gave him a
herald to conduct him through his realm to
Lombardy. Here he was presently met by
another herald, despatched by Sir Pandolph
Malatete or Malet, to challenge him to cer-
tain feats of arms at Verona before Sir
Galeot of Mantua. He accepted, and after
performing a pilgrimage to Rome, the combat
took place, in which he gained the victory.
Indeed, he was on the point of killing his
opponent outright, when Sir Galeot cried
* Peace,' and put an end to the combat. He
went on to Venice, where the doge received
him in state, and in course of time reached
Jerusalem. He performed his vows, and set
up his arms on the north side of the temple.
While in the Holy City, he is said to have
received a visit from the sultan's lieutenant,
who said that he was familiar with the story
of his ancestor, Guy of Warwick, which
' they had in books of their own language.'
I As remarked by Warton (Hist, of Enyl.
I Poetry, section iii.), the thing is by no means
i incredible ; but it may be observed that it is
! an error to talk of Rous, on whose authority
! it rests, as a contemporary writer. It is
| added that the sultan's lieutenant declared
to the earl privately his belief in Christianity,
and repeated the Creed to him, but said he
dared not profess himself a Christian openly.
From Jerusalem he returned to Venice,
and after travelling in Russia, Lithuania,
Poland, Prussia, Westphalia, and other parts
of Germany, he returned to England in 1410.
The king immediately retained him by in-
denture to serve with his son Henry, Prince
of Wales, he receiving a pension of 250 marks
a year out of the prince's exchequer at Car-
marthen. That same year he was also joined
with the bishop of Durham and others to
treat with the Scots. In 1413 he was lord
high steward at the coronation of Henry V,
and was soon afterwards appointed a com-
missioner, both for an alliance with Burgundy
and for a truce with France (RYMER, ix. 34-
38). In the beginning of the year 1414 he
was very instrumental in suppressing the Lol-
lard rising ; and about this time we find him
first mentioned as deputy of Calais (ib. 111).
On 20 Oct. in the same year he was commis-
sioned to go with certain bishops to represent

Beauchamp

Beauchamp

England at the council of Constance, and
on 16 Nov. Sir William Lisle, jun., was ap-
pointed his lieutenant to supply his place at
Calais during his absence. The splendour of
the English embassy at the council is said
to have excited general admiration and as-
tonishment. The earl appears, however, to
have returned to England pretty early next
year, as we find him at the Blackfriars in
London on 21 May (RYMER, ix. 319). In
August he accompanied the king in the in-
vasion of France ; but after the siege of
Harfleur the king sent him home again, along
with his brother Clarence, in charge of a
number of prisoners and a quantity of the
spoils of war (MONSTRELET, i. 226).

It is said that when he was appointed
deputy of Calais the French were expected
to besiege the place ; but that when he found
their forces were bent in a different direction
he caused some new feats of chivalry to be
instituted, of which a curious description
may be seen in Dugdale. In 1416 he re-
ceived the Emperor Sigismund at Calais on
his way to England, and also conducted the
Duke of Burgundy to Calais to a conference
with Henry V. Next year he was appointed
to receive the surrender of Caen Castle. So
great was Henry's confidence in his military
skill that he divided the chief commands in
Normandy between himself, his brother Cla-
rence, and the Earl of Warwick. In 1418 he
won Domfront from the French, and joined
the king at the siege of Rouen. Dugdale's
statement, that he was sent to besiege Nully
Levesque, is clearly an error, owing to a mis-
reading of Walsingham's words, who really
says that the Earl of Kyme was despatched
on that mission. While the English army
lay before Rouen the Dauphin made overtures
for peace, and Warwick, along with other
commissioners, was appointed to discuss
matters with his deputies (RYMEK, ix. 626).
But these negotiations took no effect. In
January 1419 Warwick was the principal
commissioner to receive the capitulation of
Rouen ; after which he was again employed
in frequent negotiations, not now with the
dauphin's party, but with the Burgundian
faction, who had charge of the imbecile king
(RYMER, ix. 717, 750-1, 774-5, 782, 813).
He arranged the truce preparatory to the
treaty of Troyes and the marriage of Henry V
to Katharine of France. It was presumably
on the capture of Aumarle, or Aumale, in
Normandy, this year, that the king granted
him the additional title of earl of Aumarle,
which he bore in his later years. In 1420
he besieged and took Melun. He returned
to England with the king in 1421, and
acted as deputy to the Duke of Clarence,

steward of England at Queen Katharine's
coronation. In 1422 he was one of the com-
missioners appointed to receive the surrender
of Meaux, and assisted in the rescue of the
Duke of Burgundy's city of Cosne when it
was besieged by the dauphin.

That same year Henry V died. So great
had been the confidence he reposed in War-
wick that he bequeathed to him the care of
the education of his infant son, Henry VI,
and his wishes were complied with by the
council a few years later. On 10 July 1423
his commission as captain of Calais was re-
newed for two years dating from 4 Feb. pre-
ceding. Yet he appears to have resided
chiefly in England for several years as mem-
ber of the council during the king's minority.
On 1 June 1428 the council gave him a formal
commission under the great seal to take
charge of Henry's education — a task in which
four years later he demanded special autho-
rity to chastise his pupil when necessary, and
to remove from his presence any associate
whose influence might not tend to improve
him. In 1429, at Henry's coronation at
Westminster, he bore the king to church.
In 1430 he went to Edinburgh, and arranged
a truce with Scotland. Next year he was
again in Normandy, and took a notable
prisoner named Poton de Xaintrailles beside
Beauvais. But we find him at Westminster
again in August 1433 (RYMER, x. 555). He
made his will at Caversham, in Oxfordshire,
8 Aug. 1435. Next year he crossed the
Channel to protect Calais from a threatened
siege by the Duke of Burgundy ; and in 1437
(having meanwhile returned to England) he
was again sent over sea, being appointed
on 16 July lieutenant of France and Nor-
mandy, and discharged by the council of the
care of the king's person. It was the most
serious responsibility he had yet undertaken ;
for the English dominion in France was even
then manifestly giving way, and though his
predecessor, the Duke of York — who was
now to be withdrawn — had achieved some
marked success, he had been very ill sup-
ported. Warwick accordingly took care to
make special conditions touching his appoint-
ment, and particularly stipulated that if
those conditions were not fulfilled he might
return without blame (STEVENSON, Wars of
the English in France, ii. Ixvi-lxx). He set
sail from Portsmouth on 29 Aug., and re-
mained in France till his death, which oc-
curred at Rouen on 30 April 1439, hastened,
in all probability, by the grave anxieties of
his position. His body was brought home
and buried at Warwick, where his magnifi-
cent tomb and effigy are still to be seen in a
chapel attached to the collegiate church of

Beauchamp

Beauchamp

Our Lady, which was built by his executors
under his will.

We have not related all the deeds of this
hero of chivalry. The most characteristic
were collected a generation later by John
Rous, chaplain of the chantry founded by
this earl at Guy's Cliff in Warwickshire, and '
illustrated by pencil drawings of high artistic
merit. The manuscript containing them is
still preserved in the Cottonian Library ;
the drawings have been engraved by Strutt
(Manners and Customs, vol. ii. pi. vii-lix),
and the narrative they illustrate has been j
embodied in Dugdale's notice of this earl. It i
is to be regretted that the drawings and the
narrative have never been published together, j
They are certainly a most interesting product I
of the art and literature of the middle ages, |
exhibiting our earl as the mirror of courtesy ;
and refinement in many things of which we !
have not taken notice ; among others, his \
declining to be the bearer of the Emperor
Sigismund's precious gift to Henry V — the
heart of St. George — when he knew that the !
emperor intended to come to England him- j
self, suggesting that it would be more accept-
able to his master if presented by the em-
peror in person.

Besides the manuscript just referred to and !
the chapel built by his executors, there is
one other memorial of this earl still abiding
in the curious stone image of Guy of War-
wick exhibited to visitors to Guy's Cliff, j
It was executed and placed there by his j
orders. It certainly does not suggest that !
he was a very discriminating patron of art :
of which, indeed, there is little appearance
otherwise ; for it was his father that built
Guy's Tower in Warwick Castle, and his
executors that built the chapel at Warwick
in which his bones repose.

The earl was twice married. His first
wife was Elizabeth, daughter and heir of
Thomas, Lord Berkley, by whom he had three
daughters. His second, whom he married by
papal dispensation, was Isabella, widow of
his cousin, Richard Beauchamp, earl of
Worcester, who was slain at Meaux in 1422. !
It was by this second marriage that he had j
his son and heir, Henry [see BEAUCHAMP, j
HEKRY DB].

[Dugdale's Baronage; Dugdale's Warwickshire,
i. 408-11 ; Cotton MS. Julius, E iv. ; Walsing-
ham's Historia Anglicana and Ypodigma Neu-
striae ; Fabyan ; Hall ; Gregory, in Gairdner's
Historical Collections of a London Citizen;
Leland's Itinerary, vi. 89 ; Paston Letters, No.
1 8 ; Rymer, ix. x.j J. G.

BEAUCHAMP, RICHARD DE (1430?-

1481), bishop of Salisbury and chancellor of

the order of the Garter, was the son of Sir
Walter Beauchamp [q. v.] and brother of
William Beauchamp, Lord St. Amand. Of
the date of his birth there is no record, but
it was probably about the year 1430. For his
elder brother, Lord St. Amand, first received
summons to parliament in 1449 by reason of
his marriage with the heiress of the old barons
of St. Amand ; and as early marriages were
the rule in those days, he was probably not
much over one-and-twenty when he took his
seat in the House of Lords. Nothing, how-
ever, is known about Richard Beauchamp
previous to the year 1448, when, being at
that time archdeacon of Suffolk, he was
nominated bishop of Hereford by Pope
Nicolas V on 4 Dec. His consecration took
place on 9 Feb. following. But he had only
remained in this see a year and a half when
he was translated by papal bull, dated
14 Aug. 1450, to Salisbury, and received
restitution of the temporalities on 1 Oct.
In 1452 his name appears for the first time
in the register of the Garter as performing
divine service at a chapter of the order at
Windsor, which he did also in 1457 and 1459.
It would thus appear that he acted occasion-
ally as chaplain to the order long before he
became their chancellor; for, as Anstis ob-
serves, he could not have claimed to officiate
at Windsor as diocesan, the college being
exempt from his jurisdiction. On 10 Oct.
1475 he was appointed chancellor of the
order by patent of King Edward IV, the
office being created in order to provide a
more convenient custodian for the common
seal of the brotherhood, which by the statutes
was to be kept only by one of its members,
who should be in attendance upon the king's
person. From this time till his death he was
present at most, if not all, the chapters of
the Garter; and in 1478 the deanery of
Windsor was given him, to hold along with
his bishopric. He was installed on 4 March.
He moreover procured the incorporation of
the dean and canons of St. George's Chapel,
Windsor, which was granted by patent of
6 Dec. 19 Edw. IV (1479). He died on
16 Oct. 1481, of what illness does not appear,
and is said to be buried at Windsor. Hi&
will was proved on 8 Feb. 1482.

[Godwin ; Le Neve's Fasti ; Anstis's Register
of the Order of the Garter ; Ashmole's History
of the Garter, 89.] J. G.

BEAUCHAMP, ROBERT DE (d.

1252), judge, was a minor at the death of
his father, Robert de Beauchamp, lord of
Hatch, Somerset, in 1211-12. Adhering to
John, he was appointed constable of Oxford
and sheriff of the county towards the close

Beauchamp

Beauchamp

of 1215, and received grants of land for his
services to the king. He was raised to the
bench by Henry III 6 July 1234, and ap-
pointed a justice itinerant in August 1234
and April 1238. He last appears as a judge
in 1241-2, and died shortly before 1 Feb.
1251-2, when his son did homage for his
lands.

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 253 ; Foss's Judges of
England, 1848, ii. 230.] J. H. R.

BEAUGHAMP, THOMAS DE, EARL
OF WARWICK (d. 1401), statesman, was son
of Thomas de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick,
who had distinguished himself at Crecy,
Poitiers, and elsewhere, and was one of the
founders of the order of the Garter. He
succeeded his father 13 Nov. 1369, being
then twenty-four years old. He accompanied
John of Gaunt in the fruitless French cam-
paign of 1373, and took part shortly after in
the descent on Britanny (T. WALS. i. 318).
In the ' Good Parliament ' of 1376, and in
those of February and of October 1377, he
was one of the committee of magnates deputed
by the lords to act in concert with the com-
mons for reform, and he was placed on the
commission of inquiry in that of 1379. The
parliament now. insisted on a governor for
the king, and Warwick was appointed,
' communi sententia,' to the post (ib. 427),
and was placed on the commission of re-
trenchment in the parliament of January
1380 (Fcedera, iv. 75). On the rising of the
villeins in 1381 he was despatched, with
Thomas Percy, against those of St. Ed-
mund's (T. WALS. ii. 28). He accompanied
Richard in his Scotch campaign (1385), at
the head of 600 archers and 280 men-at-
arms, the largest contingent in the field
(MS. ut infra) ; but on the king commencing
his struggle for independence, joined the oppo-
sition which was forming under Gloucester
and Derby. Of a retiring and somewhat in-
dolent disposition, and unsuited to his great
station among the nobles, he withdrew for
the time to Warwick, and indulged his tastes
in quietude, till the decision of the judges
in Richard's favour (25 Aug. 1387) com-
pelled him to come forth from his seclusion
and join Gloucester and Arundel in their ad-
vance on London (T. WALS. ii. 164). From
Waltham Cross (14 Nov. 1387) they issued
a manifesto against the king's advisers, and
formally ' appealed ' them of treason, 27 De-
cember. A parliament was summoned in
February (1388), and the ministers accused
by ' the lords appellant ' were tried and con-
demned. The lords appellant retained power
till 3 May 1389, when Richard, by a coup
•d'etat, removed them from his council ; and

the earl, again withdrawing to Warwick,
occupied himself in adding to his castle and
building the nave of St. Mary's Church.
Richard, ever eager for vengeance on the
opposition, contrived, in 1396, that Warwick
and Nottingham should quarrel over the
lands of Gower ; and the former, who lost
his case, may have been goaded into joining
the alleged, but most obscure, conspiracy at
Arundel in July 1397 (Chronique, 5-6), re-
vealed by Nottingham to Richard. Invited
by the king, with Gloucester and Arundel, to
a banquet 8 July, he alone came, and was ar-
rested (ib. 9, T. WALS. ii. 222), and committed
to the Tower (his quarters giving name to ' the
Beauchamp Tower '). Tried in parliament,
on 28 Sept., his courage failed him, and
pleading guilty (' confessa toute la traison '),
he threw himself on the king's mercy
(Chronique, 10, T. WALS. 226, TROK. 219-20).
He was sentenced to forfeiture and to im-
prisonment for life in the Isle of Man, where
he was harshly treated by the governor,
William le Scrope (TROK. 252). But on
12 July 1398 he was recommitted to the
Tower, whence he was liberated, on Henry's
triumph, in August 1399. Hastening to
meet the king and Henry, he returned with
them to town, and attended Henry's first
parliament (October 1399), in which he at-
tempted to deny his confession of 1397, but
was silenced by Henry (TROK. 307-8). He
was also one of those who challenged Arun-
del (ib. 310), and he is said, with other mag-
nates (1 Jan. 1400), to have urged Henry to
put Richard to death (Chronique, 78). On
6 Jan. 1400 he set out with the king from
London against the rebel lords (ib. 82), but
after their capture disappeared from public
life, and died 8 July 1401 (T. WALS. ii.
247, TROK. 337). He was succeeded by
his son, Richard de Beauchamp, 1382-1439
[q. v.].

[Chronique de la Traison (Eng. Hist. Soc.) ;
Thomas of Walsingham and Trokelowe (Rolls
series) ; a Latin MS. 6049, Bibl. du Roy, f. 30 ;
Dugdale's Baronage, i. 236 ; The Rows Roll of
the Earls of Warwick, 1845; Stubbs's Consti-
tutional History, chaps, xvi. xviii.] J. H. R.

BEAUCHAMP, WALTER DI \(d. 1236),
judge, was son and heir of William de
Beauchamp, lord of Elmley, Worcester, and
hereditary castellan of Worcester and sheriff
of the county. A minor at his father's
death, he did not obtain his shrievalty till
February 1216 (Pat. 17 John, m. 17). De-
claring for Louis of France on his arrival
(May 1216), he was excommunicated by the
legate at Whitsuntide, and his lands seized
by the Marchers (Claus. 18 John, m. 5). But

Beauchamp

33

Beauclerk

hastening to make his peace, on the acces-
sion of Henry, he was one of the witnesses
to his reissue of the charter (11 Nov. 1216),
and was restored to his shrievalty and cas-
tellanship (Pat. 1 Hen. Ill, m. 10). He also
attested Henry's ' Third Charter,' 11 Feb.
1225. In May 1226 and in January 1227
he was appointed an itinerant justice, and
14 April 1236 he died (Ann. Tewk. 101), leav-
ing by his wife (a daughter of his guardian,
Roger de Mortimer), whom he had married
in 1212, and who died in 1225 (Ann. Wore.
400), a son and heir, William, who married
the eventual heiress of the earls of War-
wick, and was grandfather of Guy, earl of
Warwick [see BEAUCHAMP, GUY DE].

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 226 ; Foss's Judges of
England, 1848, ii. 231.] J. H. K.

BEAUCHAMP, SIR WALTER DE (fi.
1415), lawyer and soldier, was the younger
son of John de Beauchamp, of Powyke and
Alcester, the grandfather of John, first Baron
Beauchamp of Powyke. At first he studied
the law, but afterwards distinguished himself
as a soldier under Henry IV and Henry V
in the French wars. Upon his return from
France after the battle of Agincourt, he was
elected knight of the shire for Wiltshire, and
on 16 March 1415-16 was chosen speaker of
the House of Commons. This office, however,
Sir Walter did not hold long, as parliament
was dissolved in the same year. He was
employed as counsel by his relative, Richard
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, to argue his
claim of precedency before the House of Com-
mons. This quarrel between the Earl of
Warwick and John Mowbray, earl marshal,
which took up much of the time of the ses-
sion of 1425, was terminated by the restora-
tion of the forfeited dukedom of Norfolk to
Mowbray. Sir Walter was married twice,
first to Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir
Peter de la Mere ; and secondly to Elizabeth,
•daughter and coheiress of Sir John Roche,
knight. By this second marriage he had three
children, one of whom, William, was, in 1449,
summoned to parliament as fourth Baron St.
Amand, in right of his wife, the great-grand-
daughter of Almeric, third Baron St. Amand.
Another was Richard, bishop of Salisbury
[see BEAUCHAMP, RICHARD DE, 1430 P-1481J.

[Manning's Lives of the Speakers, pp. 60-2 ;
Burke's Extinct Peerage (1883), pp. 32 and 34.1

GK F. K. B.

BEAUCHAMP, WILLIAM DE (d.

1260), baronial leader and judge, succeeded
his father, Simon de Beauchamp, lord of
Bedford, in 1207-8. He took part in John's
•expedition to Poitou (1214), but joined the

VOL. IV.

baronial host at Stamford, Easter 1215 (M.
PARIS, 253-5), and entertained them at
Bedford as they marched on London. He
was among the baronial leaders excommuni-
cated by name 16 Dec. 1215 (ib. 227), and
his castle was seized the same month by
John's general, Fulk de Breaute, who was
allowed to retain it. Belonging to the ex-
treme party, he fought with them at Lincoln
(19 May 1217), and was there taken prisoner
by the royal forces (M. PARIS), but made his
peace before the end of the year (Claus. 1
Hen. Ill, m. 4). On the capture and de-
struction of Bedford Castle in 1224 [see
BREAUTE, FULK DE], the site was restored to
him (Claus. 8 Hen. Ill, m. 7 dors.; cf. Royal
Letters, 1085). He acted as sheriff of Bed-
fordshire and Buckinghamshire 1234-7, and
on 6 July 1234 was appointed a baron of the
exchequer, in which capacity he reappears in
1237. He seems to have attained an unusual
age, dying, according to Foss, in 1262, but
according to the t Annals of D unstable ' (p.
215), which are probably right, in 1260. His
younger son John fell at Evesham (T.
WYKES), having succeeded his brother Wil-
liam shortly before.

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 223 ; Foss's Judges of
England, 1848, ii. 234.] J. H. K.

BEAUCLERK, LORD AMELIUS (1771-
1846), admiral, third son of Aubrey, fifth
duke of St. Albans, was entered on the
books of the Jackal cutter in 1782, and in
1783 was appointed to the Salisbury, bearing
the flag of Vice-admiral John Campbell on
the Newfoundland station. Afterwards he
served in the West Indies under Commodore
Gardner, and returned to England in 1789
as acting lieutenant of the Europa, in which
rank, however, he was not confirmed till the
Spanish armament of the following year. In

1792 he went to the Mediterranean as lieu-
tenant of the Druid frigate, and on 16 Sept.

1793 was posted by Lord Hood and appointed
to the command of the Nemesis of 28 guns.
In March 1794 he was transferred to the
Juno of 32 guns, and attached to the squa-
dron employed, under Admiral Hotham, in
the blockade of Toulon. The Juno was also
in company with the fleet in the action of
14 March 1795, which resulted in the cap-
ture of the Qa ira and Censeur, and was one
of the squadron, under Commodore Taylor,
which convoyed the homeward trade in the
following autumn, and when the Censeur
was recaptured by the French off Cape St.
Vincent (7 Oct.) On his return to England
Lord Amelius was appointed to the Dryad
frigate, of 44 guns and 251 men, and on the
coast of Ireland, on 13 June 1796, captured

D

Beauclerk

34

Beauclerk

the Proserpine, of 42 guns and 348 men,
after a brilliant and well-managed action, j
in which the Dryad lost only 2 killed and I
7 wounded, whilst the loss of the Proser- |
pine amounted to 30 killed and 45 wounded
(JAMES'S Naval History (ed. 1860), i. 304,
369). He captured also several of the enemy's
privateers, and in 1800 was appointed to the
Fortunee, 40 guns, employed in the Channel
and in attendance on the king at Weymouth.
During the next ten ytars he commanded
different ships — the Majestic, Saturn, and
Royal Oak, all 74's — in the Channel, and
in 1810 had charge of the debarkation of
Lord Chatham's army at Walcheren, and con-
tinued, during the operations on that coast,
as second in command under Sir Richard
Strachan. On 1 Aug. 1811 he became a
rear-admiral, but during that and the two
following years he continued in the North
Sea, stretching in 1813 as far as the North
Cape in command of a small squadron on
the look-out for the American Commodore
Rogers, who was reported to be in that lo-
cality. In the following year he commanded
in Basque Roads, and conducted the nego-
tiations for the local suspension of hostilities.
In August 1819 he was advanced to be a
vice-admiral, and from 1824 to 1827 com-
manded in chief at Lisbon and on the coast
of Portugal. He became a full admiral on
22 July 1830, and ended his active service
as conimander-in-chief at Plymouth, 1836-9.
Croker, writing to Lord Hertford, describes
a ludicrous scene which took place on New
Year's eve 1833, at the Brighton Pavilion,
when the king (William IV) danced a
country dance with Lord Amelius as his
partner. ' I am told,' says Croker, ' by one
who saw it, that the sight of the king and
the old admiral going down the middle hand-
in-hand was the most royally extravagant
farce that ever was seen' (Croker Papers,
1884, ii. 200). Beauclerk was a fellow of
the Royal Society, was made K.C.B. on
2 Jan. 1815, G.C.H. on 29 March 1831,
G.C.B. on 4 Aug. 1835, and principal naval
aide-de-camp on 4 Aug. 1839. He died on
10 Dec. 1846. His portrait, bequeathed by
himself, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich.

[Marshall's BoyalN a v. Biog.ii. (vol.i., part ii.),
484 ; O'Byrne's Diet, of Nav. Biog. ; Gent. Mag.
Feb. 1847, p. 201.] J. K. L.

BEAUCLERK, LOUD AUBREY
(1710P-1741), captain in the royal navy,
was the eighth son of Charles, first duke of
St. Albans. After some previous service he
was made post-captain on 1 April 1731, and
appointed to the Ludlow Castle, which ship
he commanded on the Leeward Islands sta-

tion for about eighteen months. Through
the years 1734-5 he commanded the Garland
in the Mediterranean, and in 1737-9 the
Dolphin on the same station. He returned
home in January 1739-40, and was almost
immediately appointed to the Weymouth of
60 guns, from which, in the course of the
summer, he was transferred to the Prince
Frederick of 70 guns, one of the fleet which
sailed for the West Indies with Sir Chaloner
Ogle on 26 Oct. 1740. On the afternoon of
one of the first days in January 1740-1, as
the fleet was off the west end of Hispaniola,
four large ships were sighted. The admiral
signalled the Prince Frederick and five other
ships of the line to chase. Towards dusk the
strangers hoisted French colours, but did not
shorten sail, and they were not overtaken
till nearly ten o'clock. The Prince Frederick
was the headmost ship, and Lord Aubrey
hailed the ship he came up with, desiring-
her to heave to. As she neither did so nor
answered his hail, he fired a shot across her
bows ; she replied with a broadside, and as
the other ships came up a smart interchange
of firing took place, after which they lay by
till daylight. Their nationality was then
apparent ; they were really French ships,
and the two squadrons parted with mutual
apologies. The affair passed as a mistake,
and probably was so on the part of the Eng-
lish. The fleet, under Sir Chaloner Ogle,
arrived at Jamaica on 7 Jan. and joined Vice-
admiral Vernon, under whose command it
proceeded to Cartagena on the Spanish main.
There, in the attack on the Boca Chica, Lord
Aubrey was slain on 22 March 1740-1. A
handsome monument to his memory was
erected in Westminster Abbey, and a pen-
sion of 2007. per annum was conferred on his
widow, which she enjoyed till her death on
30 Oct. 1755.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. iv. 221 ; Beatson's
Naval and Military Memoirs, i. 69 ; Official Let-
ters, &c. in the Public Eecord Office. ] J. K. L.

BEAUCLERK, CHARLES (1670-
1726), first DTJKE OF ST. ALBANS, son of
Charles II by Nell Gwynn, was born at his
mother's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields on
8 May 1670. It is said that one day when
the king was with Nell Gwynn she called to
the child, l Come hither, you little bastard,
and speak to your father.' ' Nay, Nelly ,r
said the king, t do not give the child such a
name.' ' Your majesty/ she answered, i has
given me no other name by which I may
call him.' Upon this the king gave him the
name of Beauclerk, and created him Earl of
Burford (GEANGEE, iii. 211 ; Ellis Corre-
spondence, i. 209 w.) The story can scarcely

Beauclerk

35

Beauclerk

be accurately told, for the child was created j
Baron Heddington and Earl of Burford, both I
in Oxfordshire, before the end of 1670, the
year of his birth. In 1684 he was created |
Duke of St. Albans, and on Easter day of
that year accompanied his father and two
other natural sons of the king, the Dukes
of Northumberland and Richmond, when
Charles II made his offering at the altar at
Whitehall, the three boys entering before
the king within the rails. He was at that
time, Evelyn says, ' a very pretty boy' (Diary,
ii. 195, 199). During the last illness of his
mother it was said that he was about to go
into Hungary, and return a good catholic,
and that l the " fraternity ' (the other na-
tural sons of the late king) ' would be on the
same foot or give way as to their advan-
tageous stations' (Ellis Corresp. i. 264).
On his mother's death on 14 Nov. 1687 he
received a considerable estate (LUTTRELL,
i. 420), and the next year fulfilled one part
of the general expectation, for in 1688 he
served in the imperial army against the Turks,
and was present at the talking of Belgrade on
20 Aug. of that year. Meanwhile, the regi-
ment of horse he commanded in England
was placed under the command of Colonel
Langston, who in November 1688 brought
it to join the Prince of Orange. The duke
took his place in the House of Lords on
9 Nov. 1691. On 17 May 1693 he left for
Flanders, and served under William III in
the campaign of Landen. A false report
was brought to London that he had fallen in
that battle. The duke was a gallant soldier,
and was highly esteemed by the king, who
gave him many tokens of his regard. On
his return from Flanders William made him
captain of the band of pensioners. He at-
tempted to reform the corps, but on a com-
plaint made by certain of the members the
council decided that it was to be kept on
the same footing as it had been under Lord
Lovelace, the last captain (LUTTKELL, iv. 250,
260). In April 1694 the duke married Lady
Diana Vere, daughter and sole heiress of
Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last Earl of
Oxford. He served in Flanders as a volun-
teer in the July following. In August he
received a pension of 2,000/. a year from the
crown, half of which was paid out of the
ecclesiastical first-fruits (LUTTKELL, iii. 358 ;
BURNET'S Works, vi. 300). The hereditary
office of master falconer and the reversion of
the office of register of the High Court of
Chancery had been granted him by his father.
The reversion came to him in 1697, and was
worth 1,500/. a year. In the summer of that
year he was again with the king in Flanders.
On his return after the conclusion of the

peace of Ryswick, William gave him ' a sett
of coach horses finely spotted like leopards.'
In December he was sent to Paris to offer
the king's congratulations on the marriage
of the Duke of Burgundy with Mary Ade-
laide, daughter of Victor Amadeus II of
Savoy. He had the good fortune the next
year to escape from three highwaymen, who,
on the night of 18 June, plundered between
thirty and forty persons on Hounslow Heath,
the Duke of Northumberland being among
those attacked. These men * attempted ' the
Duke of St. Albans, ' but he was too well
attended ' (LUTTKELL, iv. 394). In 1703 he
received a further grant of 800/. a year voted
by the parliament of Ireland. The duke voted
for the condemnation of Dr. Sacheverell. On
the triumph of the tory ministry in January
1712 he was dismissed from his office of
captain of the pensioners ; he was, however,
reinstated by George I, and in 1718 was made
a knight of the Garter. He died in 1726.
His brother James had died at Paris in 1680.
The Duchess of St. Albans, who was a cele-
brated beauty, died in 1742. The duke had
eight sons by her. The eldest succeeded
to his father's title ; the third was created
Lord Vere of Hanworth in 1750 ; the fifth,
Sydney, a notorious fortune-hunter, was the
father of Topham Beauclerk [q. v.] ; the eighth
son was Aubrey Beauclerk [q.v.].

[LuttrelTs Brief Eelation of State Affairs;
Evelyn's Diary, ed. 1854 ; Ellis Correspondence,
ed. Hon. Gr. A. Ellis ; Granger's Biog. Hist, of
England, iii. 211, 3rd edit.; Burnet's Own Time,
Oxford ed. ; Collins's Peerage of England, ed
Brydges, i. 244; Walpole's Letters, i. 118, ed.
Cunningham.] "W. H.

BEAUCLERK, LADY DIANA "(1734-
1808), amateur artist, was born 24 March
1734. She was the eldest daughter of Charles
Spencer, second duke of Marlborough. Her
sister, Lady Betty Spencer, was afterwards
countess of Pembroke. Lady Diana, or, as
she was more frequently called, Lady Di, was
married in 1757 to Frederick St. John, second
Viscount Bolingbroke, 'nephew and heir of
the great Lord Bolingbroke. In 1768 she
was divorced by act of parliament. Two
days later she was married at St. George's to
Topham Beauclerk [q. v.] Johnson, according
to Boswell (Life of Johnson, ch. xxik.), spoke
of her character with great asperity, although
he knew her ; but he admitted subsequently
that she nursed her sick husband (Beauclerk)
* with very great assiduity ' (Letter to Boswell,
21 Jan. 1775). Beauclerk died in 1780. His
widow survived him for many years. In later
life she resided at Spencer Grove, Twickenham,
which she decorated with her own paintings.

D2

Beauclerk

Beaufeu

Walpole speaks of her art with, all the ex-
travagant enthusiasm which he employs in
praising his friends. She executed a series
of seven large designs ' in sut-water ' (her
first attempt of the kind) for his ' Mysterious
Mother.' To these he devoted a closet at
Strawberry Hill, which he christened the
'Beauclerk Closet/ where they hung on
Indian blue damask. ' Salvator Rosa and
Guido could not surpass their expression and
beauty/ he says ( Correspondence, ed. Cunning-
ham, vi. 311, 452, vii. 265). In 1778 she
made a drawing of Georgiana, duchess of
Devonshire, which Bartolozzi engraved. He
also engraved a set of illustrations which
she prepared for the Hon. W. R. Spencer's
translation of Burger's ' Leonora/ published
by Bensley in 1796. In the following year the
same publisher issued the ' Fables of John
Dryden/ with ' engravings from the pencil of
the Right Hon. Lady Diana Beauclerc/ en-
graved by Bartolozzi, and his pupil, W. N.
Gardiner. Bartolozzi also reproduced some
of her designs of children, cupids, &c. Rey-
nolds painted her portrait in 1763, when she
was Lady Bolingbroke. According to a note
in Hardy's ' Life of Charlemont/ 1812, i. 345,
Sir Joshua thought highly of her artistic
abilities, and said that t many of her lady-
ship's drawings might be studied as models.'
Hume describes her as ( handsome and agree-
able and ingenious, far beyond the ordinary
rate ' (Private Corr., 1820, 251-2), and Bos-
well on his own account (Life of Johnson,
ch. xxix.) bears witness to her ' charming
conversation.' Lady Beauclerk died in 1808,
aged 74.

"[Walpole's Letters, and Anecdotes of Painting;
Boswell's Johnson ; Tuer's Bartolozzi.] A. D.

BEAUCLERK, TOPHAM (1739-1780),
a friend of Dr. Johnson, was the only son of
Lord Sydney Beauclerk and a grandson of
the first Duke of St. Albans. He was born
in December 1739, and on the death of his
father, 23 Nov. 1744, succeeded to the estates
which Lord Sydney Beauclerk, a man noto-
rious in his day for fortune-hunting, had in-
herited from Mr. Richard Topham, M.P. for
Windsor. Topham Beauclerk matriculated at
Trinity College, Oxford, 11 November 1757,
but does not seem to have taken any degree.
Whilst there he had the good fortune to
make the acquaintance of Bennet Langton.
Beauclerk's tastes were widespread, both in
science and literature ; his conversation was
easy and vivacious, with that ' air of the
world ' which showed that he had seen much,
and knew how to describe what he had seen.
But his talents would have passed away
without leaving any record behind them had

he not sought the acquaintance of Dr. John-
son, and been loved by him with signal de-
I votion. From 1757 to 1780 his name and
I his good qualities are written in the pages of
I Boswell. He married, at St. George's, Han-
over Square, 12 March 1768, Lady Diana
Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke
of Marlborough, two days after she had been
divorced from Lord St. John and Boling-
broke, and she made an excellent wife to her
new husband. Beauclerk died at Great
; Russell Street, Bloomsbury, 11 March 1780,
leaving issue one son and two daughters.
His library of 30,000 volumes, housed, as
Horace Walpole remarks, in a building ' that
reaches half-way to Highgate/ was sold by
auction April-June 1781, and was especially
i rich in English plays and English history,
travels and science. A catalogue (' Biblio-
theca Beauclerkiana ') is in the British Mu-
seum. Many of Beauclerk's letters are in
the possession of Lord Charlemont.

[Brydges's Collins's Peerage, i. 249 ; Gent.
Mag. 1. 155 (1780); Hardy's Lord Charlemont;
Cornhill Mag. xxx. 281-96 (1875), by G. B. H.
(Hill).] W. P. C.

BEAUFEU, BELLOFAGO, or BEL-
LOFOCO, ROBERT DE (Jl. 1190), was
a secular canon of Salisbury. Educated at
Oxford he gained, at an early age, a re-
putation for learning, and became the friend
of Giraldus Cambrensis, Walter Map, and
other scholars. He is said to have written
a work entitled i Encomium Topographic/
after hearing the ' Topographia Hibernise ' of
Giraldus read by the author at a festival at
Oxford. A second work, ' Monita salubria/
is also attributed to him by Bale ; and a
poem in praise of ale, 'Versus de commen-
datione Cervisiae/ in a manuscript in the
Cambridge University Library (Gg. vi. 42),
bears his name.

[Bale, iii. 36 ; Works of Giraldus Cambr.
(Bolls Series), vol. i. 1861, p. 72, vol. iii. 1863,
p. 92 ; Wright's Biog. Brit. Lit. Anglo-Norman
Period, 1846, p. 469.] E. M. T.

BEAUFEU or BELLO FAGO, ROGER

DE (fl. 1305), judge, was probably of the same
family as Nicholas de Beaufo of Beaufo's
Manor, Norfolk, a contemporary of the judge.
One Radulphus de Bello or Bella Fago (botli
genders are found, though the masculine pre-
dominates) is mentioned in Domesday Book
as holding extensive estates in Norfolk, and
the bishop of Thetford also there mentioned
we know from other sources to have been
William de Beaufo, called by Godwin inac-
curately Galsagus, and by others still more
corruptly Welson. It may be mentioned in

Beaufeu

37

Beaufeu

passing that many other varieties of the name
are found, such as Belfagus, Beaufou, Beau-
fogh, Beaufour, Belflour, Beufo, Beufew, and,
in the eighteenth century, Beaufoy. How the
bishop of Thetford stood related to Radulphus
de Bello Fago we do not certainly know.
Of Ralph nothing more is known than has
already been stated, while of William [q.v.]
we know little more than the dates of his
appointment to the see of Thetford and his
death. That Roger de Beaufo was a lineal
descendant of either Ralph or William de
Bello Fago cannot be affirmed, nor can hisvre-
lation to his contemporary Nicholas de Beau-
fo, of Beaufo's manor, be precisely determined,
and we cannot connect him with Norfolk,
all the estates which he is known to have
possessed being situate in Berkshire and Ox-
fordshire ; but the singularity of the name
renders it highly probable that he was derived
from the same original stock as the Norfolk
family.

The earliest mention of him occurs in the
roll of parliament for 1305, when he was as-
signed with WTilliam de Mortimer and others
as receiver of petitions from Ireland and
Guernsey, with power to answer all such as
might not require the attention of the king.
In the same year he received, with the same
Wrilliam de Mortimer, a special commission
to try an action of 'novel disseisin' — i.e.
ejectment — brought by one John Pecche
against the abbot of Westminster for the re-
covery of a messuage and one carucate of land
in Warwickshire. From the writ it appears
that the ordinary justices itinerant for that
county were in arrear with their business, and
it would seem that Mortimer and Beaufo were
appointed 'justices of assize for that occasion
only. In the same year and that following
he travelled the large western circuit of that
day, which stretched from Cornwall to South-
ampton in one direction, and Staffordshire
and Shropshire in another, as one of the first
commission of trailbaston issued for those
counties. The popular odium which he ex-
cited, and of which the memory is preserved
by a line, 'Spigurnel e Belflour sunt gens
de cruelte,' in a ballad of the time celebrating
the doings of the commission, proves him
to have displayed exceptional vigour in the
performance of his duty. In a writ of un-
certain date he is joined with William de
Bereford and two other judges in a commis-
sion to inquire into the obstruction of the
Thames between London and Oxford by
weirs, locks, and mills, which was considered
so serious a grievance by the merchants who
were in the habit of travelling or sending
goods by water between the two towns, that
they had petitioned the king for its redress.

We find him summoned with the other judges
to parliament at Northampton by Edward II
in 1307, and to attend the coronation of that
monarch in 1308. He was not summoned to
parliament after that year. He is classed as
a tenant of land or rents to the value of 20/.
or upwards in Berkshire and Oxfordshire
in a writ of summons to muster at London
for service overseas issued in 1297 ; in 1301 he
was included in the list of those summoned
to attend the king at Berwick-on-Tweed with
horses and arms for the invasion of Scotland,
as one of the contingents to be furnished by the
counties of Bedford and Buckingham. From
a grant enrolled in the King s Bench we know
that he possessed land at Great Multon, in
Oxfordshire, and from the record of an assize
of ' novel disseisin ' preserved in the rolls of
the same court it appears that his daughter
Isabella acquired by marriage a title to an
estate in Little Bereford in the same county,
which a subsequent divorce and remarriage
was held not to divest. Later on, one Hum-
frey Beaufo of Bereford St. John, Oxfordshire,
is mentioned by Dugdale as having married
a lady named Joan Hugford, whereby the
manors of Edmondscote or Emscote in War-
wickshire, and Whilton in Northampton-
shire, passed into his family in the reign of
Henry VII. From him descended the Beau*-
fos or Beaufoys of Edmondscote and Whilton.
The manor of Whilton was sold in 1619 by
the then lord, Henry Beaufo, mentioned by
Dugdale as lord of the manor of Edmonds-
cote in 1640. His daughter, Martha Beaufoy,
married Sir Samuel Garth, the author of
the 'Dispensary,' and their daughter Martha,
who inherited the estates, married, in 1711,
William Boyle, grandson of Roger, the first
earl of Orrery.

[Godwin, De-Praesul. 426, 731; Dugdale's
Monasticon, iii. 216 ; Blomefield's Norfolk, i. 200,
404, ii. 465 ; Eot. Parl. i. 168 b, 218 b, 475 b ; Ky-
mer (ed. Clarke), i 970 ; Wright's Political Songs
(Camden Society), 233 ; Parl Writs, i. 155, 291,
353, 408, ii. div. ii. pt. i. 3, 17, 18. 21, 23 ; Plac.
Abbrev. 214, 299 ; Dugdale's Ant. Warwickshire,
189; Baker's Hist. Northamptonshire, i. 232;
Domesday Book, fols. 190 6-201 b, 225 J-229 b •
Coll. Top. et Gen. viii. 361 ; Foss's Judges of
England.] J- M. E.

BEAUFEU, WILLIAM, otherwise DE
BELLAFAGO, BELLOFAGO, BELFOU
GALSAGUS, VELSON (d. 1091), bishop
of Thetford, was, apparently, a son of Robert
Sire de Belfou, who fought on the Conqueror's
side at Senlac, and whose lordship was situ-
ated in the neighbourhood of Pont-1'Eveque.
His brother Ralph received several lord-
ships in Norfolk from the Conqueror, and
was a personage of great importance in East

Beaufort

Beaufort

Anglia. Of the bishop little is known ex-
cept the fact that he was consecrated at
Canterbury by Lanfranc in 1086, and that
he died in 1091. Before his elevation to the
episcopate he appears to have acted as chan-
cellor; so at least he is designated in a deed
attested by him at some date in or subsequent
to 1080 — the date is so far fixed by the fact
that another attesting witness was William
de Carlisle, bishop of Durham, who was not
appointed till 1080 — by which the Conqueror
empowered Ivo Tailboys to endow the church
of St. -Nicholas of Angers with the manor of
Spalding. Whether he was married, and
had1 a '-son who succeeded to some of his
estates ; ' whether he was a monk at Bee ;
whether- he was the husband of Agnes de
Tony,' and father of Richard de Bellofago,
who was archdeacon of Norwich in his time ;
finally, whether any such person ever existed,
and whether he were not identical with his
successor, Herbert de Losinga, are questions
which have been discussed by antiquaries.

Roger de Bellafago, who lived [see BEATJ-
FETJ or BELLO FAGO, ROGER BE] in the time
of ' Edward I, may with probability be
reckoned as a member of the same family
as the bishop.

[Munford's Analysis of the Domesday Book
for the County of Norfolk, 8vo, 1858, "p. 31 ;
Planche's The Conqueror and his Companions,
8vo, 1874, ii. 283; Blomefield's Norf., iii. 465;
Norfolk Antiquarian Miscell., 8vo, 1877, i. 413 ;
Stubbs's Reg. Sacr. Anglic.] A. J.

BEAUFORT, DTTKE OF. [See SOMERSET.]

BEAUFORT, DANIEL AUGUSTUS,
LL.D. (1739-1821), geographer, born on

I Oct. 1739 at East Barnet, was the son of
DANIEL CORNELIS DE BEAUFORT, a French
refugee (1700-1788), who became pastor of
the Huguenot church in Spitalfields in 1728,
and of that in Parliament Street, Bishops-
gate, in 1729 ; entered the church of England
in 1731 ; married Esther Gougeon in London,

II June 1738, and was rector of East Barnet
from 1739 to 1743. Going to Ireland with
Lord Harrington, the father became rector of
Navan in 1747, was provost and archdeacon
of Tuam from 1753 to 1758, was rector of
Clonenagh from 1758 until his death thirty !
years later, and published in English, in 1788,

* A Short Account of the Doctrines and Prac- i
tices of the Church of Rome, divested of all •
Controversy.' His brother, Louis de Beau- :
fort, published (in 1738) a work on the un- j
certainty of Roman history, supposed to have
given some suggestions to Niebuhr.

Daniel Augustus was educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, of which he was elected a
scholar in 1757. He became B.A. in 1759,

M.A. in 1764, and LL.D. (honoris causa) in
1789. He was ordained by the Bishop of
Salisbury, and, in succession to his father,
was rector of Navan, co. Meath, from 1765
to 1818. In 1790 he was presented by the
Right Hon. John Foster to the vicarage of
Collon, co. Louth. He afterwards built the
church at Collon, where he remained until
his death in 1821. He was successively col-
lated to the prebendal stalls of Kilconnell, in
the diocese of Clonfert (3 Oct. 1818), and of
Mayne, in the diocese of Ossory (20 April
1820).

Dr. Beaufort took a prominent part in the
foundation of Sunday schools and in the
preparation of elementary educational works.
The Royal Irish Academy owed its forma-
tion in great measure to his exertions. His
most important work was his map of Ireland,
published in 1792, and accompanied by a
memoir of the civil and ecclesiastical state of
the country. All the places marked on the
map are systematically indexed in the memoir
and assigned to their respective parishes,
baronies, &c. In the preface the author
states that this map was prepared from ori-
ginal observations to remedy the defects of
existing maps of Ireland. Competent autho-
rities pronounce it and the memoir to be
valuable contributions to geography. The
publication of this work was encouraged
by the Marquis of Buckingham, lord-lieu-
tenant of Ireland. Beaufort married Mary,
daughter and coheiress of William W^aller,
of Allenstown, co. Meath. Their elder son,
William Louis Beaufort (1771-1849), was
rector of Glanmire, and prebendary of Rath-
cooney, Cork, from 1814 until his death in
1849. Their younger son was Sir Francis
Beaufort [q. v.].

[Information from W. M. Beaufort, Esq. ;
Times, 18 June 1821; Gent. Mag. vol. ix. ;
Cotton's Fasti Hibernici ; Monthly Review, xiii.
173; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography.]

A. Gr-N.

BEAUFORT, EDMUND (d. 1455),
second DUKE OF SOMERSET, statesman and
general, was the younger brother of Duke
John, and excelled him in the brilliancy of
his early military exploits. He held his first
command in France in 1431, and nine years
later he succeeded in recapturing Harfleur,
the loss of which had shaken the English
ascendency in Normandy. He was at once
invested with the garter on the scene of his
triumph. In 1442 he obtained the earldom
of Dorset for having relieved Calais, and on
his return home after a successful expedition
into Anjou in conjunction with his future
antagonist the Duke of York, he was raised
to a marquisate. But on succeeding his

Beaufort

39

Beaufort

brother in the Somerset titles (to the earldom after a three weeks' siege. His position

in 1444 and the dukedom in 1448), though in Normandy was gone, that in England

he gained in political influence, military threatened. Suffolk and two ministerial

success deserted him. The government had bishops had been murdered, Cade and the

just recognised that England could not Kentish rebels had occupied London, and

hope to permanently hold France as a con- York was preparing to take advantage of his

quered country, and sought an honourable popularity and seize upon the government,

peace. With this end in view they con- After five years' marriage Henry remained

eluded a truce in 1444, and shortly afterwards
married Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou,

childless. Of the two possible heirs to the
throne, Margaret, Somerset's niece, repre-

ceding Anjou and Maine, nominally to her ! sented the parliamentary, York the here-
father, really to Charles VII. This policy i ditary title. Whichever party was in power
was wholly unpopular in England, where at the moment of the sickly king's death
the warlike spirit remained in the ascendant : j would crown their candidate. Supported by
and the Duke of York, seizing the oppor- Henry, Somerset, on his return from Caen,
tunity of Gloucester's -death to head the op- •• carried on the government despite the popu-
position to the court, was superseded in the J lar hate ; but success abroad would alone

lieutenancy of France by Somerset, whose
uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, was chief minister.
The truce was taken advantage of by the
French to prepare for a final effort to drive
the foreigner out, while the English minis-
ters and commanders were especially engaged
in swelling their private fortunes. On the
one side patriotism, on the other love of
plunder, led to frequent breaches of the
truce, and removed more and more the pro-
spect of a definitive peace. At length the
commander of one of the English detach-
ments, with the secret support of Somerset,
surprised the town and castle of Fougeres,
and Somerset, who probably profited largely
by the spoils, refused to give it up, or even
exchange it. Hence in 1449 regular war re-
commenced, in which the English were com-
pletely overmatched. Their outposts fell
rapidly into the hands of the French, who
in October invested Rouen. The inhabitants
were their eager partisans, and Somerset,
unable to contend with enemies within and
without, retired into the castle. His energy
seemed paralysed ; he had neither courage
to make a desperate effort to cut his way
out, nor determination to at once capitulate
on honourable terms. At last, being hard
pressed, he qpnsented to give up not only
Rouen but six other strongholds and a large
sum of money 'for the deliverance of his
person, wife, children, and goods.' The par-
liamentary opposition in England at once
impeached Suffolk, now chief minister, and
prepared accusations against Somerset. But

secure him in power against the attacks of
York, and he bent every effort to re-establish
the English ascendency in Gascony, where
the strictness of French rule was unpopular.
He got supplies from parliament, and raised
a fleet and army. But the death of the
veteran Talbot and the surrender of the
English at Chatillon in 1453 put an end to
his hopes. The disaster brought on Henry's
first attack of insanity ; parliament, now
supreme, appointed York protector, and sent
Somerset to the Tower. He was saved from
further proceedings against him by the re-
covery of the king, who restored him to power
and made him captain of Calais, the only con-
tinental appointment remaining in his gift.
Though the birth of a Prince of Wales changed
the quarrel of the two dukes from a dynastic
into a personal one, it was none the less
bitter. After what had passed one could
not brook the existence of the other. Failing
to get his enemy tried for treason, York ap-
pealed to arms, and, according to a contem-
porary, raised a force and ' attacked Somerset,
who was then in St. Albans, preferring that
Somerset should be taken prisoner than that
he should be seized and slain by Somerset.'
The first battle of St. Albans was fought in
May 1455, and in it Somerset was killed.
His blood was the first shed in the war of
the Roses, which proved fatal to his sons,
and ended the male line of the Beauforts.

[The Wars in France under Henry VI, Rolls
Series, No. 22 ; Blondel's Reductio Normannise,
Rolls Series, tfo. 32; Rot. Parl. v. 210-81;

Henry VI retained his ministers, and, by Stow's Chronicle, 385-400.]
pawning his jewels and resorting to other
such financial expedients, sought to raise
a sufficient force for the campaign of 1450

Unfortunately the English troops were cut
to pieces at Formigny in May, and a huge
French army advanced against Caen, where
Somerset lay with a garrison of 3,000 men.
As no relief was possible, he capitulated

H. A. T.

BEAUFORT, SIB FRANCIS (1774-
1857), rear-admiral and hydrographer to the

navy, was the son of the Rev. Daniel Au-
gustus Beaufort [q. v.], rector of Navan,
county Meath, himself a topographer of some
distinction. His sister Frances married
Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and was thus the

Beaufort

Beaufort

stepmother of Maria Edgeworth, the novelist.
He entered the navy in June 1787, under
the care of Captain Hugh Cloberry Christian,
on board the Colossus ; during the Spanish
armament of 1790 he was a midshipman of
the Latona frigate, with Captain Albemarle
Bertie, and was afterwards with the Hon.
Robert Stopford, in the Aquilon, 32 guns,
one of the repeating frigates in Lord Howe's
action of 1 June 1794. H^ followed Captain
Stopford to the Phaeton, 38 guns, and in her !
he saw much active and splendid service, in- I
eluding Cornwallis's retreat, 17 June 1795, |
and the capture of the Flore, 36 guns, on
8 Sept. 1798. Beaufort was made a lieu-
tenant on 10 May 1796 ; and on 28 Oct. 1800,
being then first lieutenant of the Phaeton,
under Captain James Nicoll Morris, he com-
manded the boats of that ship when they cut
out the Spanish ship, San Josef, of 26 guns,
from under the guns of Fangerolle Castle,
near Malaga; in this service he received
nineteen wounds in the head, arms, and body,
three sword cuts and sixteen musket shots,
and dearly won his promotion to the rank of !
commander, which bore date 13 Nov., as '
well as a wound pension of 45Z. For some
years after this he was unemployed at sea, and
in 1803-4 assisted his brother-in-law, Mr.
Edgeworth, in establishing a line of tele-
graphs from Dublin to Galway. In June 1805
he was appointed to the command of the
Woolwich, armed store-ship, in which, during
the presence of the fleet off Buenos Ayres in
1807, he made an accurate survey of the
entrance to the Rio de la Plata. In May
1809 he was appointed to the Blossom, em-
ployed in convoy duty on the coast of Spain.
On 30 May 1810 he was advanced to post
rank, and appointed to the Frederiksteen
frigate. During the two following years he
was employed in the archipelago, principally
in surveying the coast of Karamania, and in-
cidentally in suppressing some of the most
barbarous of the Mainote pirates. His work
was brought to an untimely end by the attack
of some Turkish fanatics on his boat's crew,
20 June 1812. Beaufort was badly wounded
in the hip, and after months of danger and
suffering at Malta was obliged to return to
England, and the Frederiksteen was paid off
on 29 Oct. The account of this survey and
exploration he afterwards published in an
interesting volume entitled ' Karamania, or
a brief description of the South Coast of
Asia Minor, and of the Remains of Antiquity '
(8vo, 1817) ; and, it is said, refused to accept
any payment for the manuscript on the
ground that the materials of the work were
acquired in his majesty's service and in the
execution of a public duty. For many years

after his return to England he was engaged
in constructing the charts of his survey, with
his own hand, and the charts were engraved
directly from his drawings, as sent in to
the Hydrographic Office. In 1829 he was
appointed hydrographer to the navy, and
during the twenty-six years through which
he held that post rendered his name almost
a synonym in the navy for hydrography and
nautical science. It is still preserved by the-
general introduction of the scale of wind
force, and the tabulated system of weather
registration in common use both afloat and
ashore. These expedients occurred to him
when he was captain of the Woolwich,
1805, and wished to -render the ship's log-
at once more concise and more comprehen-
sive. In April 1835 he was a member of a
commission for inquiring into the laws under
which pilots were appointed, governed, and
paid ; and in January 1845 of another com-
mission for inquiring into the state of har-
bours, shores, and rivers of the United
Kingdom. On 1 Oct. 1846, according to an
order in council just issued, he was made a rear-
admiral on the retired list ; and on 29 April
1848 he was made a K.C.B. in acknowledg-
ment of his civil services as hydrographer,
which post he continued to hold almost till
the last. He retired in 1855, only two years
before his death on 17 Dec. 1857. A sub-
scription memorial took the form of a prize
awarded annually to that young naval officer,
candidate for the rank of lieutenant, who-
passes the best examination in navigation
and other kindred subjects, at the Royal Naval
College, in addition to which a portrait, by
Stephen Pearce, was placed in the Painted
Hall at Greenwich Hospital. His scientific
work was solely in connection with his office ^
though a fellow of the Royal Society, his-
name as an author does not appear in the-
' Philosophical Transactions,' and the only
papers attributed to him in the ' Royal So-
ciety Catalogue' are: 1. l Account of an
Earthquake at Sea,' in ' Edinburgh Journal
of Science,' v. (1826), 232-4. 2. < Determina-
tion of the Longitude of Papeete, from ob-
servations of a Partial Eclipse of the Sun,'
in ' Monthly Notices of Royal Astron. Soc/
xiv. (1853-4), 48-9. He was for many years
engaged in his own house in preparing the-
extensive Atlas published by the Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. For
this labour of many years, to execute which
he rose daily between five and six, he received
no remuneration, except a magnificent copy
of the large edition of the ' Gallery of Por-
traits,' presented only to him, the king of
the French, and the Duke of Devonshire.
He was a fellow of the Royal and Royal

Beaufort

Beaufort

Astronomical Societies, and a member of the
Royal Irish Academy, a corresponding mem-
ber of the Institute of France and of the
United States Naval Lyceum.

Sir Francis married Alicia Ma gdalena Wil-
son. Their son, FKANCIS LESTOCK BEAUFORT,
born in 1815, served in the Bengal civil
service from 1837 to 1876, and was for many
years judge of the twenty-four Purgunnahs,
Calcutta. He was the author of the well-
known ' Digest of the Criminal Law Pro-
cedure in Bengal' (1850), and died in 1879.

[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. vi. (supplement,
part ii.), 82 ; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Diet. ; Gent.
Mag. 1858, i. 118; information from W. M.
Beaufort, Esq.] J. K L.

BEAUFORT, HENRY (d. 1447), bishop
of Winchester and cardinal, was the second
and illegitimate son of John of Gaunt by
Catherine, widow of Sir Hugh Swynford.
His parents having been married in 1396,
their children were the next year declared
legitimate by Richard II, and the king's pa-
tent of legitimation was confirmed by par-
liament. In common with his brother John,
earl of Somerset, and Thomas, duke of Exeter,
Henry took his name from Beaufort Castle,
in Anjou, the place of his birth. He is said
to have studied at Oxford, but he spent the
greater part of his youth at Aachen, where
he read the civil and the canon law. He
was made prebendary of Thame 1389, and of
Sutton 1391, both in the diocese of Lincoln.
He held the deanery of Wells in 1397, and,
having been appointed bishop of Lincoln by
papal provision, was consecrated 14 July
1398, after the death of John Bokyngham
[see BOKYNGHAM, JOHN]. The next year
he became chancellor of the university of
Oxford. The election of his half-brother,
Henry of Lancaster, to the throne, gave the
Bishop of Lincoln a prominent place in the
kingdom. Forming a kind of constitutional
court party, he and his brother steadily up-
held the Lancastrian dynasty, while at the
same time they were opposed to the masterful
policy of Archbishop Arundel [q. v.]. Bishop
Beaufort was made chancellor in 1403, and
in the same year was named as a member
of the king's ' great and continual council.'
On the death of William of Wykeham, in
1404, he was nominated to the bishopric of
Winchester by papal provision, and in the
spring of the next year received the spirituali-
ties of the see. He resigned the chancellorship
on his translation to Winchester. He is said
to have been the tutor of the Prince of Wales.
He certainly exercised considerable influence
over him. While the king was in a great
measure guided by Arundel, the prince at-

j tached himself to the younger and more
! popular party, of which the Bishop of Win-
| Chester was the head. In 1407 the arch-
bishop, who was then chancellor, gained a
triumph over the Beaufort s ; for when in
that year the king exemplified and confirmed
the patent of their legitimation granted by
Richard, he inserted in it words (' excepta
regali dignitate ') which expressly excluded
j them from the succession. As, however,,
I these words do not occur in the document
confirmed by parliament in the preceding
reign, they have no legal value, though pro-
bably this fact was not recognised at the time.
The strength of Bishop Beaufort and the
weakness of the archbishop »alike lay in the
parliament. Arundel felt himself unable to
continue in office, and in 1410 Thomas Beau-
fort was made chancellor. As the new
chancellor was not installed when the par-
liament met, his brother the bishop declared
the cause of summons. Taking as the text
of his discourse l It becometh us to fulfil all
' righteousness,' he dwelt on the relations of
I England with France and Scotland, and on
the duty of loyalty to the crown. Dr. Stubbs,
who in his 'Constitutional History' (iii. c. 18)
has given a masterly sketch of the career of
Bishop Beaufort as an English politician, ha&
pointed out the probability that during the
administration of Thomas Beaufort the Prince
of Wales ruled in the name of his father;
for during this period the illness of Henry IV
| seems to have rendered him incapable of
performing the duties of kingship. The rule
of the prince involved the predominance of
the Bishop of Winchester in the council.
The divergence of the parties of Beaufort
and Arundel came to a climax in 1411. A
family quarrel probably hastened the issue
of the struggle. On the death of John Beau-
fort, earl of Somerset, the bishop's brother,
in 1410, Thomas of Lancaster, the earl's-
nephew, married his widow, and demanded
that Bishop Beaufort should give up to him
part of a sum of 30,000 marks, which he
had received as the earl's executor. The
bishop refused the demand, and in the quarrel
which ensued the Prince of Wales upheld his.
uncle against his brother. Prince Henry and
the bishop were alike anxious to secure the
continuance of their power. With the assent
of the numerous lords of their party they
tried to prevail on the king to resign the
crown, and to allow the prince to reign in
his stead. The king was much angered at
this request, and dismissed the prince from
the council. Bishop Beaufort and his whole
party seem to have shared the disgrace of
the prince ; for in November the commons
prayed the king to thank the Prince of Wales,

Beaufort

Beaufort

the Bishop of Winchester, and other lords
for their labour and diligence during the time
that they were of the council. The arch-
bishop succeeded Thomas Beaufort as chan-
cellor in 1412. The change in the adminis-
tration brought with it a change in foreign
politics. The Bishop of Winchester agreed
with the prince in upholding the cause of
the Duke of Burgundy, and in 1411 the
united forces of the English and Burgundians
gained a brilliant victory over the Arma-
gnacs at St. Cloud. On the accession of
Arundel to power the alliance with Burgundy
was suddenly broken, and an expedition was
sent to help the Armagnacs.

When, in 1413, the prince succeeded his
father as Henry V, he at once gave the chan-
cellorship to Bishop Beaufort, who accord-
ingly, on 15 May 1413, opened the first par-
liament of the reign. On 23 Sept. he sat as j
one of the assessors of the archbishop on the '
trial of Sir John Oldcastle. In opening the
parliament held at Leicester in the April
of the next year he referred at some length
to the dangerous rising which followed
Oldcastle's escape. Preaching on the words
'He hath applied his heart to understand
the laws,' he described how the Christian
faith was in danger of being brought to
naught by the Lollard confederacy, and the
peace of the realm by riots, and called on
the estates to aid the crown in the work of
government by their good advice. The bishop |
was this year sent to France, along with I
other ambassadors, to propose terms which |
were too hard to be accepted even in the dis-
tracted state of that kingdom. In opening |
parliament on 4 Nov. 1415 the chancellor en-
larged on the noble exploits of the king in the
war with France, and made an appeal to the
gratitude of the people, which was answered
by a liberal grant. The war, however, placed
the king in constant need of money, and
Henry found his uncle the chancellor always
ready to lend. As Beaufort cannot have in-
herited any great estates, and as the income
of his see, considerable as it was, was by no
means large enough to supply him with the
vast sums which he lent the crown from time
to time, as well as to provide him with the
means of indulging his taste for magnificence,
it is probable that his constant power of
finding ready money was the result of singular
financial ability, combined with a high cha-
racter for integrity. Knowing how to use
money, and using it with boldness, careful to
maintain his credit, and not afraid of making-
Ms credit serve him, Beaufort gained immense
wealth. While he guarded this wealth care-
fully, he never refused to lend it for the sup- j
port of the crown. In 1416 he lent the kin

14,000/., secured on the customs, and received
a certain gold crown to be kept as a pledge
of repayment. Having been relieved of his
office in the July of 1417, the bishop left
England, nominally on a pilgrimage. The
real object of his journey was to attend the
council then -sitting at Constance. His ar-
rival at the council was coincident, and can
scarcely have been unconnected, with an im-
portant change in the position of parties.
Up to that time the English and the Germans
worked together in endeavouring to force the
council to undertake the reformation of the
church. In alliance with the Emperor Sigis-
mund, Henry, by the English representatives,
opposed the election of a pope until measures
had been taken to bring about this reforma-
tion. On the other hand, the Latin nations
sided with the cardinals in demanding that
the council should at once proceed to the
election of a pope, and should leave the work
of reformation to be accomplished by him.
Henry had, however, suffered from reformers
in his own kingdom. Whatever the reasons
of the king may have been for changing his
policy, there can be no doubt that the Bishop
of Winchester carried out this change. He
effected a compromise, to which the emperor
was forced to agree. At his suggestion the
council pledged itself to a reformation to be
effected after the election of a pope. The
conclave was formed. It was believed in
England that the Bishop of Winchester was,
among many others, suggested as the future
pope. The choice of the conclave fell on
the Cardinal Colonna, who took the title
of Martin V. The new pope was not un-
mindful of the good service rendered him by
Beaufort, and on 28 Dec. nominated him car-
dinal, without specifying any title. Claim-
ing a universal right of presentation, and
intent on bringing the English church into
subservience to the see of Rome, Martin
hoped to find in Beaufort an instrument for
carrying out his schemes of aggression. He
intended to apply to the king to 'allow the
bishop to hold the see of Winchester in
commendam, and to accept him as legate a
latere holding office for life. He mistook the
king with whom he had to deal. When Arch-
bishop Chichele, who had succeeded Arundel
in 1414, heard of the plan, he wrote to Henry,
who was then in France, and remonstrated
against such an outrage on the liberties of
the kingdom and on the rights of his own
see. Henry refused to allow the bishop to
accept the office of cardinal, saying, if we
may trust the account of the matter given in
1440 by the Duke of Gloucester, that ' he had
as lief sette his coroune besyde hym as to
see him were a cardinal's hatte, he being a

Beaufort

43

Beaufort

cardinal.' Great as must have been the j the chancellor. On 30 Oct. 1425. the duke
bishop's disappointment, the refusal of the j persuaded the mayor to keep London Bridge
king did not alienate him from his attach- j against the bishop, and so prevent him from
ment to the crown ; for when in 1421 Henry I entering the city. The men of the bishop
returned to England to raise money for a and of the duke well nigh came to blows. All
fresh expedition, Beaufort, who had as yet i the shops in London were shut, the citizens
only received in repayment part of his former crowded down to the bridge to uphold their
loan, lent him a further sum of 14,000/., '< mayor, and had it not been for the interfe-
making a total debt of 22,306/. 18*. 8d., and j rence of the archbishop and the Duke of

again received from the hands of the trea-
surer a gold crown as security for repayment.
In the December of the same year he stood
godfather to the king's son, Henry of Win-
chester. And the next year the king, when
on his deathbed, showed his confidence in

Coimbra, a dangerous riot would have taken
place. The chancellor wrote urgently to
Bedford begging him, as he valued the wel-
fare of the king, his safety, and the safety of
the kingdom, to return to England with haste.
On the return of Bedford the council tried to

him by naming him one of the guardians of arrange the dispute. Matters were, however,
the infant prince. j still unsettled when the parliament, called

In the debates on the regency which fol- I the Parliament of Bats, met at Leicester on
lowed the death of Henry V, Beaufort op- 18 Feb. 1426. At the petition of the com-
posed the ambitious claims of the Duke of mons Bedford and the lords undertook an
Gloucester, the late king's youngest brother, arbitration. Gloucester charged the chan-
During the long and bitter quarrel which cellor with refusing to admit him into the
ensued between the uncle and nephew, Beau- Tower, with purposing to slay him at Lon-
fort's wise and loyal policy stands in strong don Bridge, and with designing to seize the
contrast to the wild schemes by which Glou- I person of the king. He also declared that
cester, as protector in the absence of his ! he had plotted against the life of Henry V
brother Bedford, sought his own aggrandise- when prince of Wales, and had counselled
ment at home and abroad. In December
1422 Beaufort was named a member of
the council, and powers were granted to
that body which strictly limited the autho- j tinct denial of the truth of the charges of
rity of the protector. When, in 1424, Glou- I treason against Henry IV, Henry V, and
cester was about to leave England on his Henry VI, that Bedford should thereupon
futile expedition against Hainault, the bishop | declare him ' a true man to the king, his

him to take the crown from his father.
Beaufort made answer to these accusations.
The lords decreed that he should make a dis-

was again appointed chancellor. In the ab-
sence of both Bedford and Gloucester the

father, and his grandfather,' and that he and
Gloucester should take each other by the hand.

whole burden of the government rested on The bishop must have felt the pacification,

him, and in consideration of his extra
work he received an addition of 2,000/. to

which was effected on 12 March, a distinct
defeat. He resigned the chancellorship, and

his salary. His administration was unpo- applied for license to perform a vow of pil-
pular in London, where the citizens were : grimage by which he was bound. He does
attached to the Duke of Gloucester. The ! not, however, seem to have left England,
favour which the chancellor showed to the ' and his name appears twice in the proceedings
Flemings angered the merchants, and some of the council during the remainder of the
ordinances restraining the employment of year.

labourers, which were made by the mayor and
aldermen, and were approved by the council,
set the working classes against the govern-
ment. Threatening bills were posted on the
gates of the bishop's palace, and a tumultuous
meeting of men of ' low estate ' was held l at
the Crane of the Vintry,' in which some
loudly wished that they had the bishop there,
that they might throw him into the Thames.
Beaufort took the precaution of placing in
the Tower a garrison composed of men from
the duchy of Lancaster. While affairs were
in this uneasy state, the Duke of Gloucester
returned to England. The strictures of the
council on his foolish expedition doubtless
helped to fan the discord between him and

Encouraged by the condition of the go-
vernment in England, the pope renewed his
plan of making the Bishop of Winchester a
cardinal, which had been defeated by the
vigorous policy of Henry V. His special
object in conferring this office on Beaufort at
this time was to gain his help against the
Hussites. The bishop was nominated car-
dinal-priest of St. Eusebius on 24 May 1426.
He left England in company with the Duke
of Bedford in March of the next year, and on
Lady day received the cardinal's hat from
the hands of the duke in St. Mary's church
at Calais. In accepting the cardinalate
Beaufort made a false step, which brought
him into much trouble. The legatine com-

Beaufort

44

Beaufort

mission which accompanied his new dignity
lessened his popularity, and gave occasion to !
his enemies to attack him. His energies
were to some extent diverted from the service
of his country, and men naturally looked on
him as identified with the papal policy which,
under Martin V, was antagonistic to the ec-
clesiastical liberties of England. The new !
cardinal lost no time in obeying the papal
call for help in the Hussite war. With the
full approval of the emperor he accepted the ;
office of legate in Germany, Hungary, and
Bohemia. At the moment of his entrance
into Bohemia a combined attack was made
by three armies of the crusaders upon the
Hussites at Mies. The attack failed, and at
Tachau the cardinal met the German host in
full flight. He bade them turn against their
pursuers, and, planting a cross before them, j
succeeded for a moment in his attempt to
rally the panic-stricken multitude. At the •
sight of the advancing army of the Bohe- {
mians the Germans again turned and fled.
The cardinal vainly called on them to halt and j
make a stand against their enemies. In his
indignation he tore the flag of the empire and !
cast it before the feet of the German princes, j
His efforts wrere fruitless, and the close ap-
proach of the Bohemian army forced him to j
share the flight of the Germans. The pope j
wrote him a letter encouraging him to perse- j
vere in the crusade. He exhorted him to
restore ecclesiastical discipline in Germany,
and to put an end to the quarrel between the
archbishops of Coin and Maintz, that the
German churchmen might be more earnest in
the crusade.

The cardinal returned to England to raise
money for the prosecution of the w^ar, and
on entering London 1 Sept. 1428 was received |
with great state by the mayor and aldermen, j
When, however, he opened his legatine com- '
mission, the Duke of Gloucester refused to I
recognise it, as contrary to the customs of |
the kingdom, and Richard Caudray, the king's
proctor, argued the case against him. Beau- I
fort promised not to exercise his legatine
functions without the king's leave, and the
matter was dropped for the time. In February
1429 the cardinal went to Scotland on civil
as well as ecclesiastical business, and had an
interview near Berwick with James and with
his niece, Joan the queen. On his return
Gloucester made an effort to deprive him of
his see by bringing before the council the
question whether he, as a cardinal, might law-
fully officiate at the chapter of the order of
the Garter on St. George's day, a right which
pertained to him as bishop of Winchester.
The question was left undecided; but the
council requested him not to attend the ser-

vice. In after years he officiated on these
occasions without any objection being made.
In spite of the somewhat doubtful attitude
of the council he obtained leave to raise a
body of troops for the Bohemian war, and to
publish the crusade. On 22 June he again
set out for Bohemia. Disasters in France,
however, caused the council to press on him
the necessity of allowing his troops to serve
six months with the regent. Beaufort agreed
to this, and stayed himself with the regent
in France. He excused his conduct to the
pope by declaring that he was forced to obey
the king's command, and that his troops
would have refused to follow him had he not
done so. The death of Martin V, in February
1431, put an end to Beaufort's legation and
to his part in the Bohemian Avar.

At the close of 1429 Beaufort received
1,000/. to defray the expenses of a mission
which he wras about to undertake to the
court of Philip, duke of Burgundy, who had
just married his niece, Isabella of Portugal.
His compli.ance in lending the troops which
he had raised for the crusade evidently
strengthened his position at home ; for an
attempt made by Gloucester in the December
following to shut him out from the council,
on the ground of his being a cardinal, was
answered by a vote that his attendance was
lawful, and was to be required on all occa-
sions except when questions between the
king and the papacy wrere in debate. Alarmed
at his increasing power, Gloucester persuaded
him to accompany the king to France in
April 1430, and during 1430-1 he was con-
stantly employed in the aftairs of that king-
dom. In November 1430 he lent the king"
2,81 61. 13s., and an order was made in
council the following year for the repay-
ment of this and of other sums which were
owing to him. On 17 Dec. 1431 he crowned
Henry YI king of France at Paris. Mean-
while, Gloucester took advantage of his ab-
sence to make another attempt to deprive
him of his see. This attack seems to have
been made in the name of the crowrn ; for in
a general council, held 6 Nov., the king's ser-
jeants and attorney argued that he could not,
as cardinal, continue to hold an English
bishopric. At this council the Bishop of
Worcester, in answer to a question from Glou-
cester, asserted that he had heard the Bishop
of Lichfield, who acted as Beaufort's proctor,
say that the cardinal had bought an exemp-
tion from the jurisdiction of Canterbury for
himself and his see. The Bishop of Lichfield,
who was present, seems neither to have de-
nied nor confirmed this statement. The
council was not disposed to proceed in haste
in a matter of such importance, and made aa

Beaufort

45

Beaufort

order that documents should be searched,
and the question was put off until the return
of the king. Three weeks afterwards, how-
ever, Gloucester was more successful in the
privy council, where the number of bishops
was larger in proportion to the lay councillors .
than in the general council. This preponde- :
ranee of the clerical element was contrary to
Beaufort's interest ; for Archbishop Chichele
naturally bore him no good will, and the
chance of a vacancy of the see of Winchester
excited the hopes of the other bishops. Ac-
cordingly, in this council writs were sealed
of prsemunire and attachment upon the sta-
tute against the cardinal. Some valuable
jewels also belonging to him were seized at
Sandwich. The cardinal boldly faced the
danger. He returned to England and attended
the parliament which met in May 1432.
There, in the presence of the king and of the
Duke of Gloucester, he demanded to hear
what accusations were brought against him.
He had come back, he said, because the de-
fence of his name and fame and honour was
more to him than earthly riches. Gloucester
was foiled by this appeal to the estates, and
In answer to his demand the cardinal was
assured that the king held him loyal. He
further demanded that this answer should
"be delivered under the great seal, which was
accordingly done. The parliament then pro-
ceeded to consider the seizure of his jewels.
In order to get them at once into his posses-
sion the cardinal deposited the sum of 6,000/. ;
and as in 1434 an order was made that this
money should be repaid, it is evident that on
inquiry the seizure was shown to have been
made unlawfully. He also lent the crown
another sum of 6,000 /., and further respited
a debt of 13,000 marks. Beaufort owed
his victory in this, which was the greatest
crisis of his life, to the support of the par-
liament ; and on the petition of the commons
a statute was framed exonerating him from
the penalties of any offences which he
might have committed against the Statute
of Provisors, or in the execution of any
papal bulls.

On 16 Feb. 1433 the cardinal obtained
leave to attend the council of Basel. As he
•received license to take with him the large
sum of 20,000/., it seems probable that he
desired to make interest for himself in the
hope that he might at some future time be
chosen pope. Although he did not take ad-
vantage of this permission to attend the
council, he did not abandon his intention of
doing so, and in the June of the next year
he presented a series of ' demands ' to the
king, in which, after asking. for securities
for his loans, he stated that he was bound

by certain vows, and that since it would
be to his jeopardy if the time or end of his
journey should be known, he desired license
to go when and whither he pleased and to
take with him such money as he might
choose. In answer to this request he was
told that he might attend the council and
take with him the sum allowed in the pre-
vious year. Meanwhile, on the return of
Bedford in 1433, the cardinal upheld him
against Gloucester, and, in common with
i other lords, agreed with the request made by
the commons that the duke should remain
in England, and help to carry on tlje govern-
ment. The change in the administration was
i followed by a vigorous attempt to introduce
I economy into the disordered finances of the
: kingdom, and the cardinal, together with
some other members of the council, follow-
\ ing the example set by Bedford, agreed to
; give up their wages as councillors, provided
that their attendance was not enforced in
vacation.

In 1435 the cardinal was present at the
famous European congress, held at Arras,
for the purpose, if possible, of making peace.
In common with the other ambassadors from
England, he had power to treat for a mar-
riage between the king and the eldest or
other daughter of his adversary of France.
He joined his colleagues on 19 Aug. Fail-
ing in their preliminary negotiations with
I the French, and convinced that the Duke of
Burgundy was about to desert their alliance,
the English ambassadors returned on 6 Sept.
The death of the Duke of Bedford, which
took place a few days afterwards, had a con-
siderable effect on the position of the cardi-
nal. With Bedford the Lancastrian house
lost almost all that remained of the strength
of the days of Henry V. From this time the
house of York began to occupy a prominent
place, and in doing so it naturally entered
into a rivalry with the Beauforts, who had
no other hope than in the fortunes of the
reigning house. WThen Bedford was dead,
the cardinal was the only Englishman ' who
had any pretension to be called a politician/
His policy was now plainly marked out, and
from this time he began to labour earnestly
for peace (STFBBS, Qmftit, Hist. iii. c. 18).
Gloucester, who had of late made his brother
Bedford the chief object of his opposition,
I now turned all his strength to thwart the
! policy of his uncle, even, as it seems, trying
I to use against him the hostile family interest
! of the house of York.

Although by the decision of the council in
1429 the attendance of the cardinal was not
required when questions between the king
and the papacy were in debate, he took part

Beaufort

46

Beaufort

in the settlement of a dispute which arose dinal and the part taken by Orleans in the

from an attempt made by the council in
1434 to put an end to the claim of the pope
to nominate to English bishoprics. The
immediate question, which concerned the ap-
pointment to the see of Worcester, was settled
by a compromise proposed in a letter from

negotiations show that Beaufort had by this
time fully regained his influence in the
council. In his absence, however, the Duke
of Gloucester was left without control, and
the council accordingly sent instructions to
the ambassadors to refuse the French de-

the council to Eugenius IV to which the i mands, which were indeed of such a nature
name of the cardinal is subscribed. The as to make the failure of the negotiations
jealousy of papal interference which was i certain. On 2 Oct. the cardinal and the

aroused by this dispute may probably be dis-
cerned when, in April 1437, the cardinal
having requested license to go to Rome, the
council recommended the king not to allow
him to leave the kingdom, alleging as their
reasons for this advice their fear lest evil

ambassadors returned to England. Another
attempt to arrange a peace was made by the
cardinal and the Duchess of Burgundy in
January 1440. Ambassadors were again ap-
pointed, and the council decided on the re-
lease of the Duke of Orleans. Against this

should befall him by the way, and the irn- decision Gloucester made a violent remon-
portance of his presence at the negotiations strance to the king. He embodied in a
for peace which were then on foot. Thefol- long document all his causes of complaint
lowing year they further advised the king against Beaufort. He began with his ac-
not to allow him to attend the council of ceptance of the cardinal's hat and his re-

tention of the see of Winchester. He accused
him of defrauding the crown, of forwarding
the interests of his family to the hurt of the
king, alleging divers instances, and among
them the fact that while Beaufort was chan-
cellor part of the ransom of James of Scot-
land was remitted on his marriage with his
niece. He further declared that he had been
guilty of extravagance and mismanagement

Basel, a determination which Sir Harris
Nicolas considers (Ordinances of the Privy
Council, v. pref. xxx) to have arisen from
' the fear of his intriguing with the cardinals
and other influential ecclesiastics at the
council for the tiara at the sacrifice of the
interests of his country.' In this year Beau-
fort obtained from the king a full pardon for
all offences f from the beginning of the world

up to that time.' This pardon evidently had I at the congress of Arras and at the late meet-
reference to his dealings with securities. I ing of ambassadors at Calais, and that he
Taken, however, in connection with the re- now intended to destroy the king's realm of
fusal of his journey, it seems to indicate that France by the release of the Duke of Orleans.
his influence was shaken. If this was so, j To this manifesto, which is full of bitterness
it was not long before his importance as a I and mischievous intent, the council returned
financier fully restored him to power. The j a moderately worded answer. Powerful as
futile campaign of Gloucester in Flanders, Gloucester was to do evil by slandering those
and the continued demands for money from who were striving for peace and by setting
France, having exhausted the treasury, the men's minds against them, he had, in corn-
cardinal lent the king 10,000 marks, ex- | parison with the cardinal, little real weight
tended the time of repayment of another sum in the conduct of affairs. His weakness was
of 14,000 marks, and gave him possession of i manifested in the following year by the trial
some jewels which had been pledged to him. ! of his wife, Eleanor Cobham, who was ac-

Each year the hopelessness of the war be-
came more apparent. In January 1439 the
cardinal had a conference with the Duchess
of Burgundy at Calais, and it was agreed
that ambassadors should be sent thither to
treat of peace. During the negotiations
which ensued, the cardinal had full and

cused of witchcraft before the archbishops
and the cardinal.

Although Beaufort was eagerly desirous
of peace, he never discouraged any efforts
which were made to prosecute the war with
vigour. In a debate in the council on 6 Feb.
1443, when the question was proposed

secret powers from the king, and in con- I whether an army should be sent to the relief

,. * -.I ,-t i ^ .L__I_. _.J'j_ i __£• TVT . _.3_ -£ f-i __•_.. • - ji

junction with the duchess acted as mediator
between the ambassadors of the two parties.
He landed at Calais on 26 June. As he
was the advocate of peace, and hoped to
secure it by means of the intervention of the
captive Duke of Orleans, while, on the other
hand, Gloucester was set on prosecuting the
war and on keeping the duke prisoner, the
discretionary powers entrusted to the car-

of Normandy or of Guienne, since there
seemed little hope of sending troops to both,
the cardinal, after others had spoken, some
for the one plan and some for the other, de-
clared that ' him seemeth both to be entended
were right necessary,' and suggested that the
treasurer should declare what funds he had
available for 'the setting of the said armies r
(Ordinances, v. 224). And when his nephew,

Beaufort

47

Beaufort

the Duke of Somerset, was persuaded to take
the command of the expedition which was
fitted out in that year, the cardinal promised
to lend 20,0007. towards its equipment, in-
sisting1, however, at the same time that the
patent securing the repayment of this sum
should be drawn out in the exact words he
chose; 'else he would lend no money.' When,
therefore, the form was being read before the
lords of the council, the Duke of Gloucester
said that such reading was needless, since
his uncle had passed it, and would have that
and no other (Ord. v. 280). Bitterly as the
words were spoken, they were true enough,
for without the help of the cardinal the
whole expedition must have come to naught.
In this year Beaufort obtained another gene-
ral pardon and release from all fines and
penalties for anything which he had done.
In the marriage of the king with Margaret I
of Anjou, in 1445, the cardinal must have
believed that he saw the promise of that
peace for which he had sought so earnestly,
and it is therefore interesting to find (Ore?,
v. 323) that the queen's wedding-ring was
made out of a ring with f a fair ruby ' which
the cardinal had presented to the king on the
day of his coronation. In the mysterious
death of the Duke of Gloucester, which took
place 23 Feb. 1447, Cardinal Beaufort cer-
tainly could have had no part. Bitter as
was the duke's enmity against him, Beaufort
would never have done a deed which was so
contrary to the interests of the Lancastrian
dynasty, and which opened the way for the
ambitious schemes of the rival house. A
few weeks later, on 11 April, the great car-
dinal died. The scene in which Shakespeare
portrays (Second Part Hen. VI, act iii.
sc. 3) ' the black despair ' of his death has
no historical basis. Hall records some words
of complaint and repentance which, he says,
Dr. John Baker, the cardinal's chaplain,
told him that his master uttered on his
death-bed. In spite, however, of this au-
thority, there is good reason for doubting
the truth of the story. A short account of
the cardinal's last days has been given us by
an eye-witness (Cont. Cray land}. As he lay
dying in the Wolvesey palace at Winchester,
he had many men, monks and clergy and
laymen, gathered in the great chamber where
he was, and there he caused the funeral ser-
vice and the requiem mass to be sung.
During the last few days of his life he was
busied with his will, and added the second
of its two codicils on 9 April. In the even-
ing before he died the will was read over to
him before all who were in the chamber,
and as it was read he made such corrections
and additions as he thought needful. On

the morning of the next day he confirmed it
with an audible voice. Then he took leave
of all, and so died. He was buried, accord-
ing to his directions, in his cathedral church
of Winchester. A large part of his great
wealth was left for charitable purposes.
When his executors offered the king 2,0007.
from the residue of his estate, Henry refused
it, saying, ' My uncle was very dear to me,
and did me much kindness while he lived ;
may the Lord reward him ! Do with his
goods as ye are bound to do ; I will not have
them' (BiAKMAtf, De Virtutibus Hen. VI}.
At Winchester Beaufort finished the re-
building of the cathedral, and re-founded
and enlarged the hospital of St. Cross, near
that city, giving it the name of Nova Domus
Eleemosynaria Nobilis Paupertatis. Busied
in the affairs of the world, he lived a secular
life. In his early years he was the lover of
Lady Alice Fitzalan, daughter of Richard,
Earl of Arundel, and by her had a daughter
named Joan, who married Sir Edward Strad-
ling, knight, of St. Donat's, in the county
of Glamorgan. Beaufort was ambitious,
haughty, and impetuous. Rich and heaping
up riches, he has continually been charged
with avarice. He certainly seems to have
clung unduly to his office as trustee of the
! family estates of the house of Lancaster,
I which must have given him command of a
I considerable sum of money. Trading in
money, he was not to blame if he took care
that he should as far as possible be defended
from loss, and if he loved it too well he at
least made his country a gainer by his wealth.
His speeches in parliament are marked by a
constitutional desire to uphold the crown by
the advice and support of the estates of the
realm. He was unwearied in the business
of the state and farsighted and patriotic in
his counsels. Family relationships with
foreign courts, as well as his position as
cardinal, gave him a place in Europe such
as was held by no other statesman, and
made him the fittest representative of his
country abroad. The events which followed
his death are the best proofs of the wisdom
of his policy and of his loyalty both to
the crown and to the truest interests of
England.

[Ordinances of the Privy Council, ii.-v. ed. Sir
H. Nicolas ; Eolls of Parliament, iii. iv.; Eymer's
Fcedera, ix. x. ; Gesta Henrici V. eel. Williams,
Eng. Hist. Soc. ; Thomas Otterbourne's Chron.
ed. Hearne ; Thomas do Elmham's Vita, &c. ed.
Hearne ; Letters illustrative of the Wars in
France, ed. Stevenson, Eolls Ser. ; Historical
Collections of a Citizen of London, ed. G-airdner,
Camden Soc. ; Walsingham's Historia, John
Amundesham's Annales, Chron. Monast. Sancti

Beaufort

48

Beaufort

Albani, ed. Riley, Rolls Ser. ; Hardyng's Chron. ;
Hall's Chron. ; Cont. Croyland, Gale's Scriptores,
i. ; Raynaldus, Eccl. Annales ; ^Eneas Sylvius,
Historia Bohemica ; Andrew of Ratisbon, Hotter,
Geschichtschreiber der Hussititchen Bewegung,
ii. ; Duct's Life of H. Ghiehele, Abp. of Cant.
1699 ; Godwin de Prsesulibus ; Le Neve's Fasti,
ed. Hardy ; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. ; Nichols's
Royal Wills; Stubbs's Const. Hist. iii. c. 18 ; Ex-
cerpta Historica, ed. Bentley ; Creighton's His-
tory of the Papacy during- the Reformation.]

BEAUFORT, JOHN (1403-1444), first
DUKE OF SOMERSET, military commander, was
the son of John Beaufort, eldest son of John
of Gaunt, by Catherine Swynford, who was
created Earl of Somerset and died in 1409.
John the younger succeeded to the earldom
on the death of his brother Henry in 1419. He
was early inured to arms, and fought at the
age of seventeen with Henry V in France.
In 1421 the Duke of Clarence, the king's
brother, being sent against the dauphin in
Anjou, advanced rashly against him with
his vanguard, and being surprised as he
crossed a marsh was killed, and Somerset,
who was with him, was taken prisoner, '
Speedily ransomed, the latter continued fight-
ing in France under Henry VI, his nearness
to the throne insuring him high command.
But though made duke in 1443 and captain
general in Aquitaine and Normandy, the
Duke of York was preferred to him as regent
of France. Somerset returned home in dis-
gust and died the next year — by his own
hand it is said, being unable to brook the
•disgrace of banishment from court which his
quarrel with the government had brought
upon him.

[Dugdale's Baronage ; Chronicles of Walsing-
ham and Croyland.] H. A. T.

BEAUFORT, MARGARET (1441-
1509), COUNTESS OF RICHMOND AND DERBY,
was daughter and heiress to John, first duke
of Somerset, by his wife Margaret, widow of
:Sir Oliver St. John, and heiress to Sir J. j
Beauchamp of Bletso. She was only three
years old at the time of her father's death ;
but her mother appears to have brought her
up with unusual care until, in her ninth year,
•she was brought to court, having passed into
the wardship of the Duke of Suffolk, then in
the height of his power. He hoped to obtain
her in marriage for his son, not without
thought of her possible succession to the
throne. On the other hand, Henry VI des-
tined her for his half brother Edmund Tudor,
Earl of Richmond. A vision inclined her to
the latter suitor, and she was betrothed at once
to him, and married in 1455. In the follow-

ing year the Earl of Richmond died, leaving
Margaret with an infant son. The breaking
out of the war of the Roses endangered
the safety of any related to the throne, and
' the child-widow retired with the future
! Henry VII to her brother-in-law's castle of
I Pembroke. Here she remained after her
| marriage with Henry Stafford, son of the
| Lancastrian Duke of Buckingham, and here
I she was detained in a kind of honourable
confinement after the triumph of the Yorkists
in 1461. The revolution of 1470 saw Mar-
garet back at court ; but the speedy return
of Edward IV, and his final victory at
Tewkesbury, by making the young Earl of
Richmond immediate heir to the Lancastrian
title, increased his danger, and forced him to
escape to Brittany. Margaret remained at
home, and, though keeping up communica-
tions with her exiled son, wisely effected a re-
conciliation with the ruling powers, and took
as her third husband the Lord Stanley, Ed-
ward's trusted minister, afterwards Earl of
Derby. The accession of Richard III (1483)
and the consequent split in the Yorkist party
raised the hopes of the Lancastrians, and
Margaret, emerging from her accustomed re-
tirement, took an active part in planning the
alliance between her own party and that of
the Wydviles by the marriage of Henry with
Elizabeth of York, and in preparing for the
abortive insurrection of 1484. Richard's
parliament at once attainted Henry, and de-
prived Margaret of her title and lands. Fur-
ther persecution she was spared, for Richard,
though he did not trust, dared not alienate
her husband, Lord Stanley, to whom her
lands were granted for his life, and her per-
son to be kept 'in some secret place at home,
without any servants or company, so that
she might not communicate with her son.'
Yet Stanley's growing sympathy with her
cause enabled her to aid in the preparations
for the rising of 1485, and his final defection
from Richard's side on Bosworth field secured
the throne to her son. After this she took
no part in the active duties of government,
and seldom appeared at court, except for the
christening of a goddaughter or the knight-
ing of a godson ; but the king deferred to
her opinion, especially in matters of court
etiquette, and their correspondence shows the
respect he bore her, and that he never forgot
that he derived his title through her, who,
had there then existed a precedent for female
succession, might herself have mounted the
throne. Sharing to the full the religious
spirit and strict orthodoxy of the Lancastrian
house, a life of devotion and charity best
suited her after the anxieties of her early life.
' It would fill a volume,' says Stow, ' to re-

Beaufort

49

Beaufort

count her good deeds.' She fell under the
influence of John Fisher, who left his books
at Cambridge to become her confessor ; and
long before her husband's death, in 1504,
she separated from him and took monastic
vows. Yet she never retired to any of the
five religious houses to which she was ad-
mitted member, but lived for the most part
at her manor of Woking, in Surrey, which
had been seized and made a royal palace by
Edward IV, and was restored, with its new
building, to the countess when Henry VII
became king. Following Fisher's advice, she
instituted that series of foundations which
have earned her a lasting name at the univer-
sities as * the Lady Margaret.' Her divinity
professorships at both Oxford and Cambridge
date from 1502. Fisher was the first occupant
of the latter chair, and when Henry VII,
not without asking his mother's leave, made
him bishop of Rochester, he was, after an in-
terval, succeeded by Erasmus. The Cam-
bridge preachership was endowed in 1503 ;
but Fisher had still greater plans for the de-
velopment of the university of which he was
now chancellor. Margaret's religious bias
had inclined her to devote the bulk of her
fortune to an extension of the great monas-
tery of Westminster. • Her spiritual guide,
strict Romanist as he was, knew that active
learning, not lazy seclusion, was essential to
preserve the church against the spirit of the
Renaissance, and he persuaded her to direct
her gift to educational purposes. Henry VI's
uncompleted foundation of God's house at
Cambridge was enriched by a fair portion of
Margaret's lands, and opened as Christ's Col-
lege in 1505. Nor were her benefactions to
cease here. The careful son's full treasury
did not require swelling with the mother's
fortune. An educational corporation should
be her heir. Her Oxford friends petitioned
her on their behalf, and St. Frideswide's
might have been turned into a college by
Margaret, and not by Wolsey. But Fisher
again successfully pleaded the cause of his
own university, and the royal license to re-
found the corrupt monastic house of St. John's
as a great and wealthy college was obtained
in 1508. In the next year both the king and
the countess died, and Henry VIII, although,
during the short interval which elapsed be-
tween the death of his father and that of his
grandmother, he followed the advice of the
able councillors whom she had selected, tried
to divert her estates to his own extravagant
expenditure. His selfish intention was
thwarted by Fisher, who proved an able
champion of his benefactress's will, as he had
been an eloquent exponent of her virtues in
his funeral sermon. He obtained a peremp-
VOL. iv.

tpry papal bull, which Henry dared not re-

sist, and the charter of foundation was given

in 1511, the buildings being completed five

years later at the then enormous cost of

5,000/. St. John's College is the Lady Mar-

garet's greatest monument, and possesses the

best memorials of her life. Although her

own contributions to literature are confined

to translating part of the * Imitatio Christi '

and other books of devotion into English from

j French editions, she was a valuable and early

| patron to Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde,

who undertook the composition and printing

of several books at her special desire and

command, the latter styling himself in 1509

j ' Printer unto the most excellent princess

, my lady the king's grandame.' She was one

| of the few worthy and high-mindsd members

; of the aristocracy, in an essentially selfish

I and cruel age ; and Fisher scarcely exagge-

: rated her reputation when he declared : ' All

England for her death had cause of weeping.

i The poor creatures that were wont to receive

her alms, to whom she was always piteous

and merciful : the students of both univer-

sities, to whom she was a mother; all the

learned men of England, to whom she was a

, very patroness; all the virtuous and devout

persons, to whom she was as a loving sister;

j all the good religious men and women, whom

i she so often was wont to visit and comfort ;

i all good priests and clerks, to whom she was

a true defender ; all the noble men and

women, to whom she was a mirror and

exampler of honour ; all the common people

of this realm, for whom she was, in their

causes, a common mediatrix, and took right

: great displeasure for them ; and generally

| the whole realm hath cause to complain and

to mourn her death.' To the list of her bene-

factions must be added a school and chantry

I at Wimborne Minster, where her father and

| mother lay buried beneath the stately monu-

| ment she erected to their memory, and a sum

for perpetual masses to her family at West-

minster.

[Halsted's Life of Margaret, Countess of

Richmond. 1839; Cooper's Memoir of Margaret,

Countess of Richmond and Derby, edited by

Rev. J. E. B. Mayor, 1874; Baker's edition of

| Fisher's Funeral Sermon, re-edited by J. Hy-

I mers, 1840; Ellis's Original Letters, Series I.

!'i. 41-8; Lodge's Illustrious Portraits, vol. i.]

H. A. T.

^ BEAUFORT, SIR THOMAS (d. 1427),
DUKE OP EXETER, warrior and chancellor, was
the third and youngest son of John of Gaunt
by Catherine Swynford, and was called, like
his brothers, ' De Beaufort,' after his father's
castle of that name. With them he was le-
gitimated by Richard II in 1397 (Rot. Parl

See

Ly*n

Beaufort

Beaufoy

iii. 343), and from that king he shortly after
received a grant of Castle Acre (Pat. 22
Ric. II, p. 1, m. 11). As a half-brother of
Henry IV he was promoted by him in state
employment, being made constable of Ludlow
in 1402, and admiral of the fleet for the
northern parts in 1403 (Pat. 5 Hen. IV, p. 1,
m. 20). In the insurrection of 1405 he was
one of the commanders of the king's forces
against the northern rebels, and on their sur-
render took a chief part (Ann. Hen. 408-9)
in procuring the execution of Scrope and
Mowbray (8 June 1405). On 9 Feb. 1407
his legitimation was confirmed by Henry, and
he had a grant soon after of the forfeited
Bardolph estates in Norfolk, and was made
captain of Calais. In 1408-9 he was made
admiral of the northern and western seas for
life, and on the anti-clerical reaction of 1409
he received from Henry the great seal 31 Jan.

1410, being the only lay chancellor of the
reign (Claus. 11 Hen. IV, m. 8 dors.). In
1411 he asked leave to resign, but was refused
(ib. 12 Hen. IV, m. 9), and he opened and
adjourned the parliament of 5 Nov.-19 Dec.

1411. He was allowed to resign 5 Jan. 1412
(Rot. Parl. iii. 658), and, taking part a few
months later in the French expedition under
the Duke of Clarence (T. WALS. ii. 288), was
created earl of Dorset 5 July 1412. On the ac-
cession of Henry V (1413) he was made lieu-
tenant of Aquitaine (Rot. Vase. 1 Hen. V,
m. 8), and was associated in the embassy to
France in 1414. Accompanying Henry on
the invasion of the next year, he was appointed
captain of Harfleur (T. WALS. ii. 309) on its
surrender (22 Sept. 1415), and, after com-
manding the third line at Agincourt (25 Oct. |
1415), sallied forth with his garrison and |
ravaged the Caux close up to Rouen (ib. 314). j
Armagnac early in 1416 besieged him closely
by land and sea, but having been relieved
by a fleet under the Duke of Bedford [see
PLANTAGENET, JoHtf, duke of Bedford] he
engaged and defeated the French (ib. 315).
He had been made lieutenant of Normandy
28 Feb. 1416, and on 18 Nov. he was created
in parliament duke of Exeter for life (Pat. 4
Hen. V, m. 11), and also received the garter.
In the summer of 1417 he went on pilgrimage
to Bridlington, and, hearing of the Foul Raid
and the siege of Roxburgh by the Scots, raised
forces (the king being in Normandy) and re-
lieved Roxburgh (T. WALS. ii. 325). At
Henry's summons he passed over to Nor-
mandy about Trinity (May) 1418, at the
head of reinforcements 15,000 strong (ib.
328). He besieged and took Evreux (ib.
329), but failed to take Ivry. He was now
(1 July 1418) created by Henry count of
Harcourt in Normandy (Rot. Norm. 6

Hen. V). On the approach of Henry to
Rouen he sent forward the duke to recon-
noitre and summon the town to surrender
(20-29 July 1418). On the siege being
formed he took up his quarters on the north,
facing the ' Beauvoisine ' gate. The keys of'
Rouen were given up to Henry 19 Jan. 1419,
and handed by him to his uncle, the duke,
whom he made captain of the city, and who-
took possession of it the next day. He was
then despatched to reduce the coast towns.
Montivilliers was surrendered to him 31 Jan.
(1419), and Fecamp, Dieppe, and Eu rapidly
followed. In the following April he laid siege-
to Chateau-Gaillard, which surrendered to
him after a five months' leaguer 23 Sept.
(1419). In the spring he was sent to the
French court to negotiate the treaty of Troyes-
(21 May 1420), and in the autumn he took
part in the siege of Melun (T. WALS. ii. 335),
On Henry's departure he was left with the
Duke of Clarence, and was made prisoner on
his defeat at Bauge" (22 March 1421). Re-
gaining his liberty he was despatched to
Cosne with the relieving force in the summer
of 1422 (ib. 343), but, being one of Henry's
executors, returned to England at his death
(21 Sept. 1422), and was present at his ob-
sequies. The chroniclers differ as to the
king's instructions (see STTTBBS, Const. Hist.
iii. 92) ; but it seems probable that he en-
trusted his son to

Thomas Beauforde his uncle dere and trewe
Duke of Excester, full of all worthyhode.

HAEDYNG, p. 387.

It is certain that the duke was placed on
the council under Gloucester's protectorate
(Rot. Parl. iv. 175), and he was also appointed
justice of North Wales (Pat. 1 Hen. VI,
p. 3, m. 14). He seems, however (Rot. Franc.
5 Hen. VI. m. 18), to have returned to the
French wars before his death, which took place
at his manor of Greenwich about 1 Jan. 1427
(Esch. 5 Hen. VI, n. 56) By his will (given
in Dugdale) he desired to be buried at St.
Edmund's Bury, where, 350 years later, his
body was found t as perfect and entire as at
the time of his death.' He had married Mar-
garet, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Nevill
of Hornby, but he left no issue.
_ [Thomas of Walsingham (Rolls Series) ; Ho-
! linshed's Chronicle; Stow 's Chronicle; Chronicque
d'Enguerrand de Monstrelet ; Poem on the Siege
of Kouen (Archseologia, vols. xxi, xxii) ; Dug-
dale's Baronage (inaccurate), ii. 125; Bent-
ley's Excerpta Historica, pp. 152 sq. ; boss's
Judges of England (1845), ii. 151 ; Puiseux's
i Siege et Prise de Rouen (1867).] J. H. R.

BEAUFOY, HENRY (d. 1795), whig
politician, was the son of a quaker wine
( merchant in London, who, to provide him

Beaufoy

51

Beaufoy

with a liberal education, sent him first
(1765-7) to the dissenting- academy at Hox-
ton, and afterwards (1707-70) to the more
famous Warrington academy, at the head of
which was Dr. Aikin [see AIKIN, Joutf, D.D.].
His education gave him a taste for science,
and identified him with the politics of liberal
dissent. He sat in parliament nearly fifteen
years, being elected for Minehead in 1780,
for Great Yarmouth in 1784, and again on
18 June 1790. On 10 March 1786 he was
placed on the committee for the establish-
ment of a new dissenting academy, and gave
100/. towards the institution, which was
opened as the Hackney College on 29 Sept.
1787. The dissenters placed in his hands
the advocacy of their case against the Cor-
poration and Test Acts, the repeal of which
he moved on 28 March 1787, and again on
8 May 1789. Next year Fox took the initia-
tive, and Beaufoy seconded his motion. He
held the post of secretary to the board of
control. He was roughly handled in cross-
examination by Home Tooke, on his trial
for high treason (November 1794), and this is
supposed to have hastened his death, which
took place on 17 May 1795. He wrote:
1. 'The Effects of Civilisation on the Real
Improvement and Happiness of Mankind, in
answer to Rousseau,' 1768 (this was an aca-
demical oration at Warrington, published
by his father). 2. ' Substance of the Speech
on motion for Repeal of Test and Corpo-
ration Acts/ 1787, 8vo. 3. 'Substance of
the Speech to British Society for Extend-
ing the Fisheries,' 1788, 8vo. 4. 'Plan of
the Association for Promoting the Discovery
of the Interior Parts of Africa/ 1788, folio.
5. ' Speech [18 June] in Committee on Bill
for Regulating the Conveyance of Negroes
from Africa to the West Indies ; with addi-
tional observations/ 1789, 8vo. 6. ' Pro-
ceedings of the Association for Promoting
the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa/
vol. i., 1790, 8vo (the first report is his).

[Gent. Mag. May 1795, p. 445 ; W. Turner in
Monthly Repos. 1814, pp. 268, 290; Norf. Tour,
1829, p. 263 ; Hackney Coll. Reports.] A. G.

BEAUFOY, MARK (1764-1827), astro-
nomer and physicist, was the son of a brewer
near London, of the quaker persuasion. He
began experiments on the resistance of water
to moving bodies before he was fifteen, in the
coolers of his father's brewhouse, and it was
mainly by his exertions that the Society for
the Improvement of Naval Architecture was
founded in 1791. Under its auspices an im-
portant series of experiments was conducted
at the Greenland Dock during the years 1793-8
by the care, and in part at the cost, of Colonel

Beaufoy. Many useful results in shipbuilding
were thus obtained, as well as the first prac-
tical verification in England of Euler's theo-
rems on the resistance of fluids. The details
were printed in 1834, at the expense of Mr.
Henry Beaufoy (son of the author), in a large
quarto volume entitled ' Nautical and Hy-
draulic Experiments, gratuitously distributed
to public bodies and individuals interested
in naval architecture. In the laborious cal-
culations connected with this work, Beaufoy
was materially assisted, up to the time of
her unexpected death in 1800, by his gifted
wife. His magnetic observations, prolonged
(though not altogether continuously) from
March 1813 to March 1822, were superior in
accuracy and extent to any earlier work of
the kind. They served to determine more
precisely the laws of the diurnal variation,
as well as to fix the epoch and amount of
maximum westerly declination in England.
This he considered to have occurred in March
1819, for which month the mean deviation
of the needle from the true north was
24° 41' 42" W. (Annals of Philosophy, xv.
338). The data accumulated by Beaufoy en-
abled Lamont in 1851 to confirm his discovery
of a decennial period in the amount of diurnal
variation, by placing a maximum in 1817
(Poyy. Annal. Ixxxiv. 576).

Beaufoy removed from Hackney Wick to
Bushey Heath near Stanmore in Hertford-
shire towards the close of 1815. It was
here that the series of observations on the
eclipses of Jupiter's satellites was made,
which the Astronomical Society rewarded
with its silver medal on 11 April 1827.
They embraced 180 immersions and emer-
sions, observed 1818-26, and their value —
as Sir John Herschel pointed out in his ad-
dress (Mem. R. A. Soc. iii. 135) — was en-
hanced by the uniformity imparted to them
by being the work of one observer, using a
single telescope (a 5-foot Dollond), and a
single power (86). They were communicated
to the society in two papers, printed amongst
their ' Memoirs ' (ii. 129, iii. 69), and repro-
duced in the ' Astronomische Nachrichten '
(Nos. 19 to 82), and gave to the little ob-
servatory where they were made a Euro-
pean reputation. Beaufoy was prevented
by illness from attending in person to re-
ceive the medal, and died at Bushey Heath
on 4 May 1827, aged 63. His instruments,
consisting of a 4-foot transit, an altitude
and azimuth circle (both by Gary), and two
clocks, were, by his desire, presented to the
Astronomical Society by his son, Lieutenant
George Beaufoy (Mem. H. A. Soc. iii. 391).

Beaufoy 's military title dated from 20 Jan.
1797, when lie became colonel of the Tower

E2

Beaulieu

Beaumont

Hamlets militia. He was admitted to the
Royal Society in 1815, was a fellow of the
Liniiean Society, and one of the earliest
members of the Astronomical Society. He
was the first Englishman to ascend Mont
Blanc, having reached the summit on 9 Aug.
1787, only six days later than Saussure.
His ' Narrative ' of the adventure was made
public in 1817 (Ann. Phil. ix. 97). He
was a constant contributor to the ' Annals
of Philosophy' from 1813 until 1826. The
whole of his astronomical, meteorological,
and magnetic observations appeared in its
pages, besides miscellaneous communica-
tions of scientific interest, of which a list,
to the number of twenty-eight, will be found
in the Royal Society's ' Catalogue of Scien-
tific Papers.'

[Silliman's Am. Jour, xxviii. 340 (1835) ;
Poggendorff ' s Biog. Lit. Handworterbuch ; Gent.
Mag. xcvii. (pt. i.) 476.] A. M. C.

BEAULIEU, LUKE DE (d. 1723), divine,
a native of France, was educated at the uni-
versity of Saumur. Obliged to quit his coun-
try on account of his religion, he sought re-
fuge in England about 1667, settled here, and
rapidly became known as an acute and learned
ecclesiastic. In November 1670 he received
the vicarage of Upton-cum-Chalvey, Buck-
inghamshire, having a short time before been
elected divinity reader in the chapel of St.
George at Windsor. Beaulieu obtained an act
of naturalisation in June 1682. A year later
we find him acting as chaplain to the infamous
Judge Jeffreys, an office which he continued to
hold till the revolution brought his patron's
career to a close. Meanwhile he had become
a student at Oxford in 1680, ' for the sake of
the public library,' says Wood, but he does not
seem to have permanently resided there. As
a member of Christ Church he took the de-
gree of B.C. 7 July 1685, and in October the
same year was presented by Jeffreys to the
rectory of Whitchurch, near Reading. He
had resigned his living of Upton in 1681.
He was installed prebendary of St. Paul's
17 Jan. 1686-7, and on the following 21 May
prebendary of Gloucester, promotions which
he again owed to the lord chancellor. To
modern readers Beaulieu is chiefly known as
the author of a remarkably eloquent and
original manual of devotion, entitled l Clau-
strum Animse, the Reformed Monastery, or
the Love of Jesus/ two parts, 12mo, London,
1677-76, which reached a fourth edition in
1699. This little work is dedicated, under the
initials of L. B., to Dr. John Fell, bishop of
Oxford, who was also dean of Christ Church,
and to whom the author expresses himself
under obligations. Beaulieu was afterwards

I chosen one of the bishop's chaplains. He died
j 26 May 1723, aged 78, and was buried on the
I 30th at Whitchurch. His wife Priscilla was
laid in the same grave 5 Dec. 1728. Their
son, George de Beaulieu, matriculated at his
father's college, Christ Church, took his B. A.
degree in 1708, and entered into orders. He
was buried with his parents 17 May 1736.
The late Dr. George Oliver, of Exeter, pos-
sessed some curious correspondence of Luke
de Beaulieu with a certain Franciscan monk,
in reference to devotional manuals and books
of meditation, which is said to indicate ' the
yet abiding influence of the Laudian revival
up to that period.'

Besides the above-mentioned work and
several sermons Beaulieu was the acknow-
ledged author of: 1. ' Take heed of both Ex-
treams, or plain and useful Cautions against
Popery and Presbytery, in two parts,' 8vo,
London, 1675. 2. ' The Holy Inquisition,
wherein is represented what is the religion
of the church of Rome, and how they are dealt
with that dissent from it,' 8vo, London, 1681.
3. ( A Discourse showing that Protestants are
on the safer side, notwithstanding the un-
charitable judgment of their adversaries, and
that their religion is the surest way to heaven/
4to, London, 1687, which has been twice re-
printed. 4. ' The Infernal Observator, or the
Quickning Dead/ 8vo, London, 1684, which,
according to Wood, was originally written in
French. Beaulieu also translated from the
Latin Bishop Cosin's t History of Popish
Transubstantiation/ 8vo, London, 1676.

[Information from the Rector of Whitchurch ;
Wood's Athen. Oxon.. ed. Bliss, iv. 668 ; Lips-
comb's Hist. Buckinghamshire, iv. 573 ; Le
Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl. ed. Hardy, i. 450, ii.
443 ; Agnew's Protestant Exiles, 2nd ed. i. 30,
42, iii. 19 ; Hist. Reg. 1723, Chron. Diary, p. 29 ;
Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. x. 307, 3rd. ser. vii.
37-8 ; Introduction by F. Gr. L. to new edit, of
the Reformed Monastery, 12mo, London (1865) ;
Jones's Catalogue of Tracts for and against Po-
pery (Chetham Soc.), pt. i. 237, ii. 382, 523.1

Gr. Gr.

BEAUMONT, SIB ALBANIS (d. 1810 ?),
draughtsman, aquatint engraver, and land-
scape painter, was born in Piedmont, but
naturalised in England. Between the years
1787 and 1806 he published a great number
of views in the south of France, in the Alps,
and in Italy. The short account of him in
Fiissli's ' Lexicon ' (1806) is the best : ' Pro-
bably a Piedmontese, and the son of Claudio
Francesco, he carried the sounding title of
'Architecte pensionn<3 de S. M. le roi de
Sardaigne a la suite de S. A. R. le due de
Gloucester." In 1787 he exhibited a set of
twelve views in Italy, mostly in the neigh-

Beaumont

53

Beaumont

bourhood of Nice

and in 1788 vet other

twelve views
bourhood of
neva, drawn

rs (mediocre enough) in the neigh-
f Chamouny and the lake of Ge-
and etched by himself. The

value of these is due to the beautiful colour-
ing added by Bernard Lory the elder. Soon
after he betook himself and his landscape
factory (Prospektfabrik) to London, and
there associated himself with a certain Thomas
Gowland as his partner, and Cornelius Apos-
tool as engraver. In the last ten years of the
eighteenth century this firm turned out a new
series of views in Switzerland, France, anc
Savoy, which are about on a level with their
precursors, but had not the advantage 01
Bernard Lory's tasteful brush. It must be
acknowledged, however, that the clean firm
lines of Apostool's needle add as much to
this series as the other lost from the flaccid
and insecure draughtsmanship of Beaumont.
A description of these plates and their prices
(high at times) is found in Meusel's Museum.
He afterwards took to landscape painting,
exhibiting in 1806 <A Storm at Sea/ in
which the waves are said to have been drawn
with great truth. A list of his works is in
the new edition of Nagler, 1881, and a rather
long account of him in the old, 1835.

[Fiissli's Allgemeines Kiinstler-Lexicon, 1806 ;
Meusel's Museum, xiv. 36-38 ; Meusel's Neue
Miscel. 476, 477 ; Nagler' s Kiinstler-Lexicon,
1835 and 1881.] E. K.

BEAUMONT, BASIL (1669-1703), rear-
admiral, was the fifth son, amongst the
twenty-one children, of Sir Henry Beaumont,
of Stoughton Grange and Cole Orton, a dis-
tant cousin of the Duke of Buckingham
(BTJRKE'S Peerage and Baronetage, and GAR-
DINER'S Hist, of England, ii. 317). Of his
early service in the navy there is no record :
it was short and uneventful, and on 28 Oct.
1688 he was appointed lieutenant of the
Portsmouth. Six months later, 21 April
1689, he was appointed captain of the Cen-
turion, which ship was lost in Plymouth
Sound in a violent storm on 25 Dec. of the
same year. Although so young a captain,
no blame attached to him. He was accord-
ingly appointed, after some months, to the
Dreadnought, and early in 1692 was trans-
ferred to the Rupert, in which ship he took
part in the battle of Barfleur. He continued
in the Rupert during the following year;
and in 1694 commanded the Canterbury in
the Mediterranean. In 1696 he commanded
the Mountagu, in the fleet cruising in the
Channel and oft* Ushant, and was for a short
time detached as commodore of an inshore
squadron. He was afterwards transferred,
at short intervals, to the Neptune, Essex,

and Duke, whilst in command of the squa-
dron off Dunkirk, during the remainder of 1 696
and till the peace. In November 1698 he
was appointed to the Resolution, and during
the next year was senior officer at Spithead,
with a special commission for commanding
in chief and holding courts-martial (23 Feb.
1698-9). In the end of August he was or-
dered to pay the ship off". He commissioned
her again some months later, and continued
in her for the next two years, for a great
part of which time he lay in the Downs,
commanding — as he wrote — 'a number ol
ships of consequence, with no small trouble
and a good deal of charge,' on which he re-
ferred it to the lord high admiral, ' if this
does not require more than barely command-
ing as the eldest captain ' (9 April 1702).
His application did not meet with immediate
success ; in June he was turned over to the
Tilbury, and continued to command the
squadron in the Downs, at the Nore, and
in the North Sea, till, on 1 March 1702-3,
he was promoted to be a rear-admiral, and
directed to hoist his flag on board the Mary,
then fitting out at Woolwich. His rank,
not his service, was altered. During the
summer he cruised in the North Sea and off
Dunkirk, or convoyed the Baltic trade ; on
the approach of winter he returned to the
Downs, where he anchored on 19 Oct. He
was still there on 27 Nov., when the great
storm which 'o'er pale Britannia passed,'
hurled the ship on to the Goodwin Sands.
Every soul on board, the admiral included,
was lost. The circumstances of his death
have given to Admiral Beaumont's name a
wider repute than his career as an officer
would have otherwise entitled it to ; his ser-
vice throughout was creditable, without
being distinguished ; and the only remark-
able point about it is that, after having held
mportant commands, he attained flag-rank
within fifteen years of his entry into the
service, and when he was not yet thirty-four
years of age. Two younger brothers, who
had also entered the navy, had previously
died ; one, William Villiers, a lieutenant,
lad died of fever in the W'est Indies, 17 July
1697; the other, Charles, was lost in the
blowing up of the Carlisle, 19 Sept. 1700 ;
and their mother, Lady Beaumont, after the
death of the rear-admiral, memorialised the
queen, praying for relief. As Lady Beau-
mont's second son, George, who, on the death
>f his elder brother, had succeeded to the title
ind estates, was unmarried and appointed a
ord commissioner of the admiralty in 1714,
the implied statement that the family was
dependent on Basil is curious. The petition,
lowever, was successful, and a pension of

Beaumont

54

Beaumont

50/. a year was granted to each of the six
daughters.

Beaumont's portrait, by Michael Dahl,
is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, to
which it was presented by King George IV ;
it is that of a comely young man, who
might have become very stout if he had
lived.

[Official documents in the Public Eecord
Office.] J. K L.

BEAUMONT, FRANCIS (d. 1598),
judge, was the eldest son of John Beaumont,
sometime master of the rolls, by his second
wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Hast-
ings. His father was removed from the bench
in 1552 for scandalously abusing his position
[see BEAUMONT, JOHN]. Of Francis s early
education nothing is recorded. He appears
as a fellow-commoner of Peterhouse, Cam-
bridge, when Elizabeth visited the university.
There is no entry of his matriculation, nor
of his having graduated. He studied law in
the Inner Temple, was called to the bar, and
practised with success and reputation. He
represented Aldborough in the parliament of
1572. In 1581 he was elected autumn reader
in the Inner Temple. In 1589 he was called
to the degree of serjeant-at-law (NICHOLS'S
Leicestershire, iii. 655). He was promoted to
the bench as a judge of the common pleas
on 25 Jan. 1592-3. He was never knighted:
he is described in his will, made the day
before his death, as l Esquire.'

He married Anne, daughter of Sir George
Pierrepoint, knt., of Holme-Pierrepoint, Not-
tinghamshire, and widow of Thomas Thorold,
of Marston, Lincolnshire. She predeceased
him. They had a family of three sons and
one daughter. The sons were Henry, who
was knighted in 1603 and died in 1605,
setat. 24 ; John [see BEAUMONT, SIR JOHN] ;
Francis, the great dramatist [q. v.]. The
daughter was Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Sey-
liard, of Kent. Beaumont died at Grace-Dieu
on 22 April 1598, and was buried on 12 June
following, with heraldic attendance, in the
church of Belton, within which parish Grace-
Dieu lies. Burton, the historian of Leicester-
shire, who was three-and-twenty when Beau-
mont died, calls him a f grave, learned, and
reverend judge.'

[Cooper's Athen. Cantab, ii. 246 ; Dyce's Beau-
mont and Fletcher's Works, i. xix, xxii, Ixxxvii,
Ixxxxix ; Introduction to Dr. Grrosart's edition
of the Poems of Sir John Beaumont in Fuller's
Worthies Library (1869) ; Cal. Chanc.Proc.temp.
Eliz. i. 61 ; Coke's Beports, ix. 138 ; Foss's Judges
of England, v. 408, 411, 414, 421, 456 ; Dugdale's
Orig. Jurid. 166, 186 ; Chron. Ser. 98 ; Nichols's
Leicestershire, iii. 649, 655, 656, 666*, and pi.

Ixxvii. ng. 4; Originalia Eliz. p. 3, r. 126; Strype's
Annals, iii. 92 ; Talbot Papers, GK 472, 505, 529,
H. 207 ; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. (2) 95.] A. B. G-.

BEAUMONT, FRANCIS (1584-1616),
dramatist, was the third son of Francis
Beaumont, the judge of the common pleas,
and younger brother of Sir John Beaumont
[see BEAUMONT, FRANCIS, d. 1598, and BEAU-
MONT, SIK JOHN, 1583-1627]. He was
doubtless born at Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire,
the family seat. The baptismal registers of
Grace-Dieu and Belton contain, however, no
Beaumont entries of service to us ; but the
rite may have been administered in the me-
tropolis, where was the father's permanent
residence. Thomas Bancroft (in his Epi-
grams, 1639, B. i. Ep. 81), expressly connects
all the well-known members of the family
with Grace-Dieu in the lines : —

Grace-dieu, that under Charnwood stand'st

alone . . .

That lately brought such noble Beaumonts forth,
Whose brave heroick Muses might aspire
To match the anthems of the heavenly quire.

The entry of Francis's matriculation in the
Oxford university register establishes the
date of his birth. It runs : Broadgates [after-
wards Pembroke College], 1596-[7], Feb. 4.
Francisc. Beaumont Baron, fil. eetat. 12.
The age is dated by the last birthday, so
that he must have been born in 1584.

In the second year of his academic course
at Oxford his father died (22 April 1598),
and, with his brothers Henry and John
[q. v.], he then abruptly left the university
without taking a degree. Beaumont was
'entered a member of the Inner Temple,
3 Nov. 1600 ; ' but no evidence remains that
he pursued his legal studies. Judging from
after-events and occupations, he was (it is to
be suspected) more frequently within the
' charmed circle ' of the Mermaid than in
chambers. Very early both his elder brother
Sir John and himself were bosom friends of
Drayton and Ben Jonson. The former, in
his epistle to Reynolds ' Of Poets and Poetry,'
thus boasts of their friendship : —
Then the two Beaumonts and my Browne arose,.
My dear companions, whom I freely chose
My bosom friends ; and in their several ways
Rightly born poets, and in these last, days
Men of much note and no less nobler parts,
Such as have freely told to me their hearts,
As I have mine to them.

Francis's earliest known attempt in verse
was the little address placed by him before
Sir John Beaumont's ' Metamorphosis of
Tobacco ' (1602). It already shows the in-
evitable touch of a master, but is mainly
interesting for its timorous entrance into

Beaumont

55

Beaumont

•that realm of poetry whereof its writer was
destined to be a sovereign. Later in the same
year (1602) the young poet grew bolder and
published 'Salmacis and Hermaphroditus.'
Mr. A. 0. Swinburne (in Encyc. Brit.) has
described this poem as ' a voluptuous and
voluminous expansion of the Ovidian legend,
not on the whole discreditable to a lad of
.seventeen [eighteen] fresh from the popular
love poems of Marlowe and Shakespeare,
which it necessarily exceeds in long-winded
.and fantastic diffusion of episodes and con-
ceits.' Early in 1613 he wrote a masque for
the Inner Temple.

Beaumont must shortly afterwards have
•come to know Ben Jonson. One priceless
memorial of their friendship belongs to 1607
in a commendatory poem prefixed to Jonsou's
masterpiece, ' The Fox,' acted in 1605. In
this beautiful encomium Beaumont addresses
the author as his 'dear friend.' In 1609,
before Jonson's ' Silent Woman,' and in 1611,
before his l Catiline,' Beaumont was again
ready with commendatory verses, though
unequal to those of the ' Fox.' Some have
-supposed that Beaumont did more for Jonson
than these slight things — that he helped him
to prepare the version of his 'Sejanus' acted
in 1603 (cf. JONSON'S address ' to the readers '
in edition of 1605). But more probably Jon-
son's assistant there was George Chapman.

There is no record of the circumstances •
under which Beaumont and Fletcher first I
met. Jonson may have introduced them to !
«ach other, but nothing certain is known.
But that their warm and close friendship
dated from their early youth there can be
little question. ' There was,' says the
all-inquiring Aubrey, 'a wonderfull consi-
mility of phansy between him [Beaumont]
•and Mr. lo. Fletcher, which caused that
dearnesse of friendship between them. . . .
They lived together on the Banke side [in
South wark], not far from the playhouse
[Globe], both batchelors, lay together, had
one wench [servant-maid] in the house,
between them, which they did so admire,
the same cloaths and cloake, &c. between
them ' (Letters, ii., part i., p. 236). The lite- '
rary partnership, born of this close intimacy,
was not one of the sordid arrangements
made between needy playwrights of which
Henslowe's ' Diary ' gives many examples ; j
it arose at their own, not at any theatrical |
manager's prompting. In worldly matters '
Beaumont, though a younger son, had on
the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry,
in 1605, shared the surplusage of the estate,
•over and above his own direct inheritance,
along with Sir John. Fletcher — latterly at
least — may have had his difficulties, but so

long as Beaumont lived these could not have
pressed on him very heavily.

The numerous conjoint works of Beaumont
and Fletcher ranged from about 1605-6 to
1616. The question as to the share taken
by the two authors will be discussed under
FLETCHER, JOHN.

Beaumont, in his occasional retirements
from the capital to Grace-Dieu, apparently
carried Fletcher with him. His verse ' Letter
to Ben Jonson,' most probably written from
Leicestershire, leaves the impression that the
two friends were then together. This letter
furnishes the best-remembered example of
Beaumont's non-dramatic verse in the un-
dying description of the wit-combats between
Shakespeare and Jonson and their fellows.
Ben Jonson in reply to these verses paid a
high tribute to their author.

It seems to be agreed that Beaumont
married 'about 1613' (DrCE, i. li). His
wife was Ursula, daughter and coheiress to
Henry Isley,of Sundridge in Kent, an ancient
though then decayed house (HASTED, Kent,
i. 368-9). Two daughters were their issue,
Elizabeth and Frances, the latter born after
her father's death. Elizabeth married 'a,
Scotch colonel,' and was resident in Scot-
land in March 1681-2. Frances was living
at a great age in Leicestershire in 1700, and
then receiving a pension of 100/. from the
Duke of Ormond, in whose family she had
been domesticated as, probably, lady's maid
(DrcE, i. lii, and authorities).

The married life was a brief one, for
Francis Beaumont died on 6 March 1615-16,
and was, like his elder brother, interred in
Westminster Abbey. The following is the
entry in the register : ' 9 March 1615-16.
Francis Beaumont : at the entrance of St.
Benedict's Chapel' (CHESTER, Westminster
Register). He left no will, but his widow
administered his estate 20 June 1619. Dray-
ton ascribed the elder brother's death to a too
' fiery brain ' or overwrought body. Similarly
Bishop Corbet sang of the younger :—

So dearly hast thou bought thy precious lines ;
Their praise grew swiftly, as thy life declines.
Beaumont is dead, by whose sole death appears,
Wit's a disease consumes men in few years.

DYCE, i. lii.

Beaumont's successive ' elegies ' and minor
poems, written at various times, are in the
aggregate inexplicably poor and unequal.
Even with the ' sole daughter ' of a Sidney
to inspire him, his ' mourning ' verse is me-
chanical. It is alone as a dramatic poet that
he lives. Two collections of poems, published
after his death (1640 and 1653) and bearing
his name, included miscellaneous waifs and

Beaumont

Beaumont

strays by all manner of men, and very few
are to be ascribed to his pen.

The first collected edition of Beaumont
and Fletcher's plays appeared in 1647 under
the title i Comedies and Tragedies written
by Francis Beavmont and lohn Fletcher,
Gentlemen. Never printed before, an$ now
published by the Authours Originall Copies,'
1647 (folio). Dyce's edition (11 vols. 1843)
is the latest, and, like all texts edited by
him, modernised. Beaumont and Fletcher,
like Ben Jonson, still await a competent
editor, for with its many merits Dyce's work
lacks faithfulness and thoroughness of colla-
tion. Hunter, in his ' Chorus Vatum,' notes
Oldys's difficulty as to Beaumont's early
poems, viz. that his name appears in Speght's
* Chaucer ' (1598) ; but there was another
earlier writer of the same name.

[Burton's Leicestershire ; Nichols's Hist, of
Leicestershire; Collier's Life of Shakespeare (cf.
with Dyce's Beaumont and Fletcher, xi. 445) ;
Malone's Shakespeare ; Barley's Introduction to
the Works of Beaumont and Fletcher; Francis
Beaumont, a critical study by G. C. Macaulay,
1883 ; Jonson's Works by Cunningham, 3 ATO!S. ;
Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe,
iii. 99 (ed. 1 843) ; Notes of Jonson's Conversa-
tions with Drummond by Laing ; College of Arms
MSS. ; Visitations of Leicestershire ; Thompson's
Leicester; Davies's Scourge of Folly in his com-
plete Works in Fuller's Worthies Library, 2 vols.
4to; Hey wood's Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells,
1635, p. 206.] A. B. G.

BEAUMONT, SIR GEORGE HOW-
LAND (1753-1827), connoisseur, patron
of art and landscape painter, was the son
of Sir George Beaumont, the sixth baronet,
and Rachel, daughter of Michael Howland.
of Stonehall, Dunmow, Essex, where he was
born 6 Nov. 1753. He succeeded to the title
in 1762, and was educated at Eton and New
College, Oxford. In 1778 he married Mar-
garet Willes, daughter of John Willes of As-
trop, and granddaughter of Lord Chief Jus-
tice Willes, and in 1782 made with her the
tour of Italy. From his youth he had shown
taste for literature and the fine arts, and cul-
tivated the society of poets and painters, prac-
tising himself the art of landscape painting.
In 1790 he entered parliament, and was mem-
ber for Beeralston till 1796. His social po-
sition, wealth, and cultivation secured for
him a distinguished position as a ruler of
taste, and to these qualifications b^e added
much personal attraction, being tall and good-
looking, with polished manners and gentle
address. In 1800, with the assistance of the
architect Dance, he began to rebuild Coleor-
ton Hall, where, according to the dedication
of Wordsworth to the edition of his poems in

1815, several of that poet's best pieces were
composed. It was here also, after Sir George's
death, that Wordsworth wrote his elegiac
musings, a tender and eloquent tribute to the
character and talents of his friend, and his
noble ' Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle r
was suggested by one of Beaumont's pictures.
Sir George knew Dr. Johnson, was the in-
timate friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and it
was under his roof that Sir Walter Scott met
Sir Humphry Davy, Samuel Rogers, and
Byron, who satirised him in ' The Blues/
He encouraged Coleridge, and helped to pro-
cure his pension. Sir George soon began to
collect works of art, beginning with drawings
by the English artists, Wilson, Gilpin, Hearner
Girtin, and others. To these he added slowly r
and with good judgment, a fine but small
collection of old masters, and of oil pictures
by contemporary Englishmen. Haydon
| (whose ' Macbeth ' he purchased) and Jack-
I son were among the artists whom he specially
\ befriended, and after John Robert Cozens be-
I came insane he supported him till he died.
Sir George was one of the first to detect the
merits of Wilkie, and Edwin Landseer, and
Gibson the sculptor. . It was for him that the
first painted the < Blind Fiddler.' In 1818,
I when Landseer was a lad of sixteen, he pur-
chased the now celebrated picture of * Fight-
ing Dogs,' and when in Rome in 1822 he gave
Gibson a commission for the group of ' Psyche
borne by Zephyrs.' It was here at the same
I time that he purchased the beautiful un-
| finished bas-relief, by Michael Angelo, of ' The
i Virgin, the Holy Child, and St. John,' now
I in the possession of the Royal Academy, to
i whom it was presented by him.

Sir George greatly admired the works of
Wilson and Claude, and it was on these
1 painters that he formed his own style ; but
' though his landscapes show signs of poetical
feeling, they did not rise above mediocrity in
execution. This fact and his reported say-
ings that ' a good picture, like a good fiddle,
should be brown,' and that ' there ought to be
, one brown tree in every landscape,' have cast
undeserved ridicule upon his taste, which was
unusually intelligent and independent for his
time. This opinion is attested not only by
the judgment shown in his collection, but by
i his criticisms both of ancient and modern
1 pictures. His lifelong devotion to art cul-
' minated in the success of his endeavours to-
j wards the formation of a national gallery.
These were much assisted by his conditional
offer to present his own collection to the na-
I tion, and in 1826, or two years after the pur-
i chase by the state of Mr. Angerstein s pictures
(the nucleus of the present National Gallery),
he added sixteen of his own, including four

v

Beaumont

57

Beaumont

Claudes, two fine Rembrandts, Rubens's land-
scape of 'The Chateau de Stem/ Wilson's
' Maecenas's Villa ' and ' Niobe,' and Wilkie's
< Blind Fiddler.' To one of the Claudes,
now No. 61 in the National Gallery, he was
so attached that he requested to have it re-
turned to him for his lifetime. It was this
picture probably, and not the 'Narcissus'
(No. 19), as recorded by Cunningham, that
he used to carry with him whenever he
changed his residence from Coleorton Hall to
Grosvenor Square, or vice versa. Sir George
Beaumont died on 7 Feb. 1827, aged 74.

[Cunningham's Lives, ed. Heaton ; Red-
grave's Dictionary; Annals of the Fine Arts;
Wordsworth's Poems (1813); Byron's Poems;
Bos well's Life of Johnson ; Lockhart's Lite of
Scott ; Catalogues of the National Gallery ;
Burke's Peerage ; Annual Register, 1827.]

C. M.

BEAUMONT, JOHN (/. 1550), master
of the rolls, was great-grandson of Sir Thomas
Beaumont, of Bachuile, in Normandy, and
great-great-grandson of John de Beaumont,
baron, knight of the Garter, who died in
1396. The barony, however, with which
this unfortunate judge's family had thus been
collaterally connected, had already fallen
into abeyance in his time through the death
of the seventh baron and second viscount
without issue in 1507, the viscounty then
becoming extinct. The sixth baron had
been distinguished as the first viscount ever
created in this country. The barony was
claimed, but unsuccessfully, in 1798 by
Thomas Stapleton, wTho traced his descent
to Joan Beaumont, sister and heir of the
seventh baron. His grand-nephew, Miles
Thomas Stapleton, father of the present
baron, was successful in asserting his claim
in 1840. The earliest mention of John
Beaumont appears to be a memorandum in
the books of the corporation of Leicester,
under date 1529-30, to the following effect :
— ' Agreed to give to John Beaumont, gent.,
6s. Sd. fee to answrer in such causes as the
town shall need and require.' In 1534, on
the abbot of Leicester subscribing to the
king's spiritual supremacy, a commission
was appointed to take an ecclesiastical sur-
vey of the county, and Beaumont was placed
thereon. In 1537 he was appointed reader at
the Inner Temple, and in 1543 double reader
(duplex lector), as a person appointed for
the second time was then called. In 1547
he was elected treasurer of that society. His
name is not to be found in the year books
of Henry Til's reign, nor in any of the re-
ports belonging to the reign of Edward VI.
In 1550 he was appointed recorder of Lei-

cester, and in the same year master of the
rolls, in succession to Sir Robert Southwell.
In this capacity he was commissioned to-
hear causes for Lord Chancellor Rich, 26 Nov.
1551, and for Lord Chancellor Goodrich,
21 Jan. 1552. He had not, however, long-
sat on the bench before he abused his posi-
tion for his own advantage in the grossest
possible manner. He concluded a corrupt
bargain (known to lawyers as champerty)
with Lady Anne Powis, who was suing in
his court to recover possession of land to
which she claimed to be entitled from Charles
Brandon, duke of Suffolk, by which Lady
Anne Powis agreed to sell the benefit of her
suit, if she should be successful, to the judge
for a sum of money. The selling of titles by
persons not having possession of the lands is,
even as between private individuals, a cor-
rupt practice by English law, and a statute
of Henry VIII renders either party to the
contract liable to forfeit the full value of
the lands. Beaumont, however, did not stop
short at champerty. He endeavoured to cor-
roborate Lady Powis's title by forging the
signature of the late Duke of Suffolk to a
deed by which that nobleman purported to
grant the lands in question to the lady. He
was also guilty of appropriating to his own
use funds belonging to the royal revenues
coming into his hands in his capacity of
iudge of the court of wards and liveries
(established by Henry VIII in 1540-41) to
the amount of 20,871/. 18s. 8d., and of con-
cealing a felony committed by his servant.
On 9 February, i.e. when he had been in
office little more than a year, he was ar-
rested on these charges and put in prison.
He subsequently (4 June) admitted their
truth, but retracted his confession on the
16th, only again to acknowledge his guilt on
the 20th. Of that, however, there appears
to have been no doubt from the first. His
successor, Sir Robert Bowes, was nominated
as early as 10 May. Beaumont formally sur-
rendered his office, and admitted his defalca-
tions on 28 May, and by the same document
assigned all his manors, lands, goods and
chattels, with the issues and profits of the
same, to the king in satisfaction of his claims.
On 4 June he acknowledged a fine of his
lands, which were entailed upon himself and
his wife, and signed a covenant to surrender
his goods. By what may have been either a
curious oversight or an intentional act of
grace, his wife was not made a party to the
fine, and by consequence on Beaumont's
death her estate tail never having been
barred ' survived ' to her. She entered within
five years thereafter upon the estate of Grace-
Dieu in Leicestershire, which Henry, earl of

Beaumont

Beaumont

Huntingdon, to whom in 1553 it had been
granted by the king, released to her. By
this lady (named Elizabeth, and daughter of
Sir William Hastings, knight; younger son
of William, Lord Hastings) Beaumont had
two sons, of whom the elder was Francis
[see BEAUMONT, FRANCIS, d. 1598]. Of the
younger, Henry, nothing seems to be known
except that he was a member of the Inner
Temple, died at the early age of forty-two,
and was buried in the Temple Church. The
family acquired further distinction in a legal
aspect by a celebrated case decided in Lord
Coke's time between Barbara, daughter of
Sir Henry Beaumont, the eldest son of Sir
Francis, the judge, and John, the second
son of Sir Francis. Sir Henry had settled
Orace-Dieu upon his heirs male, with re-
mainder to his brother John and his heirs
male. Accordingly on Sir Henry's death,
John took possession, but Barbara being of
tender years and ward to the king (James I)
the question whether she was not entitled
as tenant in tail under the original* settle-
ment was raised and elaborately argued with
the result that a new point in the law of
settlement was established, viz. that the
barring of an entail by one of two joint
tenants in tail, while it is inoperative to put
an end to the entail, is yet sufficient to pre-
clude the issue from inheriting.

[Nicolas's Hist. Peerage of England ; Nichols's
County of Leicester, i. part ii. 274, 391, 393 ;
Dugdale's Orig. 164, 170, 178; Dugdale's Chron.
Series, 89 ; Eot. Pat. 4 Edward VI, p. 6, m. 24 ;
Hardy's Cat. of Lords Chancellors, 62 ; King
Edward's Journal in Burneb's Hist. Kef. Church
Eng. Appendix, under date 1552, 9 Feb., 4, 16,
and 20 June; Hayward's Life of Edward VI
in Kennet's Hist. ii. [319].] J. M. K.

BEAUMONT, SIK JOHN (1583-1627),
poet, was the second son of Francis Beau-
mont, judge [see BEAUMONT, FRANCIS]. His
mother was Anne, daughter to Sir George j
Pierrepoint, knt., of Holrne-Pierrepoint, Not- j
tinghamshire, and relict of Thomas Thorold, I
of Marston, Lincolnshire. He was born (pro- '
bably) at the family seat of Grace-Dieu, j
Leicestershire, in 1582. There are no entries j
of the baptisms of the Beaumonts at Grace-
Dieu, the explanation being that the rite
would most naturally be administered in the
metropolis, where the judge resided perma-
nently. According to the funeral-certificates
in the College of Arms, John Beaumont, ' se-
cond sonne,' was l at the tyme of the death
of his father [22 April 1598] of the age of
fourteen years or thereabouts' (NICHOLS,
Leicestershire). He proceeded to Oxford in
1596, and entered as a gentleman commoner

at Broadgates Hall 4 Feb. 1596-7, when,
according to Wood, he was ' aged fourteen '
(Athen. O.Ton. ed. Bliss, ii. 437, also 434-5).
Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, was
the principal nursery in Oxford for students
of the civil and common law. With his
brothers Henry and Francis, who went with
him to Oxford, John quitted the university
without taking a degree on the death of his
father in 1598. Henry succeeded to his fa-
ther's estates in Leicestershire ; was knighted
in 1603, but died in 1605, aged twenty-four
(DrCE, p. xxi), when John succeeded his
brother. John, with his brother Henry,
was admitted student of the Inner Temple
in November 1547 (List of Students admitted
to Inner Temple, 1571-1625, pp. 80, 82).
But it appears that he soon gave up resi-
dence— in all likelihood on coming into pos-
session on the death of Sir Henry.

During his college residence, and while in
London, he must have begun his poetic
studies. l In his youth,' say Wood and the
' Biographia Britannica ' and other authori-
ties, ' he applied himself to the muses with
good success' (Eiogr. Brit. (1747) i. 621).
While in his twentieth year (1602) he pub-
lished anonymously his 'Metamorphosis of
Tobacco ' — a mock-heroic poem ; and prefixed
to it, among others, were dedicatory lines to
Michael Drayton and the first printed verses
of his brother Francis [q. v.].

In the same year (1602) appeared Francis
Beaumont's ' Salmacis and Hermaphroditus,'
and among the commendatory verses pre-
fixed is a little poem signed ' I. B.' — doubtless
by his elder brother.

The Duke of Buckingham was his patron,
and introduced his poems to the king. A
cavalier and a royalist, he was made a ba-
ronet in 1626. But he was a puritan in
religion.

He died, according to Anthony a Wood
and all the old authorities, ' in the winter-
time of 1628 ; ' but in the register of burials
in Westminster Abbey it is stated that he
was buried 19 April 1627, 'in the broad aisle
on the south side ' of the Abbey. William
Coleman, in his appendix to his { La Dance
Machabre, or Death's Duell,' has some fine
lines dedicated to his memory.

He married a lady of the family of Fortes-
cue, whose brother, George Fortescue, added
a grateful and graceful poem to the posthu-
mously published volume of Sir John's poems
(1629). By her he had four sons — John,
Francis, Gervase, and Thomas. The first,
who succeeded his father, and lovingly edited
his poems, fell at the siege of Gloucester in
the service of the king in 1644. Francis —
sometimes confounded with his uncle — be-

Beaumont

59

Beaumont

-came a Jesuit. Gervase died in his seventh

year, and very pathetic is his father's poem to
his memory. Thomas ultimately came into
possession of the family property and title.

Beaumont's son and heir, Sir John, piously
prepared and published in 1629 his father's
poems for the first time under the title :
* Bos worth Field, with a Taste of the Variety
of other Poems, left by Sir John Beaumont,
Baronet, deceased : Set forth by his Sonne,
Sir lohn Beaumont, Baronet : and dedicated
to the Kings most excellent Maiestie.' ' Bos-
worth Field ' is written in heroic couplets of
ten syllables. The preserving fragrance of the
book must be looked for, not in his secular,
but in his sacred poems. Very strong reli-
gious feeling is apparent in many of his
poems, especially in his ' In Desolation,' ' Of
the Miserable State of Man,' and ' Of Sinne.'
The genuineness of his Christianity is well
attested by the quotations made from his
works by Dr. George Macdonald, in his ' An-
tiphon' (pp. 143, 145). Beaumont's 'Act of
Contrition,' 'Of the Epiphany,' 'Vpon the
Two Great Feasts of the Annunciation and
Resurrection,' and other of the 'Sacred
Poems,' are of a high level for sincerity of
sentiment and literary quality.

It is commonly stated, even by Dyce, that
Sir John Beaumont's poetry belonged solely
to his youth. The dates and names of various
•of his elegies and other verses disprove this.
He seems to have written poetry to the close.
Throughout his life he yearned after a true
joet's renown, and wrote : —

No earthly gift lasts after death but fame.

His friend Michael Drayton referred in a
poem written after his death to his thirst
after celebrity : —

Thy care for that which was not worth thy

breath
Brought on too soon thy much-lamented death.

The work upon which Sir John evidently
put forth all his resources — a poem entitled
the ' Crown of Thorns : in eight books ' —
has unhappily disappeared. It must have
been printed, for in his admirable elegy on
Shakespeare's Earl of Southampton the au-
thor thus refers to it : —

His onely mem'ry my poore worke adornes :
He is a father to my crowne of thornes.
Now since his death how can I ever looke
Without some teares vpon that orphan booke ?

Sir Thomas Hawkins also celebrates the
poem. Sir John seems to have dedicated
certain hours daily to the gratification of his
literary tastes. lie tells us something of his
studies in a letter prefixed to Edmund Bol-
ton's ' Elements of Armories ' (1610). It is

entitled ' A Letter to the Author, from the
learned young gentleman I. B. of Grace-Dieu
in the County of Leicester, Esquier.'

Burton, the historian of Leicestershire,
wrote of Sir John Beaumont : ' A gentleman
of great learning, gravity, and worthiness ;
the remembrance of whom I may not here
omit, for many worthy respects ' (NICHOLS).
Anthony a Wood remarks : ' The former part
of his life he had fully employed in poetry,
and the latter he as happily bestowed on
more serious and beneficial studies, and had
not death untimely cut him off in his middle
age he might have prov'd a patriot, being ac-
counted at the time of his death a person of
great knowledge, gravity, and worth' (Athence
Oxon. ii. 434-5).

[Dr. Grosart's Introduction to the first col-
lected edition of Sir John Beaumont's work in
Fuller's Worthies Library, where all that is
known of the poet may be found; Hunter's
MS. Chorus Vatum; Campbell's Specimens;
Wordsworth's Poems.] A. B. G.

BEAUMONT, JOHN (A. 1701), colonel,
was the second son of Sapcote Beaumont,
Viscount Beaumont of Swords, Leicester-
shire, and Bridget, daughter of Sir Thomas
Monson of Carleton, Lincolnshire (ped. in
NICHOLS'S Leicestershire, iii. 744). He at-
tended Charles II in his exile, and was
employed at court under James II; but,
notwithstanding this close connection with
royalty, he was instrumental in thwarting
the policy of the king in a matter deemed
of the highest importance. With, it was
supposed, an ulterior design of gradually
leavening the army with Roman catholic
sentiments, the experiment was attempted
(10 Sept. 1688) of introducing forty Irish-
men into the regiment of which the Duke
of Berwick was colonel, then stationed at
Portsmouth. Beaumont, who was lieute-
nant-colonel, resisted the proposal in his own
name and that of five of the captains. ' We
beg,' he said, 'that we may be either per-
mitted to command men of our own nation or
to lay down our commissions.' At the court-
martial which followed they were offered
forgiveness if they would accept the men,
but they all refused, whereupon they were
cashiered, the highest punishment a court-
martial was then competent to inflict. In
Clarke's ' Life of James II ' (ii. 169) it is
affirmed that Churchill (afterwards Duke of
Marlborough) moved that they should be
put to death, but this is apparently a base-
less calumny. The resistance of the officers
was supported by the general sentiment of
the army, and no further attempts were made
to introduce Irishmen into the English regi-

Beaumont

Beaumont

ments. All the portraits of the officers were
engraved by R. White on one large half-sheet
in six ovals, joined by as many hands expres-
sive of their union. The print, which is called
the ' Portsmouth Captains,' is extremely
scarce (GRANGER, Biog. Hist., 2nd ed., iv. 300).
Colonel Beaumont was with the Prince of
Orange at his first landing. After the coro-
nation he was made colonel of the regiment
of which he had previously been lieutenant-
colonel, and served with it in Ireland, where
he was present at the battle of the Boyne, in
Flanders, and in Scotland, holding his com-
mand till December 1695 (LTITTRELL, Rela-
tion of State Affairs, iii. 564). He was also
for some time governor of Dover Castle. In
1685 he was chosen M.P. for Nottingham,
and he was returned for Hastings in 1688
and 1690. In May 1695 he fought a duel
with Sir William Forrester, ' occasioned by
some words between them in the parliament
house, and the latter was disarmed ' (ib. iii.
468). Beaumont died on 3 July 1701. He
was twice married : first, to Felicia, daughter
of Mr. Hatton Fermor of Easton Neston, and
widow of Sir Charles Compton, and, second,
to Phillipe, daughter of Sir Nicholas Carew
of Bedington, Surrey, but by neither had he
any issue.

[Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 738-9, 744 ;
Luttrell's Eelation of State Affairs (1857);
Keresby's Memoirs (1875), pp. 402, 403 ; History
of the Desertion (1689); Burnet's Own Time,
i. 767 ; Clarke's Life of James II ; Granger's
Biog. Hist., 2nd ed., iv. 306 ; Macaulay's p]ng-
land, chaps, ix. and xvi. : Townsend- Wilson's
James II and the Duke of Berwick (1876), pp.
78-9.] T. F. H.

BEAUMONT, JOHN (d. 1731), geologist,
lived a retired life at Stone-East on, Somerset-
shire, where he practised as a surgeon. His
letters to the Royal Society in 1676 and 1683
on the ' Rock-plants growing in the Lead Mines
of MendipHills' attracted much attention, and
their author was advised by Dr. Robert Hooke,
a distinguished fellow of the society, to write
the natural history of the county. Beaumont
gave a specimen in his ' Account of Okey
[Wookey]-hole and several other subter-
raneous Grottoes and Caverns,' printed in
No. 2 of Hooke's ' Philosophical Collections '
for 1681, and some three years afterwards pre-
sented a draft of his design to the society.
He was elected a fellow in 1685, but soon
laid his intended history aside that he might
devote himself to theology and spiritualism.
He was a man of considerable reading, of
excessive credulity, and a firm believer in
supernatural agency. His principal and cer-
tainly most curious performance, ' An His-

torical, Physiological, and Theological Trea-
tise of Spirits, Apparitions, Witchcrafts, and
other Magical Practices,' 8vo, London, 1705,
is written in an amusing, gossiping style,
and abounds with grotesque tales and illus-
trations from little-known authors. Hi&
personal experience of spirits, good and bad,,
was long and varied (pp. 91-4, 393-7) ; but
he innocently contrives to lessen the eft'ect
of his narration by adding that in their
frequent visitations ' all would disswade me
from drinking too freely.' Of this work a
German translation by Theodor Arnold ap-
peared at Halle in 1721. Dr. Fowler, bishop
of Gloucester, expressed high approval of this
curious treatise (THORESBY'S Diary, ii. 103,
124). Beaumont was buried at Stone-Easton
on 23 March 1730-1. He had married Do-
rothy, daughter of John Speccott, of Penheale,
Egloskerry, Cornwall ; and his wife's claim
to the family estate involved Beaumont in
a long and disastrous lawsuit. His other
publications were : 1. ' Considerations on a
Book entituled the Theory of the Earth,
publisht by Dr. Burnet,' 4to, London, 1693.

2. Postscript to above, 4to, London, 1694.

3. ' The Present State of the Universe,' 4to,
London, 1694. 4. ( Gleanings of Antiquities/
8vo, London, 1724 (the third part of which
contains additions to the 'Treatise of Spirits').

[Gough's British Topography, ii. 189, 223 ;
Nicolson's Historical Libraries, ed. 1776, pp. 7,.
17-18 ; Plot's Staffordshire, p. 251 ; MS. Sloane
4037, ff- 128-32; Ray's Philosophical Letters,
p. 262 ; Letters of Eminent Literary Men, ed.
Sir H. Ellis (Camd. Soc.), p. 199; Stone-Easton
Register ; Law Cases in British Museum.]

G. G.

BEAUMONT, JOHN THOMAS BAR-
BER (1774-1841), founder of insurance
offices, usually known as ' Barber Beaumont/
was born 22 Dec. 1774, and devoted his early
life to historic painting, securing medals from
the Royal Academy and the Society of Arts.
At the time of the threatened Bonaparte in-
vasion of England he raised a rifle corps,,
urged that the people should be armed as-
sharpshooters, and is said to have trained his
men so perfectly in rifle practice, that on one-
occasion he held the target in Hyde Park,
while his entire corps fired at it from a dis-
tance of one hundred and fifty yards. In
1807 he founded the County Fire and the-
Provident Life offices, still carrying on busi-
ness in Regent Street, in offices designed by
himself. He resisted a fraudulent claim made
upon the fire company in 1824 by Thomas
Thurtell, and ultimately secured the com-
mittal of this man and his associates to
Newgate. The brother, John Thurtell (after-

Beaumont

61

Beaumont

wards executed for the murder of Mr. Weare),
took up the quarrel, and made an attempt to
murder Beaumont, which failed by a mere
accident. Beaumont also took an active
part in the exposure of a fraudulent insurance
office (the notorious West Middlesex). In
1825 he fought against the board of stamps,
which charged his company with defrauding
the inland revenue, and came oft' victorious,
notwithstanding that he had been mulct in a
fine of 500/. Under the pseudonym of ' Phi-
lanthropes ' he published an essay on ' Life
Insurance ' in 1814. He established (in
1806) the Provident Institution and Savings
Bank in Covent Garden, and in 1816 lie pub-
lished an essay on 'Provident or Parish
Banks.' In 1821 he published an ' Essay on
Criminal Jurisprudence.' Shortly before his
death he founded the New Philosophical
Institution in Beaumont Square. He died
15 May 1841, aged 67.

[C. Walford's Insurance Cyclopaedia, i. 261-2;
Morning Chronicle, 20 May 1841; Angelo's Re-
miniscences, vol. ii.] C. W.

BEAUMONT, JOSEPH, D.D. (1616-
1699), master of Peterhouse, poet, was de-
scended from the Leicestershire Beaumonts.
He was the son of John Beaumont, clothier,
and of Sarah Clarke, his wife. He was born
at Hadleigh in Suffolk, on 13 March 1616,
and was baptised on the 21st of the same
month. From his earliest years he displayed
an extraordinary love of learning. He was
educated at Hadleigh grammar school. He
proceeded to Cambridge in 1631, and was
admitted as a pensioner to Peterhouse Col-
lege on 26 Nov. His university career was
a brilliant one ; he took his degree of B. A.
in 1634, became a fellow of his college on
20 Nov. 1636, the master then being Dr.
Cosin, afterwards bishop of Durham. Richard
Crashaw, the poet, had now passed from
Pembroke to Peterhouse, and in 1638 he and
Beaumont received their degree of M.A.
together. He read with great enthusiasm
during the early years of his fellowship, and
gained a high reputation for classic acquire-
ments, although he never became a really
fine scholar. In 1640 ' he was called out by
the master of his college, and appointed
guardian and director of the manners and
learning of the students of that society.' In
1644 he was one of the royalist fellows
ejected from Cambridge, and he retired to
his old home at Hadleigh, where he sat down
to write his epic poem of * Psyche.' As this
is of very great length, extending in its first
form to twenty cantos, it is surprising to
learn that its composition occupied Beau-
mont only eleven months. It was published

early in 1648. The poem represented the
soul led by divine grace and her guardian
angel through the various temptations and
assaults of life into her eternal felicity ; it
is written in a six-line heroic stanza, and
contains, in its abridged form, not less than
30,000 lines. Beaumont seems to have fared
particularly well during the Commonwealth.
From 1643 he held the rectory of Kelshall in
Hertfordshire, as non-resident, and in 1646 he
added to this, or exchanged it for, the living

! of Elm-cum-Emneth in Cambridgeshire. He

| was appointed in the same year to a canonry
of Ely. In 1650 he became domestic chap-
lain to Wren, bishop of Ely, and held various
other sinecures. The wealthy ward of the

I bishop, a Miss Brownrigg, fell in love with

! the rising young churchman, and they were
married from Ely House in 1650. Beaumont
and his wife resided for the next ten years
at the manor-house of the latter, Tatingston
Place, in the county of Suffolk. During
this period of retirement he wrote the greater
number of his minor poems. At the Restora-
tion Beaumont was not forgotten; he was

! made D.D. and one of the king's chaplains
in 1660. Early in 1661 he went down to
Ely to reside, at the bishop's request, but
unfortunately Mrs. Beaumont caught the fen
fever, and died on 31 May 1662. She was
buried in Ely Cathedral. During his wife's
fatal illness Beaumont was appointed master

: of Jesus College, in succession to Pearson, the

! expounder of the Creed ; and after her funeral
he proceeded to Cambridge with his six young
children, only one of whom lived to man-
hood. He restored Jesus Chapel at his own

; expense ; but his connection with that col-
lege was brief. On 24 April 1663 he was
admitted master of his own college of Peter-
house. His long-winded controversy with

| Dr. Henry More, the Platonist, dates from
1665. In 1674 he was appointed regius
divinity professor to the university, and de-
livered a course of lectures on Romans and

. Colossians, which he forbade his executors
to publish. In 1689 he was appointed to

| meet the leaders of nonconformity as one of
the commissioners of comprehension. He
continued to enjoy good health to extreme
old age, and, being in his eighty-fourth year,
persisted in preaching before the university
on 5 Nov. 1699. He was, however, very
much exhausted by this exertion, and was
attacked a few days after with gout in the
stomach. In great composure and resigna-
tion of mind he lingered until the 23rd of

I the month, when he died. He was buried in

j the college chapel of Peterhouse. Beaumont
was an artist of some pretension, and adorned
the altar of Peterhouse Chapel with scrip-

Beaumont

Beaumont

ture scenes which have now disappeared. In
1702 Charles Beaumont, the only surviving
son, brought out a new edition of his father's
1 Psyche,' entirely revised, and enlarged by
the addition of four fresh cantos.

[The life of Joseph Beaumont was written by
the Eev. John Gee, M.A., of Peterhouse, who
affixed it to the collection of Beaumont's miscel-
laneous poems which he first edited at Cambridge
in 1749. Further information was published by
the Rev. Hugh Pigot in his ' History of Hadleigh '
in 1860. The complete poems of Beaumont, in
English and Latin, were first edited, in two 4to
vols., privately printed, by the Rev. A. B.
Grosart in 1880, with a memoir, in which some
important additions are made to the information
preserved by Gee. Beaumont prefixed a copy of
Latin verses to the ' Musse Juridicse' of William
Hawkins in 1634, and published in 1665, at
Cambridge, ' Some Observations upon the Apologie
of Dr. Henry More.'] E. G.

BEAUMONT, JOSEPH, M.D. (1794-
1855), was born at Castle Donington, in Lei-
cestershire, 19 March 1794. He belonged to
a family which had lived more than four hun-
dred years at Longley, a farm on the hillside
above Holmfirth, in the west riding of York-
shire. His family was said to be connected j
with that of Francis Beaumont, the dramatist.
His father was the Rev. John Beaumont, an
itinerant preacher among the Wesleyan me- i
thodists, and his mother was a daughter of |
Colonel Home of Gibraltar. From them he
inherited a keen taste for music and the fine
arts. He was educated at Kingswood school,
near Bristol, founded by Wesley for training
the sons of his preachers. While there young
Beaumont was afflicted with a serious impe-
diment in his speech, but, by great pains and
resolution, he so completely mastered it as to
become a most fluent and impassioned speaker.
Contrary to the wishes of his maternal rela-
tives, who wanted him to become a clergy-
man in the established church, he chose the
ministry of the Wesleyans, as his father had
done. After spending a short time in the shop
of a dispensing chemist in Macclesfield, he
commenced the itinerancy in 1813, and soon
became widely known as an eloquent and
popular preacher. He had all the qualities
of a true orator. He possessed a sweet and
powerful voice, a fertile imagination, and
much literary cultivation. Dr. Beaumont
was in great request as the preacher of ser-
mons on special occasions, and vast crowds
assembled to hear him whenever he appeared
in the pulpit or on the platform. He pleaded
effectively for many benevolent objects and
public institutions outside the limits of his
own church. He had a deep-rooted antipathy
to hierarchical assumptions, and in the con-

troversies which agitated the methodist com-
munity he always took the liberal side. His
strong sympathy with the weak and the op-
pressed occasionally led him into error. Dr.
Beaumont was of course subject to the law
of methodism which requires its ministers
to change their pastoral charge every three
years. In two instances, however, at the
urgent request of the people, he was reap-
pointed, after an interval of years, to Edin-
burgh and Hull, in each of which he had
previously laboured. It was during his first
residence in Edinburgh that he obtained'
from the university the degree of doctor in
medicine. He exercised his ministry for six
years in Liverpool, eight years in London,
and three years each in Nottingham and
Bristol.

In the year 1821 he married Miss Susan-
Morton, daughter of Mr. Morton of Hardshaw
Hall, near Prescot, Lancashire, and sister of
the wife of Dr. Morrison, the pioneer of mis-
sions in China. By this lady, who survived
him, he had a large family. He was elected
by the conference of 1846 as a member of the-
legal hundred. On Sunday morning, 21 Jan.
1855, he entered the pulpit of Waltham Street
chapel, Hull, and opened the service by an-
nouncing the lines —

Thee while the first Archangel sings,
He hides his face behind his wings ;

and as the congregation was singing the second
of these lines he sank down on the spot where-
he stood, and, without sound or motion, died.
He was in the sixty-first year of his age.

He published a few occasional sermons, and
in 1838 a volume containing { Memoirs of Mrs.
Mary Tatham, late of Nottingham.' A pos-
thumous volume of ' Select Sermons ' by him
was issued in 1859.

[Life, with portrait, London, 1856; Minutes
of the Methodist Conferences, vol. xiii., for 1855.]

W. B. L.

BEAUMONT, LOUIS DE (d. 1333)
bishop of Durham, is said to have been of
royal descent, and related to the kings of
France, Sicily, and England. Surtees, in his
* History of Durham,' makes him grandson
of John de Brienne, king of Jerusalem
(d. 1237), by Berengaria, daughter of Al-
phonso IX of Leon, and thus son of Louis
de Brienne, who married Agnes, Viscountess
de Beaumont, about 1252 (ANSELME, Hist.
GeneaL v. 583, 584, vi. 137). Another ac-
count, however, makes him grandson of
Charles, king of Sicily (see DTTGDALE, ii. 50r
and SURTEES, i. xliv). He was certainly
akin to Isabella of France and her husband
Edward II, for both of these call him
' consanguineus ' (cf. GEAYSTANES, 757, ancK

Beaumont

Beaumont

RYMER, iii. 581). According to the inscription
on his tomb Louis de Beaumont was born in
France. He seems to have come over to
England in the reign of Edward I, and was
appointed treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral
about 1291 (Fasti Eccles. Sarisb. 344). In
this capacity he seems to have drawn a re-
buke on his head for neglecting to repair the
church. About the same time he appears to
have held the prebend of Auckland (Eegistr.
Palatin. Dunelm. iii. cxvii). On the death
of Richard Kellaw, bishop of Durham, in
1316, the king, the queen, the Earl of Lan-
caster, and the Earl of Hereford had each
his own candidate for the vacant office. As
the day of election came on, the church was
filled with the above-mentioned nobles and
their followers, as well as with the retainers
of Louis de Beaumont and of his brother
Henry. Threats passed freely to slay the
elected bishop if the monks should dare to
choose one of their own number. They, how-
ever, made choice of an outsider, the prior of
Finchale, who would have been admitted to
the office at once had not the queen with bare
knees besought Edward to favour her kins-
man Louis. The case was transferred to the
pope (John XXII), who consented to quash
the election in consideration of a fine so
large that we are told it could hardly be paid
in fourteen years. Next year John XXII
despatched two cardinals to En gland for the
sake of making peace between this country
and Scotland. Louis de Beaumont, who was
a man given to much ostentation, determined
to take advantage of this visit and be conse-
crated in their presence on St. Cuthbert's
day. As the cardinals were on their road
to Durham, accompanied by the Beaumont
brothers, Gilbert de Middleton, warden of
the Marches, swooped down upon them at
the head of certain Northumbrian freebooters
or * savaldores ' (1 Sept. 1317). The cardinals
were merely stripped of their horses and
forced to continue their journey on foot, but
the Beaumonts were carried off to Morpeth
and Milford respectively, nor were they
liberated till a large sum of money had been
paid as their ransom. Before the year was out
Middleton was hanged, drawn, and quartered
at London for his share in this offence, in
the presence of the two cardinals whom he
had robbed. The consecration of the new
bishop took place next year, on 26 March
1318 (AnnaL Paulin. i. 282). From this
time Louis de Beaumont's life seems to have
been one of constant bickerings with all
he came into contact with. He first quar-
relled with the prior of St. Mary's, who had
become security for the 3,000/. which the
merchants had lent for the bishop's ransom,

and so annoyed him with threats of litiga-
tion that the prior, who was a peaceable
man, resigned his office in 1322. William
de Gisburn, who was elected his successor,
seems to have been frightened out of ac-
cepting a post that would bring him into
constant communication with so sturdy a
prelate. Next year Louis de Beaumont ap-
pears as supporting the claims of the arch-
deacon of Durham against the prior and
chapter of St. Mary's, and threatening to
accuse them before the pope of obeying
neither their bishop nor archdeacon. Indeed,
throughout his whole episcopacy, he seems
to have shown a special spite against the
monks of his own cathedral. A few years
later (1328) he was embroiled with Arch-
bishop Melton of York on similar grounds.
Both claimed the right of visitation in Aller-
tonshire — Louis apparently on behalf of St.
Mary's chapter, the archbishop on his own.
i It was to no purpose that the bishop at-
I tempted to prevent the prior and chapter
i from coming to terms with the archbishop.
Their love for their immediate spiritual head
was hardly sufficient to make them ready at
i his pleasure to break the arrangement they
had already come to with the archbishop,
who accordingly made several attempts to
' enforce his right of visitation. But no sooner
! did he appear on the borders of Allertonshire
j than Louis called together a host of armed
| men from Northumberland and Tynedale —
reckless soldiers prepared to take away the
| archbishop's life at a word from their chief.
The bishop was careless how much he spent,
whereas the archbishop, though wealthy, was
parsimonious. Excommunication was fol-
i lowed by suspension, and these were met on
the bishop's part by three appeals to the
legates. Finally the question was settled by
compromise (1331). At the end of 1332 the
archdeacon of Northumbria died,and Louis ap-
pointed his nephew — a man who is described
as being short and deformed — to the vacant
office. A dispute as to visitation rights arose
! once more, and was again settled by a com-
I promise to last only for the bishop's life. Of
the career of Louis de Beaumont outside
his diocese little is known. When the
northern barons met at Pomfret under the
Earl of Lancaster (May 1321), they deemed
it right to lay their federation oath before the
clergy of the province, who were summoned
to meet at Sherburn in Elmet. Louis de
Beaumont was present on this occasion, and
it cannot be doubted that a man of his high
birth and courage had much to do with
the decision there arrived at — to render aid
against the Scotch invasions, but to hold
political matters over till the next parlia-

Beaumont

64

Beaumont

rnent. Louis does not seem to have been a
very vigorous protector of his palatinate
against the Scotch, though this was one of
the pleas on which Edward IT urged the
pope to appoint him ; and we have a letter
from that king reproaching the bishop for
being by no means a ' stone wall ' against
the enemy. On 24 Sept. 1333 Louis died at
Brantingham, and was buried two days later
before the great altar in his cathedral church.
His character and even his personal appear-
ance have been minutely sketched by his con-
temporary, Robert Graystanes, sub-prior of
St. Mary's and his elected successor. This
writer describes the bishop as comely-featured
but limping in each foot, over-lavish in ex-
penditure, and, by the number of his retainers,
involved in such huge expenses that it was
a saying of the time : ' Never was man so
greedy to get, and yet so rashly improvident
-of what he had gotten.' Forgetting all that
he owed to the prior of St. Mary's, he bluntly
answered his requests by an unvarnished re-
fusal : * You do nothing for me, and I will do
nothing for you. Pray for my death, for while
I live you will get nothing.' Nevertheless
he was a stern supporter of the rights of his
see, whether against archbishop, earl, or baron.
He appealed in parliament for his rights over
Bernard Castle, Hert, Geyneford, and other
forfeited manors of the Bruces and Baliols ;
and Edward II issued a confirmation of his
claims against the Beauchamps (Warwick),
Cliffords, and others into whose hands these
estates had fallen. Towards the very end of
his life Louis was formulating other claims on
Norham and Westupsethington (Upsetling-
ton) against the Scotch, who seem to have then
secured them. For his unwavering assertion
-of the rights of his own see his biographer
gives him great praise, and adds that though j
chaste he was unlearned. Indeed, of Latin j
the bishop knew so little that before his con-
secration he had to take several days' lessons
before he could read his part of the service ; j
and even then, when he came to the word J

* Metropoliticae,' which he could not master, !
even with the aid of a little prompting behind, ;
after a long pause he had to exclaim/ Seit pur
dite,' ' Let it be taken as said.' The words |

* in aenigmate ' were a similar stumbling-block, |
and he could not refrain from whispering to ;
those standing by, ' By St. Louis, the man
who wrote that word had no courtesy in him.' |
Once consecrated he was very masterful in
his own diocese, and got two bulls from the
pope, one empowering him to appoint any
monk he would prior of St. Mary's, and
another to hold a third part of the priory's
income while the Scotch wars lasted. He j
was a great builder, and commenced a spacious |

hall and kitchen with a chapel attached at
Middleham. He was buried before the high
altar in Durham cathedral in a magnificent
tomb, ' wherein he was most excellently and
lively pictured as he was accustomed to sing
or say mass.' This tomb, which Louis had
prepared in his lifetime, is fully described in
Davies's ' Durham Cathedral,' and was marked
by a Latin epitaph (in hexameters) which
claimed for its occupant the character of ' a
man of royal birth, lavish, gleeful, and a
constant enemy to sadness.'

[Robert de Graystanes ap. Wharton's Anglia
Sacra, i. 751-61 ; Godwin's Prsesules, ed. Rich-
ardson, 745-6; Raine's Historical Papers from
the Northern Registers (Rolls Series), 265-8, &c. ;
Hardy's Registrum Dunelmense (Ricardi Kel-
low), ii. 7, iii. &c. ; Annales Paulini, &c., in
Chronicles and Memorials of Edward I and II,
vols. i. and ii. ; Rymer, iii. 581, 670, 952, iv.
297, 405, 491 ; Surtees's History of Durham, i.
xxxvii-xlv ; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 50 ; Davies's
Ancient Rites of Durham Cathedral, 24-7 ;
Jones's Fasti Ecclesise Sarisburiensis.]

T. A. A.

BEAUMONT, PHILIP. [See TESI-
MOND, OSWALD.]

BEAUMONT, ROBERT DE (d. 1118),
count of Meulan, feudal statesman, was
son of Roger de Beaumont (' de Bellomonte '
in the latinized form) and grandson of
Humfrey de Vielles, who had added to his
paternal fief of Pont Audemer, by the gift of
his brother, that of Beaumont, afterwards
' Beaumont-le-Roger ' (including Vielles),
from which his descendants took their name.
Roger de Beaumont had married Adeline, the
daughter of Waleran, count of Meulan (' de
Mellente ') in France, and was allied pater-
nally to the ducal house of Normandy, of
which he was a trusted counsellor. Being
advanced in years at the time of the inva-
sion of England, he remained in Normandy
at the head of the council, and sent his sons
with William. Of these, Robert fought at
Senlac (14 Oct. 1066), though confused
with his father by Wace (Roman de Rou,
1. 13462) :—

Rogier Ii Veil, cil de Belmont,
Assalt Engleis el primier front.

He distinguished himself early in the day
by a charge on the right wing, in which he
was the first to break down the English
palisade (WiLL. POITOTJ, 134). On William's
march into the midlands in 1068, he was
rewarded with large grants in Warwickshire
(Domesday, 239 b\ and Warwick Castle
was entrusted to his brother Henry [see
NEWBTTKGH, HENRY DE]. He then practi-
cally disappears for more than twenty years.

Beaumont

Beaumont

He is said to have striven in 1079 to reconcile
Robert with his father, the Conqueror (OKD.
VIT.), and shortly afterwards he succeeded, in
right of his mother, to his uncle, Hugh, count
of Meulan. On the death of the Conqueror
(1089) he and his brother espoused the cause
of Rufus, and were thenceforth high in his
favour. Presuming on his power, the count
of Meulan is said to have haughtily de-
manded from Robert, then duke of Nor-
mandy, the castellanship of Ivry, which his
father had consented to exchange for that oi
Brionne. The duke, resenting the request,
arrested him, and handed over Brionne to
Robert de Meules. At the intercession of
"the count's aged father he was released on
payment of a heavy fine, and restored to the
castellanship of Brionne. But he was com-
pelled to recover the castle by a desperate
siege (ORD. VIT. viii. 13). His father,
Roger, not long after entered the abbey oi
St. Peter of PrSaux (founded by his father
and himself), and the count, succeeding to
the family fiefs of Beaumont and Pont Aude-
mer, was now a powerful vassal in England,
in Normandy, and in France (ib. viii. 25).
He and Robert de Belesme, according to
Mr. Freeman, though ' of secondary import-
ance in the tale of the conquest and of the
reign of the first William, became the most
prominent laymen of the reign of the second '
( Will. Ruf.) In the struggle between Robert
and William Rufus (1096) he sided actively
in Normandy with the latter (ORD. VIT. ix. 3),
and on William invading France to recover
the Vexin (1097) he threw in his lot with his
English lord, and by admitting him to his
castle of Meulan opened the way for him to
Paris (ib. x. 5). He was now the king's
chief adviser, and when Helias of Maine
offered to come over to him, dissuaded him
from accepting the offer (ib. x. 7). He and
his brother were present at William's death
(2 Aug. 1100), and they both accompanied
Henry in his hasty ride to London (ib. x.
14, 15). The count, adhering strenuously to
Henry in the general rising which followed
(ib. x. 18 bis ; W. MALM. v. § 394), became
his ' specially trusted counsellor ' ( Will. Ruf.),
und persuaded him in the Whitsun gemot of
1101 to temporise discreetly with his op-
ponents by promising them all that they
asked for (ORD. VIT. x. 16, 18). Ivo de
Grantmesnil, who had been a leading rebel,
was tried and sentenced the following year
(1102), and sought the influence of the
powerful count, ' qui pnecipuus erat inter
consiliarios regis,' for the mitigation of his
penalty. The cunning minister agreed to
intervene, and to advance him the means for
a pilgrimage, on receiving in pledge his

VOL. IV.

Leicestershire fiefs, with the town of Lei-
cester, all which he eventually refused to
return (ib. xi. 3). Having thus added to his
already large possessions, he attained the
height of wealth and prosperity, and is dis-
tinctly stated by Orderic (ib.) to have been
created earl of Leicester ('hide consul in
Anglia factus '). But of this the Lords' com-
mittee l found no evidence ' (3rd Report on
the Dignity of a Peer, p. 133). Nor does he
appear to have been so styled, though he
possessed the tertius denarius, and though
that dignity devolved upon his son. He was
now (1103) despatched by Henry on a mis-
sion to Normandy, where from his seat of
Beaumont he intrigued in Henry's interest
(ib. xi. 6). On Henry coming over in 1104
he headed his party among the Norman
nobles (ib. xi. 10), and was again in close
attendance on him during his visit of 1105
(ib. xi. 11), and at the great battle of Tenche-
brai (28 Sept, 1106), in which he com-
manded the second line of the king's army
(ib. xi. 20). He was again in Normandy
with the king 3 Feb. 1113, persuading him
to confirm the monks of St. Evreul in their
possessions (ib. xi. 43). The close of his life,
according to Henry of Huntingdon, was
embittered by the infidelity of his wife, but
the details of the story are obscure. He is
also said by Henry to have been urged on
his death-bed to restore the lands he had
unjustly acquired, but to have characteristic-
ally replied that he would leave them to his
sons that they might provide for his salva-
tion (HEN. HUNT. 240, 306-7; W. MALM.
v. § 407). He died 5 June 1118, and was
buried with his fathers in the chapter-house
of Preaux (ORD. VIT. xii. 1). < On the
whole,' says Mr. Freeman, ' his character
stands fair ' ( Will. Ruf.) Almost the last
survivor of the conquest generation, he
strangely impressed the imagination of his
contemporaries by his unbroken prosperity
under successive kings, by his steady advance
in wealth and power, while those around
him were being ruined (ORD. VIT. xi. 2), but
above all by his unerring sagacity. ' A cold
and crafty statesman .... the Achitophel of
his time,' he was deemed, says Henry of Hunt-
ingdon (p. 306), ( sapientissimus omnium
hinc usque in Jerusalem,' and, according to
William of Malmesbury, was appealed to ' as
the Oracle of God ' (v. § 407). In the con-
test with Anselm he took the same line as
his son in the contest with Becket, interven-
ing to save him from the vengeance of
Rufus, and in the council of Rockingham
^1095) opposing his deposition, yet steadily
supporting the right of the crown in the
question of investitures (ib. v. § 417). For

Beaumont

66

Beaumont

this, indeed, he was excommunicated (An-
selmi Epist. iv. 99 ; EADMER, Hist. Nov. 82).
Eadmer (94) complains that he disliked the
English and prevented their promotion in
the church. He is said to have introduced,
after AlexiosComnenos, the fashion of a single
meal a day in the place of the Saxon pro-
fuseness. His benefactions to the church
were small, but at Leicester he rebuilt St.
Mary's as a foundation for secular canons
(Won. Ang. vi. 467). The charter by which
he confirmed to his ' merchants ' of Leicester
their guild and customs will be found in
Mr. Thompson's { Essay on Municipal His-
tory,' but the story of his abolishing trial by
duel is, though accepted, probably unfounded.
He had married, late in life (1096-7), Eliza-
beth (or Ysabel), daughter of Hugh the Great
of Vermandois (or of Crepy) and niece of
Philip of France (ORD. VIT. ix. 4). She mar-
ried, at his death, William de Warrenne,
having had by him, with five daughters, three
sons (ORD. VIT. xi. 2), Robert and Waleran
[see BEAUMONT, ROBERT DE, 1104-1168 ; and
BEAUMONT, WALERAN DE, 1104-1166], and
Hugh, ' cognomento Pauper,' who received
the earldom of Bedford from Stephen (Gest.
Steph. p. 74).

[Ordericus Vitalis, lib. viii. ; Henry of Hunt-
ingdon (Rolls series) ; William of Malmesbury ;
Monasticon Anglicanum ; Nichols's History of
Leicester (1797), pp. 22-3 ; Thompson's History
of Leicester (pp. 27-31), and Essay on Municipal
History (pp. 38-40) ; Third Report on the
Dignity of a Peer (p. 133); Planche's The
Conqueror and his Companions (i. 203-16) ;
Freeman's Norman Conquest (v. 151, 828), and
William Rufus.] J. H. R.

BEAUMONT, ROBERT DE, EARL OF
LEICESTER (1104-1168), justiciary of Eng-
land, was son of the preceding, and a twin
with his brother Waleran [see BEAUMONT,
WALERAN DE]. He seems, however, to have
been deemed the younger, and is spoken of
as postnatus in the ' Testa de Nevill.' He is
stated to have been born in 1104 (ORD. VIT.
xi. 6) when his father was advanced in years,
a date fatal to the story in the ' Abingdon
Chronicle ' (ii. 229), that he had been at the
Benedictine monastery there as a boy, ' regis
Willelmi tempore' (i.e. ante 1099). At his
father's death (1118) he succeeded to his
English fiefs (ORD. VIT. xii. 33), being ap-
parently considered the younger of the twins,
and Henry, in gratitude for his father's ser-
vices, brought him up, with his brother, in
the royal household, and gave him to wife
Amicia, daughter of Ralph (de Wader), earl
of Norfolk, by Emma, daughter of William
(Fitz-Osbern), earl of Hereford, with the
fief of Breteuil for her dower (ib.) The

twins accompanied Henry to Normandy r
and to his interview with Pope Calixtus at
Gisors (November 1119), where they are
said to have astounded the cardinals by their
learning. They were also present at his-
death-bed, 1 Dec. 1135 (ib. xiii. 19). In
the anarchy that followed, war broke out
between Robert and his hereditary foe, Roger
de Toesny (ib. xiii. 22), whom he eventually
captured by his brother's assistance. In
December 1137 the twins returned to Eng-
land with Stephen, as his chief advisers, and
Robert began preparing for his great founda-
tion, his Norman possessions being overrun
(ib. xiii. 36) in his absence (1138), till he
came to terms with Roger de Toesny (ib.
xiii. 38). In June 1139 he took, with his
brother, the lead in seizing the bishops of
Salisbury and Lincoln at Oxford (ib. xiii. 40),
and on the outbreak of civil war was de-
spatched with him, by Stephen, to escort
the empress to Bristol (October 1139), and
is said (but this is doubtful) to have received
a grant of Hereford. He secured his in-
terests with the Angevin party (ib. xiii. 43)
after Stephen's defeat (2 Feb. 1141), and then
devoted himself to raising, in the outskirts
of Leicester, the noble abbey of St. Mary
de Pre (' de Pratis ') for canons regular of
the Austin order. Having bestowed on it
rich endowments, including those of his
father's foundation, he had it consecrated in
1143 by the bishop of Lincoln, whom he had
contrived to reconcile. In 1152 he was still
in Stephen's confidence, and exerted his in-
fluence to save his brother (GERVASE, i. 148),
but on Henry landing in 1153 he supplied
him freely with means for his struggle (ib.
i. 152), and attending him, shortly after hi&
coronation (December 1154) was rewarded
with his lasting confidence, and with the
post of chief justiciar, in which capacity
(' capitalis justicia ') he first appears 13 Jan.
1155 (Cart. Ant. W.\ and again in 1156
(Rot. Pip. 2 Hen. II}. He was now in the
closest attendance on the court, and on the
queen joining the king in Normandy (De-
cember 1158) he was left in charge of the
kingdom, in a vice-regal capacity, till the
king's return 25 Jan. 1163, Richard de Luci
[q. v.], when in England, being associated
with him in the government. He was pre-
sent at the famous council of Clarendon
(13-28 Jan. 1164), and his name heads the
list of lay signatures to the l constitutions '
(MS. Cott. Claud. B. fo. 26), to which he is
said, by his friendly influence, to have pro-
cured Becket's assent (GERVASE, i. 177). As
with his father, in the question of investi-
tures he loyally upheld the claims of the-
crown, while maintaining to the church andl

Beaumont

67

Beaumont

Foss's Judges of England (1848), i. 190; Eyton's
Court and Itinerary of Henry II.] J. H. K.

churchmen devotion even greater than his
father's. In the great crisis at the council
of Northampton (October 1164) he strove,
with the Earl of- Cornwall, to reconcile the i BEAUMONT, ROBERT DE, EAEL OP
primate with the king, pleading hard with ' LEICESTER (d. 1190), baronial leader, was
Becket when they visited him (12 Oct.) at | son °f Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester
his house. The following day they were [<!• V0> wn? died in 1168. He joined the re-
commissioned to pronounce to him the sen- hellion against Henry II in favour of Prince
tence of the court ; but when Leicester, as Henry, which broke out in April 1173 (BEN.
chief justiciary, commenced his address, he ABB. i. 45), and having obtained permission to
was at once cut short by the primate, who ™^* Normandy, shut himself up in his castle
rejected his jurisdiction (GEKVASE, i. 185 ; of Breteuil (R. Die.) His English fiefs were
ROG. Hov. i. 222, 228 ; Materials, ii. 393, ; confiscated in consequence, and an army sent
&c.) Early the next year (1165) he was against his town of Leicester, which was
again, on the king's departure, left in charge i taken and burnt (28 July), with the exception
of the kingdom, and, on the Archbishop of | °f tae castle, after a siege of three weeks

*&•) Henry II himself marched on Breteuil,
Aug., and (the earl having fled before him)
captured and burnt the place on 25-6 Sept.
The earl is said to have been nresent

Cologne arriving as an envoy from the em-
peror, refused to greet him on the ground
that he was a schismatic (R. Die. i. 318).
He appears to have accompanied Henry to H?3.

Normandy in the spring of 1166, but leaving- at Gisors during the fruitless negotiations

1 " , 1 , 1 • . -1 rt V-Y.1 ^ 1 ... 4 ,,-..,.,. 4-"U « J ___ 1 * ____ 1 J 1

him, returned to his post before October, and
retained it till his death, which took place
in 1168 (RoG. Hov. i. 269 ; Ann. Wav. ; Chron.
Mailros.). It is said, in a chronicle of St.
Mary de Pre (Mon. Any. ut infra), that he
himself became a canon regular of that
abbey, and resided there fifteen years, till his
death, when he was buried on the south side
of the choir ; but it is obvious that he cannot
thus have entered the abbey. This earl was
known as le Bossu (to distinguish him from
his successors), and also, possibly, as le Goc-
zen (Mon. Any. 1830, vi. 467). He founded,
in addition to St. Mary de Pre, the abbey of

between the two kings, and to have up-
braided Henry with his grievous losses. But
this seems incompatible with the fact that
he landed from Flanders, at Walton, Suf-
folk, 29 Sept. 1173, at the head of a force of
Flemings (R. Die.), and having been joined
by Hugh (Bigod), earl of Norfolk, plundered
Norwich, and besieged and took the castle
of Hagenet on 13 Oct. Setting out for
Leicester, he was intercepted at Fornham,
near Bury St. Edmunds, by Richard de
Luci and other supporters of the king
(17 Oct.), and taken prisoner, with his wife
(RoG. Hov. ii. 54-5). They were sent over

Garendon (Ann. Wav. 233), the monastery to Henry (Eot. Pip.} and imprisoned by him
of Nuneaton, the priory of Lusfield, and the I at JMaise, till his return to England, 8 July
hospital of Brackley (wrongly attributed by 1174, when he brought them with him (RoG.
Dugdale to his father), and was a liberal Hov. ii. 61). Meanwhile the earl's castellan
benefactor to many other houses (see DUG- ^ad broken forth from Leicester, and ravaged
DALE). His charter confirming to his bur- tne country round, and Henry now (31 July
gesses of Leicester their merchant-gild and 1
customs is preserved at Leicester, and printed
on p. 404 of the Appendix to the eighth re-
port on Historical MSS., and copies of his
charters of wood and pasture are printed in
Mr. Thompson's essay (pp. 42-84). He is
also said to have remitted the ' gavel-pence '
impost, but the story, though accepted by
Mr. Thompson (p. 60) and Mr. Jeaffreson
(Appendix to 8th Report, ut supra, pp. 404,
406-7), is probably false.

[Ordericus Vitalis, lib. xii.,xiii. ; Roger Hove-
den (Rolls Series) ; Gervase of Canterbury (ib.) •
R. Diceto (ib.) ; Materials for History of Thomas
a Becket (ib.) ; Monasticon Anglicanum, ii.
308 (ed. 1830, vi. 462-69) ; Dugdale's Baronage,
i. 85-87; Lyttelton's Henry II (1767); Nichols's
History of Leicester (1795), pp. 24-68, app. viii.
p. 15; Thompson's History of Leicester (chap,
vi.), and Essay on Municipal History (1867);

1174) extorted the surrender of his castles,
Leicester, Mountsorrel, and Groby (ib. ii. 65).
The king took his prisoners back with him
to Normandy on 8 August, but by the treaty
with Louis on 30 Sept. 1174 the earl's libe-
ration was provided for (ib.) His castle of
Leicester was, however, demolished (R. Die.
i. 404), and it was not till January 1177 that
in the council of Northampton he was re-
stored in blood and honours (ib. ii. 118), and
his castles (except Mountsorrel) returned to
him. He accompanied the king to Normandy
in the summer, but is not again heard of till
the spring of 1183, when, with the earl of
Gloucester, he was arrested and imprisoned.
He was, however, in attendance on the king
at Christmas 1186, when he kept his court
at Guildford, and on the accession of Richard
(July 1189) he was completely reinstated
(ib. iii. 5) and appointed at the coronation,

F 2

Beaumont

68

Beaumont

3 Sept. 1189, to carry one of the swords of
state (ib, iii. 9). He appears as attesting a
charter to the monks of Canterbury, 1 Dec.
1189 (GERVASE, i. 503), but then went on
pilgrimage to Palestine, and died in Greece,
on his way back, 1190 (ib. iii. 88). This earl
was known as Robert (es] Blanchesmains.
Copies of his charters to his burgesses of
Leicester will be found on pp. 36 and 44 of
Mr. Thompson's ' Essay on Municipal His-
tory.' He married Petronilla (* Parnel '),
heiress of the house of Grantmesnil, who is
said to have brought him the honour of
Hinckley (Leicester), but it is possible that
he may have inherited it from his grandfather.
His son and heir Robert (Fitz-Parnel) was
invested with the earldom of Leicester by
Richard at Messina, early in 1191 (RoG. Hov.),
and having distinguished himself in the cru-
sade and been subsequently captured by the
king of France in 1193, while defending Rouen
for Richard, and liberated in 1196, died child-
less in 1204. Of this Robert's two younger
brothers, Roger was made bishop of St.
Andrew's in Scotland, 1189, and William
(founder of St. Leonard's at Leicester) was
a leper. The great inheritance of the earls
of Leicester consequently passed, through his
two sisters, to the houses of de Montfort and
de Quenci.

[Roger Hoveden (Kolls series) ; R. Diceto
(ib.) ; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 87 ; Nichols's His-
tory of Leicester, pp. 69-90 ; Thompson's His-
tory of Leicester (chap, vii.) and Essay on Mu-
nicipal History ; Eyton's Court and Itinerary of
Henry II.] J. H. E.

BEAUMONT, ROBERT (d. 1567), di-
vine, may have belonged either to the
Whitley Beaumonts of Yorkshire, whose
arms were depicted on the gates of Trinity
College after his death, or to the Leicester-
shire family, so prominent in the sixteenth
century. Beaumont went to Westminster
School, and afterwards to Peterhouse, Cam-
bridge ; graduated B.A. in 1543-4, and be-
came fellow of his college ; in 1550 he
took the degree of M.A. In the reign of
Mary he fled with the protestant refugees,
and resided at Zurich (Troubles at Frank-
furt, published in Phoenix, ii. 55). In 1556
he joined the English congregation of Geneva
(BURN'S Livre des Anglois, 8). Returning
to England after the death of Mary, he
was admitted Margaret professor of divinity
(1559). He proceeded B.D. in 1560, and on
28 Sept. of that year was presented by the
Earl of Rutland to the archdeaconry of
Huntingdon. In 1561 he became master of
Trinity College, and vacated his professor-
ship. He commenced D.D. in 1564, and in

that year disputed a thesis in divinity before
Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Cambridge.

He was vice-chancellor of the university
in 1564-5, and was collated to a canonry of
Ely on 15 Nov. 1564. In 1566 he was a
second time made vice-chancellor, and died
in that office in 1567. (For his preferments
see LE NEVE'S Fasti, i. 355, ii. 52, iii. 604,
654, 699).

Dr. Beaumont is a prominent figure in
the movement of the Calvinists at Cam-
bridge against conforming to the ordinances
of Elizabeth and Parker. Dr. Baker, in his
preface to Fisher's sermon on Lady Mar-
garet, mentions Robert Beaumont as ' a
learned good man, but deeply tinctured.' By
' deeply tinctured ' Baker has been thought
to mean that Beaumont was not free from
Romish doctrine (Alumni Westmonasteri-
enses, 8) ; but though in his will Beaumont
confesses that he once was in ' that damnable
pit of idolatry,' all his public acts and his
connection with Geneva point towards puri-
tanism. He subscribed to the articles of
1562, and, both by signing a request to the
synod concerning rites and ceremonies, and
by voting with the minority in convocation
for the six articles 011 discipline, he sup-
ported the anti-ritualistic side in the church
(STEYPE, Ann. i. i. 480, 501, 504, 512). In
a letter to Parker, 27 Feb. 1564, he disap-
proves of dramatic representations among
the students (FULLER'S Cambridge, 266). On
26 Nov. 1565 Beaumont with Kelk, master
of Magdalen, Hutton, master of Pembroke,
Longworth, master of St. John's, and Whit-
gift, then Margaret professor, wrote to Cecil
as chancellor of the university for a remission
in the orders just issued by the queen through
Parker for enforcing the use of the surplice
at Cambridge. Cecil was angry and Parker
contemptuous (STRYPE'S Life of Parker, i.
386, letter in the appendix) ; thereupon
Beaumont wrote in his own name a submis-
sive letter to Cecil, saying that he was careful
to observe order himself and only wrote on be-
half of others (Lansdowne MS. 8, art. 54). Dr.
Beaumont and Sir William Cecil had many
dealings together on unimportant matters (see
LEMON'S State Papers, 1547-80). Beaumont
left a will (dated 1 May 1567), in which he
bases his salvation on the free adoption of
God, and desires to be buried without ' the
jangling of bells or other popish ceremonies.'
He also bequeathed 50/. to Trinity College.
[Cooper's Athenae Cantabrigienses, i. 24-5 ;
Alumni Westmonasterienses, 8 ; Strype's Annals
of the Keformation, i. i. and ii. ; Life of Parker,
book i., and General Index to Strype ; Burn's
Livre des Anglois a Geneve ; Troubles at Frank-
furt (1575), reprinted in Phoenix, ii. ; Lemon's

Beaumont

69

Beaumont

Ciilendar of State Papers (1547-80) ; Le Neve's
Fasti Ecclesise Anglican* ; Cooper's Annals
of Cambridge, ii.; Bishop Fisher's Sermon for
Lady Margaret, ed. Hymers, 68 ; Baker MSS.
iii. 309, xxxii. 427, 430.] A. G-N.

BEAUMONT, ROBERT (fi. 1639),
essayist, was a man of a retired life and
solitary disposition, if his testimony of his
own character, which he gives in the preface
to his book, is to be believed. He is chiefly
remarkable for his i Missives,' which are, in
plain speech, letters, and seem, from one
part of Beaumont's epistle to the reader, to
be his own composition, and from another
part to be the composition of others. But
the former intimation has the stronger sup-
port. It is evident they were written upon
supposititious occasions. Letters, he says,
should be like a well-furnished table, where
every guest may eat of what dish he pleases.
This reminds us of Bickerstaff's once-popular
opera, ' Love in a Village : '

The world is a well-furnished table,
Where guests are promiscuously set.

The essays are fifteen in number, and are
on the various parts of the body — the head,
eye, nose, ear, tongue, and so forth. They are
full of trope and figure, frequently with much
force of application, quaint and sententious.
The precise title of his work is as follows :
* Love's Missives to Virtue ; with Essaies,
Lond. printed by William Godbid, and are
to be sold at the signe of the Star, in Little
Britain, 1660.' Small 8vo, pp. 120.

[Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; Lowndes's Bibliog. Man.
i. 138 ; Sir E. Brydges' Eestituta, 3, 278-81.]

J. M.

BEAUMONT, THOMAS WENT-
WORTH (1792-1848), politician, was the
eldest son of Colonel Thomas Richard Beau-
mont, of Bretton Hall, Yorkshire, and
Diana, daughter of Sir S. W. Blackett,
baronet, of Hexham Abbey, and was born
15 Nov. 1792. He was educated at Eton,
and in 1809 became a fellow commoner of
St. John's College, Cambridge, where he
graduated B.A. in 1813. In 1818 he suc-
ceeded his father in the representation of
Northumberland, but in 1826 he lost the
election, under circumstances which led to a
duel on Bamburgh sands with Mr. Lambton,
afterwards Earl of Durham. After repre-
senting the borough of Stafford for a short
time he was in 1830 returned for Northum-
berland, and from the passing of the Reform
Bill he continued to represent the southern
division of the county until 1837. In early
life he was a member of the Pitt Club, but
from 1820 an advanced liberal and among

the most energetic of politicians in the cause
of reform. Acquiring, on the death of his
mother in 1831, a large accession of property,
he took also an active interest in the advance-
ment of the fine arts, and by his munificent
generosity won the attachment of many
friends. He was one of the chief originators
of the ' Westminster Review,' to which he is
said to have contributed some articles. Some
of his verses are contained in the 'Musre
Etonenses.' He died at Bournemouth 10 Dec.
1848.

[Annual Register, xci. 213 ; Latimer's Local
Records of Remarkable Events in Northumber-
land and Durham (1857), p. 254.] T. F. H.

BEAUMONT, WALERAN DB, COUNT
OF MEULAN (1104-1166), warrior and feudal
statesman, was the twin brother of Robert,
earl of Leicester [see BEAUMONT, ROBERT DE,
1104-1168] and the son of Robert, count of
Meulan [see BEAUMONT, ROBERT DE, d. 1118].
Born in 1104 (ORD. VIT. xi. 2), and brought
up with his brother, he succeeded at his
father's death (1118) to his French fief of
Meulan and his Norman fief of Beaumont (ib.
xii. 33). In the struggle of 1119 he was faith-
ful to Henry I (ib. xii. 14), probably because
too young to rebel ; but the movement in fa-
vour of William 'Clito' and Anjou (1112) was
eagerly joined by him (ib. xii. 34). He was
present at the conspiracy of Croix St. Leu-
froi, Sept. 1123 (ib.), and threw himself into
Brionne (ib.) On Henry's approach, he
withdrew to Beaumont (ib. xii. 36), whilst
his castles of Brionne and Pont-Audemer
were besieged and captured (RoG.Hov. i. 180,
HEN. HUNT. 245, SIM. DURH.) On the
night of 24 March 1124 he relieved and
re- victualled his tower of Watte ville, but
was intercepted two days later by Ranulf
of Bayeux, near Bourg Thorolde, and taken
prisoner with thirty of his knights (ORD.
VIT. xii. 39). Henry extorted from him
the surrender of Beaumont, his only remain-
ing castle, and kept him in close confinement
for some five years (ib.) He was present
with his brother at Henry's deathbed, 1 Dec.
1135 (ib. xiii. 19), but warmly espoused the
cause of Stephen, and received the promise
of his infant daughter in 1136 (ib. xiii. 22).
Returning to Normandy after Easter, to
assist his brother against Roger de Toesny,
lie captured him after prolonged warfare on
3 Oct. 1136 (ib. xiii. 27). Joined by Stephen
the following spring, he hastened back with
him to England in Dec. 1137, at the rumour
of rebellion (ib. xiii. 32), but was again des-
patched by him to Normandy in May 1138,
to suppress his opponents (ib. xiii. 37). Re-
turning to England with his brother, before

Beaumont

Beaver

the end of the year, they continued to act
as Stephen's chief advisers, and headed the
opposition to the bishop of Salisbury and his
nephews (Gest. Steph.) At the council of
Oxford (June 1139) matters came to a crisis,
and, in a riot between the followers of the
respective parties, the bishops were seized
by the two earls, and imprisoned, at their
advice, by Stephen (ORD. VIT. xiii. 40 ; Gest.
Steph.) This gave ' the signal for the civil
war ' (STUBBS, Const . Hist. i. 326), in which
the earl, active on Stephen's side, was re-
warded by him with a grant of Worcester
(and, it is said, the earldom) towards the
close of 1139. At the battle of Lincoln
(2 Feb. 1141) he was one of Stephen's com-
manders, but fled at the first onset, and left
him to his fate (OED. VIT. xiii. 42 ; Gest.
Steph. ; HEN. HUNT, 270; GEKVASE, i. 116),
and though he hastened to assure the queen
that he would be faithful to the captured
king (&.), he assisted Geoffrey of Anjou to
besiege Rouen in 1143. In 1145 he went
on pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Chron. Norm.},
having (as * count of Meulan ') entrusted his
lordship of Worcester to his brother, the earl
of Leicester, and to the sheriff (App. 5th
^Report Hist. MSS. p. 301). On his re-
turn, he adhered to the empress, and held
Worcester against Stephen in 1150. The
king took the town, but not the castle (HEN.
HUNT. 282), which he again attacked in
1152. He erected two forts to block it up,
but was treacherously induced to destroy
them by the count's brother (GERVASE, i.
148). lie would seem to have subsequently
withdrawn to Normandy, where he was cap-
tured by his nephew, Robert de Montfort,
who imprisoned him at Orbec till he restored
to him his fief of Montfort (Chron. Norm.}
He reappears in attendance on the court
early in 1157, and in May 1160 is one of the
witnesses to the treaty between Henry II
and Louis. Henry took his castles into his
own hands about January 1161, but he is not
again mentioned. He died in 1166, being
buried on 9 April. His son, Robert, count
of Meulan (d. 1181), joined in Prince Henry's
rebellion against his father, Henry II, in
1173 (BENED. ABB. i. 45), and was father of
Robert, count of Meulan, excommunicated
as a member of John's faction in 1191 (Ros.
Hov.)

[Orderic Vitalis, lib. xi. xii. ; Gervase of Can-
terbury and Henry of Huntingdon (Rolls series) ;
Gesta Stephani (Eng. Hist. Soc.), pp. 47, 49 ;
Chronica Normannise ; Lyttelton's Henry II
(1767) vol. i. ; Nichols's History of Leicester
(1795) pp. 23-4 ; Green's History of Worcester,
pp. 255-6 ; Eyton's Court and Itinerary of
Henry II.] J. H. E.

BEAVER, JOHN. [See CASTORIFS.]

BEAVER, PHILIP (1766-1813), captain
in the royal navy, son of the Rev. James
Beaver, curate of Lewknor in Oxfordshire,
was born on 28 Feb. 1766. He was little
more than eleven years old when his father
died, and his mother, being left poor, was
glad to accept the offer of Captain Joshua
Rowley, then commanding the Monarch, to
take the boy with him to sea. His naval
service began in October 1777 ; and during
the following year, as midshipman of the
Monarch, he witnessed the fight, celebrated
in song, between the Arethusa and Belle-
Poule (17 June), and had his small share in
the notorious action off Ushant (27 July).
In December he followed Rowley to the
Suffolk, and went in her to the West Indies.
He continued with Rowley, by this time rear-
admiral, in the Suffolk, Conqueror, Terrible,
and Princess Royal, in the fleet under ad-
mirals the Hon. John Byron, Hyde Parker,
and Sir George Rodney, during the eventful
years 1779-80, and afterwards under Sir Peter
Parker at Jamaica. At Jamaica young Beaver
continued during the rest of the war. Oil
2 June 1783 his patron, Admiral Rowley,
advanced him to the rank of lieutenant.
During the next ten years he resided princi-
pally with his mother at Boulogne, his naval
service being limited to a few months in 1790
and in 1791, on the occasions known as the
Spanish and the Russian armaments.

In the end of 1791 he associated himself
with a scheme for colonising the island of
Bulama on the coast of Africa, near Sierra
Leone, and left England for that place on
14 April 1792. The whole affair seems from
the beginning to have been conducted without
forethought or knowledge. The would-be
settlers were, for the most part, idle and
dissipated. Beaver found himself at sea in
command of a vessel of 260 tons, with 65
men, 24 women, and 31 children, mostly
sea-sick, and all equally useless. When they
landed, anything like discipline was unat-
tainable. The party, assembled on shore,
proved ignorant alike of law, industry, or
order. The directors lost heart and took an
early opportunity of returning to England.
The command devolved on Beaver, and
during a period of eighteen months he en-
deavoured, by unceasing toil, to keep a little
order and to promote a little industry ; but
the men were quite unfitted for the work
and manner of life, and the greater number of
them died. The miserable remnants of the
party evacuated the island in November 1793,
and went to Sierra Leone, whence Beaver
obtained a passage to England, and arrived at

Beaver

Beaver

Plymouth 17 May 1794. War with France
had meantime been declared, and a proclama-
tion in the 'Gazette' had ordered all naval
officers to report themselves to the admiralty.
Beaver had felt morally bound to stay with the
colony. t If I disobey their lordships' orders
in the " Gazette," ' he wrote to the secretary
of the admiralty, ' I know that I am liable
to lose my commission ; and if I obey them,
I never deserved one.' His excuses had been
favourably received, and within two months
after his return he was appointed first lieu-
tenant of the 64-gun ship Stately.

This ship, commanded by Captain Billy
Douglas, sailed for the East Indies in March
1795, but near the Cape of Good Hope fell
in with Sir George Elphinstone, afterwards
Lord Keith, and was by him detained to take
part in the conquest of that settlement. Sub-
sequently, in the East Indies, the Stately was
engaged in the reduction of Ceylon, and on
the homeward voyage again met with Sir
George Elphinstone off Cape Agulhas. It
was blowing very hard, and, as she joined
the admiral, a violent squall rent her sails
into ribbons and threw the ship on her beam-
ends. The smart seamanlike manner in
which she was righted and brought into
station, with new sails set, caught the ad-
miral's attention, and a few days later he
moved Beaver into his own ship. Sir
George returned to England in the spring
of 1797, and, as first lieutenant of the flag-
ship, Beaver should, in ordinary course, have
been promoted. In this, however, he was
disappointed ; he was still a lieutenant when,
in the next year, Lord Keith was appointed
to the command of the Mediterranean station,
and went out with his lordship as first lieu-
tenant of the Foudroyant and afterwards ot
the Barfleur. The juniors were appointed, as
it seemed to Beaver, for promotion rather than
for duty. He was thus driven to bring Lord
Cochrane, the junior lieutenant, to a court-
martial for disrespect. Lord Cochrane, though
admonished to avoid flippancy, was acquitted
of the charge, which Beaver was told ought
not to have been pressed. The circumstance
did not, however, interfere with the admi-
ral's good will. On 19 June 1799 Beaver
was made a commander, and a few months
later was appointed by Lord Keith to the
flag-ship as acting assistant-captain of the
fleet. During April and May 1800 Beaver
was specially employed in command of the
repeated bombardments of Genoa, and on
the surrender of Massena was sent home
with the despatches. Unfortunately for him
Marengo had been fought before he arrived ;
it was known in England that Genoa was
lost again before it was known how it had

first been won; and Beaver went back to
Lord Keith without his expected promotion.
On his way out he was detained for a fort-
night at Gibraltar, where he took the oppor-
tunity to get married to a young lady, Miss
Elliott, to whom he had been for some time
engaged. Shortly after rejoining the admiral
he was advanced to post rank, and appointed
to the command of the flag-ship, in which
he had an important share in the operations
on the coast of Egypt (1800-1); but in
June of this latter year, being weary of the
monotony of the blockade, he obtained per-
mission to exchange into the Determinee
frigate, and in her was sent up to Constanti-
nople with despatches. The sultan was de-
sirous of acknowledging this service with a
large sum of money, which Beaver positively
declined, though he afterwards consented to
accept a diamond box for himself and a gold
box for each of the lieutenants. He also re-
ceived for his services in Egypt the Turkish
order of the Crescent.

On the conclusion of the peace of Amiens
the Determinee was ordered home, and was
paid off at Portsmouth on 19 May 1802.
Beaver now settled down on shore, and was
placed in charge of the sea fencibles of Essex
in July 1803. Three years later he was ap-
pointed to the Acasta, 40-gun frigate, and in
her proceeded to the West Indies, where he
remained until after the capture of Mar-
tinique, in February 1809. He was then sent
home in charge of convoy and with a large
number of French prisoners. Some months
later he was appointed to the Nisus of 38
guns, a new frigate just launched, and on
22 June 1810 sailed in her for the East Indies.
He arrived on the station in time to take a
very distinguished part, under Vice-admiral
Albemarle Bertie, in the reduction of Mauri-
tius (November 1810), and, under Rear-ad-
miral the Hon. Robert Stopford, in the con-
quest of Java (August and September 1811).
After nearly a year spent in the Mozambique
and on the coast of Madagascar, towards the
end of 1812 the Nisus received her orders
for England, and in the latter days of March
1813 put into Table Bay on her homeward
voyage. Here Beaver, who had complained
of a slight indisposition, was seized with a
violent inflammation of the bowels, and,
after a few days of the most excruciating
torment, died on 5 April.

Beaver was a man of remarkable energy
and ability, and in the exceptional posts
which he held, both in the Mediterranean
and in the East Indies, he performed his
duty not only effectively, but without awak-
ening the jealousy of his seniors whom he
temporarily superseded. So far as his pro-

Beavor

Beazley

fession permitted, he was an almost omni-
vorous reader of solid books; during one
cruise he read entirely through the ' Ency-
clopaedia Britannica.' In command he was
a strict disciplinarian ; but at a time when
strictness not unfrequently degenerated into
cruelty, no charge of tyranny was ever made
against him : and yet, says his perhaps par-
tial biographer, ' the pardonable weakness of
forgiving a little more frequently would,
perhaps, have brought the commander's cha-
racter nearer to perfection.'

By his early death, and the previous bank-
ruptcy of his agent, his widow, with six
children, was left but poorly provided for.
The efforts of his friends in her behalf pro-
duced no result, and she was eventually
reduced to accept the situation of matron of
Greenwich Hospital school as a refuge from
pecuniary distress.

[The Life and Services of Captain Philip
Beaver, late of His Majesty's Ship Nisus, by
Captain W. H. Smyth, R.N., K.S.F., F.R.S., &c.,
8vo, 1 829 ; Captain Beaver himself published an
account of his Bulama experiences, under the
title of African Memoranda, 4to, 1805; he also
contributed to the papers of the day some letters
on nautical subjects, a selection of which was re-
published by Captain Smyth.] J. K. L.

BEAVOR, EDMOND (d. 1745), captain
in the royal navy, was made a lieutenant
on 2 March 1733-4, and whilst serving in
theWest Indies was promoted by Sir Chaloner
Ogle to command the Stromboli fireship in
the summer of 1743, and, in company with
the Lion, 60 guns, was sent home with a
convoy of thirty merchant-ships. Very bad
weather scattered the fleet ; several of the
convoy were lost, and the Stromboli, dis-
masted and in an almost sinking condition,
just managed to get into Kinsale harbour.
There she was refitted, and arrived in the
Downs on 21 Dec. Towards the end of the
next year he was appointed to the Fox frigate,
and during the spring and summer of 1745
was employed cruising, with some success,
against the Dunkirk privateers in the North
Sea. In September he was in Leith roads,
engaged in assisting the transport of the
army, and in stopping, so far as possible, the
communications of the rebels. On the even-
ing of the 21st, after the defeat of Sir John
Cope's army in the morning, the Fox became
a place of refuge for numbers of the soldiers
who could not get into the castle, the town
gates being held by the enemy. Beavor's
position was not an easy one for a young
officer ; for he had no instructions, and did
not know how far his authority extended.
The rebels were in possession of Leith, and

would not allow him to communicate with
the shore, even to get fresh provisions. On
6 Oct. he wrote that there were 1,200 rebels-
quartered in Leith ; and though he thought
that a few shot might dislodge them, he was
not certain that it would meet with their
lordships' approval. A few weeks later he
put to sea on a cruise, and in a violent storm
the Fox went down with all hands, 14 Nov.
1745.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. v. 279 ; Official Letters
in the Public Record Office.] J. K. L.

BEAZLEY, SAMUEL (1786-1851),
architect and playwright, was born in 1786
in Parliament Street, Westminster, where
his father carried on the business of an archi-
tect and surveyor, and died at his residence,
Tunbridge Castle, Kent, on 12 Oct. 1851.
When at school at Acton, a boy of twelve
years old, he wrote a farce and constructed
the stage upon which he and his comrades
performed it. As a youth he volunteered for
service in the Peninsula, and experienced
many romantic adventures, which he was-
fond of relating in after-life to his friends.
As an architect he enjoyed a considerable prac-
tice, especially in the construction of theatres,
of which he certainly designed more than any
other architect of his day. The Lyceum, St.
James's, City of London, the Strand front of
the Adelphi, and the colonnade of Drury Lane
were among those erected by him in London,
and he prepared drawings for two theatres
in Dublin, two in Belgium, one in Brazil,
and two in different parts of India. With-
out presenting much artistic attraction, his
theatres possessed the merit of being well
adapted to their purposes. He designed one
or two country houses and some new buildings
for the university of Bonn. His last most
important works were erected for the South-
Eastern Railway Company, and include their
terminus at London Bridge, most of their sta-
tions on the North Kent line, and the Lord
Warden Hotel and Pilot House at Dover.
Like his theatres, they were always well suited
to their purposes. He was a most prolific
writer of dramatic pieces, of which upwards
of one hundred are ascribed to his pen. They
are chiefly farces and short comedies, showing-
considerable mechanical dexterity. Among
the best known are : ' Five Hours at Brighton/
the first of the author's plays performed, 'The
Boarding House,' ' Is he Jealous ? ' an operetta
in one act composed for Mr. Wrench, and
first performed at the Theatre Royal English
Opera House on 2 July 1816, 'Gretna Green/
< The Steward,' < Old Customs,' ' The Lottery
Ticket,' 'My Uncle,' 'Bachelors' Wives/
' Hints to Husbands,' ' Fire and Water,' and

Beche

73

Beche

* The Bull's Head.' He also wrote English
versions of the operas of ' Robert the Devil,'
'The Queen of Cyprus,' and ' La Sonnambula,'
which last is said to have been adapted by
him to the pronunciation of Malibran, by
being written in morning interviews with
her at her bedside. He also wrote two novels,
' The RoueV 1828, and < The Oxonians/ 1830.
These are cleverly constructed, but to modern
taste they seem tedious and formal.

In private life Beazley was a pleasant
companion, a good and witty causeur, some
of his bonsmots being remembered and re-
peated to this day, such as his reply to a
lady's inquiry w^hy the rooks near her house
made so much noise, that they had caws
for conversation. He died suddenly of an
apoplectic seizure in the sixty-sixth year of
his age.

[Builder, 1851 ; Gent. Mag. 1829, 1851.1

G. W. B.

BECHE, Sra HENRY THOMAS DE

LA (1796-1855), geologist, the last of an
ancient family, was born in a London suburb
in 1796. Losing his father, a military officer,
at a very early age, young De la Beche was
sent to the grammar school at Ottery St. Mary
in Devonshire, but his mother soon removed
thence, first to Charmouth and afterwards
to Lyme Regis, so famous for its liassic fossils,
in collecting which the young student showed
the first evidence of his taste for natural his-
tory. Intending to follow the profession of
his father, Henry De la Beche entered the
military school at Great Marlowe in 1810;
where the artistic powers of sketching, after-
wards so useful to him in his geological work,
were sedulously cultivated. But his mili-
tary career was short. The general peace of
1815 led De la Beche, in company with Mur-
chison and many other active and restless
spirits, to quit the army.

De la Beche settled in Dorset, where the
geological structure of the district engaged
his attention ; but he soon found the need of
wider culture and information, and when in
1817, at the age of twenty-one, he became a
member of the Geological Society of Lon-
don, it became clear to him that he must
seek abroad for deeper tuition. For the four
or five succeeding years the young geologist
was an ardent student of the natural pheno-
mena of the Alps, and spending his time
chiefly in Switzerland and France, he gained
a sound knowledge of mineralogy and petro-
graphy. In 1819 De la Beche's observations
on the temperature and depth of the Lake
of Geneva were printed in the l Bibliotheque
Universelle ' (reprinted in the * Edinburgh
Journal,' 1820), and in the same year his first

geological paper, ' On the Secondary Forma-
tions of the Southern Coast of England,' ap-
peared in the ' Transactions of the Geological
Society ' (vol. i. 1819).

In 1824 De la Beche visited his paternal
estate in Jamaica, and among the fruits of
j his stay there was the publication (Trans.
\ Geol. $00.) of a paper in which, for the first
I time, the rocks of the island were described.
On his return to England from Jamaica, De
la Beche's pen was very busy in the prepa-
ration of other papers on the rocks of the
south and west of England ; the first distinct
volume which he issued (in 1829) appears to
be a translation of a number of geological
memoirs from the ' Annales des Mines.' The
list of books which may be said to have been
written by De la Beche in his private capa-
city include ' Manual of Geology,' 1831 ; ' Re-
searches in Theoretical Geology,' 1834 ; and
the * Geological Observer,' 1853. It is not
too much to say that the publication of these
works would alone have placed De la Beche
in the first rank of geologists. In them he
exhibits the most varied acquirements, ap-
plying almost every branch of science to the
elucidation of geological facts. Notwith-
standing the rapid advancement of geological
knowledge, these books will long continue to-
be well worthy of the earnest study of every
geologist.

But the great epoch of De la Beche's.
life was now approaching. In 1815 William
Smith— the father of English geology— had
published the first geological map of Eng-
land, in which the position of each of the
main beds of rock, or formations, is shown
as they run across our island from south-
west to north-east. This was necessarily a
map on a small scale, not sufficiently de-
tailed, for example, to indicate to any land-
owner the nature of the rocks composing his
estate. But a great map of England was
now in process of construction by the govern-
ment department, entitled the Ordnance Sur-
vey, on the scale of one inch to a mile. De
la Beche's idea was to make this ' ordnance
map ' the groundwork of a geological survey
of each county, representing upon it, by dif-
ferent colours, the exact surface-area occu-
pied by the different beds of rock, and further
illustrating the relations of the strata to one
another by means of horizontal and vertical
sections. This great task was commenced
by De la Beche at his own expense in the
mining district of Devon and Cornwall. But
the work was so clearly one deserving the
name of ' national ' that the government of
the day quickly acceded to De la Beche's re-
quest for aid. In 1832 he was appointed to
conduct the proposed geological survey under

Beche

74

Becher

the board of ordnance, a sum of 300/. was
granted, and in 1835 a house in Craig's Court,
Charing Cross, was placed at the disposal of
the new * director of the ordnance geological
survey.' With the help of six or eight field-
assistants the work went on rapidly; geo-
logical maps of Cornwall, Devon, and So-
merset were soon completed. Specimens of
rocks, minerals, and fossils poured into Craig's
Court so rapidly, that, although an adjoining
house was taken, the premises were soon too
small to contain the collections, which in-
cluded all the economically valuable mineral
substances met with in the course of the sur-
vey, such as materials for making roads,
building-stones, useful metals, and all mine-
rals having any industrial importance. De
la Beche was now enabled to push forward
another of his long-cherished ideas, and, with
the help of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Carlisle,
and other enlightened statesmen, secured the
erection of an excellent building, built * very
much after his own designs,' between Jermyn
Street and Piccadilly, for a museum of eco-
nomic or practical geology.

Previous to the completion of the building,
which was opened by Prince Albert in 1851,
several other important steps had been made
by De la Beche. The geological survey was
transferred in 1845 from the Ordnance to the
Office of Woods and Forests ; a mining record
office was established in 1839 for the reception
of plans and information about mines, and this
has since approved itself a most useful institu-
tion ; moreover, between the years 1840-50, De
la Beche — now 'director general' — collected
round the new institution a band of distin-
guished scientific men, including Lyon Play-
fair, Edward Forbes, Robert Hunt, Dr. Percy,
A. C. Ramsay, and W. W. Smyth. With
these to aid him, De la Beche ventured to
complete his scheme by the establishment of
a ' School of Mines,' the equivalent of the
famous Ecole des Mines of France. For
want of suitable room the project could not
be effectively carried out until the opening
of the new Jermyn Street Museum in 1851.

De la Beche was elected president of the
Geological Society in 1847 ; he received the !
honour of knighthood in 1848, and was
awarded the Wollaston palladium medal by
the Geological Society in 1855 ; he was also
the recipient of many honours from abroad.
Although, during the last three years of his ;
life he suffered much from paralysis and gene-
ral debility, he continued to work till only a
few hours before his death, which occurred
on 13 April 1855. He was buried at Kensal
Green Cemetery in London. His bust stands
in the building of his creation, the Geolo-
gical Museum in Jermyn Street.

Murchison, Ramsay, and Geikie have in
turn occupied the post of director-general of
the geological survey since the death of De
la Beche. In his l Life of Edward Forbes '
Professor Geikie has described his predecessor
as l a man who for many a long year, with
unwearied energy, spent time and toil and
money in the service of his country and in
the cause of science. The volumes which he
wrote, with the survey and museum which
he founded and fostered, form after all his
most fitting epitaph as well as his proudest
memorial.'

In addition to those of De la Beche's
writings referred to above, we may name :
1. { Report on the Geology of Cornwall,
Devon, and West Somerset,' 1839, a bulky
and valuable volume. 2. l First Report on
Coals for Steam Navy,' in ' Geological Survey
Memoirs,' vol. ii., part ii., and in vol. i.,

Sart i., ' On the Formation of the Rocks of
outh Wales,' 1846. 3. ' Presidential Address
to Geological Society,' ' Quarterly Journal/
vol. iv., 1848. 4. < Inaugural Address,' ' Re-
cords of School of Mines,' vol. i., part, i.,
1852. In the Royal Society's l Catalogue of
Scientific Papers ' there appear the titles of
thirty-seven written by De la Beche alone,
in addition to three of which he was part
author only.

[Quart. Jour. Greol. Soc., vols. xi. xii., President's
Addresses ; Geikie's Life of Murchison, ii. 177 ;
Geikie's Life of E. Forbes, p. 376.] W. J. H.

BECHER, ELIZA, LADY (1791-1872),
actress, was daughter of an Irish actor
named O'Neill, of no great reputation, who
was stage-manager of the Drogheda theatre.
Her mother before marriage was a Miss
Featherstone. After a little instruction,
obtained at a small school in Drogheda, Miss
O'Neill made, as a child, her first appearance
on the stage of the Drogheda theatre. Two
years were subsequently spent in Belfast,
and Miss O'Neill then proceeded to Dublin,
where she speedily made a high mark as
Juliet and Jane Shore, and as Ellen in a ver-
sion of the ' Lady of the Lake.' An engage-
ment followed at Covent Garden, at which
house she appeared 6 Oct. 1814 as Juliet to
the Romeo of Conway. A success altogether
beyond the modest expectations of the
management was reaped; the houses were
nightly crowded, and the debutante was
hailed with extravagant enthusiasm as 'a
younger and better Mrs. Siddons.' For five
years Miss O'Neill was a reigning favourite,
commanding acceptance in comedy in such
parts as Lady Teazle, Mrs. Oakly, Lady
Townly, and Widow Cheerly, but causing a
more profound sensation in Juliet, Belvidera,

Becher

75

Becher

Monimia, and other characters belonging to
tragedy. Stories concerning the influence
of her acting — now not easy to credit —
were freely told. Men are said to have been
borne fainting from the theatre after witness-
ing her tragic performances. Through her
theatrical career an unblemished reputation
was maintained, and a constantly iterated
charge of avarice was the worst accusation
brought against her. On 13 July 1819 she
made as Mrs. Haller what was announced as
her last appearance before Christmas. It
proved to be her last appearance on the stage.
On 18 Dec. in the same year she married
Mr. William Wrixon Becher, an Irish mem-
ber of parliament for Mallow, where he pos-
sessed considerable estates. By the death of
an uncle Mr. Becher became subsequently a
baronet. Lady Becher never returned to the
stage. She died 29 Oct. 1872. By the best
judges she is credited with the possession of
gifts all but the highest. Reynolds, the
dramatist, alone ventured a word of dis-
paragement, saying that her acting was ' of
too boisterous and vehement a nature.' He
owns that in this opinion he was in a
minority (Life, ii. 398). Macready, speak-
ing of her debut, says : ' Her beauty, grace,
simplicity, and tenderness were the theme of
every tongue. . . . The noble pathos of Sid-
dons's transcendent genius no longer served
as the grand commentary and living exponent
of Shakespeare's text, but in the native ele-
gance, the feminine sweetness, the unaffected
earnestness and gushing passion of Miss
O'Neill the stage had received a worthy suc-
cessor to her ' (Reminiscences, ed. Sir F. Pol-
lock, i. 86). From this estimate of her he
did not recede. Hazlitt also gave her high,
if discriminating praise, saying that 'her
excellence — unrivalled by any actress since
Mrs. Siddons — consisted in truth of nature
and force of passion ' (Dramatic Essays,
p. 309, ed. 1851). Her beauty appears to
have been of the classical type, her features
having a Grecian outline ; her voice was ' deep,
clear, and mellow ; ' her figure was middle-
sized, and she had a slight stoop in the
shoulders, which does not seem to have
detracted from her grace and dignity. It
has been maintained that with her the race
of tragic actresses expired — a statement
in which there is as much truth as is to
be found in other similarly sweeping asser-
tions.

[Genest's Account of the English Stage;
Kelly's Keminiscences ; London Magazine;
Burke's Baronetage ; Era Almanack.] J. K.

BECHER, HENRY QZ. 1561), transla-
tor, was vicar of Mayfield, in the jurisdiction

of South Mailing. He translated into the
English tongue and adorned with a long pre-
face against the late Pelagians — i.e. Henry
Hart and others in Kent, Essex, London, and
other places — the two books of ' St. Ambrose
de Vocatione Gentium.' In the preface are
many things concerning this heresy which in-
fested no small number of provinces in Eng-
land in the times of Henry VIII and Queen
Mary. The full title of his translation is as
follows : * Two Books of Saint Ambrose, Bys-
shoppe of Mytleyne, entituled Of the Voca-
tion and Calling of all Nations : newly trans-
lated out of Latin into Englyshe, for the
edifying and comfort of the single-mynded
and godly, unlearned in Christes Church,
agaynst the late stronge secte of the Pelagi-
ans, the maynteyners of the free v, yll of men,
and denyers of the grace of God/ London,
1561, 8vo.

[MS. Coll. Corp. Chr. Cantabr. Miscell. ; Tan-
ner's Bibl. Brit.-Hibern. p. 82; Watt's Bibl.
Brit.] J. M.

BECHER, JOHN THOMAS (1770-
1848), clergyman and writer on social eco-
nomy, was born in 1770, and received his
early education at Westminst er School, which
he entered at fourteen. In 1788 he was
elected thence to Oxford, where in 1795 he
took the degree of M.A. In 1799 he was
presented to the perpetual curacies of Thur-
garton and Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire.
He devoted himself actively to the work of
local administration, and it was as one of the
visiting justices for his division of Notting-
hamshire that he wrote what was printed
in 1806 as 'A Report concerning the House
of Correction at Southwell,' in his imme-
diate neighbourhood. In this he urged that
prison discipline should be made reformatory
as well as penal. About 1816 he was made
chairman of the quarter sessions of the Newark
division of Nottinghamshire, an office which
he held for thirty years. In 1801 he had
been appointed vicar of Rumpton, Notting-
hamshire, and of Midsomer Norton in 1801.
He became a friend of Byron when the poet
was staying at Southwell during his Cam-
bridge vacations; and at his advice Byron
suppressed his first privately printed volume.
In 1818 he became a prebendary of South-
well, and was vicar-general of that colle-
giate church, the dean and chapter of which
presented him in 1830 to the rectory of
Barnborough, Yorkshire. He took a warm
interest in everything connected with the
social condition of the people, and, whether
he was its founder or not, zealously promoted
the establishment of a friendly society at
Southwell. In 1824 he published ' The Con-

Becher

Beck

stitution of Friendly Societies upon Legal
and Scientific Principles exemplified by the
Rules and Tables of Calculations adopted |
... for the Government of the Friendly In- I
stitute at Southwell ' (3rd edition, 1826) ; !
followed in 1825 by ' Tables showing the
single and monthly contributions to be paid,
the allowances to be granted, and the method
of calculating, at every period of life, the
value of assurances effected by members of
Friendly Societies, together with a system
of Bookkeeping recommended for the use of
such institutions.' In 1826 appeared his ' Ob-
servations upon the Report from the Select
Committee of the House of Commons on
the Laws respecting Friendly Societies, ex-
emplifying and vindicating the principles of
Life Assurance adopted in calculating the
Southwell Tables, together with the heads
of a Bill for improving the constitution and
management of such institutions.' The
vindication was of Becher's contention that
sick allowances could be calculated on a
scientific basis, and that the Northampton
tables of mortality afforded the best data for
life assurance and cognate calculations, both
of which positions had been contested before
the committee by Mr. Finlaison, the actuary
of the national debt. In 1828 Becher pub-
lished ' The Anti-Pauper System, exemplify-
ing the positive and practical good realised
by the relievers and the relieved under the
frugal, beneficent, and careful administration
of the poor laws prevailing at Southwell and
in the neighbouring district,' &c. The erec-
tion of a workhouse at Southwell, the sub-
stitution of indoor for outdoor relief, and
the making the former as repulsive as pos-
sible to able-bodied paupers, had caused con-
siderable reduction in the rates at Southwell,
and the system in operation there had been
copied with similar results in various parishes
throughout the country. The select com-
mittee of the House of Commons on agri-
culture in its report pointed attention to the
value of Becher's system, which was also
favourably mentioned by the ' Quarterly
Review.' In 1834, during the official in-
vestigation which resulted in the new poor
law, Becher issued a second edition of this
•work, with a new introduction. In 1837,
lie apparently converted, on at least one
point, Finlaison, his former antagonist, and
there appeared 'Rules of the Northampton
Equitable Friendly Institution, and tables
calculated from actual returns of sickness,
old age, and death, by the Rev. J. T.
Becher, M.A., and J. Finlaison, Esq., Ac-
tuary of the National Debt.' Becher died
at Hill House, Southwell, on 3 Jan. 1848,
aged 78.

[Becher's writings; "Welch's List of the Queen's
Scholars of St. Peter's College, Westminster (new
edition, 1852); Gent. Mag. for April 1848.]

BECK. [See BEK.]

BECK, CAVE (1623-1706 ?), writer on
pasigraphy, son of John Beck, baker, of the
parish of St. John, Clerkenwell, was born in
London in 1623. He was educated in a
private school kept in London by Mr. Brath-
wayte, and on 13 June 1638 was admitted a
pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge.
He took the degree of B.A. in 1641, and sub-
sequently that of M.A., being incorporated
in the latter at Oxford, 17 Oct. 1643. In
1655 he was master of the free grammar
school at Ipswich; in 1657, however, Robert
Woodside was retained as master, during the
pleasure of the corporation, in the room of
Beck, who perhaps resigned that situation
on being instituted to St. Helen's, or Monk-
soham, of which he was also rector. In 1662
he licensed to the perpetual curacy of St.
Margaret's, Ipswich, and in the same year
he was presented by the king, by lapse, to
the rectory of St. Helen's, Ipswich, with St.
Clement's annexed. We have been unable
to ascertain the precise date of the death of
this ingenious scholar. He was certainly
alive in 1697, and William Ray, who was
instituted to Monksoham in 1706, was pro-
bably his immediate successor.

He wrote an extremely curious and interest-
ing work entitled ' The Universal Character,
by which all Nations in the World may under-
stand one another's Conceptions, Reading out
of one Common Writing their own Mother
Tongues. An Invention of General Use, the
Practise whereof may be Attained in two
Hours' space, Observing the Grammatical
Directions. Which Character is so contrived,
that it may be Spoken as well as Written,
Lond. 1657, 8vo. The work was also pub-
lished the same year in the French language.
It is dedicated to Nathanael and Francis
Bacon, esquires, 'patronis suis colendissimis.'
The characters chosen by Beck are the ten
Arabic numerals, which he proposes to pro-
nounce aun, too, tray, for orfo,fai, sic, sen,
at, nin, o. The combinations of these cha-
racters, intended to express all the radical
| words in any language, are to be arranged in
numerical order, from unity to 10,000. which
number he thinks sufficient to express all
words in general use ; and to each number is
to be annexed the word in any language, as
for example English, of which it is a symbol,
thus forming a numerical vocabulary. The
same words are also to be arranged in
another vocabulary in the alphabetical order
of the language they belong to ; thus each

Beck

77

Becke

serves for a key to the other. There is also
a list of about two hundred characters to de-
note parts of compound words, and the gram-
matical modifications of words are expressed
by letters of the alphabet. The words are in
most instances extended to an unmanageable
length, and the difficulty of discovering the
meaning of the numerical group which stands
for the radical word is increased by the still
greater difficulty of disconnecting the radical
from the modifying appendage, and of ana-
lysing the component parts of the latter.
As a frontispiece to the book there is an
engraving by Faithorne, and the figure of
the European is supposed, with great proba-
bility, to be the portrait of the author.

[Addit. MSS. 5863, f. 135, 19166, f. 11 ; Hoi- j
lingworth's Character of Charles I, p. 27 ; MS. j
note in Thomas Baker's copy of The Universal
Character ; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 60 ;
Groves's Pasilogia, 62 ; Granger's Biog. Hist, of
England, 5th edit. iii. 329 ; Gent. Mag. N. S.
xiv. 365; Wodderspoon's Ipswich, 391, 399.1

T. C.

BECK, DAVID (d. 1656), portrait painter,
was born at Delft. His name is variously
written B'eec and Beek. The statement of
Houbraken and the writers who follow him,
that he was born 25 May 1621, is contradicted
by the existence of an authenticated picture
at St. Petersburg, which is dated 1631, and
made at least doubtful by the fact, which
Houbraken himself adduces, that he taught
drawing to the children of Charles I. In this
country he was Vandyck's pupil, and had so |
much facility in painting that Charles I is !
stated to have said, ' Faith, Beck ! I believe j
you could paint riding post.' He left Eng-
land, and worked as a portrait-painter in the
courts of France and of Denmark. Still later
he entered the service of the Queen of Swe-
den, and was sent by her to various courts of
Europe with a commission to paint portraits
of the most illustrious persons of Christendom.
This information we find in Cornelius de Bie's
' Het gulden Cabinet,' where is also a pane-
gyrical poem and a fine, as well as very
handsome, portrait of the painter. He ac-
companied the queen to Rome, and was elected
a member of the painters' guild of that city
in 1653. Returning, he accompanied his
patroness as far as Paris, and then left her
upon a plea that he wished to revisit his old
friends in Holland. He died suddenly at the
Hague on 20 Dec. 1656. Houbraken describes
him as l a handsome distinguished man, but
without genius.' He also asserts that he was
poisoned by order of the Queen of Sweden,
who feared he did not intend to keep his pro-
mise of returning to her; but Houbraken's
tales are in general debateable.

Beck's pictures, the number of which should
be very great if the tales of his celerity have
any truth, are now rare. There is one in the
National Gallery of Stockholm, a three-
quarter portrait of his patroness, the Queen
of Sweden, which shows him to have been a
sober follower of Vandyck ; and there is
another in a private collection in the same
city. His best work is seen in small portraits,
as in that already mentioned picture at St.
Petersburg, in the possession of Peter von
Semmnow, dated 1631. Even here the influ-
ence of Vandyck is marked. Beck has little
claim, to rank among English artists, and the
printed accounts of him in English are in-
complete and incorrect. The best account
is by W. Bode in the latest edition of Nagler.

[Houbraken's De groote Schonburgh, ii. 83;
De Bie's Het gulden Cabinet ; Walpole's Anec-
dotes of Painters, i. 338 ; Pilkingtoii's Diet, of
Painters (recounts an extraordinary miracle
which befell the painter) ; Nagler's Allgemeines
Kiinstler-Lexikon, ed. 1881.] E. K.

BECK, THOMAS ALCOCK (1795-
1846), author of ' Annales Furnesienses,' was
the son of James Beck, gentleman, and was
born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne 31 May 1795.
He was educated at Archbishop Sandys's
grammar school, Hawkshead, Lancashire, and
later in life by a private tutor. He never
adopted any profession. Having, owing to a
special complaint, become unable to walk
somewhat early in life, he mitigated the
tedium of confinement at his residence of
Esthwaite Lodge, Lancashire, by the compo-
sition of his l Annales Furnesienses,' pub-
lished in 1844 in a splendid quarto volume,
a work not only completely exhaustive on all
matters bearing on the history of the abbey
of St. Mary, but of prime importance with
regard to antiquarian research throughout the
whole district of Furness. He died 24 April
1846, and was buried in Hawkshead church-
yard. A beautiful mural tablet has been
erected in the church to his memory.

[Historic Society of Lancas. and dies. Pro-
ceedings, New Series, v. 154; Kichardson's His-
tory and Antiquities of Furness, 1880, i. 80;
private information.] T. F. H.

BECKE, EDMUND (Jl. 1550), theo-
logical writer, was ordained deacon by Bishop
Ridley in 1551 (STKYPE'S Memorials, ii. pt. i.
313). In 1549 he supervised an edition of
the Bible, * truly and purely translated into
English and nowe lately with greate industry
and diligence recognized.' The volume was
printed by John Day and William Seres, and
was preceded by a long dedicatory address
to 'the most puisant and mighty prince

Becke

Beckett

Edwarde the Sixt,' signed by his ' most humble
and obedient subiect Edmund Becke.' An
autograph copy of the address is among the
Ashmolean MSS. at Oxford. Becke there
speaks of the book as 'the frutes of myne
industry,' but it appears to be merely a re-
print of T. Matthew's (i.e. John Rogers')
' Bible/ published in 1537, with trifling va-
riations in the text and notes. It contains
Tindal's preface to the New Testament.
Becke's chief original contribution consists
of ' a perfect supputation of the yeares and
tyme from Adam unto Christ, proued by the
Scriptures after the colleccyon of dyuers
Authours.' In 1551 Becke published two
more Bibles, one printed by John Day,
1 faythfully set forth according to ye coppy of
Thomas Matthewes translacion [really Ta-
verner's Bible of 1539] wherevnto are added
certaine learned prologes and annotacions
for the better understanding of many hard
places threwout the whole Byble.' The dedi-
catory address and the various prologues
which occur in Becke's earlier edition of the
Bible are again inserted. The other Bible
followed the Matthew revision, and was
printed by N. Hyll. Becke's other works
included: 1. 'Two Dyalogues wrytten in
Latin by the famous clerke D. Erasmus of
Roterodame, one called Polyphemus or the
Gospeller, the other dysposing of thynges
and names ; translated into Englyshe by Ed-
mond Becke. And prynted at Canterbury in
Saynt Paules paryshe by John Mychell.'
2. 'A Brefe Confutacion of this most de-
testable and Anabaptistrial opinion that
Christ dyd not take hys flesh of the blessed
Vyrgyn Mary nor any corporal substance of
her body. For the maintenaunce whereof
Jhone Bucher, otherwise called Jhon of Kent,
most obstinately suffered and was burned
in Smythfyelde, the ii. day of May Anno
Domini M.D.L.' (London, John Day, 1550,
4to.) The first tract is described by Becke j
as ' the fyrste frutes of this my symple
translacyon,' and as undertaken at the re-
quest of ' a nere cosyn of myne ' for ( such
as are not lerned in the Latin tongue.' It
is undated : its publication at Canterbury j
suggests some ecclesiastical connection be-
tween Becke and that town. The second
tract is a popular rhyming pamphlet, written
to point the moral of the martyrdom of the
anabaptist Joan Bocher [q.v.], which is fully
described by Stow. The tract has been re-
printed by Mr. J. P. Collier in the second
volume of his ' Illustrations of Early Eng-
lish Popular Literature ' (1864).

[Lewis's History of the English Translation
of the Bible, prefixed to his edition of Wiclif's
New Testament (1731), pp. 44, 47; Tanner's

Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica; Brit. Mus.
Cat.] S. L. L.

BECKET, THOMAS, archbishop of
Canterbury. [See THOMAS.]

BECKET, WILLIAM (1684-1738), sur-
geon and antiquary, was born at Abingdon,
Berkshire. In the early years of the eighteenth
century he was well known in London as a
surgeon and an enthusiastic antiquary. He
was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on
j 11 Dec. 1718, and read three papers on 'The
I Antiquity of the Venereal Disease ' at its
l meetings during the same year (Phil. Trans.
I vi. 368, 467, 492), and one on another sub-
ject in 1724 (ib. vii. 25). Becket was an
original member of the Society of Anti-
quaries, which was virtually established in
1717, and lived on intimate terms with
Stukeley, Bowyer, Browne- Willis, and other
antiquaries. He was for some years surgeon
to St. Thomas's Hospital, South wark, but
before 1736 he had retired to Abingdon,
where he died 25 Nov. 1738. Dr. Stukeley,
the well-known antiquary, adds in his com-
mon-place book to his note of the death of
' my old friend William Becket, surgeon,' that
his papers were bought 'by the infamous
Curl,' and purchased of Curll for thirty
guineas by Dr. Milward (STTJKELEY'S Me-
moirs, ed. Lukis (Surtees Soc.), i. 97).

His works are : 1. l New Discoveries re-
lating to the Cure of Cancers,' 1711 and 1712.
2. 'An Enquiry into the Antiquity and
Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil,,
with a Collection of Records,' 1722. John
Anstis the elder gave Becket some assist-
ance in this work (NICHOLS, Lit. Anecdotes,
ii. 498). 3. ' Practical Surgery, illustrated
and improved, with remarks on the most
remarkable Cases, Cures, and Discussions in
St. Thomas's Hospital,' 1740. 4. 'A Collec-
tion of Chirurgical Tracts,' 1740. Gough
in his ' British Topography,' 1780 (i. 519), re-
marks, on Stukeley's authority, that Becket
examined the wills in the prerogative office
referring to Lincolnshire and other counties.

[Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 88, v. 278 ; Ni-
chols's Lit. Illustrations,]]. 796 ; Watt's Biblio-
theca Brit. ; Thomson's Hist, of Royal Society,
appendix, xxxiv ; Archseologia, i. xxxvi n.~\

S. L. L.

BECKETT, ISAAC (1653-1719), mezzo-
tint engraver, was born in Kent in 1653, and
apprenticed to a calico printer in London, but
happening to visit Lutterel, he became capti-
vated by a desire of learning the new art of
engraving in mezzotint. Hearing that one
John Lloyd was acquainted with the process,
and being obliged through an intrigue to-
absent himself from his business, Beckett

Beckett

79

Beckett

offered his services to him, and entered into
articles to Avork for him. Before long, how-
ever, he again fell into trouble, and was as-
sisted by Lutterel, with whom he became
associated in the development of the art. He
is said to have been noted for his gallantries,
and to have married a woman of fortune,
which enabled him to set up as the publisher
of his own prints, and Lutterel did many heads
for him, being more expeditious and more
skilful in drawing than Beckett, but they
were often finished by the latter. His plates
are all referable to dates between 1681 and
1688, yet he survived until 1719. Isaac
Beckett and Robert Williams were the first
native Englishmen who extensively practised
engraving in mezzotint, and, in a measure,
may be considered to have founded the school,
for the earlier works were executed chiefly by
engravers of foreign birth. John Smith was
Beckett's pupil, and appears to have obtained
possession of many of his plates and to have
placed his own name on them, not only as
publisher, but on some even as engraver.

Beckett executed several scriptural and
allegorical subjects, as well as a few land-
scapes, but by far the greater number of his
plates are portraits, of which Mr. Chaloner
Smith describes 107. Among the best of
them may be mentioned full-length portraits
of Charles II, the Duchess of Portsmouth,
James II, and Catharine Sedley, countess of
Dorchester, after Kneller ; and of Lady Wil-
liams, said by Granger to have been a mistress
of the Duke of York, after Wissing ; and other
portraits of Catharine of Braganza, queen of
Charles II, Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleve-
land, and Elizabeth, countess of Chesterfield,
after Sir Peter Lely ; Mary of Modena, queen
of James II, after Kneller and Largilliere ;
Queen Anne, after Wissing ; Prince George
of Denmark, after Riley and W'issing ; Beau
Fielding, after Kneller and Wissing ; Henry
Compton, bishop of London, after Riley;
Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, after
Soest; and Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey
Kneller, and Nicolas de Largilliere and his
family, after paintings by themselves. The
most important of Beckett's subject plates are
' The Virgin and St. Joseph, with the Infant
Jesus asleep ; ' { Time cutting the Wings of
Love ; ' ' Cupid and Psyche,' after Turchi ;
'The Village Surgeon,' after Lingelbach ; and
' The Dutch School,' after Egbert van Heems-
kerk. Beckett's own portrait has been en-
graved by John Smith and others.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting (ed. Wor-
num), 1849, iii. 960-1, with portrait ; J. Chaloner
Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits, 1878-84, i.
20-54 ; Meyer's Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon,
1872, &c., iii. 272-274.] K. E. G.

BECKFORD, PETER (1740-1811),
eminent sportsman and master of foxhounds,
was the son of Julines Beckford, of Stapleton.
Dorset, and grandson of Peter Beckford,
governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica,
He was thus cousin to William Beckford,
the celebrated lord mayor of London. His
pre-eminence among foxlmnters is due to the
fact that he was the first English writer to
describe minutely and accurately the whole
system of the sport of hunting. This he did
in a work entitled ' Thoughts upon Hare and
Fox Hunting ; also an account of the most
celebrated Dog Kennels in the Kingdom/
Sarum, sm. 4to, 1781, 1796, 1820. 'Never,'
says a writer (Sir Egerton Brydges ?) in the
' Retrospective Review ' (xiii. 231), l had fox
or hare the honour of being chased to death
by so accomplished a hunter ; never was
huntsman's dinner graced by such urbanity
and wit. He would bag a. fox in Greek, find
a hare in Latin, inspect his kennels in Italian,
and direct the economy of his stables in ex-
quisite French,' In 1781 Beckford published
' Essays on Hunting ; containing a philoso-
phical inquiry into the nature and properties
of Scent ; on different kinds of Hounds,
Hares, &c., with an introduction describing
the method of Hare-hunting among the
Greeks,' London, 8vo.

In 1773 he married Louisa, daughter of
Lord Rivers, and by a special patent, granted
in 1802, his son William Horace succeeded
to the barony, and became the third Lord
Rivers. Peter Beckford sat in parliament,
as representative of Morpeth, in 1768.

In 1787, just before the outbreak of the
French revolution, he travelled in Italy, and
wrote an entertaining account of his journey,
which was published some years later under
the title of ' Familiar Letters from Italy to
a Friend in England,' 2 vols. 8vo, Salisbury,
1805. Here he described visits to Voltaire,
Rousseau, and other celebrities. In Turin,
he writes, he had met Sterne in 1765, and
had ' passed hours with that eccentric genius
that might have been more profitably em-
ployed, but never more agreeably.' He seasons
nearly every letter with anecdotes, both grave
and gay, and makes remarks, political and
philosophical, that must have astounded the
country squire of later days. That he was
an extensive reader of classical and modern
literature is proved by the tenor of both his
published works. He died on 18 Feb. 1811,
and was buried in Stapleton church, where
the following doggerel was inscribed above
his grave : —

"We die and are forgotten ; 'tis Heaven's decree :
Thus the fate of others will be the fate of me.

Beckford

Beckford

[Hutchins's Dorset, iii. ; Retrospective Review,
iii. 231 ; Watt's Biblioth. Brit. 91w. ; Apperley
on the Horse ; Beatson's Paii. Register, ii. 172.]

R. H.

BECKFORD, WILLIAM (1709-1770),
alderman and twice lord mayor of London,
-was born in Jamaica, where he was baptized
on 19 Dec. 1709. His father, the Hon.
Peter Beckford, was at the time speaker of
the assembly in that coiony; his mother,
Bathshua, being the daughter of Colonel
Julines Herring, also of Jamaica. The Beck-
fords were descended from a family long es-
tablished in Gloucestershire. In that county
the parish of Beckford still marks the site of
the ancient manor of the same name, which,
according to Domesday Book, had been terra
regis in the time of the Confessor. One
noted ancestor, Sir William Beckford, was
among the principal adherents of Richard III.
As such he loyally followed that monarch to
the field of Bosworth, where he was probably
killed. After passing through many vicissi-
tudes, the family had its fortunes restored
about the middle of the seventeenth century
by Peter Beckford, the alderman's great-
grandfather, who, quitting England in search
of advancement, settled down in Jamaica,
and there rose to considerable wealth as a
planter. His son, Colonel Peter Beckford,
acquired so much distinction among the
colonists during the reign of Charles II that
he was nominated president of the council,
being eventually, under William III, ap-
pointed lieuten-ant-governor and commander-
in-chief of the island. His immense property
having on his death, 3 April 1710, been in-

adorned a palatial country residence in Wilt-
shire. He was advanced to the magis-
tracy and entered parliament. According to
Nicoll's quarto ' History of the Ironmongers '
(p. 453) he was admitted in 1752 to the free-
dom and livery of that company. According
to Noorthouck's quarto ' History of London '
(p. 374) he was in that same year on 24 June
elected alderman- of Billingsgate ward, in
succession to Thomas Winterbottom, the then
lord mayor, who had died on 4 June 1752.
In the following year (1753) Beckford served
the office of master of the Ironmongers' com-
pany. In the ensuing spring he was returned
simultaneously during the course of the gene-
ral election as M.P. for the city of London
and as M.P. for Petersfield, the latter on
19 April, the former 'on 7 May. Deciding,
almost as a matter of course, that he would
sit for London, he sent, in munificent evi-
dence of his goodwill, as a solatium to his
other constituents, 400£. to pave the streets
of Petersfield. In 1755 he was installed in
the office of sheriff of the city of London, in
association with the other sheriff, Ive Whit-
bread, the lord mayor of that year being
Sliiigsby Bethell, alderman of Walbrook,
presumably an ancestor of Lord West-
bury. On 4 April 1761 Beckford was re-
elected M.P. for the city of London. Before
the close of the following year he became
lord mayor. Though he was in a manner
entitled by rotation to that office, it was
known that a strong. party were preparing
to oppose him. Beckford, on 28 Oct.
1762, attended the court of aldermen and
desired leave to resign his gown as alder-

man. His resolute course in thus acting
had its due effect. His request was post-

herited by his eldest son and namesake (the
alderman's father already mentioned), passed

on the latter's demise, 23 Sept. 1735, to the poned until the following day, when (29 Oct.
fourth Peter Beckford of Jamaica. That 1762) he was elected lord mayor, eighteen
eldest son dying unmarried, however, but votes being given for him and but one for
little more than a year afterwards, the whole Alderman Bridger, the rival candidate. This

mayoralty was memorable for its luxurious
character. Though extremely moderate in
his own diet, Beckford's public banquets were
sumptuous description. 1

inheritance came of right into the possession
of his younger brother William.

As a boy of fourteen William Beckford,
in 1723, had first arrived in England from
Jamaica. Being sent here expressly to be

of the most sumptuous description. Four of
them in particular were long afterwards re-

educated, he was placed under the care of ferred to by gourmets as probably more elabo-

the Rev. Robert Freind, then the able head-
master of Westminster School, by whom he
was often spoken of afterwards in later life
as one of the best scholars that the school
had ever had. At Westminster he secured
the lasting friendship of Lord Mansfield.
Entering public life on the death of his
elder brother as an enormously rich West
Indian planter, he soon found his onward
path made clear before him in many direc-
tions. He expanded his operations as a
merchant in London. He acquired and

rate than any since the days of Henry VIII.
His political sayings and doings during this
year were remarkable in a different way. John
Wilkes's name and his were then and long
afterwards intimately associated. Wilkes
was at the time a London alderman and M.P.
for Aylesbury. On 23 April 1763 No. 45 of the
1 North Briton ' was published, in which the
king was openly charged with uttering false-
hood in his royal speech. On the 26th gene-
ral warrants were issued by Lord Halifax
for the apprehension of its authors, printers,

Beckford

81

Beckford

and publishers. On the 30th they were ar-
rested and committed to the Tower. A week
later they were (on 6 May), upon their being-
brought by writ of habeas corpus before
Chief Justice Pratt, summarily discharged.
But it was only upon the very morrow of
the completion of the year of Beckford's
mayoralty (15 Nov. 1763) that Wilkes's No.
45 was declared by parliament to be ' a scan-
dalous and seditious libel,' and was ordered
as such to be burnt by the common hangman.
Beckford throughout that agitated twelve-
month was side by side with Wilkes. Beck-
ford's, not Wilkes's, was the daring dictum
then in everybody's mouth — that under the
house of Hanover Englishmen for the first
.time had been able to be free, and for the
first time had determined to be free. To
him, almost as much as to Wilkes, the oppo-
sition looked for their guidance.

Seven years afterwards Beckford was re-
elected (25 March 1768) by the metropoli-
tan constituency, and before the close of
the following year he again became lord
mayor. On 29 Sept. 1769, three persons
having been returned by the livery of Lon-
don to the court of aldermen, the nomina-
tion at once took place, when the show of
hands was declared by the sheriffs to be in
favour of two of them. A poll having been
then demanded by the rejected candidate,
Beckford, at the close of it on 6 Oct., was
found to be at its head with 1,967 votes,
the second candidate numbering 1,911, and
the third 676. On the following day
(7 Oct.) the aldermen scratched Beckford
for sixteen, his opponent being able to se-
cure no more than six supporters. The
popular champion resolutely declined the
proffered honour, pleading as his excuse,
though he had not yet completed his fifty-
ninth year, his age and infirmities. This in-
timation having been conveyed to the livery
was received by them with signal marks of
dissatisfaction. On 13 Oct. a great number
of them waited upon Beckford and induced
him to reconsider his decision. On 8 Nov.
he was duly sworn in at the Guildhall. A
stormy time was before him. Attended by
the aldermen and common councilmen of
London, he went from Guildhall to St.
James's Palace on 14 March 1770, and there
presented to the king a powerfully worded
address complaining in the strongest terms
of a certain false return made at the Middle-
sex election. In consequence of his majesty's
.answer to this address being couched in
words of stern reproof, the agitation was
intensified. On 23 May 1770 Beckford, ac-
companied by the aldermen and livery, again
sought audience of the king, to whom he

VOL. IV.

presented another address and remonstrance,
equally resolute. The sovereign's answer
was even more curt and emphatic than the
last, "thereupon, in obedience to a sudden
impulse, the lord mayor asked permission of
his majesty to utter a few words in reply.
I Accepting the momentary silence which en-
j sued upon this most unexampled request as
[ indicative of assent, Beckford then delivered
1 an impromptu speech which has since be-
come historical, and the words of which have
for more than a century past been legible in
j gold letters on the pedestal of his monument
in Guildhall — a speech which when it was
being uttered made the king's countenance
flush with anger, while the court surround-
; ing him listened to it with something like
consternation.

A glance at the Earl of Chatham's corre-
i spondence will demonstrate the absurdity of
j the pretensions long afterwards put forth by
Home Tooke, that he himself wrote that
j speech, and that Beckford never delivered it.
j Those pretensions were first heard of by the
public at large more than forty years after
I Beckford's death, when, in 1813, Stephens,
I in his ' Memoir of Home Tooke ' (i. 157),
remarked that Mr. Home (as he was then
called) lately acknowledged to him that
it (the speech) was his composition. Gifford,
three years afterwards, in a truculent foot-
note to his edition of Ben Jonson (vi.
481), insisted upon the accuracy of that
astounding statement. According to Isaac
Reed, these claims were first put forth
orally by Tooke in the midst of an in-
formal club-house gossip. Turning now,
however, to the f Chatham Correspondence '
(iii. 458-9), it will be seen that immediately
after the delivery of Beckford's impromptu
address to the king, one of the sheriffs pre-
sent on the occasion, Mr. Sheriff Townshend,
wrote to the Earl of Chatham on that very
day, 23 May 1770, 'My lord, I take the
liberty of enclosing to your lordship his
majesty's answer to our petition. The lord
mayor made a reply to the king which greatly
disconcerted the court. He (the lord mayor)
has promised to recollect what he said, and
I fancy the substance will appear in the
papers to-morrow.' To this the earl replied
on that same day, 23 May, ' I greatly rejoice
to hear that my lord mayor asserted the city
with weight and spirit, and am full of im-
patience for the papers to-morrow.' There-
upon, in the ' Public Advertiser ' of the
morrow, 24 May 1770, the impromptu speech
as recollected by the lord mayor duly ap-
peared, with this sentence appended to it :
' The humility and serious firmness with
which the Lord Mayor uttered these words

G

Beckford

Beckford

filled the whole court with admiration and
confusion.' And on the following day Sheriff I
Townshend, again writing to the Earl of
Chatham under date 25 May 1770 (see Cor- \
respondence, iii. 460), said : ' The Lord Mayor's j
Speech in the " Public Advertiser " of yester- ;
day is verbatim, the words " and necessary "
being left out before " revolution," and is |
ordered to be entered on the journals of the
Court of Common Council.' Besides being
entered thus on the records of the city, the
speech was scattered broadcast over all con- |
temporary periodicals. Horace Walpole, j
writing on 24 May 1770 to Sir Horace Mann, i
referred (see Letters, v. 238-9) to its having
reduced the king to the alternative of either j
sitting silent, or tucking up his train, jump-
ing from the throne, and taking sanctuary in i
the royal closet. Lord Chatham in return
for that speech was more affectionate than
ever to Beckford. It was printed directly
after its delivery in the l Gentleman's Maga- !
zine,' xl. 218-9. Half a year later it i
was deliberately republished as authentic in '••
the ' Annual Register ' for 1770, in which !
may also be found, at p. Ill, under date

30 May, an account of the lord mayor, in |
company with the aldermen, sheriffs, and
common councilmen, having again gone from
Guildhall to St. James's with an address on
the queen's safe delivery, when the lord
chamberlain came into the ante-chamber
bearing a paper in his hand from which he
read these words : ' As your lordship thought
fit to speak to his majesty after his answer
to the last remonstrance, I am to. acquaint
your lordship, as it was unusual, his majesty
desires that nothing of this kind may happen
for the future.' Upon the following day,

31 May 1770, Beckford laid the first stone
of Newgate. Exactly three weeks afterwards,
at the age of sixty years and six months, he
died in London, on 21 June 1770, his fatal
illness being the result of a chill caught in
hastening up to town from his estate of
Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. He was buried
at Fonthill on the last day of that month,
leaving his only child and namesake [see
BECKFORD, WILLIAM, 1759-1844], then a
boy of nine, to come into possession, after
a long minority, of a million of money
and 100,000/. a year. Lord Mayor Beck-
ford's wife, the mother of this boy, was
Maria, daughter of the Hon. George Hamil-
ton, second surviving son of James, sixth
earl of Abercorn. The sum of 1,000/. was
set apart by the city of London on the
morrow of Beckford's death for the Guild-
hall monument in his honour, which was
unveiled on Midsummer day two years after-
wards. Another adirirable life-size statue

of Beckford in white marble, formerly at
Fonthill Abbey, sculptured by More, and th&
gift of Beckford's son, the author of ' Vathek/
to his father's old city company, stands mid-
way on the staircase of Ironmongers' Hall,,
in Fenchurch Street.

[Nicoll's History of the Ironmongers' Com-
pany, 1866, pp. 453, 467, 491, 590; Orridge's
Account of the Citizens of London and their
Rulers, from 1060 to 1867, pp. 203, 244-8;
Maitland's History of London, continued to 1772
by the Rev. John Entick, 1775, ii. 35, 47, 52, 72,.
85, 92, 96-116 ; Britton's Illustrations of Font-
hill Abbey, 1823, ch. iii. pp. 61-8; Noorthoack's
History of London, 1783, pp. 417, 462, 468-
486 ; Redding's Memoirs of William Beckford,
i. 1-70 ; Thornbury's Old andNew London, i. 407 ;
Gent. Mag. xl. 215-9, 340-1 ; Annual Register for
1770, 8vo, pp. Ill, 199-203, 251,252 ; Notes and
Queries, 1st series, ii. 262 ; Craik and Macfar-
lane's Pictorial History of England, 2nd series,
iv. 80, 96-8 ; Massey's History of England under
George III, i. 357, 358 ; Adolphus's History of
England, i. 437-40 ; Horace Walpole's Letters,
v.238, 239; Chatham Correspondence, iii. 458-9,
460 ; Gifford's ed. Ben Jonson, 1816, vi. 481 note ;
History of Lord North's Administration to the
Dissolution of the Thirteenth Parliament of Great
Britain, 1781, part i. 12-15 ; Correspondence of
Gray and Mason, 1853, p. 439 ; Public Adver-
tiser, No. 11067, 24 May 1770 ; Stephens's Me-
moirs of John Home Tooke, 1813, i. 157.1

C. K.

BECKFORD, WILLIAM (d. 1799),
historian, passed a great part of his life in
Jamaica, where he made observations on the
country and particularly on the condition of
the negroes. On returning to England he-
settled at Somerley Hall in Suffolk, and
died in London on 5 Feb. 1799.

His Avorks are : 1. ' Remarks on the Situa-
tion of the Negroes in Jamaica, impartially
made from a local experience of nearly thir-
teen years in that island,' 1788. 2. ' A De-
scriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica,
with Remarks upon the Cultivation of the
Sugar Cane throughout the different seasons
of the year, and chiefly considered in a pictu-
resque point of view,' 1790. 3. ' History of
France from the most early records to the
death of Louis XVI,' 1794. The early part
is by Beckford, and the more modern by an
anonymous Englishman who had been some-
time resident in Paris.

[Gent. Mag. vol. Ixix. pt. i. ; Monthly Review,
Ixxix. 69 ; Brit. Mus. Cat. ; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]

A. G-N.

BECKFORD, WILLIAM (1759-1844),
author of i Vathek,' son of William Beckford
(1709-1770) [q.v.], was born at Fonthill,
29 Sept. 1759. After the death of his father

Beckford

Beckford

he was educated by a private tutor, the
Rev. Dr. Lettice. A public school would
have afforded a more salutary discipline ;
the tutor, though judicious and attentive,
could hardly be expected to prevent the
spoiled heir to enormous wealth from grow-
ing up wilful, extravagant, and capricious.
Beckford received musical instruction from
Mozart, and for his father's sake was par-
ticularly noticed by Chatham, who pro-
nounced him ' all air and fire/ and solemnly
admonished the future author of ' Vathek '
against reading the ; Arabian Nights.' His
precocity and talent for satire were evinced
by his ' History of Extraordinary Painters,'
a mystification composed in his seventeenth
year in ridicule of the biographies in the
' Vies des Peintres Flamands,' and to indulge
his humour at the expense of the old house-
keeper at Fonthill, who is said to have long
continued to exhibit her master's pictures as
works of Watersouchy, Og of Basan, and
other creations of his invention. His mother
being strongly prejudiced against the univer-
sities, Beckford, accompanied by his tutor,
went in 1777 to complete his education at
Geneva, and there passed a year and a half.
In 1780 and 1782 he visited the Low Coun-
tries and Italy. His letters on his travels,
together with a description of the Grande
Chartreuse dating from 1778, were published
anonymously in 1783 under the title of
* Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents,
in a series of letters from various parts of
Europe.' The work, however, was almost im-
mediately destroyed, with the exception of
six copies, one of which at least is still in
existence, though Mr. Redding seems to
imply the contrary. He had already, in
1781* or 1782, written ' Vathek ' in French at
a single sitting of three days and two nights.
A.n English version, made by a person whom
Beckford declared to be unknown to him,
but who is understood to have been the
Rev. S. Henley, rector of Rendlesham, was
published anonymously and surreptitiously
in 1784. It is sufficiently idiomatic to have
entirely eclipsed and to have frequently been
taken for the original, and is accompanied
by an erudite commentary, whose value is
somewhat impaired by the annotator's igno-
rance of Arabic. The original appeared at
Paris and Lausanne in 1787, the latter edition
only bearing the author's name. In 1783 he
translated and published the little Oriental
tale of ' Al Ravni ; ' in the same year he married
Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the Earl
of Aboyne, and lived with her in Switzer-
land until her death in May 1786. Two
daughters were the fruit of this union. In
1787 he sought distraction in a visit to Por-

tugal, where his intimacy with the Marquis
j de Marialva enabled him to acquaint himself
j with the affairs of the court and kingdom. His
; Portuguese letters, not published for nearly
half a century afterwards, are the most valu-
able in every point of view that he ever wrote.
He extended his tour to Spain, and on his
return spent much time in Paris, witnessing
the destruction of the Bastille. He was again
I in Paris in 1791 and 1792, proceeded subse-
quently to Lausanne, where he bought Gib-
i bon's library, shutting himself up like a her-
mit to read it, and in 1794 again visited
Portugal, where he occupied the retreat at
Cintra immortalised in Byron's verse, and
wrote his celebrated account of Alcobaca and
Batalha. Notwithstanding his incessant ab-
sences from his country he was successively
M.P. for Wells and Hindon ; but he had no
taste for public life, and retired in 1794.
He was, however, re-elected for Hindon
in 1806, and sat until 1820. After his
return from Portugal the connoisseur and
collector seemed to absorb the author, and
he published no more except two burlesques
on the sentimental novels of the period,
' The Elegant Enthusiast ' and ' Amezia/
printed in 1796 and 1797. In the former
year he settled down at Fonthill GifFard, and
launched out upon the course of architectural
and artistic extravagance which, combined
with his oriental whims and his mysterious
seclusion, has given him even more celebrity
than he could acquire by his writings. The
imaginations of ' Vathek ' seemed to take ac-
tual substance, and Coleridge might have be-
held the visions of his Kubla Khan with his
corporeal eyes. First the old family mansion
was rebuilt on a grand scale, then it was
pulled down and a yet more sumptuous edi-
fice raised on a different site. The grounds,
magnificently laid out and enclosing ' sunny
spots of greenery,' were girdled by a lofty wall
to baffle intruding tourists and trespassing
sportsmen ; the costly old furniture was reck-
lessly sold off to make room for new more
costly still ; a tower three hundred feet high,
erected by gangs of workmen labouring day
and night, fell from the injudicious haste of
construction, and was immediately succeeded
by another, which, after Fonthill had passed
from Beckford's hands, also tumbled to the
ground. Making a hermitage of a palace,
Beckford sequestered himself with a phy-
sician, a major-domo, and a French abbe, and
here, neglectful of his genius, his private af-
fairs, and his responsibilities as a citizen, spent
twenty years with few friends or visitors,
and apparently with no other object in life
than the collection of books and works of
art and virtu. This seclusion may have been

G 2

Beckford

Beckford

partly owing to grave imputations upon '
his moral character, which, however, in the j
absence of any avowed accuser or attempt at j
proof, it is reasonable as well as charitable to
regard as rather the consequence of his retire- I
ment than the cause. The only recorded ex-
ternal incidents of his existence during this j
period are the marriages of his two daugh- j
ters. One became Duchess of Hamilton ; the
other, who married Colonel Orde without his
consent, was never forgiven by him. His
expenditure on Fonthill alone for sixteen
years is stated by himself at upwards of a
quarter of a million. At length he could go
on no longer. Extravagance, inattention to
his affairs, the depreciation of his West India
property, and unfortunate lawsuits, compelled
him in 1822 to dispose of Fonthill and the
greater part of its contents for 330,000/. to
Mr. John Farquhar, a person who, reversing
Beckford's history, had accumulated a vast
fortune from the humblest beginnings. Beck-
ford's collections were resold by the new
owner in the following year, the sale occupy-
,ing thirty-seven days. The collection was
not always favourably criticised. ' It is,'
wrote Hazlitt when the public were ad-
mitted to view Fonthill, ' a desert of magnifi-
cence, a glittering waste of laborious idleness,
a cathedral turned into a toy shop, an immense
museum of all that is most curious and costly,
and at the same time most worthless, in the
productions of art and nature. Mr. Beckford
has undoubtedly shown himself an industrious
bijoutier, a prodigious virtuoso, an accom-
plished patron of unproductive labour, an en-
thusiastic collector of expensive trifles — the
only proof of taste he has shown in this col-
lection is his getting rid of it.' But Beck-
ford always maintained that the Chinese fur-
niture was smuggled in by the auctioneers,
and Hazlitt may not have known that the
library and the choicest pictures had been
saved from the wreck and removed to Lans-
downe Terrace, Bath, where, with diminished
fortune but free from embarrassment, Beck-
ford applied himself to the creation of a minia-
ture Fonthill. He continued to collect books,
pictures, engravings, and beautiful objects in
general, with as keen a zest as of yore — ' all
agog, all ardour, all intrepidity,' as he wrote
to an agent shortly before his death. He
sometimes parted with a picture, but never
with a book. In 1834 he republished,
with considerable omissions, the suppressed
letters of 1783, adding those from Spain and
Portugal. On 2 May 1844 he died, scarcely
manifesting a trace of age, and having been
in vigorous health until within a few days
of his decease. Eighty thousand pounds yet
remained of the hundred thousand a year

and a million in hand with which he had
commenced life. He was interred by his own
wish under the tower he had erected on Lans-
downe Hill, and the grounds with which he
had surrounded it were given by the Duchess
of Hamilton to form a public cemetery for the
city of Bath. His library was sold by auction
in 1882. A large proportion of the volumes
contained copious notes in his handwriting,
more frequently evincing whimsical prejudice
than discriminating criticism. He left several
works in manuscript, including three sup-
pressed episodes of * Vathek ; ' ' Liber Veri-
tatis,' comments on the alleged genealogies
of English noble families, probably very can-
did and caustic ; and l Letters upon the Ac-
tual State and Leading Characters of several
of the Courts of Europe, particularly France,
from the beginning of the Revolution to the
death of the King.' None of these have been
published.

Beckford's was, on the whole, a wasted
life, in so far as neither his genius nor his
fortune yielded what they would have pro-
duced to a wiser and a better man. At the
same time his celebrity as a remarkable per-
sonage would have endured had he never
written anything ; and as an author he
achieved a renown which he probably valued
more than literary fame of the first order, the
distinction of being the most brilliant ama-
teur in English literature. Hardly any other
man has produced such masterpieces with
so little effort. ' Vathek ' was written at a
sitting, and his letters betray no trace of
unusual pains. These works are master-
pieces nevertheless. European literature
has no Oriental fiction which impresses the
imagination so powerfully and permanently
as f Vathek.' Portions of the story may be
tedious or repulsive, but the whole combines
two things most difficult of alliance — the
fantastic and the sublime. Beckford's letters
display a corresponding versatility and union
of seemingly incongruous faculties. He is
equally objective and subjective; his pictures,
while brilliantly clear in outline, are yet
steeped in the rich hues of his own peculiar
feeling ; he approaches every object from its
most picturesque side, and the measure of his
eloquence is the interest with which it has
actually inspired him. His colouring is
magical ; he paints nature like Salvator, and
courts like Watteau. His other works make
us bitterly regret the curse of wealth and idle-
ness which converted a true son of the muses
into an eccentric dilettante. As a literary
figure Beckford occupies a remarkable po-
sition, an incarnation of the spirit of the
eighteenth century writing in the yet un-
recognised dawn of the nineteenth, flushed

Beckingham

Beckingham

by emotions which he does not understand,
and depicting the old courtly order of Europe
on the eve of its dissolution. His character
was patrician in everything but its want of
repose and its insensibility to duty ; too
charitable to be called selfish, attached from
caprice to animals, from habit to dependents,
he was yet an absolute egotist. It never
seemed to occur to him that his magnificent
possessions in the West Indies entailed upon
him the least responsibility. His misan-
thropy was mainly affectation, and he was
less independent of the opinion of the world
than he liked the world to think. Need of
human sympathy made him exceedingly kind
to very inferior writers who had praised his
works ; and the few who gained admission
to his presence found him a courteous and
unassuming gentleman.

[The principal authority for Beckford's life is
the memoir by Cyrus Bedding, published anony-
mously in 1859. It is an intolerable piece of
book-making, being chiefly made up of extracts
from Beckford's own letters, ard repetitions of
what the author had previously written in maga-
zines, but is indispensable in the absence of an
authorised biography. See also the Gent. Mag.,
Annual Kegister, and Athenaeum for 1844. The
most remarkable criticisms on Beckford are
Lockhart's review of his letters in vol. li. of the
Quarterly, and an article by 0. Tiffany in vol.xc.
of the North American Review. M. Stephane
Mallarme has reprinted the original French of
Vathek (Paris, 1876), and thoroughly investi-
gated the bibliography of the subject. The cata-
logues of Beckford's Fonthill collections, and of
his library, contribute much to the appreciation
of his tastes and character. The chapter on his
library in Clarke's Repertorium Bibliographicum
(1819) is from his own pen. The fullest account
of Fonthill is that by Britton (1823), which also
contains genealogical and heraldic particulars
of the Beckford family.] R. G.

BECKINGHAM, CHARLES (1699-
1731), poet and dramatist, was born, accord-
ing to the register of Merchant Taylors'
School, on 25 July 1699 (ROBINSON'S Register,
ii. 32). His father was a linendraper in Fleet
Street. Beckingham was educated at Mer-
chant Taylors' School under Dr. Smith, and is
said to have displayed 'great proficiency in his
studies,' and given 'the strongest testimonials
of extraordinary abilities.' Nothing in his
works justifies these eulogies. Onl8Feb.l718
' Scipio Africanus,' an historical tragedy in
the regulation five acts, was produced at the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. This was
followed at the same house on 7 Nov. of
the next year by a second work of a similar
description, entitled < Henry IV of France.'
The youth of the author, and the presence of
a large number of his fellow-students who had

been permitted to visit the theatre, gave some
i e"clat to the production of the earlier work.
j This, however, is but an average specimen of
academic labour. A chief subject of praise
in contemporary writers is the manner in
which the so-called unities are observed by
its author. The plot is founded on a story
told by Livy (xxvi. 49-50) and other clas-
sical writers concerning the restoration of a
beautiful captive by Scipio Africanus to Al-
lucius, a Spaniard. A considerable portion
of the play consists of tedious love scenes,
which are necessarily fictitious. Quin played
Scipio. ' Scipio Africanus ' was acted four
times in all, two performances being, it is
stated, for the author's benefit. It was printed
in 12mo in 1718. < Henry IV of France'
deals with the jealousy of the Prince of
Conde of his wife, who is in love with the
king, and ends with the murder of Henry by
Ravaillac at the instigation of the papal
nuncio and the priests. This play was also
given four times, Quin appearing as Henry IV.
It was printed in 8vo in 1820. In addition to
these dramas Beckingham wrote a poem on
the death of Rowe, the dramatist ; a second
entitled ' Christ's Sufferings, translated from
the Latin of Rapin,' and dedicated to the
Archbishop of York ; and other minor poems.
He died 19 Feb. 1730-31.

[Jacob's Poetical Register; Baker, Reed, and
Jones's Biographia Dramatica ; Genest's Account
of the English Stage.] J. K.

BECKINGHAM, ELIAS DB (d. 1305 ?),
judge, was placed on the commission of
justices for Middlesex in 1274, but imme-
diately removed. At this time he seems to
have held the rank of king's serjeant. He
received the commission of justice of assize
[for a brief account of the nature and origin
of which see under BATESFORD, JOHN DE] in
1276. In 1282-3 he acted as keeper of the
rolls of the common pleas, and in 1285 was
appointed one of the justices of that bench.
In 1289, grave complaints of the maladmini-
stration of justice and the venality of the
judges being rife, a searching inquiry was in-
stituted, and Beckingham was the only one
of the five justices of the common pleas who
was not dismissed for corruption. He ap-
pears to have continued in the discharge of
his duties until 1305, for he was regularly
summoned to parliament as a justice between
1288 and 1305. From the fact that he was
no longer summoned to parliament after the
latter date, it may be inferred that he died or
retired before the date when parliament next
met. He was interred in the church of Bottis-
ham, in Cambridgeshire, where a monument
was dedicated to his memory.

Beckington

86

Beckington

[Dugdale's Chron. Series, 25, 26, 28, 29;
Madox's History of the Exch. ii. 7 ; Kot. Parl.
i. 84; Wikes's Chronicon, ed. Gale, 118-121;
Holinshed, ii. 491; Parl. Writs, h. (Index);
Orig. Jurid. 44 ; Lysons's Britannia, ii. part i.
91.] J. M. R.

BECKINGTON or BEKYNTON,
THOMAS (1390 P-1465), bishop of Bath
and Wells and lord privy seal, was a native
of the Somersetshire village from which he
derived his surname. His parentage is un-
known, and there is no record of the date of
his birth, but from the dates of his admission,
first at Winchester (1404) and afterwards at
New College, Oxford (1406), it is presumed
to have been about 1390. He was admitted
a fellow of New College in 1408, and retained
his fellowship twelve years. He took the
degree of LL.D. In 1420, when he resigned
his fellowship, he entered the service of
Humphrey, duke of Gloucester ; from which
time, apparently, church preferments began
to flow in upon him. The rectory of St.
Leonard's, near Hastings, and the vicarage
of Sutton Courtney, in Berks, were perhaps
not among the first. Indeed, there are grounds
for supposing the former to have been given
him in 1439. He had become archdeacon of
Buckinghamshire, it appears, before the death
of Henry V in 1422, though a later date is
given in Le Neve ; and in April next year we
find him collated to the prebend of Bilton in
York, which he exchanged for that of Warthill
in the same cathedral four months later. He
was appointed to a canonry in Wells in 1439,
and was also master of St. Katherine's Hos-
pital, near the Tower of London. But early
in 1423 he was already dean of the Arches,
in which capacity he assisted at the trial of
the heretic William Tailor ; and in Nov. 1428
he was appointed, along with the celebrated
canonist, William Lyndewood, receiver of the
subsidy granted by the lower house of con-
vocation for the expenses of the prosecution
of William Russell, another suspected heretic.
He was prolocutor of convocation at least as
early as 1433, and so continued till May 1438.
During the session of 1434 he was commis-
sioned by Archbishop Chichele to draw up,
along with others, certain comminatory ar-
ticles to be proclaimed by the clergy in their
parishes four times a year. Meanwhile he
had been engaged in several public capacities.
In February 1432 he had been nominated to
go on embassy to France with Langdon,
bishop of Rochester, and Sir Henry Brom-
flete, to negotiate a peace ; but the envoys do
not appear to have left till December follow-
ing, when Sir John Fastolf was substituted
for Sir Henry Bromflete. It has been erro-
neously stated that he was also sent to the

congress at Arras in 1435 ; but it is certain
that he was a member of the great embassy
sent to Calais in 1439 to treat with the
French ambassadors. Of this embassy he
has left a journal, in which he styles himself
the king's secretary — an office probably con-
ferred upon him just before, though he appears
to have acted in that capacity, at least occa-
sionally, for about two years previously.
After his return from this embassy he was
for three or four years in close attendance
upon the king, and speaks of himself at one
time as being his reader nearly every day.

In the spring of 1442 an embassy was sent
to England by John IV, count of Armagnac,
who desired to offer one of his daughters in
marriage to young King Henry VI. They
were well received, and three officers of the
royal household, of whom Beckington was
one, were immediately despatched in return
to the court of Armagnac fully empowered
to contract the proposed alliance. Their
commission bore date 28 May 1442, and on
5 June they set out from Windsor. An in-
teresting diary, written by one of Becking-
ton's suite, describes their progress to the
west coast, where they took shipping at
Plymouth, the letters and messages that
overtook them on the road, the voyage and
arrival at Bordeaux, where they received
alarming news of the progress of the enemy
and the capture of Sir Thomas Rempstone,
seneschal of Bordeaux. They nevertheless
continued for some time to prosecute the
object of their mission ; but the state of the
country and the severity of the season inter-
posed such difficulties in the way that they
thought it best to return in the beginning of
the following year. Beckington landed again
at Falmouth on 10 Feb., met the king ten
days later at Maidenhead, and on the 21st
arrived in London, where he supped with,
the lord mayor. Next day he visited Green-
wich with Humphrey, duke of Gloucester.
On the 23rd he heard mass at his own hos-
pital of St. Katherine's, dined with the lord
| treasurer, and supped again with the lord
mayor. On Sunday the 26th he rejoined the
| king at Shene, and resumed his duties as
j secretary ; soon after which he was appointed
lord privy seal.

The chief effect of this embassy and of its
return was to impress upon the government
at home the necessity of taking more active
steps to avert — as they succeeded in doing for
a few years — the threatened loss of Guienne.
The marriage negotiation was a failure.
Even the artist employed, according to their
instructions, to take likenesses of the count
of Armagnac's three daughters, that the king-
might choose which of them he preferred, was

Beckington

Beckley

unable to do his work : the frost had con- !
gealed his colours when he had barely com-
pleted one portrait, and the envoys saw good I
reason to return home without waiting for i
the other two. But the result nowise tended
to diminish the influence of Beckington, who
not only, as we have seen, continued to re-
ceive new marks of the king's favour, but
had ere this made friends at the court of
Rome as well ; by whose means, in that same
year 1443, he was rather too precipitately
nominated by the pope to the see of Salisbury,
which it was supposed Bishop Ascough
would vacate in order to be promoted to the
see of Canterbury. But, as Ascough de-
clined to leave Salisbury, John Stafford,
bishop of Bath and Wells, was elevated to
the primacy, and Beckington was made bishop
•of Bath in Stafford's room. His agent at
Home meanwhile had unluckily paid into the
papal treasury a considerable sum for the
firstfruits of Salisbury, and Beckington ob-
tained a letter from the king himself, direct-
ing him to get it, if possible, charged to the
account of the see of Bath. How the
matter was settled does not appear ; but on
13 Oct. Beckington was consecrated bishop
•of Bath and Wells by William Alnwick,
bishop of Lincoln. The rite was performed
in the old collegiate church at Eton, and
Beckington the same day celebrated mass in
pontificalibus under a tent within the new
church, then not half built, and held his
inaugural banquet within the college build-
ings. As might be expected in one who was
so greatly in the confidence of the royal
founder, he had taken a strong interest in the
new college from the first, and one of his
latest acts as archdeacon of Buckingham-
shire was to exempt the provost from his own
jurisdiction, placing him directly under the
bishop of Lincoln as visitor and ordinary.

As bishop of Bath he had in 1445 a con-
troversy with Nicholas Frome, abbot of
Glastonbury, an old man who, tenacious of
the privileges of his monastery, resented epi-
scopal visitation, and whom Beckington, with
unseemly severity, taunted with the infir-
mities of age. He had a much more pleas-
ing correspondence with Thomas Chandler,
who was first warden of Winchester College,
then warden of New College, Oxford, and
•afterwards chancellor of Wells, who looked
up to him as a patron. But on the whole it
may be said that his personal history, after
he became bishop, is uninteresting. His
name occurs as trier of petitions in parlia-
ment from 1444 to 1453, but no particular
act is recorded of him. On 18 June 1452 he
obtained an exemption from further attend-
ance in parliament on account of his age and

infirmities — a privilege which Edward IV
confirmed to him in 1461. He died at Wells
on 14 Jan. 1465, and was buried in a fine
tomb, built by himself in his lifetime, in the
south aisle of the choir. In our own day,
during some repairs of the cathedral in 1850,
this tomb was opened, and the remains of his
skeleton were inspected. It was that of a
tall man with a well-formed skull.

Active as his life was, and interesting also
in a literary point of view, from his corre-
spondence with learned men both in England
and at Rome, Beckington's chief claim upon
the regard of posterity is the munificence
with which he adorned with fine buildings
his cathedral city of Wells. Besides re-
building the episcopal palace, he supplied the
town with a public conduit and fountain, and
erected the close of the vicars choral and
fifteen tenements in the market place. His
curious rebus, a flaming beacon (commonly
spelt bekyn in those days) and a tun or barrel,
is seen carved in various quarters, not only
at Wells, but at Winchester and in Lincoln
College, Oxford. His bequests in his will
were princely, and show his strong attach-
ment, not only to the colleges and places of
education, but to all the different churches
with which he had been connected.

[Memoir by Nicolas, prefixed to Journal of an
Embassy to the Count of Armagnac; Official
Correspondence of Bekynton, edited by Gr.
Williams, B.D., in Eolls Series, in the introduc-
tion to which are some important corrections of
Nicolas ; Chandler's Life of Waynflete.]

J. G.

BECKINSALL, JOHN. [See BEKIX-

SAF.]

BECKLEY, WILLIAM (d. 1438), Car-
melite, was born in Kent, probably in the
neighbourhood of Sandwich, where he appears
to have entered the order of the Carmelites
in early life. While still young he proceeded
to Cambridge, where the Carmelites had had
a house since the year 1291. Here he seems
to have taken his doctor's degree in divinity,
and to have established a considerable repu-
tation as a theologian. Bale praises his mo-
desty of speech, and his firm proceedings
against evildoers in all the assemblies (' con-
ventibus ') over \vhich he presided. This in-
cidental remark would alone prove him to
have been a man of mark among the English
Carmelites, even without the next sentence,
in which we are told that while Beckley was
engaged in the king's business Thomas Wai-
den used to protect his interests at Cambridge
against the complaints of his fellow-doctors
there. Tanner makes mention of a letter from
the chancellor and university of Cambridge

Beckwith

88

Beckwith

to the provincial chapter of the Carmelites at
Northampton, referring- to a charge that had
been brought against Beckley for his absence
from the university ' anno prime regentiae,'
for which offence he had been suspended. He
also notices Walden's reply to this letter. In
his old age, after having spent many years at
Cambridge, Beckley seems to have withdrawn
to his native place, Sandwich, where, accord-
ing to Bale, he became head of the Carme-
lite friary, and devoted the remainder of his
life to study. On his death, which occurred
in 1438, he was buried in the last-mentioned
town, and the Latin verses inscribed upon his
tomb, and probably written by himself, are
preserved in Weever's ' Funeral Monuments.'
Dempster has claimed Beckley as a Scotch
monk, and gives several details of his life, how
he was exiled from Scotland and took up his
abode in France, whence he was recalled by
James III, but apparently preferred to re-
main in England when once he set foot in
that country on his return journey. But the
authorities to whom Dempster appeals, * Gil-
bert Brown ' (d. 1612), and P. M. Thomas
Sarracenus, an ex-professor of Bologna, can
hardly be accepted as sufficient testimony for
these statements in the face of so much con-
trary evidence. The tradition of a residence
in France may, however, contain some degree
of truth when we consider Bale's plain state-
ment as to Beckley's being employed in royal
business, and his subsequent statement that
Beckley delivered declamations to the nobility
and chief officers in many parts of England,
and in Calais also. The chief works assigned
to this author are similar in their titles to
those of most medifeval theologians, and con-
sist of ' Quodlibeta,' ' Quaestiones Ordinarise,'
' Conciones Varise,' and one which, had it been
preserved, might perhaps have been of some
slight interest, entitled l De Fraterculorum
Decimis.'

[Leland, 437; Bale, 579; Pits, 627; Tanner's
Bibl. .Brit, 84; Bale's Heliades, Barley HSS.
3838, ii. 85 ; Lambard's Perambulation of Kent,
106; St. Etienne's Bibliotheca Carmelitnna, i.
690 ; Weever's Funeral Monuments, 264.]

T. A. A.

BECKWITH, SIK GEORGE (1753-
1823), lieutenant-general, was the son of
Major-general John Beckwith, who com-
manded the 20th regiment at the battle of j
Minden and the brigade of grenadiers and j
highlanders in the Seven Years' war. On
20 July 1771 he was appointed to an en- !
signcy in the 37th regiment, which embarked '
in that year for America, and, with the 10th,
38th, and 52nd regiments, formed the third
brigade under Major-general Jones in the

division commanded by Lieutenant-general
Earl Percy (Records of the 37th Regiment}.
He obtained his lieutenancy on 7 July 1775.,
his company on 2 July 1777, and the rank
of major on 30 Nov. 1781. From 1776 to
1782 he bore a prominent part in the contest
between England and her American colo-
nies, during which he commanded in several
surprises of the enemy and in storms and
captures of important places, including those-
of Elizabeth Town and Brunswick in New
Jersey.

From 1787 to the end of 1791, during
which time no British minister was accre-
dited to the United States, he was entrusted
with an important and confidential mission.
On 18 Nov. 1790 he obtained the rank of
lieutenant-colonel, that of colonel on 21 Aug..
1795, major-general on 18 June 1798, and of
lieutenant-general on 30 Oct. 1805. In April
1797 he was appointed governor of Bermuda,
and in the following July commandant of
the troops in that island. In October 1804
he became governor of St. Vincent, and on
8 Oct. 1808 governor of Barbadoes, with the
command of the forces in the Windward and
Leeward Caribee islands. England being then
at war with France, he organised an expedi-
tion for the conquest of the island of Marti-
nique, and, having been reinforced by the
7th, 8th, and 23rd regiments under Lieu-
tenant-general Sir George Prevost, he sailed
from Carlisle Bay on 28 Jan. 1809, arrived-
off Martinique on the 29th, landed on the-
30th, and completed the conquest of the-
island on 24 July. The French eagles then
talcen were sent home by him, and were the
fipet ever seen in England. On 14 April
1809 the thanks of the House of Commons,,
and on the 17th those of the House of Lords,
were voted to Lieutenant-general Beckwith
for l his able and gallant conduct in effecting
with such signal rapidity the entire conquest
of the island of Martinique.' On 1 May he
was created a knight of the Bath.

On 22 Jan. 1810, having organised a second,
expedition, he sailed for Guadeloupe, the last
possession of the French in that part of the-
world, landed on the 28th, and on 5 Feb..
the conquest of the island was completed.
Returning to Barbadoes on 29 July 1810, he
remained there till June 1814, when, after
nine years' service in the West Indies, he-
obtained permission to return to England..
The last bill presented to him by the legis-
lature of the island was a vote for a service
of plate to him. ' This bill, gentlemen,' he-
said, ' is the only one from which I must
withhold my consent.' He sailed from Bar-
badoes on 21 June. After his departure a
vote of 2,500/. was passed for a service of

Beckwith

89

Beckwith

plate to him. It bore the following inscrip-
tion : ' This service of plate was presented to
General Sir George Beckwith, K.B., late
Governor of Barbadoes, by the legislature of
the island, as a sincere mark of the high
regard and esteem in which he has been and
will always continue to be held by every
inhabitant of Barbadoes. A.D. 1814.'

Sir George Beckwith's military services
were further recognised by the king confer-
ring on him armorial distinctions, ' Issuant
from a mural crown, a dexter arm embowed,
encircled with a wreath of laurel, the hand
grasping an eagle, or French standard, the
stall' broken.' In October 1816 he was ap-
pointed to the command of the forces in Ire-
land, which he retained till March 1820, and
died in his house in Half Moon Street in
London on 20 March 1823, in the seventieth
year of his age.

[Gent. Mag. xciii. part i. 372 ; Schombergh's
History of Barbadoes, p. 373 ; Annual Register,
1809, li. 488; Records of the 37th Regiment;
Army List.] A. S. B.

BECKWITH, JOHN CHARLES (1789-
1862), a distinguished Peninsular officer and
in later life the benevolent missionary to
the Waldenses, was the grandson of Major-
general John Beckwith, and nephew of the
generals, Sir George [q. v.] and Sir Thomas
Sydney Beckwith [q. v.]. His father, like his
four brothers, had held a commission in the
army, but had soon resigned it on his mar-
riage with Miss Haliburton of Halifax in N ova
Scotia (a sister of Judge Haliburton), and
had settled in that colony. Charles Beckwith
was born 2 Oct. 1789, and obtained an en-
signcy through his uncle's influence in the
50th regiment in 1803. In 1804 he exchanged
into the 95th or rifle regiment, of which his
uncle, Sydney Beckwith, was lieutenant-
colonel. He became lieutenant in 1805, and
accompanied his regiment to Hanover, to
Denmark, where he was present at Kioge,
and to Portugal. He was with the 95th all
through the retreat of Sir John Moore to
Corunna, and became captain in 1808. He
was engaged with the 2nd battalion of his
regiment in the Walcheren expedition, and
afterwards accompanied it to Portugal in the
winter of 1810, when he found Lord Wel-
lington's army in the lines of Torres Vedras,
and his uncle, Sydney Beckwith, in com-
mand of a brigade. He was present with
the light division in all the engagements
which took place with Massena's retiring
army in the spring of 1811, at Pombal, Re-
dinha, Condeixa, Foz d Aronce, and Sabugal.
In 1812, after his uncle had gone to England
for his health, he was appointed by Brigadier-

I general Andrew Barnard, who had succeeded
! him, brigade-major to the 1st brigade of the
| celebrated light division, and was present
I in that capacity at the storming of Ciudad
Rodrigo and Badajoz, and at the battles of
Salamanca, Vittoria, the Pyrenees, the Ni-
velle, the Nive, and Orthes. His eminent
services drew upon him the repeated notice-
both of Lord Wellington and of General
Alten, who had succeeded Craufurd in the
command of the light division, and he was
appointed deputy assistant quartermaster-
general to the division. In this higher capa-
city he was present at the battle of Toulouse,,
and in 1814, at the conclusion of the war, he
was made major by brevet. In 1815 he was
appointed in the same capacity to Picton's
division in the Netherlands, and was present
at the battle of Waterloo, where he lost his
leg, and after which he was promoted lieu-
tenant-colonel and made a C.B. The loss' of
! his leg made it impossible for him to expect
active employment, and in 1820 he went on
half-pay.

He had been but twenty-six years old at
the battle of Waterloo, and was still but a
young man when he retired, and hardly
knew to what occupation a one-legged man.
could turn, when he happened one day in.
1827, while waiting in the library of Apsley
House, to look into Dr. Gilly's book on the
Waldenses. He was so much interested that
in the same year he paid a visit to the valleys
of Piedmont. The past history of the people
and their then condition of squalor and ig-
norance so worked upon his nature that he
determined to settle among them, and, taking-
a house called La Torre, lived among them
during the last thirty-five years of his life.
His two main aims were to educate the people
and to arouse in them once more the old evan-
gelical faith which had first attracted his
fancy. To educate them he established no less
than 120 schools in the district, all of which
he himself perpetually inspected, and the one-
legged English general was well known and
much loved throughout the Italian valleys.
The greatness of his services was recognised by
King Charles Albert of Sardinia, who made
him a knight of the order of St. Maurice
and St. Lazarus in 1848, and he further
sealed his life to his work by marrying a
i Waldensian girl, named Caroline Valle, in
1850. Nevertheless he kept up his commu-
nications with England, and frequently cor-
responded with Dr. Gilly and others inter-
ested in the Waldenses. An especially
interesting letter from him to Sir William
Napier is published in Napier's 'Life,' in
which he acknowledges the receipt of a copy
of the l History of the Peninsular War,' and

Beckwith

Beckwith

then dwells ou the necessity of evangelical
Christianity to his old comrade of the light
division. He had been promoted colonel in
1837, and major-general in 1846, but con-
tinued to live at La Torre till his death,
19 July 1862, when his funeral was attended
by thousands of the peasants, whose lives he
had made happy and cheerful. Of all the
officers of the light division none found such
a strange mode of employing his unexhausted
energies, and few did such a great and self-
denying work.

[For his life consult II Generale Beckwith,
aua Vita e sue Opere, par J. P. Meille, 1872,
translated with notes by the Rev. W. Arnot,
1873, and condensed by A. Meille, 1879 ; Times,
5 and 14 Aug. 1862; Gent. Mag. for 1862, pt. ii.
p. 362.] H. M. S.

BECKWITH, JOHN CHRISTMAS

(1750-1809), organist, born at Norwich
25 Dec. 1750, was for many years pupil and
assistant successively of Dr. Wm. Hayes and
Dr. Philip Hayes at Magdalen College, Oxford.
On 16 Jan. 1794 he was appointed organist
of St. Peter Mancroft's, Norwich. He took
both the Mus. Bac. and Mus. Doc. degrees at
Oxford in 1803, and in 1808 succeeded Thomas
Garland as organist of the Norwich Cathe-
dral. Beckwith retained both his organist's
appointments until his death, which occurred
in consequence of a paralytic stroke on 3 June
1809. He was buried in St. Peter Mancroft/s.
Beckwith's compositions are not numerous,
consisting principally of anthems, organ vo-
luntaries, a concerto, sonata, £c. His most
important work was a collection of chants
adapted to the Psalms, and published in 1808,
which contains an excellent preface on the
subject of chanting. As an organist he took
very high rank in his day. Professor Taylor
said of him : * I have never heard Dr. Beck-
with's equal upon the organ either in this
country or in Germany. . . . Neither is this
my opinion only, but that of every competent
judge who has heard him ;' and another critic
described his playing as i brilliancy itself.'
He had a remarkable power of extemporising,
and would frequently play four extempore
-organ fugues at one Sunday's services. There
is some doubt as to whether Dr. Beckwith
was christened John Christmas, or whether
his second name was only a nickname. In
the works published by him in his lifetime
he is always described as John Beckwith,
but in the register of his burial the name is
stated as ' John Christmas Beckwith, married
man, an organist of this parish ;' and it is by
this name that he is generally known.

[Appendix to Bemrose's Choir Chant Book ;
Musical Criticism (J. D. Eaton, 1872) ; Registers

of St. Peter Mancroft ; British Museum Cata-
logue.] W. B. S.

BECKWITH, JOSIAH (b. 1734), anti-
quary, was born at Rothwell, near Leeds, on
24 Aug. 1734, where his father, Thomas Beck-
with, practised as an attorney. He was him-
self brought up to the same profession, and
settled at Masbrough, near Rotherham. He
married in August 1763 the eldest daughter
and only surviving child of George D'Oxon,
of Woodhead, in Cheshire, by whom he had
two sons and four daughters, his wife's
death taking place in 1788 at the early age
of 49. He seems to have been possessed of
considerable natural powers, which, together
with a large share of acquired knowledge,
rendered him eminently fitted for antiquarian
pursuits, for which he had a great taste. His
name is known to the world in connection with
the enlarged and improved edition of Blount's
1 Fragmenta Antiquitatis, or Ancient Tenures
of Land and Jocular Customs of some
Manors,' which he published in the year 1784,
the first edition of this work having appeared
in 1679. Speaking of Beckwith's edition,
the ' Monthly Review ' (Ixxiii. 459) remarks :
' Few persons were better qualified for this
business, and Mr. Beckwith has enriched this
edition with many valuable improvements.
He has subjoined many notes and observa-
tions, which have been communicated by
some of the most respectable antiquaries of
the present day.' He left materials for a
still further enlarged edition, which was pub-
lished after his death by his son, who had an
appointment in the mint.

[Gent. Mag. 1786, Ivi. 265; Lowndes's Biblio-
grapher's Manual. 1857, i. 221 ; Brit. Mus. Cat.;
Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, 1813, viii. 329-
330.] T. F. T. D.

BECKWITH, SIR THOMAS SYDNEY

(1772-1831), who with Craufurd shares the
honour of being one of the finest leaders of
light troops ever known, was the third son
of Major-general John Beckwith, who com-
manded the 20th regiment at Minden, and
four of whose sons became distinguished gene-
ral officers. He was appointed lieutenant in
the 71st regiment in 1791, and at once pro-
ceeded to join it in India. He found Lieu-
tenant-colonel Baird in command of the
regiment, and under him learned both how to
lead and how to organise a regiment. With
the 71st he was present at the siege of Se-
ringapatam in 1792, at the capture of Pondi-
cherry by Colonel Baird in 1793, and during
the operations in Ceylon in 1795. He was pro-
moted captain in 1794, and returned to Eng-
land with the head-quarters of his regiment

Beckwith

Beckwith

in 1798. He had established his reputation
as a good officer in India, vnd when in 1800
lie volunteered for a company in Manning-
ham's new rifle corps his services were ac-
cepted. Colonel Manningham had proposed
to the Horse Guards to be allowed to raise a
regiment of light troops to be specially or-
ganised for outpost duties, after the manner
-of the French voltigeurs. His offer was ac-
cepted, and volunteers were called for from
•every regiment. Beckwith had in the 71st
made the acquaintance of William Stewart,
the lieutenant-colonel of the new rifle corps,
.and obtained a captaincy under his friend.
He soon got his company into such good
order that it was told off to accompany the
•expedition to Copenhagen in 1801, where its
adj utant was killed. He was promoted maj or
in Manningham's rifles, now called the 95th,
in 1802, and formed one of the officers whom
Sir John Moore trained at Shorncliffe. He
became lieutenant-colonel in 1803, and under
Moore's supervision got his regiment into
model order. He was admired by his officers
.and adored by his men, whose health and
amusement were always his first considera-
tion. In 1806 he served in Lord Cathcart's
.abortive expedition to Hanover, and in 1807
his regiment formed part of the division
~which, under their future commander, then
Sir Arthur Wellesley, won the battle of
Kioge in Denmark, when it was thanked in
the general's despatch. In July 1808 he ac-
companied General Acland to Portugal, and
was present at the battle of Vimeiro. After
the arrival of Sir John Moore, and on his
taking the command of the troops in Portu-
gal, the 95th was brigaded with the 43rd
and 52nd under the command of General
Anstruther, and formed part of the reserve
under General Edward Paget. The con-
duct of this brigade, and more especially of
the 95th regiment under Beckwith, has been
described by Napier; it closed the retreat,
and was daily engaged with the French, but
though suffering the most terrible privations
it never broke line, or in any way relaxed
its discipline. The regiment particularly dis-
tinguished itself at Cacabelos, where it faced
round and with the help of the 10th hussars
fought successfully the whole advanced
.guard of the French army. The 95th and
Beckwith crowned their services at Corunna,
when they were the last troops to leave the
city, and managed to take with them 7 French
officers and 156 men, whom they had made
prisoners on the previous day. In 1809 the
"95th was again brigaded with the 43rd and
•52nd, and sent to the Peninsula. Craufurd
was leading them up to the main army,
when he heard that a great battle had been

fought, and that General Wellesley was
killed. Nothing daunted he pressed forward,
and after a forced march of twenty-five hours
reached Talavera on the evening of the battle.
When Lord Wellington retired from Spain,
and cantoned his army on the Coa, the light
brigade was stationed far in front to watch
the French movements. In their advanced
position there were frequent conflicts, all de-
scribed by Napier, in which the 95th and
Beckwith proved their efficiency. At the
skirmish of Barba del Puerco and the battle
of Busaco the light brigade won the especial
praise of Lord Wellington, and when in
1811 it was increased by three Portuguese
regiments to a division, Beckwith received
the command of one of the brigades. The
division led the pursuit of Ma^sena, was
warmly engaged at Pombal, Redinha, and
Foz d'Aronce, and defeated a whole corps
d'armee, though with great loss, at Sabugal.
In this engagement Beckwith particularly
distinguished himself, was wounded in the
forehead, and had his horse shot under him.
The perfect discipline and valour of his
men were again proved, and the disgraceful
blunders of Sir W. Erskine, who had tempo-
rarily succeeded Craufurd, were remedied by
the men's gallantry. At Fuentes d'Onor
the light division was not engaged, and
shortly afterwards Beckwith was obliged to
return to England from ill-health, and to hand
over his perfect regiment and brigade to
Colonel Barnard. He had inspired his men
with such confidence ' that they would follow
him through fire and water when the day of
trial came ' (Cof^Htstory of the Rifle Brigade,
p. 53). On his health being restored he was
knighted, in 1812, as proxy for his brother
George, made a knight of the Tower and Sword
of Portugal in 1813, and in 1812 appointed
assistant quartermaster-general in Canada.
In that capacity he commanded an expedition
to the coast of the United States, which took
Littlehampton and Ocrakoke, and had Charles
Napier under him as brigadier. In 1814 he
was promoted major-general, and made one
of the first K.C.B's. He saw no more active
service, but in 1827 was made colonel com-
mandant of his old corps, the rifle brigade,
which he had done so much to organise. In
1829 he was appointed commander-in-chief
at Bombay, in 1830 he became lieutenant-
general, and in January 1831 he died at
Mahableshwur of fever. The light division
was the greatest creation of Sir John Moore ;
its services appear in every page of the his-
tory of the Peninsular war, and Sydney
Beckwith was the practical creator of one of
its most distinguished regiments. ' He was/
according to Kincaid, ' one of the ablest out-

Becon

Becon

post generals, and few officers knew so well
how to make the most of a small force/

[Cope's History of the Eifle Brigade, 1877 ;
Surtees, Twenty-five Years in the Eifle Brigade,
1833 ; Leach's Sketch of the Field Services of
the Kifle Brigade from its Formation to the
Battle of Waterloo, 1838 ; Kincaid's Adventures
in the Eifle Brigade in the Peninsula, France,
and the Netherlands, 1830; Mrs. Fitzmaurice's
Eecollections of a Eifleman's Wife at Home and
Abroad, 1851 ; Costello's Adventures of a Soldier,
1852.] H. M. S.

BECON, JOHN, LL.D. (d. 1587), divine,
a native of Suffolk, received his education
at St. John's College, Cambridge. He was
admitted a scholar of that society on the Lady
Margaret's foundation in 1559, proceeded j
B.A. in 1560-1, was admitted a fellow !
21 March 1561-2, and commenced M.A. |
1564. Subsequently he became principal |
lecturer of the college. In July 1571 he was
elected public orator of the university, and j
he served the office of proctor for the year |
1571-2. During his tenure of the latter
office he headed the opposition of the senate
to the code of university statutes which had
passed the great seal in 1570. Much disorder
was the result, and the heads of colleges ex-
hibited articles against him and his adherents.
Ultimately the two archbishops and the
bishops of London and Ely decided that the
new statutes should stand, and censured the
opponents for going from college to college to
solicit subscriptions against the same. Becon
resigned the oratorship in 1573. The follow-
ing year he was installed a canon of Norwich,
and in 1575 he became chancellor of that
diocese. He took the degree of LL.D. in
1576.

On 16 Feb. 1579-80 Becon was collated
to the precentorship of the church of Chi-
chester, and in 1581 was admitted to a pre-
bend in the church of Lichfield. In 1582 a
great contest took place between him and
William Overton, bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, about the chancellorship of that
diocese. The bishop, who had in the first
instance granted it to Becon only, subse-
quently granted the office to him and one
Babington, and to the longer liver of them.
This occasioned a great disturbance and riot
in the cathedral. The case came successively
before the Star-chamber, the privy council,
and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who re-
mitted it to four visitors, and they finally
induced the contending parties to compro-
mise the matter. Becon was buried at
St. Giles's, Cripplegate, on 4 Sept. 1587.

Various documents written try Becon in
reference to the disputes in which he was

engaged have been printed, and are enume-
rated in Cooper's ' Athene Cantabrigienses/

[Addit. MS. 5863 f. 47; Baker's Hist, of
St. John's Coll. Camb., ed. Mayor; Cooper's
Athense Cantab, ii. 16, 542; Le Neve's Fasti
Eccl. Anglic., ed. Hardy, i. 266, 592, ii. 496, 498,.
iii. 619 ; Strype's Works.] T. C.

BECON or BEACON, RICHARD (Jl.

1594), Irish administrator and author, was.
a native of Suffolk, and was educated at
Cambridge. He entered St. John's College
on 12 Nov. 1567, and proceeded B.A. in
1571 and M.A. in 1575. Admitted a student
of Gray's Inn on 19 June 1577, he was called
to the bar on 27 Jan. 1584-5. He was ap-
pointed * her majesty's attorney for the pro-
vince of Munster' on 17 Dec. 1586 at an
annual salary of little more than 17 /. He-
was chiefly employed in regulating crown
grants of land, and two letters on the sub-
ject, dated in the one case 17 Oct. 1587 from
Clonmel, and in the other 2 Dec. 1587 from
Limerick, addressed by him with other com-
missioners to Walsingham, are at the Record
Office. Beacon himself received grants of
land — Clandonnell and Clan Derrnott — in
Cork, and of Torcraigh in Waterford, all of
which he appears to have sublet to other
Englishmen. In 1591 the post of attorney
in Munster was conferred on another, but
Beacon, although no longer in Ireland, is
described as the owner of land there in a
visitation of 1611. Beacon was the author
of an interesting political pamphlet on Ire-
land. It is entitled : ' Solon his follie ; or a
politique discourse touching the reformation
of common weales conquered, declined, or cor-
rupted,' Oxford, 1594. It is dedicated to*
Queen Elizabeth, and is in the form of a
conversation between Solon, Epimenides, and
Pisistratus as to the policy that Athens-
should pursue towards Salamina. Old manu-
script notes in the copies in the Cambridge
University and British Museum libraries state
that 'for the better understanding of this
I allegoricall discourse ... by Salamina must
be understood Ireland, and by Athens Eng-
; land.' Beacon urges on the English govern-
i ment the adoption of strong coercive measures.
i in order to eradicate Irish national feeling.

[Cooper's Athen. Cantab, ii. 174; Foster's

i Eegister of Gray's Inn, p. 52 ; Calendar of

; Carew MSS. for 1588, 1591, and 1611; Irish

series of State Papers for 1589 ; Beacon's Solon.}1

S. L. L.

BECON, THOMAS, D.D. (1512-1567),,
protestant divine, was of Norfolk, as he ex-
pressly states in the general preface to the?
folio (1564) of his works. Strype, in his

Becon

93

Becon

<* Life of Craniner,' calls him a Suffolk man,
but in his later ' Life of Aylmer ' says he
was of Norfolk. We gather from the age
inscribed upon his successive portraits which
accompanied his ' Governance of Virtue,'
1566, * y'Etatis suee 41, anno Domini 1553,'
and in the folio and collected edition of his
works, ' Anno setatis suae 49, 1560,' that he
must have been born in 1511-12. His mother
had married again, and a second time become
a widow at the close of Henry VIII's reign,
as he himself informs us.

Of his school education nothing what-
ever is known ; but before he was sixteen
he proceeded B.A. (1530) at St. John's
College, Cambridge. He ultimately gradu-
ated D.D. During his residence at the uni-
versity he was a ' diligent hearer ' of Hugh
Latimer ; and he also names gratefully George
Stafford, ' reader of divinity.' He quotes a
saying that had passed into a proverb : ' When
Master Stafford read and Master Latimer
preached, then was Cambridge blessed.'

Becon was not ordained until 1538 (on
17 Jan. 1564 he speaks of himself as having
then been twenty-six years in the ministry).
His first living was the vicarage of Brenzett,
near Romney in Kent, which still remains a
small village. He appears to have formed
fast friendships in the neighbourhood, judg-
ing by the epistles-dedicatory of his l Early
Writings.' Probably he was over-studious,
as his health was extremely infirm. One
illness he designates ' mine so grievous and
troublous sickness' (New Year's Gift, pre-
face). He was also speedily ' troubled '
on account of his pronounced opinions and
sentiments in favour of the Reformation.
His pseudonym of Theodore Basil did not
hinder his being ' presented ' in London in
1541, along with Robert Wisdom, and made
at ' Paul's cross to recant and to revoke ' his
•doctrine, and ' to burn his books ' (FoxE, Acts
and Mon. 1684, ii. 450; and STEYPE'S Eccles.
Mem. 1721, i. 367). Bale informs us that
Becon's offence was writing against 'their
images, their chastity, and their satisfactions.'
He was again compelled to abjure his opinions
at St. Paul's Cross in 1543. He retired to the
Peak of Derbyshire, meaning to support him-
self by pupils. He met with a gentleman
named Alsop at Alsop-in-the-Dale, who gave
him much assistance. Finding that his bosom
friend Robert Wisdom was in Staffordshire,
Becon joined him, and was entertained with
him by one John Old, 'a faithful brother,'
afterwards prebendary of Lichfield. Wisdom
was called away, and Becon after about a
year removed to Warwickshire, still with
Old, who also had removed thither. But the
most memorable of all events to him at this

time was daily intercourse with the revered
Hugh Latimer. Whilst in Leicestershire,
whither he again removed, and where the
Marquis of Dorset, and John Aylmer, bishop
of London, received him hospitably, Becon
received the unlooked-for tidings of the death
of his stepfather, and he felt constrained to
return to his mother now again widowed.
Throughout he had earned ' daily bread ' in
a lowly way by his teaching of youths. His
pen had also been busy during this fugitive
period. His l Governance of Virtue,' he tells
us, was written < in the bloody, boisterous,
burning time, when the reading of the holy
Bible, the word of our soul's health, was for-
bidden the poor lay people.' His books were
all successively ; proclaimed ' as ' heretical '
(FoxE, ii. 496).

With the accession of Edward V^I fortune
returned. He was { instituted ' 24 March
1547-8 to the rectory of St. Stephen, Wai-
brook. He was also made by Craniner —
to whom he was chaplain — one of the ' six
preachers ' in Canterbury cathedral. He was
further chaplain to the protector, Somerset,
at Sheen. During the duke's imprisonment
in 1549, daily prayers were offered for him
by his household; and when, on 6 Feb.
1549-50, he was liberated, there was a form
of thanksgiving which was ' gathered and
| set forth by Thomas Becon, minister there '
j (Bishop KENNETT, Collections, xlvi. No. 12).
He is likewise stated to have * read ' at Ox-
ford during this reign (Lupxox, History of
I Modern Protestant Divines, 1637, p. 331).

But on 6 July 1553 Edward died. Becon
was committed to the Tower by an order of
council, as a ' seditious preacher,' 16 Aug.
1553. He was in confinement till 22 March
1553-4. He was also 'ejected' from his
'living ' as being ' a married priest.' On his
| release from the Tower he repaired to Stras-
< burg, and thence addressed an ' Epistle to
the afflicted people of God which suffer
persecution for the testimony of Christ's
gospel.' This epistle was read in the scat-
tered little gatherings of those who still
dared to meet together. There was appended
to it a ' Humble Supplication unto God for
the restoring of His holy Word unto the
Church of England.' Spite of the present
distress he was hopeful of ' deliverance.'
Whilst abroad he also wrote his ' Display-
ing of the Popish Mass ' (Basel 1559, Lon-
don 1637). But as he was thus actively
occupied his enemies at home were busy.
A proclamation issued 13 June 1555 against
heretical books denounced a severe punish-
ment against any who should (among others)
' sell, read, or keep ' any of the books of
' Theodore Basil, otherwise called Thomas

Becon

94

Beddoes

Becon ' (FoxE, as before, iii. 225-6 ; STKYPE,
Eccles. Mem. c. xxxii. iii. 250).

On Elizabeth's accession, Becon returned
to England. He Avas restored to his London
benefice, and was also replaced at Canter-
bury. A. little later he was presented to
the rectory of Buckland, in Hertfordshire,
where he was admitted 22 Oct. 1560. He
was also appointed to Christ Church, New-
gate Street, and on 10 Aug. 1563 to the
rectory of St. Dionis Backchurch (KENNETT,
as before, xlvi. 12). At the outset he had
scruples as to certain ' regulations ' and { ritu-
alisms,' but after a time acquiesced. He
preached at Paul's Cross and elsewhere on
great occasions, with wide popular accept-
ance. In 1566 he published his latest work
— his ' Postils/ or lectures on the gospel of
the day. The preface to this, as well as to
the folio edition of his works two years
earlier, is dated from Canterbury. It would
seem that the later years of his life were
spent in his prebendal house, and there in
1567 he probably died (NEWCOUKT, Repert.
i. 320, 330).

Of his wife and children little has been
transmitted. A Theodore and a Christophile
both died before 1560 ; a second Theodore,
Basil, and Rachel outlived him. His sur-
viving son Theodore was of St. John's Col-
lege, Cambridge, B.A., 1576 ; fellow, 1579 ;
M.A., 1580 ; M.D. 1587. He was a corre-
spondent of Burghley in 1578 (JBuryhley
Papers, Lansdowne MSS. xxvii. No. 78).
A collected edition of his works, including
many unpublished, appeared in 3 vols. folio
in 1563-4. In the ' Athense Cantabrigienses '
(i. 247-9) will be found a full catalogue of
the many writings of Becon, to the number
of forty-seven. The Rev. John Ayre, M.A.,
has edited the works of Becon for the Parker
Society, and has brought together all that
has been transmitted. His ' Biographical
Notice ' before < The Early Works ' (1843),
with its authorities and references, must be
the main source of every succeeding bio-
grapher and historian. The Religious Tract
Society and others still circulate ' Selections '
from his works.

Woodcuts of Becon are prefixed to his
' Reliques of Rome ' and to his own collected
edition of his works.

[Ayre's Biogr. Notice, as before, in Works,
three volumes, 8vo, 1843-4 ; Cooper's Ath.
Cantab, i. 246-50 ; Foxe, as before ; Strype's
Cranmer, Aylmer, Parker, Grindal ; Churton's
Life of Nowell, p. 21 ; MS. Chronology, i. 48,
221 ; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, i. 166-70 —
Ayre does not name Brook, but he was largely
indebted to him throughout, albeit Brook, like
Dr. Bliss (in Athense Oxon.), confounds another

I Becon with Thomas Becon ; Le Neve's Fasti, i..

I 50 ; Anderson's Annals of the Bible, ii. 154 ;

j Haweis's Sketches of the Eeformation, 135 ;

i Maitland's Essays on the Keformation, 107, 108r

| 146, 190, 196; Baker's Hist, of St. John's, by-
Mayor, 366 ; Warton's History of English
Poetry ; Ellis's Shoreditch ; Machyn's Diary,.
216, 231, 288 ; an excellent paper on Thomas.
Becon, by Dr. Alexander, will be found in th&
(American) Princeton Review, v. 504.]

A. B. G.

BEDDOES, THOMAS (1760-1 808), phy-
sician, was born at Shiffnal in Shropshire,
13 April 1760. Through the interposition of
his grandfather, a self-made man of vigorous-
intellect, he was educated at Bridgnorth
Grammar School and at Pembroke College,
Oxford. While at the university he taught
himself French, Italian, and German, and
shortly after quitting it translated or anno-
tated several works of Bergman, Scheele, and
Spallanzani. He received his medical edu-
cation in London and Edinburgh, and, after
taking his M.D. degree at Oxford, was ap-
pointed in 1788 reader in chemistry, attract-
ing, he says, the largest class that had been
assembled in the university since the thir-
teenth century. He resigned this post in.
1792, partly on account of his sympathy with
the French revolution. He had previously, in
1790, pointed out the merits of the great and
then forgotten chemist, May ow, the discoverer
of the true theory of combustion, and had, in
1792, composed a poem on the conquests of
Alexander,partly to denounce English aggran-
disement in India, partly as what now seems a
highly superfluous demonstration of the possi-
bility of imitating Darwin's ' Botanic Garden/
The poem is in every way a curiosity, having
been printed by a woman and illustrated with
woodcuts by a parish clerk. In 1793 he
produced his treatise on calculus, and his
moral tale ' Isaac Jenkins,' describing the
reclamation of a drunken labourer, which
went through numerous editions. In the
same year he removed to Clifton, with the
view of establishing a ' Pneumatic Institute '
for the treatment of disease by inhalation.
Watt constructed his apparatus, Wedgwood
contributed a thousand pounds, and the insti-
tute was ultimately established in 1798. It
failed iii its professed object, but is memor-
able for having fostered the genius of Davy,
whom Beddoes had engaged as his assistant,
and who discovered the properties of nitrous-
oxide there in 1799. In the same year Davy's
first work, an essay on heat and light, was-
given to the world in ' Contributions to
Physical and Medical Knowledge, princi-
pally from the West of England,' a collec-
tion edited by Beddoes, Before this he had

Beddoes

95

Beddoes

married Anna, sister of Maria Edgeworth,
' the best and most amiable woman in the
world,' says Davy, and had produced several
medical works and some political pamphlets,
in the latter assailing Pitt with extreme
virulence. He had also, in 1795, edited the
' Elements of Medicine ' of John Brown, the
founder of the Brunonian system of medicine, '
with a memoir, certainly well intended, but j
unduly depreciatory of Brown's character in j
some respects. In 1801 he published his
' Hygeia, popular essays in medicine, rich
in valuable sanitary precepts and eloquent
pathological descriptions. In the same year
Davy left Clifton for London, and the institute
was virtually given up. Beddoes continued
to enjoy a considerable practice, but from this
time he added little to medical literature.
In 1808 his health failed, and he died on
24 Dec., 'at the moment,' says Davy, 'when
his mind was purified for noble affections
and great works : ' ' literally worn out,' says
Atkinson, ' by the action and reaction of an
inquisitive nature, and of restlessness for
fame.' ' From Beddoes,' wrote Southey on
hearing of his death, ' I hoped for more good
to the human race than any other individual.'
1 1 felt,' wrote Coleridge on the same occasion,
' that more had been taken out of my life by |
this than by any former event.' Yet Beddoes ]
had not succeeded in impressing himself
powerfully upon the history of science, and
he is now chiefly remembered as the father
of the author of ' Death's Jest-Book,' and to
some extent the discoverer of Davy. He was,
nevertheless, a remarkable and highly interest-
ing man; an enthusiast and a philanthropist ;
vigorous, original, and independent. The
distinguishing merit of his medical writings
is their vivid presentation of the phenomena
of disease. ' They embrace,' says Atkinson,
' a most extensive surface of queries and
inquiry ; touching, like a vessel of discovery,
upon every little topic or island; but yet
with top-sails set, as if stinted to time.'
' He was,' says Davy, 'reserved in manner
and almost dry. Nothing could be a stronger
contrast to his apparent coldness in discus-
sion than his wild and active imagination,
which was as poetical as Darwin's. He had
talents which would have raised him to the
pinnacle of philosophical eminence, if they
had been applied with discretion.' It is ex-
tremely interesting to compare these traits
with similar manifestations of character in
his son.

[Stock's Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Bed-
does, 1811 ; John Davy's Memoirs of the Life of
Sir Humphry Davy, 1839; Fragmentary Remains
of Sir H. Davy, 1858; Atkinson's Medical Biblio-
graphy, 1834.] K. G-.

BEDDOES, THOMAS LOVELL (1803-
1849), poet and physiologist, was born at Hod-
ney Place, Clifton, on 20 July 1803. He was
the eldest son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes [q. v.],
the celebrated physician, who died when his
son was five years old. His mother, Anna,
was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edge-
worth, of Edgeworthtown, and the poet was
therefore the nephew of Maria Edgeworth,
the novelist. At the death of his father
T. L. Beddoes was left in the guardianship
of Davies Giddy, afterwards known as Sir
Davies Gilbert, P.R.S., who died in 1839,
He was sent first to Bath Grammar School,
and on 5 June 1817 entered the Charterhouse.
During his stay at this school he distinguished
himself by his mischievous deeds of daring,
by the originality of his behaviour, and by
his love of the old Elizabethan dramatists,
whom he early began to imitate. He wrote
a novel called ' Cynthio and Bugboo,' and in
1819 a drama called the ' Bride's Tragedy.'
The former was never printed ; the latter re-
mained for some years in his desk. His ear-
liest verses belong to 1817 ; in July 1819 his
name first appears as the contributor of a
sonnet to the ' Morning Post.' Beddoes, on
leaving Charterhouse, went to Oxford, and
was entered a commoner at Pembroke on
1 May 1820. At Oxford he was eccentric
and rebellious, priding himself on his demo-
cratic sentiments, which he preserved through
life. In 1821, while yet a freshman, he pub-
j lished his first volume, the ' Improvisatore,'
i a pamphlet of 128 pages, printed in Oxford.
j Of this jejune production he speedily became
j so much ashamed that he endeavoured to
suppress it, and with such a measure of suc-
cess that very few copies of it are now known
to exist. In 1822 he published in London
his boyish play, the ' Bride's Tragedy,' a work
of extraordinary promise, modelled very
closely on such Jacobean \vriters as Webster,
Marston, and Cyril Tourneur. In this drama
the principal features of Beddoes' later style
are all clearly to be discerned. The ' Bride's
Tragedy' enjoyed a success such as rarely
rewards the ambition of so young a writer ;
it was favourably noticed by the principal
reviews, and in particular by Barry Cornwall
and George Darley, who welcomed the new
poet with effusion. The former, then thirty-
five years of age and at the height of his
reputation, extended to the young Oxonian
his valuable friendship, and in 1823 Beddoes
became acquainted with Thomas Forbes Kel-
sall, a young solicitor, afterwards his bio-
grapher and posthumous editor. He now
j planned, and partly wrote, several other
j dramas ; of one, t Love's Arrow Poisoned,'"
considerable portions still remain unpub-

Beddoes

96

Beddoes

lislied ; another, the ' Last Man/ which is
frequently referred to in Beddoes' correspon-
dence, has entirely disappeared. He became
deeply interested in Shelley, and in 1824 be-
came guarantee, in common with several
other friends, for the first edition of that
poet's ' Posthumous Poems.' In an unpub-
lished letter in 1824 Procter describes Bed-
does as ' innocently gay, with a gibe always
on his tongue, a mischievous eye, and locks
curling like the hyacinth;' and it appears
that this was by far the brightest and hap-
piest part of his career, though even at this
time his excessive shyness made him averse
to society. His mother's health was now
breaking up, and in the summer of 1824 he
was called to Florence, where she was re-
siding; but she was dead before he could
reach her. He spent some time in Italy,
where he became acquainted with W. S.
Landorand Mrs. §helley, and he then brought
his sisters back to England. These inter-
ruptions delayed the preparation for his
bachelor's degree, which he eventually took on
25 May 1825. During this year he wrote the
dramatic fragments, the ' Second Brother '
and * Torrismond,' which appear in the second
volume of his works, and he began his great
poem, ' Death's Jest-Book,' upon the polish-
ing of which he was engaged for more than
twenty vears. He planned to publish a
volume of lyrics, entitled ' Outidana, or Effu-
sions, Amorous, Pathetic, and Fantastical ; '
but he was dissuaded from doing so by his
unpopularity with a certain clique at Oxford,
Milman, in particular, denouncing him as
belonging to ' a villainous school.' He now
determined to abandon literature, which he
had thought of taking up as a profession, and
to give his whole attention to medicine, and
particularly to anatomy. Accordingly, in
July 1825, he went to the university of Got-
tingen, where he remained in residence for
four years, studying physiology under Blu-
menbach, surgery under Langenbeck, and
chemistry under Stromeyer. All this time
he was slowly completing 'Death's Jest-
Book,' which was finished, in its first form,
in February 1829. During these four years
Beddoes only left Gottingen once, to take his
M.A. degree at Oxford on 16 April 1828. In
the winter of 1829 he transferred his resi-
dence to Wiirzburg, in Bavaria, where he
continued his medical studies, and in 1832
obtained the degree of doctor of medicine at
that university. He had, however, by the
open expression of democratic opinions, made
himself obnoxious to the government, and
before the diploma was actually conferred
upon him he was obliged to fly out of the
Bavarian dominions, and to take refuge at

Strassburg. In 1833 he visited Zurich, and
was so much pleased with it that, when his
political intrigues had again made it im-
possible for him to remain in Germany, he
settled down at Zurich in June 1835. He
brought with him a considerable reputation
as a physiologist, for Blumenbach, in a tes-
timonial which exists; calls him the best
pupil he ever had ; and he now assumed his
degree of M.D. The surgeon Schoelien pro-
posed him to the university as a professor,
and he was elected, although the syndic, for
a political reason, refused to ratify the elec-
tion. Beddoes, however, continued to reside
in Zurich for several years, and amassed there
a scientific library of 600 volumes. He was
at Zurich on 8 Sept. 1839, when the peasantry
stormed the town, and deposed the liberal
government. He observed the riot from a
window, and witnessed the murder of the
minister Hegetschweiber, who was one of his
best friends. Beddoes had taken an acute
interest in the cause of liberal politics, sup-
porting it with his purse and his pen, for he
now wrote German with complete fluency.
After the defeat and dispersion of his friends,
Zurich was no longer safe for him. In March
1840 his life was threatened by the insur-
gents, and he was helped to fly from the town
in secret by a former leader of the liberal
party named Jasper. He proceeded to Ber-
lin, where, in 1841, he made the acquaintance
of one of his latest friends, Dr. Frey. From
this time to the date of his death he was a
wanderer, still carrying about with him
everywhere, and altering, his f Death's Jest-
Book.' In August 1842 he was in England ;
in 1843 at Baden in Aargau, and again at
Zurich; from 1844 to 1846 at Baden, Frank-
fort, and Berlin. In the summer of 1846
he came once more to England for nearly
a year ; his friends found him very much
changed, and most eccentric in manner. He
complained of neuralgia, and shut himself up
for six months in his bedroom, reading and
smoking. In June 1847 he finally quitted
England, and settled for twelve months at
Frankfort in the house of an actor named
Degen, practising a little as a physician.
Here in the early part of 1848 his blood be-
came poisoned from the virus of a dead body
entering a slight wound in his hand. This
was overcome, but seriously affected his health
and spirits. His republican friends had de-
serted him, and he felt disgusted with life.
The circumstances which attended his death
were mysterious, and have not been made
known to the public. The published account
was founded on a letter from Beddoes to his
sister, in which he says : ' In July I fell with
a horse in a precipitous part of the neigh-

Beddoes

97

Beddome

touring hills, and broke my left leg all to
pieces.' This is the version which he wished
to circulate, and this may be accepted in si-
lence. The incident, however, whatever it
was, occurred not in July, but in May 1848,
•and in the .town of Bale, where he had ar-
rived the previous night. He was immedi-
.ately taken to the hospital, where he was
placed under the charge of his old friend, Dr.
Frey, and of a Dr. Ecklin. The leg was ob-
stinate in recovery, and eventually gangrene
•of the foot set in. On 9 Sept. it became ne-
cessary to amputate the limb below the knee-
joint; this operation was very successfully
performed by Dr. Ecklin. Beddoes had not,
until this latter event, communicated with
his friends in England, but during October
and November he wrote to them very cheer-
fully, declining all offers of help, and chatting
freely about literature. In December he
walked out of his room twice, and proposed
to go to Italy. His recovery was considered
certain when, on 26 Jan. 1849, Dr. Ecklin
was called to his bedside, and found him
insensible. He died at 10 p.m. that night.
On his bed was found a paper of directions,
written in pencil with a firm hand, leaving
his manuscripts to Kelsall, and adding : ' I
ought to have been among other things a
good poet.' He was buried in the cemetery
•of the hospital.

His old friend, Thomas Forbes Kelsall,
undertook the task committed to him with
the greatest zeal and piety. His first act was
to publish the poem of Beddoes' life, the fa-
mous 'Death's Jest-Book, or the Fool's
Tragedy,' in 1850. This play attracted in-
stant attention. It is a story of the thir-
teenth century, founded on the historical fact
that a Duke of Munsterberg, in Silesia, was
stabbed to death by his court fool ; the latter
personage Beddoes has made the hero of his
play under the name of Isbrand. This volume
was so successful that Kelsall followed it in
1851 by the publication of ' Poems by the
late Thomas Lovell Beddoes,' including seve-
ral dramatic fragments mentioned above, and
introduced by an anonymous memoir of Bed-
does written by Kelsall. This memoir, which
is a very accomplished and admirable piece
of biography, contained a large number of
interesting letters from Beddoes. In 1838
Beddoes had translated into German Grain-
ger's work on the 'Structure of the Spinal
Cord ; ' but it is supposed that he failed to
find a publisher for it. He is known to have
contributed largely to the political literature
of the day in German prose and verse, but
anonymously, and these fugitive pieces are
entirely lost, with the exception of one un-
important fragment. In person Beddoes was

VOL. IV.

like Keats, short and thick-set ; in the last
! year of his life he allowed his beard to grow,
; and 'looked like Shakespeare.' His friends
j in the hospital spoke of his fortitude under
! suffering, and said that he always showed
| ' the courage of a soldier.' He died in pos-
: session of several farms at Shifnall and

Hopesay, in Shropshire.

[The above notice of T. L. Beddoes is much
fuller in detail than any which has yet appeared,
and corrects the existing memoirs on several
points. After the publication of his memoir in

: 1851 Mr. Kelsall continued to add to his notes
of Beddoes' life, but found no fresh opportunity
for making them public. He preserved all the

1 manuscripts referring to the poet, all his poems,
letters, and details gleaned from other persons, in
a box, which he bequeathed at his death to Mr.
Eobert Browning, who has very kindly permitted
me to be the first to examine it. This box con-
tains a large number of poetical fragments, es-
pecially discarded scenes and songs for ' Death's
Jest-Book,' which have not yet seen the light.]

E. a.

BEDDOME, BENJAMIN (1717-1795),
writer of hymns, was the son of the Rev.
John Beddome, baptist minister. Benja-
min was born at Henley-in-Arden, South
Warwickshire, 23 Jan. 17 17, and received his
education, first at an independent academy
in Tenter Alley, Moorfields, London, and
afterwards at the Baptist College, Bristol.
He was intended for a surgeon, but felt it his
duty to become a preacher of the gospel. In
the year 1740 he entered upon his first and
only ministerial charge at Bourton-on-the-
Water, in East Gloucestershire, where he
continued as pastor of the baptist church
until his death. Beddome was distinguished
by the fulness and accuracy of his biblical
scholarship, but it is as a hymn-writer that
he is best known. His hymns were com-
posed to be sung after his sermons, being
designed to illustrate the truths on which
he had been preaching. A volume of his
poetry, under the title ' Hymns adapted to
Public Worship or Family" Devotion,' com-
prising 830 pieces, was published in 1818.
Selections from these are found in most of
the hymnals now in use. Beddome wrote
an ' Exposition on the Baptist Catechism,'
which was published in 1752. Two posthu-
mous volumes of discourses were also printed
from his manuscripts, and appeared, the first
in 1805, the second in 1835. This latter
contained a memoir of the author. By his
marriage with Miss Elizabeth Boswell, Bed-
dome had two sons, Benjamin and Fos-
kett, who, having prepared themselves for
the medical profession, died prematurely at
the ages respectively of 24 and 25 years.

if

Bede

98

Bede

Beddome died at Bourton, the scene of his life-
long labours, on 3 Sept. 1795, aged 78 years.
His personal character was marked by great
urbanity and courtesy. To the sick and the
poor he was exceedingly generous and cha-
ritable.

[Miller's Singers and Songs of the Church, 2nd
ed. 1869; and Memoir prefixed to Sermons,
1835.] W. B. L.

BEDE, or more accurately B^EDA (673-
735), was born in the district which was the
next year given for the foundation of the
monastery of St. Peter's, at Wearmouth, in
what is now the county of Durham. The
exact date of his birth has been disputed.
It depends on the short account which he
gives of himself at the end of the ' Historia
Ecclesiastical He brings that work down
to 731— for the notice of the defeat of the
Saracens in the following year is probably
an insertion made later, either by himself or
by some other hand — and he says that he had
then reached his fifty-ninth year. Mabillon
(Acta SS. O. B. iii. 505) is therefore pro-
bably right in fixing his birth in 673. Some,
however (PAGI, Critic, in Ann. Baron, p. 141,
followed by Stevenson), place it in 674, and
others (GEHLE, Disput. Hist. Theol. and
Mon. Hist. Brit.} in 672. Besides the short
account which Baedft gives of himself, and
what we can glean from his writings and
from incidental notices of him by others, we
have no trustworthy materials for his life
until we come to his last hours : for the two
anonymous biographies of him (If. E. ed.
Smith, App., and MABILLON, ssec. iii. 501)
are one of the eleventh and the other of the
twelfth century.

Early deprived, as it seems, of his parents,
Bseda, when seven years old, was placed by
his relations under the charge of Benedict
Biscop, the abbot of Wearmouth. Shortly
before his birth a great ecclesiastical revival
began in England. The marriage of Oswiu
of Northumbria to Eanfled led to the triumph
of the Roman over the Celtic church in the
north, and Wilfrith, the champion of St.
Peter, was made bishop. Archbishop Theo-
dore began to reform the episcopate after
the Roman model, and in a national synod
held at Hertford in 673 put an end to
the unsystematic practices of the Celtic
church. English bishops were for the future
to keep to their own dioceses, and not to
wander about wherever they would, like the
Celtic missionary bishops. The introduction
of the Benedictine rule in place of the primi-
tive monachism of the Celts was a move-
ment of a like nature. In this work Benedict
Biscop, the guardian of Bseda, took a leading

part. When, in 674, he founded St. Peter's
at W^earmouth, he sent for workmen from
Gaul, who built his monastery after the
Roman style. In 682 he founded the other
home of Bseda, the monastery of St. Paul's
at Jarrow. Foreign artificers filled the win-
dows of his two great houses with glass.
The pictured forms of saints and the scenes
of sacred history adorned the walls of his
churches. Above all, he provided his monks
with a noble collection of books, which he

j deemed necessary for their instruction ( Vit.
Abb. 11). He fetched John, the archcantor

; of St. Peter's, from Rome, who taught them,
and indeed all who came to learn, the ritual

| of the Roman church. And by his constant

I journeys abroad, Benedict brought his houses
into the closest connection with the ecclesi-
astical life of the continent. At the same

] time there is evidence that there was no
narrow spirit in the brotherhood which he
formed, and that its relations with the Celtic
church were not unfriendly (If. E. v. c. 21).
Such, then, were the influences which were
brought to bear on the youth of Bseda.
They had a marked effect on his character
and work.

When Ceolfrith was appointed to preside
over the new foundation at Jarrow, Bseda
seems to have gone with him. He can
scarcely be said to have changed his home ;
for the two monasteries were in truth one, so
close was the connection between them, and
after the death of Benedict, Ceolfrith ruled
over both alike (Vit. Abb. 15). We may
venture to appropriate to the boyhood of
Beeda- a story told by one of his contempo-
raries (Hist. Abb. Gyrv. auct. anon. 14). A
pestilence so thinned the brotherhood at
Jarrow, that there was not one monk left
who could read or answer the responses save
Ceolfrith and a little boy whom he had
brought up. So the abbot was forced to
order that the services should be sung with-
out responses, save at matins and vespers.
For one week this went on, until the abbot
could ho longer bear the dreariness of it.
After that he and the child laboured day
by day through the whole services, singing
each in his turn alone, until others learned
to take their part.

In his nineteenth year Bneda was ordained
deacon. The early age at which he was
allowed to receive ordination implies that he
was distinguished by holiness and ability.
He entered the priesthood at the canonical
age of thirty. In both cases he was pre-
sented by his abbot, Ceolfrith, and received
his orders from the hands of Bishop John of
Beverley (H. E. v. c. 24). A tradition that
Breda visited Rome was current in the time

Bede

99

Bede

of William of Malmesbury, and is mentioned
by him ( Gest. Reg. i. 57). Malmesbury gives
aletter of Pope Sergius to Ceolfrith, telling
him that he had need of a learned man to
help him in certain matters of ecclesiastical
law, and asking him to send Breda to him —
* Dei famulum Bedam venerabilis tui monas-
terii presbyterum.' Now, as Sergius died in
701, Breda could not have been a priest at !

the time of this invitation. The letter of

Sergius, however, exists in a manuscript
(Cotton, Tib. A. xv. 50-52) which is two cen-
turies earlier than the time of Malmesbury.
This manuscript, in place of ' Bedam,' has
< X ' = nomen, signifying that a name was to be
supplied, and the word ' presbyterum ' is also
left out in it. Both are interlined by a later j
hand. It is, however, possible that Breda
may have been specially invited to Rome;
for 'Malmesbury may have copied from a still
earlier manuscript, and the omission of his
name in the Cotton MS. may have been
through carelessness. As this manuscript j
stands (without ' presbyterum '), it seems as i
if some word was left out, and ' presbyterum ' I
may have been written in the original papal
letter, through ignorance of the fact that
Breda had not at that time entered priest's
orders. Sergius, when in need of advice,
may well have asked for Breda. He would
scarcely have asked Ceolfrith for one of his
monks without naming any one in particular.
Nor would it be wonderful that the pope
should have heard of the learning of the
young Northumbrian monk ; for the visits of
Benedict to Rome had drawn his monasteries
into close connection with the papal see, and
the letter, whichever way we read it, illus-
trates the high position which the houses of
Wearmouth and Jarrow already held in
Christendom. Some of Breda's fellow-monks
were sent by Ceolfrith to Rome in 701, and
came back with a papal privilege for their
house. Breda did not go with them ( Vit.
Abb. 15 ; De Temporum rations, 47). The
various legends which relate to his supposed
visit to Rome may therefore be passed over.
The story which takes him to Cambridge no
longer demands refutation, though it once
formed the subject of much bygone anti-
quarianism (T. Caii Vindicice, p. 321, &c. ed.
IL'sirne, 1719).

With the exception of a few visits to
friends, Breda spent all his life at Jarrow from
the time when he moved thither as a child.
He studied the Scriptures with all his might,
and while he was diligent in observing the
discipline of his order, and in taking part in
the daily services of the church, he loved
to be always learning, teaching, or writing
(H. E. v. 24). His character and opinions

are to be gathered chiefly from his books,
He was a man of gentle and cultivated feel-
ings, full of kindly sympathies, and with a
singular freshness of mind, which gave life
and beauty to his stories. The chapter on
the conversion of Northumbria, the tale of
how poetic inspiration came to Credmon, and
of how he died, and the whole 'Life of
Cuthberht ' are but instances of his exquisite
power of story-telling. With this power
was combined a love of truth and fairness.
His condemnation of the cruel and foolish
war made by Ecgfrith, the benefactor of his
house, against the Irish Scots (H. E. iv. 26),
and his ungrudging record of the good deeds
of Wilfrith (H. E. iv. 13, v. 19), are strik-
ing proofs of his freedom from prejudice.
Brought, as he was from his earliest years,
under the influences alike of lona and Rome
and Gaul and Canterbury, he had broad ec-
clesiastical sympathies. While he con-
demned and wrote against the Celtic customs
concerning the date of Easter and the form
of the tonsure, he dwelt much on the holi-
ness of Aidan (H. E. iii. 5, 15-17), and he
wrote the ' Life of Cuthberht ' both in prose
and verse. His love for the monastic pro-
fession led him to regard with evident admi-
ration the powerful position held by the
abbot of lona (If. E. iii. 4), and the universal
monachism of the church of Lindisfarne
( Vit. S. Cuth. 16), though, as a zealous fol-
lower of the Benedictine order, which had
found its way from the great houses of the
continent to the new foundations of North-
umbria, he disapproved the laxity of the
Celtic rule. Filled with the desire of seeing
an increase in the episcopate, he contem-
plated the possibility of providing for new
bishops out of the possessions of those reli-
gious houses which were unfaithful to their
profession, a plan which would have tended
to purify the monasteries by reducing their
means of luxury, and to exalt their power
by closely connecting them with the episco-
pate (Ep. ad Ecc/b. 10-12). With views so
far-reaching and catholic, Breda could have
had little sympathy with the eager and nar-
row-minded Wilfrith. The circumstances of
his life made Wilfrith look on Cuthberht and on
John of Beverley as intruders (Hist, of York,
RAINE, xxxiv). To Breda they were saints,
and he records with evident disapproval how
Eata and Cuthberht and their fellows were
driven out of Ripon to make room for Wil-
frith ( Vit. S. Cuth. 8).

The names of several of the friends of
Breda are well known. Most of his works
are dedicated to them, and some were written
at their request. Among them wereNothelm,
afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and an

H 2

Bede

100

Bede

ecclesiastic named Albinus. Both these
helped Baeda in his ' Historia Ecclesiastica,'
and Albinus more than any one urged him
to undertake the work. Ecgberht, archbishop
of York, and Acca and Frithhere, bishops of
Hexham and Sherborne, were also his friends.
To Acca he dedicated most of his theological
works. From this bishop, who was also one
of the most faithful friends of Wilfrith (Ei>-
DITTS, 56, 64), Baeda probably obtained the
full information which he had about Wil-
frith's good deeds. Even Baeda had some
enemies who seem to have been jealous of
his literary pre-eminence. At a feast held
by Wilfrith, bishop of York (d. 732), he was
accused by some of the guests of having ex-
pressed heretical opinions in his ' De Tempo-
ribus liber minor.' The scandalous accusation
was heard unrebuked by the bishop, and was
probably circulated by one of his household.
Baeda replied to it by a letter to a friend
(Ep. ad Pleffwinum), which was written with
the expressed intention that it should be
shown to Wilfrith. In it he speaks plainly
of the unseemly revelry of the episcopal feast,
and this reference (cf. Carmen de Pontif.
Eccl. Ebor. 1. 1232) shows that the bishop
in question was the second of that name and
not the more famous Wilfrith.

Baeda loved to meditate and make notes
on the Scriptures. Simeon of Durham (d.
1130) records (Hist, de Dunelm. Eccl.
c. 14) that there used to be shown a stone
hut (mansiuncula), where, secure from all in-
terruption, he was wont to meditate and
work. In the time of Leland (Collect, iv.
p. 42, ed. 1720), the three monks of Jarrow,
all who were then left of that once famous
congregation, showed what is described as his
oratory. The little boy who worked so hard
with his abbot to keep up the antiphonal
chant when all the burden of the singing
lay on them alone, rejoiced all his life to take
part in the services of the monastery church.
Alcuin, writing after Baeda's death to the
monks of Wearmouth, tells them (Ale. Ep.
16, ed. Migne), that he loved to say, ' I know
that angels visit the congregation of the
brethren at the canonical hours, and what if
they should not find me among the brethren ?
Would they not say, " Where is Basda ? Why
comes he not with his brethren to the
prayers appointed ? " ' The attainments of
Baeda prove that he must have been a dili-
gent student. He has recorded the name of
another of his teachers besides the abbot
Ceolfrith. Trumberht, he tells us, used to
instruct him in the Scriptures. He had
been a pupil of Ceadda, and used to tell his
scholar much about his old master (H. E.
iv. 3). From him doubtless Baeda learned

to reverence the holy men of the Celtic
church. John of Beverley is also said by
Folcard ( Vit. S. Johan. c. 2) to have been
his teacher. It may have been so, but, as
Folcard lived in the middle of the eleventh
century, he must not be regarded as an
authority on this matter. It is not unlikely
that Baeda received help from some of the
disciples of Theodore and Hadrian, of whom
he speaks with admiration (H. E. iv. 2), and
he must certainly have come under the in-
struction of John the archcantor ( Vit. Abb.
6 ; see STEVENSON'S Introd. p. ix). Besides
knowing Latin he understood Greek and
had some acquaintance with Hebrew. He -/
quotes Homer, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Ho-
race, Terence, and many other writers of less
classical fame (WEIGHT, Biog. Lit. i. 39-41).
He was familiar with patristic literature,
and was a diligent translator and compiler of
extracts from that great storehouse. Like
most of his countrymen at that age, he was ^
a singer. His mind was well stored with
the songs of his native land, and he had
what was then in England the not uncom-
mon gift of improvisation. Besides his powers
as an historian and a biographer, he knew all
the learning of his time, its grammar, rhetoric,
mathematics, and physical science. All his
talents were employed in the cause of his
church and in the instruction of others.
He was a diligent teacher, and found many
scholars among the six hundred monks who
in his days thronged the sister houses of St.
Peter and St. Paul ( Vit. Abb. 17). Some of
these pupils, like Nothelm who has been al-
ready mentioned, Husetberht and Outhberht,
two successive abbots of Wearmouth, and
Constantine, became the friends of after years,
and were among those to whom Baeda dedi-
cated his works.

A sentence in the ' Ep. ad Wicredum de
Paschae Celebratione,' which speaks of 776
as the current year, gave rise to the belief that
Baeda lived at least to that date. Mabillon
has however pointed out that the sentence is
an interpolation by another hand (PAGi,
Critic. Baron, xii. 401 ; MABILLON, Analect.
i. 398). The day of his death is known to
have been the Feast of the Ascension, 26 May
735, by a letter written by one of his pupils
named Outhberht to Cuthwine, his fellow
scholar (STEVENSON, Introd. xiv ; SIMEON of
Durham, p. 8 ; S. BoNiFACii Op. ep. 113, ed.
Giles). Baeda, Cuthberht says, suffered from
a tightness of breath which grew rapidly
worse during the month of April. Up to
26 May, however, he continued his lectures,
and through the many sleepless hours of night
was still cheerful, sometimes giving thanks
to God, sometimes chanting words of Holy

Bede

IOI

Bede

Scripture, or lines of English verse, which
bade men remember how — ' Before he need
go forth, none can be too wise in thinking,
Low before his soul shall go, what good or ill
deeds he hath done, how after death his doom
shall be ; ' or again he sang the antiphons,
hoping to console the hearts of his scholars,
but when he came to the words ' Leave us
not orphans,' he wept much, and they wept
with him. And so the days wore on, and
in spite of his sickness he worked hard that
he might finish his translation into English
of the Gospel of St. John, for he knew that
it would be of use to the church, and also
of some extracts from Bishop Isidore, for
1 1 do not want my boys,' he said, * to read
what is false, or to have to work at this
without profit when I am dead.' On the
day of his death, when the rest had gone
to the procession held on the festival, his
scribe was left alone with him. ' Dearest
master,' he said, ' there is one chapter want-
ing, and it is hard for thee to question thy-
self.' * No, it is easy,' he said ; * take thy pen
and write quickly.' He spent the day in
giving his little treasures of spice and in-
cense to the priests of the house, in asking
their prayers, and in bidding them farewell.
The evening came, and his young scribe said,
* There is yet one more sentence, dear mas-
ter, to write out.' He answered, l Write
quickly.' After a while the boy said, ' Now
it is finished.' 'Well,' he said, 'thou hast
spoken truly "It is finished."' Then he
bade his friends place him where he could
look on the spot on which he was wont to
kneel in prayer. And lying thus upon the
pavement of his cell, he chanted the ' Gloria
Patri,' and as he uttered the words ' the Holy
Ghost ' he breathed his last, and ' so he passed
to the kingdom in heaven.'

Baeda was buried at Jarrow. Men recog-
nised the greatness of the loss which had
come upon them. Winfrith (St. Boniface)
wrote to Cuthberht to beg him to send him
one of the works of Baeda, 'that wise
searcher of Scripture who of late shone in
your house of God like a candle in the
church ' (BoN. Epp. 37, 52, ed. Giles). Be-
fore the end of the eighth century, Alcuin
used his name to excite the Northumbrian
monks to study diligently and betimes, and
bade them remember 'what praise Baeda
had of men, and how far more glorious a
reward from God' (MABILLON, Analect. ii.
310). In his poem on the bishops and other
ecclesiastics of the church of York, he reckons
over the various powers of the departed master,
and speaks of a miracle worked by his relics
(Carmen de Pontif. fyc. Eccl. Ebor. 1. 1300-
1317). In the course of the next century the

epithet ' Venerable ' began to be generally
added to his name. Each year, on the day of
his death, men used to come and watch and
pray in the church at Jarrow. A certain
priest of Durham named Alfred, who lived in
the first half of the eleventh century, and who
seems to have spent his life in stealing the
bones and other relics of departed saints in
order to attract the gifts of the faithful to
his own church, violated the grave of Baeda.
He carried off the bones to Durham, and
placed them in the coffin in which St. Cuth-
berht lay. There they were found at the
translation of St. Cuthberht in 1104. Bishop
Hugh de Puiset (1153-1195) laid them in
a casket of gold and silver in the glorious
galilee which he added to his church. In /
1541 the casket of Bishop Hugli fell a prey
to sacrilegious greed, and the remains of the
great English scholar were dispersed (SiM.
DUNELM. iii. 7 ; GEHLE, Disput. 33 et seq. ;
As late as the middle of the eighteenth
century ' Bede's well ' at Monkton, near
Jarrow, 'was in repute as a bath for the
recovery of infirm or diseased children'
(SuETEES, Hist, of Durham, ii. 80). Accord-
ing to the list which Baeda appended to his
' Historia Ecclesiastica/ the books which he
had written by the year 731, when that work
was brought to an end, were : 1. On the first
part of the Book of Genesis, four books.
2. On the Tabernacle, its Vessels, &c. three
books. 3. On the first part of Samuel to
the death of Saul, three books. 4. An Alle-
gorical Exposition on the Building of the
Temple, two books. 5. On Thirty Questions
concerning the Book of the Kings. 6. On
the Proverbs of Solomon, three books. 7. On
the Song of Solomon, seven books. 8. Ex-
tracts from St. Jerome on the divisions of
chapters in Isaiah, Daniel, the twelve Pro-
phets, and part of Jeremiah. 9. On Ezra and
Nehemiah, three books. 10. On Habakkuk,
one book. 11. An Allegorical Exposition of
the Book of Tobit, one book. 12. Chapters
for readings in the Pentateuch, Joshua, and
Judges. 13. On the Books of Kings and
Chronicles. 14. On the Book of Job.
15. On the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the
Song of Solomon. 16. On Isaiah, Ezra, and
Nehemiah. 17. On Mark, four books. 18. On
Luke, six books. 19. Two books of ' Homilies
on the Gospel.' 20. Extracts from St. Au-
gustine on the Apostle (Paul). 21. On the
Acts, two books. 22. A Book on each of the
General Epistles. 23. On the Apocalypse,
three books. 24. Chapters for readings in the
New Testament except the Gospels. 25. A
book of Letters, in which are : ' Of the Six
Ages,' ' Of the Eesting Places of Israel,' ' Of
the Words of Is. xxiv. 22,' ' Of Bissextile/

Bede

102

Bede

1 Of Anutolius on the Equinox.' 26. On the
Histories of the Saints, on the Life and
Passion of St. Felix. 27. A more correct
translation from the Greek of the ' Life and
Passion of St. Anastasius.' 28. The life of
St. Outhberht in verse, the same in prose.
29. The History of the Abbots, Benedict,
Ceolfrith, and Husetberht. 30. The ' Ec-
clesiastical History of our island and people,'
five books. 31. A Marcyrology. 32. A
book of Hymns. 33. A book of Epigrams.
34. Two books on the ' Nature of Things '
and on ' Chronology.' 35. A larger book on
Chronology. 36. On Orthography. 37. On
the Art of Metre, and appended to it a little
book on the Figures and modes of speech in
Holy Scripture.

To this list must be added as undoubtedly
genuine the letters to Albinus and Ecgberht
and the ' Retractationes ' which were written
later than 731, the book on the Holy Places
written before that year, but left out by
Bseda probably through forgetful ness, and a
1 Pcenitentiale.'

Of the works enumerated by Bseda no ge-
nuine copies exist of 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20,
27, 33. The extracts from Isidore, and the
translation of the Gospel of St. John which
employed his dying hours, have also not been
preserved. And it is exceedingly doubtful
whether the Hymns (32) attributed to him
should, for the most part at least, be held
authentic. Some scientific and other trea-
tises, such as the ' De Septem Miraculis
Mundi' and the 'De Computo seu Indigita-
tione,' have been wrongly considered to be
his work, and a little poem entitled i Cucu-
lus ' (GOLDAST, Ovidii Erotica, Frankf. 1610),
is perhaps also spurious.

It is probable that the educational works,
e.g. 'De Sanctis Locis ' and 'De Natura
Rerum,' were the earliest of Baeda's writings.
The ' De Temporibus ' (liber minor) ends at
702. It was written five years before the
' Epistola ad Plegwinum sive de sex aetati-
bus/ and if, as seems almost certain, the
bishop mentioned in that letter was the
second Wilfrith, the dates of both of these
works must be considerably later than has
been supposed. As the ' Commentary on
Samuel ' (3) is dedicated to Ceolfrith, it must
have been written before his death in 716,
while the 'Historia Abbatum ' (29) was
written after that event. The ' De Tempo-
ribus ' (liber major) (35) ends with the ninth
year of Leo the Isaurian, viz. 724, or, ac-
cording to the author's chronology, 729, and
may be considered to have been finished at
that date. From a letter of Acca prefixed
to the ' Commentary on Luke ' (18) it is
evident that that work was written after the

* Commentary on the Acts ' (21). The ' His-
toria Ecclesiastica ' (30), as before mentioned,
was finished in 731. In the same or in the
next year was written the ' Epistola ad Al-
binum.' The ' Liber Retractationum ' also
came after the ' Historia,' As the * Epistola
ad Ecgberhturn ' was written on his acces-
sion to the see of York in 734, it may be con-
sidered the latest extant work of Baeda.

Collective editions of the writings of Bseda
have been published at Paris in 6 vols. fol.
1544-5, reprinted in 1554; (these editions
are extremely rare, and of the earlier one, only
a portion is in the British Museum) ; at Basle
in 8 vols. fol. by F. Hervagius, 1563 ; at
Cologne in 1612, a reprint of the Basle edi-
tion, but not so fine a work, reprinted at
Cologne in 1688 ; at London in 12 vols. 8vo,
by F. A. Giles, LL.D., 1843-4; and in the
' Patrologiae Cursus Completus ' (xc.-xcv.) of
J. P. Migne, Paris, 1844. Of the various
editions of the several works those only will
be mentioned which appear noteworthy. A
list, which is probably complete, up to 1842,
will be found in Wright's l Biog. Brit. Lit.'
i. 283-288.

The commentaries on the Old Testament
are for the most part in the folio editions,
and in the more complete collection of Dr.
Giles. They were also published in Paris
by Gering and Rembolt, 1499 — ' a very rare
book ' (WEIGHT). Many of them are dedi-
cated to Acca, They are filled with alle-
gorical interpretations. Even the book of
Tobit is made to contain teachings about
Christ and the sacraments. For the most
part these works appear to be compiled from
the Fathers. Bseda says in his book on
Genesis (1) that, as the works of Basil, Am-
brose, and Augustine are too expensive and
too deep for most people, he ' has culled, as from
the pleasant meadows of far flowering Para-
dise, what may supply the need of the weak.
This work was appended to Usher's ' Historia
Dogmatum,' 1689, and was edited, with some
other writings of Breda, by Wharton (4to,
London), in 1693. The ' Thirty Questions 011
Kings ' (5) were propounded by Nothelm, and
the treatise was written for him. Short com-
ments of a more practical character than
those in most of Bseda's works are appended
to the ' Proverbs ' (6), though even here al-
legorical interpretation is not deserted. It
wholly prevails in the last part of the com-
mentary. This part is printed separately in
the folio editions, under the title of ' Mulier
Fortis ; ' but is really the exposition of c.
xxxi. 10-31. The first book of the ' Exposi-
tion of the Canticles ' (7) was written against
the errors of Julian, Bishop of Celano. The
'Commentary on Habakkuk' (10) is not in

Bede

103

Bede

the folio editions, and was first published by
Martene in his * Thesaurus Novus,' Paris,
1717. It is dedicated to an abbess.

The commentaries on the New Testa-
ment were printed at Paris in 1521. They
are also in the folios, and in Dr. Giles's edi-
tions. In his dedicatory letter to Acca at-
tached to his commentary on * Mark/ Baeda
says that he has placed on the margin the
names of the fathers from whose works his
comments are extracted, and he begs that
transcribers will not neglect to copy these
entries. This request has not been obeyed.
A book purporting to be his, ' In Apostolum
qutBCimque in opusculis S. Augustini,' &c.
(20), was published by G. Boussard, Paris,
1499, but has been shown by Baronius to be
spurious. A preface to the ( Seven General
Epistles ' (22) exists in one, and that the
earliest, manuscript only. This manuscript
was discovered by Wharton in the library of
Caius College, Cambridge. The reason of its
omission in later manuscripts cannot be mis-
taken, for it argues that the first place in
the apostolic company belongs to St. James
and not to St. Peter. An illustration of the
large-mindedness of Baeda is afforded by his
book on the l Apocalypse ' (23), where, he
says, he has followed Tychonius the Dona-
tist, whose interpretations, where they are
not affected by the errors of his sect, he
praises highly. He adheres to his allegorical
method of exposition in his New Testament
commentaries, and even applies it to the
Acts of the Apostles (21). The <Retracta-
tiones ' are corrections of the commentary on
the Acts. In this work Baeda says that he
made a careful collation of the Greek codex.
The Homilies on the Gospels (in folio edi-
tions, and with eleven before unedited by
Martene, 1717) were for a long time held to
be doubtful. By the discovery of an early
manuscript at Boulogne, Dr. Giles has proved
the authenticity .of fifty-nine Homilies of
Baeda, which he has published in his collec-
tive edition. The teaching about the name
Peter in Horn. 27 is in accord with that of
the preface to the General Epistles. These
discourses certainly present a high view of
the sacrament of the Lord's supper (Horns.
4 and 37), but at the same time do not con-
tain the doctrine afterwards propounded by
Radbert. The opinions of Baeda on this ques-
tion were represented in different lights in
tlir once celebrated discussion between Rev.
Dr. Lingard and Rev. II. Soames. A curious
nple of the allegorical method of inter-
pretation is to be found in Horn. 18, where
tin; six water-pots of Cana are explained as
)\ pcs of the six ages of the w^orld.

The 'Life of St. Felix of Nola' (26), a

prose version of the poem of Paulinus, was
published in Bolland, ' Acta SS.' i. January
1643, and by Smith in 1722. The metrical
' Life of St. Cuthberht ' (28), written in Latin
hexameters, is a proof of the learning of Baeda
rather than of any poetic feeling. It is in-
cluded in the t Antiquae Lectiones ' of Cani-
sius, v. In the preface to the prose ( Life '
Baeda says that he derived his information
from those who were best acquainted with
the truth. He certainly used very largely the
anonymous l Life ' printed in ' Acta SS.' Mart,
iii. and by Stevenson. He frequently, he
tells us, submitted his sheets to the priest
Herefrith and others, who had long known
Cuthberht, and made such alterations as they
| suggested. At length the work was sent to
Lindisfarne, where for two days it was care-
fully examined by the elder monks, who ap-
proved it and gave Baeda some fresh informa-
tion. When he had made these additions, he
dedicated the book to the abbot Eadfrith and
the congregation of Lindisfarne, and handed
it over to the transcribers. In this preface
Baeda refers to the insertion of his name in
white in the book of Lindisfarne. This placed
him amongst those benefactors who were en-
titled to be remembered in the prayers of that
house. Both the Lives of St. Cuthberht are
in ' Acta SS. O. S. B.' ssec. ii., Paris, 1669 ;
in the ' Historical Works ' by Smith ; and in
the ' Opera Hist. Minora ' of Stevenson (Eng.
Hist. Soc.), 1838. The 'Lives of the Abbots'
(29) is founded on another anonymous work.
It has been printed by Ware, Dublin, 1664 ;
by Wharton, London, 1693: by Smith and
by Stevenson. The ( Martyrologium ' (31), as
published in the folio editions and Antwerp,
1564, was shown by Henschen to be largely
spurious. His discovery of an early manu-
script in the library of Queen Christina led
to a satisfactory sifting of the work, and in
the edition of Smith the entries of Baeda are
distinguished from those by other hands.
The work generally known as the l De Sex
^Etatibus' is really a part of the 'De Tempo-
rum ratione ' (35)" It was printed with ' De
Natura Rerum' at Venice, 1505, at Basle,
1529, and by Smith. The last part, or Sexta
^Etas, containing extracts from Eutropius,
Orosius, and Gildas, concerning Britain, is
printed alone in ' Mon. Hist. Brit.' and by
Stevenson. The chronicle of the earlier ages
is chiefly taken from Eusebius (M. If. B.
p. 70). The ' Poenitentiale ' was printed in
an imperfect form by Martene and Durand, in
collect io vii., from a manuscript at Andain;
and correctly by Wrasserschleben, in ' Bus-
sordnungen der abendlaiidischen Kirche/
from a Vienna manuscript : and in Haddan
and Stubbs's ' Councils and Ecclesiastical

Bede

104

Bede

Documents/ iii. 326 ; the ' Liber de Remediis
Peccatorum,' printed at Venice, 1584, and in
the collective editions, is a compilation (HAD-
DAN and STTJBBS).

Mr. Stevenson in his Introduction has
given an exhaustive account of the sources
from which the ' Historia Ecclesiastica ' (30)
is derived. Up to the coming of St. Augus-
tine in 596 the work is compiled from former
writers, e.g. Eutropius and Gildas, from j
legends and popular traditions, and from the |
' Life of St. Germanus ' by Constantius of |
Lyons. From 596 Bseda used both written
documents and oral intelligence. His ex- j
tracts from books now become few. Among
these books Stevenson reckons (Introd. xxiv)
the ' Life of Gregory the Great ' by Paul the
Deacon. As, however, Paul was born 720-
725 (WAITZ, Prcef. Paul. Diac.\ it is probable
that he and Bseda went to some common
source. Paul certainly had the 'Historia
Ecclesiastica ' at hand when he was writing
his ' History of the Lombards.' Bseda made
considerable use of local records. Albinus
and Nothelm seem to have furnished him
with materials for the history of the king-
dom of Kent, of the archbishops of Canter-
bury, of the diocese of Rochester, and of East
Anglia. From Bishop Daniel he derived his
knowledge of the history of the West and
South Saxons, and from the monks of Lsestin-
gaeu of the work of Cedd and Ceadda. Bishop
Cyneberht gave him a few materials con-
cerning his diocese of Lindesey. His ac-
count of Northumbrian history is naturally
full, and in some parts, e.g. the history of
Eadwine, records details which show that he
must have used important local annals. The
official documents contained in the ' Historia
Ecclesiastica' consist of copies made from
the papal registers for Bseda by Nothelm
{Ann. Baron, xii. 364) and of the proceed-
ings of English councils. Baeda constantly
refers to oral communications. He is parti-
cular in recording the name and description
of any one from whom he received informa-
tion. He evidently weighed the credibility
of his informants, and distinguished between
the value of the reports of eye-witnesses and
of those who only repeated what they had
heard. The earliest edition of ' Historia Ec-
clesiastica' is a folio, without pagination,
catch-words, date, place, or name of printer.
It has been assigned to H. Eggesteyn, Stras-
burg, cir. 1473 (EBEKT). Two other editions
were put out before the end of the century,
at Strasburg in 1483 and at Spires in 1490.
Next come the Strasburg edition of 1500,
and the Hagenau edition by J. Rynman, 1506
(M. If. B. 71). All these' are in small folio,
double columns, and Gothic letters, and are

mainly reprints of the first edition. The
' Historia Ecclesiastica ' was again printed at
Antwerp by Gravius in 1550. Although
this is to a large extent a reprint of the 1500
edition, it supplies the hitherto unprinted
conclusion of v. 24, and is a fine and scarce
book. It was reprinted at Louvain, 1566;
at Heidelberg, 1587, by Cornmeline, who-
corrected several errors by collating a good
manuscript ; at Cologne, 1601 ; and in the
Basle and Cologne collective editions. The
first edition brought out in England was by
A. Whelo, Cambridge, 1644, together with
the Anglo-Saxon version attributed to King-
JElfred. A critical edition was produced
by P. F. Chifflet, S.J., Paris, 1681. In 1722
all former editions were superseded by that
of Canon J. Smith, printed at Cambridge,
chiefly founded on the manuscript of Bishop
More in the Cambridge Library. It contains-
the Anglo-Saxon version and other historical
works, and is a very noble volume. Another
edition of the historical works was brought
out by J. Stevenson in 2 vols. 8vo, for the-
Eng. Hist. Soc., London, 1838, with an ex-
cellent introduction. The 'Historia Eccle-
siastica ' has also been edited by B. Hussey,.
Oxford, 1846, by G. H. Moberly, Oxford,
1869, and lib. iii. and iv. by Mayor and
Lumby, Pitt Press, 1879. The 'Ep. ad
Ecgberhtum 'contains interesting information,
as to the condition of the English church at
the time, together with the plan of Beeda for
the improvement of its discipline. It has>
been edited by Ware, Dublin, 1664 ; Whar-
ton, London, 1693 ; Smith and Stevenson.

The treatise ' De Natura Rerum ' (34) con-
tains such physical science as was then
known. It collects the wisdom of the an-
cient world on this subject, and has the
special merit of referring phenomena to natu-
ral causes. It was published together with
the two works on chronology at Basle, 1529.
'Liber de Orthographia ' (36) was printed
in the ' Gramm. Lat. Auct. Ant.,' Han. 1605.
The 'De Arte Metrica'(37) contains a large1
number of quotations, not only from the
better known, but from obscure Latin poets,
and has many references to Greek examples.
It was printed by Putsch in ' Vet. Gramm./
Paris, 1616, and is contained in ' Gramm.
Lat.' of H. Keil, Leip. 1857. The short
treatises 'De Schematibus et Tropis' (37)
were published at Milan by Ant. Zarotus,
1473, with two other grammatical works.
This book is without signatures, catch-words,
or pagination, and is very scarce (EBEKT)*
It has also been published at Venice, 1522 ;
at Basle, 1527, &c. It is included in the
'Rhetores Lat. Min.' of C. Halm, Leip.,
1863. Breda took his ' Libellus de situ

Bedel

Bedell

Hierusalem sive de Locis Sanctis ' from the
work of Adaninan. He has not included this
epitome in his index, but refers to it (Hist.
JEccL v. 17) at the close of his extract from
the book of Adamnan. It was printed by
Mabillon in l Acta SS.' iii. 1. Eleven hymns
attributed to Beeda (32) were printed by Cas-
sander, Paris, 1556; one of these, 'De Die
Judicii/ is in Simeon of Durham's ' De
Gestis Regum.' Four others have been added
by Giles in his ' Opera omnia.' Of the Let-
ters (25) besides the 'Ep. ad Ecgberhtum' are
preserved — the l Ep. ad Albinuin'in Mabillon,
Analect. i. in Smith and in Stevenson ; the
' Ep. ad Plegwinum de Sex JEtatibus/ on the
occasion of the accusation made at the feast
of Wilfrith, was edited by Ware, Dublin,
1664, and Wharton, London, 1693 ; the ' Ep.
ad Wicredum ' is in the folio editions ; the
' Ep. ad Accam de Mansionibus/ &c., and
' Ad Accam de eo quod ait Esaias/ &c., were
first printed by Dr. Giles in his * Opera
omnia/ 1843, and the l Ep. de Bissexto ' in
the l Anecdota/ edited by Giles for the Cax-
ton Soc., 1844.

The Anglo-Saxon version of the ' Historia
Ecclesiastica ' attributed to Alfred has been
noticed. An Anglo-Saxon version of the
* De Die Judicii ' was published under the
title « Be Domes Daega ' by the E. Eng. Text.
Soc., 1876. Translations of the 'Historia
Ecclesiastica ' into English have been made
by T. Stapleton, Antwerp, 1565; by F. Ste-
vens, London, 1723 ; by W. Hurst, London,
1814; by F. A. Giles, London, 1840; and
by L. Gidley, Oxford, 1870.

[Bsedae Hist. EccL et Opera Historica, Ste-
venson ; other works in Opera Omnia, ed. Giles ;
Gehle's Disputatio Hist.-Theol. de Bsedse vita,
&c. ; Wright's Biog. Lit. ; Ebert's Bibliog. Diet. ;
and authorities quoted in text.] W. H.

BEDEL, HENRY (ft. 1571), divine, was
a native of Oxfordshire. One Henry Bedel
took the degree of B.A. at Corpus Christi
CoUege, Oxford, on 13 Feb. 1555-6, and
M.A 1506 (WooD, Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i.
146, 172). Wood is not certain, but it
seems probable from the dates, that this
graduate was identical with the preacher
of the same name. Bedel was collated to
the rectorship of St. Pancras, Soper Lane,
on 4 Oct. 1561, and preferred to the vicar-

of Christ Church he preached * a sermon ex-
horting to pity of the poor, which treatise
may well be called the mouth of the poor.'
It was delivered on 15 Nov. 1571 and pub-
lished in 1573. Waterland praises it as
* learned and elaborate.' This is his only

extant work, although Wood says that he
was the author of other sermons.

[Tanner's Bibliotheca; Oxford Univ. Eegister ;
I Watt's Bibl. Brit.] A. G-N.

BEDELL, WILLIAM (1571-1642),
bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, second son
of John Bedell and Elizabeth Aliston or
Elliston, his wife, was born at Black Notley,
a village in the county of Essex, on or about
Christmas day, 1571 (see Life, ed. T. W.
JONES, p. 91). His paternal ancestors were
yeomen of long standing in the county, and
originally of the same stock, it has been
alleged, as the Bedells of Writtle. His
grandfather and father were both men of
strong religious convictions, the former being
also noted for his sternness as a disciplinarian.
The story is told, that when his son John (the
father of the bishop), on being first sent to
school, ran away to his home, he placed him
behind him on horseback, with his face to
the horse's tail, and thus conveyed him back
to his master. Mr. Denman of Braintree,
under whom both William and his elder
brother John were educated, was known as
' very able and excellent in his faculty/ but
was also in the habit of treating his pupils
with the harshness that disgraces the educa-
tion of those days ; and a blow which he in-
flicted on William was the occasion of a deaf-
ness which became permanent. William's
maternal relatives were puritans, or at least
puritanically inclined ; and when little more
than twelve years of age he was sent to the
newly founded puritan college of Emmanuel
at Cambridge, where his name appears as pen-
sioner, admitted 1 Nov. 1584. On 12 March
following he was elected a scholar, being the
nineteenth on the list from the foundation.
In 1588 he graduated B.A. and in 1592 M.A.
His entry at an age three or four years below
the average in those days probably rendered
it difficult for him at first to keep pace with
his fellow-students in a society noted for its
studious habits, but in due course his natural
ability began to manifest itself, and in 1593
he was elected a fellow of his college, being
fourteenth on the list from the foundation,
including the first three fellows nominated
by the founder, Sir Walter Mildmay. On
10 Jan. 1597 he was ordained priest, and in
1599 proceeded B.D. The college had been
expressly designed by Sir Walter as a place-
of education for the ministry, and Bedell
began to look forward to engaging in paro-
chial work. His first college duties as a,
fellow had been well calculated to qualify
him for such a sphere of labour, he having
been selected to be the catechist of the
students in the fundamental doctrines of the

Bedell

106

Bedell

Christian faith. It was in the performance
of this office that not a few eminent divines
— such as Lancelot Andrewes at Pembroke,
William Perkins at Christ's, and John Preston
at Queens' — achieved their first reputation.
Bedell was himself a pupil of Perkins, the
eminent theologian and tutor of Christ's Col-
lege, and on the latter's death in 1602 was the
purchaser of his library. Besides his attain-
ments in divinity, Bedell was already known
as a good classical scholar, and also as ac-
quainted with Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew.
His aptitude as a linguist, and possibly his
skill in discerning the structure of a language,
led his Italian friends in Venice to request him
to compile an English grammar for their use.
In 1602 Bedell, having received his license
to preach, was appointed to succeed Mr.
George Estey at the church of St. Mary's, at
Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk. He at once
attracted large audiences, and the neigh-
bouring country families were often to be
seen among his congregation. In 1607 he
was invited to fill the place of chaplain to
Sir Henry Wotton, the British ambassador
to the Venetian republic. That famous state
had recently been attracting to itself the
notice of all Europe by its courageous oppo-
sition to the encroachments of the papal see
and by a generally liberal policy. In his re-
sentment at its conduct, pope Paul V had
placed the whole community under an inter-
dict (April 1606). The signory, in retalia-
tion, expelled the Jesuits and certain other
religious bodies who had ventured to give
effect to the papal decree. The cause of the
republic was ably maintained by the eminent
scholar and philosopher, Friar Sarpi, better
known as Father Paul, who carried on a
notable controversy with the defenders of
the Ultramontane policy, Baronius and Bel-
larmine. Bedell did not arrive in Venice
until some time after the interdict had been
revoked (21 April 1607), but he found the
popular mind still deeply agitated by the
whole question of papal allegiance, and in
conjunction with Sir Henry Wotton he
cherished the belief that circumstances
augured hopefully for bringing about a Ke-
formation in Italy. Their views were shared
by some eminent protestants elsewhere,
among whom were Du Plessis, Mornay, and
Diodati, of Geneva, the author of the pro-
testant translation of the Bible into Italian.
Father Paul, although by no means generally
accessible to visitors, took both Sir Henry
Wotton and Bedell into his fullest confi-
dence, and the intimacy thus formed exer-
cised a marked influence on the latter, who
always afterwards was wont to refer to his
intercourse with the great scholar as an in-

valuable mental experience, and as serving
materially to enrich his knowledge both of
controversial divinity and of polite learning.
It was shortly after this acquaintance had
i been formed that the attempt to assassinate
| Father Paul was made. Bedell, writing a
few days after the event to his friend, Dr.
I Samuel Ward, subsequently master of Sidney
I College, Cambridge, says : 'I hope this acci-
I dent will awake him a little more and put
; some more spirit into him, which is his only
want ' (Life, p. 104). After a stay in Italy
extending over some three years and a half,
during which time he had added consider-
ably to his knowledge of Hebrew by his in-
tercourse with some learned Jews, Bedell
returned to England and to Bury. He was
accompanied by Dr. Despotine, a Venetian
convert to protestantism, who settled as a
medical practitioner in Bury, and to the
promotion of whose interests, as a stranger in
a foreign land, Bedell devoted himself with
characteristic generosity and unselfishness.
At Bury he continued to reside for upwards
of four years, and his ministrations were
highly valued. But his voice was weak and
the church large, and he consequently found
a difficulty in making himself audible to the
congregation. This circumstance determined
him to accept (1616) the presentation to the
rectory of Horningsheath (a neighbouring
parish) offered him by the patron, Sir Thomas
Jermyn, one of his congregation. On pro-
ceeding to take possession he, however,
found himself confronted by a difficulty
which seemed likely at one time to prove
insuperable. This arose out of the exorbi-
tant, though customary, fees exacted by the
officers of the bishop of the diocese, Dr.
John Jegon, the payment of which Bedell
regarded as involving a question of principle,
as equivalent to an act of simony. Even-
tually the bishop (who as a former master
of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, was
probably well informed with respect to
Bedell's merits) effectually removed the lat-
ter's scruples by directing that the instru-
ments of institution and induction should
be sent to him, and that the amount of the
fees to be paid should be left to his discre-
tion. Of Bedell's mode of life at Hornings-
heath and his exemplary conduct in his
various relations to his family, his parish-
ioners, and the neighbouring clergy, an in-
teresting account will be found in the l Life '
by his son — a sketch which also gives an
insight into the duties and habits of a country
clergyman in those days. About a year after
his return from Venice to Bury, Bedell had
married (29 Jan. 1611) Mrs. LeahMawe, the
widow of a former recorder of that town, by

Bedell

107

Bedell

whom, at the time of her second marriage,
she had five children living.

On the summoning of parliament in 1623
Bedell was selected, much against his will,
as one of the two representatives of the clergy
of the diocese of Norwich in convocation.
In 1627 he was appointed, on the joint re-
commendation of Abbot, archbishop of Can-
terbury, and Ussher, archbishop of Armagh,
to the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin.
Their testimony in his favour was warmly
seconded by Sir Henry Wotton, who, how-
ever, in his letter to King Charles, declares
that Bedell is best recommended ' by the
general fame of his learning, his life, and
Christian temper, and those religious labours
himself hath dedicated to your majestie ' —
this reference being to ' The Copies of Cer-
taine Letters which have passed between
Spaine and England in mattre of Religion/
which Bedell had dedicated to Charles, then
prince of Wales, in 1624. He was admitted
provost, with the general consent of the fel-
lows, on 16 Aug. 1627. During his short tenure
of his new office Bedell approved himself an
able administrator. He revised the statutes
of Trinity College, and, while introducing
not a few alterations, scrupulously abstained
from anything that tended to his own pecu-
niary advantage or to that of the fellows.
Like the founder of his own college at Cam-
bridge, Sir Walter Mildmay, he opposed on
principle the continued residence of fellows
when the long curriculum of their theolo-
gical studies had been completed ; and he
accordingly put in force a like proviso to that
contained in the statute ' De Mora Sociorum '
in the code of Emmanuel (see MTJLLINGER,
Hist, of Univ. of Cambridge, ii. 315), requir-
ing that ' every fellow should study divinity,
and after seven years' stay should go out into
some employ in the church ' (Life, ed. JONES,
p. 27). He required also that those who
were Irishmen by birth should cultivate their
native language, in order that they might be-
come better qualified to labour among the
people. His interchange of opinions with
Father Paul and other divines in Italy had
rendered him inclined to insist as little as
possible on the differences with respect to
doctrine between catholic and protestant.
These sentiments at one time seemed likely
to involve him in some trouble with the ex-
treme protestant party in the college, espe-
cially with Dr. Joshua Hoyle, the divinity
professor; but his tact and conciliatory
temper disarmed their opposition.

After about two years' tenure of his pro-
vostship Bedell appears as entering upon the
final stage of his career by his acceptance of
the united bishoprics of Kilmore (co. Cavan)

and Ardagh (co. Longford), to which he
I was consecrated on 13 Sept. 1629. He found
both his dioceses in a very unsatisfactory con-
dition, the revenues plundered, the * planta-
tions ' raw, and the churches in a ruinous
state : whilst the catholic clergy held aloof
, from his neighbourly advances and showed
j no disposition to co-operate for the general
good. On the other hand, as we find from
a letter written by him to Laud (I April
1630), he viewed with grave disapprobation
the extortion practised by the ecclesiastical
courts on the poor catholics, 'which,' he says,
' in very truth, my lord, I cannot excuse and
do seek to reform.' In February 1633 he re-
signed the see of Ardagh, owing to his ex-
pressed objection against pluralities and his
opinion th|t it would be better administered
by a separate bishop. Domestic bereave-
ment at this time fell heavily upon him.
In 1635 his second son, John, died ; and two
years after, his step-daughter, Leah, in little
more than a month after her marriage to the
Rev. Alexander Clogie, and then his wife
(26 March 1638), who was buried in the
cathedral churchyard at Kilmore.

A lawsuit in which he became involved,
owing to his conscientious objections to the
re-appointment of his chancellor, Dr. Alane
| Cook, brought fresh trouble, and was re-
| garded as of considerable importance from
| the fact that it was likely to furnish a pre-
! cedent with respect to the rights of the civil
lawyers generally in connection with the ec-
clesiastical courts. Cook, whose appointment
rested solely on the choice of Bedell's pre-
decessor, had approved himself a mercenary
and unscrupulous official, and the bishop
resolved that, if possible, another should be
; appointed to the post. The case was pro-
i tracted over several years, and though he lost
! his suit, with costs against him, he preserved
| his conscience. No feature in the maladmi-
nistration of the ecclesiastical courts appears
to have arrested his attention more forcibly
than the frequent employment of writs of
i excommunication against the poor catholics,
and the cruel oppression carried on under
! the pretexts thus afforded. i The corrup-
tions of the jurisdiction ecclesiastical/ he
| writes to Dr. Despotine, ' are such, as not
only not law, but not so much as equity
! is kept.' Against pluralities and non-resi-
dence he strove with unceasing effort ; while
in appointing new incumbents he invariably
preferred those who already possessed some
j knowledge of the Irish language. On Went-
worth's first arrival as lord deputy, he ordered
1 an increase of the army in Ireland. Against
the heavy contributions levied for this, me-
morials to the king were got up in various

Bedell

108

Bedeman

parts of the country, among others in Ulster.
The bishop, having been prevailed on to sign
one of these petitions, drew upon himself the
displeasure of Wentworth. To-vards the end
of Strafford's government, the bishop again
incurred the disapproval of the authorities
by a manifestation of sympathy with Adair,
bishop of Killaloe, who was brought before
the high commission court for expressions in
favour of the covenanting party in Scot-
land, and in consequence deprived of his
see. Undaunted by these and other signs of
unpopularity, Bedell continued to employ his
best efforts for the good of the people. The
churches were repaired and made available \
for public worship, and the translation of the j
Scriptures into Irish completed by the addi- i
tion of the Old Testament, whi<ji was car-
ried on under his supervision.

On the outbreak of the rebellion of 1641,
Bedell's mansion was respected by the insur- !
gents, so that he was able to give shelter and
food to the homeless English who fled to him
in their distress. On one occasion he inter-
posed to protect them from violence. At the
same time he steadily refused to desert his
diocese, personally accepting the offer of a
convoy to Dublin. This generosity of con-
duct afforded the Irish a pretext for seizing
first his cattle and then his household goods
and library, and finally conveying him and
his sons prisoners to Loughoughter Castle.
Here the governor, Owen O'Reilly, who
had formerly been one of his tenantry, did
his best to alleviate the hardships of his po-
sition. His friends in the meantime managed
to procure his release, when, his own house
being now occupied by the popish bishop, he
accepted the hospitality of the Rev. Dennis
Sheridan, whom he had himself presented to
the living of Killasser. Dennis Sheridan's
house at Drumlor, however, was crowded
with destitute English, and this, combined
with insufficient and unwholesome diet, led
to the outbreak of fever, by which Bedell was
in turn attacked and carried off on 7 Feb.
1642. It was during his last days here that,
through the assistance of Sheridan, he suc-
ceeded in rescuing from his library at Kil-
more a manuscript Hebrew Bible which he
had brought with him from Venice, and which
is now preserved in the library of Emmanuel
College, and also the manuscript of the Irish
translation of the Old Testament. This Sheri-
dan was the head of the clan, but had been
brought up as a protestant, and, being able
to speak Irish, had been ordained by Bedell
to the ministry. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
was of the same clan, and his grandfather
William, at one time the friend of Swift, was
indebted for his university education to the

eldest son of the Rev. Dennis Sheridan, and
godson of Bishop Bedell, who many years
subsequently became bishop of Kilmore.

[Marshall's Genealogist's Guide, p. 37. It was-
the Rev. Alexander Clogie who supplied Bishop
Burnet with the materials for his Life of Bedell,
published in 1685. Clogie, a native of Scotland,
had been admitted to holy orders by Bishop Be-
dell, and received from him the vicarage of Cavan.
A manuscript Life of Bedell by Clogie, of which
there are copies in the Bodleian and in the Har-
leian MSS., was edited by W. "Walter Wilkins in
1862. Archbishop Bancroft, who had obtained
possession of another manuscript, The True-
Relation of the Life and Death of Bishop Bedell
(now in Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian, vol.
cclxxviii., bound up with the preceding), ap-
pears to have contemplated publishing it, together
with Bedell's Collected Works, but probably con-
sidered himself forestalled by Burnet's labours..
This last-named Life, however, which is by the
elder son, William Bedell (see Life, ed. Jones,
pp. viii-ix), is the most trustworthy source of
information, and has been admirably edited for
the Camden Society (1872) by Thomas Wharton
Jones, F.R.S., a representative of the bishop's-
maternal family of Elliston. It has also been
published, without notes (1871), by Professor-
John E. B. Mayor.] J. B. M.

BEDEMAN or STEVINE, LAW-
RENCE (Jt. 1372-1410), supporter of Wy-
clift'e, appears first, in 1372, as a scholar of
Stapeldon Hall (now Exeter College), of
which foundation he became fellow and
ultimately rector, holding the latter office
from 1379 to 1380. In 1382 he is men-
tioned as one of the principal advocates of
Wycliffe's doctrines at Oxford. In June of
that year he was suspended from preaching,
in company with the other leaders of the
party, by Archbishop Courtney, under cir-
cumstances which are noticed under ASTOIS"
(JOHN). A mandate was also issued against
him in the same year by Bishop Branting-
ham, of Exeter, to whom complaints had
been made of his activity as a preacher of
false doctrine in Cornwall (BoASE, xiv, s</.).
Bedeman appears, however, to have held a
less conspicuous position than his associates
at Oxford, and was the first of them to make
his peace with the church, being restored to-
public functions by a mandate of 18 Oct.
1382. After this he was made rector of
Lifton, in Devonshire, and held this benefice
as late as 11 June 1410, when ho was li-
censed to preach in Latin or English. Foxe
therefore is mistaken in reckoning him, on
the authority of ' ancient writers,' among
those who ' suffered most cruel death,' or else
1 did forsake the realm,' on account of their
attachment to Wycliffe's teaching (Acts and
Monuments, iii. 96, ed. Townsend).

Bederic

109

Bedford

The name ' Bedeman ' occurs more than
once as ' Bedenam ' or i Bedmond ' (BoASE,
194) ; in the older editions of Foxe it is
given as ' Redman.' Other documents style
Mm ' Stevine ' (' Stevyn ' or * Stephen '), the !
fuller description being ' Laurentius Stephyn,
alias diet. Bedeman ' (WiLKiNS, iii. 168).

[Boase's Eegister of Exeter College (Oxford,
1879); Fasciculi Zizaniorum, pp. 273-5, 309-11,
-ed. Shirley, Rolls Series ; Wilkins's Concil. Magn.
Brit. iii. 157-65, 168 ; Wood's Hist, and Antiq.
of the Univ. of Oxford, i. 509 sq., ed. G-utch.]

K. L. P.

BEDERIC or DE BURY, HENRY
(Jl. 1380), theologian, was born at Bury, in
Suffolk, from which place he derived his
surname. Bale, whose account seems to
have been followed both by Pamphilus and
Pits, tells us that he embraced the mo-
nastic life very early by entering the Au-
gustinian foundation at Clare, in Suffolk,
sixteen miles south of Bury St. Edmunds, as
the bent of his whole mind was towards
letters. For the sake of increasing his faci-
lities for study, we are told that he visited
the most renowned resorts of the learned in
England, a phrase which Tanner translates
more definitely into several years' residence
at Oxford and Cambridge. He then passed
on to the Sorbonne divinity schools at Paris,
where, according to Pits, after long studies
and almost daily exercises in the schools, he
took his doctor's degree. On his return to
England he was appointed provincial of his
whole order for this country, and Pits enume-
rates his many qualifications for this office
— his uprightness of life and prudence in
business. Bale praises his keen intellect and
his readiness in public preaching (' decla-
mandas e suggesto conciones '), but qualifies
his admiration by adding that this was done
in papist fashion. The chief works of this
writer, as enumerated by the last-mentioned
biographer, are : ' Lectures on the Sentences
of Peter Lombard,' certain ' Qusestiones Theo-
logiae,' 'Sermones de Beata Virgine,' and
' Sermones per Annum.' Bandellus, accord-
ing to Bale, quotes him as an authority for
maintaining that the Virgin Mary was con-
ceived in original sin. Bale and Pits state
that John Bederic flourished about 1380;
but Pamphilus gives an account of his life
under the year 1373.

[Bale, 481 ; Pamphili Chronica Ordinis Frat.
Eremit. S. August. 61 ; Pits, 526 ; Tanner.]

T. A. A,

BEDFORD, COUNTESS OF (d. 1627).

[See RUSSELL, LUCY.]

BEDFORD, DUKE OP (d. 1435). [See
PLANTAGENET, JOHN.]

BEDFORD, DUKES and EARLS OF. [See

RUSSELL.]

BEDFORD, ARTHUR (1668-1745),
miscellaneous writer, was born at Tiddenham
in Gloucestershire 8 Sept. 1668. At the age
of sixteen he proceeded to Brasenose College,
Oxford, graduated B.A. in February 1687-8,
M.A. in July 1691, and was ordained in
1688. After acting as curate to Dr. Read of
St. Nicholas Church, Bristol, he was pre-
sented by the corporation of that town to
the Temple Church in 1692 (in Barretts
' History of Bristol ' 1672 is an obvious error
for 1692). He remained there for eight
years, and was presented by Joseph Langton
to the private living of Newton St. Loe in
Somerset (Preface to Scripture Ckron.ip-p. 1,2).
Here Bedford spent twenty-four years, was
made chaplain to Wriothesly, Duke of Bed-
ford, and occupied himself with many im-
portant questions. He joined Collier and
the other pamphleteers in their crusade
against the stage, and issued a series of
tracts, of which one became notorious, viz.,
' A Serious Remonstrance in behalf of the
Christian Religion against the Horrid Blas-
phemies and Impieties which are still used
in the English Playhouses' (1719). This
curious work cites a number of scripture
texts travestied, and 7,000 immoral senti-
ments collected from the English dramatists,
especially those of the last four years. The
great variety of the quotations shows that
the author had carefully studied the drama-
tists he condemned. Bedford also gave his
attention to church music ; his aim was to
promote a purer and simpler style of reli-
gious music. He published 'The Temple
Musick ' (Bristol, 1706), < The Great Abuses
of Music' (1711), and 'The Excellency of
Divine Music' (1733). Soon after removing
to Newton he projected a work on chronology,
on a suggestion in the preface to Archbishop
Ussher's * Annals' that astronomy might sim-
plify ancient chronology, but he suppressed
his papers for the time on hearing that Sir
Isaac Newton promised a work on the same
subject. In 1724 he was appointed chaplain
to the hospital of the Haberdashers' Company
at Hoxton, and he resumed the subject of
chronology by publishing in 1728 ' Animad-
versions on Sir I. Newton's book entitled
"The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
amended," ' and again in 1741 ' Scripture
Chronology demonstrated by Astronomical
Considerations.' These theories were fully
discussed in the ' Republick of Letters ' (ii.,
iii., vi.). Bedford's views were afterwards
superseded by the work of Hales.

In 1730 Bedford returned to the attack

Bedford

110

Bedford

against the stage by preaching a sermon at
St. Botolph's, Aldgate, against the newly
erected playhouse in Goodman's Fields, which
was very lucrative to Odell the proprietor,
and was associated with the fame of Garrick.
Whatever the effect of the sermon, the theatre
was demolished in 1746 (GoiJGH, Brit. To-
pography, i. 688). Throughout his career
Bedford published numerous sermons on doc-
trinal questions, and wae appointed late in
life chaplain to Frederick, Prince of Wales.
He was also an oriental scholar. He assisted
in preparing the Arabic psalter and New
Testament for the poor Christians in Asia
(letter relative to this work from Bedford tc
Sir Hans Sloane, preserved in the Sloane
MS. No. 4037). Another production of his
versatile mind is the 'Horse Mathematicae
Vacuse, a treatise on Golden and Ecliptic
Numbers' (1743), written as a pastime during
an attack of sciatica ; the manuscript of this
work was preserved in Sion College Library.
He met his death from making observations
on the comet of the year (13 Aug. 1745), and
was buried in the ground behind the hospital
at Hoxton, where he had resided for twenty-
one years (ASKE'S Burial Register}.

[G-ent. Mag. xv. 502; Barrett's History of
Bristol ; Republick of Letters, ii., iii., vi. ; Ellis's
Shoreditch; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Brit.Mus. Cat.;
Eawl. MSS. (Bodleian Library).] A. G-N.

BEDFORD, HILKIAH (1663-1724), a
nonjuring divine, was born in Hosier Lane,
near West Smithfield, where his father was
a mathematical instrument maker. The
family originally came from Sibsey, near Bos-
ton, in Lincolnshire, whence Hilkiah's grand-
father, a quaker, removed to London and set-
tled there as a stationer in the early part of
the seventeenth century. He was educated
at Bradley in Suffolk, and in 1679 proceeded
to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he
was elected as the first scholar on the founda-
tion of his maternal grandfather, William
Plat. In due time he was elected fellow of
St. John's, and having received holy orders
was instituted to the rectory of Wittering.
At the revolution he refused to take the oaths,
and was consequently ejected from his pre-
ferment. Like many other nonjurors he had
recourse to tuition, and kept a boarding house
at Westminster for the scholars of Westmin-
ster school. The venture was successful, and
he made a considerable fortune by it. He
became chaplain to Dr. Ken, the deprived
bishop of Bath and Wells, and also employed
himself busily in the field of literature. He
wrote a translation of ' An Answer to Fon-
tenelle's History of Oracles,' edited Peter
Barwick's * Vita Joannis Barwick/ and made

an excellent translation of the same work, en-
riching it with many valuable notes on the
lives and characters of the various persons
mentioned therein. He also published in 1710
a * Vindication of the Church of England,' and
also an ' Essay on the Thirty-nine Articles ; '
but, oddly enough, the book which made Hil-
kiah Bedford's name most famous and brought
him into most trouble was one which he did
not "write. In 1713 a folio volume was pub-
lished anonymously, entitled l The Hereditary
Eight of the Crown of England asserted,' in
an answer to Mr. Higden, who had been a
nonjuror, but recanted, and defended his re-
cantation in a work entitled l A View of the
English Constitution.' Bedford was sus-
pected of having written the 'Hereditary
Right,' and having been tried, according to
one authority, at the court of King's Bench,
according to another at the Guildhall, was
found guilty f of writing, printing, and pub-
lishing it. He was fined 1,000 marks and
imprisoned for three years, and after the ex-
piration of the period was to find sureties for
his good behaviour during life. He was also
condemned to appear before the court with •
a paper on his hat confessing the crime ; but
this part of the sentence was remitted in con-
sideration of his being a clergyman. It is
said that the real author was George Harbin,
also a nonjuror, the chaplain of Lord Wey-
mouth, and friend of Bishop Ken. In fact,
according to one authority, Harbin himself
avowed the authorship. It is also said that
Hilkiah Bedford knew who was the true au-
thor, but generously preferred to suffer un-
justly rather than betray his friend. The
most curious part of the story is that Lord
Weymouth, who knew nothing of the true
state of the case, actually sent Harbin to
Bedford with 100/. to relieve him under his
sufferings. Hilkiah Bedford became a bishop
among the nonjurors ; he left a son Thomas
(d. 1773) [q. v.']

[Bedford's Works ; Lathbury's History of the
Nonjurors; Nichols's Literarv Anecdotes, i. 167-
170.] J. H. 0.

BEDFORD, JOHN (1810-1879), Wes-
leyan, son of John and Elizabeth Bedford, was
a native of Yorkshire, having been born in
Wakefield, 27 July 1810. His father died
when he was about five years old. John was
educated in Wakefield. He studied during
several years in a solicitor's office, but, resolv-
ing to become a minister of the Wesleyan me-
thodists, he was appointed by the conference
in 1 831 to Glasgow. There he laboured hard
to free the chapels from the heavy debts with
which they were encumbered, and by which
their growth and development were effectu-

Bedford

III

Bedford

ally hindered. In an essay 011 l The Con-
stitution and Discipline of British Methodism '
he showed his mastery of the principles of
church government. Although Bedford's
ministry was afterwards mainly exercised
in Manchester and adjacent towns, he also
laboured with conspicuous success for a period
of three years in each of the towns, Birming-
ham, West Bromwich, and Derby.

In 1860 Bedford was appointed by the
conference secretary to the general chapel
committee, and thenceforward lived in Man-
chester. His orderly habits were of immense
service in administering the chapel affairs of
the connection. He would tolerate nothing
loose or irregular, and spared no pains to
place the trust property of the methodist
church on a secure basis. At the same time
he kept abreast of the thought and theology
of the day. His sermons were logical and
impressive, and he especially excelled as a
debater.

At the conference of 1858 he was elected
into the legal hundred to take the place
vacated by the death of Dr. Bunting. From
that time to the end of his life Bedford was
one of the foremost men in his own de-
nomination, and his breadth of sympathy
enabled him to exert a powerful influence
upon the religious world in general. After
being one of the secretaries of the conference
for several years, he was in 1867 unanimously
elected to the presidency of that assembly.
A partial failure of health in 1872 led him
to retire from the more onerous duties of
his secretaryship, but he continued to give
valuable counsel on chapel affairs and in
other departments till his death. He died
at Chorlton-cum-Hardy, near Manchester,
20 Nov. 1879, aged 69.

He published some occasional sermons and
speeches, and also a controversial correspond-
ence with the Rev. William SutclifFe on the
doctrine and system of the Wesleyan metho-
dists, which he very ably defended.

He married Miss Maria Gledhill of Brig-
house, in 1835, who, with two sons, survived
him.

[Minutes of the Methodist Conference, espe-
cially for the year 1880 ; Dr. Osborne's Outlines
of Wesleyan Bibiography.] W. B. L.

BEDFORD, PAUL (1792 P-1871), come-
dian, states, in his gossiping book of ' Recol-
lections and Wanderings/ that he was born
in Bath, and entered upon the stage through
the customary portal of amateur theatricals.
His first appearance was made at Swansea.
After playing at Southampton, Portsmouth,
and other towns in the south of England, he
obtained an engagement in Bath. The first

printed mention of him in connection with
this city which can be traced is 19 May 1819,.
when for his benefit he played Don Guzman
in ' Giovanni in London.' At this period he
had probably been a member of the company
four or five years. A reference to his playing
with Kean in * Richard III ' which appears in
his ' Recollections,' points to the spring of
1815 as the time of his first appearance. He
then proceeded to Dublin as one of a com-
pany engaged by Henry Harris of Covent
Garden to play in the new theatre in that
city. Among the company was Miss Green,
an actress of little reputation, who subse-
quently made her first appearance in London
with Bedford as Mrs. Bedford. The period
of the Dublin migration appears to have been
1820. Two successive tours in Scotland
with Madame Catalani followed, without
breaking the Dublin engagement, which only
ended when Bedford accepted an offer from
Sir Henry Bishop for Drury Lane. Bedford's
first appearance at this theatre took place as
Hawthorn in 'Love in a Village,' 2 Nov.
1824, Mrs. Bedford, late Miss Green, playing
Rosetta. The occasion was also signalised
by the first appearance of Terry, who took
the character of Justice Woodcock. On the
10th of the same month Bedford played
Bernhard. head ranger of the forest, in Soane's
version of ' Der Freischutz/ the fifth and the
most successful adaptation of Weber's great
opera which that year had achieved. Soon
afterwards he was promoted to Caspar in
the same opera. Through successive manage-
ments of Elliston, Price, Polhill and Lee,
and lastly Bunn, Bedford kept a position
chiefly due to his vocal capacity. In 1883 he
joined, still as a singer, the company at Covent
Garden under Macready, appearing in ' Fra
Diavolo,' ' Gustavus III,' and other operas.
With his engagement at the Adelphi, then
(1838) under the management of Yates, the
later and better known phase of Bedford's
popularity commenced. Blueskin, in ( Jack
Sheppard,' 1839, added to a reputation which
attained its climax in Jack Gong in the 'Green
Bushes,' 1845, and the Kinchin Cove in the
' Flowers of the Forest,' 1847. During many
years he played second low-comedy parts at
the Adelphi, with Edward Wright first, and
after his death with Mr. Toole. Memories of
his portly figure, and his deep and portentous
voice uttering his favourite sentence, 1 1 be-
lieve you, my boy/ are still current. Bed-
ford was a sound and trustworthy actor of
the rollicking sort. His figure and his voice
formed a conspicuous portion of his stock
in art. Recalling his singing in Adelphi
farces, in a whole series of which he appeared,
one is apt to forget that he obtained reputa-

Bedford

112

Bedford

tion in Lablaches great character of Don
Pasquale. A farewell benefit was given him
at the Queen's Theatre, 18 May 1868, when he
played for the last time the Kinchin Cove in a
selection from ' Flowers of the Forest.' He
had then been above fifty years on the stage.
He died of a dropsical complication about
10 P.M. Wednesday, 11 Jan. 1871, at Lindsey
Place, Chelsea, and was buried in Norwood
Cemetery.

[G-enest's Account of the English Stage ; Recol-
lections and Wanderings of Paul Bedford, 1864 ;
Era newspaper, 15 Jan. 1871; The Drama, vols.
iii. and vii.] J. K.

BEDFORD, THOMAS (Jl. 1650), theo-
logian, was prominent in religious contro-
versy between 1620 and 1650, but little is
known of his personal history. He was edu-
cated at Queens' College, Cambridge, took
degrees in arts, and afterwards proceeded
B.D. In a letter to Baxter (1650) he says
that l he sat at the feet of Bishop Davenant,'
who was Margaret professor of divinity from
1609 to 1621, and master of Queens' from
1614 to 1621. Davenant's successor in the
professorship was Dr. Samuel Ward, and
from these two divines Bedford affirms that
his own theology was mainly derived. A
Latin letter from Davenant to Ward on
baptismal regeneration was copied by Bed-
ford, and afterwards published by him, at
Usshers suggestion, as a preface to Jiis
thesis for the degree of B.D. held before Dr.
Ward.

In the above-mentioned letter to Baxter
Bedford explains that he was convinced of
' the efficacy of the sacrament to the elect '
by reading a book of Dr. Burges. This letter
was written because Baxter had appended
to his 'Plain Scripture Proof of Infants'
Church Membership ' a refutation of what
he considered Bedford's erroneous view of
baptism, and Bedford's object was to show
that their tenets were fundamentally the
same. This Baxter admitted in a reply called
* A friendly Accommodation with Mr. Bed-
ford'(1656).

In 1647 Bedford published an examination
of antinomianism, the substance of which
was taken from lectures he had given in the
chapel of St. Antholine's parish, London. He
received the rectorship of St. Martin Out-
wich in the city of London some short time
before 1649, for in that year he dedicated his
' Sacramental Instructions ' to the congrega-
tion as his i first-fruits ' to them ; and Thomas
Pierce, the former rector, had been seques-
trated a little before (WALKER, Sufferings
of the Clergy). How long Bedford continued
as rector is not certain, but Matthew Smal-

wood was appointed previously to the Resto-
ration (v. NEWCOURT, Rep. i. 420).

The only political sentiment Bedford shows
is when, in his l Examination of the Com-
passionate Samaritan,' he urges the right
and duty of the civil power to punish for
heretical opinions. His theological writings
are marked by a temperance alien to his
time, and show an extensive reading, especi-
ally in the fathers of the church and in the
continental theology of his time.

His works are : I. l The Sinne unto Death,'
1621. 2. ' A Treatise of the Sacrament/
1638. 3. f Examination of some of the Chief
Points of Antinomianism,' and appended to
it ' An Examination of a Pamphlet entitled
" The Compassionate Samaritan," ' 1647.

4. ' Some Sacramental Instructions,' 1649.

5. ' Vindiciss Gratise Sacramentalis,' 1650.

[Davenant's Baptismal Eegeneration, preface
to Eng. trans. ; Baxter's Works ; Watt's Bibl.
Brit. ; Brit. Mus. Cat.] . A. G-N.

BEDFORD, THOMAS (d. 1773), non-
juror and church historian, was the second
son of Hilkiah Bedford [q. v.], the non-
juror. He was educated at Westminster
School, and proceeded to St. John's College,
Cambridge, as sizar to Dr. Jenkin the master,
matriculating in December 1730. In conse-
quence of nonjuring principles he did not take
a degree, nor did he enter the established
church. He was admitted into orders by
the nonjurors, and became chaplain in the
family of Sir John Cotton, with whom he
afterwards resided at Angers. His next
home was in the county of Durham, where
his sister was married to George Smith, son
of Dr. John Smith, the learned editor of
Bede. Here Bedford prepared an edition of
Symeon of Durham's 'De Exordio atque
Procursu Dunhelmensis Ecclesiae libellus,'
from what he supposed to be an original or
contemporary manuscript in the cathedral
library ; from the same manuscript he added
'a continuation to the year 1154, and an
account of the hard usage Bishop William
received from Rufus,' and he prefaced the
work with a dissertation by Thomas Rudd
(GoTJGH, Brit. Topography, i. 329). This
book was published by subscription in 1732.

From Durham Bedford went to live in
Derbyshire, at Compton, near Ashbourne, and
officiated as minister to the nonjurors in
the neighbourhood. He wrote an historical
catechism in 1742. The first edition was
taken from the Abbe Fleury's ' Cate"chisme
Historique,' but the second was so much
altered that he omitted the abba's name
from the title-page. Bedford was a friend
of Ellis Farneworth, the translator, and is

Bedford

Bedingfield

.-said (NICHOLS, Anecdotes, ii. 392) to have
translated for him Fleury's ' Short History
of the Israelites/ published in Farneworth's
name, in order to raise a few pounds for his
friend when in pecuniary distress. Bedford
lived at Compton till his death in February
1773.

[Nichols's Anecdotes; i. 169, ii. 392, vii. 698 ;
•Gough's British Topography (under Durham) ;
Cole's Athense ; Brit. Mus. Cat.] A. G-N.

BEDFORD, WILLIAM (1764 P-1827),
admiral, was made a lieutenant in the navy
•on 12 Sept. 1781. Of his earlier appoint-
ments there is no published record ; but he
served during the Russian armament of 1791 as
a lieutenant of the Edgar. He was afterwards
in the Formidable, and in May 1794 was
first-lieutenant of the Queen, carrying the
flag of Rear-admiral Gardner. In the par-
tial action of 29 May the captain of the
Queen was severely wounded. Bedford
liad thus the honour of commanding the
Queen on 1 June, and for his service on
that memorable day was, on the captain's
death some weeks afterwards, posted into
the vacancy (15 Aug. 1794). He continued
in the Queen with Sir Alan Gardner, and
was present in Lord Bridport's action off
Lorient on 23 June 1795. Afterwards he
moved with Sir Alan to the Royal Sovereign,
and continued with him till he struck his
flag in August 1800. Bedford was then
appointed to the Leyden, of 68 guns, in the
North Sea, and was present at the attack on
the invasion flotilla, 15 Aug. 1801, on which
occasion he offered to serve as a volunteer
under the junior officer in command of the
boats. The offer, however, was declined by
Lord Nelson (Nelson Despatches, iv. 467).
In 1803 he was captain of the Thunderer,
74 guns, and in 1805, in the Hibernia, flag-
ship of his old chief, now. Lord Gardner,
commanding the blockade of Brest. After-
wards, in 1809, he was flag-captain in the
Caledonia with Lord Gambier, in the expedi-
tion to Basque Roads, from which, though he
escaped blameless, it was impossible to de-
rive any credit. He attained flag-rank on
12 Aug. 1812, and served in the North
Sea under Sir William Young as captain of
the fleet. He had no further service, though
on 19 July 1821 he was promoted to the rank
of vice-admiral. He died in October 1827.

In 1808 Bedford married Susan, one of
the nine daughters of Captain Robert Fan-
shawe, commissioner of the navy at Ports-
mouth, and was thus a brother-in-law of
Sir Thomas Byam Martin, comptroller of
the navy, and of Admiral Sir Robert Stop-
ford.

VOL. IV.

[Marshall's Eoyal Nav. Biog. ii. (vol. i.), 574 ;
Gent. Mag. xcvii. ii. 465.] J. K. L.

BEDINGFELD, THOMAS (1760-1789),
poet, second son of Edward Bedingfeld, Esq.,
of York, and Mary, daughter of Sir John
Swinburne, of Capheaton, Northumberland,
was born at York on 18 Feb. 1760, and edu-
cated at the university of Liege. In 1780
he was placed in the office of Mr. John
Davidson, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with a
view to the study of conveyancing. There he
became acquainted with George Pickering and
James Ellis, who, together with Mr. David-
son's sons, formed a literary fraternity not
very common in a lawyer's office. In 1784
Bedingfeld removed to Lincoln's Inn, and
continued his legal studies under Matthew
Duane, the eminent conveyancer, and his
nephew, Mr. Bray. In 1787 he commenced
practice as a chamber counsel — being, as a
catholic, incapable of being called to the
bar — and he was rising rapidly in his pro-
fession when his career was terminated by
his death, which occurred in London on
5 Nov. 1789. In person he is said to have
resembled his celebrated contemporary, Wil-
liam Pitt, so much as sometimes to have
been mistaken for him by the London popu-
lace.

His poems were surreptitiously published

in London—' Poems by T. B g d,

Esq., of the Inner Temple/ 1800. After-
wards they were collected lay James Ellis,
one of his youthful associates, and published
under the title of l Poetry, Fugitive and
Original; by the late Thomas Bedingfeld,
Esq., and Mr. George Pickering. With notes
and some additional pieces by a Friend/
Newcastle, 1815, 8vo. Dedicated to Sir
Walter Scott. The most laboured of his
poems is ' The Triumph of Beauty/ addressed
to the Duchess of Devonshire on her success-
ful canvass for Charles James Fox in 1784 ;
but his best-known piece is the ' Instructions
to a Porter/ which has appeared in several
collections.

[Memoir by James Ellis, 1815; Eichardson's
Local Historian's Table Book, Historical Divi-
sion, ii. 327, iii. 331 ; Gent. Mag. lix. 1058,
1127 ; European Mag. xvi. 392.] T. C.

BEDINGFIELD or BENIFIELD, SIR
HENRY (1509 P-1583), of Oxborough, in
Norfolk, supporter of Queen Mary, was born
about 1509. He was the son of Sir Edmund
Benifield, likewise of Oxborough, who was
knighted by Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk,
on the fall of Montdidier in 1523 (HOLINSHED,
ii. 830), and was later appointed steward, or
rather gaoler, of Lady Katharine of Arragon

Bedingfield

114

Bedingfield

during the last years of her life, when living
in retirement at Kimbolton. In this capacity
he seems to have treated her with something
of the harshness used by his son towards
Lady Elizabeth. Sir Henry succeeded to
the estates of his father in the year ] 553. He
was one of the very earliest to acknowledge
Mary as queen on the death of Edward VI,
and is said to have rallied round her with
140 fully armed men. In reward for his
services on this occasion he was made a
privy councillor, and his name appears at
the head of several orders in council for the
year 1553 (BurgTiley Papers, vol. i.) He is
also said to have received a pension of 100A
a year, and to have been enfeoffed in part of
the forfeited estates of Sir Thomas Wyatt
(BLOMEFIELD, History of Norfolk, 178).

In March 1554 the Princess Elizabeth was
committed to the Tower on a charge of com-

Elicity in Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion. On
May the constable of the Tower was re-
placed by Sir Henry Bedingfield, with a
special guard of 100 soldiers, in blue liveries ;
and, according to Foxe, Elizabeth was in
constant fear of murder at the hands of her
new gaolers. But in this she did her keeper
wrong, who was merely taking the steps
necessary for carrying out his orders to
conduct her to Woodstock. The journey
was commenced under Bedingfield's charge
on 19 May, on which day ' with a company
of rakehells ' she was conveyed by water to
Richmond, and thence to Woodstock. Sir
Henry Bedingfield's conduct is said by both
Foxe and Holinshed to have been extremely
harsh, not only on the way but also during
the full year during which she was under
his care. He is even charged with the im-
pertinence of himself sitting down after a
long journey to have his boots pulled off" in
a chair of state that had been specially pre-
pared for his royal prisoner. But at least
he may be allowed the credit of his own
apology, ' that if the case were hers he would
as willingly serve her grace as now he did
the queen's [Mary] majesty.' For he was a
careful guardian of Elizabeth's life, and,
according to Foxe (viii. 678), it was only
owing to the strict injunctions left behind
him against the admittance of any one —
even with the queen's orders — to Eliza-
beth's presence during his absence, that she
was not made away with by Gardiner's
creature Bassett. Sir Henry was released
from his charge in June 1555. During the
years 1553, 1554, and 1557, he sat in parlia-
ment as one of the knights of the shire for
Norfolk, but was not returned after Eliza-
beth's accession. In 1553-4 his name appears
as one of two commissioners appointed to

receive the payments in compoundment of
knighthood throughout England (Herald"
and Genealogist, v. 18, 19). On Elizabeth's
accession, according to Foxe, Sir Henry Bed-
ingfield once more made his appearance at
court, with apologies for his previous con-
duct ; and the common story runs that the-
queen contented herself with discouraging
his attendance there, and ' with a nipping
word : ' ' If we have any prisoner whom we
would have sharply and straitly kept, we
will send for you ! ' (FoXE, vi. 554). She
even appears to have visited, or at least to-
have purposed to visit him at Oxborough in
one of her royal progresses (1578).

For the rest of his life Sir Henry Beding-
field seems to have lived quietly as a country-
gentleman. His name occurs every now and'
then in the State papers, as one of the dis-
affected and an adherent of the old religion ;
as, for example, in vol. Ix. (357) where the
justices of Suffolk write to Cecil that bonds
have been taken from Sir Henry Bedingfield
for his good behaviour and appearance before-
the privy council, in company with several
others who would not subscribe to the Act
of Uniformity (Dec. 1569). In 1578 he was
excused appearance before the same body on
account of sickness ; and, later, in 1581, one-
Thomas Scot writes to Leicester that ' being"
a preacher, a Christian, and an Englishman,
he thinks it right to disclose that the papists
are favoured by Sir Henry Bedingfield r
(State Papers, cxl. 12).

Sir Henry Bedingfield died in the year
1583, shortly after the death of his wife,
being, apparently, still an adherent of the
old religion. He was buried at Oxborough,
where a fine monument was erected com-
memorating his virtues. In his later years
the family of which he was the head seems
to have been gradually making its peace with
the government ; for his second son Thomas
[q. v.] was one of Elizabeth's pensioners, and
his great-grandson, who succeeded to the
estates in 1590 while still an infant, was
certainly described as a ( schismatic,' that is
a protestant, by his Jesuit cousin Edward in
1614. He had probably been educated in
the new religion, to which faith the elder
descendants of Sir Henry Bedingfield seem
henceforth to have adhered, while the younger-
branch, the Bedingfields of Redlington, con-
tinued for more than a century to furnish
members to the Society of Jesus.

[Foxe ; Strickland, under Katharine of Arra-
gon, Mary, and Elizabeth ; Blomefield's History
of Norfolk ; Haynes's Burghley State Papers ;
Sir Harris Nicolas's Proceedings of Privy Coun-
cil, vii. 344 ; Bethel's Baronetage, ii. 196, &c. ;
Fronde's History of England ; Foley's Records-

Bedingfield

Bedingfield

of the English Province of the Society of Jesus,
v. 571. &c. ; and aiithorities cited above].

T. A. A.

BEDINGFIELD, SIB HENRY (1633-
1687), chief justice of the common pleas for
nine months in James II's reign, was fourth
son of John Bedingfield, of Halesworth, in
Suffolk, and a nephew of Sir Thomas Beding-
field [q. v.]. Sir Henry's mother was Joyce,
daughter and coheiress of Edmund Morgan
of Lambeth, and he was born about 1633.
The family mansion at Halesworth is de-
scribed by Suckling (ii. 335) as being, in
spite of modern alterations, ' still indicative
of former consequence.' He became a student
of Lincoln's Inn, of which his father was a
bencher, in May 1650,- was called to the bar
just seven years later ; received the coif in
1683, and was shortly after knighted and
made king's serjeant. In 1684 he was elected
sub-steward of Great Yarmouth. From Roger
North we learn almost all that is known of his
character and professional reputation. That
writer tells us how the proposal to appoint him
to a seat on the bench was seized by Lord
Jeffreys as an opportunity of thwarting and
humiliating Lord Keeper Guilford. l There
was one Serjeant Bedingfield, a grave but
rather heavy lawyer, but a good churchman,
and loyal by principle. His lordship (Guil-
ford) had cast his eye upon him, and intended
to nominate him to the king for supplying a
place in one of the benches then vacant, but
thought fit first to speak with him. Being
sent for he came, and was told what was
designed for him. He was exceeding grate-
ful in acknowledgments of so great a favour
and honour done him by his lordship in
thinking of him without his seeking, and
said he should ever own his preferment as
long as he lived to his lordship, and to no
other person whatever. All which was well.
This serjeant had a brother, a woollen draper
in London (afterwards lord mayor), who was
a creature and companion of the Lord Jef-
freys. That chief, understanding some way j
that his friend's brother was to be a judge j
by the lord keeper's means, sent for the j
draper, and told him plainly that if his j
brother would not take the judge's place, as
of his provision and interest, and not my
lord keeper's, or if he so much as went to
the lord keeper on such an account, he would
oppose him, and he should not be a judge at
all. After this the poor serjeant, against his j
desire, was forced to conform ; his spirits were
not formed for the heroicks.' He was not, !
in fact, appointed until February 1686, after
Lord Guilford's death. In April of the same
year he was further promoted, upon Jeffreys's
recommendation, to the chief-judgeship of

his court, in the room of Sir Thomas Jones.
As the latter was, according to Bramston,
removed, with three other judges, on account
of his l opinion as to the dispensing power
with the test,' we must infer that Sir Henry
raised no objection to that exercise of the
royal prerogative. During the nine months
that he presided in the common pleas he
does not seem to have left any mark on the
legal or general history of his time. He died
suddenly, < in a fitt of apoplexie,' on Sunday,
6 Feb. 1687, while in the act of receiving
the sacrament in Lincoln's Inn chapel. A.
mural monument, erected by his widow, in
Halesworth church, enumerates his virtues,
and informs us that his wife bore him two
daughters. They both died unmarried. He
had several brothers, one of whom, Sir
Robert, was lord mayor of London in 1707.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges of England ;
North's Life of Lord Guilford, 246 ; Suckling's
Suffolk, ii. 337, 342 ; Bramston's Autobiography,
221, 223, 268.] a. V. B.

BEDINGFIELD, THOMAS, (<*. 1613),

gentleman pensioner to Queen ' Elizabeth,
was son of Sir Henry Bedingfield (d. 1583)
[q. v.]. He published in 1 573 'Cardanus Com-
forte translated into English and published
by comaundment of the Right Hon. the Earl
of Oxenford,' 4to, black letter. There is a de-
dication to the Earl of Oxford, dated 1 Jan.
1571-2, which is followed by a letter to the
translator, and a copy of verses to the reader,
both written by the Earl of Oxford ; and to
these succeed addresses to the reader in
prose and verse by Thomas Churchyard. In
1584 Bedingfield published ' The Art of
Riding, conteining diverse necessarie in-
structions, demonstrations, helps and cor-
rections apperteining to Horsemanship . . .
by Claudio Corte, brieflie reduced into cer-
teine English discourses,' 4to ; and this was
followed in 1595 by ' The Florentine His-
torie written in the Italian tongue by Nic-
colo Macchiavelli, citizen and secretarie of
Florence, and translated into English by
T. B., Esq.,' folio. Bedingfield died in 1613
(Sxow's Survey of London, ed. 1720, ii.
65).

[Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica ;
Works.] A. H. B.

BEDINGFIELD, SIB THOMAS (1593 ?3
1661), was one of the justices of the common
pleas appointed by the two houses of par-
liament in 1648. The Bedingfields are men-
tioned by Camden (i. 371) as * a famous and
ancient family.' They claim to have come
in with William of Normandy, from whom
they received lands in Suffolk and else-

i 2

Bedingfield

116

Bedloe

where. The judge's father, Thomas, be-
longed to a younger branch of this family,
and lived at Darsham Hall, in Suffolk,
which he had purchased. Philip, the eldest
son, succeeded to Darsham, but sold it to
his younger brother, the subject of this
article. The date of his birth is uncertain,
but in 1608 he was admitted a student at
Gray's Inn, was called to the bar in 1615,
and appointed Lent reader in 1636. He was
knighted by the king on his appointment as
attorney-general of the duchy of Lancaster.
In 1642, the House of Lords paid him a
higher though less welcome compliment in
assigning to him the delicate and important
task of defending Sir Edward Herbert, the
attorney-general, impeached by the commons
for his share in the attempt to arrest the
five members. In obedience to the lords,
Bedingfield, Gardiner, and others appeared
as counsel on the first day of the trial ; but
Mr. Serjeant Wylde, the manager of the im-
peachment, objected to counsel being allowed
in a case of privilege. These objections
were overruled by the lords, and next day
Sir Edward's counsel were peremptorily
ordered ( to begin with assisting him in his
defence, upon their perils.' Either from a
wholesome fear of the commons' vengeance,
or from want of sympathy with their client's
cause, counsel endeavoured to excuse them-
selves on the plea of not having come pre-
pared, the question being one of privilege.
Being a second time commanded to plead,
* Sir Thomas Bedingfield, one of the counsel,
answered that he desired some time to pre-
pare for it, not being now provided.' Gar-
diner gave a similar reply ; whereupon the
lords, having deliberated in private, ordered
the two counsel to be committed to the
Tower for contempt of the house in refusing
to plead (State Trials, iv. 127). Clarendon
(v. 47) says that counsel l positively refused
to meddle further in the business or to make
any defence for the attorney,' in consequence
of the threat of the commons that ' whoever
presumed to be of counsel with a person
accused by the commons of England should
be taught better to know his duty, and
should have cause to repent it.' But, from
the subsequent attitude of the two houses
towards Sir Thomas, it seems unlikely that
mere cowardice could have been the full ex-
planation of his refusal. Had this been his
character, the one house would not have so
persistently voted for his promotion,nor would
the other have as persistently vetoed it. Thus,
in the years 1646-7, we find him three times
proposed by the commons as one of the com-
missioners of the great seal, and each time
rejected by the lords (WHITELOCKE, 224,

234, 240). However, in October 1648, the
commons voted that Sir Thomas Bedingfield
and others should be called to the degree of
serjeant-at-law, and that he should also be

| made a justice of the common pleas. To
this the lords assented, and he was sworn

! in a month later. This position he held only
for about two months, for he was one of the

j six judges who, after the king's execution,

I ' were not satisfied to hold ' under the new
commissions from the parliament, and he
accordingly retired from the bench. How
he spent the eleven years of the interregnum

! is not recorded, but on the restoration of
the monarchy Sir Thomas Bedingfield was
among the first batch of serjeants-at-law
appointed by Charles II. He died in less
than a year after this appointment, 24 March

j 1661, and was buried in Darsham church.

I Darsham Hall remained for some time in his

I family, but passed to the Rons family before
the end of the century.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges of England ;
Whitelocke's Memorials, 224, 234, 240, 342, 348,
356,378; Suckling's Suffolk, ii. 222; State Trials,
iv. 127.] G-. V. B.

BEDLOE, WILLIAM (1650-1680),
dishonest adventurer and ' evidence ' in the
Popish plot, was born on 20 April 1650,
at midday, at Chepstow. We must receive
with doubt whatever he reported of his family,
his boastfulness and unveracity being noto-
rious ; but he ' always kept a diary of his most
remarkable adventures for the space of ten
years together, which was the duration of the
scene in which he acted most of his cheats.'
He was believed to be of very low extraction,
but, according to his own account, his grand-
fatUer, on the paternal side, was Major George
Bedloe, a younger son in an old Irish family,
said to have been a valiant soldier and skilful
versifier, leaving manuscripts behind him.
Having crossed to England in 1633, George
Bedloe married a merchant's widow in Lon-
| don, by whom he had one son, Isaac, and two
| daughters. He and his wife died in 1641,
| leaving property to Isaac Bedloe, who became
i a soldier in the civil wars, and received nine
I wounds. He was said to be jocose and skilled
| in music. He went to Ragland, then go-
I verned by the Marquis of Worcester. After
the surrender he fell ill of fever at Chepstow,
and disguised his name as Beddoe. On St.
David's Day, 1 March 1649, he married a
young lady belonging to that place. By her
he had three sons, William, the eldest, Charles,
and James ; also two daughters, Alice and
Mary. Charles was shipwrecked and drowned
| in tlie Baltic. William was ' destined for a
j drier death on shore.' Alice is reported to have

Bedloe

117

Bedloe

married Lord Duncannon's eldest son, and to
have died of a surfeit from sweetmeats. Mary
remained unmarried, living with her mother at
Chepstow. But after twelve years of widow-
hood Mrs. Beddoe, alias Bedloe, took another
husband, one Taynton, who had trailed a pike
at Chepstow Castle under Thomas Nanfan.
He was an ingenious contriver of clocks and
watches, but made his living chiefly as a cob-
bler. William Bedloe worked with him at
this trade, and it is here that we are on safe
ground. If we suppose the reported genea-
logy to be true, it merely proves that William
Bedloewasthe most disreputable of his family.
If it were false, his forefathers could scarcely
have surpassedhim in wickedness. He claimed
for himself the attainment of proficiency in
Latin, heraldry, and mathematics. David
Lewis, the Jesuit, who was afterwards exe-
cuted at Monmouth, took notice of the boy
when he was twelve years old, and taught him
much, with intent of converting him. When
aged twenty, in 1670, he travelled to Lon-
don with one hundred pounds in his pocket,
and lived near two Jesuits, Father Harman
and Father Johnson. They dined at Locket's
ordinary, and wrere said to adjourn to Mother
Cresswell's. Bedloe certainly lived a sharping
life in London before he went to Dunkirk,
where he was recommended by the lady ab-
bess to Sir John Warner, who sent him to
Father Harcourt, the Jesuit, afterwards exe-
cuted on the evidence of Gates. By his own
account, William Bedloe went to Rome,
Flanders, Spain, &c., carrying letters ; but
opened them and made forged copies, which
he delivered, retaining the originals. He
bore an alias of Captain Williams, under
which he cheated the Prince of Orange, and
from him, by fraud, obtained a captain's com-
mission. But this captaincy was as apocry-
phal as the ' invisible degree ' of doctor won
by Titus Gates at Salamanca. Five years of
varied service, intrigues, frauds, and broils,
prepared him, with occasional employment by
the Jesuits, for emerging into notice as a be-
trayer and forsworn spy. He declared that
Titus Gates had anticipated and outstripped
him in making revelations of the popish plot.
At the beginning of August 1678, he confessed
that he l had once been an ill man, but desired
to be so no more.' He wrote from Bristol,
offering to make startling declarations. The
Earl of Danby gave little credit to him ; and
in revenge for this, Bedloe asserted that a
bribe was offered to him by Danby, who pro-
mised that he should be supported in what-
ever country he chose to retire into, if he
would suppress his threatened revelations.
The commons accepted his account of the
murder of Sir E. B. Godfrey, and gave him

500/. The extant portrait of Bedloe, prefixed
to his ' Narrative ' of the fire of London having
been caused by the papists, shows a villain-
ous countenance, harsh and forbidding, full
of malice and revenge. With beetle brows,
hard mouth, and savage eyes, wre see the man,
unscrupulous, unrelenting, as he in later life
became. Dressed in finery beyond his sta-
| tion, his arrogance is as self-evident as his
•• malice. He declared that Counsellor Reading
! had tried to tamper with him for suppression
of his testimony, and Reading was condemned
to a year's imprisonment, with exposure for
an hour in the pillory, and to pay a fine of
1,000/. Bedloe made many accusations and
found willing associates. The king's chemist,
Dr. James, deposed that one Dr. Smith, a
papist, tried to make him poison Bedloe with
a pill on 20 March 1679. By this time he was
almost as popular as Gates. He received ten
' pounds weekly allowance from the royal funds,
and lived at the rate of two thousand a year.
Rich dupes were plentiful. The citizens
I feasted him. His folio pamphlets, with cop-
perplate portrait prefixed, had a large sale.
He attributed the most extensive plots and
execrable crimes, falsely, to the Romanists.
I He now married the elder of two sisters, re-
' puted co-heirs of six hundred pounds per
annum, and Richard Duke wrote a clever
buffooning poem on the marriage as an ' Epi-
thalamium.' It was popular as a broadside,
and is preserved in the Roxburghe collection
(iii. 835), reprinted in ' Roxburghe Ballads '
(iv. 165). It begins, ' Goddess of Rhime, that
didst inspire the Captain with Poetic fire.'
{ This poem was issued at Christmas 1679. The
lady's name was Anna Purifoy, daughter of
j an Irishman, Colonel Purifoy. After Bedloe's
marriage he did not remain long in London,
where he had printed and published a folio
tragedy in 1679, entitled ' The Excommuni-
cated Prince, or the False Relique : a Tra-
gedy, as it was acted by his Majesty's Servants,
being the Popish Plot in a Play. By Captain
William Bedloe.' It is believed to have been
written by Thomas Walter, an Oxford scholar
of Jesus College. The sub-title was added to
gain a sale, and it was dedicated to George
Villiers, second duke of Buckingham. The
hero is Teimurazez, prince of Georgia, who is
excommunicated by the pope. Bedloe had
travelled on the continent as courier to Lord
Belasyse, against whom he afterwards swore
acts of high treason ; but he pretended to have
been a soldier, though he never saw a battle.
He went to Bristol with his wife, and lived
on Stonie Hill for half a year. Then he was
recalled to London in the middle of July
1680. He was now, with Gates, experiencing
the fickleness of fortune and the waning of

Bedloe

118

Bedwell

popularity. Sir George Jeffreys, on the bench,
told him sharp truths, and he felt his power
deserting him. He retreated back to Bristol,
where he had left his wife Anna, v/ho, in her
illness, summoned him, at beginning of Au-
gust. He fell ill after his hurried journey,
having l broken his gall ' by violent riding. He
was said to be past cure. At the commence-
ment of the assizes on 16 Aug., Sir Francis
North, chief justice of the common pleas, at-
tended Bedloe, and took his dying deposition.
There had been a promise of fresh revelations,
but none of importance were forthcoming. He
reiterated old statements as really true, his !
wife being beside him. James Bedloe made '
immediate application for money from King
Charles, through North, next day. This ap- j
plication, ' that his sickness was very change-
able, and that money was required for his
subsistence,' explains the persistence of the
family in the accusation of the Jesuits. Wil-
liam's death took place on Friday, 20 Aug.
1680. Richard Duke, who had written <a
panegyrick upon Gates,' beginning ' Of all the
grain our nation yields,' again came forward
with a fresh lampoon, unsigned, beginning,
Sad fate ! our valiant Captain Bedloe,
In earth's cold bed lies with his head low.
The body lay exposed, as if in state, at
Merchant Taylors' Hall, Bristol, on Sunday,
and was in the evening buried within the
mayor's chapel, called the ' Gaunts.' Thomas
Palmer preached a funeral sermon on Romans
xiv. 12, 13. Many dreary poems and livelier
pasquinades appeared on the occasion, several
of which are reprinted in the Ballad Society's
twenty-first publication, 1881.

To enter fully into particulars of Bedloe's
numerous allegations and sworn depositions
would occupy too much space. His chief work
is l A Narrative and Impartial Discovery of
the Horrid Popish Plot, carried on for the
Burning and Destroying the Cities of London
and Westminster, with their suburbs, &c. ;
setting forth several Consults, Orders, and
Resolutions of the Jesuits concerning the
same. By Captain William Bedloe, lately
engaged in that horrid design, and one of the
Popish Committee for carrying on such fires,
1679.' Next in importance, for his history,
is l The Examination of Captain William Bed-
low (sic), Deceased, relating to the Popish
Plot, taken in his last sickness by Sir Francis
North ; together with the Narrative of Sir
Francis North at the Council Board, 1680,
appointed by the commons to be printed.' It
need scarcely be added that every part of this
wretched man s evidence is tainted and un-
trustworthy. His bitter spite against Scroggs
and Jeffreys, when they no longer accepted
his testimony, showed that his charges against

the Romanists proceeded as muchfrom hatred
as from greed. He and his brother James
had been accustomed to cheat in company,
exchanging the post of master and man in
turn. When, in the summer of 1677, he ar-
rived at Ghent, he there took the name of
Lord Newport. When he passed into Spain
he bore the name of Lord Gerard at Bilbao ;
thence he went to Valladolid, Santiago to
Corunna, and embarked for England. After
his death a book was published, called ' Truth
made Manifest, or the Dead Man's Testimony
to the Living ; being a composition of the
last sayings of Captain William Bedlow.'
This gave Thomas Palmer's sermon. Among
the poems not already mentioned are these :
In Luttrell Collection, i. 9, t An Elegy upon
the Unfortunate Death of Captain William
Bedloe, who departed this life on Friday,
20 Aug. 1680.' It begins, 'How fickle is
the state of all mankind,' and eulogises him
as ' blest with a kind wife ; ' ending with the
declaration that ' Had he liv'd longer he had
more made known.' In Luttrell Collection,
i. 112, is 'England's Obligation to Captain
William Bedlowe, the grand Discoverer of
this most Horrid Plot ; ' printed by Thomas
Dawks, 1679. It is meant to be serious, be-
ginning ' The World is all on fire in Jesus'
name, By quick nosed Jesuites who hunt for
2fame,' and ends with an acrostic on ' William
Bedlowe.' An l Elegie on the Death of Cap-
tain William Bedloe ' begins : —

Could Bedlow fall so softly to his tomb,
Without a comet to foretell his doom ?

But the shortest and severest epitaph is this,
from an early manuscript : —

The Lord is pleas'd when man does cease to sin ;
The divil is pleas'd when he a soul do's win ;
The world is pleas'd when ev'ry rascal dies :
So all are pleas'd, for here Will Bedlow lies.

[Life and Death of Captain William Bedloe,
1681; folio pamphlets on the Popish Plot;
Roxburghe Coll. of Ballads ; Luttrell Coll. of
Broadsides, Elegies, and Poems ; The Righteous
Evidence witnessing the Truth, being an account
of the sickness and death-bed expressions of Mr.
William Bedlow, &c., with his two last prayers,
London, 1680 ; Defence of the Innocency of the
English Jesuites relating to the crimes unjustly
charged on them by E. C. in his Narrative, 1680 ;
Granger's Biog. Hist. England, iv. 202, 203 (a
very slight account) ; Reed's Biog. Dramatica.]

J. W. E.

BEDWELL, THOMAS (d. 1595), mathe-
matician and military engineer, matriculated
as a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in
November 1562. He became a scholar in
the same year ; in 1566-7 he took the degree
of B.A. ; he was subsequently elected fellow ;

Bedwell

Bedwell

and in 1570 commenced M.A. He was ap-
pointed to the office of keeper of the ordnance
stores in the Tower. He is said to have
been the first to project 'the bringing of the
waters of the Lea from Ware to London.
In conjunction with Frederico Genebelli he
was employed as a military engineer in
.strengthening the works at Tilbury and
Gravesend at the time of the Spanish Ar
mada. He died in April 1595.

Thomas Bedwell was uncle of William
Bedwell [q. v.], the Arabic scholar, who
.speaks of him as l our English Tycho.' The
two are sometimes confounded, chiefly, it
would appear, on account of an ambiguity
on the title-page of the first of two works
published by the nephew in explanation of
a 'ruler' or mesolabium architectonicum
which the uncle had devised to facilitate
carpenters' calculations (see the Macclesfield
'Collection of Corresp. of Scient. Men, Oxford,
1841, p. 1 seq.).

[Cooper's Atheuse Cantabrigienses, ii. 539 ;
.De Morgan's Arithmetical Books, p. 35 ; Notes
.and Queries, 2nd ser. x. 29, 74.] T. W-R.

BEDWELL, WILLIAM (d. 1632), ne-
phew of Thomas Bedwell [q. v.], and father of
Arabic studies in England, was born in 1561
or 1562, for his tombstone in the chancel of
Tottenham church makes him aged 70 at his
death on 5 May 1632. The place of his birth
.seems to be indicated by the words ' Hasling-
burgensis A. Saxo ' on the title-page of his
Arabic edition of the epistles of St. John. He
was educated at Cambridge, where, according
to the university registers, he was A.B. in
1584-5, and A.M. in 1588. He became
.scholar of Trinity in May 1584, but was
never fellow of his college. In 1601 he be-
came rector of St. Ethelburgh's, Bishopsgate
Street. He was selected in 1604 as one
•of the Westminster company of translators
•of the Bible (the statement often repeated
that he was with Sir H. Wotton at Venice
is due to a mistake of Lilly (Life, edition of
1715, p. 23), who confused him with W.
Bedell, bishop of Kilmore). The president
of that company was Dr. Lancelot Andre wes,
and by him Bedwell was presented in Octo-
ber 1607 to the vicarage of Tottenham High
Cross. Andrewes, as we learn from Ca-
•saubon (Ep. 821), continued to encourage
Bedwell's studies after his promotion to the
.see of Ely. These studies embraced all the
oriental languages, but were especially
directed to Arabic, which, from the paucity
of helps and texts, was then very little known
in northern Europe. The nature of Bedwell's
interest in so difficult a study is explained
in the preface to the epistles of John already

mentioned, where he lays stress alike on the
practical importance of a tongue which was
the only language of religion and the chief
language of diplomacy and business from
the Fortunate Islands to the China Seas,
and on the value for letters and science of
a literature so rich in theological, medical,
and mathematical works, and in translations
of ancient authors. He also expresses just
views of the use of Arabic in the elucida-
tion of Hebrew words, as exemplified in the
writings of the mediaeval Rabbins. His re-
putation as an Arabist had extended to the
continent before 1603 (CASATJB. Ep. 344) j
Erpenius, when he visited England about
1608, found particular satisfaction in making
the acquaintance of Bedwell, and Casaubon
was his correspondent, and watched with
impatient interest the progress of an Arabic
lexicon which he had commenced to com-
pile before 1610 (Ep. 663: < Bedwellus Lexi-
con urget suum. 0 virum bonum doctum
et simplicem ! '), and, indeed, apparently be-
fore Erpenius's visit to England (Ep. 662).
In 1612 Bedwell went over to Ley den to see
Scaliger's Arabic collections with a letter
from Casaubon (Ep. 821) to Heinsius, and
during this visit he published there the
epistles of John in Arabic and Latin. The
preface is dated from the Hague, 28 Sept.
1612, N.S. In 1615 there appeared at Lon-
don, under the title 'Mohammedisimpostura,'
Bedwell's translation of a polemical dialogue
which had been printed anonymously in
Arabic (s. I. et «.) some years before, together
with the ' Arabian Trudgman ' and an 'Index'
of the Suras of the Koran, which Bedwell
bad studied in manuscripts. The 'Trudg-
man ' is an explanation of Arabic words used
by Western writers about the East, and
bears evidence of very wide reading in all
works of this sort from the Byzantines down-
wards.

Bedwell had also occupied himself with
mathematics ever since he was at Cambridge,
and in 1612 put out a little table, ' Trigoni-
um Architectonicum,' for the use of car-
penters. This was followed in 1614 by a
treatise on geometrical numbers, which is
nominally an enlarged translation of Lazarus
Schonerus's ' De Numeris Geometricis,' but
in reality is altogether rewritten, with the
practical object of explaining the use of the
' trigonicum,' or i carpenter's square,' and the
'ruler,' or mechanical contrivance for car-
penters' computations, which had been in-
vented by his uncle. This ' ruler,' or meso-
labium architectonicum, had great value in
Bedwell's eyes, and in the preface to his book
of 1614 he expresses an intention to publish
something further on it. This he did in the

Bedyll

I2O

Bedyll

* Mesolabium Architect onicum,' 1631 (repr.
1639). Bedwell also translated Salignac's
' Arithmetic,' and his enlarged version of
Ranms's ' Way to Geometry ' was posthu-
mously published in 1636. From this book
it appears that he was a personal friend of
John Greaves and H. Briggs. After his j
death, * his library being sold into Little
Britain/ Lilly, the astrologer, tells us, 'I
bought amongs them my choicest books of
astronomy.' Amidst these studies he found
time to publish in 1631 ' A Survey of Tot-
tenham,' in which the well-known burlesque
poem, the 'Turnament of Tottenham,' was
first published from a manuscript now in the
university library at Cambridge. Bedwell died
in 1732. He left to his university his manu-
script lexicon, together with a fount of Arabic
type to print it (GEO. KICHTEE, Ep. Sel. 485).
This was never done, but by a grace of 25 June
1658 it was lent to E. Castell and R. Clark.
Castell used the manuscript largely in his
great ' Lexicon Heptaglotton,' and in this wray
Bedwell has a lasting place in the history of
Arabic scholarship. His most famous personal
disciple was Edward Pocock, for Erpenius
can hardly be called Bedwell's pupil, but
rather, as Castell puts it (Prcef. Lex.}, his
partner in opening Arabic literature. Bed-
well's manuscript lexicon consists of seven
volumes folio, with two small quartos con-
taining his final revision of the initials K and
2 . It includes Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and
Arabic words, and in the original draught is
entirely gathered from the author's own
reading. For the Arabic, which is much the
most important feature in the work, he uses the
Koran (in manuscript), the Arabic versions of
the Bible (some of which had been printed),
and .the publications of the Italian press —
notablyAvicenna andNasir-ed-DinV Euclid.'
The connection between Arabic and mathe-
matics wras then very close ; astronomers
especially looked to the Arabs for valuable
aid, as appears in Twells's * Life of Pocock,
and probably enough it was through mathe-
matics and astrology (for he quotes Haly)
that Bedwell was first led to Arabic studies.
After the seven folios were written out, Bed-
well must have got a copy of the great native
lexicon, the * Kamus,' extracts from which
are written all over the margin and incorpo-
rated in the revised volumes.

[Isaacson's Life of Andrewes ; Casaubon's
Epistolse (passim) ; Twells's Life of Pocock ;
Vossius's Funeral Oration on Erpenius; Prefaces
and other notices in Bedwell's works; Newcourt's
Eepertorium, i. 346, 755.] W. E, S.

BEDYLL, THOMAS (d. 1537), clerk of
the privy council, was educated at New Col-

lege, Oxford, and took the degree of B.C.L.
on 5 Nov. 1508. In 1520 he was acting as
secretary to AVilliam Warham, archbishop
of Canterbury, whom he served in that
capacity till the archbishop's death in Au-
gust 1532. Within a month afterwards
the king (Henry VIII) took him into his-
service as one of the royal chaplains, and
on 14 Oct. he signs a letter to the king as
clerk of the council, a post to which he had
quite recently been appointed. His former
master, the archbishop, speaks of his i ap-
proved fidelity and virtue,' and he soon
was equally high in the favour of Cromwell
and Cranmer, whose views on ecclesiastical
polity he thoroughly adopted. His first,
public employments were in connection with
Henry's divorce from Katharine of Arragon.
After being sent to Oxford to obtain opinions-
from the university in the king's favour, he
accompanied Cranmer to Dunstable as one
of the counsel on the king's side, when the
archbishop pronounced the final sentence of
nullity of marriage. Several letters from
him are extant recording the course of the
trial and the pronunciation of the sentence,
in the drawing up of which he had some
share. In the next two years (1534 and 1.535}
he was engaged in endeavouring to obtain
the oaths of the inmates of several religious-
houses to the royal supremacy ; in conduct-
ing as one of the king's council the exami-
nation of Bishop Fisher and of Sir Thomas-
More, when tried for treason for refusing the-
oath ; and in assessing the values of ecclesi-
astical benefices in England. When the
smaller monasteries were suppressed by act
of parliament in 1536, Bedyll visited many of
them in the neighbourhood of London to ob-
tain the surrenders of the houses ; and about
the same time presided over a commission
appointed to examine papal bulls and briefs
conferring privileges on churches and dig-
nities in England, with a view to their con-
firmation or abolition (Pat, 28 Hen. VIII.
p. 1, m. 8). The 'book' that was circulated
throughout England as a basis for sermons,
on the futility of the pope's claims to au-
thority in England, was revised and corrected
by him. He has left no literary remains, but
many of his letters are extant in the Public
Record Office and among the CottonianMSS.
in the British Museum. He died in the
beginning of September 1537, his death
being mentioned in a letter from Richard
Cromwell to his uncle on 5 Sept.

The following is a list of his ecclesiasti-
cal benefices: — Rectory of Halton, Bucksr
24 Aug. 1512 ; chapels of Bockyngfold and
Newstede, Cant. dioc. 1 March 1514; Sand-
hurst, Kent, 1516; East Peckham, Kent,,

Bee

121

Beechey

29 Dec. 1517 ; prebend of South Searle,
Line., 13 Nov. 1518; Booking rectory,
Essex, 1522; rectory of St. Dionis Back-
church, London, 12 March 1527 ; prebend
of Milton Ecclesia, Line., 1 Dec. 1529 ; Had-
ley church, in deanery of Booking, 15 May
1531 ; Wrotham church, Kent, 12 April
1532; archdeaconry of Cleveland, June-
Aug. 1533 ; archdeaconry of London, 5 Aug.
1533 to 19 Dec. 1534; prebend of Mapes-
bury, London, 17 Dec. to 22 Dec. 1534 ; rectory
of Allhallows-the-Great, 30 Dec. 1534 ; arch-
deaconry of Cornwall, 2 March 1535 ; pre-
bend of Masham, York, 1536; prebend of
Lytton, Wells; rectory of Bishopsbourne,
Kent ; prebend of Appledram and Hamp-
stead, Chichester. The dates of institution
to these last are not known, but Bedyll
held them in 1535.

[Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 25; Newcourt's Ke-
pertorium ; Le Neve's Fasti Eeclesise Anglicanse;
Erasmi Ep. xv. 7, xix. 46 ; Calendar of State
Papers of Henry VIII, vols. iv.-vii. ; Strype's
Eccl. Mem. i. 299. ii. 213; Memorials of Cran-
mer, 87 ; Wright's Suppression of the Monas-
teries; Valor Ecclesiasticus. vols. iii. and iv. ;
Cott. MSS., Otho, c. x., Cleop. E. iv. vi., Brit.
Mus.] C. T. M.

BEE, ST. [See BEGHA.]

BEEAKD, BEARD, or BERDE, RICH-
ARD (Jt. 1553-1574), author, was admitted
to the rectory of St. Mary Hill, London,
31 May 1560, and was deprived of the living
in 1574. He was the author of : 1 . ' A Godly
Psalm of Mary Queen/ with psalm tunes in
four parts, 1553. 2. ' Alphabetum primum
Beeardi,' a poem of fifty-six short lines printed
as a broadside, without date, by William Cop-
land. 3. An untitled piece of verse of forty-
four lines, signed by Beeard, beginning ' M.
Harry Whobals man to M. Camel greetes,'
printed on a sheet without place, printer's
name, or date. A copy of the first is in Trinity
College Library, Cambridge, and copies of the
last two are in the library of the Society of
Antiquaries. In Strype's i Annals,' iv. 512-
516, the dedication to Queen Elizabeth of a
manuscript work by Richard Beard 'concern-
ing the doctrine of justification' is printed at
length.

[Newcourt's Kepertorium, i. 451 ; Hazlitt's
Handbook to Literature, p. 34 ; Ritson's Biblio-
graphia Poetica, 129 ; Lemon's Catal. of Broad-
sides, 10-11.] S. L. L.

BEECHAM, JOHN, D.D. (1787-1856),
was born at Barnoldby-le-Beck, near Great
Grimsby, Lincolnshire, in 1787. His father
died at Waltham while he was a child. He
was educated privately under a clergyman,

the incumbent of the neighbouring parish of
Irby. His friends desired him to become a
clergyman in the established church. Young
Beecham, however, preferred to join the me-
thodists. After a short period of preparation
he became, in 1815, an itinerant preacher in
the Wesleyan community, and soon reached
a position of influence. He showed a thorough
mastery of the principles of Wesleyan me-
thodism in his ' Essay on the Constitution of
Wesleyan Methodism,' and in his writings
and speeches on the work of missions. He
was appointed in 1831 to the office of general
secretary of the WTesleyan Missionary Society,
and displayed great ability in administering
its affairs at the mission house, in counselling
its agents all over the world, and in advo-
cating its claims. In 1850 he was elected to
the presidency of the Wesleyan conference,
and fulfilled the duties of that onerous posi-
tion in a time of great anxiety and trouble
with dignity and grace. Dr. Beecham's later
years were largely occupied in the formation
of new methodist conferences in North Ame-
rica and in Australia. His wife died in
1853. Their family consisted of one son
and two daughters. He died in London
22 April 1856, aged 68.

The following are his principal literary
works : 1. ' An Essay on the Constitution of
Wesleyan Methodism,' 3rd edition, London,
1851. 2. ' Ashantee and the Gold Coast ; a
Sketch of the History of those Countries/
London, 1841. 3. ' Colonisation,' London,
1838.

[Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, voL
xiii. ; Memoir in Wesleyan Methodist Magazine
for 1856 ; Osborn's Bibliography.] W. B. L.

BEECHEY, FREDERICK WILLIAM

(1796-1856), rear-admiral and geographer,
son of Sir William Beechey, R.A. [q.v.], was
born on 17 Feb. 1796, and entered the navy in
July 1806 under the direct patronage of Lord
St. Vincent, and afterwards of Sir Sidney
Smith. During the years of his early service
in the Channel, on the coast of Portugal and
on the East India station, the naval war
had almost burnt itself out ; and the only
occasion in which he was actually engaged
with the enemy was when, as midshipman of
the Astrsea under Captain Schomberg, he
was present at the capture of the Clorinde
and Nereide on the coast of Madagascar,
20-25 May 1811. In 1814 he was appointed
to the Tonnant, of 80 guns, which carried
the flag of Sir Alexander Cochrane, the com-
mander-in-chief in North America, and had
a part in the boat operation, 8 Jan. 1815, on
the Lower Mississippi. For this service he
was promoted to be lieutenant on 10 March

Beechey

122

Beechey

following, but remained on the North Ame-
rican station till after the peace. On 14 Jan.
1818 he was appointed to the Trent, hired
brig, commanded by Lieutenant (afterwards
Sir John) Franklin, and had an interesting
share in the Arctic expedition of that year,
of which he afterwards published an account
under the title ' Voyage of Discovery towards
the North Pole, performed in his Majesty's
ships Dorothea and Trent, under the command
of Captain David Buchan ' (8vo, 1843). In
the next year, 1819, he served again in the
Arctic, on board the Hecla, under Lieuten-
ant William Edward Parry during that re-
markable voyage, the account of which wa& '
afterwards written by Mr. Parry himself i
(4to, 1821). In January 1821 Beechey was
appointed to the Adventure sloop, under
Captain William Henry Smyth, and during !
the next two years was employed on the i
survey of the north coast of Africa, some j
account of which he afterwards published (in |
conjunction with his brother, Henry William
Beechey), under the title ' Proceedings of the
Expedition to explore the Northern Coast of
Africa from Tripoli Eastward, in 1821-2'
(4to, 1828). On 25 Jan. 1822 he had been
promoted to the rank of commander, and in
January 1825 he was appointed to command
the Blossom, which was engaged for the next
four years in the Pacific, and in endeavouring
to co-operate, by Behring's Straits, with the
polar expeditions from the eastward. His
narrative of this voyage was published by
authority of the admiralty in 1831 (2 vols,
8vo). On his return from this expedition he
married (December 1828) Charlotte, daughter
of Lieutenant-colonel Stapleton, of Thorpe
Lee, and having been, whilst still in the
Pacific, advanced to the rank of captain
(8 May 1827), he now remained for some
years on shore. In September 1835 he was
appointed to the Sulphur, for the survey of
part of the coast of South America ; but his
health failing, he was compelled to come
home in the autumn of 1836. In the follow-
ing year he was appointed to the survey of
the coast of Ireland, and, in different steam-
vessels, continued on that duty for the next
ten years (1837-47). From this time he
lived chiefly in London, engaged in scientific
work, and occasionally contributing papers
to the Royal and other societies, of which he
was a fellow. In 1855 he was elected presi-
dent of the Royal Geographical Society, an
•office which he still held at his death, on
29 Nov. 1856.

Besides the works already named, he was
the author of two Reports of Observations
on the Tides in the Irish Sea and English
Channel (Phil. Trans. 1848, pp. 105-16,

1851, pp. 703-18), of the Presidential Ad-
dress to the Royal Geographical Society 1856,
and of some minor papers.

[O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Diet. ; Gent. Mag.
1857, i. 108.] J. K. L.

BEECHEY, GEORGE D. (Jl. 1817-
1855), portrait painter, was a son of Sir
William Beechey, R. A. [q.v.], whose profes-
sion and style he followed. He exhibited first
at the Royal Academy in 1817, and con-
tinued to do so through several subsequent
years, having many sitters so long as his
father's influence lasted; but about 1830 the
rapid decline in the number of his commis-
sions induced him to leave England and
proceed to Calcutta, whence he sent to the
Royal Academy in 1832 a portrait of 'Hinda,'
an Indian lady whom he married. He after-
wards went to Lucknow, where he attained
great celebrity and became court painter and
controller of the household to the king of
Oudh. He is believed to have been living
in India in 1855, and to have died before the
mutiny of 1857.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878;
Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers,
ed. Graves, 1884.] E. E. G.

BEECHEY, HENRY WILLIAM (d. V

1870 ?), painter and explorer, was a son of r
Sir William Beechey, R. A. [q. v.], and fol-
lowed his father's profession. He sent a marine
subject to the Royal Academy in 1829, and
another in 1838 to the British Institution
(GKAVES'S Diet, of Artists, 1760-1880, p. 18).
Some time before 1816 he had become secre-
tary to Mr. Salt, the British consul-general in
Egypt, and at the latter's request accompanied
Belzoni in that and the following year beyond
the second cataract, for the purpose of study-
ing and making designs of the fine monuments
existing at Thebes. In the laborious exca-
vation of the temple of Ipsambul, Beechey
took his share ; he also copied the paintings
in the king's tombs in the valley of Biban-el-
Muluk, which had lately been opened by
Belzoni. In common with his employer, Mr.
Salt, Beechey had much to endure from Bel-
zoni's suspicious and jealous nature (Life and
Correspondence of Henry Salt, ed. Halls,
vol. ii.) About 1820 he returned to Eng-
land, and the next year was appointed by Earl
Bathurst, on the part of the colonial office, to
examine and report on the antiquities of the
Cyrenaica, his brother, Captain Beechey,
having been detached to survey the coast-line
from Tripoli to Derna. The results of this
expedition, which occupied the greater part
of the years 1821 and 1822, were chronicled
in a journal kept by the brothers, to which

Beechey

123

Beaching

the pencil of Henry Beechey lent additional
interest by numerous charming drawings, il-
lustrative of the art and natural peculiarities
of the classic region they were exploring,
many of which were unfortunately left out
when the narrative came to be published in
1828 (Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. ii. 109). Of the
remainder of Beechey's life we have failed to
recover any particulars. He had seen much
vicissitude, and in 1855 emigrated to New
.Zealand, where he is believed by his relatives
to have died in or about 1870. He left a
family. Besides his share in the above-men-
tioned work Beechey wrote a painstaking
memoir of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to
the edition of the latter's l Literary Works,'
published in 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1835, and
.afterwards reprinted in Bohn's l Standard
Library ' edition, 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1852.
Beechey became a fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries in 1825.

[Family information.] G. G.

BEECHEY, SIR WILLIAM (1753-
1839), painter, was born at Burford, in Ox-
fordshire, 12 Dec. 1753. He is stated by
Dayes to have begun life as a house-painter.
From other accounts it would appear that he
was articled to a solicitor at Stowe, in Glou-
cestershire, and was afterwards transferred to
-a lawyer in London. In London he made
the acquaintance of some art students, who
led him to get his articles cancelled, and he
became in 1772 a student of the Royal
Academy. In 1775 he exhibited some por-
traits, and from that time he practised in
London with tolerable success. In 178].
however, he removed to Norwich. He stayed
there some four or five years, painting subject
pieces (' in the manner ' of Hogarth) and por-
traits. Returning to London he settled in
Lower Brook Street, and got both work and
fame. In 1793 he was elected A.R.A., and
painted the same year a portrait of Queen
Charlotte, which procured him the appoint-
ment of portrait painter to her majesty. A
large equestrian group of George III, with
the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York,
reviewing the 10th hussars and 3rd dragoons,
gained great celebrity. It was painted in
1793. This work, now hanging at Hampton
Court, is considered his best. l Although a
clever and somewhat showy group of por-
traits, it has little of real nature, and is full
•of painters' artifices.' In 1793 he was knighted
and elected a full member of the Royal
Academy.

He was for a long while a fashionable por-
trait painter ; but the great reputation of
Lawrence had outshone his own some years
before he finally retired. * His colouring,' ac-

cording to Redgrave, ' was pleasing. He
excelled in his females and children ; but his
males wanted power. His draperies were
poor and ill-cast, and he showed no ability
to overcome the graceless stiffness which then
prevailed in dress. Yet he possessed much
merit, and his portraits have maintained a
respectable second rank.' In 1836 he sold his
collection of works of art and retired to
Hampstead. 'He was twice married, and
had a large and highly accomplished family.'
His wife, Lady Beechey, was an artist who
painted miniatures with ability. His sons,
Frederick William, George D., and Henry
William, are separately noticed. In the
print room of the British Museum are two
of Sir William Beechey's drawings — land-
scape studies, sketched freely 'vith a pen.
Amongst his most distinguished sitters (be-
sides royal personages) were the Marquis
CornwaUis, Earl St. Vincent, John Kemble,
David Wilkie, and Joseph Nollekens. Outside
the region of portraiture one of Sir William
Beechey's most important pictures (as well
as his own favourite) was the ' Infant Her-
cules/ The painter afterwards, with happy
versatility, copied the same picture, and made
it do duty as ' John the Baptist.' Sir Wil-
liam Beechey died on 28 Jan. 1839 at the
age of eighty-six.

[Gent. Mag. April 1839 ; Dayes's Works, 1807 ;
Pilkington's Diet, of Painters ; Redgrave's Dic-
tionary of Artists of the English School ; Red-
graves' Century of Painters, 1866.] E. R.

BEECHING, JAMES (1788-1858), in-
ventor of ' self-righting lifeboats, was born
at Bexhill, near Hastings, in 1788, and there
served an apprenticeship to boat-building.
Some little time after his apprenticeship had
expired he went over to Flushing, and while
there, in 1819, built the famous smuggling
cutter known as the ' Big Jane.' On leaving
Flushing he settled at Great Yarmouth, where
he introduced the handsome build of fishing-
vessel now used at that port. In 1851 attempts
were made, under the auspices of the late
Prince Consort, to revive the activity of the
Royal National Institution for the Preserva-
tion of Life from Shipwreck, the affairs of
which were at a very low ebb. A prize of 100/.
for the best model of a lifeboat, and another
100/. towards defraying the cost of building,
were offered by the president of the insti-
tution, the Duke of Northumberland. Out
of 280 models sent in from all parts of the
world, many of which were displayed at the
exhibition of 1851, that on a ' self-righting '
principle, invented and exhibited by James
Beeching, was awarded the prize, and with a
few slight modifications suggested by Mr.

Beedome

124

Beeke

Peake, master shipwright of Woolwich dock-
yard, one of the judges, has served as the
model for the magnificent fleet of lifeboats
now possessed by the Royal National Life-
boat Institution (EncycL Brit. 9th ed. xiv.
572). So confident was Beeching of the
merits of his invention, that he built a boat
on the same model before the prize was
awarded, which boat became the property of
the trustees of Ramsgate Harbour, and was
instrumental in saving several hundreds of
lives on the Goodwin Sands (GILMOKE).
Beeching died on 7 June 1858.

[Information supplied by Mr. Beeching's
family; Exhibition Eeports, 1851, i. 332; Gil-
more's Storm-Warriors, London, 1878 ; Reports
Royal Nat. Lifeboat Inst.] H. M. C.

BEEDOME, THOMAS (d. 1641 ?) poet, is
the author of a scarce little volume of verses,
posthumously published in 1641 under the
title of ' Poems Divine and Humane/ 12mo.
The collection was edited by Henry Glap-
thorne, the dramatist and poet, who prefixed
a short prose address ' to the reader/ which
is followed by commendatory verses of Ed.
May, Henry Glapthorne (in English and
Latin), W. C[hamberlaine ?], Em. D. (two
copies), H. S., H. P., R. W., J. S., Tho.
Nabbes, and Fran. Beedome (the author's
brother). The chief poem in the collection
is entitled ' The Jealous Lover, or the Con-
stant Maid ; ' it is a juvenile performance (in
six-line stanzas), showing some smoothness of
versification. Songs, epistles, epigrams, ele-
gies, and devotional poems follow. Two epi-
grams are addressed ' to Sir Henry Wotten,
Knight/ another is in praise of Wither.
There are also epigrams ' to his deare friend
William Harrington/ ' to the heroicall Cap-
taine Thomas James' (two), and Ho the
memory of his honoured friend, Master John
Donne, an Eversary.' The author appears to
have died at an early age, and of his life no-
thing is known. His poems have very little
value ; but the poetaster Henry Bold seems
to have thought well of them, for the first
fifty pages of his ' Wit a Sporting/ 1657, are
taken verbatim from Beedome's book. A copy
of commendatory verses by Beedome is pre-
fixed to Farley's ' Light's Morall Emblems,'
1638.

[Poems Divine and Humane, 1641 ; Corser's
Collectanea Anglo -Poetica, ii. 246-50, 311.1

A. H. B.

f\_ BEEKE, HENRY, D.D. (1751-1837),
-' dean of Bristol, a writer on subjects con-
nected with finance, was the son of the Rev.
Christopher Beeke, and was born at Kings-
teignton, Devonshire, 6 Jan. 1751. He was
elected a scholar of Corpus Christ! College,

Oxford, 5 May 1769, and proceeded B.A.r
1773; M.A., 1776; B.D., 1785; and D.D.,
1800. He was also fellow of Oriel (1775) ;.
junior proctor (1784), and professor of modern
history (1801). He obtained in succession the
; vicarage of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford (1782),.
! rectory of Ufton Norcot, Berkshire (1780),.
deanery of Bristol (1814), and vicarage of
j Weare (1819). He died at Torquay 9 March
| 1837. His chief work is entitled ' Observa-
, tions on the Produce of the Income Tax, and
on its Proportion to the whole Income of Great
Britain (London, 1799 ; new and enlarged
edition, 1 800) . This was written to prove that
whilst the lately imposed income-tax might
not produce as much as was expected, this was-
not because the resources of the country had
been overrated. f On the contrary, I have
been uniformly persuaded that we are more
powerful, have resources more permanent, a
population more numerous, and an income
more considerable than the most enlarged
computations which have been hitherto pub-
lished.' The real reason was that •' the-
part of the national income which is made
liable to the present tax bears a far less pro-
portion to the whole of it than has been con-
jectured.' He affirms the tax itself to be-
' founded on moral equity and political wis-
dom.' Of this work J. R. M'Culloch declares
that it affords f the best example of the suc-
cessful application of statistical reasoning to
finance that had then appeared.' It gives an
interesting and valuable account of the eco-
nomic condition of Great Britain at the begin-
ning of the century.

Dr. Beeke had a wide reputation as a
financial authority, and Mr. Vansittart, after-
wards Lord Bexley, when chancellor of the
exchequer (1812-1823), frequently consulted
him on questions connected with the duties
of his office. He was a keen observer of the-
politics of the time, and from an unpublished
letter, written to Sir Lewis Palk in August
1805, and discussing the condition and pro-
spects of political parties, he seems to have
known much of what was passing behind the
scenes. It is also said that Pitt 'was indebted
! to him for the original suggestion of the in-
' come-tax/ but, according to Lord Stanhope,
' the scheme of a general tax on all kinds of
income (proposed by Pitt in 1798) was by no
means a new one. It had several times been
suggested to the minister by speculative-
financiers and writers of pamphlets ' (STAN-
HOPE'S Life of Pitt, ii. 306, London, 1879).
Thus Dr. Beeke s suggestion, if actually
offered, can only have been one of several to
the same effect.

Dr. Beeke's other works were unimportant ..
They were : ' Sermon for Exeter Hospital *

Beesley

125

Beeston

•(Oxford, 1790) ; ' Letter to a County Mem-
ber on the means of securing a safe and
honourable Peace ' (London, 1798) ; and { Ob-
servations on the Roman Roads in Great
Britain.'

[dent. Mag. new series, vol. vii. ; Farley's
Bristol Journal (Bristol, 18 March 1837); Eger-
ton MS. 2, f. 193; Addit MSS. 31229 to 31232;
M'Culloch's Literature of Political Economy,
London, 1845).] F. W-T.

BEESLEY, ALFRED (1800-1847), to-
pographer, was apprenticed to a watchmaker
at Deddington, Oxfordshire, but only served
a portion of his time, and subsequently de-
voted himself to literary and scientific pur-
suits. He died on 10 April 1847, and was
buried in Banbury churchyard. He pub-
lished a collection of poems, and ' The His-
tory of Banbury, including copious historical
and antiquarian notices,' Lond. 1841, 8vo.

[Gent. Mag. new ser. xv. 65, xxviii. 99.]

T. C.

BEESLEY or BISLEY, GEORGE (d.

1591), catholic missioner, was born at a place
called the Mount, in Goosnargh parish, in
Lancashire. He was an alumnus of Douay
College while it was located at Rheims. Or-
dained priest in 1587 he was sent upon the
English mission in 1588. Falling into the
hands of the persecutors he was so frequently
tortured by the notorious Topcliffe that he
was reduced to a mere skeleton. He steadily
refused, however, to divulge anything that
might have brought others into danger. He
was condemned on account of his priestly
character, and for remaining in England con-
trary to the statute of the 27th Elizabeth, and
was executed in Fleet Street, London, on
2 July 1591. Another priest, Monford Scot,
suffered at the same time and place.

[Diaries of Douay College; Challoner's Mis-
sionary Priests (1741), i. 259 ; Dodd's Church
Hist. ii. 90.] T. C.

BEESTON, SIR WILLIAM (b. 1636,/.
1702), lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, was
born at Tichfield, Hampshire, being second
son of William Beeston of Posbrook, by
Elizabeth, daughter of Arthur Bromfield.
His elder brother, Henry, was master of
Winchester School and warden of New Col-
lege, Oxford. Beeston went to Jamaica in
1660. In 1664 he was elected, as member
for Port Royal, to the first house of assembly:
he was sent to prison by the speaker for
contempt of his authority, was brought before
the governor and council, reprimanded and
released (Addit. MS. 12430, fol. 30). Beeston
tells us (ib.) that when this assembly, which

had been ' marked by parties, great heate, and
ill-humours/ adjourned, 'to make amends
for their jangling, and to cement the rents
that had been made, it was determined to
treat the governor and council to a dinner,
and a splendid dinner was provided, with
wine and music, and what else might make
it great. This held well till the plenty of
wine made the old wounds appear, for then
all went together by the ears, and in the
unlucky conflict honest Captain Rutter, a
worthy gentleman of the assembly, was
killed by Major Joy, who was of the coun-
cil, and had always been his friend, but the
drink and other men's quarrels made them
fall out.' In December of this year Beeston
was made a judge of the court of common
pleas, Jamaica (Cal. State Papers}. In 1665
the governor, Sir Thomas Modyford, sent
him to negotiate with a force of privateers
who were threatening St. Spiritus, Cuba.
In 1668 Sir Thomas Lynch (who had suc-
ceeded Sir Thomas Modyford as governor)
sent ' Major Beeston with a fleet to carry
articles of peace with the Spaniards to Car-
tagena, and to bring away the English pri-
soners ; ' and on his return to Jamaica gave
him the command of a frigate (Addit. MS.
12430, fol. 33). The following year he sailed
to Cuba and Hispaniola ' to look after pirates
and privateers,' and to Havanna ' to fetch
away the prisoners.' On 10 July 1672 he
convoyed a fleet of merchantmen to Eng-
land (ib.}. In 1675 Beeston and Sir Henry
Morgan (of buccaneering celebrity) were
appointed commissioners of the admiralty
(ib. fol. 33). In 1677 and the two follow-
ing years 'Lieutenant-Colonel Beeston,' as
speaker of the house of assembly, zealously
promoted the opposition to the efforts of the
governor, the Earl of Carlisle, to assimilate
the government of Jamaica to that then
existing in Ireland, and to obtain an act
settling a perpetual revenue upon the crown.
The governor dissolved the assembly, and
ordered Colonel Long (late chief justice) and
Colonel Beeston to England to answer for
their contumacy. On their arrival they
| brought counter charges against his lord-
ship. He was superseded in the government,
and ' his majesty, after hearing Colonel Long
and Colonel Beeston, not only returned to
their island its former government and all
privileges they had hitherto enjoyed, but en-
larged them ' (Lola's Hist, of Jamaica, i. 16).
Beeston does not appear to have returned
to Jamaica until 1693, having at the close
of the previous year been knighted at Ken-
sington and appointed lieutenant-governor
of the island. He found it still suffering
from the effects of the fearful earthquake of

Beeston

126

Begbie

7 June 1692, followed by an epidemic fever,

and in October Beeston writes to Lord :

4 By the mortality which yet continues I have
lost all my family but rny wife and one child,
and have not one servant lei?t to attend me
but my cook, so it is very uneasy being here.'
He goes on to beg that if his appointment
is not to be permanent he may be as soon
as possible recalled (Add. MS. 28878, fol.
135). In 1694 Beeston, as commander-in-
chief, successfully resisted a very formidable
invasion of Jamaica by the French. ' A
Narrative by Sir William Beeston on the
Descent on Jamaica by the French,' and i A
Letter from the Council in England in an-
swer to his narrative/ conveying her majesty's
thanks, are to be found in manuscript in the
library of the British Museum (Addit. MS.
12430, fols. 3 and 21). In 1699 Beeston, at
the instigation of the home government,
helped to complete the ruin of the Scotch
colony at Darien by a proclamation forbidding
the inhabitants of Jamaica to trade with them
or afford them any assistance (BKIDGE'S
Annals of Jamaica, i. 327). His position as
head of the executive was a more than usually
difficult one. During his previous residence
he had been a leader of the colonists in their
struggle for self-government, now he was
the recognised upholder of royal prerogative.
Yet for some time he contrived to secure for
himself a greater share of popularity than had
been the lot of any of his immediate predeces-
sors, and he dissolved the assembly of 1700
in tolerable harmony with all its members
(ib. p. 328).

The succeeding house called upon him i to
account for the large sums of unowned money
and treasure ' found amidst the ruins of the
earthquake, and for an account of the dis-
bursement of 4,OOOZ. royal bounty to the
sufferers by the French invasion. Beeston
would not comply with their demand, and
the house, refusing to proceed with any other
business, was dissolved. On 21 Jan. 1702
Beeston was superseded in the government,
and in the first assembly of his successor,
General Selwyn, an address was voted pray-
ing that Sir W. Beeston might not be per-
. mitted to quit the island without accounting
for the moneys he had appropriated. Selwyn
died before it could be presented, but it was
received by the new governor, Colonel Beck-
ford, grandfather of the lord mayor of Lon-
don (BUEKE'S Landed Gentry), who said
that he did not consider Beeston responsible
to the house of assembly, but to the king.
Nevertheless as an act of grace he submitted
to them an explanation which Beeston had
made to himself of the application of the
money (Proceeds. H. of Assembly MS. 12425),

Avhich must have satisfied them, as they ap-
pear to have taken no further notice of the
matter, and Beeston sailed for England on
25 April (Addit. MS. 12424, Becstoris Jour-
nal}. In the ' Transactions of the Royal
Society ' for 1696 there is ' an abstract from
a letter of Sir W. Beeston to Mr. C. Bernard,
containing some observations about the baro-
meter, and of a hot bath in Jamaica' (iv. 79,
abridged edition), and in the library of the
British Museum there is a daily journal in
the handwriting of Sir William Beeston of"
seven voyages made by him from 10 Dec.
1671 to 28 June 1702 (Addit. MS. 12424).
Sir William Beeston's daughter, Jane, mar-
ried, first, Sir Thomas Modyford, bart., and,
secondly, Charles Long, to whom she was
second wife (ib.}

[Authorities given in the text.] P. B. A.

BEGA (8th cent. ?) was a saint whose his-
tory is wrapped in much obscurity, and has
been much mixed up with that of others . A c-
cording to Butler (6 Sept.) she was an Irish
virgin (7th cent.) who lived as an anchoret,,
and founded a nunnery in Copeland. Leland
( Coll. iii. 36) follows another version, accord-
ing to which, after founding her monastery
in Cumberland, she passed into Northumbria
and founded another north of the Wear ;
after which her history seems to become con-
fused with that of St. Heiu and St. Begu.
In the Aberdeen breviary there is a lesson
for a Saint Bega, with whom she may per-
haps be identified. This St. Bega is described
as an anchoret who lived in an island called
Cumbria in the ocean sea, where she was
sometimes visited by St. Maura. She was
buried in her island, and was especially
venerated at Dunbar.

[Authorities cited above.] ~W. R. W. S.

BEGBIE, JAMES (1798-1869), physi-
cian, was born in 1798 and educated at the-
high school and university of Edinburgh,
where he took the degree of M.D. in 1821.
He became F.R.C.S. Edin. 1822. He was
the pupil, and afterwards for some years the
assistant, of Abercrombie, whose instructions
and example had great influence on his cha-
racter and professional life. After many
years' successful general practice, Begbie be-
came in 1847 fellow of the Royal College of
Physicians of Edinburgh, and devoted him-
self to consulting practice, in which he ob-
tained great reputation and popularity. For
several years he was physician in ordinary
to the queen for Scotland. He died at Edin-
burgh on 26 A.ug. 1869.

Begbie's writings consisted of a series of
medical essays and memoirs, collected into a

Begbie

127

Begg

volume as ' Contributions to Practical Medi-
cine/ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1862. They show
considerable originality and practical ability.
The most important is an ' Essay on Anaemia,'
giving an account of the remarkable disease
Exophthalmic Goitre (also called Basedow's
and Graves's disease), of which Begbie was
an independent investigator and one of the
earliest. James Warburton Begbie [q. v.]
was his son.

[Edinburgh Medical Journal, October 1869,
xv. 380 ; Lancet, 1869, ii. 356.] J. F. P.

BEGBIE, JAMES WAKBURTON (1826
-1876), physician, was born on 19 Nov. 1826,
and was the second son of Dr. James Begbie
[q. v.]. He was educated at the Edin-
burgh Academy, and in 1843 became a
medical student in the university of Edin-
burgh. Of his teachers there, Alison appears
to have influenced him most. In 1847 he
proceeded M.D. with a dissertation l On some
of the Pathological Conditions of the Urine,'
which received special commendation. He
afterwards studied in Paris, paying special
attention to diseases of the skin, under Caze-
nave and Devergie. About 1852 he settled
in Edinburgh as a family practitioner, and
was made fellow of the Royal College of
Physicians there. In 1852 he married Miss
Anna Maria Reid, by whom he had three
sons and four daughters. In 1854 he was
appointed physician to the (temporary) cho-
lera hospital in Edinburgh, and in 1855 phy-
sician to the Royal Infirmary, a post which
he held for the statutable period of ten years.
During the same time he gave clinical lec-
tures in the Infirmary, and lectured on the
practice of physic at the Extra Academical
School, where he gave also a short annual
course of lectures on the history of medicine.

After 1865 Begbie ceased to teach or hold
hospital appointments, though busily occu-
pied in his profession ; and in 1869, on the
death of his father, he limited himself to
consulting practice. For the remainder of
his life he was the most popular and highly
esteemed physician in Scotland. The inces-
sant calls made upon him for consultations
in the country, involving wearying railway
journeys, taxed his strength very severely,
and doubtless contributed to the breakdown
of his health. In 1875, at the meeting of
the British Medical Association in Edin-
burgh, he was entrusted with the delivery of
the address on medicine, and at the same
time his own university paid him the com-
pliment of conferring upon him the honorary
degree of LL.D. Immediately after this
event he was compelled to give up work
through an affection of the heart, which

closed his life on 25 Feb. 1876. Begbie was
well fitted, physically, morally, and intel-
lectually, for the work of his profession, and
was, in the highest sense of the word, re-
markably successful, not only in relieving
the bodily ills of his patients, but in winning
their confidence and affection. These quali-
ties gained him deservedly a very high repu-
tation in Scotland.

His writings are characteristic of an able
but extremely busy man. They are chiefly
accounts of cases with copious comments^
discussing in almost every instance the views
and discoveries of others, without any im-
portant original contribution of his own. At
the same time these memoirs are very tho-
roughly done, containing numerous literary
references, and not wanting in useful prac-
tical hints. Begbie's only separate book was
f A Handy Book of Medical Information and
Advice, by a Physician,' published anony-
mously in 1860, of which a second edition
appeared in 1872. He wrote thirteen articles
in Reynolds's l System of Medicine,' of which
perhaps the most important were on ' Local
Paralysis from Nerve Disease,' ' Dysentery/
' Fatty Liver,' ' Cancer of the Liver,' &c.
The best of his other papers, published in
various medical journals, were reprinted by
the New Sydenham Society as ' Selections
from the Works of the late J. Warburton
Begbie, edited [with a memoir] by Dr. Dyce
Duckworth,' London, 1882.

[Memoir by Dr. Duckworth (in Begbie's
Works) ; Edinburgh Medical Journal, April
1876, xxi. 950 ; British Medical Journal, 1876,
i. 311, 337.] J. F. P.

BEGG, JAMES, D.D. (1808-1883), Free
church minister, was born in the manse of
New Monkland, Lanarkshire, where his
father was minister, on 31 Oct. 1808. He
studied at the parish school, then entered
the university of Glasgow, where he took
his degree of M.A. After passing through
the theological curriculum, he was licensed
as a preacher in June 1829, and after a short
assistantship at North Leith, was ordained to
the ministry at Maxwelltown, Dumfries,
18 May 1830. After a very brief incumbency
there he was called to be colleague to Dr.
Jones in Lady Glenorchy's chapel, Edin-
burgh, and in 1831 went from Edinburgh to
Paisley as minister of the Middle parish
church. In 1835 he was called to Liberton,
in the vicinity of Edinburgh, where he re-
mained till the Disruption in 1843. Leaving
Liberton for Newington, the neighbouring-
suburb of Edinburgh, he spent the last forty
years of his life as minister of Newington
Free Church, and was discharging the duties.

Begg

128

Begha

of that office when attacked by his last ill-
ness. The degree of D.D. was conferred on
him by Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, in
1847.

Begg's father, and a circle of friends with
whom he was connected, were very ardent
supporters of the evangelical or popular side
in the church, in opposition to that commonly
known as ' the moderate.' They were vehe-
ment opponents of the policy which Principal
Robertson, Dr. Blair, and others had carried
out so triumphantly about the end of last
century. The rights of the people in the
election of ministers were strongly main-
tained by them, and the whole traditions of
the evangelical school in Scotland from the
days of Knox, through reformers, covenanters,
and martyrs, were cherished with singular
reverence. As soon as James Begg secured
a position in the church, his voice was raised
in favour of the measures of the evangelical
party. The ' voluntary ' movement awakened
his eager hostility, while he cordially sup-
ported Dr. Chalmers, both in his establish-
ment and church extension movements.
When the collision occurred between the
ecclesiastical and civil courts in Scotland,
Begg strongly supported the church, going to
Strathbogie, and preaching there in spite of
an interdict from the court of session. As
the conflict grew desperate, Begg counselled
its continuance. He ultimately withdrew
from connection with the state, with his 470
brethren, in 1843.

Besides labouring to advance the cause and
principles of the Free church, Begg took a
keen and practical interest in the cause of
protestantism. He deemed it of supreme
importance to watch and expose the eiforts of
the church of Rome, and in 1850, when the
attempt was made to form a Roman catholic
hierarchy in England, he vehemently attacked
the papacy in speeches, sermons, pamphlets,
periodicals, and handbooks, some of which
had a wide circulation.

Begg was also a keen advocate for the
maintenance of the old Scottish Sabbath.
For popular education, too, he worked hard.
In social questions he took a lively interest,
und especially in endeavours to improve the
houses of working men. But his influence
was chiefly shown in his later years in
resisting the proposal for union between the
Free and the United Presbyterian churches.
Begg clung to the idea that terms between
the Free church and the state might one day
be made, and he would enter into no union
that virtually abandoned that hope. Though
he was supported only by a minority, its in-
fluence was poAverful enough to prevent the
union. As it was in the Highland portion

of the Free church that the chief opposition
to union lay, Begg became more and more
identified with that section. With them he
opposed the use of hymns in public wor-
ship : he denounced instrumental music in
churches ; he withstood all proposals to make
subscription easier to the office-bearers of the
church ; while the assertion of his opponents,
that he stood in the way of all progress, was
rather hailed by him as a compliment than
otherwise, for he delighted to proclaim that,
however other men might change, as for him,
he stood precisely where he stood in 1843.

Begg possessed many of the qualities of a
leader of the people. He had a fine command-
ing presence, a splendid voice and elocution,
and a style of popular eloquence which even
his foes could not but admire. He was always
self-controlled and ready, usually radiant
and happy in his tone and manner, and he
seemed to know instinctively how to arrest
his audience and cany them along with
him. Yet it was observed that Begg had
little control over the deeper feelings of men,
and that he seldom tried to move them.
Powerful though he was, it was but a frag-
ment of his church whose adherence to his
views he was able to secure. On most of
the church questions with which he specially
identified himself he was in a minority.

Begg was moderator of the general as-
sembly of the Free church in 1865. In the
winter of 1844-5 he was sent by his church
to Canada on public duty, and while on a
visit to the United States, he had the honour
of preaching before Congress. He under-
took a long journey in 1874, and saw some-
thing of India, New Zealand, Australia, and
Ceylon. On his return a sum of 4,600/. was
presented to him by his friends, in token of
their esteem for him personally and regard
for his public services.

Begg was twice married, and left a nume-
rous family. Usually he enjoyed excellent
health ; his last illness was congestion of the
lungs, accompanied by heart disorder. He
died at Edinburgh, after two or three days'
illness, 29 Sept, 1883.

[Memoirs of James Begg, D.D., by Professor
Thomas Smith, D.D. ; books and pamphlets by
Dr. Begg; Scott's Fasti, i. 117 ; obituary notices
in Edinburgh papers 1 Oct. 1883.] W. GK B.

BEGHA, also called BEG, BEGGA, and
BEGAGH (d. 660?), saint, was an Irish
virgin of royal birth. To avoid being given
in marriage against her will, she fled to
Scotland, where she received the veil at the
hands of Aidan, and afterwards became the
first abbess of nuns in England in the reign
of king Oswald. Her chief foundation,

Behn

129

Behn

however (drc. 656), was in the kingdom of
Strathclyde, at the spot on the sea-coast
which, under the designation of St. Bees,
still preserves the memory of her name. A
priory was afterwards founded here by Wil-
liam de Meschines, lord of Copeland temp.
Henry I. In her old age Begha resigned
her abbacy in Oswald's kingdom into the
hands of St. Hilda, under whose rule she
lived till her death, the year of which cannot
be fixed, but her festival was kept on 31 Oct.

[Bolland. Acta SS. Sept., ii. 694; Faber'sLife
of St. Bega, 1844 ; Montalembert's Monks of the
West, iv. 58-9, v. 248-52 ; Forbes's Cal. of
Scotch Saints ; Tomlinson's Vita S. Begse in
Carlisle Hist. Tracts.] W. E. W. S.

BEHN, AFRA, APHRA, APHARA, or
AYFARA (1640-1689), dramatist and no-
velist, was baptised at Wye on 10 July 1640.
She was the daughter of John Johnson, a
barber, and of Amy, his wife. A relative
whom she called her father was nominated
by Lord Willoughby to the post of lieu-
tenant-general of Surinam, which was then
an English possession. He went out to the
West Indies with his whole family when
Aphra was still a child. The father died
on the outward voyage, but the family settled
in the best house in the colony, a charming
residence called St. John's Hill, of which
the poetess has given a probably overcharged
picture, painted from memory, in her novel
of ' Oroonoko.' She became acquainted, as
she grew up, with the romantic chieftain
whose name has just been mentioned, and
with Imoinda his wife. A great deal of non-
sense was long afterwards talked in London
about this friendship, in which the scandal-
mongers would fain see a love-affair between
Aphra and Oroonoko. The latter, to say
the truth, is a slightly fabulous personage,
although the poetess says that ' he was used
to call me his "Great Mistress," and my
wishes would go a great way with him.'
England resigned Surinam to the Dutch, and
Aphra returned to her native country about
1658. She presently married a city merchant
named Behn, a gentleman of Dutch extrac-
tion. It appears that through her marriage
she gained an entrance to the court, and that
she amused Charles II with her sallies and
her eloquent descriptions. Her married life,
during which she seems to have been wealthy,
was brief. Before 1666 she was a widow.
When the Dutch war broke out, Charles II
thought her a proper person to be entrusted
with secret state business, and she was sent
over to Antwerp by the government as a spy.
During this stay in the Low Countries she
was pestered with attentions from suitors,

VOL. IV.

of whom she has left a very lively account.
One of these, in a moment of indiscretion,
gave her notice of Cornelius de Witt's inten-
tion to send a Dutch fleet up the Thames.
Accordingly she communicated the news to
London, but her intelligence was ridiculed.
She was doomed to adventure in all that she
undertook, for having promised to marry a
Dutchman named Van der Aalbert, the two
lovers separated to meet again in London.
But Van der Aalbert was taken with a fever
in Amsterdam and died, while Aphra Behn,
having set sail from Dunkirk, was wrecked
in sight of land, and narrowly escaped drown-
ing. She returned to London, and, as her
biographer puts it, she dedicated the re-
mainder of her life to pleasure and poetry.

The fact is that Aphra Behn from this time
forth became a professional writer, the first
female writer who had lived by her pen in
England, and that her assiduity surpassed
that of any of the men, her contemporaries,
except Dryden. Her works are extremely
numerous. The truth seems to be that she
had been left unprovided for at the death
of her husband, and that the court basely
failed to reward her for her services in Hol-
land. She was driven to her pen, and she
attempted to write in a style that should be
mistaken for that of a man. Her earliest
attempt was taken from a novel of La Cal-
prenede, a tragedy of ' The Young King/ in
verse. She did not find a manager or even
a publisher who would take it, and she put
it away. She gradually, however, made
friends among the playwrights of the day, and
particularly with Edward Ravenscroft, with
whom there is reason to believe that her
relations were very close. He wrote many
of her early epilogues for her. In 1671 she
produced at the Duke's Theatre the tragi-
comedy of the ' Forc'd Marriage/ in which
Otway, a boy from college, unsuccessfully
appeared on the stage for the first and only
time in the part of the king. Still in 1671,
she brought out and printed a coarse comedy,
called l The Amourous Prince.' It would
appear that she had been for some time
knocking in vain at the doors of the theatres ;
it does not seem to be known what induced
the management of the Duke's to bring out
two
In

comedy. Her tragedy
fadmento of Marlowe's 'Lust's Dominion/
was acted at the Duke's Theatre late in the
year 1676, and published in 1 677. This play
contains the beautiful song, ' Love in fan-
tastic triumph sat.' In 1677 she enjoyed a
series of dramatic successes. She brought out
the ' Rover,' an anonymous comedy. This play

5 management 01 tne uuKe s TO ormg out
o plays by a new writer within one year.
1673 she published the l Dutch Lover/ a
nedv. Her tragedy of l Abdelazar/ a ri-

Behn

130

Behn

took the fancy of the town, was patronised
by the Duke of York, and, being supposed
to be written by a man, gave rise to great
curiosity. She immediately followed it up
with the ' Debauchee,' 1677, also anonymous,
the worst and least original of her plays, and
with the * Town Fop, also 1677, in which j
she makes extraordinary efforts, first, to write |
as uncleanly as any of her male rivals, and, j
secondly, to revive the peculiar manner of
Ben Jonson, which had quite gone out of
fashion. Mrs. Behn never scrupled to borrow,
and she took the plot of her next play, ' Sir
Patient Fancy,' 1678, from Moliere's ' Ma-
lade Imaginaire.' She was blamed for this,
and for the startling indelicacy of her dia-
logue, and she tartly responds in an extremely
amusing preface to the first edition of this
play. Engaged in a great variety of other
literary work, she was silent on the stage
until 1681, when she brought out a second
part of the < Rover/ with her name attached
to the title-page. The next one or two years
were years of great prosperity to Aphra Behn.
Her comedies produced and printed in 1682,
the ' Roundheads ' and the * City Heiress,'
were very well received by packed tory au-
diences ; Otway \vrote a prologue to the latter ;
the former was rapturously dedicated to the
Duke of Grafton. The l False Count,' 1682,
was her next comedy. Aphra Behn was en- |
couraged in 1683 to publish her mild little
first poem, the ' Young King.' After this she
appealed to the stage but once more during j
her life with the 'Lucky Chance/ a comedy, and
the ' Emperor of the Moon/ a farce, in 1687 ;
both of these pieces were failures. In 1684
she had collected her ' Poems/ the longest of
which is a laborious amorous allegory en-
titled ' A Voyage to the Isle of Love.' In
1688 she published 'A Discovery of New
Worlds/ from the French of Fontenelle, with
a curious l Essay on Translation/ by herself,
prefixed to the version. Her laborious life,
however, was now approaching its close. In
a beautiful copy of elegiac verses which she
contributed to a volume of poems in memory
of "Waller in 1688, she speaks of long in-
disposition and ' toils of sickness ' which have
brought her almost as near to the tomb as
Waller is. She died, in fact, in consequence
of want of skill in her physician, on 16 April
1689, and was buried in Poet's Corner, West-
minster Abbey, where her name may still be
seen inscribed on a slab of black marble.
Her tragi-comedy of the ' Widow Ranter '
was brought out in 1690 by ' one G. J., her
friend/ and finally in 1696 another of her
posthumous plays, the f Younger Brother/
was published by Gildon, with a short me-
moir prefixed.

Aphra Behn was a graceful, comely woman,
with brown hair and bright eyes, and was
painted so in an existing portrait of her by
John Ripley. She is said to have intro-
duced milk punch into England. She de-
serves our sympathy as a warm-hearted,
gifted, and industrious woman, who was
forced by circumstance and temperament to
win her livelihood in a profession where
scandalous writing was at that time obliga-
tory. It is impossible, with what we know
regarding her life, to defend her manners
as correct or her attitude to the world as
delicate. But we may be sure that a
woman so witty, so active, and so versatile,
was not degraded, though she might be la-
mentably unconventional. She was the George
Sand of the Restoration, the 'chere maitre' to
such men as Dryden, Otway, and Southerne,
who all honoured her with their friendship.
Her genius and vivacity were undoubted ;
her plays are very coarse, but very lively and
humorous, while she possessed an indispu-
table touch of lyric genius. Her prose works
are decidedly less meritorious than her dramas
and the best of her poems.

Mrs. Behn published a great number of
ephemeral pamphlets, besides her once famous
novels. Works of hers which have not
been hitherto named are : 1. ( The Adven-
tures of the Black Lady/ a novel, 1684.
2. ' La Montre, or the Lover's Watch/ a
sketch of a lover's customary way of spending
the twenty-four hours, in prose, 1686. 3. ' Ly-
cidus/ a novel, 1688. 4. < The Lucky Mis-
take/ a novel, 1689. 5. ' Poetical Remains/
edited by Charles Gildon, 1698. Aphra
Behn published a great number of occasional
odes in separate pamphlet form, among which
may be mentioned ' A Pindarick on the Death
of Charles II,' 1685, and ' A Congratulatory
Poem to her most Sacred Majesty [Mary of
Modena]/ 1688. She joined other eminent
hands in publishing a version of ' Ovid's
Heroical Epistles ' in 1683. Her plays were
collected in 1702, her * Histories and Novels '
in 1698, the latter including, besides what
have been mentioned above, ' Oroonoko, or
the Royal Slave/ which inspired Southerne's
well-known tragedy ; ' The Fair Jilt/ a story,
the scene of which is laid in Antwerp, and
recounts experiences in the life of the writer ;
1 The Nun ; ' ' Agnes de Castro ; ' and ' The
Court of the King of Bantam.' The works
of Aphra Behn passed through many editions
in the eighteenth century, the eighth appear-
ing in 1735, and one of her plays, 'The
Rover,' long continued to hold the stage in
a modified form.

[The birthplace of Mrs. Behn is here given
for the first time. The writer was led to believe,

Behnes

Behnes

from a note in the handwriting of Lady Win-
chilsea in a volume which he possesses, that Mrs.
Behn was born, not at Canterbury, as has hither-
to been stated, but at Wye, in Kent. On appli-
cation to the vicar of Wye, it appeared that the
register contains the baptism of Ayfara, the
•daughter, and Peter, the son, of John and Amy
Johnson, 10 July 1640. Lady Winchilsea states
that her father was a barber. The only other
authority for her life is that by an anonymous
female hand prefixed to the first collected edition
of her novels. For other information reference
has been made to original editions of her writ-
ings, which are now unusually rare. Some par-
ticulars about her were preserved in the manu-
script notes of Oldys the antiquary.] E. Gr.

BEHNES or BURLOWE, HENRY

(d. 1837), sculptor, was the younger brother
of William Behnes, the sculptor. Both
brothers were determined in their choice of
a profession by the same circumstance [see
BEHNES, WILLIAM]. Henry, being a much
inferior artist, was honourably anxious to
prevent confusion in the public mind, and
took the name of Burlowe. The irregularities
of William Behnes are considered to have
added a strong incentive to this act of repu-
diation. Henry exhibited at the Academy
in 1831-2-3. He afterwards went to Rome,
and was much employed as a bust modeller.
He died of cholera in that city in August
1837. According to an account in the f Art
Journal ' he was a person ' of sterling cha-
racter and generous impulses, who sacrificed
his life in devotion to those of his friends
who had been seized with cholera.' Though
' every way superior to his brother as a man,'
he was, says the same writer, ' his inferior .
as an artist ' . . . { the difference in the in-
stant apprehension of form and manipulative
power in the two brothers was very remark-
able. The composition of the one was hard,
piecemeal, and disjointed, while the model-
ling of the other was rapid, certain, soft, and
accurate.' Against this critique may be set
the remark of Redgrave : l He was original
in his art and of much promise.'

[Art Journal, 1 March 1864 ; Redgrave's Diet,
of Artists of Eng. School.] E. R.

BEHNES, WILLIAM (d. 1864), sculptor,
the date of whose birth is unknown, was the
son of a Hanoverian piano manufacturer, who
married an English wife and settled in Lon-
don. William Behnes, the eldest of three
sons, learned the mystery of piano-making.
His taste, however, was all for drawing. The
family being for a time settled in Dublin, he
there entered a public drawing-school, and
distinguished himself by the accuracy and
finish of his studies. Returning to London

he continued to make pianos, yet still pur-
sued his art as best he might. At this early
date he is said to have drawn portraits very
beautifully upon vellum. Fortune deter-
mined him towards sculpture. He gained,
with his brother Henry, some ( casual in-
struction in modelling' from a Frenchman
who was their fellow-lodger, and in 1819 we
find him exhibiting portraits as well in clay
as in oil colour. At this time he was a stu-
dent of the Royal Academy, i and in practice
of a highly remunerative kind as a portrait
draughtsman.' He now took finally to sculp-
ture, removed to No. 31 Newman Street, and
was soon fully employed. Between 1820 and
1840 his reputation was at its highest, and
he executed some important public works.
High in repute, and excellent indeed in his
art, he yet regretted that he had not made
painting his profession rather than sculpture.
Probably he was justified in this regret. The
drawings from his hand are of the highest ex-
cellence. One specimen only is preserved in
the British Museum, a delicate and highly
finished portrait in chalk of Thomas Frognall
Dibdin, the bibliographer ; but this is such a
drawing as gives at one glance a very high
idea of the artist. * I should like,' he said,
1 to paint a picture before I die.' Diligent in
early life, he was not found equal to the trial
of prosperity. He fell, as commissions mul-
tiplied, into unsatisfactory habits. He ne-
glected his pupils and did scant justice to his
sitters, and forced his respectable brother
(known now to art as Henry Burlowe) to
change his name. The confusion of the names
of the two brothers in the public mind is also
given as a reason for this act of repudiation by
the younger Behnes. A valuable biographical
and critical account of Behnes is preserved in
the memoirs of the sculptor, Henry Weekes,
who was pupil successively to him and to
Chantrey. Behnes excelled in the modelling
of children, and, whenever he attempted it, of
female heads, and generally in portrait busts.
From 1822 and onwards his exhibited works
were of the portrait class. The bust of Clark-
son by him is described as especially fine, as
well as those of Lord Lyndhurst, D'Israeli,
Macready, and others. There is a certain
large simplicity, and a character of essential
truthfulness which contrasts most favourably
both with the vapidity of the older heroic
i portrait sculpture and with the niggling ve-
| racity of that English school of painter-
sculptors who followed the fashion of France.
Weekes inclines, a little doubtfully, to rank
Behnes above Chantrey in point of true genius
for art. But Chantrey was a careful as well
as a talented man, and rose easily high in his
profession. ' By the time that Behnes had

K L

Beighton

132

Beighton

come to the same point he was tossing about
in a sea of trouble. . . . The vivid impulses
which served him in his busts hardly helped
him in works that required longer and more
mature consideration. His statues, with
the exception of two, Dr. Babington in St.
Paul's Cathedral, and Sir William Follett in
Westminster Abbey, are bad. . . .His talent,
however, still shone forth by fits and starts
in lesser efforts — his beautiful statuette of
Lady Godiva, for instance — though they were
but the momentary flashes that indicated the
expiring flame.' In 1861 Behnes was bank-
rupt, and at an unknown age he died, picked
up from the street, in Middlesex Hospital,
3 Jan. 1864.

[Art Journal, 1864 ; "Weekes's Lectures on Art ;
Eedgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English
School.] E. K.

BEIGHTON, HENRY (d. 1743), an
eminent surveyor and engineer, came from
a family of yeomen which had been long
settled at Chilvers Coton in Warwickshire.
He himself resided at Griff, a hamlet in the
same parish, where he assisted a small in-
come of about 100/. a year by surveying, in
which, for elegance, accuracy, and expedi-
tion, he is said to have had but few equals.
Beighton is now best remembered as the
illustrator of Dr. Thomas's edition of Dug-
dale's 'Warwickshire/ the maps in which
are taken from an actual survey made by him
during a period of four years, from 1725 to
1729. Among other drawings published by
him may be mentioned a small view of the
south-east side of Fairford Church, Glouces-
cestershire, 1715, a north prospect of St.
Michael's Church, Coventry, about 1721, and
in the same year a view of the beautiful cross
at Coventry, built after the model of that at
Abingdon in 1544. Besides these he made,
in 1716, a large finished drawing of Kenil-
worth Castle, with manuscript references,
from a fresco occupying the whole side of a
room at Newnham Paddox, a seat of the Earl
of Denbigh. This was copied at the expense
of John Ludford, Esq., of Ansley Hall, but
was not engraved.

About 1720 Beighton had issued pro-
posals for publishing a map of Warwickshire,
( on two sheets of large paper, about forty-
three inches deep and thirty broad,' at the
moderate price of five shillings in sheets, but
he met with so little encouragement that
the design was not carried into effect during
his lifetime. The map was ultimately pub-
lished by subscription, about 1750, in two
sheets, with the several emendations left
by the author, as also the same map reduced
to a single sheet. Both editions are now

of rare occurrence. Beighton's map is laid
down by English measured miles, reduced to-
horizontal, by his own hand. He measured
both with the chain and compass, and set
down the medium scale. In 1713 Beighton
succeeded John Tipper, of Coventry, in the
editorship of the ' Ladies' Diary,' which he
conducted with much success until his death.
In his prefaces to that ingenious compilation,
' peculiarly adapted for the Use and Diver-
sion of the Fair Sex,' he speaks of his gallant
endeavours to introduce his readers to the
study of the mathematical sciences. In 1718
he erected a steam-engine at Newcastle with
an improved valve (THURSTON'S Hist, of the
Steam Engine (1878), 61-3, where is a figure
of Beighton's engine). In November 1720
he became a fellow of the Royal Society,
and was a valued contributor to the 'Phi-
losophical Transactions.' His * Description
of the Water Works at London Bridge r
(Phil. Trans, xxxvii. 5-12) is a favourable
specimen of his skill in mechanics. He also
assisted his friend, Dr. Desaguliers, in the
second volume of his ' Course of Experimen-
tal Philosophy.' A few of Beighton's scien-
tific manuscripts and note-books are preserved
in the British Museum. Dying in October
1743, aged 57, he was buried on the llth at
Chilvers Coton, where a small mural tablet
mentions his death but not his merits.

[Pennant's Journey from Chester to London
(1782), p. 184 ; Camden's Britannia, ed. (rough,
ii. 347 ; Colvile's "Worthies of Warwickshire,,
pp. 29-30, appendix, p. 869; (rough's British
Topography, i. 377, 733, ii. 300, 303, 305;
vol. xv. pt. ii. of Beauties of England and Wales ;
Dugdale's "Warwickshire, ed. 1765, with manu-
script notes by W. Hamper, in Brit. Mus. ;
Thoresby's Diary, ii. 293 ; Letters of Eminent
Literary Men, ed. Sir H. Ellis (Camd. Soc.),
p. 304 ; Ayscough's Cat. of MSS. in Brit. Mus.]

G-. a

BEIGHTON, THOMAS (1790-1844),
missionary, was born at Ednaston, Derby-
shire, on 25 Dec. 1790. He was educated by
the liberality of a Unitarian minister, but
adopted evangelical principles, and was sent
by the London Missionary Society as a mis-
sionary to Malacca. In 1819 he was stationed
at Penang. Besides teaching in schools and'
holding religious services, he set up a printing-
press, from which he issued works in the
Malay language. He translated into Malay
and issued from his press parts of the ' Pil-
grim's Progress,' Baxter's ' Saints' Rest/ and
the Anglican liturgy. On a rumour that the
mission was to be removed, a petition against
his removal, signed by fifty-six native mer-
chants and others, was sent in. He died at
Penang on 14 April 1844.

Beilby i

[Information from J. T. Beighton, Esq.; Evan-
gelical Magazine, March and April 1845; Sunday
at Home, December 1881,]

BEILBY, EALPH (1744-1817), en-
graver, was the son of William Beilby, a
jeweller and goldsmith at Durham, who,
being unsuccessful in business there, removed
to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Ralph became a
silversmith, jeweller, and seal-engraver under
his father, and acquired several useful arts
and accomplishments. To the engraving of
arms and letters on seals and silver plate he
added engraving on copper, as there were at
that time no engravers in the north of Eng-
land. He executed heraldic engravings with
extraordinary facility, and his plate of
* Thornton's Monument,' in Brand's * History
•of Newcastle,' shows that he possessed con-
siderable skill in engraving on copper. The
celebrated Thomas Bewick was apprenticed
to him in 1767, and ten years afterwards be-
came his partner. This partnership was
dissolved in 1797, and the business then de-
volved on Bewick alone. Beilby was dis-
tinguished for his literary and scientific pur-
suits, and was also a good musician. He
was one of the earliest and most zealous
promoters of the Literary and Philosophical
Society of Newcastle. Beilby engraved the
beautiful frontispiece to Gay's ' Fables ' (New-
castle, 1779), and he was engaged with
Bewick in executing the engravings for
Osterwald's edition of the Bible (Newcastle,
1806). He wrote the descriptive part of the
'* History of Quadrupeds,' illustrated bv
Bewick"(1790 ; 8th ed. 1824), and of the firs"t
volume of the ' History of British Birds,'
also illustrated by Bewick (1797; 8th ed.
1847). Beilby died at Newcastle on 4 Jan. |
1817, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

[Cat. of Works illustrated by T. and J. Bewick,
2, 4, 5, 10, 13, 14, 18, 22, 23, 24, 31, 34 ; Sykes's
Local Records (1833), ii. 380, Cat. of Printed
Books in Brit. Mus.] T. C.

BEILBY, WILLIAM, M.D. (1783-1849), !

a philanthropic physician of Edinburgh, was !
born at Sheffield, 13 April 1783. In 1807 j
he entered into a partnership in the linen trade j
with some relatives in Dublin, but in 1813 j
he removed to Edinburgh to study medicine, i
After taking the degree of M.D. in 1816, he !
•settled in Edinburgh to practise midwifery. ;
He soon obtained a high reputation in his i
profession, and was appointed physician ac- ;
coucheur to the New Town Dispensary. He
took a prominent interest in benevolent and
ivljgious matters, including the schemes of
the Evangelical Alliance, and was the first

? resident of the Medical Missionary Society, i
Ie died on 30 May 1849.

53 Bek

[Selection from the Papers of the late Dr.
William Beilby, F.R.C.P.E., with a memorial
sketch, by J. A. James, Birmingham, 1850.1

T. F. H.

BEITH or BEETH, WILLIAM (15th
cent.), a Dominican writer, according to
Anthony a Wood, spent his early years at
Oxford, and was, towards the middle of his
life, made provincial of his order for Eng-
land. The apparent date assigned for his
appointment to this office in Altamura's
' Bibliotheca Ordinis Praedicatorum ' is 1480 ;
but he does not appear to have continued to
hold it till the time of his death. According
to Possevinus he was still living in 1498.
Those of Beith's writings whose titles have
been preserved include commentaries on the
' Sentences ' of Peter Lombard, a treatise ' De
Unitate formarum,' and certain 'Lecturge
Scholasticae.' According to Wood, Beith was
a most successful provincial of his order, and
achieved a great renown amongst the learned
men of Henry VII's reign.

[Pits, 684; Quetifs Scriptores Ord. Prsedic.
i. 892; Wood's Athense Oxonienses (ed. Bliss,
1813). 6; Ambrosius de Altamura (ed. 1677),
203, 521.] T. A. A.

BEK is the name of a family in Lincoln-
shire, from which sprang several men of emi-
nence in the thirteenth century. The Beks
were descended from one Walter Bek, called
in the ' Great Survey ' Walter Flandrensis,
who came over with William the Conqueror,
and received from him the lordship of Eresby
in Lincolnshire, ( et multa alia maneria.'
From his three sons, I. Henry, II. Walter,
and III. John, sprang three great Lincoln-
shire families : I. Bek of Eresby, II. Bek of
Luceby, III. Bek of Botheby. With the last
of these we have no concern.

I. From Henry Bek, lord of Eresby, was
descended, about the middle of the thirteenth
century, Walter Bek, who had three sons :
(1) JOHN, lord of Eresby, from whose daugh-
ter the Lords Willoughby de Eresby claimed
their descent, as they obtained from her
their barony ; (2) THOMAS (d. 1293), who be-
came bishop of St. David's in 1280 [see below].
(3) ANTONY, the third son (d. 1310), who be-
came bishop of Durham in 1283 [see below].

II. From Bek of Luceby sprang another
Walter, who was constable of the castle of Lin-
coln at the time when his kinsmen Thomas I
and Antony I were respectively bishops of
St. David's and Durham, and died 25 Aug.
1291. He had three sons: (1) JOHN, born
18 Aug. 1278 ; (2 ) ANTONY II, born 5 Aug.
1279 : (3) THOMAS II, born 22 Feb. 1282.

The three sons were all under age at the
date of their father's death, and probably

Bek

Bek

became wards of their kinsman Antony I,
the great bishop of Durham. (1) Of JOHN
there is nothing that need be said. (2) AN-
TONY II was bishop of Norwich from 30 March
1337 till his death, 19 Dec. 1343 [see below].
(3) THOMAS II was consecrated bishop 7 July
1342, and died on 2 Feb. 1346-7 [see below].

[The chief authority for the Beks is the MS.
Harl. 3720, which is of the fourteenth century,
and appears to have been drawn up as a family
chronicle some time in the xeign of Edward III.
There are notices of the various members of the
family in the Eolls of Parliament, the Chronicles,
and other publications issued by the Master of
the Eolls. The identity of name is likely to
cause confusion.] A. J.

BEK, ANTONY I (d. 1310), bishop of
Durham, was the son of Walter, baron of
Eresby, in Lincolnshire. As a young man
he attracted the notice of Edward I, and
was nominated by him bishop of Durham in
1283. He was already well provided with
ecclesiastical preferments ; for he held five
benefices in the province of Canterbury, and
was archdeacon of Durham. At the time of
his nomination to the see the monks of Durham
were at variance with the archbishop of York
about his rights of visitation. They knew
that the archbishop would not accept any one
unless he were supported by the king, and they
accordingly elected the king's nominee with-
out opposition on 9 July 1283. Bek was
consecrated at York on 9 Jan. 1284-5, and
immediately after his consecration the arch-
bishop, John Rom anus, ordered him to ex-
communicate the rebellious monks. Bek re-
fused, saying, ' Yesterday I was consecrated
their bishop : shall I excommunicate them
to-day ? ' At Bek's enthronement the claims
of the archbishop of York led to another
dispute. The official of York contested the
right of the prior of Durham to instal, and
Bek, in the interests of peace, set them both
aside, and was installed by his brother
Thomas, bishop of St. David's.

Antony Bek was a prelate of the secular
and political type. He was one of the most
magnificent lords in England, and outdid
his peers in profuse expenditure. His or-
dinary retinue consisted of a hundred and forty
knights, and he treated barons and earls with
haughty superiority. Besides the revenues
of his bishopric he had a large private for-
tune ; and though he spent money profusely
he died rich. He delighted in displaying his
wealth. Once in London he paid forty shillings
for as many herrings, because he heard that
no one else would buy them. At another
time, hearing that a piece of cloth was spoken
of as 'too dear even for the Bishop of

Durham,' he bought it, and had it cut up for
horse-cloths. Yet he was an extremely tem-
perate man, and cared nothing for pleasure.
He was famed for his chastity, and it was
said that he never even looked a woman in
the face. At the translation of the relics of
St. William of York he was the only prelate
who felt himself pure enough to touch the
saint's bones. He was a man of restless
activity, who needed little sleep. He used
to say that he could not understand how a
man could turn in his bed, or seek a second
slumber. He spent his time in riding, with
a splendid retinue, from manor to manor, and
was a mighty hunter, delighting in horsesr
hawks, and hounds.

Such a man was sure to find political em-
ployment, and Edward I used him for his
negotiations with Scotland. In 1290 he was-
one of the royal commissioners at Brigham
to arrange the marriage of the king's son
Edward with Margaret, the infant queen of
Scotland. When this was agreed to, Bek
was made lieutenant for Margaret and her
husband ; but this office soon came to an end
by Margaret's death (RYMEK, Fcedera, ii.
487-91). Next year Bek accompanied Ed-
ward I to Norham, and, on account of his-
eloquence, was one of those appointed to-
address the Scottish estates. Throughout
the proceedings which led to the recognition
of Baliol as king of Scotland, Antony Bek
was one of the chief advisers of Edward I.
In 1294 he was sent as ambassador to Adolf
of Nassau, to arrange an alliance with Ger-
many against France. In 1296 Bek joined
Edward I in his expedition against Scotland.
He led one thousand foot and five hundred
horse, and before him was carried the sacred
banner of St. Cuthbert. Baliol was helpless;
before Edward's army, and Bek was deputed
to receive Baliol's submission in the castle of
Brechin. When the war of Scottish indepen-
dence broke out, Bek again joined Edward I
in his second expedition to Scotland in 1298.
His first exploit was the siege of the castle
of Dirleton, which he had gTeat difficulty in
taking. In the battle of Falkirk Bek com-
manded the second division of the English
forces, and, when he came near the foe, ordered
his cavalry to await reinforcements before'
charging. ' To thy mass, bishop,' cried a rough
knight, ' and teach not such as us how to fight
the foe.' He spurred on, was followed by the
rest, and routed the enemy.

Soon after his return from this campaign
Antony Bek seems to have lost the king's
favour, and was involved in ecclesiastical
disputes which lasted for the remainder of
his lifetime. In 1300 he proposed to hold a
visitation of the convent of Durham, where

Bek

"35

Bek

some of the monks were dissatisfied with,
their prior, Richard de Hoton. Prior Richard
declined to admit the bishop as visitor unless
he came unattended. He feared to admit the
bishop's retinue, which would practically en-
able him to enforce his decisions. Hereon
Bek suspended the prior, and on his continued
contumacy deposed and excommunicated
him. The quarrel led to breaches of the
peace, and at last the king interposed as
mediator. He decided that the prior was to
continue in office, and the bishop was to visit
the convent accompanied by a few chaplains.
He declared that he would go against that
party which opposed his decision. The haughty
bishop would not give way. He refused to
withdraw his deposition of Prior Richard,
and called on the monks to make a new
election. When they demurred, he appointed
Henry de Luceby, prior of Lindisfarne, to the
office. To set up his nominee he called the
men of Tynedale and Weardale to besiege
the abbey, which was reduced by hunger.
Then he seized Prior Richard and put him in
prison, whence Richard managed to escape,
and carried his grievances before the king
and parliament, which was assembled at
Lincoln. There were many who joined in
his complaints of the bishop's arrogance.
The barons of the palatinate were not sorry
to see Bek called to account. The men of
the bishopric complained that they had been
compelled to serve in the Scottish war con-
trary to their ' haliwere,' or obligation to
fight only in defence of the patrimony of St.
Cuthbert. Edward was irritated by Arch-
bishop Winchelsey's adhesion to the papal
policy, and was inclined to look with dis-
favour on clerical pretensions. He asked Bek
if he had stood with him in 1297 against
the earl marshal and the Earl of Hereford.
Bek answered that he had been on their side
because he thought they sought the honour
of the king and his realm. From that time
forward Edward I was Bek's enemy.

The decision of parliament was in favour
of the dispossessed prior, and he went off to
Rome with letters from the king in his
favour. Pope Boniface VIII reinstated him
in his office, and summoned Bek to answer
for his doings. Bek paid no heed to the papal
summons, and Boniface VIII threatened him
with deprivation. On this Bek set out for
Rome, without asking the king's permission,
in 1302, for which breach of decorum Ed-
ward I seized the temporalities of his see, and
administered them by his own officials. At
Rome Bek displayed his usual magnificence
to the amazement of the people. 'Who is
this ? ' asked a citizen as he saw the bishop's
retinue sweep by. * A foe to money ' was the

answer. Bek won over the cardinals by his
splendid presents. One admired his horses,
whereon Bek sent him two of the best, that
he might choose which he preferred. The
cardinal kept both. 'He has not failed to
choose the best/ said Bek. Bek showed that
he was no respecter of persons. He gave
the benediction when a cardinal was present.
He amused himself by playing with his
falcons even during his interviews with the
pope. Boniface VIII admired a temper so like
his own, and dismissed the prior's complaints
against Bek. On his journey Bek was in
danger through a tumult which arose in a
North-Italian city between his servants and
the citizens. The mob stormed the house in
which he was, and rushed into his room, ex-
claiming ' Yield, yield ! ' l You don't say to
whom I am to yield,' said the bishop ; t cer-
tainly to none of you.' His dauntless bear-
ing soon quelled the disturbance.

When Bek returned to England he made
submission to the king, and recovered the
possessions of his see. But he could not en-
dure to be defeated by Prior Richard, and on
the death of Boniface VIII again accused
him to Benedict XI, who died before he had
time to decide the case. Still Bek renewed
his complaints to Clement V, who deprived
Prior Richard of his office, and conferred on
Bek a mark of his special favour by creating
him patriarch of Jerusalem in 1305. How-
ever, Prior Richard, nothing dismayed, took
another journey to the papal court, and,
furnished with a thousand marks, succeeded
in obtaining a reversal of the sentence. It
did him little service ; for he died before he
could set out homewards, and his possessions
were taken by the pope's treasury. Bek was
now delivered from this troublesome quarrel ;
but Edward I would not leave him in peace.
On the ground that he had obtained instru-
ments from Rome injurious to the rights of
the crown, the king deprived him of the
liberties of Barnard Castle and Hartlepool,
which had been conferred on him after the
forfeitures of Baliol and Bruce. The acces-
sion of Edward II saw Bek again restored
to royal favour. In 1307 the young king
granted him the sovereignty of the Isle of
Man. Thenceforth Bek was at liberty to
wreak his vengeance upon the friends of the
refractory prior. In 1308 he visited the
convent of Durham, and suspended for ten
years those monks who had taken part against
him. His injured pride led him to commit a
dishonourable action, which had far-reaching
effects on the history of the north of England.
William de Vesci, lord of the barony of Aln-
wick, died in 1297 without lawful issue, and
left his castle and barony of Alnwick to

Bek

136

Bek

Bek, in trust for an illegitimate son until he
came of age. Stung by some disrespectful
words of the lad, which were reported to
him, Bek broke his trust, and sold the barony
of Alnwick to Henry Percy in 1309, thereby
increasing the importance of the Percy house
which afterwards became so powerful. Bek
4ied at Eltham on 3 March 1310-11, and
was buried in the cathedral of Durham. He
was the first to whom this honour had been
granted : though, out of reverence to St. Cuth-
bert, his body was not permitted to enter by
the door, but through an opening made in
the wall.

Bek was a man of great liberality, and

rt much money on building. He made !
churches of Chester-le-Street and Lan- j
Chester into collegiate churches, and endowed !
a dean and seven prebends at each. He |
founded the priory of Alvingham in Lin- j
colnshire, and built the castle of Somerton, I
near Lincoln. He converted the manor-
house of Auckland into a castle. He built j
the castle of Eltham, and gave it to the :
queen, while he similarly gave Somerton to
the king. In all points he is one of the
most characteristic figures of his time.

[The chief authority for Bek's life is Robert
de Graystanes, De Statu Ecclesise Dunelmensis,
published in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, and more
accurately edited by Raine for the Surtees
Society, 1839. Besides this are scattered men-
tions in Walsingham's and Hemingford's chro-
nicles, and in the documents in Rymer's Foedera
and Prynne's Brevia Parliamentaria, vol. iii.
Much about his quarrel with John Romanus, arch-
bishop of York, is in the Rolls of Parliament.
Of modern writers the fullest account is given by
Hutchinson, History of Durham, i. 228-58; also
by Low, Diocesan History of Durham.]

M. C.

BEK, ANTONY II (1279-1343), bishop
of Norwich, was born on 5 Aug. 1279, and
was the second of the three sons of Walter
Bek of Luceby, constable of Lincoln Castle,
who died leaving his sons minors on 25 Aug.
1291. He was educated at Oxford, and,
like his younger brother, Thomas [q. v.],
afterwards bishop of Lincoln, took holy
orders, and from his influential connec-
tions both in church and state he speedily
obtained lucrative preferment. During the
episcopate of Bishop John of Dalderby he
was appointed to the prebendal stall of
Ketton in the cathedral of Lincoln, which
he exchanged in 1313 for that of Thorn-
gate, which he again resigned on his re-
ceiving the chancellorship of the cathedral,
together with the stall of North Kelsev, on
4 Sept. 1316 (LE NEVE, Fasti, ii. 92," 157,
196, 222). While chancellor he exchanged

the residence formerly attached to his office
to the north-west of the minster, for one on
the east side of the close, to which he made
large additions, and in which the chancellors
still reside. On the death of Bishop Dal-
derby, the dean, Henry of Mansfield, who had
been the first choice of the chapter, declining
the office, he was chosen to fill the vacant
see ' per viam scrutinii,' 3 Feb. 1320. The
royal assent to his election was given on
20 Feb. The pope, however, John XXI (or
XXII), asserted that he had already ' pro-
vided' for the see, and annulled the election,
appointing Henry of Burghersh (LE NEVE,
ii. 13). In 1329 he became dean of Lincoln
(ib. 32). His arbitrary temper soon involved
him in disputes with his chapter. The dean
appealed to the pope, and, without waiting
for the royal license, resorted to Avignon
to urge the matter in person. He here in-
gratiated himself with the pope, who made
him his chaplain, and a clerk of the Roman
curia. At the beginning of 1335 he was sum-
moned by Edward III, then at Newcastle-on-
Tyne,tomeet him at Nottingham on the ensu-
ing mid-Lent Sunday to treat of divers difficult
and urgent matters, setting aside all other
engagements (Harl.MS. 3720, p. 10). On the
death of BishopAyreminne of Norwich(1336),
he again repaired to Avignon, and secured
the vacant see, to which he was consecrated
| on 30 March 1337, when he had nearly com-
pleted his seventy-second year, being forced
i upon an unwilling church ( reluctantibus
| monachis ' by a papal bull. On the death of
Bishop Ayreminne, the monks of Norwich
j had elected one of their own body, Thomas
of Hemenhall, but the election was set aside
by Benedict XI, as Bek's own election had
been previously quashed by John XXI on the
same ground, viz. a previous appointment by
1 provision.' Hemenhall's personal remon-
strance to the pope himself at Avignon was
to no purpose, as far as the see of Norwich
was concerned. He was, however, induced
to resign all claim to the see, and in reward
for his compliance was appointed by the pope
to the bishopric of Worcester, vacant by the
promotion of Simon Mont acute to Ely (RY-
MER, Foedera, ii. ii. 957, 1060 ; LE NEVE, ii.
464). The remonstrances of Edward III
proved equally fruitless with those of the
bishop-elect and of his electors, the statute
of l provisions ' proving no sufficient barrier
against papal usurpation. Bek's episcopate
lasted little more than seven years, nearly
the whole of which were spent in lawsuits
and quarrels, in which his aggressive dis-
position, arbitrary temper, and aristocratic
haughtiness involved him. He commenced
his episcopate by suing his predecessor's exe-

Bek

Bek

cutors for dilapidation and waste of the
property of the see, for which he recovered
very large damages. He stoutly resisted the
metropolitical visitation of his diocese by
Archbishop Stratford, and stirred up the
citizens of Norwich to make common cause
with him. On the king's interposition 011 the
primate's behalf, 29 Nov. 1342, the citizens
yielded, but the old man continued obsti-
nate, and appealed against the archbishop to
the pope. He made himself detested by the
monks of his cathedral by his determined at-
tempt to introduce a stricter system of disci-
pline, and to reduce the convent to greater
subordination to the bishop, ' suffering them
to do nothing in their house but what he
liked, plucking down and preferring amongst
them whom he listed, dealing so rigorously
with them that it got him the hatred of all
men, which proved his destruction ' (BLOME-
TIELD, Hist, of Norfolk, ii. 359). His death,
which took place at his manor of Hevering-
ham on 19 Dec. 1343, was popularly attri-
buted to poison administered to him by his
servants at the instigation of his monks.
Such suspicions were very common in the
middle ages, and there seems to be no ground
for the charge besides vulgar report. The
death of an old man of seventy-nine requires
no such explanation. With all his faults of
temper and character, Bek is described as 'a
man of learning and principle, and fearless
and inflexible when standing up for what he
believed to be right ' (JESSOPP, Diocesan His-
tory of Norwich, 115). He appears to have
patronised learning, 'his best preferment
being bestowed on graduates of the univer-
sities ' (ib.) He seldom left his diocese
during his episcopate, but its duration was
too short and his own years much too ad-
vanced, to allow of his doing much to bring
about the reforms his predecessor's scandalous
negligence rendered necessary.

[Godwin, De Prsesulibus, ii. 14 ; Wharton's
Anglia Sacra, i. 414; Blomefield's Hist, of Nor-
folk, ii. 358-9 ; Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 13, 92, 464 ;
Harl. MS. 3720.] E. V.

BEK, THOMAS I (d. 1293), bishop of St.
David's, was the second son of Walter Bek,
baron of Eresby, Lincolnshire, and the elder
brother of Antony Bek I [q. v.], the bishop of
Durham and patriarch of Jerusalem. Thomas
Bek, like his brothers, rose high in the royal
favour, and filled several important offices of
state. In 1269 he became chancellor of the
university of Oxford (LE NEVE, Fasti (ed.
Hardy), iii. 464; SMITH, Annals of Univer-
sity College, p. 12); in 1274 he was keeper
of the wardrobe to Edward I (RYMER, Feed.

i. 519) ; on 29 Sept. 1278 he was one of the
lords of parliament present at Westminster
when Alexander III of Scotland did homage
I (ib. p. 563); in 1279 he became lord treasurer
! (Pat. 1 Edw. I, m. 7) ; and in the same year
was entrusted with the keeping of the great
seal during Edward's absence in France
| (RYMEE, Feed, i. 575). His ecclesiastical
: preferments were also many and lucrative.
i He held the rectories of Silkstone, Yorkshire,
i and Wainfleet All Saints, Lincolnshire. In
| 1275 he was archdeacon of Dorset (Pat. 3
; Edw. /), and attended on Edward I and
i Queen Eleanor, 19 April 1278, on their
i visit to Glastonbury to inspect the relics
I of King Arthur (YARDLEY, Menev. Sacr.}
\ He was archdeacon of Berkshire in 1280
I (PRYNNE, Collect, torn. iii. p. 108). On
j 20 Jan. 1280 he was presented by the king
I to the prebend of Castor in the cathedral
| of Lincoln (LE NEVE, Fasti, ii. 125 ; Pat.
j 8 Edw. I, m. 23). The next year, Sunday,
6 Oct. 1280, Bek was consecrated bishop of
St. David's in Lincoln Minster, by Arch-
bishop Peckham, assisted by six other bishops,
including the Archbishop of Rages, orEdessa.
The same day the body of St. Hugh of Ava-
lon was translated to the new shrine pre-
pared for it in the recently erected ' Angel
Choir ' in the presence of Edward I and his
queen and their children, his brother Ed-
mund of Lancaster and his wife the queen
of Navarre, Archbishop Peckham and other
prelates, and 230 knights, with other nobles.
The whole cost of this magnificent ceremonial
and the accompanying festivities was defrayed
by the newly consecrated bishop (GiRALD.
CAMB. vii. 219, 220, Rolls Series). He sang
his first mass in the diocese at Strata Florida,
on 1 or 2 Feb. 1281, and was enthroned at
St. David's (on St. David's day) 1 March of
that year (HADDAN and STTJBBS, i. 528). In
1282, when Edward was inarching against
Llewellyn and his brother David, the bishop
of St. David's was one of the bishops and
abbots ordered on 20 May to have his contin-
gent ready to join the king's forces (RYMER,
Feed. i. 607). In 1283 he certified his having
received letters from Pope Martin IV allow-
ing the marriage of Rhys ap Mereduc and Auda
of Hastings, though within the prohibited de-
grees (ib. p. 635). When in 1284 Archbishop
Peckham made a metropolitical visitation
of the Welsh diocese, Bek, as a last ex-
piring protest on behalf of the ancient inde-
pendence of the Welsh church, made an in-
effectual remonstrance against the jurisdiction
of Canterbury. The protest was completely dis-
regarded, excommunication being threatened
if the opposition were perse vered in. The visi-
tation was held, and injunctions for the diocese

Bek

138

Beke

were drawn up by the archbishop (HADDAN
and STTJBBS, i. 571-9 ; WHARTON, Angl. Sacr.
ii. 651; WILKINS, Concilia, ii. 106). The
same year, on Sunday, 26 Nov., Edward I
and his queen visited St. David's ' peregrina-
tionis causa,' and we may safely conclude
were the guests of the bishop {Angl. Sacr. ii.
651). When at the close of the same year
his brother Antony was appointed to the
see of Durham, a dispute occurring between
the prior and the official of York as to the
right of instalment, that ' masterful prelate '
settled the matter by calling in his brother
of St. David's to perform the office (ib. i. 747).
In 1287 Bek completed the imperfect capi-
tular body of St. David's, which had consisted
only of a bishop and dean in one person and
a precentor, by the addition of a chancellor
and treasurer, together with a sub-dean and
a sub-chanter (JoNEsand FREEMAN, pp. 301,
322). To extend the advantages of a re-
sident body of clergy to the more neglected
parts of his wide-spread diocese, he in 1283
founded the collegiate church of Llangadoc
{Angl. Sacr. ii. 651), which was very
speedily removed to Abergwili, and in
1287 another at Llandewi-Brefi (LELAND,
Collectan. i. 323), and a hospital at Llaw-
haden, and obtained two weekly markets
from the king for his cathedral city ( JONES
and FREEMAN, pp. 300-2). We learn from
a survey of Sherwood Forest that Bek had
a hermitage at Eastwait 011 Mansfield Moor,
Nottinghamshire, to which he was in the
habit of retiring for meditation. According
to Bartholomew Cotton (de Rege Edwardo I,
p. '177, Rolls Series), Bek was one of the
many men of high rank who in 1290 were
induced by the impassioned preaching of
Archbishop Peckham to take the cross and
set out for the Holy Land ' sine spe remeandi '
(Annal. Monast. (Osney), iv. 336). If he
actually left England, which is not quite
certain, he returned in safety and died on
12 May 1293, and was succeeded by Bishop
David Marty n.

[Harl. MS. 3720 ; Jones and Freeman's His-
tory of St. David's, pp. 298-302; Le Neve's
Fasti (ed. Hardy) ; Jones's Fasti Eccl. Sarisb.
pp. 138, 147; Haddan and Stubbs's Councils
and Eccl. Doc. i. 528, 552-7 ; Wharton's Angl.
Sacra; Annal. Menev. ii. 651 ; Bymer's Fcedera,
vol. i. pt. ii. ; Wilkins's Concilia, ii. 106.]

E.V.

BEK, THOMAS II (1282-1347), bishop
of Lincoln, born on 22 Feb. 1282, was the
youngest of the three sons of Walter Bek
of Luceby, constable of Lincoln Castle [see
BEK, family of], a kinsman of the bishops of
Durham and St. David's. His father died on

25 Aug. 1291, when Thomas was nine years
old, and he and his brothers, John and An-
tony [q. v.] (afterwards bishop of Norwich),
probably became wards of Anthony, bishop of
Durham. Devoting himself to the clerical
profession, he attained considerable distinc-
tion, being styled ' clericusnobilis et excellens '
by Walsingham (p. 150). He became doctor
of canon law, and in 1335 received the pre-
bendal stall of Clifton in the cathedral of
Lincoln (LE NEVE, Fasti (Hardy), ii. 132).
On the death of Bishop Burghersh in De-
cember 1340 he succeeded to the bishopric
of Lincoln, being, it would seem, then at the
papal court at Avignon. Though the royal
assent was given to his election on 1 March
1341, his consecration was delayed by the
pope till the next year (MuRiMUTH, 115,
apud RAINE, Fasti Ebor. p. 439, note m),
when it took place at Avignon on Sunday,
7 July 1342, at the same time with Arch-
bishop Zouche of York. He obtained letters
of protection to come to England from Rome,
and the temporalities of the see were restored
to him on 17 Sept. (Pat. 16 Edw. Ill, p. 3,
m. 20). His episcopate lasted only five years*
He died on 2 Feb. 1346-7, and in his willr
which is extant, he desired to be buried on
the north side of the steps leading from the
chapter-house to the choir.

[Le Neve's Fasti (ed. Hardy), ii. 14; Godwin,.
De Prasul. i. 295 ; Harl. MS. 3720.] E.V.

BEKE, CHARLES TILSTONE (1800-
1'874), Abyssinian explorer, was born at Step-
ney, Middlesex, 10 Oct. 1800. He came of
an ancient Kentish family, which, in the
twelfth century, gave its name to Bekes-
bourne ; and there Beke himself resided for
some years. His father was a prominent
citizen of London. Beke was educated at a^
private school in Hackney, and in 1820 he
entered upon a business career. His com-
mercial pursuits called him from London
to Genoa and Naples. Upon his return from
the latter place he determined to abandon,
commerce, and entered himself at Lincoln's.
Inn, where he studied law. While pursu-
ing the legal profession, he published several
papers in the l Imperial Magazine ' and other
periodicals concerning biblical and archaeolo-
gical research. His first work of importance,
entitled ' Origines Biblicse, or Researches in
Primeval History,' was published in 1834.
His object was to establish the theory of the-
fundamental tripartite division of the lan-
guages of mankind, from which have arisen
all existing languages and dialects. Dean
Milman described the work as ' the first at-
tempt to reconstruct history on the principles
of the young science of geology ;' and for this.

Beke

139

Beke

literary effort the university of Tubingen con-
ferred upon the author the degree of doctor
of philosophy.

In 1834 and 1835 Dr. Beke published
a considerable number of papers upon the
writings attributed to Manetho, upon Egypt,
Midian, the Red Sea of Scripture, and other
collateral subjects, and in the latter year he •
was elected a fellow of the Society of An- !
tiquaries. In consideration of these Eastern |
researches Beke was successively elected a j
fellow of the Statistical and Syro-Egyptian
Societies of London, of the Oriental Society
of Germany, of the Royal Geographical So-
cieties of London and of Paris, and of the
Asiatic Society. From July 1837 till May
1838 Beke was British acting consul at
Leipzig. In 1840 he made his first journey
into Abyssinia, with a view not only to the
opening up of commercial relations with that
state and adjoining countries, but also to the
abolition of the slave trade and the discovery
of the sources of the Nile. 'His journey
resulted in his first making known the true
physical structure of Abyssinia and of
eastern Africa generally, showing that the
principal mountain system of Africa ex-
tends north to south on the eastern side of
that continent, and that the Mountains of
the Moon of Ptolemy are merely a portion
of the meridional range. Dr. Beke was the
first to ascertain the remarkable depression
of the Salt Lake, Assal. He fixed, by astro-
nomical observations, the latitude of more
than seventy stations, and mapped upwards
of 70,000 square miles of country. He visited j
and mapped the watershed between the Nile I
and the Hawash, along a line of fifty miles j
northward of Ankober, and he discovered j
the existence of the river Gojeb. He con-
structed a very valuable map of Gojam and
Damot, and determined approximately the
course of the Abai.' In this expedition
Beke also collected vocabularies of fourteen
languages and dialects spoken in Abyssinia.
In recognition of his discoveries he received
the gold medals of the Royal Geographical
Societies of London and Paris.

After his return from Abyssinia in 1843,
Beke resumed his commercial pursuits in
London, devoting the whole of his leisure,
however, to the study of the questions
which deeply interested him. From 1844 j
to 1848 many papers connected with Abys- j
sinian exploration appeared from his pen.
In the latter year he prepared a bill, which >
became law, authorising British consuls to
solemnise marriages in foreign countries.
During the same year he set on foot an ex-
ploring expedition for the discovery of the
sources of the Nile, the expedition to pene-

trate for the first time inland, from the coast
of Ptolemy 'sBarbaricus Sinus, opposite Zanzi-
bar, and to descend the river to Egypt. The
Prince Consort and other distinguished per-
sons gave their countenance to the expedi-
tion, and Dr. Bialloblotzky was appointed to
command it ; but unfortunately the leader
was compelled to abandon the undertaking
when it was only partially completed. It is
stated that Captain Speke became aware of
Beke's plan in 1848; and later explorers
have proved the soundness of his theories by
discovering that Lake Nyanza is within the
basin of the Nile.

In 1849 Beke was appointed secretary
to the National Association for the Protec-
tion of Industry and Capital throughout the
British Empire, and on the dissolution of
that society in 1853 he was formally thanked
through the Duke of Richmond for his ser-
vices to the cause of protection. M. Antoine
d'Abbadie, a French traveller, having pub-
lished an account of his alleged journey into
Kaffa for the purpose of exploring the sources
of the Nile, Beke issued a critical examination
of his claims, severely criticising his 'pre-
tended journey.' The Geographical Society
of Paris having awarded to M. d'Abbadie its
annual prize for the most important discovery
in geography, on the ground of his travels,
a warm controversy arose. The charges made
by Beke, and M. d'Abbadie's defence, were
brought before the society, and after con-
siderable discussion the society decided that
no action should be taken, and simply passed
to the order of the day. This decision being
unsatisfactory to Beke, he returned the gold
medal which had been awarded him in 1846
for his travels in Abyssinia, and withdrew
altogether from the society.

In 1852 Beke edited for the Hakluyt
Society Gerrit de Veer's ' True Description
of Three Voyages by the North-east, towards
Cathay and China.' Notes were added to
the work, which had also an historical in-
troduction relating chiefly to the earlier voy-
ages to Novaya Zemlya. The ensuing year
he addressed the Foreign Office and the
Board of Trade upon the subject of politics
and commerce in Abyssinia and other parts
of Eastern Africa. Beke had married a grand-
niece of Sir J. W. Herschel, but this lady
dying in 1853, in 1856 he married secondly
Miss Emily Alston, a Mauritius lady, the
daughter of Mr. William Alston of Leicester,
a claimant of the baronetcy of Alston. He
had three years before become a partner in
a Mauritius mercantile house, and in 1856
he despatched a sailing vessel to the port of
Massowah for the purpose of endeavouring to
open up commercial relations with Abyssinia.

Beke

140

Beke

The attempt proved a failure, however, and
•entailed on Beke considerable pecuniary loss.
But Beke was so convinced of the feasibility
of establishing commercial relations with
Abyssinia, that he applied, though unsuc-
cessfully, to the Foreign Office for the ap-
pointment of British consul at Massowah,
with the object of developing his scheme.

In 1860 Beke published < The Sources of
the Nile ; being a General Survey of the
Basin of that River and of its Head
Streams. With the History of Nilotic
Discovery.' The work was based upon the
author's essay ' On the Nile and its Tribu-
taries, and various subsequent papers. But
much new information was added. The
-author showed how the truth of his previous
contentions respecting the interior of Africa
had been established by Captain Burton and
other travellers ; and that the ' dark conti-
nent' possessed fertile and genial regions,
large rivers and lakes, and an immense popu-
lation, which, if not civilised, was yet to a
large extent endowed with kindly manners,
humane dispositions, and industrious habits.
The writer therefore pressed upon the serious
consideration of the British merchant, as well
as the Christian missionary and philanthro-
pist, the necessity for opening up the conti-
nent of Africa and civilising its inhabitants.

Dr. and Mrs. Beke travelled in Syria and
Palestine in 1861-62, l for the purpose of
exploring and identifying the Harran, or
Charran of Scripture, and other localities
mentioned in the book of Genesis, in accord-
ance with the opinions expressed in Dr.
Beke's " Origines Biblicte " in 1834. They
also travelled in Egypt, in order to see and
induce the merchants of Egypt to form a
company for carrying out Dr. Beke's plans for
opening up commercial relations with cen-
tral Africa, and for promoting the growth of
cotton in upper Egypt and the Soudan.' On
their return, the travellers were publicly
awarded the thanks of the Royal Geographi-
cal Society, and several papers were the
result of this visit to the East. Beke also
entered into controversy with Bishop Colenso
on the subject of the exodus of the Israelites
and the position of Mount Sinai.

In 1864 great indignation was caused in
England by the news that Captain Cameron
and a number of other British subjects and
missionaries had been imprisoned by the
King of Abyssinia for pretended insults.
Beke at once undertook a journey to Abyssinia
for the purpose of urging on King Theodore
the necessity of releasing the British consul
and his fellow-prisoners. Beke obtained the
temporary liberation of the prisoners, but the
subsequent conduct of the king, in again im-

prisoning and ill-treating the captives, led
to the Abyssinian war, which resulted in
the complete defeat, and the death, of King
Theodore. During the Abyssinian difficulty
Beke furnished maps, materials, and other in-
formation to the British government, and to
the army, by which many of the dangers of
the expedition were averted, and in all pro-
bability many lives saved. Beke received
a grant of 500/. from the secretary of state
for India, but his family and friends re-
garded this remuneration as very inadequate
for public services extending over a period
of thirty or forty years, and culminating in
his aid and advice in connection with the
Abyssinian campaign. In June 1868 Pro-
fessor E. W. Brayley, F.R.S., drew up a
memorandum of the public services of Beke
in respect of the Abyssinian expedition.
I Two years later the queen granted Beke a
civil-list pension of 100/. per annum in con-
sideration of his geographical researches, and
especially of the value of his explorations in
Abyssinia.

Amongst other questions of oriental in-

' terest studied by Dr. Beke, that of the true

location of Mount Sinai had always a special

i fascination for him. In December 1873 he

I left England for Egypt, accompanied by

i several scientific friends, for the purpose of

• investigating this question in person. The

| Khedive of Egypt placed a steamer at his

disposal, and the exploring party performed

j a tour round the alleged Mount Sinai, and

j made valuable discoveries along the coast of

j the gulf of Akaba. They occupied them-

j selves with the sites connected with the

passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites, and

afterwards proceeded into the interior, and

discovered ' Mount Sinai in Arabia/ called

by the natives Mount Barghir. In March

1874, Beke arrived in England, and though

apparently in good health, considering his

advanced age, died suddenly on 31 July

ensuirig. He was buried at Bekesbourne on

5 Aug.

After his death his widow issued his most
important work, entitled l Discoveries of
Sinai in Arabia, and of Midian,' which was
accompanied by geological, botanical, and
conchological reports, plans, maps, and en-
gravings. It was claimed for him that by
this work he had paved the way for others
to arrive at a final settlement of the whole of
the important questions connected with the
exodus of the Israelites. But the questions
raised in his latest volume led to much con-
troversy, his opinions being by some vehe-
mently opposed.

In addition to the works mentioned in the
course of this biography, Dr. Beke was the

Bekinsau

141

Belasyse

author of : 1. ' The British Captives in Abys-
sinia/ published in 1865. 2. ' King Theodore
and Mr. Rassam/ 1869. 3. 'The Idol in
Horeb/ 1871. 4. 'Jesus the Messiah/ 1872.

5. 'Discovery of the true Mount Sinai.'

6. 'Mount Sinai a Volcano '(1873) ; and many
other sketches, pamphlets, and papers.

[Beke's various works ; Summary of Beke's
published works, by his Widow, 1876 ; Annual
Eegister for 1874; Transactions of the Royal
Geographical Society ; An Enquiry into M. A.
d'Abbadie's Journey to Kaffa, 1850 ; The Idol in
Horeb, 1871 ; Letters on the Commerce of Abys-
sinia, 1852; Reports of the British Association,
1847 ; The Sources of the Nile, 1860 ; Views in
Ethnography (new ed.), 1863 ; Men of the Time,
8th ed.] G. B. S.

BEKINSAU, JOHN (1496P-1559), scho-
lar and divine, was born at Broadchalke, in
Wiltshire, about 1496. His father, John
Bekinsau, of Hartley Wespell, Hampshire,
is supposed to have belonged to the Lanca-
shire family of Becconsall (TANNER) ; but
Hoare (Hist, of Wilts, iv. 153) argues that
there was a family of the name native in
Wiltshire.

Bekinsau was educated at Winchester
School, and proceeded to New College, Oxford;
he was made fellow of that society in 1520,
and took the degree of M.A. in 1526. At
Oxford he was, according to Wood, esteemed
' an admirable Grecian ; ' and on proceeding
to Paris he read the Greek lecture in the
university, probably soon after 1530, the year
in which Francis I founded the royal pro-
fessorships and revived the study of Greek
at Paris. Having returned to England, Be-
kinsau married, and so vacated his fellow-
ship, in 1538.

His only extant work is a treatise 'De
supremo et absolute Regis imperio ' (London,
1546), republished in Goldast's ' Monarchia '
in 1611; this work is dedicated to Henry VIII,
' the head of the church immediately after
Christ/ and affirms the full supremacy of the
king against that of the pope. The argu-
ment proceeds mainly by quotations from the
fathers, of whom Chrysostom seems the fa-
vourite. He was a friend of John Leland,
who addresses a poem to a forthcoming work
of Bekinsau, and refers to the learning and
Parisian studies of its author (LELAND, En-
comia, p. 9). Bale gives a bad account of
Bekinsau, alleging that his work on the su-
premacy was only written for the sake of
lucre. The same biographer adds that he
returned to the Roman church in 1554, ' like
a dog to his vomit.' On the accession of
Elizabeth, Bekinsau retired to Sherburne,
a village in Hampshire, where he died, and
was buried on 20 Dec. 1559.

[Wood's Athenae, i. 129 ; Tanner's Bibliotheca ;
Bale ; Hoare's Wiltshire.] A. G-N.

BEKYNTOIST, THOMAS, bishop of
Bath and Wells. [See BECKINGTON.]

BELASYSE, ANTHONY, LL.D. (d.

, 1552), civilian, sometimes called BELLOWS
and BELLOWSESSE, was a younger son of
Thomas Belasyse, Esq., of Henknowle, co.
Durham. He proceeded bachelor of the civil

I law in the university of Cambridge in 1520,
and was afterwards created LL.D., but it is
supposed that he took that degree in a foreign

| university. In 1528 he was admitted an ad-

I vocate. On 4 May 1533 he obtained the
rectory of Whickham, co. Durham, being col-
lated to it by Bishop Tunstal, who on 7 June
following ordained him priest. In the same
year he was presented to the vicarage of St.
Oswald in the city of Durham. In 1539 he
became vicar of Brancepeth in the same
county, and about this time he resigned
Whickham. His name is subscribed to the
decree of convocation, 9 July 1540, declaring
the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of
Cleves to have been invalid. Later in the
same year he obtained a prebend in the col-
legiate church of Auckland and a canonry at
Westminster. Bonner, bishop of London,
collated him to the archdeaconry of Col-
chester on 27 April 1543 (NEWCOIJET, Reper-
torium, i. 91), and it is said that on the same
day he obtained a prebend in the church of
Ripon. He held also the mastership of the
hospital of St. Edmund in Gateshead, and
had a prebend in the collegiate church of
Chester-le-Street. In January 1543-4 he
was installed in the prebend of Heydour-
cum- Walton in the church of Lincoln. In
1544 he was appointed a master in chancery,
and on 17 Oct. in that year he was commis-
sioned with the master of the rolls, John
Tregonwell, and John Oliver, also masters
in chancery, to hear causes in the absence
of Lord Wriothesley, the lord chancellor.
(RYMER, Fcedera, ed. 1713, xv. 58).

Dr. Belasyse became master of Sherburne
Hospital, co. Durham, in or about 1545, in
which year Henry VIII granted to him, Wil-
liam Belasyse, and Margaret Simpson, the
site of the priory of Newburgh in the county
of York, with the demesne, lands, and other
hereditaments ; also certain manors in West-
moreland which had pertained to the dis-
solved monastery of Biland in Yorkshire. In
1546 he was holding the prebend of Tim-
berscomb in the church of Wells, and three
years later he was installed prebendary of
Knaresborough-cum-Bickhill in the church
of York. In January 1551-2 his name was
inserted in a commission by which certain

Belasyse

142

Belcher

judges and civilians were authorised to assist
Bishop Goodrich of Ely, the lord keeper, in
hearing matters of chancery (STRYPE, Me-
morials, ii. 296, 488, fol.). It is said that he
was one of the council of thu north under
Edward VI (Id. ii. 458, fol.), but the accu-
racy of this statement has been questioned.
On 7 June 1552 he had a grant from the
crown of a canonry in the church of Carlisle
( Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1 547-80,

LiO), though he does not appear to have
n admitted to it, and his death occurred
in the following month. Having largely
profited by the spoliation of the monasteries,
he bestowed the valuable estates thus ob-
tained at Newburgh and elsewhere on his
nephew, Sir William Belasyse, whose grand-
son was ennobled with the title of Faucon-
berg by Charles I.

[Foss's Judges of England, v. 91, 279, 341 ;
Surtees's Durham, i. 130, 131, 140, ii. 241, iii.
367, iv. (2) 82 ; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 181,
ii. 156, 342, iii. 197, 352; Cal. of State Papers
(Dom. 1547-80), 23 ; Strype's Memorials (fol.),
ii. 531 ; Original Letters relative to the English
Reformation, ed. Eobinson, 289 n ; Coote's Civi-
lians, 25 ; Cooper's Athense Cantab, i. 543.]

T. C.

BELASYSE, JOHN, BARON BELASYSE
(1614-1689), was the second son of Thomas,
first Lord Fauconberg. The first Lord Fau-
oiiberg (miscalled Henry by Fuller in his
* Worthies of Yorkshire ') was the eldest son
of Sir Henry Belasyse, first baronet, and was
by Charles I created in 1627 Baron Faucon-
berg of Yarm, and in 1642 Viscount Faucon-
berg of Henknowle. He died in 1652. His
eldest son, Henry, who died before him,
took some part in the proceedings in the
Long parliament at the time of the arrest
of the five members (GLOVER, Visitation
of Yorkshire; Notebook of Sir J. North-
cote). His second son was born about 1614.
On the breaking out of the civil war he
joined the king at Oxford, and was by him
at that place, on 22 Jan. 1644-5, created
Baron Belasyse of Worlaby, Lincolnshire.
At his own charge he raised six regiments
of horse and foot, was placed in command
of a ' tertia/ and was present at the battles
of Edgehill, Brentford, and Newbury, at the
sieges of Reading, Bristol, and Newark, and
finally at the battle of Naseby. He was also
appointed, at different times in the course of
the war, lieutenant-general of the king's
forces in the counties of York, Nottingham,
Lincoln, Derby, and Rutland, and governor
of York and Newark. After the restoration
he was made lord-lieutenant of the East
Riding and governor of Hull, and captain of
the guard of gentlemen pensioners. This

office he resigned in consequence of a private
quarrel ; he was then made governor of
Tangier. Being unable to take the oath of
conformity, he subsequently resigned that
post also. That his reputation stood high as
a soldier is proved by the fact that in the false
information of Titus Gates he, being a catholi c,
was designated as the leader of the catholic
army which Oates pretended was in course of
formation. In consequence of this information
he was in 1678, together with other catholic
lords, viz. Arundell of Wardour [see ARUN-
DELL, HENRY], Powis, Stafford, and Petre,
committed to the Tower and impeached of
high crimes and offences, but never brought
to trial. The imprisonment of the catholic
lords lasted till February 1683-4, when they
were admitted to bail. Lord Belasyse stood
high in the favour of James II, and was in
1687 made first lord commissioner of the
treasury, an appointment which, on account
of his religion, gave great offence. He died
in 1689.

His eldest son, Sir Henry Belasyse, K.B.,
the husband of Susan Armine [see under
ARMINE, SIR WILLIAM], died before his
father, and Lord Belasyse was succeeded in
the title by his grandson Henry, son of Sir
Henry. On the death of the second Lord
Belasyse in 1692 the title became extinct.

[Dugdale's Baronage ; Fuller's Worthies, York-
shire, p. 220 (fol.) ; Foster's Visitations of York-
shire, 1584-1612, and Pedigrees of the County
Families of Yorkshire; Money's Battles of New-
bury, where is given a copy of the monumental
brass in St. Giles' in the Fields, the church where
Lord Belasyse was buried; Klopp's Fall des
Hauses Stuart.] ' C. F. K.

BELASYSE, THOMAS, EARL
BERG (1627-1700), son of Henry Belasyse, r£ ;*'£]
and grandson of Thomas, first Viscount **fLel( J
Fauconberg, succeeded his grandfather in *
the viscounty of Fauconberg in 1652. Un- l/6i/'
like his father and grandfather, he passed
over to the side of the parliament, and sub-
sequently became a strong adherent of Crom-
well, whose third daughter, Mary, he married
in 1667. He again became a royalist at the
restoration, and was appointed a member of
the privy council of Charles II, captain of the
guard (in which office he succeeded his uncle),
and ambassador in Italy. He was one of the
noblemen who joined in inviting William
to England, and was by that king raised
in 1689 to the rank of earl. He died in
1700.

[Forster's County Families of Yorkshire ; Col-
lins's Peerage.] C. F. K.

BELCHER, SiREDWARD (1799-1877),
admiral, son of Andrew Belcher of Halifax,

Belcher

Belchiam

Nova Scotia [see BERESFORD, SIR JOHN Poo],
and grandson of William Belcher, governor
of the same colony, entered the navy in 1812,
and, after serving in several ships in the
Channel and on the Newfoundland station,
was in 1816 a midshipman of the Superb,
with Captain Ekins, at the bombardment of
Algiers. He was made lieutenant on 21 July
1818, and after continuous, though unimpor-
tant service, was in 1825 appointed as assistant
.surveyor to the Blossom, then about to sail
for the Pacific Ocean and Behring Straits [see
BEECHEY, FREDERICK WILLIAM] on a voy-
age of discovery which lasted over more than
three years. He was made commander
16 March 1829, and from May 1830 to Sep-
tember 1833 commanded the JEtna, employed
•on the survey of parts of the west and north
coasts of Africa, and through the winter of
1832 in the Douro, for the protection of
British interests during the struggle between
the parties of Doms Pedro and Miguel. The
results of the ^Etna's work were afterwards
embodied in the admiralty charts and sailing
directions for the rivers Douro and Gambia.
On paying off the JEtna, Belcher was em-
ployed for some time on the home survey,
principally in the Irish Sea, and in November
1836 was appointed to the Sulphur, survey-
ing ship, then on the west coast of South
America, from which Captain Beechey had
been obliged to invalid. During the next
three years the Sulphur was busily employed
on the west coast of both North and South
America, and in the end of 1839 received
orders to return to England by the western
Toute. After visiting several of the island
groups in the South Pacific, and making such
observations as time permitted, Belcher ar-
rived at Singapore in October 1840, where he
was ordered back to China, on account of the
war which had broken out, and during the
following year he was actively engaged,
more especially in operations in the Canton
Eiver. The Sulphur finally arrived in Eng-
land in July 1842, after a commission of
nearly seven years. Belcher had already
been advanced to post rank, 6 May 1841, and
been decorated with a C.B. ; he now (January
1843) received the honour of knighthood, and
in the course of the same year published his
•l Narrative of a Voyage round the World per-
formed in H.M.S. Sulphur during the years
1836-42 ' (2 vols. 8vo). In November 1842
he was appointed to the Samarang for the
survey of the coast of China, which the re-
cent war and treaty had opened to our com-
merce. More pressing necessities, however,
changed her field of work to Borneo, the
Philippine Islands, and Formosa, and on these
and neighbouring coasts Belcher was em-

ployed for nearly five years, returning to Eng-
land on the last day of 1847. In 1848 he
published ' Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S.
Samarang ' (2 vols. 8vo), and in 1852 was
appointed to the command of an expedition
to the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin.
The appointment was an unfortunate one ; for
Belcher, though an able and experienced sur-
veyor, had neither the temper nor the tact
necessary for a commanding officer under cir-
cumstances of peculiar difficulty. Perhaps no
officer of equal ability has ever succeeded in
inspiring so much personal dislike, and the cus-
tomary exercise of his authority did not make
Arctic service less trying. Nor did any happy
success make amends for much discomfort
and annoyance ; and his expedition is distin-
guished from all other Arctic expeditions as
the one in which the commanding officer
showed an undue haste to abandon his ships
when in difficulties, and in which one of the
ships so abandoned rescued herself from the ice,
and was picked up floating freely in the open
Atlantic. Belcher has himself told the story
in a work published in 1855 with the some-
what extravagant title of ' The Last of the
Arctic Voyages ' (2 vols. 8vo), with which
may be compared the description of the aban-
donment of the Resolute given by the late
Admiral Sherard Osborn in his ' Discovery of a
North-west Passage ' (4th ed. 1865), pp. 262-6.
Belcher was never employed again, although
in due course of seniority he attained his flag
11 Feb. 1861, became vice-admiral 2 April
1866, and admiral 20 Oct. 1872. He was
also honoured with a K.C.B. 13 March 1867.
He passed the remaining years of his life in
literary and scientific amusements, and died
18 March 1877. Besides the works already
noted, he published in 1835 ' A Treatise on
Nautical Surveying/ long a standard work on
the subject, though now obsolete ; in 1856,
' Horatio Howard Brenton, a Naval Novel '
(3 vols. 8vo), and an exceedingly stupid one ;
and in 1867 edited Sir W. H. Smyth's
1 Sailors' Word Book,' 8vo.

[O'Byrne's Naval Biog. Diet. ; Journal of the
Roy. Greog. Soc. (1877), xlvii. p. cxxxvi ; Add.
MS. 28509, f. 126.] J. K. L.

BELCHIAM, THOMAS (1508-1537), a
Franciscan friar ofvthe convent at Greenwich,
was imprisoned, with others of his brethren,
for refusing to take the oath of the royal supre-
macy, and declaring the king (Henry VIII)
to be a heretic. He wrote a sermon on the
text, ' Behold, they that wear soft clothing are
in kings' houses' (Matt. xi. 8), in which he
lashed the vices of the court and the avarice
and inconstancy of the clergy. At the in-
tercession of Thomas Wriothesley (after-

Belchier

144

Beler

wards lord chancellor and earl of South-
ampton), some of the friars were released,
but Belchiam was excepted. He died in New-
gate of starvation on 3 Aug. 1537. A copy
of his sermon, which was found in the prison
after his death, was brought to Henry VIII,
who was at first affected by it, but afterwards
had it burnt. Another copy was preserved
by the friars, and Thomas Bourchier, writing
in 1583, expresses a hope that it may be pub-
lished, which, as far as we know, was never
done.

[Bourchier's HistoriaEcclesiastica de Martyrio
Fratrum Ordinis Minorum ; Sanders's Historia
Schismatis Anglicani, p. 127; "Wadding's An-
nales Minorum, xvi. 418 ; Scriptores Minorum ;
Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, pt. i. 240 ; An-
gelus a S. Francisco (N. Mason), Certamen Sera-
phicum Provincise Anglise.] C. T. M.

BELCHIER, DAUBRIDGCOURT, or
DAWBRIDGE-COURT (1580P-1621), dra-
matist, the son of William Belchier, Esq.,
of Gillesborough, in Northamptonshire, was
admitted, in company with his brother John,
a fellow-commoner of Corpus Christi Col-
lege, Oxford, on 2 March 1597. He after-
wards removed to Christ Church, where, on
9 Feb. 1600, he took the degree of B.A.
A few years later he settled in the Low
Countries, and in 1617, when he was residing
in Utrecht, he translated from the Dutch —
but it cannot now be traced from what ori-
ginal— a piece which he published in London
in 1618, 'Hans Beer Pot, his Invisible
Comedy of See me and See me not,' which
was stated to have been ' acted in the Low
Countries by an honest company of Health
Drinkers/ This play was anonymous, and
.was attributed to Thomas Nash by Phillips
and Winstanley. The author admits that it
is neither tragedy nor comedy, but a plain
conference of three persons, divided into
three acts. Belchier was the author of
various other poems and translations, but
none of them appear to have been printed.
He presented to Corpus Christi College a
silver cup with the family arms upon it,
' Paly of 6 or, and gul, a chief vaire.' He
died at Utrecht in 1621.

[Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 158; Masters's
History of Corpus Christi College (1753), p. 230.]

E. G.

BELCHIER, JOHN (1706-1785), sur-
geon, was born at Kingston, Surrey, and
educated at Eton. On leaving school he
was apprenticed to Cheselden, head surgeon
at St. Thomas's Hospital. By perseverance
Belchier became eminent in his profession,
and in 1736 he was appointed surgeon to

G-uy's Hospital. In 1732 he was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society, and his name
appears on the list of the council from 1769
to 1772. He contributed some papers to
the society's * Philosophical Transactions/
On Belchier's retirement from the office of
surgeon of Guy's Hospital he was elected
one of its governors, and also a governor of
St. Thomas's Hospital. He had an exagge-
rated reverence for the name of Guy, saying
' that no other man would have sacri-
ficed 150,000/. for the benefit of his fellow-
creatures.' In the ' Gentleman's Magazine *
for 1743 is the following story : ' One Stephen
Wright, who, as a patient, came to Mr. Bel-
chier, a surgeon, in Sun Court, being alone
with him in the room clapt a pistol to his
breast, demanding his money. Mr. Belchier
offered him two guineas, which he refused ;
but, accepting of six guineas and a gold
watch, as he was putting them in his pocket
Mr. Belchier took the opportunity to seize
upon him, and, after a struggle, secured him/
Belchier died suddenly in Sun Court, Thread-
needle Street, and was buried in the founder's
vault in the chapel attached to Guy's Hos-
pital.

[Philosophical Transactions of the London-
Royal Society, abridged ; Gent. Mag. 1785.]

P. B. A.

BELER, ROGER DE (d. 1326), judge,
was son of William Beler, and grandson of
Roger Beler, sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1256.
His mother's name was Amicia. That the
family was settled in Leicestershire we know
from a license obtained by the judge in 1316
to grant a lay fee in Kirkby-by-Melton, on
the Wrethek in that county, to the warden
and chaplains of St. Peter, on condition of
their performing religious services for the
benefit of the souls of himself and his wife
Alicia, his father and mother, and ancestry
generally. In the civil dissensions of the
period, in which Piers Gaveston lost his life,
Beler was of the Earl of Lancaster's party,
and in October 1318 was included in the
amnesty then granted to the earl and his
adherents. Shortly afterwards he received a
grant of land in Leicestershire as the reward
of undefined ' laudable services ' rendered by
him to the king. In the same year the offices
of bailiff and steward of Stapleford, in Leices-
tershire, of which apparently he was already
tenant, were entailed upon him. In this year
he was one of a commission for the trial of
sheriffs and other officers accused of extortion
in the counties of Buckingham, Bedford, and
Northampton. In 1 322 he was created baron of
the exchequer in the room of John de Foxle,
and placed on a special commission to try

Belesme

145

Belet

-certain ' malefactors and disturbers of the ,
peace' who had forcibly broken into and j
pillaged certain manors belonging to Hugh |
le Despenser (amongst whom were Ralph j
and Roger la Zousch), and upon another coin-
mission for the same purpose in the following '
year. In 1324 he sat on a commission for |
the trial of persons charged with complicity in j
a riot at Rochester. On 29 Jan. 1325-6, while j
on his way from Kirkby to Leicester, he was j
murdered in a valley near Reresby by one ;
Eustace de Folville and his brother. A com-
mission for the trial of the murderers issued
next month, Roger la Zousch of Lubesthorp
and Robert Helewell being indicted as acces-
sories. They fled from the kingdom, and their
goods were confiscated. One Eudo or Ivo la
Zousch was ' appealed of the murder by Alicia,
and, being also threatened with death by Hugh
le Despenser, made his escape to France, and
died in Paris at Martinmas. Process of out-
lawry issued against him unlawfully after his
death, for the removal of which his son Wil-
liam petitioned parliament next year (1327).
Alicia survived her husband by nearly twenty
years, dying in 1344. The judge left an heir
named Roger, who, being an infant, became
a ward of the crown. Alicia was placed in
possession of the estates in Leicestershire
during his minority. The judge was buried
at Kirkby in the church of St. Peter, where
a monument in alabaster, representing him
as a knight in complete armour, was extant
at the date of publication of Nichols's ' His-
tory of Leicestershire ' (1795), though the lines
of the drapery were with difficulty traceable.

[Dugdale's Monast. vi. 511 ; Madox's Exch. ii.
140 ; Tanner's Not. Monast. 245 ; Abbrev. Kot.
Grig. i. 230, ii. 6, 171 ; Parl. Writs, ii. 522,
1647; Kot. Parl. ii. 432 ; Nichols's Leicest. i. pt.
ii. 225. ii. pt. i. 230; Foss's Judges of England.]

J. M. E.

BELESME, ROBERT DE. [See BEL-

LEME.]

BELET, MICHAEL (ft. 1182), judge,
was sheriff of Worcestershire 1176-81 and
again in 1184, of Wiltshire 1180-82, of Lei-
cestershire and Warwickshire in conjunction
with Ralph Glanvill 1185-87, and alone
1189-90. He appears as a justice itinerant for
Warwickshire and Leicestershire in 1177, in
the following year for Lincolnshire, and in
1179, on the redistribution of circuits which
then took place, he was assigned for the
eastern circuit.

On several occasions between the latter
years of Henry II's reign and the third of
John, 1201-2, we find him acting as tallager
in various counties. He is classed as a baron
in the record of a fine levied before him in

VOL. IV.

the exchequer in 1183, and in 1189-90 we
find him acting with the barons in assessing
imposts in the midland counties. He was
lord of the manor of Shene in Surrey, and of
that of Wroxton in Oxfordshire. He married
Emma, daughter and coheir of John de
Keynes, by whom he had several sons, of
whom the eldest was named Hervey after his
grandfather, and the second Michael [q. v.].
The last fine recorded by Dugdale as having
been levied before him is dated 1199. Pro-
bably he died early in the thirteenth century.
On his death his estates passed to his eldest
son, Hervey, who, however, dying in 1207-8
without issue, was succeeded by his brother
Michael, who paid a fine of 100/. upon the
succession.

[Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, ii. 191 ; Madox's Exch.,
i. 82, 113, 130, 556, 705,736; Fuller's Worthies,
137, 159, 178 ; Rot. Cancell., 3 John, 238 ; Fines
(Hunter) Pref. xxi-xxiii ; Pipe Roll 1 Eic. I, 35,
69, 103, 116, 160, 236 ; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 5 ;
Manning and Bray's Surrey, i. 406.] J. M. E.

BELET, MICHAEL (Jl. 1238), judge,
second son of Michael Belet, the judge of
Henry II's reign, is commonly styled Magister
Michael Belet on account of his profession of
civilian and canonist. He was presented in
1200-1 by the king to the living of Hincles-
ham in the diocese of Norwich. In the roll
De Oblatis for 1201 occurs the curious me-
morandum, of which the following is a trans-
lation : ' Master Michael Belet offers the
lord the king, on behalf of his sister, 40 marks
for the hand of Robert de Candos, which
is in the gift of the lord the king. And
Geoffrey Fitz Peter is authorised to accept
the aforesaid fine of 40 marks, provided it be
for the profit of the king so to do, because if
that be so, it is granted to him because he is
in the service of the king.' In 1203-4 he
was presented by the king to the living of
Setburgham (now Serbergham, near Hesket
Newmarket) in the diocese of Carlisle. At
a subsequent period, the precise date of which
cannot be fixed, he incurred the ' ill will '
(malevolentia) of the king, who caused him
to be ejected from his manor of Shene in
Surrey, which he held upon the tenure of ( ser-
geanty of butlery ' to the king, and only re-
instated him (in 1213) upon payment of a
fine of 500 marks. He was not at the same
time restored to the office of royal butler, of
which he had also been deprived. On the
whole, however, Belet seems to have been a
faithful servant of the king, and in 1216 he
received the lands of one Wischard Ledet,
who is described as being ( with the king's
enemies.' In 1223 he was appointed receiver
of the rents of the see of Coventry, and in

Beleth

146

Belford

1225 auditor of the accounts of the justices
to whom the collection of the quinzime was
assigned, and himself assigned to collect it
in Northamptonshire. This is probably the
reason why Dugdale includes him among the
barons. He is mentioned by Matthew Paris
in 1236 as playing his part with due solem-
nity as royal butler on the occasion of the |
banquet in honour of the marriage of the king '
with Eleanor of Provence. Some few years
previously, probably in 1230, he founded at
"Wroxton a priory for canons regular of the
order of St. Augustine, endowing it with the
manors of Wroxton andBalescote. The grant
was confirmed by a charter of Henry III.
The priory or abbey, as it came to be called,
continued in existence till the dissolution of ;
religious houses in Henry VIII's reign. The
property afterwards came into the family of
the earls of Downe. The present tenant, the
Baroness North, is a descendant of the lord
keeper Guilford, who married a sister of the
last earl of Downe. A few fragments of the
original building are preserved in the exist-
ing structure, which was erected between
1600 and 1618 by the earl of Downe of that
day.

[Rot. Chart. 75, 134; Kot. Glaus, i. 286;
Testa de Nevill, 226a; Madox's Exch. i. 462,
474, ii. 291 ; Rot. de Obi. et Fin. (Hardy), 180 ;
Matthew Paris, ed. Luard, iii. 338 ; Manning
and Bray's Surrey, i. 406 ; Tanner's Not. Monast.,
Oxfordshire; Skel ton's En graved Illustrations of
Oxfordshire, Bloxham Hundred; Burke's Visi-
tation of Seats and Arms, ii. 189.] J. M. R.

BELETH, JOHN (/. 1182 ?), the author of
the often-printed ' Rationale divinorum offi-
ciorum,' is somewhat hesitatingly claimed as
an Englishman by Pits. According to Tan-
ner, however, his cognomen was Anglicus.
He is said by Henricus Gandavensis (d. 1293)
to have been rector of a theological school at
Paris. Albericus Trium Fontiuni (fl. 1241)
describes him under the year 1182 as nourish-
ing in the church of Amiens (Chron. Alberici
apud LEIBNITZ, ii. 363). Posse vinus, appa-
rently quoting from Essengrenius, has as-
signed him a very different date — 1328 —
which has been adopted by Pits, and, according
to Oudin, by some later writers. The latest
author quoted by Beleth seems to be Rupert
Tuitiensis, who died in the year 1135 (see
Rationale, c. 123). The chapter in the l Ra-
tionale ' on the feast of the Invention of St.
Stephen, instituted in the fifteenth century
(MIGNE), is evidently a late insertion. Be-
sides the ( Rationale/ two other works have
been attributed to Beleth — a collection of
sermons, and a treatise entitled 'Gemma
Animse.' The ' Rationale ' seems to have
been printed several times during the course

of the sixteenth century, and at various
places. In later years it has been issued in
Migne's ' Patrologiae Cursus,' vol. ccii. Many
manuscripts of this work used to exist in
England. Pits mentions two in the private-
libraries of Baron de Lumley and Walter
Cope. Tanner adds two others, to be found
respectively in the Royal Library at West-
minster (now in the British Museum), and
in the Bodleian at Oxford.

[Pits, 869 ; Possevimis, Apparatus Sacer, i.
825; Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat. iv. 56; Oudin
De Scriptor. Ecclesiast. ii. 1589; Du Boulay's
Historia Univers. Parisiens. ii. 749 ; Tanner, and
authorities cited above ; a list of the various edi-
tions of the Rationale is given by Fabricius.]

T. A. A.

BELFAST, EAKL OF. [See CHICHESTEK,,
FKEDEEICK WILLIAM.]

BELFORD, WILLIAM (1709-1780),
artillery officer, was born in 1709, and entered
the royal regiment of artillery on its forma-
tion as a cadet on 1 Feb. 1726. The regiment
of artillery was not yet of much importance
as a component part of the army, for Marl-
borough had always employed Danish, Dutch,,
and German adventurers as gunners, and had
not laid much importance upon securing
English artillerymen. King George I, Lord
Stanhope, and Sir Robert Walpole all saw the
importance of this branch of the service, and
Albert Borgard [q.v.] was allowed to raise the
royal regiment of artillery in 1726. Young
Belford soon showed his aptitude for learning
all that was then to be learned of the science
of artillery, and was promoted fireworker in
1729, second lieutenant in 1737, first lieu-
tenant in 1740, and captain-lieutenant or
adjutant in 1741. In that year he served in
the expedition to Carthagena, and gave such
satisfaction that he was promoted captain in
1742. He then served in the campaigns in
Flanders in 1742-45, and was present at the
battle of Dettingen, and was promoted a
major in the army by brevet in 1745. He
next commanded the small force of artillery
attached to the Duke of Cumberland's army
at Culloden, and t by his spirit and boldness
checked the vigour of the clans, and gave the
victory/ for which signal service he was pro-
moted lieutenant-colonel in the army by
brevet. He then commanded the artillery
in Flanders in 1747-8 and at the battle of
Fontenoy, and was promoted lieutenant-
colonel in his regiment in 1749, and succeeded
Albert Borgard, the founder of the regiment,
as colonel commandant at Woolwich in 1751.
He held this important post till he was pro-
moted major-general in January 1758. He
had then to surrender the command -of the-

Belfour

147

Bel f rage

regiment, but received the command of the
Woolwich district, with the important charge
of the Warren, as the arsenal was then called.
He was promoted, in due course, lieutenant-
general in 1760, and general in 1777. On
the outbreak of the Gordon riots, says the
' Gentleman's Magazine,' the rioters meant
to burn the Warren. * But General Belford
had made such dispositions that 40,000 men
could not have forced the arsenal. This im-
portant service, and the despatching trains of
artillery to the different camps, kept him on
horseback day and night. Such extraordinary
fatigue, such unremitting application, burst a
blood-vessel, and brought on a fever, which
carried him off in a few days ' ( Gentleman's
Magazine, vol. 1., 1780, p. 347). General Bel-
ford died at the Warren, Woolwich, on 1 July
1780, and was succeeded in his command by
his eldest son, who was also an officer in the
artillery. Belford seems to have been a very
competent officer, and to have greatly contri-
buted to the high position since taken by the
royal regiment; he contributed a curious little
pamphlet, l Colonel Belford's March of the
Artillery,' to Miiller's ' Treatise on the War
in Flanders,' published in 1757, and he was
the first officer to introduce the fife into the
English army by bringing over a Hanoverian
fifer, named Johann Ulrich, in 1748, who
taught the fifers of the royal artillery.

[Gent. Mag. 1780; Kane's List of Officers of
the Royal Kegiment of Artillery, 2nd ed. 1869,
p. 166 note.] H. M. S.

BELFOUR, HUGO JOHN (1802-1827),
author of poems signed ST. JOHN DORSET,
was born in or near London in 1802. He
was the eldest child of Edward Belfour, of
the Navy Office, by his wife Catherine,
daughter of John Greenwell, of the India
House (Gent. Mag. May 1801). Before the
completion of his nineteenth year, Belfour
produced ' The Vampire, a Tragedy in five
acts, by St. John Dorset,' 8vo, London, 1st
and 2nd editions, 1821. The scene is laid
in Egypt. The second edition was inscribed
' To W. C. Macready, Esq.,' to whom the work
had been submitted in manuscript. Belfour
also wrote l Montezuma, a Tragedy in five
acts, and other Poems, by St. John Dorset/
8vo, London, 1822. In May 1826 he was
ordained, and ( appointed to a curacy in
Jamaica, with the best prospects of prefer-
ment ' (Gent. Mag?). He died in Jamaica in
September 1827.

[The Vampire, a tragedy, 1821 ; Gent. Mag.
May 1801, January 1816, September 1818, and
December 1827; Halkett and Laing's Dictionary
of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature
of Great Britain, Edinburgh, 1882.1

A. H. G.

BELFOUR, JOHN (1768-1842), was an
orientalist and miscellaneous writer, of whom
little is recorded, except that he was a member
of the Royal Society of Literature, and that
he died in the City Road, London, in 1842,
at the age of seventy-four. His works are :
1. ' Literary Fables imitated from the Spanish
of Yriarte,' London, 1806, 8vo. 2. < Spanish
Heroism, or the Battle of Roncesvalles ; a me-
trical romance,' London, 1809, 8vo, 3. ' Music ;
a didactic poem from the Spanish of Yriarte/
London, 1811, 8vo. 4. ' Odes in honour of
His Royal Highness the Prince Regent; with
other poems/ 1812 ; only twenty-five copies
printed. 5. ' The Psalms of David, according
to the Coptic version, accompanied by a literal
translation into English, and by the version
of the Latin Vulgate, with copious notes, in
which the variations from the original text
are noticed, the corruptions in the Egyptian
text pointed out, and its numerous affinities
with the Hebrew for the first time deter-
mined/ 1831 : manuscript in British Museum,
1110 E. 31. 6. ; Remarks on certain Alpha-
bets in use among the Jews of Morocco/ 1836.
In the ' Transactions of the Royal Society of
Literature of the United Kingdom/ iii. 136-
142, with plates. Belfour also revised, cor-
rected, and augmented the fifth edition of
Ray's < English Proverbs/ London, 1813, 8vo.

[Biog. Diet, of Living Authors (1816), 19 ;
Gent. Mag. N. S. xviii. 213 ; Watts's Bibl. Brit. ;
Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.] T. C.

BELFRAGE, HENRY, D.D. (1774-
1835), divine of the Secession church, was
son of the Rev. John Belfrage, minister of
the first Associate congregation in Falkirk,
Stirlingshire, who was of a Kinross-shire
family. The father was born at Colliston on
2 Feb. 1736, soon after the Secession. He
had been called to Falkirk in 1758 ; married
Jean Whyte, daughter of John Whyte, a corn
merchant, who belonged to the congregation,
and had by her five sons and seven daughters.
Henry was the fourth son, and was born at
the manse in Falkirk on 24 March 1774.
From the first he was destined by his parents
to be a minister of the Gospel. He ' ran away '
to school, while between four and five, along
with his elder brother Andrew. At six he
read Latin grammatically. He had the ad-
vantage of a good teacher at the grammar
school in James Meek. At ten he used to
preach, and was commonly spoken of as
' the young or wee minister.' In his thir-
teenth year he proceeded to the university
of Edinburgh, in 1786 (November), with his
elder brother Andrew. He at once took a
high place in his Latin and Greek classes, and
read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as readily as

L2

Belfrage

148

Bell

English. He entered the Theological Hall
of his church at Selkirk (under George Law-
son) in the autumn of 1789, i.e. in his fifteenth
year. His attendance was only required there
for about eight weeks in the summer, and
Belfrage managed, therefore, to carry on his
studies in the winter at the university till
his nineteenth year. On 16 May 1793 he
appeared for examination before his presby-
tery, and received license on 1 July. His
father's congregation at once invited him to
be colleague with his father on 31 Aug. 1793.
He was also invited to congregations in
Saltcoats and Lochwinnoch. The synod, or
supreme ecclesiastical court, assigned him to
Falkirk, in accordance with his own wish.
He was ordained on 18 June 1794. The
congregation was a large and influential one,
its first minister having been Henry, son of
Ralph Erskine, one of the fathers of the Se-
cession. He devoted himself energetically
to his pulpit and pastoral work ; he was the
main founder in 1812 of a charity school or
ragged school which still exists, and of a
Sunday school.

Belfrage began in 1814 a series of religious
publications. A first series of ' Sacramental
Addresses' appeared in 1812, and a second in
1821 ; and ' Practical Discourses intended to
promote the Happiness and Improvement of
the Young' in 1817 (2nd ed. 1827). Other
of Belfrage's works were : * Sketches of Life
and Character from Scripture and from Ob-
servation ' (1822) ; ' Monitor to Families, or
Discourses on some of the Duties and Scenes
of Domestic Life ' (1823) ; < A Guide to the
Lord's Table' (1823); 'Discourses to the
Aged' (1826) ; < "Counsels for the Sanctuary
and for Civil Life ' (1829) ; < Memoirs of
Dr. Waugh,' with Dr. Hay (1830) ; < A Por-
trait of John the Baptist ' (1830) ; ' Practi-
cal Exposition of the Assembly's Shorter
Catechism ' (1822, and 2 vols. 1834) ; ' Select
Essays ' (1833) . He left behind him various
manuscripts ready for the press. His ' Ex-
position of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism'
is still in use in Scotland and our colonies
and in the United States.

Belfrage married, in September 1828, Mar-
garet Gardiner, youngest daughter of Richard
Gardiner, comptroller of the Customs, Edin-
burgh. In 1824 the university of St. An-
drews conferred upon him the honorary de-
gree of D.D., the more exceptional at that
time, as it was obtained through a clergyman
of the Established Church (Sir Henry Mon-
crieff-Wellwood, Bart.). He died 16 Sept.
1835. In 1837 was published 'Life and
Correspondence of the Rev. Henry Belfrage,
D.D., by the Rev. John McKerrow and Rev.
John Macfarlane, with an Appendix on his

Works ' (8vo) — an authority on Scottish
ecclesiastical history and our main source for
this notice.

[McKerrow and Macfarlane's Life of Belfrage ;
McKerrow's History of Secession Church ; Lives
of the Erskines, George Lawson, and other Se-
cession divines ; local inquiries.] A. B. G.

BELHAVEN, LORDS. [See HAMILTON.]
BELKNAP. [See BEALKNAP.]

BELL, ALEXANDER MONTGOME-

RIE (1808-1866), writer on law, was the
son of John Bell, a manufacturer of Paisley,
and was born there 4 Dec. 1809. He studied
at Paisley grammar school and at the uni-
versity of Glasgow. In 1835 he was ad-
mitted a member of the Society of Writers
to the Signet, and in 1856 was appointed
professor of conveyancing in the university
of Edinburgh. In this chair he distinguished
himself by the thoroughness and clearness of
his expositions of the law of conveyancing,
and by the mastery which he showed over
some of the more difficult departments,
ignorance of which had been a fruitful source
of litigation. Bell died 19 Jan. 1866, and at
his own suggestion his lectures were after-
wards published. They still form the standard
treatise on the subject, a third edition having
been issued. According to the ' Journal of
Jurisprudence ' (August 1867), the book ' is
by far the most trustworthy and useful guide
in the ordinary business of the lawyer's office
which has yet been produced.' 'In these
volumes,' said the ' Glasgow Herald ' (4 May
1867), ' the student will find Scottish con-
veyancing treated with singular clearness
and fulness, or rather exhaustive ness, and
those in practice will find information suf-
ficient to guide them, and to guide them in
safety, along the thorniest and most perplex-
ing paths of every department of the art.'

During the greater part of his professional
life Bell was a partner in the firm of Dun-
das & Wilson, C.S., and was engaged mostly
in dealing with matters of conveyancing, for
which the large business of that firm fur-
nished unequalled opportunities. Combining
much research and thoughtful study with
the practical administration of conveyancing,
he came to be regarded as facile princeps in
the department. Personally, he was of quiet
retiring habits and sincerely religious tem-
perament. In a minute entered on his death
in the records of the Society of Writers to
the Signet, he was spoken of as one * who by
his talents, assiduity, and great practical
knowledge was well qualified to discharge
the important duties devolved upon him [as

Bell

149

Bell

a professor], and \vlio was deservedly esteemed
by all to whom he was personally known.'

[Journal of Jurisprudence ; Glasgow Herald ;
Records of Society of Writers to the Signet;
Edinburgh newspapers, 20 Jan. 1866 ; notes
furnished to the writer by Professor Bell's son,
John M. Bell, Esq., W.S., Edinburgh.]

W. G. B.

BELL, ANDREW (1726-1809), engraver,
was born in 1726, and began his professional
career in the humble employment of en-
graving letters, names, and crests on plates
and dog-collars. Though a very indifferent
engraver, he rose to be the first in his line in
Edinburgh. He engraved all the plates to
illustrate his friend Smellie's translation of
Buffon, which appeared in 1782. His success
in life, however, is to be attributed rather
to the result of a fortunate speculation than
to his powers as an engraver. This was the
publication of the f Encyclopaedia Britannica/
of which he was originally the half-proprietor,
and to which he furnished the plates. The
first edition of this book (the ninth edition
of which is now in course of publication)
was completed in 1771, and consisted only
of 3 vols. quarto. The plan was Smellie's,
and all the principal articles were written
or compiled by him. On the death of Colin
McFarquhar, an Edinburgh printer, in 1793,
Bell became sole proprietor of the ' Ency-
clopaedia.' By the sale of the third edition,
which was completed in 1797 in 18 vols.,
and consisted of 10,000 copies, the sum of
42,000/. was realised. Though Bell did not
enjoy a liberal education in his youth, yet
by means of extensive reading and constant
intercourse with men of letters he became
remarkable for the extent of his informa-
tion. In his personal appearance he was
noticeable for his smallness of stature, the
immense size of his nose, and the deformities
of his legs. He bore these personal peculiari-
ties, however, with philosophic equanimity,
and they constantly formed the subject of
his own jokes. He died at his house in
Lauriston Lane, at the age of eighty-three, on
10 May 1809, leaving two daughters and a
handsome fortune, which was mostly derived
from the profits of the ' Encyclopaedia.' A
sketch of him, with his friend Smellie, by
John Kay, the miniature painter of Edin-
burgh, will be found in vol. i. of ' The Ori-
ginal Portraits/ No. 86.

[Kay's Original Portraits and Caricature Etch-
ings (1877), i. 13, 210 ; Kerr's Memoirs of the
Life of William Smellie (1811); Encyclopaedia
Britannica (8th edit. 1860), pp. v-xxix.l

G. F. K. B.

BELL, ANDREW (1753-1832), founder
of the Madras system of education, was the

second son of a barber in St. Andrews, and
I was born there on 27 March 1753. His
father was a man of some education and of
great mechanical ingenuity, and a good chess
player. From his mother, the descendant of
a Dutchman who came over with William
III, Bell inherited a hasty temper and a
good deal of eccentricity. She died by her
own hand. His school-life began when he
was not more than four years old ; and no
doubt a great part of the energy with which
he afterwards took up the subject of educa-
tion was due to a recollection of the cruel
discipline to which he had himself been sub-
jected. In 1769 he entered St. Andrews
University, holding a family bursary, and
partly supporting himself by private teach-
ing. He distinguished himself chiefly in
mathematics and natural philosophy, subjects
to which he was attracted by the influence of
one of the professors, Dr. Wilkie, the author
of ' The Epigoniad.' Little is known of his
college days. In 1774 he went to Virginia,
where he seems to have lived as tutor in a
planter's family, besides doing a little busi-
ness in tobacco on his own account. Return-
ing home in 1781, and bringing his two pupils
with him, he continued for several years to
direct their education at St. Andrews. He
then took orders in the church of England,
and for a short time officiated in the Episcopal
Chapel of Leith. In 1787 he sailed for
India, after receiving from his university the
complimentary degree of D.D. Within less
than two years he succeeded, by dint of per-
sistent asking, in getting appointed to no
less than eight army chaplainships, all of
which he held simultaneously. The salaries
were considerable ; but the duties were so
light as to leave him practically free for
other work. His intention was to settle in
Calcutta, and as a first step he delivered some
scientific lectures, which attracted a good
deal of attention ; but he was soon diverted
from everything else to the subject which
filled his mind for the rest of his life. In
1789 he accepted the post of superintendent
of the Madras Male Orphan Asylum, an in-
stitution founded in that year by the East
India Company for the education of the sons
of military men. Perhaps the most marked
feature in Bell's character was his love of
money ; but for once he declined to take any
salary out of the limited funds of the charity.
The work presented peculiar difficulties ; for
the teachers were ill-paid and inefficient, and
the half-caste children little amenable to
moral influences ; so that for some time the
school made slow progress. It occurred to
him that the work of teaching the alphabet
might be done by the pupils themselves, and.

Bell

150

Bell

choosing a clever boy of eight placed him in
charge of the lowest class to teach by writing
on sand. The experiment succeeded, and
its success opened out to Dr. Bell the value
of the system of mutual instruction. From
the alphabet he extended it to other sub-
jects. Soon almost every boy was alter-
nately a master and a scholar ; and so far as
possible even the arrangements of the school
were carried out by the boys. Increased
rapidity of acquisition and a healthier moral
tone convinced him that he had discovered a
new method of education. ' I think,' he said,
* I have made a great progress in a very diffi-
cult attempt, and almost wrought a complete
change in the morals and character of a
generation of boys/ (For details of his
labours in the Madras school see, besides his
.own account, vol. i. of his Life by Southey ;
see also Miss Edgeworth's Lame Jervas.")

His health breaking down, Bell determined
to give up his work for a time, and sailed for
England in 1796. Though he had gone out
nine years before with only 128/. 10s., he
had prospered so greatly and invested so
judiciously that on his return he was pos-
sessed of more than 25,000/. Soon after
arriving in England he abandoned his inten-
tion of returning to India, and received
from the East India Company a pension of
200/. a year. Before leaving India he had
drawn up a final report for the directors of
the school, in which he summed up its his-
tory and gave an account of his method of
education. In order, as he said, to fix the au-
thenticity of his system and to establish its
originality, he published this report in 1797,
together with some other documents relating
to the school, under the title, ' An Experi-
ment in Education made at the Male Asylum
of Madras ; suggesting a system by which a
school or family may teach itself under the
superintendence of the master or parent.'
Of this pamphlet his other works, which
appeared at intervals during the rest of his
life, are but wearisome expansions. In
1798 the new system was introduced into
the protestant charity school of St. Bo-
tolph's, Aldgate, and next year into tie
industrial schools at Kendal. Bell himself
pushed it in several places ; but it had made
comparatively little way before a young
quaker, Joseph Lancaster, published in 1803
a pamphlet describing a plan of education
which he had followed in his own school in
the Borough Road, London, in which the
employment of monitors formed a principal
part. He had read Bell's report, and in his
pamphlet acknowledges that he had derived
many useful hints from it, though he had
already thought out, independently, a scheme

of mutual instruction. And Bell, in 1804,
admitted that his rival had displayed much
originality in applying and amending the
system. The tone of both soon changed.
Influenced by Mrs. Trimmer, who pointed out
that the church of England would suffer by
the success of Lancaster, who, she said, had
been building on Bell's foundation, he began
to speak ungenerously of Lancaster's work.
Lancaster retaliated by proclaiming himself
the inventor of the system. Their friends
took up this quarrel of ' Bel and the Dragon,'
as it was called in a caricature of the time,
the church party taking Bell's side, and Lan-
caster receiving the support of those who
wished to make education religious but not
sectarian. In form the question at issue was
which of the two had been the originator of
the common system, but in substance it was
whether the church should thenceforth con-
trol the education of the people ; and con-
sequently no settlement was possible. To
show the manner in which the controversy
was carried on, it will suffice to quote what
Southey thought of Lancaster : l The good
which he has done,' he says, ' is very great,
but it is pretty much in the way that the
devil has been the cause of Redemption*
(Letters, ii. 255. See article in favour of
Lancaster, JEdin. Rev. November 1810 ; and
article by Southey in favour of Bell, Quar.
Rev. October 1811, afterwards published
under the title, ' Origin, Nature, and Object
of the New System of Education '). At the
first cry of the church in danger, Bell had
taken up in earnest the work of education.
He was rector of Swanage, in Dorset, a
living which he had obtained in 1801 ; but
he left his parish pretty much to itself, while
he gave his assistance in organising schools
on the new system. His work lay chiefly
among the elementary schools ; but in some
cases, as in Christ's Hospital, the mutual
method was adopted with apparently satis-
factory results in teaching the rudiments of
the classical languages — a new field which
henceforth engrossed much of his attention
(see his Ludus Liter arius}. The establish-
ment of technical schools was also within
his plan, and he was not deterred by the
favourite objection that the training of tailors
and shoemakers would injure trade (Life by
SOUTHEY, ii. 202). Not satisfied with mere
isolated efforts, he advocated a scheme of
national education (Sketch of a National
Institution, 1808), which, as he conceived it,
could be carried out most speedily and eco-
nomically by means of the existing organisa-
tion of the church, the schools to be under
the direction of the parochial clergy. But
people were not ready for such a step. la

Bell

Bell

1807, indeed, Mr. Whitbread's Education
Bill had passed the House of Commons, but
evidently on tlie faith that the lords would
throw it out (Life, of Romilly, ii. 67). On the
one hand the dissenters were too powerful to
suffer education to pass into the hands of the
church, and on the other the opinion was
still widespread — was held even by Bell him-
self — that the poor should not be educated
overmuch (see the passage, together with his
later explanation of it, in Elements of Tui-
tion, pt. ii. 416). Despairing of state help,
the church party in 1811 formed the 'National
Society for Promoting the Education of the
Poor in the Principles of the Established
Church throughout England and Wales/
which in 1817 was incorporated by royal
charter, and which is still a flourishing insti-
tution. Bell was appointed superintendent,
with the fullest powers to carry out the
Madras system, and having already in 1809
exchanged his living at Swanage for the
mastership of Sherburn Hospital, in Durham,
which did not require residence, he was able
to devote his whole time to the work. Hence-
forth his life was identified with the history
of the society. Its progress was rapid, and
within Bell's lifetime the number of its schools
exceeded 12,000. The bulk of the work of
organisation fell on Bell's shoulders, and he
laboured indefatigably, finding teachers,
training them at the central school in London,
constantly moving about through England
and Wales, visiting Ireland, and trying,
though with little success, to plant the sys-
tem in Scotland. In 1816 he made a journey
abroad to spread his ideas, and met Pestalozzi,
whom he describes as 'a man of genius,
benevolence, and enthusiasm ; ' but the British
and Foreign School Society (which had de-
veloped out of the Royal Lancasterian In-
stitution) had been beforehand, and though
his methods were adopted in several places,
he never exercised much direct influence on
the continent. When Horace Mann made
his educational tour in 1843, he found a few
monitorial schools in France, and some mere
vestiges of the plan in the ' poor schools ' of
Prussia. 'But nothing of it remains,' he
Bays, ' in Holland, or in many of the Ger-
man states. It has been abolished in these
countries by a universal public opinion'
(H. MANN'S Tour, ed. Hodgson, p. 44).

Though he never made any serious change
in the Madras system, Bell was ever on the
outlook for ways of improving it in detail,
laying special stress on the necessity of doing
away with corporal punishment, and on the
importance of teaching reading and writing
simultaneously, on a plan which was known
as ILTO. The name, made up of the simplest

letters of the alphabet, was intended to con-
vey the further idea that all instruction should
proceed from the easy to the difficult. (For
a summary of the general plan adopted in
the National Society's schools see BARTLEY'S
Schools for the People, p. 50.) Towards the
schoolmasters under him he played the part
of a despot, sternly repressing every attempt
to deviate from his own methods, and en-
forcing obedience by threats of diminishing
their salaries ; and his perpetual interference,
together with his harsh and overbearing
manner, made him, says his secretary, ' almost
universally dreaded and disliked.' His ideal,
in short, was to turn elementary schools into
instructing machines, whose automatic action
the teacher should not disturb. He inspired
others with his enthusiasm. Wordsworth
and Coleridge encouraged him ; Southey had
the most extravagant belief in him; and
every year saw the number of his schools in-
creasing. His services in the cause of educa-
tion were certainly great; but the actual
results achieved were less valuable than he
or his friends supposed. After Bell's death
the schools of the society were examined by
government inspectors. ' The teachers, it was
found, were inefficient and ignorant ; the use
of monitors required that the instruction
should be almost entirely by rote, and on its
moral side the system led to evil, encouraging
favouritism and petty forms of corruption ;
and l the schools were generally in a deplor-
able state in every part of England.' (See
Report of the Education Commission, 1861,
p. 98, and Essays by the Central Society of
Education, vol. i.) Bell exaggerated both
the novelty and the value of his system.
(For cases in which it had been applied before
his time, and particularly for the work of the
Chevalier Paulet, see American Journal of
Education, June 1861, and LA BORDE'S Plan
d 'Education, chap. i.). It greatly diminished
the cost of teaching, and led up to the later
pupil-teacher system, which dates from 1846 ;
it was capable of being usefully applied to
certain parts of school-work ; and it fostered
the habit of self-help and the feeling of re-
sponsibility. But as a complete system of
education it failed. Bell ignored the power-
ful influence which the full-grown mind can
exert upon children ; and, following out a
good idea in a pedantic manner, he may be
said to have as much retarded education in
one way as he forwarded it in others. (The
monitorial system is discussed in most books
on teaching : e.g. in CURRIE'S Common School
Education, p. 157 ; see also DONALDSON'S
Lectures, p. 60, STOW'S Training System of
Education, p. 313, Essays on Education by the
Central Society, i. 339, Dr. POTTER'S The

Bell

Bell

School and the Schoolmaster, p. 222, HORACE
MANN'S Tour, Hodgson's ed. p. 44. Dr.
Hodgson mentions, as containing a fair com-
parative estimate of the system, Beneke's
Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre!)

In 1800 Bell married a Miss Agnes Barclay,
daughter of a Scotch doctor ; but the mar-
riage proved unhappy, and ended in a separa-
tion. De Quincey, in his ( Essay on Coleridge,'
gives an account of the persecution to which
Bell was subjected by his wife ; but one can
well believe that the husband, a vain, im-
perious man, with a tendency to miserliness,
was more than half to blame. In recognition
of his public services he was elected a member
of several learned societies, including the
Asiatic Society and the Koyal Society of
Edinburgh ; he received the degree of LL.D.
from his own university ; in 1818 he was
rewarded with a stall in Hereford Cathedral ;
and in the following year he was made a
prebendary of Westminster. During his last
years he was much troubled about the dis-
posal of his money. He resolved to devote
it to the support of institutions which should
carry out his educational theories ; but he
seemed to have great difficulty in fixing upon
the objects of his bounty. In 1831, deciding
finally in favour of his own country, he
transferred 120,000/. to trustees, half of it to
go to St. Andrews, the other half to be divided
equally between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leith,
Aberdeen, Inverness, and the Koyal Naval
School in London. In 1831 was established
under his direction, in Edinburgh, the 'Bell
Lecture on Education,' out of which have
since grown the chairs of education, founded
by the Bell trustees and aided by a govern-
ment grant, in Edinburgh and St. Andrews
universities. His writings were to him an
object of as much care as was his money.
His desire was that they should be collected
and edited by Southey and Wordsworth;
but this was never done. An abridged edi-
tion was published by Bishop Russell of
Glasgow.

Bell died at Cheltenham, where he had
resided for some years, on 27 Jan. 1832, and
was buried with great ceremony in West-
minster Abbey.

His writings include : 1. ' An Experiment
in Education/ &c. 1797 ; 2nd ed., with an
exposition of his system, 1805 ; 3rd ed., 'An
Analysis of the Experiment in Education,'
&c. 1807 ; 4th ed., with an account of the
application of the system to English schools,
1808. 2. A sermon on the Education of
the Poor, 1807. 3. < A Sketch of a National
Institution for Training up the Children of
the Poor in the Principles of our Holy Reli-
gion and in Habits of Useful Industry,' 1808.

4. « National Education,' 1812. 5. ' Ele-
ments of Tuition,' in three parts. Part I.
a reprint of the ' Experiment,' 1813 ; part II.,
The English School ; or the History,
Analysis, and Application of the Madras
System of Education to English Schools,*
from the fourth edition of the ' Experiment/
1814 ; part in., ' Ludus Literarius : the
Classical and Grammar School ; or an Expo-
sition of an Experiment in Education made
at Madras in the years 1789-96, with a view
to its Introduction into Schools for the
Higher Orders of Children, and with par-
ticular suggestions for its application to a
Grammar School/ 1815. 6. ' Instructions-
for Conducting Schools through the Agency
of the Scholars themselves, . . . com-
piled chiefly from " Elements of Tuition ; " '
described as ' sixth edition, enlarged ' (i.e. of
the ' Experiment '), 1817. 7. ' The Vindica-
tion of Children/ 1819. 8. ' Letters to the
Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair, Bart., on the
Infant School Society at Edinburgh, the
Scholastic Institutions of Scotland, &c.,r
1829. In the advertisement of this pam-
phlet are mentioned also a 'Manual of Public-
and Private Education/ 1823, abbreviated
1827, and an account of his continental
tour.

[Southey's Life of Bell, 3 vols. Only the-
first volume was written by Southey ; the work
was finished by his son, Cuthbert Southey.
About a third of each volume is made up of cor-
respondence. It is the most tedious of biogra-
phies, filled with utterly valueless details. A
short life, containing everything of importance,
has been written by Prof. Meiklejohn under the
title ' An Old Educational Eeformer.' Southey's-
Life and Corresp. ; Leitch's Practical Educa-
tionists ; Ann. Biog. and Obit. vol. xvii. ; Biog..
Diet, of Eminent Scotsmen ; Anderson's Scottish
Nation, i. 271; Dunn's Sketches; American
Journal of Education, June 1861 ; Bartley's-
Schools for the People ; Colquhoun's New and
Appropriate System of Education for the Labour-
ing People, 1806; New Stat. Ace. of Scotland,
Fifeshire ; Bell's own writings, which are devoted
to his life and work.] Gr. P. M.

BELL, ARCHIBALD (1755-1854), mis-
cellaneous writer, was born in 1755. Ad-
mitted a member of the faculty of advocates,
Edinburgh, in 1795, he became sheriff-depute

of Ayrshire. He died at Edinburgh 6 Oct.
1854. He was the author of : 1. ' An Inquiry
into the Policy and Practice of the Prohi-
bition of the Use of Grain in the Distilleries,f
1808, second edition, 1810. 2. < The Cabinet,
a series of Essays, Moral and Literary r
(anon.), 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1 835. 3. < Count
Clermont, a Tragedy ; Cains Toranius, a Tra-
gedy, with other Poems/ 1841. 4. ( Melo-

Bell

153

Bell

dies of Scotland/ 1849 ; the last being an at-
tempt to supply words for the old nationa
airs of such a correct and conventional type
as not to offend the susceptibilities of th
most fastidious. The verses are generally
tasteful and spirited, but in no case have they
been successful in supplanting those associ-
ated with the old melodies.

[Library Catalogue of the Faculty of Advo-
cates, Edinburgh.] T. F. H.

BELL, BEAUPRE (1704-1745), anti-
quary, was descended from the ancient family
of Beaupre", long resident in Upwell and
Outwell, Norfolk, a co-heiress of whom
married Robert Bell [see BELL, ROBERT,
d. 1577], an ancestor. His father, Beaupre
Bell, who married Margaret, daughter of Sir
John Oldfield, of Spalding, wasted the patri-
mony through improvident habits and violent
passions. The vicissitudes of his career may
be realised from an advertisement in the
' London Gazette/ No. 7613, May 1737, from
Lord Harrington, the secretary of state, set-
ting out that the life of Beaupre Bell had
been threatened, his servant shot, and his
house beset several times, and promising
free pardon for any one who revealed his
accomplices; as a further inducement Mr.
Bell added a reward of fifty pounds. The
son was educated at Westminster School
and at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking
the degree of B.A. in 1725, M.A. in 1729.
He devoted himself to the study of antiqui-
ties, taking especial pleasure in ancient coins,
and, by the possession of property worth,
even in its reduced state, as much as
1,500£. a year, was enabled to gratify his
tastes to the utmost. He issued proposals
for a work on the coins of the Roman em-
perors ; but though the book was in a forward
state long before his death, it was never pub-
lished. Beaupre" Bell was an active member
of the Spalding Society, and several papers
which he communicated to it are mentioned
in the 'Reliquiae Galeanse' (Sibl. Topog.Britt.
lii.), pp. 57-66. The same volume also con-
tains several letters to and from him (pp. 147-
490). Four of his letters on the ' Horologia of
the Antient s ' are printed in the ' Archseologia/
vi. 133-43 ; two are in Nichols's ' Lit. Illus-
trations/ iii. 572, 582 ; and several others may
be found in the 'Stukeley Memoirs' (Surtees
Soc.) He assisted Blomefield in his history
of Norfolk, and Thomas Hearne in many of
his antiquarian works, and C. N. Cole's edi-
tion of Dugdale's 'Imbanking' (1772) was
corrected from a copy formerly in his pos-
session. Bell died of consumption on his
road to Bath in August 1745, when the
estate passed to his youngest sister, but he

left his personal property of books, medals,
and manuscripts to his college at Cambridge.
His remains are said to have been laid in the
family burying-place in St. Mary's chapel,
Outwell church, but there is no entry of the
burial in the parish register, nor is there any
mention of his name among the members of
his family commemorated in the inscriptions
on the family tomb in the chapel.

[Blomefield's Norfolk, vii. 459-60 (1807);
Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, v. 278-82 ; Bibl. Topog.
Britt. iii. p. xii ; Carthew's Launditch, iii. 431-
2 ; Stukeley Memoirs (Surtees Soc.). i. 88, 97,
275-94, 372, 427, 46 1-5, ii. 22-4, 280-2, 321-2.]

W. P. C.

BELL, BENJAMIN (1749-1806), sur-
geon, son of George Bell, descended from
landed proprietors of long standing in Dum-
friesshire, was born at Dumfries April 1749.
After education at Dumfries grammar school
he was early apprenticed to Mr. James Hill,
surgeon, of Dumfries ; but at seventeen he
was sent to the Edinburgh medical school,
where the Monros, Black, and John Gregory
were among his teachers. After being house-
surgeon to the Royal Infirmary for about two
years, he travelled on the continent, and
especially studied at Paris. In August 1772
he was appointed surgeon to the Royal In-
firmary, Edinburgh, which office he held for
twenty-nine years. He married Grizel,
daughter of Robert Hamilton, D.D., about
1775, and soon afterwards, owing to a severe
accident, settled on a farm three miles south
of Edinburgh, retiring from practice for a
couple of years. In 1778 he became surgeon
to Watson's Hospital. His first professional
work, on the ' Theory and Management of
Ulcers ' (1779), attracted considerable atten-
tion, was translated into French and Ger-
man, and reached a seventh edition in 1801.
His most important work, 'A System of
Surgery/ appeared in six volumes, 1782-7 ; it
likewise reached a seventh edition in 1801,
and was translated into French and German.
It was a valuable work in its day, though
now out of date. Bell is much to be com-
mended for his advocacy of saving skin in
every operation, a practice till then much
neglected. Another of his works, ' On Hy-
drocele/ was published at Edinburgh in
1794. He gained a large practice, being
a skilful and dexterous operator, and accu-
mulated money, being distinguished for his
calculating business habits. He also engaged
considerably in agriculture, and wrote a num-
ber of essays on agriculture between 1783
and 1802, which were collected in a volume
n 1802. They opposed corn laws and pro-
gnosticated great improvements in modes of

Bell

154

Bell

communication. Adam Smith commended
them. Bell died at Newington House, Edin-
burgh, 5 April 1806.

His son, George Bell (1777-1832), suc-
ceeded to his father's appointments, and was
known as a first-rate operator. His grand-
son, Benjamin Bell (d. 1883), son of Joseph
Bell, surgeon, followed the same profession,
and published a memoir of his grandfather
in 1868. He also edited memoirs of Robert
Paul, banker (Edinburgh, 1872), and Lieu-
tenant John Irving, of H.M.S. Terror (Edin-
burgh, 1881).

[Life, Character, and Writings of Benjamin
Bell, by his grandson, Benjamin Bell, Edin.
1868.] Gr. T. B.

BELL, SIR CHARLES (1774-1842), dis-
coverer of the distinct functions of the
nerves, was the youngest of six children of
William Bell, a clergyman of the episcopal
church of Scotland. His mother was daughter
of another episcopal clergyman. The family
had produced many useful and prominent men
for three centuries, and had been seated
during that time in and near Glasgow. Charles
was born at Edinburgh in November 1774,
and received his chief literary education
from his mother. Two others of her children
became known in the world — John as an
anatomist and surgeon, George Joseph as
professor of Scots law in Edinburgh Univer-
sity. Charles had a passion for drawing;
and when he went to the university of Edin-
burgh as a student, he soon became known
for his artistic power. He had inherited it
from his mother, and she from her grand-
father, White, primus of Scotland. While
still a student, in 1798, Bell published < A
System of Dissections,' illustrated by his
own drawings. In 1799 he was elected a fel-
low of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh,
and as a fellow became one of the surgical
attendants of the Edinburgh Infirmary. In
1802 he published a series of engravings of the
brain and nervous system, in connection with
John Bell's course of lectures. In 1804 he
wrote the account of the nervous system and
special senses in the ; Anatomy of the Human
Body ' by John and Charles Bell. Edinburgh
did not then offer to him sufficient prospect
of professional advancement, and after con-
sultation with his brother George he left
Scotland for London, where he arrived
28 Nov. 1804. He was already known by
his published works, and he had written, but
not published, his ' Anatomy of Expression.'
He called upon Dr. Matthew Baillie, the
morbid anatomist, on Wilson the anatomist,
on Abernethy and Astley Cooper, the prin-
cipal surgeons of the time, and on other

prominent members of his profession. Sir
Joseph Banks received him kindly, and the
chief physicians and surgeons asked him to
dinner ; but for a time he was uncertain
whether he could find a place in the world of
London, and longed to return to Edinburgh,
and to the society of his beloved brother
George, to whom at this time and throughout
his life he wrote often and at length. West,
then president of the Royal Academy, ad-
vised the publishers to accept Bell's ' Anatomy
of Expression,' and it appeared in 1806. It
was widely read, and has since passed through
several editions. The book is interesting,
because it explains the mechanism of familiar
movements of expression, and criticises well-
known works of art, and it is written in a
pleasant intelligible style, and illustrated by
striking drawings, but the scientific treatment
of the subject is not very deep. It received
all the attention which the first book on a
subject deserves : Flaxman and Fuseli both
enjoyed it ; the queen read it for two hours ;
and the Nabob of Arcot had a copy in red
morocco and satin. Bell now lectured to
artists, and took medical pupils into his
house, and, amid hard professional work and
great anxiety about money, found time to
make full use of all the intellectual advan-
tages of London : heard Fox speak, saw Mrs.
Siddons act, witnessed Melville's impeach-
ment, went to Vauxhall with Mr. and Mrs.
Abernethy, enjoyed operas, and read much
good literature — Dryden, Spenser, Virgil,
Madame de Sevigne". The first step in Bell's
discoveries in the nervous system was made
in 1807, and is recorded in a letter to his
brother George, dated 26 Nov. 1807. He
says : ' I have done a more interesting nova
anatomia cerebri humani than it is possible
to conceive. I lectured it yesterday. I pro-
secuted it last night till one o'clock, and I
am sure it will be well received.' In 1811 he
published ' A New Idea of the Anatomy of
the Brain, submitted for the observations of
his Friends, by Charles Bell, F.R.S.E.' This
essay is not dated, but if the letters of Bell
did not establish its exact date, this could
be fixed by a copy in the British Museum,
bearing Bell's known address in 1811, and
presented by him, with a written inscription,
to Sir Joseph Banks. The work contains an
exact statement of the prevailing doctrine as
to nerves, of Bell's discovery, and of the ex-
periment which established that discovery.
Bell says (p. 4) : ' The prevailing doctrine
of the anatomical schools is that the whole
brain is a common sensorium : that the ex-
tremities of the nerves are organised, so that
each is fitted to receive a peculiar impression,
or that they are distinguished from each.

Bell

155

Bell

other only by delicacy of structure and by a
corresponding delicacy of sensation. It is
imagined that impressions thus diifering in
kind are carried along the nerves to the
sensorium and presented to the mind, and
that the mind, by the same nerves which re-
ceive sensation, sends out the mandate of
the will to the moving parts of the body/
His own conclusions were, ' that the nerves
are not single nerves possessing various
powers, but bundles of different nerves,
distinct in office ; ' and * that the nerves of
sense, the nerves of motion, and the vital
nerves, are distinct throughout their whole
course.' These conclusions were established
by the fact that, i on laying bare the roots ot
the spinal nerves, I found that I could cut
across the posterior fasciculus of nerves
which took its origin from the posterior
portion of the spinal marrow without con-
vulsing the muscles of the back, but that, on
touching the anterior fasciculus with the
point of the knife, the muscles of the back
were immediately convulsed.' ' I now saw,
he adds, * the meaning of the double con-
nection of the nerves with the spinal mar-
row.' His apprehension of the meaning of
this observation was at first obscured by a
recollection of the old doctrine that all nerves
were sensitive, and for a time he spoke of
two great classes of nerves distinguishable in
function, the one sensible, the other insen-
sible (letter dated 6 Dec. 1814). But he
had established beyond doubt the existence
of sensory and of motor nerves. Majendie
(Journal de Physioloyie, Paris, 1822, ii. 371)
claims to have first shown this experimentally
in 1821, but he is refuted by the printed
record of Bell's experiment in 1811, as is ad-
mitted by Beclard in his most recent account
of the controversy (ib., Paris, 1884, p. 405),
where, speaking of Bell's discovery, Beclard
says : ' II n'est pas douteux qu'il a resolu, le
premier, cette question par la voie exp6ri-
mentale.' It was not till 1826 that Bell's
discovery was complete in its modern form.
He thus explains it (letter, 9 Jan. 1826) :
' It shows that two nerves are necessary to
a muscle, one to excite action, the other to
convey the sense of that action, and that the
impression runs only in one direction, e.g.
the nerve that carries the will outward can
receive no impression from without ; the
nerve that conveys inward a sense of the
condition of the muscle cannot convey out-
ward ; that there must be a circle established
betwixt the brain and a muscle.' His in-
vestigations were completed from 1821 to
1829, in a series of papers read before the
Royal Society, and were published, with
some slight alterations, in a separate volume j

j in 1830, entitled < The Nervous System of
I the Human Body.' Before his time nothing
i was known of the functions of the nerves,
| and the reason of the relation between
hemiplegia or paralysis of one vertical half
of the body and injury of the brain was ex-
plained through groundless hypotheses. A
' few vague expressions in earlier writers have
been quoted as showing that something was
known ; but whatever the words, the inter-
I pretation of them was never given till after
Bell's discovery had made the whole subject
| clear. Bell himself states, with perfect
fairness, in his republication, all the details
known before the time of his discoveries
(Nervous System, pp. vii, viii). ' Dr. Alex-
ander Monro discovered that the ganglions
of the spinal nerves were formed on the
posterior roots, and that the anterior roots
passed the ganglion. Santorini and Wrisberg
observed the two roots of the fifth pair of
nerves. Prochaska and Soemmering noticed
the resemblance between the spinal nerves
and the fifth pair, and they said, "Why
should the fifth nerve of the brain, after the
manner of the nerves of the spine, have an
anterior root passing by the ganglion and
entering the third division of the nerve ? " '
Bell's great discovery, thus gradually com-
pleted, was that there are two kinds of nerves,
sensory and motor; that the spinal nerves
have filaments of both kinds, but that their
anterior roots or origins from the spinal cord
are always motor, their posterior roots sen-
sory. He further (Phil. Trans. 28 May 1829)
demonstrated that the fifth cranial nerve is a
motor as well as a sensory nerve, and that
while the fifth supplies the face with sensory
branches, the motor nerve of the facial
muscles is the portio dura of the seventh
nerve. From this discovery of its true func-
tion, the portio dura is often spoken of by
anatomists as Bell's nerve. His discoveries
as to the fifth and seventh nerves were sug-
gested by their anatomical relations, con-
firmed by observation of the results follow-
ing accidental injuries in man, and completely
established by experiments on animals.
These experiments were a cause of delay ;
for in a letter dated 1 July 1822 (Letters of
Sir C. Sell, p. 275) he says : ' I should be
writing a third paper on the nerves, but I
cannot proceed without making some experi-
ments, which are so unpleasant to make that
I defer them. You may think me silly, but
I cannot perfectly convince myself that I
am authorised in nature or religion to do
these cruelties.' Bell's discoveries were the
greatest which had been made in physiology
since Harvey had demonstrated the circula-
tion of the blood, and Bell was only express-

Bell

156

Bell

ing a just idea of their importance when he
wrote of them in a letter to his brother (No-
vember 1821 ) that they ' will hereafter put j
me beside Harvey.' Their importance was
not perceived by all who heard of them, but j
they were not controverted as fiercely as
Harvey's had been, and scientific men at :
once gave their author all the honour he had
justly won. Brougham was at that time j
dashing like a comet among the constella- '
tions of science and literature, as well as !
through those of politics, and he was a warm :
friend of Bell. It was by his advice that '
the compliment of knighthood was paid to i
the discoverer of the functions of the nerves,
to his great contemporary Herschel, and to |
some lesser men of science. Bell had already j
(1829) received the medal of the Koyal So- ;
ciety for discoveries in science. The London j
University had been founded under the i
auspices of Brougham ; and Bell, with i
Brougham's friend Horner, was persuaded to
take office in the new institution. The dif-
fering views of its originators prevented the
new university from flourishing. In the
midst of trivial controversies learning was

stifled, aa

-great,

dwindled into an examining board. Bell |
and Horner resigned in disgust. In 1832 i
Bell wrote a paper in the ' Philosophical
Transactions ' on the organs of voice, and in
1833 a Bridgewater treatise on the mechanism
of the hand, illustrated by drawings of his
own. In 1836, with Lord Brougham, he
wrote annotations of Paley's ' Natural Theo-
logy.' He had besides written several books
on surgery : in 1807 a ' System of Compara-
tive Surgery;' in 1816, 1817, 1818, quarterly
reports of cases in surgery ; in 1820, ' Letters
on Diseases of the Urethra ; ' in 1821, ' Illus-
trations of Great Operations ; ' in 1824, ' Ob-
servations on Injuries of the Spine and of
the Thigh Bone,' and somewhat later a
small popular work, * a familiar treatise on
the five senses.' Besides all this labour he
lectured at his house, at the Middlesex Hos-
pital (1812-36), in the school of Great
Windmill Street (Prospectus, Lancet, ix. 27),
at the College of Surgeons, and on several
occasions elsewhere. He went in 1809 to
Haslar Hospital to help to treat the wounded
of Corunna, and in 1815 to Brussels to treat
the wounded of Waterloo. When he went
round his wards in the Middlesex Hospital, his
method was to examine a patient with mi-
nute care and in silence before the students.
Then he would retire a little way from the
bed, and would give his opinion of the nature
of the case, and of what the treatment ought
to be, adding with particular emphasis his

expectation as to the final result (communi-
cation from Kev. WHITWELL ELWIN.) Like
many great medical teachers of his day, he
was abused in the numbers of the ' Lancet '
(vol. v.) for reasons now difficult to dis-
cover, and not worth tracing out in detail.
Bell was never completely at home in the
medical world of London. In spite of his
unceasing labours, perhaps partly in conse-
quence of them, his practice did not increase
in proportion to his merits, and when in 1836
he was offered the chair of surgery in the
university of Edinburgh, he was glad to re-
turn to his early home. He there published
in 1838 ' Institutes of Surgery,' and in 1841
some ' Practical Essays.' These, like all his
surgical works, are worth reading as the pro-
ductions of close observation and consider-
able experience ; but they are not of the
same consequence as his physiological writ-
ings. The time he spent in the wards and at
the bedside of patients was not lost to science,
for the observations there made helped him
to his great discoveries ; but as an operating
and consulting surgeon he does not stand
higher than many of his contemporaries. A
sensation of failing health was probably the
chief reason for his retirement to Edinburgh.
He still worked, but less strenuously, and in
1840 enjoyed a tour in Italy. A little more than
a year later he was, as he said (letter, 24 April
1842), 'chained in activity 'by terrible attacks
of angina pectoris, and in one of these he died
on the morning of 28 April 1842. He was
staying at Hallow Park, near Worcester, and
was buried in the churchyard of the parish.
In Hallow church there is a tablet to hi»
memory, with an English inscription by
Lord Jeffrey.

The anxieties of life and the necessary
abstraction of scientific musing made Bell at
times seem grave : but his friends all agree
in Lord Cockburn's statement about him :
1 If ever I knew a generally and practically
happy man, it was Sir Charles Bell.' l He
had,' says one of his friends, ' too profound
a faith in the Providence who governed
the world to be otherwise than deeply
thankful for his lot.' The style of his scien-
tific papers is sometimes involved, nor are
happy turns of expression frequent in his
popular works. His letters are his best com-
positions. He had a thorough enjoyment of
literature and of music, and the intervals of
his scientific work were always employed.
Fishing was one of his favourite recreations.
He kept White's 'Natural History of Selborne '
on his table, and loved the sights and sounds
of the country. He had married (3 June 1811)
Marion, second daughter of Charles Shaw,
Esq., of Ayr, and their marriage was one o£

Bell

'57

Bell

perfect happiness. His wife's health was at
first precarious, but she became strong, and
lived to be more than eighty. In 1870 she
published 'Letters of Sir Charles Bell/ a
book which gives from his own letters an in-
teresting picture of the character and daily
life of her husband, of his unremitting la-
bours, of his frequent disappointments, many
difficulties and glorious triumphs. The ad-
mirable preface was written off at the pub-
lisher's desk by a friend of Sir Charles Bell,
the Kev. Whitwell Elwin, who happened
to come in at the moment when Lady Bell
was expressing to Mr. Murray her inability
to compose the introduction which he thought
necessary for the completeness of the book.
The frontispiece is a portrait of Bell from a I
painting by Anthony Stewart.

[Letters of Sir Charles Bell, London, 1870;
Bell's Works.] N. M.

BELL, FRANCIS (1590-1643), Francis-
can friar, was the son of William Bell of
Temple Broughton, in the parish of Hanbury
near Worcester, by his marriage with Doro-
thy Daniel of Acton Place, near Long Melford
in Suffolk. He was born at Temple Brough-
ton on 13 Aug. 1590, and in baptism received
the Christian name of Arthur, though on en-
tering the religious life he assumed the name
of Francis. At the age of twenty-four he en-
tered the college of the English Jesuits at St.
Omer, and after remaining there a year he was
sent to the English college of St. Alban the
Martyr in Valladolid, where he was ordained
priest. Not long afterwards, on 9 Aug. 1618,
lie took the habit of St. Francis in the con-
vent of Segovia, and on 8 Sept. 1619 he was
admitted to his solemn vows and profession.
Father John Gennings, who was engaged in
the restoration of the English Franciscan
province, sent to Spain for Bell, and placed
him in the English convent newly erected at
Douay. Subsequently he was appointed con- ;
fessor, first to the Poor Clares at Gravelines,
and afterwards to the nuns of the third order
of St. Francis, then residing at Brussels. At j
the first general chapter of the restored Fran-
ciscan province of England, which was held
(December 1630) in their convent of St.
Elizabeth at Brussels, Father Bell was offi-
cially declared guardian or superior of St.
Bonaventure's convent at Douay, with the
charge of teaching Hebrew. Before, how-
ever, he had gone through the usual term of
his guardianship, he was summoned to Brus-
sels by Father Joseph Bergaigne, the com-
missary-general of the order, and for the re-
storing of the province of Scotland was
appointed its first provincial, and sent in that
capacity to the general chapter then held in

Spain. On his return he was sent on the
mission to England, where he arrived on
8 Sept. 1634. Here he laboured with great
zeal for nine years, but at last, on 6 Nov.
1643, he was apprehended at Stevenage in
Hertfordshire by a party of soldiers belonging
to the parliament army, on suspicion of being
a spy. The documents found in his posses-
sion revealed his true character, and he was
sent under a strong guard to London, where
he was examined by three commissioners de-
puted by the parliament for that purpose, who
committed him to Newgate. Just before this
his brethren had chosen him, for the second
time, guardian of their convent at Douay.
He was brought to trial on 7 Dec., found

fuilty, and executed at Tvburn on 11 Dec.
643.

As a linguist he was distinguished among
his brethren, for he was skilled in Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and Flemish.
There is a fine portrait of him in Mason's
'Certamen Seraphicum Provinciae Angliee pro
Sancta Dei Ecclesia,' printed at Douay in
1649.

He was the author of : 1. 'A brief Instruc-
tion how we ought to hear Mass/ Brussels,
1624 ; a translation from the Spanish of An-
dres de Soto, and dedicated to Anne, countess
of Argyle. 2. < The Rule of the Third Order
of St. Francis.' 3. < The Historie, Life, and
Miracles, Extasies and Revelations of the
blessed virgin, sister loane, of the Crosse, of
the third Order of our holy Father, S. Francis.
Composed by the Reuerend Father, brother
Anthonie of Aca, Diffinitor of the Prouince
of the Conception, and Chroinckler of the
Order aforsaid. And translated out of Spanish
into English by a Father of the same Order.
At S. Omers, for lohn Heigham, with Ap-
probation, Anno 1625.' 8vo. This extremely
rare translation of Father Antonio Da£a's,
' Historia de la Virgen Santa Juana [ Vasquez]
de la Cruz ' has an epistle dedicatory, signed
1 Brother Francis Bell/ and addressed to Sis-
ters Margaret Radcliffe and Elizabeth Rad-
cliffe, of the second order of St. Francis, com-
monly called Poor Clares.

[Mason's Certamen Seraphicum, 127-57; Chal-
loner's Missionary Priests (1741), ii. 256-98;
Dodd's Church Hist, iii. 102; J. Stevens s Hist,
of Antient Abbeys, i. 107; Granger's Biog. Hist,
of England, 2nd ed. ii. 206; Oliver's Hist, of
the Catholic Religion in Cornwall, 543 ; Cat, of
Printed Books in Brit, Mus.] T. C.

BELL, SIB GEORGE (1794-1877), ge-
neral, son of George Bell, of Belle Vue, on
Lough Erin, . Fermanagh, by Catherine,
daughter of Bominick Nugent, M.P., was
born at Belle Vue, 17 March 1794, and whilst
yet at school in Dublin was gazetted an ensign

Bell

158

Bell

in the 34th foot, 11 March 1811. Sent to
Portugal, he carried the colours of his regi-
ment for the first time in the action of Ar-
royo-de-Molinos ; was present at the second
and final siege of Badajoz, and in the majority
of the celebrated actions which intervened
between that time and the battle of Toulouse.
On being gazetted to the 45th regiment in 1825
he proceeded to India, and was present in Ava
during the first Burmese war. Bell became a
captain in 1828, and in 1836 was in Canada,
where he was actively employed during the
rebellion of 1837-8. He commanded the fort
and garrison of Couteau-du-Lac, an important
position on the river St. Lawrence, and re-
ceived the thanks of the commander of the
forces and his brevet-majority, 29 March
1839, for his exertions in recovering the guns
of the fort, which had been sunk in the river,
unspiking and mounting them in position,
when it had been reported to be impossible
to do so. The guns were 24-pounders, six-
teen of which, with 4,000 round shot, he
recovered from the deep in the middle of a
Canadian winter. On becoming lieutenant-
colonel of the 1st foot, known as the Royal !
regiment, 5 Dec. 1843, he next served in
Gibraltar, Nova Scotia, the West Indies, the
Mediterranean, and Turkey, after which he
landed with the allied armies in the Crimea,
and was present at the battles of the Alma
and Inkerman, and in the siege of Sebastopol,
where he was wounded and honourably men-
tioned in a despatch from Lord Raglan, who
appointed him to the command of a brigade.
On his return to England he was made a
C.B., 5 July 1855, and took up his residence
at Liverpool as inspecting field officer until |
1859, when he became a major-general in
the army. He was in the Royal regiment
for the long period of thirty years. From this
time onwards he never obtained any further
employment, the reason being, as he fully
believed, a letter which he wrote to the
'Times,' 12 Dec. 1854, complaining of the de-
ficiencies of the commissariat in the siege of
Sebastopol, and soliciting help from the people
of England. On 23 Oct. 1863 he was ap-
pointed colonel of the 104th foot ; he became
colonel of the 32nd foot 2 Feb. 1867, and
colonel of the 1st foot 3 Aug. 1868. His
work, in two volumes, entitled 'Rough Notes
by an Old Soldier during fifty years' service,'
a gossiping and amusing account of his life
and services, was published early in 1867.
He was created a K.C.B. 13 March 1867 ;
a lieutenant-general 28 Jan. 1868 ; and a
general 8 March 1873. His death took place
at 156 Westbourne Terrace, London, 10 July
1877. He had been twice married, the first
time to Alicia, daughter and heiress of James

Scott, of Ecclesjohn and Commiston, N.B.,,
and secondly, in 1820, to Margaret Addison,.
a daughter of Thomas Dougal, of Scotland,
banker.

[Dod's Peerage and Baronetage : Army Lists,
&c.] GK C. B.

BELL, GEORGE JOSEPH (1770-1843),

advocate, brother of Sir Charles Bell [q. v.], the
celebrated anatomist,born at Fountain Bridge,
near Edinburgh, 26 March 1770, was educated
chiefly at home, and very largely by himself,
his mother being left by her husband's death
(1779) in very straitened circumstances.
He does not appear to have had any regular
academical training at the university of Edin-
burgh, though he attended some courses of
lectures there. He was admitted advocate
in 1791. In 1805 he married Barbara, eldest
daughter of Charles Shaw, Esq., of Ayr, by
whom he had several children. Having for
some years previously devoted himself to the
systematic study of the Scottish mercantile
law, then in a very imperfect condition, he
published in 1804 a work in two volumes,
4to, entitled ' A Treatise on the Laws of
Bankruptcy in Scotland,' and in 1810 a
second enlarged and improved edition of the
same work, under the title ' Commentaries
on the Laws of Scotland and on the Prin-
ciples of Mercantile Jurisprudence considered
in relation to Bankruptcy, Compositions of
Creditors, and Imprisonment for Debt.' A
third edition followed in 1816, and a fourth
in 1821. This work, which dealt with the
whole extent of the mercantile law of Scot-
land, and was the only scientific treatise
which did, early obtained a deservedly high
reputation, and brought its author a con-
siderable accession of practice. It took rank
with the classic ' Institutes ' of Lord Stair, and
was treated by the judges with a respect
which in this country is never paid to any
living jurist, and to but very few amongst
the dead. In 1822 he was elected professor
of Scots law in the university of Edinburgh,
the motion, seconded by Sir Walter Scott,
being carried unanimously. Bell was not
altogether new to professorial duties, having
held for two years (1816-18) the post of
professor of conveyancing to the Society of
Writers to the Signet, devoting the income
to the support of the widow and children of
the late professor, his brother Robert (the
eldest of the family), who were left but ill pro-
vided for. In 1823 he was placed on a com-
mission appointed, pursuant to an act of the
same year, to ' inquire into the forms of pro-
cess in the courts of law and the course of
appeals from the Court of Session to the
House of Lords,' in which capacity he very

Bell

159

Bell

ably discharged the important duty of draw- i
ing up the report upon which was founded |
the bill which passed into law in 1825 as the
Scottish Judicature Act, a measure largely
superseded by later reforms, and was con-
sulted by the committee of the House of
Lords, which had charge of the framing
of the measure, upon many points of detail.
In 1826 he published a fifth edition of his
1 Commentaries.' In 1832 he succeeded David
Hume, nephew of the philosopher, as one of
the four principal clerks of session. In 1833
he was nominated chairman of the royal
commission then appointed to inquire into
and draft proposals for the amendment of
the Scotch law, from which resulted the
Scotch Bankruptcy Act of 1839 (2 & 3 Viet.
c. 41) which continued to regulate bank-
ruptcy proceedings in Scotland until 1856,
when it was superseded by the act now in
force. In 1841 he was attacked by a severe
inflammation of the eye. Though the son of
an episcopalian clergyman, he belonged to
the whig party. He was of a genial disposi-
tion and courteous manners, and appears to
have had a larger culture than is common
amongst lawyers. Throughout life he was
on terms of close intimacy with Jeffrey. A
fine portrait of him by Raeburn hangs in the
Parliament House, Edinburgh. His great
work, the ' Commentaries/ has fully sus-
tained the reputation which it acquired during j
its author's life. A sixth edition with notes j
was published in 1858 by his brother-in-law, j
Patrick Shaw, Esq., advocate, and a seventh,
also with notes, in 1870, by John M'Laren,
Esq., advocate. In a very recent case re- !
ported in the law reports (appeal cases) for !
1882 (The Eoyal Bank of Scotland v. The |
Commercial Bank of Scotland), the judges I
of the Court of Session having to choose '•
between the authority of Lord Eldon and
that of Bell upon a difficult question of bank-
ruptcy administration, and having preferred
to follow the latter, the House of Lords de-
clined to overrule them.

Bell also published : 1. 'An Examination
of the Objections stated against the Bill for
better regulating the Forms of Process in
the Courts of Scotland,' 1825. 2. 'Prin-
ciples of the Law of Scotland, for the use
of Students in the University of Edinburgh/
1829, a professorial manual originating in
outlines of his lectures issued to his stu-
dents, of which a second edition appeared
in the following year, a third in 1833, and j
a fourth in 1836. 3. ' Illustrations from
adjudged Cases of the Principles of the Law
of Scotland/ 1836 (second edition, 1838), |
in three volumes, 8vo, being a commentary
upon the preceding work. 4. In 1840, ' Com-

mentaries on the recent Statutes relative to
Diligence or Execution against moveable
Estate, Imprisonment, Cessio Bonorum, and
Sequestration in Mercantile Bankruptcy.'
This book, a thin quarto, was not so much
an independent work as a supplement to th^.
' Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland.' A
short treatise, ' Inquiries into the Contract
of Sale of Goods and Merchandise/ revised
and partly printed before his death, was pub-
lished the following year.

[Letters of Sir C. "Bell ; Edinburgh Review,
April 1872 ; Anderson's Scottish Nation ; Grant's
Story of the Univ. of Edinburgh, ii. 374.1

J. M. B.

BELL, HENRY (1767-1830), the builder
of the Comet steamship, and therefore the
introducer of practical steam navigation in
England, was born at Torphichen Mill, near
Linlithgow. His father, Patrick Bell, was
a millwright, and, according to an account
given by himself, his relations both on the
father's and mother's side were engaged in
mechanical businesses. He was first intended
to be a mason, but, at the age of sixteen, he
was apprenticed to the millwright's trade.
After serving under several engineers he
went to London, and spent some time under
Rennie. It appears to have been while he
was with Shaw and Hart, shipbuilders of
Borrowstounness, in 1786, that he conceived
the idea of applying steam to navigation, an
idea that was at that time filling the minds
of many inventors and engineers. In 1790
he settled in Glasgow, and in the following
year he entered into partnership with a Mr.
Paterson, forming the firm of Bell & Pater-
son, builders. In 1798 he is said to have
turned his attention specially to the steam-
boat, and in 1800 he began experimenting
with an engine placed in a small vessel. An
application the same year to the admiralty
was unsuccessful, as was a second appeal in
1803, though on the latter occasion Lord
Nelson is stated to have spoken strongly in
favour of the scheme. There is evidence
to show that Fulton, who started a steamer
on the Hudson in 1807, had obtained his
ideas from Bell in the previous year, and
that therefore Bell has a fair claim to be
considered, not the inventor of the steam-
boat—Papin (1707), Jouffroy (1776), Miller
of Dalswinton (1787), and many others
(some, indeed, only on paper) anticipated
him — but the first to realise practically the
proposals then in the minds of many for
applying the steam-engine to the propulsion
of vessels. He certainly was the originator
of steam navigation in Europe, and in Ame-
rica he was only preceded by Fulton, who,

Bell

l6o

Bell

if the above statement is correct, was his
pupil.

In January 1812 the Comet, a thirty-ton
boat, built by Wood & Co., of Glasgow,
and driven by an engine of three-horse power
made by Bell, commenced to ply from Glas-
gow to Greenock; she continued running
till 1820, when she was wrecked. Many
erroneous statements have been made about
this vessel. She was by far from being the
first vessel moved by steam, but she was the
first practical steamship which regularly
worked on any European river.

Though Bell's claims were generally ac-
knowledged, he reaped but little reward. The
river Clyde trustees gave him a pension of
50/., afterwards increased to 100/. ; Mr. Can-
ning gave him 200/. : and a subscription was
got up for him at Glasgow and elsewhere
near the close of his life.

Besides his efforts in the cause of steam
navigation he was interested in several other
engineering enterprises, and is credited with
the invention of an important improvement
in the process of calico printing, the 'dis-
charging machine.' He died at Helensburgh
in 1830, and was buried in the churchyard
of Row parish, two miles from Helensburgh.

[There is a life of Bell by Edward Morris
(Glasgow, 1844), but the information it gives is
meagre. An account of him also appears in
Chambers's Biog. Diet, of Eminent Scotsmen.]

H. T. W.

•ti

BELL, HENRY GLASSFORD (1803-
1874), sheriff, was the eldest son of James |
Bell, advocate. He was born in Glasgow '
8 Nov. 1803, and received the rudiments of
his education in the High School of that city.
On the family removing to Edinburgh, he
passed through the regular university course
there, and, while beginning to study law, ex-
hibited his love of letters in a series of pre-
cocious criticisms in the columns of the ' Ob- i
server.' Those on the actors and acting of I
the day, under the signature 'Acer,' at-
tracted the attention of some of the leaders
in the then brilliant literary society of the
place, and are said to have had some influ-
ence in raising the tone of the stage — an in-
stitution in which he continued to the last to
take a keen interest. A privately printed
volume of poems (1824) testifies to his scholar-
ship, early command of verse, and his share
in the Byronic enthusiasm for the Greeks.
In 1827 Bell was present and spoke at the
famous dinner of the Edinburgh Theatri-
cal Fund, at which Sir Walter Scott pub-
licly acknowledged the authorship of the
' Waverley Novels.' In 1828 he started and
•conducted the ' Edinburgh Literary Journal,'

which numbered among its contributors
Thomas Aird, L. E. L., Mrs. Hemans, Thomas
Campbell, Christopher North, the Ettrick
Shepherd, Delta (Moir), Allan Cunningham,
G. P. R. James, Sheridan Knowles, and others
of scarce inferior note. The youthful editor
maintained for the publication a position of
steadily increasing influence ; but at the ex-
piration of three years it passed into other
hands, and was ultimately merged in the
' Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle.' Some of the
most salient of his own contributions were
afterwards collected by Bell, and republished
in two volumes : ' Summer and Winter
Hours' (1831), containing the most widely
known of his poems, the panoramic scenes
from the life of Mary Stuart, so familiar to
elocution; and < My Old Portfolio' (1832).
Three of the prose pieces in the latter collec-
tion deserve special mention : ' The Marvel-
lous History of Mynheer von Wodenblock/
which, as afterwards popularised in the dog-
gerel song, ' The Cork Leg,' has travelled over
England and through Germany ; ' The Dead
Daughter ' and i The Living Mummy,' from
which Edgar Poe seems to have taken the
hint of two of his most famous fantasies.
Meanwhile, at the request of the publisher
Constable, he had (1830), in compiling his
elaborate defence of the Queen of Scots, en-
tered the lists as champion of the cause which
he espoused through life with an almost re-
ligious zeal. The book was at the time a swift
success. The first edition being exhausted, a
second was called for within the year ; it was
translated into French and pirated in Ame-
rica. In 1831 Bell married Miss Stewart, only
daughter of Captain Stewart of Sheerglass,
Glengarry, by whom he had six children. In
the following year he passed as advocate, and
henceforth devoted himself mainly to his legal
pursuits ; but advancement in the ranks of a
profession then adorned by the competing
talents of Jeffrey, Clark, Cockburn, Hope,
Macneil, Rutherfurd, Maitland, Ivory, Ro-
bertson, Inglis, and Moncreiff, was, even if
sure, necessarily slow, and the cares of an in-
creasing family induced him to accept an ap-
pointment as one of the substitutes of the
sheriff of Lanarkshire, whose attention had
been attracted to the young counsel by his
appearance (1838) at the cotton spinner's
trial. Bell entered upon this office in 1839,
and for twenty-eight years discharged his
duties, yearly increasing in extent and re-
sponsibility, with a conscientiousness, judg-
ment, and tact, which exceeded expectation
and arrested cavil. When, in 1852, it was
believed that Sheriff Alison was to become
a lord of session, the Glasgow faculty of
law memorialised the lord advocate to pro-

Bell

161

Bell

mote Mr. Bell to the expected vacancy, and
on Sir Archibald's death in 1867 he was made
sheriff principal, with the unanimous approval
of the profession. During thirty-four years'
tenure of the two posts he found an arena well
•calculated to call forth his varied powers;
his mental energy and physical strength en-
abled him to overtake the increasing work of j
the great commercial city, his discrimination
and accuracy made his judgments generally
final, and he came to be regarded as the best
mercantile lawyer of his day in Scotland. A
distinguished contemporary has said of him
that ' he realised the ideal of what a judge
ought to be.' Another writes as follows : ,
'-' The older members of the legal profession |
hold the opinion that Sheriff Glassford Bell
was the best judge that ever sat in the sheriff

court of Glasgow Approaching every case

without a shade of bias, he listened so quietly
to the arguments on either side that it was
only when his decisions, always remarkable
for their clearness, were made that it was seen
liow carefully he had weighed the matters at
issue ; it was a common custom of procura-
tors to agree beforehand to accept his ruling
and carry the case no further. Early in his j
•career he had to grapple with new and dim-
cult questions under the Poor Law and Bank-
ruptcy Acts, in relation to which many of his
judgments have become leading cases. His
popularity was increased by the absence of
self-assertion, somewhat rare on the bench,
the reticence on all irrelevant matters, and
the invariable courtesy to witnesses, which
were leading features of all his procedure.
He always kept abreast of his work, and may
be said to have died in harness.'

Outside his court, from which, till his last
illness, he was never absent for a day, Mr.
Bell took a lively interest in every matter
affecting the welfare of Glasgow, advocating
the interests of the city and promoting its in-
stitutions with an oratory at once genial and
forcible, to the uniform success of which his
-commanding presence and impressive voice
•doubtless contributed ; but the matter of his
speeches was always valuable, and several of
his addresses, as that to the Juridical Society
1850, and as president of the Athenaeum 1851,
have stood the test of publication. He was
a constant patron of the fine arts, and while
in Edinburgh, where he was one of the origi-
nators of the Royal Scotch Academy, had
given a course of lectures on their history ;
those on Michael Angelo and Raphael, sub-
sequently delivered before the Philosophical
Institution and the Glasgow Architectural
Society, attracted considerable attention. The
only other prose work of those years of a thou-
sand interlocutors was the long and able in-

YOL. iv.

troduction to Bell and Bains's edition of
1 Shakespeare,' published in 1865. During this
period his few relaxations were angling, chess
— in which game he was the champion of the
west of Scotland — and occasional trips to the
continent, memories of which he has preserved
in his volume, 1866, entitled ' Romances and
Minor Poems,' which showed that all that
weight of law had not stifled the author's
imagination. The best verses in this volume
are, if somewhat less elastic than those of his
youth, more mature and searching. They are
the reflex of a mind that has seen more of life
and become perplexed by mysteries, for which
its former easy solutions have proved inade-
quate. Mr. Bell's first wife died in 1847 ; in
1872 he married Miss Sandeman, who sur-
vives him. Towards the close ol 1873 a disease
in the hand, which had for some time caused
only trifling inconvenience, assumed so grave
an aspect that an operation became impera-
tive. This for a time appeared to have been
successful, but early in the next year unfavour-
able- symptoms set in, and he died on 7 Jan.
1874. The respect of his fellow-citizens was
attested by the fact of his being — the first ex-
ample of the century— interred in the nave
of St. Mungo's Cathedral. Through life a
staunch tory, Glassford Bell had better claim
to the title of liberal than many of those who
assume it, for he was generous almost to a
fault, and took account of men by what they
were rather than by what they professed to
believe. He will be remembered in Scotland
as the genial friend of Wilson, Hogg, and
Lockhart, the worthy associate of the great
legal race of which Jeffrey, Cockburn, Aytoun,
and Burton were but slightly more distin-
guished representatives. He has been called
1 the last of the literary sheriffs.'

[Journal of Jurisprudence, February 1874 ;
Glasgow Herald, 8 Jan. 1874; personal know-
ledge and information from Mr. Bell's family.]

J. N.

BELL, HENRY NUGENT (1792-1822),

genealogist, was the eldest son of George
ell, Esq., of Belleview, county Fermanagh
(Inner Temple Admission Register}. He fol-
lowed the profession of a legal antiquary, and,
in order to obtain a recognised status, en-
tered himself at the Inner Temple, 17 Nov.
1818. In the same year he acquired con-
siderable distinction by his successful advo-
cacy of the claim of Mr. Hans Francis
Hastings to the long-dormant earldom of
Huntingdon ; the estates, however, with the
exception, it is said, of a mill in Yorkshire,
had passed away from the title, and were
legally invested in the Earl of Moira's family.
Bell published a detailed account of the pro-

Bell

162

Bell

ceedings in ' The Huntingdon Peerage,' 4to,
London, 1820, pp. 413, and the narrative of
his various adventures, which are given at
length, displays a suspicious luxuriance of
imagination not altogether in keeping with
what professed to be a grave genealogical
treatise. To the unsold copies a new title-
page was affixed in 1821, with a genealogi-
cal table and additional portraits (Low^DES,
Bibliographer 's Manual, ed. Bohn, i. 149).
Bell was also employed by Mr. J. L. Craw-
furd to further his claim to the titles and
estates of Crawfurd and Lindsay, and, if we
may credit the common report, received no
less a sum than 5,036/. for prosecuting the
suit. He was cut off before he could bring
the matter to a decisive issue, and dying in-
solvent, the unfortunate claimant's money
was in a great measure lost (The Crawfurd
Peerage, by an Antiquary, chap. iv. ; DOBIE,
Examination of the Claim of J. L. Crawfurd,
p. 15). According to Lady Anne Hamilton
(Secret History of the Court of England, i.
324, ii. 108), Bell, with other minions, was
delegated by Lord Sidmouth in 1819 to in-
cite the starving people of Manchester against
the ministry — if that were needed — and by
their means the meeting of 16 Aug. was con-
voked which led to the massacre of Peterloo.
The circumstances attending his death as
narrated in the journals of the day were
somewhat tragic. An action to recover a
sum of money advanced to him by an en-
graver named Cooke was tried on 18 Oct.
1822, and a verdict passed against him ; on
the same evening he died. His younger
brother was Sir George Bell, K.C.B. [q. v.]

[Gent. Mag. vol. xc. pt. ii. p. 521, vol. xci.
pt. i. p. 44, vol. xcii. pt. ii. p. 474 ; Notes and
Queries. 5th ser. xii. 69, 234, 278, 475, 6th ser.
i. 66 ; Annual Reg. (1877), p. 153.] G. G.

BELL, JACOB (1810-1859), founder of
the Pharmaceutical Society, and patron of art,
was born in London on 5 March 1810. His
father, a prominent member of the Society of
Friends, first established the pharmaceutical
business which, in the hands of the son, ac-
quired a world-wide fame. At the age of
twelve Bell was sent to a Friends' school at
Darlington to be educated. He exhibited a
decided faculty for composition both in prose
and verse, and at the age of sixteen gained the
prize in a competition for the best original essay
on war. In conjunction with a schoolfellow,
he also founded a manuscript journal devoted
to literature and the events of his school
life. His education completed, he entered
his father's business in Oxford Street, Lon-
don, but at the same time diligently attended
the lectures on chemistry at the Royal Insti-

tution, and those on the practice of physic
at King's College. He also devoted his lei-
sure to the study of practical chemistry, and
converted his bedroom into a laboratory,
fitting it with a furnace and other apparatus.
His tastes appear to have been of a varied
character, for at one time he gave much at-
tention to comparative anatomy, at another
to outdoor sports, while, in a third instance,
he studied art under H. P. Briggs, R.A. His;
faculty for art was considerable, especially
upon the grotesque and humorous side.
His taste for the works of eminent painters
was very early developed, and before he was
five-and-twenty he had formed the nucleus
of a collection which afterwards became
famous. He also strongly interested himself
in the question of copyright as affecting
artists, and gave valuable advice and assist-
ance in this direction.

In 1840 Bell visited the continent, having
| as his travelling companion Sir Edwin Land-
seer, whose health was then in an unsatis-
I factory condition. The friends travelled
1 through Belgium and up the Rhine to Switzer-
| land, but at Geneva Bell himself was taken
{ ill with a very severe attack of quinsy. The
! seizure caused him to be detained at Geneva
for six weeks, and it laid the foundation of
j an affection of the larynx, from which he
suffered much in after years. Returning to*
London by way of Paris, he witnessed in
the latter city the solemnities which cele-
brated the arrival of the remains of the first
Napoleon.

Bell was a vigilant guardian of the rights
of his fellow-traders, and it was chiefly owing"
to his efforts that in the year 1841 Mr.
Hawes was compelled to withdraw a mea-
sure which he had submitted to Parliament
for the purpose of ' amending the laws rela-
ting to the medical profession in Great
Britain and Ireland.' This measure, if car-
ried, would have pressed heavily upon the
chemists and druggists throughout the king-
dom. At this time Bell conceived a scheme
for a society which should act as an effec-
tual safeguard for the protection of the in-
terests of the trade, and at the same time
assist in raising it to the status which it
already occupied in other countries. Accord-
ingly, at a public meeting held 15 April 1841,
the formation of the Pharmaceutical Society
of Great Britain was resolved upon. Bell
subsequently issued a pamphlet showing the
necessity for such a society. Great diffi-
culties were encountered in the formation of
the society, but they were all surmounted
by Bell's tact and ability. In the forma-
tion of provincial branches of the society
he also took a deep interest ; and for the

Bell

163

Bell

advancement of the cause of true pharmacy
he established the well-known periodical,
the 'Pharmaceutical Journal.' The pub-
lication of this work he superintended for
eighteen years. The conduct of the journal
was with him a labour of love, for it resulted
in no pecuniary advantage during its first
fifteen years of existence, notwithstanding its
acknowledged usefulness. To thenewjournal
Bell was also a constant contributor him-
self until his death. His efforts in connection
with an improved pharmacy led to his being
elected an honorary member of various
foreign scientific societies, and a Fellow of
the Chemical, Linnean, and Zoological So-
cieties of London, and of the Society of
Arts.

In 1843 the Pharmaceutical Society was
incorporated by royal charter, and the same
year Bell published his 'Historical Sketch
of the Progress of Pharmacy in Great Bri-
tain.' The author dealt with the practice of
pharmacy from the time of its partial sepa-
ration from the practice of medicine until
the establishment of the Pharmaceutical
Society. It was found that an act of parlia-
ment was required for restricting the prac-
tice of pharmacy to persons duly qualified,
and in 1845 Bell drew up an account of
desirable provisions, including the registra-
tion of all persons carrying on business as
chemists and druggists ; the introduction of
a system of education and examination ;
the protection of the public against the pro-
ceedings of ignorant persons ; the separa-
tion of the trade in medicines from the
practice of physic and surgery as far as prac-
ticable ; the recognition of the Pharmaceu-
tical Society as the governing body in all
questions relating to pharmacy. For several
years the question of pharmaceutical legisla-
tion was much discussed, and numerous
petitions on the subject were presented to
parliament ; but as no practical issue was
arrived at, Bell decided to seek a seat in
parliament for the purpose of advocating
the necessary measures. In 1850, accord-
ingly, he contested the borough of St. Albans
in the liberal interest, and was returned,
although the unscrupulous means used by
his agents led to the ultimate disfranchise-
ment of the borough. Bell, however, was
absolved from blame, except in regard to
the laxity he displayed in placing himself
unreservedly in the hands of his parliamen-
tary agents. In June 1851 Bell brought
forward in parliament a bill to regulate the
qualifications of pharmaceutical chemists, and
for other purposes in connection with the
practice of pharmacy. The measure passed
its second reading, but could not be further

proceeded with. In the following session
the bill was reintroduced, and after con-
siderable discussion it was referred to a se-
lect committee. The act, as it eventually
became law, only very partially fulfilled the
intentions of its framer.

At the general election of 1852 Bell
offered himself for the representation of
Great Mario w, but was unsuccessful. Two
years later, on the death of Lord Dudley
Stuart, he contested the borough of Maryle-
bone with Lord Ebrington, but was again
unsuccessful. He was subsequently solicited
to offer himself again for Marylebone, but
ill-health compelled him to decline the invi-
tation. During the last winter of his life,
while suffering from a painful affection of the
larynx, as well as from great debility and
emaciation, he still took an active part in pro-
fessional matters, and also devoted himself to
philanthropic causes. He died from exhaus-
tion 12 June 1859. It is stated that Bell
spent a fortune in founding and advancing
the Pharmaceutical Society, but he felt him-
self repaid by the knowledge that his efforts
had raised enormously the educational stan-
dard of his order. On the day of his funeral
nearly the whole body of chemists through-
out the country closed their places of busi-
ness.

Bell's chief works were : 1. ' Observations
addressed to the Chemists and Druggists of
Great Britain,' 1841. 2. 'Historical Sketch
of the Progress of Pharmacy in Great Britain,'
1843. 3. ' Chemical and Pharmaceutical
Processes and Products,' 1852.

With regard to his patronage of art, the
gallery of pictures at his house in Langham
Place testified to its extent and catholicity.
The finest part of his collection he bequeathed
to the nation, including six of the best works
of Sir Edwin Landseer, and well-known
examples of O'Neil, Sidney Cooper, Charles
Landseer, E. M. Ward, W. P. Frith, Rosa
Bonheur, &c.

[Annual Kegister, 1859 ; Pharmacexitical Jour-
nal and Transactions, 1842, &c. ; Bell's works."}

G. B. S.

BELL, JAMES (1524-1584), catholic
priest, born at Warrington in Lancashire, in
1524, was educated at Oxford, where he was
ordained priest in Queen Mary's reign. For
some time he refused to conform to the alte-
rations in religion made by Queen Elizabeth ;
but afterwards, adopting the tenets of the
Reformation, he exercised the functions of a
minister of the church of England for twenty
years, and was beneficed in several parts of
the kingdom. In 1581 he applied to a lady
to solicit her good offices to procure for him

M 2

Bell

164

Bell

a small readership, of which her husband was
the patron. This lady, being a catholic, up-
braided him with his cowardice, and exhorted
him to lead a life in accordance with his sa-
cred profession. Moved by her words he
sought reconciliation with the catholic church,
and laboured zealously as a priest for two
years among the poorer class of catholics. In
January 1583-4 he was apprehended by a pur-
suivant, and was brought to trial at the Lent
assizes at Lancaster. He behaved with great
courage, and on being convicted said to the
judge : ' I beg your lordship would add to the
sentence that my lips and the tops of my fin-
gers may be cut off for having sworn and sub-
scribed to the articles of heretics, contrary
both to my conscience and to God's truth.'
He was executed at Lancaster on 20 April
1584. John Finch, a layman, suffered at the
same time and place for being reconciled to
the catholic church, and denying the queen's
spiritual supremacy.

[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 132 ; Dodd's
Church Hist. ii. 102 ; Concertatio Eccl. Catho-
licse in Anglia, ed. Bridgewater (1594), ii. 160-
164; Challoner's Missionary Priests (1741), i.
160; Gibson's Lydiate Hall, Introd. xxxiv.]

T. C.

BELL, JAMES (/. 1551-1596), reformer,
was a native of the diocese of Bath, Somerset-
shire, and was admitted a fellow of Corpus
Christ! College, Oxford, probably in 1547.
He graduated B.A. in 1551, and on 30 May
1556 was nominated a fellow of Trinity Col-
lege, when he was appointed rhetoric lecturer.
The doubts expressed by Wood as to whether
these details do not apply to James Bell, a
Roman catholic priest executed in 1584 [q.v.],
are set at rest by Bliss in a life of Bell added
to the ' Athenae.' Bell in the Michaelmas
term of 1556 gave up his fellowship, and be-
came a zealous partisan of the Reformation. In
1564 he wrote and dedicated to Queen Eliza-
beth 'An Account of Csecilia, Princess of
Sweden, travelling into England,' which
exists only in a manuscript preserved in the
British Museum (MS. Royal, 17j£ From the
character of his description it is probable
that he accompanied the princess to England.
The other works of Bell are translations from
the Latin as follows : 1. ( Sermon preached
at the christening of a certain Jew at Lon-
don,' by John Foxe, 1573. 2. 'Sermon of
the Evangelical Olive,' by John Foxe, 1578.
3. ' Treatise touching the Libertie of a Chris-
tian Man,' by Luther, 1579. 4. l The Pope
Confuted — the Holy and Apostolical Church
Confuting the Pope — the First Action,' by
John Foxe, 1580. 5. ' Answer Apologetical
to Hierome Osorius, his Slanderous Invec-
tives,' byHaddon and Foxe, 1581. On 13Feb.

1595 Bell was presented to the prebend of
Holcombe in the church of Wells, and on
11 Oct. 1596 to that of Combe in the same
church. The date and place of his death
are unknown.

[Wood's Athense (Bliss), i. 651-2; Fasti, i.
132, 137 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 94.] T. F. H.

BELL, JAMES (1769-1833), geographi-
cal author, was born in Jedburgh in 1769.
At the age of eight he went to Glasgow,
where his father, the Rev. Thomas Bell [see
BELL, THOMAS, 1733-1802], was appointed,
in 1777, minister of Dovehill Chapel. During
childhood and youth James suffered much
from feeble health and sickness, and gave but
little promise of either much bodily or mental
vigour ; but he managed to acquire a liberal
education. As he grew up his constitution be-
came stronger, and he evinced a remarkable
propensity for desultory reading. His first em-
ployment was that of a weaver, to which busi-
ness he served an apprenticeship. In 1790 he
commenced trade on his own account, as a
manufacturer of cotton goods, with a fair
prospect of success, but, finding himself hin-
dered by the mercantile depression of 1793,
he gave up his business, and for some years
worked as a warper in the warehouses of
manufacturers. As his tastes and the un-
common simplicity of his character rendered
him unfit to win his way in business pursuits,
his father at length settled upon him a small
annuity which enabled him to revert to those
studies and researches to which his natural
inclination led him in early life. About 1806
he quitted warping to earn a livelihood as
tutor in Greek and Latin to advanced students
attending the university. At the same time
he, with untiring zeal, studied history, theo-
logy, and especially geography. To this
science, around which the whole of his sympa-
thies were gathered, he devoted the labour of
his life. His first literary effort was made about
1815, when he contributed some chapters to
the ' Glasgow Geography,' a popular work of
the period, published by Khull, Blackie, &
Co., now scarce. In 1824 he wrote 'An
Examination of the various Opinions that
have been held respecting the Sources of the
Ganges and the Correctness of the Lama's Map
of Thibet.' It was published as Article 2 in
1 Critical Researches in Philology and Geo-
graphy,' an anonymous volume in 8vo, now
known to be the joint work of James Bell
and a gifted young student in philology, one
John Bell, a namesake but not a relative.
The high encomiums that this article eli-
cited from some of the leading periodicals of
the day served at once to establish the repu-
tation of James Bell as a writer upon geo-

Bell

'65

Bell

graphy. He was forthwith entrusted with
the serious task of preparing and editing
an unabridged edition of Rollin's 'Ancient
History/ Glasgow, 1828, 3 vols. 8vo. The
original notes, geographical, topographical,
historical, and critical, with the life of the
author by Bell, serve to this day to place
this edition at the head of all that have yet
appeared in English. Bell's fame as a
geographical author reached its climax in
his 'System of Geography, Popular and
Scientific,' Glasgow, 1830, 6 vols. 8vo. It
may be fairly urged that it opened a new
era in the study of geography in our lan-
guage ; but it is doubtful if it has commanded
the attention of the geographical student
south of the Tweed as much as it even now
deserves. By his contemporaries Bell was i
held to be * certainly one of the first critical
geographers of this country.' In its method
it never yet has been, and probably never
will be, entirely superseded. The chapters on
the history of geography contained in the '
third volume of Rollin and in the sixth j
volume of his ( System of Geography ' have
apparently served for models for all subse-
quent attempts of the kind during the last
half-century.

His latest, but posthumous, work/ A Com-
prehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales,'
Glasgow 1836, 4 vols. 8vo, although now
almost obsolete, was, in its day, an exceed-
ingly useful book of reference, a model of
conciseness, and still valuable for its intro-
duction drawn up under twelve sections ; one
of these, on the cartography of England and
Wales,compiled mainly from Gough's * British I
Topography/ is a feature peculiar to the ga- I
zetteer which has never been imitated by any j
subsequent one.

In forming a correct estimate of Bell and
his literary work it is necessary to note that
although he was an accomplished classical
scholar, as his notes to Rollin show, he was
not always an exact one, being more intent
upon elucidating the ideas of his author than
upon niceties of language. Finally, the
greater portion of his work was done under
the disadvantages of ill-health, the want of
powerful friends, and an exceedingly limited
apparatus of books ; the last disadvantage his
extraordinary memory enabled him to par-
tially overcome. His religious sentiments
were thoroughly Calvinistic, tempered with a
feeling of wide tolerance for the religious
convictions of others, while few could wield
the weapons of theological controversy with
greater vigour and effect. Owing to in-
creasing attacks of asthma to which he had
always been subject, he was obliged to leave
Glasgow about ten or twelve years before his

death and retire into the country. The
place selected for the scene of his labours
was a humble cottage at Campsie, twelve
miles north of Glasgow. He died in this
secluded but beautiful spot 3 May 1833, and
was there buried, at the age of sixty-four.

[Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 282 ; Chambers's
Biogr. Diet, of Eminent Scotsmen, ed. Thomson,
1868, i. 119; Dublin University Mag. i. 687;
Edin. Journal of Natural and Geographical
Science, ii. 103, 193; Eoy. Geog. Soc. Journal,
ix. Ivii.] C. H. C.

BELL, JOHN, LL.D. (d. 1556), bishop
of Worcester, was a native of Worcester-
shire, and was educated at Balliol College,
Oxford, and at Cambridge, where he took the
degree of LL.B. in 1504. He probably at-
tended Sylvester Gygles, bishop of Wor-
cester, to Rome, when sent by Henry VIII
to the Lateran Council, for Sylvester in his
letters thence mentions him as in communi-
cation with the pope, and as the best man
to fill the vacancy of master of the English
Hospital. He speaks of him as 'Master
Bell, now dean of the arches ' (State Papers
Henry VIII, ii. 849, 928). In 1518 he was
made by Sylvester vicar-general and chan-
cellor of the diocese of Worcester, offices
which he continued to hold under two of
his successors (THOMAS, Survey of Worcester
Cathedral, p. 205). Bell was rector of Sub-
Edge, Gloucestershire, warden of the colle-
giate church of Stratford-upon-Avon, master
of the hospital of St. Walstan's, archdeacon
of Gloucester, and prebendary of Lichfield,
St. Paul's, Lincoln, and Southwell cathedrals.
' At length his abilities being made known
to Henry VIII, he was made one of his
chaplains, sent by him to foreign princes on
state affairs, and at his return was one of
his counsellors ' (z'6.) While abroad he was
made LL.D. of some foreign university, in
which degree he was incorporated at Oxford
in 1531 (WooD, Fasti, pt. i. col. 88). In
1526 Bell as ' official of Worcester' appears
frequently as a member of the court ap-
pointed by Wolsey for the trial of heretics
(State Papers Henry VIII, iv. 885-6).
During the next three years he seems to
have been in almost constant attendance
upon the king, employed by him in divers
ways in furthering his divorce from Katha-
rine. He appeared as the king's proxy in
1527. In 1528 he was consulted by the king
and by Wolsey on the pope's dispensation,
and on the commission to Wolsey and Cam-
peggio to decide the validity of his union
with Katharine. In 1529, when the cause
came before the legates in Blackfriars Hall,
Bell appeared on several occasions as one of

Bell

166

Bell

the king's counsel, and also in the same
capacity at Dunstable before Archbishop
Cranmer and the Bishop of Lincoln ( on the
morrow after Ascension day, 1032, when
Cranmer gave final sentence that the pope
could not license such marriages ' as that of
Henry and Katharine. During this period
Bell showed great courage in preventing
the appointment of Elinor Carey, sister of
Mary Boleyn's husband, as abbess of Wilton,
by reporting her (as Wolsey's commissary
for the diocese of Salisbury) to have been
guilty of ' gross incontinency,' at a time, too,
when the king was contemplating his ap-
pointment to the archdeaconry of Oxford.
Two years before the sentence of divorce
was pronounced by Cranmer, Henry sent
Bell, together with the Bishop of Lincoln
and Foxe, to Oxford, to obtain an opinion con-
demning marriage with a deceased brother's
wife. Oxford hung back in spite of threats
and promises. Eventually the commissioners
only succeeded by the exclusion of the junior
members of convocation from any voice in
the matter. The excitement was so great
that it was thought necessary to hold a secret
conclave by night to affix the university seal.
Bell was in 1529 one of a commission, in-
cluding Sir John More, to assist the arch-
bishop in preparing a royal proclamation
against Tyndal's translation of the Scrip-
tures and a number of heretical books, and to
present it in St. Edward's chapel to be signed
there by Henry in person (COLLIER, Eccl.
Hist iv. 145). In 1532 he took part in the
proceedings of the 'convocation which de-
cided that the king's marriage was contrary
to divine law, and consequently that the
pope's dispensation was ultra vires, and which
drew up 'the articles about religion,' of
which the original may be seen, with John
Bell's name attached, in the Cotton Library.
In 1537 he was one of ' the composers ' of
the ' Bishop's Book,' and one of the learned
divines who, in the course of its preparation,
were called upon to define the true meaning
of various church ordinances. In this year,
too, he was present at the baptism of Ed-
ward VI at Hampton Court. On 11 Aug.
Bell was promoted to the see of Worcester.
As bishop he was a member of the committee
of the convocation of 1540 who pronounced
the marriage of Henry and Anne of Cleves
illegal, and was also one of six bishops ap-
pointed by the king ' to examine what cere-
monies should be retained in the church, and
what was the true use of them.' In the fol-
lowing year he promised his support to Cran-
mer, when he brought forward in the House
of Lords * an act for the advancement of
true religion and the abolishment of the

contrary,' but when he saw the angry excite-
ment of the popish opposition ' he fell away
from him7 (STKYPE, Cranmer, p. 141). In
the convocation of 1542, when the bishops
undertook the work of a revised translation
of the New Testament, the first and second
epistles to the Thessalonians were assigned
to Bell. On 17 Nov. 1543 Bell resigned his
bishopric. Burnet, after speculating as to
his motive, decides to ' leave it in the dark.'
Nichols (Lit. Anecdotes, iii. 109) says he
was ' deprived,' but the form of his resigna-
tion may be seen in Rymer's 'Fcedera'
(xv. 10), by which it would appear to have
been quite voluntary. Bell retired to Clerk-
enwell, then a fashionable suburb. Of his
life there we only learn from his will that
he was 'priest of Clerkenwell parish.' He
died on 2 Aug. 1556, and was buried with
episcopal honours on the south side of the
east end of the chancel of St. James's
Church, where Bishop Burnet was also after-
wards buried. The monumental brass from
his tomb, engraved by Malcolm in his ' Lon-
dinium Redivivum,' was in 1866 in the pos-
session of Mr. J. G. Nichols (NICHOLS,
Herald and Genealogist, iii. 444). He gave
by his will 21. to the poor of Clerkenwell,
51. to Stratford-upon-Avon, and some legacies
to Jesus chantry in St. Paul's Cathedral,
desiring that ' his soul might be prayed for.'
He was also a benefactor to Balliol College,
Oxford, and to Cambridge, but especially to
the former, where he provided for the main-
tenance of two scholars born in the diocese
of Worcester. Coote says of Bishop Bell
{English Civilians) : i He died with the cha-
racter of an eloquent preacher and advocate,
a learned divine, and a man of integrity and
beneficence.'

[Godwin, De Prsesulibus Anglise, Camb.
1743 ; Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, Singer's ed. ;
Chambers's Biog. Illustrations of Worcester-
shire; Thomas's Henry VIII, 1774; Burnet's Hist,
of the Reformation ; Strype's Eccl. Memorials
and Life of Cranmer ; Thomas's Survey of Wor-
cester Cathedral ; Calendar of State Papers,
Henry VIII, vols. ii., iii., iv., v., vi., and vii.]

P. B. A.

BELL, JOHN (1691-1780), traveller,
son of Patrick Bell of Antermony, was born
on the paternal estate in 1691. No details of
his education are extant, but it is stated
that, after obtaining the degree of doctor
of medicine, he determined to visit foreign
countries. He obtained recommendatory
letters to Dr. Areskine, chief physician and
privy counsellor to the Czar Peter I, and
embarked at London in the month of July
1714. An embassy was then preparing from
the czar to the sophy of Persia. On Dr.

Bell

167

Bell

Areskine's recommendation Bell was engaged j
in the service of the Russian emperor. He I
left St. Petersburg on 15 July 1715, and pro-
ceeded to Moscow, from thence to Cazan, and i
down the Wolga to Ostracan. The embassy j
then sailed down the Caspian Sea to Derbent, j
.and journeyed by Mongan, Tauris, and Saba j
to Ispahan, where they arrived on 14 March j
1717. They left that city on 1 Sept., and re-
turned to St. Petersburg on 30 Dec. 1718,
.after having travelled across the country from
iSaratoff. On his arrival in the capital Bell
found that Dr. Areskine had died about six
weeks before ; but he had now secured the
friendship of the ambassador, and upon hear- |
ing that an embassy to China was preparing i
he easily obtained an appointment in it j
through his influence. The account of his '
journey to Cazan, and through Siberia to
China, is by far the most complete and inte- '
resting part of his travels. His description of
the manners, customs, and superstitions of
the inhabitants, and of the Delay-lama and
the Chinese wall, deserve particularly to be
noticed. They arrived at Pekin, ' after a te-
dious journey of exactly sixteen months.'
.Bell has left a very full account of occur-
rences during his residence in the capital of
China. .The embassy left that city on '2 March
1721, and arrived at Moscow on 5 Jan. 1722.
Bell next accompa.iied an expedition into
Persia as far as Derbent, returning thence in
December 1722. Soon afterwards he revisited
his native country, and returned to St. Pe-
tersburg in 1734. In 1737 he was sent to
'Constantinople by th( Russian chancellor,
-and Mr. Rondean, the British minister at the
Russian court. It was his last effort in Rus-
sian diplomacy. He alterwards abandoned
the public service, and seems to have settled
•at Constantinople as a merchant. About
1746 he married Mary Peters, a Russian lady,
and returned to Scotland, where he spent the
latter part of his life on his estate, enjoying
the society of his friends. After a long life
.spent in active beneficence and philanthropic
•exertions he died at Antermony on 1 July
1780, at the advanced age of eighty-nine.
His only work is ' Travels from St. Peters-
burg in Russia to various parts, of Asia,' 1763,
in two vols. quarto, printed by Robert and
Andrew Foulis of Glasgow, whose beautiful
fount of type enhances the value of the book.
The 'Quarterly Review' (1817, pp. 464-5)
•says that Bell wished to obtain literary help
in writing his book, and applied to Robertson,
who could not help him, but advised him to
take ' Gulliver's Travels ' for his model. The
.advice was accepted with the best results.
Besides the Glasgow edition of 1763 the
* Travels ' were published in Dublin 1764, in

Edinburgh 1788 and 1806, and they are re-
printed in the seventh volume of Pinkerton's
'Collection of Voyages and Travels.' The
'Gentleman's Magazine' of 1763 (p. 392)
contains a long extract from the ' Travels/
describing in a graphic manner the recep-
tion of the Russian embassy by the Shah of
Persia. A French translation of the whole
work appeared in Paris, 1766, 3 vols. 12mo.

[Bell's Travels; Quarterly Review; Cham-
bers's Diet, of Eminent Scotsmen.] E. H.

BELL, JOHN (1747-1798), artillerist,
was the eldest son of a hatter at Carlisle,
where he was born on 1 March 1747. His
father ruined himself in attempts to discover
the longitude. In 1765 Bell joined the ar-
tillery. He served at Gibraltar and after-
wards in England. He was at Southsea in
1782, and was an eye-witness of the founder-
ing of the Royal George. He invented a
plan for destroying the wreck, which was the
same as one carried out by Colonel Pasley
in 1839. He also invented the ' sunproof'
for testing the soundness of guns, long in
use in the royal arsenal ; a ' gyn,' called by
his name, and a petard, of which there is a
model in the Woolwich laboratory ; a crane
for descending mines ; and a harpoon for
taking whales (for the last two of which he
received premiums from, the Society of Arts) ;
and an apparatus for rescuing shipwrecked
mariners, said to be identical with that after-
wards devised by Captain Manby. For this he
received a premium from the Society of Arts
of fifty guineas, and in 1815 the House of
Commons voted 500/. to his daughter (Mrs.
Whitfield) in recognition of the same inven-
tion. In 1793 the Duke of Richmond gave him
a commission as second-lieutenant in the artil-
lery, and in 1794 he was promoted to a first-
lieutenancy. He was employed in a secret
expedition for the destruction of the Dutch
fleet in the Texel, which was abandoned.
He died of apoplexy at Queenborough on
1 June 1798, whilst engaged in fitting out
fire-ships.

[United Service Journal, April 1840 ; Society
of Arts' Transactions (1807), vol. xxv., where
there is an engraving of his apparatus for wrecks.]

BELL, JOHN (1763-1820), surgeon, was
born in Edinburgh 12 May 1763, being the
second son of the Rev. William Bell, and elder
brother of Sir Charles Bell. He was educated
at the High School of Edinburgh, and early
showed a liking for medical studies. He
became a pupil of Mr. Alexander Wood, an
eminent surgeon in Edinburgh, and, after
attending the lectures and practice of Black,
Cullen, and the second Monro, became a fellow

Bell

1 68

Bell

of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh,
in 1786. In 1790 he established himself as
a lecturer on anatomy and surgery in Edin-
burgh in a lecture-theatre built for him in
Surgeon's Square, where he carried on dis-
sections, and formed a museum. He vigo-
rously attacked the stereotyped methods of |
Monro and Benjamin Bell, and naturally met
with strong opposition in this extra-university
enterprise ; but his ability and zeal as a :
teacher brought him popularity and success. |
Among his pupils was his brother Charles, who j
for some years assisted him. His extended !
work on the ' Anatomy of the Human Body,' j
to which Charles largely contributed, went
through numerous editions, and was trans-
lated into German. A rapid improvement in
the surgery of the arteries followed the publi-
cation of the volume of the 'Anatomy' in
which they were described. His ' Engravings j
of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints ' appeared |
in 1794. His ' Discourses on the Nature and |
Cure of Wounds ' (1793-5) were remarkable
for their clear expositions of the then re-
cently introduced practice of aiming at the I
early union of wounds after operations, of
the 'importance of the free anastomosis of
arteries in dealing with injuries to the main
trunks of the arteries, and other novel modes i
of treatment founded on rational views of j
anatomy and physiology. For twenty years |
he was the leading operating surgeon in Edin-
burgh. Unfortunately for his health and re- j
putation, Bell entered into the lengthy and |
bitter controversy set on foot by Dr. James |
Gregory, professor of medicine in the uni- }
versity of Edinburgh, about the arrangements
for the attendance of surgeons at the Royal
Infirmary, writing an ' Answer for the Junior
Members of the Royal College of Surgeons
of Edinburgh to the Memorial of Dr. J. Gre- '
gory,' 1800. One result was the limitation !
of the number of surgeons to six, and the !
exclusion of Bell and many others, in 1800 ;
and although Dr. Gregory was subsequently
severely censured by the College of Phy-
sicians for violations of truth, Bell unwisely
spent much time and feeling in the com-
position of his ' Letters on Professional Cha-
racter and Manners,' addressed to Dr. Gregory,
extending to 636 pages (1810). After his
exclusion from the infirmary Bell published
(1801-8) the ' Principles of Surgery,' in three I
quarto volumes, in the second edition of j
which (1826) Sir Charles Bell speaks of the |
admirable capacity he had for teaching, as j
well as the correctness and importance of the j
principles which he taught. In 1805 Bell
married Rosina, daughter of a retired physi-
cian, Dr. Congleton; but he never seems
fully to have recovered from his exclusion

from the infirmary, and although his private
practice was extensive, this did not make up
to him for the lack of a public position..
Early in 1816 he was thrown from his horse,
and in 1817 his health was still so impaired
that he went on a foreign tour, and spent
the last three years of his life in Italy, where
he found means of gratifying those artistic
tastes which he ha<J shown in the illustra-
tions to many of his own and his brother's
works. He diligently made notes on paint-
ings, statuary, architecture, and life, and these
were embodied in the ' Observations on
Italy,' edited by his friend Bishop Sandford..
of Edinburgh, and published in 1825, and
again, with additional chapters on Naples, in
1835. This work abounds in fine descrip-
tions and just criticisms, based on anatomical
knowledge. His widow remarks in the pre-
face : ' With warm affections and sanguine
temper, he looked forward with the hope
that his labours and reputation would one
day assuredly bring independence ; and mean-
while, he would readily give his last guinea f
his time and his care, to any who required
them. Judging of others by himself, he was
too confiding in friendship, and too careless
in matters of business ; consequently, from
the one he was exposed to disappointment,,
and from the other involved in difficulties
and embarrassments which tinged the colour
of his whole life.' He died of dropsy, at
Rome, 15 April 1820. Dr. Lankester says of
him in the i Imperial Dictionary : ' ' He was
impetuous and energetic, and in his contro-
versial writings almost violent. He had no
sympathy with conservatism, and was in-
dignant with those who had not made the-
same advances with himself. He was one
of those men who, without apparently
achieving great success, leave behind them
an abiding impression, and stamp their cha-
racter in the institutions and thought of the
age in which they live.' In person he was-
below the middle height, of good figure,
active-looking, and dressed with excellent
taste. Keen and penetrating eyes gave effec-
tiveness to his regular features, so that his-
expression was of a most highly intellectual
type.

[Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, ed. Thomson,.
1858 ; Letters of Sir C. Bell.] G. T. B.

BELL, JOHN (1745-1831), publisher, has
been called by Charles Knight ' the mis-
chievous spirit, the very Puck of booksellers/
John Bell had defied the power of a combi-
nation of some forty publishing firms, who
called themselves ' the trade,' and issued
books on the joint-stock principle, in order
to secure a monopoly of the best publications.

Bell

169

Bell

In 1777 these gentlemen met at the Chapter
Coffee-house, Paternoster Row, and resolved
to bring out a collection of the works of Eng-
lish poets, afterwards known as ( Johnson's
Poets,' of wliich the first edition appeared in
1779, and the second in 1790.

Bell, who was agent for the brothers Mar-

Kendal, Westmoreland, 23 Oct. 1764, and
was educated at the grammar school at
Beetham in the same county and at Trinity
College, Cambridge. There he graduated in
1786, was first Smith's prizeman and senior
wrangler, and was subsequently elected to a
fellowship at his college, and entered at the

tin, owners of the Apollo Press in Edinburgh, ! Middle Temple 10 Nov. 1787, and at Gray's
brought out, in London 1782, their edition ' Inn 8 Nov. 1790, having taken his M.A.
of the ' British Poets,' the early volumes of ! degree in the preceding year. After reading
which, issued in 1777, had stimulated the i for some time in the chambers of Samuel
London trade to their undertaking of 1779. I (afterwards Sir Samuel) Ilomilly, he began
Bell's work was in one hundred and nine to 'practise below the bar,' i.e. as a special
volumes, 18mo, and bore the general title of < pleader, in 1790, and was called to the bar in
'Bell's edition : The Poets of Great Britain j 1792. He devoted himself to the equity
complete from Chaucer to Churchill.' Each ! branch of the profession, and gradually ac-
volume was illustrated by a frontispiece, an j quired an extensive practice in the court of
engraved title or a portrait after the designs j Chancery. He did not, however, attain the

rank of king's counsel until 1816, though
long before that date he had gained a repu-
tation as a lawyer second to that of none of
his contemporaries. Lord Eldon is said, in
conversation with the prince regent, to have
described Bell as the best lawyer then at
the equity bar, although he could ' neither
read, write, walk, nor talk.' Bell was lame,
spoke with a broad Westmoreland accent,
the effect of which was heightened by a con-
firmed and distressing stammer, and wrote a
hand never more than barely legible. He was
accustomed to say that he wrote three hands,
one which he himself could read, one which
his clerk could read, and one which neither he
nor his clerk could read. Nevertheless, his
penetrating intelligence and thorough know-
ledge of law secured for him a large and
lucrative practice. Between 1816 and 1819
his name occurs with extraordinary frequency
in the reports, but thenceforward is very
rarely found there ; and he does not seem to
have been engaged in any case of great im-
portance after 1820, some years before he
retired from professional life. He gave evi-
dence before the commission which was ap-
pointed in 1824 to inquire into and report
upon the procedure of the' court of Chancery,
but his lifelong familiarity with the business
of this court appears to have had the effect
of rendering him almost as obstinately averse

by which the multitude is taught to feel an to change as the lord chancellor (Eldon).
interest in the best literature by means of j Though conservative as a lawyer, in politics
prints and illustrations executed by good ar- I Bell was a whig. In person he was short,
tists. He died at Fulham in 1831, in the i stout, and round-shouldered. In 1830 he
eighty-sixth year of his age. published a pamphlet entitled ' Thoughts on

[Timperley's Dictionary of Printers, p. 916; ! *h,e Proposed Alterations in the Court of
Knight's Shadows of the Old Booksellers, p. 250, i £hanceij' ft£? f hl.8 hT?e m Bedford
266, 276; Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, i. 276.1 Square 6 Fe*>- 1836> leaving his wife Jane,

K. H. ! daughter of Henry Grove, and an only son,
I Matthew Bell, now of Bourne Park, Kent,

BELL, JOHN (1764-1836), barrister-at- surviving him. Lord Langdale, who had
law, only son of Matthew Bell, was born at j been his pupil, was one of his executors.

of Stodhardt, Mortimer, and other artists of
the day. Martin and Bell were debarred by
an exclusive copyright from inserting in their
collection Young, Mallet, Akenside, and Gray,
which appeared in the London trade edition,
together with Dorset, Stepney, Walsh, Duke,
and Sprat, rhymesters whom Bell had cast
aside. The attractiveness of this pocket
edition nevertheless was indubitable, and Mr.
Bell's enterprise and good taste were generally
acknowledged. He published a similar edition
of ' Shakespeare ' and ' The British Theatre.'
He is distinguished among printers as being
the first to discard the long f (s) from his
fount of type. - He was one of the original
proprietors of the < Fashionable World,' of
the ' Oracle/ and of the ' Morning Post '
(1772). He established a Sunday newspaper,
' Bell's Weekly Messenger,' much esteemed
for its country politics and accounts of coun-
try markets. ' La Belle Assemblee,' an il-
lustrated monthly publication, was another

)tion of
He had no

acquirements, perhaps not even gTammar ; but
his taste in putting- forth a publication, and
getting the best artists to adorn it, was new
in those times, and may be admired in any.

T>«11 — . _ • _£•_ . jl • • ,1 , 1 • -

of his successful projects. In Leigh I
' Autobiography (i. 276) is a descript
Bell's appearance, ending thus : ' TT

Bell was, in fact, the pioneer in that kind
of publication so much in vogue in later days, j

Bell

170

Bell

He was buried at Milton, near Canterbury,
where he had an estate. His fortune was
considerable. He married late in life, his
son being under age at his decease. His
widow died in 1866.

[Foster's Coll. Gen. Eeg. Gray's Inn ; Gent.
Mag. (1836), 670; Meri vale's Eeports; Swans-
ton's Eeports ; Wilson's Chancery Eeports ;
Jacob and Walker's Eeports, ii. 9 ; Jacob's
Eeports, 633 ; Oh. Cora. Eeport, App. A. 1 ;
Times, 7 Oct. 1826; Hardy's Memoir of Lord
Langdale, i. 238-43.] J. M. E.

BELL, SIB JOHN (1782-1876), general,
was born at Bonytoun, Fifeshire, 1 Jan.
1782, being the son of David Bell of
that place. It was not until 1805 that he
abandoned the more lucrative prospects of
mercantile life open to him by family con-
nections, and followed the bent of his own
inclination by accepting a commission as an
ensign in the 52nd foot on 15 Aug. in that
year. He was ordered to join his regiment in
Sicily in 1806. Throughout the Peninsular
war he was actively engaged in the majority
of the more celebrated actions, and was
wounded at the battle of Vimeiro by a shot
through the shoulder. He was appointed
permanent assistant quartermaster-general
during the later years of the war. He re-
ceived the gold cross for the battles of the
Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orthes, and Toulouse, and
the silver war medal with six clasps for some
other battles and sieges. He was employed
for the last time in active service abroad
against Louisiana, December 1814 to January
1815. From 1828 to 1841 he was chief
secretary to the government at the Cape of
Good Hope, and from 1848 to 1854 lieute-
nant-governor of Guernsey. The colonelcy
of the 95th foot was awarded to him in 1850,
which he exchanged for that of the 4th foot
three years afterwards. He was nominated
a C.B. as far back as 4 June 1815, and for
his many services he was made a K.C.B.
6 April 1852, and 'a G.C.B. 18 May 1860.
Immediately afterwards he became a general,
and before his death he was the senior gene-
ral in the army. He died at 55 Cadogan
Place, London, 20 Nov. 1876, and was buried
in Kensal Green Cemetery. He married,
14 June 1821, Catharine, the elder daughter
of James Harris, the first earl of Malmes-
bury. She was born at St. Petersburg,
29 "May 1780, and was named after her
godmother, the Empress Catharine. She
died in Upper Hyde Park Street, London,
21 Dec. 1855.

[Illustrated London News, Ixix. 541 (1876),
with portrait; Men of the Time, 1875; Army
Lists, &c.] G. C. B.

BELL, JOHN GRAY (1823-1866), book-
seller, was the son of Thomas Bell, d. 1860
[q. v.], house agent and surveyor of Newcastle-
upon-Tyne. He was born at Newcastle
21 Sept, 1823, and married, in 1847, Dorothy
Taylor of North Shields. In 1848 he went to
London, and began business as a bookseller.
He removed to Manchester in 1854, where he
successfully followed his trade during the re-
mainder of his life. He died there 21 Feb.
1866, aged 43. Bell was an earnest student
of antiquarian literature, collected topogra-
phical books and prints, and issued many
interesting trade catalogues. In 1850 he
commenced the publication of a valuable
series of < Tracts on the Topography, His-
tory, Dialects, &c., of the Counties of Great
Britain,' of which about sixteen came out, in-
cluding original glossaries of Essex, Glouces-
tershire, Dorset, Cumberland, Berkshire. In
1851 he published ' A Descriptive and Criti-
cal Catalogue of Works, illustrated by Thomas
and John Bell.' This was compiled by him-
self. Another of his works was a genealogy
of the Bell and other families, printed for
private circulation in 1855, and entitled ' A
Genealogical Account of the Descendants of
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,' &c.

[Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vi. 511, vii. 78;
Bell's Descendants of John of Gaunt, 1855.]

C. W. S.

BELL, JOHN MONTGOMERIE (1804-
1862), an advocate of the Scottish bar, and
sheriff of Kincardine, was born at Paisley in
1804. He was educated at the grammar
school of that town and at the university of
Glasgow. He was called to the Edinburgh
bar in 1825, and from 1830 to 1846 assisted,
with conspicuous ability, in conducting the
court of session reports. In 1847 he was ap-
pointed an advocate-depute, and in 1851
sheriff of Kincardine. In 1861 he published
a ' Treatise on the Law of Arbitration in Scot-
land,' a comprehensive and perspicuous expo-
sition of this branch of Scotch law, and the
standard work on the subject. He died from
the effects of an accident 16 Oct. 1862. In
1863 a poem, ' The Martyr of Liberty,' which
he had written shortly after his call to the
bar, was published in accordance with direc-
tions left by himself.

[Catalogue of the Library of the Faculty of
Advocates, Edinburgh ; Scotsman, 23 Oct. 1862.]

T. F. H.

BELL, JONATHAN ANDERSON (d.

1865), architect, second son of James Bell,
advocate, was born in Glasgow and educated
at Edinburgh University. The best account
of him is preserved in a volume of poems

Bell

171

Bell

printed privately and posthumously in 1865.
He showed, we there learn, an early fond-
ness for art, and in the study of it spent the
greater part of 1829 and 1830 in Rome. Re-
turning, he decided to become an architect.
He served his articles and remained for some
j'ears afterwards in the office of Messrs.
Rickman & Hutchison of Birmingham. Mr.
Rickman is well known as a prime mover in
the English Gothic revival ; Bell was his fa-
vourite pupil, and became his intimate friend.
«•• As a result of this education and com-
panionship, Bell acquired a remarkable know-
ledge of Gothic architecture. He was a correct
and elegant draughtsman. Thirty of the en-
gravings in Le Keux's ' Memorials of Cam-
bridge ' are from his drawings. His ' Dryburgh
Abbey,' engraved by William Miller, is no
less remarkable. For about twenty-seven
years he practised as an architect in Edin-
burgh. l His larger works were not nume-
rous, but they are of great merit and evince
refined taste. The country houses he erected
were always justly admired. The extensive
range of premises in Glasgow, known by the
name of Victoria Buildings, which he de-
-signed for Mr. Archibald Orr Ewing ....
•exhibit a very pure specimen of Scotch
Gothic, finely adapted to commercial pur-
poses, and form one of the most imposing
elevations in the city.' Bell was a member
of the Institute of Scottish Architects. In
1839 he was appointed secretary to the Royal
Association for the Promotion of the Fine
Arts in Scotland. He was nominated for
the office by the late Professor Wilson, and
retained it until his death. In the printed
reports of that society will be found graceful
and sufficient tributes to the abilities and the
jzeal of its secretary. He was one of the
leading witnesses examined by the select
committee appointed to inquire into the sub-
ject of art unions. He was secretary also to
the committee concerned with the direction
of the Edinburgh Wellington Testimonial.
Bell had not only ' a learned knowledge of
art in all its departments, but was himself
-a cultivated artist. . . . His water-colour I
drawings are of a high order of excellence !
and are finished with the greatest delicacy.' I
His poems were printed only for private cir- j
•culation, ' in the belief that they possessed
much originality and beauty.' He died, in
his fifty-sixth year, on 28 Feb. 1865.

[Bell's Poems, printed 'in memoriam ' and not
for publication, 1865 ; Proceedings of the Royal
Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts
in Scotland; Scotsman, 2 March 1865.] E. R.

BELL, LADY MARIA (d. 1825), amateur
painter, the daughter of an architect named

Hamilton, was the pupil of her brother, Wil-
liam Hamilton, R.A., and received some in-
struction from Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose
pictures she copied with much skill. She
copied likewise the works of Rubens at Carl-
ton House, among which was a ' Holy
Family,' which was highly commended. Be-
tween the years 1809 and 1824 she exhibited
at the Royal Academy and elsewhere several
figure-subjects and portraits, among the latter
being in 1816 those of Sir Matthew Wood,
Bart., lord mayor of London, and of her hus-
band. She also practised modelling, and ex-
hibited two busts at the Royal Academy in
1819. She married Sir Thomas Bell, sheriff
of London, who was knighted in 1816, and
died in 1824, and whose portrait was engraved
by William Dickinson after a painting by her.
Lady Bell died in Dean Street, Soho, on
9 March 1825. Her own portrait has been
engraved by Edward Scriven from a miniature
by W. S. Lethbridge.

[Gent. Mag. 1825, i. 570; Redgrave's Dic-
tionary of Artists, 1878.] R. E. G.

BELL, PATRICK (1799-1869), one of
the first inventors of the reaping machine, was
born at Mid-Leoch, a farm of which his
father, George Bell, was tenant, in the
parish of Auchterhouse, a few miles north-
west of Dundee, in April 1799. When he
was a young man studying for the ministry
at the university of St. Andrews, he turned
his attention to the construction of a machine
which might lessen the labour of harvesting.
This was in 1827, and in the following year
a machine which he had made was tried on
a farm in Perthshire belonging to his brother,
Mr. George Bell. For a long time Dr. Bell
was considered to be the original inventor of
the machine, though claims were also put for-
ward on behalf of McCormick in America . It
has, however, been ascertained, with tolerable
certainty, that John Common, of Denwick, was
the first to produce a machine having the es-
sential principles of the modern reaper. This
was done in 1812, as is proved by an entry
in the minutes of a committee of the Society
of Arts in that year. There is also evidence to
show that Common s machine was really the
original of that brought out by McCormick,
and shown in the Great Exhibition of 1851.
It should be added that there were before
this many experimental reaping machines ;
but those of Common and Bell seem to have
been the only two which were in any way
successful. Dr. Bell never took out a patent
for his machine, but it was worked regularly
from the time of its first construction until
about 1868, when it was purchased for the
museum of the Patent Office, where it now

Bell

172

Bell

remains. A full account of the invention
was given by Dr. Bell at the meeting of the
British Association at Dundee in 1867 ; but
unfortunately only a very brief report of the
paper appears in the reports of the associa-
tion. Dr. Bell was ordained in 1843, and
became minister of the parish of Carmylie,
Arbroath, which cure he held till the time of
his death. As a recognition of his services
to agriculture he was presented by the High-
land Society with 1,000/. and a piece of plate,
subscribed for by the farmers of Scotland and
others. He also had conferred on him the
honorary degree of LL.D. by the university
of St. Andrews.

[A fair account of Dr. Bell is given in Nichols's
Register and Magazine of Biography, 1 869, p. 473.
It includes some particulars about the origin of
the invention, evidently taken from the British
Association paper. A short obituary notice ap-
peared in Engineering for 30 April 1869. This
seems to contain nothing beyond what is given
in Nichols. For a description of his and other
early reaping machines see Woodcroft's Appendix
to Specifications of Patents for Heaping Machines,
1852 (published by the Patent Office). For an
account of Common's machine see Soc. of Arts
Journal, xxvi. 369, 419, 479, xxxi. 324.1

H. T. W.

BELL, ROBERT (d. 1577), judge, was of
a Norfolk family, and was educated at Cam-
bridge. He is mentioned as reader at the
Middle Temple in the autunin of 1565 (DuG-
DALE, Oriff. 217). In 1558-9 he was of
counsel for the patentees of the lands of
the bishopric of Winchester on a bill in
parliament which touched their interest. His
career was at first political. From 1562, when
he was first returned for Lynn Regis, until
his death he sat in parliament. In October
1566, being a member of a committee to pe-
tition the queen as to her marriage, he com-
mented boldly on the unsatisfactory answer
returned. A dissolution ensuing, in the next
parliament, in April 1571, he was named
among those assigned to confer with the lords
spiritual on the reformation of abuses in
religion. Having pressed, during a subsidy
debate, for a reform of abuses connected with
licenses to four courtiers, he was sent for by
the council, and ' so hardly dealt with, that
it daunted all the house in such sort that for
several days there was not one that durst
deal in any matter of importance.' He is
found, however, speaking later on upon a
usury bill and on parliamentary reform and
non-resident burgesses. A new parliament
being summoned in 1572, he was elected
speaker on 10 May, and still held that office
at the close of the parliament when, on 8 Feb.
1576, it fell to him to move the queen on the

subject of her marriage, and to offer a subsidy..
The queen, by the lord keeper, returned a con-
ditional assent, and parliament was prorogued
on 14 May.

During this time Bell had pursued his pro-
fession, as the occasional mention of his name
in Dyer's and Plowden's reports testifies. On
11 Feb. 1562-3 he had been appointed coun-
sel for the town of Great Yarmouth for life
at an annual fee of 40*., and in August 1570
he was of counsel for the crown on the trial
at Norwich assizes of persons charged with a
treasonable rising on behalf of the Duke of
Norfolk. In 1573 (20 Oct.) his name occurs,
in a commission of oyer and terminer for the
county of Norfolk. On the death of Sir
Edward Saunders, chief baron of the ex-
chequer, Bell succeeded him 24 Jan. 1577,
having a short time previously been knighted
and raised to the degree of serjeant-at-law
(DuGDALE, Chron. Ser. 95, citing MS. Ash-
mol.) No parliament assembling for nearly^
four years, a successor was not for that time
appointed to the speakership. He sat on the
bench, however, but a few months ; for at
the Oxford summer assizes in the same year,
when presiding at the trial of Rowland
Jenckes, ' a scurvy foul-mouthed bookseller/
for a slander on the queen, Bell, along with
Mr. Serjeant Barham, the high sheriff, many
knight sand gentlemen, most of the grand jury r
and above three hundred more, was taken sick
from the stench of the prisoners, and died in
a few days. On the same occasion, having
been nominated 23 April 1577, he was a
member of a commission for a special visita-
tion of the University of Oxford, along with
the bishops of London and Rochester, Sir
Christopher Wray, lord chief justice, and
four others {State Papers, Domestic, Eliza-
beth, p. 543). His successor as chief baron
was Sir John Jeffreys, appointed 12 Oct..
1577. Camden describes Sir Robert Bell as
' a sage and grave man, and famous for his-
knowledge in the law.' He was thrice-
married : to Mary, daughter of Mr. Anthony
Chester ; to Elizabeth, widow of Edmund
Anderson, a son of Sir Edmund Anderson,,
lord chief justice of the common pleas ; and
(15 Oct. 1559) to Dorothy, daughter and co-
heiress of Edward Beaupre, who brought him
the manor of Beaupre in Upwell and Outwell,.
Norfolk, and, surviving him, married Sir John
Peyton of Doddington in Kent, lieutenant
of the Tower, and governor of Jersey under
James I. He had several children : Dorothy,
who married Sir H. Hobart, chief justice of
the common pleas ; Mary, who married Sir
Nicholas L'Estrange of Hunstanton in Nor-
folk ; Frances, who was second wife to Sir
Anthony Dering of Surenden in Kent ; and

Bell

173

Bell

one son, Edmund, who married Ann, daugh-
ter of Sir Peter Osborn. His descendants
long resided in Norfolk. There are portraits
of him in the possession of the Misses Bell
of North Runcton, and of the Rev. H. Creed,
of Mellis ; the latter has been engraved by
W. C. Edwards.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Dugdale's Ori-
gines Juridiciales ; Blomefield's Norfolk, iv. 182 ;
Wotton's Baronetage, i. 375, ii. 17, Hi. pt. 2, 427 ;
Parl. History, i. 715, 735, 757, 779, 794 ; Cal.
State Papers, Domestic, Eliz., p. 443 ; Wood's
Annals, ii. 188 ; Manning's Speakers, 242 ;
Eymer, xv. 725, 773 ; Manship's Yarmouth, ii.
:358 ; Cooper's Athenae Cantab., i. 365, 565.1

J. A. H.

BELL, ROBERT (1800-1 867), journalist
and miscellaneous writer, was the son of an
Irish magistrate, and born at Cork on 16 Jan.
1800. He was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin, where he originated the Dublin His-
torical Society to supply the place of the old
Historical Society which had been suppressed.
He is said to have obtained early in life a
government appointment in Dublin, and to
have edited for a time the ' Patriot,' a govern-
ment organ. He is also described as one of
the founders of and contributors to the ( Dub-
lin Inquisitor,' and as the author of two
dramatic pieces, ' Double Disguises ' and
* Comic Lectures.' In 1828 he settled in Lon-
don either before or after publishing a pam-
phlet on catholic emancipation. About this
time he was appointed editor of the ' Atlas,'
then one of the largest of London weekly
journals, and he conducted it creditably and
successfully for many years. In 1829, at a
time when press prosecutions were rife, he
was indicted for a libel on Lord Lyndhurst,
a paragraph in the l Atlas' having stated
that either he or his wife had trafficked in
the ecclesiastical patronage vested in the lord
chancellor. The indictment would have been
withdrawn if Bell had consented to give up
the name of his authority, but he refused.
He defended himself in a manly and in-
genious speech, and was complimented both
by the judge, Lord Tenterden, and by the
attorney-general, on the tact and talent dis-
played in it. The verdict of the jury found
him guilty of publishing a libel, but virtually
acquitted him of any malicious intention,
and recommended him to the merciful con-
sideration of the court. The attorney-general
expressed great satisfaction with the verdict,
and Bell seems to have escaped punishment
(Greville Memoirs (1875), i. 258).

To Lardner's ' Cabinet Cyclopaedia,' the
publication of which began in 1830, Bell con-
tributed the < History of Russia ' (3 vols.),

the ' Lives of the English Poets ' (2 vols.),
and the concluding volumes both of Southey's
' Lives of the British Admirals,' and of the
continuation, in which he had been preceded
by Wallace, of Sir James Mackintosh's ' His-
tory of England.' Meanwhile he assisted
Bulwer, afterwards the first Lord Lytton, and
Dr. Lardner in establishing the { Monthly
Chronicle ' (1838-41), and ultimately became
its editor. He also edited l The Story-teller,'
1843, and in 1849 the concluding volumes of
the ' Correspondence of the Fairfax Family/
In 1846 had appeared his popularly written
' Life of Canning ; ' in 1849 he published an
agreeable record of one of his holiday tours
on the continent, ' Wayside Pictures through
France, Belgium, and Holland ' (second edi-
tion, with the addition of a "Trip up the
Rhine,' 1858). Of his three five-act come-
dies, i Marriage ' was published in 1842,
1 Mothers and Daughters in 1843 (second edi-
tion, with explanatory preface giving an ac-
count of its abrupt withdrawal from the
stage, 1845), and ' Temper,' 1847. Bell also
wrote two three-volume novels, ' Hearts and
Altars,' 1852, and the < Ladder of Gold,' 1856.
But the literary enterprise, left unfortunately
uncompleted, by which Bell will be chiefly
remembered, is his annotated edition of the
English poets, 24 vols. 1854-7. The origi-
nality of the work lay in its numerous and
useful annotations, but the texts contained in
it were the result of sedulous revision, and a
careful memoir was prefixed to the works of
each poet. The earliest poet in the series
was Chaucer, and the latest Cowper, but,
apart from Bell's announced intention to
make it only a selection, there are great gaps
in it. Noticeable among the ' occasional '
volumes is the unique selection of ' Songs
from the Dramatists,' beginning with Udall
and ending with Sheridan.

During his later years Bell edited with
assiduity the ' Home News,' a monthly jour-
nal circulating among English residents in
India and the East. His last productions
were selections from the poets, to accompany
pictorial illustrations, ' Golden Leaves from
the Works of the Poets and Painters,' 1863,
and 'Art and Song,' 1867, the year of his
death. He also wrote ( Outlines of China,'
and contributed to the ' New Spirit of the
Age,' edited by R. H. Home. Latterly he
became interested in spiritualism, and among
his contributions to periodicals was a paper
on table-rapping in the ' Cornhill Magazine.'
A very prominent and active member of the
committee of the Literary Fund, Bell was
personally most helpful to struggling and
unsuccessful men of letters, and his death
on 12 April 1867 was much and widely

Bell

174

Bell

regretted. In accordance with his request
he was buried near the grave of his friend,
W. M. Thackeray, in Kensal Green Cemetery.
[Notices in Home News for May 1867, in En-
cyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition, and in
Chambers's Cyclopaedia ; Atlas for 27 Dec. 1829 ;
Catalogue of the British Museum Library.]

F. E.

BELL, EGBERT CHARLES (1806-

1872), line-engraver, was born at Edinburgh
in 1806. At an early age he was articled to
John Beugo, the friend of Burns, and Avhile
in his studio he also attended the classes at
the Trustees' Academy, then under the direc-
tion of Sir William Allan. After leaving
Beugo he engraved a series of Scottish
views and a considerable number of vignette
portraits, the best known of which are those
of Professor Wilson and Dr. Brunton ; but
the works which brought him more promi-
nently into notice were ' The Rush Plaiters,'
after Sir George Harvey, and the plates
which he engraved for the Royal Scottish
Association, among which were l The Widow '
and ' Roger and Jenny,' after Sir William
Allan ; ' The Expected Penny,' after A.
Eraser ; ' The Quarrel Scene in The Dowie
Dens o' Yarrow,' after Sir J. Noel Paton ;
and ' Baillie McWhirter at Breakfast,' after
J. Eckford Lauder. The largest and most
important plate he ever undertook was ' The
Battle of Preston Pans,' after Sir William
Allan, upon which he was engaged at in-
tervals for some years, and which he had
only just completed at the time of his decease.
Several of his best plates appeared in the
' Art Journal ' between the years 1850 and
1872. They included ' The Duet,' after Etty ;
'The Philosopher,' after H. Wyatt ; ' The
Bagpiper,' after Sir David Wilkie ; and
' The Young Brother,' after Mulready, from
the pictures in the Vernon Gallery ; ' Teasing
the Pet/ after that by Mieris in the Royal
Collection ; ' Sancho Panza,' after that by C. R.
Leslie in the Sheepshanks Collection; ' Words
of Comfort,' after Thomas Faed ; ' Renewal of
the Lease refused,' after Erskine Nicol; and
'Within a Mile of Edinbro' Town,' after John
Faed. He died in Edinburgh on 5 Sept. 1872.
His son, Mr. Robert P. Bell, A.R.S.A., is a
well-known Scottish painter of figure subjects.
[Art Journal, 1872, p. 284.] E. E. G-.

BELL, THOMAS (1733-1802), divine,
was born at Moffat on 24 Dec. 1733, and
there attended the parish school. He was
sent to the university of Edinburgh while
still a mere youth. He completed his secu-
lar course and continued his theological
at his university. But instead of seeking
license from the national church he applied

to the ' Presbytery of Relief,' recently founded
by Thomas Gillespie. He was licensed in
1767, and in that year was settled as
minister of the Relief congregation at Jed-
burgh as successor to the son of Thomas
Boston, of Ettrick. He remained in Jedburgh
for ten years, having made for himself a
wide local reputation. In 1777 he was trans-
lated to a large congregation of the Relief
church in Glasgow.

He found sufficient leisure to learn Dutch.
The Dutch divines were then held in high re-
pute in Scotland for their evangelical ' sound-
ness in the faith.' The fruits of his new ac-
quisition were seen in various faithful and
readable translations from the Dutch. In
1780 he published 'The Standard of the
Spirit lifted up against the Enemy com-
ing in like a Flood.' In 1785 appeared his
erudite and powerful treatise, ' A Proof of
| the True and Eternal Godhead of the Lord
! Jesus Christ.' The Dutch original of Al-
linga on the 'Satisfaction of Christ' (1790)
is improved in his translation. He likewise-
translated from the Latin ' The Controversies
agitated in Great Britain under the Unhappy
Names of Antinomians and Neonomians.'
This was posthumously published, as well a&
, 'A View of the Covenants of Works and
Grace,' and 'Sermons on various Important
Subjects' (1814). He was father of James
! Bell, the geographical writer [q. v.] He died
at Glasgow on 15 Oct. 1802.

[Struthers's History of Eelief Church and
Annals of Glasgow ; Memorials of Eelief Church,
Jedburgh; Church Eecords at Jedburgh and
Glasgow.] A. B. G.

BELL, THOMAS (1785-1860), anti-
quary, was the son of Richard Bell, of New-
castle-on-Tyne, and was born at that town
16 Dec. 1785. For many years he followed
the business of land valuer and surveyor.
He was a diligent antiquary and the collector
of an extensive library, which was dispersed
at Newcastle after his death. Though he
left no published writings, his library was en-
riched by his manuscript genealogical and
antiquarian compilations, and he assisted
most of the local topographical writers of his
day in their undertakings. The Rev. John
Hodgson was much aided by him in the ' His-
tory of Northumberland.' He was a promoter
of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical
Society, and one of the founders of the Society
of Antiquaries of Newcastle, and continued
to take an active interest in both societies as
long as he lived. He died in his native town
30 April 1860, aged 74.

[Gent. Mag. August 1860, p. 196; Sale Cata-
logue of the Bell Library, 1860 ; J, G. Bell's De-
scendants of John of Gaunt, 1855.] C. W. S.

Bell

175

Bell

BELL, THOMAS (1792-1880), dental
surgeon and zoologist, was born at Poole,
Dorsetshire, 11 Oct. 1792, being the only son
of Thomas Bell, surgeon. In 1813 he entered
as a student at Guy's and St. Thomas's hos-
pitals, London, and became a member of the
Royal College of Surgeons in 1815, and a
fellow in 1844. In 1817 he was appointed
dental surgeon to Guy's, a post he held till
1861. He was for a long period the only ca-
pable surgeon who applied scientific surgery
to diseases of the teeth ; but his work on the
teeth (1829) was largely a compilation from
Hunter, Blake, and Fox. He was early at-
tracted to natural history, especially zoology,
and for some years he lectured on comparative
anatomy at Guy's. In 1 836 he was appointed
professor of zoology at King's College, Lon-
don, but in this capacity he made no mark.
The first edition of his ' History of British
Quadrupeds' (1837), being written in an
easy and attractive style, became popular ;
but it was not without serious defects. It
was followed in 1839 by the ' History of Bri-
tish Reptiles/ and in 1853 by the ' History
of British Stalk-eyed Crustacea.' A second
edition of the ' British Quadrupeds ' appeared
in 1874, revised and partly rewritten by the
author, assisted in regard to cheiroptera and
insect ivora by Mr. R. F. Tomes, and in regard
to seals and whales by Mr. E. R. Alston,
whose additions are standard contributions.
The matter relating to our domestic quadru-
peds is omitted from the second edition.
Bell was elected F.R.S. in 1828, was one of
the originators of the scientific meetings of
the Zoological Society, and for eleven years |
one of its vice-presidents. His excellent ad- |
ministrative qualities found full scope as one I
of the secretaries of the Royal Society from
1848 to 1853, and as president of the Linnean
Society from 1853to 1861. Under his guidance
the latter society greatly advanced in prospe-
rity ; and to him is especially due its location
in Burlington House, to which the govern-
ment was originally strongly opposed. He was
president of the Ray Society from its founda-
tion in 1843 till 1859. At the age of nearly
seventy he retired from practice to the
"Wakes at Selborne, Hampshire, which he had
purchased from Gilbert White's grandnieces.
Here he collected relics and memorials of
White, receiving with delight White's ad-
mirers who visited Selborne. Thus, enjoying
robust health almost to the last, he spent a
happy and prolonged old age, and in 1877 pro-
duced his classic edition of the ' Natural His-
tory of Selborne.' It contains a memoir of
White, written in his most pleasing style.
Bell's manners were most attractive, gaining
the confidence of young and old of all classes.

His remarkable memory, stored with very
varied information, remained intact almost
to the close of his life, 13 March 1880. As
a naturalist he was more at home in his
study than in the field, and he made few
original contributions of special value to
zoology. As a writer, his chief merit is that
of agreeable compilation.

Besides the works already mentioned, Bell
published l Monograph of Testudinata/ parts
1-8, 1832-6, folio, not completed; Presi-
dential Addresses to Linnean Society, 1853-
1861 ; ' Paleeontographical Society Mono-
graph on Fossil Malacostracous Crustacea/
two parts, 1857, 1862; ' On Chelonia of
London Clay/ in * Fossil Reptilia of London
Clay/ by Professors Owen and Bell, 1849 ;
1 Catalogue of Crustacea in British Museum/
part i. 1855 ; account of Crustacea in Bel-
cher's ' Last of the Arctic Voyages/ vol. ii.
1855.

[Athenamm (1880), i. 379; Academy (1880),
i. 215; Lancet (1880), i. 507 ; Nature, xxi. 473,
499 ; information from Mr. Salter, F.E.S.]

GK T. B.

BELL, WILLIAM (fl. 1599), lawyer,
was born in Hampshire, and educated at
Warwick and Balliol College, Oxford, where
he was elected to a fellowship, which, how-
ever, being a Roman catholic, he was unable
to hold. Subsequently he turned his atten-
tion to the law, studying at Clement's Inn
for two years. He then appears to have re-
turned to his native county, where he came
to hold the office of clerk of the peace. He
is said to have died at Temple Broughton
(perhaps the same as the place now known as
Broughton) in that county. His son, a
Franciscan of the order of friars minor and
warden of the college of St. Bonaventura at
Douay, published in 1632 an octavo volume
containing his father's will, a statement of
his theological opinions, and his pedigree.

[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.] J. M. E,

BELL, WILLIAM, D.D. (1625-1683),
archdeacon of St. Albans, was born at Lon-
don, in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West,
on 4 Feb. 1625. He was educated at Mer-
chant Taylors' School, and elected a scholar
of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1643. He
graduated B.A. in July 1647, and obtained
a fellowship in his college, of which he was
subsequently a benefactor. Ejected from this
post by the visitors appointed by parliament,
he appears to have visited the Continent in
1649, and to have obtained a benefice in Nor-
folk in 1655, for which he was disqualified by
the tryers. On the Restoration he was made
chaplain to Sir John Robinson, lieutenant of

Bell

176

Bell

the Tower, and in the following year was ad-
mitted to the degree of B.D. In 1662 he was
Esented by his college to the living of St.
ulchre's, London, which he seems to have
sd in a way that secured the respect and
affection of his parishioners. Three years
later, Dr. Henchman, bishop of London, made
him prebendary of Reculversland in St. Paul's
Cathedral. In 1667 he was made chaplain
to the king, and in 1671 archdeacon of St.
Albans. To these preferments was also added
a lectureship at the Temple. He died 19 July
1683, aged 58, and was buried in St. Sepul-
chre's Church.

He published the following sermons :
1. 'City Security/ 1660. 2. ' Joshua's Reso-
lution to serve God,' 1672. 3. ' Sermon at
the Funeral of Mr. Anthony Hinton,' 1679.
There is an * Elegy on the Death of the re-
verend, learned, and pious William Bell,
D.D.' amongst the Luttrell collection of
broadsides, in which he is pronounced f a
mighty loyalist and truth's defendant.'

[Wood's Athense (Bliss), iv. 94, and Fasti, ii.
103, 254, 302 ; Kennett's Register and Chronicle,
Ecclesiastical and Civil, 1728, p. 796 ; Newcourt's
Eepertorium Eccles. Paroch. 1708, i. 96, 205,
534; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, 1854, ii. 431 ;
Stowe's Survey, ed. Strype, 1720, iii. 243 ; Acker-
man's Hist, of Univ. of Oxford, 1814. ii. 128.]

A. R. B.

BELL, WILLIAM (1740 P-1804 ?), por-
trait painter, was born at Newcastle-upon-
Tyne about the year 1740. He came to
London about 1768 and entered as a student
the schools of the Royal Academy, which
had just then been founded, and in 1771 he
carried off the gold medal for his picture of
' Venus entreating Vulcan to forge arms for
her son JEneas.' Being patronised by Lord
Delaval, he painted several full-length por-
traits of members of that nobleman's family,
and in 1775 he exhibited at the Royal Aca-
demy two views of Seaton Delaval, his lord-
ship's seat. Still he did not make any further
progress, but returned to Newcastle, where
he maintained himself by portrait painting
until his death, which took place about 1804.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]

R. E. G.

BELL, WILLIAM, D.D. (1731-1816),
divine, was educated at Magdalen College,
Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A.
in 1753 with considerable distinction, being
the eighth wrangler of his year. In 1755 he
gained one of the members' prizes, and pro-
ceeded M.A. in 1756, in which year he ob-
tained one of Lord Townshend's prizes by a
dissertation on the causes of the populous-
ness of nations, and the effect of populous-

ness on trade. The dissertation was trans-
lated into German in 1762, under the title of
' Quellen und Folgen einer starken Bevbl-
kerung,' and was replied to by ' A Vindica-
tion of Commerce and the Arts,' proving
them the source of the greatness, power,
riches, and populousness of a state, wherein
1 Mr. Bell's calumnies on trade are answered,
his arguments refuted, his system exploded,
and the principal causes of populosity as-
signed,' by I B , M.D., 1758. A

fancy that he had detected an argument of
the divine origin of Christianity in the evan-
gelic writings, in a circumstance hitherto
overlooked or slightly mentioned, produced in
1761 Bell's ' Enquiry into the Divine Mission/
After remaining for some time at Magda-
len, he became domestic chaplain and secre-
1 tary to the Princess Amelia, daughter of
I George III, with whom he became domes-
j ticated at Gunnersbury House. By her in-
! terest he obtained a prebend of Westminster
j in 1765, and in 1767 he proceeded S.T.P.
per literas regias. In 1776 he was presented
by the dean and chapter of Westminster to
the vicarage of St. Bridget's, London, but
i vacated it in 1780. It was in this year that
| he dedicated to the princess an elaborate
essay upon the sacrament. Dr. Lewis Bagot,
dean of Christ Church, controverted Bell's
argument in his Warburtonian lectures in an
excellent note, pp. 210-13, and published in
1781 a letter addressed to the author on the
subject. Bell's opinions on this question
[ agreed with those of Hoadly and John Taylor
! of Norwich. A second edition of Bell's tract
appeared, and he continued the discussion in
another tract published in 1790. Bell also
published his ' Attempt to ascertain the Na-
ture of the Communion,' including only the
main argument, in the simple form of ques-
tion and answer. After quitting St. Bridget's,
Bell was presented to the rectory of Christ
Church, London, which he resigned in 1799.
He also enjoyed the treasurer's valuable stall
in St. Paul's Cathedral, and administered
the office with becoming disinterestedness.
He, in fact, rendered himself conspicuous
through life for acts of discerning liberality.
In 1787 Bell published a curious tract,
entitled 'Declaration de nies derniers Senti-
mens sur les diff^rens Dogmes de la Religion/
by Pierre Franpois le Courayer, D.D., the
courageous, learned, and intelligent champion
of English ordinations to a French public
bent upon questioning their validity. The
manuscript of this work had been given by
Dr. Courayer himself to the Princess Amelia,
with a request that it might not be published
till after his death. It proved, says Bell,
that its author was firmly convinced that

Bell

177

Bellamy

the doctrine of the Roman religion, in nearly
all wherein it differs from the protestant, is
contrary to truth and the word of God.
This manuscript, together with the 'Traite
ou 1'on expose ce que 1'Ecriture nous apprend
de la Divinite de Jesus-Christ,' also by Dr.
Courayer, were bequeathed to Bell by the |
princess. Soon after the ' Declaration ' was
published a translation of the ' Trait6 ' ap- j
peared, with an account of Dr. Courayer
prefixed. The writer of this anonymous
work was the Rev. Dr. John Calder, and with
it Bell was not concerned. A strong dislike
to being the editor of a controversial work
such as the 'Trait6 ou 1'on expose,' &c., in
which the doctrine concluded upon is very
widely different from that adopted by the
church of England, was the cause, according
to his own written confession, of Bell's not
publishing this work immediately. Till 1810
he therefore withheld it from the world, when
he published it, thinking it might be ' a
highly blameable presumption ' to suppress it
longer. In the same year Bell, with great
munificence, transferred 15,200/. 3 per cent,
consols to the university of Cambridge, in
trust to found eight new scholarships for the
sons or the orphans of clergymen of the
church of England, whose circumstances were
such as not to enable them to bear the whole
expense of sending their sons to the univer-
sity. The particulars of the benefaction will
be found in the 'Gentleman's Magazine,'
Ixxx., ii. 490. It was especially provided
that no scholar was ever to be elected from
King's College or Trinity Hall. These pro-
visions have been subsequently altered. Bell,
in the course of his life, held several parochial
benefices besides those already mentioned,
but long before his death he had resigned all
such preferment. He died at his prebendal
"house in Little Dean's Yard, Westminster,
on 29 Sept., aged 85. Of Bell's posthumous
works the sermons have been highly praised.
Lowndes says, as a compendium of Christian
ethics they deserve a place among the best
writers of our language. Bishop Watson
recommends them as 'of excellent instruc-
tion.'

The full titles of Bell's works, in the order
of their publication, are : 1. 'A Dissertation
on " What Causes principally contribute to
render a Nation Populous, and what Effect
has the Populousness of a Nation on its
Trade," ' Cambridge, 1756. 2. ' An Enquiry
into the Divine Missions of John the Baptist
tind Jesus Christ, so far as they can be proved
from the circumstances of their births and
their connection with each other,' London,
1761. 3. A second edition to which are
prefixed ' Arguments in proof of the Authen-

VOL. IV.

ticity of the Narratives of the Births of John
and Jesus contained in the two first chapters
of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke/
1810. 4. ' A Defence of Revelation in general
and the Gospel in particular ; in answer to
the objections advanced in a late book en-
titled " The Morality of the New Testament,
digested under various heads," &c., and sub-
scribed, a Rational Christian,' 1765. 5. ' A
Sermon preached in Lambeth Chapel at the
consecration of Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Ro-
chester,' 1774. 6. 'An Attempt to ascer-
tain and illustrate the Authority, Nature,
and Design of the Institution of Christ, com-
monly called the Communion and the Lord's
Supper,' 1780 ; a second edition, 1781. 7. 'An
Enquiry whether any Doctrine relating to
the Nature and Effects of the Lord's Supper
can be justly founded on the Discourse of
our Lord recorded in the sixth chapter of
the Gospel of St. John,' 1790. This is a sup-
plement to the preceding ' Attempt,' &c.

[G-ent. Mag. Ixxxvi. pt. ii. 371 ; Brit. Mus.
Cat. ; Lowndes's Bib. Man. i. 150 ; Watt's Bibl.
Brit.] J. M.

BELLAMONT, VISCOUNT (d. 1660).
[See BAKD, HEKRY.]

BELLAMONT, EAKL OF. [See COOTE,

RlCHAKD.]

BELLAMY, DANIEL, the elder (b.
1687), miscellaneous writer, son of Daniel
Bellamy, scrivener of the city of London,
was born in the parish of St. Martin's, Iron-
monger's Lane, on 25 Dec. 1687. He en-
tered Merchant Taylors' School on 12 March
1702, and matriculated as a commoner of
St. John's College, Oxford, on 4 March 1706.
In consequence of a reverse of fortune he
was forced to leave Oxford without taking a
degree in 1709, and became a conveyancer's
clerk. He was the author of : 1. 'A Trans-
lation of the " Muscipula." ' 2. ' Thoughts on
the Trinity, translated from the French of
Lord Morny duPlessis-Marly,' 1721. 3. ' Love
Triumphant, or Rival Goddesses ; a Pastoral
Drama for Schools.' 4. Various dramatic
pieces and moral essays, published together
as the 'Young Lady's Miscellany,' 1723.

5. 'The Generous Mahometan;' a novel.

6. ' Moral Tales adapted from Fenelon,' 1729.

7. A Latin edition of the Fables of Phse-
drus, 1734. 8. ' The Christian Schoolmaster,'
1736. He also began a translation of Picart's
' Ceremonies.' In some other works he was
associated with his son Daniel [q. v.]

[Eobinson's Register of Merchant Taylors'
School, ii. 7 ; Baker's Biographia Dramatica, i.
i. 31 ; Kawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library.]

N

Bellamy

178

Bellamy

BELLAMY, DANIEL, the younger (d.
1788), divine and miscellaneous writer, was
educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where
he took the degree of M.A. 'per literas
regias' in 1759. His first work was the
'Christian Schoolmaster/ 1737, 16mo. He
joined with his father (of the same name) in
publishing a collection of ' Miscellanies in
Prose and Verse;' the first volume appeared
in 1739, and the second in 1740. This collec-
tion contained some dramatic pieces, written
to be performed by school-girls at breaking-
up-time. In ' Biographia Dramatica ' these
little chamber dramas are warmly praised.
The other works of the younger Bellamy are :
1. ' Discourses on the Truth of the Christian
Keligion/ 1744. 2. ' A Paraphrase on Job,'

1748, 4to. 3. 'On Benevolence, a sermon
(on Ps. cxii.), with a summary of the life and
character of Dean Colet, preached before the
gentlemen educated at St. Paul's School,'
1756, 4to. 4. ' The British Remembrancer,
or Chronicles of the King of England,' 1757 ?
12mo. 5. 'Ode to her Royal Highness the
Princess Dowager of Wales,' 1768? 4to.
6. 'The Family Preacher,' 1776, 8vo, dis-
courses for every Sunday throughout the year,
Avritten in conjunction with .Tames Carring-
ton, William Webster, and others. Bellamy
was minister of Kew and Petersham, and in
1749 was presented to the vicarage of St.
Stephen's, near St. Albans. He died 15 Feb.
1788.

[Gent. Mag. Iviii. 272 ; Baker's Biographia
Dramatica, i. i. 31 ; Watt ; Grraduati Canta-
brigienses ; Brit. Mus. Cat. ; Cooke's Preacher's
Assistant, ii. 34; European Magazine, xiii. 144;
Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 507.] A. H. B.

BELLAMY, GEORGE ANNE (1731?-
1788), actress, was born, according to her
'Apology,' at Fingal, in Ireland, on St.
George's day (23 April 1733). For this year
she afterwards substituted 1731, supplying a
copy of a certificate of birth. The year 1727,
given without comment by Chetwood in

1749, is more probable. The name George
Anne was given by mistake for Georgiana.
Her mother, whose maiden name was Seal,
was a quakeress, the daughter of a rich far-
mer at Maidstone. She eloped from a
boarding-school with Lord Tyrawley, ambas-
sador at Lisbon. She there married Captain
Bellamy, the master of a trading vessel. The
birth very shortly after of George Anne Bel-
lamy led to the immediate disappearance of
Captain Bellamy. Lord Tyrawley acknow-
ledged the paternity of the infant. He
sent her, when five years old, to Boulogne,
where she was placed in a convent until she
was eleven, when she returned to England,

and lived for some time with a peruke-maker
in St. James's Street, formerly in the service
of Lord Tyrawley. After the return of her
father she saw under his charge a good deal
of company, and was introduced to Lord
Chesterfield and to Pope. Her father, on
going as ambassador to Russia, made her an
allowance, which she forfeited by going to
live with her mother. She became acquainted
with Mrs. Woffington, Sheridan (the actor),
and Garrick. She even took part with
Garrick in a private performance- of ' The Dis-
tressed Mother,' in which she played Andro-
mache. A rehearsal of an amateur perform-
ance of ' Othello ' led to an engagement with
Rich, the manager of Covent Garden. Rich
introduced her to Quin, then the virtual
director of the house. Rich insisted, in spite
of Quin's opposition, that she should play
Monimia in ' The Orphan.' Her appearance
took place on 22 Nov. 1744. At the re-
hearsals Quin, who was to play Chamont,
did not appear. Through the first three acts
she could scarcely proceed, but in the fourth
act she obtained a success. Quin lifted her
in his arms from the ground, called her ' a
divine creature,' and proclaimed himself
henceforward her supporter and friend. This
was not, in fact, her first appearance. Her
name appears in the bill for Covent Garden
for 27 March 1742, quoted by Genest, as
acting Miss Prue in ' Love for Love.' Mrs. Bel-
lamy was patronised by aristocratic society,
and rose rapidly in her profession. An ab-
duction by Lord Byron led to a severe illness,
after which she took refuge with some quaker
relatives in Essex. Her private adventures
cannot be followed. In 1745-6 she was in
Dublin. Sheridan, who had the management
of the Smock Alley and Aungier Street
theatres, brought her out at the latter house
on 11 Nov. 1744, according to Hitchcock, but
the year must be 1745, as Monimia. Desde-
mona and other characters followed. Mrs.
O'Hara,her father's sister, introduced her into
society. She became in consequence so much
the rage, that an attempt of Garrick to prevent
her appearance as Constance in ' King John '
was the means of causing him much public
mortification. On 22 Oct. 1748 she reap-
peared at Covent Garden as Belvidera in
' Venice Preserved.' Here she remained play-
ing, generally in tragic characters, but occa-
sionally appearing in comedy, until 1750,
when (28 Sept.), with Garrick, by whom she
was specially engaged, she appeared as Juliet
in the famous combat with Barry and Mrs.
Gibber at the rival house. Her success in
this character was conspicuous. Her private
character was, however, suffering. Her re-
conciliation to her father, her relations with

Bellamy

179

Bellamy

Mr., afterwards Sir George Metham, with.
Mr. Calcraft, to whom she was believed to
be married, at a subsequent date with West
Digges, an actor, who married her, having
another wife living, and finally with "Wood-
ward, the actor, like the record of her gam-
bling and extravagance, may be read in her
'Apology' and elsewhere. During many
years she appeared at various theatres :
Covent Garden, 1753-9, Smock Alley, Dub-
lin, 1760-1, Covent Garden, 1761-2. In 1764
she went to Scotland, and reappeared at
Covent Garden in 1764-70. With increas-
ing age her attraction naturally diminished,
and mental decay seems to have followed.
In 1785 appeared in five volumes, to which a
sixth was subsequently added, her ' Apology,'
the materials for which, supplied by herself,
are supposed to have been arranged and
transcribed by Alexander Bicknell, author of
a l Life of Alexander the Great ' [q. v.] A
benefit was arranged for her at Drury Lane on
24 May 1785. Mrs. Bellamy took no part in
the performance of the piece (' Braganza '),
but mumbled a few words to the audience
in prose. She died 16 Feb. 1788. So far as
can be judged, her position was below the
greatest actresses of her day. Her beauty and
social reputation stood her, however, in good
stead. She was small in stature, fair, with
blue eyes, and was, according to O'Keefe,
very beautiful. During her early life she was
thrown into intimacy with Fox and many
characters of highest mark. Her later years
were burdened with suffering and debt. She
describes herself on her reappearance in Dub-
lin, when still little more than thirty, as
1 a little dirty creature bent nearly double,
enfeebled by fatigue, her countenance tinged
with jaundice, and in every respect the re-
verse of a person who could make the least
pretension to beauty/ A portion of her cor-
respondence is preserved by Tate Wilkinson
and others. It consists almost exclusively
of applications for money, which was no
sooner obtained than it was wasted. One or
two letters lent by Mr. Stone, of Walditch,
Bridport, are now before us, written from
Berwick Street, Soho. They are wholly con-
cerned with her pecuniary troubles. In one
she acknowledges the receipt of two guineas,
and says she needs twenty-five guineas again
to pay her debts. In a second she bids her
correspondent not to call, as she is going to
an officer's (sheriff's) house on her way to the
King's Bench, which was indeed a familiar
bourne. Her career has furnished a familiar
theme for writers on the stage. Dr. Doran
is especially eloquent over the sadness of her
life ; she was, in fact, less neglected than she
assumes herself to have been, and in 1785

she speaks of herself as having every pro-
spect of being comfortably situated for life
(Apology, vi. 111-12).

[An Apology for the Life of G-eorge Anne
Bellamy, late of Covent Garden Theatre, written
by herself, 6 vols. 1785 ; Memoirs of George
Anne Bellamy, by a Gentleman of Covent Gar-
den Theatre, 1785; Genest's Account of the
English Stage ; Thespian Dictionary ; Hitch-
cock's Irish Stage; Jackson's History of the
Scottish Stage; Tate Wilkinson's Memoirs of
his own life, 4 vols. 1790, and Wandering Paten-
tee, 4 vols. 1795; Chetwood's General History
of the Stage, 1749.] J. K.

BELLAMY, RICHARD (1743 P-1813),
Mus. Bac., one of the chief bass singers of his
day, was appointed a gentleman of the Chapel
Royal 28 March 1771, and a lay vicar of
Westminster Abbey 1 Jan. 1773. Bellamy
married Miss Elizabeth Ludford, daughter of
a Mr. Thomas Ludford, who died in 1776,
leaving considerable property to his grand-
children. In 1777 Richard Bellamy became
a vicar choral of St. Paul's Cathedral, and
from 1793 to 1800 he was also almoner and
master of the choristers. In 1784 he was one
of the principal basses at the Handel com-
memoration in Westminster Abbey. He gave
up all his appointments in 1801, and died
about the end of August 1813. Bellamy pub-
lished a few sonatas, a collection of glees, and
a Te Deum with orchestral accompaniment.

[Appendix to Bemrose's Chant Book (1882) ;
Grove's Dictionary, i. 211 a; Chester's Eegisters
of Westminster Abbey, p. 421 ; Burney's Ac-
count of the Handel Commemoration (1785).]

W. B. S.

BELLAMY, THOMAS (1745-1800),
miscellaneous writer, was born at Kingston-
on-Thames in 1745. Having served his ap-

nticeship to a hosier in Newgate Street,
egan business on his own account. Very
early he showed a taste for verse-writing,
some of the pieces in his ' Miscellanies ' being
dated 1763. After carrying on business with
success for twenty years he became tired of
serving at the counter. So, relinquishing the
hosiery trade, he served as clerk in a book-
seller's in Paternoster Row. ' But Bellamy/
says his biographer, t was not calculated for
a subordinate position.' A disagreement arose
between him and his employer, and Bellamy
had to seek a livelihood elsewhere. In 1787
he started the ' General Magazine and Im-
partial Review,' which lived for some months.
Another venture was l Bellamy's Picturesque
Magazine and Literary Museum,' which con-
tained engraved portraits of living persons,
with some account of their lives ; but the
public gave little support to this undertaking.

N 2

Bellamy

180

Bellasis

In 1794 lie collected into two volumes the
moral tales which he had written for the
1 General Magazine/ adding some verses, un-
published tales, and a life of Parsons, the
comedian. These ' Miscellanies in Prose and
Verse' were dedicated to Charles Dibdin,
with whom the author afterwards quarrelled.
Later he projected the * Monthly Mirror,'
which was chiefly concerned with the stage.
When this periodical had run its race, he
established a circulating library. On the
death of his mother he became possessed of
some property, which enabled him to retire
from business and devote himself to literary
pursuits. But he did not long enjoy his lei-
sure ; seized with a sharp and sudden illness
he died, after four days' suffering, on 29 Aug.
1800.

In addition to the works already mentioned
he wrote : 1. ' The Benevolent Planters/ a
dramatic piece performed at the Haymarket in
1789, and printed in the same year. 2. ' Sa-
daski, or the Wandering Penitent/ 2 vols.,
12mo, 1798. 3. ' Lessons from Life, or Home
Scenes.' 4. 'The Beggar Boy/ a novel in
three volumes, published posthumously in
1801, to which is prefixed a biographical me-
moir of the author by Mrs. Villa-Real Gooch.

[Mrs. Villa-Eeal Grooch's Memoir, prefixed to
the Beggar Boy; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; British
Museum Catalogue.] A. H. B.

BELLAMY, THOMAS LUDFORD

(1770-1843), son of Richard Bellamy [q. v.],
was born in St. John's parish, Westminster, in
1770. He learned singing and music from his
father and Dr. Cooke, and (when his voice
had broken) from Tasca. In 1784 he sang
amongst the trebles at the Handel commemo-
ration in Westminster Abbey, and in 1791
he sang in the so-called oratorios at Drury
Lane. In 1794 he went to Ireland, as it is
generally stated, to manage a nobleman's es-
tate, but it is more probable that his visitwas
connected with the Irish property which had
been bequeathed him by his maternal grand-
father in 1776 (CHESTER'S Westminster Re-
gisters, p. 421). In 1797 he was in Dublin,
where he acted as stage manager at the thea-
tre ; but in 1800 he bought shares in the
Manchester, Chester, Shrewsbury, and Lich-
field theatres. Three years later he sold his
interest in these undertakings, and became
sole proprietor of the Belfast, Londonderry,
and Newry theatres. This speculation turn-
ing out a failure, he returned to London,
where he obtained an engagement to sing at
Covent Garden for five years. In 1812 he
was engaged for a similar period at Drury
Lane. On the expiration of this engagement
he started an academy of music on the Loge-

rian
been

system ; but this does not appear to have
successful, as in 1819 he obtained the
appointment of master of the choir of the
Spanish chapel. Two years later he succeeded
Bartleman as principal bass singer at the
Ancient concerts. Bellamy died 3 Jan. 1843.
[The Georgian Era, iv. 537; Grove's Diction-
ary, i. 211 a; Burney's Account of the Handel
Commemoration (1785); Musical Examiner for
7 Jan. 1843.] W. B. S.

BELLASIS. [See BELASYSE.]

BELLASIS, EDWARD (1800-1873),
serjeant-at-law, only son of the Rev. George
Bellasis, D.D., of Queen's College, Oxford,
rector of Yattendon and vicar of Basilden and
Ashampstead, Berkshire, by his second wife,
Leah Cooper, only surviving child and heir
of Emery Viall, of Walsingham, Norfolk, was
born 14 Oct. 1800, in his father's vicarage at
Basilden. From 1580 his family were well
known as of Long Marton, Westmoreland ;
while from 1763, when his uncle General
John Bellasis, commander of the forces at
Bombay, first went to India, several members
of it won distinction in the military and
civil service of the company. Conspicuous
among these were the two half brothers of
Serjeant Bellasis, General Joseph Harvey
Bellasis, who, in 1799, was killed while storm-
ing a fort at Sondah in Bundelcund, and
Colonel George Bridges Bellasis, who, in the
same year, received a medal for gallantry at
the battle of Seringapatam.

Bellasis was a student at Christ's Hospital
from the Easter of 1808 to the October of
1815. He was entered as a student at the
Inner Temple on 8 Nov. 1818, and was called
to the bar 2 July 1824. For several years he
practised in the court of chancery and in the
county palatine of Lancaster. In 1836 he was
engaged to watch over the interests of his
friend Mr. Wood, of Hanger Hill, when Brunei
first projected the Great Western Railway.
He became thenceforth, as a barrister, ex-
clusively employed in parliamentary business
until his formal retirement in 1866 from
professional practice. Briefs and retainers
soon began to pour in upon him. The cases of
grave importance in which he was engaged
before the committees of the Lords and Com-
mons reached at last a grand total of 342.
He was employed in many of the great railway
and navigation bills. His sagacity influenced
the reconstruction of the laws regulating the
salmon fisheries, and the acts directing the
supply of water to Manchester, Liverpool,
Edinburgh, Bristol, Sheffield, Glasgow, and
London. He was employed in 1838 in the
Salford and Shaftesbury election petitions.
On 10 July 1844 he became serjeant-at-law.

Bellasis

181

Bellasis

Prom 1853 to 1856 Bellasis, in conjunction
with, his fast friend, James Robert Hope-
Scott, Q.C., was the confidential adviser of
the young Earl of Shrewsbury, and undertook
the superintendence of a great landed estate
bringing in nearly 50,000/. a year. The earl
died on 10 Aug. 1856. In 1857 the memo-
rable litigation arose for the possession of the
Shrewsbury property, the contention lying
between Earl Talbot, claiming it as heir, and
the Duke of Norfolk, to whose younger son,
Lord Edmund Howard, it had been devised
by the recently deceased Earl of Shrewsbury.
For ten years Bellasis and Hope-Scott had
its entire control. Lord Talbot's claim to the
title before the committee of privileges, though
decided in his favour in the very first year of
the action, did not necessarily involve the
recovery by him of the Shrewsbury estates.
Hence, in 1858, there came on in the court of
common pleas an action of ejectment by the
newly installed Earl of Shrewsbury for the
recovery of Alton Towers. Again the decision
was in the earl's favour, and the trustees ap-
pealed against it without success in the ex-
chequer chamber. At length, in 1867, judg-
ment was finally given by Lord Chancellor
Chelmsford and the Lords Justices Cairns and
Turner, as to certain entailed portions of the
Shrewsbury estate. This was the one success
achieved by the trustees.

In 1863 Bellasis became steward of the Duke
of Norfolk's manors in Norfolk and Suffolk. On
the death of Sir Charles Young, Garter king-
at-arms, in 1 869, he was appointed, together
with Lord Howard of Glossop and Sir Wil-
liam Alexander, Bart., a commissioner of
the earl marshal to examine and report upon
the working of the College of Arms. As the
result of the great mass of evidence taken
down by the commissioners, an elaborate
report was issued by them suggesting certain
important reforms, revisions, and alterations
in the general working and organisation of
the Heralds' College.

From 1833 to 1845 Serjeant Bellasis
watched with intense interest the course of
the tractarian movement. He made several
visits to Oxford, and became intimate with Mr.
(afterwards Cardinal) Newman, Dr. Pusey,
and Dr. Ward, as well as with Canon Oakeley
and Archdeacon Manning, afterwards car-
dinal archbishop of Westminster. Cardinal
Newman, on 21 Feb. 1870, dedicated to him,
in terms of strong affection, the ' Essay in Aid
of a Grammar of Assent.' Early in 1850 Bel-
lasis published two anonymous pamphlets :
'The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
and the Petition for a Church Tribunal in lieu
of it : a Letter by an Anglican Layman,' 8vo,
pp. 16 ; and ' Convocations and Synods, are

they the Remedies for Existing Evils ? a
Second Letter by an Anglican Layman,' 8vo,
pp. 16.

Bellasis took part in the animated discussion
produced by the bull of Pius IX in 1850. He
wrote ' A Remonstrance with the Clergy of
Westminster, from a Westminster Magis-
trate,' 8vo, pp. 22. And in 1851 he published
anonymously a remonstrance with the pro-
testant episcopate, under the title of 'The
Anglican Bishops versus the Catholic Hierar-
chy ; a Demurrer to further Proceedings,' 8vo,
pp. 16. It soon became known that it was
by Bellasis, who, on 28 Sept. 1850, acting
upon the advice of Cardinal Wiseman, had
been received by Father Brownbill, of the
Society of Jesus, into the Roman catholic
communion. While yet an Anglican, he had,
in 1847, written four letters on the question
of Bishop Barlow's consecration, which, a few
years afterwards, were published in a news-
paper. A reprint of them, authorised by Bel-
lasis, appeared in 1872 under the title, 'An-
glican Orders, by an Anglican, since become
a Catholic,' 8vo, pp. 15. Bellasis also issued
anonymously early in 1850 ' [Twelve] Pre-
liminary Dialogues between two Protestants
approaching the Catholic Church, being the
substance of real conversations/ 1861, 8vo,
pp. 66. The interlocutors, Philotheus and
Eugenia, were Bellasis and his wife. A thir-
teenth dialogue was posthumously published
in 1874, with the author's name on its title-
page : ' Philotheus and Eugenia, a Dialogue
on the Jesuits, by the late Mr. Serjeant Bel-
lasis,' small 8vo, pp. 16. Besides these frag-
mentary writings, Bellasis left among his
papers a curiously interesting autobiography,
still in manuscript, as well as a number of
elegantly turned metrical effusions.

Having been for some time in rather deli-
cate health, Bellasis left England in November
1872 for his winter residence in the South
of France, at Hyeres, in Provence. There,
two months afterwards, on 24 Jan. 1873, he
died in the seventy-third year of his age.
Cardinal Newman wrote : l He was one of the
best men I ever knew. There was a great
deal in common in him and Mr. Hope-Scott.
This similarity is what made them such great
friends — they were so honest and so true/
It was remarked of him by one who knew
him intimately : ' His great charity was per-
haps what most distinguished him, so that
it was a family saying that he would find a
good side to a bad shilling.'

Bellasis was a magistrate of both Middlesex
and Westminster. He represented, at the time
of his death, the only remaining branch of the
old Roman catholic family of Durham, to
which formerly appertained the earldom of

Belleman

182

Belleme

Fauconberg [see under BELASYSE, JOHN].
Bellasis was twice married, first on 17 Sept.
1829, to Frances, only surviving child and
heir of William Lycett, of Stafford, who died
without leaving issue on 27 Dec. 1832 ; and
.secondly, on 21 Oct. 1835, to Eliza Jane, only
daughter of William Garnett, of Quernmore
Park and Bleasdale Tower, Lancashire, high
.sheriff in 1843, by whom he left ten children.
Both the eldest of his four sons, Richard
Oarnett, and the youngest of them, Henry
Lewis, are priests, his second son, Edward,
TDeing Lancaster herald, and the third son,
William, a merchant. Of his six daughters
three became nuns, one married Mr. Lewin
Bowring, formerly of the Indian Civil Service,
a son of Sir John Bowring, while another be-
came the wife of Dr. Charlton, M.D. and
D.C.L., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

[G-arside's In Memoriam notice in the Tablet,
1 Feb. 1873, p. 138; Law Times, 1 March 1873,
p. 334; Serjeant Bellasis's Manuscript Auto-
biography.] C. K.

BELLEMAN or BELMAIN, JOHN (j«.

1553), was, according to Fuller, the French
tutor of Edward VI. The prince appears to
have commenced his studies under this in-
structor in his seventh year (1534). Belle-
man seems, however, to have been retained
in the royal service till the close of Edward's
reign, for there is still extant in the British
Museum a manuscript translation into French
of the second Prayer-book of Edward VI,
written by Belleman, with a dedicatory
epistle to his former pupil. This preface is
dated 18 April 1553 from the royal palace
of Sheen. In the same collection of manu-
scripts there is also to be found a translation
of Basil the Great's letter to St. Gregory on
the solitary life. This work Belleman, in a
somewhat curious preface, dedicates to the
Lady Elizabeth, with the assurance that it
is rendered from the original Greek. This
introductory letter contains a rather sharp
attack on the phonetic principle of French
orthography then coming into vogue, though
its author seems perfectly willing to adopt a
well-considered reformed method of spelling;
and indeed he pronounces his intention of
writing a treatise on the subject. There does
not seem to be any means of ascertaining
the date of this translation, but it is probably
earlier than the French version of the Prayer-
book.

[Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 94 ; ' Fuller's Church
History, edit. 1655, p. 422 ; MSS. Biblioth. Keg.
in British Museum, 20 A, xiv. and 16 E 1.]

T. A. A.

BELLiSME, ROBERT OF (ft. 1098),
EARL OP SHREWSBURY, sometimes called

TALVAS,was the eldest son of Roger, lord of
Montgomery in Normandy, of Arundel and
Chichester, earl of Shrewsbury, and founder
and lord of Montgomery in Wales, and of
Mabel, daughter and heiress of William Tal-
vas, lord of Belleme, S6ez, Alencon, and many
other castles in Normandy and Maine. He
was knighted by the Conqueror before the
walls of Fresnay in 1073. In the revolt of
Robert, the king's eldest son, in 1077, he and
many other young Norman nobles upheld his
cause against the king. After the battle of
Gerberoi, Roger of Shrewsbury and the other
lords who had sons or relations among the
rebels begged the king to pardon them.
William at length agreed to do so, and re-
ceived Robert of Belleme and the rest of the
rebel party in peace. On the death of his
mother, the Countess Mabel, who was slain
in 1082, Robert succeeded to the wide estates
she inherited from her father. As long as
the Conqueror lived he and other Norman
lords were compelled to receive garrisons from
him into their castles. This disabled them
from disturbing the peace of the duchy.
Robert in 1087 was on his way to visit the
king, and had gone as far as Brionne when
he heard of the Conqueror's death. He at
once turned back, and turned the ducal
garrisons out of his castles. He forced as
many of his neighbours as were weaker than
he was to receive garrisons from him, and if
any refused to do so he destroyed their castles
(ORDERIC, Eccles. Hist., 664 B). When, in
1088, Robert of Normandy heard that the
larger part of the barons in England had
rebelled against Rufus, and that his uncle,
Bishop Odo, was holding Rochester on his be-
half against the king, he sent over Robert and
Eustace of Boulogne to reinforce the rebels.
Robert joined in the defence of Rochester.
When the castle fell, he and his companions
were allowed to come forth with their horses
and arms. They were, however, exposed to
the jeers of the English who composed the
greater part of the king's host, and whose
loyalty had given him the victory (ib. 669 A).
The surrender of Rochester probably took
place in May 1088. In the course of the
summer Robert and William II were fully
reconciled. During the visit of Henry, the
king's brother, to England, Robert made
alliance with him, and returned with him to
Normandy in the autumn. Duke Robert
thought their friendship boded him no good.
Accordingly he sent an armed force to the
coast, and had both Robert and Henry taken
prisoners as soon as they landed. Robert he
sent to be kept by Bishop Odo, at Neuilly.
When the Earl of Shrewsbury heard of his
son's imprisonment, he came over to Nor-

Belleme

183

Belleme

mandy and garrisoned his castles against the
duke. The fortresses and towns held by
Shrewsbury and his son were many and
strong, and some were of special importance,
because they were situated on the borders of
Normandy. Bishop Odo urged the duke, now
that he had Robert in prison, to drive the
"whole of the accursed race of Talvas out of
his duchy. He dwelt on the strength of the
house, and the evil its members would bring
upon him. For a while the duke obeyed his
counsel ; he made war on Robert's castles,
and forced Saint Cenery, Alencon, and Bel-
leme to surrender. Then he disbanded his
army, made peace with Belleme's father, Earl
Roger of Shrewsbury, and let Belleme out
of prison. As long as Duke Robert held
his duchy he had cause to repent his weak-
ness. Tall and strong, a daring soldier, ever
•coveting the lands of others, and ever striv-
ing to make them his own, a false, restless, and
cruel man, Belleme was mighty to do evil.
From his mother he inherited not merely the
savage and greedy temper for which she was
famed, but a remarkable readiness of speech.
He was noted too for his skill as a military
engineer. Unlike his father, and, indeed, his
countrymen generally, he had no religious
feelings. But that which most impressed
men about him was his extraordinary cruelty.
If the stories of his evil deeds rested only on
the authority of Orderic, it would be neces-
sary to remember that he was the hereditary
foe of the house of Geroy, to whom the chro-
nicler's monastery of St. Evroul was deeply
indebted. But Orderic's account receives the
strongest confirmation in the record of the
horror with which Robert's memory was re-
garded by the next generation. Greedy of
gain as he was, he would refuse to allow his
captives to be ransomed that he might have
the pleasure of torturing them (ib. 707 D).
He is said by Henry of Huntingdon, a writer
of the time of Henry II, to have impaled both
men and women (De Mundi Contemptu, ap.
WHARTON, Anylia Sacra, ii. 698). William
of Malmesbury says that once when he held
a little boy, his own godson, as a hostage,
he tore out his eyes with his own nails,
because the child's father did something
that displeased him (Gesta Regum, v. 398).
The * Wonders of Robert of Belleme ' became
a common saying (De Mundi Contemptu,
p. 699). In Maine ' his abiding works are
pointed to as the works of Robert the Devil,'
a surname that has been transferred from
him to the father of the Conqueror (FREE-
JIAN, William Rufus, i. 181-3). William II,
for the love he bore Earl Roger of Shrewsbury
and his countess, Mabel, showed favour to
their son, in spite of the part he took in the

1 against him in England, and procured hi
vife Agnes, the daughter and heiress

im

to wile Agnes, the daughter and heiress of
Guy, count of Ponthieu, who bore him a son,
named William Talvas after his great grand-
father. Robert treated her cruelly, and long
kept her a prisoner in his castle of Belleme,
until she escaped by the help of a chamber-
Lain, and fled for refuge to the Countess Adela
of Chartres.

After Robert was set free he made war
upon his neighbours, on Hugh of Novant,
Geoffrey, count of Perche, and others, maim-
ing and blinding his captives, and bringing
many to poverty. Jealous at hearing that Gil-
bert of L'Aigle had received Exmes from the
duke, he besieged the castle in January 1090,
hoping to take the place by surprise. Gil-
bert, however, made a stout resistance, and
at the end of four days was reinforced by one
of his house. A long siege would have given
Robert's enemies time to gather, and he gave
up the attempt. A full record of his wars
in Normandy will be found in Orderic's ' Ec-
clesiastica Historia.' If he found that the
lord he designed to plunder was able to with-
stand his first attack, he wasted no time in a
siege, and turned aside to seek some easier
prey. This method of warfare explains the
passage in which Orderic speaks of his fre-
quent failures (ORDERIC, 708 A). When the
citizens of Rouen revolted against the duke,
and were about to deliver their city to Rufus
in the autumn of 1090, Robert joined Henry
of Coutances (Henry I) in putting down the
rebellion. The duke wished to pardon the
citizens, but Belleme and William of Breteuil
robbed many of their goods, and carried
many off to their dungeons. Early in the
next year Robert was in turn helped by the
duke in his private wars. The burghers who
dwelt round Robert's castles suffered much
evil from their lord. One of his towns,
Domfront, dared to rebel against him. The
citizens chose Henry of Coutances as their
lord, and he successfully defended them
against Robert's attacks. In the summer of
1094 Robert harried the lands of Robert, son
of Geroy, the owner of Saint Cenery. Robert
of Geroy, or rather his ally Henry, was the
aggressor on this occasion. Robert found
Saint Cenery undefended; he burnt the
castle and carried off his enemy's little son.
The child died shortly afterwards, and the
friends of the house of Geroy believed that
he was poisoned by his captor's orders (ib.
707 A). In 1094 Earl Roger of Shrewsbury
died. His English earldom and estates
passed, according to custom, to his second
son, Hugh, and Robert took all his possessions
in Normandy. While the inheritance of his
father was his by right, it was held that he

Belleme

184

Belleme

dealt hardly with his brothers in making no
provision for them (ib. 808 D) probably out
of the estates of their mother. When Rufus
made his abortive invasion of France in 1097, i
he secured Normandy, which the duke had j
handed over to him the year before, by em-
ploying Robert to fortify Gisors. In this i
expedition Robert acted as captain of the i
king's forces. Early in the next year he en-
gaged in war with Helias of Maine, and
invited the king to come over and help him.
Rufus did little worthy of notice, and soon
left his ally to carry on the war alone.
Robert strengthened the castles he held in
Maine and built new ones ; he oppressed the
people and violated the lands of the church.
Indignant at the wrongs done him, Helias,
though with an inferior force, met him in
the open field at Saones, and, calling on God
and St. Julian, beat off the invaders. In
spite of this check Robert carried on the w&r.
A fearful story is told of his starving three
hundred prisoners to death during the season
of Lent. After another victorious engage-
ment Helias was taken prisoner by Robert's
men and delivered to Rufus. The war was
now again taken up by the king, and Robert
went on ravaging the land until the submis-
sion of Le Mans to Rufus (ib. 768, 772;
William Rufus, ii. 213-41).

On the death of his brother Hugh, earl of
Shrewsbury, in 1098, Robert claimed to suc-
ceed to his earldom and estates in England.
Before Rufus allowed him to do so he made
him pay 3,000/. as a relief, the exact sum in
which his brother had been fined less than
two years before. Robert was now earl of
Shrewsbury, lord of Arundel and Chichester,
and of many other estates in England, and of
Montgomery and the lands conquered inWales
by his father and brother, the Earls Roger and
Hugh. Before long he succeeded, after another
payment to the king, to the estates of Roger
of "Bully, lord of Tickhill and Ely the. He
was now by far the most powerful lord that
owed homage to the English king. The earl at
once began to strengthen himself in his newly
acquired lands. Leaving his father's castle
at Quatford, he took up his abode at Bridge-
north, and raised fortifications there, of which
the remains are still to be seen. His castle
at Bridgenorth completed the group of fort-
resses that defended Shrewsbury, the capital
of his earldom, by commanding the valley of
the Severn. Against the Welsh he raised a
stronghold at Careghova, in Denbigh (FLOE.
WIG. ii. 49 ; William Rvfus, ii. 147-64). On
his Welsh lands he bred horses from stallions
imported from Spain, and in the reign of
Henry II, Powys was still famous for his
breed (GiEAiDus CAMBEENSIS, Itin. Cambria,

op. vi. 143). In 1099 Earl Robert was again
at war with Helias, who was trying to re-
conquer Maine from William. The story that
in this war he ordered villeins to be thrown
into the ditch of Mayet to fill it up (WACEr
15038) is, Mr. Freeman observes/ a bit of local
Cenomannian romance ' ( W. Rvfus, ii. 292).
Robert was in Normandy in 1100 when he
heard of the death of William II. He hast-
ened to England, did homage to Henry, and
received from him the confirmation of his
honours and estates. Nevertheless, on the
return of Duke Robert in the next year, he
and his brothers Arnulf and Roger began to
conspire together in Normandy against the
king. To reward him and to secure his helpr
\ the duke granted him the patronage of the
bishopric of S£ez, the castle of Argentan
I and the forest of Goufflers. When the duke
I then landed in England, Belleme must have
' been foremost among the discontented nobles
j who upheld his claims (FiOE. WIG. ii. 49 j
EADMEE, Hist. Nov. p. 430). His power
was still further increased in 1101, when,
by the death of his father-in-law, he suc-
ceeded to the county of Ponthieu, the inherit-
ance of his son. By the acquisition of this
fief he became a member of a higher political
rank than he had hitherto reached ; he was
' entitled to deal with princes as one of their
own order ' ( W. Rufus, ii. 423), while the
geographical position of his new territory
made his alliance of peculiar value to the
rulers of England, France, and Normandy.
Henry knew that he was unfaithful to him ;
spies were set to watch him, and all his
evil deeds were reported and written down.
In 1102 he was summoned to appear in the
king's Easter court, there to answer forty-
five charges brought against him. He set
out for Winchester, taking men with him to
be his compurgators. On his way he changed
his mind and turned back to his own castles.
When the king found that he did not come,
he declared that if he failed to appear he
would be outlawed. Again he caused the
earl to be summoned, and this time Robert
flatly refused to obey. He made alliances-
with the Welsh and Irish. Henry persuaded
Duke Robert to attack his Norman posses-
sions. The duke's attack was easily beaten
off, and only brought fresh desolation on the
land. In England Henry called out the force
of the kingdom, and laid siege to Arundel.
Robert, who was busy in Shropshire, urging
on the still unfinished wrorks of fortification,
could give no help to his men in Arundel,
and allowed them to surrender the place to
the king. As a condition of their surrender
they obtained a promise from Henry that
their lord should be allowed to leave the

Belleme

185

Bell6me

kingdom in safety (WiLL. MALM. ii. 396).
The fall of Arundel cut Robert off from his
possessions and allies on the continent. Henry
next sent Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, against
Tickhill, which was also surrendered, and
lastly, in the autumn, led his army against the
earl's strong places in Shropshire. Robert
took up his quarters in Shrewsbury, and the
king laid siege to Bridgenorth which he had
entrusted to three of his captains. During
the siege the nobles in the royal host held a
set meeting with the king, and pressed him
to make peace with the earl. This meeting
took place in the open field. Three thousand
troops posted on a hill hard by guessed the
subject of the debate, and shouted to the king
not to spare the traitor, for they would stand
by him. Henry knew that the men of Ro-
bert's own order were not to be trusted. He
continued the siege and succeeded in draw-
ing away the earl's Welsh allies from him.
Robert sent his brother Arnulf to hasten the
coming of succour from Ireland, and lastly
appealed for help to Magnus of Norway, who
was now for the second time in Man (Brut y
Tywysogion, p. 73, 1100; LAING, Sturleson's
Heimskrinffla, iii. 143 ; W. Eufus, ii. 618).
No help came to him, and his captains in
Bridgenorth and the people of the town,
much to the anger of his mercenaries, in-
sisted on the surrender of the place. Henry
then advanced on Shrewsbury at the head
of an overwhelming force, the armed host
of England which came at the king's bid-
ding to help him against the worst of the
Norman oppressors. Robert was forced to
surrender ; he and his brothers left England
with their arms and horses, and he swore that
he would return no more. The gladness of
the people was loudly expressed. * Rejoice,
King Henry/ we are told they said, and the
words doubtless preserved a fragment of some
popular song, ' and give thanks to the Lord
God ; for thou wast first a free king on the
day that thou overcamest Robert of Belleme,
and dravest him from the borders of thy
kingdom ' (OEDEEIC, 808 B).

When Robert returned to Normandy after
the loss of his English earldom and estates,
all his enemies banded together against him.
Indignant, as it seems, at Robert's refusal to
give him any share of his estates, his brother
Arnulf surrendered one of his towns to the
duke, and other towns revolted from him.
After some savage warfare he showed that
he was still more than a match for the in-
active duke, who gave him back all his pos-
sessions. Among these was the advowson of
the bishopric of Seez. This led to a quarrel
between him and Bishop Serlo, who ex-

>mmunicated him and his adherents, and

| laid his lands under an interdict. Robert

i revenged himself on the monks and clergy of
the diocese, and the bishop was forced to flee
(OEDEEIC, 678 A, 707 D, tells this under 1089
and 1094. FEEEMAN refers to the circumstance,
W. Rvfus, i. 184, 242, apparently accepting
1094. Unless there were two excommunica-
tions, the date must be about 1103). Robert
laid his case before Ivo, bishop of Chartres,
in 1103, who wrote to him saying that even
if his brother bishop had done him wrong
he could do nothing to help him (Epp. Ivonis
Carnot. 75 ; Eecueil, xii. 122). Ralph, the
abbot of S6ez, afterwards archbishop of
Canterbury, was also forced to flee to Eng-
land to escape his tyranny (WiLL. MALM.
Gesta Pontif. i. 127). The restoration of

I Robert's lands threw the duchy into disorder,

1 and when Henry made his expedition into
Normandy in 1105 he charged the duke with

i breach of faith in the matter. At Christ-
mas in that year Robert of Belleme visited

| England, probably as the ambassador of the
duke, and in the hope of making his own
peace, but he was sent away without any re-

\ conciliation with the king (A.-S. Chron.

\ 1105). The peace between the king and the
duke was grievous to him. He joined Wil-

| liam of Mortain in attacking the king's party

I in the duchy, and persuaded the duke to act
with them. He led a division of the duke's
army at Tinchebrai, 28 Sept. 1106, and saved
himself by flight. After striving in vain to
persuade Helias to join him in an attempt to
gain the duke's freedom, he prevailed on him
to make his peace with the king. Henry
allowed him to keep Argentan and the lands
of his capital demesne in Normandy, but
this partial reconciliation did not extend to
England. As far as his kingdom was con-
cerned, Henry, after he had once rid England
of his presence, never gave him a chance of
disturbing its peace again. The character of
the new reign in Normandy was declared by
the destruction of all the castles Robert had
raised without license. Robert joined Helias
of St. Saen in upholding the cause of Wil-
liam Clito, and when Fulk of Anjou went to
war with Henry, he openly declared against
the king. He appears to have gone to the
court of Lewis of France and to have been
sent by him as his ambassador to Henry in
November 1112. In spite of his privileged
character Henry seized him and had him
tried before his court. He imprisoned him
for a little while at Cherbourg, and the next
year sent him to Warehani. There he kept
him so close a prisoner that the day of his
death was not known (OEDEEIC, 841 A, 858 D ;
WILL. MALM. v. 626; De Mundi Contemptuy
ii.)

Bellenden

186

Bellenden

[Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastica Historia, ap.
Duchesne, Historise Normannorum Scriptores ;
William of Malmesbury, Gresta Eegum, vol. ii.
(Eng. Hist. Soc.), Gresta Pontificum (Rolls Ser.) ;
Florence of Worcester, vol. ii. (Eng. Hist. Soc.) ;
A.-S. Chronicle; Eadmer's Hist. Nov. (Migne);
Henry of Huntingdon, ap. Wharton, Anglia
Sacra, ii. 694 ; Laing's Heimskringla ; Wace's
Roman de Rou ; Brut y Tywysogion (Rolls Ser.);
Freeman's Norman Conquest iv., William Rufus
i. and ii.] W. H.

BELLENDEN, ADAM (d. 1639 ?), bishop
of Dunblane and Aberdeen, was second son of
Sir John Bellenden [q. v.] of Auchinoul, lord
justice clerk, and brother of Sir Lewis Bellen-
den [q. v.], also lord justice clerk. He studied
at the university of Edinburgh, took the de-
gree of M.A. there on 1 Aug. 1590, and con-
tinued in residence for some time after. He
was on ( the Exercise ; ' obtained a ' testimo-
nial ' on 12 June 1593, was ordained 19 July
following ; was a member of the general as-
sembly of the kirk of Scotland in 1602, and
was one of the brethren ' who met at Linlith-
gow 10 Jan. 1606 in conference with the im-
prisoned members previous to their trial for
declining the authority of the sovereign in
causes spiritual.' At a later convention in
the same place on the following 10 Dec. he
proposed a protestation that it should not be
held as a general assembly. In 1608 he was
minister of the parish of Falkirk (Stirling-
shire). He attended the convention at Falk-
land in 1609, and was ' suspended ' 16 Nov.
1614. He was released ; the sentence was
taken off 18 Jan. 1614-15, and on 22 Feb. he
was enjoined ' to wait more diligently on his
flock in preparing them for the communion.'
He ' demitted ' his parish of Falkirk and his
status as a clergyman of the presbyterian
church of Scotland in July 1616. He was
thereupon appointed to the bishopric of Dun-
blane (1616), although he had hitherto been
violently opposed to episcopacy, and was one
of the forty-two presbyterian ministers who
signed a protest to parliament against its in-
troduction (1 July 1606). He was conse-
quently censured for accepting this prefer-
ment. In 1621 he still appears as bishop of
Dunblane. He was succeeded there by Wed-
derburn in 1636, having been in 1635 trans-
lated to the bishopric of Aberdeen. In 1638
he was, in common with all the Scottish
bishops, deprived of his see on the abolition
of episcopacy in Scotland by the Glasgow
assembly. He is believed to have retreated
to England, and to have died there in 1638-9.
[Scott's Fasti, i. 186, 353 ; Keith's Catalogue
(1824), 132 ; Douglas's Peerage, ii. ; Melvill's
Autob. ; Presby. Stirling and Synod Reg. ; Boke
of the Kirke ; Row, Calderwood's Hist. i. ;

Forbes's Records ; Select Biogr. (Wodrow So-
ciety), i. ; Edin. Grrad. ; Sir Alexander Grant's
Story of first 300 years of Edinburgh University,
1884; researches at Falkirk.] A. B. G-.

BELLENDEN, or BALLENDEN, or
BALLENTYNE, JOHN (fl. 1533-1587),
poet, is generally supposed to have been a
native of Haddington or of Berwick, and to
have been born in the last decade of the
fifteenth century. He matriculated as a stu-
dent at the university of St. Andrews in 1508,
as 'of the Lothian nation.' He proceeded from
Scotland to Paris, and took the degree of
D.D. at the Sorbonne. He was again in
Scotland during the minority of James V.
He brought over with him Hector Boece's
' Historia Scotorum ' (Paris,1527), and, having
gained access to the court of the young
monarch, was admitted into high favour. He
was appointed by the king to translate into
the Scottish vernacular Boece's great work.
This he did, and was engaged upon it from
1530 to 1531-2. His translation was de-
livered to the king in 1533, and appeared in
1536, and remains an interesting example of
the Edinburgh press of the period. On the
title-page of Boece, Bellenden is designated
thus: 'Translaitit laitly be Maister Johne
Bellenden, archdene of Murray, channon of
Ros ' (Moray and Ross). From various in-
cidental expressions the folio must have been
semi-privately printed for the king and nobles
and special friends. The translation is a close
yet original rendering. To it Bellenden added
two poems of his own, one entitled 'The
Proheme to the Cosmographe,' and the other
'The Proheme of the History.' He also
wrote for it in prose an ' Epistil direckit be
the Translatoure to the Kingis Grace.' Some
enemies apparently caused Bellenden to be
dismissed from the royal service. He tells
us in the first l Proheme ' —

How that I was in seruice with the kyng

Put to his grace in zeris tenderest

Clerk of his comptis.

But he adds—

Quhil hie inuy me from his seruice kest

Be thaym that had the court in gouerning,
As bird bot plumes heryit of the nest.

His office at court as ' clerk of his comptis '
included undoubtedly the superintendence
of his sovereign s education.

Contemporaneous with, or perhaps im-
mediately following upon, the translation of
Boece, Bellenden was similarly commanded
by the king to translate Livy. In the trea-
surer's accounts we have these entries — ( 1533
July 26. Item to Maister John Ballentyne,
in part payment of the translation of Titius
Livius, 8/. ; ' ' 1533, August 24°. To Maister

Bellenden

187

Bellenden

John Ballentyne, in part payment of the
secund buke of Titius Livius, 8/.;' '1533,
Nouember 30°. To Maister John Ballentyne
be the kinges precept for his laubores done in
translating of Li vie, 20/.' This was the first j
version of a Roman classic executed in Britain.
The l Livy ' was first published in 1822 by
Maitland, Lord Dundrennan, uniform with
his excellent reproduction of the ' Boece/
from the manuscript in the Advocates' Li-
brary, Edinburgh.

Bellenden has been supposed to have entered
the service of Archibald, earl of Angus, because
one of both his names was the earl's secretary
in 1528 ; but according to Hume (History \
of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, p. 258) j
this was Sir John Bellenden, afterwards a ;
distinguished lawyer and judge. The royal
treasurer's accounts show that Bellenden re-
ceived at various times considerable amounts.
He was appointed archdeacon of Moray
during the vacancy of the see, and about the
same time canon of Ross. He also received
the forfeited property of two clergymen con-
victed of treason. But in the succeeding
reign, being an adherent to Roman Catholi-
cism, he opposed the reformation and fled
beyond seas. Some accounts state that he
died at Rome in 1550, but Lord Dundrennan
alleges that he was certainly still alive in
1587.

[Bellenden's Works ; Irving's Scottish Poets ;
Sibbald's Chronicle; Carmichael's Collection of
Scottish Poems ; Eannatyne MS. has poems by
Bellenden, recently given in the Hunterian Society
reproduction of the entire MS.] A. B. Gr.

BELLENDEN, SIB JOHN, of Auchnoul,
or Auchinoul (d. 1577), Scottish lawyer, was
the elder son of Thomas Bellenden of Auchi-
noul, who, in January 1541, was one of the
two Scottish commissioners for the negotia-
tion of an extradition treaty for the reciprocal
surrender of fugitives between England and
Scotland; had the office of justice clerk in
1540 ; and held it until his death in 1546. Sir
John succeeded his father in his office 25 June
1547 ; appears as an ordinary lord for the first
time, 4 July following (BKUNTON and HATG'S
Historical Account), and occurs for the first '
time in the ' Books of Sederunt,' 13 Nov. 1554, j
with the title of Auchinoul (LoKD HAILES, |
Catalogue of the Lords of Session). He was '
employed by Mary of Lorraine, queen regent, j
as a mediator between her and the lords of ;
the congregation; but he soon joined the re- j
formers. Under the queen regent he was
likewise employed as one of the two Scottish
commissioners appointed to meet two others
on the part of England with a view ' to ce-
ment the two nations in a firm and lasting

bond of peace' (KEITH'S T/Vsfory, p. 69). Soon
after the arrival of Mary Queen of Scots at
Edinburgh, 19 Aug. 1561, he was sworn a
member of the privy council, which was
constituted on 6 Sept. following ; and in
December of the same year was appointed one
of the commissioners for the adjustment or
' modification ' of the stipends of the reformed
clergy. Two years afterwards he was one of
the two Scottish commissioners who con-
cluded with four representatives of England
a ' border treaty/ or ' convention of peace for
the borders of both nations,' which was exe-
cuted at Carlisle on 11 Sept. and at Dum-
fries on 23 Sept. 1563. He was implicated
in the assassination of Rizzio, and fled from
Edinburgh on 18 March 1566 on the arrival
of Mary and Darnley with an army, but was
shortly afterwards restored to favour. He was
deputed in 1567 to carry the queen's command
for the proclamation of the banns of marriage
between her and Bothwell to Mr. John Craig,
at that time the colleague of John Knox in the
parish church of Edinburgh, and had l long
reasoning ' with the kirk, with the result that
he substantially removed their objection to the
royal mandate (KEITH, History, pp. 586 and
587). He joined, however, the confederation
of nobles against Mary and Bothwell, and
was continued in his office by them when
they imprisoned the queen and took the
government into their own hands. He was
also a member of the privy council of the
regent Murray, by whom he was confirmed
in the possession of the lands of Woodhouse-
lee, which had been obtained from Hamilton
of Bothwellhaugh on condition of his pro-
curing for Hamilton pardon for some crime
of his commission — a transaction which in-
directly led to the assassination of Murray.
In his capacity of ' clerk of justiciarie ' he was
one of the ' nobilitie, spiritualitie, and com-
missionaris of Burrowis,' who l conveint for
coronation ' of James VI at Stirling, 29 July
1567, after the ceremonious performance of
which the justice-clerk, in the name of the
estates of the kingdom, ' and also Johne Knox,
minister, and Robert Campbell of Kinzean-
cleuch, askit actis, instrumentis, and docu-
mentis' (KEITH, pp. 435, 439). In February
1572-3 Bellenden was employed in framing
the pacification of Perth, by which all the
queen's party, with one or two exceptions,
submitted themselves ' to the king's obedi-
ence/ and by one of the conditions of which
Lord Boyd, the commendator of Newbattle,
and the justice-clerk, were to be sole judges
in any actions for the restitution of goods to
persons on the south side of the Forth who had
been deprived of the same * be vertew of thir
trublis ' (Historic of King James the Sext,

Bellenden

188

Bellenden

pp. 129, 132). In March 1573-4 Bellenden was ,
one of the four commissioners appointed by the |
regent Morton to debate with a committee of I
divines appointed by the kirk the question
' whether the supreme magistrate should not j
be head of the church as well as of the com- !
monwealth.' They conferred for the space of
twelve or thirteen days, when the regent,
finding no appearance of obtaining his object,
' dissolved the meeting till a new appointment '
(HuME, Houses of Douglas and Angus, p. 334).
Bellenden died before 20 April 1577, when
Thomas Bellenden of Newtyle was appointed
a lord of session in his place, described as
vacated by his death (HAILES, Catalogue).
He was twice married ; the first time to
Barbara, daughter of Sir Hugh Kennedy of
Girvanmains, by whom he had two sons,
Lewis [q. v.] and Adam [q. v.], and the second
time to Janet Seton, said to be of the family
of Touch, by whom he left three daughters.
[Lord Hailes's Catalogue of the Lords of Ses-
sion, Edinburgh, 1794; Bnmton and Haig's
Senators of the College of Justice, 1832; Keith's
History of Church and State in Scotland, 1734;
Historic of the Reformation of the Church of
Scotland, 1644; Hume's History of the Houses
of Douglas and Angus, 1644; Historie and Life
of King James the Sext, 1825 ; Douglas's Peerage
of Scotland, 1813.] A. H. G.

BELLENDEN, SIR LEWIS, LORD
ATTCHINOUL (1553 P-1591), Scottish law-
yer, was the eldest of the five children of Sir
John Bellenden of Auchinoul, justice-clerk
[q. v.], whom he succeeded in that office in
1578. In 1579 he was appointed a member
of the privy council (Acts of the Parliaments
of Scotland, iii. 150), and was one of the
most violent members of the first of the
Gowrie conspiracies, popularly known as the
Raid of Ruthven, 23 Aug. 1582. He was
promoted, as Lord Auchinoul, to an ordinary
place on the bench on 1 July (BRTTNTON and
HAIG, pp. 15, 195) or 17 July (HAILES and
DOUGLAS) 1584, in succession to Sir Richard
Maitlandof Lethington. Bellenden combined
with secretary Sir John Maitland and the
master of Gray to form a faction about the
king against the Earl of Arran, the chancel-
lor, in 1585; bore a principal part in Arran's
downfall, and helped to secure the return of j
the banished lords, Angus and others, who j
were Arran's chief enemies. Affecting to be
opposed to Angus and his friends, Bellenden
was nominated by the Scottish government
ambassador to England, to demand their ex-
pulsion from the English court, whence they
were to proceed straightway to Scotland.
From this embassy, in which he met with
complete success, he returned 15 May 1585
(MOYSES' Memoirs, p. 96), and was at Stirling !

in November of the same year, when the
banished lords surprised the king and Arran,
the latter of whom intended to have slain
Bellenden and Maitland ; 'but they drew to
their arnies and stude on their awn defence/
and Arran had too much on hand with his
enemies without the walls to attack them.
In July 1587 Sir Lewis Bellenden assisted
the prior of Blantyre, and Maitland, who had
succeeded the Earl of Arran as chancellor in
1585, in procuring the consent of the clergy
to the act proposed by the chancellor,
whereby the temporalities of the prelacies
' sould heirefter apperteyne to the king and
his croun ' (Historie of King James the Sext,
pp. 231, 232). In the same year, 1587,
Bellenden was named one of the members
of the f commissioun for satisfactioun of the
clergie for thair lyverentis ' (Acts of the
Parliaments, iii. 438). On 22 Oct. 1589 he
sailed from Leith for Norway, in attendance,
with the Chancellor Maitland and other
officers and courtiers, on the king, in his
matrimonial excursion, which, with a short
stay in Norway and a longer one in Den-
mark, was protracted until 1 May 1590
(SPOTSWOOD, History, 4th ed. fol. 380, and
Historie of James the Sext, p. 241). The
justice-clerk did not, however, continue so
long, for in the early spring he ' was directed
out of Denmark on an embassy to England,
and returned again into Scotland about
26 April 1590' (MoYSEs' Memoirs, p. 168).
Bellenden was succeeded as a lord of session
by Sir Richard Cockburne, whose presentation
from the king was dated 25 Oct. 1591. The
death of Sir Lewis Bellenden took place,
therefore, in the autumn of 1591 (BRUNTOisr
and HAIG). 'By curiosity he dealt with a
warlock called Richard Graham, to raise the
devil, who having raised him in his own yard
in the Canongate, he was thereby so terrified,
that he took sickness and thereof died' (SCOT,
Staggering State, pp. 130-1). Bellenden mar-
ried Margaret, second daughter of William,
sixth Lord Livingston, by whom he had a son
and a daughter — Sir James Bellenden, his heir,
and Mariota, married to Patrick Murray of
Fallahill. ' Having left his lady, sister to the
Lord Livingston, a great conjunct-fee, the-
Earl of Orkney married her, and, after some
years, having moved her to sell her conjunct-
fee-lands, and having disposed of all the
monies of the same, sent her back to the Canon-
gate, where she lived divers years very mise-
rably, and there died in extreme poverty'
(SCOT, Staggering State, p. 131).

[Lord Hailes's Catalogue of the Lords of Ses-
sion, 1794; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the
College of Justice, 1832; Spotswood's History of
the Church and State of Scotland, 4th ed. London,

Bellenden

189

Bellenden

1677 ; Hume's History of the Houses of Douglas
and Angus, 1644; Historie of the Life of King
James the Sext, 1825 ; Moyses's Memoirs of the
Affairs of Scotland, 1755; Scot's Staggering State
of the Scots Statesmen, 1754; Acts of the Parlia-
ments of Scotland, vol. iii. fol. 1814, passim ;
Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, 1813.1

A. H. G.

BELLENDEN, WILLIAM (A. 1633?),
Scotch professor, was born between the years
1550 and 1560, and was probably the son of
John Bellenden of Lasswade, near Edinburgh
(IRVING'S Scottish Writers}. Riddell's * Peer-
age Law,' quoted by Irving1, gives an account
of an action brought by ' William Ballenden/
advocate in the parliament of Paris in 1586, on
behalf of his sister, ' Issabel Ballenden, dochter
lauchful to umquhile John Ballenden of Les-
waid.' This advocate is doubtless identical
with the professor (cf. DEMPSTEE). Bellen-
den appears, according to Dempster, to have
been employed in diplomatic services by both
James VI and his mother, Mary, queen of
Scots. From James, Bellenden received (pro-
bably between 1608 and 1612) the title, if not
the emoluments, of the office of ' magister
libellorum supplicum.' A letter is extant in
which Bellenden complains to the king of his
unfortunate position in having to live abroad,
whilst holding such a post, owing to his want
of the money requisite for his return and proper
maintenance at home. This letter is written
In French. Dempster indeed tells us that he
was for some time professor in the university
of Paris, and we may perhaps infer with Irving
that he was a Eoman catholic. In 1608 Bel-
lenden published the first work of which we
have any knowledge, i.e. l Ciceronis Princeps :
Rationes et Consiliabene gerendi firmandique
Imperil.' This little volume purports to be
only a selection from a larger work (still un-
published) by the same author, which bore the
title of ' De Statu Rerum Romanarum.' A
translation of the 'Ciceronis Princeps by T. R.
Esq.' was published at London in 1618, with
a dedication to the young Duke of Monmouth.
In 1612 appeared Bellenden's second work,
' Ciceronis Consul, Senator, Senatusque Ro-
manus.' This book is dedicated to Prince
Henry, Prince Charles, and Princess Eliza-
beth. Like its predecessor it is a selection
from the works of Cicero, made up of extracts
bearing upon the constitution of the Roman
republic. Three years later (1615) Bellenden
issued his third book, entitled .< De Statu
Prisci Orbis in religione, re politica, et lit-
teris,' and dedicated it to Prince Charles.
Bellenden's next appearance as an author
seems to have been on the marriage of Hen-
rietta Maria and Charles I, for which oc-
casion he wrote an epithalamium in elegiac

verse, which, like the preceding works, was
published at Paris (1625). In 1634 Bellen-
den's last work, ' De Tribus Luminibus Ro-
manorum,' issued from the press. This is
inscribed to Charles I, but, as is evident from
its dedication, was only published after the
death of its author. Bellenden probably died
between September 1631, when the king's
license was granted, and 27 Aug. 1633, when,
according to Irving, the French edition of
this compilation was completed. This volume
is a history of Rome from the earliest periods,
and consists, like its author's previous works,
of quotations from Cicero so woven together
as to make a continuous whole. It appears
to be a mere torso of a larger work, in which
the same method was to have been employed
for illustrating ' the moral and physical
science of the Romans ' from the writings of
Seneca and Pliny. "Warton has suggested
that it was from Bellenden's ' De Tribus
Luminibus ' that Middleton conceived the idea
of writing Cicero's history in his own words.
Bellenden's l Epithalamium,' ' Princeps/ the
' De Statu,' and the ' Ciceronis Consul ' were
republished in 1787 by Dr. Samuel Parr with
a dedication to Burke, Lord North, and Chas.
James Fox. The preface to this edition was
used by Dr. Parr as an occasion for writing a
panegyric upon the ( Tria Lumina Anglorum '
and other of his contemporaries.

[Irving's Lives of Scottish Writers, i, 247-
257 ; Dempster's Historia Ecclesiastica, and the
volumes cited above.] T. A. A.

BELLENDEN, WILLIAM, LORD BEL-
LENDEN (d. 1671), treasurer-depute of Scot-
land, was born before 1606. He was the
son of Sir James Bellenden of Broughton,
and Margaret Ker. He does not come into
notice until the Restoration. On 10 June
1661 he was created Lord Bellenden, was
made treasurer-depute, and was placed on the
privy council of Scotland. In 1662 Lauder-
dale, on the advice of his brother, managed
to secure Bellenden's interest in his struggle
with Middleton's faction, and he is from that
time one of his most frequent correspondents.
In especial he kept Lauderdale well informed
regarding the designs of James Sharp, to
whom he was bitterly hostile. When the
treasurership was taken from Rothes in 1668
and was put into commission, Bellenden was
one of the commissioners. He was then in
failing health, and was noted for his violent
and overbearing manners at the treasury
board meetings, especially when, as was the
case, his own accounts as treasurer-depute
were called in question, or when any matter
of precedence was in dispute. He died
during 1671. His title and fortune he left

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IQO

Bellers

in 1668 to the second son of the Earl of
Roxburghe.

[Douglas's Peerage of Scotland ; Lauderdale
MSS. British Museum.] 0. A.

BELLERS, FETTIPLACE (1687-
1750?), dramatist and philosophical writer,
son of John [q. v.] and Frances Bellers, was
born in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn,
London, 23 Sept. 1687. His parents were
members of the Society of Friends, and his fa-
ther may perhaps be identified with the writer
of many tracts on the employment of the poor
and other topics. Fettiplace Bellers left his
father's faith ; the cause of this step may pro-
bably be found in the title of his anonymous
play, i Injur'd Innocence ; a tragedy/ Lon-
don, 1732, which was acted at Drury Lane
Theatre in February 1732. The plot is partly
taken from Davenant's ' Unfortunate Lovers.'
The play failed, though acted six or eight
times. A work, l Of the Ends of Society,'
which did not appear until 1759, was drawn
up in 1722. It is a mere outline, in which
matters relating to government and social
comfort are arranged in an elaborate classifi-
cation. His most important work is *A
Delineation of Universal Law : being an
Abstract or Essay towards deducing the
Elements of Natural Law from the First
Principles of Knowledge and the Nature of
Things. In a methodical and connected
series. In five books : (1) Of law in general,
(2) Of private law, (3) Of criminal law,
(4) Of the laws of magistracy, (5) Of the
law of nations.' It was printed for Dodsley
in 1750. The 'Advertisement' shows that
this was a posthumous publication, although
' proposals,' and perhaps a specimen, had been
issued at an earlier date. ' The author had
been engaged in the great work of which this
is an abstract for twenty years.' Lowndes,
Allibone, and Smith speak of this as having
been issued in 1740, but this appears to be
an error for 1750. A second edition is re-
corded for 1754, and a third for 1759.
Lowndes styles it 'an excellent outline,'
whilst Marvin, referring to the long time
that the author spent upon the work, says :
' It is with a feeling of regret, mingled with
something like reproach, that we find the
labours of twenty years so wasted, and reflect
upon the great expenditure of time and dili-
gence that has been destitute of any useful
result.' The advertisement to the ' Delinea-
tion ' printed in 1750 distinctly states that
Bellers was then dead, and yet the official
archives of the Royal Society record that he
was elected a fellow 30 Nov. 1711, was ad-
mitted 17 April 1712, and withdrew from
the society 12 April 1752. This chronolo-

gical puzzle remains unsolved. According-
to a memorandum made by Mendes de Costa,
( the remains of his collections are in the
hands of — Ingram, Esq., at Northleach, in
Gloucestershire (N.B. MSS. 1747)' (Gent.
Mag. vol. Ixxxii. pt. i. p. 205).

[Genest's Account of the English Stage, Bath,.
1832, iii. 330, x. 80; Baker, Reed, and Jones's
Biographia Dramatica, i. 32, ii. 324 ; Smith's
Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, 1867.
The particulars from the Royal Society's archives
were obligingly communicated by Mr. Walter
White.] W. E. A. A.

BELLERS, JOHN (1654-1725), philan-
thropist, was born about 1654. He was a
member of the Society of Friends. When
about thirty years old he married Frances
Fettiplace, one of the three daughters and
heiresses of Gyles Fettiplace, also a member
of the Society of Friends, and representative
of an old Gloucestershire family, long settled
at Coin St. Aldwyn's. On the death of his
father-in-law he became, in right of his wife,
joint lord of the manor, which was held in
lease from the dean and chapter of Gloucester.
He was likewise patron of the living, to which
in 1703 he presented the Rev. George Hunt.
His wife died at Coin St. Aldwyn's on

22 Feb. 1716, and was interred at Cirencester
5 March following. From the marriage there
was born at St. Andrew's, Holborn, London,

23 Aug. 1687, Fettiplace Bellers [see BEL-
LERS, FETTIPLACE J. For a number of years
John Bellers seems to have spent his winters
in London and his summers in the country.
He was always engaged in philanthropic
schemes. ' Many thoughts have run through
me ; how then it comes that the poor should
be such a burthen, and so miserable, and how
it might be prevented,' he says in a discourse
1 To the Children of Light, in scorn called
Quakers.' He addressed an elaborate proposal
to parliament for a confederation of states to
do away with war. He devised a scheme of
education for poor children ; he drew out a
plan for the establishment of hospitals for the
sick in London, and the providing for medical
advice for the necessitous in every parish in
the kingdom, and he devoted earnest atten-
tion to the state of the ill-managed prisons
of the period. His labours anticipated to some
extent those of John Howard. He urged his
fellow-religionists to visit the prisons, to com-
fort and exhort the prisoners, and to amelio-
rate their condition. He proposed that to
1 make them the more ready to hear what
advice may be given unto them,' they should
be ' treated with a dinner of baked legs and
shins of beef and ox cheeks ; which is a rich
and yet cheap dish, with which they may

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be treated plentifully for 4d a head, or less,
and he enforced this by a reference to the
account of the feeding of the multitude by
Christ, ' tho' they might come for the sake of
the loaves more than the miracle, yet by that
means there was opportunity for him to
preach the gospel unto them.'

Among the friends of Bellers were William
Penn and Sir Hans Sloane. In a manuscript j
letter to the latter in August 1724, about six
months before the death of the writer, Bel-
lers gives us a glimpse of his life in the
country. He tells Sloane that he is not
well, and that if he takes ' milke, or choco-
late with spaw water, or bear/ he gets still
worse. Riding is, perhaps, the best exercise
for him, but he does not care for it. He asks
advice, and says, ( I will pay thee a fee when
I see thee,' which will be soon, as he is coming
to town immediately for the winter. In a
postscript he refers to his plan of ' treating ye
poor prisoners,' and says that in accordance
with it he had on the occasion of the marriage
of his ' man and chambermaid at the house '
entertained fifty-eight of his poorer neighbours
1 with baked beefe,' ' much,' he adds, ' to their
satisfaction, and but about 3d. head cost.'

He died ' of age,' says the record, in the
parish of St. Stephen, Walbrook, 8 Feb. 1725,
and is interred in the Friends' burial-ground,
Bunhill Fields.

Bellers wrote a considerable number of
short works, either consisting of religious ad-
dresses to members of his own persuasion or
of expositions of philanthropic schemes. The
most important is : ' Proposals for Raising a
Colledge of Industry of all useful Trades and
Husbandry, with profit for the Rich, a plenti-
ful living for the Poor, and a Good Education
for Youth. Which will be an advantage to
the Government, by the Increase of the People
and their Riches ' (London, 1695, reprinted
1696). This college was to be ' an Epitomy
of the World.' In it a number of workmen
and workwomen of various trades were to
live together. On the death of workmen
their families were to be carefully provided
for, and the children to be educated. If the
workmen became old in the service, they
were to be appointed overseers, and their
labour was to be lightened or to cease, accord-
ing as their strength failed. The rich were
to found the college, and derive an annual
profit from it ; but it was to be, in the first
place, for the benefit of the poor, especially
of such as could not get employment. This
scheme he worked out in detail, and stated
and answered objections to it.

Certain economic views as to the impor-
tance of labour and the community of toil
stated in this brief treatise have made it note-

worthy in the history of political economy,
Eden refers to it at some length in his * State
of the Poor ' (London, 1797, i. 264 et seq.) It
is reprinted by Robert Owen, in his work
entitled ' New View of Society' (London,
1818). Karl Marx, in his < Das Capital,'
quotes it on several occasions, and calls its
author ( A Phenomenon in Political Economy '
(i. 639) ; and H. M. Hyndman, in his ' Social-
ism in England,' asserts that it contains ' some
of the most luminous thoughts on political
economy ever put on paper ' (London, 1883,
p. 85 et seq.).

The scheme reappears in slightly different
form in other works of Bellers, which are as
follows : 1. ' A Supplement to the College of In-
dustry; Dedicated to the Parliament ' (London,
1696). 2. ' An Epistle to Friends concerning
the Education of Children ' (London, 1697).
3. { Essays about the Poor, Manufactures,
Trade, Money, Plantations, and Immorality,
with the Excellency and Divinity of Inward
Light' (London, 1699). 4. <A Caution
against all Perturbations of the Mind '
(London, 1702). 5. < Watch unto Prayer ;
or Considerations for all who profess they
believe in the Light' (London, 1703, re-
printed in America 1802). 6. ' To the Lords
and other Commissioners appointed to take
care of the Poor Palatines ' (1709). 7. ' Some
Reasons for an European State proposed to
the Powers of Europe, by an Universal
Guarantee, and an Annual Congress, Senate,
Dyet, or Parliament, to settle any Disputes
about the Bounds and Rights of Princes and
States hereafter' (London, 1710). 8. 'To
the Archbishop, Bishops, and Clergy of the
Province of Canterbury met in Convocation '
(1712). 9. 'An Essay towards the Ease of
Election of Members of Parliament ' (Lon-
don, 1712). 10. 'An Essay towards recon-
ciling the Old and New Ministry ' (London,
1712). 11. 'Considerations on the Schism
Bill.' 12. ' An Essay towards the Improve-
ment of Physick, in twelve proposals ' (Lon-
don 1714). 13. ' To the Criminals in Prison.'
14. ' An Epistle to the Quarterly Meeting of
London and Middlesex' (1718). 15. 'An
Essay for imploying the Poor to Profit ; dedi-
cated and presented to the Parliament ' (Lon-
don, 1723). 16. ' To the Yearly, Quarterly,
and Monthly Meeting of Great Britain and
elsewhere ' (concerning the education of the
Poor, 1723). 17. ' An Abstract of George
Fox's Advice and Warning to the Magistrates
of London, in the year 1657, concerning the
Poor, &c.' (London, 1724). 18. ' An Epistle
to Friends of the Yearly, Quarterly, and
Monthly Meetings concerning the Prisoners
and Sick, and the Prisons and Hospitals of
Great Britain ' (1724).

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192

Bellew

[MS. Burials Eegister of Coin St. Aldwyivs,
Gloucestershire, excerpted by Eev. Alfred Kent ;
MS. Sloane, 4037, vol. ii. f. 188 ; Atkyn's Ancient
and Present State of Gloucestershire (London,
1712); Smith's Catalogue of Friends' Books,
vol. i. (London, 1867).] F. W-T.

BELLERS, WILLIAM (fl. 1761-1774),
landscape-painter, who worked in London in
the second half of the eighteenth century,
was a frequent contributor of pictures in
which effects of sunset, moonlight, and storm
play a prominent part, as well as of tinted
and crayon drawings, to the exhibitions of
the Free' Society of Artists between the years
1761 and 1773. Eight views of the Cumber-
land and Westmoreland lakes were engraved
after him by J. S. Miiller, Chatelain, Grig-
nion, Canot, and J. Mason, and published by
Boydell in 1774 ; and a set of ten English
landscapes by him was etched by P. P. Be-
nazech, J. Mason, G. Bickham, and J. Peake.
There is also a view of Netley Abbey en-
graved after him by J. Toms and J. Mason.
The dates of his birth and death are not
known.

[Eedgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]

E. E. G.

BELLEW, JOHN CHIPPENDALL
MONTESQUIEU (1823-1874), author,
preacher, and public reader, was born at Lan- ;
caster 3 Aug. 1823. He was the only child
of an infantry officer, Captain Robert Higgin, ,
of H.M. 12th regiment. His mother, who. j
towards the close of 1822, had married
Captain Higgin, was the daughter of John
Bellew, of Castle Bellew, county Galway,
and cousin of Lord Bellew. She was co- j
heiress under the will of her uncle, Major-
general Bellew, heir-at-law of the O'Briens, |
earls of Thomond.

Educated during his earlier years in the
grammar school of his birth-place, Lancaster,
young Higgin, while yet a stripling, was
entered in 1842 as a student at St. Mary's j
Hall, Oxford. On attaining his majority
in the autumn of 1844 he assumed his
mother's maiden name, and thenceforth en-
tirely dropped his patronymic. He was in-
duced to do this by the circumstance of his
being descended maternally from the senior
branch of the O'Briens, and thus a de- \
scendant from Teige the second brother of
Donough, the fourth earl (commonly spoken
of as the great earl in Irish history), brother
of Daniel, the first Viscount Clare. Not long
after entering the university, and before he
had yet come to be known there as Bellew,
he became a frequent and, almost from the
outset, a singularly effective speaker at the
Union. His great natural aptitude for ora-

; tory was from the first apparent. It helped
J to guide him even then to the selection of
! a clerical career.

Ordained in 1848, he was appointed at
! once a curate of St. Andrew's in Worcester.
j Thence, in 1850, he was transferred to a
! curacy at Prescot. In the following year he
went to the East Indies. There, almost im-
mediately upon his arrival in 1851 at Cal-
cutta, he was nominated chaplain in that
city of St. John's Cathedral. That position
he held for four years, during part of which
interval, besides writing for the ' Morning
i Post/ he edited the l Bengal Hurkaru.' At
length, in 1855, he returned to England, and
before the year ran out was appointed assist-
ant minister of St. Philip's, Regent Street.
i In 1857 he assumed the sole charge of St.
| Mark's, Hamilton Terrace, Marylebone. That
j office he held for five years ; in 1862 he be-
came incumbent of Bedford Chapel, Blooms-
| bury. During the twelve years which elapsed
i between 1855 and 1867 he held his ground
| in the metropolis as one of the most popu-
j lar of the London preachers. It was said
of him quite truly that no preacher of
his time had greater oratorical gifts by
nature, and that no man had taken greater
pains than he to improve and cultivate
them. In 1868, however, after nearly twenty
years of clerical life, during which he had
published several volumes of sermons, and
enjoyed a high degree of popularity as a
pulpit orator, he not only resigned his posi-
tion as a clergyman, but became a con-
vert to Catholicism, to which creed his
mother had all along belonged. His sincerity
in thus acting was attested by the circum-
stance that in so doing he gave up what
brought him in, at a moderate computation,
1,0001. a year. Thenceforth, so far as the
outer world was concerned, his time was
devoted by turns to public readings and to
literature. As a public reader in particular
he was preeminently successful. His fame
as a reader was such that his name was
brought into honourable juxtaposition with
those of Charles Dickens and Fanny Kemble.
His powers as an elocutionist were un-
doubtedly great, and they were cultivated,
through many years of assiduous application,
to the highest pitch of excellence. But they
were grievously overtaxed in the end. Two
expeditions to America, undertaken in too
rapid sequence, completely prostrated his
vital energies at last. He died in London,
at 16 Circus Road, St. John's Wood, on
19 June 1874, in his fifty-first year.

Besides the volumes of sermons already
referred to as having been issued from the
press while he was still a protestant clergy-

Bellew

193

Bellingham

man, and a work of a kindred character en-
titled ' The Seven Churches of Asia Minor,'
Bellew published in 1863 a book on ' Shake-
spere's Home at New Place, Stratford-upon-
Avon, being a history of the Great House
built in the reign of King Henry VII by
Sir Hugh Clopton, Knight, and subsequently
the property of William Shakespere, Gent.,
wherein he lived and died,' 8vo, pp. 380 ; in
1865 a novel in three volumes, called l Blount
Tempest,' and in 1868 a carefully selected,
-annotated English anthology, from Chaucer
to Aytoun, not inaptly designated * Poet's
Corner, a Manual for Students in Eng-
lish Poetry, with biographical Sketches of
the Authors, by J. C. M. Bellew,' 8vo, pp.
920.

Whenever he stepped upon the platform
as a public reader, he brought to his audi-
ence a letter of recommendation in his ani-
mated presence and handsome features
crowned with a shock of hair prematurely
whitened.

[Men of the Time, 8th edition, p. 80 ; Tablet,
27 June 1874, p. 815 ; Weekly Eegister, same
•date, p. 76 ; Athenaeum, same date, p. 862.]

C. K.

BELLEW, RICHARD (Jl. 1585), legal
reporter, published in 1585 an abridgment of
the reports of Statham Fitzherbert andBrooke,
described by Dugdale as ' the Year-book of
Richard II,' being even in his time the only ex-
tant authority for that period, but now known
as 'Bellewe's Cases tempore Richard II.'
The book, which is very rare, is in duodecimo.
It is entitled : l Les Ans du Roy Richard Le
Second Collect Ensemble hors de les Abridg-
ments de Statham Fitzherbert et Brooke per
Ric. Bellewe de Line. Inn.' The reports are
in Norman French.

[Dugdale's Orig. Jur. 58.] J. M. K.

BELLINGER, FRANCIS (d. 1721), phy-
sician, educated at Brasenose College, Ox-
ford, was admitted licentiate of the College
of Physicians 29 March 1708 ; practised at
Stamford, and afterwards in London. He
was an original member of the Spalding
Society. He died Sept. 1721. He was
author of (1) ' A Discourse concerning the
Nutrition of the Foatus,' Lond. 1717 ; (2) ' A
Treatise on the Small-pox,' Lond. 1721.

[Munk's Roll, ii. 20 ; Nichols's Anecdotes, vi.
29, 71.]

BELLINGHAM, SIB EDWARD

(tl. 1549), lord deputy of Ireland, was the
eldest son of Edward Bellingham, Esq., of Er-
ringham in Sussex, by Jane, daughter of John
Shelley of Michelgrove in the same county,

YOL. IV.

of the family Irom which sprang Percy Shel-
ley. Bellingham was brought up in the
household of the Duke of Norfolk. He was
a soldier of distinction, having served in
Hungary with Sir Thomas Seymour, and
with the Earl of Surrey at Boulogne, and
when lieutenant of the Isle of Wight in 1545,
he took the chief part in the repulse of the
French attack on that island. He was a mem-
ber of the privy council of Edward VI. From
the State Papers we know that he was in
Ireland in October 1547. How long he had
been there does not appear. He returned to
England early in 1548, and on 12 April in
that year was appointed lord deputy, but
did not arrive in the country till 27 May
(19th according to one account). His con-
duct in this office is highly praised by Fuller
( Worthies, Westmoreland, p. 138) and by
Holinshed (7mA Chronicle, p. 109). ''He
had,' says the former, ' no fault in his deputy-
ship but one, that it was too short.' The
country was in a state of extraordinary con-
fusion when he arrived in it, and it is not
easy from the contemporary documents to
trace the action of his government. The
chief difficulty with which Bellingham had
to contend was a rebellion in the district now
known as King's County and Queen's County,
but at that time as the O'Connor's country
and the O'More's country. Both these chiefs
had taken up arms against the English crown,
and both were brought to submission by the
forces directed against them by Bellingham,
although the troops at his command did
not exceed 1,500 men. O'More's lands were
taken from him and parcelled among Eng-
lish colonists. This was almost the first ex-
tension of the English westwards from the
Pale. Bellingham then turned his attention
to two other objects — the freeing the coast
from pirates, and the opening up of the passes
into Munster and Connaught. To secure the
latter he built a strong castle at Athlone :
he likewise quelled an attempted rising on
the part of the Earl of Desmond. He is re-
lated by Holinshed to have taken prisoner
the Earl of Desmond, to have brought him
to Dublin, and there kept him till he grew
civil and obedient to the king. But no dis-
tinct mention of this latter act is to be found
in the State Papers. Though a man of great
administrative ability, he seems to have
given offence by his arrogance, and it may
have been on this account, or it may have
been only on account of ill-health, that he
was recalled in 1549. He died in the autumn
of the same year.

[Visitation of Westmoreland, Harl. MS. 1435;
State Papers, Ireland, Edward VI, vol. i.; Holins-
hed's Irish Chron. p. 109.] C. F. K.

0

Bellingham

194

Sellings

BELLINGHAM, KICHAKD (1592?-
1672), governor of Massachusetts, was edu-
cated for the law, and from 1625 to 8 Nov.
1633 was recorder of Boston, Lincolnshire
(THOMPSON, History and Antiquities of Bos-
ton, p. 428). Nothing is recorded of his pa-
rentage, but he may possibly have been related
to Francis Bellingham, who was member
of parliament for Boston in 1603. In 1634
he emigrated, along with his wife, to Massa-
chusetts, and in the following year he was
elected deputy governor of the colony. By
a majority of six votes over John Winthrop
he was, in 1641, elected governor. He was
several times re-elected, and from 1665 held
office uninterruptedly till his death. In 1664
he was chosen assistant major-general. After
the visit of the royal commissioners to the
colony in the same year he and several others
were summoned to England to be examined
as to their management of affairs; but,
standing on their charter rights, they refused
compliance. Happily the present of ' a ship-
load of masts ' secured them the goodwill of
the king, and no further steps were taken
against them by the government in England.
Bellingham died? Dec. 1672, having attained
the distinction of being the last survivor of
the patentees in the charter. Notwithstand-
ing certain eccentricities of character, his
knowledge of law and the practical business
of government, his strong will, and the in-
corruptible integrity of his public life, won
him the high respect even of his opponents.
In 1641 he contracted a second marriage by
a method probably without a parallel. He
proposed to a young lady who was engaged,
with his approval, to a friend of his own, and,
obtaining her consent, performed the marriage
ceremony himself without any proclamation
of banns. The great inquest presented him
for breach of the order of court ; but when
he refused to vacate the bench and answer as
an offender, the other magistrates were too
nonplussed by the exceptional circumstances
to venture on decisive steps, and he thus es-
caped without any censure. Bellingham was
ardently attached to the principles of the
' first church/ and left the bulk of his estates
— part of them after the decease of his wife,
and part after the decease of his son — for the
support and encouragement of l godly minis-
ters and preachers ; ' but the will was set
aside by the general court as trenching on the
rights^ of his family. Several of his letters
and his signatures, and also his seals, will be
found in the ' Winthrop Papers ' (published
by the Massachusetts Historical Society),
4th series, pp. 596-600. A sister of Bel-
lingham, Anne Hibbins, widow of William
Hibbins, was burned as a witch in June 1656.

[Savage's Greneal. Diet, of the First Settlers of
New England, i. 161; Winthrop's History of
New England, ii. 37-76 ; Hutchinson's History
of Massachusetts ; Allen's American Biog. Diet.
82 ; Thompson's History and Antiquities of
Boston, 428-9.] T. F. H.

BELLINGS, KICHARD (d. 1677), Irish
historian, eldest son of Sir Henry Bellings,.
who owned considerable estates in Leinsterf
was born near Dublin towards the commence-
ment of the seventeenth century. While a
student in Lincoln's Inn, London, he com-
posed a sixth book to the ' Arcadia ' of Sir
Philip Sidney. This production was pub-
lished with the ' Arcadia ' in 1629, and has
been appended to most of the editions of
that work. Bellings married a daughter of
Viscount Mountgarrett, and sat as a member
of parliament in Ireland. On the formation,
of the Irish Confederation in 1642 Bellings
was elected a member of and secretary to>
the supreme council of that body, of which
his father-in-law, Mountgarrett, was presi-
dent. In 1644 Bellings went to the conti-
nent as official representative of the Irish
Confederation. After his return to Ireland
in 1645 he continued, as an adherent of the
royal cause, actively engaged in public affairs
till 1649, when he retired to France. In
1654 he published at Paris, in Latin, a vin-
dication of his political conduct. Bellings
was highly esteemed by Charles II and the
Duke of Ormonde. After the king's restora-
tion Bellings obtained possession of a portion
of his estates which had been appropriated
by the parliamentarians. Bellings died in
1677, and was buried near Dublin. During
his latter years he wrote a history of Irish
affairs in which he had taken part. This
work seems to have been lost sight of for
nearly a century. A fragment of it was
very incorrectly printed at Dublin in 1772.
The original manuscript, supposed to have
perished, has, however, been brought to
light. The first portion of it, edited by John
T. Gilbert, F.S.A., was printed in 1882, in
two volumes quarto, for private circulation,
under the following title : ' History of the
Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland,
1 641-3 : containing a narrative of affairs of
Ireland from 1641 to the conclusion of the
treaty for cessation of hostilities between
the Crown of England and the Irish in
1643. By Kichard Bellings, Secretary of
the Supreme Council of the Irish Confedera-
tion. With original documents, correspon-
dence of the Confederation and of the English
government in Ireland, contemporary per-
sonal statements, memoirs, &c. Published,
for the first time, from original MSS.'
This publication is frequently referred to by

Bellofago

Bellot

Mr. S. R. Gardiner in his ' History of Eng-
land, 1603-42.'

Bellings's son, Sir Richard, was secretary
to Catherine, queen of Charles II, and mar-
ried Frances, heiress of Sir John Arundell.
Their son assumed the name of Arundell, and
his only child married Henry, Lord Arundell
of "Wardour in Wiltshire.

[Additional MSS. 15856, 4763, British Mu-
seum, London ; State Papers, Ireland, Charles I,
Public Eecord Office, London ; Carte and Claren-
don MSS. 1641-77, Bodleian Library, Oxford ;
Ormonde Archives, Kilkenny Castle, Ireland;
MSS. of the Earl of Leicester, Holkham, Norfolk,
and of Lord Arundell. Wardour Castle, Wiltshire.]

J. T. G-.

BELLOFAGO or BELLAFAGO.

BEATJFEU.]

BELLOMONT. [See BEAUMONT.]

BELLOT, HUGH, D.D. (1542-1596),
bishop of Chester, the second son of Thomas
Bellot, Esq., of Great Moreton, Cheshire, ma-
triculated at Cambridge as pensioner of
Christ's College 21 May 1561, became B.A.
1563-4, M. A. 1567. In this year he migrated
to Jesus College, of which he was elected
fellow. In 1570 he was one of the proctors
of the university. In 1571 he became rector
of Tyd St. Giles in Cambridgeshire, being at
that time chaplain to Cox, bishop of Ely, who,
on 15 March 1572-3, collated him to the rec-
tory of Doddington-curn-March, in the isle of
Ely, then vacant by the death of Christopher
Tye, Mus. D., the noted composer. About the
same period he vacated hisfellowship at Jesus.
In 1579 he was created D.D. In 1584 he ob-
tained the rectory of Caerwys in Flintshire,
and the vicarage of Gresford in Denbighshire.
On 3 Dec. 1585 he was elected bishop of Ban-
gor, being consecrated at Lambeth 30 Jan.
1585-6. With the bishopric he held the
deanery in commendam. He was nominated
one of the council of Wales. He was trans-
lated to the see of Chester 25 June 1595, and
retained possession of it until his death, which
took place at Berse Hall or Plas Power, in
the parish of Wrexham, Denbighshire, 13 June
1596. His body was interred in the chancel
of Wrexham Church. His funeral was so-
lemnised at Chester Cathedral 22 June. The
following inscription to his memory was
placed on his monument at Wrexham, erected
by his brother Cuthbert, prebendary of Ches-
ter : ' Sub certa spe gloriosse resurrectionis
hie in Domino obdormivit reverendus in
Christo pater Hugo Bellot, sacrse theologiae
doctor ex antiqua familia Bellotorum de
Moreton in com. Cestrige oriundus ; quern ob
singularem in Deum pietatem, vitse integrita-

tem, prudentiam et doctrinam, regina Eliza-
betha primum ad episcopatum Bangorensem,
in quo decem annos sedit, postea ad episcopa-
tum Cestrensem. transtulit, ex quo post paucos
menses Christus in coelestem patriam evoca-
vit an. Dom. 1596, aetatis suse 54. Cuthber-
tus Bellot fratri optimo et charissimo mcestis-
simus posuit.'

Bellot was a great persecutor of the
catholics. He assisted William Morgan in
translating the Bible into Welsh. He was
intimate with Gabriel Goodman, dean of
Westminster, who probably helped him to
procure some of his preferments. Mr. Yorke,
in his * Royal Tribes/ says that Bishop Bellot
was employed by Elizabeth as one of the
translators of the English Bible, but on what
authority he does not mention. His name is
not given in Strype's ' Parker,' and we may
therefore suppose that the aid he afforded to
the Welsh translation of Morgan may have
led to the mistake, if it be one.

The Bellots were an ancient family, early
seated in Norfolk, and became subsequently
located in Cheshire by the marriage of John
Bellot, temp. Henry VI, with Katherine,
sister and heir of Ralph Moreton, of Great
Moreton, in the Palatinate. Of this alliance
the lineal descendant, Sir John Bellot, was
created a baronet in 1663. It has been sug-
gested that the name is derived from belette^
a weasel, or bellotte, gentle, pretty. Thomas
Bellot, R.N., author of Bellot's 'Sanskrit De-
rivations,' thought that the name might even
go back to the Romans, l Bellus,' as it is still
found in Italy and France. We find the
name spelt in various ways — Billet, Bellott^
Billett, &c.

[Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 75, 126, 146; Le Neve's.
Fasti, i. 105, 111, iii. 259; Notes and Queries,
2nd ser. iii. 469 ; Churton's Nowell, 268, 282 ;
Newcome's Goodmans, 35, 37; Cooper's Ath.
Cant. ii. 204, 548.] J. M.

BELLOT, THOMAS (1806-1857), naval
surgeon and philologist, was born at Man-
chester 16 March 1806, where his father,
after whom he was named, was a practising
surgeon in Oldham Street. The father was
a native of Derbyshire, and gave evidence in
1818 before a committee of the House of
Lords on Sir Robert Peel's factory bill. His
mother's maiden name was Jane Hale, and
she was the daughter of Thomas Hale of
Darnhall, Cheshire, author of ' Social Har-
mony,' who claimed to be of the same family
as Sir Matthew Hale. Thomas Bellot be*-
came a pupil at the Manchester Grammar
School in 1816, and, on leaving that foun-
dation, he became a pupil of Mr. Joseph
Jordan, a well-known practitioner in his

o 2

Bellot

196

Belmeis

native city. In 1828 he was admitted a
member of the Royal College of Surgeons,
15 Feb. 1828, and in 1831 entered upon the
active service as a naval surgeon, in which
he passed the greater part of his life. His
first appointment was on the Harrier, where
he joined in several boat attacks on the pirates
infesting the straits of Malacca. In 1835 he
joined the Leveret, and served in the pre-
vention of the African slave trade until 1839.
In this expedition he was one of the party
that boarded the slave brig Diogenes, and
had charge of the wounded prisoners until
they were transferred to the hospital at Mo-
zambique. He next served for three years
with the Firefly on the West Indian coast.
In 1843 he went with the Wolf to the coast
of China. During his absence, and without
his knowledge, he was elected F.R.C.S. causd
honoris, 6 Aug. 1844. In 1849 he had medi-
cal charge of the Havering, which conveyed
365 convicts to Sydney. Cholera broke out,
but his firmness and judgment enabled him
to dispense with the exercise of the great
powers entrusted to him on this occasion.
Some scientific maps and specimens sent by
him to the admiralty from Labuan were
forwarded to the Museum of Economic Geo-
logy. His last outward voyage was in
November 1854, when he joined the flagship
Britannia, which conveyed Vice-admiral
Dundas to the Black Sea as commander of
the fleet. Bellot was assigned the care of
the sick at the naval hospital of Therapia on
the Bosphorus, as one of the chief hospital
surgeons, and returned to England in March
1855 in charge of invalids. This adventurous
life was not without influence on his health,
and during his stay in the West Indies he
had two attacks of yellow fever. He re-
turned to Manchester, and, dying in June
1857, was buried in the churchyard of Poyn-
ton, Cheshire. He was honorary member of
the Philosophical Society of Sydney, and of
several other learned associations. The clas-
sical learning received at the Manchester
school was increased by further study in the
scanty leisure of his busy professional life.
He translated the Aphorisms of Hippocrates
and of Galen on the Hand (1840). In the
latter he was helped by Mr. Joseph Jordan.
His interest in philology led him to make ex-
cursions into the domain of oriental literature.
In the intervals on half-pay he visited many
cities of Europe, attended the lectures of
H. H. Wilson at Oxford, made the acquaint-
ance of Bunsen, and was a friend and disciple
of Bopp. Bellot's work on the ' Sanscrit Deri-
vations of English Words,' printed at Man-
chester in 1856 by subscription, is in effect
a comparative dictionary, in which a num-

ber of English words are traced to their
source. The illustrations range over a wide
field of philological knowledge, including
Chinese.

He had paid considerable attention to the
language and antiquities of China, and be-
queathed his collection of Chinese books and
bronzes to the Manchester Free Library.
An article by him on the best means of
learning the Chinese language will be found
in ' Notes and Queries ' (1st series, x. 168).

[Smith's Manchester Grammar School Kegis-
ter (Chetham Society), 1874, iii. 164; Axon's
Handbook of the Public Libraries of Manchester,
Manchester, 1877, p. 174; Catalogue of the
Library of the Manchester Medical Society,
1866 ; information supplied by his brother,
W. H. Bellot, M.D., Leamington.]

W. E. A. A.

BELMEIS or BELESMAINS, JOHN,
JOHN or THE FAIK HANDS (d. 1203 ?), bishop
of Poitiers, and archbishop of Lyons, was a
native of Canterbury, and was in his early
years brought up intlie household of Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury. According to Bale,
who has preserved or invented several early
details, John was born of illustrious parents,
but, finding the opportunity for study too
scant in his native country, he travelled to
Gaul and Italy in search of knowledge, where
he profited so much that on his return he was
held ' princeps literatorum.' John of Salis-
bury, who was with Belmeis in Apulia, pro-
bably about 1156, praises him above all the
men he had ever met for his knowledge of
the three tongues (i.e. Latin, Greek, and He-
brew) (Polycraticus, viii. c. 7, with which
cf. vi. 24 Metalofficus ii. prologue, and Ba-
ronius, sub anno 1156). Bale adds that John
was an intimate friend of Adrian IV ; but,
according to Pits, this intimacy with the only
English pope occurred in Adrian's papacy,
and after John had been made canon and
treasurer of York. William of Canterbury
tells us that John was originally one of a
little band of three churchmen who influenced
Theobald in his ecclesiastical appointments,
mainly, it would seem, to their own advan-
tage (cf. FiTzSiEPHEN (R.S.), iii. 17). The
other two members of this group were Thomas
Becket and Roger, afterwards archbishop of
York. We may place the date of this friend-
ship in the last years of Stephen's reign, as
it seems that of the three John became trea-
surer, and Roger archbishop of York in
1154, while Thomas was made archdeacon of
Canterbury in 1153.

In 1157, when firm ground in Belmeis'
biography is first reached, he was present
when Henry II inquired into the claims of

Belmeis

197

Belmeis

Battle Abbey. Somewhere about 1158 he
appears acting a very prominent part in the
famous Scarborough case of clerical extor-
tion, that seems to have determined Henry II
to make his attack on the ecclesiastical privi-
leges. On this occasion Belmeis, the trea-
surer of York, appears as the chief main-
tainer of the rights of his order, and advised
that the money should be restored and the
offender left to the mercy of his bishop.
The king, he urged, had no claim in the
matter. At the outbreak of the Becket con-
troversy, Belmeis was, according to Becket's
biographer, FitzStephen, a close friend and
protege of the archbishop, and to prevent
Becket profiting by his counsel, Henry II
removed him in 1162 to the see of Poitiers,
but the ceremony of consecration does not
seem to have taken place till next year, when
it was performed by the pope himself at the
council of Tours (cf. KOBEKT DE MONTE, sub.
1162, and EALPH DE DICETO, i. 311, and ii.
120). But though abroad the new bishop
seems to have been a staunch supporter of
his order. An extant letter written some
few months after this date is full of the
kindliest feeling for his old friend. Next
year we find that the bishop of Poitiers had
been maintaining Becket's nephew, Geoffrey,
and even giving him money. Towards the
middle of 1164 we have another affectionate |
letter from John of Poitiers to Becket. Here
the bishop speaks out his mind boldly, and j
declares that though, owing to the schism
in the church and the necessities of the '
times, they had not resisted unto blood and j
had even stooped to dissimulation, yet no
one could say that they had yielded to threats j
or acquiesced in impious plans. The letter
indirectly explains that Belmeis did not go I
more frequently to plead Becket's cause with |
the pope, because the people of his diocese, j
with whom there are other indications to
show that he was little in sympathy, wrere !
only too ready to carry news of these visits j
to the king in the hope of doing the bishop j
harm. Belmeis had, however, taken care to j
engage the interests of the abbot of Pon-
tigny, in whose abbey Becket, a few months
later, took refuge. Next year (1165), in
another letter, Belmeis advises Becket to re-
ceive thankfully whatever the French king
offers, and hints at the same time that the
archbishop would do well to be content with
a moderate retinue. The same year he re-
commended Becket to attend a conference
with the empress and the archbishop of
Rouen, having only one or two monks in
his train, so that by contrast with his former
state as chancellor he might move men's
hearts to pity. But above all things he ad-

vises Becket to have all questions as to the
way and form of his return settled before
he reached England ; for abroad he has the
Count of Flanders and the empress at his
back, whereas in England men speak only
what the king wills. Next year (1166) a
determined attempt was made to take away
the bishop's life by means of a poisoned
draught. Early in 1167, as Henry's envoys
were returning from Rome by way of France,
Becket asked Belmeis to ascertain all he
could as to the success of their mission ;
but, as they were bound not to make any
confession to the bishop, Belmeis had to
trust to such scraps of information as he
could pick up from the dean at whose house
they lodged. Two years later, when it was
hoped that Becket would make some con-
cession at the meeting of Montmirail, but
would only substitute 'salvo honore Dei'
for 'salvo ordine nostro,' and the conference
was broken off in anger, the bishop of Poi-
tiers appears in the part of a reconciliator.
He was sent after Becket to Etampes, beg-
ging him to leave all things to the king's
will; Becket had often openly longed for
peace, let him now show that his wish was
sincere. But he could only get for answer
that the archbishop would promise nothing
to the prejudice of the divine law. It was
on this occasion that Becket reproached his
old friend with the words : t Brother, beware
lest God's church be destroyed by you ; by
me, with God's favour, it shall not be de-
stroyed.' John, being loth to carry back the
archbishop's true message, translated it into
a desire on Becket's part to commit his
cause to Henry before all other mortals,
adding a prayer that the king would provide
(as a Christian prince should) for the honour
of the church and the archbishop's person.
This design, however kindly meant, broke
down. In the next few years we find the
name of John, bishop of Poitiers, mentioned
in Sainte-Marthe's ' Gallia Christiana ' as
occurring in several documents of the time.
He was present at the council of Albi in
1176 (SAINTE-MARTHE, ii. 1180), and in the
same year he appears beating back an in-
cursion of plundering Brabantines from his
province (RALPH DE DICETO, i. 407). Next

Ssar he was one of the witnesses when
enry II bought La Marche from its count
for 15,000/. (December 1177), and, if we may
trust Stephen of Tournay, was legate of the
holy see both before and after this year. In
1178, when the kings of France and England
determined on taking measures for the sup-
pression of the growing heresy in Toulouse,
John of Poitiers was one of the five chief
ecclesiastics sent to convert that region, and

Belmeis

198

Belmeis

was present when the heretics were solemnly
excommunicated before the assembled people
of Toulouse. By this time John may have
won the love of his diocese, for we are told on
contemporary authority that four years later,
at his departure from his cathedral city, the
cross of St. Martial shed tears (HOVEDEN,
iv. 17). In 1179 the bishop of Poitiers
was present at the great Lateran council
(D'ACHEKY, i. 638). Two years after he was
elected archbishop of Narbonne, and went
to Rome for the sake of receiving the papal
benediction from Lucius III. This pope,
however, had him elected to the more im-
portant see of Lyons instead, an appointment
which seems to have been greatly to the
satisfaction of his contemporaries (December
1182). There still remains a letter written
by Stephen of Tournay to the new arch-
bishop, congratulating him on his prefer-
ment, and speaking of 'that admirable and
lovely contest between the churches,' i.e. the
rivalry between Narbonne and Lyons, as to
which should win the bishop of Poitiers for
its head. According to Sainte-Marthe the
new archbishop did homage to Frederic
Barbarossa in 1184, and was confirmed in
his rights over the city of Lyons. Five
years later we find him extracting from
Philip Augustus an acknowledgment that
the right of guarding the vacant see of Autun
belonged to the archbishopric of Lyons ; for
the king on the death of the last bishop had
seized all the regalia into his own hands
(D'ACHERY, iii. 554). In 1192 Sainte-Marthe
tells us he was engaged in dedicating a
chapel to the memory of his old friend
Thomas of Canterbury. During all these
years he seems to have kept up some connec-
tion with his native land and with Canter-
bury. We have several letters written to
him by the convent of Christ Church, beg-
ging him to use his influence on its behalf;
and it is to him that Ralph de Diceto ap-
peals on a question of church history (RA.LPH
DE DICETO, i. 5, 6). In the middle of 1193
he appears to have resigned his see, and in
the course of the next year to have crossed
over to England to perform his vows at the
tomb of Becket (8 Sept.). William of Nas-
burgh's words seem to imply that he was
present at the council of London (10 Feb.
1194), and there spoke on behalf of the ab-
sent Richard I. He then retired to St. Ber-
nard's abbey of Clairvaux, where he spent
the rest of his life in meditation and prayer.
The reasons given for this retirement in a
letter to the bishop of Glasgow (MABILLON'S
Analecta, 478-79) are his dissatisfaction at
having to be so constantly present at scenes
of bloodshed in the exercise of his archi-

episcopal functions, and a desire to foretaste
the sweetness of heaven by following the
contemplative life on earth for a little space
before he died. He seems to have retained
the church of Eynesford as a provision for
his old age (Epist. Cant., R.S., 472), and this
living, though disputed for a time, he was
finally allowed to hold till his death (p. 513).
In Adam the Benedictine's 'Life of St. Hugh
of Lincoln ' we catch a last glimpse of the
aged archbishop. When, in the last year of
his life (1200), St. Hugh was returning
through Burgundy to London, he visited
lairvaux at the special request of Belmeis,
whom he found intent on study. Asking
the old man to what he devoted himself
chiefly, he received for answer that medita-
tion on the psalms demanded all his intel-
lectual energy. According to Sainte-Marthe,
John was still living in 1201, when Inno-
cent III presented the abbey with a se-
lection of prayers to be sung in honour of
St. Bernard, and, if we may trust the letters
of the same pope, in December 1203, Bel-
meis seems to have been a man of great
learning for his age. Robert de Monte calls
him ' vir jocundus et apprime literatus.' Bale
mentions among his writings thirty-two
letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury;
an invective against the same ; certain ' ora-
tiones elegantes ; ' and a history, apparently
of his own times. None of these latter works
appear to be extant now ; but many of his
letters are to be found scattered among the
collections bearing the names of Thomas
Becket, John of Salisbury, and Gilbert Foliot.

[William of Canterbury, Herbert of Bosham,
William FitzStephen, and Letters of Thomas
Becket in materials for the History of Thomas
Becket (Kolls Ser.), vols. i.-vi. ; Ralph de Diceto
(Rolls Ser.), i. 307, 311,ii. 120, &c. ; Roger Hove-
den (Rolls Ser.), ii. 148, 151, iii. 274, iv. 17, 127;
Vita Hugonis Lincolnensis (Rolls Ser.), 324 ;
William of Newburgh, 1. v. c. 3 ; Epistolse Can-
tuarienses (Rolls Ser.), 245, 275, 513, 541, &c. ;
Sainte-Marthe' s Grallia Christiana, ii. 1180, iv.
130, vi. 56 ; D'Achery's Spicilegium (ed. 1733,
Venice), i. 638, ii. 1180, iii. 554; Migne's Cursus
Completus Theologise, ccix. 877-882; Stephen
of Tournay, apud Migne, ccxi. 328, 373 ; Epistolse
Innocentii III, apud Migne, ccxv. 213-220, ccxiv.
1032 ; John of Salisbury's Polycraticus and Me-
talogicus, apud Migne, cxcix. 735, &c. ; Baronius'
Annales Ecclesiastic! (ed. Pagi, 1746), xix. 103,
524, 525 ; Robert de Monte, in his Aucturarium
Sigeberti G-emblacensis, ap. Migne, clx. 496, 539 ;
Bale, 218; Martene's Anecdota, iv. 1290; Migne's
Histoire Litteraire de la France, xvi. 477-483 ;
Pits, 261 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.] T. A. A.

BELMEIS or BEAUMEIS, RICHARD

DE (d. 1128), surnamed RUFTJS, bishop of

Belmeis

199

Belmeis

London, was in early life a follower of Roger
of Montgomery, palatine earl of Shropshire.
He is with much probability identified with
the Richard who at the time of the com-
pilation of the ' Doomsday Book ' held the
manor of Meadowley in that county under a
sub-tenant of the earl. His name appears
on several occasions as attesting charters,
both of Earl Roger and of his successor,
Earl Hugh, from whom he doubtless re-
ceived ecclesiastical preferment. But on the
fall of the next earl, the famous Robert of
Belleme (1102), after his attempt to rouse
the feudal party against Henry I, Richard
must have separated himself from his old
masters, and attached himself closely to the
king. After assisting in the settlement of
the escheated estates of Robert in Sussex, he
was sent to Shropshire as the royal agent in
the forfeited palatinate. Henry I might now
have annexed Shropshire to the crown, and
extinguished its independent position, but the
disturbed state of the Welsh frontier, which
had been the cause of its acquiring exceptional
prerogatives, must have rendered it expedient
to retain its separate jurisdiction, but under
a royal nominee, who owed everything to the
king's favour, and whose clerical profession
rendered it difficult for him to found a great
family. Henry accordingly appointed Richard
of Belmeis to an office variously described as
the sherifFdom, stewardship, or even the vice-
royalty of Shropshire. But Belmeis was no
ordinary sheriff. Though often called sheriff
himself, he had a sheriff under him to dis-
charge the routine business of the shire. He
stood to Shropshire in the same relation in
which the justiciar stood to the whole of
England in the king's absence. His judicial
decisions were regarded as possessing equal
authority with those of the king himself, and
were recorded in regal style in letters patent.
His jurisdiction even extended into Stafford-
shire, and perhaps Herefordshire. As a large
owner in the county of landed property, in-
cluding the manors of Tong and Donington,
he was connected with his subjects by other
ties than the mere royal delegation. His
family, afterwards united with the more
famous Zouches, was for several centuries
after his time a prominent Shropshire house.
He exercised over the wild tribes of central
Wales the same authority that Belleme him-
self had wielded over them. Not without
reason has his position been connected with the
later wardenship of the western marches. In
his dealings with the Welsh, Belmeis followed
the precedent of Robert of Belesme in securing
the supremacy of the English by stirring up
the feuds among the rival Welsh princelings.
Owain, son of Cadwgan, prince of Ceredigion,

VOL. IV.

stole Nest, wife of Gerald of Windsor, from
her husband's stronghold of Cenarch Bychan.
Richard suborned two rival chiefs, Ithel and
Madog, to revenge the deed. Only on his
disowning the unruly son and paying a
substantial fine did Cadwgan secure a new
grant of Ceredigion. But Belmeis was a
true successor to Belleme in the treachery
of his dealings with his turbulent vassals,
The Welshmen who took his side soon learnt
that no reliance was to be placed on the word
of the new lord of Shrewsbury. lorwerth,
whose timely desertion of Robert, of Belleme
had materially favoured the king's cause,
was enticed to Shrewsbury and imprisoned
there. At last Madog and Owain joined
together against their common enemy, though
Madog soon won Belmeis' favour again by
the murder of Cadwgan ; yet some sort of
general attack seems to have been made on
the English, which was only repelled by an
invasion by Henry I in person in 1114, and
by a new wave of Norman conquest in
Wales.

Henry I rewarded Belmeis' faithful ser-
vices in the west with the bishopric of Lon-
don. He was elected on 24 May 1108, or-
dained priest by Anselm at Mortlake a few
days later, and consecrated bishop on 26 July
at Pagham in Sussex. Anselm was already
broken in health, and seems only with some
difficulty to have yielded to Henry's extreme
anxiety for the speedy consecration of his
minister. A handsome donation to the mother
church of Canterbury testified Richard's
gratitude for the archbishop's readiness to
meet his wishes. He proved a true subject
of the see of Canterbury in the zeal with
which he endeavoured to force Thomas, arch-
bishop-elect of York, to acknowledge the
supremacy of the primate of all England ;
but Anselm seems to have suspected that the
ambitious bishop of London himself aspired
to the pallium. On Anselm's death Richard
himself consecrated Thomas after due pro-
fession of canonical obedience, but a fierce
struggle for precedence broke out at the
kings Christmas court in 1109 between the
rival prelates. Richard claimed, as dean of
the province of Canterbury and as senior
bishop, to say mass before the king in prefer-
ence to Thomas, to wThom he would allow no
archiepiscopal dignity. Meeting at dinner at
the king's table, the dispute was renewed, and
became so intense that Henry, in disgust,
sent them both home to dine by themselves.
But the consecration of a new archbishop of
Canterbury put an end to Richard's aspira-
tions in this direction.

Richard retained his viceroyalty in the
marches many years after his appointment to

* 04

Belmeis

200

Belmeis

London. He certainly held office until 1123,
and nothing but ill-health drove him ulti-
mately from power. His great position in
the west enabled him for some years to devote
the whole revenue of his bishopric to carry-
ing out the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral,
which the preceding bishop, Maurice, had
begun on so lavish a scale as to prove a serious
burden to his successor. He almost finished
the great work, but after a few years he appa-
rently grew tired of the excessive outlay, and
perhaps completed it in a less magnificent
way. Towards the end of his life he em-
ployed his wealth mainly in the foundation
of the priory of St. Osyth, for Augustinian
regular canons, on the manor of Chich (Osyth
St. Chick), in Essex, belonging to the see of
London. He had already advised Queen
Matilda to establish the Augustinians at Holy
Trinity in Aldgate, the first settlement of this
popular order in England. In 1123 "William cf
Corbeuil, first prior of St. Osyth's, was made
archbishop of Canterbury, an election not im-
probably due to the founder's influence. But
an attack of paralysis in the same year com-
pelled Belmeis, very unwillingly — for he
loved power to the last — to resign his posi-
tion in Shropshire. At last he sought at,
St. Osyth's a refuge from the cares of active
life. He died in that monastery on 16 Jan.
1127, though it is doubtful whether he had
formally retired from his see. His last act
was to make some restitution of lands and
churches he had wrongfully taken from the
abbey of Shrewsbury. He was buried where
he died, and the canons celebrated their
founder in his epitaph as 'vir probus et
grandsevus, per totam vitam laboriosus.'

Richard of Belmeis was a type of the
ministerial prelate of the twelfth century,
and may be placed after Roger of Salisbury,
among the ecclesiastical advisers of Henry I.
Active, energetic, a good administrator and
subtle intriguer, not above treachery when it
served him or his master's cause, he remained
faithful to Henry in a position of great diffi-
culty and delicacy, and was proportionately
trusted by that monarch. He had little of
the saint about him, and took good care of
his nephews' interests both in Shropshire and
London. One he made dean of St. Paul's,
another archdeacon of Middlesex, and both to
ecclesiastical and secular nephews he secured
rich lands in Shropshire. Yet the continuer
of the work of Maurice, the founder of
St. Osyth's, the magnificent prelate who
lavished the whole revenues of his see on his
great buildings, can at least escape the charge
of mere self-seeking. He was only greedy of
power and influence. In his contest with
Thomas of York he showed his zeal for his

order and province. As administrator and
jurist, as ecclesiastic, church-builder, and
statesman, he ranks high among the bishops
of his age.

[William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Ponti-
ficum ; Eadmer's Historia Novorum ; Diceto ;
Brut y Tywysogion ; Eyton's Antiquities of
Shropshire (especially vol. ii. 193-201) collects
in a convenient form all that is known about
Bishop Eichard ; Dugdale's Monasticon, vi. 1,
309, gives some account of St. Osyth's ; Milman's
Annals of St. Paul's, a summary of Richard's
building operations.] T. F. T.

BELMEIS orBEAUMEIS, RICHARD

DE (d. 4 May 1162), bishop of London, was
son of the first Bishop Richard's younger
brother, Walter of Belmeis. While the
elder Bishop Richard made Walter's elder
son, Philip, heir to his temporal estates in
Shropshire, he selected his namesake as the
representative of the family interest in the
church. While still very young he was
made prebendary of St. Paul's and archdeacon
of Middlesex, though, owing to his extreme
youth, the duties of the latter office were ful-
filled by a deputy named Hugh, who seems
to have been under a pledge to retire when
Richard attained the canonical age. But
on Bishop Richard's death (1128), Hugh re-
fused to fulfil the simoniacal contract, and
the new bishop, Gilbert the Universal, sup-
ported him in his action. The young Richard
found a better reception in Shropshire, where
a royal grant invested him with certain pre-
bends of the collegiate church of St. Alk-
mund's, Shrewsbury, which his uncle had
previously possessed, and which gave him a
preponderating influence on that body. He
did not, however, despair of pushing his way
in his uncle's old diocese. Bishop Gilbert,
his enemy, died in 1134, and, after a long
vacancy, the chapter vehemently opposed an
attempt to make a certain Anselm bishop. In
1138 they sent their brother, Prebendary
Richard, to Rome to represent their case to
Pope Innocent II. He won the cause of the
chapter, and also persuaded the pope to ap-
point the bishops of Lincoln and Hereford
commissioners to investigate his personal
claims to the archdeaconry of Middlesex.
Before long they decided in'his favour. The
interloper, Hugh, was expelled, and Richard's
ordination as deacon by Bishop Henry of
Winchester, at the request of the papal le-
! gate, marks his actual entry into possession
! of the archdeaconry.

The great work of Richard's life was the
conversion of the estates of the secular canons
of St. Alkmund to the foundation of a col-
lege of canons regular of that branch of the
Augustinian order called the Arroasian. In

Belmeis

201

Beloe

conjunction with his brother Philip, he settled
some Arroasian canons on the family estate
at Donington, and obtained in 1145 a grant
from King Stephen to his canons of his own
prebends at St. Alkmund's and all the other

S-ebends of that church as they fell vacant,
uring the contests of Stephen and Matilda
he vacillated from side to side, always anxious
to obtain from both monarchs alike the con-
firmation of the above grant. He obtained
such confirmations from Archbishop Theodore,
from the empress, and from her son Henry, both
before and after hi s accession to the throne. He
persuaded Eugenius III to force the unwil-
ling bishop of Lichfield to confirm the grant.
About 1146 he had transferred his canons to
Lilleshall, where their house was finally
settled. By this time they had acquired the
whole of the revenues of St. Alkmund's,
which speedily became a poor vicarage. The
foundation of Lilleshall is very typical of the
process of converting seculars into regulars
which was so common at that period.

In 1152 Archdeacon Richard was made
bishop of London, being ordained priest on
20 Sept., and consecrated on 28 Sept. by
Archbishop Theobald. The presence of every
bishop except Henry of Winchester testifies
to the popularity or to the position of the new
prelate, and Henry excused his absence in a
letter of extreme eulogy. As bishop, Richard
seems to have done very little. In 1153 he
was a party to the treaty which secured the
succession to Henry II, and attended with
some regularity that king's court up to the
year 1157. About that date he was seized
with a malady that deprived him of speech
— probably paralysis like his uncle's — and
though he lived on until 1162, his public
career was closed.

Richard of Belmeis the younger seems to
have mainly owed his position both in Lon-
don and Shropshire to family influence. His
only remarkable act was the foundation of
Lilleshall. His vacillation during Stephen's
reign may have been an elevated aversion to
espousing the cause of a faction, but it more
probably proceeded from weakness or self-
seeking. Yet Bishop Henry of Winchester
speaks of him as beautiful in person and
polished in manner, and as both learned and
hard-working. Whether this was panegyric
or sincere praise we have no means of ascer-
taining.

[Ey ton's Antiquities of Shropshire (especially
vol. viii. 212 sq.), where the account of the foun-
dation of Lilleshall is taken from the unpublished
register and chart ulary preserved at Trentham ;
cf. Dugdale's Monasticon, vi. 1 ; Diceto (Yma-
gines Historiarum, i. 296) gives Henry of Blois'
letter.] T. F. T.

BELOE, WILLIAM (1756-1817), divine
and miscellaneous writer, was born at Nor-
wich in 1756, and was the son of a respectable
tradesman. His 'pruriency of parts,' as te
expresses it, led to his receiving a liberal edu-
cation. After an unsuccessful experiment at
a day school in his native city he was placed
under the care of the Rev. Matthew Raine,
and subsequently under ' a dragon of learn-
ing,' no other than Dr. Samuel Parr, whom
he describes as 'severe, wayward, and ir-
regular.' His departure from Parr's school
at Stanmore was hastened by quarrels with
his schoolfellows, and at Bene't College, Cam-
bridge, where his education was completed,
he got into considerable trouble by writing
ill-advised epigrams. His university career,
nevertheless, was in the main so creditable
that his old instructor Parr, upon becoming
head master of Norwich grammar school, of-
fered him the assistant mastership. Beloe
held this situation for three years, but, from
the manner in which he usually speaks of
Parr, apparently without much satisfaction
to his principal or himself. During his resi-
dence at Norwich he married, and after re-
signing his appointment came to London,
wrhere he soon obtained abundance of employ-
ment from the publishers. One of his com-
missions was to translate Parr's preface to
' Bellendenus ' into English, and the skill dis-
played in dealing with this choice but crabbed
piece of latinity recommended him to the
acquaintance of Person, of whom he has pre-
served many interesting particulars in his
' Sexagenarian.' He successively brought out
translations of Coluthus, Alciphron, in which
he was assisted by the Rev. T. Monro, Hero-
dotus, and Aulus Gellius,the preface to which
was written by Parr ; and co-operated in
Tooke's * Biographical Dictionary,' published
(1795) three volumes of miscellanies, and in
1793 established, in conjunction with Arch-
deacon Nares, the ' British Critic,' the first
forty-two volumes of which were partly edited
by him. He also, according to his biographer
in the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' 'gave his as-
sistance in editing various books of consider-
able popularity and importance, which it is
less expedient to specify,' doubtless because
the reputed authors' obligations to him were
too extensive. In 1796 he was presented to
the rectoiy of Allhallows, London WTall, and
in 1803 became keeper of printed books at the
British Museum. He did not long retain this
appointment. In those days the prints and
drawings, equally with the printed books,
were under the care of the keeper of the latter
department, and Beloe's misplaced confidence
opened the way to extensive thefts by a per-
son named Dighton, who is said to have

Beloe

202

Belsham

insinuated himself into the good graces of the
easy-going and somewhat bon vivant custo-
dian by sending him delicacies for his table.
The detection of Dighton's depredations in
1806 inevitably led to Beloe's dismissal, and
he never recovered the blow. He was not de-
terred, however, from prosecuting his ' Anec-
dotes of Literature and Scarce Books,' which
he had been induced to undertake by his ap-
pointment at the Museum. Two volumes,
chiefly derived from his researches in the na-
tional library, appeared in 1806; and by the
assistance of Earl Spencer, the bishop of Ely,
and other patrons, he was enabled to publish
four more, the last appearing in 1812. He
died on 11 April 1817, his latter days having
been embittered by ill-health and other cir-
cumstances not precisely stated. His last
work, * The Sexagenarian, or Recollections of
a Literary Life/ had just passed the press at
the time of his decease, and was published
immediately afterwards under the editorship
of the Rev. Thomas Rennell. It excited much
unfavourable comment. Dr. Butler, head
master of Shrewsbury, criticised it severely
in the ' Monthly Review,' and Dr. Parr, in
the catalogue of his library, felt t compelled
to record the name of Beloe as an ingrate and
a slanderer.' The modern reader may feel
rather disposed to complain that there is not
ill-nature enough to preserve some portions
from insipidity, and that it is hardly worth
consulting, except in one of the numerous
copies where blanks left for names have been
filled up in manuscript. With this assistance,
however, it is in the main very entertaining
reading, and preserves many traits and anec-
dotes with sufficient flavour of human nature
to interest, even when the particular indi-
viduals mentioned have ceased to excite pub-
lic curiosity.

Beloe's character is represented by his
friends in an amiable light, and this estimate
seems on the whole supported by his writings.
There are traces of peevishness and asperity
in the ( Sexagenarian ; ' but, considering his
broken health and fortunes, these might well
have been more numerous. If he forsook the
liberal principles which he originally pro-
fessed, the excesses of the French revolution
are at hand to excuse him. He was a fair
scholar and a man of extensive miscellaneous
reading, but entirely devoid of mental vigour
and originality of talent. He, therefore, ex-
cels chiefly as a translator and annotator.
Something in his mental constitution quali-
fied him admirably for reproducing the limpid
simplicity and amiable garrulity of Herodo-
tus ; his version, infinitely below the modern
standard in point of accuracy, is much above
modern performance in point of readableness.

Aulus Gellius was another author entirely
congenial to him, and his translation, the only
one in English, is a distinct addition to our
literature. The value of both translations,
especially that of Herodotus, is enhanced by
a discursive but most entertaining commen-
tary. The l Sexagenarian ' has been characte-
rised already ; the ' Anecdotes of Literature '
are an amusing but uncritical compilation,
consisting chiefly of extracts from, and biblio-
graphical particulars concerning, old English
books.

[The Sexagenarian ; Preface to Anecdotes of
Literature ; Gent. Mag. and Annual Register for
1817; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. ix. ;
Bibliotheca Parriana, p. 393.] K. G.

BELPER, LOKD. [See STKTJTT.]

BELSHAM, THOMAS (1750-1829), uni-
tarian divine, was born at Bedford, 26 April
1750, being a son of the Rev. James Belsham,
dissenting minister there, and of Anne, his
wife, a daughter of Sir Francis Wingate, and
granddaughter of the first Earl of Anglesey
(WILLIAMS, Memoirs of Thomas Belsham,
p. 1). Belsham received his education first
under Dr. Aikin (a relative on the mother's
side) at Kibworth ; next under a Mr. French,
at Wellingborough, and at Ware when the
school moved there ; and finally at the Da-
ventry academy, which he entered in August
1766. In 1768 he was received as a member
of the independent church there ; in 1770
he became assistant-master of Greek, and in
1771 tutor in mathematics, logic, and meta-
physics. In 1778 he was appointed minister
of the congregation at the independent chapel,
Angel Street, Worcester (WILLIAMS, p. 159) ;
but in 1781 he returned to Daventry to be
resident tutor, and to fill the divinity chair,
together with the pulpit of the town chapel
(independent) ; he began his duties with
forty students. In the course of the next
eight years Belsham's biblical studies led
him to doubt whether the trinitarian posi-
tion could be held; and having satisfied
himself that he could no longer teach trini-
tarianism he resigned his post in 1789, and
was appointed professor of divinity and resi-
dent tutor at the Hackney College, where
his unitarianism was acceptable, and where
Priestley was lecturer on history and philo-
sophy (WILLIAMS, p. 444). In March 1794
Priestley resigned the pulpit of the Gravel
Pit Unitarian Chapel at Hackney on his
departure for America, and it was offered
to Belsham (Gent. Mag. vol. Ixiv. part i. p.
486), who preached his first sermon as mi-
nister on April 6. In 1796 his college ceased
to exist, and he took a house in Grove Place

Belsham

203

Belson

for the reception of private pupils. In 1802,
Priestley's chapel at Birmingham having
keen rebuilt, Belsham preached the opening
sermon there (WILLIAMS, p. 508). In this
year, also, he was appointed one of the trus-
tees of Dr. Williams's charities (ibid. 513).
In 1805 the pulpit of Essex Street chapel,
London, which had been occupied by the
Rev. Theophilus Lindsey and Dr. Disney,
was accepted by Belsham, though he con-
tinued to reside at Hackney, and Lindsey
still occupied the parsonage known as Essex
House. In 1811, Belsham injured his leg by
falling on the step of a coach. This first
impaired his health, which suffered more on
his removal to Essex House, in 1812, on the
death of Mrs. Lindsey. In 1820, an attack
of paralysis forced Belsham to spend much
time at Brighton ; and in 1823, a second
accident to his leg, attended to by Law-
rence and Sir Astley Cooper, and which re-
sulted in his being on crutches for nearly
three years, made him move from the Strand
to Hampstead. Apoplectic seizures were
frequent with him from this period; the
Rev. Thomas Madge was appointed his as-
sistant in 1825 ; and dying at Hampstead
11 Nov. 1829, aged 80, he was buried in the
Bunhill Fields Cemetery, in the same grave
with the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey.

Belsham never married. One of his sisters
married John King, archdeacon of Killala, and
this took him frequently to Ireland. His con-
troversial publications, his sermons, and other
theological works, were very numerous. His
first sermon was published in 1755, two
volumes of discourses were published half
a century after, in 1826 and 1827, and be-
tween these two issues fifty other works
were printed by him, a complete list of which
is appended to the reprint of his * Character
and Writings,' 1830, extracted from the
' Monthly Repository ' for February, &c.,1830.
Belsham's ' Memoirs of Theophilus Lindsey,'
first published in 1812, went through several
•editions, the last being as late as 1873, when
the Unitarian Association printed the cen-
tenary edition, with preface by Rev. R.
Spears. Others of Belsham's more important
works are 'Elements of the Philosophy of
the Human Mind,' 1801 ; the ' Improved
Version of the New Testament ' (Belsham
being principal editor), 1808, which was se-
verely attacked in the ' Quarterly Review '
(WILLIAMS, p. 590) ; i Letters to the Bishop
of London in Vindication of Unitarianism,'
1815 ; and the < Epistles of St. Paul trans-
lated,' 4 vols, 1822, which also received bitter
treatment in the ' Quarterly Review,' No. lix.
(WILLIAMS, p. 752). But, besides these,
the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' from vol. Ixi.

abounds with sharp letters from correspond-
ents attacking Belsham and unitarianism
(the Bishop of St. David's being prominent
amongst them), and with Belsham's sharp
answers in defence of himself and of the prin-
ciple of religious liberty, till in vol. Ixxxvi.
Mr. Sylvanus Urban declined to give any
more space to the subject. In the l Monthly
Magazine ' for February 1807, Belsham pub-
lished some objections to Lysons's account of
Bedford in the ' Magna Britannia,' and Lysons
replied in ' Gentleman's Magazine,' vol. Ixxvii.
pt. ii. p. 405.

[Williams's Memoirs of the late Eev. Thomas
Belsham, 1833 ; Monthly Repository, Feb. et seq.
1830 ; Reprint of this, published by the Unita-
rian Association, 1830; Boswell's Johnson, i.
329, Malone's ed. 1823 ; Freethinking Christian's
Mag. ii. 278 et seq., 360 et seq.] J. H.

BELSHAM, WILLIAM (1752-1827),
political writer and historian, brother of
Thomas Belsham [q.v.], the Unitarian minister
and writer, was born at Bedford in 1752. He
devoted his life to the support, by his pen, of
whig principles, commencing his career as an
author by publishing { Essays, Philosophical,
Historical, and Literary,' two vols. 1789-91.
In 1792 he published ' Examination of an
Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs,' and
in 1793 ' Remarks on the Nature and Neces-
sity of Political Reform.' He also wrote on
the test laws, the French revolution, the
treaty of Amiens, and the poor laws. In 1793
he published, in two volumes, l Memoirs of
the Kings of Great Britain of the House of
Brunswick-Luneburg,' and this was followed
in 1795 by l Memoirs of the Reign of George
III to the Session of Parliament 1793,' in four
volumes, a fifth and sixth volume appearing
in 1801, bringing it down to 1799. In 1798
he published, in two volumes, * A History of
Great Britain from the Revolution to the
Accession of the House of Hanover/ and in
1806 all the volumes were reissued, with two
additional volumes, the twelve volumes ap-
pearing under the title, 'History of Great
Britain to the Conclusion of the Peace of
Amiens in 1802.' The style of Belsham is
clear and simple, his information extensive,
and his opinions enlightened and liberal, if
not philosophical. He justified the Ameri-
cans in their resistance to the demands of
England, and he was a strenuous advocate of
progressive political liberty. He died near
Hammersmith 17 Nov. 1827.

[Literary Gazette for 1827; Gent. Mag. vol.
xcviii. pt. i. pp. 274-5.] T. F. H.

BELSON", JOHN (/. 1688), was a catholic
gentleman, much esteemed on account of
his knowledge of history and controversial

Belson

204

Beltz

matters. He rendered great assistance to
White, Austin, Thomas Blount, John Ser-
geant, and several other learned writers of his j
time. He was living in 1688. Among other '
works he left a controversial treatise con-
cerning tradition, entitled ' Tradidi vobis.'
[Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 458.] T. C.

BELSON, THOMAS (d. 1589), a catholic
gentleman, born at Brill, the seat of his family
in Oxfordshire, studied in the English college
at Rheims, which he left for England on
5 April 1584. He was apprehended at Oxford
in the company of George Nicols and Richard
Yaxley, priests, and, having been convicted on
the charge of assisting them, he was executed
on 5 July 1589.

[Diaries of Douay College, 201, 296 ; Dodd's
Church Hist. 'ii. 151 ; Challoner's Missionary
Priests (1741), i. 247.] T. C.

BELT, THOMAS (1832-1878), geologist,
was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1832, and
was educated at a private school there. From
his early youth he was an enthusiastic stu-
dent of natural history, became a member of
the Tyneside Naturalists' Club in 1850, and
contributed to its ' Transactions.' In 1852 he
left England for the Australian gold-diggings,
and there devoted himself to geological in-
vestigations. When the government expe-
dition for crossing the Australian continent
was first proposed, Belt pointed out the dan-
gers attending any attempt to travel from
south to north, and promised to make the
journey successfully, with his brother as his
only companion, if the government would
convey them to the northerly gulf of Car-
pentaria, and let them start thence for the
south. The disastrous termination of Burke's
expedition in 1861 is a proof of Belt's sagacity
[see BTJKKE, ROBERT O'HABA]. In 1862 he re-
turned to this country, with a high reputation
as a mining engineer, and soon afterwards
proceeded to Nova Scotia as superintendent
of the Nova Scotian Gold Company's mines.
A few years later, while again in England,
he examined the quartz rocks of North Wales
in a vain search for gold. From 1868 to 1872
he conducted the mining operations of the
Chontales Gold Mining Company at Nica-
ragua, and between 1873 and 1876 he paid
frequent visits to Siberia and the steppes of
Southern Russia. In 1878 he went out to
Colorado to fulfil a professional engagement,
and died at Denver on 21 Sept, 1878. Belt
was a fellow of the London Geological
Society, and corresponding member of the
Philadelphian Academy of Natural Sciences.
Belt made the glacial period the chief sub-
ject of his geological studies, and took full

advantage of his travels in North America
and Russia and Wales. To the action of ice
flowing from the direction of Greenland he
ascribed the formation of the lower boulder
clays and diluvium in Europe, and the de-
struction of the great mammals, and pro-
bably of palaeolithic man. On this subject
he contributed papers to the ' Transactions of
the Nova Scotian Institute ' (ii. pt. iii. 70 ;.
pt. iv. p. 91), to the ' Geological Magazine '
(xiv. 156), to the < Quarterly Journal of the
Geological Society' (xxx. 463, 843, xxxii.
80), and to the ' Quarterly Journal of Science '
(xi. 421, xii. 135, xiii. 289, xiv. 67, 326, xv.
55, 316). A paper by Belt on the origin of
whirlwinds, read in 1857 before the Philo-
sophical Institute of Victoria, was communi-
cated by the astronomer-royal to the 'Philo-
sophical Magazine ' (xvii. 47) for 1859. He
was also the author of ' Mineral Veins : an
inquiry into their Origin, founded on a Study
of the Auriferous Quartz Veins of Australia*
(London, 1861), and 'The Naturalist in
Nicaragua : a narrative of a residence at the
Gold Mines of Chontales, and journeys in
the Savannahs and Forests ' (London, 1874).
In these works Belt proves himself a careful
observer of zoological and botanical, as well
as of geological, phenomena.

[Wright's Memoir of Thomas Belt in Natural
Hist. Transactions of Northumberland, Durham,
and Newcastle-on-Tyne, vol. vii. ; Quarterly
Journal of Science, January 1879; information
from Anthony Belt, Esq.] S. L. L.

BELTZ, GEORGE FREDERICK

(1777-1841), Lancaster herald, was for many
years employed in the office of the Garter
king of arms. He became gentleman usher
of the scarlet rod of the order of the Bath,
and Brunswick herald in 1814, in succession
to Sir Isaac Heard. In 1813 he was secre-
tary to the mission sent to invest the Empe-
ror of Russia with the order of the Garter,
and in 1814 he performed a similar office at
the investiture of the Emperor of Austria.
After being portcullis pursuivant from 1817
to 1822 he was appointed Lancaster herald.
In 1826 he was made a companion of the-
Royal Hanoverian Guelphic order, of which
order he was honoured with knighthood in
1836. Mr. Beltz, who was an executor for
the widow of David Garrick, wrote a memoir
of Mrs. Garrick in the ' Gentleman's -Maga-
zine ' for November 1822, and he contributed
papers on archaeological subjects to the ' Gen-
tleman's Magazine (1822), to the ' Retrospec-
tive Review' (1823), and to vols. xxv., xxvii.,
andxxviii. of the ' Archneologia of the Society
of Antiquaries (1833-39). Many of the ela-
borate pedigrees in Sir R. C. Hoare's * History

Belzoni

205

Belzoni

-of South Wiltshire ' were compiled by him. j
In 1834 he published, in an octavo volume,
* A Review of the Chandos Peerage Case, ad-
judicated 1803, and of the pretensions of Sir
'Samuel Egerton Brydges, Bart., to designate
himself per Legem Terrse Baron Chandos of
Sudeley,' in which the emptiness of those pre-
tensions is shown. His only other work was
issued in 1841, under the title of ' Memorials
of the Order of the Garter, from its Founda- !
tion to the Present Time.' He was engaged
in this work during many years, and only sur-
vived its publication by a few months. He
was attacked by his last illness while on a tour
on the continent, and died at Basle 23 Oct.
1841, aged about 64, and was interred in the
cemetery of the parish of St. Peter there.

[Gent. Mag. January 1842, p. 107.] C. W. S.

BELZONI, GIOVANNI BAPTISTA

(1778-1823), actor, engineer, and traveller,
was born at Padua in 1778. His father was
a Roman barber, and it was at Rome that
Giovanni was educated, as he tells us him-
self, for monastic orders. The French in-
vasion, however, in 1798, seems to have
unsettled the young man's mind, and at the
beginning of the present century he started
upon a career of enterprise and adventure
-which has few parallels even in the annals
of discovery. Belzoni came to England in
1803 to seek his fortune. He was then a re-
markable figure, six feet seven inches high and
broad in proportion, with winning manners j
and a decidedly handsome countenance (as
may be seen in the portrait prefixed to the
quarto edition of his ' Narrative '). His per-
sonal charms soon brought him an English
consort of Amazonian proportions, and the gi-
gantic pair set about earning their living. Bel-
zoni had evidently made away with any funds
he may have brought with him to England, for
he was reduced to exhibiting feats of strength
in company with his wife in the streets and
at the fairs of London, until he obtained an
engagement at Ast ley's Royal Amphitheatre,
where he acted the roles of Apollo and
Hercules with success. There is a sketch in
the British Museum (Saddlers PPWfe,vol.xiv.)
of the booth in which Belzoni performed at
Camberwell and Bartholomew fairs in 1803,
which indicates that he took to the boards
immediately on his arrival in England. Pre-
sently he turned to a more scientific pursuit,
which afterwards served him in good stead
in Egypt. He had studied hydraulics at
Rome, and had invented some improvements
in water-engines. These he now exhibited
in various parts of England, but still found
it necessary on occasion to fall back on those
feats of strength of which he was past-

master. Hercules laden with ponderous
leaden burdens, however, proved an exhaust-
ing role, and the actor-engineer tried a change
of scene in a tour in Spain and Portugal,
where he personated Samson.

At last, in 1815, he found himself in Egypt,
where he was to immortalise his name by some
of the earliest and most important discoveries
of the present century. Whether he ingra-
tiated himself by tumbling or merely by his
insinuating manner is not clear, but Belzoni
obtained an order from the pasha, Mohammed
Aly, to erect one of his improved hydraulic
machines in the viceregal garden at Shubra
near Cairo. Then as now, however, im-
provements in irrigation met with but scanty
recognition in Egypt, and the fellaheen were
universally opposed to an innovation of
which they could only understand the draw-
backs. But the introduction to the Egyptian
authorities proved of more lasting service to
Belzoni than his pump did to the pasha. At
the recommendation of Burckhardt, and with
funds supplied by Mr. Henry Salt, the British
consul-general, he was shortly afterwards
(1816) employed on the difficult task of remov-
ing the colossal granite bust of Rameses II,
commonly known as the f Young Memnon,'
from Thebes to shipboard for transport to the
British Museum. It is now the most promi-
nent object in the central saloon of the mu-
seum, which is indeed full of objects purchased
from Mr. Salt and to a large extent dis-
covered by Belzoni. The next four years were
full of valuable work. Belzoni had acquired a
remarkable influence over the peasants by
reason of his great strength and portentous
height, and, aided by Mr. Salt's liberality, he
now began a series of journeys which no one
who did not know the people well could have
successfully accomplished. He penetrated
as far south as the Second Cataract, and exca-
vated for the first time (1817) the great temple
of Rameses II at Abu-Simbel (Ipsaniboul) :
he continued his explorations at Karnak
(Thebes) ; he crossed over to the Valley of
the Tombs of the Kings in the Libyan moun-
tains, and opened (1817) the famous grotto-
sepulchre of Seti I, which is still known to
every tourist as ' Belzoni's Tomb,' and found
the beautiful alabaster sarcophagus which
was purchased by Sir John Soane for 2,000/.,
and is to this day exhibited in the museum in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. With the same happy
instinct for discovery which always led him
to find the way into unexplored monuments,
Belzoni next lighted upon the entrance to
the second pyramid of Gizeh, which ever
since the time of Herodotus had been sup-
posed to contain no interior chambers, but
wherein the discoverer found the room now

Belzoni

206

Ben

known by his name, and in it the sarcophagus
of the builder, King Khafra (Chephren), con-
taining bones which Belzoni believed to be
those of the founder, but which proved to
be those of an ox. Among other feats of
discovery Belzoni crossed the eastern desert
from near Esne to the shore of the Red Sea,
and identified the ruins of Berenice, and, on
the west, visited Lake Moeris and reached
the Lesser Oasis, which he erroneously took
to be that of Ammon.

On his return to Europe in 1819 he re-
visited his native city, and the Paduans
struck a gold medal in commemoration of
his discoveries. The medal is to be seen at
the British Museum, and has for the device
two statues of Sekhet, with the inscriptions :
1 Ob donum patria grata MDCCCXIX.' (in re-
ference to a gift of statues which Belzoni
had made to his native city), and ' 10 BAPT
BELZONI Patavino qui Cephrenis pyra-
midem Apidisq. Theb. sepulcrum primus
aperuit et urbem Berenicis, Nubiae et Libyse
mon. impavide detexit.' Upon his arrival in
England he constructed a facsimile model of
two chambers of the tomb of Seti from
drawings and wax impressions which he had
taken on the spot, and exhibited it with suc-
cess at the Egyptian Hall. The shilling guide
books of 1820 and 1821, sold to visitors to
this show, are preserved in the British Mu-
seum. In 1820 Mr. Murray published the
' Narrative of the Operations and Recent
Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples,
Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia,'
with an atlas of 44 plates. The narrative
is written in a simple and broken but very
effective style, and, as the first contribution
to English research in Egypt, was received
with wide interest. Three editions were
published before 1822, and the work was re-
printed in Brussels in 1835. Belzoni also
prepared a set of coloured drawings of the
paintings on the wall of Seti's tomb which
he presented to the Duke of Sussex, and this
curious work is preserved in the British
Museum. In 1822 the model of Seti's tomb
was exhibited at Paris, where, however, it
attracted little attention ; and the discoverer,
thirsting for fresh fields, set out in the
autumn of 1823 on a voyage of exploration
to Timbuktu, in the hope of tracing the
source of the Niger, which he suspected
would be found united with that of the
Nile. The patriarchal firm of Briggs of
Alexandria assisted him with funds for this
purpose, and, after a vain attempt to obtain
permission from the Emperor of Morocco to
pass through his dominions, Belzoni deter-
mined to begin his journey from Cape Coast,
and at once entered into negotiations with

the King of Benin to gain leave to traverse
his kingdom as far as Hausa on the road to
Timbuktu. Everything was satisfactorily
arranged, and Belzoni, in native dress, at-
tended by a guide armed with the king's
cane and authority, was on his way, when,
he was attacked by dysentery, and died on
3 Dec. 1823, at Gato in Benin, where a
simple inscription marks his grave beneath a
spreading tree.

Belzoni was no scholar, but as a discoverer
he stands in the first rank. His important
excavations in Egypt paved the way for the-
later explorations of Bonomi, Wilkinson,
Lepsius, and Mariette. Personally he was
brave, ardent in the cause of discovery, in-
genious and full of resource, and very per-
severing in working out any scheme he had
entered upon. His character was gentle, as-
a giant's usually is ; he was trustworthy and
honourable, but unduly suspicious of others.
The jealousy he displayed towards his bene-
factor, Mr. Salt, was not creditable to the man ;
but it is allowed that Belzoni was eccentric,-
and his apparent ingratitude was not typical
of his character in general. When his origin
and first steps in life are considered, it must
be allowed that he is one of the most striking
and interesting figures in the history of eastern
travel.

[Belzoni's Preface to the Narrative of Opera-
tions ; Hall's Life of Henry Salt, i. 490, ii. 1-64,
295 if. ; Annual Register, Ixvi. 202-3 ; Penny
Cyclopaedia ; Nouvelle Biographic Generale.l

S. L.-P.

BEN, BANE, BENE, BENNET, or
BIORT, JAMES (d. 1332), bishop of St.
Andrews, was trained from his youth for the
church. As archdeacon of St. Andrews he
was sent to France in 1325, along with three
other dignitaries, to renew an offensive and
defensive alliance with that country. In the
original document his name occurs as Bene ;
he is subsequently mentioned as Sir James
Bane ; by Fordun he is called Jacobus Be-
nedicti ; while the name on his tombstone
was Jacobus dominus de Biurt. On 19 June
1328 he was elected by the canons to the
bishopric of St. Andrews, in succession to
Bishop Lamberton, the other name proposed
being that of Sir Alexander Kinninmouth,
archdeacon of Lothian. The bishops of St.
Andrews were accustomed to officiate at
the coronation of the Scottish kings, but
Bishop Ben was the first to perform the
ceremony of anointing them by special au-
thority of the pope. This he did in the case
of David II and his queen Johanna at Scone
in 1331. In Lyon's 'History of St. An-
drews ' (i. 12) there is a copy of a mandate

Benazech

207

Benbow

issued by Bishop Ben from Inchmurtah (now
Smiddy Green, a few miles south of St. An-
drews on Pitmillyburn), where the bishops
then had their residence, against the carrying
away of stones from the rock next the sea on
the north side of the cathedral church. In
this document the bishop's name occurs as Sir
James de Bane. Soon after the coronation of
David he was made chamberlain of Scotland ;
but on its invasion by Edward Baliol and
the disinherited barons he fled to Bruges in
Flanders, where he died 22 Sept. 1332. He
was buried in the abbey of the canons regular
of Eckchot or Akewood, where a tomb was
erected to him with the following inscrip-
tion : ' Hicjacet bonse memoriae Jacobus do-
minus de Biurt, episcopus Sti Andreae in
Scotia, nostrae religionis, qui obiit anno Do-
mini millesimo tricentesimo trigesimo se-
cundo, vigesimo secundo die Septembris.
Orate pro eo.'

[Fordun's Scotichron. ; Theiner's Vet. Mon.
Hib. et Scot. pp. 244, 245 ; Mem. Scot. Coll.
Paris ; Crawfurd's Lives of the Officers of State
in Scotland, i. 286 ; Bishop Gordon's Ecclesi-
astical Chronicle of Scotland, i. 189-95.]

BENAZECH, CHARLES (1767 P-1794),
portrait and historical painter, the son of
Peter Paul Benazech [q. v.], was born in
London about 1767. In 1782, at the age
of fifteen, he went to Rome, and on his way
home stayed for a time in Paris, where he
studied under Greuze, and witnessed the
outbreak of the French Revolution. This
eventful period furnished him with the sub-
jects of four pictures by which he became
known : ' The Address of Louis XVI at the
Bar of the National Convention,' t The Se-
paration of Louis XVI from his Family,'
1 The last Interview between Louis XVI and
his Family,' and ' Louis XVI ascending the
Scaffold.' These have been engraved by
Luigi Schiavonetti. He painted also ' The
last Interview between Charles I and his
Children,' engraved by T. Gaugatn, as well
as some subjects from the poets and several
good portraits. He was a member of the
Florentine Academy, and exhibited at the
Royal Academy in London in the years 1790
and 1791. He likewise engraved a few
plates in aquatint, including the ' Couronne-
ment de la Rosiere,' in which he attempted
to imitate the manner of Debucourt, and
also some portraits after himself, as well as
two of Henry IV, king of France, and Sully,
after Pourbus, which are signed with the
fictitious name of Frieselheim. He died
in London in the summer of 1794, in the
twenty-seventh year of his age.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878;

Meyer's Allgemeines Kiinstler-Lexikon, 1872,
&c., iii. 501 ; Portalis and Beraldi's G-raveurs
du Dix-huitieme Siecle, 1880-2, i. 158.]

R. E. GK

BENA.ZECH, PETER PAUL (1744 ?-
1783 ?), line-engraver, is said to have been
born in England about the year 1744. He
was a pupil of Francis Vivares, and worked
as a draughtsman and engraver both in
London and in Paris. His engravings are
tastefully executed, and consist chiefly of
landscapes and marine subjects, the best
being those after Dietrich and Joseph Vernet.
He engraved also a series of anatomical plates,
a set of seven scenes from the Seven Years'
War, and, in conjunction with Canot, four
plates of engagements between the English
and French fleets, after Francis Swaine.
Besides these he engraved ' Peasants playing
at Bowls,' after Adriaan van Ostade, and
views in England after Chatelain and Brooks.
The year of his death is not known, but his
latest dated plate is l The Tomb of Virgil/
after Hugh Dean, engraved in 1783.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878 ;
Meyer's Allgemeines Kiinstler-Lexikcn, 1872,
&c., iii. 500-1 ; Portalis and Beraldi's Graveurs
du Dix-huitieme Siecle, 1880-2, i. 157.]

R. E. G.

BENBOW, JOHN (1653-1702), vice-
admiral, was the son of William Benbow, a
tanner of Shrewsbury, and nephew of that
Captain John Benbow who, having served
with some distinction in the parliamentary
army, went over to the royalists after the
death of the king, and, being taken prisoner
at the battle of Worcester, was tried by
court-martial and shot, 16 Oct. 1651 (QWEST
and BLAKEWAY'S Hist, of Shrewsbury, i. 469 ;
ii. 391 ; Cal. of 8. P. Dom. 1651, pp. 421-2,
457). The exact date of his birth has been
recorded by Partridge, the astrologer, as noon,
on 10 March 1652-3 (Egerton MS. 2378, f.
296).

Of Benbow's early youth there are no
authentic accounts, but the fact of his father
having been a tanner gives credit to the local
tradition that he was apprenticed to a butcher,
from whose shop he ran away to sea. On
30 April 1678, he entered as a master's mate
on board the Rupert, fitting out at Ports-
mouth under the command of Captain Her-
bert, afterwards Earl of Torrington. In the
Rupert he went out to the Mediterranean,
was engaged in some smart actions with
Algerine corsairs, and so far won on the good
will of Captain Herbert, the second in com-
mand of the squadron, that he obtained from
him his promotion as master of the Nonsuch,
15 June 1679 (Paybooks of Rupert and Non-

Benbow

208

Benbow

such ; Log of Nonsuch). The Nonsuch con-
tinued at Tangier and on the African coast,
under the successive command of Rooke,
Shovell, and Wheler, then young captains.
Wheler died early, but Herbert, Rooke, and
Shovell were afterwards able to testify to their
high opinion of Benbow, and to push his for-
tune. On 8 April 1681 the Nonsuch captured
an Algerine cruiser which had been engaged by
and had beaten off the Adventure, commanded
by Captain Booth ; and it would seem that the
Nonsuch's men indulged in rude witticisms
at the expense of the Adventure's. Benbow
repeated some of these, reflecting on Captain
Booth's conduct, which coming to Booth's
knowledge, he brought Benbow to a court-
martial, and the fault being proved, with the
saving clause that he had f only repeated
those words after another,' Benbow was sen-
tenced to forfeit three months' pay, ' to be
disposed of for the use of the wounded men
on board the Adventure ;' and likewise to ' ask
Captain Booth's pardon on board his Majesty's
ship Bristol, declaring that he had no mali-
cious intent in speaking those words ; all the
commanders being present, and a boat's crew
of each ship's company ' (Minutes of the
•court-martial, 20 April 1681. The three
months' pay, amounting to 12/. 15*., appears
duly checked against his name in the Non-
such's pay-book).

In the following August Captain Wheler
was superseded by Captain Wrenn, and on
9 Nov. 1681 the Nonsuch was paid off.
Benbow for a time disappears : it is likely
enough that he returned to the merchant ser-
vice, and that in 1686 he owned and com-
manded a ship named the Benbow frigate, in
the Levant trade, and that in her he made a
stout and successful defence against a Sallee
rover. The story that he cut off and salted
down the heads of thirteen Moors who were
slain on the Benbow's deck, that he carried
these trophies into Cadiz, and displayed them
to the magistrates in order to claim head-
money, is not in itself improbable, though
told with much grotesque exaggeration
(CAMPBELL, Lives of the Admirals, iii. 335),
and is to some extent corroborated by the
existence of a Moorish skull-cap, made of
finely plaited cane, mounted in silver, and
bearing the inscription, ' The first adventure
of Captain John Benbo, and gift to Richard
Ridley, 1687.' Ridley was the husband of
one of Benbow's sisters, and sixty years ago
•the skull-cap was still in the possession of his
descendants (OWEN and BLAKEWAY, ii. 392).
Benbow did not re-enter the navy till after
the revolution, and his first recorded commis-
sion, dated 1 June 1689, was as third lieu-
tenant of the Elizabeth, of 70 guns, then com-

manded by Captain (afterwards Sir David)
Mitchell. On 20 Sept. he was appointed cap-
tain of the York, 70 guns ; on 26 Oct. was
transferred to the Bonaventure, 50 guns ; and
again on 12 Nov. to the Britannia. We may
assume that he owed this rapid promotion to
his former captain, Admiral Herbert, whose
star was at this time in the ascendant ; and
it is almost allowable to conjecture that,
j during the critical months of the revolution,
he had been in Herbert's service, and had
piloted the fleet which landed William III in
Torbay.

From the Britannia Benbow was appointed
master attendant of Chatham dockyard ;
early in March 1689-90 he was removed to
' Deptford in the same capacity, and he con-
tinued to hold that office for the next six
years, although frequently relieved from its
duties and employed on particular service.
In the summer of 1690 he was master of the
Sovereign, bearing the flag of Lord Torring-
ton, and acted as master of the fleet before
and during the unfortunate battle off Beachy
Head. In the court-martial held on 10 Dec.
Benbow's evidence told strongly in favour of
the admiral, and no doubt contributed largely
to his acquittal, though it was not sufficient
to convince the king, or to turn the verdict
of posterity in his favour [see HERBERT,
ARTHUR, Lord Torrington]. Benbow was
still in the Sovereign during the summer of
1691, and in the summer of 1692 was again
master of the fleet under Admiral Russell, on
board the Britannia, and had his share in the
glories of Barfleur and La Hogue. It had
been already ordered that whilst he was
serving afloat his pay as master was to be
made up to that of master attendant at Dept-
ford. An order was now issued for him to
be paid as master attendant in addition to his
pay as master, presumably in direct acknow-
ledgment of special services in the conduct of
the fleet (Admiralty Minutes, 14 Aug. 1691,
12 Feb. 1691-2, 16 Oct. 1692).

In Sept. 1693 Benbow was again appointed
away from his dockyard to command a flotilla
of bomb-vessels and fireships ordered to at-
tack St. Malo. The bombardment began on
the evening of 16 Nov., and continued, though
| with frequent intermissions, till the even-
i ing of the 19th, when a large fireship was
| sent in. It was intended to lay this vessel
alongside the town walls ; but she took the
ground at some little distance, where she was
set on fire. Even so the damage done was
considerable. Benbow himself was much
dissatisfied with the result, and brought the
commander of one of the bomb-vessels to a
court martial for disobedience in not going in
closer : he was not, however, able to procure

Benbow

209

Benbow

a conviction. In September 1694 he was again
.appointed to a similar flotilla intended to act
against Dunkirk. The bomb-vessels were
to be supported by a number of so-called
machines, invented by one Meester, an engi-
neer. They would seem to have been explo-
sive fireships, similar to, but smaller than,
the one tried at St. Malo in the summer. The
.attacking squadron was covered by the fleet
from the Downs, commanded by Sir Clowdis-
ley Shovell, and the attempt was made on
12 and 13 Sept. No result, however, was ob-
tained. The French had blocked the entrance
to the port, and, the weather having set in
stormy, the fleet and the flotilla returned to
the Downs. In the following summer it was
resolved to make a further attempt with ;
these machines. Benbow was again ap- j
pointed to the command of the bomb- vessels,
which, supported by the English and Dutch
fleet under Admirals Lord Berkeley and Van
Almonde, appeared off St. Malo on 4 July,
and immediately opened fire. They kept this
up till dark, renewed it the next morning,
and continued it till evening, when they drew
off, without any decisive result, several houses
having been knocked down or set on fire,
whilst on the side of the assailants some of I
the bomb-vessels were shattered or sunk. In
a council of war held the next day it was
resolved that as much had been done as could !
be hoped for. Benbow, with the bomb- I
vessels and some frigates, was sent along the j
coast to attack Granville, which he shelled
for some hours, alarming, but not seriously
injuring, the inhabitants (P. J?. O. Home Office j
{Admiralty) Records, ix. ; Brit. Mus. Addit.
MS. 21494, ff. 29 et seq.). In the further at-
tacks on the French coast during that summer
Benbow had no share. He gave up his com-
mand on the return of the fleet to the Downs.
* Benbow is quitting his ship,' wrote Lord
Berkeley on 23 July. ' I cannot imagine the
reason. He pretends sickness, but I think it
is only feigned.' And on the 28th he again
wrote : ' As to Captain Benbow, I know of
no difference between him. and me, nor have
we had any. He has no small obligation to
me, but being called in some of the foolish
printed papers "the famous Captain Ben-
bow," I suppose has put him a little out of
himself, and has made him play the fool, as
I guess, in some of his letters. I will not
farther now particularize this business, but
time will show I have not been in the
wrong, unless being too kind to an ungrate-
ful man.' Notwithstanding this, however,
Benbow's conduct was warmly approved of;
the admiralty ordered him 'to be paid as
rear-admiral during the time he has been
•employed this summer on the coast of France

VOL. IV.

. . . as a reward for his good service'
(Minutes, 12 Sept. 1695), and early in the
following spring gave him the rank as well.
In May 1696 he was appointed commander-
in-chief of the squadron before Dunkirk, and
was ordered to stretch as far to the north-
ward as he thought * convenient for the inter-
cepting of Bart's squadron and protecting the
English and Dutch trades expected home
northabout.' The orders to look out for Bart
were repeated more than once (Minutes,
15 May, 29 July), but Benbow's efforts were
unavailing. In the middle of September he
did, indeed, manage to get a distant view of the
object of his search, but Bart easily escaped
into Dunkirk. Benbow, on learning this, re-
turned to the Downs, and in December was
appointed to command the squadron in the
Soundings for the protection of the home-
ward-bound trade. He continued on this
service till the peace, when, with very short
rest, he was (9 March 1697-8) appointed
commander-in-chief of the king's ships in the
West Indies, with special orders to hunt
down the pirates. His sailing was delayed
till November, and he did not reach Barba-
does till February of the next year, 1698-9.
Thence he proceeded towards the Spanish
main, and, by a threat of blockading Carta-
gena, induced the governor to restore two
English merchant ships which he had de-
tained to form part of a projected expedi-
tion against the Scotch colony at Darien.
Benbow's action virtually put an end to
this, and preserved the colonists for the time.
This result would seem to have been dis-
pleasing to the home government, and in
June stringent orders were sent out to Ben-
bow and the governors in the West Indies
f not to assist the Scotch colony in Darien '
(Adm. Min. 21 June 1699). The rest of
the year was occupied in ineffectual efforts to
persuade or constrain the Spanish comman-
dants at Porto Bello, or St. Domingo, to re-
store some ships which had been seized for
illicit trading, and in a vain attempt to in-
duce the Danish governor of St. Thomas's
to give up some pirates who had sheltered
themselves under the Danish flag. He after-
wards ranged along the coast of North
America as far as Newfoundland, scaring the
pirates away for the time, but failing to cap-
ture any, and towards the summer of 1700
he returned to England. He was almost im-
mediately appointed to the command in the
Downs, and continued there through the
spring and summer of 1701, when he served
for some months as vice-admiral of the blue,
in the grand fleet under Sir George Rooke, and
was then again sent to the West Indies as
commander-in-chief. He arrived at Barba-

Benbow

210

Benbow

does on 3 Nov., and proceeded by easy stages
to Jamaica, where a French fleet was ex-
pected. For several months Benbow remained
at Jamaica, and on 8 May was joined by Rear-
admiral Whetstone. Thus strengthened, he
shortly afterwards proceeded for a cruise on
the coast of Hispaniola. In August he re-
ceived news of the French squadron having
gone to Cartagena and Porto Bello. On
19 Aug. he sighted it in the neighbourhood
of Santa Mart a. It consisted of four ships of
from 60 to 70 guns ; one of 30, a transport,
and four small frigates, all under the com-
mand of M. du Casse. The English force
consisted of seven ships of from 50 to 70 guns,
but was much scattered, and the comman-
ders showed no great alacrity in closing. It
was late in the afternoon before the ships
were in any collected order, and a partial en-
gagement, lasting for about a couple of hours,
was put an end to by nightfall. The admiral
in the Breda, of 70 guns, closely followed by
Captain Walton in the Ruby, of 50 guns,
kept company with the French all night, and
was well up with them at daybreak ; but the
other ships did not close during the whole
day. The 21st and three following days
brought no more resolution to the different
captains of the squadron. Walton only, and
Vincent of the Falmouth, supported the ad-
miral in his continued attempts to bring
Du Casse to action, and for some time these
three sustained the fire of the whole French
squadron, while the other ships held aloof.
The Ruby was disabled on the 23rd, and
ordered to make the best of her way to Port
Royal. Early on the morning of the 24th
Benbow's right leg was shattered by a chain-
shot, He was carried below, but as soon as
the wound was dressed he had himself taken
up on to the quarter-deck. Captain Kirkby
of the Defiance came on board and urged him
to give up the chase. All the other captains
being summoned on board concurred in this;
they even put their opinion on paper ; and
the admiral was thus compelled to return
to Jamaica. There he ordered a court mar-
tial to be assembled. Captains Kirkby of
the Defiance, and Wade of the Greenwich,
were condemned to be shot, and Captain Con-
stable of the Windsor to be cashiered. Captain
Hudson of the Pendennis died before the
trial ; Captain Vincent of the Falmouth, and
Captain Fogg of the flag-ship, who had signed
the protest, were suspended during the queen's
pleasure. Kirkby and Wade were shot on
board the Bristol in Plymouth Sound, 16 April
1703 [see ACTON, EDWARD]. The admiral
had succumbed to his wound some months
earlier. He died at Port Royal on 4 Nov. 1702,
and was buried in the chancel of St. Andrew's

Church, Kingston, where a slab of blue slate
still marks his grave (DENNY, Cruise of the
St. George (1862), p. 95). The inscription on
this is curiously inaccurate. It describes Ben-
bow as admiral of the white — he was, in fact,
at the time of his death vice-admiral of the
blue ; it overstates his age by two years, and
it emblazons as his the arms of a family with
which he had no connection (OWEN and
BLAKEWAY, ii. 391). There is no record of
the author of this inscription, but the mis-
takes show that it must have been written,
j probably at a considerable time after the ad-
miral's death, by some one ignorant of naval
distinctions, not intimately acquainted with
the admiral, and yet desirous of exalting his
social status. All this seems to point to Mr,
Calton, the husband of Benbow's daughter,
whose extraordinary misrepresentations to
Dr. Campbell have been sufficiently exposed
by the authors of the 'History of Shrewsbury/

The exact narration of Benbow's history
may cause some wonder as to his high repu-
tation. For in no one instance where he com-
manded was any success over the enemy
obtained, and his engagement with Du Casse
was the most disgraceful event in our naval
records. He fought indeed bravely ; but in a
commander-in-chief mere personal bravery
goes for very little, and it was pointed out at
the time that it was the admiral's plain duty
to have at once superseded and confined the
false-hearted officers (BURCHETT, 598). Nor
is it clear that the mutiny — for it was nothing
less — was not largely due to his own want of
temper and tact. Kirkby and the others were
officers of good repute, and of good service.
There are very good grounds for believing
that their disaffection was personal to Ben-
bow. The admiral, who is described as 'an
honest rough seaman,' is said to have treated
* Captain Kirkby, and the rest of the gentle-
men, a little briskly at Jamaica, when he
found them not quite so ready to obey his
orders as he thought was their duty ' (CAMP-
BELL, ii. 34) ; and we may very well believe
that this ' brisk treatment ' administered by
an ' honest rough seaman ' meant a good deal
of coarse language. This is the view which
seems to meet the facts of the case ; and
though it does not lessen the guilt of the cap-
tains, it does check our sharing in the tradi-
tional admiration of the admiral who goaded
them to crime.

Benbow appears to have married early : his
wife's name was Martha, and he had several
children ; three sons and two daughters are
named (OWEN and BLAKEWAT, ii. 394), but the
dates (1679, 1680, 1681) assigned to the birth
of the three eldest correspond with the period
of Benbow's service in the Mediterranean on.

Benbow

211

Benbow

board the Rupert and Nonsuch, and cannot
be correct, unless we suppose that his wife
accompanied him on board the ship, which is
barely possible. The sons all died young and
unmarried. Martha, the eldest daughter,
was twice married, and died in 1719. The
youngest, Catharine, said to have been born
in 1087, married in 1709 Mr. Paul Calton, of
Milton, in Berkshire. Mention is also made
of a sister Eleanor, born 7 July 1646, who
married Samuel Hind, a grocer in Shrews-
bury, and died 24 May 1724, and of another
sister, Elizabeth, who married Richard Rid-
ley, possibly a companion of Benbow in some
of his early adventures.

Evelyn has entered in his diary, under date
1 June 1696, that he had let his house at
Deptford ' for three years to Vice (sic) Admi-
ral Benbow, with condition to keep up the
gardens ; ' and in a letter of 18 Jan. 1696-7,
complained that having ' let his house to Cap-
tain (sic) Benbow, he had the mortification
of seeing every day much of his former
labours and expense there impairing for want
of a more polite tenant.' As, however, during
the greater part of this time, Rear-admiral
Benbow was employed looking for Jean Bart,
the neglect was not due to him individually.
The admiral himself is always spoken of as a
man of most temperate habits, and who was
never seen disguised in drink (OwEN and
BLAXEWAY, ii. 393 n.~). His portrait by Sir
Godfrey Kneller, formerly at Hampton Court,
is now in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, to
which it was presented by George IV in
1824. It represents a man of lithe figure,
dark complexion, and clear-cut features, very
different from the idea we might otherwise
form of one so specially described as ' a rough
seaman/

[Official letters and other documents in the
Public Record Office ; Burchett's Naval History ;
Lediard's Naval History; Baron du Casse's
L'Amiral du Casse (1876), 257 ; Charnock (Biog.
Nav. ii. 233) contributes some interesting and
original matter ; but the family and early history
he has merely repeated from the memoir in
Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, or in the Biog.
Britannica, which professes to be written from
materials supplied by Benbow's son-in-law, Mr.
Calton. But Mr. Calton's information is utterly
untrustworthy. The well-known letter from Du
Casse to Benbow is part of this : it has been
quoted and requoted times without number, but
only from this copy of an alleged translation
given by Mr. Calton to Dr. Campbell, and first
published by him. "We have no account of the
original letter ; no one — except Calton — has ever
pretended to have seen it. The substance of it
is utterly opposed to all French history and
to French nature. It may possibly be a garbled
extract, though there is no reason to suppose that

it is ; but nothing in verbal criticism can be more
certain than that a French original of the letter,
as published, never existed. Catharine Benbow,
who married Mr. Calton, was certainly not more
than fifteen years old at the time of her father's
death. From his constant service she, personally,
could have known very little about him, and she
did not marry for seven years afterwards ; it is-
therefore not to be wondered at that Calton was
entirely ignorant of his father-in-law's early
career, or very humble antecedents. But that he
should devote himself to foisting on Campbell's
credulity a romance, of which the greater part has
not even a substratum of fact, and that this
romance should have been very generally accepted
as truth, are not the least curious of the many
curious things connected with Benbow's history.!

J. K. L.

BENBOW, JOHN (1681 P-1708), travel-
ler, son of Vice-admiral John Benbow [q. v.],
was, on 29 June 1695, appointed a volunteer
on board their Majesties' ship Northumber-
land. He did not, however, remain long in
the navy, and in February 1700-1 sailed for
the East Indies as fourth mate of the De-
grave merchant ship. As his father was at
this time commander-in-chief in the Downs,
and was a few months later appointed com-
mander-in-chief in the West Indies, and thus
had it in his power to advance him in the navy,
it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there
was some breach between the two. The De-
grave, a ship of 700 tons, duly arrived in Ben-
gal, where the captain and first mate died ; and
thus, in ordinary course, Benbow was second
mate when she started for her homeward
voyage. In going out of the river the ship
grounded heavily, and though she was got
off without difficulty, and, as it was believed,
without damage, she was scarcely well to
sea, with a fresh northerly monsoon, before
she was found to be leaking badly. With
the pumps going constantly they reached
Mauritius in a couple of months, but with
a singular rashness started again for the Cape
without having even discovered the leak.
The ship, coming into a more stormy sea, was
in imminent danger of sinking, and the
captain, officers, and ship's company deter-
mined to make for the nearest land, which
was the south end of Madagascar. There
they ran the ship ashore ; she became a com-
plete wreck, little or nothing was saved, and
the men got to land with considerable diffi-
culty. They were almost immediately made
prisoners by the natives. Benbow, together
with two or three of his companions, managed
to escape ; he reached Fort Dauphin, and
was eventually rescued by a Dutch ship
and brought home. The rest of the ship's
company were killed, with the exception of
one boy, Robert Drury, then fifteen years

p 2

Bendings

212

Bendish

old, who, after fifteen years' captivity, was
rescued by an English ship, and spent the
rest of his life as porter in a London ware-
house. We may suppose that Benbow's
constitution was broken by the hardships of
his savage 'life : he seems to have lived for a
few years at Deptford, in very humble cir-
cumstances, and died 17 Nov. 1708.

He had written some account of Mada-
gascar which remained in manuscript, and
was accidentally burnt in 1714. It had, how-
ever, been seen by several, and the hazy
recollections of it, together with Drury s
story, were worked up, not improbably by
Defoe, and published under Drury's name
with the title of ' Madagascar, or Journal
during Fifteen Years' Captivity on that
Island '(1729).

[Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, iii. 349 ;
Gent. Mag. (1769), xxxix. 172.] J. K. L.

BENDINGS, WILLIAM (fi. 1180),
judge, was, according to Giraldus Cambrensis,
sent to Ireland by Henry II in 1176 as one of
four envoys, of whom two were to remain with
the viceroy, Richard FitzGilbert, earl of Stri-
guil, and two were to return, bringing with
them Reimund Fitzgerald, whose military ex-
ploits had aroused the king's jealousy. Rei-
mund did not at once comply with the royal
mandate, being compelled by the threatening
attitude of Donnell to march to the relief of
Limerick, a town which he had only lately
taken. It is probable, however, that on the
evacuation of Limerick, which took place the
same year, soon after the death of the Earl of
Striguil, Reimund returned to England, as he
is not again heard of in Ireland until 1182, and
that Bendings was one of those who accom-
panied him. In 1179, on the resignation of
the chief justice, Richard de Lucy, a redistri-
bution of the circuits was carried into effect.
In place of the six circuits then existing the
country was divided into four, to each of
which, except the northern circuit, five judges
were assigned, three or four of the number
being laymen. To the northern circuit six
judges were assigned, of whom Bendings
was one, having for one of his colleagues the
celebrated Ranulf Glanvill, who was made
chief justice the following year. In 1183-4
we find him acting as sheriff of Dorset and
Somerset, the two counties being united
under his single jurisdiction. There seems
to be no reason to suppose, with Foss, that
the expression, 'sex justitise in curia regis
constituti ad audiendum clamores populi/
applied to the six judges of the northern cir-
cuit, imports any jurisdiction peculiar to
them. The date of Bending's death is un-
certain; but that he was living in 1189-90

is proved by the fact that he is entered in
the pipe roll of that year as rendering cer-
tain accounts to the exchequer.

[Griraldus Cambrensis, Expug. Hibern. ii. cc.
11, 20 ; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 3 ; Madox's Exch.
i. 94, 138, 285; Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, ii. 191;
Pipe Koll 1, Kic. I (Hunter), 147 ; Foss's Judges
of England.] J. M. E.

BENDISH, BRIDGET (1650-1726),
Oliver Cromwell's granddaughter, was daugh-
ter of General Henry Ireton, by his wife
Bridget, Cromwell's eldest daughter. She
was born about 1650. As a child she was
a favourite with her grandfather. About
1670 she married Thomas Bendish, esq., a
leading member of the independent or con-
gregational church of Yarmouth, and a dis-
tant relative of Sir Thomas Bendish, an
Essex baronet, who was for many years Eng-
lish ambassador at the Porte. Soon after her
marriage Bridget settled at South Town, near
Yarmouth, where her husband owned farms
and salt-works. She closely resembled her
grandfather in personal appearance and (in
the opinion of many) in character, and she
gained an extraordinary reputation on that
account. According to the sketch of her
penned in her lifetime by Samuel Say, a dis-
senting minister of Ipswich, she was a rigid
Calvinist of uncertain temper, with a strength
of will and physical courage rarely paralleled.
She laboured incessantly in her own house-
hold, on her husband's farm and at his salt-
works, yet was always noted for dignity of
mien and the charm of her conversation.
She was an ardent champion of her grand-
father's reputation. On one occasion she
was travelling to London in a public
coach when a fellow-passenger in conver-
sation with a companion spoke lightly of
the Protector. Bridget not only inveighed
against the offender for the rest of the jour-
ney, but on alighting in London snatched
another passenger's sword from its sheath,
and challenged the slanderer to fight her
there and then. She always took a lively
interest in politics, and is said to have com-
promised herself in many ways in the Rye
House plot (1683). She contrived the escape
of a near relative who was in prison on suspi-
cion of complicity. In 1688-9 she secretly
distributed papers recommending the recogni-
tion of William III. In 1694 Archbishop
Tillotson introduced her to Queen Mary, and
a pension was promised her, but it was never
granted owing to the death of both her
patrons immediately after the interview.
On 27 April 1707 her husband died. Mrs.
Bendish was always careless about money
matters, and although she received a large

Bendlowes

213

Benedict

bequest from her aunt, Lady Fauconberg,
she had to depend for her livelihood in her
old age on her own exertions. She died in
1726 and was buried at Yarmouth. Con-
temporaries state that Cromwell's best-known
portraits represented his granddaughter to
the life. She had three children : 1, Thomas,
who died in the West Indies; 2, Bridget,
who died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in 1736,
aged 64 ; and 3, Henry, who died in
London in 1740, having married Martha
Shute, the sister of the first Viscount Bar-
rington [q. v.]

[The Rev. Samuel Say's ' Character of Mrs.
B[ridget] B[endish], granddaughter of Oliver
Cromwell. Written in the year 1719, on occa-
sion of the closing words of Lord Clarendon's
character of her grandfather ' (that he was
' a brave wicked man ') was published with a
few lines added after Mrs. Bendish's death — 1, in
the Gent. Mag. (xxv. 357) for Aug. 1765 ; 2, in
the Letters of John Hughes and others (ii. 307-
15) 1772; 3, in the Westminster Mag. for 1774
(with other reminiscences of Mrs. Bendish by
Dr. Hewling Luson of Lowestoft), and 4, in
Noble's Memoirs of the House of Cromwell
1787 (together with Luson's account and a third
set of reminiscences by Dr. J. Brooke) ii. 329-
46. See also Granger's Biog. Hist. iii. 174, and
especially Davy's MS. Suffolk Collections in
Brit. Mus.MS. Addit. 19118, ff. 54-63.]

S. L. L.

BENDLOWES, EDWARD. [See BEN-
LOWES.]

BENDLOWES, WILLIAM (1516-
1584), serjeant-at-law, son of Christopher
Bendlowes, esq., of Great Bardfield, in Essex,
and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John
Ufford, Esq., was born in 1516. He was
educated for a time at St. John's College,
Cambridge ; but leaving the university with-
out a degree, he became a member of Lin-
coln's Inn, and was called to the bar. In
1548 he was autumn reader of his inn, but
did not lecture on account of the pestilence.
He was again autumn reader in 1549. He
successively represented the Cornish boroughs
of Helston, Penrhyn, and Dunheved in the
parliaments which met in the years 1553-4.
In 1555 he was double autumn reader at
Lincoln's Inn, and was soon afterwards called
to the degree of serjeant-at-law, he and the
other Serjeants included in the same call
making their feast in the Inner Temple Hall
16 Oct. 1555. In the following year he was
in a commission for the suppression of Lol-
lards and heretics in Essex. His patrimony
in that county was not inconsiderable, and
he appears to have greatly increased it.
During the latter part of Queen Mary's
reign, and the earlier part of that of Eliza-

beth, Bendlowes was the only practising ser-
jeant. He is said to have always adhered
steadily to the Roman catholic faith. In 1576
he became one of the governors of Lincoln's
Inn, and he served the office in several suc-
ceeding years. The recorder Fleetwood, in
a letter to Lord Burghley, relates that on the
occasion of the investiture of Sir Edmund
Anderson [q. v.] as chief justice of the Com-
mon Pleas, in May 1582, the lord chancellor
(Hatton) ' made a short discourse, what the
dewtie and office of a good justice was ; '
and that after the chief justice was sworn,
1 Father Benloos, because he was auncient,
did put a short case, and then myself put
the next.'

Bendlowes died on 19 Nov. 1584, and was
buried at Great Bardfield. By his wife
Eleanor, daughter of Sir Edward Palmer, of
Angmering, Sussex, and widow of John
Berners, esq., he had issue William Bend-
lowes, who appears to have been also a
bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and who died in
161 3. In the combination room of St. John's
College, Cambridge, there is a half-length
portrait of Serjeant Bendlowes, l solus ad
legem serviens, set. suss 49, et sui gradus an.
nono, 1564.'

He is the author of ' Les Reports de
Gulielme Benloe Serjeant del Ley, des divers
pleadings et cases en le Court del Comon-
bank, en le several Roignes de le tres hault
& excellent Princes, le Roy Henry VII,
Henry VIII, Edw. VI, et le roignes Mary &
Elizabeth,' London, 1689, fol. There is pre-
served in the Harleian collection of manu-
scripts, number 355, a paper book in folio,
wherein are contained the reports of Serjeant
Bendlowes, with indexes prefixed. Some
reports by him were published at the end of
Thomas Ashe's < Tables to the Year-books,' (fee.
London, 1609, 12mo, and were reprinted
with Robert Keilway's ' Reports/ London,
1688, fol. Other Reports by him appeared
with certain cases in the times of James I
and Charles I, London, 1661, fol. This
latter work is cited as ' New Bendlowes.'

[MS. Addit. 5863, f. 79&; Foss's Judges of
England, v. 347, 349, 421, vi. 52 ; Hartshorne's
Book Rarities in the Univ. of Camb. 492;
Manning's Serjeants' Case, 138, 167, 211;
Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, iii. 340 ;
Cooper's Athense Cantab, i. 495, 569 ; MS. Harl.
1432, f. 124; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. (2) 25, 34,
40 ; Brydges's Eestituta, iii. 44, 45.] T. C.

BENEDICT (d. 1193), abbot of Peter-
borough, whose birthplace is unknown, was
probably a monk of Christ Church, Canter-
bury, of which monastery he became prior
in 1175, having also, in the previous year,

Benedict

214

Benedict

been appointed chancellor to the new arch-
bishop, Richard of Dover. According to
Bale he was educated at Oxford. In 1177
he was elected to the abbacy of Peterborough,
and died in that office at Michaelmas, 1193.
His biographer, Swaf ham, gives him the cha-
racter of one sufficiently learned, well versed
in monastic discipline, and having a thorough
knowledge of the world. Succeeding to an
abbot who had involved the monastery in
heavy debt, he began at once to fulfil the
part of an energetic reformer. He cleared
off the debts, redeemed the church plate and
other goods which had been pledged, and re-
covered lands which had been alienated. On
one occasion he is said to have even appeared
in arms to enforce his claim. He was an
ardent builder. He completed a portion of
the nave of his church, built the great abbey-
gate and certain chapels, and was busy on
other works when death overtook him. He
stood well in favour with King Richard, at
whose coronation he was present ; and indeed,
if we are to believe Swaf ham, he was on
terms of unusual intimacy with the sovereign
('valde specialiter amicus et familiaris ').
He used his opportunities well in securing
the rights and liberties of his house by royal
charters. He did not, however, as has been
stated by different writers, hold the appoint-
ment of vice-chancellor during Richard's
absence from England. The Benedict upon
whom that office was conferred during the
quarrel of Prince John with Chancellor Long-
champ in 1191, was undoubtedly Benedict of
Sansetun, afterwards bishop of Rochester [see
BEKET or BENEDICTTJS, MAGISTEK, d. 1226].
Swaf ham gives a considerable list of manu-
scripts which were transcribed and added to
the monastic library by Benedict's orders.
Most of them are biblical, theological, and
law books; but among them occur also
Seneca, Martial, Terence, and Claudian. His
own literary work included a history of
the passion and another of the miracles of
Thomas Becket. Bearing in mind the pro-
bability of his having been a monk of Christ
Church, Canterbury, it is not too much to
suppose, with regard to these two works, that
'the former possibly, the latter certainly,
was founded on his own knowledge as an eye-
witness ' (SxuBBs's Introd. to Gesta Hen. II,
p. li). The l History of the Miracles' has
been edited by Canon Robertson in the ' Ma-
terials for the History of Thomas Becket'
(Rolls Series), 1876. The ' History of the
Passion ' has only survived in fragments em-
bodied in the work on Becket known as the
1 Quadrilogus.' The work, however, with
which Benedict's name is most prominently
connected is the ' Gesta Henrici Secundi ;

but with the authorship of it he apparently
had nothing to do. This chronicle is found
in two early manuscripts of different recen-
sions. The first (Cotton MS. Julius A. xi.)
appears to have been transcribed from the
original work while it was still passing
through the author's hands. To it is pre-
fixed a copy of the genealogy of Henry II,
written by Ailred of Rievaulx, at the head
of which appears the title, intended to cover
both genealogy and chronicle, ' Gesta Hen-
rici II Benedict! abbatis.' The occurrence
of this title has been the cause of the ascrip-
tion of the work to Benedict. It is, how-
ever, explained by a passage in Swaf ham ; for
there can be little doubt that the manuscript
is the identical volume (' Gesta Regis Henrici
Secundi et Genealogia ejus') which that
writer tells us was transcribed by Benedict's
orders together with the other manuscripts
which he added to the library. Indepen-
dently of this explanation, also, the last two
words of the title may be taken to mean simply
' the gift of Benedict the abbot.' Who was
the real author of the ' Gesta ' is not known.
Professor Stubbs has suggested that the
work may be, in an altered form, the lost
' Tricolumnis ' of Richard Fitz-Neal, the
author of the ' Dialogus de Scaccario.'

[Roberti Swaphami Historia Coenobii Bur-
gensis, printed in the Historic Anglicanse Scrip-
tores varii, ed. Sparke, 1723 ; Gesta Henrici II,
ed. Hearne, 1735, and Stubbs (Roils Series),
1867 ; Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue of Ma-
terials for English History (Rolls Series), vol. ii.
1865, pp. 340, 341, 493.] E. M. T.

BENEDICT BISCOP (628 P-690), also
called BISCOP BADTJCING (EDDITJS, Vita Wil-
fridi, c. 3), founder of monasteries at Wear-
mouth and Jarrow, was an Angle of noble
birth (BEDA, v. 19, and VitaAbbat. i.), possibly
of the royal race of the Lindisfari (FLOE. WOKC.
Mon. Hist. Brit. 631). He became a ' minister'
or thegn of Oswiu, king of Northumbria, who
bestowed land upon him. But in 653, being
then about twenty-five, he resolved to aban-
don the world and set out for Rome. At
Canterbury he fell in with Wilfrith, who was
about six years younger than himself and de-
sired to visit Rome. The two travelled to-
gether as far as Lyons, where Wilfrith tarried,
and Benedict went on to Rome. After so-
journing some years there he returned to
Northumbria, where he strove to introduce
the Roman system of ecclesiastical life. About
665 he started on a second visit to Rome.
Alchfrith, the son of king Oswiu, wished to
accompany him, but was forbidden by his
father (BEDA, V. Abb. c. 2). After spending
some months in Rome, Benedict retired for
two years to the monastery of Lerins (an

Benedict

215

Benedict

island off the south coast of Gaul), where he j visited Rome. He himself presided over the
became a monk, and then returned to Rome [ elder house at Wearmouth, adopting his
in 667, just when Wighard arrived to be con- ) cousin Eosterwine as a colleague. Having
secrated archbishop of Canterbury. Wighard, i thus settled both monasteries, he visited
however, died very soon, and Theodore of j Rome for the fifth time, and procured a
Tarsus was elected and consecrated in his j large collection of books, vestments, and
stead March 668. The pope, Vitalian, ap- i pictures for Jarrow. On his return (about
pointed Benedict to conduct Theodore to j 687) he found that king Ecgfrith had been
Canterbury, which they reached at the end j slain in battle (685), and that Eosterwine
of May 669. Archbishop Theodore made ! and a large number of his monks had died of
him abbot of St. Peter's in Canterbury, over < a pestilence. Ceolfrith and the other monks
which he presided for two years, and then j had elected Sigfrith to take the place of
made a third visit to Rome for the purpose j Eosterwine. Benedict confirmed their choice,

of buying books, of which he collected a

lage number, partly in Rome, partly at

Vienne. In 672 he returned to England,

-/intending to visit his friend Cenwealh, king

and bought three acres of land on the south
side of the Wear from king Aldfrith (successor
to Ecgfrith) [q. v.], for which he gave two
silk pallia of splendid workmanship which he

of the West Saxons ; but hearing that he j had brought from Rome (BEDA, V. Abb. c. 7,
was dead, he made for Northumbria, where j 8). Soon after this Benedict's health broke

down, and for the last three years of his

Ecgfrith, the son of Oswiu, had become king.
He set about zealously instructing his country-
men in the learning and religious discipline
in which he had himself been trained. Ecg-

life he was paralysed in the lower limbs.
Abbot Sigfrith also ' gradually wasted away
from some internal disease. Shortly before

frith warmly aided him in his work, and j his death in 689 he was carried to the bed-
.gave him seventy hides of land out of his ! side of Benedict for a final interview, who
own demesne near the mouth of the river j then, with the consent of the monks, appointed
Wear on the north side, where, by Ecgfrith's j Ceolfrith abbot of both houses. Benedict's
orders, he began building the monastery of \ mind, however, continued to be clear and
St. Peter's in 674 (BED. Vit. Abbat. c. 3-4). j vigorous to the end, and the last days of his
'The structure was fashioned in what was i life were spent in exhorting the brethren to
called the 'Roman' style, then prevalent hold fast to the pure Benedictine rule which
throughout Western Europe, being a pro- | he had taught them, having himself visited

1 seventeen continental monasteries ; to pre-
serve the large and costly library which he

vincial adaptation of the old classical Roman
forms. Benedict himself visited Gaul

order to engage skilled masons and glass- j had procured for them with so much pains,
makers, the art of glazing windows being i and in all future elections of abbots to take
then unknown in England (BED. Vit. Abb. I care to choose the fittest man without any
c. 5). The work was pushed on with such ! regard to the claims of kindred or high birth,
diligence, that within a year from its founda- j During his sleepless nights the brethren read

tion mass was celebrated within the walls of
the church. Having settled the constitution
of his house, he paid a fourth visit to Rome
in 678, in order to procure more books, besides
vessels, vestments, images, and pictures, of
which he brought back a large store. He
also obtained the services of John, the arch-
chanter of St. Peter's and abbot of St. Martin
at Rome, who returned with him to instruct
his monks in music and ritual according to
the Roman use. But what he deemed most
valuable of all was a letter from the pope
Agatho, granted with the full consent of
king Ecgfrith, exempting his monastery from
all external control. The king soon after-
wards granted 40 hides of land for the erec-
tion of a sister monastery which Benedict
established at Jarrow and dedicated to St.
Paul. Here he placed seventeen monks in 682
under Ceolfrith as their abbot, who had ener-
getically assisted him from the beginning
in founding the other monastery, and had

the Bible to him in turns, and at the hours
of prayer by day and night he continued to
join, as well as he was able, in the recitation
of the psalms. He died on 12 Jan. 690 as
the monks were repeating the 83rd Psalm
(' Deus, quis similis erit tibi ? '), in the
sixteenth year after the foundation of the
first monastery, and (about) the sixty-second
year of his age. He was buried in the
church of St. Peter at Wearmouth. In the
10th cent., 964, yEthelwold, bishop of Win-
chester, bought his bones at a great price,
and conveyed them to his new abbey of
Thorney. Benedict was undoubtedly a man
of pure and lofty character, animated by
the warmest zeal for the promotion of piety
and learning, unalloyed, so far as we can
see, by the spirit of ambition and self-asser-
tion which are too conspicuous in his friend
Wilfrith [see WILFEITH]. He was thus a
great benefactor to his own age and country,
and all subsequent ages owe him a debt of

Benedict

216

Benedict

gratitude for founding the monastery which
was the home of the saint and historian, the
Venerable Bede.

[Bede's H. E. v. 19. and Hist. Abbatum, c.
1-12 ; Will, of Malmesbury'sGest.Pont. iv. § 186 ;
Mabillon's Acta Sanct. O.S.B. ssec. ii. 1000-1012 ;
Boll. Acta Sanct. 1 Jan. 745, 746.] W. E. W. S.

BENEDICT CHELYDONIUS or CA-
LEDONIUS (fi. 1519), abbot of the Scotch
monastery at Vienna, was an intimate friend
of the theologian Joliann von Eck, the oppo-
nent of Martin Luther. He wrote * Contra
Lutherum apostatam ' and l Bandini Senten-
tiarum de Rebus Theologicis,' Louvain, 1557
and 1577.

[Dempster's Hist, Eccl. Gent. Scot. (1627), p.
181 ; Mackenzie's Scottish Writers, ii. 600 ; Tan-
ner's Bibl. Brit. p. 95.]

BENEDICT OP GLOUCESTER (Jl. 1120),
author of a life of St. Dubricius, archbishop
of Caerleon, was, according to his own de-
scription of himself, a monk of St. Peter's,
Gloucester. Having devoted his attention
to the lives of the saints, and finding that
there was no satisfactory account of St. Du-
bricius, he set himself the task of compiling
one from what authentic records he could ob-
tain access to. This work, which still exists in
manuscript at the British Museum, was edited
by Wharton in his ' Anglia Sacra,' but with
the omission of several miraculous details.
Tanner and other authorities suppose Benedict
of Gloucester to have flourished about the
year 1120; but all that can definitely be said
with reference to his date seems to be that
he lived after this year, in which, according
to Benedict's own account, the saint's bones
were removed to Llandaff. There seems,
however, to be little question that Benedict
was indebted to Geoffrey of Monmouth, as
may be seen from comparing the two authors'
accounts of Arthur's coronation and the battle
of Badon. This would make the date of the
* Vita Dubricii' after the year 1147.

[Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. xxvi. and 660 ;
Tanner ; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, i. 205 ;
Cotton MSS. Vespasian A. 14 ; cf. Geoffrey of
Monmouth, ix. 1 and 4, with Wharton, i. 657,
658.] T. A. A.

BENEDICT OF NORWICH (Jl. 1340), an
August inian monk, flourished in the reign of
Edward III. According to Bale he was dis-
tinguished for his linguistic, his scientific,
and his theological skill. The same bio-
grapher, however, finds great fault with the
tendency of Benedict's teaching, accusing
him of a leaning towards Novatianism,
Arianism, and other heresies, and also of
trusting too much to Gentile authority,

' when he should have known that the divine
wisdom has no need of human inventions.'
Benedict, who was abbot of the Austin friars
at Norwich, apparently made himself a great
reputation by his popular discourses, and in
this way so approved himself to Antony Bek,
bishop of Norwich (1337-1443), that this
prelate appointed him suffragan in his dio-
cese. Bale calls him ' episcopus Cardicensis.'
Benedict seems to have flourished about the
year 1340. He was buried at Norwich, but
the date of his death is not known. His-
writings, as enumerated by Bale, consisted
of an ' Alphabet of Aristotle,' sermons for
a year, and hortatory epistles. Dr. Stubbs.
makes Benedict suffragan of both Winchester
and Norwich from 1333 to 1346.

[Bale, 422 ; Pits, 440 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.
96 ; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, i. 206 ; Blom-
field's History of Norfolk, iii. 505, iv. 90; Stubbs's
Eegistrum Anglicanum, 143.] T. A. A.

BENEDICT, SIR JULIUS (1804-1885),
musician, was born at Stuttgart (according
to GROVE'S Dictionary} on 27 Nov. 1804,
though the date of his birth is generally be-
lieved to have been on 24 Dec. of that year.
His father was a local banker, but as Bene-
dict's musical talent soon showed signs of
development, the boy was placed under a
musician of some repute, J. C. L. Abeille,
who was at that time residing at Stuttgart.
At the age of fifteen he became the pupil of
Hummel at Weimar, by whom he was in-
troduced to Beethoven, and in 1821 he went
to study composition under Weber at Dres-
den. By Weber Benedict was introduced to
Barbaja, the director of the Italian opera at
Vienna, who gave him the post of conductor
at the Karnthnerthor theatre, where he re-
mained from 1823 to 1825. In the latter
Siar he went with Barbaja to Italy, and at
aples obtained the appointments of con-
ductor at the San Carlo and Fondo theatres,
at the former of which he produced in 1829
his first opera, ' Giacinta ed Ernes to,' a work
written in the style of Weber, which achieved
no success. In the following year a second
opera, ' I Portoghesi in Goa,' failed at Stutt-
gart, but was successful in Naples, probably
because the music was modelled upon that
of Rossini. In 1835 Benedict went to Paris,
where he met Malibran, by whose advice he
came to London, which was destined to be
his home for the rest of his long and active
life. In 1836 he conducted a series of Italian
comic operas at the Lyceum under the ma-
nagement of Mitchell, and here was pro-
duced his one-act operetta, ' Un Anno ed un
Giorno,' a version of which had previously
been given at Naples. In 1838 he became

Benefacta

217

Benefield

conductor of the English, opera at Drury
Lane, then under Bunn's management, where
he produced his three first English operas,
'The Gipsy's Warning' (1838), ' The Bride
of Venice' (1843), 'The Crusaders' (1846).
In 1848 he conducted a performance of
' Elijah ' at Exeter Hall, in which Jenny
Lind made her first appearance in oratorio,
and in 1850 he accompanied that great singer
on her American tour. Benedict returned
to England in 1852, and soon after became
conductor of the Italian opera, in which
capacity he wrote recitatives for Weber's
' Oberon,' on its production (1860) at Her
Majesty's Theatre, in an Italian version. In
the same year his cantata * Undine ' was pro-
duced at the Norwich festival, of which he
was for many years conductor. The year
1862 saw the production of his best-known
opera, 'The Lily of Killarney,' which was
written for the Pyne and Harrison opera
company, the libretto being founded on Dion
Boucicault's ' Colleen Bawn/ then at the
height of its popularity. His last opera, a
short work entitled ' The Bride of Song,' was
performed in 1864. For the Norwich festi-
vals, his connection with which has been
already mentioned, Benedict composed 'Ri-
chard Cceur de Lion ' (1863) and ' St. Cecilia '
(1866). For the Birmingham festivals he
wrote 'St. Peter' (1870) and 'Graziella'
(1873). He also produced two symphonies,
which were played at the Crystal Palace con-
certs, a pianoforte concerto, and several con-
cert overtures, besides many smaller works.
In 1871 Benedict, who had become a natu-
ralised Englishman, received the honour of
knighthood, and in 1874 he was made a
knight commander of the order of Franz
Josef by the Emperor of Austria, and of
the order of Frederick by the King of Wiir-
temberg. He was twice married. His
first wife was Mile. Jean, and his second
Miss Mary Comber Fortey. On 18 March
1885 Benedict caught a severe cold at Man-
chester, which brought on an attack of bron-
chitis, aggravated by heart disease. He
recovered from this sufficiently to resume
teaching, but a sudden relapse ended in his
death, which took place at his residence,
2 Manchester Square, at eight o'clock on the
morning of 5 June 1885. He was buried at
Kensal Green on 11 June following.

[London newspapers of 6 and 13 June 1885;
Grove's Diet, of Musicians, i. 222 b.] W. B. S.

BENEFACTA, RICHARD. [See FITZ-
GILBERT, RICHARD.]

BENEFIELD, SEBASTIAN, D.D.

(1559-1630), divine, was a native of Prest-
bury (or Prestonbury), Gloucestershire, where

he was born on 12 Aug. 1559. Of his
school education nothing has been trans-
mitted, but he proceeded to the university
while still very young, having been admitted
scholar of Corpus Christi, Oxford, on 30 Aug.
1586. He is found probationer-fellow of the
same college 16 April 1590. Shortly after-
wards he took his degrees of B.A. and M.A.,
and, obtaining license with holy orders, soon
came to be known as a frequent and eloquent
preacher. In 1599 he was appointed rhetoric
reader of his college, and in 1600 was ad-
mitted as reader of the sentences. In 1608
he proceeded D.D. In 1613 he was chosen
Margaret professor of divinity in the uni-
versity. He confirmed his early repute as
a scholar by publishing ' Doctrinse Chris-
tianse sex Capita totidem Prselectionibus
in Schola Theologica Oxoniensi pro forma
habitis discussa et disceptata,' 1610. An
appendix entitled ' Appendix ad Caput se-
cundum de Consiliis Evangelicis . . . ad-
versus Humphredum Leach, annihilates his
antagonist. As examples of his force of rea-
soning in the pulpit, there remain ' Eight
Sermons publicly preached in the Univer-
sity of Oxford, the second at St. Peter's
in-the-East, the rest at St. Mary's church.
Began 14 Dec. 1595,' 1614. By the latter
date, in Anthony a Wood's quaint words, he
had resigned his professorship and ' receded
to the rectory of Meysey-Hampton, near to
Fairford, in Glostershire, which he had long
before obtained by his predecessor's guilt of
simony ' {AtJience Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 487-9),
The first-fruits of his welcome leisure at
Meysey-Hampton was a treatise, ' The Sin
against the Holy Ghost discovered, and other
Christian Doctrines delivered in Twelve Ser-
mons upon part of the Tenth Chapter of
the Epistle to the Hebrews/ 1615. His
most scholarly work, issued in three suc-
cessive quartos, is his commentary on the
minor prophet Amos (1613, 1620, 1629).
It is somewhat scholastic and dry, but sug-
gestive and practical. The commentary was
translated into Latin by Henry Jackson
(Oppenheim, 1615), who ultimately succeeded
him at Meysey-Hampton. Benefield is Cal-
vinistical in his ' Prselectiones de Perseve-
rantia Sanctorum' (Frankfort, 1618). He
also published other ' Occasional Sermons/
Anthony a Wood says that he spent ' the
remanent part of his years ' (about four years)
' in great retiredness and devotion.' He was
' a person,' he continues, ' for piety, strictness
of life, and sincere consecration, incomparable
... he was also so noted an humanitarian,
disputant, and theologist, and so well read
in the fathers and schoolmen, that he had
scarce his equal in the university.' Wood

Benese

218

Benet

concludes : ' Some have blamed him (I know
not upon what account) for a schismatic, yet
Dr. Ravis, sometime bishop of London, and of
honourable memory, approved him to be free
from schism, and much abounding in science.
The truth is, he was a sedentary man, and
of great industry, and so consequently (as
'tis observed by some) morose and of no good
nature. Also that he was accounted a no
mean lover of the opinions of John Calvin,
especially on the point of predestination.' He
died in his parsonage-house 24 Aug. 1630,
and was buried in the chancel of his church
the 29th of the same month.

[Local researches ; Brook's Puritans, ii. 365 ;
Middleton's Evang. Biography, ii. 490-1 ; Le
Neve's Fasti, iii. 518 ; Wood's Athenae Oxon.
(Bliss), ii. 487-9 ; Benefield's Works.] A. B. G.

BENESE, RICHARD (d. 1546), canon
of the Augustinian priory of Merton, sup-
plicated for the degree of B.C.L. at Oxford
6 July 1519 (Reg. Oxf. Hist. Soc. i. 110).
He signed the surrender of the Augustinian
priory of Merton to Henry VIII on 16 April
1538. He had previously written a book
upon the art and science of surveying land,
the title of which is as follows : * This boke
sheweth the maner of measurynge of all
xnaner of lande, as well of woodlande, as
of lande in the felde, newly invented and
compyled by Syr Rycharde Benese, chanon
of Marton Abbay besyde [L] ondon.' The
book was prepared for the press by Thomas
Paynell, also a canon of Merton, and was
printed by James Nicholson at Southwark.
Its probable date is 1537. This first edition
is more complete than a later one, which
omits the tables for the calculation of di-
mensions.

The subsequent history of the author is
obscure. The name occurs as the holder of
the following benefices and dignities, but
whether this represents two or more different
persons is uncertain : (1) clerk in the diocese
of Hereford, 1514; (2) parson of Wood-
borough, Sarum dioc. 1511 to 1515; (3) pre-
centor of Hereford, 11 Nov. 1538 to end of
1546; (4) prebendary of Farrendon, Line.,
20 April 1542 ; (5) parson of Longlednam,
Lincolnshire; (6) rector of Long Ditton,
Surrey, 11 Feb. 1542 ; (7) rector of All Hal-
lows, Honey Lane, 11 Oct. 1540.

That the church of Long Ditton was in the
patronage of Merton Priory, and that the next
rector of All Hallows was Thomas Pay-
nell, the editor of Benese's book, are reasons
of some weight for supposing that these two
benefices were held by the same person, the
subject of this notice ; but the will of the
rector of Long Ditton (Alen. 31, 47), dated

3 Nov. 1540, and proved 20 Oct. 1547, says
nothing of the testator's holding other bene-
fices. A brother, Edward, and a sister,
Elizabeth, married to Ric. Skynner, are men-
tioned therein. It will be noticed that the
precentor of Hereford died at the end of 1546,
about the same time as the rector of Long
Ditton. But it is hardly safe, without fur-
ther evidence, to do more than point out
these coincidences.

[Manning and Bray's Surrey, iii. 284 ; Le
Neve's Fasti, i. 487, ii. 150 ; Newcourt's Eeper-
torium, i. 252 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 96 ; Wood's
Fasti, i. 45 ; Athen. Oxon. i. 338; Cal. of St. P.
of Henry VIII, vols. i. ii. ; State Papers of Henry
VIII, i/896.] C. T. M.

BENET, FATHER (1563-1611), Capuchin
friar. [See CANFIELD, BENEDICT.]

BENET or BENEDICTUS, MAGISTEK
(d. 1226), bishop of Rochester, first emerges
into history in connection with the struggle
between William de Longchamp, bishop
of Ely, chancellor and chief justice, and
regent of the kingdom during the absence
of Richard I in the Holy Land, and the Earl
of Moreton, afterwards King John. Upon
the deposition of Longchamp from his offices
in 1191, the custody of the great seal was
given to Benet. The pope having authorised
Longchamp to use the weapon of excommu-
nication against his enemies, Benet was
accorded a place at the end of the list of
those upon whom the bishops were ordered
to execute the papal mandate. The bishops,
however, refused to comply, and the Earl of
Moreton retaliated by confiscating the lands
of the ex-chancellor. Benet was precentor
of St. Paul's, and was appointed bishop of
Rochester, 1214-15. He died 21 Dec. 1226.

[Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, iii. 154 ; Godwin, De
Prsesul. 528.] J. M. E.

BENET, WILLIAM (d. 1533),

sador, may possibly be the same William
Bennet who took the degree of B. A. at
ford on 31 Jan. 1512-3. But the William
Bennet who was admitted B.C.L. on 18 Feb. ***,
1527-8 must not be confounded with the *'t
subject of this notice, as Wood has done Vt
(Fasti, i. 76). Benet the ambassador bore
the superior title of LL.D., and was canon
of Leighlin as early as 1522. At this
time he was practising in Cardinal Wolsey's
legatine court, and during the next few
years he occasionally acted as the legate's
commissary, and was also employed in visit-
ing cathedral chapters and monasteries to
procure the election of candidates favoured
by his master. Having in these missions
shown an aptitude for diplomacy, Henry VIU

Benet

219

Benezet

•ordered him, in November 1528, to proceed
as ambassador to Rome, in conjunction with
Dr. Knight, Sir Francis Bryan, Sir Gregory
da Casale, and Peter Vannes. The new em-
bassy was to urge the pope (Clement VII),
in the first instance, to declare that the brief
of his predecessor Julius II, in favour of the
king's marriage with Katharine of Arragon,
was a forgery, then to revoke the cause to
Rome, and finally to promise a sentence in
the king's favour. A report of the pope's
death, and other occurrences, caused these
Arrangements to be altered, and Stephen j
Gardiner, who had been recalled from Rome i
-and met the new ambassadors at Lyons, re- |
turned to his post, and Knight and Benet i
came back to England. In the following
year Gardiner was actually recalled, and
Benet was sent to supply his place as resi-
dent ambassador at Rome (20 May 1529). i
His instructions now were to dissuade the •
pope from revoking the cause, as it was un- j
certain what his decision might be. He was I
also commissioned to treat for a peace be-
tween Francis I and Charles V, and for
liberation of the French king's sons, who
were detained as hostages for their father in j
Spain. He arrived in Rome on 16 June, and !
in the autumn he was sent to meet the em- j
peror Charles V at Bologna, being commis-
sioned, in conjunction with the Earl of Wilt-
shire and others, to persuade the emperor to
consent to the king's divorce from Katharine,
and to treat for a general peace between the
potentates of Europe. He returned to Rome
in May 1530, and was busily engaged for the
next year and a half in promoting the king's
cause there. In November 1531 he was re-
called, but was sent back to Rome after a
brief visit to England, arriving there on
-3 Feb. 1532, with instructions to hinder the
pope from giving sentence till the emperor
was back in Spain. He was present at the
interview between the pope and the emperor
at Bologna at the end of 1532, returning to
Rome about April 1533. Meanwhile the act
prohibiting appeals to Rome had been pushed
through parliament, and in May of the same
year Cranmer's sentence dissolving the king's
marriage had been pronounced at Dunstable.
The pope answered that critical step by a
sentence of excommunication, delivered on
11 July. Benet's further stay at Rome was
useless, and he was recalled. He travelled
homewards in company with Edmund Bon-
ner, afterwards bishop of London, and Sir
Edward Came, but never reached England,
dying at Susa in Piedmont on 26 Sept. 1533.
His companions had some difficulty in res-
cuing his plate and other property, which
were claimed by the Duke of Savoy. His

will was proved on 11 May 1534. Of his
family nothing is known, except that he had
an uncle, John Benet, a citizen and merchant
taylor of London, and that Thomas Benet,
chancellor of Salisbury, was probably his
brother.

The ecclesiastical benefices and dignities
held by him were as follows : canon of Salis-
bury, 6 April 1526 ; prebendary of Ealdland,
London, 26 Nov. 1526 ; advowson of the
next prebend in St. Stephen's, 28 Feb. 1528 ;
next presentation of Highhungar, London
diocese, 12 Dec. 1528 ; archdeacon of Dorset,
20 Dec. 1530 ; advowson of Barnack church,
Northamptonshire, which he intended to
bestow on his brother, 21 April 1533 ; a pre-
bend in Southwell; and the churches of
Marnehull, Dorsetshire ; Aston, Hertford-
shire ; and Sutton, Surrey. In addition to
the above there is some ground for believing
that he was granted a reversion to the deanery
of Salisbury. His name does not appear in
the lists of the deans of that cathedral, but
there is a letter from him to Henry VIII,
thanking the king for 'remembering him
with the deanery of Sarum.' Many letters
written during his residence abroad are pre-
served in the Public Record Office and the
British Museum.

[Cal. of State Papers (Henry VIII), vols.
iv, v. vi. ; Newcourt's Kepertorium, i. 146 ;
Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 34, 76 ; Le Neve's Fasti
Eccl. Anglicanse.] C. T. M.

BENEZET, ANTHONY (1713-1784),
philanthropist and social reformer, was de-
scended from an old and wealthy French
family, and was born at St. Quentin, France,
31 Jan. 1713-4. His father lost his pro-
perty on account of his protestant opinions,
and came to London, where he obtained some
success in business. The son was placed in
a mercantile house, but, objecting from con-
scientious scruples to engage in commerce, he
chose a mechanical trade instead, and became
apprentice to a cooper. Some time after his
arrival in London along with his father he
joined the Society of Friends. In 1731 the
family emigrated to America and settled in
Philadelphia, Anthony obtaining an engage-
ment as teacher at Germantown, and also em-
ployment as a proof reader. This situation
he exchanged in 1742 for that of English mas-
ter in the Friends' school at Philadelphia
founded by William Penn, and in 1755 he
established a school of his own for the instruc-
tion of females. As in training the young he
laid the principal stress on personal influence
and kindness, so in his capacity of social re-
former it was his aim to make these supreme
in all the relationships of life. In 1750 he

Benezet

220

Benfield

began to interest himself in the negro slaves
of America, and established an evening school
for slaves in Philadelphia, taught by himself
with great success. Besides contributing nu-
merous articles to almanacs and newspapers
on the evils and unlawfulness of slavery, he
published in 1762 ' An Account of that Part
of Africa inhabited by the Negroes ; ' in 1767
'A Caution and Warning to Great Britain
and her Colonies on the calamitous State of
the enslaved Negroes ; ' and in 1771 ' Some
Account of Guinea, with an Enquiry into the
Slave Trade.' These pamphlets were printed
at his own expense, and circulated among per-
sons of influence. Although they produced
almost no immediate impression on the pub-
lic mind, yet as it was through their perusal
that Clarkson was successful in gaining the
prize at Oxford for a Latin dissertation on
slavery, and was led to take an interest in
the abolition of the slave trade, their connec-
tion with the final result can, in part at least,
be clearly traced. In harmony with his ef-
forts on behalf of the negroes, Benezet was a
strenuous defender of the rights of the abo-
riginal races in America. In 1756 he took
an active part in founding the ' Friendly As-
sociation for Regaining and Preserving Peace
with the Indians by Pacific Measures,' and in
1784 he published ' Some Observations on the
Situation, Disposition, and Character of the
Indian Natives of the Continent.' As was
to be expected from his quaker principles, he
also made use of his pen to advocate the total
abolition of war. On this subject he addressed
a letter to King Frederick of Prussia, and in
1776 he published ( Thoughts on War,' which
was followed in 1778 by ' Serious Reflections
on the Times.' In 1780 he published in Eng-
lish and French ' A Short Account of the Re-
ligious Society of the Quakers,' giving the
best succinct view of the principles as well
as the discipline and economy of the society
that had then appeared ; and in 1782 he ex-
pounded some of the leading principles of the
society in a small work on the ' Plainness and
Innocent Simplicity of the Christian Religion.'
Benezet was a zealous advocate of temperance,
andin!778publisheda small pamphlet against
the use of spirituous liquors. Towards the
close of his life he resolved, on account of his
compassionate sentiments towards the lower
creation, to discontinue the use of animal
food. His private habits were remarkably
simple, and his life was spent in the con-
stant practice of charity and wise generosity.
He died 3 May 1784.

[Rush's Essays (1798), 311-4; American Mu-
seum, ix. 192-4 ; Vaux's Memoirs of Anthony
Benezet (1817) ; Allen's American Biographical
Dictionary, 83-4.] T. F. H.

BENFIELD, PAUL (d. 1810), Indian
trader, has become notorious principally in
consequence of the attack made upon him by
Burke in his celebrated speech on the debts
of the Nawab of the Carnatic, in which
Benfield was denounced as ' a criminal who
long since ought to have fattened the region
kites with his offal.' Benfield went out to
India as a civil servant of the East India
Company in 1764, and during the greater
part of his residence in that country never
drew a higher salary than two or three hun-
dred rupees a month ; yet he is reported to
have amassed a fortune considerably exceed-
ing half a million sterling. Shortly after his
arrival at Madras he appears to have entered
into partnership with a native Soukar, half
trader, half banker, and to have made his
money partly by trade, partly by loans at
high rates of interest, and partly by contracts.
He had very extensive money transactions
with the Nawab of the Carnatic, and he
entered into and completed contracts with
the government for the construction of forti-
fications for the town of Madras and for Fort
St. George. One of the most important of
his loans was made for the purpose of enabling
the Nawab, who, with the aid of the English,
had recently invaded and conquered the Mah-
ratta state of Tan] ore, to satisfy certain claims
held by the Dutch at Tranquebar upon a por-
tion of the Tanjore Rajah's territories. The
character of this transaction having been
called in question, and Benfield having been
charged with having aided and abetted the
malcontents in the Madras council, he was
ordered by the court of directors in 1777 to
return to England. He accordingly resigned
the company's service, and on reaching Lon-
don in 1779 lost no time in demanding an in-
vestigation into his conduct. He made no
attempt to conceal his loans to the Nawab,
stating that though they had been extensive,
they had not been of a clandestine nature,
and that they were well known to the go-
vernor, to the council, and, indeed, to the
whole settlement. He alleged that * by long
and extensive dealings as a merchant he had
gained credit at Fort St. George, and confi-
dence with the natives of India, and with the
moneyed people in particular, to an extent
never before experienced by any European in
that country.' He urged that by his loans he
had prevented war, and had promoted ' the
most essential interests of his honourable
employers.' He was subsequently restored
to the service and permitted to return to
Madras : the court of directors resolving that
there was nothing in the company's records
that warranted ' a conclusion of his having
acted wrongly on the occasion of the loan*

Benger

221

Benger

above referred to, but that, on the contrary,
1 his conduct, so far as it respects the loan to
satisfy the claims of the Dutch, was produc-
tive of public benefit/

Benfield finally returned to England in
1793, and in the same year married Miss
Swinburne, of Hamsterley, Durham, upon
whom he settled a jointure of 3,000/. a year,
besides 500/. a year for pin-money. Each of
their children was to have 10,000/., and an
estate in Hertfordshire, valued at 4,000£ a
year, was settled upon his eldest son. He
presented his bride on their wedding day with
a ring valued at 3,000/. About the same
time he established a mercantile firm in
London, called Boyd, Benfield, & Co., and
engaging in speculations which turned out
badly, his fortune collapsed as rapidly as it
had been acquired. He died in Paris in
indigent circumstances in 1810. During his
stay in England in 1780, Benfield was re-,
turned to Parliament as member for Crick-
lade. He brought an action for bribery against
his opponent, S. Petrie, which was tried
at Salisbury 12 March 1782, when Petrie was
defended by (Richard) Burke and William
Pitt. Petrie was acquitted, and published
an account of the trial with a letter giving his
history of the case in 1782. It was said in the
case that Benfield returned nine members to
parliament. His daughter was married in
1824 to G. C. Grantley F. Berkeley [q. v.]

[Mill's History of British India, vols. iv. and
v. ; Case of Mr. Paul Benfield, with opinions of
Loughborough, Dunning, and Hargrave (1780) ;
Opinion of W. Grant on Mr. Benfield's claims
(1781); Letter to E. I. Company from P. Ben-
iield(1781); Letter to creditors of Boyd, Ben-
field & Co. from Walter Boyd (1800); Mr.
Burke's speech on the debts of the Nabob of
Arcot.] A. J. A.

BENGER, ELIZABETH OGILVY

(1778-1827), author, was born at Wells,
Somerset, in 1778. Her father was in trade
in that city, but left it in 1782 for Chatham
to get employment in the navy, and was
made purser to Admiral Lord Keith's ship.
During residence in Chatham and in Ro-
chester Elizabeth showed much appetite for
reading, which, in default of a library, she
tried to gratify by poring over the open pages
of books in booksellers' shop-windows ; and
her father, proud of her desire for know-
ledge, put her to a boys' school in 1790, her
twelfth year, that she might learn Latin.
The next year, 1791, she produced a poem,
* The Female Geniad ; ' her uncle, Sir David
Ogilvy, introduced her to Lady de Crespigny,
under whose patronage the poem was printed.
In 1796, Mr. Benger, having proceeded to the
East Indies with his ship, died there. His

widow and daughter, then reduced to very
slender means, left Chatham to be near rela-
tives, and settled at Devizes in 1797. Eliza-
beth was restless there, however, and her
mother in 1800 acceded to her wish to settle in
London. Here Miss Benger, taking lodgings
' up two pair of stairs in East Street ' (Red
Lion Square ?), at once made a vigorous effort
to get the friendship of the Lambs. Soon
afterwards Lamb found his sister ' closeted '
with ( one Miss Benjay or Benje,' who would
not stir till she had made them promise to visit
her next night (Lamb to Coleridge, letter xl.).
Her admiration for Mrs. Inchbald led her to
dress herself as a servant, and take tea up to
the lady at her lodgings (Memories of Seventy
Years, p. 142). Ultimately she became ac-
quainted with Mrs. Inchbald, with Campbell,
with Smirke, the painter, and the literary
circle comprising Mrs. Barbauld, Jerdan,
Miss Landon, the Porter sisters, Elizabeth
Hamilton, Dr. Aikin, Dr. Gregory, &c. In
1805, just after Tobin's death, when his
' Honeymoon ' was about to be put upon the
stage, she made the acquaintance of his
family, and, learning his painful struggles,
she abandoned some dramatic attempts of
her own. She tried desultory poems, which
appeared anonymously in the** Monthly Ma-
gazine.' In 1809 was published her poem
1 On the Slave Trade,' 4to. It is a long work
of some 850 lines, beautifully illustrated by
engravings from pictures by her friend Smirke.
Bowyer published the volume in luxurious
style, price 51. 5s., edited by Montgomery,
whose own poem heads the book. She next
produced a novel, ( Marian,' and some remarks
on Mme. de Stael's ' Germany ; ' later Mme.
de Stael described Miss Benger as ' the most
interesting woman she had seen during her
visit to England' (Miss AIZIN'S Memoir,
p. xi). In 1813 Miss Benger produced her
second and last novel, ' The Heart and The
Fancy,' 2 vols., which was highly praised by
the 'Gentleman's Magazine' (vol. Ixxxiv.
part i. p. 160), and was translated into French
in 1816 (DiDOT's Nouvelle Biog. Gtn.}. She
had made herself mistress of German, and
translated a volume of Klopstock's letters,
which was published in 1814 with a short
introduction. Her later works were histo-
rical. They appeared in the following order :
' Memoirs of Elizabeth Hamilton,' 2 vols.,
1818 (of which there was a 2nd edition in
1819); 'Memoirs of John Tobin,' 1820;
'Memoirs of Anne Boleyn/ 2 vols., 1821
(which Didot says were translated into
French in 1816, an obvious error) ; ' Memoirs
of Mary Queen of Scots,' 1823 : and < Memoirs
of Elizabeth of Bohemia/ 2 vols., 1825.
Miss Benger is described as interesting and

Benhyem

222

Benjamin

lovable, and full of enthusiasm and vivacity.
She had a melodious voice, and could talk
enchantingly (Memories of Seventy Years, \
p. 141). At the end of her life her lodgings,
1 poor and shabby/ were in Graft on Street ;
(Fitzroy Square?); Fletcher, a young Scotch
sculptor studying in London, would go to
her there to ' arrange her turban' and 'gene-
rally make things tidy ' when she was going
* to receive people well worth seeing ' (ibid.)
Among her visitors were Rosina Wheeler
andBulwer-Lytton, who met at her lodgings,
in 1826, for the first time (Athen&zim, 1 March
1884, p. 281).

In 1826 Miss Benger's health, always deli-
cate, began to fail. She was at the time busy
collecting materials for memoirs of Henri
Quatre, and was contributing anonymous
poems to the 'Athenaeum' (which are ap-
pended to Miss Aikin's f Memoir '). After
suffering for some months, she died on 9 Jan.
1827, aged 49. Her circumstances were very
straitened to the last, and her literary friends
looked upon her death as a release from
struggles and poverty.

[Miss Aikin's Memoir, prefixed to 2nd edition !
of Miss Benger's 'Anne Boleyn,' 1827; Annual '
Biography and Obituary, 1828, p. 52 ; Penny j
Cyclopaedia ; Literary Gazette, where Miss j
Aikin's Memoir first appeared ; Lamb to Cole-
ridge, letter xl. ; Memories of Seventy Years,
ed. by Mrs. Martin, pp. 141, 142; Athenaeum,
1 March 1884, pp. 280, 281.] J. H.

BENHYEM, HUGO DE, or BENHAM,
HUGH (d. 1282), bishop of Aberdeen, suc-
ceeded Richard Pottock in the see in 1272.
After his election he went to Rome, and was
consecrated by Pope Martin IV. Shortly
after his return to Scotland he was made ar-
biter of a dispute about tithes between the
clergy and the laity of the kingdom, and in
a provincial council held at Perth was suc-
cessful in effecting an arrangement of the
difference. He died in 1282 at Loch Goul
(now called Bishops Loch, in the parish of
New Machar), where the bishops had their
lodging before the canonry was erected.
Boethius ascribes his death to sudden suffo-
cation from catarrh, but according to another
tradition he was slain in an ambuscade. He
was the author of ' Provincialium Statutorum
Sanctiones ' and ' Novse Episcoporum Prse-
rogativee.'

[Boethius's Aberdonensium Episcoporum Vitse,
fo. iii. ; Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot.
(1627), p. 105; Collections for Aberdeen (Spal-
ding Club, 1843), i. 161, 236, 258, 467, 469 ;
Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 96.]

BENISCH, ABRAHAM (1811-1878),
Hebraist, was born of Jewish parents at

Drosau, in Bohemia, in 1811. From an early
age he interested himself in the welfare of
his co-religionists. For some years he studied
medicine at the university of Vienna, but
abandoned the study before proceeding to a
degree. He left Austria in 1841 to settle in
England, where he remained for the rest of
his life. His Hebrew learning and his ac-
tively displayed devotion to Judaism secured
for him a high reputation among the Jews in
England. He was editor of the ( Jewish
Chronicle 'from 1854 till 1869, and again from
1875 till his death. He zealously promoted
the formation of the Society of Hebrew Lite-
rature in 1870, and of the Anglo- Jewish As-
sociation in 1871. Benischdied at Hornsey
on 31 July 1878. He was the author of the
following works : 1. 'Two Lectures on the
Life and Writings of Maimonides,' 1847.
2. A translation of the Old Testament, pub-
lished with the Hebrew Text, in 1851. 3. ' An
Essay on Colenso'sCriticism of the Pentateuch
and Joshua,' 1863. 4. ' Judaism surveyed ;
being a Sketch of the Rise and Development
of Judaism from Moses to our days,' a series
of five lectures delivered at St. George's Hall,
London, in 1874. Benisch also published an
'Elementary Hebrew Grammar' in 1852, and
a ' Manual of Scripture History ' in 1853.

[Information from the Eev. A. Lowy ; Brit..
Mus. Cat.; Athenaeum, 10 Aug. 1878.]

S. L. L.

BEN ISRAEL, MANASSEH. [See
MANASSEH.]

BENJAMIN, JUDAH PHILIP (1811-
1884), barrister, was born in 1811. His pa-
rents were Jews of English nationality, who,
in 1811, sailed from England to make their
home in New Orleans. Finding before arrival
in the Gulf of Mexico that the mouths of the
Mississippi were blockaded by the British
fleet, the ship put into St. Croix, in the
West Indies, an island then belonging to
Great Britain. Here Benjamin was born and
lived until 1815. He was thus by birth a
British subject, as was recognised fifty-five
years later, when he was called to the "Eng-
lish bar, and as is attested by a statement
in his own handwriting in the books of Lin-
coln's Inn. In 1815 his parents settled in
Wilmington, North Carolina, and here hi&
boyhood was passed. He was entered at
Yale College at the age of fourteen, but
quitted it three years later (1828) without
taking any degree. In 1832 he went to New
Orleans, entered an attorney's office, and was
called to the bar on 16 Dec. 1832. For some
time he was engaged in studying law, in
taking pupils, and in compiling a digest of
cases decided in the local court. This, the

Benjamin

223

Benjamin

first of his works, was originally intended
for his own private use, but after its utility
had been proved among those to whom, with
his accustomed generosity, he lent it, he ex-
tended its scope, and, along with his friend
Thomas Slidell, published it in 1834 under
the title of ' A Digest of Reported Decisions
of the Supreme Court of the late Territory
of Orleans, and of the Siipreme Court of
Louisiana.' It was the first collection of the
peculiarly complicated law of New Orleans,
derived from Roman, Spanish, French, and
English sources, and to his early study of
this composite body of law Benjamin pro-
bably owed that knowledge of different
juristic systems which afterwards distin-
guished him in England. In 1840 he was
a member of the firm of Slidell, Benjamin
& Conrad, and being in large practice left
to Slidell the preparation of the second
edition of the digest, called for that year.
He did a leading business in planters and
cotton merchants' cases. His arguments
in the 'Creole' case (1841), on insurance
claims arising from an insurrection of slaves
on ship-board, excited much admiration, and
were printed. A United States commission
having been appointed in 1847 to investigate
the chaos of Spanish land titles under which
the early speculators in California claimed,
Benjamin was retained as counsel, receiving
a fee of $25,000. He returned to New Or-
leans, and in December term 1848 was ad-
mitted counsellor of the supreme court. His
practice, which from that time lay chiefly
in Washington, though large, was by no
means so lucrative as that he had in Eng-
land, for he never made over 16,000/. a year
there along with the other members of his
firm, while at the English bar his income was
for two or three successive years 15,000/.

During this time he took a keen interest
in politics. For a time he had been a whig,
and when that party broke up he joined the
democrats. He was elected a senator for
Louisiana to the United States senate in
1852 and again in 1857, having for his col-
league John Slidell, afterwards, when a com-
missioner of the confederate states, seized
by the federal war-ship San Jacinto, on
board the British ship Trent, on her passage
from Havannah to St. Thomas. In the senate
Benjamin made a great impression. Charles
Simmer, his constant opponent in politics,
considered him to be the most eloquent
speaker in the senate, and Sir George Corne-
wall Lewis, who was present and heard
his address on 31 Dec. 1860, justifying the
doctrine of state rights, and declaring his
adhesion to the cause of secession, said of it,
' It is better than our Benjamin could have

done.' His physical qualities suited him
| well for public speaking. His figure was
short, square, and sturdy, his face firm and
resolute, his eyes piercing, and his voice
clear and silvery.

During his presidency, from 1853-1857,
President Franklin Pierce offered Benjamin
a judgeship in the supreme court of the
United States. High as such a dignity was,
Benjamin preferred to remain at the bar.
He was soon, however, to quit his legal
practice for the career of a statesman.
I When South Carolina seceded he cast in his
j lot with the South. He made several bril-
liant speeches on constitutional questions,
| defending ' state rights ' on legal grounds.
| On 4 Feb. 1861 he withdrew from the senate
I and hastily left Washington. When Jeffer-
I son Davis formed his provisional government
! of the Southern Confederacy in the same
month, Benjamin was included in the cabi-
net as attorney-general. ' Mr. Benjamin, of
Louisiana,' said Davis, ' had a very high re-
putation as a lawyer, and my acquaintance
with him in the senate had impressed me
with the lucidity of his intellect, his syste-
matic habits and capacity for labour ' ( Rise
and Fall of the Confederate Government, i.
242). In August he became acting secretary
of war, and continued in this office until the
reconstruction of the cabinet in February
1862, when he became secretary of state, an
office which he retained until the final over-
throw of the confederate forces. Benjamin's
exertions in the discharge of his official duties
were so great as almost to break down even
his iron strength. He had the reputation of
being * the brains of the Confederacy ; ' and
Mr. Davis fell into the habit of sending to
him all work that did not obviously belong
to the department of some other minister.
Beginning work at his office at 8 a.m. he
was often occupied until 1 or 2 o'clock next
morning. The autocratic character of Davis's
administration, and the secrecy often ob-
served in the debates of the House of Repre-
sentatives, render it doubtful how far Ben-
jamin was responsible for the many arbitrary
measures which marked the conduct of the
war by the confederates. Some of the or-
ders he issued were, however, undoubtedly
harsh. On 25 Nov. 1861, for example, he
ordered that persons found burning bridges
in Tennessee should be summarily tried by
court-martial and executed, and that no one
who had borne arms against the government
should be liberated on parole. In spite of
the high opinion Davis had of him, some of
his measures were sharply opposed in con-
gress, and the severe criticism evoked by his
conscription law led to his resignation in

Benjamin

224

Benjamin

August 186:2. When, in 1864, lie was secre-
tary of state, General Johnston declared that
the confederate cause could never succeed
so long as he remained minister. He was
generally blamed for the part he took in
raising a loan from France, and in the con-
struction of some 'rams' in that country,
measures attributed to the fact that the
daughter of Slidell, then envoy at Paris, had
married a French banker (DRAPER, iii. 290).
On the failure of the commissioners sent to
Fortress Monroe to treat for peace, Benjamin
made a spirited speech at a meeting held at
Kichmond, urging his hearers to liberate all
slaves who would join the ranks of the army,
and declaring that his own slaves had asked
to be allowed to fight.

On the fall of the Confederacy Benjamin
iled from Richmond. His adventures in his
escape from Richmond to England were of j
a romantic kind. Mr. Davis left Richmond
after the news of Lee's surrender at Ap-
pomattox court-house, accompanied by the j
members of his cabinet. On leaving Greens- !
borough, North Carolina, on 12 April 1865, |
Benjamin, to whom corpulence had made !
riding difficult, insisted that an ambulance J
should be found for him, and in this he rode
with his brother-in-law, M. Jules St. Martin,
and General Cooper. The roads were in very
bad condition, and the conveyance often
stuck fast in mud holes, and fell behind the j
rest of the train. The roads getting worse he
rode on a tall horse from Abbeville, in South
Carolina, to the other side of the Savannah
river, and then, unable to ride further, or
scenting danger from so large a party, he,
on 4 May 1865, made for the sea coast, in-
tending, says Davis, * to make his way by
Cuba to Mexico, and thence to Texas, to
-join me, wherever, with such troops as might
be assembled, I should be at the anticipated
time ; and still hopeful that it might be a more
successful struggle in the future.' He carried
with him an army certificate and free pass j
to all confederate officers certifying him a
French subject, and it was agreed that if i
he fell in with any federal troops he was j
to keep up the deception by using French,
which language he spoke like a native. l So
long as he remained with us,' says Harrison, j
1 his cheery good humour and readiness to
adapt himself to the requirements of all
emergencies made him a most agreeable com-
rade ' (B. N. HARBISON, in Century Magazine,
November 1883, The Capture of Jeff. Davis ;
Interview with Mr. Jefferson Davis in Man- \
Chester Guardian, 8 Aug. 1884). Ill luck j
pursued him. He escaped from the coast of
Florida to the Bahamas in a leaky open boat ;
sailed thence in a vessel laden with sponges

for Nassau, and after being wrecked on the
way was picked up by a British man-of-war
and carried into St. Thomas. The steamer in
which he sailed thence for England caught fire
and had to put back. By this time the final
collapse of the Confederacy was known, and
Benjamin went into exile as a defeated rebel.

He landed in Liverpool almost penniless.
With the exception of a small sum of under
3,OOOJ. remitted to England, all his fortune
was lost or confiscated. A small portion of
his real estate was indeed overlooked in the
confiscations, but this was not sold till 1883.
On the confiscation of his property his friends
bought in his law library. He entered as a
student at Lincoln's Inn on 13 Jan. 1866,
and at once began the study of English law
in the pupil-room of Mr. Charles Pollock.
The interest of Lords Justices Giffard and
Turner, Vice-Chancellor Page Wood (after-
wards Lord Hatheiiey) and SirFitzroy Kelly
procured him a dispensation from the usual
three years of studentship, and he was called
to the English bar 6 June 1866 at the age
of fifty-five. He at once joined the old
Northern Circuit. Here he was befriended
by Quain and Holker, then leaders of the
circuit, but for some time got little practice.
His first, and for some time his only clients,
were Messrs. Stone, Fletcher, & Hull, of
Liverpool, who through their London agents
introduced him to London work. Mr. Brett
was his first leader, and he was congratulated
on his first brief on his first circuit by Lord
Justice Lush. Misfortune, however, seemed
to attend him wherever he went. What
little was saved from the wreck of his pro-
perty in America he lost in Messrs. Overend
& Gurney's failure in 1866, and he was com-
pelled to resort to journalism for a livelihood.

In 1868 appeared his work on the contract
of sale, the classic upon this subject in Eng-
lish law, a book at once more scientific in
its treatment and more clear and useful for
the purposes of a practitioner than almost
any other. Its success was immediate and
complete both in England and America.
Baron Martin constantly quoted it with ap-
proval. A second edition appeared in 1873,
and a third, the revision of a portion of which
was Benjamin's last task before his health
gave way, was brought out in 1883. His
practice now grew rapidly. He was already
a ' Palatine silk ' for the county of Lancaster,
and although he met a slight check by the
refusal of his application for the rank of
queen's counsel, when, in January 1872, a large
number of juniors received ' silk,' it was soon
retrieved. A few months later, in arguing
Potter v. Rankin in the House of Lords, he
so impressed Lord Hatherley that he shortly

Benjamin

225

Benjamin

afterwards received a patent of precedence.
It is said that owing to a scruple connected
with his past career he refused to be sworn
as a queen's counsel. His patent, however,
carried with it by courtesy the privileges of
that rank. After a time he ceased to practise
at nisi prius, where, though his addresses
to juries were very able, he failed in cross-
examination and the general conduct and
strategy of a case. His forte lay in argu-
ment, especially on colonial appeals before
the privy council, where his great know-
ledge of systems of law other than the Eng-
lish gave him an advantage over purely
English lawyers. Henceforward he appeared
often before the courts sitting in bane or in
equity cases, and at length only took briefs
below the Privy Council and House of Lords
on a special fee of 100 guineas. He had a
great faculty for argumentative statement,
and would put his case at once fairly and
yet so that it seemed to admit of no reply.
Naturally he objected to being interrupted
by the court. Once in the House of Lords,
so he told the story, he heard a noble lord
— it is believed to have been Lord Cairns —
on some proposition of his ejaculate ' Non-
sense ! ' Benjamin stopped, tied up his brief,
bowed, and retired ; but the lords sent him
a public conciliatory message, and his junior
was allowed to finish the argument. His
power of stating his own case probably was
the cause of the very sanguine character of
the opinions he gave on cases laid before him.
Among his best known arguments were those
in Debenham v. Mellon, United States of
America v. Wagner, and Ditto v. Kae, the
Franconia case — one of his rare appearances
in a criminal court — and the Tichborne ap-
peal to the House of Lords.

Latterly he suffered from diabetes and
weakness of the heart. He had built him-
self a house in the Avenue de Jena, at Paris,
where his wife, who was a Frenchwoman,
and daughter lived, and he constantly went
there, living only a bachelor life in London,
and frequenting the dining and billiard rooms
of the Junior Athenaeum Club. In 1880 he
received an injury through a fall from a tram-
car in Paris, and, on going there as usual at
Christmas 1882, was forbidden to return to
work. So unexpected was this by him that
he had to return many briefs.

His retirement caused deep regret. He
was entertained at a farewell banquet in the
hall of the Inner Temple, 30 June 1883. He
said on this occasion that in giving up his
work he gave up the best part of his life,
and that at the English bar he had never
felt that any one looked on him as an in-
truder.

TOL. IV.

From this time his health fast failed, and
on 8 May 1884 he died. In his habits of
life there was a good deal of the southern,
temperament. He was skilful at games, and
used to say of himself that he loved to bask
in the sun like a lizard. Though on com-
pulsion he would work into the small hours,
he preferred to put off his dinner until late
in order to complete his work before it, and
he owned that to rise and work early in the
morning was impossible to him. To the last
he retained his loyalty to the lost cause of
the Southern Confederacy, and was always
bountiful to those who had suffered for it.

By his will, made 30 April 1883, and
proved 30 June 1884 by the executors, his
friends Messrs. De Witt and Ashland, of the
common law bar, he left of his total per-
sonalty of 60,000/. legacies to his sisters in
New Orleans, his brother Joseph, of Puerto-
Cortez in Spanish Honduras, his nephew
and five nieces; his wife Nathalie, and his
daughter Ninette, wife of Captain Henri
de Bousignac of the 117th regiment of the
French line, and to avoid questions of domi-
cile he declared his intention to reside till
his death in Paris. To commemorate the
banquet given to him on his retirement, an
engraving was published by W. Rofle, after
a portrait by Piercy. He left no memoirs,
his habit being to destroy private documents.
His works are : 1. ' Digest of Decisions of
Supreme Court of New Orleans,' 1834.
2. l Brief: Lockett v. Merchants' Insurance
Co./ BruslS, New Orleans, 1841. 3. ' United
States y. Castillero,' San Francisco, 1860.
4. ' Address to Free Schools/ New Orleans,
1845. 5. l Changes in Practical Operation
of the Constitution/ San Francisco, 1860.
6. t Defence of National Democracy ' (speech
in United States Senate 22 May 1860), Wash-
ington, 1860. 7. 'Relations of States''
(speech in senate 8 May 1860), Baltimore,
1860. 8. ' Speech on the Kansas Bill:
Slavery protected by the Common Law of
the World ; 11 March 1858,' Washington,

1858. 9. f Speech on the Kansas Question,
Reasons for joining the Democrats ; United1
States Senate 2 May 1856,' Washington,
1856. 10. 'On the acquisition of Cuba/

1859. 11. 'On the right of Secession'
(speech 3 Dec.), 1860. 12. ' On Sales/ first
edition, London, 1868 ; second, 1873 ; third,.
1883.

[Jefferson Davis's Kise and Fall of the Con-
federate Government, i. 242, ii. 679, 689, 694 ;
American Annual Cyclopaedia, vols. i.-v. andxi.;
A. H. Stephens's History of the United States-
(1874) ; Draper's History of the American Civil
War, i. 528-9, ii. 168, iii. 290, 622, 652 ; Sabin'*
Dictionary of Books relating to America, ii. 65 ;;

Benlowes

226

Benlowes

Times newspaper, 9 May 1884; Solicitor's Journal,
10 March and 7 July 1884 ; Law Journal, 17 May
and 5 July 1884; Law Times, 17 May 1884;
and personal sources.] J. A. H.

BENLOWES, EDWARD (1603?-
1676), poet, the son and heir of Andrew
Benlowes of Brent Hall, Essex, was ad-
mitted at or about the age of sixteen gentle-
man commoner of St. John's College, Cam-
bridge, matriculating on 8 April 1620. On
leaving the university he travelled with a
tutor on the continent, visiting seven courts
of princes. Wood says that he returned
1 tinged with Romanism ; ' but according to
Cole he had been bred in the Roman catholic
religion from his earliest years. On the death
of his father he became possessed of the estate
of Brent Hall, but being a man of a very liberal
disposition he contrived 'to squander it mostly
away on poets, flatterers (which he loved),
in buying of curiosities (which some called
baubles), on musicians, buffoons, &c.' (WOOD).
He often gave his bond for the payment of
debts contracted by his friends, and on one
occasion, being unable to meet the obligation
he had incurred, was committed to prison at
Oxford. To his niece at her marriage he
granted a handsome portion, and many poor
scholars experienced his bounty. When he
left Cambridge he made a valuable donation
of books to St. John's College. Among his
friends he numbered many distinguished men.
In 1633 Phineas Fletcher dedicated to him
' The Purple Island.' Sir William Davenant,
Quarles, Payne Fisher, and others, dedicated
works to him or complimented him in epi-
grams. Benlowes' chief work is entitled
' Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice, a divine poem.
Written by E. B. Esq. Several parts thereof
set to fit aires, by Mr. J. Jenkins,' 1652, fol.
The poem is divided into thirteen cantos, most
of which are preceded by large plates of Hollar
and others. Prefixed to the first canto, which
is entitled the ' Prelibation to the Sacrifice,' is
an engraving of a full-length figure (presu-
mably the author) seated at a writing-table.
The volume is valued rather for the engra-
vings than for the text ; but a reader who is
not dismayed by the author's conceits and
extravagances will be rewarded by finding
passages where subtlety of thought is joined
to felicity of diction. Later writers were
exceedingly severe on Benlowes's poetry.
Warburton pronounced him to be not less
famous for his own bad poetry than for
patronising bad poets, and Butler in his
'Remains in Verse and Prose' (ii. 119, ed.
1759) has a most ruthless attack upon him.
Benlowes' name had fallen into such ob-
livion that the editor of Butler's l Remains,'

I E. Thyer, imagined the reference was to Sir
I John Denham. But at the time of its pub-
j lication ' Theophila ' was greatly applauded,
| and Wood mentions that a whole canto of it
was turned into Latin verse in one day by the
youthful John Hall of Durham, so much were
i his ' tender affections ravished with that divine
[ piece.' Benlowes spent the last eight years
j of his life at Oxford, studying much in the
j Bodleian Library, and enjoying ' conversation
j with ingenious.' By his profuse liberality he
i had exhausted his patrimony, and at the close
j of his life he had to endure much privation.
In his mature years he abandoned Roman
Catholicism, and became a zealous protestant.
! His niece was an equally zealous catholic, and
since Benlowes insisted on disputing ' against
| papists and their opinions,' an estrangement
i arose between them. The old poet, who in his
! early days had been named by way of anagram
' Benevolus,' on account of his generosity, * for
want of conveniencies required fit for old age,
1 as clothes, fewell, and warm things to refresh
I the body, marched off" in a cold season, on
18 Dec. at eight of the clock at night, an.
1676, aged 73 years or more ' (WOOD). A
collection was made among the scholars who
remembered his former condition, and the
body was given an honourable burial in St.
Mary's Church, Oxford. There is a portrait
of him in the master's lodge at St. John's
College, Cambridge, and another in the Bod-
leian Library.

The following is a list of his works :
1. ' Sphinx Theologica, seu Musica Templi,
ubi Discordia Concors/ Cantab. 1626, 8vo
(2nd ed. 1628). 2. l Lusus Poeticus Poetis/
London, 1635, 8vo ; ten leaves of Latin verse
addressed to Charles I, sometimes bound up
with the first edition of Quarles's l Emblems/
3. ' A Buckler against the feare of Death, or
Pyous and Proffitable Observations, Medyta-
tions and Consolations on Man's Mortality,
by E. B., minister in G. B.,' London, 1640,
8vo. 4. ' Honorifica Armorum Cessatio sive
Pacis et Fidei Associatio,' Feb. 11 an. 1643,
8vo. 5. ( Chronosticon Decollations Caroli
Regis,' 1648 ; a poem printed in red and black.
6. < The Summary of Divine Wisdome,' 1657,
4to ; ten leaves. 7. ' Threno-Thriambeuticon/
1660, 4to ; Latin poems on the Restoration,
printed on one side of a large sheet (some
copies were printed on white satin). 8. 'Oxonii
Encomium,' Oxford, 1672 ; four sheets in folio.
9. ' Oxonii Elogia,' Oxford, 1673 ; a single
large sheet. 10. ( Magia Caelestis,' Oxford,
1673; a single large sheet. 11. ' Veridica
joco seria,' Oxford, 1673; a Latin poem
(against the pope, papists, &c.) on one side
of a large sheet. To Sparke's l Scintillula
Altaris/ 1652, he prefixed a copy of commen-

Benn

227

Benn

datory verses, and to John Sictor's ' Panegy- | chased at Glenravel, near Ballymena. Here,
ricon inaugurale . . . Richard! Fenn,' 1637, | in an unimproved district, they planted the
4to, he contributed a Latin poem in praise of j hillsides, ploughed the moors, built good
the lord mayor, the city, and the citizens. | houses, and collected a valuable library.

Wood mentions an undated copy of verses,
entitled ' Truth's Touchstone/ dedicated to
his niece, Mrs. Philippa Blount, and l Anno-
tations for the better confirming the several
Truths in the said poem.' i A Glance at the
Glories of Sacred Friendship, by E. B., Esq./
London, 1657, a large sheet in verse, has also
been assigned to Benlowes.

[Wood's Fasti, ii. 358-9, ed. Bliss ; Cole's MS.
Athenae; Baker's History of St. Joan's College,
Cambridge, ed. Mayor, 340, 1108 ; Corser's Col-
lectanea Anglo-Poetica, ii. 250-8 ; Hazlitt's
Handbook ; Hazlitt's Collection and Notes.]

A. H. B.

They endeavoured to create a new industry
by an experiment in the manufacture of
potato spirit, but excise regulations (since
repealed) frustrated their object. The cost
of the experiment, and the losses from potato
disease, induced the brothers to undertake a
business in Liverpool for some years. Re-
turning to Glenravel, a casual circumstance
led to a rich discovery of iron ore in the Glen-
ravel hills ; the first specimen was smelted
in 1851 under Edward Bonn's direction ; in
1866 an agreement was made with Mr. James
Fisher, of Barrow-in-Furness, :o work the

mineral beds. Hence came a new and valu-
BENN, GEORGE (1801-1882), historian able addition to the commercial products of

of Belfast, was born 1 Jan. 1801, at Tande-
ragee, county Armagh. His grandfather,
John Benn, came from Cumberland about
1760 as engineer of the Newry canal. His
father, also John Benn (1767-1853), was pro-

Ulster, which has since attained important
proportions. Meanwhile Edward Benn was
contributing antiquarian articles to various
journals (' Journ. Kilkenny Archseol. Soc./
' Irish Penny Journal/ &c.), and forming a

prietor of a brewery in Belfast ; George was | fine archaeological collection, now in the
hisfourthson. He was educated at the Belfast Belfast Museum. It had been proposed to
academy, under Rev. Dr. Bruce ; afterwards George to resume and complete the history

under Sheridan Knowles, then a teacher of
English at Belfast. He entered the colle-
giate classes of the Belfast Academical Insti-
tution in 1816 being one of the original

of Belfast. He modestly indicated, as more
fit for the task, Mr. William Pinkerton, who
collected some materials, but died (1871)
without having begun the history. Pinker-

A-U. JL\~>JL\Jj WCJJ.J.l.i' \JLL\s \J1. flit? l/J-ltf-LULCLl.

alumni, and took gold medals in logic (1817) | ton's papers were submitted to George Benn

and moral philosophy (1818). In 1819 the '

faculty prize was offered for the ' best ac-

• count of a parish.' Benn was the successful

essayist, with the parish of Belfast as his

theme. He gained also in 1821 the faculty

prize ('The Crusades'), and Dr. Tennant's

gold medal (' Sketch of Irish Authors in the | the Earliest Times to the close of the Eigh-

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries'), teenth Century ' (8vo, with eight maps and

two portraits). It is a curious coincidence that
in the same year was published, quite inde-
pendently, at Portland, Maine, a volume of
the same size and appearance as Mr. Benn's,
' History of the City of Belfast in the State

for publication, but he found employment of
them impracticable, and states in his preface
to his history. ' It is all my own work from
beginning to end.' He returned to Belfast
after his brother's death in 1874, andpublished,
1877, ' A History of the Town of Belfast from

The lad's essay of 1819 attracted the atten-
tion of James M'Knight, LL.D., then editor
of the ' Belfast News-Letter/ who offered to
print and publish it. It was issued anony-
mously in an enlarged form in 1823, with - - ., - - -,/ -

three maps and sixteen engravings by J. Thorn- ! of Maine, from its First Settlement in 1770
son, as ( The History of the Town of Belfast, to 1875,' by John Williamson. In 1880 ap-
with an Accurate Account of its Former and peared a second volume, i A History of the
Present State, to which are added a Statis- j Town of Belfast from 1799 till 1810, together
tical Survey of the Parish of Belfast and a with some Incidental Not ices on Local Topics
Description of some remarkable Antiquities ' and Biographies of many well-known Fa-
in its Neighbourhood/ 8vo. For so young a ! ~:i;™ ' rri"" " ""' *-«~-™,i *v ^

writer it was a work of uncommon judgment
and research, exceedingly well written, with
an eye for scenery and a taste for economics
as well as for antiquities. It is not super-
seded by Benn's later and larger labours.
Benn, with his brother Edward (1798-

milies.' This supplementary volume, though
the proof-sheets were ' corrected by a kind
friend/ the late John Carlisle, head of the
English department in the Royal Acade-
mical Institution (d. 19 Jan. 1884, set. 61),
bears evidence of the author's affecting state-
ment : l Before I had proceeded very far,

1874), engaged in distilling near Downpa- my sight entirely failed.' Benn died 8 Jan.
trick; subsequently the brothers spent the I 1882. Edward and George Benn

were

prime of their days on an estate they pur- | members of the nonsubscribing presbyterian

Benn

228

Bennet

( Unitarian) body, but wide in their sym-
pathies and broad in their charities beyond
the limits of their sect. Edward was the
founder, and George the benefactor, of three
hospitals in Belfast (the ' Eye, Ear, and
Throat,' the ' Samaritan,' and the ' Skin
Diseases '), and their gifts to educational in-
stitutions were munificent. Both were un-
married. They left four sisters.

[Memoir in Disciple (Belf.), Feb. 1882;
Hodges's Presidential Address to Belfast Nat.
Hist, and Phil. Soc. on ' Industrial Progress in
the North of Ireland,' 10 Nov. 1875 ; other par-
ticulars from Prof. Hodges.] A. G-.

BENN or BEN, WILLIAM (1600-
1680), divine, was born at Egremont in Cum-
berland, in November 1600. He was edu-
cated at the free school of St. Bees. He
was, on the completion of his course at this
celebrated school, 'transplanted thence to
Queen's College, Oxford,' where, says An-
thony a Wood, 'if I am not mistaken, he
was a servitor.' On a presentation to the
living of Oakingham in Berkshire, he left his
university without taking a degree. But he
found on going to Oakingham that one Mr
Bateman, his contemporary at Oxford, had got
another presentation to it. Rather than go
to law about it, they agreed to take joint
charge and to divide the income. This they
did with mutual satisfaction for some years.
But Benn, having been chosen as her chap-
lain by the Marchioness of Northampton,
living in Somersetshire, left Oakingham to
Bateman, and continued with his lady-patron
until 1629. In that year, 'by virtue of a
call from John White, the patriarch of Dor-
chester,' he went to Dorchester, and by
White's influence was made preacher of All
Saints there, where, Anthony a Wood in-
forms us, he ' continued in great respect from
the precise party till Bartholomew's day,
an. 1662, excepting only two years, in which
time he attended the said White when he
was rector at Lambeth in Surrey, in the place
of Dr. Featley, ejected.' Besides his constant
preaching in hi's own church he preached
' gratis on a week-day to the gaol prisoners,'
and, his auditory increasing, he himself built
a chapel within the gaol for their better
accommodation.

In 1654 he was one of the assistants to
the commissioners for ejecting f scandalous,
ignorant, and inefficient ministers and school-
masters.' After his ejection by the Act of
Uniformity, he remained at Dorchester ' to
the time of his death; but for his preach-
ing,' says Wood, ' in conventicles there and
in the neighbourhood, he was often brought
into trouble, and sometimes imprisoned and

fined.' He died on 22 March 1680, and was*
buried in the churchyard of his own former
church of All Saints. He published only
'A sober Answer to Francis Bampfield in
Vindication of the Christian Sabbath against
the Jewish, id est the observance of the*
Jewish still.' It is a masterly little treatise-
in the form of a letter (1672). After his
death a volume of sermons entitled l Soul
Prosperity,' on 3 John 2 (1683), was pub-
lished, and is one of the rarest of later puritan,
books.

[Calamy ; Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. ii. 126-7 ;
Hutchin's Dorset ; Wilson's Hist, of Dissenters,,
iii. 436; Wood's Athene (Bliss), iii. 1273;
Benn's publications.] A. B. Gr.

BENNET, BENJAMIN (1674^1726),
divine, was born at Willsborough, a village-
near to Market Bosworth, Leicestershire,
in 1674. In early youth his health was
very delicate, and during one severe illness
he passed under deep religious convictions.
On his recovery he formed a society of young
men for prayer and religious conversation.
He received his elementary education in his
parish school. He proceeded next to Sheriff-
Hales in Shropshire, under John Wood-
house. Woodhouse, on his ejection, had
established an academy for the training of
'toward youths,' theologically and classically.
He had at this time an average attendance
of from forty to fifty students. Young Bennetr
having here completed the course of study
usual among nonconformists at that period,
began his public ministry as a preacher-evan-
gelist at Temple Hall, a village near his native
place. He immediately succeeded John Shef-
field, on the removal of that remarkable man
to Southwark in 1697. He must have gone
to Temple Hall and continued there some
time on probation, for he was not formally
ordained until 30 May 1699. This was done in
Oldbury chapel in Shropshire by some of the
surviving ejected ministers, along with three
others, one of whom was John Reynolds of
Shrewsbury. He soon became noted for his
eloquence and persuasiveness in the pulpit
and for his love of study. In 1703 he ac-
cepted an invitation to go to Newcastle-on-
Tyne as colleague with the venerable Richard
Gilpin [q. v.] The congregation had been
weakened by a temporary secession under one
of Dr. Gilpin's assistants, the Eev. Thomas
Bradbury [q. v.] Bennet's ministry in New-
castle is far famed. He was wont to spend
sixty hours a week in his study, and succes-
sive days were entirely consecrated to inter-
cessory prayer and fasting. Besides original
hymns, some of which are still in use, he
wrote there a number of religious and histo-

Bennet

229

Bennet

rical works. Of the latter his ' Memorial of
the Reformation in England ' (1717), which
passed through two more editions (1721 and
1726), is the chief. It preserves many per-
sonal anecdotes from original sources not to
be found elsewhere, as, for instance, of Judge
.Jeffreys's visit to Newcastle in 1683, eccle-
siastical memorabilia from the lips of the
-ejected, and the like. The book drew its
author into controversy with Zachary Grey
;[q. v.] Bennet's defence of his Memorial is a
brilliant literary feat, although its grave writer
.says of its style : ' The manner of writing
will, I'm afraid, be thought too ludicrous, and
I'm sure 'tis what I take no pleasure in ; but
I sensibly found on this occasion the truth
of that of the poet, " Difficile est satyram non
scribere."' His 'Irenicum, or a Review of
.some late Controversies about the Trinity,
Private Judgment . . . and the Rights of
Conscience from the Misrepresentations of
the Dean of Winchester [Francis Hare] in
his " Scripture vindicated from the Misre-
presentations of the Lord Bishop of Bangor"'
(1722), is very charitable and reasonable in
its tone. But this did not save it from a
most bitter attack by an ultra-orthodox non-
conformist (Rev. John Atkinson, of Stainton).
He had published earlier his ' Several Dis-
courses against Popery ' (1714). But the one
theological book of his that still lives is his
'{ Christian's Oratory, or the Devotion of the
Closet/ of which a sixth edition was pub-
lished in 1760, and a seventh in 1776. In the
iifth edition there is a portrait of the author.
The spirit of the ' Christian's Oratory ' is a
kind of gentle quietism.

Never robust, Bennet had. for twelve years
foefore his death, an assistant, afterwards
••celebrated as the Rev. Dr. Samuel Lawrence
of London. It was during their joint mi-
nistry that the congregation erected their
.•second church in Hanover Square, Westgate
Street. But the senior pastor did not live
to see it opened. He died of a swift fever in
his fifty-second year, on 1 Sept. 1726. Bennet
had the honour of baptising the poet Mark
Akenside in 1721. Bennet's manuscripts
yielded a number of posthumous publications,
among them being a second part of his ' Chris-
tian's Oratory' (1728) ; 'Truth, Importance,
-and Usefulness of Scripture ' (1730) ; ' View
•of the whole System of Popery' (1781).

[Funeral Sermon by Isaac Worthington, 1726 ;
Prefaces to Works by Dr. Latham; Wilson's
Dissenting Churches ; Unitarian Church Eecords
at Newcastle ; communications from Eev. John
Black, London.] A. B. G.

BENNET, CHRISTOPHER (1617-
1655), physician, born in Somersetshire in
1617, was the son of John Bennet, of Rayn-

ton in that county. He entered Lincoln
College, Oxford, in Michaelmas term, 1632 ;
was B.A. 24 May 1636, and M.A. 24 Jan.
1639. He did not graduate in medicine at
Oxford, but was incorporated M.A. at Cam-
bridge, and became M.D. there in 1646
(MUNE:). On 11 Sept. of the same year he
was admitted licentiate of the College of Phy-
sicians, on 16 July 1647 a candidate, and on
7 Dec. 1649 a fellow of the college, where he
was censor in 1654. Bennet practised first
at Bristol (for how long is not known), and
I afterwards in London, where he acquired
| considerable reputation. He is chiefly known
I for his treatise on consumption, « Theatri
j Tabidorum yestibulum,' which from its title
j and from certain allusions was apparently
intended to be the introduction to a larger
work. It treats of various forms of wasting
disease, dealing more with what would be
now called pathology than with treatment.
Its most valuable feature is the constant re-
ference to cases observed and to dissections,
not to authority, which gives the little trea-
tise an honourable place among the earlier
examples of the modern method in medicine.
Bennet's life was cut short by consumption,
at the age of 38, on 30 April 1655. He
was buried in St. Gregory's church, near
St. Paul's, London. His portrait by Lom-
bart is prefixed to his book. The full title
of the first edition of his book is l Theatri Ta-
bidorum vestibulum seu Exercitationes Dia-
noeticae cum Historiis et Experimentis de-
monstrativis,' sm. 8vo, Lond. 1654. The 2nd
edition bears the title ' Tabidorum Theatrum,
sive Phthisios, Atrophise, et Hecticae Xeno-
dochium,' 8vo, Lond. 1656 ; idem Lugd.
Batav. 1714 ; id. Lipsiae, 1760. It appeared
in English as * Theatrum Tabidorum, or the
Nature and Cure of Consumption,' Lond.
1720, 8vo. Bennet also edited ' Health's Im-
provement, or Rules for Preparing all sorts of
Food. By Thomas Muffett, corrected and
enlarged by Christopher Bennet,' Lond. 1655,
4to.

[Baldwin Hamey, Bustorum aliquot Eeliquise
(MS. biographies) in Brit. Mus. and Coll. Phys. ;
Wood's Athense Oxon. 1721, ii. 191 ; Wood's
Fasti, i. 266, 276 ; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 248 ]

J. F. P.

BENNET, GEORGE (1750-1835), He-
braist, was minister of a small presbyterian
congregation in Carlisle, and passed a great
portion of his life in the study of Hebrew.
He was well acquainted with the learning of
the rabbis, who were in his opinion more
accustomed, if not better able, than Christian
commentators to catch the rays of light re-
flected from the Hebrew Bible. One of the
principal contributors to the ' British Critic;'

Bennet

Bennet

he reviewed from time to time the works of
some of the most celebrated English divines,
and he became at an early period of his life
acquainted with many eminent theologians
of his day. He corresponded on intimate
terms with Milner, Dean of Carlisle, and his
brother the historian, with Archdeacons
Paley,Markham, and Nares, and with Bishops
Porteus and Horsley. It was the learning
and power of writing displayed in his criti-
cisms of their works which induced Horsley
and others to inquire of Archdeacon Nares,
then editor of the l British Critic,' the name
of the reviewer to whom they were indebted
for such able and luminous articles. In 1802
Harvard College in Boston, Mass., U.S., con-
ferred the honorary degree of D.D. upon Ben-
net. In the preceding year Horsley, seldom
liberal of his praise, had recorded in his ' Ho-
sea ' the strongest testimony to the merits of
Bennet's work 'Olam Hanashamoth.' Be-
fore this Bennet had published another book,
attacking sympathisers with the French re-
volution. His friends desired that he should
take Anglican orders, but he preferred a
settlement among his own countrymen, and
Archdeacon Markham applied to his brother-
in-law, the Earl of Mansfield, who appointed
him to the parish of Strathmiglo in Fife,
where he died, aged 84.

The full titles of Bennet's works, in their
chronological order, are : 1. f A Display of
the Spirit and Designs of those who, under
pretence of a Reform, aim at the Subversion
of the Constitution and Government of this
Kingdom. With a Defence of Ecclesiastical
Establishments,' Carlisle, 1796. 2. < Olam
Hanashamoth, or a View of the Intermediate |
State, as it appears in the records of the Old ;
and New Testament, the Apocraphal (sic) ,
Books in heathen authors, and the Greek
and Latin Fathers ; with Notes,' Carlisle,
1800.

[Ramage's Drumlanrig, p. 231 ; Brit. Mus.
Cat. ;. Notes and Queries, 1883, p. 334; Watt's
Bibl. Brit. ; British Critic, 1798, p. 326 ; Statis-
tical Account of Scotland, ix. 777 ; Ornie's Bibl.
Bibl. p. 27.1 J- M-

BENNET, HENRY (fl. 1561), of Calais,
published in 1561, at the press of John
Awdelay, a volume of translations from the I
German reformers. The book is divided into j
two parts ; the first contains Philip Melan- |
chthon's life of Luther, Luther's declaration
of his doctrine before the Emperor Charles |
at Worms, and an oration of Melanchthon's ;
at Wittenberg, given in place of his usual j
' grammatical' exposition of the Epistle to the j
Romans, after a short l intimation' of the)
flews of Luther's death. This part is pre- j

faced by a dedication to Thomas, Lord Went-
worth, dated 18 Nov. 1561. The second
part has a similar dedication to Lord Mount-
joy, dated ' the last of November' 1561, and
consists of a life of John (Ecolampadius by
Wolfangus Faber Capito, an account of his;
death by Simon Grineus, and a life of Hul-
derick Zuinglius by Oswald Miconius ; the
last two are in the form of letters. The two-
parts were published together. The trans-
lations are careful and idiomatic, and the
quotations of CEcolampadius from Homer and
Euripides are turned into English verse.

[Brit. Mus. Cat. ; Ames's Typographical Anti-
quities ; Tanner's Bibliotheca.] E. B.

BENNET, HENRY, EAEL or ARLINGTON
(1618-1685), member of the Cabal ministry,
was the second son of Sir John Bennet, doctor
of laws (EVELYN, Diary, 10 Sept. 1678), and
Dorothy Crofts, and grandson of Sir John
Bennet, the ecclesiastic and civilian [q. v.]
He was born at Arlington, or Harlingtonr
Middlesex, in 1618. After having been to-
school at Westminster, he was sent to Christ
Church, and gained there a considerable repu-
tation for scholarship, particularly for skill in
English verse ( WOOD, Athence). He was, ac-
cording to Sheffield (Memoirs^, educated for
the church, and was to have been ' parson of
Harlington' (EVELYN). In 1643 we find
him at Oxford in Lord Digby's employ,
when he was sent on various messages from
the queen to Ormond in Ireland (CARTE,,
Onnond, iv. 145, ed. 1851). He joined the
royal forces as a volunteer, and fought in
the skirmish of Andover, where he received
a scar on his nose, which was visible through-
out his life (KENNET, Register, p. 788 ; Pub-
lic Intelligencer, No. 42 ; portrait to vol. i. of
ARLINGTON'S Letters}. During the war he left
England and travelled in France, and after-
wards in Italy. Upon the death of the king
he returned to France, and in 1654 became
secretary to James on the earnest recom-
mendation of Charles, to whom his ' pleasant
and agreeable humour' (CLARENDON, 397)
had made him acceptable. During their resi-
dence in Flanders Arlington was entirely in
the confidence of the royal family, and in 1658
was sent as Charles's agent to Madrid, where
he showed address, especially at the treaty of
Fuentarabia, and where he gained both his
intimate knowledge of foreign affairs and a
formality of manner which was a common
subject of ridicule (RALPH, p. 899; Me-
moires de Grammont, p. 163, ed. 1812). In
connection with this it is to be noticed that
in his official correspondence he was always
extremely nice in his phraseology (Lauder-
dale Papers, Brit. Mus. Add. M8S. 23119,

Bennet

231

Bennet

f. 43). He remained at Madrid, having been
knighted by Charles, until some time after the
Restoration. The delay in his return was due,
it is said, though North denies it (NORTH,
Examen, p. 26), to his fear of Lord Cole-
pepper, who, having seen Bennet in a catholic
church with Charles, had threatened that his
head or Bennet's should fly for it. When he
did return, after Colepepper's death, it was
without the customary letters of revocation,
and even without the knowledge of the secre-
taries of state (CLARENDON). The king at
once made him keeper of the privy purse.
It is probable, but incapable of proof, that
Bennet was now and throughout his life a
catholic. He had, when in Flanders, urged
Charles to declare his conversion, and had
quarrelled with Bristol on the point (CAKTE'S
Ormond, iv. 109), and there is no doubt that
he died a catholic (DALRYMPLE'S Memoirs, i.
40, ed. 1790). Pepys, on 17 Feb. 1663, speaks
of him as being so then. North, however,
denies this with fairly strong evidence, which,
if true, shows at any rate that his Catholicism
was disguised. It is certain that in later
years he spent large sums upon rebuilding the
church at his seat at Euston. Bristol, too, in
his articles against Clarendon, 10 July 1663,
affirms that in his practice and profession
Arlington had been constant to protestant-
ism; and at his impeachment in 1674 he
was attacked, not as a papist, but only as a
promoter of popery. Carte also (iv. 145) as-
serts only that he was thought to be a catholic.
Probably he was destitute of serious convic-
tion, and acted merely so as best to keep in
favour. His knowledge of the king's temper,
and of a courtier's arts, and his readiness to
serve and encourage Charles in his dissolute
habits, secured his position. In particular he
shared with his intimate friend, Sir Charles
Berkeley, the management of the royal mis-
tresses (BuRNET, i. 182, ed. 1833) ; and in No-
vember 1663 we find him acting with Edward
Montague and Buckingham in the shameful
scheme i for getting Mrs. Stewart for the king'
(PEPYS, 6 Nov. 1663). In alliance with Lady
Castlemaine he fostered the king's growing
impatience with Clarendon, in opposition to
whose wishes he was, in October 1662, on the
enforced retirement of Nicholas, made secre-
tary of state, while Berkeley succeeded to his
office of keeper of the privy purse. In Fe-
bruary 1663 Clarendon, at the king's wish,
procured him a seat in parliament, though
he declares that Bennet knew no more of the
constitution and laws of England than he did
of those of China (CLARENDON, Life, 400,
404). He never appears to have addressed
the house, though Sheffield (Memoirs) says
that none spoke better when obliged, and

from being so silent was believed to be a
man of much smaller parts than was really
the case ; but he is mentioned as serving
on committees (Commons' Journals, 21 Feb.
1662-3). Burnet says his parts were ' solid,
but not quick,' and Carte speaks of him as
very fit for business, but afourbe in politics.
De Grammont declares that 'Arlington, &
1'abri de cette contenance composed, d'une
grande avidit6 pour le travail, et d'une im-
penetrable stupidit6 pour le secret, s'Stait
donn6 pour grand politique.' By nobody is
he mentioned with trust or affection, but
appears to have been regarded throughout
life as a selfish schemer. There is no doubt
that he was concerned in advising the Decla-
ration of Indulgence in 1662, though Burnet
alone relates this (i. 352). He now became
the centre of the opposition to Clarendon
(Parl. Hist. iv. 395 ; PEPYS, 1 July 1663) in
alliance with Buckingham and Bristol, though
there is nothing to connect him directly with
the attack on the chancellor. He boasted
to Charles of the use he could be to him in
parliament, and how he had collected a
party of country gentlemen in the house
who would vote according to the king's wish.
During 1663 he was made a baron by the title
of Lord Arlington, though in the first war-
rant the title was drawn as Cheney (CLAR.
604). In 1664 he served on the committee
for explaining the Act of Settlement in Ire-
land (CARTE, iv. 207), and in March 1665
on that for Tangiers ; and he was the prin-
cipal person connected with foreign affairs,
with which he was better acquainted than
any politician of Charles's court. His inti-
mate knowledge of the languages of the
continent no doubt greatly conduced to
this influence ; according to Evelyn (Diary,
10 Sept. 1678), he had the Latin, French,
and Spanish tongues in perfection. l He
has travelled much, and is the best bred and
courtly person his Majesty has about him,
so as the public ministers more frequent
him than any of the rest of the nobility.'
Clarendon asserts that he brought the first
Dutch war upon the nation, and there is
little doubt that he was the adviser of the
attack on the Smyrna fleet before war was
declared (ECHARD, p. 157). In 1665 he urged
the king to grant liberty of conscience as
being the best means of union during the
war, and the readiest way of obtaining money
(CLAR. 583). This, however, is scarcely con-
sistent with Burnet (i. 412), who says that
he had at this time attached Clifford to his
interests; for we know that Clifford was
doing all he could to pass the Five Mile Act.
At this time Arlington lived at Goring
House, where Arlington Street is now built

Bennet

232

Bennet

(EVELYN, 9 Feb. 1665). On the death of
Southampton he hoped for the treasurership,
for which he was always trying-, and which he i
never obtained. On the dismissal of Clarendon
in 1667, Arlington's influence appears to have '
declined, in the face of the enmity of Bucking-
ham and Bristol ; Buckingham, in particular,
took pleasure in slighting him (PEPYS, 12 July
1667). Towards the end of the year, how-
ever, they were reconciled, and on terms so
intimate that Buckingham asked his assist-
ance in his attack on Ormond. Having,
however, married Isabella von Beverweert,
daughter of Louis of Nassau, and sister of the
wife of Ormond's eldest son, Lord Ossory, '
he was forced in this matter to use all his
faculties for trimming (CARTE, iv. 347). In
January 1668 he sent Temple to conclude the (
triple alliance ; in this affair Temple gained |
such credit as to earn Arlington's jealousy for
the future, which was first shown by his en-
deavour to get him sent out of the way on the
embassy to Madrid. Scarcely was the triple
alliance concluded when Charles wished to
break it, and Arlington, who expressed his
entire devotion to Louis, and who, though he
cautiously refused to accept a bribe himself,
allowed his wife to receive a present of 10,000
crowns from Louis (DALRYMPLE, i. 125), was
one of the few persons, all catholics, entrusted
with the secret. He was now a member of
the Cabal, and at the meeting at Dover in
1670 was again reconciled to Buckingham,
with whom he had once more quarrelled. The
secret treaty with Louis contained a clause
by which, for a large sum, Charles was to de-
clare himself catholic ; this he dared not show
the protestant members of the Cabal. Buck-
ingham, therefore, who was one of them, was
duped by being allowed to employ himself in
arranging a sham treaty, every article of
which, except that mentioned, was the same
as in the first, of which he was ignorant. In
this trick Arlington had the chief part, and
carried it out with great astuteness (DAL-
BYMPLE, i. 95 and following). He was, too,
closely concerned with the designs which
Charles entertained of using military force
against his own subjects, and in especial with
Lauderdale's operations in Scotland, by which
an army of 20,000 men was raised, ready to
inarch and act as Charles pleased within his
dominions (Lauderdale MSS. British Mu-
seum). In 1671 he is spoken of as being in
chief esteem and affection with the king (DAL-
RYMPLE). He was nearly concerned with the
closing of the exchequer and with the Decla-
ration of Indulgence in 1672, which, however,
in opposition to his colleagues in the Cabal,
he urged Charles to withdraw when it was
attacked by parliament in 1673. Meanwhile,

on 22 April 1672, he had been raised in the
peerage ; he was now Earl of Arlington and
Viscount Thetford in Norfolk. On 15 June
he was made knight of the Garter. Jealous
of Clifford, who had been made lord treasurer,
Arlington now turned to the Dutch interest,
disclosed the secret of the real and sham
treaties to Ormond and Shaftesbury (DAL-
RYMPLE, i. 131), and used all his influence in
the House of Commons to pass the Test Act,
whereby Clifford was ruined. He also ad-
vised Charles to dismiss James, incurring
thereby the latter's extreme enmity, and in-
duced the king at the end of 1673 to conclude
a separate peace with the Dutch, from whom
he had long been believed to be receiving
bribes (PEPYS, 28 April 1669). Shortly af-
terwards he went with Buckingham and Hali-
fax to treat for a general peace with Louis at
Utrecht.

On 15 Jan. 1674 he was impeached in the
House of Commons as being the great instru-
ment or * conduit-pipe ' of the king's evil
measures. The charges against him were un-
der three heads : (1) the constant and vehe-
ment promotion of popery ; (2) self-aggrand-
isement and embezzlement ; (3) frequent
betrayal of trust. On the previous day,
Buckingham, when himself attacked, had
charged Arlington with frustrating all pro-
testant and anti-French plans, with having
induced the king to send for Schomberg and
try to govern by an army, with having been
the author of the unwarrantable attack on the
Smyrna fleet, and with having appropriated
large sums of money. Arlington, in defence,
showed that the house was dealing with pre-
sumptions rather than proofs, and in the end,
a result due in a great measure to the personal
efforts and influence of Lord Ossory, the vote
to address . the king for his removal was re-
jected by 166 to 127, and further proceedings
were dropped (Parl. Hist. iv. 642).

His general want of success, the enmity of
James, the mimicry of Buckingham, and the
rising power of Danby, who was reintroducing
the principles of Clarendon which the Cabal
had opposed, viz. the strict alliance of the
Anglican church with the crown, now caused
Arlington to lose ground rapidly. On 11 Sept.
1674 he resigned the secretaryship for 6,000/.
to Williamson, and was made lord chamber-
lain instead. To regain favour with the parlia-
ment In revived some dormant orders pro-
hibiting papists to appear at court (ECHARD,
p. 369), opposed the French interest, and in
December 1674, hoping to supplant Temple at
the Hague, got himself sent with Ossory to
treat with Orange for a general peace, and to
suggest his marriage with James's daughter
Mary. In this mission he completely failed, and

Bennet

233

Bennet

earned with William the reputation of being
arrogant, patronising, artificial, false, and te-
dious (KENNET, Hist. iii. 330). His credit
•declined more rapidly ; his solemn face and
formal gait laid him open to the jokes of the
-court, which could now be indulged in safety ;
it became a common jest for some courtier to
put a black patch upon his nose and strut
about with a white staff in his hand (ECHARD,
p. 369) to amuse the king. Nothing was left
to him but to foster his grudge against Danby,
who, like Clifford, had excited his jealousy
by gaining the place he was ambitious of fill-
ing. He encouraged Danby's enemies in the
House of Commons, and the quarrel caused
-such inconvenience that Charles, unwilling
to dismiss one who, after Ormond, was his
-oldest servant, asked Temple to mediate.
Danby expressed his willingness for recon-
ciliation, but Arlington sulkily retired to his
country seat at Euston, in Suffolk, where
he had indulged his one ' expensive vice ' of
building to the limit of his fortune (EVELYN,
•9 and 10 Sept. 1678 ; ECHARD, p. 389). He
remained lord chamberlain, though without
influence, until his death on' 28 July 1685.
He was buried at Euston. His only child
Isabella, ' a sweet e child if ever there was
any' (EVELYN, 1 Aug. 1672), was married on
1 Aug. 1672 to Henry, earl of Euston and
duke of Grafton, the son of Charles II and
L.ady Castlemaine.

[In addition to the authorities quoted in the
text, the article in the last edition of the Biogra-
phia Britannica, and Arlington's Letters, pub-
lished by Thomas Babington in 1701, may be
•consulted.] 0. A.

BENNET, JOHN (/. 1600), was one
of the best composers of madrigals of the
Elizabethan period. Little is known of his
"biography. In 1599 he printed his first
"work, ' Madrigalls to Foure Voyces,' which,
though termed by the composer 'the in-
deavours of a yong wit/ already displays
the hand of a finished master. This work
(which was reprinted in 1845) was dedi-
cated to Ralph Assheton, receiver of the
duchy of Lancaster. In 1601 Bennet con-
tributed to Morley's ' Triumphs of Oriana '
the beautiful madrigal, ' All creatures now are
merry-minded.' In 1614 he published several
•compositions in Thomas Ravenscroft's ' Briefe
Discourse, in the preface to which work he
is mentioned as ' Maister John Bennet. a gen-
tleman admirable for all kindes of Composures,
•either in Art or Ayre, Simple or Mivt, of
what Nature soever.' It is probable that he
died young, as no later published works of his
•exist, though in Thomas Myrtell's 'Tristitiae
. MSS. 29372-77), compiled

in 1616, there is an anthem by him. Other
manuscript anthems and madrigals of Ben-
net's are in the British Museum, Fitzwilliam
and Peterhouse (Cambridge), and Christ
Church (Oxford) collections.

[Grove's Dictionary, vol. i. ; Library Cata-
logues ; Hawkins's History of Music.] "W. B. S.

BENNET, SIR JOHN (d. 1627), ecclesi-
astic and civilian, of Christ Church, London,
and Uxbridge, Middlesex, eldest son of
Thomas Bennet, of Clapcot, Wallingford,
Berkshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas
Tesdale of Deanly in the same county, founder
of Pembroke College, Oxford, was educated at
Christ Church, Oxford, and appointed junior
proctor of the university 21 April 1585. He
took the degrees of bachelor and doctor • of
laws by accumulation 6 July 1589, and was
appointed prebendary of Langtofb in the
church of York, 6 March 1590-1. About
this time he became vicar-general in spirituals
to the Archbishop of York, for whom, if we
may judge from the inscription on a small
monument which he placed in York Cathedral
upon the death of the archbishop (John Piers)
in 1594, he felt sincere respect. The monu-
ment is still to be seen, though not in its
original place, having been removed in 1723
to make way for another tomb. In April
1599 he was made a member of the council
of the North, being then chancellor of the
diocese, and in the same year was included
in a commission to enforce the Act of Uni-
formity, and other statutes relating to reli-
fious questions, within the province of York,
n 1597 he had been returned to parliament
as member for Ripon. In the next parlia-
ment (1601) he represented the city of York,
and in 1603 was again returned for Ripon.
He does not appear to have played any very
active part in the House of Commons, but
Townshend briefly reports two speeches by
him, both made on the same day (20 Nov.
1601), one being in support of a bill pro-
posing to confer upon justices of the peace
throughout the country summary powers to
inflict punishment upon persons wilfully ab-
senting themselves from church on Sunday,
and the other in favour of a bill against
monopolies, a measure intended to preserve
freedom of trade, then seriously imperilled by
the practice of granting monopolies by royal
letters patent. Townshend relates that in
the course of this latter speech Bennet made
Sir Walter Raleigh blush by an adroit refer-
ence to monopolies of cards. In Stow's
' Annals ' we read that he made an ' eloquent
oration ' to King James during his passage
through York. 15 April 1602. The following
year (23 July) the king knighted him at

Bennet

234

Bennet

Whitehall shortly before his coronation.
About this date he was appointed judge of j
the prerogative court of Canterbury. Not
long after this he became chancellor to !
Queen Anne, and is so styled in Sir Thomas ;
Bodley's will, of which he was one of the |
executors, and which was in all likelihood i
ma'de some years before Sir Thomas's death
(28 Jan. 1612-13). A letter of that muni-
ficent patron of learning, addressed to Dr.
Singleton, vice-chancellor of Oxford univer-
sity, under date 5 Nov. 1611, shows that
Bennet was highly respected by Sir Thomas
himself and by the university authorities.
Bodley says that he has conferred about new
schools with ' Sir John Bennet, who, like a true
affected son of his ancient mother, hath opened
his mind thus far unto me, that if he thought
he should find sufficient contributors to a
work of that expense, and the assistance of
friends to join their helping hands to his, he
would not only very willingly undertake the
collection of every man's benevolences, but
withal take upon him to see the building to be
duly performed.' Accordingly, on 30 March
1613, being the day following Sir Thomas
Bodley's funeral, the first stone of the new
schools was laid by Dr. Singleton and Sir
John Bennet, to the accompaniment (as
Wood informs us) of' music and voices ; ' and
Sir John, ' having then offered liberally
thereto, the heads of houses, proctors, and
others followed.' Next year, and again in
1620, Bennet was returned to parliament for
the university. Early in April 1617 he was
sent to Brussels on a special mission to the
Archduke Albert to procure the immediate
punishment of both author (Henri Dupuy or
VandePutte, a man of considerable learning)
and printer of a pamphlet entitled ' Corona
Regis/ in which James and his court were
satirised. Bennet returned with little satis-
faction (14 June 1617), but he was well re-
ceived by the king. We learn from a letter
of Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton that
Bennet travelled by way of Margate, and that
before starting he ' invited Lord Hay, Mr.
Comptroller (Sir Thomas Edmondes), and
Mr. Secretary (Sir Ralph Winwood), to a
poor pitiful supper' (in the opinion at least of
Sir Thomas Edmondes, who probably was a
competent judge, and also of one John West,
1 who, poor man, was extremely sorry to see
him invite such friends to shame himself, and
to make show what a hand his wife had over
him'). The wife here referred to was Sir
John's third and last. His first wife, Anne,
daughter of Christopher Weekes of Salisbury,
died as early as 9 Feb. 1601, leaving six
children, four sons and two daughters. She
was buried in York Cathedral, her husband

placing there a modest tablet dedicated to
her memory. Her successor was Elizabeth,,
daughter of Sir Thomas Lowe, alderman of
London, who was buried, 14 May 1614, in
the parish church of Harlington, Middlesex..
His third wife appears to have been of robust
physique. ' Sir John Bennet,' writes Cham-
berlain, 'hath some business to the archduke,
whither he will be shortly sent as ambassador,
and carries his large wife with him.' Her
name was Leonora, and she was the daughter
of Adrian Vierendeels, a citizen of Antwerp,,
and had been twice previously married. By
the death of Sir Ralph Winwood in the
autumn of this year, the place of secretary
of state became vacant, and we learn from
a letter of Sir Horace Vere that Sir John
Bennet was one of those who aspired to fill
it. His name occurs in a commission dated
29 April 1620 to put in force against heretics
the provisions of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdic-
tion Act of the first year of the reign of
Elizabeth throughout the three kingdoms,
and also in another commission with the like
object, but restricted to the province of York^.
dated 24 Oct. of the same year. On 15 June
of the same year, his eldest son, John, father
of Henry, the first Lord Arlington [q. v.]r
received the honour of knighthood. In April
of the following year, while the impeachment
of the lord chancellor for bribery and corrup-
tion was in progress, preliminary steps were
taken in the House of Commons for the im-
peachment of Sir John Bennet as judge of
the prerogative court of Canterbury, for ad-
ministering the estates of intestates, not ac-
cording to law, but in consonance with the
wishes of the highest bidder. A committee of
the whole house sat on 18 April to examine
witnesses, and reported on the 20th unfavour-
ably to Sir John. On the 23rd the house
found a ' true bill ' against him. His seat
was therefore vacated, and a committee of
members was ordered to secure his person
until the sheriffs of London, to whom a
warrant at the same time issued under the-
speaker's hand, should have apprehended him.
At the same time it was resolved, according
to the practice in such cases, to have a con-
ference with the lords. On 25 April Sir John
petitioned the House of Lords that he might
be admitted to bail (being then a close
prisoner in his own house) upon giving good
security. The peers resolved that the de-
linquent must either give security to the
extent of 40,0007., or go to the Tower. Sir
John certainly did not find the security, but
he remained in his own house in custody of
the sheriffs. On 29 May the House of Lords
resolved that 'the prisoner be brought to the
bar to-morrow morning at nine o'clock.' TherL

Bennet

235

Bennet

began the formal impeachment of Sir John
Bennet. Besides selling administrations, he
was accused of misappropriating money en-
trusted for ' pious uses/ in particular a legacy
of 1,000/. given to the university of Oxford
by Sir Thomas Bodley's will. The trial was
adjourned until the next session, Sir John,
who seems to have proved less guilty than
was at first supposed, being discharged on
rather more than half the amount of bail
originally demanded. This year parlia-
ment dissolved in June, and reassembled
on 20 Nov., but the trial was never re-
sumed, Sir John being excused attendance
on the ground of dangerous illness. In
the following year, however (June 1622),
the attorney-general instituted proceedings
against Sir John in the Star chamber, which
resulted, in November of that year, in a sen-
tence similar to that which had been passed
the preceding year upon the lord chancel-
lor, viz. a fine of 20,000/., imprisonment
during the king's pleasure, and permanent
disability from holding office. In the Star
chamber the delinquent appears to have prac-
tically pleaded guilty, urging only by way of
appeal ad misericordiam the existence of his
wife, and the multitude of his issue, fifty in
all — i.e. ten children and forty grandchildren
—upon all of whom, besides ' others/ the
execution of the sentence would bring shame
and distress. On 16 July 1624 the sentence
was remitted, with the exception of the
fine of 20,000/. This he apparently found
means to pay, as about this time he seems to
have been discharged from the Fleet, to which
he had been committed. Probably he was
already in very infirm health, for he did not
survive 1627. In 1625 (13 July) Dr. Hodg-
son had been appointed to fill his place in the
council of the North. He died at his house
in Christ Church, London, and was buried
in the church of that parish. His wife, Leo-
nora, survived him, and resided till her death
at his seat at Uxbridge, subsequently known
as the ' treaty house/ from the commissioners
on either side having there met to arrange
the futile treaty which was concluded be-
tween the king and the parliament in 1645.
She died in 1638, and was buried in the
chapel at Uxbridge.

[Le Neve's Fasti, iii. 199, 490 ; Willis's Not.
Parl. iii. 139, 148, 159, 172, 181; Drake's Hist.
York, 357, 369, 370, 456, 457, 511 ; Stow's
Annals, 820; Townshend's Hist. Coll. 228, 232;
Nichols's Progresses (James I), i. 206 ; Kymer,
xvi. 386-94, xvii. 202, 258 ; Wood's Hist. Ant.
Oxford, iii. 788-90, 934, iv. 616-20, Appendix,
110, 189; Wood's Fasti, i. 249; Parl. Hist. i.
1172; Lodge's Illustrations, iii. 70, 71; Win-
-wood's Mem. iii. 429 ; Court and Times of

James I, i. 464, ii. 5, 350 ; Motley's Life of
Barneveld, ii. 76; State Papers, Dom. 1598-
1601, 1611-1618, 1619-1623,1623-1625; Jour-
nals of House of Commons, i. 580-91 ; Journals-
of House of Lords, iii. 87-197 ; Lysons's Environs
of London, vi. 133, 181, 182; Collins's Peerage
(Brydges), Tankerville Title; State Trials, ii.
1146; Yonge's Diary, 37; Petyt's Misc. Parl.
92, 93 ; Cat. MSS. Harl. ii. 134.] J. M. K.

BENNET, JOHN(d. 1 686), controversial
writer, was born in the parish of St. Mar-
garet, Westminster, and was educated at
Westminster School. In 1676 he was elected
student of Christ Church, Oxford. He took
the degree of B.A. in June 1680, and that
of M.A. in April 1683. Before graduating-
as M.A. he published a panrDhlet entitled
f Constantius the Apostate. Being a short Ac-
count of his Life, and the Sense of the Primi-
tive Christians about Succession. Wherein
is shown the LTnlawfulness of excluding the
next Heir on account of Keligion, and the
Necessity of passive Obedience, as well to
the unlawful Oppressor as legal Persecutor f
(London, 1683). This was one of the many
replies called forth by the celebrated work
of Samuel Johnson (chaplain to Lord Wil-
liam Russell), entitled ' Julian the Apostate.'
In Johnson's book the behaviour of the chris-
tians towards Julian was used as an argu-
ment in favour of the exclusion of the Duke
of York (afterwards James II) from the suc-
cession on the ground of popery. Bennet in
his reply urges that the Arian Constantius.
afforded a truer parallel than Julian to the
case of a popish sovereign of England, and?
parodying Johnson's method, endeavours to
show that Constantius's orthodox subjects
recognised the duty of ' passive obedience r
to a heretic emperor. The arguments on
both sides are now equally obsolete, but it is.
easy to see' that Bennet was no match for his-
antagonist, either in knowledge of history or
in controversial ability. Johnson, however,,
thought his reasoning worthy of a special
refutation. Bennet afterwards studied medi-
cine. He died on 6 Oct. 1686, and was buried
in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

[Wood's Athense Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 201 ; Fasti
Oxon. ii. 372, 386.] H. B.

BENNET, JOSEPH (1629-1707), non-
conformist divine, the son of Joseph Bennet,
rector of Warbleton, in Sussex, was born in
1629. He was educated at Tunbridge gram-
mar school under Mr. Home, and on 30 June
1645 was admitted sizar for the master at
St. John's College, Cambridge, as a member
of which he proceeded B.A. in 1649-50.
Having had the misfortune to lose his father
at an early age, he was brought up by an

Bennet

236

Bennet

uncle named Mr. English, of Brightling, who
•directed his studies to the church in order
that he might present him to the living of
that parish, of which he was patron. A
rector was appointed ad interim^ but when
asked to vacate he refused, and Bennet did
not succeed to the benefice until 1658. In
the meantime he had acquired reputation as
•a preacher first at Hooe, and afterwards at
Burwash, both in his native county. When
the act of uniformity was passed he refused
to comply with its demands, and was accord-
ingly ejected from his living on 23 Feb.
1661-2. He stayed, however, at Brightling
for twenty years, and opened a school, which
flourished at first, until dispersed by the
plague in 1665. While his successor in the
living fled the parish for his own safety,
Bennet remained at his post, and continued in
unremitting attendance on the parishioners,
who died in great numbers. This endeared
him to the people of the neighbourhood to
such a degree, that when the five-mile act
came into operation no one could be found
to inform against him, and he remained un-
molested. ' His motto,' says Calamy, i was,
God's good providence be mine inheritance,
which was answered to him; for when his
family was increased he was surprisingly pro-
vided for, so that though he never abounded,
he never was in any distressing want. He
generally had a few boarders and scholars,
which was at once a help and a diversion.'
He afterwards undertook the charge of a
nonconformist congregation at Hellingly,
and latterly at Hastings, where he died in
1707. He does not appear to have been alto-
gether free from the superstitious fancies of
his day, if we may credit a tale of witchcraft
long current at Brightling, in which he is
represented as having played a conspicuous
part. His eldest son Joseph (1-665-1726),
who officiated for many years in the English
presbyterian congregation at the Old Jewry,
London, died on 21 Feb. 1725-6.

[Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial, 2nd ed., iii.
-313-15 ; Admissions to the College of St. John
the Evangelist, ed. J. E. B. Mayor, pt. i. 72,
xxiii. ; Lower's Worthies of Sussex, pp. 345-6 ;
-Sussex Archax)!. Coll., xviii. 111-13, xxv. 156-7;
MS. Addit. 6358, ff. 35, 44 ; Wilson's Dissenting
^Churches, ii. 331-8 ; Calamy's Funeral Sermon,
pp. 35-47; Calamy's Historical Account of My
Own Life, ed. Kutt, i. 348, ii. 487.] G-. G-.

BENNET, EGBERT (d. 1617), bishop of
Hereford, was the son of Leonard Bennet of
Baldock, Hertfordshire. He Avas one of Whit-
gift's pupils at Trinity College, Cambridge,
and was admitted minor fellow of that society
on 8 Sept. 1567, and major fellow on 7 April
1570. On 15 July 1572, being then three

years a B.A., he was incorporated at Oxford.
He was chaplain to Lord Burghley. In 1583
he was master of the hospital of St . Cross, Win-
chester. On 2-4 Jan. of the following year,
the day after the death of Watson, bishop of
Winchester, he wrote a letter to the lord trea-
surer on the state of the diocese, declaring
that it was overrun with seminarists and in
sore need of jurisdiction, and expressing his
hope that a wise successor would be ap-
pointed to the late bishop. Meanwhile, he
advises that the dean be admonished to keep
hospitality (SxKYPE, Whityift, ii. 261). In
1595 he was appointed Dean of Windsor, and
on the Feast of St. George in the following
year he was constituted a sworn registrar of
the order of the Garter. He was consecrated
to the see of Hereford on 20 Feb. 1602-3. He
increased and adorned the buildings of the
see. His only literary work appears to have
been a Latin preface to a translation by Wil-
liam Whitaker, his friend and colleague at
Trinity, of Bishop Jewell's * Defense against
Father Harding/ Geneva, 1585, fol. He
was, Strype says, a good and learned man.
He died on 25 Oct. 1617.

[Cole's Athense in Addit. MSS. 5863, f. 23 ;
Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 191, ed. Bliss ; Godwin, De
Prsesulibus ; Strype's Life of Whitgift, Oxford,
1822.] W. H.

BENNET, ROBERT (1605-1683), par-
liamentary colonel, was the eldest son of
Richard Bennet, of Hexworthy, in Lawhitton,
Cornwall,by Mary, daughter of Oliver Clobery,
of Bradstone, Devon. During the civil war
he was one of the chief Cornish adherents of
the Commonwealth, and governed St. Mi-
chael's Mount and St. Mawes castle in its
interest. He formed one of the thirteen
members appointed as a council of state
on 30 April 1653, and represented Cornwall
among the 139 persons summoned to attend
at Whitehall as a parliament on 4 July 1653 ;
ten days later he became one of thirty-
one members forming an interim council of
state. In the parliament of 1654 he was
elected both for the boroughs of Launceston
and Looe ; in that of 1659 he sat for the
former borough. After the death of Oliver
Cromwell he advocated the recognition of
Richard as protector, his predilection being
for a commonwealth, though he recognised
the necessity, in times ' so full of distraction,'
of a single person and two houses. After the
restoration he retired, without molestation,
into private life, and was buried at Law-
hitton 7 July 1683, aged 78. Colonel Ben-
net's charge at the Truro sessions, April 1649,
was printed under the title of ' King Charle's
(sic) triall justified,' and William Hicks de-

Bennet

237

Bennet

dicated to him his ' Quinto-Monarchiae cum
quarto 'O/zoAoym ' (1659). Many of his letters
occur in the Calendars of the State Papers
during- the Commonwealth, the Tanner MSS.
at the Bodleian Library, and the Additional
Manuscripts (12098) at the British Museum.
When a wing of the old mansion at Hex-
worthy was demolished about forty years ago,
an iron chest, concealed in a wall, was found
to contain the correspondence of Colonel
Bennet. The compilers of the ' Parochial
History of Cornwall ' assert (iv. p. viii) that
these letters are not now to be found, but
it is probable that they are identical with
the three volumes of Colonel Bennet's cor-
respondence included among the manuscripts
of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps (Nos. 11015
and 12102).

[Visitation of Cornwall (Harl. Soc. 1874), p.10;
Masson's Milton, iv. 498-506 ; Burton's Diary,
iii. 138, 265, 359, iv. 29, 449, 488; Bibliotheca
Gornub. i. 20, 238, iii. 1064.] W. P. C.

BENNET or BENNETT, ROBERT (d.

1687), was author of <A Theological Con-
cordance of the Synonymous Terms in the
Holy Scriptures, wherein the many various
and different Words and Phrases that concur
in Sense and Signification, are exactly re-
ferred to their distinct Heads and Common
Places, digested in an Alphabetical Order.
Very useful for all Students in Divinity and
Labourers in the great Work of theMinistery,
and for all that desire to search into the
hidden Treasures of the Scripture for Increase
in Knowledge and Confirmation in the Faith.
By R. Bennet, B.D. London, 1657.' It claims
to be, and is, a new Concordance ' not literal
of words barely, but of things.' Bennet's
' Theological Concordance ' was in use for
many generations. Of his birth, parentage,
and early education nothing has been trans-
mitted. He was at the university of Oxford,
and is named by Anthony & Wood ; but in
what college does not appear. In his ' Con-
cordance ' he describes himself as B.D. He
was presentedby Lord Wharton to the rectory
of Waddesden, Buckinghamshire, in 1648.
The living included three separate rectories.
One of these had been simultaneously be-
stowed on a John Ellis, 'who scrupled to
take the title upon him, and only preached
every other Lord's day in his turn.' Bennet
discharged all the other duties of baptising,
pastoral visitation, preaching, £c., but freely
let Ellis enjoy half the profits. From the
parish registers it is found that he was mar-
ried, and that his wife's Christian name was
Margaret. A son Gervase and daughter Mar-
garet appear among the baptisms.

On the passing of the Act of Uniformity

in 1662, Bennet joined the two thousand
ejected, while Ellis conformed, and got his
majesty's title to all the three benefices. To
his honour, however, it must be recorded
that he allowed the ejected rector 55/. for
life.

After some time spent in retirement in
Derbyshire — probably his native county —
he settled at Aylesbury, where he preached
privately to a small congregation. Thence-
he removed to Abingdon, Berkshire, where
he died 6 April 1687. It may be noted that
Lipscomb in his list of the rectors of Wad-
desden designates him Richard. Probably
the mistake originated in the fact that a
former rector (in 1383) was a Richard Ben-
net. His 'Theological Concordance' has
only R. Bennet, but the parish entry is dis-
tinctly Robert, and so Calamy.

[Calamy's Account ; Palmer's Nonconf. Mem.
i. 308-9 ; Lipscomb; communications from Rev.
T. J. Williams, M.A., Waddesden, Rev. Stephen
Lepine, Abingdon, Mr. Robert Gibbs, historian
of Aylesbury.] A. B. G.

BENNET, SIB THOMAS (1592-1670),

lawyer, second son of Sir John Bennet [q.v.],
grandfather of the first earl of Arlington, was
born at York 5 Dec. 1592, and educated at
All Souls College, Oxford, where he graduated
LL.D. 3 July 1624, was a member of Gray's
Inn, admitted to the College of Advocates
28 Jan. 1626, appointed master in Chancery
8 June 1635, and discharged the duties of
that office until his death in 1670. He was
knighted at Whitehall 21 Aug. 1661. For
a time he seems to have acted as judge of
one of the prerogative courts. He married
(1) Charlotte, daughter of William Harrison,
of London, by whom he had two daughters,
who died unmarried; (2) Thomasine, daugh-
ter and heiress of George Dethick, son of Sir
William Dethick, Garter king-of-arms, and
had issue by her Thomas Bennet, of Salthorp^
in the county of Wiltshire. He had a seat
at Baberham, Cambridgeshire. He died
27 June 1670.

[Foster's Collec. Gen. Reg. Gray's Inn, 60;
Collins' s Peerage (Brydges), Tankerville title;
Wotton's Eng. Bar. iv. 276 ; Cal. State Papers,
Dom. (1603-10) 384, (1634-5) 324, (1655)506;
Coote's Sketches of the Lives of Eminent English
Civilians, 76.] J. M. R.

BENNET, THOMAS (1645 ?- 1681),.
grammarian, was born at Windsor about 1 645.
His parentage is unknown. He was a West-
minster scholar (Alumni Westmonast. p. 154), .
and proceeded thence to Christ Church,
Oxford, where he was entered in 1663 ; took
his B.A. in 1666 (WooD, Fasti O.ron. iv.
289) ; and his M.A. 3 April 1669 (ibid. 307),.

Bennet

238

Bennet

Afterwards Bennet became corrector of the
University Press. Dr. Fell, the dean of Christ
Church, nominated Bennet, 29 Dec. 1669, as
candidate for the vacant post of architypo-
grapher, with which was then joined the
superior beadleship of civil law (WooD,
A.th. Ox. iii. 883). Bennet, thinking the ap-
pointment secure, did not go round to the
masters, cap in hand, which was the usual
manner of applying for their votes (WooD,
ibid.\ and one Norton Bold obtained the
post. A second attempt on the part of Fell
to secure for Bennet the architypographer-
ship in October 1671 met with the same ill
success. In 1673 Bennet published a gram-
mar in 8vo, entitled ' Many Useful Observa-
tionsjby way of Comment out of Antient and
Learned Grammarians on Lilly's Grammar/
Oxford. This work, from its birthplace,
became known as the Oxford Grammar, and
sometimes, from Fell's patronage, as Dr. Fell's
Grammar; and Bennet was styled the Oxford
Grammarian. He took orders after his second
Tebuff, and obtained the livings of Steventon
by Abingdon, and Hungerford. At this last
place he died in August 1681, and there he
was buried.

What Bennet did for (Latin) grammar was
to make 'more easie and more compleat
- . . the rules of Lilie's " Propria quae ma-
ribus" and "As in prsesenti"' (TWELLS'S
Grammatica Reformata, preface, xxvi) ; and
Twells, who was a schoolmaster at Newark-
upon-Trent, publishing his book in 1683 (un-
aware apparently of Bennet's death two years
before), alluded to him as the Oxford Gram-
marian, and hoped he would ' speedily apply
both his head and hand to ' remedy ' the
grand inconveniences of the " Quse genus "
and Syntax.'

[Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. iii. col. 883 ; Wood's
Fasti (Bliss), vol. ir. cols. 289, 307; Welch's
Alumni Westmonasterienses, p. 154; John
TVells's Grammatica Beformata, 1683, preface
26.] J. H.

BENNET, THOMAS, D.D. (1673-1728),
•divine, was bjorn at Salisbury on 7 May 1673.
He was educated at the free school there,
and was distinguished as a boy for his rapid
acquisition of all kinds of knowledge. He
proceeded to Cambridge, and was entered of
•St. John's College in 1688, before he was
"fifteen. He took the usual degrees of B.A.
and M.A. — the latter in 1694 when he was
twenty-one. He was chosen fellow of his col-
lege. In 1695 a copy of Hebrew verses by him
•on the death of Queen Mary was printed in
the university collection. His first noticeable
publication was ' An Answer to the Dis-
senters Plea for Separation, or an Abridg-

ment of the London Cases ' (1699, 5th edi-
tion 1711). In 1700, by a lucky accident,
arriving at Colchester on the death of a
clergyman there (John Bayne), he was un-
expectedly called on to preach the funeral
sermon, and acquitted himself so much to
the satisfaction of the people that he was
appointed to succeed him. He was instituted
15 Jan. 1700-1. In 1701 appeared <A Con-
futation of Popery' in three parts. In
1702 he followed up his former ' Answer
to the Dissenters Plea for Separation ' by
1 A Discourse of Schism, shewing, 1. What
is meant by Schism. 2. That Schism is
a damnable Sin. 3. That there is a Schism
between the Established Church and the
Dissenters. 4. That this Schism is to be
charged on the Dissenters' Side. 5. The
modern Pretences of Toleration, Agreement
in Fundamentals, &c., will not excuse the
Dissenters from being guilty of Schism.
Written by way of Letter to three Dissent-
ing Ministers in Essex. ... To which is an-
nexed an Answer to a Book entitled " Thomas
against Bennet, or the Protestant iDissenters
vindicated from the charge of Schism." ' Shep-
herd of Braintree answered this work, and
Bennet replied in ' A Defence of the Discourse
of Schism ; in answer to the objections which
Mr. Shepherd has made in his Three Sermons
of Separation,' and again in ' An Answer to
Mr. Shepherd's Considerations on the Defence
of the Discourse of Schism' (both 1703). But
Bennet found an unlooked-for and most
masterly antagonist in a fellow clergyman in
( A Justification of the Dissenters against
Mr. Bennet's charge of damnable Schism,
&c. ... By a Divine of the Church of Eng-
land by Law established,' 1705. Bennet's next
book is ' Devotions, viz. Confessions, Peti-
tions, Intercessions, and Thanksgivings, for
every day in the week, and also before, at,
and after the Sacrament, with Occasional
Prayers for all Persons whatsoever.'

In 1705 Bennet also published ' A Confu-
tation of Quakerism, or a plain Proof of the
Falsehood of what the principal Quakers
(especially Mr. E. Barclay in his ' Apology '
and other works) do teach concerning the
Necessity of immediate Revelation in order
to a saving Christian Faith, &c.' B. Lindley
answered this in 1710, and had an easy
victory ; for shrewd and learned as was the
* Confutation,' it betrayed ignorance of the
opinions of the quakers, as of evangelical
nonconformists.

In 1708, stung apparently by passing gibes
at his own printed prayers, he published : ' A
brief History of joint Use of precomposed
set Forms of Prayer,' and ' A Discourse of
Joint Prayer,' and later in the same year ' A

Bennet

239

Bennet

Paraphrase with Annotations upon the Book
of Common Prayer, wherein the text is
explained, objections are answered, and ad-
vice is humbly offered, both to the clergy
and the laity, for promoting true devotion
to the use of it.' In 1710 these were tacitly
vindicated by Bennet in t A. Letter to Mr.
B. Robinson, occasioned by his Review of the
Case of Liturgies and their Imposition,' and in
a ' Second Letter to Mr. Robinson ' on the same
subject (also 1710). The issue of one letter
before the other was characteristic of the
hurry with which Bennet addressed himself
to his controversies. He dashed off what first
offered itself, and accordingly committed
strange blunders. In 1711 he published
4 The Rights of the Clergy of the Christian
Church ; or a Discourse shewing that God
has given and appropriated to the clergy
authority to ordain, baptize, preach, preside
in church-prayer, and consecrate the Lord's
Supper. Wherein also the pretended divine
right of the laity to elect either the person
to be ordained or their own particular pastors
is examined and disproved/ Just after he
had thus flouted the laity he was thank-
ful to transfer himself from Colchester to
London on the invitation of the lord mayor
and aldermen of the metropolis. By a
singular repetition of his former good fortune,
he preached on an emergency a funeral ser-
mon at St. Olave's, in Southwark, and was
unanimously chosen lecturer there. On leav-
ing Colchester — which from various causes
had declined until his living was mere gen-
teel starvation — he became deputy chap-
lain to Chelsea Hospital. He was further
appointed morning preacher at St. Lawrence
Jewry under Dr. Mapletoft. Finally he
was presented by the dean and chapter of
St. Paul's to St. Giles, Cripplegate, of 500J.
a year. This presentation, however, embit-
tered his remaining years, as he was speedily
involved in parochial disputes and tedious
lawsuits in order to recover the proceeds of
an alleged assigned tax on peas and beans.

In 1711 he was created D.D. In 1714 he pub-
lished l Directions for Studying.' In 1715 ap-
peared his f Essay on the XXXIX Articles
agreed on in 1562, and revised in 1571, . . .
and a Prefatory Epistle to Anthony Collins,
Esq., wherein the egregious falsehoods and
calumnies of the author of " Priestcraft in Per-
fection" are exposed.' In 1716 he assailed the
extruded churchmen in 'The Nonjurors Sepa-
ration from the Public Assemblies of the
Church of England examined and proved to be
schismatical upon their own Principles.' In
1717 he married Elizabeth Hunt of Salisbury,
1 a gentlewoman of great merit/ and by her
had three daughters. In 1718 he published

' A Discourse of the ever-blessed Trinity in
Unity, with an Examination of Dr. Clarke's
Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity.' Like all
his books, these were answered. His idea of
the Trinity was undoubted Sabellianism.
In 1726 he gave to the world a small me-
morial of his lifelong studies in l A Hebrew

ing l the independency of the church on the
state.' But he died in the prime of his years
9 Oct. 1728. He is described by a contempo-
rary as ' tall, strong, and haughty,' and 'a per-
fect master of Eastern and other learned lan-
guages.' Emlyn praised him for his 'small
respect to decrees of councils or mere church
authority.'

[Newcourt's Repertorium ; Biogr. Brit. ; Chal-
mers's Biog. Diet. ; Bennet . . . Appellant, Perry
and other Inhabitants . . . Respondents, 1722 ;
tithes of peas and beans of vicar of East Ham in
Essex; T. Brett's Dr. Bennet's Concessions to
the Nonjurors prov'd to be destructive of the
Cause which he endeavoured to defend, 1717 ;
local researches at Colchester and London ; Ben-
net's Works, and MSS.] A. B. G.

BENNET, WILLIAM (1746-1820),
bishop of Cloyne, was born in the Tower of
London 4 March 1745-6. He was educated
at Harrow School, where he made the ac-
quaintance of Dr. Parr, Gilbert Wakefield,
and Sir William Jones, proceeding afterwards
to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The dates
of his degrees were : B.A. in 1767, M.A. in
1770, and D.D. in 1790. In 1773 a fellow-
ship was conferred upon him, and for many
years he was the chief tutor at the college.
Among his pupils was the Earl of West-
morland, who, on his appointment as lord
lieutenant of Ireland in 1790, nominated his
old tutor as his chaplain. Bennet's promo-
tion was then assured, and it came quickly :
from 12 June 1790 to 1794 he held the see
of Cork and Ross, and in the latter year was
translated to the more lucrative bishopric of
Cloyne. It was at one time proposed to
appoint Bishop Bennet to an English see, and
he was put in nomination for the provostship
of Trinity College, Dublin, but was rejected in
favour of another candidate. Among the pul-
pit orators of his day he took a high place, and
his services were in frequent requisition. His
exertions whilst preaching a charity sermon
at St. Michael's, Cornhill, are supposed to
have hastened his death. He died at Mon-
tagu Square, London, 16 July 1820, and
was buried at Plumstead, Kent, a monument
to his memory being erected in Cloyne cathe-
dral. In 1791 he married Frances, daughter
of Rev. Nathaniel Mapletoft, of Boughton,

Bennet

240

Bennett

in Northamptonshire, by Anna Maria, only
daughter of Charles, fifth Viscount Cullen.
Though they were of opposite politics, the
friendship of Parr and Bishop Bennet lasted
from school to college, and from college until
the latter's death. The bishop's critical
knowledge of the classics and his liberality
towards the Irish peasantry are highly praised
in Parr's * Remarks on the Statement of Dr.
Charles Combe' (1795), pp. 25-6. To the
ill-fated Gilbert Wakefield the bishop showed
his regard ' with uniform benevolence. He
was elected F.S.A. in 1790, but does not
seem to have contributed to the ' Archseologia.'
His favourite pursuit was to trace the Roman
roads in his native country, and he is said to
have walked over nearly the whole of them
from the north of England to the south. The
brothers Lysons, in their advertisement to
the * Magna Britannia,' acknowledge their in-
debtedness to the bishop for his communica-
tions on the Roman roads and stations in
each county. This work came to an end
with the county of Devon, and the fate of
the bishop's observations on the other shires
is not known. His paper ' On the Roman
Architecture and Castrametation is printed
in Polwhele's Cornwall, supp. to vol. iii. 82-
87, and to Nichols's f Leicestershire ' he con-
tributed some remarks on its Roman roads (i.
pp. cxlix-cl), and his views on the Jewry wall
of Leicester (i. 7). The translation of the
work known as Richard of Cirencester's .de-
scription of Britain, which was published in
1809, contained the bishop's opinions on the
same subject. The register of Emmanuel
College which he compiled is described in
the ' Fourth Report of the Hist. MSS. Com-
mission,' pp. 417-20. Bishop Bennet's pro-
bity and amiability were the subject of fre-
quent praise.

[Johnstone's Parr, vols. i. passim, and viii. 574-
648 ; Field's Parr, i. 20-43, ii. 288-93 ; Lord
Teignmouth's Sir "W. Jones, i. 114 ; "Wakefield's
Memoirs, i. 106, 200 ; Mant's Church of Ireland
ii. 718-20; Cotton's Fasti Eccl. Hibernicse, i
191, 276-8; Gent. Mag. 1791, p. 1061, 1820
pt. ii. 104, 184; Nichols's Lit. Illustrations, iv
703-12, vi. 164-6, 444-54, vii. pp. xxxv, 64-5
Corresp. of Et. Hon. John Beresford, ii. 44.1

W. P. C.

BENNET or BENNETT, WILLIAM
(1767 P-1833 ?), musician, was born about
1767 at Comteinteignhead, Devonshire, where
his father possessed an estate. Bennet's first
musical instructors were Bond and Jackson
of Exeter, but he subsequently came to Lon-
don, where he studied under John Christian
Bach and Schroeter. He was an excellent
pianist, and was noted for his extempore per-
formances on the organ. He is said to have

been the first to introduce grand pianofortes
into Plymouth, where he was appointed or-
ganist of St. Andrew's in 1793. In 1797 he
married a Miss Debell, of Guildford. Of his
later life no information is forthcoming. In
1812 he was living in Barrack Street, Ply-
mouth, where he still held the post of orga-
nist at St. Andrew's, a position he continued
to occupy in 1824 (Dictionary of Musicians,
1824), and according to the ' Georgian Era '"
(1833) in 1833 ; but as the account of him in
the latter work is practically a reprint of that
in the former, the statement is not to be fully-
relied on. Bennet published several unimpor-
tant songs, glees, and pianoforte pieces, which
are now entirely forgotten.

[Georgian Era, iv. p. 547 ; Dictionary or
Musicians, 1824; The Picture of Plymouth,
1812.] W. B. S.

BENNETT, AGNES MARIA (d. 1808)r
novelist, was a married lady with many
children, who survived her ; but there is no-
evidence of her birth, her parentage, or her
condition. In 1785 she was permitted to de-
dicate her first novel, 'Anna, or the Memoirs
of a Welch Heiress,' 4 vols., to the princess
royal. The whole impression of the work,,
though published anonymously, was- sold on
the day of publication (AIKTN'S Atheneeum,
iii. 391). The novel was twice translated into
French (DIDOT), first by Dubois Fontenelle,
1784 (which date must be an error, unless
the translation was from the manuscript in
advance of the English press), and secondly
in 1800. Mrs. Bennett's second novel, again
published anonymously, was ' Juvenile In-
discretions, 1788 ; it was attributed at first
to Miss Burney (DIDOT), and translated into
French the same year. In 1789 appeared
'Agnes de Courci, a Domestic Tale,' re-
viewed in the ' Monthly Review' (i. 215), and
also popular enough to be translated. A
fourth novel by Mrs. Bennett, entitled 'Ellen,.
Countess of Castle Howel,' 4 vols., issued from
the Minerva Press, 12 March 1794, with the
author's name, and with an l Apology ' pre-
fixed, which indicated much distress of mind
and circumstances. It obtained notice in
the ' Monthly Review,' xiv. 74. In 1797 ap-
peared, in 7 vols., price 31s. 6d., 'The Beggar
Girl,' supposed to be taken from existing cha-
racters at Tooting ( Gent . Mag. Ixxix. 108), and
dedicated to the Duchess of York, near whom
Mrs. Bennett was then residing (her own 'De-
dication,' vol. i.) In 1806 Mrs. Bennett's
popularity was immense ; and producing a
new novel that year in 6 vols., which she
called ' Vicissitudes abroad, or the Ghost
of my Father,' 2,000 copies of it were sold
on the first day, though the price was 36s.

Bennett

241

Bennett

Mrs. Bennett died at Brighton on 12 Feb.
1808, and her body, being brought to London, I
was met at the Horns, Kennington Common,
on 21 Feb. (European Mag. liii. 156), by a j
large circle of friends (AiKiN's Ath., supra).
Another work by Mrs. Bennett was pub-
lished after her death in 1816, under the
title of 'Faith and Fiction, or Shining Lights !
in a Dark Generation,' 5 vols. (WATT'S BibL
Brit.} She is also credited with the author-
ship of two French novels, ' L'Orphelin du
Presbytere/ 1816 ; and ' Beaute et Laideur,'
1820 (DiDOT), but these were apparently
portions of ' Faith and Fiction/ translated.
In 1822 Defauconpret translated ' Ellen de
Courci ' (DiDOT) ; and in 1853 an attempt
was made to reprint ' Anna,' in penny numbers,
by W. Strange, of Level's Court, Paternoster
Row ; but at the second number the issue
stopped.

[Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; Didot's Nouvelle Biogr.
Generate; Aikin's Athenaeum, iii. 391, 392;
European Magazine, liii. 156.] J. H.

BENNETT, CHARLES HENRY (1829-
1867), draughtsman on wood, was born in
1829. His first sketches appeared in ' Dio-
genes,' a comic paper started in 1853, which
liad but a brief existence. They speedily
•attracted attention, and his pencil was after-
wards occupied with a series of slight out-
line portraits of members of parliament,
which were published in the ' Illustrated
Times.' Then came his ' Shadows ' in 1856,
followed by ' The Fables of ^Esop and others
translated into human nature ' in 1858, and his
4 Proverbs ' in 1859. These were accompanied
by many children's books, of which he was
the author as well as the artist, and by some
more serious work, amongst which was a
•series of illustrations to the Rev. Charles
Kingsley's edition of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's
Progress/ issued in 1860. He likewise illus-
trated, in con] unction with George H.Thomas,
Wills's ' Poets' Wit and Humour/ 1861, and,
with Richard Doyle, Mark Lemon's ' Fairy
Tales/ 1868. He also published, with Robert
B. Brough, 'The Origin of Species/ and
' Shadow and Substance/ 1860. These were
republished in 1872, together with a selec-
tion of his designs for ' Poets' Wit and
Humour/ under the title of ' Character
Sketches, Development Drawings, and Ori-
ginal Pictures of Wit and Humour.' Last
of all came his engagement on ' Punch/ to
which he contributed numerous sketches,
distinguished by their facile execution and
singular subtlety of fancy. He was of an
extremely delicate constitution, and died in
London on 2 April 1867.

[Gent. Mug. 1867, i. 688.] H. E. G.

VOL. IV.

BENNETT, EDWARD TURNER

(1797-1830), zoologist, was born at Hackney,
London, 6 Jan. 1797. John Joseph Bennett,
the botanist [q.v.], was his younger brother.
He practised for some years as a surgeon
near Port man Square, but his chief pursuit
was zoology. His numerous papers in sci-
entific journals are of minor importance, and
imperfectly represent his attainments. In
1822 he actively promoted the establishment
of an entomological society, of which he was
secretary. Later, this society developed into
a zoological club in connection with the Lin-
nean Society. Under his management the
zoological club became the starting-point of
the Zoological Society of London in 1826,
of which he was at first vice-secretary ; he
was elected secretary in 1831, and held the
office till his death on 21 Aug. 1836. His
zealous efforts greatly contributed to the firm
establishment of the society. In 1835 he
visited Selborne, and made large collections
of interesting facts, which he embodied in his
posthumous edition of White's ' Selborne '
(1837). This work, which is little improved
by the mass of matter added, was published
with a preface by J. J. Bannett, the editor's
brother. Bennett's only separate works were
'The Tower Menagerie/ 1829; 'The Gardens
and Menagerie of the Zoological Society
Delineated, vol. i. Quadrupeds, 1830, vol. ii.
Birds, 1831. Besides these lie wrote the
article on Fishes in 'Zoology of Captain
Beechey's Voyage/ 1839, and many papers
in 'Zool. Jour.' 1825-34: 'Linn. Trans.'
1827; 'Mag. Nat. Hist.' 1831; 'Zool. Proc.'
1831-6; 'Zool. Trans.' 1835, 1841; ' Geol.
Proc.' 1831.

[J. J. Bennett's preface to E. T. Bennett's ed.
of White's Selborne, 1837.] G. T. B.

BENNETT, GEORGE JOHN (1800-
1879), actor, was born at Ripon, in Yorkshire,
9 March 1800. His father was for thirty
years a member of the Norwich company.
Bennett entered the navy in 1813, and quitted
it in 1817. He made his first appearance
at Lynn, in Norfolk, in 1818. After playing
in different country towns he became in 1820
a member of the Bath company, and in 1822
came to London, making his appearance at
Covent Garden, 27 Jan. 1823, as Richard III.
The performance was a failure. In Hotspur
he was more fortunate. On 23 July 1824, at
the Lyceum, then called the English Opera
House, he took part in the first presentation
in England of 'DerFreyschiitz, or the Seventh
Bullet/ a rendering by Logan of Weber's
famous opera. The part he played was Con-
rad. In 1830 he joined the Covent Garden
company, appearing as Hubert in ' King John r

Bennett

242

Bennett

to the Constance of Miss Fanny Kemble. At
Co vent Garden he remained through the suc-
cessive managements of Charles Kemble, La- i
porte, and Macready, playing such characters
as Grindoff in the ' Miller and his Men/ Mac-
duff, Master Walter in the ' Hunchback/
and Caliban in Macready 's revival of the

* Tempest/ October 1838. He accompanied
Macready to Drury Lane, and remained
with him till the close of his management,
from 4 Oct. 1841 to 14 June 1843. On
27 May 1844 Phelps and Greenwood be- ,
gan their memorable campaign at Sadler's
Wells. Bennett joined them, remaining
with them during the eighteen years over
which the management extended, and play-
ing Sir Toby Belch, Pistol, Bessus in Beau-
mont and Fletcher's l A King and No King/
Enobarbus in ' Antony and Cleopatra/
Bosola in ' Duchess of Malfi/ altered from
Webster by R. H. Home, Antonio in the

' Merchant of Venice/ Henry VIII, Ape-
mantus in 'Timon of Athens/ Fenton in
' John Savile of Hasted/ Douglass in ' Feudal
Times/ &c. When Phelps retired (1802)
from the management of Sadler's Wells,
Bennett left the stage. Some time sub-
sequently he was, it is stated, established
in Chepstow as a photographer. Bennett
was a trustworthy actor, but barely rose
into the second rank. His daughter, Miss
Julia Bennett, has played with success at
minor theatres. A five-act play by Bennett,
entitled ' Retribution, or Love's Trials/ was
successfully produced at Sadler's Wells on |
11 Feb. 1850, the principal parts being sup- |
ported by Phelps, Henry Marston, A. Younge, |
the author, and Miss Glyn. Bennett also
wrote a drama called the ' Justiza/ produced
by Miss Cushman at Birmingham. He died
on 21 Sept. 1879, and was buried at Nun-
head Cemetery.

[Genest's English Stage; The Drama, or
Theatrical Pocket Magazine ; Tallis's Dramatic
Magazine; Era newspaper, 28 July 1879; Era
Almanack.] J. K.

BENNETT, JAMES (1785-1856), topo-
grapher, was born at Falfield in the parish
of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, on 10 May
1785, and carried on the business of a printer
and bookseller at Tewkesbury from 1810 till
1852, when he retired with a competent
independence. He wrote the ' History of
Tewkesbury ' (Tewkesbury, 1830, 8vo), and
abridged it in the form of a ' Guide ' (1835).
In 1830 he brought out the first part of the

* Tewkesbury Register and Magazine/ a use-
ful periodical which was continued in annual
numbers till 1849. He died at Tewkesbury
on 29 Jan. 1856.

[MS. notes by J. Of. Nichols in a copy of the
Tewkesbury Eegister in the British Museum ;
Gent. Mag. (N.S.) xlv. 317.] T. C.

BENNETT, JAMES, D.D. (1774-1862)r
congregational minister, was born in London
22 May 1774, and educated there and at
Gosport, where he was prepared for the-
ministry of the independent church under
the Rev. Dr. Bogue. In 1797 he was or-
dained at Romsey, where he remained till
1813. While there he became an ardent sup-
porter of the London Missionary Society T
preaching the annual sermon on its behalf in
1804. He saw the first missionary ship, the-
Duff, sail from Spithead for foreign lands,
and at home he was a coadjutor of Robert
and James Haldane in some of their evange-
listic tours. He removed in 1813 to Rother-
ham, where he was both tutor in the college-
and pastor of the church. In 1828 he was
transferred to London, where, first in Silver-
Street and then in Falcon Square, he exer-
cised his ministry till 1860, when he resigned.
He died in London, 4 Dec. 1862, at the age-
of eighty-eight.

Bennett enjoyed in an unusual degree the-
esteem and confidence of his friends for the
consistency of his character, the loftiness of
his aims, the excellence of his judgment, and
the laborious diligence which he exhibited
as a minister and a supporter of all good
public movements. Among the special objects
to which he applied himself were the defence-
of Christianity against the unbelievers of the-
day, especially against a certain Mr. R. Taylor,
a popular lecturer ; the promotion of Christian
missions, and the advancement of the Con-
gregational Union. As one of the secretaries
of the London Missionary Society he came
much into contact with its missionaries, both
while they were prosecuting their studies and
after they engaged in active work. Among
those who in their younger days were mem-
bers of his church was David Livingstone,
who spent some time in London after leaving
Scotland, chiefly in medical study.

Bennett was a voluminous author. The
following are his principal works: 1. ' Me-
moirs of Risdon Darracott, of Wellington,
Somerset' (whose granddaughter, Sarah
Cowley, he married in 1797). 2. ' The His-
tory of Dissenters ' from A.D. 1688 to 1808,
in conjunction with Rev. Dr. Bogue (2nd ed.
London, 1833, 3 vols.) 3. ' Lectures on the
History of Christ/ 3 vols. 4. ' Memoirs of
the Rev. Dr. Bogue.' 5. 'Lectures on the
Preaching of Christ.' 6. Congregational
lectures on ' The Theology of the Early
Christian Church.' 7. 'Justification as re-
vealed in Scripture.' 8. 'Lectures on the

Bennett

243

Bennett

Acts of the Apostles.' 9. ' Lectures on In-
fidelity.'

[Memorials of the late James Bennett, D.D.,
including sermons preached on the occasion of his
death, London, 1863 ; private information from
his son, Sir J. Eisdon Bennett, M.D., F.R.S.]

W. GK B.

BENNETT, JAMES GORDON (1800-
1872), founder of the 'New York Herald/ was
born in 1800 at New Mill, Keith, Banffshire.
' The Bennetts/ he wrote in after years, * were
a little band of freebooters in Saxony, A.D.
896. ... I have no doubt they robbed and
plundered a good deal. . . . They emigrated
to France, and lived on the Loire several
hundred years. . . . The Earl of Tankerville
is a Bennett, and sprang from the lucky side
of the race.' The family being Roman
catholic, James was sent to a seminary in
Aberdeen to be educated for the priesthood.
He became an omnivorous reader, was fasci-
nated by the works of Lord Byron and Walter
Scott, but toned down the romantic influence
they exercised on his mind by the perusal of
' Benjamin Franklin's Life, written by him-
self/ which was published in Scotland in
1817. One day in the spring of 1819 he met
a young friend in a street of Aberdeen, who
said he was about to sail for America. After
a short pause, Bennett said he would accom-
pany him, as ' he wished to see the place
where Franklin was born.' He first landed
at Halifax, and began to earn a livelihood by
teaching. Thence he went to Boston, and
obtained employment as a printer's reader, a
bookseller's clerk, and assistant in a news-
paper office. In this last capacity he procured
engagements successively on the ' Charleston
Courier/ among the slave-owners, on the
' National Advocate/ the ' New York Courier/
and on the ' Enquirer.' He was at different
times dramatic critic, Washington correspon-
dent, leader-writer, editor. In the conten-
tious times of General Jackson's election in
1828-9 as president of the United States,
Bennett strongly supported the general in the
1 Enquirer.' At Jackson's second election in
1832-3 a change of sides on the part of his
employers took place, and Bennett quitted the
' Enquirer.' He then started a cheap paper,
the ' New York Globe/ at two cents, which
lived only a few months. Meanwhile he
wrote literary articles and short lively stories
for the < New York Mirror.' In 1833 he bought
part of the l Pennsylvanian ' of Philadelphia,
and went to reside in that city ; but he met
with no support from his former political
associates, and withdrew from the 'Penn-

?lvanian' in disgust. Returning to New
ork in 1834, he watched the growing suc-
cess of the ' penny press/ and in the follow-

ing year concluded terms of partnership with
a young firm of printers, Messrs. Anderson
& Smith. The result of this connection
| was the appearance on 6 May 1835 of the first
l number of the * New York Herald/ a small
j sheet published daily at one cent. Bennett
prepared the entire contents. He was his own
| reporter of the police cases, of the city news,
and of the money market, the last being a
new feature in the ordinary American news-
| paper. He was up early and late, kept his
I own accounts, posted his own books, and
I made out his own bills. A fire destroyed his
j printing office, and his two partners died.
I His great endeavour was to make his paper
amusing enough to attract buyers, for his
want of capital prevented all competition
with the rich sixpenny journals in obtaining
genuine early intelligence. Paragraphs of
fictitious news appeared in his paper, which
he justified as legitimate hoaxes. 'I am al-
ways serious in my aims/ he said, ' but full
of frolic in my means.' He quizzed and
satirised most of his contemporaries, and suf-
fered several personal assaults from rival
editors. These he turned to account by nar-
rating the circumstances in a tone of banter,
which made his paper more and more popular.
He had great skill, too, in ad captandumwri-
ting, and used it against the rude and rowdy
habits that then prevailed in New York. His
biographer, who writing in 1855 describes Mr.
Bennett as a man with lofty views for the
regeneration of the press, says of him in 1836,
when the ' Herald was in its infancy : l He
could attract no public attention till he cari-
catured himself morally and mentally.' One
element of his prosperity was the systematic
employment of newsboys in the distribution
of his paper. In 1838 he visited France and
England, and made liberal arrangements
with men of literary attainments as regular
correspondents for his paper. He extended
the system to many of the important cities
of America. His next visit to the British
Isles in 1843 was marked by an unpleasant
incident at Dublin. He went to hear O'Con-
nell address a large meeting at the Corn
Exchange in that city, and the ' liberator/ on
seeing his card, exclaimed aloud : ' I wish he
would stay where he came from ; we don't
want him here. He is one of the conductors
of one of the vilest gazettes ever published
by infamous publishers.' Bennett replied to
this public insult by a dignified letter to the
1 Times/ in which he attributed the agitator's
ebullition of wrath to the fact that the * Herald '
had successfully opposed the demand made
by the repealers on the Irish in America
for rent. ' That I can surpass every paper in
New York/ he wrote, ' every person will

«2

Bennett

244

Bennett

acknowledge — that I will do so, I am re-
solved, determined.' He spared neither
money nor labour. He availed himself of
every improvement in the machinery of print-
ing and of distributing his sheet ; he chart-
ered vessels to go and meet the incoming
ships and steamers from Europe to acquire
the latest news ; he hired special trains or
express locomotives to bring intelligence from
all parts of the American continent. He
was perhaps the first newspaper proprietor to
employ the telegraph wires in transmitting
a long political speech from a distance — Mr.
Clay's speech on the Mexican war, delivered
at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1846. The speech
was sent by express a distance of eighty
miles to Cincinnati, and then telegraphed to
New York for publication in the ' Herald '
next morning. Bennett acquired great wealth
and a position of honour among his adopted
countrymen, in spite of the obloquy to which
the rough encounters of his earlier career
had exposed him. Of his wealth he made a
generous use. Many examples of his bene-
volence in private are related, but the public
spirit he displayed in sending Mr. Stanley to
Central Africa in search of Dr. Livingstone
outshone all his other efforts of this kind.
Stanley's mission lasted from January 1871
to May 1872, and cost Bennett 10,000/. ster-
ling. In 1874 a second exnsdition was un-
dertaken to Central Africa by Stanley at the
joint expense of the owner of the * New York
Herald (Bennett's son) and the owner of
the London < Daily Telegraph' (Mr. E. L.
Lawson), and resulted in extensive additions
to geographical knowledge. Bennett died in
New York on 1 June 1872. That timid reserve
was not a characteristic of Bennett's may be
gathered from the following pithy description
of himself: ' Since I knew myself, all the real
approbation I sought for was my own. If
my conscience was satisfied on the score of
morals, and my ambition on the matter of
talent, I always felt easy. On this principle
I have acted from my youth up, and on this
principle I mean to die. Nothing can dis-
turb my equanimity. I know myself, so does
the Almighty. Is not that enough ?'

[Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and his
times by a Journalist, New York, 1855; Foreign
Quarterly Review, 1842-43 ; North American
Review (article by Parton), 1 02 ; Stanley's How
I found Livingstone.] R. H.

BENNETT, JOHN HUGHES, M.D.
(1812-1875), physician and physiologist, was
born in London on 31 Aug. 1812. He was
educated at the grammar and Mount Rad-
ford schools, Exeter, but owed much to his
mother's influence. She trained him both in

literary and artistic tastes, and developed in
him elocutionary talents of a high order.
With his mother he spent much time on the
continent, especially in France. After an
apprenticeship with a surgeon at Maidstone,
commencing in 1829, Bennett entered at
Edinburgh in 1833. He was a zealous stu-
dent of anatomy and physiology under
liobert Knox and John Fletcher, both of
whom influenced him greatly. The Good-
sirs, Edward Forbes, J. H. Balfour, and John
Reid were among his intimate associates, and
he became one of the presidents of the Royal
Medical Society. While a student he pub-
lished a paper ' On the 'Anatomy and Physio-
logy of the Otic Ganglion ' (London Medical
Gazette, 30 July 1836). He graduated M.D.
in 1837, receiving a gold medal, on Syme's
recommendation, for the best surgical report,
while Sir Charles Bell declared his ' Disser-
tation on the Physiology and Pathology of
the Brain ' worthy of a second medal.

Bennett now proceeded to Paris, where he
studied two years, and founded the Parisian
Medical Society, becoming its first president.
Another period of two years was spent in the
principal German centres of medical study.
Parisian methods of clinical study power-
fully impressed him, and he acquired great
skill in the application of the microscope in
practical medicine. During his residence on
the continent he wrote nearly a score of
articles in Tweedie's ' Library of Medicine '
(vol. ii.), including most of those on the
diseases of the nervous system.

Returning to Edinburgh in 1841, Bennett
published in October his ' Treatise on Cod-
liver Oil as a Therapeutic Agent in certain
forms of Gout, Rheumatism, and Scrofula.'
He derived his knowledge on this subject
from the German schools, although cod-liver
oil had long been used as a remedy among
, the Scotch fishing populations, and had for
: many years been prescribed by Drs. Kay and
| Bardsley in the Manchester infirmary. Al-
though this treatise excited much interest, a
large part of the edition remained unsold in
1847, when an appendix of cases benefited by
; cod-liver oil was added, and it was stated
! that one house of druggists in Edinburgh
had dispensed 600 gallons of it in the preced-
ing twelvemonth, as compared with one gal-
lon in 1841. In 1848 Dr. C. J. B. Williams
of London published a series of cases in
which he had prescribed cod-liver oil with
benefit in phthisis, introducing a fresh and
more palatable preparation : and the respec-
tive shares of praise due to Bennett and
Williams in the introduction of the new
drug were subsequently warmly disputed.
In November 1841 Bennett commenced

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245

Bennett

lecturing on histology at Edinburgh, giving
a series of microscopical demonstrations on
minute structures, illustrating anatomy,
physiology, pathology, and the diagnosis of
disease, and also taking private classes on
microscopical manipulation. He was the
first to give this instruction systematically,
and great credit is due to him for his clear
recognition of the importance of the micro-
scope in the clinical investigation of disease.
At that time, says Dr. McKendrick, ' so long
as an organ showed no change in its mate-
rial substance when examined by the naked
eye, physicians called its affections func-
tional, and the fact of microscopal changes
of structure was overlooked.'

In 1842 Bennett unsuccessfully competed
for the chair of general pathology at Edin-
burgh. He was elected a fellow of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh, and also of the Edin-
burgh College of Physicians. About this
time he became physician to the lioyal Dis-
pensary, and pathologist to the Royal In-
firmary. At the former he gave courses of
' polyclinical medicine ' for seven years, on
the model of the German polyclinic, students
examining patients exhaustively under the
eye of the teacher ; he also gave lectures on
pathology and the practice of physic, with
microscopical demonstrations, and accumu-
lated a large museum of pathological speci-
mens. During this period Bennett was in-
cessantly occupied in medical literature. In
1846 he was appointed editor of the < London
and Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical
Science,' later becoming also its proprietor. It
became a good property in his hands, and he
sold it to Messrs. Sutherland & Knox, pub-
lishers. Some years later he again became
part proprietor, and then sole proprietor;
finally, Messrs. Sutherland & Knox again
purchased the journal. Bennett had been
fortunate enough to find all his transactions
in this matter pecuniarily profitable (see DR.
McKENDRlCK in Edinburgh Medical Journal,
November 1875, p. 468).

In 1845 Bennett published a case of ' Hy-
pertrophy of the Spleen and Liver,' which is
the first recorded case of leucocythsemia, a
disease in which a very large proportion of
white corpuscles exists in the blood. Vir-
chow and others subsequently did much to
explain and describe this disease, and Ben-
nett did not at first recognise its true nature.
His labours, both in 1845 and subsequently,
are, however, of such value as to associate
his name very honourably with the investi-
gation. In 1848 Bennett was unanimously
elected professor of the Institute of Medicine
at Edinburgh. He threw himself with cha-
racteristic energy into his new duties, teach-

ing physiology and pathology in their espe-
cial bearing on medicine. Every lecture
was a work of art, finished in delivery, and
illustrated by excellent diagrams and by
abundant specimens. He lectured chiefly
from manuscript, but when he put this aside
to discuss some controversial point, he be-
came vivacious and too often condemnatory
of others, and hence did not fail to stir up
antagonism. His leading idea was to teach
his students to observe precisely and me-
thodically for themselves, and to employ all
modern instruments of precision.

As a consulting practitioner Bennett never
attained very great success. His sceptical
tone of inquiry did not win confidence among
patients, and his critical and sarcastic re-
i marks on the works of others did not make
| him a favourite among his professional
| brethren. In 1855 he became a candidate for
I the chair of the practice of physic at Edin-
burgh. Dr. Laycock was successful after an
exciting contest. Bennett had set his heart
on this chair for many years, and the disap-
pointment embittered his after life. He was
till this period robust and indefatigably ener-
getic, and continued so for ten years more ;
but about 1865 he began to suffer from an
obscure bronchial and throat affection ; sub-
sequently he had attacks of diabetes, and was
compelled to winter abroad for some years.
In 1874 he resigned his chair at the Institute
of Medicine. In August 1875 he received
the LL.D. degree from Edinburgh Univer-
sity, and his bust by Brodie was presented
to the university by old pupils.

He died at Norwich on 25 Sept. 1875, nine
days after an operation for stone, performed
by Mr. Cadge, from which his enfeebled
strength did not enable him to recover. He
was buried in the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh,
on 30 Sept. by the side of his friends Goodsir
and Edward Forbes. His wife, together with
a son and four daughters, survived him. The
6 Lancet' says (1875, i. 534): 'He reduced
the mortality of uncomplicated pneumonia
to nil ; he demonstrated not only the dispen-
sableness, but the injuriousness, of the anti-
phlogistic treatment which had ruled the
best minds of the civilised world for ages.
Doubtless other physicians were working in
the same direction even before Bennett. But
he devised a treatment of his own which has
given most brilliant results, and he adhered
to it and to the pathological views on which
it was based so steadily, and over so long a
series of years, as to establish its truth, and
so largely revolutionise the practice of medi-
cine in acute diseases. . . . What praise
could we give too much to the physician who
taught us to treat phthisis, not antiphlogisti-

Bennett

246

Bennett

cally, but with fresh air and cod-liver oil ?
It is admitted on all hands that this praise
is due to Dr. Bennett.'

Dr. McKendrick gives a list of 105 papers
and memoirs by Bennett in the 'British
Medical Journal,' 9 Oct. 1875. So many are
important that it is impossible to mention
them here. The principal results of his work
are given in the following larger treatises,
all published in Edinburgh : 1. * An Intro-
duction to Clinical Medicine,' 2nd ed. 1853;
4th ed. 1862. 2. ' Lectures on Clinical Medi-
cine,' 1850-6 ; second and subsequent edi-
tions entitled ' Clinical Lectures on the
Principles and Practice of Medicine:' 5th
ed. 1868. Six editions were published in his
lifetime in the United States, and transla-
tions have been published in French, Rus-
sian, and Hindoo. 3. f Leucocythaemia, or
White-Cell Blood,' 1852. 4. < On Cancerous
and Cancroid Growths,' 1849. 5. ' Outlines
of Physiology,' 1858 (a reprint of the article
' Physiology ' in the eighth edition of the ' En-
cyclopaedia Britannica'). 6. 'Pathology and
Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis,' 1853.
7. ' The Restorative Treatment of Pneumo-
nia,' 3rd ed. 1866. 8. ' Text-book of Physio-
logy,' 1871-2; published simultaneously in
Edinburgh and in America, and also trans-
lated into French. To these should be added
his article on Phthisis in Reynolds's * System
of Medicine,' vol. iii. ; the ' Report on the Ac-
tion of Mercury on the Liver ' to the British
Medical Association in 1867 and 1869, the
latter published in ' Medicine in Modern
Times,' 1869, and in a separate form in
Chicago, 1873 ; ' Researches into the Anta-
gonism of Medicines,' a report to the British
Medical Association, 1875.

[Obit. Notice, Brit. Med. Journ. 9 Oct. 1875,
pp. 473-8; Edin. Med. Journ. November 1875,
pp. 466-74, both by Dr. McKendrick (for some
years his assistant and deputy); Scotsman, 27 Sept.
1875; Lancet, 9 Oct. 1875; account of his case
and post-mortem examination, by Mr. W. Cadge,
Brit. Med. Jour. 9 Oct. 1875, p. 453.]

a. T. B.

BENNETT, JOHN JOSEPH (1801-
1875), botanist, was born at Tottenham on
8 Jan. 1801. He received his early educa-
tion at Enfield, having as schoolfellows
Keats, Thirlwall, and John Reeve the actor,
the latter doing all Bennett's fighting in
return for help in arithmetic. Leaving school,
Bennett became a student at Middlesex Hos-
pital, passed in due time, and settled in a
house in Bulstrode Street, Cavendish Square,
with his brother, Edward Turner Bennett
[q.v.], four years his senior. They soon became
acquainted with John Edward Gray, who
was then helping his father in the prepara-

tion of his ' Natural Arrangement of British
Plants, and the brothers' assistance was ac-
knowledged by the genus ' Bennettia," which,
however, has to give way to De Candolle's
1 Saussurea ' in priority. The elder brother,
having gradually devoted himself to zoology,
died whilst his last work, an edition of White's
' Selborne,' was passing through the press, the
final portions being supervised by John Joseph
Bennett, and the preface written by him.

In 1827 Bennett became associated with
j Robert Brown (1773-1858) [q. v.] ; in Sep-
tember of that year it was arranged that the
' Banksian herbarium and library should be
! transferred to the British Museum, Brown
being appointed keeper with an assistant. In
I November Bennett was named Brown's as-
j sistant, and thenceforward his life was de-
j voted to botany. The winter of 1827-28 was
| spent in removing the Banksian collection to
; Montague House, and for eight years after
| even the merest drudgery of the department
I was done by the hands of the keeper and his
• assistant. In 1828 Bennett was elected fellow
i of the Linnean Society, and of the Royal So-
i ciety in December 1841 ; in the previous year
j he had undertaken the duties of secretary of
the Linnean Society, which function he most
efficiently discharged for twenty years.

In 1843 the collections were removed from
Montague House to the British Museum
building. Robert Brown died in 1858, and
on his death a strong effort was made to
| obtain the transfer of the botanical collec-
j tions to Kew, where the herbarium was
rapidly assuming importance through the
munificence and activity of Sir J. W. Hooker
and George Bent ham [q. v.] After long
inquiry it was decided that the Banksian
collections should not be transferred to the
Royal Gardens, Kew. But the anxiety con-
sequent upon the inquiry told upon Bennett,
and he sought relief by a two months' resi-
dence on the continent in 1859 ; in the next
year he suffered illness for three months, but
a still longer holiday in Scotland and the
north of England restored him in great mea-
sure. In 1870 he retired from the British
Museum, and in 1871 he moved to a house
at Maresfield, Sussex, where he died from
disease of the heart 29 Feb. 1875.

His disposition was singularly kind, quiet,
and retiring. His published papers were few
in number, chiefly descriptive of new plants
from Western Africa, sent him by his friend
Dr. Daniell. The work which is his most im-
portant contribution to science is his chief
share in Horsfield's ' Plant & Javanicae Ra-
riores/ of which the first part came out in
1838, and the last in 1852, a quarto work of the
highest value. As an example of Bennett's

Bennett

247

Bennett

care in small matters, reference may be made
to his account of the Upas tree, and his se-
paration of fact and fiction concerning1 it.

There is a bust of Bennett by Weekes in
,the botanical department of the British
Museum.

[Journ. Bot. Brit, and Foreign, New Ser. v.
,(1876), pp. 97-105, with bibliography and por-
trait.] B. D. J.

BENNETT, WILLIAM MINEARD

,(1778-1858), miniature-painter, was born at
Exeter in 1778. Having left his native city
early in life, he placed himself under the
instruction of Sir Thomas Lawrence, and
.attained a considerable reputation as a painter
of portraits and miniatures, living in the
.society of many of the most distinguished
literary men of that day, among whom his
brilliant wit and versatile talents made him
.a great favourite. Several of his works were
exhibited at the Royal Academy between
the years 1812 and 1816, and again in 1834
.and 1835. Many years of his life were spent
in Paris, where his talents gained for him
.the patronage and friendship of the Due de
Berri ; but in 18-44 he returned to Exeter,
where, practising his art only as an amuse-
ment, he resided until his death, which took
place on 17 Oct. 1858. Bennett possessed
also a thorough knowledge of the science
of music, and many of his musical compo-
.sitions became popular in Paris and Naples.

[Gent. Mag. 1858, ii. 647; Eedgrave's Dic-
.tionary of Artists, 1878.] E. E. G.

BENNETT, SIR WILLIAM STERN-
DALE (1816-1875), musical composer, was
born at 8 Norfolk Row, Sheffield, on 13 April
1816. On his father's side he came of a
race of musicians. His grandfather, John
Bennett, was born at Ashford in 1750, but
-early in life settled at Cambridge, where he
was for many years lay clerk in the college
.choirs of King's, St. John's, and Trinity, and
.his father, Robert Bennett, a pupil of Dr.
Clarke, was for some years before his death
organist at the parish church of Sheffield,
and was the composer of a few songs, none

• of which, however, are remarkable for much
individuality. In 1812 Robert Bennett mar-
ried Elizabeth, the daughter of James Donn,

• curator of the Botanic Gardens at Cam-
bridge : William Sterndale was the youngest
•child of this marriage. His mother died on

7 May 1818, at the early age of 27, and his
father (who had in the meantime married
.again) only survived her eighteen months,
«dying on 3 Nov. 1819. Robert Bennett's
.second wife does not seem to have taken
diuch interest in his orphan children, for

on 19 Dec. 1819 the little William Stern-
dale was sent with his sisters to his grand-
father at Cambridge, after which she did
not trouble herself any further about them.
On 19 March 1820 Bennett and his sisters
were baptised at the church of St. Edward,
Cambridge. On 17 Feb. 1824 Bennett en-
tered the choir of King's College, his musical
education continuing at the same time under
his grandfather's guidance. Two years later
the Rev. F. Hamilton, superintendent of the
newly formed Royal Academy of Music,
when on a visit at Cambridge, happened to
hear Bennett play, and was so struck by the
promise he displayed, that the boy was re-
moved from King's College choir and placed
at the Academy, where he entered on 7 March
1826. Here his principal study at first was
the violin, his masters being Oury and
Spagnoletti; but his special talent for the
piano soon asserted itself, and he was placed
under W. H. Holmes for that instrument,
and under Lucas for composition and har-
mony. Somewhat later he studied under
Cipriani Potter and Crotch, the former of
whom particularly influenced his style by
imparting to the future English composer
some of the peculiar qualities which he him-
self had derived from his own master, Mozart.
For the first few years of his stay at the
| Academy there is no doubt that Bennett was
not remarkable for assiduity ; the boy was still
stronger in him than the musician. On 6 Sept.
1828 he played a concerto of Dussek's at an
Academy concert at the Hanover Square
Rooms, and in the same year he composed his
first score — a fairy chorus. Until his voice
broke he sometimes sang in the choir at
| St. Paul's Cathedral, and on one occasion
| took the part of Cherubino in a performance
of Mozart's * Nozze di Figaro ' at the King's
Theatre (11 Dec. 1830) given by the pupils of
the Academy. This attempt, the only one
on record of a boy's singing the part, does
not seem to have been very successful. A
contemporary newspaper pronounced that
' Cherubino, personated by a little boy, was
in every way a blot in the piece. Had the
memory of the audience not supplied the
deficiency, the dramatic effect of the opera
must have been utterly demolished.' In
1831 Bennett began to study with Crotch,
and though the latter's lessons had not the
reputation of being particularly instructive,
his pupil henceforward made extraordinary
progress. Personally, he retained all the
boyish charm of manner which throughout
his life never entirely deserted him, and the
rapid manner in which his artistic powers
matured did not prevent him from joining
in the childish amusements of his fellow-

Bennett

248

Bennett

students. His family still preserve some !
sketch for compositions of this period, little !
fragments which already betray the hand of
a master, but which are written on the back j
of those sheets of figures of theatrical cha- j
racters which are still to be bought in old- ,
fashioned shops for * a penny plain, or two- |
pence coloured.' The dates at which the com- j
positions of the next few years were finished
show plainly this extraordinarily speedy deve-
lopment of his powers as a musician. His 1
first symphony was completed on 6 April ]
1832, his first concerto in October, his second j
symphony on 9 Dec., and the overture to the ,
' Tempest ' on 31 Dec. of the same year. In j
1833 the overture in D minor was finished i
on 12 Oct., the second concerto on 4 Nov.
In the following year the overture to the
' Merry Wives of Windsor ' was written in
May, and the third concerto finished on
31 Oct. In 1835 he produced the overture to
'Parisina' (2 Nov.), besides finishing a sym-
phony in G minor (18 Oct.), and the sestet
(1 Dec.) Of the above works, one was de-
stined to have an important influence upon
his future life. The first concerto (subse-
quently published as Opus 1) was produced
at a pupils' concert at the Royal Academy
on 26 June 1833, Bennett himself playing
the pianoforte part. The work was received
with every mark of favour, the directors of
the Academy undertaking to publish it at
their own expense ; but of more importance
to the young composer was the fact that
it attracted the attention of Mendelssohn,
who was amongst the audience. The Ger-
man musician, himself only seven years older
than Bennett, seems to have been at once
attracted by the work of one who possessed
so many of his own idiosyncrasies. The
curious manner in which, superficially at
least, their compositions present similar
characteristics, though not so marked at this
period as it was when the two composers
were drawn into closer connection, has
given rise to a current idea that Bennett be-
came the pupil of Mendelssohn. This was
never the case, for Bennett received no in-
struction beyond what he obtained at the
Academy. The influence of Mendelssohn
upon Bennett — an influence which was much
less than is generally supposed — was only
the result of the close intimacy between them
which had its origin at the Academy con-
cert during the summer of 1833, and reached
its height during Bennett's stay at Leipzig
in 1836-7. In 1834 Bennett was elected
organist at Wandsworth Church, a post he
did not retain very long. Though still de-
voting himself chiefly to the pianoforte and
composition, he had not entirely neglected

the study of other instruments, for on 24, 26r
and 28 June and 1 July his name occurs
amongst the viola players in the orchestra of
the Handel Festival held in Westminster
Abbey. The month of August he spent at
his grandfather's at Cambridge, but in Octo-
ber he was back at the Academy, and on the
17th of the next month he played his second
concerto at a concert of the Society of
British Musicians, on which occasion Miss
Birch sang his scena, * In radiant loveliness/
On 8 Dec. the same society produced his
overture to the ( Merry Wives of Windsor/
In 1835 he gave a concert at Cambridge on
26 Feb., and on 11 May made his first appear-
ance at the Philharmonic Society's concerts,,
on which occasion he played his second con-
certo. In October he finished a third sym-
phony, and in November the Society of
British Musicians produced his fine overture
' Parisina,' a work which he subsequently
re-scored twice. In January 1836 he was at
Cambridge once more, where he occupied his
holidays by writing the third (dramatic)
concerto. This work was begun on 8 Jan.
and finished on the 22nd of the same month,
but was not produced until the following
April, when Bennett played it at a Philhar-
monic concert. In May, accompanied by
Mendelssohn's friend, Klingemann, and by
J. W. Davison, the critic, Bennett started for
Diisseldorf, where the Lower Rhine Festival
was held that year. The occasion was a.
memorable one, for Mendelssohn's first ora-
torio, ' St. Paul,' was to be produced, besides
which the programme included the two over-
tures to ' Leonore,' one of the Chando&
anthems, ' Davidde Penitente,' and the Ninth
Symphony. The performances took place on
' 22, 23, and 24 May, under Mendelssohn's-
| personal direction. Occupied as he must have-
been, he nevertheless found time to renew
his acquaintance with Bennett, whom he-
strongly pressed to visit Leipzig, and as the-
English musicians were about to return
home, he advised them not to do so without
taking a trip up the Rhine. Fortunately for-
posterity, the advice was followed, for on
this excursion Bennett conceived the idea
of his most lovely work, the overture ' The-
Naiads,' the first sketch of which was actually
written in Germany, though the work was
not finished until the following September-
at Cambridge, where he went on his return
toEngland. On 23 Sept. he left the Academy,,
and soon afterwards wrote to Mendelssohn
about coming to Leipzig. Financial difficul-
ties being fortunately overcome by the kind-
ness of Messrs. Broadwood, he started for
| Germany in October, and arrived at Ham—
! burg on the 25th. Two days later he was at

Bennett

249

Bennett

Berlin, and at two o'clock in the afternoon
of the 29th arrived at Leipzig, where Men-
delssohn received him with open arms, gave
him the score of the ' Melusine ' overture, and
introduced him, at the Baierischer Hof, to the
chief musicians of the town. Leipzig was
just then the home of a little knot of musi-
cians who were destined to make their mark
in the music of the century ; chief amongst
them were Mendelssohn himself and Robert
Schumann, with both of whom Bennett was
thrown into daily intercourse. The little
diary which he kept at Leipzig, unfortunately
a record of the barest description, shows
that it was to Schumann he owed an intro-
duction to Kistner, the publisher, who at
once took some of his compositions. As this
took place on 22 Nov., the intimacy between
the two musicians must have sprung up very
early after Bennett's arrival at Leipzig.
Schumann's friendship for the English com-
poser was unbounded, and the criticisms he
published on his early compositions were
singularly appreciative and discriminating.
Though personally Bennett warmly recipro-
cated Schumann's friendship, he seems never
to have been altogether reconciled to much
of the German composer's music. In later
years loyalty to his friend caused Bennett to
be one of the first to introduce Schumann's
compositions to English audiences, yet they
never exercised such an influence upon his
own style as did those of Mendelssohn, to
whose genius his own nature was so much
more akin. At Leipzig Bennett lodged with
a Dr. Hasper, to whose house he moved on
2 Nov. On the 10th of the same month he
recorded in his diary that he began a sym-
phony, but nothing more is known as to this
work. He made his first appearance at the
Gewandhaus concerts on 19 Jan. 1837, when
he played his own third concerto with the
utmost success. On the 25th of the same
month- ' The Naiads ' was produced at the
Society of British Musicians. On the 29th
his grandfather, to whom he owed more per-
haps than will ever be known, died at Cam-
bridge. On 13 Feb. ' The Naiads ' was played
at the Gewandhaus, Bennett himself con-
ducting, and on 6 March the overture to
* Parisina ' — which he had re-scored for the
purpose — was performed at the same concerts.
The following three months were devoted to
various pianoforte compositions, and to re-
scoring l The Naiads ' for the Philharmonic,
where it was played on 29 May. On 11 June
Bennett left Leipzig, and returned to Eng-
land by way of Mainz and Rotterdam.
August was spent at Cambridge, and on the
reopening of the Academy in October, Ben-
nett was appointed to a class there, the

beginning of that long routine of teaching in
which he was involved for the rest of his
life. In 1838 he was elected a member of
the Garrick Club and of the Royal Society of
Musicians, and an associate of the Philhar-
monic Society. August and September or
this year were spent at Grantchester, near
Cambridge, and here the (published) fourth
concerto was written, the lovely barcarolle in
which may have been inspired beside the sedgy
windings of the Granta. In October he re-
turned to Leipzig, where he stayed until
March, having in the meantime written the
< Wood Nymphs ' overture, which was pro-
duced at the Gewandhaus on 24 Jan., where
he had also played the new fourth concerto on
17 Jan. In August he turned hi 5 attention to-
writing an opera, an agreement for which was
actually signed, but the difficulty which so-
many musicians have experienced, that of find-
ing a suitable libretto, prevented the plan from
being ever carried into execution. In the
summer of the following year he was much
occupied with writing an oratorio ; this was
probably a work he had intended to call ' Zion,'
but which was never finished. One of the
choruses from it was subsequently inserted in
'The Woman of Samaria.' Towards the end
of 1841 Bennett became engaged to Miss
Wood, who had been an Academy pupil in
1838. She was the daughter of Commander
James Wood, R.N. In January 1842 Ben-
nett once more visited Germany. At Cassel
he made the acquaintance of Spohr and
Hauptmann, at Leipzig he found Pierson,
who had just settled there, and at Dresden
he met Reissiger and Schneider. On this visit
there was much intercourse with both Men-
delssohn and Schumann, the former of whom
travelled from Berlin with him to Leipzig. On
his return to London he at once fell into the
round of teaching and concerts which so-
seriously interfered with the time he had to
devote to composition. His few holidays-
were spent at Southampton, where his future-
wife's family lived, and here his marriage-
took place oil 9 April 1844. The end of the
preceding and the beginning of that year had
been occupied by his candidature for the
chair of music at Edinburgh University, a
post he did not succeed in obtaining. Soon
after his marriage he was busy writing an
overture to be called (in allusion to his wife's-
maiden name) 'Marie de Bois;' this was
afterwards used as the overture to ' The May
Queen.' In March 1845 Bennett moved to-
15 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, where he
lived until 1859, when he bought 50 Inver-
ness Terrace. There are very few events in.
the next few years of his life which are
worth chronicling. Until the composition of"

Bennett

250

Bennett

The May Queen ' in 1858 he wrote no work I libretto, and the latter produced the absurd

.- ! and badly written ' May Queen.' In spite

of importance, and his life was almost en
tirely uneventful. A performance of the
' Farisina ' overture at the Philharmonic in
1848 led to an unfortunate rupture with Sir
Michael (then Mr.) Costa and the society,
and the breach with the latter was not
healed until 1855, when Bennett was ap-
pointed permanent conductor in succession
to Richard Wagner. The year 1849 was
rendered memorable by the foundation of
the Bach Society, in which Bennett took a
prominent share. Five years later, at the
Hanover Square Rooms (6 April 1854), he

of the disadvantage at which he was placed
by the libretto, Bennett in six weeks set it
to the beautiful music which is, perhaps,
more popular than anything else that he
wrote — music which breathes in every line
the spirit of pure English melody, as fresh
and joyous as the month of May which it
celebrates. ' The May Queen ' was written
in July 1858, when Bennett was staying at
the Gilbert Arms, Eastbourne, and was pro-
duced at the Leeds Festival in the follow-
ing September, the principal solo parts being

conducted the first performance of the Mat- ! sung by Miss Clara Novello and Messrs.
thew Passion music in England. During Sims Reeves and Weiss. For the opening
these years he was much at Southampton, j of the Exhibition of 1862 he set an ode of
and also gave concerts in many of the large j Tennyson's. In the same month (May 1862)
towns of the kingdom. In July 1853 the he wrote the music to Kingsley's ' Ode on
directors of the Gewandhaus concerts invited . the Installation of the Duke of Devonshire
him to conduct during the next season, but | as Chancellor of the University of Cam-
English engagements prevented him from bridge.' This music was composed in the
accepting this honour. Trips to Derbyshire, short space of five days ; it was finished on
Rotterdam, and Brussels (where he wrote , 30 May, and performed at Cambridge on
an anthem, l Remember now thy Creator ') 10 June. The composition of the two odes
were almost the only events to break the was followed by that of the overture ' Para-
monotonous round of employment in the years dise and the Peri,' one of his most spon-
1853, 1854, and 1855, but in 1856 the chair j taneous inspirations. Towards the close of
of music at Cambridge being vacant, Ben- the year 1862, Bennett suffered an irreparable
nett was elected (4 March) to the professor- \ loss in the death of his wife, which took
ship by a majority of 149 votes. The degree of place at Eastbourne on 17 Oct., after a pain-
Mus. Doc. was conferred on him on 30 June, ful illness. It is said by those who knew
and he was made a life member of St. John's
College on 26 Sept. following. He received
the degree of M.A. in 1867. The Cambridge
appointment, although it opened to Bennett
a new field for work, unfortunately did not

five him any more time for composition,
hough the duties of a university professor j produced any new work of importance, when
of music are not onerous, Bennett was too he wrote the symphony in G minor which is
-conscientious to let the office become a mere so well known to musicians. The minuet in
.sinecure in his hands. The regulations as to ! this beautiful work had already appeared in
the bestowal of degrees for music were so ! the Cambridge Installation ode, and the
lax as to be practically useless, and accord- ! finale was entirely conceived during a rail-
ingly the new professor proposed to institute , way journey bet Ween Cambridge and London,
an examination. He also turned his atten- j It was produced at a Philharmonic concert
tion to the practical cultivation of music in j on 27 June, and at the beginning of the
the university, and in November conducted following year was performed under the
a concert of the University Musical Society, composer's superintendence at the Leipzig

him well that he never recovered from the
effects of Mrs. Bennett's death, and that
henceforward a painful change in him became
apparent to his friends. For more than a year
he seems to have abandoned composition, and
it was not until the summer of 1864 that he

As was to be expected, he infused his own
admiration for Bach into some of the younger
and more enthusiastic amateurs of the day,
and it is partly owing to his initiative that
the university has gradually made such pro-
gress in musical matters. The year 1858
was rendered memorable by the production summer
of one of Bennett's most charming works.
He had received a commission from Leeds
to write a work for the approaching festival.
H. F. Chorle

In April he applied to
musical critic of the

Chorley, the
Athenaeum,' for a

Gewandhaus. The composition of the sym-
phony was followed by another long pause,
during which he was elected principal of the
Academy of Music (22 June 1866), and
received the Beethoven gold medal from the
Philharmonic Society (7 July 1867). In the
of the latter year he wrote his
oratorio ' The Woman of Samaria,' which
was produced at the Birmingham Festival on
27 Aug. Most of this work was written at
Eastbourne, but one of the choruses in it
was transferred from the incomplete l Zion '

Bennett

251

Bennis

which he had begun in 1840. On its pro-
duction at Birmingham 'The Woman of
.Samaria ' did not include two of its best num-
bers, the chorus 'Therefore with Joy,' and
the quartett ' God is a Spirit.' These were
written at Eastbourne between 8 and 18 Feb.,
.and first performed on the 21st of the same
month, when the oratorio was produced in
London. With the exception of the music
to the * Ajax ' of Sophocles, written in 1872,
this was the last important work which
Bennett produced. The arduous nature of
his duties at the Academy, demanding daily
.attendance for the whole day during term
time, consumed all his energy; the conse-
quence was that composition was almost
entirely abandoned.

The university of Cambridge conferred on
Mm the degree of M.A. honoris causa in
October 1867, and in 1870 (22 June) he re-
ceived the D.C.L. degree at Oxford. On
.24 March 1871 he was knighted at Windsor
•on the recommendation of Mr. Gladstone,
.and in August of the same year he attended
the Beethoven festival at Bonn. In March
1872 he received a public testimonial in
-St. James's Hall, and at the same time a
.scholarship at the Academy was founded in
Ms honour by subscription. The summer
holidays of the last few years of his life
were spent at his favourite Eastbourne. On
29 Sept. 1873 he moved from the house in
Porchester Terrace, where he had lived since
1870, to 66 St. John's Wood Road. Here he
was taken ill on 24 Jan. 1875, and died at
-a quarter past twelve on Monday, 1 Feb.,
aged 59. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey, near Purcell, Blow, Croft, and Ar-
nold, on 6 Feb.

At the time of his death Bennett occupied
the foremost position amongst the English
musicians of his day. During the last few
years of his life honours were showered
upon him, and the ten years that have
elapsed since his death have neither mo-
•dified nor increased the esteem in which his
works are held. His sense of form was so
-strong, and his refined nature so abhorred
any mere seeking after effect, that his music
.sometimes gives the impression of being pro-
duced under restraint. He seldom, if ever,
gave rein to his unbridled fancy ; everything
is justly proportioned, clearly defined, and
kept within the limits which the conscien-
tiousness of his self-criticism would not let
him overstep. It is this which makes him,
as has been said, so peculiarly a musician's
composer: the broad effects and bold con-
trasts Avhich an uneducated public admires
are absent ; it takes an educated audience to
.appreciate to the full the exquisitely refined

j and delicate nature of his genius. He never
wrote a bar of music that was commonplace,
but entertaining the loftiest conception of
what his art should be, the whole of his
quiet and uneventful life was spent in acting
up to his ideal. In his later years his duties
at the Academy, where he would sometimes
teach for ten hours a day, interfered so seri-
ously with the time he could give to compo-
sition, that he almost entirely abandoned it.
As a pianist his excellence was supreme. A
writer in the ' Musical Examiner ' (14 Jan.
1843) mentions in the following terms his
j youthful performances : ' Little Bennett,
I with his black hair and his mild blue eyes,
and his expressive face, beaming with genius
j . . . with his soul in his fingers . . . who
j can render the thoughts of poets with the
I utterance of a poet . . . who can convey,
I through the medium of the pianoforte, every
modification of passion, every shade of feel-
! ing . . . and all without an effort that
i belongs not strictly to art in its most legiti-
mate meaning ; ' and the same characteristics
of poetry and perfect purity of touch and exe-
cution distinguished his playing all through
I his life. Personally, Bennett was remark-
1 able for his warm-heartedness and kindness,
combined with a singularly sensitive deli-
cacy of feeling, and a retiring disposition
I which made him shun all publicity and dis-
play. By both friends and pupils he was
regarded with the affection and respect which
his amiable and gentle character called forth,
'• and probably no man in his position had
1 fewer enemies. There is a portrait of him
I by Millais, which was painted in 1872, and
I has been engraved. An engraving by Kreisel
| of a portrait by Pecht was published at
Leipzig in 1839.

[Annual Register for 1875; Harmomcon for
11 Dec. 1830; Musical Times, 1 March 1875;
Registers of Westminster Abbey ; Times, 2 Feb.
1875; Musical Examiner, 14 Jan. 1843; Grove's
Dictionary of Musicians, vol. i. ; Proceedings of
Musical Association (3 April 1872); Cazalet's
History of the Royal Academy of Music (1854) ;
information from Mr. J. Sterndale Bennett (to
whom the writer is especially indebted), Sir
G-eorge Grove, Mr. W. S. Rockstro, Mr. G. F.
Cobb, Mr. John Farmer, and Mr. A. D. Cole-
ridge.] W. B. S.

BENNIS, GEORGE GEARY (1790-
1866), author, was a native of Corkamore,
Limerick. The date of his birth is variously
stated as 1790 and 1793. After some years as
a grocer in Limerick he settled for a time in
Liverpool, and whilst there appears to have
embraced the doctrines of quakerism. His
first work was ' The Principles of the One
Faith professed by all Christians,' Liverpool,

Benoist

252

Benolt

1816. He removed to London, and in 1823
he settled at Paris, where a third edition of
the work just named was printed in 1826.
He published also the 'Traveller's Pocket
Diary and Student's Journal ' and a l Treatise
on Life Assurance.7 Querard also states him
to have written some opuscules litteraires, of
which no details are available. He travelled
about over the continent ; but from 1830 to
1836 he was the director of a librairie des
etranyers in Paris, founded by Bossange and
Renouard. Afterwards he acted as an in-
surance agent, and in addition was librarian to
the British embassy. He was also at one time
the editor of ( Galignani's Messenger.' When
in France he ceased to be a member of the
Society of Friends, but always professed an
attachment to their principles. ' At the time
of the revolution,' says Smith, ' he peacefully
retook the royal flag, for which he was
knighted by the king.' There is apparently
some error in this statement ; for, according
to Vapereau, he did not receive the decoration
of the Legion d'Honneur until 1854. Accord-
ing to Smith, ' most of his property was lost
at the time of the last revolution [presumably
the coup $6tat of 1852], soon after which he
ret ired into private life. He was nearly burned
•to death by the great fire which destroyed
the government bakeries during the Crimean
war, and most of his valuable library was
consumed at that time. Enough was left,
however, to found a free library in his native
city, to. which he left over 10^000 volumes/
A collection of coins which he had made
was stolen between the time of his death
and the arrival of his executor, Edward
Bennis, of Bolton. He died 1 Jan. 1866,
and was buried at Paris ; but by his own de-
sire no tombstone marks his resting-place.

[Smith's Descriptive Catalogue of Friends'
Books, London, 1867; Querard's France Litte-
raire, t. i., Paris, 1827 ; Querard's Litterature
Franchise Contemporaine, t. i., Paris, 1842;
Vapereau's Dictionnaire des Contemporains,
Paris, 1858; information of J. F. Bennis, of
Limerick.] W. E. A. A.

BENOIST, ANTOINE (1721-1770),
draughtsman and engraver, was born at Sois-
sons in 1721. Early in life he was brought
to England by Claude du Bosc, the engraver,
and found employment as a teacher of draw-
ing in many private families of the higher
class. Among his engravings are a portrait
of Louis XV, after Blackey, dated 1741 ; a
frieze on two plates representing ' A Proces-
sion of Free-Masons in London,' dated 1742;
and some small etchings of the battles and
sieges of the French armies in the reign of
Louis XIV, but it is doubtful whether the

latter are by Antoine Benoist or by C. Iu
Benoist, who was living in Paris about the-
same time. Antoine died in London in August.
1770.

[Meyer's Allgemeines Kiinstler-Lexikon, 1872,.
&c., iii. 544 ; Portalis and Berakli's Graveurs du
dix-huitieme siecle, 1880-2, i. 160 ; Didot's
Graveurs de Portraits en France, 1875-7, i. 33.}

E. E. GK

BENOLT, THOMAS (d. 1534), herald,,
was Berwick pursuivant in the reign of"
Edward IV, Rougecroix pursuivant in the
reign of Richard III, and Windsor herald
under Henry VII. His further promotions,
were as follows: Norroyking-at-arms20Nov.

1510, and Clarencieux king-at-arms 30 Jan.

1511. The date of this last appointment is-
erroneously given in Noble's ' College of
Arms 'as 1516. His life was a much more-
active one than falls to the lot of most
heralds, as he was almost constantly em-
ployed in missions to foreign courts, either
alone or attached to embassies. In 1514 he
went to France to be present at the mar-
riage of Henry VIII's sister Mary with
Louis XII, and stayed there till the follow-
ing spring. He visited the French court
again in 1520, when he published the chal-
lenges for the tournaments at the Field of
the Cloth of Gold at the principal courts
of Europe. Two years later (May 1522) he
carried to Francis I Henry's defiance for real,,
not mimic, war, and in 1528 (Jan. 22) he
acted a similar part towards the Emperor
Charles V at Burgos, in company with the
French herald Guyenne. An account of this-
ceremony is extant in a letter from him
preserved in the British Museum ( Vesp. c. iv.
231). The embassy of Sir Francis Poyntz^
which was a preliminary to this declaration,,
was not in 1526, as Noble states in his life of
Benolt, but in June 1527. Clarencieux was-
also frequently sent to Scotland. His first
journey there was in August 1516, when the
Duke of Albany was ruling the kingdom in
the name of the infant King James V during-
his mother's absence in England. His in-
structions were to obtain a ratification of
the truce between the two countries, and to
arrange for Albany's passing through Eng-
land on his way to France. These negotia-
tions took a long time to settle, and Benolt
went to and fro three times before the fol-
lowing spring. Having gained the confidence
of Queen Margaret, he was employed again
at her desire to treat for a truce in November
1522, when Albany had just left Scotland.,
after an abortive invasion of England. The-
Scotch lords, however, had not the same
confidence in him that the queen had, and

Bensley

253

Bensley

the terms proposed by liim not being ac-
cepted, war was renewed on the expiry of
«, short abstinence. In 1524 and 1526 he is
again found passing to and fro between Eng-
land and Scotland, and in 1527 he made the
journey to Spain before referred to. His
last journey was to carry the insignia of the
Garter to Anne de Montmorency, grand
master of France, and Philip de Chabot,
lord of Brion, the admiral. This was in
April 1533. The office of Garter king-at-
urms was held at this time by Sir Thomas
Wriothesley, who considered that a privy
seal granted to Benolt, on 6 April 1530, in-
fringed upon his rights as sovereign. The
dispute between the two heralds came before
the court of the earl marshal. A full ac-
count of Garter's grievances and Clarencieux's
answers will be found in the ' Calendar of
State Papers of Henry VIII,' vol. v. app. 38.
As a reward for his services, Henry VIII
granted him the reversion of the office of bailiff
of Boston, and the surveyorship of all the
lands appointed for the payment of the gar-
rison of Berwick. Noble suggests that he
was a foreigner by birth ; and this is probable,
as his brother John (whose name is usually
spelt Bunolte) was parson of Marke and
Calkwelle, in the Marches of Calais, and held
the offices of king's secretary and commissary
to the archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas
Benolt died on 8 May 1534, his will being
dated 24 April and proved 18 May. He
was buried in the Nun's choir of St. Helen's
Church, Bishopsgate, under the effigies of
himself and his two wives, one of whom was
Mary, daughter of Lawrence Richards, alias
Fermour, of Minster Lovel, ancestor of the
earls of Pomfret, by whom he had two
daughters, Eleanor, who married — Jones,
of Caerleon, and Anne, who married Sir John
Radcliffe and Ric. Buckland. The name of
the other wife is not known. Heraldic visi-
tations by him are preserved at the British
Museum inHarleian MSS. 1544, 1561, 1562,
and 2076, and in Addit. MSS. 12479 and
14315, besides others in the College of Arms.

[Noble's College of Arms, 111 ; Pinkerton's
Scotland, ii. 158, 192, &c. ; Gal. of State Papers
Henry VIII, vols. i.-vi. ; Cox's Annals of St.
Helen's, Bishopsgate.] C. T. M.

BENSLEY, ROBERT (1738 P-1817 ?),
actor, is said to have been a lieutenant of
marines, and in that capacity is believed to
have seen active service in America. Accord-
ing to the information he appears to have
himself supplied, his amateur performances
induced Garrick, to whom, at the cessation
of hostilities, he was strongly recommended,
to advance him at once to play important

characters. A more credible assertion is con-
tained in an eminently untrustworthy com-
pilation, ' The Secret History of the Green
Room,' to the effect that early in life Bensley

joined the ' company of Mr. Stanton in Staf-
fordshire, where his youth and inexperience
made his exertions be treated with ridicule by
his associates.' His first recorded appearance
was made at Drury Lane, 2 Oct. 1765, as
Pierre in ' Venice Preserved,' his debut,
according to Gilliland (Dramatic Mirror),
being attended by a large body of his brother
officers. During his two years' stay at Drury
Lane Bensley played such roles as Edmund
in ' King Lear ' and Buckingham in ' Richard
III,' and ' created ' the character of Merlin
in ' Cymon,' an adaptation from Dryden attri-

| buted to Garrick. On 16 Sept. 1767 Bensley
appeared at Covent Garden, at which house,
still playing the same line of parts, he re-

1 mained until 1775, when he returned to
Drury Lane. From this time until his re-
tirement in 1796 he alternated between Drury
Lane and the Haymarket, playing at the
latter house in the summer and the former

| in the winter. If few new parts of impor-
tance are coupled with his name, the fact is
attributable to the absence during that period
of any important tragedies. Lord Glenmore
in the ' Chapter of Accidents,' a popular
drama of Miss Lee ; Leonidas in the l Fate
of Sparta,' Harold in the 'Battle of Hastings,'
and the like represent the kind of new cha-
racters that were assigned him. With a per-
formance for his benefit, 6 May 1796, of the
' Grecian Daughter,' in which he played
Evander to the Euphrasia of Mrs. Siddons,
Bensley abandoned the stage. It is stated
by all his biographers that the influence of
his friends secured him a post as barrack-
master, and Gilliland, in 1808, speaks of him
as then barrack-master at Knightsbridge Bar-
racks. A Robert Bensley is mentioned, how-
ever, in the ' Gazette/ 12 April 1798, as ap-
pointed paymaster, a post which he appears,
from the same authority, to have resigned
27 Nov. of the same year. Supposing, as
seems possible, that the Bensley here spoken
of is the same, this is the last public reference
to him we are able to trace. It is said in one
or two places that an accession of fortune on
the death of a relative, Sir William Bensley,
placed Bensley during his later years in a posi-
tion of complete independence. The death in
question took place, according to the ' Gentle-
man's Magazine,' in 1809, the date given in the
1 European Magazine ' being 1 2 Nov. Mr. W.
Clark Russell (Representative Actors) gives
1817 as the year of Bensley's death. In so
doing he is apparently misled by the name
William Bensley, which he gratuitously

Bensley

254

Bensley

bestows on the actor, since in that year a
William Bensley, Esq., possibly belonging to
the family of printers, died at Stanmore. Ac-
cording to the custom, eminently regrettable
from a biographical point of view, of play-
bills and of early writers on the stage,
Bensley is always described as Mr. Bensley.
In the account furnished in the catalogue
raisonnee of the Mathews' Gallery of thea-
trical pictures exhibited in 1833 at the Queen's
Bazaar in Oxford Street, one portrait of the
actor, by Mortimer (as Hubert to the King
John of Powell), and two by Dewilde (as
Oakley in the ' Jealous Wife,' and Harold in
the ' Battle of Hastings '), are given, but he
is there spoken of as Richard Bensley. That
his name was William Bensley is positively
asserted in ' Notes and Queries ' (6th S. x.
273). The question is set at rest, however,
by a letter to Garrick printed in the ' Garrick
Correspondence' (London, 1831, ii. 73-4),
which is signed Robert Bensley. Doubt is
thus thrown upon the assertions that are
made as to the place and period of his death,
both of which at this time are practically
unknown. In spite of a habit of boasting
which led Bannister, according to the ' Re-
cords of a Stage Veteran/ 1836, to bring
him into signal ridicule by counting up in
a public address all the actions at which Bens-
ley claimed to have been present, and by
drawing thence the inference that he ' car-
ried a stand of colours when only eighteen
months old/ Bensley appears to have been a
respectable character and a sound actor. The
praise of Charles Lamb is probably excessive.
Lamb declares that of all the actors of his
time l Bensley had most of the swell of soul,
was greatest in the delivery of heroic con-
ceptions. . . . He had the true poetical en-
thusiasm, the rarest faculty among players.
None that I remember possessed even a
portion of that fine madness which he threw
out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory,
or the transports of the Venetian incendiary
at the vision of the fired city.' Against this
estimate may be placed that of the ' Dramatic
Censor/ ii. 491, in which it is stated that ' his
person is slight, his features contracted and
peevish, his deportment falsely consequential,
his action mostly extravagant, and his voice
rather harsh/ These qualities would, of
course, fit him to play Malvolio, his great
character, of which Boaden (Life of Jordan)
says that he was perfection, while George
Colman (Random Records} declares that it
was beyond all competition. O'Keefe, ii. 9,
declares that Bensley, whom he often met
at Colman's, was ' an exceedingly well-
informed, sensible man/ and adds that l as
an actor he was most correct to the words

and understood his author.' The ' Theatrical
Biography/ writing with obviously unfriendly
animus, says he is no actor at all. Camp-
bell (Life of Siddons) speaks of his 'un-
gainly solemnity of action ' and ' nasal pro-
nunciation.' Bensley appears to have been
a man of more than ordinary intelligence,
who combatted with difficulty serious phy-
sical disqualifications. He is said to have
married a lady with whom he fell in love in
consequence of being the accidental cause of
her being thrown from her horse.

[G-enest's Account of the Stage ; Doran's Their'
Majesties' Servants; Thespian Dictionary; au-
thorities already cited.] J. K.

BENSLEY, THOMAS (d. 1833), printer,.
is known by his own productions and by^
certain mechanical adjustments (adopted by
the ' Times ' in 1814). His offices in Bolt
Court were the same which had previously
been occupied by Edward Allen, the friend
of Johnson. Here he printed Macklin's folio
Bible in seven volumes (1800), Hume's-
' History of England/ an octavo Shakespeare,,
and 'The Posthumous Letters of William
Himtington' (1822), which he also edited
in part. In a preface to this work he com-
plains of a fire which had destroyed his-
premises, with much of his valuable stock ;
and it appears that he was burned out on
two separate occasions, suffering considerably
thereby. Bensley seems to have been a
steady man of business, enduring the heavy
burdens imposed upon him by his patriotism
and preserving a stolid, imperturbable, if fan-
tastic and somewhat unintelligent religious-
faith. Bensley was one of the acting trustees,
of Providence Chapel, in Gray's Inn Lane,
under the ministration of the notorious ' Coal-
heaver Saint ' [see HTJETTINGTON, WILLIAM] ;
and though the maintenance of this chapel
was mainly due to the generosity of the
wealthy widow of a city alderman, Bensley
did his part in defraying the working ex-
penses, and helped to raise a handsome monu-
ment by Westmacott on the death of Hun-
tington in 1813. Testimony is borne to his
charitable disposition in the preface to a
work by his son Benjamin, entitled 'Lost
and Found/ which records the conviction
and repentance of a young Birmingham en-
graver, sentenced to penal servitude for the
forgery of Bank of England notes. Thomas-
Bensley had shown much kindness to this
young man after his conviction, and had as-
sisted to support his wife and child, refer-
ring to which his son writes : 1 1 might here
say much of that parent of whose life this
aftair always seemed to me to present one of
the brightest pages. . . . That father's fame

Benson

255

Benson

will ever be associated with names famous
in the art which he did so much to raise
and adorn.' Amongst these names are Allen,
Buhner, Nichols, Bell, and Koenig. Nichols
writes of him that 'he demonstrated to
foreigners that the English press can rival,
and even excel, the finest works that have
graced the continental annals of typography/
Koenig was associated with him in the inven-
tion noticed at the beginning of this article.

[Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, viii.] L. S-T.

BENSON, CHRISTOPHER (1789-
1868), prebendary and canon of "Worcester,
master of the Temple, was born in 1789. He
obtained a scholarship at Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree
in 1812, and M.A. in 1815. After being or-
dained he spent some years as a curate at
St. John's, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and St. Giles's,
London. In 1817 he was select preacher
before the university, and delivered a course
of sermons on baptism, which he subsequently
printed ; and two years later he published
' A Chronology of our Saviour's life. Benson
rapidly earned a high repute as a preacher, and
in the year 1820 he was selected as the first
lecturer under Hulse's bequest at Cambridge.
Hulse, who died in 1789, had left a consider-
able sum of money for various purposes con-
nected with the elucidation of the Christian
evidences ; but as the fund was not held to
be adequate for all the objects of the bequest,
the appointment of a lecturer was delayed
for thirty years. Benson's lectures, which
were dedicated to the masters of Downing
and St. John's Colleges, went through many
editions, and he was again appointed in 1822.
The second volume is dedicated to Granville
Hastings Wheler, of Otterden Park, Kent,
heir to the munificent Lady Betty Hastings,
who had presented him to the vicarage of
Ledsham. In the meantime he had been
elected fellow of Magdalene, and in 1825 he
became canon of Worcester. He successively
held the livings of Lindridge and Cropthorne,
and was for several years master of the Temple.
At the time of his death, however, which
occurred in his eightieth year at Woodfield,
near Ross, he held no preferment. Benson
belonged to the broader evangelical school ;
and a series of ' Discourses upon Tradition and
Episcopacy,' preached in the Temple Church
in 1839, criticised the views of the Oxford
tractarians — a term \vhich Benson seems to
haA*e been one of the first to attach to Pusey,
Newman, and theirfriends. These discourses,
in which he argued against the apostolical
authority of the fathers, and condemned the
prominence assigned to tradition, led him into
a controversy, of great interest at that period,

with the Rev. F. Merewether, then rector of
Cole Orton. The last of his sermons which
attracted general attention was one delivered
and printed in 1855, during the Crimean war
— apologetic and courtly in its tone, but
marked by considerable eloquence and pathos.
Amongst his works may also be mentioned a
volume on ' The Rubrics and Canons of the
Church.' He died in 1868.

[Gent. Mag. 1868; Georgian Era, i. 528.]

L. S-T.

BENSON, GEORGE, D.D. (1699-1762),
divine, was born at Great Salkeld, Cum-
berland, on 1 Sept. 1699. The family was.
originally of London. Towards the close of
Elizabeth's reign Dr. Benson's great-grand-
father, John Benson, left the metropolis and
settled in Cumberland. This John Benson
had thirteen sons, from the eldest of whom
Robert Benson [q. v.], Lord Bingley, de-
scended. During the civil war the youngest
of these sons, George Benson, Dr. Benson's
grandfather, took the side of the parliament,
and suffered much in fortune, more espe-
cially from the Scotch before the battle of
Worcester. This George Benson had the
living of Bridekirk in his native county >
and was ejected in 1662. His grandson
George received an excellent education.
He was so diligent in his studies that ' at
eleven years of age he is said to have been
able to read the Greek New Testament.'
After a full course of ' grammar-learning ' he
proceeded to an academy presided over by
Dr. Dixon at Whitehaven. He remained
at this academy about a year. Thence he
was transferred to the university of Glas-
gow. About the year 1721 he is found in
London, 'and, having been examined and
approved by several of the most eminent

Eresbyterian ministers, he began to preach,
rst at Chertsey, and afterwards in the metro-
polis.' At this time Dr. Calamy received
him into his own family. At the recom-
mendation of Calamy he next went to Abing-
don in Berkshire. He was chosen pastor of
a congregation of protestant dissenters there.
He was ordained on 27 March 1723, Calamy
and five other ministers officiating on the
occasion. He continued in Abingdon for
seven years. He was, as before, systematically
studious. When ordained he held strictly
Calvinistical opinions and preached them
fervently. While at Abingdon he published
three ' Practical Discourses' addressed to
' young persons.' These later he suppressed,,
in consequence of a change of views.

In 1726 he married Mrs. Elizabeth Hills,
widow. In 1729 he finally left Abingdon,
which he was obliged to do ' on account of

Benson

256

Benson

the Arminian sentiments he had lately em-
braced, and which were generally disapproved
by his congregation.' He removed to London
— after hesitating whether to give himself to
physic— having accepted an invitation to
become pastor of a congregation in King
John's Court, Southwark. Here he remained
eleven years.

In 1731 he published ' A Paraphrase and
Notes on St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon.
Attempted in imitation of Mr. Locke's man-
ner. With an Appendix in which is shewn
that St. Paul could neither be an enthusiast
nor an impostor ; and consequently the Chris-
tian religion must be (as he has represented
it) heavenly and divine.' The appendix sug-
gested Lord Lyttleton's more famous treatise.
This work having been well received, its'
author pursued his design, and in the same
year published his ' Paraphrase and Notes on
Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians.'
'This was succeeded in 1732 by a like ' Para-
phrase ' on the Second Epistle to the Thes-
salonians. To this were annexed two dis-
•.sertations : (1) Concerning the Kingdom of
God ; (2) Concerning the Man of Sin. In
1733 there came forth his notes on the ' First
Epistle to Timothy/ with an appendix on
inspiration. In the same year appeared his
'' Paraphrase and Notes upon Titus,' accom-
panied with an essay concerning the abolition
of the ceremonial law. In 1734 there fol-
lowed observations upon the ' Second Epistle
to Timothy,' with an essay in two parts :
(1) Concerning the Settlement of the Primi-
tive Church ; (2) Concerning the Religious
"Worship of the Christians whilst the Spiritual
tjifts continued.

Having completed his design of para-
phrases and notes on these epistles of St.
Paul, he proceeded similarly to explain the
'Seven Catholic Epistles. These were succes-
sively published separately between 1738 and
1749, all having extended dissertations on
particular points. The Pauline Epistles were
collected into one volume in 1752, and in
1756 the Seven Catholic Epistles, with useful
indices.

During the nineteen years occupied by
these 'Paraphrases' he prepared and pub-
lished a number of other works. In 1738
appeared his ' History of the First Plant-
ing of the Christian Religion, taken from
the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles.
Together with the remarkable facts of the
Jewish and Roman History which affected
the Christians during this Period ' (3 vols.
4to). This learned book reached a second
-edition in 1756. To it recent writers are pro-
Ibably more indebted than is acknowledged.

Having lost his first wife in 1740, Benson

was remarried in 1742 to Mrs. Mary Kettle,
daughter of William Kettle of Birmingham.
By neither wife had he any family. About
this time he was invited to become joint
pastor with Samuel Bourn of the presbyterian
congregation, Birmingham.

In 1743 he published ' The Reasonableness
of the Christian Religion as delivered in the
Scriptures.' This was originally meant as an
answer to ' Christianity not founded on Argu-
ment,' but its scope widened, and Leland in
his ' View of the Deistical Writers ' (i. 146,
5th ed.) characterises it as 'not merely an an-
swer to that pamphlet, but a good defence of
Christianity in general.' A second edition
appeared in 1746, and a third, much enlarged,
in 1759.

In 1744 the university of Aberdeen con-
ferred on Benson the degree of D.D. The uni-
versity of Glasgow had also intended the
same honour for him, but one of the pro-
fessors ' spoke of him with abhorrence as an
avowed Socinian ' (Bioy. Britannica). In
1744 he published ' A Summary View of the
Evidences of Christ's Resurrection,' in answer
to ' The Resurrection of Jesus considered by
a Moral Philosopher.' Besides editing two
works of others he, in 1747, published a volume
of sermons. Having presented a copy to Dr.
Thomas Herring, archbishop of Canterbury, he
received a specially gracious letter of thanks.
In 1748 he collected a number of his ' Occa-
sional Tracts ' on various theologico-critical
and historical points. They reached a second
edition in 1753. One of these tracts, giving
a severe account of Calvin's conduct towards
Servetus, gave deep offence.

In 1749 Benson was translated to a con-
gregation of protestant dissenters in Poor
Jewry Lane, Crutchedfriars, as successor to
Dr. William Harris. Here he continued
until his death. He had acted for some
years as assistant to Dr. Nathaniel Lardner.
Benson was in familiar intercourse with
the foremost of his contemporaries, from
Lord Chancellor King to Dr. Law, bishop of
Carlisle. His 'Paraphrases' found favour
in Germany and Holland, Michaelis trans-
lating them in the former country. Benson
had hardly retired from the ministry when he
died on 6 April 1762 in the sixty-third year
of his age. His ' History of the Life of
Christ' was published posthumously in 1764.
He was undoubtedly a Socinian, a fact which
explains the neglect that attended his works
after his death.

[Biog. Brit. ; Amory's Memoir before his His-
tory of the Life of Jesus Christ (1764) ; Pickard's
Sermon on his death, and Oration at the inter-
ment by E. Radcliff (1762) ; Wilson's History of
Dissenting Churches, i. 113-25; Benson's Works.

Benson

257

Benson

A fine mezzotint portrait is prefixed to Life of
Christ ; his Essay on the Belief of Things above
Reason was included by Jared Sparks in his Col-
lection of Essays and Tracts on Theology from
various Authors (Boston, 1824, iv. 131-72);
Mash translated his tract on the Three Heavenly
Witnesses and confuted it, yet says : ' Auctor
ejus dissertationis magnus est ille Anglorum
theologus . . . meritissimus Greorgius Bensonius.']

A. B. G.

BENSON, SIB JOHN (1812-1874), archi-
tect and engineer, was the only son of John
Benson, of Collooney, in the county of Sligo.
Having chosen the profession of architect,
lie at an early age gave proof of his ability
in the restoration of Markree Castle, the seat
of Mr. E. J. Cooper. In 1846 he was ap-
pointed county surveyor for the East Riding
of Cork, in which capacity he carried out
most satisfactorily the difficult task of super-
intending the relief works during the famine
of 1847. In 1850 he was appointed engineer
to the Cork harbour commissioners, and he
was also architect to the Cork corporation.
St. Patrick's bridge, the waterworks, and
several piers and quays were constructed by
him, besides churches and other public build-
ings in the city of Cork. But the work with
which his name is most widely associated was
the Great Industrial Exhibition building in
Dublin, at the opening of which, in May
1853, he received the honour of knighthood
from the lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Sir
John was a member of the Institute of Civil
Engineers. His death, which occurred on
17 Oct. 1874, was accelerated by overwork.
His genial character made him as much
beloved by his friends as his ability made
him respected by the public. Sir John mar-
ried, in 1849,Mary Clementina Pyne, daughter
of John Smith, of the 56th regiment. There
was no issue of the marriage.

[Times, 21 Oct. 1874; Illustrated London
News, 31 Oct. 1874; Annual Eegister for 1874;
Sproule's Irish Industrial Exhibition of 1853.]

G. V. B.

BENSON, JOSEPH (1749-1821), divine,
was the son of John Benson, by Isabella
Robinson, his wife. He was born on 26 Jan.
1748-9, in the parish of Kirkoswald, Cum-
berland. His father intended him for the
ministry of the established church. His ele-
mentary education was obtained in the village
school. Afterwards he was placed under a
Mr. Dean, a presbyterian minister residing
in the parish, with whom he lived on terms
of intimacy for many subsequent years. He
was well grounded in Latin, Greek, and He-
brew, and had access to his tutor's consider-
able library. A cousin, Joseph Watson, who

VOL. IV.

had heard the early methodists, happening
to visit Joseph, excited his curiosity in the
new sect. The two went together to the
methodist conventicle and also read Wes-
ley's sermons, and the new movement at once
affected Benson.

Till his sixteenth year he remained under
Mr. Dean. He then opened a small school
in a Cumberland village. His father op-
posed his joining the methodists. However,
Joseph, having learned that John Wesley
himself was to preach at Newcastle-on-Tyne,
set out on foot to hear him in December
1765. He arrived too late, but resolved to
follow Wesley to London. Arrived in the
metropolis after a journey partly performed
on foot and partly in a mail-coach, for which
a kindly traveller paid the fare, Benson gained
an introduction to John Wesley, who, going
to Bristol, took his disciple with him (11 March
1766). He speedily showed his estimate of
him by appointing him classical master of
Kingswood school, in which the sons of itine-
rant preachers were the chief scholars. Wesley
afterwards bore nattering testimony to his suc-
cess at Kingswood. Though naturally slow
of speech, he addressed the colliers of Kings-
wood, and held cottage-meetings, prayer-
meetings, and the like. But he did not sepa-
rate himself from the church. He proceeded
to Oxford in 1769, and was entered of St.
Edmund Hall. In the same year he lost his
father. At Kingswood he had been intro-
duced to Fletcher of Madeley, who had
brought his name under the notice of the
Countess of Huntingdon. As a result that,
lady summoned him in 1770 to take the
post of head-master in her recently established
college at Treveca. The countess was Cal-
vinistic, while Fletcher and Benson were Ar-
minian. Dissensions and resignations ensued.
The countess granted a laudatory testimonial
to Benson. His success as an itinerant
preacher made him anxious to become a
clergyman, for he still leaned- to the church
of England. He returned to Oxford, and
speedily obtained a presentation to Rowley,
a large parish four miles distant from West
Bromwich. He applied for ordination, bring-
ing with him a testimonial from the bishop
of St. Davids, but the bishop of Worcester
refused to ordain him. He alleged the ab-
sence of an academic degree as excuse, but
the real reason was his intimacy with the
methodists.

Thereupon Benson went over to methodism,
and he exercised his ministry in successive
circuits. He was found wherever work, reli-
gious or philanthropic (as for the slaves of
the West Indies and America), was to be
done, whether in the north of England, or

Benson

258

Benson

in the west or south, or at Edinburgh, or in
Wales or Cornwall. Few men have so af-
fected immense audiences by their preaching.
He induced smugglers in Newcastle, who
were foremost methodists, to abandon their
nefarious trade. It is told that frequently such
was the excitement in his great gatherings
that the preacher would pause and engage in
prayer or give out a hymn to slacken the
tension of the strain. Throughout he him-
self was calm as John Wesley. His printed
sermons, like Whitefield's, do not reveal the
secret of his power.

Benson was always on the alert for at-
tacks on methodism. His •* Defence of the
Methodists in Five Letters to the Eev.
Dr. Tatham ' (1793), with its sequel, ' A
farther Defence,' in five letters to the Rev.
W. Russell, in answer to his l Hints to
the Methodists and Dissenters ; ' his ' Vindi-
cation of the People called Methodists, in
answer to a report from the Clergy of a dis-
trict in the Diocese of Lincoln ' (1800), and
his ' Inspector of Methodism inspected, and
the Christian Observer observed1 (1803), a
reply to Dr. Hales of Ireland, remain masterly
vindications of methodism. Earlier he crossed
swords with Priestley — e.g. in his { Remarks
on Dr. Priestley's System of Materialism
and Necessity ' (1788), and ( A. Scriptural
Essay towards the Proof of an Immortal
Spirit in Man, being a continuation of Re-
marks' (1788). Of his more practical writ-
ings are the following : ' A Demonstration of
the Want of Common Sense in the New Tes-
tament Writers, on the Supposition of their
believing and teaching Socinianism ' (1791),
which was appended to Fletcher's ' Socinian-
ism Unscriptural ;' and the f Holy Bible, con-
taining the Old and New Testaments . . .
with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and
Practical,' 2nd edition, 1811-18, 5 vols.
4to. Benson's 'Notes' are held amongst me-
thodists to excel every other commentary,
but they are in themselves of little value.
The life of Benson covers, with Wesley's life,
nearly the first century of methodism. On
the death of John Wesley in 1821, Benson
filled his place.

Benson married a Miss Thompson at Leed
28 Jan. 1780. They had no issue. He died
on 16 Feb. 1821, aged 74. It must be added
that to the last he was very much in sym-
pathy with the church of England. He was
of the old-fashioned type of methodist. He
strenuously opposed the dispensation of the
Lord's Supper in methodist chapels. He
would have all partake in the church.

[Lives by Macdonald and Treffry ; Lives of
the Wesleys ; Methodist Magazines ; Minutes of
Conference.] A. B. Gr.

BENSON, MARTIN (1689-1752), bishop
of Gloucester, was the son of the Rev. J.
Benson, rector of Cradley, Herefordshire,
and was born there on 23 April 1689. He
was educated at the Charterhouse and at
hrist Church College, Oxford, of which he
became a tutor. He subsequently travelled
on the continent, where he met Berkeley,,
bis friend and correspondent for thirty years,
and Seeker, whose sister he married. Soon
after his return he became, in 1721, arch-
deacon of Berkshire. In 1724 he obtained
one of the ' golden ' prebends in Durham
Cathedral; and in 1726 was made chap-
lain to the Prince of Wales, afterwards
George II. In 1727 he was presented to the
rectory of Bletchley, and in 1728, on occa-
sion of a royal visit to Cambridge, received
the degree of D.D. In January 1735 he was
nominated bishop of Gloucester, probably as
amends to his friend and patron Lord Chan-
cellor Talbot, for the mortification he had
suffered by the rejection of his nominee Dr.
Rundle, whose promotion to Gloucester had
been successfully opposed by the Bishop of
London (RTJNDLE). On his appointment
Benson declared his resolution to accept
no higher preferment, and kept his word,
though Gloucester was at that time one of
the poorest of the bishoprics. He revived
the institution of rural deans, and expended
considerable sums in repaving the choir of
the cathedral, adding pinnacles to the lady
chapel, and thoroughly repairing the palace.
He personally visited the diocese of York,
under commission from Archbishop Black-
burne, then advanced in years, who left him
a service of plate by his will. Exhausted,
as was thought, with the fatigue and anxiety
of tending Bishop Butler in his last illness,
Benson died, universally beloved and la-
mented, on 30 Aug. 1752, and was buried in
his cathedral. Benson belonged to the best
type of English prelate of his time, and was
one of the select circle of eminent divines
protected and encouraged by Lord Chan-
cellor Talbot, of which Butler was the most
distinguished ornament. Berkeley called him
1 Titus, the delight of mankind,' and Pope
celebrated him along with his illustrious
friend in the famous couplet —

Manners with candour are to Benson given,
To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.

His only publications were some separate
sermons.

[Eawlinson MSS. fols. 16, 180 ; Britten's His-
tory and Antiquities of Cathedral Churches;
Porteus's Life of Seeker ; Eraser's Life of Ber-
keley ; Lord Hervey's Memoirs ; G-ent. Mag..
1752.] E. Or.

Benson

259

Benson

BENSON, ROBERT, BAKON BINGLEY
(1676-1731), politician, was the son of Robert
Benson, of Wrenthorpe, Yorkshire — a gentle-
man described by the proud Lord Strafford
as ' an attorney, and no great character for
an honest man,' and by Sir John Reresby in
his < Memoirs ' (ed. 1735), p. 23, as a man
of mean extraction and of little worth — by
Dorothy, daughter of Tobias Jenkins, M.P.
for York city, who afterwards married Sir
Henry Belasyse. From his father the
younger Benson inherited an estate of 1,500Z.
a year, which, in spite of very ' handsome '
living, he largely augmented in later years.
In 1702 he was returned to parliament for
the borough of Thetford, retaining his seat
until 1705, when he was elected for the city
of York, and continued to represent it until
his elevation to the peerage. He began life
as a whig, but was induced to join the tories,
though he remained t very moderate ' in the
expression of his political views. In Harley's
administration he became a lord of the trea-
sury (10 Aug. 1710), and when his chief
was elevated to the peerage Benson became
chancellor and under-treasurer of the ex-
chequer and a privy councillor (June 1711).
These appointments were retained by him
until he was raised to the peerage, 21 July
1713, as Baron Bingley, of Bingley, York-
shire, a creation which led to some indigna-
tion among the more rigid members of the
peerage, and provoked some pleasantries over
his want of a coat of arms. Charles Ford
writing to Swift at this time said that Lord
Bingley had f disobliged both sides so much
that neither will ever own him,' but notwith-
standing this prophecy he was appointed
(December 1713) ambassador extraordinary
to the court of Spain. In 1730 the post of
treasurer of the household was conferred on
him, but he held it only for a year. He died
on 9 April 1731, aged 55, and was buried on
14 April in St. Paul's chapel, Westminster
Abbey. Through the friendship of Lord
Dartmouth he was introduced to and married,
at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Middlesex, 21 Dec.
1703, Lady Elizabeth Finch, eldest daughter
of the first Earl of Aylesford. She died
26 Feb. 1757, and was buried with her
husband in St. Paul's chapel. A copy of
verses on her vanity in old age is printed in
Horace Walpole's 'Letters' (ii. 205). They
had issue one daughter, Harriot (who in-
herited 100,000^. in cash and 7,OOOJ. a year in
land), the wife of George Fox, who afterwards
took the name of Lane, and was created
Baron Bingley in 1762. Robert Benson, Lord
Bingley, had an illegitimate daughter, to
whom he left large sums. He also left a
considerable legacy to Anna Maria, wife of

John Burgoyne, and, in certain eventualities,
the residue of his estate to her son and his
godson, John Burgoyne, the general. Horace
Walpole said (Letters, vi. 494) that the
general was a natural son of Lord Bingley,
and the statement has been often repeated,
but it does not seem to rest on any founda-
tion of fact. Lord Bingley took great interest
in architecture ; Harcourt House, Cavendish
Square, London, was built by him in 1722,
and originally called Bingley House.

[Chester's "Westminster Abbey Registers, 331-
32, 390, 413, 450; De Fonblanque's Burgoyne,
5-8 ; Burke's Extinct Peerage ; Wentworth
Papers, 84-85, 133, 347-8, 442.] W. P. C.

BENSON, ROBERT (1797-1844), re-
corder of Salisbury, was the youngest son of
the Rev. Edmund Benson, priest-vicar of
Salisbury Cathedral, and was born in that
city on 5 Feb. 1797. He was educated at
Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1818, M.A.
1821), was called to the bar at the Middle
Temple in 1821, and practised in the courts
of equity. In 1823 he went to Corsica as one
of the commissioners to carry into effect the
bequests of General Paoli, and on his return
he published ' Sketches of Corsica ; or a Jour-
nal written during a visit to that island in
1823, with an outline of its history and speci-
mens of the language and poetry of the people,'
London, 1825, 8vo. He was elected deputy
recorder of Salisbury in 1829, and became re-
corder in 1836. In 1837 he published his best
work, ' Memoirs of the Life and Writings of
the Rev. Arthur Collier,' the contemporary
expounder of Berkeley's metaphysical doc-
trine. In 1843 there appeared the ' History
of Salisbury,' a large folio volume, forming
part of Sir Richard Colt Hoare's ' History of
Modern Wiltshire,' with the joint names of
Robert Benson and Henry Hatcher, of Salis-
bury, as the authors. A controversy took
Elace between those two gentlemen with re-
irence to this work, of which it appears Ben-
son wrote only a very insignificant portion.
Benson died unmarried at the house of his
only surviving sister in the Close, Salis-
bury, on 21 June 1844, and was buried in
the cathedral with the other members of his
family.

[Gent. Mag. N. S. xxii. 323 ; Cat. of Printed
Books in Brit. Mus. ; Graduati Cantab. (1873),
33.] T. C.

BENSON or BOSTON, WILLIAM

(d. 1549), abbot and first dean of Westmin-
ster, a native of Boston, Lincolnshire, was
probably educated in some religious house
belonging to the Benedictine order, of which
he was a member, merging, according to

s2

Benson

260

Benson

custom, his own name of Benson in the name
of the town where he was born. Until
1521, when he graduated B.D. at Cambridge,
nothing is known of his history. He took
the degree of D.D. in 1528. Two years later
he appears as one of the doctors to whom
the university referred the question of the
validity of the marriage of Henry VIII
with Katharine of Arragon, when its opinion
on the matter was sought by the king, and
voted with the majority against the marriage.
In the following year (27 March) he was
elected abbot of the Benedictine monastery
of St. Mary and St. Modwen in Burton-on-
Trent. About 1532-3 he resigned this office
to be elected abbot of Westminster, although
not a previous' member of the chapter, as
every abbot had been since William Humez,
who died in 1222. It is probable that a sum
of 661 1. 13s. Ad., which Cromwell received
from him about the same time, was a part of
the price of the preferment, and the 500/., to
secure which three of the best manors belong-
ing to the abbey were assigned to Cromwell
and Paulet shortly after his election, may
liave been the balance (cf. Letters and Papers,
Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vi. 578,
'No. 25). Benson assisted the Bishop of
London at the christening of the Lady Eliza-
beth, which took place in September 1533 in
the Church of the Friars Minors of the Order
of St. Francis at Greenwich. In the follow-
ing year he was appointed, jointly with
Cranmer, Lord Chancellor Audeley, and
Cromwell, to administer the oath to accept,
on pain of high treason, the statute defining
the succession to the crown, in the preamble
of which the marriage of Queen Katharine
was declared void (25 Henry VIII, cap. 22).
Sir Thomas More finding himself unable to
take the oath without at the same time dis-
tinguishing between the preamble and the
operative part of the act, Benson endeavoured
to induce him to ' change his conscience.'
More, however, proving obstinate in his re-
fusal to take the oath, was placed under
arrest on Monday 13 April, Benson having
the custody of him until the following
Friday, when he was committed to the
Tower. This same year (1534) we find Ben-
son defending the privilege of sanctuary
claimed by the collegiate church of St.
Martin's-le-Grand, which had been annexed
to the abbey by Henry VII, against the cor-
poration of London, which in times past had
made more than one strenuous effort to sup-
press what was felt to be an intolerable
nuisance. They failed, however, on this as
on previous occasions, and Benson had a
document drawn up and enrolled in the
Court of Chancery accurately defining the

extent of the privilege. He subscribed the
articles of religion formulated in 1536. This
year he surrendered to the king the manors
i of Neyte (whence Knightsbridge), Hyde,
now Hyde Park, Eybury, and Todington,
i the advowson of Chelsea, some meadows
\ near the horse-ferry between Westminster
and Lambeth, Covent Garden, and some
i lands at Greenwich, in exchange for Hurley
Priory in Berkshire. In the following year
(15 Oct.) he was present at the christening
of the Prince of Wales at Hampton Court.
In 1539 he was summoned to the reactionary
parliament which passed the law of the Six
Articles. Early next year (16 Jan.) he surren-
dered his monastery to the king, and on the
establishment of the cathedral was made its
dean. In this year he signed the document
by which Henry's marriage with Anne of
Cleves was declared a nullity. He was
present at convocation in 1547, when the
right of the clergy to marry was discussed,
and declared himself in favour of the law-
fulness of matrimony. He does not, how-
ever, seem to have been married himself. In
an undated letter to Cromwell, clearly writ-
ten before 1540, he begs to be relieved of his
office, describing himself as so feeble, 'by
reason of divers most grievous diseases,' that
staying at his post would not only shorten
his life but imperil the interests of his soul.
He remained there, however, for many years
afterwards, during which the abbey became
greatly impoverished, owing partly to the
depreciation of money, but chiefly to the
rapacity of the Protector Somerset, who in
1549 secularised its appanage of St. Martin's-
le-Grand, and extorted the surrender of four-
teen of its manors by a threat to demolish
the entire structure. Benson's death, which
took place in this year, is supposed to have
been hastened by distress caused by this spo-
liation. He was buried in the abbey in the
chapel of St. Blaize, but the inscription on
his tomb has long been obliterated.

[Widmore's Hist. West. Abb. 126 ; Neale and
Brayley's Hist. West. Abb. i. 103; Strype's
Cranmer, bk. i. cap. vi. ; Strype's Mem. (fol.) ii.
pt. i. 4 ; Strype's Ann. ii. pt. ii., App. bk. i. No.
xxxvii. ; Burnet's Keform. (Pocock), i. 256, 410,
ii. 175, i. 286, 503 ; State Papers Henry VIII, i.
635 ; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic,
Henry VIII, v. g. 166 (53), g. 278 (25), vi. 228,
i. 472, 661, g. 417 (20) (21), g. 578 (25), g. 1111
(4) ; Sir Thomas More's Works (fol. London,
1537), 1430 ; Ellis's Letters, 3rd ser. iii. 273 ;
Rymer's Fcedera (2nd ed.), xiv. 459 ; Dugdale's
Monast. (ed. Caley), i. 280; Le Neve's Fasti
(Hardy), iii. 346; Kempe's St. Martin's-le-Grand,
163, 200; 8 Rep. Dep. Keep. Pub. Hec., App.
ii. 48 ; Dart's West. i. 66 ; Cooper's Athenae
Cantab, i. 537.] J. M. R.

Benson

261

Benstede

BENSON, WILLIAM (1682-1754), critic
and politician, was the eldest son of William
Benson, sheriff of London 1706-7, who was
knighted 8 Dec. 1706 — a pedigree of the
family is given in Le Neve's ' Knights '
(Harl. Soc.), pp. 494-5 — and was born in
1682. During the early years of the reign
of Queen Anne he travelled in Germany and
Sweden, and on his return became the owner of
considerable property in Dorsetshire and Wilt-
shire, in consequence of which he was sheriff
for the latter county in 1710. Wilbury House,
in Wiltshire, was built from his designs in
the style of Inigo Jones ; views of it are in
Campbell's ' Vitruvius Britt.' i. 51-2. Next
year he published his famous ' Letter to Sir
Jacob Bankes, by birth a Swede, . . . con-
cerning the late Minehead Doctrine,' that
kings were accountable to none but God,
and that subjects should obey whatever might
happen, wherein he depicted the miseries of
the Swedes .after the surrender of their liber-
ties to arbitrary power, and reflected on the
danger of a spread of similar principles at
home. Eleven editions were issued in 1711,
and 100.000 copies in all are said to have been
sold. The Swedish ambassador made a formal
complaint of the pamphlet, and Benson was
summoned before the authorities, but it was
not thought prudent to take any further steps.
At the election of 1714-15 he contested
Shaftesbury, and, on petition, gained the seat ;
when he vacated the seat by his appointment
as surveyor-general of works in place of Sir
Christopher Wren, he was returned at the
poll, but rejected on petition. Unfortunately
for his reputation he condemned the House
of Lords and the painted chamber as ' in
immediate danger of falling,' but a committee
of the house, after an examination, decided
that the statement was ' false and ground-
less,' and he was suspended from his office.
As some compensation for this loss he re-
ceived an assignment of a considerable debt
due to the crown in Ireland, and also the
reversion of the auditorship of the imprest,
which he lived to enjoy. From September
1741 to December 1742 he was out of his
mind ; and although he recovered from this
malady, his latter days were passed in a re-
tirement in which even his love of books de-
serted him. He died at Wimbledon 2 Feb.
1754 ; his first wife (who died 5 Feb. 1721)
and several of his children and descendants
are buried at Newton Toney.

Benson was a generous patron of literature,
and a ' professed admirer of Milton,' in which
capacity Francis Peck dedicated to him his
* Memoirs of Cromwell ' (1740). In honour
of his favourite poet he erected, in 1737, a
monument in Westminster Abbey, engraved

a medal of him, and gave W7illiam Dob-
son 1,000/. for a translation of ' Paradise
Lost ' into Latin verse. Pope, not averse to
a sneer at a whig, pilloried Benson in the
' Dunciad ' with the line, ' On poets' tombs
see Benson's titles writ,' and again reverted
to the subject when he was asked for an
inscription on Shakespeare's monument.
Another work encouraged by Benson was
Christopher Pitt's translation of the ' ^Eneid ;'
his enthusiasm for these two poets, Virgil
and Milton, was shown in two anonymous
volumes, ' Virgil's Husbandry, or an Essay on
the Georgics, being the first book translated
into English verse ' (1725), with Dryden s
version and notes ' critical and rustick,' and
1 Letters concerning Poetical Translations and
Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse ' (1739).
In the fourth book -of the 'Dunciad' (110-
112), Pope alluded to Benson as propped on
two unequal crutches : ' Milton's on this, on
that one Johnston's name.' This referred to
his sumptuous editions of Arthur Johnston's
Latin versions of the Psalms of David
(1740 and 1741), which he preceded by a
prefatory discourse (1740), with a conclusion
and a supplement (both issued in 1741), com-
paring Johnston and Buchanan to the dis-
advantage of the latter, a proceeding for which
he was sharply attacked by Thomas Ruddi-
man in 1745.

Benson's attachment to the whigs and his
blunder over the stability of the House of
Lords exposed him to much ridicule from the
poets of the opposite side in politics ; but he
was a sincere lover of art and letters. The
fountains at Herenhausen, the chief attrac-
tion of the dull palace of the electors of
Hanover, were designed by him.

[Hoare's Wiltshire, ii. (Ambresbury), 103-5 ;
Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, i. 73, 512, 519, ii. 136-9,
ix. 492, 601 ; Oldfield's Eepresentative Hist. iii.
393-4 ; Luttrell, vi. 696 ; Chalmers.] W.P. C.

BENSTEDE, SIR JOHN DE (d. 1323 ?),
udge, accompanied Edward I to Flanders in
1297 as keeper of the great seal, and is described
as ' clericus regis ' in a memorandum entered
on the rolls of the exchequer 19 March 1298,
which states that he came to the exchequer
bringing with him the seal which the chan-
cellor had used during the king's absence in
Flanders. On the chancellor, John de Lang-
:on, going to Rome in reference to the action
of the pope in annulling his election to the
see of Ely, which the king had approved,
the seal was delivered to Benstede, who
almost immediately transferred it to William
de Hamilton, afterwards (1305) lord chan-
cellor. We find him again mentioned as
laving charge of the seal during the interval

Benstede

262

Bentham

which elapsed between William de Hamil-
ton's appointment as chancellor (29 Dec.
1304) and its delivery to him (16 Jan.
1305). In the parliament of 1305 he was
one of twenty-one English members ap-
pointed to confer with the same number of
Scotch representatives concerning the best
means of promoting the stability of Scotland.
In the same year he was made chancellor of
the exchequer. This office he held until
20 Aug. 1307, when John de Sandale was
appointed in his place. In June 1307 he was
entrusted by the Prince of Wales with the
presentation of a petition from the Earl of
Ulster and John and Eustace le Poer, pray-
ing that the king would assign such other
justices in place of those already appointed
as would redress certain grievances of which
they complained. In the following year he
was appointed keeper of the wardrobe, and
in 1309 justice of the common pleas. In
1315 he was sent to Northumberland with
authority to summon the barons, knights,
and men-at-arms of the northern counties to
meet him to concert measures for securing
the border against the incursions of the Scots,
and in the following year was despatched on
a mission to the court of the pope for the
purpose of ' expediting certain arduous mat-
ters touching the realm of Scotland and the
said pope/ but was recalled when he had got
no further than Dover, receiving 1U. for his
expenses, and 12s. 5d. to cover the loss occa-
sioned by exchanging with the Bardi 159
florins, which he had purchased for the pur-
poses of his journey at Ss. 2^d. the florin, that
coin having since fallen in value a penny.
He was assigned as one of the justices for
the county of Hertford in 1317. In 1318 he
acted as one of the envoys empowered to
treat for peace with Robert Bruce, and in
the following year was placed on a special
commission to assess damages sustained by
certain subjects of the Count of Flanders in
1307. In the same year (1319) he was sent,
with the Bishop of Hereford and two other
envoys, to Rome to urge on the pope the
canonisation of Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop
of Hereford in the reign of Henry III.
Between 1301 and 1303 we find him in at-
tendance upon the king in Scotland. In 1302
the king granted him the right of holding two
markets weekly and one fair yearly at his
manor of Ermington in Devonshire, with other
privileges, and in the following year he ob-
tained a similar grant for his manor of Ben-
nington, Hertfordshire. In 1306 he went the
northern circuit as one of the commission of
trailbaston. He was appointed justice of the
common bench on the accession of Edward II
(1307), the king in the same year granting him

the right of fortifying his house called Rose-
mont at Eye, near Westminster, with walls of
lime and stone. Next year he attended the
king in Scotland, and was also despatched with
Roger Savage to Philip of France to arrange
a personal interview between the two kings,
which took place at Pontoise. Between 1311
and 1321 he was regularly summoned to
parliament as a justice. In 1312 we find him
present on two occasions at the exchequer
with the barons ; but there is no reason to
infer from this, with Dugdale, that he was
ever regularly appointed a baron. He was
probably present merely as one of the council.
In 1314-15 he was employed in Scotland upon
affairs of state, the nature of which does not
very clearly appear. Fines were regularly
levied before him between 1312 and 1320.
In the latter year he resigned, William de
Hale being appointed to succeed him. In
1322 he was returned by the sheriff as one
of the inhabitants of Hertfordshire liable to
military service, and summoned to render the
same, being described as a banneret. His
death probably took place in 1323, as his
estates are entered amongst the escheats of
the seventeenth year of Edward IPs reign
(July 1323- July 1324). He was twice mar-
ried, the name of his first wife being Isabella,
and that of his second Petronilla. At the
date of his death he was possessed of estates
in Devonshire, Middlesex, Hertfordshire,
Essex, Wiltshire, and Hampshire. His wife
Petronilla and a son, Edmund, thirteen years
old, survived him. Petronilla was life-tenant
of a portion of the estates in right of dower.
She died in'l 342 . The last male representative
of the family, Sir William de Benstede, died
in 1485. One Andrew Bensted is mentioned
in Hasted's ' History of Kent ' as rector of
Stonar in that county in 1486 ; but whether
he was in any way related to the judge's
family is altogether uncertain.

[Hardy's Catalogue of Lords Chancellors, &c.
14 ; Parl. Writs, i. 463, ii. 523 ; Ninth Eep. Dep.
Keep. Pub. Eec. app. ii. 247 ; Archse. xxvi. 322,
330 ; Dugdale's Orig. 44 ; Dugdale's Chron. Ser.
34; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 91; Kymer (ed.
Clarke), ii. 76, 385; Cal. I. P. M. ii. 104 ; Cus-
sans's Hertfordshire (Hund. Broadwater, 126-7,
Hund. Cashio, 294); Hasted's Kent, ii. 387;
Morant's Essex, i. 34, ii. 495 ; Rot. Scot. i. 52a,
59, 60, 132, 133, 1396, 181a; Foss's Judges of
England.] J. M. K.

BENTHAM, EDWARD, D.D. (1707-
1776), regius professor of divinity at Oxford,
the son of the Rev. Samuel Bentham and
Philippa, formerly Willan, his wife, was
born in the college at Ely on 23 July 1707.
He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in
1724, and studied under the care of his cousia

Bentham

263

Bentham

John Burton. In 1730 he held for a short
time the office of vice-principal of Magdalen
Hall, and the next year was elected fellow
of Oriel. On taking his M.A. degree in 1732
he was appointed to a tutorship at his col-
lege, an office he held for twenty years. In
1743 he took the degree of B.D., and was
collated to a prebendal stall in Hereford
Cathedral. He proceeded to the degree of
D.D. in 1749, and in 1754 was made a canon
of Christ Church, Oxford. On the death of
Dr. Fanshaw, regius professor of divinity, he
was persuaded by Archbishop Seeker and
other friends to accept the vacant chair, and
accordingly in 1763 he vacated the canonry
he held for that annexed to the professorship.
He is said to have read three lectures in each
week during term time without exacting any
fee for attendance. The year's lectures formed
one continuous course, which he seems to
have gone through year after year. Oxford
was his world, and from his matriculation
•to his death he never missed a single term's
residence. He died on 1 Aug. 1776, and
was buried in the cathedral. His wife Eliza-
beth, the daughter of Theophilus Bates of
Alton, Hertfordshire, survived him, and he
also left a son and daughter. He was the
brother of James Bentham [q. v.], the histo-
rian of Ely. He wrote : 1. ' An Introduction
to Moral Philosophy,' 1745. 2. A Letter to a
Young Gentleman, and a Letter to a Fellow
of a College, 1748. 3. ' Advice to a Young
Man of Rank on entering the University.'
4. ' Reflections on Logic, with a Vindication.'
6. ' Funeral Eulogies in Greek, T&v Ila\aiS>v
. . . 'E7rmz(£t<H,' 2nd edition, with additions,
1768. 6. ' De Studiis Theologicis Pralectio/
1764. 7. ' Reflections on the Study of Divi-
nity,' 1771. 8. ' De Vita et Moribus J. Bur-
ton, S.T.P., Epistola.' 9. ' An Introduction
to Logic,' 1773. 10. <De Tumultibus Ame-
ricanis.' Besides an assize and other single
sermons. A somewhat lengthy account of
Bentham's life will be found in Chalmers's
* Biographical Dictionary.'

In his notice of Bentham in his MS.
4 Athenae Cantab.' Cole writes : ' In the
" Gentleman's Magazine" for 1780, p. 187, is
this advertisement or note, probably from
his brother James of Ely. " Professor Ben-
tham's Life is not in the ' Biographia ; ' but
if our correspondent will enable us to supply
that defect, it shall find a place in our repo-
sitory." In good truth it is well that he is
not in the " Biographia," which is, or ought
to be, a temple of fame for eminent persons
of England and Ireland, but by no means
for every little professor or writer. I per-
sonally knew and was acquainted with Dr.
Bentham, who, I verily believe, was a very

honest, virtuous, good man ; a good husband
and father, and an excellent brother, but as
poor a creature, both in conversation, man-
ner, and behaviour, as I have generally met
with : a plodding, industrious man, bred
under his cousin John Burton of Eton, who
pushed him forward and rather got the start
of him ; both on the merit of being whigs at
Oxford in Sir Rob. Walpole's time, when
they were scarcer than at present, though
not so abundant as with us [at Cambridge].
I know they have a collection for a life of
him drawn up by Alderman Bentham, who
was to have brought it to me, but his sudden
death prevented it. The professor had de-
signed a monument and epitaph for his father
and mother in Ely Cathedral, which I have
seen, but suppose it will now be neglected,
except his widow or his son were left rich,
£30,000 (sic) may do it, for James is as
poor as a rat, being long helped out by his
brother,' &c.

[Addit. MSS. 58, 64, B. f. 317 Brit. Mus. ;
Rawlinson MSS. 4to, 6, 46, Bodleian Library;
Ni chols's Literary Anecdotes, viii. 450 ; Chalmers's
Biographical Dictionary, iv. 475.] W. H.

BENTHAM, GEORGE (1800-1884), bo-
tanist, second son of Sir Samuel Bentham
[q. v.], and nephew of Jeremy Bentham [q. v.],
was born 22 Sept. 1800 at Stoke, near Ply-
mouth, where his father was making his an-
nual inspection of the dockyard. His mother,
daughter of an eminent physician, Dr. George
Fordyce, was a woman of great ability and
energy. All the young Benthams were for-
ward children, George beginning Latin before
he was five. The years 1805-7 were spent in
Russia, Sir Samuel Bentham being occupied
on a mission to St. Petersburg ; and this visit
secured for George a grounding in Russian,
French, and German. During the homeward
voyage in 1807 the family were detained
several weeks in Sweden through bad weather,
and the indefatigable children took the op-
portunity to learn Swedish. In later life
Bentham read botanical works in fourteen
modern European languages, a range highly
conducive to the perfection of detail found in
his writings. The voyage home from Sweden
was a very dangerous and prolonged one, and
when they at last arrived off Harwich the
family were left at night by the crew on board
a wretched craft, where they fed on rejected
fragments of biscuit till taken off the follow-
ing midday. The Benthams remained in
England till 1814, the children being entirely
educated by private tutors ; and with the lack
of a public school education there grew on
Bentham an habitual shyness that often
caused him to be misunderstood. Between

Bentham

264

Bentham

the burning of Moscow and the peace of 1814
the young family translated from a Russian
paper, for a London magazine, a series of ar-
ticles on the war. Young George, an enthu-
siastic boy glorying in the downfall of Napo-
leon, was presented by his father to the Czar
on his visit to Portsmouth dockyard. The
Benthams now commenced their prolonged
residence in France (1814^27), and Bent-
ham's journals while in Paris are full of in-
terest. Young as he was, he appeared in the
brilliant company which his parents received,
and enjoyed the society of Walter Savage
Landor, Talleyrand, and Humboldt, the latter
warmly aiding him in studying physical geo-
graphy, on the data of which the youth had
already begun to write. In 1816 a very ex-
tensive caravan tour of France by the family
proved the occasion of Bentham's first bo-
tanical study. At Angouleme he accidentally
picked up a copy of De Candolle's l Flore
Fran£aise,' then just published, which his
mother, a plant lover and a friend of Aiton
of Kew, had bought. He was struck with
its analytical tables, which exactly suited the
ideas he had learned from his uncle Jeremy,
and which he himself was applying to geo-
graphy. Going at once into the back yard
of the house, and gathering the first plant he
saw, he spent a morning over it, and suc-
ceeded in assigning it to its right species, a
difficult task for a beginner, as the plant hap-
pened to be 'Salvia pratensis.' Bentham
thereafter took to making out the name and
systematic position of every plant he met
with.

At Montauban, near Toulouse, the family
remained some months, and Bentbam was
entered as a student of the faculty of theo-
logy at Montauban, studying mathematics,
Hebrew, and philology, as well as music (of
which he was passionately fond), drawing,
and botany. Dancing was his most ab-
sorbing recreation. .De Candolle's ' Theory
of Botany ' and other works opened his mind
to scientific botany, and he studied exotic
plants to a considerable extent. About 1820
shooting and stuffing birds became favourite
pursuits of his. At the same period John
Stuart Mill joined the Benthams for seven
or eight months, and Bentham for a time
became once more absorbed in philosophy.
Insects were the next study, and insect life
was systematically tabulated.

Bentham next appears as manager of his
father's estate of 2,000 acres near Mont-
pellier, his elder brother having died in 1816.
By his method, application, and knowledge
of French countrv life, the voune- man ranidlv

'French country life, the young man rapidly
improved the estate, but continued to study
.logic, translating into French his uncle's

chapters on nomenclature and classification
from the ' Chrestomathia,' and amplifying-
considerably the portions relating to the art&
and sciences. This was published in Paris in
1823, and established his position in France-
as an acute analyser, clear expositor, and
cautious reasoner. His holidays were spent
in botanical excursions to the Pyrenees and
the Cevennes, and in 1825 an extended jour-
ney with Dr. Arnott (afterwards professor of
botany at Glasgow) led to Bentham's first
botanical work, ' Catalogue des Plantes indi-
genes des Pyrenees et de Bas-Languedoc, avec
des notes et observations,' Paris, 1826. In
this work special stress was laid on the verir
fication of original type-specimens described
by authors, then too much neglected. He
deprecated the extreme multiplication of
badly defined species, and protested against
the loose way of naming and describing
plants then current. Moreover he noted
the variability and intricacy of the characters
assigned to species, and insisted on the im-
propriety of giving separate names to acci-
dental or minor variations.

Induced by his uncle's proposals for joint
work, by the attractions of English society,
and by the difficulties thrown in the way of
improving the French estate by provincial
jealousies, Bentham finally left France in
1826. His uncle persuaded him to give much
time to aiding him, but he also studied at
Lincoln's Inn. The arrangement lasted till
the uncle's death in 1832, but the nephew,
from various causes, received much less than
he should have done under his uncle's wilL
Labour with and for his uncle proved irksome
and uncongenial ; incessant toil was also de-
manded of him in connection with his father's
voluminous writings on the navy and dock-
yards. His law studies were sacrificed, and
partly on this account, as well as through
nervousness, his practice was a failure.
Nevertheless, in 1827, he produced 'Outlines
of a New System of Logic/ largely in the
form of a criticism of Whately's * Logic.' In
this remarkable book the doctrine of the
quantification of the predicate was for the
first time clearly set forth ; but unfortunately
the publishers became bankrupt, and the
stock went for waste paper when only sixty
copies had been sold. It was not till 1850
(Athenceum, 21 Dec.) that the fact of its
containing the above discovery was recog-
nised, Sir William Hamilton's claims to it
having been supposed indubitable ; but Pro-
fessor Stanley Jevons,. following Herbert
Spencer (Contemporary Review, May 1873),
gives a decided verdict in favour of Bent-
ham's originality, and terms it the most
fruitful discovery in abstract logical science;

Bentham

265

Bentham

since the time of Aristotle. Sir W. Hamilton
reviewed Bentham's book in the ' Edinburgh
Review,' Ivii. 194-238, but did not mention
this discovery.

On several matters of jurisprudence Bent-
ham held and put forward decided views in
opposition to his uncle. His paper on codi-
fication attracted the attention of Brougham,
Hume, and O'Connell ; his suggestions on the
larceny laws drew a complimentary letter from
Peel, and a long comment from Brougham.
A pamphlet on the law of real property, deal-
ing with the Registration Bill of 1831, showed
the same mastery of details that was after-
wards so conspicuous in his botanical wri-
tings. But the death of his father (1831)
and uncle (1832) set Bentham at liberty to
follow the pursuit which had been strength-
ening its hold upon him in spite of the at-
tractions of law and logic, and to become one
of the greatest systematic botanists that Eng-
land has produced.

For fifty years botany was Bentham's main
occupation. Prom his own account of the
development of his ideas (Brit. Ass. Rep.
1874) we learn that he regarded as essential
to a good knowledge of systematic botany,
not only the life-history and distribution of
races of plants, but also the results of vege-
table physiology and palaeontology. He was
himself a link between the adolescent and
the more mature stages of his science, having
in his early days conversed with one of
Linnseus's active correspondents, Gouan of
Montpellier, having received many useful
hints from A. L. de Jussieu, founder of the
natural system, and having been intimate
with the chief promoters and improvers of
that system, such as De Candolle, Brown,
Endlicher, Lindley, and Hooker. At the
close of his career Bentham could say that
he had received friendly assistance, per-
sonally or by letter, from almost every sys-
tematic botanist of note in the nineteenth
century.

In 1828 Bentham's herbarium arrived from
France, and in the same year he was elected
a fellow of the Linnean Society, and regu-
larly attended its meetings. He was pro-
posed at the Royal Society in 1829 by Robert
Brown, but at his recommendation with-
drew, with other scientific candidates, who
regarded with dissatisfaction the election
of a royal duke to the presidency of the so-
ciety. By spending several long vacations
on the continent Bentham knew by 1832 the
principal continental botanists, and the work-
ing of the botanical establishments of Paris,
Berlin, Vienna, Munich, and Geneva. Botany
grew more interesting to him as it became
generally agreed that its main object was not

finding out the name of a plant, but deter-
mining its relations and affinities, as well
as its structure.

In 1829 began Bentham's connection with
the Horticultural Society as honorary secre-
tary, which office he retained till 1840. The
society at this time had sent out collectors
to various countries, and Bentham, with
Lindley, the assistant secretary, who became
his attached friend, named and described
many of the species they brought back. Many
plants which have become very common,
such as eschscholtzia and clarkia, were intro-
duced by Douglas, and described, with beau-
tiful coloured plates, by Bentham. Further,
his management of the society was so succes-
ful that he raised it from a perilous state of
debt and dissension to a flourishing con-
dition, both financially and scientifically.
His ' Plantse Hartwegianse/ London, 1839-57,
formed another valuable result of his con-
nection with the Horticultural Society, being
an account of the collections made in Mexico
and California by Hartweg, a collector for the
society. Early in Bentham's botanical career
Dr. Wallich's return from India with the
great collections of the East India Company
afforded him a rich supply of material, and
led to his study and publication of various
more or less exhaustive memoirs of genera and
natural orders of Indian plants. Of these the
'Labiatarum Genera et Species,' 1832-36,
and ' Scrophularineee Indices,' 1835, were the
most important, the former order having been
in a state of chaos before he took it in hand.

In 1834 Bentham married the daughter of
Sir Harford Brydges, formerly British am-
bassador at the court of Persia, and in 1834
he removed to his late uncle's house in Queen
Square Place, on the site of which the Bent-
ham wing of Queen Anne's Mansions now
stands. There he resided till 1842, when,
in order to accommodate his extensive her-
barium and library, and devote himself more
fully to science, he removed to Pontrilas
House, Hereford, where he revised the
' Labiatae,' and elaborated the great families
of scrophularinece, ericacece, polemonlacece,
and others, for his friend Alphonse de Can-
dolle's continuation of the great 'Prodromus
of the Vegetable Kingdom.

In 1854, finding that the expenses of
his collections and books were exceeding
his means, he presented these (valued at
6,000/.) to Kew Gardens, and even contem-
plated abandoning botany, still regarding
himself, with characteristic modesty, as an
amateur rather than a professional botanist.
But fortunately the entreaties of his friends,
Sir J. W. Hooker and Dr. Lindley (the
former offering him a room at Kew and the

Bentham

266

Bentham

use of his private library and herbarium,
and asking his co-operation in the series
of colonial floras then projected at Kew),
averted this threatened loss to science.
Bentham returned in 1855 to London, and
from 1861 onwards lived at 25 Wilton Place,
and almost daily, except during excursions
to the continent or to Herefordshire, went to
Kew and worked at descriptive botany from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. To his assiduous labours
are due the « Flora of Hongkong ' (1861), a
model of its kind, and the ' Flora Austra-
liensis,' including seven thousand species, the
most extensive exotic flora ever completed,
and the unrivalled ' Genera Plantarum.' The
working up of the vast and peculiar flora of
Australia at such a distance from the locali-
ties would have been much more difficult but
for the abundant and capable aid afforded by
Baron F. von Miiller from Melbourne, and
the specimens which he transmitted. Never-
theless the work was enormous to undertake
single-handed, and Bentham's fears lest he
might not live to complete it are very intel-
/ ligible, when we learn that his success in-
volved the personal examination, criticism,
and description of from one thousand to
twelve hundred species in a year, as well as the
consultation of authorities respecting them.
The publication of this great ' Flora,' in seven
octavo volumes, extended from 1863 to 1878.
The preface gives a vivid idea of the extent
of the labour which was expended upon it.
Bentham further drew up terse and valuable
' Outlines of Botany,' to be prefixed to all the
colonial floras.

Meanwhile the Linnean Society realised
Bentham's value as an administrator, and
elected him vice-president in 1858, and presi-
dent in 1861, which office he held continu-
ously for thirteen years with very great
success. Time, thought, and money were
unsparingly devoted to the promotion of the
society's interests, and he was practically
secretary, treasurer, and botanical editor as
•well as president. He personally rearranged
the society's library on its transference to the
new buildings in Burlington House. Bent-
ham's annual presidential addresses were of
a masterly character, whether they dealt with
philosophical subjects or with the progress
of botany. His cautious temperament and
logical method made his adhesion to Darwin's
views of evolution of great value, when in
1863 he declared that the accuracy of Dar-
win's facts was no longer contested, and that
much of his reasoning was unanswered and
unanswerable. In 1868 he thus formulated
the principles which he also consistently
practised. ' In every biological undertaking
. . . there is one true course to pursue :

first, to observe for one's self once and again,
and to test personally the observations of
others; secondly, to collect, compare, and
methodise all that has been published and
authenticated upon the . . . subject of inves-
tigation ; and thirdly, to reduce the observa-
tions to a general treatise, and speculate upon
the conclusions to be drawn from them.'
His valedictory address to the Linnean So-
ciety appears in the British Association Re-
port for 1874 as a ' Report on the Recent
Progress and Present State of Systematic
Botany,' of high historical and autobio-
graphical value. It also, like some of his
Linnean addresses, indicates in detail the
work remaining to be done in botany.

Bentham's most conspicuous achievement,
however, is his share, the larger portion, in
the ' Genera Plantarum,' which occupied
more than the last quarter of a century of
his life. An account of the portions of the
work done respectively by Bentham and Sir
Joseph Hooker has been given by the former
(Linn. Journ. Bot. xx. 304 ; see also Nature,
xxviii. 485). The first part appeared in 1862,
and the first volume was completed and
brought up to date in 1867 ; the first half of
volume ii. was issued in 1873, the second
half in 1876; the first part of volume iii.
in 1880, the concluding portion in 1883. A
single incident may serve to indicate the
spirit in which Bentham worked. After
more than a year's constant and uninter-
rupted labour on the orchids, he concluded
his revision of that difficult order late one
Saturday afternoon; but without pause,
knowing that the grasses, a still more ardu-
ous task, remained to be undertaken, he
simply bade an attendant bring him the
material for commencing this last great por-
tion of his work, and immediately began. A
man of this mould seemed destined to com-
plete what he undertook, octogenarian though
he then was ; and the ' Genera Plantarum '
gives a revised definition of every genus of
flowering plants, a view of its extent, geogra-
phical distribution, and synonymy, with refe-
rences and notes. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley
revised the Latin text to secure uniformity of
style and diction. The descriptive characters
of the natural orders are most carefully drawn
up. Nothing has been neglected which could
add to the value of the work. The authors
have personally examined specimens, living
and dead, of the whole series of flowering
plants wherever practicable, their extent of
knowledge and command of materials far
exceeding anything previously attained. The
Candollean arrangement of orders is main-
tained for the most part, but nearly every
important order is remodelled. Such a work

Bentham

267

Bentham

marlts of necessity an epoch in botany, and
Bentham's share in it is his most enduring
monument — a model of scientific accuracy,
good arrangement, precision of language, and
lucidity. Some of the more important orders
were also fully discussed by him in extended
memoirs in the ' Linnean Society's Journal '
during the progress of the ' Genera Planta-
rum ; ' among these, those on the Myrtaceae,
Compositae, Orchideae, Gramineae, and on the
classification of Monocotyledons, are of special
value.

Personally shy and retiring, Bentham's
honours were forced upon him unsought.
He was elected into the Royal Society in
1862, and received the distinction of a royal
medal in 1859 ; he was also a corresponding
member of the Institute of France. In 1878,
on the completion of the Australian flora,
he was created C.M.G. His reserved manner
appeared cold and unsympathetic to those
who knew him little ; those who knew him
well found him warm-hearted and generous
in disposition, ' the kindliest of critics, the
firmest of friends.'

On the conclusion of the l Genera Plan-
tarum,' the veteran botanist's strength gave
way, and, after ineffectual attempts to resume
work at Kew, he became weaker and finally
died of old age on 10 Sept. 1884, leaving no
family. He bequeathed 1,000/. to the Lin-
nean Society, a like sum to the Scientific
Relief Fund of the Royal Society, and a con-
siderable sum for the preparation and publi-
cation of botanical works at Kew, and the
development of its herbarium and library.

The work by which Bentham was best
known to British botanists is his * Handbook
of the British Flora,' 1858. An enlarged
and illustrated edition in 2 vols. appeared in
1863-5. All the descriptions were freshly
drawn up from specimens.

Besides the works and papers enumerated
above, Bentham wrote upwards of 120 sepa-
rate papers or memoirs, on the classification
and description of flowering plants, in * Lin-
nea,' Hooker's ' Bot. Misc.,' 'Bot. Mag.,'
and f Journ. Bot.,' Linnean Soc. ' Journ.' and
4 Trans./Hort. Soc. ' Trans.,' ' Natural History
Review' (Amur Flora, April 1861; South
European Floras, July 1864 ; De Candolle's
Prodromus, Oct. 1864) ; ' Commentationes
de Leguminosarum Generibus,' 4to, Vienna,
1837 ; ' Enumeratio Plantarum Nov. Holland.'
(Hugel's Collection), Vienna, 1837 ; ' Botany
of H.M.S. Sulphur,' London, 1844-6 ; ' Flora
Nigritiana ' in Hooker's * Niger Flora,' Lon-
don, 1849 ; * Papilionacese ' in Endlicher and
Martin's < Flora Brasiliensis,' 1840, &c. ;
•CErsted's papers on Central American flora
include much material supplied by Bentham.

[Nature, 2 Oct. 1 8 8 4 (by Sir Joseph Hooker, who
has also kindly revised this article) ; Gardener's
Chronicle, 20 Sept. 1884 (by Dr. Masters);
Athenaeum, 20 Sept. 1884 ; Autobiographical
Details in Brit. Ass. Rep. 1874 ; Nat. Hist. Rev.
(1861), ]33, ' On Species and Genera of Plants ;*
Nature, xxviii. 485 ; Linn. Soc. Journ. Bot. xx.
304.] G. T. B.

BENTHAM, JAMES (1708-1794), his-
torian of Ely, came of a clerical family in
Yorkshire, which had produced an uninter-
rupted succession of clergymen from the
time of Queen Elizabeth. He was the fourth
son of the Rev. Samuel Bentham, vicar of
Witchford near Ely, and brother of Edward
Bentham [q. v.], professor at Oxford. Having
acquired the rudiments of learning in Ely
grammar school, he was admitted 26 March
1727 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where
he proceeded B. A. in 1730, and M. A. in 1738.
Five years previously — in 1733 — he had been
presented to the vicarage of Stapleford in
Cambridgeshire, which he resigned in 1737,
when he was made a minor canon of Ely.
In this office he exerted himself to improve
the choral service of the church. The prac-
tical bent of his mind and his public spirit
were shown in his various endeavours to
improve the fen country, then in a very de-
plorable condition (see Hist, of Ely, p. 212).
He 'published in 1757 proposals for making
turnpike roads under the title of l Queries
for the consideration of the Inhabitants of
the City of Ely and Towns adjacent/ His
plan, after encountering ridicule and obloquy
for five years or more, was carried into effect
under powers obtained by an act of parlia-
ment passed in 1763, and by the aid of sub-
scriptions and loans of money. A road was
made between Ely and Cambridge, and the
system was extended to other parts of the
isle of Ely.

Some twenty years after the appearance of
his * Queries ' Bentham published ' Considera-
tions and Reflections upon the Present State
of the Fens,' with a view to their improve-
ment by draining and enclosing Grunty Fen,
a large tract of common near Ely, containing
1,300 acres.

The great literary achievement of Bentham
was begun in 1756, when he circulated among
his friends printed lists of the abbots, bishops,
priors, and deans of Ely, for the purpose of
obtaining materials for his history of the
cathedral church. Five years later he sent
out proposals for publishing this elaborate
work at the remarkably low price of eighteen
shillings, which he found himself obliged,
however, soon after to raise to one guinea.
Though the cost of the plates was defrayed
by the several persons to whom they were de-

Bentham

268

Bentham

dicated, this was perhaps one of the cheapest
books ever published in England. The work
was sent to the press in 1764, and was de-
livered to the subscribers in 1771. It was
printed at Cambridge in a quarto volume by
Joseph Bentham, a brother of the historian,
and alderman of Cambridge, who for many
years was printer to the university. It was
the last work that Joseph printed, a fact
attested by these words on the last page of
the book, * Finis hie officii atque laboris.'
Bentham survived both this brother and his
elder brother, Dr. Edward Bentham, regius
professor of divinity at Oxford. In the in-
troduction to the history an interesting and
valuable account is given of Saxon, Norman,
and Gothic architecture (see Quarterly Re-
view^. 2, 1809, pp. 126-45), which, by some
strange mistake, was attributed by one S. E.
to the pen of the poet Gray (see Gent. Mag.
May 1783, p. 376). A letter vindicating
Bentham's own claim to the essay appeared
in the same journal, signed by the venerable
author, in the following April, and produced
a handsome apology from S. E., which was
published in the July number of 1784 (p. 505).
Notwithstanding this rectification the writer
of the article ' Gothic Architecture ' in Rees's
'New Cyclopaedia' (1811) repeats the asser-
tion that ' the poet Gray drew up the archi-
tectural part of the work.'

In 1767 Bentham was presented by Bishop
Mawson to the vicarage of Wymondham in
Norfolk, and upon his resignation of that
living in the following year to the rectory of
Feltwell St. Nicholas in the same county.
This preferment he held till 1774, when Bishop
Keene presented him to the rectory of North-
wold, which, after five years' tenure, he was
induced to give up for a prebendal stall in
Ely Cathedral. The same prebend had some
fifty years before been held by Bishop Tanner,
the noted writer on ecclesiastical antiquities.
To this was added in 1783, on the presentation
of the Rev. Edward Guellaume, the rectory
of Bowbrick Hill, Buckinghamshire. During
the later period of his life he collected, with
great pains, materials for illustrating the
' Ancient Architecture of this Kingdom,' a
work which he was unable to complete.

He gained the respect of those who knew
him, not only by his talents and pursuits, but
by his modest and unassuming manners. He
died at his prebendal house, Ely, on 17 Nov.
1794, at the age of eighty-six. He was twice
married, and his second wife, Miss Mary
Dickens of Ely, bore him a son and a daugh-
ter. The former survived his father, and be-
came vicar of West Bradenham in Norfolk.
He also published at Norwich a second edition
of the * History of Ely Cathedral,' with a me-

moir of his father prefixed, 2 vols. 4to, 1812-
17. A large quarto supplement to the first
edition was published by W. Stevenson at
Norwich in 1817, as well as a supplement
to the second edition of the same size and
date. Cole's notes on Bentham's important
work will be found in Davis's ' Olio.'

[Memoir in second edition of History of Ely ;
Nichols's Anecdotes, iii. 484-94 ; G-ent. Mag..
1783-84-94.] E. H.

BENTHAM, JEREMY (1748-1832),
writer on jurisprudence, was born in Red Lion
Street, Houndsditch, on 15 Feb. 1747-8. His
great grandfather was a prosperous pawn-
broker in the city of London, and there his
grandfather and father practised as attorneys.
His mother, Alicia Grove, was the daughter
of a shopkeeper at Andover. A grand uncle
on the mother's side, named Woodward, was
the publisher of Tindal's ' Christianity as
old as the Creation.' Bentham's father had
no large practice, but he made a considerable
fortune by the purchase and sale of land.
He was, according to one description of him,,
' authoritative, restless, aspiring, and shabby'
(Empson in Edinburgh Review}. He believed
that ' pushing was the one thing needful ' in,
life, and he much regretted that his clever
son would not act on this maxim. He was
fond in a dilettante fashion of literature, and
proud of owning Milton's house, chiefly,
perhaps, because a friend happened to own
Cowley's. Young Bentham was remarkably
precocious, and his father delighted to show
off his acquirements. In his fourth year he
had begun to study Latin. ' I remember/
says Dr. Bowring, 'that he mentioned to
me that he learned the Latin grammar and
the Greek alphabet on his father's knee/
Even as a child he was fond of books, and at
the age of five he was known as * the philo-
sopher.' There is a story that when in petti-
coats he was found seated at a reading-desk,
a lighted candle on each side, absorbed in the
study of a folio copy of Rapin's ' History of
England.' Much of his youth was spent with
his two grandmothers at Browning Hill near
Reading, and at a country house at Barking.
To the end of his life he retained recollec-
tions of the pleasant days passed far away
from the city. ' At Browning Hill every-
body and everything had a charm ; even the
old rusty sword in the granary which we
used to brandish against the rats was an,
historical and sacred sword, for one of my
ancestors had used it at Oxford against the
parliamentary forces.' At six or seven he
began to learn French. Telemachus was an
unending delight to him ; in old age he had
a vivid recollection of the feelings with which

Bentham

269

Bentham

lie read that tale, especially the description
of the election by competition to the throne
of Crete. l That romance may be regarded
as the foundation of my whole character ;
the starting-point from whence my career of
life commenced/ His father and mother
sought to keep from him all amusing books :
but his reading was discursive, including
grave and gay. Among the books which he
read were Burnet's ' Theory of the Earth/
Cave's ' Lives of the Apostles/ Stow's ' Chro-
nicles/ Rapin's < History/ < Gil Bias/ Plu-
tarch's ' Lives/ Mandeville's l Fable of the
Bees/ and ' Clarissa Harlowe.' In 1755 he
was sent to Westminster School. Sensitive,
delicate, of dwarfish stature, and with no
aptitude or liking for boys' games, he was
out of place at a public school. He made,
however, progress in Greek and Latin, and
acquired a reputation for proficiency in Latin
verse. On 28 June 1760 he was admitted
at Queen's College, Oxford. He has de-
scribed the reluctance with which he signed
the Thirty-nine Articles ; he and some who
shared his doubts were induced to sign by one
of the fellows who reproved their presumption
in showing hesitation. The impression made
upon him was painful and lasting. From
Oxford Bentham carried away few pleasant
recollections ; he found little in the studies
or amusements of the university to interest
Mm, and his references to it in after years
were tipped with acrimony. ' Mendacity
and insincerity — in these I found the effects
— the sure and only sure effects of an Eng-
lish university education' (Church of Eng-
landism, xxi). An indifferent Latin ode
written by him on the death of George II
and the accession of George III was pro-
nounced wonderful as the composition of a
faoy of thirteen years of age ; and Dr. John-
son was pleased to say ' it is a very pretty
performance of a young man.' Bentham's
own account of it in later years was un-
favourable : ' it was a mediocre performance
on a trumpery subject, written by a mise-
rable child.' In 1763, at the age of sixteen,
Bentham took his degree of B.A., and in
the same year he began to eat his terms at
Lincoln's Inn. In 1764 he and his father
made a short visit to France. In 1765 we
liave a glimpse of the future jurist, in a pea-
green coat and green silk breeches, ' bitterly
tight/ making a walk from Oxford to Far-
ringdon. In 1766 he took his master's de-
gree, and in 1767 he left Oxford. He was
called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, and be-
came a member of that society in 1817.

Much to the disappointment of his father
and of his friends who knew his talents, he
did not succeed in his profession, and he did

not even care to do so. He never spoke in
court except to say a few formal words.
The first brief he got was from a friend of
his father, Mr. Chamberlain Clarke. It was

| in a suit in equity on which 50/. depended.

| The advice which he gave was- that the suit
would be better put an end to, and the money
which would be wasted in the contest saved.
His own account of his brief professional
career is this : ' On my being called to the bar
I found a cause or two at nurse for me. My
first thought was how to put them to death,
and the endeavours were not, I believe,
altogether without success. Not long after
a case was brought to me for my opinion.

I I ransacked all the codes. My opinion was
right according to the codes, but it was
wrong according to a manuscript unseen by
me, and inaccessible to me; a manuscript
containing the report of I know not what
opinion, said to have been delivered before I
was born, and locked up, as usual, for the pur-
pose of being kept back or produced according
as occasion served.' Bentham did not take
measures to insure success in the law. He
read and thought about matters which had
no bearing upon the service of his jealous
mistress. He bought phials, and dabbled in
chemistry, a science to which he was drawn
by his friend Dr. Fordyce, and in 1783 he
translated an essay by Bergman on the use-
fulness of chemistry. He studied physical
science instead of conveyancing, and he began
to pursue those speculations on politics and
jurisprudence which became the occupation

1 of his life. The extracts which Dr. Bow-
ring gives from his common-place book in
1773-6 relate to such subjects as vulgar
errors — political : punishment of — origin of
the vindictive principle : Digest of the law
premature before Locke and Helvetius: 'Fic-
tions of law:7 'Terms falsely supposed to be
understood.' His reflections show that his
mind was then pursuing the trains of thought
which in later life he followed up. Under
the head of ' Education ' he writes : ' Inspire a
general habit of applauding or condemning
actions according to their general utility.'
* Barristers/ it is observed in one note, * are
so called (a man of spleen might say) from
barring against reforms the extremes of the
law/ l It is as impossible for a lawyer to
wish men out of litigation, as for a physi-
cian to wish them in health/

Bentham assisted his friend John Lind,
a clergyman who was London agent for the
king of Poland, in preparing a work on the
colonies ; but his first published compositions
were two letters to the ' Gazeteer ' news-
paper in defence of Lord Mansfield, who was
then the god of his idolatry. He also trans-

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270

Bentham

lated a volume of one of Marmontel's tales.
As early as 1776 he was busy upon a work
which he at first intended to entitle ' The
Critical Elements of Jurisprudence.' It was
printed in 1780, hut it was not given to
the world until 1789, when it was published
as ' Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation,' perhaps the greatest and
most distinctive work by Bentham. In
1776 he published anonymously his ' Frag-
ment on Government, or a Comment on
the Commentaries ; being an Examination of
what is delivered on the subject of Govern-
ment in general in the Introduction to Sir
William Blackstone's Commentaries; with
a Preface, in which is given a critique on
the work at large/ The design of the book
was to point out some capital blemishes
in the Commentaries, 'particularly this
grand and fundamental one, the antipathy
to reform,' and to expose 'the universal
inaccuracy and confusion which seemed to
my apprehension to pervade the whole.'
Bentham's acute criticisms are coloured by
intense antipathy to Blackstone, whose lec-
tures he had attended at Oxford in 1763,
and whose fallacies about natural rights he,
lad though he was, had detected. He had,
too, no admiration for the character of one
who was, he thought, always ' eager to hold
the cup of flattery to the lips of high station.'
Admirably written, free from the diffuseness
and pronounced mannerisms of his later
productions, the book is a model of contro-
versial literature. Bentham's observations
went far beyond the text upon which he
proposed to comment. They were destructive
of the theories in jurisprudence and political
philosophy which were then prevalent, and
' were the first publication by which men
at large were invited to break loose from
the trammels of authority and ancestor
wisdom on the field of law.' The 'Frag-
ment on Government' was a new point of
departure in jurisprudence. Criticisms so
masterly could come, it was felt, from no
ordinary writer, and the 'Fragment' was
variously attributed to Lord Mansfield and
Lord Camden. Some features of the style
induced Dr. Johnson to assign it to Dunning.
About this time Bentham was engaged in
investigations respecting punishment, the re-
sults of which were eventually embodied
in his 'Rationale of Punishments and Re-
wards.' Like many of his works, this did
not see the light until long after it was
composed. Dumont first published it at
Paris in 1811, under the title of 'Theorie
des Peines et des Recompenses.' ' The manu-
scripts from which I have extracted " La
Th6orie des Peines,'" he writes, ' were written

in 1775. Those which have supplied me with
" La Theorie des Recompenses " are a little
later ; they were not thrown aside as useless,
but laid aside as rough-hewn materials which
might at a future day be published and form
part of a general system of legislation, or
as studies which the author had made for
his own use.' Not until 1825 was this work
brought before the world in an English form,
though as early as 1778 Bentham had pub-
lished, in a pamphlet entitled ' View of the
Hard Labour Bill,' some of his views on
punishment.

Not the least important result of the
' Fragment on Government ' was the opening
to Bentham of a society wholly different
from that in which he had hitherto moved.
So much was Lord Shelburne impressed by
the work that he called on Bentham at his-
chambers, and told him that he wished to
make his acquaintance. This led to a visit
to Shelburne House, and also one of some
weeks to Bowood. He became a frequent
visitor there, and his influence over Lord
Shelburne was great. In many ways thia
intimacy benefited Bentham. "it restored
his good humour and his spirits, which had
been not a little damped by his failure at
the bar. 'Lord Shelburne,' said Bentham
once in his emphatic way, ' raised me from
the bottomless pit of humiliation — he made
me feel that I was something.' While at
Bowood he was engaged in completing hia
'Introduction to the Principles of Morals
and Legislation ; ' but he also took part in
the amusement of the house. He played the
violin to the ladies' accompaniment on the
harpsichord. His letters from Bowood are
bright, witty, cheerful, full of politics and
gossip, with pointed sketches of Camden, Pitt,
Dunning, Barre, and other illustrious guests.
These were pleasant days to Bentham. ' 1 1
do what I please, and have what I please.
I ride and read with the son, walk with the
dog, stroke the leopard, drive little Henry
out in his coach, and play at chess and
billiards with the ladies.' These days were,
too, tinted with romance. Bentham lost his
heart to one of the ladies who graced that
bright and distinguished household. His
suit terminated unhappily for him. To the
same lady he appears to have made years
afterwards, in 1805, an offer of marriage.
Her answer, dignified and affectionate, re-
fusing his offer did not drive the memory of her
from his thoughts. In a letter written in 1827,
a few years before his death, he says : ' I am
alive, more than two months advanced in my
eightieth year, more lively than when you
presented me in ceremony with a flower in
Green Lane. Since that day not a single

Bentham

271

Bentham

one has passed, not to speak of nights, in^
which you have not engrossed more of my
thoughts than I could have wished. . . .

Embrace , though it is for me, as it is

by you, she will not be severe, nor refuse her
lips to me as she did her hand, at a time,
perhaps, not yet forgotten by her, any more
than by me.' Lord Shelburne, it may be
mentioned, was desirous that Bentham should
marry Lady Ashburton, and he pressed Bent-
ham's suit on the ground that he would be
an excellent guardian of her son. ' My sur-
prise,'says Bentham, 'was considerable: gra-
titude not inferior. But,' he complacently
adds, 'the offer was of the sort of those
which may be received in any number, while
at most only one at a time can be profited
by.'

While at Bowood Bentham was engaged
in the preparation of his work ' The intro-
duction to Principles of Morals and Legis-
lation.' It is in some respects his greatest
work, the clearest exposition of the principle
of utility, the most concise statement of his
chief principles. Benthafn defines the prin-
ciple of utility as 'that property in any
object whereby it tends to produce benefit,
advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, or to
prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil,
or unhappiness to the party whose interest
is considered.' ' Nature has placed,' he says
at the outset, ' mankind under the govern-
ment of two sovereign motives, pgain and
pleasure. It is for them alone to point out
what we ought to do, as well as to deter-
mine what we should do. On the one hand,
the standard of right and wrong; on the
other, the chains of causes and effects are
fastened to their throne. They govern us
in all we do, in all we say, in all we think,
and the principle of utility recognises this
subjection.' To advance this should be the
object of the moralist and the legislator, and
Bentham assails with force and wit the prin-
ciples adverse to that of utility, and in par-
ticular those of asceticism, sympathy, and
antipathy. The four sanctions or sources of
pleasure and pain — physical, political, moral
or popular, and religious — are defined. It is
shown that 'the value of a lot of pleasure or
pain ' is to be measured according to its in-
tensity, its duration, its certainty, its propin-
quity or remoteness, its fecundity or chance of
being followed by sensations of the same sort,
its purity or chance of not being followed
by sensations of the opposite sort, and its ex-
tent or the number of persons affected by it.
Pleasures and pains are classified. The rea-
sons for treating certain actions as crimes
are considered. Starting from the principle
that the object of all laws is the total happi-

ness of the community, Bentham observes :
''All punishment is mischief; all punish-
;'ment in itself is evil. Upon the principle
I of utility, if it ought at all to be admitted,
it ought only to be admitted so far as it
I promises to exclude some greater evil.' To
apply this to law, to distinguish cases un-
meet for punishment, to preserve a propor-
tion between punishment and offences, to
classify the latter, to determine the fields of
ethics and jurisprudence, is the object of the
test of this treatise (Collected Works, vol. i.)
In August 1785 Bentham quitted England
in order to visit his brother Samuel, who
was then labouring to carry out Prince Po-
temkin's projects for transplanting English
industries to White Russia. Bentham lived
at Zadobras, near Crichoff, with his younger
brother Samuel [q. v.], who was in the ser-
vice of the Russian government. He carried
on his studies in jurisprudence, and he sent
home, in the form of letters to a friend, Mr.
Wilson, his celebrated ' Defence of Usury/
in which he established the principle, then
novel, that no man of ripe years, of sound
mind, acting freely and with his eyes open,
ought to be hindered, with a view to his
advantage, from making such bargain in the
way of obtaining money as he thinks fit.
He also sent to England a series of letters on
an inspection house or ' Panopticon,' which
his brother had planned for the supervision
of industry, and which Bentham thought
would be of priceless value if employed in
prison discipline. About the panopticon
Bentham wrote volumes. It was for years
his greatest concern. He corresponded with
many of the statesmen of his time on the
subject, and sought to interest all his friends
in its success. It led him to investigate thef
whole subject of prison discipline and ma-j
nagement, to which Howard's labours had!
first directed general attention. In his manyl
letters and tracts on the subject and in his
' Principles of Penal Law ' will be found the
germs of most modern reforms in regard to I
the treatment of criminals. Bentham, who '
was very sanguine as to the good effects of
the panopticon, thus begins one of his tracts
on the subject : ' Morals reformed, health
preserved, industry invigorated, instruction
diffused, public burdens lightened, economy
seated as it were upon a rock, the Gordian
knot of the poor laws not cut but untied, all
by a simple idea in architecture.' The build-
ing which was to work these wonders was to
be circular, with cells on every story of the
circumference. In the centre there was a
lodge for the inspector, who would be able
to see all the prisoners without being himself
seen, and who could give directions without

Bentham

272

Bentham

being obliged to quit his post. A contractor
was to undertake the keep of the prisoners
at a certain sum per head, reserving to
himself all profits derived from their la-
bour. The manager was to be bound to in-
sure the lives of all who were entrusted to
him ; that is, he was to be obliged to pay a
sum for every one beyond a certain average
lost to the prison by death or by escaping.
The scheme met with considerable favour.
The 34 of George III c. 84 provided for the
acquiring of sites of penitentiary houses ; and
land at Millbank was conveyed to Bentham
as trustee for the purposes of the act. 2,000£.
were granted to him to enable him to make
the necessary preparations for taking charge
of a large number of convicts. The scheme
did not in the main prosper, and its failure
was a source of bitter disappointment to him.
It failed, as Bentham believed, mainly by
reason of the king's dislike to him. The con-
tract with Bentham was broken off, and in
1813 23,0001. were awarded to Bentham as
compensation for expenses which he had in-
curred (52 Geo. Ill, c. 44). In defence of
his scheme Bentham wrote a volume, only
part of which has been printed, entitled
' History of the War between Jeremy Bent-
ham and George the Third, by one of the
belligerents.' Though the panopticon never
realised Bentham's hopes, he must always be
regarded as one of the great reformers of
prisons, and an eminent successor to Howard.
In 1792 his father died, and he came into
a considerable fortune. In that year he
wrote l Truth v. Ashhurst,' an incisive cri-
ticism of the constitutional doctrines which
Mr. Justice Ashhurst had laid down to the
grand jury of Middlesex, and which were
intended to set them on their guard against
the French revolution. The pamphlet was,
for reasons of prudence, not published at a
time when it was dangerous to speak of re-
forms; and it did not see the light until 1822.
In 1795 were published two remarkable
pamphlets : l A Protest against Law Taxes/
showing the peculiar mischievousness of all
imposts which aggravate the expense of ap-
peals to justice ; and ' Supply without Burden,
or Escheat vice Taxation, being a proposal for
a saving of taxes by an extension of the law
of escheat, including strictures on the taxes
on collateral succession comprised in the
budget of 7 Dec. 1795.' No better example
of the thoroughness of Bentham's mode of
discussing political problems, of his inge-
nuity and his clearness, could be named than
the latter pamphlet. Though extending to
only a few pages, the two pamphlets were
the results of much labour and thought. In
the Bentham MSS., preserved at University

College, is a vast mass of unpublished ma-
terials, including a draft letter to Mirabeau
with respect to escheat and the best mode
of collecting this new source of supply.

Bentham was at one time desirous of en-
tering parliament, and Dr. Bowring pub-
lishes extracts from sketches of imaginary
addresses to electors which the former, with
his usual forethought, had prepared. There
is also extant a curious letter, written in
August 1790, in which Bentham, with much
ingenuity and at enormous length, takes
Lord Shelburne to task for not fulfilling ex-
pectations which he had raised of nominating
Bentham for a pocket borough, Calne or
Wycombe. Lord Shelburne answered Bent-
ham with much good temper, and told him
that he had never made such an offer nor
intended to make it. Few men would have
written in the querulous, haughty strain
of Bentham's first letter ; still fewer would
have written his reply. His anger had died
out ; he saw the absurdity of his conduct,
and he began his apology, written alLcat in
a tone of buffoonery, in these words : * My
dear, dear lord, since you will neither be sub-
dued nor terrified, will you be embraced?
... It was using me very ill, that it was,
to get upon stilts as you did, and resolve
not to get angry with me after all the pains
I had taken to make you so. You have
been angry, let me tell you, with people as
little worth it before now.' Availing himself
of his privileges as a French citizen, a title
conferred upon him on the motion of his
friend Brissot in 1792 by the National As-
sembly, he addressed in 1793 to the National
Convention a pamphlet entitled ' Emancipate
your Colonies ' (iv. 407). This expressed one
of Bentham's deepest convictions. He wasj
persuaded that colonies were of little or noj
utility to their mother country (see Manual
of Political Economy and Panopticon of New
South Wales}. ]/

It is difficult to follow in exact chrono-
logical order Bentham's labours, owing to his
habit of carrying on at the same time several
undertakings, and of not publishing his works
until long after they were written. It is,
however, clear, that from 1790 to 1800 was
one of the most fruitful periods of his life ;
between these dates were composed many of
the works by which he is best known. In
1797-8 he turned his attention to the defectsl
of the poor laws, which were then in so la-»
mentable a condition that they seemed likely
to involve the country in ruin. Foolish, ill-
advised schemes were in favour; even respon-
sible statesmen proposed to mend matters by
leavening the existing law with fresh absur-
dities. In a bill submitted to parliament

Bentham

273

Bentham

Pitt had actually proposed that respectable
paupers should be supplied with cows. Bent-
ham was almost alone in seeing clearly what
were the chief evils, and he anticipated many
of the principles which were embodied in the
poor law of 1834. He desired the rigid ap-
plication of the labour test, and he strove to
do away with the wasteful anomalies of the
settlement system. Though many of the de-
tails of his scheme — and Bentham as usual
descended to details, even deciding of what
material the paupers' beds were to be made —
must be pronounced impracticable, his ideas
as to the treatment of paupers are marvellous,
considering the time when they were pro-
pounded, and the dangerous nonsense which
was in fashion among his contemporaries.
Poor-law reform was by no means the only
subject which occupied him at this period.
About 1798 he was busy scheming and writ-
ing on a multitude of other topics — e.g. a
project for the issue of government annuity
notes, as to which he had much correspon-
dence with Sir George Rose and Mr. Van-
sittart.

Two important events may here be men-
tioned. At Bowood Bentham became ac-
quainted with Dumont, an able, enlightened
citizen of Geneva, whence political troubles
had driven him. Roniilly had sent some of
Bentham's manuscripts to Dumont. Greatly
impressed by their originality, Dumont offered
to edit them. The oifer was accepted. The
same service was rendered, with patience and
intelligence, in regard to other manuscripts,
and for many years he acted as a sort of
official interpreter between the great jurist
and the world at large. Dumont was much
more than an editor or populariser ; he placed
other gifts at Bentham's disposal besides a
clear style and a turn for happy illustration.
Out of the chaos of manuscript confided to
liim — parts of the subject wholly omitted,
parts defectively treated, others expounded
with embarrassing redundancy — he composed
.a lucid narrative. Above Dumont's literary
gifts, though great, was his enthusiasm for
Bentham, who was to him a law. This sub-
mission of a really superior mind had scarcely
any bounds ; his approval of the teaching of
-others was expressed in the saying : f C'est
convainquant, c'est la veritS meme, c'est
presque benthamique ' (Notice necrologique
sur Dumont, by Sismondi). Bentham was
assisted in a similar manner by a number of
able auxiliaries. One of his best known and
most brilliant works, that on fallacies, was
edited by a * friend.' The same service was
rendered in regard to his papers on judicial
procedure. This was a topic to which
Bentham was in the habit of recurring for

VOL. IV.

more than thirty years. i The consequence/
writes the editor, Mr. Doane, ' was, an im-
mense mass of manuscript on this subject,
extending to several thousands of pages, was
found at his decease. Very many of the
chapters were written over and over again,
each of them varying in some particulars,
and all of them were in a more or less un-
finished state.' His voluminous papers on
logic were handed over to his nephew, George
Bentham [q. v.], to be reduced to order and
to be amplified. One of J. S. Mill's ear-
liest literary undertakings was the editing,
that is, to a large extent the re-writing, of
Bentham's papers on judicial evidence, which
had been composed at various times from 1808
to 1812. Mr. Mill has described in his * Au-
tobiography' (4th edit. p. 113) the nature of
his task. He had to take liberties with the
manuscript far in excess of those which an
editor permits himself. ' Mr. Bentham had be-
gun this treatise three times at considerable
intervals, each time in a different manner, and
each time without reference to the preceding :
two of the three times he had given over
nearly the whole subject. These three masses
of manuscript it was my duty to condense
into a single treatise ; adopting the one last
written as the groundwork, and incorporating
with it as much of the two others as it had not
completely superseded. I had also to unroll
such of Mr. Bentham's involved and paren-
thetical sentences as seemed to overpass by
their complexity the measure of what readers
were likely to take the pains to understand.'
Mr. Mill also filled up gaps. He commented
on a few of the objectionable points of the
English rules of evidence which had escaped
Bentham's attention, he replied to the re-
viewers of Dumont's book, and he added re-
marks on the theory of improbability (see
Preface to edition in five volumes, 1827).
Those who desire to know the latitude .which
Bentham permitted his disciples in manipulat-
ing the materials committed to them, would
do well to compare the manuscript handed to
Mr. Grote of a work on natural religion with
the printed book (BEATJCHAMP, Analysis of
the Influence of Natural Religion, #c.), and
to study Bentham's letter of instructions,
containing directions as to the treatment of
the manuscript ' in case of dotage, symptoms
of which, if found,' he observes, * you will
not fail to inform me of, that upon the first
opportunity I may grow younger and enter
a new lease for my life ' (British Museum,
Add. MS. 29806).

It is not surprising that the exact share
which Bentham had in some of the works
I passing under his name is not clear. Hav-
ing not a particle of literary vanity, he put

T

Bentham

274

Bentham

no restraint on the editors of his manu-
scripts, and they did not hesitate to use this
liberty. ' The materials/ writes Sir John
Bowring in the preface to the second volume
of f Deontology, ' out of which this volume
has been put together, are, for the most part,
disjointed fragments, written on small scraps
of paper on the spur of the moment, at times
removed from one another, and delivered into
my hands without an arrangement of any
sort.' The rhapsodical inaccurate style of
the work and the loose character of the rea-
soning are grounds for doubting whether the
1 Deontology ' always correctly states Bent-
ham's meaning.

In 1807 Bentham was led to study the
subject of Scotch reform by a bill for amend-
ing the constitution of the Scotch court of
session, which Lord Eldon had laid on the
table of the House of Lords. In his letters
which are addressed to Lord Grenville he
criticised the shortcomings of the project,
and he also developed his own views as to
the best legal procedure, setting out for the
first time clearly the advantages of what he
termed the natural system of justice as against

| the artificial * fee-getting system.' His con-
ception of a proper system of procedure was
one under which suitors should be brought
without delay into the presence of a judge
free to dispose of the matters in difference
without a jury. In 1809 he completed a
criticism on the working of the English libel
law, which was always the object of his
aversion, and which more than once stood
in the way of the free publication of his j
opinions. Its injustice had recently been
made manifest in a series of prosecutions for
libelling the Duke of York. The book, which
was entitled ' On the Art of Packing Special
Juries,' contained many bitter reflections on ,

I the judges, and Romilly, who had read it in i
manuscript, warned him that Sir Vicary
Gibbs, the attorney-general, would be sure j
to prosecute the author and the publisher, j
Bentham took his friend's advice, and did
not publish the pamphlet. Though printed,
it was not openly sold for many years.

In 1808 Bentham seems to have seriously
contemplated going for the sake of his health
to Mexico. On the table-land of that coun-
try he thought that he would escape an
English winter, and find the climate which
best suited him. Taking up this project with
his usual ardour, he wrote at great length
about it to Lord Holland, his cousin Mulford,
and Francis Homer. With characteristic
thoroughness he investigated the death-rate
of the country, and considered what were to
be the contents of his library, and whether
it should comprise 'Comyns's Digest' and

'Bacon's Abridgment.' He did not go to>
Mexico, but he moved in 1814 from Lon-
don to Ford Abbey, near Chard — a beau-
tiful stately mansion, built in the reign of
Stephen, and once occupied by Prideaux,
attorney-general of the Commonwealth.
Romilly, who in 1817 visited Bentham
there, describes his friend as living en grand
seigneur. 'We found him,' Romilly adds,
'passing his time, as he has always been
passing it since I have known him, which is
now more than thirty years, closely apply-
ing himself for six or eight hours a day in
writing upon laws and legislation, and in
composing his civil and criminal codes, and
spending the remaining hours of every day
in reading or taking exercise by way of fit-
ting himself for his labours, or, to use his
own strangely invented phraseology, taking
his ante-jentacular and post-prandial walks
to prepare himself for his task of codification/
Much more than codification occupied him
at Ford Abbey. There he wrote his ' Chres-
tomathia,' a collection of papers in which the
principles of the Bell and Lancastrian sysi
terns of education are applied to the highe:
branches of learning. Bentham hoped mucl1
from these systems. He put a piece of hif
garden at the disposal of Mr. Francis Plac<
and other promoters of a school for this object
and he generously assisted it with his purst
and by his pen. Perhaps the most nove
feature of the ' Chrestomathia ' was the promi-
nence which it gave to science in education,
and the novel daring with which the claims of'
Greek and Latin to the supreme place then
assigned to them were attacked. At Ford
Abbey, Bentham also wrote 'The Church
of England and its Catechism,' which was
not published till 1817, and ' Not Paul but
Christ.' Doubts have, indeed, been expressed
whether Bentham wrote the latter, and in a
copy of the work belonging to Mr. Richard
Garnett is a note by Mr. Francis Place
claiming it as his production. But the style
can leave little room for doubt that if Place-
assisted Bentham, as is not improbable, the
work was inspired, and in the main written,
by the latter. It is the object of ' Not Paul
but Christ,' which, by its dialectical acute-
ness and its method, reminds one of ' Horce
Paulinse,' to prove that St. Paul had dis-
torted the primitive Christianity of Christ.
In a copy of the ' Church of England Cate-
chism ' in the British Museum is preserved
a correspondence with respect to its publica-
tion. Bentham's friends, particularly Ro-
milly, strongly dissuaded him from publish-
ing it. Romilly sent for him, and said:
' Bentham, I am as sure as I am of my ex-
istence that if you publish this you will be

X

Bentham

275

Bentham

prosecuted, and I am as sure as I am of my
existence that if you are prosecuted you will
be convicted ; there is scarce a sacrifice that
I will not make rather than that you should
publish.' For a time the book was sold
privately. Subsequently it was advertised
as by an ' Oxford graduate ; ' and no prose-
cution having been instituted, it was pub-
lished with Bentham's name.

In the following year appeared a pamph-
let, ' Swear not at all,' which is an exposure
of the needlessness and mischievousness, as
well as anti-christian character, of the cere-
mony of an oath. Bentham exposed the
immorality of oaths as used in 'the two
Church of England universities, more espe-
cially in the University of Oxford.' This was
\one of those great strokes which Bentham
^ prom time to time struck at abuses ; a whole
/system of rubbish toppled over and fell to the
{ground under his blows.

When young, Bentham was not a radical
in politics. He had come of a tory family,
and when at Oxford he was accustomed, he
tells us, to speak of Charles I as ' the Royal
iMartyr.' But his ideas underwent a great
(change. He became convinced that under a
\ /democratic government ' the greatest happi-
/ness of the greatest number 'was likely to
' be most advanced. As early as 1809 he had
written a tract entitled ' A Catechism of Par-
liamentary Reform, or Outline of a Plan of
Parliamentary Reform in the form of Ques-
tion and Answer,' recommending the exclu-
/sion from the House of Commons of place
^men, annual elections, uniform electoral dis-
tricts, the granting of the suffrage to all who
paid a certain amount of taxes, and secret
voting (vol. iii. 539). It was not published
until 1817 ; in fact, not a little of the manu-
script has never been printed. Impressed
by the dangers to the security of English
liberties, he then issued it with an intro-
duction, in which he pointed out that the
sole remedy was democratic ascendency, and
to bring about this parliamentary reform —
I that is, the establishment of virtual universal
suffrage and vote by ballot — was necessary.
At the instance of Sir Francis Burdett he
drafted a series of resolutions on the subject,
which were moved in the House of Com-
mons in 1818. James Mill, Burdett, Cart-
wright, and many others co-operated with
Bentham in this work ; but several of the
leading articles in the creed of philosophical
radicalism are distinctly his original work.
He gave a great impetus to radicalism by
aiding in the establishment of the ' West-
minster Review ' in 1823. According to Sir
John Bowring, who was its first editor, the
funds for this undertaking were contributed

by Bentham. He himself did not write
much for its pages ; apparently his sole con-
tribution was an article, or rather commen-
tary, on Mr. Humphrey's Real Property Code,
which appeared in 1826. But he greatly
influenced prominent contributors, such as
James and John Mill, Bowring, and Colonel
Perronet Thompson. In 1823 he went abroad
to recruit his health, and visited Paris, where
he was well known by the French editions
of his works, and by reason of his former
visits. He was received by his many friends
with enthusiasm. 'On casually visiting one
of the supreme courts, the whole body of
advocates rose and paid him the highest
marks of respect, and the court invited him
to the seat of honour ' (AniMal Biography
and Obituary, 1833, p. 329).

It becomes increasingly difficult as we ap-
proach the close of Bentham's life to state
the order of his labours. It was his habit
to carry on simultaneously several occu-
pations, and to resume from time to time
work which had been abandoned. His cor-
respondence was immense, and it was car-
ried on with the foremost of his contempo-
raries. He corresponded with Bolivar, the
Emperor Alexander, Lord Sidmouth, the,
Duke of Wellington, and Quincy Adams j
about his favourite subject, codification. He
sent circulars to the governors of the various
states of the union as to public education.
He wrote often to O'Connell and Brougham,
his disciples, letters beginning ' My dearest
best boy,' or ' Dan, dear child,' about law re-
form. He was untiring and ingenious in
seeking to spread his principles whenever an
opening presented itself. He endeavoured to
enlist the Duke of Wellington in his scheme
of law reform, promising him a name greater
than Cromwell's if only he obeyed his direc-
tions, and attacked the English judicature v
and procedure systems. And he laboured
without care or thought of reward; when
the Emperor Alexander sent him a gracious
letter with a packet containing a ring, he sent
it back with the imperial seal unbroken (PiK-
TON'S Life of Burr, 389). As an example of
his readiness to avail himself of all openings
for the entrance of his principles may be
cited a still more remarkable letter, hitherto
unpublished, which was addressed by him
in 1828 to Mehemet Ali. It begins : * Vous
etes au nombre des ornements les plus bril-
Lants du siecle present, reste a couvrir de la
splendeur de votre nom les siecles futurs.
Ecoutez : je vais vous presenter les moyens
d'6tablir cette permanence, et les seuls
moyens.' He urges Mehemet Ali to give I
Egypt a constitution, and to declare him- ^
self independent of the Porte. He offers to

T2

Bentham

276

Bentham

educate in his own house Mehemet Ali's in-
tended successor, and he makes some sugges-
tions as to his education, mental and moral,
which scarcely bear being printed (Burton
Collection MSS., British Museum).

In 1829 appeared his ' Petition for Justice,'
written in his most vigorous style. In 1830
he published letters on the sale of public
offices, a practice which, for very insufficient
reasons, he thought likely to be advan-
tageous. He was then, as may be seen from
his letters, busy with the subject of the codi-
| fication of international law; but on this,
though one of the permanent objects and
interests of his life, he left no finished trea-
tise. In 1831 he was engaged in speculations
as to the art of framing laws which are pre-
served in his l Pannomial Fragments.' He
Iwas also active in forming a parliamentary
candidate society, and in furthering the re-
turn to parliament of Rammohun Roy, a
Hindoo. The acceptance of the Cortes of
Portugal of an offer to prepare a code en-
couraged him to print his ' Codification Pro-
posal' addressed to all nations. In 1823
appeared his ' Leading Principles of a Con-
stitutional Code for any State ' (ii. 267) ; and
in 1827 was printed the first volume of his
' Constitutional Code,' in some respects the
most striking of his works. Another volume
was printed in 1830, and he was engaged
upon this work only a few days before his !
death. To the last he was indefatigable in j
his labours and parsimonious of his time, !
suffering few persons to visit him, rarely •
dining out, making it a point to compose so
much a day, and ordering his life as if con- j
scious that he owed it to humanity to do as \
much as: he could before he died. He hated
idle intruders. In a letter to O'Connell j
written in 1828, which describes his life at '
the Hermitage at Queen Square, he states
that he never saw any one except at seven !
o'clock dinner. In his old age one guest |
only was admitted, but in other years the j
dinners at the Hermitage were brilliant. Mr.
Rush, the 'American minister, describes a din-
ner-party at which James Mill, Brougham,
Dumont, and Romilly were present, and adds :
* Mr. Bentham did not talk much. He had a
benevolence of manner suited to the philan-
thropy of his mind. He seemed to be thinking
only of the convenience and pleasure of his
guests ' (Residence at the Court of London,
209). All who knew him well felt affection
for him ; his failings were obvious and un-
important. One of his amanuenses, Mr.
Colls, has indeed left, under the title of
1 Utilitarianism Unmasked,' a picture drawn
by no friendly hand. Yet the most serious
blemishes are the sage's love of praise, his

preference for home-brewed ale to wine, and
his custom of having of a morning on the
table of his workshop a canister of hot spiced
ginger nuts and a cup of strong coffee. His
features in old age, which are rendered
familiar by Pickersgill's excellent portrait,
bespoke serenity, benevolence, and conscious
power ; and Aaron Burr, who knew him in
1818, expressed only a common impression
when he said, ' It was impossible to conceive
a physiognomy more strongly marked with
ingenuousness and philanthropy' (PAKTON'S
Life, 171). A sketch of him as he appeared
in old age will serve to complete the picture :
' His apparel hung loosely about him, and con-
sisted chiefly of a grey coat, light breeches,
and white woollen stockings, hanging loosely
about his legs ; whilst his venerable locks,
which floated over the collar and down his
back, were surmounted by a straw hat of
most grotesque and indescribable shape,
communicating to his appearance a strong
contrast to the quietude and sobriety of his
general aspect. He wended round the walks
of his garden at a pace somewhat faster than
a walk, but not so quick as a trot ' (Annual
Biography and Obituary, 1833, p. 363).

Though weakly and dwarfish in boyhood,
Bentham was healthy and robust in man-
hood and old age. He possessed an unfailing
flow of high spirits ; he was, as Mr. John
Stuart Mill remarks, ' a boy to the last.' At
the age of eighty-two he wrote to his friend
Admiral Mordoinoff: 'I am alive; though
turned of eighty, still in good health and
spirits, codifying like any dragon.' There is a
story that during his last illness he asked his
doctor to tell him if there was any prospect
of recovery. On being informed that there
was none, he replied serenely, ' Very well,
be it so ; then minimise pain.' He died on
6 June 1832. He left his body to be dis-
sected. This was done ; clothed in Bent-
ham's usual attire, his skeleton is kept in
University College. All this was not the re-
sult of a passing freak or affectation of singu-
larity. He had meditated much on .the uses
of the dead to the living ; and on coming of
age he had disposed of his body by will that
it might be dissected for the benefit of man-
kind. In the British Museum there is a
copy of an unpublished work of which only
twenty or thirty copies were printed. It is
entitled, ' Auto-Icon, or the Uses of the Dead
to the Living. A fragment from the MSS.
of Jeremy Bentham.' He arranged the ma-
terials in December 1831, but he added pas-
sages as late as May 1832. Its object was to
show how, if embalmed, every man might
be his own statue. A sample of this extra-
vaganza will suffice. < If a country gentle-

Bentham

277

Bentham

man have rows of trees leading to his
dwelling, the auto-icons of his family might
alternate with the trees; copal varnish
would protect the face from the effects of
rain — caoutchouc the habiliments.'

The books and pamphlets which have been
mentioned are evidence of a singularly active
and laborious life. Yet they are but a small

Eart of his published works. The edition of
is works edited by Sir John Bowring is
contained in nine volumes, and yet several
works are omitted from this collection.
His correspondence — much of which is un-
published— would run to many volumes, and
a vast amount of manuscripts, chiefly drafts
of the same work, each new draft composed
without reference to the last, have never seen
the light. Owing to the almost insuperable
difficulties in deciphering Bentham's hand-
writing in later years, much of it has perhaps
never been read. In the library of Uni-
versity College are preserved very many of
his manuscripts. More than eigiity small
wooden boxes, neatly lettered, and many
portfolios are full of manuscripts closely
written in his handwriting or that of his
amanuenses ; there are laid away thousands
of pages never printed. Many of them are
unfinished drafts, the substance of which
appears in his published works. A partial
examination leads to the belief that no small
part of it as much merits publication as that
given to the world. A study of the manu-
scripts fills one with amazement at the labo-
rious and exhaustive nature of his investiga-
tions. One box, for instance, contains a mass
of manuscripts supplementary to the * Reform
Catechism,' and, among other manuscripts,
an answer, dated 19 May 1817, to * an inti-
mation from Brougham through Mill that in
his opinion democracy had a tendency to
unjust war.' Another box is filled with
elaborate materials as to escheat.

The subjects treated by Bentham are very
, varied. He sought to compass the whole
j field of ethics, jurisprudence, logic, and
political economy, and to deal with points
of detail as well as principles. To the
last science his contributions are of small
account. He did little more than apply, in
his strictures on the usury laws, with courage
and with happy illustrations, the principles
of free trade which had been expounded by
Adam Smith. His speculations on banking
and currency illustrate the power these sub-
jects have to lead astray even a singularly
acute mind. To logic, though the subject
of his inquiry for many years, he made no
very valuable contributions; his ideas on
that subject, which relate chiefly to expo-
sition and method, will be found in his

nephew's work on logic, ' Outlines of a New
System of Logic ' [see BENTHAM, GEORGE].
His ' Book on Fallacies ' is a clever and -
brilliant refutation of popular political errors.

His great work was in the field of juris-/
prudence and ethics, and his influence om '/.
these sciences can scarcely be over estimated.
His most original and most durable works
relate to law. When he wrote his ' Frag-
ment on Government,' all legal and political
literature in England was leavened with the
theory of the social contract. Jurisprudence
was another name for platitudes, fallacious
apologies for legal fictions, and an uncritical
repetition of the commonplaces of Roman
lawyers about the Jus Gentium. To take an
illustration from the literature on the sub-
ject of the law of succession, it was customary
to justify the English law by reference to
vague analogies about the tendency of heavy
bodies to fall; Bentham constructed the
principles of a rational law on considerations
of what human affection and the good of so-
ciety demanded (Principles of the Civil Code,
part ii. c. 3). The germs of all that Bentham
subsequently did in this field lie in the ' Frag-
ment.' He never ceased to follow out the train
of thought there begun, to hunt down fictions,
to carry on a war against vague phraseology,
to apply to all institutions— to law, educa-
tion, and morals — the test of utility. As a
law reformer he was singularly successful.
1 He found,' it has been said, l the philosophy
of law a chaos, he left it a science ' (MILL'S
Dissertations}. And his services did not
consist merely in introducing into jurispru-
dence methods which have yielded remark-
able results in physical science. To him are
due large practical reforms. The amend-
ments made since his time in the adminis
tration of justice are, to a surprising extent
applications of the principles expounded it
his * Introduction to the Principles of MoraL
and Legislation.' In truth every law book
every statute, the course of every actior
bear testimony to his influence. With refer-
ence to Bentham's legal writings, Sir James
Stephen says that they ' have had a degree
of practical influence upon the legislation of
his own and various other countries com-
parable only to those of Adam Smith and
his successors upon commerce ' (History of
the Criminal Law of England, ii. 216). In
an introduction to his works written in
1837, John Hill Burton gives a long list
of reforms first advanced by Bentham and
adopted by the legislature. Some of his
favourite proposals, such as vote by ballot,
have been approved by parliament since that
year ; and others, such as the establishment
of a proper system of public prosecutors and

Bentham

278

Bentham

a general registration of transfers of real
property, may yet be adopted. To Bentham
more than any other law reformer we owe
the simplification of the forms of statutes,
the impulse given to the work of codifica-
tion, and the abolition of arbitrary rules ex-
cluding from the cognisance of juries facts
material for them to know. In a series of
statutes, one of which (3 & 4 Will. IV, s. 42)
was passed a year after Bentham's death, the
legislature approached step by step towards
his principle that no class of witnesses should
be incompetent and no species of evidence
[excluded, but that every fact relevant to the
I inquiry should be admitted for what it is
'worth. The criminal law in particular bears
many traces of his influence. It was his
good fortune to be aided by zealous disciples
of great ability. Brougham, Romilly, Horner,
and Mackintosh were assistants in the work
of legal reform; but the originating spirit
was Bentham's.

One of his characteristics as a reformer
may be noted. His suggestions did not con-
sist of the enunciating of abstract principles.
jHe was rarely satisfied with solving a pro-
'blem in general terms : he delighted to follow
jout exhaustively all the details. His work
on parliamentary tactics, for example, de-
scends to such minutiae as the manner in
which motions are to be made in the House
of Commons. In his remarks on pauper
management he insists that beds shall be
made with straw, and that bookkeeping by
double entry shall not be used, almost as
emphatically as on any of the great prin-
ciples of his scheme.

I In the history of ethics Bentham stands
lout as one of the ablest champions of utili-
itarianism. He was not the first to propound
this as the test of morality. Paley's work
was written before Bentham's ' Introduction
to Principles of Morals and Legislation,' and
he admits that he derived the idea of utility
as the touchstone of morality from Helve-
tius and Hume's essays. But he is original
so far as he expounded this theory apart from
theological accessories, and drew boldly all
the consequences of his theory, declaring
that increase of happiness should be the sole
object in view of the legislator and the
moralist ; that quantity and intensity being
equal, one pleasure was as good as another ;
and that, pleasure for pleasure, 'push pin
was worth as much as poetry.' Utilitarianism
might not be presented to-day in the fashion
.in which Bentham described it; never has it
(perhaps been stated more logically.
^ His style was at first terse, clear, and even
brilliant. Some of his earlier pages might
rank with the masterpieces of Swift and Ad-

dison. But about 1810 there came a deterio-
ration. He coined new words, often with
entire disregard of the genus of the language.
Some of those which he minted are useful]
and have got into currency ; for example,
'international,' 'codify,' 'minimise.' Others J
were much too harsh and barbarous to be
ever adopted. The diffuseness of his later
writings is in sharp contrast with the con-
ciseness of his style in ' Escheat versus Tax-
ation.' He spares the reader nothing ; every
pamphlet, no matter what the subject, is pre-
ceded by a resum6 of his principles as to
everything. Originally simple and pure, his
sentences became complex ; parenthetical
matter was inserted anyhow; and he who
had satirised so keenly the laboured, tech-
nical style of lawyers and legislators, as kept
up for purposes of corruption, lived to exem-
plify the very same faults. The style of a
particularly unwieldy statute of the time of
George III is perhaps the nearest thing in
literature to Bentham's latest manner. A
graver fault is discernible. He acquired a I
habit of using violent language in stereo- I
typed conventional fashion. Through many
pages of his later writings on law reform
runs the fallacy that legal fictions are lies
and those who use them little better than
liars ; that a bad system must be worked by
wicked men ; and that law fees must be im-
posed with the design of extortion. He
greatly exaggerated the ease of codifying,
and the specimens which we have of his own
style of drafting (e.g. parts of the Constitu-
tional Code) do not bear out his theory.
He railed at English judges, such as Mans-
field, for making law', when in truth their
fault was that they made it too timidly. He '
was dogmatic, and apt to be intolerant of
opinions which were remote from his own,
and which he had not taken the trouble to
understand ; those who differed from him
were classed as corruptionists, dupes, and
knaves. He was, especially in later years,
not sufficiently alive to the limitations of
the efficacy of laws. In his works is an
essay on ' The Influence of Time and Place
on Legislation' (i. 185), written in 1782;
but in practice he reasoned too often as if a
constitution good for Spain might, with a
little change, be exported as suitable for
China. In the peculiarities of the laws or '(
customs of societies remote from those of 1
our own time he had little interest. ' The \
Mirror of Justice ' was to him not a valuable
historical document, but merely ' one of the
most trumpery books that ever was written; '
and though he gave much thought to the
affairs of India, there is nothing to show
any curiosity as to its indigenous laws and

Bentham

279

Bentham

^customs. The shortcomings of Bentham do
not veil his transcendent services. He loved
truth. He was single-minded in seeking it.
He put abroad a questioning spirit which
lias conferred immense benefits on mankind, '>
and the wisdom in his works is not yet fully
'utilised. Perhaps the final estimate of him |
will not be different from that which Mr. \
J. S. Mill has expressed : ' There is hardly I
anything in Bentham's philosophy which is j
.hot true. The bad part of his writings is ;
fliis resolute denial of all that he does not
[see, of all truths but those which he recog-
iiises ' (Dissertations, i. 356).

The following is a list of most of Bentham's .
published works, classified in a manner sug- j
gested in Von Mohl's ' Staatswissenschaft/ j
iii. 607, where there is a full, and on the {
whole accurate, account of Bentham's works :
1. ' Introduction to the Principles of Morals
.and Legislation/ printed 1730, published
1789 ; vol. i. of ' Collected Wdrks.' As to
French, German, and Spanish editions, see
Von Mohl, 610. 2. ' A Table of the Springs
of Action/ printed 1815, published 1817 ;
•f Works/ i. 195. 3. ' Deontology, or the Sci-
ence of Morality/ arranged and edited by
John Bo wring, 1834 ; French, German, and
Spanish translations. It is doubtful how far
this work represents Bentham's thoughts.
4. ' Essay on the Influence of Time and Place
in Legislation/ i. 169. 5. ' Nomography, or
the Art of Inditing Laws/ iii. 231. 6. ' Es-
.say on the Promulgation of Laws and the
Reason thereof/ edited from the French of
Dumont and the original manuscripts, i. 155.
7. ' Truth v. Ashhurst/ written 1792, printed
1823, v. 231. 8. 'A General View of a Com-
plete Code/ iii. 155. 9. ' Pannomial Frag-
ments/ written at various times, some of it
as late as 1831, iii. 211. 10. ' Papers rela-
tive to Codification and Public Instruction/
1817, iv. 451. 11. 'Codification Proposal
addressed to all Nations professing Liberal
Opinions/ 1822 ; Supplement, 1827, iv. 537.
12. ' Justice and Codification Petitions/ 1829,
v. 535. 13. 'Equity Despatch Court Pro-
posal,' 1830, iii. 299. 14. ' Summary View
of a Plan of Judiciary/ 1831, v. 55. 15. ' The
Bankruptcy Bill ; Lord Brougham Displayed/
1832, v. 549. 16. ' Scotch Reform/ 1808,
v. 1. 17. ' Original Draught of a Code for
the Organisation of the Judicial Establish-
ment in France/ printed 1790, iv. 285.
18. 'Principles of Judicial Procedure/ written
1802-27, ii. 1. 19. ' Indications respecting

introductory
of Evidence,' vi. 1. 21. 'Rationale of Ju-
dicial Evidence specially applied to English

Practice,' 1827, vi. 1. M. Dumont published
in 1823 'Traite des Preuves Judiciaires.'
22. ' The Elements of the Art of Packing as
applied to Special Juries,' printed 1821.
CRIMINAL LAW: 23. 'Principles of Penal
Code,' i. 365 ; this is the basis of Dumont's
work published in 1811, 'Traite des Peines
et des Recompenses.' 24. ' J. B. to his Fellow-
Citizens on the Punishment of Death/ 1831,
i. 525. 25. ' Letters to Count Torreno on the
proposed Penal Code of the Spanish Cortes,'
1821, printed 1822, viii. 487. 26. ' Observa-
tions on Mr. Secretary Peel's Speech intro-
ducing his Police Magistrates' Salary-raising
Bill,' 1825 ('The Pamphleteer'). 27. 'The
King against Edmund and others ; the King
against Sir Charles Wolesely and J. Harrison,'
printed 1820, v. 239. 28. ' A View of the Hard
Labour Bill,' published 1778, iv. 1. 29. ' Pan-
opticon, a Series of Letters,' written 1787,
first appeared 1791, iv. 37. 30. ' Law as to
Civil Rights ; a commentary on Humphrey's
Real Property Code, ' Westminster Review,'
1826, v. 387. 31. ' A Plea for the Constitu-
tion,' 1803, iv. 249. 32. ' Outline of a Plan
for a General Register of Real Property com-
municated to Real Property Commissioners,'
printed in their Report, 1822, v. 418. CON-
STITUTIONAL L AAV : 33. 'Principles of the Civil
Code,' i. 297. 34. ' A Fragment on Gout/
1776, i. 221. 35. ' A Book of Fallacies, edited
by a Friend,' 1824 ; it was the basis of Du-
mont's ' Traite des Sophismes Politiques/ ii.
189. 36. 'Anarchical Fallacies/ ii. 489.
37. ' Leading Principles of a Constitutional
Code for any State ' (' Pamphleteer'), 1823, ii.
269. 38. 'The Constitutional Code/ 1 830, ix.l.
39. 'Essay on Political Tactics/ first published
in ' Tactique des Assemblies Legislatives '
(1816), ii. 299. 40. ' Plan of Parliamentary
Reform/ 1817, iii. 433. 41. 'Radicalism
not Dangerous,' written 1820-22, iii. 599.
42. ' Radical Reform Bill/ 1819. 43. ' Par-
liamentary Candidates' Catechism ; or a List
pro posed for Parliamentary Candidates/ 1831.
44. * J. B. to his Fellow-Citizens of France
on Houses of Peers and Senates/ 1830, iv.
419. 45. ' Draught of a New Plan for the
Judicial Establishments in France/ 1790, iv.
i 287. 46. ' Three Tracts relative to Spanish
andPortuguese Affairs/ 1821, viii. 463. 47.'On
'"the Liberty of the Press/ 1821, ii. 275.
48. l Securities against Misrule adapted to a
Mahommedan State/ viii. 553. 49. 'The
Rationale of Reward/ first published by
Dumont in ' Theorie des Peines et des Re-
1 compenses,' 1811 ; in English, 1825 ; ii. 189.
! 50. ' Swear not at all/ printed 1813, pub-
, lished 1817, v. 187. CURRENT POLITICS :
51. ' Emancipate your Colonies/ 1830, iv.
407. 52. ' Tracts on Poor Laws, in French,

Bentham

280

Bentham

by M. A. Duquesnoy/ 1802, viii. 359. 53. ' Ob-
servations on the Poor Bill introduced by
Mr. Pitt,' written 1797, published 1828, viii.
440. 54. ' Official Aptitude maximised ;
Expense minimised/ 1816, v. 263. 55. ' Prin-
ciples of International Law,' written 1787-9,
ii. 535 (see M. Nys in ' London Quarterly
Review' for April 1885). POLITICAL ECO-
NOMY: 56. 'A Manual of Political Eco-
nomy,' iii. 31 (this was also printed as part
of ' Theorie des Recompenses,' 14 note).
57. 'Defence of Usury/ published 1816.
written 1787, iii. 1. 58. ' Observations on
the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial
System/ 1821, iii. 85. 69. ' Letters to Lord
Pelham on Penal Colonisation/ 1803, iv.
173. 60. ' Supply without Burden/ printed
1793, published 1795, ii. 585. 61. ' A Pro-
test against Law Taxes/ printed 1793, pub-
lished 1795, ii. 573. 62. 'Defence of Economy
against Burke/ 1810-17; 'Defence of Eco-
nomy against Rose/ 1810-17, written in April
and May 1810 (see preface published in
' Pamphleteer/ 1817), v. 278. 63. ' A Plan
for the Conversion of Stock into Note An-
nuities/ written 1800, iii. 105. MISCELLA-
NEOUS : 64. ' The Usefulness of Chemistry.
Translated from Bergman/ 1783. 65. 'A
Fragment on Ontology/ written 1813, 1814,
and 1821, viii. 213. 66. 'Essay on Logic/
viii. 213. 67. 'Essay on Language/ viii.
295. 68. 'Fragment on Universal Gram-
mar/ viii. 339. 69. ' Chrestomathia/ part i.
1816, vol. i. 1817 (see also 'Essai sur la
Nomenclature et la Classification ; Ouvrage
extrait du Chrestomathia par J. Bentham).
70. ' Church of Englandism and its Catechism
examined/ printed 1817, published 1818.
71. 'Summary View of a Work intituled
" Not Paul but Jesus." By Gamaliel Smith/
1821. 72. 'Not Paul but Jesus. By Ga-
maliel Smith/ 1823. 73. 'The Book of
Church Reform, containing the most essen-
tial part of " Mr. B.'s Church of Englandism
examined/" 1831. 74. 'Mother Church of
England relieved by Bleeding, and extracted
from B.'s Church of Englandism/ 1823.

The following are Dumont's chief works
based on Bentham's manuscripts : 1 . ' Trait e"
de la Legislation Civile et Penale/ Paris,
1802. 2. 'Theorie des Peines et des Re-
compenses/ Londres, 1811. 3. 'Tactique
des Assemblies Legislatives/ Geneve, 1816.
4. ' Trait§ des Preuves Judiciaires/ Paris,
1823. 5. ' De I'Organisation Judiciaire et
Codification/ Paris, 1823. There are an
edition published at Brussels in 1829 in three
volumes ; a Spanish translation in fourteen
volumes ; and a Portuguese translation.

[Bowring's Life in vols. x. and xi. of Col-
lected Works ; Bain's Lives of James Mill and

J. S. Mill; Memoir of the Life of Sir Samuel
Rom illy ; Grote's Private Life ; Parton's Life of
Aaron Burr; Colls's Utilitarianism Unmasked
(1844) ; Annual Biography and Obituary, 1833 ;
Cunningham's Lives of Eminent Englishmen, viii.
432 ; there is a sketch — almost a caricature — of
Bentham in Parry's Last Days of Lord Byron ;
and in the Edinburgh Review (vol. Ixxviii.) is a
valuable article by the late Professor Empson.]

J. M-L.

BENTHAM, JOSEPH (1594 ?-1671)r
divine, must, from his age at death (seventy-
seven in 1671), have been born in 1593-4.
He is designated 'Joseph Bentham, master
of arts and preacher of God's word at
Weekeley' in Northamptonshire, in his first
book, entitled ' The Societie of the Saints,
or a Treatise of Good-fellowes and their
Good-fellowship : delivered in the Lecture
at Kettering in Northamptonshire, in Four-
teene Sermons, with some additions/ 1638.
This wise and witty treatise is dedicated to-
various Montagues, children of Edward,
Lord Montague of Bought on, who had been
and still was ' a bountifull patron ' to him.
He had been induced to publish this book
by Bolt on and Estwick. A still more cha-
racteristic book is ' Xopo$e6Aoyoi/, or Two
Breife but Usefull Treatises : the one touch-
ing the Office and Quality of the Ministry
of the Gospell ; the other of the Nature and
Accidents of Mixt Dancing. In this later
the Questions which concern the Lawfulnesse
or Expediency of Mixed Dancing are pro-
fessedly handled and resolved/ 1657. In
this he describes himself as ' sometime rector
of the church of Broughton in Northampton.
Shire, now past our of Neather Winchingham
[Neather Wickenden in second title] in the
county of Bucks.' From the local registers-
it is found that, in agreement with this title-
page, 'Josephus Bentham Cl. Comp. pro-
Primit. 14 Jan. 1631/ at Broughton. In the
interval between his two publications he had
met with many troubles as a royalist. Accord-
ing to Bridges's 'Northamptonshire' (ii. 86)r
' This gentleman [Bentham] was sequestered
by order of the parliament committee on
13 July 1643, for his loyalty, conformity,.
and exemplary life ; by which vices, as the
committee told him, he did more harm to-
God's cause than twenty other men, and
should therefore fare the worse for it. His
wife and five children were with himself"
turned out of doors, with this additional
circumstance of inhumanity, that he was
not permitted to take a single peck of corn
out of his barn to make bread for his family ~
nor did his wife ever recover her fifths, though
she several times petitioned the committee-
for them. He was succeeded by John Bazeley.,

Bentham

281

Bentham

who seized the corn upon the ground, though
he did not preach till October, and Mr.
Bentham had paid the taxes to that harvest.'
His dedication of his ' Two Breife but Use-
full Treatises ' to Thomas Tyringham of Nea-
therWickenden, county of Buckinghamshire,
informs us that it was to him he was in-
debted for a ' quiet haven' in which after his
'boisterous and tempestuous storms' he had
'cast anchor' since 24 Dec. 1646; and where
'by the people's kindness/ and Tyringham's
especially, he had 'comfortably and con-
tentedly continued to the present in an hyred
house,' and 'without craving and often giving
thanks, yet without being burdensome.'

The Restoration restored Bentham to his
old parish of Broughton, he having been ;
reinstalled on 29 Sept. 1660. He died on
16 April 1671, and on a stone within the
altar-rails this inscription is still to be read : j
* Hie jacet Josephus Bentham, Boltoni tarn
artibus quam moribus successor, bonis operi-
bus dives; febre attritus aorum sat placide
in D. obdormivit 16 Apr. Ao. Dni. 1671,
Mt. 77.' He left in his will 40/. ' to be an- j
nually distributed for ever [interest only of
course] amongst the poor on the happy day
of his majesty s restoration ; ' also to Weekely
' xs to be given yearly in the church porch
to such poor as should come to church on
the 29th of May.'

[Bridges's Northamptonshire ; Bentham's
"Works; local researches in his livings; letter
from Mr. John Wallis, Kettering.] A. B. G.

BENTHAM, SIB SAMUEL (1757-1831),

naval architect and engineer, was the youngest
son of Jeremiah Bentham, an attorney of
good repute, and brother of Jeremy Bent-
ham [see BENTHAM, JEKEMY]. He was born
on 11 Jan. 1757, and his mother having died
shortly afterwards, his father married, in 1766,
the widow of the Rev. John Abbott. Samuel
Bentham received his early education at West-
minster, and at the age of fourteen was appren-
ticed to the master-shipwright of Woolwich
Dockyard, whom, a year or two later, he ac-
companied to Chatham. He is described as
an industrious student in both the theory and
practice of his profession, and during a few
months' stay in France in 1775 he perfected
himself in the French language. His inven-
tive talent showed itself even during his ap- \
prenticeship in several small improvements in
the fittings of ships, which were favourably
considered by the navy board. In 1778, !
when just out of his time, he was invited by I
Captain Macbride, then commanding the
Bienfaisant, to accompany him on the sum-
mer cruise of the Channel fleet, during which
he had an opportunity of witnessing the

battle of Ushant on 27 July, as well as
of suggesting some improvements in the
steering gear, and in the fittings of the guns,
which were carried out under his personal su-
perintendence. Being unable to procure any
suitable employment at home, his friends
advised him to travel, with a view to study-
ing ' the ship building and naval economy of
foreign powers.' Russia seemed to hold out
the highest inducements, and, furnished with
very strong recommendations to Sir Jamea
Harris, he arrived at St. Petersburg in May
1 780. From St. Petersburg he travelled over
the greater part of Russia, from Archangel
to the Crimea, and eastwards, through Siberia
to the frontier of China, examining more
especially the mines and methods of working
metals, on which, on his return to St. Peters-
burg in October 1782, he presented a report to
the empress. Early in the next year he was
offered from home a commissionership in the
navy, which, however, he declined, partly
because his prospects in Russia seemed more
advantageous, and principally, it would seem,
because his affections were settled on a young
Russian lady of noble family. But the lady's,
father did not approve of his daughter's
marrying a foreigner, and, notwithstanding
the friendly interest of the empress, Bent-
ham's suit did not prosper. He was then
glad to get away from St. Petersburg, and ac-
cepted the offer of Potemkin to send him to
Cherson with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
He afterwards settled himself at Kritchev,
where the prince had a large property, and
where, though some hundreds of miles from
the sea, on a small tributary of the Dnieper,
he was desirous of establishing a shipbuild-
ing yard. The depth of water would not
admit ships of more than 200 tons ; larger
vessels had to be sent down piecemeal, but,
on the other hand, the abundance and cheap-
ness of materials, and the unrestricted power
conferred on Bentham, permitted him to re-
duce some of his ideal improvements to
actual practice. ' I am at liberty,' he wrote
to his father on 18 July 1784, ' to build any
kind of ships, vessels, or boats, whether for
war, trade, or pleasure ; and so little am I
confined in the mode of constructing them,
that one day, in arguing with the prince
about some alterations in a frigate he pro-
posed building, to make a present of to
the empress, he told me, by way of ending
the discussion, that there might be twenty
masts and one gun, if I pleased. Workmen
and assistants I am to find where I can, and
on what terms I can.'

Workmen, on any terms, were very diffi-
cult to find ; some country joiners, with a
few sergeants from the army as overseers, a

Bentham

282

Bentham

Danish brassfounder, an English, watch-
maker, and a German schoolmaster were all
that he could obtain. In September 1784
his military rank was made substantive, and
he was appointed to the command of a
battalion, the men of which he partially
transformed into sailors, shipwrights, and
mechanics. It was at this time, and in con-
sequence of the very limited number of
officers at his disposal, that he first introduced
the plan of ' central observation,' the Avork-
shops all radiating from his own office. The
* Panopticon/ which occupied his elder brother
Jeremy for many years [see BENTHAM, JE-
REMY], was a modification of this plan. In
1787 Bentham was ordered to Cherson, to
direct the equipment of a flotilla intended to
act against the Turks. This could scarcely
be called a naval armament, consisting, as it
did, chiefly of river barges and boats, none of
which was supposed capable of carrying any
gun larger than a three-pounder ; but by the
absence of the admiral, the sole command,
administrative and executive, fell to Bent-
ham, and he was thus able to give free
scope to his inventive genius, and to intro-
duce the most startling novelties into mari-
time war. In defiance of all professional
maxims he adopted and proved a system of
fitting guns without recoil, by which, and
by strengthening the boats at his command,
he enabled them to carry long 36-pounders
and 48-pounder howitzers, whilst some he
even made to carry 13-inch mortars. The
armament was really most formidable, though
the vessels which carried it were paltry. So
the Turks thought them, but the first en-
counter in the Liman on 7 June 1788 showed
them their mistake, and in an attack on a
greater scale, ten days later, they were de-
feated with very heavy loss. Just at the
last moment, as the enemy was approach-
ing, Bentham was superseded from the com-
mand-in-chief by the cosmopolitan Prince of
Nassau-Siegen, under whom, however, he
continued in command of the flotilla, whilst
the Scotch adventurer, Paul Jones, com-
manded a covering squadron of armed mer-
chant ships. These last, however, had little
share in the victory, which was achieved by
the flotilla alone. The effect of its large guns,
firing shell or carcasses for the first time in
naval war, was altogther unprecedented. No
less than ten ships of the line were set on
fire and blown up, one was sunk ; out of the

his own request, appointed to a command in
Siberia, where he applied himself to develope
the resources of the country by opening up
the navigation of the rivers, by explorations,
and by promoting trade with the neighbour-
ing China.

In 1791 he obtained leave of absence and
revisited England, with the intention of
speedily returning to his government. His
return was, however, continually delayed,
by the death of his father, by assisting his
brother in fitting up a Panopticon for the re-
ception of 1,000 prisoners, and afterwards
again by business connected with various
patents, amongst which may be more espe-
cially mentioned those for impregnating
different substances, such as wood, meat, or
hides, in vacuor with salts, tannin, or other
agents. Some correspondence with the ad-
miralty in 1795, relative to the introduction
of machinery into the dockyards, brought
about a request that he would visit the
yards, and make his suggestions in a more
exact and formal manner. This was the be-
ginning of his official connection with the
English admiralty, which shortly led to his
resigning his appointments in Russia, and
devoting his whole time and energy to his
country s service. For the next eighteen
years, a time in which the naval strength
of England was developed in an extreme
degree, the improvements in the machinery,
in the organisation and in the economy of
the dockyards, as also in the build and the
equipment of our ships, were largely — it
might almost be said mainly — due to the
genius, the acuteness, and the business
talent of Bentham. To recount them in
detail would be to relate the administrative
history of that long war ; it will be sufficient
to particularise the invention of the caisson-
method of closing the entrance of docks or
cambers, the invention of the steam dredg-
ing machine, and the building and equipment
of sloops of war of the Arrow class (see JAMES'S
Naval History (ed. I860), i. abstract, No. 4,
and p. 456, iii. 34), which, armed with non-
recoil carronades of very large calibre, fought
some of the most remarkable actions during
the war.

It is well known that the maladministra-
tion of the dockyards had, towards the close
of the century, reached a most perilous height.
It was officially stated by the attorney-general
in 1801 that the losses to the country were not

eleven crews, numbering probably nearly less than 500,0007. per annum, and it was com-
11,000 men, about 3,000 only were saved. | monly believed that they were more like four
Bentham's services on this occasion were re- | times that amount (Naval Chronicle, vi. 242,
warded with the military cross of St. George, | x. 63). Bentham considered that the remedy
the rank of brigadier-general, and a sword i for this was to be found in administrative
of honour. He was shortly afterwards, at reform. Lord St. Vincent, the first lord of

Bentham

283

Bentham

the admiralty, 1801—4, took a more sum-
mary method, instituted a long and searching
inquiry, and succeeded in clearing away a
:great deal of the mass of corruption. But
the odium which Bentham incurred by
reason of his suggested reforms was almost
as great as that which fell on Lord St. Vin-
cent, and he had not the same strength to
withstand it. He honestly endeavoured to
•serve the country, but to do so in his position
was to wage war against peculation and cor-
ruption, and in the long run his enemies were
too many for him. He had said to Tucker,
the first lord's secretary, that ' if they
punished inferiors, they ought to go further ;
there was not a single officer at Plymouth
or at the navy board unimplicated : but it
looked as if they didn't like to go higher than
dockyard officers.' No doubt the gist of this
•conversation was known at the navy office,
and the bitterness it naturally caused was
•enhanced by the issue of new and stringent
regulations for enforcing close adherence to
the terms of naval contracts. To these the
navy board objected, and so drew down on
itself the severe censure of the admiralty ' for
the negligence, fallacy, and fraud which had
pervaded and been fostered by the depart-
ment under its direction.'

In the summer of 1805 Bentham was sent
on a mission to St. Petersburg, to arrange,
as he was instructed, for the building there
of several ships for the English government.
It appeared, however, that the Russian go-
vernment had no intention of giving any
•effective consent. The business was long
and tedious, and Bentham did not return
to England till the autumn of 1807 ; when,
on his arrival, he was greeted with the intel-
ligence that his office of inspector-general of
navy works was abolished, and that he was
to be appointed one of the commissioners of
the navy. His opinion had been, all along,
that the mission to Russia was but the result
•of an intrigue for getting him out of the way ;
and, whilst still abroad, he had so written to
Lord Spencer, adding : ' I was somewhat con-
firmed in this suspicion by the expression of
a man whose influence at the admiralty was
very great, when, with a most cordial shake
of the hand, it came out, as it were, unawares,
that " for his part, though he had the highest
opinion of my talents and zeal, yet he would
give his voice for allowing me at least
6,000/. a year, if by that means he could be
assured I would never return again." ' He
now hesitated about accepting the seat at
the navy board, and consented only on being
urged to do so by his step-brother, the speaker
Abbott. Individually, the other members of
the board were friendly enough, but they

looked on him as a man likely to prove trouble-
some. Troublesome he undoubtedly was,
whilst during the next five years he continued
his agitation for improvement in the organi-
sation of the dockyard. It was in 1810 that
the design of extending the naval establish-
ment at Sheerness came prominently into
notice. Bentham was entirely opposed to
it. He maintained that Sheerness was an
unsuitable place, and urged the superior fit-
ness of the Isle of Grain ; and the lapse of
time would seem to have proved that his
position was sound, for within these last
years the admiralty have decided that Chat-
ham, not Sheerness, is the proper site for our
great eastern arsenal, and the Isle of Grain
has been chosen as the station for an im-
portant line of mercantile steamers. Of his
detailed objections to the plan submitted by
Mr. Rennie, and accepted by the admiralty,
it is impossible to speak here ; it is enough to
say that his own plan, sent in in February
1812, was rejected, and that the controversy
did not make the relations between him and
his colleagues smoother than they had been.
At the same time he was engaged in another
controversy, also with Mr. Rennie, on the
subject of the Plymouth breakwater, and
again Mr. Rennie was the successful com-
petitor. On 3 Dec. 1812 Bentham was in-
formed that his office was abolished, and it
was at the same time intimated to him that
any claim he might make for compensation
would be favourably entertained. It was
finally arranged that he should receive a
pension equal to his full pay of 1,5001. a
year.

After the peace in 1814 he went with his
family to reside in France, and was at Tours
during the hundred days' war of 1815. He
afterwards settled in the neighbourhood of
Angouleme, and did not return to England
till 1827. He solaced himself during his
retirement in preparing and arranging a
number of papers on professional subjects,
including much of his official correspondence,
some of which had appeared in pamphlet
form during his time of active service or im-
mediately after his being shelved. They
were published in a collective form in 1827,
and it would appear to have been business
connected with them that brought him once
again to London. His literary pursuits oc-
cupied much of his time, but he was almost
necessarily brought into contact with the
admiralty. Years had, however, assuaged
the old jealousy, and he continued in fre-
quent and amicable correspondence with the
several departments of the navy till his death
on 31 May 1831.

Though known both privately and officially

Bentham

284

Bentinck

as Sir Samuel, there is no account of his
having been knighted in England ; he seems
to have assumed, and to have been tacitly
authorised to assume, the title, as knight of
the Russian order of St. George, after his
presentation to the king in 1809. For such
assumption the king's sanction was, of course,
sufficient, but its being granted in this way
and on these grounds remains, we believe,
unparalleled in modern times. In 1796 he
married Mary Sophia, the eldest daughter of
Dr. George Fordyce, by whom he had several
children. His wife survived him many years,
and died, at the age of ninety-three. 18 May
1858.

[Life of Brigadier-general Sir Samuel Bentham,
K.S.GK, formerly Inspector of Naval "Works, lately
a Commissioner of his Majesty's Navy, with the
distinct duty of Civil Architect and Engineer of
the Navy, by his widow, M. S. Bentham, cr. 8vo,
1862. This is written mainly from Bentham's
own journals and letters, and with a full know-
ledge and understanding of Bentham's under-
takings. Lady Bentham died before the work
was completed, but the loss was ably supplied
by her younger daughter. On page x of the intro-
duction to this, there is a full and detailed list of
the numerous pamphlets and magazine articles
of which, during his long life, Bentham was the
author ; as their interest is exclusively technical,
it is unnecessary here to repeat the list. The
Memoir by W. L. Sargant (Essays of a Birming-
ham Manufacturer, i. 226), with some interest-
ing criticisms, is, in the main, an abstract and
review of Lady Bentham's Life ; Bowring's Life
of Jeremy Bentham (collected works, vol. x.)
chaps, vii.-x.] J. K. L.

BENTHAM, THOMAS (1513-1578),
bishop, was born at Sherburn, Yorkshire, in
1512-13. He was admitted perpetual fellow
of Magdalen College, Oxford, on 16 Nov.
1546, proceeded M.A. 1547, and * about that
time did solely addict his mind to the study
of theology and to the learning of the Hebrew
tongue, in which last he was most excellent,
as in those of Greek and Latin.' On the
accession of Mary he was turned out of his
fellowship ' for his forward and malapert zeal
against the catholic religion in the time of
Edward VI, by the visitors appointed by
her to regulate the university' (Life of
Jewell, 1573). He retired to Zurich and
afterwards to Basle, and became preacher to
the exiles there, to whom he delivered an ex-
position of the Acts of the Apostles. Being
recalled by some of the brethren, he was
made superintendent of them all in London,
and continued among them ' in a timorous
condition for some time.' Heylin (Hist, of the
Reformation} says : * Mr. Bentham continued
minister of the protestant congregation in
London till Queen Mary died,' and that ' by

the encouragement and constant preach-
ing of this pious man, the protestant party
did not only stand to their former principles,
but were resolved to suffer whatsoever could
be laid on them rather than forfeit a good
conscience.' On Elizabeth's succession he
was appointed bishop of Lichfield and Co-
ventry after Dr. Ralph Bayne. This was in
1559, in his forty-sixth year. In 1565 he
was created D.D. He was in great repute
for learning. He died at Eccleshall in Staf-
fordshire on 21 (not 19, as Willis says) Feb.
1578, leaving a widow, Matilda. Bishop
Bentham is now mainly remembered as hav-
ing translated Ezekiel and Daniel (1568) in
the Bishops' Bible. The initials T. C. L.
stand for Thomas, Coventry and Lichfield.
On his monumental tomb at Eccleshall,
showing his own effigies and those of his
wife and four children, is still to be read this,
inscription :

Hie jacet in tumba Benthamus episcopus ille
Doctor divinus largus patiens pius almus.

[Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 816-17 ;
Willis's Cathedrals ; Anderson's and Eadie's
Hist, of Bible ; The Bishops' Bible ; Le Neve's
Fasti, i. 556.] A. B. Gr.

BENTINCK, SIR HENRY JOHN
WILLIAM (1796-1878), general, youngest
son of Major-general John Charles Bentinck?
by Jemima Helena, eldest daughter of Frede-
rick Christian Rynhart Ginkel, fifth earl of
Athlone, was born on 8 Sept. 1796, entered
the Coldstream guards as an ensign 25 March
1813, and became lieutenant-colonel of his
regiment 22 Aug. 1851. He left England
with the guards 22 Feb. 1854, and com-
manded that brigade during the Eastern
campaign until 8 Nov. He was thus engaged
in the battles of the Alma, Balaclava, and In-
kerman (where he was wounded in the arm)r
the siege of Sebastopol, and in support of the
second division at the repulse of the sortie of
26 Oct. He was appointed to the fourth di-
vision after the fall of Sir George Cat-heart, but
was prevented by a wound and ill-health from
joining it until 1 June 1855; he continued in
command until 10 Oct. From 11 Oct. 1854
until his death he was colonel of the 28th foot.
He served as aide-de-camp to the queen 1841-
54, and was groom-in-waiting 1859-67. On
his return from the Crimea he was created a
K.C.B. 5 July 1855, and was promoted to the
rank of general 8 Dec. 1867. His death took
place at 35 Grosvenor Street, London, 29 Sept.
1878, and he was buried in Kensal Green
Cemetery on 5 Oct. He married, 10 March
1829, Renira Antoinette, a daughter of Ad-
miral Sir James Hawkins Whit-shed, Bart.

[Army Lists, &c.] Gr. C. B.

Bentinck

285

Bentinck

BENTINCK, JOHN ALBERT (1737-
1775), captain, was a member of the younger !
line of the house of Bentinck. His father,
William, Count Bentinck, was a younger son
of the first Earl of Portland, and married the
daughter of the last Count of Aldenburg.
John Albert, the second son of this marriage,
was born in 1737, and at an early age en-,
tered the British navy. In August 1752 he
was serving as a volunteer on board the j
Centurion, in which vessel he visited Lisbon, |
but returned in the same year to Leyden,
where he remained for some time. In 1753 j
he was appointed midshipman to the Pen- I
zance, a fifth-rate of 44 guns, commanded j
by Captain Bonfoy (or Bonnefoy), and joined
his ship at Plymouth in June of that year
to make a voyage in the following July to
Newfoundland.

In 1758 Bentinck was present at an en-
gagement in which the British captured the
French vessel Raisonnable. In the same
month he was appointed to the command of
H.M. sloop Fly, and in that vessel took part
later in the expedition under Lord Anson to
cover the landing of Marlborough at St. Malo.
He was then for some time stationed with his
sloop off Emden, and while there he became
involved in an unfortunate misunderstand-
ing, in the course of which he took the ex-
treme step of placing a Captain Angell, his
superior officer, under arrest. The affair,
however, was cleared up, the accusations
against Captain Angell which had prompted
his arrest were fully withdrawn, and on
17 Oct. 1758 Bentinck was promoted to be
•captain of the Dover frigate. In January
1759, being then still on board the Fly, he
had to aid in the transport of troops to Eng-
land, and in March of that year took up his
new command. He did not remain long on
the Dover, but was soon removed into the
Niger frigate. In this vessel he was em-
ployed in 1760 as a cruiser, and distinguished
himself highly in an engagement with a
French ship of war of very superior weight
and armament — the Diadem, of 74 guns.
About a week after this action, in returning
from Plymouth, where he had gone to repair
damages, he fell in with and captured the
Jason, a French privateer carrying 8 guns
and 52 men. In the following November
he captured off Morlaix the French corvette
Epreuve, carrying 14 guns and 136 men. He
remained in the Niger till the end of the war
(1762). Quitting the Niger on the conclusion
of peace, he remained without a commission
till 1766. In that year he was commissioned
to the Dragon, of 74 guns, at Portsmouth, and
retained that command for three years. In
1770 he was appointed successor to Captain

Robert Hughes in command of the Centaur,
74 guns, a guardship at Portsmouth, and held
this, his last command, for three years. He
died two years later on 23 Sept. 1775.

Bentinck had great ingenuity in mechani-
cal pursuits, and effected many useful nauti-
cal improvements, especially with regard to
ships' pumps. He introduced such important
additions and improvements into the chain
pump used on board ship as to have gained
the credit of its invention. At the general
election of 1761 he was elected to parliament
for the town of Rye, one of the cinque ports,
and retained his seat till the dissolution in
1768.

Bentinck was a count of the empire. He
married in 1763 Renira, daughter of Baron
de Serooskerken, and by her became the
founder of a second English line of Bentincks.
He left a son, William, Count Bentinck (1764-
1813), who entered the navy, and rose to the
rank of vice-admiral.

[MS. correspondence of William, Count Ben-
tinck, Brit. Mus. Egerton, 1727; Charnock's
Biographia Navalis, vols. v. and vi. ; Gent. Mag.
1775 J Horsfield's Sussex; Burke's Peerage.]

T> TT
It, ±1.

BENTINCK, WILLIAM, first EARL OF
PORTLAND (1649-1709), is generally stated
to have been born in 1649, but the Dutch
historian, Groen van Prinsterer, dates his
birth four years earlier. He was of a noble
family, the son of Henry Bentinck, of Diepen-
heim, in Overyssel, and the nephew of a
general officer in the service of the States of
Holland. After being attached to the house-
hold of William III, prince of Orange, as a
page of honour, he was advanced to the post
of gentleman of the prince's bedchamber.
In this capacity he, in 1670, accompanied
the prince on a visit to England, of which
the main object was to secure the moneys
due to William from King Charles II and
his brother the Duke of York. On this oc-
casion Bentinck obtained his earliest English
honour, an Oxford degree of D.C.L. (WooD
ap. COLLINS). In 1672 the Anglo-French
war with the United Provinces began, and
they were still at war with France when, in
1675, the Prince of Orange fell ill of the
small-pox at the Hague. Sir William Temple
in his ' Memoirs from 1672 to 1679 ' relates, evi-
dently at first hand, how Bentinck tended
his master during the sixteen nights and
days through which the illness lasted ; how
it was only when the prince was fairly on
the road towards recovery that his faithful
companion asked leave to go home, and how
there Bentinck immediately fell sick of the
same disease, and was in great extremity,

Bentinck

286

Bentinck

recovering just soon enough to attend his
master into the field, where he was ever
next his person (TEMPLE'S Works, fol. 1750,
i. 401). In June 1677, when the peace con-
ferences were already open at Nymwegen
and a defensive alliance had been offered by
England to the United Provinces, William
sent Bentinck on a confidential mission to
Charles II's court, with a view to negotiating
a marriage with the Princess Mary, the elder
daughter of the Duke of York. The wedding !
was actually celebrated in November, and I
the peace was concluded in the next year. I
In 1683 Bentinck was again in England, to
offer congratulations on the collapse of the I
Eye House plot ; but he was less warmly |
received when early in the next reign, in j
1685, he was once more sent across to offer
the prince's assistance against the invasion |
of the Duke of Monmouth, of which Amster- '
dam had been the starting-point. Soon he j
was actively engaged in the operations pre-
ceding another invasion, which was to have :
a very different result. Among the pre- :
cautionary measures taken by William of j
Orange in 1688 before finally resolving upon |
his English expedition, none were more skil-
fully and successfully accomplished than his j
negotiations with several of the princes of !
northern Germany, and more especially those |
with the heir presumptive of the possessions I
of the house of Orange, the young elector !
Frederick III of Brandenburg. Immediately j
on his accession, April 1688, the elector,
having resolved upon continuing the policy of ,
his great father, received Bentinck at Berlin
and arrived at an understanding with him. In
July Bentinck returned to Berlin, having pre-
viously paid visits with a similar purpose at
Cassel, at Hanover (here in vain), and at
Celle ; and in interviews with the Branden-
burg minister, Fuchs, and others, arrange-
ments were made for effectively covering the
lower and the middle Rhine when the time
should come (BTJRNET ; RANKE ; the fullest
details in DROYSEN, vol. iv. part i. 29 seqq.).
As it drew nearer and the anxiety of the
prince increased, he freely communicated his
cares to Bentinck in letters, and a great
share of the preparations of the last two
months fell to the faithful friend, the serious
illness of whose wife at the Hague furnished
him, as Burnet says, with ' a very just
excuse ' for his constant attendance there
in the absence of the prince. Of course,
when the expedition at last sailed, Bentinck
was by his master's side ; his wife (who is
passed over by Collins) died shortly after he
had quitted Holland (CLARENDON'S Diary,
4 Dec. 1688). It was Bentinck who at
Burnet's request informed the prince, when

at Windsor, of the untoward capture of
King James, and advised him to give the
necessary orders for insuring the personal
safety of the prisoner (BTJRXET). In con-
versation with Clarendon Bentinck declared
it the most wicked insinuation to assert that
the prince was hankering after the crown ;
but when Halifax had proposed that William
should be king and Mary queen consort only,,
it seemed to Burnet, who himself strongly
objected to the scheme, that the suggestion
was at heart approved by the prince's most
intimate counsellor.

A few days before the coronation of William
and Mary well-earned rewards were bestowed
with no sparing hand upon Bentinck, who was.
created Baron Cirencester, Viscount Wood-
stock, and Earl of Portland. About the same
time he was appointed groom of the stole,,
first gentleman of the bedchamber, and a
privy councillor. With these offices he seems
afterwards to have united that of superin-
tendent of the king's gardens (LUTTRELL, iv.
514). Rather later in the year, in August,
Luttrell (i. 568) records that Portland and
Halifax, with three others, composed the king's-
cabinet council; but of course the term is
here employed at the most in a half-technical
sense. Portland soon obtained a regiment
of horse, which did good service at the Boyne
and elsewhere in Ireland, and in Flanders
(MACATJLAT and LUTTRELL) ; he afterwards
obtained the command of a regiment of
Dutch guards, which he did not resign till
1700 (LUTTRELL, iv. 686) ; and he appears
to have held the rank of lieutenant-general
in the English army. But, though always
ready to serve in the field, he was mostly,
when not in attendance upon the king's
person (he had a lodging in the palace at
Kensington), engaged in the diplomatic busi-
ness, for which he seems both by training
and by character to have been pre-eminently
fitted. William III was always loth to con-
fide the secrets of his foreign policy to Eng-
lish hands, and to the end of his life Portland
was in such matters his most trusted agent.
Burnet says that the king's favour at first
lay between Bentinck and Henry Sidney
(afterwards Earl of Romney), but the latter
lacked the application which distinguished the
former. In the greatest achievement, how-
ever, of William's foreign policy, in the year
1689, the conclusion of the grand alliance
treaty, not even Portland had a share. After
he had in August inspected at Chester the-
army making ready for Ireland (LUTTRELL,
i. 567), he was, in December, sent to Holland
to take part in the conferences of the ministers
of the allies. It was on this visit that when he
presented himself to take his seat as a noble-

Bentinck

287

Bentinck

of Holland among the estates of the pro-
vince, he was for a time hindered from
doing so by a protest on the part of the city
of Amsterdam, whose old jealousy of the
stadtliolder had revived. Thus it was at-
tempted in his own country to place a stigma
upon him as an English public servant and
member of parliament, while in England his
influence was already decried as that of an
alien. The dispute, which was fomented by
French intrigue, was amicably settled by
March 1690 (RANKE ; VAIST KAMPEN, Ge-
schichte der Niederlande, ii. 321-2 ; LUTTRELL,
ii. 19-20). About the same time Portland
was engaged in further negotiations with
Brandenburg, involving more assurances as
to the Orange inheritance, and ending in the
conclusion, by May, of what was in fact,
though not in name, a subsidy-treaty (DROY-
SEST, iv. 1, 90-3 ; KLOPP,V. 242-3). In these
negotiations Portland had pointed out how
much depended upon the success of the Irish
campaign, on which he accompanied the king
in June, taking the place in the royal tra-
velling-carriage of which Prince George of
Denmark was ambitious. While they were
absent in Ireland Sir James Montgomery
betrayed to the queen an abortive plot be-
tween the Jacobites and presbyterian zealots
in Scotland, which, according to Burnet, had
been formed to some extent in reliance upon
the jealousies between Portland and some of
the English whig leaders. In January 1691
the king and his faithful follower were on
their way to Holland, whence they returned
in October. On their way both to and fro
they met with unpleasant adventures. The
attempt of the king to land in Holland
during a thick sea fog in an open boat in-
volved him and his companions in serious
danger (MACAULAY ; LTJTTRELL, ii. 165;
KLOPP, v. 228 seqq., from the pilot's narra-
tive, ap. SYLVIUS). On his return he had I
landed at Margate and was driving thence
to Gravesend when the wretched conveyance |
broke down and the king had a rather pre- |
cipitous fall, being thrown under Portland,
but escaped with a slight injury to the arm
(Newsletter in Lord Denbigh's MSS., His- j
torical Manuscripts Commission, Seventh Re- \
port, 204«). The next year, 1692, was full
of perils of a different nature for William III.
When, in January, Marlborough was sud-
denly dismissed from his offices, his friends
declared that he had fallen a victim to the
machinations of Portland, whom he was
known to dislike, and whom he had described
as a wooden fellow (MACAULAY). But the
cause for William's anger or apprehension
lay deeper. Rightly or wrongly, James II
believed that a plot formed about this time

to recall him by a parliamentary vote after
dismissing all foreigners from council, army,
and kingdom, was frustrated by the discovery
of the scheme to Portland (MACPHERSOI^
j Original Papers, i. 440 ; cf. KLOPP, vi. 27).
| The king went to Holland in March, and
early in May Portland and Essex arrived in
i England with a squadron of Dutch men-of-
war. A cabinet council was immediately
called to consider the situation and to take
| measures for meeting the threatened French
; invasion and for dealing with supposed trea-
sonable designs at home. Portland's mission
thus connects itself directly with the im-
prisonment of Marlborough, and with the
victory of La Hogue. In 1693, though Port-
land as usual accompanied the king into the
field, and was wounded 'in several places
but not mortal' at the battle of Landen
(19 July ; see LUTTRELL, iii. 146), he was also
much occupied with difficulties at home. We
find him settling a delicate matter with the
Spanish ambassador, who had opened a Ro-
man catholic chapel in lodgings unexpectedly
taken by him at Whitehall, and a personal
difficulty about a claim of the Duchess of Graf-
ton, which threatened to create a controversy
between the two houses of parliament (News-
letter in Denbigh MSS., Hist. MSS. Rep.
vii. 219, 220). It was natural enough that
he should vote against the Place Bill, when
in its first form it was just lost in the House
of Lords in December 1692. The Triennial
Bill having hereupon been brought in, Port-
land was sent to consult the oracle at Moor
Park ; but, notwithstanding Temple's decided
advice to the contrary, the king refused his
assent to the unwelcome act. After both
measures had been reintroduced later in the
year, and the Place Bill had been carried
through both houses, the king's refusal, in
January 1694, to assent to it, led to an all but
unanimous resolution of the commons that
those who had advised the crown on this oc-
casion were public enemies. The representa-
tion addressed to the king, begging him not
to pay heed to the secret speeches of private
persons, was believed to point at Portland,
for whom the House of Commons entertained
a persistent dislike (KLOPP, vi. 282-3, on
the authority of the imperial resident Hoff-
mann). This dislike was manifested a
second time, when it was hoped that among
the disclosures as to illicit expenditure ex-
pected from Sir Thomas Cook, the chairman
of the East India Company, to whom, in
1695, a conditional indemnity was granted
for the purpose, would be found corrupt
dealings with Portland. It only appeared,
however, that 50,000/. had been offered to him
by the company, and after being long pressed.

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upon him was indignantly rejected (MAC AF-
LAT). He seems to have borne himself coolly
in the matter, deeming it disagreeable, how-
ever, * to be exposed to such an accusation
here, where corruption is too general ' (Lex-
ington Papers, 81). To legitimate gains he
showed no aversion, and he had been liberally
endowed with estates by the grateful friend-
ship of the king. Dissatisfaction had already
been felt at the alienation for the purpose of
hereditary domains of the crown ; and when,
in 1695, the king sought to make over to
Portland, at a nominal rent, the lordships of
Denbigh, Bromfield, and Yales, which were
valued at more than 100,000/., and formed part
of the domains of the principality of Wales,
protests arrived thence, and a unanimous
address was, in January 1696, passed in the
House of Commons against the grant. Port-
land hereupon begged the king to withdraw
it, which he did in a dignified message
(MACAULAY ; cf. COLLINS as to the estates
included in the grant, and LTJTTEELL, iii. 553,
as to the protests, who has a notice six
months earlier (iii. 472) of the grant to Port-
land by the king of the manor of Swaden,
worth 2,OOOZ. per annum, part of the Marquis
of Powis's estate). Many and substantial as
were the favours accumulated upon Portland
by the king, it cannot be said that the tie be-
tween them was mainly one of interest. The
warmth of Portland's attachment showed
itself in his sympathy with the king on the
occasion of the death of Queen Mary (see
liis letter in Lexington Papers, 48) ; and he
again proved it on the discovery, in February
1696, of the assassination plot. After the
plot had been revealed to him, he carried
the news to the king, with much difficulty
prevailed upon him to take the necessary pre-
cautions, and was present when, on 21 Feb.,
Pendergrass disclosed the names of the
chief conspirators to their intended victim.
(MACATJLAY).

During all these years Portland had con-
tinued to take part in the king's campaigns,
and to be of service to him as a confidential
diplomatist. In the uneventful campaign of
1694 Portland with the Dutch military dele-
gate, Dykvelt, was accused of having in-
fluenced William against giving battle ; and
in the same year this advice (if given) was
justified by his receiving indirect information
that Louis XIV was not disinclined to peace
(KLOPP, vi. 335-7, 359). He was privy to
the negotiations on the subject with Vienna,
of which the English ministers were, ac-
cording to his wont, left uninformed by King
William (ib. vii. 29 seqq.). The war, how-
ever, continued ; in June 1695 Portland with
Essex commanded in an action against a

party of French who endeavoured to inter-
cept an English convoy of provisions (LtrT-
TEELL, iii. 502) ; and it was he who, in the
August following, after Villeroy had aban-
doned the attempt to raise the siege of Namur,
summoned Boumers to surrender the fortress ;
and when the marshal marched out at the
head of his troops, arrested him, with Dykvelt,
by the king's orders — a strange prelude to their
later more amicable intercourse (MACATJLAY ;
LTJTTRELL ; Auersperg's report ap. KLOPP, vii.
105-7 ; Lexington Papers, 119-25). In July
1696 Portland was sent to England from
Flanders to raise money for the war ; and
though the financial pressure was great (it was
the time of the collapse of the Land Bank),
the public spirit of the Bank of England sup-
plied what was absolutely necessary. But
there was much distress in the country, and
Louis XIV, after having detached the Duke
of Savoy from the grand alliance, was inclined
for peace, and in a not unfavourable position
for negotiating it. Peace was desired at
Amsterdam as well as at Versailles, and if
terms otherwise satisfactory could be ob-
tained, including the recognition of King
William by France, the secret article of the
grand alliance as to the Austrian claims on
the Spanish succession must, for the present
at least, be allowed to go to the wall.

Such were, roughly speaking, the instruc-
tions with which, in July 1697, Portland
entered upon the informal negotiations with
Marshal Boufflers : the terms of the peace
were ceremoniously discussed at Ryswyk.
In the earlier part of the year new favours
had descended upon Portland at home : in
February he was appointed, and in March
installed, a K.G. ; in the latter month he
took possession of the lodge and place of
.ranger of Windsor Park, worth 1,500/. a
year ; in April the Earl of Clancarty's for-
feited estate was granted to him; and in
June, when he was at Brussels indisposed,
he was appointed one of the generals of
the English horse (LTJTTRELL, iv. 185, 193,
201, 215, 233). Though the enjoyment
of some of these favours was not heightened
by the knowledge that gifts and honours
were at the same time being bestowed upon
one whom he was soon to regard as a rival,
yet Portland, when addressing himself to the
most important diplomatic task of his life,
was justly regarded as possessing the full
confidence of his master. To William III
and not to Portland belongs the responsibility
for the peace of Ryswyk, which accomplished
so small a part of the king's political pro-
gramme, and, following the example set by
the emperor himself in 1696, left him and
the Austrian claims on the Spanish succes-

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sion in the lurch ; but which at all events
visibly arrested the progress of France, and
obliged her to recognise the regal rights of her
most resolute opponent. The real difficulty in
the negotiations lay in bringing Louis XIV,
notwithstanding his unwillingness to with-
draw his protection from James II, to an en-
gagement concerning him which would satisfy
William III ; and this difficulty was solved
by means of the general clause as to the King
of England's enemies upon which Portland
and Boufflers agreed. Their first interview,
held on 8 July 1697, at Brukom near Hal
(in the vicinity of Brussels), with a lack of
ceremoniousness forming a marked contrast
to the proceedings at Ryswyk, was succeeded
by five others ; and when, in October, Port-
land returned to England, the ratifications
of the treaties of peace had been exchanged.
Before his return negotiations had been begun
through him with the court of Vienna for
a re-establishment of the grand alliance, but
these overtures had been naturally received
with coolness. (A more detailed account
of the meetings of Portland with Boufflers,
summarised by RANKE and MACATTLAY and
repeatedly mentioned by LUTTKELL, is given
by KLOPP, vii. 389 seqq. See also the re-
ferences in the summary of STEPNEY'S cor-
respondence in Lord Macclesfield's MSS.,
First Report of the Historical Manuscripts
Commission, 35-6.)

In January 1698, only a few months after
the accomplishment of his arduous task,
Portland was sent as ambassador to France,
the embassy thither of the Duke of St.
Albans having been of a merely complimen-
tary nature. Indisputably Portland was the
most suitable person for the post, if only
because no English statesman was fully cog-
nisant like himself of the understanding upon
which the recently concluded peace had been
founded. When asked by Count Auersperg
why he was sent, he explained that the king
had in truth no one else to send (KLOPP, viii.
2-3) ; but there can at the same time be
little doubt that though affection was still
strong on the one side and fidelity on the
other, the relations between William and
Portland had become uneasy, so that a tem-
porary separation seemed expedient. Port-
land had of late grown uncontrollably jealous
of the favours and preferments granted to
Arnold van Keppel, now Earl of Albemarle,
who since the year 1691 had been gradually
acquiring the king's goodwill by qualities
which were entirely foreign to Portland's
harder and drier nature. ' They were,' says
Burnet, 'in all respects men not only of
different, but of opposite characters ; secrecy
and fidelity were the only qualities in which

VOL. IV.

I it could be said they did in any sort agree.'
i In the quarrels which ensued the fault seems
j to have always lain with Portland, who now
j showed sullenness in addition to his usual
j bluntness in his demeanour towards the king,
I and even hinted at his desire to retire from
| court. Thus the French embassy offered a
: suitable temporary solution of the difficulty;
but Portland had hardly set out on his
journey when he received a most affectionate
, letter from the king, expressing deep sorrow
for his friend's departure, and assuring him
j that his feeling towards him was one which
nothing but death could alter (MACATJLAY).
Portland's departure was delayed by a fire at
Whitehall, but he arrived incognito at Paris
on 30 Jan. 1698, and soon afterwards held his
formal entry. Much attention was attracted
by the unprecedented magnificence of his
embassy, 'to which Prior was attached as
secretary, while Rapin the historian accom-
panied it as preceptor to the ambassadors
son, Lord Woodstock, a'lively and promising
child. (For details as to the embassy see
LUTTKELL, vol. iv., and MACATJLAY ; of young
Lord Woodstock there is an amusing anec-
dote in a newsletter in the Denbigh MSS..
given in the Seventh Report of the Historical
Manuscripts Commission. 199 b.) The per-
sonal impression which he made in France
was excellent, and contrasted strangely with
his unpopularity in England ; but there were
not wanting observers who, like St. Simon,
bitterly commented on the king's welcoming,
1 comme une espece de divinit6,' the ambas-
sador of a prince whom he had so long treated
with every kind of personal hatred and con-
tempt. Portland himself, after his first
audience with Louis early in March, wrote
that if the French king's bearing towards
him was insincere, it was a comedy played
with wonderful skill, and that he rather in-
clined to this view of it. His impression
was further confirmed by the fact that, not-
withstanding all the courtesies and distinc-
tions lavished upon him by the king, he was
never able to obtain the honour of an inter-
view with Madame de Maintenon. On the
other hand, he enjoyed the advantage of
much friendly intercourse with that ex-
tremely independent personage, the Duchess
Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans. In the se-
rious business of his embassy Portland at
first made but slow progress. William III
was not very well pleased to find that his
ambassador had, as was perhaps inevitable,
begun his diplomatic operations by discussing
the continued presence of James II and his
court at St. Germain. He had first protested
with generous warmth against being exposed
at Versailles to the presence of the Duke of

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Berwick, whom he was bound to regard as
privy to the assassination plot against King
William ; and he then reminded Boufflers of
their conversations in the previous year as to
the exclusion of James from France. He
boldly repeated both demands to the king
himself, but without success, except that
Louis requested the members of the court of
St. Germain to abstain from coming to Ver-
sailles when the English ambassador was ex-
pected there. Portland had therefore to fall
back upon the power of his government to
refuse repayment of the jointure of James's
queen. The negotiations which William had
really at heart were those concerning the
Spanish succession. This subject Portland
approached in the first instance by an inter-
view with a retired French diplomatist of
the name of Gourville ; after which Pom-
ponne and Torcy were instructed by Louis to
sound Portland as to William's views. The
negotiations which ensued were carried on
with the greatest secrecy, Heinsius alone, be-
sides Portland, being entrusted by William
with a knowledge of them, though they were
soon also carried on between William and the
French ambassador Tallard at Kensington.
When, in June, Portland returned to England,
after having been treated to the last with
the utmost distinction by Louis, who had
marked out a route home for him through
the fortresses of French Flanders, and or-
dered every attention to be shown him there,
the negotiations had already materially ad-
vanced. France had virtually ceased to in-
sist upon the occupation of the Spanish
throne by a Bourbon prince, and England
was prepared to see France compensated by
some portion of the Spanish dominions for
consenting to the succession of the Electoral
Prince of Bavaria. (See, besides MACAULAY
and RAISTKB, KLOPP, whose fuller narrative is
largely based on GRIMBLOT, with HIPPEATT
and'the Memoires of GOURVILLE.)

Portland was well received at Kensington,
and it was even rumoured that a crowning
mark of the royal favour was about to be
bestowed upon him by his being created
Duke of Buckingham (LUTTEELL, iv. 400).
But this title, which from its associations
would have been singularly ill-chosen, was
not bestowed upon him, though the king
showed his old goodwill towards him, and
was even said, in a difference between him
and Albemarle, to have very strongly taken
the part of his earlier friend and companion
(ib. 453). The unwillingness of Portland to
resume the old friendly relations, however,
continued with his jealousy of a rival who
by this time probably stood first in the king's
affections. Once more he talked of retiring ;

but he well knew that his aid was indispens-
able in carrying to an issue the negotiations
in which he had engaged. Thus he accom-

rnied William to Holland in July, and on
Sept. signed at the Loo with Sir Joseph
Williamson, the British minister at the
Hague, what was afterwards known as the
First Partition Treaty. It had been previ-
ously communicated by Portland to secre-
tary Vernon, and by the king to the lord-
chancellor Somers, but only when it was
virtually an accomplished fact. Before it
had long been actually such, in February
1699, the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, whose
life was the pivot on which the treaty turned,
died, and negotiations had to begin afresh.

Though Portland was once more the agent
employed by the king, he otherwise showed
no disposition to reciprocate the good-will
which, in small things as well as in great, was
displayed towards him. While his fortune
continued to grow by the royal munificence —
he was stated to have, in January 1699, ob-
tained a grant for the Little Park at Windsor
(LUTTRELL, iv. 476) — he repelled the king's
advances, and even refused to take his ac-
customed seat in the royal coach (MAC-
ATJLAY). At last the rumours that had long
been bruited about came true, and early in
May Portland resigned all his places in the
royal household. The report spread soon
afterwards that he had received back the key
proved false; but William is found dining
with him a few days after his resignation
(LUTTRELL, iv. 515, 516), and no actual
breach ever occurred between them. The
king wrote to Heinsius that he had left
nothing in reason untried to divert Portland
from his intention, and that he had only with
difficulty persuaded him to carry on the ne-
gotiations with Tallard (KLOPP, viii. 343, from
GRIMBLOT). Portland, in his turn, professed
to Count Auersperg his readiness to retire
into country life, to which he had been
brought up. * But during his talking and
philosophising,' wrote the Austrian, t he
several times involuntarily sighed ' (ib. 344 ;
and see an amusing passage about Portland's
retirement in the correspondence of Elizabeth
Charlotte, duchess of Orleans, extracted by
RANKE, Franzosische Geschichte, v. 372).
He followed the king into Holland about
June, returning thence in October. The
report which arose in the latter month, that
he was going as ambassador-extraordinary to
Denmark and Sweden to settle the differences
about the rebuilding of the forts in Holstein,
did not prove true (LUTTRELL, iv. 570). On
the other hand, he is said by Burnet to have
still taken an active part in the direction of
Scotch affairs, so that the fury aroused in

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Scotland by the Darien collapse turned
against him next to the king himself ; it cer-
tainly seems that his interest in Scotch
•affairs had for some time been considerable
(see the letters to him of Lord Polwarth,
•afterwards Earl of Marchmont, in March-
mont Papers, iii. 401-7).

Before the return from Holland of the king
and Portland in October 1699 the Second Par-
tition Treaty was in readiness, and after many
difficulties it was at last signed in London
and at the Hague in March 1700. Portland's
brother-in-law, the Earl of Jersey, had been
associated with him in the signature as being
an Englishman and secretary of state. Even
those who had concluded the compact knew
that it was not a diplomatic masterpiece ; for
while it was repudiated by Austria, it even
failed thoroughly to satisfy France ; and yet it
had been signed during the session of parlia-
ment without being communicated to that as-
sembly. When it became known in England i
about June, voices were already heard charging
Portland with the responsibility for its con- !
elusion, and suggesting to him the expediency j
of keeping out of the way (KLOPP, viii. 483, j
from a despatch by Auersperg). He had in j
May married his third wife, with whom he
had soon afterwards embarked for Holland
(LTJTTRELL, iv. 641, 655) ; and he returned
to England in a royal yacht in October, about
the very time when the news must have
arrived of the event which was to frustrate
all his diplomatic efforts (ib. 686, 690) — the
death of Charles II of Spain, who had left
the whole of his monarchy to Philip of
Anjou. France had accepted the will when,
in February 1701, the new parliament met in
England, and the debates about the Partition
treaties commenced. After the first debate
in the House of Lords, in which l their dis-
approbation of the treaty was wholly laid at
the Earl of Portland's door,' he obtained the
king's leave to communicate the actual state
of the case, and on 14 March mentioned
several other peers who had been cognisant of
the negotiations. They however, while ac-
knowledging that they had seen the rough
draft of the (second) treaty, stated that they
had neither given nor refused their consent to
it, because it had been drawn up by Portland
in French, and never communicated to the
Privy Council (ib. 1239). His impeachment
was actually voted by the commons 1 April,
and he was formally impeached on that day
at the bar of the House of Lords by Sir John
Leveson Gower. Other impeachments fol-
lowed, and on 5 April the commons presented
an address to the king, requesting him to
remove the impeached lords from his council
:and presence for ever : but an address depre-

cating such a course was immediately pre-
sented by the lords {Parliamentary History, v.
1239-50). The king made no answer to either
address ; and when at last, at the instance of
i the lords themselves, the impeachments were
i proceeded with, no articles were framed
against Portland, which, as Burnet informs
us, was represented to the king as an expres-
[ sion of the respect towards him. While,
I therefore, Somers and Oxford were acquitted,
; the impeachment of Portland was dismissed
I by the lords on the last day of the session,
! 24 June (Parliamentary History, v. 1238,
1239-50, 1322 ; BTJRKET wrongly says that
: Portland and Halifax were l acquitted').
The truth was, that the commons by this
time knew that the people were not at their
back.

Whether or not these events had drawn
the king and his faithful servant closer to-
gether once more — they were both in Holland
in the autumn of 1701, at the critical time of
the death of James II and the recognition of
his son by Louis XIV — they were not to be
separated at the last. Burnet relates how
j William, f both before and after ' the accident
j which was to prove fatal to him, spoke con-
fidentially about his hopeless condition to
i Portland ; and how on the king's deathbed
, his last articulate words were an inquiry for
! Portland, who came, but too late to be able
! to do more than give his hand to his dying
master and friend, who ' carried it to his heart
with great tenderness.' In the king's will
there were found devised i several lands and
1 jewels to the earls of Portland and Albe-
! marie ' (LTJTTRELL, v. 150).

It was unlikely that, even had he been de-
| sirous of continuing a servant of the state,
Portland would have gained the personal
! confidence of the new sovereign. His office
of ranger of Windsor Park went the way of
many other lucrative posts — into the hands
of the Marlboroughs. He seems, however,
to have been on friendly terms with the
great man of the new era himself : on 30 Sept.
1703 he is noted as arriving from Holland
with Marlborough, and with the (premature)
information that the new king of Spain was
on his way across ; and in the year of his
death he is found embarking for Holland in
Marlborough's company (LTJTTRELL, v. 355,
vi. 436). His visits to his native land seem
to have recurred with their usual regularity,
and occasionally to have been combined with
confidential business of a public nature. In
July 1704 he was believed to have departed
with a mission * to confer with the states-
general about the affairs of Portugal and the
likeliest method for sending succours to
the Camisards:' in October 1708 he was

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expected back in the company of the envoys
of Denmark and Genoa (ib. v. 443, vi. 364).
His sympathies were of course consistently
with the policy of war ; and in March 1706
he was among the subscribers to the loan to
the emperor of 250,000/., negotiated at 8 per
cent, upon the security of the province of
Silesia (ib. vi. 24). He was not an old man
when he was in November 1709 seized by an
attack of pleurisy at his seat of Bulstrode
(near Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire), and
died there on the 23rd of the month. His
domestic life had probably continued to be a
happy one, as it had been in the days when
his great friend had taken so warm an in-
terest in the children of his family. They
were numerous, and settled partly in Eng-
land, partly in his native land. He had been
thrice married ; his second wife was a sister
of the Earl of Jersey and of Lady Elizabeth
Villiers, afterwards Lady Orkney, at one
time the mistress of William III.

Portland is hardly to be reckoned among
royal favourites ; for patriotism as well as
friendship and loyalty was prominent among
the motives which prompted his sendees.
He was wholly unskilled in flattery, and,
according to Burnet, seemed to have the art
of creating many enemies to himself, and
not one friend. That, however, there was
anything repulsive in his manner seems con-
tradicted by his general success in diplo-
matic business, by his easy personal inter-
course alike with Germans and Frenchmen,
with Auersperg and with Boufflers, and more
especially by the very favourable impression
which he made in France. He was, more-
over, a brave officer and a faithful companion ;
but he would not or could not acquire the
kind of obsequiousness which the Prince of
Orange had never demanded, but which the
King of England learned to find agreeable
when it showed itself in combination with
the gayer and more cheerful manners of
Jveppel. William Ill's nature was cast in
too generous a mould for him to dismiss an
old friend in favour of a new ; and when
Portland showed himself not proof to the
trial of jealousy, the king continued to trust
in the loyalty which was certain to survive
it. On the whole, allowing for human weak-
ness on both sides, there was something
worthy pf both men, and characteristic of
their nationality, in the relation between
them. In England Portland was, during
the whole of William's reign, probably the
most unpopular man in the country. This
was not only due to his being the Dutchman
whom of all Dutchmen the king long best
liked to honour and reward. Portland's love
of money was strong, but not odious; 'he

took,' says Macaulay, ' without scruple what-
ever he thought he could honestly take, but
he was incapable of stooping to an act of
baseness.' He was hated because he was the
chief living illustration of the truth that in
some of the most important affairs of state
the king trusted nobody but his compatriots,
and because so many English politicians had
good reason for knowing that the king's mis-
trust of them was justified. The foreign
policy of William III was his own ; and
while his foremost Dutch friend was its prin-
cipal agent, no Englishman was admitted to
more than a nominal share in its secret
counsels. In requital of the unpopularity to-
which he was exposed, Portland's name will
always be remembered as inseparable from
the history of the most important political
transactions of William Ill's reign.

[Burnet's History of his own Time, vols. ii.—
iv. ; Macaulay's and Kanke's Histories of Eng-
land ; Parliamentary History, vol. v. ; Collins's
Peerage, i. 432-6 ; Lexington Papers ; C. van
Noorclen's Europaische Geschichte im 18. Jahr-
hundert. vol. i.; Droysen's Greschichte der preus-
sischen Politik, vol. iv. part i. ; and especially
Onno Klopp, Der Fall cles Hauses Stuart, vols.
v.-viii., with his references to the despatches of
Count Auersperg and others, and to the Corre-
spondences published by Grimblot and Hippeau.
Macaulay (i. 169) states that many letters written
by William III to Portland are preserved by his
descendants. No notice of these has as yet ap-
peared in the Keports of the Historical Manu-
scripts Commission. The First Eeport, however,
refers to some correspondence in the Earl of
Macclesfiekl's papers between the king and Port-
land, and between the latter and Secretary Vernon,
of the year 1698, and the Third Eeport to some
letters from Portland to Prior, in the correspon-
dence of the latter among the Marquis of Bath's
manuscripts at Longleat.] A. W. W.

BENTINCK, LOED WILLIAM CA-
VENDISH (1774-1839), governor-general
of India, wras the second son of William
Henry, third Duke of Portland [q. v.]. He
was born on 14 Sept. 1774. He entered the
army in 1791 as an ensign in the Coldstream
guards, and having been promoted in the
following year to a captaincy in the 2nd
light dragoons, on 20 March 1794 was ga-
zetted lieutenant-colonel of the 24th light
dragoons. In the same year he served on the
staff of the Duke of York in the Netherlands.
In May 1799 he was attached to the head-
quarters of Marshal Suwarrof s army in the
north of Italy, and remained in that country
throughout the campaign of 1799, and sub-
sequently until 1801 with the Austrian forces,
being present at the battles of the Trebbia,
Novi, Savigliano, and Marengo, the passages
of the Mincio and the Adige, the sieges of

Bentinck

293

Bentinck

Alessandria and Coni, and various other af-
fairs. From 1803 to 1807 Bentinck held the
office of governor of Madras, from which in
the latter year he was recalled by the court
of directors of the East India Company.

When Bentinck took charge of the govern-
ment, only four years had elapsed since, in
consequence of the death of Tippoo and the
downfall of his dynasty, the Madras presi-
dency had received a large accession of ter-
ritory. The question of the system of landed
tenures and of revenue administration which
should be applied to the newly acquired pro-
vinces and to other parts of the Madras pre-
sidency was hotly debated. The supreme
government was strongly in favour of extend-
ing to the whole of Southern India the sys-
tem of large landed proprietors, or zemindars,
which ten years previously had been adopted
by Lord Cornwallis in Bengal. On the other
.side Colonel (afterwards Sir Thomas) Munro
was engaged in establishing the system of
peasant proprietors, commonly known as the
ryotwar system, in the ceded districts, and
his views found an ardent supporter in the
new governor. 'It was apparent to him,'
Bentinck wrote in the third year of his go-
vernment, ' that the creation of zemindars,
where no zemindars before existed, was neither
calculated to improve the condition of the
lower orders of the people, nor politically
wise with reference to the future security of
this government.' At one time he appears
to have contemplated making an extensive
tour through the Madras provinces for the
purpose of investigating the question in per-
son, but this was prevented by the circum-
stances which led to his recall, and he was
obliged to confine himself to assigning the
investigation to Mr. Thackeray, a trusted
assistant of Colonel Munro.

The event which led to liis removal from
the government was the mutiny at Vellore,
when the sepoys of the native regiments quar-
tered at that station rose upon their European
officers and upon the British part of the gar-
rison, killing thirteen officers and a consider-
able number of men. By some this cata-
strophe was attributed to a wide-spread plot
instigated by the family of Tippoo, who were
detained under surveillance in the fort at Vel-
lore, the object of the plot being to restore
Mussulman rule in Mysore and in other parts
of southern India. Others ascribed it to cer-
tain regulations recently introduced by the
commander-in-chief at Madras and sanctioned
by the government, prohibiting the sepoys
from wearing, when in uniform, the distinc-
tive marks of their caste, and from wearing
beards, and prescribing a head-dress which
supposed by the sepoys to have been or-

dered with the intention of compelling them
to become Christians. The latter was the view
taken by the court of directors, who recalled
Bentinck and also the commander-in-chief,
Sir John Cradock.

The recall was a severe blow to Bentinck,
who complained bitterly of the want of con-
sideration with which he had been treated,
the orders of the court having been issued
without awaiting the explanations of the
functionaries whose conduct was impugned.
Another point urged in his defence was that
the innovations which were supposed to have
aroused the suspicions of the sepoys had been
introduced by the commander-in-chief into a
compilation of military regulations, which
the latter had obtained permission to codify,
and had not been brought specially to the
notice of the governor or of the members of
council. On the other hand it is to be said
that the outbreak at Vellore had been pre-
ceded by remonstrances on the part of the
native troops, which ought to have received
greater attention from the government. The
massacre at Vellore took place on 24 July
1806. Early in the previous May the sepoys
of one of the regiments at that place had re-
monstrated against the form of the new tur-
ban, and their remonstrance having been
rejected by the commanding officer, some of
the men had been tried and in two cases
had received nine hundred lashes. This inci-
dent had been brought to the notice of the
governor, who supported the commander-
in-chief, and proclaimed his determination
to enforce the obnoxious order. It is difficult,
therefore, to resist the conclusion that a full
share of responsibility for the action of
the commander-in-chief devolved upon the
governor.

Bentinck, on his return to England early
in 1808, addressed to the court of directors a
memorial in which he demanded reparation
for the harshness with which he considered
himself to have been treated : but the court
declined to rescind or modify their decision,
while recognising l the uprightness, disinte-
restedness, zeal, and respect for the system of
the company' with which Bentinck had acted
in the government.

During his absence in India Bentinck had
been promoted to the rank of major-general,
and in August 1808 he was appointed to
the staff of the army under Sir Harry Bur-
rard in Portugal. He was subsequently sent
on a mission to the supreme junta in Spain, in
which capacity he was for some time engaged
in endeavouring to evoke more vigorous
action on the part of the junta, and in corre-
sponding on the subject with his own govern-
ment and with Sir John Moore. On the

Bentinck

294

Bentinck

arrival of Mr. Frere he joined Sir John Moore,
and having commanded a brigade at the
battle of Corunna he was favourably noticed
in the despatch of Sir John Hope, who had
succeeded to the command on the death of
Moore. Bentinck was next appointed, with
the rank of lieutenant-general, to command
a division in Sir Arthur Wellesley's army ;
but he appears shortly afterwards to have
been sent to Germany to make arrangements
for raising a German contingent, which was j
subsequently employed under his command !
in Sicily and on the east coast of Spain. In j
1811 he went as envoy to the court of Sicily j
and as commander-in-chief of the British i
forces in that island. During the greater
part of the three following years he remained
in Sicily, nominally as envoy, but practically
as governor of the island, into which he in-
troduced constitutional government, based
in some measure upon the pattern of the
British constitution. A German writer (HEL-
FERT, Queen Caroline}, describing Bentinck's
government of Sicily, characterises him as a
man of a violent and haughty nature, im-
bued with English prejudices, and regarding
the English constitution as the salvation of
the human race. Bentinck's great difficulty
during this period was the hostility of the
queen, who resented his influence and disliked
his policy. In 1813 Bentinck proceeded to
the east* coast of Spain in command of a
mixed force of British, German, and Cala-
brian troops. Bentinck's diversion had the
effect of detaining the French marshal, Suchet,
in Catalonia, but the campaign does not ap-
pear to have added to Bentinck's military
reputation. On 12 Sept., at the pass of
Ordal, he was defeated by the French mar-
shal and forced to retreat. His strategy on
this occasion was much called in question ;
but Napier, while attributing to him some
errors, including a delay in reinforcing his
brigadier-general, Adam [see ADAM, SIR
FREDERICK], pronounces the position which
Bentinck took up to have been very good,
and lays the greater share of the responsi-
bility for the defeat upon Adam's faulty
arrangements. On 22 Sept. Bentinck, with
the sanction of Lord Wellington, re-em-
barked with the troops under his command
for Sicily, influenced, it would seem, partly
by apprehensions of an invasion of that
island by Murat, and partly by some expec-
tation of concluding a treaty with the latter,
who at that time was coquetting with the
allies, but whom Bentinck to the last re-
garded with distrust. It is tolerably clear
that Wellington did not entertain a high
opinion of Bentinck's judgment. In Napier's
history there is a short correspondence re-

garding the apprehended invasion of Sicily r
which ends with the following laconic letter
from Wellington to Bentinck : ' Huarte, 1 July
1813: My lord, — In answer to your lord-
ship's despatch, I have to observe that I con-
ceive that the island of Sicily is at present
in no danger whatever ' (History of the
Peninsular War, v. 435, edition of 1860). In
1814 Bentinck commanded a successful ex-
pedition against Genoa, where he issued two-
proclamations, which, anticipating by nearly
half a century the establishment of Italian
unity, caused some embarrassment to his go-
vernment. He afterwards returned to Pa-
lermo, and finally quitted Sicily on 14 July of
that year. At the close of the war he remained
for some time at Rome, and during the follow-
ing thirteen years was unemployed.

In July 1827 Bentinck was appointed go-
vernor-general of Bengal, but did not take-
his seat till July 1828. Although India at
that time was at peace, its finances were
embarrassed by the prolonged war in Burma
and by the siege of Bhartpur, both of which
had taken place during Lord Amherst's go-
vernment. There had been a series of heavy
financial deficits, extending to the year in
which Bentinck took charge of the govern-
ment, when the expenditure still exceeded
the income by more than a million. Ben-
tinck's first duty was to devise means of
reducing the expenses in every branch of the
administration which was susceptible of re-
duction, and although in carrying out this
duty he was merely obeying the repeated
orders of the court of directors, the result for
a time was much personal unpopularity. He
appointed commissions to investigate the ex-
penditure, both civil and military. He threw
open to natives posts hitherto filled by Eng-
lishmen at a larger cost, and he gave effect
to orders of the court, which had been twice-
reiterated, for the reduction of an allowance-
which, under the name of i batta,' had for
many years been given to the European offi-
cers of the army in addition to their pay*
The result of Bentinck's financial measures
was that the deficit which he found on his-
arrival was converted into a surplus, amount-
ing at the time of his retirement from the-
government to two millions a year.

Financial reductions were not, however, the
most important reforms which distinguished
Bentinck's administration as governor-gene-
ral. In the north-western provinces the settle-
ment of the land revenue still remained upon a
very unsatisfactory footing. Bentinck, after
carefully investigating the question in con-
sultation with the principal officers of the-
provinces concerned, set on foot a settlement
which, carried on under the direction of Mr,

Bentinck

295

Bentinck

Robert Merttins Bird, one of the ablest offi-
cers in the Indian service, and brought to a
completion in nine years, was an enormous
improvement on the previous state of things.
It limited the public demand upon the land
to a fixed sum for a period of thirty years,
and provided a complete record of individual
rights. Bentinck also established a separate
board of revenue for the north-western pro-
vinces at Allahabad. In the judicial depart-
ment the provincial courts of appeal and
circuit, which had become proverbial for the
dilatoriness and uncertainty of their deci-
sions, were abolished, and there was substi-
tuted for them a civil and sessions judge in
each district, the whole of the original civil
business being transferred to native judicial
officers. The north-western provinces were
at the same time provided with a separate
sudder, or chief court of appeal. An inquiry
into the working of the inland transit duties,
instituted under Bentinck's orders, resulted
in the abolition of those duties after his de-
parture from India.

The education of the natives also engaged
Bentinck's attention. Here, acting upon the
advice of Macaulay, who joined his council
in the last year of his government, he issued
a resolution which may be regarded as the
first decisive step taken by the government
of India towards raising up a class of natives
educated in western literature and science.
It prescribed that, without peremptorily
abolishing the institutions for promoting
oriental learning, all other available funds
should be employed in imparting a knowledge
of English literature and science through
the medium of the English language. A
closely allied question was that of the em-
ployment of natives of India in the public
service. Bentinck was the first governor-
general who seriously dealt with this ques-
tion. He treated it in a liberal and com-
prehensive spirit, and by his measures for
the employment of natives upon duties and
in positions not previously entrusted to them,
he greatly raised the status of the native
official hierarchy throughout Bengal. Nor
was he less zealous in promoting the settle-
ment of unofficial Europeans in India, and
the application of European capital to the
development of the resources of the country.
The employment of steam communication
between England and India, and also on the
Ganges and other Indian rivers, was another
object which received his cordial support.

Bentinck's views in regard to the Indian
press Would seem either to have been mis-
understood, or to have varied at different
periods. The common impression is that, al-
though he left it to his successor, Sir Charles

Metcalfe, to pass the law which formally
conferred freedom upon the Indian press, he
fully shared the opinions upon which that
measure was founded, and it is certainly
true that during Bentinck's government there
was no sort of interference in Bengal with
the liberty of the press ; but it is neverthe-
less the fact that in one of his latest minutes,
written on 13 March 1835, when he was on
the point of leaving India, he described
the spread of knowledge and the operations
of the press as among the dangers which
threatened British rule in India. In the same
minute, he put on record for (apparently)
the first time the opinion that the advance
of Russia in the direction of India was the
greatest danger to which India was exposed,
I and he advocated various charges in the mili-
tary organisation, some of which ran very
much upon the lines of those introduced
after the mutiny of 1857. The measure
most constantly associated with Bentinck's
tenure of the governor-generalship is the
abolition of suttee, or widow-burning, which
by a regulation passed on 4 Dec. 1829 was de-
clared to be punishable as culpable homicide.
In arriving at this decision Bentinck was
supported by a strong body of official opinion ;
but after what had passed in his own case at
Madras, it was by no means a light respon-
sibility that he incurred in resolving upon a
measure of this nature which none of his pre-
decessors had ventured to carry into effect
The suppression of the Thugs, an alteration of
the law of inheritance securing to converts
from Hinduism and Muhammadanism their
rights of property, and the admission of na-
tive Christians to employment in the public
service, were all measures of Bentinck's ad-
ministration.

The political management of the native
feudatory states under Bentinck's govern-
ment was not satisfactory ; but for this he
can hardly be held responsible, inasmuch as
a policy of strict non-intervention in the in-
ternal affairs of those states was strongly
inculcated by the home authorities. He,
however, assumed the administration of My-
sore, which, owing to the misrule and oppres-
sion of the raja, was verging on a condition
of anarchy ; and in the case of Oudh he inti-
mated that unless matters considerably im-
proved, the administration of the country
would be taken over by the company's govern-
ment. The only diplomatic measures in which
he was engaged in relation to foreign states,
were a treaty of alliance with Ranjit Singh,
the ruler of the Panjab, and a treaty of com-
merce with the Amirs of Sindh. The nego-
tiation with Ranjit Singh was the occasion
of an imposing ceremonial, when the maha-

Bentinck

296

Bentinck

raja and the governor-general met at Rupar
on the banks of the Satlej.

Bentinck was still governor-general when
the East India Company's Charter Act of
1833 was passed, whereby he became the
first ' governor-general of India ; ' he and his
predecessors having been ' governors-general
of Bengal,' although vested with control in
certain matters over the minor presidencies
of Madras and Bombay. During the latter
part of his government Bentinck's health be-
came seriously impaired, and he was spend-
ing the hot season on the Nijgiris, the moun-
tain sanatorium of the Madras presidency,
when the change in the constitution of the
supreme government took effect in India.
He was there joined by Macaulay, the new
law member of council, with whom he
speedily contracted a warm friendship. He
resigned the government and embarked for
England on 20 March 1835, much regretted
both by Europeans and natives, with the
former of whom his early unpopularity had
yielded to a sense of his singleness of pur-
pose, and of his earnestness and capacity as an
administrator. After his departure a statue
in his honour was erected at Calcutta bear-
ing this inscription from the pen of Macau-
lay : ' To William Cavendish Bentinck, who
during seven years ruled India with eminent
prudence, integrity, and benevolence ; who,
placed at the head of a great empire, never
laid aside the simplicity and moderation of
a private citizen ; who infused into oriental
despotism the spirit of British freedom; who
never forgot that the end of government is
the happiness of the governed ; who abolished
cruel rites ; who effaced humiliating dis-
tinctions ; who gave liberty to the expres-
sion of public opinion ; whose constant study
it was to elevate the intellectual and moral
character of the nations committed to his
charge, this monument was erected by men
•who, differing in race, in manners, in lan-
guage, and in religion, cherish, with equal
veneration and gratitude, the memory of his
wise, upright, and paternal administration.'
Whatever may be thought of the foregoing
eulogium, there can be no question that Ben-
tinck's Indian administration must be re-
garded as a marked era in the history of
Indian progress. He was the first British
statesman entrusted with the government of
India who declared and acted upon the policy
of governing India in the interests of the
people of that country. Of his numerous re-
forms some have been improved upon by his
successors, but none have been abandoned.
Two great qualities, perfect indifference to
popular applause and high moral courage, he
possessed in an eminent degree. Singularly

simple and unostentatious in his habits, ir-
reproachable in his private life, he and Lady
William Bentinck set an example which,
coming from persons placed in the high sta-
tion which they filled in India, could not
fail to inspire respect. It has been said that
Bentinck too often exhibited mistrust of
those who served under him, and that at
times, in pressing forward his measures, he
was unduly regardless of the interests of in-
dividuals. Of the first of these failings there
are some indications in the letters of Lord
Metcalfe, written when the two men first
came into official relations ; but it is evident
that in this case the mistrust on the part of
Bentinck, to whatever extent it may have
existed, speedily disappeared, for nothing
could have been more cordial than his sub-
sequent friendship for Metcalfe, with re-
ference to whom he used the memorable
expression that 'he never cavilled upon a
trifle, and never yielded to me on a point of
importance ' (Life of Lord Metcalfe, ii. 233,
edition of 1858). By the three most eminent
historians of British India Bentinck's govern-
ment is characterised in terms of high praise.
James Mill, writing to a friend shortly after
Bentinck's return from India, describes him
as l a man worth making much of, I assure
you. When I consider what he is, and what
he has done in a most important and difficult
situation, I know not where to look for his
like.' Horace Hayman Wilson, who had
been Bentinck's most formidable opponent
in India on the question of the abolition of
suttee, in his continuation of Mill's history,
after reciting Bentinck's principal measures,
affirms that l a dispassionate retrospect of
the results of his government will assign to
Lord William Bentinck an honourable place
among the statesmen who have been en-
trusted with the delegated sovereignty over
the British empire in the east.' And Marsh-
man says of Bentinck's administration that
' it marks the most memorable period of im-
provement between the days of Lord Corn-
wallis and Lord Dalhousie, and forms a
salient point in the history of Indian reform/

Bentinck survived his retirement from the
government of India little more than four
years, dying at Paris on 17 June 1839. He
was elected member for Glasgow in the liberal
interest, at the general election of 1837, and
retained the seat until a few days before his
death. He had previously been offered, but
had declined, a peerage. He was married in
1803 to Lady Mary Acheson, second daughter
of Arthur, first earl of Gosford, who survived
him. He had no issue.

[Annual Kegister, 1839 ; Conolly's Biographi-
cal Dictionary of Eminent Men of Fife, Edin-

Bentinck

297

Bentinck

burgh, 1866 ; London Gazettes Extraordinary of
10 and "21 July, 9 Sept., 19 Oct., 29 Nov., and
14 Dec. 1799, 1st Feb. 1800, and 29 Jan. 1809 ;
Pifth Eeport of the Select Committee on the Af-
fairs of the East India Company, London, 1812;
Helfert's Konigin Karolina von Neapel und Sici-
lien, 1878 ; Blaquiere's Letters from the Medi-
terranean, 1813 ; Alison's History of Europe, 7th
edit, xviii. 285-6 ; Bain's Life of James Mill,
1882 ; Wilson's continuation of Mill's History of
British India, vol. Hi., edition of 1858 ; Marsh-
man's History of India, vol. iii., 1867; Calcutta
Review, vol. i. The India Office Records contain
numerous minutes written by Bentinck, of which
jperhaps the most important are the minute pro-
posing the abolition of suttee, dated 8 Nov. 1829,
and that on the dangers to the Indian Empire,
dated 13 March 1835, recorded only a week be-
fore Bentinck finally left India. It should be
mentioned that a collection of Bentinck's papers
is understood to have been arranged by Lady
William Bentinck after her husband's death, with
.a view to the publication of a biography ; but the
intention has not been carried out, and the col-
lection has apparently disappeared.] A. J. A.

BENTINCK, WILLIAM GEORGE
FREDERIC CAVENDISH, commonly
called LOKD GEOKGE BENTINCK (1802-1848),
fifth child and second surviving son of the
fourth duke of Portland, by Henrietta,
daughter of Major-general Scott, of Bal-
comie, co. Fife, was born at Welbeck Abbey
on 27 Feb. Although it has been frequently
Asserted that he was sent to Eton and Christ
Church, Oxford (Encycl. Brit. 8th and 9th
editions), his name does not appear in the
lists of either the college or the house. He
-seems to have been educated at home, and to
have entered the 10th hussars as cornet as
early as 1819. Although he was a younger
.son, the great wealth of the house of Ben-
tinck, augmented as it was by the marriage
of his father, made him a rich man. His
mother's sister was the wife of Mr. Canning ;
-and when, in 1822, that statesman accepted
the office of governor-general of Bengal, Lord
George Bentinck exchanged into the 41st
regiment, intending to accompany him as his
military secretary. The sudden death of Lord
Londonderry, however, gave Mr. Canning the
post of foreign secretary and leader of the
House of Commons. For three years Lord
George Bentinck was the private secretary
of his uncle, and a strong attachment existed
between them. During this period he seems
to have been on half-pay. Tall and well-
made, both in face and figure a model of
manly beauty, quick of eye and of action,
he was distinguished by his skill in every
kind of sport. It was said of him that ' he
had the best of every game he played, and
yet he played it fairly.' A bold rider, and

shooting in true sportsmanlike fashion with
his dogs, he loved to hunt, and not merely to
gallop, and to shoot for sport rather than for
a bag. He was also good as a cricketer and
as an oarsman. It was, however, on the turf
that he chiefly excelled. Inheriting a taste
for racing, he inherited with that taste a fine
sense of honour which made his patronage
of the sport a benefit to racing society. He
rode his first public match at Goodwood in
1824, winning it on Mr. Pointz's Olive after
two dead heats and a severe struggle in the
deciding heat. After this he occasionally
appeared * in silk' up to 1845. After some
three years' work for Mr. Canning he again
joined the army. As he chanced, in 1825, to
ride off Newmarket Heath with the Duke of
York, the duke, who keenly loved racing,
offered him an unattached majority which
happened to be vacant. Lord George ac-
cepted the offer, and joined the 2nd life
guards. In 1826 he was returned as M.P.
for the borough of King's Lynn, and repre-
sented that constituency until his death.
He soon withdrew from any active pursuit
of his profession, though his name remained
in the army list for some years. He now
gave himself up to racing, and pursued the
fortunes of the turf ' on a scale that perhaps
has never been equalled' (DiSKAELi). He
was well fitted for the pursuit. 'I don't
pretend to know much,' he once said, ( but I
can judge of men and horses.' Beginning
with a small and well-selected stud, he gra-
dually increased the number of his ' string '
until in 1844 he had no less than forty horses
running in public, and about a hundred
altogether. Although never fortunate enough
to win the Derby, he is said to have made
considerable profits on the turf. He betted
heavily and with good judgment. His trainer
was old John Day, and young John, his
trainer's son, rode for him. He gained a great
success when, in 1836, his nomination, Lord
Lichfield's Elis, won the Leger. The next
year he won the Thousand Guineas with
Chapeau d'Espagne, and in 1838 the Two
Thousand with Grey Momus. His most re-
markable successes were gained for him by
his famous mare Crucifix (by Priam), who,
in 1840, won the Oaks, the Thousand, and
the Two Thousand Guineas. In 1842 he
again won the Thousand Guineas with Fire-
brand. More important than these successes
are the reforms worked by Lord George
Bentinck in the practices of the turf. Among
other improvements in management he in-
troduced the method of 'vanning' racers. He
insisted that all stewards, trainers, and jockeys
should be strictly punctual ; he heralded by
numbers the names of the ' field ' about to

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298

Bentinck

start for each race, and introduced the custom |
of saddling and parading horses before the [
stands. The Goodwood meeting, at which,
in 1825, the whole amount of public money
was only 300/., was raised to its present im-
portance chiefly by his exertions. He dealt
sternly with every man whom he believed to
be dishonest, and insisted on the rigid exclu-
sion of every defaulter. One such man who
owed him a bet of 4,000/. tried to tempt him
to pass over his defalcations by offering him
half the money. Lord George indignantly
refused the offer, and declared the man ex-
cluded until he should pay all his debts in
full. He was peremptory both in his words
and actions. At one Newmarket Craven
meeting the famous ' Squire ' Osbaldeston
claimed a bet from him. l Lord George,' he
said, ' I want 400/. I won of you at Heaton
Park.' ' You want 400/. you swindled me
of at Heaton Park,' Lord George answered.
A duel followed. Lord George fired first
and missed. Perfectly unmoved he called
out, * Now, Squire, it's two to one in your
favour.' ' Why, then, the bet's off,' Osbal-
deston answered, and fired in the air. In
1842 he sued one Connop for 150/. Both
parties in this often-quoted case (Bentinck v.
Connop, 5 Q.B. 693) were engaged in a race
in which the stakes were made up by pay-
ments of 50/. for each horse entered. Connop
entered three horses, and, when Lord George
as winner claimed the stakes, refused to pay
under the plea that, by an act of 16 Car. II,
it was provided that no stakes should exceed
100/. The case was heard by Lord Denman,
C.J., who decided that it came within the
meaning of the act. As the chief man on
the turf, Lord George was much harassed
by threats of legal proceedings, called qui
tarn actions, which, by an interpretation of
9 Anne, c. 14, were held to apply to bets on
horse-races. As the informer received a large
reward on conviction, these actions were
looked on as an easy means of gaining money. (
By a return made by order of parliament it j
was found that no fewer than thirty-four
writs had been issued against Lord George
Bentinck between 1 July and 31 Dec. 1843,
at the instance of one attorney named Russell.
In order to put an end to this disgraceful trade,
parliament, after some discussion in which
Lord George Bentinck took part, passed the
Gaming Acts Suspension Continuation Bill.
As, however, this bill had no retrospective
force, an action. Russell and others v. Lord
G. Bentinck, came on for trial, and was heard
at Guildford before Baron Parke and a jury.
By this action 12,OOOZ. was claimed of Lord |
George. Of this sum 3,000/. was a bet won I
by him of John Day, which formed the I

ground of the action, the remainder being-
the penalty consisting of three times the
amount betted. Baron. Parke considered
that the action could scarcely lie in the face
of the recent act to stay proceedings. Lord
George, however, waived that question, as-
he was anxious for the sake of others to have
the case decided on its merits, and his success
in this trial put an end to actions of a like
nature. In 1844 he took an active part in
detecting a daring attempt at imposition*
On 22 May the Derby was won by a horse
called Running Rein, which was said to be
over age, and the stakes were accordingly
claimed by General Peel, whose horse Orlanda
came in second. Lord George did good ser-
vice to public morality by the skill and
energy he devoted to discovering the truth
in this difficult case. The trial took place
on 1 July before Baron Alderson and a
special jury, and, chiefly owing to the exer-
tions of Lord George, the solicitor-general
was able to prove that the horse was not
Running Rein, but a four-year-old horse
originally called Maccabeus (by Gladiator),,
and entered for certain stakes under that
name. In recognition of the part Lord George
had taken in this case, and of the good work
he had done in raising the tone of the racing-
community, it was proposed on the night
after the trial to present him with a testi-
monial, and 2,100/. was subscribed for that
purpose. At his request this sum was made
the nucleus of the Bentinck Benevolent and
Provident Fund for trainers and jockeys.
During these years Lord George was not a
regular attendant of the house, though he
might be counted on for a party division.
He loved hunting, and sometimes came to>
the house straight from a run, with his scarlet
coat not wholly hidden by a white overcoat,,
the last to appear in parliament in 'pink/
In his class feelings, his jealousy of court
influence, his love of religious liberty, and
his confidence in the people, he was, as be-
came his birth, a whig of the Revolution
era (DisEAELi, p. 40). His admiration for
Canning exercised considerable influence on
his political career. When, in 1828, Mr.
Huskisson and the other Canningites left the
administration of the Duke of Wellington,,
Lord George ceased to support the govern-
ment. He voted for the Catholic Emancipa-
tion Bill, the cause for which Canning had
manfully contended. On the accession of
Lord Grey's ministry he refused to accept
office, and gave the government an inde-
pendent support . Upholding the general
principle of the Reform Bill, he nevertheless-
opposed some of its details. He voted against
the metropolitan members' clause, and joined

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the anti-reformers in carrying the amendment
of the Marquis of Chandos giving an occu-
pation franchise to farmers renting at not
less than 50/. a year. He also refused to
vote forLordEbrington's resolution in 1832.
When, in 1834, Mr. Stanley (Lord Derby)
and others seceded from the ministry on the
question of the appropriation of the funds
of the church in Ireland to secular purposes,
Lord George, who had a strong personal as
well as political attachment to Mr. Stanley,
ceased to support the whigs, and soon became
a member of the conservative opposition.
On the overthrow of the Melbourne adminis-
tration in 1841, he was again offered an ad-
ministrative post, and, in order to make the
offer especially acceptable, Sir R. Peel caused
it to be conveyed to him through his friend
Lord Stanley. Lord George, however, de-
clined the offer, because he was unwilling to
spare the time he devoted to the turf. Up
to the end of the session of 1845 he warmly
upheld the ministry of Sir R. Peel.

In the last weeks of 1845 Lord George
Bentinck entered on a new life. The pro-
posal of Sir R. Peel to meet the failure of
the potato crop in Ireland, and the danger
of an insufficient supply of corn in this
country, by an order in council suspending
the restrictions placed upon the importation
of corn, and the avowal of his opinion that
after such a suspension it would be inexpe-
dient to re-enact the existing laws, the seces-
sion of Lord Stanley from the cabinet, and
the ministerial crisis which followed Lord
J. Russell's Edinburgh letter, deeply moved
him. Believing that Sir R. Peel was basely
betraying the confidence placed in him, Lord
George resolved to make a fight for the main-
tenance of protective duties. His indigna-
tion at finding his party betrayed, as he
thought, by the leader he once used to
follow, had at least as much effect in first
rousing him to active opposition as any well-
founded political convictions. As he walked
from the house one night in company with
a member of the league, his companion said
that he wondered that he was afraid of the
consequences of free trade. ' Well/ he re-
turned, ' I keep horses in three counties, and
they tell me that I shall save 1,500/. a year by
free trade. I don't care for that. What I
cannot bear is being sold' (MORLEY'S Life
of Cobden, i. 358). The answer exhibits
somewhat of the same spirit that led him to
sue Connop. Unskilled as he was in party
tactics, he had an able adviser in Mr. Disraeli ;
and though there was little likeness between
the characters of .Lord George and of his ally
and future panegyrist, each supplied the other
with what he lacked, and the connection

between them was not without its influence
on the career of the more famous statesman.
If Lord George took up the cause of pro-
; tection lightly, he did so honestly, believing-
I that the ministerial policy would injure the
[ country. He worked diligently at the ma-
, terials for his case, applying to economic
statistics those mental powers which had
done him good service in the calculations of
the turf. Early in the next year he took an
active share in organising the protectionists
| as a third political party. For a while it was
| a party without a head. Lord George had
j no desire to accept the leadership. ' I think,'
he said, l we have had enough of leaders ; it
is not my way ; I shall remain the last of
the rank and file.' So far was he from wishing
to put himself forward, that he tried to pre-
vail on a barrister to become a member of
the house in order to speak for him, using
the materials he had put together. It was
advisable for party purposes to prolong the
debate on the order, read 9 Feb., for going into
committee on the corn laws, and on 27 Feb.
Lord George for the first time addressed the
house in a great debate. Although before
this he had taken little part in public busi-
ness, his personal qualities, his family, and,
not least, his preeminence in sport, gave him
considerable influence in the house. His early
manner of speaking was unattractive, his voice
was forced, his action was overdone, and his
sentences were often repeated ; and, though
he succeeded to some extent in improving
his style, he did not become a first-rate
speaker. If, however, his speeches some-
times sounded ill, they were excellent when
read. Full of figures and calculations, given
out, as we are assured by his biographer Lord
Beaconsfield, without the help of notes, his
arguments needed to be read rather than to
be heard, and therefore appealed to the
country rather than to the house. He was
strong in adverse criticism, in the power of
making 'damaging speeches.' In this his
first great speech, he astonished the house
by a calculation of the extent to which the
agricultural productions of the country might
be increased. He also reproached Sir R.
Peel with the presence of Prince Albert
in the house on the first night of the dis-
cussion. It was no small encouragement to
him to find on the close of the debate that as
many as 242 out of 581 voted with him —
' proud,' as he said, ' in the chastity of their
honour.' By every means in their power
Lord George and the protectionists delayed
the further progress of the bill. The dis-
turbed state of Ireland seemed to promise
the success of their policy of obstruction, as
it necessitated the introduction of a Coercion

Bentinck

300

Bentinck

Bill. Lord George saw the advantage to be
gained from this measure. If the ministers
pressed their Coercion Bill, they would be
forced to relax their efforts to pass the Corn
Bill. If, on the other hand, they made the
free-trade question of the first importance,
then, he argued, they would show that they
believed that Irish affairs were not urgent,
and would declare by their own conduct that
their Coercion Bill was needless. On behalf of
his party he agreed with the secretary of the
treasury that he would support the new bill
on the understanding that the repeal of the
corn laws should be put off until after Easter.
Sir R. Peel disavowed this compact, and re- i
fused to give up the attempt to advance both
bills before the holidays. Lord George pro-
tested against the connection established by
the government between the question of the j
corn laws and the Irish outrages, and, as he
opposed the Corn Bill and the Irish members |
the Coercion Bill, business was for some time j
brought to what Sir Robert called ' a dead
lock.' On 1 May, however, the first reading
of the Coercion Bill passed, Lord George '
and a large number of protectionists voting
for it. During the Easter recess Lord George
accepted the leadership of the protectionist i
party on condition that he should relinquish
it whenever he discovered a better man for
the post, and that he should be free to act
as he thought right on religious questions.
When parliament reassembled, Sir R. Peel
devoted all his strength to pressing on the
repeal of the corn laws. Lord George, how- [
«ver, was still able to delay for a while the j
final decision of the commons. Warning the !
house on 4 May against believing that Eng-
lish free trade would be met by reciprocity,
and quoting the opinion of M. Guizot against
our new policy, he declared that there was
at that time no potato famine in Ireland,
and that no reason existed for doing away
with protective duties. The next night he
moved the omission of the word ' oats ' from
the bill, on the ground that 558,000 Irish
occupiers were engaged in growing oats, and
that the removal of protective duty from
that species of grain would ' undo the work
of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Burke,' that it would
be ' to cast off Ireland and practically pre-
clude her from our markets.' The third read-
ing of the bill was carried on 15 May. Even
before that day Lord George made a fresh
attack on the government on the subject of
the effect of the new commercial policy on
our relations with Canada, laying down the
axioms that excise duties should be remitted
before customs, and that our commercial
^policy should be regulated by reciprocity.
The position of Sir R. Peel was weakened

by repeated attacks, and, though their defeat
was complete, the protectionists hoped for
vengeance. Any schemes for a new cabinet
on a broad basis were rendered futile by the
refusal of Lord J. Russell to retreat from the
Edinburgh letter, and of Lord George Ben-
tinck to enter a government pledged to free
trade in corn. Nor was it easy to find a
common basis for attack. At last Lord
George decided on joining the whigs in op-
posing the second reading of the Coercion
Bill. On the motion, made on 8 June, that
the bill be read a second time, he explained
his opposition by declaring that if the go-
vernment had thought the bill really neces-
sary, they would not have postponed the
second reading, and compared their slack-
ness in this matter with the earnestness with
which they had pressed on the Corn Bill.
From this defence of the change in his own
conduct he passed to a violent attack on Sir
Robert Peel. He tauntedjiim with being
1 a minister on sufferance, supported by none
but his forty paid janissaries and seventy other
renegades.' And then, probably inspired by
those near both to himself and to Mr. Canning,
he accused Sir Robert of having ' chased and
hunted his illustrious relative to death,' be-
cause he had, in 1827, refused to join Mr.
Canning's cabinet on the ground of the part
it would take in the catholic question, al-
though in 1829 he declared in a letter to
Lord Liverpool that he had changed his mind
on the question as early as 1825. On the
19th Sir Robert was able triumphantly to
rebut this charge, which was founded on an
incorrect report of one of his speeches. N ever-
theless the coalition was triumphant, and the
ministry was defeated.

The new minister, Lord J. Russell, lost no
time in bringing forward a proposal to do
away with the protective duty on sugar. On
27 July Lord George met this proposal by
an amendment condemning the proposed re-
duction as impolitic and calculated to check
the advance of the production of sugar by
British free labour in favour of foreign slave-
grown sugar. This amendment was lost by
130 votes. For the second time in this session
Lord George, without having previously as-
certained the rights of the case, indulged in
a personal attack, charging Lord Chancellor
Lyndhurst with an abuse of patronage in an
appointment fully justified by the circum-
stances attending it. During the recess he
attended various protectionist banquets at
King's Lynn, in North Warwickshire, and in
Leicestershire, and took some much-needed
rest at Welbeck. At this time, determined
to let nothing come between him and the
public service, Lord George sold the whole

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301

Bentinck

of his magnificent stud for, it is said, 10,000/.,
at the very time when his chances of success
on the turf both appeared to be, and, as it
turned out, really were, brighter than they
had ever been before. In February 1847
Lord George Bentinck, disapproving of the
policy pursued by government with respect
to the Irish famine, proposed a scheme for
lending 16.000,0007. for the construction of
Irish railways at 3£ per cent., every 100/.
satisfactorily expended being met by 200/.
from government, the whole loan with in-
terest being repaid at the end of thirty-seven
years after the opening of each new line.
Calculating that this scheme would lead to
the construction of 1,500 miles of railways,
he held forth the prospect of employing
110,000 labourers on really productive works,
and thus supplying 550,000 persons with
bread. The ministry threatened to resign if
the house accepted this scheme, and Lord
George, speaking for his party, declared that
'his friends were not appalled at the prospect/
Although his proposal was received with some
favour, various circumstances, and especially
a heavy fall in the price of consols, led to its
rejection by 332 to 118. Considering the
nature of the country, it is probable that
Lord George overestimated the number of
labourers required for the work. Even if his
estimate was correct, his scheme would have
been inadequate to meet the prevailing dis-
tress, while, at the same time, the works
proposed were thought to be larger than the
country needed, and the employment of public
money on so vast a scale would have checked
private enterprise and have lowered the public
credit. Shortly afterwards, however, the
government adopted the principle advocated
by Lord George Bentinck, of lending money
on interest to be employed in reproductive
works in Ireland. The condition of public
credit, which had much to do with the re-
jection of Lord George's bill, led him in the
course of this session to attack the Bank Act
of 1844, and the monetary panic of October
having caused the suspension of the Act, he
renewed his criticisms of it in the short
autumn session held to approve the suspension.
He was, however, prevented by illness from
pursuing the subject. In spite of the zeal
and ability with which Lord George upheld
the cause of protection, his unswerving ad-
herence to the principles of religious liberty
prevented the existence of perfect accord
between him and the party he led. He oc-
casioned some offence by expressing in an
address to his constituents his opinion that
the catholic priesthood of Ireland should be
endowed out of the land ; and the divergency
between him and his party culminated when

he spoke and voted in favour of the resolu-
I tion carried by Lord J. Russell on 17 Dec.
I for the admission of Jews into parliament.
I Owing to these differences he announced, by
| a letter written to Mr. Banks, 23 Dec. 1847,
his resignation of the protectionist leader-
ship. It was not without reason that he said
to Mr. Disraeli that he had ' shaken his con-
stitution in the cause.' The violent change
in his mode of life and his intense application
to business injured his health. He also tried
his constitution by long periods of abstinence
from food, taking little breakfast and for
some time not eating again until the house
j broke up, often at an hour past midnight.

Although Lord George Bentinck resigned
I the leadership of the protectionist party, he
; nevertheless remained the foremost upholder
i of the cause of protection, and on 3 Feb.
moved for and obtained a committee to in-
quire into the interests of the sugar and
coffee planters. As chairman of this famous
committee he advocated the maintenance of
a protective duty on foreign sugar, and was
deeply mortified at the rejection of his reso-
lutions. On 24 May, a few days after his
defeat in committee, Lord Clifden's Surplice,
| bred out of Lord George's favourite mare
Crucifix, and sold by him with the rest of
his stud, won the Derby. ' All my life,' he
said next day to Mr. Disraeli, ' have I been
trying for this, and for what have I sacrificed
it ? ' His friend in vain tried to comfort him.
' You do not know what the Derby is,' he
answered. The final resolutions of the com-
mittee, however, were satisfactory to him ;
and Lord J. Russell, though he did not follow
the recommendations of the report, brought
in a scheme for reducing the duty on colonial
sugar, and for protecting British-grown sugar
by a differential duty for a certain number
of years. During the debate on this pro-
position Lord George charged the colonial
office with suppressing a despatch from the
governor of Jamaica with reference to the
real state of that colony. Lord J. Russell,
replying to this charge on 23 June, said that
'these mean frauds, these extremely dis-
honourable tricks, which the noble lord im-
putes to them, are not the faults and cha-
racteristics of men high in public office in
this country. They are the characteristics
of men who are engaged in pursuits which
the noble lord long followed.' This remark
having called forth loud expressions of dis-
approbation, he went on to speak of 'the
quickness of apprehension ' exhibited by Lord
George in detecting the Running Rein fraud.
Mr. Disraeli expressed the feeling of the
house in his reply to these remarks, stating
that Lord George had brought 'the same high

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spirit that will not be bullied eitlier in the
ring or in the House of Commons, the same
acuteness, the same vigilance, into the in-
vestigation of the manner in which our
colonial affairs are carried on.' During the
whole session Lord George vigorously up-
held what he believed to be advantageous
to the colonial and commercial interests of
the country, and took an active part in the
resistance which compelled the government
to abandon their contemplated repeal of the
navigation laws. He went down to Welbeck
on 11 Sept., and on the 13th was much de-
lighted at seeing Surplice win the Leger.
On the afternoon of the 21st he set out from
Welbeck to walk to Thoresby, the seat of
Lord Manvers, a distance of some six miles.
He did not arrive at Thoresby, and on search
being made for him his body was found lying
lifeless about a mile from Welbeck Abbey.
His death was pronounced to have been
caused by a sudden attack of spasm of the
heart. He was buried without state in the
old parish church of Marylebone,the burying-
place of his house. Though his funeral was
private, all British merchant ships in ports
where the tidings of his death had come
hoisted their flags half-mast high. Lord
George Bentinck was never married.

[Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography,
by the Kt. Hon. B. Disraeli ; Parliamentary De-
bates, 1832, 1834, 1846-8 ; Edinburgh Eeview,
Ixxxvii. 99 ; Times, 23 and 25 Sept. 1848 et pas-
sim; Gent. Mag. vol. xxx.; Annual Kegister, 1848;
Morley's Life of Cobden, vol. i. ; Molesworth's
History of England, 1830-74; Sporting Maga-
zine, 1847-8 ; Orton's Annals of York and Don-
caster ; Rice's History of the British Turf ;
Bell's Life, 23 Sept. 1848 et passim.] W. H.

BENTINCK, WILLIAM HENRY CA-
VENDISH, third DUZB or PORTLAND
(1738-1809), twice prime minister, was the
eldest son of William, second Duke of Port-
land, by his wife, Lady Margaret Caven-
dish Harley, only daughter and heiress of the
last Earl of Oxford. He was educated at
Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and as
Marquis of Titchfield was returned to par-
liament as member for Weobly in Hereford-
shire in 1760. In May 1762 he succeeded
his father as third Duke of Portland. He
was only twenty-four, possessed of immense
wealth, derived both from his father and his
mother, of good, if not brilliant, parts, and
of unblemished character, so that it was no
wonder that his support was warmly desired
by the various whig cliques. The young
duke at once entered into a warm political
alliance with the Marquis of Rockingham,
and when Lord Rockingham formed his first
cabinet in July 1765, the Duke of Portland

i was appointed lord chamberlain of the house-
hold, and sworn of the privy council. He
retired with the Rockingham whigs in De-
cember 1766, and further associated himself
with the great whig families by his marriage
in November 1766 to Lady Dorothy Caven-
dish, only daughter of William, fourth Duke
of Devonshire. He now entered into most
violent opposition in the House of Lords, and
so great was his animosity towards the duke
of Grafton, that he was absurdly suspected
of being the author of the letters of Junius.
The quarrel between the two dukes was so
violent that the attempt of the crown to
dispossess the Duke of Portland of Ingle-
wood Forest, which had been granted to the
first Earl of Portland by William III, was
put down to a feeling of spite on the part of
j the Duke of Grafton. It is not, however,
necessary to believe this story ; for although
the Duke of Portland obtained a verdict in
his favour, the case for the crown was a good
one, and by no means trumped up for the
purpose. Throughout the ministry of Lord
North the duke remained in opposition, and
when, in April 1782, the Marquis of Rock-
ingham returned to power, he was sent to
Ireland as lord-lieutenant, and his brother-
in-law, Lord John Cavendish, became chan-
cellor of the exchequer.

The whigs had not learnt union in opposi-
tion, and on the death of Lord Rockingham
there appeared at once two irreconcilable
elements. The king appointed Lord Shel-
burne, the first of the new whigs, to succeed
Lord Rockingham. Charles James Fox, who
had been a secretary of state with Shelburne
when the cabinet was formed, for personal
reasons disliked having Shelburne over his
head. He therefore combined with Lord
John Cavendish to request the king to make
the Duke of Portland prime minister, and
when the request was refused they both re-
signed, and their resignations were followed
by those of the duke himself, Burke, and
Sheridan. Shelburne made Pitt his chan-
cellor of the exchequer, and tried to fight the
matter out, but the majority in both houses
was against him, and Lord North combined
with Fox. Before this famous coalition
Shelburne had to retire, and in April 1783
the Duke of Portland became prime minister,
with Fox and Lord North as secretaries of
state. Much has been said of the infamy of
this ' coalition/ but it was very nearly be-
coming the strongest ministry that could
possibly be formed. The duke resigned in
December 1783, when Fox's India Bill had
been thrown out in the lords owing to Lord
Temple's use of the king's name, but Pitt,
who succeeded him as premier, had very

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303

Bentinck

nearly become his colleague ; Lord John
Cavendish was quite ready to resign the ex-
chequer to him, but he was reluctant to
admit all Pitt's friends.

After the fall of the coalition cabinet, the
Duke of Portland was regarded as the head
•of the Rockingham whigs. He was not a
great speaker, but he had exactly the cha-
racter which had enabled Rockingham to
hold his party together ; he could always be
trusted, and his rank and wealth were suffi-
ciently pre-eminent to prevent others from
being jealous of his position. He did not
make a good leader of an opposition ; he left
•all party tactics to Fox and Burke, and de-
voted himself more and more to his country
life at his favourite seat, Bulstrode, and to
the study of music, of which he was pas-
sionately fond. From this easy life he was
awakened by the rapid progress of the French
revolution. Like Pitt and Fox, he had
sympathised with that great movement at
first, but as its tendency became more and
more manifest, he shrank, like every other
great landowner, from the idea that < French
principles ' might spread to England. Pitt
saw his opportunity. He had always been
weak in parliament ; and he saw that by
sternly declaring against French principles he
would gain the support of the great whig fa-
milies. His repressive bills were warmly
taken up by them, and the war discussed
with enthusiasm. It only remained for him
to make a formal alliance with these 'Burkite'
whigs and their acknowledged leader, theDuke
of Portland. The negotiation was managed
byLordMalmesbury and Lord Loughborough
on either side, but it was very difficult, from
sheer nervousness, to get the duke to make
a public declaration of his alliance with Pitt.
At last it was made, and Pitt, in his delight,
largely rewarded the duke himself. He had
been elected chancellor of the university of
Oxford in succession to Lord North in 1792 :
he was now made secretary of state for the
northern department, that is home secretary,
a knight of the Garter, and lord-lieutenant
of Nottinghamshire, while his eldest son, the
Marquis of Titchfield, was made lord-lieu-
tenant of Middlesex.

The most important and useful years of
the Duke of Portland's life were the seven
years from 1794 to 1801, during which he
held the home secretaryship. No one who
has not studied the papers in the Public
Record Office can have any idea of the amount
of work done by him during these seven years.
The new repressive acts, such as the Alien
Act, the Treason Act, and the Sedition Act,
had thrown an enormous arbitrary power into
the home secretary's hands. Yet the Duke

of Portland's administration was marked by
no straining of his powers and no consequent
unpopularity of the government, by no out-
rage worse than trade processions with se-
ditious flags at Sheffield, and the breaking of
the king's carriage windows on his way to
open parliament, while Lord Sidmouth's ad-
ministration, in the corresponding period of
repression in 1816-22, was signalised by the
Peterloo massacre and the Cato Street con-
spiracy. The contrast is due to the difference
between the Duke of Portland and Lord Sid-
mouth. The duke was a tolerant man of
the world, not a man of great ability, but of
great experience, who knew the advantage
of leaving the expression of opinion as free
as possible.

In yet another point the behaviour of the
Duke of Portland is worthy of all praise.
Irish affairs and Irish correspondence were
included in his department, and during his
period of office the Irish insurrection of 1798
broke out and was suppressed, and the Act
of Union carried. In the published des-
patches of Cornwallis and Castlereagh there
is evidence of the steady support Portland
gave them in every point, excepting in his
reluctance to ratify the disgraceful bargain-
ing in honours, by which the Irish peers took
advantage of the necessity of their support
to the government in carrying the Act of
Union, to obtain peerages for themselves
(Cornwallis Correspondence, iii. 259-62).
But his attitude towards the Roman catholics
is particularly noteworthy. The king once
j remarked, according, to Mr. Cooke (Castle-
reagh Correspondence, iv. 81), that ( theDuke
of Portland was weak and of no use, and that
he was governed by the bishop of Meath.'
This refers to the scheme proposed by Lord
Castlereagh of subsidising the Roman ca-
tholic church in Ireland, and making it a
state church as well as the reformed episco-
pal church of Ireland. This statesmanlike
solution of the Irish question was highly
approved of by the Duke of Portland, and in a
passage in the ' Castlereagh Correspondence '
(iii. 400), the Bishop of Meath, the propounder
of the scheme, speaks of the warm sympathy
he has received from the duke.

In spite of his sentiments on Irish affairs,
the Duke of Portland consented, at the
earnest request of the king and Mr. Adding-
ton, to remain in the latter's cabinet in the
nominal capacity of lord president of the
council ; but he soon perceived the feebleness
of Addington and his friends, and the neces-
sity of forming a really strong administration
after the fresh outbreak of war with Napoleon
in 1803. Pitt's return to office was anxiously
demanded by the country, and, after some

Bentinck

304

Bentinck

communications with the king through Lord
Eldon, Pitt was again requested to form a
cabinet. Pitt first proposed a strong coalition
cabinet, in which he was to be chancellor of
the exchequer and first lord of the treasury ;
Dundas, Fox, and Lord Fitzwilliam, secre-
taries of state ; Lord Grenville, lord presi-
dent ; and the Duke of Portland, lord privy
seal ; but the king's objection to Fox caused
this scheme to fail, and Pitt had to take
office with only his own personal friends and
a very small majority ; the duke continued
to hold the office of lord president of the
council. He had imbibed some of his eldest
"son's warm personal attachment to Pitt, and
did all he could to relieve the prime minister's
difficulties. Lord Titchfield and George Can-
ning had married sisters, the two daughters
and heiresses of the successful gambler,
General Scott, and they had become very
intimate friends ; Lord Titchfield caught
Canning's enthusiastic feelings for Pitt, and
his enthusiasm reacted on the old duke.
When, therefore, Pitt desired to find a place
in his cabinet for Addington, who was also
made Lord Sidmouth, the Duke of Portland
readily consented to surrender his place to
him. l The Duke of Portland agrees to re-
main in the cabinet without office. Nothing
could be kinder or handsomer than his whole j
conduct' (Pitt to Sidmouth, STANHOPE'S Life
of Pitt, iv. 249). When Pitt died, and the
ministry of All the Talents came into office,
the duke gladly retired to Bulstrode. He
was now growing an old man, and suffered
very much from the gout, and he naturally
hoped for a peaceful old age. But this was
not to be. The ministry of All the Talents
made mistake after mistake, and in 1807
Pitt's old friends wTere again called to
power. The difficulty was to find a prime
minister under whom such rival spirits as
Canning and Lord Castlereagh would con-
sent to serve. The only fit man was the old
Duke of Portland, and he, very unwillingly,
from a high sense of public duty accepted
the burden.

The last premiership of the Duke of Port-
land, from 1807 to 1809, is by no means the
brightest period of his political career. He
was old and feeble, and unequal to his great
duties. Owing to his incapacity for work,
the real power of government fell to Castle-
reagh and Canning. The expedition to Co-
penhagen, the failure at Walcheren, the
victories of Vimeiro and Talavera, and the
convention of Cintra, all occurred in this last
premiership ; but the prime minister hardly
deserves either the praise or blame. Still less
was he responsible for the dissensions in his
cabinet. Castlereagh and Canning could not

agree. The duke was afraid to accept Can-
ning's resignation, and promised to dismiss
Lord Castlereagh, but he was equally afraid of
dismissing Castlereagh, and so procrastinated.
The inevitable discovery was made by Castle-
reagh of what had been going on ; the
famous duel took place between Canning and
Castlereagh on Wimbledon common, and
both statesmen resigned. This blow killed
the old duke ; his health had for months
been so bad that he was unable to attend to
any details of business ; in October 1809 he
insisted on resigning, and on 30 Nov. 1809*
he died at Bulstrode.

Few statesmen have suffered more obloquy
than the Duke of Portland. He was not a
great man, and was a very poor orator, but
he deserves to be remembered rather for his-
administration of the home department from
1794 to 1801 than for his two premierships.
In his home secretaryship he showed himself
a good administrator, tolerant in his exercise
of great and extraordinary powers, careful
in details, and yet not wanting in broad
statesmanlike views. In private life he was
in every way admirable.

[For the Duke of Portland's first administra-
tion and early life consult Lord Albemarle's Me-
morials of the Marquis of Kockingham, Lord
John Eussell's Memorials of C. J. Fox, Mac-
knight's Life of Burke, Stanhope's Life of Pitt,
the Duke of Buckingham's Courts and Cabinets
of George III, the ordinary histories of the-
period, and the innumerable contemporary pam-
phlets on the coalition in the British Museum ;
for his home secretaryship consult his despatches
and minutes in the Public Eecord Office, and
Stanhope's Life of Pitt ; and for Irish affairs the
Cornwallis Correspondence, and the first volumes
of the Castlereagh Correspondence, especially vol.
ii. ; for his later life consult the Castlereagh Cor-
respondence, the Wellington Supplementary Des-
patches, and especially the Diary and Journals of
the first Earl of Malmesbury ; almost all memoirs
and publications on the period will be found to
frequently allude to the duke.] H. M. S.

BENTINCK-SCOTT, WILLIAM JOHN
CAVENDISH, fifth DUKE OF PORTLAND
(1800-1879), son of William Henry Caven-
dish-Bent inck, the fourth duke, who, by royal
license dated 5 Sept. 1795, was authorised to
assume the additional final surname of Scott,
by Henrietta, eldest daughter and coheir of"
Major-general John Scott of Balcomie in the
county of Fife, was born 17 Sept, 1800. By
the death of his elder brother, William Henry
Cavendish-Bentinck (4 March 1824) he suc-
ceeded to the title of marquis of Titchfield,
and to the seat of the late marquis in parlia-
ment as member for the borough of King's
Lynn, being returned on the 19th of the

Bentley

305

Bentley

same mouth. He represented tliat consti-
tuency until 1826, when he gave place to
his brother, Lord George Bentinck [q. v.]
He succeeded to the dukedom in March 1854,
but did not take the oaths and his seat until
£ June 1857. From 1859 till his death he
was deputy-lieutenant for Nottinghamshire.
As head of the Portland family, he was the
person in whom the power of nominating
a trustee to represent the Harley family on
the British Museum trust is vested by statute.
Throughout life he was an adherent of the
tory party, but did not distinguish himself
as a debater in either house of parliament.
The turf and the management of his large
estates chiefly occupied his time. He lived
the life of a recluse, unmarried, and seeing
little or no society, and it is said that he even
refused to allow the workpeople engaged on
the improvements which he carried out on
his estates to show any sign of respectful re-
cognition on meeting him. By assiduous
-care he succeeded in bringing the demesne
and grounds of Welbeck Abbey to. a high
degree of perfection, his hothouses and green-
liouses being reputed the best in the kingdom.
He was a munificent donor to various charities.
He died 6 Dec. 1879, and was buried on the
12th following at Kensal Green Cemetery
with the utmost simplicity. His younger
"brother, Henry William, having died without
male issue, 31 Dec. 1870, the title devolved
upon the late duke's cousin, Lord William
John Arthur Charles James Cavendish-
T3entinck, the present duke.

[Times, 13 Dec. 1879, p. 5, col. 6 ; Foster's
Peerage; Burke's Peerage; Official Eeturn of
Members of Parliament, part ii. pp. 289, 304;
Lords' Journals, Ixxxix. 63 ; Stat. 26 Geo. II,
-c. 22, s. 7 ; Sims's Handbook to the Library of
the British Museum, viii.] J. M. E.

BENTLEY, CHARLES (1806-1854),
water-colour painter, was a member of the
•old Water-Colour Society, to which he was
elected in 1844. 'His contributions,' Red-
grave says, f were chiefly coast and river
scenes, but extended over a wide range, and
included the numerous and varied incidents
which belong to such subjects.' The British
Museum contains one very fine example,
a highly decorative drawing, bold, fine in
colour and composition, not precisely drawn,
however, and careless in matters of detail.
The South Kensington Museum has four
of his paintings. He died of cholera 4 Sept.
1854.

[Ottley's Supplement to Bryan's Diet. ; Art
Journal, 1854, p. 314; Athenseum, 9 Sept. 1854,
p. 1090 ; Eedgrave's Diet, of Artists of English
School.] E. E.

VOL. IV.

BENTLEY, SIR JOHN (d. 1772), vice-
admiral, entered the navy about the year 1720,
and was made lieutenant 28 March 1734.
In the battle of Toulon, 11 Feb. 1743-4, he
was a lieutenant of the Namur, Mathews's
flag-ship, and was immediately afterwards
promoted to the command of the Sutherland
hospital-ship. On 1 Aug. 1744 he was posted
into the Burford, 70, and a few months later
was sent home as a witness on the courts
martial which rendered the years 1745-6
notorious. In the spring of 1747, when
Anson took command of the Channel fleet,
Bentley was chosen to be his flag captain in
the Prince George, and was with him in the
battle off Cape Finisterre, 3 May. When the
fleet returned to England, and Anson hauled
down his flag, Bentley was transferred to
the Defiance, 60, in which he shared in
Hawke's victory in the Bay of Biscay, 14 Oct.
1747. He afterwards, during the peace, suc-
cessively commanded the Invincible, the
Charlotte yacht, and the Barfleur, at Ports-
mouth, and in 1757 was a member of the
court martial on Admiral Byng. In 1758
he was again in command of the Invincible,
one of the finest 74-gun ships in the service,
and which he had himself helped Anson to
capture from the French. She was under
orders to proceed to Louisbourg with Ad-
miral Boscawen, when, on 19 Feb., weighing
from St. Helen's, her rudder jammed, and
she grounded heavily on the Dean Sand. In
the evening it came on to blow very hard,
and the ship became a complete wreck.
Bentley, with his officers, was acquitted of all
blame \Minutes of the Court Martial), and
he was shortly afterwards appointed to the
Warspite, which through the summer of
1759 was in the Mediterranean with Bos-
cawen, and on 18 Aug. when the French
squadron, under De la Clue, was defeated. On
the 19th, when the ships that had sought
j refuge in 'Lagos Bay were captured or de-
i stroyed, it was by Bentley's exertions that
j the Temei'aire, which had been run ashore,
was brought oiF and added to the strength of
the English navy. In September Bentley was
sent to England, was presented to the king,
was knighted, and, still in the Warspite,
was ordered to join Hawke in the blockade
of Brest. It was thus his peculiar fortune,
after sharing in the defeat of De la Clue, to
be present also in the great victory of Qui-
beron Bay, 20 Nov. 1759. The Warspite
continued through 1760 attached to the
j grand fleet under Hawke, but the victories
I of 1759 had minimised the action of the navy
in European waters, and Bentley's further
service afloat was uneventful. In 1761 he
was appointed to a commissionership of the

Bentley

306

Bentley

navy, but resigned it on being promoted to
his flag, 28 Dec. 1763. He held no further
command, but became a vice-admiral in
October 1770, and died 3 Jan. 1772.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. v. 280 ; Gent. Mag.
(1772), xlii. 46.] J. K. L.

BENTLEY, JOSEPH CLAYTON(1809-
1851), line-engraver, was born at Bradford,
Yorkshire, in 1809. He commenced life as a
landscape-painter, but in 1832 he came to
London and studied engraving under Robert
Brandard. He did not, however, entirely
abandon painting, but exhibited occasionally
from 1833 onwards landscapes, chiefly views
in Yorkshire, painted with a great freedom
of hand and a nice feeling for colour, at the
Royal Academy,British Institution, Society of
British Artists, and the exhibitions of several
provincial towns. Many of his plates were
executed for the publications of Messrs. Fisher
and Messrs. Virtue, and especially for the
' Gems of European Art,' for which he en-
graved ' The Fountain,' after Zuccarelli, and
1 A Sunny Day,' after Cuyp, and for the ' Art
Journal.' Some of his best works are those
for the Vernon Gallery : < The Brook by the
Way,' after Gainsborough, ' Lake Avernus,'
after Richard Wilson, < The Valley Farm,'
after Constable, l The Windmill,' after John
Linnell, ' The Way to Church,' after Cres-
wick, and ' The Wooden Bridge,' the < Port of
Leghorn,' and e Sea-shore in Holland,' after
Sir Augustus W. Callcott. His style of
engraving was not of the highest class, but
he threw much artistic feeling into his works,
and laboured so incessantly that he under-
mined a naturally weak constitution and
brought on an illness "which terminated his
life at Sydenharn on 9 Oct. 1851.

[Art Journal, 1851, p. 280, 1852, p. 15.]

E. E. G.

BENTLEY, NATHANIEL (1735 ?-

1809), called DIETY DICK, kept a warehouse
in Leadenhall Street. It was the first glazed
hardware shop in London, having been glazed
by Dick's father. The elder Bentley had a
country house at Edmonton. He presented
a bell to the church of St. Catherine Cree in
1754 to be rung on his birthday as long
as he lived. He died in 1760. Young Na-
thaniel Bentley was well educated, but ran
away from home to escape the severity of his
father. He learned several modern languages
during his absence. He afterwards entered
the business of his father, from whom he
inherited a considerable estate, besides the
business in Leadenhall Street. For some
years before and after his father's death,
Bentley was known as the t Beau of Leaden-

hall Street/ exhibiting a fastidious taste,
whether in dress or in manners, and fre-
quently presenting himself at court. At Paris
he was introduced personally to Louis XVI,
and 'was considered the handsomest and
best dressed English gentleman then at the
French court' (GRANGER'S Wonderful Mu-
seum} . But with this occasional magnificence,
he was developing strange habits of squalor,
which increased with his years. The filth of
his premises became proverbial. His eccen-
tricity has been attributed to a shock caused
by the death on the eve of the marriage of a
lady to whom he was betrothed. He always
kept closed the room which had been made
ready for the wedding breakfast. In busi-
ness transactions, although miserly, he was
prompt and honourable. Bentley quitted
the premises in which the undisturbed dirt
of forty years had accumulated in February
1804. He lived in Jewry Street, Aldgate,
for three years, and then in Leonard Street,
Shoreditch. Here he was robbed of a con-
siderable sum, so that little remained to him
beyond a balance of 400Z. at the bank. He
lived in Leonard Street for about twelve
months when he f commenced a perambula-
tion from one country place to another, more
in the habit of a beggar than a traveller for
pleasure.' He died at Haddington about the
close of the year 1809, and was buried in the
churchyard.

[History of the Extraordinary Dirty Warehouse
in Leadenhall Street, together with the Memoirs
of its Eccentric Inhabitant, Nath. Bentley, Esq.,
8vo, 1803 ; Granger's Wonderful Museum, vols.
,i. and ii., 1802 and 1804, and Life of the cele-
brated Nath. Bentley, Esq., &c., 12mo, London,
extracted from Granger; Wilson's Wonderful
Characters, 1821, i. 166-80.] A. H. G.

BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742),
scholar and critic, was the son of Thomas
Bentley by his second wife, Sarah Willie,
and was born on 27 Jan. 1662 at Oulton, in
the parish of Rothwell, near Wakefield, in
the West Riding of Yorkshire. The Bentleys
were yeomen of the richer sort. They had
been somewhat impoverished by the civil
war, in which Bentley's grandfather had
served as a royalist captain ; but his father
still had a small estate at Woodlesford near
Oulton. Bentley was called Richard after
his maternal grandfather, Richard Willie, a
well-to-do builder, it would seem, who is
said to have held a major's commission on
the king's side. Having learned the ele-
ments of Latin grammar from his mother,
Bentley was sent first to a day school at
Methley, near Oulton, and then, when he
was about eleven, to the Wakefield grammar

Bentley

307

Bentley

school. The head master at that time was
John Baskervile, of Emmanuel College, Cam-
bridge, and the school had a good repute.
Among Bentley's younger contemporaries it
could claim John Potter, the distinguished
classical scholar, who afterwards became
archbishop of Canterbury. In his old age :
Bentley used to give vivid and humorous i
accounts of his school-days to his little grand-
son, Richard Cumberland. He would de- j
scribe the peculiarities of his masters, and j
the unjust punishments which he sometimes |
endured for supposed neglect of his task, ;
' when the dunces,' he would say, ' could not
discover that I was pondering it in my mind, j
and fixing it more firmly in my memory !
than if I had been bawling it out amongst j
the rest of my schoolfellows.'

When the boy was thirteen, his father died, '
leaving his small estate to a son of his first
marriage ; and, as Richard had his own way
to make, his grandfather Willie decided that
at the age of fourteen he should enter the !
university. It is a common error to suppose ;
that this was an ordinary age at that period
for beginning undergraduateship. The ordi-
nary age, in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, was already seventeen or eighteen ;
but, where special circumstances required it, \
exceptions were easily made, since there was
then nothing in the nature of the previous
examination (or 'little go'). A boy who
matriculated at fourteen would have no uni- j
versity examination to pass until he was at j
least seventeen. Bentley's contemporary, j
William Wotton, was admitted at St. Catha- j
rine's when he was under ten (' infra decem
annos/ as the book records) ; and it is not at
all surprising that such a prodigy of precocity I
as Wotton should have became a bachelor of
arts at the age of fourteen. On 24 May 1676
1 Ricardus Bentley de Oulton ' was enrolled
at St. John's College, Cambridge, where
certain scholarships founded by Sir Marma-
duke Constable were reserved for natives
of Yorkshire. St. John's College was then
the largest in the university, and no other
could have offered greater advantages. Like
Isaac Newton at Trinity, and so many Cam-
bridge worthies before and since, Bentley
entered as a subsizar; he was presently
elected to a Constable scholarship ; but he
never got a fellowship, because, when he
took his degree, two fellowships of St.
John's were already held by Yorkshiremen,
and a third was not admissible. We know
next to nothing about Bentley's undergra-
duate life at Cambridge. The sole literary
relic of it is a jerky and pedantic set of Eng-
lish verses on the Gunpowder plot. There
is no record of a competition for the Craven j

University scholarship (founded in 1647)
between 1670 and 1681, so probably Bentley
had no opportunity of trying for the chief
classical prize then in existence. Logic,
ethics, natural philosophy, and mathematics
were the reigning studies. In these Bentley
acquitted himself with high distinction. His
place in the first class of his year (1680) was
nominally sixth, but really third, since, ac-
cording to a preposterous usage of the time,
three of the degrees above his were merely
honorary.

In 1682, while still a layman and a B.A.,
he was appointed by St. John's College to
the mastership of Spalding school in Lin-
colnshire, which he held, however, only for
a short time. About the end of the year he
was chosen by Dr. Stillingfleet, then dean of
St. Paul's and formerly a fellow of St. John's
College, as tutor to his second son, James.
Stillingfleet enjoyed the highest reputation
as a learned defender of Christianity against
infidelity, and especially as a champion of the
Anglican church against supposed perils bred
of the Restoration. The general drift of his
apologetics was historical, and his really wide
researches in ecclesiastical history had led
him to form one of the best private libraries
in England. 'He was tall, graceful, and
well-proportioned,' says a contemporary bio-
grapher ; ' his countenance comely, fresh, and
awful ; in his conversation cheerful and dis-
creet, obliging and very instructive.' Under
his roof Bentley had the double advantage
of access to a first-rate library and of inter-
course with the best literary society in Lon-
don. An ardent student of twenty-one could
hardly have been more fortunate.

For the next six years (1683-9) Bentley
lived in Dr. Stillingfleet's house. Some idea
of the industry with which he used his op-
portunities may be derived from his own
notice of one task which he had completed
by 1686, i.e., within four years after he came
into Stillingfleet's family. ' I wrote, before I
was twenty-four years of age, a sort of
Hezapla, a thick volume in quarto, in the
first column of which I inserted every word
of the Hebrew Bible alphabetically ; and, in
five other columns, all the various interpre-
tations of those words in the Chaldee, Syriac,
Vulgate, Latin, Septuagint, andAquila,Sym-
machus, and Theodotion, that occur in the
whole Bible.' He was also engaged in criti-
cal studies of the New Testament. During
these same years he was also working at the
classics. It is characteristic of his early im-
pulse to enlarge the domain of scholarship
that he was already making lists, for his
own use, of authors cited by the Greek and
Latin grammarians.

x 2

Bentley

3o8

Bentley

Soori after the accession of William and
Mary (1689) Stillingfleet became bishop of
Worcester ; and Bentley, having taken orders
in 1690, was appointed his chaplain. In
1689 James Stillingfleet had entered Wad-
ham College, Oxford, and Bentley, having
accompanied his pupil thither, continued to
reside at Oxford till near the end of 1690.
The treasures of the Bodleian Library power-
fully stimulated his enthusiasm for classical
study. We find him forming vast projects,
interesting by the enormous appetite for
work which they imply in the mind that
conceived them. He is also interested in
some special studies, which he afterwards
carried to fruitful results, and, above all, in
the study of ancient metres — a province in
which he afterwards excelled all predecessors.
Hitherto Bentley had published nothing,
and it was the urgency of a friend which
caused his first appearance in print. In 1690
the curators of the Sheldonian Press resolved
to print a Greek chronicle by a certain John
of Antioch (of date uncertain between circ.
600 and 1000 A.D.), commonly called John
Malelas ('John the Rhetor') — a chronological
sketch of universal history down to 560 A.D.

Though of small intrinsic worth, the chro-
nicle has some indirect value, as containing
references to lost prose-writers and poets.
Hence its interest for the seventeenth-cen-
tury scholars who were labouring to recon-
struct ancient chronology. Dr. John Mill,
principal of St. Edmund Hall — well known
by his edition of the New Testament — was
to supervise the edition, and he consented
that Bentley should see it before publication
on condition of communicating any remarks
that occurred to him. Bentley sent his re-
marks in the form of a Latin letter addressed
to Dr. Mill. In June 1691 the < Chronicle of
Malelas' was published at the Sheldonian
Press, with Bentley's l Letter to Mill ' in an
appendix of ninety-eight pages. He corrects
and illustrates the chronicler's references to
the Greek and Latin classics in a series of
brilliant criticisms, which range over almost
the whole field of ancient literature. In
those days there were no Smith's Diction-
aries, there was no Liddell and Scott's Lexi-
con. Bentley was drawing on the stores of
his own reading. The ' Letter to Mill ' is a
precocious masterpiece of accurate erudition
and native acuteness. It is wonderful that
it should have been written by a scholar of
twenty-eight in the year 1690. The lively
style, often combative or derisive, is already
that which stamped Bentley's work through
life. The chronicler, John Malelas, was, as
Bentley shows, an incorrigible blunderer;
and having convicted him of a gross mistake

in geography, Bentley exclaims, ' Euge
vero, <a 'laxiwiSiov ' (' Good indeed, Johnny ').
Dr. Monk, Bentley's excellent biographer,
thought that this was said to Dr. John Mill,
and reproved it as 'an indecorum which
neither the familiarity of friendship, nor the
license of a dead language, can justify to-
wards the dignified head of a house.' The
slip was pointed out by a reviewer of Monk's
first edition (1830), and is absent from the
second (1833). The ' Letter to Mill ' strongly
impressed the continental scholars who read
it. 'A new and already bright star' of Eng-
lish letters is the title with which Bentley
was greeted by John George Graevius and
Ezechiel Spanheim. Long after Bentley's
death David Ruhnken spoke of the letter as
showing its author's superiority to timid
prejudice. 'Bentley shook off the servile

S»ke, and put forth that famous " Letter to
ill " — a wonderful monument of genius and
learning, such as could have come only from
the first critic of his time/

In the year which followed the publication
of the ILetter to Mill,' Bentley found an
opportunity of distinction in a different field.
He was appointed to deliver the first course
of Boyle Lectures. Robert Boyle (1627-
1691), eminent for his studies in several
branches of physical science, had bequeathed
an annual stipend of 50/. ' for some divine,
or preaching minister,' who should 'preach
eight sermons in the year for proving the
Christian religion against notorious infidels,
. . . not descending to any controversies
that are among Christians themselves.' John
Evelyn, the author of the ' Sylva ' and the
* Diary,' was one of the four trustees in whom
the election was vested. ' We made choice
of one Mr. Bentley,' he says, ' chaplain to
the Bishop of Worcester.' Bentley took for
his subject 'A Confutation of Atheism,' and
delivered the first of his eight lectures from
the pulpit of St. Martin's Church on 7 March
1692. In the first five discourses he argues
the existence of a Deity from the human
soul and body, and in the last three from
' the origin and frame of the world.' The
last three have a peculiar interest. In 1692
five years had elapsed since Newton had
given to the world, in his ' Principia/ the
proofs of the law of gravitation ; but, except
with a select few, the Cartesian system was
still in vogue. Bentley, in the sixth, seventh,
and eighth of his ' Boyle Lectures,' takes up
Newton's great discovery, and uses it to
prove the existence of an intelligent and
omnipotent Creator. Before printing the
last two lectures, Bentley wished to be sure
that his application of Newton's principles
was such as Newton himself would approve.

Bentley

309

Bentley

Newton was then living in Trinity College,
Cambridge. The autographs of his four
letters in reply to Bentley's inquiries are pre-
served in the library of the college. The
first is dated 10 Dec. 1692, the last 25 Feb.
1693. ' When I wrote my treatise about
our system,' Newton says to Bentley, ' I had
an eye upon such principles as might work
with considering men for the belief of a
Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than
to find it useful for that purp'ose. But if I
have done the public any service this way,
it is due to nothing but industry and patient
thought.' He confirms nearly all Bentley's
arguments, but demurs to his concession that
gravity may be essential and inherent to
matter. 'Pray,' Newton writes, 'do not
ascribe that notion to me ; for the cause of
gravity is what I do not pretend to know.'
In a later letter Newton speaks more posi-
tively, and declares that the notion of gravity
being inherent to matter seems to him an ' ab-
surdity.' * Gravity mustbe caused by an agent
acting constantly according to certain laws ;
but whether this agent be material or imma-
terial I have left to the consideration of my
readers.' Taken as a whole, Bentley's t Boyle
Lectures ' afford a signal proof of his vigorous
ability in grasping a complex subject, and of
his originality in treating it. The eagerly
combative style of many passages reminds
us that, in Bentley's view, ' atheism ' was no
abstract danger, but a foe everywhere present
in ' taverns and coffee-houses, nay, Westmin-
ster Hall and the very churches.' The op-
ponent against whom Bentley's arguments
are more especially levelled is Hobbes, whom
he regarded as an atheist in the disguise of
a deist. In power of close and lively rea-
soning, in readiness of retort, and in aptness
of illustration, the lectures exhibit Bentley
as a master of controversy. Evelyn, who
heard the second lecture, writes of it in his
' Diary' (4 April 1692), 'one of the most
learned and convincing discourses I had ever
heard.' The lectures were published in a
Latin version at Berlin, and afterwards in a
Dutch version at Utrecht.

In 1692 (the year of his Boyle lecture-
ship) Bentley was appointed to a prebendal
stall at Worcester j in 1694 he received his
patent as keeper of the royal libraries, and
Jl*Swao aleo elected a fellow of the Royal So-
ciety ; and in^lGQQ he became a chaplain in
Vejr ordinary to the king. Hitherto, since 1682,
he had resided with Bishop Stillingfleet. It \
was early in 1696 that he took possession of
the lodgings in St. James's Palace which
were assigned to him as royal librarian.
Here — as appears from a letter dated 21 Oct.
1697 — a small group of friends were in the

habit of meeting once or twice a week:
John Evelyn, Sir Christopher Wren, John
Locke, Isaac Newton, and Bentley. During
these prosperous years Bentley accomplished
at least one considerable task. He made a
collection of the i Fragments of Callima-
chus,' for an edition of the Greek poet which
was published at Utrecht by John George
Graevius in 1697. This collection may be
regarded as the earliest example of a really
critical method applied to such a work.
Bentley was also active in procuring sub-
scriptions for the renovation of the Cambridge
University Press, and received authority to
order new founts of type from Holland.
Evelyn's ' Diary' (17 Aug. 1696) alludes to
' that noble presse which my worthy and most
learned friend ... is with greate charge
and Industrie erecting now at Cambridge.'

The famous controversy on the i Letters of
Phalaris ' arose out of the discussion, so
popular in the latter part of the seventeenth
| century, on the relative merits of ancients
and moderns. Sir William Temple, in his
essay on ' Ancient and Modern Learning '
(1692), had maintained that the ancients
surpassed the moderns in every branch of
literature, science, and art. The l Letters
of Phalaris,' for instance, he said, 'have more
race, more spirit, more force of wit and
genius,' than any other letters in existence.
' I know several learned men (or that usually
pass for such, under the name of critics)
have not esteemed them genuine ; ' but
genuine, Sir William added, they must be ;
' such diversity of passions . . . could
never be represented but by him that pos-
sessed them.' Such a panegyric, from a man
of Temple's repute, drew attention to the
' Letters,' and in January 1695 an edition of
them was published by a young Oxford man,
the Hon. Charles Boyle, whom Dr. Aldrich,
dean of Christ Church, had induced to
undertake it. In the course of preparing
his edition Boyle had desired to consult a
manuscript which was in the king's library
at St. James's, and had written to a book-
seller in London to get it collated for him.
Bentley, as soon as he was in charge of the
library (May 1694), granted the loan of the
manuscript for that purpose, and allowed
ample time for the collation. The person
employed as collator failed, however, to com-
plete his task before the time appointed for
returning the manuscript to the library, and
the bookseller most unjustly represented to
Boyle that Bentley had behaved churlishly
in the matter. On the strength of the
bookseller's story, and without inquiring
from Bentley whether it was true, Boyle
wrote in the preface to his book : ' I have

Bentley

3io

Bentley

also procured a collation, as far as Letter xl.,
of a manuscript in the Royal Library ; the
librarian, with that courtesy which dis-

heap on the royal librarian makes the work
a curiosity of literature. Twice over, for
example, it is intimated that Bentley might

have been bribed to prolong the time for
which the manuscript had been lent to
Boyle. Bentley's ' dogmatical air/ ' his in-

tinguishes him [pro singular! sua humani-
tate], refused me the further use of it.' The
insolent bad taste of this reference to an

eminent scholar was remarkable even in so | geiiuity in transcribing and plundering notes
young a man. Three weeks after the book | and prefaces of Mr. Boyle/ ' his modesty and
had been printed Bentley happened to see decency in contradicting great men/ are
a presentation copy. The bulk of the edi- i among the topics of this elegant composition,
tion had not then been issued. It would j It is no excuse for Bentley, the Christ Church
still have been possible, then, to cancel the I gentlemen declare, that ' he was born in some
offensive statement. Bentley wrote that ; village remote from town, and bred among

very evening to Boyle, explaining that the
statement was incorrect, and giving the true
facts. Boyle sent an evasive reply, and left
the false statement in his preface unaltered.
Some of Bentley's friends urged him to re-

the peasantry while young ; ' for he had
enjoyed an opportunity of acquiring some
tincture of their own good breeding by hav-
ing been ' tutor to a young gentleman.' The
authors are anxious to guard against the

fute the slander publicly, but he remained j suspicion that they had wasted much time
silent. l Out of a natural aversion to all on ' so trifling a subject ' as scholarship ; but

to most readers this anxiety must appear
superfluous. Then, as now, there was a
wealthy ' world ' to which the poor flippancy
of this attack could seem intelligent and
witty, since the intelligence and the wit
were of their own level. Garth has pilloried
himself for ever by the couplet in which he
celebrated Boyle's supposed triumph :

So diamonds take a lustre from their foil,
And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle.

Temple's pompous voice was instantly up-
lifted in homage to ' the pleasant turns of
wit and the easiness of style ' with which
his aristocratic young friend had crushed the
plebeian pedant. On the whole, if Bentley
had been a weak man, he would have had a
bad time of it. Most of his fine acquaint-
ances gave him the cold shoulder. He was
a highly sensitive man, but he was also brave
and strong. One day he happened to meet
a friend who told him that he must not allow
himself to lose heart. ' Indeed/ Bentley
said, ' I am in no pain about the matter ; for

quarrels and broils, and out of regard to the
editor himself, I resolved to take no notice
of it, but to let the matter drop.'

About two years later (1697) Bentley's old
friend, William Wotton, brought out a second
edition of his * Reflections on Ancient and
Modern Learning/ in which he had taken
the part of the moderns against Temple. In
fulfilment of a promise made to Wotton before
Boyle's book had appeared, Bentley contri-
buted an essay to this second edition. He
pointed out that the ' Letters of Phalaris/
vaunted by Temple as the productions of a
prince who lived about 600 B.C., were the
clumsy forgeries of a Greek rhetorician of the
: Christian era. While speaking of ' Phalaris/
he replied, as he was thoroughly justified in
doing, to Boyle's calumny. He then pro-
ceeded to review Boyle's edition. This was
really to break a fly on the wheel. Boyle
had added to the Greek text only a short life
of Phalaris, a Latin version evidently based
on that of Naogeorgus (1558), and a few
pages of miserably meagre and feeble notes.

In criticising the book Bentley spoke of ' our j it is a maxim with me that no man was ever
editors/ as if, though Boyle's name alone written out of reputation but by himself.'
stood on the title-page, it had been a joint Bentley's reply to Boyle, an expansion of the
production. This was the ' publick affront '! essay in Wotton's book, was written in
which, as Boyle alleged, moved him to reply, j something over seven months, during which
The book popularly known as ' Boyle against j the author had other and urgent duties. It
Bentley ' appeared in January 1698, under \ appeared in March 1699, about fourteen
the title, * Dr. Bentley's Dissertations on the j months after Boyle's attack. The immortal
Epistles of Phalaris and the Fables of « t Dissertation on the Letters of Phalaris ' is

j, examin'd by the Honourable Charles | not merely the most crushing blow that was
Boyle, Esq.' To produce this skit several of j ever dealt to insolent and aggressive sciolism.

1 It rises high above the temporary arena in
which Boyle's allies had displayed their

Boyle's ablest Oxford friends had clubbed
their resources. Francis Atterbury (then
thirty-six) had, as he himself says, given
half a year to it ; and at least five other
persons appear to have helped. The vulgarity
of the insults which the Christ Church wits

incapacity, and takes rank as a permanent
masterpiece of literature. To this character
it has a threefold claim. It is the earliest
model of a new criticism, which, by a scien-

Bentley 31

tific method, was to bring accurate philo- j
logical knowledge into relation with historical
research. It is a storehouse of exact and
penetrating erudition, comprehending several
monographs on special subjects, which to i
this day retain their intrinsic value. It is a j
monument of controversial genius ; not of j
that which quibbles and hectors, but of that
in which the keenest wit flashes around the
strictest and most lucid argument.

As to the reception which the * Disserta-
tion ' experienced, it has generally been as-
sumed that Bentley's complete victory was
immediately recognised. This is an error, as
was shown for the first time in the biography
of Bentley contributed to the ' English Men
of Letters ' series by Professor Jebb. Swift's
< Battle of the Books,' published with the ' Tale
of a Tub ' in 1704, implies the absence of any
public sentiment which would feel Swift's
pronouncement for Boyle to be absurd ; but,
putting this aside as purely popular satire,
we have other evidence. ' A Short Review '
of the controversy, by Atterbury, which came
out anonymously in 1701, says of Bentley :
* Common pilferers will still go on in their
. trade, even after they have suffer'd for it.'
In 1749 a distinguished Cambridge scholar,
Thomas Francklin, published a translation
of the ' Letters of Phalaris,' in which he
argued that Bentley's criticisms may touch
special points, ' and yet the book be authentic
in the main, and an original still.' Nay, in
1804, after Tyrwhitt and Person had borne
testimony to the real state of the case,
Bentley's own grandson, Richard Cumber-
land, used a half-apologetic tone in claiming
the advantage for Bentley. This hesitation
of judgment must seem to posterity the
crowning distinction of the great scholar's
work. It shows how immensely that work
was in advance of its age. And it is com-
forting for all who have to strive against
specious charlatanry : it shows that the truth,
be it never so clear, may have to wait. But
the better scholars knew, even then, that
Bentley had won ; and ' the applauses of his
friends' (to which the incognito Atterbury
alludes in 1701) soon turned to effect. The
mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge,
fell vacant towards the end of 1699 — about
-eight months after the i Dissertation ' came
out — by Dr. Mountague accepting the deanery
of Durham. The nomination rested with
"William's six commissioners, viz., the two
archbishops (Tenison and Sharp) and Bishops
Lloyd, Burnet, Patrick, and Moore, Moore
being the successor of Bentley's old patron,
Stillingfleet, who had died in April 1699.
They were unanimous in recommending
Bentley, and he was appointed by the crown.

Bentley

He remained king's librarian ; but hence-
forth his home was at Trinity College. On
1 Feb. 1700 Bentley was admitted master.

From 1700 to 1738 Bentley was at con-
stant feud, more or less, with the fellows of
the college. Yet during the whole of this
period — from the thirty-eighth to the seventy-
sixth year of his age — he carried on an almost
unbroken series of literary works. A clear
distinction must be drawn between his official
and his domestic life. It would be a mistake
to suppose that the external broils in which
he was involved were his main occupations,
or even that they very seriously interrupted
his studies. He was a man of extraordinary
nerve, with rare power of concentration.
The college Avars probably seem more im-
portant to us than, except at crises, they did
to him. Briefly, the story is as follows.
Between 1700 and 1709 the new master com-
mitted a number of petty encroachments on
the privileges of the fellows, which excited
extreme irritation. Early in 1710, at the
instigation of Edmund Miller (a barrister
fellow of the college), the fellows appealed
to the Bishop of Ely (Moore) as general
visitor, arguing that, under the 46th of the
Elizabethan statutes for the college, Bentley
was liable to be deprived of the mastership.
After long delays Bentley was brought to
trial before the Bishop of Ely, Dr. Moore, at
Ely House in London in 1714. The trial
lasted six weeks, ending about 15 June.
Before judgment could be given, Bishop
Moore died, on 31 July. The next day, 1 Aug.
1714, London heard that Queen Anne was
no more. Political excitement thrust lesser
matters out of sight. After Dr. Moore's
death the judgment which he had drafted
was found among his papers : ' By this our
definitive sentence, we remove Richard Bent-
ley from his office of master of the college.'

For the next ten years (1714-24) Bentley
ruled the college with practically despotic
power, while the fellows, led by Miller down
to 1719, made intermittent resistance. The
most notable incident of the decade was in
1718, when Bentley was deprived of his de-
grees by the university. This was as a punish-
ment for having failed to appear before the
vice-chancellor's court, which had issued a
decree for his arrest at the suit of Conyers
Middleton. Middleton (the biographer of
Cicero) had received a D.D. degree, and
Bentley, as regius professor of divinity, had
exacted a fee which Middleton sought to re-
cover. On 26 March 1724 the university,
under legal compulsion, restored Bentley's
degrees.

Then came three years (1725-7) of com-
parative peace. And then followed a second

Bentley

312

Bentley

ten years' war (1728-38), in which Dr. Col-
batch, a senior fellow of Trinity, was the
leader of the opposition. In 1733, being
then seventy-one, Bentley was for the second
time brought to trial at Ely House before
the Bishop of Ely, Dr. Greene. On 27 April
1734 Bishop Greene sentenced Bentley to be
deprived of the mastership. But an unex-
pected hitch occurred. The college statute
prescribed that the master, if condemned,
should be deprived by the agency of the
vice-master. The vice-master, Dr. Hacket,
was advised by Bentley's counsel to refrain
from acting, and, on resigning in May 1734,
he was succeeded as vice-master by Dr.
Richard Walker, a friend of Bentley's. During
the next four years (1734-8) every moral and
legal resource was vainly used in the hope of
driving Dr. Walker into executing the sen-
tence against Bentley. The master could
not be deprived because the vice-master re-
fused to deprive him, and no one else had
the power to do so. Three different motions
were made in the court of king's bench:

(1) for a writ to compel Dr. Walker to act ;

(2) for a writ to compel the Bishop of Ely
to compel Dr. Walker to act ; (3) for a writ
to compel the Bishop of Ely to act. On
22 April 1738 the last of these applications
was rejected. That day marks Bentley's final
victory in the struggle dating from 1710.
During the remaining four years of his life he
was undisturbed in the mastership, although,
in the view of those who accepted Bishop
Greene's judgment, he had no longer a legal
title to it.

Which side had been most to blame in this
controversy, which lasted a year longer than
the Peloponnesian War — Bentley or the fel-
lows ? We must first of all distinguish the
legal from the moral bearings of the case.
The contention of the fellows was that
Bentley had incurred the penalty of depri-
vation because he had infringed the statutes.
There seems to be no doubt that he had in-
fringed them. That was the finding of a
competent court, after a careful inquiry, both
in 1714 and in 1733. From the moral point
of view there was much in the temper and
in the tactics of Bentley's adversaries on
several occasions which cannot be excused.
On the other hand, it was Bentley's arro-
gance which originally provoked the feud.
The fellows were long-suffering ; but his re-
peated acts of insolent absolutism at last
forced them into active resistance. His con-
ception of a college was higher than theirs ;
but that cannot palliate his infringement of
their rights.

It must never be forgotten that Bent-
ley's mastership of Trinity is memorable for

other things than its troubles. He was the •
first master who established a proper com-
petition for the great prizes of that illus-
trious college. The scholarships and fel-
lowships had previously been given by a
purely oral examination. Bentley intro-
duced written papers ; he also made the
award of scholarships to be annual instead
of biennial, and admitted students of the
first year to compete for them. He made
Trinity College the earliest home of a New-
tonian school by providing in it an observa-
tory, under the direction of Newton's disciple
and friend — destined to an early death —
Roger Cotes. He fitted up a chemical labo-
ratory in Trinity for Vigani of Verona, the
professor of chemistry. He brought to Trinity
the eminent orientalist, Sike of Bremen, after-
wards professor of Hebrew. True to the spirit
of the royal founder, Bentley wished Trinity
College to be indeed a house ' of all kinds of
good letters : ' and at a time when Eng-
land's academic ideals were far from high, he
did much to render it not only a great col-
lege, but also a miniature university.

The glimpses which we get of Bentley's
domestic life are pleasing. They belong
chiefly to his later years, being mainly due
to the * Memoirs ' of his grandson, Richard
Cumberland. In 1701 (the year after his-
installation at Trinity) he was married (in
the chapel of Eton College) to Joanna,
daughter of Sir John Bernard, of Bramp-
ton, Huntingdonshire. She bore him four
children : Elizabeth, who married Humphrey
Ridge, a gentleman of Hampshire : Joanna,
who became the wife of Denison Cumber-
land, and mother of Richard, the author of
the ' Memoirs ;' William, who died in infancy ;
and Richard, the youngest (born in 1708),
an accomplished but eccentric man, who
achieved nothing signal in life. Of the home
at Trinity Lodge, Richard Cumberland says
that Bentley's 'establishment was respect-
able, and his table affluently and hospitably
served.' Bentley usually breakfasted alone
in his library, and was seldom visible till
dinner-time. After evening prayers at ten,
the family retired, and Bentley, ' habited in
his dressing-gown,' would go back to his
books. The children used to read the ' Spec-
tator ' aloud to him as each number came
out, and he ' was so particularly amused by
the character of Sir Roger de Coverley ' — as
his daughter Joanna told her son — ' that he
took his literary decease most seriously to
heart.' ' His ordinary style of conversation
was naturally lofty,' his grandson says, and
by using ' thou ' and l thee ' rather too much, he
sometimes gave a dictatorial tone to his talk ;
' but the native candour and inherent tender-

Bentley

313

Bentley

•ness of his heart could not long be veiled
from observation, for his feelings and affec-
tions were at once too impulsive to be long
repressed, and he too careless of concealment
to attempt at qualifying them.' Bichard
Cumberland, whose words these are, had
often spent his school holidays at Trinity
Lodge, and he attests his grandfather Bent-
ley's unwearied good nature to himself and
his little sister. ' I have broken in upon him
many a time in his hours of study, when he
would put his book aside, ring his hand-bell
for his servant, and be led to his shelves to
take down a picture-book for my amusement.
I do not say that his good-nature always
gained its object, as the pictures which his
books generally supplied me with were ana-
tomical drawings of dissected bodies . . .
but he had nothing better to produce.' Once,
and once only, Bentley reproved the boy ' for
making a most outrageous noise ' in the room
over his library ' by playing at battledore and
shuttlecock with Master Gooch, the bishop of
Ely's son.' (The bishop, when vice-chancellor
of Cambridge, had suspended Bentley's de-
grees.) ' And I have been at this sport with
his father,' he replied, ' but thine has been
the more amusing game, so there's no harm
done.' Bentley seems never to have cared
for general society. At Cambridge, as for-
merly in London, his intercourse was chiefly
with a small circle of friends, which latterly
included the well-known scholars, Jeremiah
Markland and John Taylor. We hear that,
at the age of seventy, Bentley acquired the
habit of smoking, and that he expressed his
opinion of claret by saying that * it would be
port if it could.' Pope's allusion,

His hat, which never vail'd to human pride,
Walker with rev'rence took, and laid aside,

refers to a certain broad-brimmed hat which
Cumberland remembered hanging on a peg
at the back of Bentley's armchair — he some-
times wore it in his study to shade his eyes
— and to a story about it, viz. that Bentley,
being greatly irritated by a visitor, on an
occasion when Dr. Richard Walker was pre-
sent, exclaimed, ' Walker, my hat ! ' and left
the room. The ' rev'rence ' ascribed to Walker
glances, of course, at his part in the affair of
the mastership, when, being vice-master, he
refused to deprive Bentley. Besides this
well-known passage in the fourth book of
the ' Dunciad ' (published in 1742, some four
months before Bentley's death), other at-
tacks had been made on Bentley by Pope,
viz., in the first edition of the 'Dunciad'
(1728, where * Bentley ' was afterwards
changed to < Wrelsted '), in the ' Epistle to
Arbuthnot ' (1735), and in the epistle mo-

delled on that of Horace to Augustus (1737).
' I talked against his " Homer," and the
portentous cub never forgives' — that was
Bentley's explanation of Pope's enmity, and
beyond it all is conjecture. Warburton, too,
was a persistent detractor from Bentley's
merit. Envious disparagement of scholars
by superficial writers on scholarly subjects
was as natural then as it is now, and should
be regarded as a form of reluctant homage.
' To the last hour of his life,' his grandson
tells us, Bentley ' possessed his faculties firm
and in their fullest vigour.' According to
Markland, Bentley compared himself to ' an
old trunk, which if you let it alone will last
a long time ; but if you jumble it by moving,
will soon fall to pieces.' In 1739 he had a
slight paralytic stroke, and thenceforth could
not move easily without help, but that was
the most serious result. In June 1742 he
was able to examine for the Craven Scholar-
ships, and helped to award one of them to
Christopher Smart. Soon afterwards he was
seized with pleuritic fever. On 14 July 1742
he died ; the eightieth year of his life had
been completed in the preceding January.
He was buried in the chapel of Trinity Col-
lege. A small square stone in the pavement,
on the north side of the communion table,
bears the words : ' H. S. E. Eichardus Bent-
ley, S.T.P.R. Obiit xiv. Jul. 1742. ^Etatis

so;

From 1700, when he took office at Trinity,
down to 1738, Bentley's repose was seldom
untroubled. He has himself spoken of ' of-
ficial duties and harassing cares ' as ' daily
surging' around him. Yet his studies, it
would seem, were rarely broken off. In 1709
his critical notes on the Tusculan Disputa-
tions appeared in the edition of ' John Da-
vies.' In 1710 he wrote his emendations on
Menander and Philemon. His ' Horace ' was
published at the end of 1711, a book in which
we can feel what he says of it, that it was
thrown off l in the first impetus and glow ' of
his thoughts — rash and tasteless in many of
its conjectures, marvellously acute in some
others ; on the whole, a signal proof of his
learning, his ingenuity, and his argumenta-
tive power. Two years later (1713) his
* Remarks on a late Discourse of Free-think-
ing ' (in reply to Anthony Collins) are note-
worthy for a passage on the Homeric poems,
endorsing the old tradition that they were
first put together, from scattered lays, in the
age of Pisistratus. Bentley cannot properly
be regarded, however, as having anticipated
F. A. Wolf's theory. Bentley meditated an
edition of Homer, but left only manuscript
notes on ' Iliad,' i.-vii. 54, with some slighter
marginalia on the ' Iliad,' 'Odyssey,' and

Bentley

314

Bentley

* Hymns. The distinctive trait of his Homeric
criticism was his perception that a letter, lost
to the later Greek alphabet, is presupposed
by Homeric metre at the beginning of certain
words : this was the ' digamma,' in sound like
our V. Bentley went too far in attempting a
uniform restoration of this letter, and would
have made some havoc in Homer's text ; yet
his discovery was, in itself, a brilliant one.
His * Terence ' (1726) broke new ground in the
treatment of the metrical questions raised by
Latin comedy. His ' Manilius,' published in
his seventy-seventh year (1739), is less valu-
able as a critical edition than for the learning
and the acute remarks contained in many of
the notes. In 1720 he had published ' Pro-
posals' for printing an edition of the New
Testament. His idea was to reconstruct from
the oldest Latin manuscripts the text of the
Latin l Vulgate ' as formed by Jerome (circ.
383 A.D.), and to compare this with our oldest
Greek manuscripts. By this method Bentley
believed that he could restore the Greek text
as generally received by the church at the
time of the Council of Nice (325 A.D.) For
onany years he kept this project in view.
Why it was finally abandoned is unknown ;
a clearer insight into the difficulty of the
task, and the pressure of external troubles,
may both have contributed to that result.
Here, as in other fields, Bentley was in ad-
vance of his age. The ripest New Testament
criticism of this century has recognised the
elements of value in his conception. The
edition of 'Paradise Lost' (1732) proceeds
on the supposition that the blind poet had
employed an amanuensis, who made nume-
rous involuntary mistakes, and an editor, who
not only did likewise, but also deliberately
interpolated bad verses of his own. It has
the faults of Bentley's classical criticisms in
a senile form, while, from the nature of the
case, it can have none of their merits, though
it often shows intellectual acuteness. Pope,
in his copy of the book, wrote marks of ap-
proval opposite some of Bentley's improve-
ments on Milton. Perhaps the chief reason
for regretting Bentley's edition of ' Paradise
Lost ' is that it is apt to make us forget how
well he has deserved of his native language.
Dryden and Temple were the accepted mas-
ters of English prose in the first half of Bent-
ley's life ; in the latter half the canon Avas
Addison. Bentley's English style has little
in common with any phase of theirs : but it
has much in common with the simple and
racy vigour of the ' Pilgrim's Progress.' The
stamp peculiar to it is the reflex of Bentley's
character. In his case, if in any, the style is
the man. It is keen and direct, for he sought
to go straight to the truth. It often shows an

ironical delight in homely images and phrases,
for as a scholar he knew how easily charlatans
take refuge in fine or vague writing. It is
trenchant with a thoroughly English force,
and humorous in a purely English vein.

The restoration of classical learning in
Europe was effected by a few great scholars
of various countries. Among these Bentley
represents England, and he begins a new
period. During the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries such scholars as Poggio
and Politian had been intent on the literary
reproduction of ancient form, and with them
Erasmus may be classed, though his scope
was in some respects larger than theirs. In
the second half of the sixteenth century
Joseph Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon turned
from the form to the matter of classical lite-
rature : Scaliger sought to reconstruct chro-
nology, Casaubon, to regain the knowledge of
ancient life. Then Bentley came, and saw
that before the work could go further the
basis itself must be made sound. The clas-
sical texts, teeming with errors, must be
amended. Zealous for this task, he ranged
widely through Greek and Latin literature.
His genius is higher than any one of his
books ; his merit is larger than all of them
together. The most important way in which
his influence has worked has been by inspiring,
by opening new perspectives, suggesting more
scientific methods, throwing out ideas which
have become fruitful in other minds. We
must look at his life-work as a whole, re-
membering the time at which it was done,
and feeling the impetus, the glow, which per-
vade it. Alike in textual criticism and in
the i higher criticism ' of literature and his-
tory he set examples which have still a living
force.

[Life of Bentley, by J. H. Monk, 2 vols. 8vo.
1833 ; Bentley's Works, ed. Dyce, 3 vols. 1836-
38 ; Bentleii Critica Sacra, A. A. Ellis, 1862 ; list
of other books in the preface to Bentley, by
E. C. Jebb, in English Men of Letters, 1882.]

K. C. J.

BENTLEY, RICHARD (1708-1782),
writer on miscellaneous subjects, was the
youngest child of Dr. Richard Bentley [q. v.],
the famous scholar, and his only son who
outlived infancy. He was born in 1708, and
baptised in June of that year. While only
a boy of ten he was admitted a member of
Trinity College, Cambridge, and was ele'cted,
apparently by special favour, a fellow of that
college in 1723, being at the time a 'junior
bachelor,' and only fifteen years of age.
Bentley was brought up to no profession,
and throughout life seems to have been some-
what aimless and desultory, as well as eccen-

Bentley

315

Bentley

trie and singularly imprudent, especially in
money matters. All his contemporaries
unite in speaking in the highest terms of his
abilities, but neither his literary nor artistic
work is of very high importance, and his
name will be best remembered on account of
his intimate connection with Horace Walpole
and the poet Gray. For several years Bentley
lived in the south of France, and afterwards
in the island of Jersey, apparently in retreat,
on account of his money difficulties. Sub-
sequently he came to England to live at
Teddington, near Twickenham. Whilst in
Jersey he kept up a pretty constant corre-
spondence with Walpole, and thirty-five
letters of the latter addressed to Bentley
(1752-1756) have been preserved and pub-
lished. Walpole constantly speaks of him
in the most flattering and even extravagant
language, as Mr. Bentley ' whom I adore,'
i who has more sense, judgment, and wit, more
taste and more misfortunes than ever met
in any man.' Walpole, above all, concerns
himself with his friend's artistic talents, and
is perpetually urging him to send more draw-
ings : t Your letters grow more and more en-
tertaining, your drawings more and more
picturesque ; you write with more wit, and
paint with more melancholy than ever any-
body did.' Walpole, in fact, found Bentley
{' the Goth,' as he playfully called him) an
extremely useful ally in the adornment of
Strawberry Hill, for which Bentley designed
a good deal of the Gothic architecture and
decoration, making drawings also for his
patron's friends — ' a very pretty Gothic room
for Lord Holdernesse,' or '& little Gothic
building for Lord Strafford.' The artistic
achievement of Bentley which most attracted
the attention of his friends was the set of
drawings furnished by him for the fine edi-
tion of Gray's poems printed by Walpole in
1753 (' Designs by Mr. Richard Bentley for
Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray,' 1753, fol., with
the text). The designs show some cleverness,
to at are rather grotesque, and certainly not
worthy of the high praise bestowed upon them
toy the poet in his t Stanzas to Mr. Bentley : ' —

In silent gaze the tuneful choir among,

Half pleas'd, half blushing, let the Muse
admire,

"While Bentley leads her sister-art along,
And bids the pencil answer to the lyre.

Whilst under Walpole's eye, Bentley trans-
lated part of the Travels of Hentzner, a
work which was printed at the Strawberry
Hill press in October 1757 (•' A Journey into
England in the Year 1598, being a part of
the Itinerary of P. Hentznerus,' translated by
II. Bentley, Lat. and Eng., 1757, 8vo).

About the year 1761 he turned his atten-
tion to play-writing, though his efforts were
rewarded with little or no success. His farce,
or comedy, called ' The Wishes, or Harlequin's
Mouth opened,' was acted at Drury Lane for
three nights (27, 28, 30 July 1761), and at
Covent Garden, 3 Oct. 1761. This curious
production, which was never printed, was
written with the view of ridiculing the con-
struction of the Greek drama, especially the
observance of the unities and the stoic re-
flection and moralisings of the chorus. The
chorus in the * Wishes ' are informed that a
madman, a torch in his hand, is just on the
point of setting fire to a powder magazine ;
on hearing which they solemnly commence in
strophe and antistrophe to lament their own
condition, proceeding to exclaim against the
thrice-unhappy madman and against the six-
times unhappy fate of themselves thus ex-
posed to a madman's fury. Bentley's tragedy
' Philodamus ' (printed 1767, 4to), by its
1 scenes of courtship, paternal vigilance, and
spousal preparations,' is said to have con-
vulsed the house with laughter from the first
scene to the last. A posthumous comedy of
his, called f The Prophet,' was acted for a few
nights in 1788. Among his other writings
may be mentioned ' Patriotism, a Mock
Heroic in five cantos,' London, 1763 : and
<A Letter to the Eight Hon. C. F. Fox/
1793, 8vo.

A rupture in the friendship of Bentley and
Walpole had occurred (apparently about
1761), and their old intimacy was never re-
newed. According to Cumberland, Bentley's
nephew, the friendship of the two was always
of l a sickly kind, and had too much of the
bitter of dependence ' in it. On the other
hand, it is said that Bentley began to borrow
money, and Walpole seems especially to have
been annoyed by the presence of Mrs. Bentley,
whom her husband was ' forward to intro-
duce at his house when people of the first
fashion were there.' Bentley is said, how-
ever, to have at one time derived his chief
subsistence from a small place which Wal-
pole had procured for him (COLE, Athence
CantabrigJ) In his later years Bentley was
living in quiet retirement in Westminster.
His death took place in October 1782. He
had a son, Richard, who was sent to West-
minster School, and several daughters. An
interesting portrait of Bentley, engraved from
the original formerly at Strawberry Hill,
may be found in Cunningham's edition of
1 Walpole's Letters ' (ii. 296).

[Cole's Athense Cantabrigienses (in Nichols's
Literary Illustrations, viii. 572, 573, and in Sir
E.Brydges'sKestituta, iv. 384); The Letters of
JBorace Walpole, eel. Cunningham, vol. ii. and

Bentley

316

Bentley

reff. in index in vol. ix. under ' Bentley, Mr. ; '
Walpole's Short Notes of my Life, prefixed to
vol. i. of the Letters ; Cumberland's Memoirs ;
Monk's Life of Eichard Bentley. D.D. ; Gray's
"Works and Life ; Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs.
Siddons, i. 360 f. ; Sir W. Scott's Miscell. Prose
Works (Cadell, 1841), i. 45 and 50; Notes and
Queries, 3rd ser., vii. 37.] W. W.

BENTLEY, RICHARD (1794-1871),

Eublisher, descended from an old Shropshire
imily, was born in London, probably in
Paternoster Row, where his father, Edward
Bentley, in conjunction with John Nichols,
published the < General Evening Post/ of
which he was part proprietor. Richard was
sent to St. Paul's School, where he had for
school-fellows John Pollock, R. H. Barham
(Ingoldsby), and Medhurst, the China mis-
sionary, among others. Some amusing letters
addressed in after years to Bentley may be
found in Barham's ' Life and Letters,' 2 vols.
1870. After quitting the school he learned
the art and business of printing in the office
of his uncle, John Nichols, Red Lion Court,
author of the ' History of Leicestershire.'
In 1819 Bentley joined his brother Samuel
[q. v.], who had established a printing-office
in Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, and after-
wards in Shoe Lane. The Bentleys took
high rank among printers, and were noted
especially for the care with which they
printed woodcuts, such as those which illus-
trate Yarrell's works on natural history. In
1829 Richard Bentley joined in partnership
with Henry Colburn, the publisher of fashion-
able novels, who had then recently pub-
lished with great success Evelyn's and Pepys's
Diaries.

In 1832 Colburn retired from the busi-
ness on terms which were afterwards can-
celled by an agreement which gave him
liberty to set up another business in Great
Marlborough Street, London. Bentley con-
tinued in New Burlington Street, where in
process of time he gathered round him many
men of letters. Luttrell, Moore, Isaac Dis-
raeli and his greater son Benjamin, Theodore
Hook, Barham, Haliburton (Sam Slick),
Charles Dickens, Mrs. Norton, George Cruik-
shank, and John Leech were of those whose
works, in part or wholly, he brought before
the world. ' Bentley's Miscellany ' was started
in 1837, when Barham uttered his well-known
joke as to the title best suited for the new
magazine [see BARHAM, RICHARD HARRIS].
In the previous year Bentley had made
the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, at the
time reporter to the ' Morning Chronicle/
and had come to an agreement with him
(signed 22 Aug. 183G) for two novels for the

sum of 1,000/. In October 1836 Dickens
was offered and accepted the stipend of 20/.
a month as editor of the 'Miscellany/ in-
creased in the following March to 30/. a
month. The success of the ' Miscellany/ in
which ( Oliver Twist ' appeared with Cruik-
shank's illustrative plates, was so great that
Bentley raised his terms considerably, paying
750/. for ' Oliver Twist/ and offering 4,OOOJ.
for the second novel, ' Barnaby Rudge.' The
popularity of Dickens, however, had risen so
rapidly that he felt dissatisfied with the ar-
rangements made with his publisher. In
January 1839 he withdrew from the editor-
ship of the ' Miscellany/ was freed from the
engagement to contribute ' Barnaby Rudge '
to that magazine, and bought from Bentley
the copyright and remaining stock of ' Oliver
Twist ' for 2,250/. W. H. Ainsworth became
editor of the ' Miscellany/ which continued
to nourish till 1868, when it ceased to appear,
after a successful careei* of thirty-one years.
For some years (1837 to 1843) contributors
to the magazine met at the ' Miscellany ' '
dinners in the Red Room in Burlington
Street. Moore gives an account of one of
these festive gatherings in his ' Diary ' (vii.
244).

The issue of 127 volumes of l Standard
Novels ' was another remarkable venture of
Bentley's which met with great success. He
was enterprising enough even to publish, in
January 1845, a newspaper entitled i Young
England/ which set forth the views of the
small party known under that name. Despite
the labours of the Hon. George Sinythe and
his friends, this journal came to an end, after
a short existence of three months. In like
manner ' Bentley's Quarterly Review' (1859),
though conducted by Mr. Douglas Cook;,
with the assistance of Lord Robert Cecil,
afterwards Marquis of Salisbury, only reached
a fourth number. Bentley held what was
thought to be the copyright of many works
written by American authors. By a decision
of the House of Lords in 1859 the claim to
such right was annulled, with a loss to
Bentley equivalent to 16,000/.

In 1867 Bentley had the misfortune to
meet with a severe accident at the Chepstow
railway station, in consequence of which
he relinquished the management of his busi-
ness to his son, Mr. George Bentley. He
lived, however, four years longer, dying at
Ramsgate, 10 Sept. "1871, at the age of
seventy-seven.

[The Bookseller, 1871, p. 811 ; Forster's Life
of Dickens, i. 113, 120, 126, 139, 141, 201, ii.
450, iii. 212-13; Letter by G. Bentley, in the
Times, 8 Dee. 1871; Moore's Diary, vii. 244:
Barham's Life, 2 vols. 1870.] E. H.

Bentley

317

Bentley

BENTLEY, SAMUEL (1785-1868),
printer and antiquarian, second son of Edward
Bentley, for some years principal of the ac-
countant's office in the Bank of England,
and nephew of John Nichols, the noted an-
tiquarian, was born 10 May 1785. He was
educated at St. Paul's School, where he had
his cousin, the younger Nichols, as a school-
fellow. After an apprenticeship to the busi- i
ness of John Nichols — who was for some
years printer, publisher, and editor of the i
i Gentleman's Magazine ' — he was taken into '
partnership, and largely contributed to build
up the fame of that distinguished house.
He was not only a scholar, but also a man
of remarkable industry. He successively
indexed the 'Literary Anecdotes of the
Eighteenth Century,' by John Nichols, and
the ' History of Durham,' by Surtees, whilst
at the same time devoting his energies to the
personal revision of every work printed by
his firm. In 1816 he edited, and wrote the
Latin prefaces, for an octavo issue of the
* Concio de Puero Jesu,' a work composed by
Erasmus at the request of Dean Colet. This
edition is dedicated to Dr. Sleath, the head-
master of St. Paul's, and bears the imprint,
'Typis I. et I. B. Nichols et S, Bentley.
MDCCC.X.VI. Excudebant Joannes Nichols
cum sociis olim scholse Paulines alumnis.'
In 1819 Bentley went into partnership with
his brother Richard [q. v.], in Dorset Street,
Salisbury Square ; and on the latter taking
over the business of Colburn, he established
the firm of Samuel and John Bentley,
"Wilson, & Fley, at Bangor House, Shoe
Lane, John being his nephew. It was here
that his personal reputation was definitely
secured; and he spared no pains to place
himself at the head of his calling. Lord
Beaconsfield on one occasion, speaking of
the productions of Bentley in Shoe Lane,
said that if there were two editions of a
book, and one of them was printed at Bangor
House, he would unhesitatingly choose that
one. Bentley's zeal led him at an early date
to visit the type-foundry of Firmin Didot at
Paris, though he had probably little to learn
from the Frenchmen in the way of taste or
efficiency. He was not merely an accurate
printer and an indefatigable antiquarian, but
he was accomplished also as a musician and
an artist. Some of his paintings (amongst
them being a faithful portrait of his father)
elicited the praise of Maclise. He had im-
bibed his uncle's interest in archaeological
subjects ; and his knowledge of architecture,
of Old English music, and of the early Nor-
man-French tongue, which presents so many
difficulties even to men of scholarly attain-
ments, was very considerable. His best pro-

fessional work was the 'Excerpta Historica/
a royal 8vo, published in 1831, in which he
had the assistance of Sir Harris Nicolas,
Sir Charles Young, Mr. Duffus Hardy, and
others. He in turn lent valuable aid to Sir
Harris in preparing for publication the
1 Scrope and Grosvenor Roll ; ' and his poring
over the decayed manuscript of this work for
several hours daily in the Tower of London
was assigned by himself as the cause of his
eventual blindness. Sir H. Nicolas paid
him a handsome compliment for his valuable
assistance in this connection. ( Nothing,' he
wrote, ' could be more delightful to me than
the cordial co-operation I have received from
you throughout the work, or more useful
than the numerous suggestions with which
you have favoured me ; indeed, if I did not
rely on a continuance of your aid, I should
almost despond of the prospect before me of
volume iii.' In 1836 Bentley printed for
private circulation ' An Abstract of Charters
and other Documents contained in a Cartulary
of the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, in
the possession of S. B.' After struggling for
some time against failing eyesight, he was
compelled to abandon his business in 1853 ;
but in his retreat at Croydon, attended by
his faithful and accomplished wife — whom he
had married in 1825, and who survived him
— he enjoyed fifteen years of cultivated ease.

[Works as cited above ; Gent. Mag. June 1 868 ;
private information from Mr. George Bentley,
which corrects the magazine obituary notice of
his uncle in some important particulars.]

L. S-T.

BENTLEY, THOMAS (1731-1780),
manufacturer of porcelain, was born at Scrop-
ton, Derbyshire, on 1 Jan. 1730-1. His
father, Thomas Bentley, was a country gen-
tleman of some property. After receiving his
education at the neighbouring presbyterian
academy at Findern, young Bentley, being
then about sixteen years of age, was placed
in a warehouse at Manchester to learn the
processes of the woollen and cotton trades.

On the expiration of his apprenticeship he
travelled for some time upon the continent,
and after his return he married, in 1754, Miss
Hannah Oates of Sheffield. He then settled
in Liverpool, where he set up in business as
a Manchester warehouseman, and afterwards
took Mr. James Boardman into partnership.
In 1757 he assisted in founding the famous
Warrington academy, and in 1762 in building
the Octagon chapel in Temple Court, Liver-
pool, for the use of a body of dissenters, of
which he was a prominent member, who,
though they preferred a liturgy, had scruples
with regard to the use of the Athanasian

Bentley

318

Bentley

Creed and other parts of the Book of Common
Prayer. The frequenters of this chapel were
called ' Octagonians ; ' but the life of this
sect was short, and not 'long after Bentley's
removal to London the chapel was closed,
and the building sold to the corporation.

In 1762 he was introduced to Josiah Wedg-
wood by Dr. Matthew Turner, when the
former was laid up at Liverpool by an acci-
dent to his knee. This was the commence-
ment of his friendship with the celebrated
potter, which only terminated with his life.
Though Wedgwood made his first proposals
to Bentley with regard to a partnership
towards the close of 1766, it was not until
14 Nov. 1768 that the partnership actually
commenced. In the same month Bentley
took up his residence at the Brick House,
Burslem. This was, however, merely a tem-
porary residence, as he had not then given
up his partnership with Boardman in Liver-
pool.

On 13 June 1769 part of the Etruria
works were opened ; but, though a house was
specially built for him there, he never seems
to have occupied it. In 1769 he finally left
Liverpool, and after living for a short time
at the warehouse in Newport Street, London,
he removed to Little Cheyne Row, Chelsea,
in order to be near the works which the firm
had lately established there for the decora-
tion of encaustic vases.

On 22 June 1772, at All Saints, Derby,
Bentley married Mary, the daughter of Mr.
Stamford, an engineer of that town, his first
wife having died in childbirth within two
years from the date of their marriage. In 1774
he removed from Chelsea to 12 Greek Street,
Soho, that he might superintend the works
which were being carried on there by the
firm. His health, however, failed, and in
order to get change of air and scene he
took up his residence at Turnham Green in
1777. After a protracted illness he died
there, 26 Nov. 1780, at the age of forty-nine,
and was buried in Chiswick church, where
a monument, with a medallion portrait by
Scheemakers, was raised to his memory by
his friend Wedgwood. The partnership be-
tween Wedgwood and Bentley was confined
solely to the manufacture and sale of orna-
mental goods, and upon Bentley's death, in
order to wind up the accounts, all the orna-
mental ware in stock was sold by auction at
Christie's. The sale lasted twelve days, the
catalogues of which are now extremely rare.
Bentley was much more than a mere suc-
cessful man of business. He had wide and
varied attainments, extensive knowledge,
and excellent taste. Amongst his friends
and associates were many of the leading

men of the day, such as Franklin, Priestley,
Banks, and others. He wrote a conside-
rable number of pamphlets, articles, and
political songs, and contributed frequently
to the 'Monthly Review.' The article on
Brindley in the 'Biographia Britannica'
was written by him from materials obtained
for him by Wedgwood and another friend.
His acquaintance with the eminent art pa-
trons of the day was of great assistance to
his partner, as by this means they were able
to obtain loans of valuable specimens for the
purposes of reproduction. His handsome
presence and polished manners also stood
the business in good stead at the morning
audiences in the showrooms of Newport
Street and Greek Street, Soho. A medallion
portrait of Bentley, executed in jasper by
Wedgwood, was presented to the Liverpool
Literary and Philosophical Society, and a
portrait of him, painted by Caddick, a Liver-
pool artist, was, in 1851, in the possession of
Mr. James Boardman, of Liverpool.

[Eliza Meteyard's Life of Josiah Wedgwood
(1865), 2 vols. passim; Boarclman's Bentleyana
(1851); Jewitt's Ceramic Art of Great Britain
(1883), pp. 123, 516-8; Notes and Queries, 3rd
ser.. v. 376, 449, 509, vi. 14.] G-. F. E. B.

BENTLEY, THOMAS, LL.D. (1693 ?-
1742), classical scholar, son of James Bent-
ley (the eldest son of Thomas Bentley of
Woodlesford, half-brother to Dr. Richard
Bentley), was born either late in 1692 or
early in 1693 ; ' was brought up at St. Paul's
School in London,' and was afterwards en-
tered of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he
proceeded B.A. in 1711, and M.A. in 1715.
In 1713 he published a small Horace, which
was, in fact, an annotated edition of his
uncle's text, dedicated to Lord Harley. Pope,
in an offensive note to the edition of 1736,
referred to this dedication, and declared that
a couplet in the ' Dunciad ' (ii. 205), which
has always been understood to refer to the
uncle, really applied to the nephew :

Bentley his mouth with classic flatt'ry opes,
And the puffd orator bursts out in tropes.

In 1718, being then a fellow of his college,
Thomas Bentley published his ' M. T. Cice-
ronis de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum Libri
Quinque et Paradoxon Liber Unus. Emen-
davit, Notisque illustravit Thomas Bent-
ley, A.M., Trin. Coll. Camb. Socius,' 8vo,
Cambridge, 1718. As he declined or neg-
lected to take orders, he lost his fellowship
when he had become a master of arts of about
seven years' standing, but was appointed
librarian of Trinity, and proceeded to his
LL.D. degree in 1724. In 1725-6 he was
abroad on a literary excursion for the pur-

Benwell

319

Benwell

pose of examining and collating manuscripts
which might assist his uncle in the projected
edition of the Greek New Testament. Bent-
ley consulted manuscripts at Paris, Rome,
Naples, and Florence, and took part in the
collation of the celebrated Vatican manu-
script, his notes on which were afterwards
(1784) submitted to Woide for use in his
valuable 'Novum Testamentum Grsecum e
Codice MS. Alexandrino,'&c. fol.,1786. Dr.
Thomas Bentley was not, as has been said,
the salaried employe of his uncle, and both at
Paris and at Rome he devoted most of his time
to collating Greek manuscripts of Plutarch,
with a view to the publication of an edition
of that author, to which his health rendered
him unequal. In 1741 Bentley published
his handsome edition of the hymns of Calli-
machus, •' Callimachi Hymni et Epigrammata ;
quibus accesserunt Theognidis Carmina,' &c.,
8vo, London, 1741, which was for some time
mistakenly ascribed to his uncle. His edi-
tion of Caesar, with notes of his own and of
his friend, Dr. Jurin, appeared in 1742. He
died suddenly, as Dr. Monk says on the
authority of a communication from Mr. Bent-
ley Warren, on 28 May 1742, at Clifton. In
the ' Gentleman's Magazine 'for 1786, Thomas
Bentley has been confounded with Richard
Bentley, another nephew of the master, who
was rector of Nailston from 1745 to 1786,
B.A. 1725, M.A. 1729, D.D. 1750, and a
literary executor of his famous uncle.

[Bentley' s Introduction to his Q. Horatius
Flaccus, &c. 8vo, Cambridge, 1713; Dunciadand
Eemarks in Pope's Works, 1824, iii. 177 and 178 ;
Graduati Cantabrigienses, 1787 ; Nichols's
Literary Anecdotes, iv. 491-2 ; Nichols's Illus-
trations, ii. 222 ; Nichols's Leicester, iv. 809 ;
Monk's Life of Eichard Bentley, 1830; Cole-
ridge's Biographia Borealis, 1833, &c. ; Gent.
Mag. March, May, and December, 1786.]

A. H. G.

BENWELL, JOHN HODGES (1764-
1785), genre painter, was born in 1764 at
Blenheim, where his father was under-steward
to the Duke of Marlborough. He was a pupil
of an obscure portrait painter named San-
ders, but he studied also in the schools of
the Royal Academy, and gained a silver medal
in 1782. He afterwards for a time taught
drawing at Bath, and likewise executed a
few small oval drawings in water-colours,
which he combined effectively with crayons
in a manner peculiar to himself; but his
works have suffered much from the ravages
of time. He returned to London and exhi-
bited a classical subject at the Royal Aca-
demy in 1784, but he died prematurely of
consumption in 1785, and was buried in Old
St. Pancras churchyard. Several of his works

are well known by engravings from them.
Among these are two scenes from 'Auld
Robin Gray,' the ' Children in the Wood ' en-

§:aved by W. Sharp, and <A St. Giles's
eauty ' and < A St. James's Beauty' engraved
by Bartolozzi. There is a drawing of < The
Chevalier de Bayard ' by him in the South
Kensington Museum.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.1

E. E. G.

BENWELL, MARY (fl. 1761-1800),
portrait painter, is not known to have been

miniatures at the Incorporated Society of
Artists and the Royal Academy between the
years 1761 and 1791. She worked also in oil
colours and obtained some reputation in her
profession, but she retired from it on her
marriage about 1782 with an officer named
Code. She was still living at Paddington in
1800. There is a portrait of Queen Charlotte,
engraved after her by Richard Houston,
another of Miss Brockhurst, by J. Saunders,
' The Studious Fair ' (said to be a portrait of
Queen Charlotte), by Charles Spooner, and
' Cupid disarmed,' by Charles Knight.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.1

E. E. G.

BENWELL, WILLIAM (1765-1796),
classical scholar, was born in 1765 at Cavers-
ham, in Oxfordshire. Having been educated
at Reading grammar school under Dr.
Richard Valpy, he was sent early in 1783 to
Trinity College, Oxford, where his abilities
attracted the notice of Thomas Warton. In
1787 he took the degree of B.A. and gained
the chancellor's prize for the best English
essay, having previously gained the chancel-
lor's medal for Latin verse. In November
1789 he proceeded M.A., and in the follow-
ing year was elected fellow of his college.
He was presented in 1794 to the living of
Hale Magna, in Lincolnshire, which he after-
wards resigned for the rectory of Chilton, in
Suffolk. In September 1796, ten weeks after
his marriage, he died at Milton, in Wiltshire,
of a fever contracted while ministering to
the comfort of some sick villagers. At the
time of his death he was engaged on an edi-
tion of Xenophon's 'Memorabilia/ which
was published in 1804. He was an occa-
sional contributor to the ' Gentleman's Maga-
zine.' Headley, in the preface to 'Select
Beauties of Ancient English Poets,' acknow-
ledges the great assistance he had received
from Benwell.

[Memoir appended to Poems, Odes, Prologues,,
and Epilogues spoken on Public Occasions at

Benyng

320

Beorn

Beading School, 1804; Gent. Mag. Ixvii. 3,
Ixxv. 144; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ix. 28,
758.] A. H. B.

BENYNG or DE BININ, WILLIAM

(j#. 1250), biographer, may be presumed to
have been a native of Binning1 in Linlith-
gowshire. He was prior of the Cistercian
abbey of Newbattle until 1243, when he was
elected abbot of Cupar. He resigned this
office on 29 Sept. 1253, probably on account
of old age. The date of his 'death is un-
known. He wrote the life of John Scot,
bishop of Dunkeld, who became an inmate
of Newbattle Abbey, and died there in 1203.
The continuator of Fordun, who praises the
elegance of Benyng's composition, says that
he was already prior at the time of the
bishop's death ; but there is no confirmation
of this somewhat improbable statement. This
biography does not appear to be now extant,
nor is anything known of the other works
which Benyng is said by Dempster to have
written.

[Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Scotorum, art. 188 ;
Scotichronicon, ed. Hearne, 595 ; Kegisters of
Cupar Abbey, eel. Bogers, i. 12; Chronica de
Mailros (Bannatyne Club), 102, 105, 156, 184.]

H. B.

BEORHTRIC or BRIHTRIC, king of
the West Saxons (d. 802), of the royal race
of Oerdic, succeeded Cynewulf on the throne
of Wessex 785. In his days, in 787, the
Northmen first landed in England, coming in
three ships, and landing on the coast of
Dorsetshire. When the l reeve ' heard of it
he rode to the place, and because he knew
not who they were he bade take them to the
king's town, and they slew him there.
Beorhtric was jealous of Ecgberht, who was
an eetheling, or a member of the royal house,
and, it is said, sought to slay him. Ecgberht
fled to the court of Oifa, king of the Mer-
cians. Beorhtric, however, would not let
him find shelter there. He sent an embassy
to Offa, and in 787 married Eadburh, daugh-
ter of the Mercian king. This marriage
naturally turned Offa against Ecgberht. who
was suspected of wishing to gain the West
Saxon throne for himself, and the two kings
drove him from England. Beorhtric was
unfortunate in his marriage. Eadburh was
an ambitious and unscrupulous woman, and
he allowed her to have too much power. She
hated every one whom her husband favoured,
and those whom she hated she accused
falsely, that the king might put them to
death. If her accusations were disregarded,
she killed them by poison. Now the king
greatly loved a young ealdorman, whose
name seems to have been Worr (A.-S. Chron.

800), and as Eadburh knew that it would
be useless for her to bring an accusation
against him she killed him by poison. It so
happened that Beorhtric also tasted this
poison, not knowing what it was, and so
died. Such is the story in Asser's * Life of
/Elfred,' and the writer says that he was told
it by King ^Elfred himself. It is copied by
Simeon of Durham and William of Malmes-
bury. The Chronicle simply records the
deaths of Beorhtric and the ealdorman Worr.
coupling them together in a marked way.
Beorhtric was buried at Wareham. He left
no children, and was succeeded by the
setheling Ecgberht in 802 (according to most
authorities in 800 ; but see WILL. MALM., ed.
Hardy, i. 60, E. H. S.)

[Anglo-Sax. Chron. ; Asser de Bebus gestis
JElfredi,471, M.H.B. ; Simeon Dun. 672, M.H.B. ;
Will. Malm. ii. 113.] W. H.

BEORHTWULF or BERTULF (d.

852), king of the Mercians, succeeded Wiglaf
in 839. In his days Mercia was subject to the
West-Saxon king. In 851 came 350 ships of
the Danes to the mouth of the Thames, and
the crews landed and took Canterbury and
London by storm. Beorhtwulf gathered all
his host, and went out to battle against
them. He was defeated and fled. Henry of
Huntingdon adds, possibly from some old
ballad, that he never rallied from the blow.
He died the following year. He had, by
his wife Saethryth, a son named Beorhtferth,
who in 850 slew his kinsman St. Wistan, the
grandson of the two Mercian kings, Wiglaf
and Ceolwulf. The descent of St. Wistan
from these kings doubtless roused the jealousy
of Beorhtferth, and prompted the deed of
violence. Several charters of Beorhtwulf
are printed in Kemble's 'Codex Dipl.' vol. ii.
He was succeeded by Burhred.

[Anglo-Sax. Chron. 850 ; Florence, a. 850-1 ;
Henry of Huntingdon, p. 737, M.H.B.]

W. H.

BEORN, earl of the Middle Angles
(d. 1049), was the son of Ulf, the famous
Danish jarl, put to death in the reign of
Cnut, and of Estrith, Cnut's sister. He was
therefore a nephew of Gytha, the wife of
Earl Godwine, and brother of Sweyn, called
Estrithson, who succeeded to the 'throne of
Denmark 1047. Although on the accession of
Eadward the Confessor the friends of Swevn
were marked for punishment for the hopes they
entertained of placing him on the throne, and
Beorn's brother Osbeorn was banished, Beorn
himself remained in England, and probably
in 1045, the year of Eadward's marriage to
Godwine's daughter Eadgyth, received the

Beorn

321

Beornwulf

'earldom of the Middle Angles ; for his first
•signature as earl belongs to that year (Codex
Dipl. iv. 99), and his appointment was
doubtless connected with the marriage of his
cousin. His earldom took in all the country
between the Humber and the Nen, while
south of Northamptonshire — which was at-
tached to the earldom of Siward — he was
also earl over Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire, and Huntingdonshire. He
may therefore be described as ' earl of the
Middle Angles, of eastern or Danish Mercia '
(FREEMAN, Norman Conquest, i. 555-60).
On the banishment of Godwine's eldest son,
Swegen, in 1046, his lordships were divided
between his cousin Beorn and his brother
Harold. In 1049 Swegen came back to Eng-
land, left his ships, some seven or eight in
number, in harbour at Bosham, went to the
king, who was then at Sandwich with the
fleet, and craved his pardon. Harold and
Beorn withstood him, though he seems to
have made a special appeal to his cousin ; for
1;hey were not willing to restore him the lands
which the king had given them, and Swegen
"went back to Bosham disappointed. It hap-
pened that a report was raised at Sandwich
that the Danes were harrying the west coast.
Earl Godwine accordingly set sail with the
ships of the country people and with two of
the king s ships, one of them being under the
command of Harold, who, however, gave up
the command to Beorn. This fleet was
weather-bound at Pevensey : and while God-
wine and Beorn were there Swegen came and
prayed his cousin to go with him to the king
and help him to make his peace. Beorn
agreed, and, trusting to his kinship with

BEORNWULF, king of the Mercians
(d. 826), deposed Ceolwulf and succeeded to
his kingdom in 823. At the date of his ac-
cession the long quarrel between the see of
Canterbury and the Mercian crown was still
in progress. The immediate occasion of this
quarrel was the seizure of the Kentish mo-
nasteries, South Minster and Reculver, by
Coenwulf, though the true source of the dis-
agreement is to be found in the jealousy of
the Mercian king. Beornwulf had no desire
to prolong the discord. In a synod and
witenagemot held at Clevesho in 824 he
vainly endeavoured to make some arrange-
ment between the archbishop and the abbess
Cwenthryth, daughter of Coenwulf, who had
inherited the lands her father had seized
from the archbishop. At the same meeting,
as it seems, was decided a famous suit con-
cerning the monastery at Westbury, the in-
heritance of vEthelric. In anothe'r council
held by Beornwulf at Clevesho in the next
year the archbishop and the abbess were re-
conciled, and their reconciliation put an end
to the quarrel which, according to the record
of the suit still preserved to us, had deprived
the whole people of the Angles ' of primor-
dial authority and the administration of holy
baptism for the space of six years.' In this
council also, as it seems, a suit was deter-
mined between the king and the Bishop of
Selsey touching certain lands at Denton, in
Sussex. The desire of Beornwulf to gain
the support of the church may be connected
with his jealousy of the rising power of
Wessex. In 825 he marched against Ecg-
berht with a large army, and advanced as far
Ellandune, which is generally supposed to

Swegen, rode off with him, taking only three ! have been in the neighbourhood of Salisbury.

,-,,,., i i^ere j^ wag met ^ the West-Saxon army,
and after heavy losses on both sides was de-
feated and fled. The terrible slaughter made
at Ellandune is commemorated by Henry of
Huntingdon in a scrap of an old ballad pre-
served in his chronicle. This battle caused
the general break-up of the Mercian power.

•companions. So secure did he feel that he

assented to his cousin's request that he

would turn out their way and go with

him to his ships ; for Swegen declared that

he feared that his crews would desert him

unless they saw that he had gained his cousin

over to his cause. When they came to

Bosham, Swegen invited Beorn to go on I During the next year the king and people of

board. He vehemently refused, but the | East Anglia put themselves under the protec-

! tion of Ecgberht, and sought his help against
Mercia. Beornwulf, however, seems to have
made light of the alliance between Wessex
and East Anglia. He invaded East Anglia,
and began to slay the chief men of the king-
dom. Encouraged by the promise of help
from Ecgberht, the East Anglians fought
with Beornwulf. They defeated and slew
him, together with a large part of his army.
[Anglo-Sax. Chron. ; Florence of Worcester ;
Henry of Huntingdon; Haddan and Stubbs's

sailors seized him, bound him, and rowed him
to one of the ships. They then set sail for
Dartmouth, and there slew him by Swegen's
orders. He was buried in the church. When
Harold and Beorn's friends and seamen, who
were in London, heard of his murder, they
went to Dartmouth, took up his body, car-
ried it to Winchester, and buried it in the
old minster by the side of King Cnut, his
uncle.

[Anglo-Sax. Chron. ; Freeman's Norman Con-
quest, ii. 10-104 passim.] W. H,
VOL. IV.

Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, iii. 556-
604 ; Kemble's Codex Dipl. i. 276-85]. W. H.

Beranger

322

Berchthun

BERANGER, GABRIEL (d. 1817),
artist, was born in Rotterdam about 1729,
and was descended from one of the Huguenots
who had settled in Holland. In 1750, when
he was about twenty-one years of age, he
came to Ireland to join some of his relatives
who had settled there, and after some time
opened a print shop and artist's warehouse
at 5 South Great George's Street, Dublin,
where for many years he followed the pro-
fession of an artist. At that time many of
the leading men of Dublin took great in-
terest in Irish history and antiquities. Fore-
most among these were General Vallancey
and Colonel Burton Conyngham, who became
acquainted with Beranger and were struck
by his skill as an artist, his intellectual tastes,
and his lively social disposition. They re-
solved to employ him in sketching antiquities,
and as his business in George's Street was
not successful, they had him appointed to a
government situation in the Dublin exche-
quer office.

He was an indefatigable draughtsman, and,
whether working for himself or for others,
seems never to have passed an object of anti-
quarian interest without sketching it. He
first drew all the antiquities of Dublin and
its neighbourhood, and afterwards, accom-
panied by a French artist named Bigari,
made several sketching tours through the
counties of Leinster, Connaught, and Ulster.
He was not only a good artist, but a close
observer of the people among whom he tra-
velled, and many of his drawings are ac-
companied by vivid descriptions of the scenery
and antiquities of the places he visited, and
racy notices of his intercourse with the gentry
and of the customs and manners of the
peasantry. He transferred his drawings and
descriptions to several manuscript volumes
intended for publication, most of which are
now preserved in Dublin, in the Royal Irish
Academy, and elsewhere. The drawings are
extremely valuable, as they preserve faith-
fully the appearance of ancient buildings
and stone monuments as they existed a cen-
tury ago, many of which are now greatly
dilapidated or wholly destroyed. Dr. Petrie
made much use of these drawings to illustrate
his book on the round towers of Ireland.

In later life Beranger was made indepen-
dent by a bequest from his brother-in-law.
He died in 1817 at the age of eighty-eight,
and was interred in the French burial-ground
in Dublin.

[Wilde's Memoir of Beranger; Petrie's Round
Towers, 248.] P. W. J.

BERCHET, PETER (1659-1720),
painter, was born in France in 1659. He

studied under Charles de Lafosse, and at the-
age of eighteen obtained employment in the
royal palaces. He came to England in 1681
to work under Rambour, a French painter of
architecture, but after a brief stay returned
to France. On paying a second visit to this
country he received a commission from King
William III to assist in the decoration of his
new palace at Loo in Holland, and laboured
there for fifteen months. On his return he
finally settled in England, where he found
extensive occupation in the houses of the
nobility. He painted the staircase of the
Duke of Schomberg's house in Pall Mall, and
the picture of the Ascension on the ceiling
of the chapel of Trinity College, Oxford.
During the latter part of his life, in conse-
quence of ill-health, he confined himself to
small easel pictures, which were chiefly of a
mythological character. He died in Mary-
lebone, where he had long resided, on 1 Jan.
1720. There are engravings from Berchet's
pictures by John Smith, Simon, and Vertue^
and he also etched a few plates from his own
designs, amongst them ' St. Cecilia in the
clouds playing the violin,' a ticket for a con-
cert, 1696.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting (Wornum),
p. 604; Strutt's Biog. Diet, of Engravers (1785) ;
Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878); MS.
notes in British Museum.] L. F.

BERCHTHUN, SAINT (d. 733), abbot of
Beverley, was originally a deacon under John,
bishop of Hexham, now known as St. John
of Beverley. When John was translated from
Hexham to York, Berchthun appears to have
accompanied him. One of John's first acts
as archbishop was to found a monastery at
Beverley, then called In Derawuda, and in
the year 700 he appointed Berchthun its first
abbot. In 717 the archbishop resigned his
see, and at the invitation of Berchthun took
up his residence at Beverley, where he died
in 721. It was from Berchthun that Bseda
obtained much of the information respecting
the life and miracles of the sainted archbishop
which is contained in his history. The year
of Berchthun's death is variously given as
733 and 740, but the former date appears to
be the best attested. Although no formal
record of his canonisation seems to exist, the
title of saint is given to him by early writers,
and his name appears in the calendar under
15 May, the day of his death. In 1088 his
remains were disinterred, and placed beside
those of John in the minster church at Bever-
ley. His name, which in Anglo-Saxon ortho-
graphy would be written indifferently Beorh-
thun or Brihthun, is variously latinised as
Berchthunus, Bercthunus, Bertunus, Bry-
thunus, and Britunus.

Berdmore

323

Bere

[Bseda, Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 3, 4, 5 ; Acta
Sanctorum, May, iii. 503.] H. B.

BERDMORE, SAMUEL, D.D. (1740-
1802), master of Charterhouse School, re-
ceived his education at Jesus College, Cam-
bridge. He graduated B.A. in 1759, was
elected a fellow of his college, and proceeded
to the degree of M.A. in 1762. He was
elected master of Charterhouse School in
1769, and resigned that office in 1791. Arch-
bishop Cornwallis conferred on him the
Lambeth degree of D.D. 7 June 1773. Dr.
Berdmore was a member of the Unincreas-
able Club. He died at his house, in South-
ampton Row, London, on 20 Jan. 1802, and
was buried in the Charterhouse on the 30th
of that month. He wrote ' Specimens of
Literary Resemblance in the works of Pope,
Gray, and other celebrated writers ; with
critical observations : in a series of letters,'
addressed to the Rev. Peter Forster, rector
of Hedenham, Norfolk, London, 1801, 8vo ;
and edited * Lusus Poetici ex ludo literario
apud JEdes Carthusianas Londini. Quibus
accessere orationes binee in Suttoni laudem
in ^Edibus Carthusianis habitse,' 1791, 8vo.

[Gent. Mag. Ixxii. (i.) 94, (ii.) 605, ccxvi. 638 ;
Graduati Cantab. (1856) 31; Nichols's Illustr.
of Lit. vii. 56, viii. 446 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd.
ii. 72, 638 ; Carlisle's Endowed Grammar Schools,
ii. 16.] T. C.

BERE, RICHARD (d. 1524), abbot of
Glastonbury, was installed in 1493, the elec-
tion of Thomas Wasyn having been quashed
by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was a
great builder. Leland tells us that he built
the greater part of King Edgar's chapel at
the east end of his abbey church, that he
' arched on both sides the east end that began
to cast out,' and made the vault of the steeple
in the transept ' and under 2 arches like S.
Andres Crosse els it had fallen.' By the
east end of the church Leland evidently
meant the east end of the nave and aisles,
and not of the chancel. Bere also built a
new set of chambers, in which he entertained
Henry VII on his march into the west during
the rebellion of Perkin Warbeck in the
autumn of 1497. Henca these rooms were
called the king's lodgings. He also added
new lodgings for secular priests to the various
buildings of the abbey. Almshouses for ten
old women built by Abbot Bere still stand
at Glastonbury, and a stone in the chapel
exhibits his initials, surmounted by his cog-
nisance, a cross between two beer-jugs. His
initials and cognisance may also be seen on
St. Benedict's church in Glastonbury, and his
initials, surmounted by a mitre, on the Lepers'
Hospital at Monkton, near Taunton ; for

both these buildings were repaired by him.
The R. B. on the tower of St. Mary's at
Taunton has long been taken to witness to
Bere's work. These letters, however, more
probably represent the name of a more famous
architect, Sir Reginald Bray [q. v.] Among
his various works Bere built the manor-house
at Sharpham, before his time only a popr
lodge, where Fielding was born. In 1503 the
king sent Bere, with two other ambassadors,
to Rome to congratulate Pius III on his ele-
vation to the papacy. Their mission was in
vain ; for the pope died a few weeks after his
election. On his return from Italy the abbot
built chapels of Our Lady of Loretto and of
the Holy Sepulchre in his church. In this
year also he ' supplicated ' the congregation
of the university of Oxford for a degree in
divinity, but with what success does not
appear. In 1508 he was engaged in a con-
troversy with Warham, archbishop of Can-
terbury, concerning the genuineness of the
pretended relics of St. Dunstan at Glaston-
bury. Finding that the worshippers at the
splendid shrine of the saint picked off its
ornaments, the abbot had caused it to be
raised out of reach. The monks of Canter-
bury, jealous of the crowds of pilgrims who
nocked to Glastonbury, saw in this change
in the position of the shrine an attempt to
increase popular veneration. By order of
the archbishop a search for the relics was
made at Canterbury on 20 April, and War-
ham wrote to Abbot Bere telling him of the
coffin and the bones which had been found, and
bidding him attend on the feast of St. Thomas
of Canterbury, and show cause why the
Glastonbury monks should claim to have the
genuine relics. Bere replied, upholding the
claim of his convent, and asserting that if
the Canterbury monks had such relics they
belonged of right to Glastonbury. In this
letter he describes the veneration displayed
towards St. Dunstan by the Somerset folk.
The archbishop replied in peremptory terms.
In a few years the dispute was settled by the
general pillage of the religious houses. Before
that time, on 20 Jan. 1524, Abbot Bere died.
A letter addressed to him (< R. Bero Glas-
coniensi Abbati ') by Erasmus, 4 Sept. 1524,
shows that he was a scholar of considerable
eminence. Writing to him about his edition
of S. Jerome, Erasmus expresses his entire
concurrence in the abbot's opinion of his work.
He speaks of his love of learning, and of the
liberality he has shown to scholars, naming
especially his own friend, Zacharias Frisius.
This letter is of importance, both as repre-
senting Bere's attitude towards the new learn-
ing in England, and as throwing a special
light on the life of his famous abbey in these

T2

Bereblock

Bereford

its last days. Bere was buried under a plain
slab of marble in the south aisle of the body
of his church, near by the chapel of the Holy
Sepulchre which he built.

[Leland's Itin. iii. 103 ; Hall, v. f. 59 ; Wood's
Athense Oxon. i. 640 ; Memorials of St. Dunstan,
426-39; Erasmi Epp. eel. Leyden, 1 706, i. f. 816,
Ep. 700 ; Somerset Archseol. Soc.'s Proceedings,
viii. ii. 135, xviii. ii. 112, xxvi. ii. 83, 100.1

W. H.

BEREBLOCK, JOHN. [See BEAR-
BLOCK.]

BEREFORD, RALPH BE (Jl. 1329),
judge, was of a legal family possessing large
estates in the midland counties. He may have
been a son of Osbert de Barford, or Bereford,
chief gentleman t o Ranulf of He ngham, justice
of the common pleas, who was probably son of
Walter de Barford of Langley in Warwick-
shire, and brother of Sir William de Bereford
[q. v.], chief justice of the common pleas in
1309. Ralph was possessed of land in three
Oxfordshire townships in 1315, viz. Bourton,
Milcome, and Barford (Parly. Writs, vol. ii.
div. 3, p. 526), and in the same year was one
of the custodes of the vacant bishopric of
Winchester. He was summoned to the great
council at Westminster for 27 May 1324.
He was on several occasions in commissions
of oyer and terminer in Southampton and
Surrey in 1314, in Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire,
Southampton, and Gloucester in 1316, on
special commissions to try persons who had
spoiled Hugh le Despenser's manors, and
Robert Lewer and his accomplices, who had
attacked Odiham Castle in 1322, and in 1324
in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. In 1329 or
1330 (DTIGDALE) he was the second of five
justices itinerant, of whom another was Adam
de Brome, for Nottingham and five other
counties.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges ; Ferren and
Nicholls's Leicestershire, and Ferrer's MS. of An-
tiquities cited therein, iv. pt. i. 343 ; Dugdale's
Origines Juridiciales ; Baker's Northamptonshire,
i. 682 ; see Collectanea Topographica (Nichols,
1843); Calthorpe's Collections, vii. 205; Parly.
Writs, vol. ii. div. 3, p. 526.] J. A. H.

BEREFORD, RICHARD DE (Jl. 1283-
1317), judge, was contemporary with William
de Bereford, the chief justice [q. v.], but their
relationship, if any, is not known. He first
appears early in 1283 as a collector of the
thirtieth in Worcestershire. On 3 June 1300
he was appointed treasurer of the Irish ex-
chequer (Fin. 28 Ed. 7, m. 8), received letters
of protection as ' Richard de Bereford elk.'
12 June, and reached Dublin on 7 July.
He was at once joined with the justiciar

i and three others in a royal commission to
treat with the Irish magnates for the Scottish
war (Glaus. Ed. I, No. 223, m. 12 dors. ; Fin.
28 Ed. I, ro. 17 ; Pat. 29 Ed. I, m. 20, &c.).
He still occurs in that capacity in 1305 (Plac.
Trin. 33 Ed. 7, ro. 53), but was named as a
justice of assize for six English counties in
1310. In 1314 he was made chancellor of
Ireland (Pat. 7 Ed. II, m. 16), and occurs as
such at his last appearance, August 1317.

[Foss's Judges, iii. 234; Calendar of Docu-
ments relating to Ireland, 1293-1301.1

J. H. E.

BEREFORD, WILLIAM DE (d. 1326),
judge, son of Walter de Bereford and brother
of Osbert de Bereford, chief gentleman to
the chief justice, Ralph de Hengham, suc-
ceeded his brother as tenant-in-tail of certain
estates in Warwickshire, a fact which may
account for the father and brother being-
confounded as they are in the pedigree given
in Ferrers's * Manuscript of Antiquities.' This
judge appears to be first mentioned in a
lengthy document contained in the roll of
parliament for 1291, which, after setting
forth that the prior of Tynemouth had been
charged with certain encroachments upon the
royal prerogative and the rights of the bur-
gesses of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and had
pleaded a certain charter in justification,
concludes by referring the charter to three
judges (Bereford being one) for their opinion.
In the following year he was associated with
Robert de Hertford, Robert Malet, and Wil-
liam de Gyselham in a special commission to
investigate the murder of Roger de Dreiton,
treasurer of the Earl of Cornwall, which,
occurring while he was on his way to attend
parliament at Westminster, was regarded by
the king as more than a breach of his peace,
an outrage upon his royal dignity. That
about this time he was acting as one of the
regular justices itinerant seems probable from
the fact that in 1293 two brothers, Eustace
and John de Paries, were committed to the
Tower for publicly insulting him in the Aula
Regis ' in the presence of the king and of many
nobles and others the king's liege subjects,'
by accusing him of partiality in the admini-
stration of justice in Staffordshire, his col-
Leagues satisfying the king of his innocence,
and the parties having their legal remedy by
way of plaint (querela) to the king. In the
preceding year, however, he seems to have
been removed for a time from office, Peter
de Mallore being commissioned in his stead.
Dugdale records his appointment as justice
of the common bench under date 1294. In
1293 we also find mention of him as assigned,
with Gilbert de Roubery, to try certain per-

Bereford

325

Berengaria

sons charged with intimidating witnesses
summoned to give evidence before the bishop
on the trial of a clergyman accused of felony.
The date of the first fine recorded as having
been levied before him is November 1294,
and to this fact Dugdale's silence concerning
his previous history is probably attributable.
He was summoned to parliament as a justice
in 1295. He appears as a party to the act
of council by which, in 1297, during the
absence of the king in Flanders, Humfrey
de Bohun, earl of Hereford, and Roger Bigod,
earl of Norfolk, who appear to have been
apprehensive of evil consequences resulting
on the return of the king from their oppo-
sition to his arbitrary measures for raising
supplies, and their refusal to take the com-
mand of the war in Gascony, were assured
by the prince and council of immunity from
his 'rancour and indignation.' In 1301 he
was one of a court of three judges which
passed sentence of imprisonment upon the
Bishop of Tynemouth for having detained in
custody a servant of the prior of Durham,
in defiance of letters patent, by which the
king had privileged the prior and his retainers
from arrest. In the parliament of 1305 he
was one of twenty-one English members
appointed to confer with the same number of
Scotch representatives touching the best
means of promoting the stability of Scotland.
In the following year he went the northern
circuit as one of the commission of trailbaston.
He was reappointed justice of the common
bench by Edward II on his accession in 1307,
and succeeded Ralph de Hengham as chief
justice of that bench 15 March 1308-9. In
1318 he was placed on a special commission
to try sheriffs and other officers charged with
extortion and other illegal practices in the
counties of Oxford, Berkshire, Warwick, and
Leicester, and reappointed for the two last-
mentioned counties next year. July 1326
appears to be the latest date on which he sat
at Westminster for the purpose of taking
acknowledgments of fines. He died in the
same month and year, leaving two sons,
Simon and William. He was a large landed
proprietor, holding estates in no fewer than
eight counties, the major part, however, being
in the midland counties of Warwick, Oxford,
and Berkshire. He was succeeded on the
bench by Hervey de Staunton. From a royal
grant of free piscary at Shillingford to Wil-
liam de Bereford we learn that his wife's
name was Margaret.

[Nichols's Leicester, iv. 343 ; Plac. Abbrev.
215, 280 ; Prynne on Fourth Part of Coke's In-
stitutes, 20 ; Eot. Parl.i. 29^, 95, lOOa ; Abbrev.
Eot. Orig. i. 50 ; Cal. Eot. Pat. i. 62 ; Dugdale's
Chron. Ser. 30, 33 ; Foss's Judges.] J. M. E.

BERENGARIA (d. after 1230), queen of
Richard I, was the daughter of Sancho VI
of Navarre, and his queen Blanche of Cas-
tile. Remarkable for wisdom, beautiful in
person, and of elegant manners, she had won
the heart of Richard when he was count of
Poitou (Itin. Ricardi, 175 ; WILL. NEWB.
c. 19). Soon after he came to the throne
he sent his mother, Eleanor, to bring her
to him at Messina, whither he had gone
on his way to the crusade, that he might
make her his wife. Eleanor and'Berengaria
crossed into Italy by the Great St. Bernard,
and in February 1191 came down to Naples,
where they found ships sent by Richard to
meet them. A large escort accompanied the
ladies, and the servants of Tailored of Sicily
forbade them to enter Messina (BENEDICT,
ii. 157). They accordingly went on to Brin-
disi. While they were there, Richard had a
dispute with Philip of France about the in-
tended marriage, for he had long been under
a contract to marry the French king's sister
Alice. Philip demanded that Richard should
sail with him at once, and then he said he
might marry Berengaria at Acre; if not,
then he should marry his sister. Richard
said that he would not do either the one or
the other (RiGOED, 32). The story that he
declared that Berengaria was already his wife
(Guil. Armor, iv. 132) is manifestly untrue.
After the dispute had been arranged, Richard
went to Reggio, and brought his mother and
Berengaria to Messina on 30 March, the very
day Philip left. When Richard set sail from
Messina on 10 April, he sent Berengaria and
his sister Joanna, the widowed queen of
Sicily, in advance of the fleet in a strongly
built vessel called a dromond, or buss, under
the charge of Robert of Tornham. A violent
storm scattered the fleet. The king landed
at Crete, and then at Rhodes, while the ship
in which the ladies were came to anchor off
Limasol on 1 May. Isaac, the emperor of
Cyprus, tried to entice the ladies ashore, but
they seem to have known the cruelty with
which the Cypriots had treated the crews of
the ships that had been wrecked, and refused
to listen to his invitation. At last, on 5 May,
they promised to disembark the next day.
Scarcely had they made this promise, when
Richard's ship came in sight. The next day
the defeat of the Cypriots enabled Berengaria
to enter Limasol. On 12 May she was mar-
ried to Richard by his chaplain Nicolas, after-
wards bishop of Le Mans, and on the same
day was crowned queen by the Archbishop
of Bordeaux and the Bishops of Evreux and
Bayonne. When Richard completed the
conquest of Cyprus, and forced the emperor
to surrender on 31 May, he committed

Berengaria

326

Berenger

Isaac's daughter to the queen's care, that she
might bring her up. On 1 June Berengaria,
Joanna, and their suite sailed from Cyprus
for Acre, and the king, who set out a few
days later, joined them there on 8 June.
When the city surrendered, it was parted be-
tween Richard and Philip, and as the palace
happened to be in the share that fell to
Richard, he lodged his queen, his sister, and
Isaac's daughter there. When on 21 Aug.
Richard marched southwards, Berengaria was
left at Acre under the care of Stephen of Long-
champ and Bertram of Verdun. She and the
other ladies remained in Palestine until the re-
turn of Richard to Acre in September 1192.
They then embarked on Michaelmas day, and,
more fortunate than the king, arrived safely
at Sicily (DiCETO, 668 ; W^IDL. NEWS. c. 31).
Thence they went to Rome, where they were
honourably received by Celestine III. At
Rome they stayed for six months, for they
were glad of the pope's protection against the
emperor. When they left, Celestine gave them
in charge to a cardinal, who conducted them
by Pisa and Genoa to Marseilles. There they
were met by Alfonso II of Aragon, who took
them as far as the borders of his kingdom,
Raymond of St. Gilles, count of Toulouse,
next took charge of them, and conducted
them to Poitou (HovEDEN, iii. 228). Richard
did not join his wife for some time after his
release. He seems to have fallen into an
uncleanly life, for in 1195 he was sharply
reproved by a hermit, who warned him * Esto
memor subversionis Sodomse, &c.' (HovEDEN,
iii. 288). After a severe illness he declared
that he would take Berengaria back to him
again, for he had not lived with her for some
years, not probably since they parted at Acre.
They doubtless met at Poitiers at Christmas
1195. It is possible that she may have been
with the king when he received his death-
wound (HEMINGBURGH, i. 228, implies that
this was so, but his account of Richard's death
is late and inaccurate). After Richard's
death she lived much at Le Mans, for she
had received that city and the county of
Bigorre as her dower. John cheated her of
her jointure. In 1201 she went to Chinon to
meet him, and he there promised her Bayeux,
two castles in Anjou, and 1,000 marks a year
(HOVEDEN, iv. 173 ; RYMER, i. 40). He did
not keep his word, and in January 1204 In-
nocent III wrote to him saying that her
poverty forced her to live like a beggar with
her sister Blanche, countess of Champagne
(Recueil, xix. 447). Another urgent letter
was written by the pope on the same subject
in 1207 (RYMER, i. 143) ; and another de-
mand was made in 1213 (Ann. Wav. 278),
when John made his submission. Finally in

1215 a composition was made of which the
pope approved (JRecueil, xix. 607). The
king's death prevented the payment of the
arrears. Early in the reign of Henry III she
claimed 4,040/. The Templars became her
agents, and secured her from further loss.
She lived at Le Mans as countess, for on
23 Aug. 1216 she presided over a trial by
combat (L'Art de Verifier, xiii. 102). In
1226 she inherited a share in the estate of
her distant kinsman William, bishop of Cha-
lons (ALBERIC TRIUM FOSTTIFM, Recueil,
xviii. 796). She founded the Cistercian
monastery called l Pietas Dei ' at Espan in
Maine in 1230. She died soon after, and was
buried in the church she had built.

[Itinerarium Kegis Eicardi, Memorials of
Richard I, vol. i. (Rolls Ser.) ; Roger of Hoveden,
iii. (Bolls Ser.) ; Walter of Coventry (Rolls Ser.) ;
William of Newburgh (Eng. Hist. Soc.) ; Heming-
burgh (Eng. Hist. Soc.) ; K. Diceto (Twysden) ;
Annales de Waverleia in Ann. Monast. ii. (Rolls
Ser.) ; Rigord, de Grestis Philippi Atfgusti, Guil-
lelmi Britonis-Armorici Philippidos, both in Re-
cueil des Historiens, xvii. ; Rymer's Fcedera, ed.
1704; Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of
England, vol. i. where an account is given of
Berengaria's tomb at Espan.] W. H.

BERENGER, RICH ARD(^.1782), a man

famous in his day for his charm in social life,
held for many years the position of gentle-
man of the horse to George III. His father
was Moses Berenger, a rich London mer-
chant ; his mother was Penelope, the fourth
and youngest sister of Sir Richard Temple,
first Lord Cobham. Both of his works in
literature dealt with the horse and its rider.
The first, entitled < A new System of Horse-
manship,' appeared in 1754, and was a trans-
lation from the French of Monsieur Bourgelat.
The second, ' The History and Art of Horse-
manship,' was published in 1771 in two
volumes, and contained considerable histori-
cal information still not without interest to
the student. Several minor poems by Be-
renger are in Dodsley's collection (vi. 271-
6) ; and three essays, with a small poem on
the ' Birthday of Shakespeare,' were contri-
buted by him to the periodical called the
' World,' which has been included in many
editions of the l British Essayists.' Dr. John-
son once styled him the f standard of true
elegance ; ' but the assertion was met with
the remark that Berenger resembled too
closely the gentleman of Congreve's comedies.
Hannah More styled him ' everybody's
favourite,' and summed up his character as
1 all chivalry, and blank verse, and anecdote.'
Distinction in society has its pains as well as
its pleasures. Berenger outlived his means,
and was obliged for some years to confine

Beresford

327

Beresford

himself to his official residence in the King's
Mews, then a privileged place against the
attacks of bailiffs. Chiefly through the as-
sistance of Garrick, who sent him back his
securities for 500/. with a donation of 300/.,
a composition was effected with his creditors.
Berenger died in the King's Mews, London,
9 Sept. 1782.

[Gent. Mag. 1782, p. 455; Boswell's John-
son (1835), iii. 83, vii. 100, viii 66-7 ; John
Taylor's Kecords of my Life, i. 325-6 ; Eo-
berts's Life of H. More, i. 74, 77, 175; Garrick's
Correspondence, ii. 297-8, 364-5.] W. P. C.

BERESFORD, JAMES (1764-1840),
miscellaneous writer, second son of Richard
Beresford, was born at Upham, Hants, 28
May 1764. He was educated at the Charter-
house and Merton College, Oxford, where he
obtained a fellowship. He was B.A. 1786,
and M.A. 1798. He became rector of Kib-
worth Beauchamp, Leicestershire, in 1812,
and died Jhere 29 Sept. 1840. His chief
work was ' The Miseries of Human Life ;
or the Last Groans of Timothy Testy and
Samuel Sensitive, with a few supplemen-
tary sighs from Mrs. Testy,' London, 1806-7.
It was praised by Scott, and went through
several editions. He also wrote some poeti-
cal translations and religious books.

[Gent. Mag. May 1841 ; Biog. Diet, of Living
Authors, 1816.]

BERESFORD, JOHN (1738-1805), Irish
statesman, was the second son of Marcus, Earl
of Tyrone, and Lady Catherine, Baroness de La
Poer, the heiress of a long line of barons, and
was born in Dublin 14 March 1738. He was
educated at Kilkenny school, and at Trinity
College, Dublin, graduating B.A. in 1757. He
was called to the bar in Hilary term 1760, but
never practised. In November of the same
year he married Constantia Ligondes of Au-
vergne, whom her aunt, the Countess Moira,
to the great displeasure of the Roman catholic
clergy, had persuaded to accompany her to
Ireland rather than enter a convent as she had
intended. At the new election on the death
of George II in 1760, Beresford was, through
his family influence, returned for Waterford,
which he continued to represent till his death.
From the beginning he attended with great
diligence to his parliamentary duties, devoting
much pains to finance and the mastery of
practical business. In 1768 he was appointed
a privy councillor, and in 1770 one of the
commissioners of revenue. In the following
year he offered for the speakership, one of the
great objects of his ambition ; but as Lord
Townshend, the lord-lieutenant, objected to
conjoining the two offices, he reluctantly with-
drew his claims. His first wife having died

in November 1772, he married, in June 1774,
Barbara Montgomery, a celebrated beauty,
who, with her sister, Lady Mountjoy, and
the Marchioness of Townshend, was depicted
by Sir Joshua Reynolds as one of the
' Graces ' in the painting now in the Royal
Academy. The marriage greatly strength-
ened the political position of Beresford, and,
assisted by his plodding perseverance and
undoubted -merit as an administrator, he
gradually succeeded in wielding an almost
unlimited, though an unobtrusive and hidden,
authority in Irish affairs. Promoted first
commissioner of revenue in 1780, he not
only introduced important reforms in the
methods of revenue collection, but improved
in many important respects the architecture
and street communication of Dublin. Under
his auspices the* splendid new custom-house
was begun in 1781, and completed in ten
years at a cost of about 400,000/., the quays
were widened and extended, and the opening
up of Sackville Street and other lines of com-
munication was accomplished. After Pitt
became prime minister of England, Beresford,
under the administration of various lord lieu-
tenants, was practically entrusted with the
management of Irish affairs, and his advice
guided Pitt in his whole political policy to-
wards that country. He arranged with Pitt
in 1784 the clauses of Mr. Orde's bill for the
removing of the trade restrictions of Ireland,
which was bitterly and successfully opposed
by Grattan on account of a clause binding
the parliament to re-enact England's naviga-
tion laws. He was also at one with Pitt in
the matter of the regency. Evidence of his
increasing influence is to be found in his ap-
pointment, in 1786, to be a privy councillor
of England. Although his authority was
threatened with sudden extinction in 1795,
when Lord Fitzwilliam was sent over as lord
lieutenant to inaugurate a policy of concession,
it proved strong enough, not only to defeat
the benevolent intentions of the English go-
vernment, but to institute a political depar-
ture of a totally different kind. Lord Fitz-
william found on his arrival that Beresford
' wras filling a situation greater than that of
the lord lieutenant himself,' that he was ' vir-
tually king of Ireland,' and that the weight
of his ' unpopularity ' with the party of Grat-
tan would completely nullify all attempts to
reconcile them. He therefore at once dis-
missed him from office, and though he con-
tinued to him his full salary of 2,000/., this,
it was added in carefully guarded language,
was merely ' for long and laborious attendance?
Such a severe measure at once brought mat-
ters to a crisis between Lord Fitzwilliam
and the cabinet, and in a few weeks he was

Beresford

328

Beresford

recalled. In his letters to Lord Carlisle he had
made use of expressions imputing * malversa-
tions ' to Beresford, and as he declined an ex-
planation or apology, a hostile meeting was
arranged to take place at Kensington, which
was prevented by the interference of the
police. After the recall of Fitzwilliam, Beres-
ford returned to his old duties. The failure
to put into operation a policy of conciliation
led almost inevitably to the idea of a union
with Great Britain as an ultimate means of
overcoming Irish discontent, and while doubt-
less Beresford was in a great degree respon-
sible for its adoption he also contributed his
assistance in adjusting the arrangements by
which it was brought about. After its ac-
complishment he retained office till 1802, to
superintend the fiscal arrangements conse-
quent thereupon between the two kingdoms.
In the imperial parliament he continued to
represent Waterford. His remaining years
were spent between the fulfilment of his par-
liamentary duties in London and the recrea-
tions of agriculture and gardening at his seat
at Walworth, Londonderry, where he died,
after a short illness, 5 Nov. 1805. By his
first wife he had four sons and five daughters,
and by his second five daughters and three
sons.

[Beresford's Correspondence of Eight Hon.
John Beresford, printed for private circulation,
1854; Gent, Mag. Ixxv. 1083-4; Grenville Me-
moirs (George III), ii. 310-38 ; Stanhope's Life
of Pitt.] T. F. H.

BERESFORD, LORD JOHN GEORGE
DE LA POER, D.D. (1773-1862), primate of
Ireland, was a younger son of George de la
Poer, second earl and first marquis of Water-
ford. He was born at Tyrone House, Dublin,
22 Nov. 1773, and was educated at Eton and
at Christ Church, Oxford, where he proceeded
B.A. 30 April 1793, M.A. 17 March 1796,
and D.D., by diploma, 11 March 1805, in
view of his consecration, 24 March, to the
bishopric of Cork. He was ordained deacon
2 April 1795, and priest, 17 Dec. 1797 ; was
first preferred to the family rectories of
Clonegam and Newtown Lenan in the dio-
cese of Lismore; was presented, 23 Dec.
1799, to the deanery of the cathedral church
of St. Macartin's, Clogher ; and in 1801 be-
came rector of Termomnaguirk in the diocese
of Armagh. He was promoted 20 Feb. 1805
to the bishopric of Cork and Ross, from
which he was translated to the see of Rap-
hoe, 10 Aug. 1807, and to that of Clogher,
25 Sept. 1819. On 21 April 1820 he was
created archbishop of Dublin, and was en-
throned at Christ Church on 6 May following,
and on the 23rd of the same month was ap-

pointed a privy councillor in Ireland. Finally
he was translated to the archbishopric of Ar-
magh and the primacy of all Ireland, 17 June
1822. In 1829 the primate succeeded Lord
Manners as vice-chancellor of the university
of Dublin, and continued in that office until,
his election to the chancellorship left vacant
by the death of the King of Hanover, 19 Nov..
1851. The archbishop made munificent gifts
to the library, erected, at an expense of
3,000/., a campanile in the centre of the
great quadrangle 1853, and presented one
sum of 1,000/. in 1853 towards founding a
chair of ecclesiastical history, and another'
of like amount in 1861 towards augmenting1
its income. He also gave over 6,OOOZ. to>
the college of St. Columba, near Stackallan,,
which was opened in 1844, to furnish the
gentry of Ireland with a school * on the model
of Eton.' The archbishop was for several
years visitor and patron of St. Columba s,
with which he severed his official connection
6 Dec. 1853, on account of a misunderstand-
ing with the warden (Correspondence relative-
to the Warden of St. Columba1 s College, 8vo,,
Armagh, 1853). On Thursday, 29 March 1855,
the primate celebrated his episcopal jubilee
at the palace of Armagh. An address from
the clergy was drawn up by Archbishop
Whately of Dublin. Beresford restored the
cathedral of Armagh at an expense of nearly
30,000/., and improved the services by his.
own bounty. He held the patronage of 120
livings, which he administered with great
fairness (Addresses, fyc. p. 10), and in ordinary
times he gave to the clergy, in the way of
salaries to curates and augmentations of small
incomes, not less than 1,800/. a year. During
the ' tithe war many of the clergy and their
families were saved from actual starvation by
his generosity' (Gent. Mag. December 1862).
He contributed large sums to the Church
Education Society (as president), and to the
Armagh Diocesan Church Education Society
(Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette, 15 Nov. 1862).
The prudent desire of Archbishop Beresford to
make the best of educational measures which
he could not control, and his recommendation
to the clergy to accept the aid of the National
Board, exposed him not only to miscon-
struction, but abuse. He was a conservative
in politics, and opposed the Roman Catholic
Relief Bill of 1829, against which he seconded
the motion of the Archbishop of Canterbury
in the House of Lords. His speech on that
occasion, one of his very few printed produc-
tions, was published in 1829. His other pub-
lications are : 1. ' A Speech on the System of
National Education established in Ireland/
2. A Sermon preached at St. Paul's on 9 June
1836, at the Yearly Meeting of the Children of

Beresford

329

Beresford

the Charity Schools. 3. ' A Charge delivered
at his Annual Visitation, 1845,' £c., 8vo,
London, 1846. 4. ' A Letter to the Bishop of
Exeter on the Church Discipline Bill,' 8vo,
London, 1856. Beresford was never mar-
ried. He died, 18 July 1862, at Woburn,
near Donaghadee, the seat of George Dunbar,
Esq., D.L., who had married one of his nieces.
His remains were taken to Armagh, and
buried 30 July in the crypt of the cathedral
he had restored. At his funeral the Roman
catholic primate, Dr. Dixon, and Dr. Cooke,
the moderator of the general assembly of the
presbyterian church, walked side by side.

[Cotton's Fasti Ecclesise Hibernicse ; Dublin
University Magazine, July 1840 ; Addresses pre-
sented to the Lord Primate of Ireland on his
attaining the fiftieth year of his episcopate, with
his grace's answers, and an account of the pro-
ceedings at Armagh on 29 March 1855 ; Belfast
News-Letter, Daily Express, and Eecord, 21 July
1862 ; Guardian, 23 July 1862 ; English Church-
man, 24 July 1862; Times, 21, 24, 26, and
30 July, and 1 and 23 Aug. 1862; Christian
Examiner, 6 Aug. 1862; Irish Ecclesiastical
Gazette, 15 Aug. and 15 Nov. 1862 ; Gent. Mag.
December 1862.] A. H. G.

BERESFORD, SIK JOHN POO (1768 ?-
1844), admiral, a natural son of Lord de la
Poer, afterwards first marquis of Waterford,
entered the navy in 1782 on board the Alex-
ander, under the protection of Lord Longford.
Having served his full time, principally on
the Newfoundland and West India stations,
he was made lieutenant 4 Nov. 1790. He
was then sent out to join the Lapwing frigate
in the Mediterranean, and whilst in her was
specially employed on shore at Genoa and
Turin, concerting measures for the removal
of the English residents, running very con-
siderable risk in the midst of the revolu-
tionary excitement, from which he escaped
in the disguise of a peasant. In 1794
he was appointed to the Resolution of 74
guns, bearing the flag of Rear-admiral Mur-
ray, the commander-in-chief on the North
American station, by whom, in November
1794, he was promoted to the command of
the Lynx sloop. His successful protection
of a convoy, a few weeks later, against two
French ships of superior force, the energy
and skill he displayed in rescuing the Thetis
frigate, which had got ashore, and the cap-
ture of a powerful French privateer, all with-
in the next three months, won for him from
the admiral an appointment to the Hussar
frigate as acting captain, and he was sent,
under the immediate orders of Captain Coch-
rane of the Thetis, to destroy some French
store ships in Hampton Roads. On 17 May
1795 they met the store ships outside the

Capes ; there were five of them, all heavily
armed, though still no match for the frigates.
After a smart action two of them were cap-
tured, one the Pr6voyante, nominally a 36-
gun frigate, but having only 24 guns on board,
and those only 8-pounders; the other the
Raison, called a 24-gun frigate, but mounting
only eighteen (JAMES, Naval History (ed.
1860), i. 319). None the less the action was
considered highly creditable, and Admiral
Murray removed Beresford into the Pre-
voyante ; but the admiralty considered this
too large for a first command, and appointed
him to the Raison. In the following autumn,
25 Aug. 1796, whilst carrying 200,OOOZ. in
specie from Boston to Halifax, he fell in with
the Vengeance, a French frigate of the largest
size, a ship of 1,180 tons, and though nomi-
nally of 40 guns, 1 8-pounders, carrying ac-
tually 52 ; the Raison, on the other hand, was
a 9-pounder frigate of 470 tons, and mounted
30 guns, carronades included. A running
fight began, in the course of which the Ven-
geance, having sustained some injury, dropped
astern, and a timely fog permitted the Raison
to make good her escape (ibid. i. 384). In
March 1797 the Raison captured a large and
rich Spanish ship near the Bahamas, and drove
another on shore ; during the year she made
several other prizes, and towards the end of
it was sent home with convoy, and was paid
off. Early in 1798 Beresford was again sent
to the West Indies, in command of the Unit 6
frigate, in which, or afterwards in the Diana,
he assisted in the reduction of Surinam, St.
Martin, St. Bartholomew, St. Thomas, St.
John, Santa Cruz, and all the Swedish and
Danish dependencies (ibid. ii. 420, iii. 150),
and returned home in charge of a convoy of
some two hundred sail ; the preliminaries of
peace were signed shortly afterwards, and the
Diana was paid off. On the renewal of the
war in 1803 he was appointed to the Virginie
frigate, which he commanded in the North
Sea for more than a year, in which time con-
stant cruising in bad weather had rendered
the Virginie no longer seaworthy, and Beres-
ford was ordered a passage to North America,
to take command of the Cambrian frigate.
In her he captured several of the enemy's
privateers, and when, in consequence of the
death of Sir Andrew Mitchell, 26 Feb. 1806,
he had to act as senior officer of the station,
the measures which he took won for him a
very warm expression of regard from the mer-
chants of Halifax on the occasion of his being-
superseded by Admiral Berkeley. In 1808
Beresford commanded the Theseus of 74
guns, first in the Channel, and afterwards,
under Sir Richard King, off Ferrol, where
the blockading squadron kept the sea for

Beresford

33°

Beresford

•eight consecutive months. Beresford was i
then detached, in command of three ships of j
the line, to maintain the blockade of Lorient ;
and, though driven off for a few hours on
21 Feb. 1809 by the squadron under M. Wil-
laumez, which had escaped from Brest (JAMES,
Naval History, iv. 392 ; JTJRIEN DE LA GKA- i
TIEKE, Souvenirs £un Amiral (1860), ii. 137),
he continued to do this till March, when i
he joined the fleet under the command of j
Lord Gambier, and served with it during the
operations in Basque Eoads. Early in 1810
the Theseus was paid off, and Beresford was
appointed to the Poitiers, in which he was ]
stationed for several months off Brest, as
senior officer ; he was afterwards sent to j
Lisbon, acting during the rest of the year in |
co-operation with the army under Lord Wel-
lington. In 1811 he was employed in the |
North Sea, in the blockade of the Texel : !
and in 1812, on the breaking out of the war
with the United States, was sent over to
the coast of America. The service there,
arduous and harassing without much room
for distinction, lasted through nearly two
years, during the latter of which he was au-
thorised to bear a broad pennant as commo-
dore. Early in 1814 he was appointed to the
Royal Sovereign yacht, and on 24 April had
the honour of carrying the king of France
over to Calais. In May he was created a
baronet, and attained the rank of rear-admiral
4 June. In the following September he
hoisted his flag in the Duncan, and was sent
to Rio de Janeiro to carry home the prince
regent of Portugal. The prince, however,
decided not to return to Lisbon at that time,
and Beresford, after receiving from him the
order of the Tower and Sword, returned to
England. In August 1819 he was made a
K.C.B. From 1820 to 1823 he commanded
at Leith and on the coast of Scotland, and
on his leaving he was presented with the free-
dom of the city of Edinburgh. From 1830
to 1833 he commanded at the Nore. He be-
came a vice-admiral 19 July 1821, admiral
28 June 1838, and in 1836 was invested with
the grand cross of the Hanoverian Guelphic
order. From 1812 to 1823 he represented Cole-
raine in parliament ; in 1823 was member for
Berwick, and in 1832 for Northallerton ; in
1835 he was elected member for Chatham,
and was at the same time a junior lord of the
admiralty. After this he took no further part
in public affairs, but lived in comparative re-
tirement at his seat at Bedale in Yorkshire,
where he died, after a long illness, 2 Oct.
1844. He was married three times, and left
a numerous family.

[Kalfe's Naval Biog. iv. 97 ; Marshall's Roy-
Nav. Biog. ii. (vol. i. pt. ii.), 666 * * *; Gent

Mag. (1844), xxii. 646, N.S. ; documents in pos-
session of the family.] J. K. L.

BERESFORD, WILLIA3I CARR, VIS-
COUNT BERESFORD (1768-1854), general, was
an illegitimate son of George de la Poer Beres-
ford, earl of Tyrone, and afterwards first mar-
quis of Waterford in the peerage of Ireland,
and younger brother of Vice-admiral Sir
John Poo Beresford [q. v.] He was born on
2 Oct. 1768, and received his earliest educa-
tion in schools at Catterick Bridge and York
until 1785, when he was sent to the military
school at Strasburg. While still in France he
received his first commission, an ensigncy in
the 6th regiment, in August 1785, and ac-
companied his regiment to Nova Scotia in
1786. While there he met with a terrible
accident out shooting, and lost the sight of
his left eye. He obtained his promotion as
lieutenant in the 16th regiment in 1790, and
in January 1791 became a captain unat-
tached. In the folio wing May he was gazetted
to a company in the 69th, which was under
orders for the West Indies, but on the out-
break of the war with France he was sent
on board the Britannia, 100 guns, the flag-
ship of Vice-admiral Hotham, second in
command of the Mediterranean fleet, with
two companies of the 69th, who were or-
dered to serve as marines.

When the inhabitants of Toulon opened
their port and received the English admiral,
Lord Hood, the marines, and the various
companies of regular troops serving as marines
were landed in order to garrison the city.
Beresfofd did his duty well enough, and
was favourably mentioned in Lord Mul-
grave's despatches, but did not especially
distinguish himself. However, when Lord
Hood was driven out of Toulon in December
1793, and removed the troops to Corsica,
Beresford commanded the storming party
at the tower of Martello, for which he re-
ceived his brevet-majority in March 1794,
and was present at the captures of Bastia,
Calvi, and San Fiorenzo. He returned to
England in August 1794 to be promoted
lieutenant-colonel and to take command
of a new regiment which had been raised
for him on his father's estates ; this regi-
ment was soon broken up, and Beresford
received instead the command of the 88th
regiment, or Connaught Rangers, in Sep-
tember 1795. The 88th was destined to
form part of the expedition under Sir Ralph
Abercromby to reconquer the West Indies,
but the terrible storm called ' Christian's
storm,' from Sir Hugh Christian, the ad-
miral, utterly dispersed it ; two companies
•arrived safely in Jamaica and served through

Beresford

33r

Beresford

the campaign, one was blown right through
the straits of Gibraltar into the Mediter-
ranean, and the rest into different English
ports. The regiment was again reassembled
by 1797, and then stationed at Jersey until
1799, when it was ordered to India, at the
earnest request of Lord Mornington, to assist
in the final conquest of Tippoo Sultan. The
88th, however, did not arrive at Bombay till
June 1800, after the fall of Seringapatam,
and remained in garrison there until Lord
Wellesley projected an expedition to Egypt
from India to co-operate with the force
under Sir Kalph Abercromby. The expe-
ditionary army, including the 88th, left
Bombay in December 1800, under the com-
mand of Sir David Baird, but did not
disembark at Cosseir, after a tiresome pas-
sage, until June 1801. It was immediately
split up into four brigades, and Beresford
received the command of the first brigade, ;
consisting of his own fine regiment and some
Bombay sepoys. Beresford's brigade had to !
lead the march across the desert. Baird's
force arrived too late to be of any actual !
service, but the march across the desert had
fascinated the imagination of the English
people, and Beresford shared the popularity
of Baird, Auchmuty, and George Murray.
He remained in Egypt with his regiment till
the evacuation of that country in 1803, when
he returned to England with the brevet rank
of colonel and a great military reputation, j
and at once received the command of a brigade j
at home.

When Baird was ordered to recapture i
the Cape in 1805, Beresford received the [
command of the first brigade, with Ronald
Ferguson and Edward Yorke as his col-
leagues, and Robert Brownrigg as quarter-
master-general. The expedition was com-
pletely successful ; it disembarked on 5 Jan.
1806, defeated the Dutch general Janssens on
8 Jan., took Capetown on 10 Jan., and Baird
received the surrender of the general and the
whole colony on 18 Jan. This entire and
rapid success induced Sir David Baird to
listen to the tempting proposals of Sir Home
Popham, the naval commander-in-chief, who,
•disregarding the fact that England was at
peace with Spain, suggested that Baird should
lend him a brigade to capture the important
city of Buenos Ayres. Baird consented and
lent him Beresford's brigade, consisting of
his old regiment, the 88th, and the 74th. The
detachment accordingly sailed with Popham.
The sudden appearance of English ships and
English soldiers took the Spanish garrison
by surprise, and Beresford, though with only
1,200 men, was soon master of Buenos Ayres.
Popham immediately went home with the

tidings and was received with enthusiasm.
But Beresford, deserted by Popham, soon
found out the difficulty of his position. The
population of the colony perceived the weak-
ness of his little army, and, ashamed of being
conquered by so few soldiers, banded together
under a French emigrant, the Chevalier de
Liniers, and attacked the English. The
contest was an unequal one, and after three
days' hard fighting Beresford and his army
capitulated as prisoners of war. Auchmuty's
capture of Monte Video and Whitelocke's
failure before Buenos Ayres followed, and
after a six months' imprisonment Beresford
himself escaped and reached England in 1807.
The incapacity of Whitelocke had only made
the behaviour and military ability of Auch-
muty and Beresford appear more prominent,
and the latter was ordered to hold himself
ready for further foreign service. This time
he was sent to the island of Madeira, which
he occupied on 24 Dec. 1807 in the name of
the king of Portugal, who had, acting under
the advice of the English ambassador, aban-
doned his capital to the French and sailed
for Brazil.

In Madeira he remained as governor and
commander-in-chief for more than six months,
learning the Portuguese language, and ob-
taining a thorough knowledge of the Portu-
guese character. But Beresford soon tired
of his peaceful life, and to his great content
found himself ordered to proceed with one
regiment to the assistance of the army des-
patched under Sir Arthur Wellesley to
Portugal. He arrived at Lisbon in August
1808, just after the battle of Vimeiro, and
in time to be appointed commandant of
Lisbon. He then superintended the evacua-
tion of the southern fortresses by the French
garrisons, in conformity with the convention
of Cintra, and it was only through his bold
attitude that the garrison of Elvas surren-
dered that strong fortress without firing a
shot. After the recall of Sir Arthur Wel-
lesley, Sir Henry Burrard, and Sir Hew
Dalrymple, Sir John Moore took command
of the army of Portugal, and when he deter-
mined to advance into Spain he appointed
Beresford, who had been promoted major-
general in April 1808 during his residence
in Madeira, to the independent command
of a division of two brigades, which was
to march by way of Coimbra and Almeida
to the general rendezvous at Astorga. Beres-
ford performed his task to Moore's satis-
faction, and when the terrible winter retreat
to Corunna was decided upon Beresford's
division was ordered not to close the rear,
as has been erroneously stated, but to
march just in front of the reserve under

Beresford

332

Beresford

General Paget. From this position in the
line of retreat Beresford's men were con-
stantly called back to assist the reserve in
their numerous engagements with the French
vanguard, and always gave Moore the fullest
satisfaction. In the battle of Corunna,
where Moore fought his last battle, Beres-
ford was posted on the English left, and
did his duty on that memorable day. His
brigade was the last but one to embark on
board the ships, and when the relics of
Moore's famous army reached England it
was agreed that no English general had dis-
tinguished himself more than Beresford.

The Portuguese government, recognising
the utter disorganisation of the Portuguese
army, now begged that an English general
might be sent them with English regimental
officers to effect a reform. The appointment,
according to Napier, was much coveted, but
the choice of the government fell upon
Beresford, not so much on account of his
parliamentary influence, which was great,
as his thorough knowledge of the Portu-
guese language and his local knowledge of
the country acquired in the last campaign.
In February 1809 he was made a local lieu-
tenant-general in Portugal in the English
army, though but a major-general of one
year's standing, and a marshal in the Portu-
guese army, and landed at Lisbon on 2 March
to begin his difficult task. Beresford distri-
buted the English officers he had brought
with him to a very few regiments, and, by
steadily weeding out some three-fourths of
the most inferior material into a militia,
formed a small serviceable army instead of a
large unwieldy mass of men. He further
perceived the fitness of the Portuguese for
light troops, and by a process of selection
formed the famous Cacadores, who proved
themselves worthy to be brigaded with the
light division. The more promising officers
were appointed to the regiments intended for
active service, and the rest left to the militia ;
he gave them a real pride in their regiments,
and the Due de Saldanha, for instance, after
serving for a short period as aide-de-camp
to the marshal, felt no indignity in serving
through the rest of the Peninsular war in
an infantry regiment. Having selected his
men, Beresford had to make disciplined
soldiers of them. He carried his main-
tenance of martial law to an extreme ; every
infraction of discipline, whether in officers or
men, was severely punished, and at the same
time every deed of valour was justly esti-
mated. His one great difficulty was to get
money and food for his men. Without proper
rations they had to plunder, and when they
were fed by the English commissariat they

became a burden. Throughout his labour of
organising the Portuguese army he had the
full sympathy of Wellington, who never
failed to give the Portuguese the praise that
was their due; but his English local rank was
the source of endless trouble to the com-
mander-in-chief. Senior generals objected
to having their junior placed over their
heads ; more than one resigned when on the
spot, and many refused to join the army, and
in his chagrin Wellington writes on one oc-
casion : ' I would to God Beresford would
resign his English lieutenant-general's rank ;
the embarrassment and ill-blood it causes is
inconceivable ' ( Wellington Despatches, iii.
241).

Before his labours of reorganisation were
seriously commenced — while Sir John Cra-
dock was still in command — he had an op-
portunity of trying his undisciplined mass
against Soult's army in the province of Tras-
os-Montes, and soon saw their utter useless-
ness. Nevertheless Sir Arthur detached him
with his Portuguese, when he moved against
Oporto, to cross the Douro on the extreme
right, and to try to cut off Loison's retreat at
Amarante. This one experience was enough,
and when Wellington entered Spain and
fought the battle of Talavera, Beresford was
left behind to commence his real work. So
hard did he labour during the winter of 1809
that Lord Wellington in the summer of 1810
brigaded certain Portuguese regiments with
English ones, and found them capable of
doing good service. The Portuguese fought
side by side with the Englishmen at the
battle of Busaco, and the behaviour of the
8th Portuguese regiment is one of the most
disputed points in the history of that battle,
every historian of the war believing it be-
haved well, but all differing as to the time
when it came into action. For his services
on this day Beresford was made a knight
of the Bath in October 1810, a knight of the
Tower and Sword of Portugal, and Conde
de Trancoso in the peerage of Portugal.

When Wellington had retreated into the

lines of Torres Vedras, Beresford established

! his headquarters at Lisbon, and continued

j his work of reorganisation by means of

| the fresh English officers who joined him

j at this time, and having organised his,

| regiments in the winter of 1809, he now

organised his brigades in the winter of

1810.

General Hill, who had been Wellington's
right hand in the previous year, was obliged to
go home from illness in the spring of 1811, and
Wellington was reluctantly obliged to give
the command of his corps to Beresford, as next
! in seniority to Hill. His army, which consisted

Beresford

333

Beresford

of the 2nd and 4th infantry divisions under
Generals William Stewart and Lowry Cole,
De Grey's heavy and Slade's light cavalry bri-
gades under the command of General R. B.
Long, and four Portuguese brigades, was or-
dered by Lord Wellington to invest Badajoz
and check any incursion of Soult's army of
Andalusia into Estremadura, while he him-
self foiled Massena's last attempt to break
into the fertile province of Beira. From the
first no real confidence was felt by Hill's old
corps in Beresford ; no contrast could be
greater than between the quiet English
gentleman and the fiery Irishman, and the
English officers resented being placed under
the command of a Portuguese general. Beres-
ford marched rapidly towards Badajoz ; and
the very first engagement, which took place
at Campo Mayor, showed how little com-
mand he had over his troops, for the light
•cavalry brigade charged the French cavalry
-so impetuously that it got far beyond the
reach of recall, and the 14th light dragoons
were either cut to pieces or taken prisoners.
•Campo Mayor soon surrendered, and the
marshal then proceeded to invest Badajoz
with inadequate forces. Soult advanced with
liis whole corps d'armee, and, driving Blake's
•Spanish army before him, entered Estre-
madura. Beresford at once raised the siege,
and drew up his army, with Blake's upon
his right, opposite the little bridge of Albuera.
Soult saw that it was possible for him to
occupy almost unobserved certain heights
on Beresford's right, which Blake had neg-
lected. He therefore made a feint on the
English centre, while he sent the flower of
his army to occupy these heights. There the
TDattle raged. When Beresford saw Soult's
regiments debouching on the heights, he or-
dered Stewart's division to reoccupy them ;
but Stewart advanced too hastily, and the
2nd division was soon thrown into dis-
order by a vigorous charge of the Polish
lancers. In vain Beresford himself rushed
to the spot, and he had already given the
order to retire, when the military genius of
Colonel Hardinge, the quartermaster-general
of the Portuguese army, won the battle.
Without orders from his chief, he galloped
up to General Cole, whose division had only
just arrived from Badajoz, and ordered it to
advance. In perfect order two brigades of
the 4th division, Arbuthnott's on the right,
and Alexander Abercromby's on the left, ad-
vanced to the fatal hill, and gradually but
surely forced the French to leave the Afield.
Both generals claimed the victory ; but Soult,
though he bivouacked upon the field, found
it necessary from his enormous losses to re-
tire once more into Andalusia. Beresford

had won a hard-fought fight, but a little

more generalship would have saved the lives

of the 4,300 splendid soldiers, and it was

Hardinge and not Beresford who had won

I the victory. Yet Beresford had many rea-

1 sons to be proud of the day (16 May). He

had personally distinguished himself, and he

had prevented Soult from making the advance

on Lisbon which Napoleon had directed.

Discontent has been freely expressed at
the battle of Albuera. The tactics of the
general were almost beneath contempt.
Wellington speedily resumed the command
of the southern army, and Beresford returned
to Lisbon to continue the work of reorgani-
sation, for which he was far more fitted than
for command in the field. Nevertheless he
was present, though not actively engaged,
at the siege of Badajoz, and in the famous
advance into Spain, which was signalised by
the victory of Salamanca. On that great
day he held no particular command, but en-
couraged his Portuguese soldiers in the gal-
lant attacks of Pack and Bradford on the
Arapiles, which were among the finest ac-
tions of the great battle. Towards the close
of the day he was severely wounded in the
thigh, and so did not share the triumph of
Wellington's entry into Madrid. After this
battle a singular proof occurs of the high
value Wellington placed upon his services.
It was proposed by the ministry to make
Sir Stapleton Cotton, who had been second
in command, a peer, when Wellington was
made a marquis ; but Wellington earnestly
begged that this should not be done, because
Beresford would at once throw up his Por-
tuguese command. ' I do not know how you
will settle this question,' he wrote to Lord
Bathurst on 2 Dec. 1812. ' All that I can
tell you is that the ablest man I have yet
seen with the army, and that one having the
largest views, is Beresford. They tell me
that when I am not present, he wants de-
cision, and he certainly embarrassed me a
little with his doubts, when he commanded
in Estremadura, but I am quite certain that
he is the only person capable of conducting
a large concern ' ( Wellington Supplementary
Despatches, vii. 484). Beresford soon got
cured of his wound in Portugal, and was
present in 1813 at the battle of Vittoria
and at the battles of the Pyrenees, without
any special command. After a sojourn in
England, he again rejoined the army before
the invasion of France, and commanded
the centre of the army at the battles of
the Nivelle, the Nive, and Orthez. After
this last battle he was detached with two
infantry divisions and two brigades of ca-
valry to Bordeaux, where, Wellington was

Beresford

334

Beresford

informed, a strong party existed for the resto-
ration of the Bourbons, and was in command
there when the Due d'Angouleme hoisted
the white flag again. He had rejoined the
main army before the last battle of Toulouse,
and there had the difficult task allotted to
him of restoring the battle on the left after
the first success had been endangered by
Picton's rashness. The Peninsular War was
now over, and when Wellington was created
a duke, his five most conspicuous lieute-
nants— Sir Stapleton Cotton, Sir Rowland
Hill, Sir Thomas Graham, Sir John Hope,
and SirWilliam Carr Beresford — were created
barons in the English peerage as Lord Com-
bermere, Lord Hill, Lord Lynedoch, Lord
Niddry, and Lord Beresford of Albuera and
Cappoquin, co. Carlo w, with pensions of
2,000/. for their lives and those of their next
two successors in the peerage.

After the battle of Toulouse Beresford
went to England for a few weeks to take
his seat in the House of Lords, and then
returned to Lisbon to resume his command
of the Portuguese army, and thus lost the
opportunity of being present at Waterloo.
His residence in Portugal in time of peace
was marked by perpetual squabbling. The
Portuguese government had paid the large
sums demanded for the army with great re-
luctance during the war, and when peace was
declared insisted on a reduction, and finally
would not pay anything at all. Further
troubles were caused by the progress of a
democratic spirit among the Portuguese,
which eventually led to the dismissal of the
English officers in the Portuguese service in
1819. This caused Beresford to pay his
second visit to Rio de Janeiro, where the
king of Portugal still resided. At his first
visit in 1817 he had put down a dangerous
rebellion in Rio, and now he insisted on his
services to obtain the full arrears of pay for
his army. On returning to Lisbon he found
that the democratic constitution of 1822 had
been proclaimed, and he was not permitted
to land. He then left Portugal for the last
time, and though twice during the civil wars
he was requested to take command of the
army again, he always refused, and never
revisited the country.

On reaching England he commenced his
short political career. He had been elected
for the county of Waterford after the battle
of Albuera in 1811, and again in 1812, but
had never taken his seat in the House of
Commons. He had now an opportunity in
the House of Lords of declaring his strong
tory principles, and of supporting the Duke
of Wellington in everything. He received
rich rewards; he had been promoted lieu-

tenant-general in 1812, and made governor
of Jersey in 1814, and had been colonel of
the 88th regiment ever since 1807 ; he was
! now in 1822 made lieutenant-general of the
| ordnance and colonel of the 16th, in 1823
Viscount Beresford of Beresford in Stafford-
shire, and in 1825 was promoted full general.
i In 1828, when the Duke of Wellington
formed his first cabinet on the resignation of
Lord Goderich, he was appointed to the
high office of master-general of the ordnance,
which gave him the superintendence of the
important corps of royal artillery and royal
engineers, and which he held until the for-
mation of Lord Grey's reform government in
1830.

He now retired from political life, and
was greatly occupied by his famous con-
troversy with Colonel Napier, whose third
volume, which treated of the battle of Al-
buera, appeared in 1833. In three long
pamphlets, of which the first two were ano-
nymous and the last signed, and in a letter
to Mr. C. Long, the son of Lieutenant-general
R. B. Long, he defended his conduct on that
memorable day. He tried to make out that
his generalship in the memorable campaign
of Albuera had been faultless. This was too
much for Napier to bear ; after a clear expo-
sition of the whole question he l declined to
believe that Lord Beresford was a greater
general than Alexander or Csesar, and had
never made a mistake.' This controversy
was carried on in a very bitter tone on both
sides, and does not form a pleasant episode in
his career. It is more pleasant to turn to the
happy marriage which he made and to his
later years. On 29 Nov. 1832 he married
the Hon. Louisa Hope, his first cousin, the
youngest daughter of the Most Rev. William
Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam and Lord
Decies, and the widow of Thomas Hope, the
author of ' Anastatius.' By her he acquired
a vast fortune; he had in 1824 purchased
the ancestral estate of Beresford in Stafford-
shire ; he now settled at Bedgebury in Kent,
and there led the peaceful life of a country
gentleman. Lady Beresford died there in
1851, and through the latter years of his
life he was affectionately tended by his step-
son, Mr. A. J. Beresford-Hope, afterwards
M.P. for Cambridge University, until his
death, at the advanced age of eighty-five, on
8 Jan. 1854. He died Viscount and Baron
Beresford in the peerage of England, Duke
of Elvas in the peerage of Spain, Conde de
Trancoso in the peerage of Portugal, knight
grand cross of the Bath, knight grand
cross of Hanover, knight of the Tower and
Sword, knight of San Fernando, colonel-
in-chief of the 60th rifles, colonel of the

Berewyk

335

Bergenroth

16th regiment, and a general in the English
army.

Possessed of great courage and physical
strength, Beresford had the qualities which
made an admirable officer, but not those
which made a great general, and Welling-
ton paid the greatest tribute to him when he
declared that if he were removed by death
or illness he would recommend Beresford to
succeed him, not because he was a great
general, but because he alone could ' feed an
army.'

[There is no good life of Beresford extant, and
it remains a desideratum in English military
history ; perhaps the best short one is that by
J. W. Cole in his Peninsular Generals ; the
obituary notice in the Morning Chronicle, the
materials for which were supplied by Mr. Beres-
ford-Hope, ought also to be consulted ; for his
services in the Peninsula the one great authority
is Napier's Peninsular War, and for Albuera his
anonymous Letter to Colonel Napier on his third
volume, his Answer to Colonel Napier's Vin-
dication of his third volume, his signed Second
Letter to Colonel Napier, and his Letter to
K. B. Long, Esq.] H. M. S.

BEREWYK, JOHN DE (d. 1312), judge,
was entrusted with the charge of the vacant
abbey of St. Edmund, 1278-9, and of the
see of Lincoln during the interval which
elapsed between the death of Benedict, other-
wise Richard, de Gravesend, 1279, and the
appointment of his successor in the episco-
pate, Oliver Sutton, 1280-1. He acted as
one of the assessors of the thirtieth for the
counties south of the Trent in 1283, and in
Michaelmas 1284 is mentioned as treasurer to
Queen Eleanor. In 1294 he was one of her
executors. A memorandum entered on the
roll of parliament in 1290 records the de-
livery by him of a ( roll of peace and concord '
made between the chancellor and scholars of
the university and the mayor and burgesses
of the city of Oxford to the clerk of the
king's wardrobe for safe custody. He was
summoned to parliament as a justice between
1295 and 1309, having been appointed a
justice itinerant in 1292. In 1305 he was
nominated receiver of petitions to the king
in parliament emanating from Guernsey,
with power to answer all such as did not
require the personal attention of the king.
He died in 1312 possessed of estates in Surrey,
Essex, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Norfolk,
and leaving an infant heir.

[Rot. Parl. i. 33 ; Parl. Writs, i. 13, 155, 468,
ii. Div. iii. 536 ; Rot. Orig. Abbrev. i. 33, 35,
194, 195; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 31; Mad ox's
Exch. i. 361 ; Godwin, De Preesul. 292, 293.]

J. M. R.

BERGENROTH, GUSTAV ADOLPH

(1813-1869), historical student, was born at
Oletzko, in East Prussia, 26 Feb. 1813. From
his father, the magistrate of the town, a stub-
born and incorruptible patriot, he received an
education well calculated to develope the in-
dependence of mind and strength of body for
which he was remarkable all his life. After a
somewhat stormy career at the university of
Konigsberg, he successively obtained several
minor situations in the magistracy, and de-
voted himself to the study of statistics and
political economy. His inquiries, combined
with the restless temper which always made
official life distasteful to him, led him to
adopt advanced democratic opinions, which,
freely manifested during the outbreak of
1848, cost'him his post in the civil service
upon the triumph of the reaction. After
assisting in Kinkel's remarkable escape from
Spandau, he determined to emigrate to Cali-
fornia, whither he proceeded in 1850. The
incidents of his voyage and residence were
most adventurous. He caught yellow fever
on the passage out, was robbed, while un-
conscious, of all his property, arrived at San
Francisco half dead, and owed his life to the
charity of a woman. Having also recovered
from an attack of cholera, he betook him-
self to the wilderness, and lived for some
time the life of a hunter. He saw much of
the operations of the vigilance committee,
which he subsequently vividly described in
1 Household Words.' In 1851 he returned
to Europe, and led for several years a roam-
ing life, seeking employment alternately as
a tutor and as a man of letters. In 1857 he
formed the resolution of devoting himself to
English history, and settled in London with
the view of studying the period of the Tudors.
Finding the materials in the English Record
Office insufficient, he conceived the bold
plan of establishing himself at Simancas,
and making a thorough examination of the
Spanish archives, at that time exceedingly
difficult of access. Before Bergenroth not
more than six students, Spanish and foreign,
had made any important research in the
archives, and it was generally believed that
great havoc had been committed among them
by the French soldiers, which Bergenroth
found reason to doubt. The history of his
investigations is most graphically narrated
by himself in letters to the ' Athenaeum,' and
in private communications to Sir John Ro-
milly, master of the rolls, who was induced
by the l Athenaeum ' letters to procure Ber-
genroth a commission with a stipend from
the English government. Both sets of let-
ters are fully reprinted in Mr. Cartwright's
memoir. He speedily manifested the most

Bergenroth

336

Bergne

remarkable talent as a decipherer, interpret-
ing more than twelve ciphers of exceeding
difficulty, with which the Spanish archivists
were themselves unacquainted, or the keys to
which they withheld from him. Their per-
sistent obstruction compelled him to have
recourse to the English embassy at Madrid ;
but his energy triumphed over every obstacle,
and in 1862 he was enabled to publish a
calendar of the documents in the Simancas
Archives relating to English affairs from
1485 to 1509, with additions from the re-
positories at Brussels, Barcelona, and other
places. This calendar was introduced by a
fascinating preface, describing his difficulties
and successes as a decipherer, and including
a brilliant review of the relations between
England and Spain during the period. A
second and larger volume appeared in 1868,
analysing the documents from 1509 to 1525,
and accompanied by another striking pre-
face, which, however, gave much oifence by
harsh and irrelevant criticism of his fellow-
labourers, and betrayed a strong tendency
to sensational and melodramatic views of
history. This lack of sobriety was still more
glaringly evinced in his last publication
(1868), a supplemental volume treating of
Queen Katharine of Arragon as a Spanish
princess, and of the projected marriage of
Henry VII with Queen Juana of Castile.
In dealing with the former subject he cast
groundless reflections on Katharine's chastity
before marriage, and in the second part, dis-
puting the reality of Queen Juana's madness,
concocted a ghastly history of her wrongs,
which more exact research has shown to be
a mere romance. While labouring indefati-
gably at the Simancas records, he was attacked
by an epidemic fever, of which he died at
Madrid on 13 Feb. 1869. He left the repu-
tation of a most vigorous and indomitable
labourer in history, of unsurpassed acumen
in the pursuit of isolated facts, but he was
deficient in the faculty of combination, and
was continually misled by his appetite for
the picturesque and dramatic. His style is
pregnant and animated, and many of his re-
marks indicate great sagacity. Bergenroth's
calendars of the Simancas papers have been
continued by Don Pascual de Gayangos.

[Cartwright's Grustave Bergenroth, a Memorial
Sketch, Edinburgh, 1870 ; Pauli, in Allgemeine
Deutsche Biographic, Bd. ii. For appreciations
of Bergenroth's historical labours, especially his
theory of the insanity of Queen Juana, see Pauli,
inSybel'sHistorischeZeitschrift,Bde. iv.xi.xxi.;
G-achard, Sur Jeanne la Folle, Bruxelles, 1869;
Rosier, Johanna die Wahnsinnige. Wien, 1 870 ;
Edinburgh Review, vol. cxxxi. ; The Month, vol.
iii. N. S.] R. G.

BERGNE, JOHN BROJJRIBB (1800-
j 1873), numismatist and antiquary, was de-
' scended from a family originally of Auvergne,
' France, but settled in England since the
! French revolution. He was born at Ken-
sington in 1800, and having entered the Fo-
j reign Office in January 1817 was for some
I time attached as clerk to the treaty depart-
! ment, of which he became superintendent in
I 1854. This part of the office was then, to
; some extent, remodelled, in order that the
! secretary of state might avail himself of
Bergne's special knowledge and ability.
! No one, probably, could have occupied this
i post more efficiently than Bergne, who for
' many years was a trusted adviser of succes-
i sive secretaries of state, and whose reputation
| as an authority on all matters connected with
| treaties extended far beyond English official
i circles. In 1865 he was a member of the
| commission appointed to revise the slave trade
instructions. He remained the head of the
treaty department till his death, early in
1873. Although Bergne's name did not
come prominently before the general public,
the sterling services which his remarkable
memory, accuracy, and judgment enabled
him to render during the long years of his
life in the Foreign Office were universally
and cordially recognised by his colleagues.
Bergne will be remembered not less as an an-
tiquary and numismatist than as an important
public servant. He was one of the founders
of the Numismatic Society, of which he was
treasurer from 1843 to 1857, and was several
times afterwards elected a vice-president.
He was also a fellow of the Society of Anti-
quaries. As a numismatist Bergne devoted
his attention chiefly to Roman and Eng-
lish coins, his collection of which was dis-
persed at his death, when many of the most
valuable examples were purchased for the
British Museum. The following are his con-
tributions to the * Numismatic Chronicle '
from its first publication in 1838 : ' Pennies
of William the Conqueror;' ' Additions to
Mr. Walpole's Account of the Family of
Roetiers;' « Irish Penny of Edward I ;' 'Re-
marks on the Pennies of Henry with the Short
and Long Cross ; ' * Half-crowns of Charles II
of Uncertain Mints ; ' ' Unpublished Exeter
Half-crowns of Charles I ; ' ' Numismatic
Sermon preached in 1694 ; ' t Unpublished
Coins of Guthred, Baldred, and William the
Conqueror ; ' ' Coin of Cerausius of a New and
Unpublished Type ; ' l Another Coin of Bald-
red ; ' ( Denarius of Pescenninus Niger ; '
< Coin Pedigrees ; ' ' Unpublished Coins ; '
1 Foreign or Counterfeit Sterlings.'

[Private information ; Proceedings of the Nu-
mismatic Society.] A. A. B.

Berington

337

Berington

BERINGTON, CHARLES, D.D. (1748-
1798), catholic bishop, born in Essex in 1748,
was educated in classics at Douay, and went
to the English seminary in Paris to study phi-
losophy and divinity (D.D. 1776). He served
on the English mission at Ingatestone Hall in
liis native county for several years. In March
1786 Bishop Thomas Talbot, vicar-apostolic
of the midland district, petitioned the holy
see to grant him a coadjutor in the person of
Berington, who was accordingly appointed
to that post. His brief to the see of Hiero-
•cresaria, ' in partibus infidelium,' was dated
12 May 1786, and he was consecrated on
1 Aug. In 1788 Berington was elected a
member of the catholic committee, which
afterwards formed itself into the Cisalpine
Club. He signed the ' protest ' and otherwise
identified himself with the proceedings of this
self-constituted body, which seemed to reject
the authority of the vicars apostolic as well as
that of the court of Rome. In 1790 the ca-
tholic committee made strenuous efforts to
obtain the translation of Berington to the
London district on the death of Bishop James
Talbot ; but the choice of the holy see fell
iipon Dr. John Douglass. Several of the lay
members of the committee went so far as to
maintain that the clergy and laity ought to
choose their own bishops without any refe-
rence to Rome, and to procure their consecra-
tion at the hands of any other lawful bishop.
It was even proposed by them, after the no-
mination of Dr. Douglass, to pronounce that
appointment ' obnoxious and improper,' and
to refuse to acknowledge it. Berington, how-
ever, addressed a printed letter to the London
clergy, resigning every pretension to the Lon-
don vicariate, and thereupon the systematic
opposition to Dr. Douglass was withdrawn.

Bishop Thomas Talbot died at Bristol on
24 Feb. 1795, and Berington succeeded 'per
coadjutoriam' to the vicariate apostolic of
the midland district. By the clergy who
were loyal to the holy see Berington was
held in" great dislike. The Rev. Robert
Plowden, who was chaplain of St. Joseph's,
Bristol, when Bishop Thomas Talbot died,
went so far as to prevent Berington from
saying mass in suffrage for the soul of the
friend and prelate to whom he had been co-
adjutor. It was rumoured that the other
vicars-apostolic approved the conduct of Mr.
Plowden, whose chapel was situated within
the district of Bishop Walmesley (viz. the
western district) ; * but the holy see had never
pronounced against Bishop Berington, and it-
was judged by calmer heads that in this case
Mr. Plowden's zeal was not confined within
just limits' (BRADY, Episcopal Succession,
*iii. 217). The holy see, on the accession of

VOL. IV.

Berington, required of him, as an indispen-
sable condition for the despatch of the extra-
ordinary faculties usually conceded to vicars-
apostolic, that he should renounce the con-
demned 'oath' and the 'blue books/ and
his subscription to them. This ' oath,' it
should be explained, formed part of the Relief
Bill proposed by the committee, who, sur-
rendering the names ' catholic ' and ' Roman
catholic, actually designated themselves ' pro-
testing catholic dissenters ; ' and the ' blue
books/ containing the protestation, the oath,
and other documents issued by the committee,
were so called from being stitched up in blue
or rather purple covers. A long correspon-
dence between Berington and Propaganda
ensued before the bishop could be induced to
sign a satisfactory form of retractation. At
last, after an interchange of letters for nearly
three years, the bishop signed at Wolver-
hampton, on 11 Oct. 1797, the retractation
which was required of him. The papers con-
taining the faculties were sent from Rome,
and reached the hands of Bishop Douglass on
5 June 1798; but Berington died without
having received them. While journeying on
horseback from Sedgeley Park to his residence
at Long Birch, Staffordshire, he was taken
suddenly ill, and his chaplain, the Rev. John
Kirk, had only just time to give him absolution
before he expired on the roadside, 8 June 1798.

' Endowed/ says Bishop Milner, ' with su-
perior talents and the sweetest temper, he
wanted the firmness requisite for the episco-
pal character in these times to stem the tide
of irreligious novelty and lay influence, and so
lent his name and authority to the oath and
the " blue books," and to every other measure
which his fellow-committeemen deemed these
might serve.' And a writer in the ' Gentle-
man's Magazine ' (Ixviii. 622) describes him
as ' a prelate whose amiable virtues gave an
impressive charm to the truths of religion ; a
scholar of great classical taste, a man whose
judgment was profound, whose manners were
peculiarly conciliating, and whose hilarity of
conversation rendered him the delight of
society.'

[Brady's Episcopal Succession in England,
-Scotland, and Ireland, iii. 178, 179, 215, 216-18,
223, 224 ; Catholic Progress, ix. 33, 36 ; Butler's
Hist. Memoirs of the English Catholics (1822),^
iv. 4 seq. ; Milner's Supplementary Memoirs of
English Catholics, 53, 70, 72; Catholic Mag. and
Review (1833), iii. 107; Husenbeth's Life of
Bishop Milner, 28, 29, 56, 57, 61,475; Gent.
Ixviii. 542, 622 : Nichols's Illustrations, vii.

T. c.

BERINGTON, JOSEPH (1746-1827),
catholic divine, was the third son of John

z

Berington

338

Berington

Berington, of Winsley, Herefordshire, and
Devereux Wootton, by his marriage with
Winifred, daughter of John Hornyold, of
Blackmoor Park, Worcestershire, and was
born in Shropshire in 1746. He was a
cousin of Bishop Charles Berington [q. v.]
When very young he was sent to the col-
lege of St. Omer, and after being ordained
he exercised his priestly functions in France
for several years, and then returned to his
native country. Being of an ardent and en-
thusiastic temperament, he took an active
part in the controversies of the day, and allied
himself with the liberal, or moderate catho-
lics, who were striving to obtain their civil
and religious liberty. Between the years
1776 and 1814 he published numerous philo-
sophical, historical, and theological works, in
some of which he advanced opinions which
gave great offence to his more orthodox co-
religionists. He claimed the rights of a man
and an Englishman, and openly declared
that the refusal of those rights created in him
' a restless desire of change and revolutions.'
He reduced Catholicism to a minimum, and
he confessed that f many things in the catho-
lic belief weigh rather heavily on my mind,
and I should be glad to have a wider field to
range in' (MiLNER, Supplementary Memoirs,
45). So liberal, indeed, were his views, that
on being invited to preach at the meeting-
house of Socinian dissenters, he excused him-
self on the sole grounds of the novelty ' of
the proposal, and that his complying with it
would give offence to the society of which he
is a member,' adding, ' I would not willingly
shock the prejudices of others unless by that
shock I might reasonably hope to surmount
them.' Berington, being a thorough 'Gal-
lican,' was drawn towards the protestants by
an idea that the catholic religion remaining
essentially one ought to be allowed to shape
itself in each country according to the na-
tional character of the people. He became
the leader of the fifteen priests who were
known as the e Staffordshire clergy,' and who
were the most strenuous supporters of the
1 blue book' party [see BERINGTON, CHARLES,
D.D. ; and BUTLEE, CHARLES].

In or about 1786 Berington appears to
have been the priest at Oscott, a small ham-
let about a mile and a half from Barr, in
Staffordshire, where Miss Mary Anne Galton,
afterwards Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, then re-
sided with her father. That lady relates that
Berington, Dr. Priestley, Mr. Boulton, and
Mr. Watt used to attend the social meetings
held at Barr, and she gives a graphic account
of the ecclesiastic whose tall and most majes-
tic figure, lofty bearing, and polished man-
ners made an ineffaceable impression on her

youthful mind. ' His conversation abounded
in intellectual pleasantry ; he was a finished
gentleman of the old school, and a model of
ecclesiastical decorum of the church of an-
cient monuments and memories ; his cold,
stern eye instantly silenced any unbecoming
levity either on religion or morality ; his
bearing was of a prince amongst his people,
not from worldly position, but from his sacer-
dotal office, while his ancient and high family
seemed but a slight appendage to the dignity
of his character. His voice was deep and
majestic, like the baying of a bloodhound ;
and when he intoned Mass, every action
seemed to thrill through the soul ' (Life of
Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, 36). It should be
mentioned that he was the first priest who
ventured — some years probably after this date
— to dress in black, the catholic clergy having"
previously been obliged, for the sake of con-
cealment, to wear coloured clothes, which
were generally brown. For this innovation
he was blamed by some of the regular clergy
on the ground that it would expose priests
to persecution (HTJSENBETH, Life of Bp. Mil-
ner, 100).

Berington afterwards resided for several
years in the London district. In 1792 the
vicars-apostolic censured many errors ex-
tracted from his < State and Behaviour of
English Catholics,' ' History of Abelard,' and
1 Letters to Hawkins,' and even condemned
one of them as heretical. He was accord-
ingly suspended in the London district. After
some years, however, he made ' a sort of illu-
sory retractation,' and was restored by Bishop
Douglass. The insufficiency of the retracta-
tion being ascertained, he was again suspended
till he signed a more ample retractation,
13 Feb. 1801 ; but that he did not adhere to
this any more than to the former is evident
from his published letter to the Rev. John
Evans. Bishop Milner, in a letter dated 1808,
referring to the controversies in which he had
been engaged, says that Dr. Geddes and Joseph
Berington ' are not in general considered as
orthodox brethren' (NICHOLS, Illustrations of
Literature, v. 721).

In 1814 he was appointed priest at Buck-
land, in Berkshire, where he died on 1 Dec.
1827, aged 81.

His works are : 1. ' Letter on Materialism,
and Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind,'
1776, 8vo. 2. * A Letter to Dr. Fordyce, in
answer to his sermon on the delusive and
persecuting spirit of Popery,' 1779. 3. ' The
State and Behaviour of English Catholics,
from the Reformation to the year 1780, with
a view of their present number, wealth,
character, &c. In two parts ' (anon.), Lond.
1780, 8vo. 4. l An Address to the Protestant

Berington

339

Berkeley

Dissenters who have lately petitioned for a
repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts/
Birmingham, 1787, 8vo. 5. ' The History of
the Lives of Abeillard and Heloisa, from
1079 to 1163, with their genuine letters, from
the collection of Amboise/ Birmingham,
1787, 4to. 6. ' Reflections, with an Exposi-
tion of Roman Catholic principles, in refe-
rence to God and the Country,' 1787, 8vo.
7. ' Account of the present State of Roman
Catholics in Great Britain,' 1787, 8vo. 8. 'An
Essay on the Depravity of the Nation, with
a view to the promotion of Sunday Schools,
&c., of which a more extended plan is pro-
posed,' Birmingham, 1788, 8vo. 9. 'The
Rights of Dissenters from the Established
Church, in relation principally to English
Catholics,' Birmingham, 1789, 8vo. 10. 'The
History of the Reign of Henry the Second, !
and of Richard and John, his sons ; with the
events of this period, from 1154 to 1216, in
which the character of Thomas a Becket is
vindicated from the attacks of George, Lord
Lyttelton,' Birmingham, 1790, 4to. 11. ' Me-
moirs of Gregorio Panzani; giving an account
of his agency in England in the years
1634, 5, and 6 ; translated from the Italian
original, and now first published. To which
are added, an Introduction and a Supple-
ment, exhibiting the state of the English
Catholic Church, and the conduct of the par-
ties before and after that period, to the pre-
sent times,' Lond. 1793, 8vo ; reprinted under
the title of ' The History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Catholic Religion in Eng-
land during a period of two hundred and
forty years from the reign of Elizabeth to the
present time ; including the Memoirs of Gre-
gorio Panzani, envoy from Rome to the Eng-
lish court in 1643, 1644, and 1645, with
many interesting particulars relative to the
court of Charles the First and the causes of
the civil war. Translated from the Italian
original,' Lond. 1813, 8vo. This work elicited
some ' Remarks on the book entitled Memoirs
of Gregorio Panzani ' (1794), from the Jesuit
Father Charles Plowden, who expressed
doubts as to the authenticity of the manu-
script. Berington vindicated its genuineness
in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for June
1795, and was answered by Dr. Milner in the
number for September. Milner then stated
that ' the well-known Mr. Joseph Berington,
so far from being a Roman catholic bishop,
has not even the ordinary commission of a
Roman catholic clergyman in the ecclesiastical
district in which he resides.' 12. 'An Exami-
nation of Events termed Miraculous as re-
ported in letters from Italy,' 1796. This was
answered by Father George Bruning in a
pamphlet published the same year, and also

by Milner in ' A serious Expostulation with
the Rev. Joseph Berington upon his theo-
logical errors concerning Miracles and other
subjects,' 1797. Bering-ton's work is accom-
panied by an announcement of the first of
five quarto volumes of the ' History of the
Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Papal
Power,' but this was never published.
13. ' Protestantism and Popery illustrated.
Two letters from a Catholic priest to the
author of the " Sketch of the Denominations
of the Christian World," with his reply, tend-
ing to illustrate the real sentiments of the
Catholics throughout the United Kingdom.
With remarks on the subject by John
Evans,' 2nd edit. Lond. 1812, 8vo. 14. ' The
Faith of Catholics confirmed by Scripture
and attested by the Fathers of the first five
centuries of the Church,' written conjointly
with John Kirk, D.D., 8vo, Lond. 1813, 2nd
edit. 1830, 3rd edit, revised and greatly en-
larged by the Rev. James Waterworth, 3 vols.
1846. 15. ' A Literary History of the Middle
Ages ; comprehending an account of the state
of learning, from the close of the reign of
Augustus to its revival in the fifteenth cen-
tury,' Lond. 1814, 4to, reprinted in 'The
European Library,' Lond. 1846, 12mo, with
an introduction by William Hazlitt; and
again Lond. 1883, 12mo. A French translation
by M. H. Boulard was published in sections.

Several of Berington's works, especially
' The Faith of Catholics/ elicited replies from
writers on the protestant side ; and his taste
for innovation was censured in ' Remarks on
the Writings of the Rev. Mr. Joseph Bering-
ton ; addressed to the Catholic clergy of Eng-
land, by the Rev. Charles Plowden/ 1792.

[Jackson's Oxford Journal, 8 Dec. 1827 ;
Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, v. 685, 690,
721, vii. 485 ; Nichols's Lit. Aneccl. viii. 43, 44, ix.
267 : Gent. Mag. Ixr. 723, Ixix. (ii.) 750, xcviii.
(i.) 374 ; Butler's Hist, Memoirs (1822), iv. 455 ;
Milner's Supplementary Memoirs, 45, 46 ; pref.
to Hazlitt's edit, of Hist, of Literature ; Life of
Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck (1859), 36, 123,
174 ; Biog. Univ. Suppl. ; Flanagan's Hist, of the
Church in England, ii. 388, 390, 391; Home
and Foreign Eeview, ii. 538 ; Husenbeth's Life of
Milner, 26, 63, 97, 100, 397, 402; Notes and
Queries, 1st ser. x. 131, 186, 270; Biog. Diet, of
Living Authors (1816), 24 ; Burke's Diet, of the
Landed Gentry (1868), 89.] T. C.

BERKELEY, FAMILY OF. The first te-
nant of Berkeley after the Conquest was
Roger, who in 1086 held lands in Gloucester-
shire and Wiltshire (Domesday, i. 73, 162,
168; Monasticon, i. 549). He bequeathed
his lands to his nephew William (Pipe Roll
31 Hen. I, p. 133), founder of the abbey of
Kingswood (Monast. v. 425). By this time

Berkeley

340

Berkeley

probably a Norman castle had been built at
Berkeley; for Henry spent Easter there in
1121 (Anglo-Saxon Chron.\ and Roger, the
son and successor of William, having fallen
into the hands of Walter, the brother of
Miles, earl of Hereford, in the time of the
anarchy, was cruelly tortured to make him
give up his castle ( Gesta Stephani). His son
Roger lost some of his lands, and in 12 Hen.
II part of Berkeley was held by Robert Fitz
Harding. As at that date Roger held certain
fees of the honour of Berkeley, for which he
did no service to Robert, it may be supposed
that he had forfeited some part of his estate
by opposition to Henry FitzEmpress ; that
of these forfeited lands part had been granted
by the crown to Robert FitzHarding ; and
that the honour, with the castle of Berkeley,
was perhaps still in the king's Hand (Liber
Niger Scacc. i. 165, 171). An alliance was
made between the rival families ; for Roger
married his daughter Alicia to Maurice, the
eldest son of Robert FitzHarding, giving
Slimbridge as her marriage portion. In spite
of these losses, Roger of Berkeley, as he was
still called, retained large estates, and his
house was represented in the elder line by
the Berkeleys of Dursley (Testa de Nevill,
77), extinct in 1382, and in the younger by
the Berkeleys of Cubberley, extinct in 1404
(FosBEozB, SMYTH).

The house of Robert FitzHarding, which
has held the castle of Berkeley for seven
hundred years, descends in the male line
from Eadnoth, the ' staller ' of Edward the
Confessor and of Harold, the son of Godwine
( Codex Dipl. iv. 204 ; FKEEMAN, Norman
Conquest, iv. 757), who fell in battle against
the sons of Harold in 1067. Of his son
Harding (Codex Dipl iv. 234) William of
Malmesbury, speaking of him as then alive,
tells us (Gest. Reg, iii. 254) that he was
* better used to whet his tongue in strife than
to wield his arms in war.' This Harding may
probably be identified with the Harding who,
in 1062, subscribed the confessor's Waltham
charter as * reginse pincerna ' ( Codex Dipl.
iv. 159), and continued after the Conquest
in the household of Eadgyth, appearing as a
witness to the sale of Combe to Bishop Gisa,
transacted in Eadgyth's presence at Wilton
in 1072 (Liber Albus, ii. 254 fo. Chapter Re-
cords, Wells). In 1086 he held lands in
Gloucestershire in pledge of a certain Brihtric,
who held them in the time of Edward the
Confessor (Domesday, i. 170 B, and FKEEMAN,
as above). It is safe to assume that Robert
FitzHarding was his son. It is possible
that Harding had an elder son, Nicolas, the
ancestor of the family of Meriet (SMYTH'S
Lives, p. 19, n. A, ed. Maclean). If this was

so, the younger son soon outstripped the
elder in wealth. Whether the honour of
Berkeley was in the king's hands in 12 Hen.
II, or had already passed to the new family,
it is certain that before long it was granted
to the house of Eadnoth ; and on the ac-
cession of Richard I Maurice, the son of
Robert and the husband of Alicia, procured
a charter from the king granting him the
lordship of Berkeley Hernesse, to be held by
him and his heirs in barony (Lords' Com-
mittee, 1829). This charter does not imply
that a new grant was made. Like many
others of the same date, it probably con-
firmed a former grant, and Robert FitzHard-
ing is to be held the first lord of Berkeley of
the new line. This Robert founded St. Au-
gustine's, in Bristol, as a priory of black canons
(Monast. vi. 363). His gTandson, Robert
[q. v.], the son of Maurice, having joined the
baronial party against John, was excommuni-
cated and his castle was seized by the king
(WENDOVEK, iii. 297, where, by a confusion
arising from the headquarters of the barons
being at Brackley, Robert is called De
Brackele ; but the connection of the name
with that of his kinsman, Maurice de Gant,
marks the lord of Berkeley ; see also p. 356
and Close Rolls 18 John. p. 276). Robert,
dying without issue in 1219, was succeeded
by his brother Thomas, who obtained seisin
of his lands on 5 March 1220 (Close Rolls
4 Hen. III). His grandson, also named
(1) Thomas, took an active part in the wars of
Edward I against the Welsh, the Scots, and
the French. As he received a writ of sum-
mons to the parliament of 1295, the date
fixed by lawyers as a period of limitation, he
is reckoned as the first baron of Berkeley who
held and transmitted an hereditary peerage
(Lords' Report, App. i. 67). His name is
also to be found among the barons who. on
12 Feb. 1301, wrote to Pope Boniface VIII
on the subject of his claim to the lordship of
Scotland (Feed. i. 926, 927 ; HEMINGB. ii. 209).
As the lords of Berkeley held Bedminster
and Redcliif, they were brought into conflict
with the burghers of Bristol, who sought to
add these estates to their town, and were
very jealous of the jurisdiction which the
lords exercised in them. This jealousy led
to open violence in 1303, and a long struggle
ensued between the burghers and the Lord
Thomas and his son Maurice (Parl. and Close
Rolls 33 Ed. I; SEYER, Hist, of Bristol,
ii. 77: SMYTH, Lives, 195-200). Shortly
before the death of Edward I, Thomas was
sent on an embassy to Rome. In the next
reign he was taken prisoner at the battle of
Bannockburn. He died in 1321, and was
succeeded by his son (2) Maurice. A writ

Berkeley

341

Berkeley

of summons was sent to Maurice in 1308
during the lifetime of his father, and thus a
dignity was created independent of that
which was derived from the writ of 1295
(NICOLAS). During the famous insurrection
at Bristol Maurice had the satisfaction of
being employed against his old enemies, and
was made the keeper of the castle and of the
town. Having married Margaret, daughter
of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, earl of
March, and widow of the Earl of Oxford, he
joined the confederacy of the barons against
the Despensers, and took part with Hugh of
Audley in ravaging their Welsh lands. The
Mortimers, however, were forced to submit
to the king in January 1322, and Maurice
followed their example. He was imprisoned
at Wallingford until his death in 1326
(ADAM MTTK. 33, 36, 40). Queen Isabella
released his son (3) Thomas from prison,
and gave back the Berkeley estates, for
which he paid a relief, <ut pro baronia'
(Lords Comm.) The story told by Froissart
(bk. i. c. 162) of the gallantry and capture,
at the battle of Poitiers, of a young knight
who announced himself as Thomas, lord of
Berkeley, has usually (DITGDALE) been attri-
buted to this lord. As, however, the chro-
nicler states that this was the first time the
young knight unfurled his banner, it is more
likely that he was Maurice, the eldest son of
Lord Thomas (SMYTH). In 23 Ed. Ill this
lord levied a fine of his estates at Berkeley and
other places, and in 26 Ed. Ill of the manor
of Portbury, by which he settled them on
his son Maurice and the heirs male of his
body, with remainder to the heirs male of
his own body by his second wife Catherine,
with remainder to his right heirs. He died
in 1361. From his youngest son John de-
scended the Berkeleys of Beverston Castle, a
family of considerable wealth and importance
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
which fell into decay early in the seventeenth
century (SMYTH).

From Sir Maurice (d. at Calais 1346-7),
the second son of (2) Lord Maurice, came
the Berkeleys of Stoke Gifford, Gloucester-
shire, of Bruton and of Pylle, Somerset (now
represented by Edward Berkeley-Portman,
Baron, 1837, and Viscount Portman, 1873),
and of Boy court, Kent. His son Maurice
(d. 1385) married Catherine, daughter of
John, Lord Bottetourt. From him came the
three brothers, Sir Charles Berkeley (d. 1688),
Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia
[q. v.], and John, first Lord Berkeley of
Stratton [q. v.] This title became extinct
in 1773. Sir Charles's second son Charles
was created by Charles II Baron Berkeley
of Rathdown, and Viscount Fitzhardinge

(Irish honours), and in 1664 Baron Botte-
tourt of Langport and Earl of Falmouth in
England. The earldom became extinct on
his death, 3 June 1665. In 1763 Norborne
Berkeley claimed a summons as Baron Botte-
tourt, he being a lineal descendant of Sir
Maurice Berkeley and his wife Catherine.
He received a summons in 1764. On his
death in 1776 the Bottetourt title again
fell into abeyance, until it was revived in
1803 in favour of Henry Somerset, fifth
duke of Beaufort. Sir William Berkeley,
brother of Charles, earl of Falmouth, who
died in battle with the Dutch in June 1665,,
is noticed below.

Lord Thomas (5), grandson of the Lord
Thomas who died in 1361, was one of the
commissioners appointed by parliament to
pronounce "sentence of deposition on Richard
II (KNIGHTON, ii. 2760; Traison et Mort,
219). He was a warden of the Welsh
Marches, and did good service by sea against
Owen Glendower and his French allies
(WALSINGHAM, ii. 272). He married Mar-
garet, daughter and heiress of Warine, lord
1'Isle, and covenanted for himself and his
heirs to bear the arms of 1'Isle (NICOLAS,
Ulsle Peerage). He died 1417, leaving his
nephew James, son of his brother James, his
heir male ; but the heir of his body was his
only daughter Elizabeth, married to Richard
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, by whom she
had three daughters, of whom the eldest,
Margaret, married John, earl of Shrewsbury.
On the death of Lord Thomas the Earl and
Countess of Warwick took possession of
Berkeley Castle, and did not surrender it
until (6) James was found the right heir on
a writ of diem clausit supremum. The barony
of Berkeley then passed to James, summoned
to parliament 1421-61, while the Countess of
Warwick took the lands of her mother and
such lands of her father as were not settled
in tail male. The countess died in 1423 and
the earl in 1439. As this Lord James was
summoned as seised of Berkeley while the
Countess of Warwick was her father's heir,
it appears that the tenure of Berkeley Castle
did at that time constitute a right and confer
a dignity. If, however, claim by tenure is
set aside, the summons to Lord James must
be regarded as the origin of the present
barony, while the baronies created by writ of
25 Ed. I and 2 Ed. II are now in .abeyance
(NICOLAS). Lord James (d. 1462) married
Isabel, daughter and coheiress of Thomas
Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. Among the
minor troubles of the reign of Henry VI
must be reckoned the strife between Lord
James and his cousin, the Countess of War-
wick, supported by her son, Lord 1'Isle, in

Berkeley

342

Berkeley

the course of which the Earl of Shrewsbury
seized Isabel, Lord James's wife, at Gloucester,
and kept her in prison until her death. The
sole heir of the Countess Margaret in 1829
appears to have been Sir Thomas Shelley
Sidney (NICOLAS). From Thomas, youngest
son of Lord James, was descended Chief-
Baron Sir Robert Berkeley, d. 1656 [q. v.],
of Spetchley, from whom in the male line is
descended Robert Berkeley, Esq., of Spetchley
(b. 1823). William (7), the eldest son of
James, summoned as baron 1467, was created
viscount by Edward IV by patent 12 April
1481, Earl of Nottingham by Richard III
28 June 1483, Earl Marshal 1485, and Mar-
quis of Berkeley 1488, with remainder to the
heirs of his body. In order to spite his brother
(8) Maurice, who was his heir presumptive, he
suffered a recovery of the castle and lands of
Berkeley, and so gained the fee simple, con-
veying the same to be held to his own use in
tail general, with remainder to the king
(Henry VII) in tail male, with remainder to
his own heirs. Accordingly, on his death
without issue, the castle passed for a while
from the house of Berkeley, and his brother
Maurice, not being seised of it, received no
summons to parliament, and was described
as a commoner (Lords' Comm. No. 31, 32).
It has, however, been proved that his son (9)
Maurice received a summons (14 Hen. VIII) ;
for a letter is extant addressed to him while
governor of Calais by Lord Chief-Baron John
Fitz James and others, and dated 6 May 1523,
in which the writers advise him to obey the
summons, though he had ' not the rome in
the parlement chamber that the lordds of
Berkeley have hadde of olde time.' By
which it appears that this writ of 14 Hen.
VIII created a new barony, the old barony
by tenure (claimed in 1829) being suspended
while the Berkeleys were disseised of the
castle. On the other hand, (10) Lord Thomas,
son of this Maurice, though disseised of the
castle, took his seat in the precedence of the
barony of 1295 (NICOLAS, Lisle Peerage}.
Although the Berkeleys lost the lordship of
the castle by the settlement made by the j
Marquis William, they appear to have en- j
joyed the building as constables of the king
until, on the death of Edward VI, the castle
reverted to (12) Henry, the grandson of
(10) Thomas, special livery being made of
the estates in 1 Philip and Mary, he being
a minor. It is to be noted that this lord,
though seised of the castle, yet had a lower
place in parliament than his grandfather,
being below the Lords Abergavenny, Audley,
and Strange, who would not have been en-
titled to sit above him had it been held that
his barony had been conferred by writ of

23 Ed. 1. This lord was a mighty hunter.
Queen Elizabeth visited Berkeley " in 1563,
when, as it happened, Lord Henry was
absent from the castle. As was often the
case, the royal visit caused great havoc in
the deer park. In great wrath Lord Henry
had the land disparked. When the queen
heard it, she sent to bid him beware of his
words and actions ; for the Earl of Leicester
greatly desired the castle for himself (SMYTH).
Lord Henry died in 1613. His first wife was
Catherine, daughter of Henry Howard, earl
of Surrey. He was succeeded by his grand-
son, (13) George [q. v.], who died 1658. The
next lord, (14) also named George, who died
1698 [q. v.], petitioned in May 1661 for a
higher place in the House of Lords than that
assigned to him, claiming precedence of the
Lords la Warr, Abergavenny, and Audley,
on the ground that the seisin of the castle of
Berkeley conferred a barony precedent to the
writ of 1295, and alleging that (9) Maurice,
not being seised of the castle, received a
summons only as a puisne baron. The claim
remained undecided as late as 1673, at which
date it disappears. Lord Berkeley was
created Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berke-
ley by patent 11 Sept. 1679. His fifth
daughter, the Lady Henrietta, was notorious
for her elopement with her brother-in-law,
Ford, Lord Grey of Werke (Trial of Ford,
Lord Grey of Wark ; A New Vision of Lady

G X 1682 ; LTJTTKELL, Diary, i. 229, 234,

239; MACATTLAY, i. 530). She died unmar-
ried in 1710. Charles (15), second earl, was
in July 1689 called to the House of Lords as
Baron Berkeley of Berkeley, his father being
then alive. From that year till 1695 he was
envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to
the States of Holland. He died in 1710, and
was succeeded by his second son, (16) James,
third earl [q. v.], who married Lady Louisa
Lennox, and died in 1736. His only son
was (17) Augustus, fourth earl, who was a
general in the army, held a command against
the rebels in 1745, and died 9 Jan. 1755. The
second surviving son of this earl was George
Cranfield Berkeley, the admiral [q. v.] The
fifth earl, (18) Frederick Augustus, was a
minor at his father's death, and took his seat
| 8 June 1766. He married Mary, daughter of
William Cole, at Lambeth, 16 May 1796, a
previous marriage having, it was alleged, been
celebrated between them at Berkeley by the
vicar of the parish 30 March 1785. This al-
leged ceremony was, however, kept secret until
after the Lambeth marriage, the lady being
known between the two dates as Miss Tudor.
By this lady Earl Berkeley had his eldest
son, William Fitzhardinge, born 1786, his
second son, Maurice Frederick Fitzhardinge,

Berkeley

343

Berkeley

his fifth son, Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge,
born 19 Oct. 1796, his sixth son, Charles
<Grantley Fitzhardinge [q. v.], and other
children. After the Lambeth marriage a
•certificate of the Berkeley ceremony was pro-
duded, having been recovered, it was alleged,
under very strange circumstances. The earl
having announced his former marriage, his
•eldest son William, commonly called Viscount
Dursley, and at that time M.P. for the county
of Gloucester, obtained leave in 1799 to lay his
pedigree before the lords committee of privi-
leges, and in 1801, in a suit to perpetuate testi-
mony, the earl made a deposition giving full
particulars concerning the Berkeley ceremony.
The earl died in 1810, and his son William
applied to be summoned as next earl. In
March 1811 the committee of privileges de-
cided that the Berkeley marriage was ' not
then proved,' and that the petitioner's claim
was not made out. Colonel William Berke-
ley received the castle of Berkeley and the
other estates of the late earl by will, and on
2 July, after the adverse decision of the
lords' committee, claimed a writ of sum-
mons as baron, pleading his right as seised of
the castle. The claim was fully laid before
the committee of privileges 1828-9. It was
based on points to which reference has been
made above, viz. (to mention the chief argu-
ments) that the barony described in the
charter of 1 Blc. I was precedent to the writ
of 23 Ed. I ; that in 5 Hen. V the baronial
dignity did not descend to the heir-general
of Lord Thomas, but followed the seisin of
the castle, which was then in (6) James, his
nephew and heir male ; that (8) Maurice,
the heir-at-law of the Earl of Nottingham,
was not summoned, being disseised of the
castle, and that his son did not sit as a peer.
But besides other difficulties, which may be
gathered from the above, it had been declared
by the king in council in 1669 that barony
by tenure was ' not in being, and so not fit
to be revived.' The lords pronounced no
judgment on this case. In 1831, however,
Colonel Berkeley was created Baron Segrave
of Berkeley, and in 1841 Earl Fitzhardinge.
He died unmarried 10 Oct. 1857, and his titles
thus became extinct. His next brother and
heir, the Right Hon. Maurice F. Fitzhardinge
Berkeley [q. v.], was in 1861 created Baron
Fitzhardinge, and on his death, in 1867, was
succeeded by his son, F. W. Fitzhardinge,
Baron Fitzhardinge, born 1826, living 1885.
On the failure of Colonel Berkeley to prove
the alleged Berkeley marriage of his mother,
the right to the earldom of Berkeley vested
in (19) Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berke-
ley, the eldest of the sons born after the
Lambeth marriage. But although earl de

\jure he refused to claim his right. He died

| unmarried 27 Aug. 1882. On his death the

i earldom of Berkeley descended to George

Lennox Rawdon Berkeley, seventh earl (born

1827, living 1885), the son of Sir G. H. F.

Berkeley, K.C.B., eldest son of Admiral Sir

G. Cranfield Berkeley, brother of Frederick

Augustus, fifth earl. The barony descended

I to Louisa Mary, daughter of Craven Fitz-

i hardinge Berkeley [q_.v.]

[Smyth's Lives of the Berkeleys, ed. Sir J.

Maclean, 1 vol. privately printed, 1883; Fos-

broke's Berkeley MSS. ; Sir H. Nicolas's L'Isle

| Peerage Claim and Historic Peerage; Minutes

| of Lords' Committee of Privileges, No. 12, 1829;

| Address to the Peers by Mary, Countess of

Berkeley, 1811 ; Lords' Eeports on Dignity of a

Peer; Dugdale's Baronage ; Banks'* Extinct and

Dormant Peerages.] W. H.

BERKELEY, CRAVEN FITZHAR-
DINGE (1805-1855), member of parliament
for Cheltenham, seventh and youngest son
and eleventh of the twelve children of Frede-
rick Augustus, fifth earl of Berkeley, of Ber-
keley Castle, Gloucestershire, and of Mary,
daughter of William Cole [see BERKELEY,
FAMILY of], was born in London, at Ber-
keley House, Spring Gardens, on 28 July 1805.
During the early part of his career he was for
a time an officer in the 1st life guards. Im-
mediately after the passing of the Reform Bill,
however, in 1832, a new path in life was
marked out for him. Cheltenham, on 10 Dec.
1832, returned him without opposition as its
first representative under the new order. For
twenty-three years in all he was M.P. for
Cheltenham, being five times re-elected. A
staunch liberal throughout his career, he was
personally very popular with his constituents.
His second return was in January 1835, when
he defeated the other liberal candidate by a
majority of 386. In August 1837 he defeated
a conservative by a majority of 334. In July
1841 he was at the head of the poll with a net
majority of 109. A year afterwards, on 15 July
1842, he fought a duel with Captain Boldero,
M.P., in Osterley Park. Their encounter arose
out of some words uttered by Captain Boldero
with reference to the queen, which the mem-
ber for Cheltenham, regarding as disrespectful
to his sovereign, immediately called upon him
to retract. Each of them fired twice without
effect. Once before Berkeley had taken part,
as a second, however, not as a principal, in a
hostile encounter of a less seemly character.
This was when, on 3 Aug. 1836, he guarded
the door of a bookseller's shop in Regent Street
(No. 215) while his brother Grantley attacked
James Fraser, the proprietor [see BERKELEY,
G. C. GRANTLEY F.]

On 5 July 1847, when the Health of Towns

Berkeley

344

Berkeley

Bill was under consideration in committee,
Berkeley indiscreetly said in the House of
Commons that Cheltenham showed a greater
mortality than any other place of the same
size in England. On 30 July 1847 he was
thereupon for the first time defeated by a ma-
jority of 108. On 28 May 1848, however,
the successful candidate, Sir Willoughby
Jones, bart., was unseated upon petition, and
on 28 July 1848 Berkeley was elected, being
returned by 1,028 votes. On 24 Aug. this
election was also declared void, on the ground
that some of the voters had been supplied
with refreshments. Incapacitated by that de-
cision from sitting in parliament until after
the next dissolution, Berkeley had to bide his
time until July 1852, when, with an aggregate
of 999 votes, he was for the sixth and last
time returned as M.P. for Cheltenham.

Berkeley was twice married. First, on
10 Sept. 1839, to Augusta Jones, daughter of
Sir Horace St. Paul, bart., and widow of
George Henry Talbot, half-brother of John,
sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbury ; she died in
April 1841. By her he had a daughter, Louisa
Mary, who married, 3 April 1872. Major-gene-
ral Gustavus H. L. Milman, R.A., and on
27 Aug. 1882 became Baroness Berkeley,
succeeding to the barony on the death of her
uncle, Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge, who
refused to avail himself of the decision of the
House of Lords . on the alleged marriage of
his father. Berkeley married secondly, on
27 Aug. 1845, Charlotte, fourth daughter of
the late General Denzil Onslow, of Stoughton,
Huntingdonshire, and widow of George New-
ton, Esq., of Croxton Park, Cambridgeshire.

The only surviving child of Craven Berke-
ley's first wife by her former husband, Miss
Augusta Talbot, was nineteen in 1851. She
was a ward in chancery, and on attaining
her majority would come into possession of
80,000/. On the death of her mother, nine
years previously, she, being both a catholic
and an heiress, was confided by the court of
chancery to the guardianship of her near
relations and coreligionists, the Earl and
Countess of Shrewsbury. By them, in the
September of 1850, she had been placed in
the convent at Taunton in Somersetshire.
Her step-father learning soon afterwards that
she was there not as a pupil but as a postulant,
and understanding that in all probability she
would take the veil, peremptorily interposed
by presenting petitions to parliament and to
the lord chancellor, in each of which docu-
ments charges were directed against the earl
and countess and the spiritual advisers of the
young heiress. Public opinion meanwhile was
exasperated against the catholics by reason
of the establishment of their new hierarchy,

and much excitement was aroused, which
subsided when Miss Augusta Talbot married,
on 22 July 1851 , the Duke of Norfolk's younger
brother, Lord Edward Fitzallan Howard,
eighteen years afterwards summoned to the
House of Peers as Lord Howard of Glossop,

Berkeley's health failing him shortly before
the completion of his fiftieth year, he went
abroad in the hope of its renovation. Be-
coming worse, however, he rapidly sank, dying
on 1 July 1855 at Frankfort-on-Maine.

[Grantley Berkeley's Life and Recollections,.
4 vols. 1865; Groding's History of Cheltenham,
1863, pp. 85-94, 365-8; Annual Register,.
1805, p. 440, 1851, p. 32, 1855, p. 290 ; Berkeley
Pedigree. Minutes of Evidence, &c., ordered to>
be printed 1811, pp. 85 ; ditto, with Appendix,,
pp. 882 ; Berkeley Peerage, Minutes of Evidence,
&c., ordered to be printed 1829, pp. 269 ; Fos-
broke's History of Gloucestershire, 1807, Berke-
ley Hundred, i. 410-501.] C. K.

BERKELEY, ELIZA (1734-1800), au-
thoress, was born in 1734 at the vicarage of
White Waltham in Windsor Forest. Her
father, the vicar, was the Rev. Henry Frin-
sham, M.A., a man universally admired, and
called l the fiddle of the company ' (Preface
to Poems, p. 167), who had previously been
curate at Beaconsfield ; her mother was a
daughter of Francis Cherry of Shottesbrook
House, Berks (NICHOLS, Hist, of Hinckley,
p. 174), who left a considerable fortune, which
Mrs. Frinsham and her sisters, known as Duke
Cherry, Black Cherry, and Heart Cherry,
enjoyed as coheiresses. The Cherry sisters
lost much over the South Sea Bubble ( Gent,
Mag. Ixix. i. 462). Lord Bute rented Waltham
Place on purpose to be near Mr. Frinsham,
and he frequently played cards at the vicar-
age, notwithstanding it was an old clayed
barn, with small rooms oif it on each side,
with a kitchen paved with curious Roman
bricks, and a sitting-room whose ceiling was
so low that the top of the vicar's wig just
touched its middle beam (Preface to Poems,,
p. 130, and 170, note). Here Eliza Berkeley
passed her childhood, for her father would
not accept preferment on condition of voting
against his principles (ibid. 171). At the age
of six she would climb trees like a boy. At
eleven she wrote two sermons, and she and
her sister Anne were placed at Mrs. Sheeles's
school, Queen Square, London. After one
year at this school the girls were removed,
in consequence of their father's death, and
this seems to have given a serious turn
to Eliza. She read Hickes's ' Preparatory
Office for Death ' every Thursday, and at-
tended prayers at church every afternoon..
' My dear,' said her mother, ' you will never
get a husband ; you hold yourself up as a.

Berkeley

345

Berkeley

dragon, and men like quiet wives.' In 1754,
Eliza being in her twentieth year, her mother
died. She and her sister succeeded to her large
fortune, which Mrs. Berkeley gives variously
as a few thousands (ibid. 278) and as 80,000/.
(ibid. 477), and they took a house in Windsor.
In 1761 Eliza married the Rev. George, son
of Bishop Berkeley. She was a little creature,
and very short-sighted ; she read Spanish,
Hebrew, and French, always taking a Spanish
prayer-book to church ( Gent. Mag. Ixx. pt. ii.
1114). She was intimate with Miss Catherine
Talbot, who, unsuspected by Mrs. Berkeley,
had been attached from an early age to the
Rev. George Berkeley ( Gent. Mag. Ixvi. 632) ;
and she knew Miss Carter, Mrs. Montagu, Lord
Lyttelton, and the rest of their set. Her hus-
band's livings during the first ten years of her
married life were Bray, Acton, and Cookharn,
and at each she visited all new mothers want-
ing comforts within two or three miles of
her (Sermons ; p. 75) ; she went to workhouses
with gifts of tobacco, snuff, 2s. tea, and sugar ;
she always opened letters which Dr. Berke-
ley feared were unpleasant, and she endured !
the condition of his library, which was ' in
astonishing disorder, the floor often entirely
covered with sermons and letters ' (Preface to
Latin Oration, 348). She did all her own
needlework, never putting any out ; her hus-
band's dinner-hour being three she always
returned to it ; and she helped him to spend j
his evenings with music, with dancing, and
Pope Joan (Preface to Poems, 505). In 1763
at Bray, on 8 Feb., she gave birth to her son,
George Monck Berkeley [q.v.], having at this
time ague, and being exposed to the danger of
small-pox, which was raging all round (Mrs.
CAKTEK'S Letters, iii. 53). In 1766 she gave
birth to her second son, George Robert, and
after weaning him she was inoculated at Acton
rectory by Mr. Sutton, and she soon devoted
herself to the education of these two sons. In
1771 Dr. Berkeley became prebendary of
Canterbury, and they then went to reside at
The Oaks. On 15 April 1775 her second son,
nearly nine years old, died. George Monck
being then the only child, Mrs. Berkeley and
her husband, after the lad had been to Eton,
went to reside in Scotland during the three
years and a half he passed at St. Andrews.
In 1780 his health caused her much anxiety.
For some ten years from this, Mrs. Berkeley
was in many parts of England with her hus-
band, her sister, and her son ; but in January
1793 the son died ; in January 1795 her hus-
band died ; in January 1797 her sister died ; and
under the repeated shock of such distress, with
impaired health and lessened fortune, she be-
came markedly eccentric. Finding herself with
her son's manuscripts before her, and with pa-

pers of her husband's weighing .several stones,,
she set herself to publish a volume from each.
Taking her son's ' Poems' first, she published
a magnificent 4to edition of them in 1797,
and in this volume, which is one of Nichols's
beautifully executed works, the poems cover
only 178 pages, whilst the Preface, full of cu-
rious personal details, is 630 pages long, with
a postscript at the other end of the poems
of 30 pages more. Mrs. Berkeley published
a volume of her husband's l Sermons,' with a
dedication to the king, in 1799. Of this work
she had only two hundred copies printed,
because she did not want them to go to
the pastrycooks' and chandlers' shops (Post-
script to Preface to these Sermons, xxvi);
she had it printed by a country printer of
handbills, because she was told he would
serve her better ; and she lets her disappoint-
ment at the result run over when she writes,
on her own copy (it is in the British Mu-
seum), in a firm hand, l What horrid paper,
when the best was ordered ! ' Mrs. Berkeley
was charitable, and maintained two little
orphans of old servants in her kitchen, and
amongst numberless other charities she paid
an annuity up to her death to Richard Bren-
naii [see BEKKELEY, GEOKGE MONCK]. Mrs.
Berkeley dates from several places in the last
three years of her life, Chertsey, Henley,
Oxford, Sackville Street ; she died at Kensing-
ton in 1800, aged 66. By her own desire her
body, which was first to be taken to Oxford,,
was conveyed to Cheltenham and buried
there in the same tomb with her son.

[Poems by the late George Monck Berkeley ;
Sermons by George Berkeley, Prebendary of
Canterbury, 1799; Preface to Latin Oration, at
end of same; Mrs. Carter's Letters; European
Mag. xxxviii. 477 ; Bristow's Canterbury Journal ;
Gent. Mag. vols. Ix. Ixiii. Ixv.-lxx.] J. H.

BERKELEY, FRANCIS HENRY
FITZHARDINGE, M.P. (1794-1870), poli-
tician, fourth son of Frederick Augustus, fifth
earl of Berkeley, by Mary Cole, of Wotton-
under-Edge, prior to their marriage on 16 May
1796, was born 7 Dec. 1794, and baptised
18 March 1795. During his fifteenth year his
father, the earl, died, 8 Aug. 1810. At six-
teen Henry Berkeley was already a first-rate
shot, and for several years afterwards was
regarded as one of the best amateur boxers in
the kingdom. He was a subaltern in the
South Gloucester militia, doing duty with
his eldest brother, William Fitzhardinge,.
then Colonel Berkeley. In 1814 Henry was-
entered as a gentleman commoner at Christ
Church College, Oxford. He left the uni-
versity without taking a degree, and- went
abroad for a few years travelling. Though

Berkeley

346

Berkeley

three of his brothers had been for five sessions I
in the House of Commons, he loitered through
life in a wholly purposeless way, until in Au- :
gust 1837 he joined his three brothers in par- j
liament, coining in second 011 the poll, with j
3,212 votes, as member for Bristol. At the \
next general election, June 1841, he was
again returned for Bristol. From that time
forward until the day of his death he was
invariably at the head of the poll by a large
majority. His first speech on the ballot was
delivered 21 June 1842, when he seconded
the motion of Mr. Ward, the member for
Sheffield. Only the year before, in June
1841, George Grote, who had beenfor eighteen
years the champion of the ballot, had finally
retired from parliament. Berkeley was a
less eloquent, an equally devoted, but a more
vivacious champion of the cause. His first
substantive motion on the ballot was brought
forward on 8 Aug. 1848. This speech was
afterwards published in an octavo pamphlet.
He had frequently addressed the house be-
fore on a great variety of subjects, but never
so effectively. He was seconded on the oc-
casion by Colonel Perronet Thompson, and
the resolution was carried on a division by a
majority of 5, the ayes being 86 and the noes
81. On asking leave, 24 May 1849, to bring
in a bill, his request was refused by a net ma-
jority of 51, the ayes being 85, and the noes
136. He was in a minority of 55 in the next
session, 7 March 1850 ; but the year after-
wards, 8 July 1851, he carried his motion
by a majority of 37, the ayes being 87, and
the noes 50. Although his championship of
the ballot lasted over the next twenty years,
he only once again obtained a majority,
namely, on 27 May 1862, the ayes being
83, and the noes 50. His failures were en-
dured by him with admirable cheerfulness.
His speeches upon these occasions were
always listened to with enjoyment for the
wit and humour with which his arguments
in favour of the ballot were enforced. Yet
his annual motion came at last to be looked
upon by the house rather as a good joke than
as an earnest attempt at legislation. Berkeley
was nevertheless seriously confident to the
last that the eventual passing of the Ballot
Act was certain, and, even towards the close
of his life, that it was imminent. Early
in the following year, 22 Jan. 1869, a test
ballot was adopted at Manchester, Ernest
Jones (who, however, died the day after-
wards) being chosen through the ballot-box as
a candidate for representing that city in par-
liament. Henry Berkeley died on 10 March
1870, aged seventy-five, having retained his
.seat in the house uninterruptedly for thirty-
two years as member for Bristol. In March

1870 Mr. Leatham introduced a Ballot Bill,
and Mr. Gladstone spoke in its favour. At
the opening of the next session, 9 Feb. 1871,
the ballot was recommended in the speech
from the throne ; and the bill was eventually
passed in the following year, 13 July 1872.

[Grantley Berkeley's Life and Recollections,
4 vols. 1865-6 ; Men of the Time, 7th edition,
p. 70; Dod's Parliamentary Companion, 1869;
Times, 12 March 1870.1 C. K.

BERKELEY, GEORGE (1601-1658),
eighth BARON BERKELEY (since the writ of
1421), and thirteenth baron (since the writ
of 1295) [see BERKELEY, FAMILY of], son of
Sir Thomas Berkeley, by Elizabeth Gary,
daughter of George, Lord Hunsdon, was
born at Lowlayton on 7 Oct. 1601, and suc-
ceeded to the honours of Berkeley, Mowbray,
Segrave and Bruce, on 26 Nov. 1613, by the
death of his grandfather, Henry. He married,
13 April 1615, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of
Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudborn, Suffolk.
The ceremony was performed in the church of
Great Bartholomew, London, in the presence
of the parents of the contracting parties, who
were respectively thirteen and nine years of
age. The bride continued to reside with her
father at St. John Jerusalem (St. John's
Square, Clerkenwell). In the following year
the bridegroom was made a knight of the Bath
on the occasion of the creation of Charles
Prince of Wales (3 Nov.) In 1619 (21 May)
he was entered as a canon-commoner at Christ
Church, Oxford, having hitherto been under
the care of tutors. Here he ' was actually/
says Wood, ' created M.A.' 18 July 1623. He
was regarded by his family as a linguist, and,
as he spent most of his time in foreign travel,
probably he succeeded in picking up a smat-
tering of modern languages. He appears to
have had landed property in Carolina. He
showed his appreciation of an eccentric genius
by presenting Burton, who had previously
(1621) dedicated the 'Anatomy of Melan-
choly' to him, to the living of Segrave in
Leicestershire in 1630. He died in 1658, and
was buried at Cranford, Middlesex. He had
two sons, of whom the elder, Charles, was
drowned while crossing the Channel, 27 Jan.
1641. The younger, George [q. v.], succeeded
to the family honours, and in 1679 Avas created
Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berkeley.

[Fosbrooke's Berkeley MSS. p. 217; Berke-
ley Peerage Claim, vol. ii. Auths. and Prees.
p. 174; Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 413; Cal. State
Papers; Dom., (1627-1628) 169, (1638-1639)
478 ; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 414 ; Collins's
Peerage (Bryclges). Berkeley Title ; Cal. State
Papers, Colonial (1574-1660), 115; Kennet's
Register, 321.] J. M. R.

Berkeley

347

Berkeley

BERKELEY, GEORGE (1(328-1698),
first EAEL of BERKELEY and Viscount Durs-
ley, ninth baron of Berkeley (since the writ
of 1421), and fourteenth (since the writ of
1295) [see BERKELEY, FAMILY of], was son
of Lord George, who died 1658 [q. v.] He
was a canon-commoner at Christ Church, I
Oxford, but did not take any degree, and
married, 11 Aug. 1646, Elizabeth, daughter
of John Massingberd, treasurer of the East
India Company, by whom he had two sons,
Charles and George, and six daughters.
One of these ladies, presumably the eldest, j
Elizabeth, was seen by Pepys dancing very |
* rich in jewels ' at the court ball on the '"
night of 15 Nov. 1666. She was, says Pepys, j
much liked by the King of France, though !
when she was presented to that monarch
lie does not state. Having succeeded to '
the barony in 1658, Lord George Berkeley |
was nominated, May 1660, one of the com-
missioners to proceed to the Hague and invite
Charles to return to the kingdom, and on
16 June following was present at the banquet
given to the king on his return by the lord
mayor at Guildhall. In July he was deputed
by the House of Lords to convey their thanks
to the king for the elevation of Monck to the
peerage. In the following November he was |
made keeper of the house gardens and parks of
Nonsuch, where the Duchess of Cleveland sub-
sequently resided. In 1661 he was placed on
the council for foreign plantations. In 1663
he became one of the members of the Royal
African Company on its formation (10 Jan.),
acquiring thus a share for the term of 1,000
years in the whole of the vast territory lying
between the port of Sallee in South Barbary
and the Cape of Good Hope. In the same
year he was elected fellow of the Royal
Society. He seems to have been disposed to
make the utmost of what he conceived to be
his legal rights, however unsubstantial. His
claim to precedency over Lord la Warr is
noticed in the article upon the Berkeley
family. On 11 Sept. 1679 he was created
Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berkeley. In
the preceding April he had been made a
member of the board of trade and plantations
established in 1668, and in the preceding year
a privy councillor. In 1680 (9 Feb.) he was
elected to the governorship of the Levant Com-
pany, a position which he seems to have held
for the greater part, if not the whole, of his
subsequent life. In May of the following year
he was elected one of the masters of Trinity
House. In the same year he made a present
to Sion College of the library which had be-
longed to Sir Robert Coke, the late husband
of his aunt, Theophila, and son of Sir Edward, |
the well-known chief justice. At this time i

he was a member of the East India Com-
pany. In February 1684-5 he was appointed
custosrotulorumfor the county of Gloucester,
and 21 July 1685 was sworn of the privy
council. After the flight of the king, 11 Dec.
1688, the Earl of Berkeley was among the
lords who assembled at Guildhall to draw up
the celebrated declaration constituting them-
selves a provisional government until such
time as the Prince of Orange should arrive.
He died in 1698, and was buried in the parish
church of Cranford, Middlesex, where he had
an estate. His widow died in 1708, and was
buried in the same place. Evelyn speaks of
him as his < old and noble friend,' but beyond
mentioning sundry occasions on which he
dined with him — on one of which (at Dur-
dans, Epsom, 1 Sept. 1662) he met the king
and queen and Prince Rupert, on another
(19 June 1682) 'the Bantame or East India
ambassadors,' of whose behaviour at table he
gives a minute account — says but little about
the earl, even omitting to record his death.
The references to him in Pepys are even
more slight and casual. He published in
1668 a religious work entitled l Historical
Applications and Occasional Meditations
upon several Subjects/ to which Waller has
given a kind of immortality by eleven cou-
plets of rather neatly worded and not par-
ticularly fulsome praise, beginning

Bold is the man that dares engage
For piety in such an age.

The design of the work appears to have been
to illustrate the value of religion from the
recorded experience of distinguished men.
A second edition appeared in 1670, and a
third with amplifications in 1680. Wood,
who, on the strength of this book and an ad-
dress to the Levant Company published in
1681, includes the earl in the * Athense
Oxonienses,' states that in a certain auction
catalogue it appeared, under the quaintly
unctuous title ' Divine Breathings, or Soul
Thirstings after Christ.' The earl was suc-
ceeded in the family honours by his eldest
son, Charles. His second son, George, who
graduated M.A. at Christ Church, 9 July
1669, took holy orders, and became a preben-
dary of Westminster, 13 July 1687. He died
in 1694. Of the daughters all were married
except the fifth, Henrietta, who caused con-
siderable scandal in the year 1682 by eloping
with the husband of her sister Mary, Lord
Grey of Werke [see GREY, FORD, earl of
Tankerville].

[Wood's Athense Oxon. iv. 625, 655; Fasti
Oxon. ii. 315, 332, 372, 393; Berkeley Peerage
Claim, i. 11, 28, 29, 30, vol. ii. Auths. and
Preceds. 178-185 ; Atkyns's Gloucestershire,

Berkeley

348

Berkeley

p. 139 ; Foster Coll. Gren. Musgrave's Obituary,
p. 80 ; Lords Journals, xi. 12, xiii. 613 ; Lysons's
Environs, i. 485, iv. 601, suppl. 26, 29; Kennet's
Kegister, 133,' 181, 204 ; Cal. State Papers, Dom.
(1660-1661) 359, (1661-1662) 112, (1663-
1664) 201, (1664-1665) 213, 232; Colonial,
(1661-1668) 56, 191, 408 ; Beatson's Polit. Index,
i. 109, suppl. viii., iii. 430; Court and Society
from Elizabeth to Anne, ii. 381 ; Pepys, 3 March
1659-60, 1 Sept. 1662, 15 Nov. 1666, 14 July
1 667; Evelyn, 1 Sept. 1662, 13 Aug. 1673, 19 June
1682 ; Manning and Bray's Surrey, i. 482, 561 n,
ii. 606, 614, iii. 378, 390; Luttrell's Brief Kela-
tion of State Affairs, i. 21, 135, 199, 212, 229,
231,234, 240, 335, iii. 146; Collins's Peerage
(Brydges) and Burke's Peerage, Berkeley Title.]

J. M. K.

BERKELEY, GEORGE (1693 ?-l 746),
politician, born in or about 1693, was the
fourth and youngest son of Charles, second
earl of Berkeley. He was admitted to West-
minster School on the foundation in 1708,
and thence was elected to a scholarship at
Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1711, where
he graduated M.A. in 1713. He was elected
in 1718 M.P. for Dover, which constituency
he continued to represent in the two following
parliaments. He sat for Hey don, Yorkshire,
from the beginning of the parliament of 1734
until his death. He voted against the mea-
sures of Sir Robert Walpole. On 28 May
1723 he was appointed master-keeper and
governor of St. Katharine's, near the Tower.
He died on 29 Oct. 1746.

Late in life he married Henrietta, daughter
of Sir Henry Hobart, and widow of Henry
Howard, ninth earl of Suffolk. This lady was
celebrated for her intimacy with George II.
Her marriage with Berkeley took place
about July 1735, some nine months after her
rupture with the king, and their union was
the subject of much merriment among the
courtiers of that day. Lord Hervey (Memoirs,
ii. 10-13) says : ' Mr. Berkeley was neither
young, handsome, healthy, nor rich, which
made people wonder what induced Lady
Suffolk's prudence to deviate into this unac-
countable piece of folly : some imagined it
was to persuade the world that nothing
criminal had ever passed between her and
the king, others that it was to pique the king.
If this was her reason, she succeeded very ill
in her design.'' Berkeley seems to have been
very gouty, but his age did not exceed forty-
two at this time ; and his sister, Lady Betty
Germaine, in announcing the match to Dean
Swift on 12 July 1735, remarks : ' She is in-
deed four or five years older than he ; but for
all that he has appeared to all the world,
as well as to me, to have long had (that is,
ever since she has been a widow, so pray do
not mistake me) a most violent passion for

her, as well as esteem and value for her num-
berless good qualities.'

[Walpole's George II, i. 154, 512; Swift's
Works (Scott), 2nd ed. xviii. 347, 348, 369, 49(3;
Welch's Alumni Westmon. (Phillimore), 250,
255, 257, 533, 544.] T. C.

BERKELEY, GEORGE (1685-1753),
bishop of Cloyne, was born on 12 March
1684-5 at 'Kilcrin,' or 'Killerin' accord-
ing to his early biographers, or, as Pro-
fessor Fraser thinks, at Dysert Castle, near
Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny. His
father, William Berkeley, had some indefinite
kinship to Lord Berkeley of Stratton, lord-
lieutenant from 1670 to 1672. It is said that
he went to Ireland in Lord Berkeley's suite,
and that he or his father obtained a collector-
ship at Belfast in reward for loyalty to
Charles I. The name of Berkeley's mother
is unknown. She is said to have been great-
aunt to the famous General Wolfe. Berkeley
always considered himself an Englishman,
and regarded the native Irish as foreigners
(Querist, 91, 92, and Cave of Dunmore). He
was entered at Kilkenny school on 17 July
1696, and placed in the second class, a proof
of unusual precocity. One of his school-
fellows, Thomas Prior, became his lifelong
friend and correspondent. On 21 March 170O
he matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin,
was scholar in 1702, B.A. 1704, M.A. 1707.
On 9 June 1707 he was admitted to a fellow-
ship after an examination passed with great
distinction. The only anecdote of his college
days tells us that Berkeley once went to see
a man hanged. On his return he induced
his friend Contarini, Goldsmith's uncle, to
hang him experimentally. He was cut down
when nearly senseless, and exclaimed, * Bless
my heart, Contarini, you have rumpled my
band ! ' (Annual Register, 1763). His curiosity
had borne better fruits. The philosophy of
Locke had been introduced by Molyneux into
Dublin, where the old scholasticism still
lingered. The writings of Hobbes, Male-
branche, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Newton
were studied in connection with Locke's doc-
trine. In 1705 Berkeley with a few friends,
formed a society for the discussion of the-
'new philosophy.' A common-place book,,
first printed in the Clarendon Press edition
of Berkeley's works (1871), shows that he
was keenly interested in many of the ques-
tions raised by Locke's Essay, and that he
conceived himself to have discovered a * new
principle ' of great importance. It was set
forth in three works soon afterwards pub-
lished. His * Essay towards a New Theory
of Vision ' appeared in 1709, and a ' Treatise
concerning the Principles of Human Know-

Berkeley

349

Berkeley

ledge ' in 1710. Berkeley was disappointed
by the reception of his works. His friend ;
Sir John Percival, afterwards Earl of Egmont,
reported to him the criticisms of various \
metaphysical authorities, especially Clarke
and Wniston (see FEASEK'S Berkeley, in
Blackwood's Philosophical Classics). They
compared him to Malebranche and N orris,
regretting the waste of 'extraordinary genius'
upon metaphysics, and regarding him as
paradoxical and visionary. Clarke, whilst
condemning Berkeley's first principles, de-
clined to argue the point, though urged by
Whiston {Memoirs of Clarke) to give an
answer. Berkeley, moved by this neglect,
and desiring to meet the ordinary objections,
wrote the 'Dialogues between Hylas and I
Philonous,' published in 1713, the finest speci- i
men in our language of the conduct of argu-
ment by dialogue. Berkeley's opinions made
some noise, though few or no converts, and
occasioned no serious discussion. Meanwhile
he was promoted to various college offices.
He was a tutor from 1707 to 1724, though
after 1712 only in name ; he was appointed
sub-lecturer in 1710, elected junior dean in
1710 and 1711, and junior Greek lecturer in
1712. His whole college income is estimated
at 40/. a year.

In January 1713 Berkeley went to Eng-
land, obtaining leave of absence on the ground
of ill-health and being anxious to publish
his ' Dialogues ' and ' make acquaintance with
men of merit.' He speedily became known
to the wits. Steele received him warmly.
He associated with Addison, Pope, and Ar-
buthhot. He describes Arbuthnot as being
favourable to his new theory, though in a
letter to Swift (19 Oct. 1714) Arbuthnot
jokes rather disrespectfully about 'poor philo-
sopher Berkeley,' who has now the ' idea of
health ' which was struggling hard with the

* idea of a strange fever.' Addison, too,
showed some favour to the new opinions, j
and either now or soon afterwards arranged j
a meeting with Clarke. The discussion was
fruitless, and Berkeley complained that
Clarke, though unable to answer, was not ]
candid enough to own himself convinced. |
Berkeley contributed some papers to the

* Guardian,' under Steele's editorship. Swift,
now Steele's bitter antagonist, did his best
to help his young countryman. He intro-
duced Berkeley to Lord Berkeley of Stratton
on 12 April 1713 (Journal to Stella] and to
the famous Lord Peterborough. Peterborough
was sent as ambassador to the king of Sicily
in November 1713, and upon Swift's recom-
mendation took Berkeley as his chaplain.
Berkeley left London in November 1713,
travelled to Paris in company with Martin j

(author of the l Voyage to St. Kilda '), and,
after a month at Paris, crossed the Mont
Cenis on 1 Jan. 1713-4, and reached Leghorn
in February, where he was left whilst Peter-
borough went to Sicily. From Leghorn he
addressed a complimentary letter to Pope
(1 May 1714) upon the 'Rape of the Lock,'
and soon afterwards returned to England,
reaching London in August. The death of
Queen Anne deprived Berkeley's friends of
power. The publication of a sermon on
passive obedience in 1712, preached at Trinity
College Chapel, had exposed him to a sus-
picion of Jacobitism — unjustly, for he ad-
vocates a general principle equally applicable
to the new dynasty ; but the lords justices not
unnaturally made a ' strong representation
against him,' and he could obtain no appoint-
ment. He spent two years mainly in London
(ERASER'S Berkeley, p. 108), and in November
1716 he again went abroad as tutor to St.
George Ashe, son of Bishop St. George Ashe
[q.v.] These dates disprove a story told by his
biographer, Stock, and frequently repeated.
Berkeley, it is said, had a discussion with
Malebranche in Paris, and the rival philo-
sopher became so excited that an inflamma-
tion of the lungs from which he was suffering
was increased, and carried him off a few days
after. Malebranche, however, died on 13 Oct.
1715, whilst Berkeley was still in England.
Berkeley's travels lasted four years, though
Bishop Ashe, the father of his pupil, died in
1718. A fragmentary diary shows that he
passed 1717 in Rome, Naples, and Ischia.
From Naples he wrote an interesting descrip-
tion to Pope of the island Inarime. In 1718
he was chiefly in Rome. His journals show
a lively interest in natural phenomena as
well as in antiquities. He is specially in-
terested in stories about the bite of the
tarantula. He wrote to Arbuthnot a graphic
account of an eruption of Vesuvius in April
1717, which was published in the 'Philoso-
phical Transactions' for October 1717. In
1719 it seems probable that he made a pedes-
trian excursion in Sicily (see WARTON'S Essay
on Pope, ii. 198). During these travels he
lost the manuscript of a second part of his
treatise. On his way home through France
he wrote a Latin essay, 'De Motu,' sug-
gested by a prize offered by the French
Academy. If ever presented, it was unsuc-
cessful, the prize being given to Crousaz. Ber-
keley published his essay in London in 1721.
Berkeley returned to London in 1720 to
find the nation under the unprecedented ex-
citement of the South Sea scheme. Paroxysms
of speculation were then new, and to Ber-
keley the spectacle seemed to be sympto-
matic of a fatal development of luxury and

Berkeley

35°

Berkeley

corruption. lie expressed his feelings in an
' Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great
Britain' (1721), recommending sumptuary
laws, the encouragement of arts, and a return
to simplicity of life. He can hardly have
hoped for the speedy adoption of his doctrines
in England, and a new scheme now took
possession of his ardent and impulsive nature.
Preferments and wealth were coming to him,
but he resolved to use them for his philan-
thropic purpose. Pope is said to have intro-
duced him to Lord Burlington, famous for
architectural tastes shared by Berkeley him-
self. He returned to Ireland in the autumn of
1721, and upon Burlington's recommendation
was made chaplain to the Duke of Grafton,
the new lord lieutenant. He applied for the
deanery of Dromore, which had just fallen
vacant, and the influence of his friend
Percival helped to secure his appointment.
The bishop of the diocese, however, claimed
the nomination, and a lawsuit followed.
Whilst it was still undecided, he was ap-
pointed, in May 1724, through the influence of
Lady Percival, to the richer deanery of Derry,
said to be worth 1,500J. a year (FKASER'S
Berkeley, p. 122). A strange accident had in-
creased his fortune. Swift's Vanessa, Hester
Vanhomrigh, who died in May 1723, left him
half her property, having previously, it was
supposed, destined it to Swift. She had never
seen Berkeley, as he says (ib. p. 123), though
Mrs. Berkeley, his widow, says that he once
met her at dinner at her mother's house j
(Bioff. Brit. iii. Corrigenda and Addenda). ;
As one of her executors, Berkeley suppressed |
for a time the famous correspondence with |
Swift. Much legal trouble followed before
her fortune was realised, to which there are
many references in his correspondence with
Prior, and the debts absorbed a considerable
part of the estate.

Berkeley valued these additions to his
fortunes as means for carrying out his new
project. His attention had been drawn to
the new world beyond the Atlantic, where,
as he says in a remarkable copy of verses (of
uncertain date), a new golden age might be
anticipated, and a fifth act, the noblest of
all, close the great drama of Time. In a
proposal, circulated in 1725 ( Works, vol. iv.),
he explains his theories. Religion, he thought,
had declined amongst the American colonists
for want of a proper supply of clergy ; the
negroes had been left without instruction
and denied baptism ; whilst the conversion of
the savage Americans had not been at-
tempted. Protestantism, he said, was losing
ground in Europe, whilst in America the
progress made by the French and Spanish
was spreading the religion of Rome through

I the native races, a process which ' would
probably end in the utter extirpation of our
j colonies.' The foundation of a college for the
: education of the planters' children and of
I young savages who might be trained as mis-
' sionaries, would meet these evils. A college
had already been projected in Barbadoes by
General Codrington, who died there in 171(>
and left his estates in trust for this purpose
j to the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. Berkeley thought the Bermudas
better fitted for the purpose, from the tem-
perate climate, the greater frugality and
simplicity of the colonists, and the central
situation. The difficulties of local communi-
• cation between the scattered settlements were
i great ; whilst Bermuda had a trade with all
the colonies, and was in the track of com-
merce from England.

Berkeley's project implied many miscon-
! ceptions, now obvious, nor did it seem likely
to commend itself to the common sense of the
rulers of those days. Whilst the deanery of
Dromore was still in suspense, he remained at
Dublin, and held various college offices. He
had been elected senior fellow in 1717 ; in
November 1721 he was appointed divinity
lecturer and senior Greek lecturer ; in June
1722 Hebrew lecturer ; and in November
1722 senior proctor ; the income of all his col-
lege positions amounting to about 1507. He
became B.D. and D.D. on 14 Nov. 1721
( Works, iv. 84, 95). He had definitely re-
solved to devote himself to the Bermuda
scheme about May 1722 (ERASER'S Berkeley,
p. 120), and soon after his appointment to-
the deanery of Derry he set out for London
to prepare for carrying out his plans. He
took with him a letter from Swift to Carteret,
the new lord lieutenant (dated 3 Sept. 1724)
describing his zeal in humorous, though
sympathetic, terms. Berkeley's heart would
break, said Swift, if his deanery were not
taken from him, and the exorbitant sum of
100/. a year provided for him at Bermuda.

Berkeley, on arriving in England, exerted
his extraordinary powers of fascination The
impression made upon his contemporaries con-
firms Pope's famous attribution to him of
' every virtue under heaven ' (Epilogue to
Satires, ii. 73). ' So much understanding,
so much knowledge, so much innocence, and
such humility, I did not think had been the
fashion of any but angels, till I saw this
gentleman,' was Atterbury's exclamation
after being introduced to him by Lord Ber-
keley (HUGHES, Letters, ii. 2). Warton
(Essay on Pope} tells us, on the authority of
Lord Bathurst, that, after a dinner at his
house, some of the ' Scriblerus ' wits agreed
to ridicule Berkeley's project ; Berkeley's

Berkeley

35*

Berkeley

reply so confounded them that they all rose
exclaiming ' Let us set out with him imme-
diately ! ' Berkeley was introduced to the
king by a distinguished Venetian, the Abbe
Gualtieri (STOCK), and obtained a charter for j
the proposed college, the patent for which
passed the seals in June 1725. Berkeley was
named as the first president, and three junior
fellows of Trinity (William Rogers, Jonathan
Thompson, and James King) were to be fel-
lows of the new body, ultimately to consist
of a president and nine fellows. They were
to hold their preferments till eighteen months
after their arrival at Bermuda. Berkeley ob-
tained promises of subscript ions to the amount
of 5,OOOJ., including 200J. from Sir R. Wai-
pole. He discovered that certain lands in
the island of St. Christopher, ceded to Eng-
land by the treaty of Utrecht, might be sold j
at an enhanced price, and asked for a grant :
of 20,000/. from this sum towards his college. |
A vote was obtained from the House of Com- j
mons, after an active canvass by Berkeley, !
recommending this grant to the king. Only j
two members, or, according to Mrs. Ber-
keley (Biog. Brit.\ only one, Admiral Ver-
non, dissented. This success, however, was
only the prelude to long and tiresome delays.
The death of George I in 1727 threw him
back, but a new warrant for his grant was j
signed by George II. Queen Caroline showed
her favour by inviting him twice a week to
her parties, where he endured useless debates,
as he felt them to be, with Hoadly, Clarke,
and Sherlock, for the sake of his college (MRS.
BERKELEY and MONCK BERKELEY'S Literary
Relics], The general esteem for his character
did not lead to the payment of the promised
grant ; and at last, feeling himself to be in a
false position, and fearing lest the serious-
ness of his design would be doubted, he re-
solved to sail for America (FRASER, Berkeley,
p. 123). On 1 Aug. 1728 he married Anne,
daughter of JohnForster, who had been chief
justice of the common pleas in Ireland. She
was a woman of congenial disposition and
disposed to the mysticism of Mme. Guyon
and Fenelon. She had a fortune of about
1,500/. He sailed from Greenwich on 4 Sept.
1728, and landed at Newport, R.I., in the
following January. Berkeley remained in
America till the autumn of 1731. He bought
a farm of ninety-six acres and built a small
house, still standing, which he called White-
hall. Here he read and meditated ; a pro-
jecting rock near the sea is shown as the
place where he wrote much of ' Alciphron,'
and a chair in which he sat in the l natural
alcove' is still preserved. The descriptions
of scenery in f Alciphron ' clearly represent
his impressions. Berkeley saw something of

the intelligent and educated colonists ; he
helped to found a philosophical society at
Newport ; meetings of episcopal clergy were
held at his house ; he made some short ex-
cursions to the mainland ; he preached ser-
mons, which were attended by men of all
persuasions, and enforced the duty of general
toleration upon his brethren. His first son,
Henry, was born here, and christened 1 Sept.
1729 ; and an infant daughter died 5 Sept.
1731. He formed a close friendship with
Samuel Johnson, episcopal missionary at
Hertford, Connecticut, afterwards president
of King's College, New York. Johnson ac-
cepted Berkeley's teaching, and letters from
Berkeley to him contain some interesting ex-
pressions of the teacher's views. It does not
appear that he had any personal intercourse
with Jonathan Edwards, whose early writ-
ings contain doctrines similar to his own
(CHANDLER'S and BEARDSLEY'S Lives of John-
son). Berkeley, it may be remarked, held
slaves ( Works, iv. 187). Slaves, he says, in
his 'Proposal,' would only become better
slaves by becoming Christian; though he,
of course, considered it a duty to make them
Christian.

Letters from home showed that there was
little hope of his ever obtaining the money
granted to him. Already in June 1729 his
friend, Bishop Benson, tells him there is little
! chance of it. At last, in 1731, Walpole told
i Bishop Gibson that if consulted as a minister
| he should reply that the money should most
undoubtedly be paid, as soon as it suited
public convenience ; but that, if consulted
as a friend, he advised Berkeley by all means
i not to wait in hopes of his 20,000/. Ber-
keley hereupon sailed from Boston in the
end of 1731, and reached London in Febru-
ary 1732. He showed his continued interest
in America by making over his farm at White-
hall to found scholarships at Yale ; and he
made to the same college a present of nearly
1,000 volumes. He also gave books to Har-
vard, and presented an organ to Trinity
church, Newport.

Berkeley stayed in London from his re-
turn until the spring of 1734. His * Alci-
phron ' was published in March 1732 ; it be-
came speedily popular, and reached a second
edition that year; it was translated into
French in 1734, and provoked replies from
Mandeville, author of the ' Fable of the Bees/
and from Lord Hervey, in a so-called ' Letter
from a Country Clergyman,' besides a more
serious attack from Peter Browne, bishop of
Cork [q. v.j The ' Analyst,' published in
1734, led to another controversy with the
mathematicians. Stock tells us that Sherlock
showed 'Alciphron' to Queen Caroline in

Berkeley

352

Berkeley

order to prove that Berkeley was not, as
Hoadly maintained, of 'disordered under-
standing1.' She hereupon, it is added, ob-
tained Berkeley's nomination to the deanery
of Down, which fell through from the claims
of the lord-lieutenant to be consulted. Dates
make this story doubtful, but a letter of Ber-
keley's to Prior, 22 Jan. 1733-4, shows that
he had been proposed for Down. At the
"beginning of 1734, at any rate, he was no-
minated to the bishopric of Cloyne ; he tells
his friend Prior (15 Jan. 1733-4) that he
had f not been at the court or at the mini-
ster's but once these seven years ; ' and seems
to intimate that he had a claim upon govern-
ment for their breach of faith in regard to the
Bermuda scheme (2 March 1734). His
health was weaker, and a love of retirement
growing upon him. He was consecrated
bishop of Cloyne in St. Paul's church, Dublin,
on 19 May 1734 ; and he spent the next
eighteen years at Cloyne, with the exception
of a visit to Dublin to attend the House of
Lords in the autumn of 1737.

His life was one of domestic retirement
and active benevolence to his neighbours,
varied by occasional manifestations of his con-
tinued interest in social and philosophical
questions. The second son, George, was born
in London on 28 Sept. 1733 ; a third, John,
born on 11 April 1735, died in October 1735 ;
a fourth, William, was born in 1736; a
daughter, Julia, was born in October 1738 ;
and another, Sarah, died in infancy in 1740.
Henry, born in Newport, George, William,
and Julia, thus formed the family in whose
education he found his chief happiness.
Though he had no ear for music, he kept an
Italian master, Pasquilino, in his house to
teach them the bass viol, \vho is recorded to
have exclaimed on one occasion, ' May God
pickle (v. preserve) your lordship ! ' He refers
to his children with touching affection ; he
wishes he had twenty sons like George, and
would prefer them to 20,0007. a year ; he tells
Johnson that he has one daughter ' of star-
light beauty/ and says to another friend that
she is ' such a daughter! ' so 'bright a little
gem ! that to prevent her doing mischief
amongst the illiterate "squires," he is resolved
to treat her like a boy, and make her study
eight hours a day ' ( Works, iv. 267-8). Pro-
fessor Fraser thinks (ib. p. 326) that over-
anxiety, and perhaps too much tarwater, in-
jured the constitutions of children unusually
delicate.

Berkeley's interest in the condition of the
country was shown by some remarkable com-
positions. In 1736 he published 'A Dis-
course addressed to Magistrates, occasioned
by the enormous license and irreligion of the

times/ advocating the active support of re-
ligion by the government, and occasioned, it
is said, by the discovery of a ' hellfire club/
called the ' Blasters/ who used to drink the
health of the devil, and were guilty of various
indecencies reported to a committee of the
Irish House of Commons in 1738. In 1745
he published ' A Letter to the Roman Ca-
tholics ' of his diocese, exhorting them to
remain faithful to the government ; and in
1749 a tract, called a 'Word to the Wise/
calling upon the catholic priests to use their
influence on behalf of ' honest industry,
cleanliness, and prudence.' The catholic

i clergy of the diocese of Dublin expressed
gratitude for this friendly admonition and cir-
culated the letter amongst the parish priests.
Berkeley's most remarkable treatise, how-
ever, was the ' Querist/ originally published

• in three parts in 1735, 1736, and 1737. A
new edition, published in 1750, made con-
siderable omissions with a few additions.
The first edition is extremely rare, but the
whole is now given in the Clarendon. Press
edition of Berkeley's works. The ' Querist '
consists of a series of detached maxims in
the form of queries, which are remarkable
not only as expressing the views contained
in Berkeley's other writings, but as making
a large number of economical suggestions
upon the uses of money and so forth, which
prove how Berkeley's acuteness had antici-
pated— though in an unsystematic and often
inaccurate way — many of the theories of
Hume and Adam Smith. Some pithy ' max-
ims on patriotism/ originally published in
the ' Dublin Journal' in 1750, are a kind of
short political appendices to the ' Querist.'

Berkeley's last philosophical work was sug-
gested by his interest in the condition of his
neighbours. The winter of 1739-40 was of
terrible severity ; and the following years
were marked by famine, distress, and disease.
Berkeley did his best to carry out the maxims
of the ' Querist.' He left off powder in his
wig, by way of setting a precedent of frugal-
ity : he distributed 20/. every Monday morn-
ing amongst the poor of Cloyne : and he did
what he could to encourage local handicrafts.
He tried medical experiments upon the sick.
In America he had learnt the use of tar-
water, and he now used it in cases of dysen-
tery. His success appeared to him decisive.
He took it up with characteristic enthusiasm,
and gradually came to regard it as almost a
panacea. He set up an apparatus for manu-
facturing it ; he used it in his own family ;
and made an ardent proselyte of his friend,
Thomas Prior. The enthusiasm lasted through
his life. A ' Letter to Thomas Prior ' was pub-
lished anonymously in May 1744 ; a second

Berkeley

353

Berkeley

letter to the same l concerning' the usefulness
of Tar-water in the Plague,' followed in 1747
a ' Letter to the Keverend Dr. Hales on the [
benefit of Tar-water in Fevers, for cattle as j
well as the human species,' which had ap- j
peared earlier in the same year ; the last of his j
writings, ' Further Thoughts on Tar-water,'
published in Berkeley's ' Miscellany' of 1752,
contains medical observations, and instruc- j
tions for its use. It is good, as he says here,
not only in fevers, diseases of the lungs,
cancers, scrofula, throat diseases, apoplexies,
chronic disorders of all kinds, but also as a
general drink for infants. It strengthens their
bodies and sharpens their intellects. It is. good
for cattle ; every market town and every shop
should have a supply ready. It is good for all
climates, land and sea, for rich and poor, high
and low livers, and he had himself drunk a
gallon of it in a few hours. It was reported
that he had made a giant of a child ; the fact
being that he had taken care of the Irish giant,
Magrath, who grew to a height of nearly eight
feet, and whose skeleton is preserved at
Dublin (Works, iv. 335). Berkeley's time
was so much occupied that his correspondence
with his friends had to be abridged (ib. iv.
323), and a lively interest was excited in
the public. Fielding thought that he had
derived some benefit from it, and refers to it
in his ' Voyage to Lisbon.' A list of some
of the chief tracts published may be found
in Fraser's introduction to ' Siris ' (ib. ii. 343).

The most permanent result of his enthu-
siasm was the work published in 1744, ' Siris,'
a chain 'of philosophical reflections con-
cerning the virtues of Tar-water, and divers
other subjects connected together and arising
one from another.' The title ' Siris ' was
added in the second edition ; this appeared
in 1744, others in 1746 and 1748. It was
translated, wholly or in part, into French,
German, Dutch, and Portuguese. The popu-
larity was doubtless due to the medical rather
than to the metaphysical theories which were
strongly blended together ; at the time it
was the most popular of Berkeley's writings.

Berkeley's reputation led to new offers of
preferment. Chesterfield, lord lieutenant in
1745, offered to translate him from Cloyne to
Clogher. Berkeley refused ; he had become
attached to Cloyne, and he told his wife soon
after going there that he would never change ;
'* he had very early in life got the world under
his feet, and was resolved to trample on it to
his latest moments.' Growing infirmit ies and
love of retirement were also causes for reluc-
tance to move. The death of his favourite
son William in February 1751 ' was thought/
says Stock, ' to have stuck too close to his
father's heart.' ' I was a man retired from

VOL. iv.

the amusement of politics, visits, and what
the world calls pleasure,' he says in a letter.
' I had a little friend, educated always under
my own eye, 'whose painting delighted me,
whose music ravished me, and whose lively gay
spirit was a continual feast. It has pleased
God to take him home. God, I say, in mercy
hath deprived me of this pretty gay play-
thing.' And the father thinks that he had
perhaps set his heart too much upon his son,
and been vain as well as fond of him. In
October 1751 he lost his old friend and school-
fellow Prior. He speaks sadly of the ' gloom
of Cloyne,' and says that he is resolved upon
a quiet retreat. He proposed to exchange
Cloyne for some Oxford headship or canonry.
He then proposed to resign his bishopric ab-
solutely. Such a precedent was not to be set.
The king declared that Berkeley might live
where he pleased, but that he should die a
bishop.

Berkeley resolved to retire. He made ar-
rangements about his revenues, including a
distribution of 200/. a year, the rent of his
demesne lands, amongst poor householders,
and at last sailed for England in August 1752.
His son George was already matriculated at
Christ Church, and the desire to be near him
was doubtless one inducement to the change.
Berkeley was accompanied by George, his
only daughter Julia, and his wife. He was
so weak upon landing that he had to be taken
in a horse-litter from the landing-place, Bris-
tol, to Oxford. There he settled in a house
in Holywell Street. A collection of some of
his writings and a final letter upon tar-water
were published at the time under the title of
a ' Miscellany.' Little is known of his short
stay at Oxford. On 14 Jan. 1753 he was on
a couch ; his wife had been reading to him
the chapter on the Epistle to the Corin-
thians which forms part of the burial service ;
his daughter went to offer him some tea, and
found him apparently sleeping. He was al-
ready dead. He was buried in Christ Church,
and an inscription for his grave written by Dr.
Markham. Berkeley left little behind him.
In a short will made in the last July he left
directions that his burial should not cost more
than 201., and that an equal sum should be
given to the poor of the parish, that his body
should be kept above ground five days, ' even
till it grow offensive by the cadaverous smell,'
and left undisturbed. He then left all he
possessed to his wife.

Berkeley had been in his youth a handsome
man, of great strength and activity. Pro-
fessor Fraser gives a list of nine portraits ;
three are at Trinity College, Dublin — one,
painted by Smibert, an English artist who
accompanied him to America, and was after-

A A

Berkeley

354

Berkeley

wards a teacher of Copley, is at Yale ; one is
at Lambeth; the other four are in private
hands. An engraving of the Yale picture is
given in the collected works, and one from an
early picture, which belonged to a descendant,
Kobert Berkeley, Q.C., in Dublin, is given in
Fraser's 'Berkeley.'

Berkeley's widow died at Langley, Kent,
27 May 1786, in her eighty -sixth year. Her
daughter Julia, who was an invalid, lived
with her and probably survived her. The
eldest son Henry died in Ireland. The second,
George, took his M. A. degree at Oxford Janu-
ary 1759, and in the same year became vicar
of Bray. His wife was Eliza Berk3ley [q. v.]
A^Berkeley's aim throughout his writings is
to attack ^materialism, which Hobbes had
openly accepted, and which seemed to lurk
under the dualism of the Cartesian schools.
His great principle is that esse =percipi ; that
t ideas,' in Locke's sense — the immediate ob-
jects of the mind in thinking — do not repre-
sent something outside the mind, but consti-
tute the whole world of reality, which thus
exists in minds alone. In the new theory of
vision he prepares the way by arguing that
vision represents nothing beyond sensations.
Assuming as proved or evident that the sight
cannot inform us of distance in a direct line
outwards, inasmuch as all the points in such
a line are projected upon a single point in the
retina, he argues that all sight involves
foresight ; that the apparently simple percep-
tion involves an inference founded upon asso-
ciation, and that the visual sensations are
merely signs of corresponding tactual sensa-
tions. The connection is ' arbitrary,' like the
connection between words and things signi-
fied, and sight thus forms a natural language,
which we learn to interpret by experience in
terms of touch. This psychological theory
has been generally accepted both by Reid and
by Hume and their respective followers, and
has often been called an almost solitary ex-
ample of a philosophical discovery. Antici-
pations have been noticed in Locke, Descartes,
and Malebranche, but the substantial origi-
nality of Berkeley remains.
x- It has been attacked recently by Bailey,
Abbot, and Collyns Simon, but still holds its
ground, though requiring to be supplemented
by later researches. The ' Principles ' give
the most systematic exposition, and the f Dia-
logues ' the clearest defence of Berkeley's full
theory. He explains in the * Principles ' the
doctrine reserved in the l Vision ' (Principles,
§ 44) that the sense of touch is on a level
with the sense of sight. The two senses form
a reciprocal code of signals, a double lan-
guage of words significant of each other and
interesting because indicating the approach

of pains and pleasures. Nor can the intellect
infer anything beyond the signs from the signs
themselves. This could only be done, as Ber-
keley assumes, by abstraction. He therefore,
in the introduction to the ' Principles,' begins
by attacking the doctrine of abstract ideas,
which, as understood by Locke, implied that
we could frame an idea of a triangle neither
equilateral, isosceles, nor scalene. Berkeley's
* nominalism ' is opposed to this theory. He
argues that every idea is individual, though
it may represent an indefinite number of other
individual ideas, and therefore cannot stand
for an entity different from all individual
ideas. Abstract ideas are an illusion due to
the use of language and a confusion of a sym-
bol calling up a variety of ideas with an in-
dependent entity. Matter, therefore, under-
stood as a substratum in which the qualities
of things, revealed by sensations, are supposed
to inhere, is denounced as a mere metaphysical
figment, and Berkeley appeals to common sense
to condemn its reality. This rejection of mat-
ter and of abstract ideas generally, together
with his theory of vision, are noticed by Mill
as * three first-rate philosophical discoveries.'
Their influence upon the school represented
by Mill is shown in the rejection of material-
ism by the English empirical school generally.
The great difficulty of Berkeley lies in' his
rather obscure treatment of the theory of time
and space. On his showing they seem to be
a mere illusion. Consistently with his prin-
ciples, he rejects the distinction between pri-
mary and secondary qualities accepted by
Locke, and afterwards revived by Reid on
the common sense theory. All qualities (it
may be said) are l secondary ' according to
Berkeley. It can be said of no quality more
than another that it corresponds (as the pri-
mary qualities were supposed to do) to some-
thing real in the object independently of the
mind. Time, according to Berkeley, is nothing
but the succession of ideas in the individual
mind. Space or extension goes with abstract
ideas, and has no more reality than the secon-
dary qualities of colour, resistance, and other
visual and tactual sensations (Principles,
§§ 98, 99, &c.) Abstract space means the
possibility of movement in the absence of the
sensation of resistance (ib. § 116). One co-
rollary from this produced his mathematical
controversy. As it is contradictory to speak
of unfelt sensations, it is contradictory to speak
of sensations less than the minima sensibilia
— the atomic ideas of which the sense world
is constituted. Hence the mathematical theory
of infinitesimals implied contradictions or
mysteries, the necessity of which Berkeley
advances in justification of theological mys-
teries. Mill considers that he raised difficul-

Berkeley

355

Berkeley

ties which were first fully solved by De Fraser, to hold that the real tendency of his
Morgan. The theory of the purely ' relative ' | works was, as he never doubted, in favour of
nature of space, the refusal to distinguish the doctrine which makes mind the ultimate
between primary and secondary qualities, ; reality, and thus of the more systematic
seems to reduce all mathematical theorems^dealism of later times,
to the level of empirical propositions. Geo- j Berkeley's works, as given by Professor
metrical properties are inferred from the pro- [ Fraser, are : 1. ' Arithmetica absque Algebra
perties of particular figures. This doctrine, I aut Euclide demonstrata ; ' 2. ' Miscellanea
worked out by Hume, led to Kant's famous I Mathematica ' (published together anony-

theory of space and time, in which the reality , mously at Dublin in 1707). 3. ' Essay tb-
and a priori necessity of mathematical pro- j wards a New Theory of Vision/ 1709 (a
positions are made to follow from the assump- second edition with an appendix in the same
tion that space and time are forms imposed | year, a third appended to ' Alciphron ' in
by the mind upon experience instead of being j 1732). 4. ' Treatise concerning the Princi-
qualities of external and independent objects, j pies of Human Knowledge,' ' Part I.' 1710 ;
Berkeley seems scarcely to appreciate the dif- j same (' Part I.' dropped) with the Dialogues
ficulties of his position ; as, indeed, he repre- j in 1734 ; and an edition with the Dialogues
sents a brilliant appreciation of one aspect j and notes by an opponent in 1776 ; German
rather than a systematic elaboration. This ! +™»Ticia+i'rm I««Q K <Poaa;™ ni™;i ;«„,>„

is equally apparent in his theological applica-
tion. According to him his theory demon-
strates immediately the existence of a divine
mind, ' in whom we live, move, and have our
being ' (Principles, § 61). The existence of
such a mind follows, first, as solving the ob-
vious difficulty, that upon his theory every-
thing ceases to exist when it ceases to be
present to consciousness, to which he replies
that it still exists as perceived by the supreme
mind ; and, secondly, because ideas being in
their nature passive, and what we call causa-
tion being merely the arbitrary connection of
sign and thing signified, we must assume the
existence of a supreme cause which speaks to
us through this divine language. Hume im-
plicitly replies by denying the existence of any
such idea of power as Berkeley postulates,
and argues that the difficulties inherent in
Berkeley's matter may be retorted against his
mind and spirit. Berkeley replies to this by
anticipation that, although we have not pro-
perly an 'idea' (in his sense) of spirit, we have
a ' notion,' as of that which has ideas and wills
and reasons about them, and infer the ex-
\istence of other spirits from our own.
\ Berkeley never developed his philosophy
beyond these early works. The ' Alciphron '
contains a restatement of the main principles,
and an assertion of the ordinary arguments
against deists, containing the ethical view of
utilitarian theologians with no special ori-
ginality. The ' Siris ' is a reverie rather than
an argument, showing that the speculations
of the later Platonists were congenial to his
\temperament, but not giving a philosophical
elaboration of the position. Historically
Berkeley, as a link between Locke and Hume,
led to scepticism, and was controverted upon
that assumption by Reid and his followers.
In assaulting matter he seemed to destroy
reality. But it is possible, with Professor

translation, 1869. 5. ' Passive Obedience,
... a Discourse delivered at the College
Chapel,' 1712 (second edition, 1712; third,
1713). 6. ' Three Dialogues between Hylas
and Philonous/ 1713 (second edition, 1725 ;
third and fourth with second and third of the
' Principles,' as above) ; French, 1750 (Am-
sterdam) ; German (Rostock), 1756 ; German
"_•), 1781 (part of an intended version
orks'). 7. Essays in the ' Guardian/
1713 (Nos. 3, 27, 35, 39, 49, 55, 62, 69, 70,
77, 83, 88, 89, and 126 are ascribed to him from
14 March to 15 Aug. 1713). 8. ' De Motu/
1721. 9. ' An Essay towards preventing the
Ruin of Great Britain/ 1721. 10. ' A Pro-
posal for the better supplying of Churches
in our Foreign Plantations ... by a College
to be erected in . . .Bermuda/ 1725. 11. < Ser-
mon before the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel/ 1732. 12. < Alciphron, or the
Minute Philosopher/ 1732 (two editions; a
third in 1752, collated in ' Works/ vol. ii.) ;
French, 1734; German, 1737. 13. 'Theory
of Vision . . . vindicated and explained/ 1733
(an annotated edition by V. H. Cowell in
1860). 14. < The Analyst, or a Discourse ad-
dressed to an Infidel Mathematician, &c./

1734. 15. ' A Defence of Free-thinking in
Mathematics/ 1735. 16. 'Reasons for not
Replying to Mr. Walton's Full Answer/

1735. 17. 'The Querist/ Part I. 1735,
Part II. 1736, Part IV. 1737 (second edition
with an advertisement by the author, 1750 ;
reprint in Glasgow, 1751. An edition was
published in London in 1829. The queries
omitted in the first edition are reprinted at
the end of the ' Works/ vol. iii.) 18. ' A
Discourse addressed to Magistrates/ 1736 and
1738. 19. ' [Siris, a chain of] Philosophical
Reflections and Inquiries concerning the
Virtues of Tar-water, &c.' (three editions in
1744, others in 1746 and 1748 ; the title ' Siris '
first added in second edition). 20. ' Three

A A2

Berkeley

356

Berkeley

Letters to Thos. Prior and a Letter to the
Kev. Dr. Hales on the Virtues of Tar-water,'
1720, 1744, 1746, and 1747. 21. * A Letter to
the Roman Catholics of the diocese of Cloyne,'
1745. 22. ' A Word to the Wise, 1749 (repub-
lished with the ' Querist ' in 1750 and 1751).
23. l Maxims concerning Patriotism/ 1750.
24. ' Further Thoughts on Tar-water ' appeared
in the ' Miscellany ' (1752), which also in-
cluded Nos. 8, 9, 10, 11, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23,
and verses on America.

A collected edition of Berkeley's works
*was published in 2 vols. 4to, 1784. Au
edition, in 2 vols. 8vo, edited by G. N. Wright,
in 1843. The only complete edition is that
published at Oxford, edited by Professor
A. 0. Fraser in 1871.

Criticisms of Berkeley, besides that in Pro-
fessor Fraser's works, will be found in Ferrier's
' Philosophical Remains ' (1866) ; J. S. Mill's
4 Dissertations,' vol. iv. 154-87 ; Huxley, the
1 Metaphysics of Sensation ' in ' Critiques and
Addresses,' pp. 320-50 ; Collyns Simons ' On
the Nature and Elements of the External
World, or Universal Immaterialism ' (1862) ;
S. Bailey, ' Review of Berkeley's Theory of
Vision ; ' Penjon's ' Etude sur la vie et sur les
ceuvres philosophiques de G. Berkeley' (Paris,
1878); F. Fredericks's 'Ueber Berkeley's
Idealismus ' (Berlin, 1870); ' Der phenomenale
Idealismus Berkeley's und Kant's' (Berlin,
1871) ; G. Spicker's ' Kant, Hume und Berke-
ley ' (Berlin, 1875) ; J. Janitsch, < Kant's Ur-
theil liber Berkeley' (Strassburg, 1879).

[The Life of Berkeley by Professor Fraser
(1871), which forms the fourth volume of the
Clarendon Press edition of the Works, brings
together all ascertainable information. In this
edition were printed large selections from Berke-
ley's papers, which had come into the possession
of Archdeacon Rose, and include a common-place
book, diaries of his travels, and some correspon-
dence. In 1881 Professor Fraser contributed a
monograph upon Berkeley to Blackwood's Philo-
sophical Classics (cited above as Fraser's
' Berkeley '), in which he makes use of Berkeley's
letters to Sir John Percival, afterwards Earl of
Egmont. A full account of them is given in the
seventh report of the Historical MSS. Commis-
sion. The original sources are a Life by Bishop
Stock, originally published in 1776, reprinted in
the Biographia Britannica, vol. ii. (1780), and
prefixed to the first collected edition of Berkeley's
works in 1784. It is there stated that the facts
were supplied to Stock by Dr. Robert Berkeley,
the bishop's brother, then rector of Midleton,
near Cloyne. In 1784 some notes by Berkeley's
widow and his son G-eorge were published in the
Addenda and Corrigenda prefixed to the third
volume of the Biographia Britannica. A few
other anecdotes are given in the preface to the
Poems by the Lite George Monck Berkeley, &c.,

1797, by Mrs. Eliza Berkeley [q. v.], and G-. M.
Berkeley himself published many letters from
Berkeley to Prior in his Literary Relics, 1789.
These materials are all to be found in the fourth
volume of the collected works.] L. S.

BERKELEY, GEORGE CHARLES
GRANTLEY FITZHARDINGE, M.P.

(1800-1881), sixth son of Frederick Augus-
tus, fifth earl of Berkeley (the second son
after his marriage, on 16 May 1796, to Mary
Cole, thenceforth Countess of Berkeley), was
born on 10 Feb. 1800. His elder brother by
three years, Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge,
having, by the decision of the House of Lords,
been declared Earl of Berkeley [see BEKKE-
LET, FAMILY of], Grant ley was for seventy
years heir presumptive to the earldom. His
childhood was passed almost entirely at
Cranford House in Middlesex, one of the
dower houses settled by the late earl on the
countess. At sixteen years of age his god-
father, the prince regent, presented him with
a commission in the Coldstream guards.
Having been for a few months entered as
an undergraduate at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, he was sent for a year's instruction
to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst.
He first joined his regiment in 1816 at the
Tower of London, being afterwards on duty
among the household troops during the next
four or five years at St. James's Palace and
Windsor Castle, at Chatham and at Wool-
wich. Shortly after coming of age he re-
tired upon half-pay from the Coldstream
guards into the 82nd foot. On 16 Aug.
1824 he married Caroline Martha, youngest
daughter of Paul Benfield [q. v.], and in 1829
settled down as an ardent sportsman at
Harrold Hall in Bedfordshire. Between 1810
and 1829 his eldest brother, William (to whom
the late earl had left Berkeley Castle and the
bulk of his large property), then known as
Colonel Berkeley, was seeking to establish
his claim to succeed his father, the fifth earl,
in the earldom of Berkeley, and Grantley be-
lieved that Colonel Berkeley's cause might
be advanced by the presence of himself and
his three brothers, Maurice, Henry, and
Craven, in parliament. Maurice [q. v.] there-
fore entered parliament in 1831, and Craven
[q. v.] and Grantley were, in the December
of 1832, returned to the House of Commons,
the latter as member for West Gloucester-
shire ; Colonel Berkeley himself never esta-
blished his claim, but he became Baron Se-
grave (1831) and Earl Fitzhardinge (1841).
For twenty years together, from 1832 to
1852, Grantley held his ground as member
for West Gloucestershire. He did so at
last not merely in spite of the earl, but in
open defiance of him. At five general elec-

Berkeley

357

Berkeley

tions he appeared successfully before the con-
stituency as a candidate. His maiden work,
* Berkeley Castle,' an historical romance in
three volumes, was savagely reviewed in the
August number for 1836 of ' Eraser's Maga-
zine.' Accompanied by his brother Craven,
Be'rkeley went on the afternoon of 3 Aug.
to the bookseller's shop in Regent Street,
No. 215, kept by James Fraser, the publisher
and proprietor of the magazine. • Craven Ber-
keley having posted himself on guard there
at the shop door, Grantley, who was in form
a stalwart athlete, confronted the rather puny
publisher, demanding from him the name of
the anonymous critic. Failing to obtain this
information, he felled his feeble antagonist
with a blow, and then standing over him
beat him savagely about the head and face
with the butt-end of a heavy gold-headed
hunting-whip. The two Berkeleys were
brought before the neighbouring police ma-
gistrate in Great Maryborough Street. In
the subsequent trial it was stated that a
professional pugilist had kept watch as a
hired bully outside Fraser's premises. Two
actions, indeed, were tried, on 3 Dec. 1836,
in the court of exchequer — one, Fraser v.
Berkeley, for assault ; the other, the cross
action, Berkeley v. Fraser, for libel — in each
of them the damages being set at 6,000/. In
the action for assault the plaintiff (Fraser)
got the, verdict, with 100Z. as his damages ;
while in the action for libel the plaintiff
(Berkeley), though be also got the verdict,
had to content himself with 40s. damages.
Meanwhile, two days after the assault on the
publisher, i.e. on 5 Aug., a hostile meeting
had taken place between the Hon. Grantley
Berkeley and the author of the anonymous
criticism in ' Fraser,' Dr. William Maginn,
then editor of that magazine. They fought
in a secluded meadow near the Harrow Eoad.
Three shots each were exchanged by the
belligerents, Dr. Maginn at the last being
slightly wounded.

On 3 May 1836 Mr. Berkeley raised a laugh
by proposing that ladies should be admitted
to the gallery of the House of Commons.
The same day he was cheered along Rotten
Row by the fashionable concourse, and in
1841, on the concession of the privilege, re-
ceived a piece of plate from grateful ladies.

Grantley Berkeley's second publication ap-
peared in 1839, being i A Pamphlet dedicated
to the Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Sports-
men of England, Ireland, and Scotland. In
Reply to a Prize Essay by the Rev. John
Styles, D.D., on the Claims of the Animal
Creation to the Humanity of Man,'8vo,pp. 49.
His only other novel, ' Sandron Hall, or the
Days of Queen Anne,' 3 vols., was published

>40. In 1847, in spite of a bitter quarrel
his brother, Lord Fitzhardinge, and the

in 1840.
with

expenditure of 30,000/. against him, he was
returned for West Gloucestershire ; but his de-
fence of protection lost him the seat in 1852.
From that time forward he took no part what-
ever in public political life. He devoted him-
self more than ever to field-sports. He was a
master both of stag and of fox hounds. Four of
his favourites were famous : his terrier Smike,
his bloodhound Druid, his mastiff Grumbo,
and his retriever Smoker. Even his tame
cormorant Jack was for a long time noted
as a wonder. He prided himself to the last
upon having learnt pugilism from Byron's
instructor, Jackson, and retained until far
on in middle life a coarser kind of buckish
coxcombry. He delighted in wearing at the
same time two or three different-coloured
satin under-waistcoats, and round his throat
three or four gaudy silk neckerchiefs, held
together by passing the ends of them through
a gold ring. Even when he had come to be
an old man, he piqued himself upon having
been the last to cling to the flat cocked hat
of polite life, known early in the century as
the chapeau bras.

In 1854 Grantley Berkeley published a
pamphlet on ( The Potato Disease,' and his
' Reminiscences of a Huntsman,' 8vo, pp. 415.
The latter book was illustrated by John Leech,
as was another work issued from the press
three years afterwards, in which he described
'A Month in the Forests of France/ 8vo,
pp. 286. In that same year (1857) he brought
out in a thin duodecimo a miniature poem
called l Love and the Lion,' the substance of
which was derived from a tale narrated by
the French lion-hunter, Jules G6rard.

He crossed the Atlantic and produced
in 1861, profusely illustrated, ' The English
Sportsman in the Western Prairies,' 8vo,
pp. 431. In 1865 he published the first half
and in 1866 the second half of his autobio-
graphy in 4 vols., entitled ' My Life and
Recollections.' During the course of the
next year (1867) he brought out ' Anecdotes
of the Upper Ten Thousand, their Legends
and their Lives.' In 1870 appeared his

1 Tales of Life and Death/ in 2 vols., and in
1871, dedicated by him to the Crown Prince
of Germany, 'A Pamphlet on the French
and Prussian War, written in the month of
January while events were passing/ 8vo,
pp. 36. Three years later, in 1874, he brought
out his last work, ' Fact against Fiction/

2 vols., in which the habits and treatment of
animals were practically considered. The
last years of Grantley Berkeley's life were
embittered by the loss of his wife and their
two sons. His wife, who was a catholic, died

Berkeley

358

Berkeley

on 13 Feb. 1873. Swinburne Fitzhardinge
Berkeley, the elder of Grantley's two sons,
born on 20 Oct. 1825 and married on 4 March
1862 to Eliza Maria, only daughter of John
Gray, of Wharnlands, Northumberland, and
Trefin, Flintshire, and widow of Edward
Dixon of Horsley House, Worcestershire,
died without issue on 31 Dec. 1865 ; while
Grantley's younger, and then only remain-
ing son, Edward Stratton Fitzhardinge Ber-
keley, captain in the 2nd life guards, born
on 16 July 1827, died unmarried on 29 May
1878. Grantley Berkeley himself, just upon
a fortnight after the completion of his
eighty-first year, died on 23 Feb. 1881 at
Longfleet, Poole, Dorsetshire, having still,
to the last, as far beyond his reach as ever
what had been dangling all but within his
grasp for nearly seventy years — the earldom
of Berkeley.

[Grantley Berkeley's Life and Recollections,
4 vols., 1865-6; Times, 6 Aug. 1836, 24 and
25 Feb. and 1 March 1881 ; Men of the Time, 7th
edition, pp. 99-100 ; Fraser's Magazine, August
1836, pp. 242-7, January 1837, pp. 100-143;
Morning Chronicle, 6 Aug. 1836.] C. K.

BERKELEY, GEORGE CRANFIELD

(1753-1818), admiral, second surviving son of
Augustus,fourth earl of Berkeley, seventeenth
baron, was born 10 Aug. 1753, and in 1766
entered the navy on board the Mary yacht,
under the flag of his cousin, Rear-admiral
Keppel, then appointed to carry over to
Denmark the unfortunate Caroline Matilda.
Young Berkeley was for some time the queen's
page, and was afterwards appointed to the
Guernsey, 50 guns, bearing the broad pennant
of Commodore Pallisser, then going out as
governor of Newfoundland. Here he had the
peculiar advantage of instruction from Mr. Gil-
bert, then master of the Guernsey, and after-
wards of the Resolution with Captain Cook,
and assisted him in the survey of the coast of
Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
After two years of this service he was, in
1769, appointed to the Alarm frigate with
Captain Jervis, afterwards the Earl of St.
Vincent, and served under him in the Medi-
terranean. He was afterwards removed into
the flagship by Rear-admiral Sir Peter Denis,
who, in September 1772, promoted him to the
rank of lieutenant. In 1774 he returned to
England, and at once contested the city of
Gloucester in the interest of the opposition.
The cost of the election to the two parties
was said to be not less than 100,000/. Ber-
keley was unsuccessful; nor was he appointed
to a ship till, in 1778, he was nominated by
Admiral Keppel as a lieutenant of the Victory.
He was thus present in the battle of Ushant,

and in September was promoted by the admiral
to the command of the Firebrand fireship, in
which he was attached to the Channel fleet ;
and during the invasion of the Channel in the
summer of 1779 by the combined fleets of
France and Spain, he acted on the staff of
Lord Shuldham, the commander-in-chief at
Plymouth. Berkeley's energy induced Lord
Shuldham to recommend him to the admi-
ralty for promotion ; but the request was re-
fused on account of the part taken by Cap-
tain Berkeley in politics. He was, however,
appointed to the Fairy sloop, and sent out to
Newfoundland, where, within two months,
he captured nine of the enemy's privateers,
and was posted by the admiral into the Vestal
frigate 12 Sept. 1780. In the Vestal he was
sent to England, and commanded her in the
following spring at the relief of Gibraltar by
Vice-admiral Darby. In 1782 he commanded
the Recovery frigate in the fleet under Vice-
admiral Barrington and Lord Howe, and
was paid off at the peace in 1783. In 1786,
after a few months in command of the Mag-
nificent, 74 guns, he was appointed surveyor-
general of the ordnance, an office which he
held till the outbreak of the war with France,
when he was appointed to the Marlborough,
74 guns, and in her had an important share
in the victory of 1 June 1794. In this battle
the Marlborough suffered severely, was totally
dismasted, and had 120 men killed and
wounded. Berkeley himself was severely
wounded in the head, and was unable to re-
sume the command. In common with the
other officers of the fleet he received the
thanks of both houses of parliament, and was
one of the comparatively few who received
the gold medal. Notwithstanding this, dis-
paraging rumours of Berkeley's conduct were
set afloat, and ten years afterwards a weekly
paper, called the ( Royal Standard,' published
a letter, in which he was described as a ' shy
cock,' and as having skulked in the cockpit.
Berkeley brought an action for libel against
the paper, and obtained a verdict with 1,000/.
damages. There appeared no grounds what-
ever for the libel, which, however, is even
now sometimes remembered. For some
months in 1795-6 Berkeley commanded the
Formidable in the Channel, and in 1798 had
command of the sea fencibles on the coast of
Sussex. On 14 Feb. 1799 he was advanced
to the rank of rear-admiral, and during that
year and the next commanded a squadron in
the Channel fleet under Lord Bridport and
Lord St. Vincent.

He became a vice-admiral 9 Nov. 1805, and
about the same time was appointed to the
command of the Halifax station. It was
during his command, and under his direct

Berkeley

359

Berkeley

orders, that the conflict between the Leopard
and Chesapeake took place, 22 June 1807, on
account of some deserters from the English
service, who had been received on board the
American frigate (MARSHALL, iv. (vol. ii. pt.
ii.) 892-7). The case led to a long diplomatic
correspondence, and was one of the first causes
of the .war which broke out five years later ;
but Berkeley's conduct in the affair seems to
have been strictly in accordance with rule
•and precedent, though at variance with the
more modern phase of international law. In
December 1808 he was appointed to the chief
command on the coast of Portugal and in the
Tagus, which he held till May 1812. On
31 July 1810 he was advanced to the rank of
admiral, and in acknowledgment of his ser-
vices to Portugal he was nominated lord high
admiral of that kingdom. After his return
to England in 1812 he retired altogether from
active, and indeed from public life ; for up
to that time from 1781 he had represented
the city of Gloucester in parliament, and had
been a warm and persistent supporter of Pitt,
and an uncompromising opponent of the Ad-
dington ministry. He was made a G.C.B.
in 1814, and died 25 Feb. 1818. He mar-
ried, in 1784, Emily Charlotte, daughter
of Lord George Lennox, and sister of the
Duke of Richmond, by whom he left five
children.

[Naval Chronicle, xii. 89 (with a portrait) ;
•Gent. Mag. (1818), Ixxxviii. i. 370.] J. K. L.

BERKELEY, GEORGE MONCK (1763-
1793), miscellaneous writer, son of the Rev.
George Berkeley, prebendary of Canterbury,
and grandson of Bishop Berkeley, was born
on 8 Feb. 1763 at Bray in Berkshire. After
receiving some elementary instruction at the
King's School, Canterbury, he was sent, at
the age of twelve, to Eton. His mother [see
BERKELEY, ELIZA], who, in 1797, after his
death, published his ' Poems ' for private cir-
culation, tells us that he was exceedingly
self-willed. He was endowed with a singu-
larly unselfish disposition, and his precocity
was such that he began to publish before he
had left Eton. At the age of sixteen his
father took him from Eton, and was his tutor
for two years, after which he sent him to the
university of St. Andrews, where he remained
for three years and a half. He was elected
at the age of nineteen a corresponding mem-
ber of the Edinburgh Society of Antiquaries.
On leaving St. Andrews he became a fellow-
commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and
afterwards he was admitted a student of the
Inner Temple. In 1787 he published ' Nina '
(a comedy in two acts), which his mother
declares that he translated from the French

in six hours. His next dramatic attempt,
' Love and Nature,' a musical piece in one
act, performed at Dublin theatre in 1789, and
published in 1797, was founded on Prior's
* Emma and Henry ' (a modernisation of the
' Nut Brown Maid ') ; it is written in stiff
blank verse. In 1789 appeared his ' Literary
Relics,' a book of considerable interest and
value, containing much original matter. The
contents are : (1) An Inquiry into the Life of
Dean Swift ; (2) Original Letters of Charles
II, James II, and the Queen of Bohemia ;
(3) Correspondence of Swift ; (4) Eighty-six
Letters of Bishop Berkeley, chiefly addressed
to Thomas Prior; (5) Letters of Congreve,
Addison, and Steele.. Southey, in ' Omni-
ana ' (i. 251), says that George Monck Ber-
keley, had he lived, would have published
the manuscript journal of his grandfather's
1 Travels in Italy.' In 1789 Berkeley visited
Ireland, and was made LL.B. of Dublin Uni-
versity. While he was staying in Dublin he
sought out Richard Brenan (the servant who
attended Swift in his last moments), and set-
tled on him a small pension. Falling into
weak health he went for the benefit of the
sea breezes to Dover. Afterwards he removed
to Cheltenham, where he died on 26 Jan.
1793. His mother tells us that he had in-
tended to write a work in defence of the
Christian religion. The poems edited by his
mother are of very slight interest.

[Poems, with a preface by his mother, 1797 ;
Biographia Dramatica, ed. 1812, i. 35; Gent.
Mag. Ixvii. 403 ; Nichols's Literary Illustrations,
vi. 698; Bishop Berkeley's Works, ed. Fraser,
iv. 356, 359.] A. H. B.

BERKELEY, GILBERT (1501-1581),
bishop of Bath and Wells, is said to have been
a member of the noble family of Berkeley,
whose armorial bearings he used (Woor,
Athence Oxon. ii. 806 j BRITTOX, Hist. Wells
Cath. p. 113). No certain information, how-
ever, exists as to his genealogy (CASSAN, ii. 1).
Wood and Strype (Parker, i. 128) say that
he was a Lincolnshire man by birth ; Fuller,

Erobably incorrectly, that he belonged to Nor-
}lk ( Worthies, ii. 126). He appears to have
taken the degree of B.D. at Oxford about
1539 (WooD). He accepted the doctrines of
the Reformation, and during the reign of Mary
was in exile at Frankfort. No notice exists of
his having held any ecclesiastical preferment
before his consecration. After the deprivation
of Bourne, bishop of Bath and Wells, license of
election was granted 11 Jan. 1560. Berkeley
was elected to the see 29 Jan., the royal assent
was given 20 March, he was consecrated at
Lambeth 24 March, and received the tempo-
ralities 10 July (LE NEVE ; RYMER, Fcedera,

Berkeley

360

Berkeley

xv. 598). In common with the other bishops
consecrated at this time he is described as
'an excellent and constant preacher of
God's word ' (SiRYPE, Parker, i. 128). He
attended the convocation of 12 Jan. 1562,
and signed the articles then drawn up and
the orders framed in 1559 for the conduct of
deacons and readers (ib. 240). In a letter
written in the November of that year he in-
formed the lord treasurer that the patrons
of chapels in his diocese were stripping off
the lead from the roofs of their chapels
(Annals I. i. 540). He received the degree
of D.D. per gratiam in 1563. The conduct
of Dr. Turner, the dean of Wells, caused him
some trouble. Turner disliked the attempts
made to enforce uniformity. He made an
adulterer do penance in a priest's square cap,
and used to call the bishops ' white coats '
and ' tippet gentlemen.' Berkeley admon-
ished him, and, finding that he paid no atten-
tion to his admonition, in 1565 complained
of his conduct to the archbishop, and sug-
gested that a letter from Cecil might bring
him to obedience (STEYPE, Parker, i. 301). In
1574 the burgesses of Wells applied for a re-
newal of their ancient corporation. Berkeley
resisted their claim as injurious to the rights
of the see, and wrote to the lord treasurer
representing that the town had no trade to
support a mayor, recorder, and two justices.
His conduct excited considerable indigna-
ti >n among the townsmen (Annals, ii. 504).
Berkeley had a severe illness in 1572, and
was long forced to keep his room, as he suf-
fered during the rest of his life from sciatica.
He was, however, present at the funeral of
Archbishop Parker, 6 June 1575. In 1578
he successfully resisted an iniquitous at-
tempt made by Lord Paulet to impropriate
the tithes of the living of West Monkton,
of which he was patron (ib. II. ii. 185).
He died 2 Nov. 1581. Strype describes him
as a prelate i of great gravity and singular
integrity of life,' but records that in 1564 he
licensed Thomas, son of Sir John Harington,
to the living of Kelston when only eighteen
years of age and a scholar at Oxford, with
provision that if he took orders the license
should become perpetual (ib. III. i. 40), and
observes in another place (Aylmer, 58) that
from age and the affliction of a lethargy he was
not so diligent as the size of his diocese re-
quired, and that in consequence it (CASSAtf, ii.
2, reads the sentence as applying to the bishop)
' inclined to superstition and papal religion.'
Harington (Nuyce Antiq. ii. 150) says that ' he
was a good justicer, saving that sometimes
being ruled by his wife he swerved from the
rule of justice and sinceritv, especially in
persecuting the kindred of Bourne, his pre-

decessor. The fame went that he died very
rich, but the same importunate woman carried
it all away, that neither the church nor the
poor were the better for it.' In relation to
this remark it should be noted that Berkeley
took the extraordinary step of procuring for
himself the chancellorship of the church of
Wells (23 Aug. 1560), which he held until
1562 along with his bishopric. During his
last illness he wrote to the lord treasurer
urging that good appointments might be
made both to the see he w$s so soon to vacate
by death and to other bishoprics. Neverthe-
less after his death the diocese of Bath and
W^ells was left without a bishop for nearly
three years.

[Wood's Athense Oxon. (ed. Bliss) ; Fuller's
Worthies (ed. Nichols) ; Strype's Annals, Me-
morials, Life of Parkpr, Life of Aylmer, 8vo ;
Harington's Nugse Antiques, 8vo; Godwin, De
Praesulibus ; Cassan's Lives of the Bishops of
Bath and Wells ; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy).]

W. H.

BERKELEY, JAMES, third EARL OP
BEKKELEY (1680-1736), admiral, was the
second son of Charles, the second earl. He
was appointed captain of the Soilings frigate,
2 April 1701. He was shortly afterwards pro-
moted to the 50-gun ship Lichfield, in which
he cruised successfully in the Channel. On
7 March 1703-4, his father being then alive,
he was summoned to the House of Lords as
Lord Berkeley of Berkeley, and about the
same time was appointed to the Boyne, 80, in
which he joined Sir George Rooke in the Me-
diterranean, and was present at the battle of
Malaga, 13 Aug. 1704 (LEDIARD, 795 n.} In
1706, in command of the St. George, he was
again in the Mediterranean with Sir Clowdis-
ley Shovell, was prominently engaged in the
siege of Toulon, August 1707, and, coming to
England in company with the commander-
in-chief, had a very narrow escape of sharing
his unhappy fate, 22 Oct. [see SHOVELL, SIR
CLOWDISLEY]. The St. George did indeed
strike on the same rocks as the Association,,
almost at the same moment ; but the swell
which beat the one to pieces washed the other
clear off. On 26 Jan. 1707-8, he was raised
to flag rank ; possibly, as is said, as vice-
admiral of the blue ; and presently hoisted his
flag on board the Berwick as second in com-
mand under Sir George Byng during the
operations in the Forth and on the coast of
Scotland in 1708. He continued actively
employed in the Channel during the rest of
that year, and till May 1710, when he struck
his flag. By the death of his father on
24 Sept. he became Earl of Berkeley, and
was appointed lord-lieutenant of the county

Berkeley

361

Berkeley

of Gloucester. From this office he was re-
moved in 1711, but was reappointed on the
accession of George I. On 16 April 1717 he
was appointed first lord commissioner of the
admiralty, and continued in that post for ten
years, till the death of the king. In March
1718-9, during the short war with Spain
he was appointed commander-in-chief of the
fleet in the Channel, with Sir John Norris
commanding in the second post. Norris was
senior on the list of admirals ; but they were
both lords commissioners of the admiralty,
and in that capacity Berkeley was the supe-
rior. He was also vice-admiral of the kingdom ;
Norris was only rear-admiral. These offices
have always, except in this one instance, been
considered as purely civil, giving no execu-
tive command ; but on this occasion Berke-
ley, *by*a particular warrant from the crown,
hoisted the lord high-admiral's flag (the first
time it was ever worn in command at sea),
and had three captains appointed under him
as a lord high-admiral, Littleton, then vice-ad-
miral of the white, being his first captain '
(MARTIBT-LEAKE'S Life of Sir John Leaks
(1750), 42) ; Hosier was the second. On
the rare occasions on which a lord high-ad-
miral has actually commanded a fleet, he
has always worn the standard as the flag of
command ; but, except by special order from
the crown, the first commissioner, as such,
has no executive authority.

Afterthis cruise, on 15 April 1719 Berkeley
struck his flag and held no further command
at sea, but five times he was one of the lords
justices when the king went to Hanover. In
April 1718 he was installed as a knight of
the Garter, and the number of honorary ap-
pointments which he held was very great.
He died at Aubigny in France, a seat of the
Duke of Richmond, on 17 Aug. 1736, and was
buried at Berkeley. He married, in 1714,
Lady Louisa Lennox, daughter of the first
Duke of Richmond, by whom he had one son,
who succeeded him as fourth earl, and a
daughter.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. iii. 201 ; Burchett's
Naval History ; Lediard's Naval History.]

J. K. L.

BERKELEY, JOHN, first BARON BER-
|CELEY OF STRATTON (d. 1678), soldier and
courtier, the youngest son of Sir Maurice Ber-
keley of Brut on in Somersetshire (of a family
descended from Sir Maurice (d. 1346-7),
second sonfof Maurice, second Lord Berkeley
[see BERKELEY, FAMILY of]) by Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Henry Killigrew of Han-
worth, Middlesex, was accredited ambassador
from Charles I. to Christina, queen of Sweden,
in January 1636-7, to propose a joint effort, by

the two sovereigns for the reinstatement of
the elector palatine in his dominions. Pro-
bably the employment of Berkeley in this
business was suggested by his cousin, Sir
Thomas Roe, who had conducted negotiations
between Gustavus Adolphus and the king of
Poland. Berkeley returned from Sweden in
July 1637. In July of the following year he
was knighted by the king at Berwick, having
then a commission in the army raised for the
purpose of coercing the Scots. In 1640 he was
returned to parliament for both Heytesbury
and Reading, electing to retain his seat for.
the former place. Next year he was accused
in parliament of complicity in the conspiracy
to corrupt the army in the interest of the king,
expelled the house, and committed to the
Tower ; he wras subsequently bailed by the
earls of Dorset and Stamford in the sum of
10,000/., but the outbreak of hostilities pre-
vented any further steps being taken. In 1642
he joined the Marquis of Hertford at Sher-
borne, and was sent into Cornwall with the
rank of commissary-general to act under Sir
Ralph Hopton as lieutenant-general. The
royalist forces defeated, in May 1643, the
Earl of Stamford at Stratton, with great loss
of baggage and artillery, and pursued him as
far as Wells. In this affair Sir John par-
ticularly distinguished himself. He was now
made commander-in-chief of all the royalist
forces in Devonshire, and sat down before
Exeter, into which the Earl of Stamford had
thrown himself, and which was further de-
fended by the fleet under the Earl of War-
wick. Berkeley succeeded in maintaining a
strict blockade, beating off the Earl of WTar-
wick with a loss of three ships, and on 4 Sept.
1643 the Earl of Stamford was compelled to
surrender. In 1644 Berkeley was present at
the baptism of Henriette Maria, the king's
daughter, who was born at Exeter. The same
year Hopton and Berkeley joined their forces
to oppose Sir William Waller's westward ad-
vance, but were severely beaten at Alresford
in Hampshire on 29 March. In April 1645
lie superseded Sir Richard Grenville, being
constituted colonel-general of the counties of
Devon and Cornwall, took Wellington House,
near Taunton, by assault, and then proceeded
to invest Taunton. The advance of Fairfax
westward in the autumn of the year changed
the aspect of affairs. In January 1645-6 Fair-
?ax was able to concentrate himself upon
Exeter, which Berkeley was forced (13 April)
to surrender, though on honourable terms.
After the surrender Berkeley joined his kins-
man, Lord Jermyn, at Paris, in attendance
ipon Queen Henrietta Maria, with whom he
seems to have been a favourite. Here, how-
ever, he did not stay long. Having persuaded

Berkeley

362

Berkeley

the queen that he possessed influence with
some of the principal officers in the army — it
was" one of his foibles to suppose that he was
capable of influencing everybody with whom
he in any way came into contact — he obtained
from her a letter of recommendation to the
king. Having gained access to the king, he
set about using his influence with Cromwell,
Ireton, and other eminent officers, with a view
to mediating between them and the king. In
this business he was ably seconded by Ash-
burnham. The result was that a set of pro-
positions emanating from the chiefs of the
army were submitted to the king as a basis
of reconciliation in July 1647, which the
king scornfully rejected. Berkeley received
the king's commands to attend him in his
flight on the night of 10 Nov. 1647. The
party pushed on towards Hampshire, and ulti-
mately reached Lymington. Berkeley crossed
the Solent and opened the matter to Ham-
mond, from whom, however, nothing definite
could be elicited. The envoys making no way
with the business, by an act of almost incre-
dible folly they conducted Hammond to the
king at Lymington, who then saw nothing
for it but to accompany Hammond to Caris-
brooke Castle. After this exploit Berkeley
returned to London, still bent upon using his
influence with the army ; but being ill re-
ceived by the officers, and arraigned by the
parliament as a delinquent, he thought it most
prudent to retire to Paris. Here, during the
absence of Lord Byron in England, he obtained,
through the influence, as it would seem, of
Lord Jermyn, the post of temporary governor
to the Duke of York (1648), and on the death
of Lord Byron (1652) took that nobleman's
place, acquiring the control of the duke's
finances, and styling himself, though without
(says Clarendon) any authority so to do, ' in-
tendant des affaires de son altesse royale.' In
this capacity, and with an eye to the duke's
revenue and his own, he endeavoured to bring
about a match between the duke and Marie
de Longueville, daughter of the Duke of Lon-
gueville, but the French court refused its
sanction, and the idea was at once abandoned.
Meanwhile Berkeley was engaged in paying
his addresses to the Countess Morton, the go-
verness of the Princess Henrietta, to whom
in due course he made an offer of marriage.
The lady appears to have made a confidant of
Sir Edward Hyde (afterwards Earl of Claren-
don), and to have rejected Berkeley upon his
advice ; and this fact coming to Berkeley's
knowledge inspired him with a deep and
lasting animosity to Hyde,, which the latter
answered with contempt, and also by in-
triguing to destroy Berkeley's influence with
the duke, in which he signally failed.

Between 1652 and 1655 Berkeley served
under Turenne in the campaigns against Cond6
and the Spaniards in Flanders, accompanying
the Duke of York as a volunteer, and when
the duke placed his sword at the disposal
of Spain, and crossed over into the Nether-
lands early in 1656, he was still accom-
panied by Berkeley. In the spring of the
next year he made a tour with the duke
through some of the principal cities of the
Netherlands, took part in the campaigns of
that and the following year, and at the re-
quest of the duke was raised to the peerage
as Baron Berkeley of Stratton, in Cornwall,
by a patent dated at Brussels 19 May 1658.
Returning to England at the Restoration, he
was at once placed upon the staff of the
admiralty. The following year he was ap-
pointed lord president of Connaught, for life.
This post, however, did not prevent his at-
tendance at court, a deputy being at the
same time appointed to do the work of the
office in Ireland. This rapid advancement
seems to have somewhat disturbed Pepys's
equanimity, for he records the fact that on
Sunday, 22 March 1662-3, he heard at church
' a dull formal fellow that prayed for the Right
Honourable John Lord Barkeley, lord presi-
dent of Connaught,' &c. In 1663 (17 June)
Berkeley was sworn a member of the privy
council, and in the following year was made
one of the masters of the ordnance. In January
1664-5 he was placed on the committee of
Tangier. In February of this year he began
building himself a palace in the neighbourhood
of Piccadilly, which was destroyed by fire in
1733, but the site of which is now marked by
Devonshire House. It was in the Italian
style, and ' stood him in near 30,OOOZ./ says
Evelyn. It was completed about 1672-3.
In 1668 he bought Twickenham Park, which,
however, passed out of his family in 1685.
In 1670 he went to Ireland as lord lieuten-
ant ; this office he held for two years, with
a few months' leave of absence in 1671,
during which it was in commission. As vice-
roy he manifested a marked partiality for the
catholic party, allowing on one occasion the
titular Archbishop Peter to use the castle
plate for the purpose of adding magnificence
to a religious celebration, and telling him at
the same time thati n a few months ' he hoped
to see high mass at Christ Church.' In De-
cember 1675 he was appointed, with Sir Wil-
liam Temple and Sir Leoline Jenkyns, am-
bassador extraordinary 011 the part of England
at the congress of Nimeguen then about to
assemble. He received orders to leave for
France before the commission was made out,
and was to have started in October ; but his
departure was delayed for a few days by an

Berkeley

363

Berkeley

apoplectic seizure, wliich took him as lie was
entering the council chamber of Whitehall
(27 Oct.), and necessitated cupping. The ope-
ration effected, Evelyn tells us, ' an almost
miraculous restoration.' Accompanied by his
wife he left Dover on 14 Nov., taking a so-
lemn leave of Evelyn, to whom he had en-
trusted the charge of his affairs during his
absence, on the beach, there delivering into
his custody ' his letter of attorney, keys, seal,
and his will,' like one who did not expect to
return. He did not reach Nimeguen until
11 Nov. of the following year, having spent
the intervening period in France, and on
.28 May 1677 was compelled, by the state of
his health, to leave for England, though the
work of the congress was not completed. He
reached London early in June, Evelyn wait-
ing on him there on the 12th, * to give an ac-
count of the great trust reposed in him during
his absence/ and returning ' with abundance
of thanks and professions/ both from his lord-
ship and his lady. On 26 Aug. 1678 he
died, being seventy-two years of age. He was
buried (5 Sept.) in the parish church of
Twickenham. He left three sons, each of
whom succeeded in his turn to the title
[for JOHN, third earl, see below], and one
daughter, Anne, who married Sir Dudley
Cullum, Bart., of Hanstead, Suffolk. The
title became extinct in 1773. His wife, who
is politely described in his epitaph as ' a young
lady of a large dowry and yet larger graces
and virtues/ can hardly have been very young
when he married her, as she had already been
married first to Sir John Geare, and subse-
quently (14 Feb. 1659) to Henry Rich, Lord
Kensington. Her maiden name was Christian
or Christiana Riccard, her father being Sir An-
drew Riccard, a wealthy London merchant,
largely interested in the East India Company.
Besides the fortune which this lady brought
him Berkeley probably derived a handsome
income partly from his life presidency of Con-
naught, and partly from the post of manager
of the Duke of York's household, which he
seems to have retained for many years after
the duke had come of age. Concerning his
conduct in this post Pepys (27 Sept. 1668)
tells a story which, if true, convicts him of
robbing his master in the matter of letting
the duke's wine licenses. Berkeley's career
seems to have been generally regarded by his
contemporaries with feelings of mingled envy
and amazement, its eminent successfulness
being ascribed less to his own merits than to
luck and the influence of his kinsman, Lord
Jermyn, created Earl of St. Albans at the |
Restoration. This, at any rate, was the tenor :
of the conversation which Pepys heard at
Captain Cocke's on 3 Dec. 1665. Clarendon

gives him credit for being an able officer,
though fit only for a subordinate post ; but
ruthlessly exposes his vanity, want of tact,
and ignorance of human nature.

Berkeley is the author of an historical
piece in the nature of an apology for his
part in the transactions which preceded and
followed the flight of the king from Hamp-
ton Court. It is an interesting produc-
tion, written in a very lively style and of
great biographical value, as it exhibits the
character of its author with much naivete' ;
but the serious discrepancies between it and
the account given by Ashburnham, and the
attempt which is apparent throughout it to
magnify the author's part in the negotiations
with Cromwell and Ireton at the expense of
Ashburnham, while casting upon him the sole
responsibility for the unfortunate issue of the
negotiations with Hammond, impair its au-
thority as an historical narrative. It was
first published in 1699 (8vo), and again in
1702, under the title ' Memoirs of Sir John
Berkley, containing an account of his nego-
tiations with Lieutenant-general Cromwell,
Commissary-general Ireton, and other officers
of the army for restoring King Charles I to
the exercise of the government of England.'
Lowndes (Bibliographical Manual, ed. Bohn)
mentions an edition of 1699 with the title
in Latin : ' Collectanea Historica Johannis
Berkeley complexa ipsius negotiationem anni
1647 cum Olivaro Cromwell, Ireton, et aliis
exercitus prsefectis pro revocatione Caroli I
in regni administrationem.' The memoirs
were reissued in 1812 in the ' Harleian Mis-
cellany/ vol. ix., and in 1815 in Maseres'
* Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars/
vol. i. On the publication in 1830 of Ash-
burnham's 'Narrative' Berkeley's account
was added in an appendix. A French trans-
lation appeared in the f Collection des Me"-
moires relatifs a la Revolution d'Angleterre/
vol. iv. Paris, 1827.

[Cal. State Papers, Dora. (1636-7) 380, 392,
(1637) 82, 145, 310, 312, 321, 324, 336, 413,
(1640) 42, (1660-1) 110, (1664-5) 173, 187,
485 ; Howell's Familiar Letters, 228 ; Clarendon,
iii. 120, 182, 202, 226, 426, 429-31 ; iv. 99-100,
116, 119, 215. 448, 460; v. 149-53, 160-8, 188,
206-12, 446-8, 479, 492 ; vi. 18, 589 ; Polwhele's
Devonshire, 306; Whitelocke's Mem. 177, 185,
191, 196, 200 ; Ludlow's Mem. 73 ; Fairfax Cor-
respondence (eel. Bell), i. 290 ; Commons' Jour-
nals, ii. 175, 238, 241, 253, 256, 262, 271, 290,
294, 295, 333, 337, 346, 356, 614; v. 356, 359,
366 ; Ashburnham's Narrative, 88 ; Vindication,
226 ; Appendix, cxliv. cli. clxiii. clxxv. ; Peti-
tot's Coll. des Mem. 2rae serie, xxxiv. 378, 380 ;
Thurloe's State Papers, i. 96, iv. 158, v. 104, 278,
294, 753 ; Life of James II (Clarke), i. 47, 53,
114, 273, 279, 293 ; Lib. Hib. i. pt. ii. 8, 190;

Berkeley

364

Berkeley

Pepys's Diary, 22 March 1662-3, 5 Nov. 1664,
20 March 1664-5 ; Evelyn's Diary, 25 Sept. ;
1672, 27 Oct. 1675, 25 Sept. 1677; Life of Sir
Leoline Jenkyns, i. 349, 502, 512,ii. 117 ; Haydn's
Book of Dignities, 121, 191; Harris's Life of
William III, 98-101 ; Lysons's Middlesex, iii. 199, :
580,592; Sir William Temple's Mem. fed. 1720),
411 ; Collinson's Somerset, i. 215; Banks's Ex-
tinct Peerage, iii. 77 ; Froude's English in Ire-
land, i. 165.] J. M. R.

BERKELEY, JOHN, third LOEB BEE- !
KELEY of Stratton (1663-1697), admiral, |
second son of John, first Lord Berkeley of
Stratton, succeeded to the title by the death of
his elder brother Charles, a captain in the navy, ;
6 March 1681-2. He was appointed first lieu- \
tenant of the Bristol on 14 April 1685, and on j
9 July 1686 he was promoted to the command !
of the Charles galley. In this he sailed for the j
Mediterranean, where he remained till May '
1688. On 30 Aug. 1688 he was appointed '
to the Mountagu ; immediately after the
revolution he was (27 Nov.) transferred to
the Edgar ; and on 14 Dec. was nominated
rear-admiral of the fleet, under the command
of Lord Dartmouth. In the following summer
he was vice-admiral of the red squadron under
Admiral Herbert, and with him in the action
off Bantry Bay, 1 May 1689 ; in October he
was detached with a small squadron to cruise
in the entrance of the Channel, from which
service he returned to Spithead in January.
On 8 Feb. 1692-3, he was appointed vice-
admiral of the blue, shortly afterwards vice-
admiral of the red, and on the death of Sir
John Ashby, 12 July 1693, admiral of the
Blue in the fleet under the joint admirals
Killigrew, Delavall, and Shovell. The follow-
ing summer, 1694, Lord Berkeley was de-
tached by Admiral Russell in command of a
large division intended to cover the attack
on Brest by the land forces under General
Talmash. Several concurring accounts had
warned the French of the object of this ex-
pedition, and when the attempt was made
in Camaret Bay on 8 June, it was repulsed
with very severe loss. After his return from
this expedition, Berkeley had a correspond-
ence with the secretary of state, to whom he
complained of the admiralty for interfering
with what he claimed as his right to appoint
officers in the fleet. ' If I have not,' he
wrote 21 June 1694, ' the power of appoint-
ing officers, I can keep the fleet in no order,
nor will I pretend to it. Since this war
the admiralty have never, in the summer-
time, appointed officers in the line-of-battle
ships, and I should be sorry to be the first
not thought a judge of officers.' Such a claim
could scarcely be allowed, but it would appear
that some compromise was effected, for Ber-

keley continued in command of the fleet, and,
a few days later, was again sent out to bom-
bard Dieppe and Havre, both which services
he accomplished, 13 and 16 July 1694, pro-
bably inflicting a good deal of injury on
the enemy (EVELYN'S Diary t 13 July 1694) ;
but it was doubted whether the damage to
the French was commensurate with the ex-
pense to the English. On 27 Aug. Lord
Berkeley resigned the command to Sir Clow-
disley Shovell, and went to London for the
winter.

The next summer, 1695, it was determined
to renew these desultory attacks on the
French coast, and on 12 June Berkeley hoisted
his flag on board the Shrewsbury at Ports-
mouth. A few days later he was joined by
a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van Al-
monde, and, the combined fleet appearing in
front of St. Malo on 4 July, the place was
shelled during that afternoon and the whole
of the next day by a flotilla of bomb-vessels
under the immediate command of Captain
Benbow [see BENBOW, JOHN, vice-admiral] ;
after which the admirals resolved that nothing
more could be done, and the main fleet re-
turned to the Downs.

Berkeley's jealous temper and domineering"
disposition are strongly shown by a letter of
this date, 23 July 1695, in which he wrote :
' Since it has been thought fit to appoint Sir
George Rooke to command in the Straits [sc.
the Mediterranean], I suppose care will be
taken that he and I may not meet at sea
without he will obey, for I can own no
superior at sea but Admiral Russell.' As
Rooke and Shovell — who on this last expe-
dition had acted under him — were both his
seniors (by special regulation 20 July 1693),
the pretension is not a little curious.

It was now determined to repeat an attempt
on Dunkirk, which Shovell had unsuccess-
fully made in the previous September (Add.
MS. 21494, f. 39). This was done on 1 Aug.
by a flotilla of bomb-vessels, fire-ships, and
a number of so-called machines, under the
immediate command of their inventor, Wil-
liam Meester. No success could even be
claimed, and the flotilla, with the fleet,
moved along the coast to Calais. Here a
quarrel broke out between the admiral and
Meester, who appears to have been at least
as much of a charlatan as of an inventor.
Collecting his boats, and under cover of the
darkness, Meester slipped away from the fleet.
Berkeley sent after him, with orders to bring-
him back a close prisoner. ' He is afraid/
he wrote 4 Aug., ( to stand the trial of his
machines, and now his business is done, with
what money he has got, he is for packing off,
but I hope to stop him. All his actions and

Berkeley

365

Berkeley

words have been every day nothing but con-
trariety, and his design only to cheat his
Majesty and the nation.'

the fleet returned to the Downs, from
whence Berkeley wrote a very detailed state-
ment of the case against Meester, who ought,
he insisted, to be tried for his life. No such
action appears to have been taken ; but orders
were sent down for the fleet to attempt Calais.
Accordingly, they bombarded it on 17 Aug.
as long as their mortars held out, though
little real damage was done. The fleet re-
turned to England, and was ordered to Spit-
head ; but Berkeley, having received an inti-
mation that Sir George Rooke would be at
Portsmouth, left the command to Sir Clow-
disley Shovell. The following year his
objection to serve under Rooke had been
overcome ; and through May 1696 he com-
manded in the second post in the Channel.
At the end of the month Rooke, then one
of the lords of the admiralty, was summoned
to London, and the command-in-chief re-
mained with Berkeley, who at this time was
permitted to fly the union flag at the main,
and was presently ordered to extend his
cruise into the Bay of Biscay, and to threaten
the coast of France, in the hope of causing
troops to be withdrawn from the French
army in Flanders. Contrary winds, however,
detained the fleet in the Channel till the end
of June. In the early days of July the isle
Groix and the smaller islands, Houet and
Hoedic, were ravaged, and St. Martin's, in
the isle of Re, was bombarded. Such achieve-
ments could not lead to any result, and the
most noticeable incident of the cruise was
the intrusion into the fleet one night of a
French privateer, commanded by Duguay-
Trouin, who describes himself as having en-
gaged and overpowered one of the frigates
in full view of the English admiral \Me-
moires de M, Du Guay-Trouin, Amsterdam,
1748, 41-3 ; Fraser's Magazine, 1882, i. 509
(April), where the incident is discussed in
some detail). By the end of July the fleet
returned to Spithead, and no further opera-
tions during that summer being intended,
Berkeley went on leave, still preserving the
command. He, however, never resumed it,
being attacked by a pleurisy, of which he
died 27 Feb. 1696-7. He had married Jane,
daughter of Sir John Temple of East Sheen
in Surrey, by whom he had but one daughter,
who died in infancy.

[Home Office Records (Admiralty), v. and ix.,
in the Public Reoord Office; Burchett's Naval
History; Charnock's Biog. Nav. ii. 121 ; the me-
moir in continuation to Campbell's Lives of the
Admirals (vol. vi.1 has absolutely no value.]

J. K. L.

BERKELEY, MAURICE FREDERICK
! FITZHARDINGE, LOKD FITZHAEDINGB
I (1788-1867), admiral, second son of the fifth
; earl of Berkeley by his alleged private marriage
[see BERKELEY, FAMILY of], was born 3 Jan.
I 1788. He entered the navy in June 1802, and
! after six years' service, for the most part in the
| West Indies or on the Newfoundland station,
! where his uncle, Vice-admiral G.C.Berkeley,
! was then commander-in-chief, was made lieu-
' tenant 9 July 1808. He was then appointed
to the Hydra frigate, with Captain George
Mundy, and actively employed on the east
coast of Spain during the next eighteen
months. In February 1810 he was appointed
flag lieutenant to his uncle at Lisbon, and
in the autumn had charge of a division of
gunboats on the Tagus co-operating with
the troops then holding the lines of Torres
Vedras. He was promoted 19 Dec. 1810 to
the command of the Vestal, in which he con-
tinued till the following November. He was
posted 7 June 1814, and from 1828 to 1831
commanded the Semiramis frigate, flagship
at Cork. In 1840-1 he commanded the
Thunderer, 84, in the Mediterranean, and took
part in the several operations on the coast of
Syria, including the bombardment of St. Jean
d'Acre, in acknowledgment of which he was
made a C.B., and received the gold medal.
With this his service at sea came to an end,
though he became, in course of seniority, rear-
admiral 30 Oct. 1849 ; vice-admiral 21 Oct.
1856 ; and admiral 15 Jan. 1862. On shore,
however, he was closely occupied with naval
affairs, and held a seat at the admiralty, with
few and comparatively short interruptions,
from 1833 to 1857. His longest absence from
the board was from 1839 to 1846, when he gave
up his seat in consequence of a difference with
his colleagues on the subject of sending out
men-of-war with the insufficient number of
men proposed as a ' peace complement,' a
practice which, as is now known, placed the
English Mediterranean fleet in very serious
jeopardy, and in condemnation of which
Berkeley published ' A Letter addressed to
Sir John Barrow, Bart., on the System of
War and Peace Complements in her Majesty's
Ships ' (21 pp. 8vo, 1839). With few inter-
missions he also represented the city of
Gloucester in parliament from 1831 to 1857,
though in 1833 and again in 1837 he was an
unsuccessful candidate.

His elder brother, who had been created
Baron Segrave (1831), and afterwards Earl
Fitzhardinge (1841),died in 1857,and his titles
became extinct. On this Admiral Berkeley

Eut in a claim for the baronry of Berkeley, but
•tiled to establish it. He was, however, raised
to the peerage on 5 Aug. 1861 as Baron Fitz-

Berkeley

366

Berkeley

hardinge. When his younger brother Grantley
[q. v. ] published in 1 865 some brut al reflections
on his mother's character, Lord Fitzhardinge
and his other brothers joined in drawing
up a deservedly severe pamphlet, entitled
' Reply to some Passages in a Book entitled
" My Life and Recollections, by the Hon.
Grantley F. Berkeley.'" Lord Fitzhardinge
was twice married : first in 1823 to Lady
Charlotte Lennox, daughter of the fourth
duke of Richmond ; second in 1834 to Lady
Charlotte Moreton, daughter of the first earl
of Ducie. He was nominated a privy coun-
cillor in 1855, was made a K.C.B. 5 July
1855, and G.C.B. 28 June 1861. He died
17 Oct. 1867.

[O'Byrne'sNav.Biog. Diet. ; Gent.Mag. (1867),
4thser.iv. 819.] J. K. L.

BERKELEY, ROBERT (d. 1219), the

eldest of the six sons of Maurice Berkeley, on
his father's death in 1190 paid to the king a
fine of 1,000/. for livery of his inheritance, and
to King John in 1199 a further sixty marks
for confirmation of his title and a charter of
fairs in his manor of Berkeley. In 1208 he
was a justiciar at Derby. He took a leading
part in the struggle between John and the
barons, and, being included in the excommu-
nication of the barons pronounced by Inno-
cent III, Berkeley Castle and the lands were
seized. In 1216, however, shortly before John
died, he visited the king, then at Berkeley
Castle, under a safe-conduct, and made his sub-
mission. The manor of Came in Gloucester-
shire was then granted him for the support of
his wife Juliana, niece of the Earl of Pem-
broke. In 1216, on Henry's accession, he was
restored to his lands on payment of a fine of
966/. 13s. 4:d., with the exception of the castle
and lands of Berkeley. He died in 1219, still
dispossessed of them, and was buried in a
monk's cowl in the north aisle of St. Augus-
tine's Abbey, Bristol, of which, along with
Burdenstoke in Wiltshire, Stanley Priory in
Gloucestershire, and the canons of Hereford,
he was a benefactor. He founded St. Cathe-
rine's Hospital, Bedminster, near Bristol, as
an Austin priory for a warden and poor
brethren (LELAKD, Collect, i. 85), and two
chantries elsewhere. After the death of his
first wife Juliana he married Lucia (whose
family is not known), afterwards wife to Hugh
de Gurney. He left no issue by either wife,
and was succeeded by his brother Thomas, to
whom Berkeley Castle was restored.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges ; Dugdale's Baron-
age, i. 352, 614 ; Brydges's Collins's Peerage, 3,
595 ; Dugdale's Monasticon, 6, 774 ; Eudder's
Gloucestershire ; Manning and Bray's Surrey ;
Britton's Cathedrals, Bristol, p. 58.] J. A. H.

BERKELEY, SIR ROBERT (1584-
1656), justice of the king's bench in the reign
of Charles I, was descended by a succession
of younger sons from a family, of whom two
members, Maurice and Robert, had held the
office of judge. He was the second son of
Rowland Berkeley, a wealthy clothier of
Worcester, by Catherine Haywood (pedigree
in NASH'S Collections for Worcestershire,
j ii. 358), and was born at Worcester 26 July
j 1584. He entered the Middle Temple in
1600, and was called to the bar 6 May 1608.
Through the death of his father in 1611 he
became possessor of the estate of Spetchley,
Worcestershire ; that of Cotheridge, which
his father's success in business had also en-
abled him to purchase, having been previously
given to the elder brother. In 1613 he was
elected high sheriff of his native county. In
the beginning of 1627 he was called to the
I degree of the coif, in the April following was
made a king's Serjeant, and in October 1632
was created a justice of the court of King's
Bench. To the question which the king ad-
[ dressed to the twelve judges in 1635, regard-
ing his prerogative in the imposition of ship-
money, he strongly supported an affirmative
answer. At the great ship-money trial of
1637 he not only consistently adhered to this
opinion by giving judgment against Hampden,
but supported his decision by an argument
which went much further in the direction of
absolutism than the original proposition ; for
denying that 'lex is rex' he asserted that 'rex
is lex, lex loquens, a living, a speaking, an
acting law ' (State Trials, iii. 1098). In De-
cember 1640 Berkeley and other five judges
were bound in 10,000/. apiece to answer the
charges which the commons were preparing
against them, and on 13 Feb. following he
was singled out for impeachment by the com-
mons in the lords' house. By their command
the usher of the black rod ' came to the King's
Bench, when the judges were sitting, took
Judge Berkeley from off the bench, and car-
ried him away to prison, which struck a great
terror in the rest of his brethren then sitting
in Westminster Hall ' (WHITELOCKB, Memo-
rials, p. 40). The general charge against him
was that of ( endeavouring to subvert the fun-
damental laws, and introduce an arbitrary
and tyrannical government against law'
(Articles of Accusation exhibited by the Com-
mons House of Parliament now assembled
against Sir John Bramston, Knight, Sir Ro-
bert Berkley, Knight, &c., published 1641, and
also in RTTSHWORTH, ii. 606-14). On 20 Oct.
1641 he appeared at the bar of the House of
Lords, and pleaded not guilty, whereupon the
trial was fixed for 2 Nov. The difficulty of
the commons in obtaining witnesses caused,

Berkeley

367

Berkeley

however, a further postponement, and mean-
while, as the business of the King's Bench
was at a standstill, one of the three judges
being with the king and another in the Tower, j
the two houses, t taking into consideration
that Judge Berkeley had carried himself with !
modesty and humility, and inoffensively to j
both houses,' invited him to act as judge for .
the Michaelmas term. On 10 Sept. following
he was brought to trial, and adjudged to pay '
a fine of 20,000/. within six weeks, to be de- j
prived of the office of judge, and rendered in- |
capable of holding any place or receiving any |
honour in the state or commonwealth, and '.
to be imprisoned in the Tower during the
pleasure of the lords. As, however, there
was an urgent need of ready money for the
payment of the subsidy to the Scotch, he was
allowed his liberty and an abatement of half
the sum on his volunteering immediate pay-
ment (CLAKENDON, vii. 262). The remainder
of his life was spent in retirement at Spetch-
ley, but not without molestation, for before
the battle of Worcester the Scotch presbyte-
rians, though employed in the service of
Charles II, robbed him of a large sum of
money and burned his mansion to the ground,
their motives being partly religious animosity,
partly a love of plunder, and partly to pre-
vent the occupation of the mansion by Crom-
well. According to Habington ( Worcester-
shire MS. in library of the Society of Anti-
quaries, quoted in GKANGER'S Letters, 259,
and in NASH'S Collections of Worcestershire,
ii. 359), Berkeley converted the stables into
a dwelling house, and resided there during
the remainder of his life. Lloyd states that
* he died heartbroken with grief anno 1649 '
(Memoirs, 95), but the date on his tombstone
is 5 Aug. 1656. Nash gives the year 1692,
which, though plainly impossible, has found
its way into other books. He was buried in
the church at Spetchley, where, in the south
side of the chapel on a raised monument of
black and white marble, is a figure of the
judge in his robes (see the engraving in NASH'S
Collections for Worcestershire}. According
to Habington the likeness is an admirable
one, and was taken from a plaster cast after
death. There are engraved portraits of the
judge by Hollar, by Powle, and by some other
person. That of Hollar bears a close resem-
blance to the figure on the monument. By
his marriage to Elizabeth, daughter and co-
heiress of Thomas Conyers, of East Barnet,
Hertfordshire, he left one son Thomas.

Whitelocke characterises Berkeley as 'a
very learned man in our laws, and a good ora-
tor and judge, moderate in his views except in
his desire for court favour.' Lloyd, in much
more eulogistic terms, as was to be expected,

refers to him as ' the greatest master of max-
ims in his time,' and ' a person whose worth
was set in his pedigree as a rich diamond in
a fair ring.' The founder of the hospital in
Worcester, in Foregate Street, was not Judge
Berkeley, as is frequently stated, but a grand-
son of the same name. The judge, however,
left a rent-charge of about 51. 10s. annually
to be distributed among the poor. He also
gave twenty-three timber trees towards the
rebuilding of the church at Spetchley, and
was at a charge of more than 100/. for
mending and increasing the ringing of the
bells.

[Lloyd's Memoirs, 93-7 ; Whitelocke's Memo-
rials ; Kushworth's Historical Collection ; Cla-
rendon's History of the Eebellion; Granger's
Letters, 217-20, 253-61 ; Granger's Biog. ii. 224-
225 ; Nash's Collections for Worcestershire, ii.
358-60; Green's History of Worcester, ii. 61,
69 ; Chambers's Biographical Illustrations of
Worcestershire, pp. 108-113; Articles of Im-
peachment against Sir John Bramston, Knight,
Sir John Berkley, Knight, &c., 1641 ; The True
Copie of a Speech delivered by the Hon. Wil-
liam Perpoynt against Sir Robert Berkley. 1641 ;
Foss's Judges of England.] T. F. H.

BERKELEY, ROBERT (1713-1804),
political writer, was son of Thomas Berkeley
of Spetchley, Worcestershire, by Mary, daugh-
ter and heiress of — Davis, of Clytha, Mon-
mouthshire. He published ' Considerations
on the Oath of Supremacy,' and l Considera-
tions on the Declaration against Transubstan-
tiation,' both addressed to Dr. Josiah Tucker,
dean of Gloucester. These were the result
of their frequent conversations, and led to a
friendly correspondence between them. It is
presumed that Berkeley was the author of
several other works, and that the catholic no-
bility and gentry were principally stimulated
by him to present their petition to the king
in 1778, which was followed by the repeal of
the Act of the llth William and Mary. The
Rev. Thomas Phillips, author of the ' Life of
Cardinal Pole,' resided as chaplain in the
house of this gentleman, and there he wrote
his celebrated work. Berkeley married first
Anne, sister and co-heir of John Wy borne, of
Flixton, Norfolk ; secondly, Catharine, daugh-
ter of Thomas Fitzherbert, of Swinnerton,
Staffordshire ; and thirdly, Elizabeth, daugh-
ter of Peter Parry, of Twysog, in Denbigh-
shire. Dying without issue on 20 Dec. 1804,
he was succeeded in the family estates by his
nephew, Robert Berkeley, of Spetchley.

[Burke's Hist, of the Landed Gentry (1837),
i. 471 ; Burke's Diet, of the Landed Gentry
(1868), 90 ; Chambers's Illustr. of Worcestershire
Biog. 501.] T. C.

Berkeley

368

Berkeley

BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM (1639-
1666), vice-adniiral, was the third son of Sir
Charles Berkeley of Bruton, treasurer of the
household to Charles II, and younger brother
of Charles, earl of Falmoutli, the favourite o
the Duke of York, killed in the battle o
3 June 1665 [see BERKELEY, FAMILY of]
William, who shared the duke's favour witl
his elder brother, was appointed lieutenanl
of the Swiftsure in 1661, and in 1662 was
promoted to the command of the Bonaven
ture. In the summer of 1663 he com
manded the Bristol, in the Mediterranean
squadron, under Sir John Lawson, engagec
in one of the usual abortive attempts to per-
suade, without overawing, the Dey and Divan
of Algiers to abstain from plundering English
ships (PEPYS, Diary, 9, 18 Nov. 1663). The
next year he commanded the Resolution ;
was knighted 12 Oct. 1664, and in Novem-
ber was appointed rear-admiral of the red
squadron, of which Lawson was vice-admiral,
'under the immediate command of the Duke
of York. He was then sent into the Channel
with six frigates, and there remained, bet ween
Dover and the Isle of Wight, till the follow-
ing April, when he rejoined the fleet and
took part in the battle of 3 June 1665. Of
his behaviour on this occasion it is impossible
to speak with certainty ; for whilst one con-
temporary report describes him as, with a
squadron of six ships, chasing nine of the
runaway Dutch (Cal S. P.Dom. 5 June 1665),
another says that on hearing of his brother's
death he thought it

not good

To venture more of royal Harding's blood . . .
"With his whole squadron straight away he bore,
And, like good boy, promised to fight no more.
Poems on State Affairs, i. 29.

Nor was the scandal confined to verse, for
Pepys records (16 June) : ' It is strange to
see how people do already slight Sir William
Berkeley . . . who three months since was
the delight of the court.' True or false, how-
ever, the duke stuck to his favourite, and
appointed him (19 June) to be lieutenant-
governor of the town and garrison of Ports-
mouth. During the next twelve months his
time was officially spent between Portsmouth
and the fleet. In the four days' battle off the
North Foreland he commanded as vice-ad-
miral of the white squadron, his flag still
flying in the Swiftsure, which, being cut off
from the fleet, was surrounded and captured
by the Dutch after the admiral and most of
her men had been slain, 1 June 1666. Friends
and enemies were agreed that Sir William
Berkeley died as became an English admiral
(COLLIBER, Columna Rostrata, 173 ; Leven
van Tromp, 326 ; BRANDT, Vie de Michel de

liuyter, 351), much to the satisfaction of
his father and friends, who had been extremely
troubled with a report of his cowardice (Cal.
S. P. Dom. 15 June 1666). His body was
respectfully embalmed by the Dutch (Gent.
Mag. Ivii. 214), and sent over to England ; in
the following August it was buried in West-
minster Abbey, where there is a monument
to his memory.

He was not married. According to Pepys
(6 July 1665), he had paid his court to a
daughter of Sir John Lawson, who had, how-
ever, refused his suit. His portrait, by Sir
Peter Lely, is now in the Painted Hall at
Greenwich.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. i. 79 ; Calendars of
State Papers, Domestic. 1662-6.] J. K. L.

BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM (d. 1677),
governor of Virginia, youngest son of Sir
Maurice Berkeley, and brother of John, first
Lord Berkeley of Stratton [q. v.], was born in
or near London. In 1625 he was elected proba-
tioner fellow of Merton College, Oxford ; in
1629 was admitted master of arts, and in the
following year started on his travels. He was
one of the commissioners of Canada in 1632
(Cal State Papers, Colon. Ser. 1574-1660, p.
9). Returning to England with a high reputa-
tion for knowledge and experience, he became
gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I
(LYSOSTS, Environs of London, iii. 591). In
1638 he published < The Lost Lady, a tragi-
comedy/ fol., which is included in the first
and fourth editions of Dodsley's ' Old Plays/
but omitted in the editions of 1780 and 1825.
Wood states that he was sent to Virginia in
1646 ; but this is a mistake, for the commisr-
sion appointing him to the governorship of
the colony (Cal State Papers, Colon. Ser.
1574-1660, p. 321) is dated 9 Aug. 1641.
When the parliamentarians were successful,
Berkeley offered an asylum in Virginia to
gentlemen of the royalist side ; whereupon
the parliament despatched a small fleet to the
colony, and the governor, unable to offer re-
sistance, was forced to resign his authority,
Diit received permission to remain on his own
plantation as a private person. At the Resto-
ration Berkeley was reappointed governor.
Among the State Papers is a letter of King
Charles II for his recall, dated 13 May 1665 ;
but he continued to administer the" affairs
f the colony for the next eleven years. His
secretary, Thomas Ludwell, in a letter dated
24 June 1667, writes to John, Lord Berkeley
>f Stratton, that the governor had resolved
against all entreaties to solicit his return.

few days earlier Berkeley had written a
lesponding letter to Secretary Lord Arling-
on, in which he says that * age and misfor-

Berkenhout

369

Berkenhout

tunes had withered his desires and his hopes.'
Writing from Virginia on 18 July of the
previous year, Ludwell describes the governor
as { pious and exemplary, sober in his conver-
sation, prudent and just in peace, diligent and
valiant in war.' For his careful administra-
tion and for the zeal that he displayed in
checking the Indians (whom he treated with
the utmost severity), he received the honour
of knighthood. Religious tolerance was not
one of his virtues, and the State Papers show
that he put much pressure on the quakers.
As a lawgiver he was esteemed wise and
just. To him, in 1662, Moryson dedicated
the ' Laws of Virginia now in force/ stating
in the dedicatory address that Berkeley was
the author of all the best laws. In 1676 he
Tesigned the governorship and returned to
England, and on 13 July 1677 he was buried
,at Twickenham. An unpublished play, * Cor-
nelia,' 1662, by ' Sir William Bartley,' is as-
cribed in ' Biographia Dramatica ' — and no
•doubt correctly — to Berkeley.

[Wood's Atheme (Bliss), iii. 1111-12 ; Claren-
don's History of the Eebellion, bk. xiii. p. 173 ;
Biographia Dramatica, ed. Stephen Jones ; In-
•dices of the Gal. State Papers, Colon. Ser., Ame-
rican and West Indies, 1574-1660, 1661-8; Hist.
Commiss. Report, iv. 47, 100, 237, vii. 467, 493;
A Perfect Description of Virginia, 1649.1

A. H. B.

BERKENHOUT, JOHN (1780 P-1791),

physician, naturalist, and miscellaneous wri-
ter, was born about 1730 at Leeds, and re-
ceived the rudiments of his education at the
grammar school of that town. His father, a
merchant and native of Holland, in order to
train him for a commercial career, sent him
at an early age to Germany, that he might
acquire a knowledge of foreign languages.
After spending some years in Germany he ac-
•companied some English noblemen on a tour
through Europe. On returning to Germany
he stayed at Berlin in the house of his father's
relative, Baron de Bielfeld, a man distin-
guished in politics and literature. Finding
the prospect of a commercial life distasteful,
Berkenhout became a cadet in a Prussian
infantry regiment, where he was speedily
promoted to the rank of ensign, and after-
wards of captain. In 1756, war being de-
clared between England and France, he
quitted the Prussian service, and received a
commission in an English regiment. At the
close of the war in 1760 he entered Edinburgh
University, and applied himself to the study
of medicine. While a student at Edinburgh
he published in 1762 his ( Clavis Anglica
Linguae Botanicse Linnsei : ' a second edition
-of this useful lexicon appeared in 1764, and
VOL. iv.

a third edition in 1766. From Edinburgh
he proceeded to the university of Leyden,
where he took his degree of doctor of physic
on 13 May 1765 (PEACOCK, Index of Leyden
Students}, composing for the occasion a 'Dis-
sertatio Medica inauguralis de Podagra,' which
was dedicated on publication to Baron de
Bielfeld. On his return to England he settled
at Isleworth in Middlesex, and in 1766 pub-
lished his ' Pharmacopoeia Medici.' It is stated
in Davy's 'Suffolk Collections' (xc. 403) that
he practised for some time as a physician at
Bury St. Edmunds ; but no date is mentioned.
In 1769 appeared the first volume of ' Outlines
of the Natural History of Great Britain ; ' the
second volume following in 1770, and the
third in 1771. The complete work was re-
published in 1773 in three volumes, and a re-
vised edition in two volumes appeared in
1788 under the title of ' A Synopsis of the
Natural History of Great Britain.' His next
publication was Dr. Cadogan's ' Dissertation
on the Gout, examined and refuted,' 1771.
The work in which his fame chiefly rests is
his ' Biographia Literaria, or a Biographical
History of Literature, containing the lives of
English, Scotch, and Irish authors, from the
dawn of letters in these kingdoms to the pre-
sent time, chronologically and classically ar-
ranged,' vol. i., 1777, 4to. This is a book
which may still be consulted with advantage ;
the information, if somewhat scanty, is fairly
accurate, the style is pleasant, and the criti-
cism shrewd. In the preface Berkenhout ac-
knowledges his indebtedness to George Stee-
vens, the Shakespearean commentator, who
supplied him with information concerning the
lives of the poets. Throughout the work the
author loses no opportunity of displaying his
hostility to all systems of dogmatic theology,
and is loud in his praises of Voltaire. The
first volume goes down to the end of the
sixteenth century ; the work was never
continued. In 1778 Berkenhout was sent
by government with some commissioners to
America. Congress would not allow them
to proceed beyond New York, but Berkenhout
contrived to reach Philadelphia. Here he
stayed for some time without interference on
the part of the authorities ; but at length,
suspicion arising that he was tampering with
some of the leading citizens, he was thrown
into prison. After effecting his escape or re-
lease he rejoined the commissioners at New
York, came back to England, and was re-
warded with a pension for his services. In
1780 he published ' Lucubrations on Ways
and Means, inscribed to Lord North,' a pro-
posal for the imposition of certain taxes.
Some of the suggestions contained in this
pamphlet were adopted by Lord North, others

Berkley

370

Berkley

subsequently by Pitt. His ' Essay on the Bite
of a Mad Dog ' appeared in 1783 ; < Sympto-
matology ' in 1784. Berkenhout's last work
was ' Letters on Education to his Son at the
University/ 1790. Written in an easy style
and free from affectation or pedantry, these |
letters are agreeable reading. The author
comments severely on the ' Gothic system ' of
fagging in public schools, and complains, but
in no unkindly spirit, of the obstinate adhe-
rence of our universities to ancient customs.
Berkenhout died on 3 April 1791 at Bessels-
leigh near Oxford, whither he had gone for j
change of air. He was a man of singularly !
versatile abilities. To his deep knowledge of
natural history, botany, and chemistry was '
joined an extensive acquaintance with clas- j
sical and modern literature. He translated |
from the Swedish language Count Tessin's
letters to Gustavus III (Letters from an Old
Man to a Young Prince, translated from the
Swedish, 1756). He was familiar with the
French, German, Dutch, and Italian lan-
guages, was a good mathematician, and is said
to have been skilled in music and painting.
In addition to the works already mentioned
he published l Treatise on Hysterical and Hy-
pochondriacal Diseases, from the French of
Dr. Pomme,' 1777. In 1779 he edited a
revised edition of Campbell's 'Lives of the
Admirals.' He also issued proposals for a
history of Middlesex, including London, but
he did not carry out his project.

[European Magazine, 1788, p. 156; Gent.
Mag. Ixi. 388, 485 ; Davy's Suffolk Collections,
xe, 403-5 ; Watt's Bibl. Angl.; Works.]

A. H. B.

BERKLEY, JAMES JOHN (1819-
1862), civil engineer, was born at Holloway
on 21 Oct. 1819. He was educated at King's
College, London, and articled in 1836 to Mr.
"Wicksteed, C.E., but soon entered the office
of Mr. G. P. Bidder. In 1839 Berkley began
his real pupilage under Robert Stephenson,
whose intimate friendship he enjoyed to the
end of his life. During his period of training
he was constantly employed by Stephenson
in writing reports on works and arbitra-
tions. Stephenson formed a high opinion of
Berkley, and obtained for him an appoint-
ment as chief resident engineer of the Churnet
and Trent Valley railways. At the end of
1849, on the strong recommendation of Robert
Stephenson, Brunei, Cubitt, Rennie, Bidder,
and other eminent engineers, Berkley was
appointed chief resident engineer of the
Great Indian Peninsula Railway, and in this
capacity he constructed the first line of rail-
way that was operied in India. In January
1850 he left England for India. Having first

decided on a scheme for the construction of
a short line of thirty-three miles from Bombay
to Callian, he turned his attention to the ex-
tensions of the railway, and especially to the
great work involved in carrying the line over
the Western Ghats Mountains, and designed
two great inclines ascending mountains more
than 2,000 feet high— the Bhore Ghat and
the Thul Ghat. In 1852 the surveys were
begun, and four years were spent in survey-
ing the Bhore Ghat, On 16 April 1853 the
first twenty miles of the line from Bombay
to Tanna were opened for public traffic, thus
initiating the Indian railway system. In 1 856"
the north-eastern line by the Thul Ghat was
sanctioned by the Indian government, thus
completingthe Great IndianPeninsulasystem
projected by Berkley, comprising a total
length of 1,237 miles, and forming a grand
trunk communication by the north-eastern
line between Bombay, Calcutta, and the-
north-west, and by the south-eastern line
between Bombay and Madras, including also
an important line to Nagpore.

In all these operations Berkley evinced
the highest technical skill, firmness, and tact.
He was a zealous advocate of the contract
system, then regarded with some suspicion
by the government, and he was strongly in
favour of the employment of native agency.
This gained him great popularity with the-
natives of Bombay. On his return to Eng-
land, Robert Stephenson said of him that ' he
had succeeded not only in engineering mat-
ter . . . but in the more difficult task of"
engineering men.' Berkley gave the details
of his great engineering work in an address
to the Mechanics' Institute of Bombay. He-
took an active part in the scientific and other
useful institutions of Bombay, and evinced
always an especial interest in the Mechanicsr
Institute, where a 'f Berkley gold medal ' was
founded in his name. In 1855 he became a
magistrate ; in 1857 a commissioner of the
Bombay Municipal Board, and in 1858 a
member of the Senate of Bombay University.
His health failing, Berkley came in 1856 to
England, but revisited India to see his
cherished work on the Bhore Ghat fully de-
veloped. Compelled, however, by ill-health
to leave India, he returned to England in
April 1861, but his constitution was under-
mined by hard work in a tropical climate,
and he died at Sydenham on 25 Aug. 1862
at the comparatively early age of 42. The
directors of the Great ^Indian Peninsula
Railway passed a resolution at his death,,
mentioning him in terms of the highest
praise, and directing that a tablet to his
memory should be erected in a conspicuous
position on the Bhore Ghat incline, and a

Berksted

371

Bermingham

sum of 3,000/. was raised by the engineers of
the railway staff and others for the erection
of a monument over his grave, and for the
foundation of a Berkley fellowship in his
memory at Bombay University. Berkley was
a great reader, a clear writer, and a good
speaker. He was elected a member of the
Institute of Civil Engineers on 4 Dec. 1855,
and in 1860 his paper, read before the insti-
tute, gained for him the Telford medal and a
council premium of books.

[Gent. Mag. vol. xiii. N.S. 505 ; Inst. Civil
Engineers' Proceedings, vols. xv. xix. xx. and
xxii.] R. H.

BERKSTED, BIRKSTED, or
BURGHSTED, STEPHEN (d. 1287),
bishop of Chichester, was chaplain of Richard
Wych, bishop of Chichester (d. 1253), and
was himself consecrated to the same see
24 Sept. 1262. He was poorer than the other
canons of the church, and his election is said
to have been due to private influence. In the
first year of Berksted's episcopate the church
of Chichester sent a deputation to Rome,which
secured the canonisation of Bishop Richard.
Berksted is described as an exceedingly simple
and innocent man (WYKES). He was a strong
partisan of the Earl of Leicester. On the
eve of the battle of Lewes the earl sent him
to make a last attempt to come to terms with
the king, bidding him, it is said, choose men
learned in the faith and in the canon law
to settle the conditions of peace (Political
Songs, p. 81). The bishop's proposals were
scornfully rejected, and the next day, 14 May
1264, the two armies met in battle. On
23 June the bishop and the Earls of Leicester
and Gloucester were chosen by the barons,
and received authority from the king, to
nominate a council of nine, by whom the
royal power was to be exercised. Havingjoined
with the barons and certain other bishops in
forbidding the papal legate, the Cardinal
Guido Falcodi, to land in England, Berksted
and the other bishops of the baronial party
were summoned to appear before the legate
at Boulogne. The bishops excused them-
selves on the plea that they were not allowed
to leave the country, and sent their proctors j
instead. The cardinal having refused to ad-
mit their excuse, they appealed to the pope, I
and their conduct was approved by the whole j
body of the clergy in a council held at I
Reading. Some of the bishops, however, and
Berksted, as it seems, among them, volun-
tarily crossed the Channel in the hope of
making peace. They were ordered to publish
the sentence of excommunication against
Earl Simon and his party. On their return
the men of the Cinque Ports boarded their

ship, and with many threats tore the papal
rescript in pieces and threw it into the sea,
the bishops looking on without displeasure.
In 1266, after the overthrow of the baronial
party, the cardinal-legate Ottobuoni cited
Berksted and the other bishops who had up-
held Earl Simon to appear at Westminster.
There he pronounced sentence of suspension
on them, and commanded Berksted and the
bishops of London and Winchester, who ap-
pealed to the pope, to appear at Rome within
three months. Berksted appears to have
been obliged to remain at Rome until the
end of Henry's reign. On his return he
grievously offended King Edward by his in-
discretion in bringing with him Amauri of
Montfort, who was in orders ; for the king
was very wroth at the murder of his cousin,
Henry of Almain. For this reason probably
Edward, in 1272, seized the temporalities of
the see of Chichester. The bishop, however,
must after a while have made his peace ; for
on 16 June 1276 he assisted in the king's
presence at the translation of the body of
St. Richard by Archbishop Kilwardby. Dur-
ing the later years of his life Berksted suffered
from blindness. He died 30 Oct. 1287.

[Annals, Winton, Waverley, Dunstaple,
Wykes. Oseney, Annales Monastici, i.-v. ed.
Luard, R.S. ; Matt. West. ; Liber de Antiquis
Legibus, Camden Soc. 84, 157-9; Political
Songs, Camden Soc. 81-2 ; Eymer's Fcedera, i.
444 ; Prothero's Barons' War ; Pauli's Simon de
Montfort.] W. H.

BERMINGHAM, SIB JOHN, EAKL or
LOTJTH (d. 1328), was the second son of Piers
or Peter, third lord of Athenry. In 1312
he was knighted by Mortimer, the viceroy,
for assisting to expel the De Lacys from
Meath. In 1318 he was appointed com-
mander-in-chief of the English forces in
Ireland, and marched north with about 1,500
men against Edward Bruce, whose career in
Ireland had been up to this a continued suc-
cess, and who had been acknowledged king
by the Irish a little time before. Bruce was
encamped near Faughard, two miles from
Dundalk, and Bermingham encamped within
half a mile of him. There is a tradition that
on the day before the battle Bermingham
entered Bruce's camp disguised as a friar,
and solicited and got alms from Bruce him-
self. Against the earnest advice of his gene-
rals Bruce engaged, and the battle was fought
on Sunday, 14 Oct. 1318. Bruce's army was
utterly routed ; Bruce himself was killed
by John de Maupas, one of Bermingham's
knights, and Bermingham slew in single
combat Lord Alan Steward, Bruce's general
of the field. For this service King Edward

B B 2

Bermingham

372

Bermingham

created Bermingham earl of Louth, and
granted him the manor of Ardee in the same
county. In 1321 he was appointed lord
justice of Ireland, and next year he met
King Edward at Carlisle to aid him against
the Scots. In 1325 he founded the monas-
tery of Tethmoy, since called from him j
Monasteroris (see below), near Edenderry in
King's County, the ruins of which are still j
to be seen. He was killed at Braganstown !
near Ardee in 1328, in a fierce quarrel that
took place between some of the Anglo-Irish
families of Oriel ; and many eminent persons,
both native Irish and Anglo-Irish, were killed
with him. The ' Four Masters ' record tne |
event in these words : ' Sir John MacFeorais,
earl of Louth, the most vigorous, puissant, ;
and hospitable of the English in Ireland,
was treacherously slain by his own people,
namely by the English of Oriel. "With him ;
also were slain many others of the English
and Irish, amongst whom was blind O'Carroll,
chief minstrel of Ireland and Scotland in
his time.'

The Berminghams are called in Gaelic
MacFeorais (pron. MacOris), i.e. the son of
Feoras or Pierce Bermingham, one of the
chief heads of the family settled in Ireland.

[Lodge's Peerage, by Archdall, iii. 33 ; Four
Masters, A.D. 1318, 1328; Gilbert's Viceroys
of Ireland, pp. 144-6; Joyce's Irish Names of
Places, vol. ii. c. viii.] P. W. J.

BERMINGHAM, MICHEL (1685-/.
1750), medical writer, was born in London
in 1685, and became a member of the Aca-
demy of Surgery at Paris. He published :
1. Some documents in French and English
belonging to the Hospital of Incurables in
Paris, London, 1720, 4to. 2. ' Maniere de
bien nourrir et soigner les enfants nouveau-
n6s,' 1750, 4to. 3. A translation of the
statutes of the doctors regent of the Faculty
of Paris. An account by him of an excision
of the parotid glands (1736) is preserved
among the Birch MSS. (No. 4433, art. 155).
There is an engraved portrait of him.

[Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 232 ;
Musgrave's Adversaria ; Ayscough's Cat. of the
Sloane and Birch MSS. 440, 521.] T. C.

BERMINGHAM, PATRICK (d. 1532),
judge, was a native of Ireland, and succeeded
to the estates of his brother John in that coun-
try in 1483. He was appointed chief justice
of the king's bench in Ireland on 2 Dec. 1513
(Pat. 5 Hen. VIII, pt. ii. m. 4), an office
which he held until his death. In 1521 his
patent of office, which was during pleasure, was
renewed, and at the same time he obtained
license to leave Ireland when he pleased. In
this year he also received a grant of the

chancellorship of the green wax of the ex-
chequer in Ireland, in succession to Nicholas
St. Lawrence, Lord Howth. In 1520 and
following years his signature as one of the
council is appended to the letters from the
Earl of Surrey and Earl of Ormond, the
king's deputies in Ireland ; and at a later
period (in 1528), when the Earl of Kildare,
then deputy, had been sent for to England,
and the country was disturbed by the rebellion
of the Earl of Desmond and O'Conor, the
responsibility of preserving order rested prin-
cipally with him and Hugh Inge, archbishop
of Dublin.

His death must have occurred late in 1532,
as both his offices were filled up in January
1533, the judgeship being given to Sir Bar-
tholomew Dillon, and the chancellorship of
the green wax to Thomas Cusake. He left
one son, William, who married Margaret,
the daughter of Thomas St. Lawrence, justice
of the King's Bench in Ireland in the reigns
of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary.

[Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII,
vols. i. iii. iv. vi. ; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland,
iii. 188; Pat. 1 Edw. V, m. 7.] C. T. M.

BERMINGHAM, WILLIAM (d. 1311),
archbishop of Tuam, son of Meiler Berming-
ham, second lord of Athenry, and uncle of
Sir John Bermingham, earl of Louth [q. v.],
was consecrated in 1289. In 1297 began the
celebrated quarrel between him and the Do-
minican friars of Athenry. The archbishop,
by his archdeacon Philip le Brand, held a
visitation at Athenry, at which the friars
were, in the usual course, summoned to ap-
pear. The friars, it seems, claimed exemption
from the visitatorial powers of the arch-
bishop ; only three of them attended the
chapter, and they delivered a protest so
loudly and violently, and abused the arch-
deacon so grossly, that he excommunicated
them. Immediately after the archbishop
issued a proclamation forbidding the people
to give them food or alms, or sell them any-
thing, or enter their church. In this strait
the friars applied to the lord chancellor, who
issued a mandamus directing the archbishop
to withdraw his proclamation forthwith.
The archbishop's reply not being satisfactory,
they proceeded against him through the at-
torney-general for his proclamation, and com-
pelled him to give heavy security that he
would cause the archdeacon to revoke all he
had unduly done. They next took legal
proceedings against the archdeacon, laying
damages at 1,OOOZ. ; but the defendant, though
pleading justification, did not appear on the
day of trial, on which the sheriff issued a
distraint against him. Here we lose sight of

Bernal

373

Bernal

the case, and how it ended we cannot tell ;
at any rate it is clear that the friars had the
best of the whole quarrel.

About this time the see of Annadown, not
far from Tuam, happened to become vacant,
and Archbishop Bermingham attempted to
unite it with the see of Tuam. But the dean
and chapter of Annadown resisted the at-
tempt, and in 1306 elected a Franciscan friar
named Gilbert to the vacant bishopric. The
archbishop used every effort to carry his point,
and even went to Avignon to lay his com-
plaint before the pope. But here also he was
defeated, for on his return he found that
Gilbert had been confirmed in his bishopric
by a decree from the primatial court of
Armagh. The archbishop died in 1311, and
was buried in the abbey of Athenry, near his
father Meiler.

In the ' Annals of Lough Key ' this prelate
is called William MacFeorais ; for which
change of name see BEKMHSTGHAM, JOHN,
earl of Louth.

[Harris s Ware, Bishops, 608 ; Burke's Ca-
tholic Archbishops of Tuam. 30 ; Annals of Lough
Key, A.D. 1288, 1290, 1307, 1312 ] P. W. J.

BERNAL, RALPH (d. 1854), politician
and art collector, was sprung from a race of
Jewish descent and Spanish origin. He was
entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, where
he took his degrees of B.A. and M.A. in
1806 and 1809 respectively. In 1810 he was
called to the bar as a member of Lincoln's
Inn, but he inherited a large property in the
West Indies, and preferred a parliamentary to
a legal life. For thirty-four years (1818-52)
he had a seat in the House of Commons,
and during that period spent 66,000/. in
election contests. He represented the city
of Lincoln from 1818 to 1820, and Rochester
from 1820 to 1841. In the latter year he
contested the constituency of Weymouth,
and was seated on petition. After repre-
senting that borough from 1841 to 1847 he
returned to Rochester, and continued to sit
for it until he retired from political life in
1852. Throughout his parliamentary career
he was prominent in the ranks of the whigs,
and from about 1830 to 1850 he acted as
chairman of committees. His speech in the
house (19 May 1826) on the slave-trade, on
appeal for delay on behalf of the West Indian
interest, was printed as a pamphlet. Several
of his contributions appeared in the Annuals
and Keepsakes of the day, and his inaugural
address, as president of the British Archaeo-
logical Society in 1853, on some antiquities
in Rochester and on the Medway, is in the
ninth volume of its * Journal,' pp. 201-14. But
it was as an art collector in glass, plate,

: china, and miniatures, that he was best known.

| On his death an attempt was made to secure
his collections for the nation, but it failed,
and they were sold in 1855. Two catalogues
of his works of art, with a few introductory
lines by J. R. Planche, in eulogy of Bernal's
taste and knowledge, were issued. There
were in all 4,294 lots, and the sale realised
nearly 71, OOO/. Bernal died at Eaton Square
on 26 Aug. 1854. He was twice married
and had issue by each wife. His first wife,
Anne Elizabeth, only daughter of Richard
Samuel White, of New Ormond Street, Lon-
don, whom he married on 10 April 1806, died
at Bryanston Square, London, on 10 July 1823,
from her clothes catching fire when she was
weak through a confinement. His second
wife was a daughter of Dr. Henry White, R.N.,
the surgeon of Chatham dockyard.

[Bagenal's Life of R. Bernal Osborne ; Gent.
Mag. 1823, pt. ii. 92, 1854, pt. ii. 628; Return
of Members of Parliament; Picciotto's Anglo-
Jewish History, 1 57-8 ; Sir Henry Cole's Bio-
graphy, 1885, i. 289-90.] W. P. C.

BERNAL OSBORNE, RALPH (1808-

1882), politician, the eldest son of Ralph
Bernal [q. v.] by his first wife, was born on
i 26 March 1808. He was educated at the Char-
terhouse, and in October 1829 matriculated
at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived
for two years as the son and heir of an opu-
lent landowner, rather than as a hardworking-
student. At that time his father married
again, with the result that his eldest-born
child was taken from the university and sent
into the army as ensign of the 71st regiment.
Not long after he exchanged into the 7th royal
fusiliers, and retained his commission until
his entrance into parliament in 1841. When
Lord Mulgrave, afterwards the Earl of Nor-
manby, was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland,
Ralph Bernal became an extra aide-de-camp
in the viceregal establishment, remaining in
Ireland until 1841 and passing his time chiefly
in the pleasures of society and in the compo-
sition of satirical verses. At the dissolution
in 1841 his dashing manners won a seat at
Chipping Wycombe for the liberal interest
against the influence of Lord Carington, an
event which surprised the political world.
From his first entrance into the House of
Commons he spoke with great vigour, espe-
cially on Irish topics, on behalf of the ad-
herents of advanced liberalism. On 20 Aug.
1844 he married, at St. George's, Hanover
Square, Catherine Isabella, the only child
and heiress of Sir Thomas Osborne, an Irish
baronet, and on 19 Aug. he assumed her
name, being generally known for the rest of
his life as Bernal Osborne. When an appeal

Bernal

374

Bernard

to the country was made in 1847, he had the
honour of being elected for Middlesex, and
his prominence in political life was shown
by the fact that in August 1850 he presided
at the banquet which was given at the Re-
form Club to Lord Palmerston. Though he
was fiercely opposed by the protestant-evan-
gelical party in the county of Middlesex at
the dissolution in 1852, he was re-elected by
a small majority. The post of surveyor-
general of the ordnance had been rejected
by him in December 1851, but on the forma-
tion of the Aberdeen ministry, a year later,
he accepted the place of secretary of the
admiralty, and continued in that position
until the fall of the Palmerston ministry in
1858. In this position he had little oppor-
tunity for display, but immediately on his
freedom from the trammels of office he re-
sumed his old criticisms on his opponents with
such ardour that Mr. Disraeli characterised
his oratory as a i wild shriek of liberty.' From
1857 to 1859 he represented Dover, and on
his defeat in contesting that constituency in
the latter year was out of parliament for a few
months, until he was returned for Liskeard.
His opposition to Lord Palmerston's fortifi-
cations scheme, and his criticism of the action
of the ministry on the Danish question, gave
offence to his Cornish constituents. This
difference was smoothed over for a time, but
widened in 1865, and on his learning that Sir
Arthur Buller, then sitting for Devonport,
had been elected by the liberal party at
Liskeard as their candidate at the coming
general election, he suddenly resigned his
seat in pique only- a week or two before the
dissolution. In the spring of 1866 Bernal
Osborne was engaged in a hotly contested
election at Nottingham, when there was only
a difference of 211 votes between the highest
and the lowest of the four candidates, but
he came out at the top of the poll. Two
years later he was badly defeated in the same
constituency, but the independent party in
the borough defrayed his expenses by a sub-
scription, and gave him a' banquet in the
Exchange Hall in December 1868. His par-
liamentary career was one constant change
of constituency, and Mr. Disraeli once brought
out a burst of laughter by stating in one of
his speeches that Mr. Bernal Osborne had sat
for so many places that he really forgot at
the moment which of them his friend repre-
sented. His next experience was at Water-
ford, which he contested against Sir Henry
Barron in November 1869, but was rejected
by sixteen votes. The sitting member was
unseated on petition, and by a majority of
just half that number Bernal Osborne was
returned amid a scene of popular fury which

he subsequently described in the House of
Commons. He was unsuccessful at the same
city in 1874, and with that defeat his active
political career ceased ; for the future he
devoted himself to the pleasures of social
life. His wife died suddenly at his seat,
Newt own Anner, near Clonmel, 21 June
1880. He himself died at Bestwood Lodge,
the seat of the Duke of St. Albans, on 4 Jan.
1882, and was buried at Bestwood on 10 Jan.
Their issue was two daughters. The elder
sister married Henry Arthur Blake, now go-
vernor-general of the Bahamas; the younger
married, 3 Jan. 1874, the Duke of St. Albans.
Bernal Osborne was for many years one of
the recognised wits of politics. His speeches
at Westminster abounded in telling hits, and
were eagerly welcomed by houses crowded
with an audience impatient to hear him. On
the hustings he was one of the most effective
speakers of his age. Biographical and his-
torical anecdotes he revelled in and freely
used in his political addresses. His failure
to reach those positions which his talents
justified was due to his want of official in-
dustry and to the absence of that sobriety of
judgment which is dear to the average Eng-
lishman. Many of his most popular sayings
are preserved in the columns of the ' Times/
which chronicled his career. Notices of his
life, based on Bagenal's life, appeared in
* Temple Bar,' September 1884, and the ' Fort-
nightly Review,' October 1884.

[Bagenal's Life of Ralph Bernal Osborne, M.P.,
1884; Times, 5 and 11 Jan. 1882; Gent. Mag.
1844, pt. li. 310, 538.] W. P. C.

BERNARD. [See also BARNARD.]

BERNARD (Jl. 865), traveller in Pa-
lestine, called SAPIENS, has hitherto been
strangely treated in books of reference, having
in some cases been made into two persons a
century apart, while in other cases he has
been confounded with one or two namesakes
who lived in the twelfth century. This con-
fusion is due in part to the singular literary
dishonesty of Thomas Dempster, and in part
to the carelessness of succeeding writers.
None of the three persons whose histories
have been thus intermixed can Avith certainty
be affirmed to have belonged in any way to
Great Britain ; but the fact that ' Bernardus
Sapiens/ under one date or another, has com-
monly been ranked among British worthies,
affords some justification for attempting in
this place to correct the erroneous state-
ments that have been made with regard to
him.

William of Malmesbury (Gest. Reg. ed.
Hardy, ii. 562) quotes from a description of

Bernard

375

Bernard

Palestine by a certain Bernard the Monk,
"who, he says, travelled in that country in
870. There is no evidence that the writer
thus referred to was of British origin ; in
fact, as will be shown, there are strong
grounds for believing the contrary. Dempster,
however, whose patriotic object it was to
swell (by fair means or foul) the catalogue
of Scottish worthies, boldly asserts that he
was abbot of Holywood in Dumfriesshire.
This is obviously a fabrication, as there is no
real proof of the existence of any abbey at
Holywood before the Premonstratensian foun-
dation there in the twelfth century. It should
be observed that Dempster adopts Malmes-
bury's date of 870 for Bernard's journey. He
goes on to ascribe to him a treatise in ten
books, entitled <De Locis Terrae Sanctse.'
This ' ingens volumen,' as Dempster calls it,
is a figment of his own. The real work
-quoted by Malmesbury is still extant, and is
a brief tract of only a few pages. It was
printed by Mabillon from a manuscript at
Rheims, and two other manuscripts exist,
one at Lincoln College, Oxford, and the other
in the British Museum. Mabillon's text .has
been reprinted in Migne's * Patrologia,' and
that of the British Museum manuscript has
been edited by M. Francisque Michel. The
volume of ' Early Travels in Palestine,' pub-
lished in Bohn's ' Antiquarian Library,' in-
cludes an English translation of this ' Itine-
rary,' founded on a comparison of the two
printed texts. According to Mabillon's read-
ing, Bernard distinctly says that he was born
in France ; but as this passage is wanting in
the London manuscript it may possibly be
•an interpolation. The author's French origin,
however, is rendered probable by the state-
ment, common to both texts, that on his re-
turn from Palestine he proceeded to the
monastery of Mont St. Michel in Brittany.
From circumstances mentioned in the ' Itine-
rary,' it is certain that he set out from Rome
between 863 and 867, so that the date given
by Malmesbury is approximately correct.
The copy used by Mabillon, however, con-
tains neither date nor author's name; and
the other manuscripts, by an error of the
scribe or an interpolation, assign the com-
mencement of the journey to the year 970.
The heading of the Oxford manuscript, more-
over, designates the author as ' Bernard us
iSapiens.'

Pits, who had seen the Oxford manuscript,
.says that Bernard ' Sapiens,' an Englishman, !
wrote a work, ' De ipsa Urbe Hierusalem et ;
•de naultis adjacentibus Locis,' in one book,
-* the beginning of which is anno 970.' This
statement was misunderstood by Dempster, ;
who, after his manner, amplified it from his '

| own imagination, saying that the work in
question was a history of Jerusalem from
| the year 970 to the death of Godfrey (A.D.
1100). Dempster's misinterpretation of the
| date quoted by Pits led him to the conclusion
that Bernard ' Sapiens ' (who thus becomes a
different person from Bernard the Monk)
; belonged to the twelfth century ; and he
I goes on to say that Bernard was a native of
1 Scotland, who was banished from his country
during the war with England in the reign
of Malcolm III (in the l Menologium ' he
makes him confessor to Queen Margaret !),
was present at the Council of Clermont in
1095, and was sent by Pope Urban II to
preach the crusade in Scotland, where he
remained until 1105. It is just possible
that Dempster's account of this Scottish Ber-
nard may be derived from some authentic
source, but it is more likely that the whole
is pure invention. Even on the former as-
sumption, however, Dempster is clearly
wrong when he proceeds to identify this
Scottish preacher of the crusade with the
well-known Bernard of Antioch. The latter
was a native of Valence in Dauphiny, and ac-
companied the crusading army in the capacity
of chaplain to the papal legate, Adhemar,
bishop of Puy. On his arrival in Syria he
was made bishop of Arthesium, and in 1100
became the first Latin patriarch of Antioch.
He died in 1 135, at an advanced age. The story
of Dempster's perversions is still not quite com-
plete. Through careless reading of his autho-
rities he had at first stated that Bernard was
promoted from the see of Arthesium to that
of Edessa. Afterwards discovering his mis-
take, he ingeniously endeavoured to conceal
it by falsely asserting that Bernard fell into
disgrace with Bohemond, was deposed from
the patriarchate, and ended his days as arch-
bishop of Edessa.

Besides the ' History of Jerusalem,' Demp-
ster attributes to Bernard two works, viz.
' Ad Suffraganeos suos' (one book), and 'De
Bello Sacro ' (seven books). The manuscript
of the latter is stated by him, on the autho-
rity of Jac. Spiegelius and Jo. Chelydonius,
to be preserved in the Imperial Library at
Vienna. It is not mentioned, however, in
the Abbe" Migne's catalogue of manuscripts
in that library relating to the history of the
crusades.

Bishop Tanner added to this mass of confu-
sion by supposing that Dempster's two articles
referred to the same person, whom he places
in the twelfth century ; and his account has
been followed in some later books of refer-
ence. The ' Nouvelle Biographic Universelle/
however, has a fairly correct article on the
author of the * Itinerary,' whom it describes

Bernard

376

Bernard

as a French monk of the ninth century. Un-
fortunately the same work also contains an
article on an imaginary ' Bernard of England,
called the Wise,' who is said to have visited
Palestine in 970.

[Dempster's Hist. Eccl. Scot. arts. 171 and
181 ; Dempster's Menologium Scoticum, p. 17;
Accolti De Bell. cont. Barb. (Dempster's preface
and notes), 8 and 175; Pits, De Anglise Scrip-
toribus, 827 ; Walter Cancellarius, in Migne's
Patrologia, civ. 998 ; William of Tyre, ibid. cci.
587 ; Tanner's Hbl. Brit. 97 ; L'Art de verifier
les Dates, ed. Migne, 570 ; Mabillon, Acta SS.
Ord. Bened. iv. 523 ; MS. Cotton, Faust. B. i. 192 ;
Catal. Codd. MSS. Coll. Line. Oxon. 46 (cod. xcvi.
118). H. B.

BERNARD (fi. 1093), of Neufmarche
(de Novo-mercatu), often called in English
•' of Newmarch,' was the son of Geoffrey, son
of Thurcytel, lord of Neufmarche by the
forest of Lions, and of Ada, daughter of
Richard of Hugleville, famous for his faith-
fulness to his duke, William, in the war of
Arques, and a grandson of Richard the Good
by his daughter Papia. Bernard came over
to England with the Conqueror, and his
name appears as a witness to two charters
granted by William to his abbey of Battle.
He married the daughter of Osbern, son of
Richard Fitz Scrob, the Norman lord who
built his castle in Herefordshire before the
Conquest. This marriage led him to settle in
Herefordshire. During the general rebellion
of the Norman lords against William Rufus in
1088 hejoined writh Roger of Lacy, and Ralph
of Mortemer, with the men of Earl Roger
of Shrewsbury, and the confederate lords at
the head of the forces of Herefordshire and
Shropshire, and with a large number of W^elsh
allies harried Worcestershire and threatened
to burn the city of Worcester, to plunder the
minster and take the king's castle. En-
couraged, however, by the exhortations of
their bishop, Wulfstan, the men of Worcester
attacked and routed the rebel army. Later
in the reign Bernard invaded and settled in
Brecheiniog, building his castle on the hill
of Aberhonwy on the site where now stand
the ruins of Brecknock Castle. In 1093
Rhys ap Tewdwr, king of Deheubarth, who
attacked the intruders, was slain, and Bernard
conquered and occupied the three ' cantrevs '
of Brecheiniog. He married, probably as his
second wife, Nest, the daughter of another
Nest, daughter of Gruifydd ap Llewelyn and
his English wrife Ealdgyth,though it is possible
that the elder Nest was the wife of Osbern,
and that her daughter was the only wife of
Bernard. The English called her Anneis, and
hence her name sometimes appears as Agnes.
In the reign of Henry I Bernard founded and

liberally endowed the priory of St. John at
Brecknock, without the walls of the castle^
granting to it lands and tithes in Hereford-
shire, Staffordshire, and Somerset, as well
as in Wales. He made his new foundation
subordinate to Battle Abbey. Hiswdfe and
his principal tenants joined him in this work.
The date of his death is not known. He
was a benefactor to St. Peter's, Gloucester^
and Leland saw a stone in the chapter-house
of that abbey purporting to mark his tomb-
The monks of Brecknock, however, claimed
to have the body of their founder. In spite
of the pious benefaction made by Nest to her
husband's priory, her wickedness caused her
son Mahel the loss of his father's estates.
Mahel caught her lover coming from her, and
beat and mutilated him. In revenge Nest
went to King Henry and swore that her son
was not the son of her husband Bernard-
The king, we are told, allowed himself to be-
swayed by his wishes rather than his judg-
ment. He made Nest's daughter, Sibyl,,
whom she declared to be her husband's child,,
the heiress of all her father's wealth, and
gave her in marriage to Miles Fitz Walter,,
constable of Gloucester, afterwards made-
earl of Hereford by the Empress Matilda.

[Giraldus Cambrensis, Itin. KamLrise, i. 12 ;
Orderic, 606 ; Florence, 1088 ; Anglo-Sax. Ghron.
1088; Brut y Tywysogion, 1091; Chron. d&
Bello, 34, 35 ; Monasticon, i. 545, iii. 264, 245 ;.
Freeman's Norman Conquest, iii. 132, v. 109r
and William Rufus, i. 34, ii. 89-91.] W. H.

BERNARD (d. 1333?), bishop of Sodorr
was chancellor of Scotland during the greater
part of the reign of Robert Bruce. Accord-
ing to Crawfurd, this Bernard is identical
with the Bernard de Linton, parson of Mor-
dington, near Berwick, who swore fealty to
Edward I in 1296 (Instrum. Publica, Banna-
tyne Club, 152). If this be so, the local sur-
name seems to point to Linton in Roxburgh.
as the place of his birth or origin. Craw-
furd also states that he was appointed chan-
cellor of Scotland in 1307 ; but, in any case,,
he held this office the next year, as his name-
is found in this capacity on a document
dated 31 Oct. 1308, witnessing the oath of
fealty taken by the Earl of Ross to Robert,
Bruce. Before many years he was appointed
abbot of Arbroath — probably in 1311, but he-,
may have been performing the duties of this,
office for some time previously, as his pre-
decessor, John of Angus, had in 1309 been
deprived of his preferment for some miscon-
duct, the details of which we are not told..
A certain provision was made for the de-
graded abbot out of the monastic estates ; but
he seems not to have been content with this.,

Bernard

377

Bernard

and to have been constantly alienating the ; victory of Bannockburn, and is appealed to
estates of the abbey as though he were still \ by Bower in the ' Scotichronicon ' as his
abbot. About the same time he appears to authority for the story of the mass performed
have been a prisoner in the hands of the before that battle, and Robert Bruce's speech
English, and letters are still extant written to his men before the engagement. The
by Bernard disclaiming all John's acts, and general tone of Bruce's speech as reported
arranging to pay ransom for him as a simple by Bernard is not dissimilar to the warlike
monk, and not at an abbot's value (Liber lyric of Burns on the subject, which we
Aberbr. i. 279, 287, 288). Under the new doubtless owe indirectly to Bernard through
abbot's rule, Arbroath soon became a favourite j Bower. In connection with Bernard's visit
place for the holding of councils. It was j to Norway it is perhaps worth mentioning
here, and probably by Bernard's own hand, that a Bernard Cancellarius was in 1281 sent
that the whole Scotch nation drew up its by Alexander III to the same country for
famous letter to John XXII, claiming its the purpose of negotiating the marriage of
right to choose its own king, and declaring the king's daughter, Margaret, with Eric,
that even if he failed them — the Robert who But though it seems not to be an unexampled
was at once their Joshua and Maccabaeus — thing for an ecclesiastic to hole1, the chancel-
yet they would elect another king of their j lorship twice, there appears to be no autho-
own race rather than be subject to strangers, j rity for identifying two Bernards separated
Meanwhile Bernard had been busy regulating by so many years (see Acta Parl. Scot. 179,
the financial and other matters connected and cf. BEATSON'S Political Index, ii. 58, for
with the monastic estates ; arrears were Richard de Innerkeithing, chancellor of
claimed from feudatories whose duties were Scotland in 1231 and 1256).
clearly prescribed, money was borrowed, fresh i [Crawfurd's Lives of Officers of Scottish
buildings erected where necessary, and their Crown, 17; Liber de Aberbrothoc, vols. i. andii.;
occupants bound to keep them in repair ; for j Gordon's History of Church of Scotland, iii. 516,
all the business arrangements of the brother- ; &c. ; Spotiswoode (Bannatyne Club), i. 104;
hood seem to have gone to ruin in the years ! Acta Parl. Scot. i. 118, 122, &c. ; Bower and
of disorder. Above all there appears to have j Fordun's Scotichronicon, ii. 248, 249, 279 ;
been a great lack of ready money; but in j Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, i. 59, 114; and
raising it Bernard was careful to make pre- I authorities cited above.]

T. A. A.

BERNARD A SANCTO FEANCISCO. [See

cise though equitable terms with those in
whose favour he granted concessions (Lib.
Aberbr. i. 309). Besides the affairs of the

kingdom and of his own monastery he was BERNARD, CHARLES (1650-1711),
occupied with those of the church at large, j surgeon, was elected surgeon to St. Bartho-
In 1326 he was summoned by the abbot of lomew's Hospital 26 Aug. 1686, upon the
Dunfermline to be present at the next general [ special command of the king (MS. Journal
meeting of the Benedictine order for the pro- I St. Bartholomew's Hospital). He attained
vince of Scotland. At some time, probably the chief surgical practice in London of his
previous to this, and possibly, as has been time, and became sergeant -surgeon to Queen
suggested by Mr. Gordon, in 1312, he seems Anne in the first year of her reign. He was
to have been sent on a mission to Norway, i famous for his skill in operating, and his de-
for letters are extant in which Robert Bruce | sire never to operate unnecessarily. When
grants special protection to Arbroath Abbey | other surgeons maintained that Hoadly, tutor
durin its abbot's absence. In 1324 Bernard of Catharine Hall, must lose his leg, Bernard

was elected bishop of Sod or. In 1328 Wil-
liam de Lamberton granted him a seven years'
pension, secured on the church of Abernethy,

undertook to save it and succeeded ; so that
delighted students of the Bangorian contro-
versy owe whatever pleasure they feel in

in recompense for his seventeen years' abbacy | threading its mazes to the skill of Bernard,
and his labour and expenses in repairing the '< who preserved Hoadly's leg in sufficiently
monastery. The same year there appears ' canonical entirety to permit of his ordination
among the items of Robert de Peebles, j the following year (HoADLY, Works, i. p. viii).
chamberlain of Scotland, a sum of 100/., the j Bernard has left no professional works behind
king's gift towards the expenses of Bernard's | him, but a contemporary essay (The Present
election. The date of his death appears to i State of Chyruiyery, London, 1703) shows
be 1333 (LE NEVE, Fasti Eccles. Anylic., that he had, in advance of his time, formed
ed. Hardy, iii. 324). Besides the practical | from observation a true opinion as to the
business of his life, Bernard was not without frequency of a fatal recurrence after the re-
some pretensions to literature. He wrote a moval of malignant growths. He was master
poem in Latin hexameters celebrating the j of the Barber Surgeons' Company in 1703,

Bernard

378

Bernard

and a fine portrait of him hangs in their hall.
The sheriff of London having neglected to
deliver the bodies of criminals for dissection,
Bernard, while master, proceeded against him
and obtained his dismissal (manuscript copy
of record at Barbers' Hall). His library,
which he collected with regard to the beauty
as well as the intrinsic merit of the books,
was sold after his death (Bibliotheca Ber-
nardiana). Swift, who was one of his friends,
expresses in the ' Journal to Stella ' a wish to
go and look at the library before it was sold,
and afterwards tells how he attended the
sale and bought nothing. Bernard, perhaps
owing to the dying regrets of his colleague,
Dr. Francis Bernard [q. v.], made notes on the
blank leaves as to the author or edition of his
books, and, unlike the physician, paid great
attention to their condition and binding.
Books were his relaxation and delight, and
no surgeon in England before his time had
been so learned as he. He had a great prac-
tice, and was respected in his profession.
Bernard was a tory and high churchman.
His daughter married Dr. William Wagstaffe,
afterwards physician to St. Bartholomew's
Hospital.

[Preface to Wagstaffe's Works.] N. M.

BERNARD, DANIEL. [See under
BERNARD, JOHN.]

BERNARD, EDWARD (1638-1696),
critic and astronomer, was born at Perry St.
Paul, near Towcester, in Northamptonshire,
2 May 1638. His father, Joseph Bernard,
who was probably curate of the parish (WooD,
Athence (Bliss), iv. 703). died when he was
scarcely six years old. 'Placed under the
-care of an uncle living in London, he entered
Merchant Taylors' School in 1648, and left
it, on his election to a scholarship at St.
John's College, Oxford, in June 1655, a pro-
ficient in Greek and Latin, and not altogether
ignorant of Hebrew. The studious sobriety
of his habits, combined with the wise tutorial
guidance of Thomas Wyatt, held him aloof
from the civil and religious dissensions then
rife at Oxford, and in a few years he ac-
cumulated a large stock of varied learning.
Besides history, philosophy, and philology,
he studied the Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and
Coptic languages, and applied himself to ma-
thematics under the celebrated Dr. Wallis,
attracted (for his scientific tastes had at all
times an archaeological character) by the
numerous Arabic treatises on the subject
contained in the Bodleian and other libraries.
In 1658 he became, in due course, a fellow
•of his college ; in 1667 he was chosen proctor
of the university. He took degrees of B.A.

and MA. respectively, 12 Feb. 1659 and
16 April 1662 ; graduated B.D. 9 June 1668,
and D.D. 30 Oct. 1684.

In December 1668 he went to Leyden for
the purpose of inspecting the oriental manu-
scripts bequeathed to that university by
Joseph Scaliger and Levin Warner, as well
as the Arabic version of the fifth, sixth, and
seventh books of the Conies of Apollonius,
brought by James Golius from the East and
preserved by his heirs. These (of which the
Greek was no longer extant) he obtained
permission to copy, and proposed to publish
with a Latin translation ; but the design
received little countenance, and was left to
Halley to execute in 1710. Two complete
Arabic copies of the first seven books of the
same work, one with the notes of Eutocius,
were afterwards found by Bernard at Oxford ;
an edition in conjunction with Dr. Barrow,
talked of in 1671-2, came, however, to
nothing (see Correspondence of Scientific
Men, I 196, ii. 217).

His visit to Leyden brought him into
contact and correspondence with learned men
abroad ; and his temper being as obliging as
his erudition was extensive, his aid was on
all sides asked and obtained by those en-
gaged in bringing to light the literary relics
of antiquity. On his return to Oxford in
1669, Wren, having been appointed surveyor-
general of the royal works, nominated him
his deputy in the Savilian chair of astronomy,
and he was sworn in as his successor, 9 April
1673. The acceptance of this post, which,
by the institution of its founder, excluded
other employments, involved the abandon-
ment of a promising ecclesiastical career.
Dr. Peter Mews, president of St. John's
College, had, in 1672, presented him to the
valuable living of Cheam in Surrey, and in
the February following, on his elevation to
the see of Bath and Wells, named him one
of his chaplains, with a claim to preferment
in the diocese. Bernard, however, whose
tastes were strictly academic, resigned both
the living and the chaplaincy in order to
secure the Savilian professorship. He was
in the same year (1673) elected a fellow of
the Royal Society.

A movement was about this time originated
by him at Oxford for re-editing ancient ma-
thematical writers. He ransacked libraries,
collected manuscripts and editions, and di-
gested the available works into a scheme
published by Dr. Smith in 1704 as an ap-
pendix to his ' Vita Bernardi,' with the
title ' Veterum Mathematicoriiin Grrecorum,
Latinorum, et Arabum Synopsis.' The con-
tents of fourteen volumes were to be em-
braced in it, and a list to be added of some

Bernard

379

Bernard

Greek writers preserved, it was believed, only
in Syriac or Arabic versions. Beyond the
printing of a few specimen sheets of Euclid no
part of this comprehensive plan was realised.

On the recommendation of the Earl of
Arlington, Charles II appointed Bernard, in
1670, tutor to his sons the Dukes of Grafton
.and Northumberland, then living in Paris
with their mother, the Duchess of Cleveland.
The post proved an uncongenial one. His
retiring disposition and erudite pursuits ren-
dered him an object of ridicule in gay society,
-and he resumed his antiquarian studies at
Oxford, after about a year's absence, saddened
by his novel experiences, though consoled by
the acquisition of many rare books, as well
.as of the friendship of such men as Mabillon,
Dacier, and Bouillaud.

In pursuance of a plan earlier concerted
with Dr. Fell, bishop of Oxford, he now
undertook an edition of Josephus, to be issued
at the expense of the university ; but diver-
gences of opinion as to the mode of editing
occasioned its suspension. Resumed a few
years later at .the instance of three Oxford
booksellers, the design was again interrupted
owing to the insufficiency of their means to
•cover the required outlay. Hence the couplet
in Clement Barksdale's [q. v.] doggerel verses
on ' Authors and Books' (Oxford, 168-4) :

Savilian Bernard's a right learned man ;
Josephus he will finish when he can.

Wearied with controversy, he got no fur-
ther than the first four books and part of the
fifth book of the Jewish Antiquities, with
the first and part of the second of the De-
-struction of Jerusalem, which were printed
.at the Sheldonian Theatre in 1686-7, and
published in folio in 1700. His erudite notes
were incorporated, with ample acknowledg-
ment of their value, in Havercamp's com-
plete edition of Josephus (Leyden, 1726).

During the sale of Nicholas Heinsius's
library at Leyden in 1683 Bernard competed
successfully for some of its choicest rarities,
and on the same occasion applied in vain for
a professorship of oriental languages in the
university of Leyden. The duties of his post
at Oxford had now become positively dis-
tasteful to him. through the increasing pre-
dominance of the critical and linguistic
faculties, and he would gladly have resigned
in favour of Halley or Flamstead had any
•other suitable provision been available. This,
however, was not found until 1691, when,
-on his presentation to the rich living of
Brightwell in Berkshire, he vacated the Sa-
vilian chair after an occupancy of eighteen
years, and was succeeded by David Gregory
of Edinburgh.

Bernard retained his residence at Oxford,
from which his new rectory was not above
nine miles distant. He married, 6 Aug.
1693, Eleanor Ho well, a young and beautiful
lady descended from a once princely family
in Cardiganshire, with whom he lived happily
during the remainder of his life. In 1692
and subsequent years (see Phil. Trans, xviii.
160) he was engaged in supervising the pre-
paration of a catalogue of the manuscripts
in the United Kingdom, and himself drew
up a comprehensive index to its contents. It
was published at Oxford in 1697 in two folio
volumes entitled ' Catalogi librorum manu-
scriptorum Anglise et Hiberniae in. unum
collect! cum Indice alphabetic©,' and is still
consulted.

Although suffering from a painful infirmity,
Bernard attended, in September 1696, the
sale of the Golian manuscripts, purchasing
many on behalf of Dr. Narcissus Marsh,
archbishop of Dublin. On this, his third visit
to Leyden, he was accompanied by his wife.
On his return to Oxford in the end of Novem-
ber he fell into a consumption, and closed a
blameless life of fifty-eight years, 12 Jan.
1697. He was interred with much state in
the chapel of his college, where a monument
was erected to his memory bearing the in-
scription, dictated by himself, l Habemus cor
Bernardi.' Wood wrote of him (Atli. Oxon.
iv. 702) : l He is a person admirably well
read in all kinds of ancient learning, in as-
tronomy and mathematics, a curious critic, an
excellent Grecian, Latinist, chronologer, and
orientalian.' And Huet, bishop of Avranches,
declared in 1718 that 'few of his time equalled
him in learning, almost none in modesty'
(Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinen-
tibus, p. 315).

Amongst his writings are: 1. 'De men-
suris et ponderibus antiquis libri tres ' (Ox-
ford, 1688), an enlarged and amended version
of a letter prefixed to Dr. Pocock's f Com-
mentary on Hosea ' (1685). 2. ' Epistola ad
Jac. Gronovium de Fragmento Stephani
Byzantini de Dodone ' (Lugd. Batav. 1681,
4to). 3. 'Private Devotions ' (Oxford, 1689).
4. < Orbis eruditi literatura a charactere
Samaritico deducta,' exhibiting the alpha-
bets of divers ancient peoples, printed on
one broad sheet in 1689. 5. ( Etymologicon
Britannicum,' appended to Hickes's t In-
stitutiones Grammatics ' (Oxford, 1689).
6. * Chronologies Samaritanse Synopsis,' pub-
lished by Ludolphus in i Act a Eruditorum
Lipsiensia,' April 1691. 7. ' Veterum tes-
timonia de Versione LXXII Interpretum/
printed with Dr. Aldrich's edition of ' Aristese
Historia ' (Oxford, 1692). 8. ' Inscriptions
Grsecae Palmyrenorum,' a translation and

Bernard

380

Bernard

commentary on the inscriptions copied at
Palmyra in 1691 by William Halifax (see
Phil. Trans, xix. 83). 9. « The Longitudes,
Latitudes, Right Ascensions, and Declina-
tions of the chiefest fixt Stars, according to
the best Observers/ Phil. Trans, xiv. 567.
10. ' The Observations of the Ancients con-
cerning the Obliquity of the Zodiac,' ib.
p. 721. 11. 'Observations of the Solar
Eclipse 2 July 1684 at Oxford,' ib. p. 741
(his sole recorded astronomical observation).
Besides these he left a number of works in
manuscript, including a voluminous * Chro-
nicon omnis aevi' (for details see SMITH'S
Vita Bernardi, p. 63, and Biog. Brit. i. 757).
These, with the choicest of his books, many
annotated by Scaliger, Heinsius, &c., were
purchased for the Bodleian from his widow
for 340/. (see Humphrey Wanley's account
of the transaction in Ath. Oxon. iv. 707).
The rest of his library was sold by auction.

[Vita clarissimi et doctissimi viri Edwardi
Bernardi, scriptore Thoma Smitho, London, 1704
(appended to Bishop Huntingdon's Epistles) ;
Ath. Oxon. (ed. Bliss), iv. 701 ; Biog. Brit. ; Watt's
Bibl.Brit. ; General Dictionary, iii. 247; Kigaud's
Correspondence of Scientific Men. passim .1

A. M. C.

BERNARD, FRANCIS (1627-1698),
physician, was incorporated M.D. at Cam-
bridge in 1678, having received his degree
earlier in the same year from the Archbishop
of Canterbury. He became a fellow of the
College of Physicians in 1687, having been
nominated by James II's charter, and he had
been elected an honorary fellow seven years
earlier (MuNK, Coll. of Phys. i. 449). H6 was
elected assistant-physician to St. Bartholo-
mew's Hospital 20 Nov. 1678 (MS. Journal
St. Bartholomew's Hospital), was appointed
physician-in-ordinary to James II, and died
9 Feb. 1698 (monument in St. Botolph, Al-
dersgate). His house was in Little Britain,
near St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and it con-
tained a great library. Besides the learned
languages, Dr. Bernard knew French, Spanish,
and Italian, and it was said that he had read
through all the volumes of his vast collection.
Bernard's memory was extraordinary, and
his friends were often astonished at his full,
ready, and exact replies to abstruse ques-
tions of literature. His books were collected
for use, and he had no care for gilt backs
and wide margins. The medical part of his
library was reputed to be the largest collec-
tion of books on physic ever made in Eng-
land. Though of delicate constitution, he
never allowed ill-health to prevent his studies,
and continued them to the end of his life.
In his last illness he expressed regret that he

had not made notes in some of his books to
indicate the grounds on which he valued
them, or the particular and little-known
passages some of them contained. His wife
put up a monument to his memory in their
parish church of St. Botolph, Aldersgate.
Among the Sloane MSS. is one of his case-
books. It is made out of an old vellum
manuscript, and in addition to notes of visits
to patients contains several Greek and Latin
mottoes. It shows that Sir Robert Walpole's
father was one of his patients.

As Dr. Francis Bernard and Sergeant
Charles Bernard [q.v.] were for ten years con-
temporaries on the staff of St. Bartholomew's,
and as they had the same tastes and the
same political connections, it is not impro-
bable that they were akin, but no record of
the relationship has been discovered.

[Catalogue of the Library of the late learned
Dr. Francis Bernard, London, 1698.] N. M.

BERNARD, SIB FRANCIS (1711 P-

1779), governor of Massachusetts Bay, be-
longed to the younger branch of a family
who traced their descent to Godfrey Bernard
of Wansford, Yorkshire, in the reign of
Henry III. He was the eldest son of Francia
Bernard, rector of Brightwell, Oxfordshire,
by Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Rich-
ard Winlo we, of Notley andLewknor, Oxford-
shire (pedigree in LIPSCOMB'S Buckingham-
shire, i. 522). After attending Westminster
School, where, in 1725, he was elected in
the college, he, in 1729, became a student of
Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1736 gradu-
ated M.A. He was called to the bar at the
Middle Temple, of which he afterwards be-
came a bencher. For some time he practised
on the midland circuit, and he was elected
steward of the city of Lincoln, as well as re-
corder of Boston. In 1741 he married Amelia,,
daughter of Stephen Offley, of Norton II ally
Derbyshire. In 1752 he edited the 'Latin Odes'"
of Anthony Alsop [q.v.] At the bar he acquired
sufficient eminence to secure his appointment-
in 1758 as governor of the province of New
Jersey, North America, whence, after two>
years' successful rule, he was transferred, in
\ 1760, to Massachusetts Bay. For some time
[ he enjoyed the confidence and goodwill of all
classes in the province, as is evidenced by the-
fact that the assembly, besides voting to him
at their first session a grant of Mount Desert
Island, presented to him on more than one
occasion addresses expressive of acknowledg-
ment and goodwill. It was impossible, how-
ever, that the policy he was required to carry
out could be accepted with satisfaction by
the colonists ; and not only did it have his-
conaplete approval, but he succeeded in giving;

Bernard

381

Bernard

to its harsher features unnecessary promi-
nence. Indeed, the line of action pursued by
the home government was, to some extent,
traceable to his unfavourable representations
of the original designs and motives of the
colonists, and his fatal deficiency in political
tact and insight undoubtedly assisted to has-
ten the war. In addition to this he mani-
fested an unhappy facility for wounding the
•amour propre of the colonists. On the repeal
of the Stamp Act he delivered a speech fitted
completely to counteract the loyal sentiments
awakened by the concession. He also gave
special offence by refusing to confirm the no-
mination of several members to the council.
In February 1768 the assembly, notwithstand-
ing his most earnest representations, addressed
a letter to the assemblies of the other provinces,
inviting co-operation against the new duties
imposed on imports into the colonies, where-
upon, after they had declined to rescind their
resolution, they were dissolved in the follow-
ing July. On his representations troops were
then despatched to Boston, an act which
greatly excited the population, and gave an
enormous impetus to disaffection. The new
assembly requested the removal of the king's
ships and troops, and, this being refused, de-
clined to transact any business. The conduct
of Bernard had, as it undoubtedly deserved,
so far as firmness and administrative ability
were concerned, meanwhile secured the high
approval of the home government, and in
April 1769 he was created a baronet as of
Nettleham in the county of Lincoln. Not-
withstanding this it was deemed advisable to
recall him, on the plea of consulting with him
personally on the circumstances of the pro-
vince. He continued nominally governor for
two years longer, but he never returned to
America. For some time after his arrival in
England he resided at Nether Winchendon,
which he inherited in 1771 from his cousin-
german Jane, widow of William Beresford ;
but afterwards he took up his residence at
Aylesbury. In 1772 he received the degree
cf D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. He
died at Aylesbury 16 June 1779, at the age
of sixty-seven, and was interred in the
chancel of the church. His portrait, painted
by Copley, of Boston, is in the hall of
Christ Church. He left six sons and four
daughters.

Bernard's ' Case before the Privy Council '
was published in 1770 ; ' Letters to the
Ministry/ 1769; 'Letters to the Earl of
Hillsborough,' 1769 ; and ' Select Letters on
the Trade and Government of America, and
the Principles of Law and Polity applied to
the American Colonies,' 2nd edition, 1774.
While resident in America he took a special

interest in Harvard University, and, when the
library was destroyed by fire, exerted himself
in the raising of funds on its behalf. He was
a good classical scholar, and edited in 1752
1 Antonii Alsopi JEdis Christi olim Alumni
Odarum libri duo.' Governor Bernard's
' Letter Books ' were bought by Dr. Jared
Sparks in 1848 for six hundred dollars (Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1835-55, p. 384), and
by his will were bequeathed to the library
of Harvard College (Proceedings, 1867-69,
p. 297).

[Scots Mag. xli. 341 ; Nichols's Literary Anec-
dotes, ii. 235-7 ; Lipscomb's History of Bucking-
hamshire, i. 519-22 ; Allen's American Biog.
Diet. pp. 87-8; the various Histories of the
period.] T. F. H.

BERNARD, HERMAN HEDWIG

(1785-1857), Hebraist, for many years He-
brew teacher in the university of Cambridge,
died on 15 Nov. 1857, aged 72. He was the
author of: 1. 'The main principles of the
Creed and Ethics of the Jews exhibited in
selections from the Yad Hachazakah of
Maimonides, with a literal English transla-
tion, copious illustrations from the Talmud,
&c., and a collection of the abbreviations
commonly used in Rabbinical writings,' Cam-
bridge, 1832, 8vo. 2. 'The Guide of the
Hebrew Student, containing an Epitome of
Sacred History,' London, 1839, 8vo. 3. ' Cam-
bridge Free Thoughts and Letters on Biblio-
latry,' translated from the German of Lessing,
Cambridge, 1862, 8vo, edited by J. Bernard.
4. ' The Book of Job, as expounded to his
Cambridge pupils, edited, with a translation
and additional notes, by F. Chance/ London,
! 1864, 1884, 8vo.

[Gent. Mag. cii. (ii.) 52, cciv. 112 ; Notes and
Queries, 3rd ser., v. 205 ; Cat. of Printed Books
in Brit. Mus.] T. C.

BERNARD, JOHN (d. 1567 ?), author,
received his education at Queens' College,
Cambridge, proceeded B.A. in 1543-4, be-
came Trotter's priest in that college about
1544, and a fellow shortly afterwards, pro-
bably in 1545. He commenced M.A. in
1547, and was bursar of his college for the
i years 1550-1 and 1551-2. At the beginning
! of Queen Mary s reign he either resigned or
was deprived of his fellowship. During the
troubles of the protestants he composed
' Oratio pia, religiosa, et solatii plena, de
vera animi tranquillitate.' This was found
in the author's study, after his premature
death, and published at London, 1568, 4to,
with a dedication to Peter Osborn, lord-
treasurer's remembrancer of the exchequer,
by his brother THOMAS BEKNAKD, M.A. A

Bernard

382

Bernard

translation into English by Anthony Marten,
gent., sewer of the queen's chamber, was pub-
lished under the title of ' The Tranquillitie |
of the mind : an excellent Oration directing !
every man and woman to the true tranquil-
lity and quietness of the minde,' London, |
1570, 8vo. Bernard's brother and editor,
THOMAS, was born at Castle Morton, Wor-
cestershire ; elected from Eton to King's
College, Cambridge, 1524; proceeded B.A.
1529-30: M.A. 1533, and B.D. (at Oxford)
22 March 1566-7 ; became canon of Christ-
church, Oxford, 4 Nov. 1546, and vicar of
Pirton, Oxfordshire ; was chaplain of arch-
bishop Cranmer in 1547 ; was deprived of
his preferments by Queen Mary ' for being a
protestant and married man ; ' was restored j
by Elizabeth, and, dying 30 Nov. 1582, was
buried at Pirton. Thomas's son, DANIEL
BERNAKD, graduated B.A. at Christchurch,
Oxford, 25 June 1566, and D.D. June, 1585;
became canon of Christchurch in 1577 ; was
chaplain to Sir Thomas Bromley ; vice-
chancellor of Oxford, 1586; died Sept. 1588,
and was buried in Christchurch Cathedral.
He was the author of a Latin sermon ' de
obedientia erga principes et praefectos,' pub-
lished 1587.

[MS. Addit. 5863, f. 496; Ames's Typogr.
Antiq. ed. Herbert, 699, 878 ; Le Neve's Fasti
(Hardy), ii. 519, 528-9; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed.
Bliss, i. 171, 172. 232, 235; Cooper's Athense
Cantab, i. 250, 459 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.]

T. C.

BERNARD, JOHN (1756-1828), actor
and writer, was of Irish descent, was born
in Portsmouth, and educated at Chichester.
His father was a lieutenant in the navy.
He showed in early life a strong taste for i
the stage, which his father attempted to
check by placing him in a solicitor's office.
On 5 May 1773 he ran away from home,
and joined a travelling company, making
his first professional appearance as Jaffier at
Chew Magna, in a theatre improvised out of
a malt-house. After an experience common
in those days with the travelling actor, he
returned home, and ultimately secured his
mother's consent to adopting the stage as a !
profession. The following year saw him |
established as ' light comedian ' on the Nor- j
wich circuit, and married to Mrs. Cooper, a
member of the company. After acting in
various country theatres, he and Mrs. Ber-
nard became in the winter of 1777-8 mem-
bers of the Bath company, then held the
next distinction to obtaining a London en-
gagement. In 1780-4 Bernard was in Ire-
land ; he returned in the winter of 1784 to
Bath, where he speedily became a social
favourite. In the summer of 1786 he com-

menced at Swansea a series of experiments
in management which led ultimately to
failure, and to his quitting England for
America. On 19 Oct. 1787 Bernard made
his first appearance in London, playing at
Covent Garden Archer in the ' Beaux' Strata-
gem' to the Mrs. Sullen of his wife. His
engagement was to second Lee Lewis in
light comedy. As in Bath, Bernard's chief
success appears to have been social. He was
appointed secretary of the Beefsteak Club, an
honour of which he was specially proud, and
appears to have gone in for a life of extreme
conviviality. His London engagement ended
in 1791, and he returned to the country
theatres. The following year his wife, who
was six years older than himself, died, leav-
ing him open to espouse four years subse-
quently at Guernsey a young actress named
Fisher. The season of 1793-4 saw him again
at Covent Garden, which house he definitely
quitted at the close of 1795-6. To this,
theatre he contributed a comic operetta called
f The Poor Sailor, or Little Bob and Little
Ben,' which was acted for one night only, his-
benefit, 29 May 1795, and never printed.
One or two dramatic trifles also from his pen
were produced at country theatres. Unsuc-
cessful speculations in Brighton and Ply-
mouth were followed by his embarking on
4 Jan. 1797 to fill an engagement in America.
At this point the two volumes of his ' Retro-
spections/ edited by his son, W. Baile
Bernard, who subsequently changed his name
to Bayle Bernard, terminate [q. v.] His first
appearance in the United States was made at
the Greenwich Street Theatre, New York, as
Goldfinch in the ' Road to Ruin.' The
following winter he went to Philadelphia,
appearing as Young Wilding in the ' Liar r
and Ruttekin in ' Robin Hood.' In Phila-
delphia he remained till 1803, in which year
he went to Boston. In 1806 he was asso-
ciated with Powers in the 'management of
the Federal Street Theatre, Boston, and
visited England in search of recruits. While
in England he married his third wife, Miss
Wright. He remained at the Federal Street
house until 1810. During the following
years he travelled in the United States and
Canada, and returned in 1817 to Boston.
His farewell of the stage took place in
Boston, 19 April 1819, in the ' Soldier's.
Daughter.' He is spoken of with praise in
such characters as Doricourt and Lovegold
in the ' Miser,' &c., but can never have been
more than a second-class actor. According
to an English critic, ' he had a light neatness
in his figure, countenance, and manner.' A
selection from, his voluminous retrospections
appeared two years after his death, which

Bernard

383

Bernard

took place in London towards the close of
1828. A further selection, entitled ' Retro-
spections of the American Stage by John
Bernard/ edited by Laurence Hutton and
Brander Matthews, began in the June (1884)
number of the ( Manhattan and New York
Magazine/ but was discontinued after the
appearance of three instalments. Some of
the dates given in the introduction to this
are different from those we supply. Our own
dates are, however, accurate. Six chapters
of American retrospections by John Ber-
nard, selected by his son, also appear jui
Tallis's 'Dramatic Magazine/ 1850-1.

[Bernard's Retrospections of the Stage, 2 vols.
1830; Dunlop's History of the American
Theatre ; Genest's Account of the English Stage ;
Biographia Dramatica.] J. K.

BERNARD, JOHN PETER (d. 1750),
biographer, was the son of James Bernard,
a French protestant minister, well known in
his day as a man of letters. He received
his education at Leyden, where he took
degrees in arts and philosophy. In 1733 he
was settled in London, and gaining a liveli-
hood by preaching, giving lessons in litera-
ture and mathematics, and compiling for the
booksellers. He is remembered by having
contributed largely to the ' General Dic-
tionary, Historical and Critical/ 10 vols.
folio, London, 1734-41. Some idea of the
share he had in this laborious undertaking
may be gathered from his letters to the
editor, Dr. Thomas Birch, preserved at the
British Museum in the Additional (Birch)
MS. 4301. Bernard died in the parish of
St. Marylebone, Middlesex, 5 April 1750.
He had been admitted a fellow of the Royal
Society in January 1737-8.

[MS. Addit. 4301, ff. 1-99 ; Nichols's Literary
Anecdotes, v. 287 n. ; Gent. Mag. xx. 188 ;
Letters of Administration in P. C. C. granted
30 May 1750.] G. G.

BERNARD, MOUNTAGUE (1820-

1882), international lawyer, was descended
from a Huguenot family which left France
after the revocation of the edict of Nantes,
and for several generations owned land at
Mont ego Bay in Jamaica. He was the third
son of Mr. Charles Bernard of Eden in that
island, by Margaret, daughter of Mr. John
Baker of Waresley House, Worcestershire,
and was born at Tibberton Court/Gloucester-
shire, on 28 Jan. 1820. After passing through
Sherborne school, he gained a scholarship at
Trinity College, Oxford, where Professor
Freeman, Sir R. Lingen, and the present
bishop of St. David's, Dr. W. B. Jones, were
scholars at the same time. In 1842 he took

a first class in classics and a second in ma-
thematics. He subsequently took the de-
gree of bachelor of civil law, was elected to
the Vinerian scholarship and fellowship, and
in 1846, after studying in the chambers of
Mr. Palmer, now Lord Selborne, with whom
it was his fortune to be associated on several
occasions in after life, was called to the bar
at Lincoln's Inn. Few thoughtful minds at
Oxford forty years ago escaped the influence,
by way either of attraction or repulsion, of
the high-church movement. Bernard's in-
terest in ecclesiastical questions led him in
1846 to be one of those who founded the
' Guardian ' newspaper, of which he is said
to have been for some years the editor. He
i also found time for much historical reading,
and for a wider study of legal systems than
is usual for a practising lawyer. The Oxford
University Commissioners of 1854 having
founded a chair of international law and
diplomacy out of the revenues of All Souls*
College, Bernard in 1859 became its first
holder. The appointment was in many ways
a happy one. A new subject was introduced
by a teacher of unquestioned authority ; the
academical study of law gained a zealous
advocate, while the university acquired a wise
counsellor and an indefatigable helper in the
details of its administration. Bernard was
appointed assessor, or judge, of the Chan-
cellor's Court, and, as such, was instrumental
in assimilating its procedure, which had pre-
viously been that of the civilians, to the
practice of the courts of common law. But
the demand for his services was not confined
to the precincts of the university. In 1866
he was secretary to the royal commission for
investigating the nature of the cattle plague,
and in 1868 was a member of the commission
on naturalisation and allegiance, the report
of which led to the abandonment by Great
Britain of the time-honoured, but now in-
convenient rule, 'nemo potest exuerepatriam/
In 1871 he went out to America as one of
the high commissioners who eventually signed
the treaty of Washington, and on his return
was made a privy councillor, a member of
the Judicial Committee of Council, and a
D.C.L. He had been elected, a year or two
previously, to a fellowship in All Souls' Col-
lege. In 1872 he was sent to Geneva to assist
Sir Roundell Palmer in presenting the British
case to the tribunal of arbitration consti-
tuted in pursuance of the treaty. His public
employments had become hardly compatible
with his work at Oxford, and in 1874 he re-
signed his professorship and left the uni-
versity. Henceforth he lived chiefly in
London or with relations at Overross near
Ross in Herefordshire, reappearing only from.

Bernard

384

Bernard

time to time in his rooms at All Souls. In
1876 he served on the royal commission for
inquiring into the duties of commanders of
British vessels with reference to fugitive
slaves, and in 1877 became a member of the
University of Oxford Commission under the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act
of that year. Upon this commission, at any
rate after Lord Selborne, upon becoming a
second time lord chancellor, had ceased to
preside over it, Bernard's combination of
legal training with academical experience
gave him the leading place. To him, more
than to any single commissioner, is doubtless
due the character of compromise which was
arrived at between the interests of the uni-
versity on the one hand and the autonomy of
the colleges on the other. The commission
has been blamed for timidity, but its work
was much more thorough than is generally
supposed. The university is now not only
better endowed than it has ever been, but
is also far better organised than it has been
for some centuries past. The faculties have
been revived, and encouragement has been
given to branches of learning which have no
direct bearing upon the examinations. The
labour of constructing what was practically
a new corpus juris academicum for the uni-
versity and its twenty colleges was immense,
and seems to have fatally overtaxed the
strength of Bernard. In the spring of 1882,
just when the new statutes for Oxford had
received the royal assent, he became seriously
ill, and after lingering for some months, died
at Overross on 2 Sept. of that year.

Bernard was accomplished in all branches
of law, and his reputation as a master of the
law of nations was as high on the continent
and in America as in his own country. He
was one of the original members of the
Institut de Droit International, founded in
1873, and presided over its Oxford meeting
in 1880 with much tact and dignity. As a
professor he inclined rather to the historical
than to the systematic exposition of his sub-
ject, dwelling by preference upon the analysis
of treaties, the character of politicians, and
the by-play of diplomacy. He could be
generous, both of time and money. He was
laborious, impartial, conscientious, fastidious,
and averse to extremes. All that he did was
governed by a consummate common-sense,
which was, however, perhaps wanting in
robustness. Though sometimes reserved in
manner, he could be delightful as a conver-
sationalist, and was the friend of many of
the leading men of his day. His public ser-
vices were of a very high order, though not
of a kind to win the applause, or even to
come to the knowledge, of the public gene-

rally. A monument erected to his memory
in All Souls' College chapel truly sets forth
how f in hoc collegio xv. annos, turn juris
gentium professor, turn socius bis cooptatus,
Academiam scientia, ingenio, exemplo, auxit
et ornavit ; Reipublicse fideliter deserviit.'

His style as a writer reflected his qualities
as a man. It was conspicuous for good
sense, good taste, and lucidity. The follow-
ing is probably a complete list of his ac-
knowledged writings: 1. The article on
' The Growth of Laws and Usages of War,'
in the 'Oxford Essays' for 1856, T. W.
Parker, London. 2. ' Remarks on the Pro-
posed Alteration of the Law of Naval Prize,'
1857, London. 3. ( An Introductory Lecture
on International Law,' 1859, Oxford. 4. ' A
Lecture on the Principles of Noninterven-
tion/ 1860, T. W. Parker, Oxford and London.
5. ' Two Lectures on the Present American
War,' 1.861, Parker, Oxford. 6. < Notes on
some Questions suggested by the Case of
the Trent/ 1862, Oxford. 7. ' A Lecture on
Alleged Violations of Neutrality by England
in the Present War/ 1863, Ridgway, London.
8. 'A Letter to the Vice-Chancellor on the
Study of Law at Oxford/ 1864, University
Press. 9. 'A Lecture on the Schleswig-
Holstein Question/ 1864, University Press.

10. ' Remarks on some late Decisions re-
specting the Colonial Church/ 1866, Oxford.

11. 'Four Lectures on Diplomacy/ 1868,
Macmillan, London. 12. f Notes on the
Academical Study of Law/ 1868, Oxford.
13. { An Historical Account of the Neutrality
of Great Britain during the American Civil
War/ 1870, 4to, Longmans, London. 14. ' A
Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone
on the Statutes of the University ' (dated
27 Feb.), 1882, Rivington, London.

[Personal knowledge.] T. E. H.

BERNARD, NICHOLAS, D.D. (d. 1661),
divine, was born about the commencement
of the seventeenth century, and educated at
Cambridge, though nothing is known of his
academic course. Having migrated to Ire-
land, he was ordained by Archbishop Ussher,
in St. Peter's church, Drogheda, in 1626
(WooD, Athence Oxon?) He became the
archbishop's chaplain and librarian. On
12 July 1627 he was presented to the deanery
of Kilmore (another account states that he
was nominated by the archbishop and elected
on 9 Oct. 1627, and installed same day).
Ussher, in his ' Visitation Book of the Pro-
vince' in 1622, says of Kilmore: ' This
deanery is merely titulary, nothing belong-
ing to it, but the bishop for the time being
made choice of any one of his clergie whom
he thought fittest to give unto the name

Bernard

385

Bernard

title of a deane.' In the taxation-book
of King James I, six years previously (1616)
we find this entry. 'Decanatus de Kilmore,
20*.'

In 1628 Bernard was incorporated M.A.
of Oxford. In 1637 he exchanged with the
Very Rev. Henry Jones, D.D., the deanery of
Kilmore for that of Ardagh. The patent is
dated 22 June of that year, and his installa-
tion took place on 3 Nov. In the taxation by
the commissioners of Queen Elizabeth, dated
1586, the entry occurs : ' Decanatus Ardach

bear the charges of his funeral; the amount
was paid to Bernard. Bernard published
the ' Life and Death of Archbishop Ussher
in a Sermon preached at his Funeral at West-
minster, 1656,' and in the following year
* The Judgment of the late Archbishop of
Armagh and Primate of Ireland, of the Ex-
tent of Christ's Death and Satisfaction, of
the Sabbath and Observation of the Lord's
Day and of Ordination in other Reformed
Churches, with a Vindication of him from a
pretended Change of Opinion in the First,

terling money.' On 13 July 1637 he I some Advertisements upon the Latter, and
also became prebendary of Dromore. The in Prevention of further Injuries, a Declara-
rebellion of 1641 caused him much suffering, tion of his Judgment on several other Sub-
In connection with the rebellion he wrote ' '~-^~' ^°*f
some interesting pamphlets, of which the

jects/ 1657. This led to an exchange of
passionate letters between Bernard and Dr.

titles are : 1. l The whole Proceedings of the j Peter Heylin. Heylin commented on Ber-

and defended

Siege of Drogheda in Ireland, with a thank- nard's works about Ussher,
ful Remembrance of its wonderful Delivery, I himself from what he regarded as slanders
raised with God's Assistance by the Prayers I on his good name contained in them, in the
and sole Valour of the Besieged, with a Re- | two tracts — l P. Heylyn's Extraneus Vapu-
lation of such Passages as have fallen out j lans ; or the Observator rescued from the
there and in the Parts near adjoining,' Dub- violent but vaine assaults of H. L'Estrange,
lin, 1642. 2. 'A Letter sent from Dr. Bar- | Esq., and the Back-blows of Dr. Bernard, £c.,
nard [sic], Parson of Tredagh . . . wherein ; 1656'— 'P. Heylyn. Respondet Petrus, or the
is contained divers very memorable Passages • Answer of Peter Heylyn ... to so much of
twixt the King's Armies and the Rebels,' : Dr. Bernard's Book entituled " The Judgment
1641. 3. * The whole Proceedings of the ! of the late Primate of Ireland," and as he is
Siege of Derry,' 1642. 4. ' A worthy Rela- ! made a Party,' 1658.
from Deane

tion from Deane Bernard concerning . . .
our Forces in the County of Louth,' 1642.
These are vivid narratives, and have not been
utilised historically as they might have been.
They give us overlooked details and the ver-
dict of a keen observer. Before these, he

In 1647 Bernard had somehow got into
difficulties with those who might have been
expected to be in sympathy with him. A
singular tractate, dated 1648, bore the title,
' The Still-borne Nativitie, or a Copy of an
Incarnation Sermon [on John i. 14] that

had printed an extraordinary story — ' The j should have been delivered at St. Margaret's,
penitent Death of a woful Sinner, John '
Atherton [Bishop of Waterford], executed at
Dublin the 6th of December 1640. With a
Sermon preached at the Funeral of the said
John Atherton' [q. v.], Dublin, 1641. This
was for long a popular chap-book. Bernard
did not — like many of the resident English-
men— fly to England in the outset. He bore
the brunt of the tempest. He preached a
"' Farewell Sermon ' at Drogheda in 1649 on
2 Corinthians xiii. 11, 'Of Comfort and Con-
cord,' London, 1651. In 1642, together with
his books on the siege, he had published ' Dia-

logue between Paul and Agrippa,' London,

He returned to England, probably about
1649. He was appointed preacher of Gray's
Inn 17 June 1651. He was further appointed
chaplain and almoner to Oliver Cromwell.
While he filled the latter office the great James
Ussher, archbishop of Dublin, died on 21 March
1655, and on the 31st of that month ' Oliver
the Protector ' signed a warrant directed to
the lords of the treasury for the sum of 20(V. to

VOL. IV,

Westminster, 25. Dec. 1647, by Nicholas
Bernard, but prevented by the Committee for
Plunder'd Ministers, who sent and seized the
Preacher and committed him to the Fleet for
his undertaking to preach without the licence
of Parliament,' London [31 Jan. 1647], 1648.
On 16 July 1660 Bernard was appointed by
the patron, John, earl of Bridgwater, rector
of Whitchurch, Shropshire. At the Restora-
tion he was offered, but declined, his former
deanery of Ardagh. He was now old, and
preferred the learned leisure of a not over-
burdensome post. In 1659 he published
' Devotions of the Ancient Church, in Seven
Pious Prayers.' In the same year followed,
or possibly preceded, ( Certain Discourses, to
which is added a Character of Bishop Bedell,
with a Sermon by him on Rev. xviii. 4, and
an Answer to Mr. Pierce, 1659.' Finally
came ' Clavi Trabales, or Nails fastened by
some great Masters of Assemblies, confirm-
ing the King's Supremacy, the Subjects' Duty
and Church Government by Bishops, being
a Collection of some Pieces written on these

c c

Bernard

386

Bernard

Subjects by Archbishop Ussher, Mr. Hooker,
Bishop Andrewes, and Dr. Hadrian Saravia,
with a preface by the Bishop of Lincoln.
Published by Nicholas Bernard, 1661.'

He died on 15 Oct. 1661. and his 'buryal'
entry is thus made in the parish register of
his church of Whitchurch : ' Nickolas Ber-
nard, rector of Whitchurch, dyed the 15 of
Octob. and was buryed Novemb. 7 [1661].'
Philip Henry calls him ' a worthy and mo-
derate man.' One of William Marshall's
best engravings is a portrait of Dr. Bernard.

[Cotton's Fasti Ecelesise Hibernicse (1851), i.
andvii. iii. pp. 163, 172, 187, 302, v. pp. 229-
30; Ware's Writers of Ireland (Works, iii. 342,
&c.) ; WUliams's Life of Philip Henry, p. 269 ;
communications from Eev. Thomas Hamilton,
M.A., Belfast, and Eev. W. H. Egerton, M.A.,
rector of Whitchurch.] A. B. G.

BERNARD, RICHARD (1567 P-1641),
puritan divine, is described in a portrait (be-
fore his ' Threefold Treatise on the Sabbath,'
1641) as then aged 74. This gives us 1566-7
as the date of his birth. An incidental phrase
in one of his Latin ' Epistles Dedicatory ' de-
signates Nottinghamshire as his native soil.
This seems decisive ; but he must have been
in some way related to Lincolnshire. Most
of his earlier patrons addressed in his dedica-
tions and epistles belonged to that county.
He was fortunate enough as a boy to fall
under the notice of two daughters of Sir
Christopher Wray, lord chief-justice of Eng-
land. One of these was the wife successively
of Godfrey Foljambe, Sir William Bowes of
Walton, near Chesterfield, and of John, the
good Lord Darcy of Aston. The other mar-
ried Sir George Saint Paul (spelled oddly
Saintpoll) of Lincolnshire, and afterwards
the Earl of Warwick, and as Countess of
Warwick appears in many of Bernard's and
contemporary dedicatory epistles. These two
joined in sending Richard to the university,
and he is never weary of acknowledging their
kindnesses to him. A Richard Bernard
appears in the registers of Christ's College,
Cambridge, as proceeding B.A. 1567-8. He
has been taken for the father of our Richard
Bernard. This is improbable ; but the later
Richard was also at Christ's College, where
he probably proceeded B.A. 1594-5, and cer-
tainly passed M.A. in 1598.

He is found parson at Epworth in 1598.
He dated thence his ' Terence.' He was
presented to the vicarage of Worksop, in
Nottinghamshire, by Richard Whalley, and
he received institution on 19 June 1601
(HUNTER'S Collections, p. 37). He sent out
several of his books from Worksop, as the
dates 1605 to 1612-13 show. One of the

most distinctive is the following : * Christian-
Advertisements and Counsels of Peace.
Also Disuasions from the Separatists schismeT
commonly called Brownisme, which is set
apart from such truths as they take from us
and other Reformed Churches, and is nakedly
discovred, that so the falsitie thereof may
better be discerned, and so iustly condemned
and wisely avoided. Published for the benefit
of the humble and godlie louer of the truthe.
By Richard Bernard, preacher of God's
Word. Reade (my friend) considerately ;-
expound charitably ; and judge, I pray thee,
without partialitie ; doe as thou wouldest bee
done vnto. At London, imprinted by Felix
Kyngston. 1608.'

Bernard was brought into union and com-
munion with the separatists, but treache-
rously and basely as they alleged, conscien-
tiously as he himself affirmed, withdrew
from them. Thereupon commenced his in-
vectives and their replies. His 'Christian
Advertisements ' was followed by his ' Plaine
Evidences the Church of England is Apo-
stolicall, the Separation Schismaticall. Di-
rected against Mr. Ainsworth, the Separatist,
and Mr. Smith, the Se-Baptist ; both of them
severally opposing the book called the-
Separatist's Schisme. By Richard Bernard,
preacher of the Word of God at Worksop.
For truth and peace to any indiiferent iudg-
ment, 1610.' It gives the real state of the
case as between Bernard and his former-
friends and associates. Many of them had
been his regular hearers ; while equally with
them he was a puritan in doctrine, and in
practice a nonconformist in well-nigh every-
thing they objected to, l carrying to an ex-
treme length the puritan scruples, going to
the very verge of separation, and joining
himself even to those of his puritan brethren
who thought themselves qualified to go
through the work of exorcism ' (HUNTER).
Not only so, but he was silenced by the arch-
bishop. On the whole, it must be conceded
that Bernard sought, according to John
Robinson, 'rather to oppress the person of his
adversary with false and proud reproaches,
than to convince (i.e. confute) his tenets by
sound arguments' (People's Plea for the
Exercise of Prophecy, 1618, p. vi).

A singular incident in which Bernard
played a prominent part also belongs to his
Worksop incumbency, viz. the exorcising of
a (cataleptic) 'possessed person,' John Fox, of
Nottingham. A contemporary tractate gives
full details.

Notwithstanding his conflicts with many
adversaries, Bernard wrote at Worksop one
of his finest books, ' The Faithful Shepherd '
(1607). He ceded Worksop in 1612-13

Bernard

387

Bernard

(HOLLAND, History of Worksop, p. 127).
But there was unpleasantness in the matter.
John Smyth records that, besides a difficulty
as to subscription, Bernard had shown 'vehe-
ment desire to the patronage of Sowerby,' and
extreme indignation when defeated of it, and
' further earnest desire to have been vicar of
Gainsborough ' (p. 5).

In 1613 he was presented to Batcombe in
Somersetshire. Thither he was summoned
by the devout Dr. Bisse (or Bis). Bisse had
been himself pastor from the dawn of the
Reformation, and had purchased the advow-
son of his living, to present once only, for 200 1.
On presenting Bernard to it, he said : ' I do
this day lay aside nature, respect of profit,
flesh and blood, in thus bestowing as I do my
living, only in hope of profiting and edifying
my people's souls,' after which he did not
live above three weeks. This, his last act, he
called his l packing-penny ' between God and
himself (BROOK, ii. 460, and see note in Dr.
Grosart's memoir of Bernard before his i Ruth,'
p. ix, 1865).

Whatever the circumstances were under
which he ceded Worksop, he ever recalled
his ministry there gratefully. He refers to
it in the epistle dedicatory of his ' Faithful
Shepherd ' as 'wholly in a manner transposed
and made anew, and very much inlarged,
both with precepts and examples, to further
young divines in the studie of divinitie,' 1621.

As minister of Batcombe he also faithfully
fulfilled his trust. He still held fast to his
objections to the ' ceremonies ; ' but he was
indulged by his diocesan. It could be shown
from his books that in three characteristics he
was far ahead of his generation. In his epistle
dedicatory to his remarkable book, * The Isle
of Man/ his pleading for ' an unbegun work '
of caring for the prisoners anticipates the
mission of John Howard. Again, the second
portion of the ' Seven Golden Candlesticks,'
which is entitled ' The Great Mysterie of
God's Mercie yet to Come,' is one sustained
argument and appeal on behalf of the Jews.
Further, in our day all the churches have or-
ganisations towards systematic benevolence,
which Bernard recommended in his ' Ready
Way to Good Works, or a Treatise of Charitie,
wherein, besides many other things, is shewed
how we may be always ready and prepared,
both in affection and action, to give cheerfully
to the poor and to pious uses, never heretofore
published '(1635).

At Batcombe he wrote a large number of
books on various themes, which may be found
tabulated at length in the bibliographical
authorities. He translated { Terence ' (1598,
1604, 1617), and printed it in Latin and
English ; he wrote ( A Guide to Grand Jury-

men with respect to Witches,' of which the
second book is ' a treatise touching witches
good and bad,' 1627. His 'Bible Battels,
or the Sacred Art Military,' appeared in 1629.
He bitingly attacked the high-church claims
of the prelates in his ' Twelve Arguments
proving that the Ceremonies imposed upon
the Ministers of the Church of England by
the Prelates are unlawful ; and therefore that
the ministers of the Gospel, for the bare and
sole omission of them, for conscience sake,
are most unjustly charged with disloyalty to
his Majesty.' He showed some poetic ima-
ginativeness in his ' Ruth's Recompence '
(1628), a commentary on the book of Ruth,
and dimly preluded the ' Pilgrim's Progress '
in ' Isle of Man or Proceedings in Manshire '
(1627). ' The Fabvlous Foundation of the
Popedome' (1619), and 'Looke beyond Lu-
ther ' (1623), are also among his works. Ber-
nard had in later years several assistants,
including Robert Balsom and Richard Alleine.
He died at the end of March 1641. The
epistle dedicatory to his ' Threefold Treatise
on the Sabbath 'bears date ' London, 20 March
1641.' The posthumous ' Thesaurus Biblicus '
(1644, folio) contains in its epistle a character
of Bernard by Conant.

[Dr. Grosart's Memoir prefixed to Nichol's re-
print of ' Ruth's Recompence ' in his Puritan
Commentaries, 1865 ; Hunter's Chorus Vatum, in
MS. Addit., 24, 487, pp. 280-2 ; Brook's Puri-
tans, ii. 459; Watt's Bibliotheca Brit.; Ussher's
Works ; Ludlow's Memoirs, i. 104.] A. B. G.

BERNARD, THOMAS. [See under
BEENAED, JOHN.]

BERNARD, SIE THOMAS (1750- 1818),
philanthropist, was born at Lincoln 27 April
1750. He was the son of Sir Francis Ber-
nard [seeBEENAED, SIEFEANCIS], by Amelia,
daughter of Stephen Offley, of Norton Hall,
Derbyshire. He was educated at a private
school in New Jersey and at Harvard Uni-
versity, where, however, his studies were
interrupted by his father being obliged to
employ him as confidential secretary during
the disturbed condition of political affairs.
Shortly afterwards he accompanied his
father to England, and obtained the situa-
tion of commissary of musters. At the
same time, having entered the Middle Temple,
he prosecuted his studies in law, and was
called to the bar in 1780 ; but on account of
an impediment in his speech he devoted him-
self to the business of conveyancing. Having
through his marriage in May 1782 to Mar-
garet, daughter and coheiress of Patrick
Adair, and his rapid success in business, ac-
quired a considerable fortune, he retired from
the law, and occupied his subsequent life in

c c 2

Bernard

388

Bernard

the promotion of plans for the welfare of the
poorer classes. It is impossible to admire too
highly his enthusiastic and ceaseless energy,
his remarkable insight into practical details,
or his readiness to make the best use he could
of the suggestions and proposals of others.
The proximity of the residence of Bernard in
Bloomsbury Square to the Foundling Hos-
pital led him to take an active interest in that
institution, even when he was in full practice
in his profession. After he had been for
several years one of the governors, he was, in
1795, elected treasurer, and for eleven years
he was constantly in attendance on its con-
cerns, until ill-health compelled him to resign
office in December 1806, after which he be-
came a vice-president. By the erection of
streets on the hospital estates he greatly in-
creased the revenues of the institution, and
in the internal management he was equally
successful, his adoption of Count Rumford's
plans in regard to food and fuel being found
so profitable that the system was introduced
into all the workhouses and parishes of the
kingdom. He published in 1799 a pamphlet
entitled ' An Account of the Foundling Hos-
pital, London.' In 1796, along with the Bishop
of Durham, Mr. Wilberforce, and others, he
established the Society for Bettering the Con-
dition of the Poor. Among the immediate
results of his recommendations was the for-
mation, in 1800, of a school for the indigent
blind, and in 1801 of the Fever Institution.
He also exerted himself in promoting vacci-
nation, and in the furthering of measures for
protecting children in cotton mills and the
apprentices of chimneysweeps. In 1797* he
published ' A Short Account of Britton Ab-
bot ' — a Yorkshire cottager who had enclosed
a rood of waste land, on which he had suc-
ceeded in maintaining a wife and six children
— as an example of the improvement that
might be effected in the condition of the poor
by allotting them small pieces of ground to
reclaim and cultivate. Bernard took a pro-
minent part in the founding of other impor-
tant institutions. At the suggestion of Count
Rumford he, in 1799, set on foot the plan of
the Royal Institution, Piccadilly, for which
the king's charter was obtained 13 Jan. 1800.
"With kindred aims in reference to art he, in
1805, succeeded in establishing the British
Institution for the Promotion of Fine Arts in
the United Kingdom. He was also the origi-
nator of the Albert Club, a clubhouse for
literature, from which all gaming, drinking,
and party politics were to be excluded.
Having in 1801 been appointed by the Bishop
of Durham chancellor of that diocese, he, in
1808, set on foot at Bishop Auckland a col-
legiate school for the training of promising

scholars as teachers. The school was under
the direct superintendence of Dr. Bell; and
as at this time no central school of a similar
character had been established in the metro-
polis, there was soon a great demand upon it
for a supply of teachers. In explanation of
the experiment and of the method of instruc-
tion employed, he published in 1809 'The New
School/ of which a second edition appeared
in 1810, an enlarged edition under the title
of 'The Barrington School' in 1812, and
another under the same title in 1815. Ber-
nard also endeavoured to set on foot a move-
ment, in which he was only partially success-
ful, for the erection of free chapels, the first
of which was opened in West Street, Seven
Dials. He took an eager interest in every
measure designed to effect the removal of ac-
cidental hardships and disabilities affecting
the circumstances of the poor. He rendered
important assistance in the formation, in 1812,
of an ' Association for the Relief of the Manu-
facturing Poor, as well as, in 1813, of the
' Fish Association for the Benefit of the Com-
munity,' and in 1816 he began an active agi-
tation against the salt duties, conceiving them
to exercise an injurious influence not only
on the fishing industries, but on the manu-
factures and agriculture of the country. On
this subject he, in 1816, addressed a letter
and two postscripts to Mr. Vansittart, the
chancellor of the exchequer. He also ex-
pounded his views in 1817 in a pamphlet l On
the Supply of Employment and Subsistence
to the Labouring Classes in Fisheries, Manu-
factures, and Cultivation of Waste Land,'
and in 1818 in a more elaborate work l On
the Case of the Salt Duties, with Notes and
Illustrations.' The result was that after par-
liamentary inquiry a bill was brought in for
reducing the duty on rock salt for agricul-
tural purposes. The anxiety and labour con-
nected with this agitation seriously affected
his already weakened health. A visit to Lea-
mington Spa proved ineffectual in restoring
it, and he died 1 July 1818. He was buried
in a vault under the Foundling Hospital.

In 1801 the Archbishop of Canterbury con-
ferred on Bernard the degree of M.A., and the
same year he received that of LL.D. from the
university of Edinburgh. In 1810 he suc-
ceeded to the baronetcy on the death of his
brother. His first wife died 6 June 1813, and
on 15 June 1815 he married Charlotte Ma-
tilda, youngest daughter of Sir Edward Hulse,
Bart., but by neither marriage had he any
issue. In addition to the works already men-
tioned he was the author of l Observations
relating to the Liberty of the Press, 1793 ;
' An Historical View of Christianity,' 1806 ;
and the ' Comforts of Old Age,' printed pri-

Bernard

389

Bernardi

vately in 1813 for distribution in the infir-
maries of the town, and published in 1816.
He was also connected with Dr. Dibdin in
the publication of the ' Director/ a weekly
periodical, chiefly devoted to notices of lec-
tures at the Royal Institution, and to criti-
cisms of pictures in the British Gallery. A
number of manuscripts of Sir Thomas Ber-
nard are in the British Museum, including a
' Letter to the Right Hon. N. Vansittart on
Repeal of the Salt Duties ' (MS. Add. 29233) ;
'Letters to W. Hastings' (MS. Add. 29191) ;
and 'Letters to H. Boase (MS. Add. 29281).

[Gent. Mag. Ixxxviii. pt. ii. pp. 82-3 ; Baker's
Life of Sir Thomas Bernard (1819) ; Dr. Dibdin's
Eeminiscences of a Literary Life (1836), pp. 230-
234.] T. F. H.

BERNARD, WILLIAM B A YLE (1807-
1875), English dramatist, by birth an Ameri-
can, but a British subject and the son of
British parents, was born on 27 Nov. 1807
at Boston, where his father, John Bernard
[q. v.], was then manager of the theatre.
In 1820 his family returned to England,
and he completed his education at a school
at Uxbridge. In 1826 he was appointed
to a clerkship in the army accounts office
by Canning, whose mother had been a
leading actress in the elder Bernard's com-
pany at Plymouth. The office was abolished
in 1830, and young Bernard was thrown
upon his resources. He had already begun
to write for the stage, having in 1827 pro-
duced his nautical drama, ' The Pilot/ for
which he received 31., and when the piece
reached the hundredth night 21. more, ' to I
prompt him to further exertions.' In 1828 '
he wrote a novel, ( The Freebooter's Bride/
in five volumes, a production of the Mi-
nerva Press school; and in 1829 he com-
piled ' Retrospections of the Stage' from
memoranda left by his father, bringing the
life of the latter down to his departure for
America in 1797. In 1830 he became a pro-
fessional dramatist, and produced plays and
farces with such rapidity that, notwithstand-
ing an eight years' interruption of his dra-
matic labours, the total number amounted to
114. Many were written for America, and
not half have been printed. The best-known
are : ' Rip Van Winkle/ 1832 ; ' The Nervous
Man/ 1833; 'The Man about Town/ 1836;
'Marie Ducange/ 1837; 'His Last Legs/
1839; 'The Boarding School/ 1841; and
' The Round of Wrong/ 1846. His last
piece was ' The Doge of Venice/ 1867. He
collaborated with Dr. Westland Marston in
the production of 'Trevanion/ 1849, and
wrote much dramatic and other criticism for
the press. In 1874 he published the bio-

graphy of Samuel Lover, an uninteresting
book, owing to the entire dearth of material.
He died at Brighton on 5 Aug. 1875. Ber-
nard was a highly accomplished man, a pro-
lific and efficient playwright, an excellent
dramatic critic, thoughtful, studious, and
interested in serious subjects.

[Men of the Time, 9th ed. ; Era Newspaper ;
private information.] R. G-.

BERNARDI, JOHN (1657-1736), major,
a suspected conspirator in the ' assassination
plot' against William III, was the son of
Count Francis Bernardi, a Genoese noble-
man who, after representing the republic of
Genoa for some years in London, took up a
permanent residence in Worcestershire. The
chief authority for the son's life is a narra-
tive written by himself, which, although in-
accurate in certain particulars, and pervaded
throughout by a tone of exaggeration and
boastfulness, must in its main outlines be
accepted as trustworthy. He was born at
Evesham in 1657. In childhood he occasion-
ally received such severe treatment from his
father, that at last, at the age of thirteen, he
resolved to escape to Packington Hall, the
seat of Sir Clement Fisher, whose wife had
previously expressed sympathy for his mis-
fortunes. Finding, when he reached Packing-
ton Hall, that Sir Clement and his lady were
in London, he followed them thither, was
kindly received, and was recommended to
their relative, Captain Clent, then in garrison
at Portsmouth, who caused him to be taught
military exercises along with his company.
When the regiment was disbanded at the close
of the Dutch war, Bernardi, having received
from the captain a parting gift of 20/.. went
to London, where he caught the small-pox,
and was reduced to such hard straits, that
he addressed himself to his godfather, Colonel
Anselme. The colonel, being about to set
out for Holland, invited Bernardi to accom-
pany him, and shortly after his arrival he
entered as a private the service of the states,
exchanging afterwards into one of the Eng-
lish independent regiments. He was present
at many of the principal battles and sieges of
the war, receiving an English commission in
1674 under Sir John Fenwick, and being pro-
moted captain in 1685 in Colonel Monk's
company. He was wounded at the siege of
Grave in 1674, was again wounded in 1675
in parting two gentlemen in a duel, and at
the siege of Maestricht in 1676 lost the sight
of an eye. was shot through the arm, and,
but for the devotion of one of his company,
would have been left for dead. When in
1687 James II resolved to recall the English
troops from Holland, he was one of the sixty

Bernardi

390

Berners

officers who obeyed the summons ; and at the
revolution he refused to sign the obligation
to stand by the Prince of Orange. Being
thus compelled to leave England, he arrived
at St. Germains as King James was about to
S3t out on the expedition to Ireland, and re-
ceived from him the command of a division.
After the death of Dundee at Killiecrankie,
he was despatched from Ireland, along with
Sir Robert Southwell, to the highlands of
Scotland, to assist the Earl of Seaforth in
organising a resistance to General Mackay.
The defeat of the army of James at the battle
of the Boyne rendering further efforts in his
cause hopeless, Bernardi, after the dispersion
of the highland forces, made his escape south-
wards to London, where, as he was about to
set sail for Holland, he was apprehended on
a charge of high treason. The bill was, how-
ever, rejected, and, after a visit on parole to
Holland, he took up his residence near Brent-
ford until the Christmas of 1695, when he
began to frequent the Jacobite coffee-houses
in London. In 1696 he was arrested in bed
in a tavern on Tower Hill on suspicion of
being concerned in the { assassination plot,'
but, no tangible evidence being forthcoming
against him, he was never put upon his trial.
When the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act had expired, a bill was brought in to
sanction the imprisonment of him and four
others for a year, on the plea that further
time was required to collect evidence. The
act was renewed at the end of a year, and on
its second expiration an act was passed for
confining them during the pleasure of King
William. Similar acts were passed on the
accession of Anne, George I, and George II.
The strong Jacobite sympathies of Bernardi,
and the fact that he was arrested in company
with an old acquaintance, Captain Rookwood,
who was convicted, formed indeed strong pre-
sumptive evidence against him; but to doom
him to hopeless captivity without trial was
a gross violation of those very principles of
liberty which William of Orange came to
vindicate. Bernardi attained the pathetic
pre-eminence of surviving by several years
all the other prisoners. After nearly forty
years' imprisonment, he died in Newgate in
his eightieth year, 20 Sept. 1736. Notwith-
standing that his later years were rendered
additionally irksome from frequent suffering
caused by the breaking out of his old wounds,
he bore his hard fate with great cheerfulness.
While in Holland he had married in 1677 a
Dutch lady of good family, but she died before
his imprisonment, and in 1712 he was married
again in Newgate. His second wife bore him
ten children, and her care did much to miti-
gate the evils of his lot.

[A Short History of Major Bernardi written
by Himself in Newgate, where he has been for
near thirty-three years a Prisoner of State, with-
out any allowance from Government, and could
never be admitted to his Trial, 1729; Biog.
Brit. ii. 267-74 ; Thurloe's State Papers ; Macau-
lay's History of England; Gent. Mag. vi. 553,
1. 125.] T. F. H.

BERNERS, LORD.
JOHN.]

[See BOUECHIEK,

BERNERS, BERNES, or BARNES,
JULIANA (b. 1388?), writer on hawking,
hunting, and heraldry.

The historic and the legendary Dame
Juliana Berners are very different persons.
' What is really known of the dame is almost
nothing, and may be summed up in the fol-
lowing few words. She probably lived at
the beginning of the fifteenth century, and she
possibly compiled from existing MSS. some
rhymes on hunting;' so writes one of the
latest and most destructive of Dame Juliana's
biographers (BLADES, The Boke of St. Albans
in Facsimile, 1881, p. 13). Mr. Blades evi-
dently judges from the only mention of
Juliana Berners in the original edition of the
' Boke of St. Albans,' 1486, in the colophon
of its second treatise. This consists of a
rhymed treatise on hunting, and concludes :
( Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her boke
of huntyng.' In the reprint of the { Boke '
ten years later by Wynkyn de Worde, the
colophon is varied, thus: 'Explicit dame
Julyans Bernes doctryne in her boke of hunt-
ynge ; ' and the l Boke ' itself ends : * En-
prynted at Westmestre by Wynkyn the
Worde the yere of thyncarnacon of our lorde,
m.cccc.lxxxxvj.' Clearly Wynkyn de Worde
attributed the authorship of the hunting
treatise in the 'Boke' to one Julyans Bernes.
This is all that contemporaneous history
knows of the lady. l It must not be con-
cealed that no such person can be found in
any authentic pedigree of the Berners family,,
nor do the county historians of Hertfordshire,
nor indeed any other writers, notice her from
documents ' (DuGD ALE'S Monast. Anglic, iii.
363, ed. 1821). She possesses, however, a
biography which is more or less mythical, and
which is due to conjecture, inference, and
perhaps not a little to imagination. Hasle-
wood assigns a distinguished lineage to the
dame on the authority of Chauncy (Hist, of
Hertfordshire, 1700). She 'is supposed,' he
says, ' to have been born towards the latter
end of the fourteenth century. The received
report is that she was the daughter of Sir
James Berners, whose son was created Baron
Berners, temp. Henry IV, and that she once
held the situation of prioress of Sopwell

Berners

391

Berners

Gunnery, in Hertfordshire.' The pedigree
may be found p. 11 (HASLEWOOD, Boke of
St. Albans, London, 1810, fol.), drawn out in
full. It is enough to note here that Sir John
Berners of Berners Roding, Essex, died in
1347. His son. Sir Janies, father of Dame
Juliana, was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1388.
The family branched out into Sir Humphrey
Bourchier, who was slain at Barnet 1471,
fighting for Edward IV, and was a son of
•one Margery Berners. His son was the trans-
lator of Froissart. Thence it stretches to
Jane, mother of Sir Thomas Knyvet, whose
.great-great-grandson left a sole heir, Katha-
rine. She married Richard Bokenham, to
whom the barony of Berners was adjudged
in 1720. The dame is said to have spent her
youth probably at the court, and to have
shared in the woodland sports then fashion-
.able, thus acquiring a competent knowledge
•of hunting, hawking, and fishing. Having |
withdrawn from the world, and finding j
plenty of leisure in the cloister after being j
raised to the position of prioress, it is next 1
believed that she committed to writing her |
experience of these sports. As for fishing, if |
she were an active prioress, the exigencies of j
fasting days would demand that she should
busy herself in the supply offish required for j
the sisterhood. Like all observant anglers, j
she would daily learn more of that craft as
she grew older, and so she naturally treats of j
it more fully and in a clearer order than the
other subjects of the 'Boke' are handled.
The title ' dame ' did not of itself imply in
the fifteenth century any connection with
nobility ; ' it meant simply mistress or Mrs.,'
says Mr. Blades (p. 10). 'Had the Dame
Julyans Barnes of the fifteenth century
lived now, she would have been just " Mrs.
Barnes." ' But this is somewhat too broadly
stated. The usual account of this title is
that the lady was one of the sisters called
Dames, as she was able to pay the little
'Community for her maintenance, and so
was placed on a higher footing than the
ordinary nun, who performed menial tasks in
lieu of payment. She calls herself dame in
the ' Treatise on Hunting.' The scanty ruins
of Sopwell Nunnery may yet be seen about
a quarter of a mile north-east of the Abbey
of St. Albans, not far from the little river
Ver, in which the dame may have fished, and
which is yet famous for its trout. The well '
from which the name was derived is also ;
visible hard by. Of this nunnery the authoress j
•of the ' Boke of St. Albans ' was certainly an j
inmate, and probably, as tradition has handed
-down, its prioress. Her name does not ap- !
pear in the list of the prioresses of Sop-
^ivell j but there is a gap in their enumeration j

between 1430, when Matilda Flamstead died,
and 1480, when a commission was issued by
the abbot of St. Albans (on whom the nun-
nery was dependent) to Rothebury, the
cellarer, and Thomas Ramrugge, the sub-
prior, to supersede from her office of prioress
Joan Chapell, who was very old and too in-
firm to discharge her duties. In this space
of fifty years upholders of the time-honoured
belief may legitimately insert the dame as
prioress if they will. The nunnery itself had
been founded under the rule of St. Benedict
about 1140. The rule of life was very strict,
and at first the nuns had been enclosed under
lock and key ; but this discipline was gra-
dually relaxed, and it is quite conceivable
that, without participating in the license and
evil-living which rendered notorious many of
the religious houses prior to the reformation,
the dame and her companions might have
allowed themselves a decent liberty, during
which field sports suitable to their sex might
have alternated with the exercises of devo-
tion. In the well-watered, well-timbered
neighbourhood of Sopwell the dame may
have found inducements to follow the field-
sports which are inseparably connected with
her name and the ' Boke of St. Albans.' A
century after her time, Mary Queen of Scots
displayed the same passionate enthusiasm for
hunting and hawking which animated so
many high-born ladies during the middle
ages. In any case, the dame could solace
herself with her treatises among the ruthless
succession of battles, treasons, and executions
which marked the wars of the Roses, and
from which her own kith and kin had not
escaped. She had heard, it may be, of the
marvellous art which Caxton had been intro-
ducing into England at his Westminster
Press, 'the almonry at the red pale.' Sud-
denly she found another of these wonder-
working printers settled at her own doors,
and made over to him her manuscripts, much
to the delectation of posterity.

Such being the shadowy life of Dame
Juliana Berners, it is curious that a like fate
pursues even her printer. He is only known
from Wynkyn de Worde's reprint of ' St. Al-
ban's Chronicle,' the colophon of which states:
' Here endith this present chronicle, compiled
in a book and also enprinted by our some-
time schoolmaster of St. Alban.' From 1480
to 1486 he issued eight works, the first six
of which are in Latin. Towards the end of
his life he seems to have grasped the fact that
fame waited for the man who should give
books in their own tongue to the English.
Accordingly his last two books, ' The Boke
of St. Albans ' and ' St. Alban's Chronicle/
were printed in the vernacular. He printed

Berners

392

Bernher

from an old worn-out fount of type which
had been discarded by Caxton, and after the
stoppage of the press at St. Albans (probably
by Cardinal Wolsey) this same fount re-
turned to Westminster, and was actually
used by Wynkyn de Worde in his reprints
(1496-7) of the two English books which had
been issued by the press of St. Albans
(BLADES, Introd. to the Boke of St. Albans,
pp. 17-23):

The first edition of the 'Boke of St. Albans '
(1486) consists of four separate treatises on
1 Hawking,' ' Hunting,' the ' Lynage of Coote
Armiris,' and the 'Blasyng of Armys,' to-
gether with a good deal of intercalated matter
resembling the subjects usually found at the
end of a modern almanac. Warton, Blades,
and most moderns consider these treatises
as but translations, probably from French
manuscripts, much as Ceedmon's poems are
probably but the versification of previous
Saxon paraphrases. Indeed, the colophon at
the end of the ' Blasyng of Arinys' states :
' Here now endyth the boke of blasyng of
armys translated and compylyt togedyr at
Seynt albons.' There is also internal evi-
dence to the same effect. What seems to
render this certain, however, is that in 1883
Messrs. Satchell published the ' Treatyse of
Fysshynge with an Angle' from a manuscript
in the possession of A. Denison, Esq., which
differs considerably in orthography, phrase,
and sense from that in the ' Boke of St. Al-
bans;' and Professor Skeat is inclined to
assign to it an earlier date than 1450. After
full consideration, Haslewood finally attri-
butes to the dame's pen (1) a small portion
of the treatise on Hawking : (2) the whole
treatise upon Hunting ; (3) a short list of
the beasts of chase ; (4) another short one
of beasts and fowls. ' It is plain Julyans
Bernes wrote the book of Hunting' (HER-
BERT and DIBDIN'S Ames, ii. 65, 1810).
Chalmers states that ' what relates to the
blazing of arms contains no more than abs-
tracts from a performance of Nicholas Upton,
written about 1441.' Only three perfect
copies of this first edition are known. One
is in the Althorp Library, another in the Earl
of Pembroke's collection, and the third is in
the library of the Earl of Devon. The only
copy which has appeared in an auction-room
this century (with the exception of that in
the Duke of Roxburghe's sale, which was
very imperfect) was itself imperfect. It came
from the library of Mr. F. L. Popham of
Littlecote, and was sold in March 1882 for
600 guineas to Mr. Quaritch.

In the next edition (1496), that of Wynkyn
de Worde, first appears the celebrated ' Trea-
tyse on Fysshynge with an Angle.' A hun-

dred years after its first publication the work
figures, in 1586, as the ' Boke of St. Albansr
Hawking, Hunting, Fishing, with the True-
Measures of Blowing ' (b.l. Printed by Ed-
ward Allde, 4to, 44 leaves). During the
sixteenth century the ' Boke ' was so fre-
quently reprinted, owing to its extreme popu-
larity, as almost to defy the bibliographer's
skill. Its ' circulation for a long time vied
with and perhaps exceeded that of every
other contemporary production of the press
of lesser eminence than Holy Writ ' (HASLE-
WOOD, p. 21).

The first edition of the 'Boke ' is illustrated
with coats of arms in black and red, but in
the second edition, 1496, appear the quaint
and celebrated woodcuts. These are three
in number. The first consists of a group of
men going hawking, while a hawk flies over
them, and two dogs like Italian greyhounds
run at their side. The costume of the sports-
men is as noticeable as the character of their
dogs. In the second appears a 'bevy' or
' sege ' of fowls (as the dame orders them to
be called), some of which are flying, others
swimming, others again standing on the banks
of a stream. A lion is seizing one of these
which resembles a bittern. The woodcut
attached to the 'Treatyse 'of Fysshynge' is
probably better known than the other two,.
owing to its numerous reproductions. A coun-
tryman is engaged with rueful face in an-
gling. His rod and line are extremely primi-
tive. An open tub lies at his side, in which
he is intended to place his captives and keep
them alive until they could be deposited in
the 'stew/

An excellent facsimile of the original
edition of the 'Boke' was published by
Mr. E. Stock in 1881 ; and a reproduction,,
also in facsimile, of the ' Treatyse of Fyssh-
ynge ' in 1880.

[Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. 1821. iii. 363 ;
Dibdin's Ames, ii. 55-66 ; Chauncy's Hist, of
Hertfordshire; Newcome's Hist, of St. Albans;
Haslev/ood's Boke of St. Albans ; Warton's Hist.
of English Poetry; Bale's Script. Illust. Mag.
Brit. For the printer of the Boke, Blades's Intro-
duction to the Boke of St. Albans, pp. 1 6-23 ; and
Biography of Caxton, 1882, pp. 45-219. Forks.
bibliography, Blades as cited ; and Satchell and
Westwood's Bibliotheca Piscatoria, p. 24 seq.
1883.] M. G-. W.

BERNHER, AUGUSTINE (fi.
clerk and servant of Latimer, bishop ofWor-r,
cester, was a Swiss, or, according to Foxe, a
Belgian. During the reign of Mary he was ^*
minister of a congregation in London, and isV/
said to have lived much at Baxterley. He
was married (TANNER). When Latimer was-
committed to the Tower (13 Sept. 1553)

Berningham

393

Berridge

Bernher attended him there, and the next
year waited on him and the other bishops
imprisoned at Oxford (STEYPE'S Cranmer,
492, 957). In this year also he succoured
Jewel when in great need during his flight
from Oxford, and so saved his life (Memorials,
i. 227). Throughout the Marian persecution
he was a constant friend to the martyrs, and
' a kind of overseer to the wives and father-
less children of those who died for religion '
(ib. 589). In a letter written shortly before
his death, Robert Glover bade his wife be
guided by Bernher, whom he calls ' an angel
of God;' and Bradford, writing from his
prison, addresses him as 'my own good
Augustine ' (FoxE, Acts and Monuments,
vii. 262). He comforted and attended on
Glover (ib. 398), Careless (ib. viii. 185), Mrs.
Joyce Lewes (ib. 404), and Cuthbert Sympson
(ib. 456), who suffered martyrdom 1555-58.
In the reign of Elizabeth he was rector of
Sutton (Memorials, i. 589), or, according to
Tanner, of Southam, and was noted for the
indignation he expressed against the priests
who conformed to the ecclesiastical changes
then enforced. He wrote ' Testimonies taken
out of God's Word,' &c., 'An Answer to
certain Scriptures,' &c., manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library; ' Epistola ad dominum
suum' (Ridley), a manuscript in Emanuel
College, ; Cambridge, and edited Latimer's
Sermons with a Latin preface addressed to
Catherine, duchess of Suffolk, 4to, 1572, 1635,
and Latimer's Works (Parker Soc.), i. 311.
Notices of Bernher will be found in various
works published by the Parker Society, e.g.
Bradford's Works, i. 306, ii. 168, 186, and
Ridley's Works, 381 ; see index to the series.

[Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, Memorials
of Cranmer, 8vo, Oxford, 1828 ; Foxe's Acts and
Monuments, 1849; Publications of Parker Society,
•with Gough's Index : Tanner's Bibl. BritJ

W. H.

BERNINGHAM, RICHARD DE (ft.
1313), was a justice itinerant. There were
two families of this name in the reign of
Edward II, one in Yorkshire and the other
in Norfolk. Both contained a Richard de
Berningham, the former a son of John de
Berningham, the latter of Walter de Bern-
ingham, lord of the manor of Hanteyns Barn-
ham, Norfolk. The Richard de Berningham
who was so often in this reign summoned to
the council among justices and others pro-
bably belonged to the Yorkshire family (SiR
F. PALGRAVB). A parliamentary writ, dated
6 Sept. 1313 (Parl Writs, ii. p. ii. 534), re-
quires him to lay aside the caption of assize
in the northern counties during the meeting |
of parliament and repair to Westminster. He I

continued to be summoned in 1314, 1315
1317, 1318, 1319, 1320, until 1324, , and during
that time was included in judicial commis-
sions as conservator of the peace, justice of
oyer and terminer, and commissioner of
array for the county of York, in whicli
county he was knight in 1323. From 1314
to 1315 he was a collector of scutages in
Yorkshire, and in 1318 was empowered, as
a landholder beyond the Trent, to raise and
arm his tenants. The name of Richard de
Bernyngham, miles, appears as witness to a
charter of Marigg Abbey, Yorkshire, 5 April
1321 (Collect. Topographica, 1843, Marigg
Charters, v. 123). He died, holding property
at Middleton and Queenrow in Yorkshire, in
1329.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges ; Blomefield's Nor-
folk, i. 636 ; Cal. Inquis. post mortem, ii. 19;
Parly. Writs, ii. div. 3, p. 534.] J. A. H.

BERRIDGE, JOHN (1716-1793), an
evangelical clergyman, was the eldest son of
John Berridge, a wealthy farmer of Kingston,
Nottinghamshire, and was born there 1 March
1716. He was entered at Clare Hall, Cam-
bridge, 28 Oct. 1734, took the degree of B.A.
in 1738, and that of M.A. in 1742. Whilst
at the university he was a diligent student,
and often worked for fifteen hours a day.
For many years he remained a resident
fellow of his college, and for the last six years,
of his residence at Cambridge (1749-55) he
served the curacy of Stapleford. Cole, in an'
amusing passage quoted in Mr. Thompson
Cooper's biographical dictionary, says that he
was ' the head of a sect called Berridges in
the neighbourhood of Cambridge,' a state-
ment which is corroborated to some extent
by George Dyer, who asserts that his sermons
at St. Mary's gave great offence, but that he
had many followers in town and country.
On 7 July 1755 he was inducted to the col-
lege of Everton, Bedfordshire, where he re-
mained until his death. In the year 1758 he
became acquainted with Wesley and White-
field ; they preached in his parish church,,
and he preached in their London chapels.
His first sermon out of doors was delivered
14 May 1759, after which date he regularly
travelled on preaching tours through the
neighbouring counties. ' One of the most
simple as well as most sensible men ' was:
John Wesley's description of Berridge, and
all his contemporaries agreed in praising his
kindly and simple disposition. Tall of stature,
strong in voice, naturally witty, and of a
cheerful disposition, his qualities attracted
great crowds to listen to his sermons, and he
laboured zealously whilst his health lasted.
He died at Everton 22 Jan. 1793, and was

Berriman

394

Berriman

buried in the churchyard 27 Jan., when
Simeon preached his funeral sermon.

Although Berridge was a man of great
knowledge, he in later life, to the regret of
Wesley, rejected the aid of human learning
for Christianity. When at Cambridge he was
an Arminian in creed, but afterwards he
became a Calvinist, putting his faith in
divine mediation and ' free grace,' whilst re-
fraining as much as possible from controversy. !
His works were numerous : 1. 'A Collec- j
tion of Divine Songs ' (1760), mostly from I
Wesley's hymns, a volume which he after- |
wards suppressed, substituting for it ' Sion's !
Songs ' (1785 and 1815). 2. 'Justification by j
Faith alone,' the substance of a letter to a
clergyman (1762), reproduced in 1794 under j
the title of ' A Short Account of the Life and I
Conversion of Rev. John Berridge,' and in
1827 and 1836 as 'The great Error de-
tected, or Self-righteousness disclaimed.'
3. ' The Christian World unmasked, pray
come and neep ' (1773), a plain and homely,
but an effective, expression of his religious
belief, which passed through many editions,
and was answered by Fletcher of Madeley i
in the first and second parts of his ' Fifth Check
to Antinomianism.' 4. ' Chearful Piety, or
Religion without Gloom ' (1792), 7th edition
in 1813. 5. < Last Farewell Sermon, preached j
at the Tabernacle 1 April 1792, with a short
account of Mr. Berridge's death ' (1793 and
1834). The Rev. Richard Whittingham,
who had been Berridge's curate at Everton,
added a short memoir of his life to a reprint
of the ' Christian World unmasked,' about
1818. An enlarged biography by Mr. Whit-
tingham, with a reprint of the same work
and of ' Sion's Songs,' appeared in 1838 ; an
appendix was published in 1844, and a second
edition of the whole work in 1864. A ser-
mon on his death by Rev. William Holland,
and an anonymous elegy, were published in
1793 ; and so late as 1882 there appeared a
volume of 'Gospel Gems, a Collection of
Notes from the Margins of the Bible of the
Rev. J. Berridge. Numerous anecdotes, as
well as letters from him, are contained in the
' Life and Times of the Countess of Hunting-
don,' and in the ' Congregational Magazine '
for 1841 and 1845.

[Tyerman's Whitefield, ii. 410, 441, 462;
Tyerman's Wesley, ii. 309-70, 463, 491, iii. 2,
158; Tyerman's Fletcher. 51-3, 283-5, 294-8,
371; Gadsby's Hymn Writers, 14-35. 153;
Dyer's Cambridge, i. 122-4.] W. P. C.

BERRIMAN, JOHN (1691-1768), di-
vine, born in 1691, was the son of John
Berriman, a London apothecary, and thus
brother of William Berriman, D.D. [q. v.]

He was a member of St. Edmund Hall,
Oxford, where he matriculated 11 May 1714,
proceeding B.A. 1718, and M.A. 1720, was
for many years rector of St. Olave's and St.
Alban's. He published in 1722 a sermon
(on Kings xxi. 12-13) entitled ' The Case of
Naboth considered and compared with that
of the Royal Martyr,' 4to. This was fol-
lowed in 1741 by ' Qebs etyavepwdr) ev a-apKi,
or a critical dissertation on 1 Tim. iii. 16.
Wherein rules are laid down to distin-
guish in various readings which is genuine.
. . . Being the substance of eight sermons
preached at the Lady Moyer's lecture in 1737-
8,' 8vo. In 1751 he edited his brother Wil-
liam Berriman's ' Christian Doctrines ex-
plained in Forty Sermons,' 8vo, and in 1758
he wrote a preface to C. Wheatley's ' Fifty
Sermons.' He died in 1768.

[G-ent. Mag. xxxviii. 590 ; Rawlinson MSS.,
fo. 16182, Bodleian Library ; British Museum
Catalogue.] A. H. B.

BERRIMAN, WILLIAM, D.D. (1688-
1750), divine, son of John Berriman, apothe-
cary in Bishopsgate Street, London, in the
parish of St. Ethelburga (by Mary, daughter
of William Wagstaffe, of Farnborough, War-
wickshire), and grandson of the Rev. Charles
Berriman, rector of Beddington, Surrey, was
born on 24 Sept. 1688. His first school was
at Banbury, Oxfordshire ; he continued there
seven years. Thence he was removed to Mer-
chant Taylors' School, London, under Dr.
Shorting, in 1700. He was entered com-
moner of Oriel College, Oxford, on 4 March
1705. He went to reside in Oxford on

21 June 1705; was B.A. 2 Nov. 1708;
M.A. 2 June 1711 ; D.D. 25 June 1722. His
brother, in his memoir of him, lauds his
learning at the university, and Glocester
Ridley, LL.B., in his funeral sermon remarks :
1 Aware of the ridiculousness of that dan-
gerous and troublesome acquisition, " a little
learning," he did not quit the university when
yet but a novice there, and rush into the
world to be a teacher of it, till he had formed
his judgment by the compleat axle of acade-
mical sciences and the exercises of the school '
(p. 11). He mastered Hebrew, Syriac, and
Arabic. He was ordained deacon at Oxford
by Bishop Talbot, but continued in residence
at the university till he was settled in London
on 5 May 1712. He is found as curate at
Allhallows in Thames Street in 1712. He
was ordained priest on 12 Dec. 1712 by the
Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Bisse). He was
chosen lecturer of St. Michael's, Queenhithe,

22 July 1714. He became domestic chaplain
to Dr. Robinson, bishop of London, April
1720, and resided at Fulham. On 26 April

Berrow

395

Berry

1722 he was presented to St. Andrew's Un-
dershaft, and thereupon resigned his lecture-
ship at Queenhithe. He was known privately
as author of <A seasonable Review of Mr.
Winston's Account of Primitive Doxologies,'
1719, and of 'A Second Review/ also 1719.
In 1723-4 was delivered his ' Historical Ac-
count of the Trinitarian Controversy,' being
the Lady Moyer's lecture, published 1725.
In 1731 followed ' A Defence of some Pas-
sages in the Historical Account.'

On 17 Nov. 1724 he married Mary Hud-
•son. On 16 June 1727 he was elected fellow
of Eton College, and for the remainder of !
his life took special interest in this founda- j
tion. Eton became his summer residence.
In 1730-1 he preached the Boyle lecture,
published in 1733 (2 vols. 8vo). In 1733 ap-
peared his ' Brief Remarks on Mr. Chandler's
Introduction to the History of the Inquisi-
tion.' There were other occasional sermons
and tractates. He died on 5 Feb. 1749-50,
in his sixty-second year. His brother John
,[q. v.] published posthumously two volumes
•of sermons, entitling them ' Christian Doc-
trines and Duties explained and recommended
in xl Sermons' (1751).

[Memoir by John Berriman in his Christian
Doctrines, 1751; The Good Christian never dies,
by Glocester Ridley, 1750; Chandler's Answer
to William Berriman, D.D., 1733; with A Second
Letter, 1733, and A Vindication against the
Misrepresentations of William Berriman, 1734 ;
Biog. Brit. ; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, ii.
365.] A. B. G.

BERROW, CAPEL (1715-1782), divine,
was born in 1715, son of Capel Berrow
(of Christ's College, Cambridge, B.A. 1703,
M.A. 1712), chaplain to William, Earl Cow-
per, and for forty years the curate of Northill,
Bedfordshire, who died 28 Oct. 1751 (LYSONS,
.Bedfordshire, 120). He was admitted into
Merchant Taylors' School 16 Oct. 1728, and
became head scholar in 1733 (ROBINSON,
M. T. School Register}. He proceeded to the
university of Oxford, matriculated a com-
moner of St. John's College 7 Sept. 1734,
proceeded B.A. 1 June 1738, M.A. of Christ's I
College, Cambridge, 1758. He became curate ;
of St. Botolph's, Aldersgate, March 1741, and
afterwards of St. Austin's, and on 12 July '
1744 was chosen lecturer of St. Benedict
and Paul's Wharf. The title-pages of his
different books show his further offices and !
dignities, as follows : ' Theological Disserta- j
tions by Capel Berrow, A.M. Rector of Ros- I
s'mgton, Northamptonshire ; Lecturer of St. i
Bennet's and St. Peter Paul's Wharf, and
Chaplain to the Honourable Society of Judges
and Serjeants in Serjeants' Inn,' 1782. This
work was simply a binding-up together on his

death of the unsold copies of his separately
issued writings : (1) ' Remarks on the Rt. Rev.
Dr. Sherlock's Discourses on the Use and In-
tent of Prophecy : in a Letter formerly sent
to his Lordship.' (2) 'On Predestination,
Election, Reprobation, and Future Punish-
ments.' (3) 'A few Extracts from a Dis-
course concerning Origen and the Chiefest of
his Opinions ; first printed in the year 1661.'
(4) l Observations on the End and Design of
Christ's Death.' (5) ' Deism not consistent
with the Religion of Reason and Nature/
(6) ' A Lapse of Human Souls in a State of
Pre-existence, the only Original Sin and the
Ground Work of the Gospel Dispensation.'
Among the subscribers to the collective
volume stands ' Samuel Johnson,' who in the
' Rambler ' had discussed Berrow's specula-
tions. The last, originally published in 1766,
is his only book now remembered. Berrow
never mentions the Jesuit writer, G. H. Bou-
geaut, from whose 'Amusement Philoso-
phique sur le Langage des Bestes,' translated
into English in 1 739 (there was a ' 2nd edition
corrected,' 1740), he derived nearly all his
theories. Nor does Berrow refer to Hildrop's
' Examination of Father Bougeaut's Philoso-
phical Amusement,' 1742, from which he also
borrowed. Berrow brings in, in the most reck-
less and uncritical way, the most famous names
as holding the doctrine of l the lapse of souls
in a state of pre-existence.' His work is a
farrago of ill-digested learning. While Bou-
geaut jested, Berrow was as grave as a judge.
Local inquiries show that he was non-resident
at Rossington. Various occasional sermons
(1746 onward) were also published by him.
He died on 5 Oct. 1782.

[Rawlinson MSS. 4to, 6304, Bodleian Library;
Notes and Queries, 2nd series, xi. 341, 417;
Gent. Mag. lii. 503 ; communications from Ross-
ington and London parishes ; Berrow's Works.]

A. B. G.

BERRY, CHARLES (1783-1877), uni-
tarian minister, was born 10 Nov. 1783 at
Romsey, Hants; a direct descendant of
James Berry [q. v.], colonel of a regiment
of horse, and afterwards one of Cromwell's
major-generals; whose son John, a Lon-
don West India merchant, married Anne,
daughter of Sir Charles Wolseley, and was
father of Rev. Charles Berry, of Shrews-
bury (d. 1741, set. 41). This presbyterian
minister's son John was a jeweller at Bir-
mingham, and father of Rev. John Berry
(d. about 1821), independent minister suc-
cessively at Shaftesbury, Romsey, and West
Bromwich, classical tutor at Homerton Col-
lege, and finally minister at Camberwell
till his retirement from ill-health (so CLB-
PHAN ; WADDINGTON, in Surrey Cong. Hist.

Berry

396

Berry

1866, p. 171, gives William Berry of War-
minster as the pastor who resigned Cam-
berwell Green, from ill-health, in 1812).
Rev. John Berry left four sons, John (d. 3
Nov. 1867, set. 88) ; Joseph, an independent
minister (d. 2 Aug. 1864, ait. 82) ; Charles ;
and Cornelius, for fifty-three years indepen-
dent minister at Hatfield Heath, Essex (d.
8 Sept. 1864, set. 76). Charles was educated
for the independent ministry at Homerton,
entering in 1799, at the time when Dr. Pye
Smith succeeded John Berry as classical
tutor. He acted as assistant to Pye Smith
in a course of chemical experiments. In 1802
some of the students, including Charles Berry,
developed heretical views. Berry left Homer-
ton, and in 1803, at the age of twenty, became
minister of the Great Meeting, Leicester, in
succession to Robert Jacomb. Here he mi-
nistered till 1859, having Rev. Charles Cle-
ment Coe, F.R.G.S., as colleague from 1855.
In 1808 he opened a school which he main-
tained for over thirty years. To him Dr. Parr
addressed, 19 Dec. 1819, his famous letter on
the methods of classical training (PAKE'S
Works, ed. Johnston, 1828, viii. 481-6).
His pupils included many who afterwards
distinguished themselves in public life. In
1810 he married Ann (d. 24 May 1870, set.
90), daughter of Thomas Paget. He was
one of the founders of the Leicester Literary
and Philosophical Society, and of the Lei-
cester Town Museum. A ripe scholar and
mathematician, as a preacher he dealt with
topics of common life in language pithy but
studiously simple. His Christology was
humanitarian ; early in his ministry he had
a pulpit controversy on the subject with
Robert Hall, then baptist minister at Harvey
Lane, Leicester, with whom he maintained
an unbroken friendship. He died 4 May 1877
in the house of his son-in-law, near Liverpool.
He published several sermons, including :
1. ' The Duty of National Thanksgiving,' 1812.
2. 'Funeral Sermon for Queen Caroline,'
1821. 3. 'Remarks on Popery and the present
Anti-papal Agitation,' 1851.

[Chn.Keformer, 1847, p. 323 ; Chn. Life, 1877,
p. 230 ; Eemembrance of Rev. C. B., 1877, by
J. C. (James Clephan).] A. Gr.

BERRY, SIR EDWARD (1768-1831),
rear-admiral, was one of a large family left
in straitened circumstances by the early death
of his father, a merchant in London. Lord
Mulgrave had been a pupil of his uncle, the
Rev. Titus Berry of Norwich, and through
him, then one of the lords of the admiralty,
the boy was in 1779 appointed as a volunteer
to the Burford, 70 guns, with Captain Rainier,
then sailing for the East Indies, where she

remained till after the conclusion of the war
in 1783. He was made lieutenant on 20 Jan.
1794, as a reward, it is said, for his gallantry
in boarding a French ship of war ; he is said
also, in a vague way, to have distinguished
himself on the First of June ; but the first
distinct mention of him is on his appoint-
ment to the Agamemnon with Captain Nel-
| son in May 1796. He quickly won Nelson's
I esteem (Nelson Despatches, ii. 175), followed
| him to the Captain (11 June), and whilst
I Nelson was on shore conducting the siege of
| Porto Ferrajo, Berry, then first lieutenanty
commanded the ship in such a manner as to
call forth an official expression of his cap-
tain's 'fullest approbation' (ib. ii. 209, 272).
I This special service won for him his com-
' mander's rank, 12 Nov. 1796 ; but whilst
I waiting for an appointment, he remained as
a volunteer onboard the Captain, and was thus
present in the battle of Cape St. Vincent : when
the order was given to board the San Nicolas,
' The first man,' wrote Nelson, ' who jumped
into the enemy's mizen chains was Captain
! Berry, late my first lieutenant; he was sup-
ported from our spritsail-yard, which hooked
in the mizen-rigging ' (ib. ii. 342). Captain
Berry afterwards assisted Nelson into the main
chains of the San Josef. Berry was posted
' on 6 March, and, being in England in Oc-
i tober, was taken to court by Nelson, who,
: on the king remarking on the loss of his
right arm, promptly presented Berry as his
right hand (ib. ii. 448 w.) It was agreed be-
tween them that, when Nelson hoisted his
flag, Berry was to go as his flag-captain ;
and on 8 Dec. Nelson wrote to him : * If you
mean to marry, I would recommend your
doing it speedily, or the to-be Mrs. Berry
will have very little of your company, for I
am well, and you may expect to be called
for every hour' (ib. ii. 456). On 12 Dec.
Berry was married to his cousin Louisa,
daughter of the Rev. Dr. Forster of Norwich.
, On 19 Dec. he was appointed to the Van-
guard, but the ship did not leave England
| till 10 April 1798. In the battle of the Nile
Berry, as captain of the flag-ship, had his
full share, and when Nelson was wounded
caught him in his arms and saved him from
falling (ib. iii. 55). He afterwards published
anonymously 'An authentic Narrative of the
Proceedings of his Majesty's Squadron under
the command of Rear-admiral Sir Horatio
Nelson, from its sailing from Gibraltar
to the Conclusion of the glorious Battle of
the Nile, drawn up from the Minutes of
an Officer of Rank in the Squadron' (re-
printed from the 'True Briton ' and the ' Sun '
newspapers, with additions, 8vo, 1798), a
pamphlet which, under the special circum-

Berry

397

Berry

stances of its authorship, is of singular inte-
rest and value.

Within a few days of the battle Berry
was sent off in the Leander with the ad-
miral's despatches. On 18 Aug. the little
50-gun ship was met by the Gene"reux, 74
guns, and captured after a stout defence, in
the course of which Berry received a severe
wound in the arm. He was taken, with the
ship, to Corfu, and did not reach England
till the beginning of December. The news
of which he was the bearer had been already
received in duplicate, but Berry was wel-
comed with the utmost enthusiasm, was
Imighted on 12 Dec., and presented with the
freedom of the city. Early in the spring of
1799 he was appointed to the Foudroyant,
in which he arrived at Palermo on 6 June.
On the 8th Nelson hoisted his flag on board,
"but afterwards, staying at Palermo, sent the
Foudroyant to strengthen the blockade of
Malta. Berry had thus the gratification of
assisting in the capture of his former captor,
the GSnereux, 18 Feb., and of the Guillaume
Tell, 31 March, the last of the French ships
which had been in the battle of the Nile [see
BLACKWOOD, SIR HENRY]. In the following
June the Foudroyant carried the queen of
Naples from Palermo to Leghorn, on which
occasion her majesty presented Berry with a
gold box set with diamonds and a diamond
ring. A few months later Berry quitted the
ship and returned to England. In the sum-
mer of 1805 he was appointed to the Aga-
memnon, and joined the fleet off Cadiz only
Justin time to share in the glories of Tra-
falgar ; he had, however, no opportunity of
special distinction in it, nor yet, the follow-
ing year, 6 Feb., in the action off St. Domingo.
The Agamemnon was put out of commission
towards the end of 1806, and Berry was
made a baronet. He is said to have been
the only officer in the navy, of his time, ex-
cept Collingwood, who had three medals,
having commanded a ship in three general
actions, namely, the Nile, Trafalgar, and St.
Domingo. If to these we add St. Vincent
and the First of June, and the five actions in
the East Indies between Hughes and Suffren,
together with the loss of the Leander and
the capture of the Genereux and the Guil-
laume Tell, it will be seen that the record of
his war services is in the highest degree ex-
ceptional. In 1811 he commanded the Sceptre,
and in September 1812 changed into the Bar-
fleur, which he took to the Mediterranean.
In December 1813 till the peace he com-
manded one of the royal yachts, and on 2 Jan.
1815 was made a K.C.B. On 19 July 1821
he attained the rank of rear-admiral, but
never hoisted his flag. His health was much

broken, and for several years before his death,

on 13 Feb. 1831, he had been quite incapable

of any active duties. He left no children,

i and the baronetcy became extinct. His por-

; trait by Copley is in the Painted Hall at

I Greenwich, to which it was presented by his

! widow in 1835 ; another and perhaps more

pleasing portrait, drawn and engraved by

Orme, is given in the ' Naval Chronicle.'

[Naval Chronicle, xv. 177; Marshall's Koyal
i Nav. Biog. ii. (vol. i. pt. ii.), p. 774 ; Gent. Mag.
(1831), ci. i. 270; Nicolas's Nelson Despatches,
j passim, see index.] J. K. L.

BERRY, JAMES (Jl. 1655), one of Crom-
well's major-generals, was about 1642 a clerk saadb

\ in some iron- works in Shropshire. Baxter , ft*
speaks of him as 'my old bosom friend that ^' £&^

\ had lived in my house and been dearest to

i me ' (BAXTER'S Autobiography, pp. 57-97).

| Berry took service under Cromwell, and in-
stigated the other officers of his troop to
invite Baxter to become their chaplain. He
was one of Cromwell's favourites. Acting
as his captain-lieutenant, he slew Charles
Cavendish at the battle of Gainsborough
(28 July 1643. CARLYLE'S Cromwell, Appen-
dix, v). In the course of the disputes between
the army and parliament in 1647 Berry was
active for the army, and was chosen president
of the council of adjutators. He was selected
by Cromwell to carry the despatch narrating
the victory of Preston, and was rewarded by
the house with 200/. (Journals of the House
of Commons, 23 Aug. 1648). Baxter speaks
mournfully of the change which under Crom-
well's influence came over Berry's religious
views. He became, he says, filled with
spiritual pride, and was led away by l the new
light ' to look down on puritans of the old type.
Still he admits that Berry ' lived as honestly
as could be expected in one that taketh error
for truth and evil to be good ' (p. 57). In
the spring of 1655 Berry was employed in
the suppression of an attempted rising in
Nottinghamshire, and in the winter of the
same year was appointed major-general of
Hereford, Shropshire, and Wales (see BERRY'S
Letters in THTJRLOE'S State Papers, vols. iii.,
iv., v.) Cromwell nominated him a member
of his House of Lords, and it is said that, un-
like most of the army, he was in favour of
the Protector's acceptance of the crown. On
the death of Cromwell he took an active
part in the councils of the party which over-
threw Richard. This he later repented, and
meeting Mr. Howe after the Restoration, ' he
very freely told him, with tears running
down his cheeks, that if Richard had but at
that time hanged up him and nine or ten
more, the nation might have been happy '

Berry

398

Berry

(Life of If owe, p. 25). He signed the invita-
tion of the army to the members of the Rump
to return to their seats, and was appointed
both a member of the council of state and one
of the committee who nominated to all offices
(May 1659). In the struggle between the
army and the Rump he took part with the
former, and was cashiered for signing the
army petition of 5 Oct. He was naturally
chosen one of the committee of safety esta-
blished by the army (26 Oct. 1659), but
could not prevent his own regiment, when
sent to blockade Portsmouth, from deserting
in large numbers to the partisans of the par-
liament. Whitelocke informs us that Berry
was one of the persons whose influence pre-
vented Fleetwood from accepting the pro-
posal to recall Charles II and anticipate
Monk (22 Dec. 1659. WHITELOCKE, p. 691).
On the reassembling of the remains of the
Long parliament he was ordered to leave
London (10 Jan. 1660), and refusing to give
an engagement to live peaceably was im-
prisoned by the council of state. f After-
wards,' says Baxter, 'he being one of the
four whom General Monk had the worst
thoughts of, was closely confined in Scar-
borough Castle.' On his wife's petition in
April 1663, the severity of his imprisonment
was relaxed, but he seems to have continued
a prisoner for the rest of his life. From a
letter which he wrote to Sir Jordan Cross-
land, under whose charge he was, it appears
that he was refused release without an ac-
knowledgment of guilt, which he steadfastly
refused to give (Cal. 8. P. Dom. 25 Oct. 1667).
But according to Baxter, ' being released he
became a gardener, and lived in a safer state
than in all his greatness.' He has been iden-
tified with Lieutenant-colonel Berry who was
second in command at Newton Butler in
1689, and died 9 May 1691, but this is un-
certain (CLEPHAN'S Remembrance of Rev. C.
Berry, 1877).

[Baxter's Reliquise Baxterianse, 57-8, 72, 97 ;
Baxter's Treatise of Self-denial, pref. ; Thurloe
State P»pers; Noble's House of Cromwell, i. 422.]

C. H. F.

BEERY, SIB JOHN (1635-1690), ad-
miral, of a family long settled near Ilfra-
combe, was the second son of a clergyman,
vicar of Knoweston in Devonshire, who,
having lost his living and his means of
livelihood in the civil wars, died in 1652,
leaving a large family almost entirely desti-
tute. John, as well as his elder brother,
went to sea in the merchant service, and
in 1663, entering into the navy, was ap-
pointed boatswain of the Swallow ketch in
the West Indies. Some little time after he

was advanced to be lieutenant of the Swal-
low, and having had the good fortune to-
assist in capturing a pirate of superior force,
was appointed to the command, her captain
being promoted to the command of the Con-
stant Warwick, 17 Sept. 1665. On arriving
in England he was appointed to the Little
Mary, and in the course of 1666 to the Guinea.
In 1667 he was appointed to command the
hired ship Coronation, of 56 guns, in which
he was sent out to the West Indies. The
presence of a considerable force of French
and Dutch was giving much uneasiness, and
the governor of Barbadoes, having taken up
eight large merchant ships, which he equipped
as men-of-war, gave the command of the
squadron to Captain Berry, who, in an en-
gagement with the enemy off Nevis, drove
them back under the guns of St. Kitt's, burnt
one of their number in the roadstead by
means of a fireship, and forced the rest to
scatter and fly. In 1668 he commanded the
Pearl, which in June 1669 was sent to the
Mediterranean with Sir Thomas Allin, and
employed with some success and distinction
against the Algerine pirates. In 1670 he
commanded the Nonsuch, still in the Medi-
terranean, and in 1671 returned to England
in command of the Dover. In 1672 he com-
manded the Resolution in the hard-fought
battle of Solebay, and won much credit by
the timely and resolute succour he brought
to the Duke of York when hard pressed, in
acknowledgment of which he was specially
knighted by the king on the return of the
fleet to the Nore. In the battle of 28 May
1673 he again distinguished himself by his
forward and resolute conduct, his ship suffer-
ing so severely that she had to be sent into
port. In 1675 he was again in the Mediter-
ranean in command of the Bristol, and seems
to have been employed on that station, with
few intermissions, till 1680. In 1682 he was
appointed to the Gloucester, in which the
Duke of York took a passage for Scotland ;
but on 6 May, by the mistake of the pilot,
she. ran on to a sandbank off the Yorkshire
coast, and was totally lost. The Duke of
York and as many of his train as could be
put into the boat were saved ; the yachts in
company sent their boats and picked up
many of the men, including Berry himself,
who stayed by the ship till the last, and took
his chance with the rest (Pepys to Hewer,
8 May 1682 ; Diary and Correspondence of
Sam. Pepys, Bright's ed., vi. 142 ; Add. MS.
15892, ff. 132, 134); but, notwithstand-
ing every exertion, several of the young
noblemen and about 150 of the ship's com-
pany were lost. Berry was acquitted of all
blame, and the next month was appointed

Berry

399

Berry

to the Henrietta. In 1683 he was vice-
admiral of the squadron which, under the
command of Lord Dartmouth, was sent out
to dismantle Tangier and bring home the
garrison, and on his return was appointed
one of the commissioners of the navy. In
1688 he commanded in the second post, under
Lord Dartmouth, in the fleet intended to
oppose the invasion from Holland, but when
the crisis came the king shrank from the
contest, and the officers of the fleet were
left to accept the will of the people. The
fleet was shortly afterwards laid up for the
winter, and Berry returned to his duties in
London, in which he appears to have intro-
duced a strict adherence to routine that was
then somewhat unusual and distasteful. His
death, which took place at Portsmouth after
a few days' illness, was attributed to poison ;
it might perhaps with greater probability be
attributed to a pestilential fever caused by
the filthy state of the town. He was buried
in Stepney Church, where there is a monu-
ment to his memory. The date of his death
is given on this as 14 Feb. 1691, that is
1 691-2, but it appears by an admiralty minute
of '22 March 1689-90 that he was then already
dead.

[Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, ii. 524 ;
Charnock's Biog. Nav. i. 143.] J. K. L.

BERRY, MARY (1763-1852), authoress,
was born 16 March 1763, at Kirkbridge in
Yorkshire. Her younger sister, Agnes, was
born there fourteen months afterwards, on
29 May 1764, and they were constantly
together for nearly eighty-eight years. Their
father, Robert Berry, was the nephew of a
Scotch merchant, named Ferguson, who had
thriven in trade in London, and by middle
life had realised 300,0007., besides purchas-
ing a considerable estate at Raith in Fife-
shire. Robert, elder of the two sons of
Ferguson's sister, entered his uncle's count-
ing-house in Broad Street, Austin Friars. In
1762 he married a distant cousin, a Miss
Seaton. His wife, after the birth of the two
children, Mary and Agnes, died in 1767,
aged 23, in childbed of a third who also died.
Meanwhile Robert's younger brother, Wil-
liam, brought up in a mercantile house, had
ingratiated himself with his uncle. Besides
this, he had married a Miss Crawford, who
brought him 5,0007. in money and two sons
in the first two years of their marriage.
Robert, having, on the contrary, had a por-
tionless wife and two daughters, had to con-
tent himself with an income of 3007. a year
and a dingy residence in Austin Friars.
From the time of their mother's death, his
infant children had been cared for by their

grandmother, Mrs. Seaton, at Askham, in
Yorkshire. Thence they were removed in
L770 to Chiswick, where they resided in the
llege House. Their governess at Chiswick
was married in 1775. From that date the two
girls were entirely self-educated. Their only
religious instruction consisted in Mary reading
aloud to her grandmother every morning one
of the psalms, and every Sunday one of the
Saturday papers from the * Spectator.' In
1781 the uncle, Mr. Ferguson, died, aged 93,
Leaving to William Berry (who then took
name of Ferguson) 300,0007. in the funds,
and an estate worth from 4,0007. to 5,0007. a
year in Scotland. Robert Berry had a bare
legacy of 10,0007. William, however, settled
on Robert an annuity of 1,0007. a year. In
1783 Robert Berry and his two young
daughters went abroad to Holland, Switzer-
land, and Italy. The father, as Mary says
of him, was chiefly remarkable for ' the odd
inherent easiness of his character.' His
daughter found that she must be a protect-
ing mother to her sister, and a guide and
monitor to her father. Mary Berry began at
Florence, in 1783, the ' Journals and Corre-
spondence,' completed seventy years later.
After a long stay in Italy, her tour was com-
pleted by a return home through France to
England in June 1785. Mary Berry and her
sister Agnes, in the winter of 1788, first made
the acquaintance of Horace Walpole, then
more than seventy years of age. A letter,
addressed to Lady Ossory, under date Straw-
berry Hill, 11 Oct. 1788, relates how he had
just then willingly yielded himself up to their
witcheries on meeting them at the house of
his friend Lady Herries, wife of the banker
in St. James's Street. Mary he speaks of as
1 an angel both inside and out,' adding, in
regard to them both, 1 1 do not know which
I like best, except Mary's face, which is
formed for a sentimental novel, but it is ten
times fitter for a fifty times better thing —
genteel comedy.' An intimacy was then con-
tracted between himself and the two sisters,
which surpassed in tenderness on his part
the most ardent affections of his youth. He
lavished upon both every conceivable term
of endearment, one while (17 April 1789)
addressing the elder as * Suavissima Maria/
and another (17 Oct. 1793) apostrophising
the younger as ' my sweet lamb.' Writing
to his l twin wives,' as he calls them, in one
letter he thanks them for a double missive
from 'Dear Both,' adding, playfully, that
1 its duplicity makes it doubly welcome ; ' and
at another time ending with ' Adieu ! mes
Amours,' signs himself 'Horace Fondlewives/
He begins on 31 Oct. 1788 writing, solely with
an eye to their amusement, his 'Reminiscences

Berry

400

Berry

of the Courts of George I and II,'whichhe com- I
pletes on 13 Jan. 1789. To them in the same '
year he inscribed his ' Catalogue of Strawberry
Hill.' He secured a house for them at Ted-
dington in 1789. In 1791 he prevailed upon
them to take possession of Little Strawberry
Hill, previously known as Cliveden from its
having been the abode of his friend Kitty Clive,
the famous actress. Little Strawberry Hill
was for many years the favourite home of the
Berrys. George, the third earl of Orford, died
5 Dec. 1791, and the earldom devolved upon
Horace Walpole. The only value of the
earldom in his eyes was that it enabled him
to place within reach of Mary Berry's accept-
ance the title of countess. ' There is a tradi-
tion handed down by Lord Lansdowne,' says
the ' Edinburgh Review' (October 1865, cxxii.
298), ' that he was ready to go through the
formal ceremony of marriage with either
sister, to make sure of their society, and
confer rank and fortune on the family ; as
he had the power of charging the Orford
estate with a jointure of 2,000/. a year.'
Mary Berry had, in 1779, been sought in
marriage by a Mr. Bowman, and wrote long
afterwards that she had ' suffered as people do '
at sixteen ' from what, wisely disapproved
of, I resisted and dropped.' General O Hara,
governor of Gibraltar, had met Miss Berry
in 1784 in Italy, and was engaged to her
before leaving England in the November of
1 795 for Gibraltar. Her reluctance to leave
her home at once as his bride led to their
gradual estrangement, and to the ultimate
breaking off of the proposed marriage at the
end of April 1796. Lord Orford died on
2 March 1797. He left to each the sum of
4,000/., and to Mary and Agnes jointly, for
their lives, the house and garden of Little
Strawberry Hill, together with the long
meadow in front of it, and all the furniture.
He also bequeathed to Robert, Mary, and
Agnes Berry, to be divided among them,
share and share alike, his printed works, and
a box containing manuscripts, to be published
at their discretion and for their emolument.
In 1798 was published in five quarto volumes
the collective edition of the ' Works of
Horace Walpole.' Nominally edited by Mr.
Berry, it was in reality all Mary Berry's
doing, save only one brief passage, a reference
to herself, in the preface. A comedy in five
acts, written by Mary Berry, and entitled
* Fashionable Friends/ having been performed
with some success at Strawberry Hill (among
other amateurs) by Robert Berry and his
two daughters, was afterwards, in May 1802,
brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, where it
was represented for three nights only, and
then summarily withdrawn. It failed on

the score of its lax morality. Pure-souled
woman though she was, she had not shrunk,
four years previously, from including among
Horace Walpole's works the ' Mysterious
Mother.' Oddly enough, too, she prefixed to
her published play of ' Fashionable Friends '
a note, imputing it to her dead and buried
friend, Horace Walpole ! Another dramatic
work of her own, a farce called * The Martins,'
set down in a manuscript list of her writings,
was never produced either in print or on the
stage. Immediately before her failure at
Drury Lane, Miss Berry had returned from
Paris, whither she had gone on her second
visit, on the occasion of the peace of Amiens.
During her stay she was presented to Napo-
leon in the palace of the Tuileries. Return-
ing to France 30 Oct. with her sister and
father, she went on to Nice, and thence round
through Switzerland and Germany, being
back again in England in September 1803.
Agnes was at this time engaged (probably)
to her first cousin, Colonel Ferguson (Edin.
Rev. cxxii. 311), but the engagement was
broken off. In 1810 Mary Berry brought
out in four volumes, annotated by herself,
the letters of Mme. du Deffand to Horace
Walpole between 1766 and 1780, as well as
those written by her to Voltaire between
1759 and 1775, all from the French originals
at Strawberry Hill. For her editorial la-
bours on this occasion Miss Berry received
200/. On 18 May 1817 Robert Berry died
of old age at Genoa, and, his brother Wil-
liam's annuity to him of 1,000/. a year then
ceasing, his two daughters had thenceforth
to live upon an annual income of 700/. In
1819 Mary Berry brought out ' Some Ac-
count of the Life of Rachel Wriothesley,
Lady Russell, followed by a series of Letters
from Lady Russell to her husband, Lord
William Russell, from 1672 to 1682, together
with some Miscellaneous Letters to and from
Lady Russell.' The work was published from
the originals in the possession of the Duke of
Devonshire. The first volume of her most
ambitious work, 'A comparative View of
the Social Life of England and France from
the Restoration of Charles the Second to
the French Revolution,' was published in
1828 ; a second appeared in March 1831, called
' Social Life in England and France from
the French Revolution in 1789 to that of
July 1830.' It was reissued as a collected
whole in the complete edition of her ' Works '
in 1844, with this new title, ' England and
France : a comparative View of the Social
Condition of both Countries.' During her
whole life Mary Berry had had but one
serious illness, namely, on 16 March 1825,
when she was struck down bv an all but

Berry

401

Berstede

fatal attack of bilious fever. Death came to
lier at last very gently at midnight, 20 Nov.
1852, as the result of exhaustion from sheer
old age, she being then well on in her nine-
tieth year. In 1865 was published ' Ex-
tracts from the Journals and Correspondence
of Miss Berry from 1783 to 1852, edited by
Lady Theresa Lewis.' Portraits of Mary
Berry at different ages, from girlhood to
eighty-six, enable us to realise something of
her personal charm. Those who would see
an effigy of her at her very best should turn
to the classic bust of her in white marble
sculptured by the Hon. Anne Seymour
Darner for Horace Walpole, who regarded it
as one of his most precious treasures.

["Warburton's Memoirs of Horace "Walpole and
his Contemporaries, ii. 550-67 ; Martineau's
Biographical Sketches, pp. 293-8 ; Annual Re-
gister, 1852, pp. 330-1 ; Tallandier's Memoir in
Nouvelle Biographie Generale. v. 676-7 ; Quar-
terly Review, March 1845, Ixxv. 485-96; Edin-
burgh Review, October 1865, cxxii. 297-336;
Times, 23 Nov. 1852; Remusat, Revue des
Deux Mondes, xv. 236-40.] C. K.

BERRY, WILLIAM (1774-1851), ge-
nealogist, well known from his various works
on family history, was in the earlier part of his
life, 1793-1809, employed as a writing clerk to
the registrar of the College of Arms. On his
retirement from that post, he for some time re-
sided in Guernsey, where he published a very
able work called * The History of the Island
of Guernsey, compiled from the collections of
Henry Budd,' 1815, 4to. Previously to this, in
1810, he had brought out a -work entitled
' Introduction to Heraldry.' Returning to
England, he resided at Doddington Place,
Kennington, Surrey, and in 1832 commenced
1 A Genealogical Peerage of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland.' It was a carefully com-
piled family history, with very beautifully
engraved coats of arms, but it did not re-
ceive much support, and after the issue of the
fourth number, which terminated with an
account of the dukes of Rutland, no further
parts were printed. His * Genealogia An-
tiqua, or Mythological and Classical Tables,'
published in 1816, met with more success,
and a second and improved edition appeared
in 1840. This work was dedicated to Lord
Grenville. His next undertaking was en-
titled ' Encyclopedia Heraldica, or Complete
Dictionary of Heraldry.' It was brought
out in numbers between 1828 and 1840, and
forms four quarto volumes. This is a valu-
able heraldic work, as it embraces the greater
part of the contents of Edmondson and other
writers, with much original matter. Per-
haps, however, the writings by which Berry

VOL. IV.

is best known are his county genealogies
published in small folio volumes, at five or
six guineas per volume. These were Kent,
1830; Sussex, 1830; Hampshire, 1833; Berk-
shire, Buckinghamshire, and Surrey, 1837 ;
Essex, 1839 ; and Hertfordshire, 1842. The
three latter volumes were printed by means
of lithography from the handwriting of the
author. The first portion of ' The County
Genealogies, Kent,' being severely reviewed
in ' The Gentleman's Magazine,' and objec-
tions taken to Berry calling himself on the
title-page of that work ' registering clerk in
the College of Arms,' he brought an action
for libel against Messrs. J. B. Nichols & Son,
the publishers of the magazine. The trial
took place in the court of king's bench before
Lord Tenterden on 1 Nov. 1830, when, al-
though the plaintiff was represented by
Henry Brougham, afterwards the lord chan-
cellor, the jury, without hearing any rebut-
ting evidence, almost immediately gave a ver-
dict in favour of the defendants. He died at
his son's residence, Spencer Place, Brixton,
2 July 1851, aged 77, having survived his wife
two months.

[G-ent. Mag. August 1829, pp. 99-101 ; No-r
vember 1830, pp. 409-16.], G. C. B.

BERSTEDE or BURGSTED, WALTER

DE (Jl. 1257), justice itinerant, is first heard
of in 1257 as sub-sheriff of 'Kent. In Decem-
ber of that year Reginald de Cobham, sheriff
of the county, dying, Berstede succeeded to
his office for the remainder of the annual
term, viz. till Easter 1258, paying the same
rent. He afterwards was appointed constable
of Dover Castle (HASTED, Kent, i. Ixxxi). A
commission of assize, consisting of Martin
Litilbiri, Galfrey de Leukenor, Richard de
Hemington, and De Berstede, travelled in
1262 through Leicestershire, and in the fol-
lowing year through Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Lincolnshire. According to Hasted (Kent,
4, 69), he was for a short time again constable
and warden of Kent in 1263, succeeding Ed-
ward and Robert de Gascoigne in July.
Richard de Grey was his successor. In Fe-
bruary 1266 a fine was levied by him, and
Dugdale makes him a justice of the bench,
and in September of the same his name ap-
pears to a writ of assize. He was possibly
connected with one John de Benstede, who,
in this reign, was possessed of the manor of
Bensted, in the parish of Huntington, as one
quarter of the knight's fee of the barony of
Crevequer (HASTED, ii. 298).

[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Dugdale's Ori-
gines Juricliciales ; Hasted's Kent ; Jeakes's Char-
ters; Rot. Fin. 2, 268, 446.] J. A. H.

D D

Bertha

402

Bertie

BERTHA, BERCTA, or (as GREG. Epp.
xi. 29) ADILBERGA (d. before 616), the
daughter of Haribert, king of the Franks,
reigning in Paris, and his wife Ingoberg, mar-
ried ^Ethelberht, king of Kent. The dates j
of her birth and her marriage are not known, j
Haribert reigned 561-567, and seems to have
married Ingoberg soon after his accession, j
Bertha's parents are said to have consented
to her marriage on the condition that she and
the bishop who should come over with her
should be allowed the free exercise of the
rites of Christianity. It is certain, however,
that her father died before her marriage. Her
mother died 589 (GREG. TURON. ix. 26).
Bertha came over to England accompanied
by Liudhard, bishop of Senlis. who was ap-
pointed to minister to her. She received
St. Martin's, an old Roman-British church,
situated outside the walls, to the east of the
newer Canterbury, for the purposes of her
worship. The coming of Bertha and her
bishop must, to some extent at least, have
paved the way for the work of Augustine,
and though Liudhard died before the arrival
of the Roman missionaries (B^EDA, H. E.
ix. 27), it is probable that Gregory had some
communication with the queen on the subject
of the mission. And in coming to a heathen
husband Bertha must have remembered the
example set in her own family by Hlotehild
(Clothilde), wife of her great ancestor Hlodo-
wig (Clovis) whose marriage led to the con-
version of the Franks. In Bertha's church
Augustine and his companions worshipped and
preached, and there doubtless her husband
was baptised in 597. When, in 601, Pope
Gregory sent Mellitus, Paulinus, and others
to England as additional workers in the new
harvest-field, he wrote a letter to Bertha, in
which he speaks of the conversion of the
English as due to her, comparing her to
Helena, the mother of Constantine : he also
mentions her learning, and declares that her
good works were spoken of not in Rome alone,
but that they had reached Constantinople
and had been heard of by the emperor. At
the same time he implies that she might have
done even more, and exhorts her to greater
diligence in strengthening the faith of her
husband. This is the last record of Bertha's
life, for the tradition which speaks of her
as having been present at the foundation of
St. Augustine's monastery is without histori-
cal basis. The date of her death is not known ;
she certainly died before her husband ^Ethel-
berht, for he appears to have married a second
wife. She was buried in the porch of St.
Martin, in the church of SS. Peter and Paul.
She left a son, Eanbald, who was still a
heathen when he succeeded his father on the

throne, and a daughter yEthelburh, who mar-
ried Eadwine, king of the Northumbrians.

[Baeda, H. E. i. 25, ii. 5 ; Greg. Turon. iv. 26r
ix. 26 ; S. Greg. Magni Epp. xi. 29 ; Thome, ecL
Twysden, 1761.] W. H.

BERTHEAU, CHARLES (1660-1732),
French pastor in London, was born at Mont-
pelier, and educated partly in France and
partly in Holland. He was admitted to the
ministry at the synod held at Vigan in 1681,
and shortly afterwards became one of the
pastors of the then important church of
Charenton, Paris. The revocation of the
edict of Nantes drove him out of France, and
he came to England in 1685. In the follow-
ing year he was chosen one of the pastors of
the French church in Threadneedle Street,.
London, a post which he occupied for forty-
four years.

He is said to have been remarkable for his
memory and eloquence. Two volumes of
his sermons were printed in Holland in
1712 and 1730.

[An obituary notice in vol. i. of the Biblio-
theque Britannique, published at the Hague in
1733, is the main authority for the facts of Ber-
theau's life, and has been copied, or abridged, by
subsequent biographers. But the article in
Chaufepie's Nouveau Dictionnaire historique et
critique, published at Amsterdam in 1750, fur-
nishes some additional information, and a list of
the subjects of the published sermons.]

F. T. M.

BERTIE, SIR ALBEMARLE (1755-
1824), admiral, was born on 20 Jan. 1755.
He was made lieutenant on 20 Dec. 1777,.
and in the battle of Ushant, 27 July 1778,
was first lieutenant of the Fox, which acted
as repeating ship. On 10 Sept. the Fox was
captured by the Junon, a French frigate of
vastly superior force (BEATSON, Nav. and
Mil. Memoirs, iv. 431), and Bertie, with the
other officers and the ship's company, became
a prisoner of war. He was able, however,
to return to England in the following January
to give evidence on the trials of Keppel and
Pallisser, which told heavily against the
latter [see KEPPEL, the Hon. AUGUSTUS].
He had no further employment till the down-
fall of the ministry in March 1782, when he
was appointed captain of the Crocodile fri-
gate, in the Channel. In 1790 Bertie com-
manded the Latona frigate ; in 1792-3 he
commanded the Edgar, 74 guns, in the Chan-
nel fleet under Lord Howe ; and in 1794
commissioned the Thunderer, 74 guns, in
which he had a small share in the action of
the First of June. In 1795, still in the Thun-
derer, he was with Sir John Borlase Warren
in the Bay of Biscay. Afterwards, in rapid sue-

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403

Bertie

cession, he commanded the Renown, Windsor,
and Malta, all in the Channel. He became
rear-admiral on 23 April 1804, and vice-ad-
miral on 28 April 1808. He was then sent
out as commander-in-chief at the Cape of
Good Hope, and in October 1810, when the
attack on Mauritius was being prepared by
the East Indian squadron, he went in the
Africaine frigate to join the expedition. His
unexpected arrival beyond the limits of his
station, and his necessary assumption of the
chief command, not unnaturally nettled Vice-
admiral Drury, who, though Bertie's junior,
was commander-in-chief in India, and had
had the whole charge of organising the expe-
dition. Drury expressed himself with great
bitterness, and wrote to the admiralty that he
considered himself to be ' insulted and in-
jured ' (8 Nov. 1810). After all, Bertie's share
in the enterprise was extremely small, for
the French naval force had been previously
overpowered, and the surveys necessary to
insure a safe landing had been made. Once
on shore the troops found no enemy capable
of withstanding them, and the island sur-
rendered on 3 Dec. (JAMES, Naval Hist.,
1860, v. 204). Bertie returned to the Cape,
and shortly afterwards received orders to re-
turn to England, principally, it would appear,
in consequence of a disagreement with the
local commissioner of the navy. On his
arrival he wrote to the secretary of the ad-
miralty (28 March 1811) requesting, almost
demanding, an exact inquiry into his official
conduct. This, however, was coldly re-
fused, and Bertie had to rest content till the
ministerial crisis in the following year, when
the verdict of the outgoing admiralty was
immediately reversed, and Bertie's services,
more especially in respect of the capture of
Mauritius, were acknowledged by a baronetcy,
9 Dec. He had, however, no further command.
He became an admiral on 4 June 1814, was
made K.C.B. on 2 Jan. 1815, and died on
24 Feb. 1824.

[Official Letters in the P.K.O.; Marshall's
Naval Biog. i. 195; Gent. Mag. (1824), xciv. i.
459.] J. K. L.

BERTIE, CATHARINE, DUCHESS (DOW-
AGER) OF SUFFOLK (1520-1580), only child
of William Willoughby, eighth Lord Wil-
loughby de Eresby, was born in 1520. Her
mother, Mary de Salines or Saluces, a near
relative of Katharine of Arragon, had been
maid of honour to that queen, and had
come with her to England on her marriage
with Prince Arthur. On her father's death
in 1526 she succeeded to his dignity and for-
tune, and was entrusted to the guardianship
of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and

eventually became that nobleman's fourth
wife. She was married at the early age of
sixteen, and was left a widow in 1545 with
two sons, Henry and Charles, both of whom
died of the sweating sickness within a few
hours of each other on 16 July 1551 [see
BRANDON, HENRY and CHARLES]. She was
married to Richard Bertie about the end of
the year 1552. In the latter part of Ed-
ward VI's reign she distinguished herself by
her zeal for the reformation. To escape the
vengeance of Bishop Gardiner she left Eng-
land with her husband, and remained abroad
during the reign of Queen Mary. An account
of her wanderings on the continent will be
found in the memoir of her husband [see
BERTIE, RICHARD]. Her death occurred on
19 Sept. 1580. Fuller says that she was ' a
lady of a sharp wit and sure hand to thrust
it home and make it pierce when she pleased/
Seventeenth-century copies of a popular
Elizabethan ballad (by T. Deloney), entitled
'The most Rare and Excellent History of
the Dutchess of Suffolk and her husband
Richard Bertie's Calamities/ are extant in
the Roxburghe, Pepys, and Bagford collec-
tions of broadside ballads.

[Lady Georgina Bertie's Five Generations of
a Loyal House ; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), ii. 280 ;
Courthope's Historic Peerage, 511.] T. C.

BERTIE, MONTAGUE, second EARL
OF LINDSEY (1608 P-1666), adherent of
Charles I, was the eldest son of the first Earl
of Lindsey by Elizabeth, sole daughter of Ed-
ward Lord Montague, of Boughton, North-
amptonshire. In early life he served in the
Low Countries as captain of a troop of cavalry,
and on the outbreak of the civil war he assisted
his father to rally the county of Lincoln on the
side of the king, by himself raising a regiment
of cavalry. At the battle of Edgehill, where
he commanded the regiment of guards, he
made a desperate attempt to rescue his father ;
but finding this impossible, he voluntarily de-
livered himself up, that he might attend upon
him when wounded. For some time he re-
mained a prisoner in Warwick Castle, from
which he issued a vindication of the king s
cause, which was printed under the title, ' A
Declaration and Justification of the Earl of
Lindsey, now Prisoner in Warwick Castle,
wherein he makes apparent the Justice of his
Majesty's cause in taking armes for the pre-
servation of his Royall person and preroga-
tive. As it was sent in a letter to the Right
Honourable Henry, Earl of Newarke, now
resident with his Majesty at Oxford, 26 Jan.
1643.' Obtaining an exchange he was joy-
fully welcomed by the king at Oxford, and
took part in the battles of Newbury, Copredy,

DD2

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404

Bertie

and Lestwitliiel. ^.t Naseby, where he was
wounded, he commanded, along with Lord
Ashley, the right-hand reserve. As one of
the gentlemen of the bedchamber and a mem-
ber of the privy council, he accompanied the
king on his flight to Wales, and shared his
hardships and misfortunes till he joined the
Scots at Newark. During the progress of the
negotiations in the Isle of Wight the king
sent for him to act as one of his commission-
ers and advisers. After the king's execution
he was one of the four noblemen who accom-
panied the royal corpse to Windsor, where
it was buried. Having compounded he con-
tinued to reside in retirement in England till
the Restoration, when he was chosen a mem-
ber of the privy council, and appointed one of
the judges for the trial of the regicides. He
was also in April 1661 elected a knight of
the Garter, and at the coronation had his
claim recognised to exercise the office of lord
high chamberlain of England. He died at
Camden House, Kensington, 25 July 1666,
at the age of fifty-eight, and was buried at
Edenh'am in the vault with his father. By
liis first wife Martha, third daughter of Sir
William Cockaine, knight, of Rushton, North-
amptonshire, and widow of John, earl of
Holderness, he had five sons and three daugh-
ters ; and by his second wife Bridget, daugh-
ter and sole heir of Edward Wray, groom of
the bedchamber, two sons.

[Lloyd's Memoirs, 315-20 ; Biog. Brit. ii. 285 ;
Whitelocke's Memorials ; Dugdale's Baronage, ii.
410 ; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion ; nu-
merous references in State Papers, Domestic
Series, during Charles I, Commonwealth, and
Charles II.] T. F. H.

BERTIE, PEREGRINE, LORD WIL-
LOUGHBY DE ERESBY (1555-1601), military
commander, the son of Richard Bertie [q. v.j,
and of Catherine Bertie [q. v.], baroness of
Willoughby de Eresby in her own right, was
born at Lower Wesel, Cleves, 12 Oct. 1555,
Avhile his parents were fleeing from the Ma-
rian persecution in England. He was bap-
tised two days later, in the church of S. Wil-
librord, by Henry Bomelius, the father of
Eliseus Bomelius [q. v.] He was named
Peregrine because he was born in terra pere-
qrina. An inscription on a tablet in the
church of S. Willibrord (set up in 1680 by
Charles Bertie, son of Montague Bertie [q. v.j,
and still legible) states that Peregrine was
born in the church-porch ; but the municipal
records at Wesel prove the story to be base-
less (cf. Notes and Queries, 5th ser. i. 366,
474). On the return of the family to Eng-
land after Elizabeth's accession, a patent
of naturalisation was obtained for Peregrine

(2 Aug. 1559). His mother sought the aid
of Sir William Cecil in directing his educa-
tion, and in 1574 made an abortive attempt
to marry him to a daughter of Sir William
Cavendish, who afterwards became the wife
of the Earl of Lennox and mother of Ara-
bella Stuart. A few years later he married
Mary, the daughter of John de Vere, sixteenth
earl of Oxford. On the death of his mother
in 1580 Bertie claimed to succeed to her title
as Lord Willoughby de Eresby. His claim
was admitted, and he took his seat in the
House of Lords 16 Jan. 1580-1.

In 1582 Lord Willoughby (as he was gene-
rally called) escorted the Duke of Anjou, one
of Elizabeth's suitors, from Canterbury to
Antwerp. Later in the same year he was sent
to Denmark on a special mission to invest
Frederick II with the order of the Garter, and
to discuss with the king the commercial re-
lations between England and Denmark. He
arrived at Elsinore on 22 July, and returned
on 27 Sept. Willoughby overcame with much
tact the king's objections to the ceremonious
oath necessary to his investiture with the
order of Garter, and obtained from him an as-
surance that English merchant ships should
not be molested in Danish seas. A detailed
account of the mission in Willoughby's own
hand is preserved at the British Museum
among the Cottonian MSS. (Titus, c. 7, art.
j 226). In 1585 Willoughby was sent a second
' time to Denmark to petition the king for suc-
cour, either in men or money, in behalf of
Henry of Navarre, and to induce him to aid
England in the Netherlands against Spain.
On the journey Willoughby attended the
marriage of a son of the Duke of Brunswick
at Wolfenbiittel, and arrived at Copenhagen
10 Oct. 1585. Frederick II treated Wil-
loughby with much respect, but declined to
give a favourable reply to his request. The
negotiations proceeded slowly. In his letters
to Sir Francis Walsingham, Willoughby often
complained bitterly that all his expenses were
paid out of his private resources ; he begged to
be relieved of his office, and to be despatched
to serve under Leicester in the war in Flanders.
Late in December the King of Denmark
yielded in part to Willoughby's arguments.
He promised to use his influence to induce
the King of Spain to retire from the Low
Countries, and to send two thousand horse
to the aid of the English force sent there
by Elizabeth. Willoughby deemed this prac-
tical assurance of Denmark's goodwill to-
wards England and her allies a satisfactory
termination of his mission, and set off" for
Hamburg on his way to Flanders. He ar-
rived at Embden 29 Jan. 1585-6, and on
12 March he was at Amsterdam. He was

Bertie

405

Bertie

engaged a few days later under Sir John
Norris in the relief of Grave, in Brabant,
which was invested hy a Spanish army under
Count Mansfeld, and before 24 March 1586
was appointed to succeed Sir Philip Sidney
in the governorship of Bergen-op-Zoom. On
27 May 1586 Leicester informed the queen
of ' a notable piece of service ' achieved by
Willoughby in capturing with a small force
a large Spanish convoy bound for Antwerp.
A few days later he helped in the surprise of
the city of Axel. In June an attack was made
on another convoy loaded with supplies for
Zutphen. Willoughby took prisoner George
Cressiac, the commander, and with the aid of
other English officers completely routed the
enemy. In the skirmish Willoughby's friend,
Sir Philip Sidney, received his death-wound.
During the following winter, while hostilities
were in suspense, serious disagreements arose
among the English commanders, and between
the English government and the States-Ge-
neral of Holland. Before the campaign opened
in 1587 Sir John Norris had been recalled,
and Willoughby had succeeded him in the
command of the cavalry. In July 1587
Leicester and Willoughby failed, after strenu-
ous efforts, to relieve Sluys, then besieged by
the Duke of Parma. Willoughby took part
with the garrison of Bergen-op-Zoom in many
engagements in the two succeeding months,
but with no decisive results. On 10 Nov.
1587 Leicester was recalled,.and Willoughby
was installed in his place as commander of
the English forces in the Low Countries. He
thereupon resigned his post at Bergen-op-
Zoom, and formally assumed the supreme
command on 4 Dec. Willoughby's new post
was one of extraordinary difficulty : the home
government failed to remit to him either
money, food, or clothing for the troops, and
after a fruitless appeal for supplies made to
the .States-General, Willoughby wrote di-
rectly to the queen (7 Jan. 1587-8). He bit-
terly complained to Lord Burghley at the
same time that his authority was so restricted
that it was out of the question for him to
carry on the war, and that the Netherlander
were resenting the apparently purposeless in-
trusion of the English. On 14 March 1587-8
10,000/. was forwarded to Willoughby from
England, and he was ordered to negotiate a
peace between the States-General and Spain.
The terms which he was directed to propose
the States refused to entertain. While matters
were thus in doubt, the Spaniards threatened
Bergen and Ostend, the two chief strongholds
of the Netherlanders. The queen, angered by
the unsatisfactory course of events, and not
unwilling that the States should suffer for
their obstinate refusal to follow her advice,

addressed a series of indignant letters to Wil-
loughby, complaining of the plans he was
making to withstand the new Spanish attack.
In June 1588 Willoughby was ordered to
send two thousand men to England in antici-
pation of the arrival of the Spanish armada,
and he then begged in vain to be recalled. In
July his wife joined him at Gertruydenberg.
On 31 July he captured the San Matteo, a
Spanish man-of-war that had run aground
between Ostend and Sluys while escaping
from the rout of the armada. Throughout
that and the previous days Willoughby, then
at Flushing, had directed the ships under his
command to keep a close watch on the Duke
of Parma's fleet, and he thus prevented the
latter from going to the aid of the Spanish
armada. The enemy became active in the
Netherlands later in the year, and on 14 Sept.
1588 Willoughby, with his small forces, ar-
rived at Bergen, resolved to defend it at all
hazard against the Spaniards. The city was
soon under siege, but Willoughby's energy
kept the enemy at bay, and on 3 Nov. they
finally retired. In December Willoughby
was ordered by the home government to de-
spatch a portion of his forces to Portugal, an
order which he was very unwilling to carry
out. The States still loudly expressed their
dissatisfaction with Elizabeth's treatment of
them, and Willoughby's position was one of
increasing embarrassment. At length, early
in March 1588-9, his request to leave the Low
Countries was granted, and on 14 March
1588-9 he arrived in England. His health
was broken by his many anxieties, and his
estate ruined by the remissness of the home
government in forwarding supplies, the ex-
penses of which he had had to defray out
of his own pocket.

But Willoughby was for the present allowed
little leisure. After his arrival in this coun-
try he was one of the commissioners appointed
to try Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, for
treason. On 20 Sept. 1589 he was nomi-
nated to the command of a poorly-equipped
army of four thousand men sent to the aid
of Henry of Navarre at Dieppe. Henry
warmly welcomed Willoughby, although he
expressed a desire for more men, and Wil-
loughby, writing to Walsingham, called at-
tention to the disgracefully inadequate equip-
ment of the English soldiers (30 Sept.)
Buoyed up by the presence of the English
auxiliaries, Henry determined, at Willough-
by's suggestion, to inarch boldly on the forces
of the league in Paris ; but when he had arrived
in the faubourgs near the capital, he judged
the step to be over-bold and retreated, al-
though Willoughby strongly urged him to
persist in the attempt. On the return of

Bertie

406

Bertie

Navarre's army to the north, Willoughby took
a prominent part in the capture of Vendome
early in November, of Mons (19 Nov.), of
Alencon (14 Dec.), and of Falaise (27 Dec.);
but his troops suffered terribly from want of
food and of proper clothing. Willoughby re-

Berwick he energetically put in order the
fortifications, and governed the town and
district with a severity that produced a
long series of disputes between him and his
neighbours. Many of the latter complained
to the council of the north sitting at York of
ceived no money from home, and Henry of I Willoughby's alleged injustice, but in almost

Navarre, though he treated Willoughby with
much deference, declined to pay his men.
Willoughby wrote to the privy council that
his soldiers marched barefooted throughout
the fatiguing campaign, and that more died
from hunger and cold than in battle. After
Henry had taken Honfleur (14 Jan. 1589-90)
Willoughby obtained permission to return
home with the remnants of his suffering army.
After 1590 Willoughby's poverty and ill-
health determined him to live a ' Coridon's
life ' on the continent. He was at Spa in
1594, and later on travelled in Italy (cf.
NICHOLS, Pi-ogresses, iii. 260-1). On 7 Oct.
1594 Elizabeth sent Willoughby an autograph
letter, expressing the hope that he had re-
covered his health, and lamenting his inability
to serve her. Dr. Hawkins, writing to An-
thony Bacon in February 1595-6, mentions
that Willoughby had been very seriously ill at
Venice, but had with great difficulty managed
to remove to Vienna. ' Very certain adver-
tisement,' which proved false, of the death
of Willoughby reached London in June 1596
(BiRCH, Memoirs of Eliz. i. 327, 377, 428,
453, ii. 34). On 28 Aug. and 12 Sept. 1596
Willoughby appealed to Essex to use his

every instance the government in London
approved Willoughby's action. On 22 Nov.
1600 Willoughby sent a long justification of
his rigorous treatment of the garrison of Ber-
wick to the queen. Soon afterwards he was
busily engaged in watching pirate <Dun-
kirkers' off the coast, and a ship was sent him
for the service. He regularly sent information
to Cecil of all that happened in Scotland, and
was frequently in direct correspondence with
King James. But his health was rapidly
failing, and he died on 25 June 1601, pro-
testing with his last breath his loyalty to the
queen and his affection for Sir Robert Cecil.
On 20 July his remains were removed from
Berwick, and buried at Spilsby, Lincolnshire,
in accordance with his will (dated 7 Aug.
1599). Lady Willoughby survived her hus-
band till 1624. His eldest son Robert [q. v.]
became Earl of Lindsey . His second son Pere-
grine entered the service of Prince Henry,
and was made knight of the Bath by James I
in 1610. He afterwards fought a duel with
Lord Norris, in which he was wounded, and
died in 1640, aged 65 (NICHOLS, Progresses
of James I, ii. 309, 344, 676). Bertie's other
children were Henry, Vere, Roger, and Ca-

influence to obtain for him the governorship : tharine, who married Sir Lewis Watson, first
of Berwick-on-Tweed. In October 1596 Wil- Lord Rockingham.

loughby returned to England. On 12 Oct.
he sent to Anthony Bacon from his house in
Barbican, London, a memorandum on the
best way of withstanding another Spanish
invasion, which is printed in Birch's ' Me-
moirs of Queen Elizabeth,' ii. 164-8. Towards
the end of February 1597-8 Willoughby was

Willoughby's valour, chiefly exhibited in
the war in the Netherlands, and especially
at the siege of Bergen, excited more ad-
miration on the part of his contemporaries
than that of almost any other soldier of the
time. Glowing descriptions of his prowess
appear in 'A True Discourse Historical of

appointed governor of Berwick and warden the succeeding Governors in the Netherlands '
of the East March. He arrived at his post j (London, 1602), translated by Thomas
on 28 April. In a letter dated 2 May, ad- Churchyard from the ' Historica Belgica ' by
dressed to the privy council, Willoughby Emanuel Meteren; in ' Honor in his Per-
called attention to the inefficient state of the | fection/ a eulogy on the earls of Essex, Ox-
army in the north, and of the fortifications , ford, and Southampton, and on Robert Bertie,
on the borders. In June 1599 he came into ; Willoughby's son, published in 1624 (a copy
conflict with James VI of Scotland. He had j is in the Grenville Library) ; in Naunton s

graph letters on the subject passed between
James and Willoughby, and it required much
negotiation to satisfy the king that no dis-
respect had been intended him. In February
1599-1600 WTilloughby was in London on
leave of absence, and in intimate relations
with Sir Robert Cecil. On his return to

exploits in Flanders with no very strict ad-
herence to historical fact. The earliest copy
known is an illustrated broadside in the Rox-
burghe collection, and cannot be dated earlier
than 1640. It was very frequently reprinted
in the seventeenth century, and Dr. Percy
included it in his 'Reliques/ 1765. The

Bertie

407

Bertie

absence of all reference to it in the ' Sta-
tioners' Registers ' of the sixteenth century,
and its historical inaccuracy, go far to support
the conclusion that it is not of Elizabethan
origin. There is evidence, however, to prove
that there once existed two undoubtedly
sixteenth-century ballads concerning Lord
Willoughby— the one entitled ' Lord Willo-
foie's Welcome Home,' and the other ' Lord
Willoughby's March ; ' but neither of these
is now extant. ' The good Lord Wil-
loughbey ' mentioned more than once in the
ballad of 'Flodden Field' (Percy Folio MS.,
ed. Hales and Furnivall, i. 329) is a de-
scription of Sir John Willoughby, a relative
of Bertie's mother, and does not of course
concern Bertie himself.

[The account of Bertie in Five Generations of a
X/oyal House, by Lady Greorgina Bertie (1845),
pt. i. 57-401, is very complete, and gives copious
extracts from his numerous letters and journals
preserved at the Eecord Office. A memoir of
Peregrine Bertie, by a descendant of the fourth
generation, edited by C. H. P[arry], 1838, is
rich in genealogical tables, but is otherwise of
little value. Henry of Navarre's letters to Wil-
loughby are printed in Lettres Missives de
Henri IV, t. iii. (in Collection de Documents
Inedits). The interesting questions connected
•with the Willoughby Ballads are ably and fully
discussed by the Kev. J. W. Ebs worth in the
Ballad Society's reprint of the Koxburghe Bal-
lads, iv. 4-11. See also Biog. Brit. (Kippis) ;
Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth (1754); Ful-
ler's Worthies ; Cal. State Papers, 1585-1601;
Strype's Annals ; Leycester Correspondence,
1585-6 (Camd. Soc.) ; Froude's Hist. England.]

S. L. L.

BERTIE, RICHARD (1517-1582), hus-
band of the Duchess Dowager of Suffolk, was
son and heir of Thomas Bertie, of Bersted, in
Kent, captain of Hurst Castle, in Hampshire.
He was born in the latter county about
Christmas Day 1517. He was admitted a
scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in
February 1533-4, proceeded B. A. in 1537, and
is said to have been a fellow of that house.
Subsequently he joined the household of Sir
Thomas Wriothesley, lord chancellor, and ul-
timately earl of Southampton. He was re-
puted to be a very accomplished gentleman,
well versed in the Latin, French, and Italian
languages, bold and shrewd in discourse, and
quick at repartee. In 1552 he married Ca-
tharine, duchess dowager of Suffolk, who was
.also in her own right Baroness Willoughby of
Eresby [see BEETIE, CATHARINE]. On Good
Friday 1553-4 he appeared under compulsory
process before Bishop Gardiner, the lord chan-
cellor, at his residence, Winchester House, in
Southwark, and on the following day a sin-
gular conversation respecting the Duchess of

Suffolk passed between them. The bishop re-
ferred to three particulars in which that lady
had given him offence. In the lifetime of the
duke she had at a dinner selected the bishop
as the man she loved least. In her progress
she had caused a dog to be carried in a rochet,
calling it in derision by the name of Gardiner.
When the bishop was in the Tower he veiled
his bonnet to her out of his chamber window,
whereupon she remarked that it was merry
with the lambs when the wolf was shut up.
In fine, Bertie was urged by the bishop to
persuade the duchess to conform to the ca-
tholic religion. Bertie frankly declared, how-
ever, that that would be quite hopeless unless
she could be satisfied of the truth of Catholi-
cism. He was then dismissed in a friendly
manner, and soon afterwards contrived,
through the bishop's instrumentality, to ob-
tain the queen's license to leave the realm,
and to pass and repass at pleasure, for the
purpose of obtaining payment of certain debts
due from the emperor and others abroad to the
duchess as executrix of her former husband.
He sailed from England in June 1554.

Subsequent events impressed him with a
sense of the danger to which the duchess would
be exposed by remaining in this country ; he
therefore returned to England, and on 1 Jan.
1554-5, with much difficulty and risk, got her
away from London in disguise, with a few
attendants. They lay hid in Kent until
5 Feb., when they embarked at Gravesend,
and thence went to Santon in Cleves ; but
they were soon obliged to leave that place by
night. After enduring great hardships they
reached Wesel, where on their arrival they
could find no shelter, and suffering from cold
and hunger they were about to pass the night
in the church porch, when they casually dis-
covered Francis de Rivers, minister of the
refugee Walloons there, by whose kind aid
they were comfortably settled in a hired cot-
tage. There the duchess was delivered of a
son, who, from the circumstances of his birth
abroad, during the wanderings of his parents,
was named Peregrine, and who afterwards
became Lord Willoughby de Eresby [see
BERTIE, PEREGRINE].

Bertie and the duchess found themselves
insecure at Wesel, as a plan to entrap them
had been matured by Lord Paget. On a
friendly hint from Sir John Mason they
therefore removed first to Strasburg, and then
to Weinheim, in the palatinate of the Rhine,
where they remained until they began to be
in want and almost in despair. At this junc-
ture they received a kind invitation from Si-
gismund Augustus, king of Poland, who had
been apprised by John Alasko [see LASKI]
of their distress. In April 1557 they left

Bertie

408

Bertie

Weinheim. Before they reached Frankfort
they narrowly escaped murder; but, after
encountering much trouble and danger, they
arrived in Poland, where they were well re-
ceived by the king, and generously placed by
him in the earldom of Kroze, in Samogitia.
They continued there in great quiet and ho-
nour until they received intelligence of the
death of Queen Mary, soon after which time
they returned to England.

Bertie sat in the parliament which assem-
bled on 11 Jan. 1562-3 as one of the knights
for the county of Lincoln, his colleague being
Sir William Cecil, secretary of state. He was
in Queen Elizabeth's retinue when she visited
Cambridge in August 1564, and on that oc-
casion the degree of M.A. was conferred upon
him by the university. In 1572 he claimed
to be summoned to the House of Lords in
right of his wife's barony, and it appears that
for a short period his claim to be so sum-
moned was recognised as valid. The Duchess
of Suffolk died in 1580, and his son Peregrine
soon afterwards succeeded to the barony of
Willoughby. Bertie died at Bourn, in Lin-
colnshire, on 9 April 1582, and was buried at
Spilsby in the same county. In Spilsby
church there is a stately monument to his
memory and that of the Duchess of Suffolk.
Besides his son Peregrine he had issue by the
Duchess of Suffolk a daughter, Susan, born
in England in 1554, who was successively
wife of Reginald Grey, earl of Kent, and ot
Sir John "Wing-field. His portrait, painted
by Holbein in 1548, has been engraved. He
wrote a ' Narrative of the Troubles of Catha-
rine, Duchess of Suffolk, during the Reign of
Queen Mary,' which is printed in Foxe's 'Acts
and Monuments.'

[Lady Greorgina Bertie's Five Generations of a
Loyal House, pt. i., containing the lives of Richard
Bertie and his son Peregrine, Lord Willoughby
(London, 1845) ; Memoir of Peregrine Bertie,
eleventh Lord Willonghby de Eresby (1828);
Collins's Peerage; Foxe's Acts and Mou.; Strype's
Works ; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), ii. 280 ; Cooper's
Athense Cantab, i. 453 ; Craik's Romance of the
Peerage, iii. 61-82.] T. C.

BERTIE, ROBERT, first EAEL OF LIND-
SEY (1572-1642), lord high admiral of Eng-
land, and general of the king's forces, wras
the eldest son of Peregrine Bertie, Lord Wil-
loughby de Eresby [q.v.], by Mary, daughter
of John Vere, earl of Oxford, and was born in
London, 16 Dec. 1572 (LLOYD, Memoirs, p.
308). Queen Elizabeth was his godmother,
and the earls of Essex and Leicester his
sponsors. Being ' followed,' according to
Lloyd, ' by a set of masters that disposed of
all his hours at home, and an excellent tutor
that disposed of his time in the university' (Ox-

ford), he acquired high proficiency in various
kinds of learning, especially history, mathema-
tics, heraldry,geography, physics, religion, and
divinity. He also displayed a strong love of
adventure, and an eager interest in foreign
travel. In 1597 he accompanied the expe-
dition of the earls of Essex and Nottingham
against Spain, and after the capture of Cadiz
was knighted in the market-place for his dis-
tinguished valour. Continuing to spend his-
time for the most part abroad, he was present
in 1598 at the siege of Amiens, and after-
wards varied the monotony of visits to foreign,
capitals by taking part in various brilliant
captures of Spanish galeons. He had mean-
time, in 1601, succeeded to the barony and
estates of his father, but found himself, not-
withstanding this, in straitened circum-
stances, for in a letter in 1603 (Cal State-
Papers, Dom. Series, James I (1603-10),
p. 18) he asks leave to continue his travels-
abroad until he has paid off certain debts in-
curred by his father. After his return to
England he laid claim, through his mother, to>
the earldom of Oxford, and to the office of lord
high chamberlain. His claim was contested
by Robert de fVere, who after long dispute-
was declared Earl of Oxford, decision being,
however, given in favour of Lord Willoughby
so far as concerned the office of lord high cham-
berlain, and in the second year of Charles's
reign he took his seat above all the barons.
During the greater part of the reign of James I
he lived in retirement in Lincolnshire, seeking,
according to Lloyd, to improve his fortunes
by thrifty management ; by l noble traffic, he-
having learned at Venice and Florence that
merchandise is consistent with nobility ; ' by~
the due improvement of his estate ; and by
a ' rich match,' the lady whom he married!
being Elizabeth, sole daughter of Edward,.
Lord Montague of Boughton, Northampton-
shire. In parliament he afterwards spoke fre-
quently on the questions of plantations, trade,
and the draining of the fens. In the last of
these subjects he took special interest, and
when the landowners inLincolnshire refused t o«
pay a tax towards the accomplishment of the
work, a contract was made with him in 1635-
to drain the fens lying between Kyme Eau
and the Glen, computed to contain 36.000'
acres, on condition that he should receive
two-thirds, or 24,000 acres, of the reclaimed
land. The work was completed within three
years at a cost of 45,000/., and houses and
farmsteadings were afterwards built by him
on the enclosed land (WHEELER, The Fens
of South Lincolnshire, p. 97 ; State Papers,
Dom. Series). These peaceful avocations
engaged only a portion of his attention, for
already, on the declaration of war against,

Bertie

409

Bertie

Spain in 1624, he had served for some time in
the Low Countries as colonel of a regiment
of 1,500 men. Thence he was recalled to
take part in the naval expeditions of the
Duke of Buckingham. For his important
services he was in 1626 created Earl of Lind-
sey, and on the duke's death at Portsmouth,
at the hands of Felton, in August 1628, he
• succeeded him as admiral of the fleet which
had been gathered together to make a final
eftbrt for the relief of Rochelle. The attempt
issued in disastrous failure, not in any degree
from fault of the admiral, but owing to the
fact that the condition of the vessels and the
character of the officers rendered it impos-
sible that the fleet could perform a naval
achievement of any difficulty. In 1630
Lindsey was made a knight of the order of
the Bath and a member of the privy council.
In the following year, upon trial of combat
between Lord Rea and David Kamsay, he
was appointed to act as lord high constable
for the day. After commanding a fleet of
forty sail for securing the Narrow Seas, he
was in the eleventh year of Charles chosen
lord high admiral of England. On the Scots
taking up arms in 1639 he was appointed
governor of Berwick. At the trial of Straf-
ford in the following year he, being at that
time speaker of the House of Lords, acted as
lord high constable. When the civil war
broke out he raised the counties of Lincoln
and Nottingham in the king's defence, the
gentlemen of Lincoln engaging themselves
in the service of the king chiefly from their
strong regard for the Earl of Lindsey. He
was the chief adviser of Charles in the
measures he took to rally the defenders of
the throne, and was appointed commander-
in-chief of the royal forces. Prince Kupert
was general of the horse, and in the prince's
commission there was a clause exempting
him from receiving orders from any but the
king himself. It was impossible from such
an arrangement to expect satisfactory re-
sults. As the king began to show a prefer-
ence for the opinions of the prince on all
matters relating to the war, the Earl of
Lindsey found himself virtually deprived of
his command. Matters reached a crisis at
the battle of Edgehill, 23 Oct. 1642, when
the ' prince set out without advising him, and
in a form he liked not.' Deeply galled at the
unmerited slight, Lindsey exclaimed that « if
he was not fit to be a general he would at
least die a colonel at the head of his regi-
ment.' He was as good as his word, and,
while leading his regiment forward pike in
hand, received a mortal wound. He was
carried off" the field to a cottage hard by. j
Had surgeons been procured, it is supposed !

he might have recovered, but on the opening-
of the wounds he died from loss of blood be-
fore morning. While lying on the straw in
the cottage he was visited by the Earl of
Essex and other officers, whom he with great
earnestness exhorted to return to their alle-
giance. He was buried in the vault at Eden-
ham, Lincolnshire. Clarendon, who charac-
terises the Earl of Lindsey as a person of
1 great honour, sagacity, courage, and of an
excellent nature,' states that his loss was ( a
great grief to the army, and generally to all
who knew him.' An earlier eulogy, together
with a finely engraved portrait, appears in a
rare tract entitled f Hanover in his Perfec-
tion,' London, 1624. A copy is in the Gren-
ville Library. Bertie was succeeded in the
earldom by his eldest son Montague Bertie
[q.v.]

[Lloyd's Memoirs, pp. 306-15 ; Dugdale's
Baronage of England, ii. 408-9 ; Birch's Heads
of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, pp. 85-6 ;
Biog. Brit., ed. Kippis, ii. 282-4 ; Whitelocke's
Memorials; Eushworth's Hist. Coll.; Clarendon's
History of the Eebellion; State Papers, Domestic
Series, Charles I.] T. F. H.

BERTIE, Sin THOMAS (1758-1825),
vice-admiral, son of George Hoare, Esq., of
London and formerly of Middleton Era,
Durham, entered the navy in 1773, on board
the Seahorse, where he was messmate of
both Nelson and Troubridge, with whom he
kept up a close intimacy till their deaths-
(Nelson Despatches, freq., see index). He
afterwards served with Sir Edward Hughes-
in the Salisbury, and with Captain Rowley
in the Monarch, in which he was present in
the battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778. He
followed Rowley to the Suffolk, and was en-
gaged at Grenada, 6 July 1779 ; and again
to the Conqueror, as lieutenant, and was in
Rodney's three actions with De Guichen,,
17 April, 15 and 19 May 1780. He con-
tinued with Admiral Rowley until made
commander, 10 Aug. 1782.

On 20 May 1788 he married Catherine
Dorothy, daughter of Peregrine Bertie, Esq.,
whose name he assumed, in accordance with
the terms of Bertie's will.

Captain Bertie was advanced to post rank
on 22 Nov. 1790, and appointed for a short
time to the Leda frigate. In 1795 he was
sent out to the West Indies in command of
the Hindostan, 54 guns ; but, after a severe
attack of yellow fever at Port-au-Prince, was
obliged to return home in October 1796. The
following year he commanded the Braakel,
54 guns, at Plymouth, and in October was
appointed to the Ardent. The Ardent, though
only of 64 guns, was a large and roomy ship:

Bertie

410

Bertie

* the finest man-of-war upon her decks that
ever I saw/ wrote Nelson in congratulating
him (ib. iii. 2). For the next three years
she was employed in the North Sea, under
Lord Duncan and Vice-admirals Mitchell
and Dickson, and in the beginning of 1801
was sent into the Baltic with Sir Hyde
Parker. It was Bertie's good fortune to be
in the division detached under Lord Nelson
against Copenhagen, and to have am im-
portant share in that hard-fought battle,
2 April. Early on the morning after the
action Lord Nelson went on board the Ar-
dent to thank her commander, officers, and
men for their conduct and exertions, and
on 9 April Sir Hyde Parker appointed
Bertie to the Bellona, 74 guns, in room of j
Sir Thomas B. Thompson, who had lost a I
leg in the battle. The Bellona remained in i
the Baltic with Nelson till the July follow- |
ing, when she was sent to England and
thence to join the blockade of Cadiz. On
the peace she was sent to the West Indies,
and was eventually paid off in June 1802.
On the renewal of the war Bertie was ap-
pointed to the Courageux, but was compelled
by family affairs to give up the command
after a few months. In December 1805 he
was appointed to the St. George, in the
Channel, and continued in her until his pro-
motion to flag rank, 28 April 1808. He was
shortly after sent to the Baltic, and was ac-
tively engaged in that very arduous service
till 19 Feb. 1810, when he was obliged by
ill-health to strike his flag and go on shore,
nor was he able again to accept employment
before the peace. In June 1813 he was
knighted, and received also the royal permis-
sion to accept and wear the insignia of the
Swedish order of the Sword. He became
vice-admiral on 4 Dec. 1813, and died on
13 June 1825.

[Marshall's Eoy. Nav. Biog. i. 380; Naval
Chronicle, xxxvi. 1 (with portrait) ; Gent. Mag.
(1825), xcv.ii. 177.] J. K. L.

BERTIE, VERE (d. 1680), judge, was of
a loyalist family, being fourth son to the
lord chamberlain Montagu, second earl of
Lindsey, by his first wife Martha, daughter of
Sir William Cockayn of Rushton in North-
amptonshire, and widow of John Ramsey,
•earl of Holderness. To this probably he owed
his rapid professional advancement." He was
entered at the Middle Temple 29 Jan. 1654-5,
•was called to the bar 10 June 1659, and be-
came a master of the bench of his inn in
January 1673-4. Previously to 1665 he ob-
tained the degree of serjeant-at-law, and in
that year, with his brother Charles, was made
an honorary M. A. at Oxford on the occasion of

the visit of the Earl of Manchester, secretary
of the treasury and treasurer of the ordnance
(WOOD, Fasti Oxon. ii. 285). On 4 June
1675 he was made a baron of the exchequer,
and was transferred to the common pleas
15 June 1678. On the king's forming a
new council of thirty, with Lord Shaftes-
bury as president of the ministry, he was
discharged from his office 29 April 1679.
With him were discharged also Sir William
Wilde, and Sir Edward Thurland, and Sir
Francis Bramston, barons of the exchequer.
As Mr. Justice Bertie, along with these judges,
had four days previously been among those
wTho tried Nathaniel Reading in the court of
king's bench at Westminster, who was in-
dicted on the evidence of Bedloe for stifling
king's evidence against the lords in the Tower,
and as none of these judges concurred in the
sentence of 1,000/. fine, one year's imprison-
ment, and one hour in the pillory, pronounced
by the other judges, Sir F. North, lord chief
justice of the common pleas, William Mon-
tagu, chief baron, and Sir R. Atkins, baron
of the exchequer, Sir T. Jones, and Sir W.
Dolben, probably the cause of his disgrace
was want of political complaisance (State
Trials, vii. 201, 24 April, 1679). He died un-
married 23 Feb. 1680-1, and was buried in
the Temple Church. The contemporary law
reports contain no report of any of his de-
cisions.

[Foss's Lives of the Judges ; Collins's Peerage,
ii. 19; Oxford Cat. Grad. 55; Luttrell, i. ii.]

J. A. H.

BERTIE, WILLOUGHB Y, fourth EARL
OF ABINGDON (1740-1799), politician, the son
of Willoughby Bertie, the third earl, by his
wife Anna Maria, daughter of Sir John Col-
lins, was born on 16 Jan. 1740, and succeeded
to the earldom on his father's death in 1760.
He was educated at Westminster School
under Dr. William Markham, afterwards
archbishop of York : in 1767 he was one of
the stewards of the school anniversary. He
proceeded to Magdalen College, Oxford, and
was created M.A. on 20 Jan. 1761. He after-
wards spent a few years in Geneva, where he
adopted democratic principles. He seems to
have made the acquaintance of Wilkes at an
early date, and to have loyally supported him
in his early struggles with the government (see
BERTIE'S letter to Wilkes at Paris, 28 June,
1767 ; Addit. MSS. 30869, f. 133 ; 30875, ff.
1, 2). In < The Speeches of John Wilkes,' pub-
lished in 1777, the anonymous editor of the
volumes, who is easily identified with Wilkes
himself, describes Abingdon as 'one of the most
steady and intrepid assertors of liberty in this
age,' and the most delightful companion in

Bertie

411

Berton

private life. Abingdon was a very frequent
speaker in the House of Lords from 1775 until
his death. He was an intimate friend of the
Marquis of Rockingham, and usually voted
with the Rockingham whigs, but he advanced
far beyond the principles of his party in his
support of popular rights. In his first speech
(1775) he denounced the bill for restraining
the trade of America as a ' most diabolic mea-
sure/and he seized every opportunity between
1775 and 1783 of attacking the policy that
produced the war with America. In 1777 he
published, through Almon, ' Thoughts on Mr.
Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on
the Affairs of America/ in which he attacked
Burke for not following up with sufficient
energy or persistency his first great speeches
against the war. The pamphlet attracted
great attention from all political parties.
Horace Walpole, writing to the Rev. William
Mason (21 Sept. 1777), says : l Are you not
content with Lord Abingdon's pamphlet ?
are you not more ? are you not glad he has
so well puffed away Burke's sophistries ? '
Burke felt the attack keenly. Before itfs
publication he had met Abingdon at the
Marquis of Rockingham's, and had treated
the earl with scant respect; but when he saw
Abingdon's ' Thoughts ' announced for publi-
cation, he wrote to the author begging him to
suppress the book, and Abingdon in a polite
reply regretted his inability to accede to the
request. After its publication Burke discussed
with Rockingham the desirability of replying
to it. An anonymous reply to Abingdon's
* Thoughts ' was issued by Cadell in 1778,
but the popularity of the pamphlet remained
unchecked, and after passing through five
editions it was republished in 1780 under
the new title of ( A Dedication to the col-
lective body of the people of England, in
which the source of our present political dis-
tractions are pointed out, and a plan pro-
posed for their remedy and redress.' Abing-
don's speech (2 Dec. 1783) in favour of peace
with America was issued as a broadside in
1783, with a caricature of the coalition
ministry of Fox and North. From 1782 on-
wards Abingdon mainly devoted his atten-
tion to Irish affairs, bringing into the House
of Lords a series of bills for the conciliation
of the Irish people, but he found few sup-
porters. A speech of his on the affairs of
Ireland, with the copy of a bill for reorgan-
ising the Irish parliament, was published as
a pamphlet in 1782.

Abingdon sympathised strongly with the
French revolution. He opposed the war with
France, and in 1798 published a rhapsodical
eulogy on the revolution under the title of
4 A Letter to Lady Loughborough from the

Earl of Abingdon in consequence of her pre-
sentation of the colours to the Bloomsbury
and Inns of Court Association.' This pamph-
let passed through nine editions. Abingdon
died on 26 Sept. 1799. He married on 7 July
I 1768 Charlotte, daughter and coheiress of Ad-
| miral Sir Peter Warren, K.B.(at one time M.P.
| for Westminster). She died on 28 Jan. 1794.
i By her he had three sons and a daughter.
The eldest son, Montagu, born on 30 April
1780, succeeded his father as fifth earl, and
died on 16 Oct. 1854. Willoughby, the
second son, born on 24 June 1787, became a
captain in the navy, and was wrecked in the
Satellite off the Goodwin Sands in 1810.

Abingdon was in the habit of sending
copies of his speeches in parliament to the
newspapers, ' with ' (it is said) ' a handsome
fee ' to insure theii: insertion in a prominent
position. In a speech delivered in the House
of Lords on 17 June 1794 Abingdon called
attention to the immoral practices of attor-
neys, and instanced the conduct of one,
Thomas Sermon, an attorney once employed
by himself. Abingdon forwarded the speech
to the newspapers, and it was published.
Sermon thereupon brought a criminal infor-
mation for libel against the earl in the court
of king's bench. The case was heard on
6 Dec. 1794 before Lord Kenyon. Erskine
was the prosecuting counsel ; the defendant
pleaded his own case. The jury found Abing-
don guilty, and he was sentenced, 12 Jan.
1795, to three months' imprisonment, was
fined 100/., and was required to find sureties
for future good behaviour (ISAAC ESPIN ASSE'S
Cases at Nisi Prius, King's Bench, i. 35;
Parliamentary Hist. xxxi. 931-5).

[Grent. Mag. Ixix. ii. 905 ; Chalmers's Biog.
Diet.; Parl. Hist. 1775-99; Macknight's Life
of Burke, ii. 183-5 ; Burke's Correspondence,
1852; Walpole's Letters (ed. Cunningham), vi.
484, 486, vii. 26; Welch's Westminster Scholars.!

S. L. L.

BERTON, WILLIAM or (ft. 1376), chan-
cellor of Oxford, 1380, is first mentioned in
1376, as B.D. of Merton College, among the
witnesses summoned to give information to
a royal commission appointed to inquire into
a dispute between the faculties of arts and
divinity and that of law in the university
(WooD, Antiquities of Oxford, i. 489). In
February 1379-80 he served on a similar com-
mission nominated to examine the disorderly
state of Queen's College (ib. p. 496). By this
time he was D.D. and chancellor of the uni-
versity, having been elected in succession to
Robert Aylesham, who died in the autumn
of 1379 (WOOD, Fasti Oxon. p. 30). Ber-
ton's chancellorship is important because of

Bertram

412

Bertram

its connection with the Wycliffite contro- |
versy respecting the sacrament which then i
agitated Oxford. According to the author
of the 'Fasciculi Zizaniorum' (p. 241), he
had at an earlier time taken an energetic !
part (' strenue egit ac determinavit ') in oppo-
sition to the new opinions. It is noticeable
that, unlike the majority of Wycliffe's anta- !
gonists, he belonged to the secular clergy.
As chancellor he was able to give an official
weight to his arguments. He issued a decree
condemning the sacramental doctrine under
severe penalties, but not mentioning Wycliffe
by name. It was this ' sententia,' bearing
the signatures of twelve doctors, which was
promulgated in the Augustinian school at
the very time that Wycliffe chanced to be
disputing there * in cathedra ' in defence of
the doctrines it condemned (Fascic. Ziz. pp.
110 seqq.) The duration of Berton's chan-
cellorship is uncertain. Anthony a Wood
(Fasti, I.e.) makes it expire in 1380, and
Robert Rygge hold the office in 1381. Yet,
if the dates in the ' Fasciculi Zizaniorum '
(see Shirley's introd. p. xliii, n. 1) are to be
trusted, Berton's decree against Wycliffe's
teaching must have been published shortly be-
fore 10 May in the latter year, and this chro-
nology has been universally accepted (even by
Wood himself, in his ' History/ i. 499). On
the other hand, a correction in a manuscript
of ^Wycliffe's 'Confession' (Fascic. Ziz. p.
115, n. 1) raises a doubt whether the affair
did not actually take place in 1380. Wood
also states (Fasti, I.e.) that Berton was again
chancellor in 1382, until, 'he quitting his
place, or else desired to leave it, forasmuch
as he seemed now to favour Wycleve and
his disciples/ was in May or June succeeded
once more by Rygge. The latter's action,
however, in the subsequent stages of the
Wycliffite controversy (Fascic. Ziz. pp. 299,
304, 309 seq.) renders it more likely that his
election marked the temporary ascendency
of the reformer's party (compare MATTHEW,
English Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted,
introd. pp. xxv seqq., 1880). Be this as it
may, both Berton's and Rygge's signatures
are attached to the condemnation of Wy-
cliffe's ' conclusions ' resolved on by the coun-
cil of London in the summer of 1382 (Fascic.
Ziz. pp. 288, 290), and the only works ascribed
to Berton (BALE, Script. Brit. Catal. vi. 89)
are exclusively directed against Wycliffe.

[Authorities cited above.] E. L. P.

BERTRAM. [See RATRAMNUS.]

BERTRAM, CHARLES (1723-1765),
or, as he sometimes chose to sign himself,
CHARLES JULIUS, the cleverest and most
successful literary impostor of modern times,

was born in London in 1723. His father,,
who was a silk dyer, removed a few years-
afterwards with his family to Copenhagen.
Here, at an early age, young Bertram ob-
tained the post of English teacher in the
school for naval cadets. Being keenly de-
sirous of celebrity, he conceived, at the age
of twenty-four, the idea of bringing himself
into notice by means of a literary forgery.
He selected as the victim of his imposture the
celebrated Dr. William Stukeley, whose re-
putation for antiquarian learning, and whose
manifest eager credulity, rendered him a suit-
able object for such a design. In June 1747
Bertram commenced a correspondence with
Stukeley, in the course of which he mentioned
that a friend of his was in possession of a
manuscript work on Roman antiquities, by a
monk named Richard of Westminster, which
included a copy of an ancient itinerary of
Britain, in many points correcting and supple-
menting the itinerary of Antoninus. Stuke-
ley's interest being excited, he strongly pressed
Bertram to obtain possession of the manu-
script, 'which, after some difficulty, he ac-
complished ; ' and in subsequent letters he
transmitted to Stukeley what purported to-
be copies of successive portions of the work,
with a facsimile of a few lines of the manu-
script, the writing of which was pronounced
by the English palaeographers to be over four
hundred years old. In the meantime Stuke-
ley had made inquiries, which resulted in the
discovery that Richard of Cirencester, a chro-
nicler of the fourteenth century, was an in-
mate of the abbey of Westminster. This
information he imparted to Bertram, who
readily accepted it, and ' Richard of Ciren-
cester ' was thenceforward the name by which
the supposed author was designated. In 17561
Stukeley read before the Society of Antiqua-
ries a paper containing an analysis of the
newly discovered work, and this paper was-
published in 1757, accompanied by a copy of
Richard's map. In the same year Bertram
published at Copenhagen a small volume, with
the title, ' Britannicarum Gentium Historian
Antiques Scriptores Tres/ containing the
works of Gildas and Nennius, and the full
text of his own forgery, with an elaborate
commentary. It is remarkable that the map
given in this volume differs very materially
from that in Stukeley's tract. Stukeley, how-
ever, adopted Bertram's map in his account
of Richard's work, published in his ' Itinera-
rium Curiosum ' in 1776. The ingenuity and
learning displayed in Bertram's forgery are
really extraordinary, and fully account for the
unparalleled success which the imposture ob-
tained. At the time when the work ap-
peared, the idiom of mediaeval Latin writers

Bertram

413

Bertram

had been little studied, and there were in
England few, if any, persons capable of per-
ceiving that the Latinity of the pseudo-Rich-
ard was not that of a fourteenth-century
monk. Bertram's antiquarian information,
moreover, was, on the whole, quite on a level
with the best knowledge of his time. The
spurious treatise, therefore, was eagerly ac-
cepted by most of the English antiquaries as
.an invaluable source of information on the
Roman geography of Britain ; and the injury
which the forgery has inflicted on this study
can scarcely be overestimated. Amongst the
eminent writers whose speculations are seri-
ously vitiated by the admission of this fic-
titious authority may be mentioned Whitaker
(the historian of Manchester), General Roy,
Dr. Lingard, Lappenberg, and Stuart (the
author of ' Caledonia Romana '). The map of
Britain contained in Dr. William Smith's
•' Classical Atlas ' abounds with errors derived
from this source, and many of Bertram's
imaginary names of Roman stations have
found their way into the ordnance maps. In
fact, nearly all the current works on Roman
Britain show important traces of the same
misleading influence. Although one or two
earlier scholars (as Reynolds in his ' Commen-
tary on Antoninus ') had ventured to suggest
that the monk of Westminster had drawn
somewhat freely on his imagination, it was
not- till near the middle of this century that
the work was seriously suspected to be a mo-
dern forgery. This suspicion gained strength
from the fact that a diligent search at Copen-
hagen failed to discover any trace of the
original manuscript. The question, however,
was not conclusively settled until the publi-
cation in the ( Gentleman's Magazine' for 1866
and 1867 of a series of papers by the late B. B.
Woodward, librarian of Windsor Castle. Mr.
Woodward showed that the handwriting of
Bertram's alleged facsimile specimen was a
mixture of the styles of several different pe-
riods, the forms of some of the letters being
quite modern, or indeed entirely imaginary,
lie also pointed out that Bertram's Latin is,
for the most part, a literal rendering of the
English idiom of the eighteenth century, con-
taining many words (as statio for a Roman
' station,' and supplementum for a ' supple-
ment ' or appendix) used in modern senses,
which are as foreign to the usage of mediaeval
writers as to that of the ancient Romans, and
gave instances in which the forger had copied
the mistakes of Camden and the false read-
ings of modern editions of the classics. In
spite of this masterly exposure, a translation
of the work, with no expression of doubt as
to its genuineness, was published in 1872 by
Dr. Giles, as one of the * Six English Chroni-

| cles ' in Bohii's * Antiquarian Library • ' and

I Bertram's forgery, though now repudiated by

I all competent scholars, still continues to mis-

j lead ill-informed students of British antiqui-

j ties. Bertram died (according to NYEKUP'S

j Literaturlexicon) in 1765. Besides the work

already referred to, he published at Copen-

! hagen : 1. « An Essay on the Excellency of

the English Tongue ' (1749). 2. < Rudimenta

Grammatics Anglicanae ' (1750). 3. ' Ethics

from various Authors ' (1751). 4. 'The Royal

I English-Danish Grammar' (1753). 5. A

| corrected edition (in German) of Dauw's

! ' Wohlunterrichteter Schilderer und Mahler '

| (1755). 6. An edition of Nennius (1758).

! 7. A Danish translation of an English work

1 On the great Advantages of a Godly Life '

I (1760). 8. 'A Statistical Account of the

i Danish Army' (in German, 1761 ; in Danish,

| 1762).

[Stukeley's Family Memoirs, ed. Lukis;

Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum ; Nyerup og

Kraft, Almindeligt Literaturlexicon ; Gent. Mag.

| March 1866, May 1866, October 1866, October

i 1867.] H. B.

BERTRAM, ROGER (d. 1242), judge
and baronial leader, was son of William Ber-
tram, lord of Mitford in Northumberland.
Having joined the northern barons in their
advance on London in the spring of 1215, his
castle and barony of Mitford were subse-
quently (31 Jan. 1216) seized on by the king
(Claus. 17 John, m. 11), and entrusted to
William de Ulecotes. After the accession of
Henry III he made his peace, 24 July 1217
(Claus. 1 Hen. Ill, m. 13), but only re-
covered Mitford from Philip de Ulecotes after
many months litigation and a fine of 100/.
(Claus. I Hen. Ill, m. 6 dors. ; 2 Hen. Ill,
m. 8, m. 15). Becoming in favour with the
court, he was one of the witnesses to Henry's
pledge to marry his sister to the King of Scots,
15 July 1220 (RYMEE'S Fcedera, i. 241).
He was summoned to besiege Cockermouth
3 Feb. 1221 (Claus. 5 Hen. Ill, m. 16 dors.),
and was excused scutage ' pro fideli servicio
suo,' 3 July 1224 (Claus. 8 Hen. Ill, m. 11).
He was appointed a justice itinerant for
Northumberland 14 July 1225 (ib. 9 Hen. Ill,
m. 11 dors.), and 14 Dec. 1226 (ib. 10 Hen. Ill,
m. 26 dors.)-, and for Cumberland 30 June
1226 (ib. 10 Hen. Ill, m. 15 dors.), and
10 Sept. 1227 (ib. 11 Hen. Ill, m. 5 dors.).
In 18 Henry III (1233-4) he was again ap-
pointed for both these counties and for Lan-
cashire, and in March 1 237 he was a witness
to the agreement at York before Cardinal
Otho as to the differences between England
and Scotland. At the beginning of 1242 he
paid 35 marks to be excused from the Gascon

Bertram

414

Besse

expedition (Pip. 26 Hen. Ill, North.), and
died very shortly afterwards (MATT.WESTM.),
his lands being delivered to the king's es-
cheator 24 May 1242 (Fin. 26, Hen. III}.

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 544 ; Foss's Judges, ii.
237; Hodc-son's Northumberland, ii. (ii). 40.1

J. H. R.

BERTRAM, ROGER C/U264), baronial
leader, was son of Roger Bertram, d. 1242
[q. v.] He did homage for his lands on at-
taining his majority, 28 June 1246 (Fin. 30
Hen. Ill, m. 6), and, joining the baronial
party at the outbreak of the barons' war,
was among the prisoners captured at North-
ampton by the king, 5 April 1264 (Fin. 48
Hen. Ill, m. 4), whereupon his castie of
Mitford was seized and entrusted to William
de Valence (Pat. 48 Hen. Ill, m. 14). Re-
leased by the victory of Lewes (13 May
1264), he was one of the eighteen barons
summoned to Simon de Montfort's par-
liament, 14 Dec. 1264 (Glaus. 49 Hen. Ill,
m. 12 dors.), but is not further mentioned.
He was compelled to alienate most of his
property, and was dead in 1275, when his
widowT had remarried a Robert de Nevill, and
his son was claimed as a ward of the crown
(Rot. Hun. 3 Ed. I).

[Dugdale's Baronage, i. 544 ; Lords' Reports
on the Dignity of a Peer, i. 142; Hodgson's
Northumberland, ii. (ii.) 36, 40.] J. H. R.

BERTRIC. [See BEOKHTKIC.]
BERTULF. [See BEORHTWTILF.]

BERWICK, BARON. [See HILL, WIL-
LIAM NOEL.]

BERWICK, DUKE OP. [See FITZ-JAMES,
JAMES.]

BERWICK, EDWARD (b. 1750), an
Irish clergyman, sometime domestic chaplain
to the Earl of Moira, and afterwards to the
Marquis of Hastings. He was a native of
county Down, and was educated at Trinity
College, Dublin, where he gained a scholar-
ship. Berwick was first brought into notice
by his successful resistance to certain arbi-
trary regulations of the provost, who forbade
the students to take a public part in electoral
matters, whilst he expected them to vote for
parliamentary candidates of his own nomi-
nation. The provost in question was Major
Hely Hutchinson, M.P. for Cork, whose ap-
pointment was regarded by the younger mem-
bers of the college as having a political object,
and was resented by them on that ground.
His dictatorial sway called forth a number
of squibs, some of which (appearing between
1774 and 1776) were collected and edited

by Robert Dodsley, under the title of ( Pran-
ceriana.' In 1775 Berwick, in common with
several other non-complying scholars, was
deprived of his scholarship, ostensibly because
he had failed to reside in college as regularly
as the statutes demanded. He appealed to
the visitors, who were the archbishops of
Armagh and Dublin, and after a hearing,
which occupied three days — in the course of
which Provost Hutchinson admitted that his
' unexceptionable character entitled him to
every indulgence' — he was reinstated. In
reference to this trial one of the authors in
Dodsley's collection writes : —

Proud of imagin'd arbitrary sway,
Prancer long dream'd he safely might display
Imperial pow'r, accountable to none,
Fear'd like a German monarch on his throne.
Subservient to his will the board conven'd,
Submissive, loyal ; Berwick was arraign'd,
Condemn'd, depriv'd, a convict on record ;
Three rebels only disobeyed their lord.
But Robinson and justice interfer'd,
Revers'd the sentence, and the victim spar'd.

After this Berwick took orders and was pre-
sented by Bishop Percy, of Dromore, to the
vicarage of Tullylish, in his native county ;
from whence, in 1795, he was preferred to-
the vicarage of Leixlip, county Dublin, and
to the rectory of Clongish, county Longford,
on the presentation of the Earl of Moira, who
made him his domestic chaplain. In 18101
he published the 'Life of Apolloniusof Tyana,
from the Greek, with notes and illustrations/
and in the following year ' A Treatise on the
| Government of the Church.' In 1812 he
; dedicated to his patron (dating his preface
j from Esker, near Leixlip) the l Lives of
Marcus Valerius, Messala Corvinus, and Titus
Pomponius Atticus.' His next patron, the
Marquis of Hastings, commissioned him to
edit a number of letters to and from Dr.
Bramhall, primate of Ireland in the seven-
teenth century, wrhich had come into the
possession of the marquis through the Raw-
don family. The preface to this work is dated
' Lurgan, 1 Jan. 1819.'

[Berwick's "Works, as cited; Pranceriana by
the pseudonymous Nathan ben Saddi, Dublin,
1784; Biog. Diet, of Living Authors, 1816.]

L. S-T.

BESSBOROUGH, fourth EAEL OF. [See
PONSONBY, JOHN WILLIAM.]

BESSE, JOSEPH (1683P-1757), quaker
controversialist, was born about 1683, and was
resident at Colchester, where he was a writing
master. He married, 9 Oct. 1716, in that town
Hannah Dehorne, who died at Chelmsford,
and after her decease he removed to Ratcliffe,
where he died 25 Nov. 1757, and was buried

Best

415

Best

in the Friends' burial-ground. He had a son
of the same name, who emigrated to Pennsyl-
vania. Besse was a convert from the Angli-
can church, and refused a church living
of 400/. a year. He was a vigorous contro-
versialist, and full details of his writings are
given by Smith. Besides editing various
works of Sewell, Claridge, Henton Brown,
Isaac Penington, and Bownas, he wrote the
following books and tracts: 1. 'Carmen
Spirituale . . . olim a Richardo Claridge
Anglice compositum et editum et nunc Latine
versum ab J. B.' London, 1728. 2. ' A Cloud
of Witnesses proving that the Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry hath misrepresented
the Quakers ' (signed J. B.), London, 1732.

3. 'A Defence^of Quakerism,' London, 1732.

4. ' Abstract of the Sufferings of the People
call'd Quakers,' London, vol. i. 1733, vols. ii.
and iii. 1738 (not an abridgment of the ' Suffer-
ings ' mentioned later). 5. * The Protestant
Flail ' (an anonymous book on baptism), Lon-
don, 1735. 6. ' A Brief Account of many of
the Prosecutions of the People call'd Quakers
for Tithes, Church-rates, &c.' (anon.), London,
1736. 7. ' A Collection of the Sufferings of
the People called Quakers, for the Testimony
of a Good Conscience, from 1650 to 1689,'
London, 1753, 2 vols. folio. 8. ' The Uni-
versality of the Love of God to Mankind/
London, 1755. 9. * Some Scriptural Obser-
vations on (1) the Spirituality of Gospel-
worship ; (2) the Nature of true Christian
Prayer ; (3) Our Saviour's Direction concern-
ing Fasting,' London, 1756; and various
pamphlets.

His most important work is the ' Suffer-
ings of the Quakers,' a laborious compilation.
The cases of persecution &c. are arranged
under the several counties, followed by New
England, Barbadoes, Nevis, Bermudas, An-
tigua, Maryland, Jamaica, Europe and Asia,
Isle of Malta, Hungaria and Austria, Dant-
zig, Hamburg, Germany, Ireland and Scot-
land. The use of the work is further facili-
tated by copious though somewhat peculiar
indexes.

[Smith's Descriptive Catalogue of Friends'
Books, 1867.] W. E. A. A.

BEST, CHARLES (fi. 1602), poet, was
a contributor to Francis Davison's ' Poetical
Rapsodie.' The first edition of that anthology
contains two pieces by Best, ' A Sonnet of
the Sun ' (eighteen lines) and ' A Sonnet of
the Moon.' To the third edition (1611) he
contributed ' An Epitaph on Henry Fourth,
the last French King,' 'An Epitaph on
Queen Elizabeth,' ' Union's Jewell/ ' A Pane-
gyrick to my Sovereign Lord the King,' and
a few other pieces. Best's name is only

known in connection with the ' Poetical
Rapsodie.' The 'Sonnet of the Sun' and
' Sonnet of the Moon ' are graceful pieces,
and make us regret that the author wrote
so little.

[Davison's Poetical Khapsody, ed. N. EL
Nicolas, 1826.] A. H. B.

BEST, ^ GEORGE (d. 1584?), navigator,
accompanied Martin Frobisher in the three
voyages undertaken (in 1576, 1577, and
1578) to discover the North-west Passage^
and published, on the return from the third
voyage in 1578, 'A Trve Discovrse of the
late voyages of discouerie, for the finding of
a passage to Cathaya, by the Northweast,
vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher,
generall : deuided into three Bookes. In the
first whereof is shewed his first voyage.
Wherein also by the way is sette out a geo-
graphicall description of the worlde and
what partes thereof haue bin discouered by
the Nauigations of the Englishmen. Also
there are annexed certayne reasons to prone
all partes of the Worlde habitable, with a
generall Mappe adioyned. In the second is
set out his second voyage, with the aduen-
tures and accidents thereof. In the thirde is
declared the strange fortunes which hapned
in the third, with a seuerall description of
the Countrey and the people there inhabiting.
With a particular Card therevnto adioyned
of Meta incognita, so farre forth as the secretes
of the voyage may permit. At London, Im-
printed by Henry Bynnyman, seruant of the
Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton,
Vizchamberlain, Anno Domini 1578,' 4to,
black letter. The book, which is of the
highest rarity, is dedicated to Sir Christopher
Hatton. In the third voyage the fleet con-
sisted of seventeen ships. Best was captain
of the Jane Anne. The adventures through
which the voyagers passed are described
graphically and quaintly. At the time
of its publication the narrative attracted
much attention. A French translation ap-
peared in the same year, under the title of
' La Navigation du Cap. Martin Frobisher
Anglois es regions de west et nordwest en
1'annee 1577. Pour Antoine Chuppen,' 8vo.
In 1580 a Latin translation (from the
French) of the account of the second voyage
was published at Norenberg. Two years
later an Italian version appeared at Naples.
A second Latin translation (from the French)
was issued nearly a century afterwards, in
1675, at Hamburg. Best's narrative was in-
cluded in the third volume of Hakluyt's
'Voyages,' 1600, and was reprinted in 1867
by the Hakluyt Society. A George Best,
servant to Sir Christopher Hatton, was

Best

416

Best

Idlled in a duel, about March 1583-4, by
Oliver St. John, afterwards Viscount Gran-
dison. This person is doubtless to be identi-
fied with the writer of the l Trve Disco vrse.'
Another George Best, fellow of Jesus Col-
lege, Cambridge, was instituted to the vicar-
age of All Saints, Cambridge, in 1572, and to
the rectory of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, Lon-
don, in 1596. He died in November 1609.
(see Athence Cantab rigienses, ii. 524, where
it is wrongly stated that he was perhaps the
author of t Beware the Cat/ which certainly
belongs to William Baldwin [q. v.]).

[A Trve Discovrse of the late Voyages of
Discouerie, &c. edited by Eear-admiral Richard
Collinson, Hakluyt Society's Publications, 1867;
Nicolas's Hatton, 366 ; Herbert's Ames, 982.]

A. H. B.

BEST, afterwards BESTE, HENRY
DIGBY (1768-1836), miscellaneous author,
born in Lincoln 21 Oct. 1768, was the son
of Henry Best, D.D., prebendary of Lincoln.
His mother was Magdalen, daughter of Ke-
nelm Digby, of North Luffenham in Rut-
land. He was educated in the grammar
school of Lincoln. t£is father, who had been
senior wrangler of his year, had proposed
sending him to Eton and Oxford, thinking
him such a blockhead that he would be
plucked at Cambridge. Dr. Best died, how-
ever, on 29 June 1782, and his son, in 1784,
was sent by his mother to Oxford. He ma-
triculated at University College 17 March
1785, and soon afterwards was nominated
a demy of Magdalen. His father had said to
him : < These old women (speaking of some
•catholic relations) will make a papist of you,
Harry.' His discovery of a Douay testa-
ment in an old closet of his father's produced
in him some leanings to Catholicism. He
took his B.A. degree in 1788, and his M.A.
in 1791 , while still residing in Magdalen. He
obtained a fellowship six weeks afterwards,
and in September 1791 was ordained deacon,
and in December was appointed to the curacy
of St. Martin in Lincoln. His first works
were a treatise entitled ' The Christian Re-
ligion briefly defended against the Philoso-
phers and Republicans of France,' 8vo, 1793,
and a ' Sermon on St. John xx. 23,' preached
at St. Mary's, Oxford, on 24 Nov. 1793, a
discourse on < Priestly Absolution,' which w^as
republished in 1874. It is curious that this
discourse, which anticipated some of the
'' tractarian ' arguments, was highly approved
by the chief members of the university of
Oxford in 1794. Shortly afterwards Beste
(as he now wrote his name) read the f Plu-
ralities Indefensible ' of Dr. Richard New-
<ton, the founder of Hertford College, which

greatly affected his mental development. On
the death of his mother, 10 April 1797, he
succeeded to a freehold estate, and had to
resign his fellowship at Magdalen. He
settled at Lincoln without ecclesiastical
duties, and stronger doubts sprang up in his
mind as to the spiritual authority of the
church of England. These doubts were
further strengthened by intercourse with the
Abbe Beaumont, then in charge of the small
catholic chapel at Lincoln. On 17 May 1798
he was present in London at the high mass
in St. Patrick's Chapel, Soho, and was deeply
moved. Next day he called on Bishop Dou-
glass, by whom he was introduced to the Rev.
Mr. Hodgson as his first confessor, and on
26 May 1789 he was received into the catho-
lic church in the chapel in St. George's
Fields. His intimate friend Phillpotts, after-
wards bishop of Exeter, wrote to him lament-
ing the change, but affectionately desiring
the continuance of his friendship. In 1838
Bishop Phillpotts spoke warmly to Beste's
son of his father's intelligence and kindness.
Beste still remained on friendly terms with
the president of Magdalen, and he was fre-
quently a guest at his table. After a colli-
sion with Dr. Parr at one of these dinners,
Beste said, l Mr. President, the next time you
invite a bear to your table, I beg that you
will muzzle him.' Dr. Routh, glancing at
Parr, who was laughing, remarked, ' He is a
clever fellow for all that.' Three years after
his conversion Beste married Sarah, daughter
of Edward Sealy, Esq., of Bridgewater. For
a year or two, then, his time was given up to
the management of one of his estates in
Lincolnshire. Occasionally at this period he
contributed to the periodicals of his co-
religionists. In 1818 he left England with
his family for the south of France, and pub-
lished in 1826 ' Four Years in France, or
Narrative of an English Family's Residence
there during that Period, preceded by some
Account of the Conversion of the Author to
the Catholic Faith,' 8vo. The book, dated
21 March 1826, Clermont en Auvergne, is
full of fervour, lit up here and there with
quaint and sometimes coarse humour. Car-
dinal Wiseman had seen him at Rome in the
jubilee of 1825, and mentions him in his
'' Last Four Popes,' p. 271. Beste published
in 1828 ' Italy as it is, or Narrative of an
English Family's Residence for three years
in that Country,' 8vo, the work being whim-
sically dated at its close Torquay, Chiaja
della "Torre, Devon, 23 Oct. 1827. In 1829
appeared ( Personal and Literary Memorials,'
8vo. Seven years later Beste died at Brighton
in his sixty-eighth year on 28 May 1 836. Ten
years after his death was published his last

Best

417

Best

work, called ' Poverty and the Baronet's
Family, a Catholic Story/ 12mo, 1846, a few
months previously, in 1845, some papers of
his on ( Vices, Sins, and Crimes/ having ap-
peared in ( Dolman's Magazine.'

[Autobiographical writings of Henry Digby
Beste, reissued with the reprint in a third edition
•of his Sermon on Priestly Absolution, 1874, pp. 1-
85, and 1 1 4-239 ; Eegister of the Demies of S. JYL
Magdalen College, Oxford, 1785, iv. 97 ; Catho-
lic Magazine for 1838, p. 480 ; Notes and Queries,
1st series, xii. 227, 314, 3rd series, xi. 57, note.]

C.K.

BEST, PAUL (1590 P-1657), controver-
sialist, came of a family which had been long
of the gentry in the North Riding of York-
shire ; but his father, James Best, having re-
moved to the East Riding, was resident in
the rectory-house of Hatton Cranswick, near
Driffield, known as the burial-place of Alfred,
king of Northumbria. Here it is believed Paul
was born ' about 1590.' In 1598 his father
purchased the manor of Ems well, about two
miles from Driffield, for 2,0501. It had been
a monastery of St. Mary of York, and in pos-
session of Sir Thomas Crompton. James Best,
as was the wont then with squires, cultivated
his own land and grew rich. Dying in April
1617, he left in his will ' competent portions'
to his younger children, and his manor of
Emswell and messuages at Beverley to Paul,
his eldest son. Paul was at the university of
Cambridge when the message reached him of
his father's death. From a manuscript written
by the Rev. Roger Ley, we learn that Paul was
of Jesus College, Cambridge, having Sir Wil-
liam Boswell, afterwards ambassador for Eng-
land at the Hague, as his tutor, and this Roger
Ley as his fellow-student and ' intimate.' In
September 1617 he left Jesus, and became
a fellow of Catherine Hall. His father, who
was most probably a puritan, had meant him
to be of Emmanuel. On 13 Feb. 1618 he
parted with his manor of Emswell to his
younger brother Henry for the sum of 2,200/.,
which was paid him as an annuity for his life.
Of his character while at the university Ley
thus writes : ' In wit he surpassed the ordi-
nary sort, and had a mighty reach. Yet was
he more nimble than staid. His quaint and
curious searches in philosophy above the ordi-
nary strain made me and others much admire
him. For a serious study he excelled in the
mathematics, and for a pleasantrie in poetry.'
Verses by P. B. prefixed to Robert Anton's
f Vice's Anatomy ' (1617) have been assigned
to him, but this P. B. was of Magdalen College.
The only poetry by him now traceable is a copy
of verses ' to Christ.' On leaving Cambridge
.he followed ' uncertain courses.' He pro-

VOL. IV.

ceeded to the continent, and mingled a good
deal with educated and ' disputative' men
of the period. He is found in Germany in
1624, and in Poland, and as a soldier under
Gustavus Adolphus ; but Ley, his biogra-
pher, does not claim for him military re-
nown. f If he had any good military parts/
he says, { I may say he was able tarn Marte
quam Mercurio. Fit to hold discourse with
any man he was, and an excellent companion.'
Ley continues : ' He fell to dispute often where
he had opportunity, as in the university of
Gryphiswald in Pomerania . . . where Pris-
cian was slain. ... In these northern parts of
Germany, and also Poland and Transylvania,
places not free from error, he unhappily dis-
puted with some anti-trinitarians, and more
adhering to carnal reason than to mysteries
of faith, he was drawn to the dangerous
opinion, the denial of our Saviour's divinity.'

His return was preceded by some years
of retirement in Germany, chiefly spent in
} the study of unitaritan theology. His an-
: nuity from the sale of Emswell is traced as
' having been paid 26 May 1628, also in 1632
at Emswell, and again upon August 1632 and
April 1634. The chronology is not exact,
but after-allusions bring him before us as a
sufferer for his opinions. Having written
out his conclusions on the doctrine of the
Trinity, he submitted his ' loose papers ' to
the Rev. Roger Ley for his judgment. The
manuscript was sent privately and in con-
fidence. Ley appears to have instantly made
the ' loose papers ' public by bringing them
under the notice of those in authority. Best
never changed in this allegation. In his last
pamphlet, ' Mysteries discovered/ in a reite-
rated copy of his ' Humble Petition ' he ex-
pressly places it on record that he had been ' a
close prisoner ever since the 14th February
1644[-5] onely for this his presumed reason or
opinion, committed to a minister (a supposed
friend) for his judgment and advice onely.'
Be this as it may, all we learn is that Roger
Ley and other divines were assiduous and
earnest in their visits and reasonings with the
prisoner.

Roger Ley's manuscript, as well as White-
locke's ' Memorial of the English Affairs
during the Reign of Charles I/ enables us to go
behind the scenes so far. Best is represented
as having applied l the most profane epithets
to the doctrine of the Trinity/ calling it ' a
mystery of iniquity, a three-headed monster,
a figment, a tradition of Rome, monstrum bi-
forme and triforme] &c. For this he was
committed to the Gatehouse 14 Feb. 1644-5.
After several examinations, on 28 March 1 645-
6 the house voted that he be hanged for his
offence. On 23 Nov. a provision, affirming the

E E

Best

418

Best

lawfulness of capital punishment for heresy,
was earned, but it was not till 2 May 1048
that the ordinance was actually passed, and
by that date Best had been released. In 1646
Best drew up ' A Letter of Advice vnto the
Ministers assembled at Westminster, with
severall parcels of Queries, recommended to
their saddest considerations. . . . The possi-
bility of a heretick's repentance, so long as
he lives, and such as do any wayes cause him
to dye in heresie, as much as in them lyes, do
effectually damn him eternally : and conse-
quently, that Paul Best (what-ever his er-
rours be at present), as well as Paul the
Apostle, once a blasphemer, may one day
become a convert, if he be not untimely
starved to death beforehand, 1646 ' [in MS.
marked 28 April]. Having launched his
' Letter of Advice,' Best set about the prepa-
ration of a respectful petition to the House
of Commons. He appealed to the house to
' be pleased to take notice ' that he had been
' eighteen months imprisoned, with what 'im-
pairing of his substance ' he forbore stating.
The petition sought release or ' a speedie hear-
ing.' This was on 13 Aug. 1646. Still his
release lingered. He once more appealed to
the authorities in a treatise entitled : l Mys-
teries Discovered, or a Memoriall Picture
pointing out the Way from Babylon to the
Holy City, for the good of all such as during
that night of general errour and apostacie
(2 Thess. ii. 3, Eevel. iii. 10) have been so
long misled with Rome s hobgoblins. By me,
Paul Best, Prisoner in the Gatehouse, West-
minster, 1647.' This is an appeal to justice,
and a defence against the charges brought
against him. On the blank spaces of the Bod-
leian copy is a manuscript anti-trinitarian
note in Latin, which was supposed by Brook
Aspland to be in Milton's autograph.

It seems most probable that Cromwell at
last interfered. However it came about, he
was silently released towards the close of
1647. He quietly returned to his family seat.
His brother Henry was then dead, and had
been succeeded in Emswell by his son, John
Best, to whom by some arrangement Paul
(his uncle) surrendered his annuity on 22 Jan.
1651-2, and, with what of his,fortune he had
left, cultivated a farm. He still pursued his
old studies, and masses of his manuscripts
were left behind at his death. The parish
register of Little Driffield gives the dates of
death and burial : ' 1657. Paul Best, Master
of Arts, died at Great Drimeld 17 Sept., and
was buried at Little Drimeld 19 Sept. in the
churchyard.'

[Ley's MS., formerly in possession of H. B.
Bright, and latterly of Joseph Hunter, from the
Chorus Vatum ; letters from Eev. Horace New-

ton, Driffield; Wallace's Anti-Trinitarian Biogra-
phy, i. 87, iii. 161; Whitelocke's Memorials;
Neal, iii. 292 ; Best's Works.] A. B. G-.

BEST, SAMUEL (1738-1825). a pre-
tended prophet, is stated to have been at one
period of his life a servant in several families in
London, where he earned a reputation for dis-
honesty (Imposture detected, p. 42). Accord-
ing to another account he had been — possibly
subsequent to this — a Spitalfields weaver in
good circumstances (Gent. May. Ivii. 115).
Some time before 1787, having disowned his
children ' either from indolence or morbidity,'"
| he became an inmate of Shoreditch workhouse,
] an allowance of eight shillings a week being
contributed to his support by one of his^
daughters. Discarding his original name, he
took that of 'Poor-help,' as descriptive, in
self-deprecatory language, of the special mis-
sion which his prophetic gifts enabled him to
fufill. He received his visitors in a room
adorned with fantastic emblems and devices,,
and, after inspecting the palms of their hands,
professed to give an outline of their past lives,
their present circumstances, and their future
prospects in verses of Scripture, which he re-
peated with rapid fluency. He also under-
took, by licking the hands of his patients, to
discover the disease under which they la-
boured. Owing to the interest excited in his
pretensions, ' Poor-help ' removed to a house
in Kingsland Road, where he was consulted
by many of the upper classes of London,
whom he also visited at their own homes.
He professed to eat no other food than bread
and cheese, and to drink only gin tinctured
with rhubarb. At night he found the strength
and refreshment he needed for his preten-
tious daily duties, not in sleep, but in con-
verse with celestial powers. For the last
thirty years of his life he was possessed of
the conviction that he should be the leader
of the children of Israel to rebuild the city of
Jerusalem. He died 7 March 1825, aged 87.
[Martin's Imposture detected, or Thoughts on
a Pretended Prophet and on the Prevalence of
his Impositions, 1787; Gent. Mag. Ivi. 1106,
Ivii. 115, 309, xc. part i. 380.] T. F. H.

BEST, THOMAS (1570 P-1638 ?), cap-
tain in the navy, was probably the son
of Captain George Best, the companion of
Frobisher in his Arctic voyages (HAKLTTYT,
iii. 47, 60, 75, &c. ; Calendar of State Papers,
East Indies, 1513-1616, see index). He went
first to sea about 1583 (Best to Conway,
13 July 1623), being then presumably about
thirteen years old ; and yet he is referred
to as being, in 1598, a man of substance and
repute, well known in Ratcliff and Lime-
house (RUNDALL'S Memorials of the Empire

Best

419

Best

of Japan (Hakluyt Society), 29). He was
appointed, 30 Dec. 161], to command the
Red Dragon, a ship of some 600 tons and
200 men, then fitting for a voyage to the
East Indies, and accompanied by the Osiander
pinnace, he sailed from Gravesend on 5 Feb.
1611-12. He arrived at Surat in the be-
ginning of September to the great annoy-
ance of the Portuguese, who had pre-
viously established themselves in the country.
They collected a force of four galeons, each
as large as the Dragon, and some twenty
small craft, row-boats carrying many men,
and on 29 Oct. appeared off the mouth of
the river, where they hoped to surprise the
English. Best, in the Dragon, at once weighed,
stood out to meet them, and passed between
two of their ships, firing into each. This
caused the Portuguese to pause. The dark-
ness closed in, and they had to anchor for
the night. The next morning the Osiander
also came out, and when three of the galeons,
in trying to avoid the Dragon, got on shore,
the Osiander, drawing little water, ' danced
the hay about them, and so payed them that
thev durst not show a man on their decks.'
The fight cdntinued till dark of the second
day. The third day was very similar to the
second. Towards evening the Portuguese
drew back and attempted to burn the Dragon
by means of a hastily equipped fireship. This
Best succeeded in sinking before she got
dangerously near, and so the fight ended. The
loss of the English was returned as three
killed and one wounded ; that of the Portu-
guese was certainly very heavy (PURCHAS,
i. 482).

Some few days later the Portuguese at-
tempted a further attack, when Best, again
standing out to sea, engaged them with such
resolution and skill that after four hours'
severe fighting they made all sail to get
away. The flight was witnessed by thou-
sands on the shore. The Great Mogul was
now quite willing to recognise the English as
having rights equal to those of the Portu-
guese. The English trade was placed on a
permanent footing, and the birth of the
English power in India may properly be
dated from this November 1612, rather than
from any of the semi-piratical voyages of
previous years.

In January 1612-13 Best in the Dragon,
accompanied by the Osiander, left Surat,
and, passing down the coast, crossed over to
Acheen, where he arrived on 12 April. He
described (12 July) the king and people as
very griping, base, and covetous. All trade
was forbidden except at Acheen: but by
releasing a Portuguese whom he had cap-
tured, he succeeded in winning the favour

of the king, who gave him the title of l Oran-
caya pute,' which is ' white or clear-hearted
lord.' He also obtained permission to open
a trade with Siam, and received assurance
of good entertainment. At Bantam he ob-
tained a grant of land on which to build
warehouses, and when, having got a full
cargo, he sailed in November on the return
voyage, the company's affairs in the East were
far more satisfactorily settled than before.
The Red Dragon, 'richly laden,' arrived in the
Downs in the first week of June 1614, and
Best shortly afterwards attended the council
to give a detailed account of his proceed-
ings. He was considered to have ' deserved
extraordinarily well,' though at the same
time some dissatisfaction was expressed at
'his great private trade' (Cal. &tate Papers,
East Indies, 22 June, 26 July, 9 and 19 Aug.
1614). The question was left to the go-
vernor, Sir Thomas Smythe, who gave his
opinion that no one could be a fitter com-
mander than Best, but that for merchandise
Captain Keeling was far before him, and
should be sent to Surat (7 Sept.). Best re-
fused to go the voyage without private trade,
and a few days later (16 Sept.), nettled, it
would appear, by the refusal of the council
to give his son an appointment as one of
their factors, he refused to go at all. As he
very shortly afterwards (27 Sept.) signified
his willingness to go another year, it is not
improbable that the council gave way. Re-
ports to his disadvantage, however, continued
to be circulated, so that Best insisted on an
investigation. The decision was that the
company was ' content to remit all that is
past and let these things die, which should
not have been ripped up, had he not called
them in question himself (24 Oct. 1615).

In October 1617 the question of sending
out a chief commander to Bantam came be-
fore the council, and after discussing the
relative merits of Sir Richard Hawkins, Sir
Thomas Dale, and others, they requested the
governor to confer with Best as the fittest
of all. Best accepted the appointment, and
agreed to sail again in the Dragon, but a
complaint was presently lodged against him
for having appointed his son as a master's
mate. On this and other matters Best took
high ground ; he was summoned before the
court, and after some discussion and his re-
fusal to sign a bond for 5,000/. to perform
the articles agreed on, he was dismissed the
company's service (25 Nov.) He afterwards
(27 Jan. 1617-18) made his peace with them,
but he does not seem to have again accepted
any office under the company. It is probable
that Best had already served in royal ships,
and from this time he was actively employed

E E 2

Best

420

Best

under the crown. In 1623 he commanded the
Garland, and when the fleet sailed for Spain to
bring back Prince Charles, Best remained as
senior officer in the Downs. He had previously
been engaged in the prevention of piracy, or
the pursuit of pirates (Conway to Commis-
sioners of the Navy, 6 June 1623), and he
would probably have had more of the same
duty, had not the insolence of the Dutch, in
destroying a Dunkirk privateer at Leith and
blockading another at Aberdeen, rendered it
necessary to send a small force to the coast
of Scotland. It was determined that Best was
the proper man to command this expedition ;
but the Bonaventure, the only other ship
available, was commanded by Sir William
St. Leger, who held that, as a knight, he
could not be under the orders of Best. The
commissioners of the navy recommended
that St. Leger should be superseded in the
Bonaventure by some captain of ' meaner
quality.' Captain Christian, who had for-
merly commanded the Osiander with Best,
was accordingly appointed in his place. The
Garland and Bonaventure sailed from Mar-
gate on 30 June, and, having gone to Aber-
deen, brought the blockaded Dunkirker to
the Downs, closely attended by two of the
Dutch ships, and when, on 29 July, the con-
voy attempted to run off by herself, the Dutch-
men would have made a prize of her if Best
had not beat them off. He vowed vengeance,
but the Dutch ships outsailed him. On 4 Aug.
they had all anchored in the Downs, the
Dutch at some distance, when Best slipped
alongside of them in the dark, and beat them
out of the road. The next day the Dutch
gathered in force, an.d threatened summary
punishment, unless he could show the king's
commission for what he had done. As naval
commissions then, as now, were signed
only by the admiralty, Best had not the
authority the Dutch required, and to evade |
the difficulty he was ordered to bring the
ships up to Gravesend. Eventually he was
superseded, and the Dunkirker was sent
home with a safe-conduct from the Dutch
(Gal State Papers, Dom., August 1623;
GARDINER'S Hist, of England, v. 81-8). In
1626-7 Best commanded the Vanguard
(19 March 1626-7), which formed part of
the fleet assembled at Portsmouth under j
Lord Willoughby (State Papers, Dom., j
Charles I, xxxii. 74), and in the disastrous I
expedition to Rhe in 1627 (ib. Ivi. 88, Ixv. 14).
In September 1630 he was member of a com-
mission to report on the keeping of the king's
ships at Chatham and Portsmouth, and in
April 1632 of another to consider the man-
ning of ships. In 1633 he seems to have
been senior warden of the Trinity House,

and in 1634 to have been master (ib. cclxxiii.
25, 271) ; in 1637 he appears to have been
still master of the Trinity House; and in
April 1638 he sat on a commission for in-
quiring into frauds in the supply of timber.
This is the last mention of him that can be
traced ; it seems, therefore, probable that he
died shortly afterwards.

[Calendar of State Papers, Domestic and East
Indies, 1611-38.] J. K. L.

BEST, WILLIAM DRAPER, first BARON

WYNTORD (1767-1845), judge, the third son
of Thomas Best, by a daughter of Sir William
Draper, K.B. (by his first wife), was born at
Haselbury-Plucknett, Somerset, on 13 Dec.
1767. After receiving his education at the
grammar school at Crewkerne, he was ad-
mitted to Wadham College, Oxford, at the
age of fifteen, but left the university in his
seventeenth year without taking his degree.
He had been intended at first for the church,
but, having come into a considerable fortune
from a cousin during his residence at Oxford,
he entered the Middle Temple on 9 Oct. 1784.
He was called to the bar on 6 Nov. 1789, and
joined the home circuit. The first cause in
which he attracted notice was that of Shake-
spear v. Peppin (6 T. R. 741) in June 1796,
when Lord Kenyon, C. J., paid many compli-
ments to 'his talents and industry.' It is
said that the brief in this case fell into his
hands by the happy accident of the absence
of the counsel who was engaged in the cause.
He soon stfterwards secured an extensive
practice, both on the home circuit and at
Westminster Hall. Though at Westminster
he chiefly practised in the common pleas,
he was engaged in many cases of importance
in the king's bench and exchequer, and also
in some of the principal criminal trials of the
day. In 1799 he became a serjeant-at-law,
and in July 1802 was elected member for
Petersfield. He was now attached to the
whig party, and was one of the acting
managers on the impeachment of Lord Mel-
ville. He continued to sit for Petersfield
until the dissolution of parliament. In March
1809 he was elected recorder of Guildford in
the place of Lord Grantley. In October 1812
he was returned as a member for Bridport,
and, having changed his politics, was ap-
pointed, 7 Dec. 1813, solicitor-general to the
Prince of Wales. On 14 Feb. 1816 he became
the prince's attorney-general, and two years
afterwards chief justice of Chester. Upon
the elevation of Abbott to the chief-justice-
ship, Best succeeded to the vacancy in the
king's bench on 30 Nov. 1818, but did not
receive the honour of knighthood until 3 June
1819. After sitting as a puisne judge for

Best

421

Betagh

rather more than five years, he was made
chief justice of the common pleas on 15 April
1824, and admitted to the privy council on
25 May in the same year. His health through-
out his career was a source of great suffering,
and he was constantly incapacitated by severe
attacks of gout. In June 1829 he gave up
his post on the bench, and, a pension having
been granted to him, was called to the House
of Lords by the title of Baron Wynford of
Wynford Eagle in the county of Dorset, on
5 June 1829. He was appointed one of the
deputy speakers of the house, where he was
a vehement supporter of the tory party, and
strenuously opposed the Reform Bill at every
stage.

As a lawyer he had no great reputation,
but as an advocate his qualities were both
varied and extensive. His style of speaking
was forcible and pointed, but not always
fluent, though his arguments were at all
times remarkable for their clearness. His
quickness and unwearying activity made him
a most watchful adversary, though as a leader
he was not always safe. As a parliamentary
speaker he was much less successful than as
an advocate, and as a judge he was unfor-
tunately far from being free of bias of temper,
and sometimes even of political prejudice.
The opinions which he was supposed to have
uttered on the subject of the game laws in
the case of Ilott v. Wilkes (3 B. $ A. 304)
called forth a bitter article by Sydney Smith
in the ' Edinburgh Review ' (vol. xxxv.),
entitled l Spring Guns and Man Traps.' Best's
judgment, however, seems to have been grossly
misreported in the account of the case to
which Sydney Smith referred. A number
of his judgments will be found in vols. ii.
to v. of < Bingham's Reports.' On 11 June
1834 the degree of D.C.L. was conferred
upon him by the university of Oxford. When
attending the House of Lords he used to be
carried there in an arm-chair, in which he
was permitted to sit when addressing the
house. In his later years his increasing in-
firmities compelled him gradually to with-
draw from public life. He died at his country
seat of Leasons in Kent, on 3 March 1845,
aged 78. Early in life, on 6 May 1794, he
married Mary Anne, second daughter of
Jerome Knapp, clerk to the Haberdashers'
Company, by whom he had ten children. The
title is now borne by his grandson, William
Draper Mortimer Best, who succeeded his
father, the second baron, on 28 Feb. 1869.

[Foss's Judges (1864), ix. 9-12; Law Maga-
zine, xxxiii. 308-17; Law Eeview, ii. 168-75;
Law Times, iv. 447; Annual Eegister. 1845, ap-
pendix p. 255; G-ent. Mag. 1845, xxiii. N.S.
431-2 ; Campbell's Lord Chancellors, vol. viii.

passim ; Campbell's Chief Justices, vol. iii. passim ;
! Edinburgh Keview, xxxv. 123-34, 410-21.1

a. F. E. B.

BESTOW, JOHN (d. 1428), theological
writer, prior of the Carmelite convent at
Bishop's Lynn, was doctor in theology both
of Cambridge and Paris, and was highly
esteemed as a theologian and a philosopher,
and also as a preacher. In 1423 he was
deputed to attend the council held at Sienna.
He died at Bishop's Lynn in 1428. His
name is in Latin variously written Bes-
tonus, Bastonus, and Besodunus. The works
ascribed to him are the following : 1. 'Lec-
tures Sacrae Script-lira ' (one book). 2. < Ser-
mones in Evangelia' (one book). 3. <Ser-

book). 5. 'De Virtutibus et Vitiis oppo-
sitis ' (one book). 6. ' Quaestiones Ordinaries'
(one book). 7. ' Super Universalia Robert!
Holcothi ' (one book). 8. ' Rudimenta Lo-
gices ' (one book). 9. 'Epistolse ad diversos'
(two books). 10. 'Sacrse Conciones ' (one
book). 11. <De Trinitate.' 12. ' Determi-
nationes' (one book). It is stated in Rose's
1 Biographical Dictionary' that several of
these works are preserved in manuscript in
the University Library at Cambridge, but no
mention of them occurs in the published
catalogue.

[Bale's Script. Illust. Maj. Brit. ed. Basle
(1557), 560 ; Pits, De Anglise Scriptoribus, 611 ;
Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 98 ; Villiers de St. Etienne,
Bibliotheca Carmelitana, i. 797; Eose's Biog.
Diet. iv. 184.] H. B.

BETAGH, THOMAS (1739-1811), Jesuit,
was descended from a branch of an old Roman
catholic family in Meath, Ireland, which,
through the Cromwellian confiscations, lost
considerable estates. Some members of this
family followed the fortunes of the Stuarts
on the continent, and held important rank
in the Irish brigades in the service of France.
Betagh was born in 1739 at Kells, in Meath,
where his father carried on the business of
tanning. At an early age admission was
obtained for him to the seminary of the
Society of Jesus at Pont-a-Mousson in France.
He there evinced high talents, was appointed
professor of languages, and acquired reputa-
tion by his erudition and humility. After
the suppression of the Jesuits in France he
returned to Ireland, and in conjunction
with other members of that society carried
on a school at Dublin, where he became a
curate. He was subsequently appointed
parish priest in Dublin and vicar-general of
that diocese. Betagh's talents as a preacher
are stated to have been of a high order. By

Betham

422

Betham

his untiring efforts for the promotion of edu-
cation and the amelioration of the condition
of the poor he acquired great influence with
the people, which he exerted beneficially in
the disturbed times through which he lived.
Betagh died at Dublin on 16 Feb. 1811, after
a lingering illness. An elaborate marble
monument to him, with his likeness in me-
dallion, was erected by public subscription,
and stands in the parish church of SS.
Michael and John, Dublin. Two portraits of
him were engraved by Brocas of Dublin.
A considerable amount of Betagh's unpub-
lished correspondence is still preserved by
the Society of Jesus.

[History of Irish Confederation, Dublin, 1882 ;
Ireland's Case, 1695, p. 102; O'Callaghan'sHist.
Irish Brigades, 1870 ; Hist, of City of Dublin,
i. 312, 1854; Archives of Jesuits. Dublin ; Irish
Monthly Magazine, Dublin, 1811; Sermon at
Funeral of T. Betagh, 1811.] J. T. Gr.

BETHAM, EDWARD (1707-1783),
scholar and divine, was educated at Eton,
and in 1728 proceeded to King's College,
Cambridge. He became a fellow of King's
College in 1731, and was also for some time
bursar. He was subsequently presented by
the provost and fellows to the living of
Greenford, in Middlesex. He was appointed
one of the preachers at Whitehall, and in
1771 the provost and fellows of Eton elected
him to a vacant fellowship. Betham ap-
pears to have impressed his contemporaries
equally by his learning and his benevolence.
'His fortune was not large, yet his libe-
rality kept more than equal pace with it,
and pointed out objects to which it was im-
possible for his nature to resist lending his
assistance.'

In 1780 Betham founded and endowed a
charity school in his own parish of Green-
ford, having previously erected a schoolhouse
there. He gave 2,000/. for the better main-
taining of the botanical garden at Cambridge.
His affection for Eton was strikingly mani-
fested in his will. He directed a marble
statue of Henry VI to be prepared and erected
at a cost of 700/. The statue was entrusted
to the well-known sculptor Bacon, and it
now stands in the chapel of Eton College,
bearing the inscription : ' Posuit Edvardus
Betham, collegii hujusce socius.' The king
holds a model of the college in his hand.
A bust of Henry was also given to the college
library by Betham, and other benefactions
are associated with his name. Betham died
in 1783.

[Gent. Mag. 1783 ; Harwood's Alumni Etonen-
ses ; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary.]

Or. B. S.

BETHAM, JOHN, D.D. (d. 1709), catho-
lic priest, a native of Warwickshire, where
his elder brother possessed a handsome estate,
completed his studies in the English college at
Douay, and was ordained priest there. After-
wards he went to Paris (1667), where he re-
sumed his studies, and at the expiration of ten
years was created a doctor of the Sorbonne.
Then he came to England on the English
mission, but the excitement caused by Titus
Oates's narrative of a pretended popish plot
was so great that he soon deemed it prudent
to return to the French capital. When the
catholic cause in England appeared to be in
a flourishing condition Betham s presence here
was required, and he was appointed one of
the chaplains and preachers in ordinary to
King James II. This office he held till the
revolution of 1688, and soon afterwards he
followed his royal master to St. Germain. He
was appointed preceptor to the Chevalier de
Saint George, and after King James's death
that office was confirmed to him by commis-
sion, dated 30 Oct. 1701.

During his residence in Paris after his first
visit to this country Betham revived an old
project for erecting a seminary for the benefit
of such of the English clergy as were disposed
to take degrees in the university of Paris. The
college of Arras at Paris had been founded as
early as 1611 for the maintenance of learned
I writers in defence of the catholic religion. In
I 1667 this institution was greatly augmented
by the Rev. Thomas Carr of Douay College ;
; but the scheme was not completed till many
years later, when Betham was appointed to
preside over the seminary. Betham was en-
j abled to purchase a handsome house and gar-
den in the Rue des Postes, Faubourg Saint
I Marceau, and opened the establishment as St.
| Gregory's seminary by letters patent from the
| king of France in 1701. Some years before
he died he retired to this seminary, where
I he ended his days in 1709. Dodd says ' he
I was a person of strict morals, grave, and re-
| served in conversation. The court was his
: cell, and he seldom appeared in publick but
I when duty called him forth.'

He wTas the author of: 1. 'A. Sermon of
the Epiphany, preach'd in the Queen-Dowa-
ger's Chapel at Somerset-House upon Twelfth
day Jan. 6 1686. Published by her Majesty's
command,' London, 1686, 4to. 2. ' A Sermon
preach'd before the King and Queen in their
Majesties Chappel at St. James's upon the
Annunciation of our Blessed Lady, March 25
1686. Published by his Majestie's command,'
London, 1686, 4to ; this and the preceding
sermon are reprinted in ' A Select Collection
of Catholick Sermons,' 2 vols., London, 1741,
8vo. 3. * Observations upon the Bulla Plan-

Betham

423

Betham

fata, at the request of the Pope's Nuncio/
manuscript.

[DoJd's Church Hist. iii. 293, 485; Husen-
beth's Notices of English Colleges and Convents
>on the Continent, 18 ; Lowndes's Bibl. Man., ed.
Bohn, 2243.] T. C.

BETHAM, MARY MATILDA (1776-
1852), woman of letters and miniature painter,
was the eldest daughter of the Rev. William
Betham [q. v.], of Stonham Aspel, Suffolk,
-and rector of Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire (the
compiler of some ( Genealogical Tables of
the Sovereigns of the World, and of a ' Ba-
ronetage of England'). Her education, which
consisted mainly in having free access to her
father's tine library, and in a little occasional
teaching from him, developed in her an ar-
dent love of literature, especially of history.
She was sent to school, but t only to learn
.sewing, and prevent a too strict application
to books.' Matilda taught herself miniature
painting, and many of her portraits possess
much sweetness of expression and delicacy
of finish ; but from a total want of any train-
ing in art they are weakly drawn, and she
was unable to achieve an enduring success.
Belonging to a large family she made strenu-
ous efforts to turn her talents to practical ac-
count ; and gathering together some of the
fruits of her large miscellaneous historical
reading she published, in 1804, a ' Biogra-
phical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women
of every Age and Country,' which, though
quite fragmentary and disproportioned, con-
tains much entertaining matter, and is agree-
ably and often judiciously written. She had
.already gone up to London, where she gaA*e
Shakespearean readings, exhibited her por-
traits at the Royal Academy, and had a brief
but brilliant period of literary and artistic
.success. She formed cordial friendships with
Charles and Mary Lamb, with Coleridge,
Southey, Mrs. Barbauld, and others. How
high she stood in their esteem and liking
may be gathered from their letters to her,
-some of which are printed in * Six Life Stu-
dies of Famous Women,' by her niece, M.
Betham-Edwards. Matilda had already pub-
lished two small volumes of verse, ' Elegies,'
1797, and 'Poems,' 1808, which are poor
enough ; but in 1816 her ' Lay of Marie '
-achieved a considerable success. Charles
Lamb, to whom the volume had been shown
in manuscript, wrote : ' Did I not ever love
your verses ? The domestic half will be a
sweet heirloom in the family. 'Tis fragrant
with cordiality. What friends you must have
had or dreamed of having ! and what a
widow's cruse of heartiness you have doled
among them ! ' Southey and Allan Cunning-

ham were still warmer in their praise, Southey
advising her to insert at the end of her fic-
titious ' Lay of Marie the real * Lais de Marie '
(Marie being a poetess of considerable figure
among the Anglo-Norman Trouveurs of the
middle of the thirteenth century), so as to
give her book an antiquarian value. This
advice Matilda followed in part, adding two
appendices, the first containing extracts from
a ' Dissertation on the Life and Writings of
Marie, by M.La Rue,' in the Archseologia, vol.
xiii. ; the second not, unfortunately, the actual
' Lais ' from, the Harleian MSS., but only some
paraphrases from them. Family circumstances
and misfortunes, combined with a breakdown
of health, compelled Matilda to return to the
country and relinquish literary pursuits. But
her friendships remained, and when, as an el-
derly woman, she once more settled in Lon-
don with unabated love of literature, her wit,
her stores of apt quotation and anecdote, her
sweetness and cheerfulness of disposition,
made her still a favourite, not only with the
literary people of her own date, but with the
new generation. ' I would rather talk to
Matilda Betham than to the most beautiful
young woman in the world,' said a young
man of her in her old age. She died in 1852.

[Betham-Edwards's Six Life Studies of Fa-
mous Women, 1880; obituary notice in the
Gent. Mag. 1852.] A. G-T.

BETHAM, WILLIAM (1749-1839),
antiquary, was born at Little Strickland,
near Morland, Westmoreland, on 17 May
1749. His family seems to have been set-
tled in the county from the twelfth cen-
tury, and to have derived its name from
the little village of Betham, near Milnthorpe.
From the sixteenth century Betham's imme-
diate ancestors resided at Little Strickland.
He was educated at the public school of
Bampton, was ordained in 1773, apparently
without graduating at a university, and
became chaplain to the earl of Ancaster.
From 1784 to 1833 he was head master of
the endowed school at Stonham Aspel, Suf-
folk ; he resigned the post in 1833, on being-
presented to the rectory of Stoke Lacy, in
the diocese of Hereford. He died six years
later, aged 90. In 1774 he married Mary,
daughter of William Damont, of Eye, Suf-
folk, and by her he had fifteen children. His
eldest surviving son was Sir William Betham,
Ulster king of arms [q. v.], and Matilda Be-
tham, the authoress [q. v.], was his daughter.
Betham was the author of two important
antiquarian works. In 1795 he published
by subscription, in London, * Genealogical
Tables of the Sovereigns of the World, from
the earliest to the present period,' a folio

Betham

424

Betham

volume giving pedigrees of royal families,
beginning with the ' Antediluvian Patriarchs,'
and concluding with the ' House of Crom-
well.' It was dedicated to George III. At
the period of this publication Betham an-
nounced a work on the baronetage of Eng-
land. The first volume, however, did not
appear till 1801, when it was published at
Ipswich with the following title : ' The
Baronetage of England, or the History of the
English Baronets, and such Baronets of
Scotland as are of English Families, with
Genealogical Tables and Engravings of their
Armorial Bearings.' The first volume was
dedicated to James Cecil, marquis of Salis-
bury. The second volume, dedicated to
Charles, marquis and earl Cornwallis, was
published at London in 1802. The third,
fourth, and fifth volumes appeared in 1803,
1804, and 1805. An imprinted collection
of letters, addressed to the author by the
subscribers and others interested in the work
during its progress, is in the British Museum
(Addit. MS. 21033). A portrait of Betham,
engraved from a drawing by his daughter
Matilda, is prefixed to this volume. Betham
also made collections with a view to a ' His-
tory of Suffolk,' but his advanced age com-
pelled him to relinquish the undertaking;
his papers were advertised for sale in the
' Suffolk Chronicle,' 3 Feb. 1833, but nothing
is known of their subsequent history.

[G-ent. Mag. (new ser.), xii. 655-6 ; Davy's
MS. Suffolk Collections in Brit. Mus. Addit.
MS. 191 18, pp. 189 etseq. ; Nicholsou and Burn's
Hist, of Westmoreland, i. 223.] J. T. G.

BETHAM, SIB WILLIAM (1779-1853),
Ulster king of arms, son of the Rev. William
Betham [q. v.], was born on 22 May 1779,
at Stradbrooke, Suffolk. In his early years
he passed some time in acquiring a practical
knowledge of typography, and undertook to
revise a portion of Camden's ' Britannia ' for
Stockdale, the publisher. In 1805 he came
to Dublin to search for documents in con-
nection with a law case in which he was em-
ployed. He found the documents in "the
tower' at Dublin Castle, and in the office of
the Ulster king of arms, unarranged and in
a very neglected state. The sinecure office
of keeper of the records in ' the tower ' at
Dublin Castle was at that time held by Philip
Henry Stanhope, Lord Viscount Mahon, who,
on Betham's representations, appointed him
as his deputy. Betham also obtained the
appointment of deputy to Admiral Chichester
Fortescue, then Ulster king of arms. Under
the record commission Betham held, from
1811 to 1812, the post of sub-commissioner.
Betham was knighted in 1812, and was ap-

pointed Ulster king of arms in 1820. He
devoted much time to the preparation of
repertories and indexes to collections of re-
cords. Inquiries in connection with pedi-
grees, descents of properties and titles, were
much facilitated by these compilations. In
1827 he published an octavo volume of ' Irish
Antiquarian Researches,' illustrated with
plates. This publication was succeeded in
1830 by the first volume of a work by him
with the following title : ' Dignities, Feudal
and Parliamentary, and the Constitutional
Legislature of the United Kingdom. The
nature and functions of the Aula Regis, the
Magna Concilia, and the Communia Concilia
of England. And the History of the Parlia-
ments of France, England, Scotland, and Ire-
land, investigated and considered with a view
to ascertain the origin, progress, and final
establishment of legislative Parliaments and
of the history of a Peer or Lord of Parliament/
In 1884 this volume was reissued with a new
title-page, as 'The Origin and History of
the Constitution of England, and of the
early Parliaments of Ireland.' The author,,
in a preliminary note, stated that the title
by which the work was first published very
inadequately expressed its real character, and
that it had been thought expedient to repub-
lish it with one more fully declaring its con-
tents and objects. He added that some
necessary additions had been made to the
volume. These consist of six pages which are
added at the end of the book. The materials-
intended for a second volume were, Betham
intimated, reserved by him for a general his-
tory of Ireland, which, however, has not ap-
peared.

Betham published in 1834 'The Gael and
Cymbri, or an Inquiry into the Origin and
History of the Irish, Scots, Britons, and Gauls ;
and of the Caledonians, Picts, Welsh, Cornish,
and Bretons,' 8vo. In 1837 he issued 'Obser-
vations on Evidence taken before a Com-
mittee of the House of Commons on the
Record Commission.' Betham took an active
part in the proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy, Dublin, from the period of his--
admission to it as a member in 1826. He-
became one of its governing body, acted
as secretary, and made several contributions
to its publications. In 1840 differences
arose between him and the council of the
academy in relation to the distribution of
prizes and the publication of essays by Dr.
George Petrie, among which was that oil
' The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland
anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion, and
on the Origin and tlses of the Round Towers
of Ireland.' A statement on these matters
was addressed by Betham to the lord-lieu-

Bethel

425

Bethel

tenant of Ireland, who submitted it to the
council of the academy, by which it was
officially replied to. The last publication
of Betham appeared in 1842, with the fol-
lowing title : ' Etruria Celtica : Etruscan
Literature and Antiquities investigated, or
the language of that people compared and
identified with the Iberno-Celtic, and both
shown to be Phoenician/ 2 vols. 8vo. A large
collection of manuscript s in the Irish language
acquired by Betham was purchased from
him in 1850 by the Royal Irish Academy,
in the library of which they a*e preserved.
Betham died 26 Oct. 1853, and was buried at
-Monkstown, co. Dublin. As Ulster king oi
arms he was succeeded by Sir J. B. Burke.
Betham's genealogical and heraldic manu-
scripts were sold at auction in London by
Sotheby & Wilkinson in 1860. The greater
part was purchased by private collectors.
Portions, however, were bought for the Bri-
tish Museum, London, and for the office ol
Ulster King of Arms, Dublin.

[MSS. of Sheffield (P. F. Betham, Esq., Dub-
lin) ; Eecords of Office of Ulster King of Arms,
Dublin ; Archives of the Eoyal Irish Academy,
Dublin ; Fourth Eeport of Royal Commission on
Historical MSS., 1874; Letter from George Pe-
trie to Sir William R. Hamilton, Astronomer
Royal, Ireland, 1840; Life of G. Petrie, by W.
Stokes, 1868.] J. T. G.

BETHEL, SLINGSBY (1617-1697), re-
publican, was the third son of Sir Walter
Bethel of Alne, Yorkshire, who married Mary,
the second daughter of Sir Henry Slingsby
of Scriven, near Knaresborough, and was
baptised at Alne 27 Feb. 1617. Being a
younger son, he was placed in business, and
went to Hamburg in 1637, staying there
until December 1649. He was strongly op-
posed to the cause of the cavaliers, but did
not approve of the conduct of the Protector,
nor did he, as member for Knaresborough in
the parliament of 1659, support Richard
Cromwell's adherents in their efforts to pro-
cure his succession as protector with un-
limited powers of action. In the new council
of state appointed to hold office from 1 Jan.
1660, he was the last of the ten non-parlia-
mentary members. When the estates of his
uncle, Sir Henry Slingsby, the unfortunate
cavalier who suffered for his devotion to the
royal cause, were sequestered, they were
bought in for his family by Mr. Stapylton
and Slingsby Bethel ; the letters which
passed between them on this matter are
printed in the ' Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby '
(1836), pp. 344-54, 411. Through success
in trade and through his family descent, he
acquired considerable property in the East

Riding of Yorkshire, and for many years after
the Restoration he passed a retired life in Lon-

| don, living on his means, and taking no active
part in opposition to a government which he

; distrusted. But on 24 June 1680 Bethel,
who was a member of the company of leather-
sellers, and Henry Cornish, were chosen
sheriffs of London and Middlesex, though

| they were unable to serve in consequence of
their not having taken the oaths commanded
by the Corporation Act. The country was-

I divided into two parties through religious

: and political differences, Bethel and his col-
league being the candidates of the whig and
popular party in the city. Roger North, the
tory historian, in his ' Examen,' p. 93, says of
them that ' the former used to walk about

! more like a corncutter than sheriff of Lon-
don. He kept no house, but lived upon
chops, whence it is proverbial for not feasting
" to Bethel the city ; " ' and Dryden, in the
first part of his l Absalom and Achitophel/
threw at Bethel, under the name of Shimei, all
the slanders of his opponents. By Burnet the
whig historian Bethel was styled ' a known
republican in principle ' and f a sullen and
wilful man,' and he adds that the selection
of these candidates gave some plausibility to
the rumour that the king would not have
justice done him against his enemies, as
Bethel ' had expressed his approving the late
king's death in very indecent terms,' whilst
their taking the sacrament, though they were
independents, to qualify themselves for the
office, damaged the anti-court party (History
of own Times (1823 ed.), ii. 241-43). This
last remark of Burnet refers to the fact that
before the date of the second election Bethel
and Cornish had duly qu alified, and that there-
upon they were elected by a large majority
over the court candidates. On their retire-
ment in 1681 they were thanked by the grand
jury for the city, but Bethel was defeated on
5 Sept. in his candidature for the alderman-
ship of Bishopsgate ward. The sheriffs were
accused, with Sir Robert Clayton and others,
of having visited Fitzharris in Newgate with
a message from Lord Howard that nothing
would save his life but a discovery of the
popish plot ; but the accusation was promptly
denied in a pamphlet called ' Truth vindi-
cated,' 1681, which is reprinted in the ' State
Trials,' viii. 411-25. Several pamphlets were
published on the conduct of the sheriffs in
taking the sacrament, and on Bethel's at-
tempt to be returned for Southwark at the
election of February 1681. A folio tract
published in his interest at this election, en-
titled l The Vindication of Slingsby Bethel r
(1681), gave an emphatic denial to the asser-
tion of his antagonists that he was a papist,

Bethel

426

Bethell

a Jesuit, a cruel soldier in the parliamentary
army, a judge of the late king, and an assis-
tant at the scaffold when King Charles was
executed. He was defeated at the poll for
the borough of Southwark, and in the fol-
lowing October was fined five marks for as-
saulting a watchman at the election day, the
fact being that he had removed two men who
were preventing his electors from tendering
their votes (The Tnjal of Slinqsby Bethel
(1681), and State Trials, viii. 747-58). In
the same month of October 1681, Bethel
showed his liberality by a gift of several hun-
dred pounds for the relief of poor prisoners
for debt. In July 1682 he thought it pru-
dent to retire to Hamburg, and there he
remained until February 1689. Whilst ab-
sent he was found guilty and heavily fined,
with several others (8 May 1683), for an
assault on the preceding midsummer day at
the election of sheriffs, a proceeding which
was generally condemned. After the acces-
sion of William and Mary the convicted
persons presented a petition to the king,
praying him to except out of his act of grace
all those who were concerned in this prose-
cution ( The humble Petition of Sir Thomas
Pilkinyton, Slingsby Bethel, #c.) Bethel
died early in February 1697. In Foster's

* Yorkshire Pedigrees ' (vol. ii.) he is said to
have married Mary Burrell of Huntingdon ;
but if this statement be correct, he was a
widower in 1681.

Bethel was the author of several works.
In 1659 he published ' A true and impartial
Narrative of the most material Debates and
Passages in the late Parliament/ reprinted in
the < Somers Tracts ' (1748), iv. 524-33, in
vol. vi. of the 1809 ed. of the same work, and
again as an appendix to his anonymous tract,
< The Interest of Princes and States,' 1680.
Most of the discourses in the last-mentioned
volume were written many years previously,
when the author was on his travels. They
advocated freedom of trade and liberty of
conscience. l The World's Mistake in Oliver
Cromwell ' (anon.), 1668, contained a severe
censure of Cromwell's foreign policy, and of
his conduct towards Lilburne and Sir Henry
Vane. Another of Bethel's anonymous
pamphlets, ' Observations on the Letter writ-
ten to Sir Thomas Osborn,' 1673, by the Duke
of Buckingham, advocated the support of Hol-
land against France. The last of his works,

* The Providence of God observed through
several ages towards this Nation ' (anon.),
1691, republished in 1694 and 1697, dealt
mainly with the proceedings under the
Stuarts for the establishment of arbitrary
power. There is a contemporary print of
Bethel in his robes as sheriff which was

reproduced in 1800. It represents him as an
austere and determined man.

[Luttrell, i. passim, ii. 30, iv. 179; Poulson's
Holderness, i. 316, 347, 402, 408 ; Scott's Dryden,
ix. 235, 280-2 ; 5th Eep. Hist. MSS. Comm.
p. 386 ; Masson's Milton, v. 520.] W. P. C.

BETHELL, CHRISTOPHER (1773-
1859), bishop of Bangor, was the second son
of the Rev. Richard Bethell, of Wadham
College, Oxford, B.A. 1755, M.A. 1759, rec-
tor of St. Peter's, Wallingford, who died
12 Jan. 1806, having married in 1771 Ann,
daughter of James Clitherow, of Boston
House, Middlesex. He was born at Isle- *
worth, Surrey, 21 April 1773, and educated
at King's College, Cambridge, where he pro-
ceeded B.A. 1796, M.A. 1799, and D.D. 1817 ;
obtained a fellowship, and was second mem-
ber's prizeman 1797. He was rector of Kirby
Wiske, Yorkshire, from 1808 to 1830 ; dean
of Chichester from 5 April 1814 until he
became a bishop, and prebendary of Exeter

22 June 1830. Lord Liverpool nominated him
bishop of Gloucester 11 March 1824. The
Duke of Wellington transferred him to the
more lucrative see of Exeter 8 April 1830,
and again on 28 Oct. in the same year to
the still more lucrative see of Bangor, which
he held up to the time of his death.

Dr. Bethell was during the whole of his
life identified with the high-church party.
He was the author of several theological
works, the principal of which is ' A General
View of the Doctrine of Regeneration in
Baptism,' 1821, of which a fourth edition was
published in 1845. His other works are chiefly
charges and sermons. His ignorance of the
Welsh language was a very great hindrance
to his usefulness in the diocese of Bangor,
where 195,000 out of 200,000 people under-
stood little more than their native tongue.
He died at the palace, Bangor, 19 April 1859,
and was buried in Llandegai churchyard on
27 April. At the time of his death he was
the oldest prelate on the episcopal bench.

[Guardian, 27 April 1859, p. 375; Record,

23 April 1859, p. 3.] G. C. B.

BETHELL, RICHARD, first LOUD W EST-
BTJRY (1800-1873), lord chancellor, the son
of Richard Bethell, M.D., of Bristol, the
grandson of Samuel Bethell of Bradford-on-
Avon, and the great-grandson of Thomas Be-
thell, also of Bradford-on-Avon, who died in
1755, was born at Bradford-on-Avon 30 June
1800. He was educated partly at Corsham
School, near Bath, partly at Bristol. At the
age of fourteen, ' while 'still,' as he used to
say, 'wearing a jacket and a frill/ he presented
himself at Wadham College, matriculated,

Bethell

427

Bethell

and in a few months gained a scholarship.
He had just completed his eighteenth year
when he graduated, taking a first class in
-classics and a second in mathematics — an
instance of precocity which, among men
who have gained distinction in later life, is
paralleled only by that of Phillpotts, bishop of
Exeter. It was his frequent boast that from
the age of seventeen he supported himself
entirely by his own exertions, his father being
no longer able to bear the expense of main-
taining him at Oxford. After taking his
-degree he continued to reside in Oxford, and
in a few years he was appointed to a fellow-
ship in his own college, having previously, it
is said, unsuccessfully opposed the future
Oardinal Newman as a candidate for an Oriel ;
fellowship. In 1823 he was called to the bar j
as a member of the Middle Temple, and he j
decided to practise in the equity courts, then ;
presided over by Lord Eldon, the chancellor,
Sir Thomas Plumer, the master of the rolls,
and Sir John Leach, the vice-chancellor. On
the strength of his academical reputation an
opportunity was offered to Bethell a few years
after his call, of which he availed himself,
and which assured his success. An action
had been brought against Brasenose College,
and some eminent legal authority had advised
the college to agree to a compromise. The
question was of great importance, and on
the recommendation of Dr. Gilbert, then
principal of Brasenose, Bethell's opinion was
taken. It was strongly in favour of 'con- j
tinuing the action. The college followed his j
advice, and both before the vice-chancellor
and on appeal before the House of Lords
they were successful (' Attorney-General v. \
Brasenose College,' 1 L. «7., N. S. 66; 2 Cl. $ I
Fin. 295). From this time his practice grew !
very rapidly. In 1840 he was made a queen's :
counsel by Lord Cottenham, and thereafter !
lie settled in the court of Vice-chancellor I
Shadwell, over whose easy mind he exercised j
•an extraordinary influence. By the aid of a
wide knowledge of law, great industry, and j
unexampled audacity, he moved quickly to j
the front, and on the promotion of Knight i
Bruce and Wigram, in 1841, found himself
the leader of the chancery bar, making an in- j
come which is said to have for many years
•exceeded 20,000/. Not till 1847 did he make
any attempt to enter parliament. He failed |
in his first contest, when he stood as a liberal- j
conservative for Shaftesbury ; but four years j
later he appeared with somewhat more ad- j
vanced opinions, prepared to support the i
ballot and the abolition of church rates, and |
was returned for Aylesbury. The change in |
his attitude has been curiously exaggerated j
through his having been confounded with j

another Richard Bethell, a tory, who was
member for the East Riding of Yorkshire
from 1832 to 1837 ; but certainly his liberal-
ism was steadily growing stronger, and at the
general election of 1852 he found a more suit-
able constituency at Wolverhampton. The
conservative element in his nature, however,
never disappeared ; though on questions of per-
sonal liberty, such as the admission of Jews
to parliament and the abolition of tests in
universities, he was at one with the advanced
party. He retained his belief in the value of
a landed aristocracy. * I do not know any-
| thing,' he said, ' that is more important to
| preserve in this country than the great rule
j by which the landed property of the father
I passes to the eldest son.'

Bethell had not long to wait for promotion.
In 1851 he was appointed vice-chancellor of
the duchy of Lancaster ; in the following year
he became solicitor-general in the ' Govern-
ment of all the talents,' and in 1856, when
Sir Alexander Cockburn was raised to the
bench, he was made attorney-general. With
one interval in 1858 and 1859 he held this
last office until he became lord chancellor.
When Bethell entered the House of Com-
mons the necessity of great measures of law
reform had for the first time begun to be re-
cognised as of serious political consequence,
and the weight of the work fell chiefly on
his shoulders. Nothing did more to raise his
reputation than the manner in which he car-
ried through committee Mr. Gladstone's Suc-
cession Duty Bill, one of. the most difficult
and technical measures ever dealt with by
parliament, and one which gave splendid
scope for that readiness of apprehension and
clearness of exposition in which he was un-
rivalled. He took a leading part also in the
debates on the Oxford University Bill of
1854, and as attorney-general he introduced
and carried through in 1857 the Probate and
Administration Bill, the Divorce and Matri-
monial Bill (carried almost single-handed
against the most bitter opposition), and the
Fraudulent Trustees Bill, and in 1861 the
Bankruptcy and Insolvency Bill. This last
measure, on which he had built high hopes,
was marred, as he believed, by the rejection
of his proposal to create a chief judge in
bankruptcy— a proposal to which parliament
returned when in 1869 it next legislated on
the subject. He had other schemes of law
reform, which advanced more slowly. On
the subject of legal education he entertained
the largest notions, desiring to see the Inns
of Court erected into one great legal uni-
versity, which should not merely undertake
the training of professional lawyers, but co-
operate with other universities in general

Bethell

428

Bethell

education (Hansard, 1 March 1854) ; but
lie was able to do no more than induce the
different Inns of Court to consolidate their
rules, and to institute studentships as an en-
couragement to legal study. More valuable
results came from the impulse which he gave
to the question of codifying the law. One of
his first acts as solicitor-general was to pre-
pare, and induce Lord Cranworth to accept,
a measure for the consolidation of the statute
law. The measure did not become law, and
the subject was handed over to be considered j
by a statute law commission, which reported |
in favour of revising and consolidating the
statutes, and of repealing all obsolete pro-
visions. Bethell was himself in favour of
codification pure and simple, but agreed to
support the modified scheme as the first step
towards a code ; and in 1861, under his gui-
dance, was passed the first of the Statute Law
Revision Acts, formally repealing all enact-
ments which are no longer in force, or which
have become unnecessary. In 1863, when as
lord chancellor he introduced the second of
these acts, he reviewed the whole subject in
one of his ablest speeches (afterwards pub-
lished and edited by Macqueen, Q.C.), de-
scribing the confusion into which law had
passed, and advocating as a further step the
framing of a digest. The commission of 1866
reported in similar terms, but after some at-
tempts to carry it out the proposal was aban-
doned. The work of revision, however, has
since been actively carried on, and has led to
the publication of a new edition of the sta-
tutes, now brought up to the year 1875, and
including in seventeen volumes all of them
that are effective (see HOLLAND'S Essays on
the Form of the Law) . Another and wider re-
form has been accomplished in a great measure
through Bethell's persistent advocacy. As
president of the Juridical Society (see his Ad-
dress, i. 1), in his public speeches in and out
of parliament, and even on the bench, he lost
no occasion of proclaiming the absurdity of the
separation of law and equity ; but it was re-
served for other hands to carry out the work
of fusion. He died a fortnight before the
passing of the act which declared that thence-
forth law and equity should be concurrently
administered.

His eager desire to take the lead in the re-
moval of legal abuses brought him into fre-
quent conflict with his chiefs, for whom he
had an undisguised contempt. Especially
did he exasperate them by repeatedly calling
public attention to the inefficient condition of
the House of Lords as a court of appeal, which
he did rather venomously, but with perfect
sincerity and with good cause. Lord Campbell
has unjustly credited him with purely per-

sonal njotives in making his attacks. ' Bethell,
he says, ' hardly attempts to disguise his
eagerness to clutch the great seal ' (Life, ii.
315). So strained did his and Cockburn's
relations become with Lord Cranworth that
Lord Campbell took the unusual step of ad-
dressing the prime minister, and warning him
of the dangers to which the government was
exposed ' from the insubordination which pre-
vails among your legal functionaries.' ' In-
deed,' he wrote, ' I must frankly tell you that
there seems to me a systematic purpose to
vilipend the lord chancellor ' (ibid. ii. 343).
Nothing came of this* interposition ; constant
bickerings continued, and matters reached a
climax in 1858, when Bethell, then out of
office, in a speech of irritating satire, and still
worth reading as an admirable example of his
style, complained to the House of Commons-
of the systematic manner in which he had
been misrepresented successively by Lord
St. Leonards and Lord Campbell (Hansard,
26 Feb. 1858). At this time he was unques-
tionably looking forward with confidence to
becoming chancellor when his party should
return to power ; he did not hesitate to say
so openly, and on Lord Derby's resignation in
1859 his disappointment at having to give
way to Lord Campbell was so great that only
with difficulty was he induced again to serve
as attorney-general. He did consent, how-
ever, and, l strange to say,' Lord Campbell
tells us, ' I get on more harmoniously with
Bethell than with other members of the
government.' He had not long to wait
for the coveted prize. In the summer of
1861 Lord Campbell died, and Bethell suc-
ceeded him under the title of Baron Westbury
of Westbury, in the county of Wilts. His
bitter tongue had made him many enemies,
but no one questioned his right to the office,
and he fully satisfied the expectation that he
would prove himself one of the chancellors
whose names are distinctly associated with
the advance of English law.

The judgments which he has left are in
many ways unique. Our law reports contain
no more perfect examples of precise and lucid
statement, of concise reasoning, or of polished
English ; and no judge has ever striven more-
persistently than did Lord Westbury to bring
every question to the test of principle, and to
restrain within due limits what seemed to
him the excessive authority of precedents.
His habit was to brush aside, or pass by un-
.noticed, the crowd of cases which had accu-
mulated during the argument, to treat with
scant respect judicial opinions which might
stand in his way, and to come to his decision
by the light of ' a few elementary rules of
law ' — a phrase which he had a malicious-

Bethell

429

Bethell

fondness for using when about to reverse Lord
Oampbell. Following this method, indeed,
he frequently decided a great deal more than
the facts of the case required, and the autho-
rity of his judgments has been thereby much
weakened ; but where he had a comparatively
•clear field, as in the subject of domicile, he
succeeded in building up a great portion of
the existing law (see an estimate of his judg-
ments in CAMPBELL SMITH'S Writings by the
Way, p. 397). With one exception, how-
ever, the cases in which he took part have
only a legal interest. In 1864 he sat as a
member of the judicial committee of the privy
council to hear the appeals on the ' Essays
and Reviews ' cases (' Bishop of Salisbury v.
Williams ' and ' Fendall v. Wilson,' 2 Moore
P. C., N. S. 375 ; and see WILBEEPOKCE'S
Life, iii. 6-10), and delivered with keen relish
the judgment acquitting the defendants on
all the counts — a judgment by which, said
the author of a suggested epitaph for Lord
Westbury himself, ' he took away from or-
thodox members of the church of England
their last hope of everlasting damnation.'

Meanwhile his zeal for law reform remained
unabated, though the result fell far short of
Tiis plans. He had long recognised the ur-
gency of simplifying the transfer of land, and
of carrying out the proposal of a general re-
gistry made by the Real Property Commission
of 1830. He had been an active member of
the commission of 1854, which in 1857 re-
ported infavour of registration of title. Wlien
in opposition he had supported the bills in-
troduced by Sir Hugh Cairns, and in 1862,
taking up the subject again in the House of
Lords, he succeeded in passing 'An Act to fa-
cilitate the proof of title to and the convey-
ance of real estate.' It offered two alternative
modes of registration : that of an indefeasible
title, or that of a merely possessory title to be-
come subsequently indefeasible ; but, against
Lord Westbury's own convictions, registra-
tion was made voluntary. He expected great
results from the act, and was slow to recognise
its failure. Speaking after it had been in
operation for nearly two years, he said : l If
there is one measure on which I can put my
finger with the hope of being hereafter re-
membered, it will undoubtedly be this bill,
when its utility and the relief which it is
calculated to give to owners of landed pro-
perty shall have been fully developed'
(21 April 1864). It proved a failure never-
theless. Few indefeasible titles were regis-
tered, and the number decreased every year,
while the possessory clauses were not made
use of at all : and in 1868 a commission (of
which Lord Westbury himself was afterwards
made a member, though he took no part in

the proceedings) was appointed to consider
the causes of its failure. These they found
to be the expense and the trouble of registra-
tion, which were proved to be greater than
in the case of an ordinary sale, and which
arose from the necessity imposed by the act
of (1) showing a marketable title, (2) de-
fining the boundaries of the property, and
(3) registering partial interests (see also Lord
Cairns's evidence before the commission of
1878). It would be difficult to say whether
the act of 1862, known as Lord Westbury's
Act, has had most effect in rousing people to
the advantages of simpler modes of transfer
or in discrediting by its failure subsequent
attempts to accomplish the same end.

Most of the personal incidents which en-
livened Lord Westbury's chancellorship have
grown dim now, though at the time they
were in everybody's mouth. One of them,
i however, bids fair to be historical. The oc-
casion was the debate in the House of Lords
on the sentence passed by Convocation on
' Essays and Reviews.' In language of solemn
mockery, characterised by Bishop Wilber-
| force as ' ribaldry,' he told the bench of
bishops that they had probably incurred the
penalties of prcemunire ; he described a sy-
nodical judgment as 'a well-lubricated set
j of words — a sentence so oily and saponaceous
j that no one can grasp it,' and he warned them
! that ' whenever there is any attempt to carry
Convocation beyond its proper limits their
; best security will be to gather up their gar-
ments and flee, and, remembering the pillar
of salt, not to cast a look behind ' (15 July
1864). The epithet l saponaceous ' was never
forgotten.

In 1865 Lord Westbury was forced to re-
j tire from office. Circumstances connected
i with the granting of a pension to a Mr. Ed-
munds, who, as clerk to the commissioner of
! patents, was found to have appropriated public
i moneys to his own use,and certain transactions
; with reference to appointments in the Leeds
j Bankruptcy Court, had excited public indig-
I nation, and Lord Westbury was freely ac-
cused of having unworthily used his position
to advance his relatives. The two cases were
separately examined by two select commit-
tees, who agreed in acquitting him of having
acted from unbecoming motives, but found
that he had shown himself lax and inatten-
tive to the public interests. A vote of cen-
sure, framed in moderate terms, was moved
in the House of Commons, and, having been
carried in spite of the defence made by the
government, Lord Westbury at once an-
nounced his resignation, in a speech so full of
real grace and dignity, that it almost turned
indignation into sympathy. It was remem-

Bethell

43°

Bethell

bered that in other cases he had been pecu-
liarly active in correcting abuses in the de-
partments under his charge, and that in using
his position to favour his relatives he had
been following a long, if an evil, tradition, to
break which the public had clamoured for the
sacrifice of somebody. (For the facts of the two
cases, see the Committee Reports : Edmunds's
case, 1865 (294), ix. 1, and (173) xliii. 495;
Leeds Bankruptcy Court case, 1865 (397),
ix. 413, and (295) xliii. 4b'5, also the Annual
Register for 1865 ; and for different commen-
taries on the facts, see Law Magazine, xix.
281, and Fraser's Magazine, Ixxii. 247). After
his fall Lord Westbury retired to a villa
which he had purchased in Italy, having re-
solved, as he said, to quit public life for ever.
But he was very soon back again, to sit on
appeals in the House of Lords and the Privy
Council, and occasionally to take part in po-
litical debate. His intellect was still too
bright and keen, and his delight too great in
the exercise of his power of epigrammatic
speech, to have made a life of retirement pos-
sible. He took especial interest in the Irish
Church Bill, and, while agreeing that the ex-
istence of the Irish church was a great evil
that needed to be cured by legislation, pro-
tested against the bill as a measure of mere
destruction and confiscation. The case of St.
Ambrose had been often mentioned in the
debates, and there was much controversy as
to whether in applying the vessels of the
church to secular uses he had been guilty of
sacrilege : ' What might be the opinion re-
specting St. Ambrose/ said Westbury, ' in
the days when he lived, I do not know ; but
I must say, with the modern ideas of property,
that if St. Ambrose had been brought before
me in equity I should not have hesitated to
find him guilty of a breach of trust, and to
make him refund the property ' (29 % June
1869). The Irish Land Act of 1870 was even
more repellent to his rigid and lawyer-like
ideas of justice. He himself, on the other
hand, succeeded in inducing Lord Hatherley
to amend the constitution of the judicial
committee of the privy council, which had
long been unable to deal satisfactorily with
its legal business (Judicial Committee Act,
1871); while he found in Lord Selborne's
Judicature Act of 1873, carrying out the
fusion which he had so long advocated, a
measure to which he could give a hearty
support.

The last year of his life was one of great
labour. By the private act 35 and 36
Viet. c. xlv. he was appointed arbitrator in
the winding-up of the affairs of the European
Assurance Society, the number of questions
involved being so great that, as in the pre-

vious case of the Albert Company, of which
Earl Cairns had been appointed arbitrator, the
ordinary courts proved incapable of settling
them. It is the opinion of lawyers who at
this time practised before him that he had
never shown more clearly his acuteness, his
knowledge of men and things, and his power
of rapid and sound decision. As he was not
bound by rigid rules of law, his decisions are
not authoritative, but they are constantly re-
ferred to by judges and text-writers as con-
taining a valuable body of principles on
several titles of the law of public companies.
(Reported by F. S. Reilly, and published 1873.)
Till within a few weeks of his death he was
engaged at this work, which was left un-
finished, and was continued by Lord Romilly.
He died at his house in London 20 July 1873,
just the day after his old antagonist, Bishop
Wilberforce.

Lord W^estbury was twice married : (1) in
1825 to Ellinor Mary, eldest daughter of
Robert Abraham, by whom he left seven
children surviving ; and (2) on 25 Jan. 1873
to Eleanor Margaret, third daughter of Henry
Tennant, of Cadoxton in Glamorgan.

His character remains a difficult and in-
teresting study, for it was full of contrasts.
It combined a love of display with habits of
the greatest frugality, and absolute ruthless-
ness with considerable benevolence of spirit
and good nature. Few men have had a greater
power of sarcastic speech, and no one has ever
used such a power more mercilessly. De-
livered in the most urbane manner, and in his
mincing, drawling, half-affected tones, and
set off by his round, placid face, his sentences
fell with blistering effect. Lord Derby once
described him as ( standing up and for up-
wards of an hour pouring upon the head of
a political opponent a continuous stream of
vitriolic acid ; ' and a judge once appealed to
him to be addressed at least as a vertebrate
animal. Judges, indeed, he treated at the bar
as superciliously as on the woolsack he treated
bishops, and Lincoln's Inn is rich in traditions
of his audacity. Once, at any rate, his bold-
ness was useful, in his famous protest against
Knight Bruce's habit of prejudging cases (see
Times, 14 and 15 March, and Punch, 26 March
1859). His manner of speech was the out-
come of an overpowering and evidently sin-
cere belief in his own intellectual superiority
over other men, and his sleepless ambition to
have his superiority acknowledged. In order
to attain his end he spared no one, and he
was not over-scrupulous of the means which
he employed. But his character had another
side. To those who did not stand in his way
he could be the best of friends, and when the
story of his life comes to be told in full there

Bethune

431

Bethune

will be much to be said of acts of kindness
for which he has hitherto had little credit.
One who knew him well has said : l A more
kind and feeling nature never existed. He
did not make many professions, but had the I
good of his fellow-creatures at heart. He j
always found time to give advice and help.' |
Indeed, to his habit of helping others, and !
not to any particular ability, he himself
modestly ascribed his success : at least he
said so in a famous address delivered in 1859 j
tp the Young Men's Christian Institute of |
Wolverhampton : ' I am perfectly confident,'
he added, in very odd language, ' that the
principle of mutual benevolence, of a uni-
versal desire to do good, derived from Chris-
tianity, and which is the first lesson incul-
cated when you are taught to read the New
Testament, is one of the best and most sure
modes of securing even temporary success in
life.' He exaggerated his own intellect, no
doubt, but in critical keenness and subtlety
he certainly had no rival. Without being an
orator he had a rare gift of fluent, graceful,
and persuasive speech, and a power of lumi-
nous exposition which has perhaps never been
surpassed. In irony he was once described
as ' a gentleman who possesses such a plain,
straightforward, John-Bull-like character of
mind : rusticus, abnormis, sapiens, crassaque
Minerva ; ' but, irony apart, he had a singular
faculty, which he exercised when his cause
was good, of going straight to the heart of a
question, and of bringing out the truth in a
single telling sentence. Less able men have
had a more durable fame than his will prove to
be, for he left few of those definite records of
work accomplished which keep a man's me-
mory green. The lawyer's is like the actor's
fame. Lord Westbury deserves to be re-
membered as a zealous and. wise reformer,
and as the boldest judge who ever sat on the
English bench ; but he will probably be
known rather as the author of audacious say-
ings, and as the mythical source of innumer-
able stories.

[Law Mag. and Eev. 1865 and 1873 ; Times,
21 July 1873; Law Journal and Solicitors' Jour-
nal, 26 July 1 873 ; Irving's Annals of our Time ;
Hansard from 1851 onwards; Campbell's Life;
Wilberforce's Life; Burke's Peerage and Baro-
netage ; see also Westbury and Wilberforce, in
Traill's New Lucian; and Macmillan's Magazine,
xlvii. 469.] G-. P. M.

BETHUNE, ALEXANDER (1804-
1843), poet, the son of an agricultural day-
labourer, was born at Upper Rankeillor, in
the parish of Monimail, Fifeshire, about the
end of July 1804. Owing to the poverty of
his parents he received an extremely scanty
education. Up to his twenty-second year he

had been at school only from four to five
months in all. But his mother was a woman
of superior intellect and force of character.
Her name was Alison Christie, and her sons
Alexander and John [q. v.] owed her much.
In his fourteenth" year Alexander was
hired as a labourer. He describes himself as
having been set to dig the stiff clayey soil
' at raw fourteen,' and says that for more than
a year afterwards his joints on first attempt-
ing to move in the morning creaked like
machinery lacking oil. Previous to this his
parents had moved to the village of Lochend,
near the Loch of Lindores. Here, in his
twenty-first year, he gladly embraced the
opportunity of attending a night-school, or
school-classes held in the evening, taught by
the Rev. John Adamson, afterwards of Dun-
dee. Encouraged by the progress he made
under this teacher, Bethune put himself under
the instruction of his brother John, in order
to learn weaving. The two expended their
hard-won and still harder-saved earnings as
labourers, on looms, &c. ; but 1825 proved a
disastrous year for the poor weavers all over
Scotland, and their all went. In 1826 the
two brothers were once more employed as
outdoor labourers, with one shilling a day
for wage. In 1829, while working in a
quarry, Alexander was thrown into the air
by a sudden blast of gunpowder. He was
so mangled that his death was expected.
But he recovered, and in about four months
was again at his day-labouring. About three
years later he met with an exactly similar
accident. He recovered, but was much
mutilated and disfigured, and carried his
hurts with him through life. It was about
this time he commenced author. Having
won a place in the l Poet's Corner ' of several
local newspapers, he published his 'Tales
and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry ' in
1838. They brought him fame at once.
His printer — a Mr. Shortrede, of Edinburgh —
gave the author the sale-price of the first
fifty copies disposed of, as copyright payment.
This yielded him far more money than he
had ever dreamed of possessing.

His brother John having about this time
been appointed overseer on the estate of
Inchtyre, Alexander became his assistant.
But within a year the estate passed to
another proprietor, and their engagement
ended. Their home at Lochend, which
formed part of Inchtyre, had likewise to be
vacated. The brothers therefore came to
the resolution of farming a piece of ground
near Newburgh, Fifeshire, and of erecting
a home for themselves. To raise funds for
this purpose they published 'Lectures 011
Practical Economy ' in 1839 ; but this work

Bethune

432

Bethune

fell all but stillborn from the press. Alex-
ander the same year lost his brother John —
a great and lasting sorrow. He revised and
edited his poems, and prefixed a pathetic me-
moir. This proved a success ; 750 copies were
sold immediately, and a second edition was
speedily called for. The little volume having
fallen under the notice of Mrs. Hill, wife of
Frederick Hill, inspector of prisons for Scot-
land, she wrote to Bethune, and a situation
was procured for him as a turnkey in Glas-
gow. This post, however, he found utterly
uncongenial, and in March 1841 he gave it
up. In 1842 he visited Edinburgh, and
arranged with Messrs. Adam and Charles
Black for the publication of his most notice-
able book, the ' Scottish Peasant's Fireside,'
a presentation of Scottish character among
the lower classes, of scenery, and of manners.
The new volume was welcomed far and
near, and especially among the Scottish emi-
grants of Canada. But Bethune's days were
numbered. He took a fever, and, though
he partially recovered from it, showed signs
of pulmonary consumption. He was offered
the post of editor of the ' Dumfries Standard,'
.a liberal and Free-church newspaper then
being started. He conditionally accepted:
but his disease made rapid progress, and he
had to release himself from his engagement.
He died at Newburgh on 13 June 1843,
having consigned his manuscripts to his friend
William M'Combie (then an Aberdeenshire
farmer). M'Cornbie in 1845 published his
' Life, with Selections from his Correspondence
•and Literary Remains.'

[Life by M'Combie ; Anderson's Scottish Na-
tion ; local inquiries in Fifeshire and Perthshire.]

A. B. G-.

BETHUNE, SIR HENRY LINDESAY

(1787-1851), major-general, the eldest son
of Major Martin Eccles Lindesay, commis-
sary-general in Scotland, was appointed to
the Madras artillery in 1804. In 1810, when
a subaltern in the horse artillery, he accom-
panied Sir John Malcolm's mission to Persia
as one of the officers of the escort. His tall
stature — he was six feet eight inches in
height without his shoes — is said to have
greatly excited the admiration and curiosity
of the Persians. It is related of him that on
one occasion, while the mission was in Persia,
Sir John Malcolm overheard a Persian call
out to one of Bethune's servants, ' Is your
date-tree asleep or awake ? ' On the depar-
ture of the mission Lindesay and Captain
Christie, another very remarkable Indian
officer, together with one or two others, were
permitted to remain in Persia to aid in drill-
ing and disciplining the Persian army. Be-

thune was employed on this duty for several
years, and served with the Persian army in
various engagements with the Russian troops,
distinguishing himself so much by his mili-
tary skill and gallantry that he was regarded
by the Persians as a veritable Rustam, not
in stature alone. He returned to England
in 1821, retiring in the following year from
the service of the East India Company, and
settling in Scotland on the estate of Kil-
conquhar, to which he had succeeded on the
death of his grandfather. On succeeding to
the estate he adopted the surname of Bethune,
in conformity with the deed of entail. In
1834 he was sent back to Persia by the British
government, and commanded a part of the
Persian army in the war of succession in the
following year, leading his division from
Tabriz to Teheran, and completely quelling
the rebellion against Mahomed Shah, the
successor of the late Shah, Fath-i-Ali Khan.
For this service he received from the Shah
the order of the Lion and Sun, and on his
return to England was created a baronet, in
accordance with a special request made by
the Shah, that his majesty would confer upon
Bethune f some rank which in the English
state may descend lineally to his posterity,
and always remain in his family.'

In 1836 Bethune was a third time sent
to Persia, with the local rank of major-
general in Asia, to take command of the
Persian army ; but owing to a misunderstand-
ing, arising from the Persian advance upon
Herat, the Shah's government declined to
allow him to take up this command. He
accordingly returned to England in 1839,
and finally retired from military life. Some
years afterwards he again visited Persia as a
traveller, and died at Tabriz in 1851.

Sir Henry Bethune married in 1822 a
daughter of John Trotter, of Dyrham Park,
Hertfordshire, by whom he had three sons
and five daughters. The Scotch earldom
of Lindsay, created in 1633, which had been
in abeyance for many years, was revived in
the person of his eldest son, who established
his right to it in 1878.

[Annual Reg. 1835, p. 500, and 1851, p. 263;
Kaye's History of the War in Afghanistan, 3rd
ed., 1874, i. 140 and 141 ; Sir Harford Jones
Bridges's Mission to the Court of Persia, i. 364-
365, 1834; Kaye's Life of Sir John Malcolm,
ii. 5, 6, and 7, 1856; Conolly's Biographical Dic-
tionary of Eminent Men of Fife, 1866, pp. 57-9.]

A. J. A.

BETHUNE, JOHN (1812-1839), poet, a
younger brother of Alexander Bethune [q. v.],
was born, like him, at Upper Rankeillor,
Monimail, Fifeshire, in 1812. In 1813 his

Bethune

433

Bethune

;parents removed to Lochend, near the Loch
of Lindores. He never received any school
education. He was taught to read by his
mother, and writing and arithmetic by his
brother Alexander. The two lads, from
the thirteenth year of the elder, earned
their living by breaking stones on the road
between Lindores and Newburgh. John,
having been apprenticed to weaving in the
village of Collessie, became so expert in the
craft that in 1825 he set up looms for him-
self in a house immediately adjoining his
father's, and with Alexander for apprentice.
The failure of the trade all over Scotland
in this year ruined them all. The two
brothers returned to their former occupa-
tion of outdoor labourers. Alexander tells
how John would eagerly seize any scrap of
white paper that offered itself whereon to
write out his poems. Before 1831 he had a
large collection of manuscripts of the most
miscellaneous sort. In October 1829 he was
a day-labourer on the estate of Inchtyre. His
integrity and capacity in this humble position
so commended him to the proprietor that, on
the death in 1835 of the overseer, he was
appointed his successor at a salary of 26/.
per annum, with fodder for a cow, and with
his brother for assistant. Unfortunately the
estate changed hands, and the situation was
lost. In 1838, to Alexander's 'Tales and
Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry ' he con-
tributed five pieces. In 1839 appeared ' Lec-
tures on Practical Economy' by both brothers.
In the title-page he describes himself as a
* Fifeshire Forester.' Under the same signa-
ture of a t Fifeshire Forester ' he contributed
many poems to the two Scottish periodicals
called the ' Scottish Christian Herald ' and
the ' Christian Instructor ' — the latter under
the editorship of Dr. Andrew Thomson. In
1838 his health failed ; he therefore gave up
manual labour, and endeavoured to gain a
livelihood out of literary work. He died of
consumption on Sunday, 1 Sept. 1839, in his
twenty-seventh year.

[Authorities cited under BETHUNE, ALEX-
ANDER ; local inquiries.] A. B. G-.

BETHUNE, JOHN DRINKWATER

(1762-1844), originally JOHN DRINKWATER,
historian of the siege of Gibraltarr was born
at Latchford, near Warrington, in June 1762.
His father, John Drinkwater, formerly a sur-
geon in the navy, was at the time of his birth
a medical practitioner at Salford, then a
suburb of Manchester. At the age of fifteen
he joined as an ensign a regiment of volun-
teers raised by a subscription in Manchester,
at a time of indignant excitement produced
by the news of General Burgoyne's surrender

VOL. IV.

at Saratoga. The Manchester regiment, as
it was called, more properly the 72nd regi-
ment of the line, or Royal Manchester Volun-
teers, was not, however, sent to America, but
to Gibraltar. Gibraltar was besieged in June
1779 by a Spanish-French force [see ELLIOT,
GEORGE AUGUSTUS, Lord Heat hfield]. During
the whole of the siege, which lasted until
February 1783, Drinkwater kept a careful
record of events. With the peace the 72nd,
in which Drinkwater had become a captain,
was ordered home and disbanded. From his
memoranda chiefly Drinkwater compiled the
work * A History of the Siege of Gibraltar,
1779-1783, with a description and account of
that garrison from the earliest period. By
John Drinkwater, Captain in the late Seventy-
second Regiment, or Royal Manchester Vo-
lunteers/ Plans and views accompanied
the letterpress of the volume, which appears
to have been published in 1785, and was
dedicated by permission to the king. The
narrative, one of our few military classics,
went through four editions in as many years.
A cheap reprint of it was added in 1844 to
the Home and Colonial Library. In 1787
Drinkwater purchased a company in the
second battalion of the 1st or Royal regi-
ment of foot, then; stationed at Gibraltar,
whither he proceeded. By Lord Heathfield,
who had been governor of Gibraltar during
the siege, he was publicly thanked for his
work. During this second stay at Gibraltar,
Drinkwater established a garrison library,
which served as a model for many other simi-
lar institutions.

Drinkwater accompanied his regiment to
Toulon, and acted as military secretary during
its occupation by the English. After the
English annexation of Corsica he became
secretary for the military department and
deputy judge-advocate during the English oc-
cupation of that island and the viceroy alty of
Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Earl of Minto.
Corsica having been evacuated, Drinkwater
returned with Sir Gilbert in the Minerva,
carrying the pendant of Nelson as commo-
dore, with whom he had formed while in
Corsica a close intimacy. Sir John Jervis's
squadron off Cape St. Vincent having been
reached, Drinkwater witnessed the battle of
St. Vincent. The news of the victory was
brought to England by Drinkwater. Nelson
was not mentioned in the published de-
spatches ; and considering his services to have
been under-estimated, Drinkwater published
anonymously a 'Narrative of the Battle of
St. Vincent,' in which full justice was done
to Nelson.

In 1794 Drinkwater had become by pur-
chase major, and in 1796 lieutenant-colonel,

Bethune

434

Betterton

of his regiment. He was placed on half-pay
with the rank of colonel, when forming the
long connection with the civil administration
of the army, which began by his acceptance,
after Sir Gilbert Elliot had strongly recom-
mended him to Pitt, of a commission to ar-
range and settle the complicated accounts
connected with the English occupation of
Toulon and Corsica, In 1799 he was ap-
pointed commissary-general of the force which
was being despatched to the Helder, and
which he accompanied. In 1801 he accepted
an honorary appointment in the household of
the Duke of Kent. In 1805 he was nomi-
nated a member of the parliamentary com-
mission of military inquiry, becoming after-
wards its chairman. In 1807 he declined
the under-secret aryship of state for war and
the colonies offered to him by Windham.
In 1811 he was appointed comptroller of
army accounts, and filled the office for five-
and-twenty years, until it was abolished in
1835. In 1840 he republished, in aid of the
fund for the Nelson testimonial, and with
an acknowledgment of its authorship, his
' Narrative of the Battle of St. Vincent,' add-
ing to it some new anecdotes of Nelson. He
was preparing an enlarged edition of the his-
tory of the siege of Gibraltar, of the garrison
of which he was then, it is said, the sole sur-
vivor, when he died, aged 81, on 16 Jan. 1844,
at Thorncroft, near Leatherhead, in Surrey.
After his withdrawal from public life, and on
the death of his brother-in-law, whose pro-
perty, Balfour Castle in Fifeshire, his wife
inherited, he had assumed the surname of
Bethune. Besides being the author of the
two works already mentioned, he published
in 1830 'A Compendium of the Regents
Canal, showing its connection with the me-
tropolis,' and in 1835 he printed for private
circulation ' Statements respecting the late
Departments of the Comptrollership of the
Army Accounts, showing the inconveniency
which will probably result from its abolition.'

[Grent. Mag. for April 1844; Lancashire
"Worthies, second series (1877) ; Catalogue of the
British Museum Library.] F. E.

BETHUNE, JOHN ELLIOT DRINK-
WATER (1801-1851), an eminent Indian
legislator and educationist, was the eldest
son of Lieutenant-colonel John Drinkwater
Bethune, C.B. and F.S.A. [q.v.], author of the
'History of the Siege of Gibraltar.' Having
been educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,
and called to the bar in 1827, Bethune was
employed by Lord Grey's government, shortly
after its accession to office, on several im-
portant commissions, and subsequently as
counsel to the Home Office, which appoint-

ment he retained for nearly fourteen years.
While holding this office he drafted, among
many other legislative measures, the Muni-
cipal Reform Act, the Tithe Commutation
Act, and the County Courts Act. In 1848
Bethune was appointed fourth ordinary, or
legislative member of the Supreme Council
of India, and after his arrival at Calcutta ac-
cepted the additional unpaid office of presi-
dent of the Council of Education. In India,
as in England, his principal official duties
engaged him in the consideration of questions
of legislative reform. Two of the most im-
portant of these were a bill for removing the
exemption enjoyed by European British sub-
jects from the jurisdiction of the criminal
courts of the East India Company, and a bill
for extending to the whole of British India
the law passed for Bengal by Lord William
Bentinck's government in 1832, relieving
native converts to Christianity or to any other
religion from forfeiture of rights or property
or of rights* of inheritance. The first of these
measures was postponed until the Indian
penal code should have been enacted, and
has not yet become law to the extent con-
templated by Bethune and his colleagues;
the second was passed a few months before
his death. An act for establishing small
cause courts at the presidency towns, upon
the principle of the English county courts,,
was another of the measures which illustrated'
his career as a legislator.

As an educationist, Bethune's name is iden-
tified with the establishment at Calcutta of
a school for educating native girls of the higher
classes, which he endowed by his will with
lands and other property in that city. This
institution, still called the Bethune Girls'
School, was for some time after Bethune's
death supported by the governor-general,
Lord Dalhousie, from his private funds, and
was subsequently taken charge of by the-
state, by which it is still maintained.

Bethune died at Calcutta on 12 Aug. 1851,
greatly lamented by all classes, native as
well as European.

[Annual Reg. 1851, pp. 319-320 ; The Unre-
pealed Acts of the Governor-General of India in
Council, vol. i., Calcutta, 1875 ; Report of the
Indian Education Commission, p. 525, Calcutta,
1883.] A. J. A.

BETTERTON, THOMAS (1635 P-1710),,
actor and dramatist, was born in Tothill
Street, Westminster, and was apprenticed by
his father, who was under-cook to Charles I,
to a bookseller. These are the only undis-
puted facts concerning his life before he
adopted the stage as a profession. The mys-
tery with which his early years are surrounded

Betterton

435

Betterton

is the less explicable, as Betterton appears to
liave been communicative and to have found
contemporaries willing to collect and give
to the world information concerning him.
Their statements, however, are conflicting.
In the ( Life of Betterton ' in the ' Biographia
Britannica' an attempt is made upon the
strength of new information from Southerne
to disprove the previously accepted assertions
of Gildon and others. On the appearance
of the first volume of the ' Biographia Britan-
nica ' (1747) Southerne had been dead a year.
He was eighty-six years of age at the time
of his death, and there is no reason for sup-
posing that his memories concerning his
conversations with Betterton thirty-six years
previously were more trustworthy than those
of Gildon, who was in direct personal com-
munication with Betterton, in whose lifetime
he wrote, or than those of Downes, who also
had constant access to the actor, and whose
' Roscius Anglicanus ' was published in 1708,
two years before Betterton' s death. Gildon,
who speaks of Betterton as being seventy-
five years of age at his death, supports the
view that his birth took place in 1635.
Downes speaks of Betterton as about twenty-
two years of age in 1659, and Curll, in a ' His-
tory of the English Stage from the Restau-
ration to the Present Time ' (1741), which he
fathered upon Betterton, gives the date of
his birth as 1637. Curll says that Betterton
was present as a soldier at the battle of
Edgehill in 1642, when, if Curll's date of his
birth be correct, he was only five years old,
and, upon any date suggested, he was not
more than seven. This ridiculous assertion
is, however, copied by Messrs. Maidment and
Logan in the Life of Davenant prefixed to
the reprint of his works (Edinburgh, Pater-
son). Betterton, who received a good edu-
cation, displayed some taste for reading.
According to the ( Biographia Britannica,'
presumably following Southerne, the inten-
tion of bringing him up to a learned profes-
sion was abandoned, owing to the ' violence
and confusion of the times putting this out
of the power of his family.' That the lad
elected to be apprenticed to a bookseller is
acknowledged by all authorities. He was,
according to the * Biographia Britannica,'
bound to Mr. John H olden, who, as the pub-
lisher of ' Gondibert,' was much in the confi-
dence of Sir William Davenant. A way to the
stage, it has been suggested, was thus at once
opened out. The authority advanced for this
is Richardson's f Life of Milton ' (p. 90), in
which it is affirmed that Betterton told Pope
that he was bound to Holden. The ' Bio-
graphia Britannica' then assumes it to be
1 highly probable' that Betterton ' began to act

under the direction of Sir William Davenant
in!656 or 1657 at the Opera House in Charter
House Yard.' Gildon (supported by Downes)
says : ' His father bound him apprentice to
one Mr. Rhodes, a bookseller, at the Bible at
Charing Cross, and he had for his under-
prentice Mr. Kynaston. But that which pre-
par'd Mr. Betterton and his fellow-prentice
for the stage was that his master, Rhodes,
having formerly been wardrobe-keeper to the
king's company of comedians in the Black-
fryars, on General Monck's march to Lon-
don in 1659 with his army, got a licence
from the powers then in being to set up a
company of players in the Cockpit in Drury
Lane and soon made his company compleat,
his apprentices, Mr. Betterton for men's parts,
and Mr. Kynaston for women's parts, being
at the head of them ' (Life of Betterton,
p. 5). Downes gives the company with which
Rhodes started at the Cockpit, the chief names,
in addition to Betterton and Kynaston, being
Underbill, Nokes (Robert and William), and
William Betterton, assumed to be a brother
of Thomas. The story told by Gildon has
been accepted by the authors of the ' Bio-
graphia Dramatica,' by Genest (with the as-
sumption that Salisbury Court should be
substituted for Cockpit), by Gait in his ' Lives
of the Players ' (1831), and Bellchambers in
his edition of Colley Cibber's ' Apology,' 1822.
Davies, in his 'Dramatic Miscellanies,' at-
taches value to Southerne's recollections, but
points out errors and inconsistencies in them.
R. S. (? Shiels), who contributed the account
of Betterton to the ' Lives of the Poets ' of
Theophilus Gibber, 1753, adheres closely to
the views of the ' Biographia Britannica.'

The first plays in which Betterton made a
public appearance are said to have been the
'Loyal Subject,' the 'Wild Goose Chase/
and the ' Spanish Curate ' of Beaumont and
Fletcher. He played also while a member
of Rhodes's company in the 'Maid in the
Mill,' ' Mad Lover,' ' Pericles,' ' Wife for a
Month,' 'Rule a Wife and have a Wife,'
' Woman's Prize,' ' Aglaura/ ' Changeling/
' Bondman/ &c. His chief success appears
to have been obtained in ' Pericles/ the ' Mad
Lover/ the ' Loyal Subject/ the ' Bondman/
and as Deflores in the ' Changeling.' His voice,
according to Downes, who was the prompter
at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was even at this time
'as strong, full, and articulate as in the
meridian of his acting.' When, accordingly,
he joined in 1661 the company formed by
Sir William Davenant at the Lincoln's Inn
Fields Theatre, he was an actor of some ex-
perience. To distinguish it from the com-
pany of Thomas Killigrew, formed like itself
under a patent from Charles II, and known

F F 2

Betterton

436

Betterton

as the King's Company, the troupe collected
by Davenant was styled the Duke's Com-
pany. One of the first recorded duties of
Betterton was, at royal command, to visit
Paris with a view to seeing the French
stage, and judging what, in its scenery, &c.,
might with advantage be adopted in Eng-
land. Scenery was not altogether unknown
on the English stage. Davenant had em-
ployed it in an entertainment entitled the

* Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, expressed
by vocal and instrumental music and by art
of perspective in scenes.' This was performed
at the Cockpit in 1658, Cromwell, by whom
it is said to have been read, having given
permission for its performance as calculated
to inflame public sentiment against the
Spaniards. In the ' Siege of Rhodes ' in two
parts by Davenant, "witnessed by Pepys on
2 July 1661, and in the 'Wits' of the same
author, scenery, according to Downes, was
first publicly employed. Supposing the visit
of Betterton to have immediately anticipated
the performance of the l Siege of Rhodes,' in
which he played Solyman, Betterton would
probably have seen ' L'Ecole des Maris ' of
Moliere. He must, whenever his visit took
place, have seen the representations given at
the Theatre de Moliere. That the comedies
of Moliere influenced him in his dramatic
€omposition is evident. At the close of
this year (1661) Betterton played Colonel
Jolly in the ' Cutter of Coleman Street ' of
Cowley, and made his first appearance in one
of his greatest characters, Hamlet. Mer-
cutio, Sir Toby Belch, Bosola in the ' Duchess
of Malfi,' and Macbeth are among the cha-
racters he assumed in 1662-6. In 1665 and
1666 performances, in consequence of the
plague and the fire, were almost entirely
suspended. In April 1668 Davenant died.
The Duke's Company remained at Lincoln's
Inn Fields until 1671, when it migrated to a
new house built for it, by subscription as it
seems, in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, and
named Dorset Garden Theatre. Davenant's
patent had come into the hands of his son,
Charles Davenant, who associated with
himself in the management Harris and Bet-
terton. Prior to the removal Betterton had
taken part in a play of his own and had
married. ' Woman made a Justice,' a comedy
which has never been printed, and concern-
ing which nothing is known except that it
was acted fourteen consecutive days, a long
run for the period ; the ' Amorous Widow, or
the Wanton Wife/ a comedy taken from
Georges Dandin ; and the ' Roman Virgin, or
the Unjust Judge,' an alteration of Webster's

* Appius and Virginia/ all by Betterton,
were all, according to Downes, given at Lin-

coln's Inn Fields. In the ' Amorous Widow '
Betterton played a character called Love-
more ; in the ' Roman Virgin ' he was natu-
rally Virginius. Mrs. Saunderson, whom
Betterton married, was a member of the
Lincoln's Inn company. She has been erro-
neously said to have been the first woman
who ever appeared on the English stage.
Downes mentions her as one of the four prin-
cipal women actresses of Davenant's com-
pany whom Davenant boarded at his own
house. She was an excellent actress and an
estimable woman. Colley Cibber preferred
her Lady Macbeth in some respects to that
of Mrs. Barry. ' She was/ he continues, ' to
the last the admiration of all true judges of
nature and lovers of Shakespeare, in whose
plays she chiefly excelled, and without a
rival. When she quitted the stage, several
good actresses were the better for her in-
struction. She was a woman of an un-
blemished and sober life, and had the honour
to teach Queen Anne, when princess, the part
of Semandra in " Mithridates," which she acted
at court in King Charles's time. After the
death of Mr. Betterton, her husband, that
princess, when queen, ordered her a pension
for life, but she lived not to receive more
than the first half-year of it.' She also, ac-
cording to Davies (Dramatic Miscellanies),
gave lessons to the Princess Mary and to
Mrs. Sarah Jennings, afterwards Duchess of
Marlborough. After the death of her hus-
band she lost her reason. Mrs. Betterton is
said in the l Biographia Britannica/ on the
authority of f a lady intimate with her for
many years/ to have recovered her senses
before she died. ' According to our best in-
formation/ says the same publication, her
death ' was about six months ' after that of
her husband. This is inaccurate. Betterton
died on 28 April 1710. On 4 June 1711, or
more than thirteen months after his death,
the ' Man of the Mode ' was acted at Drury
Lane Theatre for the benefit of the ' widow
of the late famous tragedian Mr. Betterton.'
She lived for nearly six months after this
date. 1670 is ordinarily given as the year
of her marriage to Betterton. Both the
' Biographia Britannica ' and the ' Biographia
Dramatica/ the last edition of which is gene-
rally trustworthy, speak positively on the
subject. This date is also wrong. Downes,
the prompter to the company, gives the cast
with which the ' Villain ' by Major Thomas
Porter, ' King Henry VIII,' ' Love in a Tub '
by Etherege, the ' Cutter of Coleman Street '
of Cowley, Webster's ' Duchess of Malfi/
and other dramas were played between 1662
and the outbreak of the plague in 1665, and
in each case numbers Mrs. Betterton among

Betterton

437

Betterton

the actors. Before 1662 she is always callec
Mrs. Saunderson. Genest, noticing the per-
formance of the ' Villain,' 20 Oct. 1662, says
Belmont = Mrs. Betterton, late Saunderson
Under the management of Charles Dave-
nant (acting for his father's widow), Better-
ton, and Harris, the Duke's Company, esta-
blished (1671) in Dorset Garden, though
recruited by such actors as Leigh, Jevon,
and Mrs. Barry, found some difficulty in
coping with the rival company at the Theatre
Royal (Drury Lane). A theatre, accordingly,
which could boast such actors as the Better-
tons, Sandford, Underbill, and Smith, was
driven to the production of spectacular and
musical pieces, such as the 'Psyche 'of Shad-
well (February 1673-4), on the scenery of
which no less than 800/., an enormous sum
for those days, was spent. Betterton, how-
ever, found opportunity to enlarge his reper-
tory, to which, without counting characters
now forgotten, he added Antony in Sedley's
' Antony and Cleopatra,' Orestes in Charles
Davenant's ' Circe,' (Edipus in the tragedy
of Dryden and Lee, and Timon of Athens,
Troilus, King Lear, &c., in adaptations from
Shakespeare by Dryden, Shadwell, or Tate.
In 1675 he superintended the performance at
court of Crowne's pastoral, ' Calisto, or the
Chaste Nymph.' So successful were the
spectacular pieces at Dorset Garden that the
King's Company was in turn brought into
difficulties. In 1682 the two companies,
probably in consequence of a royal order,
coalesced. A memorandum of an agreement
between Dr. Charles Davenant, Thomas
Betterton, gent., and William Smith, gent.,
of the one part, and Charles Hart, gent., and
Edward Kynaston, gent., of the other part,
dated 14 Oct. 1681, given in the life of
Betterton by Gildon and frequently re-
printed, proves that Hart and Kynaston had
been won over to the side of Betterton. So
one-sided and dishonest was this agree-
ment that it was regarded in those days as
a blot upon Betterton. Gildon can only
plead that the two houses were at war, and
ask: 'Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste re-
quirat ? ' The union of the companies was
effected in 1682 according to Gildon and
Downes,and 1684 according to Colley Cibber,
who is followed by Dr. Burney. On the
strength of a prologue of Dryden, dated 1686,
the ' Biographia Britannica ' would assign
the event to 1686. The correct date is 1682,
and the united companies opened at the
Theatre Royal on 16 Nov. of that year in
the ' Duke of Guise,' Betterton playing the
Duke, Kynaston the King of France, Mount-
fort Alphonso Corso, and Mrs. Barry Mar-
moutier. Dorset Garden was not, however,

abandoned, those pieces which required me-
chanical and spectacular effects being reserved
for that theatre. Hart, according to-Cibber,
regretted so much his Judas-like action, the
result of which was to hand over his former
associates to their rivals, that he left the
stage. He appears, however, to have taken
for four years previously little part in the
performances, his name not appearing in the
bills after 1678. His old associate as soldier
and actor, Mohun, also died immediately
after the union, Colley Cibber seems to imply
in consequence of it. The new management
prospered, but the fortunes of Betterton suf-
fered at this time a defeat from which they
never rallied. Betterton embarked (1692)
a sum of 8,OOOJ., 6,000/. of which were ad-
vanced by the famous Dr. Radcliffe, in a
venture to the East Indies undertaken by a
friend, Sir Francis Watson, bart. The specu-
lation was successful, but the vessel on the
return voyage, after arriving safely in Ire-
land, was seized by the French in the Channel.
The entire savings of Betterton appear to
have been sunk in this speculation. Sir
Francis Watson is said to have died of his
loss, leaving a daughter Elizabeth, aged
about fifteen, whom Betterton adopted and
who subsequently married Bowman the
player. The outlines of this story are sup-
plied by Gildon ; the filling up is due to a
correspondent of the ' Biographia Britannica,'
who elected to remain anonymous, and who
was too discreet, as were all authorities of
the day, to mention the name of Sir Francis.
The united company was probably one of
the strongest ever collected. Soon after this
period dissension began to manifest itself.
Fearing, it may be assumed, no opposition,
and anxious to reduce expenses, the patentees,
whose outlay upon spectacular pieces had in-
volved them in heavy debt, began to reduce
the salary of the principal actors. Mountfort
was stabbed on 9 Dec. 1692 by Lord Mohun
and died the following day. Leigh expired a
week later, and Nokes,or more properly Noke,
according to Malone, died about the same time.
Betterton and Mrs. Barry were accordingly
the chief sufferers by the new departure. To
ustify the reduction of salary the patentees,
under the pretence of bringing forward
younger actors, entrusted several of Better-
;on's characters to the younger Powell, and
offered Mrs. Barry's chief parts to Mrs. Brace-
girdle. Colley Cibber, who had joined the
company in 1690, gives a full account of these
transactions. As a measure of defence the
)rincipal performers, with Betterton as their
lead, formed a combination. An offer of a
)eaceful arrangement from the united actors
vas refused by the patentees, with results

Betterton

438

Betterton

very damaging to the fortunes of the theatre.
The grievances of the players were laid before
the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Dorset,
who induced King William to grant an
audience to Bettertcn, Mrs. Barry, and others
of the company. The death of Queen Mary,
by stopping all public diversions, interrupted
the negotiations. Royal license (not a patent)
was, however, granted to Betterton and his
associates to act in a theatre by themselves,
and a subscription was formed for the pur-
pose of erecting a theatre within the walls
of the tennis-court in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
While the old company accordingly, strength-
ened by some additions, played with marked
insuccess at the Theatre Royal, Betterton,
with his associates Doggett, Sandford, Wil-
liams, Underhill, Bowman, Smith, Mrs. Barry,
Mrs. Mountfort, and Mrs. Bracegirdle, who
with commendable discretion refused the
invitation of the patentees to rival Mrs. Barry
and joined the coalition, opened 30 April 1695
in what was frequently called the ' Theatre
in Little Lincoln's Inn Fields.' Williams and
Mrs. Mountfort, however, soon rejoined the old
company. The first venture was Congreve's
' Love for Love,' the success of which was so
great that they had, according to Gibber, who
was at the rival house/ seldom occasion to act
any other play till the close of the season.'
Besides his profits from ' Love for Love,'
Congreve accepted a full share from the com-
pany, binding himself, if his health permitted,
to give them a new play every year. This
undertaking was not kept, and the associated
comedians were in a bad way when, between
two and three years later, 1697, the ' Mourn-
ing Bride ' came to save them. A like service
was accomplished again in 1700 by the ' Way
of the World,' which though coolly received
on the first production, kept possession of the
stage, and ' was very soon after its first ex-
hibition in favour with the public ' (DAVIES,
Dramatic Miscellanies, iii. 360). Once more
things went wrong in a way that leaves
room for suspicion that Betterton was an
indifferent manager. A further subscription
to provide a new house was set on foot. The
building erected by Sir John Vanbrugh in
the Haymarket was opened 9 April 1705.
Betterton, who felt the weight of increasing
years, resigned the management of The new
house to Congreve and Vanbrugh, the former
of whom soon abandoned it to Vanbrugh.
Seventy years of age and a martyr to gout,
Betterton, in spite of straitened circum-
stances, found himself compelled by phy-
sical infirmities to act less frequently. At
the desire ' of several persons of quality ' a
benefit was got up for him. The date of this
famous performance is generally given 7 April

1709. In Curll's ' History of the Stage ' it is
said that the benefit took place on Thursday,
7 April. As 7 April was a Friday the date
seems suspicious. Genest, however, gives the
performance and the cast for the same day. By
a note to the ' Tatler ' for Tuesday 11 April,
No. 157, however, the date, unless the per-
formance was repeated, is fixed for Thursday,
13 April. Addison says : ' Mr. BickerstaiF,
in consideration of his ancient friendship and
acquaintance with Mr. Betterton, and great
esteem for his merit, summons all his disciples,
whether dead or living, mad or tame, Toasts,
Smarts, Dappers, Pretty-fellows, musicians,
or scrapers, to make their appearance at the
play-house in the Haymarket on Thursday
next, when there will be a play acted for the
benefit of the same Betterton.' A great con-
course of persons of distinction was assembled,
the stage as well as the auditorium being
crowded with ladies and gentlemen. The
performance, at increased prices, brought Bet-
terton 500/. The piece was ' Love for Love.'
Betterton played Valentine; Doggett for that
occasion only appeared at the Haymarket,
! and enacted Ben. Mrs. Barry and Mrs.
Bracegirdle came from their retirement and
appeared respectively as Mrs. Frail and An-
gelica. A prologue by Congreve, which has
not survived, was, according to Curll, spoken
by Mrs. Bracegirdle. After the performance
Betterton appeared, supported on either side
by Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle, the
former of whom spoke an occasional prologue
by Rowe. Though it has been much com-
mended, it is poor stuff. It was then deter-
mined that the benefit should be annual. No
more than one anniversary was kept. Better-
ton acted rarely at the Opera House in the Hay-
market, then under the management of Owen
Swinny or Swiney. For his second benefit
he played Melantius in the ' Maid's Tragedy '
of Beaumont and Fletcher, 25 April 1710
(13 April according to Genest, who is assu-
mably wrong). Mrs. Barry again appeared
and played Evadne. An attack of the gout
was relieved by external applications, which,
however, drove the disease inward. Better-
ton played with unusual spirit and briskness,
but was obliged to act with a slipper on one
foot. On 28 April he died, and on 2 May
his body was interred in Westminster Abbey,
in the south end of the east cloister. The
funeral and the character of Betterton formed
the subject of the ' Tatler,' No. 167, 4 May
1710, in which Steele pays a high tribute to
the deceased actor, There seems to have
been less pomp about the funeral than has
been believed. Dr. Doran says he ' had a
royal funeral ;' Whincop, or the author of the
list of ' English Dramatic Poets,' appended

Betterton

439

Betterton

to his ' Scanderbeg,' affirms, on the contrary,
that ' he was buried in a decent manner in
the cloyster of Westminster Abbey.' Gildon
{Life of Betterton) also says ' he was buried
with great decency at Westminster Abbey.'
If special honours had been paid the actor,
it is fair to suppose they would have been
chronicled by Steele or some contemporary
writer.

The character of Betterton stands almost
unassailed, a noteworthy circumstance in the
case of a man who, during very many years,
occupied a position that besides being promi-
nent brought him into collision with all sorts
.and conditions of men. Scarcely a discordant
note is there in the chorus of praise. That
Tie was once, ] 698, fined for using indecent
and profane expressions, as was also at the
same time Mrs. Bracegirdle, may be set down,
as may the indelicacy of some scenes in his
plays, to the manners of the age. The selec-
tion of Betterton for prosecution means pro-
bably that in the fit of virtue caused by the
publication of Collier's famous ' Short View '
representative actors were chosen for attack
rather than the greatest offenders. The one
regrettable action of Betterton that is on
record is the share he took in securing the
signature of the iniquitous agreement which
preceded the fusion of the two companies.
Against this stands out a life distinguished
not only by integrity, respectability, and pru-
dence, but by that last of virtues to be ex-
pected in an actor, modesty. Out of a salary
which in his best days never exceeded four
pounds a week — an extra pound was after
a certain period paid him as a pension to his
"wife — he saved money. His financial troubles
were attributable to the loss of his capital in
the speculation with Sir Francis Watson and
to the difficulties of management. He enjoyed
the friendship of two if not three kings. For
the performance of Alvaro in 'Love and
Honour ' Charles II lent his coronation suit.
The chief writers of the day accorded him
their friendship, and Pope at the outset of
his career was admitted by him into close
intimacy. A likeness in oil of the actor, by
Pope, is now (1885) in the collection of Lord
Mansfield at Caen Wood, Highgate. Dry-
den and Howe bear testimony to the services
rendered them by Betterton. In the preface
to 'Don Sebastian' the former says that
* above twelve hundred lines were judici-
ously lopp'd by Mr. Betterton, to whose care
and excellent action I am equally obliged
that the connection of this story was not lost '
{Dramatic Worfo, vi. 15, ed. 1772). Howe
meanwhile, in the 'Life of Shakespeare,'
•owns ' a particular obligation ' to Betterton
rf for the most considerable part of the pas-

sages' relating to the life. Praise for ex-
tending pecuniary assistance to embarrassed
writers is said to be accorded Betterton in
the ' State Poems.' The only reference of
interest to the actor that a search through
the four volumes of that unsavoury receptacle
has furnished occurs in 'A Satyr on the

Modern Translators,' byMr.P r,the third

and fourth lines of which are —

Since Betterton of late so thrifty's grown,

Revives old plays, or wisely acts his own.
Vol. i. pt. i. p. 194.

Betterton's acting has been depicted with
a vivacity and a closeness of observation
that enables us to form a correct estimate of
its value. Men of tastes so different as Pepys
and Pope have left on record their sense of
his merits. Speaking of Betterton at a period
when he could not have been long on the
stage, 4 Nov. 1661, Pepys says : ' But for
Betterton, he is called by us both (himself
and wife) the best actor in the world.' Again,
28 May 1663, he says : ' And so to the Duke's
house, and there saw " Hamlett " done, giving
us fresh reason never to think enough of
Betterton.' Pope, in a letter to H. Cromwell,
17 May 1710, suggests as an epitaph suiting
Betterton, ' as well in his moral as his thea-
trical capacity,' the line of Cicero, ' Vitae bene
actse jucundissima est recordatio.' In the
opening number of the ' Tatler ' Steele gives
an account of Betterton's benefit. Speaking
of his funeral {Tatler, No. 167), he says : ' I
have hardly a notion that any performer of
antiquity could surpass the action of Mr.
Betterton in any of the occasions on which
he has appeared on our stage. The wonder-
ful agony which he appeared in when he ex-
amined the circumstance of the handkerchief
in Othello ; the mixture of love that intruded
upon his mind, upon the innocent answers
Desdemona makes, betrayed in his gesture
such a variety and vicissitude of passions as
would admonish a man to be afraid of his
own heart, and perfectly convince him that
it is to stab it, to admit that worst of
daggers, jealousy. Whoever reads in his
closet this admirable scene will find that he
cannot, except he has as warm an imagina-
tion as Shakespeare himself, find any but
dry, incoherent, and broken sentences : but a
reader that has seen Betterton act it observes
there could not be a word added, that longer
speeches had been unnatural, nay impossible,
in Othello's circumstances.' In another ' Tat-
ler,' No. 71, Steele dwells upon Betterton's
Hamlet, praising 'the noble ardour after
seeing his father's ghost,' and the ' generous
distress for the death of Ophelia.'

Gibber's analysis of Betterton's acting is
too well known for quotation. ' Betterton/

Betterton

440

Betterton

he says, ' was an actor as Shakespeare was
an author, but without competitors.'

The writer of ' A Lick at the Laureate/ :
1730, says : 1 1 have lately been told by a
gentleman who has frequently seen Better-
ton perform Hamlet, that he observed his |
countenance, which was naturally ruddy and
sanguine, in the scene of the third act, when •
his father's ghost appears, through the violent
and sudden emotion of amazement and horror,
turn instantly, on the sight of his father's j
spirit, as pale as his neckcloth, when his
whole body seemed to be affected with a !
tremor inexpressible ; so that had his father's
ghost actually risen before him, he could not ;
have been seized with more real agonies. |
And this was felt so strongly by the audience, !
that the blood seemed to shudder in their
veins likewise, and they, in some measure,
partook of the astonishment and horror with
which they saw this excellent actor affected.'
Stories are told of the effect produced by
Betterton upon those with whom he played.
There is, as a rule, little point in the anec-
dotes concerningBet t ert on which st i 11 survive .
One, however, relating to Colley Gibber pre-
sents Betterton in a very agreeable light.
For some breach of discipline Colley Gibber
was condemned by Betterton to be fined.
Against this order it was advanced that the
youth had no salary. ' Put him down ten
shillings,' said Betterton, 'and forfeit him
five.' Tony Aston, who in a tract of singular
rarity, * A Brief Supplement to Colley
Gibber, Esq., the Lives of the late famous
Actors and Actresses, by Anthony, vulgo
Tony, Aston,' undertakes to supply the omis-
sions of his predecessor, expresses a wish that
Betterton in his later years would ' have re-
signed the part of Hamlet to some young
actor who might have personated though not
have acted it better,' pp. 4-5. He owns,
however, that no one else could have pleased
the town. Of the appearance of Betterton
he does not give a very flattering picture.
His words are : f Mr. Betterton, although a
superlative good actor, labour'd under ill
figure, being clumsily made, having a great
head, a short thick neck, stoop'd in the
shoulders, and had fat short arms, which he
rarely lifted higher than his stomach — his
left hand frequently lodg'd in his breast,
between his coat and waistcoat while with
his right he prepar'd his speech ; his actions
were few, but just. He had little eyes and
a broad face, a little pock-fretten, a corpu-
lent body, and thick legs, with large feet. He
was better to meet than to follow, for his
aspect was serious, venerable, and majestic,
in his later time a little paralytic. His voice
was low and grumbling, yet he could tune it

by an artful climax which enforc'd universal
attention even from the fops and orange girls.
He was incapable of dancing even in a country
dance,' pp. 3-4. Dibdin, in his ' History of
the Stage,' iv. 232, gives the opinion of Steed,,
for many years prompter at Covent Garden,
with whom, when a boy, he had been glad to
converse on the relative merits of Betterton
and Garrick. Steed,who lived to be eighty, said
that while he admitted the various merits of
Betterton, he was not, ' taking everything
into consideration,' the equal of Garrick. A
contrary opinion, however, generally obtains.
Betterton's dramas are adaptations. The
list assigned him is as follows : 1. ' The
RomanVirgin, or the Unjust Judge,' a tragedy r
4to, 1679, performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields-
1670, an alteration of Webster's 'Appius and
Virginia.' 2. ' The Prophetess, or the History
of Diocletian,' 4to, 1690, acted at the Theatre-
j Royal 1690 according to Genest, at the-
Queen's Theatre according to Langbaine and
i the ' Biographia Dramatica ;' this is an opera
! founded on the 'Prophetess' of Beaumont and
' Fletcher, and supplied with music by Purcell.
It was acted so late as 1784. Langbaine
assigns it to Dryden. 3. l King Henry IV,.
with the Humours of Sir John Falstaff,' a
4to, 1700 ; acted at Lincoln's

Inn Fields 1700, with Betterton as Falstaff,
j in which character he had a great success. It
| is a mere alteration of Shakespeare, more-
judicious than such ordinarily were at the
epoch, as no interpolation is attempted, and
the departure from text consists only in
omission. 4. * The Amorous Widow, or the-
Wanton Wife,' comedy, 4to, 1706, played at
Lincoln's Inn Fields, circa 1670. This is a not
very delicate adaptation of Georges Dandin.
It is printed at the close of the biography of"
Betterton, assigned to Gildon. 5. ' Sequel
of Henry IV, with the Humours of Sir John
Falstaffe and Justice Shallow,' 8vo, no date-
(? 1719), an alteration from Shakespeare,,
acted atDruryLane. 6. 'The Bondman, or
Love and Liberty,' a tragi-comedy,8vo,1719r
altered from Massinger and acted at Drury
Lane 1719. From a paragraph in the ' Rosciu&
Anglicanus' it may be assumed that the piece
j was played by Betterton twenty to thirty
| years earlier, probably at Lincoln's Inn Fields.
J 7. t The Woman made a Justice,' a comedy
: never printed, but acted at Lincoln's Inn
' Fields. In addition to these works the ' Bio-
I graphia Dramatica' and after it Mr. Halliwell-
Phillips assign to Betterton ' The Revenge,
or a Match in Newgate,' a comedy, 4to, 1680,.
acted at Dorset Garden (Mr. Halliwell-
! Phillips calls it the Duke's Theatre) 1680.
I This is an alteration of Marston's ' The Mal-
content,' assigned by Langbaine to Mrs. Behn..

Bettes

441

Bettesworth

[The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, 1710;
Koseius Anglicanus, with additions by the late
Mr. Thomas Davies, 1789 ; Colley Gibber's Apo-
logy, 1740; Ib. by Bellingham, 1822; Aston's
Continuation (1740?) ; Genest's Account of the
English Stage, 1832; A Comparison between the
Two Stages, in Dialogue, 1702; Biographia Dra-
matica, 1812 ; History of the English Stage, by
Betterton, 1741 ; Langbaine's Dramatick Poets,
1691 ; The Tatler, vols. i., ii., and iv. ; Dibdin's
History of the Stage, no date (1795); Biographia
Britannica, vol. ii., ed. 1777-93; Halliwell's
Dictionary of Old English Plays, 1860; Davies's
Dramatic Miscellanies, 1784; Stanley's Historical
Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 1868 ; Lives
of the Poets by T. Gibber, 1753 ; Pepys's Diary,
by Lord Braybrooke ; Malone's Supplement to
Shakespeare's Plays, 1780.] J. K.

BETTES, JOHN (d. 1570 r1), miniature
painter, is commonly stated to have been a
pupil of Nicholas Hilliard. This opinion is
based upon the statement of Vertue and a
quotation from Richard Haydock's transla-
tion of ' Lomazzo on Painting,' which, how-
ever, will hardly bear the construction which
has been put upon it : — ' Limnings, much used
in former times in church books, as also in
drawing by the life in small models, of late
years by some of our countrymen, as Shoote,
Setts, &c. But brought to the rare perfec-
tion which we now see by the most ingenious,
painful, and skilful master, Nicholas Hilliard,
and his well-profiting scholar, whose farther
commendations I refer to the curiositie of
his works.' The pupil here referred to is most
probably Isaac Oliver [Oliver and Rowland
Lockey are elsewhere mentioned by Haydock
as the scholars of Hilliard]. The italicised
words ' which we now see ' in the quoted ex-
tract certainly seem to refer Bettes to an ear-
lier date than Hilliard. In the exhibition of
1 Old Masters ' at the Academy 1875 was a
picture attributed to Bettes with the date
1545. Hilliard was born 1547. Bettes
painted a miniature in oils of Queen Eliza-
beth, which is said to have been highly suc-
cessful. He is mentioned by Foxe in his
' Ecclesiastical History ' as having engraved
a pedigree and some vignettes for Hall's
' Chronicle.' He is also said to have painted
the portrait of Sir John Godsalve. Foxe speaks
of Bettes as already dead in 1576. His brother
Thomas was also a miniature painter.

[Anecdotes of Painting; Walpole, 1849 ; Lo-
mazzo on Painting, Englished by E[i chard]
H[aydock], 1598; Meres's Wit's Commonwealth,
1598 ; Redgrave's Diet, of Artists, 1878.]

E. R.

BETTESWORTH, GEORGE ED-
MUND BYRON (1780-1808), naval cap-

tain, was the second son of John Bettesworth
of Carhayes, Cornwall, who married Frances
Elinor, daughter of Francis Tomkyns of Pem-
brokeshire. At an early age he was sent to
sea as midshipman under Captain Robert
Barlow, commanding the frigate Phosbe. In
this ship he remained for several years, but
in January 1804 he was lieutenant of the
Centaur, and took part in the action with
the Curieux, when the latter vessel was
taken from the French. Bettesworth received
a slight wound in this engagement, but his
commanding officer suffered so severely that
he died, and his lieutenant succeeded to the
command of the Curieux. Whilst in this
position he engaged in an action with the
Dame Ernouf about twenty leagues from the
Barbadoes. After a sharp fight the French
vessel surrendered, but Bettesworth was
again wounded. In the same year (1805)
he brought home from Antigua the des-
patches of Nelson, apprising the government
of Villeneuve's homeward flight from the
West Indies, and at once received from Lord
Barham a post-captain's commission. Lord
Byron, in October 1807, wrote : { Next January
... I am going to sea for four or five months
with my cousin, Captain Bettesworth, who
commands the Tartar, the finest frigate in
the navy. . . . We are going probably to the
Mediterranean or to the West Indies, or to
the devil ; and if there is a possibility of
taking me to the latter, Bettesworth will do
it, for he has received four-and-twenty
wounds in different places, and at this mo-
! ment possesses a letter from the late Lord
i Nelson stating that Bettesworth is the only
officer in the navy who had more wounds
| than himself.' The promised voyage never
took place. In May 1808, Bettesworth was
engaged in watching some vessels off Bergen,
when it was deemed possible to cut some of
them off from the protecting gunboats. In
this attempt the Tartar became becalmed amid
the rocks, and was attacked by a schooner
and five gunboats, when its brave captain
was killed by the first shot, 16 May 1808.
The body was buried at Howick, Northum-
berland, in the vault of the Grey family, on
27 May. Major Trevanion, ' a brother of
Captain Bettesworth/ was a chief mourner.
Byron's grandmother was a Miss Trevanion.
Bettesworth had married at St. George's,
Hanover Square, 24 Sept. 1807, Hannah
Althea, second daughter of the first Earl
Grey. His widow married, in October 1809,
Mr. Edward Ellice, a well-known whig
politician. Captain Bettesworth was only
twenty-three years old at the time of his
death, and was the beau ideal of an English
officer.

Betts

442

Betty

[Gent. Mag. 1808, pt. i. p. 560 ; Moore's Byron,
i. 174-5; Brenton's Naval Hist. ii. 99, 232;
James's Naval Hist. ii. 245, v. 34-5.]

W. P. C.

BETTS, JOHN, M.D. (d. 1695), phy-
sician, was son of Edward Betts by his
wife Dorothy, daughter of John Venables
of Rapley in Hampshire. He was born at
Winchester, and educated there in grammar
learning, was elected a scholar of Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, in February 1642-3,
and took the degree of B.A. on 9 Feb. 1646-7.
Being ejected by the visitors appointed by
the parliament in 1648, he applied himself to
the study of medicine, and accumulated the
degrees of M.B. and M.D. at Oxford on
11 April 1654. He was admitted a candi-
date of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept.
1654 and a fellow on 20 Oct. 1664. Dr.
Betts practised with great success in Lon-
don, chiefly among the Roman catholics, he
himself being a member of their church.
Afterwards he was appointed physician in
ordinary to King Charles II. His position
in the College of Physicians appears to have
been influenced by his religious opinions and
the varying tendencies of the times in which
he lived. For instance, Dr. Middleton Massey
in his manuscript notes speaks of ' Joannes
Betts, qui ob suam in Pontificis Romani su-
perstitione contumaciam, Collegio exclusus
fuit anno 1679, sed 1684 restitutus.' Betts
was censor of the college in 1671, 1673, 1685,
and 1686, and was named an elect on 25 June
1685. On 1 July 1689 he was returned to
the House of Lords as ' a papist,' and on
25 Oct. 1692 was threatened with the loss
of his place as an elect if he did not take the
oath of allegiance to the king. Although he
did not take the oath, he was allowed to re-
main undisturbed in his position, probably
on account of his age. He was dead on
15 May 1695, when Dr. Hulse was named
an elect in his place ; and he was buried at
St. Pancras.

He published : 1. ' De ortu et natura San-
guinis,' London, 1669, 8vo. Dr. George
Thompson animadverted on this treatise in
his ' True way of Preserving the Blood in its
integrity.' 2. ' Medicinse cum Philosophia
naturali consensus/ London, 1692, 8vo.
3. l Anatomla Thomse Parri annum cente-
simum quinquagesimum secundum et novem
menses agentis, cum clariss. viri Gulielmi
Harveii aliorumque adstantium Medicorum
Regiorum observationibus.' Wood says that
this account was drawn up by Dr. Harvey.

His son, Edward Betts, also became a doc-
tor of medicine, acquired a high reputation
as a physician, and died on 27 April 1695.

[Wood's Athense Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 61 1 ; Wood's
Fasti, ii. 90, 183 ; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), ii. 297 ;
Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 270; Munk's College
of Physicians (1878), i. 318, 460; Lysons's Envi-
rons, iii. 354; Addit. MS. 22136, f. 8.] T. C.

BETTY, WILLIAM HENRY WEST

(1791-1874), better known as the Young
Roscius, was born 13 Sept. 1791 at St. Chad's,
Shrewsbury. His lather, William Henry
Betty, was son of a physician of the same
name, who had made a fortune at Lisburn in
Ireland. Dr. Betty's eldest son settled for a
time at Shrewsbury, where he married the
only daughter of James Staunton, of Hopton
Court in Shropshire. His mother, a lady of
rare accomplishments, began to instruct him
almost in his infancy. His father (who had
meanwhile moved to Ballynahinch, in the
county Down, where he conducted a farm
and a linen manufactory) having one day
recited Wolsey's speech from ' Henry VIII/
the child learnt it with his mother's help, and
afterwards learnt ' My name is Norval,' and
Thomson's Lavinia. Thenceforth he was
encouraged to practise declamation. In 1801
he entered a theatre for the first time at Bel-
fast, to see Mrs. Siddons as Elvira. On his
return he said that he would die if he were
not allowed to become an actor. Two years
later he made his first appearance at Belfast
on Friday, 19 Aug. 1803. He was announced
beforehand as ' a young gentleman only eleven
years old, whose theatrical abilities have been
the wonder and admiration of all who have
heard him.' His part was Osman in the tra-
gedy of l Zara,' Aaron Hill's version in Eng-
lish of the ' Zaire ' of Voltaire. The house
was densely crowded, the success complete.
The manager, Mr. Atkins, had engaged him
for four nights. He appeared on 24 Aug.
as Douglas, on the 26th as Rolla, and on
the 29th as Romeo. His first appearance
in Dublin was at the Crow Street theatre
on 28 Nov. There he added to his reper-
tory the parts of Frederick in Mrs. Inch-
bald's play of ' Lovers' Vows,' altered from
the German of Kotzebue, of Prince Arthur in
' King John,' of Tancred in Thomson's tragedy
of ' Tancred and Sigismunda,' and of Hamlet.
The last-mentioned part, notoriously the long-
est in the whole range of the drama, he ac-
tually learnt in three hours. After starring
in Dublin for nine nights, he was welcomed
with equal delight at Cork and at Waterford.
In the spring of 1804 he played for fourteen
nights at Glasgow, his first appearance there
being on 21 May in the Dunlop theatre as
Douglas. At Edinburgh dignitaries of the
church and of the university, as well as lords
of the Court of Session, vied with each other
in oS'ering presents and adulation. More than

Betty

443

Beulan

one Scotch, critic declared emphatically that
the young Roscius, as the boy phenomenon
was by that time universally called, com-
pletely eclipsed John Kemble. One rash dis-
sentient had to leave Edinburgh. Home de-
clared that his impersonation of Douglas for
the first time adequately realised his own
imagining. Mr. Macready, the father of the
famous tragedian, engaged him at Birming-
ham, where he appeared 13 Aug. 1804. Soon
after this he was engaged for twelve perform-
ances at Covent Garden Theatre, at the rate of
fifty guineas a night and a clear benefit. On
1 Dec. 1804, when he appeared as Selim in
' Barbarossa,' the military had to be called out
to preserve order. Many were seriously in-
jured in the crush to obtain admittance. His
success was triumphant. His life as Hhe
celebrated and wonderful young Roscius,'
with a portrait of him as a l theatrical star of
the first magnitude,' was published on 7 Dec.
p. 36, and helped to spread his repute by
passing at once into wide circulation. On
10 Dec. he appeared at DruryLane in Douglas.
There on the boards of Drury the twenty-
eight nights of his first season produced
the gross sum of 17,210/. 11s., the nightly
average being 614/. 13s. During the follow-
ing season he appeared for twenty-four nights
alternately at each of the two great patent
theatres, his terms then being more than fifty
guineas a performance. He was presented to
the queen and the princesses by the king him-
self. Upon one occasion Mr. Pitt adjourned
the House of Commons in order that members
might be in time to witness his representation
of Hamlet. He was selected by Charles Fox
to listen to his reading of ' Zaphna.' Opie,
the historical painter, idealised him as having
drawn inspiration from the tomb of Shake-
speare. Between his first two seasons in Lon-
don he acted at Liverpool and at Birming-
ham, where he received for thirteen nights
nearly 1,OOOJ., obtaining 800/. for a less num-
ber of nights at Stourbridge, Worcester, and
Wolverhampton. At the end of 1805 he again
appeared on alternate nights at Covent Garden
and Drury Lane, adding to his Shakespearian
parts Richard III and Macbeth, and taking
Zanga in the ' Revenge,' and Dorilas in ' Me-
rope.' Gradually, however, in the metropolis,
the enthusiasm abated, though it survived so
long afterwards in the provinces that for three
years more Master Betty added considerably
to the large fortune he had already accumu-
lated. His final appearance as a boy actor
was on 26 March 1808 at Bath. After being
placed for a time there under the tuition of
the Rev. Mr. Wollaston, formerly one of the
masters of the Charterhouse, he was entered
in the July of 1801 as a fellow commoner of

Christ's College, Cambridge. His father's
death nearly three years afterwards, at Pym's
Farm, near Wem, in Shropshire, in the June
of 1811, led to his premature withdrawal from
the university. In the following year he re-
appeared, 15 Feb. 1812, at Bath, as the Earl
of Essex, and in London, 3 Nov. 1812, at
Covent Garden, as Achmet, otherwise Selim,
in * Barbarossa.' Mrs. Inchbald observes
(Brit. Theatre, xv. 5), ' that though a great
majority of the audience thought young Betty
a complete tragedian,' yet he failed in ' power
over their hearts,' and that bursts of laughter
were excited from the audience in parts of
this tragedy on his first appearance. At in-
tervals during the next twelve years he drew
large audiences together in various parts of
the country; but he found it expedient to
withdraw altogether from the stage before the
completion of his thirty-third year, his fare-
well benefit taking place on 9 Aug. 1824 at
Southampton. He lived for fifty years after-
wards in the quiet enjoyment of the large
fortune he had so early amassed, and he
frankly acknowledged that the enthusiastic
admirers of his boyhood had been mistaken.
He died 24 Aug. 1874, in his eighty-third
year, at his residence in Ampthill Square,
London.

[Life of the celebrated and wonderful Young
Roscius, 12mo, p. 36, 1804; Genest, vii. 643;
Athenaeum, 15 Aug. 1874, p. 200, and 29 Sept.
p. 291 ; Era, 30 Aug. 1874, p. 9 ; Times, 27 Aug.
1874, p. 5, and 2 Sept. p. 8 ; Illust. Lond. News,
12 Sept. 1874, p. 257; Annual Register, 1874,
p. 160; Murdoch's Stage, 1880, 338-41.]

O.K.

BEULAN, a priest, described as the master
of ' Nennius.' In the manuscript of the ' His-
toria Britonum ' in the public library at Cam-
bridge (quoted as A in Mon. Hist. Brit., and
as L ined. Stevenson, Eng. Hist. Soc.), which,
though not the most ancient manuscript, and
though containing evident interpolations, has
been used by Gale (Histories Britannicce, fyc.
Scriptores XV.} and Petrie (Mon. Hist. Brit.}
as the foundation of their texts, it is stated
that the writer was the disciple of a priest of
this name, to whom he dedicated his work,
and that he left out the genealogies of the
Saxons and of other races because they seemed
to be of no use to his master. In this manu-
script are given certain ' Versus Nennini ' ad-
dressed by the writer to Samuel the son of
Beulan, for whom he worked. Whoever the
author of the ' Historia Britonum ' may have
been, it is certain that the writer of these
verses and of the other references to Beulan
lived after his time, and even after 858, the
year assigned in the prologue to the work of
1 Nennius/ and that he was a scribe who

Beuno

444

Be van

made glosses for Samuel the son of Beulan.
On the strength of these notices, as it seems,
Bale has made Beulan the author of certain
works, ' De Genealogia Gentium,' ' Arthuri
facta apud Scotos,' &c. Tanner has recorded
Bale's dicta. The story connecting Beulan,
Samuel, and the original compiler of the
* Historia Britonum ' is a fiction.

[The question of the authorship of the Historia
Britonum, which includes that of the identity of
Beulan, has been thoroughly discussed by Sir T.
D. Hardy in the Preface and Introduction to the
Monumenta Hist. Brit. 62-68, 108. His de-
cisions on these points may be taken as final.
See also text of Historia Nennii by Petrie in
same collection, 48A, 76A, 77A, Sin; Stevenson's
Nennii Hist. Prsef. (Eng. Hist. Soc.) ; Wright's
Biog. Brit. Lit. 135-139; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.
99.] W. H.

BEUNO or BEING, ST. (d. 660 ?), was
the son of Hywgi or Bugi ab Gwynlliw
Filwr, and Beren or Perferen, daughter of
Llewyddyn Lwyddog of Dinas Eiddyn, to
whom he was born after twelve years of
barren wedlock. On his father's side he was
related to St. Cadoc the Wise of Llancarfan,
and on his mother's side to St. Kentigern,
the founder of the see of St. Asaph. Having
received a religious education from St. Tan-
gwn ab Talhaiarn, Beuno took orders and
became a monk. According to the old Welsh
life of Beuno printed in Rees's ' Cambro-
British Saints,' he founded several churches
on lands granted to him by various persons.
In 616 he established a religious society at
Clynnog Fawr in Carnarvonshire. A quaint
story is related about the foundation of this
monastery. Cadvan, king of Gwynedd or
North Wales, and probably also supreme king
of all Wales, had been converted to Chris-
tianity by Beuno and had given him much
land and promised more. Cadvan's son and
successor, Cadwallon, carrying out his father's
intentions, gave Beuno a piece of land called
Gwaredog in Carnarvonshire, where he built
a church, but the land being claimed by a
widow for her infant son as having been his
father's property, Beuno relinquished it and
demanded compensation from Cadwallon, to
whom he had given a golden sceptre in re-
turn for the land he had just lost. Cad-
wallon rejected the claim and was cursed by
Beuno, who, however, was appeased by the
grant of the township of Clynnog given him
by the king's cousin Gweddeint. In his old
age Beuno became the instructor of his niece
St. Winifred, daughter of his sister Gwenlo,
and it was he who performed the miracle of
reuniting St. Winifred's head to her body
after her decapitation by Caradog ab Alan.
St. Beuno is recorded to have died in 660, and

three places, Clynnog, Bardsey Island, and
Nevin, claimed to be his burial-place. His-
festival is 21 April.

The following eleven churches are dedicated
to St. Beuno : Clynnog Fawr, Carngiwch,
Penmorfa, and Pistyll in Carnarvonshire ;
Aberffraw and Trefdraeth in Anglesey ;
Gwyddelwern and Llanycil in Merioneth-
shire ; Berriew and Bettws in Montgomery-
shire ; Llanfeuno in Herefordshire.

[W. J. Eees's Lives of Cambro-British Saints ;.
Eice Eees's Essay on the Welsh Saints.]

A.M.

BEVAN, EDWARD, M.D. (1770-1860),
physician and an eminent apiarian, was born
in London on 8 July 1770. Being left father-
less in early infancy, he was received into
the house of his maternal grandfather, Mr.
Powle, of Hereford, and at the age of eight
was placed at the grammar school, Wootton-
under-Edge, where he remained for four years.
He was afterwards removed to the college
school at Hereford, and it having been deter-
mined that he should adopt medicine as a
profession, he was apprenticed to a surgeon
in that town. He then proceeded to Lon-
don, was entered as a student at St. Bartho-
lomew's Hospital, and during three sessions
of attendance on the lectures of his instruc-
tors Abernethy, Latham, and Austin, he ac-
quired the honourable appellation of 'the
indefatigable.' His. degree of M.D. was ob-
tained from the university of St. Andrew's
in 1818. He commenced practice at Mort-
lake as assistant to Dr. John Clarke. After
five years so spent he settled on his own ac-
count first at Stoke-upon-Trent, and then at
Congleton. There he married the second
daughter of Mr. Cartwright, an apothecary,
one of the last of the ' bishops ' of a sect
called the primitive Christian church. After
twelve years' residence in Cheshire, his health
not bearing the fatigue of a country business,
Bevan again returned to Mortlake, and prac-
tised there for two years, but with a like
result. He thereupon retired to a small
estate at Bridstow, near Ross, in Hereford-
shire, where he devoted himself to the de-
velopment of an apiary which he found
already established on his newly acquired
property. Previous to this he had, in 1822,
assisted his friend Mr. Samuel Parkes in the-
preparation of the third and revised edition
of the latter's ' Rudiments of Chemistry.'

The first edition of his book on bees was-
issued in 1827, with the title, * The Honey-
Bee : its Natural History, Physiology, and
Management.' This treatise at once esta-
blished the author's reputation as a scientific
apiarian, and was read wherever the bee is.

Bevan

445

Bevan

regarded as an object of interest. The second
-edition, published in 1838, is dedicated to her
Majesty. In it the author has included much
new and valuable matter. A third edition,
by W. A. Munn, appeared in 1870. Bevan
also wrote a paper on the ' Honey-Bee Com-
munities ' in the first volume of the ' Maga-
zine of Zoology and Botany,' and published
a few copies of * Hints on the History and
Management of the Honey-Bee,' which had
formed the substance of two lectures read
before the Hereford Literary Institution in
the winter of 1850-51. He had from 1849
fixed his residence at Hereford, where he died
on 31 Jan. 1860, when within a few months
of completing his ninetieth year. As a
public man Bevan was shy and retiring, but
was much beloved in the circle of his private
acquaintances. It is recorded as a proof of
the esteem in which he was held, that on
the occasion of a great flood in the Wye, in
February 1852, washing away all the doctor's
beehives, a public subscription was raised,
and a new apiary presented to him, of which,
as a very pleasing substitute for what he had
playfully called his ' Virgilian Temple,' the
venerable apiarian was justly proud. Bevan
was one of the founders of the Entomological
Society in 1833.

[Naturalist, ed. Neville Wood, iv. 142-6 ;
Athenseum, 11 Feb. 1860, p. 206; Hereford
Times, 4 Feb. 1860, p. 8 ; London and Provincial
Medical Directory for 1 860, p. 478.] G. G.

BEVAN, JOSEPH GURNEY (1753-
1814), quaker writer, the son of Timothy and
Hannah Bevan, was born in London 18 Feb.
1753. He was of a lively and affectionate
disposition and very quick to learn. From
.an uncle, who was an artist and naturalist,
he derived much information. His literary
studies were pursued for some years under a
physician — a classical scholar, with a taste
for poetry. Bevan's own love of poetry in-
duced him afterwards to recommend the
study of Latin under certain restrictions.
We are told that he applied himself diligently
to the study of Greek when fifty, in order to
read the New Testament. The kindness of
his parents shielded him from early tempta-
tion. In his desire for gay apparel he twice
altered his dress, but returned to his old
raiment from a filial regard to his mother's
request. When seventeen years old he was
' under serious impressions of mind,' and the
first thing he thought it his duty to change
was the heathen names of the months. In
1776 he married Mary Plumstead, a young
woman of genuine piety and circumspect
conduct. His father now gave him a share
in his business of a chemist and druggist in

Plough Court, Lombard Street. In 1784,
' 3 mo. 28,' as Bevan puts it, his mother died.
Thus he records her death : * Hodie mater
mea optima flentem maritum, flentem filium
reliquit.' He pursued his trade with in-
tegrity, justice, and truth, and retired from
it in 1794 with a considerable diminution of
capital. He had refused, from conscientious
motives, to supply armed vessels with drugs.
Chosen, however, to act as a constable in his
ward, he faithfully fulfilled the duties of his
office. In a journal which he now kept we
find him regretting his spiritual pride and
want of resignation. On one occasion he
goes in l some degree of the cross ' to a school
meeting ; at another he is ' quickened ' by a
constable's overturning an old woman's apple-
basket. It was in 1794 that he began writing
for an almanac published by James Phillips,
and continued for four years, with the ex-
ception of 1797, for which year his poem on
' Patience ' was not, he tells us in a letter,
ready in time. He wrote also a few poems
in imitation of some of the Psalms, and
other pieces of verse. In 1796 he removed
to Stoke Newington. In 1800 he wrote his
' Refutation of the Misrepresentations of the
Quakers,' comprising 124 pages, and noticing
the writings of Mosheim, Formey, Hume, and
the editors of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,'
who quoted much from Lesley and Wesley.
Two years after appeared his examination of
an ' Appeal to the Society of Friends,' of
which the design was, by an investigation of
the quotations in the work to which it is an
answer and of the writings of early Friends,
to show that they were not Unitarians, in
that which is now a very general acceptation
of the term. His ' Thoughts on Reason and
Revelation,' in 1805, a small publication of
twenty-three pages, is divided into sections
on the following subjects : Reason, revela-
tion in general, infidelity, scripture, faith,
and experience. During this literary work
he was not in other respects idle. He filled
for many years the station of an elder, no
light office, with zeal and acceptance to his
friends. At their disposal always was the
information derived from his daily family
readings of Scripture, ' my habit of nearly
thirty years' standing,' as he says in a letter
writ in 1806. In 1807 we find him busied
with preparing for the press Sarah Stephen-
son's ' Memoirs.' While engaged in copying
them he dwells on her pious character, ' one of
the most indefatigable and devoted.' Bevan
himself was all this while labouring in the in-
terests of the society to which he belonged.
He loved its religious welfare ; its prosperity
was the object of his earnest solicitude. He
had little time for relaxation. We find him

Bevan

446

Bever

making continual efforts to control the natu-
ral man. His temper, he tells us in one of
his letters, may be described in one little
word ' hot.' His business, it has been seen,
brought him loss instead of profit ; but out
of his small supply he was always liberal and
ready to listen to the cry of distress. Whilst
on a visit to friends in Scotland, by appoint-
ment of the yearly meeting in 1808, Bevan
began to suffer from cataract in his left eye,
and two years later he was attacked by pa-
ralysis in his left side. His wife, on whom
he was wont to rely, was then seized by an
apoplectic fit, which disordered her memory
and intellect : it is said she was unable to
recognise her own husband. She died in 1813.
Bevan, who was now afflicted with asthma
and dropsy, bore all these troubles with ex-
emplary humility and patience. In the last
part of his life two female friends were accus-
tomed to read to him selections from Ken-
dall's 'Collection of Letters,' Thomas El-
wood's ' Journal, and Mary Waring's ' Diary.'
These ladies were two sisters, daughters of a
Mr. Capper, of whom the eldest had been
married to Paul Bevan, the cousin of Joseph
Gurney. Paul lived at Tottenham, where his
cousin passed the greater portion of his latter
days. On 12 Sept. 1814 Joseph Gurney Be-
van died, and was buried at the Friends'
burial-ground, near Bunhill Fields. In a
fly-leaf of a * Piety Promoted,' preserved at
the British Museum, is an autograph of the
famous Elizabeth Fry, who was Bevan's
cousin, and presented the book to a friend as
a memorial of him and of her brother, John
Gurney, who both died on the same day.

Lowndes says that Bevan is the ablest of
the quaker apologists. Certainly he writes
with good sense, good temper, and good feel-
ing. Orme speaks of his ( Life of Paul ' as
doing credit to the talents and piety of the
writer, besides being interesting as affording
some explanation of the theological senti-
ments of the quakers. The work is \vritten
in the very words of Scripture, with care to
establish a connected historical chain; the
notes are selected from the best commenta-
tors. Horne says that those which are geo-
graphical are most conspicuous, and stamp a
real value on the work, which, though de-
signed for youthful quakers, may be studied
by all Christians ' without danger of finding
anything introduced which can give the
smallest bias towards any principle not really
and truly Christian ' (Brit. Crit. O. S. 33, 477).

The full titles of his chief works, in their
order of publication, are: 1. 'A Refutation
of some of the more modern Misrepresenta-
tions of the Society of Friends, commonly
called Quakers, with a life of James Nayler ;

also a Summary of the History, Doctrine, and
Discipline of Friends,' 8vo, 1800. 2. 'An
Examination of the First Part of a Pamphlet,
called An Appeal to the Society of Friends/
8vo, 1802. 3. ' A Short Account of the Life
and Writings of Robert Barclay,' 18mo, 1802.
4. l Thoughts on Reason and Revelation, par-
ticularly the Revelation of the Scriptures/'
8vo, 1805, 1828, 1853. 5. < Memoirs of the
Life of Isaac Penington, to which is added a
Review of his Writings/ 8vo, 1807. 6. l Me-
moirs of the Life and Travels in the service
of the Gospel of Sarah Stephenson, chiefly
from her own papers/ 8vo, 1807. 7. * The
Life of the Apostle Paul as related in Scrip-
ture, but in which his epistles are inserted in
that part of the history to which they are
supposed respectively to belong ; with select
notes, critical, explanatory, and relating to
persons and places/ 8vo, 1807, and corrected
and enlarged 1811. 8. l A Reply to so much
of a Sermon published in the course of last
year by Philip Dodd as relates to the well-
known scruple of the Society of Friends, com-
monly called Quakers, against all Swearing/
8vo, 1808. 9. * Piety promoted in brief me-
morials and dying expressions of some of the
Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers ;
the tenth part, to which is prefixed an his-
torical account of the preceding parts of vo-
lumes, and of their several compilers and
editors/ 2nd edition, 12mo, 1811.

[Brit. Mus. Catal. ; Orme's Bibl. Bibl. 31 ;
Home's Introd. 165; Lowndes's Bibl. Man.;
Extracts from Letters by J. F. ; a Short Account
of the last Illness, &c. ; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]

J.M.

BEVER. [See CASTORIFS, JOHN.]

BEVER, THOMAS, LL.D. (1725-1791),
scholar and civilian, was born at Mortimer,
Berkshire, in 1725. He was educated at
Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated
B.A. 21 April 1748. At All Souls College,
where he became a fellow, he graduated
bachelor of law 3 July 1753, and doctor
5 April 1758. He was admitted to Doctors'
Commons 21 Nov. 1758, and afterwards was
promoted to be judge of the Cinque Ports,
and chancellor of Lincoln and Bangor. In
1762, with the permission of the vice-chan-
cellor and the approbation of the professor
of civil law, who was unable from ill-health
to discharge his duties, he delivered a course
of lectures on civil law at the university.
In 1766 he published 'A Discourse on the
Study of Jurisprudence, and on the Civil
Law, being an Introduction to a Course of
Lectures.' His intention was to publish the
whole series of lectures, but the project did
not meet with sufficient encouragement. In

Beveridge

447

Beveridge

1781 he published a volume on l The History
of the Legal Polity of the Roman State ;
and of the rise, progress, and extent of the
Roman Laws.' The work, which displays
both learning and acuteness, was not com-
pleted, the remainder of his manuscripts being
committed to the flames during his last illness.
He died at his house in Doctors' Commons on
8 Nov. 1791, and was buried in Mortimer
church, Berkshire, where there is a mural
monument in the chancel to his memory.
He is said to have been ' a better scholar than
writer, and a better writer than pleader.'
He took a special interest in music and the
fine arts. By Sherwin the engraver, in re-
cognition of peculiar obligations, he was
presented with a painting of Leonidas taking
leave of his wife and infant son, the only
original work of this engraver of which there
is any record.

[Gent. Mag. liii. 667-70, Ixi. 632-3, 1068,
Ixviii. 517, 753-4; Coote's English Civilians,
125-6 ; Chalmers's Biog. Diet. v. 194-5.1

T. F. H.

BEVERIDGE, WILLIAM (1637-1708),
bishop of St. Asaph, son of the Rev. William
Beveridge, B.D., was born- early in 1636-7,
and was baptised on 21 Feb. at Barrow,
Leicestershire, of which place his grandfather,
father, and elder brother John were succes-
sively vicars (NICHOLS, Hist, of Leicestershire,
iii. part i. pp. 77-8). He was first taught
by his learned father. He was next sent to
the New Free School at Oakham, Rutland,
where William Cave [q. v.] was his school-
fellow. Here he remained two years. On
24 May 1653 he was admitted a sizar in St.
John's College, Cambridge, with Bullingham
as his tutor. Dr. Anthony Tuckney was then
head of the college, and took a special interest
in young Beveridge. Beveridge specially
devoted himself to the learned languages,
including the oriental. In his twenty-first
year he published a Latin treatise on the
' Excellency and Use of the Oriental Tongues,
especially Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Sa-
maritan, together with a Grammar of the
Syriac Language,' 1658, 2nd ed. 1664. It
was a somewhat too ambitious task, and is
crudely executed. In 1656 he proceeded B. A.,
and in 1660 M.A. On 3 Jan. 1660-1 he was
ordained deacon by Dr. Robert Saunderson,
bishop of Lincoln (Biog. Brit. ii. 782, 1st ed.)
By special favour he was ordained priest on
the 31st of the same month. Dr. Gilbert
Sheldon at the same time collated him to the
vicarage of Yealing (or Baling), Middlesex
(KENKETT, Biog. Coll. Iii. 392; Lansdowne
MS. 987). His ' Private Thoughts ' reveal
the awe with which he entered on his duties

I as a clergyman. He resolved beforehand, < by
I the grace of God, to feed the flock over which
; God shall set him with wholesome food, neither
! starving them by idleness, poisoning them
j with error, nor puffing them up with imperti-
' nences ' (Resolution V.) For twelve years
he remained in this living. The charge was
not onerous, and left him leisure for learned
pursuits. The fruits of his reading during
this period appeared in his ' Institutiones
Chronologies, 1669. In 1672 he published at
Oxford his great ' ZvvodiKov,' a collection of the
apostolic canons and decrees of the coun-
cils received by the Greek church, together
with the canonical epistles of the fathers.
These two huge folios of Greek and Latin are a
monumental evidence of the compiler's erudi-
tion, although, not content with reproduction
of an accurate text, he claimed apostolic origin
and sanction for what were long post-apostolic.
His ' Vindication of his Collection of the
Canons ' (1679), in answer to an anonymous
Latin attack (as it is now known) by Mat-
thieu de Larroque of Rouen, demonstrates
that he lacked the instinct of the genuine
scholar as distinguished from the merely
largely-read man. It is to be regretted that
this 'Vindication' has been reproduced in
the Anglo-catholic collection of the bishop's
works. Hartwell Home more judiciously
excluded it.

In 1672 he was presented by the lord mayor
and aldermen to the living of St. Peter's,
Cornhill. Thereupon he resigned Baling.
He had daily service in his church and the
Lord's Supper every Sunday. On 22 Dec. 1674
he was collated to the prebend of Chiswick
in St. Paul's, London. In 1679 he proceeded
D.D. On 3 Nov. 1681 he was appointed
archdeacon of Colchester (KENNETT, Biog.
Coll. liii. 292). He personally visited every
parish, and made himself the friend and ad-
viser of every clergyman (Biog. Brit. ii. and
notes). On 27 Nov. 1681 he preached a sermon
on the * Excellency and Usefulness of the Com-
mon Prayer.' It rapidly went through four
editions. In 1683 he preached another popular
sermon on the anniversary of the great fire of
1666. On 5 Nov. 1684 he was made preben-
dary of Canterbury in succession to Du Moulin.
In 1687-8 he joined with Dr. Horneck and
others in forming religious societies for ' re-
formation of manners ' (WOODWARD, Account
of the Rise and Progress of the Religious
Societies}. In 1689 he became president of
Sion College.

Beveridge, who was not in advance of his
age, stood aloof from the scheme of compre-
hension of 1668, first projected by the lord
keeper of the great seal (Sir Orlando Bridg-
man), Bishop Wilkins and Lord Chief-justice

Beveridge

448

Beverley

Hale, with the view of ' relaxing the terms
of conformity to the established church.'
The project was revived in 1674 by Tillotson
and Stiilingfleet, and settled by them to the
satisfaction of the leading nonconformists,
but again was defeated, and unsupported by
Beveridge. So with William Ill's scheme of
a synod of divines. Tillotson was prompted
by Beveridge's attitude to these reforms to
address to him the words : ' Doctor, doctor,
charity is better than rubrics.' Beveridge
spoke vehemently against the Act of Union
between England and Scotland, on the
ground that the presbyterianism of Scot-
land would endanger the national church of
England.

In 1691 Beveridge was selected to fill the
see of Bath and Wells vacated by the depo-
sition of Ken, who with other bishops refused
to take the oath of allegiance to King Wil-
liam and Queen Mary. He took three weeks
to consider, and at first accepted the prefer-
ment, but he ultimately declined it. It was
the pressure brought to bear upon him by
the Jacobites that caused him to take this
final decision, and he appears to have re-
pented of it when too late. His refusal gave
great offence at court (KENNETT, Eng. iii.
634 ; D'OYLY, Life of Sancroft, i. 463), and
he was roughly dealt with in the pamphlet :
' A. Vindication of their Majesties' Authority
to fill the Sees of the Deprived Bishops. In
a Letter out of the Country, occasioned by

Dr. B 's refusal of the Bishoprick of Bath

and Wells,' 1691.

Beveridge had reached a good old age before
he wore the mitre. It was not until 1704
that he was again invited to become a bishop.
He was installed bishop of St. Asaph on
16 July 1704. His new dignity left the
man unchanged. He addressed a pathetic
letter to his clergy on catechising, and pre-
pared a kind of text-book for it. On 5 Nov.
1704 he preached before the House of
Lords on the gunpowder treason, and again
on the martyrdom of Charles I. In his place
in the house he opposed the union with Scot-
land (BTJKNET). His last public appearance
was on 20 Jan. 1707-8. He died in apartments I
in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey on '
5 March 1707-8. He left 100/. to the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, he gave
his books to found a library at St. Paul's, and
gave the vicarage of Barrow to St. John's.
His wife was sister to William Stanley,
of Hinckley, Leicestershire. They had no
issue. After his death his .executor pub-
lished (1) -'Private Thoughts upon Re-
ligion,' 1709 ; (2) ' Private Thoughts upon a
Christian Life,' 1709; (3) 'The Great Ne-
cessity ... of Public Prayer and Frequent

Communion,' 1710 ; (4) ' Defence of the Book
of Psalms (preferring Steinhold and Hopkins
to Tate and Brady),' 1710; (5) 'Exposition
of the 39 Articles,' 1710; (6) 'Thesaurus
Theologicus,' 1711. There have been two
modern collected editions of the works of
Beveridge: («) by the Rev. T. Hartwell
Home, 9 vols, 8vo, 1824 ; (b) in the ' Library
of Anglo-Catholic Theology,' 12 vols. 8vo,
1842-6. Neither is complete nor critically
careful. The largest proportion consists of
sermons — chiefly of a poor type. Their au-
thorship explains their translation into Ger-
man by Engleschall (1732) and others. The
later edition gives a much more accurate
text than any previous of his ' Ecclesia Angli-
cana Ecclesia Catholica ; or the Doctrine of
the Church of England' (1846), from the
original manuscript. His posthumously pub-
lished ' Private Thoughts ' alone continues to
be read. Dr. Whitby (Short View of Dr.
Beveridge's Writings, 1711) said severely of
him: 'He delights in jingle and quibbling,
affects a tune and rhyme in all he says, and
rests arguments upon nothing but words and
sounds.'

[Life, by Home, also in Anglo-Cath. edition
of "Theological Works; Biog. Brit.; Burnet's
Own Times ; Le Neve's Fasti ; Patres Apost. of
Cotelerius ; Baker's Hist, of St. John's, 703-5 ;
Ayscough's Catal. ; Add. MSS. 4724, 1 1, and 4275 ;
Rawlinson MSS. fol. 9, ii. 176.] A. B. G.

BEVERLEY,CHARLESJAMES(1788-

1868), naturalist, the son of a soldier, was
born in August 1788 at Fort Augustus
in the highlands of Scotland, where his
father's regiment was then quartered. Of
his early education we have no trustworthy
information, beyond the fact of his having
been apprenticed to a surgeon, and having
entered the navy as assistant surgeon in 1810.
Beverley was employed in that capacity
during four years on the Baltic and Medi-
terranean stations, but chiefly on the latter.
He was frequently sent in boats on cutting-
out expeditions, and was present at the cap-
ture of Porto d'Anzo in 1813. He displayed
much bravery in these expeditions, and ex-
hibited at all times considerable mental ac-
tivity. He was placed on Lord Exmoiith's
list for promotion, but, his health failing him,
he was sent home from the fleet in charge of
the sick and wounded. On recovering he was
appointed to H.M.S. Tiber, and served in
that ship until 1818, when, upon strong re-
commendation, he was selected by the admi-
ralty to be assistant surgeon in the Isabella,
about to proceed under the command of Sir
John Ross to the Polar regions. In 1819-20
he served under Sir Edward Parry in his first

Beverley

449

Beverley

•expedition, and passed the winter on Melville
Island. On his return from the Arctic Sea,
being highly commended for his skill and
care in his attendance on the sick, Beverley
was promoted to the rank of full surgeon, tmel-

1831 h

j vourite. Harry Beverley, as he was gene-
! rally called, had more unction than often
characterises a low comedian, and was a
humorous and a sound, though not a bril-
j liant actor. He died on Sunday, 1 Feb. 1863,
! at 26 Russell Square, the house of his

On his return to England he brother, Mr. William Beverley, the eminent
scene painter.

was p
-in Ma
Royal Socio

suffered severely from ophthalmia, but quite
unexpectedly, on his recovery from this pain-
ful affliction, he was nominated supernume-
rary surgeon to the flagship on the Barbadoes
station. The risk, however, of changing sud-
denly from an arctic to a tropical climate,
while still in weak health, compelled him to
decline the appointment, and he was conse-
quently removed from the list of surgeons.
In 1827 Beverley served as a volunteer under
Sir Edward Parry in the capacity of surgeon
and naturalist in the long and perilous jour-
ney on the Spitzbergen seas. We do not find
any especial record of his labours as a natu-
ralist, but we learn incidentally that he ren-
dered much valuable assistance in the collec-
tion and naming of botanical specimens, and
was of much service in preparing many of
the examples of Arctic zoology which were
brought home.^KAfter his retirement from
the navy Beverley entered into private prac-
tice in London. He lived to see his eightieth
birthday, shortly after which he died, 16 Sept.
1868.

[Proceedings of the Royal Society, xvii. p.
Ixxxvdi (1869) ; Parry's Journals of Voyages for
the Discovery of a North- West Passage, 2nd ed.
(1821).] K. H-T.

BEVERLEY, HENRY ROXBY (1796-
1863), actor, was the son of an actor named
Beverley, at one time of Covent Garden
Theatre, and subsequently manager of the
house in Tottenham Street, known among
other names as the King's Concert Rooms,
the Regency, the West London, the Queen's,
and the Prince of Wales's theatre. At
this house, then called the Regency, Henry
Roxby Beverley first appeared. Full oppor-
tunities of practice were afforded him by his
father, and he acquired some reputation as a
low comedian. In October 1838 he replaced

[Theatrical Inquisitor; Era Almanack; Era
; newspaper, 8 Feb. 1863.] J. K.

BEVERLEY, ST. JOHN OF.
JOHN.]

[See

Jack Sheppard,' and other melodramas, and
played the principal characters in ' The Danc-
ing Barber ' and other farces. In September
1839 he took the management of the Victoria
Theatre. After relinquishing the post, he
played in the country theatres, and was for
some time manager of the Sunder land theatre
and other houses, principally in the north of
England, where he was an established fa-

VOL. IV.

jf> /•» /flay
elected £

BEVERLEY, JOHN OF (d. 1414), a
Carmelite of great theological fame, doctor
and professor of divinity at Oxford, was
born at Beverley, in the East Riding of
Yorkshire. He became a canon of St. John's
Church in that town, and ^rom the few re-
cords left of him it appears that in 1367
he gave a chaplain and his successor forty
acres of land in North Burton and Raven-
thorpe, and in 1378 alienated by license cer-
tain tenements in Yorkshire for the benefit
of a chancery priest and his successors. He
was trained in the theology of the Carmelite
friars ; wrote ' Quaestiones in Magistrum Sen-
tentiarum ' (Master of the Sentences ; i.e.,
Peter Lombard), Lib. iv., and ' Disputationes
Ordinarise,' Lib. i., and other works of a like
nature which exist in manuscript in the
Queen's College Library, Oxford ; and being
a popular preacher, was specially regarded
by Oxford men for the soundness of his
theology and the variety of his literary studies.
No more is told of him in general history
than that he flourished about 1390, and he is
even confounded with, and his works attri-
buted to, Johannes Beverlay, an Augustinian
monk, ordained by Oliver Sutton, bishop of
Lincoln, in 1294.

We think, however, that he is the same
person as John of Beverley the Lollard. He
certainly lived in the days of this society of
itinerant preachers, the followers in England
of John Wycliffe, so severely persecuted by
Richard II and Henry IV. In addition to
denial of transubstantiation and other impor-
tant doctrines of the then existing church,
the Lollards preached against pilgrimages to
Canterbury, Walsingham, and Beverley as
accursed, foolish, and a spending of goods in
waste.' And John of Beverley seems to have
joined ' certain other Oxford men,' and be-
come one of the earliest converts to their
views. Shortly after Sir John Oldcastle,
Lord Cobham, the chief favourer of the
movement, had escaped from the Tower, the
Lollards were taken at their usual assembly-
place in St. Giles's Fields, and tried for

Beverley

45°

Beville

treason against church and state. In de-
fence some of them stated that they were a
persecuted flock, and as their worship in a |
public place was prohibited, they had simply j
met together in a thicket in Ticket's field |
(part of St. Giles's Fields) to hear the preach-
ing of John of Beverley the priest. On j
12 Jan. 1413-14 sixty-nine of the prisoners !
were condemned, and next day thirty-seven J
of them were drawn to St. Giles's Fields and |
hanged and burned. On 19 Jan. John of !
Beverley the priest, and shortly after Sir '
Eoger Acton, knight, and others, were drawn
and hanged at the same place.

[Bale, Brit. Script.. Cat. p. 543; Pits, De
Anglise Script. A.D. 1390; Tanner's Bibl . Brit. ;
Holinshed's Chronicle; Villiers de S. Etienne,
i. 797 ; Rot. Pat. 40 E. Ill, Inq. P.M. 51 E. III.]

J.W.-G.

BEVERLEY, JOHN (1743-1827), es-
quire bedell of Cambridge University, was a
native of Norwich, where his father was in
the wine trade, and received his education
at Christ's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1767,
M.A. 1770). He was elected one of the
esquire bedells of the university in 1770,
and held that appointment until his death.
Mr. Gunning, who was one of his col-
leagues, gives some extraordinary instances
of the careless and perfunctory way in
which Beverley discharged the duties of his
office. Beverley was always in pecuniary
difficulties, and in order to extricate himself
from them he resorted to a variety of inge-
nious expedients. For example, he would
dispose of musical instruments and choice
flowers, of which he had a fine collection, at
a very high price, by means of a lottery, and
he and his friends used to canvass the mem-
bers of the university to purchase tickets. He
was a great favourite with the Earl of Sand-
wich, first lord of the admiralty, who appointed
him commissioner and comptroller of an office
in Greenwich Hospital. He married one of
the daughters of Cooper Thornhill, the famous
rider from Stilton. In consequence of his
long services as esquire bedell he was allowed
to have a deputy in 1821. In an undated
manuscript note, Cole, the antiquary, says :
* Beverley was extravagant, and his wife im-
provident and proud ; they have six young
children ; it is said he has others at Norwich.
Lord Sandwich about three years ago got him
a small place in his office of the admiralty, of
about 100/. per annum, he being a good per-
former on the violin.' His death occurred in
London 25 March 1827.

Besides some poll-books of university elec-
tions he published: 1. ' An Account of the
different Ceremonies observed in the Senate
House of the University of Cambridge

throughout the year, together with tables of
fees, modes of electing officers, forms of pro-
ceeding to degrees, and other articles relating-
to the customs of the university.' Cambridge,
1788, 8vo. 2. ' The Trial of William Frend
in the Vice-Chancellor's Court for writing-
and publishing a pamphlet entitled " Peace
and Union recommended to the Associated
Bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republi-
cans," ' Cambridge [1793], 8vo. 3. < The Pro-
ceedings in the Court of Delegates on the
Appeal of William Frend from the Sentence-
on the Vice-Chancellor's Court,' Cambridge
[1793], 8vo.

[Information from Rev. H. R. Luard, D.D. ;JMS,
Addit. 5864, f. 99 ; Cambridge Chronicle, 30 March
1827 ; Biog. Diet, of Living Authors (1816); Cat.
of Printed Books in Brit. Mus. ; Romilly's Gradu-
ati Cantab. 493, 494 ; Gunning's Reminiscences-
of Cambridge, i. 144-54; Gent. Mag. li. 532,
containing satirical verses on Beverley.] T. C.

BEVERLEY or INGLEBERD, PHI-
LIP (fl. 1290), Oxford benefactor, rector of
Kayingham, in the East Riding of York-
shire, is said to have been ' the most subtle-
Aristotelian in Oxford.' Having probably
been a member of the society founded by
William of Durham, now University College,
he endowed it with certain lands in 1290,
and again in 1319 he further granted to it
other lands in Holderness and elsewhere for
the maintenance of two fellows belonging to
Beverley, Holderness, or places in the neigh-
bourhood.

[Wood's History and Antiquities of Oxford
(Gutch), 42, 43, 227, 228.] W. H.

BEVILLE, ROBERT (d. 1824),barrister-
at-law, was called to the bar at the Inner
Temple between 1795 and 1799, and prac-
tised on the Norfolk circuit and at the Ely
assizes, as well as in London and Middlesex,
until 1807, when he seems to have given up
practice, as his name does not appear in the-
' Law List ' after that year until 1816, when
he is described as of the Fen Office, 3 Tanfield
Court, Temple. He had obtained in 1812
the post of registrar to the Bedford Level
Corporation, which he held until his death
in 1824. In 1813 a new edition of Dugdale's
* History of Imbanking and Drayning of
divers Fens and Marshes ' was announced in
the ; Gentleman's Magazine ' as in prepara-
tion by him. It did not, however, appear.
Beville married in 1800 Miss Sauter, de-
scribed as of Chancery Lane. His son Charles
survived him. Beville was the author of a
small treatise ' On the Law of Homicide and
Larceny,' published in 1799, and terribly
lacerated the same year by the ( London

Bevin

451

Bevis

Monthly Review.' He does not appear to
have written anything else.

[Gent. Mag. Ixxi. 181, Ixxxiii. (pt. ii.) 448,
Ixxxviii. (pt. i.) 323 ; Wells's Bedford Level, i.
555, 658 ; Brit. Mus. Cat.] J. M. K.

BEVIN, EL WAY (Jl. 1605-1631), a com-
poser of Welsh origin, concerning whom but
little is known, was sworn a gentleman-extra-
ordinary of the Chapel Royal on 3 June 1605,
and is said to have been a pupil of Thomas
Tallis. Dr. Rimbault, quoting Wood (Fasti
Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 265), says that he was
organist of Bristol from 1589 to 1637, when
he was discovered to be a Roman catholic
and expelled from both his appointments.
The chapter books of Bristol Cathedral
prior to 1650, upon which Wood is said to
have based his information, were destroyed
in the riots of the present century ; but the
Chapel Royal cheque-book contains no men-
tion of the composer's expulsion, and the
source of Rimbault's information, which he
gives as ' Ashmol. MS. 8568, 106 ' (an incor-
rect reference), cannot now be verified. In
1631 Bevin published the work by which he is
best known, ' A Briefe and Short Instruction
of the Art of Musicke, to teach how to make
Discaut, of all proportions that are in vse :
very necessary for all such as are desirous to
attaine to knowledge in the Art ; and may
by practice, if they can sing, soone be able
to compose three, foure, and five parts :
And also to compose all sorts of Canons that
are usuall, by these directions of two or
three parts in one, upon the Plain-Song'
(London, printed by R. Young, at the signe
of the Starre on Bread Street Hill). This
work is dedicated to the Bishop of Gloucester,
'unto whom,' Bevin states, he has 'beene
much bound for many favours.' Prefixed to the
book is a set of verses by one Thomas Palmer,
of Bristol, in the course of which mention
is made of ' old judicious Bevin ; ' and as
the composer himself says that he has studied
canons l for these many years last past ' — a
statement borne out by a manuscript volume
(partly in his autograph) in the Queen's Col-
lection at Buckingham Palace, which con-
tains some studies and canons dated 1 July
1611, and included in the printed work — it
is safe to conclude that the ' Briefe Discourse '
was not published until Bevin was advanced
in years. The book itself is most curious,
and is still the best authority extant for the
solution of the extremely intricate canons
in which certain composers of that period
delighted. At the end of the work Bevin
promises a larger volume if he is encouraged
and shall live ; but no other book was pub-
lished in fulfilment of this promise. His

other compositions are not numerous, nor
very commonly met with. Benjamin Cosyn's
< Virginal Book ' (in the Queen's Collection)
has a service by him included amongst six
entitled ' These are ye Six Services for the
King's Royall Chappell.' Copies of this
work are to be found in most large collections,
and it has been printed in Barnard's 'Se-
lected Church Musick ' and Boyce's ' Cathe-
dral Music.' The Christ Church Collection
(Oxford) contains (in a set of part-books
almost wholly consisting of Latin motets) a
' Browninge, 3 parts,' by Bevin. One of the
part-books is missing, and there is only left
of this curiously named composition a supe-
rius and contra tenor. The Music School
Collection (Oxford) also contains an 'In
Nomine ' by the same composer. A few com-
positions by him are to be found in the British
Museum (Add. MSS. 11537, 31403, 29289,
29430, 29996; Harl. MS. 7339), the most
remarkable of which is a part-song, ' Hark,
Jolly Shepherds/ in twenty parts.

[Burney's Hist, of Music, iii. ; Hawkins's Hist,
of Music (ed. 1853), i. 297, ii. 505 ; Boyce's Ca-
thedral Music (1849), vol. i. p. x; Old Cheque
Book of Chapel Eoyal (Rimbault), 1872, pp. 42,
231 ; information from Mr. G. Riseley, the Rev.
J. H. Mee, and Mr. F. Madan.] W. B. S.

BEVIS or BEVANS, JOHN, M.D. (1693-
1771), astronomer, was born 31 Oct. 1693, at
Tenby, Pembrokeshire. His parents occupied
a good position, and having been entered at
Christ Church, Oxford, he took the degrees
of B.A. and M.A. respectively 13 Oct. 1715
and 20 June 1718. He studied medicine as
a profession, but Newton's ' Optics ' was his
inseparable companion, and he rapidly be-
came a proficient in astronomy and optics.
On the termination of his university career
he travelled for some time in France and
Italy, then settled in London as a physician
some time before 1730. He was successful,
but unsatisfied, until in 1738 he removed to
Stoke Newington, where he had built and
fitted up an observatory. Here he worked
with such diligence, frequently taking 160
star-transits in a single night, that in 1745
he found himself in a position to undertake
the compilation of a ' Uranographia Bri-
tannica,' or exact view of the heavens, in
fifty-two large plates, including many more
stars than had been given in Bayer's maps.
An explanation accompanied each plate, and
a catalogue of stars was added, with two
hemispheres, representing the constellations
according to the ancients. The work was all
but ready for the press when, in 1750, John
Neale, the publisher, became bankrupt ; the
plates, already completely engraved, were

G G 2

Bevis

452

Bewick

sequestered by the court of Chancery, as it
proved, irrevocably ; and Bevis's heavy toils
remained without fruit.

His friendship for Halley, whom he as-
sisted at Greenwich in observing the transit
of Mercury, 31 Oct. 1736 (Phil. Trans, xlii.
622), led him to procure and superintend in j
1749 the publication of his ' Tabulae Astro- I
nomicse ' (an English version was issued in
1752), after they had been printed twenty
years. He added some supplementary tables,
with precepts for using the whole. In 1739
he ascertained by observation that the effects j
of aberration in right ascension corresponded |
no less accurately to Bradley's theory than |
those in declination ; but in this Eustachio j
Manfredi had been, without his knowledge, ;
nine years beforehand with him (BRADLEY, j
Miscellaneous Works, p. xxxiii). About the
same time he drew up and communicated to
Thomas Simpson a set of f Practical Rules
for finding the Aberration of the Fixt Stars,' j
published by him at page 11 of his f Essays '
(1740).

On 23 Dec. (O.S.) 1743 Bevis, ignorant as
yet of its appearance elsewhere, discovered
at London the great comet of 1744. ' Last
night,' he wrote to Bradley, with whom he
was in constant and confidential intercourse,
' about half an hour after seven, I thought 1
saw a- comet, and afterwards found it to be
one; the nucleus in the telescope seemed
considerably bigger than Jupiter, with a large
capillitium about it, though little of a tail ;
'twas as easily seen as a star of the second
magnitude ' (ibid. p. 425). He also observed
Halley's comet in May 1759 (Phil. Trans, li.
93). The transits of Venus of 6 June 1761
and 3 June 1769 were both observed by him,
the former at Savile House, London, in com-
pany with Short and Blair, the latter at
Mr. Joshua Kirby's house at Kew, with a
3^-foot reflector, when he noticed certain
curious effects of irradiation entirely unper-
ceived by him in 1761. He was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society 21 Nov. 1765,
and acted as its foreign secretary from 11 Dec.
1766 to 13 Feb. 1772. A diploma bearing
date 11 June 1750, and accompanied by a
note from Maupertuis complimenting him on
his ( inimitable Atlas ' (then expected shortly
to appear), constituted him a member of the
Berlin Academy of Sciences ; and he was
chosen a correspondent of that of Paris
12 July 1768. Soon after the death of Bliss
(2 Sept. 1764), being disappointed in his
hopes of succeeding him as astronomer-royal,
he took chambers in the Middle Temple, and
resumed his long-suspended medical practice.
Far, however, from abandoning astronomy,
lie fell a victim to his constancy in its culti-

vation. For in turning hastily from the
telescope to the clock, while observing the
sun's meridian altitude, he got a fall, from
the effects of which he died, 6 Nov. 1771,
aged 76. He was of a mild and benevolent
disposition and lively temperament. His
astronomical work appears to have been
characterised by diligence rather than pre-
cision.

He published a work entitled ' Cymbalum
Mundi ; ' a translation of a treatise by Pro-
fessor H. Boerhaave, of Leyden, ' On the
Venereal Disease and its Cure,' 1719 ; two
pamphlets, the ' Satellite's Sliding Rule,' for
determining the immersions and emersions of
Jupiter's satellites, and ' An Experimental
Inquiry concerning the Contents, Qualities,
and Medicinal Virtues of the two Mineral
Waters lately discovered at Bagnigge Wells,
near London ' (1760, 2nd enlarged edition
1767) ; besides twenty-seven short papers in
the ' Philosophical Transactions ' (vols. xl. to
lix.), mostly records of his astronomical obser-
vations. He contributed to the few numbers
published of the i Mathematical Magazine,'
and is said to have, from modesty, concealed
his authorship of several creditable works.
He co-operated in Dr. Watson's electrical ex-
periments in 1747 (Phil. Trans, xlv. 62, 77),
suggested strengthening the charge of a
Leyden jar by applying a coating of tinfoil
(PKIESTLEY, Hist, of Electricity, p. 89), and
first distinguished Dollond's lenses with the
term l achromatic.'

[Bernouilli's Recueil pour les Astronomes, ii.
331, 1772 (a French translation of a Biographical
Account by J. Horsefall, F.K.S., Bevis's executor
and friend); Rawlinson MSS., 4to, 6, 97, Bod-
leian Library ; Button's Phil, and Math. Diet. i.
226, 1815; Poggendorff's Biog.-Lit. Handwor-
terbuch, 1863; G-ent. Mag. xli. 523.1

A. M. C.

BEWICK, JANE (1787-1881), eldest
daughter and child of Thomas Bewick by his
wife Isabella, was born on 29 April 1787, and
died 7 April 1881. Miss Bewick's chief claim
to recollection is her lifelong veneration for
her father's memory, and her store of anec-
dote respecting his work and ways. In 1862
she edited and issued { A Memoir of Thomas
Bewick, written by Himself. Embellished by
numerous wood engravings, designed and en-
graved by the author for a work on British
Fishes, and never before published.' This
memoir, prepared at her request in 1822-8,
must always be the standard authority for
Bewick's personal history, and it ranks highly
as a frank, manly, and characteristic piece
of autobiography. It gives, however, but a
meagre account of his method and technique.
Another sister, ISABELLA, survived Jane

Bewick

453

Bewick

Bewick until 1883, dying in the old house, now
19 West Street, Gateshead, where her father,
mother, brother, and sisters had died before
her. In 1882 Miss Isabella Bewick anti-
cipated a bequest, agreed upon with her sister
Jane, and gave to the British Museum a
choice collection of water-colours and wood-
cuts by her father, his brother John, and his
son, some of which had been exhibited in
London in November and December 1880.
Since her death her executors have also pre-
sented several valuable portraits, drawings,
prints, and other Bewick relics to the New-
castle Natural History Society's Museum.

[See authorities under THOMAS BEWICK.] .

A. D.

BEWICK, JOHN (1760-1795), wood-
engraver, younger brother of Thomas Bewick,
was born at Cherryburn in March 1760.
In 1777 he was apprenticed to Bewick and
Beilby. It has been asserted that, during
the time of his apprenticeship, he assisted his
brother in the illustrations to ' Gay's Fables,'
1779, and the 'Select Fables/ 1784. In
Bewick's 'Memoir/ however, where some
acknowledgment to this effect might reason-
ably have been expected, there is not a word
upon the subject. As a matter of fact, it is
difficult to understand what material aid the
younger brother could have rendered to the
elder in the ' Gay's Fables/ seeing that he was
only in the second year of his apprenticeship
when it was first published. To the ' Select
Fables ' of 1784 the argument of inexperience
does not equally apply ; but it may be noted
that John Bewick's work, for many years sub-
sequent to 1784, will not either in draughts-
manship or engraving sustain a comparison
with the illustrations in that volume. More-
over, though this is of minor importance, for
at least two years previous to its appearance
John Bewick had been resident in London.

According to the 'Memoir of Thomas
Bewick/ John continued in his apprentice-
ship for about five years, when his brother
gave him his liberty, and he left Newcastle
for London. Here he found immediate and
active, though not lucrative employment,
chiefly on blocks for children's books. Hugo's
Catalogue gives us the titles of some of these :
The ' Children's Miscellany/ by Day of Sand-
ford and Merton fame ; the ' Honours of the
Table, or Rules for Behaviour during Meals ;'
the * History of a School-Boy ; ' and the
'New Robinson Crusoe.' The date of the
last named is 1788, and many of its cuts are
signed. But the first work of real import-
ance attributed to Bewick is an edition of
t Gay's Fables/ printed in the same year for
J. Buckland and others, in which, with minor

variations and some exceptions, the earlier
designs of Thomas Bewick are followed.
This book affords an opportunity of compar-
ing the brothers on similar grounds, and the
superiority of the elder is incontestable. Next
to Gay comes a book which has usually been
placed first, the ' Emblems of Mortality/
published by T. Hodgson in 1789. This is a
copy of the famous ' Icones/ or ' Imagines
Mortis/ of Holbein, from the Latin edition
issued at Lyons in 1547 by Jean Frellon
' Soubz 1'escu de Cologne.' Hugo associates
Thomas Bewick with John in this work ;
and we have certainly seen an edition which
has both names on the title-page. The early
| writers, however, assign it to John Bewick
alone ; and this view is confirmed by the fol-
lowing extract from a letter of Thomas to
John, printed in the 'Transactions of the
: Natural History Society of Northumberland/
1 &c., for 1877. ' I am much pleased, says
i Thomas Bewick, ' with the Cuts for Death's
Dance. ... I am surprised that you would
undertake to do them for 65. each. You have
been spending your time and grinding out
your eyes to little purpose indeed. I would
not have done them for a farthing less than
double that sum. ... I am glad to find you
have begun on your own bottom, and I would
earnestly recommend you to establish your
character by taking uncommon pains with
what you do.' The quotation seems to indi-
cate that John Bewick had set up on his own
account in November 1787, the date of the
letter to which the above is an answer. It
gives some idea besides of the prices paid for
wood-engraving both in London and New-
castle, which, as may be seen, were on any-
thing but a liberal scale.

Even in these days of Amand-Durand fac-
similes the 'Emblems of Mortality' is a
praiseworthy memento of those marvellous
woodcuts which, as we are now taught to
believe, the obscure Hans Lutzelburger en-
graved after Holbein's designs. In details,
John Bewick's copies vary considerably from
the originals ; and in one instance, that of the
' Creation/ where the earlier illustrator has
represented the first person of the Trinity in
a papal tiara, his imitator, by editorial desire,
has substituted a design of his own. But
the spirit of the old cuts is almost always
preserved; and considering the hasty and
ill-paid character of the work, its general
fidelity to Holbein is remarkable. After
' Death's Dance ' came a little group of books,
chiefly intended for the education of children.
Of these it is impossible to give any detailed or
exhaustive account, nor is it needful, as they
have all a strong family resemblance. The
first two, ' Proverbs Exemplified/ 1790, and

Bewick

454

Bewick

the 'Progress of Man and Society/ 1791, were vignettes in the children's books, though it
by Hogarth's commentator, Dr. Trusler. The | should be noted that a large proportion of these
former is sufficiently explained by its title ; j last are obvious adaptations of his brother's
the latter is a kind of modern version of the work. But he seems to have had one quality
old Latin and High Dutch ' Orbis Pictus ' of | not possessed by Thomas Bewick, a certain
Comenius published at Amsterdam in 1657. j gift of grace, especially in his pictures of

Both of these books are undoubtedly illus-
trated by John Bewick alone, whose name is
given in the ' Preface ' to the ' Proverbs.' Be-
sides these there are the l Looking Glass for
the Mind,' 1792, the charming i Tales for
Youth,' 1794, and the ' Blossoms of Morality,'
1796.

The appearance of the ' Blossoms of Mo-
rality ' was for some time delayed in conse-
quence of the illness of the artist, and long
before it was published John Bewick was sleep-
ing in Ovingham churchyard. His health had
been seriously impaired by the close confine-
ment of the metropolis ; and though a visit to
Cherry burn seems to have partially restored
him, he was finally obliged to return to his
native air in the summer of 1795, and shortly
afterwards died of consumption. In the year
of his death was published a sumptuous edi-
tion of the * Poems of Goldsmith and Parnell '
due to the enterprise of that William Bulmer,
of the ' Shakespeare Printing Office,' whom
his contemporaries fondly likened to the
Aldi and Elzevirs of old, and the preface
proudly sets forth the luxuries of its type, its
printing, its Whatman paper, and its embel-
lishments. To this book John Bewick con-
tributed one cut, drawn and engraved by him
in illustration of the well-known passage in
the 'Deserted Village' respecting the old
watercress gatherer. He is also understood
to have designed two of the vignettes and
one of the tail-pieces. Duringthe last months
of his life he was also engaged in making
sketches on the block for the Fabliaux of Le
Grand, translated by Way, 1796 ; and for an
edition of Somervile's l Chase ' issued by
Bulmer in the same year. These were chiefly
engraved by Thomas Bewick, who also, he
says (Memoir, p. 108), completed the drawings
for the i Chase ' after his brother's death.

As is generally the case with those who
die young, it is somewhat difficult to speak of
John Bewick's merits as an artist and en-
graver. Much of his work bears evident signs
of haste, as well as of an invention which was
far in advance of his powers of execution.
He had evidently a keen eye for character,
and considerable skill in catching strongly
marked expression. Many of the little groups
in the * Proverbs exemplified ' might be ela-
borated into striking studies. His animals,
too, are admirable — witness the popular
prowling cat in ' Tales for Youth,' the hunt-
ing scenes in the ' Chase,' and many of the

children. Whether he caught this from the
novel illustrators of the period is matter for
speculation ; but examples of it might easily
be pointed out in the ' Looking Glass/ the
'Progress of Man/ and elsewhere. As an
engraver he falls far below his brother. His
style is flatter, more conventional, less nappy
in black and white. But he improved greatly
in his latest work.

Only one portrait of John Bewick is known
to exist — a crayon by George Gray in the
Newcastle Museum. Personally he seems to
have been witty, vivacious, and very popular
with his associates, an advantage, in the eyes
of his graver brother, not without its perils.
At the time of his death (5 Dec. 1795) he
was engraving the view of Cherryburn after-
wards issued as a frontispiece to the ' Me-
moir ' of 1862. He left it uncompleted, and
it was eventually finished by Thomas Be-
wick. The original sketch, probably made
much earlier, is carefully preserved, with
some water-colours and other relics, by his
grand-nieces, who still (1884) speak affec-
tionately of the talents and amiability of their
' uncle John.'

[The authorities for John Bewick's life are the
same as those for that of Thomas Bewick.]

A.D.

BEWICK, ROBERT ELLIOT (1788-
1849), wood engraver, was the only son of
Thomas Bewick [q. v.]. He was born on
26 April 1788, and was brought up to his
father's business. In 1 8 1 2 he became Thomas
Bewick's partner. He designed with great
care, and, as an engraver, was laboriously
minute and accurate, but seems never to have
developed the latent talent which his father
believed him to possess (Memoir, p. 250). He
assisted Thomas Bewick in the ' Fables of
1818, and in the illustrations and

vignettes for the projected ' History of British
Fishes/ which occupied his latter days. Some
specimens of these are given in the l Memoir.'
One of them, 'The Maigre/ is engraved on
copper by ' R. E. Bewick ; ' and Miss Bewick
states (Memoir, p. 289) that her brother left
behind him some ' fifty highly finished and
accurately coloured drawings of fishes from
nature/ together with some descriptive text,
which he had prepared for the same never-
completed work. These drawings now form
part of the Bewick bequest to the British
Museum. Robert Bewick died unmarried

Bewick

455

Bewick

27 July 1849, and is buried in Ovingham
churchyard.

[Memoir of Thomas Bewick, &c.] A. D.

BEWICK, THOMAS (1753-1828), wood
• engraver, was born in August 1753, at Cherry- i
burn House, on the south bank of the Tyne, j
in the parish of Ovingham, Northumberland. ;
Part of the old cottage still exists as ' byre ' j
•or cowhouse to a more modern Cherryburn,
yet occupied by his descendants. His father,
.John Bewick, was a small farmer, who also
rented a land-sale colliery (i.e. a colliery the
coals of which are sold on the spot to persons
in the neighbourhood) at Mickley, close by.
His mother, John Bewick's second wife, came j
of a Cumberland family. Her maiden name j
was Jane Wilson. She bore John Bewick j
.eigBt children, of whom Thomas was the
eldest, and John [see BEWICK, JOHN] the fifth.
Another son, William, and five daughters
•completed the family. Young Bewick first j
went to school at Mickley. Then, two suc-
cessive preceptors there having died, he was j
placed under the care of the Rev. Christopher
Gregson of Ovingham, whose church and
rectory, though in the same parish as Cherry- ;
burn, lay on the opposite or northern side of !
the Tyne. His schooldays were undistin- |
guished ; but he seems to have acquired some
little knowledge of Latin, and better still of
English. In the characteristic autobiography

?ublished by his eldest daughter Jane in
862, and hereafter referred to as the * Me-
moir,' is a good account of his boyhood. He
there appears as a fairly mischievous but
not vicious lad, delighting in all sorts of
_youthful escapades. Already, however, he
,gave evidence of two tastes which strongly
coloured his after life, a love of drawing
.and a love of nature. Like Hogarth's, his l ex-
ercises when at school were more remarkable
ibr the ornaments Avhich adorned them, than
for the exercise itself.' After exhausting the
.margins of his books, he had recourse to the
flagstones and hearth of his home, or the floor
•of the church porch at Ovingham, which he
•covered with devices in chalk. He studied
the inn signs and the rude knife-cut prints
then to be found in every farm or cottage,
records of victories by sea and land, portraits
of persons famous or notorious,

ballads, pasted on the wall,
Of Chevy Chace and English Moll,
Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood,
The little Children in the Wood.

'Then, by the kindness of a friend, after a
probation of pen and ink and blackberry-
juice, he passed to a paint brush and colours,
and began to copy the animal life about him.
* I now, in the estimation of my rustic neigh-

bours, became an eminent painter, and the
walls of their houses were ornamented \vith
an abundance of my rude productions, at a
very cheap rate. These chiefly consisted of
particular hunting scenes, in which the por-
traits of the hunters, the horses, and of every
dog in the pack, Avere, in their opinion, as well
as my own, faithfully delineated ' (Memoir,
pp. 7, 8). Meanwhile the love of nature,
which was born in him, grew and gathered
strength. Some of the most delightful pages
of his autobiography are those which recall
his delight in the change of seasons, with
their varied feathered visitors, in angling
and field-sports, in the legends, tales, and
strange characters of his birth-place. Then
came the rude breaking-up of all the pleasant
country life. His taste for drawing deter-
mined the choice of his calling, and on 1 Oct.
1767 he was apprenticed to a Newcastle en-
graver, Mr. Ralph Beilby [q. v.] The ' Me-
moir ' describes the parting with Cherryburn in
a characteristic passage: *I liked my master;
I liked the business ; but to part from the
country, and to leave all its beauties behind
me, with which I had been all my life charmed
in an extreme degree — and in a way I cannot
describe — I can only say my heart was like to
break; and as we passed away I inwardly
bade farewell to the whinny wilds, to Mick-
ley bank, to the Stobcross hill, to the water
banks, the woods, and to particular trees,
and even to the large hollow old elm which
had lain perhaps for centuries past on the
haugh near the ford we were about to pass,
and which had sheltered the salmon fishers
while at work there from many a bitter
blast ' (p. 51).

In 1767, when Bewick went to Newcastle
as an apprentice, the art of wood engraving
had fallen into comparative disuse. For a
long time previously, in truth, it can scarcely
be said to have existed, except in its ruder
forms. Tasteless emblematical ornaments
and tail-pieces, diagrams and rough designs
for magazines, illustrations of an elementary
character for a few books like Croxall's ' Fables
of JEsop,' together with the coarse knife-
cut prints and broadsides already referred
to, made up the chief examples. In 1750
Hogarth had attempted to substitute wood
for copper in engraving the last two plates
of the ' Progress of Cruelty ; ' but the attempt,
though exceedingly meritorious, was not suc-
cessful financially. So low, in short, was
the condition of the art, that Walpole, writing
about 1770 of Papillon's recently published
( Trait 6 historique et pratique de la Gravure
en Bois,' expressed a doubt whether that
author would ever, as he wished, ' persuade
the world to return to wooden cuts.

Bewick

456

Bewick

If this was the state of wood engraving
in London, it was naturally lower at New-
castle. Mr. Ralph Beilby's business, indeed,
was of a most miscellaneous character. He
engraved pipe-moulds, bottle-moulds, brass
clock-faces, coffin-plates, stamps, seals, bill-
heads, crests, and ciphers. Young Bewick's
first occupation on entering the establishment
was to copy Copeland's ' Ornaments ' as an
exercise in drawing. From this he was set
to etch sword-blades, and block out the wood
about the lines on diagrams for the popular
almanac known as the 'Ladies' Diary,' then
edited by a Newcastle schoolmaster, after-
wards the great Dr. Hutton of Woolwich.
He also prepared the cuts to Button's ' Trea-
tise on Mensuration,' published by Saint in
1770, and, besides giving great satisfaction,
is said to have shown some ingenuity in
devising a double-pointed graver which was
exceedingly useful in this particular work.
Soon he was entrusted with most of Beilby's
wood-engraving business, and executed seve-
ral bill-heads which were highly approved.
Then commissions for cuts for children's
books began to be received, the chief employer
being the Newcastle Newbery, Thomas Saint.
The first efforts of this kind with which
Bewick can be directly associated are the
* new invented Horn Book ' and the ' New
Lottery-Book of Birds and Beasts/ 1771.
After these come the ' Child's Tutor, or En-
tertaining Preceptor/ 1772: the 'Moral In-
structions of a Father to his Son/ 1772 ; and
the ( Youth's Instructive and Entertaining
Stoiy Teller/ 1774. To the last Bewick him-
self refers in the ' Memoir ' (p. 60), and his
daughter acknowledged that he engraved the
illustrations to the ' Moral Instructions '
(Select Fables, Pearson's Reprint, p. xiii).
It is not necessary, however, to linger on
these merely tentative efforts, which he sub-
sequently so greatly excelled. Before the
end of his apprenticeship he had completed
some cuts for 'Gay's Fables/ which were of
far superior quality. So good were they con-
sidered by honest Mr. Beilby that he sent
five blocks to the Society of Arts, who, in
1775, awarded a premium of seven guineas
to the engraver. One of the five was the
' Hound and the Huntsman/ illustrating
Gay's forty-fourth fable.

On 1 Oct. 1774 Bewick's period of ap-
prenticeship terminated. After a few weeks
he returned to Cherry burn, where he con-
tinued to work on his own account. In 1776
he made a pedestrian tour to the north, and
in the same year started for London. Here
he speedily found employment with an en-
graver named Cole, with Isaac Taylor, with
Thomas Hodgson, the printer and publisher,

I and others. But London did not suit the

I sturdy Northumbrian, strongly attached to

! his birthplace and hungering for country

I sights and sounds. After brief trial he left

i London again for Newcastle, and shortly

afterwards entered into partnership with his

old master, Beilby.

For many years after his apprenticeship-
had come to an end, wood engTaving seems
to have been the exception rather than the
rule of Bewick's work — the general business
of the firm being of the indiscriminate cha-
racter already described. Among other illus-
trated books attributed to this period are
several that have attained an importance
with collectors to which they are scarcely
entitled. Such are ' Tommy Trip's History
of Beasts and Birds/ 1779, which is supposed
to have been a first draught of the more
famous ' Quadrupeds ' and ' Birds/ and the
1 Lilliputian Magazine/ published by Carnanr
Newbery's successor, but probably printed
earlier at Newcastle. In both cases the
letterpress is traditionally supposed to have
been by Goldsmith, but the tradition is in-
capable of proof. The works which most
deserve attention between 1774 and 1784 are-
the 'Gay's Fables' of 1779 and 'Select
Fables ' of 1784, both of which were printed
and published by Saint of Newcastle. As-
already stated, the illustrations to the former
had been begun during Bewick's apprentice-
ship. Many of these illustrations are plainly
based upon the earlier copper plates designed
by Kent, Wootton the animal painter, and
H. Gravelot, for Tonson's and Knapton's edi-
tions issued in 1727 and 1738 respectively.
In most cases Bewick distinctly improves
upon his model, in some he breaks away from
it altogether, e.g. in ' The Man, the Cat.,
the Dog, and the Fly/ and the ' Squire and
his Cur/ which are little pictures in genre-
The ' Select Fables/ now very rare, is an ad-
vance upon the Gay. It was an expansion
of an earlier book of 1776 with ruder engrav-
ings from Bewick's hand, and this again
was an offshoot from the before-mentioned
' Moral Instructions ' of 1772. It has some-
times been denied that these earlier cuts-
were Bewick's, but without going minutely
into the evidence the point may now be taken
as established. The ' Select Fables ' of 1784
was an improved issue of this book of 1776r.
the majority of the illustrations being de-
signed afresh with greater finish and elabora-
tion, and only thirteen of the best of the^
old cuts being reproduced. Following his
practice in the Gay, Bewick seems to have'
again depended rather upon his predecessors-
than himself, most of the cuts being based
upon those of the unknown illustrator of

Bewick

457

Bewick

the ' Fables of ^Esop and Others/ translated
by Samuel Croxall, sometime archdeacon of
Hereford, of which, between 1722 and 1775,
there had been no less than ten editions.
But even Croxall's illustrator does not ap-
pear to have been the originator of the plates,
as some of them are plainly copied from
Sebastian le Clerc, while others again have
their prototypes in the fine old folio ^Esop
of Francis Barlow, published as far back as
1665. Bewick, however, probably knew little
of Barlow and le Clerc, and only aimed
at the modernisation and improvement of
Croxall. In this he thoroughly succeeded,
substituting more accurate studies of animals
and more natural arrangements of detail and
background. As before, his own special de-
signs (e.g. the 'Hounds in Couples,' the
1 Beggar and his Dog/ the l Collier and the
Fuller ') are superior to the rest, and already
foreshadow the thoroughly individual talent
of the tail-pieces to the ' Quadrupeds ' and
' Birds.' In fact, in altering and modernis-
ing Wootton and the rest, Bewick had gra-
duated as a designer, and the discipline seems
to have been his best academic training.
Before parting with the Gay and ' Select
Fables/ it should be added that their beauties
can only be adequately appreciated in the
very rare originals. In Emerson Charnley's
so-called * Select Fables ' issued at Newcastle
in 1820, a vamped-up volume which included
many of the cuts from Gay and other sources,
the original blocks, according to Hugo (Be-
wick Collector, i. 147), had been f much
altered, and certainly not improved ' by
Bewick's pupil Charlton Nesbit. From these
the more modern reprints are naturally de-
rived.

"With the publication of the ' Select Fables'
it had become manifest that there had arisen
an engraver who, to singular technical dex-
terity, added an unexampled appreciation of
the qualities and limitations of wood as a
medium for the reproduction of designs. It
was also clear that, besides being an engraver,
he was, in his own way, an artist of re-
markable capacity as a faithful interpreter of
animal life, and a genuine humourist of a
sub-Hogarthian type. All that he now re-
quired was a field in which he might ade-
quately exhibit either side of his pictorial
character. In the illustrations to the ' Quadru-
peds ' and ' Birds ' he found opportunities for
both.

The ' Quadrupeds ' were begun soon after
the publication of the ' Select Fables.' But
while working at them Bewick produced the
large block known as the f Chillingham Bull/
1789, one of the famous wild cattle which
Landseer has painted and Scott has sung in

the ballad of ' Cadyow Castle.' This, when
it appeared, was Bewick's best and most
ambitious work, though he excelled it in his
subsequent efforts. An accident which made
early impressions extremely rare has, however,
given it a fictitious value with collectors.
After a few copies had been struck off on
parchment and paper, the block split, and
though, by repairing it and fixing it in a gun-
metal frame, it was found possible to take
impressions, they have, naturally, never ac-
quired the importance which attaches to
those struck off before the accident, one, at
least, of which has fetched as much as fifty
guineas. The ( General History of Quadru-
peds ' was begun iA 1785, Bewick executing
the cuts and vignettes after working hours,
and his partner, Mr. Beilby, who was ' of a
bookish or reading turn/ undertaking the
letterpress. It was published in 1790, and
sold rapidly. A second and third edition
appeared in 1791 and 1792 respectively, and
by 1824 an eighth edition had been reached.
Generally speaking, those animals with which
Bewick had been familiar in their native
haunts were admirably rendered ; but where
he had to depend upon stuffed specimens or
the representations of earlier artists, the result
is scarcely so satisfactory. The 'Badger'
and the * Hedgehog/ for example, are unim-
peachable ; the l Bison ' and l Hippopotamus '
are poor and unsuggestive.

It was probably some sense of this in-
equality which determined the subject of
Bewick's next effort, the ' History of British
Birds.' In this case he was much less likely
to meet with difficulties in the way of ob-
taining an accurate idea of his subject, and
frequently might either work directly from
life or from newly shot specimens. His de-
termination, in fact, in his own words, was
1 to stick to nature as closely as he could '
(Memoir, p. 154). The result, as may be
seen from some of the beautiful water-colour
drawings given to the British Museum by
Miss Isabella Bewick in 1882, fully justified
the wisdom of this resolve. The first volume,
the 'Land Birds/ was published in 1797.
The text, as before, was by Beilby, largely
amended and edited by Bewick himself. The
second volume, the ' Water Birds/ followed
in 1804, the text this time being supplied by
the Kev. Mr. Cotes, of Bedlington, Bewick s-
partnership with Beilby having been dis-
solved. To both volumes large additions
were made in the succeeding issues, both in
the way of illustrations and vignettes. In
the eighth edition of 1847, published by
Bewick's son [see BEWICK, ROBEKT ELLIOT],.
the book was rearranged by Mr. John Han-
cock, a Newcastle naturalist, to suit the no-

Bewick

458

Bewick

menclature and classification of Temrninck,
and some twenty further vignettes were added
from a projected ' History of British Fishes '
left unfinished at Bewick's death.

The l Birds ' are Bewick's high-water mark.
As we have said, the conditions under which
he worked were wholly favourable to his
realistic genius. He was his own artist, and
he was his own engraver ; he was called upon
to copy faithfully rather than to divine or re-
construct ; and he loved his subject with that
absorbing passion which makes even the
dullest sense intelligent. Hence, to repeat
some words we have used elsewhere, his
birds, and especially those which he had seen
.and studied in their sylva'n homes, are alive.
' They swing on boughs, they light on way-
.side stones ; they flit rapidly through the air ;
they seem almost to utter their continuous
or intermittent cries ; they are glossy with
health and freedom ; they are alert, bright-
eyed, watchful of the unfamiliar spectator,
and ready to dart off if he so much as stir a
finger. And as Bewick saw them, so we
.see them, with their fitting background of
leaf and bough, of rock or underwood, —
backgrounds that are often studies in them-
selves. Behind the rook his fellows stalk the
furrows, disdainful of the scarecrow, while
their black nests blot the trees beyond ; the
golden plover stands upon his marshy heath ;
the robin and the fieldfare have each his ap-
propriate snow-clad landscape; the little
petrel skims swiftly in the hollow of a
wave.'

The mention of these apt backgrounds
brings us naturally to another, and, with the
ordinary public, perhaps more popular feature
of the l Quadrupeds ' and ' Birds/ the well-
-known tail-pieces, in many of which Bewick
displayed a humour, a pathos, an observa-
tion, and a sense of the lacrimce rerum, which
•are unique. It would take pages to describe
them adequately, and they must be studied
to be appreciated. The largest number are
contained in the * Birds ' of 1847 and the
•' Quadrupeds ' of 1807, and some of the deli-
cate little water-colours from which they
were engraved are to be found at the British
Museum. It has been affirmed (CHATTO'S
Treatise on Wood Engraving, 3rd ed., 1860,
p. 496 et seq.) that many of these were the
work of clever pupils whom by this period
Bewick had drawn about him. At so great
-a distance of time it is difficult to decide
what extent of truth there is in this state-
ment, never very acceptable to Bewick's re-
presentatives. Some of the tail-pieces are
obviously not cut by him, and bear traces of
the graver of Clennell [see CLENNELL, LUKE].
Two other pupils, Johnson [see JOHNSON,

RoBHftx], and Nesbit [see NESBIT, CHARL-
TON], are also supposed to have assisted. The
fact would appear to be that, after the fashion
; of those days, all Bewick's staff were pressed
' into his undertaking. But he was without
question the presiding spirit ; the initial im-
pulse came from him ; and, however they
may have prospered when working under his
eye, none of those named ever rivalled him
in his own way when working by themselves.
That they rendered him valuable aid, there-
fore, detracts little or nothing from his re-
putation.

In 1804, when the second volume of the
* Birds ' was issued, Bewick was a man of fifty.
He had still four-and-twenty years to live.
But, if we except the part taken by him in the
'Poems by Goldsmith and Parnell,' 1795,
and Somervile's ' Chase,' 1796 [see BEWICK,
JOHN], he never produced anything to equal
the ' Select Fables ' of 1784, and the three
volumes on Natural History. A large number
of works illustrated, or said to be illustrated,
by him have been traced out by the enthu-
siasm of the late Mr. Hugo, whose unwieldy
and indiscriminate collection was dispersed
at Sotheby's in August 1877. The only book
of any real importance subsequent to 1804
is the ' Fables of vEsop/ 1818. If any other
volumes issued in the interval deserve a
passing mention, they are Thomson's ' Sea-
sons,' 1805 ; ' The Hive of Ancient and
Modern Literature,' 1806, the majority of
the cuts to which were by Clennell ; Burns's
1 Poems,' 1808 : and Ferguson's ' Poems,'
1814. The designs for the Burns and the
Thomson were by Thurston [see THTJKSTON,
JOHN] ; and it is stated, on the authority of
William Harvey, that the former were en-
| graved by a pupil named Henry White. Of
the ' Fables of ^Esop ' Bewick speaks as if
j it had been a long-cherished idea. ' I could
| not,' he says, * . . . help regretting that I had
• not published a book similar to " Croxall's
i .yEsop's Fables," as I had always intended
to do ' [he seems to forget or ignore the ' Se-
lect Fables ' of 1784] ; and he goes on to say
that after a severe illness that he had in
1812, as soon as he was so far recovered as
to be able to sit at the window, he began to
' draw designs upon the wood ' for the illus-
trations (Memoir, p. 173). He was assisted
in this book, he expressly tells us, by his son
R. E. Bewick, and by two of his pupils,
William Temple and William Harvey. Most
of the designs are based upon Croxall. Many
of the tail-pieces are good and humorous,
but, as compared Avith the earlier works, they
are generally more laboured and less happy.
Little more remains to be told of Bewick's
life. He continued until a short time before

Bewick

459

Bewick

.his death to occupy his old shop in St.
^Nicholas Churchyard, where, by the way, it
.still exists (1885), with a tablet proclaiming
its history, and rejoicing in a window upon
which his name is scratched. In 1823 he
went to Edinburgh, where he made his only
sketch upon the stone (' The Cadger's Trot ').
In 1827 he was visited by the American
naturalist Audubon, who has left an in-
teresting account of his impressions (Orni-
thological Biography, 1835, iii. pp. 300 et
.seq.), and he came to London. But he was
old and in failing health ; and it is recorded
that when driven to the Regent's Park he
declined to alight in order to see the animals.
His last work, in addition to the never com-
pleted ' History of British Fishes ' already
referred to, was a large cut, intended to serve
as a cottage print of the kind familiar to his
boyhood. Progressing Avith this, a lean-ribbed
and worn-out old horse waiting patiently in
the rain for death, he was overtaken by the
illness to which he succumbed. Copies of
the block in its unfinished state were struck
off in 1832 by R. E. Bewick, and it was again
reprinted at Newcastle, in 1876, by Mr. Robert
Hobinson of Pilgrim Street.

Bewick died on 8 Nov. 1828, at his house,
19 West Street, Gateshead. He is buried
in Ovingham churchyard by the side of his .
wife, who had preceded him in February i
1826. His character seems to have been that
of a thoroughly upright and honourable man,
independent but unassuming, averse to dis-
play, very methodical, very industrious, and
devoted to his fireside, his own folk, and that
particular patch of earth which constituted
his world. In such scant glimpses as we get
•of him in letters and the recollections of
friends, it is chiefly under some of these
latter aspects. Now he is chatting to the
•country people in the market-place, or making
friends with some vagrant specimen of bird
or beast ; now throwing off a sketch at the
kitchen table to please the bairns, or working
diligently at the ' Birds ' in the winter even-
ings to the cheery sound of his beloved
Northumberland pipes.

As an engraver Bewick has been justly
styled the restorer of wood engraving in
England. It is to the impulse which it re-
ceived from his individual genius that its
revival as an art must be ascribed. To give
•an account of the special features of his
technique here would, however, be impossible.
But two points may be mentioned in special.
In the first place, he was among the earliest,
if not the earliest, to cut upon the end of
the wood instead of along it, as had been the
practice of the old plank or knife cutters ;
and, in the second, he was the inventor of

; what is technically known as ' white line ' in
I wood-engraving. Of this he may be allowed
to give his own definition. Speaking in the
I l Memoir/ p. 241, of the effect produced in a
i woodcut by plain parallel lines as opposed
j to cross lines, he goes on : ' This is very ap-
! parent when to a certainty the plain surface
of the wood will print as black as ink and
balls can make it, without any further labour
at all ; and it may easily be seen that the
thinnest strokes cut upon the plain surface
, will throw some light on the subject or
i design, and if these strokes are made wider
and deeper, it will receive more light ; and
if these strokes again are made still wider, or
of equal thickness to the black lines, the colour
these produce will be a grey : and the more
i the white strokes are thickened, the nearer
will they, in their varied shadings, approach
to white, and, if quite taken away, then a
perfect white is obtained/ Bewick, in short,
paid most attention, not to what he left, but
to what he cut away from the block. He
regarded himself as making a white design
upon a black block which was to produce a
black design upon white paper. To his know-
ledge of this method must be ascribed the
effect of his work, but to understand it
thoroughly some treatise such as Hamerton's
' Graphic Arts/ 1882, or Linton's < Practical
Hints on Wood Engraving/ 1879, should be
consulted. In the latter work the point is
very clearly and fully explained.

There are numerous portraits of Bewick.
Miss Bewick of Cherryburn (his great-niece)
has a picture of him when young, by a local
artist, George Gray. Then there is the en-
graving by Kidd in 1798, after Miss Kirkley.
There are also at least three well-known
portraits by James Ramsay. One of these,
that engraved by Burnet in 1817, is in the
Newcastle Natural History Society's Mu-
seum ; the National Portrait Gallery con-
tains another, dated 1823 ; and a third is
the little full-length, engraved by F. Bacon
in 1852, the original of which is in the pos-
session of Mr. R. S. Newall of Gateshead.
Besides these there is an excellent portrait
by Good of Berwick, showing Bewick in old
age, as well as a portrait by Nicholson,
belonging to Mr. T. Crawhall of Conder-
cum, and etched by Flameng in 1882 for the
Fine Arts Society. Nicholson also did another
picture, engraved by Ranson in 1816, and
there is a miniature by Murphy, engraved by
J. Summerfield. Lastly, there is E. H. Baily's
bust in the Newcastle Literary and Philoso-
phical Society's Library, which was engraved
in the ' Century Magazine ' for September
1882, and is regarded by those who knew
Bewick as an excellent likeness.

Bewick

460

Bewley

[The chief authorities for Bewick's life are :
Atkinson's Memoir in the Transactions of the Na-
tural History Society of Northumberland, &c., for
1831 ; Chatto's Treatise on AYood Engraving,
1839, ch. vii. ; Memoir of Thomas Bewick, written
by himself, 1862 ; Bell's Catalogue, 1851 ; Hugo's
Bewick Collector, 1866-8 (2 vols.) Little has
been added to these by later researches, although
much information not hitherto brought together
in one volume is to be found in D. C. Thomson's
Life and Works of Bewick, 1882. There is also
much appreciative criticism in the Notes prefixed
by Mr. F. G. Stephens to the Fine Art Society's
Bewick Catalogue of 1881 . It should be stated
that most of the above account is abridged from
an article by the present writer in the ' Century
Magazine ' for September 1882, sincerepublished
in the volume entitled ' Thomas Bewick and his
Pupils,' 1884.] A. D.

BEWICK, WILLIAM (1795-1866), por-
trait and historical painter, was born at
Darlington '20 Oct. 1795. His father was an
upholsterer, his mother a beautiful quakeress.
The surroundings in the staid and money-
making Durham town were not favourable
to art aspirations, and had it not been for an
aunt who lived near Barnard Castle, young
Bewick's gifts might have remained unde-
veloped. As it was, her store of legend and
her collection of curiosities stimulated his
imagination, and when he left school to enter
his father's business, it was decreed that he
should be a painter. He devoted all his
spare time to sketching and taking portraits,
gained some furtive instruction from wander-
ing artists, and by the time he was seventeen
had accumulated the orthodox portfolio of pro-
ductions. Then he drifted into oil-painting
under the auspices of an artistic jack-of-all-
trades named George Marks, and ultimately,
afire with enthusiasm for London and its
wider opportunities, started at twenty for the
metropolis, carrying with him (like Romney)
the slender savings of his pencil. He was
luckier than most youthful adventurers.
Haydon, whom he had learned to admire in
his northern home, received him gratuitously
as a pupil, and with the fortunes of that un-
fortunate man he became more or less identi-
fied. From 1817 to 1820 he was daily in
Haydon's studio. His master employed him
in making copies of the Elgin marbles for
Goethe, and inspired him with his own pas-
sion for the grandiose and historic. One of
Bewick's pictures, ' L'na in the Forest,' was
exhibited at Spring Gardens in 1820 ; in
1822, ; Jacob and Rachel,' a large composi-
tion which Haydon particularly admired, fol-
lowed it at the British Institution, and other
ambitious works were projected. His skill
as a copyist was remarkable, and he excelled
in reproducing Rembrandt. At Haydon's he

i met many contemporary literary celebrities,.
Wordsworth, Ugo Foscolo, Hazlitt, Shelley,
Keats, and others. He also visited Scott at
Abbotsford, and has left a delightful descrip-
tion of the yet * Great Unknown ' in the free-
dom of his own fireside.

In 1824—5 Bewick went back to Darling-
ton, where he found ready employment as a
portrait-painter. In 1826 Sir Thomas Law-
rence sent him to Rome to copy, among other
things, Michael Angelo's Prophets and Si-
byls in the Sistine" Chapel. These copies
were exhibited in 1840 at Bewick's house in
George Street, Hanover Square. He returned
to England in 1829, settling again in London.
In 1 839 and 1 840 he exhibited at the Academy.
Finally, his health failing, he retired to some-
property he possessed at Haughton-le-Skerne,
near Durham. He still continued to paint a.
little, and in 1843 took part in the West-
minster Hall cartoon competition, sending
up a ' Triumph of David.' The last twenty
years of his life were passed in comparative
seclusion. He died 8 June 1866. His artis-
tic promise was greater than his performance.
He is best known in his native county, and
his chief successes were as a copyist and
portrait-painter ; but his reminiscences of men

• and events, as given in his letters and auto-
biographic sketches, by their penetration,
vivacity, and graphic power, seem to indicate-
that he might have acquired a greater repu-
tation by the pen than by the pencil.

[Thomas Landseer's Life and Letters of Wil-
liam Bewit-k (artist), 1871.] A. D.

BEWLEY, WILLIAM (d. 1783), friend

| of Dr. Burney, was a native of Massinghani,

in Norfolk, where he practised medicine. He

i made for himself some scientific reputation,,

i and was a friend of Priestley, whom he once

visited at Birmingham. But it is through his

; friendship with Dr. Burney that his name has

been preserved. He is spoken of more than

once in Madame d'Arblay's l Memoirs of her

Father.' We are told that on account of the

simplicity of his life and the nature of his pur-

! suits he was known as * the philosopher of

• Massingham,' and that he was as remarkable
for his wit and conversational powers as for the
extent of his knowledge of science and litera-

1 ture. He died at Dr. Burney's house in St.
Martin's Street, Leicester Square, on 5 Sept.
1783. An obituary notice of him was written
by Dr. Burney ' for the Norwich newspaper,'
and is given in Madame d'Arblay's ' Me-
moirs.' It is here said that ' Mr. Bewley for
more than twenty years supplied the editor
of the " Monthly Review " with an examina-
tion of innumerable works in science and ar-
ticles of foreign literature, written with a

Bexfield

461

Bianconi

force, spirit, candour, and — when the subject
afforded opportunity— humour, not often
found in critical discussions.'

[Madame d'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Burney,
i. 105, 265, ii. 347; G-ent. Mag. for 1783, ii.
805.] T. W.

BEXFIELD, WILLIAM RICHARD

(1824-1853), musical composer, was born
at Norwich on 27 April 1824, entered the
cathedral choir at the age of seven, and
studied music under the organist, Dr. Buck, to
whom he was articled. He learnt the violin,
trumpet, trombone, and drum, but he ex-
celled as an organist when still quite young.
On the expiration of his articles he obtained
the post of organist at the parish church of
Boston, Lincolnshire, and on 16 Nov. 1846
took the degree of Mus.Bac. at Oxford, where
his name was entered at New College. His
degree exercise was a canon in five parts.
On the death of Dr. Crotch he became a
candidate for the professorial chair of music
at Oxford, but without success, probably on
account of his youth. In February 1848 he left
Boston, having obtained the post of organist at
St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, the competition for
which brought forward thirty-six candidates.
In the following year he prdceeded Mus.Doc.
at Cambridge, his name being entered at
Trinity College. In 1850 Dr. Bexfield married
Miss Mellington, of Boston, by whom he had
two children. Soon after his marriage he
wrote the oratorio by which his name is
best remembered, ' Israel Restored.' This
work was produced by the Norwich Choral
Society in October 1851, and was again per-
formed at the Norwich Festival on 22 Sept.
1852, when the solo parts were sung by
Madame Viardot, Misses Pyne, Dolby, and
Alleyne, and Messrs. Sims Reeves, Gardoni,
Lockey, Formes, Belletti, and Weiss. The
excellence of much of the music was at once
recognised; but the book was fatally dull,
and the whole work suffered from being
forced by a local clique into injudicious
rivalry with H. H. Pierson's ' Jerusalem,'
which was produced on the following day.
Bexfield's other published works are a set of
organ fugues, a set of six songs (words by
the composer), and a collection of anthems.
He died at 12 Monmouth Road, Bayswater,
on 28 Oct. 1853, too young to have "fulfilled
the expectation aroused by the talents he
displayed.

[Annual Register, 1853, p. 267 ; Gent. Mag.
for 1854, pt. i. pp. 102-3; Musical Directory,
1854 ; Grove's Diet, of Music, i. 239 ; Catalogue
of Oxford Graduates, 1851 ; Luard's Graduati
Cantabrigienses, 1760-1856 ; Musical Times,
Oct. 1852.] W. B. S.

BEXLEY, LORD.
THOMAS.]

[See VAXSITTABT,

BIANCONI, CHARLES (1786-1875),
promoter of the Irish car system in Ireland,
was born 24 Sept, 1786, at the village of Tre-
golo in Lombardy, not far from Como. His
father, a peasant-proprietor, owned a small
silk-mill. Carlo was brought up by a pro-
sperous uncle. At fifteen or sixteen he was
bound for eighteen months to a countryman,
whom he accompanied to Dublin, where he was
sent out to vend cheap prints. From Dublin
he was transferred to Waterford, and resolved
to start on his own account as an itinerant
vendor of prints with a capital of about 100Z.
which his father had given him on leaving
Italy. In his long pedestrian journeys he was
led to envy those of his own calling who could
afford to drive. In 1806 he opened as carver
and gilder a shop in Carrick-on-Suir. After a
removal to Waterford he settled at Clonmel,
where he added to his former business dealings
in bullion, which was in great demand by the
government for the payment of its continen-
tal subsidies. Every extension of business
deepened his sense of the need of better com-
munication. In July 1815 he started a one-
horse two-wheeled car to carry passengers,
goods, and the mail-bags, from and to Clon-
mel and Cahir, a distance of eight miles
with no public conveyance. The experiment
succeeded financially. The carriage-tax led
many persons to give up their jaunting-cars,
numbers of which were thus thrown upon
the market. Horses became cheap after the
peace of 1815. Bianconi was, thirty years
after he started his first car, conveying pas-
sengers and goods over 1,633 miles, and work-
ing daily 3,266 miles of road. Although he
started his cars as a boon to the humbler
classes, they were much used by others, and
to this commingling of classes Bianconi at-
tached great importance. He stated in 1856
that after the more remote parts of Ireland
had been opened up by his cars, calico, which
had previously cost 8d. or 9d. a yard, was sold
for 3d. and -Ld. As an employer Bianconi
was strict, but kindly and just. Merit al-
ways insured promotion, and pensions were
liberally given. He was able to boast late
in his career that the slightest injury had
never been done to his property, and that not
once had any of his cars been stopped, even
when conveying mails through disturbed
districts.

In 1826 Bianconi had given up his shop in
Clonmel, and in 1831 he received letters of
naturalisation from the Irish privy council.
A zealous Roman catholic and an ardent
liberal, he was a friend and adherent of

Bibby

462

Bibby

O'Connell. He took an active part in the
civic affairs of Clonmel, and was twice elected
mayor', in 1844 and 1845. The establishment
of railways in Ireland had then begun, and
Bianconi refused invitations to oppose any of
them, and took shares in some of them. Their
growth forced him between 1846 and 1865 to
discontinue running cars on 4,534 miles of
road, but during the same period he extended
his system over other 3,594 miles. In 1846
Bianconi purchased the estate of Longfield,
in Tipperary, near Cashel, in which he re-
sided till his death, and most of the fortune
which he had amassed was invested in the
purchase of Irish land. During the ensuing
famine-years he gave employment on his es-
tate to all who applied for it, and was other-
wise usefully beneficent. The passenger traffic
in 1864 had realised 27,731 L, and the mail
contracts paid 12,000/. Appointed in 1863
a deputy lieutenant, he began in 1865 to
withdraw from the great business which he
had created, disposing of it on liberal terms
to his agents and others employed in work-
ing it. The remainder of his life he passed
in improving his estates and in promoting
patriotic schemes. In the course of a visit to
Rome, where his only son, who married a
granddaughter of O'Connell, was appointed
chamberlain to the pope, he erected at his
sole cost the monument over O'Connell's
heart preserved in the church of the Irish
college. Bianconi died in September 1875, on
the verge of his ninetieth year. Of his three
children the only survivor was the daughter
who married Morgan John O'Connell, a
nephew of the Liberator, and became her
father's biographer.

[Charles Bianconi, a Biography, by his
daughter, Mrs. Morgan John O'Connell, 1878.]

F. E.

BIBBY, THOMAS (1799-1863), poeti-
cal writer, was a member of a respectable
family long settled in Kilkenny. A John
Bibby was portreeve or chief magistrate of
the corporation of Irishtown from 1691 till
1694.

Bibby commenced his education at the
grammar school of Kilkenny founded by the
first Duke of Ormonde (generally known by
the erroneous title of Kilkenny College), an
institution which gave letters to Swift, Con-
greve, Berkeley, and many other men of emi-
nence in their day. The head-master was, in
Bibby's time, the Rev. Andrew O'Callaghan,
of whom the young poet in after years always
spoke with affectionate respect. At a very
early age displaying a taste for classical lite-
rature, he entered Trinity College, Dublin,
and obtained a scholarship ; hence the sobri-

| quet of ' scholar Bibby,' which stuck to him
i through life. At the age of thirteen he ob-
tained the gold medal for science from among
a host of competitors — two hundred, it is said.
He soon became one of the best Greek students
! of his day. After the classics his greatest de-
! light was in the study of ancient and modern
! history. Save a single contribution to a local
newspaper, he seems to have published nothing
except two dramatic poems, ' Gerald of Kil-
dare,' 1854, and its sequel, ' Silken Thomas/
1859. His style was verbose, but clear. In
the blank verse there are some passages not
without spirit and beauty, and an address to<
his son, which prefaces the work last named,
exhibits a degree of pathos and delicate feel-
ing not often discovered. The notes display
an amazing amount of varied reading, and
of original if not eccentric thought. Bibby
lived completely alone. He was seldom seen
abroad in the daytime. His most intimate
friend and biographer, the editor of the ' Kil-
kenny Moderator/ never met him otherwise
than by moonlight, except twice. He is said,
however, for the last few years of his life to
have regularly attended the cathf of St.
Canice. Bibby had an eccentric ' > for

rats. He occupied but a single ' m his

house. All other rooms from a ,o cellar
were devoted to books, old chin* ,vhich had
the second place in his regard, f owebs, and
dust. He never permitted anybody else to
have access to these rooms. Many parcels of
books from London and Dublin v/ere found at
his death unopened, lying ju?t as they had
arrived in their cases, but stained and partially
rotten. Bibby, having an income of 300/. per
annum, was deemed by certair members of his
family incompetent to manage.his affairs, and
they shut him up in a private lunatic asylum
at Dublin ; but he was released by one or two
literary friends. He became almost indigent
towards the close of his lif<\ His manners,
in spite of his seclusion, were not morose.
He died, aged 46, on 7 Jan. 1863, after a
painful illness, at his house at St. Canice's
steps, an old prebendal residence formerly but
long ago connected with that cathedral. A
few days before his death he preferred a re-
quest to a literary friend that to avoid being
buried alive one leg should be amputated, and
his heart removed and replaced ; but upon a
remonstrance Bibby withdrew his petition,
requiring only that his death should be cer-
tainly determined. His brother, Samuel
Hale Bibby, who practised as a surgeon in
Green Street, Grosvenor. Square, was en-
dowed with much of. the literary taste of
Thomas without his eccentricity.

[Kilkenny Moderator, 10 and 14 Jan. 1863;.
G-ent. Mag. ccxiv. 248^ J. M.

Bibelesworth

463

Biber

BIBELESWORTH or BIBBES-
WORTH, WALTER DE (Jl. 1270), was
author of two French poems. One of these
consists of some French verses addressed to
LadyDyonisia de Mounchensy, composed with
the object of teaching her the language. This
poem is printed in Joseph Mayer's * Library
of National Antiquities/ i. 142, from two
manuscripts in the British Museum. There
is, however, another copy in the library of
All Souls' College, Oxford (MS. 182), which
differs considerably from the printed text,
both in the French verse and the accompany-
ing English gloss. Bibelesworth's other work
is a dialogue between the author and Henry
de Lacy, earl of Lincoln (1257-1312), on
the subject of the crusade. The earl had
taken the cross, but could not prevail upon
himself to leave a lady whom he loved, which
Bibelesworth endeavours to persuade him to
do. The occasion of its composition was the
expedition of Edward I, when prince, to the
Holy Land in 1270, in which Bibelesworth
took part, as appears from letters of protec-
tion granted to him in that year. This poem
is print- ' V Wright and Halliw ell's 'Reli-
quiae a ee,' i. 134.

Bi,_ /rthwas possessed of the manors

of Bibb; ,'th Hall in the parish of Kimp-
ton, Hen. flshire, and of Saling, Latton,
and Walth, A in Essex. He died probably
between 1277 and 1283, and was buried be-
fore St. Peter's altar in the church of Little
Dunmow. f

[Morant's Essex, ii. 410 ; Chauncy's Hertford-
shire, 415; Pat. Rolls 37 Ben. Ill, m. 12,
54 Hen. Ill, m. I5d; Charter Eoll 5 Edw. I,
n. 21.] j C. T. M.

BIBER, GEORGE EDWARD, LL.D.

(1801-1874), miscellaneous writer, was born
4 Sept. 1801, at Ludwigsburg, Wurtemberg.
After studying at the Lyceum there, where
his father was then professor, he entered the
university of Tubingen. He took there the
degree of Ph.D., and subsequently received
that of LL.D. from the university of Gottin-
gen. His father's influence as tutor to two
of the royal princesses caused him to be des-
tined for a diplomatic career, contrary to his
own inclinations. His share in the agitations
for German unity made it prudent for him to
quit Wiirtember^, first for Italy, and then
for the Grisons, where for several months he
concealed himself in a farmhouse. He ven-
tured out from the Grisons to Yverdun, where
he became a master in. one of the Pestalozzi
institutions. He afterwards published t Bei-
trag zur Biographie Heinrich Pestalozzi's,'
8vo, St. Gallen, 1827, and ' Henry Pesta-
lozzi and his Plan of Education/ 8vo, Lon-

don, 1831. In 1826 he accepted the offer of
a tutorship in England, and in 1830 he pub-
lished ' The Christian Minister and Family
Friend/ and ' Christian Education/ the sub-
stance of lectures delivered in 1828 and
1829. Biber became the head of a nourish-
ing classical school at Hampstead, and after-
wards at Coombe Wood. On his arrival in
England Biber had { no settled religious con-
victions/ but decided to join the church of
England. An act of parliament was ob-
tained for his naturalisation, and he was
ordained to the curacy of Ham in July 1839.
Soon afterwards Biber published his elabo-
rate work entitled l The Standard of Catholi-
city, or an Attempt to point out in a plain
Manner certain safe and leading Principles
amidst the conflicting Opinions by which the
Church is at present agitated/ 8vo, London,
1840 ; 2nd edition, 1844. In 1842 he pub-
lished his ' Catholicity v. Sibthorp/ 8vo, Lon-
don, called in a second edition ' The Catholi-
city of the Anglican Church vindicated,
and the alleged Catholicity of the Roman
Church disproved/ 8vo, London, 1844. In
1842 he was appointed to the new vicarage of
Holy Trinity, Roehampton, which had for-
merly been a hamlet of Putney, and laboured
here for thirty years. He took part in many
movements, like the establishment of the
National Club in 1845, of the Metropolitan
Church Union in 1849, and in 1850 of the
Society for the Revival of Convocation. He
was elected a member of the council of the
English Church Union in 1863, ' when he
took a leading part in the action of the union
in the Colenso case, but resigned his seat in
June 1864, on the ground of medievalist
tendencies and rationalistic sympathies in
the council.' He protested earnestly against
the disestablishment of the Irish church, and
sympathised with the Old Catholic movement
of Germany, with one of the leaders of which,
Dr. Michaelis, he carried on a Latin corre-
spondence ; this was afterwards published
as ' De Unit-ate Ecclesiae, et de Concilio (Ecu-
menico libero congregando Epistola;' an
English version was called, ' On the Unity
of the Church, 8vo, London, 1871. Biber at-
tended the Old Catholic congress at Cologne,
and he published a German sermon, 'Ein
Wort der Liebe und Hoffnung/ the English
version of which was entitled ' A Word of
Love and Hope, addressed to the Old Catho-
lics of Germany/ 8vo, London, 1872. Biber
was one of the principal writers in the ' Eng-
lish Review/ which took the place of the
' British Critic ' after the appearance of
No. XC. of < Tracts for the Times.' He also
contributed largely to the 'Churchman's
Magazine/ the ' Literary Churchman/ the

Biber

464

Biber

•' Church Review,' the 'Colonial Church
Chronicle/ the ' John Bull/ of which, for a
period of eight years, 1848-1856, he acted as
editor, and to the 'English Churchman.'
Early in 1872 Biber was presented by Lord
Chancellor Hatherley to the rectory of West
Allington, near Grantham. There Biber
died 19 Jan. 1874. He published, amongst
many other works, twenty-one ( Sermons for
Saints' Days/ 8vo, London, 1846 ; ' The
Seven Voices of the Spirit/ 8vo, London, 1857,
a commentary on the Apocalypse ; l Royalty
of Christ and the Church and Kingdom of
England/ 8vo, London, 1857 ; ' Twenty-four
Tales of the English Church/ 8vo, London,
1832 ' The Supremacy Question, or Justice to
the Church of England/ 8vo, London,1847, ex-
panded in the following year into ' The Royal

Supremacy over the Church, considered as to
its Origin and its Constitutional Limits/ 8v<
London, 1848 ; ' The Supremacy Questir
considered in its successive Phases, Theo
cratic, Imperial or Royal, Papal, and Popu
lar/ 8vo, London, 1865 ; ' Life of St. Paul/
8vo, London, 1849 ; ' A Plea for an Edition
of the Authorised Version of Holy Scripture/
8vo, London, 1857 ; l The Communion of the
Faithful essential to the Celebration of the
Holy Eucharist/ 8vo, London, 1863; and
1 The Veracity and Divine Authority of the
Pentateuch vindicated/ 8vo, London, 1863.
[Men of the Time, 1872 ; Crockford's Clerical
Directory, 1874; John Bull, 24 Jan. 1874;
Grrantham Journal, 24 Jan. 1874 ; English
Churchman and Clerical Journal, 22 and 29 Jan.
1874.] A. H. G-.

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

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