The history of the next five years is Mr Gladstone’s. The Irish Church abolished, he set to work with passionate good intention on the Irish land laws. The while he did so sedition took courage and flourished exceedingly, so that to pacify Ireland the constable went hand in hand with the legislator. The abolition of the Irish Church was followed by a coercion act, and the land act by suspension ofHabeas Corpus. Disraeli, who at first preferred retirement and the writing ofLothair, came forward from time to time to point the moral and predict the end of Mr Gladstone’s impulsive courses, which soon began to fret the confidence of his friends. Some unpleasant errors of conduct—the case of Sir R. Collier (afterwards Lord Monkswell,q.v.), the Ewelme rectory case,1the significant Odo Russell (Lord Ampthill) episode (to help the government out of a scrape the ambassador was accused of exceeding his instructions)—told yet more. Above all, many humiliating proofs that England was losing her place among the nations came out in these days, the discovery being then new and unendurable. To be brief, in less than four years the government had well-nigh worn out its own patience with its own errors, failures and distractions, and would gladly have gone to pieces when it was defeated on an Irish university bill. But Disraeli, having good constitutional reasons for declining office at the moment, could not allow this. Still gathering unpopularity, still offending, alarming, alienating, the government went on till 1874, suddenly dissolved parliament, and was signally beaten, the Liberal party breaking up. Like most of his political friends, Disraeli had no expectation of such a victory—little hope, indeed, of any distinct success. Yet when he went to Manchester on a brief political outing two years before, he was received with such acclaim as he had never known in his life. He was then sixty-eight years old, and this was his first full banquet of popularity. The elation and confidence drawn from the Manchester meetings were confirmed by every circumstance of the 1874 elections. But he was well aware of how much he owed to his opponents’ errors, seeing at the same time how safely he could lay his future course by them. He had always rejected the political economy of his time, and it was breaking down. He had always refused to accept the economist’s dictum without reference to other considerations than the turnover of trade; and even Manchester could pardon the refusal now. The national spirit, vaporized into a cosmopolitan mist, was fast condensing again under mortification and insult from abroad uncompensated by any appreciable percentage of cash profit. This was a changing England, and one that Disraeli could govern on terms of mutual satisfaction; but not if the reviving “spirit of the country” ran to extremes of self-assertion. At one of the great Manchester meetings he said, “Do not suppose, because I counsel firmness and decision at the right moment, that I am of that school of statesmen who are favourable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. I have resisted it during a large part of my life.”
But for the hubbub occasioned by the Public Worship Regulation Act, the first two years of the 1874 administration had no remarkable excitements till near the end of them. The Public Worship Act, introduced by the archbishop of Canterbury, was meant to restrain ritualism. Disraeli, who from first to last held to the Reformed Church as capable of dispensing social good as no other organization might, supported the Bill as “putting down ritualism”; spoke very vehemently; gave so much offence that at one time neither the bill nor the government seemed quite safe. For some time afterwards there was so little legislation of the kind called “enterprising” that even some friends of the government began to think it too tame; but at the end of the second year an announcement was made which put that fear to rest. The news that the khedive’s Suez CanalSuez Canal shares.shares had been bought by the government was received with boundless applause. It was a courageous thing to do; but it was not a Disraeli conception, nor did it originate in any government department. It was suggested from without at a moment when the possibility of ever acquiring the shares was passing away. On the morning of the 15th of November 1875, Mr Frederick Greenwood, then editor of thePall Mall Gazette, went to Lord Derby at the foreign office, informed him that the khedive’s shares were passing into the hands of a French syndicate, and urged arrest of the transaction by purchase for England. (The shares being private property their sale could not, of course, be forbidden.) Lord Derby thought there must be a mistake. He could not believe that bargaining of that kind could go on in Cairo without coming to the knowledge of the British consul there. He was answered that nevertheless it was going on. The difficulties of purchase by England were then arrayed by Lord Derby. They were more than one or two, and of course they had a formidable look, but so also had the alternative and the lost opportunity. One difficulty had already come into existence, and had to be met at once. Lord Derby had either to make direct inquiry of the khedive or to let the matter go. If he inquired, and there was no such negotiation, his question might be interpreted in a very troublesome way; moreover, we should put the idea of selling the shares into the khedive’s head, which would be unfortunate. “There’s my position, and now what do you say?” The answer given, Lord Derby drafted a telegram to the British consul-general at Cairo, and read it out. It instructed Colonel Stanton to go immediately to the khedive and put the question point blank. Meanwhile the prime minister would be seen, and Lord Derby’s visitor might call next day to hear the reply from Cairo. It is enough to add here that on receipt of the answer the purchase for England was taken up and went to a speedy conclusion.2
As if upon the impulse of this transaction, Disraeli opened the next session of parliament with a bill to confer upon the queen the title of empress of India—a measure which offendedthe instincts of many Englishmen, and, for the time, revived the prejudices against its author. More important was the revival of disturbances in European Turkey, which, in their outcome, were to fill the last chapter of Disraeli’s career. But for this interruption it is likely that he would have given much of his attention to Ireland, not because it was an attractive employment for his few remaining years, but because he saw with alarm the gathering troubles in that country. And his mind was strongly drawn in another direction. In a remarkable speech delivered in 1872, he spoke with great warmth of the slighting of the colonies, saying that “no minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this island.” However, nothing was done in fulfilment of this duty in the first two yearsEastern question.from 1874, and early in the third the famous Andrassy note, the Berlin memorandum, the Bashi-Bazouk atrocities, and the accumulative excitement thereby created in England, reopened the Eastern question with a vengeance. The policy which Disraeli’s government now took up may be truly called the national policy. Springing from the natural suggestions of self-defence against the march of a dangerous rivalry, it had the sanction of all British statesmanship for generations, backed by the consenting instinct of the people. It was quite unsentimental, being pro-Turkish or anti-Russian only as it became so in being pro-British. The statesmen by whom it was established and continued saw in Russia a power which, unless firmly kept within bounds, would dominate Europe; more particularly that it would undermine and supersede British authority in the East. And without nicely considering the desire of Russia to expand to the Mediterranean, the Pacific or in any other direction, they thought it one of their first duties to maintain their own Eastern empire; or, to put it another way, to contrive that Great Britain should be subject to Russian ascendancy (if ever), at the remotest period allowed by destiny. Such were the ideas on which England’s Russian policy was founded. In 1876 this policy revived as a matter of course in the cabinet, and as spontaneously, though not upon a first provocation, became popular almost to fury. And furiously popular it remained. But a strong opposing current of feeling, equally passionate, set in against the Turks; war began and lasted long; and as the agitation at home and the conflict abroad went on, certain of Disraeli’s colleagues, who were staunch enough at the beginning, gradually weakened. It is certainly true that Disraeli was prepared, in all senses of the word, to take strong measures against such an end to the war as the San Stefano treaty threatened. Rather than suffer that, he would have fought the Russians in alliance with the Turks, and had gone much farther in maturing a scheme of attack and defence than was known at the time or is commonly known now. That there was a master motive for this resolution may be taken for granted; and it is to be found in a belief that not to throw back the Russian advance then was to lose England’s last chance of postponing to a far future the predominance of a great rival power in the East. How much or how little judgment shows in that calculation, when viewed in the light of later days, we do not discuss. What countenance it had from his colleagues dropped away. At the end their voices were strong enough to insist upon the diplomatic action which at no point falls back on the sword; Lord Derby (foreign minister) being among the first to make a stand on that resolution, though he was not the first seceder from the government. Such diplomacy in such conditions is paralytic. It cannot speak thrice, with whatever affectation of boldness, without discovering its true character to trained ears; which should be remembered when Disraeli’s successes at Berlin are measured. It should be remembered that what with the known timidity of his colleagues, and what with the strength and violence of the Russian party in England, his achievement at Berlin was like the reclamation of butter from a dog’s mouth; as Prince Bismarck understood in acknowledging Disraeli’s gifts of statesmanship. It should also be remembered, when his Eastern policy in 1876-1878 is denounced as malign and a failure, that it was never carried out. Good or bad, ill or well calculated, effective existence was denied to it; and a man cannot be said to have failed in what he was never permitted to attempt. The nondescript course of action which began at the Constantinople conference and ended at Berlin was not of his direction until its few last days. It only marked at various stages the thwarting and suppression of his policy by colleagues who were haunted night and day by memories of the Crimean War, and not least, probably, by the fate of the statesmen who suffered for its blunders and their own. Disraeli also looked back to those blunders, and he was by no means insensible to the fate of fallen ministers. But just as he maintained at the time of the conflict, and after, that there would have been no Crimean War had not the British government convinced the tsar that it was in the hands of the peace party, so now he believed that a bold policy would prevent or limit war, and at the worst put off grave consequences which otherwise would make a rapid advance.
As if aware of much of this, the country was well content with Disraeli’s successes at Berlin, though sore on some points, he himself sharing the soreness. Yet there were great days for him after his return. At the Berlin conference he had established a formidable reputation; the popularity he enjoyed at home was affectionately enthusiastic; no minister had ever stood in more cordial relations with his sovereign; and his honours in every kind were his own achievement against unending disadvantage. But he was soon to suffer irretrievable defeat. A confused and unsatisfactory war in Afghanistan, troubles yet more unsatisfactory in South Africa, conspired with two or three years of commercial distress to invigorate “the swing of the pendulum” when he dissolved parliament in 1880. Dissolution the year before would have been wiser, but a certain pride forbade. The elections went heavily against him. He took the blow with composure, and sank easily into a comparative retirement. Yet he still watched affairs as a great party leader should, and from time to time figured vigorously in debate. Meanwhile he had another novel to sit down to—the poor though highly characteristicEndymion; which, to his great surprise and equal pleasure, was replaced on his table by a cheque for ten thousand pounds. Yet even this satisfaction had its tang of disappointment; for thoughEndymionwas not wholly written in his last days, it was in no respect the success thatLothairwas. This also he could bear. His description of his grandfather recurs to us: “A man of ardent character, sanguine, courageous and fortunate, with a temper which no disappointment could disturb.”
As earl of Beaconsfield (failing health had compelled him to take refuge in the House of Lords in 1876) Benjamin Disraeli died in his house in Curzon Street on the 19th of April 1881. The likelihood of his death was publicly known for some days before the event, and then the greatness of his popularity and its warmth were declared for the first time. No such demonstration of grief was expected even by those who grieved the most. He lies in Hughenden churchyard, in a rail-enclosed grave, with liberty for the turf to grow between him and the sky. Within the church is a marble tablet, placed there by his queen, with a generous inscription to his memory. The anniversary of his death has since been honoured in an unprecedented manner, the 19th of April being celebrated as “Primrose Day”—the primrose, for reasons impossible accurately to define, being popularly supposed to have been Disraeli’s favourite flower. Even among his friendsDeath and influence.in youth (Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, for example), and not improbably among the city men who wagered their money in irrecoverable loans to him on the chance of his success, there may have been some who compassed the thought of Benjamin Disraeli as prime minister and peer; but at no time could any fancy have imagined him remembered so enduringly as Lord Beaconsfield has been. It is possible that Sarah Disraeli (the Myra ofEndymion), or that “the most severe of critics but a perfect wife,” may have had such dreams—hardly that they could have occurred to any mind but a devoted woman’s. Disraeli’s life was a succession of surprises, but nonewas so great as that he should be remembered after death more widely, lastingly, respectfully, affectionately, than any other statesman in the long reign of Queen Victoria. While he lived he did not seem at all cut out for that distinction even as an Imperialist. Significant as was the common grief when he died, no such consequence could be inferred from it, and certainly not from the elections of 1880. It stands, however, this high distinction, and with it the thought that it would have been denied to him altogether had the “adventurer” and “mystery man” of the sixties died at the age of threescore years and ten. We have said that never till 1872 did he look upon the full cup of popularity. It might have been said that even at that time intrigue to get rid of him had yet to cease in his own party; and but a few years before, a man growing old, he was still in the lowest deeps of his disappointments and humiliations. How, then, could it be imagined that with six years of power from his seventieth year, the Jew “adventurer,” mysterious and theatrical to the last, should fill a greater space in the mind of England twenty years after death than Peel or Palmerston after five? Of course it can be explained; and when explained, we see that Disraeli’s good fortune in this respect is not due entirely to his own merits. His last years of power might have been followed by as long a period of more acceptable government than his own, to the effacement of his own from memory; but that did not happen. What did follow was a time of universal turbulence and suspicion, in which the pride of the nation was wounded again and again. To say “Majuba” and “Gordon” recalls its deepest hurts, but not all of them; and it may be that a pained and angry people, looking back, saw in the man whom they lately displaced more than they had ever seen before. From that time, at any rate, Disraeli has been acknowledged as the regenerator and representative of the Imperial idea in England. He has also been accused on the same grounds; and if the giver of good wine may be blamed for the guest who gets drunk on it, there is justice in the accusation. It is but a statement of fact, however, that Disraeli retains his hold upon the popular mind on this account mainly. The rekindling of the Imperial idea is understood as a timely act of revolt and redemption: of revolt against continuous humiliations deeply felt, redemption from the fate of nations obviously weak and suspected of timidity. It has been called rescue-work—deliverance from the dangers of invited aggression and a philosophical neglect of the means of defence. And its first achievement for the country (this is again a mere statement of fact) was the restoration of a much-damaged self-respect and the creation of a great defensive fleet not a day too soon for safety. So much for “the great heart of the people.” Meanwhile political students find to their satisfaction that he never courted popularity, and never practised the art of working for “quick returns” of sympathy or applause. As “adventurer,” he should have done so; yet he neglected the cultivation of that paying art for the wisdom that looks to the long future, and bears its fruit, perchance, when no one cares to remember who sowed the seed. So it is that to read some of his books and many of his speeches is to draw more respect and admiration from their pages than could have been found there originally. The student of his life understands that Disraeli’s claim to remembrance rests not only on the breadth of his views, his deep insight, his long foresight, but even more on the courage which allowed him to declare opinions supplied from those qualities when there was no visible likelihood of their justification by experience, and therefore when their natural fate was to be slighted. His judgments had to wait the event before they were absolved from ridicule or delivered from neglect. The event arrives; he is in his grave; but his reputation loses nothing by that. It gains by regret that death was beforehand with him.
“Adventurer,” as applied to Disraeli, was a mere term of abuse. “Mystery-man” had much of the same intention, but in a blameless though not in a happy sense it was true of him to the end of his days. Even to his friends, and to many near him, he remained mysterious to the last. It is impossible to doubt that some two or three, four or five perchance, were at home in his mind, being freely admitted there; but of partial admissions to its inner places there seem to have been few or none. Men who were long associated with him in affairs, and had much of his stinted companionship, have confessed that with every wish to understand his character they never succeeded. Sometimes they fancied they had got within the topping walls of the maze, and might hope to gain the point whence survey could be made of the whole; but as often they found themselves, in a moment, where they stood at last and at first—outside. His speeches carry us but a little way beyond the mental range; his novels rather baffle than instruct. It is commonly believed that Disraeli looked in the glass while describing Sidonia inConingsby. We group the following sentences from this description for a purpose that will be presently seen:—(1) “He was admired byCharacter.women, idolized by artists, received in all circles with great distinction, and appreciated for his intellect by the very few to whom he at all opened himself.” (2) “For, though affable and generous, it was impossible to penetrate him: though unreserved in his manners his frankness was limited to the surface. He observed everything, thought ever, but avoided serious discussion. If you pressed him for an opinion he took refuge in raillery, and threw out some paradox with which it was not easy to cope. The secret history of the world was Sidonia’s pastime. His great pleasure was to contrast the hidden motive with the public pretext of transactions.” (3) “He might have discovered a spring of happiness in susceptibilities of the heart; but this was a sealed fountain for Sidonia. In his organization there was a peculiar, perhaps a great deficiency; he was a man without affection. It would be hard to say that he had no heart, for he was susceptible of deep emotions; but not for individuals. Woman was to him a toy, man a machine.” These sentences are separately grouped here for the sake of suggesting that they will more truly illustrate Disraeli’s character if taken as follows:—The first as representing his most cherished social ambitions—in whatever degree achieved. The second group as faithfully and closely descriptive of himself; descriptive too of a character purposely cloaked. The third as much less simple; in part a mixture of truth with Byronic affectation, and for the rest (and more significantly), as intimating the resolute exercise of extraordinary powers of control over the promptings and passions by which so many capable ambitions have come to grief. So read, Sidonia and Benjamin Disraeli are brought into close resemblance by Disraeli himself; for what in this description is untrue to the suspected fundamentals of his character is true to his known foibles. But for a general interpretation of Lord Beaconsfield and his career none serves so well as that which Froude insists on most. He was thoroughly and unchangeably a Jew. At but one remove by birth from southern Europe and the East, he was an Englishman in nothing but his devotion to England and his solicitude for her honour and prosperity. It was not wholly by volition and design that his mind was strange to others and worked in absolute detachment. He had “none of the hereditary prepossessions of the native Englishman.” No such prepossessions disturbed his vision when it was bent upon the rising problems of the time, or rested on the machinery of government and the kind of men who worked it and their ways of working. The advantages of Sidonia’s intellect and temperament were largely his, in affairs, but not without their drawbacks. His pride in his knowledge of the English character was the pride of a student; and we may doubt if it ever occurred to him that there would have been less pride but more knowledge had he been an Englishman. It is certain that in shrouding his own character he checked the communication of others to himself, and so could continue to the end of his career the costly mistake of being theatrical in England. There was a great deal too (though little to his blame) in Lord Malmesbury’s observation that he was not only disliked in the House of Commons for his mysterious manner, but prejudiced by a pronounced foreign air and aspect. Lord Malmesbury does not put it quite as strongly as that, but he might have done so with truth. No Englishman could approach Disraeli without some immediate consciousness that he was in the presence of a foreigner.
Lord Beaconsfield has been praised for his integrity in money matters; the praise could have been spared—it does not rise high enough. It is also said to his honour that he “never struck at a little man,” and that was well; but it is explained as readily by pride and calculation as by magnanimity. A man of extraordinary coolness and self-control, his faults in every kind were faults of excess: it is the mark of them all. But whatever offence they gave, whatever mischief they did, was soon exhausted, and has long since been pardoned.
Authorities.—The writer’s personal knowledge is largely represented in the above article. Among the biographical literature available prior to the authoritativeLifethe following may be cited:—Lord Beaconsfield’s Preface to 1849 edition of Isaac D’Israeli’s works;Correspondence with his Sister, andHome Letters, edited by Ralph Disraeli; Samuel Smiles,Memoirs and Correspondence of John Murray; Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield, by F. Hitchman;Memoirby T.E. Kebbel;Memoirby J.A. Froude;Memoirby Harold Gorst; Sir William Fraser’sDisraeli and his Day; The Speeches of Lord Beaconsfield, edited by T.E. Kebbel. In 1904, however, the large collection of material for Lord Beaconsfield’s life, in the hands of his executors Lord Rowton and Lord Rothschild, was acquired byThe Times, and the task of preparing the biography was assigned to Mr W.F. Monypenny, an assistant editor ofThe Times(1894-1899), who was best known to the public as editor of the JohannesburgStarduring the crisis of 1899-1903.
Authorities.—The writer’s personal knowledge is largely represented in the above article. Among the biographical literature available prior to the authoritativeLifethe following may be cited:—Lord Beaconsfield’s Preface to 1849 edition of Isaac D’Israeli’s works;Correspondence with his Sister, andHome Letters, edited by Ralph Disraeli; Samuel Smiles,Memoirs and Correspondence of John Murray; Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield, by F. Hitchman;Memoirby T.E. Kebbel;Memoirby J.A. Froude;Memoirby Harold Gorst; Sir William Fraser’sDisraeli and his Day; The Speeches of Lord Beaconsfield, edited by T.E. Kebbel. In 1904, however, the large collection of material for Lord Beaconsfield’s life, in the hands of his executors Lord Rowton and Lord Rothschild, was acquired byThe Times, and the task of preparing the biography was assigned to Mr W.F. Monypenny, an assistant editor ofThe Times(1894-1899), who was best known to the public as editor of the JohannesburgStarduring the crisis of 1899-1903.
(F. G.)
1The crown had in 1871 appointed the Rev. W.W. Harvey (1810-1883), a Cambridge man, to the living of Ewelme, near Oxford, for which members of the Oxford house of convocation were alone eligible. Gladstone was charged with evading this limitation in allowing Harvey to qualify for the appointment by being formally admitted M.A. by incorporation.2For a detailed, if somewhat controversial, account of this affair, see Lucien Wolf’s article inThe Timesof December 26, 1905, and Mr Greenwood’s letters on the subject.
1The crown had in 1871 appointed the Rev. W.W. Harvey (1810-1883), a Cambridge man, to the living of Ewelme, near Oxford, for which members of the Oxford house of convocation were alone eligible. Gladstone was charged with evading this limitation in allowing Harvey to qualify for the appointment by being formally admitted M.A. by incorporation.
2For a detailed, if somewhat controversial, account of this affair, see Lucien Wolf’s article inThe Timesof December 26, 1905, and Mr Greenwood’s letters on the subject.
BEACONSFIELD,a town of Devon county, Tasmania, on the river Tamar, 28 m. direct N.W. of Launceston. Pop. (1901) 2658. From its port at Beauty Point, 3½ m. distant, with which it is connected by a steam tramway, communication is maintained with Georgetown and Launceston. It is the centre of the most important gold-field in the island.
BEACONSFIELD,a town of South Africa in Griqualand West, about 3 m. S.W. of Kimberley, of which it is practically a suburb, though possessing a separate municipality. Pop. (1904) 9378, of whom 2780 were whites. Beaconsfield was founded in 1870 near the famous Dutoitspan diamond mine. The land on which the town is built belongs to the De Beers Company. (SeeKimberley.)
BEACONSFIELD,a town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England. 23 m. W. by N. of London, on the main road to Oxford, and on the Great Central & Great Western joint railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 1570. It lies in a hilly well-wooded district above the valley of the small river Wye, a tributary of the Thames. The broad Oxford road forms its picturesque main street. It was formerly a posting station of importance, and had a considerable manufacture of ribbons. The Perpendicular church of St Mary and All Saints is the burial place of Edmund Burke (d. 1797), who lived at Gregories, or as he named it Butler’s Court, near the town. He would have taken his title from Beaconsfield had he survived to enter the peerage. A monument to his memory was erected in 1898. Edmund Waller the poet owned the property of Hall Barn, and died here in 1687. His tomb is in the churchyard. Benjamin Disraeli chose the title of earl of Beaconsfield in 1876, his wife having in 1868 received the title of Viscountess Beaconsfield. The opening of railway communication with London in 1906 resulted in a considerable accretion of residential population.
BEAD,a small globule or ball used in necklaces, and made of different materials, as metal, coral, diamond, amber, ivory, stone, pottery, glass, rock-crystal and seeds. The word is derived from the Middle Eng.bede, from the common Teutonic word for “to pray,” cf. Germanbetenand Englishbedesman, the meaning being transferred from “prayer” to the spherical bodies strung on a rosary and used in counting prayers. Beads have been made from remote antiquity, and are found in early Egyptian tombs; variegated glass beads, found in the ground in certain parts of Africa, as Ashantiland, and highly prized by the natives asaggry-beads, are supposed to be of Egyptian or Phoenician origin. Beads of the more expensive materials are strung in necklaces and worn as articles of personal adornment, while the cheaper kinds are employed for the decoration of women’s dress. Glass beads have long been used for purposes of barter with savage tribes, and are made in enormous numbers and varieties, especially in Venice, where the manufacture has existed from at least the 14th century. Glass, either transparent, or of opaque coloured enamel (smalti), or having complex patterns produced by the twisting of threads of coloured glass through a transparent body, is drawn out into long tubes, from which the beads are pinched off, and finished by being rotated with sand and ashes in heated cylinders.
In architecture, the term “bead” is given to a small cylindrical moulding, in classic work often cut into bead and reel.
BEADLE,alsoBedelorBedell(from A.S.bydel, frombeodan, to bid), originally a subordinate officer of a court or deliberative assembly, who summoned persons to appear and answer charges against them (see Du Cange,supra tit. Bedelli). As such, the beadle goes back to early Teutonic times; he was probably attached to the moot as its messenger or summoner, being under the direction of the reeve or constable of the leet. After the Norman Conquest, the beadle seems to have diminished in importance, becoming merely the crier in the manor and forest courts, and sometimes executing processes. He was also employed as the messenger of the parish, and thus became, to a certain extent, an ecclesiastical officer, but in reality acted more as a constable by keeping order in the church and churchyard during service. He also attended upon the clergy, the churchwardens and the vestry. He was appointed by the parishioners in vestry, and his wages were payable out of the church rate. From the Poor Law Act of 1601 till the act of 1834 by which poor-law administration was transferred to guardians, the beadle in England was an officer of much importance in his capacity of agent for the overseers. In all medieval universities the bedel was an officer who exercised various executive and spectacular functions (H. Rashdall,Hist. of Universities in the Middle Ages, i. 193). He still survives in many universities on the continent of Europe and in those of Oxford and Cambridge, but he is now shorn of much of his importance. At Oxford there are four bedels, representing the faculties of law, medicine, arts and divinity. Their duties are chiefly processional, the junior or sub-bedel being the official attendant on the vice-chancellor, before whom he bears a silver mace. At Cambridge there are two, termed esquire-bedels, who both walk before the vice-chancellor, bearing maces.
BEAK(early formsbekeandbecke, from Fr.bec, late Lat.beccus, supposed to be a Gaulish word; the Celticbecandbeq, however, are taken from the English), the horny bill of a bird, and so used of the horny ends of the mandibles of the octopus, the duck-billed platypus and other animals; hence the rostrum (q.v.) or ornamented prow of ancient war vessels. The term is also applied, in classic architecture, to the pendent fillet on the edge of the corona of a cornice, which serves as a drip, and prevents the rain from flowing inwards.
The slang use of “beak” for a magistrate or justice of the peace has not been satisfactorily explained. The earlier meaning, which lasted down to the beginning of the 19th century, was “watchman” or “constable.” According toSlang and its Analogues(J.S. Farmer and W.E. Henley, 1890), the first example of its later use is in the name of “the Blind Beak,” which was given to Henry Fielding’s half-brother, Sir John Fielding (about 1750). Thomas Harman, in his book on vagrants,Caveat or Warening for commen cursitors, Vulgarely called Vagabones, 1573, explainsharmans beckas “counstable,”harmanbeing the word for the stocks. Attempts have been made to connect “beak” in this connexion with the Old Englishbeag, a gold torque or collar, worn as a symbol of authority, but this could only be plausible on the assumption that “magistrate” was the earlier significance of the word.
BEAKER(Scottishbicker, Lat.bicarium, Ger.Becher, a drinking-bowl), a large wide-mouthed drinking-cup or laboratory vessel. SeeDrinking-Vessels.
BEALE, DOROTHEA(1831-1906), English schoolmistress, was born on the 21st of March 1831 in London, her father being a physician of good family and cultivated tastes. She had already shown a strong intellectual bent and considerable force of character when in 1848 she was one of the first to attend lectures at the newly opened Queen’s College for Ladies, London, and from 1849 to 1856 she herself took classes there. In 1857for a few months she became head teacher of the Clergy Daughters’ school at Casterton, Westmoreland, but narrow religious prejudices on the part of the governors led to her retirement. In 1858 she was appointed principal of the Ladies College at Cheltenham (opened 1854), then in very low water. Her tact and strenuousness, backed by able financial management, led to its success being thoroughly established by 1864, and as the college increased in numbers new buildings were erected from 1873 onwards. Under Miss Beale’s headship it grew into one of the great girls’ schools of the country, and its development and example played an important part in the revolution effected in regard to the higher education of women. Miss Beale retained her post till her death on the 9th of November 1906. Strongly religious by nature, broad-minded and keenly interested in all branches of culture, she exercised a far-reaching influence on her pupils.
HerLifewas written by Elizabeth Raikes (1908).
HerLifewas written by Elizabeth Raikes (1908).
BEAM(from the O. Eng.béam, cf. Ger.Baum, a tree, to which sense may be referred the use of “beam” as meaning the rood or crucifix, and the survival in certain names of trees, as hornbeam), a solid piece of timber, as a beam of a house, of a plough, a loom, or a balance. In the last case, from meaning simply the cross-bar of the balance, “beam” has come to be used of the whole, as in the expression “the king’s beam,” or “common beam,” which refers to the old English standard balance for wholesale goods, for several hundred years in the custody of the Grocers’ Company, London. As a nautical term, “beam” was transferred from the main cross-timbers to the side of the ship; thus “on the weather-beam” means “to windward,” and a ship is said to be “wide in the beam” when she is wide horizontally. The phrase “to be on one’s beam-ends,” denoting a position of extreme peril or helplessness, is borrowed from the position of a ship which has heeled over so far as to stand on the ends of her horizontal beams. The meaning of “beam” for shafts or rays of light comes apparently from the use of the word to translate the Latincolumna lucis, a pillar of light.
BEAN(a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger.Bohne), the seed of certain leguminous plants cultivated for food all over the world, and furnished chiefly by the generaVicia, Phaseolus, Dolichosand others. The common bean, in all its varieties, as cultivated in Britain and on the continents of Europe and America, is the produce ofVicia Faba. The French bean, kidney bean, or haricot, is the seed ofPhaseolus vulgaris; but in India several other species of this genus of plants are raised, and form no small portion of the diet of the inhabitants. Besides these there are numerous other pulses cultivated for the food both of man and domestic animals, to which the name bean is frequently given. The common bean is even more nutritious than wheat; and it contains a very high proportion of nitrogenous matter under the form of legumin, which amounts on an average to 24%. It is, however, a rather coarse food, and difficult of digestion, and is chiefly used to feed horses, for which it is admirably adapted. In England French beans are chiefly, almost exclusively, used in the green state; the whole pod being eaten as a table vegetable or prepared as a pickle. It is wholesome and nutritious; and in Holland and Germany the pods are preserved in salt by almost every family for winter and spring use. The green pods are cut across obliquely, most generally by a machine invented for the purpose, and salted in barrels. When wanted for use they are steeped in fresh water to remove the salt, and broiled or stewed they form an agreeable addition to the diet at a time when no other vegetable may be had.
The broad bean—Vicia Faba, orFaba vulgaris, as it is known by those botanists who regard the slight differences which distinguish it from the great majority of the species of the vetch genus (Vicia) as of generic importance—is an annual which has been cultivated fiom prehistoric times for its nutritious seeds.
The lake-dwellers of Switzerland, and northern Italy in the bronze age cultivated a small-fruited variety, and it was grown in ancient Egypt, though, according to Herodotus, regarded by the priests as unclean. The ancient Greeks called itκύαμος, the Latinsfaba, but there is no suggestion that the plant is a native of Europe. Alphonse de Candolle (Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 320) concludes that the bean was introduced into Europe probably by the western Aryans at the time of their earliest migrations. He suggests that its wild habitat was twofold some thousands of years ago, one of the centres being to the south of the Caspian, the other in the north of Africa, and that its area has long been in process of diminution and extinction. The nature of the plant favours this hypothesis, for its seed has no means of dispersing itself, and rodents or other animals can easily make prey of it; the struggle for existence which was going against this plant as against maize would have gradually isolated it and caused it to disappear, if man had not saved it by cultivation. It was introduced into China a little before the Christian era, later into Japan and more recently into India, though it has been suggested that in parts of the higher Himalayas its cultivation has survived from very ancient times. It is a plant which will flourish in all ordinary good garden soil. The seeds are sown about 4 in. apart, in drills 2½ ft. asunder for the smaller and 3 ft. for the larger sorts. The soil should, preferably, be a rather heavy loam, deeply worked and well enriched. For an early crop, seeds may be sown in November, and protected during winter in the same manner as early peas. An early crop may also be obtained by dibbling in the seeds in November, sheltering by a frame, and in February transplanting them to a warm border. Successional crops are obtained by sowing suitable varieties from January to the end of June. All the culture necessary is that the earth be drawn up about the stems. The plants are usually topped when the pods have set, as this not only removes the black aphides which often settle there, but is also found to promote the filling of the pods.
The following are some of the best sorts:—for early use, Early Mazagan, Long-pod, Marshall’s Early Prolific and Seville Long-pod; for late use, Carter’s Mammoth Long-pod and Broad Windsor.
The horse-bean is a variety—var.equina.
Cultivation of Field-bean.—Several varieties ofVicia Faba(e.g.the horse bean, the mazagan, the tick bean, the winter bean) are cultivated in the field for the sake both of the grain, which is used as food for live-stock, and of the haulm, which serves for either fodder or litter. They are best adapted for heavy soils such as clays or clayey loams. The time for sowing is from the end of January to the beginning of March, or in the case of winter beans from the end of September to the middle of November. The bean-crop is usually interposed between two crops of wheat or some other cereal. If spring beans are to be sown, the land after harvest is dressed with farmyard manure, which is then ploughed in. In January the soil is levelled with the harrows, and the seed, which should be hard and light brown in colour, is drilled in rows from 15 to 24 in. apart at the rate of from 2 to 2½ bushels to the acre and then harrowed in. The alternative is to “dibble” the seed in the furrow left by the autumn ploughing and cover it in with the harrows; or the land may be ridged with the double-breasted plough, manure deposited in the furrows and the seed sown broadcast, the ridges being then split back so as to cover both manure and seed. After the plant shows, horse-hoeing and hand-hoeing between the rows is carried on so long as the plant is small enough to suffer no injury therefrom. The routine of cultivation for winter beans hardly differs from that described except as regards the time of sowing.
Beans are cut when the leaf is fallen and the haulm is almost black either with the fagging hook or the reaping machine, though the stoutness of the stalks causes a severe strain on the latter implement. They are tied and stocked, and are so left for a considerable time before stacking. There is less fear of injury to the crop through damp than in the case of other cereals. Their value for feeding purposes increases in the stack, where they may remain for a year or more before threshing. Pea and bean weevils, both striped (Sitones lineatus) and spotted (Sitones crinitus), and the bean aphis (Aphis rumicis), are noted pests of the crop. Winter beans come to maturity earlier than the spring-sown varieties, and are therefore strong enough to resistthe attacks of the aphis by the end of June, when it begins its ravages. Field-beans yield from 25 to 35 bushels to the acre.
Phascolus vulgaris, the kidney, French or haricot bean, an annual, dwarf and bushy in growth, is widely cultivated in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical regions, but is nowhere known as a wild plant. It was long supposed to be of Indian origin, an idea which was disproved by Alphonse de Candolle, who sums up the facts bearing on its origin as follows:—Phaseolus vulgarishas not been long cultivated in India, the south-west of Asia and Egypt, and it is not certain that it was known in Europe before the discovery of America. At the latter epoch the number of varieties in European gardens suddenly increased, and all authors began to mention them. The majority of the species of the genus exist in South America, and seeds apparently belonging to the species in question have been found in Peruvian tombs of an uncertain date, intermixed with many species, all American. Hence it is probable that the plant is of South American origin.
It is a tender annual, and should be grown in a rich light loamy soil and a warm sheltered situation. The soil should be well enriched with hot-bed dung. The earliest crop may be sown by the end of March or beginning of April. If, however, the temperature of the soil is below 45°, the beans make but little progress. The main crops should be got in early in May; and a later sowing may be made early in July. The earlier plantings may be sown in small pots, and put in frames or houses, until they can be safely planted out-of-doors. A light covering of straw or some other simple shelter suffices to protect from late frosts. The seeds should be covered 1½ or 2 in. deep, the distance between the rows being about 2 ft., or for the dwarfest sorts 18 in., and that between plants from 4 to 6 in. The pods may be used as a green vegetable, in which case they should be gathered whilst they are so crisp as to be readily snapped in two when bent; but when the dry seeds are to be used the pods should be allowed to ripen. As the green pods are gathered others will continue to be formed in abundance, but if old seed-forming pods are allowed to remain the formation of young ones will be greatly checked. There are numerous varieties; among the best are Canadian Wonder, Canterbury and Black Negro.
Phaseolus multiflorus, scarlet runner, is nearly allied toP. vulgaris, of which it is sometimes regarded as a variety, but differs in its climbing habit. It is naturally perennial and has a thick fleshy root, but is grown in Great Britain as a tender annual. Its bright, generally scarlet flowers, arranged in long racemes, and the fact that it will flourish in any ordinary good garden soil, combine to make it a favourite garden plant. It is also of interest as being one of the few plants that twine in a direction contrary to the apparent motion of the sun. The seeds of the runner beans should be sown in an open plot,—the first sowing in May, another at the beginning of June, and a third about the middle of June. In the London market-gardens they are sown 8 to 12 in. apart, in 4 ft. rows if the soil is good. The twining tops are pinched or cut off when the plants are from 2 to 2½ ft. high, to save the expense of staking. It is better, however, in private gardens to have the rows standing separately, and to support the plants by stakes 6 or 7 ft. high and about a foot apart, the tops of the stakes being crossed about one-third down. If the weather is dry when the pods are forming abundantly, plenty of tepid water should be supplied to the plants. In training the shoots to their supports, they should be twined from right to left, contrary to the course of the sun, or they will not lay hold. By frequently picking the pods the plants are encouraged to form fresh blooms from which pods may be picked until the approach of frost.
The ordinary scarlet runner is most commonly grown, but there is a white-flowered variety which has also white seeds; this is very prolific and of excellent quality. Another variety called Painted Lady, with the flowers red and white, is very ornamental, but not so productive. Carter’s Champion is a large-podded productive variety.
Another speciesP. lunatus, the Lima bean, a tall biennial with a scimitar-shaped pod (whence the specific name) 2 to 3 in. long containing a few large seeds, is widely cultivated in the warmer parts of the world.
The young pods of another leguminous climbing herb,Dolichos Lablab, as well as the seeds, are widely used in the tropics, as we use the kidney bean. The plant is probably a native of tropical Africa, but is now generally cultivated in the tropics. The wordDolichosis of Greek origin, and was used by Theophrastus for the scarlet runner.
Another species,D. biflorus, is the horse gram, the seed of which is eaten by the poorer class of natives in India, and is also, as are the pods, a food for horses and cattle.
The Soy bean,Glycine hispida, was included by Linnaeus in the genusDolichos. It is extensively cultivated in China and Japan, chiefly for the pleasant-flavoured seed from which is prepared a piquant sauce. It is also widely grown in India, where the bean is eaten, while the plant forms a valuable fodder; it is cultivated for the latter purpose in the United States.
Other references to beans will be found under special headings, such asCalabar Bean,Locust-Tree. There are also several non-leguminous seeds to which the popular name bean is attached. Among these may be mentioned the sacred Egyptian or Pythagorean bean (Nelumbium speciosum), and the Ignatius bean (probablyStrychnos multiflora), a source of strychnine.
The ancient Greeks and Romans made use of beans in gathering the votes of the people, and for the election of magistrates. A white bean signified absolution, and a black one condemnation. Beans had a mysterious use in thelemuraliaandparentalia, where the master of the family, after washing his hands three times, threw black beans over his head nine times, reiterating the words “I redeem myself and my family by these beans.”
BEAN-FEAST,primarily an annual dinner given by an employer to his workpeople, and then colloquially any jollification. The phrase is variously derived. The most probable theory is that which connects it with the custom in France, and afterwards in Germany and England, of a feast on Twelfth Night, at which a cake with a bean buried in it was a great feature. The bean-king was he who had the good fortune to have the slice of cake in which was the bean. This choosing of a king or queen by a bean was formerly a common Christmas diversion at the English and Scottish courts, and in both English universities. This monarch was master of the revels like his congener the lord of misrule. A clue to his original functions is possibly found in the old popular belief that the weather for the ensuing twelve months was determined by the weather of the twelve days from Christmas to Twelfth Night, the weather of each particular month being prognosticated from each day. Thus the king of the bean of Twelfth Night may have originally reigned for the twelve days, his chief duty being the performance of magical ceremonies for ensuring good weather during the ensuing twelve months. Probably in him and the lord of misrule it is correct to find the lineal descendant of the old king of the Saturnalia, the real man who personated Saturn and, when the revels ceased, suffered a real death in his assumed character. Another but most improbable derivation for bean-feast connects it with M.E.bene“prayer,” “request,” the allusion being to the soliciting of alms towards the cost of their Twelfth Night dinner by the workpeople.