Authorities.—Original:—The correspondence of Becket and most of the contemporary biographies are collected by J.C. Robertson inMaterials for the History of Thomas Becket(7 vols., Rolls Series, 1875-1885). See also theVie de Saint Thomas, by Garníer de Pont Sainte Maxence (ed. Hippeau, Paris, 1859). For the chronology of the controversy see Eyton’sItinerary of Henry II.Modern:—Morris,Life and Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket(London, 1885); Lhuillier,Saint Thomas de Cantorbéry(2 vols., Paris, 1891-1892); J.C. Robertson,Becket(London, 1859); F.W. Maitland,Roman Canon Law in the Church of England, c. iv.; J.A. Froude in hisShort Studies, vol. iv., and Freeman in hisHistorical Essays(1871), give noteworthy but conflicting appreciations.
Authorities.—Original:—The correspondence of Becket and most of the contemporary biographies are collected by J.C. Robertson inMaterials for the History of Thomas Becket(7 vols., Rolls Series, 1875-1885). See also theVie de Saint Thomas, by Garníer de Pont Sainte Maxence (ed. Hippeau, Paris, 1859). For the chronology of the controversy see Eyton’sItinerary of Henry II.
Modern:—Morris,Life and Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket(London, 1885); Lhuillier,Saint Thomas de Cantorbéry(2 vols., Paris, 1891-1892); J.C. Robertson,Becket(London, 1859); F.W. Maitland,Roman Canon Law in the Church of England, c. iv.; J.A. Froude in hisShort Studies, vol. iv., and Freeman in hisHistorical Essays(1871), give noteworthy but conflicting appreciations.
(H. W. C. D.)
BECKFORD, WILLIAM(1760-1844), English author, son of Alderman William Beckford (1709-1770), was born on the 1st of October 1760. His father was lord mayor of London in 1762 and again in 1769; he was a famous supporter of John Wilkes, and on his monument in the Guildhall were afterwards inscribed the words of his manly and outspoken reproof to George III. on the occasion of the City of London address to the king in 1770. At the age of eleven young Beckford inherited a princely fortune from his father. He married Lady Margaret Gordon in 1783, and spent his brief married life in Switzerland. After his wife’s death (1786) he travelled in Spain and Portugal, and wrote hisPortuguese Letters(published 1834, 1835), which rank with his best work. He afterwards returned to England, and after selling his old house, Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, began to build a magnificent residence there, on which he expended in about eighteen years the sum of £273,000. His eccentricities, together with the strict seclusion in which he lived, gave rise to scandal, probably unjustified. In 1822 he sold his house, together with its splendid library and pictures, to John Farquhar, and soon after one of the towers, 260 ft. high, fell, destroying part of the villa in the ruins. Beckford erected another lofty structure on Lansdowne Hill, near Bath, where he continued to reside till his death in 1844. His first work,Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters(1780) was a slight, sarcasticjeu d’esprit. In 1782 he wrote in French his oriental romance,The History of the Caliph Vathek, which appeared in English, translated by the Rev. Samuel Henley, in 1786 and has taken its place as one of the finest productions of luxuriant imagination.
Beckford’s wealth and large expenditure, his position as a collector and patron of letters (he bought Gibbon’s library at Lausanne), his literary industry, and his reputation as author ofVathek, make him an interesting figure in literary history. He had a seat in parliament from 1784 to 1793, and again from 1806 to 1820. He left two daughters, the eldest of whom was married to the 10th duke of Hamilton.
Cyrus Redding’sMemoir(1859) is the only full biography, but prolix; see Dr R. Garnett’s introduction to his edition ofVathek(1893).
Cyrus Redding’sMemoir(1859) is the only full biography, but prolix; see Dr R. Garnett’s introduction to his edition ofVathek(1893).
BECKINGTON(orBekynton),THOMAS(c.1390-1465), English statesman and prelate, was born at Beckington in Somerset, and was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford. Having entered the church he held many ecclesiastical appointments, and became dean of the Arches in 1423; then devoting his time to secular affairs he was sent on an embassy to Calais in 1439, and to John IV., count of Armagnac, in 1442. At this time Beckington was acting as secretary to Henry VI., and soon after his return in 1443 he was appointed lord privy seal and bishop of Bath and Wells. The bishop erected many buildings in Wells, and died there on the 14th of January 1465. The most important results of Beckington’s missions to France were one Latin journal, written by himself, referring to the embassy to Calais; and another, written by one of his attendants, relating to the journey to Armagnac.
Beckington’s own journal is published in theProceedings of the Privy Council, vol. v., edited by N.H. Nicolas (1835); and the other journal in theOfficial Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, edited by G. Williams for the Rolls Series (1872), which contains many interesting letters. This latter journal has been translated into English by N.H. Nicolas (1828). See G.G. Perry, “Bishop Beckington and Henry VI.,” in theEnglish Historical Review(1894).
Beckington’s own journal is published in theProceedings of the Privy Council, vol. v., edited by N.H. Nicolas (1835); and the other journal in theOfficial Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton, edited by G. Williams for the Rolls Series (1872), which contains many interesting letters. This latter journal has been translated into English by N.H. Nicolas (1828). See G.G. Perry, “Bishop Beckington and Henry VI.,” in theEnglish Historical Review(1894).
BECKMANN, JOHANN(1739-1811), German scientific author, was born on the 4th of June 1739 at Hoya in Hanover, where his father was postmaster and receiver of taxes. He was educated at Stade and the university of Göttingen. The death of his mother in 1762 having deprived him of his means of support, he went in 1763 on the invitation of the pastor of the Lutheran community, Anton Friedrich Büsching, the founder of the modern historic statistical method of geography, to teach natural history in the Lutheran academy, St Petersburg. This office he relinquished in 1765, and travelled in Denmark and Sweden, where he studied the methods of working the mines, and made the acquaintance of Linnaeus at Upsala. In 1766 he was appointed extraordinary professor of philosophy at Göttingen. There he lectured on political and domestic economy with such success that in 1770 he was appointed ordinary professor. He was in the habit of taking his students into the workshops, that they might acquire a practical as well as a theoretical knowledge of different processes and handicrafts. While thus engaged he determined to trace the history and describe the existing condition of each of the arts and sciences on which he was lecturing, being perhaps incited by theBibliothecaeof Albrecht von Haller. But even Beckmann’s industry and ardour were unable to overtake the amount of study necessary for this task. He therefore confined his attention to several practical arts and trades; and to these labours we owe hisBeiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen(1780-1805), translated into English as theHistory of Inventions—a work in which he relates the origin, history and recent condition of the various machines, utensils, &c., employed in trade and for domestic purposes. This work entitles Beckmann to be regarded as the founder of scientific technology, a term which he was the first to use in 1772. In 1772 Beckmann was elected a member of the Royal Society of Göttingen, and he contributed valuable scientific dissertations to its proceedings until 1783, when he withdrew from all further share in its work. He died on the 3rd of February 1811. Other important works of Beckmann areEntwurf einer allgemeinen Technologie(1806);Anleitung zur Handelswissenschaft(1789);Vorbereitung zur Warenkunde(1795-1800);Beiträge zur Ökonomie, Technologie, Polizei- und, Kameralwissenschaft(1777-1791).
BECKWITH, JAMES CARROLL(1852- ), American portrait-painter, was born at Hannibal, Missouri, on the 23rd of September 1852. He studied in the National Academy of Design, New York City, of which he afterwards became a member, and in Paris (1873-1878) under Carolus Duran. Returning to the United States in 1878, he gradually became a prominent figure in American art. He took an active part in the formation of the Fine Arts Society, and was president of the National Free Art League, which attempted to secure the repeal of the American duty on works of art. Among his portraits are those of W.M. Chase (1882), of Miss Jordan (1883), of Mark Twain, T.A. Janvier, General Schofield and William Walton. He decorated one of the domes of the Manufactures Building at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.
BECKWITH, SIR THOMAS SYDNEY(1772-1831), British general, was the son of Major-General John Beckwith, who was colonel of the 20th regiment (Lancashire Fusiliers) in the charge at Minden. In 1791 he entered the 71st regiment (then commanded by Colonel David Baird), in which he served in India and elsewhere until 1800, when he obtained a company in Colonel Coote Manningham’s experimental regiment of riflemen, shortly afterwards numbered as the 95th Rifles and now called the Rifle Brigade. In 1802 he was promoted major, and in the followingyear lieutenant-colonel. Beckwith was one of the favourite officers of Sir John Moore in the famous camp of Shorncliffe, and aided that general in the training of the troops which afterwards became the Light Division. In 1806 he served in the expedition to Hanover, and in 1807 in that which captured Copenhagen. In 1806 the Rifles were present at Vimeira, and in the campaign of Sir John Moore they bore the brunt of the rearguard fighting. Beckwith took part in the great march of Craufurd to the field of Talavera, in the advanced guard fights on the Coa in 1810 and in the campaign in Portugal. On the formation of the Light Division he was given a brigade command in it. After the brilliant action of Sabugal, Beckwith had to retire for a time from active service, but the Rifles and the brigade he had trained and commanded added to their fame on every subsequent battlefield. In 1812 he went to Canada as assistant quartermaster-general, and he took part in the war against the United States. In 1814 he became major-general, and in 1815 was created K.C.B. In 1827 he was made colonel commandant of the Rifle Brigade. He went to India as commander-in-chief at Bombay in 1829, and was promoted lieutenant-general in the following year. He died on the 15th of January 1831 at Mahableshwar.
His elder brother, SirGeorge Beckwith(1753-1823), distinguished himself as a regimental officer in the American War of Independence, and served subsequently in high administrative posts and in numerous successful military operations in the West Indies during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He was made a K.B. for his capture of Martinique in 1809, and attained the full rank of general in 1814. Sir George Beckwith commanded the forces in Ireland, 1816-1820. He died in London on the 20th of March 1823.
Their nephew, Major-GeneralJohn Charles Beckwith(1789-1862), joined the 50th regiment in 1803, exchanging in 1804 into the 95th Rifles, with which regiment he served in the Peninsular campaigns of 1808-10. He was subsequently employed on the staff of the Light Division, and he was repeatedly mentioned in despatches, becoming in 1814 a brevet-major, and after the battle of Waterloo (in which he lost a leg) lieutenant-colonel and C.B. In 1820 he left active service. Seven years later an accident drew his attention to the Waldenses, whose past history and present condition influenced him so strongly that he settled in the valleys of Piedmont. The rest of his life was spent in the self-imposed task of educating the Waldenses, for whom he established and maintained a large number of schools, and in reviving the earlier faith of the people. In 1848 King Charles Albert made him a knight of the order of St Maurice and St Lazarus. He was promoted colonel in the British army in 1837 and major-general in 1846. He died on the 19th of July 1862 at La Torre, Piedmont.
BECKX, PIERRE JEAN(1795-1887), general of the Society of Jesus, was born at Sichem in Belgium on the 8th of February 1795, and entered the novitiate of the order at Hildesheim in 1819. His first important post was as procurator for the province of Austria, 1847; next year he became rector of the Jesuit college at Louvain, and, after serving as secretary to the provincials of Belgium and Austria, was elected head of the order in 1853. His tenure of office was marked by an increased zeal for missions in Protestant lands, and by the removal of the society’s headquarters from Rome to Fiesole near Florence in 1870. His chief literary work was the often-translatedMonth of Mary(Vienna, 1843). He retired in September 1883, being succeeded by Anthony M. Anderledy, a Swiss, who had seen service in the United States. He died at Rome on the 4th of March 1887.
BECQUE, HENRY FRANÇOIS(1837-1899), French dramatist, was born on the 9th of April 1837 in Paris. He wrote the book of an operaSardanapalein imitation of Lord Byron for the music of M. Victorin Joncières in 1867, but his first important work,Michel Pauper, appeared in 1870. The importance of this sombre drama was first realized when it was revived at the Odéon in 1886.Les Corbeaux(1882) established Becque’s position as an innovator, and in 1885 he produced his most successful play,La Parisienne. Becque produced little during the last years of his life, but his disciples carried on the tradition he had created. He died in May 1899.
See hisQuerelles littéraires(1890), andSouvenirs d’un auteur dramatique(1895), consisting chiefly of reprinted articles in which he does not spare his opponents. HisThéâtre complet(3 vols., 1899) includesL’Enfant prodigue(Vaudeville Theatre, 6th of Nov. 1868);Michel Pauper(Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, 17th of June 1870);L’Enlèvement(Vaudeville, 18th of Nov. 1871);La Navette(Gymnase, 15th of Nov. 1878);Les Honnêtes Femmes(Gymnase, 1st of Jan. 1880);Les Corbeaux(Comédie Française, 14th of Sept. 1882);La Parisienne(Théâtre de la Renaissance, 7th of Feb. 1885).
See hisQuerelles littéraires(1890), andSouvenirs d’un auteur dramatique(1895), consisting chiefly of reprinted articles in which he does not spare his opponents. HisThéâtre complet(3 vols., 1899) includesL’Enfant prodigue(Vaudeville Theatre, 6th of Nov. 1868);Michel Pauper(Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, 17th of June 1870);L’Enlèvement(Vaudeville, 18th of Nov. 1871);La Navette(Gymnase, 15th of Nov. 1878);Les Honnêtes Femmes(Gymnase, 1st of Jan. 1880);Les Corbeaux(Comédie Française, 14th of Sept. 1882);La Parisienne(Théâtre de la Renaissance, 7th of Feb. 1885).
BÉCQUER, GUSTAVO ADOLFO(1836-1870), Spanish poet and romance-writer, was born at Seville on the 17th of February 1836. Left an orphan at an early age, he was educated by his godmother, refused to adopt any profession, and drifted to Madrid, where he obtained a small post in the civil service. He was dismissed for carelessness, became an incorrigible Bohemian, and earned a precarious living by translating foreign novels; he died in great poverty at Madrid on the 22nd of December 1870. His works were published posthumously in 1873. In such prose tales asEl Rayo de LunaandLa Mujer de piedra, Bécquer is manifestly influenced by Hoffmann, and as a poet he has analogies with Heine. He dwells in a fairyland of his own, crooning a weird elfin music which has no parallel in Spanish; his work is unfinished and unequal, but it is singularly free from the rhetoric characteristic of his native Andalusia, and its lyrical ardour is of a beautiful sweetness and sincerity.
BECQUEREL,the name of a French family, several members of which have been distinguished in chemical and physical research.
Antoine César Becquerel(1788-1878), was born at Châtillon sur Loing on the 8th of March 1788. After passing through the École Polytechnique he becameingénieur-officierin 1808, and saw active service with the imperial troops in Spain from 1810 to 1812, and again in France in 1814. He then resigned from the army and devoted the rest of his life to scientific investigation. His earliest work was mineralogical in character, but he soon turned his attention to the study of electricity and especially of electrochemistry. In 1837 he received the Copley medal from the Royal Society “for his various memoirs on electricity, and particularly for those on the production of metallic sulphurets and sulphur by the long-continued action of electricity of very low tension,” which it was hoped would lead to increased knowledge of the “recomposition of crystallized bodies, and the processes which may have been employed by nature in the production of such bodies in the mineral kingdom.” In biological chemistry he worked at the problems of animal heat and at the phenomena accompanying the growth of plants, and he also devoted much time to meteorological questions and observations. He was a prolific writer, his books includingTraité d’électricité et du magnétisme(1834-1840),Traité de physique dans ses rapports avec la chimie(1842),Éléments de l’électro-chimie(1843),Traité complet du magnétisme(1845),Éléments de physique terrestre et de météorologie(1847), andDes climats et de l’influence qu’exercent les sols boisés et déboisés(1853). He died on the 18th of January 1878 in Paris, where from 1837 he had been professor of physics at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle.
His son,Alexandre Edmond Becquerel(1820-1891), was born in Paris on the 24th of March 1820, and was in turn his pupil, assistant and successor at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle; he was also appointed professor at the short-lived Agronomic Institute at Versailles in 1849, and in 1853 received the chair of physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. Edmond Becquerel was associated with his father in much of his work, but he himself paid special attention to the study of light, investigating the photochemical effects and spectroscopic characters of solar radiation and the electric light, and the phenomena of phosphorescence, particularly as displayed by the sulphides and by compounds of uranium. It was in connexion with these latter inquiries that he devised his phosphoroscope, an apparatus which enabled the interval between exposure to the source of light and observation of the resulting effects tobe varied at will and accurately measured. He published in 1867-1868 a treatise in two volumes onLa Lumière, ses causes et ses effets. He also investigated the diamagnetic and paramagnetic properties of substances; and was keenly interested in the phenomena of electrochemical decomposition, accumulating much evidence in favour of Faraday’s law and proposing a modified statement of it which was intended to cover certain apparent exceptions. He died in Paris on the 11th of May 1891.
Antoine Henri Becquerel(1852-1908), son of the last-named, who succeeded to his chair at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in 1892, was born in Paris on the 15th of December 1852, studied at the École Polytechnique, where he was appointed a professor in 1895, and in 1875 entered the departmentdes ponts et chaussées, of which in 1894 he becameingénieur en chef. He was distinguished as the discoverer of radioactivity, having found in 1896 that uranium at ordinary temperatures emits an invisible radiation which in many respects resembles Röntgen rays, and can affect a photographic plate after passing through thin plates of metal. For his researches in this department he was in 1903 awarded a Nobel prize jointly with Pierre Curie. He also engaged in work on magnetism, the polarization of light, phosphorescence and the absorption of light in crystals. He died at Croisic in Brittany on the 25th of August 1908.
BED(a common Teutonic word, cf. GermanBett, probably connected with the Indo-European rootbhodh, seen in the Lat.fodere, to dig; so “a dug-out place” for safe resting, or in the same sense as a garden “bed”), a general term for a resting or sleeping place for men and animals, and in particular for the article of household furniture for that object, and so used by analogy in other senses, involving a supporting surface or layer. The accompaniments of a domestic bed (bedding, coverlets, etc.) have naturally varied considerably in different times, and its form and decoration and social associations have considerable historical interest. The Egyptians had high bedsteads which were ascended by steps, with bolsters or pillows, and curtains to hang round. Often there was a head-rest as well, semi-cylindrical and made of stone, wood or metal. Assyrians, Medes and Persians had beds of a similar kind, and frequently decorated their furniture with inlays orappliquésof metal, mother-of-pearl and ivory. The oldest account of a bedstead is probably that of Ulysses which Homer describes him as making in his own house, but he also mentions the inlaying of the woodwork of beds with gold, silver and ivory. The Greek bed had a wooden frame, with a board at the head and bands of hide laced across, upon which skins were placed. At a later period the bedstead was often veneered with expensive woods; sometimes it was of solid ivory veneered with tortoise-shell and with silver feet; often it was of bronze. The pillows and coverings also became more costly and beautiful; the most celebrated places for their manufacture were Miletus, Corinth and Carthage. Folding beds, too, appear in the vase paintings. The Roman mattresses were stuffed with reeds, hay, wool or feathers; the last was used towards the end of the Republic, when custom demanded luxury. Small cushions were placed at the head and sometimes at the back. The bedsteads were high and could only be ascended by the help of steps. They were often arranged for two persons, and had a board or railing at the back as well as the raised portion at the head. The counterpanes were sometimes very costly, generally purple embroidered with figures in gold; and rich hangings fell to the ground masking the front. The bedsteads themselves were often of bronze inlaid with silver, and Elagabalus, like some modern Indian princes, had one of solid silver. In the walls of some of the houses at Pompeii bed niches are found which were probably closed by curtains or sliding partitions. The marriage bed,lectus genialis, was much decorated, and was placed in the atrium opposite the door. A low pallet-bed used for sick persons was known asscimpodium. Other forms of couch were calledlectus, but were not beds in the modern sense of the word except thelectus funebris, on which the body of a dead person lay in state for seven days, clad in a toga and rich garments, and surrounded by flowers and foliage. This bed rested on ivory legs, over which purple blankets embroidered with gold were spread, and was placed in the atrium with the foot to the door and with a pan of incense by its side. The ancient Germans lay on the floor on beds of leaves covered with skins, or in a kind of shallow chest filled with leaves and moss. In the early middle ages they laid carpets on the floor or on a bench against the wall, placed upon them mattresses stuffed with feathers, wool or hair, and used skins as a covering. They appear to have generally lain naked in bed, wrapping themselves in the large linen sheets which were stretched over the cushions. In the 13th century luxury increased, and bedsteads were made of wood much decorated with inlaid, carved and painted ornament. They also used folding beds, which served as couches by day and had cushions covered with silk laid upon leather. At night a linen sheet was spread and pillows placed, while silk-covered skins served as coverlets. Curtains were hung from the ceiling or from an iron arm projecting from the wall. The Carolingian MSS. show metal bedsteads much higher at the head than at the feet, and this shape continued in use till the 13th century in France, many cushions being added to raise the body to a sloping position. In the 12th-century MSS. the bedsteads appear much richer, with inlays, carving and painting, and with embroidered coverlets and mattresses in harmony. Curtains were hung above the bed, and a small hanging lamp is often shown. In the 14th century the woodwork became of less importance, being generally entirely covered by hangings of rich materials. Silk, velvet and even cloth of gold were much used. Inventories from the beginning of the 14th century give details of these hangings lined with fur and richly embroidered. Then it was that the tester bed made its first appearance, the tester being slung from the ceiling or fastened to the walls, a form which developed later into a room within a room, shut in by double curtains, sometimes even so as to exclude all draughts. The space between bed and wall was called theruelle, and very intimate friends were received there. In the 15th century beds became very large, reaching to 7 or 8 ft. by 6 or 7 ft. Viollet-le-Duc says that the mattresses were filled with pea-shucks or straw—neither wool nor horsehair is mentioned—but feathers also were used. At this time great personages were in the habit of carrying most of their property about with them, including beds and bed-hangings, and for this reason the bedsteads were for the most part mere frameworks to be covered up; but about the beginning of the 16th century bedsteads were made lighter and more decorative, since the lords remained in the same place for longer periods. In the museum at Nancy is a fine bedstead of this period which belonged to Antoine de Lorraine. It has a carved head and foot as well as the uprights which support the tester. Another is in the Musée Cluny ascribed to Pierre de Gondi, very architectural in design, with a bracketed cornice, and turned and carved posts; at the head figures of warriors watch the sleeper. Louis XIV. had an enormous number of sumptuous beds, as many as 413 being described in the inventories of his palaces. Some of them had embroideries enriched with pearls, and figures on a silver or golden ground. The carving was the work of Proux or Caffieri, and the gilding by La Baronnière. The great bed at Versailles had crimson velvet curtains on which “The Triumph of Venus” was embroidered. So much gold was used that the velvet scarcely showed. Under the influence of Madame de Maintenon “The Sacrifice of Abraham,” which is now on the tester, replaced “The Triumph of Venus.” In the 17th century, which has been called “the century of magnificent beds,” the styleà la duchesse, with tester and curtains only at the head, replaced the more enclosed beds in France, though they lasted much longer in England. In the 18th century feather pillows were first used as coverings in Germany, which in the fashions of the bed and the curious etiquette connected with the bedchamber followed France for the most part. The beds wereà la duchesse, but in France itself there was great variety both of name and shape—thelit à alcove, lit d’ange, which had no columns, but a suspended tester with curtains drawn back,lit à l’Anglaise, which looked like a high sofa by day,lit en baldaquin, with the tester fixed against the wall,lit à couronnewith a tester shaped like a crown, a style which appeared under Louis XVI., and was fashionable under the Restoration and Louis Philippe, andlit à l’impériale, which had a curved tester, are a few of their varieties. Thelit en baldaquinof Napoleon I. is still at Fontainebleau, and the Garde Meuble contains several richly carved beds of a more modern date. The custom of the “bed of justice” upon which the king of France reclined when he was present in parliament, the princes being seated, the great officials standing, and the lesser officials kneeling, was held to denote the royal power even more than the throne. Louis XI. is credited with its first use, and the custom lasted till the end of the monarchy. From the habit of using this bed to hear petitions, &c., came the usage of thegrand lit, which was provided wherever the king stayed, called alsolit de parementorlit de parade, rather later. Upon this bed the dead king lay in state. The beds of the king and queen were saluted by the courtiers as if they were altars, and none approached them even when there was no railing to prevent it. These railings were apparently placed for other than ceremonial reasons originally, and in the accounts of several castles in the 15th century mention is made of a railing to keep dogs from the bed. In thechambre de parade, where the ceremonial bed was placed, certain persons, such as ambassadors or great lords, whom it was desired to honour, were received in a more intimate fashion than the crowd of courtiers. Thepetit leverwas held in the bedroom itself, thegrand leverin thechambre de parade. At Versailles women received their friends in their beds, both before and after childbirth, during periods of mourning, and even directly after marriage—in fact in any circumstances which were thought deserving of congratulation or condolence. During the 17th century this curious custom became general, perhaps to avoid the tiresome details of etiquette. Portable beds were used in high society in France till the end of theancien régime. The earliest of which mention has been found belonged to Charles the Bold (seeMemoirsof Philippe de Comines). They had curtains over a light framework, and were in their way as fine as the stationary beds. Iron beds appear in the 18th century; the advertisements recommend them as free from the insects which sometimes infested wooden bedsteads, but one is mentioned in the inventory of the furniture of the castle of Nerac in 1569, “un lit de fer et de cuivre, avec quatre petites colonnes de laiton, ensemble quatre satyres de laiton, quatre petits vases de laiton pour mettre sur les colonnes; dedans le dit lit il y a la figure d’Olopherne ensemble de Judith, qui sont d’albâtre.” In Scotland, Brittany and Holland the closed bed with sliding or folding shutters has persisted till our own day, and in England—where beds were commonly quite simple in form—the four-poster, with tester and curtains all round, was the usual citizen’s bed till the middle of the 19th century. Many fine examples exist of 17th-century carved oak bedsteads, some of which have found their way into museums. The later forms, in which mahogany was usually the wood employed, are much less architectural in design. Some exceedingly elegant mahogany bedsteads were designed by Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, and there are signs that English taste is returning to the wooden bedstead in a lighter and less monumental form.
(J. P.-B.)
BED,in geology, a term for certain kinds of rock usually found to be arranged in more or less distinct layers; these are the beds of rock or strata. Normally, the bedding of rocks is horizontal or very nearly so; when the upper and lower surfaces of a bed are parallel, the bedding is said to be regular; if it is thickest at one point and thins away thence in every direction, the bedding is lenticular. Beds may be thick (50 ft. or more) or so thin as to be like sheets of paper,e.g.paper shales, such thin beds being often termed layers or laminae; intermediate regular varieties may be called flags, flagstones or tilestones. In fine-grained rocks the bedding is usually thinner and more regular than in coarser rocks, such as sandstones and grits. Bedding is confined to rocks which have been formed under water or by the agency of wind; these are the “stratified” rocks.
The deposition of rock material by moving water is not as a rule uniform, slight changes in the velocity produce an immediate change in the size of the particles deposited upon a given area; thus a coarse sand layer may be succeeded by a finer sand or a mud, or two sandy layers may be separated by a thin layer of muddy shale. Bedding is most often induced by a change in the nature of the contiguous strata; thus a sandstone is followed by a shale or vice versa—changes which may be due to the varying volume or velocity of a current. Or the nature of the deposit may be influenced by chemical actions, whereby we get beds of rock-salt or gypsum between beds of marl. Or again, organic activities may influence the deposit, beds of coal may succeed layers of shale, iron-stone may lie between limestones or clays, a layer of large fossils or of flints may determine a bedding plane in massive limestones. Flaky minerals like mica frequently assist in the formation of bedding planes; and the pressure of superincumbent strata upon earlier formed deposits has no doubt often produced a tendency in the particles to arrange themselves normal to the direction of pressure, thus causing the rock to split more readily along the same direction.
Where rapidly-moving currents of water (or air) are transporting or depositing sand, &c., the bedding is generally not horizontal, but inclined more or less steeply; this brings about the formation of what is variously called “cross-bedding,” “diagonal bedding”, “current bedding” or improperly “false-bedding.” Igneous materials, when deposited through the agency of water or air, exhibit bedding, but no true stratification is seen in igneous rocks that have solidified after cooling, although in granites and similar rocks the process of weathering frequently produces an appearance resembling this structure. Miners not infrequently describe a bed of rock as a “vein,” if it is one that has some economic value,e.g.a “vein of coal or ironstone.”
(J. A. H.)
BEDARESI, YEDAIAH(1270-1340), Jewish poet, physician and philosopher of Provence. His most successful work was an ethical treatise,Behinath ‘Olam(Examination of the World), a didactic poem in thirty-seven short sections. The work is still very popular. It was translated into English by Tobias Goodman.
BÉDARIEUX,a town of southern France, in the department of Hérault, on the Orb, 27 m. N.N.W. of Béziers by rail. Pop. (1906) 5594. The town has a 16th-century church, a board of trade arbitration, a chamber of arts and manufactures, a communal college and a school of drawing. Bédarieux was at one time a notable manufacturing centre. Its cloth-weaving industry, carried on under a special royal privilege from the end of the 17th century to the Revolution, employed in 1789 as many as 5000 workmen, while some thousand more were occupied in wool and cotton spinning, &c. In spite of the introduction of modern machinery from England, the industries of the place declined, mainly owing to the loss of the trade with the Levant; but of late years they have somewhat revived, owing partly to the opening up of coal mines in the neighbourhood. Besides cloth factories and wool-spinning mills, there are now numerous tanneries and leather-dressing works. There is some trade in timber, wool and agricultural produce.
BEDDGELERT(“Gelert’s grave”), a village in Carnarvonshire, North Wales, at the foot of Snowdon. The tradition of Gelert, Llewelyn’s hound, being buried there is old in Wales; and common to it and India is the legend of a dog (or ichneumon) saving a child from a beast of prey (or reptile), and being killed by the child’s father under the delusion that the animal had slain the infant. The English poet, W.R. Spencer, has versified the tale of Llewelyn, king of Wales, leaving Gelert and the baby prince at home, returning to find Gelert stained with the blood of a wolf, and killing the hound because he thought his child was slain. Sir W. Jones, the Welsh philologist and linguist, gives the Indian equivalent (Lord Teignmouth’sLife of Jones, ed. Rev. S.C. Wilkes, editor’s supplement). A Brahmin, leaving home, left his daughter in charge of an ichneumon, which he had long cherished. A black snake came up and was killed by the ichneumon, mistakenly killed, in its turn, by the Brahmin onhis coming back. Another version is the medieval romance inThe Seven Wise Masters of Rome. In the edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde it is told by “the first master”—a knight had one son, a greyhound and a falcon; the knight went to a tourney, a snake attacked the son, the falcon roused the hound, which killed the serpent, lay down by the cradle, and was killed by the knight, who discovered his error, like Llewelyn, and similarly repented (Villon Society, British Museum reprint, by Gomme and Wheatley).
On the west of Beddgelert is Moel Hebog (Bare-hill of the falcon), a hiding-place of Owen Glendower. Here, in 1784, was found a brass Roman shield. Near is the famous Aberglaslyn Pass, dividing Carnarvon and Merioneth. In the centre is Cadair Rhys Goch o’r Eryri, a rock named as the chair of Rhys Goch, a bard contemporary with Glendower (died traditionally, 1429). Not far hence passed the Roman road from Uriconium to Segontium (seeCarnarvon).
BEDDOES, THOMAS(1760-1808), English physician and scientific writer, was born at Shiffnall in Shropshire on the 13th of April 1760. After being educated at Bridgnorth grammar school and at Pembroke College, Oxford, he studied medicine in London under John Sheldon (1752-1808). In 1784 he published a translation of L. Spallanzani’sDissertations on Natural History, and in 1785 produced a translation, with original notes, of T.O. Bergman’sEssays on Elective Attractions. He took his degree of doctor of medicine at Oxford in 1786, and, after visiting Paris, where he became acquainted with Lavoisier, was appointed reader in chemistry at Oxford University in 1788. His lectures attracted large and appreciative audiences; but his sympathy with the French Revolution exciting a clamour against him, he resigned his readership in 1792. In the following year he publishedObservations on the Nature of Demonstrative Evidence, and theHistory of Isaac Jenkins, a story which powerfully exhibits the evils of drunkenness, and of which 40,000 copies are reported to have been sold. About the same time he began to work at his project for the establishment of a “Pneumatic Institution” for treating disease by the inhalation of different gases. In this he was assisted by Richard Lovell Edgeworth, whose daughter, Anna, became his wife in 1794. In 1798 the institution was established at Clifton, its first superintendent being Humphry Davy, who investigated the properties of nitrous oxide in its laboratory. The original aim of the institution was gradually abandoned; it became an ordinary sick-hospital, and was relinquished by its projector in the year before his death, which occurred on the 24th of December 1808. Beddoes was a man of great powers and wide acquirements, which he directed to noble and philanthropic purposes. He strove to effect social good by popularizing medical knowledge, a work for which his vivid imagination and glowing eloquence eminently fitted him. Besides the writings mentioned above, he was the author ofPolitical Pamphlets(1795-1797), a popularEssay on Consumption(1799), which won the admiration of Kant, anEssay on Fever(1807), andHygeia, or Essays Moral and Medical(1807). He also edited John Brown’sElements of Medicine(1795), andContributions to Physical and Medical Knowledge, principally from the West of England(1799).
A life of Beddoes by Dr John E. Stock was published in 1810.
A life of Beddoes by Dr John E. Stock was published in 1810.
BEDDOES, THOMAS LOVELL(1803-1849), English dramatist and poet, son of the physician, Thomas Beddoes, was born at Clifton on the 20th of July 1803. His mother was a sister of Maria Edgeworth, the novelist. He was sent to Bath grammar school and then to the Charterhouse. At school he wrote a good deal of verse and a novel in imitation of Fielding. In 1820 he was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, and in his first year publishedThe Improvisatore, afterwards carefully suppressed, and in 1822The Bride’s Tragedy, which showed him as the disciple of the later Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. The play found a small circle of admirers, and procured for Beddoes the friendship of Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). Beddoes retired to Southampton to read for his degree, and there Procter introduced him to a young lawyer, Thomas Forbes Kelsall, with whom he became very intimate, and who became his biographer and editor. At this time he composed the dramatic fragments ofThe Second BrotherandTorrismond. Unfortunately he lacked the power of constructing a plot, and seemed to suffer from a constitutional inability to finish anything. Beddoes was one of the first outside the limited circle of Shelley’s own friends to recognize Shelley’s genius, and he was certainly one of the earliest imitators of his lyrical method. In the summer of 1824 he was summoned to Florence by the illness of his mother, but she died before he arrived. He remained some time in Italy, and met Mrs Shelley and Walter Savage Landor before he returned to England. In 1825 he took his degree at Oxford, and in that year he began what he calls (Letters, p. 68) “a very Gothic styled tragedy” with “a jewel of a name.” This work was completed in 1829 as the fantastic and incoherent drama,Death’s Jest Book or The Fool’s Tragedy; but he continued to revise it until his death, and it was only published posthumously. On leaving Oxford he decided to study anatomy and physiology, not, however, without some hope that his studies might, by increasing his knowledge of the human mechanism, further his efforts as a dramatist. In the autumn of 1825 he entered on his studies at Göttingen, where he remained for four years. In 1829 he removed to Würzburg, and in 1832 obtained his doctorate in medicine, but his intimate association with democratic and republican leaders in Germany and Switzerland forced him to leave Bavaria without receiving his diploma. He settled in Zürich, where he practised for some time as a physician, and was even elected to be professor of comparative anatomy at the university, but the authorities refused to ratify his appointment because of his revolutionary views. He frequently contributed political poems and articles to German and Swiss papers, but none of his German work has been identified. The years at Zürich seem to have been the happiest of his life, but in 1839 the anti-liberal riots in the town rendered it unsafe for him, and early in the next year he had to escape secretly. From this time he had no settled home, though he stored his books at Baden in Aargau. His long residence in Germany was only broken by visits to England in 1828 to take his master of arts degree, in 1835, in 1842 and for some months in 1846. He had adopted German thought and manners to such an extent that he hardly felt at home in England; and his study of the German language, which he had begun in 1825, had almost weaned him from his mother-tongue; he was, as he says in a letter, “a non-conductor of friendship”; and it is not surprising that his old friends found him much changed and eccentric. In 1847 he returned to Frankfort, where he lived with a baker called Degen, to whom he became much attached, and whom he persuaded to become an actor. He took Degen with him to Zürich, where he chartered the theatre for one night to give his friend a chance of playing Hotspur. The two separated at Basel, and in a fit of dejection (May 1848) Beddoes tried to bleed himself to death. He was taken to the hospital, and wrote to his friends in England that he had had a fall from horseback. His leg was amputated, and he was in a fair way to recovery when, on the first day he was allowed to leave the hospital, he took curare, from the effects of which he died on the 26th of January 1849. His MSS. he left in the charge of his friend Kelsall.
In one of his letters to Kelsall Beddoes wrote:—“I am convinced the man who is to awaken the drama must be a bold, trampling fellow—no creeper into worm-holes—no reviser even—however good. These reanimations are vampire cold. Such ghosts as Marloe, Webster, &c., are better dramatists, better poets, I dare say, than any contemporaries of ours—but they are ghosts—the worm is in their pages” (Letters, p. 50). In spite of this wise judgment, Beddoes was himself a “creeper into worm-holes,” a close imitator of Marston and of Cyril Tourneur, especially in their familiar handling of the phenomena of death, and in the remoteness from ordinary life of the passions portrayed. In his blank verse he caught to a certain degree the manner of his Jacobean models, and his verse abounds in beautiful imagery, but hisDeath’s Jest Bookis only finished in the sense of having five acts completed; it remains a bizarreproduction which appeals to few minds, and to them rather for the occasional excellence of the poetry than as an entire composition. His lyrics show the influence of Shelley as well as the study of 17th-century models, but they are by no means mere imitations, and some of them, like the “Dirge for Wolfram” (“If thou wilt ease thy heart”), and “Dream Pedlary” (“If there were dreams to sell”), are among the most exquisite of 19th-century lyrics.
Kelsall published Beddoes’ great work,Death’s Jest Book: or, The Fool’s Tragedy, in 1850. The drama is based on the story that a certain Duke Boleslaus of Münsterberg was stabbed by his court-fool, the “Isbrand” of the play (see C.F. Floegel,Geschichte der Hofnarren, Leipzig, 1789, pp. 297 et seq.). He followed this in 1851 withPoems of the late Thomas Lovell Beddoes, to which a memoir was prefixed. The two volumes were printed together (1851) with the title ofPoems, Posthumous and Collected. All these volumes are very rare. Kelsall bequeathed the Beddoes MSS. to Robert Browning, with a note stating the real history of Beddoes’ illness and death, which was kept back out of consideration for his relatives. Browning is reported to have said that if he were ever Professor of Poetry his first lecture would be on Beddoes, “a forgotten Oxford poet.” Mr Edmund Gosse obtained permission to use the documents from Browning, and edited a fuller selection of thePoetical Works(2 vols., 1890) for the “Temple Library,” supplying a full account of his life. He also edited theLetters of Thomas Lovell Beddoes(1894), containing a selection from his correspondence, which is full of gaiety and contains much amusing literary criticism. See also the edition of Beddoes by Ramsay Colles in the “Muses’ Library” (1906).
Kelsall published Beddoes’ great work,Death’s Jest Book: or, The Fool’s Tragedy, in 1850. The drama is based on the story that a certain Duke Boleslaus of Münsterberg was stabbed by his court-fool, the “Isbrand” of the play (see C.F. Floegel,Geschichte der Hofnarren, Leipzig, 1789, pp. 297 et seq.). He followed this in 1851 withPoems of the late Thomas Lovell Beddoes, to which a memoir was prefixed. The two volumes were printed together (1851) with the title ofPoems, Posthumous and Collected. All these volumes are very rare. Kelsall bequeathed the Beddoes MSS. to Robert Browning, with a note stating the real history of Beddoes’ illness and death, which was kept back out of consideration for his relatives. Browning is reported to have said that if he were ever Professor of Poetry his first lecture would be on Beddoes, “a forgotten Oxford poet.” Mr Edmund Gosse obtained permission to use the documents from Browning, and edited a fuller selection of thePoetical Works(2 vols., 1890) for the “Temple Library,” supplying a full account of his life. He also edited theLetters of Thomas Lovell Beddoes(1894), containing a selection from his correspondence, which is full of gaiety and contains much amusing literary criticism. See also the edition of Beddoes by Ramsay Colles in the “Muses’ Library” (1906).
BEDE,Beda, orBæda(672 or 673-735), English historian and theologian. Of Bæda, commonly called “the Venerable Bede,” almost all that we know is contained in the short autobiographical notice which he has appended to hisEcclesiastical History:—“Thus much concerning the ecclesiastical history of Britain, and especially of the race of the English, I, Baeda, a servant of Christ and priest of the monastery of the blessed apostles St Peter and St Paul, which is at Wearmouth and at Jarrow, have with the Lord’s help composed, so far as I could gather it, either from ancient documents, or from the tradition of the elders, or from my own knowledge. I was born in the territory of the said monastery, and at the age of seven I was, by the care of my relations, given to the reverend Abbot Benedict (Biscop), and afterwards to Ceolfrid, to be educated. From that time I have spent the whole of my life within that monastery devoting all my pains to the study of the scriptures; and amid the observance of monastic discipline, and the daily charge of singing in the church, it has ever been my delight to learn or teach or write. In my nineteenth year I was admitted to the diaconate, in my thirtieth to the priesthood, both by the hands of the most reverend Bishop John (of Hexham), and at the bidding of Abbot Ceolfrid. From the time of my admission to the priesthood to my (present) fifty-ninth year, I have endeavoured, for my own use and that of my brethren, to make brief notes upon the Holy Scripture, either out of the works of the venerable fathers, or in conformity with their meaning and interpretation.” Then follows a list of his works, so far as, at that date, they had been composed. As theEcclesiastical Historywas written in 731, we obtain the following dates for the principal events in Bede’s uneventful life:—birth, 672-673; entrance into the monastery, 679-680; ordination as deacon, 691-692; as priest, 702-703.
The monastery of Wearmouth was founded by Benedict Biscop in 674, and that of Jarrow in 681-682. Though some 5 or 6 m. apart, they were intended to form a single monastery under a single abbot, and so Bede speaks of them in the passage given above. It is with Jarrow that Bede is chiefly associated, though no doubt from the close connexion of the two localities he would often be at Wearmouth. The preface to the prose life of Cuthbert proves that he had stayed at Lindisfarne prior to 721, while the Epistle to Egbert shows that he had visited him at York in 733. The tradition that he went to Rome in obedience to a summons from Pope Sergius is contradicted by his own words above, and by his total silence as to any such visit. In the passage cited above, “monastic discipline, the daily charge of singing in the church, learning, teaching, writing,” in other words devotion and study make up the even tenor of Bede’s tranquil life. Anecdotes have been preserved which illustrate his piety both in early and in later years; of his studies the best monument is to be found in his writings. As a little boy he would take his place among the pupils of the monastic school, though he would soon pass to the ranks of the teachers, and the fact that he was ordained deacon at nineteen, below the canonical age, shows that he was regarded as remarkable both for learning and goodness.
For the rest, it is in his works that we must chiefly seek to know him. They fall into three main classes: (1) scientific; (2) historical; (3) theological. The first class comprises works on grammar, one on natural phenomena, and two on chronology and the calendar. These last were inspired largely by the Paschal Question, which was the subject of such bitter controversy between the Roman and Celtic Churches in the 7th century. They form a natural transition to the second class. In this the chief place is held by theEcclesiastical History of the English Nation. By this Bede has justly earned the title of the Father of English History. By this almost exclusively he is known to others than professed students. It is indeed one of the most valuable and one of the most beautiful of historical works. Bede has the artist’s instinct of proportion, the artist’s sense for the picturesque and the pathetic. His style too, modelled largely, in the present writer’s opinion, on that of Gregory in theDialogues, is limpid and unaffected. And though it would be wrong to call Bede a critical historian in the modern sense of the words, he shows a very unusual conscientiousness in collecting his information from the best available sources, and in distinguishing between what he believed to be fact, and what he regarded only as rumour or tradition. Other historical works of Bede are theHistory of the Abbots(of Wearmouth and Jarrow), and the lives of Cuthbert in verse and prose. TheHistory of the Abbotsand the prose life of Cuthbert were based on earlier works which still survive. In the case of the latter it cannot honestly be said that Bede has improved on his original. In theHistory of the Abbotshe was much nearer to the facts, and could make additions out of his own personal knowledge. The Epistle to Egbert, though not historical in form, may be mentioned here, because of the valuable information which it contains as to the state of the Northumbrian Church, on which the disorders and revolutions of the Northumbrian kingdom had told with disastrous effect. It is probably the latest of Bede’s extant works, as it was written in November 734, only six months before his death. The third or theological class of writings consists mainly of commentaries, or of works which, if not commentaries in name, are so in fact. They are based largely on the works of the four great Latin Fathers, SS. Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose and Gregory; though Bede’s reading is very far from being limited to these. His method is largely allegorical. For the text of scripture he uses both the Latin versions, the Itala and the Vulgate, often comparing them together. But he certainly knew Greek, and possibly some Hebrew. Indeed it may be said that his works, scientific, historical and theological, practically sum up all the learning of western Europe in his time, which he thus made available for his countrymen. And not for them only; for in the school of York, founded by his pupil Archbishop Ecgberht, was trained Alcuin (Ealhwine) the initiator under Charles the Great of the Frankish schools, which did so much for learning on the continent. And though Bede makes no pretensions to originality, least of all in his theological works, freely taking what he needed, and (what is very rare in medieval writers) acknowledging what he took, “out of the works of the venerable Fathers,” still everything he wrote is informed and impressed with his own special character and temper. His earnest yet sober piety, his humility, his gentleness, appear in almost every line. “In history and in science, as well as in theology, he is before all things the Christian thinker and student.” (Plummer’sBede, i. 2.) Yet it should not be forgotten that Bede could hardly have done what he did without the noble library of books collected by Benedict Biscop.
Several quaint and beautiful legends have been handed down as to the origin of the epithet of “venerable” generally attached to his name. Probably it is a mere survival of a title commonly given to priests in his day. It has given rise to a false idea thathe lived to a great age; some medieval authorities making him ninety when he died. But he was not born before 672 (see above); and though the date of his death has been disputed, the traditional year, 735, is most probably correct. This would make him at most sixty-three. Of his death a most touching and beautiful account has been preserved in a contemporary letter. His last hours were spent, like the rest of his life, in devotion and teaching, his latest work being to dictate, amid ever-increasing bodily weakness, a translation into the vernacular of the Gospel of St John, a work which unhappily has not survived. It was a fitting close to such a life as his.