Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bent, James" to "Bibirine"
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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Bent, James" to "Bibirine"
Author: Various
Release date: December 9, 2010 [eBook #34612]
Language: English
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Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM: "His first term as governor, during
which he seems to have been extremely popular with the majority of
the colonists, was notable principally for his religious
intolerance and his expulsion of the Puritans, who were in a great
minority." 'expulsion' amended from 'expulson'.
ARTICLE BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXIUS PETROVICH: "To prevent
underground intrigues, Bestuzhev now proposed the erection of a
council of ministers, to settle all important affairs ..."
'underground' amended from 'undergound'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME III, SLICE VI
Bent, James to Bibirine
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
BENT, JAMES THEODORE BERRYER, ANTOINE PIERRE
BENT BERSERKER
BENTHAM, GEORGE BERT, PAUL
BENTHAM, JEREMY BERTANI, AGOSTINO
BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM BERTAT
BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM CAVENDISH BERTAUT, JEAN
BENTIVOGLIO, GIOVANNI BERTH
BENTIVOGLIO, GUIDO BERTHELOT, MARCELLIN PIERRE EUGENE
BENTLEY, RICHARD (scholar) BERTHIER, LOUIS ALEXANDRE
BENTLEY, RICHARD (publisher) BERTHOLLET, CLAUDE LOUIS
BENTON, THOMAS HART BERTHON, EDWARD LYON
BENTON HARBOR BERTHOUD, FERDINAND
BENUE BERTILLON, LOUIS ADOLPHE
BEN VENUE BERTIN
BENZALDEHYDE BERTINORO, OBADIAH
BENZENE BERTINORO
BENZIDINE BERTOLD
BENZOIC ACID BERTOLD VON REGENSBURG
BENZOIN (ketone-alcohol) BERTRAM, CHARLES
BENZOIN (balsamic resin) BERTRAND, HENRI GRATIEN
BENZOPHENONE BERTRICH
BENZYL ALCOHOL BERULLE, PIERRE DE
BEOTHUK BERVIE
BEOTHY, ODON BERWICK, JAMES FITZJAMES
BEOWULF BERWICKSHIRE
BEQUEST BERWICK-UPON-TWEED
BERAIN, JEAN BERYL
BERANGER, PIERRE JEAN DE BERYLLIUM
BERAR BERYLLONITE
BERARD, JOSEPH FREDERIC BERZELIUS, JONS JAKOB
BERAT BES
BERAUN BESANCON
BERBER BESANT, SIR WALTER
BERBERA BESENVAL DE BRONSTATT, PIERRE VICTOR
BERBERINE BESKOW, BERNHARD VON
BERBERS BESNARD, PAUL ALBERT
BERCEUSE BESOM
BERCHEM, NICOLAAS BESSARABIA
BERCHTA BESSARION, JOHANNES
BERCHTESGADEN BESSBOROUGH, EARLS OF
BERCK BESSEGES
BERDICHEV BESSEL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM
BERDYANSK BESSEL FUNCTION
BEREA BESSEMER, SIR HENRY
BEREKHIAH NAQDAN BESSEMER
BERENGARIUS BESSIERES, JEAN BAPTISTE
BERENGER, ALPHONSE THOMAS BESSUS
BERENICE (princesses) BEST, WILLIAM THOMAS
BERENICE (seaport of Egypt) BESTIA
BERESFORD, LORD DE LA POER BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXIUS PETROVICH
BERESFORD, JOHN BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, MIKHAIL PETROVICH
BERESFORD, WILLIAM BERESFORD BET and BETTING
BEREZINA BETAINE
BEREZOV BETEL NUT
BEREZOVSK BETHANY
BERG BETHEL
BERGAMASK BETHENCOURT, JEAN DE
BERGAMO BETHESDA (Jerusalem)
BERGAMOT, OIL OF BETHESDA (Wales)
BERGEDORF BETH-HORON
BERGEN BETHLEHEM (Palestine)
BERGEN-OP-ZOOM BETHLEHEM (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)
BERGERAC BETHLEHEMITES
BERGHAUS, HEINRICH BETHLEN, GABRIEL
BERGK, THEODOR BETHNAL GREEN
BERGLER, STEPHAN BETHUNE {family)
BERGMAN, TORBERN OLOF BETHUNE, CONON DE
BERGSCHRUND BETHUNE (town of France)
BERGUES BETROTHAL
BERHAMPUR (Bengal, India) BETTERMENT
BERHAMPUR (Madras, India) BETTERTON, THOMAS
BERI-BERI BETTIA
BERING, VITUS BETTINELLI, SAVERIO
BERING ISLAND, SEA and STRAIT BETTWS Y COED
BERING SEA ARBITRATION BETTY, WILLIAM HENRY WEST
BERIOT, CHARLES AUGUSTE DE BETUL
BERJA BETWA
BERKA BEUDANT, FRANCOIS SULPICE
BERKELEY (English family) BEUGNOT, JACQUES CLAUDE
BERKELEY, GEORGE BEULE, CHARLES ERNEST
BERKELEY, MILES JOSEPH BEURNONVILLE, PIERRE DE RUEL
BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM BEUST, FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON
BERKELEY (California, U.S.A.) BEUTHEN (Niederbeuthen)
BERKELEY (town of England) BEUTHEN (Oberbeuthen)
BERKHAMPSTEAD BEVEL
BERKSHIRE, THOMAS HOWARD BEVERLEY, WILLIAM ROXBY
BERKSHIRE BEVERLEY
BERLAD BEVERLY
BERLICHINGEN, GOETZ BEVIS OF HAMPTON
BERLIN, ISAIAH BEWDLEY
BERLIN (German city) BEWICK, THOMAS
BERLIN (New Hampshire, U.S.A.) BEXHILL
BERLIN (Ontario, Canada) BEXLEY, NICHOLAS VANSITTART
BERLIN (carriage) BEXLEY
BERLIOZ, HECTOR BEY
BERM BEYBAZAR
BERMONDSEY BEYLE, MARIE HENRI
BERMUDAS BEYRICH, HEINRICH ERNST VON
BERMUDEZ BEYSCHLAG, WILLIBALD
BERN (Swiss canton) BEZA, THEODORE
BERN (Swiss city) BEZANT
BERNARD, SAINT BEZANTEE
BERNARD OF CHARTRES BEZBORODKO, ALEKSANDER ANDREEVICH
BERNARD, CHARLES DE BEZEL
BERNARD, CLAUDE BEZIQUE
BERNARD, JACQUES BEZWADA
BERNARD, MOUNTAGUE BHAGALPUR
BERNARD, SIMON BHAMO
BERNARD, SIR THOMAS BHANDARA
BERNARDIN OF SIENA, ST BHANG
BERNAUER, AGNES BHARAHAT
BERNAY BHARAL
BERNAYS, JAKOB BHARATPUR
BERNBURG BHATGAON
BERNERS, JOHN BOURCHIER BHATTIANA
BERNERS, JULIANA BHAU DAJI
BERNHARD OF SAXE-WEIMAR BHAUNAGAR
BERNHARDT, SARAH BHEESTY
BERNHARDY, GOTTFRIED BHERA
BERNI, FRANCESCO BHILS
BERNICIA BHIMA
BERNICIAN SERIES BHIWANI
BERNINI, GIOVANNI LORENZO BHOPAL
BERNIS, FRANCOIS PIERRE DE BHOPAWAR
BERNKASTEL BHOR
BERNOULLI BHUJ
BERNSTEIN, AARON BHUTAN
BERNSTORFF, ANDREAS PETER BIANCHINI, FRANCESCO
BERNSTORFF, CHRISTIAN GUNTHER BIARRITZ
BERNSTORFF, JOHANN HARTWIG ERNST BIAS (Sage of Greece)
BEROSSUS BIAS (something oblique)
BERRY, CHARLES ALBERT BIBACULUS, MARCUS FURIUS
BERRY, CHARLES FERDINAND BIBER, HEINRICH JOHANN FRANZ VON
BERRY, JOHN BIBERACH
BERRY BIBIRINE
BENT, JAMES THEODORE (1852-1897), English traveller, was the son of
James Bent of Baildon House, near Leeds, Yorkshire, where he was born on
the 30th of March 1852. He was educated at Repton school and Wadham
College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1875. In 1877 he married Mabel,
daughter of R.W. Hall-Dare of Newtownbarry, Co. Wexford, and she became
his companion in all his travels. He went abroad every year and became
thoroughly acquainted with Italy and Greece. In 1879 he published a book
on the republic of San Marino, entitled _A Freak of Freedom_, and was
made a citizen of San Marino; in the following year appeared _Genoa: How
the Republic Rose and Fell_, and in 1881 a _Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi_.
He spent considerable time in the Aegean archipelago, of which he wrote
in _The Cyclades: or Life among the Insular Greeks_ (1885). From this
period Bent devoted himself particularly to archaeological research. The
years 1885-1888 were given up to investigations in Asia Minor, his
discoveries and conclusions being communicated to the _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_ and other magazines and reviews. In 1889 he undertook
excavations in the Bahrein Islands of the Persian Gulf, and found
evidence that they had been a primitive home of the Phoenician race.
After an expedition in 1890 to Cilicia Trachea, where he obtained a
valuable collection of inscriptions, Bent spent a year in South Africa,
with the object, by investigation of some of the ruins in Mashonaland,
of throwing light on the vexed question of their origin and on the early
history of East Africa. He made the first detailed examination of the
Great Zimbabwe. Bent described his work in _The Ruined Cities of
Mashonaland_ (1892). In 1893 he investigated the ruins of Axum and other
places in the north of Abyssinia, partially made known before by the
researches of Henry Salt and others, and _The Sacred City of the
Ethiopians_ (1893) gave an account of this expedition. Bent now visited
at considerable risk the almost unknown Hadramut country (1893-1894),
and during this and later journeys in southern Arabia he studied the
ancient history of the country, its physical features and actual
condition. On the Dhafar coast in 1894-1895 he visited ruins which he
identified with the Abyssapolis of the frankincense merchants. In
1895-1896 he examined part of the African coast of the Red Sea, finding
there the ruins of a very ancient gold-mine and traces of what he
considered Sabean influence. While on another journey in South Arabia
(1896-1897), Bent was seized with malarial fever, and died in London on
the 5th of May 1897, a few days after his return. Mrs Bent, who had
contributed by her skill as a photographer and in other ways to the
success of her husband's journeys, published in 1900 _Southern Arabia,
Soudan and Sakotra_, in which were given the results of their last
expedition into that region. The conclusions at which Bent arrived as to
the Semitic origin of the ruins in Mashonaland have not been accepted by
archaeologists, but the value of his pioneer work is undeniable (see
ZIMBABWE).
BENT. 1. (From "to bend"), primarily the result of bending; hence any
inclination from the straight, as in curved objects like a hook or a
bow; this survives in the modern phrase "to follow one's own bent," i.e.
to pursue a certain course in a direction deviating from the normal, as
also in such phrases as Chaucer's "Downward on a hill under a bent,"
indicating a hollow or declivity in the general configuration of the
land. From the bending of a bow comes the idea of tension, as in Hamlet,
"they fool me to the top of my bent," i.e. to the utmost of my capacity.
2. (From the O. Eng. _beonet_, a coarse, rushy grass growing in wet
places; cf. the Ger. _Binse_, a reed), the name ("bent" or "bennet")
popularly applied to several kinds of grass and surviving in the form
"bent-grass."
BENTHAM, GEORGE (1800-1884), English botanist, was born at Stoke near
Portsmouth on the 22nd of September 1800. His father, Sir Samuel Bentham
(1757-1831), was the only brother of Jeremy Bentham, the publicist, and
of scarcely inferior ability though in a different direction. Devoting
himself in early life to the study of naval architecture, Sir Samuel
went to Russia to visit the naval establishments in the Baltic and Black
Seas. He was induced to enter the service of the empress Catherine II.,
built a flotilla of gunboats and defeated the Turkish fleet. For this he
was made, in addition to other honours, colonel of a cavalry regiment.
On the death of the empress he returned to England to be employed by the
admiralty, and was sent (1805-1807) again to Russia to superintend the
building of some ships for the British navy. He attained the rank, under
the admiralty, of inspector-general of naval works. He introduced a
multitude of improvements in naval organization, and it was largely
through his recommendation that M.I. Brunel's block-making machinery was
installed at Portsmouth.
George Bentham had neither a school nor a college education, but early
acquired the power of giving sustained and concentrated attention to any
subject that occupied him--one essential condition of the success he
attained as perhaps the greatest systematic botanist of the 19th
century. Another was his remarkable linguistic aptitude. At the age of
six to seven he could converse in French, German and Russian, and he
learnt Swedish during a short residence in Sweden when little older. At
the close of the war with France, the Benthams made a long tour through
that country, staying two years at Montauban, where Bentham studied
Hebrew and mathematics in the Protestant Theological School. They
eventually settled in the neighbourhood of Montpellier where Sir Samuel
purchased a large estate.
The mode in which George Bentham was attracted to the botanical studies
which became the occupation of his life is noteworthy; it was through
the applicability to them of the logical methods which he had imbibed
from his uncle's writings, and not from any special attraction to
natural history pursuits. While studying at Angouleme a copy of A.P. de
Candolle's _Flore francaise_ fell into his hands and he was struck with
the analytical tables for identifying plants. He immediately proceeded
to test their use on the first that presented itself. The result was
successful and he continued to apply it to every plant he came across. A
visit to London in 1823 brought him into contact with the brilliant
circle of English botanists. In 1826, at the pressing invitation of his
uncle, he agreed to act as his secretary, at the same time entering at
Lincoln's Inn and reading for the bar. He was called in due time and in
1832 held his first and last brief. The same year Jeremy Bentham died,
leaving his property to his nephew. His father's inheritance had fallen
to him the previous year. He was now in a position of modest
independence, and able to pursue undistractedly his favourite studies.
For a time these were divided between botany, jurisprudence and logic,
in addition to editing his father's professional papers. Bentham's first
publication was his _Catalogue des plantes indigenes des Pyrenees et du
Bas Languedoc_ (Paris, 1826), the result of a careful exploration of the
Pyrenees in company with G.A. Walker Arnott (1799-1868), afterwards
professor of botany in the university of Glasgow. It is interesting to
notice that in it Bentham adopted the principle from which he never
deviated, of citing nothing at second-hand. This was followed by
articles on various legal subjects: on codification, in which he
disagreed with his uncle, on the laws affecting larceny and on the law
of real property. But the most remarkable production of this period was
the _Outline of a New System of Logic, with a Critical Examination of Dr
Whately's Elements of Logic_ (1827). In this the principle of the
quantification of the predicate was first explicitly stated. This
Stanley Jevons declared to be "undoubtedly the most fruitful discovery
made in abstract logical science since the time of Aristotle." Before
sixty copies had been sold the publisher became bankrupt and the stock
went for wastepaper. The book passed into oblivion, and it was not till
1873 that Bentham's claims to priority were finally vindicated against
those of Sir William Hamilton by Herbert Spencer. In 1836 he published
his _Labiatarum genera et species_. In preparing this work he visited,
between 1830-1834, every European herbarium, several more than once. The
following winter was passed in Vienna, where he produced his
_Commentationes de Leguminosarum generibus_, published in the annals of
the Vienna Museum. In 1842 he removed to Pontrilas in Herefordshire. His
chief occupation for some succeeding years was his contributions to the
_Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis_, which was being
carried on by his friend, A.P. deCandolle. In all these dealt with some
4730 species.
In 1854 he found the maintenance of a herbarium and library too great a
tax on his means. He therefore offered them to the government on the
understanding that they should form the foundation of such necessary
aids to research in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. At the same time
he contemplated the abandonment of botanical work. Fortunately, he
yielded to the persuasion of Sir William Hooker, John Lindley and other
scientific friends. In 1855 he took up his residence in London, and
worked at Kew for five days a week, with a brief summer holiday, from
this time onwards till the end of his life. As his friend Asa Gray
wrote: "With such methodical habits, with freedom from professional or
administrative functions, which consume the time of most botanists, with
steady devotion to his chosen work, and with nearly all authentic
material and needful appliances at hand or within reach, it is not so
surprising that he should have undertaken and have so well accomplished
such a vast amount of work, and he has the crowning merit and happy
fortune of having completed all that he undertook." The government, in
1857, sanctioned a scheme for the preparation of a series of Floras or
descriptions in the English language of the indigenous plants of British
colonies and possessions. Bentham began with the _Flora Hongkongensis_
in 1861, which was the first comprehensive work on any part of the
little-known flora of China. This was followed by the _Flora
Australiensis_, in seven volumes (1863-1878), the first flora of any
large continental area that had ever been finished. His greatest work
was the _Genera Plantarum_, begun in 1862, and concluded in 1883 in
collaboration with Sir Joseph Hooker, "the greater portion being," as
Sir Joseph Hooker tells us, "the product of Bentham's indefatigable
industry." As age gradually impaired his bodily powers, he seemed at
last only to live for the completion of this monumental work.
When the last revise of the last sheet was returned to the printer, the
stimulus was withdrawn, and his powers seemed suddenly to fail him. He
began a brief autobiography, but the pen with which he had written his
two greatest works broke in his hand in the middle of a page. He
accepted the omen, laid aside the unfinished manuscript and patiently
awaited the not distant end. He died on the both of September 1884,
within a fortnight of his 84th birthday.
The scientific world received the _Genera Plantarum_ with as unanimous
an assent as was accorded to the _Species Plantarum_ of Linnaeus.
Bentham possessed, as Professor Daniel Oliver remarked, "an insight of
so special a character as to deserve the name of genius, into the
relative value of characters for practical systematic work, and as a
consequence of this, a sure sifting of essentials from non-essentials in
each respective grade." His preparation for his crowning work had been
practically lifelong. There are few parts of the world upon the botany
of which he did not touch. In the sequence and arrangement of the great
families of flowering plants, different views from those of Bentham may
be adopted. But Bentham paved the way by an intimate and exact statement
of the structural facts and their accurate relationship, which is not
likely to be improved. In method and style, in descriptive work, Bentham
was a supreme master. This, to quote Professor Oliver again, is
"manifest not only in its terseness, aptness and precision, but
especially in the judicious selection of diagnostic marks, and in the
instinctive estimate of probable range in variation, which long
experience and innate genius for such work could alone inspire."
(W. T. T.-D.)
BENTHAM, JEREMY (1748-1832), English philosopher and jurist, was born on
the 15th of February 1748 in Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, London, in
which neighbourhood his grandfather and father successively carried on
business as attorneys. His father, who was a wealthy man and possessed
at any rate a smattering of Greek, Latin and French, was thought to have
demeaned himself by marrying the daughter of an Andover tradesman, who
afterwards retired to a country house near Reading, where young Jeremy
spent many happy days. The boy's talents justified the ambitious hopes
which his parents entertained of his future. When three years old he
read eagerly such works as Rapin's _History_ and began the study of
Latin. A year or two later he learnt to play the violin and to speak
French. At Westminster school he obtained a reputation for Greek and
Latin verse writing; and he was only thirteen when he was matriculated
at Queen's College, Oxford, where his most important acquisition seems
to have been a thorough acquaintance with Sanderson's logic. He became a
B.A. in 1763, and in the same year entered at Lincoln's Inn, and took
his seat as a student in the queen's bench, where he listened with
rapture to the judgments of Lord Mansfield. He managed also to hear
Blackstone's lectures at Oxford, but says that he immediately detected
the fallacies which underlay the rounded periods of the future judge.
Bentham's family connexions would naturally have given him a fair start
at the bar, but this was not the career for which he was preparing
himself. He spent his time in making chemical experiments and in
speculating upon legal abuses, rather than in reading Coke upon
Littleton and the Reports. On being called to the bar he "found a cause
or two at nurse for him, which he did his best to put to death," to the
bitter disappointment of his father, who had confidently looked forward
to seeing him upon the woolsack. The first fruits of Bentham's studies,
the _Fragment on Government_, appeared in 1776. This masterly attack
upon Blackstone's praises of the English constitution was variously
attributed to Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden and Lord Ashburton. One
important result of its publication was that, in 1781, Lord Shelburne
(afterwards first marquess of Lansdowne) called upon its author in his
chambers at Lincoln's Inn. Henceforth Bentham was a frequent guest at
Bowood, where he saw the best society and where he met Miss Caroline Fox
(daughter of the second Lord Holland), to whom he afterwards made a
proposal of marriage. In 1785 Bentham started, by way of Italy and
Constantinople, on a visit to his brother, Samuel Bentham, a naval
engineer, holding the rank of colonel in the Russian service; and it was
in Russia that he wrote his _Defence of Usury_. Disappointed after his
return to England in 1788 in the hope which he had entertained, through
a misapprehension of something said by Lord Lansdowne, of taking a
personal part in the legislation of his country, he settled down to the
yet higher task of discovering and teaching the principles upon which
all sound legislation must proceed. The great work, upon which he had
been engaged for many years, the _Principles of Morals and
Legislation_, was published in 1789. His fame spread widely and rapidly.
He was made a French citizen in 1792; and his advice was respectfully
received in most of the states of Europe and America, with many of the
leading men of which he maintained an active correspondence. In 1817 he
became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. His ambition was to be allowed to
prepare a code of laws for his own or some foreign country. During
nearly a quarter of a century he was engaged in negotiations with the
government for the erection of a "Panopticon," for the central
inspection of convicts; a plan suggested to him by a building designed
by his brother Samuel, for the better supervision of his Russian
shipwrights. This scheme, which it was alleged would render
transportation unnecessary, was eventually abandoned, and Bentham
received in 1813, in pursuance of an act of parliament, L23,000 by way
of compensation. It was at a later period of his life that he propounded
schemes for cutting canals through the isthmus of Suez and the isthmus
of Panama. In 1823 he established the _Westminster Review_. Emboldened
perhaps by the windfall of 1813, Bentham in the following year took a
lease of Ford Abbey, a fine mansion with a deer-park, in Dorsetshire;
but in 1818 returned to the house in Queen's Square Place which he had
occupied since the death of his father in 1792. It was there that he
died on the 6th of June 1832 in his eighty-fifth year. In accordance
with his directions, his body was dissected in the presence of his
friends, and the skeleton is still preserved in University College,
London.
Bentham's life was a happy one of its kind. His constitution, weakly in
childhood, strengthened with advancing years so as to allow him to get
through an incredible amount of sedentary labour, while he retained to
the last the fresh and cheerful temperament of a boy. An ample inherited
fortune permitted him to pursue his studies undistracted by the
necessity for earning a livelihood, and to maximize the results of his
time and labour by the employment of amanuenses and secretaries. He was
able to gather around him a group of congenial friends and pupils, such
as the Mills, the Austins and Bowring, with whom he could discuss the
problems upon which he was engaged, and by whom several of his books
were practically rewritten from the mass of rough though orderly
memoranda which the master had himself prepared. Thus, for instance, was
the _Rationale of Judicial Evidence_ written out by J.S. Mill and the
_Book of Fallacies_ by Bingham. The services which Dumont rendered in
recasting as well as translating the works of Bentham were still more
important.
The popular notion that Bentham was a morose visionary is far removed
from fact. It is true that he looked upon general society as a waste of
time and that he disliked poetry as "misrepresentation"; but he
intensely enjoyed conversation, gave good dinners and delighted in
music, in country sights and in making others happy. These features of
Bentham's character are illustrated in the graphic account given by the
American minister, Richard Rush, of an evening spent at his London house
in the summer of the year 1818. "If Mr Bentham's character is peculiar,"
he says, "so is his place of residence. It was a kind of blind-alley,
the end of which widened into a small, neat courtyard. There by itself
stands Mr Bentham's house. Shrubbery graced its area and flowers its
window-sills. It was like an oasis in the desert. Its name is the
Hermitage. Mr Bentham received me with the simplicity of a philosopher.
I should have taken him for seventy or upwards. Everything inside the
house was orderly. The furniture seemed to have been unmoved since the
days of his fathers, for I learned that it was a patrimony. A parlour,
library and dining-room made up the suite of apartments. In each was a
piano, the eccentric master of the whole being fond of music as the
recreation of his literary hours. It is a unique, romantic-like
homestead. Walking with him into the garden, I found it dark with the
shade of ancient trees. They formed a barrier against all intrusion. The
company was small but choice. Mr Brougham; Sir Samuel Romilly; Mr Mill,
author of the well-known work on India; M. Dumont, the learned Genevan,
once the associate of Mirabeau, were all who sat down to table. Mr
Bentham did not talk much. He had a benevolence of manner suited to the
philanthropy of his mind. He seemed to be thinking only of the
convenience and pleasure of his guests, not as a rule of artificial
breeding as from Chesterfield or Madame Genlis, but from innate feeling.
Bold as are his opinions in his works, here he was wholly unobtrusive of
theories that might not have commended the assent of all present. When
he did converse it was in simple language, a contrast to his later
writings, where an involved style and the use of new or universal words
are drawbacks upon the speculations of a genius original and profound,
but with the faults of solitude. Yet some of his earlier productions are
distinguished by classical terseness."--(_Residence at the Court of
London_, p. 286.) Bentham's love of flowers and music, of green foliage
and shaded walks, comes clearly out in this pleasant picture of his home
life and social surroundings.
Whether or no he can be said to have founded a school, his doctrines
have become so far part of the common thought of the time, that there is
hardly an educated man who does not accept as too clear for argument
truths which were invisible till Bentham pointed them out. His
sensitively honourable nature, which in early life had caused him to
shrink from asserting his belief in Thirty-nine articles of faith which
he had not examined, was shocked by the enormous abuses which confronted
him on commencing the study of the law. He rebelled at hearing the
system under which they flourished described as the perfection of human
reason. But he was no merely destructive critic. He was determined to
find a solid foundation for both morality and law, and to raise upon it
an edifice, no stone of which should be laid except in accordance with
the deductions of the severest logic. This foundation is "the greatest
happiness of the greatest number," a formula adopted from Priestly or
perhaps first from Beccaria. The phrase may, however, be found in
writers of an earlier date than these, e.g. in Hutcheson's _Enquiry_,
published in 1725. The pursuit of such happiness is taught by the
"utilitarian" philosophy, an expression used by Bentham himself in 1802,
and therefore not invented by J.S. Mill, as he supposed, in 1823. In
order to ascertain what modes of action are most conducive to the end in
view, and what motives are best fitted to produce them, Bentham was led
to construct marvellously exhaustive, though somewhat mechanical, tables
of motives. With all their elaboration, these tables are, however,
defective, as omitting some of the highest and most influential springs
of action. But most of Bentham's conclusions may be accepted without any
formal profession of the utilitarian theory of morals. They are, indeed,
merely the application of a rigorous common sense to the facts of
society. That the proximate ends at which Bentham aimed are desirable
hardly any one would deny, though the feasibility of the means by which
he proposes to attain them may often be questioned, and much of the new
nomenclature in which he thought fit to clothe his doctrines may be
rejected as unnecessary. To be judged fairly, Bentham must be judged as
a teacher of the principles of legislation. With the principles of
private morals he really deals only so far as is necessary to enable the
reader to appreciate the impulses which have to be controlled by law.
As a teacher of legislation he inquires of all institutions whether
their utility justifies their existence. If not, he is prepared to
suggest a new form of institution by which the needful service may be
rendered. While thus engaged no topic is too large for his mental grasp,
none too small for his notice; and, what is still rarer, every topic is
seen in its due relation to the rest. English institutions had never
before been thus comprehensively and dispassionately surveyed. Such
improvements as had been necessitated were mere makeshifts, often made
by stealth. The rude symmetry of the feudal system had been long ago
destroyed by partial and unskilful adaptations to modern commercial
life, effected at various dates and in accordance with various theories.
The time had come for deliberate reconstruction, for inquiring whether
the existence of many admitted evils was, as it was said to be,
unavoidable; for proving that the needs of society may be classified and
provided for by contrivances which shall not clash with one another
because all shall be parts of a consistent whole. This task Bentham
undertook, and he brought to it a mind absolutely free from professional
or class feeling, or any other species of prejudice. He mapped out the
whole subject, dividing and subdividing it in accordance with the
principle of "dichotomy." Having reached his ultimate subdivisions he
subjects each to the most thorough and ingenious discussion. His earlier
writings exhibit a lively and easy style, which gives place in his later
treatises to sentences which are awkward from their effort after
unattainable accuracy, and from the newly-invented technical
nomenclature in which they are expressed. Many of Bentham's phrases,
such as "international," "utilitarian," "codification," are valuable
additions to our language; but the majority of them, especially those of
Greek derivation, have taken no root in it. His neology is one among
many instances of his contempt for the past and his wish to be clear of
all association with it. His was, indeed, a typically logical, as
opposed to a historical, mind. For the history of institutions which,
thanks largely to the writings of Sir Henry Maine, has become a new and
interesting branch of science, Bentham cared nothing. Had he possessed
such a knowledge of Roman law as is now not uncommon in England, he must
doubtless have taken a different view of many subjects. The logical and
historical methods can, however, seldom be combined without confusion;
and it is perhaps fortunate that Bentham devoted his long life to
showing how much may be done by pursuing the former method exclusively.
His writings have been and remain a storehouse of instruction for
statesmen, an armoury for legal reformers. "Pille par tout le monde," as
Talleyrand said of him, "il est toujours riche." To trace the results of
his teaching in England alone would be to write a history of the
legislation of half a century. Upon the whole administrative machinery
of government, upon criminal law and upon procedure, both criminal and
civil, his influence has been most salutary; and the great legal
revolution which in 1873 purported to accomplish the fusion of law and
equity is not obscurely traceable to the same source. Those of Bentham's
suggestions which have hitherto been carried out have affected the
matter or contents of the law. The hopes which have been from time to
time entertained, that his suggestions for the improvement of its form
and expression were about to receive the attention which they deserved,
have hitherto been disappointed. The services rendered by Bentham to the
world would not, however, be exhausted even by the practical adoption of
every one of his recommendations. There are no limits to the good
results of his introduction of a true method of reasoning into the moral
and political sciences.
Bentham's _Works_, together with an Introduction by J. Hill Burton,
selections from his correspondence and a biography, were published by
Dr Bowring, in eleven closely printed volumes (1838-1843). This
edition does not include the _Deontology_, which, much rewritten, had
been published by Bowring in 1834. Translations of the _Works_ or of
separate treatises have appeared in most European languages. Large
masses of Bentham's MSS., mostly unpublished, are preserved at
University College, London (see T. Whittaker's _Report_, 1892, on
these MSS., as newly catalogued and reclassified by him in 155
parcels); also in the British Museum (see E. Nys, _Etudes de droit
international et de droit politique_, 1901, pp. 291-333). See farther
on the life and writings of Bentham: J.H. Burton, _Benthamiana_
(1843); R. von Mohl, _Geschichte und Literatur der
Staatswissenschaften_, bk. iii. (1858), pp. 595-635; R.K. Wilson,
_History of Modern English Law_ (1875), pp. 133-170; J.S. Mill,
_Dissertations_ (1859), vol. i. pp. 330-392; L. Stephen, _The English
Utilitarians_ (1900), vol. i.; _A Fragment on Government_, edited by
F.C. Montague (1891); _The Law Quarterly Review_ (1895), two articles
on Bentham's influence in Spain; A.V. Dicey, _Law and Opinion in
England_ (1905), pp. 125-209; C.M. Atkinson, _Jeremy Bentham_ (1905).
(T. E. H.)
BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM (1774-1839), governor-general of India, was the
second son of the 3rd duke of Portland and was born on the 14th of
September 1774. He entered the army, rose to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel and was present at Marengo. In 1803 he was nominated
governor of Madras, where he quarrelled with the chief justice, Sir
Henry Gwillim, and several members of his council. The sepoy mutiny at
Vellore in 1807 led to his recall. His name was considered at this time
for the post of governor-general, but Lord Minto was selected instead;
and it was not until twenty years later that he succeeded Lord Amherst
in that office. His governor-generalship (1827-1835) was notable for
many reforms, chief among which were the suppression of the Thugs
(q.v.), the abolition of suttee, and the making of the English language
the basis of education in India. It was on this last subject that Lord
Macaulay's famous minute was written. Lord William's administration was
essentially peaceful, but progressive and successful. He died at Paris
on the 17th of June 1839.
See Demetrius C. Boulger, _Lord William Bentinck_, in the "Rulers of
India" series (1892).
BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM GEORGE FREDERICK CAVENDISH, better known as LORD
GEORGE BENTINCK (1802-1848), British politician, was the second
surviving son of the fourth duke of Portland, by Henrietta, sister of
Viscountess Canning, and was born on the 27th of February 1802. He was
educated at home until he obtained his commission as cornet in the 10th
hussars at the age of seventeen. He practically retired from the army in
1822 and acted for some time as private secretary to his uncle George
Canning. In 1828 he succeeded his uncle Lord William Bentinck as member
for Lynn-Regis, and continued to represent that constituency during the
remaining twenty years of his life. His failures as a speaker in
parliament seem to have discouraged him from the attempt to acquire
reputation as a politician, and till within three years of his death he
was little known out of the sporting world. As one of the leaders on
"the turf," however, he was distinguished by that integrity, judgment
and indomitable determination which, when brought to bear upon weightier
matters, quickly gave him a position of first-rate importance in the
political world. On his first entrance into parliament he belonged to
the moderate Whig party, and voted in favour of Catholic emancipation,
as also for the Reform Bill, though he opposed some of its principal
details. Soon after, however, he joined the ranks of the opposition,
with whom he sided up to the important era of 1846. When, in that year,
Sir Robert Peel openly declared in favour of free trade, the advocates
of the corn-laws, then without a leader, after several ineffectual
attempts at organization, discovered that Lord George Bentinck was the
only man of position and family (for Disraeli's time was not yet come)
around whom the several sections of the opposition could be brought to
rally. His sudden elevation took the public by surprise; but he soon
gave convincing evidence of powers so formidable that the Protectionist
party under his leadership was at once stiffened into real importance.
Towards Peel, in particular, his hostility was uncompromising.
Believing, as he himself expressed it, that that statesman and his
colleagues had "hounded to the death his illustrious relative" Canning,
he combined with his political opposition a degree of personal animosity
that gave additional force to his invective. On entering on his new
position, he at once abandoned his connexion with the turf, disposed of
his magnificent stud and devoted his whole energies to the laborious
duties of a parliamentary leader. Apart from the question of the
corn-laws, however, his politics were decidedly independent. In
opposition to the rest of his party, he supported the bill for removing
the Jewish disabilities, and was favourable to the scheme for the
payment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland by the landowners. The
result was that on December 23rd, 1847, he wrote a letter resigning the
Protectionist leadership, though he still remained active in politics.
But his positive abilities as a constructive statesman were not to be
tested, for he died suddenly at Welbeck on the 21st of September 1848.
It was to be left to Disraeli to bring the Conservative party into
power, with Protection outside its programme.
See _Lord George Bentinck: a Political Biography_ (1851), by B.
Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield).
BENTIVOGLIO, GIOVANNI (1443-1508), tyrant of Bologna, descended from a
powerful family which exercised great influence in Bologna during the
15th century, was born after the murder of his father, then chief
magistrate of the commune. In 1462 Giovanni contrived to make himself
master of the city, although it was nominally a fief of the church under
a papal legate. He ruled with a stern sway for nearly half a century,
but the brilliance of his court, his encouragement of the fine arts and
his decoration of the city with sumptuous edifices, to some extent
compensated the Bolognese for the loss of their liberty. Cesare Borgia
(q.v.) contemplated the subjugation of Bologna in 1500, when he was
crushing the various despots of Romagna, but Bentivoglio was saved for
the moment by French intervention. In 1502 he took part in the
conspiracy against Cesare, but, when the latter obtained French
assistance, he abandoned his fellow-conspirators and helped Borgia to
overcome them. During the brief pontificate of Pius III., who succeeded
Alexander VI. in 1503, Bentivoglio enjoyed a respite, but the new pope,
Julius II., was determined to reduce all the former papal states to
obedience. Having won Louis XII. of France to his side, he led an army
against Bologna, excommunicated Bentivoglio and forced him to abandon
the city (November 1506). The deposed tyrant took refuge with the
French, whom he trusted more than the pope, and died at Milan in 1508.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--P. Litta, _Le Famiglie celebri Italiane_, vol, iii.
(Milan, 1834); P. Villari, _Machiavelli_ (Eng. trans., London, 1892);
M. Creighton, _History of the Papacy_ (London, 1897); A. von Reumont,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, vol. iii. (Berlin, 1868). (L. V.*)
BENTIVOGLIO, GUIDO (1579-1644), Italian cardinal, statesman and
historian, was born at Ferrara in 1579. After studying at Padua, he went
to reside at Rome, and was received with great favour by Pope Clement
VIII., who made him his private chamberlain. The next pope, Paul V.,
created him archbishop of Rhodes in 1607, and appointed him as nuncio to
Flanders and afterwards to France; on his return to Rome in 1621 he was
created cardinal and entrusted by Louis XIII. with the management of
French affairs at the papal court. He became the intimate friend of Pope
Urban VIII., who appointed him to the suburban see of Palestrina in
1691. An able writer and skilful diplomatist, Bentivoglio was marked out
as Urban's successor, but he died suddenly on the 7th of September 1644
at the opening of the conclave. Bentivoglio's principal works
are:--_Della Guerra di Fiandria_ (best edition, Cologne, 1633-1639),
translated into English by Henry, earl of Monmouth (London, 1654);
_Relazioni di G. Bentivoglio in tempo delle sue Nunziature di Fiandria e
di Francia_ (Cologne, 1630); _Lettere diplomatiche di Guido Bentivoglio_
(Brussels, 1631, frequently reprinted, best edition by L. Scarabelli, 2
vols., Turin, 1852). The complete edition of his works was published at
Venice in 1668 in 4to. A selection of his letters has been adopted as a
classic in the Italian schools.
BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742), English scholar and critic, was born at
Oulton near Wakefield, Yorkshire, on the 27th of January 1662. His
grandfather had suffered in person and estate in the royalist cause, and
the family were in consequence in reduced circumstances. Bentley's
mother, the daughter of a stonemason in Oulton, was a woman of excellent
understanding and some education, as she was able to give her son his
first lessons in Latin. From the grammar school of Wakefield Richard
Bentley passed to St John's College, Cambridge, being admitted subsizar
in 1676. He afterwards obtained a scholarship and took the degree of
B.A. in 1680 (M.A. 1683). He never succeeded to a fellowship, being
appointed by his college, before he was twenty-one, headmaster of
Spalding grammar school. In this post he did not remain long, being
selected by Dr Edward Stillingfleet, dean of St Paul's, to be domestic
tutor to his son. This appointment introduced Bentley at once to the
society of the most eminent men of the day, threw open to him the best
private library in England, and brought him into familiar intercourse
with Dean Stillingfleet, a man of sound understanding, who had not
shrunk from exploring some of the more solid and abstruse parts of
ancient learning. The six years which he passed in Stillingfleet's
family were employed, with the restless energy characteristic of the
man, in exhausting the remains of the Greek and Latin writers, and
laying up those stores of knowledge upon which he afterwards drew as
circumstances required.
In 1689 Stillingfleet became bishop of Worcester, and Bentley's pupil
went to reside at Oxford in Wadham College, accompanied by his tutor.
Bentley's introductions and his own merits placed him at once on a
footing of intimacy with the most distinguished scholars in the
university, Dr John Mill, Humphrey Hody, Edward Bernard. Here he
revelled in the MS. treasures of the Bodleian, Corpus and other college
libraries. He projected and occupied himself with collections for vast
literary schemes. Among these are specially mentioned a _corpus_ of the
fragments of the Greek poets and an edition of the Greek lexicographers.
But his first publication was in connexion with a writer of much
inferior note. The Oxford (Sheldonian) press was about to bring out an
edition (the _editio princeps_) from the unique MS. in the Bodleian of
the Greek _Chronicle_ (a universal history down to A.D. 560) of John of
Antioch (date uncertain, between 600 and 1000), called John Malalas or
"John the Rhetor"; and the editor, Dr John Mill, principal of St Edmund
Hall, had requested Bentley to look through the sheets and make any
remarks on the text. This originated Bentley's _Epistola ad Millium_,
which occupies less than one hundred pages at the end of the Oxford
_Malalas_ (1691). This short tractate at once placed Bentley at the head
of all living English scholars. The ease with which, by a stroke of the
pen, he restores passages which had been left in hopeless corruption by
the editors of the _Chronicle_, the certainty of the emendation and the
command over the relevant material, are in a style totally different
from the careful and laborious learning of Hody, Mill or E. Chilmead. To
the small circle of classical students (lacking the great critical
dictionaries of modern times) it was at once apparent that there had
arisen in England a critic whose attainments were not to be measured by
the ordinary academical standard, but whom these few pages had sufficed
to place by the side of the great Grecians of a former age.
Unfortunately this mastery over critical science was accompanied by a
tone of self-assertion and presumptuous confidence which not only
checked admiration, but was calculated to rouse enmity. Dr Monk, indeed,
Bentley's biographer, charged him (in his first edition, 1830) with an
indecorum of which he was not guilty. "In one place," writes Dr Monk,
"he accosts Dr Mill as [Greek: o Ioannidion] (Johnny), an indecorum
which neither the familiarity of friendship, nor the licence of a dead
language, can justify towards the dignified head of a house." But the
object of Bentley's apostrophe was not his correspondent Dr Mill, but
his author John Malalas, whom in another place he playfully appeals to
as "Syrisce." From this publication, however, dates the origin of those
mixed feelings of admiration and repugnance which Bentley throughout his
career continued to excite among his contemporaries.
In 1690 Bentley had taken deacon's orders in the Church. In 1692 he was
nominated first Boyle lecturer, a nomination which was repeated in 1694.
He was offered the appointment a third time in 1695 but declined it,
being by that time involved in too many other undertakings. In the first
series of lectures ("A Confutation of Atheism") he endeavours to present
the Newtonian physics in a popular form, and to frame them (especially
in opposition to Hobbes) into a proof of the existence of an intelligent
Creator. He had some correspondence with Newton, then living in Trinity
College, on the subject. The second series, preached in 1694, has not
been published and is believed to be lost. Andrew Kippis, the editor of
the _Biographia Britannica_, mentions MS. copies of them as in
existence. Scarcely was Bentley in priest's orders before he was
preferred to a prebendal stall in Worcester cathedral. In 1693 the
keepership of the royal library becoming vacant, great efforts were made
by his friends to obtain the place for Bentley, but through court
interest the post was given to Mr Thynne. An arrangement, however, was
made, by which the new librarian resigned in favour of Bentley, on
condition that he received an annuity of L130 for life out of the
salary, which only amounted to L200. To these preferments were added in
1695 a royal chaplaincy and the living of Hartlebury. In the same year
Bentley was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1696 proceeded
to the degree of D.D. The recognition of continental scholars came in
the shape of a dedication, by Graevius, prefixed to a dissertation of
Albert Rubens, _De Vita Flavii Mallii Theodori_, published at Utrecht in
1694.
While these distinctions were being accumulated upon Bentley, his energy
was making itself felt in many and various directions. He had official
apartments in St James's Palace, and his first care was the royal
library. He made great efforts to retrieve this collection from the
dilapidated condition into which it had been allowed to fall. He
employed the mediation of the earl of Marlborough to beg the grant of
some additional rooms in the palace for the books. The rooms were
granted, but Marlborough characteristically kept them for himself.
Bentley enforced the law against the publishers, and thus added to the
library nearly 1000 volumes which they had neglected to deliver. He was
commissioned by the university of Cambridge to obtain Greek and Latin
founts for their classical books, and accordingly he had cast in Holland
those beautiful types which appear in the Cambridge books of that date.
He assisted Evelyn in his _Numismata_. All Bentley's literary
appearances at this time were of this accidental character. We do not
find him settling down to the steady execution of any of the great
projects with which he had started. He designed, indeed, in 1694 an
edition of Philostratus, but readily abandoned it to G. Olearius,
(Ohlschlager), "to the joy," says F.A. Wolf, "of Olearius and of no one
else." He supplied Graevius with collations of Cicero, and Joshua Barnes
with a warning as to the spuriousness of the _Epistles of Euripides_,
which was thrown away upon that blunderer, who printed the epistles and
declared that no one could doubt their genuineness but a man _perfrictae
frontis aut judicii imminuti_. Bentley supplied to Graevius's
_Callimachus_ a masterly collection of the fragments with notes,
published at Utrecht in 1697.
The _Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris_, the work on which
Bentley's fame in great part rests, originated in the same casual way.
William Wotton, being about to bring out in 1697 a second edition of his
book on _Ancient and Modern Learning_, claimed of Bentley the fulfilment
of an old promise to write a paper exposing the spuriousness of the
_Epistles of Phalaris_. This paper was resented as an insult by the
Christ Church editor of Phalaris, Charles Boyle, afterwards earl of
Orrery, who in getting the MS. in the royal library collated for his
edition (1695) had had a little quarrel with Bentley. Assisted by his
college friends, particularly Atterbury, Boyle wrote a reply, "a
tissue," says Dr Alexander Dyce (in his edition of Bentley's Works,
1836-1838), "of superficial learning, ingenious sophistry, dexterous
malice and happy raillery." The reply was hailed by the public as
crushing and went immediately into a second edition. It was incumbent on
Bentley to rejoin. This he did (1699) in what Porson styles "that
immortal dissertation," to which no answer was or could be given,
although the truth of its conclusions was not immediately recognized.
(See PHALARIS.)
In the year 1700 Bentley received that main preferment which, says De
Quincey, "was at once his reward and his scourge for the rest of his
life." The six commissioners of ecclesiastical patronage unanimously
recommended Bentley to the crown for the mastership of Trinity College,
Cambridge. This college, the most splendid foundation in the university
of Cambridge, and in the scientific and literary reputation of its
fellows the most eminent society in either university, had in 1700
greatly fallen from its high estate. It was not that it was more
degraded than the other colleges, but its former lustre made the abuse
of endowments in its case more conspicuous. The eclipse had taken place
during the reaction which followed 1660, and was owing to causes which
were not peculiar to Trinity, but which influenced the nation at large.
The names of John Pearson and Isaac Barrow, and, greater than either,
that of Newton, adorn the college annals of this period. But these were
quite exceptional men. They had not inspired the rank and file of
fellows of Trinity with any of their own love for learning or science.
Indolent and easy-going clerics, without duties, without a pursuit or
any consciousness of the obligation of endowments, they haunted the
college for the pleasant life and the good things they found there,
creating sinecure offices in each other's favour, jobbing the
scholarships and making the audits mutually pleasant. Any excuse served
for a banquet at the cost of "the house," and the celibacy imposed by
the statutes was made as tolerable as the decorum of a respectable
position permitted. To such a society Bentley came, obnoxious as a St
John's man and an intruder, unwelcome as a man of learning whose
interests lay outside the walls of the college. Bentley replied to their
concealed dislike with open contempt, and proceeded to ride roughshod
over their little arrangements. He inaugurated many beneficial reforms
in college usages and discipline, executed extensive improvements in the
buildings, and generally used his eminent station for the promotion of
the interests of learning both in the college and in the university. But
this energy was accompanied by a domineering temper, an overweening
contempt for the feelings and even for the rights of others, and an
unscrupulous use of means when a good end could be obtained. Bentley, at
the summit of classical learning, disdained to associate with men whom
he regarded as illiterate priests. He treated them with contumely, while
he was diverting their income to public purposes. The continued drain
upon their purses--on one occasion the whole dividend of the year was
absorbed by the rebuilding of the chapel--was the grievance which at
last roused the fellows to make a resolute stand. After ten years of
stubborn but ineffectual resistance within the college, they had
recourse in 1710 to the last remedy--an appeal to the visitor, the
bishop of Ely (Dr Moore). Their petition is an ill-drawn invective, full
of general complaints and not alleging any special delinquency.
Bentley's reply (_The Present State of Trinity College, &c._, 1710) is
in his most crushing style. The fellows amended their petition and put
in a fresh charge, in which they articled fifty-four separate breaches
of the statutes as having been committed by the master. Bentley, called
upon to answer, demurred to the bishop of Ely's jurisdiction, alleging
that the crown was visitor. He backed his application by a dedication of
his _Horace_ to the lord treasurer (Harley). The crown lawyers decided
the point against him; the case was heard (1714) and a sentence of
ejection from the mastership ordered to be drawn up, but before it was
executed the bishop of Ely died and the process lapsed. The feud,
however, still went on in various forms. In 1718 Bentley was deprived by
the university of his degrees, as a punishment for failing to appear in
the vice-chancellor's court in a civil suit; and it was not till 1724
that the law compelled the university to restore them. In 1733 he was
again brought to trial before the bishop of Ely (Dr Greene) by the
fellows of Trinity and was sentenced to deprivation, but the college
statutes required the sentence to be exercised by the vice-master (Dr
Walker), who was Bentley's friend and refused to act. In vain were
attempts made to compel the execution of the sentence, and though the
feud was kept up till 1738 or 1740 (about thirty years in all) Bentley
remained undisturbed.
During the period of his mastership, with the exception of the first two
years, Bentley pursued his studies uninterruptedly, although the results
in the shape of published works seem incommensurable. In 1709 he
contributed a critical appendix to John Davies's edition of Cicero's
_Tusculan Disputations_. In the following year he published his
emendations on the _Plutus_ and _Nubes_ of Aristophanes, and on the
fragments of Menander and Philemon. The last came out under the name of
"Phileleutherus Lipsiensis," which he made use of two years later in his
_Remarks on a late Discourse of Freethinking_, a reply to Anthony
Collins the deist. For this he received the thanks of the university, in
recognition of the service thereby rendered to the church and clergy.
His _Horace_, long contemplated and in the end written in very great
haste and brought out to propitiate public opinion at a critical period
of the Trinity quarrel, appeared in 1711. In the preface he declared his
intention of confining his attention to criticism and correction of the
text, and ignoring exegesis. Some of his 700 or 800 emendations have
been accepted, but the majority of them are now rejected as unnecessary
and prosaic, although the learning and ingenuity shown in their support
are remarkable. In 1716, in a letter to Dr Wake, archbishop of
Canterbury, he announced his design of preparing a critical edition of
the New Testament. During the next four years, assisted by J.J.
Wetstein, an eminent biblical critic, who claimed to have been the first
to suggest the idea to Bentley, he collected materials for the work, and
in 1720 published _Proposals for a New Edition of the Greek Testament_,
with specimens of the manner in which he intended to carry it out. He
proposed, by comparing the text of the Vulgate with that of the oldest
Greek MSS., to restore the Greek text as received by the church at the
time of the council of Nice. A large number of subscribers to the work
was obtained, but it was never completed. His _Terence_ (1726) is more
important than his _Horace_, and it is upon this, next to the
_Phalaris_, that his reputation mainly rests. Its chief value consists
in the novel treatment of the metrical questions and their bearing on
the emendation of the text. To the same year belong the _Fables_ of
Phaedrus and the _Sententiae_ of Publius Syrus. The _Paradise Lost_
(1732), undertaken at the suggestion of Queen Caroline, is generally
regarded as the most unsatisfactory of all his writings. It is marred by
the same rashness in emendation and lack of poetical feeling as his
Horace; but there is less excuse for him in this case, since the English
text could not offer the same field for conjecture. He put forward the
idea that Milton employed both an amanuensis and an editor, who were to
be held responsible for the clerical errors, alterations and
interpolations which Bentley professed to detect. It is uncertain
whether this was a device on the part of Bentley to excuse his own
numerous corrections, or whether he really believed in the existence of
this editor. Of the contemplated edition of Homer nothing was published;
all that remains of it consists of some manuscript and marginal notes in
the possession of Trinity College. Their chief importance lies in the
attempt to restore the metre by the insertion of the lost digamma. Among
his minor works may be mentioned: the _Astronomica_ of Manilius (1739),
for which he had been collecting materials since 1691; a letter on the
Sigean inscription on a marble slab found in the Troad, now in the
British Museum; notes on the _Theriaca_ of Nicander and on Lucan,
published after his death by Cumberland; emendations of Plautus (in his
copies of the editions by Pareus, Camerarius and Gronovius, edited by
Schroder, 1880, and Sonnenschein, 1883). _Bentleii Critica Sacra_
(1862), edited by A.A. Ellis, contains the epistle to the Galatians (and
excerpts), printed from an interleaved folio copy of the Greek and Latin
Vulgate in Trinity College. A collection of his _Opuscula Philologica_
was published at Leipzig in 1781. The edition of his works by Dyce
(1836-1838) is incomplete.
He had married in 1701 Joanna, daughter of Sir John Bernard of Brampton
in Huntingdonshire. Their union lasted forty years. Mrs Bentley died in
1740, leaving a son, Richard, and two daughters, one of whom married in
1728 Mr Denison Cumberland, grandson of Richard Cumberland, bishop of
Peterborough. Their son was Richard Cumberland, the dramatist.
Surrounded by his grandchildren, Dr Bentley experienced the joint
pressure of age and infirmity as lightly as is consistent with the lot
of humanity. He continued to amuse himself with reading; and though
nearly confined to his arm-chair, was able to enjoy the society of his
friends and several rising scholars, J. Markland, John Taylor, his
nephews Richard and Thomas Bentley, with whom he discussed classical
subjects. He was accustomed to say that he should live to be eighty,
adding that a life of that duration was long enough to read everything
worth reading. He fulfilled his own prediction, dying of pleurisy on the
14th of July 1742. Though accused by his enemies of being grasping, he
left not more than L5000 behind him. A few Greek MSS., brought from
Mount Athos, he left to the college library; his books and papers to his
nephew, Richard Bentley. Richard, who was a fellow of Trinity, at his
death in 1786 left the papers to the college library. The books,
containing in many cases valuable manuscript notes, were purchased by
the British Museum.
Of his personal habits some anecdotes are related by his grandson,
Richard Cumberland, in vol. i. of his _Memoirs_ (1807). The hat of
formidable dimensions, which he always wore during reading to shade his
eyes, and his preference of port to claret (which he said "would be port
if it could") are traits embodied in Pope's caricature (_Dunciad_, b.
4), which bears in other respects little resemblance to the original. He
did not take up the habit of smoking till he was seventy. He held the
archdeaconry of Ely with two livings, but never obtained higher
preference in the church. He was offered the (then poor) bishopric of
Bristol but refused it, and being asked what preferment he would
consider worth his acceptance, replied, "That which would leave him no
reason to wish for a removal."
Bentley was the first, perhaps the only, Englishman who can be ranked
with the great heroes of classical learning, although perhaps not a
great classical scholar. Before him there were only John Selden, and, in
a more restricted field, Thomas Gataker and Pearson. But Selden, a man
of stupendous learning, wanted the freshness of original genius and
confident mastery over the whole region of his knowledge. "Bentley
inaugurated a new era of the art of criticism. He opened a new path.
With him criticism attained its majority. Where scholars had hitherto
offered suggestions and conjectures, Bentley, with unlimited control
over the whole material of learning, gave decisions" (Mahly). The modern
German school of philology does ungrudging homage to his genius.
Bentley, says Bunsen, "was the founder of historical philology." And
Jakob Bernays says of his corrections of the _Tristia_, "corruptions
which had hitherto defied every attempt even of the mightiest, were
removed by a touch of the fingers of this British Samson." The English
school of Hellenists, by which the 18th century was distinguished, and
which contains the names of R. Dawes, J. Markland, J. Taylor, J. Toup,
T. Tyrwhitt, Richard Porson, P.P. Dobree, Thomas Kidd and J.H. Monk, was
the creation of Bentley. And even the Dutch school of the same period,
though the outcome of a native tradition, was in no small degree
stimulated and directed by the example of Bentley, whose letters to the
young Hemsterhuis on his edition of Julius Pollux produced so powerful
an effect on him, that he became one of Bentley's most devoted admirers.
Bentley was a source of inspiration to a following generation of
scholars. Himself, he sprang from the earth without forerunners, without
antecedents. Self-taught, he created his own science. It was his
misfortune that there was no contemporary gild of learning in England by
which his power could be measured, and his eccentricities checked. In
the _Phalaris_ controversy his academical adversaries had not sufficient
knowledge to know how absolute their defeat was. Garth's couplet--
"So diamonds take a lustre from their foil,
And to a Bentley 'tis we owe a Boyle"--
expressed the belief of the wits or literary world of the time. The
attacks upon him by Pope, John Arbuthnot and others are evidence of
their inability to appreciate his work. To them, textual criticism
seemed mere pedantry and useless labour. It was not only that he had to
live with inferiors, and to waste his energy in a struggle forced upon
him by the necessities of his official position, but the wholesome
stimulus of competition and the encouragement of a sympathetic circle
were wanting. In a university where the instruction of youth or the
religious controversy of the day were the only known occupations,
Bentley was an isolated phenomenon, and we can hardly wonder that he
should have flagged in his literary exertions after his appointment to
the mastership of Trinity. All his vast acquisitions and all his
original views seem to have been obtained before 1700. After this period
he acquired little and made only spasmodic efforts--the _Horace_, the
_Terence_ and the _Milton_. The prolonged mental concentration and
mature meditation, which alone can produce a great work, were wanting to
him.
F.A. Wolf, _Literarische Analekten_, i. (1816); Monk, _Life of
Bentley_ (1830); J. Mahly, _Richard Bentley, eine Biographie_ (1868);
R.C. Jebb, _Bentley_ ("English Men of Letters" series, 1882), where a
list of authorities bearing on Bentley's life and work is given. For
his letters see _Bentlei et doctorum virorum ad eum Epistolae_ (1807);
_The Correspondence of Richard Bentley_, edited by C. Wordsworth
(1842). See also J.E. Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, ii.
401-410 (1908); and the _Bibliography of Bentley_, by A.T. Bartholomew
and J.W. Clark (Cambridge, 1908).
BENTLEY, RICHARD (1794-1871), British publisher, was born in London in
1794. His father owned the _General Evening Post_ in conjunction with
John Nichols, to whom Richard Bentley, on leaving St Paul's school, was
apprenticed to learn the printing trade. With his brother SAMUEL
(1785-1868), an antiquarian of some repute, he set up a printing
establishment, but in 1829 he began business as a publisher in
partnership with Henry Colburn in New Burlington Street. Colburn retired
in 1832 and Bentley continued business on his own account. In 1837 he
began _Bentley's Miscellany_, edited for the first three years of its
existence by Charles Dickens, whose _Oliver Twist_, with Cruikshank's
illustrations, appeared in its pages. Bentley and his son GEORGE
(1828-1895), as Richard Bentley & Son, published works by R.H. Barham,
Theodore Hook, Isaac D'Israeli, Judge Haliburton and others; also the
"Library of Standard Novels" and the "Favourite Novel Library." In the
latter series Mrs Henry Wood's _East Lynne_ appeared. In 1866 the firm
took over the publication of _Temple Bar_, with which _Bentley's
Miscellany_ was afterwards incorporated. Richard Bentley died on the
10th of September 1871. His son, George Bentley, and his grandson,
Richard Bentley, junior, continued the business until it was absorbed
(1898) by Macmillan & Co.
See also _R. Bentley & Son_ (Edinburgh, 1886), a history of the firm
reprinted from _Le Livre_ (October, 1885).
BENTON, THOMAS HART (1782-1858), American statesman, was born at
Hillsborough, Orange county, North Carolina, on the 14th of March 1782.
His father, an Englishman of refinement and scholarship, died in 1790,
leaving the boy under the influence of a very superior mother, from whom
he received lessons in book learning, piety and temperance quite unusual
in the frontier country. His home studies, facilitated by his father's
fine library, were supplemented by a brief stay at the university of
North Carolina (Chapel Hill) in 1799. The family removed, probably in
this year, to a large tract of land which had been acquired by the
father on the outskirts of the Indian country (at Benton Town, now
Leipers Fork) near Franklin, Tennessee. The following years, during
which Benton was at various times school teacher, farmer, lawyer and
politician, were the distinctively formative period of his life. His
intense democracy and many features of his boldly cast personality were
perfectly representative of the border people among whom he lived;
although his education, social standing and force of character placed
him above his fellows. In 1809 he served a term as state senator.
Between 1815 and 1817 he transferred his interests to St Louis,
Missouri, and in 1820 was elected United States senator from the new
state. His senatorial career of thirty years (1821-1851) was one of
extreme prominence. A friendship early formed in Tennessee for Andrew
Jackson was broken in 1813 by an armed fracas between the principals and
their friends, but after the presidential election of 1824 Benton became
a Jacksonian Democrat and Jackson's close friend, and as such was long
the Democratic leader in the Senate, his power being greatest during
Jackson's second term. He continued to be the administration's
right-hand man under Van Buren, but gradually lost influence under Polk,
with whom he finally broke both personally and politically.
The events of Benton's political life are associated primarily with
three things: the second United States Bank, westward expansion and
slavery. In the long struggles over the bank, the deposits and the
"expunging resolution" (i.e. the resolution to expunge from the records
of the Senate the vote of censure of President Jackson for his removal
of the government deposits from the bank), Benton led the Jackson
Democrats. His opposition to a national bank and insistence on the
peculiar virtues of "hard money," whence his sobriquet of "Old Bullion,"
went back to his Tennessee days. In all that concerned the expansion of
the country and the fortunes of the West no public man was more
consistent or more influential than Benton, and none so clear of vision.
Reared on the border, and representing a state long the farthermost
outpost across the Mississippi in the Indian country, he held the
ultra-American views of his section as regarded foreign relations
generally, and the "manifest destiny" of expansion westward especially.
It was quite natural that he should advocate the removal westward of the
Indian tribes, should urge the encouragement of trade with Sante Fe (New
Mexico), and should oppose the abandonment in the Spanish treaty of 1819
of American claims to Texas. He once thought the Rocky Mountains the
proper western limit of the United States (1824), but this view he soon
outgrew. He was the originator of the policy of homestead laws by which
the public lands were used to promote the settlement of the west by
home-seekers. No other man was so early and so long active for
transcontinental railways. But Benton was not a land-grabber, whether in
the interest of slavery or of mere jingoism. In the case of Oregon, for
instance, he was firmly against joint occupation with Great Britain, but
he was always for the boundary of 49 deg. and never joined in the
campaign-jingo cry of "Fifty-four Forty or Fight." It was he who chiefly
aided Polk in withdrawing from that untenable position. He despised
pretexts and intrigues. Both in the case of Oregon and in that of Texas,
though one of the earliest and most insistent of those who favoured
their acquisition, yet in the face of southern and western sentiment he
denounced the sordid and devious intrigues and politics connected with
their acquisition, and kept clear of these. For the same reason he
opposed the Mexican War, though not its prosecution once begun. In the
Texas question slavery was prominent. Toward slavery Benton held a
peculiarly creditable attitude. A southerner, he was a slaveholder; but
he seems to have gradually learned that slavery was a curse to the
South, for in 1844 he declared that he would not introduce it into Texas
lands "where it was never known," and in 1849 proclaimed that his
personal sentiments were "against the institution of slavery." In the
long struggle over slavery in the territories, following 1845, he was
for the extreme demands of neither section; not because he was timorous
or a compromiser,--no man was less of either,--but because he stood
unwaveringly for justice to both sections, never adopting exaggerated
views that must or even could be compromised. The truth is that he was
always a westerner before he was a southerner and a union man before all
things else; he was no whit less national than Webster. Hence his
distrust and finally hatred of Calhoun, dating from the nullification
episode of 1832-1833. As the South under Calhoun's lead became
increasingly sectional and aggressive, Benton increasingly lost sympathy
with her. Though he despised political inaction Abolitionists, and hated
their propaganda as inimical to the Union, he would not therefore close
the national mails to Abolition literature, nor abridge the right of
petition. No statesman was more prescient of the disunion tendencies of
Calhoun's policies, and as early as 1844 he prophetically denounced the
treason to the Union toward which the South was drifting. He would not
drift with her for the sake of slavery, and this was his political
undoing. In 1851 Missouri rejected him in his sixth candidacy for the
Senate, after he had been an autocrat in her politics for thirty years.
In 1852 he was elected to the House of Representatives, but his
opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise caused his defeat in
1854. An unsuccessful campaign for the governorship of Missouri in 1856
ended his political career. He died at Washington on the 10th of April
1858.
Benton's entire career was eminently creditable, and he is, besides, one
of the most picturesque figures in American political history. His
political principles--whether as regarded lobbying, congressional
jobbing, civil service or great issues of legislation and foreign
affairs--were of the highest. He was so independent that he had great
dislike for caucuses, and despised party platforms--although he never
voted any but the Democratic ticket, even when his son-in-law, J.C.
Fremont, was the Republican presidential candidate in 1856; nor would he
accept instructions from the Missouri legislature. His career shows no
truckling to self-interest, and on large issues he outgrew partisanship.
Although palpably inferior to each of his great senatorial colleagues,
Webster, Clay and Calhoun, in some gifts, yet if character, qualities
and career be taken in the whole his were possibly the most creditable
of all. Benton was austere, aggressive and vain; besides, he had a fatal
deficiency of humour. Nevertheless he had great influence, which was a
deserved tribute to his ability and high character. An indefatigable
student, he treated all subjects capably, and especially in questions of
his country's history and the exploration of the West had few
equals--in the latter none. He acted always with uncalculating boldness,
and defended his acts with extraordinary courage and persistence. Benton
wrote a _Thirty Years' View ... of the American Government_ (2 vols.,
1854-1856), characteristic of the author's personality; it is of great
value for the history of his time. He also compiled an _Abridgment of
the Debates of Congress_, 1789-1850 (16 vols., 1857-1861), likewise of
great usefulness; and published a bitter review of the Dred Scott
decision full of extremely valuable historical details--_Historical and
Legal Examination of ... the Dred Scott Case_ (1857). All were written
in the last eight years of his life and mostly in the last three.
The best biography is that by W.M. Meigs, _Life of Thomas Hart Benton_
(Philadelphia and London, 1904). See also Theodore Roosevelt's _Thomas
Hart Benton_ (Boston, 1887), in the "American Statesmen" series, which
admirably brings out Benton's significance as a western man; and
Joseph M. Rogers's _Thomas Hart Benton_ (Philadelphia, 1905) in the
"American Crisis" series.
BENTON HARBOR, a city of Berrien county, Michigan, U.S.A., on the Saint
Joseph river, about 1 m. from Lake Michigan (with which it is connected
by a ship canal), near the S.W. corner of the state, and 1 m. N.E. of St
Joseph. Pop. (1890) 3692; (1900) 6562, of whom 795 were foreign-born;
(1904) 6702; (1910) 9185. It is served by the Pere Marquette, the
Michigan Central, and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis
railways, by electric railways to St Joseph and Niles, Mich., and South
Bend, Indiana, and for a part of the year by steamboat lines to Chicago
and Milwaukee. One mile south-east of the city are a sanitarium and the
Eastman mineral springs; within the city also there are springs and
bath-houses. Near the city is a communistic religious community, the
Israelite House of David, founded in 1903, the members believe that they
are a part of the 144,000 elect (Revelation, vii, xiv) ultimately to be
redeemed. Benton Harbor has a large trade in fruit (peaches, grapes,
pears, cherries, strawberries, raspberries and apples) and other market
garden produce raised in the vicinity. The city's manufactures include
fruit baskets, preserved fruits, cider, vinegar, pickles, furniture,
lumber and stationers' supplies, particularly material for the
"loose-leaf ledger" system of accounting. Benton Harbor, which was known
as Bronson Harbor until 1865, was incorporated as a village in 1869, was
chartered as a city in 1891, and in 1903 received a new charter.
BENUE, a river of West Africa, the largest and most important affluent
of the Niger (q.v.), which it joins after a course of over 800 m. in a
general east to west direction from its source in the mountains of
Adamawa. Through the Tuburi marshes there is a water connexion between
the Benue (Niger) and Shari (Lake Chad) systems.
BEN VENUE, a mountain in south-west Perthshire, Scotland, 10 m. W. of
Callander. Its principal peaks are 2393 and 2386 ft. high, and, owing to
its position near the south-eastern shore of Loch Katrine, its imposing
contour is one of the most familiar features in the scenery of the
Trossachs, the mountain itself figuring prominently in _The Lady of the
Lake_. On its northern base, close to the lake, Sir Walter Scott placed
the Coir-nan-Uriskin, or "Goblin's Cave." Immediately to the south of
the cave is the dell called Beal(ach)-nam-Bo, or "Cattle Pass," through
which were driven to the refuge of the Trossachs the herds lifted by the
Highland marauders in their excursions to the lands south of Loch
Lomond. The pass, though comparatively unvisited, offers the grandest
scenery in the district.
BENZALDEHYDE (oil of bitter almonds), C6H5CHO, the simplest
representative of the aromatic aldehydes. It was first isolated in 1803
and was the subject of an important investigation by J. v. Liebigin 1837
(_Annalen_, 1837, 22, p. 1). It occurs naturally in the form of the
glucoside amygdalin (C20H27NO11), which is present in bitter almonds,
cherries, peaches and the leaves of the cherry laurel; and is obtained
from this substance by hydrolysis with dilute acids:
C20H27NO11 + 2H2O = HCN + 2C6H12O6 + C6H5CHO.
It occurs free in bitter almonds, being formed by an enzyme
decomposition of amygdalin (q.v.). It may also be prepared by oxidizing
benzyl alcohol with concentrated nitric acid; by distilling a mixture of
calcium benzoate and calcium formate; by the condensation of
chlor-oxalic ester with benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride,
the ester of the ketonic acid formed being then hydrolysed and the
resulting acid distilled:
C6H6 + Cl.CO.COOC2H5 = C6H5CO.COOC2H5 + HCl,
C6H5CO.COOH = C6H5CHO + CO2;
by the action of anhydrous hydrocyanic acid and hydrochloric acid on
benzene, an aldime being formed as an intermediate product:
C6H6 + HCN + HCl = C6H5CH : NH.HCl,
Benzaldine hydrochloride
C6H5CH : NH.HCl + H2O = NH4Cl + C6H5CHO;
and by the action of chromium oxychloride on toluene dissolved in carbon
bisulphide (A. Etard, _Berichte_, 1884, 17, pp. 1462, 1700).
Technically it is prepared from toluene, by converting it into benzyl
chloride, which is then heated with lead nitrate:
C6H5CH2Cl + Pb(NO3)2 = 2NO2 + PbCl.OH + C6H5CHO,
or, by conversion into benzal chloride, which is heated with milk of
lime under pressure.
C6H5CHCl2 + CaO = CaCL2 + C6H5CHO.
E. Jacobsen has also obtained benzaldehyde by heating benzal chloride
with glacial acetic acid:
C6H5CHCl2 + CH3COOH = CH3COCl + HCl + C6H5CHO.
Benzaldehyde is a colourless liquid smelling of bitter almonds. Its
specific gravity is 1.0636 (0/0 deg. C.), and it boils at 179.1 deg. C.
(751.3 mm). It is only slightly soluble in water, but is readily
volatile in steam. It possesses all the characteristic properties of an
aldehyde; being readily oxidized to benzoic acid; reducing solutions of
silver salts; forming addition products with hydrogen, hydrocyanic acid
and sodium bisulphite; and giving an oxime and a hydrazone. On the other
hand, it differs from the aliphatic aldehydes in many respects; it does
not form an addition product with ammonia but condenses to
hydrobenzamide (C6H5CH)3N2; on shaking with alcoholic potash it
undergoes simultaneous oxidation and reduction, giving benzoic acid and
benzyl alcohol (S. Cannizzaro); and on warming with alcoholic potassium
cyanide it condenses to benzoin (q.v.).
The oxidation of benzaldehyde to benzoic acid when exposed to air is not
one of ordinary oxidation, for it has been observed in the case of many
compounds that during such oxidation, as much oxygen is rendered
"active" as is used up by the substance undergoing oxidation; thus if
benzaldehyde is left for some time in contact with air, water and
indigosulphonic acid, just as much oxygen is used up in oxidizing the
indigo compound as in oxidizing the aldehyde. A. v. Baeyer and V.
Villiger (_Berichte_, 1900, 33, pp. 858, 2480) have shown that benzoyl
hydrogen peroxide C6H5.CO.O.OH is formed as an intermediate product and
that this oxidizes the indigo compound, being itself reduced to benzoic
acid; they have also shown that this peroxide is soluble in benzaldehyde
with production of benzoic acid, and it must be assumed that the
oxidation of benzaldehyde proceeds as shown in the equations:
C6H5CHO + O2 = C6H5.CO.O.OH,
C6H5CO.O.OH + C6H5CHO = 2C6H5COOH.
Further see G. Bodlander, _Ahrens Sammlung_, 1899, iii. 470; W.P.
Jorissen, _Zeit. fur phys. Chem._, 1897, 22, p. 56; C. Engler and W.
Wild, _Berichte_, 1897, 30, p. 1669.
The oxime of benzaldehyde (C6H5CH:N.OH), formed by the addition of
hydroxylamine to the aldehyde, exhibits a characteristic behaviour when
hydrochloric acid gas is passed into its ethereal solution, a second
modification being produced. The former (known as the [alpha] or
benz-anti-aldoxime) melts at 34-35 deg. C.; the latter ([beta] or
benz-syn-aldoxime) melts at 130 deg. C. and is slowly transformed into
the [alpha] form. The difference between the two forms has been
explained by A. Hantzsch and A. Werner (_Berichte_, 1890, 23, p. 11) by
the assumption of the different spatial arrangement of the atoms (see
STEREO-ISOMERISM). On account of the readiness with which it condenses
with various compounds, benzaldehyde is an important synthetic reagent.
With aniline it forms benzylidine aniline C6H5CH:N.C6H5, and with
acetone, benzal acetone C6H5CH : CH.CO.CH3. Heated with anhydrous sodium
acetate and acetic anhydride it gives cinnamic acid (q.v.); with ethyl
bromide and sodium it forms triphenyl-carbinol (C6H5)3C.OH; with
dimethylaniline and anhydrous zinc chloride it forms leuco-malachite
green C6H5CH[C6H4N(CH3)2]2; and with dimethylaniline and concentrated
hydrochloric acid it gives dimethylaminobenzhydrol,
C6H5CH(OH)C6H4N(CH3)2. Heated with sulphur it forms benzoic acid and
stilbene:
2C7H6O + S = C6H5COOH + C6H6CHS,
2C6H5CHS = 2S + C14H12.
Its addition compound with hydrocyanic acid gives mandelic acid
C6H5CH(OH).COOH on hydrolysis; when heated with sodium succinate and
acetic anhydride, phenyl-iso-crotonic acid C6H5CH : CH.CH2COOH is
produced, which on boiling is converted into [alpha]-naphthol C10H7OH.
It can also be used for the synthesis of pyridine derivatives, since A.
Hantzsch has shown that aldehydes condense with aceto-acetic ester and
ammonia to produce the homologues of pyridine, thus:
R R
| |
ROOC.CH2 CHO CH2.COOR ROOC.C-CH-C.COOR
| + + | = || || + 3H2O.
H3C.CO NH3 CO.CH3 H3C.C-NH-C.CH3
On nitration it yields chiefly meta-nitro-benzaldehyde, crystallizing in
needles which melt at 58 deg. C. The ortho-compound may be obtained by
oxidizing ortho-nitrocinnamic acid with alkaline potassium permanganate
in the presence of benzene; or from ortho-nitrobenzyl chloride by
condensing it with aniline, oxidizing the product so obtained to
ortho-nitrobenzylidine aniline, and then hydrolysing this compound with
an acid (_Farben fabrik d. Meister, Lucius und Bruning_). It
crystallizes in yellowish needles, which are volatile in steam and melt
at 46 deg. C. It is used in the artificial production of indigo (see
_German Patent_ 19768).
Para-nitrobenzaldehyde crystallizes in prisms melting at 107 deg. C. and
is prepared by the action of chromium oxychloride on para-nitrotoluene,
or by oxidizing para-nitrocinnamic acid. By the reduction of
ortho-nitrobenzaldehyde with ferrous sulphate and ammonia,
ortho-aminobenzaldehyde is obtained. This compound condenses in alkaline
solution with compounds containing the grouping -CH2-CO- to form
quinoline (q.v.) or its derivatives; thus, with acetaldehyde it forms
quinoline, and with acetone, [alpha]-methyl quinoline. With urea it
gives quinazolone
CH
/\ / \\N
| | |
| | CO ,
\/ \ /
NH
and with mandelic nitrile and its homologues it forms oxazole
derivatives (S.S. Minovici, _Berichte_, 1896, 29, p. 2097).
BENZENE, C6H6, a hydrocarbon discovered in 1825 by Faraday in the liquid
produced in the compression of the illuminating gas obtained by
distilling certain oils and fats. E. Mitscherlich prepared it in 1834 by
distilling benzoic acid with lime; and in 1845 Hofmann discovered it in
coal-tar. It was named "benzin" or "benzine" by Mitscherlich in 1833,
but in the following year Liebig proposed "benzol" (the termination _ol_
being suggested by the Lat. _oleum_, oil); the form "benzene" was due to
A.W. Hofmann. The word "benzine" is sometimes used in commerce for the
coal-tar product, but also for the light petroleum better known as
petroleum-benzine; a similar ambiguity is presented by the word
"benzoline," which is applied to the same substances as the word
"benzine." "Benzene" is the term used by English chemists, "benzol" is
used in Germany, and "benzole" in France.
Benzene is manufactured from the low-boiling fractions of the coal-tar
distillate (see COAL-TAR). The first successful fractionation of
coal-tar naphtha was devised by C.B. Mansfield (1819-1855), who
separated a benzol distilling below 100 deg. from a less volatile
naphtha by using a simple dephlegmator. At first, the oil was
manufactured principally for combustion in the Read-Holliday lamp and
for dissolving rubber, but the development of the coal-tar colour
industry occasioned a demand for benzols of definite purity. In the
earlier stages 30%, 50% and 90% benzols were required, the 30% being
mainly used for the manufacture of "aniline for red," and the 90% for
"aniline for blue." (The term "30% benzol" means that 30% by volume
distils below 100 deg.) A purer benzol was subsequently required for the
manufacture of aniline black and other dye-stuffs. The process
originally suggested by Mansfield is generally followed, the success of
the operation being principally conditioned by the efficiency of the
dephlegmator, in which various improvements have been made. The light
oil fraction of the coal-tar distillate, which comes over below 140 deg.
and consists principally of benzene, toluene and the xylenes, yields on
fractionation (1) various volatile impurities such as carbon disulphide,
(2) the benzene fraction boiling at about 80 deg. C., (3) the toluene
fraction boiling at 100 deg., (4) the xylene fraction boiling at 140
deg. The fractions are agitated with strong sulphuric acid, and then
washed with a caustic soda solution. The washed products are then
refractionated. The toluene fraction requires a more thorough washing
with sulphuric acid in order to eliminate the thiotolene, which is
sulphonated much less readily than thiophene.
Benzene is a colourless, limpid, highly refracting liquid, having a
pleasing and characteristic odour. It may be solidified to rhombic
crystals which melt at 5.4 deg. C. (Mansfield obtained perfectly pure
benzene by freezing a carefully fractionated sample.) It boils at 80.4
deg., and the vapour is highly inflammable, the flame being extremely
smoky. Its specific gravity is 0.899 at 0 deg. C. It is very slightly
soluble in water, more soluble in alcohol, and completely miscible with
ether, acetic acid and carbon disulphide. It is an excellent solvent for
gums, resins, fats, &c.; sulphur, phosphorus and iodine also dissolve in
it. It sometimes separates with crystals of a solute as "benzene of
crystallization," as for example with triphenylmethane, thio-p-tolyl
urea, tropine, &c.
Benzene is of exceptional importance commercially on account of the many
compounds derivable from it, which are exceedingly valuable in the arts.
Chemically it is one of the most interesting substances known, since it
is the parent of the enormous number of compounds styled the "aromatic"
or "benzenoid" compounds. The constitution of the benzene ring, the
isomerism of its derivatives, and their syntheses from aliphatic or
open-chain compounds, are treated in the article CHEMISTRY. A summary of
its chemical transformations may be given here, and reference should be
made to the articles on the separate compounds for further details.
Passed through a red-hot tube, benzene vapour yields hydrogen, diphenyl,
diphenylbenzenes and acetylene; the formation of the last compound is an
instance of a reversible reaction, since Berthelot found that acetylene
passed through a red-hot tube gave some benzene. Benzene is very stable
to oxidants, in fact resistance to oxidation is a strong characteristic
of the benzene ring. Manganese dioxide and sulphuric acid oxidize it to
benzoic and o-phthalic acid; potassium chlorate and sulphuric acid
breaks the ring; and ozone oxidizes it to the highly explosive white
solid named ozo-benzene, C6H6O6. Hydriodic acid reduces it to
hexamethylene (cyclo-hexane or hexa-hydro-benzene); chlorine and bromine
form substitution and addition products, but the action is slow unless
some carrier such as iodine, molybdenum chloride or ferric chloride for
chlorine, and aluminium bromide for bromine, be present. It is readily
nitrated to nitrobenzene, two, and even three nitro groups being
introduced if some dehydrator such as concentrated sulphuric acid be
present. Sulphuric acid gives a benzene sulphonic acid.
BENZIDINE (DIPARA-DIAMINO-DIPHENYL), NH2.C6H4.C6H4.NH2, a chemical base
which may be prepared by the reduction of the corresponding
dinitro-diphenyl, or by the reduction of azo-benzene with tin and
hydrochloric acid. In this latter case hydrazo-benzene C6H5NH.NH.C6H5 is
first formed and then undergoes a peculiar re-arrangement into benzidine
(see H. Schmidt and G. Schultz, _Annalen_, 1881, 207, p. 320; O.N. Witt
and Hans v. Helmont, _Berichte_, 1894, 27, p. 2352; P. Jacobson,
_Berichte_, 1892, 25, p. 994). Benzidine crystallizes in plates (from
water) which melt at 122 deg. C., and boil above 360 deg. C., and is
characterized by the great insolubility of its sulphate. It is a di-acid
base and forms salts with the mineral acids. It is readily brominated
and nitrated; when the nitration is carried out in the presence of
sulphuric acid, the nitro-groups take up the meta position with regard
to the amino-groups. Benzidine finds commercial application since its
tetrazo compound couples readily with amino-sulphonic acids, phenol
carboxylic acids, and phenol and naphthol-sulphonic acids to produce
substantive cotton dyes (see DYEING). Among such dyestuffs are
chrysamine or flavophenine, obtained from salicylic acid and diazotized
benzidine, and congo red obtained from sodium naphthionate and
diazotized benzidine. On the constitution of benzidine see G. Schultz
(_Annalen_, 1874, 174, p. 227).
_The Benzidine and Semidine Change._--Aromatic hydrazo compounds which
contain free para positions are readily converted by the action of
acids, acid chlorides and anhydrides into diphenyl derivatives; thus, as
mentioned above, hydrazo-benzene is converted into benzidine, a small
quantity of diphenylin being formed at the same time. The two products
are separated by the different solubilities of their sulphates. This
reaction is known as the _benzidine transformation_. If, however, one of
the para positions in the hydrazo compound is substituted, then either
diphenyl derivatives or azo compounds are formed, or what is known as
the _semidine change_ takes place (P. Jacobson, _Berichte_, 1892, 25, p.
992; 1893, 26, p. 681; 1896, 29, p. 2680; _Annalen_, 1895, 287, p. 97;
1898, 303, p. 290). A para mono substituted hydrazo compound in the
presence of a hydrochloric acid solution of stannous chloride gives
either a para diphenyl derivative (the substituent group being
eliminated), an ortho-semidine, a para-semidine, or a diphenyl base,
whilst a decomposition with the formation of amines may also take place.
The nature of the substituent exerts a specific influence on the
reaction; thus with chlorine or bromine, ortho-semidines and the
diphenyl bases are the chief products; the dimethylamino, -N(CH3)2, and
acetamino, -NHCOCH3, groups give the diphenyl base and the para-semidine
respectively. With a methyl group, the chief product is an
ortho-semidine, whilst with a carboxyl group, the diphenyl derivative is
the chief product. The ortho- and para- semidines can be readily
distinguished by their behaviour with different reagents; thus with
nitrous acid the ortho-semidines give azimido compounds, whilst the
para-semidines give complex diazo derivatives; with formic or acetic
acids the ortho-semidines give anhydro compounds of a basic character,
the para-semidines give acyl products possessing no basic character. The
carbon disulphide and salicylic aldehyde products have also been used as
means of distinction, as has also the formation of the stilbazonium
bases obtained by condensing ortho-semidines with benzil (O.N. Witt,
_Berichte_, 1892, 25, p. 1017).
Structurally we have:--
__ __ __ __ __ __NH2
/ \_NH.NH _/ \-->NH2 / \_/ \NH2 and NH2 / \_/ \
\__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/
Hydrobenzene. Benzidine. Diphenylin.
__ __ __ __ __ __
R/ \_NH.NH _/ \--> / \_NH_/ \or R/ \_NH_/ \NH2
\__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/
Ortho-semidine. Para-semidine.
__NH2__
or / \_/ \NH2.
\__/ \__/
R
BENZOIC ACID, C7H6O2 or C6H5COOH, the simplest representative of the
aromatic acids. It occurs naturally in some resins, especially in gum
benzoin (from _Styrax benzoin_), in dragon's blood, and as a benzyl
ester in Peru and Tolu balsams. It can be prepared by the oxidation of
toluene, benzyl alcohol, benzaldehyde and cinnamic acid; by the
oxidation of benzene with manganese dioxide and concentrated sulphuric
acid in the cold (L. Carius, _Ann_. 1868, 148, p. 51); by hydrolysis of
benzonitrile or of hippuric acid; by the action of carbon dioxide on
benzene in the presence of aluminium chloride (C. Friedel and J.M.
Crafts, _Ann. chim. phys._ 1888 [6], 14, p. 441); by the action of
carbon dioxide on monobrombenzene in the presence of sodium; by
condensing benzene and carbonyl chloride in presence of aluminium
chloride, the benzoyl chloride formed being subsequently hydrolysed; and
similarly from benzene and chlorformamide:--
C6H6 + Cl.CONH2 = HCl + C6H5CONH2,
the benzamide being then hydrolysed. It may also be prepared by boiling
benzyl chloride with dilute nitric acid (G. Lunge, _Berichte_, 1877, 10,
p. 1275); by fusing sodium benzene sulphonate with sodium formate:
C6H5SO3Na + HCO2Na = C6H5COONa + NaHSO3; by heating calcium phthalate
with calcium hydroxide to 330 deg.-350 deg. C.; by heating
benzotrichloride with water in a sealed tube, and from the hippuric acid
which is found in the urine of the herbivorae. For this purpose the
urine is concentrated and the hippuric acid precipitated by the addition
of hydrochloric acid; it is then filtered and boiled for some time with
concentrated hydrochloric acid, when it is hydrolysed into benzoic and
amido-acetic acid. It is made commercially by boiling benzotrichloride
(obtained from toluene) with milk of lime, the calcium benzoate so
obtained being then decomposed by hydrochloric acid
2C6H5CCl3 + 4Ca(OH)2 = (C6H5COO)2Ca + 3CaCl2 + 4H2O.
Benzoic acid crystallizes in glistening leaflets (from water) which melt
at 121.4 deg. C. and boil at 249.2 deg. C. (H. Kopp). Its specific heat
is 0.1946. It sublimes readily and is volatile in steam. It is readily
soluble in hot water and the ordinary organic solvents, but is only
slightly soluble in cold water. When heated with lime, it is decomposed,
benzene being formed; if its vapours are passed over heated zinc dust,
it is converted into benzaldehyde (A. Baeyer, _Ann_. 1866, 140, p. 296).
Distillation of its calcium salt gives benzophenone (q.v.) with small
quantities of other substances, but if the calcium salt be mixed with
calcium formate and the mixture distilled, benzaldehyde is produced. By
the action of sodium amalgam on an aqueous solution of the acid, benzyl
alcohol, tetrahydrobenzoic acid and hexahydrobenzoic acid are formed.
The salts of benzoic acid are known as the benzoates and are mostly
soluble in water. They are readily decomposed by mineral acids with the
production of benzoic acid, and on addition of ferric chloride to their
neutral solutions give a reddish-brown precipitate of ferric benzoate.
Benzoic anhydride, (C6H5CO)2O, is prepared by the action of benzoyl
chloride on sodium benzoate, or by heating benzoyl chloride with
anhydrous oxalic acid (R. Anschutz, _Ann_. 1884, 226, p. 15). It
crystallizes in needles, melting at 42 deg.C., and boiling at 360 deg.
C. It is insoluble in water but readily soluble in alcohol and ether.
Benzoyl chloride, C6H5COCl, is formed by distilling a mixture of
phosphorus pentachloride and benzoic acid; by the action of chlorine on
benzaldehyde, or by passing a stream of hydrochloric acid gas over a
mixture of benzoic acid and phosphorus pentoxide heated to 200 deg. C.
(C. Friedel, _Ber._ 1869, 2, p. 80). It is a colourless liquid of very
unpleasant smell, which boils at 198 deg. C., and solidifies in a
freezing mixture, the crystals obtained melting at -1 deg. C. It shows
all the characteristic properties of an acid chloride.
Ethyl benzoate, C6H5COOC2H5, is best prepared by boiling benzoic acid
and alcohol with a small quantity of sulphuric acid for some hours (E.
Fischer and A. Speier, _Berichte_, 1896, 28, p. 3252). It is a
colourless liquid of boiling point 213 deg. C.
_Benzamide_, C6H5CONH2, is prepared by the action of benzoyl chloride on
ammonia or ammonium carbonate, or from ethyl benzoate and ammonia. It
crystallizes (from water) in glistening leaflets which melt at 130 deg.
C. and boil at 288 deg. C. Its silver salt behaves as if it were the
salt of an imido benzoic acid, since it yields benzimido ethyl ether
C6H5.C( : NH).OC2H5 with ethyl iodide (J. Tafel and C. Enoch,
_Berichte_, 1890, 23, p. 1550).
Chlor-, brom-, iodo- and fluor-benzoic acids are known and can be
obtained by oxidizing the corresponding halogen toluenes, or from the
amido acids, or by substitution. Nitration of benzoic acid gives chiefly
meta-nitro-benzoic acid. The ortho- and para-nitro-benzoic acids can be
obtained by oxidizing ortho-and para-nitro-cinnamic acids.
Ortho-amino-benzoic acid, C6H4.NH2.COOH (anthranilic acid), is closely
related to indigo (q.v.).
Gum benzoin, which contains from 12 to 20% of benzoic acid, is used in
medicine as the essential constituent of benzoated lard, _Adeps
benzoatus_, which owes its antiseptic properties to benzoic acid; and in
friar's balsam, _Tinctura benzoini composita_, which is an ancient and
valuable medicament, still largely used for inhalation in cases of
laryngitis, bronchitis and other inflammatory or actually septic
conditions of the respiratory tract. It owes its value to the benzoic
acid which it contains. A fluid drachm of friar's balsam may be added to
a pint of water at a temperature of about 140 deg. F., and the resultant
vapour may be inhaled from the spout of a kettle or from a special
inhaler. Benzoic acid itself, ammonium benzoate and sodium benzoate are
all administered internally in doses of from five to thirty grains. The
ammonium salt is most often employed, owing to the stimulant character
of the ammonium base. The acid itself is a powerful antiseptic. When
administered internally, it causes the appearance of hippuric acid in
the urine. This is due to its combination in the body with glycocoll.
The combination probably occurs in the kidney. The hippuric acid in the
urine acts as a stimulant and disinfectant to the urinary mucous
membrane. Benzoic acid is also excreted by the bronchi and tends to
disinfect and stimulate the bronchial mucous membrane. Hence the value
of friar's balsam. The acid and its salts are antipyretic and were used
in Germany instead of salicylates in rheumatic fever. But the most
important fact is that ammonium benzoate is largely used--often in
combination with urinary anodynes such as tincture of hyoscyamus--as a
urinary antiseptic in cases of cystitis (inflammation of the bladder)
and pyelitis (inflammation of the pelvis of the kidney).
BENZOIN, C6H5CHOH.CO.C6H5, a ketone-alcohol, which may be prepared by
boiling an alcoholic solution of benzaldehyde with potassium cyanide; by
reducing benzil (C6H5CO.CO.C6H5) with zinc and acetic acid; or by the
oxidation of hydrobenzoin (C6H5.CHOH.CHOH.C6H5). It is a colourless,
crystalline solid, readily soluble in alcohol and ether, melting at 137
deg. C. and boiling at 343-344 deg.C. On passing the vapour of benzoin
over heated lead oxide, it is converted into benzil and benzophenone.
Owing to the readiness with which it is oxidized, it acts as a reducing
agent, giving a red precipitate of cuprous oxide with Fehling's solution
in the cold. Chlorine and nitric acid oxidize it to benzil; chromic acid
mixture and potassium permanganate, to benzoic acid and benzaldehyde. On
heating with zinc dust, desoxy-benzoin (C6H5CO.CH2.C6H5) is obtained;
sodium amalgam converts it into hydrobenzoin; and fuming hydriodic acid
at 130 deg. C. gives dibenzyl (C6H5CH2.CH2.C6H5). By fusion with alkali
it is converted into benzil; and with an alcoholic solution of
benzaldehyde in presence of ammonia it forms amarine (triphenyl
dihydro-glyoxaline). In the presence of sulphuric acid it condenses with
nitriles to oxazoles (q.v.).
BENZOIN, or GUM BENJAMIN (supposed to be from Arab. _luban_,
frankincense, the first syllable being dropped in Romanic as if it were
the article), a balsamic resin obtained from _Styrax benzoin_, a tree of
considerable size, native to Sumatra and Java, and from other species of
_Styrax_. It is obtained by making incisions in the bark of the trees,
and appears to be formed as the result of the wound, not to be secreted
normally. There are several varieties of benzoin in commerce: (1) Siam
benzoin, which apparently does not come from _Styrax benzoin_, is the
finest and most aromatic, and occurs in the form of small "tears,"
rarely exceeding 2 in. in length by 1/2 in. in thickness, and of
"blocks" made up of these tears agglomerated by a clear reddish-brown
resin. The odour of Siam benzoin is partly due to the presence of
vanillin, and the substance contains as much as 38% of benzoic acid but
no cinnamic acid. (2) Sumatra benzoin occurs only in masses formed of
dull red resin enclosing white tears. It contains about 20% of cinnamic
acid in addition to 18 or even more of benzoic. (3) Palembang benzoin,
an inferior variety, said to be obtained from _Styrax benzoin_ in
Sumatra, consists of greyish translucent resinous masses, containing
small white opaque tears. It does not appear to contain cinnamic acid.
Large quantities of benzoin are used as incense. Its medicinal uses
depend on the contained benzoic acid (q.v.).
BENZOPHENONE (DIPHENYL KETONE), C6H5.CO.C6H5, the simplest
representative of the true aromatic ketones. It may be prepared by
distilling calcium benzoate; by condensing benzene with benzoyl chloride
in the presence of anhydrous aluminium chloride; by the action of
mercury diphenyl on benzoyl chloride, or by oxidizing diphenylmethane
with chromic acid. It is a dimorphous substance existing in two
enantiotropic forms, one melting at 26 deg. C. and the other at 48 deg.
C: (Th. Zmcke, _Berichte_, 1871, 4, p. 576). It boils at 306.1 deg. C.,
under a pressure of 760.32 mm. It is reduced by sodium amalgam to
_benzhydrol_ or _diphenyl carbinol_ C6H5.CHOH.C6H5; a stronger reducing
agent, such as hydriodic acid in the presence of amorphous phosphorus
converts it into _diphenylmethane_ (C6H5)2-CH2. Potash fusion converts
it into benzene and benzoic acid. With phenylhydrazine it forms a
hydrazone, and with hydroxylamine an oxime, which exists in one form
only; if, however, one of the phenyl groups in the oxime be substituted
in any way then two stereo-isomeric oximes are produced (cf.
STEREO-ISOMERISM); thus parachlorbenzophenone oxime exists in two
different forms (V. Meyer and K.F. Auwers, _Berichte_, 1890, 23, p.
2403). Many derivatives are known, thus ortho-amino-benzophenone,
melting at 106 deg. C., can be obtained by reduction of the
corresponding nitro compound; it condenses under the influence of heated
lead monoxide to an acridine derivative and with acetone in presence of
caustic soda it gives a quinoline. _Tetramethyl-diamido-benzophenone_ or
_Michler's ketone_, CO[C6H4N.(CH3)2]3, melting at 173 deg., is of
technical importance, as by condensation with various substances it can
be made to yield dye-stuffs. It is prepared by the action of carbonyl
chloride on dimethyl aniline in the presence of aluminium chloride:
COCl2 + 2C6H5N(CH3)2 = 2HCl + CO[C6H4N(CH3)2]2.
BENZYL ALCOHOL (PHENYL CARBINOL), C6H5CH2OH, occurs as a benzoic ester
in Peru balsam, as cinnamic ester in Tolu balsam, as acetic ester in
essential oil of jasmine, and also in storax. It may be synthetically
prepared by the reduction of benzoyl chloride; by the action of nitrous
acid on benzylamine; by boiling benzyl chloride with an aqueous solution
of potassium carbonate, or by the so-called "Cannizzaro" reaction, in
which benzaldehyde is shaken up with caustic potash, one half of the
aldehyde being oxidized to benzoic acid, and the other half reduced to
the alcohol. (_Berichte_, 1881, 14, p. 2394).
2C6H5CHO + KOH = C6H5COOK + C6H5CH2OH.
It is a colourless liquid, with a faint aromatic smell, and boils at 206
deg. C. On oxidation with nitric acid it is converted into benzaldehyde,
whilst chromic acid oxidizes it to benzoic acid. Reduction by means of
hydriodic acid and phosphorus at 140 deg. C. gives toluene, whilst on
distillation with alcoholic potash, toluene and benzoic acid are formed.
BEOTHUK, a tribe of North American Indians formerly dwelling in the
interior of Newfoundland. A certain mystery attaches to them, since
investigation of the few words of their language which have survived
suggests that they were of distinct stock. The name (of Micmac origin)
is said to mean simply "red men." They were bitterly hostile to the
French settlers, and were hunted down and killed off until 1820, when a
few survivors made their escape into Labrador. The last of them is
believed to have died in 1829.
BEOTHY, ODON (1796-1854), Hungarian deputy and orator, was born at
Grosswardein, his father being a retired officer and deputy
lord-lieutenant of the county of Bihar. At the age of sixteen he served
in the war against Napoleon, and was present at the great battle of
Leipzig. Like so many others of his compatriots, he picked up Liberal
ideas abroad. He was sent to parliament by his county in 1826 and again
in 1830, but did not become generally known till the session of
1832-1836, when along with Deak he, as a liberal Catholic, defended the
Protestant point of view in "the mixed marriages question." He was also
an energetic advocate of freedom of speech. After parliament rose he
carried his principles to their logical conclusion by marrying a
Protestant lady and, being denied a blessing on the occasion by an
indignant bishop, publicly declared that he could very well dispense
with such blessings. In 1841 he was elected deputy lord-lieutenant of
his county to counteract the influence of the lord-lieutenant, Lajos
Tisza, and powerfully promoted the popular cause by his eloquence and
agitation. After 1843 the conservatives succeeded in excluding him both
from parliament and from his official position in the county; but during
the famous "March Days" (1848) he regained all his authority, becoming
at the same time a commander of militia, a deputy and lord-lieutenant.
At the first session of the Upper House (5th of July 1848), he moved
that it should be radically reformed, and during the war of Independence
he energetically served the Hungarian government as a civil commissioner
and lord justice. Towards the end of the war he reappeared as a deputy
at the Szeged diet, and on the flight of the government took refuge
first with Richard Cobden in London and subsequently in Jersey, where he
made the acquaintance of Victor Hugo. Thence he went to Hamburg, to meet
his wife, and died there on the 7th of December 1854. Beothy was a man
of extraordinary ability and character, and an excellent debater. He
also exercised as much influence socially over his contemporaries as
politically, owing to his unfailing tact and pleasant wit.
See Antal Csengery, _Hungarian Orators and Statesmen_ (Hung.,
Budapest, 1851). (R. N. B.)
BEOWULF. The epic of Beowulf, the most precious relic of Old English,
and, indeed, of all early Germanic literature, has come down to us in a
single MS., written about A.D. 1000, which contains also the Old English
poem of Judith, and is bound up with other MSS. in a volume in the
Cottonian collection now at the British Museum. The subject of the poem
is the exploits of Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow and nephew of Hygelac, king
of the "Geatas," i.e. the people, called in Scandinavian records Gautar,
from whom a part of southern Sweden has received its present name
Gotland.
_The Story._--The following is a brief outline of the story, which
naturally divides itself into five parts.
1. Beowulf, with fourteen companions, sails to Denmark, to offer his
help to Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose hall (called "Heorot") has
for twelve years been rendered uninhabitable by the ravages of a
devouring monster (apparently in gigantic human shape) called Grendel, a
dweller in the waste, who used nightly to force an entrance and
slaughter some of the inmates. Beowulf and his friends are feasted in
the long-deserted Heorot. At night the Danes withdraw, leaving the
strangers alone. When all but Beowulf are asleep, Grendel enters, the
iron-barred doors having yielded in a moment to his hand. One of
Beowulf's friends is killed; but Beowulf, unarmed, wrestles with the
monster, and tears his arm from the shoulder. Grendel, though mortally
wounded, breaks from the conqueror's grasp, and escapes from the hall.
On the morrow, his bloodstained track is followed until it ends in a
distant mere.
2. All fear being now removed, the Danish king and his followers pass
the night in Heorot, Beowulf and his comrades being lodged elsewhere.
The hall is invaded by Grendel's mother, who kills and carries off one
of the Danish nobles. Beowulf proceeds to the mere, and, armed with
sword and corslet, plunges into the water. In a vaulted chamber under
the waves, he fights with Grendel's mother, and kills her. In the vault
he finds the corpse of Grendel; he cuts off the head, and brings it back
in triumph.
3. Richly rewarded by Hrothgar, Beowulf returns to his native land. He
is welcomed by Hygelac. and relates to him the story of his adventures,
with some details not contained in the former narrative. The king
bestows on him lands and honours, and during the reigns of Hygelac and
his son Heardred he is the greatest man in the kingdom. When Heardred is
killed in battle with the Swedes, Beowulf becomes king in his stead.
4. After Beowulf has reigned prosperously for fifty years, his country
is ravaged by a fiery dragon, which inhabits an ancient burial-mound,
full of costly treasure. The royal hall itself is burned to the ground.
The aged king resolves to fight, unaided, with the dragon. Accompanied
by eleven chosen warriors, he journeys to the barrow. Bidding his
companions retire to a distance, he takes up his position near the
entrance to the mound--an arched opening whence issues a boiling stream.
I The dragon hears Beowulf's shout of defiance, and rushes forth,
breathing flames. The fight begins; Beowulf is all but overpowered, and
the sight is so terrible that his men, all but one, seek safety in
flight. The young Wiglaf, son of Weohstan, though yet untried in battle,
cannot, even in obedience to his lord's prohibition, refrain from going
to his help. With Wiglaf's aid, Beowulf slays the dragon, but not before
he has received his own death-wound. Wiglaf enters the barrow, and
returns to show the dying king the treasures that he has found there.
With his last breath Beowulf names Wiglaf his successor, and ordains
that his ashes shall be enshrined in a great mound, placed on a lofty
cliff, so that it may be a mark for sailors far out at sea.
5. The news of Beowulf's dear-bought victory is carried to the army.
Amid great lamentation, the hero's body is laid on the funeral pile and
consumed. The treasures of the dragon's hoard are buried with his ashes;
and when the great mound is finished, twelve of Beowulf's most famous
warriors ride around it, celebrating the praises of the bravest,
gentlest and most generous of kings.
_The Hero._--Those portions of the poem that are summarized above--that
is to say, those which relate the career of the hero in progressive
order--contain a lucid and well-constructed story, told with a vividness
of imagination and a degree of narrative skill that may with little
exaggeration be called Homeric. And yet it is probable that there are
few readers of Beowulf who have not felt--and there are many who after
repeated perusal continue to feel--that the general impression produced
by it is that of a bewildering chaos. This effect is due to the
multitude and the character of the episodes. In the first place, a very
great part of what the poem tells about Beowulf himself is not presented
in regular sequence, but by way of retrospective mention or narration.
The extent of the material thus introduced out of course may be seen
from the following abstract.
When seven years old the orphaned Beowulf was adopted by his grandfather
king Hrethel, the father of Hygelac, and was regarded by him with as
much affection as any of his own sons. In youth, although famed for his
wonderful strength of grip, he was generally despised as sluggish and
unwarlike. Yet even before his encounter with Grendel, he had won renown
by his swimming contest with another youth named Breca, when after
battling for seven days and nights with the waves, and slaying many
sea-monsters, he came to land in the country of the Finns. In the
disastrous invasion of the land of the Hetware, in which Hygelac was
killed, Beowulf killed many of the enemy, amongst them a chieftain of
the Hugas, named Daeghrefn, apparently the slayer of Hygelac. In the
retreat he once more displayed his powers as a swimmer, carrying to his
ship the armour of thirty slain enemies. When he reached his native
land, the widowed queen offered him the kingdom, her son Heardred being
too young to rule. Beowulf, out of loyalty, refused to be made king, and
acted as the guardian of Heardred during his minority, and as his
counsellor after he came to man's estate. By giving shelter to the
fugitive Eadgils, a rebel against his uncle the king of the "Sweon" (the
Swedes, dwelling to the north of the Gautar), Heardred brought on
himself an invasion, in which he lost his life. When Beowulf became
king, he supported the cause of Eadgils by force of arms; the king of
the Swedes was killed, and his nephew placed on the throne.
_Historical Value._--Now, with one brilliant exception--the story of the
swimming-match, which is felicitously introduced and finely told--these
retrospective passages are brought in more or less awkwardly, interrupt
inconveniently the course of the narrative, and are too condensed and
allusive in style to make any strong poetic impression. Still, they do
serve to complete the portraiture of the hero's character. There are,
however, many other episodes that have nothing to do with Beowulf
himself, but seem to have been inserted with a deliberate intention of
making the poem into a sort of cyclopaedia of Germanic tradition. They
include many particulars of what purports to be the history of the royal
houses, not only of the Gautar and the Danes, but also of the Swedes,
the continental Angles, the Ostrogoths, the Frisians and the
Heathobeards, besides references to matters of unlocalized heroic story
such as the exploits of Sigismund. The Saxons are not named, and the
Franks appear only as a dreaded hostile power. Of Britain there is no
mention; and though there are some distinctly Christian passages, they
are so incongruous in tone with the rest of the poem that they must be
regarded as interpolations. In general the extraneous episodes have no
great appropriateness to their context, and have the appearance of being
abridged versions of stories that had been related at length in poetry.
Their confusing effect, for modern readers, is increased by a curiously
irrelevant prologue. It begins by celebrating the ancient glories of the
Danes, tells in allusive style the story of Scyld, the founder of the
"Scylding" dynasty of Denmark, and praises the virtues of his son
Beowulf. If this Danish Beowulf had been the hero of the poem, the
opening would have been appropriate; but it seems strangely out of place
as an introduction to the story of his namesake.
However detrimental these redundancies may be to the poetic beauty of
the epic, they add enormously to its interest for students of Germanic
history or legend. If the mass of traditions which it purports to
contain be genuine, the poem is of unique importance as a source of
knowledge respecting the early history of the peoples of northern
Germany and Scandinavia. But the value to be assigned to _Beowulf_ in
this respect can be determined only by ascertaining its probable date,
origin and manner of composition. The criticism of the Old English epic
has therefore for nearly a century been justly regarded as indispensable
to the investigation of Germanic antiquities.
The starting-point of all _Beowulf_ criticism is the fact (discovered by
N.F.S. Grundtvig in 1815) that one of the episodes of the poem belongs
to authentic history. Gregory of Tours, who died in 594, relates that in
the reign of Theodoric of Metz (511-534) the Danes invaded the kingdom,
and carried off many captives and much plunder to their ships. Their
king, whose name appears in the best MSS. as Chlochilaicus (other copies
read Chrochilaicus, Hrodolaicus, &c.), remained on shore intending to
follow afterwards, but was attacked by the Franks under Theodobert, son
of Theodoric, and killed. The Franks then defeated the Danes in a naval
battle, and recovered the booty. The date of these events is ascertained
to have been between 512 and 520. An anonymous history written early in
the eighth century (_Liber Hist. Francorum_, cap. 19) gives the name of
the Danish king as Chochilaicus, and says that he was killed in the land
of the Attoarii. Now it is related in _Beowulf_ that Hygelac met his
death in fighting against the Franks and the Hetware (the Old English
form of Attoarii). The forms of the Danish king's name given by the
Frankish historians are corruptions of the name of which the primitive
Germanic form was Hugilaikaz, and which by regular phonetic change
became in Old English _Hygelac_, and in Old Norse Hugleikr. It is true
that the invading king is said in the histories to have been a Dane,
whereas the Hygelac of Beowulf belonged to the "Geatas" or Gautar. But a
work called _Liber Monstrorum_,[1] preserved in two MSS. of the 10th
century, cites as an example of extraordinary stature a certain
"Huiglaucus, king of the Getae," who was killed by the Franks, and whose
bones were preserved on an island at the mouth of the Rhine, and
exhibited as a marvel. It is therefore evident that the personality of
Hygelac, and the expedition in which, according to _Beowulf_, he died,
belong not to the region of legend or poetic invention, but to that of
historic fact.
This noteworthy result suggests the possibility that what the poem tells
of Hygelac's near relatives, and of the events of his reign and that of
his successor, is based on historic fact. There is really nothing to
forbid the supposition; nor is there any unlikelihood in the view that
the persons mentioned as belonging to the royal houses of the Danes and
Swedes had a real existence. It can be proved, at any rate, that several
of the names are derived from the native traditions of these two
peoples. The Danish king Hrothgar and his brother Halga, the sons of
Healf-dene, appear in the _Historia Danica_ of Saxo as Roe (the founder
of Roskilde) and Helgo, the sons of Haldanus. The Swedish princes
Eadgils, son of Ohthere, and Onela, who are mentioned in _Beowulf_, are
in the Icelandic _Heimskringla_ called Adils son of Ottarr, and Ali; the
correspondence of the names, according to the phonetic laws of Old
English and Old Norse, being strictly normal. There are other points of
contact between _Beowulf_ on the one hand and the Scandinavian records
on the other, confirming the conclusion that the Old English poem
contains much of the historical tradition of the Gautar, the Danes and
the Swedes, in its purest accessible form.
Of the hero of the poem no mention has been found elsewhere. But the
name (the Icelandic form of which is Bjolfr) is genuinely Scandinavian.
It was borne by one of the early settlers in Iceland, and a monk named
Biuulf is commemorated in the _Liber Vitae_ of the church of Durham. As
the historical character of Hygelac has been proved, it is not
unreasonable to accept the authority of the poem for the statement that
his nephew Beowulf succeeded Heardred on the throne of the Gautar, and
interfered in the dynastic quarrels of the Swedes. His swimming exploit
among the Hetware, allowance being made for poetic exaggeration, fits
remarkably well into the circumstances of the story told by Gregory of
Tours; and perhaps his contest with Breca may have been an exaggeration
of a real incident in his career; and even if it was originally related
of some other hero, its attribution to the historical Beowulf may have
been occasioned by his renown as a swimmer.
On the other hand, it would be absurd to imagine that the combats with
Grendel and his mother and with the fiery dragon can be exaggerated
representations of actual occurrences. These exploits belong to the
domain of pure mythology. That they have been attributed to Beowulf in
particular might seem to be adequately accounted for by the general
tendency to connect mythical achievements with the name of any famous
hero. There are, however, some facts that seem to point to a more
definite explanation. The Danish king "Scyld Scefing," whose story is
told in the opening lines of the poem, and his son Beowulf, are plainly
identical with Sceldwea, son of Sceaf, and his son Beaw, who appear
among the ancestors of Woden in the genealogy of the kings of Wessex
given in the _Old English Chronicle_. The story of Scyld is related,
with some details not found in _Beowulf_, by William of Malmesbury, and,
less fully, by the 10th-century English historian Ethelwerd, though it
is told not of Scyld himself, but of his father Sceaf. According to
William's version, Sceaf was found, as an infant, alone in a boat
without oars, which had drifted to the island of "Scandza." The child
was asleep with his head on a _sheaf_, and from this circumstance he
obtained his name. When he grew up he reigned over the Angles at
"Slaswic." In _Beowulf_ the same story is told of Scyld, with the
addition that when he died his body was placed in a ship, laden with
rich treasure, which was sent out to sea unguided. It is clear that in
the original form of the tradition the name of the foundling was Scyld
or Sceldwea, and that his cognomen _Scefing_ (derived from _sceaf_, a
sheaf) was misinterpreted as a patronymic. Sceaf, therefore, is no
genuine personage of tradition, but merely an etymological figment.
The position of Sceldwea and Beaw (in Malmesbury's Latin called Sceldius
and Beowius) in the genealogy as anterior to Woden would not of itself
prove that they belong to divine mythology and not to heroic legend. But
there are independent reasons for believing that they were originally
gods or demi-gods. It is a reasonable conjecture that the tales of
victories over Grendel and the fiery dragon belong properly to the myth
of Beaw. If Beowulf, the champion of the Gautar, had already become a
theme of epic song, the resemblance of name might easily suggest the
idea of enriching his story by adding to it the achievements of Beaw. At
the same time, the tradition that the hero of these adventures was a son
of Scyld, who was identified (whether rightly or wrongly) with the
eponymus of the Danish dynasty of the Scyldings, may well have prompted
the supposition that they took place in Denmark. There is, as we shall
see afterwards, some ground for believing that there were circulated in
England two rival poetic versions of the story of the encounters with
supernatural beings: the one referring them to Beowulf the Dane, while
the other (represented by the existing poem) attached them to the legend
of the son of Ecgtheow, but ingeniously contrived to do some justice to
the alternative tradition by laying the scene of the Grendel incident at
the court of a Scylding king.
As the name of Beaw appears in the genealogies of English kings, it
seems likely that the traditions of his exploits may have been brought
over by the Angles from their continental home. This supposition is
confirmed by evidence that seems to show that the Grendel legend was
popularly current in this country. In the schedules of boundaries
appended to two Old English charters there occurs mention of pools
called "Grendel's mere," one in Wiltshire and the other in
Staffordshire. The charter that mentions the Wiltshire "Grendel's mere"
speaks also of a place called _Beowan ham_ ("Beowa's home"), and another
Wiltshire charter has a "Scyld's tree" among the landmarks enumerated.
The notion that ancient burial mounds were liable to be inhabited by
dragons was common in the Germanic world: there is perhaps a trace of it
in the Derbyshire place-name Drakelow, which means "dragon's barrow."
While, however, it thus appears that the mythic part of the Beowulf
story is a portion of primeval Angle tradition, there is no proof that
it was originally peculiar to the Angles; and even if it was so, it may
easily have passed from them into the poetic cycles of the related
peoples. There are, indeed, some reasons for suspecting that the
blending of the stories of the mythic Beaw and the historical Beowulf
may have been the work of Scandinavian and not of English poets. Prof.
G. Sarrazin has pointed out the striking resemblance between the
Scandinavian legend of Bodvarr Biarki and that of the Beowulf of the
poem. In each, a hero from Gautland slays a destructive monster at the
court of a Danish king, and afterwards is found fighting on the side of
Eadgils (Adils) in Sweden. This coincidence cannot well be due to mere
chance; but its exact significance is doubtful. On the one hand, it is
possible that the English epic, which unquestionably derived its
historical elements from Scandinavian song, may be indebted to the same
source for its general plan, including the blending of history and myth.
On the other hand, considering the late date of the authority for the
Scandinavian traditions, we cannot be sure that the latter may not owe
some of their material to English minstrels. There are similar
alternative possibilities with regard to the explanation of the striking
resemblances which certain incidents of the adventures with Grendel and
the dragon bear to incidents in the narratives of Saxo and the Icelandic
sagas.
_Date and Origin._--It is now time to speak of the probable date and
origin of the poem. The conjecture that most naturally presents itself
to those who have made no special study of the question, is that an
English epic treating of the deeds of a Scandinavian hero on
Scandinavian ground must have been composed in the days of Norse or
Danish dominion in England. This, however, is impossible. The forms
under which Scandinavian names appear in the poem show clearly that
these names must have entered English tradition not later than the
beginning of the 7th century. It does not indeed follow that the extant
poem is of so early a date; but its syntax is remarkably archaic in
comparision with that of the Old English poetry of the 8th century. The
hypothesis that _Beowulf_ is in whole or in part a translation from a
Scandinavian original, although still maintained by some scholars,
introduces more difficulties than it solves, and must be dismissed as
untenable. The limits of this article do not permit us to state and
criticize the many elaborate theories that have been proposed respecting
the origin of the poem. All that can be done is to set forth the view
that appears to us to be most free from objection. It may be premised
that although the existing MS. is written in the West-Saxon dialect, the
phenomena of the language indicate transcription from an Anglian (i.e. a
Northumbrian or Mercian) original; and this conclusion is supported by
the fact that while the poem contains one important episode relating to
the Angles, the name of the Saxons does not occur in it at all.
In its original form, _Beowulf_ was a product of the time when poetry
was composed not to be read, but to be recited in the halls of kings and
nobles. Of course an entire epic could not be recited on a single
occasion; nor can we suppose that it would be thought out from beginning
to end before any part of it was presented to an audience. A singer who
had pleased his hearers with a tale of adventure would be called on to
tell them of earlier or later events in the career of the hero; and so
the story would grow, until it included all that the poet knew from
tradition, or could invent in harmony with it. That _Beowulf_ is
concerned with the deeds of a foreign hero is less surprising than it
seems at first sight. The minstrel of early Germanic times was required
to be learned not only in the traditions of his own people, but also in
those of the other peoples with whom they felt their kinship. He had a
double task to perform. It was not enough that his songs should give
pleasure; his patrons demanded that he should recount faithfully the
history and genealogy both of their own line and of those other royal
houses who shared with them the same divine ancestry, and who might be
connected with them by ties of marriage or warlike alliance. Probably
the singer was always himself an original poet; he might often be
content to reproduce the songs that he had learned, but he was doubtless
free to improve or expand them as he chose, provided that his inventions
did not conflict with what was supposed to be historic truth. For all we
know, the intercourse of the Angles with Scandinavia, which enabled
their poets to obtain new knowledge of the legends of Danes, Gautar and
Swedes, may not have ceased until their conversion to Christianity in
the 7th century. And even after this event, whatever may have been the
attitude of churchmen towards the old heathen poetry, the kings and
warriors would be slow to lose their interest in the heroic tales that
had delighted their ancestors. It is probable that down to the end of
the 7th century, if not still later, the court poets of Northumbria and
Mercia continued to celebrate the deeds of Beowulf and of many another
hero of ancient days.
Although the heathen Angles had their own runic alphabet, it is unlikely
that any poetry was written down until a generation had grown up trained
in the use of the Latin letters learned from Christian missionaries. We
cannot determine the date at which some book-learned man, interested in
poetry, took down from the lips of a minstrel one of the stories that he
had been accustomed to sing. It may have been before 700; much later it
can hardly have been, for the old heathen poetry, though its existence
might be threatened by the influence of the church, was still in
vigorous life. The epic of Beowulf was not the only one that was reduced
to writing: a fragment of the song about Finn, king of the Frisians,
still survives, and possibly several other heroic poems were written
down about the same time. As originally dictated, _Beowulf_ probably
contained the story outlined at the beginning of this article, with the
addition of one or two of the episodes relating to the hero
himself--among them the legend of the swimming-match. This story had
doubtless been told at greater length in verse, but its insertion in its
present place is the work of a poet, not of a mere redactor. The other
episodes were introduced by some later writer, who had heard recited, or
perhaps had read, a multitude of the old heathen songs, the substance of
which he piously sought to preserve from oblivion by weaving it in an
abridged form, into the texture of the one great poem which he was
transcribing. The Christian passages, which are poetically of no value,
are evidently of literary origin, and may be of any date down to that of
the extant MS. The curious passage which says that the subjects of
Hrothgar sought deliverance from Grendel in prayer at the temple of the
Devil, "because they knew not the true God," must surely have been
substituted for a passage referring sympathetically to the worship of
the ancient gods.
An interesting light on the history of the written text seems to be
afforded by the phenomena of the existing MS. The poem is divided into
numbered sections, the length of which was probably determined by the
size of the pieces of parchment of which an earlier exemplar consisted.
Now the first fifty-two lines, which are concerned with Scyld and his
son Beowulf, stand outside this numbering. It may reasonably be inferred
that there once existed a written text of the poem that did not include
these lines. Their substance, however, is clearly ancient. Many
difficulties will be obviated if we may suppose that this passage is the
beginning of a different poem, the hero of which was not Beowulf the son
of Ecgtheow, but his Danish namesake. It is true that Beowulf the
Scylding is mentioned at the beginning of the first numbered section;
but probably the opening lines of this section have undergone alteration
in order to bring them into connexion with the prefixed matter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The volume containing the _Beowulf_ MS. (then, as now,
belonging to the Cottonian collection, and numbered "Vitellius A.
xv.") was first described by Humphrey Wanley in 1705, in his catalogue
of MSS., published as vol. iii. of G. Hickes's _Thesaurus Veterum
Linguarum Septentrionalium_. In 1786 G.J. Thorkelin, an Icelander,
made or procured two transcripts of the poem, which are still
preserved in the Royal Library at Copenhagen, and are valuable for the
criticism of the text, the MS. having subsequently become in places
less legible. Thorkelin's edition (1815) is of merely historic
interest. The first edition showing competent knowledge of the
language was produced in 1833 by J.M. Kemble. Since then editions have
been very numerous. The text of the poem was edited by C.W.M. Grein in
his _Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Poesie_ (1857), and again
separately in 1867. Autotypes of the MS. with transliteration by
Julius Zupitza, were issued by the Early English Text Society in 1882.
The new edition of Grein's _Bibliothek_, by R.P. Wulker, vol. i.
(1883), contains a revised text with critical notes. The most
serviceable separate editions are those of M. Heyne (7th ed., revised
by A. Socin, 1903), A.J. Wyatt (with English notes and glossary,
1898), and F. Holthausen (vol. i., 1905).
Eleven English translations of the poem have been published (see C.B.
Tinker, _The Translations of Beowulf_, 1903). Among these may be
mentioned those of J.M. Garnett (6th ed., 1900), a literal rendering
in a metre imitating that of the original; J. Earle (1892) in prose;
W. Morris (1895) in imitative metre, and almost unintelligibly
archaistic in diction; and C.B. Tinker (1902) in prose.
For the bibliography of the earlier literature on _Beowulf_, and a
detailed exposition of the theories therein advocated, see R.P.
Wulker, _Grundriss der angelsachsischen Litteratur_ (1882). The views
of Karl Mullenhoff, which, though no longer tenable as a whole, have
formed the basis of most of the subsequent criticism, may be best
studied in his posthumous work, _Beovulf, Untersuchungen uber das
angelsachsische Epos_ (1889). Much valuable matter may be found in B.
ten Brink, _Beowulf, Untersuchungen_ (1888). The work of G. Sarrazin,
_Beowulf-studien_ (1888), which advocates the strange theory that
_Beowulf_ is a translation by Cynewulf of a poem by the Danish singer
Starkadr, contains, amid much that is fanciful, not a little that
deserves careful consideration. The many articles by E. Sievers and S.
Bugge, in _Beitradge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und
Litteratur_ and other periodicals, are of the utmost importance for
the textual criticism and interpretation of the poem. (H. Br.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Printed in Berger de Xivrey, _Traditions Teratologiques_ (1836),
from a MS. in private hands. Another MS., now at Wolfenbuttel, reads
"Hunglacus" for Huiglaucus, and (ungrammatically) "gentes" for
_Getis_.
BEQUEST (from O. Eng. _becwethan_, to declare or express in words; cf.
"quoth"), the disposition of property by will. Strictly, "bequest" is
used of personal, and "devise" of real property. (See LEGACY; WILL OR
TESTAMENT.)
BERAIN, JEAN (1638-1711), known as "the Elder," Belgian draughtsman and
designer, painter and engraver of ornament, was born in 1638 or 1639 at
Saint Mihiel (Meuse) and died in Paris on the 24th of January 1711. In
1674 he was appointed _dessinateur de la chambre et du cabinet de Roi_,
in succession to Gissey, whose pupil he is believed to have been. From
1677 onward he had apartments, near to those of Andre Charles Boulle
(q.v.), for whom he made many designs, in the Louvre, where he died.
After the death of Le Brun he was commissioned to compose and supervise
the whole of the exterior decoration of the king's ships. Without
possessing great originality he was inventive and industrious, and knew
so well how to assimilate the work of those who had preceded him
(especially Raffaelle's arabesques) and to adapt it to the taste of the
time that his designs became the rage. He furnished designs for the
decorations and costumes used in the opera performances, for court
festivals, and for public solemnities such as funeral processions, and
inspired the ornamentations of rooms and of furniture to such an extent
that a French writer says that nothing was done during his later years
which he had not designed, or at least which was not in his manner. He
was, in fact, the oracle of taste and the supreme pontiff whose fiat was
law in all matters of decoration. His numerous designs were for the most
part engraved under his own superintendence, and a collection of them
was published in Paris in 1711 by his son-in-law, Thuret, clockmaker to
the king. There are three books, _Oeuvre de J. Berain, Ornements
inventes par J. Berain_ and _Oeuvres de J. Berain contenant des
ornements d'architecture_. His earliest known works show him as
engraver--twelve plates in the collection of _Diverses pieces de
serrurerie inventees par Hughes Brisville el gravees par Jean Berain_
(Paris, 1663), and in 1667 ten plates of designs for the use of
gunsmiths. M. Guilmard in _Les Maitres ornemanistes_, gives a complete
list of his published works.
His son JEAN BERAIN, "the Younger" (1678-1726), was born in Paris, where
he also died. He was his father's pupil, and exercised the same official
functions after his death. Thus he planned the funeral ceremonies at St
Denis on the death of the dauphin, and afterwards made the designs for
the obsequies of Louis XIV. He is perhaps best known as an engraver. He
engraved eleven plates of the collection _Ornements de peinture et de
sculpture qui sont dans la galerie d'Apollon au chasteau du Louvre, et
dans le grand appartement du roy au palais des Tuileries_ (Paris, 1710),
which have been wrongly attributed to his father, the _Mausolei du duc
de Bourgogne_, and that of _Marie-Louise Gabrielle de Savoie, reine
d'Espagne_ (1714), &c. His work is exceedingly difficult to distinguish
from his father's, the similarity of style being remarkable.
CLAUDE BERAIN, brother of the elder Jean, was still living in 1726. He
was engraver to the king, and executed a good number of plates of
ornament and arabesque of various kinds, some of which are included in
his more distinguished brother's works. (J. P. B.)
BERANGER, PIERRE JEAN DE (1780-1857), French song-writer, was born in
Paris on the 19th of August 1780. The aristocratic _de_ was a piece of
groundless vanity on the part of his father, who had assumed the name of
Beranger de Mersix. He was descended in truth from a country innkeeper
on the one side, and, on the other, from a tailor in the rue
Montorgueil. Of education, in the narrower sense, he had but little.
From the roof of his first school he beheld the capture of the Bastille,
and this stirring memory was all that he acquired. Later on he passed
some time in a school at Peronne, founded by one Bellenglise on the
principles of Rousseau, where the boys were formed into clubs and
regiments, and taught to play solemnly at politics and war. Beranger was
president of the club, made speeches before such members of Convention
as passed through Peronne, and drew up addresses to Tallien or
Robespierre at Paris. In the meanwhile he learned neither Greek nor
Latin--not even French, it would appear; for it was after he left
school, from the printer Laisney, that he acquired the elements of
grammar. His true education was of another sort. In his childhood, shy,
sickly and skilful with his hands, as he sat at home alone to carve
cherry stones, he was already forming for himself those habits of
retirement and patient elaboration which influenced the whole tenor of
his life and the character of all that he wrote. At Peronne he learned
of his good aunt to be a stout republican; and from the doorstep of her
inn, on quiet evenings, he would listen to the thunder of the guns
before Valenciennes, and fortify himself in his passionate love of
France and distaste for all things foreign. Although he could never read
Horace save in a translation, he had been educated on _Telemaque_,
Racine and the dramas of Voltaire, and taught, from a child, in the
tradition of all that is highest and most correct in French.
After serving his aunt for some time in the capacity of waiter, and
passing some time also in the printing-office of one Laisney, he was
taken to Paris by his father. Here he saw much low speculation, and many
low royalist intrigues. In 1802, in consequence of a distressing
quarrel, he left his father and began life for himself in the garret of
his ever memorable song. For two years he did literary hackwork, when he
could get it, and wrote pastorals, epics and all manner of ambitious
failures. At the end of that period (1804) he wrote to Lucien Bonaparte,
enclosing some of these attempts. He was then in bad health, and in the
last state of misery. His watch was pledged. His wardrobe consisted of
one pair of boots, one greatcoat, one pair of trousers with a hole in
the knee, and "three bad shirts which a friendly hand wearied itself in
endeavouring to mend." The friendly hand was that of Judith Frere, with
whom he had been already more or less acquainted since 1796, and who
continued to be his faithful companion until her death, three months
before his own, in 1857. She must not be confounded with the Lisette of
the songs; the pieces addressed to her (_La Bonne Vieille, Maudit
printemps_, &c.) are in a very different vein. Lucien Bonaparte
interested himself in the young poet, transferred to him his own pension
of 1000 francs from the Institute, and set him to work on a _Death of
Nero_. Five years later, through the same patronage, although
indirectly, Beranger became a clerk in the university at a salary of
another thousand.
Meanwhile he had written many songs for convivial occasions, and "to
console himself under all misfortunes"; some, according to M. Boiteau,
had been already published by his father, but he set no great store on
them himself; and it was only in 1812, while watching by the sick-bed of
a friend, that it occurred to him to write down the best he could
remember. Next year he was elected to the _Caveau Moderne_, and his
reputation as a song-writer began to spread. Manuscript copies of _Les
Gueux, Le Senateur_, above all, of _Le Roi d'Yvetot_, a satire against
Napoleon, whom he was to magnify so much in the sequel, passed from hand
to hand with acclamation. It was thus that all his best works went
abroad; one man sang them to another over all the land of France. He was
the only poet of modern times who could altogether have dispensed with
printing.
His first collection escaped censure. "We must pardon many things to the
author of _Le Roi d'Yvetot_," said Louis XVIII. The second (1821) was
more daring. The apathy of the Liberal camp, he says, had convinced him
of the need for some bugle call of awakening. This publication lost him
his situation in the university, and subjected him to a trial, a fine of
500 francs and an imprisonment of three months. Imprisonment was a small
affair for Beranger. At Sainte Pelagie he occupied a room (it had just
been quitted by Paul Louis Courier), warm, well furnished, and
preferable in every way to his own poor lodging, where the water froze
on winter nights. He adds, on the occasion of his second imprisonment,
that he found a certain charm in this quiet, claustral existence, with
its regular hours and long evenings alone over the fire. This second
imprisonment of nine months, together with a fine and expenses amounting
to 1100 francs, followed on the appearance of his fourth collection. The
government proposed through Laffitte that, if he would submit to
judgment without appearing or making defences, he should only be
condemned in the smallest penalty. But his public spirit made him refuse
the proposal; and he would not even ask permission to pass his term of
imprisonment in a _Maison de sante_, although his health was more than
usually feeble at the time. "When you have taken your stand in a contest
with government, it seems to me," he wrote, "ridiculous to complain of
the blows it inflicts on you, and impolitic to furnish it with any
occasion of generosity." His first thought in La Force was to alleviate
the condition of the other prisoners.
In the revolution of July he took no inconsiderable part. Copies of his
song, _Le Vieux Drapeau_, were served out to the insurgent crowd. He had
been for long the intimate friend and adviser of the leading men; and
during the decisive week his counsels went a good way towards shaping
the ultimate result. "As for the republic, that dream of my whole life,"
he wrote in 1831, "I did not wish it should be given to us a second time
unripe." Louis Philippe, hearing how much the song-writer had done
towards his elevation, expressed a wish to see and speak with him; but
Beranger refused to present himself at court, and used his favour only
to ask a place for a friend, and a pension for Rouget de l'Isle, author
of the famous _Marseillaise_, who was now old and poor, and whom he had
been already succouring for five years.
In 1848, in spite of every possible expression of his reluctance, he was
elected to the Constituent Assembly, and that by so large a number of
votes (204,471) that he felt himself obliged to accept the seat. Not
long afterwards, and with great difficulty, he obtained leave to resign.
This was the last public event of Beranger's life. He continued to
polish his songs in retirement, visited by nearly all the famous men of
France. He numbered among his friends Chateaubriand, Thiers, Jacques
Laffitte, Michelet, Lamennais, Mignet. Nothing could exceed the
amiability of his private character; so poor a man has rarely been so
rich in good actions; he was always ready to receive help from his
friends when he was in need, and always forward to help others. His
correspondence is full of wisdom and kindness, with a smack of
Montaigne, and now and then a vein of pleasantry that will remind the
English reader of Charles Lamb. He occupied some of his leisure in
preparing his own memoirs, and a certain treatise on _Social and
Political Morality_, intended for the people, a work he had much at
heart, but judged at last to be beyond his strength. He died on the 16th
July 1857. It was feared that his funeral would be the signal for some
political disturbance; but the government took immediate measures, and
all went quietly. The streets of Paris were lined with soldiers and full
of townsfolk, silent and uncovered. From time to time cries
arose:--"_Honneur, honneur a Beranger!_"
The songs of Beranger would scarcely be called songs in England. They
are elaborate, written in a clear and sparkling style, full of wit and
incision. It is not so much for any lyrical flow as for the happy turn
of the phrase that they claim superiority. Whether the subject be gay or
serious, light or passionate, the medium remains untroubled. The special
merits of the songs are merits to be looked for rather in English prose
than in English verse. He worked deliberately, never wrote more than
fifteen songs a year and often less, and was so fastidious that he has
not preserved a quarter of what he finished. "I am a good little bit of
a poet," he says himself, "clever in the craft, and a conscientious
worker to whom old airs and a modest choice of subjects (_le coin ou je
me suis confine_) have brought some success." Nevertheless, he makes a
figure of importance in literary history. When he first began to
cultivate the _chanson_, this minor form lay under some contempt, and
was restricted to slight subjects and a humorous guise of treatment.
Gradually he filled these little chiselled toys of verbal perfection
with ever more and more of sentiment. From a date comparatively early he
had determined to sing for the people. It was for this reason that he
fled, as far as possible, the houses of his influential friends and came
back gladly to the garret and the street corner. Thus it was, also, that
he came to acknowledge obligations to Emile Debraux, who had often stood
between him and the masses as interpreter, and given him the key-note of
the popular humour. Now, he had observed in the songs of sailors, and
all who labour, a prevailing tone of sadness; and so, as he grew more
masterful in this sort of expression, he sought more and more after what
is deep, serious and constant in the thoughts of common men. The
evolution was slow; and we can see in his own works examples of every
stage, from that of witty indifference in fifty pieces of the first
collection, to that of grave and even tragic feeling in _Les Souvenirs
du peuple_ or _Le Vieux Vagabond_. And this innovation involved another,
which was as a sort of prelude to the great romantic movement. For the
_chanson_, as he says himself, opened up to him a path in which his
genius could develop itself at ease; he escaped, by this literary
postern, from strict academical requirements, and had at his disposal
the whole dictionary, four-fifths of which, according to La Harpe, were
forbidden to the use of more regular and pretentious poetry. If he still
kept some of the old vocabulary, some of the old imagery, he was yet
accustoming people to hear moving subjects treated in a manner more free
and simple than heretofore; so that his was a sort of conservative
reform, preceding the violent revolution of Victor Hugo and his army of
uncompromising romantics. He seems himself to have had glimmerings of
some such idea; but he withheld his full approval from the new movement
on two grounds:--first, because the romantic school misused somewhat
brutally the delicate organism of the French language; and second, as he
wrote to Sainte-Beuve in 1832, because they adopted the motto of "Art
for art," and set no object of public usefulness before them as they
wrote. For himself (and this is the third point of importance) he had a
strong sense of political responsibility. Public interest took a far
higher place in his estimation than any private passion or favour. He
had little toleration for those erotic poets who sing their own loves
and not the common sorrows of mankind, "who forget," to quote his own
words, "forget beside their mistress those who labour before the Lord."
Hence it is that so many of his pieces are political, and so many, in
the later times at least, inspired with a socialistic spirit of
indignation and revolt. It is by this socialism that he becomes truly
modern and touches hands with Burns.
AUTHORITIES.--_Ma biographie_ (his own memoirs) (1858); _Vie de
Beranger_, by Paul Boiteau (1861); _Correspondance de Beranger_,
edited by Paul Boiteau (4 vols., 1860); _Beranger et Lamennais_, by
Napoleon Peyrat (1857); _Quarante-cinq lettres de Beranger publiees
par Madame Louise Colet_ (almost worthless) (1857); _Beranger, ses
amis, ses ennemis et ses critiques_, by A. Arnould (2 vols., 1864); J.
Janin, _Beranger et son temps_ (2 vols., 1866); also Sainte-Beuve's
_Portraits contemporains_, vol. i.; J. Carson, _Beranger et la legende
napoleonienne_ (1897) A bibliography of Beranger's works was published
by Jules Brivois in 1876. (R. L. S.)
BERAR, known also as the HYDERABAD ASSIGNED DISTRICTS, formerly a
province administered on behalf of the nizam of Hyderabad by the British
government, but since the 1st of October 1903 under the administration
of the commissioner-general for the Central Provinces (q.v.). The origin
of the name Berar is not known, but may perhaps be a corruption of
Vidarbha, the name of a kingdom in the Deccan of which, in the period of
the Mahabharata, Berar probably formed part. The history of Berar
belongs generally to that of the Deccan, the country falling in turn
under the sway of the various dynasties which successively ruled in
southern India, the first authentic records showing it to have been part
of the Andhra or Satavahana empire. On the final fall of the Chalukyas
in the 12th century, Berar came under the sway of the Yadavas of
Deogiri, and remained in their possession till the Mussulman invasions
at the end of the 13th century. On the establishment of the Bahmani
dynasty in the Deccan (1348) Berar was constituted one of the four
provinces into which their kingdom was divided, being governed by great
nobles, with a separate army. The perils of this system becoming
apparent, the province was divided (1478 or 1479) into two separate
governments, named after their capitals Gawil and Mahur. The Bahmani
dynasty was, however, already tottering to its fall; and in 1490
Imad-ul-Mulk, governor of Gawil, who had formerly held all Berar,
proclaimed his independence and proceeded to annex Mahur to his new
kingdom. Imad-ul-Mulk was by birth a Kanarese Hindu, but had been
captured as a boy in one of the expeditions against Vijayanagar and
reared as a Mussulman. He died in 1504 and his direct descendants held
the sultanate of Berar until 1561, when Burhan Imad Shah was deposed by
his minister Tufal Khan, who assumed the kingship. This gave a pretext
for the intervention of Murtaza Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar, who in 1572
invaded Berar, imprisoned and put to death Tufal Khan, his son
Shams-ul-Mulk, and the ex-king Burhan, and annexed Berar to his own
dominions. In 1595 Sultan Murad, son of the emperor Akbar, besieged
Ahmednagar, and was bought off by the formal cession of Berar.
Murad, founding the city of Shahpur, fixed his seat at Berar, and after
his death in 1598, and the conquest of the Deccan by Akbar, the province
was united with Ahmednagar and Khandesh under the emperor's fifth son,
Daniyal (d. 1605), as governor. After Akbar's death (1605) Berar once
more became independent under the Abyssinian Malik Ambar (d. 1626), but
in the first year of Shah Jahan's reign it was again brought under the
sway of the Mogul empire. Towards the close of the 17th century the
province began to be overrun by the Mahrattas, and in 1718 the Delhi
government formally recognized their right to levy blackmail (_chauth_)
on the unhappy population. In 1724 the Nizam-ul-Mulk Asaf Jah
established the independent line of the nizams of Hyderabad, and
thenceforth the latter claimed to be _de jure_ sovereigns of Berar, with
exception of certain districts (Mehkar, Umarkhed, &c.) ceded to the
peshwa in 1760 and 1795. The claim was contested by the Bhonsla rajas,
and for more than half a century the miserable country was ground
between the upper and the nether millstone.
This condition of things was ended by Wellesley's victories at Assaye
and Argaon (1803), which forced the Bhonsla raja to cede his territories
west of the Wardha, Gawilgarh and Narnala. By the partition treaty of
Hyderabad (1804) these ceded territories in Berar were transferred to
the nizam, together with some tracts about Sindkhed and Jalna which had
been held by Sindhia. By a treaty of 1822, which extinguished the
Mahratta right to levy _chauth_, the Wardha river was fixed as the
eastern boundary of Berar, the Melghat and adjoining districts in the
plains being assigned to the nizam in exchange for the districts east of
the Wardha held by the peshwa.
Though Berar was no longer oppressed by its Mahratta taskmasters nor
harried by Pindari and Bhil raiders, it remained long a prey to the
turbulent elements let loose by the sudden cessation of the wars. From
time to time bands of soldiery, whom the government was powerless to
control, scoured the country, and rebellion succeeded rebellion till
1859, when the last fight against open rebels took place at Chichamba
near Risod. Meanwhile the misery of the country was increased by the
reckless raising of loans by the nizam's government and the pledging of
the revenues to a succession of great farmers-general. At last the
British government had to intervene effectively, and in 1853 a new
treaty was signed with the nizam, under which the Hyderabad contingent
was to be maintained by the British government, while for the pay of
this force and in satisfaction of other claims, certain districts were
"assigned" to the East India Company. It was these "Hyderabad Assigned
Districts" which were popularly supposed to form the province of Berar,
though they coincided in extent neither with the Berar of the nizams nor
with the old Mogul province. In 1860, by a new treaty which modified in
the nizam's favour that of 1853, it was agreed that Berar should be held
in trust by the British government for the purposes specified in the
treaty of 1853.
Under British control Berar rapidly recovered its prosperity. Thousands
of cultivators who had emigrated across the Wardha to the peshwa's
dominions, in order to escape the ruinous fiscal system of the nizam's
government, now returned; the American Civil War gave an immense
stimulus to the cotton trade; the laying of a line of railway across the
province provided yet further employment, and the people rapidly became
prosperous and contented.
See _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), and authorities
there quoted.
BERARD, JOSEPH FREDERIC (1789-1828), French physician and philosopher,
was born at Montpellier. Educated at the medical school of that town, he
afterwards went to Paris, where he was employed in connexion with the
_Dictionnaire des sciences medicales_. He returned in 1816, and
published a work, _Doctrine medicale de l'ecole de Montpellier_ (1819),
which is indispensable to a proper understanding of the principles of
the Vitalistic school. In 1823 he was called to a chair of medicine at
Paris, which he held for three years; he was then nominated professor of
hygiene at Montpellier. His health gave way under his labours, and he
died in 1828. His most important book is his _Doctrines des rapports du
physique et du moral_ (Paris, 1823). He held that consciousness or
internal perception reveals to us the existence of an immaterial,
thinking, feeling and willing subject, the self or soul. Alongside of
this there is the vital force, the nutritive power, which uses the
physical frame as its organ. The soul and the principle of life are in
constant reciprocal action, and the first owes to the second, not the
formation of its faculties, but the conditions under which they are
evolved. He showed himself unable to understand the points of view of
those whom he criticized, and yet his own theories, midway between
vitalism and animism, are entirely destitute of originality.
To the _Esprit des doctrines medicales de Montpellier_, published
posthumously (Paris, 1830), the editor, H. Petiot, prefixed an account
of his life and works; see also Damiron, _Phil. en France au XIX^e
siecle_ (Paris, 1834); C.J. Tissot, _Anthropologie generale_ (1843).
BERAT (Slav. _Byelgorod_; Turk. _Arnaut-Beligradi_), the capital of a
sanjak in the vilayet of Iannina, southern Albania, Turkey; on the river
Ergene, Ergeni or Osum, a left-hand tributary of the Semeni. Pop. (1900)
about 15,000. Berat is a fortified town, situated in a fertile valley,
which produces wine, olive-oil, fruit and grain. It is the see of an
Orthodox metropolitan, and the inhabitants, of whom two-thirds are
Albanian and the remainder principally Greek, are equally divided in
religion between Christianity and Islam.
BERAUN (Czech _Beroun_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 27 m. S.W. of
Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9693, mostly Czech. It is situated at the
confluence of the Beraun with the Litawa river, and is the seat of
important textile industry, sugar-refining, corn-milling and brewing.
Lime-kilns and the manufacture of cement, and smelting and iron works
are carried on in the environs. Beraun is a place of immemorial
antiquity. It was originally called _na Brode_ (by the ford), and
received the name of Bern, Berun or Verona in the 13th century, when it
obtained the privileges of a city from the emperor Charles IV., who was
specially attached to the place, calling it "Verona mea." Under his
patronage the town rapidly prospered. In 1421 Zizka stormed the town,
which later on was retaken and devastated by the troops of Duke Leopold,
bishop of Passau. During the Thirty Years' War it was sacked by the
Imperialists, the Saxons and the Swedes in turn; and in the first
Silesian war the same fate befell it at the hands of the French and
Bavarians.
BERBER, a town and mudiria (province) of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The
town is on the right bank of the Nile, 1140 ft. above sea-level, in 18
deg. 1' N., 33 deg. 59' E., and 214 m. by rail N.W. of Khartum. Pop.
about 6000. Berber derived its importance from being the starting-point
of the caravan route, 242 m. long, across the Nubian desert to the Red
Sea at Suakin, a distance covered in seven to twelve days. It was also
one of the principal stopping-places between Cairo and Khartum. The
caravan route to the Red Sea was superseded in 1906 by a railway, which
leaves the Wadi Halfa-Khartum line at the mouth of the Atbara. Berber
thus lost the Red Sea trade. It remains the centre and market-place for
the produce of the Nile valley for a considerable distance. East of the
town is an immense plain, which, if irrigated, would yield abundant
crops.
Berber, or El Mekerif, is a town of considerable antiquity. Before its
conquest by the Egyptians in 1820 its ruler owed allegiance to the kings
of Sennar. It was captured by the Mahdists on the 26th of May 1884, and
was re-occupied by the Anglo-Egyptian army on the 6th of September 1897.
It was the capital of the mudiria until 1905, in which year the
headquarters of the province were transferred to Ed Damer, a town near
the confluence of the Nile and Atbara. At the northern end of the
mudiria is Abu Hamed (q.v.), important as a railway junction for Dongola
mudiria. The best-known of the tribes inhabiting the province are the
Hassania, Jaalin, Bisharin and Kimilab. During the Mahdia most of these
tribes suffered severely at the hands of the dervishes. In 1904 the
total population of the province was estimated at 83,000. It has since
considerably increased. The riverain population is largely engaged in
agriculture, the chief crops cultivated being durra, barley, wheat and
cotton.
BERBERA, chief town and principal port of the British Somaliland
protectorate, North-East Africa, 155 m. S. of Aden, in 10 deg. 26' N.,
45 deg. 4' E. Berbera stands at the head of a deep inlet which forms the
only completely sheltered haven on the south side of the Gulf of Aden.
It is the residence of the commissioner of the protectorate and the
headquarters of the Somaliland battalion of the King's African Rifles.
The harbour is eleven to thirteen fathoms deep at the entrance
(indicated by a lighthouse), decreasing to five fathoms near the shore.
Ocean-going steamers find ample accommodation. There are two piers and
numerous warehouses. The town is built in two divisions--the native town
to the east, the new town, laid out by the Egyptians (1875-1877), to the
west. The majority of the better-class houses are of rubble,
one-storeyed and flat-roofed. The public buildings include the fort,
hospital and barracks. There are a Roman Catholic mission-house and
convent and a government school. The affairs of the town are
administered by a municipality. The water-supply is brought to the town
by an aqueduct from the hills some 8 m. distant. The bulk of the
inhabitants are Somali, who have abandoned a nomadic life and adopted
largely the ways of the Arab and Indian traders. The permanent
population is under 10,000; but from October to April the population
rises to 30,000 or more by the arrival of caravans from Ogaden and
Dolbahanta. The traders bring with them tents on the backs of camels and
these are pitched near the native town. Their merchandise consists of
sheep and goats, gum and resin, skins and ostrich feathers. The trade is
almost entirely with Aden, of which Berbera may be considered a
commercial dependency. The value of the goods brought in yearly by
caravan exceeds on the average L100,000. The total trade of the port for
the five years 1901-1902 to 1905-1906 averaged over L200,000 a year. The
chief articles of import are cotton goods (European white longcloth and
American grey shirting), rice and jowari, flour, dates, sugar and
tobacco (the last from Rotterdam). Berbera is said to have been founded
by the Ptolemies among the _Barbari_ of the adjacent coast lands. It
fell subsequently into the possession of Arabs and was included in the
Mahommedan state of Adel. At the time of the visit to the town of R.F.
Burton and J.H. Speke (1854) it was governed by its own sheiks. In 1870
it was claimed by the khedive Ismail, but was not permanently occupied
by Egypt until 1875. In 1884 it passed into the possession of Great
Britain (see SOMALILAND, S 2, _History_).
BERBERINE, C20H17NO4, an alkaloid occurring together with the alkaloids
oxyacanthine C18H19NO3, berbamine C18H19NO3, hydrastine C21H21NO6, and
canadine C20H21NO4, in _Berberis vulgaris_; it also occurs in other
plants, _Berberis aristata, B. aquifolium, Hydrastis canadensis_, &c. It
is a yellow, crystalline solid, insoluble in ether and chloroform,
soluble in 4-1/2 parts of water at 21 deg., and moderately soluble in
alcohol. It is a monacid base; the hydrochloride, C20H17NO4.HCl, is
insoluble in cold alcohol, ether and chloroform, and soluble in 500
parts of water; the acid sulphate, C20H17NO4.H2SO4 dissolves in about
100 parts of water. Canadine is a tetrahydroberberine.
Its constitution was worked out by W.H. Perkin (_J.C.S._, 1889, 55, p.
63; 1890, 57, p. 991). This followed from a study of the decomposition
products, there being obtained hemipinic acid (CH3O)2C6H2(COOH)2, and a
substance which proved to be [omega]-amino-ethyl-piperonyl carboxylic
acid, CH2O2:C6H2.COOH.CH2.CH2NH2. His formula was modified by Gadamer
(_Abs. J.C.S._, 1902, 1, p. 555), who made the free base an aldehyde,
but the salts of an _iso_-quinolinium type. This formula, which
necessitates the presence of two asymmetric carbon atoms in an alkyl
tetrahydroberberine, has been accepted by M. Freund and F. Mayer (_Abs.
J.C.S._, 1907, 1, p. 632), who showed that two racemic propyl
tetrahydroberberines are produced when propyl dihydroberberine is
reduced.
BERBERS,
Ethnology.
the name under which are included the various branches of the
indigenous "Libyan" race of North Africa. Since the dawn of history the
Berbers have occupied the tract between the Mediterranean and the Sahara
from Egypt to the Atlantic. The origin of the name is doubtful. Some
believe it to be derived from the word [Greek: barbaroi] (barbarians),
employed first by the Greeks and later by the Romans. Others attribute
the first use of the term to the Arab conquerors. However this may be,
tribal titles, _Barabara_ and _Beraberata_, appear in Egyptian
inscriptions of 1700 and 1300 B.C., and the Berbers were probably
intimately related with the Egyptians in very early times. Thus the true
ethnical name may have become confused with _Barbari_, the designation
naturally used by classical conquerors. To the Egyptians they were known
as "Lebu," "Mashuasha," "Tamahu," "Tehennu" and "Kahaka"; a long list of
names is found in Herodotus, and the Romans called them Numidae, Gaetuli
and Mauri, terms which have been derived respectively from the Greek
[Greek: nomades] (nomads), the name Gued'oula, of a great Berber tribe,
and the Hebrew _mahur_ (western). To speak of more modern times there
can be enumerated the Zouaoua and Jebalia (Tripoli and Tunisia); the
Chauwia, Kabyles and Beni-Mzab (Algeria); the Shluh (Chlouah), Amazigh
and Berbers (Morocco); the Tuareg, Arnoshagh, Sorgu, &c. (Sahara).
These tribes have many sub-tribes, each with a distinctive name. Among
the Azgar, an important division of the Tuareg, one of the noble or free
tribes, styled Aouraghen, is said to descend from a tribe named Avrigha.
The Avrigha, or Afrigha, in ancient times occupied the coast lands near
Carthage, and some scholars derive the word Africa from their name (see
AFRICA, ROMAN). In regard to the ethnic relations of the Berbers there
has been much dispute. The antiquity of their type is evidenced by the
monuments of Egypt, where their ancestors are pictured with the same
comparatively blond features which many of them still display. The
aborigines of the Canary Islands, the Guanches, would seem almost
certainly, from the remains of their language, to have been Berbers. But
the problem of the actual origin of the Berber race has not yet been
solved. Perhaps the most satisfactory theory is that of Sergi, who
includes the Berbers in the "Mediterranean Race." General L.L.C.
Faidherbe regards them as indigenous Libyans mingled with a fair-skinned
people of European origin. Dr Franz Pruner-Bey, Henri Duveyrier and
Prof. Flinders Petrie maintain that they are closely related to the
ancient Egyptians. Connexion has been traced between the early Libyan
race and the Cro-Magnon and other early European races and, later, the
Basque peoples, Iberians, Picts, Celts and Gauls. The megalithic
monuments of Iberia and Celtic Europe have their counterparts in
northern Africa, and it is suggested that these were all erected by the
same race, by whatever name they be known, Berbers and Libyans in
Africa, Iberians in Spain, Celts, Gauls and Picts in France and Britain.
Characteristics.
In spite of a history of foreign conquest--Phoenician, Greek, Roman,
Vandal, Arab and French--the Berber physical type and the Berber
temperament and nationality have persisted since the stone age. The
numerous invasions have naturally introduced a certain amount of foreign
blood among the tribes fringing the Mediterranean, but those farther
inland have preserved their racial purity to a surprising degree. Though
considerable individual differences of type may be found in every
village, the Berbers are distinctively a "white" race, and the majority
would, if clad in European costume, pass unchallenged as Europeans. Dark
hair and brown or hazel eyes are the rule; blue-eyed blonds are found,
but their frequency has been considerably overstated. The invaders who
have most affected the Berber race are the Arabs, but the two races,
with a common religion, often a common government, with the same tribal
groupings, have failed to amalgamate to any great extent. This fact has
been emphasized by Dr R.G. Latham, who writes: "All that is not Arabic
in the kingdom of Morocco, all that is not Arabic in the French
provinces of Algeria, and all that is not Arabic in Tunis, Tripoli and
Fezzan, is Berber." The explanation lies in a profound distinction of
character. The Arab is a herdsman and a nomad; the Berber is an
agriculturist and a townsman. The Arab has built his social structure on
the Koran, which inculcates absolutism, aristocracy, theocracy; the
Berber, despite his nominal Mahommedanism, is a democrat, with his
_Jemaa_ or "Witangemot" and his _Kanum_ or unwritten code, the Magna
Carta of the individual's liberty as opposed to the community's good.
The _Kanum_ forbids no sort of exercise of individual will, so long as
it is not inimical to the right or rights of other individuals. The
Arabizing of the Berbers is indeed limited to little beyond the
conversion of the latter to Islam. The Arab, transported to a soil which
does not always suit him, so far from thriving, tends to disappear,
whereas the Berber becomes more and more aggressive, and yearly
increases in numbers. At present he forms at least three-fifths of the
population in Algeria, and in Morocco the proportion is greater. The
difference between the Berber and the Arab of the Barbary States is
summed up by Dr Randall MacIver in the following words:--"The Berber
gives the impression of being, as he is, the descendant of men who have
lived in sturdy independence, self-governing and self-reliant. The Arab
is the degenerate offspring of a race which only from its history and
past records can claim any title to respect. Cringing, venal,
avaricious, dishonest, the Arab combines all the faults of a vicious
nature with those which a degraded religion inculcates or encourages.
The Berber, on the other hand, is straightforward, honest, by no means
averse to money-making, but not unscrupulous in the methods which he
employs to this end, intelligent in a degree to which the ordinary Arab
never approaches, and trustworthy as no Arab can be."
Government.
The Berber's village is his state, and the government is vested in an
assembly, the _Jemaa_, formed of all males old enough to observe the
fast of Ramadan. By them are determined all matters of peace or war,
legislation, taxation and justice. The executive officer is the _Amin_,
a kind of mayor, elected from some influential family in which the
dignity is often in practice hereditary. He owes his position to the
good-will of his fellows, receives no remuneration, and resigns as soon
as he loses the confidence of the people. By him are appointed certain
_Temman_ (sing. _Tamen_) who act as overseers, though without executive
powers, in the various quarters of the village. The poorest Berber has
as great a voice in affairs as the richest. The undue power of the
_Jemaa_ is checked by vendetta and a sort of lynch law, and by the
formation of parties (_sofs_), within or without the assembly, for
trade, political and other purposes. The Berbers are a warlike people
who have never been completely subjugated. Every boy as soon as he
reaches sixteen is brought into the _Jemaa_ and given weapons which he
carries till he is sixty. Though each village is absolutely independent
as far as its internal affairs are concerned, two or more are often
connected by administrative ties to form an _Arsh_ or tribe. A number of
these tribes form a _Thakebilt_ or confederation, which is an extremely
loose organization. An exception to this form of government is
constituted by the Tuareg, whose organization, owing to their peculiar
circumstances of life, is monarchical. Wars are declared by special
messengers; the exchange of sticks or guns renders an armistice
inviolable. In some tribes a tablet, on which is inscribed the name of
every man fit to bear arms, is placed in the mosque. The Berbers, though
Mahommedans, do not often observe the prescribed ablutions; they break
their fast at Ramadan; and eat wild boar's flesh and drink fig brandy.
On the other hand, saints, both male and female, are paid more reverence
by Berbers than by Arabs. Around their tombs their descendants settle,
and thus sacred villages, often of considerable size, spring up. Almost
every village, too, has its saint or prophet, and disputes as to their
relative sanctity and powers cause fierce feuds. The hereditary caste
known as Marabouts are frequently in open opposition to the absolute
authority of the _Jemaa_. They are possessed of certain privileges, such
as exemption from the chief taxes and the duty of bearing arms. They,
however, often take a foremost part in tribal administration, and are
frequently called upon to perform the office of arbitrators in questions
of disputed policy, &c. In the _Jemaa_, too, the Marabout at times takes
the place of honour and keeps order. The Berbers, if irreligious, are
very superstitious, never leaving their homes without exorcizing evil
spirits, and have a good and evil interpretation for every day of the
week. Many Berbers still retain certain Christian and Jewish usages,
relics of the pre-Islamitic days in North Africa, but of their primitive
religion there is no trace. They are seldom good scholars, but those
under French rule take all the advantage they can of the schools
instituted by the government. Their social tendencies are distinctly
communistic; property is often owned by the family in common, and a man
can call upon the services of his fellow villagers for certain purposes,
as the building of a house. Provision for the poor is often made by the
community.
Customs.
The dress of the Berbers was formerly made of home-woven cloth, and the
manufacture of woollen stuffs has always been one of the chief
occupations of their women. The men wear a tunic reaching to the knees,
the women a longer garment. For work the men use a leather apron, and in
the cold season and in travelling a burnous, usually a family heirloom,
old and ragged; the women, in winter, throw a coloured cloth over their
shoulders. The men's hair is cut short but their beards are allowed to
grow. In some districts there are peculiar customs, such as the wearing
of small silver nose-rings, seen in El-Jofra. The Berbers' weapons are
those of the Arab: the long straight sword, the slightly curved and
highly ornamented dagger, and the long gun. Berbers are not great
town-builders. Their villages, however, are often of substantial
appearance: with houses of untrimmed stones, occasionally with two
storeys, built on hills, and invariably defended by a bank, a stone wall
or a hedge. Sometimes their homes are mere huts of turf, or of clay
tiles, with mortar made from lime and clay or cow-dung. The sloping roof
is covered with reeds, straw or stones. The living room is on the right,
the cattle-stall on the left. The dwelling is surrounded by a garden or
small field of grain. The second storey is not added till a son marries.
In the villages of the western Atlas the greater part of the upper
storey consists of a sort of rough verandah. In this mountain district
the natives spend the winter in vaults beneath the houses, and, for the
sake of warmth, the tenements are built very close. Agriculture, which
is carried on even in the mountain districts by means of laboriously
constructed terraces, is antiquated in its methods. The plough, often
replaced on the steeper slopes by the hoe, is similar to that depicted
in ancient Egyptian drawings, and hand irrigation is usual. A sickle,
toothed like a saw, is used for reaping. Corn is trodden by oxen, and
kept in osier baskets narrowing to the top, or clay granaries. The
staple crop is barley, but wheat, lentils, vetches, flax and gourds are
also cultivated. Tobacco, maize and potatoes have been introduced; and
the aloe and prickly pear, called in Morocco the Christian fig, are also
found. The Kabyles understand grafting, have fine orchards and grow
vines. The Beni-Abbas tribe in the Algerian Atlas is famed for its
walnuts, and many tribes keep bees, chiefly for the commercial value of
the wax. The Berber diet largely consists of cucumbers, gourds,
water-melons and onions, and a small artichoke (_Cynara humilis_) which
grows wild. At the beginning and end of their meal they drink a strongly
sweetened liquid made from green tea and mint. Tea-drinking probably
became a habit in Morocco about the beginning of the 19th century;
coffee came by way of Algiers. At feasts the food is served on large
earthenware dishes with high basket-work covers, like bee-skeps but
twice as high.
Industries.
The Berbers have many industries. They mine and work iron, lead and
copper. They have olive presses and flour mills, and their own millstone
quarries, even travelling into Arab districts to build mills for the
Arabs. They make lime, tiles, woodwork for the houses, domestic utensils
and agricultural implements. They weave and dye several kinds of cloth,
tan and dress leather and manufacture oil and soap. Without the
assistance of the wheel the women produce a variety of pottery utensils,
often of very graceful design, and decorated with patterns in red and
black. Whole tribes, such as the Beni-Sliman, are occupied in the iron
trade; the Beni-Abbas made firearms before the French conquest, and even
cannon are said to have been made by boring. Before it was proscribed by
the French, the manufacture of gunpowder was general. The native
jewellers make excellent ornaments in silver, coral and enamel. In some
places wood-carving has been brought to considerable perfection; and
native artists know how to engrave on metal both by etching and the
burin. In its collective industry the Berber race is far superior to the
Arab. The Berbers are keen traders too, and, after the harvest, hawk
small goods, travelling great distances.
Women.
A Berber woman has in many ways a better position than her Arab sister.
True, her birth is regarded as an event of no moment, while that of a
boy is celebrated by great rejoicings, and his mother acquires the right
to wear on her forehead the _tafzint_, a mark which only the women who
have borne an heir can assume. Her husband buys and can dismiss her at
will. She has most of the hard work to do, and is little better than a
servant. When she is old and past work, especially if she has not been
the mother of a male child, she is often abandoned. But she has a voice
in public affairs; she has laws to protect her, manages the household
and goes unveiled; she has a right to the money she earns; she can
inherit under wills, and bequeath property, though to avoid the
alienation of real property, succession to it is denied her. But most
characteristic of her social position is the Berber woman's right to
enter into a sacred bond or agreement, represented by the giving of the
_anaya_. This is some symbolic object, stick or what not, which passes
between the parties to a contract, the obligations under which, if not
fulfilled by the contracting parties during their lives, become
hereditary. Female saints, too, are held in high honour; and the Berber
pays his wife the compliment of monogamy. The Kabyle women have stood
side by side with their husbands in battle. Among many Berber tribes the
law of inheritance is such that the eldest daughter's son succeeds.
South of Morocco proper, Gerhard Rohlfs, who travelled extensively in
the region (c. 1861-1867), states that a Berber religious corporation,
the _Savia Kartas_, was ruled over by a woman, the chief's wife. The
Berbers consult their women in many matters, and only one woman is
really held in low esteem. She, curiously, is the _kuata_ or
"go-between," even though her services are only employed in the
respectable task of arranging marriages. Berber women are intelligent
and hard-working, and, when young, very pretty and graceful. The
Berbers, unlike the Arabs, do not admire fat women. Among the Kabyles
the adulteress is put to death, as are those women who have illegitimate
children, the latter suffering with their mothers.
Language.
Though Arabic has to a considerable extent displaced the Berber
language, the latter is still spoken by millions of people from Egypt to
the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean to the Sudan. It is spoken
nowhere else, though, as has been said, place-names in the Canary
Islands and other remains of the aboriginal language there prove it to
have been the native tongue. Although the Berber tongue shows a certain
affinity with Semitic in the construction both of its words and
sentences Berber is quite distinct from the Semitic languages; and a
remarkable fact is that in spite of the enormous space over which the
dialects are spread and the thousands of years that some of the Berber
peoples have been isolated from the rest, these dialects show but slight
differences from the long-extinct Hamitic speech from which all are
derived. Whatever these dialects be called, the Kabyle, the Shilha, the
Zenati, the Tuareg or Tamashek, the Berber language is still essentially
one, and the similarity between the forms current in Morocco, Algeria,
the Sahara and the far-distant oasis of Siwa is much more marked than
between the Norse and English in the sub-Aryan Teutonic group. The
Berbers have, moreover, a writing of their own, peculiar and little used
or known, the antiquity of which is proved by monuments and inscriptions
ranging over the whole of North Africa.
The various spoken dialects, though apparently very unlike each other,
are not more dissimilar than are Portuguese, Spanish, French and
Italian, and their differences are doubtless attributable to the lack of
a literary standard. Even where different words are used, there is
evidence of a common stem from which the various branches have sprung.
The great difficulty of satisfactory comparison arises from the fact
that few of the Beber dialects possess any writings. The _Tawahhid_ (The
Unity of God), said to have been written in Moroccan Berber and believed
to be the oldest African work in existence, except Egyptian and
Ethiopic, was the work of the Muwahhadi leader, Ibn Tumart the Mahdi, at
a time when the officials of the Kairawan mosque were dismissed because
they could not speak Berber. Most of the writings found, however, have
been in the form of inscriptions, chiefly on ornaments. A collection of
the various signs of the alphabet has shown thirty-two letters, four
more than Arabic. De Slane, in his notes on the Berber historian Ibn
Khaldun, shows the following points of similarity to the Semitic
class:--its tri-literal roots, the inflections of the verb, the
formation of derived verbs, the genders of the second and third
persons, the pronominal affixes, the aoristic style of tense, the whole
and broken plurals and the construction of the phrase. Among the
peculiar grammatical features of Berber may be mentioned two numbers (no
dual), two genders and six cases, and verbs with one, two, three and
four radicals, and imperative and aorist tense only. As might be
expected the Berber tongue is most common in Morocco and the western
Sahara--the regions where Arab dominion was least exercised. When Arabic
is mentioned as the language of Morocco it is seldom realized how small
a proportion of its inhabitants use it as their mother tongue. Berber is
the real language of Morocco, Arabic that of its creed and government.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--General A. Hanoteau and A. Letourneux, _La Kabylie et
les coutumes kabyles_ (3 vols., Paris, 1872-1873); D. Randall-MacIver
and Antony Wilkin, _Libyan Notes_ (London, 1901); Antony Wilkin,
_Among the Berbers of Algeria_ (London, 1900); G. Sergi, _The
Mediterranean Race_ (London, 1901), and _Africa, Antropologia della
Stirpe Comitica_ (Turin, 1897); Henri Duveyrier, _Exploration du
Sahara_ (1864), _Les Progres de la geographie en Algerie_ (1867-1871),
_Bull. de la Soc. Khediviale de Geog_. (1876); E. Renan, "La Societe
Berbere," _Revue des deux mondes_, vol. for 1873; M.G. Olivier,
"Recherches sur l'origine des Berberes," _Bull. de l'Acad. d'Hippone_
(1867-1868); F.G. Rohlfs, _Reise durch Marokko_ (1869); _Quer durch
Afrika_ (1874-1875); General Faidherbe, _Collection complete des
inscriptions numidiques (lybiques)_ (1870), and _Les Dolmens
d'Afrique_ (1873); H.M. Flinders Petrie in _The Academy_, 20th of
April 1895; Jules Lionel, _Races berberes_ (1894); Sir H.H. Johnston,
"A Journey through the Tunisian Sahara," _Geog. Journal_, vol. xi.,
1898; De Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun, _Hist, des Berberes_
(Algiers, 1852); W.Z. Ripley, _Races of Europe_ (London, 1900); Dr
Malbot, "Les Chaouias" in _L'Anthropologie_, 1897 (p. 14); General
Faidherbe and Dr Paul Topinard, _Instructions sur l'anthropologie de
l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1874); E.T. Hamy, _La Necropole berbere d'Henchir
el-'Assel_ (Paris, 1896), and _Cites et necropoles berberes de
l'Enfida (Tunisie moyenne) (ib._ 1904).
Berber dictionaries:--_Venture de Paradis_ (Paris, 1844); Brosselard
(_ib._ 1844); Delaporte (_ib._ 1844, by order of minister of war);
J.B. Creusat, _Essai de dictionnaire francais-kabyle_ (Algiers, 1873);
A. Hanoteau, _Essai de grammaire de la langue tamachek, &c._ (Paris,
1860); Minutoli, _Siwah Dialect_ (Berlin, 1827).
Folklore, &c.:--J. Riviere, _Recueil de contes populaires de la
Kabylie_ (1882); R. Basset, _Contes populaires berberes_ (1887); P. le
Blanc de Prebois, _Essai de contes kabyles, avec traduction en
francais_ (Batna, 1897); H. Stumine, _Marchen der Berbern van
Tamazratt in Sudtunisien_ (Leipzig, 1900).
BERCEUSE (Fr. for a "lullaby," from _berceau_, a cradle), a cradle-song,
the German _Wiegenlied_, a musical composition with a quiet rocking
accompaniment.
BERCHEM (or BERGHEM), NICOLAAS (1620-1683), Dutch painter, was born at
Haarlem. He received instruction from his father (Pieter Claasz van
Haarlem) and from the painters Van Goyen, Jan Wils and Weenix. It is not
known why he called himself Berchem (or Berighem, and other variants).
His pictures, of which he produced an immense number, were in great
demand, as were also his etchings and drawings. His landscapes are
highly esteemed; and many of them have been finely engraved by John
Visscher. His finest pictures are at the Amsterdam Museum and at the
Hermitage, St Petersburg.
BERCHTA (English Bertha), a fairy in South German mythology. She was at
first a benevolent spirit, the counterpart of Hulda in North German
myth. Later her character changed and she came to be regarded as a
witch. In Pagan times Berchta had the rank of a minor deity.
BERCHTESGADEN, a town of Germany, beautifully situated on the
south-eastern confines of the kingdom of Bavaria, 1700 ft. above the sea
on the southern declivity of the Untersberg, 6 m. S.S.E. from
Reichenhall by rail. Pop. (1900) 10,046. It is celebrated for its
extensive mines of rock-salt, which were worked as early as 1174. The
town contains three old churches, of which the early Gothic abbey church
with its Romanesque cloister is most notable, and some good houses.
Apart from the salt-mines, its industries include toys and other small
articles of wood, horn and ivory, for which the place has long been
famous. The district of Berchtesgaden was formerly an independent
spiritual principality, founded in 1100 and secularized in 1803. The
abbey is now a royal castle, and in the neighbourhood a hunting-lodge
was built by King Maximilian II. in 1852.
BERCK, a bathing resort of northern France, in the department of
Pas-de-Calais, 25 m. S. of Boulogne by rail. Pop. (1906) 7638. It
comprises two parts--Berck-Ville, 1-1/2 m. from the shore, and
Berck-Plage, the latter with a fine sandy beach. There are two
children's hospitals, the climate proving peculiarly beneficial in the
treatment of scrofulous affections. About 150 boats are employed in the
fisheries, and herrings form the staple of an active trade.
Boat-building and fish-curing are carried on.
BERDICHEV, a town of W. Russia, in the government of Kiev, 116 m. S.W.
of Kiev by rail and not far from the borders of Volhynia. The cathedral
of the Assumption, finished in 1832, is the principal place of worship.
The fortified Carmelite monastery, founded in 1627, was captured and
plundered by Chmielnicki, chief of the Zaporogian Cossacks, in 1647, and
disestablished in 1864. An extensive trade is carried on in peltry, silk
goods, iron and wooden wares, salt fish, grain, cattle and horses. Four
fairs are held yearly, the most important being on the 12th of June and
the 15th of August. The numerous minor industries include the
manufacture of tobacco, soap, candles, oil, bricks and leather. Pop.
(1867) 52,563; (1897) 53,728, Jews forming about 80%. In the treaty of
demarcation between the Lithuanians and the Poles in 1546 Berdichev was
assigned to the former. In 1768 Pulaski, leader of the confederacy of
Bar, fled, after the capture of that city, to Berdichev, and there
maintained himself during a siege of twenty-five days. The town belongs
to the Radziwill family.
BERDYANSK, a seaport town of Russia, in the government of Taurida, on
the north coast of the Sea of Azov, in 46 deg. 45' N. lat. and 36 deg.
40' E. long. The principal industries are in bricks and tiles, tallow
and macaroni. The roads are protected from every wind except the south,
which occas
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