The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 62

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, the hero and heroine of a famous fairy tale.

Beauty falls in love with a being like a monster, who has, however, the heart of a man, and she marries him, upon which he is instantly transformed into a prince of handsome presence and n.o.ble mien.

BEAUVAIS (19), capital of the dep. of Oise, in France, 34 in. SW. of Amiens, an ancient town, noted for its cathedral, its tapestry weaving, and the feat of Jeanne-Hachette and her female following when the town was besieged by Charles the Bold.

BEAUVAIS, a French prelate, born at Cherbourg, Bishop of Senez, celebrated as a pulpit orator (1731-1790).

BEAUVILLIER, a statesman, patron of letters, to whom Louis XIV.

committed the governors.h.i.+p of his sons; died of a broken heart due to the shock the death of the dauphin gave him (1607-1687).

BEBEK BAY, a fas.h.i.+onable resort on the Bosphorus, near Constantinople, and with a palace of the sultan.

BECCAFUMI, DOMENICO, one of the best painters of the Sienese school, distinguished also as a sculptor and a worker in mosaic (1486-1550).

BECCA'RIA, CaeSARE BONESANA, MARQUIS OF, an Italian publicist, author of a celebrated "Treatise on Crimes and Punishments," which has been widely translated, and contributed much to lessen the severity of sentences in criminal cases. He was a utilitarian in philosophy and a disciple of Rousseau in politics.

BECHE-DE-MER, a slug, called also the trepang, procured on the coral reefs of the Pacific, which is dried and eaten as a dainty by the Chinese.

BECHER, JOHANN JOACHIM, chemist, born at Spires; distinguished as a pioneer in the scientific study of chemistry (1635-1682).

BECHSTEIN, a German naturalist, wrote "Natural History of Cage Birds" (1757-1822).

BECHUANA-LAND, an inland tract in S. Africa, extends from the Orange River to the Zambesi; has German territory on the W., the Transvaal and Matabele-land on the E. The whole country is under British protection; that part which is S. of the river Molopo was made a crown colony in 1885. On a plateau 4000 ft. above sea-level, the climate is suited for British emigrants. The soil is fertile; extensive tracts are suitable for corn; sheep and cattle thrive; rains fall in summer; in winter there are frosts, sometimes snow. The Kalahari Desert in the W. will be habitable when sufficient wells are dug. Gold is found near Sitlagoli, and diamonds at Vryburg. The Bechuanas are the most advanced of the black races of S.

Africa.

BECHUA'NAS, a wide-spread S. African race, totemists, rearers of cattle, and growers of maize; are among the most intelligent of the Bantu peoples, and show considerable capacity for self-government.

BECKER, KARL, German philologist; bred to medicine; author of a German grammar (1775-1842).

BECKER, NICOLAUS, author of the "Wacht am Rhein," was an obscure lawyer's clerk, and unnoted for anything else (1810-1845).

BECKER, WILLIAM ADOLPHE, an archaeologist, born at Dresden; was professor at Leipzig; wrote books in reproductive representation of ancient Greek and Roman life; author of "Manual of Roman Antiquities"

(1796-1846).

BECKET, THOMAS A, archbishop of Canterbury, born in London, of Norman parentage; studied at Oxford and Bologna; entered the Church; was made Lord Chancellor; had a large and splendid retinue, but on becoming archbishop, cast all pomp aside and became an ascetic, and devoted himself to the vigorous discharge of the duties of his high office; declared for the independence of the Church, and refused to sign the CONSt.i.tUTIONS OF CLARENDON (q. v.); King Henry II. grew restive under his a.s.sumption of authority, and got rid of him by the hands of four knights who, to please the king, shed his blood on the steps of the altar of Canterbury Cathedral, for which outrage the king did penance four years afterwards at his tomb. The struggle was one affecting the relative rights of Church and king, and the chief combatants in the fray were both high-minded men, each inflexible in the a.s.sertion of his claims (1119-1170).

BECKFORD, WILLIAM, author of "Vathek," son of a rich alderman of London, who bequeathed him property to the value of 100,000 per annum; kept spending his fortune on extravagancies and vagaries; wrote "Vathek,"

an Arabian tale, when a youth of twenty-two, at a sitting of three days and two nights, a work which established his reputation as one of the first of the imaginative writers of his country. He wrote two volumes of travels in Italy, but his fame rests on his "Vathek" alone (1759-1844).

BECKMANN, a professor at Gottingen; wrote "History of Discoveries and Inventions" (1738-1811).

BECKX, PETER JOHN, general of the Jesuits, born in Belgium (1790-1887).

BECQUEREL, ANTOINE CaeSAR, a French physicist; served as engineer in the French army in 1808-14, but retired in 1815, devoting himself to science, and obtained high distinction in electro-chemistry, working with Ampere, Biot, and other eminent scientists (1788-1878).

BED OF JUSTICE, a formal session of the Parlement of Paris, under the presidency of the king, for the compulsory registration of the royal edicts, the last session being in 1787, under Louis XVI., at Versailles, whither the whole body, now "refractory, rolled out, in wheeled vehicles, to receive the order of the king."

BEDCHAMBER, LORDS or LADIES OF, officers or ladies of the royal household whose duty it is to wait upon the sovereign--the chief of the former called Groom of the Stole, and of the latter, Mistress of the Robes.

BEDDOES, THOMAS LOVELL, born at Clifton, son of Thomas Beddoes; an enthusiastic student of science; a dramatic poet, author of "Bride's Tragedy"; got into trouble for his Radical opinions; his princ.i.p.al work, "Death's Jest-Book, or the Fool's Tragedy," highly esteemed by Barry Cornwall (1803-1849).

BEDE, or BEDA, surnamed "The Venerable," an English monk and ecclesiastical historian, born at Monkwearmouth, in the abbey of which, together with that of Jarrow, he spent his life, devoted to quiet study and learning; his writings numerous, in the shape of commentaries, biographies, and philosophical treatises; his most important work, the "Ecclesiastical History" of England, written in Latin, and translated by Alfred the Great; completed a translation of John's Gospel the day he died. An old monk, it is said, wrote this epitaph over his grave, _Hac sunt in fossa Bedae ... ossa_, "In this pit are the bones ... of Beda,"

and then fell asleep; but when he awoke he found some invisible hand had inserted _venerabilis_ in the blank which he had failed to fill up, whence Bede's epinomen it is alleged.

BEDELL, bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, born in Ess.e.x; studied at Cambridge; superintended the translation of the Old Testament into Irish; though his virtues saved him and his family for a time from outrage by the rebels in 1641, he was imprisoned at the age of 70, and though released, died soon after (1571-1642).

BEDFORD (160), a midland agricultural county of England, generally level, with some flat fen-land; also the county town (28), on the Great Ouse, clean and well paved, with excellent educational inst.i.tutions, famous in connection with the life of John Bunyan, where relics of him are preserved, and where a bronze statue of him by Boehm has been erected to his memory by the Duke of Bedford in 1871; manufactures agricultural implements, lace, and straw plaiting; Elstow, Bunyan's birthplace, is not far off.

BEDFORD, JOHN, DUKE OF, brother of Henry V., protector of the kingdom and regent of France during the minority of Henry VI., whom, on the death of the French king, he proclaimed King of France, taking up arms thereafter and fighting for a time victoriously on his behalf, till the enthusiasm created by Joan of Arc turned the tide against him and hastened his death, previous to which, however, though he prevailed over the dauphin, and burnt Joan at the stake, his power had gone (1389-1435).

BEDFORD LEVEL, a flat marshy district, comprising part of six counties, to the S. and W. of the Wash, about 40 m. in extent each way, caused originally by incursions of the sea and the overflowing of rivers; received its name from the Earl of Bedford, who, in the 17th century, undertook to drain it.

BEDLAM, originally a lunatic asylum in London, so named from the priory "Bethlehem" in Bishopsgate, first appropriated to the purpose, Bedlam being a corruption of the name Bethlehem.

BEDMAR, MARQUIS DE, cardinal and bishop of Oviedo, and a Spanish diplomatist, notorious for a part he played in a daring conspiracy in 1618 aimed at the destruction of Venice, but which, being betrayed, was defeated, for concern in which several people were executed, though the arch-delinquent got off; he is the subject of Otway's "Venice Preserved"; it was after this he was made cardinal, and governor of the Netherlands, where he was detested and obliged to retire (1572-1655).

BEDOUINS, Arabs who lead a nomadic life in the desert and subsist by the pasture of cattle and the rearing of horses, the one element that binds them into a unity being community of language, the Arabic namely, which they all speak with great purity and without variation of dialect; they are generally of small stature, of wiry const.i.tution, and dark complexion, and are divided into tribes, each under an independent chief.