The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 64

BELFAST (256), county town of Antrim, and largest and most flouris.h.i.+ng city in the N. of Ireland; stands on the Lagan, at the head of Belfast Lough, 100 m. N. of Dublin; is a bright and pleasant city, with some fine streets and handsome buildings, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Methodist colleges. It is the centre of the Irish linen and cotton manufactures, the most important s.h.i.+pbuilding centre, and has also rope-making, whisky, and aerated-water industries. Its foreign trade is larger than even Dublin's. It is the capital of Ulster, and head-quarters of Presbyterianism in Ireland.

BELFORT (83), a fortified town in dep. of Haut-Rhin, and is its capital, 35 m. W. by N. of Basel; capitulated to the Germans in 1870; restored to France; its fortifications now greatly strengthened. The citadel was by Vauban.

BELGae, Caesar's name for the tribes of the Celtic family in Gaul N.

of the Seine and Marne; mistakenly rated as Germans by Caesar.

BELGIUM (6,136), a small European State bordering on the North Sea, with Holland to the N., France to the S., and Rhenish Prussia and Luxemburg on the E.; is less than a third the size of Ireland, but it is the most densely populated country on the Continent. The people are of mixed stock, comprising Flemings, of Teutonic origin; Walloons, of Celtic origin; Germans, Dutch, and French. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion. Education is excellent; there are universities at Ghent, Liege, Brussels, and Louvain. French is the language of educated circles and of the State; but the prevalence of dialects hinders the growth of a national literature. The land is low and level and fertile in the N. and W., undulating in the middle, rocky and hilly in the S. and E. The Meuse and Scheldt are the chief rivers, the basin of the latter embracing most of the country. Climate is similar to the English, with greater extremes.

Rye, wheat, oats, beet, and flax are the princ.i.p.al crops. Agriculture is the most painstaking and productive of the world. The hilly country is rich in coal, iron, zinc, and lead. After mining, the chief industries are textile manufactures and making of machinery: the former at Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, and Liege; the latter at Liege, Mons, and Charleroi. The trade is enormous; France, Germany, and Britain are the best customers.

Exports are coal to France; farm products, eggs, &c., to England; and raw material imported from across seas, to France and the basin of the Rhine.

It is a small country of large cities. The capital is Brussels (480), in the centre of the kingdom, but communicating with the ocean by a s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.l. The railways, ca.n.a.ls, and river navigation are very highly developed. The government is a limited monarchy; the king, senate, and house of representatives form the const.i.tution. There is a conscript army of 50,000 men, but no navy. Transferred from Spain to Austria in 1713.

Belgium was under French sway from 1794 till 1814, when it was united with Holland, but established its independence in 1830.

BELGRADE (54), the capital of Servia, on the confluence of the Save and Danube; a fortified city in an important strategical position, and the centre of many conflicts; a commercial centre; once Turkish in appearance, now European more and more.

BELGRA'VIA, a fas.h.i.+onable quarter in the southern part of the West End of London.

BELIAL, properly a good-for-nothing, a child of worthlessness; an incarnation of iniquity and son of perdition, and the name in the Bible for the children of such.

BELIEF, a word of various application, but properly definable as that which lies at the heart of a man or a nation's convictions, or is the heart and soul of all their thoughts and actions, "the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain concerning his vital relations to this mysterious universe, and his duty and destiny there."

BELINDA, ARABELLA FERMOR, the heroine in Pope's "Rape of the Lock."

BELISA'RIUS, a general under the Emperor Justinian, born in Illyria; defeated the Persians, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths; was falsely accused of conspiracy, but acquitted, and restored to his dignities by the emperor; though another tradition, now discredited, alleges that for the crimes charged against him he had his eyes put out, and was reduced to beggary (505-565).

BELIZE, British Honduras, a fertile district, and its capital (6); exports mahogany, rosewood, sugar, india-rubber, &c.

BELL, ACTON. See BRONTe.

BELL, ANDREW, LL.D., educationist, born at St. Andrews; founder of the Monitorial system of education, which he had adopted, for want of qualified a.s.sistants, when in India as superintendent of an orphanage in Madras, so that his system was called "the Madras system"; returned from India with a large fortune, added to it by lucrative preferments, and bequeathed a large portion of it, some 120,000, for the endowment of education in Scotland, and the establishment of schools, such as the Madras College in his native city (1753-1832).

BELL, BESSY, and MARY GRAY, the "twa bonnie la.s.sies" of a Scotch ballad, daughters of two Perths.h.i.+re gentlemen, who in 1666 built themselves a bower in a spot retired from a plague then raging; supplied with food by a lad in love with both of them, who caught the plague and gave it to them, of which they all sickened and died.

BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE, a ceremony at one time attending the greater excommunication in the Romish Church, when after sentence was read from the "book," a "bell" was rung, and the "candle" extinguished.

BELL, CURRER. See BRONTe.

BELL, ELLIS. See BRONTe.

BELL, GEORGE JOSEPH, a brother of Sir Charles, distinguished in law; author of "Principles of the Law of Scotland" (1770-1843).

BELL, HENRY, bred a millwright, born in Linlithgows.h.i.+re; the first who applied steam to navigation in Europe, applying it in a small steamboat called the _Comet_, driven by a three horse-power engine (1767-1830).

BELL, HENRY GLa.s.sFORD, born in Glasgow, a lawyer and literary man, sheriff of Lanarks.h.i.+re; wrote a vindication of Mary, Queen of Scots, and some volumes of poetry (1803-1874).

BELL, JOHN, of Antermony, a physician, born at Campsie; accompanied Russian emba.s.sies to Persia and China; wrote "Travels in Asia," which were much appreciated for their excellency of style (1690-1780).

BELL, PETER, Wordsworth's simple rustic, to whom the primrose was but a yellow flower and nothing more.

BELL, ROBERT, journalist and miscellaneous writer, born at Cork; edited "British Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper," his best-known work, which he annotated, and accompanied with careful memoirs of each (1800-1867).

BELL, SIR CHARLES, an eminent surgeon and anatomist, born in Edinburgh, where he became professor of Surgery; distinguished chiefly for his discoveries in connection with the nervous system, which he published in his "Anatomy of the Brain" and his "Nervous System," and which gained him European fame; edited, along with Lord Brougham, Paley's "Evidences of Natural Religion" (1774-1842).

BELL, THOMAS, a naturalist, born at Poole; professor of Zoology in King's College, London; author of "British Quadrupeds" and "British Reptiles," "British Stalk-eyed Crustacea," and editor of "White's Natural History of Selborne" (1792-1880).

BELL ROCK, or INCHCAPE ROCK, a dangerous reef of sandstone rocks in the German Ocean, 12 m. SE. of Arbroath, on which a lighthouse 120 ft. high was erected in 1807-10; so called from a bell rung by the sway of the waves, which the abbot of Arbroath erected on it at one time as a warning to seamen.

BELL-THE-CAT, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Arran, so called from his offer to dispose by main force of an obnoxious favourite of the king, James III.

BELLA, STEPHANO DELLA, a Florentine engraver of great merit, engraved over 1000 plates; was patronised by Richelieu in France, and the Medici in Florence (1610-1664).

BELL'AMY, JACOB, a Dutch poet, born at Flus.h.i.+ng; his poems highly esteemed by his countrymen (1752-1821).

BELLANGE, a celebrated painter of battle-pieces, born at Paris (1800-1866).

BELLAR'MINE, ROBERT, cardinal, born in Tuscany; a learned Jesuit, controversial theologian, and in his writings, which are numerous, a valiant defender at all points of Roman Catholic dogma; the greatest champion of the Church in his time, and regarded as such by the Protestant theologians; he was at once a learned man and a doughty polemic (1542-1621).