The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 66

BEM, JOSEPH, a Polish general, born in Galicia; served in the French army against Russia in 1812; took part in the insurrection of 1830; joined the Hungarians in 1848; gained several successes against Austria and Russia, but was defeated at Temesvar; turned Mussulman, and was made pasha; died at Aleppo, where he had gone to suppress an Arab insurrection; he was a good soldier and a brave man (1791-1850).

BEMBA, a lake in Africa, the highest feeder of the Congo, of an oval shape, 150 m. long and over 70 m. broad, 3000 ft. above the sea-level.

BEMBO, PIETRO, cardinal, an erudite man of letters and patron of literature and the arts, born at Venice; secretary to Pope Leo X.; historiographer of Venice, and librarian of St. Mark's; made cardinal by Paul III., and bishop of Bergamo; a fastidious stylist and a stickler for purity in language (1470-1547).

BEN LAWERS, a mountain in Perths.h.i.+re, 3984 ft. high, on the W. of Loch Tay.

BEN LEDI, a mountain in Perths.h.i.+re, 2873 ft. high, 4 m. NW. of Callander.

BEN LOMOND, a mountain in Stirlings.h.i.+re, 3192 ft. high, on the E. of Loch Lomond.

BEN NEVIS, the highest mountain in Great Britain, in SW.

Inverness-s.h.i.+re, 4406 ft. high, and a sheer precipice on the NE. 1500 ft.

high, and with an observatory on the summit supported by the Scottish Meteorological Society.

BEN RHYDDING, a village in the West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, 15 m. NW.

of Leeds, with a thoroughly equipped hydropathic establishment, much resorted to.

BENARES (219), the most sacred city of the Hindus, and an important town in the NW. Provinces; is on the Ganges, 420 m. by rail NW. of Calcutta. It presents an amazing array of 1700 temples and mosques with towers and domes and minarets innumerable. The bank of the river is laid with continuous flights of steps whence the pilgrims bathe; but the city itself is narrow, crocked, crowded, and dirty. Many thousand pilgrims visit it annually. It is a seat of Hindu learning; there is also a government college. The river is spanned here by a magnificent railway bridge. There is a large trade in country produce, English goods, jewellery, and gems; while its bra.s.s-work, "Benares ware," is famous.

BENBOW, JOHN, admiral, born at Shrewsbury; distinguished himself in an action with a Barbary pirate; rose rapidly to the highest post in the navy; distinguished himself well in an engagement with a French fleet in the W. Indies; he lost a leg, and at this crisis some of his captains proved refractory, so that the enemy escaped, were tried by court-martial, and two of them shot; the wound he received and his vexation caused his death. He was a British tar to the backbone, and of a cla.s.s extinct now (1653-1702).

BENCOOLEN, a town and a Dutch residency in SW. of Sumatra; exports pepper and camphor.

BENDER, a town in Bessarabia, remarkable for the siege which Charles XII. of Sweden sustained there after his defeat at Pultowa.

BENEDEK, LUDWIG VON, an Austrian general, born in Hungary; distinguished himself in the campaigns of 1848-1849; was defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa; superseded and tried, but got off; retired to Gratz, where he died (1804-1871).

BENEDETTI, COUNT VINCENT, French diplomatist, born at Bastia, in Corsica; is remembered for his draft of a treaty between France and Prussia, published in 1870, and for his repudiation of all responsibility for the Franco-German war; _b_. 1817.

BENEDICT, the name of fourteen popes: B. I., from 574 to 575; B. II., from 684 to 685; B. III., from 855 to 858; B. IV., from 900 to 907; B. V., FROM 964 TO 965; B. VI., from 972 to 974; B. VII., from 975 to 984; B. VIII., from 1012 to 1024; extended the territory of the Church by conquest, and effected certain clerical reforms; B. IX., from 1033 to 1048, a licentious man, and deposed; B. X., from 1058 to 1059; B. XI., from 1303 to 1304; B. XII., from 1334 to 1342; B. XIII., from 1724 to 1730; B. XIV., from 1740 to 1758. Of all the popes of this name it would seem there is only one worthy of special mention.

BENEDICT XIV., a native of Bologna, a man of marked scholars.h.i.+p and ability; a patron of science and literature, who did much to purify the morals and elevate the character of the clergy, and reform abuses in the Church.

BENEDICT, BISCOP, an Anglo-Saxon monk, born in Northumbria; made two pilgrimages to Rome; a.s.sumed the tonsure as a Benedictine monk in Provence; returned to England and founded two monasteries on the Tyne, one at Wearmouth and another at Jarrow, making them seats of learning; _b_. 628.

BENEDICT, ST., the founder of Western monachism, born near Spoleto; left home at 14; pa.s.sed three years as a hermit, in a cavern near Subiaco, to prepare himself for G.o.d's service; attracted many to his retreat; appointed to an abbey, but left it; founded 12 monasteries of his own; though possessed of no scholars.h.i.+p, composed his "Regula Monachorum," which formed the rule of his order; represented in art as accompanied by a raven with sometimes a loaf in his bill, or surrounded by thorns or by howling demons (480-543). See BENEDICTINES.

BENEDICT, SIR JULIUS, musician and composer, native of Stuttgart; removed to London in 1835; author of, among other pieces, the "Gipsy's Warning," the "Brides of Venice," and the "Crusaders"; conducted the performance of "Elijah" in which Jenny Lind made her first appearance before a London audience, and accompanied her as pianist to America in 1850 (1806-1885).

BENEDICTINES, the order of monks founded by St. Benedict and following his rule, the cradle of which was the celebrated monastery of Monte Casino, near Naples, an inst.i.tution which reckoned among its members a large body of eminent men, who in their day rendered immense service to both literature and science, and were, in fact, the only learned cla.s.s of the Middle Ages; spent their time in diligently transcribing ma.n.u.scripts, and thus preserving for posterity the cla.s.sic literature of Greece and Rome.

BENEDICTUS, part of the musical service at Ma.s.s in the Roman Catholic Church; has been introduced into the morning service of the English Church.

BENEFIT OF CLERGY, exemption of the persons of clergymen from criminal process before a secular judge.

BE'NEKE, FRIEDRICH EDUARD, a German philosopher and professor in Berlin of the so-called empirical school, that is, the Baconian; an opponent of the methods and systems of Kant and Hegel; confined his studies to psychology and the phenomena of consciousness; was more a British thinker than a German (1798-1854).

BENENGE'LI, an imaginary Moorish author, whom Cervantes credits with the story of "Don Quixote."

BeNETIER, the vessel for holding the holy water in Roman Catholic churches.

BENEVENTO (20), a town 33 m. NE. of Naples, built out of and amid the ruins of an ancient one; also the province, of which Talleyrand was made prince by Napoleon.

BENEVOLENCE, the name of a forced tax exacted from the people by certain kings of England, and which, under Charles I., became so obnoxious as to occasion the demand of the PEt.i.tION OF RIGHTS (q. v.), that no tax should be levied without consent of Parliament; first enforced in 1473, declared illegal in 1689.

BENFEY, THEODOR, Orientalist, born near Gottingen, of Jewish birth; a great Sanskrit scholar, and professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at his native place; author of "Lexicon of Greek Roots,"

"Sanskrit Grammar," &c. (1809-1881).

BENGAL (76,643), one of the three Indian presidencies, but more particularly a province lying in the plain of the Lower Ganges and the delta of the Ganges-Brahmaputra, with the Himalayas on the N. At the base of the mountains are great forests; along the seaboard dense jungles. The climate is hot and humid, drier at Behar, and pa.s.sing through every gradation up to the snow-line. The people are engaged in agriculture, raising indigo, jute, opium, rice, tea, cotton, sugar, &c. Coal, iron, and copper mines are worked in Burdwan. The manufactures are of cotton and jute. The population is mixed in blood and speech, but Hindus speaking Bengali predominate. Education is further advanced than elsewhere; there are fine colleges affiliated to Calcutta University, and many other scholastic inst.i.tutions. The capital, Calcutta, is the capital of India; the next town in size is Patna (165).

BENGA'ZI (7), the capital of Barca, on the Gulf of Sidra, in N.

Africa, and has a considerable trade.

BENGEL, JOHANN ALBRECHT, a distinguished Biblical scholar and critic, born at Wurtemberg; best known by his "Gnomon Novi Testamenti,"

being an invaluable body of short notes on the New Testament; devoted himself to the critical study of the text of the Greek Testament (1687-1752).