imagination, he opposes capital punishments and the torture. This work led to the establishment of more settled and more correct principles of penal law, and contributed to excite a general horror against inhuman punishments. B. was a true friend, a good son, a tender husband and a real philanthropist. He is also known, in Italy, as the author of a philosophical grammar and theory of style, Ricerche intorno alla Natura dello Stilo (Milan, 1770), and of several good treatises on style, on rhetorical ornament, &c., contained in the journal Il Caffe, edited by him, in conjunction with his friends Visconti, Verri and others. A fit of apoplexy put an end to his useful life in November, 1793.

BECCARIA, Giovanni Battista; born, 1716, at Mondovi; went to Rome in 1732, where he studied, and afterwards taught grammar and rhetoric; at the same time, he applied himself with success to mathematics. He was appointed professor of philosophy at Palermo, and afterwards at Rome. Charles Emanuel, king of Sardinia, invited him to Turin, in 1748, to fill the professorship of natural philosophy at the university there. Electricity had, at that time, through the experiments of Franklin and others, become an object of universal interest. He therefore published his Dell' Elettricismo naturale ed artifiziale (Turin, 4to). The experiments which this work contains on atinospherical electricity are so numerous and various, that Priestley affirmed, in his History of Electricity, that Beccaria's labors far surpass all that had been done, before and after him, on this subject. The academies in London and Bologna elected him a member. He wrote many other valuable works on this subject. The most important, Dell' Elettricismo artifiziale (1772), contains all that was then known of electricity. Franklin, who esteemed the works of B., had them translated into English. In 1759, the king employed him to measure a degree of the meridian in Piedmont. He began the measurement in 1760, together with the abbot Canonica, and published the result in 1774. The doubts expressed by Cassini of the exactness of this measurement, drew from him his Lettere d'un Italiano ad un Parigino, in which he showed the influence of the proximity of the Alps on the deviation of the pendulum. As his thoughts were entirely absorbed by his studies, he often neglected the nicer rules of good-breeding, without losing, however, the general esteem. He died April 27,1781. 3

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BECHER, John Joachim; author of the first theory of chemistry; born at Spire, in 1635. He finished his restless life at London, in 1685, after having resided in many parts of Germany. He had many enemies, and has been accused, not entirely without justice, of charlatanry; yet his influence on the science of chemistry gives him still a claim to remembrance. He brought it into a nearer connexion with physics, and sought for the causes of all the phenomena of the inorganic universe in these two departments of science. This is the object of his principal work, Physica subterranea. At the same time, he began to form a theory of chemistry; and conceived the idea of a primitive acid, of which all the others were only modifications. He also made researches into the process of combustion. He maintained that every metal consists of a common earthy matter, of a common combustible principle, and of a peculiar mercurial substance. If we heat a metal so that it changes its form, we disengage the mercurial substance, and nothing remains but the metallic calx. This was the first gerin of the phlogistic theory, which was further developed by Stahlil, and prevailed until the time of Lavoisier. The numerous works of B. are, even now, not without interest.

BECK, Christian Daniel; one of the must active living philologists and historians, born in Leipsic, Jan. 22, 1757. He is professor at the university in that city, and has rendered himself famous by a great number of excellent works. His editions of the classics are in high esteem. Between 1787 and 1806 appeared the 4. volumes of his work, Introduction to a Knowledge of the General History of the World and of Nations, until the Discovery of America. He also translated Goldsmith's History of Greece, and Ferguson's History of the Roman Republic. Of his theological works, we may mention his Commentarii historici Decretorum Religionis Christiana, et Formula Luther (Leipsic, 1800). He has also edited a learned periodical work.

BECKET, Thomas, the most celebrated Roman Catholic prelate in the English annals, was born in London, 1119. He was the son of Gilbert, a London merchant. His mother is said to have been a Saracen lady, to whose father Gilbert was prisoner, in Jerusalem, being taken captive in one of the crusades. The lady is said to have fallen in love with the prisoner, and to have followed him to London, where he married her. After studying at Oxford

and Paris, B. was sent, by the favor of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, to study civil law at Bononia, in Italy, and, on his return, was made archdeacon of Canterbury and provost of Beverley. His claim to the good opinion of Theobald was founded on his skill in negotiation shown in a matter of the highest importance to England-the soliciting from the pope the prohibitory letters against the crowning of Eustace, the son of Stephen, by which that design was defeated. This service not only raised Becket in the esteem of the archbishop, but in that of king Henry II, and was the foundation of his high fortune. In 1158, he was appointed high chancellor and preceptor to prince Henry, and at this time was a complete courtier, conforming, in every respect, to the humor of the king. He was, in fact, his prime companion, had the same hours of eating and going to bed, held splendid levees, and courted popular applause. In 1159, he made a campaign with the king in Toulouse, having in his own pay 700 knights and 1200 horsemen; and it is said he advised Henry to seize the person of Louis, king of France, shut up in Toulouse without an army. This counsel, however, so indicative of the future martyr, being too bold for the lay counsellors of one of the boldest monarchs of the age, was declined. In the next year, he visited Paris, to treat of an alliance between the eldest daughter of the king of France and prince Henry, and returned with the young princess to England. He had not enjoyed the chancellorship more than four years, when his patron Theobald died, and king Henry was so far mistaken as to raise his favorite to the primacy, on the presumption that he would aid him in those political views, in respect to church power, which all the sovereigns of the Norman line embraced, and which, in fact, caused a continual struggle, until its termination by Henry VIII. It has been asserted, that B. told the king what he was to expect from him; but, independent of the appointment itself, there is evidence to prove his eagerness to obtain the dignity, and the disgust entertained by Henry at the first symptoms of the real temper of the man whom he had been so anxious to promote. B. was consecrated archbishop in 1162, and immediately affected an austerity of character which formed a very natural prelude to the part which he meant to play. Pope Alexander III held a general council at Tours, in 1163, at which B. attended, and made a formal complaint of the infringements

by the laity on the rights and immunities of the church. On his return to England, he began to act in the spirit of this representation, and to prosecute several of the nobility and others, holding church possessions, whom he also proceeded to excommunicate. Henry, an able and politic monarch, was anxious to recall certain privileges of the clergy, which withdrew them from the jurisdiction of the civil courts; and it was not without a violent struggle, and the mediation of the pope, that B. finally acquiesced. The king soon after summoned a convocation or parliament at Clarendon, to the celebrated constitution of which, although the archbishop swore that he would never assent, he at length subscribed it, and, alleging something like force for his excuse, by way of penance, suspended himself from his archiepiscopal functions until the pope's absolution could arrive. Finding himself the object of the king's displeasure, he soon after attempted to escape to France; but, being intercepted, Henry, in a parliament at Northampton, charged him with a violation of his allegiance, and all his goods were confiscated. A suit was also commenced against him for money lent him during his chancellorship, and for the proceeds of the benefices which he had held vacant while in that capacity. In this desperate situation, he, with great difficulty and danger, made his escape to Flanders, and, proceeding to the pope at Sens, humbly resigned his archbishopric, which was, however, restored. He then took up his abode at the abbey of Pontigny, in Normandy, whence he issued expostulatory letters to the king and bishops of England, in which he excommunicated all violators of the prerogatives of the church, and included in the censure the principal officers of the crown. Henry was so exasperated, that he banished all his relations, and obliged the Cistercians to send him away from the abbey of Pontigny; from which he removed, on the recommendation of the king of France, to the abbey of Columbe, and spent four years there in exile. After much negotiation, a sort of reconciliation took place in 1170, on the whole to the advantage of Becket, who, being restored to his see, with all its former privileges, behaved, on the occasion, with excessive haughtiness. After a triumphant entry into Canterbury, the young king Henry, crowned during the life-time of his father, transmitted him an order to restore the suspended and excommunicated prelates, which he refused to do, on the pretence that the pope

alone could grant the favor, although the latter had lodged the instruments of censure in his hands. The prelates immediately appealed to Henry in Normandy, who, in a state of extreme exasperation, exclaimed, “What an unhappy prince am I, who have not about me one man of spirit enough to rid me of a single insolent prelate, the perpetual trouble of my life!" These rash and too significant words induced four attendant barons, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville and Richard Breto, to resolve to wipe out the king's reproach. Having laid their plans, they forthwith proceeded to Canterbury, and, having formally required the archbishop to restore the suspended prelates, they returned in the evening of the same day (Dec. 29, 1170), and, placing soldiers in the court-yard, rushed, with their swords drawn, into the cathedral, where the archbishop was at vespers, and, advancing towards him, threatened him with death if he still disobeyed the orders of Henry. B., without the least token of fear, replied, that he was ready to die for the rights of the church; and magnanimously added, "I charge you, in the name of the Almighty, not to hurt any other person here, for none of them have been concerned in the late transactions." The confederates then strove to drag him out of the church; but, not being able to do so, on account of his resolute deportment, they killed him on the spot with repeated wounds, all which he endured without a groan. The conduct of Henry, and the consequences of this assassination, form a part of English history wherein the discerning student will perceive the subtle policy of the court of Rome, which eagerly availed itself of this opportunity to advance its general object, with a due regard to the power of Henry and his strength of character. The perpetrators of the deed, on taking a voyage to Rome, were admitted to penance, and allowed to expiate their enormity in the Holy Land.Thus perished Thomas Becket, in his 52d year, a martyr to the cause which he espoused, and a man of unquestionable vigor of intellect. He was canonized two years after his death, and miracles abounded at his tomb. In the reign of Henry III, his body was taken up, and placed in a magnificent shrine, erected by archbishop Stephen Langton; and of the popularity of the pilgrimages to his tomb, the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer will prove an enduring testimony.

BECKMANN, John, for almost 45 years

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professor of philosophy, economy, policy, finance and commerce in Göttingen, was born at Hoya in 1739. In 1763, he was appointed, on Büsching's recommendation, professor of the Lutheran gymnasium in St. Petersburg. In 1766, he became professor in Göttingen, where he lectured with great success. B. died in 1811, being a member of most of the learned societies of the north of Europe. There are a number of text-books, in the different sciences above-mentioned, by him. Among his other works is a History of Inventions, Leipsic, 1780–1805, 5 vols.

BED, in gunnery; the frame of timber or planks in which cannon, mortars, &c. are placed, to give them a steady and even position, necessary for aiming.

BED OF JUSTICE. (See Lit de Justice.) BEDE, OF BEDA, an eminent ecclesiastic of the eighth century, usually called the venerable Bede, was born in the year 672 or 673, in the neighborhood of Wearmouth, in the bishopric of Durham. From the age of 7 to that of 19, he pursued his studies in the monastery of St. Peter, at Wearmouth. Being then ordained deacon, he was employed in the task of educating the youth who resorted to the monastery for instruction, and pursued his own studies with unremitting ardor. In his thirtieth year, he was ordained priest; and, his fame for zeal and erudition reaching the ears of pope Sergius, he was invited to Rome, but, in consequence of the death of that pontiff, never went there. It is not even certain that he ever left Northumberland, which, of course, reduces the incidents of his life to his literary pursuits and domestic occupations, as he accepted no benefice, and never seems to have interfered in civil transactions. His church history was published in 731. His last literary labor was a translation of the Gospel of St. John into Saxon, which he completed, with difficulty, on the very day and hour of his death. The writings of Bede were numerous and important, considering the time in which they were written, and the subjects of which they treat, which extended to ecclesiastical affairs, religion and education only. His English Ecclesiastical History is the greatest and most popular of his works, and has acquired additional celebrity by the translation of king Alfred. The collections which he made for it were the labor of many years. Besides his own personal investigations, he kept up a correspondence with the monasteries throughout the Heptarchy, to obtain archives and records for his purpose; and

thus nearly all the knowledge possessed of the early state of Christianity in his country is due to B. There have been several editions of the original Latin, which is easy, although not elegant. The latest and best is that of Dr. Smith, Cambridge, 1722. There is a translation into English by Thomas Stapylton, D. D., Antwerp, 1505, besides the Saxon version of Alfred. B. was also the author of many other works, a catalogue of which he subjoined to his history. Several of these were printed early; but the first general collection of his works was that of Paris, 1554, 3 vols. fol. Some of his treatises have been published by Mr. Wharton, from MSS. in the library at Lambeth palace, London, 4to, 1693. While the number and variety of the writings of B. show the extent of his erudition, his probity, moderation and modesty insured him general respect; and his disinterestedness is proved by the fact, that he was never any thing but an unbeneficed priest. A letter of advice, which he wrote, late in life, to Egbert, archbishop of York, proves, at once, the purity of his morals, the liberality of his sentiments, and the excellence of his discernment; his wish being to curtail the number of monasteries, and to increase the efficacy and respectability of the secular clergy. Notwithstanding the veneration with which he was regarded, not a single miracle is recorded of him; and, as monks were the great miracle mongers, and his views of monastic reform such as we have mentioned, this is not surprising. The manner of the death of this virtuous ecclesiastic was striking and characteristic. He was dictating a translation of the gospel of St. John to an amanuensis. The young man who wrote for him said, "There is now, master, but one sentence wanting;" upon which he bade him write quickly; and, when the scribe said, "It is now done," the dying sage ejaculated, "It is now done," and a few minutes afterwards expired, in the act of prayer, on the floor of his cell, in the 63d year of his age, in the month of May, A. D. 735.

BEDDOES, Thomas; a physician and author; born, 1760, at Shiffnal in Shropshire; died 1808. He was educated by his grandfather. He made great progress at school, in classical studies, and distinguished himself at Oxford by his knowledge of ancient and modern languages and literature. The great discoveries in physics, chemistry and physiology, irresistibly attracted him. He continued his studies with success in London and

Edinburgh. In his 26th year, he took his doctor's degree, afterwards visited Paris, and formed an acquaintance with Lavoisier. On his return, he was appointed professor of chemistry at Öxford. There he published some excellent chemical treatises, and Observations on the Calculus, Sea-Scurvy, Consumption, Catarrh and Fever. But, dazzled by the splendid promises of the French revolution, he offended some of his former admirers, and excited such a clamor against him by the publication of his political opinions, that he determined to resign his professorship, and retired to the house of his friend Mr. Reynolds, in Shropshire. There he composed his observations on the nature of demonstrative evidence, in which he endeavors to prove, that mathematical reasoning proceeds on the evidence of the senses, and that geometry is founded on experiment. He also published the History of Isaac Jenkins, which was intended to impress useful moral lessons on the laboring classes in an attractive manner. Above 40,000 copies of this popular work were sold in a short time. After he had married, in 1794, he formed the plan of a pneumatic institution, for curing diseases, particularly consumption, by means of factitious airs or gases. He succeeded, with the assistance of the celebrated Wedgewood, in opening this institution, in 1798. He engaged, us superintendent of the whole, a young man, Humphrey Davy, the foundation of whose future fame was laid here. The chief purpose of the institution, however, was never realized, and B.'s zeal gradually relaxed, so that he relinquished it one year before his death, after having published a number of valuable works upon the application of factitious airs. In the last years of his life, he acquired the reputation of the best medical writer in Great Britain, particularly by his Hygeia, in 3 vols., a popular work, which contains passages of extraordinary eloquence. His political pamphlets, from 1795-97, are forgotten.

BEDFORD, John, duke of; one of the younger sons of Henry IV, king of England; famous as a statesman and a warrior. Shakspeare, who calls him prince John of Lancaster, introduces him, in his plays of Henry IV, as distinguishing himself by his youthful courage in the battle of Shrewsbury, in 1403, and forming a kind of moral contrast to his more dissipated brother, the prince of Wales. During the reign of Henry V, he participated in the fame acquired by the conquest of

France; but his talents were fully displayed when, after the death of that king, he became regent of France, having been appointed to this post by Henry, in his will. At Verneuil, in 1424, he displayed his military talents; and the difficulties, which, from various causes, he experienced in endeavoring to maintain possession of the conquered provinces in France, afforded frequent occasion for the manifestation of his ability. The greatest blemish in his character is his cruel execution of the maid of Orleans, 'n 1431. He survived this event about four years, and dying, in 1435, at Rouen, was buried in the cathedral of that city. The duke deserves notice also for his

patronage of the arts. A curious monument of his taste still exists-the Bedford Missal. Mr. Dibdin, in his Bibliomania, p. 253, gives an account of it. It was made for the duke and duchess, and contains 59 large, and more than 1000 small miniature paintings. In 1786, it was purchased, by Mr. Edwards, for 215 guineas, from the collection of the duchess of Portland; and, a few years after, 500 guineas were offered for it. In a historical point of view, it is interesting on account of several portraits of eminent persons; some of which have been engraved by Vertue, for his portraits to illustrate the history of England. For the antiquarian and the student of the fine arts, it is one of the most interesting monuments of that age. Gough, the antiquarian, published a work in 8vo., describing the Bedford Missal.

BEDFORD; a town in England, and capital of the county of Bedford, to which it gives name, situated on the Ouse; 22 miles S. E. of Northampton, 50 N. of London; lon. 0° 27′ W.; lat. 52° 8′ N.; pop. 4605. It contains 5 churches, 3 on the north and 2 on the south side of the river, 3 independent meeting-houses, and a free grammar school liberally endowed. The principal manufacture is lace. It is a place of considerable trade, which is much assisted by the river, navigable to Lynn, and is the only market-town of the county, on the north side of the Ouse. The soil about it is fertile, particularly in excellent wheat. It sends two representatives to parliament. It has two markets weekly.

BEDFORD; a borough town, and capital of Bedford county, Pennsylvania; 91 miles E. by S. of Pittsburg, 190 W. of Philadelphia: population of the borough, 789; including the township, 2116. It is finely situated on a branch of the Juni

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atta, regularly laid out, and built on an eminence enveloped by mountains. Will's mountain, on the west side of the town, is 1300 feet high, and Dunning's mountain, on the east side, is 1100 feet high. A mile and a half south of the town, there are mineral springs, which were discovered in 1804, and are much resorted to, and found useful in cutaneous complaints, ulcers, rheumatisms, chronic complaints, &c.--There are several other towns and counties of the same name in the U. States: as, B. in the state of New York, Westchester county, population nearly 2500; B. county in the south of Virginia; and another in West Tennessee.

BEDFORD LEVEL; a large tract of land in England, in the counties of Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdon, Northampton and Lincoln, formerly full of fens and marshes, and, in rainy seasons, for the most part under water; but drained, at the expense of £400,000, by the noble family of Russell, earls and dukes of Bedford, and others; by which means 100,000 acres of good land have been brought into use.

BEDFORD, NEW; a seaport in Massachusetts. (See New Bedford.)

BEDOUINS, or BEDOWEENS (that is, inhabitants of the desert); a numerous Mohammedan race, which dwells in the deserts of Arabia, Egypt and Northern Africa. It is still doubtful whether they belong to the same race with the Arabs, or differ from them in their descent, as they do in their manner of living. The Bedouins live at a distance from cities and villages, in families, under sheiks, or in tribes, under emirs. Their dwellings are tents, huts, caverns and ruins. With their herds and beasts of burden, which carry their little property, they wander in quest of fresh water and pasture. They are all good horsemen, and are generally fond of hunting. The peaceful tribes exchange horses (which they raise with great care) and fat cattle, for arms and cloth,. with the neighboring nations. Other hordes are such open robbers, that it is dangerous to travel through their country without a guard or a passport, which the different chiefs sell. They not only plunder, but murder, even when the travellers offer no resistance. Notwithstanding this barbarous custom, the Bedouins hold the rights of hospitality sacred; and the most defenceless enemy is sure of their protection, if they have once allowed him shelter. But the Bedouin considers every one his enemy who is not his brother, kinsman or ally. Always