Chapter XXI: Act 1534: , the power to grant such dispensations, which had been (3)

BENI, a river of Bolivia, a tributary of the Madeira, rising in the elevated Cordilleras near the city of La Paz and at first known as the Rio de La Paz, and flowing east, and north-east, to a junction with the Mamore at 10 deg. 20' S. lat. to form the Madeira. Fully one-half of its length is through the mountainous districts of central Bolivia, where it is fed by a large number of rivers and streams from the snowclad peaks, and may be described as a raging torrent. Below Reyes its course is through the forest-covered hills and open plains of northern Bolivia, where some of the old Indian missions were located. The lower river is navigable for 217 m. from Reyes to the Esperanza rapids, 18 m. above its confluence with the Mamore, where a fall of 20 ft. in a distance of 330 yds. obstructs free navigation. Its principal affluent is the Madre de Dios, or Mayu-tata, which rises in the eastern Cordilleras about 35 m. east of Cuzco, and flows in an east and north-east direction through northern Bolivia to a junction with the Beni 120 m. above its mouth. The principal tributaries of the Madre de Dios are the Inambari and Paucartambo, both large rivers, and the Chandless, Marcapata, and Tambopata. In length and size of its tributaries the Madre de Dios is a more important river than the Beni itself, and is navigable during the wet season to the foot of the Andes, 180 m. from Cuzco.

BENI (EL BENI), a department of north-eastern Bolivia, bounded N. and E. by Brazil, S. by the departments of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, and W. by La Paz and the national territory contiguous to Peru and Brazil. Pop. (est., 1900) 32,180, including 6000 wild Indians; area (est., probably too high) 102,111 sq. m. The "Llanos de Mojos," famous for their flourishing Jesuit mission settlements of the 17th and 18th centuries, occupy the eastern part of this department and are still inhabited by an industrious peaceful native population, devoted to cattle raising and primitive methods of agriculture. Cattle and forest products, including rubber and coca, are exported to a limited extent. The capital, Trinidad (pop. 2556), is situated on the Mamore river in an open fertile country, and was once a flourishing Jesuit mission.

BENI-AMER (AMIR), a tribe of African "Arabs" of Hamitic stock, ethnologically intermediate between Abyssinians and Nubians. They are of the Beja family, and occupy the coast of the Red Sea south of Suakin and portions of the adjacent coast-country of Eritrea, north of Abyssinia. They are of very mixed Beja and Abyssinian blood, and speak a dialect half Beja and half Tigre, locally known as _Hassa_. They marry the women of the Bogos and other mountain tribes; but are too proud to let their daughters marry Abyssinians.

See _Anglo-Egyptian Sudan_, ed. Count Gleichen (London, 1905); A.H.
Keane, _Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan_ (1884); G. Sergi, _Africa:
Antropologia della Stirpe Camitica_ (Turin, 1897).

BENI-ISRAEL ("Sons of Israel"), a colony of Jews settled on the Malabar coast in Kolaba district, Bombay presidency, chiefly centring in the native state of Janjira. With the Jews of Cochin, they represent a very ancient Judaic invasion of India, and are to be entirely distinguished from those Jews who have come to India in modern days for purposes of trade. Some authorities believe that the Beni-Israel settled in Kolaba in the 15th century, but they themselves have traditions which indicate a far longer connexion with India (see JEWS: S 3).

BENIN, the name of a country, city and river of British West Africa, west of the main channel of the Niger, forming part of the protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The name was formerly applied to the coast from the Volta, in 0 deg. 40' E., to the Rio del Rey, in 8 deg. 40' E., and included the Slave Coast, the whole delta of the Niger and a small portion of the country to the eastward. Some trace of this earlier application remains in the name "Bight of Benin," still given to that part of the sea which washes the Slave Coast, whilst up to 1894 "Benin" was used to designate the French possessions on the coast now included in Dahomey.

In its restricted sense Benin is the country formerly ruled by the king of Benin city. This area, at one time very extensive, gradually contracted as subject tribes and towns acquired independence. It may be described as bounded W. by Lagos, S. by the territory of the Jakri and other tribes of the Niger delta, E. by the Niger river, and N. by Yorubaland. The coast-line held by Benin had passed out of its sovereignty by the middle of the 19th century. In physical characteristics, climate, flora and fauna, Benin in no way differs from the rest of the southern portion of Nigeria (q.v.). The coast is low, intersected by creeks, and forms one huge mangrove swamp; on the rising ground inland are dense forests in which the cotton and mahogany trees are conspicuous.

Benin river (known also as the Jakri outlet), though linked to the Niger system by a network of creeks, is an independent stream. It is formed by the junction of two rivers, the Ethiope and the Jamieson, which rise (north of 6 deg. N,) on the western side of the hills which slope east to the Niger river. They unite about 50 m. above the sea. The general course of the Benin is westerly. It enters the Atlantic in about 5 deg. 46' N., 5 deg. 3' E., and at its mouth is 2 m. wide. It is here obstructed by a sand-bar over which there is 12-14 ft. of water at high tide. The river is navigable by small steamers up to Sapele, a town on the south bank immediately below the junction of the head streams. The Ologi and Gwato creeks enter the Benin on the right or north bank, and on the same side (8 m. above the mouth of the river) a channel, the Lagos creek, 170 m. long, branches off to the north-west, affording a waterway to Lagos. From the south or left bank of the Benin the Forcados mouth of the Niger can be reached by the Nana creek.

The Beni are a pure negro tribe, speaking a distinct language, but having many characteristics common to those of the Yoruba-and Ewe-speaking tribes. Like the Ashanti and Dahomeyans the Beni had a well-organized and powerful government and possessed a culture rare among negro races (see below, _History_).

Benin city is situated in a clearing of the forest, about 25 m. from the river-port of Gwato, on Gwato creek. The principal building is the British residency, which is constructed of brick and timber. A primary school, supported by the native chiefs, was opened in 1901, and a meteorological station was established in 1902. In 1904 the town was placed in telegraphic communication with the rest of the protectorate and with Europe. Of the ancient city, whose buildings excited the admiration of travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries, scarcely a trace remains. The houses are neatly built of clay, coloured with red ochre, and frequently ornamented with rudely carved pillars. The port of Gwato, which lies about 30 m. north-north-east of the mouth of the Benin river, has a special interest as the place where Giovanni Belzoni, the explorer of Egyptian antiquities, died in 1823 when starting on an expedition to Timbuktu. No trace of his grave can now be found. Wari (formerly known also as Owari, Oywhere, &c.) is a much-frequented port on a branch of the Niger of the same name reached from the Forcados mouth, and is 55 m. south of Benin city.

Since the abolition of the slave trade the chief export of the country is palm-oil. Other trade products were from time to time--with the desire to preserve the isolation and independence of the country--placed under fetish, i.e. their export was forbidden, so that in 1897 the only article in which trade was allowed by the king was palm-oil. After the British occupation, an extensive trade developed in oil, kernels, timber, ivory, rubber, &c. In the rubber and timber industries great strides have been made. The chiefs and people have shown considerable aptitude in adapting themselves to the new order of things. Among the articles prized by the Beni is coral, of which the chiefs wear great quantities as ornaments.

_History._--Benin was discovered by the Portuguese about the year 1485, and they carried on a brisk trade in slaves, who were taken to Elmina and sold to the natives of the Gold Coast. At that time and for more than two centuries afterwards, Benin seems to have been one of the most powerful states of West Africa. It was known to Europeans in the 17th century as the Great Benin. The towns of Lagos and Badagry were both founded by Benin colonists. Benin city was the seat of a theocracy of priests, in whose hands the oba or king, nominally supreme, appears to have often been a puppet. He was revered by his subjects as a species of divinity, and seldom left the enclosure surrounding the royal palace. The religion and mythology of the Beni, like those of the Yorubas, are based on spirit- and ancestor-worship (see NEGRO and AFRICA: _Ethnology_); the chief spirit or juju was worshipped with human sacrifices to an appalling extent, the Benin fetish being considered the most powerful in all West Africa. The usual form of sacrifice was crucifixion. Many chiefs, in no way politically dependent on Benin, used to send annual presents to the juju. The Benin people do not appear to have indulged in wanton cruelty, and it is stated that they usually stupefied the victims before putting them to death. The people were skilled in brass work; their carving and design were alike excellent. Carved ivory objects abound, and there are many evidences of the skill attained by native artists, who perhaps owed something to their contact with the Portuguese. The weaving of cloth was also carried on. The Beni remained politically and socially almost unaffected by European influence until the occupation of their country by the British in 1897, their connexion with the white men having previously been almost confined to matters of trade. The Portuguese withdrew from the coast in the 18th century, but one of the most striking proofs of their commercial influence is the fact that a corrupt Lusitanian dialect was spoken by the older natives up to the last quarter of the 19th century. The first English expedition to Benin was in 1553; after that time a considerable trade grew up between England and that country, ivory, palm-oil and pepper being the chief commodities exported from Benin. The Dutch afterwards established factories and maintained them for a considerable time, chiefly with a view to the slave trade. In 1788 Captain Landolphe founded a factory called Barodo, near the native village of Obobi for the French Compagnie d'Oywhere; and it lasted till 1792, when it was destroyed by the English. In 1863 Sir Richard Burton, then British consul at Fernando Po, went to Benin to try and put a stop to human sacrifices, an attempt in which he did not succeed. At that time the decline in power of the kingdom of Benin was obvious, and the city was in a decaying condition. In 1885 the coast-line of Benin was placed under British protection, and steps were taken to enter into friendly relations with the king. Consul G.F.N.B. Annesley[1] saw the king in 1890, with the hope of making a treaty, but failed in his object. In March 1892 Captain H.L. Gallwey, British vice-consul, succeeded in concluding a treaty with the king Overami. The treaty, however, proved of no avail, and the king kept as aloof as of old from any outside interference. In January 1897 J.R. Phillips, acting consul-general, and eight Europeans were brutally massacred on the road from Gwato to Benin city, whilst on a mission to the king. Phillips had persisted in starting for Benin despite the repeated request of the king that he should delay his visit until he (the king) had finished the celebration of the annual "customs." Two Europeans, Captain Alan Boisragon and R.F. Locke, alone escaped. A punitive expedition was organized under the command of Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, the success of which was a remarkable example of good organization hastily improvised. The news of the massacre of Phillips's party reached Rear-Admiral Rawson, the commander-in-chief on the Cape station, on the 4th of January 1897. The flagship was at Simons Town. The small craft were dispersed. Two ships at Malta had been ordered to join the Cape command. A transport was chartered in the Thames for the purposes of the expedition. In twenty-nine days a force of 1200 men, coming from three places between 3000 and 4500 m. from the Benin river, was landed, organized, equipped and provided with transport. Five days later the city of Benin was taken, and in twelve days more the men were re-embarked, and the ships coaled and ready for any further service. On the 17th of February Benin was occupied after considerable fighting. The town, which was found to be reeking of human sacrifices, was partly burned, and on the 22nd the expedition started on its return. The king and chiefs responsible for the massacre were placed on their trial by Sir Ralph Moor, high commissioner for Southern Nigeria; the king was deposed and deported to Calabar, and the chiefs, six in all, were executed. The chief offender was not brought to justice until a second punitive expedition in 1899 completed the pacification of the country. After the removal of the king in September 1897 a council of chiefs was appointed. This council carries on the government of the whole Beni country, and is presided over by a British resident.

AUTHORITIES.--H.L. Roth, _Great Benin, its Customs, Art and Horrors_
(Halifax, 1903), a comprehensive and profusely illustrated work, with
an annotated bibliography; C.H. Read and O.M. Dalton, _Antiquities
from Benin ... in the British Museum_ (1899); Pitt Rivers, _Works of
Art from Benin_ (1900); R.E. Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man's
Mind_ (London, 1906); Sir R. Burton, _Wanderings in West Africa_
(London, 1863); H.L. Gallwey, "Journeys in the Benin Country," _Geog.
Jnl._, vol. i., London, 1893; A. Boisragon, _The Benin Massacre_
(London, 1897); R.H. Bacon, _Benin, the City of Blood_ (London, 1898),
by a member of the punitive expedition of 1897; the annual _Reports on
Southern Nigeria_, issued by the Colonial Office, London.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Mr Annesley (b. 1851), after having served in the Prussian army,
and in the Turkish army during the war of 1877, was in the British
consular service from 1879 to 1892. In 1888 he became consul to the
Congo Free State.

BENITOITE, a mineral discovered in 1907 near the headwaters of the San Benito river, San Benito Co., California, and described by Prof. G.D. Louderback. It is a titano-silicate of barium (BaTiSi3O9), crystallizing in the hexagonal system, with a hardness of 6.5, and specific gravity 3.65. It may be colourless or blue, the colour varying sometimes in different parts, and passing to a deep sapphire blue. The blue variety is cut as a gem stone, and often resembles blue spinel, though its softness distinguishes it from spinel and sapphire. It is a brilliant stone, with high refractive index, and is strongly dichroic, being pale when viewed parallel to the principal axis and dark when viewed transversely.

BENJAMIN, a tribe of Israel, named after the youngest son of Jacob and Rachel. As distinct from the others Benjamin was born not beyond the Jordan but in Palestine, between Bethel and Ephrath. His mother, dying in childbed, gave him the name Ben-oni, "Son of my sorrow," which was changed by his father to Ben-jamin, meaning probably "Son of the right hand" (i.e. "of prosperity," or, perhaps, "son of the south"; Gen. xxxv. 16-18). Of his personal history little is recorded. He was the favourite of his father and brothers (with which contrast the spirit of the stories in Judg. xix.-xxi.), and the reputation of fierceness ascribed to him in the blessing of Jacob ("Benjamin is a wolf that teareth," Gen. xlix. 27) agrees with what is told of the tribe's warriors (see EHUD, SAUL, JONATHAN). It is a curious feature that its noted slingers were said to be left-handed (Judg. xx. 16, cf. iii. 15) and even ambidextrous (1 Chron. xii. 2). The late references to this tribe in the Israelite wanderings in the wilderness are of little value. On entering Palestine it is allotted a portion encompassed by the districts of Ephraim, Dan and Judah. In the time of the "judges" the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated (see JUDGES, BOOK OF), 600 men alone escaping (Judges xix. sqq.). The tribe was built up again by the rape of the maidens of Shiloh at one of their annual festivals (for which cf. Judges ix. 27), but a later narrative gives currency to a tradition that 400 virgins were also brought to Shiloh, the survivors of a massacre of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead. At all events, Benjamin claimed the honour of providing the great king of Israel whose heroic deliverance of Jabesh-Gilead is referred to elsewhere (see SAUL), and it is noteworthy that the tribe only now attain historical importance. If the genealogies associated it with Joseph the father of Ephraim and Manasseh, its fortunes were for a time bound up with the northern kingdom (see DAVID). Although its territory lies open on the west and east, its physical features unite it to Judah, and what is known of its mixed population[1] makes it difficult to determine how far the youngest of the tribes of Israel enjoyed any independent position previous to the monarchy. Its neutral position between Judah and Ephraim gave it an importance which was religious as well as political. Anathoth the home of Abiathar and Jeremiah, Gibeon the old Canaanite sanctuary, the royal sanctuary at Bethel, its associations with Samuel and the prophetic gilds of the times of Elijah and Elisha, and finally Jerusalem itself, the centre of worship, give "the least of all the tribes" a unique value in the history of Old Testament religion.

See H.W. Hogg, _Ency. Bib._, col. 534 sqq. (S. A. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Jerusalem and its district was Jebusite until its capture by
David (see 2 Sam. v.); for Beeroth and Gibeon, see 2 Sam. iv. 2 seq.,
xxi. 2, and note the Benjamite and Judahite names which find
analogies in the Edomite genealogies. See, on these points, S.A.
Cook, _Jew. Quarterly Review_ (1906), pp. 528 sqq.

BENJAMIN OF TUDELA (in Navarre), a Jewish rabbi of the 12th century. He visited Constantinople, Egypt, Assyria and Persia, and penetrated to the frontiers of China. His journeys occupied him for about thirteen years. He was credulous, but his _Itinerary_, or _Massa'oth_, contains some curious notices of the countries he visited and of the condition of the Jews. Thus his work is of much value for the Jewish history of the 12th century. It is from Benjamin that we know that the Jews of Palestine and other parts of the East were noted for the arts of dyeing and glass-making.

His _Itinerary_ was translated from the Hebrew into Latin by Arias
Montanus in 1575, and appeared in a French version by Baratier in
1734. There have been various English translations. One was published
by Asher in 1840; another (with critical Hebrew text) by M.N. Adler
(_Jewish Quarterly Review_, vols. xvi.-xviii.; also reprinted as a
separate volume, 1907).

BENJAMIN, JUDAH PHILIP (1811-1884), Anglo-American lawyer, of Jewish descent, was born a British subject at St Thomas in the West Indies on the 11th of August 1811, and was successively an American lawyer, a leading Confederate politician and a distinguished English barrister. He eventually died in Paris a domiciled Frenchman. After 1818 his parents lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and he went to Yale in 1825 for his education, but left without taking a degree, and entered an attorney's office in New Orleans. He was admitted to the New Orleans bar in 1832. He compiled with his friend John Slidell a valuable digest of decisions of the superior courts of New Orleans and Louisiana; and as a partner in the firm of Slidell, Benjamin & Conrad, he enjoyed a good practice. In 1848 he was admitted a councillor of the supreme court, and in 1852 he was elected a senator for Louisiana, and thereafter he took an active part in politics, declining to accept a judgeship of the supreme court. In 1861 he withdrew from the Senate, left Washington and actively espoused the Confederate cause. He joined Jefferson Davis's provisional government as attorney-general, becoming afterwards his secretary for war (1861-1862), and chief secretary of state (1862-1865). Although at times subject to fierce criticism with regard to matters of administration and finance, he was recognized as one of the ablest men on the Confederate side, and he remained with Jefferson Davis to the last, sharing his flight after the surrender at Appomattox, and only leaving him shortly before his capture, because he found himself unable to go farther on horseback. He escaped from the coast of Florida in an open boat, and after many vicissitudes reached England, an exile. In 1866 his remaining property was lost in the banking failure of Overend & Gurney.

In London Benjamin was able to earn a little money by journalism, and on the 13th of January 1866 he entered Lincoln's Inn. He received a hospitable welcome from the legal profession. The influence of English judges who knew his abilities and his circumstances enabled him to be called to the bar on the 6th of June 1866, dispensing with the usual three years as a student, and he acquired his first knowledge of the practice and methods of English courts as the pupil of Mr C.E. (afterwards Baron) Pollock. Pollock fully recognized his abilities and they became and remained firm friends. Benjamin was naturally an apt and useful pupil; for instance, an opinion of Mr Pollock, which for long guided the London police in the exercise of their right to search prisoners, is mentioned by him as having been really composed by Benjamin while he was still his pupil. Benjamin joined the northern circuit, and a large proportion of his early practice came from solicitors at Liverpool who had correspondents in New Orleans. His business gradually increased, and having received a patent of precedence, he was on the 2nd of November 1872 called within the bar as a queen's counsel. In addition to his knowledge of law and of commercial matters he had considerable eloquence, and a power of marshalling facts and arguments that rendered him extremely effective, particularly before judges. He was less successful in addressing juries, and towards the close of his career did not take _Nisi prius_ work, but in the court of appeal and House of Lords and before the judicial committee of the privy council he enjoyed a very large practice, making for some time fully L15,000 a year. The question of raising him to the bench was seriously considered by Lord Cairns, who, however, seems to have thought that the ungrudging hospitality and goodwill with which Benjamin had been received by the English legal profession had gone far enough. Towards the close of his career he was in ill health, and he suffered from the results of a fall from a tramcar. He retired in 1882 to a house in Paris which he had built and where he had been in the habit of passing his vacations with his wife, who was a Frenchwoman. He never returned to practice, but came back to London to be entertained by the bench and bar of England at a banquet in the Inner Temple Hall on the 30th of June 1883. He died at Paris on the 6th of May 1884.

Benjamin was thick-set and stout, with an expression of great shrewdness. An early portrait of him is to be found in Jefferson Davis's _Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government_. His political history may be traced in that work, and in John W. Draper's _American Civil War_ and von Holst's _Constitutional History of the United States_. Many allusions to his English career will be found in works describing English lawyers of his period, and there are some interesting reminiscences of him by Baron Pollock in the _Fortnightly Review_ for March 1898. His _Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property with References to the American Decisions and to the French Code and Civil Law_--a bulky volume known to practitioners as _Benjamin on Sales_--is the principal text-book on its subject, and a fitting monument of the author's career at the English bar, of his industry and learning. Many of his American speeches have been published.

See _Judah P. Benjamin_, by Pierce Butler (Philadelphia, 1907, with a
good bibliography).

BEN LEDI (Gaelic, "the hill of God"), a mountain of Perthshire, Scotland, 2875 ft. high, 5 m. by road N.W. of Callander. It is situated close to some of the most romantic scenery in the Highlands, and is particularly well known through Scott's _Lady of the Lake_. Its name is supposed to point to the time when Beltane rites were observed on its summit. A cairn was built on the top in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's jubilee. On one of the sides of the mountain is a tarn which bears the name of Lochan nan Corp, "the little loch of the dead," from an accident to a funeral party by which 200 lives were lost.

BENLLIURE Y GIL, JOSE (1858-), Spanish painter, was born at Valencia, studied painting under Domingo, and showed from the first such marked talent that he was sent to the Spanish school in Rome. He was one of the select circle pensioned by the Spanish government for residence in Italy and executed several state orders for the decoration of public buildings; but he owes his chief fame to his large historical paintings, notably the "Vision in the Coliseum." He became the leader of the Spanish art colony in Rome, where he practised as painter and sculptor.

BEN LOMOND, a mountain in the north-west of Stirlingshire, Scotland. It is situated near the eastern bank of Loch Lomond, about 9 m. from the head and about 15 from the foot. It is 3192 ft. high, and the prevailing rocks are granite, mica schist, diorite, porphyry and quartzite, the last, where it crops out on the surface, gleaming in the distance like snow. Duchray Water, a head-stream of the Forth, rises in the north-east shoulder. The hill, which is covered with grass to the top, is a favourite climb, being ascended from Rowardennan (the easiest) or Inversnaid on the lake, or Aberfoyle 10 m. inland due east. The view from the summit extends northward as far as the Grampians, with occasional glimpses of Ben Nevis; westward to Jura in the Atlantic; south-westward to Arran in the Firth of Clyde; southward to Tinto Hill, the Lowthers and Cairnsmore; and eastward to Edinburgh Castle and Arthur's Seat.

BENLOWES, EDWARD (1603?-1676), English poet, son of Andrew Benlowes of Brent Hall, Essex, was born about 1603. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1620, and on leaving the university he made a prolonged tour on the continent of Europe. He was a Roman Catholic in middle life, but became a convert to Protestantism in his later years. He dissipated his fortune by openhanded generosity to his friends and relations, and possibly by serving in the Civil War; so that he was in great poverty at the time of his death, which occurred on the 18th of December 1676. The last eight years of his life were passed at Oxford. Many of his writings are in Latin. His most important work is _Theophila, or Love's Sacrifice, a Divine Poem_ (1652). The poem deals with mystical religion, telling how the soul, represented by Theophila, ascends by humility, zeal and contemplation, and triumphs over the sins of the senses. It is written in a curious stanza of three lines of unequal length rhyming together. Until recent times justice has hardly been done to Benlowes' poetical merits and indisputable piety. Samuel Butler, who satirized him in his "Character of a Small Poet," found abundant matter for ridicule in his eccentricities; and Pope and Warburton noted him as a patron of bad poets.

His _Theophila_ was reprinted by S.W. Singer; and in _Minor Poets of
the Caroline Period_, vol. i. (1905), Mr Saintsbury reprints
_Theophila_ and two other poems by Benlowes, "The Summary of
Wisedome," and "A Poetic Descant upon a Private Music-Meeting."

BEN MACDHUI, more correctly BEN MUICHDHUI (Gaelic for "the mountain of the black pig," in allusion to its shape), the second highest mountain (4296 ft.) in Great Britain, one of the Cairngorm group, on the confines of south-western Aberdeenshire and south-western Banffshire, not far from the eastern boundary of Inverness-shire. It is about 11 m. from Castleton of Braemar and about 10 from Aviemore. The ascent is usually made from Castleton of Braemar, by way of the Linn of Dee, Glen Lui and Glen Derry. From the head of Glen Derry, with its blasted trees, the picture of desolation, it becomes more toilsome, but is partly repaid by the view of the remarkable columnar cliffs of Corrie Etchachan. The summit is flat and quite bare of vegetation, but the panorama in every direction is extremely grand. At the foot of a vast gully, 2500 ft. above the sea, lies Loch Avon (or A'an), a narrow lake about 1-1/2 m. long, with water of the deepest blue and a margin of bright yellow sand. At the western end of the lake is the Shelter Stone, an enormous block of granite resting upon two other blocks, which can accommodate a dozen persons. Beautiful rock crystals occur in veins in the corries. The summit of Cairngorm, 3-1/2 m. north of that of Ben Macdhui, may be reached from the latter with scarcely any descent, by following the rugged ridge flanking the western side of Loch Avon. The other great peaks of the group are Braeriach (4248 ft.) and Cairntoul (4241 ft.), and 6 m. to the east are the twin masses of Ben a Bourd, the northern top of which is 3924 ft. and the southern 3860 ft. high. Ben A'an, an adjoining hill, is 3843 ft. high.

BENNETT, CHARLES EDWIN (1858- ), American classical scholar, was born on the 6th of April 1858, in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from Brown University in 1878 and also studied at Harvard (1881-1882) and in Germany (1882-1884). He taught in secondary schools in Florida (1878-1879), New York (1879-1881), and Nebraska (1885-1889), and became professor of Latin in the University of Wisconsin in 1889, of classical philology at Brown University in 1891, and of Latin at Cornell University in 1892. His syntactical studies, notably various papers on the subjunctive, are based on a statistical examination of Latin texts and are marked by a fresh system of nomenclature; he ranks as one of the leaders of the "New American School" of syntacticians, who insist on a preliminary re-examination of all available data. Of great importance are his advocacy of "quantitative" reading of Latin verse and his _Critique of Some Recent Subjunctive Theories_ in vol. ix. (1898) of _Cornell Studies in Classical Philology_, of which he was an editor. Bennett's _Latin Grammar_ (1895) is the first successful attempt in America to adopt the method of the brief, scholarly _Schulgrammatik_. Besides the Latin classics commonly read in secondary courses and other text-books in "Bennett's Latin Series," he edited Tacitus's _Dialogus de Oratoribus_ (1894), and Cicero's _De Senectute_ (1897) and _De Amicitia_ (1897). He wrote, with George P. Bristol, _The Teaching of Greek and Latin in Secondary Schools_ (1900), and _The Latin Language_, (1907), and with William Alexander Hammond translated _The Characters of Theophrastus_ (1902).

BENNETT, JAMES GORDON (1794-1872), American journalist, founder and editor of the New York Herald, was born at Newmills in Banffshire, Scotland, in 1794 (not in 1800, as has been stated). He was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood in a seminary at Aberdeen, but in the spring of 1819, giving up the career which had been chosen for him, he emigrated to America. Landing at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he earned a poor living there for a short time by giving lessons in French, Spanish and bookkeeping; he passed next to Boston, where starvation threatened him until he got employment in a printing-office; and in 1822 he went to New York. An engagement as translator of Spanish for the _Courier_ of Charleston, South Carolina, took him there for a few months in 1823. On his return to New York he projected a school, gave lectures on political economy and did subordinate work for the journals. During the next ten years he was employed on various papers, was the Washington correspondent first of the _New York Enquirer_, and later of the _Courier and Enquirer_ in 1827-1832, his letters attracting much attention; he founded the short-lived _Globe_ in New York in 1832; and in 1833-1834 was the chief editor and one of the proprietors of the _Pennsylvanian_ at Philadelphia. On the 6th of May 1835 he published the first number of a small one-cent paper, bearing the title of _New York Herald_, and issuing from a cellar, in which the proprietor and editor played also the part of salesman. "He started with a disclaimer of all principle, as it is called, all party, all politics"; and to this he consistently adhered. By his industry, sagacity and unscrupulousness, and by the variety of his news, the "spicy" correspondence, and the supply of personal gossip and scandal, he made the paper a great commercial success. He devoted his attention particularly to the gathering of news, and was the first to introduce many of the methods of the modern American reporter. He published on the 13th of June 1835, the first Wall Street financial article to appear in any American newspaper; printed a vivid and detailed account of the great fire of December 1835, in New York; was the first, in 1846, to obtain the report in full by telegraph of a long political speech; and during the Civil War maintained a staff of sixty-three war correspondents. Bennett continued to edit the Herald almost till his death, at New York, on the 1st of June 1872.

His son, JAMES GORDON BENNETT (1841- ), took over the management of the paper during the last year of its founder's life, and succeeded him in its control. It was he who sent Henry M. Stanley on his mission to find Livingstone in Central Africa, and he fitted out the "Jeannette" Polar Expedition, and in 1883 established (with John W. Mackay) the Commercial Cable Company.

BENNETT, JOHN, one of the finest English madrigalists, whose first set of madrigals appeared in 1599. In 1614 Ravenscroft, in a collection including five of his madrigals, writes a eulogy which reads like an obituary notice. The first set of madrigals was reprinted in 1845 by the Musical Antiquarian Society. Bennett's works consist of this set and several contributions to such collections as the _Triumphs of Oriana_, and to various collections of church music.

BENNETT, JOHN HUGHES (1812-1875), English physician and pathologist, was born in London on the 31st of August 1812. He was educated at Exeter, and being destined for the medical profession was articled to a surgeon in Maidstone. In 1833 he began his studies at Edinburgh, and in 1837 graduated with the highest honours. During the next four years he studied in Paris and Germany, and on his return to Edinburgh in 1841 published a _Treatise on Cod-liver Oil as a Therapeutic Agent_. In the same year he began to lecture as an extra-academical teacher on histology, drawing attention to the importance of the microscope in the investigation of disease; and as physician to the Royal Dispensary he instituted courses of "polyclinical medicine." In 1843 he was appointed professor of the institutes of medicine at Edinburgh, and performed the duties of that chair with great energy till incapacitated by failing health. He resigned in 1874. In August 1875 he was able to be present at the meeting of the British Medical Association in Edinburgh, on which occasion he received the degree of LL.D., but the fatigue he then underwent brought on a relapse, and he was compelled to have the operation of lithotomy performed. He sank rapidly and died on the 25th of September at Norwich. His publications were very numerous including _Lectures on Clinical Medicine_ (1850-1856), which in second and subsequent editions were called _Clinical Lectures on the Principles and Practice of Medicine_, and were translated into various languages, including Russian and Hindu; _Leucocythaemia_ (1852), the first recorded cure of which was published by him in 1845; _Outlines of Physiology_ (1858), reprinted from the 8th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica; Pathology and Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis_ (1853); _Textbook of Physiology_ (1871-1872).

BENNETT, SIR WILLIAM STERNDALE (1816-1875), English musical composer, the son of Robert Bennett, an organist, was born at Sheffield on the 13th of April 1816. Having lost his father at an early age, he was brought up at Cambridge by his grandfather, from whom he received his first musical education. He entered the choir of King's College chapel in 1824. In 1826 he entered the Royal Academy of Music, and remained a pupil of that institution for the next ten years, studying pianoforte under W.H. Holmes and Cipriani Potter, and composition under Lucas and Dr Crotch. It was during this time that he wrote several of his most appreciated works, in which may be traced influences of the contemporary movement of music in Germany, which country he frequently visited during the years 1836-1842. At one of the Rhenish musical festivals in Dusseldorf he made the personal acquaintance of Mendelssohn, and soon afterwards renewed it at Leipzig, where the talented young Englishman was welcomed by the leading musicians of the rising generation. At one of the celebrated Gewandhaus concerts he played his third pianoforte concerto, which was received enthusiastically. An enthusiastic account of the event was written by Robert Schumann, who pronounced Bennett to be the most "_musikalisch_" of all Englishmen, and "an angel of a musician" (copying Gregory's pun on _Angli_ and _Angeli_). But it was Mendelssohn's influence that dominated Bennett's mode of utterance. A good example of this may be studied in Bennett's _Capriccio in D minor_. His great success on the continent established his position on his return to England. In 1834 he was elected organist of St Anne's chapel (now church), Wandsworth. In this year he composed his _Overture to Parisina_, and his Concerto in C minor, modelled on Mozart. An unpublished concerto in F minor, and the overture to the _Naiads_, impressed the firm of Broadwood so favourably in 1836 that they offered the composer a year in Leipzig, where the _Naiads_ overture was performed at a Gewandhaus concert on the 13th of February 1837. Bennett visited Leipzig a second time in 1840-1841, when he composed his _Caprice in E_ for pianoforte and orchestra and his overture _The Wood Nymphs_. He settled in London, devoting himself chiefly to practical teaching. In 1844 he married Mary Anne, daughter of Captain James Wood, R.N. He was made musical professor at Cambridge in 1856, the year in which he was engaged as permanent conductor of the Philharmonic Society. This latter post he held until 1866, when he became principal of the Royal Academy of Music. Owing to his professional duties his latter years were not fertile, and what he then wrote was scarcely equal to the productions of his youth. The principal charm of Bennett's compositions (not to mention his absolute mastery of the musical form) consists in the tenderness of their conception, rising occasionally to sweetest lyrical intensity. Except the opera, Bennett tried his hand at almost all the different forms of vocal and instrumental writing. As his best works in various branches of art, we may mention, for pianoforte solo, and with accompaniment of the orchestra, his three sketches, _The Lake, The Millstream_ and _The Fountain_, and his 3rd pianoforte concerto; for the orchestra, his _Symphony in G minor_, and his overture _The Naiads_; and for voices, his cantata _The May Queen_, written for the Leeds Festival in 1858. For the jubilee of the Philharmonic Society he wrote the overture _Paradise and the Peri_ in 1862. He also wrote a sacred cantata, _The Woman of Samaria_, first performed at the Birmingham Musical Festival in 1867. In 1870 the university of Oxford conferred upon him the honorary degree of D.C.L. A year later he was knighted, and in 1872 he received a public testimonial before a large audience at St James's Hall, the money subscribed being devoted to the foundation of a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. Shortly before his death he produced a sonata called the _Maid of Orleans_, an elaborate piece of programme music based on Schiller's tragedy. He died at his house in St John's Wood, London, on the 15th of February 1875. See the _Life_, by his son (1908).

BEN NEVIS, the highest mountain in the British Isles, in Inverness-shire, Scotland. It is 4406 ft. above the level of the sea, and is situated 4-1/2 m. E.S.E. of Fort William, the meridian of 5 deg. W passing through it. As viewed from Banavie on the Caledonian Canal, it has the appearance of two great masses, one higher than the other, and though its bulk is impressive, its outline is much less striking than that of many other Highland hills. Its summit consists of a plateau 100 acres in area, with a slight slope to the south, terminating on its north-eastern side in a sheer fall of more than 1500 ft. Snow lies in some of the gorges all the year round. The rocks of its lower half are mainly granite and gneiss; its upper half is composed of porphyritic greenstone, and a variety of minerals occur. Its circumference at the base is about 30 m. It may be described as flanked on the west and south by the Glen and Water of Nevis, on the east by the river and Glen of Treig, and on the north by the river and Glen of Spean. From 1881 till 1904 meteorological observations were taken from the summit of Ben Nevis, the observers at first making the ascent daily for the purpose. In 1883, however, an observatory, equipped at a cost of L4000 (raised by public subscription), was opened by Mrs Cameron Campbell of Monzie, who provided the site. The observatory, which was connected by wire with the post office at Fort William, was provisioned by the Scottish Meteorological Society, to whom it belonged. The burden of maintaining it, however, proving too great for the society's means, appeal was made in vain to government for national support, and the station was closed in 1904. The bridle road up the mountain leaves Glen Nevis at Achintee; it has a gradient nowhere exceeding 1 in 5, and the ascent is commonly effected in two to three hours. There is a small hotel on the summit for the convenience of tourists, especially of those anxious to witness sunrise. From the summit every considerable peak in Scotland is visible. Observations conducted during several months have shown that, whilst the mean temperature at Fort William was 57 deg. F., at the summit of Ben Nevis it was 41 deg. F., and that though the rainfall at the fort amounted to 24 in., it was as much as 43 in. on the top of the Ben.

BENNIGSEN, LEVIN AUGUST, COUNT VON (1745-1826), Russian general, of Hanoverian family, was born on the 10th of February 1745 in Brunswick, and served successively as a page at the Hanoverian court and as an officer of foot-guards. He retired from the Hanoverian army in 1764, and in 1773 entered the Russian service as a field officer. He fought against the Turks in 1774 and in 1778, becoming lieutenant-colonel in the latter year. In 1787 his conduct at the storming of Oczakov won him promotion to the rank of brigadier, and he distinguished himself repeatedly in the Polish War of 1793-1794 and in the Persian War of 1796. The part played by Bennigsen in the actual assassination of the tsar Paul I. is not fully known, but he took a most active share in the formation and conduct of the conspiracy. Alexander I. made him governor-general of Lithuania in 1801, and in 1802 a general of cavalry. In 1806 he was in command of one of the Russian armies operating against Napoleon, when he fought the battle of Pultusk and met the emperor in person in the sanguinary battle of Eylau (8th of February 1807). Here he could claim to have inflicted the first reverse suffered by Napoleon, but six months later Bennigsen met with the crushing defeat of Friedland (14th of June 1807) the direct consequence of which was the treaty of Tilsit. Bennigsen now retired for some years, but in the campaign of 1812 he reappeared in the army in various responsible positions. He was present at Borodino, and defeated Murat in the engagement of Tarutino, but on account of a quarrel with Marshal Kutusov, the Russian commander-in-chief, he was compelled to retire from active military employment. After the death of Kutusov he was recalled and placed at the head of an army. Bennigsen led one of the columns which made the decisive attack on the last day of the battle of Leipzig (16th-19th of October 1813). On the same evening he was made a count by the emperor Alexander I., and he afterwards commanded the forces which operated against Marshal Davout in North Germany. After the general peace he held a command from 1815 to 1818, when he retired from active service and settled on his Hanoverian estate of Banteln near Hildesheim. Count Bennigsen died on the 3rd of December 1826. His son, ALEXANDER LEVIN, count von Bennigsen (1809-1893), was a distinguished Hanoverian statesman.

BENNIGSEN, RUDOLF VON (1824-1902), German politician, was born at Luneburg on the 10th of July 1824. He was descended from an old Hanoverian family, his father, Karl von Bennigsen, being an officer in the Hanoverian army, who rose to the rank of general and also held diplomatic appointments. Bennigsen, having studied at the university of Gottingen, entered the Hanoverian civil service. In 1855 he was elected a member of the second chamber; and as the government refused to allow him leave of absence from his official duties he resigned his post in the public service. He at once became the recognized leader of the Liberal opposition to the reactionary government, but must be distinguished from Count Bennigsen, a member of the same family, and son of the distinguished Russian general, who was also one of the parliamentary leaders at the time. What gave Bennigsen his importance not only in Hanover, but throughout the whole of Germany, was the foundation of the National Verein, which was due to him, and of which he was president. This society, which arose out of the public excitement created by the war between France and Austria, had for its object the formation of a national party which should strive for the unity and the constitutional liberty of the whole Fatherland. It united the moderate Liberals throughout Germany, and at once became a great political power, notwithstanding all the efforts of the governments, and especially of the king of Hanover to suppress it. In 1866 Bennigsen used all his influence to keep Hanover neutral in the conflict between Prussia and Austria, but in vain. He took no part in the war, but his brother, who was an officer in the Prussian army, was killed in Bohemia. In May of this year he had an important interview with Bismarck, who wished to secure his support for the reform of the confederation, and after the war was over at once accepted the position of a Prussian subject, and took his seat in the diet of the North German Confederation and in the Prussian parliament. He used his influence to procure as much autonomy as possible for the province of Hanover, but was a strong opponent of the Guelph party. He was one of the three Hanoverians, Windthorst and Miquel being the other two, who at once won for the representatives of the conquered province the lead in both the Prussian and German parliaments. The National Verein, its work being done, was now dissolved; but Bennigsen was chiefly instrumental in founding a new political party--the National Liberals,--who, while they supported Bismarck's national policy, hoped to secure the constitutional development of the country. For the next thirty years he was president of the party, and was the most influential of the parliamentary leaders. It was chiefly owing to him that the building up of the internal institutions of the empire was carried on without the open breach between Bismarck and the parliament, which was often imminent. Many amendments suggested by him were introduced in the debates on the constitution; in 1870 he undertook a mission to South Germany to strengthen the national party there, and was consulted by Bismarck while at Versailles. It was he who brought about the compromise on the military bill in 1874. In 1877 he was offered the post of vice-chancellor with a seat in the Prussian ministry, but refused it because Bismarck or the king would not agree to his conditions. From this time his relations with the government were less friendly, and in 1878 he brought about the rejection of the first Socialist Bill. In 1883 he resigned his seat in parliament owing to the reactionary measures of the government, which made it impossible for him to continue his former co-operation with Bismarck, but returned in 1887 to support the coalition of national parties. One of the first acts of the emperor William II. was to appoint him president of the province of Hanover. In 1897 he resigned this post and retired from public life. He died on the 7th of August 1902.

See biographical notices by A. Kiepert (2nd ed., Hanover, 1902), and
E. Schreck (Hanover, 1894).

BENNINGTON, a village and one of the county-seats of Bennington county, Vermont, U.S.A., situated in the S.W. part of the state, about 30 m. E.N.E. of Troy, New York. Pop. (1890) 3971; (1900) 5656 (965 foreign-born); (1910) 6211. The township of the same name, in which it is situated, had in 1910 a population of 8698, living chiefly in the villages of Bennington, North Bennington and Bennington Centre, the last a summer resort. The village of Bennington is served by the Rutland railway, and is connected by electric railway with North Adams and Pittsfield, Mass., and Hoosick Falls, N.Y. It is picturesquely situated at the foot of the Green Mountains, and the summit of the neighbouring Mt. Anthony (2345 ft.) commands a magnificent view. The village has woollen mills, knitting mills, stereoscope, box, and collar and cuff factories and machine shops. There are white clay and yellow ochre works in different parts of the township. Bennington is the seat of the Vermont state soldiers' home. The Bennington Battle Monument, a shaft 301 ft. high, is said to be the highest battle monument in the world. It commemorates the success gained on the 16th of August 1777 by a force of nearly 2000 "Green Mountain Boys" and New Hampshire and Massachusetts militia under General John Stark over two detachments of General Burgoyne's army, totalling about 1200 men, under Col. Friedrich Baum and Col. Breyman. These came up one after the other in search of provisions and were practically annihilated, Col. Baum being mortally wounded and 700 men taken prisoners. The scene of the battle is about 5 m. from the village. The victory had an important influence on Burgoyne's campaign (see AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE), weakening Burgoyne and encouraging the American militia to take the field against him. Bennington was settled in 1761 and was named in honour of Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire. The township was organized in 1762. It was one of the "New Hampshire Grant" towns, both New York and New Hampshire claiming jurisdiction over it, and, being the home of Ethan Alien and Seth Warner, it became the centre of activities of the "Green Mountain Boys," of whom they were leaders. During the fifteen years in which Vermont was an independent commonwealth, Bennington was the headquarters of the council of safety. In 1828-1829 W.L. Garrison edited here a paper called _The Journal of the Times_. The village of Bennington was incorporated in 1849.

See Merrill and Merrill, _Sketches of Historic Bennington_ (Cambridge,
Mass., 1898).

BENNO (1010-1106), bishop of Meissen, was the son of Werner, count of Woldenburg, was educated at Gosslar, and in 1066 was nominated by the emperor Henry IV. to the see of Meissen. In the troubles between empire and papacy that followed Benno took part against the emperor. In 1085 he was deposed by the synod of Mainz, but after the death of Pope Gregory VII. he submitted, and on the recommendation of the imperialist Pope Clement III. was restored to his see, which he held till his death. He did much for his diocese, both by ecclesiastical reforms on the Hildebrandine model and by material developments. He was long reverenced in his own diocese as a saint before, in 1523, he was canonized by Pope Adrian VI. His canonization drew from Luther a violent brochure "against the new false god and old devil, who is to be lifted up at Meissen."

For bibliography, see Ulysse Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources hist.:
Bio-bibliographie, s.v._ "Bennon."