Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

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Transcriber's notes:

(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.

(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.

(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.

(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
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(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:

ARTICLE BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM: "His first term as governor, during
which he seems to have been extremely popular with the majority of
the colonists, was notable principally for his religious
intolerance and his expulsion of the Puritans, who were in a great
minority." 'expulsion' amended from 'expulson'.

ARTICLE BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXIUS PETROVICH: "To prevent
underground intrigues, Bestuzhev now proposed the erection of a
council of ministers, to settle all important affairs ..."
'underground' amended from 'undergound'.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME III, SLICE VI

Bent, James to Bibirine

ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

BENT, JAMES THEODORE BERRYER, ANTOINE PIERRE
BENT BERSERKER
BENTHAM, GEORGE BERT, PAUL
BENTHAM, JEREMY BERTANI, AGOSTINO
BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM BERTAT
BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM CAVENDISH BERTAUT, JEAN
BENTIVOGLIO, GIOVANNI BERTH
BENTIVOGLIO, GUIDO BERTHELOT, MARCELLIN PIERRE EUGENE
BENTLEY, RICHARD (scholar) BERTHIER, LOUIS ALEXANDRE
BENTLEY, RICHARD (publisher) BERTHOLLET, CLAUDE LOUIS
BENTON, THOMAS HART BERTHON, EDWARD LYON
BENTON HARBOR BERTHOUD, FERDINAND
BENUE BERTILLON, LOUIS ADOLPHE
BEN VENUE BERTIN
BENZALDEHYDE BERTINORO, OBADIAH
BENZENE BERTINORO
BENZIDINE BERTOLD
BENZOIC ACID BERTOLD VON REGENSBURG
BENZOIN (ketone-alcohol) BERTRAM, CHARLES
BENZOIN (balsamic resin) BERTRAND, HENRI GRATIEN
BENZOPHENONE BERTRICH
BENZYL ALCOHOL BERULLE, PIERRE DE
BEOTHUK BERVIE
BEOTHY, ODON BERWICK, JAMES FITZJAMES
BEOWULF BERWICKSHIRE
BEQUEST BERWICK-UPON-TWEED
BERAIN, JEAN BERYL
BERANGER, PIERRE JEAN DE BERYLLIUM
BERAR BERYLLONITE
BERARD, JOSEPH FREDERIC BERZELIUS, JONS JAKOB
BERAT BES
BERAUN BESANCON
BERBER BESANT, SIR WALTER
BERBERA BESENVAL DE BRONSTATT, PIERRE VICTOR
BERBERINE BESKOW, BERNHARD VON
BERBERS BESNARD, PAUL ALBERT
BERCEUSE BESOM
BERCHEM, NICOLAAS BESSARABIA
BERCHTA BESSARION, JOHANNES
BERCHTESGADEN BESSBOROUGH, EARLS OF
BERCK BESSEGES
BERDICHEV BESSEL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM
BERDYANSK BESSEL FUNCTION
BEREA BESSEMER, SIR HENRY
BEREKHIAH NAQDAN BESSEMER
BERENGARIUS BESSIERES, JEAN BAPTISTE
BERENGER, ALPHONSE THOMAS BESSUS
BERENICE (princesses) BEST, WILLIAM THOMAS
BERENICE (seaport of Egypt) BESTIA
BERESFORD, LORD DE LA POER BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXIUS PETROVICH
BERESFORD, JOHN BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, MIKHAIL PETROVICH
BERESFORD, WILLIAM BERESFORD BET and BETTING
BEREZINA BETAINE
BEREZOV BETEL NUT
BEREZOVSK BETHANY
BERG BETHEL
BERGAMASK BETHENCOURT, JEAN DE
BERGAMO BETHESDA (Jerusalem)
BERGAMOT, OIL OF BETHESDA (Wales)
BERGEDORF BETH-HORON
BERGEN BETHLEHEM (Palestine)
BERGEN-OP-ZOOM BETHLEHEM (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)
BERGERAC BETHLEHEMITES
BERGHAUS, HEINRICH BETHLEN, GABRIEL
BERGK, THEODOR BETHNAL GREEN
BERGLER, STEPHAN BETHUNE {family)
BERGMAN, TORBERN OLOF BETHUNE, CONON DE
BERGSCHRUND BETHUNE (town of France)
BERGUES BETROTHAL
BERHAMPUR (Bengal, India) BETTERMENT
BERHAMPUR (Madras, India) BETTERTON, THOMAS
BERI-BERI BETTIA
BERING, VITUS BETTINELLI, SAVERIO
BERING ISLAND, SEA and STRAIT BETTWS Y COED
BERING SEA ARBITRATION BETTY, WILLIAM HENRY WEST
BERIOT, CHARLES AUGUSTE DE BETUL
BERJA BETWA
BERKA BEUDANT, FRANCOIS SULPICE
BERKELEY (English family) BEUGNOT, JACQUES CLAUDE
BERKELEY, GEORGE BEULE, CHARLES ERNEST
BERKELEY, MILES JOSEPH BEURNONVILLE, PIERRE DE RUEL
BERKELEY, SIR WILLIAM BEUST, FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON
BERKELEY (California, U.S.A.) BEUTHEN (Niederbeuthen)
BERKELEY (town of England) BEUTHEN (Oberbeuthen)
BERKHAMPSTEAD BEVEL
BERKSHIRE, THOMAS HOWARD BEVERLEY, WILLIAM ROXBY
BERKSHIRE BEVERLEY
BERLAD BEVERLY
BERLICHINGEN, GOETZ BEVIS OF HAMPTON
BERLIN, ISAIAH BEWDLEY
BERLIN (German city) BEWICK, THOMAS
BERLIN (New Hampshire, U.S.A.) BEXHILL
BERLIN (Ontario, Canada) BEXLEY, NICHOLAS VANSITTART
BERLIN (carriage) BEXLEY
BERLIOZ, HECTOR BEY
BERM BEYBAZAR
BERMONDSEY BEYLE, MARIE HENRI
BERMUDAS BEYRICH, HEINRICH ERNST VON
BERMUDEZ BEYSCHLAG, WILLIBALD
BERN (Swiss canton) BEZA, THEODORE
BERN (Swiss city) BEZANT
BERNARD, SAINT BEZANTEE
BERNARD OF CHARTRES BEZBORODKO, ALEKSANDER ANDREEVICH
BERNARD, CHARLES DE BEZEL
BERNARD, CLAUDE BEZIQUE
BERNARD, JACQUES BEZWADA
BERNARD, MOUNTAGUE BHAGALPUR
BERNARD, SIMON BHAMO
BERNARD, SIR THOMAS BHANDARA
BERNARDIN OF SIENA, ST BHANG
BERNAUER, AGNES BHARAHAT
BERNAY BHARAL
BERNAYS, JAKOB BHARATPUR
BERNBURG BHATGAON
BERNERS, JOHN BOURCHIER BHATTIANA
BERNERS, JULIANA BHAU DAJI
BERNHARD OF SAXE-WEIMAR BHAUNAGAR
BERNHARDT, SARAH BHEESTY
BERNHARDY, GOTTFRIED BHERA
BERNI, FRANCESCO BHILS
BERNICIA BHIMA
BERNICIAN SERIES BHIWANI
BERNINI, GIOVANNI LORENZO BHOPAL
BERNIS, FRANCOIS PIERRE DE BHOPAWAR
BERNKASTEL BHOR
BERNOULLI BHUJ
BERNSTEIN, AARON BHUTAN
BERNSTORFF, ANDREAS PETER BIANCHINI, FRANCESCO
BERNSTORFF, CHRISTIAN GUNTHER BIARRITZ
BERNSTORFF, JOHANN HARTWIG ERNST BIAS (Sage of Greece)
BEROSSUS BIAS (something oblique)
BERRY, CHARLES ALBERT BIBACULUS, MARCUS FURIUS
BERRY, CHARLES FERDINAND BIBER, HEINRICH JOHANN FRANZ VON
BERRY, JOHN BIBERACH
BERRY BIBIRINE

BENT, JAMES THEODORE (1852-1897), English traveller, was the son of James Bent of Baildon House, near Leeds, Yorkshire, where he was born on the 30th of March 1852. He was educated at Repton school and Wadham College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1875. In 1877 he married Mabel, daughter of R.W. Hall-Dare of Newtownbarry, Co. Wexford, and she became his companion in all his travels. He went abroad every year and became thoroughly acquainted with Italy and Greece. In 1879 he published a book on the republic of San Marino, entitled _A Freak of Freedom_, and was made a citizen of San Marino; in the following year appeared _Genoa: How the Republic Rose and Fell_, and in 1881 a _Life of Giuseppe Garibaldi_. He spent considerable time in the Aegean archipelago, of which he wrote in _The Cyclades: or Life among the Insular Greeks_ (1885). From this period Bent devoted himself particularly to archaeological research. The years 1885-1888 were given up to investigations in Asia Minor, his discoveries and conclusions being communicated to the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ and other magazines and reviews. In 1889 he undertook excavations in the Bahrein Islands of the Persian Gulf, and found evidence that they had been a primitive home of the Phoenician race. After an expedition in 1890 to Cilicia Trachea, where he obtained a valuable collection of inscriptions, Bent spent a year in South Africa, with the object, by investigation of some of the ruins in Mashonaland, of throwing light on the vexed question of their origin and on the early history of East Africa. He made the first detailed examination of the Great Zimbabwe. Bent described his work in _The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_ (1892). In 1893 he investigated the ruins of Axum and other places in the north of Abyssinia, partially made known before by the researches of Henry Salt and others, and _The Sacred City of the Ethiopians_ (1893) gave an account of this expedition. Bent now visited at considerable risk the almost unknown Hadramut country (1893-1894), and during this and later journeys in southern Arabia he studied the ancient history of the country, its physical features and actual condition. On the Dhafar coast in 1894-1895 he visited ruins which he identified with the Abyssapolis of the frankincense merchants. In 1895-1896 he examined part of the African coast of the Red Sea, finding there the ruins of a very ancient gold-mine and traces of what he considered Sabean influence. While on another journey in South Arabia (1896-1897), Bent was seized with malarial fever, and died in London on the 5th of May 1897, a few days after his return. Mrs Bent, who had contributed by her skill as a photographer and in other ways to the success of her husband's journeys, published in 1900 _Southern Arabia, Soudan and Sakotra_, in which were given the results of their last expedition into that region. The conclusions at which Bent arrived as to the Semitic origin of the ruins in Mashonaland have not been accepted by archaeologists, but the value of his pioneer work is undeniable (see ZIMBABWE).

BENT. 1. (From "to bend"), primarily the result of bending; hence any inclination from the straight, as in curved objects like a hook or a bow; this survives in the modern phrase "to follow one's own bent," i.e. to pursue a certain course in a direction deviating from the normal, as also in such phrases as Chaucer's "Downward on a hill under a bent," indicating a hollow or declivity in the general configuration of the land. From the bending of a bow comes the idea of tension, as in Hamlet, "they fool me to the top of my bent," i.e. to the utmost of my capacity. 2. (From the O. Eng. _beonet_, a coarse, rushy grass growing in wet places; cf. the Ger. _Binse_, a reed), the name ("bent" or "bennet") popularly applied to several kinds of grass and surviving in the form "bent-grass."

BENTHAM, GEORGE (1800-1884), English botanist, was born at Stoke near Portsmouth on the 22nd of September 1800. His father, Sir Samuel Bentham (1757-1831), was the only brother of Jeremy Bentham, the publicist, and of scarcely inferior ability though in a different direction. Devoting himself in early life to the study of naval architecture, Sir Samuel went to Russia to visit the naval establishments in the Baltic and Black Seas. He was induced to enter the service of the empress Catherine II., built a flotilla of gunboats and defeated the Turkish fleet. For this he was made, in addition to other honours, colonel of a cavalry regiment. On the death of the empress he returned to England to be employed by the admiralty, and was sent (1805-1807) again to Russia to superintend the building of some ships for the British navy. He attained the rank, under the admiralty, of inspector-general of naval works. He introduced a multitude of improvements in naval organization, and it was largely through his recommendation that M.I. Brunel's block-making machinery was installed at Portsmouth.

George Bentham had neither a school nor a college education, but early acquired the power of giving sustained and concentrated attention to any subject that occupied him--one essential condition of the success he attained as perhaps the greatest systematic botanist of the 19th century. Another was his remarkable linguistic aptitude. At the age of six to seven he could converse in French, German and Russian, and he learnt Swedish during a short residence in Sweden when little older. At the close of the war with France, the Benthams made a long tour through that country, staying two years at Montauban, where Bentham studied Hebrew and mathematics in the Protestant Theological School. They eventually settled in the neighbourhood of Montpellier where Sir Samuel purchased a large estate.

The mode in which George Bentham was attracted to the botanical studies which became the occupation of his life is noteworthy; it was through the applicability to them of the logical methods which he had imbibed from his uncle's writings, and not from any special attraction to natural history pursuits. While studying at Angouleme a copy of A.P. de Candolle's _Flore francaise_ fell into his hands and he was struck with the analytical tables for identifying plants. He immediately proceeded to test their use on the first that presented itself. The result was successful and he continued to apply it to every plant he came across. A visit to London in 1823 brought him into contact with the brilliant circle of English botanists. In 1826, at the pressing invitation of his uncle, he agreed to act as his secretary, at the same time entering at Lincoln's Inn and reading for the bar. He was called in due time and in 1832 held his first and last brief. The same year Jeremy Bentham died, leaving his property to his nephew. His father's inheritance had fallen to him the previous year. He was now in a position of modest independence, and able to pursue undistractedly his favourite studies. For a time these were divided between botany, jurisprudence and logic, in addition to editing his father's professional papers. Bentham's first publication was his _Catalogue des plantes indigenes des Pyrenees et du Bas Languedoc_ (Paris, 1826), the result of a careful exploration of the Pyrenees in company with G.A. Walker Arnott (1799-1868), afterwards professor of botany in the university of Glasgow. It is interesting to notice that in it Bentham adopted the principle from which he never deviated, of citing nothing at second-hand. This was followed by articles on various legal subjects: on codification, in which he disagreed with his uncle, on the laws affecting larceny and on the law of real property. But the most remarkable production of this period was the _Outline of a New System of Logic, with a Critical Examination of Dr Whately's Elements of Logic_ (1827). In this the principle of the quantification of the predicate was first explicitly stated. This Stanley Jevons declared to be "undoubtedly the most fruitful discovery made in abstract logical science since the time of Aristotle." Before sixty copies had been sold the publisher became bankrupt and the stock went for wastepaper. The book passed into oblivion, and it was not till 1873 that Bentham's claims to priority were finally vindicated against those of Sir William Hamilton by Herbert Spencer. In 1836 he published his _Labiatarum genera et species_. In preparing this work he visited, between 1830-1834, every European herbarium, several more than once. The following winter was passed in Vienna, where he produced his _Commentationes de Leguminosarum generibus_, published in the annals of the Vienna Museum. In 1842 he removed to Pontrilas in Herefordshire. His chief occupation for some succeeding years was his contributions to the _Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis_, which was being carried on by his friend, A.P. deCandolle. In all these dealt with some 4730 species.

In 1854 he found the maintenance of a herbarium and library too great a tax on his means. He therefore offered them to the government on the understanding that they should form the foundation of such necessary aids to research in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. At the same time he contemplated the abandonment of botanical work. Fortunately, he yielded to the persuasion of Sir William Hooker, John Lindley and other scientific friends. In 1855 he took up his residence in London, and worked at Kew for five days a week, with a brief summer holiday, from this time onwards till the end of his life. As his friend Asa Gray wrote: "With such methodical habits, with freedom from professional or administrative functions, which consume the time of most botanists, with steady devotion to his chosen work, and with nearly all authentic material and needful appliances at hand or within reach, it is not so surprising that he should have undertaken and have so well accomplished such a vast amount of work, and he has the crowning merit and happy fortune of having completed all that he undertook." The government, in 1857, sanctioned a scheme for the preparation of a series of Floras or descriptions in the English language of the indigenous plants of British colonies and possessions. Bentham began with the _Flora Hongkongensis_ in 1861, which was the first comprehensive work on any part of the little-known flora of China. This was followed by the _Flora Australiensis_, in seven volumes (1863-1878), the first flora of any large continental area that had ever been finished. His greatest work was the _Genera Plantarum_, begun in 1862, and concluded in 1883 in collaboration with Sir Joseph Hooker, "the greater portion being," as Sir Joseph Hooker tells us, "the product of Bentham's indefatigable industry." As age gradually impaired his bodily powers, he seemed at last only to live for the completion of this monumental work.

When the last revise of the last sheet was returned to the printer, the stimulus was withdrawn, and his powers seemed suddenly to fail him. He began a brief autobiography, but the pen with which he had written his two greatest works broke in his hand in the middle of a page. He accepted the omen, laid aside the unfinished manuscript and patiently awaited the not distant end. He died on the both of September 1884, within a fortnight of his 84th birthday.

The scientific world received the _Genera Plantarum_ with as unanimous an assent as was accorded to the _Species Plantarum_ of Linnaeus. Bentham possessed, as Professor Daniel Oliver remarked, "an insight of so special a character as to deserve the name of genius, into the relative value of characters for practical systematic work, and as a consequence of this, a sure sifting of essentials from non-essentials in each respective grade." His preparation for his crowning work had been practically lifelong. There are few parts of the world upon the botany of which he did not touch. In the sequence and arrangement of the great families of flowering plants, different views from those of Bentham may be adopted. But Bentham paved the way by an intimate and exact statement of the structural facts and their accurate relationship, which is not likely to be improved. In method and style, in descriptive work, Bentham was a supreme master. This, to quote Professor Oliver again, is "manifest not only in its terseness, aptness and precision, but especially in the judicious selection of diagnostic marks, and in the instinctive estimate of probable range in variation, which long experience and innate genius for such work could alone inspire." (W. T. T.-D.)

BENTHAM, JEREMY (1748-1832), English philosopher and jurist, was born on the 15th of February 1748 in Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, London, in which neighbourhood his grandfather and father successively carried on business as attorneys. His father, who was a wealthy man and possessed at any rate a smattering of Greek, Latin and French, was thought to have demeaned himself by marrying the daughter of an Andover tradesman, who afterwards retired to a country house near Reading, where young Jeremy spent many happy days. The boy's talents justified the ambitious hopes which his parents entertained of his future. When three years old he read eagerly such works as Rapin's _History_ and began the study of Latin. A year or two later he learnt to play the violin and to speak French. At Westminster school he obtained a reputation for Greek and Latin verse writing; and he was only thirteen when he was matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, where his most important acquisition seems to have been a thorough acquaintance with Sanderson's logic. He became a B.A. in 1763, and in the same year entered at Lincoln's Inn, and took his seat as a student in the queen's bench, where he listened with rapture to the judgments of Lord Mansfield. He managed also to hear Blackstone's lectures at Oxford, but says that he immediately detected the fallacies which underlay the rounded periods of the future judge.

Bentham's family connexions would naturally have given him a fair start at the bar, but this was not the career for which he was preparing himself. He spent his time in making chemical experiments and in speculating upon legal abuses, rather than in reading Coke upon Littleton and the Reports. On being called to the bar he "found a cause or two at nurse for him, which he did his best to put to death," to the bitter disappointment of his father, who had confidently looked forward to seeing him upon the woolsack. The first fruits of Bentham's studies, the _Fragment on Government_, appeared in 1776. This masterly attack upon Blackstone's praises of the English constitution was variously attributed to Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden and Lord Ashburton. One important result of its publication was that, in 1781, Lord Shelburne (afterwards first marquess of Lansdowne) called upon its author in his chambers at Lincoln's Inn. Henceforth Bentham was a frequent guest at Bowood, where he saw the best society and where he met Miss Caroline Fox (daughter of the second Lord Holland), to whom he afterwards made a proposal of marriage. In 1785 Bentham started, by way of Italy and Constantinople, on a visit to his brother, Samuel Bentham, a naval engineer, holding the rank of colonel in the Russian service; and it was in Russia that he wrote his _Defence of Usury_. Disappointed after his return to England in 1788 in the hope which he had entertained, through a misapprehension of something said by Lord Lansdowne, of taking a personal part in the legislation of his country, he settled down to the yet higher task of discovering and teaching the principles upon which all sound legislation must proceed. The great work, upon which he had been engaged for many years, the _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, was published in 1789. His fame spread widely and rapidly. He was made a French citizen in 1792; and his advice was respectfully received in most of the states of Europe and America, with many of the leading men of which he maintained an active correspondence. In 1817 he became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. His ambition was to be allowed to prepare a code of laws for his own or some foreign country. During nearly a quarter of a century he was engaged in negotiations with the government for the erection of a "Panopticon," for the central inspection of convicts; a plan suggested to him by a building designed by his brother Samuel, for the better supervision of his Russian shipwrights. This scheme, which it was alleged would render transportation unnecessary, was eventually abandoned, and Bentham received in 1813, in pursuance of an act of parliament, L23,000 by way of compensation. It was at a later period of his life that he propounded schemes for cutting canals through the isthmus of Suez and the isthmus of Panama. In 1823 he established the _Westminster Review_. Emboldened perhaps by the windfall of 1813, Bentham in the following year took a lease of Ford Abbey, a fine mansion with a deer-park, in Dorsetshire; but in 1818 returned to the house in Queen's Square Place which he had occupied since the death of his father in 1792. It was there that he died on the 6th of June 1832 in his eighty-fifth year. In accordance with his directions, his body was dissected in the presence of his friends, and the skeleton is still preserved in University College, London.

Bentham's life was a happy one of its kind. His constitution, weakly in childhood, strengthened with advancing years so as to allow him to get through an incredible amount of sedentary labour, while he retained to the last the fresh and cheerful temperament of a boy. An ample inherited fortune permitted him to pursue his studies undistracted by the necessity for earning a livelihood, and to maximize the results of his time and labour by the employment of amanuenses and secretaries. He was able to gather around him a group of congenial friends and pupils, such as the Mills, the Austins and Bowring, with whom he could discuss the problems upon which he was engaged, and by whom several of his books were practically rewritten from the mass of rough though orderly memoranda which the master had himself prepared. Thus, for instance, was the _Rationale of Judicial Evidence_ written out by J.S. Mill and the _Book of Fallacies_ by Bingham. The services which Dumont rendered in recasting as well as translating the works of Bentham were still more important.

The popular notion that Bentham was a morose visionary is far removed from fact. It is true that he looked upon general society as a waste of time and that he disliked poetry as "misrepresentation"; but he intensely enjoyed conversation, gave good dinners and delighted in music, in country sights and in making others happy. These features of Bentham's character are illustrated in the graphic account given by the American minister, Richard Rush, of an evening spent at his London house in the summer of the year 1818. "If Mr Bentham's character is peculiar," he says, "so is his place of residence. It was a kind of blind-alley, the end of which widened into a small, neat courtyard. There by itself stands Mr Bentham's house. Shrubbery graced its area and flowers its window-sills. It was like an oasis in the desert. Its name is the Hermitage. Mr Bentham received me with the simplicity of a philosopher. I should have taken him for seventy or upwards. Everything inside the house was orderly. The furniture seemed to have been unmoved since the days of his fathers, for I learned that it was a patrimony. A parlour, library and dining-room made up the suite of apartments. In each was a piano, the eccentric master of the whole being fond of music as the recreation of his literary hours. It is a unique, romantic-like homestead. Walking with him into the garden, I found it dark with the shade of ancient trees. They formed a barrier against all intrusion. The company was small but choice. Mr Brougham; Sir Samuel Romilly; Mr Mill, author of the well-known work on India; M. Dumont, the learned Genevan, once the associate of Mirabeau, were all who sat down to table. Mr Bentham did not talk much. He had a benevolence of manner suited to the philanthropy of his mind. He seemed to be thinking only of the convenience and pleasure of his guests, not as a rule of artificial breeding as from Chesterfield or Madame Genlis, but from innate feeling. Bold as are his opinions in his works, here he was wholly unobtrusive of theories that might not have commended the assent of all present. When he did converse it was in simple language, a contrast to his later writings, where an involved style and the use of new or universal words are drawbacks upon the speculations of a genius original and profound, but with the faults of solitude. Yet some of his earlier productions are distinguished by classical terseness."--(_Residence at the Court of London_, p. 286.) Bentham's love of flowers and music, of green foliage and shaded walks, comes clearly out in this pleasant picture of his home life and social surroundings.

Whether or no he can be said to have founded a school, his doctrines have become so far part of the common thought of the time, that there is hardly an educated man who does not accept as too clear for argument truths which were invisible till Bentham pointed them out. His sensitively honourable nature, which in early life had caused him to shrink from asserting his belief in Thirty-nine articles of faith which he had not examined, was shocked by the enormous abuses which confronted him on commencing the study of the law. He rebelled at hearing the system under which they flourished described as the perfection of human reason. But he was no merely destructive critic. He was determined to find a solid foundation for both morality and law, and to raise upon it an edifice, no stone of which should be laid except in accordance with the deductions of the severest logic. This foundation is "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," a formula adopted from Priestly or perhaps first from Beccaria. The phrase may, however, be found in writers of an earlier date than these, e.g. in Hutcheson's _Enquiry_, published in 1725. The pursuit of such happiness is taught by the "utilitarian" philosophy, an expression used by Bentham himself in 1802, and therefore not invented by J.S. Mill, as he supposed, in 1823. In order to ascertain what modes of action are most conducive to the end in view, and what motives are best fitted to produce them, Bentham was led to construct marvellously exhaustive, though somewhat mechanical, tables of motives. With all their elaboration, these tables are, however, defective, as omitting some of the highest and most influential springs of action. But most of Bentham's conclusions may be accepted without any formal profession of the utilitarian theory of morals. They are, indeed, merely the application of a rigorous common sense to the facts of society. That the proximate ends at which Bentham aimed are desirable hardly any one would deny, though the feasibility of the means by which he proposes to attain them may often be questioned, and much of the new nomenclature in which he thought fit to clothe his doctrines may be rejected as unnecessary. To be judged fairly, Bentham must be judged as a teacher of the principles of legislation. With the principles of private morals he really deals only so far as is necessary to enable the reader to appreciate the impulses which have to be controlled by law.

As a teacher of legislation he inquires of all institutions whether their utility justifies their existence. If not, he is prepared to suggest a new form of institution by which the needful service may be rendered. While thus engaged no topic is too large for his mental grasp, none too small for his notice; and, what is still rarer, every topic is seen in its due relation to the rest. English institutions had never before been thus comprehensively and dispassionately surveyed. Such improvements as had been necessitated were mere makeshifts, often made by stealth. The rude symmetry of the feudal system had been long ago destroyed by partial and unskilful adaptations to modern commercial life, effected at various dates and in accordance with various theories. The time had come for deliberate reconstruction, for inquiring whether the existence of many admitted evils was, as it was said to be, unavoidable; for proving that the needs of society may be classified and provided for by contrivances which shall not clash with one another because all shall be parts of a consistent whole. This task Bentham undertook, and he brought to it a mind absolutely free from professional or class feeling, or any other species of prejudice. He mapped out the whole subject, dividing and subdividing it in accordance with the principle of "dichotomy." Having reached his ultimate subdivisions he subjects each to the most thorough and ingenious discussion. His earlier writings exhibit a lively and easy style, which gives place in his later treatises to sentences which are awkward from their effort after unattainable accuracy, and from the newly-invented technical nomenclature in which they are expressed. Many of Bentham's phrases, such as "international," "utilitarian," "codification," are valuable additions to our language; but the majority of them, especially those of Greek derivation, have taken no root in it. His neology is one among many instances of his contempt for the past and his wish to be clear of all association with it. His was, indeed, a typically logical, as opposed to a historical, mind. For the history of institutions which, thanks largely to the writings of Sir Henry Maine, has become a new and interesting branch of science, Bentham cared nothing. Had he possessed such a knowledge of Roman law as is now not uncommon in England, he must doubtless have taken a different view of many subjects. The logical and historical methods can, however, seldom be combined without confusion; and it is perhaps fortunate that Bentham devoted his long life to showing how much may be done by pursuing the former method exclusively. His writings have been and remain a storehouse of instruction for statesmen, an armoury for legal reformers. "Pille par tout le monde," as Talleyrand said of him, "il est toujours riche." To trace the results of his teaching in England alone would be to write a history of the legislation of half a century. Upon the whole administrative machinery of government, upon criminal law and upon procedure, both criminal and civil, his influence has been most salutary; and the great legal revolution which in 1873 purported to accomplish the fusion of law and equity is not obscurely traceable to the same source. Those of Bentham's suggestions which have hitherto been carried out have affected the matter or contents of the law. The hopes which have been from time to time entertained, that his suggestions for the improvement of its form and expression were about to receive the attention which they deserved, have hitherto been disappointed. The services rendered by Bentham to the world would not, however, be exhausted even by the practical adoption of every one of his recommendations. There are no limits to the good results of his introduction of a true method of reasoning into the moral and political sciences.

Bentham's _Works_, together with an Introduction by J. Hill Burton,
selections from his correspondence and a biography, were published by
Dr Bowring, in eleven closely printed volumes (1838-1843). This
edition does not include the _Deontology_, which, much rewritten, had
been published by Bowring in 1834. Translations of the _Works_ or of
separate treatises have appeared in most European languages. Large
masses of Bentham's MSS., mostly unpublished, are preserved at
University College, London (see T. Whittaker's _Report_, 1892, on
these MSS., as newly catalogued and reclassified by him in 155
parcels); also in the British Museum (see E. Nys, _Etudes de droit
international et de droit politique_, 1901, pp. 291-333). See farther
on the life and writings of Bentham: J.H. Burton, _Benthamiana_
(1843); R. von Mohl, _Geschichte und Literatur der
Staatswissenschaften_, bk. iii. (1858), pp. 595-635; R.K. Wilson,
_History of Modern English Law_ (1875), pp. 133-170; J.S. Mill,
_Dissertations_ (1859), vol. i. pp. 330-392; L. Stephen, _The English
Utilitarians_ (1900), vol. i.; _A Fragment on Government_, edited by
F.C. Montague (1891); _The Law Quarterly Review_ (1895), two articles
on Bentham's influence in Spain; A.V. Dicey, _Law and Opinion in
England_ (1905), pp. 125-209; C.M. Atkinson, _Jeremy Bentham_ (1905).
(T. E. H.)

BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM (1774-1839), governor-general of India, was the second son of the 3rd duke of Portland and was born on the 14th of September 1774. He entered the army, rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and was present at Marengo. In 1803 he was nominated governor of Madras, where he quarrelled with the chief justice, Sir Henry Gwillim, and several members of his council. The sepoy mutiny at Vellore in 1807 led to his recall. His name was considered at this time for the post of governor-general, but Lord Minto was selected instead; and it was not until twenty years later that he succeeded Lord Amherst in that office. His governor-generalship (1827-1835) was notable for many reforms, chief among which were the suppression of the Thugs (q.v.), the abolition of suttee, and the making of the English language the basis of education in India. It was on this last subject that Lord Macaulay's famous minute was written. Lord William's administration was essentially peaceful, but progressive and successful. He died at Paris on the 17th of June 1839.

See Demetrius C. Boulger, _Lord William Bentinck_, in the "Rulers of
India" series (1892).

BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM GEORGE FREDERICK CAVENDISH, better known as LORD GEORGE BENTINCK (1802-1848), British politician, was the second surviving son of the fourth duke of Portland, by Henrietta, sister of Viscountess Canning, and was born on the 27th of February 1802. He was educated at home until he obtained his commission as cornet in the 10th hussars at the age of seventeen. He practically retired from the army in 1822 and acted for some time as private secretary to his uncle George Canning. In 1828 he succeeded his uncle Lord William Bentinck as member for Lynn-Regis, and continued to represent that constituency during the remaining twenty years of his life. His failures as a speaker in parliament seem to have discouraged him from the attempt to acquire reputation as a politician, and till within three years of his death he was little known out of the sporting world. As one of the leaders on "the turf," however, he was distinguished by that integrity, judgment and indomitable determination which, when brought to bear upon weightier matters, quickly gave him a position of first-rate importance in the political world. On his first entrance into parliament he belonged to the moderate Whig party, and voted in favour of Catholic emancipation, as also for the Reform Bill, though he opposed some of its principal details. Soon after, however, he joined the ranks of the opposition, with whom he sided up to the important era of 1846. When, in that year, Sir Robert Peel openly declared in favour of free trade, the advocates of the corn-laws, then without a leader, after several ineffectual attempts at organization, discovered that Lord George Bentinck was the only man of position and family (for Disraeli's time was not yet come) around whom the several sections of the opposition could be brought to rally. His sudden elevation took the public by surprise; but he soon gave convincing evidence of powers so formidable that the Protectionist party under his leadership was at once stiffened into real importance. Towards Peel, in particular, his hostility was uncompromising. Believing, as he himself expressed it, that that statesman and his colleagues had "hounded to the death his illustrious relative" Canning, he combined with his political opposition a degree of personal animosity that gave additional force to his invective. On entering on his new position, he at once abandoned his connexion with the turf, disposed of his magnificent stud and devoted his whole energies to the laborious duties of a parliamentary leader. Apart from the question of the corn-laws, however, his politics were decidedly independent. In opposition to the rest of his party, he supported the bill for removing the Jewish disabilities, and was favourable to the scheme for the payment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland by the landowners. The result was that on December 23rd, 1847, he wrote a letter resigning the Protectionist leadership, though he still remained active in politics. But his positive abilities as a constructive statesman were not to be tested, for he died suddenly at Welbeck on the 21st of September 1848. It was to be left to Disraeli to bring the Conservative party into power, with Protection outside its programme.

See _Lord George Bentinck: a Political Biography_ (1851), by B.
Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield).

BENTIVOGLIO, GIOVANNI (1443-1508), tyrant of Bologna, descended from a powerful family which exercised great influence in Bologna during the 15th century, was born after the murder of his father, then chief magistrate of the commune. In 1462 Giovanni contrived to make himself master of the city, although it was nominally a fief of the church under a papal legate. He ruled with a stern sway for nearly half a century, but the brilliance of his court, his encouragement of the fine arts and his decoration of the city with sumptuous edifices, to some extent compensated the Bolognese for the loss of their liberty. Cesare Borgia (q.v.) contemplated the subjugation of Bologna in 1500, when he was crushing the various despots of Romagna, but Bentivoglio was saved for the moment by French intervention. In 1502 he took part in the conspiracy against Cesare, but, when the latter obtained French assistance, he abandoned his fellow-conspirators and helped Borgia to overcome them. During the brief pontificate of Pius III., who succeeded Alexander VI. in 1503, Bentivoglio enjoyed a respite, but the new pope, Julius II., was determined to reduce all the former papal states to obedience. Having won Louis XII. of France to his side, he led an army against Bologna, excommunicated Bentivoglio and forced him to abandon the city (November 1506). The deposed tyrant took refuge with the French, whom he trusted more than the pope, and died at Milan in 1508.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--P. Litta, _Le Famiglie celebri Italiane_, vol, iii.
(Milan, 1834); P. Villari, _Machiavelli_ (Eng. trans., London, 1892);
M. Creighton, _History of the Papacy_ (London, 1897); A. von Reumont,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom_, vol. iii. (Berlin, 1868). (L. V.*)

BENTIVOGLIO, GUIDO (1579-1644), Italian cardinal, statesman and historian, was born at Ferrara in 1579. After studying at Padua, he went to reside at Rome, and was received with great favour by Pope Clement VIII., who made him his private chamberlain. The next pope, Paul V., created him archbishop of Rhodes in 1607, and appointed him as nuncio to Flanders and afterwards to France; on his return to Rome in 1621 he was created cardinal and entrusted by Louis XIII. with the management of French affairs at the papal court. He became the intimate friend of Pope Urban VIII., who appointed him to the suburban see of Palestrina in 1691. An able writer and skilful diplomatist, Bentivoglio was marked out as Urban's successor, but he died suddenly on the 7th of September 1644 at the opening of the conclave. Bentivoglio's principal works are:--_Della Guerra di Fiandria_ (best edition, Cologne, 1633-1639), translated into English by Henry, earl of Monmouth (London, 1654); _Relazioni di G. Bentivoglio in tempo delle sue Nunziature di Fiandria e di Francia_ (Cologne, 1630); _Lettere diplomatiche di Guido Bentivoglio_ (Brussels, 1631, frequently reprinted, best edition by L. Scarabelli, 2 vols., Turin, 1852). The complete edition of his works was published at Venice in 1668 in 4to. A selection of his letters has been adopted as a classic in the Italian schools.

BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742), English scholar and critic, was born at Oulton near Wakefield, Yorkshire, on the 27th of January 1662. His grandfather had suffered in person and estate in the royalist cause, and the family were in consequence in reduced circumstances. Bentley's mother, the daughter of a stonemason in Oulton, was a woman of excellent understanding and some education, as she was able to give her son his first lessons in Latin. From the grammar school of Wakefield Richard Bentley passed to St John's College, Cambridge, being admitted subsizar in 1676. He afterwards obtained a scholarship and took the degree of B.A. in 1680 (M.A. 1683). He never succeeded to a fellowship, being appointed by his college, before he was twenty-one, headmaster of Spalding grammar school. In this post he did not remain long, being selected by Dr Edward Stillingfleet, dean of St Paul's, to be domestic tutor to his son. This appointment introduced Bentley at once to the society of the most eminent men of the day, threw open to him the best private library in England, and brought him into familiar intercourse with Dean Stillingfleet, a man of sound understanding, who had not shrunk from exploring some of the more solid and abstruse parts of ancient learning. The six years which he passed in Stillingfleet's family were employed, with the restless energy characteristic of the man, in exhausting the remains of the Greek and Latin writers, and laying up those stores of knowledge upon which he afterwards drew as circumstances required.

In 1689 Stillingfleet became bishop of Worcester, and Bentley's pupil went to reside at Oxford in Wadham College, accompanied by his tutor. Bentley's introductions and his own merits placed him at once on a footing of intimacy with the most distinguished scholars in the university, Dr John Mill, Humphrey Hody, Edward Bernard. Here he revelled in the MS. treasures of the Bodleian, Corpus and other college libraries. He projected and occupied himself with collections for vast literary schemes. Among these are specially mentioned a _corpus_ of the fragments of the Greek poets and an edition of the Greek lexicographers. But his first publication was in connexion with a writer of much inferior note. The Oxford (Sheldonian) press was about to bring out an edition (the _editio princeps_) from the unique MS. in the Bodleian of the Greek _Chronicle_ (a universal history down to A.D. 560) of John of Antioch (date uncertain, between 600 and 1000), called John Malalas or "John the Rhetor"; and the editor, Dr John Mill, principal of St Edmund Hall, had requested Bentley to look through the sheets and make any remarks on the text. This originated Bentley's _Epistola ad Millium_, which occupies less than one hundred pages at the end of the Oxford _Malalas_ (1691). This short tractate at once placed Bentley at the head of all living English scholars. The ease with which, by a stroke of the pen, he restores passages which had been left in hopeless corruption by the editors of the _Chronicle_, the certainty of the emendation and the command over the relevant material, are in a style totally different from the careful and laborious learning of Hody, Mill or E. Chilmead. To the small circle of classical students (lacking the great critical dictionaries of modern times) it was at once apparent that there had arisen in England a critic whose attainments were not to be measured by the ordinary academical standard, but whom these few pages had sufficed to place by the side of the great Grecians of a former age. Unfortunately this mastery over critical science was accompanied by a tone of self-assertion and presumptuous confidence which not only checked admiration, but was calculated to rouse enmity. Dr Monk, indeed, Bentley's biographer, charged him (in his first edition, 1830) with an indecorum of which he was not guilty. "In one place," writes Dr Monk, "he accosts Dr Mill as [Greek: o Ioannidion] (Johnny), an indecorum which neither the familiarity of friendship, nor the licence of a dead language, can justify towards the dignified head of a house." But the object of Bentley's apostrophe was not his correspondent Dr Mill, but his author John Malalas, whom in another place he playfully appeals to as "Syrisce." From this publication, however, dates the origin of those mixed feelings of admiration and repugnance which Bentley throughout his career continued to excite among his contemporaries.

In 1690 Bentley had taken deacon's orders in the Church. In 1692 he was nominated first Boyle lecturer, a nomination which was repeated in 1694. He was offered the appointment a third time in 1695 but declined it, being by that time involved in too many other undertakings. In the first series of lectures ("A Confutation of Atheism") he endeavours to present the Newtonian physics in a popular form, and to frame them (especially in opposition to Hobbes) into a proof of the existence of an intelligent Creator. He had some correspondence with Newton, then living in Trinity College, on the subject. The second series, preached in 1694, has not been published and is believed to be lost. Andrew Kippis, the editor of the _Biographia Britannica_, mentions MS. copies of them as in existence. Scarcely was Bentley in priest's orders before he was preferred to a prebendal stall in Worcester cathedral. In 1693 the keepership of the royal library becoming vacant, great efforts were made by his friends to obtain the place for Bentley, but through court interest the post was given to Mr Thynne. An arrangement, however, was made, by which the new librarian resigned in favour of Bentley, on condition that he received an annuity of L130 for life out of the salary, which only amounted to L200. To these preferments were added in 1695 a royal chaplaincy and the living of Hartlebury. In the same year Bentley was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1696 proceeded to the degree of D.D. The recognition of continental scholars came in the shape of a dedication, by Graevius, prefixed to a dissertation of Albert Rubens, _De Vita Flavii Mallii Theodori_, published at Utrecht in 1694.

While these distinctions were being accumulated upon Bentley, his energy was making itself felt in many and various directions. He had official apartments in St James's Palace, and his first care was the royal library. He made great efforts to retrieve this collection from the dilapidated condition into which it had been allowed to fall. He employed the mediation of the earl of Marlborough to beg the grant of some additional rooms in the palace for the books. The rooms were granted, but Marlborough characteristically kept them for himself. Bentley enforced the law against the publishers, and thus added to the library nearly 1000 volumes which they had neglected to deliver. He was commissioned by the university of Cambridge to obtain Greek and Latin founts for their classical books, and accordingly he had cast in Holland those beautiful types which appear in the Cambridge books of that date. He assisted Evelyn in his _Numismata_. All Bentley's literary appearances at this time were of this accidental character. We do not find him settling down to the steady execution of any of the great projects with which he had started. He designed, indeed, in 1694 an edition of Philostratus, but readily abandoned it to G. Olearius, (Ohlschlager), "to the joy," says F.A. Wolf, "of Olearius and of no one else." He supplied Graevius with collations of Cicero, and Joshua Barnes with a warning as to the spuriousness of the _Epistles of Euripides_, which was thrown away upon that blunderer, who printed the epistles and declared that no one could doubt their genuineness but a man _perfrictae frontis aut judicii imminuti_. Bentley supplied to Graevius's _Callimachus_ a masterly collection of the fragments with notes, published at Utrecht in 1697.

The _Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris_, the work on which Bentley's fame in great part rests, originated in the same casual way. William Wotton, being about to bring out in 1697 a second edition of his book on _Ancient and Modern Learning_, claimed of Bentley the fulfilment of an old promise to write a paper exposing the spuriousness of the _Epistles of Phalaris_. This paper was resented as an insult by the Christ Church editor of Phalaris, Charles Boyle, afterwards earl of Orrery, who in getting the MS. in the royal library collated for his edition (1695) had had a little quarrel with Bentley. Assisted by his college friends, particularly Atterbury, Boyle wrote a reply, "a tissue," says Dr Alexander Dyce (in his edition of Bentley's Works, 1836-1838), "of superficial learning, ingenious sophistry, dexterous malice and happy raillery." The reply was hailed by the public as crushing and went immediately into a second edition. It was incumbent on Bentley to rejoin. This he did (1699) in what Porson styles "that immortal dissertation," to which no answer was or could be given, although the truth of its conclusions was not immediately recognized. (See PHALARIS.)

In the year 1700 Bentley received that main preferment which, says De Quincey, "was at once his reward and his scourge for the rest of his life." The six commissioners of ecclesiastical patronage unanimously recommended Bentley to the crown for the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge. This college, the most splendid foundation in the university of Cambridge, and in the scientific and literary reputation of its fellows the most eminent society in either university, had in 1700 greatly fallen from its high estate. It was not that it was more degraded than the other colleges, but its former lustre made the abuse of endowments in its case more conspicuous. The eclipse had taken place during the reaction which followed 1660, and was owing to causes which were not peculiar to Trinity, but which influenced the nation at large. The names of John Pearson and Isaac Barrow, and, greater than either, that of Newton, adorn the college annals of this period. But these were quite exceptional men. They had not inspired the rank and file of fellows of Trinity with any of their own love for learning or science. Indolent and easy-going clerics, without duties, without a pursuit or any consciousness of the obligation of endowments, they haunted the college for the pleasant life and the good things they found there, creating sinecure offices in each other's favour, jobbing the scholarships and making the audits mutually pleasant. Any excuse served for a banquet at the cost of "the house," and the celibacy imposed by the statutes was made as tolerable as the decorum of a respectable position permitted. To such a society Bentley came, obnoxious as a St John's man and an intruder, unwelcome as a man of learning whose interests lay outside the walls of the college. Bentley replied to their concealed dislike with open contempt, and proceeded to ride roughshod over their little arrangements. He inaugurated many beneficial reforms in college usages and discipline, executed extensive improvements in the buildings, and generally used his eminent station for the promotion of the interests of learning both in the college and in the university. But this energy was accompanied by a domineering temper, an overweening contempt for the feelings and even for the rights of others, and an unscrupulous use of means when a good end could be obtained. Bentley, at the summit of classical learning, disdained to associate with men whom he regarded as illiterate priests. He treated them with contumely, while he was diverting their income to public purposes. The continued drain upon their purses--on one occasion the whole dividend of the year was absorbed by the rebuilding of the chapel--was the grievance which at last roused the fellows to make a resolute stand. After ten years of stubborn but ineffectual resistance within the college, they had recourse in 1710 to the last remedy--an appeal to the visitor, the bishop of Ely (Dr Moore). Their petition is an ill-drawn invective, full of general complaints and not alleging any special delinquency. Bentley's reply (_The Present State of Trinity College, &c._, 1710) is in his most crushing style. The fellows amended their petition and put in a fresh charge, in which they articled fifty-four separate breaches of the statutes as having been committed by the master. Bentley, called upon to answer, demurred to the bishop of Ely's jurisdiction, alleging that the crown was visitor. He backed his application by a dedication of his _Horace_ to the lord treasurer (Harley). The crown lawyers decided the point against him; the case was heard (1714) and a sentence of ejection from the mastership ordered to be drawn up, but before it was executed the bishop of Ely died and the process lapsed. The feud, however, still went on in various forms. In 1718 Bentley was deprived by the university of his degrees, as a punishment for failing to appear in the vice-chancellor's court in a civil suit; and it was not till 1724 that the law compelled the university to restore them. In 1733 he was again brought to trial before the bishop of Ely (Dr Greene) by the fellows of Trinity and was sentenced to deprivation, but the college statutes required the sentence to be exercised by the vice-master (Dr Walker), who was Bentley's friend and refused to act. In vain were attempts made to compel the execution of the sentence, and though the feud was kept up till 1738 or 1740 (about thirty years in all) Bentley remained undisturbed.