[1] On double marriage in early romance see G. Paris, "La Legende du
mari aux deux femmes," in _La Poesie du moyen age_ (2nd series,
Paris, 1895); and A. Nutt, "The Lai of Eliduc," &c, in _Folk-Lore_,
vol. iii. (1892).
BEWDLEY, a market town and municipal borough in the Bewdley
parliamentary division of Worcestershire, England; 137 m. N.W. by W.
from London and 17-1/4 N. by W. from Worcester by rail. Pop. (1901)
2866. The Worcester-Shrewsbury line of the Great Western is here joined
by lines east from Birmingham and west from Tenbury. Bewdley is
pleasantly situated on the sloping right bank of the Severn, on the
eastern border of the forest of Wyre. A bridge by Telford (1797) crosses
the river. A free grammar school, founded in 1591, was re-founded by
James I. in 1606, and possesses a large library bequeathed in 1812. The
town manufactures combs and horn goods, brass and iron wares, leather,
malt, bricks and ropes. The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and
12 councillors. Area, 2105 acres.
Bewdley (i.e. Beaulieu) is probably referred to in the Domesday survey
as "another Ribbesford," and was held by the king. The manor, then
called _Bellus Locus_ or Beaulieu on account of its beautiful
situation, was afterwards granted to the Mortimers, in whose family it
continued until it was merged in the crown on the accession of Edward
IV. It is from this time that Bewdley dates its importance. Through
its situation on the Severn it was connected with the sea, and in 1250
a bridge, the only one between it and Worcester, was built across the
river and added greatly to the commerce of the town. From Edward IV.
Bewdley received its charter in 1472, and there appears to be no
evidence that it was a borough before this time. Other charters were
granted in 1605, 1685 and 1708. By James I.'s charter the burgesses
sent one member to parliament, and continued to do so until 1885. A
fair and a market on Wednesday were granted by Edward III. in 1373 to
his grand-daughter Philippa, wife of Edmund Mortimer, and confirmed to
Richard, duke of York, by Henry VI. Edward IV. also granted the
burgesses a market on Saturdays, and three fairs, which were confirmed
to them by Henry VII. Coal-mines were worked in Bewdley as early as
1669, and the town was formerly noted for making caps.
BEWICK, THOMAS (1753-1828), English wood-engraver, was born at
Cherryburn, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in August 1753. His father rented a
small colliery at Mickleybank, and sent his son to school at Mickley. He
proved a poor scholar, but showed, at a very early age, a remarkable
talent for drawing. He had no tuition in the art, and no models save
natural objects. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to Mr Beilby,
an engraver in Newcastle. In his office Bewick engraved on wood for Dr
Hutton a series of diagrams illustrating a treatise on mensuration. He
seems thereafter to have devoted himself entirely to engraving on wood,
and in 1775 he received a premium from the Society for the Encouragement
of Arts and Manufactures for a woodcut of the "Huntsman and the Old
Hound." In 1784 appeared his _Select Fables_, the engravings in which,
though far surpassed by his later productions, were incomparably
superior to anything that had yet been done in that line. The
_Quadrupeds_ appeared in 1790, and his great achievement, that with
which his name is inseparably associated, the _British Birds_, was
published from 1797-1804. Bewick, from his intimate knowledge of the
habits of animals acquired during his constant excursions into the
country, was thoroughly qualified to do justice to his great task. Of
his other productions the engravings for Goldsmith's _Traveller_ and
_Deserted Village_, for Parnell's _Hermit_, for Somerville's _Chase_,
and for the collection of _Fables of Aesop and Others_, may be specially
mentioned. Bewick was for many years in partnership with his former
master, and in later life had numerous pupils, several of whom gained
distinction as engravers. He died on the 8th of November 1828.
His autobiography, _Memoirs of Thomas Bewick, by Himself_, appeared in
1862.
BEXHILL, a municipal borough and watering-place in the Rye parliamentary
division of Sussex, England, 62 m. S.E. by S. from London, on the
London, Brighton & South Coast, and the South-Eastern & Chatham
railways. Pop. (1891) 5206; (1901) 12,213. The ancient village, with the
Norman and Early English church of St Peter, lies inland on the slope of
the low hills fringing the coast, but the watering-place on the shore
has developed very rapidly since about 1884, owing to the exertions of
Earl De la Warr, who owns most of the property. It has a marine parade,
pier, golf links, and the usual appointments of a seaside resort, while
the climate is bracing and the neighbouring country pleasant. Bexhill
was incorporated in 1902, the corporation consisting of a mayor, 6
aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 8013 acres.
BEXLEY, NICHOLAS VANSITTART, BARON (1766-1851), English politician, was
the fifth son of Henry Vansittart (d. 1770), governor of Bengal, and was
born in London on the 29th of April 1766. Educated at Christ Church,
Oxford, he took his degree in 1787, and was called to the bar at
Lincoln's Inn in 1791. He began his public career by writing pamphlets
in defence of the administration of William Pitt, especially on its
financial side, and in May 1796 became member of parliament for
Hastings, retaining his seat until July 1802, when he was returned for
Old Sarum. In February 1801 he was sent on a diplomatic errand to
Copenhagen, and shortly after his return was appointed joint secretary
to the treasury, a position which he retained until the resignation of
Addington's ministry in April 1804. Owing to the influence of his
friend, Ernest, duke of Cumberland, he became secretary for Ireland
under Pitt in January 1805, resigning his office in the following
September. With Addington, now Viscount Sidmouth, he joined the
government of Fox and Grenville as secretary to the treasury in February
1806, leaving office with Sidmouth just before the fall of the ministry
in March 1807. During these and the next few years Vansittart's
reputation as a financier was gradually rising. In 1809 he proposed and
carried without opposition in the House of Commons thirty-eight
resolutions on financial questions, and only his loyalty to Sidmouth
prevented him from joining the cabinet of Spencer Perceval as chancellor
of the exchequer in October 1809. He opposed an early resumption of cash
payments in 1811, and became chancellor of the exchequer when the earl
of Liverpool succeeded Perceval in May 1812. Having forsaken Old Sarum,
he had represented Helston from November 1806 to June 1812; and after
being member for East Grinstead for a few weeks, was returned for
Harwich in October 1812.
When Vansittart became chancellor of the exchequer the country was
burdened with heavy taxation and an enormous debt. Nevertheless, the
continuance of the war compelled him to increase the custom duties and
other taxes, and in 1813 he introduced a complicated scheme for dealing
with the sinking fund. In 1816, after the conclusion of peace, a large
decrease in taxation was generally desired, and there was a loud outcry
when the chancellor proposed only to reduce, not to abolish, the
property or income tax. The abolition of this tax, however, was carried
in parliament, and Vansittart was also obliged to remit the extra tax on
malt, meeting a large deficiency principally by borrowing. He devoted
considerable attention to effecting real or supposed economies with
regard to the national debt. He carried an elaborate scheme for handing
over the payment of naval and military pensions to contractors, who
would be paid a fixed annual sum for forty-five years; but no one was
found willing to undertake this contract, although a modified plan on
the same lines was afterwards adopted. Vansittart became very unpopular
in the country, and he resigned his office in December 1822. His system
of finance was severely criticized by Huskisson, Tierney, Brougham, Hume
and Ricardo. On his resignation Liverpool offered Vansittart the post of
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. Accepting this offer in February
1823, he was created Baron Bexley in March, and granted a pension of
L3000 a year. He resigned in January 1828. In the House of Lords Bexley
took very little part in public business, although he introduced the
Spitalfields weavers bill in 1823, and voted for the removal of Roman
Catholic disabilities in 1824. He took a good deal of interest in the
British and Foreign Bible Mission, the Church Missionary Society and
kindred bodies, and assisted to found King's College, London. He died at
Foot's Cray, Kent, on the 8th of February 1851. His wife, whom he
married in July 1806, was Isabella (d. 1810), daughter of William Eden,
1st Baron Auckland, and as he had no issue the title became extinct on
his death. There are nine volumes of Vansittart's papers in the British
Museum.
See Spencer Walpole, _History of England_ (London, 1890); S.C. Buxton,
_Finance and Politics_ (London, 1888).
BEXLEY, an urban district in the Dartford parliamentary division of
Kent, England, 12 m. S.E. by E. of London by the South-Eastern & Chatham
railway. Pop. (1901) 12,918. Bexley, which is mentioned in Domesday
Book, has had a church since the 9th century. The present church of St
Mary is Early English and later. With the rental of the manor of Bexley,
William Camden, the antiquary, founded the ancient history professorship
at Oxford. Hall Place, which contains a fine Jacobean staircase and
oak-panelled hall, is said to occupy the site of the dwelling-place of
the Black Prince. The course of Watling Street may be traced over Bexley
Heath, where, too, there exist deep pits, widening into vaults below,
and probably of British origin.
BEY (a modern Turk, word, the older form being _beg_, cf. Pers. _baig_),
the administrator of a district, now generally an honorific title
throughout the Turkish empire; the granting of this in Egypt is made by
the sultan of Turkey through the khedive. In Tunis "bey" has become the
hereditary title of the reigning sovereigns (see TUNISIA).
BEYBAZAR, the chief town of a _kaza_ of the Angora vilayet in Asiatic
Turkey, situated on an affluent of the Sakaria (anc. _Sangarius_), about
52 m. W. of Angora. It corresponds to the anc. _Lagania_, renamed
_Anastasiopolis_ under the emperor Anastasius (491-518), a bishopric by
the 5th century. Its well-built wooden houses cover the slopes of three
hills at the mouth of a gorge filled with fruit gardens and vineyards.
The chief products are rice, cotton and fruits. From Beybazar come the
fine pears sold in Constantinople as "Angora pears"; its musk-melons are
equally esteemed; its grapes are used only for a sweetmeat called
_jevizli-sujuk_ ("nutty fruit sausage"). There are few remains of
antiquity apart from numerous rock-cut chambers lining the banks of the
stream. Pop. about 4000 to 5000.
BEYLE, MARIE HENRI (1783-1842), better known by his _nom de plume_ of
STENDHAL, French author, was born at Grenoble on the 23rd of January
1783. With his father, who was an _avocat_ in the parlement of Grenoble,
he was never on good terms, but his intractable disposition sufficiently
explains his unhappy childhood and youth. Until he was twelve years old
he was educated by a priest, who succeeded in inspiring him with a
lasting hatred of clericalism. He was then sent to the newly established
Ecole Centrale at Grenoble, and in 1799 to Paris with a letter of
introduction to the Daru family, with which the Beyles were connected.
Pierre Daru offered him a place in the ministry for war, and with the
brothers Daru he followed Napoleon to Italy. Most of his time in Italy
was spent at Milan, a city for which he conceived a lasting attachment.
Much of his _Chartreuse de Parme_ seems to be autobiographical of this
part of his life.
He was a spectator of the battle of Marengo, and afterwards enlisted in
a dragoon regiment. With rapid promotion he became adjutant to General
Michaud; but after the peace of Amiens in 1802 he returned to study in
Paris. There he met an actress, Melanie Guilbert, whom he followed to
Marseilles. His father cut off his supplies on hearing of this escapade,
and Beyle was reduced to serving as clerk to a grocer. Melanie Guilbert,
however, soon abandoned him to marry a Russian, and Beyle returned to
Paris. Through the influence of Daru he obtained a place in the
commissariat, which he filled with some distinction from 1806 to 1814.
Charged with raising a levy in Brunswick of five million francs, he
extracted seven; and during the retreat from Moscow he discharged his
duties with efficiency. On the fall of Napoleon he refused to accept a
place under the new regime, and retired to Milan, where he met Silvio
Pellico, Manzoni, Lord Byron and other men of note. At Milan he
contracted a _liaison_ with a certain Angelina P., whom he had admired
fruitlessly during his earlier residence in that city. In 1814 he
published, under the pseudonym of Alexandre Cesar Bombet, his _Lettres
ecrites de Vienne en Aulriche sur le celebre compositeur, Joseph Haydn,
suivies d'une vie de Mozart, et de considerations sur Metastase et
l'etat present de la musique en Italie_. His letters on Haydn were
borrowed from the _Haydini_ (1812) of Joseph Carpani, and the section on
Mozart had no greater claim to originality. The book was reprinted
(1817) as _Vies de Haydn, Mozart et Metastase_. His _Histoire de la
peinture en Italic_ (2 vols., 1817) was originally dedicated to
Napoleon.
His friendship with some Italian patriots brought him in 1821 under the
notice of the Austrian authorities, and he was exiled from Milan. In
Paris he felt himself a stranger, as he had never recognized French
contemporary art in literature, music or painting. He frequented,
however, many literary salons in Paris, and found some friends in the
"_ideologues_" who gathered round Destutt de Tracy. He was the most
closely allied with Prosper Merimee, a _dilettante_ and an ironist like
himself. He published at this time his _Essai sur l'amour_ (1822), of
which only seventeen copies were sold in eleven years, though it
afterwards became famous, _Racine et Shakespeare_ (1823-1825), _Vie de
Rossini_ (1824), _D'un nouveau complot centre les industriels_ (1825),
_Promenades dans Rome_ (1829), and his first novel, _Armance, ou
quelques scenes de Paris en 1827_ (1827). After the Revolution of 1830
he was appointed consul at Trieste, but the Austrian government refused
to accept him, and he was sent to Civita Vecchia instead. _Le Rouge et
le noir, chronique du XIX^e siecle_ (2 vols., 1830) appeared in Paris
after his departure, but attracted small notice. He had published in
1838 _Memoires d'un touriste_, and in 1839 _La Chartreuse de Parme_ (2
vols.), which was the last of his publications, and the first to secure
any popular success, though his earlier writings had been regarded as
significant by a limited public. It was enthusiastically reviewed by
Balzac in his _Revue Parisienne_ (1840). Beyle remained at Civita
Vecchia, discharging his duties as consul perfunctorily and with
frequent intervals of absence until his death, which took place in Paris
on the 23rd of March 1842. He wrote his own epitaph,[1] describing
himself as a Milanese.
His posthumous works include a fragmentary _Vie de Napoleon_ (1875);
_Melanges d'art et de litterature_ (1867); _Chroniques italiennes_
(1885), including "_L'Abbesse de Castro_," "_Les Cenci_," "_Vittoria
Accoramboni_," "_Vanina Vanini_," "_La Duchesse de Palliano_," some of
which has appeared separately; _Romans et nouvelles_ and _Nouvelles
inedites_ (1855); _Correspondance_ (2 vols., 1855); Lamiel (ed. C.
Stryienski, 1889); his _Journal 1801-1814_ (ed. Stryienski and F. de
Nion, 1888), of which the section dealing with the Russian and German
campaigns is unfortunately lost; _Vie de Henri Brulard_ (1890), a
disguised autobiography, chiefly the history of his numerous love
affairs; _Lettres intimes_ (1892); _Lucien Leuwen_ (ed. J. de Mitty,
1894); _Souvenirs d'egotisme_ (ed. C. Stryienski, 1892), autobiography
and unpublished letters.
Stendhal's reputation practically rests on the two novels _Le Rouge et
le noir_ and _La Chartreuse de Parme_. In the former of these he
borrowed his plot from events which had actually happened some years
previously. Julien Sorel in the novel is tutor in a noble family and
seduces his pupil's mother. He eventually kills her to avenge a letter
accusing him to the family of his betrothed, Mlle de la Mole. Julien is
a picture of Beyle as he imagined himself to be. The _Chartreuse de
Parme_ has less unity of purpose than _Le Rouge et le noir_. For its
setting the author drew largely on his own experiences. Fabrice's
experiences at Waterloo are his own in the Italian campaign, and the
countess Pietranera is his Milanese Angelina. But of the two novels it
is more picturesque and has been more popular. Stendhal's real vogue
dates from the early sixties, but his importance is essentially
literary. In spite of his egotism and the limitations of his ideas, his
acute analysis of the motives of his personages has appealed to
successive generations of writers, and a great part of the development
of the French novel must be traced to him. Brunetiere has pointed out
(_Manual of French Lit._, Eng. trans., 1898) that Stendhal supplied the
Romanticists with the notion of the interchange of the methods and
effects of poetry, painting and music, and that in his worship of
Napoleon he agreed with their glorification of individual energy.
Stendhal, however, thoroughly disliked the Romanticists, though
Sainte-Beuve acknowledged (_Causeries du lundi_, vol. ix.) that his
books gave ideas. Taine (_Essais de critique et d'histoire_, 1857) found
in him a great psychologist; Zola (_Romanciers naturalistes_, 1881)
actually claimed him as the father of the naturalist school; and Paul
Bourget (_Essais de psychologie contemporaine_, 1883) cited _Le Rouge et
le noir_ as one of the classic novels of analysis.
The 1846 edition of _La Chartreuse de Parme_ contains a prefatory
notice by R. Colomb, and a reprint of Balzac's article. In addition to
the authorities already mentioned see the essay on Beyle (1850) by
Prosper Merimee; A.A. Paton, _Henry Beyle, a Critical and Biographical
Study_ (1874); Adolphe Paupe, _Histoire des oeuvres de Stendhal_
(1903); A. Chuquet, _Stendhal-Beyle_ (1902); a review by R. Doumic
(_Revue des deux mondes_, February 1902), deprecating the excessive
attention paid to Beyle's writings; and Edouard Rod, _Stendhal_ (1892)
in the "Grands ecrivains francais" series. See also _Correspondance de
Stendhal, 1800-1842_, with preface by M. Barres (Paris, 1908).