Part 44

BECKWITH, JAMES CARROLL (1852-), American portrait-painter, was born at Hannibal, Missouri, on the 23rd of September 1852. He studied in the National Academy of Design, New York City, of which he afterwards became a member, and in Paris (1873-1878) under Carolus Duran. Returning to the United States in 1878, he gradually became a prominent figure in American art. He took an active part in the formation of the Fine Arts Society, and was president of the National Free Art League, which attempted to secure the repeal of the American duty on works of art. Among his portraits are those of W.M. Chase (1882), of Miss Jordan (1883), of Mark Twain, T.A. Janvier, General Schofield and William Walton. He decorated one of the domes of the Manufactures Building at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.

BECKWITH, SIR THOMAS SYDNEY (1772-1831), British general, was the son of Major-General John Beckwith, who was colonel of the 20th regiment (Lancashire Fusiliers) in the charge at Minden. In 1791 he entered the 71st regiment (then commanded by Colonel David Baird), in which he served in India and elsewhere until 1800, when he obtained a company in Colonel Coote Manningham's experimental regiment of riflemen, shortly afterwards numbered as the 95th Rifles and now called the Rifle Brigade. In 1802 he was promoted major, and in the following year lieutenant-colonel. Beckwith was one of the favourite officers of Sir John Moore in the famous camp of Shorncliffe, and aided that general in the training of the troops which afterwards became the Light Division. In 1806 he served in the expedition to Hanover, and in 1807 in that which captured Copenhagen. In 1806 the Rifles were present at Vimeira, and in the campaign of Sir John Moore they bore the brunt of the rearguard fighting. Beckwith took part in the great march of Craufurd to the field of Talavera, in the advanced guard fights on the Coa in 1810 and in the campaign in Portugal. On the formation of the Light Division he was given a brigade command in it. After the brilliant action of Sabugal, Beckwith had to retire for a time from active service, but the Rifles and the brigade he had trained and commanded added to their fame on every subsequent battlefield. In 1812 he went to Canada as assistant quartermaster-general, and he took part in the war against the United States. In 1814 he became major-general, and in 1815 was created K.C.B. In 1827 he was made colonel commandant of the Rifle Brigade. He went to India as commander-in-chief at Bombay in 1829, and was promoted lieutenant-general in the following year. He died on the 15th of January 1831 at Mahableshwar.

His elder brother, Sir GEORGE BECKWITH (1753-1823), distinguished himself as a regimental officer in the American War of Independence, and served subsequently in high administrative posts and in numerous successful military operations in the West Indies during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He was made a K.B. for his capture of Martinique in 1809, and attained the full rank of general in 1814. Sir George Beckwith commanded the forces in Ireland, 1816-1820. He died in London on the 20th of March 1823.

Their nephew, Major-General JOHN CHARLES BECKWITH (1789-1862), joined the 50th regiment in 1803, exchanging in 1804 into the 95th Rifles, with which regiment he served in the Peninsular campaigns of 1808-10. He was subsequently employed on the staff of the Light Division, and he was repeatedly mentioned in despatches, becoming in 1814 a brevet-major, and after the battle of Waterloo (in which he lost a leg) lieutenant-colonel and C.B. In 1820 he left active service. Seven years later an accident drew his attention to the Waldenses, whose past history and present condition influenced him so strongly that he settled in the valleys of Piedmont. The rest of his life was spent in the self-imposed task of educating the Waldenses, for whom he established and maintained a large number of schools, and in reviving the earlier faith of the people. In 1848 King Charles Albert made him a knight of the order of St Maurice and St Lazarus. He was promoted colonel in the British army in 1837 and major-general in 1846. He died on the 19th of July 1862 at La Torre, Piedmont.

BECKX, PIERRE JEAN (1795-1887), general of the Society of Jesus, was born at Sichem in Belgium on the 8th of February 1795, and entered the novitiate of the order at Hildesheim in 1819. His first important post was as procurator for the province of Austria, 1847; next year he became rector of the Jesuit college at Louvain, and, after serving as secretary to the provincials of Belgium and Austria, was elected head of the order in 1853. His tenure of office was marked by an increased zeal for missions in Protestant lands, and by the removal of the society's headquarters from Rome to Fiesole near Florence in 1870. His chief literary work was the often-translated _Month of Mary_ (Vienna, 1843). He retired in September 1883, being succeeded by Anthony M. Anderledy, a Swiss, who had seen service in the United States. He died at Rome on the 4th of March 1887.

BECQUE, HENRY FRANCOIS (1837-1899), French dramatist, was born on the 9th of April 1837 in Paris. He wrote the book of an opera _Sardanapale_ in imitation of Lord Byron for the music of M. Victorin Joncieres in 1867, but his first important work, _Michel Pauper_, appeared in 1870. The importance of this sombre drama was first realized when it was revived at the Odeon in 1886. _Les Corbeaux_ (1882) established Becque's position as an innovator, and in 1885 he produced his most successful play, _La Parisienne_. Becque produced little during the last years of his life, but his disciples carried on the tradition he had created. He died in May 1899.

See his _Querelles litteraires_ (1890), and _Souvenirs d'un auteur dramatique_ (1895), consisting chiefly of reprinted articles in which he does not spare his opponents. His _Theatre complet_ (3 vols., 1899) includes _L'Enfant prodigue_ (Vaudeville Theatre, 6th of Nov. 1868); _Michel Pauper_ (Theatre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, 17th of June 1870); _L'Enlevement_ (Vaudeville, 18th of Nov. 1871); _La Navette_ (Gymnase, 15th of Nov. 1878); _Les Honnetes Femmes_ (Gymnase, 1st of Jan. 1880); _Les Corbeaux_ (Comedie Francaise, 14th of Sept. 1882); _La Parisienne_ (Theatre de la Renaissance, 7th of Feb. 1885).

BECQUER, GUSTAVO ADOLFO (1836-1870), Spanish poet and romance-writer, was born at Seville on the 17th of February 1836. Left an orphan at an early age, he was educated by his godmother, refused to adopt any profession, and drifted to Madrid, where he obtained a small post in the civil service. He was dismissed for carelessness, became an incorrigible Bohemian, and earned a precarious living by translating foreign novels; he died in great poverty at Madrid on the 22nd of December 1870. His works were published posthumously in 1873. In such prose tales as _El Rayo de Luna_ and _La Mujer de piedra_, Becquer is manifestly influenced by Hoffmann, and as a poet he has analogies with Heine. He dwells in a fairyland of his own, crooning a weird elfin music which has no parallel in Spanish; his work is unfinished and unequal, but it is singularly free from the rhetoric characteristic of his native Andalusia, and its lyrical ardour is of a beautiful sweetness and sincerity.

BECQUEREL, the name of a French family, several members of which have been distinguished in chemical and physical research.

ANTOINE CESAR BECQUEREL (1788-1878), was born at Chatillon sur Loing on the 8th of March 1788. After passing through the Ecole Polytechnique he became _ingenieur-officier_ in 1808, and saw active service with the imperial troops in Spain from 1810 to 1812, and again in France in 1814. He then resigned from the army and devoted the rest of his life to scientific investigation. His earliest work was mineralogical in character, but he soon turned his attention to the study of electricity and especially of electrochemistry. In 1837 he received the Copley medal from the Royal Society "for his various memoirs on electricity, and

## particularly for those on the production of metallic sulphurets and

sulphur by the long-continued action of electricity of very low tension," which it was hoped would lead to increased knowledge of the "recomposition of crystallized bodies, and the processes which may have been employed by nature in the production of such bodies in the mineral kingdom." In biological chemistry he worked at the problems of animal heat and at the phenomena accompanying the growth of plants, and he also devoted much time to meteorological questions and observations. He was a prolific writer, his books including _Traite d'electricite et du magnetisme_ (1834-1840), _Traite de physique dans ses rapports avec la chimie_ (1842), _Elements de l'electro-chimie_ (1843), _Traite complet du magnetisme_ (1845), _Elements de physique terrestre et de meteorologie_ (1847), and _Des climats et de l'influence qu'exercent les sols boises et deboises_ (1853). He died on the 18th of January 1878 in Paris, where from 1837 he had been professor of physics at the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle.

His son, ALEXANDRE EDMOND BECQUEREL (1820-1891), was born in Paris on the 24th of March 1820, and was in turn his pupil, assistant and successor at the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle; he was also appointed professor at the short-lived Agronomic Institute at Versailles in 1849, and in 1853 received the chair of physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. Edmond Becquerel was associated with his father in much of his work, but he himself paid special attention to the study of light, investigating the photochemical effects and spectroscopic characters of solar radiation and the electric light, and the phenomena of phosphorescence, particularly as displayed by the sulphides and by compounds of uranium. It was in connexion with these latter inquiries that he devised his phosphoroscope, an apparatus which enabled the interval between exposure to the source of light and observation of the resulting effects to be varied at will and accurately measured. He published in 1867-1868 a treatise in two volumes on _La Lumiere, ses causes et ses effets_. He also investigated the diamagnetic and paramagnetic properties of substances; and was keenly interested in the phenomena of electrochemical decomposition, accumulating much evidence in favour of Faraday's law and proposing a modified statement of it which was intended to cover certain apparent exceptions. He died in Paris on the 11th of May 1891.

ANTOINE HENRI BECQUEREL (1852-1908), son of the last-named, who succeeded to his chair at the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle in 1892, was born in Paris on the 15th of December 1852, studied at the Ecole Polytechnique, where he was appointed a professor in 1895, and in 1875 entered the department _des ponts et chaussees_, of which in 1894 he became _ingenieur en chef_. He was distinguished as the discoverer of radioactivity, having found in 1896 that uranium at ordinary temperatures emits an invisible radiation which in many respects resembles Rontgen rays, and can affect a photographic plate after passing through thin plates of metal. For his researches in this department he was in 1903 awarded a Nobel prize jointly with Pierre Curie. He also engaged in work on magnetism, the polarization of light, phosphorescence and the absorption of light in crystals. He died at Croisic in Brittany on the 25th of August 1908.

BED (a common Teutonic word, cf. German _Bett_, probably connected with the Indo-European root _bhodh_, seen in the Lat. _fodere_, to dig; so "a dug-out place" for safe resting, or in the same sense as a garden "bed"), a general term for a resting or sleeping place for men and animals, and in particular for the article of household furniture for that object, and so used by analogy in other senses, involving a supporting surface or layer. The accompaniments of a domestic bed (bedding, coverlets, &c.) have naturally varied considerably in different times, and its form and decoration and social associations have considerable historical interest. The Egyptians had high bedsteads which were ascended by steps, with bolsters or pillows, and curtains to hang round. Often there was a head-rest as well, semi-cylindrical and made of stone, wood or metal. Assyrians, Medes and Persians had beds of a similar kind, and frequently decorated their furniture with inlays or _appliques_ of metal, mother-of-pearl and ivory. The oldest account of a bedstead is probably that of Ulysses which Homer describes him as making in his own house, but he also mentions the inlaying of the woodwork of beds with gold, silver and ivory. The Greek bed had a wooden frame, with a board at the head and bands of hide laced across, upon which skins were placed. At a later period the bedstead was often veneered with expensive woods; sometimes it was of solid ivory veneered with tortoise-shell and with silver feet; often it was of bronze. The pillows and coverings also became more costly and beautiful; the most celebrated places for their manufacture were Miletus, Corinth and Carthage. Folding beds, too, appear in the vase paintings. The Roman mattresses were stuffed with reeds, hay, wool or feathers; the last was used towards the end of the Republic, when custom demanded luxury. Small cushions were placed at the head and sometimes at the back. The bedsteads were high and could only be ascended by the help of steps. They were often arranged for two persons, and had a board or railing at the back as well as the raised portion at the head. The counterpanes were sometimes very costly, generally purple embroidered with figures in gold; and rich hangings fell to the ground masking the front. The bedsteads themselves were often of bronze inlaid with silver, and Elagabalus, like some modern Indian princes, had one of solid silver. In the walls of some of the houses at Pompeii bed niches are found which were probably closed by curtains or sliding partitions. The marriage bed, _lectus genialis_, was much decorated, and was placed in the atrium opposite the door. A low pallet-bed used for sick persons was known as _scimpodium_. Other forms of couch were called _lectus_, but were not beds in the modern sense of the word except the _lectus funebris_, on which the body of a dead person lay in state for seven days, clad in a toga and rich garments, and surrounded by flowers and foliage. This bed rested on ivory legs, over which purple blankets embroidered with gold were spread, and was placed in the atrium with the foot to the door and with a pan of incense by its side. The ancient Germans lay on the floor on beds of leaves covered with skins, or in a kind of shallow chest filled with leaves and moss. In the early middle ages they laid carpets on the floor or on a bench against the wall, placed upon them mattresses stuffed with feathers, wool or hair, and used skins as a covering. They appear to have generally lain naked in bed, wrapping themselves in the large linen sheets which were stretched over the cushions. In the 13th century luxury increased, and bedsteads were made of wood much decorated with inlaid, carved and painted ornament. They also used folding beds, which served as couches by day and had cushions covered with silk laid upon leather. At night a linen sheet was spread and pillows placed, while silk-covered skins served as coverlets. Curtains were hung from the ceiling or from an iron arm projecting from the wall. The Carolingian MSS. show metal bedsteads much higher at the head than at the feet, and this shape continued in use till the 13th century in France, many cushions being added to raise the body to a sloping position. In the 12th-century MSS. the bedsteads appear much richer, with inlays, carving and painting, and with embroidered coverlets and mattresses in harmony. Curtains were hung above the bed, and a small hanging lamp is often shown. In the 14th century the woodwork became of less importance, being generally entirely covered by hangings of rich materials. Silk, velvet and even cloth of gold were much used. Inventories from the beginning of the 14th century give details of these hangings lined with fur and richly embroidered. Then it was that the tester bed made its first appearance, the tester being slung from the ceiling or fastened to the walls, a form which developed later into a room within a room, shut in by double curtains, sometimes even so as to exclude all draughts. The space between bed and wall was called the _ruelle_, and very intimate friends were received there. In the 15th century beds became very large, reaching to 7 or 8 ft. by 6 or 7 ft. Viollet-le-Duc says that the mattresses were filled with pea-shucks or straw--neither wool nor horsehair is mentioned--but feathers also were used. At this time great personages were in the habit of carrying most of their property about with them, including beds and bed-hangings, and for this reason the bedsteads were for the most part mere frameworks to be covered up; but about the beginning of the 16th century bedsteads were made lighter and more decorative, since the lords remained in the same place for longer periods. In the museum at Nancy is a fine bedstead of this period which belonged to Antoine de Lorraine. It has a carved head and foot as well as the uprights which support the tester. Another is in the Musee Cluny ascribed to Pierre de Gondi, very architectural in design, with a bracketed cornice, and turned and carved posts; at the head figures of warriors watch the sleeper. Louis XIV. had an enormous number of sumptuous beds, as many as 413 being described in the inventories of his palaces. Some of them had embroideries enriched with pearls, and figures on a silver or golden ground. The carving was the work of Proux or Caffieri, and the gilding by La Baronniere. The great bed at Versailles had crimson velvet curtains on which "The Triumph of Venus" was embroidered. So much gold was used that the velvet scarcely showed. Under the influence of Madame de Maintenon "The Sacrifice of Abraham," which is now on the tester, replaced "The Triumph of Venus." In the 17th century, which has been called "the century of magnificent beds," the style _a la duchesse_, with tester and curtains only at the head, replaced the more enclosed beds in France, though they lasted much longer in England. In the 18th century feather pillows were first used as coverings in Germany, which in the fashions of the bed and the curious etiquette connected with the bedchamber followed France for the most part. The beds were _a la duchesse_, but in France itself there was great variety both of name and shape--the _lit a alcove, lit d'ange_, which had no columns, but a suspended tester with curtains drawn back, _lit a l'Anglaise_, which looked like a high sofa by day, _lit en baldaquin_, with the tester fixed against the wall, _lit a couronne_ with a tester shaped like a crown, a style which appeared under Louis XVI., and was fashionable under the Restoration and Louis Philippe, and _lit a l'imperiale_, which had a curved tester, are a few of their varieties. The _lit en baldaquin_ of Napoleon I. is still at Fontainebleau, and the Garde Meuble contains several richly carved beds of a more modern date. The custom of the "bed of justice" upon which the king of France reclined when he was present in parliament, the princes being seated, the great officials standing, and the lesser officials kneeling, was held to denote the royal power even more than the throne. Louis XI. is credited with its first use, and the custom lasted till the end of the monarchy. From the habit of using this bed to hear petitions, etc., came the usage of the _grand lit_, which was provided wherever the king stayed, called also _lit de parement_ or _lit de parade_, rather later. Upon this bed the dead king lay in state. The beds of the king and queen were saluted by the courtiers as if they were altars, and none approached them even when there was no railing to prevent it. These railings were apparently placed for other than ceremonial reasons originally, and in the accounts of several castles in the 15th century mention is made of a railing to keep dogs from the bed. In the _chambre de parade_, where the ceremonial bed was placed, certain persons, such as ambassadors or great lords, whom it was desired to honour, were received in a more intimate fashion than the crowd of courtiers. The _petit lever_ was held in the bedroom itself, the _grand lever_ in the _chambre de parade_. At Versailles women received their friends in their beds, both before and after childbirth, during periods of mourning, and even directly after marriage--in fact in any circumstances which were thought deserving of congratulation or condolence. During the 17th century this curious custom became general, perhaps to avoid the tiresome details of etiquette. Portable beds were used in high society in France till the end of the _ancien regime_. The earliest of which mention has been found belonged to Charles the Bold (see _Memoirs_ of Philippe de Comines). They had curtains over a light framework, and were in their way as fine as the stationary beds. Iron beds appear in the 18th century; the advertisements recommend them as free from the insects which sometimes infested wooden bedsteads, but one is mentioned in the inventory of the furniture of the castle of Nerac in 1569, "un lit de fer et de cuivre, avec quatre petites colonnes de laiton, ensemble quatre satyres de laiton, quatre petits vases de laiton pour mettre sur les colonnes; dedans le dit lit il y a la figure d'Olopherne ensemble de Judith, qui sont d'albatre." In Scotland, Brittany and Holland the closed bed with sliding or folding shutters has persisted till our own day, and in England--where beds were commonly quite simple in form--the four-poster, with tester and curtains all round, was the usual citizen's bed till the middle of the 19th century. Many fine examples exist of 17th-century carved oak bedsteads, some of which have found their way into museums. The later forms, in which mahogany was usually the wood employed, are much less architectural in design. Some exceedingly elegant mahogany bedsteads were designed by Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, and there are signs that English taste is returning to the wooden bedstead in a lighter and less monumental form. (J. P.-B.)

BED, in geology, a term for certain kinds of rock usually found to be arranged in more or less distinct layers; these are the beds of rock or strata. Normally, the bedding of rocks is horizontal or very nearly so; when the upper and lower surfaces of a bed are parallel, the bedding is said to be regular; if it is thickest at one point and thins away thence in every direction, the bedding is lenticular. Beds may be thick (50 ft. or more) or so thin as to be like sheets of paper, e.g. paper shales, such thin beds being often termed layers or laminae; intermediate regular varieties may be called flags, flagstones or tilestones. In fine-grained rocks the bedding is usually thinner and more regular than in coarser rocks, such as sandstones and grits. Bedding is confined to rocks which have been formed under water or by the agency of wind; these are the "stratified" rocks.