Part 11

1809. 4th symphony, _op._ 60 (B-flat). Violin concerto (D), _op._ 61 (also arranged by the composer for pianoforte). 5th symphony, _op._ 67 (C mi.) (1806), the first in which trombones appear. 6th symphony (Pastorale), _op._ 68; violoncello sonata, _op._ 69 (A). 2 pianoforte trios, _op._ 70 (D, E-flat).

1810. Pianoforte score of _Leonore_ (2nd version) published. String quartet, _op._ 74 (E-flat, called "Harp" because of _pizzicato_ passages in first movement). Fantasia, _op._ 77, interesting as consisting of a long and capricious series of dramatic beginnings and breakings off of themes, as if in search for a firm idea, which is at last found and developed as a set of variations. This scheme thus foreshadows the choral finale of the 9th symphony even more significantly than the Choral Fantasia.

Sonata, _op._ 78, F-sharp (extremely terse and subtle, and a great favourite with Beethoven, who preferred it to the C-sharp mi.).

1811. 5th pfte. concerto, _op._ 73, E-flat (_The Emperor_ not Beethoven's title). Fantasia for pfte., orchestra and chorus, _op._ 80. Sonata, _op._ 81a (_Les Adieux, l'absence, et le retour_), first movement written when the archduke Rudolph had to leave Vienna (4th May 1809), and the rest on his return on the 30th of January 1810. It was an anxious time both for Beethoven and his excellent royal friend, for whom he had great affection. (Battle of Wagram, 6th July 1809.) (We may here note that _op._ 81b is an unimportant and very early sextet.) The overture to _Egmont_, _op._ 84; _Christus am Oelberge_ (the Mount of Olives), _op._ 85, oratorio (probably composed between 1800 and its first performance in 1803).

1812. The rest of the _Egmont_ music, _op._ 84. 1st mass, _op._ 87 (C) (first performance, 1807).

1814. Final version of _Leonore_, performed as _Fidelio_ with great alterations, skilful revision of the libretto, very important new material in the music and a new overture.

1815. Sonata, _op._ 90 (E mi.).

1816. 7th symphony, _op._ 92 (A); 8th symphony, _op._ 93 (F) (Beethoven was planning a group of three of which the last was to be in D mi., which we shall find significant). String quartet, _op._ 95 (F mi.). Violin sonata, _op._ 96 (G). Pianoforte trio, _op._ 97 (B-flat); _Liederkreis_, _op._ 98.

1817. Sonata, _op._ 101 (the first indisputably in Beethoven's "third manner"). 2 violoncello sonatas, _op._ 102 (C, D, the second containing Beethoven's first modern instrumental strict fugue).

1819. Arrangement for string quintet, _op._ 104, of C mi. trio, _op._ 1, No. 3 (a wonderful study in translation, comparable only to Bach's arrangements and very unlike Beethoven's former essays of the kind). Sonata, _op._ 106 (B-flat), the largest and most symphonic pianoforte work extant, surpassed in length only by Bach's _Goldberg_ variations and Beethoven's 33 variations on Diabelli's waltz.

1821. 25 Scotch songs accompanied by pfte., V. and Vc., _op._ 108 (the first set of a large and much neglected collection, mostly posthumous, many of great interest and beauty and very Beethovenish, which has shocked persons who expect sympathetic insight into folk-music to prevail over Beethoven's artistic impulse). Sonata, _op._ 109 (E).

1822. Sonata, _op._ 110 (A-flat). Overture, _Die Weihe des Hauses_, _op._ 124 (C), a magnificent essay in orchestral free fugue, published 1825.

1823. Sonata, _op._ 111 (C mi., the last pianoforte sonata). 33 variations on a waltz by Diabelli, who sent his waltz round to fifty-one musicians in Austria asking each to contribute a variation; the whole to be published for the benefit of the widows and orphans left by the war. Beethoven answered with the greatest set ever written, and it was published in a separate volume. Among the other fifty composers were Schubert and an infant prodigy of eleven, Franz Liszt! The mass in D (_Missa Solemnis_), _op._ 123, begun in 1818 for the installation of the archduke Rudolph as archbishop of Olmutz, was not finished until 1826, two years after the installation. The 9th symphony, _op._ 125 D mi. (see note on 7th and 8th symphonies); sketches begun 1817; project of setting Schiller's _Freude_ already in Beethoven's mind before he left Bonn. 6 bagatelles, _op._ 126, Beethoven's last pianoforte work a very remarkable and unaccountably neglected group of carefully contrasted lyric pieces.

1824. String quartet, _op._ 127 (E-flat, published 1826).

1825. String quartet, _op._ 130 (B-flat), with finale, _op._ 133 (grand fugue); string quartet, _op._ 132 (A mi., with slow movement in Lydian mode, a _Heiliger Dankgesang_ on recovery from illness. Theme of finale first thought of as for instrumental finale to 9th symphony).

1826. String quartet, _op._ 131 (C-sharp, mi.). String quartet, op. 135 (F). New finale to _op._ 130, Beethoven's last composition. (D. F. T.)

AUTHORITIES.--A.W. Thayer, _Beethovens Leben_ (1866-1879); L. Nohl, _Life of Beethoven_ (Eng. trans., 1884), and _Letters_ (Eng. trans., 1866); Sir G. Grove, _Beethoven and his Symphonies_ (1896), and in Grove's _Dictionary of Music_.

BEETLE (O. Eng. _bityl_; connected with "bite"), a name commonly applied to those insects which possess horny wing-cases; it is used to denote the cockroaches (q.v.) (black beetles), as well as the true beetles or _Coleoptera_ (q.v.), the two belonging to different orders of _Insecta_.

The adjective "beetle-browed," and similarly "beetling" (of a cliff), are derived from the name of the insect. From another word (O. Eng. _betel_, connected with "beat") comes "beetle" in the sense of a mallet, and the "beetling-machine," which subjects fabrics to a hammering process.

BEETS, NIKOLAAS (1814-1903), Dutch poet, was born at Haarlem on the 13th of September 1814; constant references in his poems and sketches show how deeply the beauty of that town and its neighbourhood impressed his imagination. He studied theology in Leiden, but gave himself early to the cultivation of poetry. In his youth Beets was entirely carried away on the tide of Byronism which was then sweeping over Europe, and his early works--_Jose_ (1834), _Kuser_ (1835) and _Guy de Vlaming_ (1837)--are gloomy romances of the most impassioned type. But at the very same time he was beginning in prose the composite work of humour and observation which has made him famous, and which certainly had nothing that was in the least Byronic about it. This was the celebrated _Camera Obscura_ (1839), the most successful imaginative work which any Dutchman of the 18th century produced. This work, published under the pseudonym of "Hildebrand," goes back in its earliest inception to the year 1835, when Beets was only twenty-one. It consists of complete short stories, descriptive sketches, studies of peasant life--all instinct with humour and pathos, and written in a style of great charm; it has been reprinted in countless editions. Beets became a professor at the university of Leiden, and the pastor of a congregation in that city. In middle life he published further collections of verse--_Cornflowers_ (1853) and _New Poems_ (1857)--in which the romantic melancholy was found to have disappeared, and to have left in its place a gentle sentiment and a depth of religious feeling. In 1873-1875 Beets collected his works in three volumes. In April 1883 the honorary degree of LL.D. Edin. was conferred upon him. He died at Utrecht on the 13th of March 1903.

BEFANA (Ital., corrupted from _Epifania_, Epiphany), the Italian female counterpart of Santa Claus, the Christmas benefactor (St Nicholas). On Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, she plays the fairy godmother to the children, filling their stockings with presents. Tradition relates that she was too busy with house duties to come to the window to see the Three Wise Men of the East pass on their journey to pay adoration to the Saviour, excusing herself on the ground that she could see them on their return. They went back another way, and Befana is alleged to have been punished by being obliged to look for them for ever. Her legends seem to be rather mixed, for in spite of her Santa Claus character, her name is used by Italian mothers as a bogey to frighten the babies. It was the custom to carry her effigy through Italian towns on the eve of the Epiphany.

BEFFROY DE REIGNY, LOUIS ABEL (1757-1811), French dramatist and man of letters, was born at Laon on the 6th of November 1757. Under the name of "Cousin Jacques" he founded a periodical called _Les Lunes_ (1785-1787). The _Courrier des planetes ou Correspondance du Cousin Jacques avec le firmament_ (1788-1792) followed. _Nicodeme dans la lune, ou la revolution pacifique_ (1790) a three-act farce, is said to have had more than four hundred representations. In spite of his protests against the evils of the Revolution he escaped interference through the influence of his brother, Louis Etienne Beffroy, who was a member of the Convention. Of _La Petite Nanette_ (1795) and several other operas he wrote both the words and the music. His _Dictionnaire neologique_ (3 vols., 1795-1800) of the chief actors and events in the Revolution was interdicted by the police and remained incomplete. Beffroy spent his last years in retirement, dying in Paris on the 17th of December 1811.

BEGAS, KARL (1794-1854), German historical painter, was born at Heinsberg near Aix-la-Chapelle. His father, a retired judge, destined him for the legal profession, but the boy's tastes pointed definitely in another direction. Even at school he was remarked for his wonderful skill in drawing and painting, and in 1812 he was permitted to visit Paris in order to perfect himself in his art. He studied for eighteen months in the atelier of Gros and then began to work independently. In 1814 his copy of the Madonna della Sedia was bought by the king of Prussia, who was attracted by the young artist and did much to advance him. He was engaged to paint several large Biblical pictures, and in 1825, after his return from Italy, continued to produce paintings which were placed in the churches of Berlin and Potsdam. Some of these were historical pieces, but the majority were representations of Scriptural incidents. Begas was also celebrated as a portrait-painter, and supplied to the royal gallery a long series of portraits of eminent Prussian men of letters. At his death he held the post of court painter at Berlin. His son OSKAR (1828-1883) was also a painter and professor of painting at Berlin. REINHOLD, the sculptor, is noticed below.

BEGAS, REINHOLD (1831- ), German sculptor, younger son of Karl Begas, the painter, was born at Berlin on the 15th of July 1831. He received his early education (1846-1851) in the ateliers of C.D. Rauch and L. Wichmann. During a period of study in Italy, from 1856 to 1858, he was influenced by Bocklin and Lenbach in the direction of a naturalistic style in sculpture. This tendency was marked in the group "Borussia," executed for the facade of the exchange in Berlin, which first brought him into general notice. In 1861 he was appointed professor at the art school at Weimar, but retained the appointment only a few months. That he was chosen, after competition, to execute the statue of Schiller for the Gendarmen Markt in Berlin, was a high tribute to the fame he had already acquired; and the result, one of the finest statues in the German metropolis, entirely justified his selection. Since the year 1870, Begas has entirely dominated the plastic art in Prussia, but especially in Berlin. Among his chief works during this period are the colossal statue of Borussia for the Hall of Glory; the Neptune fountain in bronze on the Schlossplatz; the statue of Alexander von Humboldt, all in Berlin; the sarcophagus of the emperor Frederick III. in the mausoleum of the Friedenskirche at Potsdam; and, lastly, the national monument to the emperor William (see BERLIN), the statue of Bismarck before the Reichstag building, and several of the statues in the Siegesallee. He was also entrusted with the execution of the sarcophagus of the empress Frederick.

See A.G. Meyer, "Reinhold Begas" in _Kunstler-Monographien_, ed. H. Knackfuss, Heft xx. (Bielefeld, 1897; new ed., 1901).

BEGGAR, one who begs, particularly one who gains his living by asking the charitable contributions of others. The word, with the verbal form "to beg," in Middle English _beggen_, is of obscure history. The words appear first in English in the 13th century, and were early connected with "bag," with reference to the receptacle for alms carried by the beggars. The most probable derivation of the word, and that now generally accepted, is that it is a corruption of the name of the lay communities known as Beguines and Beghards, which, shortly after their establishment, followed the friars in the practice of mendicancy (see BEGUINES). It has been suggested, however, that the origin of "beg" and "beggars" is to be found in a rare Old English word, _bedecian_, of the same meaning, which is apparently connected with the Gothic _bidjan_, cf. German _betteln_; but between the occurrence of _bedecian_ at the end of the 9th century and the appearance of "beggar" and "beg" in the 13th, there is a blank, and no explanation can be given of the great change in form. For the English law relating to begging and its history, see CHARITY, POOR LAW and VAGRANCY.

BEGGAR-MY-NEIGHBOUR, a simple card-game. An ordinary pack is divided equally between two players, and the cards are held with the backs upwards. The first player lays down his top card face up, and the opponent plays his top card on it, and this goes on alternately as long as no court-card appears; but if either player turns up a court-card, his opponent has to play four ordinary cards to an ace, three to a king, two to a queen, one to a knave, and when he has done so the other player takes all the cards on the table and places them under his pack; if, however, in the course of this playing to a court-card, another court-card turns up, the adversary has in turn to play to this, and as long as neither has played a full number of ordinary cards to any court-card the trick continues. The player who gets all the cards into his hand is the winner.

BEGONIA (named from M. Begon, a French patron of botany), a large genus (natural order, Begoniaceae) of succulent herbs or undershrubs, with about three hundred and fifty species in tropical moist climates, especially South America and India. About one hundred and fifty species are known in cultivation, and innumerable varieties and hybrid forms. Many are tuberous. The flowers are usually showy and large, white, rose, scarlet or yellow in colour; they are unisexual, the male containing numerous stamens, the female having a large inferior ovary and two to four branched or twisted stigmas. The fruit is a winged capsule containing numerous minute seeds. The leaves, which are often large and variegated, are unequal-sided.

Cuttings from flowering begonias root freely in sandy soil, if placed in heat at any season when moderately firm; as soon as rooted, they should be potted singly into 3-in. pots, in sandy loam mixed with leaf-mould and sand. They should be stopped to keep them bushy, placed in a light situation, and thinly shaded in the middle of very bright days. In a few weeks they will require another shift. They should not be overpotted, but instead assisted by manure water. The pots should be placed in a light pit near the roof glass. The summer-flowering kinds will soon begin blooming, but the autumn and winter flowering sorts should be kept growing on in a temperature of from 55 deg. to 60 deg. by night, with a few degrees more in the day. The tuberous-rooted sorts require to be kept at rest in winter, in a medium temperature, almost but not quite dry. In February they should be potted in a compost of sandy loam and leaf-mould, and placed in a temperate pit until May or June, when they may be moved to the greenhouse for flowering. If they afterwards get at all pot-bound, weak manure should be applied. After blooming, the supply of water must be again slackened; in winter the plants should be stored in a dry place secure from frost; they are increased by late summer and autumn cuttings, after being partially cut down.

BEGUINES (Fr. _beguine_, Med. Lat. _beguina, begina, beghina_), at the present time the name of the members of certain lay sisterhoods established in the Netherlands and Germany, the enclosed district within which they live being known as a beguinage (Lat. _beginagium_). The equivalent male communities, called also Beguines (Fr. _beguins_, Lat. _beguini_), but more usually Beghards (Lat. _baghardi, beggardi, begehardi_, &c., O. Fr. _begard-i_, Flem. _beggaert_), have long ceased to exist. The origin of the names Beguine and Beghard has been the subject of much controversy. In the 15th century a legend arose that both name and organization were traceable to St Begga, daughter of Pippin of Landen, who consequently in 1630 was chosen by the Beguines as the patron saint of their association. In 1630 a professor of Louvain, Erycius Puteanus (van Putte), published a treatise, _De Begginarum apud Belgas instituto et nomine suffragium_, in which he produced three documents purporting to date from the 11th and 12th centuries, which seemed conclusively to prove that the Beguines existed long before Lambert le Begue. For two centuries these were accepted as genuine and are admitted as such even in the monumental work of Mosheim. In 1843, however, they were conclusively proved by the German scholar Hallmann, from internal evidence, to be forgeries of the 14th and 15th centuries. It is now universally admitted that both the institution and the name of the Beguines are derived from Lambert le Begue, who died about the year 1187. The confusion caused by the spurious documents of Puteanus, however, led, even when the legend of St Begga was rejected, to other suggestions for the derivation of the name, e.g. from an imaginary old Saxon word _beggen_, "to beg" or "pray," an explanation adopted even by Mosheim, or from _begue_, "stammering," a French word of unknown origin, which only brings us back to Lambert again, whose name of Le Begue, as the chronicler Aegidius, a monk of Orval (Aureae Vallis), tells us, simply means "the stammerer," _quia balbus erat_ (_Gesta pontificum Leodiensium, c_. A.D. 1251). Doubtless this coincidence gave a ready handle to the scoffing wits of the time, and among the numerous popular names given to the Beghards--_bons garcons, boni pueri, boni valeti_ and the like--we find also that of Lollards (from Flemish _lollen_, "to stammer").

About the year 1170 Lambert le Begue, a priest of Liege, who had devoted his fortune to founding the hospital and church of St Christopher for the widows and children of crusaders, conceived the idea of establishing an association of women, who, without taking the monastic vows, should devote themselves to a life of religion. The effect of his preaching was immense, and large numbers of women, many of them left desolate by the loss of their husbands on crusade, came under the influence of a movement which was attended with all the manifestations of what is now called a "revival." About the year 1180 Lambert gathered some of these women, who had been ironically styled "Beguines" by his opponents, into a semi-conventual community, which he established in a quarter of the city belonging to him around his church of St Christopher. The district was surrounded by a wall within which the Beguines lived in separate small houses, subject to no rule save the obligation of good works, and of chastity so long as they remained members of the community. After Lambert's death (c. 1187?) the movement rapidly spread, first in the Netherlands and afterwards in France--where it was encouraged by the saintly Louis IX.--Germany, Switzerland and the countries beyond. Everywhere the community was modelled on the type established at Liege. It constituted a little city within the city, with separate houses, and usually a church, hospital and guest-house, the whole being under the government of a mistress (_magistra_). Women of all classes were admitted; and, though there was no rule of poverty, many wealthy women devoted their riches to the common cause. The Beguines did not beg; and, when the endowments of the community were not sufficient, the poorer members had to support themselves by manual work, sick-nursing and the like.

The Beguine communities were fruitful soil for the missionary enterprise of the friars, and in the course of the 13th century the communities in France, Germany and upper Italy had fallen under the influence of the Dominicans and Franciscans to such an extent that in the Latin-speaking countries the tertiaries of these orders were commonly called _beguini_ and _beguinae_. The very looseness of their organization, indeed, made it inevitable that the Beguine associations should follow very diverse developments. Some of them retained their original character; others fell completely under the dominion of the friars, and were ultimately converted into houses of Dominican, Franciscan or Augustinian tertiaries; others again fell under the influence of the mystic movements of the 13th century, turned in increasing numbers from work to mendicancy (as being nearer the Christ-life), practised the most cruel self-tortures, and lapsed into extravagant heresies that called down upon them the condemnation of popes and councils.[1] All this tended to lower the reputation of the Beguines. During the 14th century, indeed, numerous new beguinages were established; but ladies of rank and wealth ceased to enter them, and they tended to become more and more mere almshouses for poor women. By the 15th century in many cases they had utterly sunk in reputation, their obligation to nurse the sick was quite neglected, and they had, rightly or wrongly, acquired the reputation of being mere nests of beggars and women of ill fame. At the Reformation the communities were suppressed in Protestant countries, but in some Catholic countries they still survive. The beguinages found here and there in Germany are now simply almshouses for poor spinsters, those in Holland (e.g. at Amsterdam and Breda) and Belgium preserve more faithfully the characteristics of earlier days. The beguinage of St Elizabeth at Ghent has some thousand sisters, and occupies quite a distinct quarter of the city, being surrounded by a wall and moat. The Beguines wear the old Flemish head-dress and a dark costume, and are conspicuous for their kindness among the poor and their sick nursing.