ful in satisfying a cultured class by his written discourses, and in holding a popular audience by his spoken word. He was one of the secretaries (1857-79) and one of the visitors (1883-8) of Manchester New College; and a founder (1859) and the first secretary of the East Cheshire Missionary Association. In addition to denominational activities, he combined in an unusual degree the pursuits of a scholar with journalistic writing and public work. During the cotton famine of 1862-4 he was the special correspondent of the 'Daily News.' For many years he was a leader writer on the 'Liverpool Daily Post.' His want of sympathy with home rule led him to sever his connection with political journalism. In the management of University College, Liverpool, he took a leading part as vice-president. He was Hibbert lecturer in 1883, taking for his subject the Reformation. In February 1888 he received the degree of LL.D. from St. Andrews. His numerous avocations heavily taxed a robust constitution; in 1886 he spent six months in Italy; in 1887 his health was more seriously broken, and his congregation made provision for his taking a year's rest. He died at 13 Southhill Road, Liverpool, on 9 April 1888, and was buried on 12 April in the graveyard of the Ancient Chapel, Toxteth Park. A mural tablet to his memory was placed in Renshaw Street chapel. He married (4 June 1850) Mary Ellen, daughter of Michael Shipman, who survived him with a son, Lewis Beard, town clerk of Coventry, and six daughters.
Besides many separate sermons and lectures, he published:
- 'Outlines of Christian Doctrine,' 1859, 8vo.
- 'Port Royal: a Contribution to the History of Religion and Literature in France,' 1861, 2 vols. 8vo.
- 'Christianity in Common Life,' 1872, 12mo (addresses to working people).
- 'The Soul's Way to God,' 1875, 8vo (sermons).
- 'The Reformation … in its Relation to Modern Thought,' 1883, 8vo (Hibbert lecture).
Posthumous were:
- 'The Universal Christ,' 1888, 8vo (sermons).
- 'Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany until … the Diet of Worms,' 1879, 8vo (edited by John Frederick Smith).
He contributed to the 'Christian Reformer,' a monthly edited by Robert Brook Aspland [q. v.]; on its cessation he projected and edited the 'Theological Review' (1864-79). He translated into English Renan's Hibbert lecture (1880).
[Liverpool Daily Post, 10 April 1888; Christian Life, 14 April 1888; Evans's Record of the Provincial Assembly of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1896, pp. 72, 103; personal knowledge.]
BEARDSLEY, AUBREY VINCENT (1872–1898), artist in black and white, born in Buckingham Road, Brighton, on 24 Aug. 1872, was son of Mr. Vincent Paul Beardsley and his wife, Ellen Agnes (born Pitt). He was educated at Brighton. After leaving school he worked for a short time in an architect's office, which he left to become a clerk in the office of the Guardian Insurance Company. At about the age of eighteen he began to be known in a narrow circle by the strange designs which were soon to make him famous. His first chances of employment came to him through his friendship with Mr. F. H. Evans, the bookseller and publisher of Queen Street, London, E.C. His earliest important commission was one from Messrs. Dent & Co., to illustrate a two volume edition of the 'Morte d' Arthur.' For this he produced more than five hundred designs, taxing his strength and interest in his task to a dangerous point. At about the same time he contributed drawings to the 'Pall Mall Budget.' These were mostly theatrical, but they included portraits charges of Zola, Verdi, Jules Ferry, and others. He also drew for the 'Pall Mall Magazine.' Acting on the advice of influential friends, Sir E. Burne-Jones and M. Puvis de Chavannes among them, he now abandoned his connection with 'the City,' and devoted himself entirely to art. He worked for a time in Mr. Fred Brown's school, and on the foundation of the short-lived 'Yellow Book,' in 1894, accepted the post of its art editor. Many of his most original conceptions saw the light in its pages, wherein, moreover, he was not averse to playing with the public by offering them designs signed with strange names and displaying none of his usual characteristics. His connection with the 'Yellow Book' lasted little more than a year, but a few months later he joined Mr. Arthur Symons in the production of the 'Savoy,' which lived to see eight numbers (Jan.-Dec. 1896). To the 'Savoy' he contributed three poems and a prose fragment, 'Under the Hill,' a parody on the legend of Tannhaüser and the Venusberg. Much of his work for the 'Savoy' was produced at Dieppe, where he spent part of the summer of 1895 in the company of Mr. Arthur Symons and some other young writers and artists.
His later work included series of designs for Oscar Wilde's 'Salome,' for 'The Rape of the Lock'—a series suggested by Mr. Edmund Gosse, in which his strange fantasy reached the acme of elaboration—for 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' and for Ernest Dowson's 'Pierrot of the Minute.' His last work was
