tendencies, and almost immediately afterwards was presented to the vicarage of Frome Selwood, Somersetshire. He is the author of a large number of theological works, of which the best known are—"Principles of the Book of Common Prayer;" "The Eucharist: its History, Doctrines, and Practice;" "Errors of Romanism;" "Lives of Fathers of the Church of the Fourth Century," and various sermons and pamphlets; has edited the "Theologian," "The Old Church Porch," &c., and has contributed largely to religious periodical literature. In 1871 the case of "Sheppard v. Bennett" came on for hearing before the Privy Council, and was decided in favour of Mr. Bennett's teaching on the subject of the Real Presence. Since then, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, having referred to it, was answered by Mr. Bennett in a pamphlet entitled "A Defence of the Catholic Faith."
BENNIGSEN, Rudolph Von, born at Lüneberg, Hanover, July 10, 1824, studied jurisprudence at Göttingen and Heidelberg, and qualified as an advocate, but entered the judiciary and rose to the functions of a judge at Göttingen. In 1855 the city of Aurich elected him to the Second Chamber of the Hanover Legislature, but the King refused him the indispensable consent of the Crown to accept that legislative office. Thereupon he resigned his judgeship, and being thus freed from the trammels of official life, he took his seat in the Parliament (1856), and at once assumed a position as leader of the Opposition. In 1859 Bennigsen and Miguel, with a few others, drew up and issued a programme or scheme of German unity. In this document it was declared that only Prussia could be at the head of a united Germany, and in fact Bennigsen advocated at this period that which Prince Bismarck long afterwards accomplished. The National-Verein held its first sitting Sept. 16, 1859, at the invitation of Bennigsen, and he himself was chosen President. The Frankfort Assembly formed the permanent organization of the National-Verein, and fixed its seat in the city of Coburg. At the time of its dissolution in 1866, it numbered 30,000 members, of whom 10,000 were from Prussia. In that year the organization of the North German Confederation making inevitable the speedy realization of the Empire, the Union had no further raison d'être, and it was accordingly dissolved. Bennigsen, who by the annexation of Hanover was made a Prussian, became a member both of the Prussian Lower Chamber and of the North German Reichstag. During the war of 1870 he was in confidential relations with the Prussian authorities, and undertook two important missions—one to the South German States, where he discussed the conditions of a possible unity; the other to the camp of Versailles in the winter of 1871, where the same negotiations were afterwards carried out to a practical result. In 1873 he was elected President of the Prussian House of Deputies. At the elections of 1877 the Socialist party opposed his candidature, but without success.
BENSON, The Most Rev. Edward White, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Metropolitan, son of Edward White Benson, Esq., of Birmingham Heath, and formerly of York, was born near Birmingham in 1829. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was successively Scholar and Fellow, and where he graduated B.A. in 1852, as a First Class in classical honours, and Senior Chancellor's Medallist, obtaining also the place of a Senior Optime in the mathematical tripos. He graduated M.A. in 1855, B.D. in 1862, and D.D. in 1867. He was for some years an assistant master
