540 BENTIVOGLIO brother, born Sept. 8, 1796, as general in the Crimea. BESTIVOGLIO, the name of an Italian family once sovereign in Bologna, and claiming de- scent from a natural son of the emperor Frede- rick II. Giovanni was proclaimed lord of Bo- logna in 1401, but was expelled and killed the next year. Annibale, his grandson, was placed at the head of the government there in 1438, and was murdered by a rival faction in 1445. Giovanni, his son, was for 44 years at the head of the commonwealth, adorned Bologna with several fine buildings, and collected many manuscripts, paintings, and statues. In 1506 he fled with his family to the Milanese ter- ritory to escape the army of Pope Julius II., and died hi 1508. The French placed his two sons at the head of affairs in 1511, but in 1512 Bologna again surrendered to the pope, and the Bentivoglios emigrated to Ferrara. Several members of the family afterward attained dis- tinction. I. Ertole, grandson of Giovanni, born in Bologna in 1506, died in Venice, Nov. 6, 1573. He lived in Ferrara, and was employed in diplo- matic affairs by the princes of Este. He wrote several satires and comedies, and was distin- guished as a lyric poet. His poetical works were published in Paris in 1719. II. Guido, born in Ferrara in 1579, died Sept. 7, 1644. In 1621 he was created cardinal, was nuncio to France, and after his return was intrusted by Louis XIII. with the care of French affairs in Rome. He was the chief adviser of Pope Urban VIII., whose successor it was generally believed he would be ; but he died at the opening of the conclave. He left several works, of which a complete edition was published in Venice in 1668 ; among them were letters and memoirs, " A History of the Civil "Wars of Flanders," and " An Account of Flanders." III. Cornelto, bora . in Ferrara in 1668, died in Rome, Dec. 30, 1732. Under Clement XI. he was archbishop of Car- thage and nuncio at Paris, where he showed great zeal in behalf of the bull Unigenitut, in consequence of which he received many favors > from Louis XIV. He was created cardinal in 1719, and was afterward nuncio in Spain. He was a patron of literature, and was learned in the law and sciences, as well as in theology. BEXTLEY, Richard, an English scholar and critic, born at Oulton, near Wakefield, Jan. 27, 1662, died July 14, 1742. He was entered as a sizar at St. John's college, Cambridge, at the age of 14, graduated with honors corresponding to those of third wrangler in the present sys- tem, and in 1682 was appointed by his college to the head mastership of Spalding grammar school, which he quitted after a year for the situation of domestic tutor to the son of Dr. Stillingfleet, then dean of St. Paul's. He ac- companied his pupil to Oxford in 1689, and there pursued his own studies in the Bodleian library, especially in the oriental languages. His first publication, in 1691, a Latin epistle to Dr. John Mill on an edition of the " Chronicle " of John Malala, at once established his reputa- BENTLEY tion as a scholar and a critic. He took holy orders in 1690, and in 1692 obtained the first nomination to the lectureship just founded under the will of Robert Boyle, in defence of religion against infidels. In October of the same year he was appointed a prebendary at Worcester; in April, 1694, keeper of all the king's libraries, and Boyle lecturer for a second time; in 1695 one of the chaplains in ordinary to William III. ; and in 1696 he took the degree of D. D. at Cambridge, and assisted his friend Grvius in preparing an edition of Callimachus. Charles Boyle (afterward earl of Orrery) pub- lished a new edition of the " Epistles of Pha- laris " early in 1695, and complained in his pre- face of some alleged want of courtesy on the part of Bentley respecting the loan of a manu- script in the king's library. Bentley courte- ously assured Boyle that his statement was erroneous, and expected the complaint to be withdrawn ; but this was not done, and he took his revenge two years later, when, in an appen- dix to the second edition of Wotton's " Reflec- tions upon Ancient and Modern Learning," he published his " Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, Socrates, Euripides, and others, and the Fables of ^Esop," demon- strating the spuriousness of all these produc- tions, and dissecting Mr. Boyle's labors with contemptuous severity. The leading scholars of Oxford, headed by Atterbury, united in a reply to Bentley, which was published in 1698, with the name of Charles Boyle on the title page. Pope, Swift, and Gay joined in the con- troversy. General opinion set strongly against Bentley, who was disliked for his arrogance ; but in 1699 Bentley issued that immortal dis- sertation, as it was called by Person, in which he disposed of the question at once and for ever, with a splendid display of learning, skill in argument, and no slight wit. To this disserta- tion a rejoinder was promised, but never ap- peared. Early in 1700, at the age of 38, Dr. Bentley was made master of Trinity college, Cambridge, an office of large emolument and vast responsibility. In January, 1701, he married Joanna, daughter of Sir John Bernard, a baronet in Huntingdonshire. In the same year he was made archdeacon of Ely. As actual head of the university of Cambridge, he introduced many necessary reforms, put the university press on a better footing than be- fore, encouraged scholars and scholarship, im- proved the discipline of his college and the modes of examination for scholarships and fel- lowships, and extended the college library. Many abuses which he reformed were sup- ported by the fellows of his college, from whose society he kept aloof, and his general conduct, even when morally and legally correct, was arbitrary. In 1709 the vice master of Trinity and some of the senior fellows accused him of malappropriation of the college funds. Out of this arose a long litigation, in which Bentley, supported somewhat by the junior fellows, but more strongly by his own determination, bold-
