bers for Wells. In the same year he published "Vathek," the work by which he is most likely to be remembered. "Vathek" is one of the few books written in French by an Englishman, in which there is nothing to betray that the author is not a native of France. The style seems formed from that of Voltaire and Count Hamilton; there are, however, passages in it of a higher order of conception than we find in either. The description of the Hall of Eblis is one of these. On its being said to Beckford that nothing in eastern works of fiction was like it, he said that he took it from the hall of old Fonthill, the largest probably in any private house in England. "It was from that hall I worked, magnifying and colouring it with eastern character. All the female characters were portraits drawn from the domestic establishment of old Fonthill, their good or evil qualities ideally exaggerated to suit my purpose." "Vathek" was translated into English immediately on its appearance, Beckford never knew by whom, but he praised the translation. Beckford says he wrote "Vathek," "as it now stands, at twenty-two years of age. It took me three days and two nights of hard labour. I never took off my clothes the whole time." Beckford was, when a child, fond of reading the Arabian Nights. In 1787 he visited Spain and Portugal. In 1790 he sat in parliament for Hindon. In 1794 he went to reside near Cintra, where he remained for some years, creating the "fairy paradise" commemorated in Childe Harold. He then returned to England. In 1801 he sold, by auction, the splendid furniture of Fonthill, and in the next year the pictures. They were scarcely disposed of when he formed a new collection, and began sumptuous buildings at Fonthill, of which the tower, two hundred and sixty feet high, most attracted attention. In 1822 he sold Fonthill to Mr. Farquhar. The tower soon after fell. Mr. Redding mentions in connection with this a curious circumstance. It was supposed to have been built on an arched foundation; and Beckford said he had paid the architect nearly twenty thousand pounds for his part of the work. One of the persons employed in the building found himself dying, and in a feeling of remorse, sent for Beckford to communicate the fact that there was no arch. "It is built on the sand, and will some day fall down." Beckford communicated this to Mr. Farquhar, who replied, that it would last his time. It fell soon afterwards. After the sale of Fonthill, Beckford removed to Bath, and on Lansdowne hill, to the north of the city, erected another "paradise." Here, too, was a mysterious tower, but not more than a hundred feet high. It was crowned with a model of the temple of Lysicrates at Athens, made of cast-iron. Under this was a square room, on each side of which were three arched windows of plate-glass. In the entrance-hall was a pillar-table of Sienna marble, on which were Etruscan vases of the oldest class. Everywhere were paintings and sculptures of the great artists, and everywhere articles of vertu, which appeared to have no other value than that they could not be brought together without a vast expenditure of money. Carpeted stairs led to the summit, which commanded one of the finest views in England. Through grounds, in parts of which all appearance of art was carefully concealed, and in others anxiously exhibited, you were at times in what seemed to be the wilderness, at times among temples and statues, till you came to the residence of the magician himself—"two large houses joined together, to which was added a gallery thrown over an archway, constituting the prolongation of a magnificent library." About eleven years before Beckford's death, Mr. Redding, who was then living in the neighbourhood, visited him, and has given an amusing account of the adventure. After he had passed the tower, the gardens with their statues, an entrance in the southern wall led to a road at the back of Lansdowne Crescent. The enchantment seemed still to continue, for, as in romances of old, a swarthy-coloured dwarf opened the door of the house. The visitor looked round, but the attendants who had hitherto accompanied him were gone—the dwarf, too, had vanished. A servant announced his name and retired. The author of "Vathek" was sitting before a table covered with books and engravings. He was seventy-four, but looked much younger. He was a man of slender and delicate frame, dressed in a green coat, buff-coloured waistcoat, and breeches of the same colour as his coat; brown top-boots, the cotton stockings appearing just over them—no outlandish magician this, as the people of Bath would represent him, but "a fine old English gentleman, all of the olden time." "His eyes were small, acute, and grey, but expressive." His appearance spoke of health, and life for the most part passed in the open air. Beckford lived much alone, and kept up no society with the people of Bath, who were ready to believe any story about him, however monstrously improbable. Redding, who is more charitable, tells some which it is not easy to believe. Beckford's coachman found an opportunity of driving his wife to visit a friend of hers in his master's carriage. This was punished by Beckford's hiring a footman, whom he dressed out in a fantastic livery, and who he insisted should attend them. This went on for months, till he thought the offence sufficiently punished by the ridicule it occasioned. A steward complained of the upholsterer who furnished Fonthill having stuffed the beds with quills instead of feathers. Beckford subjected him to the ridicule of his fellow-servants by ordering a down bed for him. These are like the stories which used to be told of Swift. Beckford, who enjoyed good health, never left a moment of his time unemployed, and never knew what ennui meant. Besides more serious studies, he read many modern novels. "He bought Gibbon's library at Lausanne—above six thousand volumes—to amuse himself when he passed that way. He nearly read himself blind there, and never used the library afterwards, but gave it to his physician, Dr. Scholl." In 1834 Mr. Beckford was led by some references to his manuscript in the notes to Rogers's Italy, to publish an account of his visit to Italy in 1780, and, just fifty years after "Vathek," appeared "Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal," 2 vols. 8vo. In 1835 he printed "Recollections of a Tour in Portugal, made in the year 1794." He also reprinted his "Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters." Mr. Redding has published in the New Monthly Magazine, and more lately in his Fifty Years' Recollections, very interesting accounts of his interviews with him when he resided in the neighbourhood of Bath.—J. A., D.
BECKHER, Daniel, a German physician, born at Dantzic in 1594, became professor at Königsberg, where he died in 1655. He published several medical works, of which the principal, entitled "Medicus microcosmicus, sen spargiria microcosmi," &c., Rostock, 1622, passed through three editions. His other writings are—"Anatome infimi ventris," Königsberg, 1634; "Historia morbi Academici Regiomontani," 1649; "Commentarius de Theriaca," 1649; "De cultrivoro Prussiaco observatio et curatio singularis," Königsberg, 1636, which contains a curious account of a knife being swallowed by a young man, and successfully extracted through an incision in the stomach; and a treatise on the power of sympathy, "De unguento armario," published at Nuremberg in 1662.—W. S. D.
BECKINGTON, Thomas, an English prelate, born about 1385, in the parish of Beckington in Somersetshire, was educated at Wykeham's school, near Winchester, and at Oxford. He entered the university in 1403, became doctor of laws, and held a fellowship about twelve years. In 1429, he was dean of the court of arches, and in the same year was appointed to draw up a formulary, according to which the Wickliffites were to be proceeded against. Henry VI., to whom he had been tutor, and for whose gratification he wrote a defence of the rights of the kings of England to the crown of France, made him secretary of state, keeper of the privy seal, and bishop of Bath and Wells. He was so well reputed as a patron of ingenious and learned men, as to be called the Maecenas of his age. His contributions to the church were numerous and munificent. He died at his palace of Wells in 1465. The Cottonian library possesses a copy of his work "On the rights of the kings of England to the crown of France," and a collection of his letters is preserved at Lambeth.—J. S., G.
BECKMANN, Johann, a learned German naturalist, agriculturist, and technologist, the first founder of a scientific system of agriculture, was born in 1739 at Hoya in Hanover. In 1759 he went to study at Göttingen, left that university in 1762 to make a scientific tour through the Netherlands, and in 1763 became teacher of mathematics, physics, and natural history at St. Petersburg. On giving up this appointment, he travelled in 1765 and 1766 through Sweden and Denmark, and returning to Germany, obtained an extraordinary professorship of philosophy at Göttingen. In 1770 he was appointed professor of rural economy at the same place. His lectures extended to agricultural and technological mineralogy, agriculture, technology, manufactures, commerce, policy, and finance, and from their excellence contributed not a little to the esteem in which the schools of Göttingen were held. To serve him as guides in this extensive course of instruction, he wrote treatises upon the various sub-
