Bernstorff, the Hanoverian minister, a very excellent education. Whilst still young, he entered the service of the Danish government, and in 1737 was sent as ambassador to the imperial diet at Ratisbon, and in 1744 to Paris. In the year 1750 he became secretary of state, and in the following year a member of the privy council. In the Seven Years' war the neutrality of Denmark was preserved by his means, and it was by his intervention that, in 1761, on the death of the last duke of Holstein-Plön, that country became attached to the crown of Denmark. It is true that the duke of Holstein-Gottorp, afterwards Czar Peter III., made preparations to support his pretensions, not only to Holstein-Plön but to Schleswig, which, however, his death in 1762 prevented him from carrying out, whereupon his successor, Catherine II., agreed to an adjustment of the dispute, and in 1773 Oldenburg and Delmenhorst were exchanged for Holstein. Bernstorff enjoyed the favour of Christian VII., as he had done that of Frederick V., and by the former monarch he was elevated to the rank of count in 1767. He fell, however, into disfavour with the king when Struensee acquired power, and in 1770 was compelled to resign his place, on which he retired to Hamburg, where he resided until, on the fall of the favourite, he was recalled with honour. He did not, however, reach his native land, for, in the very act to return, he was seized with mortal sickness, and died 19th February, 1772. Bernstorff laboured for the wellbeing and happiness of his country in every possible way. Trade and manufactures of all kinds acquired under him new life. Until his time the Danish flag was hardly known in the Mediterranean sea, whilst at the time of Frederick V.'s reign no less than two hundred Danish ships traded on this sea. He was also a patron of art and science. He established a considerable fund for the Society of the Fine Arts, and was the founder of the society for the improvement of country houses, and whilst he supported and sent into the East a number of learned men, the result of whose travels appear in Niebuhr's writings, he offered inducements to the literati of Germany to become residents in Denmark. Among the men thus attracted was Klopstock, who was hospitably received by Bernstorff himself. He was indefatigable for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. The erection of nursing-houses in Copenhagen was in pursuance of his plans; he himself laid the foundation-stone of the general hospital of the city in 1766, and the first lying-in hospital of Denmark has to thank him for its establishment. He distributed annually a fourth part of his income among the poor, and even when obliged to leave Denmark, he settled three thousand florins annually for the use of the poor of his native land. His highest renown, however, is that he was the first in Denmark to remove the fetters of vassalage and feudal serfdom from the peasantry, in consequence of which the emancipated peasants on his own estates in Denmark erected in 1783 a beautiful monument in his honour.—M. H.
BERNT, Joseph, professor of medical jurisprudence and police in the university of Vienna, and up to 1813 professor in that of Prague, died at Vienna on the 27th April, 1842, at the age of 73 years. He is principally known as a writer on sanitary questions and medical jurisprudence. His earliest work is entitled "Monographia Choreæ Sancti Viti," Prague, 1810. In 1813 he published at Vienna his "Systematic Manual of Medical Jurisprudence," of which the fourth edition was published in 1834; in 1816 a "Systematic Manual of State Medicine," in two volumes; in 1818 a "Systematic Manual of Public Health;" and in 1818-23, six volumes of "Contributions to Medical Jurisprudence." Besides these, he published numerous smaller works on the same and nearly allied subjects.—W. S. D.
BERNULF or BEORNWULPH, king of Mercia. He usurped the throne on the death of Ceowulf in 823, and held the sovereignty for a year, in the course of which he was assailed by Egbert of Wessex, and at last slain by the East Anglians, in their attempt to throw off the yoke of Mercia.
BERNWARD, Saint, bishop of Hildesheim, born in Lower Saxony about the year 950, was a nephew, by the mother's side, of Adalberon, count palatine. His education was intrusted to one of his relatives, Tangmar, canon of Hildesheim, who instructed his pupil not only in classical and scriptural lore, but also in painting, sculpture, architecture, and various other arts. He was appointed tutor to Otho III. by the empress-mother, Theophania, from the time of whose death he exercised almost unlimited authority in the state. In 993 he was consecrated to the see of Hildesheim, the church of which he proceeded to decorate in the most costly manner, superintending all the details of painting, gilding, &c., with a skill acquired in the practice of these arts. He died in 1023.—J. S., G.
BEROALDE de Verville, François, a philosopher and mathematician, born at Paris, 1558; died about 1612. His studies ranged over the principal departments of human knowledge—poetry, grammar, philosophy, mathematics, medicine, chemistry, alchemy, and architecture—all of which studies he cultivated, if not with equal success, at least with equal ardour. He wrote a great number of works, but that by which he is best known is "Moyen de parvenir," a book frequently reprinted, but full of levity and licentiousness.—J. G.
BEROALDO, Filipo, born at Bologna in 1453. He is considered one of the greatest literary characters of his age. Being of a noble and opulent family, no expense was spared to procure him the best education, and the celebrated Mariano and Puteolano were his teachers. Feeling a great inclination to educate youth, he taught in Bologna, Parma, and Milan, and finally, anxious to visit the then famous university of Paris, he repaired thither, and delivered lectures on literature to a great concourse of pupils. Shortly after he was recalled to Bologna, by a public decree, which conferred on him the professorship of belles-lettres in that university, where his fame as a scholar attracted a great number of students. He was also honoured with the highest dignities, and was ambassador to Alexander III., secretary to the republic of Bologna, orator, &c. He wrote many commentaries, orations, dissertations, elegies, and odes in classic Latin, forming forty opuscles. He died in 1505.—A. C. M.
BEROALDO, Philippe, a Latin poet, born at Bologna, 1472; died 1518. He was professor of belles-lettres at Rome, and afterwards librarian at the Vatican. He left three books of odes, and some epigrams.
BEROLDINGEN, Franz Cölestin von, born at St. Galles on the 8th October, 1740, a member of an old Swiss family, was canon at Hildesheim and Osnaburg, and afterwards at Waltershausen, where he died on the 8th March, 1798. He was well known to his contemporaries as a good mineralogist. Besides several memoirs in Crell's Annalen, Beroldingen published some independent works, in all of which he exhibits a tendency to hypotheses and bold assumptions, although these generally display great ingenuity. His earliest work is entitled "Observations, Questions, and Doubts relating to Mineralogy," in 2 volumes, published at Hanover in 1778 (2nd edition in 1792-94); in 1783, he brought out at Hildesheim, a "Description of the mineral springs at Driburg;" in 1788, "Observations upon a Journey through the quicksilver mines of the Pflalz and Zweibrück," published at Berlin; and in 1791, a treatise on "Ancient and modern Volcanoes." In all his works he warmly supports the views of the vulcanists.—W. S. D.
BERONICUS, an extraordinary poet of the seventeenth century; his origin and even his country is unknown. He published in 1672, in heroic Latin verse, an account of the battle between the peasants and magistrates at the taking of Middleburg, under the title of "Georgarchontomachia." This work was reprinted in 1716, and also translated into Dutch prose. Besides the above-mentioned poem, the volume contains eight odes and a satire; two congratulatory odes on the arrival of the prince of Orange in Vlissingen in 1668; another ode on the death of J. Michielx, M.D., 1671; another on the polyglott bible; an epithalamium on the nuptials of Professor J. de Raay; a complimentary ode to William III., prince of Nassau; an ode on the election of a burgomaster; and a satire upon one of the philosophers of his day. Besides this volume, no other works of Beronicus are known to be extant. It appears that he never committed his verses to writing, but recited them extempore, and with such rapidity that the quickest writers could scarcely keep pace with him. He is said to have been able to translate the weekly journals or gazettes into Greek or Latin verse, and to have added 800 words to the dictionary of Calepini. He knew all the classical writers of antiquity by heart, including Cicero and the elder and younger Pliny. He wandered about England, France, the Netherlands, and other countries, frequenting fairs and acting as a mountebank, and carrying his whole property with him. He would never tell the secret of his birth. He died in a state of intoxication about the year 1676. He is slightly mentioned in Le Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique, but entirely omitted by Bayle. Moreri also has slightly noticed him.—E. W.
BEROSUS, a famous Babylonian astrologer and historian,
