BETTINI, Domenico, a Florentine artist, born in 1644, first instructed by Jacopo-Viguli, then at Rome by Mario Nuzzi (what a flavour these old names have), and, lastly, by nature. His subjects were fruit, flowers, insects, animals, and still life, truly painted and skilfully grouped. Died in 1705.—W. T.
BETTONI, Nicolas, an Italian litterateur and printer, of the latter part of the eighteenth century. He is best known by an edition of Alceste, a posthumous tragedy of Alfieri's; and a complete edition of Euripides.
BETTS, John, an English physician of the seventeenth century, was born at Winchester. He entered Corpus Christi, Oxford, in 1642, and became B.A. in 1646. Being suspected of loyalty to the exiled family, he was ejected by the parliamentary visitors in 1648. He applied himself to the study of physic, and found an extensive practice in London, especially among the Roman catholics. After the Restoration, he was made physician in ordinary to Charles II. He wrote two works, "De Ortu et Natura Sanguinis," 1669; and "Anatomia Thomæ Parri," the "Old Parr" of long-life celebrity.—J. B.
BETULEJUS, Sixtus or Xystus, the Latinized name of a German philologist and poet, born at Memmingen in Suabia in 1500; died in 1554. He was principal of the college of Augsburg. Besides commentaries on Lactantius and on several of Cicero's philosophical dissertations, he wrote dramas in Latin and in German: in the former, "Judith," "Susanna," and "Sapientia Salomonis;" and in the latter, "Zorobabel," "Eva," "Joseph," "Bel and Herodes." His family name was Birk.
BEUCHELAER, Joachim, a Flemish artist, born at Antwerp in 1550; died in 1610. He painted kitchen-game, fruit, and fish.—W. T.
BEUCHET or BEHUCHET, Nicolas, seigneur de Muzy, &c., a French admiral, who in 1339 effected a descent on the English coast, and ravaged Portsmouth, carrying off great booty. He was taken by the English in the following year, and, for his exploits against Portsmouth, hanged by order of King Edward.
BEUCHOT, Adrien Jean Quentin, born at Paris in 1773, and died in 1851. His early education was among the oratorièns of Lyons; he was next apprenticed to a notary, and afterwards he became a student of medicine; in 1794 he was chirurgien-major to the ninth battalion of the Isère. Still unsettled, he left the army in 1801, and sought to support himself by literature. He wrote several papers in the Biographie Universelle. He superintended the octavo edition of Bayle's Dictionary, and also the edition of Voltaire in seventy volumes, 1827-1833. An amusing pamphlet was published by him in 1814, entitled "Funeral Oration on Napoleon Buonaparte," a collection of adulatory addresses offered in the days of his power to Buonaparte by persons, who, on the Restoration, were seeking place from the Bourbons. He has left, in manuscript, "Le Catalogue de la Bibliothèque Voltairienne," in which he describes all the original editions, and many of the subsequent impressions of each particular work of Voltaire; the satires published against him, the apologies, &c.; in short, the whole literature connected with the name.—J. A., D.
BEUDANT, François-Sulpice, a distinguished French mineralogist and physicist, born at Paris the 5th September, 1787. Beudant was a student at the Polytechnic and Normal schools of Paris, and on leaving the latter in 1811, was appointed professor of mathematics in the lyceum of Avignon, and in 1813 professor of physics at the college of Marseilles. In 1814, at the first restoration of the Bourbons, Beudant was commissioned by Louis XVIII. to bring over from England the royal mineralogical collection, of which he was appointed subdirector; and from this period until his death, which took place in 1852, he devoted himself to the study of mineralogy with a zeal which speedily gained him a wide-spread reputation. In 1818 he made a mineralogical journey, at the public expense, through Hungary, and on his return was made professor of mineralogy in the Faculty of Sciences of Paris; in 1824 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. The most important of Beudant's mineralogical works are the following—"Researches to determine the relative importance of crystalline form and chemical composition in the determination of minerals," which was read before the Academy of Sciences on the 17th February, 1817, and published in that year in the Annales des Mines; a "Letter to M. Arago concerning the observations of Wollaston" upon the preceding memoir, printed in the Annales de Chimie for 1817; "Investigation of the causes which determine the variations in the crystalline form of the same mineral substance," a memoir of nearly 100 pages, and containing the results of more than 600 experiments, published in the Annales des Mines in 1818, a "Letter to M. Gay Lussac upon a memoir by Mitscherlich," on the relation between crystalline form and chemical composition (Annales de Chimie, 1820); "Mineralogical and Geological Travels in Hungary in the year 1818," published at Paris in 1818 and 1822, a most important work on one of the countries most distinguished by their mineral riches; "Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy," published at Paris in 1824, and a second edition in 1830; and "Elementary Course of Mineralogy and Geology," Paris, 1841, forming part of the "Cours Elémentaire d'Histoire Naturelle," for the use of colleges and schools, of which the zoological and botanical portions were written by Milne Edwards and A. de Jussieu. Besides these and some smaller memoirs upon mineralogical subjects, Beudant published several papers upon zoology, a science to which he had been inclined to devote his attention, before his appointment as conservator of the royal mineralogical collection gave his mind a decisive turn in a different direction. The Annales du Muséum contain memoirs from his pen on "Three New Species of Gasteropod Mollusca;" "On the Structure of the Solid Parts of the Mollusca, Radiata, and Zoophyta;" and "On Belemnites," all in the year 1810. On the 13th May, 1816, he read at the Institute a "Memoir on the possibility of causing Fluviatile Mollusca to live in salt water, and Marine Mollusca in fresh water," which was printed in the Journal de Physique in 1826. The experiments recorded in this paper were made with the view of explaining the remarkable palæontological fact of the mixture of marine and fluviatile shells in the same stratum. His position of inspector-general of the university of Paris induced him to prepare a French grammar, published at Paris in 1841, in which he introduced numerous improvements suggested by the advance of philological science.—W. S. D.
BEUGHEM, Charles Anthony Francis de Paule van, a Flemish miscellaneous writer, successively director of the college of Courtrai, and principal of that of Gand, and afterwards secretary to cardinal van Frankenberg, was born at Brussels in 1744, and died in 1820. When the French invaded Belgium in 1792, he was carried away a prisoner for refusing to take the oath of Haine à la royauté. He was not allowed to return to Flanders till after the fall of Napoleon. His principal work is entitled "Fructus suppressa Cortraci mendicitate exorti," 1776.—J. S., G.
BEUGNOT, Arthur-Auguste, Count, son of Jacques Claude, was born March, 1797, at Bar-sur-Aube. After he was received at the bar, he distinguished himself by his pleadings for political offenders before the chamber of peers. M. Beugnot was, with Montalembert and others, a constant defender of the cause of freedom of education, clamoured for after 1830, promised by the Charte, but never given. In 1849, as a member of the legislative assembly, M. Beugnot brought all his former studies to bear upon this question of educational liberty, and mainly contributed to the passing of the bill. M. Beugnot at his father's demise became a peer of France by right of succession. He is a very learned man, and his love of letters has prevented him from pursuing his legal career as a barrister. He has several times received prizes from the academies of Paris, of Strasburg, and Ghent; besides which, as a man of science, he merited his election to a seat at the Institute of Paris in 1832. For all that concerns history, jurisprudence, and modern archæology, he is one of the most distinguished members of the Academy of Inscriptions and belles-lettres. His principal work is entitled "History of the Destruction of Paganism in the East." The work is a very important one, but has been the occasion of much controversy, and has at last been condemned by the papal see. M. Beugnot's works are—"Essay on the Institutions of St. Louis;" "The Jews of the West," 1821; "On Banking Houses and Public Money Lending," 1824; "A Report to the Minister of Public Instruction on the publication of the Registers of the Paris Parliament;" "The Chronology of the States-General;" "Les Olim, being registers of the decrees passed by the court-royal under the reigns of St. Louis, Philippe le Hardi, Philippe le Bel, Louis le Hutin, and Philippe le Long;" and the "Assize sittings of Jerusalem, being a collection of jurisprudential documents of the thirteenth century in the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus." M. Beugnot has also, from time to time, contributed to certain periodical works, such as the Correspondant, Ami de la Religion, &c. Less a political man than his father.
