BEMBO. PIETRO. 



BENBOW, VICE-ADMIKAL. 



filrisaH of Venice, and a man of considerable taste for elegant lite- 

 ratura. PMtro, who showed an early dinposition for learning, studied 

 at Padua and at Ferrara, and afterward* went to Sicily, where lie 

 Isarned Oreek from Agntino Lawarii at Messina. On hit return to 

 his native country b repaired to the little town of Asolo, near TrevUo, 

 which bad beoooM the reeidDM of Caterina Comoro, the widow of 

 Jamr* Lusignano, the lat king of Cyprus, who, baring resigned her 

 kingdom to the Venetian senate, wu enjoying a splendid income, with 

 the title of Queen, and holding a sort of little court in that pleasant 

 retirement. She wa* a woman of elegant tate and refined education. 

 In September 1496 abe gave eome splendid entertainment* on the 

 ocouion of the marriage of her favourite lady in waiting, to which ahe 



inrited many penon* of distinction, and among others young Bembo, 

 wboee family was related to hers. According to the usages of chivalry 

 still in fashion in that age, some of the hours of leisure between the 



banqueta, tournament*, and other pageant*, were employed in learned 

 or witty conversations, and especially in speculative discussions on 

 the subject of love, some praising it as the source of human happiness, 

 others blaming it as the cause of much misery, Ac. From these 

 disquisitions Bembo derived the plan of a work, which he styled ' Qli 

 Afj*"'.' from the name of the place. It purport* to be a collection of 

 what was said in those entertainments by the several disputants on 

 the nature, qualities, and effect* of love, distinguishing the pure senti- 

 ment from the groesneea of the passion that goes by that name, and 

 ending in a moral strain on the contemplation of divine love, or the 

 love between the Creator and his creature*. The metaphysical part of 

 the reasoning is derived from Plato's philosophy, which was in high 

 favour at that time among the learned of Italy. This work of Bembo 

 was received with considerable applause, and the book is still esteemed 

 as a specimen of good Italian prose. 



Bembo's father wished him to devote himself to the civil service 

 of his country, by entering on some official employment, in which his 

 noble birth and connections would have enabled him to aspire in course 

 of time to the highest dignities of the republic. Bembo however 

 prefened going to Rome, and becoming a candidate there for eccle- 

 siastical preferment, as better suited to his taste for study. His 

 father opposing hi* design, Bembo resolved to devote himself to the 

 monastic life, and for that purpose repaired to Urbino, near which 

 was the abbey of La Croce dell' Avellana. At Urbiuo Bembo was 

 so kindly received by the then Duke Quidobaldo di Montefeltro and 

 Elizabeths Gonzaga, his consort that he changed his mind, and took 

 np his residence at their court, which was distinguished both for the 

 personal character of the sovereigns and for the encouragement which 

 they gave to the learned. Here he began to write Italian poetry, in 

 which he imitated the style and the harmony of Petrarch ; and here 

 also he became Ultimately acquainted with Giuliano de' Medici, third 

 son of the great Lorenzo, aud afterwards duke of Nemours, who was 

 then residing at Urbino. After the death of Duke Quidobaldo, which 

 was won followed by that of his duchess, Bembo and Giuliano agreed 



t.. | :.;...;. I. 



Boon after Bembo had arrived at Rome, Cardinal de' Medici, brother 

 to hi* friend Qiuliano, was raised to the pontifical chair under the 

 nans* of Leo X. The new pontiff appointed as his secretaries Bembo 

 and the learned Sadoleto. The briefs, letters, and other official act* 

 which the two secretaries wrote in the name of the pontiff, were dis- 

 tinguished for their classical style, carried almost to fastidiousness. 

 Bom*) wa* at that time the seat of dissipation and licentiousness, as 

 well as of '^rnlng. Bembo thared in the common propensity, and 

 several of the Latin vend which he then wrote are stained by inde- 

 cent images and expressions. His elegy on Galatea is one of the best 

 specimens of his Latin poetry. After Leo's death in 1521, he went 

 to Padua, where he fixed his residence. Leo had amply provided 

 him with ecclesiastical benefices ; and Bembo, who wa* now enabled 

 to gratify hi* tacte for literature and the arts, became a munificent 

 patron of t**ml"g, and collected a rich library and a cabinet of rare 

 medals. At Padua be completed his work on the Italian language, at 

 which be had laboured arduously for many years: 'Prose di M. 

 Pietro Bembo, nello quali si ragiona dclla Volgar Lingua, divine in trc 

 libri,' Venezia. 1525. This work is one of the earliest works on the 

 rnlasi of the Italian language : it ha* gone through many editions, and 

 i* (till much esteemed. Bembo's Italian poems were published some 

 years after, ' Rime di X. Pietro Bombo,' Venezia, 1530. In 1530, the 

 Council of Ten commissioned Bembo to write the history of the 

 Venetian republic, beginning from the year 1487, where Sabellioo 

 had left it Bembo wrote it in Latin, and carried it to the year 

 1513, ' Histori* VcncUo,' libri xii. He afterwards wrote an Italian 

 translation of hi* work : ' HUtoria Viniziana, volgarmento teritta,' 

 which wa* published after his death at Venice, in 1552, with a life of 

 the author. This translation was long after ropublished, in 1790, by 

 MorsUi, the librarian of St Mark, in 2 vols. 4to, with many corrections 

 from Bembo's autograph, and with a fine likeness of the author, 

 eocravrd by Bartoloni from a painting by Titian. 



Bembo had been for many yean settled at Padua in studious retire- 

 ment, after renouncing the licentiousness of his early years, a* well as 

 all prospect* of ambition, when in 1539, Pop* Paul HI. unexpectedly 

 cut him a cardinal s bat Mora perplexed than pleaaed at bis promo- 



l wan pleased at bis promo- 

 Mot, Bembo took time to consider whether be should accept of it; he 

 had as yet taken only the minor orders, which an not binding for 



life. . He however accepted it and at Christmas 1539, he wss ordained 

 presbyter, when he received the insignia of the cardinalabip, and pro- 

 ceeded to Rome, where he chiefly resided for the remainder of his life. 

 He died at Home in 1547, in bis seventy-eighth year, and was buii.-.l in 

 the church of Santa Maria super liinervain. His friend GiroUmo 

 Quirini raised a splendid monument to hi* memory in the cliur.h of 

 8t Anthony of Padua. Of Bembo's three illegitimate children, whom 

 he bad during his residence at Rome in the pontificate of I.> X., one 

 died young; another, called Tommaao, became a churchman; hi* 

 daughter Elena married Pier Gradenigo, a Venetian nobleman. Bembo 

 was intimate with Delia Casa, Caatiglione, Sadoleto, and most of the 

 Italian literati of his age. His epistolary correspondence, both Latin 

 and Italian, was published in parts, and at different times. 



(Jipittolanm Familiarum libri VI. et Eputolamm Leonu X. Pont. 

 Max. nomine icriptanun, Uliri XVI., 8vo, VenetiU, 1552; liemlii et 

 Sadoleli Epittolanm liber untu, Florentisc, 1524; Lcttere di Pietro 

 Bembo, 4 vols. 8vo, Venezia, 1552.) 



BENAVI'DES was a native of Quirihue, in the province of Conoep- 

 cion, in Chili. Himself and a younger brother entered the patriot 

 army at the beginning of the revolution. The elder brother attained 

 the rank of a sergeant in a Buenos Ayres battalion. In 1814 both 

 brothers were found guilty of some capital offence, and sentenced to 

 death. Being placed in the condemned cell, they contrived to escape, 

 aud went over to the royalists, in whose service they were the scourge 

 of Chili for four yean. At the battle of Maypo in 1818 they were 

 made prisoners, but not being recognised till the Chilian general had 

 offered a general amnesty to all military offenders, they escaped 

 unpunished. The supreme director, however, desiring to rid the. 

 country of them, sent the brothers with a strong escort to the pro- 

 vince of La Plata. Not far from Santiago the officer of the escort, 

 discovering that the prisoners bad attempted to bribe the men in 

 charge of them to let them escape, ordered them both to be exe- 

 cuted. The two brothers, tied together, were made to kneel on thu 

 ground, and a volley was fired upon them. Thn younger Ben., 

 was ahot dead ; the elder was struck by two shots, and wounded by 

 a sword-cut, but life was not extinct. The soldiers threw some loose 

 earth aud stones on the bodies, and continued their march. Benavides, 

 when he found that his executioners had left him, with great difficulty 

 threw off tho earth and stones, and having untied the cords with which 

 he was fastened, stripped his dead brother of his shirt, in order t" t-in 1 

 his wounds with it. Notwithstanding the acute pain of his wounds, 

 he was able to reach the hut of a poor old man, where, without any 

 other cure than washing his wounds every day with water, in little 

 more than two weeks he found himself strong enough to undertake 

 his journey. He set out accordingly towards Santiago, and contrived 

 to enter the city secretly. Here he obtained an interview with General 

 San Martin, aud engaged to serve in the patriot army, the general 

 having first given him a written promise that he would keep his 

 name secret 



Son Martin sent Benavides to General Valcarcc, then commanding 

 the republican forces near Concepcion, with an order to place him on 

 his staff, and, while keeping a sharp eye over him, to avail himself of 

 Benavides's knowledge of the country, of his great influence over the 

 Araucanian Indians, and of his former connection with the Spaniards. 

 To Benavidea'a advice and counsel the patriots were indebted for the 

 conquest of the district of Lajas, and of the Fort del Nocimiento. 

 General Valoaroe made Colonel Freire, then governor of Concepcion, 

 acquainted with the secret, and that officer, in a worm discussion with 

 Benavides, had the imprudence to tell him that a man of his character 

 wo* not to be trusted. Irritated at the insult, Benavides disappeared 

 two days after, and went over to the Spaniards. General Sanchez, 

 who commanded the Spanish forces on the frontier of Chili near Con- 

 cepcion, gave him a commission in Arauco, and from that moment 

 Benavides commenced the most cruel and desolating war against the 

 independent Chilians. In the space of two years, with the help of tho 

 Araucanian Indians, he committed cruelties upon the patriot* too 

 revolting to relate. In 1821 the Chilians armed an expedition agaiuHt 

 him, and Benavides, being abandoned by all his followers, sailed for 

 Aries, with the intention of joining the Spaniards in Peru. His 

 launch having entered a cove near Valparaiso in quest of water, one 

 of his own men betrayed him. He was taken and executed at Santiago 

 on the 23rd of January 1823. 



(Memoirt of General Miller.) 



BENBOW, VICE-ADMIRAL, was born in 1650. His whole life, 

 from boyhood to hi* death, was spent in active service at sea ; and 

 though he was by no means a very successful or brilliant commander, 

 be was distinguished throughout bis career for hit courage and pro- 

 fessional enterprise. He early attracted the favourable notice of 

 James II., the great reformer of our naval service ; and after the revo- 

 lution was much employed by King William. The service by which 

 Benbow is best known in our naval history was his last. On the 11 th 

 of July 1702 he left Port Royal in Jamaica in quest of a French 

 squadron commanded by M. du Casae, a brave and skilful officer. On 

 the 19th of August Beubow came up with the French force, and though 

 inferior in number and weight of metal, immediately attacked them. 

 A running fight was kept up for four days, but owing to the cowardice 

 or treachery of the officers under his command, the brunt of tho 

 engagement was thrown upon Benbow's own vessel. On the morning 



