BEG 



127 



BEG 



t 



loyed. Accusations of impiety and sedition were brought 

 against him in Milan, from the effects of which nothing 

 but the powerful friendship of Count Firmian protected 

 him. In 1768 the Austrian government founded a pro- 

 fessorship of political philosophy for him at Milan, which 

 he filled with distinguished success. In 1769 he pub- 

 lished a 'Discourse on Commerce and Public Administra- 

 tion,' which was translated into French by J. A.Comparet ; 

 and in 1781 a Report of a plan for producing uniformity in 

 the weights and measures of Milan. He died of apoplexy, 

 in November, 1793. The lectures which he delivered as 

 a professor were published at Milan in 1 802, and they form 

 a part of the series of ' Italian Economists,' published at 

 Milan in 1804. 



BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BAPTISTA, born at Mon- 

 (lovi, 1710, went to Rome and began theological studies in 

 1732, and was afterwards professor of philosophy at Palermo 

 and Rome till 1748, when the King of Sardinia invited him 

 to Turin. He published, in 1 753, Dell' Elettricismo natwale 

 ed artiftciale, Turin. In 1758 he published Lettere sulF 

 Elettricismo, addressed to Beccari, president of the Institute 

 of Bologna. In 1 759 he was engaged to measure a degree 

 of the meridian in Piedmont, which he began in 1760, and 

 finished before 1774, in which year the result was published 

 at Turin, in a work entitled Gradus Taurinensis. He 

 afterwards replied to some objections of Cassini in Lettere 

 d'un Italiano ad un Parigino, Florence. There are some 

 papers of his in the Phil. Trans. 1766 1769. He pub- 

 ished also Experimenla atque Observationes, &c., Turin, 

 1769, Dell' Elettricismo artificial, 1772, of which an 

 English translation was published, at the recommendation 

 of Franklin ; Dell' ElettricitCt terrestre atmosferica A cielo 

 sereno, 1755; besides various other smaller pieces, of which 

 a catalogue is in Memorie storiche intorivi a gli studi del 

 P. Bei-.ca.ria, by the Abbe Landi. He left a large number 

 of manuscripts to M. Balbe, who wrote the account of him 

 in the Biographie Universelle, from which the preceding 

 is abridged. He died May, 1781. 



Beccaria is principally known by his experiments on 

 electricity, to which he was led by Franklin's writings. 

 He showed that the passage of electricity is not instantane- 

 ous through the best conductors ; that water, in small tubes, 

 is a very imperfect conductor, and that its power in that 

 respect increases as the tube becomes larger : he also first 

 showed the electric spark in its passage through water, by 

 confining the lluid in small tubes. (See Priestley's History 

 of Electricity, v. i. p. 245, and the history in the Encyclo- 

 peedia Metropolitana.) 



The Piedmontese measure of the meridian is not now 

 considered as entitled to much confidence. At the time it 

 was observed that the two ends of the arc were in the neigh- 

 bourhood of mountain masses, and though the local attrac- 

 tion had been for some time suspected, the discrepancy 

 between the degree deduced by Beccaria and that of others 

 required a supposition of more disturbance than was attri- 

 buted to Chimboracjo by Bouguer. [See ATTRACTION.] It 

 has been of late years remeasuredby Plana and Carlini, and 

 the astronomical part proved to be erroneous ; some anomaly 

 still remains, but of a degree which is more likely to have 

 been the correct amount, arising from local attraction. 

 The remeasurement is published, entitled Operations 

 '"/<>.?, &e. (See Rep. Brit. As., v. i., p. 166.) 



BECCLES, a market-town of the county of Suffolk, in 

 the hundred of Wangford. It has a separate jurisdiction, 

 and U considered the third town in the county. Beccles is 

 situated on the river Waveney, which is navigable from Yar- 

 mouth : it is 32 miles N.N.E. from Ipswich, and 98 miles 

 N.E. from London. The manor of Beccles, with an adjoin- 

 ing common of about 1400 acres, formed part of the posses- 

 lions of Bury Abbey. On the dissolution of monasteries, 

 the manor, with the common, was granted to William Rede, 

 With a stipulation that the common was to be held for the 

 use <>f the inhabitants. The poor are still allowed to pasture 

 their cattle up;>n it on very easy terms. The management 

 of the common is vested in a corporation, called the Corpo- 

 ration of Becoles Fen. The town sustained great injury in 

 1585 from a fire-, which destroyed eighty houses, damaged 

 the church, and occasioned loss of property to the amount 

 of 20. OUO/., as estimated at the time. 



Beccles has a corporation consisting of a portreeve and 

 thirty-six burgesses, distinguished as the twelves and the 

 I'lf at i/ -fours, the oftice of portreeve being held in rotation 

 by the twelves. In consequence of its water communica- 



tion with Yarmouth, the town carries on with the vicinity a 

 considerable trade in coals, groceries, &c. The market-day 

 is Saturday ; and the fairs are on Whit-Monday, June 29, 

 and October 2 : the last for horses and pedlary. The popu- 

 lation amounted, in 1831, to 3862 persons, of whom 2068 

 were females. 



Beccles is a well-built town, consisting of several streets 

 which terminate in a spacious area, where the market is 

 held. The parish church, dedicated to St. Michael, appears 

 to have been founded about the year 1369. The porch is of 

 later date, and the steeple still later. The first legacy be- 

 queathed for the erection of the steeple is dated 1515, from 

 which time till 1547 there were many legacies towards 

 ' building Becclys stepul.' The church stands on an emi- 

 nence overlooking the level of meadows through which the 

 Waveney flows. The west end of the church approaches so 

 near to the edge of the cliff, that no room was left for the 

 safe foundation of the steeple : which is, therefore, placed at 

 a small distance from the south-east angle of the chancel. 

 It is a fine tower of freestone; but it appears never to have 

 been completed, the height not being proportionate to the 

 size, and a parapet at the top being wanting, which seems 

 to indicate that it was the intention of the architect to raise 

 it higher than at present. The church itself is a fine Gothic 

 structure. It consists of a nave, two aisles, and a chancel. 

 The porch is a Very beautiful specimen of the florid Gothic, 

 differing in its style both from the church and the steeple. 

 The living is a rectory, valued in the king's book at 

 2 ll. \Zs. 3^d. Beccles formerly consisted, of two parishes, 

 St. Mary Endgate and St, Michael ; but they were consoli- 

 dated in 1419; and St. Mary's church was afterwards de- 

 molished by order of Queen Elizabeth. The dissenters have 

 two chapels in the town. 



Beccles has a handsome town-hall, in which the quarter- 

 sessions are held ; there is also a well-managed gaol, a 

 theatre, and an assembly-room. A free-school was founded 

 here in the reign of James I. by Sir John Leman, alderman 

 of London, who endowed it with 100 acres of land for the 

 maintenance of a master and usher to instruct 48 poor boys 

 in writing and arithmetic. There is also a good grammar- 

 school, founded in the year 1713 by Dr. Falconberg, who 

 resided several years in the parish, and at his death be- 

 queathed for this purpose an estate at Gorton, in the same 

 county, of the yearly rent of 401. This school has ten ex- 

 hibitions at Emanuel College, Cambridge. (Beauties of 

 England and Wales, vol. xiv. ; Gentleman's Magazine, 

 vol. Ixxxvii., part 2.; Excursions in Suffolk, 1819.) 



BECKER, FERDINAND WILHELM, was born on 

 the 24th of April, 1805, at Hbxter on the Weser, where his 

 father, the distinguished philologist, Dr. Karl Ferdinand 

 Becker, lived as a physician. In consequence of the political 

 changes of which Northern Germany was made the scene 

 by the French invasion, the family, removed from Hiixter 

 to Gottingen, and it was in the high-school of that town, 

 that Becker received his first classical education, while his 

 father led him to collect minerals and plants, and thus to 

 lay an early foundation for his subsequent studies in natural 

 science. In 1816 the family left Gottingen, and settled at 

 Offenbach, near Frankfort on the Main. Here Becker con- 

 tinued to devote his attention chiefly to botany, chemistry, 

 and natural philosophy, partly under the guidance of his 

 father, and partly by attending lectures on various branches 

 of natural science, and also on anatomy, in Senkenberg's 

 Institution at Frankfort. In 1820 Becker accepted the pro- 

 posal of a young Scotchman, whose acquaintance he had 

 made at Offenbach, to go as private tutor to his family at 

 Glasgow. After a year he proceeded from Glasgow to Edin- 

 burgh, where he obtained the situation of assistant librarian 

 in the Advocates' Library, and availed himself of the oppor- 

 tunities afforded by the university to pursue his studies in 

 medicine and in the natural sciences. Early in 1825 he re- 

 turned to Germany, and after visiting several of the uni- 

 versities, and the principal medical institutions there, he 

 proceeded to Berlin, where (in January, 1826) he took his 

 degree of doctor in medicine, and passed with high credit 

 through the examinations necessary to enable him to prac- 

 tise as a physician in the Prussian dominions. In the 

 autumn of the same year he returned to Edinburgh, at 

 the invitation of his kind friend, Dr. John Thomson, the 

 distinguished professor of pathology, who wished to avail 

 himself of Becker's assistance in several literary under- 

 takings, and especially in preparing an edition of Cullen's 

 works. In March, 1828, ho quitted Scotland, in order to 



