B E H 



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B E H 



rabVnes understand these passages as the majestic plural for 

 one great ox, which consumes each day the verdure of a 

 thousand mountains ; but, according to them, it is provi- 

 dentially ordered that whatever he eats in the day grows 

 again during the night. They conclude from the passage, 

 ' male and female created he them,' that there were two 

 behemoth ; but, that they might not destroy the whole world 

 by multiplying, the female was killed, and the llesh, which is 

 salted, is reserved for the first dish at the feast of the blessed 

 in Paradise. (For the literary references see Buxtorfii 

 Synapse Judaica, fourth ed. Basilete, 1680, pp. 734-736.) 

 [See HIPPOPOTAMUS.] 



BE H MEN, JACOB. [See BOHMB.] 



BEHN, APHARA, sometimes spelt APHRA, and 

 AFRA, a dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was of a 

 good family in the city of Canterbury : she was born in the 

 reign of Charles I., but in what year has not been ascer- 

 tained. Her father, whose name was Johnson, was related 

 to the Lords Willoughby, and by means of his connexion 

 obtained the post of lieutenant-general of Surinam, and its 

 dependencies; for which place he accordingly sailed with 

 his daughter, then very young, but died on the passage. 

 Aphara, however, continued the voyage ; and appears to 

 have resided at Surinam for some length of time, though 

 under what circumstances is not known. She there became 

 acquainted with the famous slave Oroonoko, whom she re- 

 presents to have been a prince among his own countrymen, 

 and a man of an heroic cast of character, and who after- 

 wards became the subject of a novel from her pen, and of a 

 tragedy, better known, by her friend Southern. After her 

 return to Kugland she married Mr. Behn, a merchant of 

 DuHi extraction ; and appears to have been personally in- 

 troduced to Charles II., who was so much pleased with her 

 account of Surinam, and probably with the freedom and 

 vivacity of her manners, that he thought her (say the bio- 

 graphers) a proper person to be intrusted with the manage- 

 ment of some important affairs during the Dutch war, 

 which occasioned her going into Flanders, and residing 

 at Antwerp; as some other biographers say, in the cha- 

 rai'tcT of ii spy ; or as others have put it, ' she engaged in 

 gallantries for the good of her country.' It is supposed 

 that by this time her husband was dead. The engaging pa- 

 triotism of Mrs. Behn succeeded in discovering the intention 

 of the Dutch to sail up the Thames and Medway, and to put 

 the English to the shame of having their ships burnt, as they 

 actually did : but the court of Charles, with its usual levity, 

 giving no credit to the report of its fair envoy, she is said to 

 have renounced all further politics, out of mortification, and to 

 have devoted the rest of her stay in Holland to amusement. 

 She set out shortly afterwards on her return to England, 

 narrowly escaped death (for the vessel foundered in sight of 

 land, and the passengers were saved in boats,) and became 

 for the rest of her life an authoress by profession, and a 

 woman of gallantry. She wrote seventeen plays, besides 

 poems, tales, love-letters, and translations both in prose and 

 verse. The once celebrated letters between a nobleman 

 and his sister-in-law (Lady Henrietta Berkeley and the in- 

 famous Lord Grey) are hers. She contributed the para- 

 phrase of CEnone's Letters to Paris, in the English col- 

 lection of Ovid's Epistles; and translated Fontenelle's Plu- 

 rality of Worlds, and the sixth book of Cowley's Latin poem 

 on Plants. Both her opinions and her talents naturally 

 brought her acquainted with the leading wits of the day, 

 tin; wildest and the staidest, Rochester, Etherege, Charles 

 Cotton, Dryden, Southern, &c. ; and at one time, we know 

 not how long, she describes herself as having been forced 

 to write for her bread ; but, from an expression in Lang- 

 baine, we guess that during the latter part of her life she 

 was in more easy circumstances. She died between forty 

 and fifty years of age, and was buried in the cloisters of 

 Westminster Abbey, with the following absurd inscription : 



tin. Aphara B*hn died Ap.il 16th, 1639. 



' Here lies a proof that wit can never lie 

 Defence enough asrairst mortality. 



[KxMess ! O, thy stupendous lays 

 The vorld admires, anil Wfl Muses praise. 



Rnrivrf tiy Thumal Wainc, in respect tci to bright a genius.' 



This Mr. Waine, it seems, was said, ' by the envious of 

 her own sex,' lo have been the author of most of the pieces 

 that went under her name ; but her biographers justly ad- 

 ducu the ab ivr \er-rs as a sufh'cing proof to the contrary. 



Aphara Behn i.s described a having been a grai-i -fill 

 comely woman, with brown hair, and a piercing eye; 



something passionate, but generous : and who would sooner 

 forgive an injury than do one. She would write in com- 

 pany, and at the same time take her part in the conversa- 

 tion. We have read somewhere, that the ' Lycidas,' for 

 whom she represents herself as entertaining a hopeless 

 passion, was Creech. 



The character of Mrs. Behn's writings is that of a lively 

 mediocrity, availing itself of all the license of the age. She 

 had a feeling for truth, great animal spirits, great facility 

 in versification, an unceasing flow of sprightly but not un- 

 common ideas, and courage enough to put down whatever 

 came into her head. The result was, some pleasing little 

 novels, chiefly taken from the French ; some songs and 

 poetical translations, very clever ; and a set of dramas, suc- 

 cessful in their day, and astounding for their licentiousness. 

 Pope's couplet is well known : 



The stage how loosely doe* Astra?.i tread, 

 WIio fairly puts her characters to bed. 



Astroea was the poetical name by which she was known 

 among her contemporaries. A modern reader who dips 

 into her plays is astonished to find of what a heap of mero- 

 triciousness they are made up ; but luckily he cannot read 

 far. The very liveliness, not being of a high order, becomes 

 tiresome. There is an endless imbroglio of rakes, demi- 

 reps, and common-place situations, out of which he is glad 

 to escape. Mrs. Behn seems scarcely to have had any idea 

 of love, except as an animal passion; but as this was the 

 feeling of the age, and she was probably brought up in it, 

 besides being early thrown out into thy world, and ultimately 

 surrounded with men of wit, who helped to spoil her, a re- 

 flecting reader will perhaps give her the credit of having 

 been injured by the very candour and docility of her nature ; 

 and consider it probable, that, had she lived in better times, 

 she would have been a real ornament to her sex. (Dramatic 

 Works of the late incomparable Mrs. Aphra Behn; Bio- 

 graphia Britannica, dj-c.) 



BEHRING, VITUS, was by birth a Dane, and in his 

 youth made many voyages to the East and West Indies ; 

 but being tempted by the great encouragement held out 

 to able mariners by Peter the Great, he early entered the 

 navy of Russia, and served in the Cronstadt licet, in the 

 wars with the Swedes. He obtained the rank of lieutenant 

 in 1707, and of captain-lieutenant in 1710 ; the date of his 

 becoming captain is uncertain, but in 1732 he was pro- 

 moted to the rank of captain-commander previous to setting 

 out on his last expedition. 



The Empress Catherine being anxious to promote dis- 

 covery in the north-east quarter of Asia, and to settle the 

 then doubtful question as to the junction of Asia and Ame- 

 rica, Behring was appointed to command an expedition for 

 that purpose. He left St. Petersburg in February, 1725, 

 and after exploring several rivers, travelled over-land by the 

 way of Yakutsk, on the Lena, to Okhotsk, then crossed over 

 to Boloheretsk, and arrived at Nischnei Kamtchatka Ostrog. 

 Here he built a small boat, and sailed on the 20th of July, 

 1728, coasting Kamtchatka till he reached in August (67 18' 

 N. lat. by his observations) a cape which, from the land 

 beyond it trending so much to the westward, he supposed 

 to be the north-easternmost point of Asia. In this con- 

 jecture, however, as has since been Droved, Behring was 

 mistaken ; the point reached by him must have been Serdze 

 Kamen : but with this conviction on his own mind, and the 

 approach of winter, he determined to retrace his steps, and 

 he returned in safety lo Nischnei Kamtchatka. The fol- 

 lowing year he made another attempt, but a continuance of 

 bad weather obliged him to shape his course in an opposite 

 direction, and he reached Okhotsk, having doubled the 

 southern promontory of Kamtchatka, which peninsula 

 was up to that time generally believed to join Japan. 

 From Okhotsk he went to St. Petersburg, and having 

 obtained his promotion, in 1733 took the command of an 

 expedition for the purposes of discovery, which was fitted 

 out on a very large scale. Alter several exploratory ex- 

 cursions, he stationed himself at Yakutsk, directing vari- 

 ous detachments of his officers down the rivers on dilt'crent 

 points of the Frozen Ocean. In 17-10 he reached Okhotsk, 

 where vessels had previously been built for him, in which 

 he sailed for Awatska Bay, where he founded the pre- 

 sent settlement of Petropaulovski. and passed the winter. 

 His discoveries to the northward being deemed sufficiently 

 satisfactory, lie was now directed to proceed to the eastward 

 towards the American continent. He left Awatska in June, 

 1741, steering to the south-east, but having reached th* 



