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As a scholar, Bentley stands in the first rank. It is 

 to be regretted, for the sake of his own fame, as well as 

 for the interest of literature, that so much of his time 

 was occupied by disputes concerning questions of place 

 and money. With less violent passions, less ambition, 

 selfishness, and pride, he might have been one of the moat 

 shining ornaments of his age. But if in this article we 

 have not been sparing in strong expressions of censure, it 

 is right to add that he conciliated the warm affections of his 

 family and his friends ; and he who does so can scarcely be 

 an unamiable man, when his natural temper has fair play. 

 There is a long article on Bentley's life in the Biograpnia 

 Britannica, which is enlarged, we believe chiefly on Cum- 

 berland's authority, in the second edition published by 

 Kippis. The most elaborate life of him is that recently 

 published by Dr. Monk, now bishop of Gloucester: for 

 which -a vast mass of documents and manuscripts in the 

 possession of Trinity College, the University of Cambridge, 

 the Palace of Lambeth, and a variety of other sources, has 

 been carefully examined. Monk's ' Life of Bentley ' is cer- 

 tainly one of the most complete specimens of biography 

 that we are acquainted with, and perhaps it would be diffi- 

 cult to name any scholar whose life has been written with 

 so much research and such a scrupulous regard to accuracy, 

 as that of the great Master of Trinity. 

 BENTURONG. [See ICTIDKS.] 

 BENYOWSKY, MAURITIUS AUGUSTUS, Count 

 de, Magnate of Hungary and of Poland, was bom at Wer- 

 buena, or Verbowna, the hereditary lordship of his family, 

 in the county of Nittria in the kingdom of Hungary, at the 

 beginning of the year 1741. He was son of Samuel Count 

 de Benyowsky, a general of cavalry in the emperor of Aus- 

 tria's service, and of Rosa, baroness of Revay, lady and 

 hereditary countess of Thurocz. The young count was 

 educated at Vienna, and about the court, and at the early 

 age of fourteen, as the fashion was in those days, he entered 

 the Austrian army. The seven years' war was then on the 

 point of breaking out, during which the reigning empress, 

 Maria Theresa, had to make head against Frederic the 

 Great of Prussia. 



In 1756 Benyowsky fought under the celebrated Marshal 

 Braun in the battle of Lowositz, where the Austrians were- 

 defeated by the Great Frederic in person. In 1757 he was 

 engaged in the desperate battle of Prague, and in the fol- 

 lowing year he fought at Schweidnitz and Darmstadt. His 

 courage and decision of character were remarkable, and as 

 a mere stripling Benyowsky saw more of war than many 

 veterans see in the whole course of their lives. 



In the year 1761 he was invited by an uncle, who was a 

 magnate of Poland and Starost in Lithuania, to join him in 

 Lithuania, and make good his rights to Polish honour, and 

 qualify himself to succeed to his relative's property and 

 places. It should appear from their name, that the Ben- 

 yowsky family were of Polish origin. While absent in Lithu- 

 ania the count's father died, on which his brothers-in-law 

 took possession of all the Hungarian estates, which consti- 

 tuted the main part of his hereditary property. After having 

 in vain summoned them to surrender the land, Benyowsky 

 determined to take the law into his own hands, and do him- 

 self right by force, two processes which he seems to have 

 been much addicted to all his life. He suddenly appeared 

 in Hungary, and arming the vassals and peasantry on the 

 estates, who were much attached to him, he began to make 

 war on his brothers-in-law, whom he would soon have dis- 

 possessed had not the empress and the authorities of the 

 Hungarian diet interfered, and finally obliged him to retire 

 to Lithuania. During his domiciliation in Lithuania, which 

 then formed the third great province or division of the 

 Polish State, Benyowsky repeatedly memorialized the 

 Empress Maria Theresa touching the disputed estates in 

 Hungary, but without success. It is probable that his 

 rights were not quite so clear to the Austrian government 

 as they seemed to himself, and his violent mode of proceed- 

 in-;, arid his abandonment of their military service, were not 

 likely to conciliate that jealous and circumspect court. Soon 

 tiring of an inactive life, Benyowsky repaired to the mari- 

 time city of Danzig, with the notion of studying navigation 

 practically as well as theoretically. He made several voyages 

 to Hamburg, and in 1766 sailed from Hamburg to Am- 

 sterdam, whence he came to Plymouth. Being in England 

 in 1 7G7, he was on the point of engaging in a voyage to the 

 Ea.it Indies, when he received letters from certain of the 

 magnates and senators of Poland, engaging him to return 



and join, in his quality of Polish nobleman, the confedera- 

 tion which was then forming to resist the encroachments of 

 the Russians and the Empress Catherine, who had suc- 

 ceeded three years before in securing the elective crown of 

 Poland to her former lover, Stanislaus Poniatowsky. Giving 

 up his Indian voyage, Count Benyowsky set out for Warsaw, 

 where he arrived in July, 1767, and took the oath required 

 by the confederating nobles. As the moment of action had 

 not yet arrived, he employed his leisure in making a journey 

 to Vienna, and once more pressed his right to the Hun- 

 garian estates on the Austrian court ; but his representa- 

 tions were useless, and he departed for Poland with a deter- 

 mination never again to set his foot in Austria, Hungary, 

 or any part of Maria Theresa's dominions. On his way 

 back, while passing through the county of Zips in Hungary, 

 he fell sick of a fever, and was laid up for several weeks in 

 the house of a gentleman of distinction named Hensky. 

 His host had three daughters. During his sickness and 

 convalescence Benyowsky made love to one of the young 

 ladies, whom he married shortly after. He thus found 

 himself in possession of happiness and tranquillity, but it 

 was his fate never to remain long in such circumstances. 



In the beginning of 1 768, only two or three months after 

 his marriage, the Polish confederation, known under the 

 name of the Confederation of Barr, took up arms against 

 Russia, on which Benyowsky, without mentioning his in- 

 tention to his bride, went and joined them in the field, as he 

 was bound to do by the oath he had taken the preceding 

 year. At the opening of the campaign he was appointed 

 general of cavalry. For some time the Polish confederates 

 were everywhere successful, and tKe Count contributed 

 to most of the victories. But in the unfortunate battle 

 of Szuka, after being dreadfully wounded, he was made 

 prisoner by the Muscovites, who treated him not as a brave 

 and honourable enemy, but as a revolted subject or a 

 brigand. ' I was taken,' he says in his Memoirs, ' prisoner 

 in open war, after having received in all, during the cam- 

 paign, seventeen wounds.' The Russians loaded him with 

 chains, and threw him, with eighty of his comrades, into the 

 dungeon of a fortress, that had no light or air except a little 

 that straggled through a chink which opened upon the 

 casemates. In consequence of no attention being paid to 

 their wounds, and of the closeness and foulness of the at- 

 mosphere, thirty-five of the patriots died during the twenty- 

 two days he was kept there. From this dreadful confine- 

 ment Benyowsky was marched with a large body of Polish 

 prisoners to Kiew, and thence to Cazan, in the interior of. 

 Russia. While at the latter city, some Russian noblemen, 

 who had organized an extensive conspiracy against the- 

 Empress Catherine, seeing the influence he possessed over 

 the minds of the Polish prisoners, who far outnumbered 

 the Muscovite garrison of the place, treated privately with 

 Benyowsky in order to induce him to join in their plots. 

 According to the Count's own relation of these transactions, 

 though he takes credit to himself for caution and prudenca, 

 he had many interviews with the conspirators, amoag whom 

 were many of the Russian clergy, and actually engaged to 

 join his arms to theirs in case they should be successful in their 

 first rising at Cazan, and should give him and his Poles the - 

 necessary weapons, ammunition, and appointments. Nearly 

 all his biographers have overlooked these facts, which cer- 

 tainly go to account for Catherine's implacable enmity 

 towards him, though they neither excuse her brutality, nor, 

 considering the position in which he stood, cast any mor?.l 

 stain on his character. Benyowsky was not Catherine's 

 subject ; he was a prisoner of war ; and the barbarous treat- 

 ment he received justified whatsoever effort he might make 

 to regain his own and his countrymen's liberty. 



A sudden quarrel between two of the oonspirat ors, two 

 Russian lords, upset the whole plot, for one of these men, in 

 order to ruin the other, went and denounced it to the governor 

 of Cazan. Benyowsky was accused, but escaped at midnight 

 from the quarters assigned to him, just as the soldiers en- 

 tered the house to drag him before the confounded and 

 enraged governor. A major of the Polish army was the 

 companion of his flight, which Benyowsky managed through- 

 out with wonderful address and talent. Instead of attempt- 

 ing to hide himself in the provinces, he determined to go 

 straight on to the crowded capital, -where he fancied he 

 could lie concealed until some foreign vessel should be 

 found to carry him out of Russia. According to his own 

 showing, his thorough knowledge* of this defeated conspi- 

 racy and of the persons engaged : n it, greatly facilitated his 



* 



