BEHAIM BEITH. 



473 



names signify suppliants, or beggars, underwent many 

 persecutions from the jealousy of the clerical orders, 

 and were sometimes confounded with the Lollards. 

 (See Brot/ier/ioods.) There are, in some places of 

 Germany, beguinages, which are, however, only 

 eleemosynary institutions, where unmarried females, 

 of the lower class of people, have a lodging free of 

 expense, and enjoy some other advantages. 



BEHAIM, Martin, born at Nuremberg, about 1430, 

 is distinguished as one of the most learned mathema- 

 ticians and astronomers of his age. He was engaged 

 in commerce, and traveled, for the purpose of carry- 

 ing on his business, from 1455 to 1479 ; but he also 

 devoted himself to the study of the mathematical and 

 nautical sciences, in which Regiomontanus is said to 

 have been his master. He went from Antwerp to 

 Lisbon, in 1480, where he was received with marks of 

 distinction. He sailed in the fleet of Diego Can, on a 

 voyage of discovery, and explored the islands on the 

 coast of Africa as far as the river Zaire. He is also 

 said to have discovered, or, at least, to have colonized, 

 the island of Fayal, where he remained for several 

 years, and assisted in the discovery of the other Azores. 

 He was afterwards knighted, and returned to his na- 

 tive country, where he constructed a terrestrial globe, 

 in 1492, which bears the marks of the imperfect ac- 

 quaintance of that age with the true dimensions of the 

 earth. B. died, after many voyages, in Lisbon, 1 506. 

 Some ancient Spanish historians assert that he made 

 many discoveries, and that he gave to his friend Co- 

 lumbus the idea of another hemisphere. Robertson 

 (in his History of America) and others contradict this 

 statement. It is also rejected by Irving. 



BEHEADING ; a capital punishment, wherein the 

 head is severed from the body by the stroke of an 

 axe, sword, or other cutting instrument. Decollatio, 

 or beheading, was a military punishment among the 

 Romans. In early times it was performed with an 

 axe, and afterwards with a sword, It is worth re- 

 marking, that, in all countries where beheading and 

 hanging are used as capital punishments, the former 

 is atways considered less ignominious. Thus, in this 

 country, beheading is generally the capital punish- 

 ment of nobles, while that of commoners is hanging. 

 The crime of high treason is always punished with 

 beheading. Commoners, however, are hanged before 

 the head is cut off, and nobles also, unless the king 

 remits that part of the punishment In Prussia, for- 

 merly, a nobleman could not be hanged, and, if his 

 crime was such that the law required this punishment, 

 he was degraded before the execution. At present, 

 hanging is not used in that country, and, since so 

 many instances have occurred of extreme suffering, 

 on the part of the criminal, caused by the unskilful- 

 ness of the executioner in beheading with the sword, 

 this mode of execution has been abolished. Behead- 

 ing, in Prussia, is now always performed with a heavy 

 axe, the sufferer being previously tied to a block. In 

 Scotland, beheading was anciently performed by an 

 edged instrument, called the Maiden, introduced into 

 this country by the regent Morton, who was the first 

 that suffered by it. This instrument, somewhat simi- 

 lar in its construction to the guillotine, has been 

 preserved, and may still be seen in the apartments of 

 the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. In France, dur- 

 ing the revolutionary government, beheading by 

 means of a machine, the guillotine (q. v.), came into 

 use, and still prevails there, to the exclusion of all 

 other modes of capital punishment. A person who 

 lias murdered his rather or mother, however, has his 

 right arm cut off the moment before he is guillotined. 

 In the middle ages, it was, in some states, the duty 

 of the youngest magistrate to perform the executions 

 with the sword. In China it is well known that 

 beheading is practised, sometimes accompanied with 



the most studied torments. In the United States oi 

 America, beheading is unknown, the halter being the 

 only instrument of capital punishment. Respecting 

 the bad or good consequences of public beheading, 

 the same remarks may be made, which are ap- 

 plicable to public executions in general. In many 

 European countries, beheading with the sword still 

 prevails. 



BEHN, Aphara, a lady of some celebrity as a writer 

 of plays and novels, was descended from a good fa- 

 mily in Canterbury, of the name of Johnson, and was 

 born in the reign of Charles I. Her father, through 

 the interest ot his relation lord Willoughby, being 

 appointed lieutenant-general of Surinam, embarked 

 with his family for the West Indies, taking with him 

 Aphara, who was then very young. The father died 

 at sea ; but his family arrived safely at Surinam, and 

 remained there some years, during which time Apliara 

 became acquainted with the American prince Oroo- 

 ribko, whom she made the subject of a novel, subse- 

 quently dramatized by Southern. On her return to 

 England, she married Mr Behn, a merchant of Lon- 

 don, of Dutch extraction ; but was probably a widow 

 when selected by Charles II. as a proper person to 

 acquire intelligence on the continent during the Dutch 

 war. She accordingly took up her residence at Ant- 

 werp, where she engaged in gallantries for the good 

 of her country ; and it is said that, by means of one 

 of her admirers, she obtained advice of the intention 

 of the Dutch to sail up the Thames, which she trans- 

 mitted to England. This intelligence, although true, 

 being discredited, she gave up politics, returned to 

 England, and devoted herself to intrigue and writing 

 for support ; and, as she had a good person and much 

 conversational talent, she became fashionable among 

 the men of wit and pleasure of the time. She pub- 

 lished three volumes of poems, by Rochester, Ether- 

 ege, Crisp, and others, with some poetry of her own ; 

 and wrote seventeen plays, the heartless licentious- 

 ness of which was disgraceful both to her sex and to 

 the age which tolerated the performance of them. 

 She was also the author of a couple of volumes of 

 novels, and of the celebrated love-letters between a 

 nobleman and nis sister-in-law (lord Gray and lady 

 Henrietta Berkeley). Pope, in his character of wo- 

 men, alludes to Mrs Behn, under her poetical name 

 of Astrea : 



The stage how loosely does Astrea tread. 

 Who fairly puts her characters to bed. 



She died in 1689, between forty and fifty years of 

 age, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster 

 abbey. 



BEHRING, BEHRING'S STRAITS, BEHRING'S ISLAND. 

 See Beering. 



BEIRA ; a province of Portugal, bounded chiefly 

 by the river Douro on the north, by Spain on the 

 east, by the Tagus and Portuguese Estremadura on 

 the south, and by the Atlantic on the west. Its ex- 

 tent is computed at 11,000 square miles, and the 

 population at nearly 900,000, which is about eighty- 

 two persons to a square mile, or rather less than the 

 average number for the whole kingdom. B. contains 

 seven episcopal cities, and about two hundred and 

 thirty other towns : the chief one is Coimbra. 

 (q. v.) It is mountainous and well watered. The 

 produce of wine and olives is considerable. See 

 Portugal. 



BEIRABI. See Bairnm. 



BEITH, a post-town and parish in the district of 

 Cunningham, Ayrshire. The town is situated eleven 

 miles west from Paisley, on a smnll eminence, and is 

 tolerably well built ; its new church, on the south of 

 the town, forming a picturesque object for many 

 miles round. A considerable trade is<rrii'd on here 

 3 oi- 



