494 



BEN BBNAVIDE& 



of Urbino, at tluit time one of those Italian courts 

 where the sciences stood hi^heM in esteem. He 

 lived there about six years, and gained several jtower- 

 ful friends. In 1512, he went in Kami- with (iiulio 

 de' Medici, whose brother, pope Leo X.. made hint 

 his secretary, and gave him his friend Sadoleto lor a 

 colleague. About this time. 15. became acquainted 

 >?ith Uie young and beautiful Morosina, with whom 

 he lived, in the mo-t tender union, during twenty- 

 two years. She presented him with two sons and a 

 daughter, whom lie educated with the greatest care. 

 1 1 's many labours, arising from his office, as well as 

 his literary pursuits, and, perhaps, too threat an in- 

 dulgence in pleasure, having impaired his health, he 

 was using the Iviths of Padua, when he was apprized 

 of the death of Leo X. Heing by this time pos^ -.M-I! 

 of several church l>eiiefiees, he resolved on withdraw- 

 in;; entirely from business, ami on passing his days at 

 Padua (the air of which he had found very beneficial), 

 occupied only with literature and science, and enjoy- 

 ing the society of his friends. The learned members 

 of the famous university of this city eagerly fre- 

 quented his house, and strangers also nocked thither. 

 B. collected a considerable library : he had a cabinet 

 of medals and antiquities, which, at that time, passed 

 for one of the richest in Italy, and a fine botanical 

 garden. He spent the spring and autumn at a villa 

 called Bozza, which had always belonged to his 

 family. He devoted the leisure of a country life 

 principally to his literary pursuits. In the year 1529, 

 after the death of Andreas Navagrro, the office of 

 historiographer of the republic of Venice, was offered 

 to him, which he accepted, after some hesitation, 

 declining the salary connected with it. At the same 

 time, he wns nominated librarian of the library of St 

 Murk. Pope Paul III., having resolved upon a new 

 promotion of cardinals, from the most distinguished 

 men of his time, conferred on him, in 1539, the hat 

 of a cardinal. From that time, B. renounced the 

 belles-lettres, and made the fathers and the Holy 

 Scriptures his chief study. Of his former labours, he 

 continued only the History of Venice. Two years 

 later, Paul III. bestowed the bishopric of Gubbio on 

 him, and, soon after, the rich bishopric of Bergamo. 

 He died, loaded with honours, 1547, in the seventy- 

 seventh year of his age. 



Bembo united in his person, his character, and con- 

 versation, all tliat is amiable. He was the restorer of 

 a pure style, as well in Latin composition, in which 

 Cicero, Virgil, and Julius Caesar were his constant 

 models, as in the Italian, in which he chiefly imitated 

 Petrarca. He was so rigorous with regard to purity 

 of style, that he is said to have had forty different 

 partitions, through which his writings, as he polished 

 them by degrees, successively passed ; nor did he 

 publish them till they had sustained these forty exa- 

 minations. A collection of all his works, which were 

 frequently printed singly, appeared, in 1729, at 

 Venice, in 4 folio vols. The most important of them 

 are, History of Venice from 1487 to 1513, in twelve 

 books, which he wrote both in Latin and Italian ; 

 Le Prose, dialogues, in which the rules of the Italian 

 language are laid down ; Gli Asolani, dialogues on 

 the nature of love ; Le Rime, a collection of beauti- 

 ful sonnets and canzonets ; his letters, both in Latin 

 and Italian : De VirgUii CuUce et Terentii Fobulis 

 lAber ; Carmina, which are ingenious and elegant, 

 but more free than the author's profession would lead 

 us to expect ; besides several others. 



BEN (Hebrew, son) ; a prepositive syllable, found 

 in many Jewish names ; as, Bendavid, Benasser, 

 &c., which, with the Jews in Germany, has been 

 changed into the German Sohn (son), e. g. Mendels- 

 sohn, Jacobssohn, &c. The origin of this manner of 

 naming is to be found in the ancient custom of the 



Israelites' having no family names, which is stilt 

 their usage in many countries. 



BKNAKKS ; a town and district in the province of 

 Allahabad, in Bengal. It has an area of 12,000 

 square miles, 10,000 of which are rich cultivated flats 

 on each side of the Ganges. The. heat, in summer, 

 is excessive, but, in winter, fires nre requisite. Gar- 

 den-stuffs, grain of different kinds, flax for oil (no 

 linens are manufactured here), and sugar, are the 

 principal objects of cultivation. The gross revenue, 

 in 1813, amounted to 4,562,707 rupees (570,338). 

 MusJins, silks, and gauzes, salt, indigo, and opium 

 are made in this district. The principal towns are 

 Benares, Mirza-pur, Chunnrgarh, and Ghazi-pnr. 

 The population exceeds 3,000,000, and the Hindoos 

 are to the Mussulmans as ten to one in the town, and 

 as twenty to one in the villages. The rajah ( tut 

 Singh was expelled by Mr Hastings in 1781. 



jienares (in Sanscrit, Vara Nasi, from the two 

 streams, Vari and Nasi) stands in lat. 25 30* N., and 

 Ion. 83 1' E., on the high bank and northern side of 

 the Ganges. The town rises like an amphitheatre. 

 The height of the houses and narrowness of the 

 streets give it all the usual inconveniences of an 

 Asiatic town. Its inhabitants are more than 600,000, 

 of whom 8000 are said to be Bramins ; and, at the 

 great Hindoo festivals, the concourse is immen-e ; 

 for Casi, or Cas/ii, the splendid, as the Indians com- 

 monly call it, is one of the most sacred places of pil- 

 grimage in all India. To die at B. is the greatest 

 happiness for a Hindoo, because he is then sure of 

 immediate admission into heaven. The number of 

 pious foundations and temples is exceedingly great. 

 Several of the Hindoo princes have agents here to 

 offer up sacrifices in their behalf. The principal 

 temple is called Visweswar or Bisesar, and is dedi- 

 cated to Siva, whose sacred relic it contains. An. 

 rungzebe built a splendid mosque on the highest 

 ground in the city, and on the ruins of a temple. At 

 the end of the 17th century, an observatory was 

 erected in this city, which still exists ; and a college 

 for the instruction of Hindoos in their own literature 

 was established by the British government in 1801 ; 

 but it has not yet done much for the revival of learn- 

 ing among the natives, owing to the pride of the 

 Bramins. B. has long been the great mart for dia- 

 monds and other gems, brought principally from the 

 Bundelcund. The merchants and bankers are nu- 

 merous and wealthy. There are few English inha- 

 bitants, except the government officers and the mem- 

 bers of the circuit court. Casi was ceded to the East 

 India company by the nabob of Aud'h (Oude), in 

 1775, and, since 1781, has enjoyed uninterrupted 

 tranquillity. The inhabitants are better informed 

 than the natives of the country in general. The 

 reader will find an interesting account of B. in bishop 

 Heber's Narrative of a Journey through the Upper 

 Provinces of India, in 1824-26; London, 1828. 



BENAVIDES ; an outlaw and pirate, who, for several 

 years, proved the scourge of the southern parts ot 

 Chile. He was a native of Quirihue, in the province 

 of Concepcion, and entered the patriot army as a 

 common soldier at the commencement of the revolu- 

 tion. Having deserted to the Spaniards, and being 

 made prisoner by the Chilians, at the battle of Mem- 

 brilla, in 1814, he was to have been tried for deser- 

 tion, but effected his escape. Being made prisoner 

 again at the battle of Maypu, in 1818, he was sen- 

 tenced to be shot, and was supposed to have been 

 killed ; but, although shockingly wounded, and left 

 for dead, he recovered, and, having obtained a com- 

 mission from the Spanish commander Sanchez, he 

 commenced a war upon the southern frontier of Chile, 

 never surpassed in savage cruelty. He laid waste 

 the coun.tr/ with fire and sword, murdered his prison- 



