BENMORE BENTHAM. 



501 



continued ascent, which in general requires three 

 hours. The lower part of this mountainous cluster 

 !s well wooded, and verdant, and the upper regions 

 afford excellent heathy pasture. It commands a most 

 extensive prospect of the vale of Stirlingshire, the 

 Lothians, the Clyde, Ayrshire, Isle of Man, hills 

 of Antrim, and all the surrounding Highland terri- 

 tory. Like Benlawers, this is one of the botanical 

 gardens of the Highlands. 



BENMORE (the great mountain) ; a conical hill be- 

 twixt Loch Dochart and Loch Voil, western part of 

 Perthshire, among the braes of Balquhidder. It 

 rises to an elevation of 3903 feet above the level of 

 the sea. 



BENNEVIS, generally supposed to be the most lofty 

 mountain in Great Britain, is situated on the south- 

 western extremity of Inverness-shire, immediately 

 east of Fort William and the opening of the Caledo- 

 nian canal into Loch Eil. It rises from the brink of 

 the latter piece of water, to the height of 4370 feet. 

 In clear weather, a view can be obtained from its 

 summit athwart nearly the whole of the north of 

 Scotland from sea to sea. It is generally enveloped 

 in a mantle of clouds, and is toilsome in the ascent. 

 1 1 consists principally of a fine brown porphyry, and 

 contains red granite osuch a beautiful grain, as to 

 be unmatched in any other part of the world. Being 

 cleft in many places to the very base, by rents and 

 glens, its precipices are of prodigious altitude. 

 One of them, the inaccessible eyrie of eagles, is nearly 

 five hundred feet perpendicular ; and, in the fissures, 

 the snow remains unmelted, even in the warmest 

 weather. It is said to contain veins of silver and 

 lead. Around its southern base flows the streamlet 

 of the Nevis, through the glen of the same name. 

 It was at the opening of this valley tliat the mar- 

 quis of Montrose achieved the brilliant victory of In- 

 verlochy. 



BENNINGSEN, Levin Augustus, baron of, Russian 

 commander-in-chief, born at Banteln, in Hanover, 

 1745, early entered into the Russian service, and dis- 

 tinguished himself by great gallantry in the war against 

 Poland, under the empress Catharine II. He acted a 

 chief part in the conspiracy of the palace against the 

 emperor Paul I. In 1806, he was appointed to com- 

 mand the Russian army which hastened to the assis- 

 tance of the Prussians ; but, before his arrival, the 

 Prussians were defeated at Jena. He afterwards 

 fought the murderous battle of Eylau (next to that of 

 Mojaisk, perhaps the most bloody in military history), 

 and the battle of Friedland. After the peace of Tilsit, 

 he retired to his estates. In 1813, he led a Russian 

 army, called the army of Poland, into Saxony, took 

 part in the battle of Leipsic, and blockaded Ham- 

 burg. After commanding the army in the south of 

 Russia, he finally settled in his native country, and 

 died Oct. 3, 1826. He is the author of Thoughts on 

 certain Points requisite for an Officer of Light 

 Cavalry to be acquainted with (Riga, 1794 ; Wilna, 

 1805). 



BEXNINGTON ; a post-town in a county of the same 

 name, in Vermont, watered by a branch of the Hoo- 

 sack. It borders on New York, is situated in a good 

 farming country, and is a place of considerable trade 

 and manufactures. The courts for the county are 

 held alternately at Benuington and Manchester. On 

 mount Anthony, in this town, there is a cave contain- 

 ing many beautiful petrifactions. Two famous battles 

 were fought here on the 16th of August, 1777, in 

 which general Stark, at the head of 1600 American 

 militia, gained a victory over the British. Population 

 in 1810, 2524 ; in 1820, 2485. 



BENNO, St, of the family of the counts of Wolden- 

 berg, born at Hildesheim, in 1010, became (1028) a 

 Benedictine monk, in the convent of St Michael 



there. Henry IV. (1066) made him bishop of Misnia, 

 and favoured him by repeated donations of estates 

 for his church. Nevertheless, B. took a secret part 

 in the conspiracy of the Saxon nobles against the 

 emperor, for which reason Henry led him away 

 prisoner, when he passed Misnia, in 1075, after the 

 battle on the Unstrut. He was afterwards set at 

 liberty, but several times proved faithless to the em- 

 peror. He died 1107. His bones began by degrees 

 to work miracles ; and pope Adrian VI., after many 

 entreaties from the Saxons, as well as from the 

 emperor Charles V., and having received large sums 

 of money, placed him among the saints. It was 

 thought that this canonization would tend to the pro- 

 motion of the Catholic faith in Saxony. At present, 

 the bones of St Benno are in the city of Munich, 

 which has chosen him for its patron. 



BENSERADE, Isaac de, a poet at the court of Louis 

 X-IV., born, 1612, at Lyons-la-Foret, a small town in 

 Normandy, wrote for the stage, and composed a great 

 number of ingenious verses for the king, and many 

 distinguished persons at court. In the first half of the 

 reign of Louis XIV., the court, and the followers of 

 the court, patronised songs of gallantry, rondeaux, 

 triolets, madrigals, and sonnets, containing sallies of 

 wit, conceits, and effusions of gallantry, in the 

 affected style then prevalent. No one succeeded so 

 well in this art as B., who was therefore called, by 

 way of eminence, le poete de la cour. He received 

 many pensions for his performances, and lived at 

 great expense. Wearied, at last, with the life which 

 he led at court, he retired to his country-seat, Gen- 

 tilly, and died 1691. 



BENTHAM, Jeremy, a distinguished writer on poli- 

 tics and jurisprudence, was born in 1749. He 

 studied English law, but never appeared at the bar, 

 being enabled, by easy circumstances, to devote him- 

 self entirely to literary compositions. He did not, 

 however, publish his chief works himself. They were 

 arranged and translated into French by his friend M. 

 Dumont, and printed partly in Paris and partly in 

 London. Among them are Traites de Legislation, 

 civile etpenale, &c. (Paris, 1802, 3 vols.), and Theorie 

 des Peines et des Recompenses (London, 1801, 2 vols.) 

 B. advocated a thorough correction of civil and cri- 

 minal legislation. His Fragments on Government, 

 in opposition to Blackstone, appeared anonymously 

 in 1776, and with his name, London, 1823. In 

 France, his literary labours found a better reception 

 than in England or Germany. A small pamphlet 

 on the liberty of the press (London, 1821), was 

 addressed by him to the Spanish cortes, during 

 their discussion of this subject ; and, in another 

 (Three Tracts relative to the Spanish and Portu- 

 guese Aflairs, London, 1821), he refuted the idea of 

 the necessity of a house of peers in Spain, as well as 

 Montesquieu's proposition, that judicial forms are the 

 defence of innocence. One of his latest works was 

 the Art of Packing (London, 1821) ; that is, of ar- 

 ranging jviries so as to obtain any verdict desired. 

 His previous work, Essai sur la Tactique des dssern- 

 blees legislatives, edited, from the author's papers, by 

 Etienne Dumont (Geneva, 1815), and translated into 

 German, contains many useful observations. His In- 

 troduction to the Principles of Morals and Legisla- 

 tion (London, 1823, 2 vols.), treats of the principal 

 objects of government in a profound and compre- 

 hensive manner. Zanobelli has translated Bentham's 

 Theory of Legal Evidence into Italian (Bergamo, 

 1824, 2 vols.). Among the earlier works of B. was 

 his Defence of Usury, showing the Impolicy of the 

 present legal Restraints on the Terms of pecuniary 

 Bargains (1787). Mr Bentham died in London, 

 June 6, 1832, leaving his body to be dissected, for 

 the benefit of science. He was a man of primitive 



