8+4 BED 
to be congruous to the appearance, or character, or cir« 
cumftances, in fuch a manner as to add grace ; to be grace- 
firlWicherly was of my opinion, or rather I of his; for 
it becomes me fo to fpeak of fo excellent a poet. Dry den. 
BECO'MING, part. adj. That which pleafes by an ele¬ 
gant propriety ; graceful. It is fometimes ufed with the 
particle of; but generally without any government of the 
following words.—Their difeotirfes are fuch as belong to 
their age, their calling, and their breeding ; fuclr as are 
b-coming a/rthem, and o/tlteih only. Dry den.. 
Becoming, f. Ornament. A word not now in ufe. . 
BECO'MINGLY, adv. After a becoming or proper 
manner. 
BECO'MINGNESS,/] Decency ; elegant congruity ; 
propriety.—Nor is the majefty of the divine'govcrnment 
greater in its extent, than the bccomingnefs hereof is in its 
manner and form. Grew. 
BECSANGIL', anciently Bithynia, a province of Na- 
telia in Afia; bounded on the-novth by the .Black Sea; 
on the wed, by the Sea of Marmara ; on the lotith, by 
Natalia Proper: and on the call, by the province ol Bolli. 
The principal town is Burfa. 
BECTAS'SE, an order or fed of religious among the 
Turk’s, denominated from their founder BcElaJT;, preacher 
■to fultan Amurath. All the Janizaries belonging to the 
Porte are of the religion of Bedade, being even faid to 
.have derived their origin from the founder ot this feci. 
The habit of the Bedade is white : on their heads they 
wear white caps of feveral pieees, with turbans of wool 
twilled rope-fafhion. They .obferve conftantly the hour of 
prayer, which they perform in their own ademblies, and 
make frequent declarations of tire unity of God. 
BED,yi \_bed, Sax.] Something made to deep on.— 
Lying not ered, but hollow, which is in the making of 
the bed ; or \vith the legs gathered up, which is in the' 
pofture of the body, is the more wholefome. Bacon .—■ 
Lodging ; the convenience of a place to deep in : 
On my knees I beg, * 
That you’ll vouchfafe me raiment, bed, and food. Shakefp. 
Marriage.—George, the elded fon of this fecond bed, was, 
after the death of his father, by the Angular care and af- 
fedion of his mother, well brought up. Clarendon. —Bank 
of earth raifed in a garden.—Herbs will be tenderer and 
fairer, if you take them out of beds, when they are newly 
come up, and remove them into pots with better earth. 
Bacon. —The channel of a river, or any hollow ; 
So high as heav’d the tumid hills, fo low 
Down funk a hollow bottom, broad, and deep, 
Capacious bed of waters. Milton. 
The place where any thing is generated, or repoAted : 
See hoary Albula’s infeded tide 
O’er the warm bed of fmoaking fulphur glide. Addifon. 
A layer; a.ftratum ; a body fpread over another.—I fee 
no reafon, but the lurface of the land flfould be as regu¬ 
lar as that of the water, in the Ard production of it ; and 
the drata, or beds within, lie as even. Burnet. 
To bring to Bed. To deliver of a child. It is often ufed 
with the particle of-, as, / 7 /e brought to bed of a daughter. 
To make the Bed. 'I'o put the bed in order after it has 
been ufed.—I keep his houfe, and I wadi, wring, brew, 
bake, fcour, drefs meat, and make the beds, and do all my- 
l’elf. Shakefpeare. 
There are varieties of beds, as a danding-bed, a fettee- 
bed, a tent bed, a truckle bed, &c. but thefe are all of 
modern invention ; for it was univerfally the practice, in 
the Ard ages, for mankind to deep upon Ik ins of beads. 
It was originally the cudom of the Greeks and Romans. 
It was particularly the cudom of the ancient Britons be¬ 
fore the Roman invaAon ; and thefe (kins were fpread on 
the floor of their apartments. Afterwards they were 
changed for loofe rufhes and heather, as the Welfli a few 
years ago lay on the former, and the Highlanders of Scot. 
BED 
land deep on the latter to tins prefent moment. In pro- 
cefs of time, the Romans fuggefted to the interior Britons 
the ufe, and the introduction of agriculture (Applied them 
with the means, of the neater conveniency of ft raw beds. 
The beds of the Roman gentry.at this period were gene¬ 
rally Ailed with feathers, and thofe of the inns with the 
foft down of reeds. But for many ages the beds of the 
Italians had been conftantly compoled of draw ; it (till 
formed thofe of the foldicrs and officers at the cotiquedof 
Lancalhire ; and from both, our countrymen.learnt their 
ufe. But it appears to have been taken up only by the 
gentlemen, as tlie common Weldt had their beds thinly 
United with rufhes as late as the conclnAon of the* r?vh 
century ; and with the gentlemen it continued many ages 
afterwards. Straw was ufed even in the royal chambers 
of England as late as the clofe of the 13th century. Moft 
of the common people in Scotland lie on chaff: in the 
Highlands heath is alfo very generally ufed as beddin? 
even by the gentry; and the repofe on a heath bed has 
been celebrated by travellers as a peculiar luxurry, fupe- 
rior to that yielded by down : in France and Italy, draw 
beds remain general to this day. But after the above pe¬ 
riod, beds were no longer fullered to red upon the ground. 
The better mode that had anciently prevailed in the cad, 
and long before-been introduced into Italy, was Adopted 
in Britain; and they were now, mounted on pededah. 
This, however, was equally confined to the gentlemen. 
The bed (till continued on the fioor among the common 
people. And the grofs cudom, that had prevailed from 
the beginning, was retained by the lower Britons to the 
lad; and thefe ground-beds were laid along the walls-of 
their houfes, and formed one common dormitory for all 
the members of the family. The fafliion continued uni¬ 
verfally among the inferior ranks of the Welch within 
thefe four or five ages, and with the more uncivilifed part 
of the Highlanders down to our own times. 
Dining- Bed, leClus tricliniaris, or difeubitorius, that where¬ 
on tire ancients lay at meals. The dining or diicubitorv 
beds were four or five feet high. Three of thefe beds 
were ordinarily ranged by a fquare table (whence both the 
table and the room where they ate were called triclinium) 
in fuch a manner, that one of the fides of the table re¬ 
mained open and accedtble to the waiters. Each bed would 
hold three or four, rarely five, perfons. Thefe beds were 
unknown before the fecond Punic war : the Romans, till 
then, fat down to eat on plain wooden benches, in imita¬ 
tion of the heroes of Homer, or, as Varro expredes it 
after the manner of the Lacedemonians and Cretans. Sci- 
pio Africanus Ard 'made an innovation : lie had brought 
from Carthage forne of thofe little beds called punicani, or 
archaici ; being of a wood common enough, very low, 
fluffed only with draw or hay, and covered with goats or 
fiieeps (kins, hcedinis pellibus Jlrati. In reality, there was 
no great difference, as to delicacy, between thefe new 
beds and the ancient benches ; but the cudom of frequent 
bathing, which began then to obtain, by fo'ftening and re¬ 
laxing the body, put men on trying to red themfelves 
more commodioufiy by lying along than by fitting down. 
For the ladies, it did not feem at firft confident witli'their 
modefiy to adopt the mode of lying ; accordingly they 
kept to the old cudom all the time of the commonwealth • 
but, from the firft Cat-far?, they ate on their beds. For 
the youth who had not yet put on the' toga virilis, they 
were long kept to the ancient discipline. When they 
were admitted to table, they only fat on the edge of the 
beds of their neared relations. Never, fays Suetonius 
did the young Caefars, Cains and Lucius, eat at the table 
of Aiigudus ; but they were fet in imo loco, or, as Tacitus 
expredes it, ad leclifulcra. From the greateft fimplicity, 
the Romans by degrees carried their dining-beds to the 
mod furprifing magnificence. Pliny adures us, it was no 
new thing to fee them covered over with plates of filver, 
adorned with the fofted mats, and the richeft counterpanes. 
Lampridius, fpeaking of Heliogabulus, fays, he had beds 
of folid filver, Jmdo argento habuit leclos et tricliniares, ej. 
cubicularcs. 
