863 BEL 
impatient to fly; but flight mud: have been fupported by 
rebellion, and he had lived enough for nature and for glo¬ 
ry. Belifarius appeared before the council with lefs fear 
than indignation: after forty years fervice, the emperor 
had prejudged his guilt; and injuftice was fandtified by the 
prefence and authority of the patriarch. The life of Be- 
lifarius was gracioufiy fpared : but his fortunes were fe- 
qtteftered ; and, from December to July, he was guarded 
as a prifoner in his own palace. At length his innocence 
was acknowledged; his freedom and honours were refto- 
red; but death, which might be baftened by refentment and 
grief, removed him from the world about eight months 
after his deliverance. That he was deprived of his eyes, 
and reduced by envy to beg his bread, “ Give a penny to 
Belifarius the general!” is a fidtion of later times; which 
has obtained credit, or rather favour, as afirange example 
of the viciflitudes of fortune. The fource of this idle ro¬ 
mance may be derived from a milcellaneous work of the 
twelfth century, the Chiliads of John Tzetzes, a monk. 
He relates the biindnefs and beggary of Belifarius in ten 
vulgar or political verfes (Chiliad iii. No. 88. 339-348, in 
Corp. Poet. Graac. tom.ii. p. 311). 
'Ev.'rrcjua. ^vX-.vov xpcnuii eSoac. rco paXny 
iu) oQo'hov Sore rui r^ce-TO^ecrn 
Or rvprn (J.sv arroTvCp Aoi ^ 0 1p 9 oro;. 
This moral and romantic tale was imported in Italy with 
the language and manufcripts of Greece; repeated before 
the end of the fifteenth century by Crinitus, Pontanus, 
and Volaterranus; attacked by Alciat for the honour of 
the lawg and defended by Baronins for the honour of the 
church. Yet Tzetzes himfelf had read in other chroni¬ 
cles, that Belifarius did not lo(e his light, and that he re¬ 
covered his fame and fortunes. The ftatue in the Villa 
Borghefe at Rome, in a fitting pofture, with an open hand, 
which is vulgarly given to Belifarius, may be afcribed 
with more dignity to Auguflus in the act of propitiating 
Nemefis (lYinckleman, Hijl. de l'Art. tom. iii. p. 266). 
“ Ex nodhu no. vifu etiara Itipem, quqtannis, die certo, 
emendicabat a populo, cavam manum affes porrigentibus 
prebens. Sucton. in Aug. c.91. 
BELITZ', a town of Germany, in the circle of Upper 
Saxony, and middle mark" of Brandenburg, fitnated on 
the river Nieplitz, or Belitz, defended with old ramparts 
and ditches. In this place there is a conliderable manu¬ 
facture of cloth ; and it is twenty-eight- miles fouth-well 
of Berlin, and twelve fouth-wefi: of Potfdam. 
BELI'VE, adv. [bilive, Sax. probably from iz and life, 
in the fenfe of vivacity, fpeed, quicknefs.] Speedily; 
quickly. A word out of ufe: 
By that fame way the direful dames to drive 
Their mournful chariot, fill’d with rufty blood, 
And down to Pluto’s houfe are come bclive. Fairy Queen. 
BEI.IZA'NA, a name given by the Gauls to Minerva, 
and to whom they facrificed human vidtims. 
BELKA'NI, a town of Afiatic Turkey, in the province 
of Natolia, fourteen miles north of Satalia. 
BEL'KIN, a town of Egypt, forty-five miles fouth-wefi 
of Damietta, and fifty-four fouth-wefi: of Cairo. 
BELKO'VA, a river of Rufiia, in the government of 
Archangel, which runs into the Frozen Sea. Lat. 68. 30. 
N. Ion. 96. 20. E, Ferro. 
flELL,/ {pel, Sa-x. fuppofed by Skinner to come from 
pelvis, Lat. a bafin.] A velfel or hollow body of caft me¬ 
tal, formed to make anoife by the adl of a clapper, ham¬ 
mer, or fome other ihflrument, firiking againft it. Bells 
are in the towers of churches, to call the congregation to¬ 
gether -. 
Get thee gone, and dig my grave thyfelf, 
And bid the merry bells ring to thy ear, 
t hat thou art crowned, not that I am dead. Skakefpeare. 
It is ufed for any thing in the form of a bell, as the cups 
of flowers : 
BEL 
The humming bees, that hunt the golden dew, 
In hummer's heat on tops of lilies feed, 
And creep within their bells to fuck the balmy feed. Dryd, 
A fmall hollow globe of metal perforated, and containing 
in it a folid ball ; which, when it is (haken, by'bounding 
againfi the hides, gives a found.—As the ox hath his yoke, 
the horfe his curb, and the falcon his bells, fo hath man 
his defires. Shakefpeare. 
To bear the 3 ei.i.. To be firft ; from the wether that 
carries a bell among the (beep, or the firft horfe of a drove 
that has bells on his collar.—The Italians have carried 
away the bell from all other nations, as may appear both 
by their books and works. Hakcwill. 
To [hake the Bells. A phrafe in Shakefpeare taken 
from the bells of a hawk : 
Neither the king, nor he that loves him befl, 
The proudeft lie that holds up Lancafier, 
Dares fiir a wing, if Warwick f,takes his bells. Shakefpeare, 
O11 the origin of church-bells, Mr. Whitaker, in his 
Hifiory of Manchefter, obferves, That bells being ufed, 
among other purpofes, by the Romans, to lignify the times 
of bathing, were naturally applied by the Chriftians of 
Italy to denotfes the hours of devotion, and fummon the 
people to church. The fir ft application of them to this 
purpofe is, by Polydore Virgil and others, afcribed to Pau- 
linus bifiiop of Nola, a city of Campania, about the year 
400. Hence, it is laid, the names nola and campance were 
given them ; the one referring'to the city, the other to the 
country. Though others lay they took the latter of thefe 
names, not from their being invented in Campania, but 
becaule it was here the manner of hanging and balancing 
them, now in ufe, was firft pradlifed; at leaft that they 
were dm ng on the model of a fort of balance invented or 
ufed in Campania; for in Latin writers we find campana 
fatera, for a fteel-yard ; and in the Greek xa^Trau^Eir,and 
ponderare, ‘to weigh.’ Bells, on their firft introduction 
into the church, were called faints-, hence toe faint, or toc- 
fin, the corruption which in procefs of time followed. 
Pliny reports, that many ages before his time bells were 
in ufe, and called tintinnabulce ; and Suetonius fays, that 
Auguftus had one put at the gate of the temple of Jupi¬ 
ter to call the meeting of the people. In Britain, bells 
were applied to church-purpofes, before the conclufion of 
the feventh century, in the monadic focietiesof Northum¬ 
bria, and as early as the fixth even in thole of Caledonia. 
And they were therefore ufed from the firft erection of 
parifti-churches among us. Thofeof France and England 
appear to have been furnifhed with feveral bells. In the 
time of Clotaire II. king of France, and in the year 610, 
the army of that king was frightened from the fiege of the 
city of Sens, by ringing the bells of St. Stephen’s church. 
The fecond excerption of Egbert, about the year 750, 
which is adopted in a French Capitulary of 801, com¬ 
mands every prieft, at the proper hours, to found the bells 
of his church, and then to go through the facred offices 
to God ; and the council of Enham, in ton, requires all 
mulcts for fins to be expended in the reparation of the 
church, and the purchale of church veftments and bells. 
Church-bells were fometimes compofed of iron in France ; 
and in England, as formerly at Rome, were frequently of 
brafs. As early as the ninth century, there* were many 
bells caft of a large fize and deep note. Ingulplms men¬ 
tions, that Turketulus abbot of Croyland, who died about 
the year 870, gave a great bell to the church of that ab¬ 
bey, which he named Guthlac ; and afterwards fix others, 
viz. two which he called Bartholomew and Bettelin, two 
called Turketul and Tatwin, and two named Pega and 
Bega ; all which rang together ; and the fame author fays, 
“ there was not then fucharingof bells in all England.” 
Not long after, Kinfeus archbifliop of York gave two 
great bells to the church of St.-John at Beverly, and at 
the fame time provided that other churches in his diocefe 
fhould be furnifhed with bells. Mention is made by St, 
Aldhem, and William of Malmelbury, of bells given by 
