878 BEL 
you are much beloved by me, but not I bclovt you.]- Lov¬ 
ed ; dear: 
I think it is not meet, 
Mark Anthony, f'o well bclov'd of Casfar, 
Should outlive Caefar. Shakefpeare. 
BELOW', prep, [from be and to.] Under in place ; not 
fo high. Inferior in dignity.—The noble Venetians think 
thefnfelves equal at leaf! to the eleritors of the empire, and 
but one degree below kings. Addifon. —Inferior in excel¬ 
lence.— His Idylliums of Theocritus are as much below his 
Manilius, as the fields are below the {tars. Felton. —Unwor¬ 
thy, of'; unbefitting. 
Below, adv, In the lower place ; in the place neareft 
the centre.—To men {landing below on the ground, thole 
that be on the top of Paul’s feem much lefs than they 
are, and cannot be known ; but, to men above, thole' be¬ 
low feem nothing lo much lelfened, and may be known. 
Bacon. —On earth, in oppofition to heaven : 
And let no tears from erring pity flow, 
For one that’s blels’d above, immortaliz’d below. Smith. 
In hell; in the regions of the dead : eppofed to heaven and 
earth : 
When fuff’ring faints aloft in beams fliall glow, 
And profp’rous traitors gnafti their teeth below. Tickcll. 
Below, or Belan, a river of England, which runs 
into the Eden : two miles north of Kirkby Stephen, in the 
county of Weftmoreland. 
To BELOW'!"', v. a. from be, and lowt, a word of con¬ 
tempt.] To treat with opprobrious language; to call names. 
UbJ'olete. —Sieur Gaulard, when he heard a gentleman re¬ 
port, that at {upper they had not only good cheer, but al¬ 
io favoury epigrams and fine anagrams, returning home, 
rated and belowtcd his cook, as an ignorant (bullion, that 
never drefled him either epigrams or anagrams. Camden. 
BEL'PECH, a town of France, in the department of 
the Aude, and chief place of a canton, in the diltrict ‘of 
Caltelnaudary : two leagues and three quarters north-well 
of Mirepoix, and three and three quarters fouth-wefl of 
Caflelnaudary. Lat. 43, 12. N. Ion. 19. 25. E. Ferro. 
BELRIGUAR'DO, a town of Italy, in the duchy of 
Ferrara, on a branch of the Po ; eight miles fouth-eafl 
from Ferrara. 
BELSHAZ'ZAR, the lad king of Babylon, generally 
ftippofed to be the fon of Evil-merodach, and grandfon to 
the great Nebuchadnezzar. During the time that Babylon 
was belieged by Cyrus, Belfhazzar made an entertainment 
for a thou land ofhis mod eminent courtiers, (Dan. v. 1, &c.) 
and being heated with wine, ordered that the veflels of gold 
.and diver which his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar had ta¬ 
ken out of the temple at Jerufalem might be brought to the 
banqueting-houfe, that he and his princes, together with 
his wives and concubines, might drink out of them, which 
accordingly was done ; and, to add to their profanenefs, in 
the midd.of their cups they fang fongs in praife of their 
idols.. But it was not long.before a damp was put to the 
king’s’, mirth, by an hand, appearing upon the wall, which 
in three words wrote the lentence of his condemnation. 
The king faw the hand that wrote and, being exceed¬ 
ingly affrighted, commanded his wife men, magicians, 
and allrologers, to be immediately called, that they 
might read the writing, and explain its meaning. When 
they came, the king promifed, that whoever fhould ex¬ 
pound this writing Ihould be made the third perfon of his 
kingdom in place and power. But the magi could com¬ 
prehend nothing of it; which encreafed the uneafinefs of 
the king and his court: whereupon Daniel was lent for. 
The king made him the fame offer of honours ana rewards 
that he had done to his magicians, if he would explain the 
Writing. Daniel modeftly refilled thole offers : but, hav¬ 
ing undertaken to perform what he required of him, he 
lirll reproved the king for his ingratitude to God, who had 
advanced him to the rank of a fbvereign, and for the pro¬ 
fanation of the velfels which were conlecrated to his fer- 
B E L 
vice; and then proeeeded to the interpretation of the words, 
which were thefe, Mene, Tekel, Upharfin. Mene, fays he, 
which dignifies number, intimates, that the days both of 
your life and reign are numbered, or that you have but a 
lliort time to live ; Tekel, which lignifies weight, intimates, 
that you have been weighed in the balance of God’s juf- 
tice, anil found too light ; and Upharfin, which lignifies a. 
fragment, intimates, that your kingdom fliall be "divided 
and given to the Medes and Perlians. Which accordingly 
came to pads : for that very night, in the midfl of their 
fe a fling and revelling, the city was taken by furprife, Bel¬ 
fhazzar (lain, and the kingdom tranllated to Cyaxares, 
whom the Scripture calls Darius the Mode. See Babylon- 
BELSUN'CE (M. de), bilhop of Marfeilles, was of the 
family of Belfunce, in the province of Guienne in France. 
He had taken the vows ot a Jefuit, and became afterwards 
bilhop of Marfeilles. liv confederation of the eminent fer- 
vices he rendered to that city during the plague in 1720, 
-the regent offered him the richer and more honourable fee 
of Loan in Picardy. He refit fed that bifliopric, giving 
as a reafon, his •unwillingnefs to leave a flock that had 
been endeared to him by their fufferings : he was, how¬ 
ever, prevailed upon to accept of a peculiar diftinrition 
with refperit to the court in which any lawfuits he might 
have the unhappinefs to be engaged in Ihould be tried. 
His pious and intrepid labours are commemorated in a pic¬ 
ture in the town-hall of Marfeilles, in which he is repre- 
fented in his epifcopal habit, attended by his almoners, 
giving his-benediction to the dying and the dead that arc 
at his feet. Father Variniere, in his Prcedium Rujticum, 
alludes to M. de Belfunce in thefe lines : 
- vita qui praful et auri 
Prodigies, ajjiduis animos et coipora curbs 
Sujlinuit, mortem vifus calcare mctumque 
lntrcpido vadens per Jlrata cadaver a pajfu. 
Profufe of life, and prodigal of gold, 
The facred pallor tends his lick’ifing fold; 
Repofe of body and of mind difdains, 
To calm their woes, and mitigate their pains ; 
Bravely delpifes death and ev’ry fear, 
With holy rites their drooping hearts to cheer; 
Vail heaps of dead without difmay he views, 
And with firm Hep his gen’rous way purfues. 
'M. de Belfunce wrote the Lives of his PredecefTors.in the 
See of Marfeilles, and fome religious trails. 
BEL'SWAGGER,_/i A cant word fora whoremafter. 
—You are a charitable belfwaggcr ; my wife cried out fire, 
and you cried out for engines. Dryden. 
BELT ,/1 felt. Sax. baltheus, Lat.] A girdle; a cinc¬ 
ture in which a fword, or fome weapon, is commonly 
hung.—Ajax flew himfelf with the fword given him by 
Heritor, and Heritor was dragged a.bout the walls of Troy 
by the belt given him by Ajax. South. 
Belt is alfo applied to a fort of bandages in ufe among 
furgeons, &c. as quicklilver belts, 11 fed for the itch; belts 
for keeping the belly light, and difeharging the water in 
the operation of tapping, &c. 
Belt is alfo a difeafe frequent in fheep, Cured by cut¬ 
ting their tails off, and laying the fore bare ; then calling 
mould on it, and applying tar and goole-greafe. 
Belts, in allronomy, are zones or girdles furrounding 
the body of the planet of Jupiter. See Astronomy. 
Belt (Great), a narrow (trait of the lea, which forms 
a communication between the Schager Rack, or Cattegat 
Sea, and the Baltic, between the iflands of Zealand and 
Funen. In 1658 this (trait was frozen fo hard, that 
Charles Gnftavus king of Sweden marched over it with a 
.defign to beliege Copenhagen. 
Belt (Little), a narrow (trait, which forms a commu¬ 
nication between the Cattegat and the Baltic, and fejki- 
rates the i(land of Funen from Jutland. 
BEL-TEIN, a fuperflitious cuftom obferved tn the 
Highlands of Scotland. It is a kind of rural facrifice, 
performed by the herdfmen on the firft of May. They cut 
.a fquare 
