and most generous affections, and a great adept in the Platonic philosophy? 1

1

BAYRO (PETER DE), an Italian physician, of great reputation in his day, charitably attentive to the wants of the poor, and so successful in his practice, as to be often consulted by princes and men of rank, who munificently rewarded his services, was born at Turin, about the year 1478, and became first physician to Charles II. (or according to Dict. Hist. Charles III.) duke of Savoy. He died April 1, 1558. His works are: 1. "De pestilentia ejusque curatione per preservationum et curationum regimen," Turin, 1507, 4to, Paris, 1513, 8vo. 2. "Lexipyretæ perpetuæ questionis et annexorum solutio, de nobilitate facultatum per terminos utriusque facultatis," Turin, 1512, fol. 3. "De medendis humani corporis. malis Enchyridion, quod vulgo Vade-mecum vocant," Basil,” 1563, and often reprinted.?

BAZIN (N.) a physician at Strasburgh, who died in May 1754, was not more esteemed for his successful practice, than for his knowledge of botany and natural history. In his pursuit of these studies, he published: i.“ Observations sur les Plantes," Strasburgh, 1741, 8vo. 2. "Traité de l'accroissement des Plantes," 1745, 8vo. 3. "Histoire des Abeilles," Paris, 1744, 2 vols. 12mo. 4. "Lettre sur le Polypes," 1745, 12mo. 5, "Abregé de l'histoire des Insectes," Paris, 1747, 2 vols. 12mo, an excellent abridgment of Reaumur. 3

BE (WILLIAM LE), engraver, and letter-founder, was born at Troyes, in 1525, son of Guilleaume le Be, a noble bourgeois, and Magdalen de St. Aubin. Being brought up in the house of Robert Stephens, whom his father supplied with paper, he got an insight into the composition of the types of that famous printing-house. He afterwards, by order of Francis I. made those beautiful oriental types which Robert Stephens used; and Philip II. employed him to prepare those with which his Bible of Antwerp was printed. In 1545 le Bé took a journey to Venice, and there cut for Mark Anthony Justiniani, who had raised a Hebrew printing-house, the punches necessary to the casting of the founts to be employed in that

! Ward's Gresham Professors.-Biog, Brit, ? Moreri, Manget, and Haller,

3 Dict. Hist.

establishment. Being returned to Paris, he there practised his art till 1598, the year of his decease. Casaubon speaks of him highly to his credit in his preface to the Opuscula of Scaliger. Henry le Bé, his son, was a printer at Paris, where he gave in 1581, a quarto edition of the "Institutiones Clenardi Gr." This book, which was of great utility to the authors of the "Methode Grecque" of Port-royal, is a master-piece in printing. His sons and his grandsons signalised themselves in the same art. The last of them died in 1685.1

BEACH (THOMAS), an English writer, was a wine merchant at Wrexham, in Denbighshire, a man of learning, great humanity, of an easy fortune, and much respected. He published in 1737, "Eugenio, or virtuous and happy life," 4to, a poem inscribed to Pope, and by no means destitute of poetical merit. He submitted it in manuscript to Swift, who wrote him a long and very candid letter, now printed in his works, and Mr. Beach adopted Swift's corrections. He is said to have entertained very blameable notions in religion, but his friends endeavoured to vindicate him from this charge, when his death took place, May 17, 1737, precipitated by his own hand. 2

BEACON or BECON (THOMAS), one of the English reformers, was a native of Norfolk, or Suffolk, and educated at Cambridge, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1530. He was presented on May 24, 1547, to the rectory of St. Stephen Walbrook, of which he was deprived in 1554, and imprisoned twice in queen Mary's time, but escaped to Marpurg. From Strasburgh, in the same year, we find him addressing an "Epistle to the Faithful in England," exhorting them to patient perseverance in the truth. After queen Mary's death, he returned to England, and in 1560 was preferred to the rectory of Buckland, in Hertfordshire, and in 1563 to that of St. Dionis Backchurch, in London. He was also a prebend of the fourth stall in Canterbury cathedral, and had been, in Cranmer's time, chaplain to that celebrated prelate. Tanner's account of his promotions is somewhat dif ferent. We learn from Strype, in his life of Grindall, that he objected at first, but afterwards conformed to the

'Dict. Hist.-Moreri.

Swift's Works.-Gent, Mag. vol. VII. p. 316, 377.

clerical dress, some articles of which at that time were much scrupled by the reformers who had lived abroad. He died at Canterbury, about 1570, in his sixtieth year. In the Heerologia, a work not much to be depended on, it is said that he was professor of divinity at Oxford, an assertion contrary to all other authority. He wrote: 1. "Cœnæ Dominicæ et Missæ Papisticæ comparatio," Basil, 1559, 8vo. 2. "Various treatises," fol. printed by Day, 1560. 3. "The Acts of Christe and Antichriste," Lond. 1577, 12mo. 4. "The reliques of Rome," by Day, 1563, 16mo. On the opposite side to the title is the head of the author, with the inscription, "Etatis suæ 41, 1553," which makes the time of his birth 1512; and at the time of his persecution in 1541, he must have been about twenty-nine years of age. 5. "Postills upon the sundry Gospels," Lond. 4to, 1566. 6. "His works," Lond. 1564, 2 vols. 7. "The Sick man's salve, or directions in sickness, and how to dye," Edin. 1613, 8vo. It has been said that he was the first Englishman that wrote. against bowing at the name of Jesus, but no such work is enumerated in the list of his writings.

1

BEALE (MARY), a portrait-painter in the reign of Charles II. was daughter of Mr. Cradock, minister of Walton upon Thames, but was born in Suffolk in 1632. She was assiduous in copying the works of sir Peter Lely and Vandyke. She painted in oil, water-colours, and crayons; and had much business. The author of the essay towards an English school of Painters, annexed to De Piles's art of Painting, says, that "she was little inferior to any of her contemporaries, either for colouring, strength, force, or life; insomuch that sir Peter was greatly taken with her performances, as he would often acknowledge. She worked with a wonderful body of colours, and was exceedingly industrious." She was greatly respected and encouraged by many of the most eminent among the clergy of that time; she took the portraits of Tillotson, 'Stillingfleet, Patrick, Wilkins, &c. some of which are still remaining at the earl of Ilchester's, at Melbury, in Dorsetshire. In the manuscripts of Mr. Oldys, she is celebrated for her poetry as well as for her painting; and is styled “that

'Tanner.-Ellis's Hist. of Shoreditch.-Churton's Life of Nowell.-Strype's Life of Craumer, p. 161, 171, 276, 290, 313, 329, 357, 423.-Strype's Parker, 95, 130, 228.-Lupton's Modern Divines, &c.

masculine poet, as well as painter, the incomparable Mrs. Beale." In Dr. S. Woodford's translation' of the Psalms, are two or three versions of particular psalms, by Mrs. Beale whom, in his preface, he calls " an absolutely complete gentlewoman?" He says farther, "I have hardly obtained leave to honour this volume of mine with two or three versions, long since done by the truly virtuous Mrs. Mary Beale; among whose least accomplishments it is, that she has made painting and poetry, which in the fancies of others had only before a kind of likeness, in her own to be really the same. The reader, I hope, will pardon this public acknowledgement, which I make to so deserving a person." She died Dec. 28, 1697, in her 66th year. She had two sons, who both exercised the art of painting some little time; one of them afterwards studied physic under Dr. Sydenham, and practised at Coventry, where he and his father died. There is an engraving, by Chambers, from a painting by herself, of Mrs. Beale, in Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England.

1

BEALE (ROBERT), or BELUS, who was the eldest son of Robert Beale, a descendant from the family of Beale, of Woodbridge, in Suffolk, appears to have been educated to the profession of the civil and canon law. He was an exile on account of religion, in queen Mary's days, but some time after his return, married Editha, daughter of Henry St. Barbe, of Somersetshire, and sister to the lady of sir Francis Walsingham, under whose patronage he first appeared at court. In 1571 he was secretary to sir Francis when sent ambassador to France, and himself was sent in the same character, in 1576, to the prince of Orange. Heylin and Fuller inform us that he was a great favourer of the Puritans, and wrote in defence of their principles. About the year 1564 he wrote in defence of the validity of the marriage between the earl of Hertford and lady Catherine Grey, and against the sentence of the delegates, which sentence was also opposed by the civilians of Spire, and of Paris, whom Beale had consulted. Strype, in his life of Parker, mentions his "Discourse concerning the Parisian massacre by way of letter to the lord Burghley." His most considerable work, however, is a collection of some of the Spanish historians, under the title "Rerum Hispanicarum Scriptores," Francf. 1579, 2 vols. fol. He was

Biog, Brit. Walpole's Anecdotes.-Pilkington,

by the interest of Walsingham appointed secretary for the northern parts, and a clerk of the privy council. Camden seems to think that his attachment to Puritanism made him be chosen to convey to Fotheringay the warrant for beheading Mary queen of Scots, which he read on the scaffold, and was a witness of its execution. He was also one of the commissioners at the treaty of Bologne, the year before his death, which event happened May 25, 1601, at Barnes, in Surrey. He was interred in the parish church of Allhallows, London Wall.'

BEARCROFT (PHILIP), D. D. master of the Charterhouse, was born May 1, 1697, and elected scholar of the Charter-house, on the nomination of lord Somers, July 19, 1710; whence, in Nov. 1712, he was elected to the university, and was matriculated of St. Mary Magdalen hall, Oxford, Dec. 17, following. In 1716 he took his bachelor's degree, and in June 1717, was elected probationary, and two years after, actual fellow of Merton college. After taking deacon's orders in 1718, and priest's in 1719, and proceeding M. A. he was appointed preacher to the Charter-house in 1724. In 1730 he accumulated the degrees of B. and D. D. and in 1738 was made one of the king's chaplains, and in March 1739, secretary to the society for propagating the gospel in foreign' parts. In 1743 he was instituted to the rectory of Stormouth in Kent, which he held by dispensation, and was elected master of the Charter-house Dec. 18, 1753. He died Nov. 17,1761 Although a man of worth and learning, he had no talents for writing. The only attempt he made was in his "Historical Account of Thomas Sutton, esq. and of his Foundation in the Charter-house," Lond. 1737, 8vo. He intended also to have published a collection of the Rules and Orders, but being prevented by the governors, some extracts only were printed in a quarto pamphlet, and dispersed among the officers of the house. 2

BEARD (JOHN), an English actor and singer, born in 1717, was bred up in the king's chapel, and was one of the singers in the duke of Chandos's chapel at Cannons, where he performed in Esther, an oratorio composed by Mr. Handel. He appeared the first time on the stage at

1 Tanner.-Lodge's Illustrations.-Lysons's Environs, vol. I.—Antonio Bibl. Hisp. 9 Nichols's Bowyer, vol. I.