ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

dor's opinion and experiments, with what success we are not told. Belidor, however, originally born without fortune, was now stripped of the little he had acquired by his talents, and might probably have remained in poverty, had not the prince of Conti, who knew his merit, taken him with him to Italy, and bestowed on him the cross of St. Lewis, an honour which procured him some notice at court. The marshal Bellisle engaged him in his service, and when war-minister, appointed him to the office of inspector of artillery, and gave him apartments in the arsenal at Paris, where he died in 1761. During his laborious and checquered life, he found leisure to write, 1. "Sommaire d'un Cours d'architecture militaire, civil et hydraulique," 1720, 12mo. 2. "Nouveau cours de Mathematique, a l'usage de l'Artillerie et du Genie," 4to, Paris, 1725, a work previously examined by a committee of the academy of sciences, and approved and recommended by them. 3. "La Science des ingenieurs," 1729, 4to. 4. "Le Bombardier Françoise," 1731, 4to. 5. "Architecture Hydraulique," 1735-1737, 4 vols. 4to. 6. "Dictionnaire portatif de l'ingenieur," 1738, 8vo. 8. "Traité des Fortifications," 2 vols. 4to. 9. "La science des Ingenieurs dans la conduite des travaux des Fortifications," 1749, 4to. His biographer says that the most of these works are useful, but that Belidor was not a mathematician of the first order. 1

BELING (RICHARD), was born in 1613, at Belingstown, in the barony of Balrothery in the county of Dublin, the son of sir Henry Beling, knight, and was educated in his younger years at a grammar-school in the city of Dub- ́ lin, but afterwards put under the tuition of some priests of his own religion, which was Popish, who so well cultivated his good genius, that they taught him to write in a fluent and elegant Latin style. Thus grounded in the polite parts of literature, his father removed him to Lincoln's Inn, to study the municipal laws of his country, where he abode some years, and returned home a very accomplished gentleman, but it does not appear that he ever made the law a profession. His natural inclination inclining him to arms, he early engaged in the rebellion of 1641, and though but about twenty-eight years old, was then an officer of considerable rank. He afterwards became a leading member in the supreme council of the confederated Roman

1 Dict. Hist. in which the dates of Belidor's works are erroneous, nor are we quite certain that we have been able to correct them accurately.

catholics at Kilkenny, to which he was principal secretary, and was sent ambassador to the pope and other Italian princes in 1645, to crave aid for the support of their cause. He brought back with him a fatal present in the person of the nuncio, John Baptist Rinuccini, archbishop and prince of Fermo; who was the occasion of reviving the distinctions between the old Irish of blood, and the old English of Irish birth, which split that party into factions, prevented all peace with the marquis of Ormond, and ruined the country he was sent to save. When Mr. Beling had fathomed the mischievous schemes of the nuncio and his party, nobody was more zealous than he in opposing their measures, and in promoting the peace then in agitation, and submitting to the king's authority, which he did with such cordiality, that he became very acceptable to the marquis of Ormond, who intrusted him with many negociations. When the parliament army had subdued the royal army, Mr. Beling retired to France, where he continued several years. His account of the transactions of Ireland during the period of the rebellion, is esteemed by judicious readers more worthy of credit than any written by the Romish party, yet he is not free from a partiality to the cause he at first embarked in. He returned home upon the restoration, and was repossessed of his estate by the favour and interest of the duke of Ormond. He died in Dublin in September 1677, and was buried in the church-yard of Malahidert, about five miles from that city. During his retirement in France, he wrote in Latin, in two books, "Vindiciarum Catholicorum Hiberniæ," under the name of Philopater Irenæus, the first of which gives a pretty accurate history of Irish affairs, from 1641 to 1649, and the second is a confutation of an epistle written by Paul King, a Franciscan friar and a nunciotist, in defence of the Irish rebellion. This book of Mr. Beling's being answered by John Ponce, a Franciscan friar also, and a most implacable enemy to the Protestants of Ireland, in a tract entitled "Belingi Vindiciae everse, our author made a reply, which he published under the title of "Annotationes in Johannis Poncii librum, cui titulus, Vindicia Eversæ : accesserunt Belingi Vindicia," Parisiis, 1654, 8vo. He wrote also a vindication of himself against Nicholas French, titular bishop of Ferns, under the title of "Innocentiæ suæ impetitæ per Reverendissimum Fernensem vindicia," Paris, 1652, 12mo, dedicated to the clergy of Ireland; and is reported to have written a poem

[ocr errors]

called "The Eighth Day," which has escaped our searches. When a student, however, at Lincoln's Inn, he wrote and added a sixth book to sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, which was printed with that romance, London, 1633, folio, with only the initials of his name. 1

BELIUS. See BEL.

BELL (BEAUPRE), an English antiquary, was son of Beaupré Bell, esq. of Beaupré-hall in Upwell and Outwell in Clackclose hundred, Norfolk, where the Beaupré family had settled early in the fourteenth century, and enjoyed the estate by the name of Beaupré (or de Bello prato) till sir Robert Bell intermarried with them about the middle of the sixteenth. Sir Robert was speaker of the house of commons, 14 Eliz. and chief baron of the exchequer; and caught his death at the black assize at Oxford, 1577. Beaupré Bell, his fourth lineal descendant, married Margaret, daughter of sir Anthony Oldfield of Spalding, bart. who died 1720, and by whom he had issue his namesake the subject of this article, and two daughters, of whom the youngest married William Graves, esq. of Fulborn in Cambridgeshire, who thereby inherited the family estate near Spalding, with the site of the abbey. Mr. Bell, junior, was educated at Westminster school, admitted of Trinity-college, Cambridge, 1723, and soon commenced a genuine and able antiquary. He made considerable collections of church notes in his own and the neighbouring counties, all which he bequeathed to the college where he received his education. Mr. Blomfield acknowledges his obligations to him for collecting many evidences, seals, and drawings, of great use to him in his "History of Norfolk."

His father led a miserable life, hardly allowing his son necessaries, and dilapidated his house, while at the same time he had five hundred horses of his own breeding, many above thirty years old, unbroke. On his death his son succeeded to his estate, of about 1500l. a-year, which he did not long enjoy, dying of a consumption, on the road to Bath, August, 1745. He left the reversion, after the death of his sister, with his books and medals, to Trinitycollege, under the direction of the late vice-master, Dr. Walker; but his sister marrying, the entail was cut off. He was buried in the family burying-place, in St. Mary's chapel in Outwell-church.

1 Biog. Brit.

[ocr errors]

The registers of the Spalding society abound with proofs of Mr. Bell's taste and knowledge in ancient coins, both Greek and Roman, besides many other interesting discoveries. He published proposals, elegantly printed, for the following work, at 5s. the first subscription, "Tabulæ Augustæ, sive Imperatorum Romanorum, Augustorum, Cæsarum, Tyrannorum, et illustrium virorum à Cn. Pompeio Magno ad Heraclium Aug. series chronologica. Ex historicis, nummis, et marmoribus collegit Beaupreius Bell, A. M. Cantabrigiæ, typis academicis 1734," which was in great forwardness in 1733, and on which Mr. Johnson communicated his observations. Mr. Bell conceived that coins might be distinguished by the hydrostatical balance, and supposed the flower on the Rhodian coins to be the lotus, but Mr. Johnson the balaustrum, or pomegranate flower. He sent the late unhappy Dr. Dodd notes concerning the life and writings of Callimachus, with a drawing of his head, to be engraved by Vertue, and prefixed to his translation of that poet. He made a cast of the profile of Dr. Stukeley, prefixed to his " Itinerarium," and an elegant bust of Alexander Gordon, after the original given by him to sir Andrew Fountaine's niece. He communicated to the Spalding society an account of Outwell church, and the Haultoft family arms, in a border engrailed Sable a lozenge Ermine, quartering Fincham, in a chapel at the east end of the north aile. He collected a series of nexus literarum, or abbreviations. He had a portrait of sir Thomas Gresham, by Hilliard, when young, in a close green silk doublet, hat, and plaited ruff, 1540 or 1545, formerly belonging to sir Marmaduke Gresham, bart. then to Mr. Philip, filazer, by whose widow, a niece to sir Marmaduke, it came to sir Anthony Oldfield, and so to Maurice Johnson. He addressed verses on "Color est connata lucis proprietas," to sir Isaac Newton, who returned him a present of his "Philosophy," sumptuously bound by Brindley.

[ocr errors]

The late Mr. Cole, of the Fen-office, editor of the second edition of sir William Dugdale's "History of Embanking,' 1772, tells us that this edition was printed from two copies of the old one, one corrected by sir William himself, the other by Beaupré Bell, esq. " a diligent and learned antiquary, who had also made some corrections in his own copy, now in Trinity college library." See his letters, dated Beaupré hall, May 11, and July 30, 1731, to T. Hearne,

⚫ about the pedlar in Swaffham church, a rebus on the name of Chapman, prefixed to Hemingford, p. 180, and preface, p. 113. See also, on the same subject, preface to Caius, p. xlvii. and lxxxiv. and the speech of Dr. Spencer, vicechancellor of Cambridge, to the duke of Monmouth, when he was installed chancellor, 1674, ib. lxxxvi. In p. lii, Hearne styles him "Amicus eruditus, cui et aliis nominibus me devinctum esse gratus agnosco." He also furnished him with a transcript, in his own hand-writing, of bishop Godwin's catalogue of the bishops of Bath and Wells, from the original in Trinity college library; App. to Ann. de Dunstable, 835, 837. A charter relating to St. Edmund's Bury abbey. Bened. Abbas, p. 865. The epitaph of E. Beckingham, in Bottisham church, in Cambridgeshire, Pref. to Otterbourne's Chron. p. 82. App. to Trokelow, p. 378. Papers, &c. of his are mentioned in Bibl. Top. Brit. No. II. p. 57, 58, 62. Walsingham church notes, p. 59, entered in the Minutes; a paper on the Clepsydra, p. 60; and five of his letters to Mr. Blomfield are printed, pp. 290, 465-472; one to Dr. Z. Grey, p. 147; one to Mr. N. Salmon, p. 150; others to Mr. Gale, pp. 169, 191, 302305; to Dr. Stukeley, p. 176, 178. See also pp. 176, 178, 181, 465, 469, 470, 471. In Archæologia, vol. VI. pp. 133, 139, 141, 143, are some letters between him and Mr. Gale, on a Roman horologium mentioned in an inscription found at Taloire, a poor small village in the district and on the lake of Annecey, &c. communicated to him by Mr. Cramer, professor of philosophy and mathematics.1

BELL (WILLIAM), archdeacon of St. Alban's, was born in the parish of St. Dunstan's in the West, London, Feb. 4, 1625, and educated at Merchant Taylor's school, whence he was elected scholar of St. John's college, Oxford, in 1643, and afterwards fellow. In 1648, before which he had taken his bachelor's degree, he was ejected by the republicans (who then took possession of the university), and afterwards travelled for some time in France. About 1655 he had a small benefice in Norfolk conferred upon him, but was not admitted by the triers, or persons appointed by the ruling party, to examine the qualifications of the clergy. At the restoration, however, he became chaplain in the Tower of London, and the year after was created B. D. In 1662 he was presented, by St. John's college, to

Last edition of this Dict. from the History of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding, and Nichols's Life of Bowyer.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »