BEBEL

Bebel, FERDINAND AUGUST, social democrat, born at Cologne in 1840, in 1860 came to Leipzig, where four years later he established himself as a master turner. Since 1862 engaging fanatically in the labour movement, he was elected in 1867 to the North German Diet, in 1871 to the Reichstag. In 1872 he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Among his writings are Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg (1876), and a work on the status of women (1883).

Bec Abbey, the ruins of which are at BecHellouin, Normandy, 2 miles from Brionne, was at the height of its fame as a great Benedictine monastery in the middle of the 11th century, when the famous Lanfranc was prior. His fame as a scholar had made it one of the most renowned seats of learning in Western Europe, students flocked thither from all parts, and gifts were bestowed upon it by the great men of Normandy The great Anselm, entering it in 1060, was abbot from 1078 to 1093, when he succeeded Lanfranc in the see of Canterbury.

Beccafi'co (Sylvia hortensis, or Curruca hortensis), a little bird of the family of the Sylviada, or Warblers (q.v.), sometimes called the Pettychaps, and sometimes the Garden Warbler, rather rare in Britain, but abundant in some of the more southern parts of Europe, and in great demand for the table in Italy, its flesh being regarded as of peculiar delicacy. It is a mere summer bird of passage, however, not only in Britain, but even in the south of Europe. The upper parts are mostly of a brown colour, the lower parts whitish. It is a bird of very pleasing song. Beccafico is an Italian name signifying 'fig-pecker,' and is sometimes extended to other birds of the same family

used for the table.

Beccamoschi'no (Ital., 'fly-catcher;' Sylvia cisticola), a little bird of the family of Warblers, found in Italy. It is remarkable for its nest, which resembles that of the tailor-birds, and is usually placed in a bush with long leaves, which are neatly sewed together with some kind of vegetable fibre so as to form roof and floor.

Beccari'a, CESARE, MARCHESE DE BECCARIABONESANA, a political and philanthropic writer, was born at Milan, March 15, 1735 (or in 1738). His opinions were formed by study of the French encyclopædists and Montesquieu. His chief work was his Dei Delitti e delle Pene ('On Crimes and Punishments'), first published anonymously at Monaco in 1764, in which he argues against the severities and abuses of criminal law, especially capital punishment and torture. The work became extremely popular, and was translated into all the European languages. It was hailed with enthusiasm by the French school, and commentaries were published by Voltaire and Diderot. The best edition, revised by the author, is that in 2 vols. (Venice, 1781). It is marked by eloquence, sensibility, and lively power of imagination. Kant unfairly accuses the author of an affected humanity, though it must be admitted that the German philosopher has exposed the invalidity of some of the arguments brought forward. On the whole, however, the work of Beccaria is acknowledged to have done great good, and the subsequent reforms in the penal code of European nations have generally taken the direction he has pointed out. He was among the first to advocate the beneficial influence of education in lessening crime. Both his arguments and his popularity made him many enemies, but their malice was frustrated by the efforts of Count Firmian, the Austrian governor of Lombardy, a man of liberal and enlightened sentiments. In 1768 Beccaria was appointed professor of Political

Philosophy at Milan, and achieved great success as a lecturer. In 1791 he was made a member of the board for the reform of the judicial code, and had the triumph of seeing several of his abused sug gestions adopted. He died of apoplexy, November 28, 1794.-GIACOMO BATTISTA BECCARIA (1716– 81) from 1748 was professor of Physics at Turin, and did much to forward the science of electricity, though himself he made no important discovery.

Beccles, a Suffolk market-town, on the Waveney, 8 miles W. of Lowestoft. It has a fine church with a detached belfry, a good grammar-school, and large printing-works. Pop. (1881) 5721.

Bec-fin, the common French name for different species of birds of the family Sylviadæ, or Warb. lers (q.v.).

Bêche de Mer. See TREPANG.

at Spires in 1635. He acquired an extensive knowBecher, JOHANN JOACHIM, chemist, was born ledge of medicine, physics, and chemistry, and became professor at Mainz. He subsequently lived at Vienna, Munich, Würzburg, Haarlem, and finally London, where he died in 1682. He was accused of charlatanry, but unquestionably he rendered important services to chemistry. His Physica Subterranea (1669) was the first attempt made to bring physics and chemistry into close relation. He began to construct a theory of chemistry, and investigated the process of combustion. In this and his other works (including Institutiones Chymica, 1662) lies the first germ of Stahl's phlogistic theory.

Bechuanaland, an extensive tract in South Africa, inhabited by the Bechuanas, extending from 28° S. lat. to the Zambesi, and from 20° E. long. to the Transvaal border. The Bechuanas also still occupy a considerable portion of the Transvaal, from which the Boers have not yet expelled them. British protection extends over Bechuanaland as far as 22° S. lat. since 1884; more northward, it is under the jurisdiction of the chief of Bamangwato. To the south of the river Molopo the territory has been proclaimed as a crown colony since 1885. Sir Bartle Frere proposed a Bechuana protectorate in 1878, and pointed out the difficulties which delay would occasion. His words were verified by after events.

The portion under British protection is in extent 170,000 sq. m., and is larger than the Transvaal. It is a portion of an elevated plateau 4000 to 5000 feet above the level of the sea, and though so near the tropics, is suitable for the British race. In winter there are sharp frosts, and snow falls in some years. The rains fall in summer, and then only the rivers are full. It is an excellent country for cattle; sheep thrive in some parts, and there are extensive tracts available for corn-lands; but it is not a wheat country on account of the summer rains. Though apparently subject to droughts, it is not more so than the Cape Colony, and the greater portion will be available for farming operations when the necessary dams have been constructed. It can be reached from Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Delagoa Bay, and the Zambesi. There are extensive forests to the north-east, and to the west the Kalahari Desert, which only requires wells dug to make it inhabitable.

The enormous quantities of buck which roam over the land attest the productiveness of the soil. Gold has been found near Sitlagoli, and there are indications of gold-bearing quartz reefs in many directions. Diamondiferous soil is also said to exist in several localities; indeed, diamonds were discovered at Vryburg in the autumn of 1887.

The province of Stellaland is principally inhabited by Boers, and the remainder of the country by Bechuanas. The Bechuanas are a black race,

possessing a language in common with the Bantu (q.v.) races of South Africa, extending as far north as the equator. Their ancestors are said to have come from the north, and, progressing south-west, met the Hottentots from tlie Cape of Good Hope journeying north. The Bechuanas have divided up within the last 150 years, and comprise the Bahurutse, Bamangwato, Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Barolongs, Batlapins, and Batlaros. Each tribe has an animal as an emblem or heraldic sign, which it is said they hold in esteem (see TOTEMISM). They have since 1832 been at enmity with the Matabele, and in later years the Transvaal Boers have on one pretext or another endeavoured to occupy their country. During the native risings in 1878, the Bechuanas invaded Griqualand West, and were in turn subdued by British volunteers as far as the Molopo. When the British government withdrew from Bechuanaland in 1880, the natives, being helpless, were left to the mercy of the Boers of the Transvaal, whose harsh treatment in 1882 and 1883 led to the Bechuanaland expedition in 1884. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Bechuanas were further in advance in civilisation than other nations of South Africa, and they are still ahead in this respect. The system of government among the Bechuanas would be termed in Europe local government.' All important matters are decided in the public assembly of the freemen of the town, but matters are previously arranged between the chief and headmen. The chief being but the president of a committee, can only exercise real control by his personal influence and adroitness of address.

The Kuruman Mission of the London Society has done good work among the Bechuanas, and has greatly contributed to the well-being and peace of the country. For a full account of the history of Bechuanaland, and Britain's dealings with it, see the Rev. John Mackenzie's Austral Africa: losing it or ruling it (1887).

Becker, KARL FERDINAND, German philologist, was born at Liser, in the old electorate of Treves, in 1775. For five years a teacher, he afterwards studied medicine, and finally, in 1815, settled as a practitioner at Offenbach. Here he educated his own children with such success that several families induced him to take charge of theirs, and thus his house was converted into an academy (1823), which he conducted till his death in 1849. He wrote an Ausführliche Deutsche Grammatik (1836-39), and several other valuable treatises on the German language.

Becker, KARL FERDINAND, a German musician, born at Leipzig in 1804, at the age of fourteen made his first public appearance as a pianist. In 1843 he was appointed professor of the Organ at the Leipzig Conservatorium. His compositions for the organ have some value, but he is best known as a writer on the history of music, and as an important contributor to German musical periodicals. His collection of Chorales (1831), and Die Hausmusik (1840), are highly valued. He died October 26, 1877.

Becker, WILHELM ADOLF, born at Dresden in 1796, studied theology and philology at Leipzig, and became in 1842 professor of Archæology there. He died at Meissen, 30th September 1846. His lively fancy, aided by a thorough knowledge of the classic languages, enabled him to make a novel use of antiquity. In his Charicles (1840), he ventured to reproduce the social life of old Greece; and in his Gallus (1838), to give sketches of the Augustan age at Rome. His Handbuch der Römischen Alterthümer (1843-46) was, after his death, continued by Marquardt (vols. iii.-v. 1849-68).

Beckerath, HERMANN VON, a German politician, was born at Krefeld, Prussia, 13th December 1801. He made a considerable fortune as a banker, and in 1843 was elected representative of his native town in the provincial diet. Elected to the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he was appointed minister of finance, and shortly after called to Berlin to construct a cabinet; but in this he failed. He was a resolute advocate for German unity. In 1858 he was again elected a member of the Prussian second chamber; but declined the honour on account of failing health. He devoted his later years to the affairs of his native town, where he died 12th May 1870. See Life by Kopstadt (Brunswick, 1874).

Becket, THOMAS, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born in London in 1118 of Norman parentage, his father being a wealthy merchant. That his mother was a love-lorn Saracen is a pretty but wholly baseless tradition. Educated at Merton Priory and in the London schools, he was trained in knightly exercises at Pevensey Castle, next studied theology at Paris, and then, on his father's failure in business, was clerk for three years in a lawyer's office. About 1142 he entered the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him to study canonical jurisprudence at Bologna and Auxerre, heaped preferments on him, including the archdeaconry of Canterbury (1154), and employed him in several important missions. At the papal court in 1152 he had promoted the cause of Henry of Anjou against that of Stephen's son, Eustace; in 1155, the year after Henry's accession, he received the office of chancellor, and thus resuscitated the hopes of the English as the first Englishman born, since the Conquest, who had filled any high office. His duties as chancellor were numerous and burdensome, but he discharged them vigorously. So magnificently liberal was he in his hospitality, that Henry himself did not live in a manner more sumptuous. He fought like any knight in the war with Toulouse (1159), and would seem in everything to have regarded himself as a mere layman, though he held deacon's orders. The change, then, was all the more sudden when in 1162 he was created Archbishop of Canterbury, an office which, as it then involved the abbacy of the cathedral monastery, had never but twice before been held by any but a monk or canon-regular. He resigned the chancellorship, threw aside all his old courtly and luxurious habits, turned a rigid ascetic, showed his liberality only in charities, and in short became as zealous a servitor of the church as ever before of king or archbishop. He figured soon as a champion of her rights against all aggressions by the king and his courtiers, several nobles and other laymen being excommunicated for their alienation of church property. Henry II., who, like all the Norman kings, the state, in 1164 convoked the nobility and clergy endeavoured to keep the clergy in subordination to to a council at Clarendon (q.v.), where were adopted the so-called 'Constitutions, or laws relative to the respective powers of church and state. To these, curtailing clerical immunities, the primate at first declared he would never consent; but afterwards, through the efforts of the nobles, some of the bishops, and, finally, of the pope himself, he was induced to give his unwilling approbation. Henry now began to perceive that Becket's notions and his own were utterly antagonistic, and clearly exhibited his hostility to the prelate, whereupon Becket tried to leave the country. For this offence Henry charged him with breach of allegiance, in a council held at Northampton, confiscated his goods, and sequestered the revenues of his see. A claim was also made on him for not less than 44,000 marks, as the balance due by him to the crown when he

ceased to be chancellor. Becket appealed to the pope, and next day leaving Northampton in disguise, escaped to France. He spent two years in retirement at the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny in Burgundy; and then, the pope seeming disposed to take up his cause, he went to Rome, and pleaded personally before his holiness, who reinstated him in the see of Canterbury. Becket now returned to France, and thence he wrote angry letters to the English bishops, threatening them with excommunication. Several efforts were made to reconcile him with Henry, which, however, proved futile; but at length in 1170 an agreement was patched up at Freteval, on the borders of Touraine. The result was that Becket returned to England, entering Canterbury amid the rejoicings of the people, who were unquestionably proud of him, and regarded him-whether wisely or not is another questionas a shield from the oppressions of the nobility. Fresh quarrels soon broke out; excommunications were renewed; and Henry at last exclaimed: Of the cowards that eat my bread, is there none will rid me of this turbulent priest? Four knightsFitzurse, Tracy, Brito, and Morville-overheard the hasty words; and, quitting Normandy by separate ways, on the evening of 29th December 1170, entered Canterbury cathedral, and slew the archbishop before the altar of St Benedict, in the north transept. Henry was compelled to make heavy concessions to avoid the ban of excommunication. The murderers, having repaired to Rome as penitents, were sent on a pilgrimage to Palestine; and, two years after his death, Becket was canonised, and the anniversary of his death set apart as the yearly festival of St Thomas of Canterbury. In 1220 his bones were raised from the grave in the crypt where they had been hastily buried two days after his murder, and were deposited in a splendid shrine in the Trinity Chapel, which for three centuries continued to be the object of one of the great pilgrimages of Christendom, and which still lives in English literature in connection with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. At the Reformation, Henry VIII. despoiled the shrine, erased Becket's name from the calendar, and ordered his bones to be burnt and scattered to the winds. It is difficult to estimate properly the character of Becket. We do not know what were his ultimate aims, whether, as some suppose, they were patriotic —i.e. English, as opposed to Norman, or, as others believe, purely Ultramontane. At all events, the means he used for the attainment of them was a despotic and irresponsible ecclesiasticism. He admitted nothing done by churchmen to come within the jurisdiction of civil courts, not even murder or theft. Fortunately Henry was as dogged a believer in his own powers and privileges as Becket in those of the church; and by his obstinate good sense, England was kept wholesomely jealous of the pretensions of Rome.

See Dr Giles's Vita et Epistola S. Thomæ Cantuariensis; Canon Morris's Life of St Thomas Becket; Canon Robertson's Life of Becket; Dean Stanley's Historical Memorials of Canterbury; Freeman's Historical Essays; Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury; Froude's articles on Becket in the Nineteenth Century.

Beckford, WILLIAM, born in Jamaica, 19th December 1709, in 1723 was sent to England, and received his education at Westminster. Elected an alderman (1752) and member for the city of London (1753), he was twice Lord Mayor. As such he showed himself a doughty Whig, a rival almost of Wilkes, a man who dared to speak face to face with a king. A petition from the corporation of London, presented by him, March 1770, to George III., being treated as unconstitutional, he, in May, presented a firm and dignified remonstrance. The

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king's answer being still curt and unconciliatory, Beckford, after asking leave to speak, proceeded to argue the point with the king. His daring, or a cold, cost him his life, for just four weeks later he died in London, 21st June 1770. There is a notable statue of him in Guildhall.

Beckford, WILLIAM, son of Alderman Beckford, was born at Fonthill, Wiltshire, 29th September 1759. On his father's death in 1770 he inherited an enormous property, consisting for the main part of Fonthill and of estates in Jamaica, and estimated at a million of money, upwards of £100,000 a year. Young Beckford evinced unusual intellectual precocity; for in his seventeenth year he composed a satirical essay, entitled Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, in which he did not spare living artists, and assailed the cant of criticism with the polished weapon of wit. In 1777 he visited the Continent, and met Voltaire at Paris. Three years thereafter he started on a grand continental tour, and spent twelve months in rambling through Flanders, Germany, and Italy, revisiting the last in 1782. In 1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of Charles, fourth Earl of Aboyne; and in the following year he entered parliament as one of the members for Wells. In 1787 Vathek appeared in French. Beckford informs us that he wrote this tale, as it now stands, at twenty-two years of age, and that it was composed at a single sitting. It took me,' he says, three days and two nights of hard labour. I never took off my clothes the whole time. The severe application made me very ill.' An English version of Vathek, made from an unpublished manuscript, had been issued in 1784. Beckford professed not to know the translator (understood to have been Samuel Henley, D.D.), but thought his work well done. In 1787 Beckford sought distraction from the loss of his young wife, a year before, in a visit to Portugal. In 1790 he sat for Hindon; in 1794 he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and again left England. Revisiting Portugal, he purchased an estate near Cintra, and occupied for a time that paradise' which Byron commemorates in Childe Harold. He returned to England in 1796; and in 1801 the splendid furniture of Fonthill was sold by auction, and the next year his valuable collection of pictures was disposed of in London. These dispersions were no sooner made than he began a new collection of books, pictures, furniture, curiosities, and proceeded to erect a new building at Fonthill, the most prominent feature of which was a tower 278 feet high. Beckford resided at Fonthill till 1822, when in one of those strange vagaries of feeling of which his life was so full, he sold the estate and house, with all its rare and fargathered contents, to Colonel Farquhar for £330,000. Three years later the great tower, which had been raised on an insecure foundation, came to the ground. On the sale of Fonthill, Beckford removed to Bath, and immediately proceeded to erect another lofty tower. While residing there, he did not mingle in Bath society, and the most improbable stories concerning the rich and morose genius in their neighbourhood were circulated among the citizens. During all his life, Beckford was a hardworking student, devoured by a passion for books. Some of his purchases were perfectly imperial in their way.

He bought Gibbon's library at Lausanne, to amuse himself when he happened to be in that neighbourhood. He went there; read in the fierce way that he wrote, three days and two nights at a sitting; grew weary of his purchase; and handed it over to his physician, Dr Scholl. Up till 1834 he had published nothing since Vathek, but in that year the literary silence of half a century was broken by the appearance of a series of letters, entitled Italy, with Sketches of Spain and Portugal, in two volumes. In the same year he republished

his Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters; and in 1835 he issued another volume, entitled Recollections of an Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha, made in June 1794. From the period of this last publication till his death, which took place on the 2d of May 1844, he lived in the deepest retirement. Beckford, since the publication of his Arabian tale, has been a power in English literature. His wit, his sarcasm, his power of graphic description, may be seen in his journal and letters; and his higher faculties of imaginative conception and delineation reign in the unmatched passages that shadow forth in gloom and glory the Hall of Eblis.' His library was sold by his greatgrandson, the twelfth Duke of Hamilton, in 1882-83, when 5978 lots fetched no less a sum than £43,368. See the Life of Beckford, by Cyrus Redding (2 vols. 1858), and the reprint of Vathek, edited by M. Mallarmé (Paris, 1876).

Beckmann, JOHANN, was born in 1739 at Hoya, in Hanover, and was educated at Göttingen. After holding a professorship of Physics and Natural History at St Petersburg (1763-65), he was in 1766 appointed professor of Philosophy, and in 1770 of Political Economy, at Göttingen, where he died, February 4, 1811. In Germany he was the first scientific writer on agriculture. In England he is known by his History of Inventions (5 vols. 1780-1805; Eng. trans. 1814).

Beckx, PETER JOHN, general of the Jesuits, was born at Sichem, in Belgium, February 8, 1795, and was admitted into the Society of Jesus in 1819. He was early employed on various delicate missions, and was for many years confessor to the Duke of Anhalt-Köthen. In 1847 he was appointed procurator for the province of Austria, and on the expulsion of the society in 1848, returned to Belgium, and became rector of the college at Louvain. He was named provincial of Austria in 1852, and as head of his order from 1853, displayed an ability and tact that did much to advance the status of Jesuits in non-Catholic countries. He died at Rome, March 4, 1887.

Becquerel, ANTOINE CÉSAR, a distinguished French physicist, was born in 1788, at Châtillonsur-Loing, in the department of Loiret. In 1808 he entered the French army as an officer of engineers, and served with distinction in Spain. On his return to France, he was appointed inspector of the Ecole Polytechnique; was attached to the general staff of the army in 1814, but at the peace of 1815 retired from the service. His researches and discoveries were mainly in the fields of electricity and magnetism, and he may fairly be regarded as one of the creators of electrochemistry. His labours in this branch of science opened to him in 1829 the doors of the Académie des Sciences. Among his works were the Traité de l'Electricité et du Magnétisme (7, vols. 1834-40); Eléments d'Electrochimie (1843); Traité de Physique; Eléments de Physique terrestre et de Météorologie (1847). He died on the 19th January 1878. His son, ALEXANDRE EDMOND, also an eminent physicist, was born at Paris, 24th March 1820. He was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour in 1851; and was appointed professor of Physics in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, in 1853. Besides his conjoint labours with his father, he made important researches on the nature of light and its chemical effects, on phosphorescence, on the conductivity and magnetic

properties of many substances. His best-known work is La Lumière, ses Causes et ses Effets (1868). Becse, OLD, a town of Hungary, on the west bank of the Theiss, with river fishery and a trade in corn. Pop. (1880) 15,040.-NEW BECSE, on the east bank, 348 miles SSE. of Pesth by rail, has a pop. of 6348.

Becskerek, a town of Hungary, in the county Pesth by rail. Pop. (1880) 19,529. of Torontal, on the Bega canal, 368 miles SSE. of

In

Bed (with some variations in spelling, the word is common to all Germanic languages), an article of household furniture on which to sleep. ancient times in Palestine, the bed seems to have been a simple kind of couch for reclining on during the day, and sleeping on at night, and readily removable from place to place, as is referred to in different parts of Scripture. About the heat of the day, Ishbosheth lay on his bed at noon (2 Sam. iv. 5). In receiving visitors, the king bowed himself upon the bed (1 Kings, i. 47). Jesus saith, Take up thy bed, and go unto thine house' (Matt. ix. 6). Yet, in these early times, beds or couches must, in some instances, have been highly ornamented: thus, I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt (Prov. vii. 16). In Persia, even at the present day, every person sleeps on a rug or piece of carpet laid on the floor, or commonly, during the summer, laid on the flat roof of a house. The pillows are similar to those used in Europe, but rather larger. It is the custom in India, on the other hand, to sleep on a bed or couch raised on four feet, called a charpoy. In hot climates few bed-clothes are used-there being in general only a single sheet employed; care is taken, however, to use mosquito-curtains, without which rest would be impracticable. See MOSQUITO.

Greek and Roman Beds.-Representations of ancient Greek beds and sofas are found on painted vases and on some pieces of sculpture. These beds plainly differed but little from the simpler modern forms, while the sofas or couches were in shape, in some cases at least, exactly like those now used. We are enabled to form a more perfect idea of ancient Roman beds than can be got from pictures and bas-reliefs. In the wonderful collection of Pompeian bronzes forming part of the great museum at Naples, there are three of these beds. They are partly of bronze and partly of wood, but the wooden portions, which were originally of walnut, have been restored. Fig. 1 shows one of these. It will be seen that it is of the couch form, and very

formed of strips of metal exactly like those put on brass and iron beds at the present time, only they are placed diagonally in the old example. In short, the bedsteads we now prefer are more closely like those made in Italy nearly 2000 years ago than any which have been in use during the long interval.

In Homer's time the bedding even of the richer classes consisted of a long fibred woollen blanket or mattress, and that of the poor of a simple hide spread on the hard floor. Linen sheets were used as covers. Later on, when Greece had introduced more luxurious habits from Asia, mattresses stuffed with wool or feathers became common, and of the same materials pillows were made. The Romans also stuffed their bedding with wool as well as with the soft down of geese, swans, and other birds. Their blankets and sheets were sometimes elabo rately ornamented with patterns in colours either woven or embroidered.

Medieval and later Beds.-In Anglo-Saxon times, ordinary beds appear to have been plain wooden benches fixed in recesses, and having sometimes at least curtains in front-a kind of bed not yet entirely obsolete in Scotland. The bedding consisted, no doubt, of a large sack filled with straw, together with a sheet or sheets and coverlet. Mr T. Wright, in his Homes of Other Days, gives an illustration of a Saxon double bed of this nature with curtains. He also gives two woodcuts, after drawings in the Harleian manuscript, No. 603, of two Saxon bedsteads, box-shaped, with short corner pillars terminating in balls, and with the head end like that of a couch, but rather higher. The sides of one have thin balusters, but in the other they are plain. It is believed that these bedsteads were only used by persons of rank. The same author gives two figures of Norman beds. One of these so far resembles the isolated Saxon bedsteads, but it has a high panelled foot-board, and the sleeper lies on a slope with an oval disc at his head. The second illustration shows that the tent-bed with a top frame and side curtains was now in use. Louandre's Les Arts Somptuaires contains pictures of five beds, taken from a French illuminated manuscript of the 12th century. In these the bedstead takes the oblong form, with four short posts and balls, and much resembles the Anglo-Saxon ones referred to above. Except in the deep closed sides, and that in two of them the sleeper lies in a sloping position, these scarcely differ in general appearance from many plain modern beds; but at the top end there is a large flat disc, apparently swung on pivots, to enable the head to rest at any angle.

In the 13th century, beds were furnished much as at present, with a stuffed quilt, bolster, pillows, sheets, and coverlets. Among the rich, down was used; but feather-beds did not come into general use till the 15th century. All classes appear to have begun in the 13th century to take a pride in the appearance of the bed, while those who had sufficient means furnished it with handsome curtains and coverings. In the 14th century, Chaucer (Derme, v. 250) describes a luxurious feather-bed with rich coverings. Illustrations of beds in the following century show that the canopy, curtains, and other parts had together the general appear ance of a modern half-tester or canopied bed; but the tester or back and the celure or roof were fixed to the wall and ceiling of the room.

The large four-post bed was introduced in the 16th century, and continued in use till the middle of the 19th. Many of these beds, especially of the earlier time, were elaborately and beautifully carved, and furnished with rich hangings. Interesting examples of them are still preserved in old mansions and castles in England and on the Continent. The Great Bed of Ware, in Hertfordshire, now at Rye House, is of this age, and is one of the

these beds were luxuriously decorated. Francis I. made a present to Henry VIII. of England of a rich camp-bed of crimson velvet, embroidered with bands of leaves in gold, and with fruit of large and small pearls, which had cost him 13,500 livres.

Modern Beds.-The heavy four-post bed, which was so long characteristic of a well-furnished English bedroom, is becoming a thing of the past. The comparatively recent and scarcely less massive halftester bed, which suited so well for the display of the more handsome furniture-woods, has also gone out of fashion. Even the much lighter four-post tent-bed, or its later form without the curtained roof, called the French bed, that was so recently to be seen in nearly every well-to-do working-man's house in Great Britain, is fast disappearing.

For the past fifty years, bedsteads of iron and brass have been slowly gaining ground, and they are now all but universal in newly-furnished houses. Birmingham, the great British centre of light metal goods, furnishes us with some curious statistics concerning this branch of the trade. For that town and its neighbourhood, some 400 metallic bedsteads represented the weekly production in 1849. This number had increased to 5000 per week in 1865, while in 1885 the weekly output was but little short of 20,000. London, Manchester, Glasgow, and Bristol have also extensive manufactories of these bedsteads, which are exported in large numbers to most British colonies, as well as to South America, Egypt, China, and Japan. Some are shipped to the United States, but they are now being made there in considerable quantities. Nearly all the continental nations of Europe manufacture these metallic bedsteads extensively for their own use. Beds in Germany are almost always made of a width suitable for one person only. This is largely the case in most countries of continental Europe.

An iron bedstead is very simply constructed. The strong iron bars forming the sides have simple dovetail joints at the corner pillars, which, as well as the rails for the top and bottom ends of the bed, are made of iron or brass tubing, or of both. The