Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/449

 regarded as an object of interest. The second edition, published in 1838, is dedicated to her Majesty. In it the author has included much new and valuable matter. A third edition, by W. A. Munn, appeared in 1870. Bevan also wrote a paper on the 'Honey-Bee Communities' in the first volume of the 'Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' and published a few copies of ' Hints on the History and Management of the Honey-Bee,' which had formed the substance of two lectures read before the Hereford Literary Institution in the winter of 1850–51. He had from 1849 fixed his residence at Hereford, where he died on 31 Jan. 1860, when within a few months of completing his ninetieth year. As a public man Bevan was shy and retiring but was much beloved in the circle of his private acquaintances. It is recorded as a proof of the esteem in which he was held, that on the occasion of a great flood in the Wye, in February 1852, washing away all the doctor's beehives, a public subscription was raised, and a new apiary presented to him, of which, as a very pleasing substitute for what he had playfully called his 'Virgilian Temple,' the venerable apiarian was justly proud. Bevan was one of the founders of the Entomological Society in 1833.  BEVAN, JOSEPH GURNEY (1753–1814), quaker writer, the son of Timothy and Hannah Bevan, was born in London 18 Feb. 1753. He was of a lively and affectionate disposition and very quick to learn. From an uncle, who was an artist and naturalist, he derived much information. His literary studies were pursued for some years under a physician — a classical scholar, with a taste for poetry. Bevan's own love of poetry induced him afterwards to recommend the study of Latin under certain restrictions. We are told that he applied himself diligently to the study of Greek when fifty, in order to read the New Testament. The kindness of his parents shielded him from early temptation. In his desire for gay apparel he twice altered his dress, but returned to his old raiment from a filial regard to his mother's request. When seventeen years old he was 'under serious impressions of mind,' and the first thing he thought it his duty to change was the heathen names of the months. In 1776 he married Mary Plumstead, a young woman of genuine piety and circumspect conduct. His father now gave him a share in his business of a chemist and druggist in Plough Court, Lombard Street. In 1784, '3 mo. 28,' as Bevan puts it, his mother died. Thus he records her death: 'Hodie mater mea optima flentem maritum, flentem filium reliquit.' He pursued his trade with integrity, justice, and truth, and retired from it in 1794 with a considerable diminution of capital. He had refused, from conscientious motives, to supply armed vessels with drugs. Chosen, however, to act as a constable in his a ward, he faithfully fulfilled the duties of his office. In a journal which he now kept we find him regretting his spiritual pride and want of resignation. On one occasion he goes in 'some degree of the cross' to a school meeting; at another he is 'quickened' by a constable's overturning an old woman's apple-basket. It was in 1794 that he began writing for an almanac published by James Phillips, and continued for four years, with the exception of 1797, for which year his poem on 'Patience' was not, he tells us in a letter, ready in time. He wrote also a few poems in imitation of some of the Psalms, and other pieces of verse. In 1796 he removed to Stoke Newington. In 1800 he wrote his 'Refutation of the Misrepresentations of the Quakers,' comprising 124 pages, and noticing the writings of Mosheim, Formey, Hume, and the editors of the 'Encyclopedia Britannica,' who quoted much from Lesley and Wesley. Two years after appeared his examination of an 'Appeal to the Society of Friends,' of which the design was, by an investigation of the quotations in the work to which it is an answer and of the writings of early Friends, to show that they were not unitarians, in that which is now a very general acceptation of the term. His 'Thoughts on Reason and Revelation,' in 1805, a small publication of twenty-three pages, is divided into sections on the following subjects: Reason, revelation in general, infidelity, scripture, faith, and experience. During this literary work he was not in other respects idle. He filled for many years the station of an elder, no light office, with zeal and acceptance to his friends. At their disposal always was the information derived from his daily family readings of Scripture, 'my habit of nearly thirty years' standing,' as he says in a letter writ in 1806. In 1807 we find him busied with preparing for the press Sarah Stephenson's 'Memoirs.' While engaged in copying them he dwells on her pious character, 'one of the most indefatigable and devoted.' Bevan himself was all this while labouring in the interests of the society to which he belonged. He loved its religious welfare; its prosperity was the object of his earnest solicitude. He had little time for relaxation. We find him 