Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/98

Becon Becon' (, as before, iii. 225-6;, Eccles. Mem. c. xxxii. iii. 250).

On Elizabeth's accession, Becon returned to England. He was restored to his London benefice, and was also replaced at Canterbury. A little later he was presented to the rectory of Buckland, in Hertfordshire, where he was admitted 22 Oct. 1560. He was also appointed to Christ Church, Newgate Street, and on 10 Aug. 1563 to the rectory of St. Dionis Backchurch (, as before, xlvi. 12). At the outset he had scruples as to certain 'regulations' and 'ritualisms,' but after a time acquiesced. He preached at Paul's Cross and elsewhere on great occasions, with wide popular acceptance. In 1566 he published his latest work—his 'Postils,' or lectures on the gospel of the day. The preface to this, as well as to the folio edition of his works two years earlier, is dated from Canterbury. It would seem that the later years of his life were spent in his prebendal house, and there in 1567 he probably died (, Repert. i. 320, 330).

Of his wife and children little has been transmitted. A Theodore and a Christophile both died before 1560; a second Theodore, Basil, and Rachel outlived him. His surviving son Theodore was of St. John's College, Cambridge, B.A., 1576; fellow, 1579; M.A., 1580; M.D. 1587. He was a correspondent of Burghley in 1578 (Burghley Papers, Lansdowne MSS. xxvii. No. 78). A collected edition of his works, including many unpublished, appeared in 3 vols. folio in 1563-4. In the 'Athenæ Cantabrigienses' (i. 247-9) will be found a full catalogue of the many writings of Becon, to the number of forty-seven. The Rev. John Ayre, M.A., has edited the works of Becon for the Parker Society, and has brought together all that has been transmitted. His 'Biographical Notice' before 'The Early Works' (1843), with its authorities and references, must be the main source of every succeeding biographer and historian. The Religious Tract Society and others still circulate 'Selections' from his works.

Woodcuts of Becon are prefixed to his 'Reliques of Rome' and to his own collected edition of his works.

[Ayre's Biogr. Notice, as before, in Works, three volumes, 8vo, 1843-4; Cooper's Ath. Cantab, i. 246-50; Foxe, as before; Strype's Cranmer, Aylmer, Parker, Grindal; Churton's Life of Nowell, p. 21; MS. Chronology, i. 48, 221; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, i. 166-70—Ayre does not name Brook, but he was largely indebted to him throughout, albeit Brook, like Dr. Bliss (in Athenæ Oxon.), confounds another Becon with Thomas Becon; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 50; Anderson's Annals of the Bible, ii. 154; Haweis's Sketches of the Reformation, 135; Maitland's Essays on the Reformation, 107, 108, 146, 190, 196; Baker's Hist. of St. John's, by Mayor, 366; Warton's History of English Poetry; Ellis's Shoreditch; Machyn's Diary, 216, 231, 288; an excellent paper on Thomas Becon, by Dr. Alexander, will be found in the (American) Princeton Review, v. 504.]  BEDDOES, THOMAS (1760–1808), physician, was born at Shiffnal in Shropshire, 13 April 1760. Through the interposition of his grandfather, a self-made man of vigorous intellect, he was educated at Bridgnorth Grammar School and at Pembroke College, Oxford. While at the university he taught himself French, Italian, and German, and shortly after quitting it translated or annotated several works of Bergman, Scheele, and Spallanzani. He received his medical education in London and Edinburgh, and, after taking his M.D. degree at Oxford, was appointed in 1788 reader in chemistry, attracting, he says, the largest class that had been assembled in the university since the thirteenth century. He resigned this post in 1792, partly on account of his sympathy with the French revolution. He had previously, in 1790, pointed out the merits of the great and then forgotten chemist, Mayow, the discoverer of the true theory of combustion, and had, in 1792, composed a poem on the conquests of Alexander, partly to denounce English aggrandisement in India, partly as what now seems a highly superfluous demonstration of the possibility of imitating Darwin's 'Botanic Garden.' The poem is in every way a curiosity, having been printed by a woman and illustrated with woodcuts by a parish clerk. In 1793 he produced his treatise on calculus, and his moral tale 'Isaac Jenkins,' describing the reclamation of a drunken labourer, which went through numerous editions. In the same year he removed to Clifton, with the view of establishing a 'Pneumatic Institute' for the treatment of disease by inhalation. Watt constructed his apparatus, Wedgwood contributed a thousand pounds, and the institute was ultimately established in 1798. It failed in its professed object, but is memorable for having fostered the genius of Davy, whom Beddoes had engaged as his assistant, and who discovered the properties of nitrous oxide there in 1799. In the same year Davy's first work, an essay on heat and light, was given to the world in 'Contributions to Physical and Medical Knowledge, principally from the West of England,' a collection edited by Beddoes. Before this he had