Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/496

480 From his infancy he was remarkable for his love of books. His father, who was a tanner, wished him to follow the same calling ; but, mainly through his grandfather s recogni tion of his abilities, he was educated for one of the learned professions. After studying at Bridgnorth grammar school and Plymhill, in Staffordshire, he entered, when about sixteen years of age, at Pembroke College, Oxford. There he proved himself an excellent linguist, while especially devoting himself to science. Having taken his bachelor s degree at twenty-one, he studied at London for the medical profession under Sheldon. In 1783 he became master of arts, and in 1784 he removed to Edinburgh, where he remained about three years. In 1734 he published a translation of Spallanzani s Dissertations on Natural History, and in 1785 produced a translation, with original notes, of Bergman s Essays on Elective Attractions. He took his degree of doctor of medicine at Oxford in 1786, and, after visiting Paris, where he became acquainted with Lavoisier, was appointed reader in chemistry at Oxford University. His lectures there attracted large and appreciative audiences ; but his advocacy of the French Revolution exciting a clamour against him, he resigned his readership in 1792, and took up his abode with a friend at Ketley, in Shropshire. While resident there he published Observations on the Nature of Demonstrative Evidence, in which he maintains that geometry is founded on experiment, and the History of Isaac Jenkins, a story which powerfully exhibits the evils of drunkenness, and of which 40,000 copies are reported to have been sold. He endeavoured for many years subsequently to realize his project of a pneumatic institution, in which the efficacy of certain gases in curing diseases could be tested. While working for this object he was assisted by the father of Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, one of whose daughters became his wife in 1794. He was ultimately enabled, by the liberality of Wedgwood, to establish the proposed institu tion (1798), and was fortunate in securing as its superin tendent Mr (afterwards the famous Sir Humphrey) Davy, who had already given proofs of uncommon endowments, and many of whose discoveries were made in its laboratory. Among the first results of the pneumatic institution was the discovery of the chemical properties of nitrous oxide, in regard to which, as in many other cases, Beddoes showed himself over-sanguine and speculative. The original aim of the institution was gradually abandoned ; it became an ordinary sick-hospital, and was relinquished by its projector in the year before his death, which occurred in 1808. Beddoes was a man of great powers and wide acquirements, which he directed to noble and philanthropic purposes. He strove to effect social good by popularizing medical knowledge, a work for which his vivid imagination and glowing eloquence eminently fitted him. In his manner of theorizing he considerably resembled his contemporary, the once celebrated Erasmus Darwin. Besides the writings mentioned above, he was the author of Political Pamphlets (1795-97), a popular Essay on Consumption (1779), which won the admiration of Kant, an Essay on Fever (1807), and Hygeia, or Essays Moral and Medical (1807). A life of Beddoes by Dr John E. Stock was published in 1810.  BEDDOES,, a modern English dramatist of peculiar and almost unique genius, was the son of the preceding, and was born at Clifton, 20th July 1803. He received his education at the Charter House, and subsequently at Pembroke College, Oxford, at both of which places he displayed a rugged independence of character, combined with eccentricity of demeanour and an aversion to the ordinary course of study. While still an undergraduate, he published his Bride s Tragedy, a piece less characterized by originality than his subsequent performances, and altogether in the taste of the Elizabethan revival of the day initiated by the publication of Lamb s Specimens. The notice it obtained from Barry Cornwall and other representatives of this school, encouraged him to devote himself altogether to the cultivation of dramatic poetry ; and he speedily produced a number of superb fragments, ranging down from the ambitious but unfinished sketches for tragedies to be entitled Torrismond and The Second Brother, to short descriptive passages of a few lines each, unsurpassed for originality of conception and con densed force. His genius, unfortunately, though highly poetical, was in no respect dramatic ; he entirely lacked the power of constructing a plot and deducing character from action ; and his endeavours to achieve a complete work proved abortive until 1829, when the strangely fascinating but fantastic and incoherent drama of Death s Jest-Book, or TJie. Fool s Tragedy, was laboriously put together from a series of abortive attempts. By this time Beddoes had become a resident in Germany, and a zsalous student of physiology, which, by affording another outlet for that intense curiosity respecting the mysteries of life and death which had hitherto been the mainspring of his poetical efforts, greatly contributed to repress the external manifes tations of his genius. Dissatisfaction with his tragedy, which he never cared to publish during his lifetime, and the gradual disuse of his native language, conspired to reduce him to silence. He led for several years an unsettled life on the Continent, devoted to anatomical research, and actively participating in liberal and demo cratic movements in Germany and Switzerland, until his death in 1849 from the effects of an accident. His literary remains were published in 1851 by his friend Mr Kelsall, with a most interesting memoir, and copious selections from his graphic and striking correspondence, which is distinguished by all the characteristics of his verse. Beddoes is a poet for poets, and few other readers will enjoy him. He is &quot; of imagination all compact ; &quot; his works scarcely contain a single passage of purely subjective feeling. He is, perhaps, the most concrete poet of his day ; the most disposed to express sentiment by imagery and material symbolism. In this he resembles Keats, and may be termed a Gothic Keats, the Teutonic counterpart of his more celebrated contemporary s Hellenism. The spirit of Gothic architecture seems to live in his verse, its grandeur and grotesqueness, its mystery and its gloom. His relation to the Elizabethan dramatists, moreover, is nearly the same as that of Keats to the Elizabethan pastoral poets ; but the resemblance is one of innate temperament : he borrowed nothing, either from his Eliza bethan precursors or the chief objects of his admiration among his contemporaries, Keats and Shelley. The want of constructive power which mars his dramas is even more prejudicial to his lyrics ; but some few songs, where the right key-note has been struck from the first, rank among the most perfect in our language. The leading features of Becldoes s personal character were uncompromising inde pendence, sterling integrity, and a thorough disdain for the opinion of the world. His life was entirely devoted to ideal aims, and his tastes were of the most simple and philosophic character. The asperity of his demeanour repelled strangers, but he was highly valued by the few whose intimacy he condescended to encourage.  BEDE,, or (commonly called The Venerable Bede), the father of English history, the most learned English man and most eminent writer of his age, was born about the year 673, in the neighbourhood of Monkwearmouth, in the N.E. of the county of Durham. The story of his life 13 told by himself at the conclusion of his most famous and most important work : &quot; Thus much of the Ecclesiastical History of Britain, and more especially of the English 