Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/593

Rh almost suppose it to be written by Sterndale Bennett.&quot; It would lead us too far on the present occasion to point out how, by this subserviency of the leading English musician to a foreign composer, the national development of English art was impeded in a deplorable manner. His great success on the Continent established Bennett s posi tion in England. He settled in London, devoting himself chiefly to practical teaching. For a short time he acted as conductor of the Philharmonic Society, in which capacity, however, he earned little success. He was made musical professor at Cambridge in 1856, and in 1868 principal of the Royal Academy of Music. In 1871 he received the honour of knighthood. He died in 1875. Owing most likely to his professional duties his latter years were not fertile, and what he then wrote was not superior, scarcely equal, to the productions of his youth. The principal charm of Bennett s compositions (not to mention his abso lute mastery of the musical form) consists in the tender ness of their conception, rising occasionally to sweetest lyrical intensity, but also bordering now and then on that ex cessive sentimentalism from which his master Mendelssohn kept not always aloof. It must, however, be acknowledged that Bennett s was a thoroughly refined nature, incapable of grand dramatic pathos, but also free from all inartistic pandering to the taste of the vulgar. Barring the opera, Bennett tried his hand at almost all the different forms of vocal and instrumental writing. As his best works in various branches of art, we mention, for pianoforte solo, and with accompaniment of the orchestra, his three sketches, The Lake, the Millstream, and the Fountain, and his 3d pianoforte concerto ; for the orchestra, his Symphony in G minor, and his overture The Naiads ; and for voices, his cantata The May Queen, written for the Leeds festival in 1858. He also wrote a sacred cantata, The Woman of Samaria, first performed at the Birmingham Musical Festival in 18G7. Shortly before his death he produced a sonata called the Maid of Orleans, an elaborate piece of programme-music, descriptive of the deeds and sufferings and the final triumph of the French heroine according to Schiller s tragedy.  BENSERADE,, a French poet, was born in 1G12 at Lions-la-Foret in Normandy. He made himself known at court by his verses and his wit, and had the good fortune to please the cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. He wrote 1. A Paraphrase upon Job ; 2. Verses for Ballets or Interludes ; 3. Rondeaus upon Ovid ; 4. Several Tragedies. A sonnet of his, which he sent to a young lady with his paraphrase on Job, having been placed in competition with the Urania of Voiture, a dispute on their relative merits long divided the whole court and the wits into two parties, who were respectively styled the Jobelins and the Uranists. Some years before his death in 1G91 Benserade retired to Chantilly, and devoted himself to a translation of the Psalms, which he nearly completed.  BENSON,, a learned dissenting minister, was born at Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, in 1699. His mental capacity was so precocious, that at 11 years of age he was able to read the Greek Testament. He afterwards studied at an academy at Whitehaven, whence he removed to the University of Glasgow. In 1721 he was chosen pastor of a congregation of dissenters at Abingdon, in Berkshire, where he continued till 1729, when he became the choice of a congregation in Southwark : and in 1740 he was appointed by the congregation of Crutched Friars colleague to the learned Dr Lardner. His Defence of the Reasonableness of Prayer appeared in 1731, and he after wards published Paraphrases and Notes on the Epistles to the Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, adding dissertations on several important subjects, particularly on inspiration. In 1735 he published his History of the First Planting of Christianity, in 2 vols. 4to, a work of great learning and ability. He also wrote the Reasonable ness of the Christian Religion, the History of the Life of Jesus Christ, a Paraphrase and Notes on the Seven Catholic Epistles, and several other works, which gained him great reputation as a scholar and theologian. He died in 1763.  BENTHAM,, was born on the 1 5th February 1748, in Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, London, in which neighbourhood his grandfather and father successively carried on business as attorneys. His father, who was a wealthy man, and possessed at any rate a smattering of Greek, Latin, and French, was thought to have demeaned himself by marrying the daughter of an Andover tradesman, who afterwards retired to a country house near Reading, where young Jeremy spent many happy days. The boy s talents justified the ambitious hopes which his parents entertained of his future. When three years old he read eagerly such works as Rapin s History, and began the study of Latin. A year or two later he learnt the violin and French conversation. At Westminster school he obtained a reputation for Greek and Latin verse writing ; and he was only thirteen when he was matriculated at Queen s College Oxford, where his most important acquisition seems to have been a thorough acquaintance with Sanderson s logic. He became a B.A. in 1763, and in the same year entered at Lincoln s Inn, and took his seat as a student in the Queen s Bench, where he listened with rapture to the judgments of Lord Mansfield. He managed also to hear Blackstone s lectures at Oxford, but says that he imme diately detected the fallacies which underlay the rounded periods of the future judge. Bentham s family connections would naturally have given him a fair start at the bar, but this was not the career for which he was preparing himself. He spent his time in making chemical experiments and in speculating upon legal abuses, rather than in reading Coke upon Littleton and the Reports. On being called to the bar he &quot; found a cause or two at nurse for him, which he did his best to put to death,&quot; to the bitter disappointment of his father, who had confidently looked forward to seeing him upon the woolsack. The first fruits of Bentham s studies, the Fragment on Government, appeared in 1776. This masterly attack upon Blackstone s praises of the Eng lish constitution was variously attributed to Lord Mans field, Lord Camden, and Lord Ashburton. One important result of its publication was that, in 1781, Lord Shelburne called upon its author in his chambers at Lincoln s Inn. Henceforth Bentham was a frequent guest at Bowood, where he saw the best society, and where he met Miss Caroline Fox, to whom he afterwards made a proposal of marriage. In 1785 Bentham started, by way of Italy and Constantinople, on a visit to his brother, Sir Samuel Bentham, who became a general in the Russian service ; and it was in Russia that he wrote his Defence of Usury. Disappointed in the hope which he had entertained, through a misapprehension of something said by Lord Lansdowne, of taking a personal part in the legislation of his country, he settled down to the yet higher task of discovering and teaching the principles upon which all sound legislation must proceed. His fame spread widely and rapidly. He was made a French citizen in 1792 ; and his advice was respectfully received in most of the states of Europe and America, with many of the leading men of which he maintained an active correspondence. His ambition was to be allowed to prepare a code of law for his own or some foreign country. During nearly a quarter of a century he was engaged in negotiations with Govern ment for the erection of a &quot;Panopticon,&quot; which would render transportation unnecessary. The scheme was eventually abandoned, and Bentham received 23,000 by 