Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/599

Rh ingredient in some officinal tinctures, such as the compound tincture of camphor, and ammoniated tincture of opium.

 BENZOIN,, sometimes called , a fragrant gum-resin obtained from Styrax Benzoin, a tree of considerable size, a native of Sumatra and Java, and introduced into Siam, Borneo, &c. The gum-resin is obtained by making incisions in the bark of trees after they have attained six years of age, when the benzoin exudes, and after hardening in the air is carefully scraped off with a knife. A tree produces on an average about 3 lb annually for 10 or 12 years. The produce of the first three years is known as "head" benzoin, and is esteemed the finest and most valuable; that produced in later years goes by the name of "belly" benzoin; and after the trees are cut down a small quantity of a dark-coloured and very inferior quality is obtained, which is called "foot" benzoin. In commerce the gum-resin is distinguished as Siam or Sumatra benzoin, according to the localities from which it is derived. Siam benzoin is generally regarded as the best, and of it two varieties are distinguished. The finest quality is Siam benzoin "in tear," it being in small flattened drops, from the size of an almond kernel downwards. "Lump" Siam benzoin consists of agglutinated masses of such tears, or of tears imbedded in a darker coloured resinous matrix. Tear benzoin varies in colour from a pale yellow to a reddish-brown colour, and lump benzoin has a conglomerate-like structure from the dissemination of almond-shaped tears throughout the substance. Sumatra benzoin has neither so strong nor so agreeable an odour as that of Siam, but the finest qualities are not found in the English market, being bought up for use in the religious rites of the Greek Church in Russia. Sumatra benzoin occurs in larger rectangular masses of a greyish tint, with few large tears in it, but containing small white opaque pieces, with chips of wood and other impurities, in a translucent matrix. Benzoin is composed of a mixture of three resins, distinguished by their behaviour towards solvents, and of benzoic acid, with sometimes cinnamic acid in addition; in some specimens of Sumatra benzoin cinnamic acid has been found entirely replacing benzoic acid. Usually benzoin contains from 12 to 18 per cent. of benzoic acid, the opaque white portions containing less than the brown resinous substance. It also contains traces of a highly odorous essential oil, like styrol, the aromatic oil present in storax. The quantity of benzoin exported from Sumatra in 1871 was about 16,000 cwt., while Siam sent out only 405 cwt., but very great quantities are used as incense in the religious ceremonies of the East, which indeed is the principal object for which it is brought into the commerce of Western nations. In medicine benzoin is seldom administered except as an adjunct to pectoral medicines. A compound tincture of benzoin is applied to flabby ulcers, and to excised wounds after the edges have been brought together. In these connections benzoin has a popular reputation under the name of Friars' or Monks' Balsam, which is a compound tincture of benzoin, and it forms an ingredient in court or black sticking-plaster. Benzoin diminishes the tendency towards rancidity in fats, a circumstance turned to account in the Adeps benzoatus of pharmacy.

 BÉRANGER,, the national song-writer of France, was born at Paris on the 19th August 1780. The aristocratic particle before the name was a piece of groundless vanity on the part of his father, which the poet found useful as a distinction. He was descended, in truth, from a country innkeeper on the one side, and, on the other, from a tailor in the Rue Montorgueil. Of education, in the narrower sense, he had but little. From the roof of his first school he beheld the capture of the Bastille, and this stirring memory was all that he acquired. Later on he passed some time in a school at Péronne, founded by one Bellenglise on the principles of Rousseau, where the boys were formed into clubs and regiments, and taught to play solemnly at politics and war. Béranger was president of the club, made speeches before such members of Convention as passed through Péronne, and drew up addresses to Tallien or Robespierre at Paris. In the meanwhile he learned neither Greek nor Latin—not even French, it would appear: for it was after he left school, from the printer Laisney, that he acquired the elements of grammar. His true education was of another sort. In his childhood, shy, sickly, and skilful with his hands, as he sat at home alone to carve cherry stones, he was already forming for himself those habits of retirement and patient elaboration which influenced the whole tenor of his life and the character of all that he wrote. At Péronne he learned of his good aunt to be a stout republican; and from the doorstep of her inn, on quiet evenings, he would listen to the thunder of the guns before Valenciennes, and fortify himself in his passionate love of France and distaste for all things foreign. Although he could never read Horace save in a translation, he had been educated on Telemaque, Racine, and the dramas of Voltaire, and taught, from a child, in the tradition of all that is highest and most correct in French.

After serving his aunt for some time in the capacity of waiter, and passing some time also in the printing office of one Laisney, he was taken to Paris by his father. Here he saw much low speculation and many low royalist intrigues. In 1802, in consequence of a distressing quarrel, he left his father and began life for himself in the garret of his ever memorable song. For two years he did literary hackwork, when he could get it, and wrote pastorals, epics, and all manner of ambitious failures. At the end of that period (1804) he wrote to Lucien Bonaparte, enclosing some of these attempts. He was then in bad health, and in the last stage of misery. His watch was pledged. His wardrobe consisted of one pair of boots, one greatcoat, one pair of trousers with a hole in the knee, and "three bad shirts which a friendly hand wearied itself in endeavouring to mend." The friendly hand was that of Judith Frère, with whom he had been already more or less acquainted since 1796, and who continued to be his faithful companion until her death, three months before his own, in 1857. She must not be confounded with the Lisette of the songs; the pieces addressed to her (La Bonne Vieille, Maudit Printemps, &c.) are in a very different vein. Lucien Bonaparte interested himself in the young poet, transferred to him his own pension of 1000 francs from the Institute, and set him to work on a Death of Nero. Five years later, through the same patronage, although indirectly, Béranger became a clerk in the university at a salary of another thousand.

Meanwhile he had written many songs for convivial occasions, and "to console himself under all misfortunes;" some, according to M. Boiteau, had been already published by his father; but he set no great store on them himself; and it was only in 1812, while watching by the sick-bed of a friend, that it occurred to him to write down the best he could remember. Next year he was elected to the Caveau Moderne, and his reputation as a song- writer began to spread. Manuscript copies of Les Guenx, Le Sénateur, above all of Le Roi d' Yvetot, a satire against Napoleon, whom he was to magnify so much in the sequel, passed from hand to hand with acclamation. It was thus that all his best works went abroad; one man sang them to another over all the land of France. He was the only poet of modern times who could altogether have dispensed with printing.

His first collection escaped censure. "We must pardon