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BEC consideration of moral justice, he is far from condemning the noble avenger of liberty, who rises to free his country from the arbitrary will of a tyrant. (Sec. xxvi.) He points out the iniquity of confiscation, as causing the penalty of the guilty to weigh on the innocent (Sec. xvii.); and protests against every penal sanction which creates, from either a pecuniary or any other motive, an interest for the government and the magistracy, in the condemnation of the accused. (Sec. xl.) Equally sound are his views on the guarantees required in cases of arrest, on the defence and treatment of the prisoner, as well as on his moral amelioration. He closes his work with an eloquent exposition of the influence of a free and rational legislation on the moral character of the people, and of the power of education and freedom as the best means of preventing criminal actions. Where the law is clear and just, equal for all, and not interfering with the legitimate claims of individual and public freedom, men feel themselves independent and responsible beings, society is secure, and crimes become proportionably less.

The work of Beccaria proved irrefutable. The usual attacks of ignorance and fanaticism were not wanting, but they were powerless, owing to the liberal spirit of the European courts in those days. One Father Facchinei, a monk bribed by the degraded aristocracy of Venice, assailed our author with inquisitorial rage. Pietro Verri gave a triumphant answer to the ravings of the friar, and Beccaria was left unmolested.

Besides the work to which he owes his European fame, Beccaria wrote on public economy, and, as a relaxation from his harder labours, he composed a treatise on Style. The first thing he published on political economy, when still very young, was an able essay, "On the Abuses of Coinage and their Remedies," (Dei disordini e dei rimedi delle monete nello Stato di Milano, 1762,) in which he shows with much practical sense the injurious effects of the debasement of coin. Another essay of his on the advantages of uniformity in measures, "Relazione intorno alla riduzione delle misure di lunghezza all' uniformità," deserves special mention; for in that paper he proposed a plan of decimal division, analagous to that which has since been adopted under the name of metrical system. We shall conclude with a few words on his lectures on political economy, "Elementi di Economia Pubblica," which were occasioned by his having been appointed, in the year 1769, to the professorship of that science at Milan. It has been remarked with truth, that in the history of political economy, the Italian writers of the eighteenth century represent an intermediate stage between the incomplete theory of the French physiocrates, who asserted that the produce of land was the sole source of the wealth of a nation, and the more scientific doctrines of Adam Smith and his disciples. Serra, Genovesi, Galliani, Bandini, and Verri, contributed each in his turn to the store of observations and analitical inquiry, which raised public economy to the rank of a science. Beccaria was no indifferent member of that illustrious assembly. Though professing to follow the principles of the agricultural system, he often contradicts that theory in the practical results of his observations, and he somewhere distinctly states "that the wealth of a country arises only from the labour of men."

Many of the reforms, which Beccaria and his friends had called for in their writings, were actuated by the wisdom of those princes, who, in the second half of last century, aspired to the glory of becoming the benefactors of their people. Tuscany, Lombardy, and Naples, liberated, to a certain extent, from entails, and feudal as well as ecclesiastical privileges, were restored to wealth and culture; and Beccaria deservedly holds a prominent place among the educators and legislators of his country. It was owing to the influence of his ideas, that Leopold of Loraine, duke of Tuscany, reformed the penal code, and abolished capital punishment in his states, as likewise through the advice of another Italian, Bandini, he adopted free trade. As regards the private life of Beccaria, his biographers have recorded foibles of character which bear evidence to the sad and oft-repeated fact, that a man of superior intellect is but too often in contradiction with the principles he professes, when his moral strength is found defective. He is said to have been harsh to his inferiors, unsteady in his domestic affections, and inclined to avarice; nor does he seem to have responded with adequate warmth to the devoted friendship of Verri. The latter part of his life was chiefly engaged in public offices, and in his duties as professor. He died at Milan in the year 1794, at the age of fifty-six.

The best sources of information concerning; Beccaria and his writings, are Ugoni's work, Delia Letteratura Italiana nella seconda meta del Secolo xviii., and the biographers in the Collezione degli Economisti Italiani, by Custodi, and the Milanese edition of 1821, Società tipografica dei classici Italiani.—A. S., O.  BECCARUZZI,, born at Corrigliano in the Friuli. A scholar of Pordenone, the rival of Titian (1484-1539), a great flesh painter, and successful in portraiture, but wanting in expression and other necessary qualities. One of Beccaruzzi's chief works is the story of St. Francis in a seraphic rapture, receiving the impression of the five wounds of Christ, executed for the Franciscan church of his native place.—W. T.  BECCOLD or BOCCOLD,, better known as , a fanatic of the Netherlands, whose twelvemonth's royalty in the city of Munster forms one of the strangest episodes in the history of the sixteenth century. He figured originally among the adherents of the celebrated anabaptist prophet, John Matthias, and was remarked even in that company for his extraordinary eloquence and zeal. In 1533, he was one of two disciples whom Matthias sent to Munster to proselytize the people of that city. His success was marvellous from the first. In a short while, the frenzy which he had communicated to a select number of zealots, spread over the whole city, and nothing was to be heard in the churches, the streets, and the market-place, but the frantic shouts of "the saints," among whom the lust of spoiling the Lutherans and catholics, began to operate with intoxicating effect. The magistrates were at length obliged to resign their functions, and an anabaptist administration was constituted, with Matthias for chief, and Beccold for lieutenant. Munster was now in a state of siege, the prince-bishop having arrived with numerous forces. In a sortie from the walls, Matthias perished, and John Beccold was proclaimed governor, a title which, shortly afterwards, with some allusions to the raising up of Saul, he exchanged for that of king. His new dignity he wore without any of the embarrassment of a novice. He took to himself a goodly number of wives, passed sentence of death, and discharged other functions of royalty with great vivacity. When he showed himself in public, it was in a robe of purple and gold, with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand. Arrayed in that manner he executed justice in the market-place three times a-week, performing the journey thither in a coach of state, which, to the astonishment of the saints, who recollected that their master was a prophet before he was called to be a king, showed like a perambulating harem. The reign of King John terminated ignominiously. Famine and disaffection thinned the ranks of his fighting men, and at last the episcopal army carried the city by storm. He was cast into a dungeon in the bishop's castle, and after a tedious confinement, executed with horrible barbarities.—J. S., G.  BEC-CRESPIN, an ancient and illustrious family of Normandy. , baron de Bec-Crespin, one of the founders of the abbaye of Bec, lived about 1034. V., marshal of France in 1283, was one of the crusaders in 1269. IX. distinguished himself under Charles VI. in the English wars. , archbishop of Rheims from 1594 till 1605, was present at the council of Trent.—J. S., G.  BEC-DE-LIÈVRE, an ancient family of Bretagne, whose genealogy can be traced with certainty to Pierre de Bec-de-Lièvre, lord of Bonexie, who lived in 1363. Among the members of that family there were many remarkable personages, of whom the first whose history has come down to us is , lieutenant of Rennes, who was sent in 1489, by Anne of Bretagne, as ambassador to the king of France.—G. M.  BECERRA,, one of the great names in Spanish art, painter, sculptor, and architect, was born at Baeza (Andalusia), the birthplace of St. Ursula, in 1520. He went early to Rome, and painted with Daniel de Volterra, Tibaldi, Vasari, and perhaps Michel Angelo. After some anatomical studies, he returned to Spain, became court sculptor and painter in ordinary to Philip, and painted for him several chambers in the Madrid Alcaza, in fresco. "Is this all you have done?" said the king to him one day. He executed for the infanta Juana a high altar of painted sculpture, but his great work was his figure of the Virgin (Nuestra Senora de la Soledad), for the convent of the Minim Fathers at Madrid. It was destroyed during the French war, but Longfellow has immortalized the image by versifying the legend. Three times the mortified sculptor had failed in his work, and the impatient Queen Isabella of the Peace, threatened to employ two other hands. The Franciscans 