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BEL to Saxony as a physician in the army of Charles XII. He was made prisoner at the battle of Pultawa, and was taken to Moscow, where he practised medicine. He left behind him works on Worms, on diseases of different kinds, on Respiration and Transpiration, on Equivocal Generation, on Smell, on the Toricellian barometer, and on the genera of Plants.—J. H. B.  BELOWSELSKY-BELOZERKI,, a Russian litterateur, born in St. Petersburg in 1757; died in 1809. He was ambassador of Catherine II. at the court of Turin, and a munificent patron of literature.  BELSHAM. , minister of Essex Street chapel, London; born at Bedford, April 15, 1750,. His father, the Rev. James Belsham, was a man of talent and literature, though not a popular preacher. Having studied at the dissenting academy at Daventry, Mr. Belsham, in 1778, became minister of a congregation of protestant dissenters at Worcester, and in 1781 became principal in the Daventry seminary. Having adopted unitarian views, and passing through a painful struggle, he resigned his tutorship in 1789. Immediately after he was appointed resident tutor in the New College, Hackney. Mr. Belsham's mind had been gradually maturing, so that now, having reached the age of forty, he was able to produce, on divinity and metaphysics, courses of lectures, not only original, but elaborate, whence in after years he drew materials for learned works, which are still valued by those who follow his method, and share his views. Though under instructors so able as Thomas Belsham, Gilbert Wakefield, Dr. Abraham Rees, Dr. Kippis, and Dr. Priestley, the Hackney institution came to an end at midsummer, 1796, not a little owing to defects in the governing authorities, and to moral laxity on the part of some of the students. In 1798, Mr. Belsham wrote a reply to Mr. Wilberforce's Practical View of the prevailing Systems of professed Christians, and in consequence became acquainted with the duke of Grafton. In 1802 he succeeded the Rev. John Kentish as afternoon preacher at the Gravel Pit, Hackney; and in 1805 took the place held by Dr. Disney, as minister of the unitarian congregation, Essex Street, Strand. Here he entered on his chief sphere of ministerial influence, while he employed the hours devoted to study, to no small extent, in preparing for the press his work on "The Evidences of Christianity," and his "Exposition of the Epistles of St. Paul." At the same time he engaged in a revision of the English translation of the New Testament. Taking as his basis a translation made by Archbishop Newcome, he produced what he designated "An improved Version of the New Testament," which excited great attention, as if presenting the later Scriptures in a unitarian aspect. The work made its appearance in 1808. In the year 1811, Mr. Belsham published his "Calm Inquiry into the Scripture doctrine concerning the Person of Christ." Employing his time and energies in the duties of the pulpit, and in smaller publications expository of his opinions, Mr. Belsham drew towards the tomb. At the age of seventy-seven he published a volume of "Discourses Doctrinal and Practical," which, being well received, was forthwith followed by another, having a greater doctrinal tendency. In social life, Mr. Belsham and his circle of friends possessed great and varied influence. Having undergone an educational discipline of a liberalizing tendency, they were warm as well as wise and effectual friends of civil and religious liberty, at a time when, even in England, its advocacy was perilous, and through Hobhouse, Holland, and other eminent statesmen, contributed not a little to remove from the statute-book restrictive and coercive laws, equally alien to the spirit of the gospel, and discreditable to the character of the British people.—J. R. B.  BELSHAM,, brother of the preceding, a political and historical writer, was born in 1753. He published the following works—"Political and Historical Essays," 1789; "Memoirs of the Kings of Great Britain, of the House of Brunswick Lunenburg," 1793; "Memoirs of the Reign of George III. to the Session of Parliament ending 1793," 1795-1801; and "History of Great Britain from the Revolution to the Accession of the House of Hanover," 1798. These historical works were, in 1806, published together in twelve volumes, as a history of Great Britain to the peace of Amiens in 1802. Mr. Belsham died at the age of seventy-five.—J. B.  BELSHAZZAR, the son or more probably the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, was the last monarch of the Babylonian empire. He was an arrogant, licentious, and cowardly king. While his capital was besieged by the combined hosts of the Medes and Persians under the leadership of Cyrus, he made a great feast for his princes, rulers, and captains; and in the midst of the carousals, he impiously commanded the sacred vessels which had been brought from the temple at Jerusalem, to be placed upon the table as common drinking-cups, and he himself, his wives, and his concubines drank out of them. But suddenly their ill-timed mirth and jollity were changed into alarm and horror; for there appeared upon the wall the likeness of a human hand, which traced mysterious characters that arrested every eye—"Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." The apparition struck Belshazzar with such terror that his countenance was changed, the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote against each other. Immediately the wise men of Babylon were summoned together to decypher the writing; but the letter, which is supposed to have been ancient Hebrew, or what is now called Samaritan, was altogether unknown to them, and all their efforts were baffled. At length Daniel was sent for, and he at once recognized the words as a prophecy of the death of the king and of the overthrow of his kingdom. Nor was the fulfilment long delayed, for Belshazzar was slain that same night, and Babylon passed into the possession of the Medes and Persians. There are some considerable difficulties connected with this account of Belshazzar. Berosus, as appears from Josephus, Contr. Apion. i. 20, mentions that the last king of Babylon was named Nabonnedus, that when Cyrus entered his territories at the head of an army, he marched out to meet him and was defeated, that he then took refuge in the stronghold of Borsippa, but soon afterwards surrendered to the conqueror, was kindly treated by him, and allowed to retire to Caramania, where he died. Hence it has been commonly supposed that Belshazzar, whom Daniel represents as the last king of Babylon, must be the same person as Nabonnedus; and, according to this view, Berosus stands in direct contradiction to Daniel, and also to Xenophon, who agrees with Daniel—Cyrop. vii. 5, 30. This discordancy has been the source of much perplexity, and various solutions of it have been proposed. But some new interpreters have recently risen from the grave of ages, that promise to throw much light upon this and other obscure points. Colonel Rawlinson mentions, that among the monuments of the reign of Nabonnedus dug up from the ruins of Babylon and Borsippa and Southern Chaldea, he found several perfect cylinders, whose inscriptions bear that the eldest son of Nabonnedus was named Belsharezer. Four of these cylinders exhibit an account of the temple of the moon at Ur of the Chaldees, and the architectural description concludes with a prayer for the welfare of the king's son, Belsharezer. From this substitution of the name of the king's son for that of the king himself, contrary to all ancient usage, Colonel Rawlinson infers that the son must have been assumed by the father during his own lifetime as joint occupant of the throne. If this be a well-grounded inference, then the statements of Berosus are in perfect harmony with those of Daniel. The father might meet Cyrus in the field, and then retire to Caramania; while the son, Belshazzar or Belsharezer, might remain in the city, and meet the doom recorded in holy writ.—W. L.  BELSUNCE or BELZUNCE, an ancient and illustrious family of Lower Navarre. The first of its members of whom we have any account is Roger de Belsunce, who lived in the twelfth century. In 1154 he added the viscountship of Macaie, in the country of Labour, to his family honours. Among his descendants were Guillaume-Arnauld, grand chamberlain to Charles le Mauvais, king of Navarre; Garci-Arnauld, II., who in 1384 signed with other lords the treaty of peace between France and Spain; Jean IV., counsellor of Jeanne de Navarre, mother of Henry IV.; and Jean V., a court favourite in the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis XIII. The celebrated archbishop of Marseilles, Henry-Francis-Xavier de Belsunce, was also descended from a branch of the same family.—G. M.  BELSUNCE,, vicomte de, a French general, born 6th February, 1722; died at Saint Domingo, 4th August, 1764. He entered the service in 1740, took part in the campaign of Bohemia from 1741 to 1743, served in Flanders in 1744, assisted at the battle of Fontenoy in 1745, at that of Lawfeldt in 1747, and at the siege of Maestricht in 1748. In 1749 he was made colonel of a regiment of infantry, and in 1759 major-general of the army. During the interval he had distinguished himself in a great number of battles, in two of which, Hastembeck and Lutzelberg, he was severely wounded. In 1761 he was 