Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/599

BET and also founded a hospital, to which he left at his death the whole of his property. Died in 1720.  BÉTHUNE, or, a French poet, lived in the second part of the twelfth century. He accompanied Baldwin, and was the first to plant the Latin flag on the walls of Constantinople. Author of nine remarkable songs, inserted in the Romancers, Paris, 1833.  BETIS or BABEMESSIS, governor of Gaza, which he held for Darius, the king of Persia, and defended against Alexander with the most undaunted courage. As this place was the key of Egypt it was strongly fortified, and for two months resisted every attack of the Macedonian monarch, who was severely wounded in the course of the siege. When it was at last carried by assault, the gallant governor is said by Quintus Curtius to have been brought mortally wounded before Alexander, who caused him to be fastened by the heels to his chariot and dragged round the walls, in imitation of the brutal treatment which the dead body of Hector received from Achilles. There is reason, however, to suspect that this story is a fable, and that Betis was in reality slain along with the greater part of the inhabitants of Gaza, when that town was captured by the Macedonians.—J. T.  BÉTOURNÉ,, a French poet, born at Caen, 1795; died 1835. He was a baker's son. He served for some time in the army, and quitted it to be apprenticed to a manual trade. His pieces have been translated into different languages.  BETTE D'ETIENVILLE,, a rogue, and a writer, of some notoriety in both professions, was born at St. Omers in 1759, and was brought up to the profession of surgery at the military hospital of Lille. His life presents a series of discreditable intrigues and dishonest conduct. When only twenty-two years old, he induced a girl of sixteen to marry him, and by his irregularities drove her, in a few months, to the refuge of a convent. Leaving Lille, he sought his fortune at Paris, and became notorious as one of the agents in a scandalous marriage-intrigue, in conjunction with madame de la Motte-Valois. The affair was discovered, and Bette fled to Dunkirk, where he was arrested, and being brought back to Paris, stood his trial, and was fortunate enough to escape well-merited punishment. Ruined in character, he took to journalism, and edited the Philanthrope in 1789, on revolutionary principles. He next came out as director of an agricultural bank in 1797, which he so conducted as to become an object of special attention to the police, by whom he was prosecuted for swindling. His luck did not desert him. He conducted his own defence, was acquitted, and lived to write and publish several books and brochures, and died a natural death in Paris in 1830.—J. F. W.  BETTERTON,, an English tragedian, born in Tothill Street, Westminster, in 1635. He was the son of an under-cook in the household of Charles I., but seems to have received a good education. Having shown a taste for reading, and his father being unable to educate him for any of the learned professions, he was apprenticed to a bookseller named Rhodes, who had been keeper of the wardrobe to the comedians in the Black Friars. Betterton was thus brought into connection with the stage, and became an actor, probably about 1656 or 1657, in the company employed by Sir William Davenant. When the Restoration gave full license to the player's art, patents were granted for two companies, the one named "The King's," and the other "The Duke's," the former acting in Drury Lane, and the latter at Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. It was to the company "bound to serve his royal highness the duke of York," that Betterton belonged, and he acted so well that he was sent to Paris by the king, that he might study the stage scenery there, and introduce improvements into England. In 1670 he married a Mrs. Saunderson, belonging to the same company. About twelve years later, the two companies were amalgamated, and Betterton was speedily recognized as the best actor of his day. He was chiefly famed for his rendering of Shakspeare, and if we are to believe the rather inflated sentences of Cibber, his genius displayed in representing the characters of Othello, Hamlet, Hotspur, Macbeth, and Brutus, was little short of that of the great poet who conceived them. There can be little doubt of his power, though it has been said that his acting owed its excellence more to imitation of some of the great actors he had seen in earlier days, and who had learned their art in the heyday of the English drama, than to any original conception of the characters he portrayed. Though popular with the public, Betterton was badly treated by the patentees of his theatre, who, with a determination to turn everything to their own advantage, subjected the actors to many hardships. Having attached some of the best players to his company, he opened a new theatre in 1695, in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. Congreve was attached to his company, and they opened with his "Love for Love." But Betterton's glory was over, and the speculation was attended with but indifferent success, as was another which was entered into for his behoof—the building of a theatre in the Haymarket. The old man's health was broken; he had reached his seventieth year, and had lost all his fortune, yet he maintained serenity of mind, and as often as he could appeared on the scene of his former glory. It was determined to give him a benefit, at which he acted Valentine in "Love for Love," supported by some of his old associates, who had ere this retired from the stage, but returned to do him honour. £500 were realized, and a promise was given that the benefit would be repeated annually. Ere the next season came round, the gout, which had long afflicted him, became so severe that he was obliged to submit to severe appliances to make it at all possible for him to appear; he played his part, but the means which had been employed proved too much for his constitution, and he died 28th April, 1710. He left some dramatic works—"The Woman made a Justice," a comedy; an adaptation of Webster's tragedy of "The Unjust Judge, or Appius and Virginia," and "The Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife." He was interred in Westminster Abbey, and Sir Richard Steele paid a beautiful tribute to his memory in the Tatler, No. 167. He tells us in the paper that he went to Westminster to "see," he says, "the last office done to a man whom I had always very much admired, and from whose acting I had received more impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the most charming poets I had ever read."—J. B.  BETTES, and, two miniature painters, (brothers in England about 1596). They painted Queen Elizabeth's portrait, much to the queen's satisfaction.—W. T.  BETTI,, born at Pistoia, 1545, was a pupil of Daniel da Volterra, and on his death, entered the order of the Theatines; renouncing fame, to think of heaven. Died in 1615.—W. T. <section end="599H" /> <section begin="599I" />BETTI,, an Italian poet, born at Verona in 1732, and died in 1788. He is known as the author of an original poem on a subject popular with the Italian poets—the silk-worm. <section end="599I" /> <section begin="599J" />BETTINELLI,, not , as sometimes called. This distinguished writer was born at Mantua in 1718. He was educated at the jesuits' college, and became a member of that society. His poetical compositions attracted the attention of his superiors, who appointed him professor of belles-letters in the city of Brescia, where he remained for five years. Having been sent to Bologna to complete his theological studies, he wrote there several tragedies, which won for him the esteem of the literati of that learned city. From thence he went to Venice, as professor of rhetoric, and soon after was elected rector of the royal college of Parma, a post which he occupied with distinction for eight years. In 1773 he was filling the chair of eloquence at Modena, when his order was suppressed. Compelled to leave that city, he resided for some time in Parma, then in Verona, always occupied in literary pursuits. Finally, anxious to revisit his native place, he repaired to Mantua, where he would have remained had he not been hindered by the French, who besieged that fortress in 1796. He therefore fled to Verona, where he resumed his studies without any apprehension. Voltaire was his friend, and the celebrated Pindemonte calls him the reviver of sound literature in Italy. His works have been published in 24 volumes, 8vo. "Le Lettere Virgiliane," and "L'Entusiasmo," are elegantly written. His tragedy of "Xerxes," in which he endeavours to imitate Æschylus, and a small poem, "Le Rauolfe," are considered his best poetical productions. He died in 1808.—(Maffei, Gioberti, Pindemonte.)—A. C. M. <section end="599J" /> <section begin="599Knop" />BETTINI,, an Italian jesuit, born at Sienna in 1396, was elevated to the bishopric of Foligno in his sixty-fifth year. At an advanced age he resigned his see and retired to a convent of his native town, where he died in 1487. He is the author of a mystical work, "Il Monte di Dio," of no particular merit theologically considered, but inestimably valuable in a bibliographical point of view, as being the oldest book extant with copperplate engravings. It was printed at Florence in 1477. A second edition appeared at the same place in 1491. but with woodcuts instead of engravings.—J. S., G. <section end="599Knop" />