Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/749

BECKET. future. On December 29, 1170, four knights went to Canterbury to demand, in the name of the King, the absolution of the bishops. Becket re- fused, alleging the necessity of obedience to the Pope. The knights, withdrew from the cathedral transept where they were, only to return with an armed following. Becket forbade his attend- ants to lock the doors, saying, "God's house must be closed against no man." There, by the altar, he was murdered, declaring, "For the name of Jesus and for the defense of the Church I am ready to embrace death." Henry was compelled to make heavy concessions and to do public pen- ance at the martyr's tomb, to avoid the ban of excommunication. The murderers, having re- paired to Rome as penitents, were sent on a pilgrimage to Palestine. February 21, 1173, Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander III., and the anniversary of his death was set apart as the yearly festival of Saint Thomas of Can- terbury. In 1220 his bones were raised from the grave in the crypt, where they had been hastily buried the day after his murder, and by order of King Henry III. were deposited in a splendid shrine, which for three centuries con- tinued to be the object of one of the great pil- grimages of Christendom, and still lives in Eng- lish literature in connection with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. At the Reformation Henry VIII. despoiled the shrine, erased Becket's name from the calendar, and, according to a doubtful account, caused his bones to be burned and scattered to the winds.

. The best collection of sources for the life of Becket is contained in Robertson and Shepard's (ed.) Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket, Rolls Series, 7 volumes (London. 1875-85). These include a number of biographies by contemporaries and a very large number of letters. The best modern work is Canon Morris, Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket (London, 1885). In addition, see Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury, Vol. V. (London, 1860-67): Thompson, Thomas Becket (London, 1889); Freeman, Historical Essays (London, 1872-79); Stubbs, Constitutional History (Oxford. 1891); Hutton, Saint Thomas of Canterbury (London, 1889).

BECK'FORD, (1759-1844). An English author. Born September 29, 1759, he was the son of William Beckford, alderman and twice Lord Mayor of London. When he was about 11 years old, his father died, and he inherited the larger part of a very large fortune, consisting of estates in Jamaica and of Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. His annual revenue is said to have exceeded £100,000. Young Beckford evinced unusual intellectual precocity; for before he was 17 years old he composed a satirical essay, entitled Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, a sort of parody on the usual biographies of eminent artists. In 1777 he went with a tutor to Geneva, where he remained about eighteen months; and in the years succeeding he made tours through Flanders, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. In 1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of the fourth Earl of Aboyne, and left at once for Switzerland, where they remained till the death of Lady Margaret in 1786. He had already written Vathek: An Arabian Tale. Of its composition, which may be assigned to 1781 or 1782, he says: "It took me three days and two nights of hard labor. I never took off my clothes the whole time." This famous romance, written in French and published at Lausanne and Paris in 1787, was translated from the French MS. by Samuel Henley, and published, without Beckford's consent, in London, in 1786. In 1790 Beckford sat in Parliament for Hindon; in 1794 he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and again left England. He went to Portugal, purchased an estate near Cintra, and occupied for a time that 'paradise' which Byron commemorated in Childe Harold. Tormented by unrest, he returned to England and settled, in 1796, at Fonthill, where he sought to realize the magnificence of his Oriental dreams. He erected a new building at Fonthill, the most prominent feature of which was a tower about 300 feet high. Beckford resided there till 1822, when he was compelled to dispose of the estate and house, with all its curiosities. It was bought by Colonel Farquhar for £330,000. Soon after, the great tower, which had been raised on an insecure foundation, fell to the ground. On the sale of Fonthill, Beckford removed to Bath, and immediately proceeded to erect another lofty building, the plan of which also included a tower, but this time not more than 100 feet high. While residing there, he did not mingle in Bath society, and the most improbable stories concerning the rich and morose genius in their neighborhood were circulated among the citizens, and were believed by them. During all his life, Beckford was a hard-working student, and was devoured by a passion for books. Some of his purchases were perfectly imperial in their way. He bought Gibbon's library at Lausanne, to amuse himself when he happened to be in that neighborhood. He went there; read in the fierce way that he wrote, three days and two nights at a sitting; grew weary of his purchase, and handed it over to his physician. Dr. Scholl. Besides Vathek and his youthful essay, Beckford published two sentimental novels and sketches of his travels. Consult: Redding, Memoir (London, 1859); and Garnett, Vathek, with critical essay (London, 1893).

BECK'MANN, (1739-1811). A German writer on technology and agriculture. He received instructions from Linnæus, and in 1766 he was appointed professor of philosophy, and in 1770 professor of agronomic economy at Göttingen. At that university altogether he taught for more than 40 years. Among his works may be mentioned: Grundsätze der deutschen Landwirtschaft (1806); Anleitung zur Technologie (1809); Anleitung zur Handelswissenschaft (1789); and Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen (1780-1805).

BECK'WITH, (1852—). An American portrait painter. He was born at Hannibal, Mo., and studied in Chicago, New York, and with Carolus Duran in Paris. Soon after his return to New York, in 1878, he was elected to the Society of American Artists and the National Academy of Design. He decorated one of the domes of the Manufactures Building at the Chicago Exposition of 1893. but portraiture occupies his chief attention. Mr. Beckwith is a fine draughtsman, and employs intelligently the broad method of his master, Carolus Duran, in his best portrait work. Among his best-known portraits are those of Gen. Schofield, Judge Palmer, Col. Appleton, Mark Twain, and the Ogden and Parish families. At the St. Louis