Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/840

BELMONT. 1885-87, and was United States Minister to Spain in 1887-88.

BELMONTET, bel'mSN'ta' (1799-1879). A French poet and publicist. He was born at Montauban, of Italian parents, and was educated at the Lyceum of Toulouse. In consequence of several eulogistic verses written by him on Napoleon I. he was banished from Toulouse in 1819, and went to Paris, where he obtained a position as tutor. He later became one of the most ardent promoters of the Bonapartist propaganda, in which cause he in 1830 established the Tribun du Peuple. He was a member of the Legislature from 1852 until the fall of the Empire. His most celebrated poetic productions are: Les tristes, a collection of elegies (1824); Le souper d'Auguste (1828); Une fête de Néron, a tragedy performed more than 100 times at the Odéon in 1829.

BELOCH, ba'lOG, Juuus (1854 — ). A German-Italian historian, born at Petschkendorf, near Lüben. He became professor in the University of Rome in 1879. His works include Campien '(2d ed., 1890); Der italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie (1880); Die attische Politik seit Perikles (1884); Die Bevolkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (1886); Storia greca, 2 vols. (1893-97).

BELOIT'. A city and county-seat of Mitchell County, Kan., 185 miles west of Atchison; on the Solomon River, and on the Missouri Pacific and the Union Pacific railroads (Map: Kansas, D 2). It is the seat of the State Industrial School for Girls, and contains a fine county court-house. The city has a considerable trade in live stock, agricultural produce, grain, and flour, and contains several grain-elevators and flouring-mills. Population, in 1890, 2455; in 1900, 2359.

BELOIT. A city in Rock County, Wis., 91 miles northwest of Chicago, Ill.; on Rock River, and on the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul, and the Chicago and Northwestern railroads (Map: Wisconsin. E 6). It has paper-mills, foundries, and extensive manufactures of gasoline-engines, windmills, agricultural implements, woodworking and paper-mill machinery, scales, shoes, etc. Beloit has a public library, and is the seat of Beloit College (Congregational), organized in 1847. The first settler on the site of Beloit came in 1824, and a city charter was secured in 1856. The government, under a charter of 1896, is vested in a mayor, elected annually, and a municipal council. Population, in 1890, 6315; in 1900, 10,436.

BELOIT COL'LEGE, situated at Beloit, Wis. It was founded in 1847, graduates of Yale being prominent in its organization. The value of buildings and grounds is about $500,000, and the endowment amounts to $800,000, not all of which, however, is productive. The annual income is about $45,000. The number of volumes in the library is 28,000; in 1901 the faculty numbered 25 and the student-body 420, of whom 231 were in college classes, 179 in the academy, and the remainder in music. Aaron L. Chapin, D.D., LL.D., was president of the college from 1850 to 1886: Edward Dwight Eaton, D.D., LL.D., after 1886.

BEL'OMAN'CY. See.

BELON, 1).-1on', (1517-64). A French naturalist. He was born at Soulletière, studied medicine in Paris, and traveled extensively. In 1553 he published an account of his travels in a work entitled, Les observations de plusieurs singularités et choses mémorables trouvées en Grèce, Asie, etc., in 1551; Histoire naturelle des étranges poissons marins, etc.; and in 1555, Histoire de la nature des oiseaux, which is the most important treatise on ornithology of the Sixteenth Century. Belon paved the way for modern comparative anatomy.

BELOOCHISTAN, be-loo'che-stan'. See.

BE'LOSTOM'IDÆ. A family of predaceous water-bugs. See.

BELOT, be-16', (1829-90). A French novelist and dramatist. He was bom at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, November 6, 1829, and early began to devote himself to writing. He was a most prolific and a sensational author, and in addition to original plays, he dramatized, often in collaboration with others, nearly all of his own novels. Among his best-known novels are: Le drame de la Rue de la Paix (1867); La Vénus de Gordes (1867), in collaboration with Ernest Daudet; Mademoiselle Giraud, ma femme (1870); La femme de feu (1872); La Vénus noire (1878); and Fleur de crime (1881). His comedies, Le testament de César Girodot (1859), written with Edmond Villetard, Les Maris à système (1862), and Les indifférents (1863), were widely popular; but Belot will perhaps be longest remembered by his drama Parricide (1874), and the comedy Sapho (1885), written in collaboration with Alphonse Daudet. He died in Paris, December 17, 1890.

BELOVED DISCI'PLE, A name given to Saint John, called in John xiii. 23, "one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved."

BELOVED PHYSI'CIAN, A title of Saint Luke in Col. iv. 14.

BEL'PER (corrupted from Fr. bel, beau, beautiful + repaire, retreat). A market town of Derbyshire, England, on the Derwent, 7 miles north of Derby (Map: England, E 3). It is well built, in great part of gritstone, which is obtained in the neighborhood. Belper is, to a considerable extent, a town of recent growth, and owes its prosperity to the establishment of cotton-works there. There are also manufactures of silk and cotton hosiery, nails, and pottery. Belper was at one time the residence of John of Gaunt. Population, in 1891, 10,400; in 1901, 10,900.

BEL'PHEGOR (Gk. B«X0e7iip, Beelphegor, for Heb. Baal-Peor, lord of Peor mountain). The name of an arch-demon who entered into a marriage with a mortal, but was not able to endure the society of the woman and fled. La Fontaine treated this subject in one of his Contes, and Wilson produced an English tragi-comedy, Belphegor, or the Marriage of the Devil, in 1691. Two other plays of this name have been brought out since. In the pantheon of the Moabites a deity of this name was worshiped with peculiarly-disgusting rites.

BELPHŒ'BE (Fr. belle, fem. of beau, OF. bel, beautiful + Lat. Phœbe, Gk. ^oipv^ Phoibe, Diana). A character in Spenser's Faerie Queene, who sums up Elizabeth's womanly attributes. The virtues of the Queen are set forth under the other name of Gloriana.