many discoveries relating to precipitates of mercary, and the different kinds of tin. Bayen baf an exquisite skill in judging of the composition of objects: as an instance, we cannot help mentioning the opinion he gave of a arble balustrade in the Place de la Revolution: Notwithstanding its apparent solidity, and complete polish, he asserted that it would soon decay, and shewed where the decay would first manifest itself: the event coincided very minately with his prophetic statement. This diligent and laborious man died at the age of 72. He was a man of sound judgment, directed always by the force of reason and experience. BAYER (John), a German astronomer of the 17th century, who published, in 1603, an Excellent work, entitled Uranometria, being a celestial atlas, or folio charts of all the constellations; he first distinguished the stars by the letters of the Greek alphabet, and according to the order of the magnitude of the stars in ch constellation. This work was republished by the author, in 1627, under a new title, viz. Calum Stellatum Christianum: here he rejected the old figures of the constellations, and serted others taken from the Scriptures: but this innovation was not much relished; and accordingly, we find, that in later editions of 1654, and 1601, the ancient figures and names were restored again. BAYEUX, a considerable town of France, in the department of Calvados, and late province of Normandy. Its cathedral is reckoned sery magnificent. Lat. 49. 16 N. Lon. 0. 43 W. BAYJA, in geography. See BAJAH. BAYLE (Peter), a celebrated French writer. He was born at Carla, in the country of Foix, in 1047. His father was a protestant minister, and destined his son for the same profession, but he disappointed his expectation, by turning Roman catholic at Thoulouse, while attending the lectures at the jesuits' college. However, he did not long continue in that communion when reason came coolly to be exercised, and in 1070 he departed from Thoulouse, and went Geneva, where he formed an intimacy with M. Basnage. In 1675, he went to Paris, where he was employed as tutor to some gentlemen of distinction, but soon afterwards he accepted an invitation to go to Sedan, where he was chosen professor of philosophy. About 1989, he published a smart piece, in which he proved that the principles of Des Cartes are erreable to the doctrines of Calvin on the eucharist. In 1681, the academy of Sedan w suppressed by a royal edict, on which Mr. Eyle went to Rotterdam, where he was appointed professor of philosophy and history. The next year he published his letters concerning comets, and an answer to father Maim bourg's History of Calvinism. In 1684, he began his Nouvelles de la Republique des Leures. In 1690, he engaged in a bitter controversy with Mr. Jurieu, in consequence of the latter having charged him with being the author of Avis aux Refogicz, &c. In the year 1690, Mr. de Beauval advertised in his Journal, A Scheme for a Critical Dietionary: this was the work of Mr. Bayle. The articles of the three first letters of the alphabet were already prepared; but a dispute happening betwixt him and Mr. de Beauval, obliged him for some time to lay aside the work. Nor did he resume it till May 1692, when he published his scheme: but the public not approv ing of his plan, he threw it into a different form; and the first volume was published in August 1695, and the second in October following. The work was extremely well received by the public; but it engaged him in fresh disputes, particularly with Mr. Jurieu and the abbé Renaudot. Mr. Jurieu published a piece, wherein he endeavoured to engage the ecclesiastical assemblies to condemn the dictionary; he presented it to the senate sitting at Delft, but they took no notice of the affair. The consistory of Rotterdam granted Mr. Bayle a hearing; and after having heard his answers to their remarks on his dictionary, declared themselves satisfied, and advised him to communicate this to the public. Mr. Jurieu made another attempt with the consistory in 1698, and so far he prevailed with them, that they exhorted Mr. Bayle to be more cautious with regard to his principles in the second edition of his dictionary; which was published in 1702, with many important additions. As a writer, Mr. Bayle was most laborious and indefatigable. In one of his letters to Maizeux, he says, that since his 20th year he hardly remembers to have had any leisure. His intense application contributed perhaps to impair his constitution, for it soon began to decline. He had a decay of the lungs, which weakened him considerably; and as this was a distemper which he cut off several of his family, he judged it to be mortal, and would take no remedies. He died the 28th of December 1706, after he had been writing the greatest part of the day. He wrote several books besides what we have mentioned, many of which were in his own defence against attacks he had received from the abbé Renaudot, Mr. Clerk, M. Jaquelot, and others. Among the productions which do honour to the age of Louis XIV. Mr. Voltaire has not omitted the Critical Dictionary of our author: "It is the first work of the kind (he says) in which a man may learn to think." He censures indeed those articles which contain only a detail of minute facts, as unworthy either of Bayle, an understanding reader, or posterity. "In placing him (continues the same author) amongst the writers who do honour to the age of Louis XIV., notwithstanding his being a refugee in Holland, I only conform to the decree of the parliament of Thoulouse, which, when it declared his will valid in France, notwithstanding the rigour of the laws, expressly said, that such a man could not be considered as a foreign er." Saurin says of Bayle that he was one of those extraordinary men, whose opposite qualities leave room to doubt whether we ought to look upon him as the best or the worst of men. Ou the one hand, he was a great philosopher, knowing how to distinguish truth from falsehood, daŭ perceiving at one view all the consequences of a principle, and their connection; ast, on the other hand, a great sophist, confounding truth with falsehood, and deducing false inferences from his assumed principles. On the one hand, a man of learning and knowledge, who had read all that can be read, and remembered all that can be remembered; and, on the other, ignorant, or feigning ignoranc, of the most common topics, proposing difficulties which had been a thousand times solved, and urging objections which a schoolboy could not make without biushing. On the one hand, free, at least to appearance, from all the passions which are inconsistent with the spirit of christianity; and on the other, employing all the strength of his genius to overthrow the foundations of all moral and christian virtues. BAYONET, in the military art, a short broad dagger, formerly with a round handle fitted for the bore of a firelock, to be fixed there aft the soldier had fired; but they are now made with iron handles and rings, that go over the muzzle of the firelock, and remain fast, so that the soldier fires with his bayonet on the muzzle of his piece, and is ready to act against the horse. This use of the bayonet fastened on the muzzle of the firelock was a great improvement in the art of war, first introduced by the French, and to which, according to M. Folard, they owed a great number of their victories in the last century; and to the neglect of this in the next succeeding war, and trusting to their fire, the same author attributes most of the losses they sustained. BAYONNE, a small, but compact, rich, populous, and flourishing commercial city of France, in the department of the Lower Pyrenees and late province of Gascony. It is seated near the mouth of the river Adour, which forms a good harbour. The Dutch exchange spices for wine with the inhabitants of Bayonne. The hams and chocolate of Bayoune are famous. The military weapon, the bayonet, was invented in this city, as its name imports. Lat. 43. 29 N. Long. 1. 30 W. BAYS, in commerce, a sort of open woollen stuff, having a long knap, sometimes frized, and sometimes not. It is without any wale, and wrought in a loom with two treddles like flannel. Bays are chiefly manufactured at Colchester and Bocking in Essex. It is exported in great quantities to Spain and Portugal, and even to Italy. The chief use is for clothing the monks and nuns, and for lining the soldiers clothes. The breadth of bays is commonly from a yard and a half to two yards, and the length from forty-two to forty-eight. BAZAR, a denomination, among the Turks and Persians, given to a kind of exchange or market, where their finest stuffs and other valuable wares are sold. Some of these bazars are open like the market-places in Europe; covered in the manner of Exeter change, &c. The bazars of Ispahan, Tauris, and Constantinople, are reckoned very fine structures. A BDELLIUM. (, bdil, Hebr., a separation or flowing apart, in consequence of its oosing from the plant that produces it.) gummy, resinous juice, the produce of an oriental tree. All we know of it is that it is imported from Arabia and the East Indies, in pieces of various sizes; externally of a dark reddish brown colour, not unlike myrrh; internally clear, and somewhat resembling glue. It is never met with in the shops of this country; but is said to possess diuretic and deobstruent qualities. To BE. v. n. 1. To have some certain state, condition, quality, or accident (Shakspeare). 2. It is the auxiliary verb by which the verb passive is formed (Shakspeare). To exist; to have existence (Dryden). To have something by appointment or rule (Locke). 3. 4. BEACH. s. The shore; the strand (Milton). BE'ACHED. a. (from beach). Exposed to the waves. BEACHY. a. (from beach). Having beaches (Shakspeare). BEACHY HEAD, a promontory in Sussex, between Hastings and Shoreham. Lat. 50. 44. N. Long. 0. 20 E. BEʼACON. s. (beacon, Saxon). 1. Something raised on an eminence, to be fired on the approach of an enemy (Gay). 2. Marks erected to direct navigators. The corporation of the Trinity-house are empowered to set up beacons wherever they shall think necessary; and if any destroy or take them down, he shall forfeit 100/. or be ipso facto outlawed. There are other beacons put up to give warning of the approach of an enemy; these are made by putting pitch barrels upon a long pole, to be set upon an eminence so as they may be seen afar off; for the barrels being filed, the flame in the nighttime, and the smoke in the day, give notice, and in a few hours may alarm the whole kingdom upon an approaching invasion, &c. BEACONAGE. s. money paid towards the maintenance of a beacon. BEACONSFIELD, a town of Buckinghamshire, with a market on Thursdays. Lat. 51.36 N. Long. 0. 30 W. 1. BEAD. s. (beade, prayer, Saxon). Small balls strung upon a thread, and used by the Romanists to count their prayers (Pope). 2. Little balls worn about the neck for orna ment (Shakspeare). 3. Any globular bodies (Boyle). BEAD, in assaying, the small lump or mass of pure metal, separated from the scoria, and seen in the middle of the cupel while in the fire. BEAD, in architecture, a round moulding carved in short embossments, like beads in necklaces. BEAD-PROOF, a phrase used by the distillers to express that sort of proof of the standard strength of spiritnous liquors, which consists in their having, when shaken in a phial, or poured from on high into a glass, a crown of hubbles, which stand on the surface some time after. This is esteemed a proof that the spirit consists of equal parts of rectified spirits and phlegm. This is a fallacious rule as to the degree of strength in the liquor; because any thing that will increase the tenacity of the spirit will give it this proof, though it be under the due strength. Our malt-distillers spoil the greater part of their goods by leaving too much of the tainted oil of the malt in their spirit, in order to give it this proof when somewhat under the standard strength. But this is a great deceit on the purchasers of malt spirits, as they have them by this means not only weaker than they ought to be, but tainted with an oil that they are not easily cleared of afterwards. On the other hand, the deales in brandy, who usually have the art of sophisticating it to a great nicety, are in the night when they buy it by the strongest beadproof, as the grand mark of the best; for being a proof of the brandy containing a large quantity of its oil, it is, at the same time, a token of its high flavour, and of its being capable of bearing a very large addition of the common spirits of our own produce, without betraying their flavour, or losing its own. We value the French brandy for the quantity of this essential oil of the grape which it contains; and that with good reason, as it is with us principally used for drinking as an agreeably flaYoured cordial but the French themselves, when they want it for any curious purposes, are as careful in the rectifications of it, and take as much pains to clear it from this oil, as we do to free our malt spirit from that nauseons and fetid oil which it originally contains, and which renders it so inferior to brandy. BEAD TREE. See MEIA. BEADLE (from the Saxon bidel, a messenger), a crier or messenger of a court, who cites persons to appear and answer. Called also a summoner or apparitor.--Beadle, is also an officer at an university or public company, whose chief business is to walk before the masters with a mace, at all their processions, attend at the door, &c.-There are likewise church beadles, whose office is well understood. BE'ADROLL. s. (from bead and roll). A catalogue of those who are to be mentioned at praves (Bacon). BE'ADSMAN. s. (from bead and man). A man employed in praying for another (SpenSCT). BEAGLES. This, in earlier eras of sporting, was a term confined to the tanned or pied hound of small size, with a brace or two of which the sportsnian used to pick and chop the trail of a hare to her form, for a subsequent course with his greyhounds. As, however, they were found so constantly useful in recovering the hare after a first course, and bringing her to view for a second, this practire became gradually stigmatized by sports men in general, and is now considered as little less than a mode of poaching ander the sane. tion of legal authority. Many packs of these small beagles were formerly kept by country gentlemen at a very trifling expence, and with no small share of amusement to their less substantial neighbours; for, although those who joined in the chase might be numerous, yet not more than two or three horsemen were seen in the field, so easy was it to keep up with these hounds on foot. They were in ge neral so well matched that they did not exceed eleven inches in height; and ran so well together, that (to speak technically) they might be covered with a sheet. Though they wore slow, they were sure; for if the scent lay well, a hare could seldom escape them; and this, to the object of pursuit, mostly proved a lingering although a certain death: for as, in the early parts of the chase, they could never get near enough to press her, they were frequently two or three hours in killing. In proportion as the spirit of slow hunting has declined, beagles of this kind have grown into disrepute. The numerous crosses in the breed of both beagles and other hounds, according to the wishes and inclinations of those who keep them, have so multiplied the varieties, that a volume might be produced in a description of the different sorts and sizes adapted to the soil and surface where they hunt; from the old heavy, deep-tongued, dew-lapped southern hound of Manchester (where the huntsman with his long pole goes on foot), to the highest crossed harriers of the present day, who kill the stoutest hares in thirty and forty minutes with a speed not much inferior to coursing. Beagles, in the modern acceptation of the term, imply hounds who hunt hares only, in contradistinction to those who hunt either stag or fox. Harriers have been produced from the crosses between the beagle and the fox-hound, for the advantage of speed; but harriers are not, in sporting acceptation, to be considered synonymously with beagles, to whom they are very superior in size. For the rest, see CANIS and HARE-HUNTING. BEAK. s. (bec, French.) 1. The bill or horned mouth of a bird (Milton). 2. A piece of brass like a beak, fixed at the head of the ancient galleys (Dryden). 3. Any thing ending in a point like a beak (Carew). BEAKED. a. (from beak). Having a beak; having the form of a beak (Milton). BEAKED. (rostratus). In be:any, terminated by a process resembling the beak (rostrum) of a bird; applied to fruits. See RosTRATE. BE'AKER. s. (from beak). A cop with a spout in the form of a bird's beak (Pope). BEAL. s. (bolla, Ital.) A whelk or pimple. To BEAL. v. n. (from the noun). To ripen; to gather matter, or come to a head. BEALE (Mary), an English painter. She was the daughter of Mr. Cradock, minister of Walton-upon-Thames, and copied with great exactness the works of sir Peter Lely and Vandyke. Her colouring was clear and strong, with a great look of nature. She had also a poetical turn, and in Dr. Woodford's version of the psalms are two or three by Mrs. Beale, She died in 1697, aged 66. Mrs. Beale had two sons, both painters; but one of them became afterwards a physician, and practised with reputation at Coventry. BEALT or BUILTH, a town of Brecknockshire, in South Wales; having markets on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Lat. 52. 8 N. Long. 3. 14 W. BEAM, in architecture, the largest piece of wood in a building; being laid across the walls, and serving to support the principal rafters of the roof. No house has less than two of these beams, viz. one at each head. Into these the girders of the garret floor are also framed; and, if the building be of timber, the teazle-tenons of the posts. The proportions of beams near London are fixed by statute, as follows: a beam fifteen feet long must be seven inches on one side its square, and five on the other; if it be sixteen feet long, one side must be eight inches, the other six; if seventeen feet long, one side must be ten inches, the other six in the country they usually make them stronger. Sir H. Wotton advises these to be of the strongest and most durable timber. Some of the best authors have considered the force or strength of beams, and brought their resistance to a precise calculation; the chief results of their investigations are as follow. 1. The strengths of two beams of the same wood, and of different dimensions, that is, the weights they will bear, are to each other as the products of their sections multiplied by the distances of their centres of gravity from the base, divided by the lengths. 2. The strengths of two beams of the same wood, which are equal in length, are as the products of their sections multiplied by the distances of their centres of gravity from the base. 3. The strengths of two beams of the same wood, having equal sections, are as the distances of their centres of gravity, divided by their lengths. 4. The strengths of beams of the same wood, whose distances of the centres of gravity of their sections from the base are equal, will be to each other as their sections divided by their lengths. 5. The strength of a rectangular beam with its narrower face upwards, is to the strength with its broader face upwards, directly as the breadth of the broader face to that of the narrower. Hence appears the advantage of placing all timbers in buildings on their smaller side. 6. A rectangular beam will bear a greater weight when it is fixed so that either of its diagonals is in a vertical position, than when it is placed flat on one of its sides. 7. The strength of a cylindric beam is to the strength of one whose section is its circumscribed square, as the area of the circle to that of its circumscribed square. 8 The strongest rectangular beam which can be cut out of a cylindrial tree, is that whose base is to its height as 1 to 2, or very nearly as 5 to 7. 9. The strength of a triangular beam when laid flat on its base, is double the strength when the edge is undermost, and the base parallel to the horizon. 10. The strength of a beam when the weight is suspended in the middle between the two supported ends, is to the strength of the same when the weight is laid nearer one end than the other, as the square of the whole length to four times the product of the distances of the weight from each end. 11. When a beam is laid in an oblique position, its strength is to its strength in a horizontal position, as radius to the cosine of the inclination. 12. A beam supported at both ends on two props will carry twice as much when the ends beyond the props are kept from rising, as when it rests loosely on the props. See CAR PENTRY. 13. When a bar or beam is sustaining any very great compression endways, it is more easily broken by any transverse strain. Several experiments have been made on this kind of strain: a piece of white marble 4th inch square and 3 inches between the props, bore 38 lbs when compressed endways with 300 lbs. it broke with 144. The effect is much more remarkable in timber and softer bodies, but is considerable in all. See STRAIN. 14. As the strength of the same kind of wood varies very much, it is impossible ever to come to an exact knowledge of the just proportion between the strengths of different kinds thus much, however, may be said with regard to the two kinds commonly used, for beams, &c. namely oak and fir, that the former is stronger than the latter, and that the proportion is nearly as 9 to 8. BEAM has also other meanings: as, 1. That part of a balance, at the ends of which the scales are suspended (Wilkins). 2. The horn of a stag (Denham). 3. The pole of a chariot (Dryden). 4. A cylindrical piece of wood belonging to the loom, on which the web is gradually rolled as it is woven (Chronicles). 5. The ray of light emitted from some luminous body, or received by the eye (Pope). 6. The great timber of a plough into which all the other parts are fixed. BEAM COMPASSES. See COMPASSES. BEAM FEATHERS, the longest feathers of a hawk's wing. To BEAM. v. n. (from the noun). To emit rays or beams (Pope). BEAM TREE. S. A species of wildservice. BE'AMY. a. (from beam). 1. Radiant; shining; emitting beams (Smith). 2. Having the massiness of a beam (Dryden). 3. Having horns or antlers (Dryden). BEAMINSTER, a town of Dorsetshire, with a market on Thursdays. Lat. 50. 50 N. Long. 2. 50 W. BEAN (Bog). In botany. See MENY ANTHES. BEAR-BIND. See CONVOLVULUS. BEAR. In astronomy. See URSA MAJOR and MINOR. BEAR-GARDEN. s. (from bear and garden). 1. A place in which bears are kept for sport (Stilling fleet). 2. Any place of tumult or misrule (Spectator). To BEAR. v. a. pret. bore or bare; part. pass. bore or born. (beopan, Saxon). 1. To carry as a burden (Isaiah). 2. To convey or carry (Dryden). 3. To carry as a mark of authority (Shakspeare). 4. To carry as a mark of distinction (Hale). 5. To carry, as in show (Shakspeare). 6. To carry, as in trust (John). 7. To support; to keep from falling (Hooker). 8. To keep afloat (Genesis). 9. To support with proportionate strength (Arbuthnot). 10. To carry in the mind, as love, hate (Dan.). 11. To endure, as pain, without sinking (Psalms). 12. To suffer; to undergo (Job). 13. To permit (Dryden). 14. To be capable of; to admit (Hooker). 15. To produce, as fruit (Pope). 16. To bring forth as a child (Genesis). 17. To possess, as power or honour (Addison). 18. To gain; to win (Shakspeare). 19. To maintain; to keep up (Locke). 20. To support any thing good or bad (Bacon). 21. To exhibit (Dryden). 22. To be answerable for (Dryden). 23. To supply (Dryden). 24. To be the object of (Shakspeare), 25. To behave (Shakspeare). 26. To impel; to urge (Hayward). 27. To conduct; to manage (Ben Jonson). 28. To press (Ben Jonson). 29. To incite; to animate (Milton). 30. To bear in hand. To amuse with false pretences; to deceive (Shakspeare) 31. To bear off. To carry away. (Creech). 32. To bear out. To support; to maintain (Shakspeare). To BEAR. v. n. 1. To suffer pain (Pope). 2. To be patient (Dryden).__ 3. To be fruitful or prolific (Bacon). 4. To take effect; to succeed (Guardian). 5. To act in any character (Shakspeare). 6. To tend; to be directed to any point (Boyle). 7. To act as an impellent (Wilkins). 8. To act upou (Hayward). 9. To be situate with respect to other places. 10. To bear up. To stand firm (Broome). 11. To bear with. To endure an wapleasing thing (Milton). BEARD. s. (beard, Saxon). 1. The hair that grows upon the chin and adjacent parts (Prior). 2. Beard is used for the face (Hudibras). 3. Beard is used to mark age (Locke). 4. Sharp prickles growing upon the ears of corn (L'Estrange). 5. A barb on an arrow. 6. The beard of a horse is that part which bears the curb of the bridle (Farrier's Dict.). : BEARD (Human), has been an object of considerable care and attention among most nations. The Tartars, out of a religious principle, waged a long and bloody war with the Persians, declaring them infidels, merely because they would not cut their whiskers after the rites of Tartary and we find that a considerable branch of the religion of the ancients consisted in the management of their beards. The Greeks wore their beards till the time of Alexander the Great; that prince having ordered the Macedonians to be shaved, for fear it should give a handle to their enemies. According to Pliny, the Romans did not begin to shave till the year of Rome 454, when P. Ticinius brought over a stock of barbers from Sicily. Persons of quality had their children shaved the first time by others of the same or greater quality, who, by this means, became godfather or adoptive father of the children. Anciently, indeed, a person became godfather of the child by barely touching his beard: thus historians relate, that one of the articles of the treaty between Alaric and Clovis was, that Alaric should touch the beard of Clovis to become his godfather. may do Most of the celebrated ancient writers, and several modern ones, have spoken honourably of the fine beards of antiquity. Homer speaks highly of the white beard of Nestor and that of old king Priam. Virgil describes Mezentius's to us, which was so thick and long as to cover all his breast; Chrysippus praises the noble beard of Timothy, a famous player on the flute. Pliny the younger tells us of the white beard of Euphrates, a Syrian philosopher; and he takes pleasure in relating the respect mixed with fear with which it inspired the people. Plutarch speaks of the long white beard of an old Laconian, who, being asked why he let it grow so, replied, ""Tis that, seeing continually my white beard, I nothing unworthy of its whiteness." Strabo relates, that the Indian philosophers, the Gymnosophists, were particularly attentive to make the length of their beards contribute to captivate the veneration of the people. Diodorus, after him, gives a very particular and circumstantial history of the beards of the Indians. Juvenal does not forget that of Antilochus the son of Nestor. Fenelon, in describing a priest of Apollo in all his magnificence, tells us, that he had a white beard down to his girdle. But Persius seems to outdo all these authors: this poet was so convinced that a beard was the symbol of wisdom, that he thought he could not bestow a greater encomium on the divine Socrates, than by calling him Magistrum barbatum, the bearded master. During that period when the Gauls were |