with water, in which he was violently attacked by Mirabeau.

When the French revolution broke out, Beaumarchais became a member of the first provisionary commune of Paris; and in 1792 he entered into a contract for supplying corn, and 60,000 muskets, from Holland, on account of which he received 300,000 francs (12,000l.) in advance; but falling into suspicion, after being twice accused, arrested, and liberated, he fled to England. At the death of Robespierre, 1794, he returned to France, and lost a great part of his fortune in a foolish speculation in salt. Tired now of conténding with his enemies and his creditors, he retired to the bosom of his family, and having reached the age of sixty-nine years and three months, on the 19th of May, 1799, as it is generally supposed, he died by an apoplectic stroke, though, according to one of his biographers, who, on the day previous to his death, had had a long conversation with him on the means of getting rid of life without effort and without pain, by his own hand.

The works of Beaumarchais are chiefly dramatic, and on them, that is, on some of them only, rests his whole literary reputation: they were all collected in 1809, in 7 vols, 8vo, and a life of him had previously been printed in 1802, in 1 vol. 12mo. They contain, the Mémoires contre les Sieurs Goetzman, la Blache, Marin d'Arnaud, published in 1774 and 1775. 2. Mémoire en Réponse de celui de Guillaume Kornman, Paris, 1787. 3. Eugénie, a drama in five acts, his first attempt, in 1767. 4. Les Deux Amis, represented in 1770. 5. Le Barbier de Seville, and La Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro; the former in four acts, represented in 1775, the latter in five acts, in 1784. In Figaro, Beaumarchais has personified the tiers états, superior in wit, industry, and activity, to birth, rank, or fortune, in whose hand lies the political power; so that the idea of the piece is not only a satirical allegory upon the government and nobility of that epoch, but a living manifesto upon the inequality, just or unjust, of society. We must not be surprised, therefore, if, for a long time, the comedy was forbidden to be acted. When at length suffered to be performed, its success was astonishing. It has been stated, that such was the anxiety and eagerness of the people to be present at the first representation, that more than 400 persons went to the theatre early in the morning, and passed the day, and dined in the boxes.

It was acted, for two years running, twice in every week, and produced 50,000 francs to the theatre, and 30,000 to Beaumarchais, who used to say, that if there were any thing more foolish than his play, it was its success. 6. Tarare, an opera in five acts. 7. La Mère Coupable, a comedy in five acts, represented in 1792. 8. Mémoire en Réponse au Manifeste du Roi d'Angleterre, a most striking instance of vanity and pride, and worthy of the writer of Figaro; who, as a private individual, believed himself to have the right to answer, in his own name, the declaration of war by the king of England. Even the French government of that time had it suppressed. 9. Mémoires à Lécointre de Versailles, ou mes Six Epoques, Paris, 1793; a curious work, in which Beaumarchais relates, with cleverness and force, the dangers he had encountered during the revolution. 10. A new edition of all the works of Voltaire, on which he spent an immense sum, and lost about 40,000l. Beaumarchais was a compound of singularities and contradictions. Born in a low condition, he succeeded in making a great fortune, without spending a shilling of his own, or holding any place of emoluinent; vain, conceited, petulant, and immoral, he was admitted into the highest society; and enjoying the protection of the family of Louis XV., he was amongst the first to engage in the revolution which dethroned Louis XVI.

BEAUMELLE, (Laurence Angliviel de la,) born at Vallerauge, in Lower Languedoc, in 1727, was educated by the Jesuits, and soon after visiting Geneva made himself remarkable, as Voltaire asserts, by preaching in the protestant churches. In 1751, he was elected professor of French literature at Copenhagen, where he published a small work, entitled Mes Pensées, ou le qu'on dira-t-on; not devoid of talent and wit, and even exhibiting an occasional power of thought, but full of bold and gratuitous assertions in politics, as well as in morals, and sparing neither men or measures, which procured him many enemies, amongst whom, the first, the bitterest, and the most irreconcilable, was Voltaire, whom he had the imprudence to visit after having introduced in his Pensées some observations not very flattering to him. The consequence was, that, when at the end of the year 1751, having left Copenhagen, he went to Berlin, he was exposed to so much vexation through the interference of Voltaire, that, in May 1752,

he quitted Prussia for Paris. But there also he found too many enemies, the number of which he had the imprudence or misfortune to increase by the publication of some sarcastic notes added to the Siècle de Louis XVI. for which he was sent to the Bastile. Recovering his liberty at the end of six months, he published the Mémoires de Madame de Maintenon, in 6 vols, 12mo, and soon after 9 vols. more of her letters. But this work, which was at first received with applause, contains too many mistakes of all sorts to continue a favourite; and furnished his enemies with a new occasion of having him imprisoned in the Bastile. In the mean time, Voltaire published a Supplément au Siècle de Louis XIV., in answer to the sarcastic notes of Beaumelle, to which the latter replied in 1754; and yet when he recovered his liberty, which was about the same time in which Voltaire had recovered his own, after having been detained at Frankfort by the order of Frederick II., Beaumelle, who had gone to live quietly in the country, wrote a letter to Voltaire, to persuade him to give up every idea of ambition, and to lay aside those literary petitesses which had spread so many clouds on their lives, and to follow his example; and there is no doubt that now Beaumelle really wished to be reconciled, and cease writing against Voltaire, but the certainty of never being able to disarm his anger made him, as he said, " prefer war, particularly as his works sold the better for it." He republished, in 1761, the Réponse to the Supplément au Siècle de Louis XIV., with the addition of new remarks in the shape of letters. Of these, Voltaire took no notice at the time, but not long after, he introduced Beaumelle amongst the pickpockets who, in the Pucelle, are condemned to the galleys, because

"Il prend d'autrui les poches pour les siennes." Baffled in an attempt to obtain redress, he again attacked Voltaire, by publishing the Commentaire sur l'Henriade, a bitter criticism on that poem, which was revised by Freron, and published in 4to, and in 8vo, two years after his death. In it, more than in any other of his works, Beaumelle shows his excessive vanity, enhanced by his rancour against Voltaire; for amongst the many alterations and changes which he proposes, some of which are properly imagined, he ventured to give long and extensive specimens of poetical composition, which, according to him, were to supersede the original, with

out having, as his biographer Cheron observes, the least idea of poetry, or of the rules of versification. Through the protection of madame du Barry, his friends, in 1772, obtained for him a situation in the Royal Library; but, by an inflammation of the chest, he died in the following year.

BEAUMESNIL, (Henrietta Adélaide, who adopted the name of Villaard, 1748 -1803,) an actress of eminence, who appeared on the 27th of November, 1766, in the pastoral of Sylvie, in which she surpassed Mlle. Arnould in the principal character, which that lady abandoned on the third representation. Never was a debutante known to succeed with so much ease. She played with Mlle. Arnould in Dardanus, Castor et Pollux, Iphigénie en Aulide, &c.; replaced her in Myrtil et Lycoris, and created many characters in new operas. Mademoiselle Beaumesnil seems to have been an actress of great versatility of talent, succeeding, as she did, as a player, an opera singer, and a dancer. In consequence of severe illness, she retired from the stage in 1781, receiving a pension from the opera and another from the king. She some years afterwards married an advocate named Philippe, homme d'affaires to the duchess de Bourbon. She contributed to the opera, in 1784, Tibulle et Délie, which was represented at Versailles before the court. This opera was reproduced at Paris, when Gustavus the Third, king of Sweden, assisted at one of the representations. Other musical works are attributed to her. (Biog. Univ.)

He

BEAUMONT, (Sir John,) was a poet of considerable skill in versification, and one of our smoothest writers of heroic couplets, but somewhat deficient in vigour and invention. As, according to Anthony Wood (Athen. Oxon. ii. 434, edit. Bliss,) he was entered as gentleman commoner of Broadgate hall (now Pembroke college) in 1596, then fourteen years old, his birth is fixed in 1582. was the second son of Francis Beaumont, a judge of the court of Common Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth, and the place of his birth was his father's seat at GraceDieu, Leicestershire. It does not appear that he took any degree at Oxford, though we are informed that he resided there" about three years;" and coming to London, he was entered a member of an inn of court (which is not mentioned); but he soon abandoned the study of the law, and returning to his native county, married Elizabeth, the daughter of John

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Fortescue, esq. He seems to have lived in retirement; but in 1626 he was made a baronet by Charles I. and died two years afterwards, not having completed his forty-sixth year. The cause of his premature decease is not known; but from some lines by Michael Drayton upon that event, we might be led to suppose that Sir John Beaumont's death was hastened by care for that which was not worth his breath,"-too great attention to some worldly concerns. Wood informs us that Sir John Beaumont "successfully employed the earlier part of his life in poetry," and the later he "as happily bestowed on more serious and beneficial studies." A religious poem, called The Crown of Thorns, in eight books, seems to have been the result of both, but it was never printed. His only published productions were collected and given to the world by his son; but it is remarkable that all the known copies want one leaf, which was cut out, either because the poem printed upon it was not his, or because it was otherwise objectionable. The volume was entitled Bosworth Field, with a Taste of the Variety of other Poems left by Sir John Beaumont, Bart.; so that they include by no means all he wrote. The author of the General Biographical Dictionary says, that "the chaste complexion of the whole shows that to genius he added virtue and delicacy," which is certainly true of all the remains which his son thought fit to give to the world. Of the rest we know nothing, though there is not the slightest ground for fastening any imputation upon the memory of Sir John Beaumont. In his lines "On the true Form of English Poetry," he explains clearly and gracefully the plan he had himself pursued, and the principles by which he had been guided. He was buried at Belton in Leicestershire.

BEAUMONT, (Francis,) one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, belonged to the family of Beaumonts of Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire, and chiefly remarkable as having been father of the celebrated Francis Beaumont. He was the son of John Beaumont, master of the Rolls, by Elizabeth Hastings, his second wife. Of his life few particulars are known. We find him applying to the earl of Shrewsbury (3d of July, 1586) for permission to name him as his chief patron in his speech in the Common Pleas, when he should be inaugurated as serjeant. In January 1593, he became a judge of that court and was knighted.

He died at Grace-Dieu on the 22d of April, 1598. (Nichols's Leicestershire.) BEAUMONT, (Francis,) an eminent dramatic poet, and for some years playpartner with John Fletcher, was the third son of Francis Beaumont, the judge of the court of Common Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth. Anthony Wood informs us that he was of Cambridge, and it is singular that he should omit to claim so distinguished a man for Oxford, considering, as Dr. Bliss has shown, (Athen. Oxon. ii. 437,) that, like his brother, Sir John Beaumont, he was entered a gentleman commoner of Broadgate hall, on the 4th of February, 1596-7. He was then only twelve years old, and was consequently born (probably at his father's residence, Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire,) in 1584, or early in 1585. He quitted Oxford soon after his matriculation, and repaired to London, where he became a member of the Inner Temple, and studied law, apparently with as little liking for it as most poets have at all times evinced. If Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, a paraphrase from Ovid, be really his, (of which we entertain some doubt,) he became a poet, and published poetry, before he was eighteen. Some of his biographers have stated that at the date when Salmacis and Hermaphroditus came out, Beaumont was only sixteen years old; but this is an error, arising from the mistaken supposition that he was only ten, instead of twelve, when he was entered of Broadgate hall, on 4th February, 1596-7. Neither is it by any means certain that Salmacis and Hermaphroditus was from his pen: it originally came out in 4to, in 1602, "imprinted at London, for John Hodgets," without any name or initials of the author, which were fraudulently added by Blaicklock, the bookseller, when he reprinted the poem with others in 1640, and when he wished it to be believed that it was the work of so celebrated a poet. He was guilty of another trick of the same kind in subscribing a copy of commendatory verses J. F. (as if they had been contributed by John Fletcher) instead of A. F. as they stand in the edition of 1602. Besides, it is notorious that Blaicklock inserted in the volume in 1640 several pieces justly claimed for other authors. However, supposing Salmacis and Hermaphroditus to be by Beaumont, it does him no great credit, and he can well spare any reputation for precocious abilities to be derived from it. All Beaumont's biographers have hitherto taken it for granted that

his title to this youthful effusion was indisputable.

The dramatic partnership between Beaumont and Fletcher seems to have subsisted for not more than twelve years, if indeed it had so long a duration. Fletcher (if we suppose that the entries in Henslowe's diary refer to him) was a dramatic author long before Beaumont, and he outlived him by about ten years. During those ten years, Fletcher produced more plays alone than had been previously written by him in concert with Beaumont; but it is not easy to settle the precise claims of each, and Sir Aston Cockayne, in some verses addressed to the printer of the first collected edition of their dramatic works, complains that the many of Fletcher had been confounded with the few of Beaumont,

"For Beaumont of those many writ but few;"

adding, that Massinger was, at least, an assistant "in other few." In the same way, Rowley was concerned in some; and in Sir H. Herbert's Office-Book, he is registered as joint-author with Fletcher of the Maid of the Mill. On the whole, it has been more than plausibly conjectured, that out of fifty-two plays which have gone by the joint names of Beaumont and Fletcher, the former only contributed to seventeen. The earliest of these, as far as regards publication, was the Woman Hater, licensed by Sir George Buc on the 20th May, 1607, (Chalmers's Supp. Apology, p. 200,) and printed in If Henslowe be correct, Fletcher had written for his company as early as 1596, and he could not have been assisted by Beaumont, at all events, until after 1602. Beaumont's death occurred in March, 1615-16; and if we are to believe the combined testimony of bishop Corbet and Sir John Beaumont, his early decease was at least promoted by his literary labours. His brother says expressly,

the same year.

"So dearly hast thou bought thy precious lines, Their praise grew swiftly, so thy life declines."

He was buried at the entrance of what used to be called St. Benedict's chapel, in Westminster Abbey, on the 9th March, 1615, which, according to our present mode of dating the new year from the 1st January, would be 1616. The fact of Beaumont's marriage to Ursula, daughter and coheir of Henry Isley, of Sundridge, Kent, is almost the only known circumstance of his private history; and even the date of this union has never been

ascertained. He left behind him two daughters, one of whom was named Frances, and was said to have been living in 1700, upon a pension of 100l. a year, granted her by the duke of Ormond, in whose family (says Dr. Bliss) it is reported she had resided as a domestic," meaning, perhaps, that she had been governess and instructress to some of the ladies of that noble house. It has been asserted that she once had some additional poems by her father in her possession, but that she lost them during one of her voyages to Ireland. Recollecting the loss of the continuation of Spenser's Fairy Queen, the death of Milton's friend, King, and the loss of Beaumont's poems, we may say that the Irish sea has been nearly as fatal to poetry as the Irish land has been productive of it.

BEAUMONT, (Sir George Howland, bart. Nov. 6th, 1753-Feb. 7th, 1827,) a distinguished amateur of the fine arts, was born at Dunmow, in Essex, and succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1762. He received his education at Eton and Oxford, and in 1782 proceeded on his travels to France, Switzerland, and Italy. In 1790 he was elected member of parliament for Beeralston, but he paid no great attention tc politics. In 1819, and again in 1822, he visited the continent, and made some purchases of valuable pictures, with the declared intention of giving them to the nation, on the establishment of a national gallery, a resolution he munificently carried into effect, and they now form a portion of the collection in Trafalgarsquare. He died at his seat, Coleorton Hall. Sir George Beaumont was a liberal patron of modern artists, and besides his refined taste as a connoisseur, has exhibited a great degree of practical ability as a painter of landscape. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the works of Claude and Wilson, and seems to have formed his own style from a careful study of the principles of art by which these two great masters were guided. several of his pictures Sir George appears to have aimed at the richness and power of Gainsborough ; but whether he adopted the vigour of this artist, or the warmth and lucidness of Claude or Wilson, he never shows himself a servile imitator, but adopts the spirit of each without becoming a mannerist after either. (Gent. Mag.)

In

BEAUMONT, (Bazil,) a British admiral. This meritorious but ill-fated officer was the fourth son of Henry

Beaumont, bart., and Elizabeth, daughter of Geo. Farmer, esq., prothonotary of the Common Pleas, and descended from a very respectable family of the same name, which long flourished in the county of Warwick. The family of Beaumont is of a very ancient and noble extraction, being descended from Lewis, second son of Charles, king of Jerusalem and Sicily, younger brother to Lewis the Ninth, king of France. Its surname is derived from a city of the same name on the river Sarte, in the province of Maine. It was first a viscounty, and afterwards raised into a duchy. "Agnes, the female heir of that honour and seigneury, marrying Lewis, above-mentioned, the sons of the said marriage took the name of Beaumont. Henry Beaumont, the fourth son of Lewis and Agnes, had several honourable grants in England, and held many eminent offices in the state. He is generally supposed to have come over into England at the instance of queen Eleanor, wife to Edward the First; Isabel, his sister, wife to lord De Vesci, of Alnwick, being always styled kinswoman to the queen. His descendants successively enjoyed the highest honours and most consequential civil as well as military appointments; many of them (the descendants of Henry) having been summoned to parliament as barons; and John, who lived in the reign of Henry the Sixth, being created by that unfortunate monarch earl of Boulogne and viscount Beaumont, the first (be it remarked) ever honoured in England with that rank (title). He was also a knight of the garter, and lost his life in the cause of his royal benefactor, being unfortunately slain at the battle of Northampton. The title of viscount being extinct in the person of William, his son and successor, who was attainted for his adherence to the Lancastrian cause, and afterwards restored by Henry the Seventh, it has not since been revived in any of the collateral branches." (Charnock.)

Thomas, the second son of John lord Beaumont, admiral of the North, in the 12th and 17th of Richard the Second, was the ancestor, in a direct line, of Thomas Beaumont, esq., of Stoughton Grange, in the county of Leicester, created baronet in the year 1660. Sir Thomas was the grandfather of Bazil Beaumont, of whom we have now to give

some account.

The subject of this sketch was born in the year 1669; was sent early to sea, under the patronage of lord Dartmouth.

He was appointed lieutenant of the Portsmouth, October 1688. Between the years 1689 and 1694, he commanded three vessels of war, in all of which he is said to have been very successful in destroying and capturing the privateers of the enemy. His cruizes were generally confined to the English Channel. His zeal and activity soon procured for him the rank of commodore, in which capacity he was employed for a considerable time in blockading the enemy in the port of Dunkirk. Charnock makes mention of his having, as commodore of a stout squadron, destroyed some ships and vessels said to be laying in Camaret and Bertheaume bays." But the same authority admits, that "the account which caused the commodore to be sent in search of the enemy, was found to be rather exaggerated, four or five vessels only being found there," (meaning the above-mentioned bays,) which vessels, Charnock adds, but on what authority we know not, "were consequently destroyed."

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Beaumont appears to have been employed afloat during the whole of king William's reign; and upon the accession of queen Anne, was promoted to be rear-admiral of the blue. He hoisted his flag on board the Mary, in the Downs, on the 31st of March (1702-3), and was sent, in the month of May, with a squadron to the northward, having under his convoy a fleet of 150 merchant vessels, bound to Holland; "but the chief end of his expedition-the attack of a French squadron, which had just before sailed from Dunkirk, under the well-known French naval partizan, St. Paul-was unsuccessful," the rear-admiral having returned to the Downs in the middle of June, without having ever seen the enemy. After three days' stay in the Downs, he sailed with his squadron direct for Dunkirk, in order to block up that port, according to the usage of the former war. This duty he performed with a zeal and vigilance which added considerably to his professional repute, when, in the month of August, he was relieved from this anxious and harassing service, and directed to proceed to Rotterdam, and from thence to Gottenburgh, with a numerous convoy. This may be said to be the last service he had rendered his country. On the 19th of October, he returned to the Downs, "alas," to repeat the exclamation of Charnock, more to put to sea.'

11th March, 1702-3.

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never