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men have long been removed to Gourdon. Bervie also was long famous, or rather infamous, for smuggling. Manufactures of sail-cloth, thread, and linen yarn, have been estabished here; and the first machine erected in Scotland for spinning flax, was set up at Bervie. It unites with Arbroath, Brechin, and Montrose, in sending a member to the British parliament; and is situated twenty-three miles south-west of Aberdeen, and thirteen north of Montrose. Long. 2° 0′ W., lat. 56° 40′ N.

BERULIANS, a sect of Christians in the twelfth century, who affirmed that all human souls were created in the beginning of the world. BERWICK (James Fitzjames, duke of), the natural son of James duke of York, afterwards James II. by Arabella Churchill, sister of the duke of Marlborough, was born in France in 1670, and, embracing a military life, served under the duke of Lorraine at the siege of Buda in 1686, where he was wounded. He also distinguished himself in Ireland, in the contest between James and William III. He rose, in the service of France, to the rank of marshal; and commanded in Spain during the war of the succession, particularly at the battle of Almanza in 1707, when he defeated Charles II. and established his competitor Philip on the Spanish throne. He put an end to this war in 1714, by the taking of Barcelona. On hostilites arising between France and Germany, in 1733, the duke of Berwick was again called into the field; and at the siege of Philipsburgh, the following year, he was killed by a cannon shot, June 12th. His Memoirs, written by himself, were published at London in 1779.

BERWICK-UPON-TWEED, so called to distinguish it from North Berwick in East Lothian, is an English town of some importance, situated on the north side of the Tweed, and within one mile of the sea; the river being navigable up to the town. At the mouth of the Tweed, however, is a bar, so that the port can only be entered by vessels of small draught. Berwick formerly imported considerable quantities of timber, iron, and flax, from the Baltic; but its chief dependence has been recently upon the export of salmon to London, sent fresh in boxes stratified with ice; and in the distribution of the agricultural produce of Berwickshire, Tiviotdale, North Durham, and the northern part of Northumberland. The Berwick smacks have long been noted for safe and expeditious sailing.

Berwick, when it belonged to Scotland, was a principal royal borough, and regularly fortified, first on the ancient Scottish, and then on the old Spanish or Italian system. Remains of both systems appear, together with the ruins of its castle: the town is also surrounded with walls, on which cannon are mounted. The bridge over the Tweed contains fifteen arches, and measures 1164 feet long and seventeen feet wide. It was begun in the reign of queen Elizabeth, and ended in the tenth of Charles I.

Berwick has long been annexed to England, with a triangular territory reaching about four miles up the river Tweed, and nearly as much along the sea, containing from four to five thouVOL. IV.

sand acres of useful farm land. It is governed of course by the English law, and the town authorities are a mayor and four bailiffs, who constitute the sheriff. The mayor, recorder, and justices, or all who have been mayors, hold general and quarter sessions, and a court of gaoldelivery at one or other of the quarter sessions, when necessary. The guild or corporation consists of the mayor and all the burgesses, nearly a thousand, in whom are all elections, and the entire management of a very valuable landed property within the bounds, the far greater part of which they divide among themselves, instead of applying it to great and useful public purposes. In 1796 the population was estimated at 7930; it is now above 8000. The town-house is a bandsome structure, with a stately spire 150 feet high, and a choir of eight bells. The barracks, capable of accommodating 600 men, form, with the storehouse, a handsome square. The staff of the garrison consists of a governor, lieutenant-governor, fort-major, &c. The corporation possesses the manor of Tweedmouth and Spittal, in the county of Durham. The borough sends two members to parliament. Besides the church, which is a spacious building, without a spire, there are four places of worship for Presbyterians; and the Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics, have each a chapel. The town is well supplied with water from springs about a mile and a half without the walls, whence it is conveyed to a large reservoir, sixty feet in length, sixteen broad, and eight deep. There are no manufactures of any importance: but here have been sometimes shipped in one year, besides salmon, 60,000 quarters of grain, 2000 packs of wool, and eggs to the value of £20,000; the salmon fisheries have let for more than £10,000 yearly. Many improvements have been made latterly; the streets are wellpaved, and the foot-paths made comfortable: a new pier stretches a considerable way into the sea.

In Domesday-book, Berwica denotes a grange or farm village belonging to some town or manor; and is equivalent to Bere-tun or Barton, still having that signification in Devonshire, and other parts of England. Chalmers hesitates between the former etymology of this place, and the Anglo-Saxon Bar, nudus, bare; and Wic, vicus, castellum, sinus; a village, castle, or curving reach of a river.

Berwick was formerly the chief town of the county of this name, and the theatre of many bloody conflicts between the English and the Scots. After repeated sieges, it was, in 1502, finally ceded to England; and by a treaty between Edward VI. and Mary queen of Scotland, declared to be a free town, independent of both states. Upon the death of Elizabeth, in 1603, James VI. of Scotland was proclaimed here; and, when that monarch passed through the town, he confirmed its ancient privileges, and added many, which still remain. Its market days, are Wednesday and Saturday; and a fair is annually held for the sale of horses and black cattle, on the Friday of Trinity week. It is 336 miles north-west from London, and fifty-four south-east from Edinburgh.

BERWICK, NORTH, a royal burgh and sea-port

F

on the coast of Haddington, Scotland, of considerable antiquity; but its old charter being lost, it obtained a new one from James VI. It joins with Jedburgh, Lauder, Haddington, and Dunbar, in electing a member of Parliament. A small quantity of kelp is annually made; but its only regular trade consists in the exportation of grain. It is situated thirty miles north-west of Berwick.

BERWICK, Or Abbotstown, a town of the United States, in York county, Pennsylvania, thirteen miles west of York, and 103 west by south of Philadelphia. Lat. 39° 52′ N.

BERWICK, OF NEW BERWICK, a small town of the United States of America, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the north side of the east branch of Susquehannah river, 160 miles north-west of Philadelphia, Lat. 41° 2′ N.

BERWICKSHIRE, a county situated at the south-east extremity of Scotland, on the shores of the German or British Ocean, and adjoining the north-east border of England. It derives its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was formerly its head borough, or county town; and is bounded on the east by the German Ocean, and a part of the mouth of the Firth of Forth; on the north by East Lothian; on the north-west by Mid-Lothian; and by Roxburghshire on the west and south-west. The southern boundary is formed by the river Tweed, dividing it from Roxburghshire on the west, Northumberland in the middle, and North Durham in the east. This county, formerly inhabited by the ancient British nation, called Ottadini, was part of the Roman province of Valentia. Many hill forts are to be found on its eminences, interspersed with a few Roman camps. One singular remnant of antiquity, called Herritsdyke, may be traced in an oblique direction almost through the whole extent of the county, from a camp or hill fort, on Hareffaulds in Lauderdale, to the banks of the Whittader, near the Tweed, a distance of twenty-three miles, in a strait line; which seems to have been intended as a defence against the sudden incursions of the neighbouring barbarous tribes. Home castle, and Fast castle, are the only ruins of border fortresses of importance. On a flat elevated peninsula, close to Eyemouth, still called 'the fort,' there are very distinct remains of a regular modern fortification, forming a crown-work across the gorge, which joins this peninsula to the main land. It was the work of a French engineer during the minority of Mary queen of Scots. Dunse is the capital: for Berwick does not now belong to Scotland; and the other towns are few and inconsiderable; COLDSTREAM, GREENLAW, LAUDER, and EYEMOUTH, being all that are worth naming. See these articles in our work. The extreme length is 314, and the extreme breadth 19, statute miles; and the entire superficies of the county extends to about 285,000 English acres, of which about 100,000 are arable, and 185,000 are composed of moors and hill pasture. Lammermoor is the north-eastern hill district of this county; having Lauderdale on the west, and the Merse on the south and south-west. Besides these three large divisions, the county is divided into three presbyteries, Churnside,

From

Dunse, and Lauder; and these are subdivided into thirty-one parishes. The districts of Lammermoor and Lauderdale are of considerable extent, and the general range of hills runs inland from the sea, at St. Ebb's Head, nearly west; but intersected by many narrow vales, chiefly tending towards the south, in which most of the streamlets flow; though the rivers of the vale land run from the west towards the east. the main range of hills, various spurs jut out towards the south; and there are several detached or isolated hills in different places of the vale of the Merse. That vale is also much diversified by numerous swells and knolls, and winding deep dells, in which the streamlets of the lower country flow in search of the larger waters and rivers. The northern sides of the Lammermoor hills are of considerable steepness, but belong to East Lothian; while the southern slopes are moderate, and blend gradually into the vale. In many places the tops of the hills form extensive elevated table-lands, which slope almost insensibly towards the south. The higher land is usually a bare unfertile moor; while the slopes, called the moor edges, are generally useful land, and sometimes of excellent quality. Two of the table-lands are crossed by the principal great roads leading from Edinburgh to Berwick and Kelso; one at the Press inn, called Coldingham Moor, once a royal forest; the other at Blackshiels. But the features of this county have been little attended to in any survey. Clint Hill, at the north-west extremity of the Lammermoor chain, is said to be 1544 feet above the level of the sea; the general range may average about 1000 feet; the whole terminating in three precipitous rocky promontories, at St. Ebb's Head on the south, Earn's Cleugh in the middle, and Fast Castle on the north. The Tweed rather skirts Berwickshire in a winding course of forty miles, than belongs to the county, as no portion of its territory crosses that fine stream. Whitadder and Blackadder are the principal rivers, though the former rises in East Lothian; and both united run into the Tweed near Berwick. Lander or Leader, entirely belonging to Lauderdale, and giving name to it, runs from north to south, and falls into the Tweed at the south-west corner of the county. Eden, which rises at the west end of the Merse, runs into the Tweed in Roxburghshire. The Eye is the only stream of any consequence in the county which runs directly into the sea.

The

This cannot be called a mineral district. rocks and lower hills are composed of most irregularly stratified schistic stone, or hardened clay, with yolks of whin-stone, and very thin quartz veins, mixed with a kind of steatitic half lapidified substance, called leck. In the higher muirs, there is a good deal of amorphous and splintery trap, or bastard whin-stone. Rocks of breccia, or coarse pudding-stone, are found in several parts: the outer pier of the harbour of Eyemouth is built, without cement, of a stone of this kind, found in a rocky promontory contiguous; and has withstood for almost forty years the fury of the German Ocean without any apparent waste. No coal worth working has ever been found in this county; that article is

therefore procured partly by sea, but chiefly by an expensive land-carriage from the Lothians, and from the south side of the Tweed.

The

whole coast has but two ports into which any thing of importance can be brought. Yet, under these obvious disadvantages, a large portion of the county, indeed almost the whole of the Merse, is cultivated in the best style of modern husbandry. No district of the same extent in Britain, unites more successfully the most approved management of arable land, with that of five stock and pasture. The leading feature in the husbandry of this neighbourhood is, the alternation of corn with pulse, herbage, or roots; or what is commonly called white and green crops: but the farmers of Berwickshire, adopting this course invariably, have rendered it more productive, and better suited to their soil and climate, by reserving their cultivated herbage, red and white clovers, with rye grass, from the plough, for two or more years, so that above half the cultivated land is always pastured by sheep and cattle. In the most improved parts the sheep are almost universally of the New Leicester breed, and the short-horned English breed of cattle are in much request. Farms, which are generally held on leases of nineteen years, are of all sizes, from 40 to 1000 acres and upwards; but the more common size, in the Merse, is from 400 to 600 acres. The farm-houses, out-buildings, and cottages, recently erected, are very substantial and convenient. In 1795 the rental of the county was £112,000; but as assessed to the property tax in 1811, it was £240,126; so that in sixteen years the value of property had more than doubled.

Paper is almost the only manufactured article exported from this county: but here are bleachfields, breweries, corn-mills, and other small establishments for the home supply; some of the millers also are in the practice of purchasing grain, which they sell in Berwick and Dalkeith markets, after converting it into flour, meal or shelled barley. The chief exports, therefore, are raw produce; the imports coal, iron, lime, timber, and groceries. The value of the cattle and sheep driven to Edinburgh, to Morpeth, and several markets in England, amounts to a very large sum; the stationary live stock alone having been estimated, several years ago, at nearly half a million sterling. There are eight small fishing stations on the coast. Eyemouth, the principal harbour, has been improved at a great expense, and is private property. Here there is a profitable sea fishery; and one still more advantageous, for salmon, is carried on in the Tweed.

Berwickshire exhibits numerous traces of military operations and ruins. Perhaps its most interesting remains of antiquity, however, are the nunnery of Coldingham and Dryburgh abbey. A deep glen, called the Pease, in the north-east angle of the county, on the road from Edinburgh to Berwick, has been celebrated in history as one of the natural defences of Scotland. The bridge which has been thrown over it, consists of four arches; and its romantic situation, and stupendous height of 123 feet from the small stream below, render it an object of considerable curiosity. Comparing the number of inhabitants at the three periods when the different censuses

have been taken, we shall perceive that no great increase has taken place:

Inhabitants.

In 1801 there were 31,600 Increase 1 per cent.

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31,800

1811 1821 34,100 Increase 7 per cent. BERY, or BURY, in the Saxon language, from beorg, Sax. a hill or castle, signifies the villa or seat of a nobleman; a dwelling or mansion house, being the chief of a manor; for heretofore noblemen's seats were castles situated on hills, of which we have still some remains; as in Herefordshire there are the beries of Stockton, Hope, &c. It was anciently taken for a sanctuary. BERY. See BERIA.

BERYL, in natural history, called also aqua marina, is a pellucid gem of a bluish green color, found in the East Indies, and about the gold mines of Peru; we have also some from Silesia, but what are brought from thence are oftener colored crystals than real beryls; and when they are genuine, they are greatly inferior both in hardness and lustre to the oriental and Peruvian kinds. The beryl, like most other gems, is met with both in the pebble and columnar form, but in the latter most frequently. In the pebble form it usually appears of a roundish but flatted figure, and commonly full of small flat faces, irregularly disposed. In the columnar or crystalline form, it always consists of hexangular columns, terminated by hexangular pyramids. It never receives any admixture of color into it, nor loses the blue and green, but has its genuine tinge in the degrees from a very deep and dusky, to the palest imaginable of sea-water hue. The beryl in its perfect state approaches to the hardness of garnet, but is oftener softer; and its size is from that of a small tare to that of a pea, a horse-bean, or even a walnut. In many respects the beryl resembles the emerald; but chiefly in the crystals of both being divisible parallel to the sides and extremities of a regular hexahedral prism. Externally the beryl is shining, with a vitreous lustre. In general it is transparent, though sometimes only semi transparent. specific gravity is 27. Vauquelin analysed a specimen of it, and found it to contain, 69 silica, 15 alumina, 14 glucina, 1 oxide of iron, and 2 lime; by the analysis of this stone Vauquelin discovered the earth he called glucina. When cut, and polished, the beryl has a considerable lustre, and is ranked among gems; though when compared with the ruby, topaz, sapphire, &c. its value is very trifling.

The

The beryl seems to have received its Hebrew name from the resemblance of its color to that of the sea. It was the tenth stone in the breastplate of the Jewish high-priest; whereon Zebuion, whose dwelling was at the haven of the sea, was engraved. It may be imitated, by adding to twenty pounds of crystal glass, made without manganese, six ounces of calcined brass or copper, and a quarter of an ounce of prepared zaffre. Beryls have also had cabalistic uses. A beryl,' says Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, is a kind of crystal that hath a weak tincture of red. There are certain formulas of prayer to be used before they make the inspection, which they term a call. In a manuscript of Dr. Forman of Lambeth, which Mr. Elias Ashmole had, is a discourse of this

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and the prayer; also there is a call which Dr. Napier did use. James Harrington, (author of Oceana), told me that the Earl of Denbigh, then ambassador at Venice, did tell him that one did show him three several times, in a glass, things past and to come.. When Sir Marmaduke Langdale was in Italy, he went to one of these magi, who did show him a glass, where he saw himself kneeling before a crucifix. He was then a Protestant; afterwards he became a Roman Catholic. He told Mr. Thomas Henshaw, R. S. S. this himself.'

BERYLLINA, in entomology, a species of chrysis. The head and thorax are of a greenish blue, abdomen green, rufous and blue, legs blue, with testaceous-dots.

BERYLLINUS, a species of cimex spinosus; thorax spined obtusely, and dentated; tips of the spines and bifid shield of the head greenish blue.

BERYLLUS, in entomology, a species of cimex rotundatus, that inhabits India. Middle size, pale border of the thorax orange; on the wing-cases, a ferruginous spot, and marginal

black lines.

BERYTUS, in ancient geography, a sea-port town of Phoenicia, on the Mediterranean, so ancient as to be thought to have been built by Saturn. It was destroyed by Tryphon, but rebuilt by the Romans. Agrippa placed here two legions, whence it became a colony. It enjoyed the jus Italicum, and had an excellent school for the study of the law in Justinian's time. It is now called BAIROUT, which see.

BES, or BESSIS, an ancient Roman weight containing two thirds of the as, or eight unciæ. The bes originally weighed two asses; whence the origin of the word, quasi binus as.

BES was also used in land-measuring, to denote two thirds of the jugerum, or acre. See JUGERUM.

BESAILE, in common law, a writ that lies where the great-grandfather or great-grandmother was siezed the day that he or she died, of any lands or tenements in fee-simple; and after his or her death, a stranger entered the same day upon him, and keeps out the heir.

BESAINT. Be and saint. See SAINT. BESANCON, an ancient and populous city of France, once the capital of the ci-devant province of Franche Comté, and now the head of an arrondissement, and chief town of the department of the Doubs. It has an university, now called a lyceum, and had formerly a parliament. It is seated on the Doubs which divides it into two parts, the greatest of which is a peninsula. The entrance is nearly closed by a mountain, on which is built a large fort, that commands the city. It is entered by six gates. There are many names of places, in and about the city, that are plain indications of its antiquity, as Chamars, Campus Martis, Chamuse, Campus Musarum, Chandane, Campus Dianæ, &c. The metropolitan church is built at the bottom of St. Stephen's hill, and is a very handsome structure. The great hospital of the order of the Holy Ghost is also a structure worth seeing. The streets are wide and handsome, and the houses are generally of stone, and well built; particularly in the neighbourhood of the square called Battan. On the invasion of

Gaul by the Romans, it was a town of some importance, and received successively the names of Civitas Sequanorum, Chrysopolis, and Visontium or Vesontio, of which its present name seems to be a corruption. Cæsar took it from.the Sequani. It was at the height of its prosperity in the reign of Aurelian, but was afterwards nearly destroyed by the Germans and Huns. The Burgundians rebuilt it; and it received great privileges as a city of the empire, but was ceded to Spain at the peace of Westphalia. In 1668, and 1674, it was taken by the French, and confirmed to that power at the peace of Nimeguen. The archbishop was a prince of the empire until the peace of Ryswick. At present it is a bishop's see, and the metropolitan has for his diocese the departments of the Doubs, the upper Saone, and the Jura; under him are the bishops of Autun, Metz, Strasburg, Nancy, and Dijon. Here is a celebrated school of artillery, and a manufactory of arms. Other manufactures are silk stockings, woollen stuffs, linen, calico, leather, hats, clocks, and watches. The trade is in corn, wine, cattle, cheese, iron, pins, &c. The population is about 28,200. The learned institutions comprise an Academy of Sciences founded in 1752, a Literary and Military Society founded in 1753, and an Academy of Painting and Sculpture founded in 1773; which were all suppressed by the revolution, but have lately been revived. The public library contains some rare manuscripts, and a good collection of medals. The arrondissement has a population of 93,000, in seven cantons. Fifty-six miles east of Dijon, and 235 south-east of Paris.

BESANT, or BEZANT. See Bezant.

BESBOROUGH ISLAND, an island on the north-west coast of America, in Norton-Sound, about six miles from the main land. Long. 161° 15' W., lat. 64° 10′ N.

BESCATTER. Be and scatter. See SCATTER. BESCHECK, a lake of Macedonia, in European Turkey, near the smaller lake of St. Basil, with two towns in its vicinity, called the greater and lesser Bescheck. It is about twelve miles in length, and six or eight in breadth; the adjacent country is very beautiful.

BESCHTAN, or the Five Mountains, a mountain range of Asia, in the government of Caucasus, forming the most northern of the Caucasian chain. A pyramid of hewn stone was shivered to pieces by lightning here about the year 1801. A hot spring of a sulphureous nature, and of the temperature of 156 degrees, is discharged from the side of the mountain, which, on the approach of rain is completely enveloped in vapor, and proves a true barometer to the neighbouring inhabitants. This range was known to Ptolemy by the name of the Hippic, or horse mountains, and very fine horses are still bred. The Circassians who dwell among these mountains, submitted to the czar Iwan Wassiliewitch in 1553. There is now an establishment of missionaries at its base, belonging to the Scottish Missionary Society and over which a native of North Britain has long presided. Distant 30 miles from Georgiefsk.

BESCORN'. Be and scorn. See SCORN.
BESCRATCH'. Be and scratch. See

SCRATCH.

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plex; to entangle; without any means of escape. To fall upon; to harass.

Alas! (quoth Absalon), and wala wa !
That trewe love was ever so yvell besette,
Than kiss me sin that it may be no bette.
Chaucer. Canterbury Tales.

But they him spying, both with greedy force
At once upon him ran, and him beset
With strokes of mortal steel.
Faerie Queene.

Draw forth thy weapon, we' are beset with thieves; Rescue thy mistress. Shakspeare.

Thus Adam, sore beset replyed. Milton.
Sure, or I read her visage much amiss,
Or grief besets her hard.

Rowe.

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BESEW'. Be and sew. See SEW. BESHADE'. Be and shade. See SHADE. BESHINE'. Be and shine. See SHINE. BESHREW'. Be and shrew. The original of this word is somewhat obscure; as it evidently implies to wish ill, some derive it from heschryen, Germ. to enchant. Topsel, in his Book of Animals, deduces it from the shrew mouse, an animal, says he, so poisonous, that its bite is a severe curse. A shrew likewise signifies a scolding woman; but its origin is not known.

Beshrew thee, cousin, which did'st lead me forth Of that sweet way I was in to despair. Shakspeare. Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.

Nay, quoth the cock, but I beshrew us both, If I believe a saint upon his oath.

Id.

Dryden's Fables. BESHUT. Be and shut. See SHUT. Be and side. Ang.-Sax. side;

BESIDE Dutch side; Germ. seyt; Swed.

BESIDES'.

sida; by the side: distinguished from behind and before; out of the right course, either of path of direction, of mind. Something placed by the side; in addition; over and above, not according to though not contrary; not of the number.

And him beside marcht amourous Desyre, Who seemd of ryper yeares then the other sweyne Yet was that other swayne this elder's sire, And gave him being, commune to them twayne.

Spenser. any besides? Genesis. Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. Acts.

The men said unto Lot, hast thou here

Thereto a great advantage eke he nas
Through his three double hands thrise multiplyde,
Besides the double strength that in them was :
For still when fit occasion did betyde,

He could his weapon shift from syde to syde,
From hand to hand; and with such nimblesse sly,
Could wield about, that ere it were espide,
The wicked stroke did wound his enemy
Behinde, beside, before, as he it list apply.

Spenser

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