Thomas Beddoes

“ Beddoes, the object of Anna's vows, [Footnote: Dr. Thomas Beddoes, the celebrated physician and chemist, followed the Edgeworth family to Ireland, where he was married to Anna Edgeworth, Maria's youngest own sister.] is a man of abilities, and of great name in the scientific world as a naturalist and chemist: good-humoured, good-natured, a man of honour and virtue, enthusiastic and sanguine, and very fond of Anna. ”

“ Thomas Lovell Beddoes, a noted English poet and dramatist, was born at Clifton, July 20, 1803, and died at Basle, January 26, 1849. He wrote: “The Improvisatore,” and “The Bride’s Tragedy,” “Poetical Works” (London, 1890) , and “Letters” (London, 1894) , were edited by Edmond Gosse.
Soft peace she brings; wherever she arrives
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives ”

“ Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, poet, son of above, born 1803, died 1849; published The Bride's Tragedy while a student at Oxford, studied medicine, and lived long abroad. His work was largely fragmentary, but his posthumous Death's Jest-book, or The Fool's Tragedy (1850) , received the high praise of such judges as Landor and Browning. His Poems, with memoir, appeared in 1851.
Bede, Beda, or Bæda, known as the Venerable, English historian and theologian, born in 672 or 673 in the neighbourhood of Monkwearmouth, County Durham; educated at St. ”

“ How sleek, smooth-tongued, paradisaical a deluder art thou, sweet Self-conceit! Let great men give their own thoughts on their own thoughts: from such we can learn much; but let the small deer hold jaw, and remember what the philosopher says, 'Fleas are not lobsters: d——n their souls!'"
Caring nothing even for professional honors, Beddoes refused various professorships in Germany, and traveled about to Zurich, to Bâle, and to the other German centres of learning as his desires prompted him. ”

“ After Bedworth’s discharge from the army, he left his wife with his friends, at Walsall, and went to Birmingham, whither, however, she followed him. In a short time, Bedworth went to London, in search of work, and entreated his wife to remain in the country, and there await his success. She consented, and he had not arrived many days in town, when he obtained employment from Mr. Birch, of Rupert Street, Haymarket. Here, however, he had not long been engaged, when, unfortunately for Bedworth, his employer failed, and he immediately formed the resolution of going to sea. ”

“ Beddoes' laboratory at Bristol, were eminently characteristic of him: "I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth to recommend me; yet if I live I trust I shall not be of less service to mankind and my friends, than if I had been born with all these advantages." ”

“ If the neglect suffered by Beddoes' poetry may be accounted for in more ways than one, it is not so easy to understand why more curiosity has never been aroused by the circumstances of his life. For one reader who cares to concern himself with the intrinsic merit of a piece of writing there are a thousand who are ready to explore with eager sympathy the history of the writer; and all that we know both of the life and the character of Beddoes possesses those very qualities of peculiarity, mystery, and adventure, which are so dear to the hearts of subscribers to circulating libraries. ”

“ Lingering there, one may watch the Deaths come down from their cloister, and dance and sing amid the moonlight; one may laugh over the grotesque contortions of skeletons; one may crack jokes upon corruption; one may sit down with phantoms, and drink to the health of Death.
In private intercourse Beddoes was the least morbid of human beings. ”

“ Beddoes was a man of great powers and wide acquirements, which he directed to noble and philanthropic purposes. He strove to effect social good by popularizing medical knowledge, a work for which his vivid imagination and glowing eloquence eminently fitted him. ”

“ His tragedy, like Hamlet's, was the tragedy of an over-powerful will—a will so strong as to recoil upon itself, and fall into indecision. It is easy for a weak man to be decided—there is so much to make him so; but a strong man, who can do anything, sometimes leaves everything undone. Fortunately Beddoes, though he did far less than he might have done, possessed so rich a genius that what he did, though small in quantity, is in quality beyond price. 'I might have been, among other things, a good poet,' were his last words. ”

“ MARIA to C. SNEYD EDGEWORTH, AT EDINBURGH.
EDGEWORTHSTOWN, Dec. 30, 1808.
How little we can tell from day to day what will happen to us or our friends. I promised you a merry frankful of nonsense this day, and instead of that we must send you the melancholy account of poor Dr. Beddoes' death. [Footnote: Dr. Beddoes, who had married Anna Edgeworth, was the author of almost innumerable books. His pupil, Sir Humphry Davy, says: "He had talents which would have exalted him to the pinnacle of philosophical eminence, if they had been applied with discretion."] ”

“ His mature blank verse is perfect. It is not an artificial concoction galvanized into the semblance of life; it simply lives. And, with Beddoes, maturity was precocious, for he obtained complete mastery over the most difficult and dangerous of metres at a wonderfully early age. Blank verse is like the Djin in the Arabian Nights; it is either the most terrible of masters, or the most powerful of slaves. If you have not the magic secret, it will take your best thoughts, your bravest imaginations, and change them into toads and fishes ”

“ I think that it is most probable that Beddoes, pushed to desperation and believing himself to have been already betrayed, had revenged himself upon Hudson, and had fled from the country with as much money as he could lay his hands on. Those are the facts of the case, Doctor, and if they are of any use to your collection, I am sure that they are very heartily at your service.” ”

“ His proper place was among that noble band of Elizabethans, whose strong and splendid spirit gave to England, in one miraculous generation, the most glorious heritage of drama that the world has known. If Charles Lamb had discovered his tragedies among the folios of the British Museum, and had given extracts from them in the Specimens of Dramatic Poets, Beddoes' name would doubtless be as familiar to us now as those of Marlowe and Webster, Fletcher and Ford. ”

“ In their forays the Bedouins never kill an unresisting foe unless tempted by blood-revenge.”
The real Bedouin is not a large personage. He is rarely taller than five feet and seven or eight inches, and is not inclined to corpulence. ”

“ Perhaps, however, the ordinary reader finds Beddoes' lack of construction a less distasteful quality than his disregard of the common realities of existence. Not only is the subject-matter of the greater part of his poetry remote and dubious; his very characters themselves seem to be infected by their creator's delight in the mysterious, the strange, and the unreal. They have no healthy activity ”

“ It will be instructive to set it side by side with a still finer passage in a modern tragedy, as examples of the classic and romantic schools of composition. It is the strength and weakness of Congreve that his thoughts are such as would naturally have occurred to any one in the situation of his personages, and that his sole part is to afford them dignified expression; while Beddoes’ thoughts are the thoughts of a poet, and as such might well appear fantastic and overstrained to an average audience: [Pg 135] ”

“ It is, indeed, clear enough that Beddoes was embarrassed with his riches, that his fertile mind conceived too easily, and that he could never resist the temptation of giving life to his imaginations, even at the cost of killing his play. His conception of Orazio, for instance, began by being that of a young Bacchus, as he appears in the opening scene. But Beddoes could not leave him there; he must have a romantic wife, whom he has deserted; and the wife, once brought into being, must have an interview with her husband. ”

“ I became, if I may so express it, dissociate from Bedford; I looked down on Bedford as a trivial, incidental thing with which I chanced to be connected. I saw Bedford in many relations—as an ass or as a poor beast, where I had hitherto been inclined to regard him with a quiet pride as a very spirited or rather forcible person. I saw him not only as an ass, but as the son of many generations of asses. I reviewed his school-days and his early manhood, and his first encounter with love, very much as one might review the proceedings of an ant in the sand. ”

“ The real, untamed Bedouin differs from the shabby counterfeit we see around Jerusalem and Beyrout as a five dollar gold piece differs from a bogus cent. The real Bedouin rides a fine horse (which is almost always a mare) , and he gets himself up in a style sufficiently gorgeous to be a partial compensation to the traveller for being robbed by him. He is a dignified, high-toned thief, and transacts business on the square; he is never impolite, even when plundering you, and his hospitality is unbounded.
When you go to a Bedouin encampment you must stop at the first tent ”

“ THOMAS BEDWORTH was born in the year 1764, in the parish of Bloxidge, Staffordshire. His parents were of honest reputation and industrious habits, and could well afford to instil into his mind the principles of a good education; but to this he was obstinately averse, and they not being firm in their purpose, he successfully opposed every attempt that was made to furnish him with that knowledge of good and evil, without which he fell a sacrifice to the consequences of sensual indulgence, and expiated a crime, conceived in jealousy and stimulated by intoxication, on the scaffold of Newgate. ”

“ But the truth is that Beddoes was not a 'creeper into worm-holes,' he was not even a 'reviver'; he was a reincarnation. Everything that we know of him goes to show that the laborious and elaborate effort of literary reconstruction was quite alien to his spirit. We have Kelsall's evidence as to the ease and abundance of his composition; we have the character of the man, as it shines forth in his letters and in the history of his life—records of a 'bold, trampling fellow,' if ever there was one ”

“ You understand? If your father gives them the correct position of the wreck, you are possibly in no danger."
"And you, Tom?"
Dennis grinned. "They want me out of the way. They think I'll make trouble. Well, I know I will! Don't you worry about me. They'll do nothing until Unalaska and the revenue cutter are left behind, see? And by that time, little Tommy will have spoiled their game."
"How?" demanded Florence, her eyes anxious.
"Don't know yet," said Dennis cheerfully. "If I——"
"Tom! What was it that Pontifex said to you about reading Dumas? ”

“ The beam of light came from a hand-flash held in his hand. Scattered around were pieces of whitish meat—fish—and the air was sickening with its smell. Ten feet above was the chamber's domed ceiling, from which water kept dripping to the slimy rocks below.
"Air?" repeated Beddoes, stupidly. His mind was obviously affected. "They fetch it from the surface with seal-hide bags, and release it. They change it often. All over the caverns. They have to breathe, too. I think they sleep in rooms like this." His voice rose with hysteria. "Ken, they're seals and yet they're human! Human, down here! ”

“ It is to very little purpose that Mr. Ramsay Colles, his latest editor, assures us that 'Beddoes is interesting as marking the transition from Shelley to Browning'; it is to still less purpose that he points out to us a passage in Death's Jest Book which anticipates the doctrines of The Descent of Man. For Beddoes cannot be hoisted into line with his contemporaries by such methods as these; nor is it in the light of such after-considerations that the value of his work must be judged. We must take him on his own merits, 'unmixed with seconds' ”

“ It seems that the Viceroy of Goa had sent some alleged relics of St. Thomas, who was supposed to have died in India, you know, back to the King of Portugal; and with them he had sent a lot of valuable papers and documents, as well as such things as gold and jewels—there has to be a treasure, of course.
"Well, that ship put into the bay which used to be at St. Thomas; she was driven ashore, and the garrison only had time to transfer her cargo to the fort before they were attacked. So far as anyone knows to the contrary, Hammer, it's there yet."
"I guess not." The American shook his head. ”

“ Retiring from practice in Bristol (1891) , he settled at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.
Beddoe began active researches in ethnology during his early wanderings in Austria, Hungary, Italy, France, and other countries, and ultimately he became an authority on the physical characteristics of living European races. Much of his work was pioneer, and was carried on when researches of the kind were little valued. But Beddoe's unflagging industry and stimulating zeal influenced profoundly the development of anthropological science at home and abroad. ”

“ Dr. Beddoes was a violent and uncompromising Plutonist, while Professor Hailstone was as decided a Neptunist. The rocks of Cornwall, and their granitic veins, had been appealed to, as affording evidence upon the subject; and the two Professors, who, although adverse in opinion, were united in friendship, determined to proceed together 51 to the field of dispute, each hoping that he might thus convince the other of his error, and cure him of his heresy. The belligerents arrived at Penzance, and in company with their mutual friend, Mr. ”

“ Take her below to my cabin,” said the skipper, and the other women obeyed the order.
When the stir was over, and Nelly gone from the deck, Hampton felt quick relief. Her brave stand-up for him, her belief in him, had effected nothing at all. In the eyes around him he perceived that he was doomed. Day was speaking earnestly to Nickerson and Adam Johnson, and he wondered what this bronzed and vigorous man was arguing.
“Now, friends,” said the captain, “can any of ye throw any light on this affair? Can ye throw any suspicion on another man—if it be my own self? Speak up!” ”