BEL, MATTHIAS, was born in Hungary, and became a Lutheran minister at Presburg, and historiographer to the Emperor Charles VI. Among his works is a History of Hungary, which was so much admired that the emperor gave him letters of nobility; and notwithstanding his being a Lutheran, the pope, in 1736, sent him his picture and several large gold medals. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, and of the academies of Berlin and Petersburg; and died in 1749, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.