or Beke, a word which imports a small stream of water issuing from some rill or spring. Hence bellbecks, little brooks in the rough and wild mountains about Richmond near Lancashire, so called on account of their ghastliness and depth.

Bck is also used amongst us in the composition of names of places originally situated on rivulets; hence Walbeck, Bournebeck, &c. The Germans use bech in the same manner.

Beck, David, an eminent portrait-painter, was born at Arnhem in Guelderland in 1621. He became a disciple of Vandyck, from whom he acquired the fine manner of penciling and sweet style of colouring peculiar to that great master and to all the disciples trained up under his direction. Besides, he possessed that freedom of hand, and readiness or rather rapidity of execution, for which Vandyck was so remarkable; insomuch that when King Charles I. observed the expeditious manner of Beck's painting, he was so exceedingly surprised that he told Beck it was his opinion he could paint even if he was riding post. He was appointed portrait-painter and chamberlain to Queen Christina of Sweden; and by her recommendation, most of the illustrious persons in Europe sat to him for their portraits. He was agreeable, handsome, and polite, and lived in the highest favour with his royal mistress; but having an earnest desire to visit his friends in Holland, he left the court of Sweden much against the inclination of the queen, who apprehended that he had no intention of ever returning; and as he died soon after, at the Hague, it was shrewdly suspected that he had been poisoned. This happened in 1656, when Beck had only attained his thirty-fifth year. A very singular adventure happened to this artist as he travelled through Germany. He was taken suddenly and violently ill at the inn where he lodged, and, seeming to all appearance quite dead, was laid out as a corpse. His valets expressed the strongest grief for the loss of their master, and while they sat beside his bed, drank very freely by way of consoling themselves. At last one of them, getting much intoxicated, said to his companions, "Our master was fond of his glass while alive, and out of gratitude let us give him a glass now he is dead." The rest of the servants assented to the proposal, upon which he raised up the head of his master, and endeavoured to pour some of the liquor into his mouth. From the fragrance of the wine, or probably from the circumstance of a small quantity getting imperceptibly down his throat, Beck opened his eyes; and the drunken servant, forgetting that his master was considered as dead, compelled him to swallow what wine remained in the glass. The painter gradually revived, and by proper care and management recovered perfectly, and escaped a premature interment.