an important country of Western Africa, situated on a bay or bight of the same name, in the most interior part of the great Gulf of Guinea. It forms the eastern limit of that long line of coast to which the name of Guinea is usually applied; and here commences that long chain of estuaries which, as there is now reason to believe, forms the termination of the Niger.

The first discovery of Benin was made by the Portuguese about the year 1485. It escaped the observation of Diego Cam when he sailed from El Mina to the mouth of the Congo; but tidings of it having been there obtained, Alfonso de Aveiro sailed thither, and brought the first specimen of the plant called long or Guinea pepper. He came accompanied also by an ambassador from the king of Benin, requesting, it is said, that missionaries should be sent to instruct the people in the Christian religion. The king of Portugal, accordingly, dispatched an expedition under Fernando Po, who discovered and gave his name to a fine island near the mouth of the gulf; and having ascended the river, established a settlement at Gatton. A church was built, and upwards of a thousand people received baptism. Much interest was excited by the account of a regular embassy sent at the accession of every new prince to the court of a powerful sovereign named Ogané, whose capital lay about seven hundred miles to the eastward. He was held almost in religious veneration, and his sanction was considered necessary to render valid the title of any new monarch. This mysterious prince maintained himself in retired pomp, and at every audience a silk curtain concealed him from view. At the parting interview, however, his foot was put forth from behind the curtain, and was venerated as a sacred object. He delivered to the ambassador a staff, a helmet, and a cross, all of brass, to be presented to his sovereign. From these circumstances the Portuguese inferred that this was the Prester John or Christian prince whom they expected to find in the interior of Africa; but Major Rennell has more reasonably concluded that it was the king of Ghana or Cano, who then held extensive sway over that continent.

The Portuguese carried on for some time a brisk trade in slaves, who were carried to El Mina and sold to the natives of the Gold Coast. John III, however, prohibited this nefarious traffic; and as the situation was found very unhealthy, while the conversions were professed only with the view of obtaining military aid against their neighbours, the settlement was ordered to be withdrawn. The Dutch afterwards established factories, and maintained them for a considerable time, chiefly with a view to the slave trade. The English and French have also formed occasional settlements. But all these are at present abandoned, and trading vessels come merely to the mouth of the river. On the whole, the river of Benin has always been, and now is, much less frequented for commercial purposes than that of Bonny and the towns situated at the opening of more southern estuaries.

The coast of Benin presents a succession of river branches, all probably diverging from one great trunk, connected and interlaced with numerous creeks and channels, which always afford an easy navigation for boats from one to the other. The whole of this territory consists of an immense swamp, either covered with water or composed of mud, in which the feet sinks to a great depth, and out of which rises a dark and impenetrable forest. The waters are so muddy that no fish except eels can subsist in them. The river, called by the Portuguese Formosa, is about two miles wide at its mouth; but it is crossed by a bar of mud, on which there is only twelve feet of water at spring tides, so that vessels drawing more than nine or ten feet cannot conveniently enter. Eighteen miles up is New Town, where vessels can anchor in three and a half fathoms water. It is a mere trading station, consisting of hovels built on a foundation of mud, so soft as to render it necessary to place old canoes, with their bottoms upwards, that the inhabitants may pass over them from house to house.

At New Town, two branches strike off on each side, and are followed by traders in preference to the main trunk. The left or northern branch leads first to Gatton, the port of Benin, to which barks of sixty tons can ascend, and near which dry land first appears emerging out of the morass. A land journey of forty miles from Gatton leads the traveller to Benin, the capital.

From information obtained on the Gold Coast, M. Dupuis considers Benin as ranking even above Ashantee and Dahomey among the great states of Western Africa; possessing an extensive and highly cultivated territory, and capable of sending 200,000 men into the field, although only 10,000 are armed with muskets. But Captain Adams, who appears to be the last that actually penetrated to Benin, leads us to believe this description exaggerated. The city was indeed found to cover a great extent of ground; but the houses were built in so scattered a style that the population did not appear to exceed 15,000. The country around was also fruitful, but by no means very highly cultivated. Sheep, goats, pigs, and poultry, were plentiful; but the vegetable food consisted almost entirely of yams. No information, however, is given respecting the districts in the interior. The king is absolute, being revered by his subjects as a species of divinity. It is a crime to believe that he either eats or sleeps, and all offences against him are punished with the utmost severity, as a species of impiety. At his death, or that of any of his great men, numerous human victims are devoted to attend them in the other world; and every year, at the mouth of the river, three or four are presented as votive offerings, to attract ships and commerce. Yet the practice of human sacrifice does not appear to exist on the same dreadful scale as in Ashantee and Dahomey.

The large channel which branches off to the right from New Town communicates with the Rio de Forcados, and then with another river whose branches inclose the beautiful island of Waree, about five miles in circumference, which seems almost like a spot fallen from the clouds in the midst of a desert. Being somewhat elevated above the surrounding swamps, it is dry, verdant, and cultivated. The soil consists of a tenacious red clay, fitted for the manufacture of earthen jars, which form an article of trade. The island contains two towns, the joint population of which is estimated at 5000. The government is monarchical, but mild; and the natives seem to enjoy a considerable degree of freedom and equality. The houses are neatly built of clay, and some of them ornamented with wooden pillars. Waree carries on a communication with the sea by New Town, which is at present dependent upon it.

The main stream of the Formosa extends upwards in an east-north-easterly direction, but is not navigable for ships of fifty tons burden for more than fifty miles. Europeans have never ascended it, nor received accounts of any town situated on its banks.

Since the abolition of the slave trade, the chief commodities to be obtained in the river of Benin are palm oil and ivory, both at tolerably cheap rates. The imports consist of salt, silk and cotton stuffs, guns and gunpowder, coral, beads, iron, brass, brandy, tobacco, &c. The king must be immediately waited upon and presented with a large piece of fine red damask. Captain Adams advises that the trade be carried on by vessels of about 250 tons, lying off the mouth of the river, outside the bar. They should have two large boats, one communicating with a factory at Lagos, whilst the other plies up and down the river. Precautions must however be employed against a band of desperadoes, inhabiting what is called the Ibo Creek, by whom the boats are often attacked and plundered, and even the crews put to death.

(Benish-Days, among the Egyptians, a term applied to three days of the week, which are days of less ceremony in religion than the other four, and are so called from the benish, a garment of common use, not of ceremony. In Cairo, on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, they go to the pasha's divan; and these are the general days of business. On Friday they stay at home, and go to their mosques at noon; but although this is their day of devotion, they never abstain from business. The three other days of the week are the benish-days, in which they throw off all business and ceremony, and go to their little summerhouses in the country.)

Bennet, Henry, earl of Arlington, was born of an ancient family in Middlesex. In the beginning of the civil war he was appointed under-secretary to George Lord Digby, secretary of state; he afterwards entered himself as a volunteer for the royal cause, and did his majesty good service, especially at Andover, in Hampshire, where he received several wounds. He left not the king when success abandoned his standards, but attended to his interest in foreign parts. He was made secretary to the duke of York, received the honour of knighthood from Charles II. at Bruges in 1658, and was sent as envoy to the court of Spain. His majesty, upon his return to England, called him home, made him keeper of his privy purse, and principal secretary of state. He had always a peculiar hatred of the lord chancellor Hyde, who, on the other hand, considered him a concealed Papist. In 1670 he was of the council distinguished by the title of the Cabal, and one of those who advised the shutting up of the exchequer. In 1672 he was made earl of Arlington and viscount Thetford, and soon after knight of the garter. In 1673 he was appointed one of the three plenipotentiaries from the court of Great Britain to Cologne, to mediate a peace between the emperor and the king of France. The house of commons this year drew up articles of impeachment against him. In 1674 he was made chamberlain of his majesty's household, in recompense of his long and faithful service, and particularly for having filled the office of principal secretary of state during the space of twelve years, to his majesty's great satisfaction. But afterwards his interest began to decline, while that of the earl of Danby increased; for upon his return from his unsuccessful journey to Holland in 1675, his credit had so much sunk that several persons at court diverted the king with mimicking his person and behaviour; yet he held his office of chamberlain till the day of his death, which took place in 1685. His Letters to Sir William Temple were published after his death.

Bennet, Dr Thomas, an eminent divine, born at Salisbury on the 7th of May 1673, and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. In 1700 he was made rector of St James's in Colchester; he afterwards became lecturer of St Olave's, Southwark, and morning-preacher at St Lawrence, Jewry; and at last he was presented to the vicarage of St Giles's, Cripplegate, worth L500 a year. While he held this station, he engaged in several expensive lawsuits in defence of the rights of the church, to which he recovered L150 a year. He wrote, 1. An Answer to the Dissenter's Plea for Separation; 2. A Confutation of Popery; 3. A Discourse of Schism; 4. An Answer to a book entitled Thomas against Bennet; 5. A Confutation of Quakerism; 6. A brief History of the joint Use of pre-conceived Forms of Prayer; 7. An Answer to Dr Clarke's Scripture doctrine of the Trinity; 8. A Paraphrase, with Annotations on the Book of Common Prayer; 9. A Hebrew Grammar; and other pieces. He died on the 9th October 1723, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

Benoit, Renatus, a famous doctor of the Sorbonne, and curate of Eustathius at Paris, in the sixteenth century. He was a secret favourer of the Protestant religion; and that his countrymen might be able to read the Bible in their own tongue, he published at Paris the French translation which had been made by the reformed ministers at Geneva. This translation was approved of by several doctors of the Sorbonne before it went to the press, and King Charles IX. had granted a privilege for the printing of it; yet when it was published it was immediately condemned. He had, before that time, been confessor to Mary queen of Scotland during her stay in France, and attended her when she returned into Scotland. Some time previous to the death of Henry III. Dr Benoit, or some of his friends with his assistance, published a book entitled Apologie Catholique; in which it was shown that the Protestant religion which Henry king of Navarre professed was not a sufficient reason to deprive him of his right of succeeding to the crown of France. When Henry IV. had resolved to embrace the Catholic religion, Dr Benoit assisted at the assembly in which the king abjured the reformed religion. In 1597 Henry promoted him to the bishopric of Troyes in Champagne, but he could never obtain the pope's bulls to be installed. However, he enjoyed the temporalities of that bishopric till he resigned it. He died in 1608.

Benowm, the capital of the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar, in Central Africa, on the southern border of the Great Desert. It consists of a large collection of dirty huts resembling tents, and has more the appearance of a large encampment of shepherds than of a metropolis. Mr Park was detained here in long and cruel captivity, exposed to every outrage which bigotry and barbarism could devise or execute. Long. 7. 10. W. Lat. 15. 5. N.

Benserade, Isaac de, an ingenious French poet of the seventeenth century, was born at Lyons. He made himself known at court by his verses and his wit, and had the good fortune to please the cardinals Richelieu and Ma- After the death of Richelieu, he got into favour with the duke de Brèze, whom he accompanied in most of his expeditions; and when this nobleman died, he returned to court, where his poetry became highly esteemed. He wrote: 1. A Paraphrase upon Job; 2. Verses for Interludes; 3. Rondeaux upon Ovid; 4. Several Tragedies. A sonnet which he sent to a young lady with his paraphrase on Job, being put in competition with the Urania of Voiture, caused him to be much spoken of; for those who gave the preference to Benserade's performance were styled the Jobists, and their antagonists were called the Uranists; and the dispute long divided the whole court and the wits. Some years before his death he applied himself to works of piety, and translated almost all the Psalms. According to the Abbé Olivet, Benserade withdrew from court towards the close of his life, and made Gentilly the place of his retirement. The abbé further says, that when he himself was a youth, it was the custom to visit the remains of the ornaments with which Benserade had embellished his house and gardens, where everything savoured of his poetical genius; and that the trees were covered with inscriptions carved in the bark, which Voltaire thinks the best of his productions. Benserade died on the 19th October 1691, in the eighty-second year of his age.