Bayes, Miss, with reference to the name used in The Rehearsal, by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, to satirize Dryden, the poet-laureate
Bayle, Pierre, author of the famous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique; professor of philosophy at Padua and at Rotterdam (1647-1706)
Beauclerk, Topham, Johnson’s friend, “the chivalrous T. B., with his sharp wit and gallant, courtly ways” (Carlyle), (1739-80)
Beaumarchais, see Carlyle’s French Revolution. As a comic dramatist he ranks second only to Moliere. He supported the Revolution with his money and his versatile powers of speech and writing. He edited an edition de luxe of Voltaire’s works (1732-99)
Behn, Afra, the licentious novelist and mistress of Charles II. (1640-89), who, as a spy in Holland, discovered the Dutch plans for burning the Thames shipping
Belle-Isle, French marshal; fought in the Austrian campaign of 1740 and repelled the Austrian invasion of 1744 (d. 1761)
Beloe William, a miscellaneous writer, whose version of Herodotus, so far from being flat, is, while “infinitely below the modern standard in point of accuracy, much above modern performance in point of readableness” (Dr. Garnett), (1756-1817)
Bender, 80 miles N.W. from Odessa, in S. Russia
Bentley, Richard, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and an eminent philologist (1662-1742)
Bettesworth, an Irishman, lampooned in Swift’s Miscellanies