BEST, WILLIAM THOMAS (1826-1897), English organist, the son of a solicitor, was born at Carlisle on the 13th of August 1826. Having decided upon a musical career, he received his first instruction from the cathedral organist. He applied himself especially to Bach’s music, and became a player of great skill. His successive appointments were to Pembroke chapel, Liverpool, 1840; to a church for the blind, 1847, and the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, 1848. For a short time (1854-1855) he was in London at the Panopticon in Leicester Square, the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Lincoln’s Inn chapel. In 1855 he returned to Liverpool as organist of St George’s Hall, where his performances rapidly became famous throughout England. Ill-health compelled him at last to retire in 1894. He was engaged as solo organist at all the Handel festivals at the Crystal Palace, and also as organist at the Albert Hall, where he inaugurated the great organ in 1871. He had been in the receipt of a civil list pension of £100 a year since 1880, and in 1890 went to Australia to give organ recitals in the town hall of Sydney. Best died at Liverpool on the 10th of May 1897.
His command over all the resources of his own instrument was masterly; his series of Saturday recitals at St George’s Hall, carried on for many years, included the whole field of organ music, and of music that could be arranged for the organ, ancient and modern; and his performances of Bach’s organ works were particularly fine. His own compositions for the organ, chiefly comprised in the publication entitled Organ Pieces for Church Use, have a strong and marked individuality. Best, unlike many soloists, was an all-round musician, and fully acquainted with every branch of the art. His bust, by Conrad Dressler, has been placed on the platform in front of the Liverpool organ, as a memorial of his long series of performances there.
BESTIA, the name of a family in ancient Rome, of which the following were the most distinguished.
1. Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, Roman tribune of the people in 121 B.C., consul in 111. Having been appointed to the command of the operations against Jugurtha, he at first carried on the campaign energetically, but soon, having been heavily bribed, concluded a disgraceful peace. On his return to Rome he was brought to trial for his conduct and condemned, in spite of the efforts of Marcus Scaurus who, though formerly his legate and equally guilty, was one of the judges. He is probably identical with the Bestia who encouraged the Italians in their revolt, and went into exile (90) to avoid punishment under the law of Q. Varius, whereby those who had secretly or openly aided the Italian allies against Rome were to be brought to trial (Appian, Bell. Civ. i. 37; Val. Max. viii. 6. 4). Both Cicero and Sallust express a high opinion of Bestia’s abilities, but his love of money demoralized him. He is mentioned in a Carthaginian inscription as one of a board of three, perhaps an agricultural commission.
See Sallust, Jugurtha; Cicero, Brutus, xxxiv. 128; for the general history, A.H.J. Greenidge, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. (1904), pp. 346 foll.
2. Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, one of the Catilinarian conspirators, possibly a grandson of the above. He was tribune elect in 63, and it had been arranged that, after entering upon his office, he should publicly accuse Cicero of responsibility for the impending war. This was to be the signal for the outbreak of revolution. The conspiracy, however, was put down and Bestia had to content himself with delivering a violent attack upon the consul on the expiration of his office. This Bestia is probably not the Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, aedile, and a candidate for the praetorship in 57. He was accused of bribery during his candidature, and, in spite of Cicero’s defence, was condemned. In 43 he attached himself to the party of Antony, apparently in the hope of obtaining the consulship.
Sallust, Catiline, xvii. 43; Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. 3; Cicero, Ad Q. Fr. ii. 3, 6.
BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXIUS PETROVICH, Count (1693-1768), grand chancellor of Russia, the second son of Count Peter Bestuzhev, the early favourite of the empress Anne, was born at Moscow on the 1st of June 1693. Educated abroad, with his elder brother Mikhail, at Copenhagen and Berlin, he especially distinguished himself in languages and the applied sciences. Peter the Great, in 1712, attached him to Prince Kurakin at the Utrecht Congress that he might learn diplomacy, and for the same reason permitted him in 1713 to enter the service of the elector of Hanover. George I. took him to London in 1714, and sent him to St Petersburg as his accredited minister with a notification of his accession. Bestuzhev then returned to England, where he remained four years. It was the necessary apprenticeship to his brilliant diplomatic career. His passion for intrigue is curiously illustrated by his letter to the tsarevich Alexius at Vienna, assuring his “future sovereign” of his devotion, and representing his sojourn in England as a deliberate seclusion of a zealous but powerless well-wisher. This extraordinary indiscretion might well have cost him his life, but the tsarevich fortunately destroyed the letter.[1] On his return to Russia he served for two years without any salary as chief gentleman of the Bedchamber at the court of Anne of Courland, and in 1721 succeeded Vasily Dolgoruki as Russian minister at Copenhagen. Copenhagen was then a whirlpool of diplomatic intrigue, for George I. was endeavouring to arm the northern powers against Peter the Great, and this it was Bestuzhev’s mission to counteract. On the occasion of the peace of Nystad, which terminated the 21 years war between Russia and Sweden, Bestuzhev designed and struck a commemorative medal with a panegyrical Latin inscription, which so delighted Peter (then at Derbent) that he sent a letter of thanks written with his own hand and his portrait set in brilliants. It was at this time too that the many-sided Alexius invented his famous “drops,” or tinctura toniconervina Bestuscheffi, the recipe of which was stolen by the French brigadier Lamotte, who made his fortune by introducing it at the French court, where it was known as Élixir d’Or.