Bench

a. To furnish with benches. "Twas bench'd with turf, and goodly to be seen, The thick young gra arose in fresher green."-Dryden. -To seat or place on a bench or seat of honor. "His cupbearer, whom I from meaner form Have bench'd, and rear'd to worship."-Shaks. Ben'ares, a territory of British India, forming a part v. i. To sit on a bench or seat of justice. of the north-western provinces, and containing the districts of Benares, Mirzapore, Ghazepore, and Juanpore: lying chiefly between Lat. 24° and 26° N., and Lon. 820 and 84° 30′ E.; having N. Goruckpore; E. Bahar; S. the Berar ceded district; and W. the territory of the rajah of Rewah, and the dist. of Allah a bad and Juanpore. Area , 8,670 sq. m. It consists, for the most part, of a cultivated flat, on both sides of the Ganges, and is, besides, well watered by the Goomtee, Caramna a and Sone rivers. - Prod. Wheat, barley, legumes, flax, indigo, sugar, and large quantities of opium. The latter is a government monopoly, and Bahar and Benares are the only prov. in the Bengal presidency in which it is permitted to be grown. This prov. is among the most flourishing in India, and is yearly increasing in trade and prosperity. Muslins, gauze, and brocades are the principal manufactures. Cap . Benares. Pop . abt. 8,000,000. Before 1775, B. belonged to the Nabob of Oude, who, in that year, ceded it to the British. BENARES, (Skr. Var a nashi , or Kasi , "the spiendid,") a large and celebrated city of Hindostan, cap. of prov. and district of the same name, and one of the 6 chief provincial cities in the presidency, at the head of a judicial division; Lat. 25°18′ 33′′ N., Lon. 83° E.; on the N.W. bank of the Ganges, about 300 ft. above sea-level, 65 m. E. of Allah a bad, and 390 N.W. of Calcutta, on the E. Indian Railway from Calcutta to Delhi. B. is the "most holy" city of the Hindoos - the ecclesiastical metropolis, in fact, of India-and is resorted to by pilgrims from all quarters, especially from the Mahratta countries, and from even Thibet and Burmah. It is certainly the richest, as well as probably the most populous, city in the peninsula. Its first view is extremely fine. It extends about 4 m. along the bank of the river, which is considerably elevated, and adorned with large ghauts or land ing-places, with long and handsome flights of steps. Its buildings, which are crowded, are built of stone or brick, and uniquely lofty; here and there are seen the sculptured pyramidal tops of small pagodas; and the great mosque of Aurungzebe, with its gilded dome glittering in the sun, and two minarets towering one above the other, form a grand and imposing coup d'œil . The streets " Bench by his side; you are of the commi ion."-Shaks. Bench'er, n. ( Eng . Law .) A senior member of any of the Inns of Court in England, viz., the Inner Temple, Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The management of the affairs of each Inn is committed to its own body of benchers ; out of which body one is annually chosen as treasurer. The sole power of calling students to the bar, by which they become barristers , and of disbarring them, and thereby depriving them of their qualification, for misconduct, is vested in the benchers, subject to an appeal to the judges as visitors to the inn. "I was taking a walk in the gardens of Lincoln's Inn; a favor that is indulged me by several benchers , who are grown old with me."- Tatler. -An alderman of a corporation. Bench'-mark, n. ( Levelling .) A term applied to a mark showing the starting-point in levelling along a line, and to similar marks affixed at convenient distances to substantial or permanent objects, to show the exact points upon which the levelling staffs were placed when the various levels were read, thus facilitating reference and correction. Bench'-planes, n . pl . (Carpentry.) A carpenter or joiner's set of planes; as, the jack - plane , trying - plane , long - plane , the jointer , and the smoothing-plane. Bench'-table, n . ( Arch . ) A low stone seat around the interior of the walls of many churches. Bench'-warrant, n. ( Law .) A proce i ued by a court against a person guilty of some contempt, or indicted for some crime. Bencoolen, ( ben - kooʻlen ,) a seaport of the island of Sumatra, and the principal settlement of the Dutch on that island. It stands on the W.coast; Lat. 30° 47′ 6′′ S., Lon. 102° 19′ E. The town, small but well built, is said to be unhealthy. The imports consist chiefly of cloths, rice, tobacco, sugar, ., from Batavia; opium and various fabrics from Bengal and the Coromandel coast; printed cottons, and cutlery and hardware from Europe. Pop . 13,200. Bend, v. a. ( imp. BENDED OF BENT: pp. BENDED OF BENT; BENDED in solemn style.) [A.S. bend an, from band, a tie, And bends the gallant mast."-Allan Cunning ham. turn out of a straight or direct line or course. "Your gracious eyes upon this labour bent ."- Fairfaz . mi ive. "Except she bend her humour."-Shaks. -To apply closely; to incline; to apply. "He was no longer able to bend his mind or thoughts to any public busine ."-Sir W. Temple. -To put anything in order for use, by straining. "As a fowler was bending his net, a blackbird asked him what he was doing."-L'Estrange. (Naut.) To fasten; as, to bend a sail, a cable: i. e. to fasten a sail to the yard, or a cable to the anchor. To bend the brow . To knit the brow; to frown; to scowl. "Some have been seen to bend their brows , bite their lips, beat the board, and tear their paper."-Camden. -v. i. To be crooked; to crook, or be curving; to overhang. "He who hath bent him o'er the dead."-Byron. -To incline; to lean or turn; to purpose; to resolve upon. "A state of slavery, which they are bent upon with so much eagerne and obstinacy."-Add is on. -To yield; to bow in prayer or submi ion. "While each to his great Father bends ."-Cole ridge. Bend, n. [See BENT.] A deflection from a straight line; a curve or crook; a flexure, or incurvation. "And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, Did lose its lustre."-Shaks. ( Her .) Two parallel lines, drawn from left to right, or from the dexter chief to the sinister base of an escutcheon, which lines may be either straight, or indented, engrailed, . It is one of the nine principal ordinaries, occupying a fifth part of the field when uncharged, but a third part when it has any device or charge upon it. When the term B. is mentioned without any addition, IMG:content-0592.png:[blocks in formation] the B. dexter is always meant. It is supposed to repre sent a shoulder-belt, or scarf worn over the shoulder. The B. has four diminutives, - the bendlet , half the width of the B .; the garter , a third; the ribbon , a quarter; and the cost , which does not touch the extremities of the shield, and is often borne on either side of the B. When charges are placed in the direction of the B. from the dexter chief to the sinister base, they are said to be in bend, per bend, bendy, . -For Bend Sinister , see BATON. (Com.) Among curriers and leather-sellers, a butt of leather. (Naut.) The form of the ship from the keel to the top of the side; as, the midship bend , . Bends are the strongest planks of a ve el's side, to which the beams, knees, and futtocks are bolted. They are frequently called WALES. -A knot by which one rope is fastened to another, or to an anchor. (Mining.) Indurated clay; a name given by miners to any indurated argillaceous substance. Bend'able, adv . That may be bent or curved. Ben'demann, EDWARD, a celebrated painter of the Dü eldorf school, B. in Berlin, Dec. 3, 1811. After receiving a good literary education, he became a student at the Dü eldorf Academy under the well-known Schadow, who soon discovered that B. had chosen his true vocation. When only 21 years of age, he exhibited at Berlin a large painting, The Grief of the Jews, suggested by Psalm cxxxvii. It was popularized by means of lithographs, and is now in the Cologne Museum. In 1833 he executed a picture, afterwards engraved by Felsing- Two Young Girls at the Fountain , which was purchased by the Society of Arts of Westphalia. In 1837 he exhibited at Paris a large canvas, Jeremiah amid the Ruins of Jerusalem , with which he gained the gold medal. This picture, of which Wei published a good lithograph, is in the private gallery of the King of Pru ia. Harvest followed, which was engraved by Eichens. The succe of this piece led B. to produce others of the same cla , such as The Shepherd and Shepherde , from one of Uhland's idyls, and The Daughter of the Servian Prince, from a Servian ballad. After becoming appoint ed profe or in the Academy of Arts of Dresden, 1838, he received a commi ion to decorate the royal palace, and undertook the grand frescoes upon which, above all, his reputation is founded. The progre of this undertaking was interrupted by a disease of the eyes, which the artist contracted in Italy. B. executed a fresco of Poetry and the Arts ; a design for a monument to Sebastian Bach, which was afterwards erected at Land stein; a portrait of the Emperor Lothaire II. for the city of Frankfort, besides many other portraits of celebrated Germans, and among them that of Schadow's daughter, whom he married in 1838. In 1860 he succeeded his father-in-law as Director of the Academy at Dü eldorf. Ben'der, a fortified town of Ru ia in Europe, in Be arabia, on the Dniester, 58 m. W.N.W. of Ode a. It was taken and stormed by the Ru ians in 1770 and in 1800. Near it is Varnitza, a village celebrated as the asylum granted by Achmet III. to Charles XII. of Sweden after the battle of Pultowa, q. v.