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BENEVENTO — BENFEY
presentee has been a deacon for three years; and that he is not unfit for the discharge of his duties by reason of physical or mental infirmity or incapacity, grave pecuniary embarrassment, grave misconduct or neglect of duty in an ecclesiastical office, evil life, or conduct causing grave scandal concerning his moral character since his ordination, or being party to an illegal agreement with regard to the presentation; that notice of the presentation has been given to the parish of the benefice. Except by leave of the bishop or sequestrator, the incumbent of a sequestered benefice cannot be presented. The Act also gives to both patron and presentee an alternative mode of appeal against a bishop’s refusal to institute or admit, except on a ground of doctrine or ritual, to a court composed of an archbishop of the province and a judge of the High Court nominated for that purpose by the Lord Chancellor, a course which, however, bars resort being had to the ordinary suits of duplex querela or action of quare impedit. In case of refusal of one presentee, a lay patron may present another, and a clerical patron may do so after an unsuccessful appeal against the refusal. Upon institution the church is full against everybody except the Crown, and after six months’ peaceable possession the clerk is secured in possession of the benefice, even though he may have been presented by a person who is not the proper patron. The true patron can, however, exercise his right to present at the next vacancy, and can reserve the advowson from an usurper at any time within three successive incumbencies so created adversely to his right, or within sixty years. Collation which otherwise corresponds to institution does not make the church full, and the true patron can dispossess the clerk at any time, unless he is a patron who collates. Possession of the benefice is completed by induction, which makes the church full against anyone, including the Crown. If the proper patron fails to exercise his right within six calendar months from the vacancy, the right devolves or lapses to the next superior patron, e.^., from an ordinary patron to the bishop, and if he makes similar default to the archbishop, and from him on similar default to the Crown. If a bishopric becomes vacant after a lapse has accrued to it, it goes to the metropolitan; but in case of a vacancy of a benefice during the vacancy of the see the Crown presents. Until the right of presentation so accruing to a bishop or archbishop is exercised, the patron can still effectually present, but not if lapse has gone to the Crown. All benefices except those under the clear annual value of £50 pay their first fruits (one year’s profits) and tenths (of yearly profits) to Queen Anne’s Bounty for the augmentation for the maintenance of the poorer clergy. Their profits during vacation belong to the next incumbent. Tithe rent charge attached to a benefice is relieved from payment of one-half of the agricultural rates assessed thereon. Benefices may be exchanged by agreement between incumbents with the consent of the ordinary, and they may, with the consent of the patron and ordinary, be united or dissolved after being united. They may also be charged with the repayment of money laid out for their permanent advantage, and be augmented wholly by the medium of Queen Anne’s Bounty. Becent legislation has also affected the vacation of benefices by plurality, resignation, and deprivation. As regards plurality, by dispensation from the archbishop of Canterbury, two benefices may be held together, the churches of which are within four miles of each other, and the annual value of one of which does not exceed £200 (1885). As regards resignation, incumbents of seven years’ standing, incapacitated by permanent mental or bodily infirmity from due performance of their duties, can resign their benefices and receive a pension not exceeding one-
third of the net income (1871-81). As regards deprivation under the Clergy Discipline Act 1892, an incumbent who has been convicted of offences against the law of bastardy, or against whom judgment has been given in a divorce or matrimonial cause, is deprived, and on being found guilty in the consistory court of immorality or ecclesiastical offences (not in respect of doctrine or ritual), he may be deprived or suspended or declared incapable of preferment. Authorities.—Phillimore. Eccles. Law, 2nd edit. London, 1895.—Cripps. Law of Church and Clergy, 6th edit. London, 1886. For statistics of Benefices see England, Church of. (g. g. p.*) Benevento, a town and archiepiscopal see and capital of the province of Benevento, Campania, Italy, situated amid the South Apennines, 78 miles by rail H.E. from Naples. There is a new suite of provincial offices. Brick-making, lime-burning, and rope-making are also carried on. Population of town (1881) 21,631, (1901) 24,650; of province (1881) 238,425, (1901) 257,101. Benfey, Theodor (1809-1881), German philologist, son of a Jewish trader at Norten, near Gottingen, was born on the 28th January 1809. His taste for philology was awakened in his youth by the careful instruction in Hebrew which he received from his father, and although originally designed for the medical profession, he resolved upon a literary career. After brilliant studies at Gottingen he spent a year at Munich, where he was greatly impressed by the lectures of Schelling and Thiersch, and afterwards settled as a teacher in Frankfort. His pursuits were at first chiefly classical, and his attention was diverted to Sanskrit by an accidental wager that he would learn enough of the language in a few weeks to be able to review a new book upon it. This feat he accomplished, and rivalled in later years when he learned Russian in order to translate Wasilieff’s work on Buddhism. For the time, however, his labours were chiefly in classical and Semitic philology. At Gottingen, whither he had returned as privat-docent, he wrote a little work on the names of the Hebrew months, proving that they were derived from the Persian, prepared the great article on India in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopedia, and published from 1839 to 1842 the Lexicon of Greek Roots which gained him the Yolney prize of the Institute of France. From this time his attention was principally given to Sanskrit. He published in 1848 his edition of the Sama Veda; in 1852-54 his Manual of Sanskrit, comprising a grammar and chrestomathy; in 1858 his practical Sanskrit Grammar, afterwards translated into English; and in 1859 his edition of the Pantscha Tantra, with an extensive dissertation on the fables and mythologies of primitive nations. All these works had been produced under the pressure of poverty, the Government, whether from parsimony or from prejudice against his Jewish extraction, refusing to make any substantial addition to his miserable salary as extra-professor at the University. At length, in 1862, the growing appreciation of foreign scholars shamed it into making him an ordinary professor, and in 1866 Benfey published the laborious work by which he is, on the whole, best known, his great Sanskrit-English Dictionary. In 1869 he wrote a history of German philological research, especially Oriental, during the 19th century. In 1878 his jubilee as doctor was celebrated by the publication of a volume of philological essays dedicated to him, and written by the first scholars in Germany. He had designed to close his literary labours by a grammar of Vedic Sanskrit, and was actively preparing it when he was interrupted by a fatal illness, which terminated in his death at
