FRANK

See also:

• WESTON, THOMAS (1737-1776)

WESTON

See also:

• BENSON, EDWARD WHITE (182g—1896)
• BENSON, FRANCIS ROBERT (1858— )
• FRANK WESTON BENSON (1862— )
• BENSON, GEORGE (1699–1762)

BENSON (1862— )  , American painter, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 24th of March 1862 . He was a pupil of Boulanger and of Lefebvre in Paris; won many distinctions in American exhibitions, and a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition of 'goo; and became a member of "Jerusalem bishopric, the healing of the Colenso schism in the diocese of Natal, the organization of native ministries and the like, occupied much of his time; and he did all in his power to foster the growth of local churches . But it was the work at home which occupied most of his energies . That he in no way slighted diocesan work had been shown at Truro . He complained now that the bishops were " bishops of their dioceses but not bishops of England," and did all he could to make the Church a greater religious force in English life . He sat on the ecclesiastical courts commission (1881—1883) and the sweating commission (1888—189o) . He brought bills into parliament to reform Church patronage and Church discipline, and worked unremittingly for years in their behalf . The latter became law in 1892, and the former was merged in the Benefices Bill, which passed in 1898, after his death . He wrote and spoke vigorously against Welsh disestablishment (1893); and in the following year, under his guidance, the existing agencies for Church defence were consolidated . He was largely instrumental in the inauguration of the House of Laymen in the province of Canterbury (1886) ; he made diligent inquiries as to the internal order of the sisterhoods of which he was visitor; from 1884 onwards he gave regular Bible readings for ladies in Lambeth Palace chapel . But the most important ecclesiastical event of his primacy was the judgment in the case of the bishop of Lincoln (see LINCOLN JUDGMENT), in which the law of the prayer-book is investigated, as it had never been before, from the standpoint of the whole history of the English Church . In 1896 the archbishop went to Ireland to see the working of the sister Church .

He was received with

enthusiasm, but the work which his tour entailed' over-fatigued him . On Sunday morning the rlth of October, just after his return, whilst on a visit to Mr Gladstone, he died in Hawarden parish church of heart failure . Archbishop Benson left numerous writings, including a valuable essay on The Cathedral (London, 1878), and various charges and volumes of sermons and addresses . But his two chief works, posthumously published, are his Cyprian (London, 1897), a work of great learning, which had occupied him at intervals since early manhood; and The Apocalypse, an Introductory Study (London, 1900), interesting and beautiful, but limited by the fact that the method of study is that of a Greek play, not of a Hebrew apocalypse . The archbishop's knowledge of the past was both wide and minute, but it was that of an antiquary rather than of a historian . " I think," writes his son, " he was more interested in modern movements for their resemblance to ancient than vice versa." His sermons are very noble though written in a style which is over-compressed and often obscure . He wrote some good hymns, including " O Throned, 0 Crowned " and a beautiful version of Urbs Beata . His " grandeur in social function " was unequalled and his interests were very wide . But above all else he was a great ecclesiastic . He paid less attention to secular politics than Archbishop Tait; but if a man is to be judged by the effect of his work, it is Benson and not Tait who should be described as a great statesman . His biography, by his son, reveals him as a man of devout and holy life, impulsive indeed and masterful, but one who learned self-restraint by strenuous endeavour . His eldest son, ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON (b .

1862), was educated at

Eton and King's College, Cambridge . He became fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and was a master at Eton College from 1885 to 1903 . His literary capacity was early shown in the remarkable fiction of his Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton (1886) under the pseudonym of " Christopher Carr," and his Poems (1893) and Lyrics (1895) established his reputation as a writer of verse . Among his works are Fasti Etonenses (1899) ; his father's Life (1899); The Schoolmaster (1902), a commentary on the aims and methods of an assistant schoolmaster in a public school; a study of Archbishop Laud (1887); mono-graphs on D . G . Rossetti (1904), Edward FitzGerald (1905) and Walter Pater (1906), in the " English Men of Letters " series; Lord Vyet and other Poems (1897), Peace and other Poems (1905); The Upton Letters (1905), From a . College Window the " Ten Americans," and of the National Academy of Design, New York . Besides portraits, he painted landscape and still life; and he was one of the decorators of the Congressional library, Washington, D.C .