The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 93

BRUCKER, historian of philosophy, born at Augsburg, and a pastor there; author of "Historia Critica Philosophiae" (1696-1770).

BRUEYS, DAVID AUGUSTIN DE, French dramatist, born at Aix, an abbe converted by Bossuet, and actively engaged in propagating the faith; managed to be joint editor with Palaprat in the production of plays (1650-1725).

BRUGES (49), cap. of W. Flanders, in Belgium, intersected by ca.n.a.ls crossed by some 50 bridges, whence its name "Bridges"; one of these ca.n.a.ls, of considerable depth, connecting it with Ostend; though many of them are now, as well as some of the streets, little disturbed by traffic, in a decayed and a decaying place, having once had a population of 200,000; has a number of fine churches, one specially noteworthy, the church of Notre Dame; it has several manufactures, textile and chemical, as well as distilleries, sugar-refineries, and s.h.i.+pbuilding yards.

BRUGSCH, HEINRICH KARL, a German Egyptologist, born at Berlin; was a.s.sociated with Mariette in his excavations at Memphis; became director of the School of Egyptology at Cairo; his works on the subject are numerous, and of great value; _b_. 1827.

BRuHL, HEINRICH, COUNT VON, minister of Augustus III., king of Poland, an unprincipled man, who encouraged his master, and indulged himself, in silly foppery and wasteful extravagance, so that when the Seven Years' War broke out he and his master had to flee from Dresden and seek refuge in Warsaw (1700-1763).

BRUIN, the bear personified in the German epic of "Reynard the Fox."

BRUMAIRE, the 18th (i. e. the 9th November 1799, the foggy month), the day when Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, overthrew the Directory and established himself in power.

BRUMMELL, BEAU, born in London, in his day the prince of dandies; patronised by the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.; quarrelled with the prince; fled from his creditors to Calais, where, reduced to dest.i.tution, he lived some years in the same reckless fas.h.i.+on; settled at length in Caen, where he died insane (1778-1805).

BRUNCK, an able French h.e.l.lenist, cla.s.sical scholar, and critic, born at Stra.s.sburg; edited several cla.s.sical works, played a perilous part in the French Revolution; was imprisoned, and, on his release, had to sell his library in order to live (1729-1803).

BRUNE, G. MARIE, French marshal, saw service in the Vendean war and in Italy, distinguished himself under Napoleon in Italy and Holland; submitted to Bourbons in 1814; joined Napoleon on his return from Elba; was appointed to a post of command in the S. of France, but had to surrender after Waterloo, and was attacked by a mob of Royalists at Avignon as he was setting out for Paris, and brutally murdered and his body thrown into the Rhone (1763-1815).

BRUNEL, SIR ISAMBARD, engineer, born in Rouen, entered the French navy, emigrated to the United States; was chief engineer of New York; settled in England, became block-maker to the Royal Navy; constructed the Thames tunnel, begun in 1825 and finished in 1843 (1759-1849).

BRUNEL, ISAMBARD KINGDOM, son of the preceding, a.s.sisted his father in his engineering operations, in particular the Thames tunnel; was engineer of the Great Western Railway; designed the _Great Western_ steams.h.i.+p, the first to cross the Atlantic; was the first to apply the screw propeller to steam navigation; designed and constructed the _Great Eastern_; constructed bridges and naval docks (1806-1859).

BRUNELLESCHI, Italian architect, born in Florence, bred a goldsmith, studied at Rome; returned to his native city, built the Duomo of the Cathedral, the Pitti Palace, and the churches of San Lorenzo and Spirito Santo (1377-1444).

BRUNETIeRE, French critic, connected with the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ and now editor; a very sound and sensible critic; his chief work, begun in the form of lectures in 1890, ent.i.tled "L'evolution des Genres de l'Histoire de la Litterature Francaise"; according to Prof.

Saintsbury, promises to be one of the chief monuments that the really "higher" criticism has yet furnished; _b_. 1849.

BRUNETTO-LATINI, an Italian writer, who played an important part among the Guelfs, and was obliged to flee to Paris, where he had Dante for a pupil (1220-1294).

BRUNHILDA, a masculine queen in the "Nibelungen Lied" who offered to marry the man that could beat her in feats of strength, was deceived by Siegfried into marrying Gunther, and meditated the death of Siegfried, who had married her rival Chriemhilda, which she accomplished by the hand of Hagen. Also a queen of Austrasia, who, about the 7th century, had a lifelong quarrel with Fredegunde, queen of Neustria, the other division of the Frankish world, which at her death she seized possession of for a time, but was overthrown by Clothaire II., Fredegunde's son, and dragged to death at the heels of an infuriated wild horse.

BRUNI, LEONARDO, Italian humanist, born at Arezzo, hence called Aretino; was papal secretary; settled in Florence, and wrote a history of it; did much by his translations of Greek authors to promote the study of Greek (1369-1444).

BRuNN (95), Austrian city, capital of Moravia, beautifully situated, 93 m. N. of Vienna, with large manufactures; woollens the staple of the country; about one-half of the population Czechs.

BRUNNOW, COUNT VON, a Russian diplomatist, born at Dresden; represented Russia in several conferences, and was twice amba.s.sador at the English Court (1797-1875).

BRUNO, GIORDANO, a bold and fervid original thinker, born at Nola, in Italy; a Dominican monk, quitted his monastery, in fact, was for heterodoxy obliged to flee from it; attached himself to Calvin for a time, went for more freedom to Paris, attacked the scholastic philosophy, had to leave France as well; spent two years in England in friends.h.i.+p with Sir Philip Sidney, propagated his views in Germany and Italy, was arrested by the Inquisition, and after seven years spent in prison was burned as a heretic; he was a pantheist, and regarded G.o.d as the living omnipresent soul of the universe, and Nature as the living garment of G.o.d, as the Earth-Spirit does in Goethe's "Faust"--a definition of Nature in relation to G.o.d which finds favour in the pages of "Sartor Resartus"; _d_. 1600.

BRUNO, ST., born at Cologne, retired to a lonely spot near Gren.o.ble with six others, where each lived in cells apart, and they met only on Sundays; founder of the Carthusian Order of Monks, the first house of which was established in the desert of Chartreuse (1030-1101). Festival, Oct. 6.

BRUNO THE GREAT, third son of Henry the Fowler; archbishop of Cologne, chancellor of the Empire, a great lover of learning, and promoter of it among the clergy, who he thought should, before all, represent and encourage it (928-965).

BRUNONIAN SYSTEM, a system which regards and treats diseases as due to defective or excessive excitation, as sthenic or asthenic. See BROWN, JOHN.

BRUNSWICK (404), a N. German duchy, made up of eight detached parts, mostly in the upper basin of the Weser; is mountainous, and contains part of the Harz Mts.; climate and crops are those of N. Germany generally.

BRUNSWICK (101), the capital, a busy commercial town, once a member of the Hanseatic League, and fell into comparative decay after the decay of the League, on the Oker, 140 m. SW. of Berlin; an irregularly built city, it has a cathedral, and manufactures textiles, leather, and sewing-machines.

BRUNSWICK, CHARLES WILLIAM, DUKE OF, Prussian general, commanded the Prussian and Austrian forces levied to put down the French Revolution; emitted a violent, bl.u.s.tering manifesto, but a Revolutionary army under Dumouriez and Kellermann met him at Valmy, and compelled him to retreat in 1792; was beaten by Davout at Auerstadt, and mortally wounded (1735-1806).

BRUNSWICK, FREDERICK WILLIAM, DUKE OF, brother of Queen Caroline; raised troops against France, which, being embarked for England, took part in the Peninsular war; fell fighting at Ligny, two days before the battle of Waterloo (1771-1815).

BRUSSELS (477), on the Senne, 27 m. S. of Antwerp, is the capital of Belgium, in the heart of the country. The old town is narrow and crooked, but picturesque; the town-hall a magnificent building. The new town is well built, and one of the finest in Europe. There are many parks, boulevards, and squares; a cathedral, art-gallery, museum and library, university and art schools. It is Paris in miniature. The manufactures include linen, ribbons, and paper; a s.h.i.+p-ca.n.a.l and numerous railways foster commerce.

BRUTUS, LUCIUS JUNIUS, the founder of Republican Rome, in the 6th century B.C.; affected idiocy (whence his name, meaning stupid); it saved his life when Tarquin the Proud put his brother to death; but when Tarquin's son committed an outrage on Lucretia, he threw off his disguise, headed a revolt, and expelled the tyrant; was elected one of the two first Consuls of Rome; sentenced his two sons to death for conspiring to restore the monarchy; fell repelling an attempt to restore the Tarquins in a hand-to-hand combat with Aruns, one of the sons of the banished king.

BRUTUS, MARCUS JUNIUS, a descendant of the preceding, and son of Cato Uticensis's sister; much beloved by Caesar and Caesar's friend, but persuaded by Ca.s.sius and others to believe that Caesar aimed at the overthrow of the republic; joined the conspirators, and was recognised by Caesar among the conspirators as party to his death; forced to flee from Rome after the event, was defeated at Philippi by Antony and Augustus, but escaped capture by falling on a sword held out to him by one of his friends, exclaiming as he did so, "O Virtue, thou art but a name!" (85-42 B.C.).

BRUYeRE, a French writer, author of "Characteres de Theophraste," a satire on various characters and manners of his time (1644-1696).

BRYAN, WILLIAM JENNINGS, American statesman, born in Salem, Illinois; bred to the bar and practised at it; entered Congress in 1890 as an extreme Free Silver man; lost his seat from his uncompromising views on that question; was twice nominated for the Presidency in opposition to Mr McKinley, but defeated; _b_. 1860.

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, American poet; his poems were popular in America, the chief, "The Age," published in 1821; was 50 years editor of the _New York Evening Post_; wrote short poems all through his life, some of the later his best (1794-1878).

BRYCE, JAMES, historian and politician, born at Belfast; Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford; bred to the bar; for a time professor of Civil Law at Oxford; entered Parliament in 1880; was member of Mr. Gladstone's last cabinet; his chief literary work, "The Holy Roman Empire," a work of high literary merit; _b_. 1838.