favourite poets. His " Lochleven " and " Elegy written in Spring " are alone worthy of preservation, and both were composed in his last year. The former abounds in happy word-painting and moral reflections. The tale of Levina, which forms about the half of the poem, and is by far the prettiest flower in the bouquet, bears distinct marks of the same hand that wrote " Runnimede." The "Elegy "is most affecting, when read in the knowledge of the circumstance of its having been written by a dying youth of twenty-one:—
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Led by pale ghosts I enter death s dark gate, And bid the realms of light and life adieu. " It is a death song, remarkable for exquisite beauty and chaste simplicity. Bruce is not to be compared with another young Scottish poet, Robert Nicoll. His life wanted the fulness and strength, his poems the wide and vivid sympathies of his later compeer.
BRUCE, Robert, king of Scotland. See Scotland.
BRUCHSAL, a town of the Grand Duchy of Baden, in the circle of Carlsruhe, 14 miles from the city of that name, on the Salzbach. From 1056 to 1801 it was the seat of the bishop of Spires, whose magnificent palace is still extant; and it has an old castle of the 12th century (now used as a prison), a town-house, a gymnasium, a hospital, barracks, and a considerable trade in wine. Pop ulation in 1872, 9762. The town was originally the seat of an imperial palace, and its name is said to be derived from bruch a marsh, and sala, royal possession. The Peasants War first broke out at Bruchsal, which has been several times reduced to ashes in subsequent conflicts. In 1849 it was the scene of an engagement between the Prussian troops and Baden insurgents.
BRUCK, the name of two towns of Austria—
(1.) Bruck on the Mur, the chief town of a circle in the province of Steyermark, situated at the junction of the rivers Mur and Miirz, with a station on the railway from Vienna to Trieste, 25 miles N.W. of Gratz. It contains about 2900 inhabitants, and has a considerable transit trade. The principal building is the palace of the ancient princes of Brack, which dates from the 14th century.}} {{ti|1em|2. Bruck on the Leytha, the chief town of a circle in Lower Austria, with the castle of the counts of Harrach. It lies on the Vienna and Buda railway, 20 miles S.E. of Vienna. Population, 4203.
BRÜCKENAU, a town and fashionable watering-place of Bavaria, in the circle of Lower Franconia, on the Sinn, 16 miles N.W. of Kissingen. The mineral springs, which are five in number, situated in the pleasant valley of the Sinn, 2 miles from the town, were a favourite resort of Louis I. of Bavaria. Population in 1871, 2825.
BRUCKER, James, theologian, historian, philologer, and biographer, was born at Augsburg on the 22d of January 1696. His father, who was a respectable burgher, destined him for the church; and his own inclinations according with his father's wishes, he was sent at the usual age to pursue his studies in the university of Jena. Here he took the degree of master of arts in 1718; and in the following year he published his Tentamen Introductionis in Historiam Doctrinæ de Ideis, in 4to,—a work which he afterwards amplified and completed, and republished under the title of Historia Philosophica Doctrinæ de Ideis, at Augsburg in 1723. He returned to his native city in 1720; but here his merit having attracted envy rather than recompense, he was induced to accept of the office of parish minister of Kaufbevern in 1723. In the same year he published a memoir De Vita et Scriptis Cl. Etringeri, Augs. 8vo. His reputation having been at length established by these learned works, in 1731 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin; and soon afterwards he was invited to Augsburg to fill the honourable situation of pastor and senior minister of the church of St Ulric. He published in the same year three dissertations relating to the history of philosophy, under the title of Otium Vindelicum sive Meletematum Historico-philosophicorum Triga, Augsburg, 1731, 8vo. Besides several smaller dissertations on biography and literary history, printed at different times, and which he afterwards collected in his Miscellanea, he published at Ulm, in 1737, Neue Zusätze verschiedener Vermehrungen, &c., zu den kurtzen Fragen aus der philosophischen Historie, 7 vols. 12mo. This work being a history of philosophy in question and answer, contains many details, especially in the department of literary history, which he has chosen to omit in his greater work on the same subject. He was forced by the booksellers, in opposition to his own opinion, to adopt the erotematic method, which at that time had been rendered popular by the writings of Hubner and Rambach.
In 1741, at Leipsic, appeared the first volume of his great work, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, a mundi incunabulis ad nostram usque ætatem deducta. Four other ponderous quartos, completing the first edition of this elaborate history, followed in 1744. Such was the success of this publication, that the first impression, consisting of four thousand copies, was exhausted in twenty-three years, when a new and more perfect edition, the consummation of the labours of half a century devoted to the history of philosophy, was in 1767 given to the world in six volumes quarto. The sixth volume, consisting entirely of supplement and corrections, is applicable to the first as well as to the second edition. Of the merits of this work we shall speak in the sequel.
His attention, however, was not wholly occupied by this stupendous undertaking. The following books would of themselves have been sufficient to exhaust the industry of any ordinary author: Pinacotheca Scriptorum nostra ætate literis illustrium, &c., Ausgsburg, 1741–55, folio, in five decades. Ehrentempel der Deutschen Gelehrsamkeit in welchem die Bildnisse gelehrter Männer unter den Deutschen aus dem XV., XVI., und XVII. Jahrhundert aufgestellet, und ihre Geschichte, &c., entworfen sind, Augsburg, 1747–49, 4to, five decads. Institutiones Historiæ Philosophicæ, Leipsic, 1747, 8vo, second edition, ibid, 1756; a third has been published since Brucker's death, with a continuation by Professor Born of Leipsic, in 1790. Miscellanea Historiæ Philosophicæ Literariæ Criticæ olim sparsim edita, nunc uno fasce collecta, Augsburg, 1748, 8vo. Erste Anfangsgrunde der philosophischen Geschichte, als ein Auszug seiner grossern Werke, zweyte Ausgabe, Ulm, 1751, 8vo. He likewise superintended and corrected an edition of Luther's translation of the Old and New Testment, with a Commentary extracted from the writings of the English theologians, Leipsic, 1758–70, folio, six parts. His death ensued before the completion of this work, which has since been accomplished by Teller. He died at Augsburg in 1770; and he may be added to the catalogue of Huetius, to prove that literary labour is not incompatible with sound health and longevity. (See Saxii Onomasticon; Biographie Universelle; Gesner's Isagoge.)
It is only by his writings on the history of philosophy that Brucker is now known in the literature of Europe. In this study his great work forms an important era, and even at the present day it is the most extensive and elaborate upon the subject. It is, however, a work of which the defects are great, and its errors have been important in their consequences, in proportion to the authority it has acquired. We shall, therefore, hazard a few general observations on the defects which chiefly detract from the perfection and utility of the Critical History of Philosophy.
