Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/226

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Brand
214
Brand

early friend and patron, the Duke of Northumberland, to the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Mary Hubbard, in the city of London; and two years later he was appointed one of the duke's domestic chaplains.

In 1784 he was elected resident secretary to the Society of Antiquaries, and was annually re-elected to that office until his death, which took place very suddenly in his rectory house on 11 Sept. 1806. He was buried in the chancel of his church.

We are told that 'his manners, somewhat repulsive to a stranger, became easy on closer acquaintance; and he loved to communicate to men of literary and antiquarian taste the result of his researches on any subject in which they might require information. Many of his books were supplied with portraits drawn by himself in a style not inferior to the originals, of which they were at the same time perfect imitations' (Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, ix. 653). Brand, it may be added, was never married. There is a small silhouette likeness of him in the frontispiece to his 'History of Newcastle.' An account of some of the rarer tracts in his library, which was sold by auction in 1807-8, is given in Dibdin's 'Bibliomania,' 605-611.

His works are:

  1. A poem 'On Illicit Love. Written among the ruins of Godstow Nunnery, near Oxford,' Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1775, 4to, pp. 20. Godstow was the burial-place of Fair Rosamond, the paramour of Henry II.
  2. 'Observations on Popular Antiquities: including the whole of Mr. Bourne's "Antiquitates Vulgares," with Addenda to every chapter of that work; as also an Appendix, containing such articles on the subject as have been omitted by that author,' London, 1777, 8vo. Brand left an immense mass of manuscript collections for the augmentation of this work. These were purchased by some booksellers and placed in the hands of Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Ellis, who incorporated them in a new edition published at London in 2 vols. 1813, 4to, under the title of 'Observations on Popular Antiquities: chiefly illustrating the origin of our Vulgar Customs, Ceremonies, and Superstitions.' Among the printed books in the British Museum is a copy of this edition with numerous interleaved additions; and in the manuscript department there is another copy annotated by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. (Addit. MSS. 24544, 24545). Other editions appeared in Knight's 'Miscellanies,' 3 vols. London, 1841-2, 4to, and in Bohn's 'Antiquarian Library,' 3 vols. London, 1849. This work contains much interesting information, but the author takes no general view of his subject; his desultory collections are made with little care, and the notes and text are frequently at variance with each other. Mr. William Carew Hazlitt made an attempt to remedy some of these defects in his new edition, entitled 'Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, comprising notices of the movable and immovable feasts, customs, superstitions, and amusements, past and present,' 3 vols. London, 1870, 8vo.
  3. 'The History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,' 2 vols. London, 1789, 4to; a very elaborate work, embellished with views of the public buildings, engraved by Fittler at a cost of 500l. An index, compiled by William Dodd, treasurer to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, was printed by that society in 1881.
  4. Papers in the 'Archæologia,' vols. viii. x. xiii. xiv. xv. 5. 'Letters to Mr. Ralph Beilby of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,' Newcastle, 1825, 8vo.

[MSS. Addit. 6391, ff. 36, 45, 99, 144, 146, 182, 237; 22838, ff. 61, 77, 82, 86; 22901, ff. 51, 135; 26776, ff. 103, 105; Brand's Newcastle, i. 99, 196, 323; Cat. of Oxford Graduates (1851), 80; MS. Egerton, 2372 f. 180, 2374 ff. 283, 285, 2425; European Mag. 1. 247; Gent. Mag. lxxvi. (ii.) 881, lxxxii. (i.) 239; Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798) i. 67; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn, i. 254; Malcolm's Lives of Topographers and Antiquaries; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. ii. 435, 660, iii. 648, vi. 300; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. viii. 695, 696, 739, ix. 651-653; Quarterly Review, xi. 259; Reuss's Register of Authors, i. 131, Supp. 46; Richardson's Local Historian's Table-Book (Historical division), i. 156, iii. 59; Sykes's Local Records, (1824) 227.]

T. C.

BRAND, JOHN (d. 1808), clergyman and writer on politics and political economy, was a native of Norwich, where his father was a tanner. Entering at Caius College, Oxford, he distinguished himself in mathematics, taking his B. A. degree in 1766, and proceeding M.A. in 1772. In 1772 he published 'Conscience, an ethical essay,' a poem which he had written in a competition for the Seatonian prize. Having taken orders and held a curacy he was appointed reader at St. Peter's Mancroft, Norwich, and was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Wickham Skeith in Suffolk. To eke out his scanty income he contributed to the periodical press, particularly to the 'British Critic,' papers on 'Political Arithmetic.' Some of these attracted the notice of Lord-chancellor Loughborough, and he presented Brand in 1797 to the rectory of St. George's, Southwark, which he held until his death on 23 Dec. 1808.

Brand was a staunch tory, and his toryism coloured all his disquisitions. In his first