His merits were recognised by ecclesiastical promotion. In 1608 he was collated to the prebend of Kilgoghlin and to the rectory of Derrybrusk; in 1808 he became archdeacon of Clogher, and on 28 Sept. 1826 bishop of Cloyne. The satisfaction of George IV with his reception at Trinity College, Dublin, is said to have been not unconnected with his final elevation. Thenceforth his episcopal duties engrossed all his attention, and the scientific activity, by which he had raised the little observatory at Dunsink to a position of first-rate importance, was brought to a close. After some years of failing health he died at his brother's house in Leeson Street, Dublin, on 14 Sept 1835, aged 72, and was buried in the chapel of Trinity College. A marble tablet erected to his memory in the cathedral of his diocese understates his age by three years. In character he was benevolent and disinterested.
He wrote (besides thirty-five contributions to learned collections, many of them separately reprinted) 'Elements of Astronomy,' Still used as a text-book in Dublin University, The work originated in his lectures to undergraduates, 1799-1808, which, at the request of the board, were published in the latter year, and again, with three additional chapters and an appendix, in 1813. Since then it has run through numerous editions, and obtained in 1671 renewed vitality in a careful recast by Drs. Stubbs and Brünnow. Brinkley's essay on the 'Mean Motion of the Lunar Perigee,' read before the Royal Irish Academy on 21 April 1817, obtained the Conyngham medal. He was one of the first to encourage the rising genius of Sir William Hamilton, his successor in the Andres chair of astronomy, and several of his letters are printed in the 'Life of Hamilton' by Graves (1882), i. 239-40, 297, 324. He was a botanist as well as an astronomer.
[Mem. R. A. Soc. ii. 291; Gent. Mag. 1836, ii. 547: Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ; Report Brit. Assoc, i. 140; André and Rayet's L'Astronomie Pratique, ii. 29; R. Soc. Cat. of Sc. Papers.]
BRINKNELL or BRYNKNELL, THOMAS (d. 1539?), professor at Oxford, was educated at Lincoln College, and was appointed head-master of the school attached to Magdalen College, where he 'exercised an admirable way of teaching.' He afterwards studied for a time at University College, and became intimate with Wolsey. He proceeded B.D. in 1501, and D.D. on 13 March 1507-8, 'at which time,' says Wood 'the professor of div. or commissary did highly commend him for his learning.' On 7 Jan. 1510-11 he was collated to a prebend in Lincoln Cathedral, and on the same date was made master of the hospital of St. John at Banbury. In 1521 he was nominated professor of divinity on Cardinal Wolsey's new foundation. He apparently died in 1539 (Le Neve, Fasti, ii. 183). He was the author of a treatise against Luther, which does not seem to have been printed. According to Wood it was 'a learned piece,' and 'commended for a good book.' Wolsey recommended Brinknell to Henry VIII as 'one of those most fit persons in the university to encounter Mart. Luther.'
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 29; Fasti (Bliss), i. 6, 22; Oxf. Univ. Reg. (Boase), 55; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 126; Bloxam's Magdalen College, iii. 70.]
BRINSLEY, JOHN (fl. 1663), the elder, puritan divine and educational writer, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1584 and M.A. in 1588. He became a 'minister of the Word,' and had the care of the public school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire. The famous astrologer, William Lilly, was one of his pupils, as he himself informs us in his curious autobiography. 'Upon Trinity Sunday 1613,' he says, 'my father had me to Ashby-de-la-Zouch to be instructed by one Mr. John Brinsley; one in those times of great abilities for instruction of youth in the Latin and Greek tongues; he was very severe in his life and conversation, and did breed up many scholars for the universities. In religion he was a strict puritan, not conformable wholly to the ceremonies of the church of England' (Hist, of his Life and Times (1774), 5). Again he says: 'In the eighteenth year of my age [i.e. in 1619 or 1620] my master Brinsley was enforced from keeping school, being persecuted by the bishop's officers; he came to London, and then lectured in London, where he afterwards died' (ib. 8). He married a sister of Dr. Joseph Hall, bishop of Norwich. His works are:
- 'Ludus Literarius: or, the Grammar Schoole; shewing how to proceede from the first entrance into learning to the highest perfection required in the Grammar Schooles,' London, 1612 and 1627, 4to.
- 'The true Watch and Rule of Life,' 7th ed. 2 parts, London, 1615, 8vo, 8th ed. 1619; third part out of Ezekiel ix., London, 1622, 4to; fourth part, 'to the plain-hearted seduced by popery,' London, 1624, 8vo.
- 'Pueriles Confabulatiunculæ: or Childrens Dialogues, little conferences, or talkings together, or Dialogues fit for children,' London, 1617.
- 'Cato (concerning the precepts of common life) translated gram-
