adorned with, two marble statues presented by the "Gouverne- ment Consulaire, Le XIIII . Germinal, An IX." Brest possesses comparatively few buildings of importance, with the exception of those connected with the great naval estab lishment. The church of the priory of the Seven Saints, the church of St Louis, the old castle with its seven massive towers (dating in part from the 13th century), the exchange, the town-house, the civil hospital, and the theatre are the chief. The great convict establishment, which formerly held some 3000 prisoners, was vacated in 1860, and is now used as a store-house. The Government dockyard is very extensive, and contains a sail-loft, a slop shop, a ropery, a foundry and steam-factory, seamen s barracks (known as La Cayenne), and three dry-docks partly excavated in the hill-side. The Hopital de la Marine, built between 1824 and 1835, contains 26 wards, each with 53 beds, and is under the management of a large band of sisters of mercy. Among the minor establishments are a lyceum, a school of navigation, a medico-chirurgical school, an observatory, a botanical garden, a public library of 25,000 volumes, and two others of 18,000 and 10,000. The manufactures are few, and the trade is of small extent considering the excellence of the ports. The for mer are chiefly leather, wax-cloth, paper, and rope ; and the latter deals mainly in grain, beer, brandy, and fish. Napoleon III. did much for the development of the com merce of Brest, though his extensive plans for a new port, on which 600,000 were expended during his reign, have been only partially carried out. It lies at the foot of the Cours d Ajot, and has thus much greater scope for any necessary development than the old port, which was formed by the mouth of the Penfeld. The roadstead of Brest, which is in some places three miles broad, and has an area of 15 square leagues, is formed by the promontory of Finistere on the N. and that of Ke"lernn on the S. It breaks up into numerous smaller bays or arms, formed by the embouchures of streams, the most important being the Anse de Kelernn, the Anse de Poulmie, and the mouths of the Chateaulin, the Dolas, the Lauberlach, and the Lan- derneau. It is defended on every side by batteries and forts, the first system of which was erected in 1680 under the personal superintendence of Vauban. The only entrance, the Goulet, is about a mile wide; but the Mingant or Mingam rock in the middle compels vessels to pass under the batteries of either the one side or the other. In 1851 the population of the town was 36,500: in 1871 it was
66,272.
Nothing definite is known of Brest till about 1040, when it was ceded by the Count of Leon to the first duke of Brittany. In 1372 duke John IV. gave it up to the English on condition that they should restore it when peace was proclaimed. So important did he consider the place that he declared, " He is not duke of Brittany who is not lord of Brest." On the death of Edward III. the castle was made over to the dukes ; but when war was once more declared between France and England, an English garrison took possession again, and repelled every effort to dislodge it ; nor was the place surrendered till 1397, and then only in consideration of a heavy ransom. In the next century it was again captured by the English, and retaken by the French ; and by the marriage of Louis AIL with Anne of Brittany, it passed to the French crown. The advantages of the situation for a seaport town were first recognized by Kichelieu, who, in 1631, constructed a harbour with wooden wharves, which soon became a station of the French navy. Col bert changed the wooden wharves for masonry, and otherwise im proved the port, and Vauban s fortifications followed in 1680-88 In 1694 an English squadron, under Berkeley, was miserably defeated in attempting a landing; but in 1794, during the revolutionary war, the French fleet, under Villaret de Joyeuse, was as thoroughly beaten in the same place by the English admiral Howe.
BBEST-LITOVSK (in Polish Brzesc, and in the chronicles Berestie and Berestoff). a town of Russia. in the government of Grodno, and 131 miles S. from the city of that name, m 52 5 N. lat. and 23 39 E. long., at the junction of the navigable river MukhoVetz with the Bug. It contains two or three Greek churches, a Roman Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue which was regarded in the 16th century as the first in Europe, a monastery, a public hospital, a Jewish almshouse, an important provision storehouse, a custom-house, and a wharf. Brest is the seat of an Armenian bishop, who has authority over the Armenians throughout the whole country; and since 1841 the " Alex ander" cadette-corps has been stationed in the town. The industries of the place are comparatively unimportant, but it carries on a very extensive and varied trade by means of its rivers and the Royal Canal. The principal articles of the traffic are grain, i!ax, hemp, wood, birch-tar, and leather. The population numbered 19,343 in 1860, 3394 being Catholics, and 10,320 Jews. In 18G7 the total had risen to 22,493.
First mentioned in the beginning of the llth century, Brest continued to pass from one principality to another till 131*2, when it was incorporated with Poland. In 1241 it had been laid waste by Tatars, and was not restored till 1275 ; its suburbs were burned by the Teutonic knights in 1379, and in the end of the 15th century the whole town met a similar fate at the hands of Mengly-Gherai of the Crimea. In the reign of Sigismund diets were held in Brest ; and in 1594 and 1596, it was the meeting-place of two remarkable councils of the bishops of Western Russia. In 1706 the town was captured by the Swedes ; in 1793 it was added to the Russian empire ; and in 1794 was the scene of Suwaroifs victory over the Polish general Sierakofsky.
BRETAGNE. See Brittany.
BRETSCHNEIDER, Karl Gottlieb, an eminent scholar and theologian, of the more moderate school of German rationalism, was born on the llth February 1776, at Gersdorf in Saxony. From his autobiography, which was found amongst his papers after his death, and was published by his son in 1851, we obtain a very complete ! picture, not only of the man himself, but of the times in which he lived, and of the influences by which he was surrounded. His father was pastor of the village of Gersdorf, but was translated to Liehtenstein when Bretschneider was only four years of age. He gives an interesting account of his early childhood and school training, of the impression produced upon him by his father s dignifieel bearing, and of the agricultural pursuits and piscatorial amusements by which the clerical and prcdeutic labours of the latter were diversified. On the death of his father, in 1789, he was sent to Hohenstein to reside with his uncle Tag. It is in keeping with the mental characteristics of the man who afterwards became famous for that cool and deliberate exercise of the reason on theological subjects, which has led many to place him among the extreme school of rationalist divines, to find him at the early rge of fourteen, when he was confirmed by the pastor of Hohenstein, criticizing the religious teaching of his instructor, and pointing out that the order in hiehthe various doctrines were taught from the Dresden catechism was not such as could commend itself to his own experience, or the course of moral education which he had undergone. He remarks that he deems the circumstance worthy of mention, "because it was the first time that, having turned his thoughts to the subject of religion, he could not persuade himself of the truth of what he was taught, and that a similar process may be going on in the minds of many a youth in similar circumstances, without the instructor being at all aware of it."
Chemnitz, where the celebrated Heyne had received his classical education. Here he remained four years. The account which he gives of the state of education in this school (which had greatly fallen away from its former reputation), and of the capacity of his instructors, is interesting, and is strikingly illustrative of the growth of
that critical faculty which became so prominent a feature