man, he executed small pictures for the cabinetmakers; but finding little business in his own country, he tried his fortunes in France, especially at Lyons. From Lyons he went to Italy, and joined his elder brother Matthew at Rome, who was then much employed in decorating the walls of the Vatican with processions and landscapes in fresco for Pope Gregory XIII. After the death of Matthew (in his thirty-fifth year) in 1584, Paul completed his brother's works, and continued the same class of decorations in various churches and palaces for Sixtus V., Clement VIII., and Paul V., turning his attention more especially to landscape painting; representing scenes from the lives of the martyrs, and views of the grand monastic institutions of the Roman states. These large wall paintings were executed in fresco; but Paul Brill also became distinguished for his small easel pictures in oil, which, though essentially landscapes, are generally enlivened by some figure subject. He imitated the style of Titian in his backgrounds, and also the landscapes of Annibale Caracci, but his colouring is generally considered too green. His success was great, his lowest price for a landscape being one hundred scudi, about twenty guineas; many of these being purchased by Flemish merchants and sold in the Low Countries. Several good examples are now in the Louvre. He occasionally had recourse to the assistance of other painters for the figures in his landscapes. Engravings after his works are numerous, and he etched a few plates himself. He died at Rome, October 7th, 1626, and was buried in the church of the Madonna dell' Anima. There is a portrait of him by Vandyck.—(Baglione; Le Vite del Pittori, &c.)—R. N. W.
BRILLON, Pierre Jacques, born at Paris in 1671, and died at Paris in 1736. His father was a wealthy silk merchant, and hoped to see his son a prosperous avocat; but the demon of rhyme seized him early, and Peter James gave himself to what is called literature. He wrote imitations of La Bruyere, who felt flattered, and said they were not bad—no one said that they were good—and our poet and moralist, after some interlunary periods of verse-writing, reappeared as jurist and jurisconsult.
BRINDLEY, James, a celebrated engineer, who shares with Francis Egerton, duke of Bridgewater, the honour of having founded the system of canals in England, was born at Tunstead in Derbyshire in 1716, of poor parents, by whom his education was so neglected as to give rise to the allegation, that he continued all his life without the knowledge of reading, or of writing beyond the signing of his name; but there is reason to believe that this statement is exaggerated. At the age of seventeen he was bound apprentice to a millwright of Macclesfield, of the name of Bennet, and in due time began to practise that business on his own account. His ingenuity and skill in practical mechanics were so great that he soon acquired a high reputation throughout the kingdom, and was employed to make some of the most important pieces of machinery which were executed at that period in England. It was about 1754 that he first became connected with those works of inland navigation which have made his name famous. At that time the duke of Bridgewater, possessing at Worsley, seven miles from Manchester, a rich and extensive coal-field, the advantages of which were withheld from him by the want of means of conveyance to a suitable market, formed the project of connecting it with Manchester by means of a canal—a kind of conveyance which, although it had existed in France for upwards of a century, in Italy and Holland for five centuries, and in China from time immemorial, was at that time new to England. On this project the duke of Bridgewater consulted Brindley, who approved of it, and planned the works by which it was to be carried into effect. An act of parliament authorizing the execution of this project was obtained, but not without much difficulty; for, like most new enterprises, it had to encounter a storm of opposition and ridicule from those who considered its novelty as implying impracticability, and who regarded as non-existent all previous works of the same kind out of England. In overcoming obstacles of this kind, Brindley laboured under peculiar disadvantages from his want of education, which disabled him from clearly explaining to others, and especially to the ignorant and prejudiced, his ideas, however sound; and it is much to the honour of the projector of the canal that he possessed a mind capable of discerning the genius of the engineer through his rough exterior, and of placing implicit confidence in the genius so discerned. The duke of Bridgewater, limiting his personal expenses to £400 a year, placed the rest of his income at the disposal of Brindley for the execution of his canal, which was successfully carried forward, and completed in 1761. Great additional expense in earthwork and masonry was incurred by the determination to make this canal without locks, which are always a serious impediment to navigation; and amongst other works so rendered necessary, was an aqueduct over the river Irwell, thirty-nine feet high above the level of the stream, which was then considered a gigantic undertaking, and, until its completion, denounced as the most visionary part of the scheme. Between 1761 and 1766, Brindley planned and executed, for the duke of Bridgewater, a branch or extension of his canal twenty-nine miles in length, terminating by a junction with the estuary of the Mersey. The whole undertaking soon became profitable, and continues to the present time to be one of the most useful and successful of the British canals, of which it was the first. The success of the duke of Bridgewater's canal induced various other capitalists to project works of the same class, most of which were intrusted to Brindley while he lived; one of the most important being the Trent and Mersey or Grand Trunk canal, which effects a connection between the Irish sea and the German ocean, and comprises a formidable work, the Harecastle-hill tunnel. Exhausted by excessive labour, Brindley died on the 27th of September, 1772, at the early age of fifty-six; but he had already lived to see the commencement of that British system of inland navigation which, commencing with the canal that he planned and made, has since extended itself in one connected network over England from Kendal to Portsmouth, with the addition of detached works, some of which, like the Forth and Clyde and Caledonian canals, exceed the rest in magnitude. Amongst the anecdotes which are related of Brindley, it is said, that being obliged to supply the want of education by intense thought, he was in the habit, when he had any important work to design, of going to bed, where he would remain for days together until his plans were matured in his mind; and that his zeal for his favourite mode of conveyance was such, that having been asked before a parliamentary committee, for what purpose he thought rivers were created, he answered, "to feed canals."—W. J. M. R.
BRINK, Hans Jen, born at Amsterdam; and educated by Richée van Ommeren, he acquired a taste for classical literature. He passed from van Ommeren's care to the university of Leyden, and devoted part of his time to the study of theology, a condition enforced upon him to enable him to hold an exhibition or "bourse," as it is there called, which nearly defrayed the expenses of his education. He was for a while a patriot, and made political speeches which it is easier to praise than to read. He grew older, sadder, and wiser, and began to teach Greek and Latin at the academy of Harderwyk; afterwards set up a school of his own, and in 1814, or soon after, was appointed professor of ancient literature at the academy of Groningen. He published Dutch translations of Sallust and parts of Cicero, also of Xenophon's Cyropædia, and of the Medea of Euripides. In 1815 he printed a political pamphlet, ridiculing the allies for refusing to treat with Bonaparte.—J. A. D.
BRINKLEY, John, LL.D., bishop of Cloyne, professor of astronomy in Trinity college, Dublin; born in 1763, died in 1835; an eminent mathematician and observer. Brinkley's career at Trinity college was so remarkable, that the chair of astronomy was easily secured for him in 1792; and this involved his being in charge of the observatory at Dunsink. He had the good fortune to obtain possession of one of Ramsden's great circles, similar to the instrument made by the same mechanician for Piazzi at Palermo. This circle is not of the construction now usually employed; it resembles rather the great circle of Ertel of Munich. It has a motion in azimuth, and may be reversed by that motion; while, at present, the favourite construction rests on the opinion that all such circles ought to be fixed in the meridian. Brinkley's instrument, however, was perhaps the best existing in his time, and he employed it well. Many excellent results were obtained by him, and he had a strong impression that he had obtained the parallax of α Lyræ. This was vigorously contested by Pond; and a debate on the delicate point was kept up by the two observers for several years. In the end it became rather hot; so that no one regretted its termination. The decision has gone against Brinkley; professor Airy being judge. It is quite certain that he was not in a position to determine so small a quantity; and more recent investigations, conducted chiefly by Struvé, show that the parallax of that star (should any parallax be sensible) is much smaller than the Irish
