observer imagined. Brinkley wrote a text-book, entitled "Elements of Astronomy." This work is still extensively used, although it cannot be doubted that better ones exist. His chief writings, however, and those that show his powers, appeared as memoirs in the Transactions of our learned societies. The subject of parallax seems to have engaged him much. He wrote frequently also on refraction, and we owe him improvements in our tables. He published an interesting and instructive essay on the solutions of Kepler's problem; and he sent to the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Ireland, a curious memoir on the shape of the orbits that would be assumed by bodies revolving around a centre, in obedience to an. attractive energy decreasing according, not to the square, but to any power whatsoever of the distance. This last essay has not had, and probably never will have, any practical relations; but its execution is very creditable to Brinkley. The life of this inquirer seems to have been an undisturbed one, and marked by no accident apart fom his scientific labours. It has been said that he wrought with Paley while the latter was producing his interesting treatise on Natural Theology. His episcopal duties were, no doubt, fairly performed; and as a man, he bore himself with honour, and was thereupon held by those who knew him, in corresponding esteem. His successor in the chair of astronomy, is a well-known geometer, of whom we shall speak again—Sir William Hamilton.—J. P. N.
BRINKMAN, Karl Gustavus, Baron von, a Swedish statesman and poet, born 24th February, 1764, at his paternal estate in the parish of Brannkyrka and district of Stockholm. He studied at Upsala, and afterwards at the universities of Halle, Leipzig, and Jena, at the first of which he formed a strong friendship with Schleiermacher. In 1792 he was appointed secretary to the Swedish legation in Dresden, and six years afterwards consul at Paris. In 1801 he was sent to Berlin in the same capacity, where, with a slight interruption in his office, he remained till 1806, when he fled from the capital with the Prussian court. In 1807 he came as ambassador to London, whence he was recalled in 1810, and afterwards remained at home for many years, an active member of the administrative government. In 1829 he was nominated a member of the Swedish Academy, and in 1835 made over to, the university of Upsala his large library of 10,000 volumes. Four years afterwards he was elevated by the king to the rank of the nobility. Brinkman was remarkable for his great learning and knowledge of languages; he was also a poet of some reputation. He published two volumes of poems while at Leipzig in 1789, which appeared under the name of Selmar; also a small volume for private circulation at Paris; and his "Philosophical Views and Poems," at Berlin in 1801, which also was published anonymously. His poem, "The World of Genius," received the first prize at the Royal Academy of Sweden in 1821. He published in 1828 his "Tankbilder" (Thought-Pictures), in the fourteenth volume of Svea, a Swedish periodical. He kept up for many years a lively correspondence with madame de Stael.—M. H.
BRINSLEY, John, M.A , of Emanuel college, Cambridge, was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire in 1600. By his father, who was master of the grammar school at Ashby, and a man of considerable learning, he was carefully trained in letters and religion, and so profited by his opportunities that, while only in his seventeenth year, he accompanied his maternal uncle. Dr. Hall, afterwards the famous Bishop Hall, as his amanuensis to the synod of Dort. After finishing his studies at Cambridge, he officiated for some time as a preacher at Preston, near Chelmsford, and subsequently sustained the ministerial office successively at Somerleyton and Yarmouth. At the latter town he spent the greater part of his life, first as minister of the parish, and subsequently as a private inhabitant, after his ejection on "the fatal Bartholomew," when so many pious and useful pastors were cast out of their places for conscience' sake. During his later years he occupied himself chiefly in study, and in preparing for the press occasional sermons and treatises of a practical and, in one or two instances, of a controversial character. He was a steadfast presbyterian, but not so wedded to his peculiar views that he could not hold fellowship with christians of other opinions on such points. He died on the 22nd January, 1665. "He was a man," says Calamy, "of even temper, rarely ruffled with passion, and seldom warm, unless the cause of God and goodness required it." His writings show him to have been a sound scholar, a vigorous reasoner, and an earnest preacher.—W. L. A.
BRINVILLIERS, Marie-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de, the notorious poisoner, daughter of Dreux d'Aubray, a municipal lieutenant of Paris. She married the marquis de Brinvilliers in 1651; separated from him to live with her paramour Sainte Croix; and learning from that accomplished villain the use of a poison, which is now supposed to have been common arsenic, began a career of crime which is almost without parallel. To secure for herself and her lover the property of her family, she poisoned her father and her two brothers, having previously proved the efficacy of the drug with which she accomplished these atrocities, by destroying a number of poor people in the public hospitals. These crimes and others of the heartless pair were brought to light at the death of Sainte Croix, who fell a victim to his abominable trade, having let fall, while preparing a deadly volatile poison, the mask which protected his face. She fled to a convent of Liege, but by the arts of an officer of police, who made her acquaintance in the guise of an abbé, was brought back to Paris, and after being subjected to various tortures, executed with all possible indignities in 1676.—J. S., G.
BRIQUANT, Jacques le, born at Pontrieux in 1720, and died at Tréquier in 1804. He was educated as a lawyer, but misled from professional studies and pursuits by some delusive phantom of philology or etymology. In every language he caught the lineaments of the Celtic, and insisted with wearisome zeal upon inflicting his theory on all his friends. On his seal he had the words engraved "Celticâ negatâ, negatur orbis." He addressed memoirs to all the academies and scientific bodies likely to have secretaries employed in correspondence on such topics, and printed a good many books all illustrative of what he called "la langue des Celtes Gomerites ou Bretons." A good many Tracts of his on these subjects are still in manuscript. Briquant was a mineralogist as well as a linguist, and did something to bring the marble of Bretagne into use. Five of his sons died in the armies of France—one, who proposed to remain with his father, was claimed by the conscription. It is related of Latour d'Auvergne, that he served in the young man's stead to enable him to take care of the old man, whose intellect had become impaired.
BRISBANE, Sir Thomas Makdougall, Bart., G.C.B., G.C.H.; D.C.L.; LL.D.; F.R.S.; corresponding member of the Institute of France, &c. &c., equally distinguished as a soldier and a man of science, was born at Bishopton in July, 1773, and died, 28th January, 1860. His life was one continued wise and practical offering in the service of his country and of astronomical science. He was the son of Thomas Brisbane, Esq. of Brisbane, by Miss Bruce, daughter of Sir M. Bruce of Stenhouse. He entered the army in 1789, and having joined the duke of York in Flanders at the beginning of the war, was present in every engagement, with the exception of that of the 23rd May, 1793, at which date he was suffering from a wound received in a previous action. In 1796 he went to the West Indies with Sir Ralph Abercromby, and was present at the taking of St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Porto Rico, &c. In 1812 he joined Wellington in the peninsula, where, in six general actions, he commanded a brigade, fought in fourteen battles and twenty-three serious affrays, and took part in eight sieges. In all these engagements his skill and bravery were equally conspicuous. The intimacy which he had contracted with Wellington in Ireland, his conduct in the peninsula ripened into a personal attachment on the side of the commander-in-chief; and Sir Thomas, in the reminiscences which he printed for private circulation shortly before his death, has recorded, among numerous interesting anecdotes of the duke, some which exhibit the relations between the two soldiers as having been of the most friendly and familiar character. For his services in Spain, Brisbane obtained the gold cross and a clasp for Vittoria; the silver war medal and a clasp for the Nive; and he was among the general officers who received the thanks of parliament in 1813. Marked out by his promptitude and courage, exhibited on critical occasions, he was selected by the British ministry as governor, first of Jamaica, next of the island of St. Vincent, and finally of New South Wales. In 1826 he obtained the colonelcy of the 34th regiment of foot; in 1836, having been previously knighted by the duke at Paris, he was created a baronet by William IV.; in the same year he was offered but declined the command of the forces in Canada, and in 1838 the post of commander-in-chief in India. Throughout his career Sir Thomas unceasingly manifested his interest in the promotion of practical astronomy, especially in its relations to navigation, and his own ability to
