BRAMHALL, JOHN, archbishop of Armagh, born in Yorkshire, a high-handed Churchman and imitator of Laud; was foolhardy enough once to engage, nowise to his credit, in public debate with such a dialectician as Thomas Hobbes on the questions of necessity and free-will (1594-1663).

BRAMWELL, SIR FREDERICK, civil engineer, president of the British Association in 1888, and previously of Association of Engineers; b. 1818.

BRAN, name given to Fingal’s dog.

BRAND, JOHN, antiquary, born in Durham, wrote a “Popular
Antiquities” (1744-1784).

BRANDAN, ST., ISLAND OF, an island reported of by St. Brandan as lying W. of the Canary Islands, and that figured on charts as late as 1755, in quest of which voyages of discovery were undertaken as recently as the beginning of the 18th century, up to which time it was believed to exist.

BRANDE, chemist, born in London; author of “Manual of Chemistry” and other works (1788-1866).

BRANDENBURG (2,542), in the great northern plain of Germany, is a central Prussian province, and the nucleus of the Prussian kingdom; most of it a sandy plain, with fertile districts and woodlands here and there.

BRANDENBURG, THE HOUSE OF, an illustrious German family dating from the 10th century, from which descended the kings of Prussia.

BRANDES, GEORGE, a literary critic, born at Copenhagen, of Jewish parents; his views of the present tendency of literature in Europe provoked at first much opposition in Denmark, though they were received with more favour afterwards; the opposition to his views were such that he was forced to leave Copenhagen, but, after a stay in Berlin, he returned to it in 1862, with the support of a strong party in his favour.

BRANDT, a Swedish chemist; chanced on the discovery in 1669 of phosphorus while in quest of a solvent to transmute metals, such as silver, into gold; d. 1692.

BRANDT, SEBASTIAN, a satirical writer, born at Strassburg; author of the “Narrenschiff” or “Ship of Fools,” of which there have been many translations and not a few imitations (1458-1521).

BRANDY NAN, a nickname for Queen Anne, from her fondness for brandy.

BRANDYWINE CREEK, a small river in Delaware; scene of a victory of the British over the Americans in 1777.

BRANGTONS, THE, a vulgar, evil-spoken family in Miss Burney’s “Evelina.”

BRANT, JOSEPH, Indian chief who sided with the British in the American war; a brave and good man; d. 1807.

BRANTOME, PIERRE DE BOURDEILLES, a French chronicler, contemporary of Montaigne, born in Perigord; led the life of a knight-errant, and wrote Memoirs remarkable for the free-and-easy, faithful, and vivid delineations of the characters of the most celebrated of his contemporaries (1527-1614).

BRASIDAS, a Spartan general, distinguished in the Peloponnesian war; his most celebrated action, the defeat at the expense of his life, in 422 B.C., of the flower of the Athenian army at Amphipolis, with a small body of helots and mercenaries.