BRITISH MUSEUM, a national institution in London for the collection of MSS., books, prints and drawings, antiquities, and objects of natural history, ethnology, &c.; founded as far back as 1700, though not opened, in Montagu House as it happened, for the public benefit till 1759.

BRITOMART, is a lady knight in the “Faerie Queene,” representing chastity with a resistless magic spear.

BRITTANY (3,162), an old French prov., land of the Bretons, comprising the peninsula opposite Devon and Cornwall, stretching westward between the Bays of Cancale and Biscay, was in former times a duchy; a third of its inhabitants still retain their Breton language.

BRITTON, JOHN, topographer and antiquary, born in Wiltshire in humble position; author of “Beauties of Wiltshire,” instalment of a work embracing all the counties of England and Wales; his principal works, and works of value, are “Antiquities of Great Britain” and “Cathedral Antiquities of England”; his chief work is 14 volumes; the “Antiquities in Normandy” did much to create an interest in antiquarian subjects (1771-1857).

BRIXTON, a southern suburb of London, on the Surrey side, a district of the city that has of late years extended immensely.

BROAD ARROW, a stamp like an arrow-head to indicate government property.

BROAD BOTTOM MINISTRY, a coalition of great weight under Mr. Pelham, from Nov. 1744 to Mar. 1755, so called from the powerful parties represented in it.

BROAD CHURCH, that section of the Church which inclines to liberal opinions in theology, and is opposed to the narrowing of either spirit or form, perhaps to an undue degree and to the elimination of elements distinctive of the Christian system.

BROADS, THE NORFOLK, are a series of inland lakes in the E. of Norfolkshire, which look like expansions of the rivers; they are favourite holiday resorts on account of the expanse of strange scenery, abundant vegetation, keen air, fishing and boating attractions.

BROB`DINGNAG, an imaginary country in “Gulliver’s Travels,” inhabited by giants, each as tall “as an ordinary spire-steeple”; properly a native of the country, in comparison with whom Gulliver was a pigmy “not half so big as a round little worm plucked from the lazy finger of a maid.”

BROCA, PAUL, an eminent French surgeon, anthropologist, and one of the chief French evolutionists; held a succession of important appointments, and was the author of a number of medical works (1824-1880).

BROCHANT DE VILLIERS, a mineralogist and geologist, born in Paris; director of the St. Gobin manufactory (1773-1810).

BROCHS, dry-stone circular towers, called also Picts’ towers and Duns, with thick Cyclopean walls, a single doorway, and open to the sky, found on the edge of straths or lochs in the N. and W. of Scotland.

BROCKEN, or BLOCKSBERG, the highest peak (3740 ft.) of the Harz Mts., cultivated to the summit; famous for a “SPECTRE” so called, long an object of superstition, but which is only the beholder’s shadow projected through, and magnified by, the mists.