BRUCE, ROBERT, king of Scotland, son of the preceding, did homage for a time to Edward, but joined the national party and became one of a regency of four, with Comyn for rival; stabbed Comyn in a quarrel at Dumfries, 1306, and was that same year crowned king at Scone; was defeated by an army sent against him, and obliged to flee to Rathlin, Ireland; returned and landed in Carrick; cleared the English out of all the fortresses except Stirling, and on 24th June 1314 defeated the English under Edward II. at Bannockburn, after which, in 1328, the independence of Scotland was acknowledged as well as Bruce’s right to the crown; suffering from leprosy, spent his last two years at Cardross Castle, on the Clyde, where he died in the thirty-third year of his reign (1274-1329).

BRUCIN, an alkaloid, allied in action to strychnine, though much weaker, being only a twenty-fifth of the strength.

BRUeCKENAU, small town in Bavaria, 17 m.  NW. of Kissingen, with mineral springs good for nervous and skin diseases.

BRUCKER, historian of philosophy, born at Augsburg, and a pastor there; author of “Historia Critica Philosophiae” (1696-1770).

BRUEYS, DAVID AUGUSTIN DE, French dramatist, born at Aix, an abbe converted by Bossuet, and actively engaged in propagating the faith; managed to be joint editor with Palaprat in the production of plays (1650-1725).

BRUGES (49), cap. of W. Flanders, in Belgium, intersected by canals crossed by some 50 bridges, whence its name “Bridges”; one of these canals, of considerable depth, connecting it with Ostend; though many of them are now, as well as some of the streets, little disturbed by traffic, in a decayed and a decaying place, having once had a population of 200,000; has a number of fine churches, one specially noteworthy, the church of Notre Dame; it has several manufactures, textile and chemical, as well as distilleries, sugar-refineries, and shipbuilding yards.

BRUGSCH, HEINRICH KARL, a German Egyptologist, born at Berlin; was associated with Mariette in his excavations at Memphis; became director of the School of Egyptology at Cairo; his works on the subject are numerous, and of great value; b. 1827.

BRUeHL, HEINRICH, COUNT VON, minister of Augustus III., king of Poland, an unprincipled man, who encouraged his master, and indulged himself, in silly foppery and wasteful extravagance, so that when the Seven Years’ War broke out he and his master had to flee from Dresden and seek refuge in Warsaw (1700-1763).

BRUIN, the bear personified in the German epic of “Reynard the Fox.”

BRUMAIRE, the 18th (i. e. the 9th November 1799, the foggy month), the day when Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, overthrew the Directory and established himself in power.

BRUMMELL, BEAU, born in London, in his day the prince of dandies; patronised by the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.; quarrelled with the prince; fled from his creditors to Calais, where, reduced to destitution, he lived some years in the same reckless fashion; settled at length in Caen, where he died insane (1778-1805).