A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. John W. Cousin
they brought the good News to Aix," "Evelyn Hope," "The Pied Piper of Hammelin," "A Grammarian's Funeral," "A Death in the Desert." It was long before England recognised that in B. she had received one of the greatest of her poets, and the causes of this lie on the surface. His subjects were often recondite and lay beyond the ken and sympathy of the great bulk of readers; and owing, partly to the subtle links connecting the ideas and partly to his often extremely condensed and rugged expression, the treatment of them was not seldom difficult and obscure. Consequently for long he appealed to a somewhat narrow circle. As time went on, however, and work after work was added, the circle widened, and the marvellous depth and variety of thought and intensity of feeling told with increasing force. Societies began to be formed for the study of the poet's work. Critics became more and more appreciative, and he at last reaped the harvest of admiration and honour which was his due. Many distinctions came to him. He was made LL.D. of Edin., a life Governor of London Univ., and had the offer of the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow. He d. in the house of his son at Venice, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The keynote of his teaching is a wise and noble optimism. His poems were collected in 2 vols. in 1896. Some vols. of his correspondence with Mrs. B. were also pub.
Uniform ed. of Works (17 vols. 1888–90); Furnivall's Browning Bibliography (1883), Lives by Mrs. Sutherland Orr (1891); Gosse (1890); Dowden (1904), G.K. Chesterton (English Men of Letters), etc.; Poetry of Robert Browning by Stopford Brooke, 1902, etc.
SUMMARY.—B. 1812, pub. Paracelsus 1835, Sordello 1840, Bells and Pomegranates 1841, m. to E.B.B. 1846, lives chiefly in Italy till her d., 1861, when he returned to England and continued to write until his d., pub. Dramatis Personæ, Ring and Book 1868–9, Asolando 1889, d. 1889.
BRUCE, JAMES (1730–1794).—Traveller, was b. at the family seat of Kinnaird, Perthshire, and ed. at Harrow. After various travels in Europe he set out in 1768 on his expedition to Abyssinia, and in 1770 reached the source of the Blue Nile. He returned to England in 1774, and in 1790 pub. his Travels in 5 quarto vols. His notorious vanity, the singular adventures he related, and the generally embellished character which he imparted to his narrative excited some degree of scepticism, and he was subjected to a good deal of satire, to which, though much annoyed, he did not reply. It is, however, generally allowed that he had shown great daring, perseverance, and zeal in his explorations, and that he made a real addition to the geographical knowledge of his day.
BRUCE, MICHAEL (1746–1767).—Poet, s. of a poor weaver at Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire, as a child herded cattle, but received a good education, including 4 sessions at the Univ. of Edin., and for a short time kept a school. His longest poem, Loch Leven, shows the influence of Thomson. His best is his Elegy. His promising career was cut short by consumption in 1767. The authorship of the beautiful Ode to the Cuckoo beginning "Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove" is contested, some authorities claiming it for B. and others for the Rev. John Logan (q.v.), who ed. B.'s works, adding some of his own, and who claimed the Ode as his.
BRUNTON, MARY (BALFOUR) (1778–1818).—Novelist, dau. of Col. Balfour of Elwick, and m. to the Rev. Dr. Brunton, Prof. of Oriental Languages in the Univ. of Edin., was the authoress of two novels, Self-Control (1811) and Discipline (1814), which were popular in their day.
BRYANT, JACOB (1715–1804).—Scholar, ed. at Eton and Camb., wrote learnedly, but paradoxically, on mythological and Homeric subjects. His chief works were A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774–76), Observations on the Plain of Troy (1795), and Dissertation concerning the Wars of Troy (1796). In the last two he endeavoured to show that the existence of Troy and the Greek expedition were fabulous. Though so sceptical on these points he was an implicit believer in the authenticity of the Rowley authorship of Chatterton's fabrications. He also wrote on theological subjects.
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794–1878).—Poet, was b. at Cummington, Massachusetts, the s. of a doctor. His ancestors on both sides came over in the Mayflower. His first poem was Thanatopsis (1817), which was greeted as the best poem produced in America up to that time. After being a lawyer for some time he was induced to exchange law for journalism, and acted as ed. of various periodicals. Among his best known poems are Lines to a Water-fowl, The Rivulet, The West Wind, The Forest Hymn, The Fringed Gentian, etc. His muse is tender and graceful, pervaded by a contemplative melancholy, and a love of solitude and the silence of the woods. Though he was brought up to admire Pope, and in his early youth imitated him, he was one of the first American poets to throw off his influence. He had a high sense of duty, was a prominent and patriotic citizen, and enjoyed the esteem and even the reverence of his fellow-countrymen. B. also produced a blank-verse translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
BRYDGES, SIR SAMUEL EGERTON (1762–1837).—Bibliographer and genealogist, ed. at Camb., was called to the Bar in 1787. He wrote some novels and poems, now forgotten, but rendered valuable service by his bibliographical publications, Censura Literaria, Titles and Opinions of Old English Books (10 vols. 1805–9), his editions of E. Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800) Collin's Peerage of England (1812), and of many rare Elizabethan authors. He was made a baronet in 1814. He d. at Geneva.
BUCHANAN, GEORGE (1506–1582).—Historian and scholar b. at Killearn, Stirlingshire, of poor parents, was sent in 1519, with the help of an uncle, to the Univ. of Paris, where he first came in contact with the two great influences of the age, the Renaissance and the Reformation. His uncle having died, he had to leave Paris, and after seeing some military service, returned to Scotland, and in 1524 went to St. Andrews, where he studied under John Major (q.v.). Two years later he found means to return to Paris, where he graduated at the Scots Coll. in 1528, and taught grammar in the Coll. of St. Barbe. Returning to Scotland in 1536 with a great reputation for learning he was made by James V. tutor to one of his illegitimate sons, and incited by him to satirise the vices of the clergy, which he did in two Latin poems, Somnium and Franciscanus. This stirred the wrath of the ecclesiastical powers to such a heat that, the King withholding his protection, he was obliged in 1539 to save himself by flight first to England and then to France, where he remained until 1547 teaching Latin at Bordeaux and Paris. In the latter year he was invited to become a prof. at Coimbra, where he was imprisoned by the Inquisition as a heretic from 1549–51, and wrote the greater part of his magnificent translation of the Psalms into Latin verse, which has never been excelled by any modern. He returned to England in 1552, but soon re-crossed to France and taught in the Coll. of Boncourt. In 1561 he came back to his native country, where he remained for the rest of his life. Hitherto, though a supporter of the new learning and a merciless exposer of the vices of the clergy, he had remained in the ancient faith, but he now openly joined the ranks of the Reformers. He held the Principalship of St. Leonard's Coll., St. Andrews, was a supporter of the party of the Regent Moray, produced in 1571 his famous Detectio Mariæ Reginæ, a scathing exposure of the Queen's relations to Darnley and the circumstances leading up to his death, was tutor, 1570–78, to James VI., whom he brought up with great strictness, and to whom he imparted the learning of which the King was afterwards so vain. His chief remaining works were De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579), against absolutism, and his History of Scotland, which was pub. immediately before his death. Though he had borne so great a part in the affairs of his country, and was the first scholar of his age, he d. so poor that he left no funds to meet the expenses of his interment. His literary masterpiece is his History, which is remarkable for the power and richness of its style. Its matter, however, gave so much offence that a proclamation was issued calling in all copies of it, as well as of the De Jure Regni, that they might be purged of the "offensive and extraordinary matters" which they contained. B. holds his great and unique place in literature not so much for his own writings as for his strong and lasting influence on subsequent writers.
BUCHANAN, ROBERT (1841–1901).—Poet and novelist, b.