Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/791

BRE doughty warrior, who repulsed the Romans under Littorius Celcus, and extended his conquests as far as Orleans.— I., born in 560; died in 594; son of Hoel II.— II., born in 630, the last of eleven kings of Bretagne from 383 till 690, succeeded his father, Judicael, in his eighth year.—, proclaimed king by the Bretons in the latter half of the eighth century, followed Charlemagne in his expedition into Spain, and was killed in the famous battle of Roncesvalles in 778.— III., duke of Bretagne, called "the Great," famous for his encounters with the Normans, sixteen thousand of whom he all but annihilated in one engagement in the neighbourhood of Vannes; died in 907.— IV., called "Barbe-torte," duke, grandson of Alain le Grand, came from England about the year 936 with a host of his countrymen, and expelling the Normans from Bretagne, was proclaimed duke.— V., duke, succeeded his father, Geoffrey I., in 1008. He resisted successfully the seignorial pretensions of Robert II. of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, and latterly was on terms of cordial friendship with the Norman duke, who, in his last illness at Nice in Bithynia, appointed him guardian of his son. He was poisoned while engaged in subduing a rebellion in Normandy.— VI., called "Fergent," son of Duke Hoel, accompanied William the Conqueror into England at the head of 5000 Bretons, and for his services in the subjugation of the kingdom, obtained the county of Richmond. When the Norman duke attempted afterwards to put Bretagne under tribute, Alain stoutly maintained the independence of his duchy, and by one decisive battle compelled the Conqueror to sue for peace. He took part in the first crusade, and in 1106 played an important part on the side of Henry I. of England in the victory of Tinchebray. Died in 1119.—J. S., G.  BRETAGNE,. See.  BRETAGNE,. See.  BRETEUIL,, baron de, was born in 1733 at Preuilly in Touraine, of a noble family. Distinguished during the reign of Louis XV. by his diplomatic skill, he was sent successively as ambassador to the elector of Cologne, to Russia, Sweden, Holland, Naples, and the court of Vienna. On his return to France he became minister of state to Louis XVI.; and next to Colbert, the French acknowledge that he was most conspicuous among his countrymen in patronizing art and science, and in improving the capital. In the celebrated affair of the diamond necklace, he exhibited more vindictiveness than truth. When the French revolution broke out, he retired first to Soleure, and aferwards to the neighbourhood of Hamburg. Died at Paris in 1807.—T. J.  * BRETON,, born in Paris, October, 1812. At once a painter and a writer, Breton belongs to a school which must necessarily be circumscribed, for art is too absorbing a pursuit to allow much attention to be given to authorship. When both pursuits are combined, they cannot be so in equal degrees. Either art must sink into simple illustration, or literature wait on art as a graceful exponent of fine principles, and an attendant teacher and critic, according to the examples afforded by Hogarth and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others of our own day. Breton, after he had exhibited some landscapes of merit, adopted the line of writing in art periodicals with accompanying illustrations, which is as much in vogue in France as in this country. By way of proof how such a mode of production may be raised and dignified, we may mention the work which, undertaken in 1838 with M. Jouffroy, called "Monumens de tons les peuples," constitutes a brief but complete history of the architectural monuments of all countries.—J. F. C.  BRETON, ), born about the middle of the twelfth century at St. Pol-de-Leon in Bretagne, and died in 1226. He was educated at Nantes and at Paris, was chaplain at the court of Philip Augustus, and sent to Rome on negotiations by this monarch frequently between the years 1193 and 1201. He left two historical works relating to the period in which he lived, both published in Duchesne's Scriptores Rerum Francicarum. One, the "Philippiad," a sort of epic poem in Latin hexameters, divided into the proper number of twelve books. The "Philippiad" has been translated into prose, and forms part of the eleventh volume of M. Guizot's Mémoires relatifs a l'histoire de France. The other is a prose narrative, which is also published by Duchesne and by Guizot. Gulielmus is a lively writer, and was an eye-witness of many of the scenes which he records.—J. A., D.  BRETON,, a sonneteer and pastoral poet of the reign of Elizabeth, born, it is supposed, in Staffordshire. He published an interlude entitled "An Old Man's Lesson and a Young Man's Love," noticed by Dr. Percy, and a variety of little pieces in prose and verse, all remarkable for elegant simplicity. Percy has reprinted a charming little ballad by this author—Phillida and Corydon.  BRETONNAYAU,, a French surgeon, who turned his talents for verse to the account of his art by the publication of a poem, or rather extracts from a poem, in which, almost without offence to the dignity of the muses, he enters into the most curious details of physiology and pathology. It appeared at Paris in 1583, under the title of "La generation de l'homme," &c. <section end="791H" /> <section begin="791I" />BRETONNIERE,, a French Benedictine of the seventeenth century, who is said, but on very doubtful authority, to have been the author of the famous libel "Le Cochon Mitré," and to have expiated his offence by a thirty years' confinement in the iron cage of the Mont St. Michel.—J. S., G. <section end="791I" /> <section begin="791J" />BRETSCHNEIDER,, an eminent German theologian of the present century, was born at Gersdorf in the territory of Schönburg, 11th Feb., 1776. After the death of his father, a learned Lutheran divine, he was sent to the Lyceum at Chemnitz, and in 1794 he entered the university of Leipzig as a student of theology. He settled at Wittemberg in 1804 as an academic teacher, and delivered lectures as a Privat Docent, in philosophy and theology. But the war of 1806 obliging him to leave Wittemberg, he accepted in 1807 a ministerial charge in Schneeberg, and in 1808 was appointed superintendent in Annaberg. In 1816 he was chosen general-superintendent in Gotha, and in that office he continued till his death on the 22nd of February, 1848. His autobiography published by his son in 1851, reveals the fact that it was from no inward impulse of religious feeling that he made choice of the theological calling in the first instance, and that the influence of personal spiritual life had little to do afterwards with the formation of his theological system. He had imbibed at the university of Leipzig much of the rationalistic spirit which then predominated in its theological faculty. Still he was not an extreme rationalist. He was the principal representative of the so-called "rational supernaturalism," which endeavoured to hold a middle position between church orthodoxy and free-thinking. His literary activity was indefatigable, and his published writings in various departments of scientific theology are very numerous. In philology his principal work was one of great value, the "Lexicon Manuale Græco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti," Leipzig, 1824-29-40. In dogmatic theology, his "Handbuch der Dogmatik der Evangelisch Lutherischen Kirche," Leipzig, 1814, reached a fourth edition in 1838; and his "Systematische Entwickelung aller in der Dogmatik Vorkommenden Begriffe," &c., Leipzig, 1805-19-25-41, is particularly rich in the exhibition of the literature of the subject, and is still considered in Germany an indispensable help to the scientific student. But of all his works the most valuable and important is the "Corpus Reformatorum," bearing also the title "Philippi Melancthonis Opera quæ supersunt omnia, vol. i.-xv. 4to, Hal. Sax. 1834-48. Of this laborious work he edited the first fifteen volumes, and the undertaking is still in progress under the editorship of Professor Bindseil of Halle The first eleven volumes, containing Melancthon's Epistolæ, Præfationes, Consilia, Judicia, &c., are of inestimable value, and furnish the most authentic and ample materials for the life of Melancthon, and the history of the German Reformation.—P. L. <section end="791J" /> <section begin="791Zcontin" />BREUGHEL. The name of several Flemish painters, of whom the most distinguished are, and his two sons, and.

, called, was born at Breughel, near Breda, about 1525, and became the scholar of Pieter Kock, whose daughter he afterwards married Having studied some years in Italy, he settled about 1555 in Antwerp, but removed after his marriage to Brussels. He was in Rome in 1553; he had, however, been already admitted a member of the Academy of Antwerp in 1551. The date of his death is unknown; some accounts fix it as late as 1590. He painted landscapes with figures, chiefly village feasts and merry-makings, but occasionally also more serious subjects. There are a few etchings by him.

, the younger, called also , from his love of painting diabolical monsters and <section end="791Zcontin" />