Boy Blowing Bubbles. A wellknown and beautiful picture by Franz van Mieris (1635-1681). At the Hague, Holland. Boy Praying. A bronze statue, considered one of the finest relics of ancient sculpture, discovered in the bed of the Tiber. It was purchased by Frederic II. of Prussia for 10,000 thalers, and placed in his palace at Potsdam." Now in the Museum at Berlin. It is known of Boëdas, son of Lysippus, the celebrated Greek sculptor, that he executed the statue of a praying figure, and by many this is believed to be his work. O genius of new days! Hail from thine ancient tomb; Chase the old world of gloom. Bright one! thine influence pour N. L. Frothingham. Boy with a Squirrel. A picture by John Singleton Copley, the American painter (1737-1815). In possession of Mrs. James S. Amory. Braccio Nuovo. A hall in the Vatican, Rome, built in 1817 under Pius VII., filled with valuable works of sculpture. "This noble hall is upwards of 200 feet in length, and admirably lighted from a roof supported by Corinth. ian columns. It is impossible for works of sculpture to be better disposed; and, out of 72 busts and 43 statues which are here, there is hardly one which is not excellent." Hillard. All this shows itself in the Braccio Nuovo and in countless statues besides, such as the Augustus and the Tiberius. Taine, Trans. 1 Brae-Mar. A picture by Sir Edwin Landseer (1803–1873), the celebrated English painter of animals. It is pronounced the noblest single figure which he has painted, a stately stag, standing clearly out on a misty hilltop, and bellowing defiance, while near him are several does." This picture was sold for $21,000 in 1868. Brambletye House. An ancient mansion of the reign of Henry VII., near the royal forest of Ashdown, in Sussex, England. With its gables and chimneys, moat and drawbridge, it remained an object of interest and curiosity till about 60 years since. About the middle of the seventeenth century Sir Henry Compton erected an elegant baronial mansion, but after the Civil War it was deserted. It is now only a picturesque ruin. Horace Smith's romance of" Brambletye House" has its opening scenes laid here. Bramfield Oak. A noted tree of great size, not far from Norwich, in England, the age of which exceeded 1,000 years. It fell in 1843, from simple decay. Brancacci Chapel. See CAPELLA BRANCACCI. Brandenburg Gate. [Ger. Das Brandenburger Thor.] A noted gate and entrance-way into the city of Berlin, Prussia. It is said to have been modelled after the Propylæum at Athens. On the summit is a triumphal car, which was carried by Napoleon to Paris, but afterwards recovered. Brandywine, The. A noted frigate of the United States navy, in service in the war of 1812. She was fitted up to convey Lafayette home to France in 1824 on his return from his visit to this country. Branksome Hall. A mansion near Hawick, Scotland, belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch, and associated with Scott's poem of the Lay of the Last Minstrel." Such is the custom of Branksome Hall, Scott Why did I leave fair Branksome's towers, Why did I leave sweet Teviot glen? William Wilson. Braschi Antinous. See ANTINOUS, THE (6). Braschi Palace. [Ital. Palazzo Braschi.] A well-known palace in Rome, built near the end of the last century by Pius VI. for his nephew, the Duke of Braschi. "As you ascend the staircase, you will be struck with its noble architecture, which is in the most chaste and classical taste. The stairs are led up between a colonnade of columns of red Oriental granite, the high polish of which accords well with the lustre of the variegated marbles, and with the graceful symmetry and just design of the whole." Eaton. Brazen Head. See FRIAR BACON'S The two ancient halls, one of which was called Brazen Nose Hall on account of an iron ring fixed in a nose of brass, and serving as a knocker to the gate. The name given to a piece of ground, twenty acres in extent, in the parish of Biddenden, Kent, Engfand, where, it is said, pursuant to the will of two maiden sisters, born in 1110 (and traditionally said to have been joined together by the shoulders and hips), "on the afternoon of Easter Sunday, 600 rolls are distributed to strangers, and 270 loaves, weighing three pounds and a half each, are given to the poor of the parish, the expense being defrayed by the rental of the land." Bread Street. A street in London, so named from the market in which bread was formerly sold. Stow says that in the year 1302, which was the 30th of Edward I., the bakers of London were forced to sell no bread in their shops or houses, but in the market. In this street John Milton was born, Dec. 9, 1608; and in the Church I Bread and Cheese Land. of All Hallows (now destroyed), at the corner of Bread Street and Watling Street, he was baptized. Dec. 20, 1608. See MERMAID TAVERN. Brèche de Roland. [Roland's Breda, Surrender of. See SUR- An interesting and ancient château, in the vicinity of Bordeaux, France. It is the seat of the Montesquieu family. It was here that the great historian and philosopher of that name was born and wrote. Brederode Castle. A picturesque ruined fortress of the Middle Ages, in the neighborhood of Haarlem, Holland. Breed's Hill. An eminence (for merly so called) in Charlestown, now a part of Boston, Mass. See BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. Brera, La. A palace in Milan, Italy, containing a famous gallery of paintings, together with a museum of antiquities. The building was erected in 1618, and is said to derive its name from the Latin prædium, meadow. Leonardo da Vinci's angels do not quite please me, elegant, refined, and lovely as they are: "methinks they smile too much." By his scholar Luini there are some angels in the gallery of the Brera, swinging censers and playing on musical instruments, which, with the peculiar character of the Milanese school, combine all the grace of a purer, loftier nature. Mrs. Jameson. Breton Club. A political associa tion formed at Versailles, France, in 1789. The name was subsequently changed to that of the Jacobin Club. Bridal Veil. 1. A noted fall in the Yosemite Valley, Cal. The water falling from a height of 1,000 Shall future ages tell this tale Bridge of St. Angelo. This bridge the ancient Pons Elius-which crosses the Tiber immediately opposite the Castle of St. Angelo in Rome, was erected by Hadrian as a passage to his mausoleum. At the end are the statues of St. Peter and St. Paul. See ST. ANGELO. "The piers and arches are an cient, but have been a good deal repaired; not, indeed, till it was neces sary, for in the Pontificate of Clement VII., when crowds were pressing for ward to St. Peter's to share in the benefits and indulgences offered to the pious there, the bridge gave way, and 172 persons are said to have perished in the Tiber." Eaton. Even as the Romans, for the mighty host, over; For all upon one side towards the Castle Their faces have, and go unto St. Peter's; On the other side they go towards the Mountain. Dante (Inferno), Longfellow's Trans. I may be wrong; but the Tiber has a voice for me, as it whispers to the piers of the Pons Elius, even more full of meaning than my well-beloved Charles eddying round the piles of West Boston Bridge. Holmes. Bridge of Segovia. See PUENTE DEL DIABLO. Bridge of Sighs. [Ital. Ponte dei Sospiri.] This bridge over the Rio Canal in Venice, Italy, connecting the Doge's palace and the state prisons, is so called because the condemned passed over it on the way to execution. "The Bridge of Sighs" is also the title of a well-known poem by Thomas Hood (1798-1845), which begins:— "One more unfortunate, Weary of breath." "The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stagedrama, which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrows deserved sympathy, ever crossed that Bridge of Sighs, which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice." Ruskin. "The Bridge of Sighs was not built till the end of the sixteenth century, and no romantic episode of political imprisonment and punishment (except that of Antonio Foscarini) occurs in Venetian history later than that pe riod. But the Bridge of Sighs could have nowise a savor of sentiment from any such episode; being, as it was, merely a means of communication between the criminal courts sitting in the Ducal Palace and the criminal prison across the little canal. Housebreakers, cut-purse knaves, and murderers do not commonly impart a poetic interest to places which have known them; and yet these are the only sufferers on whose Bridge of Sighs the whole sentimental world has looked with pathetic sensation ever since Byron drew atten tion to it. The name of the bridge was given by the people from that opulence of compassion which enables the Italians to pity even rascality in difficul ties." W. D. Howells. I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs: Byron. Bridgewater Gallery. See BRIDGEWATER HOUSE. Bridgewater House. The town residence of the Earl of Elles mere, London, built in 1847-49 on the site of Cleveland House, where once resided Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, and which had at different times belonged to the great Earl of Clarendon, and to the Earls of Bridgewater. It contains a very celebrated collection of pictures, called the Bridgewater Gallery, and sometimes the Stafford Gallery; it having been left by the Duke of Bridgewater to his nephew, the Marquis of Stafford. It is the finest private collection in England; comprising some of the best works of Raphael, Titian, Guido, Domenichino, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, and other masters, as well as those of the modern artists. "From the time of Raphael the series is more complete than in any private gallery I know, not excepting the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna. The Caracci school can nowhere be studied to more advantage." Mrs. Jameson. Bridgewater Madonna. See MADONNA OF THE BRIDGEWATER GALLERY. Brig o' Balgownie. A famous bridge of a single arch near Aberdeen, Scotland, built in the time of Robert Bruce (1274-1329). It has been inade familiar by Byron, who alludes to it in his poem of "Don Juan." "It is a single gray stone arch, apparently cut from solid rock, that spans the brown rippling waters, where wild overhanging banks, shadowy trees, and dipping wild flowers, all conspire to make a romantic picture. This bridge, with the river and scene ry, were poetic items that went, with other things, to form the sensitive mind of Byron, who lived here in his earlier days. He has some lines about it :'As "Auld lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all, Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams, The Dee, the Don, Balgownie's brig's black wall, All my boy-feelings, all my gentler dreams, Like Banquo's offspring-floating past me seems Mrs. II. B. Store. My childhood."" Brig o' Doon. A bridge across the river Doon, in Scotland, near the town of Ayr, made famous by the poetry of Burns. Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg, Brignole Sale Palace. [Ital. Pulazzo Brignole Sale.] A beautiful palace in Genoa, Italy, now the property of the city, and containing many fine treasures of art. It derives its name rosso from being painted of a red color. It formerly belonged to the Brignole family. Britain, Little. See LITTLE BRIT AIN. Britannia Bridge. A famous iron tubular bridge across Menai Strait, which separates the island of Anglesea from Carnarvon, Wales. It consists of two lines of tubes, each 1,513 feet long, supported on three piers, in addition to the abutments, 100 feet above the sea. It is situated one mile from the Menai suspension bridge. A fourth [stone in the substructure of a temple at Baalbec] of similar dimensions is lying in the quarry, which it is calculated must weigh alone more than 1.100 tons in its rough state, or nearly as much as one of the tubes of the Britannia Bridge. Fergusson. Britannia Theatre. A well-built theatre in London, opened in 1858. British Coffee-house. A London coffee-house, formerly frequented by Scotchmen. British Museum. This celebrated institution, formed of three collections, the Cottonian, the Harleian, and the Sloane, -occupies the site of Montague House in Great Russell Street, London. It has been the growth of a century, the first purchase for the collection having been made in 1753, and it having been opened to the public 1759. It was at first divided into three departments, viz.: Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Natural History. To these have since been added other departments, as Antiquities and Arts, Medals and Coins, Prints and Drawings, Zoological Collections, etc. The Elgin marbles, the Egyptian antiquities, and the Assyrian sculptures collected by Layard, are among the chief curiosities of the institution. The Library is one of the largest and most valuable in Europe. Brittany Sheep. A picture by Rosa Bonheur (b. 1822), the celebrated French painter of animals. Broad Street. One of the great thoroughfares of Philadelphia, Penn. It is over 100 feet in width, and runs in a straight line 15 miles. Broadway. A noted street, and the great thoroughfare of New York, extending from the Battery, at the extreme lower end of the island, to Central Park. In respect of length, the imposing character of its buildings, and the importance of the business transacted in it, this avenue is unequalled in the world. Princes' Street, the Broadway of the new town, is built along the edge of the ravine facing the long, many-windowed walls of the Canongate. N. P. Willis. He's so innate a cockney, that had he been born Where plain bare-skin's the only fulldress that is worn, He'd have given his own such an air that you'd say "T had been made by a tailor to lounge in Broadway. Lowell. Tell me not, in half-derision, Of your Boulevards Parisian. With their brilliant broad pavés, Still for us the best is nearest, And the Queen of Streets-Broadway. For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in That, overhung with blossoms, through Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon, And they who search the untrodden wood for flowers Meet in its depths no lovelier ones than ours. Bryant (Spring in Town). Brocken, Spectre of the. See SPECTRE OF THE BROCKEN. Brohlthal. This lovely valley of the Rhine is surrounded by mountains, and a rapid brook runs through it. It is especially remarkable that the whole bottom of the valley consists of tuffstone 15 to 50 feet in thickness. Brömserburg. A well-known ruined castle at Rüdesheim, on the Rhine. Bronze Door [of the Capitol at Washington]. A work of art, forming the entrance to the Rotunda of the Capitol. It is entirely of bronze, weighing 20,000 pounds, and was designed by Randolph Rogers, an American artist. The casting was executed at Munich in 1861. The door is 17 feet in height by 9 feet in width. It contains 8 panels with reliefs exhibiting scenes in the life of Columbus. Bronze Gates [of Ghiberti]. Famous gates of bronze in the Baptistery of St. John at Florence, Italy, executed from designs furnished by Lorenzo Ghiberti (13781455?), the greatest sculptor of his time. These gates represent scenes from the New Testament. Ghiberti is said to have spent more than 20 years on these bronze gates, which were pronounced by Michael Angelo worthy to be the Gates of Paradise. Bronze Horses. Four celebrated figures of horses, in bronze, which were brought by the Venetians from Constantinople, and which now stand over the vestibule of the Cathedral of St. Mark, in Venice, Italy. He [the doge Dandolo] went to die; But of his trophies four arrived ere long, Snatched from destruction, the four steeds divine, That strike the ground, resounding with their feet, And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame Over that very porch. Rogers. |