[1] Subgenera are indicated by round, synonyms by square brackets.
BRACHISTOCHRONE (from the Gr. [Greek: brachistos], shortest, and
[Greek: chronos], time), a term invented by John Bernoulli in 1694 to
denote the curve along which a body passes from one fixed point to
another in the shortest time. When the directive force is constant, the
curve is a cycloid (q.v.); under other conditions, spirals and other
curves are described (see MECHANICS).
BRACHYCEPHALIC (Gr. for short-headed), a term invented by Andreas
Retzius to denote those skulls of which the width from side to side was
little less than the length from front to back, their ratio being as 80
to 100, as in those of the Mongolian type. Thus taking the length as
100, if the width exceeds 80, the skull is to be classed as
brachycephalic. The prevailing form of the head of civilized races is
brachycephalic. It is supposed that a brachycephalic race inhabited
Europe before the Celts. Among those peoples whose heads show marked
brachycephaly are the Indo-Chinese, the Savoyards, Croatians,
Bavarians, Lapps, Burmese, Armenians and Peruvians. (See CRANIOMETRY.)
BRACKYLOGUS (from Gr. [Greek: brachys], short, and [Greek: logos],
word), title applied in the middle of the 16th century to a work
containing a systematic exposition of the Roman law, which some writers
have assigned to the reign of the emperor Justinian, and others have
treated as an apocryphal work of the 16th century. The earliest extant
edition of this work was published at Lyons in 1549, under the title of
_Corpus Legum per modum Institutionum_; and the title _Brachylogus
totius Juris Civilis_ appears for the first time in an edition published
at Lyons in 1553. The origin of the work may be referred with great
probability to the 12th century. There is internal evidence that it was
composed subsequently to the reign of Louis le Debonnaire (778-840), as
it contains a Lombard law of that king's, which forbids the testimony of
a clerk to be received against a layman. On the other hand its style and
reasoning is far superior to that of the law writers of the 10th and
11th centuries; while the circumstance that the method of its author has
not been in the slightest degree influenced by the school of the
Gloss-writers (Glossatores) leads fairly to the conclusion that he wrote
before that school became dominant at Bologna. Savigny, who traced the
history of the _Brachylogus_ with great care, is disposed to think that
it is the work of Irnerius himself (_Geschichte des rom. Rechts im
Mittelalter_). Its value is chiefly historical, as it furnishes evidence
that a knowledge of Justinian's legislation was always maintained in
northern Italy. The author of the work has adopted the _Institutes_ of
Justinian as the basis of it, and draws largely on the _Digest_, the
_Code_ and the _Novels_; while certain passages, evidently taken from
the _Sententiae Receptae_ of Julius Paulus, imply that the author was
also acquainted with the Visigothic code of Roman law compiled by order
of Alaric II.
An edition by E. Bocking was published at Berlin in 1829, under the
title of _Corpus Legum sive Brachylogus Juris Civilis_. See also H.
Fitting, _Uber die Heimath und das Alter des sogenannten Brachylogus_
(Berlin, 1880).
BRACKET, in architecture and carpentering, a projecting feature either
in wood or metal for holding things together or supporting a shelf. The
same feature in stone is called a "console" (q.v.). In furniture it is a
small ornamental shelf for a wall or a corner, to bear knick-knacks,
china or other bric-a-brac. The word has been referred to "brace,"
clamp, Lat. _bracchium_, arm, but the earliest form "bragget" (1580)
points to the true derivation from the Fr. _braguette_, or Span.
_bragueta_ (Lat. _bracae_, breeches), used both of the front part of a
pair of breeches and of the architectural feature. The sense development
is not clear, but it has no doubt been influenced by the supposed
connexion with "brace."
BRACKET-FUNGI. The term "bracket" has been given to those hard, woody
fungi that grow on trees or timber in the form of semicircular brackets.
They belong to the order _Polyporeae_, distinguished by the layer of
tubes or pores on the under surface within which the spores are borne.
The mycelium, or vegetable part of the fungus, burrows in the tissues of
the tree, and often destroys it; the "bracket" represents the fruiting
stage, and produces innumerable spores which gain entrance to other
trees by some wound or cut surface; hence the need of careful forestry.
Many of these woody fungi persist for several years, and a new layer of
pores is superposed on the previous season's growth.
BRACKLESHAM BEDS, in geology, a series of clays and marls, with sandy
and lignitic beds, in the Middle Eocene of the Hampshire Basin, England.
They are well developed in the Isle of Wight and on the mainland
opposite; and receive their name from their occurrence at Bracklesham in
Sussex. The thickness of the deposit is from 100 to 400 ft. Fossil
mollusca are abundant, and fossil fish are to be found, as well as the
_Palaeophis_, a sea-snake. Nummulites and other foraminifera also occur.
The Bracklesham Beds lie between the Barton Clay above and the
Bournemouth Beds, Lower Bagshot, below. In the London Basin these beds
are represented only by thin sandy clays In the Middle Bagshot group.
In the Paris Basin the "Calcaire grossier" lies upon the same geological
horizon.
See F. Dixon, _Geology of Sussex_ (new ed., 1878); F.E. Edwards and
S.V. Wood, "Monograph of Eocene Mollusca," _Palaeontographical Soc._
vol. i. (1847-1877); "Geology of the Isle of Wight," _Mem. Geol.
Survey_ (2nd ed., 1889); C. Reid, "The Geology of the Country around
Southampton," _Mem. Geol. Survey_ (1902).
BRACKLEY, THOMAS EGERTON, VISCOUNT (c. 1540-1617), English lord
chancellor, was a natural son of Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley,
Cheshire. The exact date of his birth is unrecorded, but, according to
Wood,[1] when he became a commoner at Brasenose College, Oxford, in
1556, he was about seventeen. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1559, and was
called to the bar in 1572, being chosen a governor of the society in
1580, Lent reader in 1582, and treasurer in 1588. He early obtained
legal renown and a large practice, and tradition relates that his
skilful conduct of a case against the crown gained the notice of
Elizabeth, who is reported to have declared: "In my troth he shall never
plead against me again." Accordingly, on the 26th of June 1581, he was
made solicitor-general. He represented Cheshire in the parliaments of
1585 and 1586, but in his official capacity he often attended in the
House of Lords. On the 3rd of March 1589 the Commons desired that he
should return to their house, the Lords refusing on the ground that he
was called by the queen's writ to attend in the Lords before his
election by the House of Commons.[2] He took part in the trial of Mary,
queen of Scots, in 1586, and advised that in her indictment she should
only be styled "commonly called queen of Scots," to avoid scruples about
judging a sovereign. He conducted several other state prosecutions. On
the 2nd of June 1592 he was appointed attorney-general, and was knighted
and made chamberlain of Chester in 1593. On the 10th of April 1594 he
became master of the rolls, and on the 6th of May 1596 lord keeper of
the great seal and a privy councillor, remaining, however, a commoner as
Sir Thomas Egerton, and presiding in the Lords as such during the whole
reign of Elizabeth. He kept in addition the mastership of the rolls, the
whole work of the chancery during this period falling on his shoulders
and sometimes causing inconvenience to suitors[3]. His promotion was
welcomed from all quarters. "I think no man," wrote a contemporary to
Essex, "ever came to this dignity with more applause than this worthy
gentleman."[4]
Egerton became one of the queen's most trusted advisers and one of the
greatest and most striking figures at her court. He was a leading member
of the numerous special commissions, including the ecclesiastical
commission, and was the queen's interpreter in her communications to
parliament. In 1598 he was employed as a commissioner for negotiating
with the Dutch, obtaining great credit by the treaty then effected, and
in 1600 in the same capacity with Denmark. In 1597, in consequence of
his unlawful marriage with his second wife, in a private house without
banns, the lord keeper incurred a sentence of excommunication, and was
obliged to obtain absolution from the bishop of London.[5] He was a firm
friend of the noble but erratic and unfortunate Essex. He sought to
moderate his violence and rashness, and after the scene in the council
in July 1598, when the queen struck Essex and bade him go and be hanged,
he endeavoured to reconcile him to the queen in an admirable letter
which has often been printed.[6] On the arrival of Essex in London
without leave from Ireland, and his consequent disgrace, he supported
the queen's just authority, avoiding at the same time any undue severity
to the offender. Essex was committed to his custody in York House from
the 1st of October 1599 till the 5th of July 1600, when the lord keeper
used his influence to recover for him the queen's favour and gave him
kindly warnings concerning the necessity for caution in his conduct. On
the 5th of June 1600 he presided over the court held at his house, which
deprived Essex of his offices except that of master of the horse,
treating him with leniency, not pressing the charge of treason but only
that of disobedience, and interrupting him with kind intentions when he
attempted to justify himself. After the trial he tried in vain to bring
Essex to a sense of duty. On the 8th of February 1601, the day fixed for
the rebellion, the lord keeper with other officers of state visited
Essex at Essex House to demand the reason of the tumultuous assemblage.
His efforts to persuade Essex to speak with him privately and explain
his "griefs," and to refrain from violence, and his appeal to the
company to depart peacefully on their allegiance, were ineffectual, and
he was imprisoned by Essex for six hours, the mob calling out to kill
him and to throw the great seal out of the window. Subsequently he
abandoned all hope of saving Essex, and took an active part in his
trial. On the 13th of February he made a speech in the Star Chamber,
exposing the wickedness of the rebellion, and of the plot of Thomas Lea
to surprise Elizabeth at her chamber door.[7] In July 1602, a few months
before her death, Elizabeth visited the lord keeper at his house at
Harefield in Middlesex, and he was one of those present during her last
hours who received her faltering intimation as to her successor.
On the accession of James I., Sir Thomas Egerton was reappointed lord
keeper, resigning the mastership of the rolls in May 1603, and the
chamberlainship of Chester in August. On the 21st of July he was created
Baron Ellesmere, and on the 24th lord chancellor. His support of the
king's prerogative was too faithful and undiscriminating. He approved of
the harsh penalty inflicted upon Oliver St John in 1615 for denying the
legality of benevolences, and desired that his sentencing of the
prisoner "might be his last work to conclude his services."[8] In May
1613 he caused the committal of Whitelocke to the Fleet for questioning
the authority of the earl marshal's court. In 1604 he came into
collision with the House of Commons. Sir Francis Goodwin, an outlaw,
having been elected for Buckinghamshire contrary to the king's
proclamation, the chancellor cancelled the return when made according to
custom into chancery, and issued writs for a new election. The Commons,
however, considering their privileges violated, restored Goodwin to his
seat, and though the matter was in the present instance compromised by
the choice of a third party, they secured for the future the right of
judging in their own elections. He was at one with James in desiring to
effect the union between England and Scotland, and served on the
commission in 1604; and the English merchants who opposed the union and
community of trade with the Scots were "roundly shaken by him." In 1608,
in the great case of the Post Nati, he decided, with the assistance of
the fourteen judges, that those born after the accession of James I. to
the throne of England were English subjects and capable of holding lands
in England; and he compared the two dissentient judges to the apostle
Thomas, whose doubts only confirmed the faith of the rest. He did not,
however, always show obedience to the king's wishes. He opposed the
latter's Spanish policy, and in July 1615, in spite of James's most
peremptory commands and threats, refused to put the great seal to the
pardon of Somerset. In May 1616 he officiated as high steward in the
trial of the latter and his countess for the murder of Overbury. He was
a rigid churchman, hostile to both the Puritans and the Roman Catholics.
He fully approved of the king's unfriendly attitude towards the former,
adopted at the Hampton Court conference in 1604, and declared, in
admiration of James's theological reasoning on this occasion, that he
had never understood before the meaning of the legal maxim, _Rex est
mixta persona cum sacerdote_. In 1605 he opposed the petition for the
restitution of deprived Puritan ministers, and obtained an opinion from
the judges that the petition was illegal. He supported the party of
Abbot against Laud at Oxford, and represented to the king the unfitness
of the latter to be president of St John's College. In 1605 he directed
the judges to enforce the penal laws against the Roman Catholics.
His vigorous and active public career closed with a great victory gained
over the common law and his formidable antagonist, Sir Edward Coke. The
chancellor's court of equity had originated in the necessity for a
tribunal to decide cases not served by the common law, and to relax and
correct the rigidity and insufficiency of the latter's procedure. The
two jurisdictions had remained bitter rivals, the common-law bar
complaining of the arbitrary and unrestricted powers of the chancellor,
and the equity lawyers censuring and ridiculing the failures of justice
in the courts of common law. The disputes between the courts, concerning
which the king had already in 1615 remonstrated with the chancellor and
Sir Edward Coke,[9] the lord chief justice, came to a crisis in 1616,
when the court of chancery granted relief against judgments at common
law in the cases of _Heath v. Rydley_ and _Courtney v. Granvil_. This
relief was declared by Coke and other judges sitting with him to be
illegal, and a counter-attack was made by a praemunire, brought against
the parties concerned in the suit in chancery. The grand jury, however,
refused to bring in a true bill against them, in spite of Coke's threats
and assurances that the chancellor was dead, and the dispute was
referred to the king himself, who after consulting his counsel and on
Bacon's advice decided in favour of equity. The chancellor's triumph was
a great one, and from this time the equitable jurisdiction of the court
of chancery was unquestioned. In June 1616 he supported the king in his
dispute with and dismissal of Coke in the case of the _commendams_,
agreeing with Bacon that it was the judge's duty to communicate with the
king, before giving judgments in which his interests were concerned, and
in November warned the new lord chief justice against imitating the
errors of his predecessor and especially his love of "popularity."[10]
Writing in 1609 to Salisbury, the chancellor had described Coke (who had
long been a thorn in his flesh) as a "frantic, turbulent and idle broken
brayned fellow," apologizing for so often troubling Salisbury on this
subject, "no fit exercise for a chancellor and a treasurer."[11] He now
summoned Coke before him and communicated to him the king's
dissatisfaction with his _Reports_, desiring, however, to be spared
further service in his disgracing. After several petitions for leave to
retire through failing health, he at last, on the 3rd of March 1617,
delivered up to James the great seal, which he had held continuously for
the unprecedented term of nearly twenty-one years. On the 7th of
November 1616 he had been created Viscount Brackley, and his death took
place on the 15th of March 1617. Half an hour before his decease James
sent Bacon, then his successor as lord keeper, with the gift of an
earldom, and the presidentship of the council with a pension of L3000 a
year, which the dying man declined as earthly vanities with which he had
no more concern. He was buried at Dodleston in Cheshire.
As Lord Chancellor Ellesmere he is a striking figure in the long line of
illustrious English judges. No instance of excessive or improper use of
his jurisdiction is recorded, and the famous case which precipitated the
contest between the courts was a clear travesty of justice, undoubtedly
fit for the chancellor's intervention. He refused to answer any
communications from suitors in his court,[12] and it was doubtless to
Ellesmere (as weeding out the "enormous sin" of judicial corruption)[13]
that John Donne, who was his secretary, addressed his fifth satire. He
gained Camden's admiration, who records an anagram on his name, "Gestat
Honorem." Bacon, whose merit he had early recognized, and whose claims
to the office of solicitor-general he had unavailingly supported both in
1594 and 1606, calls him "a true sage, a salvia in the garden of the
state," and speaks with gratitude of his "fatherly kindness." Ben
Jonson, among the poets, extolled in an epigram his "wing'd judgements,"
"purest hands," and constancy. Though endowed with considerable
oratorical gifts he followed the true judicial tradition and affected to
despise eloquence as "not decorum for judges, that ought to respect the
Matter and not the Humours of the Hearers."[14] Like others of his day
he hoped to see a codification of the laws,[15] and appears to have had
greater faith in judge-made law than in statutes of the realm, advising
the parliament (October 27, 1601) "that laws in force might be revised
and explained and no new laws made," and describing the Statute of Wills
passed in Henry VIII.'s reign as the "ruin of ancient families" and "the
nurse of forgeries." In the thirty-eighth year of Elizabeth he drew up
rules for procedure in the Star Chamber,[16] restricting the fees, and
in the eighth of James I. ordinances for remedying abuses in the court
of chancery. In 1609 he published his judgment in the case of the Post
Nati, which appears to be the only certain work of his authorship. The
following have been ascribed to him:--_The Privileges and Prerogatives
of the High Court of Chancery_ (1641); _Certain Observations concerning
the Office of the Lord Chancellor_ (1651)--denied by Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke in _A Discourse of the Judicial Authority of the Master of the
Rolls_ (1728) to be Lord Ellesmere's work; _Observations on Lord Coke's
Reports_, ed. by G. Paul (about 1710), the only evidence of his
authorship being apparently that the MS. was in his handwriting; four
MSS., bequeathed to his chaplain, Bishop Williams, viz. _The Prerogative
Royal, Privileges of Parliament, Proceedings in Chancery_ and _The Power
of the Star Chamber; Notes and Observations on Magna Charta, &c._, Sept.
1615 (Harl. 4265, f. 35), and _An Abridgment of Lord Coke's Reports_
(see MS. note by F. Hargrave in his copy of _Certain Observations
concerning the Office of Lord Chancellor_, Brit. Mus. 510 a 5, also
_Life of Egerton_, p. 80, note T, catalogue of Harleian collection, and
Walpole's _Royal and Noble Authors_, 1806, ii. 170).
He was thrice married. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas
Ravenscroft of Bretton, Flintshire, he had two sons and a daughter. The
elder son, Thomas, predeceased him, leaving three daughters. The
younger, John, succeeded his father as 2nd Viscount Brackley, was
created earl of Bridgewater, and, marrying Lady Frances Stanley
(daughter of his father's third wife, widow of the 5th earl of Derby),
was the ancestor of the earls and dukes of Bridgewater (q.v.), whose
male line became extinct in 1829. In 1846 the titles of Ellesmere and
Brackley were revived in the person of the 1st earl of Ellesmere (q.v.),
descended from Lady Louisa Egerton, daughter and co-heir of the 1st duke
of Bridgewater.
No adequate life of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere has been written, for
which, however, materials exist in the Bridgewater MSS., very scantily
calendared in _Hist. MSS. Comm._ 11th Rep. p. 24, and app. pt. vii. p.
126. A small selection, with the omission, however, of personal and
family matters intended for a separate projected _Life_ which was
never published, was edited by J.P. Collier for the Camden Society in
1840.