BRACTOX. 



BRADLKY, JAMES. 



I to hia memory. He wrote aa other funeral oration* 

 far Cardinal ZahanUa, who died at the Council of O*at*ns; for the 

 Cardinal Santa Crooe, a patron of letter*; for Lorenao de Medici. 

 brother of the great Ceamo; for Cardinal Sant Angalo, who fell in the 

 battle of Varna against the Turks, *c. Hi* friend Nicholas V. being 

 miaed to the pontifical throne in 1447, Peggie, who had returned to 

 *Vi*ind tnmiith*daie*of hiaomoe,add**adtoth*n*wponthT 

 an ilnqnan* oration, of mixed eulogy and advice on the duties and 

 ihngeri of hia exalted station, 'OreSo ad summum Pontinoem Nioo- 

 laum V. To thi* tin)* eelonen Poggio treati*e 'De Varietate Fortune),' 

 on* of hi* heat work*, which preeente a good view of Italian politics 

 at the beginning of the 16th century, an intending sketch of the 

 ru&nUaM of oUMMat ROOM ia Pbggio'a time, nod a oufMHM aooovnt ol 

 the travel* of the YeneHai, Nieoolo ConH, in the east. He alao wrote 

 ' Dialog** advenus Uypooriain,' in which, as well a* in hi* < 

 ' D* Araritia et Luxuria,- he inveigh* against the vicee of 

 and eqi.sislly of the monks, which were certainly very 

 that age, and wen the main cause that led to the great Deformation in 

 taw following century. Notwithstanding hia satirical freedom he 

 preserved the good grace* of Nicholas, in rapport of whose right to 

 the papacy he wrote a bitter invective against hia rival the antipope 

 Frlix, in which, a* usual with Poggio, his amneation* outstripped 

 truth. A violent quarrel with George of Trebicond about some literary 

 matter* brought the two scholars to blow*, and the Greek was in 



tha clergy, 

 certainly very lagrant in 



chligrrt to quit Rome. In 1460, the plague being in 

 Bone. Poggio withdrew to Florence, where he wrote bis Faoetfae/ a 

 collection of humorous anecdotea and repartee*, some of which arc 



He also wrote ' Hiatoria Disoeptativa Convivial!*,' or 



itorical, and i 



Disnutaiio d* Infelicitate Principnm,' in which he apeak* of princes 

 in a strain of democratic eontempt, rather odd in a man who hud lived 

 all hi* life at court*; 'D* Nobilitate Dialogus,' in which the 

 anings of nobility an examined; 'De Miseria Condition w 

 In 1453, on the death of Carlo Aretino, chancellor of 

 Florence, Poggio, through the influence of the Medici, was appointed 

 hia cuccenaor. He finally quitted the Roman court after being fifty 

 years hi ito service, and it was not without regret that he parted from 

 hi* kind patron. Pope Nicholas. 



Having now access to the archive* of Florence, he undertook a 

 history of that republic, ' Histories FlorentinsB,' lib. viiL, which 

 embraces the period from 1350 to 1455. It waa translated into Italian 

 by his son Jacopo, and printed in 1476, and afterwards republished in a 

 mon correct and improved form by Serdonati, Florence, 1598. The 

 Latin text waa not published till 1715, by Keoanati, who prefixed to 

 it a biography of the author. Poggio has been charged with marked 

 partiality for bis countrymen in his history. Another deficiency is 

 noted by a grave authority, Machiavelli, who, in the preface to his own 

 history, observe* that both " Poggio and Leonardo Bruni, two excel- 

 lent historians, had diligently described the wan between Florence 

 and the other states and princes, but with regard to the civil conten- 

 tion* of the republic, it* internal factions and their result*, they had 

 been either silent or extremely laconic in their account, either because 

 they fancied them beneath the dignity of history,, or perhaps because 

 they wen afraid of offending the relative* and descendant* of persons 

 who had figured in those transaction*." 



Poggio died at Florence in 1459, and waa buried with great honours 

 in the church of Santo Crooe, near hi* friend Leonardo Brunt A statue 

 of him by the sculptor Donatello i* in the duomo or cathedral 



Poggio waa one of the most distinguished scholars of the epoch of 

 the revival of literature, and one of those who contributed molt to the 

 spreading of that revival Hi* long life, the offices of trust which he 

 filled, hi* travels, his extensive correspondence, hi* multifarious learning, 

 all contribute to render him one of the most remarkable writers of the 

 16th century. Hi* works, especially his ' Orations ' and his ' Epistolic,' 

 an remarkable for their eloquence and fluency of style, though their 

 language doe* not equal in oiaasio purity that of Poliziano and some 

 other latinist* of the following age. Hia sentiment* are noted for their 

 lance and frankness; even in hi* addresse* to the great, his 

 s, though courtly, in free from flattery. 



gio'* son Jacopo waa a man of learning, but after being in hi* 

 the friend of the Medici, he conspired with the Pazzi against 

 , and being Mixed after the murder of Oiuliano, was publicly 

 hj ,-: fa Ml 



I'.KACTON, one of the writers who arc meant when the phrase is 

 need 'our ancient law-writers,' or 'the ancient textwriten of our 

 law.' These writer* lived from the close of the 12th to the middle of 

 the 16th century. The oldest i* Olanville, whose era is referred to 

 the reign of Henry II. and Richard I. Braeton lived in the reign of 

 HI. He appears to have been born about the beginning of the 

 13th century. The other* are Britton, Littleton, and the unknown 

 authors of ' Fleta,' 'The Mirror of Justice,' 'The Doctor and S- 

 and the ' Old Book of Tenure*.' These book* all relate to tho nature, 



principle*, and operation of the ancient law* and constitution of the 

 realm, and together with a few minor treatises, the collections of 

 Wejah, Saxon, and Norman laws, the charters and statutes, the year- 

 book* which contain note* of causes and decisions, the record* of 

 writ*, inqnosta, survey*, and of the ncejpta and tame* by and from the 

 king* revenue, and the incidental information to be found in the 



chronicler*, form the stu.ly of those ponoaa who wish to become 

 acquainted with the history of English judicature, of the courts for 

 the administration of justice, and generally of the various operation* 

 of the English law. 



Bracton's work is entitled ' De funemitoiilhslMM at Legibua Angli- 

 eenia,' It i* divided into five, book*, and the following ia a slight 

 ketch of the nature and object of the work. 



In the first book he treats of dictinctiona existing in respect both of 

 persons and thing*; in the second of the mode* in which property 

 may be acquired in thing* ; in the third of action* or remedie* at law. 

 The fourth book is divided into several section*, which treat on the 

 aaake of ' novel dimeisin,' the assize of ' ultima nreeentatio,' the aastae 

 of ' mort d ancestor,' the writ of consanguinity, the granta in ' libera 

 eleamosyna,' and on dower. The fifth and last book ia also divided 

 into sections, in which the author treat* of the writ of right, essoins, 

 default*, warranty, and exception*. A larger abstract of the contents 

 of this work may be found in Reeve*' ' History of the Kngliah Law,' 

 vol. ii. p. 86, Ac. A treatise so methodical in its arrangement*, so 

 preciso in its statements, and so abundant in its information, must 

 have been the work of some very able person. Little however is now 

 known of this author. The writer* to whom we are indebted for 

 collecting what could be recovered of the Kngliah authors of the 

 middle ages, are Leland. Bab, and Pita, of whom the two former lived 

 in the reign of Henry VIII. and supplied Pita, who was a Catholic 

 writer in the reign of Elizabeth and James L, with most of the infor- 

 mation which hU work, valuable as it ia, contains. Their statement* 

 that Braeton wan a judge of the Common Plena, and that he was Chiof 

 Justice of England, are now regarded as questionable. There i* better 

 reason to believe that he waa a Henry de Braeton who delivered law 

 lectures in the University of Oxford towards the middle of the 13th 

 century, and that he sat, once at least, aa a justice itinerant in the 

 reign of Henry 1IL The value of the work, and the high esteem in 

 which it waa held, is manifest by the numerous copies which were 

 made of it before tho invention of printing opened so much easier and 

 cheaper a way of multiplying copies of valuable writing*. The pains 

 which it must have required to transcribe the work, and consequently 

 the expense of it, may be collected from the extent of the work, which 

 fills in its printed form not loss than 683 folio page*. Many of theac 

 manuscript copies exist It is said that there are no less than eiulit in 

 the various libraries which compose the book department of the 

 British Museum. In 1569 it waa printed in a folio volume, and again 

 in quarto in 1640, the text of the old edition being collated, very 

 imperfectly, with that of some of the manuscripts. 



BKAUDOCK, KDNVAKD, lost hia life in Virginia, by the French 

 and Indians, in the war in which General Wolfe afterwards fell on the 

 heights at Quebec in Canada. The French having determined to con- 

 nect their Canadian colony with their other possessions in Louisiana 

 by a chain of fortified military stations which interfered with the 

 British territories, Qeneral Braddock, with an army of 2000 En-lii-li, 

 was despatched to Virginia, where he arrived in February 1 755, at 

 Richmond. With 390 waggons of provisions, ammunition, and bag- 

 gage, hn reached in July the Monongnhela, a branch of the river 

 Ohio. Washington, who wag then at the age of twenty-throe, joined 

 him as a volunteer, in the capacity of aide-de-camp ; and from his 

 accurate knowledge of his native country, and of the Indian mode of 

 warfare, would have furnished the English commander with the infor- 

 mation requisite for the success of his expedition, but Braddock's 

 self-sufficiency contemptuously disregarded the advice of American 

 officers. Having advanced on the 9th of July within nix milos of 

 Fort du Quesne, now Pitt-burg, where ho supposed the enemy awaited 

 bis approach, his columns, in passing silently through a deep forest 

 ravine, were suddenly struck with terror by the frightful war-whoop 

 of the Indians from the dense thicket* on both sides, and tho 

 murderous fire of invisible rifles. Rushing forward they wore sur- 

 prised and attacked in front by the French forces, while the Indian 

 warriors, leaping by hundreds from their ambush, fell upon them with 

 fury in the rear. Their strange and hideous appearance, and the 

 echo of their piercing dog-like yelp, in such a gloomy wilderness of 

 trees, so startled the English soldiers, who for the first time heard it, 

 that the panic which seized them continued until half the army was 

 destroyed. With tho single exception of Washington, who received 

 several rifle balls through his dress, and had two horses shot under 

 him, no officer escaped alive. Braddock himself, after mounting in 

 succession five horses, was shot, and carried off on a tumbril by the 

 remnant of his troop*, who fled precipitously forty miles to the place 

 in which the baggage had been left, where he died. 



11HADI.KY, .TA.MKS, th,- third Astronomer Royal, and the first, 

 perhaps, of all astronomers in the union of theoretical sagacity with 

 practical excellence, waa born at Sherlxmrn iu Glouoestorulm < <pnil>:i- 

 bly in March, 1693-98). For all authorities, &e., we must refer the 

 reader to the excellent and minute account of him in tho Oxford 

 edition of hi* 'Miscellaneous Work* and Correspondence,' Oxford, 

 1832, by Profeasor Rigmid. 



His father, William liradley, married Jane, the slater of the Rev. 

 James Pound, known by the observations of the comet of 1680 which 

 ho supplied to Newton, together with other observations referred to 

 in the ' Principia.' With this uncle James Bradley passed much of 

 ii* time, and found in his house the means of applying himself to 



