726 



RHOWNIK RUCE. 



instantly made their appearance, and bound him hand 

 uiul foot. As soon as In- recovered the use of his t'a- 

 cuities, he saw tiie banditti plundering his baggn 

 with which his servant had in tin- mean time come 

 up. He was told by the wretches into whose hands 

 he had fallen, that they intended to put an end to 

 his life, though not in that place. Finding expostu- 

 lation useless, and incapable of resistance, lie merely 

 entreated them to spare his servant, and allow him to 

 depart with his papers, which could be of no use to 

 them. This they agreed to ; and what will appear 

 more singular, Uie assassins, who might be supposed 

 to consider arms as acquisitions of the utmost impor- 

 tance, made the man a present of his master's pistols 

 iiiul double-barrelled gun.. They then suffered Mr 

 Krmvne to see his sen-ant out of sight, who immedi- 

 ately returned to Tabreez, and related what had oc- 

 curred. Abbas Mirza, prince of Persia, speedily 

 desjifitched several parties of horsemen to search the 

 pass of the caravanserai and its neighbourhood, and 

 in a valley on the opposite side of the mountain they 

 found the corpse of Uie unfortunate traveller, which 

 had been left naked and exposed to the beasts of the 

 forest It was by the prince's orders conveyed to 

 Akhand, and decently interred. Exertions were made, 

 but without effect, to discover the perpetrators of this 

 atrocious deed. 



BROW HIK, in the popular superstitions of Scotland, 

 was a spirit who cleaned the house, churned, threshed, 

 and did other good-natured offices. He seems to be 

 the same as the English puck, hobgoblin, or Robin 

 Goodfellow, whom Reginald Scott (Discovery of 

 Witchcraft) describes as one, who, for his pains in 

 grinding malt and mustard, and sweeping the house, 

 had a bowl of milk set for him. When Johnson vi- 

 sited the Hebrides, nothing bad been heard of the 

 brownie for many years. 



BROWNISTS ; the name given for some time to those 

 who were afterwards known in England and Holland 

 under the denomination of Independents. They were 

 so called from Robert Brown, a notice of whose life is 

 given in a previous page. The sect, however, does not 

 appear to have originated in him : for by several publi- 

 cations of those times, it is clear that these sentiments 

 had, before his day, been embraced, and professed in 

 England, and churches gathered on the plan of them. 

 Nor did they call themselves Brownists ; but consi- 

 dered it rather as a nickname given them by their ad- 

 versaries. Nor did Brown continue with them ; but, 

 after all that he had preached and written against the 

 church, accepted a living in it, at Achurch, in Nor- 

 thamptonshire. 



This denomination did not differ in point of doc- 

 trine from the church of England, or from the other 

 puritans; but they apprehended, that, according to 

 scripture, every church ought to be confined within 

 the limits of a single congregation, and have the com- 

 plete power of jurisdiction over its members, to be 

 exercised by the elders within itself, without being 

 subject to the authority of bishops, synods, presby- 

 teries, or any ecclesiastical assembly, composed of the 

 deputies from different churches. 



They condemned the solemn celebration of mar- 

 riages in the church, maintaining that matrimony, be- 

 ing a political contract, the confirmation thereof ought 

 to come from the civil magistrate; an opinion in which 

 they are not singular. They would not allow the 

 children of such as were not members of the church 

 to be baptized. They rejected all forms of prayer, 

 and held that the Lord's prayer was riot to be recited 

 as a prayer, being only given for a rule or model 

 whereon all our prayers are to be formed. Their 

 form of church government was nearly as follows : 

 When a church was to be gathered, such as desired . 

 to be members of it made a confession of their faith in i 



Uie presence of each other, and signed a covenant, by 

 which they obliged themselves to walk togeUier in 

 the order of the gospel. The whole powlr of ad- 

 mitting and excluding members, with the decision of 

 all controversies, was lodged in the brotherhood. Their 

 church officers were chosen from among themselves, 

 and separated to their several office* by fasting, 

 prayer, and imposition of hands. But they did not 

 allow the priesUiood to be any distinct order. As the 

 vote of Uie brethren made a man a minister, so the 

 same power could discharge him from his office, and 

 reduce him to a mere layman again.. And as Uiey 

 maintained Uie bounds of a church to be no greater 

 than what could meet together in one place, and join 

 in one communion, so the power of these officers was 

 prescribed within the same limits. The minister of 

 one church could not administer the Lord's supper to 

 another, nor baptize the children of any but those of 

 his own society. Any lay brother was allowed the 

 liberty of giving a word of exhortation to the people ; 

 and it was usual for some of them after sermon to ask 

 questions, and reason upon the doctrines that Uad been 

 preached. In a word, every church on their model 

 is a body corporate, having full power to do every 

 thing in themselves, without being accountable to any 

 class, synod, convocation, or other jurisdiction what- 

 ever. The reader will judge how near the indepen- 

 dent churches are allied to this form of government. 

 The laws were executed with great severity on the 

 Brownists ; their books were prohibited by queeii 

 Elizabeth, their persons imprisoned, and some hanged. 

 Brown himself declared on his deathbed, that he had 

 been in thirty-two different prisons, in some of which 

 he could not see his hand at noonday. They were 

 so much persecuted, that they resolved at last to quit 

 the country. Accordingly many retired and settled 

 at Amsterdam, where they formed a church, and 

 chose Mr Johnson their pastor, and after him Mr 

 Aiiisworth, author of the learned commentary on the 

 Pentateuch. Their church nourished near one hun- 

 dred years. 



BROWNRIGG, William, an ingenious physician, was 

 a native of Cumberland, and was educated at the 

 university of Leyden. He settled as a medical prac- 

 titioner at Whitehaven, whence he removed to Orm- 

 thwaite, where he died in 1800. He was skilled in 

 chemistry, and wrote a treatise entitled " The Art of 

 Making common Salt, as now practised in most parts 

 of the world, with several improvements proposed in 

 that art for the use of the British dominions," with 

 plates, 8vo. This work procured him admission into 

 the Royal Society. He appears afterwards to have 

 employed himself in the study of pneumatic chemistry, 

 relative to which he is supposed to have made disco- 

 veries which have been attributed to other cultivators 

 of science; but Dr Brownrigg's claims to these dis- 

 coveries have never been clearly made out. He wrote 

 observations on platina, and on carbonic acid, pub- 

 lished in the Philosophical Transactions. 



BRUCE, James, a celebrated modern traveller, was 

 born at Kinnaird-house, in the county of Stirling, in 

 1730. He received his early education at Harrow, 

 whence he was removed to Uie university of Edin- 

 burgh, where he studied with a view to pursue the 

 profession of the law. His object, however, changing, 

 he entered into partnership with a wine-merchant, 

 whose daughter he married ; but, upon his wife's 

 death within a year, he made a tour abroad, during 

 which absence he succeeded, by the death of his fa- 

 ther, to the estate of Kinnaird. On his return to 

 England, he sought public employment, and at length 

 was indebted to lord Halifax for the appointment of 

 consul at Algiers. He repaired to his post in 1763, 

 and employed himself there for a year in the study of 

 the Oriental languages. He commenced travelling 



