tionary tribunal. Brissot, who was elevated in the midst of them, maintained a firm and tranquil mind; but, though their accusers could support their charges by little more than mere surmises, the whole party was immediately condemned to the scaffold; and next morning were led to execution. There Brissot, after seeing the blood of 16 associates stream from the scaffold, submitted to the stroke with the utinost composure. In the relations of private life, his character stands without reproach; but these afford no counterpoise to his public conduct: and although his sentence was unjust as coming from men as guilty as himself, it was the natural consequence of a tyranny to the establishment of which he had contributed more largely than most of his countrymen.

BRISTOW (RICHARD), an eminent Roman catholic priest and writer in the reign of queen Elizabeth, was born at Worcester, in 1538. In 1555 he was entered of Exeter college, Oxford, according to Pits, which Wood doubts; but he took his degree of B. A. in 1559, and M. A. in 1562, at which last time he was a member of Christ church. He and the celebrated Campian were so esteemed for their talents, as to be selected to entertain queen Elizabeth with a public disputation in 1566. Bristow was afterwards, in July 1567, made a fellow of Exeter college, by the interest of sir William Petre, who had founded some fellowships in. that college, and who would have promoted him further, had he not laid himself open to the suspicion of holding popish tenets; and this appeared more plainly by his quitting the university on cardinal Alan's invitation. He went then to Doway, and after prosecuting his theological studies in that academy, was admitted to his doctor's degree in 1579, and, says his biographer, was Alan's "right hand upon all occasions." He was made prefect of studies, lectured on the scriptures, and in the absence of Alan acted as regent of the college. His intense studies, however, injured a constitution originally very weak, and after a journey to Spa, which had very little effect, he was recommended to try his native air. On his return to England, he resided for a very short time with a Mr. Bellamy, a gentleman of fortune, at Harrow on the Hill, where he died Oct. 18, 1581. The popish historians concur in expressing the loss their cause suffered by his death, he being

1 Life, 1794, 8vo. Biographie moderne-Rees's Cyclopædia.

teemed "an Alan in prudence, a Stapleton in acuteness, a Campian in eloquence, a Wright in theology, and a Martin in languages." He wrote, 1. "Dr. Bristow's motives," Antwerp, 1574, 1599, 8vo, translated afterwards into Latin, by Dr. Worthington, Doway, 1608, 4to. 2. "A Reply to William Fulk (his ablest antagonist), in defence of Dr. Allen (Alan's) articles, and book of purgatory," Louvain, 1580, 4to. 3. "Fifty-one demands, to be proposed by catholics to heretics," London, 1592, 4to. 4. "Veritates Aureæ S. R. Ecclesiæ," 1616. 5. "Tabula in summam theologicam S. Thomæ Aquinatis," 1579. He wrote also "An Apology in defence of Alan and himself," and notes upon the Rheims Testament. 1

BRITANNICO (JOHN ANGELO), an eminent Italian scholar of the fifteenth century, was born in the Brescian territory, of a family originally from Great Britain; and having studied at Padua about the year 1470, kept school at Brescia, and distinguished himself by several learned annotations on various classic authors, particularly Juvenal, Lucan, Horace, Persius, and Statius in his Achilleid. He also wrote grammatical and other tracts, and an eulogy on Bartholomew Cajetan. He is supposed not to have long survived the year 1518, and did not live to publish his notes upon Pliny's Natural History. His Statius was published in 1485, fol. and his Juvenal in 1512, Venice, fol.

2

BRITO (BERNARD DE), a Portuguese historian, was born at Almeida, Aug. 20, 1569, and entered young into the order of the Cistercians, by whom he was sent to Italy to be educated. During his studies he betrayed much more fondness for history than for philosophy or divinity, yet did not neglect the latter so far as to be unable to teach both, which he did with reputation on his return home. His abilities in investigating the affairs of Portugal procured him the office of first historiographer of Portugal, and he was the first who endeavoured to give a regular form to its history, two folio volumes of which he published in 1597, at Alcobaça, and 1609, at Lisbon, under the title of "Monarchia Lusitana." It is written with elegance; and was brought down to Alfonsus III. by Antony and Francis Brandano, monks of the same order, making in all 7 vols. He published also, 2. Panegyrics of the kings of Portugal, with their portraits. 3. Ancient Geography of Portugal. 4. Chronicle of the Cistercian order. The "Guerra Brasilica," Lisbon, 1675, 2 vols. folio, is by Francis de Brito, a different person from Bernard, who died in 1617.1

BRITTON (THOMAS), a very singular personage, known by the name of the Musical Small-coal Man, was born at or near Higham Ferrers, in Northamptonshire, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and went from thence to London, where he bound himself apprentice to a smallcoal man. He served seven years, and returned to Northamptonshire, his master giving him a sum of money not to set up: but, after this money was spent, he returned again to London, and set up the trade of small-coal, which he continued to the end of his life. Some time after he had been settled in business here, he became acquainted with Dr. Garaniere, his neighbour, an eminent chemist, who, admitting him into his laboratory, Tom, with the doctor's consent, and his own observation, soon became a notable chemist; contrived and built himself a moving laboratory, in which, according to Hearne, "he performed with little expence and trouble such things as had never been done before." Besides his great skill in chemistry, he became a practical, and, as was thought, a theoretical musician. Tradition only informs us that he was very fond of music, and that he was able to perform on the viol da gamba at his own concerts, which he at first established gratis in his miserable house, which was an old mean building, the ground-floor of which was a repository for his small-coal; over this was his concert-room, long, low, and narrow, to which there was no other ascent than by a pair of stairs on the outside, so perpendicular and narrow, as scarcely to be mounted without crawling.

Hearne allows him to have been a very diligent collec- tor of old books of all kinds, which, in his courses through the town crying his small-coal, he had a good opportunity of doing at stalls, where he used to stop and select for purchase whatever was ancient, particularly on his two favourite subjects of chemistry and music. On the former, it has naturally been suggested that he had picked up books on Rosicrucian mysteries, and not impossible but that he may have wasted some of his small-coals in the great secrets of alchemy in the transmutation of metals.

Moreri. Dict. Hist.

4

With respect to music, he collected all the elementary books in English that were then extant; such as Morley's. introduction, Simpson's division violist, Playford, Butler, Bath, and Mace; nine books of instruction for the psalmody, flute, and mock trumpet. But besides his vast collection of printed music, the catalogue of which fills eight pages in 4to, of sir J. Hawkins's Hist. of Music, he seeuns to have been such an indefatigable copyist, that he is said to have transcribed with his own hand, very neatly and accurately, a collection of music which sold after his decease for near 1001.

Mr. Walpole, in his Anecdotes, says, that "Woolaston the painter, who was a good performer on the violin and flute, had played at the concert held at the house of that extraordinary person, Thomas Britton the small-coal man, whose picture he twice drew, one of which was purchased by sir Hans Sloane, and is now in the British museum : there is a mezzotinto from it. T. Britton, who made much noise in his time, considering his low station and trade, was a collector of all sorts of curiosities, particularly drawings, prints, books, manuscripts on uncommon subjects, as mystic divinity, the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, and magic; and musical instruments, both in and out of vogue. Various were the opinions concerning him; some thought his musical assembly only a cover for seditious meetings; others, for magical purposes. He was taken for an atheist, a presbyterian, a jesuit. But Woolaston the painter, and the son of a gentleman who had likewise been a member of that club, averred it as their opinions, that Britton was a plain, simple, honest man, who only meant to amuse himself. The subscription was but ten shillings a year; Britton found the instruments, and they had coffee at a penny a dish. Sir Hans Sloane bought many of his books and MSS. now in the Museum, when they were sold by auction at Tom's coffeehouse, near Ludgate."

Dr. Burney in early life conversed with members of this concert, who spoke of him in the same manner. So late as the middle of the last century, mezzotinto prints of him were in all the print-shops, particularly an excellent one by Smith, under which, and almost all the prints of Britton, were the following verses, by Hughes, who frequently performed on the violin at the concerts of this ingenious small-coal man:

"Though mean thy rank, yet in thy humble cell
Did gentle peace, and arts, unpurchased, dwell;
Well pleased, Apollo thither led his train,
And music warbled in her sweetest strain.
Cyllenius so, as fables tell, and Jove,
Came willing guests to poor Philemon's grove.
Let useless pomp behold, and blush to find,
So low a station, such a liberal mind."

In most of the prints, he was represented with his sack of small-coal on his shoulder, and his measure of retail in his hand. In the Guardian, No. 144, Steele, speaking of the variety of original and odd characters, which our free government produces, says: "We have a small-coal man, who beginning with two plain notes, which made up his daily cry, has made himself master of the whole compass of the gammut, and has frequent concerts of music at his own house, for the entertainment of himself and friends."

But the assertion of sir John Hawkins, that Britton was the first who had a meeting that corresponded with the idea of a concert, is not correct: in the time of Charles I. and during the usurpation, at Oxford, meetings for the performance of Fancies in six and seven parts, which preceded sonatas and concerts, were very common. And in Charles the Second's time, Banister, father and son, had concerts, first at taverns and public-houses, and afterwards at York-buildings. It is, perhaps, not a matter worthy of dispute; but we imagine that it would be difficult to prove that Handel ever played at the small-coal man's concert. Handel was proud, and never had much respect for English composers. He had been caressed and patronised by princes and nobles so long, that he would as soon have gone into a coal-pit to play at a concert, as to the hovel of our vender of small-coal.

About the commencement of the last century, a passion prevailed among several persons of distinction, of collecting old books and MSS.; and it was their Saturday's amusement during winter, to ramble through various quarters of the town in pursuit of these treasures. The earls of Oxford, Pembroke, Sunderland, and Winchelsea, and the duke of Devonshire, were of this party, and Mr. Bagford and other collectors assisted them in their researches. Britton appears to have been employed by them; and, as he was a very modest, decent, and unpresuming man, he was a sharer in their conversation, when they met after their morning's walk, at a bookseller's shop in Ave-Maria lane.