BROWNSON, ORESTES AUGUSTUS, LL. D., an American author, born at Stockbridge, Vt., Sept. 16, 1803. His early life, passed chiefly with old people in a lonely locality, was without the sports and charms which usually belong to childhood. He was taught the assembly's catechism, the apostles' creed, and the Lord's prayer; and, with a fondness for reading, had for books almost nothing but the Scriptures and a few religious treatises. Hence his thoughts took a deeply religious turn; and at 9 years of age, having been permitted to witness a general military muster, and being asked what he had seen to interest him, his answer was, that he had seen two old men talking on religion. In fact, he had forgotten the soldiers to listen to a debate on election and free-will, in which he himself took part. One of his earliest aspirations was to become a clergyman. In his 19th year, he joined the Presbyterian church at Ballston, N. Y., where he was attending an academy, but soon meeting with men of various religious opinions, he changed his views after much argumentation and a period of perplexity, and became, in 1825, a Universalist minister. He preached in different villages of Vermont and New York, and wrote for and edited various religions periodicals, disseminating a confused medley of bold thoughts. His ecclesiastical position had grown into disfavor with him, when, making acquaintance with Robert Owen, he was fascinated by schemes of social reform; and in 1828 he was prominent in the formation of the working men's party in New York, the design of which was to relieve the poorer and more numerous classes by political organization. Of the effectiveness of this movement he presently despaired, when the writings of Dr. Channing drew his attention to the Unitarians, and in 1832 he became pastor of a Unitarian congregation. He now enjoyed the acquaintance of many cultivated persons; was introduced to the French and German literatures; and began the methodical study of philosophy and theology. His chief advisers were the works of the French philosophers, and the most important result of his study was a conviction of the necessity of a new religious organization of mankind, which should render the religious senti

ments efficient in society, and give to faith, love, and union the supremacy over disbelief, uncertainty, and individualism. In 1836 he organized, in Boston, the "society for Christian union and progress," of which he retained the pastorate till he ceased preaching, in 1843. Immediately after removing to Boston, he published his "New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church," remarkable for its protest against Protestantism; and in which, by speculations akin to those of Benjamin Constant and the St. Simonians, he looked to the immediate future for a transformation of religious and social ideas and institutions. In 1838 he established the "Boston Quarterly Review," of which he was proprietor, and almost sole writer, during the 5 years of its separate existence, and to which he contributed largely during the first year after it was merged into the "Democratic Review," of New York. It was designed not to support any definite doctrine, but to awaken thought on great subjects, with reference to speedy and radical changes. To this end also he published, in 1840, "Charles Elwood, or the Infidel Converted, a philosophico-religious treatise, in the form of a novel. This book has passed through several editions in England, but as the author soon afterward changed his views on the subjects treated in it, he declined to have more than one edition issued in this country. In his sermons, essays, and books, he had pushed abstract principles to speculative results, and, as he afterward said, had accepted and vindicated nearly every error into which the human race has ever fallen. Having gone in one direction about as far as was possible, and meeting with little either of sympathy or success, he began to suspect that man was not made for a church-builder, but that God himself had founded a church centuries since, fully adapted to the nature and destiny of human beings. This reactionary tendency in his thoughts was encouraged by a course of reasoning; and the ultra iconoclast in institutions, and "chartered libertine" in doctrine, began to look to the Roman Catholic church as the organization which he had vainly endeavored to construct for the redemption of humanity. With his entrance into the Roman communion, in

brother of King William, the Lion. The question of succession speedily resolved itself into a simple alternative between 2 competitors, John Baliol, the great-grandson of David by his eldest daughter, Margaret, and Robert Bruce, the grandson of David by his 2d daughter, Isabel. The contest was, by mutual consent, referred for decision to King Edward I. of England, who pronounced, in accordance with principles that would not now be disputed, that "in all indivisible heritages the more remote in degree of the 1st line of descent is preferable to the nearer in degree of the 2d," and thus gave the kingdom to Baliol, from whom he required homage and fealty. Bruce now retired to England, took service in the English army, and fought against Baliol in the war which resulted in the subjugation of Scotland to England. He returned to his English estates soon after the resignation of Baliol, passed the last years of his life in the deepest contempt among the more patriotic of his countrymen, and died about 1296. -ROBERT, Son of the preceding, earl of Carrick and Annandale, constantly followed the fortunes of Edward, and fought bravely against Wallace and the patriot party of Scotland. After having assisted in defeating Wallace at Falkirk, he is said to have had an interview with him on the banks of the Carron, to have been affected to tears by his patriotism, devotion, and misfortunes, and to have sworn to join the national standard. This scene is the subject of a poem by Mrs. Hemans. From this time he slackened his zeal for England, but did so little for the national cause that he was able to make his peace with Edward when, a little later, after the capitulation at Irvine, Wallace was driven with his adherents into the northern mountains.-ROBERT, Son of the preceding, earl of Carrick, and afterward king of Scotland, born March 21, 1274, died July 9, 1329. He acted at first as Edward's liegeman, but vacillated between the 2 parties, taking no very active part in the struggle between Wallace and England, but inclining to the national cause when a gleam of success enlivened the hopes of the patriots, and, at the approach of Edward, making his peace with the conqueror. He was one of those consulted by the king in the settlement of Scotland as an English province, and was permitted to retain the extensive lands of his ancestors unalienated. It chanced in 1306 that Comyn, the son of Baliol's sister, a nobleman near to the crown, and already distinguished by his efforts to recover the independence of his country, arrived in Dumfries about the same time with Bruce. By appointment, he met Bruce alone in the church of the Minorites, who there stabbed him with his dagger; whether by premeditated treachery or in a sudden fit of passion cannot now be ascertained. Bruce hurried to the church door bloody and agitated, and to the inquiries of his attendants replied: "I think I have killed Comyn !" "You think!" exclaimed one of the number "I make certain!" and rushing with the others

into the church, despatched the wounded nobleman. The Scotch historians have fabricated a tale to palliate an act which was in harmony with the turbulent spirit and bloody disposition of the age and country, and the authors of which, instead of feeling disgraced, prided themselves on the deed as on an exploit, one of them assuming as his crest a bloody hand holding a dirk, with the legend for a motto, "I make certain." By the murder of Comyn, Bruce had staked his life, and could save it only by winning a sceptre. He assumed the title of king, summoned the Scots to his standard, and was crowned, without any opposition, at Scone. Edward immediately sent Aymar de Valence, earl of Pembroke, with a great army to chastise the rebels. The force of Bruce was almost immediately destroyed, 6 of his best knights made prisoners, and he himself, thrown from his horse, was rescued only by the devotion of Seaton. For 2 months, with his brothers and the ladies of his household, he wandered to and fro in the wilds of the Grampian hills, living as an outlaw on the deer of the hills and the salmon of the streams, till his party being discovered, defeated, and forced to separate, he buried himself for concealment in the lonely island of Rathlin, on the north of Ireland. His 3 brothers, wife, and sister, 3 ecclesiastics in full armor, and others, were captured; and the brothers were soon after hanged at Carlisle, and the prelates and ladies were imprisoned in various parts of England. In the spring of 1307 Bruce returned from his retreat, surprised his own castle of Carrick, defeated small parties of English in many skirmishes, and was enabled to maintain himself among the hills and forests, until Edward, indignant at the partial success of men whom he regarded as outcasts from chivalry and forsworn felons, called out the army of his realm and marched toward the borders, but died on his way, leaving to his son a charge not to bury his bones till he had borne them in triumph from Berwick bounds to the utmost highlands. For 3 years Edward II. paid no attention to his father's advice or the Scottish war, but in the autumn of 1310 he marched into Scotland as far as the Forth without encountering an enemy, for Bruce wisely declined. to give him battle. In the next year he sent his favorite Gaveston to renew the war, who penetrated beyond the Forth, but still gained no advantages, Bruce constantly retreating before him, keeping the hills where he could not be assailed, and harassing the English by constant petty skirmishes, in which he mostly worsted them. The following years were passed by Edward in ignoble contentions with his parliament, and by Bruce in gradually but surely recovering all that he had lost in Scotland, until, in 1314, the strong hill fortress of Stirling alone held out for the English, and even that the governor, Mowbray, had been forced to consent to surrender if it should not be relieved before the feast of St. John the Baptist. This at length aroused Edward, who, at

of the church, officered by clergymen and others, and animated by the presence and exhortations of Queen Philippa. The English fought desperately, though with no regular leader, and the Scottish troops were totally defeated, leaving 15,000 men dead on the field of battle and their king a prisoner. From this time until 1357 David was detained a prisoner in the tower of London, when he was liberated after the battle of Poitiers, on the agreement to pay 100,000 marks in 20 half-yearly instalments, a truce being sworn to and hostages interchanged between the 2 countries. This truce was afterward extended to 25 years further, under the name of the great truce, which, David Bruce dying shortly after its ratification, was faithfully observed by his successor, Robert, the first of the Stuart kings of Scotland.

BRUCE, EDWARD, Lord, a Scottish judge and politician, born in 1549, died Jan. 14, 1611. In 1594 he was sent to remonstrate with Queen Elizabeth on the countenance she gave to the earl of Bothwell, and though she would not deliver Bothwell up, she compelled him to leave her dominions. In 1598 he went a second time to England on an unsuccessful mission to induce Elizabeth to acknowledge James VI. as her successor. In 1601, having again gone to England with the earl of Mar, to intercede for the ill-fated earl of Essex, and arriving after his execution, they adroitly converted their mission of supplication into one congratulating Elizabeth on her escape from the conspiracy. Owing to the judicious conduct of Bruce, the undisputed accession of James on the death of Elizabeth took place. Bruce, knighted and created Baron Bruce of Kinloss, accompanied James to England in 1603, and was made privy councillor and master of the rolls.

the head of a large army, encamped in the neighborhood of the beleaguered fortress, and was there met by Bruce at the head of 30,000 picked men, on the eve of the festival fixed for its surrender. The battle of Bannockburn, which succeeded, was the bloodiest defeat which the English ever suffered at the hands of their Scottish neighbors. It fixed the crown securely on the head of Bruce, and at once enabled him to exchange his prisoners, who were of the highest rank in England, against his wife, his sister, and his other relatives, who had languished so long in captivity. After this success the Scottish people assumed the offensive and invaded Ireland, where they at first gained considerable successes, and of which Edward Bruce was crowned king. While the dissensions lasted between Edward and his barons, Robert Bruce repeatedly devastated the bor ders and all the north of Yorkshire, even to the walls of York, into which he on one occasion chased Edward in disgrace, narrowly failing to make him prisoner. In 1323 this bloody war, which had raged, with few pauses, for 23 years, was brought to a close by a truce concluded between the 2 kingdoms for 13 years, to remain in force even in the event of the death of one or both of the contracting parties. Four years after this Edward II. was compelled to abdicate in favor of his son, Edward III., and Bruce, seeing his occasion in the distracted state of England, renewed the war, with the avowed intention of forcing Edward to renounce his claim of sovereignty over the crown of Scotland. In 1328 this renunciation was made; Scotland was declared sovereign and independent; Jane of England, the sister of Edward, was affianced to David, prince of Scotland; and Robert Bruce paid £20,000 sterling to defray the expenses of the war. He died the next year, having, after a life of incessant toil and warfare, secured the independence of his country and won the crown, which he left undis puted to his son.-DAVID, son of the preceding, king of Scotland, born about 1320, died in 1370. Shortly after his accession, at the age of 9 years, his kingdom was invaded, and his crown wrested from him, by Edward Baliol, son . of that John Baliol whom Edward I. had compelled to resign the crown. In support of his claim Edward III. maintained a fierce strife on the borders, in active though undeclared hostilities to the Scots. David, with his young queen, Jane of England, escaped to France, where he resided till 1341, when, the nobles Murray, Douglas, and Stuart having expelled Baliol from the throne into the northern counties of England, he ventured to return. In 1346, while Edward III., with the flower of his army, was absent in France, David suddenly invaded England, at the head of 30,000 infantry, mounted for the march on galloways, and of 3,000 men-at-arms. But a small army of English had collected themselves secretly at Aukland park, in Durham, composed of 1,200 menat-arms, 3,000 archers, and about 7,000 vassals

BRUCE, JAMES, a Scotch traveller, born at Kinnaird, Dec. 14, 1730, died April 27, 1794. He was educated in London and in the university of Edinburgh, and abandoned the profession of advocate, to which he had been destined, for a mercantile life. His wife dying soon after his marriage, he sought diversion from his grief in travel, made the tour of the continent, and at Madrid studied the numerous Arabic MSS. in the Escurial, but was forbidden by the Spanish government to publish them. He returned to England, engaged in studying the oriental languages, particularly the Ethiopian, and renounced commerce in 1763 to accept the consulship at Algiers. He was soon after selected by Lord Halifax to undertake what had baffled curiosity and power since the age of Cambyses, namely, the discovery of the source of the Nile. He left Algiers in 1765, visited rapidly Tunis, Tripoli, Rhodes, Cyprus, Syria and Egypt, and in Feb. 1770 reached the city of Gondar, where he began his explorations for the head of the Nile. After remaining 2 years in Abyssinia, and visiting the source of the Bahr-el Azrek, which he mistook for the true Nile, he returned through Nubia and Egypt, narrowly escaping the plots of the savages and