it is represented by the famous “Brocken scene” in Goethe’s Faust.
See Jacobs, Der Brocken in Geschichte und Sage (Halle, 1878); and Pröhle, Brockensagen (Magdeburg, 1888).
BROCKEN, SPECTRE OF THE (so named from having been first observed in 1780 on the Brocken), an enormously magnified shadow of an observer cast upon a bank of cloud when the sun is low in high mountain regions, reproducing every motion of the observer in the form of a gigantic but misty image of himself.
BROCKES, BARTHOLD HEINRICH (1680–1747), German poet, was born at Hamburg on the 22nd of September 1680. He studied jurisprudence at Halle, and after extensive travels in Italy, France and Holland, settled in his native town in 1704. In 1720 he was appointed a member of the Hamburg senate, and entrusted with several important offices. Six years (from 1735 to 1741) he spent as Amtmann (magistrate) at Ritzebtütel. He died in Hamburg on the 16th of January 1747. Brockes’ poetic works were published in a series of nine volumes under the fantastic title Irdisches Vergnügen in Gott (1721–1748); he also translated Marini’s La Strage degli innocenti (1715), Pope’s Essay on Man (1740) and Thomson’s Seasons (1745). His poetry has small intrinsic value, but it is symptomatic of the change which came over German literature at the beginning of the 18th century. He was one of the first German poets to substitute for the bombastic imitations of Marini, to which he himself had begun by contributing, a clear and simple diction. He was also a pioneer in directing the attention of his countrymen to the new poetry of nature which originated in England. His verses, artificial and crude as they often are, express a reverential attitude towards nature and a religious interpretation of natural phenomena which was new to German poetry and prepared the way for Klopstock.
Brockes’ autobiography was published by J. M. Lappenberg in the Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburger Geschichte, ii. pp. 167 ff. (1847). See also A. Brandl, B. H. Brockes (1878), and D. F. Strauss, Brockes und H. S. Reimarus (Gesammelte Schriften, ii.). A short selection of his poetry will be found in vol. 39 (1883) of Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur.
BROCKHAUS, FRIEDRICH ARNOLD (1772–1823), German publisher, was born at Dortmund, on the 4th of May 1772. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native place, and from 1788 to 1793 served an apprenticeship in a mercantile house at Düsseldorf. He then devoted two years at Leipzig to the study of modern languages and literature, after which he set up at Dortmund an emporium for English goods. In 1801 he transferred this business to Arnheim, and in the following year to Amsterdam. In 1805, having given up his first line of trade, he began business as a publisher. Two journals projected by him were not allowed by the government to survive for any length of time, and in 1810 the complications in the affairs of Holland induced him to return homewards. In 1811 he settled at Altenburg. About three years previously he had purchased the copyright of the Konversations-Lexikon, started in 1796, and in 1810–1811 he completed the first edition of this celebrated work (14th ed. 1901–4). A second edition under his own editorship was begun in 1812, and was received with universal favour. His business extended rapidly, and in 1818 Brockhaus removed to Leipzig, where he established a large printing-house. Among the more extensive of his many literary undertakings were the critical periodicals—Hermes, the Literarisches Konversationsblatt (afterwards the Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung), and the Zeitgenossen, and some large historical and bibliographical works, such as Raumer’s Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, and Ebert’s Allgemeines bibliographisches Lexikon. F. A. Brockhaus died at Leipzig on the 20th of August 1823. The business was carried on by his sons, Friedrich Brockhaus (1800–1865) who retired in 1850, and Heinrich Brockhaus (1804–1874), under whom it was considerably extended. The latter especially rendered great services to literature and science, which the university of Jena recognized by making him, in 1858, honorary doctor of philosophy. In the years 1842–1848, Heinrich Brockhaus was member of the Saxon second chamber, as representative for Leipzig, was made honorary citizen of that city in 1872, and died there on the 15th of November 1874.
See H. E. Brockhaus, Friedrich A. Brockhaus, sein Leben und Wirken nach Briefen und andern Aufzeichnungen (3 vols., Leipzig, 1872–1881); also by the same author, Die Firma F. A. Brockhaus von der Begrundung bis zum hundertjahrigen Jubilaum (1805–1905, Leipzig, 1905).
Another of Friedrich’s sons, Hermann Brockhaus (1806–1877), German Orientalist, was born at Amsterdam on the 28th of January 1806. While his two brothers carried on the business he devoted himself to an academic career. He was appointed extraordinary professor in Jena in 1838, and in 1841 received a call in a similar capacity to Leipzig, where in 1848 he was made ordinary professor of ancient Semitic. He died at Leipzig on the 5th of January 1877. Brockhaus was an Oriental scholar in the old sense of the word, devoting his attention, not to one language only, but to acquiring a familiarity with the principal languages and literature of the East. He studied Hebrew, Arabic and Persian, and was able to lecture on Sanskrit, afterwards his specialty, Pali, Zend and even on Chinese. His most important work was the editio princeps of the Katha-sarit-sagara, “The Ocean of the Streams of Story,” the large collection of Sanskrit stories made by Soma Deva in the 12th century. By this publication he gave the first impetus to a really scientific study of the origin and spreading of popular tales, and enabled Prof. Benfey and others to trace the great bulk of Eastern and Western stories to an Indian, and more especially to a Buddhistic source. Among Prof. Brockhaus’s other publications were his edition of the curious philosophical play Prabodhachandrodaya, “The Rise of the Moon of Intelligence,” his critical edition of the “Songs of Hafiz,” and his publication in Latin letters of the text of the “Zend-Avesta.”
BROCKLESBY, RICHARD (1722–1797), English physician, was born at Minehead, Somersetshire, on the 11th of August 1722. He was educated at Ballitore, in Ireland, where Edmund Burke was one of his schoolfellows, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and finally graduated at Leiden in 1745. Appointed physician to the army in 1758, he served in Germany during part of the Seven Years’ War, and on his return settled down to practise in London. In 1764 he published Economical and Medical Observations, which contained suggestions for improving the hygiene of army hospitals. In his latter years he withdrew altogether into private life. The circle of his friends included some of the most distinguished literary men of the age. He was warmly attached to Dr Johnson, to whom about 1784 he offered an annuity of £100 for life, and whom he attended on his death-bed, while in 1788 he presented Burke, of whom he was an intimate friend, with £1000, and offered to repeat the gift “every year until your merit is rewarded as it ought to be at court.” He died on the 11th of December 1797, leaving his house and part of his fortune to his grand-nephew, Dr Thomas Young.
BROCKTON, a city of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 20 m. S. of Boston, and containing an area of 21 sq. m. of rolling surface. Pop. (1870) 8007; (1880)13,608; (1890) 27,294; (1900) 40,063, of whom 9484 were foreign-born, including 2667 Irish, 2199 English Canadians and 1973 Swedes; (1910, census) 56,878. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. Brockton has a public library, with 54,000 volumes, in 1908. By popular vote, beginning in 1886 (except in 1898), the liquor traffic was prohibited annually. The death-rate, 13.18 in 1907, is very low for a manufacturing city of its size. Brockton is the industrial centre of a large population surrounding it (East and West Bridgewater, North Easton, Avon, Randolph, Holbrook and Whitman), and is an important manufacturing place. Both in 1900 and in 1905 it ranked first among the cities of the United States in the manufacture of boots and shoes. The city’s total factory product in 1900 was valued at $24,855,362, and in 1905 at $37,790,982, an increase during the five years of 52%. The boot and shoe product in 1905 was valued at $30,073,014 (9.4% of the value of the total boot and shoe product of the United States), the boot
