performing its part in a long series of operations. Not only was the quality of the product much improved but the cost was greatly diminished, and the saving effected in the first year in which the machines were in full work was estimated at £24,000, of which about two-thirds was awarded to Brunel. A little later he was occupied in devising improved machines for sawing and bending timber, and in 1811 and 1812 he was employed by the government in erecting saw-mills at Woolwich and Chatham, carrying out at the latter dockyard a complete reorganization of the system for handling timber. About 1812 he devised machinery for making boots which was adopted for the purposes of the army, but abandoned a few years later when, owing to the cessation of war, the demand became less and the supply of manual labour cheaper. At the same time he interested himself in the establishment of steam navigation on the Thames between London and Ramsgate. In 1814 he succeeded in persuading the admiralty to try steam-tugs for towing warships out to sea. The experiments were made at his own expense, for a few months after undertaking to contribute to the cost the admiralty revoked its promise on the ground that the attempt was “too chimerical to be seriously entertained.” Another vain enterprise on which he wasted much time and money was an attempt to use liquefied gases as a source of motive power. His round stocking-frame or tricoteur was patented in 1816, and among his other inventions were machines for winding cotton-thread into balls, for copying drawings, for making small wooden boxes such as are used by druggists, and for the manufacture of nails, together with processes of preparing tinfoil for decorative purposes and improvements in stereotype plates for printing.
In 1821, partly as the result of the damage done by fire in 1814 to the saw-mills he owned at Battersea, and partly because his commercial abilities were far from equal to his mechanical genius, he got into financial difficulties and was thrown into prison for debt, only regaining his freedom through a grant of £5000 which his friends obtained for him from the government. Subsequently his attention was mainly devoted to projects of civil engineering, the most noteworthy being the Thames Tunnel. In 1820 he had prepared plans of bridges for erection in Rouen and St Petersburg and in the island of Bourbon. In 1823 he designed swing-bridges, and in 1826 floating landing-stages, for the port of Liverpool. A company, which was supported by the duke of Wellington, was formed in 1824 to carry out his scheme for boring a tunnel under the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe. The work was begun at the beginning of 1825, the excavation being accomplished by the aid of a “shield,” which he had patented in 1818. Many difficulties were encountered. The river broke through the roof of the tunnel in 1827, and after a second irruption in 1828 work was discontinued for lack of funds. Seven years later it was resumed with the aid of money advanced by the government, and after three more irruptions the tunnel was completed and opened in 1843. Aided by his son, Brunel displayed extraordinary skill and resource in the various emergencies with which he had to deal, but the anxiety broke down his health. He recovered sufficiently from one paralytic stroke to attend the opening ceremony, but he was able to undertake little more professional work. A second stroke followed in 1845, and four years later he died in London on the 12th of December 1849. He received the order of the Legion of Honour in 1829 and was knighted in 1841.
See Richard Beamish, Memoirs of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1862).
BRUNELLESCHI (or Brunellesco), FILIPPO (1379–1446), Italian architect, the reviver in Italy of the Roman or Classic style, was born at Florence in 1379. His father, a notary, had destined him for his own profession, but observing the boy’s talent for all sorts of mechanism, placed him in the gild of goldsmiths. Filippo quickly became a skilled workman, and perfected himself in the knowledge of sculpture, perspective and geometry. He designed some portions of houses in Florence, and in 1401 he was one of the competitors for the design of the gates of the baptistery of San Giovanni. He was unsuccessful, though his work obtained praise, and he soon afterwards set out for Rome. He studied hard, and resolved to do what he could to revive the older classical style, which had died out in Italy. Moreover, he was one of the first to apply the scientific laws of perspective to his work. In 1407 he returned to Florence, just at the time when it was resolved to attempt the completion of the cathedral church of Santa Maria del Fiore. Brunelleschi’s plan for effecting this by a cupola was approved, but it was not till 1419, and after innumerable disputes, that the work was finally entrusted to him. At first he was hampered by his colleague Ghiberti, of whom he skilfully got rid. He did not live to see the completion of his great work, and the lantern on the summit was put up not altogether in accordance with the instructions and plans left by him. The great cupola, one of the triumphs of architecture, exceeds in some measurements that of St Peter’s at Rome, and has a more massive and striking appearance. Besides this masterpiece Brunelleschi executed numerous other works, among the most remarkable of which are the Pitti palace at Florence, on the pattern of which are based the Tuscan palaces of the 15th century, the churches of San Lorenzo and Spirito Santo, and the still more elegant Capella del Pazza. The beautiful carved crucifix in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is also the work of Brunelleschi. He died in Florence on the 16th of April 1446, and was buried in the cathedral church of his native city.
See Manetti, Vita di Brunelleschi (Florence, 1812); Guasti, La cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence, 1857); von Fabriczy, Filippo Brunelleschi (Stuttgart, 1892).
BRUNET, JACQUES CHARLES (1780–1867), French bibliographer, was born in Paris on the 2nd of November 1780. He was the son of a bookseller, and in 1802 he printed a supplement to the Dictionnaire bibiographique de livres rares (1790) of Duclos and Cailleau. In 1810 there appeared the first edition of his Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur des livres (3 vols.). Brunet published successive editions of his great bibliographical dictionary, which rapidly came to be recognized as the first book of its class in European literature. He died on the 14th of November 1867. Among his other works are Nouvelles Recherches bibliographiques (1834), Recherches . . . sur les éditions originales . . . de Rabelais (1852), and an edition of the French poems of J. G. Alione d’Asti, dating from the beginning of the 16th century (1836).
See also a notice by Le Roux de Lincy, prefixed to the catalogue (1868) of his own valuable library. A supplement to the 5th edition (1860–1865) of the Manuel du libraire was published (1878–1880) by P. Deschamps and G. Brunet.
BRUNETIÈRE, FERDINAND (1849–1906), French critic and man of letters, was born at Toulon on the 19th July 1849. After attending a school at Marseilles, he studied in Paris at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. Desiring to follow the profession of teaching, he entered for examination at the École Normale Supérieure, but failed, and the outbreak of war in 1870 debarred him from a second attempt. He turned to private tuition and to literary criticism. After the publication of successful articles in the Revue Bleue, he became connected with the Revue des Deux Mondes, first as contributor, then as secretary and sub-editor, and finally, in 1893, as principal editor. In 1886 he was appointed professor of French language and literature at the École Normale, a singular honour for one who had not passed through the academic mill; and later he presided with distinction over various conférences at the Sorbonne and elsewhere. He was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1887, and became a member of the Academy in 1893. The published works of M. Brunetière consist largely of reprinted papers and lectures. They include six series of Études critiques (1880–1898) on French history and literature; Le Roman naturaliste (1883); Histoire et Littérature, three series (1884–1886); Questions de critique (1888; second series, 1890). The first volume of L’Évolution de genres dans l’histoire de la littérature, lectures in which a formal classification, founded on the Darwinian theory, is applied to the phenomena of literature, appeared in 1890; and his later works include a series of studies (2 vols., 1894) on the evolution of French lyrical poetry during the 19th century, a history of
