whole protestant church of Germany. Along with his professorship, Breithaupt held other important ecclesiastical offices in Halle and Magdeburg, between which two places his time and labours were divided. He was never married. He died at Kloster-bergen, near Magdeburg, 16th March, 1732. His published sermons, disputations, programmes, and polemical pieces were numerous. His principal work was the "Institutiones Theologicæ," Halle, 1694, 2 vols.; to which was added in 1732, "Institutiones Theologiæ Moralis," in which the doctrine of the Lutheran confession was orthodoxly expounded, but in a biblical form and a practical spirit, without unfruitful speculations, and with constant application of the truth to the heart and life. He was a man of deep devotion and humility, and of great simplicity of life and manners. "Let him alone," exclaimed the elector of Maintz on one occasion when loud complaints were made against him by his opponents; "he may be a very good man after all: he prays for us."—P. L.
BREITINGER, John James, a Swiss protestant divine and ecclesiastical historian, born at Zurich in 1575; died in 1645. In 1618 he headed the Swiss deputation to the synod of Dort, and in that assembly maintained powerfully the tenets of Zwingle. An account of the proceedings of the synod, and a translation of the New Testament into German, are the performances by which he is best known. The rest of his writings remain in MS. in the library of Zurich.—J. S., G.
BREITINGER, Johann Jacob, a German scholar, was born at Zurich in 1701, and died in 1776. He was professor of Greek and Hebrew in his native town, and by his critical writings, greatly contributed towards the improvement of German literature. Besides his "Kritische Dichtkunst," 1740, 2 vols., he published also a valuable edition of the Septuagint, 1731-32, 4 vols., and other works.—K. E.
BREITKOPF, Johann Gottlob Immanuel, an eminent German printer and publisher, was born at Leipzig, November 23, 1719, and died January 28, 1794. After having completed his education at the university of his native town, he entered the printing and publishing business of his father, which he gradually enlarged, and brought to a highly flourishing state. He introduced numerous improvements into the art of printing; he gave his letters a clearness and elegance never before attained in Germany; printed notes and maps with movable types; and greatly improved the construction of the press. He also wrote some valuable works on the origin of printing, but was unable to complete his "History of the Art of Printing," for which he had been collecting materials during the greater part of his life.—His son, Christoph Gottlob, born 1763, died 1800, continued his father's business in company with Gottfried Christoph Härtel, and originated the first musical gazette in Germany.—K. E.
BREKELENKAMP, a Dutch painter and disciple of the microscope-eyed Gerard Douw. He followed Rembrandt's manner, and painted spirited cottage scenes and conversations. He flourished, hoped, and despaired about 1650.—W. T.
BREMBATI, Isotta, a celebrated poetess of the latter half of the sixteenth century. She was considered one of the greatest linguists of the time, and Mazzucchelli asserts that her attempts in Spanish verse were much superior to those of the best Spanish poets. Her writings are—a collection of letters, some of which have been inserted by Sansovino in his Secretario, and a great number of sonnets and canzones. She died in 1586.—A. C. M.
BREMER, Fredrika, the well-known Swedish novelist, whose works have created throughout the civilized world an interest for her native North, was born in 1802 at or near Abo, in Finland. At that time Finland formed part of the kingdom of Sweden, but on its cession to Russia her father sold his estates there, and removed with his family to Stockholm. In the slight biographical sketch furnished by Miss Bremer to the German translation of her works published at Leipzig, she says—"I was born on the banks of the Aura, a river which flows through Abo, and several of the learned men of that university were my godfathers. Whilst very young I was removed with my family from my native Finland. Of this part of my life I have retained but one single memory. This memory is a word, a mighty name, which in the depths of paganism was pronounced by the Finnish people with fear and love, and is still so pronounced, though in these days perfected by christianity. I still fancy that I hear this word spoken aloud over the trembling earth by the thunder of Thor, or by the gentle winds which bring to it refreshment and consolation. That word is Jumala, the Finnish name for God, both in pagan and christian times." According to the same account, her father's family passed their winters in Stockholm, where the daughters received instruction, played on the piano, sung ballads, read novels, drew in black chalk, and looked forward to the future, "when they hoped to see and do wonderful things." In the summer they removed to their country residence, where German was studied, and the German poets read, especially Schiller, whose Don Carlos made a deep impression on the susceptible mind of the young authoress, who even now occupied herself with literary composition. Nay, indeed, according to her own account, this had long been the case, for she says—"I began to write in my eighth year;" and continues—"I wrote during the greater part of my youth under the impulse of restless youthful feelings; afterwards under that of another emotion, I wrote that which I had read." At what period in Miss Bremer's life she lived with the Countess Sonnethjelm in Norway, and also as a teacher in a ladies' school at Stockholm, does not appear; but be it when it might, she obtained there, like the authoress of Jane Eyre, much useful experience from a hard and painful life wherewith to enrich her after writings. Nor does Miss Bremer's earlier life appear by any means to have been happy. "A dark cloud," to use her own words, "came over the splendour of her youthful dreams"—for she writes of herself in the third person.—"Like early evening it came over the path of the young pilgrim of life, and earnestly, but in vain, she endeavoured to escape it. The air was dimmed as by a heavy fall of snow; darkness increased, and it became night. And in the depth of that endless winter's night she heard lamenting voices from the east and from the west, from plant and animal, from dying nature and despairing humanity; she saw life with all its beauty, its love, its throbbing heart, buried alive beneath a chill covering of ice. . . . All was dead, all was dying, except pain." . . . Looking at her a few years later, it will be seen that a great change has taken place. "Her eyes have long been filled with tears of unspeakable joy; she is like one who has arisen from the grave to a new life. What has caused this change? . . . The illusions of youth are past, the season of youth is over, and yet she is again young, for there is freedom in the depth of her soul, and, 'Let there be light!' has been spoken above its dark chaos."
Arsta, the residence of the Bremer family, is described as being remarkable in a historical point of view. The house, which is of stone, was built during the Thirty Years' war, with large and lofty apartments, overlooking the meadow where Gustavus Adolphus reviewed the army at the head of which he marched into protestant Germany as its deliverer. It is surrounded with magnificent trees, commanding a fine view of the Baltic. Here, when the spring and summer of life were over, a happy season dawned upon our authoress. "Here," she says, "standing on the verge of the autumn of my life, I still see the same objects which surrounded me in the early days of my spring, and I am so happy as out of many dear ones still to possess a beloved mother and sister." At Arsta Miss Bremer wrote many of her most celebrated works; and here, in companionship with her mother and sister, she lived till the time of leaving Europe for America, whence she returned, after two years, to find that death had removed her best-beloved friend and sister, and that Arsta had ceased to be that home of the heart which it had been for years.
In 1828, when in her twenty-sixth year. Miss Bremer published in Stockholm her "Teckningar ur Hvardagslifort" (Sketches of Everyday Life). These consisted of Axel and Anna, the Twins, and other stories and sketches, which, though greatly inferior to her after works, attracted immediate attention, and awoke a lively interest. It was not, however, until the publication of the "H. Family," a work which still retains a great share of public favour in Sweden, though decidedly one of the less pleasing of her novels, that the public recognized an author of unquestionably original talents; and the decision thus arrived at was fully confirmed by her after works, which followed in rapid succession. These were—"The President's Daughters;" "Nina;" "The Neighbours;" "The Home;" "Strife and Peace," the scenery of which is laid in Norway. Of those "The Neighbours" is the work which, more immediately than any of the others, gained her a popularity out of her own country. In 1841 these works were translated into German, and published by Brockhous of Leipzig, and spread from one end of that vast intelligent country to the other, finding everywhere a response in the national heart. In 1842, William and Mary Howitt, then residing in Germany, and students of Scandinavian literature, recognizing the domestic element of
