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Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3

V >> Various >> Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3




BROOKE, HENRY (c. 1703-1783), Irish author, son of William Brooke, rector
of Killinkere, Co. Cavan, was born at Rantavan in the same county, about
1703. His mother was a daughter of Simon Digby, bishop of Elphin. Dr Thomas
Sheridan was one of his schoolmasters, and he was entered at Trinity
College, Dublin, in 1720; in 1724 he was sent to London to study law. He
married his cousin and ward, Catherine Meares, before she was fourteen.
Returning to London he published a philosophical poem in six books entitled
_Universal Beauty_ (1735). He attached himself to the party of the prince
of Wales, and took a small house at Twickenham near to Alexander Pope. In
1738 he translated the first and second books of Tasso's _Gerusalemme
liberata_, and in the next year he produced a tragedy, _Gustavas Vasa, the
Deliverer of his Country_. This play had been rehearsed for five weeks at
Drury Lane, but at the last moment the performance was forbidden. The
reason of this prohibition was a supposed portrait of Sir Robert Walpole in
the part of Trollio. In any case the spirit of fervent patriotism which
pervaded the play was probably disliked by the government. The piece was
printed and sold largely, being afterwards put on the Irish stage under the
title of _The Patriot_. This affair provoked a satirical pamphlet from
Samuel Johnson, entitled "A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the
Stage from the malicious and scandalous Aspersions of Mr Brooke" (1739).
His wife feared that his connexion with the opposition was imprudent, and
induced him to return to Ireland. He interested himself in Irish history
and literature, but a projected collection of Irish stories and a history
of Ireland from the earliest times were abandoned in consequence of
disputes about the ownership of the materials. During the Jacobite
rebellion of 1745 Brooke issued his _Farmer's Six Letters to the
Protestants of Ireland_ (collected 1746) the form of which was suggested by
Swift's _Drapier's Letters_. For this service he received from the
government the post of barrack-master at Mullingar, which he held till his
death. He wrote other pamphlets on the Protestant side, and was secretary
to an association for promoting projects of national utility. About 1760 he
entered into negotiations with leading Roman Catholics, and in 1761 he
wrote a pamphlet advocating alleviation of the penal laws against them. He
is said to have been the first editor of the _Freeman's Journal_,
established at Dublin in 1763. Meanwhile he had been obliged to mortgage
his property in Cavan, and had removed to Co. Kildare. Subsequently a
bequest from Colonel Robert Brooke enabled him to purchase an estate near
his old home, and he spent large sums in attempting to reclaim the
waste-land. His best-known work is the novel entitled _The Fool of Quality;
or the History of Henry Earl of Moreland_, the first part of which was
published in 1765; and the fifth and last in 1770. The characters of this
book, which relates the education of an ideal nobleman by an ideal
merchant-prince, are gifted with a "passionate and tearful sensibility,"
and reflect the real humour and tenderness of the writer. Brooke's
religious and philanthropic temper recommended the book to John Wesley, who
edited (1780) an abridged edition, and to Charles Kingsley, who published
it with a eulogistic notice in 1859. Brooke had a large family, but only
two children survived him. His wife's death seriously affected him, and he
died at Dublin in a state of mental infirmity on the 10th of October 1783.

His daughter, Charlotte Brooke, published _The Poetical Works of Henry
Brooke_ in 1792, but was able to supply very little biographical material.
Other sources for Brooke's biography are C. H. Wilson, _Brookiana_ (2
vols., 1804), and a biographical preface by E. A. Baker prefixed to a new
edition (1906) of _The Fool of Quality_. Brooke's other works include
several tragedies, only some of which were actually staged. He also wrote:
_Jack the Giant Queller_ (1748), an operatic satire, the repetition of
which was forbidden on account of its political allusions; "Constantia, or
the Man of Lawe's Tale" (1741), contributed to George Ogle's _Canterbury
Tales modernized; Juliet Grenville; or the History of the Human Heart_
(1773), a novel; and some fables contributed to Edward Moore's _Fables for
the Female Sex_ (1744).

BROOKE, SIR JAMES (1803-1868), English soldier, traveller and raja of
Sarawak, was born at Coombe Grove near Bath, on the 29th of April 1803. His
father, a member of the civil service of the East India Company, had long
lived in Bengal. His mother was a woman of superior mind, and to her care
he owed his careful early training. He received the ordinary school
education, entered the service of the East India Company, and was sent out
to India about 1825. On the outbreak of the Burmese War he was despatched
with his regiment to the valley of the Brahmaputra; and, being dangerously
wounded in an engagement near Rungpore, was compelled to return home
(1826). After his recovery he travelled on the continent before going to
India, and circumstances led him soon after to leave the service of the
company. In 1830 he made a voyage to China, and during his passage among
the islands of the Indian Archipelago, so rich in natural beauty,
magnificence and fertility, but occupied by a population of savage tribes,
continually at war with each other, and carrying on a system of piracy on a
vast scale and with relentless ferocity, he conceived the great design of
rescuing them from barbarism and bringing them within the pale of
civilization. His purpose was confirmed by observations made during a
second visit to China, and on his return to England he applied himself in
earnest to making the necessary preparations. Having succeeded on the death
of his father to a large property, he bought and equipped a yacht, the
"Royalist," of 140 tons burden, and for three years tested its capacities
and trained his crew of [v.04 p.0645] twenty men, chiefly in the
Mediterranean. At length, on the 27th of October 1838, he sailed from the
Thames on his great adventure. On reaching Borneo, after various delays, he
found the raja Muda Hassim, uncle of the reigning sultan, engaged in war in
the province of Sarawak with several of the Dyak tribes, who had revolted
against the sultan. He offered his aid to the raja; and with his crew, and
some Javanese who had joined them, he took part in a battle with the
insurgents, and they were defeated. For his services the title of raja of
Sarawak was conferred on him by Muda Hassim, the former raja being deprived
in his favour. It was, however, some time before the sultan could be
induced to confirm his title (September 1841). During the next five years
Raja Brooke was engaged in establishing his power, in making just reforms
in administration, preparing a code of laws and introducing just and humane
modes of dealing with the degraded subjects of his rule. But this was not
all. He looked forward to the development of commerce as the most effective
means of putting an end to the worst evils that afflicted the archipelago;
and in order to make this possible, the way must first be cleared by the
suppression, or a considerable diminution, of the prevailing piracy, which
was not only a curse to the savage tribes engaged in it, but a standing
danger to European and American traders in those seas. Various expeditions
were therefore organized and sent out against the marauders, Dyaks and
Malays, and sometimes even Arabs. Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Harry)
Keppel, and other commanders of British ships of war, received permission
to co-operate with Raja Brooke in these expeditions. The pirates were
attacked in their strongholds, they fought desperately, and the slaughter
was immense. Negotiations with the chiefs had been tried, and tried in
vain. The capital of the sultan of Borneo was bombarded and stormed, and
the sultan with his army routed. He was, however, soon after restored to
his dominion. So large was the number of natives, pirates and others, slain
in these expeditions, that the "head-money" awarded by the British
government to those who had taken part in them amounted to no less than
L20,000. In October 1847 Raja Brooke returned to England, where he was well
received by the government; and the corporation of London conferred on him
the freedom of the city. The island of Labuan, with its dependencies,
having been acquired by purchase from the sultan of Borneo, was erected
into a British colony, and Raja Brooke was appointed governor and
commander-in-chief. He was also named consul-general in Borneo. These
appointments had been made before his arrival in England. The university of
Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L., and in 1848 he was
created K.C.B. He soon after returned to Sarawak, and was carried thither
by a British man-of-war. In the summer of 1849 he led an expedition against
the Seribas and Sakuran Dyaks, who still persisted in their piratical
practices and refused to submit to British authority. Their defeat and
wholesale slaughter was a matter of course. At the time of this engagement
Sir James Brooke was lying ill with dysentery. He visited twice the capital
of the sultan of Sala, and concluded a treaty with him, which had for one
of its objects the expulsion of the sea-gypsies and other tribes from his
dominions. In 1851 grave charges with respect to the operations in Borneo
were brought against Sir James Brooke in the House of Commons by Joseph
Hume and other members, especially as to the "head-money" received. To meet
these accusations, and to vindicate his proceedings, he came to England.
The evidence adduced was so conflicting that the matter was at length
referred to a royal commission, to sit at Singapore. As the result of its
investigation the charges were declared to be "not proven." Sir James,
however, was soon after deprived of the governorship of Labuan, and the
head-money was abolished. In 1867 his house in Sarawak was attacked and
burnt by Chinese pirates, and he had to fly from the capital, Kuching. With
a small force he attacked the Chinese, recovered the town, made a great
slaughter of them, and drove away the rest. In the following year he came
to England, and remained there for three years. During this time he was
attacked by paralysis, a public subscription was raised, and an estate in
Devonshire was bought and presented to him. He made two more visits to
Sarawak, and on each occasion had a rebellion to suppress. He spent his
last days on his estate at Burrator in Devonshire, and died there, on the
11th of June 1868, being succeeded as raja of Sarawak by his nephew. Sir
James Brooke was a man of the highest personal character, and he displayed
rare courage both in his conflicts in the East and under the charges
advanced against him in England.

His _Private Letters_ (1838 to 1853) were published in 1853. Portions of
his _Journal_ were edited by Captains Munday and Keppel. (See also
SARAWAK.)

BROOKE, STOPFORD AUGUSTUS (1832- ), English divine and man of letters, born
at Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland, in 1832, was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1857, and held various
charges in London. From 1863 to 1865 he was chaplain to the empress
Frederick in Berlin, and in 1872 he became chaplain in ordinary to Queen
Victoria. But in 1880 he seceded from the Church, being no longer able to
accept its leading dogmas, and officiated as a Unitarian minister for some
years at Bedford chapel, Bloomsbury. Bedford chapel was pulled down about
1894, and from that time he had no church of his own, but his eloquence and
powerful religious personality continued to make themselves felt among a
wide circle. A man of independent means, he was always keenly interested in
literature and art, and a fine critic of both. He published in 1865 his
_Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson_ (of Brighton), and in 1876 wrote an
admirable primer of _English Literature_ (new and revised ed., 1900),
followed in 1892 by _The History of Early English Literature_ (2 vols.,
1892) down to the accession of Alfred, and _English Literature from the
Beginnings to the Norman Conquest_ (1898). His other works include various
volumes of sermons; _Poems_ (1888); _Dove Cottage_ (1890); _Theology in the
English Poets--Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Burns_ (1874); _Tennyson, his
Art and Relation to Modern Life_ (1894); _The Poetry of Robert Browning_
(1902); _On Ten Plays of Shakespeare_ (1905); and _The Life Superlative_
(1906).

BROOK FARM, the name applied to a tract of land in West Roxbury,
Massachusetts, on which in 1841-1847 a communistic experiment was
unsuccessfully tried. The experiment was one of the practical
manifestations of the spirit of "Transcendentalism," in New England, though
many of the more prominent transcendentalists took no direct part in it.
The project was originated by George Ripley, who also virtually directed it
throughout. In his words it was intended "to insure a more natural union
between intellectual and manual labour than now exists; to combine the
thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual; to
guarantee the highest mental freedom by providing all with labour adapted
to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their
industry; to do away with the necessity of menial services by opening the
benefits of education and the profits of labour to all; and thus to prepare
a society of liberal, intelligent and cultivated persons whose relations
with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome life than can be
led amidst the pressure of our competitive institutions." In short, its aim
was to bring about the best conditions for an ideal civilization, reducing
to a minimum the labour necessary for mere existence, and by this and by
the simplicity of its social machinery saving the maximum of time for
mental and spiritual education and development. At a time when Ralph Waldo
Emerson could write to Thomas Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here with
numberless projects of social reform; not a reading man but has a draft of
a new community in his waistcoat pocket,"--the Brook Farm project certainly
did not appear as impossible a scheme as many others that were in the air.
At all events it enlisted the co-operation of men whose subsequent careers
show them to have been something more than visionaries. The association
bought a tract of land about 10 m. from Boston, and in the summer of 1841
began its enterprise with about twenty members. In September the "Brook
Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education" was formally organized, the
members [v.04 p.0646] signing the Articles of Association and forming an
unincorporated joint-stock company. The farm was assiduously, if not very
skilfully, cultivated, and other industries were established--most of the
members paying by labour for their board--but nearly all of the income, and
sometimes all of it, was derived from the school, which deservedly took
high rank and attracted many pupils. Among these were included George
William Curtis and his brother James Burrill Curtis, Father Isaac Thomas
Hecker (1819-1888), General Francis C. Barlow (1834-1896), who as
attorney-general of New York in 1871-1873 took a leading part in the
prosecution of the "Tweed Ring." For three years the undertaking went on
quietly and simply, subject to few outward troubles other than financial,
the number of associates increasing to seventy or eighty. It was during
this period that Nathaniel Hawthorne had his short experience of Brook
Farm, of which so many suggestions appear in the _Blithedale Romance_,
though his preface to later editions effectually disposed of the
idea--which gave him great pain--that he had either drawn his characters
from persons there, or had meant to give any actual description of the
colony. Emerson refused, in a kind and characteristic letter, to join the
undertaking, and though he afterwards wrote of Brook Farm with not
uncharitable humour as "a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small,
an age of reason in a patty-pan," among its founders were many of his near
friends. In 1844 the growing need of a more scientific organization, and
the influence which F.M.C. Fourier's doctrines, as modified by Albert
Brisbane (1809-1890), had gained in the minds of Ripley and many of his
associates, combined to change the whole plan of the community. It was
transformed, with the strong approval of all its chief members and the
consent of the rest, into a Fourierist "phalanx" in 1845. There was an
accession of new members, a momentary increase of prosperity, a brilliant
new undertaking in the publication of a weekly journal, the _Harbinger_, in
which Ripley, Charles A. Dana, Francis G. Shaw and John S. Dwight were the
chief writers, and to which James Russell Lowell, J.G. Whittier, George
William Curtis, Parke Godwin, T.W. Higginson, Horace Greeley and many more
now and then contributed. But the individuality of the old Brook Farm was
gone. The association was not rescued even from financial troubles by the
change. With increasing difficulty it kept on till the spring of 1846, when
a fire which destroyed its nearly completed "phalanstery" brought losses
which caused, or certainly gave the final ostensible reason for, its
dissolution. The experiment was abandoned in the autumn of 1847. Besides
Ripley and Hawthorne, the principal members of the community were Charles
A. Dana, John S. Dwight, Minot Pratt (c. 1805-1878), the head farmer, who,
like George Partridge Bradford (1808-1890), left in 1845, and Warren Burton
(1810-1866) a preacher and, later, a writer on educational subjects.
Indirectly connected with the experiment, also, as visitors for longer or
shorter periods but never as regular members, were Emerson, Amos Bronson
Alcott, Orestes A. Brownson, Theodore Parker and William Henry Channing,
Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. The estate itself, after
passing through various hands, came in 1870 into the possession of the
"Association of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for Works of Mercy," which
established here an orphanage, known as the "Martin Luther Orphan Home."

The best account of Brook Farm is Lindsay Swift's _Brook Farm, Its Members,
Scholars and Visitors_ (New York, 1900). _Brook Farm: Historic and Personal
Memoirs_ (Boston, 1894), is by Dr J.T. Codman, one of the pupils in the
school. See also Morris Hillquit's _History of Socialism in the United
States_ (New York, 1903).

(E. L. B.)

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Pellia epiphylla_. Group of plants bearing mature
sporogonia.

From Cooke, _Handbook of British Hepaticae_.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Pellia epiphylla_.

A, Longitudinal section of thallus at the time of fertilization. an,
Antheridia; ar, archegonia; in, involucre.

B, Longitudinal section of almost mature sporogonium attached to the
thallus. in, Involucre; cal, calyptra; f, foot; s, seta; caps, capsule
(semi-diagrammatic).]

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Pellia epiphylla_. Group of plants bearing mature
sporogonia.

From Cooke, _Handbook of British Hepaticae_.]

_Pellia epiphylla_ (fig. 2) can be found at any season growing in large
patches on the damp soil of woods, banks, &c. The broad flat thallus is
green and may be a couple of inches long. It is sparingly branched, the
branching being apparently dichotomous; the growing point is situated in a
depression at the anterior end of each branch. The wing-like lateral
portions of the thallus gradually thin out from the midrib; from the
projecting lower surface of this numerous rhizoids spring. These are
elongated superficial cells, and serve to fix the thallus to the soil and
obtain water and salts from it. No leaf-like appendages are borne on the
thallus, but short glandular hairs occur behind the apex. The plant is
composed throughout of very similar living cells, the more superficial ones
containing numerous chlorophyll grains, while starch is stored in the
internal cells of the midrib. The cells contain a number of oil-bodies the
function of which is imperfectly understood. The growth of the thallus
proceeds by the regular segmentation of a single apical cell. The sexual
organs are borne on the upper surface, and both antheridia and archegonia
occur on the same branch (fig. 3, A). The antheridia (an) are scattered
over the middle region of the thallus, and each is surrounded by a tubular
upgrowth from the surface. The archegonia (ar) are developed in a group
behind the apex, and the latter continues to grow for a time after their
formation, so that they come to be seated in a depression of the upper
surface. They are further protected by the growth of the hinder margin of
the depression to form a scale-like involucre (in). Fertilization takes
place about June, and the sporogonium is fully developed by the winter. The
embryo developed from the fertilized ovum consists at first of a number of
tiers of cells. Its terminal tier gives rise to the capsule, the first
divisions in the four cells of the tier marking off the wall of the capsule
from the cells destined to produce the spores. In fig. 4, C, which
represents a longitudinal section of a young embryo of _Pellia_, these
archesporial cells are shaded. The tiers below give rise to the seta and
foot. The mature sporogonium (fig. 3, B) consists of the foot embedded in
the tissue of the thallus, the seta, which remains short until just before
the shedding of the spores, and the spherical capsule. It remains for long
enclosed within the calyptra formed by the further development of the
archegonial wall and surmounted by the neck of the archegonium. The
calyptra is ultimately burst through, and in early spring the seta
elongates rapidly, raising the dark-coloured capsule (fig. 2). In the young
condition the wall of the capsule, which consists of two layers of cells,
encloses a mass of similar cells developed from the archesporium. Some of
these become spore-mother-cells and give rise by cell division to four
spores, while others remain undivided and become the elaters. The latter
are elongated spindle-shaped cells with thick brown spiral bands on the
inside of their thin walls. They radiate out from a small plug of sterile
cells projecting into the base of the capsule, and some are attached to
this, while others lie free among the spores. The latter are large, and at
first are unicellular; but in _Pellia_, which in this respect is
exceptional, they commence their further development within the capsule,
and thus consist of several cells when shed. [v.04 p.0647] The cells of the
capsule wall have incomplete, brown, thickened rings on their walls, and
the capsule opens by splitting into four valves, which bend away from one
another, allowing the loose spores to be readily dispersed by the wind,
assisted by the hygroscopic movements of the elaters. On falling upon damp
soil the spores germinate, growing into a thallus, which gradually attains
its full size and bears sexual organs.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Semi-diagrammatic figures of young embryos of
Liverworts in longitudinal section. The cells which will produce the
sporogenous tissue are shaded. (After Kienitz-Gerloff and Leitgeb.)

A, _Riccia_.

B, _Marchantia polymorpha_.

C, _Pellia epiphylla_.

D, _Anthoceros laevis_.

E, _Cephalozia bicuspidata_.

F, _Radula complanata_.]

While the general course of the life-history of all liverworts resembles
that of _Pellia_, the three great groups into which they are divided differ
from one another in the characters of both generations. Each group exhibits
a series leading from more simple to more highly organized forms, and the
differentiation has proceeded on distinct and to some extent divergent
lines in the three groups. The Marchantiales are a series of thalloid
forms, in which the structure of the thallus is specialized to enable them
to live in more exposed situations. The lowest members of the series
(_Riccia_) possess the simplest sporogonia known, consisting of a wall of
one layer of cells enclosing the spores. In the higher forms a sterile foot
and seta is present, and sterile cells or elaters occur with the spores.
The lower members of the Jungermanniales are also thalloid, but the thallus
never has the complicated structure characteristic of the Marchantiales,
and progress is in the direction of the differentiation of the plant into
stem and leaf. Indications of how this may have come about are afforded by
the lower group of the Anacrogynous Jungermanniaceae, and throughout the
Acrogynous Jungermanniacae the plant has well-marked stem and leaves. The
sporogonium even in the simplest forms has a sterile foot, but in this
series also the origin of elaters from sterile cells can be traced. The
Anthocerotales are a small and very distinct group, in which the
gametophyte is a thallus, while the sporogonium possesses a sterile
columella and is capable of long-continued growth and spore production. The
mode of development of the sporogonium presents important differences in
the three series that may be briefly referred to here. In fig. 4 young
sporogonia of a number of liverworts are shown in longitudinal section, and
the archesporial cells from which the spores and elaters will arise are
shaded. In _Riccia_ (fig. 4, A) the whole mass of cells derived from the
ovum forms a spherical capsule, the only sterile tissue being the single
layer of peripheral cells forming the wall. In other Marchantiales (fig. 4,
B) the lower half of the embryo separated by the first transverse wall (1,
I) forms the sterile foot and seta, while in the upper half (ka) the
peripheral layer forms the wall of the capsule, enclosing the archesporial
cells from which spores and elaters arise. In the Jungermanniales (fig. 4,
C, E, F) the embryo is formed of a number of tiers of cells, and the
archesporium is defined by the first divisions parallel to the surface in
the cells of one or more of the upper tiers; a number of tiers go to form
the seta and foot, while the lowest segment (a) usually forms a small
appendage of the latter. In the Anthocerotales (fig. 4, D) the lowest tiers
form the foot, and the terminal tier the capsule. The first periclinal
divisions in the cells of the terminal tier separate a central group of
cells which form the sterile columella (col). The archesporium arises by
the next divisions in the outer layer of cells, and thus extends over the
summit of the columella. In none of the liverworts does the sporogonium
develop by means of an apical cell, as is the rule in mosses.

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