BROCKHAUS, Friedrich Arnold, an eminent German publisher, was born in Dortmund, on the 4th 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 Leipsic to the study of modern languages and literature, after which he set up at Dortmund an emporium for English goods. In 1810 he transferred this business to Arnheim, and in the following year to Amsterdam. In 1805, having given up his first line of trade, he, in conjunction with a friend, began business as a publisher. Two journals projected by him were not suffered 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 Conversations-Lexicon, which had been begun in 1796, and in 1810-11 he completed the first edition of this celebrated work. A second edition under his own editorship was begun in 1812, and was received with universal favour. His business expanded rapidly, and in 1817 he removed to Leipsic, where he established a large printinghouse. Among the more extensive of his many literary undertakings were the critical periodicals— Hermes, the Literarische Conversationsblatt (afterwards the Blatter für literarische Unterhaltung), and the Zeitgenossen, and some large historical and bibliographical works, such as Von Raumer’s Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, and Ebert’s Allgem. Bibliographie. Lexicon. The work distinctively associated with his name, and with the publishing house which has been carried on by his sons, is the Conversations-Lexicon, in many ways the completest and best encyclopaedia of its kind, ...

BROCKLESBY, Richard, a physician of considerable reputation, was born in Somersetshire, 11th August 1722. He was educated at Ballytore, in Ireland, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and finally graduated at Leyden in 1745. In 1751 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians at London, of which he afterwards became a fellow. In 1758 he was appointed physician to the army, in which capacity he served in Germany during the greater part of the Seven Years’ War, and in the course of it was chosen physician to the hospitals for British forces. The results of his observation's during this period were published in 1764, under the title of Economical and Medical Observations from 1738 to 1763, tending to the Improvement of Medical Hospitals. He had already given many proofs of his industry and his attainments by papers published in the Transactions of the Royal Society. His Dissertation on the Music of the Ancients appeared in 1749, and his Oratio IIarveiana in 1760. Shortly after this he was appointed by the duke of Richmond physician-general to the royal regiment of artillery and corps of engineers, an appointment that gave him constant access to the laboratory of Woolwich, and it was by his advice that a professorship of chemistry was added to the establishment of the college. 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. His intimacy with Burke had commenced at school, and soon ripened into the warmest friendship. He was also warmly attached to Dr Johnson, to whom he offered an annuity of £100 during the remainder of his life to enable him to visit the Continent for the recovery of his health; and when this offer was declined, he pressed him to ...