in Botany,** a synonyme of the capparis. See CAPPARIS, BOTANY Index.

**BRIANCON,** a town of France, in Upper Dauphiny, capital of the Brianconnois. E. Long. 6. 45. N. Lat. 44. 46.

**BRIANCONNOIS,** a territory of France, in Dauphiny, bounded by Grenoblois, Gapenzois, Ambrois, Piedmont, and Savoy. It comprehends several valleys, which lie among the mountains of the Alps; and though it is extremely cold, yet it is fertile in corn and pastures. The inhabitants have a great deal of wood; yet they choose to be in the stables with their cattle six months in the year, to keep themselves warm. Briancon is the capital town.

**BRIAR,** in Botany, the English name of a species of rola. See ROSA, BOTANY Index.

**BRIARE,** a town of France, in the Gatinois, seated on the river Loire. It is remarkable for nothing but a long street full of inns and farriers, it being on the great road to Lyons; and the canal of Briare, which is 33 miles in length, and maintains a communication between the Loire and the Seine, by means of the Loing. E. Long. 2. 45. N. Lat. 47. 40.

**BRIAREUS,** in Fabulous History, a giant; the son of Æther, Titan, or Coelus, and Terra. This was his name in heaven; on earth he was called Ægeon. He was of singular service to Jupiter, when Juno, Pallas, Neptune, and the rest of the gods, endeavoured to bind him in chains and dethrone him. Afterwards, however, he confedered with the rest of his gigantic brethren to dethrone Jupiter. Virgil, on this occasion, describes him as having 100 hands, 50 heads, and breathing out fire. The fable says that Jupiter, to punish him, threw him under Mount Ætna, which, as often as he moves, belches out fire. See ÆTN.

**BRIBE,** a reward given to pervert the judgment. See the next article.

The word is French, bribe, which originally denotes a bit, fragment, or relic of meat taken off the table; on which footing, bribe imports as much as panis mendicatus, and still keeps up the idea of the matter whereof bribes anciently consisted. Hence also the Spaniards use bribar and briar for begging; and briua, briueneria, and briuonifmo, for beggary. In middle age writers, a bribe given a judge is called quato liis, and the receiver, campi participes, or campi particeps; because the spoils of the field, i.e. the profits of the cause, were thus shared with the giver.

**BRIBERY,** in Law, is a high offence, where a person in a judicial place takes any fee, gift, reward, or brokerage, for doing his office, but of the king only. But, taken largely, it signifies the receiving or offering any undue reward to or by any person concerned in the administration of public justice, whether judge, officer, &c., to act contrary to his duty; and sometimes it signifies the taking or giving a reward for a public office.

In the east it is the custom never to petition any superior for justice, not excepting their kings, without a pretent. This is calculated for the genius of despotic countries; where the true principles of government are never understood, and it is imagined that there is no obligation due from the superior to the inferior, no relative duty owing from the governor to the governed.

The Roman law, though it contained many severe injunctions against bribery, as well for selling a man's vote in the senate or other public assembly, as for the bettering of common justice; yet, by a strange indulgence in one instance, it tacitly encouraged this practice; allowing the magistrate to receive small pretents, provided they did not on the whole exceed 100 crowns a-year; not considering the insinuating nature and gigantic progress of this vice, when once admitted. Plato, therefore, in his ideal republic, orders those who take pretents for doing their duty to be punished in the severest manner; and by the laws of Athens, he that offered a bribe was also prosecuted, as well as he that received a bribe. In England this offence of taking bribes is punished, in inferior officers, with fine and imprisonment; and in those that offer a bribe, though not taken, the same. But in judges, especially the superior ones, it has been always looked upon as so heinous an offence, that the chief justice Thorpe was hanged for it in the reign of Edward III. By a statute 11 Henry IV. all judges and officers of the king convicted of bribery, shall forfeit treble the bribe, be punished at the king's will, and be discharged from his service for ever.

And some notable examples have been made in parliament, of persons in the highest stations, and otherwise very eminent and able, but contaminated with this lordly vice. Thus in the reign of King James I. the earl of M. lord treasurer of England, being impeached by the commons, for refusing to hear petitions referred to him by the king, till he had received bribes, &c. was, by sentence of the lords, deprived of all his offices, and disabused to hold any for the future, or to fit in parliament; he was also fined 50,000l. and imprisoned during the king's pleasure. In the 11th year of King George I. the lord chancellor M—— had a somewhat milder punishment: he was impeached by the commons, with great zeal, for bribery, in selling the places of matters in chancery for exorbitant sums, and other corrupt practices, tending to the great loss and ruin of the suitors of that court; and the charge being made good against him, being before divested of his office, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 30,000l. and imprisoned till it was paid. It is said that one of the peers, if not two, who voted against him, had been poled off the office of chancellor, and sold the places of matters in chancery whenever vacant.

**BRIBERY in Elections.** See ELECTIONS.

**BRICIANI,** those of the order of that name. This was a military order, instituted by St Bridget, queen of Sweden, who gave them the rules and constitutions of those of Malta and St Augustin. This order was approved by Pope Urban V. They were to fight for the burying of the dead, to relieve and assist widows, orphans, the lame, sick, &c.

**BRICK,** a fat reddish earth, formed into long squares, Bricks, squares, four inches broad, and eight or nine long, by means of a wooden mould, and then baked or burnt in a kiln, to serve the purposes of building.

Bricks are of great antiquity, as appears by the sacred writings, the tower and walls of Babylon being built with them.

The Greeks chiefly used three kinds of bricks; the first whereof was called [didōron], i.e. of two palms; the second [tetradōron] of four palms; the third [pentadōron], of five palms. They had also other bricks, just half each of those, to render their works more solid, and also more agreeable to the sight, by the diversities of the figures and sizes of the bricks.

The dimensions of the brick chiefly used by the Romans, according to Pliny, were a foot and a half long, and a foot broad; which measures agree with those of several Roman bricks in England, which are about 17 inches long, and 11 broad, of our measure. Sir Henry Wotton speaks of a fort of bricks at Venice, of which statelike columns were built; they were first formed in a circular mould, and cut, before they were burnt, into four or more quarters or sides; afterwards, in laying, they were jointed so close, and the points concentred so exactly, that the pillars appeared one entire piece.

The ordinary Paris brick is eight inches long, four broad, and two thick, French measure, which makes something more than ours. But this smallness is an advantage to a building, the strength of which consists much in the multitude of angles and joints, at least if well laid, and having a good bond.

Bricks among us are various, according to their various forms, dimensions, uses, method of making, &c. The principal are, compass-bricks, of a circular form, used in stoneworking of walls: concave or hollow bricks, on one side flat like a common brick, on the other hollowed, and used for conveyance of water: feather-edged bricks, which are like common statute-bricks, only thinner on one edge than the other, and used for pannelling up the brick panels in timber buildings: cogging bricks are used for making the indented works under the caping of walls built with great bricks: caping bricks, formed for purpose of caping of walls: Dutch or Flemish bricks, used to pave yards, stables, and for soap-boilers vaults and cisterns: clinkers, such bricks as are glazed by the heat of the fire in making: fandel or famel-bricks, are such as lie outmost in a kiln or clamp, and consequently are soft and useless, as not being thoroughly burnt: great bricks are those twelve inches long, six broad, and three thick, used to build fence-walls: platter or buttress bricks, have a notch at one end, half the breadth of the brick; their use is to bind the work which is built of great brick: statute-bricks, or small common bricks, ought, when burnt, to be nine inches long, four and a quarter broad, and two and a half thick; they are commonly used in paving cellars, sinks, hearths, &c.

Worlidge, and others after him, have endeavoured to excite brick-makers to try their skill in making a new kind of brick, or composition of clay and sand, whereby to form window-frames, chimney-pieces, door-cases, and the like. It is to be made in pieces fashioned in moulds, which, when burnt, may be set together with a fine red cement, and seem as one entire piece, by which may be imitated all manner of stone work. The thing should seem feasible, by the earthen pipes made fine, thin, and durable, to carry water under-ground at Portsmouth; and by the earthen backs and grates for chimneys, formerly made by Sir John Winter, of a great bigness and thickness. If chimney-pieces thus made in moulds, and dried and burnt, were not found smooth enough, they might be polished with sand and water; or were care taken, when they were half dry in the air, to have them polished with an instrument of copper or iron, then leave them till they were dry enough to burn, it is evident they would not want much polishing afterwards. The work might even be glazed, as potters do their fine earthen ware, either white or of any other colour; or it might be veined in imitation of marble, or be painted with figures of various colours, which would be much cheaper, perhaps equally durable, and as beautiful, as marble itself.

Bricks are commonly red, though there are some also of a white colour, for which fort Walpit in Suffolk is famous. Bricks may be made of any earth that is clear of stones, even sea-ouze; but all will not burn red, a property peculiar to earths which contain ferruginous particles. In England, bricks are chiefly made of a hazely, yellowish-coloured, fatty earth, somewhat reddish, vulgarly called loam. The earth, according to Leibourn, ought to be dug before winter, but not made into bricks before spring. For the making of such bricks as will stand the fiercest fires, Stourbridge clay or Windsor loam are esteemed the best. In general, the earth whereof bricks are made, ought not to be too sandy, which would render them heavy and brittle; nor too fat, which would make them crack in drying.

The first step in the process of brick-making is casting the clay, or earth. The next step is to tread or temper it, which ought to be performed doubly of what is usually done; since the goodness of the bricks depends chiefly upon this first preparation. The earth itself, before it is wrought, is generally brittle and dusty; but adding small quantities of water gradually to it, and working and incorporating it together, it opens its body, and tinges the whole with a tough gluey band or substance. If, in the tempering, you overwater them, as the usual method is, they become dry and brittle, almost as the earth they are made of; whereas, if duly tempered, they become smooth and solid, hard and durable. A brick of this last sort takes up near as much earth as a brick and a half made the contrary way; in which the bricks are spongy, light, and full of cracks, partly through want of due working, and partly by mixing of ashes and light sandy earth to make it work easy and with greater dispatch; as also to save culm or coals in the burning. We may add, that for bricks made of good earth, and well tempered, as they become solid and ponderous, so they take up a longer time in drying and burning than the common ones; and that the well drying of bricks before they are burned prevents their cracking and crumbling in the burning.

Bricks are burnt either in a kiln or clamp. Those that are burnt in a kiln, are first set or placed in it; and then the kiln being covered with pieces of bricks, they put in some wood to dry them with a gentle fire; and thus they continue till the bricks are pretty dry, which is known by the smoke's turning from a darkish colour to transparent smoke: they then leave off putting in wood, and proceed to make ready for burning; which is performed by putting in brush, furze, hay, heath, brake brake or fern faggots: but before they put in any faggots, they damp up the mouth or mouths of the kiln with pieces of bricks (which they call thinlog) piled up one upon another, and cloe it up with wet brick-earth instead of mortar. The thinlog they make so high, that there is but justt room above it to thrust in a faggot: then they proceed to put in more faggots, till the kiln and its arches look white, and the fire appears at the top of the kiln; upon which they flacken the fire for an hour, and let all cool by degrees. This they continue to do, alternately heating and flacking, till the ware be thoroughly burnt, which is usually effected in 48 hours.

About London they chiefly burn in clamps, built of the bricks themselves, after the manner of arches in kilns, with a vacancy between each brick, for the fire to play through; but with this difference, that instead of arching, they span it over by making the bricks project one over another on both sides of the place, for the wood and coals to lie in till they meet, and are bounded by the bricks at the top, which cloe all up. The place for the fuel is carried up straight on both sides, till about three feet high; then they almost fill it with wood, and over that lay a covering of sea-coal, and then overspan the arch; but they strew sea-coal also over the clamp, betwixt all the rows of bricks; lastly, they kindle the wood, which gives fire to the coal; and when all is consumed, then they conclude the bricks are sufficiently burnt.

In Dr Percival's essays*, we have the following experiment of the effects of bricks on water. "Two or three pieces of common brick were steeped four days in a basin full of distilled water. The water was then decanted off, and examined by various chemical tests. It was immiscible with soap, struck a lively green with syrup of violets, was rendered slightly lactescent by the volatile alkali, and quite milky by the fixed alkali and by a solution of saccharum saturni. The infusion of tormentil root produced no change in it." This experiment, he observes, affords a striking proof of the impropriety of lining wells with brick, a practice very common in many places, and which cannot fail of rendering the water hard and unwholesome. Clay generally contains a variety of heterogeneous matters. The coloured loams often partake of bitumen, and the ochre of iron. Sand and calcareous earth are still more common ingredients in their composition; and the experiments of Mr Geoffrey and Mr Pott prove, that the earth of alum also may in large quantity be extracted from clay. Now as clay is exposed to the open air for a long space of time, is then moulded into bricks, and burnt, this process resembles in many respects that by which the alum-stone is prepared. And it is probable that the white efflorescence which is frequently observable on the surface of new bricks, is of an aluminous nature. The long exposure of clay to the air before it is moulded into bricks, the sulphureous exhalations of the pit-coal used for burning it, together with the suffocating and bituminous vapour which arises from the ignited clay itself, sufficiently account for the combination of a vitriolic acid with the earth of alum.

Oil of Bricks, olive oil imbibed by the substance of bricks, and afterwards distilled from it. This oil was once in great repute for curing many diseases, but is now justly laid aside.

Brick-Layer, an artificer, whose business is to build with bricks, or make brick work.

Brick-layers work, or buffeels, in London, includes tyling, walling, chimney-work, and paving with bricks and tiles. In the country it also includes the mason's and plasterer's business.

The materials used by brick-layers are bricks, tiles, mortar, laths, nails, and tile pins. Their tools are a brick trowel, wherewith to take up mortar; a brick-axe, to cut bricks to the determined shape; a saw, for sawing bricks; a rub-stone, on which to rub them; also a square, wherewith to lay the bed or bottom, and face or surface of the brick, to see whether they are at right angles; a bevel, by which to cut the under sides of bricks to the angles required; a small trammel of iron, wherewith to mark the bricks; a float-stone, with which to rub a moulding of brick to the pattern described; a banker, to cut the bricks on; line-pins to lay their rows or courses by; plumb-rule, whereby to carry their work upright; level, to conduct it horizontal; square, to set off right angles; ten-foot rod, wherewith to take dimensions; jointer, wherewith to run the long joints; rammer, wherewith to beat the foundation; crow and pick-axe, wherewith to dig through walls.

The London brick-layers make a regular company, which was incorporated in 1568; and consists of a master, two wardens, 20 assistants, and 78 on the livery.

Brick-Laying, the art of framing edifices of bricks. Moxon hath an express treatise on the art of brick-laying; in which he describes the materials, tools, and method of working, used by brick-layers.

Great care is to be taken, that bricks be laid joint on joint in the middle of the walls as seldom as may be; and that there be good bond made there, as well as on the outsides. Some brick-layers, in working a brick and half wall, lay the header on one side of the wall perpendicular to the header on the other side, and so all along the whole course; whereas, if the header on one side of the wall were toothed as much as the stretcher on the other side, it would be a stronger toothing, and the joints of the headers of one side would be in the middle of the headers of the course they lie upon of the other side. If bricks be laid in winter, let them be kept as dry as possible; if in summer, it will quit cost to employ boys to wet them, for that they will then unite with the mortar better than if dry, and will make the work stronger. In large buildings, or where it is thought too much trouble to dip all the bricks separately, water may be thrown on each course after they are laid, as was done at the building the physicians college, by order of Dr Hooke. If bricks are laid in summer, they are to be covered; for if the mortar dries too hastily, it will not bind so firmly to the bricks as when left to dry more gradually. If the bricks be laid in winter, they should also be covered well, to protect them from rain, snow and frost; which last is a mortal enemy to mortar, especially to all such as have been wetted just before the frost assaults it.

Brick-Maker, is he who undertakes the making of Bricks. This is mostly performed at some small distance from cities and towns; and though some, through ignorance, look upon it as a very mean employ, because laborious, yet the masters about London, and other capital cities, are generally men of substance.