name given by sailors to those billows that break violently over rocks lying under the surface of the sea. They are distinguished both by their appearance and sound, as they cover that part of the sea with a perpetual foam, and produce a hoarse and terrible roaring, very different from what the waves usually have in a deeper bottom. When a ship is unhappily driven among breakers, it is hardly possible to save her, as every billow that heaves her upwards serves to dash her down with additional force when it breaks over the rocks or sands beneath it.

Breaking, in a mercantile style, denotes the becoming bankrupt. See Bankrupt.

Breaking Bulk, in the sea-language, is the same with unloading part of the cargo.

Breakspear, Nicholas. See Adrian IV.

Bream. See Cyprinus, Ichthyology Index.

To Bream, to burn off the filth, such as grats, ooze, shells, or sea-weed, from a ship's bottom, that has gathered to it in a voyage, or by lying long in a harbour. This operation is performed by holding kindled furze, faggots, or such materials to the bottom, so that the flame incorporating with the pitch, sulphur, &c. that had formerly covered it, immediately loosens and throws off whatever filth may have adhered to the planks. After this, the bottom is covered anew with a composition of sulphur, tallow, &c. which not only makes makes it smooth and slippery, so as to divide the fluid more readily, but also poisons and destroys those worms which eat through the planks in the course of a voyage. Breathing may be performed either when the ship lies aground after the tide has ebbed from her, or by docking, or by careening.

**Breast**, in *Anatomy*, denotes the fore-parts of the thorax. See *Anatomy Index*.

Smiting the breast is one of the expressions of penitence. In the Roman church, the priest beats his breast in rehearsing the general confession at the beginning of the mass.

**Breasts**, or **Mamme**, in *Anatomy*. See *Anatomy Index*.

The breasts are usually two; though we also meet with instances of trimamia or women with three breasts, and even some with four, all yielding milk.

**Breast-Hooks**, in *Ship-Building*, are thick pieces of timber incurved into the form of knees, and used to strengthen the fore-part of the ship, where they are placed at different heights directly across the item, so as to unite it with the bows on each side. The breast-hooks are strongly connected to the stem and hawse-pieces by tree-nails, and by bolts driven from without through the planks and hawse-pieces, and the whole thickness of the breast-hooks, upon whose inside those bolts are forelocked or clinched upon rings. They are usually about one-third thicker, and twice as long, as the knees of the decks they support.

**Breast-Plate**, in antiquity, a piece of armour worn to defend the breast, originally believed to be made of hides, or hemp, twisted into small cords, but afterwards made of brass, iron, or other metals, which were sometimes so exquisitely hardened, as to be proof against the greatest force.

**Breast-Plate**, in Jewish antiquity, one part of the priestly vestments anciently worn by the high-priests. It was a folded piece of the same rich embroidered stuff of which the ephod was made; and it was set with twelve precious stones, on each of which was engraven the name of one of the tribes. They were set in four rows, three in each row; and were divided from each other by little golden squares or partitions in which they were set. The names of these stones, and that of the tribes engraven on them, as also of their disposition on the breast-plate, are as follows:

| Sardine | Emerald | Ligure | Beryt | |---------|---------|--------|-------| | Reuben | Judah | Gad | Zebulon |

This breast-plate was fastened at the four corners; those on the top to each shoulder by a golden hook or ring at the end of a wreathed chain; and those below, to the girdle of the ephod, by two strings or ribbons, which had likewise two rings and hooks.

This ornament was never to be severed from the priestly garment; and it was called the *memorial*, to put the high-priest in mind how dear those tribes ought to be to him, whose names he wore on his breast. It is also called the *breast-plate of judgment*, because it had the divine oracle of *Urim* and *Thummim* annexed to it. See *Urim* and *Thummim*.

**Breast-Plate**, in the manege, the strap of leather that runs from one side of the saddle to the other, over the horse's breast, in order to keep the saddle tight, and hinder it from sliding backwards.

**Breast-Work**, in *Fortification*, the same with *Parapet*.

**Breath**, the air inspired and expelled again in the action of respiration.

The ancients were very watchful over the last breath of dying persons, which the nearest relations, as the mother, father, brother or the like, received in their mouths.

**Breathing**, the same with *Respiration*.

**Brechin**, a town of Scotland, in the county of Angus, situated in W. Long. 2. 18. N. Lat. 56° 40'. It consists of one large handsome street, and two smaller; and is on the side of a small hill, and washed by the river South Esk, over which there is a stone-bridge of two large arches. At the foot of the town is a long row of houses independent of it, built on ground held in fee from the family of Northesk. It is a royal borough, and, with four others, sends a member to parliament. In respect to trade, it has only a small share of the linen manufacture. It lies at no great distance from the harbour of Montrose; and the tide flows within two miles of the town; to which a canal might be made, which perhaps might create a trade, but would be of certain service in conveying down the corn of the country for exportation.

Brechin was a rich and ancient bishopric, founded by Pennant's David I. about the year 1130. At the Reformation, its revenues, in money and in kind, amounted to 700l. Scotland a-year; but, after that event, were reduced to 150l. chiefly by the alienation of lands and tythes by Alexander Campbell, the first Protestant bishop, to his chieftain the earl of Argyll.—The Culdees had a convent here. Their abbot Leod was witness to the grant made by King David to his new abbey of Dunfermline. In after times, they gave way to the Mathurines or Red Friars. The ruins of their house, according to Maitland, are still to be seen in the College Wynd.—Here was likewise an hospital called *Maizon de Deu*, founded in 1256, by William de Brechin, for the repose of the souls of the kings William and Alexander; of John earl of Chester and Huntingdon, his brother; of Henry his father, and Juliana his mother. Albinus bishop of Brechin, in the reign of Alexander II. was witness to the grant. By the walls which are yet standing, behind the west end of the chief street, it appears to have been an elegant little building.

The cathedral is a Gothic pile, supported by 12 pillars; is in length 166 feet, in breadth 61: part is ruinous, and part serves as the parish-church. The west end of one of the aisles is entire: its door is Gothic, and the arch consists of many mouldings; the window of it neat tracery. The steeple is a handsome tower, 120 feet high; the four lower windows in form of long narrow openings; the belfry windows adorned with that species of opening called the *quatrefoil*: the top battlemented, out of which rises a handsome spire.—At a... small distance from the aisle stands one of those singular round towers whose use has long baffled the conjectures of antiquaries. These towers appear to have been peculiar to North Britain and Ireland; in the latter they are frequent; in the former, only two at this time exist. That at Brechin stood originally detached from other buildings. It is at present joined near the bottom by a low additional aisle to the church, which takes in about a sixth of its circumference. From this aisle there is an entrance into it of modern date, approachable by a few steps, for the use of the ringers; two handsome bells are placed in it, which are got at by means of six ladders placed on wooden semicircular floors, each resting on the circular abutments withinside of the tower.

The height from the ground to the roof is 80 feet; the inner diameter, within a few feet of the bottom, is 8 feet; the thickness of the wall at that part, 7 feet 2 inches; so that the whole diameter is 15 feet 2 inches; the circumference very near 48 feet; the inner diameter at top is 8 feet 7 inches; the thickness of the walls 4 feet 6 inches; the circumference, 38 feet 8 inches—which proportion gives the building an inexpressible elegance; the top is roofed with an octagonal spire 23 feet high, which makes the whole 103. In this spire are four windows placed alternately on the sides, resting on the top of the tower; near the top of the tower are four others facing the four cardinal points: near the bottom are two arches, one within another, in relief; on the top of the outmost is a crucifixion: between the mouldings of the outmost and inner are two figures; one of the Virgin Mary; the other of St John, the cup, and lamb. On each corner of the bottom of this arch is a figure of certain beasts; one possibly the Caledonian bear; and the other, with a long snout, the boar.

The stone-work within the inner arch has a small slit or peep-hole, but without the appearance of there having been a door within any modern period; yet there might have been one originally; for the filling up consists of larger stones than the rest of this curious rotund. The whole is built with most elegant masonry, which Mr Gough observed to be composed of 60 courses.—This tower hath often been observed to vibrate with a high wind.

The castle of Brechin was built on an eminence, a little south of the town; it underwent a long siege in the year 1303; was gallantly defended against the English under Edward III.; and, notwithstanding all the efforts of that potent prince, the brave governor Sir Thomas Maule, ancestor of the family of Panmure, held out this small fortress for 20 days, till he was slain by a stone cast from an engine on the 20th of August, when the place was instantly surrendered. The family of Panmure have now a noble house on the site of the old castle.—Brechin is also remarkable for a battle fought near it, in consequence of the rebellion raised in 1452, on account of the murder of the earl of Douglas in Stirling castle. The victory fell to the royalists under the earl of Huntly. The malecontents were headed by the earl of Crawford, who, retiring to his castle of Finhaven, in the frenzy of disgrace declared, that he would willingly pass seven years in hell, to obtain the glory that fell to the share of his antagonist.