Robert, a physician and historian of the seventeenth century, was born in Norfolkshire, and studied at Caius College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M.D. in 1660. About 1670 he was appointed keeper of the records in the Tower; and was afterwards made regius professor of physic in the university of Cambridge. He wrote a letter to Sydenham on the influence of air, which was published at the head of that learned physician's Epistolae Responsoriae. His principal work is A complete His- BRA
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tory of England from the first entrance of the Romans unto the end of the reign of King Richard II., with an Introduction to the old English History, &c., in three vols. fol., 1685 –1700. In his Introduction he maintains, that the repre- sentatives of the Commons in parliament, knights, citizens, and burgesses, were not introduced until the forty-ninth of Henry III.; that William of Normandy made an absolute conquest of the nation; and that the succession to the crown of England is hereditary and not elective;—principles which were afterwards adopted by Hume as the basis of his History. His other productions were, An Answer to Mr. Petey's Book on Parliaments, London, 1681, 8vo; and An Historical Treatise of Cities and Burghs, 1690, folio, both contained in the volumes of his history. Brady sat in parliament for the university of Cambridge in 1681; and again in 1685, under James II., to whom he afterwards became physician in ordinary. He died in August 1700.
Nicholas, D.D., whose name is familiar as the translator, in conjunction with Tate, of a new metrical ver- sion of the Psalms, was born at Bandon, in the county of Cork, in October 1659. He received his early education at West- minster School, and then studied at Christ Church, Oxford; but he graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was in due time made a prebend of Cork. He was a zealous promoter of the Revolution, and suffered in consequence. When the troubles broke out in Ireland in 1690, Brady by his in- fluence thrice prevented the burning of the town of Ban- don, after James II. had given orders for its destruction; and the same year he was employed by the people of Ban- don to lay their grievances before the English parliament. He soon afterwards settled in London, where he obtained various preferments. At the time of his death, in 1726, he held the livings of Clapham and Richmond. Besides his version of the Psalms, which was licensed in 1696, he trans- lated Virgil's Æneid, and wrote a tragedy entitled The Rape, or the Innocent Imposture, both very indifferent per- formances. His prose works consist of Sermons,