BRYDGES, SIR SAMUEL EGERTON (1762-1837). —Bibliographer and genealogist, ed. at Camb., was called to the Bar in 1787. He wrote some novels and poems, now forgotten, but rendered valuable service by his bibliographical publications, Censura Literaria, Titles and Opinions of Old English Books (10 vols. 1805-9), his editions of E. Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800) Collin's Peerage of England (1812), and of many rare Elizabethan authors. He was made a baronet in 1814. He d. at Geneva.
BUCHANAN, GEORGE (1506-1582). —Historian and scholar b. at Killearn, Stirlingshire, of poor parents, was sent in 1519, with the help of an uncle, to the Univ. of Paris, where he first came in contact with the two great influences of the age, the Renaissance and the Reformation. His uncle having died, he had to leave Paris, and after seeing some military service, returned to Scotland, and in 1524 went to St. Andrews, where he studied under [John Major] (q.v.). Two years later he found means to return to Paris, where he graduated at the Scots Coll. in 1528, and taught grammar in the Coll. of St. Barbe. Returning to Scotland in 1536 with a great reputation for learning he was made by James V. tutor to one of his illegitimate sons, and incited by him to satirise the vices of the clergy, which he did in two Latin poems, Somnium and Franciscanus. This stirred the wrath of the ecclesiastical powers to such a heat that, the King withholding his protection, he was obliged in 1539 to save himself by flight first to England and then to France, where he remained until 1547 teaching Latin at Bordeaux and Paris. In the latter year he was invited to become a prof. at Coimbra, where he was imprisoned by the Inquisition as a heretic from 1549-51, and wrote the greater part of his magnificent translation of the Psalms into Latin verse, which has never been excelled by any modern. He returned to England in 1552, but soon re-crossed to France and taught in the Coll. of Boncourt. In 1561 he came back to his native country, where he remained for the rest of his life. Hitherto, though a supporter of the new learning and a merciless exposer of the vices of the clergy, he had remained in the ancient faith, but he now openly joined the ranks of the Reformers. He held the Principalship of St. Leonard's Coll., St. Andrews, was a supporter of the party of the Regent Moray, produced in 1571 his famous Detectio Mariæ Reginæ, a scathing exposure of the Queen's relations to Darnley and the circumstances leading up to his death, was tutor, 1570-78, to James VI., whom he brought up with great strictness, and to whom he imparted the learning of which the King was afterwards so vain. His chief remaining works were De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579), against absolutism, and his History of Scotland, which was pub. immediately before his death. Though he had borne so great a part in the affairs of his country, and was the first scholar of his age, he d. so poor that he left no funds to meet the expenses of his interment. His literary masterpiece is his History, which is remarkable for the power and richness of its style. Its matter, however, gave so much offence that a proclamation was issued calling in all copies of it, as well as of the De Jure Regni, that they might be purged of the "offensive and extraordinary matters" which they contained. B. holds his great and unique place in literature not so much for his own writings as for his strong and lasting influence on subsequent writers.
BUCHANAN, ROBERT (1841-1901). —Poet and novelist, b. at Caverswall, Staffordshire, the s. of a Scottish schoolmaster and socialist, and ed. at Glasgow, was the friend of [David Gray] (q.v.), and with him went to London in search of fame, but had a long period of discouragement. His first work, a collection of poems, Undertones (1863), had, however, some success, and was followed by Idylls of Inverburn (1865), London Poems (1866), and others, which gave him a growing reputation, and raised high hopes of his future. Thereafter he took up prose fiction and the drama, not always with success, and got into trouble owing to some drastic criticism of his contemporaries, culminating in his famous article on the Fleshly School of Poetry, which appeared in the Contemporary Review (Oct. 1871), and evoked replies from Rossetti (The Stealthy School of Criticism), and Swinburne (Under the Microscope). Among his novels are A Child of Nature (1879), God and the Man (1881), and among his dramas A Nine Days' Queen, A Madcap Prince, and Alone in London. His latest poems, The Outcast and The Wandering Jew, were directed against certain aspects of Christianity. B. was unfortunate in his latter years; a speculation turned out ruinously; he had to sell his copyrights, and he sustained a paralytic seizure, from the effects of which he d. in a few months. He ultimately admitted that his criticism of Rossetti was unjustifiable.
BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 2ND DUKE of (1628-1687). —Dramatist, s. of the 1st Duke, who was in 1628 assassinated by Felton. His life was full of adventure and change of fortune. The Restoration gave him back his already twice lost estates, which he again squandered by a life of wild extravagance and profligacy at Court. He was a member of the "Cabal" and intrigued against Clarendon. He wrote pamphlets, lampoons, and plays, but his chief contribution to literature was The Rehearsal, a comedy, in which he satirised the heroic drama of Dryden and others. It is believed that S. Butler had a hand in it. Dryden had his revenge in his picture of B. as Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel.
BUCKINGHAM AND NORMANBY, JOHN SHEFFIELD, 1ST DUKE of (1648-1721). —S. of the 2nd Earl of Mulgrave, served in his youth as a soldier under Prince Rupert and Turenne, and is also said to have made love to the Princess, afterwards Queen, Anne. He was a Privy Councillor under James II., William and Mary, and Anne, with the last of whom he remained a favourite. His magnificent mansion was purchased and pulled down to make way for Buckingham Palace. He wrote An Account of the Revolution, An Essay on Satire, and An Essay on Poetry. He also remodelled Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar.