=Bradstreet, Mrs. Anne [Dudley].= _E._, 1612-1672. The first American woman of letters, and called by her contemporaries “The Tenth Muse.” Her prose work includes a brief autobiographic sketch, Religious Experiences; Meditations Divine and Moral, a series of shrewd, strong aphorisms. In her lifetime she was known only as a poet, and her verse, the bulk of which is considerable, comprises elegies, epitaphs; The Four Monarchies, a rhymed chronicle of ancient history; The Four Elements; The Four Humours of Man; The Four Ages of Man; The Four Seasons of the Year; Dialogue between Old England and New; Contemplations. She followed artificial models, and her lines reflect the grotesque conceits of the time, but here and there are gleams of real poetic vigour, while in the poem Contemplations, the least laboured of them all, she exhibits true poetic inspiration. _See Works of, edited by John Harvard Ellis, with sketch of the author, 1867; Tyler’s American Literature; Life, by Helen Campbell; New England Magazine, 1887._ =Brainard, John Gardiner Calkins.= _Ct._, 1796-1828. A Hartford journalist whose Poems were published first in 1825, and reissued as Literary Remains in 1832 in an enlarged edition, with Memoir by his friend Whittier. His verse was temporarily popular, but his chief claim to present remembrance is the fine poem beginning, “I saw two clouds at morning.” =Brainerd, David.= _Ct._, 1718-1747. A famous missionary among the Indians of New England. Selections from his journals have been printed, entitled Miriabilia Dei apud Indicos; Divine Grace Displayed. _See Life, by Jonathan Edwards, 1749, enlarged, 1822; Sparks’s American Biography._ =Branch, Mrs. Mary Lydia [Bolles].= _Ct._, 1840- ----. A New York writer, best known by her poem, The Petrified Fern. The Kanter Girls is a story for young people. _Scr._ =Brannan, William Penn.= “Vandyke Brown.” _O._, 1825-1866. A portrait painter of Cincinnati. Vagaries of Vandyke Brown; The Harp of a Thousand Strings, or Laughter for a Life Time. =Brattle, Thomas.= _Ms._, 1657-1713. A once famous Boston merchant. Eclipse of the Sun and Moon observed in New England; Lunar Eclipse in New England, 1707. =Brazza, Cora [Slocomb]=, Countess di. _La._, 1862- ----. A writer of New York city. An American Idyl; A Literary Farce; Guide to the Old and New Lace in Italy. _Ar._ =Breckinridge, Robert Jefferson.= _Ky._, 1800-1871. A once noted Presbyterian clergyman of Lexington, Kentucky. Popery; Internal Evidence of Christianity; Memoranda of Foreign Travel; Travels in France, Germany, etc. His chief work was a system of theology, The Knowledge of God, Objectively and Subjectively Considered. He was a writer of very positive views, and one of the leaders in the division of the Presbyterian church into Old and New School in 1837.