Bruschius, Caspar

, a Latin historian and poet, was born at Egra in Bohemia, 1518. He was devoted to | books from his childhood, and especially to poetry; in which he so happily succeeded, that he could make a great number of verses, and those not bad ones, extempore. He began early to publish some of them on several subjects; and acquired so much reputation, that he attained to the poetical crown, to the dignity of poet laureat, and of count palatine, which honour he received at Vienna from Ferdinand of Austria, king of the Remaps, in 1552. His business in that city was to present a work to Maximilian, king of Hungary, which he had dedicated to him, the “First century of the German monasteries.” In his return from Vienna, he stopped at Passau; where, finding a patron in Wolfgang bishop of Salms, he resolved to settle, and to remove his library and family. He hoped that he could better go on there with a great work he had undertaken, which was, “The history of all the bishoprics and bishops of Germany.” He had travelled much, and looked into several records *and libraries, to gather materials for his purpose. How long he staid there does not appear; but he was at Basil in June 1553, and lived in the citadel of Oporin. Arx Oporina: the usual way of speaking of that famous printer’s house, which stood on a rising ground. Here he published writings he had finished at Passau, some in prose, and others in verse. Bruschius was married, but had no children. He was far from being rich; but his poetical patrons assisted him, and he received presents also from the abbots and abbesses, whose monasteries he described. He was particularly well received by the abbess of the convent of Caczi, and obtained some presents from her, which, Melchior Adam says, was owing to his having described the antiquities of that convent. The liberalities of some abbots, while he was with Oporin at Basil, enabled him to buy a new suit of clothes; but when he found that appearing well dressed in the streets procured him many marks of respect from the vulgar, he tore his new finery to pieces, “as slaves (says the same author) that had usurped their master’s honours.”

This unhappy man was murdered in the forest of Scalingenbach, between Rottemberg on the Tauber and Winsheim, in 1559; and it was believed that this assassination was concerted and carried into execution by some gentlemen against whom Bruschius was about to write something. His ecclesiastical history of Germany is said to savour of Lutheranism, with which he was supposed to | be strongly tainted, from his taking every slight occasion to speak ill of Rome and of the popes. It was published un^er the title “De omnibus totius Germanise Episcopatibus Epitome, &c.” Nuremberg, 1549; and “Monasteriorum Germanise prsecipuorum, &c. Centuria Prima,” Ingolstad, 1551. He published also, in his nineteenth year, “Tabula Philosophise partitionem continens,” Tubingen, 1537, and other works, enumerated in Gesner’s Bibliotheca. ¹