Southern Buckthorn (Pali-urns Acuh'atus>), or "Spina Christi."
It was employed for hedges ; the Hebrews used it for fuel (Psa. lviii, 10). In the apologue or fable of Jo- tham (q. v.), which has always been admired for its spirit and application (Judg. ix, 8-15), and has boon considered the oldest allegory of the kind extant, this thorn-bush is the emblem of a tyrant. The word else- where occurs only in the name Atad (den. 1, 10, 11). See generally Celsii Hierobot, i, 199 sq. ; Sprengel, ad Dioscor. ii, 397; Kitto, Phys. Hist, of /''if, st. p. ecxxxvi ; Penny Cyclopa<</i<i, s. v. Paliurus. See Thorn.
Bramhall, John, archbishop of Armagh, was born at Pontefract, in Yorkshire, in 1693, and studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where lie passed A.B. 1612, and A.M. 1616. In the same year he was presented to a living in York. In 1623 he held two disputations with a Romish priest and a Jesuit at North- allerton, in which lie obtained so unquestionable a vic- tory that archbishop Matthews, having heard it, called him to his side, and made him his chaplain, adding to that other ecclesiastical preferments. AYhile in this situation he became known to Sir Thomas Wentworth (afterward Earl of Strafford), deputy of Ireland, who induced him, in 1633, to go over into Ireland to be his
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chaplain, deeming him well fitted to assist him in his schemes for the restoration and improvement of the Church in that country. In 1634 he was raised to the see of Londonderry, which he greatly improved, so far as even to double the yearly profits of the bishopric. He likewise did great service to the Irish Church by his exertions to get such impropriations as remained in the crown, vested by Charles I on the several in- cumbents, after the expiration of the leases, as well by his vast purchases of impropriations, either with his own money or by remittances from England. About the same time lie was mainly instrumental in obtain- ing the reception by the Irish clergy of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Synod of London, A.D. 1562. He also chiefly compiled a book of canons for the Church of Ireland. Bishop Bramhall was not, however, left un- disturbed to pursue his labors, and was soon involved in the troubles of the kingdom. On the 4th of March, 164(M1, articles of impeachment were exhibited against him in the Irish House of Lords, to answer which, reckless of the cautious advice of his friends, who dis- suaded him from it, he repaired to Dublin, and was there made a close prisoner. Through the king's ex- ertions, he was at length released, not a single charge being proven against him, and he embarked for Eng- land, whence, when the royal cause became lost, he repaired to Hamburgh, and thence to Brussels, where he chiefly continued till 1648, when he returned to Ire- land. After great perils and dangers he again fled from that country, in October in that year was at Rot- terdam, and continued abroad until the Restoration. Several of his most important works, especially those in defence of the Church of England, were written in his exile. "Among these we maj'- especially mention his 'Answer to M.de Milletiere his impertinent dedi- cation of his imaginary triumph : intitled, the Victory of Truth; or his epistle to the king of Great Britain, wherein he invited his majesty to forsake the Church of England and to embrace the Roman Catholic relig- ion : with the said Milletiere's epistle prefixed.' This was first published at the Hague in 1654, 12mo, but not by the author. It was occasioned by the fact that the Romanists endeavored to persuade King Charles II, during his exile, to expect his restoration 1 y embrac- ing their religion, and for that purpose employed Mille- tiere, councillor in ordinary to the king of France, to write him this epistle. We may here mention that Xheophile Brachet, Sieur de la Milletiere, was origin- ally a member of the French Reformed congregations, and sufficiently distinguished among them to be select- ed as a deputy and secretary to the Assembly of La Rochelle in 1621. lie entered subsequently into the plans of Cardinal Richelieu for the union of the R< man Catholic and Reformed churches in France; published a great number of letters, pamphlets, and treatises upon the doctrines in dispute between them, assimilating gradually to the Roman Catholic tenets ; was suspend- ed in consequence by the Synod of Alencon in 1G37, and expelled by that of Charenton in 1645 from the Re- formed communion ; and finally became a Roman Cath- olic 'of necessity, that he might be of some religion.' lie was a vain and shallow man, full of himself, and persuaded that nothing approached to his own merit and capacity;' and, after bis change of religion, 'was perpetually playing the missionary and seeking con- ferences, although he was always handled in them with a severity sufficient to have damped his courage, had he not been gifted with a perversity which nothing could conquer' < Benoit, Hist, de VEdit de Nantes, torn. ii, liv. x, p. 51 1 516). 'I he work to which Bramhall re- plied seems fully to bear out the truth of this sketch of his character" (Hook). In June, 1660, we find him again in London; and in January, 1660-61, he was translated to the see of Armagh, not long after which he consecrated in one day two archbishops and ten