for
the Three Choir festival at Gloucester. With the view of perfecting
himself in his art he set out for Italy in the autumn of 1797. On the
way he gave some concerts at Paris, which proved so successful that he
was induced to remain there for eight months. His career in Italy was
one of continuous triumph; he appeared in all the principal
opera-houses, singing in Milan, Genoa, Leghorn and Venice. His compass
embraced about nineteen notes, his management of the falsetto being
perfect. In 1801 he returned to his native country, and appeared once
more at Covent Garden in the opera _Chains of the Heart_, by Mazzinghi
and Reeve. So great was his popularity that an engagement he had made
when abroad to return after a year to Vienna was renounced, and he
remained henceforward in England. In 1824 he sang the part of Max in the
English version of Weber's _Der Freischutz_, and he was the original Sir
Huon in that composer's _Oberon_ in 1826. Braham made two unfortunate
speculations on a large scale, one being the purchase of the Colosseum
in the Regent's Park in 1831 for L40,000, and the other the erection of
the St James's theatre at a cost of L26,000 in 1836. In 1838 he sang the
part of William Tell at Drury Lane, and in 1839 the part of Don
Giovanni. His last public appearance was at a concert in March 1852. He
died on the 17th of February 1856. There is, perhaps, no other case upon
record in which a singer of the first rank enjoyed the use of his voice
so long; between Braham's first and last public appearances considerably
more than sixty years intervened, during forty of which he held the
undisputed supremacy alike in opera, oratorio and the concert-room.
Braham was the composer of a number of vocal pieces, which being sung by
himself had great temporary popularity, though they had little intrinsic
merit, and are now deservedly forgotten. A partial exception must be
made in favour of "The Death of Nelson," originally written in 1811 as a
portion of the opera _The American_; this still keeps its place as a
standard popular English song.

BRAHE, PER, COUNT (1602-1680), Swedish soldier and statesman, was born
on the island of Rydboholm, near Stockholm, on the 18th of February
1602. He was the grandson of Per Brahe (1520-1590), one of Gustavus I.'s
senators, created count of Visingsborg by Eric XIV., known also as the
continuator of Peder Svart's chronicle of Gustavus I., and author of
_Oeconomia_ (1585), a manual for y