Brand, Rev. Thomas
- Dictionary and Archive of Travellers
- Title
- Brand, Rev. Thomas
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(c.1751 - 1814), s. of William Brand of Newmarket, Suff.; Christ's Camb. 1767; fell. 1773 - 89; ord. 1775; Switzerland 1779 - 80; vic. of Croxton, Norf. 1785 - 97; preb. 1789 and chancellor 1808 - 14 of Lincoln.
1783 - 4 see Sir James Graham
1787 see Duncombe (poss. Thomas Duncombe of Copgrove)
1790 - 1, 1791 - 4 see Charles, Lord Bruce
Brand's itineraries will be found under his charges, but his forthright reflections on Italy and Italian travel merit separate notice. They are contained in some fifty letters written from Italy to his sister Susan (later Mrs Carr) and her husband, to the Rev. Robert Wharton, and to the 1st Earl of Ailesbury, Lord Bruce's father (Brand Letters MSS; refs. given in brackets). Brand was not constrained by ecclesiastical duties - Sir William Forbes was puzzled as to why he never read prayers during the winter he spent in Naples with Lord Bruce1 - and he spent in all nearly ten years in Italy, until tiring of 'the cares of pupilage and the torment of Exile' (D 22 Apr. 1792).
He acted as tutor 'to get wherewithal to support my family' (D 26 Mar. 1784), and he became a hardened tourist, as his descriptions of Italian customs and court life reveal. In Turin 'we go on in the old way playing snug rubbers at Whist at the Spanish Ambassadors & dressing ourselves two or three times a week to shew off our persons to advantage & captivate the hearts & Eyes of the great Circles', while the English consul [John Trevor] '& the French Ambassador cram us from time to time with Wild Boar & Truffles, Aspicks & Pasticietti' (D 18 Feb. 1787). The royal family at Turin were 'a queer set of beings and in my mind enough to disgust any man of sense' (E 13 Oct. 1790); the Archduke and Duchess of Milan were 'the only princely personages I have yet seen who are fit to be spoken to' (E 18 Jun. 1791). He was amused by Genoese society 'prouder of their families than the Princes of other nations' (E 13 Oct. 1790). When Rome was threatened with French invasion, he thought 'the geese might cackle till they died of hoarseness before they could awaken a single spark of valour in defence of the Capitol' (A 25 Oct. 1792). He was cynical, too, about Venice, where he was not keen 'to row through stinking canals in those coffin-like Gondolas in the heat of that unwholesome climate' (C 13 Apr. 1787).
He did not enthuse over the baroque architecture of Turin which revealed, he thought, 'a wonderful deficiency of good taste' with its 'angles and broken curves ... always deviating from elegance and simplicity' (D 31 Mar. 1787). By contrast he was greatly interested in the stern doric temples of Sicily, where, he claimed, 'the remains of antiquity are infinitely superior to any in Italy or France' (E 20 Mar. 1792). He experienced the new packet service (using an American privateer) established by the King of Naples between Naples and Palermo, his fellow travellers including a Duke, a Canon from Palermo and a sailor reading Orlando Furioso, while he read Virgil with the Captain (E 29 Mar., and D 3 Apr. 1792). When the other English tourists 'flock to Rome' from Naples (E 20 Mar. 1792), Lord Bruce and Brand, a volume of the 'nonsensical' poems of Theocritus in his pocket, had alone gone to Palermo; Brand reflected that 'if a thousand millionth part of the gunpowder wasted in Sicily in firing petards in honour of Virgins & Martyrs were employd in blasting the rocks they might have made roads thro the whole Island' (E 8 Apr. 1792), and he further reflected what a country 'would this be with a spirit of commerce and industry with well educated people and with a government regulated by Wisdom and Equity. And what a desert it is at present' (D 3 Apr. 1792).
Brand's cultural interests were widely spread. He made a special visit to inspect the manuscripts at the Benedictine monastery of La Cava, near Salerno (A 11 Mar. 1794), and his classical learning had led to his election (as Uranide) to the Accademia dell'Arcadia in Rome in 1784, an honour he accepted with some amusement (D 17 Apr. 1784).2 He enjoyed looking at pictures, though his taste was conventional. He was delighted by the pictures in Genoa and 'almost blind with admiring the fine Corregio's at Parma' (E 11 Nov. 1783); he dutifully followed James Byres round Rome 'to be lectur'd on Carlo Maratt & Pietro di Cortona, upon blue harmony & yellow Harmony' (D 26 Mar. 1784), and he admired the 'Guidos & Guercinos' in the Duke's gallery in Modena (C 2 Dec. 1790). He sat to Angelica Kauffman in Rome for a half-length portrait in December 1783,3 and commissioned drawings from John Rouby (after Schidone) and Lusieri, and copies from Raphael by Seydelmann (A 20 Nov. 1792, 15 Jan. 1793).
He was clearly more interested in music, on which he frequently commented. Cimarosa's music he found 'very pleasing tho I cannot think there is much originality in it' (D 24 Oct. 1783). Though he considered the Italian theatre 'far behind the rest of Europe in dramatic entertainment' (D 17 Nov. 1783), he regularly attended the opera; in Turin he described performances of operas by Cimarosa and Marcello da Capua in 1783 (D 24 Oct. 1783) and of Tarchi's Il Trionfo di Clelia (D 18 Feb. 1787). He heard a burletta by the Neapolitan Fabrizi in Pisa (C 27 Dec. 1790), and attended the opera in Rivarola, 'the theatre very little better than a barn' (E 13 Oct. 1790). In Rome in 1784 he heard old Galuppi's Mass which had 'all the fire of a young composer with the learning of the last century'; he was then buying music by Cimarosa and Sartis and playing Boccherini (D 17 Apr. 1784). In 1787 he played Boccherini and Haydn with Thomas Jackson in Turin (D 18 Feb.), where his church attendance was conditioned by 'Pugnani & Casachiello & the excellent band under them' (C 13 Apr. 1787).
Brand was always prepared to be amused by English travellers. His observation was keen: 'here & there [in Rome] we meet an English party with De La Lande [Voyage d'un Fran?ois en Italie, 1769] or Richards [Jerome Richard, Description historique et Critique de l'Italie, 1766] under their arms & a Lady or two with Lady [i.e. Mrs Ann] Miller's charming letters' (D 26 Mar. 1784). He considered the set of English visitors in Rome in the winter of 1790 - 1 to be 'very absurd riotous drunken fellows' (C 25 Sep. 1790), and he was particularly amused by the public friction between Bishop Brownlow North and Mrs North (A 16 Oct. 1792, 16 Nov. 1793). Many more of Brand's observations are quoted under other travellers' names.
1. Forbes jnl.MSS (14 Apr. 1793). 2. His Arcadian certificate is NLS, acc.10061. 3. Kauffman 1924, 144.