Amongst the places of interest round Brassó is the watering-place Zaizon, 15 m. to the east, with ferruginous and iodine waters; while about 17 m. to the south-west lies the pretty Rumanian village of Zernest, where in 1690 the Austrian general Heussler was defeated and taken prisoner by Imre (Emerich) Tököly, the usurper of the Transylvanian throne.
Brassó was founded by the Teutonic Order in 1211, and soon became a flourishing town. Through the activity of Honterus it played a leading part in the introduction of the Reformation in Transylvania in the 16th century. The town was almost completely destroyed by the big fire of 1689. During the revolution of 1848-1849 it was besieged by the Hungarians under General Bern from March to July 1849, and several engagements between the Austrian and the Hungarian troops took place in its neighbourhood.
BRATHWAIT, RICHARD (1588-1673), English poet, son of Thomas Brathwait, was born in 1588 at his father's manor of Burneshead, near Kendal, Westmorland. He entered Oriel College, Oxford, in 1604, and remained there for some years, pursuing the study of poetry and Roman history. He removed to Cambridge to study law and afterwards to London to the Inns of Court. Thomas Brathwait died in 1610, and the son went down to live on the estate he inherited from his father. In 1617 he married Frances Lawson of Nesham, near Darlington. On the death of his elder brother, Sir Thomas Brathwait, in 1618, Richard became the head of the family, and an important personage in the county, being deputy-lieutenant and justice of the peace. In 1633 his wife died, and in 1639 he married again. His only son by this second marriage, Sir Stafford Brathwait, was killed in a sea-fight against the Algerian pirates. Richard Brathwait's most famous work is _Barnabae Itinerarium or Barnabees Journall_ [1638], by "Corymbaeus," written in English and Latin rhyme. The title-page says it is written for the "travellers' solace" and is to be chanted to the old tune of "Barnabe." The story of "drunken Barnabee's" four journeys to the north of England contains much amusing topographical information, and its gaiety is unflagging. Barnabee rarely visits a town or village without some notice of an excellent inn or a charming hostess, but he hardly deserves the epithet "drunken." At Banbury he saw the Puritan who has become proverbial,