presentatives of the Browning and Forster families. It is possible that Forster may have received some help from Browning in the preparation of the book, but it was certainly written by Forster.
[The principal source of information with regard to the personal career of Browning is the Life and Letters published by Mrs. Sutherland Orr in 1891. This is the only authorised biography, and Mrs. Orr not merely obtained from Miss Browning and Mr. E. W. B. Browning all the material in their possession, but she was particularly pointed out, by her long friendship and that of her brother, Lord Leighton [q. v.], with the poet, as well as by the communications which he was known to have made to her in his lifetime, for the task which she so admirably fulfilled. All other contributions to the biography of Robert Browning are insignificant beside that of Mrs. Sutherland Orr. It may be mentioned, however, that the earliest notes supplied, with regard to his life, by Browning himself were those given to the present writer in February and March 1881, for publication in the Century Magazine. Unfortunately, a large portion of these notes was afterwards, at his request, destroyed; what remained is reprinted in a small volume ('Robert Browning: Personalia: by Edmund Gosse,' 1890). The notes here preserved were revised by himself, but his memory has since been proved to have been at fault in several particulars. Materials of high biographical importance occur in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 2 vols. 1897, and The Love-Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 1845-6, 2 vols. 1899, both edited by Mr. F. G. Kenyon. In 1895-6 were privately printed, edited by Mr. Thomas J. Wise, two volumes of 'Letters from Robert Browning to various Correspondents,' not elsewhere printed. The first volume contained thirty-three letters, and the second thirty-five letters. Mr. T. J. Wise has also compiled a most exhaustive 'Materials for a Bibliography of the Writings of Robert Browning,' which appeared in 1895 in Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, edited by W. Robertson Nicholl and T. J. Wise (i. 359-627). The Browning Society's Papers, 1881-4, edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, contain certain data of a biographical kind. Mr. W. Sharp published a small Life of Robert Browning, 1890, which contains one or two letters not found elsewhere. The same may be said of the books of Mr. W. G. Kingsland: Robert Browning, Chief Poet of the Age, 1887, 1890, and Dr. Edward Berdoe's Browning's Message to his Times, 1890. Of various works dealing with pure criticism of Browning's writings, Mr. J. T. Nettleship's Essays of 1868 is the earliest; a new edition appeared in 1894. Much was done to extend an intelligent comprehension of Browning's poetry in his lifetime by Dr. Hiram Corson's An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry, 1886; by Mr. Arthur Symons's An Introduction to the Study of Browning, 1886; by Mr. James Fotheringham's Studies in the Poetry of Robert Browning, 1887; by Mrs. Jeanie Morison's An Outline Analysis of Sordello, 1889; by Dr. Edward Berdoe's Browning Cyclopædia, 1891; and by Mrs. Sutherland Orr's Handbook to his works (1885), which had the benefit of the poet's close revision, and was accepted by himself as the official introduction to the study of his writings.]
BROWN-SÉQUARD, CHARLES EDWARD (1817–1894), physiologist, born at Port Louis, Mauritius, on 8 April 1817, was the posthumous son of Edward Brown, captain of a merchant vessel belonging to Philadelphia. His father was of Galway origin; his mother was of the Provençal family of Séquard, which had been for some years settled in the Isle of France. After receiving a scanty education, he acted for a time as a clerk in a store, but in 1838 he arrived with his mother at Nantes, whence they made their way to Paris. He hoped at this time to make literature his profession, but by the advice of Charles Nodier he began the study of medicine. His expenses were defrayed by the help of his mother, who shared her house with the sons of some other Mauritians then studying in Paris. About this time, however, she died, and Brown affixed her maiden name to his own. In 1846 he was admitted M.D. of Paris, with a thesis on the reflex action of the spinal cord after it had been separated from the brain, and he had then served as 'externe des hôpitaux' under Trousseau and Rayer. In 1849 he filled the post of auxiliary physician, under Baron Larrey at the military hospital of Gros-Caillou during an outbreak of cholera.
He continued to devote himself to the study of physiology under the most harassing conditions of extreme poverty, and in 1848, on the foundation of the Société de Biologie, he became one of the four secretaries. In 1852, fearing that his republican principles might bring him into trouble, he left France for America, embarking by choice in a sailing ship that he might have more time to learn English. He supported himself for some time in New York by giving lessons in French, and by attending midwifery at five dollars a case. Here he married his first wife, an American lady, by whom he had one son, and he returned with her to France in the spring of 1853. He again left Paris at the end of 1854, with the intention of practising in his native place, but on arriving at Mauritius he found that the island was passing through an epidemic of cholera. He at once took charge of the cholera hospital, and when the outbreak was
