Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/437

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BROWNE
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was made principal of Marischal College. In the year 1800 he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king, and in 1804 dean of the chapel royal, and of the Order of the Thistle. He died on the 11th of May 1830, in the

seventy-sixth year of his age.


His most widely known works were an Essay on the Natural Equality of Men, 1793, which gained the Teyler Society s prize ; a treatise On (he Existence of the Supreme Creator, 1816, to which was awarded the first Burnet prize of 1250 ; and A Comparative View of Christianity, and of the other Forms of Religion which have existed and still exist, in the World, particularly with regard to their Moral Tendency, 1826.

BROWNE, Charles Farrar, an American humorous writer, best known under his nom de plume of Artemus Ward, was born at Waterford, Maine, in 1834. He began life as a compositor and occasional contributor to the daily and weekly journals. In 1858 he published in the Cleve land Plaindealer the first of the " Artemus Ward " series, which in a collected form attained great popularity both in America and England. In 1860 he became editor of Vanity Fair, a humorous New York weekly, which proved a failure. About the same time he began to appear as a lecturer, and by his droll and eccentric humour attracted large audiences. In 1866 he visited England, where he became exceedingly popular both as a lecturer and as a contributor to Punch. In the spring of the following year his health gave way, and he died of consumption at Southampton on the 6th March 1867. For a critical estimate of his works see the article American Literature, vol. i. p. 728.

BROWNE, Isaac Hawkins, an English poet, was born in 1705 at Burton-upon-Trent, of which place his father was minister. He received his grammatical instruction first at Lichfield, and then at Westminster, whence, at sixteen years of age, he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, of which his father had been fellow. After taking his master s degree he removed to Lincoln s Inn, where he applied closely to the study of the law. Not long after the commencement of his professional studies, he wrote a poem on Design and Beauty, which he addressed to his friend Highmore the painter. Here also he wrote his most popular poem, entitled The Pipe of Tobacco, in which he gave imitations of Gibber, Ambrose Philips, Thomson, Young, Pope, and Swift, who were then all living. In 1744 he married the daughter of Dr Trimnell, archdeacon of Leicester. He was elected in 1744 and again in 1748 to serve in parliament for the borough of Wenlock in Shropshire, near which place he possessed a considerable estate, left to him by his maternal grandfather. In 1754 he published his poem De Animce Immortalitate, in which, besides a judicious choice of matter and arrange ment, there is thought to be a happy imitation of Lucretius and Virgil. The wide popularity of this poem produced several English translations of it, the best of which is given by Soame Jenyns, in his Miscellanies. The author intended to have added a third book, but of this he had left only a fragment. He died, after a lingering illness, in 1760. In 1768 his son published an elegant edition of his poems, in large octavo.

BROWNE, James, LL.D., man of letters, for a number of years sub- editor of the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was born at Coupar-Angus in 1793. He was educated at Edinburgh and afterwards removed to St Andrews, where he studied for the church. He wrote The History of Edinburgh for Ewbank s Picturesque Views ol that city, 2 vols., 1823-25. In 1826 he became a member oi the Faculty of Advocates, and obtained the degree of LL.D. from King s College, Aberdeen ; and in this same year he published a Critical Examination of Macculloch s Work on the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. In 1827 le published at Paris his Aperqu sur les Hieroglyphes VEyypte ; and in the following year there appeared his Vindication of the Scottish Bar from the Attacks of Mr Brougham. He was now appointed editor of the Cale- lonian Mercury ; and two years later he became sub-editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, to which he contributed a iarge number of valuable articles. He also published in 1838 a History of the Highlands and Highland Clans, 4 vols. 8vo, of which various editions have since appeared. His mental activity was remarkable, and frequently urged him to exertions beyond his strength. He died in 1841, from a stroke of apoplexy, brought on by his unremitting labours.

BROWNE, Peter, bishop of Cork and Ross, an able writer on theology, was born in Ireland some time after the Restoration. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1 682, and after ten years residence obtained a fellowship. In 1699 he was made provost of the College, and in the same year published his Letter in answer to a Book en titled " Christianity not Mysterious," which was recognized as the ablest reply yet written to Toland. It expounds in germ the whole of his later theory of analogy. In 1710 he was made bishop of Cork and Ross, which post he held till his death in 1735. In 1713 he had become somewhat notorious from his violent onslaught on the fashion of drinking healths, a polemic which he carried on in several pamphlets. His two most important works are the Procedure and Limits of the Human Understanding, 1728, an able though sometimes captious critique of Locke s essay, and Things Divine and Supernatural conceived by Analogy ivith Things Natural and Human, more briefly referred to as the Divine Analogy, 1733. The doctrine of analogy was intended as a reply to the deistical conclusions that had been drawn from Locke s theory of knowledge. Browne holds that not only God s essence, but his attri butes are inexpressible by our ideas, and can only be con ceived analogically. This view was vigorously assailed by Berkeley in his Alciphron (Dialogue IV.), and great part of the Divine Analogy is occupied with a defence against that criticism. The bishop emphasizes the distinction between metaphor and analogy ; though the conceived attributes are not thought as they are in themselves, yet there is a reality corresponding in some way to our ideas of them. The doctrine of analogy is interesting, and has an interesting history in English theology. Its most logical expression may be found in the Bampton Lectures of the late Dean Mansel.

BROWNE, Sir Thomas, a distinguished English writer,

was born in London on the 19th October, 1605. He was educated at Winchester School, and afterwards at Broad- gate Hall (Pembroke College), Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in January 1626. He took the further degree of M.A. in 1629, studied medicine, and practised for some time in Oxfordshire. Between 1630 and 1633 he left England, travelled through Ireland, France, and Italy, and on his way home received the degree of M.D. at the university of Leyden. He returned to London in 1634, and two years later, after a short residence in Yorkshire, settled in practice at Norwich. In 1642 a copy of his Religio Medici was printed from one of his MSS. without his knowledge, and he was compelled to put forth a correct edition of the work, which appears to have been composed as early as 1634. Its success was very great, and the author at once became celebrated as a man of letters. In 1646 appeared his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, which added to his fame. In 1658, on the occasion of the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk, he wrote his Hydriotaphia or Urnburial, to which was appended The Garden of Cyrus. These four

works were all that he published, though several tracts,