nations, and containing high and noble thoughts concerning death, oblivion, and immortality. A speculator of rich, infinite ingenuity, constantly striving to penetrate the dark land surrounding the realm of mortal light, could not but have a vein of melancholy in his composition, which gave calm solemnity to his learning; while his meditative and oftentimes humorous imagination, touched this sadness with the light of an ideal beauty. About the same time appeared the "Garden of Cyrus, or Quincunxial Lozenge," in which profound learning is strangely blended with whimsical fancy. Browne published no other works during his lifetime, but, upon his death, many papers designed for the press were found and given to the world, the most important among which is a "Treatise on Christian Morals," to which Dr. Johnson prefixed a life of the author. A complete edition of Browne's works was published at London, 1836 (Pickering), by Simon Wilkin. During the course of the literary history we have sketched, Browne pursued his professional avocations with great success, while his inexhaustible curiosity accumulated that minute information which his poetic imagination idealized for its own delight. Among his friends he numbered Evelyn and Sir William Dugdale, as well as Sir Kenelm Digby, and certain alchemists; thus combining in his friendships those who could satisfy both his delight in strictly scientific pursuits, and his love for fantastic speculation, and thereby representing in his own single life the varied tendencies of a transition age. In 1664 the Royal College of Physicians elected him a member, and in 1671 he was knighted by Charles II. He had a large family, and his eldest son, Edward, achieved a considerable medical reputation. His general disposition is described as even and cheerful, not transported with mirth, or dejected with sadness. He was liberal in his charity, modest, and free from loquacity; evidently a man who kept a quiet heart in a troubled time; and beneath the shadow of the sword of civil war, calmly discharged the special duties for which he was constitutionally fitted. He died at Norwich upon the anniversary of his birth, 1682. "I visited him," says the Rev. J. Whitefoot, M.A., the author of the earliest biographical sketch of his friend, "near his end, when he had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words I heard from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did freely submit to the will of God, being without fear."
BROWNE, Ulysses Maximilian, born at Basle in 1705, the son of an Irish officer in the Austrian service, a colonel of cavalry in the same service. He distinguished himself both by his personal courage and his literary knowledge. He gained a high reputation as a soldier in the war against the Turks, and was ultimately promoted to the rank of field-marshal. He died in 1757, from the effects of his wounds, at the battle of Prague. Browne was accounted one of the greatest soldiers of his day, and especially esteemed by Frederick II.—J. F. W.
BROWNE, William, an English botanist, was born in 1628, and died in 1678. He published a catalogue of the plants cultivated in the botanic garden of Oxford.—J. H. B.
BROWNE, William Laurence, professor of the law of nature and of nations at Utrecht, and afterwards principal of Marischal college, Aberdeen, born at the former city in 1755. At twelve years of age he was admitted a student of the university of St. Andrews, and, notwithstanding his extreme youth, greatly distinguished himself in his various classes. After studying divinity for a year or two he removed to Utrecht, where he became minister of the English church. While in this living he wrote "An Essay on the Origin of Evil," and "An Essay on the Natural Equality of Men," &c. In 1793 he was appointed to the chair of moral philosophy and ecclesiastical history in the university. He returned to Scotland in 1795. The chair of divinity in the university of Aberdeen being vacant in that year, Dr. Browne was appointed to it, and shortly after named principal of Marischal college. Died in 1830. His principal works are—"An Essay on the Existence of the Supreme Creator," which obtained Burnet's first prize of £1250, the second being awarded to Dr. Sumner, archbishop of Canterbury, and "A Comparative View of Christianity," &c., 1826.—J. S., G.
BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett, a poetess and wife of a poet, was born in 1809 at Hope End, near Ledbury, Herefordshire, the country seat of her father, an opulent West India merchant. She participated in the classical education given to her brothers by a very able tutor, and at the age of fourteen wrote her first published poem, "The Battle of Marathon," a few copies of which were printed for private circulation. Proofs of rare reading and reflection abound in her first volume of verse, published in 1826, "An Essay on Mind, and other poems." Her next literary enterprise was a daring one—a version of one of the greatest and most difficult masterpieces of classical antiquity. In 1833 appeared, still anonymously, "Prometheus Bound, translated from the Greek of Æschylus, and miscellaneous poems." This spirited translation Mrs. Browning afterwards entirely recast. In the interval between the publication of this and of her next volume of verse—"The Seraphim, and other poems," London, 1838—Mrs. Browning contributed occasionally to various periodicals, notably, the New Monthly Magazine and the Athenæum; in the latter there appeared from her pen a very remarkable series of papers on the "Greek Christian Poets." About the time of the publication of "The Seraphim," a melancholy incident occurred, which all but irretrievably shattered the constitution, naturally delicate, of the poetess. She had broken a blood-vessel in her lungs, but happily no symptoms of consumption supervened. Repairing on the approach of winter to Torquay, she was accompanied by her eldest brother, to whom she was devotedly attached. In a boating excursion, he and some young friends were drowned; nor could even their bodies be recovered. The event was nearly fatal to Mrs. Browning, and it cast a funereal pall over her mind and heart. "Daring that whole winter," as she herself described it, "the sounds of the waves rang in my ears like the moans of the dying." When eventually removed to London and her father's house in Wimpole Street, she entered upon a life, which continued for many years, of invalid imprisonment and inaction. She never stirred from her room, to which only a few favoured friends and relatives were admitted. It was during six or seven years of this existence that she composed or completed the most striking of those poems, published in two volumes in 1844, which first procured her decided recognition as a poetess of genius, and one of which, it is said, "Lady Geraldine's Courtship," was the means of introducing her to her future husband. Her marriage with Mr. Browning (see the following article) occurred in 1847. With marriage came Mrs. Browning's welcome restoration to comparative health and activity. The poet-pair took up their residence in Italy, whence Mrs. Browning issued in 1851 her poem Prometheus Bound, and other poems," Italian in scenery and sentiment. Her latest poem, "Aurora Leigh," published in 1856, received the honour of a second edition, with a rapidity which proved the wide circle of her readers. The poetess had one child. She died on the 29th of June, 1861.—F. E.
*BROWNING, Robert, the poet, and husband of the poetess the subject of the preceding memoir, was born at Camberwell in 1812. His father occupied a high position in the bank of England, and the poet himself has never followed any profession. Noted during youth and early manhood for intellectual promise and a passionate devotion to music, Mr. Browning made his debut in literature by the publication in 1835 of "Paracelsus," perhaps the most generally attractive of all his works, a poem, dramatic in its form, and full of solemn and beautiful musings on human life and the destiny of genius. His next attempt was "Strafford; a historical tragedy," performed at Covent Garden on the 1st of May, 1837. Its author himself rightly said of it, that it exhibited "action in character" rather than "character in action;" and although Macready played Strafford; Vandenhoff, Pym; and Helen Faucit, Lady Carlisle; it was unsuccessful. In 1840 appeared "Sordello;" in 1842 began the publication of "Bells and Pomegranates," a series of dramas and dramatic lyrics; one of the former, "The Blot in the Scutcheon," was brought out at Drury-Lane in 1843, but proved, like "Strafford," a failure. In 1849, two years after his marriage to Miss Barrett, as mentioned in the preceding memoir, Mr. Browning issued a collective edition of his poems and other pieces, with the omission of "Sordello." In 1850 appeared "Christmas Eve and Easter Day," remarkable for its religious significance. In 1852 he furnished an introduction to the spurious letters of P. B. Shelley, which appeared under the auspices of his publisher, the late Mr. Moxon. With "Men and Women," two volumes of minor poems published in 1855, we complete the catalogue of Mr. Browning's avowed writings. Studiedly obscure, as well as odd in expression, Mr. Browning's poems have still to meet with the appreciation which the real genius displayed in them merits.—F. E.
BROWNRIG or BROUNRIG, Ralph, bishop of Exeter, born
