BROUNCKER, WILLIAM. 



BROWN, REV. JOHN. 



on the Eloquence of toe Ancient*.' Amongit other work* are 

 hi* edition of Paley's ' Natural Theology,' and ' Di**ertations on 

 Subject* of Science connected with Natural Theology.' In 1889-43 

 appeared hi* eerie* of ' Historic Sketches of Statesmen who flourished 

 to the Time of George III.;' and in 1845 hi* Lives of Men of Art. 

 and Science who flourished in the Time of George 111.' A new and 

 complete edition of all these works, including one of his ' Political 

 Philosophy,' not yet completed, and other, till now unpublished, U at 

 present in progress under hU lordship's superintendence. 



In 1833 Lord Brougham wa* elected a Foreign Associate of the 

 Institute of France, and afterward* a member of the Royal Academy 

 Of Science, of Naples. In I860, resuming his optical researches, he 

 communicated to the Royal Society, ' Experiment* and Observation* 

 upon the Propertie* of Light,' followed in 1852 by ' Further Experi- 

 ment*,' and again by 'Further Experiments' in 1853. The argument 

 of these paper*, baaed on elaborate experiment*, shows the prin- 

 ciple on which Newton established hi. theory of light to be incon- 

 clusive. Thee* researches were communicated simultaneously to the 

 Academy of Science* at Paris (' Compto* Rendu* de 1'Acad. des Set'), 

 and the phenomena in question were referred by Arago to the 

 "doctrine of interferences." In 1859 he published, conjointly with 

 & J. Routb, Esq., an 'Analytical View of Sir Isaac Newton's 

 Principia.' 



Lord Brougham married, in 1819, the eldest daughter of Thomas 

 Eden, E*q., of Wimbledon, deputy auditor of Greenwich Hospital, 

 and brother of Lords Auckland and Henley, thia lady having been 

 previously married to John Spalding, E*q. HU daughter, the pnly 

 M*ue of thii marriage, died young. 



BBOUNCKER, or BROUNKER, WILLIAM, Viscount Brouncker, 

 of Castle-Lyons in Ireland (which title was conferred on his father, 

 who had been president of Munster in 1646), was born about 1620. 

 In 1646 he was made Doctor of Physic at Oxford. In 1660, having 

 then succeeded hU father, who died in 1645, he subscribed the declara- 

 tion issued in April by the friends of the Restoration. In 1662 and 

 1663 he waa named President of the Royal Society in the charters of 

 incorporation then granted, which office he held for fifteen years. He 

 wa* also chancellor of the queen, a lord of the admiralty, and master 

 of St. Catherine'. Hospital. He died on the 5th of April, 1684. 



Lord Brouncker was a mathematician, and ia the author of two 

 remarkable discoveries. He waa the first who introduced continued 

 fractions, as follows : When WallU was engaged upon the interpola- 

 tion which led him to his well-known theorem on the quadrature of 

 the circle, be applied to Brouncker to consider the question ; and the 

 latter arrived at the following conclusion : If * represent the ratio of 

 the circumference to the diameter, then 



4 _ + 1 



T 2-1-9 



26 



2 + tc. 



This theorem was firrt given by Wallis (' Arith. Inf.,' ' Works,' vol. L 

 p. 4GB), with a demonstration, the heading of which is so ambiguously 

 worded, that we are left in doubt whether it waa his own demonstra- 

 tion or his own account of Lord Brouucker'*. Montucla states the 

 fin* in one place ('Hist. Rcch. Quad. Cere.,' 1831, p. 123), and the 

 second in another (' Hist Math.,' voL ii p. 355). 



Brouncker was also the Brat who gave a series for the quadrature of 

 portion of the equilateral hyperbola (' Phil. Trans.,' 1668, No. 34). 

 There U also a paper of his (1673, No. 98), on the contest relative to 

 the dUcovery of the Neilian parabola ; and another (to which we 

 cannot find the reference) on the recoil of guns. Some letters of his 

 to Archbishop Usher are at the end of R. Parr's life of Usher ; and 

 iwme to Wallis, in hi* ' Commercium Epistolicum' (' Works,' vol. iii. 



BROUWKR. [BRAnwmi.] 



BROWN, CHARLES 1WOCKDEN, the first eminent American 

 novelut in point of time, was born at Philadelphia in 1771. From 

 childhood he manifested an engrossing love of study. He chose the 

 law for hi* profession, but took a distaste to it, and was never called 

 to UM bar. Thenceforward he devoted himself to metaphysics, gene- 

 ral literature, and politics. Hi. first work was ' Alcuin, a wild series 

 of S|wcnlations on the fancied evils of marriage ; for which however 

 he found himself unable to devise a remedy. ' Wieland,' his first 

 Dove), appeared in 1798. It was followed by 'Ormond,' 'Arthur 

 Hervyn,' ' E-lgar Huntly,' and 'Ultra Howard,' before 1801, and by 

 'Jane Talbof in 1804. ' Carwin,' and some other unfinished piece*, 

 were published after hi* death, in 1822. He established two literary 

 journals ' The Monthly Magazine and American Review,' commenced 

 in April 1799, and continued to the end of 1800, and ' The Literary 

 Magazine an-l American Register,' commenced in October 1803, and 

 continued five yearn. In 1806 he commenced a half-yearly work, ' The 

 American Register,' of which he lived to complete five volumes. Ho 

 published also some political pamphlet*. An over-.tu.liou. and 

 wdeotery life, acting on a delicate constitution, brought on consump- 

 tion, of which he dud on the 22nd of February, 1810. He ia described 

 a* having been a man of romantic temper, great invention, extensive 

 ' , and prodigious industry ; and of stainless morality. 



Brown's novel., after being long unknown or forgotten, acquired a 

 nidden popularity in England about five-ond-thirty yean ago. In 

 style they bear some raeemblance to those of Godwin, whom Brown 

 greatly admired. For their merits we concur iu the criticism of the 

 Encyclopedia Americana :' " Their leading traits are rich and 

 correct diction, variety of incident, vivid scenes of joy and sorrow, a 

 minute development and strong display of emotion, and a powerful 

 use of wonderful phenomena in the physical faculties and habits of 

 man. Almost all ia new and strange iu his machinery and situation., 

 but he deals too much in the horrible and criminal. Extravagant and 

 consummate depravity actuates too many of his characters, 

 scene* may rivet attention, and hi* plot* excite the keenest curiosity ; 

 yet thy pain the heart beyond the privilege of fiction, and leave in 

 the imagination only a crowd of terrific phantom*." 



' Arthur Mervyn' deserves notice in an historical light, as presenting 

 a fearfully true picture of the ravages formerly made by the yellow- 

 fever in the American cities. The scene U laid at Philadelphia in the 

 pestilence of 1793. Brown'* novel* were reprinted at Boston in 

 6 vol., 8vo, 1828. 



(Ihinlap, Life of C. B. Brown; Eneyelopadia Americana.) 



BUOWN, GENERAL SIR GEORGE, was born in August 1790 at 

 Linkwood (the residence of hi* father), near Elgin, in Scotland. II.- 

 wai educated at the Royal Military College, and entered the 

 January 23, 1806, as ensign in the 43rd regiment of foot, i!- 

 a lieutenant in the same regiment, September 18, 1807, and in this 

 year waa present at the bombardment of Copenhagen. He served in 

 Portugal and Spain during the whole of the Peninsular war, from 

 August 1808 till its termination in 1814. During that war, he wan 

 promoted to a captaincy in the 85th regiment, June 20, 1S11 ; he was 

 severely wounded at the battle of Talavera, waa one of the forlorn 

 hope at the storming of Badajoz, and was present at most of tin 

 great battles. He was promoted to the rank of major May 26, 1M4, 

 and to that of lieutenant-colonel September 29 in the same year, when 

 he embarked in Major-General Roes'* expedition against the I 

 States of America, where he was present at the battle of Bladen.burg, 

 and at the capture of the city of Washington. On the 6th of February 

 1824, he WHS appointed to the command of a battalion of th 

 brigade, in which he became colonel May 6, 1831, and major-;.- 

 November 23, 1841. Lord Hill appointed him deputy-adjutant -^ 

 in 1842, and the Duke of Wellington made him djutnnt-j;eneral of 

 the forces in April, 1850. He waa promoted to the rank of lieutenant- 

 general in 1851. In 1854 he proceeded with the British army to the 

 Kast, in command of the Light Division, which he led at the battle 

 of Alma with distinguished gallantry. HU h<>rae waa shot under him, 

 pierced by eleven bullets, but he himself escaped unhurt. He waa 

 severely wounded at the battle of Inkerinann, November 5, 1854, nnd 

 was obliged to retire for some time to Malta. He returned to hu 

 command in the Crimea early iu 1855, in winch year the 1,1.. 

 him a Knight Commander of the Bath. He commanded the ! 

 troops in the expedition to the Sea of Azof, nnd he had the comuiaud- 

 in-chief of the storming party in the first unsuccessful attack on the 

 Redan of SebastopoL He soon afterwards returned to Eugl.iml. On 

 the 3rd of April 1856 he was gazetted "General in the army, for 

 distinguished service in the field." 



BROWN, Hi:V. JOHN (of Haddington), professor of divinity to tlio 

 Associate or Burgher Synod, waa born in 1722 at the village of Cai-pow, 

 near Abernethy, in Perthshire. Hia parent*, who were in very humble 

 circumstance., dying while he was yet a boy, he was placed as a 

 shepherd with a neighbouring farmer. He soon became distinguished 

 by the diligence with which he devoted hi. spare hours to the t-t 

 the Latin, Hebrew, and Greek languages, in which he made remarkable 

 progress. In 1745, the year in which the young Pretender made his 

 last attempt upon the British throne, Brown served as a vol 

 Having early become impressed with the importance of religious truth. 

 and having resolved to devote himself to the ministry, he in 1748 

 opened a school, as a mean* of enabling him the better to carry ou his 

 studies. When the seceding body divided into two sections iu reference 

 to the Burgees oath, Mr. Brown adhered to the Burgher section, that 

 is, to those who thought that secedera might conscientiously subscribe 

 the oath required from burgesses in corporate towns. Havii : 

 pleted his divinity studies under Ebenezer Erakine and James I 

 two of the father, of the Secession, he was licensed to preach, nnd a 

 abort time after he accepted a call from the congregation of i 

 Hia congregation being small, he was able to devote much of his time 

 to hu favourite studies. He was his own instructor, except dm ing 

 one month, wht-n he had some lessons iu Latin. l!i-sM.- th>- 

 Greek, and Hebrew, in which he acquired considerable proficiency, hi: 

 acquired some knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Syriac, lit niupj. . ! 

 Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and German. With the Scriptures and scrip- 

 tural subjects his acquaintance was singularly full and accurate. As 

 a pastor he wa* laborious and painstaking, and he wa* much beloved 

 and revered by hu flock, as well as by members of other denominations. 

 In 1768 he was appointed by the Associate Synod to I) 

 professor of divinity, a position which he occupied till his death, which 

 took place on the 19th of June, 1 787. The student* who v 

 by him regarded him with filial reverence, and his pi. i v ami l.'arning 

 gained him an extraordinary amount of influence. Bey on 

 of hi* own communion Mr. Brown U best known by hia ' Dictionary 



