040 



BROWN, JOHN, D.D. 



BROWN, LANCELOT. 



950 



of the Bible," his ' Self- Interpreting Bible,' and his ' History of the 

 British Churches ;' but his other works were numerous, and some of 

 them had an extensive sale. 



* BROWN, JOHN, D.D., professor of Exegetical Theology to the 

 United Presbyterian Church, was born in 1785 at Whitburn, Lin- 

 lithgowshire, where his father was minister of the Burgher section of 

 the Secession Church. His grandfather was John Brown of Hadding- 

 ton, professor of divinity in the same connexion. After passing 

 through the course of literary and theological studies required of 

 candidates for the ministry among the Seceders of that day, he was 

 licensed as a probationer, and speedily received a call from the Burgher 

 congregation at Biggar, to the pastoral charge of which he was ordained 

 in 1806. In 1821 he became pastor of the United Secession Church, 

 Rose-street, Edinburgh ; and on the death of Dr. James Hall, he suc- 

 ceeded that minister as pastor of Broughton-place church, Edinburgh. 

 The Burgher and Anti-Burgher Seceders having united in 1820 under 

 the name of the United Associate Synod, Dr. Brown was chosen one 

 of their professors of divinity in 1835. In most of the public questions 

 which have been agitated in Scotland during the last thirty years 

 Dr. Brown has taken a prominent, although on the whole a moderate 

 part. On the division in the British and Foreign Bible Society 

 respecting the circulation of the Apocrypha, he adhered to the parent 

 society. On the question of church establishments, he publicly 

 advocated the voluntary views. Having been resident for a short time 

 within the bounds of the ancient royalty of the city of Edinburgh, he 

 became liable to the annuity-tax which is levied for the support of the 

 city ministers ; and refusing to pay, his goods were distrained. This 

 led to his preaching and publishing two sermons on the ' Law of 

 Christ respecting Civil Obedience, especially in the Payment of Tribute,' 

 which by additions, notes, and references, subsequently swelled to the 

 dimensions of a thick octavo volume. Besides many practical theolo- 

 gical works, Dr. Brown has published ' Expository Lectures on the 

 First Kpiftle of Peter,' 2 vols. 8vo ; also ' Discourses and Sayings 

 of our Lord Jesus Christ, illustrated in a series of expositions,' 

 3 Tola. 8vo. About the year 1840 considerable discussion arose 

 in Scotland in reference to the doctrine of the atonement, and some 

 of the members of the United Secession body being dissatisfied with 

 the position taken by Dr. Brown in the matter, brought a charge 

 against him before the Synod, in 1845, in the usual form of a 'libel.' 

 The 'counts' of the libel were, by considerable majorities, found 'not 

 proven,' and the Synod passed a vote of confidence in Dr. Brown. The 

 agitation on the subject soon after subsided, the attention of the reli- 

 gious community being almost wholly engrossed by the preparations for 

 the union of the Secession and Relief Churches, which took place in May 

 1847, by which union was constituted the United Presbyterian Church. 

 For several years past Dr. Brown has found it necessary to have the 

 assistance of a colleague in his pastoral duties. His congregation 

 celebrated at the commencement of April 1856 the fiftieth anniversary 

 of his ministry. As professor of theology, and one of the oldest 

 ministers in the United Presbyterian Church, as well as from his 

 learning, moderation, and high personal character, Dr. Brown has for 

 some years held an important and influential position in the community 

 to which he belongs. 



BROWN, JOHN, M.D., founder of the system of medicine termed 

 Brunouian. It is unnecessary to trace minutely the events of his life, 

 as they are now of little interest. He was born in 1735 at Dunse, in 

 Berwickshire, of parents in very limited circumstances, who designed 

 him for the occupation of a weaver ; but a love of learning, which he 

 acquired when a child at school, determined him to study for the 

 church. Accordingly he went to Edinburgh, and while pursuing his 

 own studies, he taught Latin to obtain a livelihood. Having been 

 employed to translate a medical thesis into Latin, he was induced to 

 pay attention to medical studies, and began to attend the lectures of 

 several of the medical professors of the University, among others, 

 those of Dr. Cullen, who having discovered his knowledge of Latin, 

 made him tutor to his sons. Having completed the requisite course of 

 medical studies, he obtained the degree of Doctor from the University 

 of St. Andrews. His improvident habits soon involved him in pecuniary 

 difficulties, and his hasty temper in quarrels with his medical brethren. 

 He imagined that Dr. Cullen did not assist him to the extent he might 

 have done, and he conceived a dislike to his former preceptor and 

 benefactor, which he displayed in a way that he thought would be 

 most annoying and humiliating to Cullen. Cullen' 8 system of medicine 

 was then in the highest repute, and Brown conceived the idea of 

 bringing forward a rival system, which would supersede that of his 

 master. Actuated by these motives, he proceeded to frame a system, 

 of which, unlike the complex doctrines of the Culleuian system, simpli- 

 city should be the basis and recommendation. Thia was the origin of 

 his ' Element* Medicinac.' 



The fundamental doctrine of this system was that life was a forced 

 state, and only sustained by the action of external agents operating 

 upon the body, every part of which was endowed, at the commence- 

 ment of existence, with a certain amount of excitability. If the power 

 or force of the external exciting agents wag within a certain limit, the 

 body was maintained iu equilibrium, or in health : if the force fell 

 short of a certain amount, the excitability accumulated in the body, 

 and produced diseases which he termed ' sthenic ;' while the exter- 

 nal gentt f if in excess, exhausted the excitability too rapidly, and 



produced ' astheuic ' diseases. The means of remedying these diseases 

 were in accordance with the views of their origin, and were equally 

 simple and few. He discarded the numerous drugs which his prede- 

 cessors and contemporaries employed, and confined himself to two 

 alcohol in any of its forms, as wine, brandy, &c., as a remedy for the 

 one set of diseases, and opium for the opposite set. He made some 

 converts to his opinions among the students, but the fatal results 

 which followed the application of these doctrines to practice brought 

 discredit upon them iu Edinburgh; and their author, hoping for 

 greater success, removed to London, where he died of apoplexy in 

 1788, without having obtained the distinction and fortune which he 

 expected. His system never found much favour in this country, 

 except among a few whose minds inclined them to the adoption of 

 hasty generalisations, such as Dr. Beddoes, who edited an edition of 

 the 'Elememts of Medicine," 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1795, with a life of 

 Brown prefixed. His whole works, with a more ample life, were pub- 

 lished by his son William Cullen Brown, 3 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1804. 



Brown's doctrines met with a more general reception iu Germany 

 and Italy ; in the former country they were propagated with great 

 zeal by Girtauner and Weikard. Hasori made them known in Italy, 

 and at first believed them to be well-founded, but experience con- 

 vinced him of their inaccuracy, and he subsequently renounced his 

 belief in them. 



BROWN, DR. JOHN, was born in 1715, at Rothbury iu Northum- 

 berland, where his father, a Scotchman, was curate. He studied at 

 St. John's College, Cambridge, and took his degree with reputation ; 

 after which he resided for some years at Carlisle on a minor cauonship 

 and lectureship, and distinguished himself by acting bravely as a 

 volunteer in the rebellion of 1745. He successively held and resigned 

 several livings in the church. Of these, one at least was procured 

 through the influence of Warburton, a patron however whose letters 

 show him to have treated with little tenderness Brown's capriciousness 

 of temper, caused doubtless in part by bis latent tendency to mental 

 derangement. Iu 1766 the reputation which his writings had obtained 

 gained for him an invitation from the Empress of Russia to visit St. 

 Petersburg, and assist in organising a scheme for public education. Ill 

 health compelled him to decline the engagement. Other vexatious 

 preyed upon his spirits ; and in September of the same year, seized 

 with a fit of insanity, he cut his throat. Brown's works were both 

 numerous and varied, in verse as well as in prose. His versified 

 ' Essay on Satire ' was prefixed by Warburton to his editions of Pope's 

 works. His tragedy of ' Barbarossa,' brought upon the stage in 1755, 

 was highly successful for a time, in spite of its extravagance and 

 feebleness, and has been reprinted in more than one collection. Its 

 successor, 'Athelstan,' was not so fortunate. His principal prose 

 writings were the following : ' Essays on the Characteristics of Lord 

 Shaftesbury,' 1751 ; ' An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of 

 the Times,' 1757, 2 vols. 8vo, a work which went through seven 

 editions before the end of the next year, and received, abroad as well 

 as at home, an attention which it owed to its severity of animadversion 

 on national vices rather than to its merits as a philosophical specu- 

 lation ; an ' Additional Dialogue of the Dead, between Pericles and 

 Cosmo,' 1760, which was a defence of the political character and 

 conduct of Lord Chatham ; and a ' Dissertation on the Rise, Union, 

 and Power, the Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions, of Poetry 

 and Music," 1763, a treatise of considerable ingenuity. 



BROWN, LANCELOT, best known by the familiar sobriquet of 

 Capability Brown, who was originally a kitchen-gardener, raised him- 

 self to be the most eminent landscape-gardener of his day, and 

 'improver of grounds," as to which he was considered the oracle of 

 taste ; and he also acquired no small degree of reputation by his skill 

 in architecture. 



Lancelot Brown was born at Kirkharle in Northumberland in 17) 5, 

 and in the early part of his life was iu the service of Lord Cobhain as 

 one of the persons employed in the gardens and grounds at Stowe ; 

 after which he was similarly engaged by other persons of distinction, 

 but of his rise until he formally established himself professionally as 

 an artist-gardener we have no account. His personal history is a 

 scanty but an enviable one ; he not only realised a handsome fortune, 

 but he graced his acquired station of gentleman by the manners and 

 feelings of one. After having arrived at the dignity of high sheriff 

 for the county of Huntingdon, which office he filled in 1770, he died 

 in 1773. His private worth as a man is highly eulogised by Ueptoii, 

 Mason, and others who knew him intimately. 



Great as was the vogue of Brown as a landscape-gardener, his taste 

 has since been very much questioned, and even severely so by Price, 

 who accuses him of having done sad mischief by attempting to reform 

 natural scenery and reduce it to rule, and of having thereby sinned 

 against good taste even more than his predecessors by their formally 

 laid out gardens and straight hedges and avenues. In fact, while 

 endeavouring to avoid the formality which had become 'old-fashioned,' 

 Brown fell into what was little better than formal mannerism and 

 routine, applying to every scene alike the same set of features 

 clumps," 'belts,' and ' serpeutiue canals." The grounds at Kew, Bleu- 

 heim, Stowe, and Nuneham-Courtnay were laid out or remodelled by 

 Brown; and perhaps as they now appear, after nature has for three- 

 quarters of a century been exerting her modifying influence, they 

 exhibit a too favourable example of the powers of Browu as u laud- 



