BROWNE. 



725 



1682, aged seventy-seven. The literary character of 

 Sir Thomas Browne, as exhibited by his productions, 

 was very remarkable. His " Ileligio Medici," is no 

 way professional, but may be described as the creed 

 of an individual, upon morals, religion, and metaphy- 

 sics. It is a curious production, and its excessive or- 

 thodoxy and submission to authority, might in later 

 days, at least in expression, he held ironical. He 

 deems it " no vulgar part of faith to believe a thing, 

 not only above, but contrary to reason, even against 

 the arguments of our proper senses." Fancy and 

 feeling in fact predominated in him over judgment ; 

 he believed in the existence of guardian angels, in 

 the reality of witchcraft, and, the appearance of spec- 

 tres. He was, however, extremely benevolent, op- 

 posed to persecution, and in the moral part of his 

 work, he frequently expatiates with a noble glow of 

 language, on subjects of charity and philanthropy. 

 This work was much attacked, both at home and 

 abroad, especially by the German divines, who more 

 tlicologico, treated a writer as an atheist and an infi- 

 del, whose piety and reverence for authority were 

 displayed in every page. The " Treatise on Vulgar 

 Errors," ably discusses the varying causes of error, 

 which he examines with great strength of reasoning 

 and liberality of sentiment. His appropriation of one 

 grand source of error to the machinations of Satan, 

 however, may not appear very philosophical at pre- 

 sent ; and of course his own science being only that 

 of the day, he is often astray in the department of 

 natural knowledge. Still he displays a large and 

 penetrating understanding on many points, and this 

 work still retains considerable celebrity. His treatise 

 on " Urn-burial," composed on occasion of the dis- 

 covery of some funeral urns in Norfolk, discovers 

 some curious erudition on the subject of ancient and 

 modem burial ; and the tract called " The Garden of 

 Cyrus," is still more curiously learned and fantastical. 

 Sir Thomas Browne left some posthumous papers re- 

 lative to antiquities, which appear in the folio edition 

 of his works, published in 1686. Dr Johnson, who 

 has written his life, and who is thought in some de- 

 gree to have founded his own style upon that of Sir 

 Thomas Browne's, has given a masterly description 

 of his genius and tone or composition ; in which he 

 speaks highly of the exuberance of his knowledge and 

 plenitude of his ideas ; and in reference to his hetero- 

 geneous mixture of languages, observes that he who 

 has uncommon sentiments to deliver, may be al- 

 lowed great liberty in his manner of expressing 

 them. 



BROWNE, William, an English poet of considerable 

 merit, was born at Tavistock in Devonshire in 1590. 

 He was educated at Exeter college, Oxford, and 

 thence removed to the Inner Temple, London. It 

 does not, however, appear that he devoted himself to 

 the profession, but like many other nominal law stu- 

 dents, chose more agreeable studies. In his twenty- 

 third year he published his " Britannia's Pastorals," 

 which met with great approbation ; and in the fol- 

 lowing year appeared his " Shepherd's Pipe," in seven 

 eclogues. In 1616 he published the second part of 

 his Britannia's Pastorals, which met with equal suc- 

 cess with the former. In 1624 he returned to Exeter 

 college, and became tutor to Robert Dormer, earl of 

 Caernarvon, who was killed at the battle of New- 

 bury. At Oxford, Browne was created M.A., but up- 

 on again quitting the university he was taken into 

 the lamily of William, earl of Pembroke. The year 

 of his death is uncertain, but it is supposed to have 

 been about 1645. An edition of his works in 3 vols. 

 was printed by Davies in 1772. The versification of 

 Browne is exceedingly harmonious ; his expression 

 pathetically simple and natural, although by no means 

 free from the strained thoughts and conceptions which 



disfigured the allegorical pastorals, and indeed most 

 of the poetry, of his day. 



BROWNE, Sir William, a physician, was born in 

 1692, and received his academical education at Peter- 

 house, Cambridge, and took the degree of doctor of 

 physic in 1721. He soon after settled at Lynn, where 

 he published a translation from the Latin of Dr Gre- 

 gory's elements of catoptrics and dioptrics, to which 

 he added some optical dissertations of his own. By 

 an epigram, many of which he provoked by his ex- 

 treme eccentricity, he appears to have been the cham- 

 pion of the fair sex at Lynn, but so careless was he of 

 satire, that he nailed a pamphlet written against him 

 to the house-door. Having acquired a competency 

 by his profession, he removed to Queen-square, Lon- 

 don, where he died in 1774, at the age of eighty-two. 

 He was the author of a great number of lively essays, 

 both in prose and verse, all which he collected and 

 published under the title of "Opuscula varia utriusque, 

 linguaB, medicinam ; medicorum collegium ; literas 

 utriusque academic; empiricos, eorum cultores ; soli- 

 citatorem, praestigiatorem ; poeticen, criticen ; patro- 

 num, patriam ; religionem, libertatem spectantia. 

 Cum praefatione eorum editionem defendente," 4to. 

 To this whimsical volume he continued to make addi- 

 tions unto his death. Sir William Browne was presi- 

 dent of the college of physicians at the time the li- 

 centiates made their claim, which he opposed with 

 great zeal. On this account Foote brought him on 

 the stage, in his " Devil upon Two Sticks," but Sir 

 William, so far from being offended at the caricature, 

 which could not be mistaken, sent the actor who per- 

 sonated him a note, thanking him for his accuracy, 

 but informing him that as he had forgotten his muff, 

 he sent him his own. This eccentric physician left 

 three gold medals of five guineas each, to be given 

 yearly to three under-graduates of Cambridge ; first 

 for a Greek ode, in imitation of Sappho; second for a 

 Latin ode, in imitation of Horace ; and thirdly, for 

 the best Greek and Latin epigrams. He also founded 

 a scholarship at Peterhouse. 



BROWNE, William G., an ingenious and enterprising 

 English traveller, in the north of Africa and the 

 south-eastern part of Asia, towards the close of the 

 last century. He visited the kingdoms of Darfur 

 and Bornou in the interior of Africa, and was the first 

 who made those countries known to Europeans. Re- 

 turning to England he published in 1799 " Travels in 

 Africa, Egypt, and Assyria, from 1792 to 1798," 4to. 

 He subsequently went again to Asia, and in a journey 

 through Persia, about 1814, lost his life under cir- 

 cumstances of mystery, which have never been pro- 

 perly elucidated. Previous to his going to Persia, 

 he had staid some time at Constantinople, to perfect 

 himself in the Turkish language, which he learned to 

 speak with fluency. Thinking it would facilitate his 

 progress among the Asiatic tribes, he had assumed 

 the Turkish costume and character, and thus equip- 

 ped he set off with an intention to penetrate through 

 Khorasan, and then visit the unexplored and danger- 

 ous regions south of the Caspian, closing his researches 

 in that direction with Astracan. During the early 

 part of his Persian journey he had a conference with 

 the British ambassador, Sir Gore Ousley; and at 

 Oujon was admitted to an audience of the Persian 

 king. Proceeding on his route in full confidence of 

 safety and success, he reached the pass of Irak, where 

 he stopped at a caravanserai to take some refresh- 

 ment. Having done so, he mounted his horse, and 

 leaving the servant to pack up the articles he had 

 been using, and then follow him, he rode gently for- 

 ward along the mountains. Mr Browne had scarcely 

 gone forward half a mile, when two men on foot com- 

 ing suddenly behind him, one of them with a club 

 struck him senseless from his horse. Several others 



