B R O 



759 



B R O 



Brosimum hood. Some have attempted to nccount for this phe- 

 nomenon, by supposing the water to have l>ecn mix- 

 ^ ' ed with pclrvlcum, one of the most inflammable sub- 

 ~"V~- gt ances in nature, ami which has the property of 

 burning in water ; and others, that the vapour pro- 

 duc (1 l>y the f*rrnent:ition of coal and iron-ore, which 

 abound in the vicinity, by ascending with violence 

 through the chinks of th- earth, gave the water its 

 turbulent motion and Inflammable quality. 



Broscley is chiefly inhabited by colliers and miners, 

 anil carries on a considerable trade in coals with the 

 different towns upon the Severn. Hou-es, 1022; 

 population, 4832. S'.-e Philosophical Trans, for 

 1712, vol. xxviii. p. 475 ; and for 1747, vol. xliv. 

 p. S70; also Pennant's Tour. (L) 



BROSIMUM, a genus of plants of the class 

 Dioecia, and order Monandria. See BOTANY, p. 

 347. 



BROSS-iEA, a genus of plants of the class Pen- 

 tandria, and order Monugynia. See BOTANY, p. 

 14-0. 



BROTERA, a genus of plants of the class Syn- 

 genesia, and order Polygamia Segregata. See BO- 

 TANY, p. 310. 



BROUSSONETIA, a genus of plants of the 

 class Dieecia, and order Tctrandria. See BOTANY, 

 p. 335. 



BROWALLIA, a genus of plants of the class 

 Didynamia, and order Angiospermia. See Botany, 

 p. 249. 



BROWNE, SIMON, a dissenting minister in Eng- 

 land, was born in Somersetshire about the year 1680. 

 Endowed with superior powers of mind, which he 

 had cultivated by early and assiduous study, he was 

 found qualified for the ministry before he had attain- 

 ed the twentieth year of his age ; and was elected 

 minister of a numerous and respectable body of dis- 

 senters in Portsmouth, among whom he discharged 

 the duties of his office with fidelity and diligence for 

 several years. Having been called to the pastoral 

 charge of a congregation of dissenters in London, 

 "he left Portsmouth in 1716, with the universal re- 

 gret of his hearers. There he officiated for about 

 seven years, with much credit to himself, and satis 

 faction to his people ; till, in 1723, his mind ,us- 

 tained a severe shock by the death of his wife and an 

 only son, and his grief at last settled in a deep and 

 incurable melancholy. His mental disorder was of 

 a very uncommon kind. In the beginning of it, he 

 was completely miserable, and felt frequent and strong 

 desires to deprive himself of life ; but afterwards, 

 his mind became more serene and composed, and, on 

 some occasions, he would even assume a degree of 

 cheerfulness and pleasantry ; but he could never af- 

 terwards be prevailed upon to resume the duties of 

 his pastoral office, nor even to join in any act of wor- 

 ship, either public or private. His own idea of his 

 unhappy state is thus expressed in the Adventurer, 

 No. Ixxxviii. " He believed that the Almighty by 

 a singular instance of divine power, had, in a gra- 

 dual manner, annihilated in him the thinking sub- 

 Stance, and utterly divested him of consciousness ; 

 that though he retained the human form, and the fa- 

 6 



culty of upeaking in a manner that appeared to others 

 rational, he had all the while no more notion of what ( 

 he said than a parrot, ar.d conseq longer 



looked upon himself as a moral agent, or as a 

 of reward or punishment." In that unhappy con- 

 viction he continued till the day of his death. No- 

 thing gave him greater uneasiness than to find, that 

 he could not persuade his friends that his state wan 

 r< ally such as he believed it to be. This he account- 

 ed a charge against his veracity, which he endeavour- 

 ed to repel by the strongest and most confiil 

 sertions. At other times, he viewed their increduli- 

 ty as a part of that divine judgment by which he 

 himself had been deprived of his mental existence ; 

 and believed that, by the all wi;e but unsearchable de- 

 cree of heaven, he was placed beyond the reach of 

 divine mercy. For that reason, he, for a long time, 

 objected to any prayers being offered up by his friends 

 in his behalf; but when his mind became more se- 

 rene, he requested that they would pray for him, 

 and was consoled by being recommended to the di- 

 vine compassion. 



But the must remarkable circumstance in his case, 

 and which may be termed peculiar to it, was, that 

 while he asserted that he had nothing more than a 

 material existence, he gave undoubted proofs, both 

 by his conversation and his writings, that his mental 

 faculties existed in their full vigour. Having quitted 

 the ministry, he retired to the place of his nativity 

 in Somersetshire, where he translated several passages 

 of the Greek and Latin poets into English verse ; 

 composed various small works for the use of chil- 

 dren ; and, with great labour, compiled a Diction- 

 ary of the Greek and Latin tongues, with a com- 

 pendious list of the themes in both languages. None 

 of these works, hawever, nor some others written at 

 the same time, were ever published ; but, during the 

 last two years of his life, having devoted his time 

 to religious study, he produced some excellent trea- 

 tises in defence of Christianity : 1. " A Sober and 

 Charitable Disquisition concerning the Importance 

 of the Doctrine of the Trinity, particularly with re- 

 gard to Worship, and the Doctrine of Satisfaction." 

 2. " A fit Rebuke to a ludicrous Infidel, in some Re- 

 marks on Woolston's Fifth Discourse on the Mira- 

 cles of our Saviour, with a Preface, shewing the im- 

 propriety of prosecuting such Writers by the Civil 

 Powers ;" a treatise, says Dr Leland, in his View 

 of the Deistical Writers, written with great smart- 

 ness and spirit. And, 3. " A Defence of the Re- 

 ligion of Nature, and of the Christian Religion, a- 

 g;iinst the defective Account of the one, and the ex- 

 cep'ions against the other, in a Book entitl-d Chris- 

 tianity as old as the Creation ;" which Leland styles 

 " a good and solid answer to Tindal." These trea- 

 tises were all published in 1732 ; and although, in 

 composing them, it is said he ava'led himself but lit- 

 tie of assistance from books, or from literary con- 

 versation, yet they discover a great extent of know* 

 ledge, and a mind in its full vigour. To the 1 

 these works he had prefixed a dedication to Queen Ca- 

 roline, which his friends, from a belief that it wo Id 

 injure the publication, very prudently suppress*, d, 



