B R O 
Philofophy, 1772, 4to. 13. Speech to the Royal So¬ 
ciety, 1772, 4to. 14. Elogy and Addrefs, 1773,410. 15. 
A Latin Verfion of Job, unfinifhed, 4to. We fhall fubjoi'n 
a well-known epigram, by Sir William Browne, which the 
Critics have pronounced to be a good one : 
The king to Oxford fent a troop of liorfe, 
For lories own no argument but force ; 
With equal fkill to Cambridge books he fent, 
For uhigs .admit no force but argument. 
BROWN E ' A, f. [fo named from Patrick Browne, M. D. 
authorof the Hiftory of Jamaica. ] In botany, a genus of 
the clafs monadelphia, order decandria, natural order lo- 
mentaceae. Tlie generic characters are—Calyx : perian- 
thium one-leafed, turbinate, unequally bifid, acute. Co¬ 
rolla: outer monopetalous, funnel-form; border five cleft; 
divifions oblong, concave, obtufe, ereCt; inner five-petal- 
led ; petals obovate, fiat, obtufe, patulous, fitting on the 
tube of the outer corolla; claws long. Stamina: fila¬ 
ments ten or eleven, tubulate, alternately fhorter, faftened 
to the tube of the outer corolla, united into a cylinder, di¬ 
vided above ; antherae oblong, incumbent. Piftillum ; 
germ oblong, acute, fitting on a pedicel faftened to the 
wall of the outer corolla ; ftylefubulate, ereCt, longer than 
the corolla; ftigma obtufe. Pericarpium: legume ob¬ 
long, compreifed, narrowed about the partition, two-celled; 
partition membranaceous. Seed: folitary, ovate, com- 
preffed, fon.ewhai wrinkled, involved in fungofe fibres.— 
P.Jj'ential Character. Calyx, unequally bifid. Corolla, dou¬ 
ble; outer five cleft, inner five petalled; legume two- 
celled. 
Species. 1. Brownea coccinea; flowers disjoined, ula¬ 
belled. This is a fhrub or (mail tree, growing to the 
height of about eighteen feet ; the wood is covered by an 
afh-coloured bark ; when in flower, it has a beautiful ap¬ 
pearance : the leaves are oval, entire, fmooth, oppofite, 
with Ihort footftalks ; they grow two or three pairs on a 
fpray; the flowers grow about ten together, and are pen¬ 
dulous. It grows on hilly and woody places in America. 
2. Brownea redea : flowers aggregate in heads, feflile; 
flamens very long. This is alfo an American fhrub or 
fmall tree, with an afh-coloured bark, oppofite leaves, 
which are entire and fmooth on both fides ; the flowers 
are borne in a kind of aggregate manner, fo as to form 
heads or bunches of tire lize of one’s nil ; they are red, 
and make a very beautiful appearance ; the ftamens are 
extremely long. It grows principally in hilly fituations. 
BROVV]S!'lSH,<2i//. Somewhat brown.—A brownijk grey 
iron-ftone, lying in thin ftrata, is poor, but runs freely. 
Woodward. 
BROWN'ISTS, a religions feCt, which fprung out ot 
the puritans, towards the clofe of the fixteenth century ; 
at the inftance of their leader, Robert Brow n, a biographi¬ 
cal {ketch of whofe life and principles has been given 
above. After quitting England, and fettling their church 
ittMiddleburgh in Zealand, this band of religionifts, after 
falling out with all other fefts, foon began to differ among 
themfelves, and crumble into fo many parties, that Brown 
their pallor grew weary of his office, and finally defected 
them. But the feeds of Brownifm were fo far from being 
deftroyed, that Sir Walter Raleigh, in a fpeech in 1592", 
computes no lefs than 20,000 followers of it. They re¬ 
jected all forms of prayer; and held that the Lord’s Prayer 
was not to be recited as a prayer, being only given for a 
rule or model whereon all our prayers are to be formed. 
Mod of their difcipline came to be adopted by the Inde¬ 
pendents, a party which fprung from among the Brownifts. 
T he laws were executed with great feverity on the Brown¬ 
ifts ; their books were prohibited by queen Elizabeth, and 
their perfons imprifoned, and majiy of them were put to 
death. Many families retired and fettled at Amfterdam, 
where they formed a church, and chofe Mr. Johnfon their 
paftor; and after him Mr. Ainfworth, author of the learn¬ 
ed commentary on the Pentateuch. Their church flou- 
rifhed near one hundred years. See In DEPENDENTS, and 
Brown (Robert). 
BROWN'NESS, f. A brown colour.—She would con- 
fefs the contention in her own mind, between that lovely, 
indeed mod lovely, brownnefs of Mufidorus’s face, and this 
colour of mine. Sidney. 
BROWN'RIG, orBROUNRiG (Ralph), bifhop of Exe¬ 
ter, was fon of a merchant of Ipfwich, and born in 1592. 
At fourteen he was fent to Pembroke-hall in Cambridge ; 
of which he fucceflively became fcholar and fellow. He 
was appointed prevaricator when James I. vifited the uni- 
verfiry. He was firft collated by Dr. Felton, bifhop of 
Ely, to the reCtory of Barley in Hcrefordfliire; and, in 1621, 
to a prebend in the church of Ely. He took the degree 
of D. D. at Oxford in 1628 ; and the following year°was 
collated to a prebend in the church of Litchfield, which 
he quitted on being made archdeacon of Coventry in 1631. 
He was likewife mafter of Catherine-hall in Cambridge, 
and in the years 1637, iM, 1643, and 1644, filled The 
office of vice-chancellor. In 1641 he was prefented to a 
prebend in the church of Durham, by Dr. Morton, bifhop 
ot that fee; and the fame year nominated to fucceed Dr. 
Hall in the fee of Exeter. Upon the breaking out of the 
civil war, his relation, Mr. John Pym, and others of the 
diffenters, by whom he had formerly been much efteemed, 
forlouk him, and fuffered him to be deprived of the reve¬ 
nues of his bifhopric; and, about 1645, the parliament 
party, taking offence at lome paffages in a fermon preach¬ 
ed by him before the univerfity, on the king’s inaugura¬ 
tion, removed him from the mafterfhip of Catherine-hall. 
After this he fpent feveral years at the houfe of Thomas 
Rich, Efq. at Sunning, in Berkfhire. It is faid, he had the 
courage to advife Oliver Cromwell to reflo.e Charles II. 
to his juft rights. About a year before his deceafe, he 
was chofen preacher at the Temple, in London. A violent 
fit of the ftone, attended with the dropfy, and the infirmi¬ 
ties of age, put an end to his life in 1659. Forty of his 
fermons, being fuch as had been perufed and approved 
by Dr. Gauden, were publiflied at London in 1662, folio 
by William Martin, M.A. preacher at the Rolls. Tliefe 
were reprinted, with the addition of twenty-five more, ir» 
1674, folio, in 3 vols. 
BROWN'SEA ISLAND, an 5 Uand containing about 
8co acres of land in tiie harbour'.of Poole, where the Danes 
landed in 1015. 
BROWNS'TOWN HEAD, a cape on the fouth coafi: 
of Ireland, in the county of" Waterford. Lat. 52. 7. N. 
Ion. 7. 7. W. Greenwich. 
BROWN'STUDY, J. Gloomy meditations; ftudv in 
which we direft our thoughts to no certain point.—They 
live retired, and then they dofe away their time in drowfi- 
nefs and brozonjiudies. - Norris. 
To BROWSE, v. a. [ brotifer , Fr.J To eat branches, 
or ftirubs: 
Yea, like the flag, when fnow the pafture flieets, 
The barks-of trees thou broujedjt, Shakefpeare. 
To BROWSE, v.n. To feed: it is ufed with the parti¬ 
cle on —The Greeks were the defeendants of favages, 
ignorant of agriculture, and brozufing on herbage like cat¬ 
tle. Arbuthnot. 
BROWSE,Branches, or fhrubs, fit for the food of 
goats, or other animals.- 
On that cloud-piercing hill, 
Plinlimmon, from afar, the traveller kens, 
Aftonifh’d, how the goats their flmibby broicfe 
Gnaw pendant. Philips. 
BROYE, a river of Swifferland, which rifes in the 
canton of Friburg, erodes lake Morat, and runs into th® 
lake of Neufchatel, about two miles north from Crudefin.. 
BROZ'ZO, a town of Italy, in the principality of Pied¬ 
mont: five miles north-weft of Ivrea, and twenty-five 
north of Turin. 
BRSES'KIE, or Brslstz, or Brzesc, a town of Po¬ 
land, and capital of a palatinate to which it gives name, 
funuunded with a wall, and fituated in a marfhy plain. 
