Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/82

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Browne
76
Browne


at Burton's coffee-house in a laced coat and fringed gloves to show himself to the lord mayor. He explained his healthy appearance by saying that he had neither wife nor debts. His wife bad died on 25 July 1763, in her sixty-fourth year. Browne died on 10 March 1774. He was buried at Hillington, Norfolk, under a Latin epitaph written by himself. He left a will profusely interlarded with Greek and Latin, and directed that his Elzevir Horace should be placed on his coffin. He left three gold medals worth five guineas each to be given to undergraduates at Cambridge for Greek and Latin odes and epigrams. He also founded a scholarship of twenty guineas a year, the holder of which was to remove to Peterhouse.

Browne's only daughter Mary was second wife of William Foflies, brother of Martin Follies, president of the Royal Society, In 1767 he presented his picture by Hudson to the College of Physicians.

Browne's works are as follows; 1. 'Translation of Dr. Gregory's Elements of Catoptrics and Dioptrics (with some additions),' 1715 and 1785. 2. 'Two Odes in imitation of Horace,' 1763 and 1765; the second written in 1741 on Sir Robert Walpole ceasing to be minister, and dedicated to the Earl of Orford, from whose family he had received many favours. 3. 'Opuscula varia utriusque linguiæ,' 1765 (containing the Harveian oration for 1751, also published separately at the time), 4. 'Appendix altera ad opuscula,' his farewell oration, also published in English, 1768. 5. 'Fragmentum Isaaci Hawkins Browne, arm., sive Anti-Bolligbrokius,' translated for a second 'Religio Medici,' 1768 (the Latin of I. H. Browne from the poems published by his son in 1768, with English by W. B.) 6. 'Fragmentum completum,' 1769 (continuation of the last in Latin and English by W. R.) 7. 'Appendix ad Opuscula' (a Latin ode with English translations), 1770. 6. 'A Proposal on our Coin, to remedy all Present and prevent all Future Disorders,' 1771 (dedicated to the memory of Speaker Onslow). 9. 'A New Year's Gift, a Problem and Demonstration on the Thirty-nine Articles' (explaing difficulties which had occurred to him on having to sign the articles at Cambridge), 1772, 10. 'The Pill-plot, to Dr. Ward, a quack of merry memory,' 1772 (written at Lynn in 1734). 11. 'Corrections in Verse from the Father of the College in Son Cadogan's Gout Dissertation, containing False Physic, False Logic, False Philosophy,' 1772. 12. 'Speech on the Royal Society, recommending Mathematics as the Qualification for their Chair,' 1772. 13. 'Elogy and Address,' 1773. 14 'Latin Version of the Book of Job' (unfinished).

Browne's best known production is probably the Cambridge answer to the much better Oxford epigram upon George I's present of Bishop Moore's library to the university of Cambridge: —

This king to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For tories own no argument but force;
With equal care to Cambridge books he sent.
For whigs allow no force but argument.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 95; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 315-30; Letters from a late Eminent Prelate, p. 404.]

L. S.

BROWNE, WILLIAM (1748–1825), gem and seal engraver, obtained the patronage of Catherine II, empress of Russia, who gate him much employment and appointed him her 'gem sculptor.' In 1788 he was living in Paris, where he worked for the royal family, but in the outbreak of the revolution in the following year returned to England. He was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy between 1770 and 1823 of classical heads and portraits. Browne's talents met with but little recognition in his own country, and the finest specimens of his art were sent to Russia. Some of his portraits of eminent persons are in the royal collection at Windsor. He died in John Street, Fitzroy Square, 20 July 1825, aged 77.

[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878); MS. Notes in British Museum.]

L. F.

BROWNE, WILLIAM GEORGE (1768–1813), oriental traveller, was born in London on 25 July 1768, and descended from an old Cumberland family. He was educated privately until entering at Oriel College, Oxford, where, receiving 'no encouragement and little assistance in his academical studies,' he diligently strove to educate himself. After leaving Oxford (B.A. 1789) he for a time pursued the study of the law, which he relinquished upon becoming independent by his father's death. His earnest though sedate temper was deeply stirred by the French revolution. He reprinted at his own expense a portion of Buchanan's treatise 'De Jure Regni apud Scotos,' and other political tracts, and seemed inclined to a public career, when his thoughts were diverted into a new channel by reading Bruce's travels and the first report of the African Association, and he resolved to devote himself to the exploration of Africa. Among his qualifications he enumerates' a good constitution, though by no means robust, steadiness of purpose, much indifference to personal accommodations and