BROWN, GEORGE DOUGLAS (1869-1902).—­Novelist, wrote The House with the Green Shutters, which gives a strongly outlined picture of the harder and less genial aspects of Scottish life and character.  It may be regarded as a useful supplement and corrective to the more roseate presentations of the kail-yard school of J.M.  Barrie and “Ian Maclaren.”  It made a considerable impression.  The author d. almost immediately after its publication.  There is an ed. with a memoir by Mr. Andrew Lang.

BROWN, DR. JOHN (1810-1882).—­Physician and essayist, s. of John B., D.D., a distinguished dissenting minister in Edin. B. at Biggar, he was ed. at the High School and Univ. of Edin., where practically the whole of his uneventful life was spent as a physician, and where he was revered and beloved in no common degree, and he was the cherished friend of many of his most distinguished contemporaries, including Thackeray.  He wrote comparatively little; but all he did write is good, some of it perfect, of its kind.  His essays, among which are Rab and his Friends, Pet Marjorie, Our Dogs, Minchmoor, and The Enterkine, were collected along with papers on art, and medical history and biography, in Horae Subsecivae (Leisure Hours), 3 vols.  In the mingling of tenderness and delicate humour he has much in common with Lamb; in his insight into dog-nature he is unique.  His later years were clouded with occasional fits of depression.

BROWN, THOMAS (1778-1820).—­Metaphysician, s. of the Rev. Samuel B., minister of Kirkinabreck, practised for some time as a physician in Edin., but his tastes and talents lying in the direction of literature and philosophy, he devoted himself to the cultivation of these, and succeeded Dugald Stewart as Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Univ. of Edin., in which position he had remarkable popularity as a lecturer.  His main contribution to literature is his Lectures, pub. after his death.  B. was a man of attractive character and considerable talents, but as a philosopher he is now largely superseded.  He also wrote poetry, which, though graceful, lacked force, and is now forgotten.

BROWN, THOMAS EDWARD (1830-1897).—­Poet, b. at Douglas, Isle of Man, s. of a clergyman, and ed. there and at Oxf., entered the Church and held various scholastic appointments, including a mastership at Clifton.  His later years were spent in his native island.  He had a true lyrical gift, and much of his poetry was written in Manx dialect.  His poems include Fo’c’sle Yarns (1881), The Doctor (1887), The Manx Witch (1889), and Old John (1893).  He was also an admirable letter-writer, and 2 vols. of his letters have been pub.

BROWN, TOM (1663-1704).—­Satirist, was ed. at Oxf., and there composed the famous epigram on Dr. Fell.  He was for a few years schoolmaster at Kingston-on-Thames, but owing to his irregularities lost the appointment, and went to London, where he wrote satires, epigrams, and miscellaneous pieces, generally coarse and scurrilous.