BROWNE, CHARLES FARRAR (1834-1867).—­Humorist (Artemus Ward), b. in Maine, U.S., worked as a compositor and reporter, and became a highly popular humorous writer, his books being Artemus Ward his Book, A.W.  His Panorama, A.W. among the Mormons, and A.W. in England.

BROWNE, ISAAC HAWKINS (1705-1760).—­Is remembered as the author of some clever imitations of contemporary poets on the theme of A Pipe of Tobacco, somewhat analogous to the Rejected Addresses of a later day.  He also wrote a Latin poem on the immortality of the soul.  B., who was a country gentleman and barrister, had great conversational powers.  He was a friend of Dr. Johnson.

BROWNE, SIR THOMAS (1605-1682).—­Physician and miscellaneous and metaphysical writer, s. of a London merchant, was ed. at Winchester and Oxf., after which he studied medicine at various Continental univs., including Leyden, where he grad. He ultimately settled and practised at Norwich.  His first and perhaps best known work, Religio Medici (the Religion of a Physician) was pub. in 1642.  Other books are Pseudodoxia Epidemica:  Enquiries into Vulgar Errors (1646), Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial (1658); and The Garden of Cyrus in the same year.  After his death were pub. his Letter to a Friend and Christian Morals.  B. is one of the most original writers in the English language.  Though by no means free from credulity, and dealing largely with trivial subjects of inquiry, the freshness and ingenuity of his mind invest everything he touches with interest; while on more important subjects his style, if frequently rugged and pedantic, often rises to the highest pitch of grave and stately eloquence.  In the Civil War he sided with the King’s party, and was knighted in 1671 on the occasion of a Royal visit to Norwich.  In character he was simple, cheerful, and retiring.  He has had a profound if indirect influence on succeeding literature, mainly by impressing master-minds such as Lamb, Coleridge, and Carlyle.

There is an ed. of B.’s works by S. Wilkin (4 vols., 1835-6), Religio Medici by Dr. Greenhill, 1881. Life by Gosse in Men of Letters Series, 1903.

BROWNE, WILLIAM (1590?-1645?).—­Poet, b. at Tavistock, ed. at Oxf., after which he entered the Inner Temple.  His poems, which are mainly descriptive, are rich and flowing, and true to the phenomena of nature, but deficient in interest.  Influenced by Spenser, he in turn had an influence upon such poets as Milton and Keats.  His chief works were Britannia’s Pastorals (1613), and The Shepheard’s Pipe (1614).