Isaac Hawkins Browne FRS (21 January 1705 - 14 February 1760) was an English poet who wrote in both English and Latin.[1]
Isaac Hawkins Browne (1705-1760). Engraving by S.F. Ravenet after Joseph Highmore (1692-1780). Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wellcome Collection.
| Isaac Hawkins Browne | |
|---|---|
| Born |
21 January 1705 Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire |
| Died | 14 February 1760 (aged 55) |
| Nationality |
 English |
| Occupation | barrister, poet |
| Notable works | A Pipe of Tobacco |
Life[]
Overview[]
Browne 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. Browne, who was a country gentleman and barrister, had great conversational powers. He was a friend of Dr. Johnson.[2]
Youth and education[]
Browne was born at Burton-on-Trent, of which parish his father — a man of private fortune and the holder of other ecclesiastical preferments — was the vicar. Receiving his first education at Lichfield, he passed to Westminster School, and in 1721 to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a scholarship and earned an M.A. About 1727 he began the study of law at Lincoln's Inn, but though called to the bar he did not seriously prosecute the practice of his profession.[1]
Career[]
Through the influence of the Forester family he was twice elected (1744, 1747) to the House of Commons for the borough of Wenlock, Shropshire, near to which was his own estate. He was during his parliamentary career (1744-1754) a supporter of Pelham’s Whig ministry.[1]
Browne had little aptitude for professional or public life, but he was a man of lively talents and varied accomplishments. Mrs. Piozzi reports Johnson as saying of Browne that he was "of all conversers the most delightful with whom I ever was in company; his talk was at once so elegant, so apparently artless, so pure and so pleasing, it seemed a perpetual stream of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety and sparkling with images." [1]
15 years after Browne’s death Johnson is found thus illustrating the proposition that a man’s powers are not to be judged by his capacity for public speech: "Isaac Hawkins Browne, one of the first wits of this country, got into Parliament and never opened his mouth." In the Tour to the Hebrides, 2 years earlier, Boswell writes (5 Sept. 1773): "After supper Dr. Johnson told us that Isaac Hawkins Browne drank freely for thirty years, and that he wrote his poem De Animi Immortalitate in some of the last of these years. I listened to this with the eagerness of one who, conscious of being himself fond of wine, is glad to hear that a man of so much genius and good thinking as Browne had the same propensity." This story is confirmed to some extent by Bishop Newton, who speaks of Browne’s "failings," and draws a parallel between him and Addison: "They were both excellent companions, but neither of them could open well without having a glass of wine, and then the vein flowed to admiration."[1]
He died in London after a lingering illness (according to Newton, consumption).[1]
Writing[]
Early in life he had written a poem of some length on Design and Beauty, addressed to Highmore the painter, and among his other productions "A Pipe of Tobacco," an ode in imitation of Pope, Swift, Thomson, and other poets then living, had gained a considerable measure of popularity.[1]
His principal work, published in 1754, was a Latin poem on the immortality of the soul — De Animi Immortalitate — which received high commendation from the scholars of his time. Of this there have been several English translations, the best known of which is by Soame Jenyns.[1]
The humor of some of his lighter pieces has not wholly evaporated, and the gaiety of his genius is vouched by contemporaries of much wider celebrity. William Warburton, praising the poem on the soul, adds that it "gives me the more pleasure as it seems to be a mark of the author getting serious."[1]
Recognition[]
Browne was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in February, 1750. [3]
An edition of his poems was published by his son, Isaac Hawkins Browne the younger, in 1768.[1]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- On Design and Beauty: An epistle. London: J. Roberts, 1734.
- A Pipe of Tobacco: In imitation of six several authors. London: W. Bickerton, 1744; Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1923.
- The Fire Side: A pastoral soliloquy. London: G. Hawkins, 1746.
- De Animi Immortalitate: Poema. London: J. & R. Tonson / S. Draper, 1754.
- On the Immortality of the Soul (translated by William Hay). London: R. & J. Dodsley, 1754.
- On the Immortality of the Soul (translated by Richard Gray). London: Benjamin Dod, 1754.
- A Poem on the Immortality of the Soul (translated by J. Cranwell). Cambridge, UK: J. Bentham, for R. Mathews, 1765.
- On the Immortality of the Soul (translated by Soame Jenyns), in Jenyns, Miscellanwous Pieces: In verse and prose. London: J. Dodsley, 1770
- also published in William Hayward Roberts, Poetical Essays; in three parts: I. On the existence of God. II. On the attributes of God. III. On the providence of God. Belfast: James Magee, 1774.
- On the Immortality of the Soul = De Anime Immortalitate (English translation by John Lettice). Cambridge, UK: John Archdeacon & John Burges, for J. Deighton & W.H. Lunn / Rivingtons, London / et al, 1795.
- Poems upon Various Subjects: Latin and English. London: J. Nourse / C. Marsh, 1768.
Non-fiction[]
- Essays on Subjects of Important Enquiry: In metaphysics, morals and religion. London: T. Cadell / Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1822.
Collected editions[]
- Fragmentum Isaaci Hawkins Browne. London: W. Owen, 1769.
Anthologized[]
- The Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse (edited by David Nichol Smith). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1926.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
References[]
Scott, James Moffatt (1886) "Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1705-1760)" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 7 London: Smith, Elder, p. 47 . Wikipedia, Web, Oct. 14, 2016.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Scott, 47.
- ↑ John William Cousin, "Browne, Isaac Hawkins," A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910, 50. Web, Dec. 21, 2017.
- ↑ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=2&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27browne%27%29. Retrieved 19 December 2010.
- ↑ Search results = au:Isaac Hawkins Browne, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 14, 2016.
External links[]
- Poems
- Isaac Hawkins Browne at PoemHunter ("Mansfield Park")
- Isaac Hawkins Browne at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (7 poems)
- Books
- Isaac Hawkins Browne at Amazon.com
- About
- Browne, Isaac Hawkins in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1705-1760)
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