John Brown (essayist)
John Brown (5 November 1715 – 23 September 1766) was an English Anglican priest, playwright and essayist.
Life
He was born in 1715 at Rothbury, Northumberland, the son of the Rev. John Brown (1677–1763), vicar of Wigton from that year, and his wife Eleanor Troutbeck, née Potts. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1732, graduating B.A. 1736, and M.A. 1739; he became D.D. in 1755.[1][2]
Graduating as
In 1756 Brown was promoted by the
Brown was consulted, through
There is a detailed account of John Brown by Andrew Kippis in Biographia (1780), containing the text of the negotiations for his journey to Russia.[3]
Man of letters
The
Rise of an essayist
Brown published Honour (1743), a poem, through Robert Dodsley. It was followed by An Essay on Satire Occasion'd by the Death of Mr Pope (1745), which Brown at Carlisle published through Dodsley in London.[7] This work gained for him the friendship of William Warburton.[1] Warburton introduced him to Ralph Allen.[3]
At Warburton's suggestion, Brown expanded the Essay on Satire, to an Essay (1751) on the
Drama
Brown was interested in drama, but it earned him the disapproval of Warburton and Richard Hurd.[6] He wrote Barbarossa (1754), a tragedy in five acts based on the story of Aruj Barbarossa and Zaphira, and Athelstane (1756), both performed; David Garrick and Mrs Cibber played in both, and the first was a success.[1] Later, Brown's 1765 revision of Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was rejected for production by Garrick.[11]
"Estimate" Brown
Brown's major popular success was the Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (2 vols., 1757–1758), a bitter satire. It struck a chord after the Battle of Minorca (1756), a British reverse at the outset of the Seven Years' War.[1] Edmund Burke, in a review for The Annual Register for 1758, rejected Brown's analysis as far as it depended on charges of "effeminacy" in the British nation and aesthetic.[12] Thomas Sheridan believed the fundamental issue was selfishness, and the solution better oratory.[13]
Robert Wallace replied with The Characteristics of the Present Political State of Great Britain (1758). In it he defended British culture and the current constitution.[14] Brown's An Explanatory Defence of the Estimate (1758) claimed he had acted out to duty to country. Having earned the name "Estimate" Brown, he was prepared to notice Wallace, out of all his critics.[1] When Charles Hanbury Williams gave Brown notice that he had written a reply to the first volume of the Estimate, a complex row dragging in Dodsley ensued, ending with Brown sending a curt message "Footman's language I never return."[15]
A sequel on the politics of the Seven Years' War was Additional Dialogue of the Dead between Pericles and Cosmo (1760), in vindication of
Aesthetics
Brown knew
The Cure of Saul: a Sacred Ode, a poem on the nature of music, was also from 1763, and was reprinted with the Dissertation. It was twice performed as an
The associated monograph of oratorio criticism, An Examination of the Oratorios which have been performed this Season, at Covent-Garden Theatre (1763) was published within weeks. It contained barely veiled criticism of Smith.[23] Brown was defending his oratorio, and promoting a post-Handel reform agenda; The Critical Review had belittled him and his efforts, supporting as it did the Earl of Bute, the Prime Minister, while Brown backed William Pitt.[24]
Brown is also associated with the rise of the picturesque, and appreciation of the landscape of the Lake District. He was a family friend of William Gilpin. He wrote on the subject to George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, around 1753. This letter has been identified as the first documentation of the "classicising" of the Lake District. It was published, in part, in 1766, in the London Chronicle; and then as a pamphlet.[25]
References
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3621. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Brown, John (BRWN732J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c d e f g Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3621. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-1-4008-8351-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-135-27869-4.
- ISBN 978-0-521-52208-3.
- ISBN 978-0-8047-8335-4.
- ISBN 978-0-87413-703-3.
- ISBN 978-1-4384-4938-8.
- ISBN 978-1-349-21189-0.
- ISBN 978-1-61148-825-8.
- JSTOR 20557618
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28539. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-0-521-52208-3.
- ISBN 978-1-351-57235-4.
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/925. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-1-107-66640-5.
- ISBN 978-1-351-57235-4.
- ISBN 978-90-420-1752-8.
- JSTOR 41300176
- JSTOR 41300176
- JSTOR 41300176
- JSTOR 41300176
- ^ Museum, Victoria and Albert (1984). The Discovery of the Lake District: A Northern Arcadia and Its Uses. Victoria & Albert Museum. p. 13.
Bibliography
- Brown, John. An Examination of the Oratorios which have been performed this Season, at Covent-Garden Theatre (1763). Stanford, 2012. ISBN 1-479-19462-X
External links
- Attribution
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Brown, John (British divine)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the