Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/61

Rh the Time of George III., Natural Theology, etc., his last work being an autobiography written in his 84th year, and pub. 1871. His writings were far too numerous and far too diverse in subject to be of permanent value. His fame now rests chiefly on his services to political and specially to legal reform, and to the diffusion of useful literature, which are his lasting monuments. 

, Author:John Cam Hobhouse, (1786-1869).—Eldest s. of Sir Benjamin H., b. at Redland near Bristol, ed. at Westminster School and at Camb., where he became intimate with Byron, and accompanied him in his journeys in the Peninsula, Greece, and Turkey, and acted as his "best man." In 1816 he was with him after his separation from his wife, and contributed notes to the fourth canto of Childe Harold, which was dedicated to him. On his return he threw himself into politics with great energy as an advanced Radical, and wrote various pamphlets, for one of which he was in 1819 imprisoned in Newgate. In the following year he entered Parliament, sitting for Westminster. After the attainment of power by the Whigs he held various offices, including those of Sec. at War, Chief Sec. for Ireland, and Pres. of the Board of Control. He pub. Journey through Albania (1813), Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold (1818), and Recollections of a Long Life (1865), for private circulation, and he left in MS. Diaries, Correspondence, and Memoranda, etc., not to be opened till 1900, extracts from which were pub. by his dau., Lady Dorchester, also under the title of Recollections from a Long Life (1909). 

Author:Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810).—Novelist, b. in Philadelphia, belonged to a Quaker family, became a lawyer, but exchanged law for literature, and has the distinction of being the first American to adopt a purely literary career. He wrote several novels, including Wieland (1798), Ormond (1799), Arthur Mervyn (1800-1), and his last, Jane Talbot (1801). With a good deal of crudeness and sentimentality he has occasional power, but dwells too much on the horrible and repulsive, the result, perhaps, of the morbidity produced by the ill-health from which he all his life suffered. 

Author:George Douglas Brown (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. 

Author:John Brown (1810-1882) (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