Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/456

 Brothers this to be the Man whom God has appointed, I engrave his likeness. William Sharp.' Sharp came afterwards to discredit Bryan as a deceiver, and eventually attached himself to Joanna Southcott. The flush of admiring pamphlets naturally ceased when 1795 came to an end. Even Halhed seems to have deserted his protege. But Brothers continued to write at intervals. Apart from his leading craze there is not much interest in his writings. It may be noted as an odd coincidence that he follows Servetus in applying to himself Dan. xii. 1. His doctrine of the inner light is essentially that of the early quakers. In the spring of 1797 Frances Cott, daughter of an Essex clergyman, was placed in the Islington asylum. She was not there long, but long enough for poor Brothers to fall in love with her. A fortnight after her removal it was revealed to him that this young lady was his destined queen. Unfortunately, within a year she married some one else. Brothers owed his release from the asylum to the persistent exertions of the most faithful of all his disciples, John Finlayson [q. v.], who at Brothers's suggestion spelled his name Finleyson, a Scotch writer, originally of Cupar-Fife, and afterwards of Edinburgh. In the summer of 1797 the report of Brothers's grievances acted on him as a divine summons to give up what he calls 'an extensive and lucrative practice of the law at one of the bars of the Scotch courts.' Early in the following year he repaired to London. Here he contrived to enter into 'a secret correspondence' with Brothers, whose writings in confinement he saw through the press ; and when Hanchett, a draughtsman, declined to prepare Brothers's plans for the New Jerusalem, Finlayson, 'though totally unacquainted with the art,' executed the work, and got the plans engraved 'at an expense of upwards of 1,200l.' When Pitt died (23 Jan. 1806) Finlayson thought the moment opportune for the release of Brothers. He besieged the authorities, and waiting upon Grenville, the new prime minister, he got the warrant for high treason withdrawn. A petition for his liberation, backed by seven affidavits of his sanity, was heard before Lord-chancellor Erskine on 14 April 1806. Erskine ordered his immediate release, but would not supersede the ; verdict of lunacy, begging Finlayson, 'as his countryman,' not to press him on that point, as there were 'still some scruples in a high quarter' (the king). As Brothers, with the verdict unremoved, could not draw his half-pay, Erskine promised him (so Finlayson says) 300l. a year for life from the government. But, owing to the change of administration early in the following year, Brothers got no part of this allowance, though his pay was applied to his wife's maintenance 'on the express and written grounds that government provided for him.' Brothers lived for some time in the house of a well-to-do friend, one Busby, and from 1815 Finlayson took him into his own family. In his later years Brothers occupied himself with astronomical dreams. Bartholomew Prescot, a Liverpool star-gazer, who had published in 1803 'A Defence of the Divine System of the World,' on geocentric principles, entered into a correspondence with Brothers in 1806, and was received into favour. Prescot published the 'Inverted Scheme of Copernicus, book i.,' 1822, and followed it up by the 'System of the Universe,' 1823. When this latter reached Brothers's hands in June 1823, the Almighty told him it 'would not do.' On Sunday, 25 Jan. 1824, Finlayson read to Brothers from the Sunday paper a favourable review of Prescot's work. Brothers bade Finlayson write against Prescot, and described himself as 'seized with the cholera morbus and hectic fever.' That night, about ten o'clock, he died in Finlayson's house, Upper Baker Street, Marylebone. One who saw him 'a few days before his death' describes him as 'very pale, very thin a mere skeleton, very weak, could hardly walk,' and adds that he 'died of a consumption.' He was interred at St. John's Wood, in a grave at the opposite side of the cemetery to that of Joanna Southcott. He died intestate, leaving a widow and married daughter. Administration was granted to his widow in February 1824; but Finlayson, by a chancery order, prevented her from getting the property (450l., in 3 per cent. Consols). After his death Finlayson pestered the government with a claim for Brothers's maintenance, which (with interest and law expenses) amounted to 5,710l., was subsequently run up by Finlayson to 20,000/., and is now estimated by his descendants at 80,000l. On 4 March 1830 Finlayson got 270l., the unappropriated balance of Brothers's pay. The believers in Brothers are not yet extinct, and those who adopt the Anglo-Israel theory regard him as the earliest writer on their side. Besides the prints of Gillray and Sharp, there is a caricature of Brothers, bearing no resemblance to him, by Thomas Landseer, dated 1 Jan. 1831, in 'Ten Etchings illustrative of the Devil's Walk,' 1831, fol. Also a fair likeness by Cruikshank, accompanied by a clever description, in Bowman Tiller's 'Frank Heartwell' (see 's Omnibus, ed. by Laman Blanchard, 1842, 8vo, plate 6, and pp. 144-7).