Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/28

Brown contributions to medical reviews, and several articles in the ‘Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine.' Brown wrote: 1. ‘Medical Essays on Fever, Inflammation, &c.,’ London, 1828. 2. ‘A Defence of Revealed Religion,’ 1851, designed to vindicate the miracles of the Old and New Testaments. 3. ‘Memories of the Past and Thoughts on the Present Age,’ 1863. 4. ‘The Food of the People, with a Postscript on the Diet of Old Age,’ 1865.

 BROWN, LANCELOT (1715–1783), landscape-gardener and architect, known as ‘Capability Brown,’ was born in 1715 at Hardie-Kirk, Northumberland. He was originally a kitchen gardener in the employment of Lord Cobham at Stow. His remarkable faculty for prejudging landscape effects soon, however, procured in the patronage of persons of rank and taste. Humphrey Repton treats Brown as the founder of the modern or English style of landscape-gardening, which superseded the geometric style, brought to its perfection by André Le Nostre (b. 12 March 1613; d. 15 Sept. 1700) at Versailles. The praise of originating the new style is, however, due to William Kent (b. 1384; d. 12 April 1748), but Brown worked independently and with greater genius. His leading aim was to bring out the undulating lines of the natural landscape. He laid out or remodelled the grounds at Kew, Blenheim, and Nuneham Courtenay. His style degeneratcd into a mannerism which insisted on finishing every landscape with the same set of features; but this declension is to be attributed to the deficiencies of those who had worked under him, and took him as their model. Of Brown’s architectural works a full list is given by Repton, beginning in 1751 with Croome, where he built the house, church, &c. for the Earl of Coventry. His exteriors were often very clumsy, but all his country mansions were constructed with great success as regards internal comfort and convenience. He realised a large fortune, and by his amiable manners and high character he supported with dignity the station of a country gentleman. In 1770 he was high sheriff of Huntingdonshire. He died on 6 Feb, 1783. His son, Lancelot Brown, was M.P. for Huntingdonshire.

 BROWN, LEVINIUS (1671–1761), jesuit, born in Norfolk on 19 Sept. 1671, received his education at St. Omer and the English college at Rome. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1698, being already a priest, and became a professed father in 1709. Previously to this, in 1700, he had been appointed to the mission of Ladyholt, Sussex. He was rector of the English college at Rome from 1723 to 1731, when he became master of the novices, and was chosen provincial of his order in 1733, continuing in that office till 1737, and then passing to the rectorship of Liège college. He spent the last years of his life in the college of St. Omer, and witnessed the forcible expulsion of the English jesuits from that institution by the parliament of Paris in 1762. Being too old and infirm to be removed, he was allowed to remain in the house until his death on 7 Nov. 1764.

Brown was a friend of Alexander Pope's, and it is probable that during his residence as missioner of Ladyholt he induced the poet to compose his beautiful version of St. Francis Xavier’s hymn ‘O Deus, ego amo Te.’ He published a translation of Bossuet's ‘History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches,’ 2 vols., Antwerp, 1742, 8vo.

 BROWN, OLIVER MADOX (1855–1874), author and painter, son of Ford Madox-Brown, the distinguished painter, was born at Finchley on 20 Jan. 1855. From early boyhood he showed remarkable capacity, both in painting and literature. One of his works, a water-colour named ‘Chiron, receiving the Infant Jason from the Slave,’ was begun when he was fourteen, and exhibited in the Dudley Gallery in the following year. At the same gallery in 1870 he exhibited a very spirited watercolour called ‘Obstinacy,' which represents the resistance of an unruly horse, whose rider is urging him ,towards the sea; ‘Exercise,’ a companion picture to the above, appeared the same year, on the walls of the Royal Academy. A scene from ‘The Tempest-Prospero and the Infant Miranda,' when sent adrift by the creatures of the usurping duke, found its way in 1871 to the International Exhibition at South Kensington. This was followed by a water-colour, ‘A Scene from Silas Mariner,’ exhibited, in 1872 at the gallery of the Society of French Artists in New Bond Street. These two latter works especially showed so much of idea, force of expression, and, with regard to the scene from ‘Silas Marner,’ so much beauty of execution, as to indicate that the lad, had he lived, would have signally 