Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/80

 Temple Masque' supplied Milton with 'the idea of a masque on the subject of Comus.' Few facts are known about Browne's personal history. From Harleian MS. 6164 Sir Egerton Brydges discovered that he married the daughter of Sir Thomas Eversfield of Den, near Horsham, and had two sons, who died in infancy. He survived his wife and wrote an epitaph on her. At the beginning of 1624 he returned to Exeter College and became tutor to the Hon. Robert Dormer, afterwards earl of Carnarvon. In the 'Matriculation Book ' is the entry, ' 30 Ap. 1624, William Browne, son of Thomas Browne, gentleman, of Tavistock, matriculated, age 33.' It is possible (though improbable) that he did not matriculate during his earlier residence. On 25 Aug. 1624 he received permission to be created master of arts, but the degree was not actually conferred until the 16th of the following November. In the public register of the university he is styled 'vir omni humana literarum et bonarum artium cognitione instructus.' Wood states that he was afterwards received into the family of the Herberts at Wilton, where he 'got wealth and purchased an estate.' In 1629 Samuel Austin [q. v.] of Lostwithiel dedicated to Browne, jointly with Drayton and Serjeant Pollexfen, the second book of his 'Urania.' Ashmole MS. 36 contains a copy of verses by Abraham Holland addressed 'To my honest father M. Michael Drayton and my new yet loved friend Mr. Will. Browne.' In November 1640 Browne was residing at Dorking, whence he addressed a letter (presented in Ashmole MS. 830) to Sir Benjamin Ruddyerd. Among the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 777) is a collection of poems by Browne, first printed at the Lee Priory Press in 1815. The collection includes a series of fourteen sonnets to 'Cœlia,' in which the writer seems to refer to the death of his wife and to his second wooing ; some tender epistles and elegies ; six 'Visions,' on the model of Du Bellay ; jocular and bacchanalian verses ; epigrams and epitaphs. Among the epitaphs are found the famous lines 'Underneath this sable herse,' &c., which have been commonly attributed, on no better authority than Peter Whalley, to Ben Jonson. In 'Notes and Queries,' 1st ser. iii. 262, it was pointed out that in Aubrey's 'Memoires of natural remarques in Wilts' the lines are stated to have been 'made by Mr. Willia Browne, who wrote the Pastoralls, and they are inserted there.' No new information was elicited bv the recent discussion in the pages of the ' Academy ' (Nos. 608-10, and 617). The Lansdowne MS. makes the ~^*taph consist of twelve lines ; and in this form it is found in 'Poems Written by the Right Honourable William, Earl of Pembroke' (1660) and Osborne's 'Traditional Memoirs of James I.' The epitaph certainly reads better as a single sextain ; and Hazlitt makes the plausible suggestion, that ' whoever composed the original sextain. . . the addition is the work of another pen, namely. Lord Pembroke's.' Among the humorous poems in the Lansdowne MS. is the well-known 'Lydford Journey.' Prince in the 'Worthies of Devon ' makes the poem consist of sixteen verses. The manuscript gives seventeen verses ; and the copy in Thomas Westcote's 'View of Devonshire in 1630' (Exeter, 1 846) contains nineteen verses. Comparing Westcote's text with the text of the Lansdowne MS., we get twenty verses (vide Academy, No. 623, p. 262).

After 1640 we hear no more of Browne. In the register of Tavistock, under date 27 March 1643, is an entry, 'William Browne was buried' ( Works, ed. Hazlitt, i. xxxviii) ; but, as the name is so common, we cannot be sure that this William Browne was the poet. Another William Browne died at Ottery St. Mary in December 1645. From a passage in Carpenter's 'Geographia' (1636, p. 263) it has been frequently asserted that Browne intended to write a history of English poetry from the earliest times to his own day : but Carpenter's words, which are usually quoted at second hand and without reference to the context, do not bear this interpretation. What he says is : 'Many inferiour faculties are yet left, wherein our Devon hath displaied her abilities as well as in the former, as in Philosophers, Historians, Oratours, and Poets, the blazoning of whom to the life, especially the last, I had rather leave to my worthy friend Mr. W. Browne, who, as hee hath already honoured his countrie in his elegant and sweet Pastoralis, no question will easily bee intreated a little farther to grace it by drawing out the line of his Poeticke Auncasters beginning in Joseph us Iscanus and ending in himselfe.' Wood, making no reference to Carpenter, writes : 'So was he expected and also intreated, a little farther to grace it [sc. his country] by drawing out the line of nis poetic ancestors beginning in Josephus Iscanius and ending in himself ; but whether ever published, having been all or mostly written as 'twas said, I know not.' Whether there is any truth or not in the italicised words, it is certain that the work would have been merely an account of Devonshire writers, not a complete survey of English poetry. Browne was a good antiquarian. In a marginal note at the beginning of the first book of 'Britannia's Pastorals' he corrects a passage