The Times/1912/Obituary/Mr. Robert Brown, F.S.A.

A correspondent writes:—

Mr. Robert Brown, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a lifelong student of comparative mythology, died at Boscombe on Wednesday Wednesday, aged 68. He was born at Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, the only child of strict Evangelical parents. He received a classical education at Cheltenham College, and adopted the legal profession, but his chief interest was the study of ancient religions. He was a student of Chaldæan myths, agreeing with Professor Max Müller in tracing their origin to the movements of sun, moon, and stars, and the ebb and flow of natural phenomena, and opposing strongly the rival theory of totemism, which he held to be a degradation of high and holy things. His legal training had induced him a power of weighing evidence which stood him in good stead, but he had also something of the poet's imagination, which enabled him to throw himself back into a mind of primitive man. His Homeric studies brought into contact with the late Mr. Gladstone, with whom he was on terms of friendship. His chief work, "The Great Dioysiak Myth" (two vols.), appeared in 1877-8, and he also published "The Myth of Kirke," "Aratus," "Researches into the Origin of the Primitive Constellations of Greeks, Phœnicians, and Babylonians," (two vols.), "Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology," and two volumes of poems as well as a rather elaborate history of his native town, which involved much research.