So much a stranger my feverer mufe

Is not to love strains, or a shepherd's reed,
But that she knows fome rites of Phœbus' duce,
Of Pan, of Pallas, and her fifter's meed.
Read and commend, she durft these tun'd effays
Of him that loves her (she hath ever found
Her ftudies as one circle). Next she prays
His readers be with rofe and myrtle crown'd!
No willow touch them! As his bays are free
From wrong of bolts, so may their chaplets be.

SELDEN'S VERSES PREFIXED TO BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS,

EDINBURGH:

PRINTED BY MUNDELL AND SON, ROYAL BANK CLOSE,

Anno 1793.

.

THE LIFE OF BROWNE.

OF WILLIAM BROWNE, this flight narrative scarcely merits the title that is given to it; but the ma

terials for a fuller account are not to be found. He was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in the year 1590. His father, Thomas Browne, was of the rank of gentleman, and according to Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," descended of the knightly family of Browne of Browne's-Ilash, in the parish of Langtree, near Great Torrington.

He was inftructed in grammatical learning at the school of Tavistock, from whence he was fent to Exeter College, Oxford, about the beginning of the reign of King James I. where he made a great progrefs in claffical and polite literature.

He left the university before he had taken any degree, and entered into the Society of the Inner Temple, London, where he seems to have devoted himself chiefly to poetry, and probably paid little attention to the study of the law.

he

In 1613, he published, in folio, the first book of Britannia's Paftorals; a confiderable part of which appears to have written before he had attained his twentieth year.

Here could I spend that fpring of poefy,

Which not twice ten funs have beftow'd on me;

And tell the world the mufe's love appears

In nonag'd youth, as in the length of years.

It was dedicated, by a copy of verfes, to William, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain to his Majefty, and ushered into the world by complimentary verfes from fome of his ingenious and learned friends; among whom were Drayton, Selden, Jonfon, Chriftopher Brooke, W. Herbert, Charles Croke, Unton Croke, John Glanville, John Davies of Hereford, George Wither of Lincoln's Inn; and Edward Heyward, Fr. Dynne, Thomas Gardiner, W. Ferrar, Fr. Oulde, John Morgan, Thomas Heygate, and Auguftus Cæfar, of the Inner Temple. In the fifth Song, he inferted an Elegy on the bewailed death of the truly beloved and most virtuous Henry, Prince of Wales; whofe lofs was justly a fubject of national regret.

These pastorals were generally read and admired, and procured him a great reputation.

In 1614, he published The Shepherd's Pipe, in Seven Eclogues. It was dedicated by a copy of verses to Edward, Lord Zouch. The first eclogue is copied from Occleeve, a writer of the age of Chaucer, whofe other poems he defigned to publifh. In the fourth eclogue, he lamented the death of his friend Mr. Thomas Manwood, son of Sir Peter Manwood, Knight, under the name of Philarete. In 1616, he published the second book of Britannia's Paftorals; in which he celebrated the famous Earl of Effex, together with Spenfer, Drayton, Daniel, Jonfon, and other contemporary poets.

At the beginning of the year 1624, he returned to Exeter College, and became tutor to Robert Dormer Earl of Caernarvon, who was killed in the battle of Newbury, on the 20th of September 1643, and has been praised by Clarendon.

On the 16th of November, in the fame year, he was created Master of Arts, and was styled in the public register of the University, a man well fkilled in all kinds of polite literature and useful arts, Vir omni bumana literatura et bonarum artium, cognitione infructus.

In 1625, he published the two books of Britannia's Paftorals, in 2 vols. 8vo.

After he had quitted the university with his pupil, he appears to have been patronised by William Earl of Pembroke, the friend of Daniel, and one of the moft univerfally beloved and esteemed nobleman of that age.

Wood, fays Lord Pembroke, had great respect for him, and took him into his family, and that he got wealth and purchased an estate;" and that “he had a great mind in a little body." The time of his death is uncertain, though it probably happened in 1645. Wood fays, " in my searches I find that one William Browne, of Ottery, St. Mary, in Devon, died in the winter time 1645; whether the fame with the poet, I am hitherto ignorant." It is very likely to have been the fame perfon, as he was a native of Devonshire, and appears to have had a strong attachment to that country, and might therefore naturally be led to fix his refidence there in the latter part of his life.

This is all that is known of Browne; a man who obtained the highest distinction, as a poet, in a learned and poetical age, and to whofe memory time has by no means done juftice. His fate is as ancommon as it is unmerited. He who was admired and beloved by all the beft writers of his time, who was esteemed and highly recommended by the critical Jonfon, and the learned Selden, was, in a few years after his death, almost forgotten.

So great are the revolutions of our language, and such the uncertainty of literary fame, that before the close of the century in which he wrote, his poetry was become antiquated, and only one edition of his works has been printed in a hundred years.

But the effufions of a real poetical mind will be feldom rendered totally abortive, and those honours which, through envy or accident, are withheld in one age, are fure to be repaid with interest, by tafte and gratitude in another.

The prefent age, distinguished by a taste for poetical antiquities, has already made him fome reparation for the injustice of the last; and pofterity, through each fucceeding generation, will complete the measure of his fame.

His poems, which deserved to be rescued from the obscurity into which they had fallen, were collected by T. Davies, the laudable restorer of our old English p. ets, and printed in 3 vols. 12mo. 1772, as a proper companion of his editions of Davies, Carew, and Suckling.

The Shepherd's Pipe was become fo extremely scarce, that if Mr. Warton, the learned hiftorian of the English poetry, had not lent his own copy to be transcribed, the public might have been deprived of this admirable collection of eclogues.

The Inner Temple Mafque, which had never been printed, was procured from the library of Emanuel College, Cambridge, by the learned Dr. Farmer, who alfo communicated the copy of Verses prefixed to the Tragedy of Richard 111, not inferted in any former edition.

Some other unprinted poems of Browne appear to have been in the poffeffion of Mr. Warburton, the herald, which were fold with his library about the year 1759 or 1760, and cannot be recovered.

His Poems are now, for the first time, received into a chronological arrangement of claffical English poetry.

Browne is eminently entitled to a very high rank among our old English claffics; he has original imagery, ftriking fentiment, fertility of expreffion, and happy combinations, together with a felicity of diction, and a flow of harmony, that merit the attention of the modern writers of verse.

There is an amiable fimplicity in most of his pieces; and he knew how to move the heart by ftrokes of genuine nature and paffion. His imagination was fertile, and his mind vigorous, but his judgment was corrupted by the vitiated taste of the age in which he lived: His writings, therefore, abound with falfe wit, and frivolous ornaments; his defcriptions, though picturesque, have an air of extravagance; his conceptions, though strong, have marks of deformity, and his language never flows in a continued ftrain of purity: he could not plan with precision and delicacy, and was unable to join correctness with spirit.

He is mentioned by Winftan.ey, as worthily deferving of commendations;" but the passage which he quotes as a fpecimen of his manner, is injurious to his merits, and by no means chara&eriftic of Browne.

I

It is to his honour that Milton read and imitated him, as every attentive reader of Philarete and "Lycidas," muft foon difcover: the refemblance is obvious; and it is detracting nothing from the merit of "Lycidas," that it owes its origin to Philarete.

His Inner Temple Mafque alfo, may be fuppofed to have fuggefted the hint to Milton of his Masque of Comus," to which indeed it is much inferior, both in the design and execution, though fame of the fongs have an agreeable wildness and beauty, not unworthy of that great genius.

Wood fays, that " as he had honoured his country with his elegant and sweet pastorals, so was he expected, and also entreated, a little farther to grace it, by drawing out the line of his poetic ancestors, beginning in Jofephus Ifcanus, and ending in himself; but whether ever published, having been all or moftly written, as 'twas said, I know not,"

In one of Mr. Oldys's MSS. it is obferved, that "he was reputed a man not only the best versed in the works and beauties of the English poets, but also in their lives and characters, wherefore he was pitched and prevailed upon to draw out the line of his poetic ancestors, from Josephus Ifcanus, down to himself, which must have been a delectable and useful labour, from a man not only of his learning and taste, but who had the advantage of living fo much nearer the times when our most renowned cultivators of English poetry adorned this ifle."

The authority of Mr. Oldys is unquestionable; and his fentiments relative to this intended work of Browne, cannot fail to command the approbation, and excite the regret of every lover of literary and poetical biography.

The modern teftimonies to his merits are few, from the want of his being generally read; but his fame, however tardy, was progreffive. He found a friend and reader in Pattifon of Sidney College, Cambridge, who, it is faid, was poffeffed of no book at his death, except Britannia's Paftorals; he was also a favourite with Thompson of Queen's College, Oxford, who intended to print an edition of his Paftorals, with notes and observations, which, though of little value, are preferved in Davies's edition.

He was more fortunate in attracting the notice of the amiable and ingenious Mr. Headley,

"Who wove fresh garlands for the mufe of yore,"

and has drawn his poetical character with a difcriminating pencil, though with a penury rather than a profufion of praise.

"The Italian writers were his models, and he was either too young or too injudicious to refift the contagion of forced allusions and conceits, which an incorrect age, not only endured, but practised and approved. His descriptions are fometimes puerile, and at other times overwrought; one while loft in a profufion of colours, and at another bald and spiritlefs: yet he feems to have been a great admirer, and no inattentive observer of the charms of nature; as his works abound in minute rural imagery, though indifcriminately selected. From the verfes prefixed to his book, he should feem to have written very early in life. Had it been otherwife, and chafte and wholefome models been thrown in his way, much might have been expected from his natural powers. The praife he received from Selden, Jonson, and Drayton, and the notice he obtained from Milton, are real honours that almost counterbalance oblivion, at least they prove that he did not deserve it."

VOL. IV.