master-minds such as Lamb, Coleridge, and Carlyle.

There is an ed. of B.'s works by S. Wilkin (4 vols., 1835-6), _Religio
Medici_ by Dr. Greenhill, 1881. _Life_ by Gosse in Men of Letters Series,
1903.


BROWNE, WILLIAM (1590?-1645?).--Poet, _b._ at Tavistock, _ed._ at Oxf.,
after which he entered the Inner Temple. His poems, which are mainly
descriptive, are rich and flowing, and true to the phenomena of nature,
but deficient in interest. Influenced by Spenser, he in turn had an
influence upon such poets as Milton and Keats. His chief works were
_Britannia's Pastorals_ (1613), and _The Shepheard's Pipe_ (1614).


BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT (1806-1861).--Poetess, was the _dau._ of
Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, who assumed the last name on succeeding
to the estates of his grandfather in Jamaica. She was _b._ at Coxhoe
Hall, Durham, but spent her youth at Hope End, near Great Malvern. While
still a child she showed her gift, and her _f._ _pub._ 50 copies of a
juvenile epic, on the Battle of Marathon. She was _ed._ at home, but owed
her profound knowledge of Greek and much mental stimulus to her early
friendship with the blind scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who was a neighbour.
At the age of 15 she met with an injury to her spine which confined her
to a recumbent position for several years, and from the effects of which
she never fully recovered. In 1826 she _pub._ anonymously _An Essay on
Mind and Other Poems_. Shortly afterwards the abolition of slavery, of
which he had been a disinterested supporter, considerably reduced Mr.
B.'s means: he accordingly disposed of his estate and removed with his
family first to Sidmouth and afterwards to London. At the former Miss B.