as Irving did, and for the same reason. He had the genuine literary
impulse, which he obeyed against all the arguments and entreaties of his
friends. Unfortunately, with a delicate physical constitution he had a
mind of romantic sensibility, and in the comparative inaction imposed by
his frail health he indulged in visionary speculation, and in solitary
wanderings which developed the habit of sentimental musing. It was
natural that such reveries should produce morbid romances. The tone of
them is that of the unwholesome fiction of his time, in which the
"seducer" is a prominent and recognized character in social life, and
female virtue is the frail sport of opportunity. Brown's own life was
fastidiously correct, but it is a curious commentary upon his estimate
of the natural power of resistance to vice in his time, that he regarded
his feeble health as good fortune, since it protected him from the
temptations of youth and virility.

While he was reading law he constantly exercised his pen in the
composition of essays, some of which were published under the title of
the "Rhapsodist;" but it was not until 1797 that his career as an author
began, by the publication of "Alcuin: a Dialogue on the Rights of
Women." This and the romances which followed it show the powerful
influence upon him of the school of fiction of William Godwin, and the
movement of emancipation of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the leader.
The period of social and political ferment during which "Alcuin" was put
forth was not unlike that which may be said to have reached its height
in extravagance and millennial expectation in 1847-48. In "Alcuin" are
anticipated most of the subsequent discussions on the right of women to
property and to self-control, and the desirability of revising the
marriage relation. The injustice of any more enduring union than that
founded upon the inclination of the hour is as ingeniously urged in
"Alcuin" as it has been in our own day.