[A] Sc. Elizabeth's.




WILLIAM BROWNE


April 21, 1894. William Browne of Tavistock.

It has been objected to the author of _Britannia's Pastorals_ that
their perusal sends you to sleep. It had been subtler criticism, as
well as more amiable, to observe that you can wake up again and,
starting anew at the precise point where you dropped off, continue the
perusal with as much pleasure as ever, neither ashamed of your
somnolence nor imputing it as a fault to the poet. For William Browne
is perhaps the easiest figure in our literature. He lived easily, he
wrote easily, and no doubt he died easily. He no more expected to be
read through at a sitting than he tried to write all the story of
Marina at a sitting. He took up his pen and composed: when he felt
tired he went off to bed, like a sensible man: and when you are tired
of reading he expects you to be sensible and do the same.


A placid life.

He was born at Tavistock, in Devon, about the year 1590; and after the
manner of mild and sensible men cherished a particular love for his
birth-place to the end of his days. From Tavistock Grammar School he
passed to Exeter College, Oxford--the old west-country college--and