thence to Clifford's Inn and the Inner Temple. His first wife died
when he was twenty-three or twenty-four. He took his second courtship
quietly and leisurely, marrying the lady at length in 1628, after a
wooing of thirteen years. "He seems," says Mr. A.H. Bullen, his latest
biographer, "to have acquired in some way a modest competence, which
secured him immunity from the troubles that weighed so heavily on men
of letters." His second wife also brought him a portion. More than
four years before this marriage he had returned to Exeter College, as
tutor to the young Robert Dormer, who in due time became Earl of
Carnarvon and was killed in Newbury fight. By his fellow-collegians--as
by everybody with whom he came into contact--he was highly beloved and
esteemed, and in the public Register of the University is styled, "vir
omni humana literarum et bonarum artium cognitione instructus." He
gained the especial favor of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, whom
Aubrey calls "the greatest Mæcenas to learned men of any peer of his
time or since," and of whom Clarendon says, "He was a great lover of
his country, and of the religion and justice, which he believed could
only support it; and his friendships were only with men of those
principles,"--another tribute to the poet's character. He was familiarly
received at Wilton, the home of the Herberts. After his second marriage
he moved to Dorking and there settled. He died in or before the year
1645. In the letters of administration granted to his widow (November,
1645) he is described as "late of Dorking, in the county of Surrey,
Esquire." But there is no entry of his death in the registers at Dorking
or Horsham: so perhaps he went back to lay his bones in his beloved Devon.
A William Browne was buried at Tavistock on March 27th, 1643. This may or
may not have been our author. "Tavistock,--Wilton,--Dorking," says Mr.
Bullen,--"Surely few poets have had a more tranquil journey to the
Elysian Fields."