of Aberdeen appointed him to the chair of divinity in Marischal College on the resignation of Dr. George Campbell, and in 1796 he also succeeded Campbell as principal of the university.
Brown soon became a conspicuous and influential member of the general assembly, sympathising mainly with the reforming party in the church. He made several contributions to literature after his arrival in Scotland, the most important being 'An Essay on the Existence of a Supreme Creator,' written in response to the offer of valuable prizes by the trustees of the late Mr. Burnett of Dens, Aberdeen, 2 vols. 8vo, 1816. Brown's essay obtained the first prize, amounting to 1,250l., the second being awarded to the Rev. John Bird Sumner, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. Another elaborate work was entitled 'A Comparative View of Christianity, and of the ether forms of religion which have existed, and still exist, in the world, particularly with regard to their moral tendency,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1826. He died 11 May 1830.
Brown's works were written from the point of view of the time, and were marked Dy considerable ability; but the standpoint of discussion has altered so completely that now they have little more than an antiquarian interest.
[Catalogue of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; Hew Scott's Fasti, iii. 475; R. Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen.]
BROWNBILL, THOMAS ROBSON. [See Robson.]
BROWNE. [See also Broun and Brown.]
BROWNE, ALEXANDER (fl. 1660), miniature painter, engraver, and printseller, who lived in the reign of Charles II, painted the portrait of that monarch and that of the Prince of Orange. In 1675 he published 'Ars Pictoria, or an Academy treating of Drawing, Painting, Limning, and Etching,' fol., London. The designs are after foreign artists, and chiefly copied from Bloemart's drawing-book. Mr. J. Chaloner Smith, in his 'Catalogue of British Mezzotint Portraits,' enumerates forty-four plates after A. van Dyck and Sir Peter Lely, which were published by Browne 'at the blew balcony in Little Queen Street,' but do not bear any engraver's name. It has been conjectured, but on insufficient grounds, that these may be the work of Browne himself.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]
BROWNE, Sir ANTHONY (d. 1548), politician, only son of Sir Anthony Browne, standard-bearer of England and constable of Calais, and of his wife Lady Lucy Nevill, daughter and coheiress of John Nevill, marquis Montacute, and niece of Richard, earl of Warwick, was knighted in 1523 after the successful siege of Morlaix. In 1524 he was made esquire of the body to King Henry VIII, and from that time until the death of Henry he became more and more the friend of his sovereign. In 1526 he was created lieutenant of the Isle of Man during the minority of Edward, earl of Derby. In 1528, and again in 1533, Browne was sent into France; on the first occasion to invest Francis I with the order of the Garter, and on the second to attend that king to Nice for the conference with the pope respecting the divorce of Henry VIII and Catherine of Arragon. In 1539 Browne was made master of the horse, and in 1540 he was created a knight of the Garter.
Battle Abbey was granted to Browne in 1538; he occupied the abbot's lodging, and razed to the ground the church, the cloisters, and the chapter-house. At the same time he received the priory of St. Mary Overy in Southwark, and the house which he built there was for generations the London residence of his descendants the Viscounts Montague. The manors of Godstow, of Send in Sussex, and of Brede, which included a considerable part of the town of Hastings, were also granted to Browne; and in 1543, on the death of his half-brother, Sir William Fitzwilliam, K.G., earl of Southampton, he inherited the Cistercian abbey of Waverley, the monasteries of Bayham near Lamberhurst and of Calceto near Arundel, the priory of Easebourne, and the estate of Cowdray, both close to Midhurst. Part of the magnificent mansion of Cowdray had already been built by the Earl of Southampton, but much was added to it by Browne.
In 1540 Browne was sent to the court of John of Cleves to act as proxy at the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleves. In 1543 he accompanied the Duke of Norfolk in an expedition against the Scots, and in the following year, as master of the horse, he attended Henry VIII at the siege of Boulogne. In 1545 he was made justice in eyre of all the king's forests north of the Trent, and in the same year he was constituted standard-bearer to Henry VIII as his father had been to Henry VII. During the last illness of Henry VIII Browne, with 'good courage and conscience,' undertook to tell the king of his approaching end. Henry
