Browne, Isaac Hawkins

(1705-1760)

   Born at Burton upon Trent to a wealthy clergyman, he was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. A brilliant scholar, he became a mediocre lawyer and was twice a member of Parliament for Wenlock in Shropshire, but is reputed never to have opened his mouth in the House. Some time before 1744 he wrote "Design and Beauty," a poem of some length addressed to Highmore the painter. He published his Latin poem "De Animi Immortalitate" ("The Immortality of the Soul") in 1754. His son published an edition of his poems in 1768. His complete ode, "A Pipe of Tobacco," is available on the Granger website. Some of his lighter poems are witty and were well received at the time. Dr. Johnson found his poems pleasing. Some of his other poems: "A letter from a Captain in Country Quarters to his Corinna in Town," "An Epitaph: In Imitation of Dryden," "From Cælia to Cloe," "On a Fit of the Gout," "On Design and Beauty," "On the Author's Birth-Day," "The Fire Side, a Pastoral Soliloquy," "The Foundling Hospital for Wit."

   Sources: A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. With Notes. London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1782 (www.muohio.edu/anthologies/dodsley.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Stanford University libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-century Verse. Roger Lonsdale, ed. Oxford University Press, 1984.