leading part, in 1853, at the Haymarket.

Sept. 12, 1846, Mr. Browning, after a romantic courtship, married Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, against the wishes of her father. The two poets went immediately to I'aly, and, with occasional visits for health to Pisa, made their home at Florence in the Casa Guidi palace, that Mrs. Browning's poem has made a household word. In 1849 the first collected edition of Mr. Browning's poems was published in London and in Boston, and in the next year, in London, Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day. In 1852 he wrote for Mr. Moxon the publisher an enthusiastic introductory essay to a collection of Shelley's letters, but suppressed it on the discovery by Mr. F. T. Palgrave that the letters were spurious. Men and Women, in 1855, was the only other production of Mr. Browning during his stay of fifteen years in Italy, but the poet's brain was not idle, and many of the Italian scenes of The Ring and the Book must have been already taking definite form. In 1859 and 1860, Mr. Browning took friendly charge of Walter Savage Landor, then in the decline of his splendid powers. In 1861, Mrs. Browning died, and her husband returned to England.

was suggested that his hero was only a colossal shadow of himself. These poets, like Carlyle, who was inspired by the same influences, were rather inclined to adopt the attitude of seers and a symbolical and elliptical style, with some contempt of the critics, who found it hard to comprehend. Mr. Browning's attitude towards his critics is shown with great definiteness in Pacchiarotto. At this time Mr. Browning was far from being realistic: in Paracelsus the historical facts are confessedly distorted, and in Sordello his Italian travels and studies produced nothing but a background of confused history and a few lines of splendid description of Verona and the Mincio; as in Festus or A Life-Drama, there is no plot, no variety of characters, but everything is subordinated to the development of the typical soul. In Paracelsus the hero's endeavor to attain infinite wisdom is supplemented by the longing for love of the Shelleylike poet Aprile, and in Sordello a perfected Paracelsus, with conscious power and not mere aspiration," is placed before the practical duties of a reformer of society. These heroes both die with their hopes unfulfilled, but each is called by Mr. Browning successful-Paracelsus, because he came to see that knowledge withDramatis Personce was published in 1864. In 1867, out love is vain; and Sordello, because he died at the Mr. Browning was created an honorary M. A. of Oxford, moment of conquering the temptation to combine his and elected to an honorary fellowship at Balliol College. vast designs for human happiness with the selfish pur In 1868-69, The Ring and the Book came out in two poses of a faction. The keynote to these poems is successive volumes, and was by many critics accepted struck by a line in Red Cotton Night-Cap Country: as a masterpiece. Mr. Browning's later publications "Success is naught, endeavor's all." Though its vaguewere Balaustion's Adventure: including a Transcript ness and lack of proportion were criticised as immature, from Euripides, and Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Paracelsus had, by its many beautiful similes and one Saviour of Society (1871); Fifine at the Fair (1872); fine lyric, excited great hopes of Mr. Browning's future Red Cotton Night-Cap Country (1873); Aristophanes' performances, but these hopes were disappointed by Apology (1875); The Inn-Album; Pacchiarotto, or How Sordello, which was a hieroglyphic to the world of let he Worked in Distemper (1876); The Agamemnon of ters, and remains unintelligible to the many, though Eschylus (1877); La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Croi- studied by a few with untiring and reverent curiosity. sic (1878); Dramatic Idyls (1879); Dramatic Idyls, It may be said, perhaps, to be in poetry very much what Second Series (1880); Jocoseria (1883); Ferishtah's Sartor Resartus is in prose. Fancies (1885); Parleyings with Certain People of Importance (1887); Asolando: Facts and Fancies (1889). He died at Venice, Dec. 12, 1889, and was buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Robert Browning was the successor of Shelley and Byron in continuing "the battle of will against the social forces of a dozen centuries.' The aim of generations had been to make human nature orderly and conventional; now, natural impulses and force of character were regarded as something divine. The poets of the so-called "Spasmodic School," with whom Mr. Browning must be classed, carried on the work of the Revolutionary poets by elevating the eccentricity of genius above literary canons, and by substituting the independent authority of the individual will for the conception of social obligation. The egotism of the speaker in Pauline, of Paracelsus, of Festus in Mr. Bailey's poem, of Walter in Alexander Smith's Life-Drama, and of Sydney Dobell's Balder, is only another form of the egotism of the Byronic Corsair, with his longing for "life unconditioned" transferred from the world of action to that of thought, and their aspiration for infinite love or superhuman knowledge is only a more dramatic presentment of Shelley's visionary ideals. Mr. Browning's juvenile design of representing in a series of monodramatic epics "the life of typical souls" describes with precision the aim of all the writers of this school. Their heroes are all philosophers or poets en dowed by hypothesis with transcendent genius, and manifesting a self-confidence and self-consciousness scarcely less extraordinary; indeed, of each author it

Some trace of romanticism reappears in all Mr. Browning work, leading to a choice of improbable situations, as in a Blot on the 'Scutcheon, and to improbable explanations of conduct, as in The Ring and the Book. It distinguishes his ethical position from that of George Eliot, with which it has many points of contact. Both authors are impressed by the purifying power and spiritual necessity of emotion and high intellectual ideals. Mr. Browning reminds us of George Eliot when he shows how the poor gypsy hag in the "Flight of the Duchess" is herself made great by the greatness of her human sympathy, or how the unsuspected sweetness of Caponsacchi's character in The Ring and the Book is drawn out by his mighty though unpriestlike passion. But George Eliot insists on the importance of ethical duties imposed by natural laws, by the necessities of race, or created by contact with other people, while Mr. Browning, like Shelley, makes human progress depend chiefly on man's endeavors towards unattainable ideals and on his moments of intense feeling.

What distinguishes Mr. Browning's work from that of other poets is its intellectual quality. His emotions and imagination are dominated by a subtle, nimble, analyzing intelligence. No poet since Dryden has reasoned so well in verse. In Christmas-Eve and EasterDay a long metaphysical argument is perfectly presented; in The Ring and the Book Pompilia's innocence is defended with the power of an Erskine or a Choate. He delights in making a keen, clever man support a paradoxical or untenable position with plausible casuistry, as in Djubal in The Return of the Druses, in "Bishop

sionate love than "In a Gondola.". The love-songs of few other poets pierce the heart with more unerring certainty; they have an unrelenting sweetness that the world has not heard since Shelley and Landor died; but it is only at times, in "The Lost Mistress," "A Woman's Last Word," and in the poems written to his wife, "By the Fireside" and "One Word More," that this harsh voice becomes tender.

Bloughram's Apology," "Mr. Sludge the Medium," and Prince Hohenstiel- Schwangau, where a singular argument is made for the Italian policy of Napoleon III. These various apologetic poems are illustrations of Mr. Browning's theory that a man's character is determined as much by what he thinks he is or pretends to be as by what he actually does-a corollary of the moral of the early poems: "Success is naught, endeavor's all.' Mr. Browning has a wonderful faculty of perceiving at It may have been the romantic taste of the time that once, and usually without emotion, all the possible mo- first induced Mr. Browning to select his subjects from tives that lead to action; he is impressed by the com- the history of the Middle Ages. But a breadth of plexity of modern character, and is contented to de- vision distinguishes his medieval studies from those of scribe it without deciding on questions of morality: the so-called pre-Raphaelite poets: it is character rather when he does give judgment, as in Ivan Ivanovitch or than its environment that he describes, and in characin The Ring and the Book, there are always sufficient ter what is not merely accidental or temporary. The reasons given for a dissenting opinion. This extraor- mediævalism of the early poems served simply as a dinary intellectual activity and suggestiveness often leads background for a Paracelsus or a Sordello, and in The Mr. Browning to impute the motives of a clever man Ring and the Book, though the Italy of the time is of the present day to the simpler characters of antiquity painted with minute accuracy, there is the element of or of the Middle Ages. In translating the "Alcestis," universality that appears in Romola. In many of his in Balaustion's Adventure, he inserts a most unhellenic recent works not even the setting of the poems is taken defence of Admetus. Even little Pippa becomes at from the past. Of the translations from the Greek it times somewhat metaphysical. Luria speaks in Mr. is enough to say that the "Transcript from Euripides Browning's phrases, not in his own: Othello observed in Balaustion's Adventure is, with the exception of better the possible limits of the Moorish intellect. some attempts at modernization, a most poetical and Mr. Browning's dramatic power is, consequently, accurate reproduction of the Alcestis; that the transla most frequently shown in a vivid perception of a tragi- tion of the Hercules Furens in Aristophanes' Apology cal situation that is described in a semi-dramatic mono- has less merit, though it is less of a paraphrase; while logue, as in many of the Dramatic Idyls and in the in The Agamemnon the most notable thing is the exshort expressions of individual character that form the treme skill with which every obscurity in the original greater number of the Lyrics. But in the great trage has been retained.

dies, The Return of the Druses and King Victor and King Mr. Browning's style is usually defined as "difficult" Charles; in that brilliant comedy, Colombe's Birthday; and "obscure. A comparison of Pippa Passes with in the wonderful lyrical drama, Pippa Passes; and in the Two Poets of Croisic, or of Balaustion's Adventure the three scenes of In a Balcony,-dramatic art almost with Aristophanes' Apology, show that it is when Mr. reaches perfection. In these plays there is an harmo- Browning's intellect, instead of his emotion or imaginanious development of the plot that is rare in modern tion, is directing his pen that his style becomes difficult work. The impressiveness of the tragic catastrophe in The Return of the Druses and in Luria recalls the stern intensity of the Elizabethan dramatists. Mr. Browning is naturally a great dramatic poet who has fallen upon an undramatic age, and the modern spirit has reacted upon him by stimulating the intellectual and humorous sides of his nature and repressing his imagination. The change that has taken place in prose literature during the last fifty years is reflected in Mr. Browning's poems. Romantic interest in the individual has been succeeded by a scientific observation of the complex relations of different characters. Such a poem as A Soul's Tragedy or The Ring and the Book is the counterpart of the psychological novel, and for this method of representing life a purely lyrical or dramatic form is inadequate. When Mr. Browning began to write, the novel had not yet been fashioned into the flexible instrument of expression it has become in the hands of George Eliot, and his later works, Fifine, The Inn Album, The Ring and the Book, Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, show by their uncouthness the attempt of a powerful mind, overburdened with thought, to say in verse what a later writer of similar genius must say in prose.

Though most of Mr. Browning's lyrics are semidramatic, and primarily intellectual conceptions of character cast into a lyrical form, there are few songs more stirring than his "Cavalier Tunes," or more full of clear and rippling music than the songs of Pippa, or than "Home Thoughts from Abroad or "Misconceptions." One must turn to Romeo and Juliet tc find a more melodious expression of pure and pas

and the rhymes harsh: then all the possible arguments
and illustrations seem to occur to him at once, and he
transfers them to his paper with lightning rapidity, ap-
parently with all the associations, half-guesses, and
mental processes that accompanied their first concep
tion. Mr. Browning is said to have confessed that he
was weary of the conventional set of symbols and tried
to use new ones. It is certain that his style indicates
a reaction against the school of Keats, and that the
existence of a modern school of poets who too often
sacrifice sense to sound is partly accountable for the gro-
tesque extravagances of Pietro of Abano" and Pac-
chiarotto. Mr. Browning has always taught that poetry
depends on the thought and not on the expression.
and he has chosen his words accordingly, without re-
gard to their beauty or vulgarity. In "The Englishman
in Italy" the effect of this tendency is seen in the ex-
treme freshness and accuracy of his descriptions. No
writer has ever used single words with greater effect or
condensed as comprehensive meaning in so few. To a
student Mr. Browning is perhaps never unintelligible;
when read aloud even "Halbert and Hob" becomes
clear; and that he can speak, when he chooses, to the
people in their own language is proved by the popu-
larity of his ballads, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"
and "Hervé Riel."
(G. P.)

BROWNLOW, WILLIAM GANNAWAY (1805-1877), a Methodist preacher, journalist, and politician, was born in Wythe co., Va., Aug. 29, 1805. He was left an orphan at an early age, and learnt the carpenter's trade. In 1826 he entered the Methodist ministry, and was an itinerant preacher for ten years. He also took

part in politics, advocating the re-election of John became a Roman Catholic, and thereafter remained a
Quincy Adams to the Presidency in 1828. At a later layman in that faith. He now commenced the publi
period, in South Carolina, he openly opposed the nulli- cation of Brownson's Quarterly Review, in which he
fication scheme, and when denounced by his opponents especially defended the doctrines and practices of the
published a pamphlet in defence of his course. In 1837 Roman Catholic Church, but also discussed literary,
he began to edit the Knoxville Whig, in connection with social, and political questions. In 1855 he removed to
which he became noted for his violent and unscrupulous New York City. During the war the publication of
denunciation of his political opponents, and acquired his Review was suspended, but it was resumed in
the sobriquet of "the fighting parson. Rev. J. R. 1873 and continued till his death. He was invited by
Graves, editor of the Tennessee Baptist, published in Dr. Newman and others to a professorship in the
1856 a severe attack on the Methodist Episcopal Church Catholic University in Dublin, but he declined the
under the title The Great Iron Wheel; or, Republican- offer. He died at Detroit, Mich., April 17, 1876. Be
ism Backwards and Christianity Reversed. Mr. Brown- sides the Review, which was written almost exclusive-
low published a reply called The Iron Wheel Examined, ly by himself, he published The Spirit-Rapper, 1854;
and its False Spokes Extracted. In 1858 he visited the The Convert; or, Leaves from my Experience, 1857;
North, and held a public discussion in Philadelphia The American Republic, an Examination of its Con
with Rev. A. Pryne of New York, maintaining the stitution, Tendencies, and Destiny, 1865; etc. His
expediency and divine right of slavery. When the complete works are now being published in Detroit
secession of the Southern States was agitated, he op- BROWN-SEQUARD, EDOUARD, an eminent French
posed it with characteristic vehemence, on the ground physiologist, was born in the island of Mauritius in 1818.
that slavery would be thus overthrown. When the He was a son of Edward Brown (a native of Philadelphia,
ordinance of secession was passed in Tennessee, he was U. S.) and a French lady named Séquard. He studied
obliged to suspend the publication of his paper, Oct. medicine in Paris, where he graduated as M. D. in 1840.
24, 1861, and take refuge in the mountains. After He gained distinction by his experiments and researches
remaining some time in concealment, having received in physiology, especially on the composition of the blood,
word that a passport would be given him to leave for animal heat, the spinal cord, the muscular system, and
the North, he returned to Knoxville, where he was the sympathetic nerves, and made important discoveries
arrested, Dec. 6, 1861, on a charge of treason to the in pathological anatomy. He received several prizes of
Confederacy, and imprisoned until the following March. the French Institute for his contributions to science.
He was then sent within the Union lines at Nashville, He was a professor in the medical department of
and his family were afterwards driven from their home. Harvard University 1864-68. In Jan., 1869, he was
He made a tour through the North, delivering addresses appointed professor in the School of Medicine in Paris.
in the principal cities, and also published Sketches of the He delivered several courses of lectures in England and
Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, with a Narra- the United States. In 1873 he established a medical
tive of Personal Adventures among the Rebels, which journal in New York. In August, 1878, he succeeded
had an immense circulation. This volume was gen- Claude Bernard as professor of medicine in the Col-
erally called "Parson Brownlow's Book," and its lege of France. He was for many years prominent as
thrilling narratives of the sufferings of the Union men
a conductor of medical journals, and in these most of
of East Tennessee, as well as his fierce denunciations of his scientific papers appeared. In 1889 he excited
Southern leaders, did much to excite popular indigna- sensation by his experiments in inoculation with what
tion in the North. In 1864 he returned to Tennessee, he called the elixir of life." He published Lectures
re-established his paper, and was elected governor of
on Functional Nervous Affections and on Paralysis.
the State. In 1869 he was elected United States Sen-
ator. He died at Knoxville, Tenn., April 29, 1877.

BROWNSON, ORESTES AUGUSTUS, LL.D. (18031876), an American philosopher and theologian, was born at Stockbridge, Vt., Sept. 16, 1803. While a scholar at an academy at Ballston, N. Y., he joined the Presbyterian Church, but afterwards changed his views, and in 1825 became an advocate of Universalism. Having formed the acquaintance of Robert Owen and adopted his ideas of socialism, Brownson tried to form in New York a workingmen's party. Then falling under the influence of Rev. Dr. Channing, he became a Unitarian, and was for a time pastor of a congregation. In 1836 he formed in Boston a "Society for Christian Union and Progress," and published his New Views of Christianity, Society, and Church. In 1838 he established the Boston Quarterly Review, in which he was almost the sole writer. He did not profess to support any particular system or creed, but to prepare the way for great and radical changes in existing systems. In 1840 he published Charles Elwood; or, The Infidel Converted, which was a philosophical essay in the form of a novel. In 1843 he abandoned preaching and merged his Review in the Democratic Review of New York, to which he engaged to contribute, but his articles were too philosophical for his new readers, and the engagement terminated in a year. In 1844 he

เ

BROWNSVILLE, a port of entry and the countyseat of Cameron co., Texas, is on the E. bank of the Rio Grande, 28 miles from its mouth, and nearly opposite Matamoros in Mexico. It is connected with Point Isabel, 22 miles distant, by the Rio Grande Railroad. There is also a line of steamboats plying to Roma, the head of navigation on the Rio Grande. It is supported chiefly by trade with Mexico, via Brazos Santiago; the traffic of Matamoros (amounting in 1881 to $3,937,917) passes through it. It has a college, an efficient system of public schools, a U. S. custom-house, three churches, a convent, a daily and a weekly paper, a theatre, and an ice-factory. Directly south of it is the military post of Fort Brown, with fine barracks. Near the site of the present city during the Mexican War in 1846 the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma were fought. At the time Gen. Taylor's army marched to the Rio Grande this place was occupied with corn-fields, but the town sprung up rapidly during the military occupation of the frontier, and was incorporated as a city in 1848. During the Civil War, Brownsville did a large business in cotton and merchandise, and near the town was fought the ast battle by the Southern Confederacy; Three-fourths of the inhabitants are Mexicans, and most of the rest are of various European nationalities. In 1880 the population numbered 4938, but it has since increased to over 6000.

BROWN UNIVERSITY, in the city of Providence, in the State of Rhode Island, the oldest and most amply endowed institution of learning connected with the Baptist denomination in the United States, was founded in 1764. It owes its origin to the efforts of leading members of the Philadelphia Association, under whose &uspices "Hopewell Academy" in New Jersey was at first established, in order to secure for their rapidly multiplying churches an educated ministry. The college was commenced in Warren, a coast town ten miles from Providence, but after six years it was removed to its present location. The story of its early struggles, and difficulties is told at length in the Life, Times, and Correspondence of James Manning, its first president. During the war of the Revolution college studies were suspended, and the building now called University Hall was used for barracks, and afterwards for a hospital, by the American and French troops. For more than forty years it was called Rhode Island College, but in 1804 it received the name of Brown University, in honor of Nicholas Brown, a leading merchant of Providence, who was its chief benefactor.

competent judges to be one of the finest of its kind ir the country, was erected in 1878, at a cost, exclusive of the lot on which it stands, of $96,000. Both building and grounds were a bequest of the late John Carter Brown, a son of the benefactor from whom the institution derives its name. The new dormitory, named Slater Hall, was erected in 1879 by Hon. Horatio N. Slater, a member of the board of fellows and a liberal benefactor of the college. Sayles Memorial Hall, which was dedicated in June, 1881, is a beautiful structure of granite and freestone.

The library contains at present 65,000 bound volumes and upwards of 15,000 unbound pamphlets, being the third college library in size and value in the country. The funds of the university, according to the latest report of the treasurer, amount to $890,860. Of this sum, $175,628 are unproductive, having been given for the erection of new buildings, etc., leaving a working capital of $715,232. There are sixty-six scholarships, of $1000 each, for the aid of indigent students, and also premium, prize, and aid funds amounting in addition to $38,762.

The charter, which was granted by the General As- The first president, James Manning, died in 1791. sembly of Rhode Island in February, 1764, has long His successors were Jonathan Maxcy, Asa Messer, been regarded as (ne of the best college charters in New Francis Wayland, Barnas Sears, and Alexis Caswell, England, securing ample privileges by its several clear all of whom have died. Rev. E. G. Robinson became and explicit provisions, and recognizing throughout the president in 1872, and after an honorable career retired principles of civil and religious freedom. By it the cor- in 1889 on account of his advanced age. Rev. E. B. poration is made to consist of two branches-namely, Andrews was called to succeed him. The faculty conthat of the trustees and that of the fellows, "with dis- sists of the president, thirteen professors, two astinct, separate, and respective powers. The trustees sistant professors, one instructor, and one assistant are thirty-six in number, of whom twenty-two must be instructor. There are also a librarian, an assistant Baptists or anti-Pedobaptists, five Quakers or Friends, librarian, and a registrar. The present number of five Episcopalians, and four Congregationalists. Since students is 325. The number of graduates, according 1874 vacancies in this board have been filled from nom- to the latest triennial catalogue, is 3500. About oneinations made by the ballots of the alumni. The num-fourth of these have become Christian ministers. ber of the fellows, including the president-who, in the BRUCE, ALEXANDER BALMAIN, D.D., a Scotch language of the charter, "must always be a fellow" is twelve, of whom eight " are for ever to be elected of the denomination called Baptists or anti-Pedobaptists, and the rest indifferently of any or all denominations. The president must "for ever be of the denomination called Baptists.

The buildings are ten in number. Of these, the oldest, University Hall, has an historic interest, having been modelled after Nassau Hall in Princeton, where President Manning and Tutor Howell, the first instruc tors, were graduated. The corner-stone of the foundation-walls was laid in May, 1770, by John Brown, the famous leader in the destruction of the Gaspee two years later. This venerable structure has lately been thoroughly renovated at an expense of thirty thousand dollars.

66

The Grammar School," now rented to private parties and occupied, as at first, for a preparatory school, was erected in 1810, the cost having been defrayed by subscription. Hope College was erected in 1822 at the expense of Hon. Nicholas Brown, who named it after his only surviving sister, Hope Ives, wife of the late Thomas P. Ives. Manning Hall was erected in 1834, also at the expense of Mr. Brown, who named it after his revered instructor, the first president. Rhode Island Hall and the president's mansion were erected in 1840 at the expense mostly of citizens of Providence, Mr. Brown contributing $10,000. The chemical laboratory was erected in 1862 through the exertions of Hon. Nathaniel P. Hill, United States Senator from Colorado, who was then a professor in the institution. The aew library building, which has been pronounced by

professor and minister of the Free Church, was born in Aberdalgie, Perthshire, in 1831. He was educated in the University of Edinburgh, and received his theological training in the Free Church College, Edinburgh, under Dr. William Cunningham. In 1859 he took his first pastoral charge in Cardross, on the north bank of the Clyde, where he remained nine years. In 1868 he was transferred to a charge in Broughty Ferry, near Dundee, and in 1875 he was appointed professor of apologetics and New-Testament exegesis in the Free Church College, Glasgow, which position he still occupies. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow in 1876. He is the author of several well-known works, the first being The Training of the Twelve (1871; 3d ed. 1882). The next was The Humiliation of Christ (1876; 2d ed. 1881). His work on The Chief End of Revelation (London, 1876) was the substance of a series of lectures delivered in the Presbyterian College, London, and on its appearance provoked some hostile criticism. His latest work is on The Parabolic Teaching of Christ (London, 1882).

BRUCH, MAX, the celebrated musical composer, who was born at Cologne, Jan. 6, 1838, probably re ceived his earliest musical promptings from his mother, who was considered a fine singer. Having studied with Breidenstein at Bonn, he gained the scholarship of the Mozart foundation at Frankfort-on-Main, which lasted from 1852 to 1856, during which period he studied with Hiller, Reinecke, and Breuning at Cologne. After visiting Leipsic, Bruch proceeded to Munich, where he was introduced to the poet Geibel, who wrote the libretto of Loreley for Mendelssohn. Bruch had already com