Isaac Hawkins Browne (poet)
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Isaac Hawkins Browne FRS (21 January 1705 – 14 February 1760) was an English politician and poet. He is remembered as the author of some clever imitations of contemporary poets Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope on the theme of A Pipe of Tobacco (1736), somewhat analogous to the Rejected Addresses of a later day. He also wrote a Latin poem on the immortality of the soul, De Animi Immortalitate (1754).<ref name=Dickins>Template:Cite book</ref>
Life
He was born in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of William Browne, Vicar of the parish, and Ann (née Hawkins) Browne. He was educated in Lichfield and at Westminster School. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1721 and was said to have graduated as MA,Template:Sfn although no record of the award has been found.<ref name=Venn>Template:Acad</ref> A country gentleman and barrister, who had been called to the bar in 1728 from Lincoln's Inn,<ref name=Venn /> he had great conversational powers. He was a friend of Samuel Johnson.Template:Sfn
He was MP for Much Wenlock, Shropshire from 1744 to 1754, although he did not apparently contribute much in debates, Dr Johnson commenting that, ironically: Browne, one of the first great wits of this country, got into Parliament and never opened his mouth.<ref name=Dickins /> He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in February 1750.Template:Cn
Browne, recalled by Dr Johnson (in 1773) to have drunk hard for thirty years,<ref name=odnb2>Template:Cite book</ref> died at his London home in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury Square, on 14 February 1760.Template:Sfn
He was memorialised at Trinity College, Cambridge chapel<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in 1804 with a monument sculpted by John Flaxman.<ref>Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis p. 150</ref>
Family
He married Jane Trimnell, daughter of David Trimnell, in 1744. They had one child, Isaac Hawkins Browne.Template:Cn
Notes
References
- Attribution
Sources
External links
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- Isaac Hawkins Browne at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
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- 1705 births
- 1760 deaths
- 18th-century British poets
- Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- British MPs 1741–1747
- British MPs 1747–1754
- English male poets
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies
- Members of Lincoln's Inn
- People from Burton upon Trent
- People from Much Wenlock
- Politicians from Staffordshire
- Writers from Staffordshire