BROWN, THOMAS ED•ARD (1830-97 ) An English poet, born in the Isle of .1Iart• the son of a 'Manx clergyman. After attending King Wil liam's College (1845-49), he was admitted to a .ervitorship at Christ Church. Oxford (1849). Though he was much humbled by his quasi menial position, his university career was very brilliant. He obtained a double first class (1853) and a fellowship at Oriel (1854). After serving for a short time as vice-principal of King William's College, in his native 61and, and head master of the Crypt School. Gloucester, he became assistant master at Clifton College, Bristol, a post which he held for 30 years. In 1892 he resigned, and passed the rest of his life on the Isle of Man. He died October 29, 1897, at Clifton College, where he was on a visit. brown's published poems comprise: Betsy Lee (1873) ; Fo'c's'le Yarns. Including Betsy Lee (1881); The Doctor and Other Poems (1887): The Manx Witch and Other Poems (1889): and Old John and Other Poems (1893). Outside of Brown's friends, these poems attracted little at tention in England and none at all in the United States. But when they were collected in 1900
and published simultaneously with two volumes of letters, all the leading reviews took them up. Written mainly in the Anglo-Manx dialect, they possess great charm through odd and picturesque phrases. For example, a periphrasis for morn ing is "When the sun was jus' puttin' on his shoes." Though possessing marked lyrical quali ties. they are mainly narrative, and thus have high significance after the long reign of the lyric. Indeed, The Doctor is a psychological novel in verse. The most carefully drawn char acter in the poems is Tom Baynes, a Manx sailor, who appears as narrator or actor. A like in dividuality pervades the strong and manly let ters, descriptive of travels, scenery, and work, interspersed with fresh criticisms of many writ ers so opposite as Quarles and Flaubert. Con sult Collected Poems and Letters (London and New York, 1900).