John Brown - Estimate Brown
Biography
Birth: Nov 05, 1715 at Rothbury, Northumberland
Death: Sep 23, 1766 by cutting his own throat (suicide)
Author, playwright and theologian. Son of John Brown, Vicar of Wigton, Cumberland. MA from St. John's College, Cambridge (1739). D.D. (1755). Sometime chaplain to the Bishop of Carlisle. Vicar of Morland, Westmoreland (1743-1756). Vicar of Lazonby, Cumberland (1752-1763). Vicar of St. Nicholas, Newcastle-on-Tyne (1760-1766).
John Brown wrote two plays in which David Garrick performed, as well as the book A Dissertation on the Rise, Union, and Power, the Progressions, Separations, and Corruptions of Poetry and Music, to which is prefixed the Cure of Saul, a Sacred Ode (1763), which was the first "complete" picture of music history printed in England, and which was even translated into both german and italian.1 His most popular work was An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757-8), which was "an attack on luxury and effeminacy",2 and which occasionned his subsequent nickname Estimate Brown. He accompanied Thomas and Algernon Percy on their tour of Scotland in 1765.3
He committed suicide by cutting his throat on September 23, 1766.4
Also known as
- Estimate Brown
Life with James Boswell
Boswell met him at David Garrick's house on January 21, 1763.
Notes
Note 1: Allen, Warren D. (1962). Philosophies of Music History: A Study of General Histories of Music, 1600-1960. Dover Publications. p. 82-83. (Read it now!)
Note 2: Donoghue, Frank. (1996). The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers. Stanford University. pp. 26, 41, 88 & 210. (Read it now!)
Note 3: Groom. Nick. (1999). The Making of Percy's Reliques. Oxford University. p. 93-94. (Read it now!)
Note 4: Donoghue, Frank. (1996). The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers. Stanford University. p. 26. (Read it now!)
Recommended literature
Various editions of Brown's works, notably his Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, are available from AbeBooks.
Related links
Mentioned in
John Brown is mentioned in:
- London Journal 1762-1763
