Tom Brown (1662 – 18 June, 1704) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
translator and writer of
satireSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
, largely forgotten today save for a four-line gibe he wrote concerning Dr
John FellJohn Fell , served as Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and later concomitantly as Bishop of Oxford. He was the son of Samuel Fell, also Dean of Christ Church, and he was born at Longworth, Berkshire -Education:...
.
Brown was born at either
ShifnalShifnal is a small market town in Shropshire, England. It forms part of the The Wrekin constituency. It has a railway station on the Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton Line and is near to the M54 motorway.-Early medieval Time:...
or Newport in
ShropshireShropshire , alternatively known as Salop or abbreviated, in print only, Shrops, is a county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Wales to the west. Shropshire is one of England's most rural and sparsely populated counties with a population density of 91/km²...
; baptismal records indicate he was christened on 1 January 1663. He took advantage of the free schooling offered in the county during his day by attending
Adams' Grammar SchoolAdams' Grammar School is a state grammar school in Newport, Shropshire. Its name is sometimes abbreviated to AGS, although it is more commonly referred to as 'Adams' or alternatively, 'The Grammar'...
, afterward continuing his education at
Christ Church, OxfordThis article is about the Oxford college. For other uses, see Christ Church or Christchurch .Christ Church , is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
and there meeting the college's dean, Dr Fell.
Fell was well-known as a disciplinarian, and Brown throughout his life displayed a disdain for restrictions. The legend behind Brown's most recognised work is therefore plausible: it states that Brown got into trouble while at Oxford, and was threatened with expulsion, but that Dr Fell offered to spare Brown if he could translate an epigram from
MartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
(I, 33, 1):
- Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
- Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.
According to the story, Brown replied without missing a beat:
- I do not love thee, Dr Fell,
- The reason why I cannot tell;
- But this I know, and know full well,
- I do not love thee, Dr Fell.
Fell is said to have stayed Brown's dismissal from the college in admiration of this translation. However the story is of apocryphal provenance, and it is known that Brown left Christ Church without a degree, moving to
Kingston upon ThamesKingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in south-west London.It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a suburb situated south west of Charing Cross...
where he stayed three years as a schoolmaster, and later to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
where he took up residence on
Aldersgate StreetAldersgate was a gate in the London Wall in the City of London, which has given its name to a ward and Aldersgate Street, a road leading north from the site of the gate, towards Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington.-Points of interest:...
in the
Grub StreetUntil the early 19th century, Grub Street was a street close to London's impoverished Moorfields district that ran from Fore Street east of St Giles-without-Cripplegate north to Chiswell Street...
district.
Brown made a modest living from his writing in Latin, French and English, in addition to offering services of translation. He refrained however from ever attaching himself to a patron, and expressed contempt toward those who did so. He pursued a libertine lifestyle, and his satirical works gained him several enemies in their subjects.
His best-known works, apart from the quatrain, are probably
Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London (1700) and
Letters from the Dead to the Living (1702), although his writings were quite prolific. Several works of the period whose author is unknown are suspected to be his.
Toward the end of his life he began to regret the licentiousness with which he had lived it, and on his deathbed he secured from his publisher (one Sam Briscoe) a promise that any posthumously published works would be censored of "all prophane, undecent passages". The promise was promptly reneged upon.
Many of Brown's works went unpublished until his death, and the publication date of many is in question, as is his stature as a writer. Contemporary opinion was mixed;
Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
spoke quite highly of Brown's work, and indeed parts of
Gulliver's TravelsGulliver's Travels , officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, is a novel by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers'...
and other of Swift's works may have been significantly influenced by Brown's writings. On the other hand, those whom Brown mercilessly lampooned during his lifetime understandably did nothing to further his good reputation after his demise.
The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica gives this verdict: "He was the author of a great variety of poems, letters, dialogues and lampoons, full of humour and erudition, but coarse and scurrilous. His writings have a certain value for the knowledge they display of low life in London." Presently the best description of Brown's legacy may be that of
Joseph AddisonJoseph Addison was an English essayist, poet and politician. He was a man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison...
, who accorded him the appellation "T-m Br-wn of facetious Memory".
Brown was buried in the grounds of
Westminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster...
.
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