Early Stuart Pastoral: The Shepherd's Pipe and The Shepherd's Hunting (Tudor and Stuart Texts)
(The pastoral tradition between Edmund Spenser and John Mi...)
The pastoral tradition between Edmund Spenser and John Milton's "Lycidas" is often overlooked; this new volume in the Tudor and Stuart Texts series begins to fill that gap by providing fully annotated and modernised texts of two pastoral collections from the reign of James I. The Shepherd's Pipe, consisting of eclogues by William Browne, Christopher Brooke, John Davies of Hereford, and George Wither, has not been published in its entirety since 1614. Wither's Shepherd's Hunting, a companion to Shepherd's Pipe published the following year, was written while Wither was imprisoned for satiric attacks on significant courtiers. The eclogues in these volumes consider such matters as love, the poetic vocation, and political justice, and frequently adopt a satiric stance in relation to their subject. In Shepherd's Hunting the pastoral poet is banished from the traditional idyllic landscape and cast into the new role of hunter. The two collections are also noteworthy for their status as coterie poems; in pastoral guise the various authors appear in each other's poems, creating a dynamic dialogue in the process. This volume, designed to be accessible for students, also provides a solid text for the use of scholars in the field. It provides an opportunity for both to understand better the genre of pastoral poetry as it developed in the early modern period.
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William Browne was an American jurist, politician, and statesman. He is noted for his service as a judge of the superior court of Massachusetts and governor of Bermuda.
Background
William Browne was born on March 5, 1737 in Salem. His father, Samuel Browne, a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1727, was a member of a mercantile family, "the most respectable that has ever lived in the town of Salem, holding places of the highest trust in town, county, and State, and possessing great riches".
His mother, Catherine Winthrop, daughter of John and Ann (Dudley) Winthrop, was descended from four colonial governors.
William was brought up presumably by his mother and his step-father, for Samuel Browne died in 1742 and two years later his widow married Colonel Epes Sargent, himself the founder of a distinguished family.
Education
William studied law, but abandoned practise to attend to the increase of his already considerable estate. William graduated from Harvard in 1755, valedictorian of his class and third in order of social position.
Career
In 1762 William Browne was elected to the Assembly, and two years later was appointed collector of the port of Salem. At this time he was in sympathy with those who resented the imposition of taxes by Parliament, and his leniency in enforcing the odious Sugar Act caused his dismissal from the collectorship in the winter of 1766-67.
Later, however, his inherent love of order made him unwilling to offer resistance to established authority, and in 1768 when the Massachusetts legislature received instructions from England to rescind its resolutions expressing protest against the Townshend Acts, Browne voted with the minority of seventeen in favor of rescinding. This action lost him his seat at the succeeding general election.
In 1770 he became judge of the court of common pleas of Essex County, and in 1771 was commissioned by Governor Hutchinson colonel of the Essex militia.
In May 1774 Governor Gage nominated him as judge of the superior court; the nomination met with opposition and was not confirmed until June. In August he was one of those appointed to the Governor's Council by writ of mandamus, a proceeding bitterly resented by the more radical colonials. Of the thirty-six appointees only ten, Browne among them, took the required oath.
On October 4 the officers of his militia regiment resigned their commissions, refusing to serve under him, and within the month he left Salem. He went to Boston, where he remained until March 1776, when the British forces under Lord Howe evacuated the city, then went to England by way of Halifax, bearing Howe's dispatches to the home government and reaching London about the first of May.
Here he resided for the next five years, continuing to draw £200 per annum as judge of the superior court of Massachusetts Bay. His name was included in the Banishment Act passed by the Massachusetts legislature in 1778, and in 1779, by the Conspiracy Act, his property was declared forfeit.
Early in 1781, possibly through the influence of Benjamin Thompson (later Count Rumford), whom as a youth Browne had befriended, he was appointed governor of Bermuda, entering upon his new office in January 1782.
In 1788 he returned to England, his departure sincerely regretted. For the rest of his life he made his home in Percy St. , Westminster.
He retained the esteem of his Salem neighbors throughout his life, and was cordially welcomed when he paid them a visit in 1784 while governor of Bermuda.
Achievements
William Browne's chief achievement, that pertained to his political career, came in early in 1781 when he was appointed governor of Bermuda, entering upon his new office in January 1782. During his administration he made several changes that contributed greatly to the economic state of Bermuda. He opened the whale-fishery, which for years had been restricted by high gubernatorial license, encouraged cotton culture, and promoted ship building. At his coming the public finances had been in bad condition; he reorganized them and left them flourishing.
(Selections from the early Scottish poets, with introd., n...)
Views
Because of his own colonial birth and experience he understood the view-point of the island colonials as none of his home-born predecessors had been able to do, and won favor by his first speech to the legislature.
Quotations:
Browne was approached on September 9 by a committee of the patriot convention then meeting at Ipswich who asked him to resign both of the offices he held under the Crown. This he declined to do, stating that "neither persuasions can allure me, nor shall menaces compel me to do anything derogatory to the character of a councillor of his majesty's province of the Massachusetts Bay".
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Browne was characterized by his classmate, John Adams, as "a solid, judicious character. " Adams continued, "They made him a judge of the superior court and that society made of him a refugee. A Tory I verily believe he never was".
Connections
His wife, Ruth Wanton, daughter of Governor Joseph Wanton of Rhode Island, died on May 13, 1799, and Browne survived her less than three years.
Mother:
Catherine Winthrop
Wife:
Ruth Wanton
father:
Samuel Browne
Friend:
Benjamin Thompson
Count Rumford
Early in 1781, possibly through the influence of Benjamin Thompson (later Count Rumford), whom as a youth Browne had befriended.
