BROWN, Ulysses Maximilian, a celebrated general in the imperial armies, son of Ulysses, Baron Brown and Camus, colonel of cuirassiers in the emperor's service, was descended of an ancient Irish family, and was born at Basle in 1705. After studying at Limerick in Ireland, he was sent for into Hungary by his uncle, Count George Brown, who was a
Brown. colonel of infantry. He was present at the battle of Belgrade in 1717; and he afterwards continued his studies in the Clementine College at Rome till 1721, when he went to Prague to study the civil law. At the end of 1723 he became captain in his uncle's regiment, and in 1725 lieutenant-colonel. In 1730 he served in Corsica, and contributed greatly to the taking of Callansara. In 1732 the emperor made him chamberlain. He was raised to the rank of colonel in 1734, and distinguished himself greatly in Italy, especially at the battles of Parma and Guastalla, and in burning in the presence of the French army the bridge which the Marshal de Noailles had thrown over the Adige. He was made general in 1736; and in the following year, by an excellent manoeuvre, he secured the retreat of the army, after the unhappy battle of Banjaluka, and saved the baggage.
In 1739 the emperor Charles VI. made him field-marshalleutenant, and counsellor in the aulic council of war. After the death of that prince, when the king of Prussia entered Silesia, Count Brown with a small body of troops disputed his progress inch by inch. He signalized himself on several occasions; and in 1743 the queen of Hungary made him a privy-counsellor at her coronation in Bohemia. Having passed into Bavaria, where he commanded the vanguard of the Austrian army, he seized Deckendorf, with a great quantity of baggage; and obliged the French to abandon the banks of the Danube, which the Austrians passed in security. In the same year, 1743, he was sent by the queen of Hungary to Worms, as plenipotentiary to the king of Britain, and did his utmost to bring about the treaty of alliance between the courts of Vienna, London, and Turin. In 1744 he followed Prince Lobkowitz into Italy; took Veletri on the 4th of August, in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy; entered their camp, overthrew several regiments, and took many prisoners. The following year he was recalled into Bavaria, where he took the town of Wilshosen by assault. The same year he was made general of artillery; and in January 1746 he marched for Italy at the head of 18,000 men, drove the Spaniards out of the Milanese; and having joined the forces under Prince de Lichtenstein, he commanded the left wing of the Austrian army at the battle of Placentia, June 15, 1746, and defeated the right wing of the enemy's forces commanded by Marshal de Maillebois. As commander-in-chief of the army against the Genoese, he seized the pass of Bocchetta, though defended by above four thousand men, and took Genoa. Count Brown at length joined the king of Sardinia's troops, and, in conjunction with them, took Mont-Alban and the county of Nice. On the 30th of November he passed the Var in spite of the French troops, entered Provence, and had taken the isles of St Margaret and St Honorat, when the revolution which happened in Genoa, and the advance of Marshal Belleisle obliged him to execute that masterly retreat which has elicited so much admiration. He employed the remainder of 1747 in defending the states of the house of Austria in Italy; and after the peace in 1748 he was sent to Nice, to regulate there, in conjunction with the Duke of Belleisle and the Marquis de la Minas, the differences that had arisen with respect to the execution of some of the articles of the definitive treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
The empress queen, to reward his services, made him governor of Transylvania, where he was generally esteemed for his probity and disinterestedness. In 1752 he obtained the government of Prague, with the chief command of the troops in that kingdom; in 1753 the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, honoured him with the collar of the order of the White Eagle; and the next year he was declared field-marshal.
When the king of Prussia, in 1756 entered Saxony, and attacked Bohemia, Count Brown encountered and repulsed him at the battle of Lowositz, October 1, with only 27,000 men, while the Prussians numbered at least 40,000. Seven
days after this battle he undertook the famous march into Saxony, to deliver the Saxon troops shut up between Pirna and Königstein. He at length obliged the Prussians to retire from Bohemia, for which service he was made a knight of the Golden Fleece. Soon afterwards Count Brown hastily assembled an army in Bohemia to oppose the king of Prussia; and on the 6th of May was fought the famous battle of Prague, in which, while employed in giving his orders for maintaining the advantages he had gained, he received a deadly wound. To be disabled at such a crisis was doubly unfortunate, as he had broken the Prussians, and the Count Schwerin, one of their greatest generals, was slain. Count Brown was carried to Prague, where he died of his wounds June 26, 1757, aged fifty-two.
Brown, William, an English poet, descended of a good family, and born at Tavistock in Devonshire, in 1590. Having passed through the grammar-school of his native place, he was sent to Exeter College, Oxford, and became tutor to Robert Dormer, afterwards Earl of Caernarvon. On leaving college, he was taken into the family of William Earl of Pembroke; and he improved his fortune so much that he purchased an estate. His poetical works which procured him a very great reputation, are entitled Britannia's Pastorals; The Shepherd's Pipe; An Elegy on the death of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. The date of his death is uncertain. (Wood's Athen. Oxon.)
Brown, William Laurence, born at Utrecht, January 7, 1755, was the son of the Rev. William Brown, minister of the English church in that city. The father, having been appointed professor of ecclesiastical history at St Andrews, returned to Scotland in 1757; and his son was in due time sent to the grammar-school of that city. At the early age of twelve he became a student in the university, and obtained a greater number of prizes than fell to the share of any other competitor. After completing the preliminary curriculum, he became a student of divinity; and in 1774 he removed to the university of Utrecht, where he combined with the study of theology that of the civil law; and from this study he frequently declared that he had derived essential benefit.
In 1777, on the death of his uncle, Dr Robert Brown, who had succeeded as minister of the English church at Utrecht, the magistrates of that city offered the vacant charge to his young relation, an invitation which he finally accepted. He was licensed and ordained by the presbytery of St Andrews, and admitted minister of the English church at Utrecht in March 1778. His congregation, though respectable, was far from being numerous, seldom exceeding forty persons; yet his preparation for the pulpit was not less assiduous than at Aberdeen, where he had to address a larger audience. He increased his income by receiving pupils into his house; and he gradually extended his acquaintance among individuals distinguished by their talents and learning, as well as by their station and influence; while he enlarged his sphere of observation by various excursions in France, Germany, and Switzerland.
The curators of the Stolpian Legacy at Leyden having in 1783 proposed "The Origin of Evil," as the subject of their annual prize, Mr Brown obtained the second honour, namely, that of publication at the expense of the trust. His dissertation was accordingly printed, under the title of Disputatio de Fabrica Mundi, in quo Mala insunt, Naturæ Dei perfectissima haud repugnante. In 1784 the university of St Andrews created him D.D. On three different occasions he obtained the medals awarded by the Teylerian Society at Haarlem for the best compositions on certain prescribed subjects. These were, a dissertation On the Immortality of the Soul, which was never printed; An Essay on the Folly of Scepticism, &c., Lond. 1788, 8vo; An Essay on the natural Equality of Men, Edinb. 1793, 8vo. The latter work was the most successful of all his publications.
Before this period he had been appointed to a professor-