BROWNE. ship in the university of Utrecht. He had for some time been placed in a position of some difficulty, in consequence of the civil commotions, and his attachment to the Orange party. But when the armed interposition of the Prussians occasioned a sudden change in the government of Holland, and the friends of Dr Brown had regained their ascendancy, the states and the magistrates of Utrecht jointly instituted a professorship of moral philosophy and ecclesiastical history, and appointed him to this new office.
On entering upon his duties, he pronounced an inaugural oration, which was published under the title of Oratio de Religionis et Philosophiae Societate et Concordia maxime salutari. Traj. ad Rhen. 1788, 4to. Two years afterwards he was nominated rector of the university; and on resigning his temporary dignity, he pronounced an Oratio de Imaginatione, in Vita Institutione, regunda. Traj. ad Rhen. 1790, 4to. During this interval he had been offered the Greek professorship at St Andrews; but this honour he was induced to decline. To his other offices was now added the professorship of the law of nature; a branch of study intimately connected with ethics, and which, indeed, was at one period regularly discussed by the professors of moral philosophy in the Scottish universities, particularly by Dr Hutcheson, and his predecessor Mr Carmichael, as an essential part of their course.
The war which followed the French revolution finally drove Dr Brown from the place of his nativity. In the course of a very severe winter, he embarked in January 1795, with his wife, five children, and some other relations, in an open boat, and landed in England after a stormy passage. In London he experienced such a reception as was due to his literary talents and moral worth; and in 1795 the magistrates of Aberdeen appointed him to the chair of divinity on the retirement of Dr Campbell, and soon afterwards he was made principal of Marischal College.
Dr Brown soon became a very conspicuous member of the church, and some of his appearances in the General Assembly produced a powerful effect. His speech on the case of Dr Arnot was printed under the title of "Substance of a Speech delivered in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, on Wednesday the 28th of May 1800, on the Question respecting the Settlement, at Kingsbarns, of the Rev. Dr Robert Arnot, Professor of Divinity in St Mary's College, St Andrews." Edinb. 1800, 8vo.
His essay "On the Existence of a Supreme Creator" obtained Burnet's first prize, amounting to £1250. The second prize, amounting to £400, was awarded to Dr Sumner, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. Dr Brown's work was published at Aberdeen, 1816, 2 vols. 8vo. His last considerable work was "A comparative View of Christianity, and of the other Forms of Religion which have existed, and still exist, in the World, particularly with regard to their Moral Tendency." Edinb. 1826, 2 vols. 8vo.
In the year 1800 Dr Brown had been appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king, and in 1804 dean of the chapel royal, and of the most ancient and most noble order of the Thistle. He was last of all appointed to read the Gordon lecture in Marischal College, and he delivered his inaugural discourse in November 1825. This was published in 1826, 8vo. His other publications were, a poem entitled "An Essay on Sensibility;" Sermons, Edinb. 1803, 8vo; "Philemon, a Poem," Edinb. 1809, 2 vols. 8vo; several detached sermons, and various tracts. He died on the 11th of May 1830, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.