BROWNE, Sir William, an eminent but very eccentric physician and multifarious writer, born in Norfolk in 1692. He settled originally at Lynn in Norfolk, where he published a translation of Dr Gregory's Catoptrice et Dioptrice Sphaericae Elementa; to which he added some papers on the Foci of Specula, &c. Having acquired a competence by his profession, he removed to Queen's Square, London, where he resided till his death. A great number of lively essays, both in prose and verse, the production of his pen, were printed and circulated among his friends. The active part taken by Sir William in the contest with the licentiates, 1768, occasioned his being introduced by Foote in his Deil upon Two Sticks. Upon Foote's exact representation of him, with his identical wig and coat, tall figure, and glass stiffly applied to his eye, Brown sent him a card complimenting him on having so happily represented him; but as he had forgotten his muf, he sent him his own. This good-natured man used to frequent the annual ball at the ladies' boarding-school, Queen Square, being fond of the company of sprightly young people. A dignitary of the church, finding, on one of these occasions, this upright figure stationed there, told him he believed he was Hermippus redivivus, who lived anhelitu puellarum. He survived his wife ten years, and died in 1774, at the age of eighty-two. By his will, which was written in Greek, Latin, and English, he made a provision for awarding three gold medals as yearly prizes to three undergraduates of Cambridge, for the best Greek and Latin poems, in imitation of Sappho, Horace, and Martial.