or Brounker, William, lord viscount of Castle-Lyons, in Ireland, and the first president of the Royal Society, was the son of Sir William Brounker, kn. and born about the year 1620. He was distinguished by his knowledge of the mathematics, and by the considerable posts of honour and profit he enjoyed after the restoration; for he had at the same time the office of chancellor to the queen, and the keeping of her great seal, that of one of the commissioners of the navy, and master of St Catharine's hospital near the Tower of London. He wrote, 1. Experiments of the recoiling of guns. 2. An algebraical paper upon the squaring of the hyperbola; and several letters to Dr Usher, archbishop of Armagh. He died in 1684.

BROWER, Adrian, a famous Dutch painter, born either at Oudenard or Haarlem, in 1608, of poor parentage. He became the disciple of Francis Hals, under whom he proved an inimitable artist. His subjects were taken from low life, always copied from nature; as drroll conversations, drunken brawls, boors at cards, or surgeons dressing the wounded. Brower was apprehended at Antwerp as a spy; where being discovered by Rubens, he procured his liberty, took him home, clothed him, and endeavoured to acquaint the public with his merit; but the levity of his temper made him quit his benefactor; and he died not long after, in 1640, destroyed by a dissolute course of life.