BROWDIE 
 
 
Smike, and is much attached to Nicholas 
Nickleby. John Browdie marries Matilda 
Price, a miller's daughter.-C. Dickens, 
Nicholas Nickleby (1838). 
 
  Brown (Hablot) illustrated some of 
Dickens's novels and took the pseudonym 
of " Phiz" (1812-   ). 
 
  Brown (Jonathan), landlord of the Black 
Bear at Darlington. Here Frank Osbald- 
istone meets Rob Roy at dinner.-Sir W. 
Scott, Rob Roy (time, George I.). 
 
  Brown (Mrs.), the widow of the brother- 
in-law of the Hon. Mrs. Skewton. She 
had one daughter, Alice Marwood, who 
was first cousin to Edith (Mr. Dombey's 
second wife). Mrs. Brown lived in great 
poverty, her only known vocation being to 
"strip children of their clothes, which she 
sold or pawned.'-C. Dickens, Dombey and 
Son (1846). 
 
  Brown (Mrs.), a "Mrs. John Bull," with 
all the practical sense, kind-heartedness, 
absence of conventionality, and the preju- 
dices of a well-to-do but half-educated Eng- 
lishwoman of the middle shop class. She 
passes her opinions on all current events, 
and travels about, taking with her all her 
prejudices, and despising everything which 
is not English.-Arthur Sketchley [Rev. 
George Rose]. 
 
  Brown (Tom), hero of Tom Brown's 
School-Days and Tom Brown at Oxford, by 
Thomas Hughes. 
 
  Brown (Vanbeest), lieutenant of Dirk 
Hatteraick.-Sir W. Scott, Guy Mannering 
(time, George II.). 
  Brown, Jones, and Robinson, three 
Englishmen who travel together. Their 
adventures, by Richard Doyle, were pub- 
 
 
lished in Punch. In them is held up to 
ridicule the gaucherie, the contracted no- 
tions, the vulgarity, the conceit, and the 
general snobbism of the middle-class Eng- 
lish abroad. 
 
  Brown of Calaveras, a dissipated 
blackleg and ne'er-do-weel, whose hand- 
some wife, arriving unexpectedly from the 
East, retrieves his fortune and risks his 
honor by falling in love with another man, 
a brother-gambler.-Bret Harte, Brown of 
Calaveras (1871). 
 
  Brown the Younger (Thomas), the nom 
de plume of Thomas Moore in The Two- 
Penny Post-Bag, a series of witty and very 
popular satires on the prince regent (after- 
wards George IV.), his ministers, and his 
boon companions. Also in    The Fudge 
Family in Paris, and in The Fudges in 
England (1835). 
 
  Browne (General), pays a visit to lord 
Woodville. His bedroom for the night is 
the "tapestried chamber," where he sees 
the apparition of "the lady in the sacque," 
and next morning relates his adventure.- 
Sir W. Scott, The Tapestried Chamber 
(time, George III.). 
 
  Brownlow, a most benevolent old gen- 
tleman, who rescues Oliver Twist from his 
vile associates. He refuses to believe in 
Oliver's guilt of theft, although appear- 
ances were certainly against him, and he 
even takes the boy into his service.-C. 
Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837). 
 
  Browns. To astonish the Browns, to do 
or say something regardless of the annoy- 
ance it may cause, or the shock it may 
give to Mrs. Grundy. Anne Boleyn had a 
whole clan of Browns, or "country cous- 
ins," who were welcomed at court in the 
reign of Elizabeth. The queen, however, 
 
 
169 
 
 
BROWNS