An English Moralist: “Tom Brown of Facetious Memory”

Tom Brown (1662–1704) is interesting for all sorts of reasons. “T*m Br*wn of facetious memory,” as Addison called him in The Spectator, 567 (14 July 1717), is almost exclusively remembered for his imitation of Martial, 1.13; but I like to remember him for his maxims (or “Laconics,” as he called them).

Is he the earliest conscious English imitator of La Rochefoucauld? He has certainly left us an extensive and interesting body of “short amusements” and “maxims of state and conversation,” which, though, of course, of a lower quality than La Rochefoucauld’s, are by no means of low quality. And yet they have hardly been noticed.

Here follows a list gathering what I have found of his maxims so far, and which I will augment if I find more.

Laconics: Or, New Maxims of State and Conversation (London, 1701). — A book’s-worth with an interesting preface, which includes a critical survey of the art of the maxim in England thitherto and an interesting, and, I think, surely ironical, indication of what he thinks is the moral purpose of his artform.

“Laconics: Or, New Maxims of State and Conversation,” Works, seventh ed., vol. 4 (London, 1730), pp. 100–19. — A smaller selection of the same.

“Table-talk, or, Short Amusements,” Works, eighth ed., vol. 1 (London, 1744), pp. 137–44. — Another smaller selection.

Let us also note his various characters, but warn that they have none of La Bruyère’s concision: “A Character of a Low-Church Magistrate,” Works, vol. 4, pp. 229–234; and “A Legacy for the Ladies: Or, Characters of the Women of the Age,” ibid., pp. 289–313 (or A Legacy for the Ladies: Or, Characters of the Women of the Age [London, 1705]).