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.
