t. His coarseness in writing--excessive even in that day--was
probably reflected in his manners and language, and he had so little
prudence that he ridiculed not only the clergy, but was always ready to
lose a friend rather than a joke. Mere literary talent will not procure
success in society.

Brown wrote a variety of essays, generally rather admonitory than
humorous. His "Pocket-book of Common Places" resembles a collection of
Proverbs or good sayings. It commences,

"To see the number of churches and conventicles open every Sunday, a
stranger would fancy London all religion. But to see the number of
taverns, ale-houses, &c., he would imagine Bacchus was the only God that
is worshipped there. If no _trades_ were permitted but those which were
useful and necessary, Lombard Street, Cheapside, and the Exchange might
go a-begging. For more are fed by our _vanities_ and _vices_ than by our
virtues, and the necessities of Nature."

But his favourite and characteristic mode of writing was under the form
of letters. We have "Letters Serious and Comical," "Diverting Letters to
Gentlemen." One letter is to four ladies with whom the author was in
love at the same time.

He probably took his idea of "Letters from the Dead to the Living," from
Lucian. He never spares Dissenters, and comically makes a Quaker relate
his warm reception in the lower world:--

"A parcel of black spiritual Janissaries saluted me as intimately as if
I had been resident in these parts during the term of an apprenticeship;
at last, up comes a swinging, lusty, overgrown, austere devil, armed
with an ugly weapon like a country dung-fork, looking as sharp about the
eyes as a Wood Street officer, and seemed to deport himself after such a
manner that discovered he had ascendancy over the rest of the immortal
negroes, and as I imagined, so 'twas quickly evident; for as soon as he
espied me leering between the diminutive slabbering-bib and the
extensive rims of my coney-wood umbrella, he chucks me under the chin
with his ugly toad-coloured paw, that stunk as bad of brimstone as a
card-match new-lighted, saying, 'How now, Honest Jones, I am glad to see
thee on this side the river Styx, prithee, hold up thy head, and don't
be ashamed, thou art not the first Quaker by many thousands that has
sworn allegiance to my government; besides, thou hast been one of my
best benefactors on earth, and now thou shalt see, like a grateful
devil, I'll reward thee accordingly.