Isaac Hawkins Browne FRS (21 January 1705 – 14 February 1760) is remembered as the author of some clever imitations of contemporary poets Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope on the theme of A Pipe of Tobacco (1736), somewhat analogous to the Rejected Addresses of a later day. He also wrote a Latin poem on the immortality of the soul, De Animi Immortalitate (1754).
He was born in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of William Browne, Vicar of the parish, and Ann (née Hawkins) Browne. He was educated in Lichfield and at Westminster School. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1721 and was said to have graduated as MA although no record of the award has been found. A country gentleman and barrister, who had been called to the Bar in 1728 from Lincoln's Inn, he had great conversational powers. He was a friend of Dr. Johnson.
He was MP for Much Wenlock, Shropshire from 1744 to 1754, although he did not apparently contribute much in debates, Dr Johnson commenting that, ironically: Browne, one of the first great wits of this country, got into Parliament and never opened his mouth.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in February, 1750.
He had married Jane Trimnell, daughter of David Trimnell, in 1744. They had one child, Isaac Hawkins Browne
Browne, recalled by Dr Johnson (in 1773) to have drunk hard for thirty years, died at his London home in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury Square, aged fifty-five.
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