Emma Alice Browne.

Emma Alice Browne was born about forty-five years ago, in an unpretentious cottage, which is still standing near the northeast corner of the cross-roads, on the top of Mount Pleasant, or Vinegar Hill, as it was then called, about a mile west of Colora. She is the oldest child of William A. Browne and Hester A. Touchstone, sister of the late James Touchstone. Her father was the youngest son of William Brown, who married Ann Spear, of Chester county, and settled a few yards north of the State Line, in what is now Lewisville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where his son William was born, early in the present century. He was a stonemason by trade, and though comparatively uneducated, was possessed of a brilliant imagination, and so highly endowed by nature with poetic ability that he frequently amused and delighted his fellow-workmen by singing songs which he extemporized while at his work. There is no doubt that his granddaughter, the subject of this sketch, inherited much of her poetic talent from him; though her family is connected with that of Mrs. Felicia Hemans, the English poetess, whom though in some respects she resembles, we hesitate not to say she greatly surpasses in grandeur of conception and beauty of expression.

William Brown was a half-brother of the mother of the editor of this book; consequently Emma and he are cousins. If, therefore, this sketch should seem to exceed or fall short of the truth, the reader must attribute its imperfections to the inability of the writer to do justice to the subject, or to the great, but he hopes pardonable, admiration which he has long entertained for his relative’s literary productions.

The Brown family are of Scotch-Irish extraction, and trace their lineage away back through a long line of ancestors to the time when the name was spelled Brawn, because of the great muscular development of the rugged old Scotch Highlander who founded it.

William Brown’s early education was obtained at the common schools of the neighborhood where he was born. He was endowed by nature with a logical mind, a vivid imagination and great practical common sense; and a memory so tenacious as to enable him to repeat a sermon almost, if not quite, verbatim, a year after he had heard it delivered. Early in life he became an exemplary member of the Methodist Church, and was ordained as a Local Preacher in the Methodist Protestant persuasion, by the Rev. John G. Wilson, very early in the history of that denomination, in the old Harmony Church, not far south of Rowlandville. Subsequently he was admitted to the Conference as a traveling minister and sent to southeastern Pennsylvania, where he continued to preach the gospel with much success until his death, which occurred when his daughter Emma was a child about eight years of age.

Emma’s education began on her father’s knee, when she was little if any more than three years old. Before she was four years old she could repeat Anacreon’s Ode to a Grasshopper, which her father had learned from a quaint old volume of heathen mythology, and taught his little daughter to repeat, by reciting it aloud to her, as she sat upon his knee. Subsequently, and before she had learned to read, he taught her in the same manner “Byron’s Apostrophe to the Ocean,” Campbell’s “Battle of Hohenlinden,” and Byron’s “Destruction of Sennacherib,” all of which seem to have made a deep impression upon her infantile mind, particularly the latter, in speaking of which she characterizes it as “a poem whose barbaric glitter and splendor captivated my imagination even at that early period, and fired my fancy with wild visions of Oriental magnificence and sublimity, so that I believe all my after life caught color and warmth and form from those early impressions of the gorgeous word-painting of the East.” Emma’s subsequent education was limited to a few weeks’ attendance at a young ladies’ seminary at West Chester, Pennsylvania, and a like experience of a few weeks in Wilmington, Delaware, when she was about sixteen years old. But her mind was so full of poesy that there was no room in it for ordinary matters and things, and the duties of a student soon became so irksome that she left both the institutions in disgust. Of her it may be truly said, “she lisp’d in numbers, for the numbers came,” for she composed verses at four years of age, and published poems at ten. Her first effusions appeared in a local paper at Reading, Pa. Being a born poetess, her success as a writer was assured from the first, and her warmth of expression and richness of imagery, combined with a curious quaintness, the outgrowth of the deep vein of mysticism that pervades her nature, soon attracted the attention of the literati of this country, one of the most distinguished of whom, the late George D. Prentice, did not hesitate to pronounce her the most extraordinary woman of America; “for,” said he, “if she can’t find a word to suit her purpose, she makes one.” While some of her earlier poems may have lacked the artistic finish and depth of meaning of those of mature years, they had a beauty and freshness peculiar to themselves, which captivated the minds and rarely failed to make a deep impression upon the hearts of those who read them.

In 1855, the family came to Port Deposit, where they remained about two years, and then went West, Emma having secured a good paying position on the Missouri Republican, for which she wrote her only continued story, “Not Wanted.” For the last twenty years she has been a regular contributor to the New York Ledger.

In 1864, Emma came East and was married to Captain J. Lewis Beaver, of Carroll county, Maryland, whose acquaintance she made while he was a wounded invalid in the Naval School Hospital at Annapolis. After her marriage, she continued to write under her maiden name, and has always been known in the literary world as Emma Alice Browne, though all the rest of the family spell the name without the final vowel. Her marriage was not a fortunate one, and the writer in deference to the wishes of his relative, will only say she is now a widow, with three sons, the youngest of whom seems to have inherited much of his mother’s poetic talent, and who, though only about ten years of age, has written some very creditable verses, which have been published.

Within a year or two, Emma has developed a talent for painting, which seems to have been overshadowed and dwarfed by her poetic faculty, but which now bids fair to make her as famous as an artist as she has long been as a poetess. She resides in Danville, Illinois, and is about publishing a volume of poems, which will be the first book from her pen.

The following selections have been made with the view of showing the versatility, rather than the poetic beauty and power of their author. Most, if not all, of those designated as earlier poems were written more than thirty years ago.