The Major Works (English Library)

by Sir Thomas Browne

  This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely, some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed without the author’s knowledge; because it may be learned when it is repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble. But a long treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book, by a distant hand, to the prefs, and plead the circulation of a false copy as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is found faulty or offensive, and charge the errors on the transcriber’s depravations.

  This is a stratagem, by which an author panting for fame, and yet afraid of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a retreat: and this, candour might suffer to pass undetected as an innocent fraud, but that indeed no fraud is innocent; for the confidence which makes the happiness of society, is in some degree diminished by every man, whose practice is at variance with his words.

  The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and the strength of language.

  What is much read, will be much criticised. The Earl of Dorset recommended this book to the perusal of Sir Kenelm Digby, who returned his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book;7 in which, though mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute remarks, just censures, and profound speculations, yet its principal claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours, of which part was spent in procuring Browne’s book, and part in reading it.

  Of these animadversions, when they were yet not all printed, either officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to Sir Kenelm with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his work to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition, and the corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally gentle and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece, pompous professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability, and anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.

  The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the obscuration of each other: yet the animadversions thus weak, thus precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published, with an admonition prefixed ‘to those who have or shall peruse the observations upon a former corrupt copy;’ in which there is a severe censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon the Observator who had usurped his name: nor was this invective written by Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his opponent’s apology; but by some officious friend zealous for his honour, without his consent.8

  Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself from rigorous examination, by alleging, that ‘many things are delivered rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and therefore many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be called unto the rigid test of reason.’ The first glance upon his book will indeed discover examples of this liberty of thought and expression: ‘I could be content (says he) to be nothing almost to eternity, if I might enjoy my Saviour at the last.’ He has little acquaintance with the acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a serious opinion, that any thing can be ‘almost eternal,’ or that any time beginning and ending is not infinitely less than infinite duration.

  In this book, he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of himself; but with such generality and conciseness as affords very little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the dialects of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he was no stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries: but what most awakens curiosity, is his solemn assertion, that ‘His life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate, were not history but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable.’

  There is, undoubtedly, a sense, in which all life is miraculous; as it is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession of motions of which the first cause must be supernatural: but life, thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something, by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.

  Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties. A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed, more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian desarts: and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier and Padua, and at last take his degree at Leyden, without any thing miraculous. What it was, that would, if it was related, sound so poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe, without hope of guessing rightly. The wonders probably were transacted in his own mind: self-love, co-operating with an imagination vigorous and fertile as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every man’s life: and, perhaps, there is no human being, however hid in the crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions, will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations of nature or of fortune.

  The success of this performance was such, as might naturally encourage the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge, whose name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and French; and at Strasburg the Latin translation was published with large notes, by Lenuus Nicolaus Moltfarius. Of the English annotations, which in all the editions from 1644 accompany the book, the author is unknown.9

  Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published a small treatise for the instruction of young persons in the attainment of a Latin stile. He printed his translation in Holland with some difficulty. The first printer to whom he offered it, carried it to Salmasius,10 ‘who laid it by (says he) in state for three months,’ and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards rejected by two other printers, and at last was received by Hackius.

  The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed answer, written under the title of ‘Medicus medicatus,’ by Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.11

  At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr. Lushington his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was incorporated Doctor of physick in Oxford.

  He married in 1641 Mrs. Mileham, of a good family in Norfolk; ‘a lady (says Whitefoot) 12 of such symmetrical proportion to her worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism.’

  This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits upon a man, who had just been wishing in his new book, ‘that we might procreate, like trees, without conjunction;’ and had lately declared, that ‘the whole world was made for man, but only the twelfth part of man for woman;’ and, that ‘man is the whole world, but woman
only the rib or crooked part of man.’

  Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous positions,13 or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent: for she lived happily with him one and forty years; and bore him ten14 children, of whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.

  Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time: for in 1646 he printed Enquiries into vulgar and common errors [Pseudodoxia Epidemica]; a work, which as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued tenor, of which the latter part rose from the former, but an enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long persued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of his life might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent afterwards in study and experience, would doubtless have made large additions to an ‘Enquiry into vulgar errors.’ He published in 1672 the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with explications of what he had already written, than any new heads of disquisition.15 But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour, thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all sublunary things, there is something to be wished, which we must wish in vain.

  This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and not many years ago into French.16 It might now be proper, had not the favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with copies, to reprint it with notes partly supplemental and partly emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has committed not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle’s and Newton’s philosophy.

  He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth. Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which, suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles: the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other, instead of taking by sympathy the same direction, ‘stood like the pillars of Hercules.’ That it continued motionless, will be easily believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had thrust his needles through corks, and then set them afloat in two basons of water.

  Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errors, he seems not very easy to admit new positions; for he never mentions the motion of the earth but with contempt and ridicule,17 though the opinion, which admits it, was then growing popular, and was, surely, plausible, even before it was confirmed by later observations.

  The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under his name, a book called ‘Nature’s cabinet unlocked,’18 translated, according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that ‘if any man had been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the honour thereof, as having no hand in that work.’

  In 1658 the discovery of some antient urns in Norfolk gave him occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urnburial, or a discourse of Sepulchral urns, in which he treats with his usual learning on the funeral rites of the antient nations; exhibits their various treatment of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns. There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselesness of all these enquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and, therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too frequently recollected.

  ‘All or most apprehensions rested in opinions of some future being, which ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions: with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits, against the cold potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.

  It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire of such a state, were but a fallacy in nature; unsatisfied considerators would quarrel the justice of their constitution, and rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happiness of inferior creatures, who in tranquillity possess their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes or cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated their contentment. But the superior ingredient and obscured part of ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able at last to tell us we are more than our present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own accomplishments.’ (above, pp. 305–6).

  To his treatise on Urnburial was added The garden of Cyrus, or the quincunxial lozenge, or network plantation of the antients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered. This discourse he begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and deduces the practice of horticulture from the earliest accounts of antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we actually know to have planted a Quincunx; which, however, our author is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the seeders on vegetables before the flood.

  Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning and genius exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to shew how it could exalt the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things really and naturally great, is a task not only difficult but disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes by standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure properties, and to produce to the world an object o
f wonder to which nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the Frogs of Homer, the Gnat and the Bees of Virgil, the Butterfly of Spenser, the Shadow of Wowerus,19 and the Quincunx of Browne.

  In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation or approaches to the form of a Quincunx; and as a man once resolved upon ideal discoveries, seldom searches long in vain, he finds his favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented, antient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred and civil; so that a reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a Quincunx.

  To shew the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its properties; and finds in it almost every thing of use or pleasure: and to shew how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may be sufficient; ‘though therein (says he) we meet not with right angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right, it virtually contains two right in every one.’

  The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have watched with great nicety the evolution of the parts of plants from their feminal principles.