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BROWNE.

THOUGH the writer of the following ESSAYS* seems to have had the fortune, common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of his felicities and misfortunes; yet, because an addition of a posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification of that curiosity which naturally inquires by what peculiarities of nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon attainments have been gained, and what influence learning had on its possessors, or virtue on its teachers.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605.† His father was a merchant, of an ancient family at Upton in Cheshire. Of the name or family of his mother I find no account.

Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost his father very early; that he was according to the commont fate of orphans defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was placed for his education at the school of Winchester.

His mother having taken three thousand pounds as the third part of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand, a large fortune for a man destined to learning at that time, when commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal tiches. But it happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for his mother soon married Sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian, deprived now of both his parents, and therefore helpless and unprotected.

He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623 from

"Christian Morals," first printed in 1756. H.

↑ Life of Sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the Antiquities of Norwich. Whitefoot's character of Sir Thomas Browne, in a marginal note. Life of Sir Thomas Browne,

VOL. VI.-3 E

Winchester to Oxford, and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate-hall, which was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke College, from the Earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the University. He was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, January 31, 1626-7; being, as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the new college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.

Having afterwards taken his degree of Master of Arts, he turned his studies to physic, and practised it for some time in Oxfordshire; but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his father-in-law, who had some employment in Ireland. in a visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then made necessary.

He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connec tions of acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it. Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of a man of letters: he, therefore, passed§ into France and Italy; made some stay at Montpelier and Padua, which were then the celebrated schools of physic; and returning home through Holland, procured himself to be created doetor of physic at Leyden.

When he began his travels, or when he concluded them, there is no certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider, therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because to minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to deserve the notice of the public.

About the year 1634, he is supposed to have returned to London; and the next year to have written his celebrated freatise, called Religio Medici, "The Religion of a Physician," which he declares himself never to have intended for the press,

Wood's Athene Oxonienses.

Life of Sir Thomas Browne. § Ibid.

Biographia Britannica.

t Wood.

Letter to Sir Kenelm Digby, prefixed to the Religio Medici, folio edition.

having composed it only for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great importance to the public: but when it was written, it happened to him as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance not to think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers, but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till at last, without his own consent, they were in 1642 given to a printer.

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 press, 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 public by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtility 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 book; 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*

Digby's letter to Browne, prefixed to the Religio Medici, fol. edit.

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 genteel and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece, pompous professions of reverence, meck 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.

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, “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 connection, 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 scholastic 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 deserts: and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpelier 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, cooperating 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 for

tune.

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 inclegantly 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 Lenus Nicholaus Molifarius. Of the English annotations, which, in all the editions from 1644, accompany the book, the author is unknown.

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 style. He printed his translation in Holland with some difficulty. The first printer to whom he offered, it carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it

Life of Sir Thomas Browne.

Merryweather's letter inserted in the Life of Sir Thomas Browne.

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