SIR THOMAS BROWNE. reflection no less healthy and sane than the most necessary and becoming action. There are minds, too, especially endowed by nature with the fitting qualities for meditation-for study-for tranquil observation. With an intellect to perceive, a heart to sympathize, a tongue to communicatethe hand to execute may be wanting, and yet no monstrosity be apparent-no deformity and no deficiency. Individuals, in the main, are but divers limbs of the great body of humanity-alone complete in themselves, and each fully performing its office, yet none accomplishing its ultimate purpose, or proving itself absolutely indispensable, but in co-operation with the rest. To be a genuine scholar, is doubtless one of the most exalted stations to which a human being can be called. And those who profess to underrate the importance of letters, have been among the first to do homage (however secretly or unconsciously) to learning and genius." In the troublous times that marked the close of the reign of King Charles the First, and through all the commotions and vicissitudes attendant on the career of Oliver Cromwell, there lived in the quiet city of Norwich a remarkable man, whose spirit was never conscious of the tempests that raged about him,-whose "soul was like a star, and dwelt apart," in the regions of tranquil contemplation. To live independent of one's age, to be insensible to the thraldom of time and place, to bring the past and future into a common range of vision and upon the same plane with the present, is an elevated state of being, rare in this world, as the destiny of man plainly requires that it should be. Most men and women are born into a condition of life, whose actual, stern, pressing duties impose a limit to the motions of an enthusiastic temper, and restrict the range of imagination within the sphere of attraction that surrounds the substantialities of human existence. To inquire whether such be our lot entirely through the fault of ourselves, were, perhaps, "to consider too curiously." Rousseau has well styled reflection a disease, if we assume as the type of reflection that peculiar cast of mind, and that unnatural style of thinking, of which he was himself a pattern. To meditate upon the modes and conditions of our life, at the very time a necessity is laid upon us for immediate, energetic effort, is at once unhealthy, enfeebling and ruinous. We do not reason upon this necessity. We state the fact; for it stares us in the face at every corner-in the market-place, in the work-shop, on the wharf, in the counting-room. Severe, unceasing conflict everywhere, with the rude elements of matterstubborn collision with the subtler motions-prevailing at last or entirely smothered, of mind-anguish of the heart to be borne up against-oppression of spirit to be endured and patiently subdued: these make up the great sum of human experience. The scholar is a character that inevitably appears, wherever civilization and refinement have made any progress. There is a VOL. II. NO. I. NEW SERIES. 2 In many respects, the celebrated scholar whose name has suggested these remarks, is without a parallel. The class to which he belongs includes many varieties, indeed, though founded upon certain general characteristics, common to all. In some, the scholar is but dimly apparent through another predominant shade of character. We distinguish between those qualities which constitute the fundamental elements of poetic genius, and those which belong simply to the man of letters and the student of nature. Yet the two characters are many times combinedthe former always, in such cases, predominating. The scholarly character, again, sometimes remains subordinate in the man of business, through a long series of years according to worldly success or failure. The daily avocations, also, pertaining to the three professions, are such as in general to distract the attention from literary studies; yet with each of these, the scholar is frequently mingled, in a greater or less degree. To this latter class, although nominally a professional man, and enjoying at some periods of his life an extensive practice, Sir Thomas Browne can hardly be said to have properly belonged. In his character, so far as we can now know him, there was only the genuine scholar, with scarce a perceptible tinge of any disagreeing mixture. His profession, most certainly, if it ever gained any prominent place in his spirit, was speedily absorbed in the weightier and rarer calling, and mingling its elements therewith, became henceforth imperceptible. Indeed, so purely and simply was he characterized by scholarly aims and habitudes, that we know not where to look for a more complete individual development of our ideal of the scholar. The beautiful and salutary admonition which, in the latter days of his life, he left for all who aim at a dignified and becoming rank among human spirits, was well exemplified in himself, and gives us a clue to his whole character: " Swim smoothly in the stream of thy nature, and live but one man.” The life of a scholar (pre-eminently such) presents little to the outward eye, beyond the ordinary events of birth, christening, marriage, (perhaps,) and death. Had the case of Browne been otherwise, we should certainly have received the evidence of it, in some substantial shape. He did himself write, to be sure, when scarcely beyond the limits of youth-"For my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable." But such language, to one who rightly conceives the manner of the author, and truly catches his spirit, can hardly create surprise, or admit of an ambiguity of meaning. This "miracle" and this "piece of poetry," to which he alludes, have no reference, certainly, to any remarkable visible and outward occurrences, such as go to make up the sum of biography; nor did it require even the acuteness of Dr. Johnson to discover that, "Of these wonders, however, the view that can now be taken of his life offers no appearance." Much less was it appropriate for this celebrated critic, after saying that "the wonders probably were transacted in his own mind," to fill out his sentence by inferring that they were the illegitimate offspring of "self-love" and "an imagination vigorous and fertile." Such an inference is worthy only of a "bread-scholar," blind to the very character which he imagines himself to wear. That this language is indeed characterized by a sort of sublime egotism, is undeniably true, but that it includes or implies a statement essentially incorrect, is not to be admitted. The scholar's real life is, we repeat, in a measure hidden :that Browne's was, to his own mind, and that it would have so appeared if told to others in his own language, really poetical, and scarcely less than miraculous, is doubtless strictly true. But this "hidden life is veiled from our eyes, except as momentary glimpses appear in his published works. : Sir Thomas Browne was born in London, on the 19th of October, 1605. His father was a merchant, possessed of a considerable fortune, who died while his son was quite young. The widow subsequently married again, and is represented to have exercised hardly the usual amount of maternal care and solicitude for the well-being of young Thomas. He had, however, a sufficient inheritance to place him above want, and to enable him to avail himself of the highest privileges of education,-to which his nature seems to have early inclined him; while his friends had equally determined to bring him up to learning. He was put to school, first at Winchester, and afterwards, at the age of eighteen, entered the University at Oxford. He received the Bachelor's degree in 1627, and immediately after commenced the study of medicine. At a later period (the precise year is not known,) he commenced travelling, first in Ireland, then in France, Italy, and Holland. At Leyden, he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine-a title rather more dearly obtained, in those days, than at present in our own country, and bestowed upon none who had not fitted themselves to receive it, by years of attentive study. In 1636, he settled as a practitioner, at Norwich, the capital of Norfolkshire, where he spent the remainder of his days. Wood, in his well-known biographical sketches of Oxford Students,* says that he had an extensive practice, and was resorted to by many patients. Religio Medici, the best known of the * Athenæ Oxoniensis. Browne was married in 1641, to a lady named Mileham, with whom he lived happily, and who survived him two years. În 1671, he received the honor of knighthood from King Charles the Second. He died on his birth-day, 1682, at the age of seventy-seven years. works of Sir Thomas Browne, was written | daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Littleton, and at London, in 1635-previously to his set- others,-nor could it be doubted by any tlement at Norwich. He was then thirty one who is familiar with his other producyears of age, and his powers were fully tions. matured. Aside from the additional experience which would naturally be accumulated during a long life, we see no tokens in his subsequent writings of any further development of his faculties, or of any new shape assumed by his character, indicative of intellectual progress. This work, however, was not given to the public until the year 1642. It very soon acquired an extensive celebrity, and established a permanent fame for its author. The ostensible subject of the book is expressed in its title, -the Religion of a Physician, or an extended confession of his faith. In 1646, Browne published his next work, entitled Pseudodoxia Epidemica"Vulgar Errors." The purpose of this work is perhaps sufficiently indicated by its appellation. The author, with much and general learning, exposes the absurdity of a large number of notions that had in his day become fixed in the popular belief, and attempts to correct the false views which were entertained respecting objects really existing, or belonging solely to the region of fable. In 1658, he published his Hydiotaphia, or Urn Burial—a work full of nice and varied learning, and especially of that kind of learning peculiarly belonging to the province of the antiquary. The subject was suggested to his mind by the discovery of certain urns, which were exhumed, at that time, in an ancient cemetery, in the county where he resided. The book contains descriptions of the various modes of burial among different nations, in former times especially, of the funeral ceremonies performed over the dead, and their significance, with characteristic contemplations of a grave and sublime nature, such as the occasion could not fail to awaken in a mind so constituted. Various tracts on divers subjects, but all more or less tinctured with antiquarian tendencies, and with the niceties of learning, complete the catalogue of works published during his lifetime. The excellent volume of "Christian Morals" was composed in his very last years, and was not given to the world until after his death. Its genuineness is fully vouched for by his Every author of any great note has some one work (most usually) which may be safely assumed as the type of his character, and on which his general repute is made to depend. The Religio Medici will doubtless be accepted by all as an exponent of the spirit and genius of its author. We are left to infer, to be sure, that in the lifetime of Browne, his "Vulgar Errors" was the most extensively read, and most generally popular of all. This is not at all incredible, nor without some plausible reasons. It embraces a greater variety of topics, and those, too, topics that lay near the heart of all classes of readersintimately allied with all the sentiments of wonder, and mystery, and dread, which nestle under the wings of popular superstition. Some of the subjects discussed in this work are really curious, both as showing the extent of popular credulity two centuries ago, and as revealing the generality of the author's observation and learning. "That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed;" "that a diamond is softened by the blood of a goat ;" "that a pot full of ashes will contain as much water as without them;" "that men weigh heavier dead than alive:" "that storks will live only in republics and free states;" "that. the forbidden fruit was an apple ;"" that a wolf first seeing a man begets a dumbness in him;"-are a few among the many opinions vulgarly current in his day, that he takes upon him, in a learned and dignified style, to refute. He descants also upon the popular notions respecting the ringfinger, and the custom (still prevalent in many parts of Europe) of saluting upon sneezing. He finds matters for grave disquisition in pigmies, the dog-days, and the picture of Moses with horns. He expends much eloquence and research on the blackness of negroes, the food of John the Baptist, the poverty of Belisarius, the cessa tion of oracles, and Friar Bacon's brazen | head that spoke. He very worthily labors, likewise, to set right the minds of the uneducated common people, on the river Nile, "theme of many fables," and makes some very sage observations and discoveries respecting the aged and venerable Methuselah. He deems the romantic wish of the ancient Philoxenus (that he might have the neck of a crane) worthy of a dissertation, and indulges his imaginative and conjecture-loving mind in threading some of the mysterious mazes of Gipsy history. From all this variety of disquisition we get an idea, it is true, of the singular cast and complexion of the author's mind-an insight of his "hidden life" and his peculiar intellectual constitution, such as we could less clearly obtain from the Religio Medici alone. We need to take it into the account, therefore, in forming a conception of Browne's intellectual character, and even in rightly understanding and justly estimating that earlier work itself. But to accept it as a type of his genius, would be manifestly an error. Strictly characteristic-full of sublime contemplations and manifold learning-as is the Hydiotaphia, it is not, perhaps, much nearer to a true representation of the distinctive qualities of this celebrated scholar. The subject is one that admits of no general unfolding of the author's inner self. Modes of burial and funeral ceremonies appropriately attach to themselves a degree of importance, since they nearly touch the affections and the self-meditations of all human beings. The occasion which such topics afford for moralizing, of a grand and elevated description, could not have fallen to a better pen than that of Sir Thomas Browne. Some of the noblest and most eloquent passages of all, occur in this work. Especially those characteristic words upon oblivion, (we can quote but a part, though the full effect cannot be obtained without the whole,) we remember, first stole over our own mind like the harmonies of some solemn and wonderful music, far away in the distance,-to haunt the memory, at intervals, forever afterward. "Circles and right lines," says he, "limit and close all bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle must conclude and shut up all. There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. To be read by bare inscriptions, like many in Gruter, to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets, or first letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries who we were, and have now names given us, like many of the mummies, are cold consolations unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting leagues. "To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, not caring whether they know more of him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan; disparaging of his horoscopal inclination and judgment of himself, who cares to subsist, like Hippocrates' patients, or Archilles' horses, in Homer, under naked which are the balsam of our memories, the ennominations, without deserts and noble acts, telechia and soul of our subsistences? To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with one. And who had not rather have been the good thief, than Pilate ? "But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity: who can but pity the founder of the pyramids ? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it: time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse; confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon, without the favor of the everlasting register. Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable men forgot than any that stand remembered in the account of time? Without the favor of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle. 66 Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables. Afflictions induce callosities; miseries are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days; and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions. A great part of antiqnity contented their hopes of subsistency with a transmigration of their markable in such variety of beings: and, enjoy- The "Christian Morals" would seem to To speak of the Religio Medici as strict- We accordingly look for no insane rhapsodies-for none of the ecstatic raptures of an Ignatius Loyola or a St. Theresa-for none of the sickly "experiences" of a John Bunyan. Morbid fanaticism and morose religionism, we well know, could have no Browne was place in the mind of a man so educated, and bred to such habits. trained in the Church of England, and accustomed to sober views of its nature, doctrines, and polity. Christianity was not to him a bundle of wild and enthusiastic notions, nor the Christian life an unceasing effort at self-torture and distortion. To that part of the world with whom religion is something to be exhibited, and worn for a show-a matter to be inconsiderately obtruded upon everybody's notice, and forced into every incongruous connection with everything to which it has no proper relation-Browne might very naturally appear as anything but a religious man. "For my religion," he admits, therefore, at the very outset, "there be And that several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all.' such always has been, always will be, and always ought to be, the judgment of certain people respecting the most truly religi ous men, we regard as a circumstance no less fortunate than it is inevitable. A religion that can be paraded with effect, and made available for the admiration of the vulgar, is a very different affair from that to which we have ever applied the name, or ever mean to. And if any reader has been so rash as to take up this book of Sir Thomas Browne, expecting to find in it a gratification for any sickly craving of this sort, or from so unworthy a motive as seeking a subject for ridicule in the blind and ignorant observations of a sombre religionist, he probably encountered a startling disappointment. We have said that the real life of the scholar is mainly hidden-that in external, palpable incidents, it is barren and unimportant. Could we but have the interior history of such a man as John Milton, or Jeremy Taylor, or of one of the chief philosophers of ancient times, we might well dispense with whole libraries else, that would, indeed, in such a case, become useless. Shakspeare, in his Sonnets, is thought to have given us some transient glimpses of what had gone on in his spirit, unseen by all |