merit of giving to mankind what was too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel like the papers of Pereskius. The first of these posthumous treatises contains "observations upon several plants mentioned in Scripture." These remarks, though they do not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties or useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some obscurity from precepts. The next is "of garlands, or coronary and garland plants ;" a subject merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which studious men have endeavoured to recover them. 66 The next is a letter, on the fishes eaten by our Saviour with his disciples, after his resurrection from the dead;" which contains no determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for indeed it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes produced in the waters of Judea. Then follow " answers to certain queries about fishes, birds, and insects;" and "a letter of hawks and falconry, ancient and modern:" in the first of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other has some curious observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seem much to have practised horsemanship as an exercise; and though, in their works, there is mention of " aucupium" and "piscatio," they seem no more to have been considered as diversions, than agriculture or any other manual labour. In two more letters he speaks of "the cymbals of the Hebrews," but without any satisfactory determination; and of "ropalick or gradual verses," that is, of verses beginning with a word of one syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more than the former; as, e 66 "O Deus, æternæ stationis conciliator."—AUSONIUS. recover them.] To which Browne's attention was turned by the enquiries of Evelyn, who applied to him for assistance in his projected work on horticulture, and to whom this essay was enclosed, in a letter. -See Correspondence. and, after his manner, pursuing the hint, he mentions many other restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has sometimes voluntarily subjected itself. His next attempt is "on languages, and particularly the Saxon tongue." He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness, of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination. Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards have retained so much Latin, as to be able to compose sentences that shall be at once grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages, declares, that after many essays he never could effect it. The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between the modern English and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives, and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals, auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a language, remain with us from the Saxon." To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however, sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its parental language, more than any modern European dialect. There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one "of artificial hills, mounts, or burrows, in England;" in reply to an interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of Biographia Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or Sir William Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne, in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquarians, to be for the most part funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which admitting (says he) neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may, if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth.” In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning Troas, mentioned in the Acts and Epistles of St. Paul, which he determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other concerning the Dead Sea, of which he gives the same account with other writers. Another letter treats "of the answers of the oracle of Apollo at Delphos, to Croesus king of Lydia." In this tract nothing deserves notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means of instruction, did not enquire into the secrets of nature: but judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been vain; "for, in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition, our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo." 66 The pieces that remain are, A prophecy concerning the future state of several nations;" in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to be the same with that entertained lately with more confidence by Dr. Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire:" and Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita;" in which the author amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities, either never in being, or irrecoverably lost. 66 These pieces I have recounted as they are ranged in Tenison's collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at which any of them were written. Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into amusement; or show upon how great a variety of enquiries the same mind has been successfully employed. The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo, Lond. 1722, contains" Repertorium; or some account of the tombs and monuments in the cathedral of Norwich;" where, as Tenison observes, there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary. The other pieces are, "Answers to Sir William Dugdale's enquiries about the fens; a letter concerning Iceland;, another relating to urns newly discovered; Some short strictures on different subjects;" and "A letter to a friend on the death of his intimate friend," published singly by the author's son in 1690. There is inserted, in the Biographia Britannica, “A letter f postulate.] His perfect conviction of the Satanic influence exerted n oracles is strongly expressed in a passage of his Religio Medici, respecting the ground of his belief of their cessation at the coming of Jesus Christ;-viz. the confession of the devil himself, in his oracle to Augustus. 1722.] This date was taken from a copy which had a reprint title. The book was published in 1712. containing instructions for the study of physick;" which, with the Essays here offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne. To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but that in 1665 he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of physicians," as a man, "Virtute et literis ornatissimus, -eminently embellished with literature and virtue:" and, in 1671, received, at Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles II., a prince, who with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover excellence, and virtue to reward it, with such honorary distinctions at least as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and greater popularity. Thus he lived in high reputation; till in his seventy-sixth year he was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a week, put an end to his life, at Norwich, on his birthday, October 19, 1682.* Some of his last words were expressions of submission to the will of God, and fearlessness of death. He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of the altar: M. S. HIC SITUS EST THOMAS BROWNE, M.D. ET MILES. A 1605. LONDONI NATUS GENEROSA FAMILIA APUD UPTON IN AGRO CESTRIENSI ORIUNDUS. APUD OXONIENSES BONIS LITERIS IN URBE HAC NORDOVICENSI MEDICINAM ET PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA ALIISQUE VIR PIENTISSIMUS, INTEGERRIMUS, DOCTISSIMUS; PIE POSUIT MESTISSIMA CONJUX h in 1665, &c.] Rather in 1664.-See Supplementary Memoir. iHe lies buried, &c.] "Within the railes at the east end of the chancel."-Wood, 4to. Le Neve says the cathedral.—See above. NEAR THE FOOT OF THIS PILLAR LIES SIR THOMAS BROWNE, KNIGHT, AND DOCTOR IN PHYSICK, AUTHOR OF RELIGIO MEDICI, AND OTHER LEARNED BOOKS, AND DIED OCTOBER 19, 1682, IN THE 77 YEAR OF HIS AGE. IN MEMORY OF WHOM DAME DOROTHY BROWNE, WHO HAD BEEN HIS AFFECTIONATE WIFE 41 YEARS, Besides his lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention. He was born about the year 1642; and after having passed through the classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton College in Oxford, was admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In 1668 he visited part of Germany, and in the year following made a wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish Sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to mines and metallurgy. Upon his return he published an account of the countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it as likely to give much pleasure to common readers: for whether it be, that the world is very uniform, and therefore he who is resolved to adhere to truth, will have few novelties to relate; or that Dr. Browne was, by the train of his studies, led to enquire most after those things, by which the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more. Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician first to Charles II., and afterwards in 1682 to St. Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time he joined his name to those of many other eminent men, in "A translation of Plutarch's lives." He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of physicians; of which in 1705 he was chosen |