with the conquest of so formidable a rebel, and confidered it as a double triumph, to attract fo much merit, and overcome fo powerful prejudices; or whether, like most others, fhe married upon mingled motives, between convenience and inclination; fhe had, however, no reason to repent, for fhe lived happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of whom one fon and three daughters outlived their parents: fhe furvived him two years, and paffed 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 cenfure, probably found his dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long before he trufted his name to the criticks a fecond time for in 1646* he printed Enquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work, which as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from obfervation and books, and contained not a fingle discourse of one continued tenor, of which the latter part arofe from the former, but an enumeration of many unconnected particulars, muft have been the collection of years, and the affect of a defign early formed and long purfted, to wred his remarks had been continually reforred, and which arofe gradually to its prefent bulk by the only agregation, of new particles of know. ledge. It is indeed be wifhed, that he had longer delayed the pleat a, and added what the remaining part of ite might have furnished: the thirty, fix years which he fpent afterwards in study and experience, would doublefs have made large additions to an Enquiry into vulgar Errours. He published in

Life of fir Thomas Browne.

1673 the fixth edition, with fome improvements; but I think rather with explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of difquifition. But with the work, fuch as the author, whether hindered from continuing it by eagernefs of praife, or weariness of labour, thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all fublunary things there is something to be wifhed which we must wish in vain.

This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was anfwered by Alexander Rofs, and tranflated into Dutch and German, and not many years ago into French. 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 fupplemental, and partly emendatory, to fubjoin those discoveries which the induftry of the láft age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has committed not by idlenefs or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and Newton's philofophy.

He appears indeed to have been willing to to par labour for truth. Having heard a flying our of fympathetick needles, by which, fofed over a circular alphabet, diftant friends oversight cor

refpond, he procured two f mala spots vɔ ba mada, touched his needles with e fere targact, and placed them upon proper fpina: the refult was, that when he moved one of his meals, the other, inftead of taking by fympathy te fame direction, "ftood like the pillars of Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be eafily believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without

the labour of fo hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have obtained the fame conviction by a method lefs operofe, if he had thrust his needles through corks, and fet them afloat in two bafons of water.

Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errors, he feems not very eafy to admit new pofitions; for he never mentions the motion of the earth but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion, which admits it, was then growing popular, and was furely plaufible, even before it was confirmed by later obfer

vations.

The reputation of Browne encouraged fome low writer to publish, under his name, a book called, * Nature's Cabinet unlocked, tranflated, according to Wood, from the phyficks of Magirus; of which Browne took care to clear himself, by modeftly, advertising, that "if any man † had been benefited by "it, he was not fo ambitious as to challenge the "honour thereof, as having no hand in that work."

In 1658 the difcovery of fome ancient urns in Norfolk gave him occafion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-burial, or a discourfe of fepulchral Urns, in which he rents with his ufual learning on the funeral rites of the anc'er nations; exhibits their various treatdead and examines the fubftances mordam urns. There is, perhaps, which better exemplifies his reading or memory. It is barely the imagined, how

ment of

found in

none of his wol

to

many particulars he has amafled together, in a trea

* Wood, and Life of Sir Thomas Browne.

+ At the end of Hydriotaphia.

tife which seems to have been occafionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could have been previously collected. It is indeed, like other treatises of antiquity, rather for curiofity than use; for it is of fmall 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 difufed; whether the bones of different perfons were mingled in the fame urn; what oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the afhes of the body were diftinguished from thofe of other fubftances. Of the ufeleffness of these enquiries, Browne feems not to have been ignorant; and, therefore, concludes them with an obfervation which can never be too frequently recollected:

"All or moft apprehenfions refted in opinions of “ some future being, which, ignorantly or coldly be"lieved, begat thofe perverted conceptions, ceremo"nies, fayings, which Chriftians pity or laugh at.

''

Happy are they, which live not in that difadvantage of time, when men could fay little for futurity, but from reafon; whereby the noblest “mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melan"choly diffolutions: with these hopes Socrates warm"ed his doubtful fpirits against the cold potion; and "Cato, before he durft give the fatal ftroke, spent

66

part of the night in reading the immortality of "Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto "the animofity of that attempt.

"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can "throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further ftate to come, "unto which this feems progreffional, and otherwise

"made

66

"made in vain: without this accomplishment, the "natural expectation and defire of such a state were "but a fallacy in nature: unfatisfied confiderators "would quarrel at the juftness of the conftitution, "and reft 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 tranc quillity poffefs their conftitutions, as having not the "apprehenfion to deplore their own natures; and being framed below the circumference of thefe hopes " of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God "hath neceffitated their contentment. But the fupe"rior ingredient and obfcured part of ourfelves, "whereto all prefent felicities afford no refting con

46

tentment, will be able at last to tell us we are more "than our prefent felves; and evacuate fuch hopes “in the fruition of their own accomplishments."

To his treatife on Urn-burial was added The garden of Cyrus, or the quicunxial lozenge, or network plantation of the ancients, artificially, naturally, myftically, confidered. This difcourfe he begins with the Sacred· Garden, in which the firft man was placed; and deduces the practice of horticulture from the earliest accounts of antiquity to the time of the Perfian 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 difcovers it in the defcription of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but feems willing to believe, and to perfuade his reader, that it was practifed by the feeders on vegetables before the flood.

Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning and genius exercised upon fub.

jects