works of Sir Thomas Browne, was written | at London, in 1635-previously to his settlement at Norwich. He was then thirty years of age, and his powers were fully 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 earning peculiarly belonging to the provnce of the antiquary. The subject was suggested to his mind by the discovery of ertain urns, which were exhumed, at that ime, in an ancient cemetery, in the county vhere he resided. The book contains decriptions of the various modes of burial mong different nations, in former times specially, of the funeral ceremonies perormed over the dead, and their significance, with characteristic contemplations of a rave and sublime nature, such as the ocasion could not fail to awaken in a mind o constituted.

Various tracts, on divers subjects, but Il more or less tinctured with antiquarian endencies, and with the niceties of learn1g, complete the catalogue of works pubshed during his lifetime. The excellent olume of "Christian Morals" was comosed in his very last years, and was not iven to the world until after his death. s genuineness is fully vouched for by his

daughther, Mrs. Elizabeth Littleton, and others, nor could it be doubted by any one who is familiar with his other productions.

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.

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;" 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 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

that

upon

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 bodies, and the mortal right-lined circonclude and shut up all. There is e against the opium of time, which

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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 stand, and old families last not three oaks. To years. Generations pass while some trees 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 new names given us, like many of the mummies, are col consolations unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages.

"To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, not canc whether they know more of him, was a frig ambition in Cardan; disparaging of his hor scopal inclination and judgment of himself who cares to subsist, like Hippocrates' patients.

or Achilles' horses, in Homer, under naked which are the balsam of our memories, the nominations, without deserts and noble acts telechia and soul of our subsistences? To b nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infan history. The Canaanitish woman lives myhappily without a name than Herodias with one And who had not rather have been the go thief, than Pilate?

"But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scatt~ eth her poppy, and deals with the memory men without distinction to merit of perpetty who can but pity the founder of the pyrank Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of it. ana; he is almost lost that built it: time hat spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse; contesso ed that of himself. In vain we compute ou since bad have equal durations; and T felicities by the advantage of our good names sites is like to live as long as Agamen: without the favor of the everlasting reg Who knows whether the best of men be know" or whether there be not more remarkable re forgot than any that stand remembered in account of time? Without the favor of everlasting register, the first man had beet unknown as the last, and Methuselahi's long had been his only chronicle.

". . . . . Darkness and light divide course of time, and oblivion shares with ory a great part even of our living beings i slightly remember our felicities, and the s

est strokes of affliction leave but short s

upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, a sorrows destroy us or themselves. To into stones are fables. Afflictions induce losities; miseries are slippery, or fall like sa upon us, which, notwithstanding, is no unt stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come. forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provis nature, whereby we digest the mixture of few and evil days; and our delivered senses relapsing into cutting remembrances, our * rows are not kept raw by the edge of repe A great part of antiquity contented their **

of subsistency with a transmigration of their souls-a good way to continue their memories, while, having the advantage of plural successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such variety of beings; and, enjoying the fame of their passed selves, make accumulation of glory to their last durations. Others, rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night of nothing, were content to recede into the common being, and make one particle of the public soul of all things, which was no more than to return into their unknown and divine original again. Egyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, contriving their bodies in sweet consistencies to attend the return of their souls. But all was vanity, feeding the wind, and folly. The Egytian mummies, which time or Cambyses hath spared, avarice now conameth. Mummy is become merchandise :Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharoah is sold or balsams."

The "Christian Morals" would seem to e designed especially as a legacy to the oung, whose character is unformed, and > whom the world is new and untried. mbodying as it does a rich fund of menl experience, we may draw from it much confirmation or elucidation of what is sewhere less perfectly exhibited. It is plete with maxims of true wisdom-nor es it want the brilliancy of setting and e occasional smoothness of polish, which e found in the earlier and more general >rks.

To speak of the Religio Medici as stricta confession of the religious faith of a ysician, would be to narrow the work thin limits to which it was never meant be confined. It oversteps the boundas so prescribed, in the direction of almost ery other great topic of human contemtion, and so becomes a general record of › inner experience and observation of a tolar. It is as such a work, that it has ained, and still maintains, a universal utation. Without any technical thegy, and in no sense controversial or selytic, it becomes, in its religious aspect ne, deeply interesting to all for whom great concerns of human life, and the her destinies of man, afford any subject earnest and solicitous inquiry. The itself is captivating, for the very reason t the medical profession have in general ittle repute, (not altogether justly,) for particular relish of the loftier range of itual contemplations, and for the considions that transcend the region of matter.

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 Morbid fanaticism and morose Bunyan. religionism, we well know, could have no place in the mind of a man so educated, and bred to such habits. Browne was 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 after 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.

A re

For my religion," he admits, therefore, at the very outset, "there be several circumstances that might persuade the world I have none at all." And that such always has been, always will be, and always ought to be, the judgment of certain people respecting the most truly religious men, we regard as a circumstance no less fortunate than it is inevitable. ligion 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 al'

eyes, and scarcely surmised, perhaps, by those most nearly about him. But those few gleams do little more than to reveal the immense sum of experience to which all clue is cut off. The works of this kind are rare and of little consequence; nor can the Religio Medici be assumed as anything more than a very remote (though agreeable) approximation-that rather suggests what might have been done by the author, and what we could have most heartily wished him to do, than satisfies the curiosity and strong desire which it awakens. The style of this, as of all other works of Sir Thomas Browne, is peculiar, and has been a topic of much animadversion. That its peculiarities are not in any sense attributable to the period at which he wrote, will at once be seen by comparison with contemporary authors, such as Owen Felltham, Abraham Cowley, and John Milton. It has an elevated and independent tone, indeed, like the prose of Milton, but without any of its rich harmony and evenly sustained grandeur. Both are characterized by much learning, both have given currency to many words new-coined from the Latin and Greek. But that which with Milton seems to have sprung spontaneously from his own creative genius, deeply familiarized with those ancient languages, in Browne can hardly escape the imputation of pedantry. And though the quaintness with which he is justly charged seemed to have become an easy and regular habit, it has still an air of affectation, to which we are obliged to extend some degree of forbearance. That a writer should avoid any eccentricities of manner, in so far as it is possible, is a no less evident requisite to good standing in letters than to a favorable reception in society. Ego

tism of manner as well as of speech and much more any degree of indifference to the sentiments and feelings of those about us that exceeds this-amounts to positive impoliteness, and betrays the want of a gentle disposition and breeding. Browne's offences of style do not, by any means, amount to such a degree of enormity. There is nothing in his writings like a studied contempt of conventional forms, or an attachment to oddity for its own sake. And though he is certainly chargeable with some degree of egotism, we can

tribute it to him as a predominating

characteristic-softened and shadowed as it is, by a respectful deference to the opinions of others, and a mild and habitual charity. A high self-respect is easily mistaken by the undiscriminating for an irrational vanity and conceit; and the Religio Medici, which exhibits this objectiona ble trait rather more strongly than any his subsequent works, can well be excused for all such appearances, on the ground that a work of the character therein proposed could not be made to assume a form which should preclude a large amount of personality.

of

That this work was never intended to be given to the public, until after it was put lished without any formal sanction of the author, is doubtless too broad a statement to be strictly correct. It has every inter-: nal appearance of having been intended, sooner or later, for at least a wider circa-, lation than amongst his own particul friends; nor does it need to be defended from any defects on such a ground.

The obscurity of many of his expressions and the remoteness of his allusions, in soc cases, are features of his style that g directly and unavoidably out of his o peculiar nature. Of a reserved habit, my festly, and a covert manner of thinki his writing must necessarily partake those qualities. The plane of his life w elevated far above the mass of men al-him. However universal his charity, sympathy went not with the multitas An austere dignity, a heroic virtue, arc lofty contemplation, shut out from mind one half of the great interests of t. human race, and tended to foster a sent and exalted self-admiration. He sp more than once of the "retired and sol imagination," which was the preva temper and condition of his mind; even while disavowing "that fathers pride," discloses quite plainly enough he entertained an exalted and bake sense of superiority. What lofty aimsproposed to himself, and with wh steady, ever-constant purpose, he set a'the attainment of what he deemed highest perfection of human nature. = be easily gathered from certain pre laid down in his "Christian Morals. is a heroism about such a scheme of and such a devotion to true mari which we cannot but admire, little as

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