Volume 1

The works of Sir Thomas Browne : including his unpublished correspondence, and a memoir / edited by Simon Wilkin.

  • Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne : including his unpublished correspondence, and a memoir / edited by Simon Wilkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    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, endea- voured to secure himself from rigorous examination, by alleging, that many things are delivered rheto- rically, many expressions merely tropical, and there- fore 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 ex- pression : I could be content (says he6) 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 gene- rality 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 curi- osity, is his solemn assertion, that his life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate, wTere 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 connexion, a succession of motions of which the first cause must be supernatural: but life, p (says he.)] Iieligio Medici, i, p. 11.