Sir Thomas Browne / by Edmund Gosse.

  • Edmund Gosse
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir Thomas Browne / by Edmund Gosse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    affectionate confidences, and the amenity of the writer is so extreme that the reader easily overlooks the fact that there may be points of unlikeness which are no less important in the general sum of character. It is proper that we should now turn to the history of this remarkable book, which offers some episodes of unique interest. We have seen that the treatise was written in 1635 or 1636, in company with “some others of affinity thereto,” at leisurable hours, and for the author’s private exercise and satisfaction. Browne says plainly that his object was not publication, a fact which he considers is made obvious by the familiar and personal character of many of the expressions. It ‘““was penned in such a place,” namely, Shipden Hall, at Halifax, where from the first setting of pen unto paper, Browne “had not the assistance of any good book whereby to promote my invention or relieve my memory.” He considered, therefore, or modestly affected to consider, that it was not a treatise which could endure the criticism of the learned, who were inclined in those days to investigate small points of deficient erudition while leaving the whole course of the argument unexamined. The upshot of the affair was that Browne was pleased with the result of his lucubrations, and could not help showing it to his friends, who asked to be allowed to transcribe so original and so beautiful a little book. In 1642 one of these manuscript transcripts fell into the hands of a London publisher, Andrew Crooke, who, without obtaining the author’s permission, brought it out in the form of a small octavo. This, the first edition of Leligio Medici, is a very curious little volume. It has no title-page, but there is an engraved frontis-
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