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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    editions. Sir Kenelm, writing next morning (Decem- ber 23, 1642) to Lord Dorset, excitedly reports :— “This good-natured creature [Keligio Medici] I could easily persuade to be my bedfellow, and to wake with me as long as I had any edge to entertain myself with the delights I sucked from so noble a conversation. And truly, my Lord, I closed not my eyes till I had enriched myself with, or at least exactly surveyed, all the treasures that are lapped up in the folds of those few sheets.” But when he had sunk to sleep at last, having taken, as Browne might himself have said, this merciful dormitive to bedward, intellectual excitement would not suffer Sir Kenelm Digby to rest quiet. In the early morning, almost before it was light, he woke, and then and there—as it appears, in his bed—he began to compose a criticism on the marvellous book which had so greatly amazed his spirits. This critical examination of Religio Medici, which formed, when printed, a little volume of one hundred and twenty-four pages, was written almost at a sitting, in a blaze of enthusiasm and excitement. It does not appear that either Dorset or Digby at this time knew the name of the author whose book had interested them so much. But a little later on, Sir Kenelm seems to have put himself in communica- tion with Andrew Crooke, the publisher, who informed Browne that the famous Catholic philosopher was pre- paring to print a review of Lelagio Medici. It is almost certain that it was this information which induced Browne to remove the embargo he had placed upon his work, and to supply Crooke with a revised and correct manuscript to print from. - Meanwhile, the knight had received back his letter from Lord Dorset,
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