Volume 1

The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Simon Wilkin.

  • Thomas Browne
Date:
1890-1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Simon Wilkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    years. The wood of the ark, and olive-rod of Aaron, were older at the captivity ; but the cypress of the ark of Noah ■was the greatest vegetable of antiquity, if Josephus -were not deceived by some fragments of it in his days : to omit the moor logs and fir trees found under-ground in many parts of England; the undated ruins of winds, floods, or earthquakes, and which in Flanders still show from what quarter they fell, as generally lying in a north-east position.* But though we found not these pieces to be wood, ac- cording to first apprehensions, yet we missed not altogether of some woody substance ; for the bones were not so clearly picked but some coals were found amongst them ; a way to make wood perpetual, and a fit associate for metal, whereon was laid the foundation of the great Ephesian temple, and which were made the lasting tests of old boundaries and landmarks. Whilst we look on these, we admire not obser- vations of coals found fresh after four hundred years.f lu a long-deserted habitation]: even egg-shells have been found fresh, not tending to corruption. In the monument of King Childerick the iron relicks were found aU rusty and crumbling into pieces; but our little iron pins, which fastened the ivory works, held well together, and lost not their magnetical quality, though wanting a tenacious moisture for the firmer union of parts; although it be hardly drawn into fusion, yet that metal soon submitteth unto rust and dissolution. In the brazen pieces we admired not the duration, but the freedom from rust, and ill savour, upon the hardest attrition ; but now exposed unto the piercing atoms of air, in the space of a few mouths, they begin to spot and betray their green entrails. We conceive not these urns to have descended thus naked as they appear, or to have entered their graves without the old habit of flowers. The urn of Philopcemen was so laden with flowers and ribbons, that it aftbrded no sight of itself The rigid Lycurgus allowed olive and myrtle. The Athenians might fairly except against the practice of Democritus, to be buried up in honey, as fearing to embezzJe a great commodity of their country, and the best of that kind in • Oorop. Becanm in Niloscopio. t Oi Meringuccio iiclla pyrotech»ia. t At Elmhwo.
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