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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    the funeral pyre of Patrockis took up an hundred foot,* a piece of an old boat burnt Pompey; and if the burthen of Isaac were sufficient for an holocaust, a man may carry his own pyre. From animals are drawn good burning lights, and good medicines against burning.f Though the seminal humoxir seems of a contrary nature to fire, yet the body completed proves a combustible lump, wherein fire finds flame even from bones, and some fuel almost from all parts; though the metropolis of humidityj seems least disposed imto it, which might render the skuUs of these urns less burned than other bones. But all flies or sinks before fire almost in all bodies: when the common ligament is dissolved, the attenuable parts ascend, the rest subside in coal, calx, or ashes. To bum the bones of the king of Edom for lime,§ seems no Irrational ferity ; but to drink of the ashes of dead rela- tions, || a passionate prodigality. He that hath the ashes of his friend, hath an everlasting treasure; where fire taketh leave, corruption slowly enters. In bones well burnt, fire makes a wall against itself; experimented in cupels,* and tests of metals, which consist of such ingredients. What the sun compoundeth, fire analyzeth, not transmuteth. That devouring agent leaves almost always a morsel for the earth, whereof all things are but a colony; and which, if time permits, the mother element will have in their primitive mass again. He that looks for ums and old sepulchral relicks, must not seek them in the ruins of temples, where no religion anciently placed them. These were found in a field, accord- ing to ancient custom, in noble or private burial; the old practice of the Canaanites, the family of Abraham, and the burying-place of Joshua, in the borders of his possessions; * 'EKarofiiredov tv9a r/ tvOa. t Alb. Ovor. X The brain. Hippocrates. § Amos ii. 1. || As Artemisia of her husband Mausolus, * cupels.] A chemical vessel, made of earth, ashes, or burnt bones, and in which assay-masters try metals. It suffers all baser ores, when fused and mixed with lead, to pass oS, and retains only gold and iilver.
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