Volume 1

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

  • Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
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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    tliey sailed up to Castro, an island where the Spaniards live, there being none of them now upon all the coast of America] between that place and the river of Plate; from Castro they went to Baldavia, but I have not room to write what passed there.—Your m. o. son, E. B. Sir Thomas Browne to Mr. Elias Ashmole. I was very well acquainted with Dr. Arthur Dee, and at one time or other hee hath given me some account of the whole course of his life: hee gave mee a catalogue of what his father Dr. John Dee had writt, and what hee intended to write, butt I think I have seen the same in some of his printed bookes, and that catalogue hee gave me in writing I cannot yet find. I never heard him say one word of the booke of spirits, sett out by Dr. Casaubone, which if hee had knowne I make no doubt butt hee would have spoake of it unto mee, for he was very inquisitive after any manuscripts of his father's, and desirous to print as many as hee could possibly obtaine ; and therefore, understand- ing that Sir William Bos well, the iSnglish resident in Holland, had found out many of them, which he kept in a trunck in his bowse in Holland, to my knowledge hee sent divers letters imto Sir William, humbly desiring him that hee would not lock them up from the world, butt suffer him to print at least some thereof. Sir William answered some of his letters, acknowledging that hee had some of his father's works not yet published, and that they were safe from being lost, and that hee was readie to showe them unto him, butt that hee had an intention to print some of them himself. Dr. Arthur Dee continued his solicitation, butt Sr. William dying I could never heare more of those manuscripts iu his hand. I have heard the Dr. saye that hee lived in Bohe- mia with his father, both at Prague and other parts of Bohemia. That Prince or Count Rosenberg was their great patron, who delighted much in alchymie; I have often heard him affirme, and sometimes with oaths, that hee had seen projection made and transmutation of pewter dishes and flaggons into sylver, which the goldsmiths at Prague bought of them. And that Count Rosenberg playd at quaits with silver quaits made by pro- jection as before ; that this transmutation was made by a powder they had, which was found in some old place, and a booke lying by it containing nothing butt hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon ; but I could not heare that he could make it out. Hee sayd also that Kelly delt not justly by his father, and that he went away with the greatest part of the powder and was afterwards imprisoned by the Emperor in a castle, from whence attempting an escape downe the wall, hee