Collectanea de Diversis Rebus: Addresses and Papers

“Let not the law of thy country be the non ultra of thy honesty… Join Gospel righteousness with legal right.”

“Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in ashes. Draw the curtain of night upon injuries, shut them up in the tower of oblivion, and let them be as though they had not been. To forgive our enemies, yet hope that God will punish them, is not to forgive enough.”

“Think not that always good which thou thinkest thou can always make good, nor that concealed which the sun doth not behold. There is no darkness unto conscience; which can see without light, and in the deepest obscurity give a clear draught of things, which the cloud of dissimulation hath concealed from all eyes.”

As final quotations from “Christian Morals” let me give these sentences, “Bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and generous honesty, are the gems of noble minds,” – and

“Live happy in the Elysium of a virtuously composed mind… Tranquility is better than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent pleasure… Forget not the capital end, and frustrate not the opportunity of once living… Think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account.”

I want neither to tire you, nor to read you a sermon at second-hand. So having now shown you the religious side of Browne’s character, let me give you some idea of his learning and acquirements and general industry.

In his grand treatise on Hydriotaphia or Urn-burial, which he wrote consequent upon the discovery of some ancient sepulchral urns at Old Walsingham, in Norfolk, he exemplifies the great stores of knowledge which by his reading and memory he had accumulated. He quaintly prefaces this treatise by saying, “Who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?” And then he goes on to describe the various modes of disposal of the dead in various ages, and among different nations. For instance, he says that “Carnal interment or burying was of the elder date,” as shown by the older examples of Abraham and the Patriarchs. “But the practice of burning was also of great antiquity, and of no slender extent.” And he illustrates this by the Grecian funerals of Homer; the funeral pyre of Hector; and by early records of the practice in various countries of Asia, in Rome itself, and in different countries of both Europe and Africa.

Touching the various modes of disposal of the dead, he says, “The Indian Brachmans thought it the noblest way to end their days in fire.

“The Chaldeans abhorred fire.

“The Egyptians objected to the merciless consuming of their bodies by fire, but preserved them, by precious embalments, depositure in dry earths, or handsome enclosure in glasses.

“The Scythians, who swore by wind and sword, declined all interment, and made their graves in the air.

“The Icthyophagi, or fish-eating nations about Egypt, affected the sea for their grave.

“The Chinese, without cremation of their bodies, made use of trees, and much burning, while they plant a pine tree by their grave.

“The Jews usually buried their dead, but occasionally admitted cremation, as when Jabesh burnt the body of Saul, and as was their practice in times of pestilence.

“The Christians have preferred the practice of the Patriarchs, returning their bodies, not to ashes, but to dust.”

He then goes on to discuss the various customs in this respect of the successive inhabitants of England; and he concludes his learned and interesting treatise by saying, as to the hopes of Christians, and the comparative unimportance of the mode of sepulture, “To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their productions… was large satisfaction unto old expectations. But all this is nothing in the metaphysicks of true belief. To live indeed is to be again ourselves, which being not only a hope, but an evidence in noble believers, ’tis all one to lie in St. Innocents’ Churchyard, or in the sands of Egypt. Ready to be anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six foot (of earth) as the Moles of Adrianus.”

But I must hurry on, and next very briefly call your attention to another of his great works, that which he styled Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or “Enquiries into many received tenets and presumed truths, which, examined, prove but vulgar and common errors.”

These “errors,” which he treats of in papers or treatises of various lengths, are very numerous, and for even a cursory knowledge of them I must refer you to the book itself.

To give you an idea of the subjects, I will only mention a few of the titles of the errors which he proceeds to refute: —

That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed,That an elephant hath no joints,That a pigeon hath no gall,Of the Phœnix,Of the Basilisk,That a Salamander lives in the fire,That an ostrich digesteth iron.

Or, to take another class of subjects —

That snails have no eyes,Of the picture of Moses with horns,That the forbidden fruit was an apple,

and so forth.

But though his tracts on these “vulgar errors” may, in many instances – and looked at by the light of our present knowledge (and we must never forget the immense difference in the scientific knowledge of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries) – appear not only quaint, but almost trivial, yet even where the conclusion to the question discussed may appear to be self-evident, and the reasoning thrown away, we often see an amount of learning and research displayed which strikes us as quite remarkable. For example, in discussing the “vulgar error,” that the ostrich digesteth iron, he quotes the following writers in reference to it: – Rhodiginus, Johannes Langius, Aristotle, Oppianus, Pliny, Œlian, Leo Africanus, Fernelius, Riolanus, Albertus Magnus, and Ulysses Aldrovandus – a list which may well make us stand astonished at the extent of his studies, and cause us to say of him, even in such small matters, “Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit.” It is almost needless to add that in this case Sir Thomas arrived at the common-sense conclusion that although ostriches may swallow iron they do not digest it.

His greatest works were undoubtedly those which I have already mentioned. But he wrote also a very noted book, entitled the Garden of Cyrus, in which he discussed learnedly, and often fancifully, numerous questions connected with the vegetable world. He reviewed the practice of Horticulture, and the arrangements of gardens even from the first garden mentioned – that of Eden in Paradise. He makes reference to the hanging gardens of Babylon; the classical gardens of the Hesperides and of Alcinous; and to the gardens and orchards, with their pools of water, of King Solomon. And he discusses the various forms in which ancient gardens were presumably laid out – dwelling largely upon the quincuncial24 arrangements probably adopted. The whole book teems also with allusions, showing his minute acquaintance with vegetable phenomena.

As to King Cyrus, he says, “All stories do look upon Cyrus as the splendid and regular planter.”

Sir Thomas Browne also wrote Some account of the tombs and monuments in the Cathedral Church of Norwich; and many papers on the birds, and fishes, and vegetable life of Norfolk and other parts.25 But I should indeed weary you, were I merely to enumerate to you the bare titles of the long list of tracts and papers which his fertile brain produced.

Amongst his Letters, those to his sons, which will be found in Wilkin’s Edition of his works, are worthy of mention as illustrating the special bent of his mind, his wide range of thought, the peculiarity of his advice, and the strength of his family attachments.

The stilted and complimentary, as well as roundabout, epistolary style of those days is well known. Thus, in writing to Mr. Evelyn, he begins: “Worthy Sir, – In obedience unto the commands of my noble friend, Mr. Paston, and the respects I owe unto so worthy a person as yourself,” or again, addressing Dr. Merritt, he commences: “Most honoured Sir, – I take the boldness to salute you as a person of singular worth and learning, and whom I very much respect and honour,” or again, “Honoured Sir, – I am sorry that I have had diversions of such necessity, as to hinder my more sudden salute since I received your last.”

To his sons he writes many letters. In these he addresses his eldest son Edward as “Dear Sonne,” or “Dear Sonne Edward;” but those to his younger son Thomas, always commenced “Honest Tom” or “Tom” only.

Much of his advice to “Honest Tom” is peculiar although essentially sound and practical. Thus he advises him, when a young man in France, in this fashion: “I would be glad you had a good handsome garb of your body… and take up a commendable boldness, without which you will never be fit for anything.” “Live soberly and temperately, the heat of the place (Xaintes) will otherwise mischief you, and keep within in the heat of the day.” “You may stay your stomach with little pastrys some times in cold mornings, for I doubt sea larks will be too dear a collation and drawe too much wine down.”

Again, later on, he writes: “Bee sober and complacent. If you quit periwigs it would be better, and more for your credit.” “Hee that goes to warre must patiently submit unto the various accidents thereof.” And that this “Honest Tom” was a worthy son and a fine English sailor we learn from a passage in another letter to him at a latter period, when a lieutenant of his Majesty’s ship the “Marie Rose.” He writes to his son: “Mr. Scudamore, your sober and learned chaplaine, in your voyage with Sir Jeremie Smith, gives you no small commendations for a sober, studious, courageous, and diligent person; that he had not met with any of the fleet like you, so civile, observing, and diligent to your charge, with the reputation and love of all the shippe; and that without doubt you would make a famous man and a reputation to your country.”

We can only regret that this promising son did not live to fulfil the high expectations formed of him.

Finally reference may be made to a Letter, because stated to have been previously unpublished, which may be found in the “Eastern Counties Collectanea,” in which he exhaustively discusses the nature of a large fish-bone dug up at Cunnington, and which had been sent to him for his opinion upon it.

To sum up – Sir Kenelm Digby writes to Sir T. Browne, of the Religio Medici as “Your excellent piece… of so weighty subjects, and so strongly penned.”

Dr. Johnson says of him “There is no science of which he does not discover some skill; and scarce any kind of knowledge profane or sacred, obstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.”

Carlyle says “The conclusion of the essay on urn burial is absolutely beautiful; a still elegiac mood, so soft, so solemn and tender, like the song of some departed saint flitting faint under the everlasting canopy of night – an echo of deepest meaning from the great and mighty nations of the dead. Browne must have been a good man.”

Evelyn, as I have already quoted, writes of him as “That famous scholar and physician.”

And to come nearer home, the late Captain Blakiston, in a paper read before the Archæological Institute, in Norwich, in 1847, writes of him as a “Great Antiquarian and eminent citizen;.. a quaint and original thinker;” and as “Leaving behind him a shining reputation.”

By general consent Sir Thomas Browne was recognised, not only as a “curious thinker,” but as a man of remarkable and original talent even in his lifetime, and the same reputation continued after his death. His works have always been regarded as those of a strong and original thinker, and they have never been held in higher estimation than at the present time. And I think I may fairly repeat that the more his writings are studied the more does their learning and power impress itself upon our understanding. With many faults, with many shortcomings – as judged by the standard of the present day – they yet remain the monument of genius, and worthy to be classed amongst the highest productions of great and cultivated intellects.

Norwich may be well proud of so great a citizen – of one whose memory is held in higher and yet higher esteem, and who is justly regarded as one of the greatest of her literary men.

Perhaps the only drawback to our satisfaction is the fact that he was not a native of Norwich. And in this sense we cannot claim him as our own, as we are proud to claim so many of our citizens, who have distinguished themselves in literature, in science, in botany, in departments of natural history, in medicine, and in painting. But Norwich can look upon him with pride as an adopted son, as one who elected to live the whole of his working life in this city; and who identified himself so absolutely with it, that his name is inseparable from it, and who will be known for all time as Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich.

Addendum. – On October 19th, 1905, the admirable statue by Mr. Henry Pegram of Sir Thomas Browne, erected in the Norwich Haymarket, was unveiled by Lord Avebury, in the presence of the Mayor and other city officials and of a numerous company. This date was the tercentenary of the birth of this great philosopher, and he was both born and died on the 19th October.

1

1908. For the last five or six years I have practically been an abstainer, and my health has greatly improved in consequence. I am now eighty-three years of age.

2

Read September 28th, 1886, and reprinted from the “Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society,” Vol. iv.

3

It is noticeable how they both do the same thing, in a precisely similar way, at the same time, and this applies even to the attitudes they assume.

4

April, 1887. They have just been again weighed, after their winter’s hybernation; and their weight now is, respectively, 2 lbs. 7½ ozs. and 2 lbs. 2½ ozs. Thus each of them has lost 2½ ozs. in the seven months of quietude.

5

Read November 29th, 1892, and reprinted from the “Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society,” Vol. v.

6

Read before the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, February 22nd, 1887, and reprinted from Vol. iv. of the Society’s “Transactions.”

7

Read before the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, January 30th, 1900, and reprinted from Vol. vii. of the Society’s “Transactions.”

8

A further photographic view of this grand tree is given in the second edition of this book, published in 1906: but before this time the tree had been topped and shorn, and had lost the grandeur and beauty which had made it so remarkable.

9

Read by the President, to the Members of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, at their Eighteenth Annual Meeting, held at the Norfolk and Norwich Museum, March 29th, 1887. – Reprinted from Volume iv. of the Society’s “Transactions.”

10

It is now known that the nodules found upon certain growing plants are caused by germ growth, with the production of Nitrates and thereby a fertilization of the soil. And it is worth noting that at the present time (1908) it is being endeavoured to utilise this knowledge of aerial nitrification by certain plants, by artificially applying a liquid preparation of the germs which are the active agents in the process to the seeds of these plants or to the growing crops. The results of such applications, so far, are alleged to be effective and commercially advantageous.

11

This grand Castle Museum was opened by their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York (now Prince and Princess of Wales) on October 23rd, 1894; and this Society’s meetings are now held in it.

12

A Paper read at the Church in May, 1891, before the Norwich Archæological Society.

13

Kirkpatrick’s Streets and Lanes of Norwich.

14

Described by Mr. Manning in Vol. x. of Archæological Society’s “Transactions.”

15

The large East Window of the Chancel has recently been filled with a handsome design of stained glass, by Clayton and Bell, of London, and presented by the Author.

16

Read before the “Literary and Debating Class” of the Church of England Young Men’s Society, on March 7th, 1906.

17

Mr. T. West Carnie, in a little volume entitled, “In Quaint East Anglia,” speaking of Norwich by night, says, “If Norwich is beautiful by day, with the August sun kissing its red roofs, it is as lovely by night under the beams of the harvest moon.” “Under the moonbeams Norwich makes a pretty picture from whichever point it is viewed; and the effects in some of the narrow streets are very wonderful. I mind me of one special ‘set,’ if I may so call it, namely that in which, from St. Giles’s lower end, the street entirely in shadow, you look out westward upon the lofty church tower sheeted in moonlight against a clear sky.”

18

The writer of this paper.

19

Further, it may be noted, that my clock is a striking clock, and as such is of considerable value to the large body of workers who live within sound of the bell, and who have to begin or return to their employments at fixed times.

20

A very handsome and illustrated volume on the history of this Bethel Hospital, by the late Sir Frederic Bateman and Mr. Walter Rye, has recently (in 1906) been published.

21

Those who have read Mr. Hooper’s and Mr. B. Prior’s admirable souvenir of the Nelson Centenary, so recently published, will remember how it is there stated that this statue was at first placed in St. Andrew’s Hall; then after a year or two was located in the Market Place, near the Guildhall; and then in 1856 was removed to its present position in the Upper Close.

22

Reprinted from the Society’s Journal.

23

This Portrait was reclaimed by and returned to the Churchwardens of St. Peter’s in 1900.

24

Quincunx – a square with a central object, as of five trees arranged thus —

25

Since the above was written, an admirable volume has been published by Mr. T. Southwell, upon Browne’s “Notes on the Natural History of Norfolk.”