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retreat! and happy had it been for Hannibal, if adversity could have taught him as much wisdom as was learnt by Scipio from the highest prosperities. This would be no wonder, if it were as truly as it is colourably1 and wittily said by Monsieur Montaigne, "That ambition itself might teach us to love solitude; there is nothing does so much hate to have companions." It is true, it loves to have its elbows free, it detests to have company on either side; but it delights above all things in a train behind, aye, and ushers, too, before it. But the greatest part of men are so far from the opinion of that noble Roman, that, if they chance at any time to be without company, they are like a becalmed ship; they never move but by the wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their own to steer withal. It is very fantastical and contradictory in human nature, that men should love themselves above all the rest of the world, and yet never endure to be with themselves. When they are in love with a mistress, all other persons are importunate and burthensome to them: they would live and die with her alone.

"With thee for ever I in woods could rest,

Where never human foot the ground has press'd;
Thou from all shades the darkness canst exclude,
And from a desert banish solitude."

And yet our dear self is so wearisome to us, that we can scarcely support its conversation for an hour together. This is such an odd temper of mind, as Catullus expresses towards one of his mistresses, whom we may suppose to have been of a very unsociable humour.

"I hate, and yet I love thee too;

How can that be? I know not how;
Only that so it is I know,

And feel with torment that 'tis so."

It is a deplorable condition this, and drives a man sometimes to pitiful shifts, in seeking how to avoid himself.

The truth of the matter is, that neither he who is a fop in the world is a fit man to be alone, nor he who has set his heart much upon the world, though he have never so much understanding; so that solitude can be well fitted, and sit right, but upon a very few persons. They must have enough knowledge of the world to see the vanity of it, and enough virtue to despise all vanity; if the mind be possessed with any lust or passions, a man had better be in a fair than in a wood alone. They may, like petty thieves, cheat us perhaps, and pick our pockets, in the midst of company; but, like robbers, they use to strip, and bind, or murder us, when they catch us alone. This is but to retreat from men, and fall into the hands of devils. It is like the punishment of parricides among the Romans, to be sewed into a bag with an ape, a dog, and a serpent.

1.e., in modern language, plausibly.

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The first work, therefore, that a man must do, to make himself capable of the good of solitude, is the very eradication of all lusts; for, how is it possible for a man to enjoy himself while his affections are tied to things without himself? In the second place, he must learn the art and get the habit of thinking; for this, too, no less than well-speaking, depends upon much practice; and cogitation is the thing which distinguishes the solitude of a God from a wild beast. Now, because the soul of man is not by its own nature or observation furnished with sufficient materials to work upon, it is necessary for it to have continual recourse to learning and books for fresh supplies, so that the solitary life will grow indigent, and be ready to starve, without them; but if once we be thoroughly engaged in the love of letters, instead of being wearied with the length of any day, we shall only complain of the shortness of our whole life.

"O life, long to the fool, short to the wise!"

The first minister of state has not so much business in public, as a wise man has in private: if the one have little leisure to be alone, the other has less leisure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of one nation, the other all the works of God and nature under his consideration. There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, "that a man does not know how to pass his time." It would have been but ill-spoken by Methusalem in the nine hundred sixty-ninth year of his life; so far it is from us, who have not time enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any part of any science, to have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle for want of work. But this, you will say, is work only for the learned; others are not capable either of the employments or divertisements that arrive from letters. I know they are not; and therefore cannot much recommend solitude to a man totally illiterate. But, if any man be so unlearned as to want entertainment of the little intervals of accidental solitude, which frequently occur in almost all conditions (except the very meanest of the people, who have business enough in the necessary provisions for life), it is truly a great shame both to his parents and to himself, for a very small portion of any ingenious art will stop up all these gaps of our time; either music, or painting, or designing, or chemistry, or history, or gardening, or twenty other things, will do it usefully and pleasantly; and if he happen to set his affections upon poetry (which I do not advise him too immoderately), that will overdo it: no wood will be thick enough to hide him from the importunities of company or business, which would abstract him from his beloved.

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian underwood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice,

And for their quiet rests and plenteous food
Pay, with their grateful voice.

Hail, the poor Muses' richest manor-seat;
Ye country houses and retreat,
Which all the happy gods so love,

That for you oft they quit their bright and great 1
Metropolis above.

Here Nature does a house for me erect;

Nature, the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

Ah wretched and too solitary he,

Who loves not his own company!
He'll feel the weight of't many a day,

Unless he call in sin or vanity

To help to bear't away.

Oh solitude, first state of human kind!
Which bless'd remain'd, till man did find
Ev'n his own helper's company.

As soon as two, alas! together join'd,
The serpent made up three.

XII. SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE was born in London in 1605. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and after graduating, devoted himself to the study of medicine, which he prosecuted at Padua and Leyden, then the most famous medical schools in Europe. Returning from the Continent, he settled for a short time at London, and thence removed to Norwich, where he spent the rest of his life, carrying on his scientific researches, and discharging the duties of his profession, undisturbed by the din of civil war which raged all around. His works procured him a wide-spread reputation, and in 1671 Charles II., when on a visit to Norwich, bestowed on him the honour of knighthood. He died in 1682. His works are "Religio Medici, or Religion of a Physician," 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into Vulgar Errors," Hydriotaphia, a Discourse on Sepulchral Urns," "The Garden of Cyrus," "Christian Morals," and some minor performances. Few works were more popular when first produced than those of Sir Thomas Browne, and perhaps none of that age have at the present day a wider circle of enthusiastic admirers. His " Religio Medici" passed through twelve editions during the author's life, was translated

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1 In the time of Cowley great was probably always pronounced so as to rhyme to seat. This pronunciation was retained till near the close of last century, for Dr Johnson, though told by Lord Chesterfield that great should be made to rhyme to state, was also told by the best speaker in the House of Commons that nobody but an Irishman would pronounce it in any other way than so as to rhyme to seat.

""
FROM THE RELIGIO MEDICI."

145

into most of the Continental languages, called forth a host of imitators, and is still read with pleasure. The style of Browne's works is very peculiar and characteristic; pedantic, obscure, abounding in newcoined Latin words and learned allusions, it is yet dignified and pleasing, sometimes eloquent and forcible, and flows with a graceful musical rhythm, exceedingly agreeable to a cultivated ear, and not perceptible to the same extent in any contemporary writer. His remarks may sometimes appear unimportant, and are not seldom farfetched and ingenious rather than solid; but they are never commonplace, and always bear the impress of a mind quaint, perhaps, and singularly constituted, but vigorous, original, and untiring in the pursuit of truth. The following extracts are from the excellent edition of Browne by Mr Wilkin of Norwich.

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1. FROM THE ́RELIGIO MEDICI.”1—(PART I., SECT. VI.)

I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps, within a few days, I should dissent myself. I have no genius to disputes in religion; and have often thought it wisdom to decline them, especially upon a disadvantage, or when the cause of truth might suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where we desire to be informed, 'tis good to contest with men above ourselves; but, to confirm and stablish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. Every man is not a proper champion for truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity; many, from the ignorance of these maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal unto truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender; 'tis therefore far better to enjoy her with peace than hazard her in a battle. If, therefore, there rise any doubts in my way, I do forget them, or at least defer them, till my better settled judgment and more manly reason be able to resolve them; for I perceive every man's own reason is his best Edipus,2 and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds wherewith the subtleties of error have enchained our more flexible and tender judgments. In philosophy, where truth seems double-faced, there is no man more paradoxical than myself: but in divinity I love to keep the road; and though not in an implicit, yet an humble faith, follow the great wheel of the church; not reserving any proper poles or motion from the epicycle of my own brain. By this means I leave

1 This work contains a summary of Browne's religious opinions.

2 Edipus became King of Thebes by solving the Sphinx's riddle; hence the passage in the text means, every man's own reason, if properly used, will solve all doubts and difficulties in his religion.

3 An epicycle is a circle described round a point in the circumference of another circle; the meaning is, "I adhere to the church's authority without wandering in any peculiar way of my own."

K

no gap for heresy, schisms, or errors, of which at present I hope I shall not injure truth to say, I have no taint or tincture. I must confess my greener studies have been polluted with two or three; not any begotten in the latter centuries, but old and obsolete, such as could never have been revived but by such extravagant and irregular heads as mine. For. indeed, heresies perish not with their authors, but like the river Arethusa, though they lose their currents in one place, they rise up again in another. One general council is not able to extirpate one single heresy; it may be cancelled for the present, but revolution of time, and the like aspects from heaven, will restore it, when it will flourish till it be condemned again. For, as though there were a metempsychosis, and the soul of one man passed to another, opinions do find, after certain revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat them. To see ourselves again, we need not look for Plato's year;3 every man is not only himself; there have been many Diogeneses, and as many Timons, though but few of that name; men are lived over again; the world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then, but there hath been some one since that parallels him, and is as it were his revived self.

The wonders of Nature.-(Part i., sections 15, 16.)—I could never content my contemplation with those general pieces of wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, the increase of Nile, the conversion of the needle to the North; and have studied to match and parallel these in the more obvious and neglected pieces of nature which, without further travel, I can do in the cosmography of myself. We carry with us the wonders we seek without us; there is all Africa and her prodigies in us. We are that bold and adventurous piece of nature which he that studies wisely learns in a compendium, what others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.

Thus there are two books from whence I collect my divinity. Besides that written one of God, another of His servant-nature, that universal and publick manuscript, that lies exposed unto the eyes of all. Those that never saw Him in the one, have discovered Him in the other this was the scripture and theology of the heathens; the natural motion of the sun made them more admire Him than its supernatural station did the children of Israel. The ordinary effects of nature wrought more admiration in them, than in the other all His miracles. Surely the heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of nature. Nor do I so forget God as to adore the name of nature which I define not, with the schools, to be the

A fountain in Sicily; according to the belief of the ancients, this fountain was connected under the sea with the Alphæus, a river in Greece, so that anything thrown into the river rose in the fountain.

2 i e., a transmigration of souls.

3 A revolution of certain thousand years, when all things should return unto their former estate, and he be teaching again in his school, as when he delivered this opinion. 4 In the literal sense of "standing still."

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