"of thirty years; which to relate were not hiftory, "but a piece of poetry, and would found like a fable."

There is, undoubtedly, a fenfe in which all life is miraculous; as it is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a fucceffion of motions of which the firft caufe must be fupernatural: but life, thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of fable; and therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to fomething, by which he imagined himself diftinguished from the reft of inankind.

Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life offers no appearance. The courfe of his education was like that of others, fuch as put him little in the way of extraordinary cafualties. A fcholaftick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed, more fafety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown feas, or Arabian defarts: and, furely, a man may vifit France and Italy, refide at Montpellier and Padua, and at laft take his degree at Leyden, without any thing miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, found fo poetical and fabulous, we are left to guefs; I believe without hope of gueffing rightly. The wonders probably were tranfacted in his own mind: felf-love, co-operating with an imagination vigorous and fertile as that of Browne, will find or make objects of aftonishment in every man's life: and, perhaps, there is no human being, however hid in the crowd from the obfervation of his fellowmortals, who, if he has leifure and difpofition to recollect his own thoughts and actions, will not conclude his life in fome fort a miracle, and imagine himself distinguished

distinguished from all the rest of his fpecies by many difcriminations of nature or of fortune.

The fuccefs of this performance was fuch, as might naturally encourage the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge *, whose name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from his version it was again tranflated into Italian, German, Dutch, and French; and at Strasburg the Latin translation was published with large notes, by Lenuus Nicolaus Molifarius. Of the English annotations, which in all the editions from 1644 accompany the book, the author is unknown.

Of Merryweather, to whofe zeal Browne was fo much indebted for the fudden extenfion of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published a small treatise for the inftruction of young perfons in the attainment of a Latin ftyle. He printed his tranflation in Holland with fome difficulty. The first printer to whom he offered it carried it to Salmafius, "who laid it by (fays he) in state for three months," and then difcouraged its publication: it was afterwards rejected by two other printers, and at last was received by Hackius.

66

The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is ufual, many admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one profeffed answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus, by Alexander Rofs, which was univerfally neglected by the world.

* Life of fir Thomas Browne.

+ Merryweather's letter, inferted in the Life of fir Thomas Browne. Life of fir Thomas Browne.

At

**

At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne refided at Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the perfuafion of Dr. Lufhington his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Weftgate in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was very extensive, and that many patients reforted to him. In 1637 he was incorporated doctor of phyfick in Oxford.

He married in 1641 Mrs. Mileham, of a good family in Norfolk; "a lady (fays Whitefoot) of fuch "fymmetrical proportion to her worthy husband, both "in the graces of her body and mind, that they "feemed to come together by a kind of natural mag"netifm."

This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits § upon a man, who had just been wishing in his new book, "that we might procreate, "like trees, without conjunction;" and had || lately declared, that "the whole world was made for man, "but only the twelfth part of man for woman;" and, that "man is the whole world, but woman only the "rib or crooked part of man."

Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous pofitions, or whether fhe was pleased with the conquest of so formidable a rebel, and confidered it as a double triumph, to attract so much merit, and overcome fo powerful prejudices; or whether, like moft others, the married upon mingled motives, between convenience and inclination; fhe had, however, no reason to repent, for fhe lived happily with him one and forty years, and bore him ten children, of

* Wood's Athena Oxonienfes. § Howel's Letters.

+ Wood. * Whitefoot.

Religio Medici.

whom

whom one fon and three daughters outlived their parents: fhe furvived him two years, and paffed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.

Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the delights of praise and moleftations. of cenfure, probably found his dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long before he trufted his name to the criticks a fecond time: for in 1646 he printed Enquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work, which as it arofe not from fancy and invention, but from obfervation and books, and contained not a fingle difcourfe of one continued tenor, of which the latter part arofe from the former, but an enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the collection of years, and the effect of a defign early formed and long purfued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which arofe-gradually to its prefent bulk by the daily aggregation of new particles of knowledge. It is indeed to be wished, that he had longer delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of his life might have furnished: the thirty-fix years which he spent afterwards in ftudy and experience, would doubtlefs have made large additions to an Enquiry into vulgar Errours. He published in 1673 the fixth edition, with fome improvements; but I think rather with explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of difquifition. But with the work, fuch as the author, whether hindered from continuing it by eagerness of praife, or weariness of labour, thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all fublunary

*ife of fir Thomas Browne.

things

things there is fomething to be wifhed which we must with in vain.

This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was anfwered by Alexander Rofs, and tranflated into Dutch and German, and not many years ago into French. It might now be proper, had not the favour with which it was at firft received filled the kingdom with copies, to reprint it with notes, partly fupplemental, and partly emendatory, to fubjoin those discoveries which the industry of the last age has made, and correct thofe miftakes which the author has committed not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and Newton's philofophy.

He appears indeed to have been willing to pay labour for truth. Having heard a flying rumour of fympathetick needles, by which, fufpended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might correspond, he procured two fuch alphabets to be made, touched his needles with the fame magnet, and placed them upon proper fpindles: the refult was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other, instead of taking by sympathy the fame direction, "ftood like the pil"lars of Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be easily believed; and moft men would have been content to believe it, without the labour of fo hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have obtained the fame conviction by a method less operofe, if he had thrust his needles through corks, and fet them afloat in two bafons of water.

Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errors, he feems not very easy to admit new pofitions; for he never mentions the motion of the earth but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion, which admits