The Major Works (English Library) Read online

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  THE MAJOR WORKS

  SIR THOMAS BROWNE

  Sir Thomas Browne was born in London in 1605 and educated at Winchester and Pembroke College, Oxford. After a tour of Ireland, he studied medicine at Montpellier and Padua and received his doctorate from Leiden.

  Religio Medici was composed in the mid-1630s and published without permission. Three years after its appearance it became prohibited reading for Catholics but soon had its imitators, such as Religio Laici by John Dryden. After the publication of Religio Medici, Browne settled in Norwich, where he spent the rest of his life. His most learned and ambitious work, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, was published in 1646 and in 1658 Hydriotaphia and The Garden of Cyrus were published jointly. He was knighted by default in 1671 when Charles II visited Norwich; the City Mayor declined the honour and Browne was suggested as a substitute. His later works include several tracts on a range of topics, some published posthumously. Browne’s reputation has remained unwavering throughout the centuries. Coleridge referred to him as ‘the Humorist constantly mingling with and flashing across the Philosopher’ and his influence is discernible in writers as diverse as Swift and Herman Melville.

  C. A. Patrides, formerly Professor of English and Related Literature in the University of York, is now G. B. Harrison Professor of English Literature in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is the author of Milton and the Christian Tradition (1966), ‘The Grand Design of God’: The Literary Form of the Christian View of History (1972) and Premises and Motifs in Renaissance Thought and Literature (1982), as well as editor of collections such as Approaches to Sir Thomas Browne (1982) and editions such as The Cambridge Platonists (1969), the selected prose of Milton (Penguin Books, (1974), and the poetry of Herbert (1974) and Donne (1984).

  SIR THOMAS BROWNE

  The Major Works

  Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by

  C. A. PATRIDES

  PENGUIN BOOKS

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  This selelction first published 1977

  Published in Penguin Classics 2006

  9

  Introduction and Notes copyright © C. A. Patrides, 1977

  All rights reserved

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-195879-8

  FOR THE HUNTLEYS:

  FRANK AND TRINK

  CONTENTS

  To the Reader

  An Outline of Browne’s Life

  ‘Above Atlas his Shoulders’: An Introduction to Sir Thomas Browne

  BROWNE’S PROSE

  The Major Works

  RELIGIO MEDICI

  PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA (selections)

  HYDRIOTAPHIA

  THE GARDEN OF CYRUS

  A LETTER TO A FRIEND

  CHRISTIAN MORALS

  From the Shorter Works

  ON DREAMS

  Appendix

  Samuel Johnson, The Life of Sir Thomas Browne

  A Dictionary of Names

  Bibliography

  Contents

  Abbreviations

  TO THE READER

  THE present edition provides in the first instance the complete text of five of Browne’s major works; also extracts from his colossal Pseudodoxia Epidemica together with the titles of the omitted chapters in order to suggest its continuity; and finally one of his numerous shorter works – ‘On Dreams’ – which not only displays the riches still awaiting our attention but confirms the persuasion Browne often voices elsewhere, that ‘There is surely a neerer apprehension of any thing that delights us in our dreames, than in our waked senses’ (below, p. 154).

  Also included is Dr Samuel Johnson’s Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1756), immediately useful because it quotes extensively from the only substantial earlier memoir – John Whitefoot’s Some Minutes for the Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1712) – and mediately valuable in that it is the considered judgement of one major prose writer on another.

  The annotator of Browne’s prose is much helped by Browne himself, who frequently explains a difficult word (e.g. ‘solisequious and Sun-following’, ‘Panoplia or compleat armour’), translates his Greek and Latin words and phrases (e.g. ‘the and adumbration’, or ‘Ipsa sui pretium virtus sibi, that vertue is her own reward, is’ etc.), and places explanatory remarks in the margin (here transferred to the footnotes). Where Browne ends, however, the annotator’s problems begin. The temptation to provide elaborate notes is at times irresistible; but aware that ponderous annotation of Browne’s prose would interfere with his rhythms, I like to think that Gui Patin would not have included me in the just censure he directed in 1657 against a pedantic German editor of Religio Medici.1 Hence my decision not to embark on the perilous seas of source-hunting without, and much less against, Browne’s express warrant; for I would then stand accused of that excessive zeal which he discerned in yet another annotator of Religio Medici, Thomas Keck in 1656.2 Nor should the frequency with which I call attention to widely accepted ideas be misconstrued, since my intention is not to imply that Browne resorted to mere commonplaces but to suggest the way his fertile imagination transformed them into novelties.

  My notes also include several of Coleridge’s remarks, both sustained and marginal. So far, however, no apology is ventured for none is needed.

  In quoting from the manuscripts of Religio Medici to suggest earlier stages of its final text, I have normally preferred the Pembroke version (see P in Abbreviations). Finally, the appended Dictionary identifying the host of names invoked by Browne (pp. 513 ff.) may be accepted as an effort to reduce the proliferating notes.

  A NOTE ON THE TEXT

  I have throughout preferred the first editions of the works here reprinted, except for the text of Pseudodoxia Epidemica where I turned to the carefully revised 2nd edition of 1650, and the text of the essay ‘On Dreams’ where I used its transcription from a manuscript by Sir Geoffrey Keynes. Further particulars are given in the headnotes to each work, below, pp. 57, 163, 261, 317, 389, 415.

  In reprinting these texts, I have amended them in the light of their Errata (if any), corrected the more obvious misprints and the erroneous numbering of various sections (e.g. in Religio Medici), transferred the numbers of some sections from the margin or elsewhere to the outset of the relevant paragraphs
(e.g. in Religio Medici, Pseudodoxia Epidemica and Christian Morals), reduced Brown’s marginal remarks to the notes, expanded all contractions, and changed ‘u’ to ‘v’ where the latter is meant, and ‘i’ to ‘j’ for the same reason.

  A NOTE ON ABBREVIATIONS

  References in parentheses involving letters (e.g. Browne marg., K, etc.) are expanded in the list of abbreviations, below, p. 537. References in parentheses involving numbers preceded by the symbol § (e.g. §19, §127, etc.) are to the numbered entries in the bibliography, below, pp. 539–58.

  Biblical quotations are from the King James (‘Authorised’) Version of 1611, unless otherwise stated. Places of publication are given only if other than London or New York.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My foremost obligations are to the Trustees of the British Library for their permission to reprint Browne’s prose from the original editions; to Faber and Faber Ltd for their permission to reprint the short essay ‘On Dreams’ from The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, edited by Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1964); and to Duke University Press for their permission to reprint extracts from Colsridge on the Seventeenth Century, edited by Roberta F. Brinkley (1955).

  The preparation of this edition was substantially affected by several sustained studies of Browne (notably those by E. S. Merton in 1949, Joan Bennett in 1962, and Frank L. Huntley also in 1962) and the labours of the editors who preceded me in annotating one or more of his works (Dr Samuel Johnson in 1756,3 Sir Sydney Roberts in 1927, and Frank L. Huntley in 1966, but especially W. A. Greenhill in 1881 and 1896, Norman J. Endicott in 1967, R. H. A. Robbins in 1972, and the utterly indispensable L. C. Martin in 1964). One of my greatest pleasures was to revisit the studies by Gordon Keith Chalmers, for they reminded me of his boundless generosity during my undergraduate years at Kenyon College when he was its President.

  In annotating Browne’s prose I have often used extant translations. Even if I was sometimes impelled to make adjustments – especially in the translations of the Loeb Classical Library – I must acknowledge my obligation to the versions of: Aristotle, in W. D. Ross’s edition (1910–1952); Cicero, by Walter Miller (1913), H. Rackam (1914), H. J. Edwards (1917), et al.; Hesiod, by Richard Lattimore (1959); Hippocrates, by W. H. S. Jones (1923–1931); Homer, by Richmond Lattimore (1951 and 1965); Horace, by B. J. Hayes and F. G. Plaistowe (1900), C. E. Bennett (1914), and H. Rushton Fairclough (1914); Josephus, by Ralph Marcus (1937); Justin Martyr, by Marcus Dods (1867); Juvenal, by Lewis Evans (1901) and/or G. G. Ramsay (1918); Lactantius, by William Fletcher (1871); Lucan, by J. D. Duff (1928); Lucretius, by W. H. D. Rouse (1937); Martial, by Anon. (in Bohn’s Library, 1871); Minucius Felix, by Rudolph Arbesmann (1950); Ovid’s Metamorphoses, by F. J. Miller (1916); Persius, by G. G. Ramsay (1918); Plato, by B. Jowett (4th ed., 1953); Plautus, by Paul Nixon (1916); Pliny, by John Bostock and H. T. Riley (1855); Propertius, by Walter K. Kelly (1854); Quintilian, by John S. Watson (1871); Seneca’s tragedies, by Frank J. Miller (1917), and his Moral Letters, by E. Phillips Barker (1932); Suetonius, by Robert Graves (1957); Tertullian’s Resurrection of the Flesh, by A. Souter (1922); Theocritus, by A.S.F Gow (1953); Tibullus, by J. P. Postgate (1912); Virgil’s Georgics and Aeneid, by C. Day Lewis (1940 and 1952), and his Eclogues, by T. F. Royds (1922); Xenophon, by E. C. Marchant (1923); and others.

  I should finally like to record my gratitude to the staffs of the British Library, the New York Public Library, and the libraries at the University of York and New York University, for their manifold courtesies and unfailing assistance; to the authorities of New York University who in appointing me Berg Professor of English Literature for the autumn of 1974 enabled me to gain access to their city’s vast resources; to Mr R. H. A. Robbins of the University of Sheffield who generously allowed me access to several notes from his forthcoming edition of Pseudodoxia Epidemica for the Clarendon Press; to Professors Dorothy Metlitzki of Yale University and Jason Rosenblatt of Georgetown University who lent me their knowledge of Hebrew on two occasions; to Miss Ruth Ellison of the University of York who clarified for me a number of details involving Scandinavian lore; and to Mr William Sulkin who welcomed this volume of behalf of Penguin Books and warmly supported its publication.

  Yet I must end where I should have begun, with an acknowledgement of the indispensable advice of three friends in particular: Professors Frank L. Huntley of the University of Michigan and Joan Webber of the University of Washington, who suggested any number of changes which I promptly accepted, and Mr C. B. L. Barr of the York Minster Library, who by readily placing at my disposal his impressive knowledge shed abundant light on numerous passages in Latin.

  C. A. P.

  University of York,

  1 January 1976

  AN OUTLINE OF BROWNE’S LIFE

  WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY EVENTS

  [Browne thus summarized his life in a letter to John Aubrey on 14 March 1672/3:

  I was borne in St Michaels Cheap in London, went to schoole at Winchester Colledge, then went to Oxford, spent some yeares in forreign parts, was admitted to bee a Socius Honorarius [Honorary Fellow] of the Colledge of Physitians in London. Knighted September, 1671, when the King, Queen and Court came to Norwich. Writt Religio Medici in English, wch was since translated into Latin [1644], French [1668], Italian [?], High and low Duch [1665]. Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into common and vulgar Errors, translated into Duch 4 or 5 yeares ago [i.e. 1668]. Hydriotapbia, or Urne buriall. Hortus Cyri, or deQuincunce. Have some miscellaneous tracts which may bee published. (K, IV, 376)

  See also Dr Johnson’s Life, below, pp. 481ff.]

  THE REIGN OF JAMES I (1603–1625)

  1605

  19 October: Browne born, the third child and first son of Thomas Browne, mercer. The Gunpowder Plot. King Lear first (?) acted. Bacon’s Advancement of Learning published.

  1606

  Macbeth, Jonson’s Volpone and Tourneur’s Revenger’s Tragedy first (?) acted. Corneille born.

  1608

  Milton born. Robert Cecil created Earl of Salisbury, appointed Lord Treasurer. Sylvester’s translation of Du Bartas: 1st complete edition.

  1609

  Spenser’s Faerie Queene: 1st folio edition. Shakespeare’s Sonnets published.

  1610

  Jonson’s Alchemist first acted; also Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (1611?). Galileo reports on his telescopic view of the heavens.

  1611

  George Abbot appointed Archbishop. The King James (‘Authorised’) Version of the Bible published. The Tempest first (?) acted. Chapman’s Iliad completed.

  1612

  Death of the heir apparent Prince Henry; also of Salisbury. Robert Carr, later Earl of Somerset, in favour.

  1613

  Browne’s father dies; his mother marries Sir Thomas Dutton (1614?). Princess Elizabeth marries Frederick Elector Palatine. Sir Thomas Overbury murdered. Crashaw and Jeremy Taylor born.

  1614

  Ralegh’s History of the World published. Webster’s Duchess of Malfi first (?) acted.

  1615

  George Villiers, later Duke of Buckingham, in favour.

  1616

  Browne admitted to Winchester College. Death of Shakespeare. Jonson’s Works published.

  1618

  Ralegh executed. Bacon appointed Lord Chancellor. The Thirty Years War (to 1648).

  1619

  Kepler’s De harmonice mundi published.

  1620

  Settlement of first New England colony by the Pilgrim Fathers. Bacon’s Novum organum published.

  1621

  Bacon impeached. Donne appointed Dean of St Paul’s. Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy published. Marvell and La Fontaine born.

  1622

  Henry Vaughan and Molière born.

  1623

  Browne matriculated at Broadgates Hall, Oxford (i.e. Pembroke College from 1624). The 1st Shakespeare Folio published. Pascal born.

  1624

  Cardinal Richelieu chief minister in France.


  THE REIGN OF CHARLES I (1625–1649)

  1625

  Death of James I; accession of Charles I who marries Henrietta Maria of France. Outbreak of the plague. Death of Webster.

  1626

  Browne admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts at Oxford. Death of Bacon and Lancelot Andrewes. John Aubrey born.

  1628

  The Petition of Right. Buckingham assassinated. William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood published. Bunyan born. Death of Malherbe.

  1629

  Browne admitted to the Degree of Master of Arts at Oxford; visits Ireland. Lancelot Andrewes’s XCVI Sermons published. Emigrations to New England (1629 ff.).

  1630

  Browne departs for studies at Montpellier, Padua and Leyden (1629? 1631?). Prince Charles (later Charles II) born.

  1631

  Death of Donne. Dryden born.

  1632

  Galileo’s Dialogues concerning the Two Principal Systems of the World published. Sir Christopher Wren, John Locke and Spinoza born.

  1633

  Browne admitted to the M.D. at Leyden; medical apprenticeship in Oxfordshire (to 1637). William Laud appointed Archbishop. Donne’s Poems published. Death of Herbert: The Temple published.

  1636

  Advent of Cambridge Platonism (1636 ff.).

  1637

  Browne incorporated M.D. at Oxford, settles at Norwich. Milton’s Masque (‘Comus’) published; also Descartes’s Discourse on Method. Death of Jonson.

  1638

  Milton’s Lycidas published.