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Where woodbines wander, and the wallflower Chilling our too fond hopes of a life immortal

From The Cornhill Magazine.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

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sorts and sympathizeth with all things;" an absence of all antipathies to loathsome objects in nature to French "dishes of snails, frogs, and toadstools," or to Jewish repasts on "locusts or grasshoppers;" an equal toleration which in the first half of the seventeenth century is something astonishing - for all theological systems; an admiration even of our natural enemies, the French, the Spaniards, the Italians, and the Dutch; a love of all climates, of all countries; and, in short, an utter incapacity to "absolutely detest or hate any essence except the devil." Indeed, his hatred even for that personage has in it so little of bitterness, that no man, we may be sure, would have joined more heartily in the Scotch minister's petition for "the puir de'il "— a prayer conceived in the very spirit of his writings. A man so endowed and it is not only from his explicit assertions, but from his uncon

"LET me not injure the felicity of others," says Sir Thomas Browne in a suppressed passage of the Religio Medici," if I say that I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty into riches, adversity into prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me." Perhaps, on second thoughts, Sir Thomas felt that the phrase savoured of that presumption which is supposed to provoke the wrath of Nemesis; and at any rate, he, of all men, is the last to be taken too literally at his word. He is a humorist to the core, and is here writing dramatically. There are many things in this book, so he tells us, "delivered rhetorically, many expressions therein merely tropical . . . . and therefore also many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be called unto the rigid test of reason." We scious self-revelation that we may credit shall hardly do wrong in reckoning him with closely approaching his own amongst them this audacious claim to sur- ideal is admirably qualified to discover passing felicity, as we may certainly in- one great merit of human happiness. No clude his boast that he "could lose an arm man was ever better prepared to keep not without a tear, and with few groans be only one, but a whole stableful of hobquartered into pieces." And yet, if Sir bies, nor more certain to ride them so as Thomas were to be understood in the to amuse himself, without loss of temper most downright literal earnest, perhaps or dignity, and without rude collisions he could have made out as good a case for against his neighbours. That happy art his assertion as almost any of the troubled is given to few, and thanks to his skill in race of mankind. For, if we set aside ex-it, Sir Thomas reminds us strongly of the ternal circumstances of life, what qualities offer a more certain guarantee of happiness than those of which he is an almost typical example? A mind endowed with an insatiable curiosity as to all things knowable and unknowable; an imagination which tinges with poetical hues the vast accumulation of incoherent facts thus stored in a capacious memory; and a strangely vivid humour that is always detecting the quaintest analogies, and, as it were, striking light from the most unexpected collocations of unpromising materials: such talents are by themselves enough to provide a man with work for life, and to make all his work delightful. To them, moreover, we must add a disposition absolutely incapable of controversial bitterness; "a constitution," as he says of himself, "so general that it con

two illustrious brothers Shandy combined in one person. To the exquisite kindliness and simplicity of Uncle Toby he unites the omnivorous intellectual appetite and the humorous pedantry of the head of the family. The resemblance, indeed, may not be quite fortuitous. Though it does not appear that Sterne, amidst his multifarious pilferings, laid hands upon Sir Thomas Browne, one may fancy that he took a general hint or two from so congenial an author.

The best mode of approaching so original a writer is to examine the intellectual food on which his mind was nourished. He dwelt by preference in strange literary pastures; and their nature will let us into some secrets as to his taste and character. We will begin, therefore, by examining the strange furniture of his mind, as de

scribed in his longest, though not his most out hyperbole of the "fairy tales of characteristic book the Inquiry into Vul-science." To us, who have to plod gar Errors. When we turn its quaint through an arid waste of painful observapages, we feel as though we were enter- tion and slow piecing together of cautious ing one of those singular museums of curi- inferences before reaching the promised osities which existed in the pre-scientific land of wondrous discoveries, the expresages. Every corner is filled with a sion sometimes appears to be ironical. strange, incoherent medley, in which real- Does not science, we may ask with a primû ly valuable objects are placed side by side facie resemblance of right, destroy as with what is simply grotesque and ludi- much poetry as it generates? To him no crous. The modern man of science may such doubts could present themselves, for find some objects of interest;, but they are fairyland was still a province of the emmixed inextricably with strange rubbish pire of science. Strange beings moved that once delighted the astrologer, the through the pages of natural history, alchemist, or the dealer in apocryphal which were equally at home in the Ararelics. And the possessor of this miscel-bian Nights or in poetical apologues. The laneous collection accompanies us with an griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon were unfailing flow of amusing gossip: at one not yet extinct; the salamander still moment pouring forth a torrent of out-of-sported in flames; and the basilisk slew the-way learning; at another, making a men at a distance with his deadly glance. really acute scientific remark; and then More common-place animals indulged in lapsing into an elaborate discussion of the habits which they had learnt in fables, inconceivable absurdity; affecting the air and of which only some feeble vestiges of a grave inquirer, and to all appearance now remain in the eloquence of strolling fully believing in his own pretensions, and showmen. The elephant had no joints, yet somehow indulging himself in a half- and was caught by felling the tree against suppressed smile, which indicates that the which he rested his stiff limbs in sleep; humorous aspect of a question can never the pelican pierced its breast for the good be far removed from his mind. The whole of its young; ostriches were regularly book, indeed, has that quality which is so painted with a horseshoe in their bills, to delightful to the true lover of the hu- indicate their ordinary diet; storks remorous, but which, it must be confessed, fused to live except in republics and free is generally rather abhorrent to the vul- states; the crowing of a cock put lions to gar, that we never quite know whether flight, and men were struck dumb in good the author is serious. The numerous class sober earnest by the sight of a wolf. The which insist upon a joke being as unequiv- curiosity-hunter, in short, found his game ocal as a pistol-shot, and serious state- still plentiful, and by a few excursions ments as grave as a blue-book, should cer- into Aristotle, Pliny, and other more rectainly keep clear of Sir Thomas Browne. ondite authors, was able still to display a His most congenial readers are those who rich bag for the edification of his readers. take a simple delight in following out any Sir Thomas Browne sets out on that quest quaint train of reflections, careless whether with all imaginable seriousness. He perit may culminate in a smile or a sigh or suaded himself, and he has persuaded in some thought in which the two elements some of his editors, that he was a genuine of the sad and the ludicrous are inextrica- disciple of Bacon, by one of whose sugges bly blended. Sir Thomas, however, is in tions the Inquiry is supposed to have been the Inquiry content generally with bring- prompted. Accordingly, as Bacon deing out the strange curiosities of his mu- scribes the idols by which the human seum, and does not care to draw any ex- mind is misled, Sir Thomas sets out with plicit moral. The quaintness of the ob- investigating the causes of error; but his jects unearthed seems to be a sufficient introductory remarks immediately diverge recompence for the labour of the search. into strange paths, from which it is obviFortunately for his design, he lived in the ous that the discovery of true scientific time when a poet might have spoken with- method was a very subordinate object in

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his mind. Instead of telling us by what | consonant unto reason nor correspondent means truth is to be attained, his few per- unto experiment," are unto functory remarks on logic are lost in an axioms." But we may judge of his scephistorical narrative, given with infinite ticism by his remarks on Oppianus, that zest, of the earliest recorded blunders. famous Cilician poet." Of this writer, he The period of history in which he most de- says that, "abating the annul mutation of lighted was the antediluvian-probably sexes in the hyæna, the single sex of the because it afforded the widest field for rhinoceros, the antipathy between two speculation. His books are full of refer- drums of a lamb's and a wolf's skin, the ences to the early days of the world. He informity of cubs, the venation of centakes a keen personal interest in our first taures, and some few others, he may be read parents. He discusses the unfortunate with delight and profit." The "some few lapse of Adam and Eve from every possi- others " is charming. Obviously, we shall ble point of view. It is not without a find in Sir Thomas Browne no inexorably visible effort that he declines to settle severe guide to truth; he will not too which of the two was the more guilty, sternly reject the amusing because it hapand what would have been the result if pen to be slightly improbable, or doubt an they had tasted the fruit of the Tree of authority because he sometimes sanctions Life before applying to the Tree of the a mass of absurd fables. Satan, as he Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then he argues at great length, is at the bottom of passes in review every recorded speech most errors, from false religions down to before the Flood, shows that in each of a belief that there is another world in the them, with one exception, there is a mix-moon; but Sir Thomas takes little trouble ture of falsehood and error, and settles to to provide us with an Ithuriel's spear; his own satisfaction that Cain showed and, indeed, we have a faint suspicion that less "truth, wisdom, and reverence" he will overlook at times the diabolic than Satan under similar circumstances. agency in sheer enthusiasm at the marvelGranting all which to be true, it is impos-lous results. The logical design is little sible to see how we are advanced in settling, for example, whether the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system of astronomy is to be adopted, or in extracting the grains of truth that may be overlaid by masses of error in the writings of alchemists. Nor curiosities. do we really learn much by being told Let us, however, pass from the antethat ancient authorities sometimes lie, for room, and enter this queer museum. he evidently enjoys accumulating the pause in sheer bewilderment fables, and cares little for showing how to threshold, and despair of classifying its discriminate their degree of veracity. He contents intelligibly within any moderate tells us, indeed, that Medea was simply a space. This much, indeed, is obvious at predecessor of certain modern artists, first sight - that the title "vulgar errors with an excellent "recipe to make white is to some extent a misnomer. It is not hair black; and that Acteon was a given to vulgar brains to go wrong by spirited master of hounds, who, like too such complex methods. There are errors many of his ancestors, went metaphori- which require more learning and ingenuity cally, instead of literally, to the dogs. He than are necessary for discovering truths; points out, moreover, that we must not and it is in those queer freaks of philobelieve on authority that the sea is the sophical minds that Sir Thomas specially sweat of the earth, that the serpent, be- delights. Though far, indeed, from obfore the Fall, went erect like man, or that jecting to any absurdity which lies on the the right eye of a hedgehog, boiled in oil, common high-road, he rejoices in the true and preserved in a brazen vessel, will en- spirit of a collector when he can discover able us to see in the dark. Such stories, some grotesque fancy by rambling into he moderately remarks, being "neither less frequented paths of inquiry. Perhaps

more than ostensible; and Sir Thomas, though he knew it not himself, is really satisfied with any line of inquiry that will bring him in sight of some freak of nature or of opinion suitable to his museum of

We

on the