Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), physician of Norwich, antiquary and one of the great prose writers in English. His Pseudodoxia Epidemica went through the common errors of his age testing them against observation, and he coined more words that stuck — electricity, hallucination, medical, literary — than any writer but Shakespeare. The works here are his own religion set down for himself, his meditation on burial and the resurrection, the letter he wrote on a patient’s death, and his last book of counsel.
Works (4)
- A Letter to a Friend — Upon occasion of the death of his intimate friend — a physician’s account of a patient’s dying, written to the friend who was not there, and ending in a string of counsels on how to live that Browne later worked up into Christian Morals. Printed after his death, in 1690. (1 note)
- Christian Morals — Browne’s last work, found among his papers and printed in 1716 by John Jeffery, Archdeacon of Norwich. A book of counsel in three parts, written in the late manner Johnson admired and imitated: Tread softly and circumspectly in this funambulatory track and narrow path of goodness. (4 notes)
- Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial — Occasioned by some urns dug up in a Norfolk field, and turning, by way of the burial customs of every nation Browne had read of, into a meditation on death, oblivion and the resurrection of the body. The last chapter is the most famous prose Browne wrote: But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave. Printed with The Garden of Cyrus, which is not theology and is not given. (6 notes)
- Religio Medici — The religion of a physician — written about 1635 for Browne’s own use, circulated in manuscript, and printed without his leave in 1642, which forced the authorised edition of the next year. Rome put it on the Index within two. Its interest is that it is a working natural philosopher’s account of his own belief, unhurried, unpolemical and willing to say where he doubts: I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo. (3 notes)