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Sir Thomas Browne (October 19, 1605 – October 19, 1682) was an English author of varied works that disclose his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric.

Browne's writings display a deep curiosity towards the natural world, influenced by the Scientific revolution of Baconian enquiry. In counterbalance his Christian faith exuded tolerance and goodwill towards humanity in an often intolerant era. A consummate literary craftsman, Browne's works are permeated by frequent reference to Classical and Biblical sources and to his own highly idiosyncratic personality. His literary style varies according to genre resulting in a rich, unusual prose ranging from rough note-book observations to the highest baroque eloquence.

Biography

The son of a silk merchant from Upton, Cheshire, he was born in the parish of St Michael, Cheapside, in London on October 19, 1605. His father died while he was still young and he was sent to school at Winchester College.

In 1623 Browne went up to Oxford University. He graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford in 1626 after which he studied medicine at various Continental universities, including Leiden, where he received an MD in 1633. He settled in Norwich in 1637 where he practiced medicine and lived until his death in 1682.

His first well-known work bore the Latin title Religio Medici (The Religion of a Physician). This work was circulated in manuscript among his friends, and it caused Browne some surprise and embarrassment when an unauthorised edition appeared in 1642, since the work contained a number of religious speculations that might be considered unorthodox. An authorised text with some of the controversial matter removed appeared in 1643. The expurgation did not end the controversy; in 1645, Alexander Ross attacked Religio Medici in his Medicus Medicatus (The Doctor, Doctored) and in fact the book was placed upon the Papal index of forbidden reading for Catholics in the same year.

In 1646, Browne published Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very many Received Tenets, and commonly Presumed Truths, whose title refers to the prevalence of false beliefs and "vulgar errors." A sceptical work that debunks a number of legends circulating at the time in a paradoxical and witty manner, it displays the Baconian side of Browne—the side that was unafraid of what at the time was still called "the new learning." The book is significant in the history of science.

In 1658 Browne published together two Discourses which are intimately related to each other, the first Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial or a Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk, occasioned by the discovery of some Bronze Age burials in earthenware vessels found in Norfolk. These inspired Browne to meditate upon the funerary customs of the world and the fleetingness of earthly fame and reputation.

Urn-Burial's 'twin' Discourse is The Garden of Cyrus, or, The Quincunciall Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, and Mystically Considered, whose slight subject is the quincunx, the arrangement of five units like the five-spot in dice, which Browne uses to demonstrate that the Platonic forms exist throughout Nature.

1671 Knighthood to death

In 1671 King Charles II, accompanied by the Royal Court, visited Norwich. The courtier John Evelyn, who had occasionally corresponded with Browne, took good use of the Royal visit to call upon the learned doctor of European fame and wrote of his visit: His whole house & garden is a paradise and Cabinet of rarieties & that of the best collection, amongst Medails, books, Plants, natural things.

During his visit to Norwich, King Charles II visited Browne's home. A banquet was held in the Civic Hall St. Andrews for the Royal visit. Obliged to honour a notable local, the name of the Mayor of Norwich was proposed to the King for knighthood. The Mayor, however, declined the honour and proposed the name of Browne instead.

Sir Thomas Browne died on 19 October 1682, his 77th birthday. His skull became the subject of dispute when in 1840 his lead coffin was accidentally re-opened by workmen. It was not re-interred until 4 July 1922 when it was registered in the church of Saint Peter Mancroft as aged 316 years.

Literary influence

The influence of Browne's literary style spans four centuries. In the eighteenth century, Doctor Johnson, who shared Browne's love of the Latinate, wrote a brief Life in which he praised Browne as a faithful Christian.

In the nineteenth century Browne's reputation was revived by the Romantics. Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Lamb (who considered himself the rediscoverer of Browne) were all admirers. The seminal American novelist Herman Melville, heavily influenced by his style, deemed him "a cracked archangel."

The literary critic Robert Sencourt succinctly assessed Browne as "an instance of scientific reason lit up by mysticism in the Church of England." Indeed, Browne's paradoxical place in the history of ideas, as both a promoter of the new inductive science and as an adherent of ancient esoteric learning accounts for why he remains little-read and much-misunderstood. Add to this the complexity of his labyrinthine thought and ornate language, along with his many allusions to the Bible, Classical learning and to a variety of esoteric authors.

The English author Virginia Woolf however wrote of him in 1923,

"Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those that do are the salt of the earth." In modern times others who have admired the English man of letters include-

  • The Scottish psychologist R. D. Laing, who opens his work The Politics of Experience with a quotation by him.

  • The American author Tony Kushner in 1987 wrote a play upon Browne whose title is Hydriotaphia.

  • The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges alluded to Browne throughout his literary writings, from his first publication, Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923) until his last years. Such was Borges' admiration of Browne as a literary stylist and thinker that late in his life (Interview April 25th 1980) he stated of himself alluding to his self-portrait in "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" (1940):

"I am merely a word for Chesterton, for Kafka, and Sir Thomas Browne—I love him. I translated him into seventeenth century Spanish and it worked very well. We took a chapter out of Urne Buriall and we did that into Quevedo's Spanish and it went very well."

  • In his short story The Celestial Omnibus, published in 1911, an allegory about true appreciation of poetry and literature versus pedantry, E. M. Forster makes Browne the first "driver" that the young protagonist encounters on the magical omnibus line that transports its passengers to a place of direct experience of the aesthetic sublime reserved for those who internalize the experience of poetry, as opposed to those who merely acquire familiarity with literary works for snobbish prestige.

Portraits of Sir Thomas Browne

The National Portrait Gallery in London has a fine contemporary portrait of Sir Thomas Browne and his wife Lady Dorothy Browne (Nee Mileham). More recent sculptural portraits include Pegram’s statue of Sir Thomas contemplating with urn. This statue occupies the central position in the Haymarket beside St. Peter Mancroft, not far from the site of his house. It was erected in 1905 and moved from its original position in 1973.

In 2005 Robert Mileham’s small standing figure in silver and bronze was commissioned for the 400th anniversary.

On America

Each of Sir Thomas Browne's major writings makes significant mention of America. As a keen geographer, botanist and zoologist Browne wrote on America in his encyclopedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica. He also employed the proper-place name of America as a symbol of the new, the unknown and the exotic.

Browne's study of nature led him to raise the query in Religio Medici (1643) the zoological puzzle-

How America abounded with beasts of prey, and noxious Animals, yet contained not in it that necessary creature, a Horse, is very strange

In Pseudodoxia Epidemica frequent references to America can be found. Indeed its opening address entitled To the Reader describes his efforts to determine truth in compiling an encyclopaedia-

but oft-times fain to wander in the America and untravelled parts of truth.

Throughout his encylopaedia Browne includes speculations and reports from America including mention of the giant phalanges spider, speculation as to why American natives skin-pigmentation differs from African natives, makes a geographical comparison of the proportions of the Gulf of California to the Red Sea and collated sundry notes upon its vegetation. He also noted that the Swiss alchemist-physician Paracelsus equated America as representing the rear of the world stating -

... of the Geography of Paracelsus, who according to the Cardinal points of the World, divideth the body of man; and therefore working upon humane ordure, and by long preparation rendring it odiferous, he terms it Zibeta Occidentalis, Western Civet; making the face the East, but the posteriours the America or Western part of his Microcosm.

The dedicatory epistle of the Discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) humourously makes light of the great volume of printed information available upon the botany of America thus-

(you) who know that three full Folio's are yet too little, and how New Herballs fly from America upon us, from persevering enquirers.

The concluding lines of the Discourse drowsily contemplates the fact that the world consists of time-zones thus-

The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia.

As a medical man Browne was appreciative of William Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood (1628). In correspondence he advised

be sure you make yourself master of Dr Harvey's piece De Circul. Sang; which discovery I prefer to that of Columbus, (i.e. that of America).

The opening lines of his Discourse, Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial compares the 'discovery' of America to that of a significant archaeological find.

That great antiquity America lay buried for a thousand years ; and a large part of the earth is still in the Urn unto us.

When introduced to the prophecies of Nostradamus sometime in the 1670's Browne wrote a pastiche of the Lyons physician's verses. His miscellaneous tract,'A prophecy concerning the future State of Several Nations' makes several remarkable 'predictions' based upon reason of America's future. In quasi-oracular style Browne challenges the wisdom of the Slave-trade.

When Africa shall no longer sell out its Blacks to be Slaves and drudges to the American Tracts.

Browne 'predicted' that sometime in the distant future America would protect its wealth and be a land pursuing happiness, employing the highly-original phrase, American Pleasure.

When America shall cease to send out its treasure but employ it instead in American Pleasure.

adding the explanatory note-

That is when America shall be better civilized, new policied and divided between great Princes, it may come to pass that they will no longer suffer their Treasure of Gold and Silver to be sent out to maintain the Luxury of Europe and other parts: but rather employ it to their own advantages, in great Exploits and Undertakings, magnificent Structure, Wars, or Expeditions of their own.

He also prognosticated America to become the economic equal of Europe-

When the New World shall the old invade nor count them their Lords but their Fellows in Trade.

adding the explanatory note-

That is, When America shall be so well peopled, civilized and divided into Kingdoms, they are likely to have so little regard of their Originals, as to acknowledge no subjection unto them: they may also have a distinct commerce between themselves, or but independentlt with those of Europe, and may hostilely and pyratically assault them, even as the Greek and Roman Colonies after a long time dealt with their Original Countries.

These examples of reports upon America's botany, zoology and geography are remarkable for their very earliness in American history for in Browne's day (1605-82) America was a fledging colony; in literary terms his usage of the proper place-name of America as a symbol must also be noted; however, more importantly, it was from reports of the superabundance of America's natural resources, its geographical size and the determination of its founding settlers led one seventeenth century European thinker to perceive America as an exotic continent with great future potential.

Literary works

External links

http://www.umilta.net/browne.html
  • Prayer and Prophecy in Browne's life and writings.
http://www.umilta.net/thosbrowne.html

English science writers | English occult writers | English non-fiction writers | Encyclopedists | Old Wykehamists | Former students of Pembroke College, Oxford | Anglicans | 1605 births | 1682 deaths

Thomas Browne | Thomas Browne | Thomas Browne

 

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