The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06 / Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons

by Samuel Johnson

BROWNE.

Though the writer of the following essays [64] seems to have had the fortune, common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of his felicities and misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification of that curiosity which naturally inquires by what peculiarities of nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon attainments have been gained, and what influence learning had on its possessours, or virtue on its teachers.

Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605 [65]. His father was a merchant, of an ancient family at Upton, in Cheshire. Of the name or family of his mother I find no account.

Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of orphans [66], defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was placed, for his education, at the school of Winchester.

His mother, having taken three thousand pounds [67], as the third part of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand, a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time, when commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for his mother soon married sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian, deprived now of both his parents, and, therefore, helpless, and unprotected.

He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623, from Winchester to Oxford [68], and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate hall, which was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke college, from the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the university. He was admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, January 31, 1626-7; being, as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the new college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most, can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.

Having afterwards taken his degree of master of arts, he turned his studies to physick [69], and practised it for some time in Oxfordshire; but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or invited by promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his father-in-law [70], who had some employment in Ireland, in a visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then made necessary.

He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connexions of acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it. Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of a man of letters; he, therefore, passed into France and Italy [71]; made some stay at Montpellier and Padua, which were then the celebrated schools of physick; and, returning home through Holland, procured himself to be created doctor of physick at Leyden.

When he began his travels, or when be concluded them, there is no certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider, therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish, which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because, to minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to deserve the notice of the publick.

About the year 1634 [72], he is supposed to have returned to London; and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called Religio Medici, "the religion of a physician [73]," which he declares himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great importance to the publick; but when it was written, it happened to him as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers, but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without his own consent, they were, in 1642, given to a printer.

This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely, some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book, by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false copy, as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is found faulty or offensive, and charge the errours on the transcriber's depravations.

This is a stratagem, by which an author, panting for fame, and yet afraid of seeming to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a retreat; and this candour might suffer to pass undetected, as an innocent fraud, but that, indeed, no fraud is innocent; for the confidence which makes the happiness of society is, in some degree, diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.

The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.

What is much read will be much criticised. The earl of Dorset recommended this book to the perusal of sir Kenelm Digby, who returned his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours [74], of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in reading it.

Of these animadversions, when they were yet not all printed, either officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to sir Kenelm, with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his work to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition, and the corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally genteel and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece, pompous professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability, and anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the obscuration of each other? yet the animadversions thus weak, thus precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published, with an admonition prefixed, "to those who have or shall peruse the observations upon a former corrupt copy;" in which there is a severe censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon the observator who had usurped his name; nor was this invective written by Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his opponent's apology; but by some officious friend, zealous for his honour, without his consent.

Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself from rigorous examination, by alleging, that "many things are delivered rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and, therefore, many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be called unto the rigid test of reason." The first glance upon his book will, indeed, discover examples of this liberty of thought and expression: "I could be content," says he, "to be nothing almost to eternity, if I might enjoy my Saviour at the last." He has little acquaintance with the acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a serious opinion, that any thing can be "almost eternal," or that any time beginning and ending is not infinitely less than infinite duration.

In this book he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of himself; but with such generality and conciseness, as affords very little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the dialects of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he was no stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries; but what most awakens curiosity is, his solemn assertion, that "his life has been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate were not history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable."

There is, undoubtedly, a sense in which all life is miraculous; as it is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession of motions, of which the first cause must be supernatural; but life, thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something, by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.

Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties. A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed, more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of adventure; but Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts; and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier and Padua, and, at last, take his degree at Leyden, without any thing miraculous. What it was that would, if it was related, sound so poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe without hope of guessing rightly. The wonders, probably, were transacted in his own mind; self-love, cooperating with an imagination vigorous and fertile as that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every man's life; and, perhaps, there is no human being, however bid in the crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions, will not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations of nature or of fortune.

The success of this performance was such as might naturally encourage the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge [75], whose name was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and French; and, at Strasburg, the Latin translation was published with large notes, by Levinus Nicolaus Moltkenius. Of the English annotations, which in all the editions, from 1644, accompany the book, the author is unknown.

Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published a small treatise for the instruction of young-persons in the attainment of a Latin style. He printed his translation in Holland with some difficulty [76]. The first printer to whom he offered it, carried it to Salmasius, "who laid it by," says he, "in state for three months," and then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards rejected by two other printers, and, at last, was received by Hackius.

The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed answer, written under the title of Medicus Medicatus [77], by Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.

At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr. Lushington [78], his tutor, who was then rector of Barnham Westgate, in the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his practice was very extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In 1637 he was incorporated doctor of physick in Oxfordf [79].

He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham [80], of a good family in Norfolk; "a lady," says Whitefoot, "of such symmetrical proportion to her worthy husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism."

This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits [81] upon a man who had just been wishing, in his new book, "that we might procreate, like trees, without conjunction," and had lately declared [82], 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 positions, or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so formidable a rebel, and considered it as a double triumph, to attract so much merit, and overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like most others, she married upon mingled motives, between convenience and inclination; she had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived happily with him one-and-forty years, and bore him ten children, of whom one son and three daughters outlived their parents: she survived him two years, and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.

Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time; for, in 1646 [83], he printed Inquiries into vulgar and common Errours; a work, which, as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from observation and books, and contained not a single discourse of one continued tenour, of which the latter part arose from the former, but an enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which arose gradually to its present 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-six years which he spent afterwards in study and experience, would, doubtless, have made large additions to an inquiry into vulgar errours. He published, in 1673, the sixth edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with explication of what he had already written, than any new heads of disquisition. But with the work, such as the author, whether hindered from continuing it by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour, thought fit to give, we must be content; and remember, that in all sublunary things there is something to be wished which we must wish in vain.

This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was answered by Alexander Ross, and translated 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 first received filled the kingdom with copies, to reprint it with notes, partly supplemental, and partly emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the last age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has committed, not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and Newton's philosophy.

He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth. Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which, suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles: the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other, instead of taking, by sympathy, the same direction, "stood like the pillars of Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be easily believed; and most men would have been content to believe it, without the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had thrust his needles through corks, and set them afloat in two basins of water.

Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errours, he seems not very easy to admit new positions, for he never mentions the motion of the earth but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was then growing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was confirmed by later observations.

The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under his name, a book called [84] Nature's Cabinet unlocked,—translated, according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the honour thereof, as having no hand in that work [85]."

In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of sepulchral Urns; in which he treats, with his usual learning, on the funeral rites of the ancient nations; exhibits their various treatment of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns. There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could have been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small importance to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which threw them into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when the practice of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the bones of different persons were mingled in the same urn; what oblations were thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were distinguished from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of these inquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and, therefore, concludes them with an observation which can never be too frequently recollected:

"All, or most apprehensions, rested in opinions of some future being, which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted conceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they, which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest mind fell often upon doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions: with these hopes Socrates warmed his doubtful spirits against the cold potion; and Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt.

"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state to come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in vain: without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire of such a state were but a fallacy in nature: unsatisfied considerators would quarrel at the justness of the constitution, and rest content that Adam had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other original, and deeper ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happiness of inferiour creatures, who in tranquillity possess their constitutions, as having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures; and being framed below the circumference of these hopes of cognition of better things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated their contentment. But the superiour ingredient and obscured part of ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able, at last, to tell us we are more than our present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their own accomplishments."

To his treatise on urn-burial, was added the Garden of Cyrus, or the quincunxial Lozenge, or network Plantation of the Ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically, considered. This discourse he begins with the Sacred Garden, in which the first man was placed; and deduces the practice of horticulture, from the earliest accounts of antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we actually know to have planted a quincunx; which, however, our author is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it in the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the feeders on vegetables before the flood.

Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning and genius, exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to show how it could exalt the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things really and naturally great, is a task not only diflicult but disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes, by standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy to expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder, to which nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the frogs of Homer, the gnat and the bees of Virgil, the butterfly of Spenser, the shadow of Wowerus, and the quincunx of Browne.

In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation or approaches to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented, ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.

To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right, it virtually contains two right in every one."

The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from their seminal principles.

He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation, which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity, the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in generative societies."

These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the fashion of great and curious writers."

Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel, like the papers of Pierescius.

The first of these posthumous treatises contains Observations upon several Plants mentioned in Scripture: these remarks, though they do not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or useless speculations; for they often show some propriety of description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to readers not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more important use, as they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some obscurity from precepts.

The next is, of Garlands, or coronary and garland Plants; a subject merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure of reflecting on ancient customs, or on the industry with which studious men have endeavoured to recover them.

The next is a letter, on the Fishes eaten by our Saviour with his Disciples, after his Resurrection from the Dead: which contains no determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for, indeed, it cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or learning could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes produced in the waters of Judea.

Then follow, Answers to certain Queries about Fishes, Birds, Insects; and a Letter of Hawks and Falconry, ancient and modern; in the first of which he gives the proper interpretation of some ancient names of animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other, has some curious observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice unknown to the ancients. I believe all our sports of the field are of Gothick original; the ancients neither hunted by the scent, nor seemed much to have practised horsemanship, as an exercise; and though in their works there is mention of aucupium and piscatio, they seemed no more to have been considered as diversions, than agriculture, or any other manual labour.

In two more letters, he speaks of the cymbals of the Hebrews, but without any satisfactory determination; and of rhopalick, or gradual verses, that is, of verses beginning with a word of one syllable, and proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more than the former; as,

"O deus, aeterne stationis conciliator." AUSONIUS.

And after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions many other restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.

His next attempt is, on Languages, and particularly the Saxon Tongue. He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness, of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination. Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards have retained so much Latin as to be able to compose sentences that shall be, at once, grammatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and Howell, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages, declares, that, after many essays, he never could effect it [86].

The principal design of this letter, is to show the affinity between the modern English, and the ancient Saxon; and he observes, very rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives, and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals, auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a language, remain with us from the Saxon."

To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or Elfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however, sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its paternal language more than any modern European dialect.

There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one, of artificial Hills, Mounts, or Barrows, in England; in reply to an interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of the Biographia Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or sir William Dugdale, one of Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne, in concurrence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be, for the most part, funeral monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and Saxons buried their men of eminence under piles of earth, "which admitting," says he "neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may, if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments: obelisks have their term, and pyramids will tumble; but these mountainous monuments may stand, and are like to have the same period with the earth."

In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning Troas, mentioned in the acts and epistles of St. Paul, which he determines to be the city built near the ancient Ilium; and the other concerning the Dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other writers.

Another letter treats of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo, at Delphos, to Croesus, king of Lydia. In this tract nothing deserves notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been vain; "for in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition, our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo."

The pieces that remain are, a Prophecy concerning the future State of several Nations; in which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to be the same with that entertained lately, with more confidence, by Dr. Berkeley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire;" and, Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita: in which the author amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities, either never in being or irrecoverably lost.

These pieces I have recounted, as they are ranged in Tenison's collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at which any of them were written.

Some of them are of little value, more than as they gratify the mind with the picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into amusement; or show upon how great a variety of inquiries, the same mind has been successfully employed.

The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in octavo, London, 1722, contains Repertorium; or some account of the Tombs and Monuments in the Cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tenison observes, there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the antiquary.

The other pieces are, Answers to sir William Dugdale's Inquiries about the Fens; a letter concerning Ireland; another relating to urns newly discovered; some short strictures on different subjects; and a Letter to a Friend on the Death of his intimate Friend, published singly by the author's son, in 1690.

There is inserted in the Biographia Britannica, a Letter containing Instructions for the Study of Physick: which, with the essays here offered to the publick, completes the works of Dr. Browne.

To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but that, in 1665, he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of physicians, as a man, "virtute et literis ornatissimus," eminently embellished with literature and virtue; and in 1671, received, at Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles the second, a prince, who, with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover excellence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinctions, at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king so judicious and so much beloved, had the power of giving merit new lustre and greater popularity.

Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, he was seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October, 19, 1682 [87]. Some of his last words were expressions of submission to the will of God, and fearlessness of death.

He lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, in Norwich, with this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of the altar:

M. S. Hic situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M.D. Et miles. Anno 1605, Londini natus; Generosa familia apud Upton In agro Cestriensi oriundus. Schola pritnum Wintoniensi, postea In Coll. Pembr. Apud Oxonienses bonis literis Haud leviter imbutus; In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam Arte egregia, et foelici successu professus; Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA, aliisque Per orbem notissimus. Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus; Obijt Octob. 19, 1682. Pie posuit moestissima conjux Da. Doroth. Br. Near the foot of this pillar Lies Sir Thomas Browne, knt. and doctor in physick, Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books, Who practised physick in this city 46 years, And died Oct. 1682, in the 77th year of his age. In memory of whom, Dame Dorothy Browne, who had been his affectionate Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be Erected.

Besides this lady, who died in 1685, he left a son and three daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.

He was born about the year 1642; and, after having passed through the classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In 1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.

Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St. Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives. He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as well bred as any of the court."

Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost. This mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to sir Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr. Whitefoot, "who esteemed it an especial favour of providence, to have had a particular acquaintance with him for two-thirds of his life." Part of his observations I shall therefore copy.

"For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable to his name; his stature was moderate, and a habit of body neither fat nor lean, but [Greek: eusarkos].

"In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a cloak, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded himself with such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of Augustus, enough to clothe a good family.

"The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere of the world: all that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so well, that few that are under them knew so much: he could tell the number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact geographical knowledge, as if he had been by divine providence ordained surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its products, minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist, that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate observations, equally useful as entertaining.

"His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembered all that was remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all person's again that he had ever seen, at any distance of time, but remembered the circumstances of their bodies, and their particular discourses and speeches.

"In the Latin poets he remembered every thing that was acute and pungent; he had read most of the historians, ancient and modern, wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and expressed more light than heat in the temper of his brain.

"He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of the use of it,) but as large a political power over them, as any stoick, or man of his time; whereof he gave so great experiment, that he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them. The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and concupiscible, were under the control of his reason. Of admiration, which is one of them, being the only product either of ignorance or uncommon knowledge, he had more and less than other men, upon the same account of his knowing more than others; so that though he met with many rarities, he admired them not so much as others do.

"He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with sadness; always cheerful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate; seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural, without affectation.

"His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any observable cause.

"They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings, found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and conversation; so free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he was sometimes difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar. Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much improvement, with as little loss as any man in it: when he had any to spare from his drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any diversion from his study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he would say, he could not do nothing.

"Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that are in Hutter's Bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he understood critically; the oriental languages, which never were vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it; though very little of his science is to be found in any books of that primitive language. And though much is said to be written in the derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing admirable.

"In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared in his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his Religio Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the church of England, preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned Grotius. He attended the publick service very constantly, when he was not withheld by his practice; never missed the sacrament in his parish, if he were in town; read the best English sermons he could hear of, with liberal applause; and delighted not in controversies. In his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring great pain of the colick, besides a continual fever, with as much patience as hath been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical apathy, animosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or suffering no impeachment of happiness: 'Nihil agis, dolor.'

"His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto, which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did freely submit to the will of God, being without fear; he had often triumphed over the king of terrours in others, and given many repulses in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted with a meek, rational, and religious courage.

"He might have made good the old saying of 'dat Galenus opes,' had he lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent him more than a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments and in his charity: he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to his lady and children, gained by his own industry.

"Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, ancient and modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that, it hath been said, by them that knew him best, that, if his profession, and place of abode, would have suited, his ability, he would have made an extraordinary man for the privy council, not much inferiour to the famous Padre Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.

"Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty which comes nearest it, he excelled, i.e. the stochastick, wherein he was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private; but not apt to discover any presages or superstition."

It is observable, that he, who, in his earlier years, had read all the books against religion, was, in the latter part of his life, averse from controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the repose of established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude proof, is too often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer experience commonly repents. There is a time when every man is weary of raising difficulties only to task himself with the solution, and desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome irruptions of skepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or, at least, defer them, till my better settled judgment, and more manly reason, be able to resolve them: for I perceive every man's reason is his best Oedipus, and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to loose those bonds, wherewith the subtilties of errour have enchained our more flexible and tender judgments."

The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of himself, had not exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments or visible qualities.

There are, indeed, some interiour and secret virtues, which a man may, sometimes, have without the knowledge of others; and may, sometimes, assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is charged upon Browne, by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant temerity, that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares himself to have escaped "the first and father-sin of pride." A perusal of the Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of the author's exemption from this father-sin; pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.

As easily may we be mistaken in estimating our own courage, as our own humility; and, therefore, when Browne shows himself persuaded, that "he could lose an arm without a tear, or, with a few groans, be quartered to pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any uncommon powers of endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden effervescence of imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it is, he mistook for settled resolution.

"That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not desert him in the great hour of trial.

It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that "the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from temptation to flattery.

But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men; for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill; and scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.

His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his decisions: on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives delight; and the reader follows him, without reluctance, through his mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point originally in view.

"To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures." This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.

He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne, though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution, such as commensality, for the state of many living at the same table; but many superfluous, as a paralogical, for an unreasonable doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than explain it, as arthritical analogies, for parts that serve some animals in the place of joints.

His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction; and, in defence of his uncommon words and expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and was not content to express, in many words, that idea for which any language could supply a single term.

But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy: he has many "verba ardentia" forcible expressions, which he would never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety; and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had very little fear of the shame of falling.

There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.

It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding: and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a celebrated name [88].

The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility; men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity. Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates had never dared to claim, or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient, in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenour of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately repented.

The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply, by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause less invidious, by showing numbers on his side; he will, therefore, not change his conduct, till he reforms his principles. But the zealot should recollect, that he is labouring by this frequency of excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding strength to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a great part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree, invalidates that argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.

Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all may retain the essentials of christianity; men may sometimes eagerly dispute, and yet not differ much from one another: the rigorous persecutors of errour should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity, without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that "thinketh no evil," but "hopeth all things," and "endureth all things."

Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by the fury of its friends, or the artifice of its enemies, it is no difficult task to replace him among the most zealous professors of christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardour of his imagination, have hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a phrase is not to be opposed to volumes; there is scarcely a writer to be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried reverence.

It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that he should be placed without the pale of christianity, who declares, "that he assumes the honourable style of a christian," not because it is "the religion of his country," but because "having in his riper years and confirmed judgment seen" and examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the principles of grace, and the law of his own reason, to embrace "no other name but this;" who, to specify his persuasion yet more, tells us, that "he is of the reformed religion; of the same belief our Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorized, and the martyrs confirmed;" who, though "paradoxical in philosophy, loves in divinity to keep the beaten road; and pleases himself that he has no taint of heresy, schism, or errour:" to whom, "where the scripture is silent, the church is a text; where that speaks, 'tis but a comment;" and who uses not "the dictates of his own reason, but where there is a joint silence of both: who blesses himself, that he lived not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him; but enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced to all that believe and saw not." He cannot surely be charged with a defect of faith, who "believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried, and rose again, and desires to see him in his glory:" and who affirms that "this is not much to believe;" that "we have reason to owe this faith unto history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure prophecies, and mystical types, could raise a belief." Nor can contempt of the positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts, whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who would violate his own arm, rather than a church."

The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a zealous adherent to the faith of Christ; that he lived in obedience to his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.

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ASCHAM [89].

It often happens to writers, that they are known only by their works; the incidents of a literary life are seldom observed, and, therefore, seldom recounted: but Ascham has escaped the common fate by the friendship of Edward Grauut, the learned master of Westminster school, who devoted an oration to his memory, and has marked the various vicissitudes of his fortune. Graunt either avoided the labour of minute inquiry, or thought domestick occurrences unworthy of his notice; or, preferring the character of an orator to that of an historian, selected only such particulars as he could best express or most happily embellish. His narrative is, therefore, scanty, and I know not by what materials it can now be amplified.

Roger Ascham was born in the year 1515, at Kirby Wiske, (or Kirby Wicke,) a village near Northallerton, in Yorkshire, of a family above the vulgar. His father, John Ascham, was house-steward in the family of Scroop; and, in that age, when the different orders of men were at a greater distance from each other, and the manners of gentlemen were regularly formed by menial services in great houses, lived with a very conspicuous reputation. Margaret Ascham, his wife, is said to have been allied to many considerable families, but her maiden name is not recorded. She had three sons, of whom Roger was the youngest, and some daughters; but who can hope, that of any progeny more than one shall deserve to be mentioned? They lived married sixty-seven years, and, at last, died together almost on the same hour of the same day.

Roger, having passed his first years under the care of his parents, was adopted into the family of Antony Wingfield, who maintained him, and committed his education, with that of his own sons, to the care of one Bond, a domestick tutor. He very early discovered an unusual fondness for literature by an eager perusal of English books; and, having passed happily through the scholastick rudiments, was put, in 1530, by his patron Wingfield, to St. John's college in Cambridge.

Ascham entered Cambridge at a time when the last great revolution of the intellectual world was filling every academical mind with ardour or anxiety. The destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had driven the Greeks, with their language, into the interiour parts of Europe, the art of printing had made the books easily attainable, and Greek now began to be taught in England. The doctrines of Luther had already filled all the nations of the Romish communion with controversy and dissension. New studies of literature, and new tenets of religion, found employment for all who were desirous of truth, or ambitious of fame. Learning was, at that time, prosecuted with that eagerness and perseverance, which, in this age of indifference and dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. To teach or to learn, was, at once, the business and the pleasure of the academical life; and an emulation of study was raised by Cheke and Smith, to which even the present age, perhaps, owes many advantages, without remembering, or knowing, its benefactors.

Ascham soon resolved to unite himself to those who were enlarging the bounds of knowledge, and, immediately upon his admission into the college, applied himself to the study of Greek. Those who were zealous for the new learning, were often no great friends to the old religion; and Ascham, as he became a Grecian, became a protestant. The reformation was not yet begun; disaffection to popery was considered as a crime justly punished by exclusion from favour and preferment, and was not yet openly professed, though superstition was gradually losing its hold upon the publick. The study of Greek was reputable enough, and Ascham pursued it with diligence and success, equally conspicuous. He thought a language might be most easily learned by teaching it; and, when he had obtained some proficiency in Greek, read lectures, while he was yet a boy, to other boys, who were desirous of instruction. His industry was much encouraged by Pember, a man of great eminence at that time, though I know not that he has left any monuments behind him, but what the gratitude of his friends and scholars has bestowed. He was one of the great encouragers of Greek learning, and particularly applauded Ascham's lectures, assuring him in a letter, of which Graunt has preserved an extract, that he would gain more knowledge by explaining one of Æsop's fables to a boy, than by hearing one of Homer's poems explained by another.

Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, February 18, in the eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common now to enter the universities, than to take degrees, but which, according to the modes of education then in use, had nothing of remarkable prematurity. On the 23rd of March following, he was chosen fellow of the college, which election he considered as a second birth. Dr. Metcalf, the master of the college, a man, as Ascham tells us, "meanly learned himself, but no mean encourager of learning in others," clandestinely promoted his election, though he openly seemed first to oppose it, and afterwards to censure it, because Ascham was known to favour the new opinions; and the master himself was accused of giving an unjust preference to the northern men, one of the factions into which this nation was divided, before we could find any more important reason of dissension, than that some were born on the northern, and some on the southern side of Trent. Any cause is sufficient for a quarrel; and the zealots of the north and south lived long in such animosity, that it was thought necessary at Oxford to keep them quiet, by choosing one proctor every year from each.

He seems to have been, hitherto, supported by the bounty of Wingfield, which his attainment of a fellowship now freed him from the necessity of receiving. Dependance, though in those days it was more common and less irksome, than in the present state of things, can never have been free from discontent; and, therefore, he that was released from it must always have rejoiced. The danger is, lest the joy of escaping from the patron may not leave sufficient memory of the benefactor. Of this forgetfulness, Ascham cannot be accused; for he is recorded to have preserved the most grateful and affectionate reverence for Wingfield, and to have never grown weary of recounting his benefits.

His reputation still increased, and many resorted to his chamber to hear the Greek writers explained. He was, likewise, eminent for other accomplishments. By the advice of Pember, he had learned to play on musical instruments, and he was one of the few who excelled in the mechanical art of writing, which then began to be cultivated among us, and in which we now surpass all other nations. He not only wrote his pages with neatness, but embellished them with elegant draughts and illuminations; an art at that time so highly valued, that it contributed much both to his fame and his fortune.

He became master of arts in March, 1537, in his twenty-first year, and then, if not before, commenced tutor, and publickly undertook the education of young men. A tutor of one-and-tweuty, however accomplished with learning, however exalted by genius, would now gain little reverence or obedience; but in those days of discipline and regularity, the authority of the statutes easily supplied that of the teacher; all power that was lawful was reverenced. Besides, young tutors had still younger pupils.

Ascham is said to have courted his scholars to study by every incitement, to have treated them with great kindness, and to have taken care, at once, to instil learning and piety, to enlighten their minds, and to form their manners. Many of his scholars rose to great eminence; and among them William Grindal was so much distinguished, that, by Cheke's recommendation, he was called to court, as a proper master of languages for the lady Elizabeth.

There was yet no established lecturer of Greek; the university, therefore, appointed Ascham to read in the open schools, and paid him out of the publick purse an honorary stipend, such as was then reckoned sufficiently liberal. A lecture was afterwards founded by king Henry, and he then quitted the schools, but continued to explain Greek authors in his own college.

He was at first an opponent of the new pronunciation introduced, or rather of the ancient restored, about this time, by Cheke and Smith, and made some cautious struggles for the common practice, which the credit and dignity of his antagonists did not permit him to defend very publickly, or with much vehemence: nor were they long his antagonists; for either his affection for their merit, or his conviction of the cogency of their arguments, soon changed his opinion and his practice, and he adhered ever after to their method of utterance.

Of this controversy it is not necessary to give a circumstantial account; something of it may be found in Strype's Life of Smith, and something in Baker's Reflections upon Learning; it is sufficient to remark here, that Cheke's pronunciation was that which now prevails in the schools of England. Disquisitions not only verbal, but merely literal, are too minute for popular narration.

He was not less eminent, as a writer of Latin, than as a teacher of Greek. All the publick letters of the university were of his composition; and, as little qualifications must often bring great abilities into notice, he was recommended to this honourable employment, not less by the neatness of his hand, than the elegance of his style.

However great was his learning, he was not always immured in his chamber; but, being valetudinary, and weak of body, thought it necessary to spend many hours in such exercises as might best relieve him after the fatigue of study. His favourite amusement was archery, in which he spent, or, in the opinion of others, lost so much time, that those whom either his faults or virtues made his enemies, and, perhaps, some whose kindness wished him always worthily employed, did not scruple to censure his practice, as unsuitable to a man professing learning, and, perhaps, of bad example in a place of education.

To free himself from this censure was one of the reasons for which he published, in 1544, his Toxophilus, or the Schole or Partitions of Shooting, in which he joins the praise with the precepts of archery. He designed not only to teach the art of shooting, but to give an example of diction more natural and more truly English than was used by the common writers of that age, whom he censures for mingling exotick terms with their native language, and of whom he complains, that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but by arrogance and temerity.

He has not failed in either of his purposes. He has sufficiently vindicated archery as an innocent, salutary, useful, and liberal diversion; and if his precepts are of no great use, he has only shown, by one example among many, how little the hand can derive from the mind, how little intelligence can conduce to dexterity. In every art, practice is much; in arts manual, practice is almost the whole: precept can, at most, but warn against errour; it can never bestow excellence.

The bow has been so long disused, that most English readers have forgotten its importance, though it was the weapon by which we gained the battle of Agincourt; a weapon which, when handled by English yeomen, no foreign troops were able to resist. We were not only abler of body than the French, and, therefore, superiour in the use of arms, which are forcible only in proportion to the strength with which they are handled, but the national practice of shooting for pleasure or for prizes, by which every man was inured to archery from his infancy, gave us insuperable advantage, the bow requiring more practice to skilful use than any other instrument of offence.

Firearms were then in their infancy; and though battering-pieces had been some time in use, I know not whether any soldiers were armed with hand-guns when the Toxophilus was first published. They were soon after used by the Spanish troops, whom other nations made haste to imitate; but how little they could yet effect, will be understood from the account given by the ingenious author of the Exercise for the Norfolk Militia.

"The first muskets were very heavy, and could not be fired without a rest; they had matchlocks, and barrels of a wide bore, that carried a large ball and charge of powder, and did execution at a greater distance.

"The musketeers on a march carried only their rests and ammunition, and had boys to bear their muskets after them, for which they were allowed great additional pay.

"They were very slow in loading, not only by reason of the unwieldiness of the pieces, and because they carried the powder and balls separate, but from the time it took to prepare and adjust the match; so that their fire was not near so brisk as ours is now. Afterwards a lighter kind of matchlock musket came into use, and they carried their ammunition in bandeliers, which were broad belts that came over the shoulder, to which were hung several little cases of wood covered with leather, each containing a charge of powder; the balls they carried loose in a pouch; and they had also a priming-horn hanging by their side.

"The old English writers call those large muskets calivers; the harquebuss was a lighter piece, that could be fired without a rest. The matchlock was fired by a match fixed by a kind of tongs in the serpentine or cock, which, by pulling the trigger, was brought down with great quickness upon the priming in the pan, over which there was a sliding cover, which was drawn back by the hand just at the time of firing. There was a great deal of nicety and care required to fit the match properly to the cock, so as to come down exactly true on the priming, to blow the ashes from the coal, and to guard the pan from the sparks that fell from it. A great deal of time was also lost in taking it out of the cock, and returning it between the fingers of the left hand every time that the piece was fired; and wet weather often rendered the matches useless."

While this was the state of firearms, and this state continued among us to the civil war, with very little improvement, it is no wonder that the long-bow was preferred by sir Thomas Smith, who wrote of the choice of weapons in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when the use of the bow still continued, though the musket was gradually prevailing. Sir John Haward, a writer yet later, has, in his History of the Norman Kings, endeavoured to evince the superiority of the archer to the musketeer: however, in the long peace of king James, the bow was wholly forgotten. Guns have from that time been the weapons of the English, as of other nations, and, as they are now improved, are certainly more efficacious.

Ascham had yet another reason, if not for writing his book, at least for presenting it to king Henry. England was not then, what it may be now justly termed, the capital of literature; and, therefore, those who aspired to superiour degrees of excellence, thought it necessary to travel into other countries. The purse of Ascham was not equal to the expense of peregrination; and, therefore, he hoped to have it augmented by a pension. Nor was he wholly disappointed; for the king rewarded him with a yearly payment of ten pounds.

A pension of ten pounds granted by a king of England to a man of letters, appears, to modern readers, so contemptible a benefaction, that it is not unworthy of inquiry what might be its value at that time, and how much Ascham might be enriched by it. Nothing is more uncertain than the estimation of wealth by denominated money; the precious metals never retain long the same proportion to real commodities, and the same names in different ages do not imply the same quantity of metal; so that it is equally difficult to know how much money was contained in any nominal sum, and to find what any supposed quantity of gold or silver would purchase; both which are necessary to the commensuration of money, or the adjustment of proportion between the same sums at different periods of time.

A numeral pound, in king Henry's time, contained, as now, twenty shillings; and, therefore, it must be inquired what twenty shillings could perform. Bread-corn is the most certain standard of the necessaries of life. Wheat was generally sold, at that time for one shilling, the bushel; if, therefore, we take five shillings the bushel for the current price, ten pounds were equivalent to fifty. But here is danger of a fallacy. It may be doubted whether wheat was the general bread-corn of that age; and if rye, barley, or oats, were the common food, and wheat, as I suspect, only a delicacy, the value of wheat will not regulate the price of other things. This doubt, however, is in favour of Ascham; for if we raise the worth of wheat, we raise that of his pension.

But the value of money has another variation, which we are still less able to ascertain: the rules of custom, or the different needs of artificial life, make that revenue little at one time which is great at another. Men are rich and poor, not only in proportion to what they have, but to what they want. In some ages, not only necessaries are cheaper, but fewer things are necessary. In the age of Ascham, most of the elegancies and expenses of our present fashions were unknown: commerce had not yet distributed superfluity through the lower classes of the people, and the character of a student implied frugality, and required no splendour to support it. His pension, therefore, reckoning together the wants which he could supply, and the wants from which he was exempt, may be estimated, in my opinion, at more than one hundred pounds a year; which, added to the income of his fellowship, put him far enough above distress.

This was a year of good fortune to Ascham. He was chosen orator to the university on the removal of sir John Cheke to court, where he was made tutor to prince Edward. A man once distinguished soon gains admirers. Ascham was now received to notice by many of the nobility, and by great ladies, among whom it was then the fashion to study the ancient languages. Lee, archbishop of York, allowed him a yearly pension; how much we are not told. He was, probably, about this time, employed in teaching many illustrious persons to write a fine hand; and, among others, Henry and Charles, dukes of Suffolk, the princess Elizabeth, and prince Edward.

Henry the eighth died two years after, and a reformation of religion being now openly prosecuted by king Edward and his council, Ascham, who was known to favour it, had a new grant of his pension, and continued at Cambridge, where he lived in great familiarity with Bucer, who had been called from Germany to the professorship of divinity. But his retirement was soon at an end; for, in 1548, his pupil Grindal, the master of the princess Elizabeth, died, and the princess, who had already some acquaintance with Ascham, called him from his college to direct her studies.

He obeyed the summons, as we may easily believe, with readiness, and, for two years, instructed her with great diligence; but then, being disgusted either at her, or her domesticks, perhaps eager for another change of life, he left her, without her consent, and returned to the university. Of this precipitation he long repented; and, as those who are not accustomed to disrespect cannot easily forgive it, he probably felt the effects of his imprudence to his death.

After having visited Cambridge, he took a journey into Yorkshire, to see his native place, and his old acquaintance, and there received a letter from the court, informing him, that he was appointed secretary to sir Richard Morisine, who was to be despatched as ambassadour into Germany. In his return to London he paid that memorable visit to lady Jane Gray, in which he found her reading the Phasdo in Greek, as he has related in his Schoolmaster.

In September, 1550, he attended Morisine to Germany, and wandered over great part of the country, making observations upon all that appeared worthy of his curiosity, and contracting acquaintance with men of learning. To his correspondent, Sturmius, he paid a visit, but Sturmius was not at home, and those two illustrious friends never saw each other. During the course of this embassy, Ascham undertook to improve Morisine in Greek, and, for four days in the week, explained some passages in Herodotus every morning, and more than two hundred verses of Sophocles, or Euripides, every afternoon. He read with him, likewise, some of the orations of Demosthenes. On the other days he compiled the letters of business, and in the night filled up his diary, digested his remarks, and wrote private letters to his friends in England, and particularly to those of his college, whom he continually exhorted to perseverance in study. Amidst all the pleasures of novelty which his travels supplied, and in the dignity of his publick station, he preferred the tranquillity of private study, and the quiet of academical retirement. The reasonableness of this choice has been always disputed; and in the contrariety of human interests and dispositions, the controversy will not easily be decided.

He made a short excursion into Italy, and mentions in his Schoolmaster, with great severity, the vices of Venice. He was desirous of visiting Trent, while the council were sitting; but the scantiness of his purse defeated his curiosity.

In this journey he wrote his Report and Discourse of the Affairs in Germany, in which he describes the dispositions and interests of the German princes, like a man inquisitive and judicious, and recounts many particularities, which are lost in the mass of general history, in a style, which, to the ears of that age, was undoubtedly mellifluous, and which is now a very valuable specimen of genuine English.

By the death of king Edward, in 1553, the reformation was stopped, Morisine was recalled, and Ascham's pension and hopes were at an end. He, therefore, retired to his fellowship in a state of disappointment and despair, which his biographer has endeavoured to express in the deepest strain of plaintive declamation. "He was deprived of all his support," says Graunt, "stripped of his pension, and cut off from the assistance of his friends, who had now lost their influence: so that he had nec praemia nec praedia, neither pension nor estate to support him at Cambridge." There is no credit due to a rhetorician's account either of good or evil. The truth is, that Ascham still had, in his fellowship, all that in the early part of his life had given him plenty, and might have lived like the other inhabitants of the college, with the advantage of more knowledge and higher reputation. But, notwithstanding his love of academical retirement, he had now too long enjoyed the pleasures and festivities of publick life, to return with a good will to academical poverty.

He had, however, better fortune than he expected; and, if he lamented his condition, like his historian, better than he deserved. He had, during his absence in Germany, been appointed Latin secretary to king Edward; and, by the interest of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, he was instated in the same office under Philip and Mary, with a salary of twenty pounds a year.

Soon after his admission to his new employment, he gave an extraordinary specimen of his abilities and diligence, by composing and transcribing, with his usual elegance, in three days, forty-seven letters to princes and personages, of whom cardinals were the lowest.

How Ascham, who was known to be a protestant, could preserve the favour of Gardiner, and hold a place of honour and profit in queen Mary's court, it must be very natural to inquire. Cheke, as is well known, was compelled to a recantation; and why Ascham was spared, cannot now be discovered. Graunt, at a time when the transactions of queen Mary's reign must have been well enough remembered, declares, that Ascham always made open profession of the reformed religion, and that Englesfield and others often endeavoured to incite Gardiner against him, but found their accusations rejected with contempt: yet he allows, that suspicions and charges of temporization and compliance, had somewhat sullied his reputation. The author of the Biographia Britannica conjectures, that he owed his safety to his innocence and usefulness; that it would have been unpopular to attack a man so little liable to censure, and that the loss of his pen could not have been easily supplied. But the truth is, that morality was never suffered, in the days of persecution, to protect heresy: nor are we sure that Ascham was more clear from common failings than those who suffered more; and, whatever might be his abilities, they were not so necessary, but Gardiner could have easily filled his place with another secretary. Nothing is more vain, than, at a distant time, to examine the motives of discrimination and partiality; for the inquirer, having considered interest and policy, is obliged, at last, to admit more frequent and more active motives of human conduct, caprice, accident, and private affections.

At that time, if some were punished, many were forborne; and of many why should not Ascham happen to be one? He seems to have been calm and prudent, and content with that peace which he was suffered to enjoy: a mode of behaviour that seldom fails to produce security. He had been abroad in the last years of king Edward, and had, at least, given no recent offence. He was certainly, according to his own opinion, not much in danger; for in the next year he resigned his fellowship, which, by Gardiner's favour, he had continued to hold, though not resident; and married Margaret Howe, a young gentle-woman of a good family.

He was distinguished in this reign by the notice of cardinal Pole, a man of great candour, learning, and gentleness of manners, and particularly eminent for his skill in Latin, who thought highly of Ascham's style; of which it is no inconsiderable proof, that when Pole was desirous of communicating a speech made by himself as legate, in parliament, to the pope, he employed Ascham to translate it.

He is said to have been not only protected by the officers of state, but favoured and countenanced by the queen herself, so that he had no reason of complaint in that reign of turbulence and persecution: nor was his fortune much mended, when, in 1558, his pupil, Elizabeth, mounted the throne. He was continued in his former employment, with the same stipend; but though he was daily admitted to the presence of the queen, assisted her private studies, and partook of her diversions; sometimes read to her in the learned languages, and sometimes played with her at draughts and chess; he added nothing to his twenty pounds a year but the prebend of Westwang, in the church of York, which was given him the year following. His fortune was, therefore, not proportionate to the rank which his offices and reputation gave him, or to the favour in which he seemed to stand with his mistress. Of this parsimonious allotment it is again a hopeless search to inquire the reason. The queen was not naturally bountiful, and, perhaps, did not think it necessary to distinguish, by any prodigality of kindness, a man who had formerly deserted her, and whom she might still suspect of serving rather for interest than affection. Graunt exerts his rhetorical powers in praise of Ascham's disinterestedness and contempt of money; and declares, that, though he was often reproached by his friends with neglect of his own interest, he never would ask any thing, and inflexibly refused all presents which his office or imagined interest induced any to offer him. Camden, however, imputes the narrowness of his condition to his love of dice and cockfights: and Graunt, forgetting himself, allows that Ascham was sometimes thrown into agonies by disappointed expectations. It may be easily discovered, from his Schoolmaster, that he felt his wants, though he might neglect to supply them; and we are left to suspect, that he showed his contempt of money only by losing at play. If this was his practice, we may excuse Elizabeth, who knew the domestick character of her servants, if she did not give much to him who was lavish of a little.

However he might fail in his economy, it were indecent to treat with wanton levity the memory of a man who shared his frailties with all, but whose learning or virtues few can attain, and by whose excellencies many may be improved, while himself only suffered by his faults.

In the reign of Elizabeth, nothing remarkable is known to have befallen him, except that, in 1563, he was invited, by sir Edward Sackville, to write the Schoolmaster, a treatise on education, upon an occasion which he relates in the beginning of the book.

This work, though begun with alacrity, in hopes of a considerable reward, was interrupted by the death of the patron, and afterwards sorrowfully and slowly finished, in the gloom of disappointment, under the pressure of distress. But of the author's disinclination or dejection there can be found no tokens in the work, which is conceived with great vigour, and finished with great accuracy; and, perhaps, contains the best advice that was ever given for the study of languages.

This treatise he completed, but did not publish; for that poverty which, in our days, drives authors so hastily in such numbers to the press, in the time of Ascham, I believe, debarred them from it. The printers gave little for a copy, and, if we may believe the tale of Raleigh's history, were not forward to print what was offered them for nothing. Ascham's book, therefore, lay unseen in his study, and was, at last, dedicated to lord Cecil by his widow.

Ascham never had a robust or vigorous body, and his excuse for so many hours of diversion was his inability to endure a long continuance of sedentary thought. In the latter part of his life he found it necessary to forbear any intense application of the mind from dinner to bedtime, and rose to read and write early in the morning. He was, for some years, hectically feverish; and, though he found some alleviation of his distemper, never obtained a perfect recovery of his health. The immediate cause of his last sickness was too close application to the composition of a poem, which he purposed to present to the queen, on the day of her accession. To finish this, he forbore to sleep at his accustomed hours, till, in December, 1568, he fell sick of a kind of lingering disease, which Graunt has not named, nor accurately described. The most afflictive symptom was want of sleep, which he endeavoured to obtain by the motion of a cradle. Growing every day weaker, he found it vain to contend with his distemper, and prepared to die with the resignation and piety of a true Christian. He was attended on his death-bed by Gravet, vicar of St. Sepulchre, and Dr. Nowel, the learned dean of St. Paul's, who gave ample testimony to the decency and devotion of his concluding life. He frequently testified his desire of that dissolution which he soon obtained. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Nowel.

Roger Ascham died in the fifty-third year of his age, at a time when, according to the general course of life, much might yet have been expected from him, and when he might have hoped for much from others: but his abilities and his wants were at an end together; and who can determine, whether he was cut off from advantages, or rescued from calamities? He appears to have been not much qualified for the improvement of his fortune. His disposition was kind and social; he delighted in the pleasures of conversation, and was probably not much inclined to business. This may be suspected from the paucity of his writings. He has left little behind him; and of that little, nothing was published by himself but the Toxophilus, and the account of Germany. The Schoolmaster was printed by his widow; and the epistles were collected by Graunt, who dedicated them to queen Elizabeth, that he might have an opportunity of recommending his son, Giles Ascham, to her patronage. The dedication was not lost: the young man was made, by the queen's mandate, fellow of a college in Cambridge, where he obtained considerable reputation. What was the effect of his widow's dedication to Cecil, is not known: it may be hoped that Ascham's works obtained for his family, after his decease, that support which he did not, in his life, very plenteously procure them.

Whether he was poor by his own fault, or the fault of others, cannot now be decided; but it is certain that many have been rich with less merit. His philological learning would have gained him honour in any country; and, among us, it may justly call for that reverence which all nations owe to those who first rouse them from ignorance, and kindle among them the light of literature. Of his manners, nothing can be said but from his own testimony, and that of his contemporaries. Those who mention him allow him many virtues. His courtesy, benevolence, and liberality, are celebrated; and of his piety, we have not only the testimony of his friends, but the evidence of his writings.

That his English works have been so long neglected, is a proof of the uncertainty of literary fame. He was scarcely known, as an author, in his own language, till Mr. Upton published his Schoolmaster, with learned notes. His other pieces were read only by those few who delight in obsolete books; but as they are now collected into one volume, with the addition of some letters never printed before, the publick has an opportunity of recompensing the injury, and allotting Ascham the reputation due to his knowledge and his eloquence.

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