He left a family behind, according to Lloyd, of whom Robert, the eldest son, was afterwards a clergyman, and D.D. His wife died in 1647. His prose works were published at various periods in folio, quarto, and duodecimo. They were collected in a handsome edition of 10 vols., octavo, by the Rev. Josiah Pratt, and are his best memorials. The “Meditations” have been often reprinted. As a moralist, he has been called the British Seneca.
Sir Thomas Browne.
Sir Thomas Browne flourished in this century in Norwich, as a Physician. Dr. Johnson wrote a memoir of him, from which we learn the following particulars. He was born in London, in the parish of St. Michael, in Cheapside, on October 19th, 1605. 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, defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was placed for his education at the School of Winchester. He was removed in 1623 from Winchester to Oxford, 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, the Chancellor of the University. He was admitted to the degree of B.A., January 31st, 1626–7, being the first man of eminence who 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 M.A., he turned his attention to physic. He 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, who had some employment in Ireland in the visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of Ireland then made necessary. He left Ireland and travelled on the Continent, and was created an M.D. at Leyden. About the year 1634 he is supposed to have returned to London; and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called Religio Medici, or, “The Religion of a Physician,” which excited the attention of the public by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and the strength of language. At the time when this book was published the author resided at Norwich, where he had settled in 1636, by the persuasion of Dr. Lushington, his tutor, who was then rector of Burnham Westgate, in West Norfolk. His practice became very extensive, and in 1637 he was incorporated Doctor of Physic, in Oxford. He married in 1641, Mrs. Mileham, of a good family in Norfolk. He had ten children by her, of whom one son and three daughters survived their parents. In 1646, Sir Thomas Browne published his “Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors,” which passed through many editions. 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 ancient nations, exhibits their various treatment of the dead, and examines the substances found in the Norfolcian urns. To this treatise on Urn-burial was added the “Garden of Cyrus; or, the Quincuxial Lozenge, or Network Plantation of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered.” He doubted the Copernican hypothesis, on the same ground as some divines distrust the Cuvierian system of Geology, as opposed to Genesis. These were all the tracts which he published, but many papers were found in his closet. Of these, two collections were published in 1722, and all his works were issued in a cheap form by G. H. Bohn, and are in the Norwich Free Library. 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. In 1671, he received at Norwich, the honour of Knighthood from Charles II., 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.
Sir Thomas Browne, in 1680, wrote a Repertorium, or Account of the Tombs and Monuments in the Cathedral Church of Norwich. The basis of the work was a sketch hastily drawn up twenty years previously on the information of “an understanding singing man,” ninety-one years old, in order to preserve the remembrance of some of the monumental antiquities which barbarous zeal had destroyed. The reckless character of these ravages has thus been exhibited in a description made on the spot and at the moment, by one who suffered in his person, property, and health.
Thus the knight lived in high reputation, till he was seized with a colic, which, after having tortured him for about a week, put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October 19th, 1682, having completed his 77th year. 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, within the rails at the east end of the chancel, with this inscription on a mural monument, placed in the south pillar of the altar:—
M. S.
HIC SITUS EST
THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.
ET MILES.
Ao 1605. LONDONI NATUS
GENEROSA FAMILIA APUD UPTON IN AGRO CESTRIENSI ORIUNDUS.
SCHOLA PRIMUM WINTONIENSI, POSTEA
IN COLL. PEMBR.
APUN OXONIENSES BONIS LITERIS
HAUD LEVITER IMBUTUS.
IN URBE HAC NORDOVICENSI MEDICINAM
ARTE EGREGIA, ET FŒLICI SUCCESSU PROFESSUS,
SCRIPTIS, QUIBUS TITULI, RELIGIO MEDICI
ET PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA ALIISQUE
PER ORBEM NOTISSIMUS
VIR PIENTISSIMUS, INTEGERRIMUS, DOCTISSIMUS;
OBIIT OCTOBR. 19, 1682.
PIE POSUIT MŒSTISSIMA CONJUX
Da DOROTH. BR.
Mr. Simon Wilkin, F.L.S., in a supplementary memoir, states that Dr. Browne steadily adhered to the royal cause in perilous times. He was one of the 432 principal citizens, who, in 1643, refused to subscribe towards a fund for regaining the town of Newcastle. Charles II. was not likely to have been ignorant of this, and he had, no doubt, the good feeling to express his sense of it by a distinction which was, no doubt, gratifying to Sir Thomas Browne. Sir Thomas is supposed to have lived in the last house at the south end of the Gentleman’s Walk, where the Savings’ Bank now stands. Blomefield asserts that he lived where Dr. Howman then lived, (1760) and that he succeeded Alderman Anguish in that house; and Mr. Simon Wilkin says that he ascertained by reference to title deeds, that the last house at the southern extremity of the Gentleman’s Walk, Haymarket, belonged, in Blomefield’s time, to Dr. Howman. This house was for many years a china and glass warehouse, and tradition has always asserted it to be Dr. Browne’s residence. The last occupier was Mr. Swan, and the house was pulled down to make room for the Savings’ Bank. It contained some spacious rooms. In the drawing room there was, over the mantel-piece and occupying the entire space of the ceiling, a most elaborate and richly ornamented carving of the royal arms of Charles II., no doubt placed there by Sir Thomas to express his loyalty, and to commemorate his knighthood. In Matthew Stevenson’s poems, 12mo, 1673, there is a long poem on the progress of Charles II. into Norfolk, in which the honour conferred on Browne is thus noticed:—
“There the king knighted the so famous Browne,
Whose worth and learning to the world are known.”
Early in October, 1673, Evelyn went down to the Earl of Arlington’s, at Euston, in company with Sir Thomas Clifford, to join the royal party. Lord Henry Howard arrived soon afterward, and prevailed on Mr. Evelyn to accompany him to Norwich, promising to convey him back after a day or two. “This,” he says, “as I could not refuse I was not hard to be persuaded to, having a desire to see that famous scholar and physician, Dr. T. Browne, author of the Religio Medici, and Vulgar Errors, &c., now lately knighted.” After arriving in Norwich, Evelyn says:—
“Next morning I went to see Sir Thomas Browne, with whom I had some time corresponded by letter, though I had never seen him before. His whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the best collections, especially medails, books, plants, and natural things. Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas had a collection of the eggs of all the foule and birds he could procure, that country (especially the promontory of Norfolk) being frequented, as he said, by severall kinds, which seldome or never go further into the land, as cranes, storkes, eagles, and a variety of water foule. He led me to see all the remarkable places in this ancient city, being one of the largest, and certainly, after London, one of the noblest in England for its venerable Cathedralle, number of stately churches, cleanesse of the streets, and buildings of flints so exquistely headed and squared, as I was much astonished at; but he told me they had lost the art of squaring the flints in which they once so much excelled, and of which the churches, best houses, and walls are built. The Castle is an antique extent of ground which now they call Marsfield, and would have been a fitting area to have placed the ducal palace in. The suburbs are large, the prospects are sweete, with other amenities, not omitting the flower gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel.”