Much has been made, during this discussion, of a paragraph in Sir Thomas Browne’s disquisition on urn-burial. He is said to have, almost prophetically, described this incident of the removal of his own skull from his tomb, when he wrote “to be knaved out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking bowls, and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport our enemies, are tragical abominations escaped in burning burials.” But, I think the whole force of this extract is removed by turning to Wilkin’s edition, where this passage runs, “to be gnawed (not knaved) out of our graves,” which clearly gives it a very different meaning.
Sir Thomas Browne married a few years after settling in Norwich (in 1641), a daughter of Edward Mileham, Esq., of Burlingham St. Peter, in this county, and granddaughter of John Hobart, Esq., by whom he had ten children. Of these ten, his eldest son, Dr. Edward Browne, became very eminent in his profession. He practised in London, where he was made Physician to King Charles II., and he was afterwards appointed Physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and later became President of the Royal College of Physicians.
Sir Thomas Browne appears to have enjoyed for many years a very considerable practice in this city. But he was also an archæologist, a naturalist, a studier of plants and animals. He had as personal friends or literary correspondents such men as Sir Robert Paston, Sir Hamon L’Estrange, Sir Kenelm Digby, John Evelyn, Sir William Dugdale, and Bishop Hall, and he appears to have found time to carry on a very large literary correspondence. He lived in Norwich from 1634 to 1682, which included the dangerous times of the Stuarts, of the Long Parliament, and of the Commonwealth. But he appears to have been a staunch Royalist. He was knighted, as I have said, by King Charles II., on the occasion of his visiting Norwich in 1671.
Later in this year he was visited by the well-known Evelyn, whose oft quoted passage respecting him runs thus—“My Lord Henry Howard . . . would needs have me go with him to Norwich, promising to convey me back after a day or two; this, as I could not refuse, I was not hard to be persuaded to, having a desire to see that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. Browne, author of the ‘Religio Medici,’ and ‘Vulgar Errors,’ etc., now lately knighted.” And he adds, “Next morning I went to see Sir Tho. Browne (with whom I had some time corresponded by letter, tho’ 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. . . . He led me to see all the remarkable places of this ancient citty being one of the largest, and certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its venerable Cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleanesse of the streetes, and buildings of flints, so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much astonished at. . . . 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 on. The suburbs are large, the prospects sweete, with other amenities, not omitting the flower gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel. The fabric of stuffs brings a vast trade to this populous towne.”
Sir Thomas Browne was, as is evident from even a cursory study of his works, a great student. He understood most of the European languages, Latin and Greek critically, and a little Hebrew, and it is quite certain that he must have studied carefully, not only the Christian Scriptures, but also the works of many of the ancient fathers of the Christian Church. His memory of what he had read must have been prodigious. But though he was so learned a man, a traveller, a student of languages, a naturalist, a medical practitioner, and in many respects doubtless ahead of his time, yet a sad blot exists upon his generally great character, and scientific acumen. I allude to the evidence which he gave at Bury St. Edmund’s, in 1664, at the trial before Lord Chief Baron Hale, of two women for witchcraft. Sir Thomas appears to have been a firm believer in witches and witchcraft, and the declaration which he made to this effect “was thought to have had no small influence in occasioning the condemnation of the wretched victims, whose execution was one of the latest instances of the kind by which the English annals are disgraced.”
After his death his widow resided in his house until her death. Then it was occupied by Dr. Howman, who presented the portrait of the knight to St. Peter’s Mancroft. A large portion of his letters and manuscripts passed into the hands of Sir Hans Sloane, and are now in our National Library at the British Museum.
During this present century the house has been dismantled and converted to its new purposes, and its fittings dispersed. A handsome carved mantel-piece, removed from one of the rooms by the builder, is now in the possession of Mr. Henry Birkbeck, of Stoke; and the very keys of the house were long treasured as relics by the late Mr. Barker, of Thorpe Hamlet.
But I must not dwell longer upon his personality and personal history, interesting though they be, in the light of his being a Norwich man, and the most famous of Norwich authors. If you wish to know more of his biography, you will find it all excellently given in the memoir of him written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, and which, together with a supplemental memoir by Simon Wilkin, is prefaced to the edition of his works in three volumes, published by Bohn in 1852, and edited by Wilkin.
We must next consider to what Sir Thomas Browne owes his great literary fame, and upon what his claims rest for being one of this city’s most eminent citizens.
Sir Thomas Browne was a very voluminous writer, and he touched a great variety of subjects. The greatest of his works, the one which was published soon after his settling in Norwich, was undoubtedly that to which he gave the name of “Religio Medici”—the religion of a physician; implying thereby, not “that physicians have a religion to themselves, but that physicians have religion as well as other men.” It immediately attracted the attention of the most learned in the land, and it is certainly the production upon which his literary fame most largely depends. It is quaintly written, full of odd phrases, original thoughts, and peculiarities of diction, but equally full of fine sentiments and expressions of confident religious faith. It is a work often so quaint in its diction, so stilted in its modes of expression (as indeed was common in those days), and so interlarded with specialized or new-coined words, that it is somewhat difficult to read and understand. But its high qualities and beauties are so great that it richly repays the trouble of mastering its style; and I venture to assert that the greatness of its sentiments and thoughts grows upon one by perusal, and that the oftener it is read the more greatly will it be appreciated.