The boy Thomas Browne being left to the care of guardians, his estate was despoiled, though to what extent does not appear; nor can it be considered greatly deplorable, since it did not prevent his early schooling at that ancient and noble foundation of Winchester, nor in 1623 his entrance into Pembroke College, Oxford, and in due course his graduation in 1626 as bachelor of arts. With what special assistance or direction he began his studies in medical science, cannot now be ascertained; but after taking his degree of master of arts in 1629, he practiced physic for about two years in some uncertain place in Oxfordshire. He then began a course of travel, unusually extensive for that day. His stepfather upon occasion of his official duties under the government "shewed him all Ireland in some visitation of the forts and castles." It is improbable that Ireland at that time long detained a traveler essentially literary in his tastes. Browne betook himself to France and Italy, where he appears to have spent about two years, residing at Montpellier and Padua, then great centres of medical learning, with students drawn from most parts of Christendom. Returning homeward through Holland, he received the degree of doctor of medicine from the University of Leyden in 1633, and settled in practice at Halifax, England.
At this time--favored probably by the leisure which largely attends the beginning of a medical career, but which is rarely so laudably or productively employed,--he wrote the treatise 'Religio Medici,' which more than any other of his works has established his fame and won the affectionate admiration of thoughtful readers. This production was not printed until seven years later, although some unauthorized manuscript copies, more or less faulty, were in circulation. When in 1642 "it arrived in a most depraved copy at the press," Browne felt it necessary to vindicate himself by publishing a correct edition, although, he protests, its original "intention was not publick: and being a private exercise directed to myself, what is delivered therein was rather a memorial unto me than an example or rule unto any other."
In 1636 he removed to Norwich and permanently established himself there in the practice of physic. There in 1641 he married Dorothy Mileham, a lady of good family in Norfolk; thereby not only improving his social connections, but securing a wife "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." Such at least was the view of an intimate friend of more than forty years, Rev. John Whitefoot, in the 'Minutes' which, at the request of the widow, he drew up after Sir Thomas's death, and which contain the most that is known of his personal appearance and manners. Evidently the marriage was a happy one for forty-one years, when the Lady Dorothy was left mæstissima conjux, as her husband's stately epitaph, rich with many an issimus, declares. Twelve children were born of it; and though only four of them survived their parents, such mortality in carefully tended and well-circumstanced families was less remarkable than it would be now, when two centuries more of progress in medical science have added security and length to human life.
The good mother--had she not endeared herself to the modern reader by the affectionate gentleness and the quaint glimpses of domestic life that her family letters reveal--would be irresistible by the ingeniously bad spelling in which she reveled, transgressing even the wide limits then allowed to feminine heterography.
It is noteworthy that Dr. Browne's professional prosperity was not impaired by the suspicion which early attached to him, and soon deepened into conviction, that he was addicted to literary pursuits. He was in high repute as a physician. His practice was extensive, and he was diligent in it, as also in those works of literature and scientific investigation which occupied all "snatches of time," he says, "as medical vacations and the fruitless importunity of uroscopy would permit." His large family was liberally reared; his hospitality and his charities were ample.
In 1646 he printed his second book, the largest and most operose of all his productions: the 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors' the work evidently of the horæ subsecivæ of many years. In 1658 he gave to the public two smaller but important and most characteristic works, 'Hydriotaphia' and 'The Garden of Cyrus.' Beside these publications he left many manuscripts which appeared posthumously; the most important of them, for its size and general interest, being 'Christian Morals.'
When Sir Thomas's long life drew to its close, it was with all the blessings "which should accompany old age." His domestic life had been one of felicity. His eldest and only surviving son, Edward Browne, had become a scholar after his father's own heart; and though not inheriting his genius, was already renowned in London, one of the physicians to the King, and in a way to become, as afterward he did, President of the College of Physicians. All his daughters who had attained womanhood had been well married. He lived in the society of the honorable and learned, and had received from the King the honor of knighthood[1].
[1] As for this business of the knighting, one hesitates fully to adopt Dr. Johnson's remark that Charles II. "had skill to discover excellence and virtue to reward it, at least with such honorary distinctions as cost him nothing." A candid observer of the walk and conversation of this illustrious monarch finds room for doubt that he was an attentive reader or consistent admirer of the 'Religio Medici,' or 'Christian Morals'; and though his own personal history might have contributed much to a complete catalogue of Vulgar Errors, Browne's treatise so named did not include divagations from common decency in its scope, and so may have failed to impress the royal mind. The fact is that the King on his visit to Norwich, looking about for somebody to knight, intended, as usual on such occasions, to confer the title on the mayor of the city; but this functionary,--some brewer or grocer perhaps, of whom nothing else than this incident is recorded,--declined the honor, whereupon the gap was stopped with Dr. Browne.
Mr. John Evelyn, carrying out a long and cherished plan of seeing one whom he had known and admired by his writings, visited him at Norwich in 1671. He found Sir Thomas among fit surroundings, "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[2]." Here we have the right background and accessories for Whitefoot's portrait of the central figure:--
"His complexion and hair ... answerable to his name, his stature moderate, and habit of body neither fat nor lean but [Greek: eusarkos;] ... 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, ... apt to blush at the levity of it: his gravity was natural without affectation. His modesty ... visible in a natural habitual blush, which was increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any observable cause.... So free from loquacity or much talkativeness, that he was something difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he was so, it was always singular and never trite or vulgar."