Browne’s regret at the general falling-off since the death of Elizabeth suggests that the verses in her honour, which were removed with the plastering from Tavistock Parish Church in 1845, may have been amongst his earliest efforts. They ended with these flattering words:—
This! This was she, that in despite of Death,
Lives still ador’d, admir’d Elizabeth.
Spain’s rod, Rome’s ruin, Netherland’s relief;
Heaven’s gem, Earth’s joy, World’s wonder, Nature’s chief.
Browne’s elegy on Prince Henry was reprinted as one of the songs in the first book of his Britannia’s Pastorals, which was also published in 1613, with commendatory verses from Drayton and Brooke and the learned Selden, besides those from his college friends. In doing the same kindly office for the second book, in 1616, Ben Jonson spoke thus highly of the care and finish of Browne’s work:—
which is so good
Upon th’ Exchange of Letters, that I wou’d
More of our Writers would, like thee, not swell
With the how much they set forth, but th’ how well.