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SIR THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.* by SIR HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BART., G.C.V.O., K.C.B., M.D

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SIR THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.* by SIR HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BART., G.C.V.O., K.C.B., M.D [From Petrus Franciscus Phrygius: Commentarii. I. ugduni, 1644.] ANNALS OF MEDICAL HISTORY New Series, Volume II January, 1930 Number i SIR THOMAS BROWNE, M.D.* By SIR HUMPHRY ROLLESTON, BART., G.C.V.O., K.C.B., M.D. CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND IN Oxford it is ap­ that of his senior. Pembroke College propriate to think is just opposite to Christ Church where and speak of Sir Robert Burton (1577-1640) or “Dem­ Thomas Browne,for ocritus Junior” spent, as he says, “a healsowasastudent silent, sedentary, solitary, private here, a fellow-com­ life,” and brought out in 1621 his moner at Broadga­ “Anatomy of Melancholy,” a second tes Hall, which in and enlarged edition of which ap­ 1624, the year after peared in 1624, when Thomas Browne his matriculation, changed its name to was an undergraduate. Sir William Pembroke College in honour of Wil­ Osler, regius professor of medicine liam Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, (1904-1919) and one of his most Chancellor of the University, and, constant and eloquent admirers, in according to Aubrey, “the greatest fancy pictures Browne as perhaps Maecenas to learned men of any peer of known to Burton and even watching his time or since.” In the eighteenth his senior as he leant over Folly Bridge century Pembroke was for fourteen and laughed away depression by listen­ months the home of Samuel Johnson, ing to the ribaldry of the bargees. who wrote a life of his predecessor pre­ Further, Oxford men have been fixed to the second edition of “Christ­ prominent as editors of Browne’s ian Morals” in 1756, and so was the works;Thomas Chapman (1812-1834), Alma Mater of two of the most pop­ the first modern editor of the “Religio ular of the English Classics. A further Medici,” brought out at Oxford an association is that Johnson’s literary edition of this, by then an almost for­ style, especially in his earlier days, ap­ gotten book in 1831 when he was a pears to have been influenced by nineteen-year-old undergraduate at * A University Extension Lecture given at the Summer Meeting, Oxford, Aug. 16, 1929. Exeter College. Henry Gardiner (1815- ury” Series. John Addington Sy­ 1864), m.a. and also a member of monds (1840-1893), a Fellow of Exeter College, edited the “Religio Magdalen College, edited, with an Medici,” “A Letter to a Friend introduction, the “Religio Medici,” upon the Occasion of the Death of his and others of Browne’s works in 1886. Intimate Friend,” and “Christian Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665) who Morals” in 1845 after he had given up wrote the well-known “Observations” the idea of entering on the physic line on the “Relligio Medici” was also an and the year before he took Holy Oxford man, having been from 1618 Orders. William Alexander Greenhill to 1620 a fellow-commoner at Glou­ (1814-1894), like Browne, a scholar­ cester Hall, now Worcester College, physician, was educated at Rugby but left the university without a under Thomas Arnold, being a con­ degree. temporary and friend there of Arthur Coming of a Cheshire stock, Hugh Clough (1819-1861) the poet, Thomas Browne, the only son and who expressed the religious doubts and youngest of the four children of a struggles produced by the Oxford mercer with exactly the same name, Tractarian movement in the ’forties, was born on October 19, 1605, the year W. C. Lake (1817-1897) dean of that Bacon’s “Advancement of Learn­ Durham, A. P. Stanley (1815-1881) ing” first shed its light before the dean of Westminster, and C. J. Vaug­ public, in the parish of St. Michael- han (1816-1897) master of Rugby and Ie-Quern, Cheapside, within the sound of the Temple, and dean of Landaff; he of Bow bells; a scholar at Winchester proceeded to Trinity College, Oxford, (1616-1623), he went to Oxford in and becoming a medical man practiced 1623, and on August 5, 1624, when in Oxford until 1851, when he settled Pembroke College was inaugurated, at Hastings and soon afterwards began as senior fellow-commoner gave the working on Browne’s texts, but being first of the three orations in Latin. slow as well as thorough it was not till After taking the degrees of b.a. (1626) 1881 that Macmillan and Co. brought and m.a. (1629), he is said to have out in the “Golden Treasury” Series practiced medicine for a short time his edition of the “Religio Medici,” in Oxfordshire. In 1630 he started on “A Letter to a Friend upon the Occa­ a three years’ grand tour, first ac­ sion of the Death of his Intimate companying his rather choleric step­ Friend,” and “Christian Morals;” this father, Sir Thomas Dutton, on an at once became the standard edition on official inspection of forts and castles account of its scholarly notes, which in Ireland, and then travelling alone with the glossarial index are really on the Continent. He studied at the necessary to enable the ordinary reader University, of Montpellier, whither to understand the obsolete words and about twenty years later Thomas allusions in the text. At the time of his Sydenham (1624-1689) followed him. death Greenhill was engaged on an Then, some thirty years after William edition of Sir Thomas Browne’s “ Hyd- Harvey (1578-1657), he visited Padua, riotaphia or Urn-Burial” and the and about 1633 was at Leyden, where “Garden of Cyrus,” which was he is stated to have obtained the finished by E. H. Marshal and pub­ doctorate, but of this Sir William lished in 1896 in the “Golden Treas­ Osler failed to find any documentary confirmation on the spot. Browne’s hearing of it on December 19, 1642 m.d., it may be mentioned here, from the fifth Earl of Dorset (1622- was obtained from Oxford on July io, 1677) a fellow prisoner, when confined i637- in W inchester House by the Parliamen­ Returning to England in 1634 with tarians, sent for it in hot haste to a knowledge of six languages, and St. Paul’s Churchyard, and at a thus recalling and perhaps justifying sitting, or rather while in bed, not Johnson’s criticism of his literary only read it but from a Roman style as “a tissue of many languages,” Catholic point of view penned “Ob­ he settled down at Old Shibden Hall, a servations upon Religio Medici: oc­ house in a park, near Halifax in York­ casionally written by Sir Kenelme shire. Here, it would appear from his Digby, Knight,” which when eventual­ own rather quaintly worded statement, ly printed ran to 124 pages or three- he wrote the “Religio Medici” about quarters of the size of the “Religio 1634-1635; for in it he remarked: Medici,” the whole tour de force being “I have not seen one revolution completed within twenty-four hours. of Saturn, nor hath my pulse beat This critical review was circulated in thirty years,” the second half of the manuscript, and Browne, hearing from sentence explaining to the ordinary Crooke that it was intended for man the meaning of the earlier part; publication, wrote on March 3, 1643 and again more briefly: “Now for politely begging Digby to delay this my life it is a miracle of thirty until he had seen an authorized copy; years.” It was, he said, written “with Digby replied with equal courtesy, no intention for the press” but was even expressing regret for the hasti­ “composed at Ieisurable hours for ness of his remarks which, however, his private exercise and satisfaction;” were by that time in type and act­ this no doubt pleasantly occupied ually saw the light at the end of the time while he was recruiting March, and so before the appearance his health, impaired during his travels in the same year of the first authorized by disease and shipwreck, for, con­ edition, with which Digby’s “Obser­ trary to what is sometimes assumed, vations” and the Browne-Digby he did not practice his profession at correspondence are often bound up. this time. Several copies of the manu­ According to Aubrey, Digby while in script, differing somewhat in their durance vile “practised chymistry wording, though none of these sur­ and wrote his booke of Bodies and vives, were lent by Browne to his Soule (1644) dedicated to his eldest friends, who also transcribed them, son.” and of these last there are seven in Samuel Johnson in his Life of Sir existence (Keynes). Thus in the course Thomas Browne suggested that the of six years it became known, and anonymous and unauthorized editions eventually in 1642 Andrew Crooke, were really arranged by the author a publisher, had it printed without in order to see how the “Religio the author’s permission or name; Medici” would be received; Keynes this was so successful that a second considers this “sharp practice” quite unauthorized edition appeared in the incompatible with our knowledge of same year. Browne’s character; but after all His contemporary Sir Kenelm Digby this would appear to be a somewhat harmless experiment. It may indeed The “Religio Medici” has been the be suspected that, as the offending favorite reading and guide of many pirate, Andrew Crooke, was entrusted more than double the age of the with the authorized edition, Browne author, and seems to enforce his ad­ may not have been altogether dis­ vice (“Christian Morals,” Part in, pleased and certainly appears to have Section vin) to “anticipate the virtues forgiven the offence rather readily. of age, and live long without the infirm­ It at once attracted general atten­ ities of it.” Its taking title has been tion, and was translated into Latin imitated on many occasions; Keynes in 1644, into Dutch in 1665, French tabulates no less than eighty-five, in 1668, and much later in 1746 into dating from Lord de Cherbury’s “De German.
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