The Library of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) Lucy Gwynn Queen Mary University London November 2016 Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 Statement of originality I, Lucy Elizabeth Gwynn, confirm that the research included within this thesis is my own work or that where it has been carried out in collaboration with, or supported by others, that this is duly acknowledged below and my contribution indicated. Previously published material is also acknowledged below. I attest that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law, infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right, or contain any confidential material. I accept that the College has the right to use plagiarism detection software to check the electronic version of the thesis. I confirm that this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Signature: Lucy Gwynn Date: 31st October 2016 2 Abstract The survival of the 1711 sale catalogue of the library of Sir Thomas Browne and his heirs has given scholars of his work a privileged insight into his reading and book owning habits. Browne wrote on an encyclopaedic range of subjects and his prose bears the weight (implicit and explicit) of the many books and authors that contributed to his intellectual projects. As a consequence, his library and the 1711 catalogue have attracted intense interest from scholars, in spite of the absence of any physical trace of his books. This thesis examines the relationship between the catalogue and Browne’s library as he knew and used it, striving for a bibliographical reconstruction whilst acknowledging the contingency and incompleteness of the catalogue. It also contributes to the critical study of Browne’s works, assessing his book ownership for the elucidation of his texts, and considering his literary remains as an articulation of his reading. Quantitative analysis of the catalogue and a narrative of the life cycle of the library based on archival records are used to describe the library’s contents and the practices of its owners. The local contexts of Browne’s book ownership are outlined, together with the relationships of his works to his book sources, his museum collecting, and his position in the world of knowledge as articulated through library classification. Browne is described as a book owner who showed little interest in the possession of a ‘library’ as a discrete, permanent collection, despite his profound engagement with books, and the high numbers of volumes that passed through his hands. Browne’s library was also networked, linked to other collections through textual exchange, social relationships, book gifts, and conversations, indicative of a mode of seventeenth-century book ownership defined by fluidity and community. 3 Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Claire Preston, for all the insights and comments that have helped to shape this thesis. I have been supported during the writing of this thesis by a doctoral grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and I gratefully acknowledge that support here. Anyone fortunate enough to study Thomas Browne is further blessed in joining a community of generous, sympathetic, and brilliant scholars, and I have profited greatly from the help of Jessica Wolfe, Antonia Moon, Claire Bryony Williams, Anthony Ossa- Richardson, and the other members of the Thomas Browne Project’s editorial team, as well as Claire Preston. I am indebted to Kathryn Murphy in particular for her encouragement, her learning, and her friendship. Giles Mandelbrote and Dunstan Roberts have offered invaluable advice on the bibliographical aspects of this thesis. Alison Walker, Antonia Moon, and John Goldfinch of the British Library provided access to and advice on Sir Hans Sloane’s printed book and manuscript collections, as did Charles Jarvis, Mark Spencer and James Hamill with Sloane’s collections at the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. My thanks also to those friends who have supported me throughout this endeavour, particularly Kate Armstrong, Alexandra Coghlan, and Lotte Fikkers. My final manuscript benefited greatly from the keen eyes of Peter Brooke, David Colclough, Alexandra Effe, Antonia Gwynn, Dominic Gwynn, Helen Kemp, Renae Satterley, Melissa Schuh, and Dunstan Roberts. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to George Pasteur, for his support and unfailing good humour. This work is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather John Cordy and my niece Una Sweeney. 4 Contents Illustrations 6 Abbreviations 7 Introduction - Sir Thomas Browne in his library 8 Chapter 1 - Bibliotheca Abscondita: the lost library and the hidden reader 25 Chapter 2 - The waters of knowledge: a history of the Browne library 65 Chapter 3 - ‘The cheapest way of beneficence’: the private and the shared library 98 Chapter 4 - Citation and silence: Browne’s written work as bibliographical evidence 134 Chapter 5 - Musaeum Clausum: Thomas Browne’s museum 175 Chapter 6 - Wreaths, honeycombs, and armies: ordering the world and the shelf 224 Conclusion 267 Bibliography 272 Appendices 284 5 Illustrations 1. Gwen Raverat, Sir Thomas Browne (1910). 2. Suite Musaeum Clausum, by Erik Desmazières (2009). Derrière le rideau; The skull of Sir Thomas Browne. 3. Fragment de la bibliothèque de Sir T.B. (1), by Erik Desmazières. 4. Publication dates and countries of the 1711 catalogue. 5. An opening from the first edition of Urne-Buriall […] together with The Garden of Cyrus (1658), with citations marked in green. 6. An opening from the first edition of Urne-Buriall […] together with The Garden of Cyrus (1658), with citations marked in green (de Laet in red). 7. Browne noting his sources on painful deaths, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl D 109, fol. 45v. 8. Extract from Pseudodoxia Epidemica, VI:8, p. 494, with direct citations and allusions marked. 9. Extract from Pseudodoxia Epidemica, VI:1, p. 441, with direct citations and allusions marked. 10. Thomas Feyens, De viribus imaginationis (Louvain, 1608), portion of p. 114, showing abbreviated references to other works. 11. Bibliotheca Abscondita (I), by Erik Desmazières (2009). 12. A page from Sloane’s catalogue of animals, NHM, Fishes, birds, quadrupeds 1 (Murray Jones 25), showing specimens associated with Thomas Browne. 13. The north side of Mount Luibel [i.e. the Ljubelj Pass in Slovenia]. BL, Sloane MS 5234, fol. 39. 14. Detail from the frontispiece of Musei Wormiani Historia (Leiden, 1655). Tables 1. Totals and percentages of titles from the 1711 catalogue in different languages. 2. Totals of books in the 1711 catalogue by imprint decade. 3. Totals and percentages of titles in subject categories in the 1711 catalogue, with totals and percentages given for all imprints before 1684 and 1661. 4. Authors in the 1711 catalogue ranked by the number of titles associated with them. 5. Numbers of museum objects associated with Browne. 6 Abbreviations GC Garden of Cyrus (ed. Keynes, 1964), vol. I. LF Letter to a Friend (ed. Keynes, 1964), vol. I. MC ‘Musaeum Clausum’ in Miscellany Tracts (ed. Keynes, 1964), vol. III. PE Pseudodoxia Epidemica (ed. Robbins, 1981). RM Religio Medici (ed. Keynes, 1964), vol. I. SC Thomas Ballard, A catalogue of the libraries of Sir Thomas Browne and Dr Edward Browne, his son: a facsimile edition with an introduction, notes, and index, ed. by Jeremiah S. Finch (Leiden: E.J. Brill / Leiden University Press, 1986). Citations to Finch’s introduction or notes follow the facsimile edition’s pagination. Items within the catalogue have been referenced by the pagination of the 1711 original, followed by the lot number: SC 1/18. UB Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall (ed. Keynes, 1964), vol. I. TB to EB, etc. Correspondence by Thomas Browne and his eldest son Edward has been cited so frequently that it has been thought expedient to abbreviate their names where they occur. All correspondence edited by Keynes appears in vol. IV. BL British Library NHM Natural History Museum 7 Introduction Introduction - Sir Thomas Browne in his library 1. Gwen Raverat, Sir Thomas Browne (1910). 1. When the surgeon, bibliographer, book collector, and balletomane Geoffrey Keynes produced the first authoritative bibliography of Thomas Browne’s works for Cambridge University Press in 1924, he chose to include as a frontispiece a wood- engraving by his sister-in-law, Gwen Raverat (née Darwin).1 Raverat shows Browne in his library, his body sheltered, his page lit and his pen guided by a long-shanked and benevolent Death. The library room is tidy: the desk is conspicuously clear of trash, bearing only the burial urns that inspire him, and an amphibious creature suspended in a jar of liquid. An hourglass is tucked onto the window sill. The books are neatly ranked upon a single shelf. The floor is innocent of screwed-up sheets of discarded drafts. Browne is a still point around which all forces move: Death’s leaning frame; 1 The engraving was reproduced again in the second edition: A bibliography of Sir Thomas Browne (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. viii. For Keynes’s life, see David McKitterick and Stephen Lock, ‘Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes (1887-1982)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-2014). Accessed online. 8 Introduction 2. Suite Musaeum Clausum, by Erik Desmazières (2009). left: Derrière le rideau; right: The skull of Sir Thomas Browne. the putti straining beneath the table; the night wind rushing in from the open casement. He is both alone and in a crowd, lit and in darkness, in a room and outside.