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as an exercise unto himself, rather than an exercitation for any other, -and that it had passed from his hand under a broken and imperfect copy, which, by frequent transcription, had still run forward into corruption." "If," he adds, "when the true copy shall be extant, you shall esteem it worth your vacant hours to discourse thereon, you shall sufficiently honour me in the vouchsafe of your refutation, and I oblige the whole world in the occasion of your pen." The learned knight, nothing behind the young doctor in complimentary language, hastened to assure him that he had no such serious intentions of assailing his treatise, as had been by report ascribed to him; that the few strictures he had penned upon it at the suggestion of Lord Dorset, were the hasty production of a single day; that he had prohibited their publication; and that, "to encounter such a sinewy opposite, or make animadversion upon so smart a piece," he was conscious "a solid stock and exercise in school-learning" was requisite. Few works have made a greater noise in the world, or produced a greater sensation on first appearance, as we say now-a-days,-than Browne's Religio Medici. The smatterer, Guy Patin, in a letter dated from Paris, 7th April, 1645, says of it:-" The book entitled Religio Medici' is in high credit here. The author has wit; there are abundance of fine things in that book; he is a humourist, whose thoughts are very agreeable, but who, in my opinion, is to seek for a master in religion-as many others are and, in the end, perhaps, may find none. One may say of him, as Philip de Comines did of the founder of the Minimies, a hermit of Calabria, Francis de Paula, he is still alive, and may grow worse as well as better.'" Salmasius, too, declared that it contained "many exorbitant conceptions in religion, and would probably find but frowning entertainment." Tobias Wagner, a German critic, affirmed that the seeds of atheistical impiety were so scattered throughout Browne's book, that it could hardly be read without danger of infection, an opinion in which he was seconded by his two countrymen, Muller and Reiser. The learned John Francis Buddæus hesitated not to enrol Browne in his list of English atheists, in conjunction with Herbert, Hobbes, and Toland, whilst Reimmannus and Heister zealously repelled the charge of irreligion brought against him. Browne himself, in this work, declares that he is a good Protestant of the English church :-" I am a born subject," he says, "and, therefore, in a double obligation, subscribe unto her articles, and endeavour to observe her constitutions; whatever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe according to the rules of my private reason, or the humour and fashion of my devotion,-neither believing this because Luther affirmed it, or disproving that because Calvin hath disavouched it; I condemn not all things in the council of Trent, nor approve all in the synod of Dort. In brief, where the Scripture is silent, the church is my text; where that speaks, 'tis but my comment; where there is a joint silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason." In fact, few secular writers of Browne's age have been more solicitous to express their undoubting faith in Scriptures, or mentioned them with such unvaried reverence; at the same time it must be confessed that there is a wildness of conception, and singularity of expression, in much which Browne has written, which was calculated to excite surprise, and throw him open to cen

sure.

A single extract will afford the reader some notion of the style in which the Religio Medici' is written :-" There are a bundle of curiosities not only in philosophy but in divinity, proposed and discussed by men of supposed ability, which indeed are not worthy our vacant hours, much less our serious studies. 'Tis ridiculous to put off or down the general flood of Noah in that particular inundation of Deucalion; that there was a deluge, seems not to me so great a miracle as that there is not one always. How all the kinds of creatures, not only in their own bulks, but with a competency of food and sustenance, might be preserved in one ark, and within the extent of 300 cubits, to a reason that rightly examines, it will appear very feasible. There is another secret, not contained in the Scripture, which is more hard to comprehend, and put the honest father (St Augustin) to the refuge of a miracle, and that is, not only how the distinct pieces of the world, and divided islands, should be first planted by men, but inhabited by tigers, panthers, and bears; how America abounded with beasts of prey and noxious animals, yet contained not in it that necessary creature a horse, is very strange." Again; "Search all the legends of times past, and the fabulous conceits of those present, and 'twill be hard to find one that deserves to carry the buckler unto Sampson; yet is all this of an easy possibility, if we conceive a Divine concourse, or an influence from the little finger of the Almighty." It is not easy to say what definite object Browne proposed to himself in this essay; whatever it was, or whether he really had any, it is a work of prodigious fancy and ponderous erudition. It has been called "the dissection of a human soul,"—" the picture of the author's mind painted by himself,"- a hard task, viz. to make us, in some measure, acquainted with the essence as well as attributes of God, the nature of angels, the mysteries of Providence, the divinity of the Scriptures, and which is, perhaps, most difficult of all-with ourselves." It was quickly translated into Latin, French, Italian, and German. The surreptitious edition was printed in the year 1642; the genuine edition did not come out till the spring following; but, by the year 1685, it passed through eight editions.

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In 1636 Dr Browne settled at Norwich, and in 1637 was created Doctor of Physic in the university of Oxford. In 1641 he married a lady of the name of Mileham, whose family belonged to the county of Norfolk, and who is described as 66 a lady 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." This latter step, though it certainly exposed the man who had just been wishing, in his Religio Medici,' that "we might procreate like trees," and had declared that "the whole world was made for man, but only the twelfth part of man for woman," to the charge of inconsistency, was fraught with happiness to the Doctor, and his fair partner, who lived in great harmony with each other for one-and-forty years. In 1646 he published his Pseudodoxia Epidemica,' or Enquiries into very many received Tenets, and commonly presumed Truths,"a work of most multifarious erudition, and which was very favourably received by the learned, although virulently attacked by one Ross, sort of knight-errant in the literary world, whose Dulcinea was antiquity," and a Dr John Robinson.

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In 1658 Browne published his Hydriotaphia, Urne Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urnes lately found in Norfolk.' From the trivial incident of the discovery of a few urns at Walsingham, he takes occasion to treat of the funeral rites of all nations, and has endeavoured to trace these rites to the principles and feelings which gave rise to them. The extent of reading displayed in this singular treatise is most astonishing, and the whole is irradiated with the flashes of a bright and highly poetical genius, though we are not sure that any regular plan can be discovered in the work. It opens with the following fine trumpet-like tones:" In the deep discovery of the subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers; who, if two or three yards were open about the surface, would not care to wrack the bowels of Potosi, and regions towards the centre. Nature hath furnished one part of the earth, and men another. The treasures of time lie high in urnes, coignes, and monuments, scarce below the roots of some vegitables. Time hath endlesse rarities, and showes of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth itself a discovery. That great antiquity, America, lay buried for a thousand years; and a large part of the earth is still in the urne unto us." He thinks that the practices of burning and of burying the dead were equally ancient; and shows why some nations have chosen to bury, and others to burn their dead. In the second chapter he discusses the probability of the supposition, that the urns discovered "in a field of Old Walsingham," and which gave rise to the essay, were Roman, and either contained the ashes of Romans themselves, or of Romanized natives. In the third chapter we are presented with some curious remarks on the contents of the urns. He informs us that the ancients, "without confused burnings, affectionately compounded their bones, passionately endeavouring to continue their living unions. And when distance of death denied such conjunctions, unsatisfyed affections conceived some satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lye urne by urne, and touch but in their names." He adverts to the adornments of the cemiterial cells of ancient Christians and martyrs, as "iterately affecting," in their adornments and sculptures, "the pourtraits of Euoch, Lazarus, Jonas, and the vision of Ezekiel, as hopeful draughts, and hinting imagery of the resurrection, which is the life of the grave, and sweetens our habitations in the land of moles and pismires." After reviewing the funeral customs of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Jews, Danes, &c. he concludes in favour of cremation or burning; for, says he, "to be knaved out of our graves,-to have our sculls made drinking bowls, and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport our enemies,—are tragicall abominations, escaped in burning burials.” The Hydriotaphia has the following, amongst many other splendid passages, which must give the reader an exalted idea of Browne's style and intellect" There is no antidote against the opium of time which temporally considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors'. To be read by bare inscriptions, like many in Gruter,-to hope for eternity by any metrical epithets, or first letters of our names, -to be studied by antiquaries who we were, and have new names given us like many of the mummies,-are cold consolations unto the students of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages. The night of time far sur

passeth the day: who knows when was the æquinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with many a great part even of our living beings. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? The sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory; and the quality of either state, after death, makes a folly of posthumous memory." "But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature." To this treatise on Urn-burial, the author added another upon "the Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincunxial Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered." "In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, Browne considers every production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation, or approach to the form of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his favourite figure in almost every thing, so that a reader might be led to imagine that decussation was the great business of the world."2

Besides the works we have already enumerated, Browne left behind him several other treatises, all evincing great erudition, but upon none of which can we spare any comment in this brief sketch. His style is often elegant and eloquent; but he wrote at a period when the English language was greatly deteriorated by affected taste, and a passion for coining new words. Johnson has characterised it as vigorous, but rugged; learned, but pedantic; deep, but obscure." On the 26th of June, 1665, the College of Physicians elected him an honorary fellow of their body; he received the honour of knighthood from Charles II., when that monarch was at Norwich, in 1671. He spent the remainder of his days in the quiet practice of his profession; till seized with a cholic which put an end to his life on the 19th of October, 1682.

Of the life of Browne few memorials are preserved. His professional diligence, united to his studious habits, necessarily removed him from public observation. His friend Mr Whitefoot, who knew him intimately, says, "his complexion and hair was answerable to his name; his stature was moderate, and habit of body neither fat nor lean. In his habit of clothing he had an aversion to all finery, and affected plainness both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a cloak, or boots, when few others did." "He was 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, he would be apt to blush at the levity of it; his gravity was natural without affectation." Whitefoot and Johnson both concur in vindicating him from the charge of irreligion. Whitefoot's words relative to the close of his life are these: "In his last sickness, wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring great pain of the cholic, besides a continual fever, with as much patience as has been seen in any man, without any pretence of stoical apathy, animosity, or vanity of not

being concerned thereat, or suffering no impeachment of happiness; his patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound faith in God's providence, and a meek and humble submission thereunto, which he expressed in a few words."

Ezaak Walton.

BORN A. D. 1593.-DIED A. D. 1683.

THE deep interest which pervades the narrative of the life of Izaak Walton is derived, not from the splendour of political eminence, not from the variety and excitement of military adventure, nor from unwearied labour and profound research of philosophical investigation, but from the milder, but not less delighting, or less penetrating influence of private virtue, and active, intelligent benevolence. Though at one period of his life he was the obscure occupant of a small shop, yet his qualities of mind and soul exalted him to the dignity of intimate and beloved companion of the best and most eminent men of his time. In the list of his intimate friends we find Archbishops Usher and Sheldon; Bishops Morton, King, Barlow; Drs Fuller, Price, Woodford, Featly, Holdsworth, Hammond; Sir Edward Byth, Sir Edwin Sandys, Mr Cranmer, Mr Chillingworth, Michael Drayton, and that celebrated scholar and critic, Mr John Hales, of Eton; and there were many others of like character, whose friendship was the seal of accredited honour. All that is known of his origin is that his parents were respectable, and that he was born at Stafford, on the 9th of August, 1593. No memorial is left of his

family, or of the place and manner of his education. The occurrences of his early life are not recorded: the death of his father, in 1596, being the only fact mentioned, from which no hint can be drawn as to the history of his youth. Subsequently he settled in London, and pursued the occupation of sempster, in the Royal Burse in Corn

hill.'

About 1642, he married Anne, the daughter of Thomas Ken, of Furnivals Inn, London, and sister of Thomas, afterwards Dr Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, one of the seven that were sent to the Tower, and who at the Revolution was deprived, of whom James II. declared, that he was the first preacher among the protestant divines. Walton's abode was then in Chancery-lane, and the description of his trade was sempster or milliner; his wife, most probably, taking the latter department. Anne Ken, however, was his second wife, as appears from the parish register of St Dunstan's, where the burial of his

His shop was but seven feet and a half long and five feet wide, a space which appears insufficient for his own personal accommodation, much more the stowage of any goods. There, nevertheless, he remained till towards the year 1624, when he dwelt on the north side of Fleet-street, in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery-lane, and abutting on a messuage known by the sign of the Harrow. Now the old timberhouse at the south-west corner of Chancery-lane, in Fleet-street, was known, till within a few years, by that sign; it is therefore beyond doubt, that Walton lived at the next door. In this house he is said to have followed the trade of a linen-draper; it further appears that the house was in the joint occupation of Izaak Walton, and John Mason, hosier; whence we may conclude that half a shop was sufficient for the business of Walton.