Read The Major Works (English Library) Online
Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
40
. His upper and lower Jaw being solid, and without distinct rows of Teeth’ (Browne marg.): cf. Plutarch’s life of Pyrrhus, III.
41
. According to Picotus, (Browne marg.).
42
. ‘Twice tell over his Teeth never live to threescore Years’ (Browne marg.).
43
. ‘many I have seen become’ (
MSS
.:
K
;
E
): ‘many have been become’ (1690 ed.:
M
).
44
. In
Les Voyages
(1654).
45
. When persons were touched for the King’s Evil [scrofula], a gold medal was hung round each patient’s neck (
G1
).
46
. ‘Most carefree and easy’ (Browne marg., quoted in Greek and Latin): as remarked by Hippocrates,
Epidemics
, I, iii, 11.
47
. ‘The bell rarely tolls for a fourth-day fever’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of a popular saying). The daily services were at the first, third, sixth and ninth hours.
48
. In
The Republic
, III, 405d.
49
. The membrane investing the intestines (
M
).
50
. Sapless (as
above, p. 299, note 14
).
51
. ‘So A.F.’ (Browne marg.).
K
reads ‘
A.J
.’, identified as Sir Arthur Jenny (
K
, III, 301).
52
. Ribs.
53
. ‘Cardan in his
Encomium Podagræ
[Praise of Gout] reckoneth this among the
Dona Podagræ
[Gifts of Gout], that they are delivered thereby from the Pthysis and Stone in the Bladder’ (Browne marg.).
54
. In the pseudo-Aristotelian
Problems
, X, 1.
55
. i.e. writers on agriculture.
56
. An error for Aldrovandi (
M
) ?
57
. ‘belonging to Whales or such like great fishes’ (Blount).
58
. ‘Birds, Beasts, or Fishes that breed eggs or spawn’ (Blount, citing Browne). Cf. above, p. 203.
59
. In
On Dreams
(Browne marg.). The more ‘scientific’ attitude of Hippocrates is here contrasted to interpretations of dreams ventured by Artemidorus, whose
Oneirocriticon
is ‘mainly a source book of ancient superstition’ (
§125
).
60
. ibid.
61
. See
below, p. 476, note 5
.
62
. Hippocrates claims that man declines most between his eighteenth and his thirty-fifth year (
Aphorisms
, V, 9).
63
. Transmissions (cf.
above, p. 106, note 224
).
64
. ‘A sound Child cut out of the Body of the Mother’ (Browne marg.).
65
. ‘We take our children young to the river and harden them in the painful, ice-cold water’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of
Aeneid
, IX, 603–4).
66
. i.e. like those auction-sales where bids were received so long as a small candle still burned (
G1
;
M
).
67
. ‘Julius Caesar Scaliger his remains’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin in Joseph Scaliger’s biography of his father).
68
. i.e. Robert Loveday (see headnote,
above, p. 389
).
69
. Cf. ‘
Cicero
, the worst of Poets’ (above, p. 150).
70
. i.e. desipiency: ‘when the sick person speak and doth idly; dotage’ (Blount).
72
. ‘Felicities’: ‘real Felicities enough’ (
MSS
.:
M
).
73
. ‘soften’: ‘sweeten’ (
MSS
.:
M
).
74
. Co-existence.
75
. ‘unto too uncomfortable’: ‘into to narrowe’ (
MSS
.:
M
).
76
. Martial,
Epigrams
, X, xlvii, 13 (Browne marg., quoted in Latin).
77
. ‘Who upon some Accounts, and Tradition, is said to have lived 30 Years after he was raised by our Saviour.
Baronius
’ (Browne marg.). Baronius had quoted the account of Epiphanius.
79
. ‘In the Speech of
Vulteius
in
Lucan
[IV, 486–7], animating his Souldiers in a great struggle to kill one another… [:] “All fear is over do but resolve to dye, and make your Desires meet Necessity” ’ (Browne marg.).
80
. On the Stoic and Christian attitudes to death – and life – see also
above, p. 304
.
81
. In
Aemid
, VIII, 209.
82
. Especially In the Book of Revelation, whose ‘signs’ of the age preceding the Last Judgement were widely said to have been fulfilled by the seventeenth century.
83
. Wisdom of Solomon 4.9 (Browne marg.).
84
. i.e. old at sixty-three, one’s climacteric year (above, pp. 231 ff.).
85
. ‘Deceitfull’ (Cockeram).
86
. Nearly all the paragraphs from the next one to the end of the
Letter
(p. 414) reappear in
Christian Morals
(see below, pp. 417 ff.).
87
. Rope-walking.
88
. ‘virtuously’: ‘for itself or at least for the noblest ends that attend it’ (
MSS.: M
).
89
. ‘not to be free from the Infamy of common Transgressors’: ‘not to procure the name of a sober & temperate person & so to bee out of the list of common offenders’ (
MSS.: M
).
90
. ‘palliate obscure and closer’: ‘observe thy closer & hidden’ (
MSS.: M
).
91
. ‘render Virtues disputable’: ‘tread away from true virtue’ (
MSS.: M
).
92
. ‘Oblation’: ‘offering. Remember thy creator in the dayes of thy youth & lay up a treasure of pietie in thy healthfull dayes. & conserve thy health in the first place for that intention.’ (
MSS
.:
M
).
93
. The
Pinax
commonly attributed to Socrates’s pupil Cebes, but actually written in the first century
A
.
D
.
94
. Rough.
95
. ‘Through the Pacific Sea, with a constant Gale from the East’ (Browne marg.).
96
. i.e. satirists write satires. Seventeenth-century spelling permits the ambiguity in formal definitions of
satyr
: ‘a Monster having a body like a man, but all hairy, with legges and feet like a Goat; it is also a biting verse’ (Cockeram).
97
. ‘Who is said to have Castrated himself’ (Browne marg.: as
below, p. 418, note 5
).
98
. ‘Mite’: the reading in
Christian Morals
(below,
p. 418
); but the 1st edition of 1690 reads ‘Mitre’.
99
. Literally ‘not beyond’ – i.e. the terminal point.
100
. Interpretation (cf.
above, p. 171, note 9
).
101
. The river whose crossing by Caesar in 49
B
.
C
. marked the beginning of the civil war.
102
. i.e. by a private door of repentance.
103
. ‘Anger is short-lived madness’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of Horace,
Epistles
, I, ii, 62).
104
. Displeasure with.
105
. In
Nicomachean Ethics
, IV, 5 (Browne marg.).
106
. Protestants have not actually questioned the Epistle’s canonical status, but many – especially Luther – disliked its emphasis on works at the expense of faith.
107
. From St Paul’s hymn to charity in 1 Corinthians 13.
108
. ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ (Browne marg.: as
below, p. 423, note 21
).
109
. ‘Even when the days are shortest’ (Browne marg.: as
below, p. 422, note 18
). The paragraph amplifies Ephesians 4.26: ‘Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’
110
. ‘Alluding to the Tower of Oblivion mentioned by
Procopius
[
History of the Wars
, I, 4–5], which was the name of a Tower of Imprisonment among the
Persians
: whosoever was put therein, he was as it were buried alive, and it was Death for any but to name him’ (Browne marg.: as
below, p. 422, note 19
).
111
. Matthew 11.12 (Browne marg.: as
below, p. 424, note 26
).
112
. i.e. the ideal wise man as described by Zeno (in Cicero,
About the Ends
, III, 22).
113
. ‘Ovation a petty and minor kind of Triumph’ (Browne marg.: as
below p. 417, note 3
).
114
. Cf. ‘
Lucifer
keeps his court in my breast,
Legion
is revived in me’ (above, p. 125).
115
. Temperamental (cf.
above, p. 69, note 37
).
1
. Brackets designate the passages forming part of
A Letter to a Friend
(see headnote, above).
2
. ‘That is, in armour, in a state of military vigilance. One of the Grecian chiefs used to represent open force by the lion’s skin, and policy by the fox’s tail’ (
SJ
).
3
. ‘Ovation a petty and minor Kind of Triumph’ (Browne marg.; as above,
p. 413, note 113
).
4
. Cf. the violent conflict between the Lapiths and the Centaurs at the marriage of Perithous.
5
. ‘Who is said to have Castrated himself’ (Browne marg.: as above,
p. 408, note 97
).
7
. Ecclesiastes 11.2 (Browne marg.).
8
. Luke 6.30 (Browne marg.).
9
. Proverbs 19.17.
10
. ‘the time when money lent out at interest was commonly repaid’ (
SJ
).
11
. 2 Kings 6.5–7.
12
. ‘That is, with a position as immutable as that of the magnetical axis, which is popularly supposed to be invariably parallel to the meridian, or to stand exactly north and south’ (
SJ
).
13
. ‘where prudent Simplicity hath fix’d thee’ (as above,
p. 409
): ‘when prudent simplicity hath fixt thee’ (1716 ed.).
14
. ‘Optimi malorum pessimi bonorum’ (Browne marg.). The dictum, most likely proverbial, is translated in the text.
15
. Mutable.
16
. The monument in Alexandria commemorating the city’s capture by Diocletian.
17
. i.e. the eight members of Noah’s family.
18
. ‘Even when the days are shortest’ (Browne marg.: as
above, p. 412, note 109
).
21
. ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ (Browne marg.: as above,
p. 412, note 108
).
22
. Cf.
The Garden of Cyrus
on the stars as ‘rayes and flashing glimpses of the Empyreall light’ etc. (above,
p. 375
).
23
. On Atlantis, the mythical island ‘vaster than Libya and Asia put together’, see Plato,
Timaeus
, 24e.
24
. Speculative.
25
. ‘The powers of vengeance’ (
SJ
). Adrastea is an epithet of Nemesis.
26
. Matthew 11.12 (Browne marg.: as above,
p. 412, note 111
).
27
. i.e. gods: rulers who imitate the Lord God (Elohim).
29
. Alluding to the story of Ulysses, who stopped the ears of his companions with wax when they passed by the Sirens’ (
SJ
):
Odyssey
, XII, 173.
30
. i.e. sycophants or malevolent accusers.
31
. Jonah 4.6–10: ‘the gourd… came up in a night, and perished in a night’.
32
. i.e. which need to be preserved.
33
. The time span of ephemerides (as
above, p. 81, note 104
) surpasses by far that of the quadrennial Olympic games.
34
. i.e. after the Last Judgement.
35
. i.e. deaths. See
above, p. 309, note 21
.
36
. i.e. no one who is guilty. The phrase echoes Juvenal,
Satires
, XIII, 2–3.
37
. ‘that is… though we find in ourselves the imperfections of humanity’ (
SJ
).