The Major Works (English Library) (2 page)

Read The Major Works (English Library) Online

Authors: Sir Thomas Browne

BOOK: The Major Works (English Library)

7.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My foremost obligations are to the Trustees of the British Library for their permission to reprint Browne’s prose from the original editions; to Faber and Faber Ltd for their permission to reprint the short essay ‘On Dreams’ from
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne
, edited by Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1964); and to Duke University Press for their permission to reprint extracts from
Colsridge on the Seventeenth Century
, edited by Roberta F. Brinkley (1955).

The preparation of this edition was substantially affected by several sustained studies of Browne (notably those by E. S. Merton in 1949, Joan Bennett in 1962, and Frank L. Huntley also in 1962) and the labours of the editors who preceded me in annotating one or more of his works (Dr Samuel Johnson in 1756,
³Sir Sydney Roberts in 1927, and Frank L. Huntley in 1966, but especially W. A. Greenhill in 1881 and 1896, Norman J. Endicott in 1967, R. H. A. Robbins in 1972, and the utterly indispensable L. C. Martin in 1964). One of my greatest pleasures was to revisit the studies by Gordon Keith Chalmers, for they reminded me of his boundless generosity during my
undergraduate years at Kenyon College when he was its President.

In annotating Browne’s prose I have often used extant translations. Even if I was sometimes impelled to make adjustments – especially in the translations of the Loeb Classical Library – I must acknowledge my obligation to the versions of: Aristotle, in W. D. Ross’s edition (1910–1952); Cicero, by Walter Miller (1913), H. Rackam (1914), H. J. Edwards (1917),
et al
.; Hesiod, by Richard Lattimore (1959); Hippocrates, by W. H. S. Jones (1923–1931); Homer, by Richmond Lattimore (1951 and 1965); Horace, by B. J. Hayes and F. G. Plaistowe (1900), C. E. Bennett (1914), and H. Rushton Fairclough (1914); Josephus, by Ralph Marcus (1937); Justin Martyr, by Marcus Dods (1867); Juvenal, by Lewis Evans (1901) and/or G. G. Ramsay (1918); Lactantius, by William Fletcher (1871); Lucan, by J. D. Duff (1928); Lucretius, by W. H. D. Rouse (1937); Martial, by Anon. (in Bohn’s Library, 1871); Minucius Felix, by Rudolph Arbesmann (1950); Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
, by F. J. Miller (1916); Persius, by G. G. Ramsay (1918); Plato, by B. Jowett (4th ed., 1953); Plautus, by Paul Nixon (1916); Pliny, by John Bostock and H. T. Riley (1855); Propertius, by Walter K. Kelly (1854); Quintilian, by John S. Watson (1871); Seneca’s tragedies, by Frank J. Miller (1917), and his
Moral Letters
, by E. Phillips Barker (1932); Suetonius, by Robert Graves (1957); Tertullian’s
Resurrection of the Flesh
, by A. Souter (1922); Theocritus, by A.S.F Gow (1953); Tibullus, by J. P. Postgate (1912); Virgil’s
Georgics
and
Aeneid
, by C. Day Lewis (1940 and 1952), and his
Eclogues
, by T. F. Royds (1922); Xenophon, by E. C. Marchant (1923); and others.

I should finally like to record my gratitude to the staffs of the British Library, the New York Public Library, and the libraries at the University of York and New York University, for their manifold courtesies and unfailing assistance; to the authorities of New York University who in appointing me Berg Professor of English Literature for the autumn of 1974 enabled me to gain access to their city’s vast resources; to Mr R. H. A. Robbins of the University of Sheffield who generously allowed me access to several notes from his forthcoming
edition of
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
for the Clarendon Press; to Professors Dorothy Metlitzki of Yale University and Jason Rosenblatt of Georgetown University who lent me their knowledge of Hebrew on two occasions; to Miss Ruth Ellison of the University of York who clarified for me a number of details involving Scandinavian lore; and to Mr William Sulkin who welcomed this volume of behalf of Penguin Books and warmly supported its publication.

Yet I must end where I should have begun, with an acknowledgement of the indispensable advice of three friends in particular: Professors Frank L. Huntley of the University of Michigan and Joan Webber of the University of Washington, who suggested any number of changes which I promptly accepted, and Mr C. B. L. Barr of the York Minster Library, who by readily placing at my disposal his impressive knowledge shed abundant light on numerous passages in Latin.

C
.
A
.
P
.

University of York,

1 January 1976

AN OUTLINE OF BROWNE’S LIFE

WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF CONTEMPORARY EVENTS

[Browne thus summarized his life in a letter to John Aubrey on 14 March 1672/3:

I was borne in St Michaels Cheap in London, went to schoole at Winchester Colledge, then went to Oxford, spent some yeares in forreign parts, was admitted to bee a
Socius Honorarius
[Honorary Fellow] of the Colledge of Physitians in London. Knighted September, 1671, when the King, Queen and Court came to Norwich. Writt
Religio Medici
in English, wch was since translated into Latin [1644], French [1668], Italian [?], High and low Duch [1665].
Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into common and vulgar Errors
, translated into Duch 4 or 5 yeares ago [i.e. 1668].
Hydriotapbia, or Urne buriall. Hortus Cyri, or deQuincunce
. Have some miscellaneous tracts which may bee published. (
K
,
IV
, 376)

See also Dr Johnson’s
Life
, below, pp. 481ff.]

THE REIGN OF JAMES I
(1603–1625)

1605	19 October: Browne born, the third child and first son of Thomas Browne, mercer. The Gunpowder Plot. King Lear first (?) acted. Bacon’s Advancement of Learning published.
1606	Macbeth , Jonson’s Volpone and Tourneur’s Revenger’s Tragedy first (?) acted. Corneille born.
1608	Milton born. Robert Cecil created Earl of Salisbury, appointed Lord Treasurer. Sylvester’s translation of Du Bartas: 1st complete edition.
1609	Spenser’s Faerie Queene : 1st folio edition. Shakespeare’s Sonnets published.
1610	Jonson’s Alchemist first acted; also Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (1611?). Galileo reports on his telescopic view of the heavens.
1611	George Abbot appointed Archbishop. The King James (‘Authorised’) Version of the Bible published. The Tempest first (?) acted. Chapman’s Iliad completed.
1612	Death of the heir apparent Prince Henry; also of Salisbury. Robert Carr, later Earl of Somerset, in favour.
1613	Browne’s father dies; his mother marries Sir Thomas Dutton (1614?). Princess Elizabeth marries Frederick Elector Palatine. Sir Thomas Overbury murdered. Crashaw and Jeremy Taylor born.
1614	Ralegh’s History of the World published. Webster’s Duchess of Malfi first (?) acted.
1615	George Villiers, later Duke of Buckingham, in favour.
1616	Browne admitted to Winchester College. Death of Shakespeare. Jonson’s Works published.
1618	Ralegh executed. Bacon appointed Lord Chancellor. The Thirty Years War (to 1648).
1619	Kepler’s De harmonice mundi published.
1620	Settlement of first New England colony by the Pilgrim Fathers. Bacon’s Novum organum published.
1621	Bacon impeached. Donne appointed Dean of St Paul’s. Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy published. Marvell and La Fontaine born.
1622	Henry Vaughan and Molière born.
1623	Browne matriculated at Broadgates Hall, Oxford (i.e. Pembroke College from 1624). The 1st Shakespeare Folio published. Pascal born.
1624	Cardinal Richelieu chief minister in France.

THE REIGN OF CHARLES I
(1625–1649)

1625	Death of James I; accession of Charles I who marries Henrietta Maria of France. Outbreak of the plague. Death of Webster.
1626	Browne admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts at Oxford. Death of Bacon and Lancelot Andrewes. John Aubrey born.
1628	The Petition of Right. Buckingham assassinated. William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood published. Bunyan born. Death of Malherbe.
1629	Browne admitted to the Degree of Master of Arts at Oxford; visits Ireland. Lancelot Andrewes’s XCVI Sermons published. Emigrations to New England (1629 ff.).
1630	Browne departs for studies at Montpellier, Padua and Leyden (1629? 1631?). Prince Charles (later Charles II) born.
1631	Death of Donne. Dryden born.
1632	Galileo’s Dialogues concerning the Two Principal Systems of the World published. Sir Christopher Wren, John Locke and Spinoza born.
1633	Browne admitted to the M.D. at Leyden; medical apprenticeship in Oxfordshire (to 1637). William Laud appointed Archbishop. Donne’s Poems published. Death of Herbert: The Temple published.
1636	Advent of Cambridge Platonism (1636 ff.).
1637	Browne incorporated M.D. at Oxford, settles at Norwich. Milton’s Masque (‘Comus’) published; also Descartes’s Discourse on Method . Death of Jonson.
1638	Milton’s Lycidas published.
1639	First Bishops’ War. Racine born.
1640	Donne’s LXXX Sermons published. Death of Burton. Wycherley born.
1641	Browne marries Dorothy Mileham. Second Bishops’ War. The Long Parliament (to 1660). Laud and Strafford impeached. Irish Rebellion. The ‘Grand Remonstrance’ issued. Joseph Hall appointed Bishop of Norwich; defends episcopacy against Milton.
1642	Religio Medici : 1st and 2nd unauthorised editions; Sir Kenelm Digby’s Observations composed (published 1643). Browne’s son Edward born, the first of twelve children. Charles I raises his standard at Nottingham: the Civil War begins. Theatres closed. Death of Galileo. Newton born.
1643	Religio Medici : 1st authorised edition. The Westminster Assembly of Divines. ‘Solemn League and Covenant’.
1644	Milton’s Areopagitica published.
1645	Alexander Ross attacks Religio Medici in Medicus Medicatus . Laud executed. Rise of the New Model Army. Milton’s ‘minor poems’ published.
1646	Pseudodoxia Epidemica published; also Crashaw’s Steps to the Temple . Episcopacy abolished.
1647	Parliamentary army occupies London.
1648	Peace of Westphalia; end of the Thirty Years War.
1649	Execution of Charles I; abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. Charles II, proclaimed in Scotland, escapes to France in 1651. Death of Crashaw.

THE INTERREGNUM
(1649–1660)

1649	The Irish Rebellion crushed by Cromwell.
1650	Pseudodoxia Epidemica : 2nd revised edition (others in 1658, 1659, 1672).
1651	Hobbes’s Leviathan published.
1653	The Protectorate established under Cromwell. Isaac Walton’s Compleat Engler published.
1656	Death of Joseph Hall.
1657	Death of William Harvey.
1658	Hydriotaphia and The Garden of Cyrus published. Death of Cromwell; the Protectorate passes to his son Richard.
1659	Richard Cromwell obliged to abdicate; the Protectorate ends. Purcell born.

THE REIGN OF CHARLES II
(1660–1685)

1660	Charles II is recalled by Parliament. The House of Lords restored. The theatres reopened. The Royal Society founded. Defoe born.
1661	The Cavalier Parliament (to 1679). Louis XIV assumes full powers in France. Death of Saint-Amant.
1662	‘Act of Uniformity’. Death of Pascal.
1664	Browne elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; testifies at the witch trial at Bury St Edmunds. Vanbrugh born.
1665	Outbreak of the Great Plague (to early 1666). Death of Sir Kenelm Digby.
1666	The Great Fire of London.
1667	Browne’s son Edward admitted to the M.D. at Oxford, elected to the Royal Society. Paradise Lost published; also Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society . Death of Jeremy Taylor. Swift born.
1670	Congreve born.
1671	Browne knighted by Charles II at Norwich. Milton’s Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes published. Shaftesbury born.
1672	Addison, Steele born.
1673	Death of Molière.
1674	Death of Milton, Herrick, Traherne.
1677	Dryden’s All for Love first performed. Death of Spinoza.
1678	The fictitious ‘Popish Plot’. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress published (Part II in 1684). Death of Marvell. Farquhar born
1679	Death of Hobbes.
1681	Marvell’s Poems published.
1682	19 October: death of Sir Thomas Browne on his 77th birthday.

Other books

Forever As One by Jackie Ivie

Moth to a Flame by Antoinette, Ashley

The Torn Guardian by J.D. Wilde

The Eighteenth Parallel by MITRAN, ASHOKA

A Few Minutes Past Midnight by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Just Tricking! by Andy Griffiths

Choices by Brewer, Annie

Invasion by Dc Alden

Dollmaker by J. Robert Janes

Lies Ripped Open by Steve McHugh