Read The Major Works (English Library) Online
Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
The Major Works (English Library) (50 page)
28. That a greater number of Angels remained in Heaven, than fell from it, the School-men will tell us;
105
that the number of blessed Souls will not come short of that vast number of fallen Spirits, we have the favorable calculation of others. What Age of Century hath sent most Souls unto Heaven, he can tell who vouchsafeth that honour unto them. Though the Number of the blessed must be compleat before the World can pass away, yet since the world it self seems in the wane, and we have no such comfortable prognosticks of Latter times, since a greater part of time is spun than is to come, and the blessed Roll
already much replenished; happy are those pieties, which solicitously look about, and hasten to make one of that already much filled and abbreviated List to come.
29. Think not thy time short in this World since the World it self is not long. The created World is but a small
Parenthesis
in Eternity, and a short interposition for a time between such a state of duration, as was before it and may be after it. And if we should allow of the old Tradition that the World should last Six Thousand years,
106
it could scarce have the name of old, since the first Man lived near a sixth part thereof, and seven
Methusela
’s would exceed its whole duration. However to palliate the shortness of our Lives, and somewhat to compensate our brief term in this World, it’s good to know as much as we can of it, and also so far as possibly in us lieth to hold such a
Theory
of times past, as though we had seen the same. He who hath thus considered the World, as also how therein things long past have been answered by things present, how matters in one Age have been acted over in another, and how there is nothing new under the Sun, may conceive himself in some manner to have lived from the beginning, and to be as old as the World; and if he should still live on ‘twould be but the same thing.
30. [Lastly, if length of Days be thy Portion, make it not thy Expectation. Reckon not upon long Life: think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his Expectation lives many Lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a Shadow; make time to come present. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be like a neighbour unto the Grave, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something of us that will still live on, join both lives together, and live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the purposes of this Life will never be far from the next, and is in some manner already in it, by a happy conformity, and close apprehension of it.]
107
And if, as we have elsewhere
declared,
108
any have been so happy as personally to understand Christian Annihilation, Extasy, Exolution, Transformation, the Kiss of the Spouse, and Ingression into the Divine Shadow, according to Mystical Theology, they have already had an handsome Anticipation of Heaven; the World is in a manner over, and the Earth in Ashes unto them.
On Dreams
[The date of composition of this short work is not known. The present text is from
K
(III, 230–33), as transcribed from a manuscript in the British Library.]
Half our dayes wee passe in the shadowe of the earth, and the brother of death
1
exacteth a third part of our lives. A good part of our sleepes is peeced out with visions, and phantasticall objects wherin wee are confessedly deceaved. The day supply-eth us with truths, the night with fictions and falshoods, which unconfortably divide the natural account of our beings. And therefore having passed the day in sober labours and rationall enquiries of truth, wee are fayne to betake ourselves unto such a state of being, wherin the soberest heads have acted all the monstrosities of melancholy, and which unto open eyes are no better then folly and madnesse.
Happy are they that go to bed with grave musick like Pythagoras, or have wayes to compose the phantasticall spirit, whose unrulie wandrings takes of inward sleepe, filling our heads with St. Antonies visions, and the dreams of Lipara
2
in the sober chambers of rest.
Virtuous thoughts of the day laye up good treasors for the night, whereby the impressions of imaginarie formes arise into sober similitudes, acceptable unto our slumbring selves, and preparatory unto divine impressions: hereby Solomons sleepe was happy. Thus prepared, Jacob might well dreame of Angells upon a pillowe of stone, and the first sleepe of Adam might bee the best of any after.
3
That there should bee divine dreames seemes unreasonably doubted by Aristotle.
4
That there are demonicall dreames wee have little reason to doubt. Why may there not bee Angelicall? If there bee Guardian spirits, they may not bee unactively about
us in sleepe, butt may sometimes order our dreames, and many strange hints, instigations, or discoveries which are so amazing unto us, may arise from such foundations.
Butt the phantasmes of sleepe do commonly walk in the great roade of naturall & animal dreames; wherin the thoughts or actions of the day are acted over and ecchoed in the night. Who can therefore wonder that Chrysostome should dreame of St. Paul who dayly read his Epistles; or that Cardan whose head was so taken up about the starres should dreame that his soul was in the moone! Pious persons whose thoughts are dayly buisied about heaven & the blessed state thereof, can hardly escape the nightly phantasmes of it, which though sometimes taken for illuminations or divine dreames, yet rightly perpended may prove butt animal visions and naturall night scenes of their waking contemplations.
Many dreames are made out by sagacious exposition & from the signature of their subjects; carrying their interpretation in their fundamentall sence & mysterie of similitude, whereby hee that understands upon what naturall fundamentall every notionall dependeth, may by sumbolicall adaptation hold a readie way to read the characters of Morpheus. In dreames of such a nature Artemidorus, Achmet, and Astrampsychus, from Greeck, Ægyptian, and Arabian oneirocriticisme,
5
may hint some interpretation, who, while wee read of a ladder in Jacobs dreame, will tell us that ladders and scalarie ascents signifie preferment, & while wee consider the dreame of Pharaoh, do teach us, that rivers overflowing speake plentie, leane oxen famin and scarcitie, and therefore it was butt reasonable in Pharaoh to demand the interpretation from his magitians, who being Ægyptians, should have been well versed in symbols & the hieroglyphicall notions of things.
6
The greatest tyrant in such divinations was Nabuchodonosor, while beside the interpretation hee demanded the dreame itself;
7
which being probably
determin’d by divine immission, might escape the common roade of phantasmes, that might have been traced by Satan.
When Alexander going to beseidge Tyre dreampt of a Satyre, it was no hard exposition for a Grecian to say, Tyre will bee thine.
8
Hee that dreamed that hee sawe his father washed by Jupiter and annoynted by the sunne, had cause to feare that hee might bee crucified, whereby his body would bee washed by the rayne & drop by the heat of the sunne. The dreame of Vespasian was of harder exposition, as also that of the Emperour Mauritius concerning his successor Phocas. And a man might have been hard putt to it to interpret the languadge of Æsculapius, when to a consumptive person hee held forth his fingers, implying thereby that his cure laye in dates, from the homonomie of the Greeck which signifies dates & fingers.
9
Wee owe unto dreames that Galen was a physitian, Dion an historian, and that the world hath seen some notable peeces of Cardan, yet hee that should order his affayres by dreames, or make the night a rule unto the day, might bee ridiculously deluded. Wherin Cicero is much to bee pittied; who having excellently discoursed of the vanitie of dreames, was yet undone by the flatterie of his owne, which urged him to apply himself unto Augustus.
10
However dreames may bee fallacious concerning outward events, yet may they bee truly significant at home, & whereby wee may more sensibly understand ourselves. Men act in sleepe with some conformity unto their awaked senses, & consolations or discoureagments may bee drawne from dreames, which intimately tell us ourselves. Luther was not like to feare a spiritt in the night, when such an apparition would not terrifie him in the daye. Alexander would hardly have runne away in the sharpest combates of sleepe, nor Demosthenes have stood stoutly to it, who was scarce able to do it in his prepared senses. Persons of radicall integritie will not easily bee perverted in
their dreames, nor noble minds do pitifully things in sleepe. Crassus would have hardly been bountifull in a dreame, whose fist was so close awake. Butt a man might have lived all his life upon the sleeping hand of Antonius.
11
There is an Art to make dreames as well as their interpretations, and physitians will tell us that some food makes turbulent, some gives quiet dreames. Cato who doated upon cab-badge might find the crude effects thereof in his sleepe; wherein the Ægyptians might find some advantage by their superstitious abstinence from onyons. Pythagoras might have more calmer sleepes if hee totally abstained from beanes. Even Daniel, that great interpreter of dreames, in his leguminous dyet seemes to have chosen no advantageous food for quiet sleepes according to Græcian physick.
12
To adde unto the delusion of dreames, the phantasticall objects seeme greater then they are, and being beheld in the vaporous state of sleepe, enlarge their diameters unto us; whereby it may prove more easie to dreame of Gyants then pygmies. Democritus might seldome dreame of Atomes, who so often thought of them. Helmont might dreame himself a bubble extending unto the eigth sphere. A little water makes a sea, a small puff of wind a Tempest, a graine of sulphur kindled in the blood may make a flame like Ætna, and a small spark in the bowells of Olympias a lightning over all the chamber.
Butt beside these innocent delusions there is a sinfull state of dreames; death alone, not sleepe is able to putt an end unto sinne, & there may bee a night booke of our Iniquities; for beside the transgressions of the day, casuists will tell us of mortall sinnes in dreames arising from evill precogitations; meanewhile human lawe regards not noctambulos; and if a night walker should breacke his neck, or kill a man, takes no notice of it.
Dionysius was absurdly tyrannicall to kill a man for dreaming that hee had killed him, and really to take away his life who had butt fantastically taken away his.
13
Lamia was ridiculously un
just to sue a yong man for a reward, who had confessed that pleasure from her in a dreame, wch shee had denyed unto his awaking senses, conceaving that shee had merited somewhat from his phantasticall fruition & shadowe of herself.
14
If there bee such debts, wee owe deeply unto sympathies, butt the common spirit of the world must bee judg in such arreareges.
15
If some have swounded
16
they may have also dyed in dreames since death is butt a confirmed swounding. Whether Plato dyed in a dreame, as some deliver,
17
hee must rise agayne to informe us. That some have never dreamed is as improbable as that some have never laughed. That children dreame not the first half yeare, that men dreame not in some countries, with many more, are unto mee sick mens dreames, dreames out of the Ivorie gate, and visions before midnight.
18
Samuel Johnson
The Life of Sir Thomas Browne
[Dr Johnson’s biography of Browne was first published in 1756, prefixed to an edition of
Christian Morals
. In addition to its historical value, it sheds light as much on Browne as on Johnson in that it is, according to Boswell at any rate, ‘one of Johnson’s best biographical performances’ (
Life of Johnson
, ed. G. B. Hill [Oxford, 1934], I, 308). The reader may also wish to consider Pater’s suggestion that Johnson was ‘perhaps influenced’ by Browne, not least in ‘that slow Latinity which Johnson imitated from him’ (
§ 218
; cf.
§§212
,
331
,
341
).]
Though the writer of the following Essays
1
seems to have had the fortune common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity after his private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of his felicities or misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a posthumous work appears imperfect and neglected, without some account of the author, it was thought necessary to attempt the gratification of that curiosity which naturally inquires, by what peculiarities of nature or fortune eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon attainments have been gained, and what influence learning has had on its possessors, or virtue on its teachers.
Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in Cheapside, on the 19th of October, 1605. His father was a merchant of an antient family at Upton in Cheshire. Of the name or family of his mother, I find no account.
2
Of his childhood or youth, there is little known; except that he lost his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of orphans, defrauded by one of his guardians;
3
and that he was placed for his education at the school of Winchester.
His mother, having taken three thousand pounds, as the third part of her husband’s property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand; a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time when commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it happened to him as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for his mother soon married Sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement of
her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian, deprived now of both his parents, and therefore helpless and unprotected.
