that he was advancing the most sensible and practical, but the most pleasing and solemn argument in favour of gardens, when he observes, "that Paradise succeeds the grave-that the verdant state of things is the symbol of the resurrection, and that to flourish in the state of glory we must first be sown in corruption," Neither, probably, when commenting on marriage and the sexual ties, did he mean us to conceive it to be his deliberate wish that "men might procreate like trees:" he merely, in a quaint extravagance, expressed the usual desire of philosophy to escape the tumults of the passions; or conveyed the trite and ancient morality, that possession sates, and that the coarser gratifications are unworthy follies.

Perhaps this twofold way of examining things is more common amongst writers than we are aware; especially with men like Browne, who rather write to throw off an exuberance of sentiment and thought, than for the stern design of effecting some particular and defined object. Of a mild and kindly temperament, fond of his books and his curiosities, and spinning out his subtle and aerial thoughts from materials which the crowded world casts out of its bustling way into nooks and cornersmoderate as a politician, averse to all disputes in theology, inclined in both to leave things in their beaten course, beneath the shelter of unexamining veneration-there did not exist for Sir Thomas Browne those great and exciting interests which gird up the loins of a man's mind, and make him in earnest in all that he undertakes. Even in philosophy, he rather philosophized, than can be called a philosopher. He was curious, observant, and laborious; but it was in all those solemn trifles and minute prodigies which amuse the leisure and enrich the memory, but do not educate the mind to great practical results. He did not keenly exert his reason, unless he was seduced to it by one of the brilliant visions which delighted his fancy. Thus, perhaps, his most argumentative work, the one in which he most deliberately proceeds through the links of effect and cause, is that in which he attempts to prove the universal operation of quincuncial forms and combinations throughout the works of nature, and the mystical application and importance of

the number FIVE!-"Quincunxes," as Coleridge pithily says, "in heaven above, quincunxes in earth below, quincunxes in the mind of men, quincunxes in tones, in optic nerves, in roots of trees, in leaves, in every thing."

We cannot subscribe to the grave opinion of the editor, as to the importance of this theory, nor attach any very reverential faith to "Mr. Macleay's persevering and successful advocacy of a quinary arrangement." But if Sir Thomas Browne required an apology for devoting his learning and his genius to such a subject, the apology is before us when we see that, in the nineteenth century, his wildest conceits have their admirers and followers: as Browne himself well and gracefully expresses it" as though there were a metempsychosis, and the soul of one man passed into another, opinions do find, after certain revolutions, men and minds like those that first begat them." In fact, Browne neither adopted this subject of the quincunx purely as a brilliant whim, nor yet as a wholly serious and important discovery in philosophy.. The thought charmed his imagination-it afforded scope for his curious and scattered learning-for his golden and fantastic thoughts. It was of a nature that united both his passions that of the learned and that of the marvellous. He saw that he could please himself by a work congenial to his thoughts and studies; and not less, that he could please the public by a very remarkable composition. And, how much he considered all the far-fetched illustrations and anecdotical learning in which he indulged in the light of episodical ornament, rather than of sober argument; digressions intended to keep alive the reader's interest, and beautify his work; in short, how much he regarded such extraneous matter as an art of composition, may be seen in his correspondence. Thus, for instance, in giving his son some hints in the meditated publication of a "Journey into Upper Hungary to the Mines," he specially reminds him to add the story of the man that put a snake's head into his mouth in the bath, and of the hussar who bathed in a frost at midnight. He tells him that he need not be so particular as to give the full account of separating the metals in this narration, but bids him remember to put in the green jaspar

coloured tomb at Larissa, in the barber's shop." In short, the advice of the great master is that of a man accustomed to think less of the plain practical nature of any selected theme, than of all the embellishments of anecdote and allusion which may be wrought in "purple patches" upon the stuff. That Browne himself believed in the operation of his darling quincunx, may perhaps be possible; just as he believed in apparitions and sorcerers, but perhaps with the same unexamining and poetical faith; for it is difficult to know when that writer is gravely and honestly in earnest, who tells us that "he has one common and authentic philosophy he learned in the schools, whereby he discourses and satisfies the reason of other men; another more reserved and drawn from experience, whereby he contents his own."* Whether, in the discourse on the quincunx, the disciple of Pythagoras meant to satisfy the reason of other men, or by experience to content his own, it is difficult to determine. Perhaps he thought little about it; and did not mean to found a philosophy, but to write a book.†

But if it be disputable whether, in the higher or stricter sense of the word, Browne was a philosopher, no one has ever written sentences more beautifully philosophical. He was worthy to be a disciple of the sage who said, "man was born to contemplate." His pages are filled with a lofty and ideal morality, and his maxims are bright with luminous, if unconnected truths. In some respects he was among the prose writers of that day, what Wordsworth is among the poets of this-dedicating even the familiar to the beautiful, and not disdaining "to suck divinity from the flowers of nature." He cannot allow ugliness to a toad or bear—and “even that

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Religio Medici, Vol. II., p. 105.

A chapter in the more serious work of the Pseudodoxia Epidemica, makes it, however, highly probable that Browne put little faith in his own ingenious deductions in the Garden of Cyrus, namely, Chapter XII., Book IV., "of the great climacteric year, that is, sixty-three." In this chapter he contends with great vigour against the very doctrine of the efficacy of numbers that he advocated in defence of the quincunx: and observes that "not only one set of numbers, but all or most of the digits have been mystically applauded," and says, that though "God nade all things in number, weight, and measure, yet nothing by them, or through the efficacy of either," &c.

vulgar and tavern music, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in him a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the FIRST COMPOSER. There is in it a hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole world and creatures of God-such a melody to the ear as the whole world, well understood, would afford the understanding." It is from such hints and suggestions of thought that Browne, as Wordsworth, plumes his wings and raises himself beyond "the visible and diurnal sphere." A temperament somewhat common to both was in both fed by similar political tenets, and theological veneration; apart from the anxious and exciting cares of men, who struggle actively with or against the multitude. The Religio Medici is one of the most beautiful prose poems in the language; its power of diction, its subtlety and largeness of thought, its exquisite conceits and images, have no parallel out of the writers of that brilliant age, when Poetry and Prose had not yet divided their domain, and the Lyceum of Philosophy was watered by the Ilissus of the Nine.

It is difficult to conceive a deep and a just thought more eloquently expressed than in the following words: "Nature is not at variance with art nor art with naturethey being both the servants of His providence. Art is the perfection of nature. Were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos. Nature hath made one world and art another. In belief all things are artificial, for nature is the art of God."

We cannot refuse to our readers, well known as it is to many, that noble piece of egotism, in which all believers in our spiritual immortality may share:-" For my life it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable.* For the world I

*This boast, which Dr. Johnson could not explain, and even the super-refining Sir Kenelm Digby took literally, evidently refers not to external and bodily adventures, but to the progress and operations of the soul. Nor, while in this passage the author alludes to such moral and spiritual mysteries as have been wrought within himself, does he mean to imply that his life has been more miraculous than that of another; since in a former passage (Rel. Med., Vol. II. p. 21,) he utters the same sentiment, but applies it generally. "We carry,'

count it not an inn but a hospital, and a place not to live but to die in. The world that I regard is myself, it is the microcosm of my own frame, that I can cast my eye on-for the other I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me I have any. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm or little world, I find myself something more than the great (one.) There is surely a piece of divinity in us--something that was before the heavens, and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature tells me I am the image of God as well as scripture. He that understands not thus much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, and hath yet to begin the alphabet of man."

Coleridge and others have spoken of the egotism of Browne; but Browne was not an egotist, though he wrote one work which, not composed for publication, but as a closet confession of his own opinions, was necessarily egotistical. It is rather remarkable, on the contrary, that, despite the great success of the Religio Medici, and the delicious temptation to go on in the same strain which a man incurs when he has once made the world a confidant, and finds it listen to all he says of himself, it concluded, as it began, his self-dissections. His tale once told, Browne seems to have felt, like Göethe, after the composition of his Werther--as if he had unburdened his mind of anxious secrets; the confession was made and the absolution given. He wrote the book while young, unsettled, and unmarried. Youth is generally an egotist. Most young gentlemen and young ladies, if they write at all, write greatly about themselves. A

he says, "with us the wonders we seek without us; there is all Africa and her prodigies in us, &c.'" It is not because, as Dr. Johnson imagines, Browne thought himself distinguished from all the rest of his species, but because he thought himself like them, that he calls his life a miracle. Thus, in the very passage built upon the assertion that his life is a miracle, he says that "he who understands not thus much has yet to begin the alphabet of man.”