Read The Major Works (English Library) Online
Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
The Major Works (English Library) (70 page)
19
. ‘In opposition to ancient writers I would affirm that griffins are to be found neither in that northern region nor in other parts of the world’.
20
.
The Resurrection of the Flesh
, XIII: in Browne’s text quoted in Latin.
21
. ‘I used to say, “I will die in my little nest and multiply my days like the phoenix” ’.
22
. Psalm 91 [92].12, which the
AV
renders ‘The righteous shall flourish like
the palm tree
’ (in the Septuagint:
the phoenix
).
23
. Beholding.
24
. Ecclesiastes 2.14.
25
. Broad-beaked.
26
. As late as 1661, some members of the Royal Society appear to have credited the unicorn’s existence (
§176
). Alexander Ross provided a description: it ‘hath the proportion and bignesse of a Horse, the head, legges and feet of a Stagge, and the mane of a Horse; he hath a horn in his forehead’ etc. (in
Arcana Microcosmi
[1651], pp. 188 ff.).
27
. Some doubt to be made what
re’em
signifieth in Scripture’ (Browne marg.). True enough; for
re’em
(in Deuteronomy 33.17, Job 39.9–10, Psalms 22.21 and 92.10, etc.) appears as ‘unicorn’ in
AV
(a literal translation of the Septuagint) but as ‘unicorn’ or ‘rhinocerus’ in the Vulgate.
28
. ‘that hath a horn on the nose’ (Blount, citing Browne).
29
. Chapter XXVI was added in the 3rd edition (1658); and retained in the next one (also 1658), it was removed from the 5th edition (1659). Its importance for Melville is noted above,
p. 51
.
30
. ‘I do not know what it is’. The entire sentence is included in the Extracts prefixed to
Moby Dick
.
31
. ‘Near
Wells
’ (Browne marg.).
32
. Cartilaginous.
33
. Penis.
34
. ‘Near
Hunstanton
’ (Browne marg.).
35
. Hump-shaped.
36
. A genus of shark.
37
. Refining.
38
. Lard-like, greasy.
39
. i.e. camphor.
40
. Of the savour of flowers.
41
. Extraction.
42
. Finished.
43
. i.e. the contractile muscular ring conducive to.
44
. Squid.
45
. Evidences.
46
. Who had imposed a tax on the city urinals but, as he pointed out, the proceeds were not at all offensive (Suetonius,
Vespasian
, XXIII).
47
. i.e. weasand: windpipe.
49
. i.e. peculiar to a species.
1
. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, I, 84–6; freely translated by Arthur Golding (1567) thus:
where all other beasts behold the ground with grovelling eie,
He gave to Man a stately looke replete with majestie.
And willde him to behold the Heaven wyth countnance cast on hie,
To marke and understand what things were in the starrie skie.
Cf. Milton,
Paradise Lost
, VII, 506–10; and Donne: ‘Wee attribute but one privilege and advantage to Mans body above other moving creatures, that he is not as others, groveling, but of an erect, of an upright form, naturally built, and disposed to the contemplation of
Heaven
…’ (
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
[1624], ed. John Sparrow [Cambridge, 1923], p. 10). See
§291
.
2
. The lowest part of the
os innominatum
, the bone on which the body rests when sitting.
3
. ‘Describers of Animals’ (Browne marg.).
4
. The Italian name for the praying mantis. ‘Province’ is Provence.
5
.
νθρωπος
(man) is said to derive fromνω
(upwards) and
θρ
σκω
(leap).
6
. i.e. man looks up, heavenward.
7
. Sight (see below,
p. 373, note 50
).
8
. ‘Point of heaven over our heads’ (Browne marg.).
9
. i.e. leopard. The work cited is the pseudo-Aristotelian
Problems
.
10
. ‘yll savour’ (Elyot).
11
. Sweetened.
12
. ‘coming in’ (Blount).
13
. 2 Esdras 14.45.
14
. ‘lechery, fleshly wantonnesse’ (Blount).
15
. Disgraces.
16
. i.e. pashas.
17
. i.e. lost their scent.
18
. Genesis 34.30.
20
. Strife.
21
. See above,
p. 80, note 101
.
22
. Perilous.
1
. i.e. not only in stained glass but in the engravings of Raphael, Michelangelo,
et al
.
2
. Nature’s underlying creative power. Cf.
below, p. 238, note 7
.
3
. The
vena porta
or great vein conveying blood to the liver (
OED
).
4
. ‘teare in peeces’ (Cockeram).
5
. Conjunction.
6
. ‘being in labor, with childe’ (Blount).
7
. Knowledge. By ‘seminality’ Browne appeals to ‘plastic’ nature (see
below, p. 347, note 24
).
8
. ‘order in construction’ (Elyot).
9
. ‘agreable’ (Elyot).
10
. Figurative (as above,
p. 60, note 6
).
11
. i.e. distinguishing characteristics of temperament.
12
. ‘
Chiromancer
, a Palmester, or one who tells fortunes by the lines of ones hand’ (Blount).
1
. Scallions.
2
. See
above, p. 89, note 145
.
3
. i.e. the Ottoman emperor.
4
. Bleaching.
5
. Genesis 9.20–25.
6
. The one corresponding to Paris, the other to Thersites.
8
. Song of Solomon (‘Canticle of Canticles’) 1.5.
9
. ibid. 5.11.
10
. Discussed earlier, pp. 226 ff.
1
. By actual inspection.
2
. ‘Of or belonging to a Parable’ (Blount).
3
. ‘close joyning’ (Blount, citing Browne).
4
. See above,
p. 223, note 2
.
5
. He died at the age of 969 (Genesis 5.27).
6
. i.e. paralogism: faulty reasoning.
7
. Psalm 90.4.
8
. As above,
p. 73, note 63
.
9
. As above,
p. 71, note 49
.
10
. ‘Nothing can be more contemptible than that the oracles are not given out at Delphi in this way, not only in our time but for a long time since’. On the legend and its several manifestations, see
§292
.
11
. As above,
p. 97, note 176
.
12
. ‘cutting off in the midst’ (Blount).
13
. i.e. Satan’s.
14
. i.e. Satan.
15
. Psalm 2.4.
16
. John 2.17, quoting Psalm 69.9 (‘the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up’).
18
. Cf.
below, p. 304
. The present section is said to be ‘the first pointed defence in English of Epicurus’s position’ (
§54
).
19
. Feasting.
20
. See below,
p. 436, note 1
.
21
. ‘I do not say, as do most of our sect, that the school of Epicurus is an academy of vice, but I say it has a bad name, is of ill repute, and yet undeservedly’ (
On the Happy Life
, XIII, 2).
22
. In
The Life and death of Epicurus
, 1647 (Browne marg.).
23
.
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
terminates with a quotation, in Latin, from Lactantius’s
Institutes
, I, 23 (first quoted in the 2nd edition of 1650): ‘the first step towards wisdom is to understand what is false’.
1
. A close friend who lived in Crostwick Hall north of Norwich; son of Sir Charles Le Gros, himself a patient of Browne’s.
2
. ‘The Sons of Pompey are covered by the soils of Asia and Europe; Pompey himself by that of Africa’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of Martial, V, lxxiv, 1–2).
3
. ‘Little directly, but Sea between your house and
Greenland
’ (Browne marg.). Crostwick Hall (above, note 1) is less than twenty miles from the coast.
4
. ‘Brought back by
Cimon
’ (Browne marg.). So Plutarch,
Cimon
, VIII,6.
5
. The word is much favoured in this treatise, even as
The Garden of Cyrus
favours ‘discern’ and ‘discover’ (§198).
6
. i.e. in the discovered urns.
7
. ‘The great Urnes in the
Hippodrome
at
Rome
conceived to resound the voices of people at their shows’ (Browne marg.).
8
. Raynham Hall in Norfolk, built by Inigo Jones in 1630, ‘worthily possessed by that true Gentleman Sir
Horatio Townsbend
, my honored Friend’ (Browne marg.).
9
. i.e. on Roman coins.
10
. ‘Joined the great majority’ (Browne marg., quoting the Latin of Petronius,
Satyricon
, XLII, 5).
11
. ‘Which makes the world so many years old’ (Browne marg.) – i.e. several times the estimates current during the Renaissance (see below,
p. 439, note 31
).