Sir Thomas Browne |
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A. C. BENSON admirable ancient animal antiquary Arthur Dee author of Religio basilisks beauty believe body Browne's Christian Morals Church Coleridge contemporaries course criticism curious death delight disciples divine doctor doubt edition Edward Browne English Evelyn evidence experience extraordinary eyes fact famous fancy father Garden of Cyrus genius Gillingham Guy Patin hath heaven Iceland imagination intellectual interest knowledge language Latin learned letters Leyden London Lord manuscript ment mind Montpellier mysterious naturalist nature never noble Norfolk Norwich observation Oxford Padua Paracelsus Patin perhaps philosopher physical physician plants posthumous published quincuncial quincunx reader Religio Medici Royal Society scientific seems seventeenth century Sir Kenelm Digby Sir Thomas Browne soul speaks spirit style temper Tenison things Thomas Tenison thought tion took treatise truth unto Urn-Burial urns Vulgar Errors whole words writings written
Popular passages
Page 119 - What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
Page 120 - ... tis all one to lie in St. Innocent's churchyard, as in the sands of Egypt: ready to be anything, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.
Page 119 - Atropos unto the immortality of their names, were never damped with the necessity of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage of ours, in the attempts of their vainglories, who acting early, and before the probable meridian of time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already outlasted their monuments, and mechanical preservations.
Page 120 - ... time, have by this time found great accomplishment of their designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already outlasted their monuments, and mechanical preservations. But in this latter scene of time we cannot expect such mummies unto our memories, when ambition may fear the prophecy of Elias, and Charles the Fifth can never hope to live within two Methuselahs of Hector.
Page 42 - I believe that our estranged and divided ashes shall unite again; that our separated dust, after so many pilgrimages and transformations into the parts of minerals, plants, animals, elements, shall at the voice of God return into their primitive shapes, and join again to make up their primary and predestinate forms.
Page 48 - I do embrace it: for even that vulgar and Tavern-Music, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the First Composer. There is something in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an 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. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually...
Page 35 - I could never content my contemplation with those general pieces of wonder, the Flux and Reflux of the Sea, the increase of Nile, the conversion of the Needle to the North...
Page 29 - I could never divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent my self.
Page 48 - I speak not in prejudice, nor am averse from that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful ; I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse.
Page 197 - Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us. A small fire sufficeth for life, great flames seemed too little after death, while men vainly affected precious pyres, and to burn like Sardanapalus...