THE 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 OLD ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 VOL. III. 
 WORKS OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 Singula laetus 
 Exquiritque auditque virum monumenta priorum. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 HILLIARD AND BROWN, 
 
 BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 M DCCC XXXI. 
 
OUT of the olde fieldes, as men saithe, 
 Cometh all tliis newe corn fro yere to yere ; 
 
 And out of olde bookes, in goode faithe, 
 Cometh all this newe science that men lere. 
 
 CHAUC:ER. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 E. W. METCALF AND COMPANY, 
 
 Printers to the University. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 1 OF THE AUTHOR 
 AND HIS WRITINGS. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 BILLIARD AND BROWN, 
 
 BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 M DCCC XXXI. 
 
" BUT to come back to our Physician ; truly, my lord, 
 I must needs pay him, as a due, the acknowledging his 
 pious discourses to be excellent and pathetical ones, con- 
 taining worthy motives to incite one to virtue, and to 
 deter one from vice ; thereby to gain heaven, and to 
 avoid hell. Assuredly he is owner of a solid head, and 
 of a strong, generous heart." 
 
 SIR KENELM DIGBY. 
 
/MA/A/ 
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IN preparing this volume of the Miscellane- 
 ous Works of Sir Thomas Browne, the Editor 
 has endeavoured to include in it what are gene- 
 rally esteemed the best productions of that ex- 
 traordinary writer. At the head of these stand 
 unquestionably the " Religio Medici," and the 
 " Hydriotaphia " ; which pieces, as well as the 
 " Letter to a Friend on the Death of his Inti- 
 mate Friend," are published without omission 
 or variation. 
 
 The Notes appended to the " Religio Medi- 
 ci," are, for the most part, selected from the 
 Annotations, first published in 1654, the author 
 of which is unknown. With much that is val- 
 uable in these Annotations is blended not a lit- 
 tle that is irrelevant and superfluous. For the 
 anonymous Annotator has the fault, common to 
 all his tribe, of gliding over the dark and diffi- 
 
 24770 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 cult places with a most provoking blindness or 
 indifference, whilst he encumbers with erudite 
 explanation those passages that are as clear 
 as the noon-day. In the " Observations " up- 
 on the same work, by Sir Kenelm Digby, the 
 Editor could find nothing worth transferring 
 to these pages. 
 
 A few pages at the close of the volume have 
 been filled up with miscellaneous selections 
 from various parts of the " Enquiries into Vul- 
 gar and Common Errors," which may serve to 
 give the reader some idea of that singular 
 work. It is to be wished that there was suf- 
 ficient taste in the community for such writings 
 to authorize the reprinting of the whole of this 
 book, with such supplemental and emendatory 
 notes as the progress of physical science since 
 the time of Browne, has made necessary. 
 
 ALEXANDER YOUNG. 
 
 BOSTON, NOVEMBER 25, 1831. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Life of Sir Thomas Browne ix 
 
 Preface to Religio Medici 2 
 
 RELIGIO MEDICI ; The Religion of a Physician . 7 
 
 Remarks on the Hydriotaphia .... 151 
 
 Dedication 157 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA ; Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of 
 
 the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk . 163 
 
 A LETTER TO A FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS 
 
 INTIMATE FRIEND ...... 233 
 
 PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA ; or Enquiries into 
 very many Received Tenets and commonly Pre- 
 sumed Truths. 
 
 Adam's Error 271 
 
 Of Adherence unto Antiquity . . . . 273 
 
 The Erroneous Disposition of the People . . 275 
 
 Of the Falling of Salt 285 
 
 Of Breaking the Egg-Shell .... 286 
 
 Of the True Lover's Knot . 287 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Of the Cheek Burning or Ear Tingling 
 
 Of Speaking under the Rose 28 ^ 
 
 Of Smoke following the Fair .... 
 
 Of Sitting Cross-legged ..... 29C 
 
 Of the Paring of Nails . ... 
 
 Of Hair upon^Moles . 
 
 Of Lions' Heads upon Spouts 
 
 Of the Picture of God ... . . 295 
 
 Of the Sun, Moon, and Winds . 
 
 004 
 Of the Sun Dancing 
 
 Of the Devil 
 
 Of Spots on the Nails 
 
 Of Lights Burning Blue . 
 
 Of the Wearing of Coral 
 
 Of the Divining Rod 
 
 Of Discovering Matters by Book or Staff 
 
 OAO 
 
 Of Authority ..... 
 
 QAQ 
 
 Of Gardens . 
 
 Of Light . . 
 
 Of Order . - 304 
 
 Of Sleep ... 304 
 
SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE* 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE was born at London on the 
 nineteenth of October, 1605. His father was a 
 merchant, of an ancient family at Upton in Cheshire. 
 Of his childhood or youth there is little known, ex- 
 cept that he lost his father very early, that he was 
 defrauded by one of his guardians, 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 
 at that time for a man destined to learning. But it 
 happened to him, as to many others, to be made poor- 
 er by opulence ; for his mother soon married Sir 
 Thomas Button, probably by the inducement of her 
 
 * The following Memoir is an abstract of Dr. John- 
 son's Life of Browne. 
 
X LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 fortune ; and he was left to the rapacity of his guar- 
 dian, deprived now of both his parents, and therefore 
 helpless and unprotected. 
 
 He was removed in the beginning of the year 1623 
 from Winchester to Oxford, and entered a gentle- 
 man-commoner of Broadgate-Hall, which was soon 
 afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke 
 College, from the earl of Pembroke, then chancellor 
 of the University. He was admitted to the degree 
 of bachelor of arts, January 31, 1626-7, being, as 
 Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated 
 from the new college. 
 
 Having afterwards taken his degree of master of 
 arts, he turned his studies to physic, and practised 
 it for some time in Oxfordshire : but soon afterwards, 
 either induced by curiosity or invited by promises, 
 he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his father- 
 in-law, who had some employment in Ireland, in a 
 visitation of the forts and castles, which the state of 
 Ireland then made necessary. 
 
 He that has once prevailed on himself to break 
 his connexions of acquaintance, and begin a wander- 
 ing life, very easily continues it. Ireland had, at 
 that time, very little to offer to the observation of a 
 man of letters. He therefore passed into France 
 and Italy ; made some stay at Montpellier and Padua, 
 which were then the celebrated schools of physic ; 
 and, returning home through Holland, procured him- 
 self to be created doctor of physic at Leyden. 
 
 About the year 1634 he is supposed to have re- 
 turned to London, and the next year to have written 
 his celebrated treatise, called Religio Medici,' 5 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XI 
 
 " The Religion of a Physician," which he declares 
 himself never to have intended for the press, having 
 composed it only for his own exercise and entertain- 
 ment. It indeed contains many passages which, re- 
 lating merely to his own person, can be of no great 
 importance to the public ; but when it was written, it 
 happened to him as to others, he was too much 
 pleased with his performance, not to think that it 
 might please others as much. He therefore com- 
 municated it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, 
 that exuberant applause with which every man re- 
 pays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was not 
 very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling 
 his papers, but suffered them to wander from hand 
 to hand, till at last, without his own consent, they 
 were, in 1642, given to a printer. 
 
 The " Religio Medici " was no sooner published 
 than it excited the attention of the public, by the 
 novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the 
 quick succession of images, the multitude of ab- 
 struse allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and the 
 strength of language. 
 
 What is much read will be much criticized. The 
 earl of Dorset recommended this book to the perusal 
 of Sir Kenelm Digby,* who returned his judgment 
 
 * Sir Kenelm Digby," says Lord Clarendon, " was 
 a person very eminent and notorious throughout the 
 whole course of his life from his cradle to his grave, 
 a man of very extraordinary person and presence, which 
 drew the eyes of all men upon him ; of a fair reputation 
 in arms ; in a word, possessing all the advantages that 
 nature and art could give him." 
 
Xll LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 upon it, not in a letter, but a book ; in which, though 
 mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, 
 there are acute remarks, just censures, and profound 
 speculations ; yet its principal claim to admiration 
 is, that it was written in twenty-four hours, of which 
 part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part 
 in reading it. 
 
 The success of this performance was such as 
 might naturally encourage the author to new under- 
 takings. A gentleman of Cambridge, whose name 
 was Merryweather, turned it not inelegantly into 
 Latin ; and from his version it was again translated 
 into Italian, German, Dutch, and French ; and at 
 Strasburg the Latin translation was published with 
 large notes, by Lenuus Nicholas Molifarius. Of the 
 English Annotations, which in all the editions from 
 1644 accompany the book, the author is unknown. 
 
 The peculiarities of this book raised the author, 
 as is usual, many admirers and many enemies ; but 
 we know not of more than one professed answer, 
 written under the title of "Medicus Medicatus," by 
 Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by 
 the world. 
 
 At the time when this book was published, Dr. 
 Browne resided at Norwich, where he had settled in 
 1636, by the persuasion of Dr. Lushington, his tutor, 
 who was then rector of Barnham Westgate in the 
 neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his 
 practice was very extensive, and that many patients 
 resorted to him. In 1637 he was incorporated doc- 
 tor of physic in Oxford. 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Xlll 
 
 He married, in 1641, Mrs. Mileham, of a good 
 family in Norfolk ; " a lady," says Whitefoot, " of 
 such symmetrical proportion to her worthy husband, 
 both in the graces of her body and mind, that they 
 seemed to come together by a kind of natural mag- 
 netism." 
 
 This marriage could not but draw the raillery of 
 contemporary wits * upon a man who had just been 
 wishing in his new book, " that we might procreate 
 like trees, without conjunction " ; and had lately 
 declared, that "the whole world was made for man, 
 but only the twelfth part of man for woman " ; and 
 that " man is the whole world, but woman only the 
 rib or crooked part of man." f 
 
 Whether the lady had been yet informed of these 
 contemptuous positions, or whether she was pleased 
 with the conquest of so formidable a rebel, and con- 
 sidered it as a double triumph to attract so much 
 merit and overcome so powerful prejudices ; or 
 whether like most others, she married upon mingled 
 motives, between convenience and inclination ; she 
 had, however, no reason to repent, for she lived hap- 
 pily with him one and forty years, and bore him ten 
 children, of whom one son and three daughters out- 
 lived their parents. She survived him two years? 
 and passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opu- 
 lence. 
 
 Browne having now entered the world as an au- 
 thor, and experienced the delights of praise and mo- 
 lestations of censure, probably found his dread of the 
 
 * Howel's Letters. t Religio Medici. 
 
XIV LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 public eye diminished, and therefore was not long 
 before he trusted his name to the critics a second 
 time ; for in 1646 he printed " Enquiries into Vul- 
 gar and Common Errors " ; a work, which, as it 
 arose not from fancy and invention, but from obser- 
 vation and books, and contained not a single dis- 
 course of one continued tenor, of which the latter 
 part arose from the former, but an enumeration of 
 many unconnected particulars, must have been the 
 collection of years, and the effect of a design early 
 formed and long pursued, to which his remarks had 
 been continually referred, and which arose gradually 
 to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new 
 particles of knowledge. It is indeed to be wished, 
 that he had longer delayed the publication, and add- 
 ed what the remaining part of his life might have 
 furnished. The thirty-six years which he spent af- 
 terwards in study and experience, would doubtless 
 have made large additions to an " Enquiry into Vul- 
 gar Errors." He published, in 1673, the sixth edition, 
 with some improvements ; but I think rather with ex- 
 plication of what he had already written, than any 
 new heads of disquisition. But with the work, such 
 as the author, whether hindered from continuing it 
 by eagerness of praise or weariness of labor, thought 
 fit to give, we must be content, and remember, that 
 in all sublunary things there is something to be 
 wished which we must wish in vain. 
 
 This book, like his former, was received with 
 great applause, was answered by Alexander Ross, 
 and translated into Dutch and German, and not many 
 years ago into French. 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XV 
 
 Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errors, he 
 seems not very easy to admit new positions ; for he 
 never mentions the motion of the earth but with 
 contempt ^Jid -iidic.ule. though, the opinion which ad- 
 mits it was then growing popular, and was surely 
 plausible even before it was confirmed by later ob- 
 ervations. 
 
 The reputation of Browne encouraged some low 
 writer to publish, under his name, a book called 
 " Nature's Cabinet Unlocked," translated, according 
 to Wood, from the Physics of Magirus ; of which 
 Browne took care to clear himself, by modestly ad- 
 vertising, that " if any man had been benefited by 
 it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the honor 
 thereof, as having no hand in that work." 
 
 In 1658 the discovery of some ancient urns in 
 Norfolk gave him occasion to write " Hydriotaphia, 
 Urn-burial, or a Discourse of Sepulchral Urns," 
 in which he treats with his usual learning on the fu- 
 neral rites of the ancient nations, exhibits their va- 
 rious treatment of the dead, and examines the sub- 
 stances found in his Norfolcian urns. There is, 
 perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies 
 his reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, ' 
 how many particulars he has amassed together in a 
 treatise which seems to have been occasionally writ- 
 ten, and for which, therefore, no materials could have 
 been previously collected. 
 
 To his treatise on Urn-burial was added "The 
 Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial, Lozenge, or 
 Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, artificially, 
 naturally, mystically, considered." This discourse he 
 
XVI LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 begins with the sacred garden in which the first 
 man was placed, and deduces the practice of horti- 
 culture from the earliest accounts of antiquity to the 
 time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man whom we 
 actually know to have planted a quincunx ; which, 
 however, our author is inclined to believe of longer 
 date, and not only discovers it in the description of 
 the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing 
 to believe and to persuade his reader, that it was 
 practised by the feeders on vegetables before the 
 flood. 
 
 In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he con- 
 siders every production of art and nature in which 
 he could find any decussation or approaches to the 
 form of a quincunx ; and as a man once resolved upon 
 ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he 
 finds his favorite figure in almost every thing, wheth- 
 er natural or invented, ancient or modern, rude or 
 artificial, sacred and civil; so that a reader, not 
 watchful against the power of his infusions, would 
 imagine that decussation was the great business of 
 the world, and that nature and art had no other pur- 
 pose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx. 
 
 To show the excellence of this figure he enume- 
 rates all its properties, and finds it in almost every 
 thing of use or pleasure ; and to show how readily 
 he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may 
 be sufficient. " Though therein," says he, "we 
 meet not with right angles, yet every rhombus con- 
 taining four angles equal unto two right, it virtually 
 contains two right in every one." 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XV11 
 
 The fanciful sports of great minds are never with- 
 out some advantage to knowledge. Browne has in- 
 terspersed many curious observations on the form of 
 plants and the laws of vegetation, and appears to 
 have been a very accurate observer of the modes of 
 germination, and to have watched with great nicety 
 the evolution of the parts of plants from their semi- 
 nal principles. 
 
 He is then naturally led to treat of the number 
 Five, and finds that by this number many things are 
 circumscribed ; that there are five kinds of vegetable 
 productions, five sections of a cone, five orders of ar- 
 chitecture, and five acts of a play. And observing 
 that five was the ancient conjugal or wedding num- 
 ber, he proceeds to a speculation which we shall give 
 in his own words : " The ancient numerists made 
 out the conjugal number by two and three, the first 
 parity and imparity, the active and passive digits, 
 the material and formal principles in generative so- 
 cieties." 
 
 These are all the tracts which he published. But 
 many papers were found in his closet. " Some of 
 them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the press, 
 were often transcribed and corrected by his own 
 hand, after the fashion of great and curious writers." 
 
 Of these, two collections have been published; 
 one by Dr. Tenison, the other in 1722 by a name- 
 less editor. Whether the one or the other selected 
 those pieces which the author would have preferred, 
 cannot be known ; but they have both the merit of 
 giving to mankind what was too valuable to be sup- 
 pressed, and what might, without their interposition, 
 
XVlll LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 have perhaps perished among other innumerable la- 
 bors of learned men, or have been burnt in a scar- 
 city of fuel like the papers of Peirescius. 
 
 The first of these posthumous treatises contains 
 " Observations upon several Plants mentioned in 
 Scripture." These remarks, though they do not im- 
 mediately either rectify the faith or refine the morals 
 of the reader, yet are by no means to be censured 
 as superfluous niceties or useless speculations ; for 
 they often show some propriety of description, or 
 elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to read- 
 ers not skilled in Oriental botany ; and are often of 
 more important use, as they remove some difficulty 
 from narratives or some obscurity from precepts. 
 
 The next is, " Of Garlands, and Coronary or Gar- 
 land Plants " ; a subject merely of learned curiosity, 
 without any other end than the pleasure of reflecting 
 on ancient customs, or on the industry with which 
 studious men have endeavoured to recover them. 
 
 The next is a letter, " Of the Fishes eaten by 
 our Saviour with his Disciples, after his Resurrection 
 from the Dead " ; which contains no determinate 
 resolution of the question, what they were, for in- 
 deed it cannot be determined. All the information 
 that diligence or learning could supply consists in an 
 enumeration of the fishes produced in the waters of 
 Judea. 
 
 Then follow " An Answer to certain Queries re- 
 lating to Fishes, Birds, Insects " ; and a letter " Of 
 Hawks and Falconry, Ancient and Modern " ; in the 
 first of which he gives the proper interpretation of 
 some ancient names of animals commonly mistaken, 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XIX 
 
 and in the other has some curious observations on the 
 art of hawking, which he considers as a practice un- 
 known to the ancients. 
 
 In two more letters he speaks of the " Cymbals 
 of the Hebrews," but without any satisfactory deter- 
 mination ; and of " Ropalic or Gradual Verses," that 
 is, of verses beginning with a word of one syllable, 
 and proceeding by words of which each has a sylla- 
 ble more than the former ; as, 
 
 " O Deus, astern stationis conciliator." AUSONIUS. 
 
 and after this manner pursuing the hint, he mentions 
 many other restrained methods of versifying, to 
 which industrious ignorance has sometimes volun- 
 tarily subjected itself. 
 
 His next attempt is, " On Languages, and particu- 
 larly the Saxon Tongue." He discourses with great 
 learning, and generally with great justness, of the 
 derivation and changes of languages. 
 
 There remain five tracts of this collection yet un- 
 mentioned ; one, " Of Artificial Hills, Mounts, or Bar- 
 rows, in England " ; in reply to an interrogatory 
 letter of E. D., whom the writers of the Biographia 
 Britannica suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. 
 or Sir William Dugdale, one of Browne's corre- 
 spondents. These are declared by Browne, in con- 
 currence, I think, with all other antiquaries, to be for 
 the most part funeral monuments. He proves, that 
 both the Danes and Saxons buried their men of emi- 
 nence under piles of earth, " which admitting," says 
 he " neither ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may, 
 if earthquakes spare them, outlast other monuments ; 
 
XX LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 obelieks have their term, and pyramids will tumble ; 
 but these mountainous monuments may stand, and 
 are like to have the same period with the earth." 
 
 In the next he answers two geographical ques- 
 tions ; one concerning Troas, mentioned in the Acts 
 and Epistles of St. Paul, which he determines to be 
 the city built near the ancient Ilium ; and the other 
 concerning the Dead Sea, of which he gives the 
 same account with other writers. 
 
 Another letter treats " Of the Answers of the 
 Oracle of Apollo at Delphos, to Croesus, King of 
 Lydia." In this tract nothing deserves notice, more 
 than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently 
 and indubitably supernatural, and founds all his dis- 
 quisition upon that postulate. He wonders why the 
 physiologists of old, having such means of instruc- 
 tion, did not inquire into the secrets of nature, but 
 judiciously concludes, that " such questions would 
 probably have been vain ; for in matters cognoscible, 
 and formed for our disquisition, our industry must be 
 our oracle, and reason our Apollo." 
 
 The pieces that remain are " A Prophecy con- 
 cerning the Future State of several Nations " ; in 
 which Browne plainly discovers his expectation to 
 be the same with that entertained lately with more 
 confidence by Dr. Berkeley, " that America will be 
 the seat of the fifth empire " ; and " Museum Clau- 
 sum, sive Bibliotheca Abscondita " ; in which the 
 author amuses himself with imagining the existence 
 of books and curiosities, either never in being or ir- 
 recoverably lost. 
 
OP SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XXI 
 
 Some of the pieces above mentioned are of little 
 value, more than as they gratify the mind with the 
 picture of a great scholar, turning his learning into 
 amusement, or show upon how great a variety of in- 
 quiries the same mind has been successfully em- 
 ployed. 
 
 The other collection of his posthumous pieces, 
 published in octavo, London, 1722, contains " Re- 
 pertorium : or some Account of the Tombs and Mon- 
 uments in the Cathedral of Norwich " ; where, as 
 Tenison observes, there is not matter proportion- 
 ate to the skill of the antiquary. 
 
 The other pieces are, " Answers to Sir William 
 Dugdale's Inquiries about the Fens ; a letter concern- 
 ing Ireland ; another relating to Urns newly discov- 
 ered ; some short strictures on different subjects ; 
 and a Letter to a Friend on the Death of his Intimate 
 Friend," published singly by the author's son in 
 1690. 
 
 There is inserted, in the Biographia Britanni- 
 ca, " a letter containing Instructions for the Study 
 of Physic " ; which, completes the works of Dr. 
 Browne. 
 
 To the Life of this learned man there remains lit- 
 tle to be added, but that, in 1665, he was chosen 
 honorary fellow of the College of Physicians, as a 
 man, " virtute et literis ornatissimus ; eminently 
 embellished with literature and virtue," and, in 167J, 
 received at Norwich the honor of knighthood from 
 Charles the Second. 
 
 Thus he lived in high reputation, till, in his seven- 
 ty-sixth year he was seized with a colic, which, 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 after having tortured him about a week, put an end 
 to his life at Norwich, on his birth-day, October 19, 
 1682. Some of his last words were expressions of 
 submission to the will of God and fearlessness of 
 death. 
 
 He lies buried in the church of St. Peter, Man- 
 croft, in Norwich, with this inscription on a mural 
 monument, placed on the south pillar of the altar : 
 
 M.S. 
 Hie situs est THOMAS BROWNE, M. D. 
 
 Et miles. 
 
 Anno 1605, Londini natus ; 
 Generosa familia apud Upton 
 
 In agro Cestriensi oriundus. 
 Schola prirnum Wintoniensi, postea 
 
 In Coll. Pembr. 
 Apud Oxonienses bonis literis 
 
 Haud leviter imbutus ; 
 
 In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam 
 
 Arte egregia et fselici successu professus ; 
 
 Scriptis quibus tituli, RELIGIO MEDICI 
 
 Et PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA aliisque 
 
 Per orbem notissimus. 
 Vir prudentissimus, integerrimus, doctissimus ; 
 
 Obiit Octob. 19, 1682. 
 
 Pie posuit moestissima conjux 
 
 Da. Doroth. Br. 
 
 Near the foot of this pillar 
 
 Lies Sir Thomas Browne, kt. and doctor in physic, 
 Author of Religio Medici, and other learned books, 
 
 Who practised physic in this city 46 years, 
 And died Oct. 1682, in the 77 year of his age. 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Xxiii 
 
 In memory of whom 
 
 Dame Dorothy Browne, who had bin his affectionate 
 
 Wife 47 years, caused this monument to be 
 
 Erected. 
 
 Of every great and eminent character, part breaks 
 forth into public view, and part lies hid in domestic 
 privacy. Those qualities, which have been exerted 
 in any known and lasting performances, may, at any 
 distance of time, be traced and estimated ; but silent 
 excellencies are soon forgotten ; and those minute 
 peculiarities which discriminate every man from all 
 others, if they are not recorded by those whom per- 
 sonal knowledge enables to observe them, are irre- 
 coverably lost. 
 
 This mutilation of character must have happened, 
 among many others, to Sir Thomas Browne, had it 
 not been delineated by his friend Mr. Whitefoot, 
 " who esteemed it an especial favor of Providence to 
 have had a particular acquaintance with him for two 
 thirds of his life." Part of his observations we shall 
 therefore copy. 
 
 " For a character of his person, his complexion 
 and hair was answerable to his name ; his stature 
 was moderate, and habit of body neither fat nor 
 lean, but &3<ra0xos. 
 
 " In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to 
 all finery, and affected plainness both in the fashion 
 and ornaments. He ever wore a cloak, or boots, 
 when few others did. He kept himself always very 
 warm, and thought it most safe so to do, though he 
 never loaded himself with such a multitude of gar- 
 ments as Suetonius reports of Augustus, enough to 
 clothe a good family. 
 
XXIV LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 " The horizon of his understanding was much 
 larger than the hemisphere of the world. All that 
 was visible in the heavens he comprehended so well, 
 that few that are under them knew so much. He 
 could tell the number of the visible stars in his hori- 
 zon and call them all by their names that had any ; 
 and of the earth he had such a minute and exact 
 geographical knowledge, as if he had been by di- 
 vine Providence ordained surveyor-general of the 
 whole terrestrial orb, and its products, minerals, 
 plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist, 
 that, besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice 
 and elaborate observations, equally useful as enter- 
 
 taining. 
 
 " His memory, though not so eminent as that of 
 Seneca or Scaliger, was capacious and tenacious, 
 insomuch that he remembered all that was remark- 
 able in any book that he had read, and not only knew 
 all persons again that he had ever seen at any dis- 
 tance of time, but remembered the circumstances of 
 their bodies, and their particular discourses and 
 speeches. 
 
 " In the Latin poets he remembered every thing 
 that was acute and pungent. He had read most of 
 the historians, ancient and modern, wherein his ob- 
 servations were singular, nor taken notice of by 
 common readers. He was excellent company when 
 he was at leisure, and expressed more light than heat 
 in the temper of his brain. 
 
 " He had no despotical power over his affections 
 and passions (that was a privilege of original perfec- 
 tion, forfeited by the neglect of the use of it), but as 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XXV 
 
 large a political power over them, as any Stoic, or 
 man of his time ; whereof he gave so great experi- 
 ment, that he hath very rarely been known to have 
 been overcome with any of them. The strongest 
 that were found in him, both of tfoe irascible and con- 
 cupiscible, were under the control of his reason. 
 Of admiration, which is one of them, being the only 
 product either of ignorance or uncommon knowledge, 
 he had more and less than other men, upon the same 
 account of his knowing more than others ; so that, 
 though he met with many rarities, he admired them 
 not so much as others do. 
 
 " He was never seen to be transported with mirth, 
 or dejected with sadness ; always cheerful, but rarely 
 merry, at any sensible rate ; seldom heard to break 
 a jest ; and, when he did, he would be apt to blush 
 at the levity of it. His gravity was natural, without 
 affectation. 
 
 " His modesty was visible in a natural, habitual 
 blush, which was increased upon the least occasion, 
 and oft discovered without any observable cause. 
 
 " They that knew no more of him than by the 
 briskness of his writings, found themselves deceived 
 in their expectation, when they came in his company, 
 noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and 
 conversation ; so free from loquacity or much talk- 
 ativeness, that he was something difficult to be 
 engaged in any discourse ; though when he was so, 
 it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar. 
 Parsimonious in nothing but his time, whereof he 
 made as much improvement with as little loss as any 
 man in it ; when he had any to spare from his drudging 
 c 
 
XXVI LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 practice, he was scarce patient of any diversion 
 from his studies ; so impatient of sloth and idleness, 
 that he would say, he could not do nothing. 
 
 " Sir Thomas understood most of the European 
 languages ; viz. all that are in Mutter's Bible, which 
 he made use of. The Latin and Greek he under- 
 stood critically. The Oriental languages, which 
 never were vernacular in this part of the world, he 
 thought the use of them would not answer the time 
 and pains of learning them ; yet had so great a ven- 
 eration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, con- 
 secrated to the oracles of God, that he was not con- 
 tent to be totally ignorant of it ; though very little 
 of his science is to be found in any books of that 
 primitive language. And though much is said to be 
 written in the derivative idioms of that tongue, es- 
 pecially the Arabic, yet he was satisfied with the 
 translations, wherein he found nothing admirable. 
 
 " In his religion he continued in the same mind 
 which he had declared in his first book, written when 
 he was but thirty years old, his ' Religio Medici,' 
 wherein he fully assented to that of the church of 
 England, preferring it before any in the world, as 
 did the learned Grotius. He attended the public 
 service very constantly when he was not withheld 
 by his practice, never missed the sacrament in his 
 parish if he were in town, read the best English ser- 
 mons he could hear of with liberal applause, and de- 
 lighted not in controversies. In his last sickness, 
 wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring 
 great pain of the colic, besides a continual fever, 
 with as much patience as hath been seen in any 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XXV11 
 
 man, without any pretence of Stoical apathy, ani- 
 mosity, or vanity of not being concerned thereat, or 
 suffering 1 no impeachment of happiness ' Nihil 
 agis, dolor.' 
 
 "His patience was founded upon the Christian 
 philosophy and a sound faith of God's providence, 
 and a meek and holy submission thereunto, which he 
 expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, 
 when he had not strength to hear or speak much ; 
 the last words which I heard from him were, be- 
 sides some expressions of dearness, that he did free- 
 ly submit to the will of God, being without fear. 
 He had often triumphed over the king of terrors in 
 others, and given many repulses in the defence of 
 patients ; but when his own turn came, he submitted 
 with a meek, rational, and religious courage. 
 
 " He might have made good the old saying of 
 <Dat Galenus opes,' had he lived in a place that 
 could have afforded it. But his indulgence and libe- 
 rality to his children, especially in their travels, two 
 of his sons in divers countries, and two of his 
 daughters in France, spent him more than a little. 
 Ho was liberal in his house-entertainments and in 
 his charity. He left a comfortable but no great 
 estate, both to his lady and children, gained by his 
 own industry. 
 
 " Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all his- 
 tory, ancient and modern, and his observations there- 
 upon so singular, that it hath been said by them that 
 knew him best, that if his profession and place of 
 abode would have suited his ability, he would have 
 made an extraordinary man for the privy-council, not 
 
XXV111 LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 much inferior to the famous Padre Paolo, the late 
 oracle of the Venetian state. 
 
 " Though he were no prophet, nor son of a 
 prophet, yet in that faculty which comes nearest it 
 he excelled, i. e. the stochastic, wherein he was sel- 
 dom mistaken as to future events, as well public as 
 private, but not apt to discover any presages or su- 
 perstition." 
 
 The foregoing character might be confirmed and 
 enlarged by many passages in the " Religio Medici " ; 
 in which it appears, from Whitefoot's testimony, that 
 the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of him- 
 self, has not exceeded the truth with respect to his 
 attainments or visible qualities. 
 
 But it is not on the praises of others, but on his 
 own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of 
 posterity ; of which he will not easily be deprived 
 while learning shall have any reverence among men ; 
 for there is no science in which he does not discover 
 some skill, and scarce any kind of knowledge, pro- 
 fane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does 
 not appear to have cultivated with success. 
 
 His exuberance of knowledge and plenitude of 
 ideas sometimes obstruct the tendency of his reason- 
 ing and the clearness of his decisions. On whatever 
 subject he employed his mind, there started up im- 
 mediately so many images before him, that he lost 
 one by grasping another. His memory supplied him 
 with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent no- 
 tions, that he was always starting into collateral con- 
 siderations. But the spirit and vigor of his pursuit 
 always gives delight; and the reader follows him 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 without reluctance through his mazes, in themselves 
 flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point origi- 
 nally in view. 
 
 " To have great excellencies and great faults, 
 1 magnse virtutes nee minora vitia,' is the poesy," says 
 our author, "of the best natures." This poesy may 
 be properly applied to the style of Browne. It is 
 vigorous, but rugged ; it is learned, but pedantic ; it 
 is deep, but obscure ; it strikes, but does not please ; 
 it commands, but does not allure; his tropes are 
 harsh and his combinations uncouth. He fell into 
 an age in which our language began to lose the sta- 
 bility which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth, 
 and was considered by every writer as a subject on 
 which he might try his plastic skill, by moulding it 
 according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence 
 of this encroaching license, began to introduce the 
 Latin idiom ; and Browne, though he gave less dis- 
 turbance to our structures in phraseology, yet poured 
 in a multitude of exotic words, many indeed useful 
 and significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied 
 by circumlocution, such as "commensality," for the 
 state of many living at the same table ; but many su- 
 perfluous, as a " paralogical," for an unreasonable 
 doubt ; and some so obscure, that they conceal his 
 meaning rather than explain it, as " arthritical analo- 
 gies," for parts that serve some animals in the place 
 of joints. 
 
 His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages, 
 a mixture of heterogenous words brought together 
 from distant regions, with terms originally appro- 
 priated to one art, and drawn by violence into the 
 
XXX LIFE AND WRITINGS 
 
 service of another. He must, however, be confessed 
 to have augmented our philosophical diction ; and in 
 defence of his uncommon words and expressions, we 
 must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, 
 and was not content to express in many words that 
 idea for which any language could supply a single 
 term. 
 
 But his innovations are sometimes pleasing and 
 his temerities happy. He has many " verba ardentia," 
 forcible expressions, which he would never have 
 found but by venturing to the utmost verge of pro- 
 priety, and flights which would never have been 
 reached but by one who had very little fear of the 
 shame of falling. 
 
 There remains yet an objection against the writ- 
 ings of Browne, more formidable than the animad- 
 versions of criticism. There are passages from 
 which some have taken occasion to rank him among 
 deists, and others among atheists. It would be dif- 
 ficult to guess how any such conclusion should be 
 formed, had not experience shown that there are two 
 sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of in- 
 fidels. 
 
 It has been long observed, that an atheist has no 
 just reason for endeavouring conversions ; and yet 
 none harass those minds which they can influence, 
 with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their 
 opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of 
 their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the at- 
 testation of another understanding ; and industriously 
 labor to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the 
 
OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. XXXI 
 
 slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a cele- 
 brated name.* 
 
 The others become friends to infidelity only by 
 unskilful hostility; men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious 
 conversation, and religious asperity. Among these 
 it is too frequently the practice, to make in their 
 heat concessions to atheism, or deism, which their 
 most confident advocates had never dared to claim or 
 to hope. A sally of levity, an idle paradox, an in- 
 decent jest, an unseasonable objection, are sufficient, 
 in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from 
 the lists of Christianity, to exclude a soul from ever- 
 lasting life. Such men are so watchful to censure, 
 that they have seldom much care to look for favor- 
 able interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general 
 tenor of lifo against single failures, or to know how 
 soon any slip of inadvertency has been expiated by 
 sorrow and retraction ; but let fly their fulminations, 
 without mercy or prudence, against slight offences 
 or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, 
 or immediately repented. 
 
 The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is 
 endeavouring to supply, by authority, the deficiency 
 of his arguments, and to make his cause less in- 
 vidious by showing numbers on his side ; he will 
 therefore not change his conduct till he reforms his 
 principles. But the zealot should recollect, that 
 
 * " Therefore no heretics desire to spread 
 Their wild opinions like these Epicures ; 
 For so their staggering thoughts are computed, 
 And other men's assent their doubt assures." 
 
 DAVIES. 
 
XXX11 LIFE OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 he is laboring, by this frequency of excommunica- 
 tion, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding 
 strength to the enemies of truth. It must always 
 be the condition of a great part of mankind to reject 
 and embrace tenets upon the authority of those whom 
 they think wiser than themselves ; and therefore the 
 addition of every name to infidelity in some degree 
 invalidates that argument upon which the religion of 
 multitudes is necessarily founded. 
 
 Men may differ from eacli other in many religious 
 opinions, and yet all may retain the essentials of 
 Christianity. Men may sometimes eagerly dispute, 
 and yet not differ much from one another. The rigor- 
 ous persecutors of error should therefore enlighten 
 their zeal with knowledge, and temper their ortho- 
 doxy with charity ; that charity, without which ortho- 
 doxy is vain ; charity that " thinketh no evil," but 
 " hopeth all things," and " endureth all things." 
 
 Whether Browne has been numbered among the 
 contemners of religion, by the fury of its friends or 
 the artifice of its enemies, it is no difficult task to re- 
 place him among the most zealous professors of Chris- 
 tianity. He may, perhaps, in. the ardor of his imagi- 
 nation, have hazarded an expression, which a mind 
 intent upon faults may interpret into heresy, if con- 
 sidered apart from the rest of his discourse ; but a 
 phrase is not to be opposed to volumes. There is 
 scarcely a writer to be found, whose profession was 
 not divinity, that has so frequently testified his be- 
 lief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them 
 with such unlimited submission, or mentioned them 
 with such unvaried reverence. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 CERTAINLY that man were greedy of life, who 
 should desire to live when all the world were at 
 an end ; and he must needs be very impatient, 
 who would repine at death in the society of all 
 things that suffer under it. Had not almost every 
 man suffered by the press, or were not the tyr- 
 anny thereof become universal, I had not want- 
 ed reason for complaint. But in times wherein 
 I have lived to behold the highest perversion of 
 that excellent invention, the name of his majesty 
 defamed, the honor of parliament depraved, the 
 writings of both depravedly, anticipatively, 
 counterfeitly imprinted ; complaints may seem 
 ridiculous in private persons ; and men of my 
 condition may be as incapable of affronts, as 
 hopeless of their reparations. And truly had 
 not the duty I owe unto the importunity of 
 friends, and the allegiance I must ever acknowl- 
 edge unto truth, prevailed with me ; the inac- 
 tivity of my disposition might have made these 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 sufferings continual, and time, that brings other 
 things to light, should have satisfied me in the 
 remedy of its oblivion. But because things, 
 evidently false, are not only printed, but many 
 things of truth most falsely set forth, in this 
 latter I could not but think myself engaged. 
 For though we have no power to redress the 
 former, yet in the other, reparation being within 
 ourselves, I have at present represented unto 
 the world a full and intended copy of that piece 
 which was most imperfectly and surreptitiously 
 published before. 
 
 This I confess, about seven years past, with 
 some others of affinity thereto, for my private 
 exercise and satisfaction, I had at leisurable 
 hours composed ; which being communicated 
 unto one, it became common unto many, and 
 was by transcription successively corrupted, 
 until it arrived in a most depraved copy at the 
 press. He that shall peruse that work, and 
 shall take notice of sundry particulars and per- 
 sonal expressions therein, will easily discern 
 the intention was not public ; and being a pri- 
 vate exercise directed to myself, what is deliv- 
 ered therein was rather a memorial unto me, 
 than an example or rule unto any other ; and 
 therefore if there be any singularity therein 
 correspondent unto the private conceptions of 
 any man, it doth not advantage them ; or if 
 
PREFACE. 5 
 
 dissentaneous thereunto, it no way overthrows 
 them. It was penned in such a place, and with 
 such disadvantage, that (I protest) from the 
 first setting of pen unto paper, I had not the 
 assistance of any good book, whereby to pro- 
 mote my invention, or relieve my memory ; and 
 therefore there might be many real lapses there- 
 in, which others might take notice of, and more 
 that I suspected myself. It was set down many 
 years past, and was the sense of my conceptions 
 at that time, not an immutable law unto my 
 advancing judgment at all times ; and therefore 
 there might be many things therein plausible 
 unto my passed apprehension, which are not 
 agreeable unto my present self. There are 
 many things delivered rhetorically, many ex- 
 pressions therein merely tropical, and as they 
 best illustrate my intention ; and therefore also 
 there are many things to be taken in a soft and 
 flexible sense, and not to be called unto the 
 rigid test of reason. Lastly, all that is contain- 
 ed therein, is in submission unto maturer dis- 
 cernments ; and as I have declared, shall no 
 further father them than the best and learned 
 judgments shall authorize them : under favor 
 of which considerations I have made its secrecy 
 public, and committed the truth thereof to 
 every ingenuous reader. 
 
 THO. BROWNE. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICL 
 
 THE FIRST PART. 
 
 FOR my religion, though there be several 
 circumstances that might persuade the world 
 I have none at all, as the general scandal of 
 my profession, the natural course of my stud- 
 ies, the indifferency of my behaviour and 
 discourse in matters of religion, neither violently 
 defending one, nor with that common ardor and 
 contention opposing another ; yet in despite 
 hereof, I dare, without usurpation, assume the 
 honorable style of a Christian. Not that I 
 merely owe this title to the font, my education, 
 or clime wherein I was born, as being Bred up 
 either to confirm those principles my parents 
 instilled into my understanding, or by a general 
 consent proceed in the religion of my coun- 
 
8 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 try. But having, in my riper years and confirm- 
 ed judgment, seen and examined all, I find 
 myself obliged, by the principles of grace, and 
 the law of mine own reason, to embrace no 
 other name but this. Neither doth herein my 
 zeal so far make me forget the general charity 
 I ow r e unto humanity, as rather to hate than 
 pity Turks, Infidels, and (what is worse) Jews; 
 rather contenting myself to enjoy that happy 
 style, than maligning those who refuse so glo- 
 rious a title. 
 
 But because the name of a Christian is be- 
 come too general to express our faith, there 
 being a geography of religion as well as lands, 
 and every clime distinguished not only by their 
 laws and limits, but circumscribed by their 
 doctrines and rules of faith ; to be particular, 
 I am of that reformed, new-cast religion, 
 wherein I dislike nothing but the name ;* of the 
 same belief our Saviour taught, the Apostles 
 disseminated, the Fathers authorized, and the 
 martyrs confirmed ; but by the sinister ends of 
 princes, the ambition and avarice of prelates, 
 and the fatal corruption of times, so decayed, 
 impaired, and fallen from its native beauty, that 
 it required the careful and charitable hands of 
 these times to restore it to its primitive integ- 
 
 * That is, Lutheran, Calvinist, Zuinglian, &c. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 9 
 
 rity. Now the accidental occasion whereupon, 
 the slender means whereby, the low and abject 
 condition of the person* by whom so good a 
 work was set on foot, which in our adversaries 
 beget contempt and scorn, fills me with wonder, 
 and is the very same objection the insolent 
 Pagans first cast at Christ and his disciples. 
 
 Yet have I not so shaken hands with those 
 desperate resolutions, who had rather venture 
 at large their decayed bottom, than bring 
 her in to be new trimmed in the dock ; who 
 had rather promiscuously retain all, than 
 abridge any, and obstinately be what they are, 
 than what they have been, as to stand in diam- 
 eter and sword's point with them.t We have 
 reformed from them, not against them ; for 
 omitting those improperations, and terms of 
 scurrility betwixt us, which only difference our 
 affections, and not our cause, there is between 
 us one common name and appellation, one faith 
 and necessary body of principles common to us 
 both ; and therefore I am not scrupulous to 
 converse and live with them, to enter their 
 churches in defect of ours, and either pray 
 
 * Luther. 
 
 f The meaning is, I have not so deserted or bid fare- 
 well to those desperate resolvers, the Romanists, as to 
 be at sword's point with them. 
 
10 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 with them, or for them. I could never perceive 
 any rational consequence from those many 
 texts which prohibit the children of Israel to 
 pollute themselves with the temples of the 
 heathens ; we being all Christians, and not di- 
 vided by such detested impieties as might pro- 
 fane our prayers, or the place wherein we make 
 them ; or that a resolved conscience may not\ 
 adore her Creator any where, especially in places / 
 devoted to his service ; where if their devotions 
 offend him, mine may please him ; if theirs 
 profane it, mine may hallow it. Holy water and 
 crucifix (dangerous to the common people) de- 
 ceive not my judgment, nor abuse my devotion 
 at all. I am, I confess, naturally inclined to 
 that, which misguided zeal terms superstition. 
 My common conversation I do acknowledge 
 austere, my behaviour full of rigor, sometimes 
 not without morosity. Yet at my devotion I 
 love to use the civility of my knee, my hat, and 
 hand, with all those outward and sensible mo- 
 tions which may expresss or promote my invisi- 
 ble devotion. I should violate my own arm 
 rather than a church, nor willingly deface the 
 name of saint or martyr. At the sight of a cross 
 or crucifix I can dispense with my hat, but 
 scarce with the thought or memory of my 
 Saviour. I cannot laugh at, but rather pity 
 the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or contemn 
 
I 
 
 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 11 
 
 the miserable condition of friars ; for though 
 misplaced in circumstances, there is something 
 in it of devotion. I could never hear the Ave- 
 Mary bell* without an elevation, or think it a 
 sufficient warrant, because they erred in one 
 circumstance, for me to err in all, that is, in 
 silence and dumb contempt ; whilst therefore 
 they directed their devotions to her, I offered 
 mine to God, and rectified the errors of their 
 prayers, by rightly ordering mine own. \ At a 
 solemn procession I have wept abundantly, 
 while my consorts, blind with opposition and 
 prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn 
 and laughter. There are questionless both in 
 Greek, Roman, and African churches, solemni- 
 ties and ceremonies, whereof the wiser zeals 
 do make a Christian use, and stand condemned 
 by us, not as evil in themselves, but as allure- 
 ments and baits of superstition to those vulgar 
 heads that look asquint on the face of truth, 
 and those unstable judgments that cannot re- 
 sist in the narrow point and centre of virtue 
 without a reel or stagger to the circumference. 
 As there were many reformers, so likewise 
 many reformations ; every country proceed- 
 
 * A church bell that tolls every day at six and twelve 
 o'clock; at the hearing whereof, every one, in what 
 place soever, either of house or street, betakes himself 
 to his prayer, which is commonly directed to the Virgin. 
 
12 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 ing in a particular way and method, accord- 
 ing as their national interest, together with 
 their constitution and clime, inclined them ; 
 some angrily, and with extremity ; others calm- 
 ly, and with mediocrity, not rending but easily 
 dividing the community, and leaving an honest 
 possibility of a reconciliation ; which though 
 peaceable spirits do desire, and may conceive 
 that revolution of time and the mercies of God 
 may effect, yet that judgment that shall consid- 
 er the present antipathies between the two ex- 
 tremes, their contrarieties in condition, affection, 
 and opinion, may with the same hopes expect 
 a union in the poles of heaven. 
 
 But to difference myself nearer, and draw 
 into a lesser circle. There is no Church 
 whose every part so squares unto my con- 
 science ; whose articles, constitutions, and cus- 
 toms, seem so consonant unto reason, and as it 
 were framed to my particular devotion, as this 
 whereof I hold my belief, the Church of Eng- 
 land, to whose faith I am a sworn subject ; and 
 therefore in a double obligation subscribe unto 
 her articles, and endeavour to observe her 
 constitutions. Whatsoever is beyond, as points 
 indifferent, I observe according to the rules of 
 my private reason, or the humor and fash- 
 ion of my devotion; neither believing this, 
 because Luther affirmed it, or disproving that 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 13 
 
 because Calvin hath disavouched it. I condemn 
 not all things in the Council of Trent, nor ap- 
 prove all in the Synod of Dort. : In brief, where 
 the Scripture is silent, the church is my text ; 
 where that speaks, 't is but my comment ; where 
 there is a joint silence of both, I borrow not 
 the rules of my religion from Rome or Geneva, 
 but the dictates of my own roasoii. It is an 
 unjust scandal of our adversaries, and a gross 
 error in ourselves, to compute the nativity of 
 our religion from Henry the Eighth, who though 
 he rejected the pope, refused not the faith of 
 Rome, and effected no more than what his own 
 predecessors desired and assayed in ages past, 
 and was conceived the State of Venice would 
 have attempted in our days.* It is as uncharita- 
 ble a point in us to fall upon those popular 
 scurrilities and opprobrious scoffs of the bishop 
 of Rome, to whom, as a temporal prince, we owe 
 the duty of good language : I confess there is 
 a cause of passion between us. By his sentence 
 I stand excommunicated. Heretic is the best 
 language he affords me. Yet can no ear witness, 
 I ever returned him the name of antichrist, man 
 
 * This expectation was in the time of pope Paul the 
 Fifth, who, excommunicating that republic/gave occasion 
 to the senate to banish all such of the clergy as would 
 not, by reason of the pope's commands, administer the 
 sacraments. 
 
14 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 of sin, or whore of Babylon. It is the metho< 
 of charity to suffer without reaction. Those 
 usual satires and invectives of the pulpit may 
 perchance produce a good effect on the vulgar,/ 
 whose ears are opener to rhetoric than logic ; 
 yet do they in no wise confirm the faith of wiser 
 believers, who know that a good cause needs 
 not to be padroned by passion, but can sustain 
 itself upon a temperate dispute. 
 
 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 myself. I have no genius to 
 disputes in religion, and have often thought it 
 wisdom to decline them, especially upon a dis- 
 advantage, or when the cause of truth might 
 suffer in the weakness of my patronage. Where 
 we desire to be informed, 't is good to contest 
 with men above ourselves ; but to confirm and 
 establish our opinions, 't is best to argue with 
 judgments below our own, that the frequent 
 spoils and victories over their reasons, may set- 
 tle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opin- 
 ion of our own. Every man is not a proper 
 champion for truth, nor fit to take up the gaunt- 
 let in the cause of verity. Many from the ig- 
 norance of these maxims, and an inconsiderate 
 zeal unto truth, have too rashly charged the 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 15 
 
 troops of error, and remain as trophies unto 
 the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just 
 possession of truth as of a city, and yet be 
 forced to surrender ; 't is therefore far better to 
 enjoy her with peace, than to hazard her on a 
 battle. If therefore there rise any doubts in my 
 way, I do forget them, or at least defer them, 
 till my better settled judgment, and more manly 
 reason be able to resolve them ; for I perceive 
 every man's own reason is his best CEdipus, and 
 will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way to 
 loose those bonds wherewith the subtleties of 
 error have enchained our more flexible and 
 tender judgments, fjn philosophy, where truth 
 seems double-faced, there is no man more para- 
 doxical than myselfj But in divinity I love to 
 keep the road ; and though not in an implicit, 
 yet an humble faith, follow the great wheel of 
 the church, by which I move, not reserving any 
 proper poles or motion from the epicycle of my 
 own brain. By this means I have no gap for 
 heresy, schisms, or errors, of which at present 
 I hope I shall not injure truth to say I have no 
 taint or tincture. I must confess my greener 
 studies have been polluted with two or three, 
 not any begotten in the latter centuries, but 
 old and obsolete, such as could never have been 
 revived but by such extravagant and irregular 
 heads as mine. For indeed heresies perish not 
 
16 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 with their authors, but like the river Aretliusa, 
 though they lose their currents in one -place, 
 they rise up again in another. One general 
 council is not able to extirpate one single here- 
 sy. It may be cancelled for the present ; buf 
 revolution of time, and the like aspects from 
 heaven, will restore it, when it will flourish till ; 
 it be condemned again. For as though there 
 were a metempsychosis, and the soul of one man 
 
 massed into another, opinions do find, after 
 ;rtain revolutions, men and minds like those 
 
 iat first begat them. To see ourselves again, 
 we need not look for Plato's year :* every man 
 is not only himself; there have been many 
 Diogenes, and as many Timons, though but 
 few of that name ; men are lived over again ; 
 the world is now as it was in ages past ; there 
 was none then, but there hath been some one 
 since that parallels him, and as it were his re- 
 vived self. 
 
 I Now the first of mine was that of the Arabi- 
 ans, that the souls of men perished with their 
 bodies, but should yet be raised again at the 
 last day. Not that I did absolutely conceive a 
 mortality of the soul ; but if that were, which 
 
 * A revolution of certain thousand years, when all things 
 should return unto their former state, and he be teach- 
 ing again in his school as when he delivered this opinion. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN, 17 
 
 faith, not philosophy, hath yet thoroughly dis- 
 proved, and that both entered the grave togeth- 
 er, yet I held the same conceit thereof that we 
 all do of the body, that it rise again. Surely 
 it is but the merits of our unworthy natures, if 
 we sleep in darkness until the last alarm. A 
 serious reflex upon my own unworthiness did 
 make me backward from challenging this pre- 
 rogative of my soul. So that I might enjoy my 
 Saviour at the last, I could with patience be 
 nothing almost unto eternity. The second was"" 
 that of Origen, that God would not persist in 
 his vengeance for ever, but after a definite time 
 of his wrath, he would release the damned 
 souls from torture. Which error I fell into upon 
 a serious contemplation of the great attribute of 
 God, his mercy ; and did a little cherish it in 
 myself, because I found therein no malice, and 
 a ready weight to sway me from the other ex- 
 treme of despair, whereunto melancholy and 
 contemplative natures are too easily disposed. 
 A third there is which I did never positively 
 maintain or practise, but have often wished it 
 had been consonant to truth, and not offensive 
 to my religion, and that is, the prayer for the 
 dead ; whereunto I was inclined from some 
 charitable inducements, whereby I could scarce 
 contain my prayers for a friend at the ringing 
 of a bell, or behold his corpse without an ori- 
 
18 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 son for his soul. J T was a good way methought 
 to be remembered by posterity, and far more 
 noble than a history. These opinions I never 
 maintained with pertinacy, or endeavoured to 
 inveigle any man's belief unto mine, nor so 
 much as ever revealed or disputed them with 
 my dearest friends ; by which means I neither 
 propagated them in others, nor confirmed them 
 in myself; but suffering them to flame uporN 
 their own substance, without addition of new 
 fuel, they went out insensibly of themselves/ 
 Therefore these opinions, though condemned by 
 lawful councils, were not heresies in me, but 
 bare errors, and single lapses of my understand- 
 ing without a joint depravity of my will. Those 
 have not only depraved understandings, but 
 diseased affections, which cannot enjoy a sin- 
 gularity without a heresy, or b^K^he author of 
 an opinion without they be of a sect also. This 
 was the villany of the first schism of Lucifer, 
 who was not content to err alone, but drew 
 into his faction many legions; and upon this 
 experience he tempted only Eve, as well under- 
 standing the communicable nature of sin, and 
 that to deceive but one, was tacitly and upon 
 consequence to delude them both. 
 /^Thzt heresies should arise, we have the 
 / prophecy of Christ ; but that old ones should 
 / be abolished, we hold no prediction. That 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 19 
 
 there must be heresies, is true, not only in 
 our church, but also in any other. Even 
 in doctrines heretical, there will be super- 
 heresies ; and Arians not only divided from 
 their church, but also among themselves. For 
 heads that are disposed unto schism and com" 
 plexionally propense to innovation, are natural- 
 ly disposed for a community, nor will be ever 
 confined unto the order or economy of one body ; 
 and therefore when they separate from others, 
 they knit but loosely among themselves ; nor 
 contented with a general breach or dichotomy 
 with their church, do subdivide and mince 
 themselves almost into atoms. J T is true, that 
 men of singular parts and humors have not 
 been free from singular opinions and conceits 
 in all ages ; retaining something not only be- 
 side the opinion of his own church or any other, 
 but also any particular author ; which, notwithi 
 standing, a sober judgment may do without of- 
 fence or heresy ; for there is yet, after all the 
 decrees of councils, and the niceties of the 
 schools, many things untouched, unimagined, 
 wherein the liberty of an honest reason may 
 play and expatiate with security, and far without 
 the circle of a heresy. 
 
 As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, 
 and airy subtilties in religion, which have 
 unhinged the brains of better heads, they 
 
20 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 never stretched the " pia mater " of mine. Me- 
 thinks there be not impossibilities enough in 
 N religion, for an active faith ; the deepest mys- 
 teries ours contains, have not only been illus- 
 trated, but maintained by syllogism, and the 
 rule of reason. I love to lose myself in a mys- 
 tery, to pursue my reason to an " O altitudo ! " 
 'T is my solitary recreation to pose my appre- 
 hension with those involved enigmas and riddles 
 of the trinity, with incarnation and resurrection. 
 I can answer all the objections of satan and 
 my rebellious reason, with that odd resolution I 
 learned of Tertullian, " Certum est quia impossi- 
 bile est." I desire to exercise my faith in the diffi- 
 cultest point ; for to credit ordinary and visible 
 objects, is not faith, but persuasion. / Some be- 
 lieve the better for seeing Christ's sepulclire ; 
 and when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt 
 not of the miracle. Now, contrarily, I bless 
 myself, and am thankful that I lived not in the 
 days of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor 
 his disciples. I would not have been one of 
 those Israelites that passed the Red Sea, nor 
 one of Christ's patients on whom he wrought 
 his wonders. Then had my faith been thrust 
 upon me ; nor should I enjoy that greater bless- 
 ing pronounced to all that believe and saw not. 
 J T is an easy and necessary belief, to credit 
 what our eye and sense hath examined I be- 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 21 
 
 lieve he was dead and buried, and rose again ; 
 and desire to see him in his glory, rather than 
 to contemplate him in his cenotaph, or sepul- 
 chre. Nor is this much to believe ; as we have 
 reason, we owe this faith unto history. They 
 only had the advantage of a bold and noble 
 faith, who lived before his coming, who upon 
 obscure prophecies and mystical types could 
 raise a belief, and expect apparent impossibili- 
 ties. 
 
 V J T is true, there is an edge in all firm be- 
 lief, and with an easy metaphor we may- 
 say the sword of faith ;V but in these obscurities 
 I rather use it in the adjunct the Apostle gives 
 it, a buckler ; under which I conceive a wary 
 combatant may lie invulnerable. Since I was 
 of understanding to know we knew nothing, 
 my reason hath been more pliable to the will of 
 faith ;\I am now content to understand a mys- 
 tery without a rigid definition, in an easy and 
 Platonic description^ That allegorical descrip- 
 tion of Hermes,* pleaseth me beyond all the 
 metaphysical definitions of divines.^ Where I 
 cannot satisfy my reason I love to humor my 
 fancy. I had as lief you tell me that " anima est 
 angelus hominis, est corpus Dei,' 7 as " entele- 
 chia " ; " lux est umbra Dei/' as " actus perspi- 
 
 * Sphsera cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nullibi. 
 
22 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 cui." Where there is an obscurity too deep foi* 
 our reason, 't is good to sit down with a de- 
 scription, periphrasis, or adumbration ; for by 
 acquainting our reason how unable it is to dis- 
 play the visible and obvious effects of nature, L 
 it becomes more humble and submissive unto ) 
 the subtilties of faith ; and thus I teach my / 
 haggard and unreclaimed reason to stoop unto 
 the lure of Jfljth. I believe there was already 
 a tree whose fruit our unhappy parents tasted, 
 though in the same chapter when God forbids 
 it, 't is positively said, the plants of the fields 
 were not yet grown, for God had not caused 
 it to rain upon the earth. I believe that the 
 serpent, (if we shall literally understand it) 
 from his proper form and figure, made his mo- 
 tion on his belly before the curse. I find the 
 trial of the pucelage and virginity of women, 
 which God ordained the Jews, is very fallible. 
 Experience and history inform me, that not 
 only many particular women, but likewise 
 whole nations, have escaped the curse of child- 
 birth, which God seems to pronounce upon the 
 whole sex. Yet do I believe that all this is true, 
 which indeed my reason would persuade me to 
 ! be false ; w and this I think is no vulgar part of 
 faith, to believe a thing not only above, but 
 contrary to reason, and against the arguments 
 of our proper senses. \ 
 
 v 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 23 
 
 In my solitary and retired imagination, 
 (" neque enim cum porticus, aut me lectulus 
 accepit, desum mihi,") I remember I am not 
 alone, 'and therefore forget not to contem- 
 plate him and his attributes who is ever with 
 me, especially those two mighty ones, his 
 wisdom and eternity. With the one I recreate, 
 with the other I confound my understanding ; 
 for who can speak of eternity without a sole- 
 cism, or think thereof without an ecstasy? Time 
 we may comprehend ; 't is but five days elder 
 than ourselves, and hath the same horoscope 
 with the world ; but to retire so far back as to 
 apprehend a beginning, to give such an infinite 
 start forwards as to conceive an end in an es- 
 sence that we affirm hath neither the one nor 
 the other, it puts my reason to St. Paul's sanc- 
 tuary. My philosophy dares not say the angels 
 can do it ; God hath not made a creature that 
 can comprehend him ; 't is a privilege of his 
 own nature. " I am that I am," was his own 
 definition unto Moses ; and 't was a short one, 
 to confound mortality, that durst question God, 
 or ask him what he was. Indeed he^iinly_is ; all 
 others have and shall be. But in eternity there 
 is no distinction of tenses ; and therefore that 
 terrible term, " predestination," which hath trou- 
 bled so many weak heads to conceive, and the 
 wisest to explain, is in respect to God no pre- 
 
24 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 scious determination of our estates to come, but 
 a definitive blast of his will already fulfilled, 
 and at the instant that he first decreed it ; for 
 to his eternity, which is indivisible and all to- 
 c gether, the last trump is already sounded, the 
 reprobates in the flame, and the blessed in 
 Abraham's bosom. St. Peter speaks modestly, 
 when he saith, " A thousand years to God are 
 but as one day " ; for to speak like a philosopher, 
 those continued instances of time which flow 
 into a thousand years, make not to him one 
 moment. What to us is to come, to his eternity* 
 is present, his whole duration being but one 
 permanent point, without succession, parts, 
 flux, or division. 
 
 There is no attribute that adds more diffi- 
 culty to the mystery of the trinity, where, 
 though in a relative way of Father and Son, 
 we must deny a priority. I wonder how Ar- 
 istotle could conceive the world eternal, or 
 how he could make good two eternities.* His 
 imilitude of a triangle, comprehended in a 
 are, doth somewhat illustrate the trinity of 
 our souls, and that the triple unity of God ; for 
 there is in us not three, but a trinity of souls, 
 because there is in us, if not three distinct 
 souls, yet differing faculties, that can, and do 
 
 * That is, that God and the world were both eternal. 
 

 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 25 
 
 subsist apart in different subjects, and yet in us 
 are thus united as to make but one soul and 
 substance.\ If one soul were so perfect as to 
 inform three distinct bodies, that were a petty 
 trinity. Conceive the distinct number of three, 
 not divided nor separated by the intellect, but 
 actually comprehended in its unity, and that is 
 a perfect trinitv) I have often admired the 
 mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret 
 magic of numbers. " Beware of philosophy," is 
 a precept not to be received in too large a 
 sense ; for in this mass of nature there is a set 
 of things that carry in their front, though not 
 in capital letters, yet in stenography and short 
 characters, something of divinity ; which to 
 wiser reasons serve as luminaries in the abyss 
 of knowledge, and to judicious beliefs, as scales 
 and rundles to mount the pinnacles and highest 
 pieces of divinity. The severe schools shall 
 never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, 
 
 T that this visible world is but a picture of the 
 invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things are I, 
 not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they 
 counterfeit some real substance in that invisible 
 
 I'! fabric. *> 
 
 The other attribute wherewith I recreate 
 my devotion, is his wisdom, in which I am 
 
 I happy ; and for the contemplation of this 
 only, do not repent me that I was bred in the 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 way of study. The advantage I have of the 
 vulgar, with the content and happiness I con- 
 ceive therein, is an ample recompense for all 
 my endeavours, in what part of knowledge 
 soever. Wisdom is his most beauteous attri- 
 bute. No man can attain unto it ; yet Solomon 
 pleased God when he desired it. He is wise, 
 because he knows all things ; and he knoweth 
 all things, because he made them all : but Jiig, 
 / greatest knowledge is in ^ comprehending that] 
 ^ he made not, that is. himself. And this is also* 
 the greatest knowledge in man. For this do I 
 honor my own profession, and embrace the 
 counsel even of the devil himself. Had he read 
 such a lecture in paradise, as he did at Delphos,* 
 we had better known ourselves ; nor had we 
 stood in fear to know him. I know he is wise i 
 in all, wonderful in what we conceive, but far/ 
 more in what we comprehend not ; for we be- 
 hold him but asquint, upon reflex or shadow ; 
 our understanding is dimmer than Moses's eye ; 
 we are ignorant of the back parts or lower side 
 of his divinity. Therefore to pry into the maze 
 of his counsels, is not only folly in man, but 
 presumption even in angels. Like us they are 
 his servants, not his senators. He holds no ^ 
 council but that mystical one of the trinity ; < 
 
 Tvufa otaurov, Nosce teipsum. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 27 
 
 wherein, though there be three persons, there is 
 but one mind that decrees without contradic- 
 tion. Nor needs he any ; his actions are not 
 begot with deliberation ; his wisdom naturally 
 knows what J s best ; his intellect stands ready 
 fraught with the superlative and purest ideas of 
 goodness. Consultation and election, which are 
 two motions in us, make but one in him ; his L-- 
 action springing from his power, at the first 
 touch of his will. These are contemplations 
 metaphysical : my humble speculations have 
 another method "and are content to trace and 
 discover those expressions he hath left in his 
 creatures, and the obvious effects of jaature. 
 There is no danger to profound these, mysteries, 
 no " sanctum sanctorum " in pniloSophy. The 
 world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but 
 studied and contemplated by man : 't is the debt] 
 of our reason we owe unto God, and the homage] 
 we pay for not being beasts. Without this, the 
 world is still as though it had not been, or as it 
 was before the sixth day, when as yet there was 
 not a creature that could conceive, or say there 
 was a world. The wisdom of God receives 
 small honor from those vulgar heads that rudely 
 stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire 
 his works. Those highly magnify him, whose 
 judicious inquiry into his acts, and deliberate 
 research into his creatures, return the duty of 
 a devout and learned admiration. Therefore, 
 
28 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 Search while thou wilt, and let thy reason go 
 To ransom truth even to the abyss below j 
 Rally the scattered causes ; and that line 
 Which nature twists, be able to untwine. 
 It is thy Maker's will, for unto none 
 But unto reason can he e'er be known. 
 The devils do know thee, but those damned meteors 
 Build not thy glory, but confound thy creatures. 
 Teach my endeavours so thy works to read,i 
 That learning them in thee, I may proceed. I 
 Give thou my reason that instructive flight, 
 Whose weary wings may on thy hands still light. 
 Teach me so to soar aloft, yet ever so, \ 
 When near the sun to stoop again below. 
 Thus shall my humble feathers safely hover, 
 And though near earth, more than the heavens discover. 
 And then at last, when homeward I shall drive 
 y Rich with the spoils of nature to my hive, 
 There will I sit, like that industrious fly, 
 'Buzzing thy praises, which shall never die, 
 Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory 
 Bid me go on in a more lasting story. 
 
 And this is almost all wherein an humble 
 creature may endeavour to requite, and some 
 way to retribute unto his Creator : for if not he 
 that saith, Lord, Lord, but he that doth the will 
 of the Father, shall be saved ; certainly our 
 will must be our performances, and our intents 
 make out our actions ; otherwise our pious la- 
 bors shall find anxiety in our graves, and our 
 best endeavours not hope, but fear a resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 29 
 
 \ There is but one first cause, and four second 
 causes of all things. * Some are without effi- 
 cient, as God ; others without matter, as 
 angels ; some without form, as the first mat- 
 ter : but every essence, created or uncreated, 
 hath its final cause, and some positive end both 
 of its essence and operation. This is the cause 
 I grope after in the works of nature. On this 
 hangs the providence of God. To raise so 
 beauteous a structure, as the world and the 
 creatures thereof, was Jnit his art_T but their 
 sundry and divided operations, with their pre- 
 destinated ends^arjejrpjrrthe treasury of his wis- 
 dom.* In the causes, nature, and affections of 
 the eclipses of the sun and moon, there is most 
 excellent speculation ; but to profound farther, 
 and to contemplate a reason why his providence 
 hath so disposed and ordered their motions in 
 that vast circle, as to conjoin and obscure each 
 other, is a sweeter piece of reason, and a di- 
 viner point of philosophy. Therefore sometimes, 
 and in some things, there appears to me as 
 much divinity in Galen his books " de Usu Par- 
 tium," as in Suarez's metaphysics. Had Aristotle 
 been as curious in the inquiry of this cause as 
 he was of the other, he had not left behind 
 him an imperfect piece of philosophy, but an 
 absolute tract of divinity. 
 
30 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 " Natura nihil agit frustra," is the only in- 
 disputable axiom in philosophy. There are no 
 grotesques in nature ; not any thing fram- 
 ed to fill up empty cantons and unneces- 
 sary spaces. In the most imperfect creatures, 
 and such as were not preserved in the ark, but 
 having their seeds and principles in the womb 
 of nature, are every where, where the power 
 of the sun is ; in these is the wisdom of his { 
 hand discovered. Out of this rank Solomon 
 chose the object of his admiration. Indeed, what 
 reason may not go to school to the wisdom of 1 
 
 * 
 
 bees, ants, and spiders ? What wise hand teach- 
 eth them to do what reason cannot teach us ? 
 Ruder Jieads stand amazed at those prodigious 
 pieces of nature, whales, elephants, dromeda- 
 ries, and camels. These, I confess, are the colos- 
 suses and majestic pieces of her hand. But in 
 these narrow engines there is more curious 
 mathematics ; and the civility of these little 
 
 (citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdom of 
 their Maker, Who admires not Regiomonta- 
 nus his fly beyond his eagle, or wonders not 
 more at the operation of two souls in those lit- 
 tle bodies, than but one in the trunk of a cedar ? * 
 
 * Of these we find the following notice in Du Bartas, 
 as translated by Sylvester. 
 ' Why should I not that wooden eagle mention ? 
 
 (A learned German's late admired invention) 
 
 H 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 31 
 
 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 ; and have 
 studied to match and parallel those in the more 
 obvious and neglected pieces of nature, which*'' 
 without further travel I can do in the cosmog- 
 raphy of myself. We carry with us the wonders/ 
 we seek without us. There is all Africa ana 
 her prodigies in us. We are that bold and ad- \^ 
 venturous piece of nature, which he that stud* ' 
 ies wisely learns in a compendium, what others 
 labor at in a divided piece and endless vol- 
 ume, 
 
 Which mounting from his fist that framed her, 
 Flew far to meet an Almain'emperor ; 
 And having met him, with her nimble train, 
 And weary wings turning about again, 
 Followed him close unto the castle gate 
 Of Nuremberg ; whom all the shows of state > 
 Streets hung with arras, arches curious built, 
 Loud thundering cannons, columns richly gilt, 
 Gray-headed senate, and youth's gallantise, 
 Graced not so much as only this device. 
 Once as- this artist, more with mirth than meat> 
 Feasted some friends that he esteemed great, 
 From under 's hand an iron fly flew out, 
 Which having flown a perfect round about, 
 With weary wings return'd unto her master, 
 And (as judicious) on his arm she placed her.' v 
 
32 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 'Thus there are two books from whence I col- 
 lect my divinity ; besides that written one of 
 God, another of his servant Nature, that univer- 
 sal and public manuscript, that lies expansed 
 unto the eyes of alKThose that never saw him in 
 "the one, have discovered him in the other. This 
 was the scripture and theology of the heathens. 
 -The natural motion of the sun made them more 
 admire him, than its supernatural station did the 
 children of Israel. The ordinary effects of na- 
 ture wrought more admiration in them, than in 
 the other all his miracles. Surely the heathens 
 knew better how to join and read these mystical 
 letters, than we Christians, who cast a more 
 careless eye on these common hieroglyphics, and 
 disdain to suck divinity from the flowers of na- 
 ture. Nor do I so forget God as to adore the 
 name of Nature ; which I define not with the 
 schools, to be the principle of motion and rest, 
 but that straight and regular line, that settled and 
 constant course the wisdom of God hath ordain- 
 ed the actions of his creatures, according to their 
 several kinds. To make a revolution every 
 day, is the nature of the sun, because of that 
 necessary course which God hath ordained it, 
 from which it cannot swerve, by a faculty from 
 that voice which first did give it motion. Now 
 this course of nature God seldom alters or per- 
 verts ; but, like an excellent artist, hath so con- 
 
Yt L 
 
 THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 33 
 
 _ 
 
 trived his work, that with the self-same instru- 
 ment, without a new creation, he may effect his 
 obscurest designs. Thus he sweeteneth the 
 water with a wood, preserveth the creatures in 
 the ark, which the blast of*' his mouth might 
 have as easily created ; for God is like a skil- 
 ful geometrician, who when more easily, and 
 with one stroke of his compass, he might de- 
 scribe or divide a right line, had yet rather do 
 this in a circle or longer way, according to 
 the constituted and fore-laid principles of his 
 art. Yet this rule of his he doth sometimes 
 pervert, to acquaint the world with his preroga- 
 tive, lest the arrogancy of our reason should 
 question his power, and conclude he could not. 
 And thus I call the effects of nature the works 
 of God, whose hand and instrument she only 
 is ; and therefore to ascribe his actions unto 
 her, is to devolve the honor of the principal 
 agent, upon the instrument ; which if with rea- 
 son we may do, then let our hammers rise up and 
 boast they have built our houses, and our pens 
 receive the honor of our writings.' I hold there 
 is a general beauty in the works of God, and 
 therefore no deformity in any kind or spe- 
 cies of creature whatsoever.? I cannot tell by 
 what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant 
 ugly, they being created in those outward shapes 
 and figures which best express those actions of 
 3 
 
34 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 their inward forms ; and having passed that gen- 
 eral visitation of God, who saw that all that he had 
 made was good, that is, conformable to his will, 
 which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order 
 and beauty. There is no deformity but in mon- 
 strosity, wherein notwithstanding there is a kind 
 of beauty ; nature so ingeniously contriving 
 the irregular parts, as they become sometimes 
 more remarkable than the principal fabric. To 
 speak yet more narrowly, there was never any 
 
 ^ thing ugly or misshapen, but the chaos; where- 
 in notwithstanding, to speak strictly, there was 
 no deformity, because no form ; nor was it yet 
 impregnate by the voice of God. Now nature x 
 is not at variance with art, nor art with nature ; 
 they being both servants of his providence. 
 
 S 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 brief, all things are artificial ; for 
 nature is the art of God.* 
 
 This is the ordinary and open way of his 
 providence, which art and industry have in a 
 good part discovered, whose effects we may 
 foretell without an oracle. To foreshow these, 
 is not prophecy, but prognostication. There is 
 
 *" Nature," says Hobbes in his Leviathan, " is the art 
 whereby God governs the world." 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 35 
 
 another way full of meanders and labyrinths, 
 whereof the devil and spirits have no exact 
 ephemerides, and that is a more particular and 
 obscure method of his providence, directing 
 the operations of individuals and single essen- 
 ces. 'This we call fortune, that serpentine and 
 crooked line, whereby he draws those actions 
 his wisdom intends in a more unknown and 
 secret way. % This cryptic and involved method 
 of his providence have I ever admired ; nor can 
 I relate the history of my life, the occurrences 
 of my days, the escapes of dangers and hits of 
 chance, with a " Beso las manos" to fortune, or 
 a bare gramercy to my good stars. Abraham 
 might have thought the ram in the thicket came 
 thither by accident. Human reason would 
 have said, that mere chance conveyed Moses in 
 the ark to the sight of Pharaoh's daughter. 
 What a labyrinth is there in the story of Joseph, 
 able to convert a Stoic ! Surely there are in 
 every man's life certain rubs, doublings, and 
 wrenches, which pass a while under the effects 
 of chance, but at the last, well examined, prove 
 the mere hand of God. 'T was not dumb 
 chance, that to discover the fougade or powder- 
 plot, contrived a miscarriage in the letter. I 
 like the victory of '88 the better, for that one 
 occurrence which our enemies imputed to our 
 dishonor and the partiality of fortune, to wit, 
 
86 RULIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 the tempests and contrariety of winds. King 
 Philip did not detract from the nation, when he 
 said he sent his armada to fight with men, and 
 not to combat with the winds. Where there is a 
 manifest disproportion between the powers and 
 forces of two several agents, upon a maxim of 
 reason, we may promise the victory to the supe- 
 rior ; but when unexpected accidents slip in, 
 and unthought-of occurrences intervene, these 
 must proceed from a power that owes no obedi- 
 ence to those axioms ; where, as in the writ- 
 ing upon the wall, we may behold the hand but 
 see not the spring that moves it. The success 
 of that petty province of Holland (of which the 
 Grand Seignior proudly said, if they should 
 trouble him as they did the Spaniard, he would 
 send his men with shovels and pickaxes, and 
 throw it into the sea) I cannot altogether as- 
 cribe to the ingenuity and industry of the peo- 
 ple, but the mercy of God, that hath disposed 
 them to such a thriving genius ; and to the will 
 of his Providence, that disposeth her favor to 
 each country in their preordinate season. * All 
 cannot be happy at once ; for because the glory 
 of one state depends upon the ruin of another, 
 there is a revolution and vicissitude of their 
 greatness, and must obey the swing of that 
 wheel, not moved by intelligences, but by the 
 hand of God, whereby all estates arise to their 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 37 
 
 zenith and vertical points, according to their 
 predestinated periods! For the lives, not only 
 of men, but of commonwealths, and the whole 
 world, run not upon a helix that still enlargeth, 
 but on a circle, where, arriving to their meridi- 
 an, they decline in obscurity, and fall under the 
 horizon again. 
 
 r These must not therefore be named the 
 effects of fortune, but in a relative way, and as 
 we term the works of nature.* It was the igno- 
 rance of man's reason that begat this very 
 name, and by a careless term miscalled the 
 providence of God. For there is no liberty for 
 causes to operate in a loose and straggling way ; 
 nor any effect whatsoever, but hath its warrant 
 from some universal or superior cause. 7 T is 
 not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before 
 a game at tables ; for even in sortileges and 
 matters of greatest uncertainty, there is a set^ 
 tied and preordered course of effects. It is we 
 that are blind, not fortune. Because our eye 
 is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, 
 we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the 
 providence of the Almighty. I cannot justify 
 that contemptible proverb, that fools only are 
 fortunate; or that insolent paradox, that a 
 wise man is out of the reach of fortune; much 
 less those opprobrious epithets of poets, whore, 
 bawd, and strumpet. 'T is, I confess, the com- 
 
38 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 mon fate of men of singular gifts of mind, to be 
 destitute of those of fortune ; which doth not 
 any way deject the spirit of wiser judgments, 
 who thoroughly understand the justice of this 
 proceeding ; and being enriched with higher 
 donatives, cast a more careless eye on these 
 vulgar parts of felicity. It is a most unjust 
 ambition to desire to engross the mercies of 
 the Almighty, not to be content with the goods 
 of mind, without a possession of those of body 
 or fortune ; and it is an error worse than heresy, 
 to adore these complemental and circumstantial 
 pieces of felicity, and undervalue those perfec- 
 tions and essential points of happiness, wherein 
 we resemble our Maker. To wiser desires it is 
 satisfaction enough to deserve, though not to 
 enjoy, the favors of fortune ; let Providence 
 provide for fools. *T is not partiality, but equity 
 in God, who deals with us but as our natural 
 parents. Those that are able of body and mind, 
 he leaves to their deserts ; to those of weaker 
 merits he imparts a larger portion, and pieces 
 out the defect of one, by the excess of the other. 
 Thus have we no just quarrel with nature, for 
 leaving us naked ; or to envy the horns, hoofs, 
 < skins, and furs of other creatures, being pro- 
 vided with reason, that can supply them all. 
 We need not labor with so many arguments to 
 confute judicial astrology ; for if there be a 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 39 
 
 truth therein, it doth not injure divinity. If to 
 be born under Mercury disposeth us to be witty, 
 under Jupiter to be wealthy ; I do not owe a 
 knee unto these, but unto that merciful hand 
 that hath ordered my indifferent and uncertain 
 nativity unto such benevolous aspects/ Those 
 that hold that all things are governed by fortune, 
 had not erred, had they not persisted there. 
 The Romans, that erected a temple to fortune, 
 acknowledged therein, though in a blinder way, 
 somewhat of divinity ;*for in a wise supputa- 
 tion all things begin and end in the Almighty. 
 There is a nearer way to heaven than Homer's 
 chain ; an easy logic may conjoin heaven and 
 earth in one argument, and with less than a 
 sorites resolve all things into God. " For though! 
 we christen effects by their most sensible and' 
 nearest causes, yet is God the true and infalli- ^ 
 ble cause of all ; whose concourse, though it be 
 general, yet doth it subdivide itself into the 
 particular actions of every thing, and is that 
 spirit, by which each singular essence not only 
 subsists, but performs its operation. 
 
 The bad construction and perverse comment 
 on these pair of second causes, or visible hands 
 of God, have perverted the devotion of many 
 unto atheism ; who, forgetting the honest advi- 
 soes of faith, have listened unto the conspiracy 
 of passion and reason. I have therefore always 
 
. 
 
 40 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 endeavoured to compose those feuds and angry 
 dissensions between affection, faith, and reason ; 
 for there is in our soul a kind of triumvirate, 
 or triple government of three competitors, 
 which distract the peace of this our common- 
 wealth, not less than did that other the state of 
 Rome. 
 
 ' * As reason is a rebel unto faith, so passion 
 unto reason.v As the propositions of faith seem 
 absurd unto' reason, so the theorems of reason 
 unto passion, and both unto reason. Yet a 
 moderate and peaceable discretion may so state 
 and order the matter, that they may be all kings, 
 and yet make but one monarchy, every one 
 exercising his sovereignty and prerogative in a 
 due time and place, according to the restraint 
 and limit of circumstance. There is, as in 
 philosophy, so in divinity, sturdy doubts, and 
 boisterous objections, wherewith the unhappi- 
 
 , ness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth 
 us. More of these no man hath known than 
 myself ; which I confess I conquered not in a 
 martial posture, but on my knees. For our" 
 endeavours are not only to combat with doubts, 
 but always to dispute with the devil. x The vil- 
 lany of that spirit takes a hint of infidelity 
 from our studies, and by demonstrating a natu- 
 rality in one way, makes us mistrust a miracle 
 in another. Thus having perused the archi- 
 
\ 
 
 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 41 
 
 doxes and read the secret sympathies of things, 
 he would dissuade my belief from the miracle 
 of the brazen serpent, make me conceit that 
 image worked by sympathy, and was but an 
 Egyptian trick to cure their diseases without a 
 miracle. Again, having seen some experiments 
 of bitumen, and having read far more of naph- 
 tha, he whispered to my curiosity the fire of the 
 altar might be natural, and bid me mistrust a 
 miracle in Elias, when he entrenched the altar 
 round with water ; * for that inflammable 
 substance yields not easily unto water, but 
 flames in the arms of its antagonist. And thus 
 would he inveigle my belief to think the com- 
 bustion of Sodom might be natural, and that 
 there was an asphaltic and bituminous nature 
 in that lake before the fire of Gomorrah. I 
 know that manna is now plentifully gathered in 
 Calabria ; and Josephus tells me, in his days it 
 was plentiful in Arabia. The devil therefore 
 made the query, Where was then the miracle 
 in the days of Moses ? the Israelite saw but 
 that in his time, the natives of those countries 
 behold in ours. * Thus the devil played at chess 
 with me, and yielding a pawn, thought to gain a 
 queen of me, taking advantage of my honest 
 endeavours ; and whilst I labored to raise the 
 
 * 1 Kings, xviii. 
 
42 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 structure of my reason, he strived to undermine 
 the edifice of my faith. 
 
 Neither had these or any other ever such 
 advantage of me, as to incline me to any point 
 of infidelity or desperate positions of atheism ; 
 for I have been these many years of opinion 
 there was never any. * Those that held religion 
 was the difference of man from beasts, have 
 spoken probably, and proceed upon a principle 
 as inductive as the other. x That doctrine of 
 Epicurus, that denied the providence of God, 
 was no atheism, but a magnificent and high- 
 strained conceit of his majesty, which he deem- 
 ed too sublime to mind the trivial actions of 
 those inferior creatures. That fatal necessity 
 of the Stoics, is nothing but the immutable law 
 of his will. Those that heretofore denied the 
 divinity of the Holy Ghost, have been con- 
 demned, but as heretics ; and those that now 
 deny our Saviour (though more than heretics) 
 are not so much as atheists ; for though they 
 deny two persons in the trinity, they hold as 
 we do, there is but one God. 
 
 That villain and secretary of hell, that com- 
 posed that miscreant piece of the Three Impos- 
 tors, though divided from all religions, and was 
 neither Jew, Turk, nor Christian, was not a 
 positive atheist. I confess every country hath 
 its Machiavel, every age its Lucian, whereof 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 43 
 
 common heads must not hear, nor more ad- 
 vanced judgments too rashly venture on. It is 
 the rhetoric of Satan, and may pervert a loose or 
 prejudicate belief. 
 
 3 I confess I have perused them all, and can 
 discover nothing that may startle a discreet be- 
 lief; yet are there heads carried off with the wind 
 and breath of such motives. I remember a doc- 
 tor in physic of Italy, who could not perfectly be- 
 lieve the immortality of the soul, because Galen 
 seemed to make a doubt thereof. With another 
 I was familiarly acquainted in France, a divine, 
 and a man of singular parts, that on the same 
 point was so plunged and gravelled with three 
 lines of Seneca,* that all our antidotes, drawn 
 from both Scripture and philosophy, could not 
 expel the poison of his error. There are a set 
 of heads, that can credit the relations of mari- 
 ners, yet question the testimonies of St. Paul ; 
 and peremptorily maintain the traditions of 
 ^Elian or Pliny, yet in histories of Scripture 
 raise queries and objections, believing no more 
 than they can parallel in human authors. I 
 confess there are in Scripture, stories that do 
 exceed the fables of poets, and to a captious 
 
 * Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. Mors 
 individua est, noxia corpori, nee patiens aniinae. Toti 
 morimur, nullaque pars manet nostri. 
 
44 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 ^ 
 
 reader sound like Garagantua or Bevis. Search 
 all the legends of times past, and the fabulous 
 conceits of these present, and 't will be hard to 
 find one that deserves to carry the buckler unto 
 Sampson ; yet is all this of an easy possibility, 
 if we conceive a divine concourse, or an influ- 
 ence from the little finger of the Almighty. It 
 is impossible that either in the discourse of 
 man, or in the infallible voice of God, to the 
 weakness of our apprehensions, there should 
 not appear irregularities, contradictions, and 
 antinomies. Myself could show a catalogue of 
 doubts, never yet imagined nor questioned, as 
 I know, which are not resolved at the first hear- 
 ing ; not fantastic queries, or objections of air ;. 
 for I cannot hear of atoms in divinity. I can 
 read the history of the pigeon that was sent out 
 of the ark, and returned no more, yet not 
 question how she found out her mate that was 
 left behind ; that Lazarus was raised from the 
 dead, yet not demand where in the interim his 
 soul awaited ; or raise a law-case, whether his 
 heir might lawfully detain his inheritance be- 
 queathed unto him by his death, and he, though 
 restored to life, have no plea or title unto his 
 former possessions. Whether Eve was framed 
 out of the left side of Adam, I dispute not ; 
 because I stand not yet assured which is the 
 right side of a man, or whether there be any 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 45 
 
 such distinction in nature. That she was edified 
 out of the rib of Adam, I believe, yet raise no 
 question who shall arise with that rib at the 
 resurrection. Whether Adam was an hermaph- 
 rodite, as the Rabbins contend upon the let- 
 ter of the text, because it is contrary to reason 
 there should be an hermaphrodite before there 
 was a woman, or a composition of two natures, 
 before there was a second composed. Likewise, 
 whether the world was created in autumn, 
 summer, or the spring, because it was created 
 in them all ; for whatsoever sign the sun pos- 
 sesseth, those four seasons are actually existent. 
 It is the nature of this luminary to distinguish 
 the several seasons of the year, all which it 
 makes at one time in the whole earth, and suc- 
 cessively in any part thereof. There are a 
 bundle of curiosities, not only in philosophy, 
 but in divinity, proposed and discussed by men 
 of most supposed abilities, which indeed are 
 not worthy our vacant hours, much less our se- 
 rious studies ; pieces only fit to be placed in 
 PantagrueFs library,* or bound up with " Tarta- 
 retus de modo cacandi." 
 
 These are niceties that become not those 
 that pursue so serious a mystery. There are 
 others more generally questioned and called to 
 
 * In Rabelais. 
 
46 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 the bar, yet methinks of an easy and possible 
 truth. 
 
 'T is ridiculous to put off or down the gen- 
 eral flood of Noah, in that particular inunda- 
 tion of Deucalion. That there was a deluge 
 once, seems not to me so great a miracle, as 
 that there is not one always. How all the 
 kinds of creatures, not only in their own bulks, 
 but with a competency of food and sustenance, 
 might be preserved in one ark, and within the 
 extent of three hundred cubits, to a reason that 
 rightly examines it, will appear very feasible. 
 There is another secret not contained in the 
 Scripture, which is more hard to comprehend, 
 and put the honest Father* to the refuge of a 
 miracle ; and that is, not only how the distinct 
 pieces of the world, and divided islands, should 
 be first planted by men, but inhabited by tigers, 
 panthers, and bears. How America abounded 
 with beasts of prey and noxious animals, yet 
 contained not in it that necessary creature, a 
 horse, is very strange. By what passage those, 
 not only birds, but dangerous and unwelcome 
 beasts came over ; how there be creatures 
 there, which are not found in this triple con- 
 tinent ; all which must needs be strange unto 
 us, that hold but one ark, and that the creatures 
 
 t Augustan. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 47 
 
 began their progress from the mountains of 
 Ararat. They who, to save this, would make 
 the deluge particular, proceed upon a principle 
 that I can no way grant ; not only upon the 
 negative of holy Scriptures, but of mine own 
 reason, whereby I can make it probable, that 
 the world was as well peopled in the time of 
 Noah, as in ours ; and fifteen hundred years 
 to people the world, as full a time for them, as 
 four thousand years since have been to us. 
 There are other assertions and common tenents 
 drawn from Scripture, and generally believed N 
 as Scripture, whereunto, notwithstanding, I 
 would never betray the liberty of my reason. 
 'T is a paradox to me, that Methusalem was 
 the longest lived of all the children of Adam, 
 and no man will be able to prove it ; when from 
 the process of the text, I can manifest it may 
 be otherwise. That Judas perished by hanging 
 himself, there is no certainty in Scripture ; 
 though in one place it seems to affirm it, and 
 by a doubtful word hath given occasion to 
 translated; yet in another place, in a more 
 punctual description, it makes it improbable, 
 and seems to overthrow it.* That our fathers, 
 
 * Matthew xxvii, 5; Acts i. 18. The doubtful word he 
 speaks of is in Matthew ; it is uvrj'y&ro, which signifieth 
 suffocation as well as hanging ; dvr&xdav a^'yi*' which 
 may signify literally, "after he went out he was choaked." 
 
48 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 after the flood, erected the tower of Babel, to 
 preserve themselves against a second deluge, is 
 generally opinioned and believed, yet is there 
 another intention of theirs expressed in Scrip- 
 ture. Besides, it is improbable from the cir- 
 cumstance of the place, that is, a plain in the 
 land of Shinar. These are no points of faith, 
 \ and therefore may admit a free dispute. There 
 are yet others, and those familiarly concluded 
 from the text, wherein (under favor) I see no 
 consequence. The Church of Rome confidently 
 proves the opinion of tutelary angels, from that 
 answer when Peter knocked at the door ; " J T is 
 not he, but his angel ; " that is, might some 
 say, his messenger, or some body from him ; 
 for so the original signifies ; and is as likely to 
 be the doubtful family's meaning. This expo- 
 sition I once suggested to a young divine, that 
 answered upon this point ; to which I remem- 
 ber the Franciscan opponent replied no more 
 but that it was a new and no authentic inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 These are but the conclusions and fallible 
 discourses of man upon the word of God, for 
 such I do believe the holy Scriptures ; yet were" 
 it of man, I could not choose but say, it was 
 the most singular and superlative piece that hath 
 been extant since the creation. \Were I a Pagan, 
 I should not refrain the lecture of it ; and can- 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 49 
 
 not bat commend the judgment of Ptolemy, 
 that thought not his library complete without 
 it. The Alcoran of the Turks (I speak with- 
 out prejudice) is an ill-composed piece, con- 
 taining in it vain and ridiculous errors in phi- 
 losophy, impossibilities, fictions, and vanities 
 beyond laughter, maintained by evident and 
 open sophisms, the policy of ignorance, de- 
 position of universities, and banishment of learn- 
 ing ; that hath gotten foot by arms and violence. 
 This, without a blow, hath disseminated itself 
 through the whole earth. It is not unremark- 
 able what Philo first observed, that the law of 
 Moses continued two thousand years without 
 the least alteration ; whereas, we see the laws of 
 other commonweals do alter with occasions ; and 
 even those, that pretended their original from 
 some divinity, to have vanished without trace 
 or memory. I believe, besides Zoroaster, there 
 were divers others that writ before Moses, who, 
 notwithstanding, have suffered the common fate 
 of time. * Men's works have an age like them- 
 selves ; and though they outlive their authors, 
 yet have they a stint and period to their duration. \ 
 1 This only is a work too hard for the teeth of time, 
 and cannot perish but in the general flames, 
 when all things shall confess their ashes. , 
 
 I have heard some with deep sighs lament 
 the lost lines of Cicero ; others with as many 
 4 
 
50 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 groans deplore the combustion of the library 
 of Alexandria. For my own part, I think there 
 be too many in the world, and could with pa- 
 tience behold the urn and ashes of the Vatican, 
 could I, with a few others, recover the perished 
 leaves of Solomon. I would not omit a copy 
 of Enoch's pillars, had they many nearer au- 
 thors than Josephus, or did not relish somewhat 
 of the fable. * Some men have written more 
 than others have spoken. Pineda quotes more 
 authors in one work, than are necessary in a 
 whole world. t Of those three great inventions 
 in Germany, there are twoj which are not with- 
 out their incommodities, and 't is disputable 
 whether they exceed not their use and commo- 
 
 * The story is, that Enoch, or his father Seth, having 
 been informed by Adam that the world was to perish 
 once by water, and a second time by fire, caused two 
 pillars to be erected, the one of stone against the water, 
 and another of brick against the fire ; and that upon 
 those pillars was engraven all such learning as had been 
 delivered to, or invented by mankind ; and that thence 
 it came that all knowledge and learning was not lost by 
 means of the flood, by reason that one of the pillars 
 (though the other perished) did remain after the flood ; 
 and Josephus witnesseth, till his time. Jewish Antiqui- 
 ties, Book I. ch. 3. 
 
 t Pineda, in his " Monarchia Ecclesiastica, " quotes 
 one thousand and forty authors. 
 
 I Printing and gunpowder. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 51 
 
 dities. ; T is not a melancholy "Utinam 33 of my 
 own, but the desires of better heads, that there 
 were a general synod ; not to unite the incom- 
 patible difference of religion, but for the benefit^ 
 of learning, to reduce it as it lay at first, in a J 
 \few and solid authors; and to condemn to the f 
 fire those swarms and millions of rhapsodies, 
 begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker '(/ 
 judgments of scholars, and to maintain the 
 trade and mystery of typographers. 
 
 I cannot but wonder with what exception the 
 Samaritans could confine their belief to the 
 Pentateuch, or five books' of Moses. I am 
 ashamed at the Rabbinical interpretation of the 
 Jews upon the Old Testament, as much as their 
 defection from the New. And truly it is be- 
 yond wonder, how that contemptible and de- 
 generate issue of Jacob, once so devoted to 
 Ethnic superstition, and so easily seduced to 
 the idolatry of their neighbours, should now, in 
 such an obstinate and peremptory belief, ad- 
 here unto their own doctrine, expect impossi- 
 bilities, and, in the face and eye of the church, 
 persist without the least hope of conversion. \ , 
 This is a vice in them, that were a virtue in J 
 us ; for obstinacy in a bad cause, is but con- 
 stancy in a good. ^And herein I must accuse 
 those of my own religion ; for there is not any 
 of such a fugitive faith, such an unstable be- 
 
62 RELIGIO MEDICT. 
 
 lief, as a Christian ; none that do so oft trans* 
 form themselves, not unto several shapes of 
 Christianity and of the same species, but unto 
 more unnatural and contrary fcr ms of Jew and 
 Mahometan ; that from the name of Saviour, 
 can condescend to the bare term of prophet ; 
 and from an old belief that he is come, fall to a 
 new expectation of his coming. It is the 
 promise of Christ to make us all one flock ; but 
 how and when this union shall be, is as obscure 
 to me as the last day. / Of those four members 
 of religion we hold a slender proportion. There 
 are, I confess, some new additions, yet small to 
 those which accrue to our adversaries, and those 
 only drawn from the revolt of Pagans, men but 
 of negative impieties, and such as deny Christ, 
 but because they never heard of him. / But the 
 religion of the Jew is expressly against the 
 Christian, and the Mahometan against both./ 
 For the Turk, in the bulk he now stands, he is 
 beyond all hope of conversion. If he fall asun- 
 der, there may be conceived hopes, but not 
 without strong improbabilities. The Jew is 
 obstinate in all fortunes ; the persecution of 
 fifteen hundred years hath but confirmed them 
 in their error. They have already endured 
 whatsoever may be inflicted, and have suffered, 
 
 in a bad cause, even to the condemnation of 
 
 \ 
 their enemies. Persecution is a bad and indirect 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 53 
 
 t 
 
 way to plant religion. It hath been the unhap- 
 py-TfieTIiod ot aUgry devotions, not only to con- 
 firm honest religion, but wicked heresies, and 
 extravagant op.'.aions. It was the first stone 
 and basis of our faith. None can more justly 
 boast of persecutions, and glory in the number 
 and valor of martyrs ; for, to speak properly, 
 those are true and almost only examples of for* 
 titude. Those that are fetched from the field, 
 or drawn from the actions of the camp, are not 
 ofttimes so truly precedents of valor as audaci- 
 ty, and at the best attain but to some bastard 
 piece of fortitude. If we shall strictly examine 
 the circumstances and requisites which Aris- 
 totle requires to true and perfect valor, we shall 
 find the name only in his master Alexander, 
 and as little in that Roman worthy, Julius Cae- 
 sar ; and if any, in that easy and active way, 
 have done so nobly as to deserve that name, 
 yet in the passive and more terrible piece these 
 have surpassed, and in a more heroical way 
 may claim the honor of that title. ; T is not in 
 the power of every honest faith to proceed thus 
 far, or pass to heaven through the flames. ^ Ev- 
 ery one hath it not in that full measure, nor in 
 so audacious and resolute a temper, as to endure 
 those terrible tests and trials ; who notwith- 
 standing, in a peaceable way, do truly adore 
 their Saviour, and have, no doubt, a faith ac 
 ceptabje in the eyes of God,/ 
 
54 REL1GIO MEDICI. 
 
 Now as all that die in the war are not termed 
 soldiers ; so neither can I properly term all 
 those that suffer in matters of religion, martyrs. 
 The council of Constance condemns John Huss 
 for a heretic. The stories of his own party 
 style him a martyr. He must need offend the 
 divinity of both, that says he was neither the 
 one nor the other. There are many, question- 
 less, canonized on earth, that shall never be 
 saints in heaven ; and have their names in his- 
 tories and martyrologies, who, in the eyes of 
 God, are not so perfect martyrs, as was the wise 
 heathen Socrates, that suffered on a fundamen- 
 tal point of religion, the unity of God. I have 
 often pitied the miserable bishop that suffered 
 in the cause of antipodes ; * yet cannot choose 
 but accuse him of as much madness, for expos- 
 ing his living on such a trifle, as those of ig- 
 norance and folly, that condemned him. I think 
 my conscience will not give me the lie, if I 
 say there are not many extant that in a noble 
 way fear the face of death less than myself; 
 yet from the moral duty I owe to the command- 
 ment of God, and the natural respects that I 
 tender unto the conservation of my essence and 
 being, I would not perish upon a ceremony, 
 
 * The suffering was, that he lost his bishopric for deny- 
 ing the antipodes. 
 
, 
 
 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 55 
 
 politic points, or indifferency. x Nor is my belief 
 of that untractable temper, as not to bow at 
 their obstacles, or connive at matters wherein 
 there are not manifest impieties. The leaven 
 therefore and ferment of all, not only civil, but 
 religious actions, is wisdom ; without which, to 
 commit ourselves to the flames, is homicide, 
 and, I fear, but to pass though one fire into 
 another. , 
 
 1 That miracles are ceased, I can neither 
 prove, nor absolutely deny >; much less define 
 the time and period of their cessation. That 
 they survived Christ, is manifest upon the re- 
 cord of Scripture ; that they outlived the Apos- 
 tles also, and were revived at the conversion of 
 nations, many years after, we cannot deny, if 
 we shall not question those writers whose testi- 
 monies we do not controvert in points that 
 make for our own opinions. Therefore that may 
 have some truth in it that is reported by the 
 Jesuits of their miracles in the Indies. I could 
 wish it were true, or had any other testimony 
 than their own pens. They may easily believe 
 those miracles abroad, who daily conceive a 
 greater at home, the transmutation of those 
 visible elements into the body and blood of our 
 Saviour. For the conversion of water into 
 wine, which he wrought in Cana, or, what the 
 devil would have had him done in the wilder- 
 
56 RELIGIO MEDICf. 
 
 ness, of stones into bread, compared with this 
 will scarce deserve the name of a miracle. 
 Though indeed, to speak properly, there is not 
 
 ^ one miracle greater than another, they being the 
 extraordinary effects of the hand of God, to 
 which all things are of an equal facility, and 
 to create the world as easy as one single crea- 
 ture, i For this is also a miracle, not only to 
 produce effects against, or above nature, but 
 before nature ; and to create nature as great a 
 miracle, as to contradict or transcend her. We 
 do too narrowly define the power of God, re- 
 straining it to our capacities. I hold that God 
 can do all things. How he should work contra- 
 dictions I do not understand, yet dare not 
 therefore deny. I cannot see why the angel of 
 God should question Esdras to recall the time 
 past, if it were beyond his own power ; or that 
 God should pose mortality in that, which he 
 was not able to perform himself. I will not 
 say God cannot, but he will not perform many 
 things, which we plainly affirm he cannot. 
 This I am sure is the mannerliest proposition, 
 wherein, notwithstanding, I hold no paradox. 
 For strictly his power is the same with his will, 
 and they both with all the rest do make but 
 one God. 
 
 Therefore that miracles have been, I do be- 
 
 L\ lieve ; that they may yet be wrought by the 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 57 
 
 living, I do not deny ; but have no confidence 
 in those which are fathered on the dead ; and 
 this hath ever made me suspect the efficacy of 
 relics, to examine the bones, question the 
 habits and appurtenances of saints, and even of 
 Christ himself. I cannot conceive why the 
 cross that Helena found, and whereon Christ 
 himself died, should have power to restore 
 others to life. I excuse not Constantine from 
 a fall off his horse, or a mischief from his ene- 
 mies, upon the wearing those nails on his bridle 
 which our Saviour bore upon the cross in his 
 hands. * I compute among " piae fraudes," nor 
 many degrees before consecrated swords and 
 roses, that which Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, 
 returned the Genovese for their cost and pains 
 in his war, to wit, the ashes of John the Baptist. 
 Those that hold the sanctity of their souls doth 
 leave behind a tincture and sacred faculty on 
 their bodies, speak naturally of miracles, and 
 do not salve the doubt. Now one reason I 
 tender so little devotion unto relics is, I think, 
 the slender and doubtful respect I have always 
 held unto antiquities. For that indeed which I 
 admire is far before antiquity, that is, eternity ; 
 and that is God himself; j who, though he be 
 styled the ancient of days, cannot receive the 
 adjunct of antiquity ; who was before the world, 
 and shall be after it, yet is not older than it ; 
 
58 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 for in his years there is no climacter ; his du- 
 ration is eternity, and far more venerable than 
 antiquity. 
 
 But above all things I wonder how the curi- 
 osity of wiser heads could pass that great and 
 indisputable miracle, the cessation of oracles ; 
 and in what swoon their reasons lay, to content 
 themselves, and sit down with such a far-fetch- 
 ed and ridiculous reason as Plutarch allegeth 
 for it. The Jews that can believe the super- 
 natural solstice of the sun in the days of Joshua, 
 have yet the impudence to deny the eclipse, 
 which every Pagan confessed, at his death. But 
 for this, it is evident beyond contradiction, the 
 devil himself confessed it.* Certainly it is not 
 a warrantable curiosity, to examine the verity 
 of Scripture by the concordance of human 
 history, or seek to confirm the chronicle of 
 Esther or Daniel, by the authority of Megasthe- 
 nes or Herodotus. I confess I have had an 
 unhappy curiosity this way, till I laughed my- 
 self out of it with a piece of Justin, where he 
 delivers that the children of Israel, for being 
 scabbed, were banished out of Egypt.t And 
 
 * In his oracle to Augustus. 
 
 t The words of Justin are, " Sed ^Egyptii, cum scabiem 
 et vitiliginem paterentur, response moniti, eum (sc. Moy- 
 sen) cum aegris, ne pestis ad plures serperet, terminis 
 i pellunt." Lib. 3G. But he is not singular in this, 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 59 
 
 truly since I have understood the occurrences 
 of the world, and know in what counterfeit 
 shapes and deceitful vizards times present 
 represent on the stage things past, I do believe 
 them little more than things to come. Some 
 have been of my opinion, and endeavoured to 
 write the history of their own lives ; wherein 
 Moses hath outgone them all, and left not only 
 the story of his life, but as some will have it, 
 of his death also. 
 
 It is a riddle to me, how this story of oracles 
 hath not wormed out of the world that doubtful 
 conceit of spirits and witches ; how so many 
 learned heads should so far forget their meta- 
 physics, and destroy the ladder and scale of 
 creatures, as to question the existence of spirits. O 
 For my part, I have ever believed, and do now 
 know, that there are witches. They that doubt 
 of these do not only deny them, but spirits ; 
 and are obliquely and upon consequence a sort 
 not of infidels, but atheists. Those that to 
 confute their incredulity desire to see appari- 
 tions, shall questionless never behold any, nor 
 
 for Tacitus tells us, Hist. lib. 5, " Plurimi auctores consen- 
 tiunt, orta per^Egyptum tabe, quae corpora fcedaret, re- 
 gem Bocchorim " (he means Pharaoh), " adito Hammonis 
 oraculo, remedium petentem, purgare regnum et id genus 
 
 hominum alias in terras avehere jussum." Et paulo 
 
 inferius, " Qua ipsos scabies quondam turpaverat." 
 
60 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 have the power to be so much as witches. The 
 devil hath them already in a heresy as capital 
 as witchcraft ; and to appear to them, were but 
 to convert them. Of all the delusions where- 
 with he deceives mortality, there is riot any 
 that puzzleth me more than the legerdemain 
 of changelings. I do not credit those transfor- 
 mations of reasonable creatures into beasts, or 
 that the devil hath a power to transpeciate a 
 man into a horse, who tempted \3hrist (as a 
 trial of his divinity) to convert but stones into 
 bread. I could believe that spirits use with 
 man the act of carnality, and that in both sexes ; 
 I conceive they may assume, steal, or contrive 
 a body, wherein there may be action enough to 
 content decrepit lust, or passion to satisfy more 
 active veneries ; yet in both, without a possi- 
 bility of generation ; and therefore that Anti- 
 christ should be born of the tribe of Dan, by 
 conjunction with the devil, is ridiculous, and a 
 conceit fitter for a Rabbin than a Christian. I 
 hold that the devil doth really possess some 
 men ; the spirit of melancholy others ; the 
 spirit of delusion others ; that as the devil is 
 concealed and denied by some, so God and 
 good angels are pretended by others, whereof 
 the late defection of the maid of Germany hath 
 left a pregnant example. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 61 
 
 y Again, I believe that all that use sorceries, 
 incantations, and spells, are not witches, or as 
 we term them, magicians. I conceive there is 
 a traditional magic, not learned immediately 
 from the devil, but at second-hand from his 
 scholars, who having once the secret betrayed, 
 are able, and do empirically practise without his 
 advice, they both proceeding upon the principles 
 of nature, where actives, aptly conjoined to dis- 
 posed passives, will under any master produce 
 their effects. Thus I think at first great part of 
 philosophy was witchcraft, which being after- 
 ward derived to one another, proved but phi- 
 losophy, and was indeed no more but the honest 
 effects of nature. What invented by us is phi- 
 losophy, learned from him is magic. We do 
 surely owe the discovery of many secrets to the 
 discovery of good and bad angels. I could 
 never pass that sentence of Paracelsus, without 
 an asterisk, or annotation ; " Ascendens con- 
 stellatum multa revelat quserentibus magnalia 
 nature, i. e. opera Dei."* I do think that many 
 mysteries ascribed to our own inventions, have 
 been the courteous revelations of spirits ; for 
 ythose noble essences in heaven bear a friendly 
 regard unto their fellow natures on earth ; and 
 
 * Thereby is meant our good angel, appointed us from 
 our nativity. 
 
62 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 therefore believe that those many prodigies and 
 ominous prognostics, which forerun the ruins 
 of states, princes, and private persons, are the 
 charitable premonitions of good angels, which 
 more careless inquirers term but the effects of 
 chance and nature. 
 
 Now besides these particular and divided 
 spirits, there may be (for ought I know) a uni- 
 versal and common spirit to the whole world. 
 It was the opinion of Plato, and it is yet of the 
 Hermetical philosophers. If there be a common 
 nature that unites and ties the scattered and 
 divided individuals into one species, why may 
 ]/ there not be one that unites them all ? However, 
 J I am sure there is a common spirit that plays 
 within us, yet makes no part in us ; and that is 
 the spirit of God, the fire and scintillation of 
 that noble and mighty essence, which is the 
 life and radical heat of spirits and those essen- 
 ces that know not the virtue of the sun, a fire 
 quite contrary to the fire of hell. This is that 
 gentle heat that brooded on the waters and in 
 six days hatched the world. This is that irradi- 
 ation that dispels the mists of hell, the clouds 
 of horror, fear, sorrow, despair, and preserves 
 thej[e^ilLt)&& ,niind in^erjEJiitjL Whosoever 
 feels not the warm gale and gentle ventilation 
 of this spirit, though I feel his pulse, I dare 
 not say he lives ; for truly without this, to me 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 63 
 
 there is no heat under the tropic, nor any light, 
 though I dwelt in the body of the sun. 
 
 As when the laboring sun hath wrought his track 
 
 Up to the top of lofty Cancer's back, 
 
 The icy ocean cracks, the frozen pole 
 
 Thaws with the heat of the celestial coal ; 
 
 So when thy absent beams begin to impart 
 
 Again a solstice on my frozen heart, 
 
 My winter 's o'er ; my drooping spirits sing, 
 
 And every part revives into a spring. 
 
 But if thy quickening beams awhile decline, 
 
 And with their light bless not this orb of mine, 
 
 A chilly frost surpriseth every member, 
 
 And in the midst of June I feel December. 
 
 O how this earthly temper doth debase 
 
 The noble soul, in this her humble place ; 
 
 Whose wingy nature ever doth aspire 
 
 To reach that place whence first it took its fire. 
 
 These flames I feel, which in my heart do dwell, 
 
 Are not thy beams, but take their fire from hell. 
 
 O quench them all, and let thy light divine 
 
 Be as the sun to this poor orb of mine ; 
 
 And to thy sacred spirit convert those fires, 
 
 Whose earthly fumes choke my devout aspires. 
 
 Therefore for spirits, I am so far from deny- 
 ing their existence, that I could easily believe, 
 that not only whole countries, but particular 
 persons have their tutelary and guardian angels. 
 It is not a new opinion of the church of Rome, 
 but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato. There 
 is no heresy in it, and if not manifestly denned 
 
64 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 in Scripture, yet is an opinion of a good and 
 wholesome use in the course and actions of a 
 man's life, and would serve as an hypothesis to 
 salve many doubts, whereof common philosophy 
 affordeth no solution. Now if you demand my 
 opinion and metaphysics of their natures, I 
 confess them very shallow, most of them in a 
 negative way, like that of God ; or in a com- 
 parative, between ourselves and fellow crea- 
 tures ; for there is in this universe a stair, or 
 manifest scale of creatures, rising not disor- 
 derly or in confusion, but with a comely method 
 and proportion. Between creatures of mere 
 existence and things of life, there is a large 
 disproportion of nature ; between plants and 
 animals, or creatures of sense, a wider dif- 
 ference ; between them and man, a far 
 greater ; and if the proportion hold on, be- 
 tween man and angels there should be yet a 
 greater. We do not comprehend their natures, 
 who retain the first definition of Porphyry, and 
 distinguish them from ourselves by immortality ; 
 for before his fall, ? t is thought, man also 
 was immortal ; yet must we needs affirm that 
 he had a different essence from the angels. 
 Having therefore no certain knowledge of their 
 natures, 't is no bad method of the schools, 
 whatsoever perfection we find obscurely in our- 
 selves, in a more complete and absolute way to 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 65 
 
 ascribe unto them. I believe they have an 
 extemporary knowledge, and upon the first mo- 
 tion of their reason do what we cannot without 
 study or deliberation ; that they know things 
 by their forms, and define, by specifical diffe- 
 rence, what we describe by accidents and prop- 
 erties ; and therefore probabilities to us may be 
 demonstrations unto them ; that they have 
 knowledge not only of the specifical, but nu- 
 merical forms of individuals, and understand 
 by what reserved difference each single hypos- 
 tasis (besides the relation to its species) be- 
 comes its numerical self; that as the soul hath 
 a power to move the body it informs, so there J s 
 a faculty to move any, though inform none ; 
 ours upon restraint of time, place, and distance ; 
 but that invisible hand that conveyed Habak- 
 kuk to the lions' den, or Philip to Azotus, 
 infringeth this rule, and hath a secret convey- 
 ance, wherewith mortality is not acquainted. 
 If they have that intuitive knowledge, whereby, 
 as in reflection, they behold the thoughts of one 
 another, I cannot preremptorily deny but they 
 know a great part of ours. They that, to refute 
 the invocation of saints, have denied that they 
 have any knowledge of our affairs below, have 
 proceeded too far, and must pardon my opinion 
 till I can thoroughly answer that piece of 
 Scripture, " At the conversion of a sinner the 
 5 
 
66 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 angels in heaven rejoice." I cannot with those 
 in that great Father* securely interpret the work 
 of the first day, " Fiat lux," to the creation of 
 angels, though I confess there is not any crea- 
 ture that hath so near a glimpse of their nature, 
 as light in the sun and elements. We style it 
 a bare accident, but where it subsists alone, 
 J t is a spiritual substance, and may be an angel. 
 . In brief, conceive light invisible, and that is a 
 spirit. 
 
 These are certainly the magisterial and mas- 
 ter pieces of the Creator, the flower, or, as we 
 may say, the best part of nothing, actually ex- 
 isting, what we are but in hopes and probabil- 
 ity. Wejire only that amphibious piece between 
 / a corporeal and spiritual essence, that middle 
 form that links those two together, and makes 
 good the method of God and nature, that jumps 
 not from extremes, but unites the incompatible 
 distances by some middle and participating 
 natures. That we are the breath and similitude 
 of God, it is indisputable, and upon record of 
 holy Scripture ; but to call ourselves a micro- 
 cosm, or little world, I thought it only a pleas- 
 ant trope of rhetoric, till my near judgment 
 and second thoughts told me there was a real 
 truth therein. For first we are a rude mass, 
 
 * St. Chrysostora, Homil. in Genes. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. G7 
 
 and in the rank of creatures which only are, 
 and have a dull kind of being not yet privileged 
 with life, or preferred to sense or reason ; next 
 we live the life of plants, the life of animals, 
 the life of men, and at last the life of spirits ; 
 running on in one mysterious nature those five 
 kinds of existences, which comprehend the 
 creatures not only of the world, but of the uni- 
 verse. *Thus is man that great and true amphi- 
 bium, whose nature is disposed to live not only 
 like other creatures in divers elements, but in 
 divided and distinguished worlds. For though 
 there be but one to sense, there are two to rea- 
 son ; the one visible, the other invisible, whereof 
 Moses seems to have left description, and of the 
 other so obscurely, that some parts thereof are 
 yet in controversy. And truly for the first 
 chapter of Genesis, I must confess a great 
 deal of obscurity ; though divines have, to the 
 power of human reason, endeavoured to make 
 all go in a literal meaning, yet those allegorical 
 interpretations are also probable, and perhaps 
 the mystical method of Moses bred up in the 
 hieroglyphical schools of the Egyptians. 
 
 Now for that immaterial world, methinks we 
 need not wander so far as beyond the first 
 movable ; for even in this material fabric the 
 spirits walk as freely exempt from the affection 
 of time, place, and motion, as beyond the ex- 
 
68 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 tremest circumference. Do but extract from 
 the corpulency of bodies, or resolve things be- 
 yond their first matter, and you discover the 
 habitation of angels, which if I call the ubiqui- 
 tary and omnipresent essence of God, I hope I 
 shall not offend divinity ; for before the crea- 
 tion of the world, God was really all things. 
 For the angels he created no new world or de- 
 terminate mansion, and therefore they are every- 
 where where is his essence, and do live at a 
 distance even in himself. That God made all 
 things for man, is in some sense true, yet not 
 so far as to subordinate the creation of those 
 purer creatures unto ours, though as ministering 
 spirits they do, and are willing to fulfil the will 
 of God in these lower and sublunary affairs of 
 man. God made all things for himself, and it 
 is impossible he should make them for any oth- 
 er end than his own glory. It is all he can 
 receive, and all that is without himself. For 
 honor being an external adjunct, and in the 
 honorer rather than in the person honored, it 
 was necessary to make a creature, from whom 
 he might receive his homage, and that is in the 
 other world angels, in this, man ; which when 
 we neglect, we forget the very end of our cre- 
 ation, and may justly provoke God, not only to 
 repent that he hath made the world, but that 
 he hath sworn he would not destroy it, That 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 69 
 
 there is but one world, is a conclusion of faith. 
 
 ^^^>^** J.Z/ 
 Aristotle, with all his philosophy, hath not been 
 
 able to prove it, and as weakly that the world 
 was eternal. That dispute much troubled the pen 
 of the ancient philosophers, but Moses decided 
 that question, and all is salved with the new term 
 of a creation, that is, a production of something 
 out of nothing ; and what is that ? Whatsoever 
 is opposite to something ; or more exactly, that 
 which is truly contrary unto God. For he only 
 is; all others have an existence with dependency, 
 and are something but by a distinction ; and 
 herein is divinity conformant unto philosophy, 
 and generation not only founded on contrarie- 
 ties, but also creation. God being all things, is 
 contrary unto nothing, out of which were made 
 all things, and so nothing became something, 
 and omniety informed nullity into an essence. 
 
 The whole creation is a mystery, and par- 
 ticularly that of man. At the blast of his mouth 
 were the rest of the creatures made, and at his 
 bare word they started out of nothing. But in 
 the frame of man (as the text describes it) he 
 played the sensible operator, and seemed not so 
 much to create, as make him. When he had 
 separated the materials of other creatures, 
 there consequently resulted a form and soul ; 
 but having raised the walls of man, he was 
 driven to a second and harder creation of a 
 
70 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 <" substance like himself, an incorruptible and 
 immortal soul. For these twd affections we 
 have the philosophy and opinion of the heathens, 
 the flat affirmative of Plato, and not a negative 
 from Aristotle. There is another scruple cast 
 in by divinity (concerning its production) much 
 disputed in the German auditories, and with 
 that indifferency and equality of arguments, as 
 leave the controversy undetermined. I am not 
 of Paracelsus's mind, that boldly delivers a re- 
 ceipt to make a man without conjunction ; yet 
 cannot but wonder at the multitude of heads 
 that do deny traduction, having no other argu- 
 ment to confirm their belief, than that rhetori- 
 cal sentence and antimetathesis of Augustine, 
 " Creando infunditur, infundendo creatur." 
 Either opinion will consist well enough with 
 religion ; yet I should rather incline to this, 
 did not one objection haunt me, not wrung from 
 speculations and subtilties, but from common 
 sense and observation ; not picked from the 
 leaves of any author, but bred amongst the 
 weeds and tares of mine own brain. And this 
 is a conclusion from the equivocal and mon- 
 
 ... strous productions in the copulation of a man 
 with a beast ; for if the soul of man be not 
 transmitted and transfused in the seed of the 
 parents, why are not those productions merely 
 beasts, but have also an impression and tincture 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 71 
 
 of reason in as high a measure, as it can evi- 
 dence itself in those improper organs 1 Nor 
 truly can I peremptorily deny, that the soul, in 
 this her sublunary estate, is wholly and in all 
 acceptions inorganical, but that for the perform- 
 ance of her ordinary actions, there is required 
 not only a symmetry and proper disposition of 
 organs, but a crasis and temper correspond- 
 ent to its operations. Yet is not this mass of 
 flesh and visible structure the instrument and 
 proper corps of the soul, but rather of sense, 
 and that the hand of reason. In our study of 
 anatomy there is a mass of mysterious philoso- 
 phy, and such as reduced the very heathens to 
 divinity ; yet amongst all those rare discoveries 
 and curious pieces I find in the fabric of man, 
 I do not so much content myself, as in that I 
 find not, that is, no organ or instrument for 
 the rational soul. For in the brain, which we 
 term the seat of reason, there is not any thing 
 of moment more than I can discover in the 
 crany of a beast ; and this is a sensible and 
 no inconsiderable argument of the inorganity 
 *of the soul, at least in that sense we usually so 
 conceive it. Thus we are men, and we know 
 not how ; there is something in us that can be 
 without us, and will be after us, though it is 
 strange that it hath no history what it was 
 before us, nor cannot tell how it entered in us. 
 
72 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 Now for these walls of flesh, wherein the 
 soul doth seem to be immured before the resur- 
 rection, it is nothing but an elemental composi- 
 tion, and a fabric that must fall to ashes. " All 
 flesh is grass," is not only metaphorically, but 
 literally true ; for all those creatures we behold, 
 are but the herbs of the field, digested into flesh 
 in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves. 
 Nay further, we are what we all abhor, anthro- 
 pophagi and cannibals, devourers not only of 
 men, but of ourselves ; and that not in an al- 
 legory, but a positive truth. For all this mass 
 of flesh which we behold, came in at our mouths; 
 this frame we look upon, hath been upon our 
 trenchers ; in brief, we have devoured ourselves. 
 I cannot believe the wisdom of Pythagoras did 
 ever positively, and in a literal sense, affirm his 
 metempsychosis, or impossible transmigration of 
 the souls of men into beasts. Of all metamor- 
 phoses, or transmigrations, I believe only one, 
 kthat is of Lot's wife ; for that of Nebuchedonez- 
 zar proceeded not so far. In all others, I con- 
 ceive there is no further verity than is contained 
 in their implicit sense and morality. I believe 
 that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, 
 and is left in the same state after death, as be- 
 fore it was materialled unto life ; that the souls 
 of men know neither contrary nor corruption ; 
 that they subsist beyond the body and outlive 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 73 
 
 death by the privilege of their proper natures, 
 and without a miracle ; that the souls of the 
 faithful, as they leave earth, take possession of 
 heaven ; that those apparitions and ghosts of 
 departed persons are not the wandering souls 
 of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompt- 
 ing and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and 
 villany, instilling and stealing into our hearts, 
 that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their 
 graves, but wander solicitous of the affairs oj 
 the world. But that those phantasms appear 
 often, and do frequent cemeteries, charnel- 
 houses, and churches, it is because those are 
 the dormitories of the dead, where the devil, 
 like an insolent champion, beholds with pride 
 the spoils and trophies of his victory over 
 Adam. 
 
 This is that dismal conquest we all deplore, 
 that makes us so often cry, " O Adam, quid 
 fecisti ? " I thank God I have not those strait 
 ligaments or narrow obligations to the world, 
 as to dote on life, or be convulsed and tremble 
 at the name of death. Not that I am insensible 
 of the dread and horror thereof, or by raking IV/, 
 into the bowels of the deceased, continual sight I ^ 
 of anatomies, skeletons, or cadaverous relics, 
 like vespilloes, or grave-makers, I am become 
 stupid, or have forgot the apprehension of mor- 
 tality ; but that marshalling all the horrors, and 
 
74 RELIGIO MEDICI, 
 
 contemplating the extremities thereof, I find 
 not any thing therein able to daunt the courage 
 of a man, much less a well resolved Christian ; 
 and therefore am not angry at the error of our 
 first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this 
 common fate, and like the best of them to die, 
 that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell 
 of the elements, to be a kind of nothing for a 
 moment, to be within one instant of a spirit. 
 When I take a full view and circle of myself, 
 without this reasonable moderator, and equal 
 piece of justice, death, I do conceive myself 
 the miserablest person extant. Were there not 
 another life that I hope for, all the vanities of 
 this world should not entreat a moment's breath 
 from me. Could the devil work my belief to 
 imagine I could never die, I would not outlive 
 that very thought. I have so abject a conceit 
 of this common way of existence, this retaining 
 to the sun and elements, I cannot think this is 
 to be a man, or to live according to the dignity 
 of humanity. In expectation of a better, I can 
 with patience embrace this life, yet in my best 
 meditations do often defy death. I honor any 
 man that contemns it, nor can I highly love 
 any man that is afraid of it. This makes me 
 naturally love a soldier, and honor those tatter- 
 ed and contemptible regiments, that will die at 
 the command of a sergeant. For a Pagan there 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 75 
 
 may be some motives to be in love with life ; 
 but for a Christian to be amazed at death, I see 
 not how he can escape this dilemma, that he is 
 too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life 
 to come. 
 
 Some divines count Adam thirty years old at 
 his creation, because they suppose him created 
 in the perfect age and stature of man. And 
 surely we are all out of the computation of our 
 age, and every man is some months elder than 
 he bethinks him ; for we live, move, have a 
 being, and are subject to the actions of the ele- 
 ments and the malice of diseases, in that other 
 world, the truest microcosm, the womb of our 
 mother. For besides that general and common 
 existence we are conceived to hold in our chaos, 
 and whilst we sleep within the bosom of our 
 causes, we enjoy a being and life in three dis- 
 tinct worlds, wherein we receive most manifest 
 graduations. In that obscure world and womb 
 of our mother, our time is short, computed by 
 the moon ; yet longer than the days of many 
 creatures that behold the sun, ourselves being 
 not yet without life, sense, and reason ; though 
 for the manifestation of its actions, it awaits the 
 opportunity of objects, and seems to live there 
 but in its root and soul of vegetation. Entering 
 afterwards upon the scene of the world, we 
 rise up and become another creature, perform- 
 
76 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 ing the reasonable actions of man, and obscurely 
 manifesting that part of divinity in us, but not 
 in complement and perfection till we have once 
 more cast our secondine, that is, this slough of 
 flesh, and are delivered into the last world, that 
 is, that ineffable place of Paul, that proper "ubi " 
 of spirits. The smattering I have of the philoso- 
 pher's stone (which is something more than the 
 perfect exaltation of gold) hath taught me a 
 great deal of divinity, and instructed my belief 
 how that immortal spirit and incorruptible sub- 
 stance of my soul may lie obscure, and sleep 
 awhile within this house of flesh. Those strange 
 and mystical transmigrations that I have ob- 
 served in silkworms, turned my philosophy into 
 divinity. There is in these works of nature, 
 which seem to puzzle reason, something divine, 
 and hath more in it than the eye of a common 
 spectator doth discover. 
 
 I am naturally bashful, nor hath conversation, 
 age, or travel, been able to effront or enharden 
 me ; yet I have one part of modesty which I 
 have seldom discovered in another, that is, (to 
 speak truly) I am not so much afraid of death 
 as ashamed thereof. 'T is the very disgrace and 
 ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can 
 so disfigure us that our nearest friends, wife 
 and children, stand afraid and start at us. The 
 birds and beasts of the field, that before in a 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 77 
 
 natural fear obeyed us, forgetting all allegiance, 
 begin to prey upon us. This very conceit hath, 
 in a tempest, disposed and left me willing to be 
 swallowed up in the abyss of waters ; wherein 
 I had perished unseen, unpitied, without won- 
 dering eyes, tears of pity, lectures of mortality, 
 and none had said, " Quantum mutatus ab illo ! " 
 Not that I am ashamed of the anatomy of my 
 parts, or can accuse nature for playing the 
 bungler in any part of me, or my own vicious 
 life for contracting any shameful disease upon 
 me, whereby I might not call myself as whole- 
 some a morsel for the worms as any. 
 
 Some upon the courage of a fruitful issue, 
 wherein, as in the truest chronicle, they seem 
 to outlive themselves, can with patience away 
 with death. This conceit and counterfeit sub- 
 sisting in our progenies, seems to me a mere 
 fallacy, unworthy the desires of a man, that 
 can but conceive a thought of the next world ; 
 who, in a nobler ambition, should desire to live 
 in his substance in heaven, rather than his 
 name and shadow in the earth. And therefore 
 at my death I mean to take a total adieu of the 
 world, not caring for a monument, history, or 
 epitaph, not so much as the memory of my 
 name to be found any where, but in the 
 universal register of God. I am not yet so 
 cynical as to approve the testament of Dioge- 
 
78 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 nes,* nor do I altogether allow that rodomon- 
 tado of Lucan ; 
 
 Coelo tegitur, qui non habet urnam ; 
 
 He that unburied lies wants not his hearse, 
 For unto him a tomb 's the universe ; 
 
 but commend in my calmer judgments, those 
 ingenuous intentions, that desire to sleep by the 
 urns of their fathers, and strive to go the near- 
 est way unto corruption. I do not envy the 
 temper of crows and daws,t nor the numerous 
 and weary days of our fathers before the flood. 
 If there be any truth in astrology, I may outlive 
 a jubilee. As yet I have not seen one revolution 
 of Saturn, nor hath my pulse beat thirty years ; 
 and yet, excepting one, have seen the ashes, and 
 left under ground, all the kings of Europe ; 
 have been contemporary to three emperors, four 
 grand seigniors, and as many popes. Methinks 
 I have outlived myself, and begin to be weary 
 of the sun ; I have shaken hands with delight. 
 In my warm blood and .cju^uJajL days I per- 
 ceive I do anticipate the vices of age ; the 
 
 * Who willed his friend not to bury him, but hang him 
 up with a staff in his hand to fright away the crows. 
 
 { As Theophrastus did, who dying, accused nature for 
 giving them, to whom it could not be of any concern- 
 ment, so large a life ; and to man, whom it much con- 
 cerned, so short a one. Cic. Tusc, Qu&st. lib. 3. 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 79 
 
 world to me is but a dream or mock-show, and 
 we all therein but pantalones and antics, to my 
 severer contemplations. 
 
 It is not, I confess, an unlawful prayer to 
 desire to surpass the days of our Saviour, or 
 wish to outlive that age wherein he thought 
 fittest to die. Yet if (as divinity affirms) there 
 shall be no gray hairs in heaven, but all shall 
 rise in the perfect state of men, We do but 
 outlive those perfections in this world, to be re- 
 called unto them by a greater miracle in the 
 next, and run on here but to be retrograde 
 hereafter. Were there any hopes to outlive 
 / vice, or a point to be superannuated from sin, 
 it were worthy our knees to implore the days 
 of Methuselah. But age doth not rectify, but 
 incurvate our natures, turning bad dispositions 
 into worser habits, and (like diseases) brings on 
 incurable vices ; for every day as we grow 
 weaker in age, we grow stronger in sin ; and 
 the number of our days doth but make our sins 
 innumerable. The same vice committed at 
 sixteen, is not the same, though it agrees in all 
 other circumstances, as at forty, but swells and 
 doubles from that circumstance of our age, 
 wherein, besides the constant and inexcusable 
 habit of transgressing, the maturity of our 
 judgment cuts off pretence unto excuse or par* 
 don. Every sin, the oftener it is committed, the 
 
80 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 more it acquireth in the quality of evil ; as it 
 succeeds in time, so it proceeds in degrees 
 of badness ; for as they proceed, they ever 
 multiply, and like figures in arithmetic, the 
 last stands for more than all that went be- 
 fore it. And though I think no. man can 
 live well once, but he that could live twice, 
 yet for my own part I would not live over 
 my hours past, or begin again the thread of my 
 days ; not upon Cicero's ground, because I 
 have lived them well, but for fear I should live 
 them worse. I find my growing judgment 
 daily instruct me how to be better, but my un- 
 tamed affections and confirmed vitiosity makes 
 me daily do worse. I find in my confirmed age 
 the same sins I discovered in my youth. I com- 
 mitted many then, because I was a child, and 
 because I commit them still, I am yet an infant. 
 Therefore I perceive a man may be twice a 
 child before the days of dotage, and stand in 
 need of JEson's bath before threescore.* 
 
 And truly there goes a great deal of provi- 
 dence to produce a man's life unto threescore. 
 There is more required than an able temper for 
 those years. Though the radical humor contain 
 
 * ^Eson was the son of Jason, and, at his request, was 
 by Medea, by the means of this bath, restored to his 
 youth. Ingredients that went into it, and the description 
 of Medea's performance, Ovid gives you, lib. 7, Metam. 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 81 
 
 in it sufficient oil for seventy, yet I perceive in 
 some it gives no light past thirty. Men assign 
 not all the causes of long life that write whole 
 books thereof. They that found themselves on 
 the radical balsam, or vital sulphur of the parts, 
 determine not why Abel lived not so long as 
 Adam. There is therefore a secret glome or 
 bottom of our days. 7 T was his wisdom to de- 
 termine them, but his perpetual and waking 
 providence that fulfils and accomplisheth them, 
 wherein the spirits, ourselves, and all the crea- 
 tures of God, in a secret and disputed way, do 
 execute his will. Let them not therefore com- 
 plain of immaturity that die about thirty. They 
 fall but like the whole world, whose solid and 
 well composed substance must not expect the 
 duration and period of its constitution. When 
 all things are completed in it, its age is accom- 
 plished ; and the last and general fever may as 
 naturally destroy it before six thousand, as me 
 before forty. There is therefore some other hand 
 > that twines the thread of life than that of nature. 
 We are not only ignorant in antipathies and 
 occult qualities ; our ends are as obscure as our 
 beginnings ; the line of our days is drawn by 
 night, arid the various effects therein by a pen- 
 cil that, is invisible ; wherein, though we confess 
 our ignorance, I am sure we do not err if we 
 say it is the hand of God. 
 G 
 
82 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 I am much taken with two verses of Lucan, 
 since I have been able not only, as we do at 
 school, to construe, but understand. 
 
 Victurosque Dei celant, ut vivere durent, 
 Felix esse mori. 
 
 We 're all deluded, vainly searching ways 
 To make us happy by the length of days ; 
 For cunningly to make 's protract this breath,] 
 The gods conceal the happiness of death. 
 
 There be many excellent strains in that poet, 
 wherewith his stoical genius hath liberally sup- 
 plied him ; and truly there are singular pieces 
 in the philosophy of Zeno, and doctrine of the 
 Stoics, which I perceive, delivered in a pulpit, 
 pass for current divinity. Yet herein are they 
 in extremes, that can allow a man to be his 
 own assassin, and so highly extol the end and 
 suicide of Cato. This is indeed not to fear death, 
 but yet to be afraid of life. It is a brave ,act 
 of valor to contemn death ; but where life is 
 more terrible than death, it is then the truest 
 valor to dare to live ; and herein religion hath 
 taught us a noble example. For all the valiant 
 acts of Curtius, Scaevola, or Codrus, do not par- 
 allel or match that one of Job ; and sure there 
 is no torture to the rack of a disease, nor any 
 poniards in death itself, like those in the way 
 or prologue to it. " Emori nolo, sed me esse 
 mortuum nihil euro ; }) I would not die, but 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 83 
 
 care not to be dead. Were I of Caesar's reli- 
 gion, I should be of his desires, and wish rather 
 to go off at one blow, than to be sawed in 
 pieces by the grating torture of a disease. Men 
 that look no farther than their outsides, think 
 health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel 
 with their constitutions for being sick ; but_I^ 
 that have examined the partS-oLraaji, .and know 
 mum what tender filaments_the__fabric hangs, 
 do wonder that we are not always_so ; and con- 
 sidering the thousand doors that lead to death, 
 do thank my God that we can die but once. 
 'T is not only the mischief of diseases, and the 
 villany of poisons, that make an end of us ; we 
 vainly accuse the fury of guns, and the new 
 inventions of death ; it is in the power of every 
 hand to destroy us, and we are beholden unto 
 every one we meet, he doth not kill us. There 
 is therefore but one comfort left, that though 
 it be in the power of the weakest arm to take 
 away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive 
 us of death. God would not exempt himself 
 from that ; the misery of immortality in the flesh 
 he undertook not that was immortal. Certainly 
 there is no happiness within this circle of flesh, 
 nor is it in the optics of these eyes to behold 
 felicity ; the first day of our jubilee is death. 
 The devil hath therefore failed of his desires ; 
 we are happier with death than we should have 
 
84 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 been without it. There is no misery but in 
 himself, where there is no end of misery ; and 
 so indeed, in his own sense, the Stoic is in the 
 right. He forgets that he can die who complains 
 of misery ; we are in the power of no calamity 
 while death is in our own. 
 
 Now besides this literal and positive kind of 
 death, there are others whereof divines make 
 mention,- and those, I think, not merely meta- 
 phorical, as mortification, dying unto sin and 
 the world. Therefore, I say, every man hath a 
 double horoscope, one of his humanity, his 
 birth; another of his Christianity, his baptism; 
 and from this do I compute or calculate my 
 nativity ; not reckoning those " horae com- 
 bustae " and odd days, or esteeming myself any 
 thing, before I was my Saviour's, and enrolled 
 in the register of Christ. Whosoever enjoys 
 not this life, I count him but an apparition, 
 though he wear about him the sensible affec- 
 tions of flesh. In these moral acceptions, the 
 way to be immortal is to die daily ; nor can I 
 think I have the true theory of death, when I 
 contemplate a skull, or behold a skeleton, with 
 those vulgar imaginations it casts upon us. I 
 have therefore enlarged that common " Memen- 
 to mori," into a more Christian memorandum, 
 " Memento quatuor novissima," those four in- 
 evitable points of us all, death, judgment, hea- 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 85 
 
 ven, and hell. Neither did the contemplations 
 of the heathens rest in their graves, without 
 further thought of Rhadamanth or some judi- 
 cial proceeding after death, though in another 
 way, and upon suggestion of their natural rea- 
 sons. I cannot but marvel from what sibyl or 
 oracle they stole the prophecy of the world's 
 destruction by fire, or whence Lucan learned 
 to say, 
 
 Communis mundo superest rogus, ossibus astra 
 Misturus. 
 
 There yet remains to the world one common fire, 
 Wherein our bones with stars shall make one pyre. 
 
 I believe the world grows near its end, yet is 
 neither old nor decayed, nor shall ever perish 
 - upon the ruins of its own principles. As the 
 work of creation was above nature, so its adver- 
 sary, annihilation ; without which the world 
 hath not its end, but its mutation. Now what 
 force should be able to consume it thus far, 
 without the breath of God, which is the truest 
 consuming flame, my philosophy cannot inform 
 me. Some believe there went not a minute to 
 the world's creation, nor shall there go to its 
 destruction ; those six days so punctually de- 
 scribed, make not to them one moment, but 
 rather seem to manifest the method and idea of 
 the great work of the intellect of God, than 
 
86 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 the manner how he proceeded in its operation. 
 I cannot dream that there should be at the last 
 day any such judicial proceeding, or calling to 
 the bar, as indeed the Scripture seems to imply, 
 and the literal commentators do conceive. For 
 unspeakable mysteries in the Scriptures are often 
 delivered in a vulgar and illustrative way ; and 
 being written unto man, are delivered, not as 
 they truly are, but as they may be understood ; 
 wherein, notwithstanding, the different interpre- 
 tations according to different capacities may 
 stand firm with our devotion, nor be any way 
 prejudicial to each single edification. 
 
 Now to determine the day and year of this 
 inevitable time, is not only convincible and 
 statute madness, but also manifest impiety. 
 How shall we interpret Elias's six thousand 
 years, or imagine the secret communicated to 
 a Rabbi, which God hath denied unto his an- 
 gels ? It had been an excellent query to have 
 posed the devil of Delphos, and must needs 
 have forced him to some strange amphibology. 
 It hath not only mocked the predictions of 
 sundry astrologers in ages past, but the proph- 
 ecies of many melancholy heads in these present; 
 who neither understanding reasonably things 
 past or present, pretend a knowledge of things to 
 come ; heads ordained only to manifest the 
 incredible effects of melancholy, and to fulfil 
 
<\ 
 
 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 8? 
 
 old prophecies, rather than be the authors of 
 new. " In those days there shall come wars, 
 and rumors of wars," to me seems no prophe- 
 cy, but a constant truth, in all times verified 
 since it was pronounced. " There shall be signs 
 in the moon and stars ; " how comes he then 
 like a thief in the night, when he gives an item 
 of his coming 1 That common sign drawn from 
 the revelation of Antichrist, is as obscure as 
 any. In our common compute he hath been 
 come these many years. But for my own part, 
 to speak freely, I am half of opinion that Anti- 
 christ is the philosopher's stone in divinity ; 
 for the discovery and invention whereof, though 
 there be prescribed rules, and probable induc- 
 tions, yet hath hardly any man attained the 
 perfect discovery thereof. That general opin- 
 ion that the world grows near its end, hath 
 possessed all ages past as nearly as ours. I am 
 afraid that the souls that now depart, cannot 
 escape that lingering expostulation of the saints 
 under the altar, " Quousque, Domine ? " " How 
 long, O Lord ? " and groan in the expectation 
 of the great jubilee. 
 
 This is the day that must make good that 
 great attribute of God, his justice ; that must 
 reconcile those unanswerable doubts that tor- 
 ment the wisest understandings, and reduce 
 those seeming inequalities and respective dis- 
 
88 RELIGIO MEDICf. 
 
 tributions in this world, to an equality and 
 recompensive justice in the next. This is that 
 one day, that shall include and comprehend all 
 that went before it, wherein, as in the last scene, 
 all the actors must enter to complete and make 
 up the catastrophe of this great piece. This 
 is the day whose memory hath only power to 
 make us honest in the dark, and to be virtuous 
 without a witness. " Ipsa sui pretium virtus 
 sibi," that " virtue is her own reward," is but a 
 cold principle, and not able to maintain our 
 variable resolutions in a constant and settled 
 way of goodness. I have practised that honest 
 artifice of Seneca, and in my retired and solitary 
 imaginations, to detain me from the foulness of 
 vice, have fancied to myself the presence of 
 my dear and worthiest friends, before whom I 
 should lose my head rather than be vicious ; 
 yet herein I found that there was nought but 
 moral honesty, and this was not to be virtuous 
 for his sake who must reward us at the last. 
 I have tried if I could reach that great resolu- 
 tion of his, to be honest without a thought of 
 heaven or hell ; and indeed I found, upon a 
 natural inclination and inbred loyalty unto 
 virtue, that I could serve her without a livery, 
 yet not in that resolved and venerable way, but 
 that the frailty of my nature, upon an easy 
 temptation, might be induced to forget her. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. Ctf 
 
 x The life therefore and spirit of all our actions 
 is the resurrection, and a stable apprehension 
 that our ashes shall enjoy the fruit of our pious 
 endeavours. Without this, all religion is a fallacy, 
 and those impieties of Lucian, Euripides, and 
 Julian are no blasphemies, but subtle verities, 
 and atheists have been the only philosophers. 
 
 How shall the dead arise, is no question of 
 my faith ; to believe only possibilities, is not 
 faith, but mere philosophy. Many things are 
 true in divinity, which are neither inducible by 
 reason, nor confirmable by sense; and many 
 things in philosophy confirmable by sense, yet not 
 inducible by reason. Thus it is impossible by 
 any solid or demonstrative reasons to persuade 
 a man to believe the conversion of the needle 
 to the north ; though this be possible, and true, 
 and easily credible, upon a single experiment 
 unto the sense. 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 pre- 
 destinate forms. As at the creation, there was 
 a separation of that confused mass into its spe- 
 cies, so at the destruction thereof there shall 
 be a separation into its distinct individuals* 
 
90 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 As, at the creation of the world, all the distinct 
 species that we behold, lay involved in one 
 mass, till the fruitful voice of God separated 
 this united multitude into its several species ; 
 so at the last day, when those corrupted relics 
 shall be scattered in the wilderness of forms, 
 and seem to have forgot their proper habits, 
 God by a powerful voice shall command them 
 back into their proper shapes, and call them 
 out by their single individuals. Then shall 
 appear the fertility of Adam, and the magic of 
 that sperm that hath dilated into so many mil- 
 lions. I have often beheld as a miracle, that 
 artificial resurrection and revivification of mer- 
 /cury, how being mortified into a thousand 
 shapes, it assumes again its own, and returns 
 into its numerical self. Let us speak naturally, 
 and like philosophers ; the forms of alterable 
 bodies in these sensible corruptions perish not, 
 nor, as we imagine, wholly quit their mansions, 
 but retire and contract themselves into their 
 secret and unaccessible parts, where they may 
 best protect themselves from the action of their 
 antagonist. A plant or vegetable consumed to 
 ashes, to a contemplative and school philoso- 
 pher, seems utterly destroyed, and the form to 
 have taken his leave for ever. But to a sensi- 
 ble artist the forms are not perished, but with- 
 drawn into their incombustible part, where they 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 91 
 
 lie secure from the action of that devouring 
 element. This is made good by experience, 
 which can from the ashes of a plant revive the 
 plant, and from its cinders recall it into its stalk 
 and leaves again. What the art of man can 
 do in these inferior pieces, what blasphemy is 
 it to affirm the finger of God cannot do in these 
 more perfect and sensible structures ! This is 
 that mystical philosophy, from whence no true 
 scholar becomes an atheist, but from the visi- 
 ble effects of nature grows up a real divine, 
 and beholds not in a dream, as Ezekiel, but in 
 an ocular and visible object, the types of his 
 resurrection. 
 
 Now, the necessary mansions of our restored 
 selves are those two contrary and incompati- 
 ble places we call heaven and hell. To define 
 them, or strictly to determine what and where 
 these are, surpass my divinity. That elegant 
 Apostle, which seemed to have a glimpse of 
 heaven, has left but a negative description 
 thereof " which neither eye hath seen/nor ear 
 hath heard, nor can enter into the heart of 
 man." He was translated out of himself to 
 behold it, but being returned into himself could 
 not express it. Saint John's description by 
 emeralds, chrysolites, and precious stones, is 
 too weak to express the material heaven we 
 behold. Briefly therefore, where the soul hath 
 
92 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 the full measure and complement of happiness, 
 where the boundless appetite of that spirit re- 
 mains completely satisfied, that it can neither 
 desire addition nor alteration, that I think is 
 truly heaven ; and this can only be in the en- 
 joyment of that essence, whose infinite good- 
 ness is able to terminate the desires of itself and 
 the unsatiable wishes of ours. Wherever God 
 will thus manifest himself, there is heaven, 
 though within the circle of this sensible world. 
 Thus the soul of man may be in heaven any 
 where, even within the limits of his own proper 
 body ; and when it ceaseth to live in the body, 
 it may remain in its own soul, that is, its Crea- 
 tor. And thus we may say that Saint Paul, 
 whether in the body, or out of the body, was yet 
 in heaven. jjTo place it in the empyreal, or be- 
 yond the tenth sphere, is to forget the world's 
 destruction | for when this sensible world shall 
 be destroyed, all shall then be here as it is now 
 there, an empyreal heaven, a quasi vacuity ; 
 when to ask where heaven is, is to demand 
 where the presence of God is, or where we have 
 the glory of that happy vision. Moses, that was 
 bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians, 
 committed a gross absurdity in philosophy, 
 when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see 
 God, and petitioned his Maker, that is truth it- 
 self, to a contradiction. Those that imagine 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 93 
 
 heaven and hell neighbours, and conceive a 
 vicinity between those two extremes, upon con- 
 sequence of the parable, where Dives discours- 
 ed with Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, do too 
 grossly conceive of those glorified creatures, 
 whose eyes shall easily outsee the sun, and be- 
 hold without a perspective the extremest dis- 
 tances. For if there shall be in our glorified 
 eyes the faculty of sight and reception of ob- 
 jects, I could think the visible species there to 
 be in as unlimitable a way, as now the intellect- 
 ual. I grant that two bodies placed beyond the 
 tenth sphere, or in a vacuity according to Aris- 
 totle's philosophy, could not behold each other, 
 because there wants a body or medium to hand 
 and transport the visible rays of the object unto 
 the sense. But when there shall be a general de- 
 fect of either medium to convey, or light to pre- 
 pare and dispose that medium, and yet a perfect 
 .vision, we must suspend the rules of our phi- 
 losophy, and make all good by a more absolute 
 piece of optics. 
 
 I cannot tell how t'o say that fire is the es- 
 sence of hell ; I know not what to make of 
 purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either 
 prey upon or purify the substance of a soul. 
 Those flames of sulphur mentioned in the Scrip- 
 tures, I take not to be understood of this pres- 
 ent hell, but of that to come, where fire shall 
 
94 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 make up the complement of our tortures, and 
 have a body or subject wherein to manifest its 
 tyranny. Some who have had the honor to be 
 textuary in divinity, are of opinion it shall be 
 the same specifical fire with ours. This is hard 
 to conceive ; yet can I make good how even 
 that may prey upon our bodies, and yet not 
 consume us. For in this material world, there 
 are bodies that persist invincible in the power- 
 fullest flames, and though by the action of fire 
 they fall into ignition and liquation, yet will 
 they never suffer a destruction. I would glad- 
 ly know how Moses with an actual fire calcined, 
 or burnt the golden calf unto powder. For 
 that mystical metal of gold, whose solary and 
 celestial nature I admire, exposed unto the vio- 
 lence of fire, grows only hot and liquefies, but 
 consumeth not. So when the consumable and 
 volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined 
 into a more impregnable and fixed temper, like 
 gold, though they surfer from the action of 
 flames, they shall never perish, but lie immor- 
 tal in the arms of fire. And surely if this 
 frame must suffer only by the action of this 
 element, there will many bodies escape, and 
 not only heaven, but earth will not be at an 
 end, but rather a beginning. For at present 
 it is not earth, but a composition of fire, water, 
 earth, and air ; but at that time, spoiled of these 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 95 
 
 ingredients, it shall appear in a substance more 
 like itself, its ashes. Philosophers that opin- 
 ioned the world's destruction by fire, did never 
 dream of annihilation, which is beyond the 
 power of sublunary causes ; for the last and 
 proper action of that element is but vitrification, 
 or a reduction of a body into glass ; and there- 
 fore some of our chemists facetiously affirm, 
 that at the last fire all shall be crystallized 
 and reverberated into glass, which is the utmost 
 action of that element. Nor need we fear this 
 term annihilation, or woricfer that God will 
 destroy the works of his creation ; for man 
 subsisting, who is, and will then truly appear 
 a microcosm, the world cannot be said to be 
 destroyed. For the eyes of God, and perhaps 
 also of our gRrtflBd n?etreS7Sh all as really be- 
 hold and contemplate the world in its epitome 
 or contracted essence, as now it doth at large 
 and in its dilated substance. In the seed of a 
 plant, to the eyes of God, and to the under- 
 standing of man, there exists, though in an 
 invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and 
 fruit thereof; (for things that are in posse to 
 the sense, are actually existent to the un- 
 derstanding.) //thus God beholds all things, 
 who contemplates as fully his works in their 
 epitome, as in their full volume, and beheld as 
 amply the whole world in that little compen.- 
 
96 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 dium of the sixth day, as in the scattered and 
 dilated pieces of those five before. 
 
 Men commonly set forth the torments of hell 
 by fire and the extremity of corporal afflictions, 
 and describe hell in the same method that 
 Mahomet doth heaven. This indeed makes a 
 noise, and drums in popular ears. But if this 
 be the terrible piece thereof, it is not worthy 
 to stand in diameter with heaven, whose happi- 
 ness consists in that part that is best able to 
 comprehend it, that immortal essence, that 
 translated divinity and colony of God, the soul. 
 Surely, though we place hell under earth, the 
 devil's walk and purlieu is about it. Men speak 
 too popularly who place it in those flaming 
 mountains, which to grosser apprehensions 
 
 resent hell. The heart of man is the place 
 the devils dwell in. I feel sometimes a hell 
 
 within myself; Lucifer keeps his court in ___^ 
 \~6reast ; Legion is revived in me. There are as 
 many hells, as Anaxagoras conceited worlds. 
 There was more than one hell in Magdalene, 
 when there were seven devils ; for every devil 
 is an hell unto himself; he holds enough of 
 torture in his own "ubi," and needs not the 
 misery of circumference to afflict him. And 
 thus a distracted conscience here, js^a^shadpw 
 1 or introduction unto hell hereafter. \ Who can 
 but pity the merciful intention of those hands 
 
it, I\ ^^ 
 pale 1 (fa, 
 fixed \j.# 
 
 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 97 
 
 that do destroy themselves ? The devil, were it 
 in his power, would do the like ; which being 
 impossible, his miseries are endless, and he 
 suffers most in that attribute wherein he is 
 impassible, his immortality. 
 
 I thank God, and with joy I mention 
 was never afraid of hell, nor never grew 
 at the description of that place. I have so fixed 
 my contemplations on heaven, that I have al- 
 most forgot the idea of hell, and am afraid 
 rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure 
 the misery of the other. To be deprived of them 
 is a perfect hell, and needs, methinks, no addi- 
 tion to complete our afflictions. That terrible 
 term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I 
 owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear 
 God, yet am not afraid of him ; his mercies 
 make me ashamed of my sins, before his judg- 
 ments afraid thereof. These are the forced and 
 secondary method of his wisdom, which he 
 useth but as the last remedy, and upon provo- 
 cation ; a course rather to deter the wicked, 
 than incite the virtuous to his worship. I can 
 hardly think there was ever any scared into\ * 
 heave.n. (They go the fairest way to heavenA N 
 that would serve God without a hell.^Other i 
 mercenaries, that crouch unto him in fear of 
 hell, though they term themselves the servants, 
 are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty. 
 7 
 
98 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 And to be true, and speak my soul, when I 
 survey the occurrences of my life and call into 
 account the finger of God, I can perceive noth- 
 ing but an abyss and m#ss of mercies, either in 
 general to mankind, or in particular to myself. 
 And whether out of the prejudice of my affec- 
 tion, or an inverting and partial conceit of his 
 mercies, I know not, but those which others 
 term crosses, afflictions, judgments, misfortunes, 
 to me, who inquire further into them than their 
 " visible effects, they both appear and in event 
 have ever proved the secret and dissembled fa- 
 vors of his affection. It is a singular piece of 
 wisdom to apprehend truly, and without passion, 
 the works of God, and so well to distinguish 
 his justice from his mercy, as not miscall those 
 noble attributes. Yet it is likewise an honest 
 piece of logic, so to dispute and argue the 
 proceedings of God, as to distinguish even his 
 judgments into mercies. For God is merciful 
 unto all, because better to the worst, than the 
 best deserve ; and to say he punisheth none in 
 this world, though it be a paradox, is no absurd- 
 ity. To one that hath committed murder, if 
 the judge should only ordain a fine, it were a 
 madness to call this a punishment, and to re- 
 pine at the sentence, rather than admire the 
 clemency of the judge. Thus our offences 
 being mortal, and deserving not only death> 
 
Uv" 
 NI7ERSI 
 
 THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 99 
 
 X;-,; 
 
 but damnation, if the goodness of Gted be 
 content to traverse and pass them over with a 
 loss, misfortune, or disease, what frenzy were 
 it to term this a punishment, rather than an 
 extremity of mercy, and to groan under the 
 rod of his judgments, rather than admire the 
 sceptre of his mercies. /Therefore to adore, 
 honor, and admire him, is a debt of gratitude 
 due from the obligation of our nature, states, 
 and conditions ; and with these thoughts, he 
 that knows them best, will not deny that I 
 adore him. That I obtain heaven and the bliss 
 thereof, is accidental, and not the intended 
 work of my devotion ; it being a felicity I can 
 neither think to deserve, nor scarce in modesty 
 to expect. For those two ends of us all, either 
 as rewards or punishments, are mercifully or- 
 dained, and disproportionably disposed unto our 
 actions ; the one being so far beyond our deserts, 
 the other so infinitely below our demerits. , 
 
 There is no~~salvation to those that Relieve 
 not in Christ, that is, say some, since his na- 
 tivity, and as divinity affirmeth, before also ; 
 which makes me much apprehend the end of 
 those honest worthies and philosophers, which 
 died before his incarnations; It is hard to place 
 those souls in hell whose worthy lives do teach 
 us virtue on earth. Methinks amongst those 
 many subdivisions of hell, there might have 
 
100 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 been one limbo left for these. What a strange 
 vision will it be to see their poetical fictions 
 converted into verities, and their imagined and 
 fancied furies, into real devils. How strange to 
 them will sound the history of Adam, when 
 they shall suffer for him they never heard of; 
 when they who derive their genealogy from the 
 gods, shall know they are the unhappy issue of 
 sinful man. It is an insolent part of reason, 
 to controvert the works of God, or question the 
 justice of his proceedings. Could humility 
 teach others, as it hath instructed me, to con- 
 template the infinite and incomprehensible dis- 
 tance betwixt the Creator and the creature ; or 
 did we seriously perpend that one simile of St. 
 Paul, " Shall the vessel say to the potter, why 
 hast thou made me thus?" it would prevent 
 these arrogant disputes of reason, nor would 
 we argue the definitive sentence of God, either 
 to heaven or hell. \ Men that live according to 
 the right rule and l\w of reason, live but in 
 their own kind, as beasts do in theirs ; who 
 justly obey the prescript of their natures, and 
 therefore cannot reasonably demand a reward 
 of their actions, as on.ly obeying the natural 
 dictates of their reason.^ It will therefore, and 
 must at last appear, that all salvation is through 
 Christ ; which verity I fear these great exam- 
 ples of virtue must confirm, and make it good 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 101 
 
 how the perfectest actions of earth have no title 
 or claim to heaven. 
 
 Nor truly do I think the lives of these or of 
 any other were ever correspondent, or in all 
 points conformable unto their doctrines. It is 
 evident that Aristotle transgressed the rule of 
 his own Ethics. The Stoics, that condemn pas- 
 sion, and command a man to laugh in Phalaris 
 his bull, could not endure without a groan a fit 
 of the stone or colic. The Skeptics, that af- 
 firmed they knew nothing, even in that opinion 
 confute themselves ; and thought they knew 
 more than all the world besides. Diogenes I 
 hold to be the most vainglorious man of his 
 time, and more ambitious in refusing all hon- 
 ors, than Alexander in rejecting none. Vice 
 and the devil put a fallacy upon our reasons, 
 and provoking us too hastily to run from it, 
 entangle and profound us deeper in it. The 
 Duke of Venice, that weds himself unto the 
 sea by a ring of gold, I will not argue of prodi- 
 gality, because it is a solemnity of good use 
 and consequence in the state ; but the philoso- 
 pher that threw his money into the sea to avoid 
 avarice, was a notorious prodigal. There is 
 no road or ready way to virtue ; it is not an 
 easy point of art to disentangle ourselves from 
 this riddle or web of sin. To perfect virtue, as 
 to religion, there is required a panoplia, or 
 
 
102 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 complete armour, that whilst we lie at close 
 ward against one vice, we lie not open to the 
 veney of another ; and indeed wiser discretions 
 that have the thread of reason to conduct 
 them, offend without pardon; whereas, under- 
 heads may stumble without dishonor. There 
 go so many circumstances to piece up one good 
 action, that it is a lesson to be good, and we 
 are forced to be virtuous by the book. Again, 
 the practice of men holds not an equal pace, 
 yea, and often runs counter to their theory ; we 
 naturally know what is good, but naturally 
 pursue what is evil. The rhetoric wherewith I 
 persuade another cannot persuade myself. 
 There is a depraved appetite in us, that will 
 with patience hear the learned instructions of 
 reason, but yet perform no farther than agrees 
 to its own irregular humor. In brief, we are 
 all monsters, that is, a composition of man and 
 beast ; wherein we must endeavour to be as 
 the poets fancy that wise man Chiron, that is, 
 to have the region of man above that of beast, 
 and sense to sit but at the feet of reason. 
 Lastly, I do desire with God, that all, but yet 
 affirm with men, that few shall know salvation ; 
 that the bridge is narrow, the passage strait 
 unto life. Yet those who do confine the church 
 f. of God, either to particular nations, churches, 
 or families, have made it narrower than our 
 fl Saviour ever meant it. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 103 
 
 The vulgarity of those judgments that wrap 
 the church of God in Strabo's cloak and restrain 
 it unto Europe, seem to me as bad geographers 
 as Alexander, who thought he had conquered 
 all the world, when he had not subdued the 
 half of any part thereof. For we cannot deny 
 the church of God both in Asia and Africa, if 
 we do not forget the peregrinations of the Apos- 
 tles, the deaths of the martyrs, the sessions of 
 many and, even in our reformed judgment, law- 
 ful councils, held in those parts in the minority 
 and nonage of ours. Nor must a few differen- 
 ces, more remarkable in the eyes of man 
 than perhaps in the judgment of God, excom- 
 municate from heaven one another, much less 
 those Christians who are in a manner all mar- 
 tyrs, maintaining their faith in the noble way 
 of persecution, and serving God in the fire, 
 whereas we honor him in the sunshine. 'T is 
 true we all hold there is a number of elect, 
 and many to be saved ; yet take our opinions 
 together, and from the confusion thereof there 
 will be no such thing as salvation, nor shall any 
 one be saved ; for first the Church of Rome 
 condenmeth us, we likewise them ; the Sub-re- 
 formists and sectaries sentence the doctrine of 
 our church as damnable ; the Atomist, or Fami- 
 list, reprobates all these, and all these them 
 again. Thus whilst the mercies of God do 
 
104 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 promise us heaven, our conceits and opinions 
 exclude us from that place. There must be 
 therefore more than one Saint Peter. Particu- 
 lar churches and sects usurp the gates of heaven, 
 and turn the key against each other ; and thus we 
 go to heaven against each other's wills, conceits, 
 and opinions, and, with as much uncharity as 
 ignorance, do err, I fear, in points not only of 
 our own, but one another's salvation. 
 
 I believe many are saved, who to man seem 
 reprobated, and many are reprobated, who in 
 the opinion and sentence of man stand elected- 
 There will appear, at the last day, strange and 
 unexpected examples, both of his justice and 
 his mercy, and therefore to define either is folly 
 in man, and insolency even in the devils. 
 Those acute and subtile spirits, in all their sa- 
 gacity, can hardly divine who shall be saved ; 
 which if they could prognostic, their labor 
 were at an end, nor need they compass the 
 earth, seeking whom they may devour. Those 
 who, upon a rigid application of the law, sen- 
 tence Solomon unto damnation, condemn not 
 only him, but themselves, and the whole world.* 
 For by the letter and written word of God, we 
 
 * St. Augustine, upon Psalm cxxvi. and in many other 
 places, holds that Solomon is damned. Of the same opin- 
 ion is Lyra, in 2 Reg. c. 7. and Bellarmin, 1 Tom. libl. 
 Controv. c. 5. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 105 
 
 are without exception in the state of death, but 
 there is a prerogative of God, and an arbitrary 
 pleasure above the letter of his own law, by 
 which alone we can pretend unto salvation, and 
 through which Solomon might be as easily saved 
 as those that condemn him. 
 
 The number of those who pretend unto sal- 
 vation, and those infinite swarms who think to 
 pass through the eye of this needle, have much 
 amazed me. That name and compellation of 
 "little flock," doth not comfort but deject my de- 
 votion, especially when I reflect upon mine own . . 
 unworthiness, wherein, According to_my hum- 
 bje_apj>rghensions, I ar Q b^QWLJjiem all. I be- 
 lieve there shall never be an anarchy in heaven ; 
 but as there are hierarchies amongst the an- 
 gels, so shall there be degrees of priority 
 amongst the saints. Yet is it (I protest) be- 
 yond my ambition to aspire unto the first ranks ; 
 my desires only are, and I shall be happy 
 therein, to be but the last man, and bringjop 
 the rear in heaven. 
 
 Again, I am confident, and fully persuaded, 
 yet dare not take my oath, of my salvation. I 
 am, as it were, sure, and do believe without all 
 doubt, that there is such a city as Constantino- 
 ple ; yet for me to take my oath thereon, were 
 a kind of perjury, because I hold no infallible 
 warrant from my own sense to confirm me in the 
 
106 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 certainty thereof. And truly, though many pre- 
 tend to an absolute certainty of their salvation, 
 yet when an humble soul shall contemplate her 
 own unworthiness, she shall meet with many 
 doubts, and suddenly find how little we stand in 
 need of the precept of Saint Paul, " Work out 
 your salvation with fear and trembling." That 
 which is the cause of my election, I hold to be 
 the cause of my salvation, which was the mercy 
 and beneplacit of God, before I was, or the 
 foundation of the world. " Before Abraham was, 
 I am," is the saying of Christ ; yet is it true 
 in some sense if I say it of myself, for I was 
 not only before myself, but Adam, that is in 
 the idea of God, and the decree of that synod 
 held from all eternity. I And in this sense, I 
 say, the world was before the creation, and at 
 an end before it had a beginning. And thus 
 was I dead before I was alive ; though my grave 
 be England, my dying place was Paradise, and 
 Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of 
 Cain. \ 
 
 Insolent zeals that do decry good works and 
 rely only upon faith, take not away merit ; for 
 depending upon the efficacy of their faith, they 
 enforce the condition of God, and in a more 
 sophistical way do seem to challenge heaven. 
 It was decreed by God, that only those that lap- 
 ped in the water like dogs, should have the honor 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 107 
 
 to destroy the Midianites ; yet could none of 
 those justly challenge, or imagine that he de- 
 served that honor thereupon.* I do not deny, 
 but that true faith, and such as God requires, 
 is not only a mark or token, but also a means 
 of our salvation ; but where to find this, is as ob- 
 scure to me, as my last end. And if our Sa- 
 viour could object unto his own disciples and 
 favorites, a faith, that, to the quantity of a grain 
 of mustard-seed, is able to remove mountains, 
 surely that which we boast of is not any thing, 
 or, at the most, but a remove from nothing. 
 This is the tenor of my belief, wherein, though 
 there be many things singular, and to the hu- 
 mor of my irregular self, yet if they square not 
 with maturer judgments, I disclaim them, and 
 do no further favor them, than the learned and 
 best judgments shall authorize them. 
 
 * Judges vii. 5. 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 THE SECOND PART. 
 
 Now for that other virtue of Charity, without 
 which faith is a mere notion, and of no exist- 
 ence, T have ever endeavoured to nourish the 
 merciful disposition, and humane inclination I 
 borrowed from my parents, and regulate it to 
 \ the written and prescribed laws of charity ; 
 and if I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am 
 delineated and naturally framed to such a piece 
 of virtue ; for I am of a constitution so general, 
 that it consorts and sympathizes with all things. 
 <"! have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, 
 in diet, humor, air, any thing. I wonder not 
 at the French for their dishes of frogs, snails, 
 and toadstools, nor at the Jews for locusts and 
 grasshoppers; but being amongst them, make 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 109 
 
 them my common viands, and I find they 
 agree with my stomach as well as theirs. I 
 could digest a salad gathered in a churchyard, 
 as' well as in a garden. I cannot start at the 
 presence of a serpent, scorpion, lizard, or sala- 
 mander ; at the sight of a toad or viper, I find 
 in me no desire to take up a stone to destroy 
 them. I feel not in myself those common an- 
 tipathies that I can discover in others. Those 
 national repugnances do not touch me, nor do 
 I behold with prejudice the French, Italians, 
 Spaniards, or Dutch ; but where I find their 
 actions in balance with my countrymen's, I 
 honor, love, and embrace them in some de- 
 gree. I was born in the eighth climate, but 
 seem for to be framed and constellated unto 
 all. I am no plant that will not prosper out of 
 a garden. All places, all airs make unto me 
 one country ; I am in England every where, 
 and under any meridian. I have been ship- 
 wrecked, yet am not an enemy with the sea or 
 winds. I can study, play, or sleep in a tempest. 
 In brief, I am averse from nothing. My con- 
 science would give me the lie if I should say 
 I absolutely detest or hate any essence but the 
 devil, or so at least abhor any thing but that we 
 might come to composition. If there be any 
 among those common objects of hatred I do 
 contemn and laugh at, it is that great ene- 
 
110 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 my of reason, virtue, and religion, the multi- 
 ;.. tude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which 
 taken asunder seem men, and the reasonable 
 creatures of God ; but confused together, make 
 one great beast, and a monstrosity more pn> 
 digious than hydra. It is no breach of charity 
 to call these fools ; it is the style all holy writers 
 have afforded them, set down by Solomon in 
 canonical Scripture, and a point of our faith to 
 believe so. Neither in the name of multitude 
 do I only include the base and minor sort of 
 people. There is a rabble even amongst the 
 gentry, a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy 
 moves with the same wheel as these ; men in 
 the same level with mechanics, though their 
 fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and 
 their purses compound for their follies. But as 
 in casting account, three or four men together 
 come short in account of one man placed by 
 himself below them; so neither are a troop of 
 these ignorant doradoes, of that true esteem 
 and value, as many a forlorn person, whose 
 condition doth place him below their feet. 
 Let us speak like politicians ; there is a nobility 
 without heraldry, a natural dignity, whereby 
 one man is ranked with another, another filed 
 before him, according to the quality of his 
 desert, and preeminence of his good parts. 
 Though the corruption of these times, and the 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. Ill 
 
 \ 
 
 bias of present practice wheel another way, 
 thus it was in the first and primitive common- 
 wealths, and is yet in the integrity and cradle 
 of well ordered polities, till corruption getteth 
 ground, ruder desires laboring after that which 
 wiser considerations contemn, every one having 
 a liberty to amass and heap up riches, and they 
 a license or faculty to do or purchase any thing. 
 This general and indifferent temper of mine 
 doth more nearly dispose me to this noble vir- 
 tue. It is a happiness to be born and framed 
 unto virtue, and to grow up from the seeds of 
 nature, rather than the inoculation and forced 
 graffs of education. Yet if we are directed only 
 by our particular natures, and regulate our 
 inclinations by no higher rule than that of our 
 reasons, we are but moralists ; divinity will 
 still call us heathens. Therefore this great 
 work of charity, must have other motives, ends, 
 and impulsions. I give no alms only to satisfy the 
 hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accom- 
 plish the will and command of my God. I draw 
 not my purse for his sake that demands it, but 
 his that enjoined it. I relieve no man upon the 
 rhetoric of his miseries, nor to content mine 
 own commiserating disposition, for this is still 
 but moral charity, and an act that oweth more 
 to passion than reason. He that relieves 
 another upon the bare suggestion and bowels 
 
112 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 of pity, doth not this so much for his sake, as 
 for his own ; for by compassion we make others 3 
 misery our own, and so by relieving them, we 
 relieve ourselves also. It is as erroneous a 
 conceit to redress other men's misfortunes upon 
 the common considerations of merciful na- 
 tures, that it may one day be our own case ; 
 for this is a sinister and politic kind of charity, 
 whereby we seem to bespeak the pity of men in 
 the like occasions ; and truly I have observed 
 that those professed eleemosynaries, though in a 
 crowd or multitude, do yet direct and place 
 their petitions on a few and selected persons. 
 There is surely a physiognomy, which those 
 experienced and master mendicants observe, 
 whereby they instantly discover a merciful as- 
 pect, and will single out a face, wherein they 
 spy the signatures and marks of mercy ; for 
 there are mystically in our faces certain char- 
 acterS'Which carry in them the motto of our 
 souls, wherein he that can read A, B, C, may 
 read our natures. I hold moreover that there 
 is a phytognomy or physiognomy, not only of 
 men, but of plants, and vegetables ; and in every 
 one of them some outward figures which hang 
 as signs or bushes of their inward forms. 
 The finger of God hath left an inscription upon 
 all his works, not graphical or composed of let- 
 ters, but of their several forms, constitutions, 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 113 
 
 parts, and operations, which aptly joined to- 
 gether do make one word that doth express 
 their natures. By these letters God calls the 
 stars by their names, and by this alphabet 
 Adam assigned to every creature a name pe- 
 culiar to its nature. Now there are, besides 
 these characters in our faces, certain mystical 
 figures in our hands, which I dare not call 
 mere dashes, strokes "a la volee," or at ran- 
 dom, because delineated by a pencil, that 
 never works in vain ; and hereof I take more 
 particular notice, because I carry that in mine 
 own hand, which I could never read of nor 
 discover in another. Aristotle, I confess, in 
 his acute and singular book of physiognomy, 
 hath made no mention of chiromancy ; yet I 
 believe the Egyptians, who were nearer addict- 
 ed to those abstruse and mystical sciences, had 
 a knowledge therein, to which those vagabond 
 and counterfeit Egyptians did after pretend, 
 and perhaps retained a few corrupted princi- 
 ples, which sometimes might verify their prog- 
 nostics. 
 
 It is the common wonder of all men, how, 
 among so many millions of faces, there should 
 be none alike. Now, contrary, I wonder as 
 much how there should be any. He that shall 
 consider how many thousand several words have 
 been carelessly and without study composed out 
 8 
 
114 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 of twenty -four letters ; withal, how many hun- 
 dred lines there are to be drawn in the fabric 
 of one man ; shall easily find that this variety 
 is necessary ; and it will be very hard that 
 they shall so concur, as to make one portrait 
 like another. Let a painter carelessly limn out 
 a million of faces, and you shall find them all 
 different ; yea, let him have his copy before him, 
 yet after all his art there will remain a sensible 
 distinction ; for the pattern or example of every 
 thing is the perfectest in that kind, whereof we 
 still come short, though we transcend or go 
 beyond it, because herein it is wide, and agrees 
 not in all points unto the copy. Nor doth the 
 similitude of creatures disparage the variety of 
 nature, nor any way confound the works of 
 God ; for even in things alike there is diversity, 
 and those that do seem to accord, do manifestly 
 ^disagree. And thus is man like God ; for in 
 the same things that we resemble him, we are 
 utterly different from him. There was never 
 any thing so like another, as in all points to 
 concur. There will ever some reserved differ- 
 ence slip in, to prevent the identity ; without 
 which, two several things would not be alike, 
 but the same, which is impossible. 
 
 But to return from philosophy to charity. I 
 
 hold not so narrow a conceit of this virtue, as 
 
 \ to conceive that to give alms, is only to be 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 115 
 
 charitable, or think a piece of liberality can 
 comprehend the total of charity. Divinity hath 
 wisely divided the act thereof into many branch- 
 es, and hath taught us, in this narrow way, 
 many paths unto goodness. As many ways as 
 we may do good, so many ways we may be 
 charitable. There are infirmities, not only of 
 body, but of soul and fortunes, which do require 
 the merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot 
 contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him 
 with as much pity as I do Lazarus. It is no 
 greater charity to clothe his body than apparel 
 the nakedness of his soul. It is an honorable 
 object to see the reasons of other men wear our 
 liveries, and their borrowed understandings do 
 homage to the bounty of ours. It is the cheap- 
 est way of beneficence, and like the natural 
 charity of the sun, illuminates another without 
 obscuring itself. To be reserved and caitiff in 
 this part of goodness, is the sordidest piece of 
 covetousness, and more contemptible than pe- 
 cuniary avarice. To this (as calling myself a 
 scholar) I am obliged by the duty of my con- 
 dition. I make not therefore my head a grave, 
 ^ but a treasury of knowledge, I intend no mo- 
 nopoly, but a community in learning. I study 
 not for my own sake only, but for theirs that 
 study not for themselves. I envy no man that 
 knows more than myself, but pity them that 
 
116 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 know less. I instruct no man as an exercise 
 of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to 
 nourish and keep it alive in mine own head, 
 than beget and propagate it in his ; and in the 
 midst of all my endeavours, there is but one 
 thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts 
 must perish with myself, nor can be legacied 
 among my honored friends. I cannot fall out, 
 or contemn a man for an error, or conceive why 
 a difference in opinion should divide an af- 
 fection ; for controversies, disputes, and argu- 
 mentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, 
 if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, 
 do not infringe the laws of charity. In all dis- 
 
 / putes, so much as there is of passion, so much 
 there is of nothing to the purpose ; for then 
 reason, like a bad hound, spends upon a false 
 scent, and forsakes the question first started. 
 And this is one reason why controversies are 
 never determined ; for though they be amply 
 proposed, they are scarce at all handled, they 
 do so swell with unnecessary digressions ; and 
 the parenthesis on the party is often as large as 
 
 i/ the main discourse upon the subject. The 
 foundations of religion are already established, 
 and the principles of salvation subscribed unto 
 by all ; there remain not many controversies 
 worth a passion, and yet never any disputed 
 
 /without, not only in divinity, but inferior arts. 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 117 
 
 What a pccT:Qu%onvo[ittxia and hot skirmish is 
 betwixt 2 and T in Lucian.* How do gram- 
 marians hack and slash for the genitive case 
 in Jupiter. How do they break their own pates 
 to salve that of Priscian. " Si foret in terris, 
 rideret Democritus." Yea, even amongst wiser 
 militants, how many wounds have been given, 
 and credits slain, for the poor victory of an 
 opinion, or beggarly conquest of a distinction ? 
 Scholars are men of peace, they bear no arms, 
 but their tongues are sharper than Actius his 
 razor ; t their pens carry further and give a 
 louder report than thunder. I had rather stand 
 the shock of a basilisco, than the fury of a 
 merciless pen. It is not mere zeal to learning, 
 or devotion to the muses, that wiser princes 
 
 * In his dialogue, " Judicium Vocalium," where there 
 is a large oration made to the vowels, being judges, by 
 Sigma against Tau, complaining that Tau has bereaved 
 him of many words which should begin with Sigma. 
 
 t Actius Noevius was chief Augur, who, as the story 
 saith, admonishing Tarquinius Priscus, that he should not 
 undertake any action of moment, without first consulting 
 the Augur, the king, showing that he had little faith in 
 his skill, demanded of him whether, by the rules of his 
 skill, what he had conceived in his mind might be done. 
 To whom when Actius had answered it might be done, 
 he bid him take a whetstone which he had in his hand, 
 and cut it in two with a razor ; which accordingly the 
 Augur did. Livy. 
 
118 RELIGIO MEDiCI. 
 
 > 
 
 patron the arts, and carry an indulgent aspect 
 unto scholars ; but a desire to have their names 
 eternized by the memory of their writings, and 
 a fear of the revengeful pen of succeeding ages. 
 For these are the men, that when they have 
 played their parts, and had their exits, must 
 step out and give the moral of their scenes, 
 and deliver unto posterity an inventory of their 
 virtues and vices. And surely there goes a 
 great deal of conscience to the compiling of a 
 history. There is no reproach to the scandal 
 of a story ; it is such an authentic kind of 
 falsehood, that with authority belies our good 
 names to all nations and posterity. 
 
 There is another offence unto charity, which 
 no author hath ever written of, and few take 
 notice of, and that 's the reproach, not of whole 
 professions, mysteries, and conditions, but of 
 whole nations, wherein by opprobrious epithets 
 s we miscall each other, and by an uncharitable 
 logic, from a disposition in a few, conclude a 
 habit in all. 
 
 " Le mutin Anglois, etle bravache Ecossois ; 
 Le bougre Italien, et le fol Francois ; 
 Le poltron Remain, le larron de Gascogne, 
 L'Espagnol superbe, et 1'Allemand ivrogne." 
 
 St. Paul, that calls the Cretans liars, doth it 
 but indirectly, and upon quotation of their own 
 poet. It is as bloody a thought in one way, as 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 
 
 Nero's was in another ; for by a word we 
 wound a thousand, and at one blow assassin 
 the honor of a nation.* ; It is as complete a 
 piece of madness to miscall and rave against 
 the times, or think to recall men to reason by 
 a fit of passion. Democritus, that thought to 
 laugh the times into goodness, seems to me as 
 deeply hypochondriac as Heraclitus, that be- 
 wailed them. It moves not my spleen to behold 
 the multitude in their proper humors, that is, 
 in their fits of folly and madness, as well un- 
 derstanding that wisdom is not profaned unto 
 the world, and 5 t is the privilege of a few to be 
 virtuous. They that endeavour to abolish 
 vice, destroy also virtue ; for contraries, though 
 they destroy one another, are yet in life of one 
 another. Thus virtue (abolish vice) is an 
 idea. Again, the community of sin doth not 
 disparage goodness ; for when vice gains upon 
 
 * I suppose he alludes to that passage in Suetonius, in the 
 Life of Nero, where he relates that a certain person, upon 
 a time, spoke in his hearing these words, 
 
 'JLpov B-ctvovros, yviia. fAi%S-yr&t W/>i. 
 
 i. e. " When I am dead, let earth be mingled with fire." 
 Whereupon the Emperor uttered these words, 'E^at/2/yvrtff, 
 i. e. " Yea, whilst I live." There by one word he ex- 
 pressed a cruel thought, which I think is the thing he 
 meant. This is more cruel than the wish of Caligula, 
 that the people of Rome had but one neck, that he might 
 destroy them all at a blow. 
 
120 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 the major part, virtue, in whom it remains, 
 becomes more excellent, and being lost in 
 some, multiplies its goodness in others, which 
 remain untouched, and persist entire in the 
 , general inundation. I can therefore behold 
 vice without a satire, content only with an ad- 
 monition, or instructive reprehension ; for noble 
 natures, and such as are capable of goodness, 
 are railed into vice, that might as easily be ad- 
 monished into virtue ; and we should be all so 
 far the orators of goodness, as to protect her 
 from the power of vice, and maintain the cause 
 of injured truth. No man can justly censure or 
 condemn another, because indeed no man truly 
 
 * knows another. This I perceive in myself; for 
 I am in the dark to all the world, and my 
 nearest friends behold me but in a cloud. 
 Those that know me but superficially, think 
 less of me than I do of myself; those of my 
 near acquaintance think more. God, who truly 
 knows me, knows that I am nothing; for he 
 only beholds me and all the world, who looks 
 not on us through a derived ray, or a trajection 
 of a sensible species, but beholds the substance 
 without the helps of accidents, and the forms 
 of things, as we their operations. Further, no 
 man can judge another, because no man knows 
 himself; for w r e censure others but as they 
 
 ( disagree from that humor which we fancy 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 121 
 
 laudable in ourselves, and commend others but 
 for that wherein they seem to quadrate and 
 consent with us. So that, in conclusion, all is 
 but that we all ^condemn, self-love. ' T is 
 the general complaint of these times, and per- 
 haps of those past, that charity grows cold; 
 which I perceive most verified in those which 
 most do manifest the fires and flames of zeal ; 
 for it is a virtue that best agrees with coldest 
 natures, and such as are complexioned for hu- 
 mility. But how shall we expect charity to- 
 wards others, when we are uncharitable to our- 
 selves ? " Charity begins at home/' is the voice 
 of the world, yet is every man his greatest ene- 
 my, and as it were his own executioner. " Non 
 occides," is the commandment of God, yet 
 scarce observed by any man ; for I perceive 
 every man is his own Atropos, and lends a 
 hand to cut the thread of his own days. Cain 
 was not therefore the first murderer, but Adam, 
 who brought in death ; whereof he beheld 
 the practice and example in his own son Abel, 
 and saw that verified in the experience of 
 another, which faith could not persuade him in 
 the theory of himself. 
 
 There is, I think, no man that apprehends 
 his own miseries less than myself, and no man 
 that so nearly apprehends another's. I could 
 lose an arm without a tear, and with few groans, 
 
RELIGIO MEDICI, 
 
 methinks, be quartered into pieces ; yet can I 
 weep most seriously at a play, and receive with 
 true passion the counterfeit grief of those 
 known and professed impostures. It is a bar- 
 barous part of inhumanity to add unto any af- 
 flicted party's misery, or endeavour to multiply 
 in any man a passion, whose single nature is 
 already above his patience. This was the 
 greatest affliction of Job, and those oblique ex- 
 postulations of his friends a deeper injury than 
 the downright blows of the devil. It is not the 
 tears of our own -eyes only, but of our friends 
 also, that do exhaust the current of our sor- 
 rows, which, falling into many streams, runs 
 more peaceably, and is contented with a nar- 
 rower channel. It is an act within the power 
 of charity, to translate a passion out of one 
 breast into another, and to divide a sorrow al- 
 most out of itself; for an affliction, like a di- 
 mension, may be so divided, as, if not indivis- 
 ible, at least to become insensible. Now with 
 my friend I desire not to share or participate, 
 but to engross his sorrows, that, by making 
 them my own, I may more easily discuss them ; 
 for in my own reason and within myself, I can 
 command that, which I cannot entreat without 
 myself and within the circle of another. I 
 have often thought those noble pairs and ex- 
 amples of friendship not so truly histories of 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 123 
 
 what had been, as fictions of what should be ; 
 but I now perceive nothing in them but possi- 
 bilities, nor any thing in the heroic examples 
 of Damon and Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus, 
 which methinks upon some grounds I could 
 not perform within the narrow compass of my- 
 self. That a man should lay down his life for 
 his friend, seems strange to vulgar affections, 
 and such as confine themselves within that 
 worldly principle, " Charity begins at home." 
 For my own part, I could never remember the 
 relations that I held unto myself, nor the re- 
 spect that I owe unto my own nature, in the 
 
 < cause of God, my country, and my friends. 
 Next to these three, I do embrace myself. I 
 confess I do not observe that order that the 
 schools ordain our affections, to love our par- 
 ents, wives, children, and then our friends ; for 
 excepting the injunctions of religion, I do not 
 find in myself such a necessary and indisso- 
 
 ( luble sympathy to all those of my blood. I 
 hope I do not break the fifth commandment, if 
 I conceive I may love my friend before the 
 nearest of my blood, even those to whom I owe 
 the principles of life. I never yet cast a true 
 affection on a woman, but I have loved my 
 friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God. From 
 hence methinks I do conceive how God loves 
 man, what happiness there is in the love of 
 
124 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 God. Omitting all other, there are three most 
 mystical unions ; two natures in one person ; 
 three persons in one nature ; one soul in two 
 bodies. For though indeed they be really di- 
 vided, yet are they so united, as they seem but 
 one, and make rather a duality than two dis- 
 tinct souls. 
 
 There are wonders in true affection. It is a 
 body of enigmas, mysteries, and riddles, where- 
 in two so become one, as they both become two. 
 I love my friend before myself, and yet me- 
 thinks I do not love him enough. Some few 
 months hence my multiplied affection will make 
 me believe I have not loved him at all. When 
 I am from him, I am dead till I be with him; 
 when I am with him, I am not satisfied, but 
 would still be nearer him. United souls are not 
 satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truly 
 each other ; which being impossible, their 
 desires are infinite, and must proceed without a 
 possibility of satisfaction. Another misery 
 there is in affection, that, whom we truly love like 
 our own selves, we forget their looks, nor can our 
 memory retain the idea of their faces ; and it 
 is no wonder, for they are ourselves, and our 
 affection makes their looks our own. This no- 
 ble affection falls not on vulgar and common 
 constitutions, but on such as are marked for 
 virtue. He that can love his friend with this 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 
 
 noble ardor, will, in a competent degree, affect 
 all. Now if we can bring our affections to 
 look beyond the body, and cast an eye upon 
 the soul, we have found out the true object, 
 not only of friendship, but charity ; and the 
 greatest happiness that we can bequeath the 
 soul, is that wherein we all do place our last fe- 
 licity, salvation ; which, though it be not in our 
 power to bestow, it is in our charity and pious 
 invocations to desire, if not procure and fur- 
 ther. I cannot contentedly frame a prayer for 
 myself in particular, without a catalogue for my 
 friends ; nor request a happiness wherein my 
 sociable disposition doth not desire the fellow- 
 ship of my neighbour. I never hear the toll of 
 a passing-bell, though in my mirth, without my 
 prayers and best wishes for the departing spirit. 
 I cannot go to cure the body of my patient, 
 but I forget my profession, and call unto God 
 for his soul. I cannot see one say his prayers, 
 but, instead of imitating him, I fall into a sup- 
 plication for him, who perhaps is no more to 
 me than a common nature ; and if God hath 
 vouchsafed an ear to my supplications, there 
 are surely many happy that never saw me, and 
 enjoy the blessing of my unknown devotions. 
 To pray for enemies, that is, for their salva- 
 tion, is no harsh precept, but the practice of 
 our daily and ordinary devotions. I cannot be* 
 
126 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 lieve the story of the Italian.* Our bad 
 wishes and uncharitable desires proceed no 
 further than this life. It is the devil, and the 
 uncharitable votes of hell, that desire our mis- 
 ery in the world to come. 
 
 To do no injury, nor take none, was a prin- 
 ciple, which to my former years, and impatient 
 affections, seemed to contain enough of morali- 
 ty ; but my more settled years, and Christian 
 constitution, have fallen upon severer resolu- 
 tions. I can hold there is no such thing as 
 injury ; that if there be, there is no such injury 
 as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt 
 of an injury ; that to hate another, is to malign 
 himself; that the truest way to love another, is 
 to despise ourselves. I were unjust unto my 
 own conscience, if I should say I am at vari- 
 ance with any thing like myself. I find there 
 are many pieces in this one fabric of man ; this 
 frame is raised upon a mass of antipathies. I am 
 one, methiriks, but as the world ; wherein, not- 
 withstanding, there are a swarm of distinct es- 
 sences, and in them another world of contrari* 
 
 * It is reported that a certain Italian, having met with 
 one that had highly provoked him, put a poniard to his 
 breast, and unless he would blaspheme God, told him 
 he would kill him ; which the other doing to save his 
 life, the Italian presently killed him, to the intent he 
 might be damned, having no time for repentance. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 127 
 
 eties ; we carry private and domestic enemies 
 within, public and more hostile adversaries 
 without. The devil, that did but buffet St. Paul, 
 plays, methinks, at sharp with me. Let me 
 be nothing, if within the compass of my- 
 self, I do not find the battle of Lepanto, 
 passion against reason, reason against faith, 
 faith against the devil, and my conscience 
 ^ against all. There is another man withiojiie, 
 that *s angry witri me. 
 
 dastards me. I have no conscience of marble, 
 to ""resist the hammer of more heavy offences ; 
 nor yet too soft and waxen, as to take the im- 
 pression of each single peccadillo or scape of 
 infirmity, I am of a strange belief, that it is 
 as easy to be forgiven some sins, as to com- 
 mit some others. For my original sin, I hold 
 it to be washed away in my baptism ; for 
 actual transgressions, I compute and 
 reckon with God, but from my last repentance, 
 sacrament, or general absolution ; and there- 
 fore am not terrified with the sins or madness 
 of my youth. I thank the goodness of God, I 
 have no sins that want a name ; I am not singu- 
 lar in offences ; my transgressions are epidemi- 
 cal, and from the common breath of our cor- 
 ruption. For there are certain tempers of 
 body, which matched with a humorous depravity 
 of mind, do hatch and produce vitiosities, whose 
 
128 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 newness and monstrosity of nature admits no 
 name. This was the temper of that lecher that 
 carnalled with a statua, and the constitution of 
 Nero in his Spintrian recreations. For the heav- 
 ens are not only fruitful in new and unheard-of 
 stars, the earth in plants and animals, but men's 
 minds also in villany and vices. Now the dull- 
 ness of my reason, and the vulgarity of my 
 disposition, never prompted my invention, nor 
 solicited my affection unto any of those ; yet 
 even those common and quotidian infirmities 
 that so necessarily attend me, and do seem to 
 be my very nature, have so dejected me, so 
 broken the estimation that I should have other- 
 wise of myself, that I repute myself the most 
 abject piece of mortality. Divines prescribe a 
 fit of sorrow to repentance ; there goes indig- 
 nation, anger, sorrow, hatred, into mine ; pas- 
 sions of a contrary nature, which neither seem 
 to suit with this action, nor my proper consti- 
 tution. It is no breach of charity to ourselves, 
 to be at variance with our vices, nor to abhor 
 that part of us, which is an enemy to the ground 
 of charity, our God ; wherein we do but imi- 
 tate our great selves, the world, whose divided 
 antipathies and contrary faces do yet carry 
 a charitable regard unto the whole, by their 
 particular discords preserving the common 
 harmony, and keeping in fetters those powers, 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 129 
 
 whose rebellions, once masters, might be the 
 ruin of all. 
 
 I thank God, amongst those millions of vices 
 I do inherit and hold from Adam, I have 
 escaped one, and that a mortal enemy to chari- 
 ty, the first and father sin, not only of man, but 
 of the devil, pride ; a vice whose name is com- 
 prehended in a monosyllable, but in its nature 
 not circumscribed with a world. I have es- 
 caped it in a condition that can hardly avoid 
 it. Those petty acquisitionsand reputed per- 
 fections that advance and eTev_ate tEe conceits^ 
 of other men, add no., feathers jmto mineTi 
 have seen a grammarian tower and plume him- 
 self over a single line in Horace, and show 
 more pride in the construction of one ode, than 
 the author in the composure of the whole book. 
 For my own part, besides the jargon and pa- 
 tois of several provinces, I understand no less 
 than six languages ; yet I protest I have no 
 higher conceit of myself than had our fathers 
 before the confusion of Babel, when there was 
 but one language in the world, and none to 
 boast himself either linguist or critic. I have 
 not only seen several countries, beheld the na- ( 
 ture of their climes, the chorography of their 
 provinces, topography of their cities, but un- 
 derstood their several laws, customs, and poli- 
 cies ; yet cannot all this persuade the dulness 
 9 
 
130 RELIG10 MEDICI. 
 
 of my spirit unto such an opinion of myself as 
 I behold in nimbler and conceited heads, that 
 never looked a degree beyond their nests. I 
 know the names, and somewhat more, of all 
 the constellations in my horizon ; yet I have 
 seen a prating mariner, that could only name 
 the Pointers and the north star, out-talk me, 
 and conceit himself a whole sphere above me. 
 I know most of the plants of my country and 
 of those about me ; yet methinks I do not 
 know so many as when I did but know a hun- 
 dred, and had scarcely ever simpled further 
 than Cheapside. For indeed heads of capacity, 
 and such as are not full with a handful or easy 
 measure of knowledge, think they know noth- 
 ing till they know all ; which being impossible, 
 they fall upon the opinion of Socrates, and only 
 know they know not any thing. I cannot 
 think that Homer pined away upon the riddle 
 of the fishermen,* or that Aristotle, who under- 
 
 * The history out of Plutarch is thus. Homer, sailing 
 from Thebes to the island Ion, being landed and set 
 down upon the shore, there happened certain fishermen 
 to pass by him, and he asking them what they had 
 taken, they made him this enigmatical answer; that 
 what they had taken they had left behind them, and 
 what they had not taken they had with them ; meaning, 
 that, because they could take no fish, they went to louse 
 themselves, and that all which they had taken they had 
 killed and left behind them, and all which they had not 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 131 
 
 stood the uncertainty of knowledge, and con- 
 fessed so often the reason of man too weak for 
 the works of nature, did ever drown himself 
 upon the flux and reflux of Euripus. We do 
 but learn to-day what our better advanced judg- 
 ments will unteach to-morrow ; and Aristotle 
 / doth but instruct us as Plato did him ; that is, 
 to confute himself. I have run through all 
 sorts, yet find no rest in any ; though our first 
 studies and junior endeavours may style us Peri- 
 patetics, Stoics, or Academics, yet I perceive 
 the wisest heads prove at last almost all Skep- 
 tics, and stand like Janus in the field of knowl- 
 edge. I have therefore one common and au- 
 thentic philosophy I learned in the schools, 
 whereby I discourse and satisfy the reason of 
 other men ; another more reserved, and drawn 
 from experience, whereby I content mine own. 
 Solomon, that complained of ignorance in the 
 height of knowledge, hath not only humbled 
 my conceits, but discouraged my endeavours. 
 There is yet another conceit that hath some- 
 taken they had with them in their clothes ; and that Ho- 
 mer, being struck with a deep sadness because he could 
 not interpret this, pined away, and at last died. Pliny 
 alludes to this riddle in his epistle to his friend Fuscus, 
 where, giving an account of spending his time in the 
 country, he tells him, " Venor aliquando, sed non sine 
 pugillaribus, ut, quamvis nihil ceperim, nonnihil re- 
 feram." Plin. Ep. Lib. ix. Ep. 36. 
 
132 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 times made me shut my books, which tells me 
 it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind 
 pursuit of knowledge ; it is but attending~a lit- 
 tle longer, and we shall enjoy that by instinct 
 and infusion, which we endeavour at here by 
 , labor and inquisition. It is better to sit down 
 1 in a modest ignorance, and rest contented with 
 the natural blessing of our own reasons, than 
 buy the uncertain knowledge of this life with 
 sweat and vexation, which death gives every 
 fool gratis, and is an accessary of our glorifica- 
 jtion. 
 
 I was never yet once, and commend their 
 resolutions who never marry twice ; not that I 
 disallow of second marriages, as neither, in all 
 cases, of polygamy, which, considering some 
 times and the unequal number of both sexes, 
 may be also necessary. The whole world was 
 made for man, but the twelfth part of man for 
 woman. Man is the whole world and the 
 breath of God ; woman the rib arid crooked 
 piece of man. I could be content that we 
 might procreate like trees, without conjunction, 
 or that there were any way to perpetuate the 
 world without this trivial and vulgar way of 
 coition. It is the foolishest act a wise man 
 commits in all his life, nor is there any thing 
 that will more deject his cooled imagination, 
 when he shall consider what an odd and un- 
 
THE RELIGION OP A PHYSICIAN. 133 
 
 worthy piece of folly he hath committed. 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 
 a horse. It is my temper, and I like it the 
 better, to affect all harmony j and sure there 
 is music even in the beauty and the silent note 
 which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound 
 of an instrument. For there is a music wherev- 
 er there is a harmony, order, or proportion ; 
 and thus far we may maintain the music of the 
 spheres ; for those well ordered motions and 
 regular paces, though they give no sound unto 
 the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a 
 rxote most full of harmony. Whosoever is har- 
 ^ monically composed, delights in harmony ; 
 which makes me much distrust the symmetry 
 of those heads which declaim against all church 
 music. For myself, not only from my obedi- 
 ence, but my particular genius, 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 pro- 
 found contemplation of the first Composer. 
 There is something in it of divinity more than ^ 
 the ear discovers ; it is an hieroglyphical and j 
 shadowed lesson of the whole world and crea- \ 
 tures of God ; such a melody to the ear, as the \ 
 
134 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 whole world, well understood, would afford the 
 understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of 
 that harmony which intellectually sounds in the 
 ears of God. I will not say with Plato, the 
 soul is a harmony, but harmonical, and hath 
 its nearest sympathy unto music. Thus some, 
 whose temper of body agrees and humors the 
 constitution of their souls, are born poets, 
 though indeed all are naturally inclined unto 
 rhythm. This made Tacitus, in the very first 
 line of his story, fall upon a verse ; * and Cice- 
 ro, the worst of poets, but declaiming for a poet, 
 falls in the very first sentence upon a per- 
 fect hexameter, t 
 
 I feel not in me those sordid and unchris- 
 tian desires of my profession. I do not se- 
 cretly implore and wish for plagues, rejoice 
 at famines, revolve ephemerides and alma- 
 nacs in expectation of malignant aspects, fa- 
 tal conjunctions, and eclipses. I rejoice not 
 at unwholesome springs, nor unseasonable win- 
 ters. My prayer goes with the husbandman's ; 
 I desire every thing in its proper season, that 
 neither men nor the times be put out of temper. 
 Let me be sick myself, if sometimes the malady 
 of my patient be not a disease unto me. I de- 
 sire rather to cure his infirmities than my own 
 
 * Urbem Romam in principle reges habuere. 
 t In qua me non inficior mediocriter esse. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 135 
 
 
 
 necessities. Where I do him no good, me- 
 thinks it is scarce honest gain ; though I con- 
 fess 5 t is but the worthy salary of our well-in- 
 tended endeavours. I am not only ashamed, 
 but heartily sorry, that, besides death, there 
 are diseases incurable ; yet not for my own 
 sake, or that they be beyond my art, but for 
 the general cause and sake of humanity, whose 
 common cause I apprehend as mine own. And, 
 to speak more generally, those three noble pro- 
 fessions, which all civil commonwealths do hon- 
 or, are raised upon the fall of Adam, and are 
 ynot exempt from their infirmities. There are 
 < not only diseases incurable in physic, but cases 
 indissolvable in laws, vices incorrigible in di- 
 vinity. If general councils may err, I do not 
 see why particular courts should be infallible. 
 Their perfectest rules are raised upon the erro- 
 neous reasons of man, and the laws of one do 
 but condemn the rules of another ; as Aristotle 
 ofttimes the opinions of his predecessors, be- 
 cause, though agreeable to reason, yet were 
 not consonant to his own rules, and the logic of 
 his proper principles. Again, to speak nothing 
 of the sin against the Holy Ghost, whose cure 
 not only, but whose nature is unknown ; I can 
 cure the gout or stone in some, sooner than 
 divinity pride or avarice in others. I can cure 
 vices by physic, when they remain incurable by 
 
V 
 ^\, 
 
 136 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 divinity, and they shall obey my pills when they 
 contemn their precepts. I boast nothing, but 
 plainly say, we all labor, against our own cure ; 
 for death is the cure of all diseases. There is 
 no catholicon or universal remedy I know but 
 this ; which, though nauseous to queasy stom- 
 achs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar and a 
 pleasant potion of immortality. 
 
 For my conversation, it is like the sun's, 
 with all men, and with a friendly aspect to 
 good and bad. Methinks there is no man bad, 
 and the worst, best ; that is, while they are 
 kept within the circle of those qualities, where- 
 in there is good. There is no man's mind of 
 such discordant and jarring a temper, to which 
 'a tunable disposition may not strike a harmo- 
 'iy. " Magnae virtutes, nee minora vitia " ; it 
 is the posy of the best natures, and may be 
 Inverted on the worst.* There are, in the 
 most depraved and venomous dispositions, cer- 
 tain pieces that remain untouched, which, by 
 an antiperistasisj become more excellent, or 
 by the excellency of their antipathies are able 
 to preserve themselves from the contagion of 
 
 * That is, that there are none so abandoned to vice, 
 but they have some sprinklings of virtue. There are 
 scarce any so vicious, but commend virtue in those that 
 are endued with it, and do some things laudable them- 
 selves. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 137 
 
 their enemy vices, and persist entire beyond 
 the general corruption. For it is thus also in 
 nature. The greatest balsams do lie enveloped 
 in the bodies of the most powerful corrosives. 
 I say moreover, and I ground upon experience, 
 that poisons contain within themselves their own 
 antidote, and that which preserves them from the 
 venom of themselves, without which they were 
 not deleterious to others only, but to themselves 
 also. But it is the corruption that I fear with- 
 in me, not the contagion of commerce with- 
 out me. 'T is that unruly regiment within me 
 that will destroy me. 'T is I that do infect 
 myself. The man without a navel yet lives in 
 me.* I feel that original canker corrode and 
 devour me ; and therefore " Defenda me, Dios, 
 de me " ; " Lord, deliver me from myself," is 
 a part of my litany and the first voice of my 
 retired imaginations. There is no man alone, 
 because every man is a microcosm, and carries 
 the whole world about him. " Nunquam minus ** 
 solus quam cum solus," though it be the apo- .jJ 
 thegm of a wise man, is yet true in the mouth ^ 
 of a fool. For indeed, though in a wilderness, a \ 
 man is never alone, not only because he is with / 
 himself and his own thoughts, but because he \ Vj 
 is with the devil, who ever consorts with our 
 solitude, and is that unruly rebel that musters 
 
 * The old Adam, 
 
138 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 up those disordered motions, which accompany 
 our sequestered imaginations. And to speak 
 more narrowly, there is no such thing as soli- 
 tude, nor any thing that can be said to be alone, 
 and by itself, but God, who is his own circle, 
 and can subsist by himself. All others, besides 
 their dissimilar)' and heterogeneous parts, 
 which in a manner multiply their natures, can- 
 not subsist without the concourse of God, and 
 the society of that hand which doth uphold their 
 natures. In brief, there can be nothing truly 
 I alone, and by itself, which is not truly one, and 
 such is only God. All others do transcend a 
 unity, and so by consequence are many. 
 
 Now 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 count it not 
 an inn, but an hospital, and a place, not to live 
 but to die in. The world that I regard is my- 
 ^ self; it is the microcosm of mine own frame, 
 v that I cast mine eye on ; for the other, I use it 
 but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes 
 for my recreation. Men that look upon my 
 outside, perusing only my condition and for- 
 tunes, do err in my altitude ; for I am above 
 Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point not 
 only in respect of the heavens above us, but of 
 heavenly and celestial part within us. That 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 139 
 
 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. 
 \ take my circle to be above three hundred and 
 sixty ; though the number of the arc do measure 
 my body, it comprehended! not my mind. 
 Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, 
 or little world, I find myself something more 
 than the great. There is surely a piece of 
 divinity in us, something that was before the 
 elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. . 
 I Nature tells me I am the image of God, as well 
 as Scripture. He that understands riot thus 
 much, hath not his introduction or first lesson, 
 and is yet to begin the alphabet of man. 
 
 Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say 
 I am as happy as any. ' ' Ruat co3lum, fiat volun- 
 tas tua," salveth all ; so that, whatsoever hap- 
 pens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. 
 In brief, I am content, and what should Provi- 
 dence add more? Surely this is it we call hap- 
 piness, and this do I enjoy ; with this I am happy 
 in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness 
 in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth 
 and reality. There is surely a nearer appre- 
 hension of any thing that delights us in our 
 dreams than in our waked senses. Without this 
 I were unhappy ; for my awaked judgment dis- 
 contents me, ever whispering unto me that I 
 
140 REL1GIO MEDICI. 
 
 am from my friend ; but my friendly dreams in 
 the night requite me, and make me think I am 
 within his arms. I thank God for my happy 
 dreams, as I do for my good rest ; for there is a 
 satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, 
 i and such as can be content with a fit of hap- 
 a iness j^and surely it is not ajnelancholy con- 
 ceit to think we are all asleep in this world, 
 and that the conceits of this life are as mere 
 dreams to those of the next, as the phantasms 
 of the night to the conceits of the day. There 
 is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth 
 but seem to be the emblem or picture of *the 
 other. We are somewhat more than ourselves 
 in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems 
 to be but the waking of the soul. It is the 
 ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and 
 our waking conceptions do not match the fan- 
 cies of our sleeps. At my nativity, my ascend- 
 ant was the watery sign of Scorpius ; I was born 
 in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I 
 have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I 
 am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth 
 and galliardise of company ; yet in one dream I 
 can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, 
 apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at 
 the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faith- 
 ful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never 
 study but in my dreams ; and this time also 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 141 
 
 would I choose for my devotions. But our 
 grosser memories have then so little hold of 
 our abstracted understandings, that they forget 
 the story, and can only relate to our awaked 
 souls a confused and broken tale of that 
 that hath passed. Aristotle, who hath written a 
 singular tract of sleep, hath not methinks 
 throughly defined it ; nor yet Galen, though 
 he seems to have corrected it. For those noc- 
 tambulos and nightwalkers, though in their 
 sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses. 
 We must therefore say, that there is something 
 in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Mor- 
 pheus, and that those abstracted and ecstatic 
 souls do walk about in their own corps, as 
 spirits with the bodies they assume ; wherein 
 they seem to hear, see, and feel, though indeed 
 the organs are destitute of sense, and their na- 
 tures of those faculties that should inform 
 them. Thus it is observed, that men some- 
 times, upon the hour of their departure, do 
 speak and reason above themselves. For then 
 the soul, beginning to be freed from the liga- 
 ments of the body, begins to reason like her- 
 self, and to discourse in a strain above mor- 
 tality. 
 
 We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking 
 that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are 
 the house of life. 'T is indeed a part of life 
 
142 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 that best expresseth death ; for every man tru- 
 ly lives so long as he acts his nature, or some 
 way makes good the faculties of himself. The- 
 mistocles therefore, that slew his soldier in his 
 sleep, was a merciful executioner. 'T is a kind 
 of punishment the mildness of no laws hath in- 
 vented. I wonder the fancy of Lucan and 
 Seneca did not discover it.* It is that death 
 by which we may be literally said to die daily ; 
 a death which Adam died before his mortality ; 
 a death whereby we live ; a middle and moder- 
 ating point between life and death ; in fine, 
 so like death, I dare not trust it without my 
 prayers and a half adieu unto the world, and 
 take my farewell in a colloquy with God. 
 
 The night is come, like to the day ; 
 Depart not thou, great God, away. 
 Let not my sins, black as the night, 
 Eclipse the lustre of thy light. 
 Keep still in my horizon ; for to me 
 The sun makes not the day, but thee. 
 Thou, whose nature cannot sleep, 
 On my temples sentry keep ; 
 Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, 
 "Whose eyes are open while mine close. 
 Let no dreams my head infest, 
 But sucn as Jacob's temples blest. 
 
 * Both of whom were permitted by Nero to choose the 
 mode in which they would die. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 143 
 
 While I do rest, my soul advance, 
 Make my sleep a holy trance ; 
 That I may, my rest being wrought, 
 Awake into some holy thought ; 
 And with as active vigor run 
 My course as doth the nimble sun. 
 Sleep is a death. O make me try, 
 By sleeping, what it is to die ; 
 And as gently lay my head 
 On my grave as now my bed. 
 Howe'er I rest, great God, let me 
 Awake again at last with thee. 
 And thus assured, behold I lie 
 Securely, or to awake or die. 
 These are my drowsy days ; in vain 
 I do now wake to sleep again. 
 O come that hour, when I shall never 
 Sleep again, but wake for ever. 
 
 This is the donnitive I take to bedward. I 
 need no other laudanum than this to make me 
 sleep ; after which I close mine eyes in secu- 
 rity, content to take my leave of the sun, and 
 sleep unto the resurrection. 
 
 The method I should use in distributive jus- 
 tice, I often observe in commutative, and keep 
 a geometrical proportion in both ; whereby, be- 
 coming equable to others, I become unjust to 
 myself, and supererogate in that common prin- 
 ciple, " Do unto others as thou wouldst be done 
 unto thyself." I was not born unto riches, 
 neither is it, I think, my star to be wealthy ; 
 
144 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 or if it were, the freedom of my mind and frank- 
 ness of my disposition were able to contradict 
 and cross my fates ; for to me avarice seems 
 not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of 
 madness. To conceive ourselves urinals, or 
 be persuaded that we are dead, is not so ri- 
 diculous, nor so many degrees beyond the pow- 
 er of hellebore, as this. Th opinions of theo- 
 ry and positions of men are not so void of rea- 
 son as their practised conclusions. Some have 
 held that snow is black, that the earth moves, 
 that the soul is air, fire, water ; but all this 
 is philosophy, and there is no delirium, if we 
 do but speculate the folly- and indisputable do- 
 tage of avarice to that subterraneous idol and 
 god of the earth. I do confess I am an atheist ; 
 I cannot persuade myself to honor that the 
 world adores. Whatsoever virtue its prepared 
 substance may have within my body, it hath 
 no influence nor operation without. I would ; 
 not "entertain a base design, or an action that 
 should call me villain, for the Indies ; and for 
 this only do I love and honor my own soul, 
 and have methinks two arms too few to em- 
 brace myself. Aristotle is too severe, that 
 will not allow us to t>e truly liberal without 
 wealth and the bountiful hand of fortune. If 
 this be true, I must confess I am charitable on- 
 ly in my liberal intentions and bountiful well- 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 145 
 
 wishes. But if the example of the mite be not 
 only an act of wonder, but an example of the 
 noblest charity, surely poor men may also build 
 hospitals, and the rich alone have not erected 
 cathedrals. I have a private method which 
 others observe not. I take the opportunity of 
 myself to do good. I borrow occasion of chari- 
 ty from my own necessities, and supply the 
 wants of others when I am in most need my- 
 self; for it is an honest stratagem to take ad- 
 vantage of ourselves, and so to husband the acts 
 of virtue, that where they were defective in one 
 circumstance, they may repay their want and 
 multiply their goodness in another. I have not 
 Peru in my desires, but a competence, and 
 ability to perform those good works to which 
 He hath inclined my nature. He is rich who 
 hath enough to be charitable ; and it is hard 
 C'to be so poor, that a noble mind may not find a 
 way to this piece of goodness. " He that 
 giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." There 
 is more rhetoric in that one sentence, than in 
 a library of sermons ; and indeed if those sen- 
 tences were understood by the reader with the 
 same emphasis as they are delivered by the 
 author, we needed not those volumes of in- 
 structions, but might be honest by an ^epitome. 
 Upon this motive only I cannot behold a beg- 
 gar without relieving his necessities with my 
 10 
 
146 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 purse, or his soul with my prayers. These 
 scenical and accidental differences between us 
 cannot make me forget that common and un- 
 touched part of us both. There is, under these 
 centos and miserable outsides, these mutilate 
 and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with 
 our own, whose genealogy is God as well as 
 ours, and in as fair a way to salvation as our- 
 selves. Statists that labor to contrive a com- 
 monwealth without poverty, take away the 
 object of charity, not understanding only the 
 commonwealth of a Christian, but forgetting 
 the prophecy of Christ. 
 
 Now there is another part of charity, which 
 is the basis and pillar of this, and that is, the 
 love of God, for whom we love our neighbour ; 
 for this I think charity, to love God for him- 
 self, and our neighbour for God. All that is 
 truly amiable is God, or, as it were, a divided 
 piece of him, that retains a reflex or shadow of 
 himself. Nor is it strange that we should place 
 affection on that which is invisible. All that 
 we truly love is thus. What we adore under 
 affection of our senses, deserves not the honor 
 of so pure a title. Thus we adore virtue, 
 though to the eyes of sense she be invisible. 
 Thus that part of our noble friends that we 
 love is not that part that we embrace, but that 
 insensible part that our arms cannot embrace. 
 
THE RELIGION OF A PHYSICIAN. 147 
 
 God being all goodness,, can love nothing but 
 himself and the traduction of his holy spirit. ' 
 Let us call to assize the loves of our parents, 
 the affections of our wives and children, and 
 they are all dumb shows and dreams, without 
 reality, truth, or constancy. For, first, there 
 is a strong bond of affection between us and 
 our parents ; yet how easily dissolved. We 
 betake ourselves to a woman, forget our moth- 
 er in a wife, and the womb that bare us in 
 that that shall bear our image. This woman 
 blessing us with children, our affection leaves 
 the level it held before, and sinks from our bed 
 unto our issue and picture of posterity, where 
 affection holds no steady mansion. They, 
 growing up in years, desire our ends ; or, ap- 
 plying themselves to a woman, take a lawful 
 way to love another better than ourselves. 
 Thus I perceive a man may be buried alive, 
 and behold his grave in his own issue. 
 
 I conclude therefore and say, there is no 
 happiness under (or, as Copernicus will have it, 
 above) the sun, nor any " crambe " in that re- 
 peated verity and burthen of all the wisdom of 
 Solomon, " All is vanity and vexation of spirit." 
 f There is no felicity in that the world adores. 
 Aristotle, whilst he labors to refute the ideas 
 of Plato, falls upon one himself; for his "sum- 
 mum bonum" is a chimera, and there is no 
 
148 RELIGIO MEDICI. 
 
 such thing as his felicity. That wherein God 
 himself is happy, the holy angels are happy, in 
 whose defect the devils are unhappy, that dare 
 I call happiness. Whatsoever conduceth unto 
 this may, with an easy metaphor, deserve that 
 name. Whatsoever else the world terms hap- 
 piness is to me a story out of Pliny, a tale of 
 Boccace or Malizspini, an apparition or neat 
 delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness 
 than the name. Bless me in this life with but 
 peace of my conscience, command of my affec- 
 tions, the love of thyself and my dearest friends, 
 and I shall be happy enough to pity Caesar. 
 These are, O Lord, the humble desires of rny 
 most reasonable ambition, and all I dare call 
 happiness on earth ; wherein I set no rule or 
 limit to thy hand of providence. Dispose of 
 me according to the wisdom of thy pleasure. 
 Thy will be done, though in my own undoing. 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 " I WONDER and admire his entireness in every subject 
 that is before him. He follows it, he never wanders 
 from it, and he has no occasion to wander; for whatever 
 happens to be the subject, he metamorphoses all nature 
 into it. In that treatise on some urns dug up in Norfolk, 
 how earthy, how redolent of graves and sepulchres is 
 ever line ! You have now dark mould, now a thigh 
 bone, now a skull, then a bit of a mouldered coffin, a 
 fragment of an old tomb-stone with moss in its ' Hie 
 Jacet,' a ghost, or a winding-sheet, or the echo of a 
 funeral psalm wafted on a November wind ; and the 
 gayest thing you shall meet with shall be a silver nail or 
 a gilt ' Anno Domini/ from a perished coffin-top." 
 
REMARKS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 [The following remarks are extracted from an article in 
 the Retrospective Review, Vol. I. p. 83.] 
 
 " SIR THOMAS BROWNE, in the work before us, 
 hath dared to take the grave itself for his theme. 
 He deals not with death as a shadow, but as a sub- 
 stantial reality. He dwells not on it as the mere 
 cessation of life ; he treats it not as a terrible nega- 
 tion ; but enters on its discussion as a state with its 
 own solemnities and pomps. Others, who have pro- 
 fessed to write on death, have treated merely of dy- 
 ing. They have fearfully described the rending 
 asunder of soul and body, the last farewell to ex- 
 istence, and the state of the spirit in its range 
 through new and untried scenes of rapture or of 
 wo. Some have individualized the theme, and writ- 
 ten of death in relation only to particular persons or 
 classes who become its victims. Those who regard 
 it more universally and intensely, as Blair and Young, 
 yet look but on its surface. They are conversant 
 only with cypresses, yew trees, and grave-stones, 
 
152 REMARKS ON 
 
 or hint at superstitions which endow the dead with 
 life, and endue the tomh with something of vitality. 
 Sir Thomas Browne alone treats of death as one 
 subdued to its very essence. He encounters the ty- 
 rant, and 'plucks out the heart of his mystery.' 
 He speaks not of the agonies of dissolution ; but re- 
 gards the destroyer only when he is laden with his 
 spoils, and the subjects of his victory are at rest. 
 The region of his imagination is that space beneath 
 the surface of the world, where the bones of all gen- 
 erations repose. His fancy works beneath the 
 ground its way from tomb to tomb, rests on each va- 
 riety of burial, ennobles the naked clay of the pea- 
 sant, expands in the sepulchres of kings, and, skim- 
 ming beneath the deepest caverns of the sea, detects 
 the unvalued jewels i in those holes which eyes did 
 once inhabit. 7 The language of his essay is weighty, 
 yet tender, such as his theme should inspire. We 
 can imagine nothing graver. His words are sepul- 
 chral ; his ornaments are flowers of mortality. If 
 his essay were read by Mr. Kemble, it would have 
 appropriate voice, breathed forth in the tenderest or 
 sepulchral tones, with cadences solemn and sweet as 
 the last tremblings of good men's lives." 
 
 " Sir Thomas Browne, by his intense earnestness 
 and vivid solemnity, seems really to endow the 
 grave itself with life. He does not linger in the val- 
 ley of the shadow of death, but enters within the por- 
 tals, where the regal destroyer keeps his awful state ; 
 and yet there is nothing, thin, airy, or unsubstantial, 
 nothing ghostly or shocking, in his work. He un- 
 veils, with a reverent touch, the material treasures 
 
THE HYDRIOTAPHIA. 153 
 
 L* 
 
 of the sepulchre ; he describes these with the learn- 
 ing of an antiquary ; moralizes on them with the wis- 
 dom of a philosopher ; broods over them with the 
 tenderness of an enthusiast ; and associates with 
 them sweet and congenial images, with the fancy of 
 a poet. He is the laureat of the king of terrors ; 
 and most nobly does he celebrate the earthly mag- 
 nificence of his kingdom. He discovers consolations 
 not only in the hopes of immortality, but in the dusty 
 and sad ornaments of the tomb. How richly does he 
 speak of the liquors found in old sepulchres, as if 
 death were the chief butler of time, and preserved 
 patriarchal flavors within his vaults ! " 
 
 " Sir Thomas Browne ennobles and consecrates 
 whatever he touches. He makes us feel, that mag- 
 nitude is not necessary to venerableness, for in his 
 works, things which before appeared insignificant* 
 impress us with an awful grandeur. He requires 
 not a vast or gigantic object to stir and affect 
 him. He perceives the high attributes of the small- 
 est things, the antiquity and the consecration which 
 they share with the mightiest, and renders an urn or 
 a pyramid equal to the mind. His power, like that 
 of death, levels distinctions ; for he looks into the 
 soul of things, instead of contemplating merely their 
 external forms. Thus, by showing that the lowliest 
 things have consecrating associations equal to the 
 stateliest, he vindicates to Nature and Time those 
 regalities which we are prone to attribute to stupen- 
 dous remains of human skill, as if they appertained 
 to them as inherent properties, and were not merely 
 shed on them by hallowing years. 
 
154 REMARKS ON 
 
 " But Sir Thomas Browne finds matter of deeper 
 speculation in the regions of the grave, than any to 
 which we have yet particularly alluded. He derives 
 the nobleness of our nature even from its mortality 
 on earth. In the most opposite ceremonials, he 
 traces the spirit of a higher and more perfect life. 
 Thus he treats the disregard of interment, as evinc- 
 ing a sense that the frame was but the shell of a 
 finer essence, and the solemnities of burial as proving 
 that man, in extending his cares beyond death, dis- 
 plays the instinct of a future being. Every thing 
 with him has a profound and sacred meaning. He 
 embodies the abstractions of humanity in the state- 
 liest forms, elevating even the brevity of existence 
 into a distinct being, and endowing it with venerable 
 attributes. Past and Present, Life and Dissolution, 
 Time and Immortality, seem to meet in his works, as 
 in a fane ' for festal purpose decked with unrejoicing 
 berries ! ' ' 
 
 " Sir Thomas Browne has been contrasted with 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who like him wrote on death, 
 and delighted to contemplate the symbols of man's 
 decay. But no two things can be more opposite 
 than their modes of treating the sacred theme. Je- 
 remy Taylor broods only over the surface of the sub- 
 ject, and tinges it with roseate hues. He enters not 
 the recesses of the grave, but moralizes at its en- 
 trance. While Sir Thomas Browne rakes among the 
 bones for some strange relic in the deep bed of mor- 
 tality, the most Christian of bishops gently gathers 
 the sweet flowers which peep forth on the green 
 above it. The former ransacks antiquity and the hid- 
 
THE HYDRIOTAPHIA. 155 
 
 den corners of strange learning for his illustrations ; 
 the latter steals the ready smile of some sleeping 
 child, or the modest bloom of a virgin cheek. The 
 imagination of Sir Thomas Browne reflects the faded 
 forms of old, half-forgotten things ; that of Jeremy 
 Taylor is overspread with the blushing tints of aerial 
 beauty, like a lake beneath the sweetest sky of eve- 
 ning, in which the very multitude of lovely shadows 
 prevent any one clear and majestic image from ap- 
 pearing unbroken. The first carries us out of our- 
 selves into the grand abstractions of our nature ; the 
 last touches the pulses of individual joy, and awakens 
 delicious musings and indistinct emotions of serious 
 delight, such i as make a chrysome child to smile.' 
 In the works of Browne, we hear i ancestral voices' ; 
 in those of Taylor, we listen to the sweet warblings 
 of the angelic choir. Sir Thomas Browne does not 
 shed sweet radiance on the stream of life ; but he 
 fathoms its most awful deeps, and thence discovers, 
 that it rises not within the horizon of sense, but hath 
 its source in other worlds, and will continue its mys- 
 tic windings far beyond the shadows of death, which 
 limit our present vision." 
 
 uur ".ITT 
 
" These are sad sepulchral pitchers." p. 158. 
 
 En sum quod digitis quinque levatur onus. 
 
 PROPERTIUS. 
 
or THE 
 
 UKIVEESITYl 
 
 Vpt^A % \ 
 
 > w 
 
 TO MY 
 WORTHY AND HONORED FRIEND, 
 
 THOMAS LE GROS, 
 
 OF CROSTWICK, ESQ. 
 
 WHEN the funeral pyre was out, and the last 
 valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of 
 their interred friends, little expecting the cu- 
 riosity of future ages should comment upon 
 their ashes ; and having no old experience of 
 the duration of their relics, held no opinion of 
 such after-considerations. 
 
 But who knows the fate of his bones, or how 
 often he is to be buried ? Who hath the oracle 
 of his ashes, or whither they are to be scatter- 
 ed ? The relics of many lie, like the ruins of 
 Pompey's,* in all parts of the earth; and these 
 may seem to have wandered far, when they 
 
 * Pompeios juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum 
 terra tegit Libya? . 
 
158 DEDICATION. 
 
 arrive at your hands, who, in a direct and me- 
 ridian travel, have but a few miles of known 
 earth between yourself and the pole.* 
 
 That the bones of Theseus should be seen 
 again in Athens,! was not beyond conjecture 
 and hopeful expectation ; but that these should 
 arise so opportunely to serve yourself, was a hit 
 of fate and honor beyond prediction. 
 
 We cannot but wish these urns might have 
 the effect of theatrical vessels, and great 
 Hippodrome urns in Rome,f to resound the 
 acclamations and honor due unto you. But 
 these are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which 
 have no joyful voices, silently expressing old 
 mortality, the ruins of forgotten times, and can 
 only speak with life, how long in this corrupti- 
 ble frame some parts may be uncorrupted, yet 
 able to outlast bones long unborn, and noblest 
 pile among us. 
 
 We present not these as any strange sight or 
 spectacle unknown to your eyes, who have be- 
 held the best of urns and noblest variety of 
 ashes ; who are yourself no slender master of 
 antiquities, and can daily command the view of 
 
 * Little directly but sea between your house and 
 Greenland. 
 
 t Brought back by Cimon. Plutarch. 
 
 t The great urns in the Hippodrome at Rome, con- 
 ceived to resound the voices of the people at their shows. 
 
DEDICATION. 159 
 
 so many imperial faces ; * which raiseth your 
 thoughts unto old things and consideration of 
 times before you, when even living men were 
 antiquities ; when the living might exceed the 
 dead, and to depart this world could not be 
 properly said to go unto the greater number ; t 
 and so run up your thoughts upon the ancient 
 of days, the antiquary's truest object, unto 
 whom the eldest parcels are young, and earth 
 itself an infant, and without Egyptian account $ 
 makes but small noise in thousands. 
 
 We were hinted by the occasion, not catched 
 the opportunity to write of old things, or in- 
 trude upon the antiquary. We are coldly 
 drawn unto discourses of antiquities, who have 
 scarce time before us to comprehend new things, 
 or make out learned novelties. But seeing they 
 arose as they lay, almost in silence among us, 
 at least in short account suddenly passed over, 
 we were very unwilling they should die again 
 and be buried twice among us. 
 
 Besides, to preserve the living, and make the 
 dead to live, to keep men out of their urns, and 
 discourse of human fragments in them > is not 
 impertinent unto our profession, whose study 
 
 * Worthily possessed by that true gentleman, Sir 
 Horatio Townshend, my honored friend. 
 t Abiit ad plures. 
 t Which maies the world so many years old. 
 
160 DEDICATION. 
 
 is life and death, who daily behold examples of 
 mortality, and of all men least need artificial 
 mementos or coffins by our bed-side to mind 
 us of our graves. 
 
 'T is time to observe occurrences, and let 
 nothing remarkable escape us. The supinity 
 of elder days hath left so much in silence, or 
 time hath so martyred the records, that the 
 most industrious heads do find no easy work to 
 erect a new Britannia.* 
 
 'T is opportune to look back upon old times 
 and contemplate our forefathers. Great ex- 
 amples grow thin, and to be fetched from the 
 passed world. Simplicity flies away, and ini- 
 quity comes at long strides upon us. We have 
 enough to do to make up ourselves from pres- 
 ent and passed times, and the whole stage of 
 things scarce serveth for our instruction. A 
 complete piece of virtue must be made up from 
 the centos of all ages, as all the beauties of 
 Greece could make but one handsome Venus. 
 
 When the bones of King Arthur were dig- 
 ged up,t the old race might think they beheld 
 therein some originals of themselves. Unto 
 these of our urns none here can pretend rela- 
 tion, and can only behold the relics of those 
 
 * Wherein Mr. Dugdale hath excellently well endea- 
 voured. 
 
 t In the time of Henry the Second. Cambden. 
 
OF 
 
 DEDICATION. ' 161 
 
 persons, who in their life giving the laws unto 
 their predecessors, after long obscurity, now 
 lie at their mercies. But remembering the 
 early civility they brought upon these countries, 
 and forgetting long-passed mischiefs, we mer- 
 cifully preserve their bones, and insult not over 
 their ashes. 
 
 In the offer of these antiquities, we drive not 
 at ancient families, so long out-lasted by them ; 
 we are far from erecting your worth upon the 
 pillars of your forefathers, whose merits you 
 illustrate. We honor your old virtues, con- 
 formable unto times before you, which are the 
 noblest armory. And having long experience 
 of your friendly conversation, void of empty 
 formality, full of freedom, constant and generous 
 honesty, I look upon you as a gem of the old 
 rock,* and must profess myself, even to urn 
 and ashes, 
 
 Your ever faithful friend, 
 
 and servant, 
 
 THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 NORWICH, MAY 1, 1658. 
 
 * Adamas de rupe veteri praestantissimus. 
 
 II 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA.* 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN the deep discovery of the subterranean 
 world, a shallow part would satisfy some in- 
 quirers ; who, if two or three yards were open 
 about the surface, would not care to rake the 
 bowels of Potosi, and regions towards the cen- 
 tre. Nature hath furnished one part of the 
 earth, and man another. The treasures of time 
 lie high, in urns, coins, and monuments, scarce 
 below the roots of some vegetables. Time 
 hath endless rarities, and shows of all varieties ; 
 which reveals old things in heaven, makes new 
 discoveries in earth, and even earth itself a dis- 
 covery. That great antiquity, America, lay l 
 buried for a thousand years ; and a large part ) 
 of the earth is still in the urn unto us. 
 
 * The original title was as follows : " Hydriotaphia, 
 Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns 
 lately found in Norfolk." 
 
164 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 Though if Adam were made out of an ex- 
 tract of the earth, all parts might challenge a 
 restitution; yet few have returned their bones 
 far lower than they might receive them ; not 
 affecting the graves of giants, under hilly and 
 heavy coverings, but content with less than 
 their own depth, have wished their bones might 
 lie soft, and the earth be light upon them.* 
 Even such as hope to rise again would not be 
 content with central interment, or so despe- 
 rately to place their relics as to lie beyond dis- 
 covery and in no way to be seen again ; which 
 happy contrivance hath made communication 
 with our forefathers, and left unto our view 
 some parts which they never beheld themselves. 
 
 Though earth hath engrossed the name, yet 
 water hath proved the smartest grave, which in 
 forty days swallowed almost mankind and the 
 living creation, fishes not wholly escaping, ex- 
 cept the salt ocean were handsomely contem- 
 pered by a mixture of the fresh element. 
 
 Many have taken voluminous pains to deter- 
 mine the state of the soul upon disunion ; but 
 men have been most fantastical in the singu- 
 lar contrivances of their corporal dissolution ; 
 whilst the soberest nations have rested in two 
 ways, of simple inhumation and burning. 
 
 * Sit tibi terra levis. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 165 
 
 That carnal interment or burying was of the 
 elder date, the old examples of Abraham and 
 the patriarchs are sufficient to illustrate, and 
 were without competition, if it could be made 
 out that Adam was buried near Damascus, or 
 Mount Calvary, according to some tradition. 
 God himself, that buried but one, was pleased 
 to make choice of this way, collectible from 
 Scripture expression and the hot contest be- 
 tween Satan and the Archangel about discover- 
 ing the body of Moses. But the practice of 
 burning was also of great antiquity, and of no 
 slender extent. For (not to derive the same 
 from Hercules) noble descriptions there are 
 hereof in the Grecian funerals of Homer ; in 
 the formal obsequies of Patroclus and Achilles, 
 and somewhat elder in the Theban war, and 
 solemn combustion of Meneceus and Arche- 
 morus, contemporary unto Jair, the eighth 
 judge of Israel ; confirmable also among the 
 Trojans from the funeral pyre of Hector, burnt 
 before the gates of Troy, and the burning of 
 Penthesilea, the Amazonian queen, and long 
 continuance of that practice in the inward 
 countries of Asia ; while as low as the reign of 
 Julian, we find that the king of Chionia * burnt 
 the body of his son, and interred the ashes in 
 a silver urn. 
 
 * Gumbrates, king of Chionia, a country near Persia, 
 
166 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 The same practice extended also far west, 
 and, besides Herulians, Getes, and Thracians, 
 was in use with most of the Celts, Sarmatians, 
 Germans, Gauls, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, 
 not to omit some use thereof among Cartha- 
 ginians and Americans ; of greater antiquity 
 among the Romans than most opinion, or Pliny 
 seems to allow. For (besides the old table 
 laws of burning or burying within the city,* 
 of making the funeral fire with planed wood, 
 or quenching the fire with wine,) Manlius, the 
 consul, burnt the body of his son. Numa, by 
 special clause of his will, was not burnt, but 
 buried ; and Remus was solemnly buried, ac- 
 cording to the description of Ovid. t 
 
 Cornelius Sylla was not the first whose body 
 was burned in Rome, but of the Cornelian 
 family, which being indifferently, not frequent- 
 ly used before, from that time spread, and be- 
 came the prevalent practice ; not totally pur- 
 sued in the highest run of cremation ; for when 
 even crows were funerally burnt, Poppaea, the 
 wife of Nero, found a peculiar grave inter- 
 ment. Now as all customs were founded upon 
 some bottom of reason, so there wanted not 
 
 * 12 Tab. Pars i. de jure sacro. Hominem mortuum 
 in urbe ne sepelito, neve urito. torn. 2. Rogum ascia ne 
 polito. torn. 4. 
 
 t Ultima prolate subdita flamma rogo. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 167 
 
 grounds for this, according to several appre- 
 hensions of the most rational dissolution. Some, 
 being of the opinion of Thales, that water was 
 the original of all things, thought it most equal 
 to submit unto the principle of putrefaction, 
 and conclude in a moist relentment. Others 
 conceived it most natural to end in fire, as due 
 unto the master principle in the composition, 
 according to the doctrine of Heraclitus ; and 
 therefore heaped up large piles, more actively 
 to waft them toward that element, whereby they 
 also declined a visible degeneration into worms, 
 and left a lasting parcel of their composition.. 
 
 Some apprehended a purifying virtue in fire, 
 refining the grosser commixture, and firing out 
 the ethereal particles so deeply immersed in it ; 
 and such as by tradition or rational conjecture 
 held any hint of the final pyre of all things, or 
 that this element at last must be too hard for 
 all the rest, might conceive most naturally of 
 the fiery dissolution. Others, pretending no 
 natural grounds, politickly declined the malice 
 of enemies upon their buried bodies ; which 
 consideration led Sylla unto this practice, who 
 having thus served the body of Marius, could 
 not but fear a retaliation upon his own, enter- 
 tained after in the civil wars and revengeful 
 contentions of Rome. 
 
168 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 But as many nations embraced, and many 
 yvleft it indifferent, so others too much affected 
 or strictly declined this practice. The Indian 
 Brachmans seemed too great friends unto fire, 
 who burnt themselves alive, and thought it the 
 noblest way to end their days in fire ; accord- 
 ing to the expression of the Indian, burning 
 himself at Athens, in his last words upon the 
 pyre unto the amazed spectators, " Thus I 
 make myself immortal. " 
 
 But the Chaldeans, the great idolaters of 
 ^> fire, abhorred the burning of their carcasses, as 
 a pollution of that deity. The Persian Magi 
 declined it upon the like scruple, and being 
 only solicitous about their bones, exposed their 
 flesh to the prey of birds and dogs. And the 
 Parsees now in India, which expose their bodies 
 unto vultures, and endure not so much as " fere- 
 tra " or biers of wood, the proper fuel of fire, 
 are led on with such niceties. But whether 
 the ancient Germans, who burned their dead, 
 held any such fear to pollute their deity of Her- 
 thus, or the earth, we have no 'authentic con- 
 jecture. 
 
 ^ The Egyptians were afraid of fire, not as a 
 deity, but a devouring element, mercilessly 
 consuming their bodies, and leaving too little 
 of them ; and therefore, by precious embal- 
 ments, depositure in dry earths, or handsome 
 
URN-BURIAL. 169 
 
 enclosure in glasses, contrived the notablest 
 ways of integral conservation ; and from such 
 Egyptian scruples, imbibed by Pythagoras, it 
 may be conjectured that Numa and the Pytha- 
 gorical sect first waved the fiery solution. 
 
 The Scythians, who swore by wind and 
 sword, that is, by life and death, were so far 
 from burning their bodies, that they declined 
 all interment, and made their graves in the air ; 
 and the Ichthyophagi, or fish-eating nations 
 about Egypt, affected the sea* for their grave, 
 thereby declining visible corruption, and re- 
 storing the debt of their bodies. Whereas the 
 old heroes in Homer dreaded nothing more than 
 water or drowning, probably upon the old opin- 
 ion of the fiery substance of the soul, only ex- 
 tinguishable by that element ; and therefore 
 the poet emphatically implieth the total de- 
 struction in this kind of death,* which happened 
 to Ajax Oileus. 
 
 The old Balearians had a peculiar mode, 
 for they used great urns and much wood, but 
 no fire in their burials, while they bruised the 
 flesh and bones of the dead, crowded them into 
 urns, and laid heaps of wood upon them. And 
 the Chinese, without cremation or urnal inter- 
 ment of their bodies, make use of trees and 
 much burning, while they plant a pine tree by 
 
 * Which Magius reads 
 
170 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 their grave, and burn great numbers of printed 
 draughts of slaves and horses over it, civilly 
 content with their companies in effigy, which 
 barbarous nations exact unto reality. 
 
 Christians abhorred this way of obsequies, 
 and though they sticked not to give their bodies 
 to be burnt in their lives, detested that mode 
 after death ; affecting rather a depositure than 
 absumptiori, and properly submitting unto the 
 sentence of God, to return not unto ashes, but 
 unto dust again., conformable unto the practice 
 of the patriarchs, the interment of our Saviour, 
 of Peter, Paul, and the ancient martyrs ; and 
 so far at last declining promiscuous interment 
 with Pagans, that some have suffered ecclesias- 
 tical censures * for making no scruple thereof. 
 
 The Mussulman believers will never admit 
 this fiery resolution ; for they hold a present 
 trial from their black and white angels in the 
 grave, which they must have made so hollow 
 that they may rise upon their knees. 
 
 The Jewish nation, though they entertained 
 the old way of inhumation, yet sometimes ad- 
 mitted this practice. For the men of Jabesh 
 burnt the body of Saul ; and, by no prohibited 
 practice, to avoid contagion or pollution in time 
 of pestilence, burnt the bodies of their friends. t 
 
 * Martialis, the Bishop, Cyprian, 
 t Amos vi. 10. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 171 
 
 And when they burnt not their dead bodies, 
 yet sometimes used great burnings near and 
 about them, deducible from the expressions 
 concerning Jehoram, Zedechiah, and the sump- 
 tuous pyre of Asia ; and were so little averse 
 from Pagan burning, that the Jews, lamenting 
 the death of Csesar, their friend and revenger 
 on Pompey, frequented the place where his 
 body was burnt, for many nights together.* And 
 as they raised noble monuments and mauso- 
 leums for their own nation,t so they were not 
 scrupulous in erecting some for others, accord- 
 ing to the practice of Daniel, who left that last- 
 ing sepulchral pile in Ecbatana for the Me- 
 dian and Persian kings. J 
 
 But even in times of subjection and hottest 
 use, they conformed not unto the Roman prac- 
 tice of burning ; whereby the prophecy was se- 
 cured concerning the body of Christ, that it 
 should not see corruption, or a bone should not 
 be broken ; which we believe was also provi- 
 dentially prevented, from the soldier's spear and 
 nails that past by the little bones both in his 
 
 * Sueton in vita. Jul. Cses. 
 
 t As that magnificent sepulchral monument erected by 
 Simon. 1 Mace, xiii, 27. 
 
 Kctraffxiuaff-ftct, a,vp.a.ffiu$ tnvroiVfAtvov, whereof ^a Jew- 
 ish priest had always the custody unto Josephus's days 
 Jos. b. 10, Antiq. 
 
172 IIYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 hands and feet ; not of ordinary contrivance, 
 that it should not corrupt on the cross, accord- 
 ing to the laws of Roman crucifixion, or a 
 hair of his head perish, though observable in 
 Jewish customs to cut the hairs of malefactors. 
 
 Nor in their long cohabitation with Egyp- 
 tians, crept into a custom of their exact em- 
 balming, wherein deeply slashing the muscles, 
 and taking out the brains and entrails, they had 
 broken the subject of so entire a resurrection, 
 nor fully answered the types of Enoch, Elijah, 
 or Jonah ; which yet to prevent or restore, was 
 of equal facility unto that rising power, able to 
 break the fasciations and bands of death, to 
 get clear out of the cerecloth and a hundred 
 pounds of ointment, and out of the sepulchre 
 before the stone was rolled from it. 
 
 But though they embraced not this practice 
 of burning, yet entertained they many cere- 
 monies agreeable unto Greek and Roman ob- 
 sequies. And he that observeth their funeral 
 feasts, their lamentations at the grave, their 
 music, and weeping mourners ; how they closed 
 the eyes of their friends ; how they washed, 
 anointed, and kissed the dead; may easily con- 
 clude these were not mere Pagan civilities. 
 But whether that mournful burthen, and treble 
 calling out after Absalom,* had any reference 
 
 * O Absalom, Absalom, Absalom ! 2 Sam. xviii. 33. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 173 
 
 unto the last conclamation and triple valedic- 
 tion used by other nations, we hold but a wa- 
 vering conjecture. 
 
 Civilians make sepulture but of the law of 
 nations ; others do naturally found it and dis* 
 cover it also in animals. They that are so 
 thick-skinned as still to credit the story of the 
 phenix, may say something for animal burning. 
 More serious conjectures find some examples 
 of sepulture in elephants, cranes, the sepul- 
 chral cells of pismires, and practice of bees ; 
 which civil society carrieth out their dead, and 
 hath exequies, if not interments. 
 
174 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE solemnities, ceremonies, rites of their cre- 
 mation or interment, so solemnly delivered by 
 authors, we shall not disparage our reader to re- 
 peat. Only the last and lasting part in their urns, 
 collected bones and ashes, we cannot wholly 
 omit, or decline that subject, which occasion late- 
 ly presented in some discovered among us. 
 
 In a field of Old Walsingham, not many 
 months past, were digged up between forty and 
 fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, 
 not a yard deep, not far from one another; not 
 all strictly of one figure, but most answering 
 these described ; * some containing two pounds 
 of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, 
 thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions 
 of their combustion ; besides the extraneous 
 substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs, 
 handsomely wrought, handles of small brass 
 instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some 
 kind of opal. 
 
 Near the same plot of ground, for about six 
 yards' compass, were digged up coals and incin- 
 erated substances, which begat conjecture that 
 this was the Ustrina, or place of burning their 
 bodies, or some sacrificing place unto the Manes, 
 
 * On page 156- 
 
URN-BURIAL. 175 
 
 which was properly below the surface of the 
 ground, as the arae and altars unto the gods and 
 heroes above it. 
 
 That these were the urns of Romans, from 
 the common custom and place where they were 
 found, is no obscure conjecture ; not far from 
 a Roman garrison, and but five miles from 
 Brancaster, set down by ancient record under 
 the name of Brannodunum ; and where the ad- 
 joining town, containing seven parishes, in no 
 very different sound, but Saxon termination, 
 still retains the name of Burnham ; which, being 
 an early station, it is not improbable the neigh- 
 bour parts were filled with habitations, either 
 of Romans themselves, or Britons Romanized, 
 which observed the Roman customs. 
 
 Nor is it improbable that the Romans early 
 possessed this country ; for, though we meet not 
 with such strict particulars of these parts, be- 
 fore the new institution of Constantine, and 
 military charge of the Count of the Saxon 
 shore, and that about the Saxon invasions, the 
 Dalmatian horsemen were in the garrison of 
 Brancaster ; yet, in the time of Claudius, Ves- 
 pasian, and Severus, we find no less than 
 three legions dispersed through the province of 
 Britain ; and, as high as the reign of Clau- 
 dius, a great overthrow was given unto the 
 Iceni, by the Roman lieutenant Ostorius. Not 
 
176 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 long after, the country Was so molested, that in 
 hope of a better state, Prasutagus bequeathed 
 his kingdom unto Nero and his daughters; and 
 Boadicea, his queen, fought the last decisive 
 battle with Paullinus. After which time and 
 conquest of Agricola, the lieutenant of Ves- 
 pasian, probable it is they wholly possessed this 
 country, ordering it into garrisons or habita- 
 tions best suitable with their securities ; and 
 so some Roman habitations not improbable 
 in these parts, as high as the time of Vespasian, 
 where the Saxons after seated, in whose thin- 
 filled maps we yet find the name of Walsing- 
 ham. Now, if the Iceni were but Gamma- 
 dims, Anconians, or men that lived in an angle, 
 wedge, or elbow of Britian, according to the 
 original etymology, this country will challenge 
 the emphatical appellation, as most properly 
 making the, elbow or iken of Icenia. 
 
 That Britain was notably populous, is unde- 
 niable, from that expression of Caesar.* That 
 the Romans themselves were early in no 
 small numbers, seventy thousand, with their 
 associates, slain by Boadicea, affords a sure ac- 
 count. And though not many Roman habitations 
 are now known, yet some by old works, ram- 
 pires, coins, and urns, do testify their posses- 
 
 * Hominum infinita multitude est, creberrimaque sedi- 
 ficia fere Gallicis consimilia, Cses. de Bello Gal. 1. 5. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 177 
 
 sions. Some urns have been found at Castor, 
 some also about Southcreek, and, not many 
 years past, no less than ten in a field at Buxton, 
 not near any recorded garrison. Nor is it 
 strange to find Roman coins of copper and 
 silver among us, of Vespasian, Trajan, Adrian, 
 Commodus, Antoninus, Severus, &c. ; but the 
 greater number of Diocletian, Constantine, 
 Constans, Valens, with many of Victorinus 
 Posthumius, Tetricus, and the thirty tyrants 
 in the reign of Gallienus ; and some as high 
 as Adrianus have been found about Thetford, 
 or Sitomagus, mentioned in the itinerary of 
 Antoninus, as the way from Venta or Castor 
 unto London. But the most frequent discovery 
 is made at the two Casters, by Norwich and 
 Yarmouth, at Burghcastle and Brancaster. 
 
 Besides the Norman, Saxon, and Danish 
 pieces of Cuthred, Canutus, William, Matilda, 
 and others, some British coins of gold have 
 been dispersedly found ; and no small number 
 of silver pieces near Norwich, with a rude head 
 upon the obverse, and an ill-formed horse on the 
 reverse, with these inscriptions, Ic. Duro. T., 
 whether implying Iceni, Durotriges, Tascia 
 or Trinobantes, we leave to higher conjecture. 
 Vulgar chronology will have Norwich castle as 
 old as Julius Caesar ; but his distance from 
 these parts, and its Gothic form of structure, 
 12 
 
178 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 abridgeth such antiquity. The British coins 
 afford conjecture of early habitation in these 
 parts ; though the city of Norwich arose from 
 the ruins of Venta, and though perhaps not 
 without some habitation before, was enlarged, 
 builded, and nominated by the Saxons. In 
 what bulk or populosity it stood in the old East- 
 Angle monarchy, tradition and history are silent. 
 Considerable it was in the Danish eruptions, 
 when Sueno burnt Thetford and Norwich, and 
 Ulfketel, the governor thereof, was able to 
 make some resistance, and after endeavoured 
 to burn the Danish navy. 
 
 How the Romans left so many coins in coun- 
 tries of their conquests, seems of hard resolu- 
 tion, except we consider how they buried them 
 under ground, when, upon barbarous invasions, 
 they were fain to desert their habitations in 
 most part of their empire, and the strictness of 
 their laws forbidding to transfer them to any 
 other uses ; wherein the Spartans were singu- 
 lar, who, to make their copper money useless, 
 contempered it with vinegar. That the Britons 
 left any, some wonder, since their money was 
 iron and iron rings before Caesar ; and those 
 of after stamp by permission, and but small in 
 bulk and bigness. That so few of the Saxons 
 remain, neither need any wonder, because, 
 overcome by succeeding conquerors upon the 
 
URN-BURIAL. 
 
 UNIYJLKSI 
 
 place, their coins by degrees passe 
 stamps, and the marks of after ages. 
 
 Than the time of these urns deposited, or * 
 precise antiquity of these relics, nothing is of \^ 
 more uncertainty ; for since the lieutenant of 
 Claudius seems to have made the first progress 
 into these parts, since Boadicea was overthrown 
 by the forces of Nero, and Agricola put a full 
 end to these conquests, it is not probable the 
 country was fully garrisoned or planted before ; 
 and therefore, however these urns might be of 
 later date, it is not likely they were of higher 
 antiquity. 
 
 And the succeeding emperors desisted not 
 from their conquests in these and other parts, as 
 testified by history and medal inscription yet 
 extant ; the province of Britain, in so divided 
 a distance from Rome, beholding the faces of 
 many imperial persons, and in large account 
 no fewer than Cresar, Claudius, Britannicus, 
 Vespasian, Titus, Adrian, Severus, Commodus, 
 Geta, and Caracalla. 
 
 A great obscurity herein, because no medal 
 or emperor's coin enclosed/which might denote 
 the date of their interments ; observable in 
 many urns, and found in those of Spittle-fields, 
 by London ; * which contained the coins of 
 
 * Stowe's Survey of London. 
 
180 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 Claudius, Vespasian, Commodus, Antoninus, 
 attended with lacrymatories, lamps, bottles of 
 liquor, and other appurtenances of affectionate 
 superstition, which in these rural interments 
 were wanting. 
 
 Some uncertainty there is from the period or 
 term of burning, or the cessation of that prac- 
 tice. Macrobius affirmeth it was disused in 
 his days ; but most agree, though without au- 
 thentic record, that it ceased with the Anto- 
 nini, most safely to be understood after the 
 reign of those emperors who assumed the name 
 of Antoninus, extending unto Heliogabalus ; 
 Not strictly after Marcus ; for about fifty years 
 later we find the magnificent burning and con- 
 secration of Severus ; and if we so fix this pe- 
 / riod of cessation, these urns will challenge 
 "T"* above 1300 years. 
 
 But whether this practice was only then left 
 by emperors and great persons, or generally 
 about Rome, and not in other provinces, we 
 hold no authentic account. For after Tertul- 
 lian, in the days of Minucius, it was obviously 
 objected upon Christians, that they condemned 
 the practice of burning.* And we find a pas- 
 sage in Sidonius, which asserteth that practice 
 in France unto a lower account ; and perhaps 
 
 * Execrantur rogos, et damnant ignium sepulturam. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 181 
 
 not fully disused till Christianity was fully 
 established, which gave the final extinction to 
 these sepulchral bonefires. 
 
 Whether they were the bones of men, or 
 women, or children, no authentic decision from 
 ancient custom in distinct places of burial ; al- 
 though not improbably conjectured, that the 
 double sepulture, or burying-place of Abra- 
 ham,* had in it such intention. But from ex- 
 ility of bones, thinness of skulls, smallness of 
 teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones, not improbable 
 that many thereof were persons of minor age, 
 or women ; confirmable also from things con- 
 tained in them. In most were found sub- 
 stances resembling combs, plates like boxes, 
 fastened with iron pins, and handsomely over- 
 wrought like the necks or bridges of musical 
 instruments, long brass plates overwrought like 
 the handles of neat implements, brazen nippers 
 to pull away hair, and in one a kind of opal 
 yet maintaining a bluish color. 
 
 Now that they accustomed to burn or bury 
 with them things wherein they excelled, de- 
 lighted, or which were dear unto them, either 
 as farewells unto all pleasure, or vain appre- 
 hension that they might use them in the other 
 world, is testified by all antiquity ; observable 
 
 * Gen. xxiii. In the cave of a field called Hebron, in 
 the land of Canaan, 
 
182 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 from the gem or beryl ring upon the finger of 
 Cynthia, the mistress of Propertius, when after 
 her funeral pyre her ghost appeared unto him ; 
 - and notably illustrated from the contents of 
 that Roman urn preserved by Cardinal Farnese, 
 wherein, besides great number of gems with 
 heads of gods and goddesses, were found an 
 ape of agate, a grasshopper, an elephant of am- 
 ber, a chrystal ball, three glasses, two spoons, 
 and six nuts of crystal. And beyond the con- 
 tent of urns, in the monument of Childeric 
 the First, and fourth king from Pharamond, 
 casually discovered three years past atTournay, 
 restoring unto the world much gold richly adorn- 
 ing his sword, two hundred rubies, many hundred 
 imperial coins, three hundred golden bees, the 
 bones and horse-shoes of his horse interred with 
 him, according to the barbarous magnificence 
 of those days in their sepulchral obsequies. 
 Although if we steer by the conjecture of many, 
 and Septuagint expression, some trace thereof 
 may be found even with the ancient Hebrews, 
 not only from the sepulchral treasure of David, 
 but the circumcision knives which Joshua also 
 buried. 
 
 Some men, considering the contents of these 
 urns, lasting pieces and toys included in them, 
 and the custom of burning with many other 
 nations, might somewhat doubt whether all 
 
URN-BURIAL. 183 
 
 urns found among us were properly Roman 
 relics, or some not belonging unto our British, 
 Saxon, or Danish forefathers. 
 
 Of the form of burial among the ancient 
 Britons, the large discourses of Caesar, Taci- 
 tus, and Strabo are silent. For the discovery 
 whereof, with other particulars, we much de- 
 plore the loss of that letter which Cicero ex- 
 pected or received from his brother Quintus, 
 as a resolution of British customs ; or the ac- 
 count which might have been made by Scribo- 
 nius Largus, the physician accompanying the 
 emperor Claudius, who might have also dis- 
 covered that frugal bit of the old Britons, 
 which in the bigness of a bean could satisfy 
 their thirst and hunger. 
 
 But that the Druids and ruling priests used 
 to burn and bury, is expressed by Pomponius. 
 ThatBellinus, the brother of Brennus, and king 
 of the Britons, was burnt, is acknowledged 
 by Polydorus, as also by Amandus Zierexensis 
 in Historia, and Pineda in hisllniversa Historia, 
 (Spanish.) That they held that practice in Gal- 
 lia, Caesar expressly delivereth. Whether the 
 Britons (probably descended from them, of 
 like religion, language, and manners) did not 
 sometimes make use of burning ; or whether at 
 least such as were after civilized unto the Ro- 
 man life and manners, conformed not unto 
 
184 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 this practice, we have no historical assertion 
 or denial. But since, from the account of Taci- 
 tus, the Romans early wrought so much civili- 
 ty upon the British stock, that they brought 
 them to build temples, to wear the gown, and 
 study the Roman laws and language ; that they 
 conformed also unto their religious rites and 
 customs in burials, seems no improbable con- 
 jecture. 
 
 That burning the dead was used in Sarma- 
 tia, is affirmed by Gaguinus ; that the Sueons 
 and Gothlanders used to burn their princes 
 and great persons, is delivered by Saxo and 
 Olaus ; that this was the old German practice, 
 is also asserted by Tacitus. And though we 
 are bare in historical particulars of such obse- 
 quies in this island, or that the Saxons, Jutes, 
 and Angles burnt their dead, yet came they 
 from parts where it was of ancient practice ; 
 the Germans using it, from whom they were 
 descended. And even in Jutland and Sles- 
 wick in Anglia Cymbrica, urns with bones 
 were found not many years before us. 
 
 But the Danish and Northern nations have 
 raised an era or point of compute from their 
 custom of burning their dead ; some deriving 
 it from Unguinus, some from Frotho the Great, 
 who ordained by law that princes and chief 
 commanders should be committed unto the fire, 
 
URN-BURIAL. 185 
 
 though the common sort had the common grave* 
 interment. So Starkatterus, that old hero, was 
 burnt ; and Ringo royally burnt the body of 
 Harold, the king slain by him. 
 
 What time this custom generally expired in 
 that nation, we discern no assured period ; 
 whether it ceased before Christianity, or upon 
 their conversion by Ausgurius the Gaul, in the 
 time of Ludovicus Pius, the son of Charles the 
 Great, according to good computes ; or wheth- 
 er it might not be used by some persons, while 
 for a hundred and eighty years Paganism 
 and Christianity were promiscuously embraced 
 among them, there is no assured conclusion. 
 About which times the Danes were busy in 
 England, and particularly infested this country ; 
 where many castles and strong holds were 
 built by them or against them, and great num- 
 bers of names and families still derived from 
 them. But since this custom was probably dis- 
 used before their invasion or conquest, and the 
 Romans confessedly practised the same since 
 their possession of this island, the most assured 
 account will fall upon the Romans, or Britons 
 Romanized. 
 
 However, certain it is that urns, conceived 
 of no Roman original, are often digged up both 
 in Norway and Denmark, handsomely described 
 and graphically represented by the learned phy- 
 
186 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 sician Wormius ; and in some parts of Denmark 
 in no ordinary number, as stands delivered 
 by authors exactly describing those countries. 
 And they contained not only bones, but many 
 other substances in them, as knives, pieces ot 
 iron, brass, and wood, and one of Norway a 
 brass gilded jewsharp. 
 
 Nor were they confused or careless in dis- 
 posing the noblest sort, while they placed large 
 stones in circle about the urns or bodies which 
 they interred, somewhat answerable unto the 
 monument of Rollrich stones in England, or 
 sepulchral monument probably erected by Rol- 
 lo, who after conquered Normandy, where it 
 is not improbable somewhat might be discover- 
 ed. Meanwhile, to what nation or person be- 
 longed that large urn found at Ashbury, con- 
 taining mighty bones and a buckler ; what 
 those large urns found at Little Massingham ; 
 or why the Anglesea urns are placed with 
 their mouths downward, remains yet undis- 
 covered. 
 
URN-BURIAL* 187 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PLASTERED and whited sepulchres were an- 
 ciently affected in cadaverous and corruptive 
 burials ; and the rigid Jews were wont to gar- 
 nish the sepulchres of the righteous. Ulysses, 
 in Hecuba, cared not how meanly he lived, so 
 he might find a noble tomb after death. Great 
 princes affected great monuments ; and the 
 fair and larger urns contained no vulgar ashes, 
 which makes that disparity in those which 
 time discovereth among us. The present urns 
 were not of one capacity ; the largest contain- 
 ing above a gallon ; some not much above half 
 that measure. Nor all of one figure, wherein 
 there is no strict conformity in the same or 
 different countries ; observable from those re- 
 presented byCasalius, Bosio, and others, though 
 all found in Italy ; while many have handles, 
 ears, and long necks, but most imitate a cir- 
 cular figure, in a spherical and round compo- 
 sure ; whether from any mystery, best dura- 
 tion, or capacity, were but a conjecture. But 
 the common form with necks was a proper 
 figure, making our last bed like our first ; not 
 much unlike the urns of our nativity, while 
 " we lay in the nether part of the earth/ 1 
 (Ps. cxxxix.) and inward vault of our microcosm. 
 
188 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 Many urns are red, these but of a black color, 
 somewhat smooth, and dully sounding, which be- 
 gat some doubt whether they were burnt, or only 
 baken in oven or sun, according to the ancient 
 way, in many bricks, tiles, pots, and testaceous 
 works ; and as the word " testa " is properly to 
 be taken, when occurring without addition, and 
 chiefly intended by Pliny when he commendeth 
 bricks and tiles of two years old, and to make 
 them in the spring. Nor only these concealed 
 pieces, but the open magnificence of antiquity, 
 ran much in the artifice of clay. Hereof the house 
 of Mausolus was built ; thus old Jupiter stood 
 in the Capitol ; and the statue of Hercules, 
 made in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, was 
 extant in Pliny's days. And such as declined 
 burning or funeral urns, affected coffins of clay, 
 according to the mode of Pythagoras, a way 
 preferred by Varro. But the spirit of great 
 ones was above these circumscriptions, affecting 
 copper, silver, gold, and porphyry urns, wherein 
 Severus lay, after a serious view and sentence 
 on that which should contain him. Some of 
 these urns were thought to have been silvered 
 over from sparklings in several pots, with small 
 tinsel parcels, uncertain whether from the earth 
 or the first mixture in them. 
 
 Among these urns we could obtain no good 
 account of their coverings ; only one seemed 
 
URN-BURIAL. 189 
 
 arched over with some kind of brick-work. Of 
 those found at Buxton, some were covered with 
 flints ; some in other parts with tiles ; those at 
 Yarmouth-Caster were closed with Roman 
 bricks ; and some have proper earthen covers 
 adapted and fitted to them. But in the Homer- 
 ical urn of Patroclus, whatever was the solid 
 tegument, we find the immediate covering to 
 be a purple piece of silk. And such as had no 
 covers might have the earth closely pressed 
 into them ; after which disposure were probably 
 some of these, wherein we found the bones and 
 ashes half mortared unto the sand and sides of 
 the urn, and some long roots of quich, or dog's- 
 grass, wreathed about the bones. 
 
 No lamps, included liquors, lachrymatories, 
 or tear-bottles, attended these rural urns, either 
 as sacred unto the Manes, or passionate ex- 
 pressions of their surviving friends ; while 
 with rich flames and hired tears they solem- 
 nized their obsequies, and in the most lamented 
 monuments made one part of their inscriptions.* 
 Some find sepulchral vessels containing liquors 
 which time hath incrassated into jellies. For 
 besides these lachrymatories, notable lamps, with 
 vessels of oils and aromatical liquors, attend- 
 ed noble ossuaries, and some yet retaining a 
 
 * Cum lacrymis posuere. 
 
190 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 vinosity and spirit in them ; which if any have 
 tasted, they have far exceeded ,the palates of 
 antiquity ; liquors not to be computed by years 
 of annual magistrates, but by great conjunc- 
 tions and the fatal periods of kingdoms.* The 
 draughts of consulary date were but crude unto 
 these, and Opimianf wine but in the must unto 
 them. 
 
 In sundry graves and sepulchres, we meet 
 with rings, coins, and chalices. Ancient frugal- 
 ity was so severe, that they allowed no gold to 
 attend the corpses, but only that which served 
 to fasten their teeth. { Whether the opaline 
 stone in this urn were burnt upon the finger of 
 the dead, or cast into the fire by some affec- 
 tionate friend, it will consist with either custom. 
 But other incinerable substances were found 
 so fresh, that they could feel no singe from fire. 
 These upon view were judged to be wood ; but 
 sinking in water, and tried by the fire we found 
 them to be bone or ivory. In their hardness 
 and yellow color, they most resembled box, 
 which, in old expressions, found the epithet 
 
 * About 500 years. Plato. 
 
 t Vinum Opiminianum annorum centum. Petron. 
 
 t 12 Tabul. 1. xi, de jure sacro. Neve aurum addito ; 
 ast quo auro dentes vincti erunt, imo cum illo sepelire 
 et urere,ne fraudi esto. v 
 
 Plin. lib. xvi. Inter |yx utrnw numerat Theophras- 
 tus. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 191 
 
 of eternal, and perhaps, in such conservatories, 
 might have passed uncorrupted. 
 
 That bay-leaves were found green in the 
 tomb of St. Humbert, after a hundred and 
 fifty years, was looked upon as miraculous. 
 Remarkable it was unto old spectators, that 
 the cypress of the temple of Diana lasted so 
 many hundred years. The wood of the ark 
 and olive rod of Aaron were older at the cap- 
 tivity. But the cypress of the ark of Noah was 
 the greatest vegetable antiquity, if Josephus 
 were not deceived by some fragments of it in 
 his days ; to omit the moor-logs and fir-trees, 
 found under ground in many parts of England ; 
 the undated ruins of winds, floods, and earth- 
 quakes ; and which, in Flanders, still show 
 from what quarter they fell, as generally lying 
 in a northeast position. 
 
 But though we found not these pieces to be 
 wood, according to first apprehension, yet we 
 missed not altogether of some woody substance ; 
 for the bones were not so clearly picked, but 
 some coals were found amongst them ; - a way 
 to make wood perpetual, and a fit associate for 
 metal, whereon was laid the foundation of the 
 great Ephesian temple, and which were made 
 the lasting tests of old boundaries and land- 
 marks. Whilst we look on these, we admire 
 not observations of coals found fresh after four 
 
192 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 hundred years. In a long deserted habitation, 
 even egg-shells have been found fresh, not 
 tending to corruption. 
 
 In the monument of King Childeric, the 
 iron relics were found all rusty and crumbling 
 into pieces. But our little iron pins, which 
 fastened the ivory works, held well together, 
 and lost not their magnetical quality, though 
 wanting a tenacious moisture for the firmer 
 union of parts. Although it be hardly drawn 
 into fusion, yet that metal soon submitteth nnto 
 rust and dissolution. In the brazen pieces we 
 admired not the duration, but the freedom from 
 rust and ill savor upon the hardest attrition ; 
 but now exposed unto the piercing atoms of 
 air, in the space of a few months they begin to 
 spot and betray their green entrails. We con- 
 ceive not these urns to have descended thus 
 naked as they appear, or to have entered their 
 graves without the old habit of flowers. The 
 urn of Philopoemen was so laden with flowers 
 and ribbons, that it afforded no sight of itself. 
 The rigid Lycurgus allowed olive and myrtle. 
 The Athenians might fairly except against the 
 practice of Democritus, to be buried up in 
 honey ; as fearing to embezzle a great commo- 
 dity of their country, and the best of that kind 
 in Europe. But Plato seemed too frugally pol- 
 itic, who allowed no larger monument than 
 
URN-BURIAL. 193 
 
 would contain four heroic verses, and designed 
 the most barren ground for sepulture ; though 
 we cannot commend the goodness of that se- 
 pulchral ground which was set at no higher rate 
 than the mean salary of Judas. Though the 
 earth had confounded the ashes of these ossu- 
 aries, yet the bones were so smartly burnt, that 
 some thin plates of brass were found half melt- 
 ed among them ; whereby we apprehend, they 
 were not of the meanest carcasses, perfunctorily 
 fired, as sometimes in military, and commonly 
 in pestilence burnings, or after the manner of 
 abject corpses, huddled forth and carelessly 
 burnt, without the Esquiline Port at Rome ; 
 which was an affront continued upon Tiberius, 
 while they but half burnt his body, and in the 
 amphitheatre, according to the custom in notable 
 malefactors ; whereas Nero seemed not so much 
 to fear his death, as that his head should be cut 
 off, and his body not burnt entire. 
 
 Some finding many fragments of skulls in 
 these urns, suspected a mixture of bones. In none 
 we searched was there cause of such conjecture, 
 though sometimes they declined not that prac- 
 tice. The ashes of Domitian were mingled 
 with those of Julia, of Achilles with those 
 of Patroclus. All urns contained not single 
 ashes. Without confused burnings, they effec- 
 tually compounded their bones, passionately 
 13 
 
194 HYDR10TAPHIA. 
 
 endeavouring to continue their living unions ; 
 and when distance of death denied such con- 
 junctions, unsatisfied affections conceived some 
 satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to 
 lie urn by urn, and touch but in their names. 
 And many were so curious to continue their 
 living relations, that they contrived large and 
 family urns, wherein the ashes of their nearest 
 friends and kindred might successively be re- 
 ceived, at least some parcels thereof, while 
 their collateral memorials lay in minor vessels 
 about them. 
 
 Antiquity held too light thoughts from objects 
 of mortality, while some drew provocatives of 
 mirth from anatomies,* and jugglers showed 
 tricks with skeletons ; when fiddlers made not 
 so pleasant mirth as fencers, and men could sit 
 with quiet stomachs while hanging was played 
 before them.f Old considerations made few 
 mementos by skulls and bones upon their mon- 
 uments. In the Egyptian obelisks and hiero- 
 glyphical figures, it is not easy to meet with 
 bones. The sepulchral lamps speak nothing 
 
 * Sic erimus cuncti &c. Ergo, dum vivimus, vivamus. 
 
 t 'Ay^avjjv tfcti&iv. A barbarous pastime at feasts, when 
 men stood upon a rolling globe, with their necks in a 
 rope, and a knife in their hands, ready to cut it when the 
 stone was rolled away, wherein if they failed, they lost 
 their lives, to the laughter of the spectators. Athenaeus. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 195 
 
 less than sepulture, and in their literal 
 draughts prove often obscene and antic pieces. 
 Where we find D. M.* it is obvious to meet with 
 sacrificing " pateras," and vessels of libation, 
 upon old sepulchral monuments. In the Jewish 
 Hypogseum and subterranean cell at Rome, was 
 little observable beside the variety of lamps, 
 and frequent draughts of the holy candlestick. 
 In authentic draughts of Antony and Jerome, 
 we meet with thigh bones, and death's-heads : 
 
 O * 7 
 
 but the cemeterial cells of ancient Christians 
 and martyrs were filled with draughts of Scrip- 
 ture stories ; not declining the flourishes of 
 cypress, palms, and olive, and the mystical 
 figures of peacocks, doves, and cocks ; but 
 iterately affecting the portraits of Enoch, Laz- 
 arus, Jonas, and the vision of Ezekiel, as 
 hopeful draughts and hinting imagery of the 
 resurrection, which is the life of the grave, 
 and sweetens our habitations in the land of 
 moles and pismires. 
 
 Gentile inscriptions precisely delivered the 
 extent of men's lives, seldom the manner of 
 their deaths, which history itself so often leaves 
 obscure in the records of memorable persons. 
 There is scarce any philosopher but dies twice 
 or thrice in Laertius ; nor almost any life 
 
 * Diis Manibus. 
 
196 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 without two or three deaths in Plutarch ; which 
 makes the tragical ends of noble persons more 
 favorably resented by compassionate readers, 
 who find some relief in the election of such 
 differences. 
 
 The certainty of death is attended with un- 
 certainties, in time, manner, places. The va- 
 v, riety of monuments hath often obscured true 
 vA. graves, and cenotaphs confounded sepulchres. 
 $\ For beside their real tombs, many have found 
 honorary and empty sepulchres. The variety 
 of Homer's monuments made him of various 
 countries. Euripides had his tomb in Africa, 
 but his sepulture in Macedonia. And Severus 
 found his real sepulture in Rome, but his emp- 
 ty grave in Gallia. 
 
 He that lay in a golden urn * eminently 
 above the earth, was not like to find the quiet of 
 these bones. Many of these urns were broke 
 by a vulgar discoverer in hope of enclosed trea- 
 sure. The ashes of Marcellus were lost above 
 ground upon the like account. Where profit 
 hath prompted, no age hath wanted such mi- 
 ners ; for which the most barbarous expilators 
 found the most civil rhetoric. Gold once out 
 of the earth is no more due unto it. What 
 was unreasonably committed to the ground is 
 
 * Trajanus. Dion. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 197 
 
 reasonably resumed from it. Let monuments 
 and rich fabrics, not riches, adorn men's ashes. 
 The commerce of the living is not to be trans- 
 ferred unto the dead. It is not injustice to 
 take that which none complains to lose, and 
 no man is wronged where no man is possessor.* 
 
 What virtue yet sleeps in this " terra dam- 
 hata " and aged cinders, were petty magic to 
 experiment. These crumbling relics and long- 
 fired particles superannuate such expectations. 
 Bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of the dead, were 
 the treasures of old sorcerers. In vain we 
 revive such practices ; present superstition too 
 visibly perpetuates the folly of our forefathers, 
 wherein unto old observation this island was 
 so complete, that it might have instructed Per- 
 sia, t 
 
 Plato's historian of the other world lies twelve 
 days uncorrupted, while his soul was viewing 
 the large stations of the dead. How to keep 
 the corpse seven days from corruption, by 
 anointing and washing, without exenteration, 
 were a hazardable piece of art in our choicest 
 practice. How they made distinct separation 
 of bones and ashes from fiery admixture, hath 
 
 * The commission of the Gothic king Theodoric, for 
 finding out sepulchral treasure. Cassiodor. Var. lib. 4. 
 
 t Britannia hodie earn attonite celebrat tantis ceremo- 
 niis, ut dedisse Persis videri possit. Plin. lib. 30. 
 
198 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 found no historical solution ; though they seem- 
 ed to make a distinct collection, and overlooked 
 not Pyrrhus's toe.* Some provision they might 
 make by fictile vessels, coverings, tiles, or flat 
 stones upon and about the body, (and in the 
 same field, not far from those urns, many stones 
 were found under ground,) as also by careful 
 separation of extraneous matter, composing and 
 raking up the burnt bones with forks, observ- 
 able in that notable lump of Galvanus Martia- 
 nus, who had the sight of the " vas ustrinum," 
 or vessel wherein they burnt the dead, found 
 in the Esquiline field at Rome, might have af- 
 forded clearer solution. But their insatisfac- 
 tion herein begat that remarkable invention in 
 the funeral pyres of some princes, by incom- 
 bustible sheets made with a texture of asbes- 
 tos, incremable flax, or salamander's wool, ) 
 which preserved their bones and ashes incom- 
 mixed. 
 
 How the bulk of a man should sink into so 
 few pounds of bones and ashes, may seem 
 strange unto any who considers not its consti- 
 tution, and how slender a mass will remain 
 upon an open and urging fire of the carnal 
 composition. Even bones themselves, reduced 
 into ashes, do abate a notable proportion ; and 
 consisting much of a volatile salt, when that is 
 
 * Which could not be burnt. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 199 
 
 fired out, make a light kind of cinders ; although 
 their bulk be disproportionable to their weight, 
 when the heavy principle of salt is fired out, 
 and the earth almost only remaineth ; observ- 
 able in sallow, which makes more ashes than 
 oak, and discovers the common fraud of selling 
 ashes by measure, and not by ponderation. 
 
 Some bones make best skeletons,* some 
 bodies quick and speediest ashes. f Who would 
 expect a quick flame from hydropical Heracli- 
 tus ? The poisoned soldier, when his belly 
 brake, put out two pyres, in Plutarch. But in 
 the plague of Athens, one private pyre served 
 two or three intruders ; and the Saracens, burnt 
 in large heaps by the king of Castile, show 
 how little fuel sufficeth. Though the funeral 
 pyre of Patroclus took up a hundred feet, a 
 piece of an old boat burnt Pompey ; and if the 
 burthen of Isaac were sufficient for a holo- 
 caust, a man may carry his own pyre. 
 
 From animals are drawn good burning lights, 
 and good medicines against burning. Though 
 the seminal humor seems of a contrary nature 
 to fire, yet the body completed proves a com- 
 bustible lump, wherein fire finds flame even 
 
 * Old bones, according to Lyserus. 
 t Those of young persons not tall nor fat, according to 
 Columbus. 
 
 tvta Ktti 'ivfa. 
 
200 
 
 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 from bones, and some fuel almost from all 
 parts ; though the metropolis of humidity * 
 seems least disposed unto it, which might ren- 
 der the skulls of these urns less burned than 
 other bones. But all flies or sinks before fire 
 almost in all bodies. When the common liga- 
 ment is dissolved, the attenuable parts ascend ; 
 the rest subside in coal, calx, or ashes. 
 
 To burn the bones of the king of Edom for 
 lime (Amos ii. 1.) seems no irrational ferity ; 
 y but to drink of the ashes of dead relations, t a 
 passionate prodigality. \ He that hath the ashes 
 of his friend, hath an everlasting treasure. 
 Where fire taketh leave, corruption slowly 
 enters. In bones well burnt, fire makes a 
 wall against itself, experimented in copels and 
 tests of metals, which consist of such ingredi- 
 ents. What the sun compoundeth, fire ana- 
 lysetti, not transmuteth. That devouring agent 
 leaves almost always a morsel for the earth, 
 whereof all things are but a colony, and which, 
 if time permits, the mother element will have 
 in their primitive mass again. 
 
 He that looks for urns and old sepulchral 
 relics, must not seek them in the ruins of tem- 
 ples, where no religion anciently placed them. 
 These were found in a field, according to an- 
 
 * The brain. Hippocrates. 
 
 t As Artemisia of her husband Mausolus. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 201 
 
 cient custom, in noble or private burial ; the 
 old practice of the Canaanites, the family of 
 Abraham, and the burying-place of Joshua, in 
 the borders of his possessions ; and also agree- 
 able unto Roman practice to bury by highways, 
 whereby their monuments were under eye, me- 
 morials of themselves and mementos of mortali- 
 ty unto living passengers ; whom the epitaphs 
 of great ones were fain to beg to stay and look 
 upon them, a language, though sometimes 
 used, not so proper in church inscriptions.* 
 The sensible rhetoric of the dead, to exemplari- 
 ty of good life, first admitted the bones of pious 
 men and martyrs within church walls, which, 
 in succeeding ages, crept into promiscuous 
 practice. While Constantine was peculiarly 
 favored to be admitted unto the church porch ; 
 and the first thus buried in England was in the 
 days of Cuthred. 
 
 Christians dispute how their bodies should 
 lie in the grave. In urnal interment they 
 clearly escaped this controversy. Though we 
 decline the religious consideration, yet in cem- 
 eterial and narrower burying-places, to avoid 
 confusion and cross position, a certain posture 
 were to be admitted ; which even Pagan civility 
 observed. The Persians lay north and south ; 
 the Megarians and Phoenicians placed their 
 
 * Siste, viator. 
 
202 HYDRTOTAPHIA. 
 
 heads to the east ; the Athenians, some think, 
 towards the west, which Christians still retain ; 
 and Beda will have it to be the posture of our 
 Saviour. That he was crucified with his face 
 towards the west, we will not contend with tra- 
 dition and probable account; but we applaud 
 not the hand of the painter in exalting his 
 cross so high above those on either side, since 
 hereof we find no authentic account in history, 
 and even the crosses found by Helena pretend 
 no such distinction from longitude or dimension. 
 
 To be knaved out of our graves, to have our 
 skulls made drinking-bowls, and our bones 
 turned into pipes, to delight and sport our ene- 
 mies, are tragical abominations escaped in 
 burning burials. 
 
 Urnal interments and burnt relics lie not in 
 fear of worms, or to be a heritage for ser- 
 pents. In carnal sepulture corruptions seem 
 peculiar unto parts, and some speak of snakes 
 out of the spinal marrow. But while we sup- 
 pose common worms in graves, 't is not easy 
 to find any there ; few in church-yards above a 
 foot deep ; fewer, or none, in churches, though 
 in fresh decayed bodies. Teeth, bones, and hair, 
 give the most lasting defiance to corruption. 
 
 In a hydropical body, ten years buried in a 
 church-yard, we met with a fat concretion, 
 where the nitre of the earth, and the salt and 
 
URN-BURIAL. 203 
 
 lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large 
 lumps of fat into the consistence of the hardest 
 Castile soap ; whereof part remaineth with us. 
 
 After a battle with the Persians, the Roman 
 corpses decayed in a few days, while the Per- 
 sian bodies remained dry and uncorrupted. 
 
 Bodies in the same ground do not uniformly 
 dissolve, nor bones equally moulder ; whereof, 
 in the opprobrious disease, we expect no long 
 duration. 
 
 The body of the Marquis of Dorset seemed 
 sound and handsomely cereclothed, that after 
 seventy-eight years was found uncorrupted.* 
 Common tombs preserve not beyond powder. 
 A firmer consistence and compage of parts 
 might be expected from arefaction, deep burial, 
 or charcoal. The greatest antiquities of mor- 
 tal bodies may remain in petrified bones, where- 
 of, though we take not in the pillar of Lot's 
 wife, or metamorphosis of Ortelius, f some may 
 be older than pyramids, in the petrified relics 
 of the general inundation. When Alexander 
 opened the tomb of Cyrus, the remaining bones 
 
 * Of Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, whose body being 
 buried, 1530, was, 1608, upon the cutting open of the 
 cerecloth, found perfect, and nothing corrupted, the flesh 
 not hardened, but in color, proportion, and softness, like 
 an ordinary corpse, newly to be interred. See Burton's 
 Description of Leicestershire. 
 
 t In his Map of Russia. 
 
204 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 discovered his proportion, whereof urnal frag- 
 ments afford but a bad conjecture, and have 
 this disadvantage of grave-interments, that they 
 leave us ignorant of most personal discoveries. 
 For since bones afford not only rectitude and 
 stability, but figure unto the body, it is no im- 
 possible physiognomy to conjecture at fleshy 
 appendencies, and after what shape the mus- 
 cles and carnous parts might hang in their full 
 consistencies. A full spread cariola * shows a 
 well-shaped horse behind ; handsome-formed 
 skulls give some analogy of fleshly resemblance. 
 A critical view of bones makes a good dis- 
 tinction of sexes. Even color is not beyond 
 conjecture ; since it is hard to be deceived in 
 the distinction of negroes' skulls. t Dante's 
 characters are to be found in skulls as well as 
 faces. | Hercules is not only known by his foot ; 
 
 * That part next the haunch bones, 
 t For their extraordinary thickness. 
 | The poet Dante, in his view of Purgatory, found 
 gluttons so meagre and extenuated, that he conceited 
 them to have been in the siege of Jerusalem, and that it 
 was easy to have discovered Homo or Omo in their 
 faces ; M being made by the two lines of their cheeks, 
 arching over the eye-brows to the nose, and their sunk 
 eyes making O O, which makes up Omo. 
 " Parean 1'occhiaje anella senza gemme : 
 Chi nel viso degli uomini legge OMO, 
 Ben avria quivi conosciuto 1' emme." 
 
 Purg. xxiii. 31. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 205 
 
 other parts make out their comproportions and 
 inferences upon whole or parts. And since 
 the dimensions of the head measure the whole 
 body, and the figure thereof gives conjecture of 
 the principal faculties, physiognomy outlives 
 ourselves, and ends not in our graves. 
 
 Severe contemplators observing these lasting 
 relics, may think them good monuments of per- 
 sons past, little advantage to future beings; and, 
 considering that power which subdueth all 
 things unto itself, that can resume the scattered 
 atoms, or identify out of any thing, conceive it 
 superfluous to expect a resurrection out of relics. 
 But the soul subsisting, other matter, clothed 
 with due accidents, may salve the individuality. 
 Yet the saints, we observe, arose from graves 
 and monuments about the holy city. Some 
 think the ancient patriarchs so earnestly de- 
 sired to lay their bones in Canaan, as hoping 
 to make a part of that resurrection, and, though 
 thirty miles from Mount Calvary, at least to lie 
 in that region which should produce the first- 
 fruits of the dead. And if, according to learn- 
 ed conjecture, the bodies of men shall rise 
 where their greatest relics remain, many are 
 not like to err in the topography of their resur- 
 rection, though their bones or bodies be after 
 translated by angels into the field of Ezekiel's 
 vision, or, as some will order it, into the Valley 
 of Judgment, or Jehosaphat. 
 
206 HYDR10TAPHIA. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHRISTIANS have handsomely glossed the de- 
 formity of death, by careful consideration of 
 the body, and civil rites, which take off brutal 
 terminations ; and, though they conceived all 
 reparable by a resurrection, cast not off all care 
 of interment. And since the ashes of sacrifices 
 burnt upon the altar of God, were carefully 
 carried out by the priests, and deposed in a 
 clean field ; since they acknowledged their 
 bodies to be the lodging of Christ and temples 
 of the Holy Ghost, they devolved not all upon 
 the sufficiency of soul existence ; and there- 
 fore with long services and full solemnities 
 concluded their last exequies, wherein, to all 
 distinctions, the Greek devotion seems most 
 pathetically ceremonious. 
 
 Christian invention hath chiefly driven at 
 rites which speak hopes of another life, and 
 hints of a resurrection. And if the ancient 
 Gentiles held not the immortality of their bet- 
 ter part, and some subsistence after death, in 
 several rites, customs, actions, and expressions, 
 they contradicted their own opinions ; wherein 
 Democritus went high, even to the thought of 
 
URN-BURIAL. 207 
 
 a resurrection, as scoffingly recorded by Pliny.* 
 What can be more express than the expression 
 of Phocyllides ? t or who could expect from Lu- 
 cretius J a sentence of Ecclesiastes ? Before 
 Plato could speak, the soul had wings in Ho- 
 mer, which fell not, but flew out of the body 
 into the mansions of the dead ; who also ob- 
 served that handsome distinction of Demas and 
 Soma, for the body conjoined to the soul, and 
 body separated from it. Lucian spoke much 
 truth in jest, when he said, that part of Her- 
 cules which proceeded from Alcmena perished, 
 that from Jupiter remained immortal. Thus 
 Socrates was content that his friends should 
 bury his body, so they would not think they 
 buried Socrates, and, regarding only his im- 
 mortal part, was indifferent to be burnt or 
 buried. From such considerations Diogenes 
 might condemn sepulture, and, being satisfied 
 that his soul could not perish, grow careless 
 of corporal interment. The Stoics, who thought 
 the souls of wise men had their habitation 
 
 * Similis reviviscendi promissa Democrito vanitas, qui 
 non revixit ipse. Quae, malum, ista dementia est, ite- 
 rari vitam morte ! Plin. lib. 7. c. 56. 
 
 J* K/ Toc.^0, $ Ix, yotivjs l&x'%oft&v \s Qao 
 
 Asn/'av' avfotxopivuv, x. <r. X. 
 t Cedit enim retro de terra quod fuit ante 
 In terram, &c. 
 
208 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 about the moon, might make slight account 
 of subterraneous deposition ; whereas the Py- 
 thagoreans and transcorporating philosophers, 
 who were to be often buried, held great care 
 of their interment. And the Platonics re- 
 jected not a due care of the grave, though 
 they put their ashes to unreasonable expecta- 
 tions, in their tedious term of return and long 
 set revolution. 
 
 Men have lost their reason in nothing so 
 much as their religion, wherein stones and 
 clouts make martyrs ; and since the religion of 
 one seems madness unto another, to afford an 
 account or rational of old rites, requires no rigid 
 reader. That they kindled the pyre aversely, 
 or turning their face from it, was a handsome 
 symbol of unwilling ministration. That they 
 washed their bones with wine and milk ; that 
 the mother wrapped them in linen, and dried 
 them in her bosom, the first fostering part and 
 place of their nourishment ; that they opened 
 their eyes towards heaven before they kindled 
 the fire, as the place of their hopes or original, 
 wre no improper ceremonies. Their last vale- 
 diction, thrice uttered by the attendants,* was 
 also very solemn, and somewhat answered by 
 Christians, who thought it too little, if they 
 
 * Vale, vale, vale ; nos te ordine, quo natura permittet, 
 sequemur. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 209 
 
 threw not the earth thrice upon the interred 
 body.*. That in strewing their tombs, the Ro- 
 mans affected the rose, the Greeks amaranthus 
 and myrtle ; that the funeral pyre consisted of 
 sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew, and trees 
 perpetually verdant, lay silent expressions of 
 their surviving hopes. Wherein Christians, who 
 deck their coffins with bays, have found a more 
 elegant emblem ; for that tree seeming dead, 
 will restore itself from the root, and its dry 
 and exsuccous leaves resume their verdure 
 again ; which, if we mistake not, we have also 
 observed in furze. Whether the planting of 
 yew in church-yards holds not its original from 
 ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of resur- 
 rection from its perpetual verdure, may also 
 admit conjecture^ 
 
 They made use of music to excite or quiet 
 the affections of their friends, according to 
 different harmonies. But the secret and sym- 
 bolical hint was the harmonical nature of the 
 soul, which, delivered from the body, went 
 again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, 
 from whence it first descended ; which, accord- 
 ing to its progress traced by antiquity, came 
 down by Cancer, and ascended by Capricornus. 
 
 They burnt not children before their teeth 
 appeared, as apprehending their bodies too ten- 
 der a morsel for fire, and that their gristly 
 14 
 
210 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 bones would scarce leave separable relics after 
 the pyral combustion. That they kindled not 
 fire in their houses for some days after, was a 
 strict memorial of the late afflicting fire. And 
 mourning without hope, they had a happy 
 fraud against excessive lamentation, by a com- 
 mon opinion that deep sorrows disturbed their 
 ghosts.* 
 
 That they buried their dead on their backs, 
 or in a supine position, seems agreeable unto 
 profound sleep and common posture of dying, 
 contrary to the most natural way of birth, nor 
 unlike our pendulous posture in the doubtful 
 state of the womb. Diogenes was singular, 
 who preferred a prone situation in the grave ; 
 and some Christians f like neither, who de- 
 cline the figure of rest, and make choice of 
 an erect posture. 
 
 That they carried them out of the world with 
 their feet forward, not inconsonant unto rea- 
 son, as contrary unto the native posture of 
 man, and his production first into it, and also 
 agreeable unto their opinions, while they bid 
 adieu unto the world, not to look again upon 
 it ; whereas Mahometans, who think to return 
 to a delightful life again, are carried forth with 
 their heads forward, and looking toward their 
 houses. 
 
 * Tu manes ne leede meos. t Russians, &c. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 211 
 
 They closed their eyes, as parts which first 
 die, or first discover the sad effects of death. 
 But their iterated clamations to excitate their 
 dying or dead friends, or revoke them unto life 
 again, was a vanity of affection, as not pre- 
 sumably ignorant of the critical tests of death, 
 by apposition of feathers, glasses, and reflection 
 of figures, which dead eyes represent not ; 
 which, however not strictly verifiable in fresh 
 and warm cadavers, could hardly elude the 
 test in corpses of four or five days. 
 
 That they sucked in the last breath of their 
 expiring friends, was surely a practice of no 
 medical institution, but a loose opinion that 
 the soul passed out that way, and a fondness 
 of affection from some Pythagorical foundation, 
 that the spirit of one body passed into another, 
 which they wished might be their own.> 
 
 That they poured oil upon the pyre, was a 
 tolerable practice, while the intention rested in 
 facilitating the ascension. But to place good 
 omens in the quick and speedy burning, to sa- 
 crifice unto the winds for a despatch in this of- 
 fice, was a low form of superstition. 
 
 The Archimime, or jester, attending the fu- 
 neral train, and imitating the speeches, gesture, 
 and manners of the deceased, was too light for 
 such solemnities, contradicting their funeral 
 orations and doleful rites of the grave. 
 
212 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 That they buried a piece of money with them 
 as a fee of the Elysian ferryman, was a practice 
 full of folly. But the ancient custom of placing 
 coins in considerable urns, and the present 
 practice of burying medals in the noble foun- 
 dations of Europe, are laudable ways of histori- 
 cal discoveries, in actions, persons, chronolo- 
 gies ; and posterity will applaud them. 
 
 We examine not the old laws of sepulture, 
 exempting certain persons from burial or burn- 
 ing. But hereby we apprehend that these were 
 not the bones of persons planet-struck or burnt 
 with fire from heaven ; no relics of traitors to 
 their country, self-killers, or sacrilegious male- 
 factors, persons in old apprehension unworthy 
 of the earth, condemned unto the Tartarus of 
 hell and bottomless pit of Pluto, from whence 
 there was no redemption. 
 
 Nor were only many customs questionable in 
 order to their obsequies, but also sundry prac- 
 tices, fictions, and conceptions, discordant or ob- 
 scure, of their state and future beings. Wheth- 
 er unto eight or ten bodies of men to add one 
 of a woman, as being more inflammable, and 
 unctuously constituted for the better pyral com- 
 bustion, were any rational practice ; or wheth- 
 er the complaint of Periander's wife be toler- 
 able, that wanting her funeral burning, she suf- 
 fered intolerable cold in hell, according to the 
 
URN-BURIAL. 213 
 
 constitution of the infernal house of Pluto, 
 wherein cold makes a great part of their tor- 
 tures ; it cannot pass without some question. 
 
 Why the female ghosts appear unto Ulysses 
 before the heroes and masculine spirits ; why 
 the Psyche, or soul, of Tiresias is of the mas- 
 culine gender,* who, being blind on earth, sees 
 more than all the rest in hell ; why the funeral 
 suppers consisted of eggs, beans, smallage, and 
 lettuce, since the dead are made to eat aspho- 
 dels t about the Elysian meadows ; why, since 
 there is no sacrifice acceptable, nor any pro- 
 pitiation for the covenant of the grave, men set 
 up the deity of Morta, and fruitlessly adored 
 divinities without ears ; it cannot escape some 
 doubt. 
 
 The dead seem all alive in the human " hades " 
 of Homer, yet cannot well speak, prophesy, 
 or know the living, except they drink blood, v > 
 wherein is the life of man. And therefore the 
 souls of Penelope's paramours, conducted by 
 Mercury, chirped like bats, and those which 
 followed Hercules made a noise, but like a 
 flock of birds. 
 
 The departed spirits know things past and 
 to come, yet are ignorant of things present. 
 Agamemnon foretells what should happen unto 
 
 * Yi/;j QvZuiov Tufiffiao ffK^r^ov 'i^&iv. Homer, 
 t Lucian. 
 
214 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 Ulysses, yet ignorantly inquires what is become 
 of his own son. The ghosts are afraid of 
 swords in Homer ; yet Sibylla tells ^Eneas in 
 Virgil, the thin habit of spirits was beyond the 
 force of weapons. The spirits put off their 
 malice with their bodies, and Caesar and Pom- 
 pey accord in Latin hell ; yet Ajax, in Homer, 
 endures not a conference with Ulysses ; and 
 Deiphobus appears all mangled in Virgil's 
 ghosts ; yet we meet with perfect shadows 
 among the wounded ghosts of Homer. 
 
 Since Charon, in Lucian, applauds his con- 
 dition among the dead, whether it be hand- 
 somely said of Achilles, that living contemner 
 of death, that he had rather be a ploughman's 
 servant than emperor of the dead ; how Her- 
 cules's soul is in hell and yet in heaven, and 
 Julius's soul in a star, yet seen by JEneas in 
 hell ; (except the ghosts were but images and 
 shadows of the soul, received in higher man- 
 sions, according to the ancient division of body, 
 soul, and image, or simulacrum of them both,) 
 we leave our readers to judge. The particu- 
 lars of future beings must needs be dark unto 
 ancient theories, which Christian philosophy 
 yet determines but in a cloud of opinions. A 
 dialogue between two infants in the womb, con- 
 cerning the state of this world, might handsome- 
 ly illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof 
 
URN-BURIAL. 215 
 
 methinks we yet discourse in Plato's den, and 
 are but embryon philosophers. 
 
 Pythagoras escapes, in the fabulous hell of 
 Dante, among that swarm of philosophers, 
 wherein, whilst we meet with Plato and Soc- 
 rates, Cato is to be found in no lower place 
 than Purgatory. Among all the set, Epicurus 
 is most considerable, whom men make honest 
 without an Elysium, who contemned life with- 
 out encouragement of immortality, and making 
 nothing after death, yet made nothing of the 
 king of terrors. 
 
 Were the happiness of the next world as > 
 closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it 
 were a martyrdom to live ; and unto such asj 
 consider none hereafter, it must be more than 
 death to die, which makes us amazed at those 
 audacities that durst be nothing and return into 
 their chaos again. Certainly such spirits as 
 could contemn death, when they expected no 
 better being after, would have scorned to live 
 had they known any. And therefore we ap- 
 plaud not the judgment of Machiavel, that 
 Christianity makes men cowards ; or that with 
 the confidence of but half dying, the despised 
 virtues of patience and humility have abased 
 the spirits of men, which Pagan principles ex- 
 alted ; but rather regulated the wildness of au- 
 dacities, in the attempts, grounds, and eternal 
 
210 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 sequels of death, wherein men of the boldest 
 spirits are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor 
 can v we extenuate the valor of ancient martyrs, 
 who contemned death in the uncomfortable 
 scene of their lives, and in their decrepit mar- 
 tyrdoms did probably lose not many months of 
 their days, or parted with life when it was 
 scarce worth the living ; for (beside that long 
 time past holds no consideration unto a slender 
 time to come) they had no small disadvantage 
 from the constitution of old age, which natural- 
 ly makes men fearful, and complexionally su- 
 perannuated from the bold and courageous 
 thoughts of youth and fervent years. But the 
 contempt of death from corporal animosity pro- 
 moteth not our felicity. They may sit in the 
 orchestra and noblest seats of heaven who have 
 held up shaking hands in the fire, and human- 
 ly contended for glory. 
 
 Meanwhile Epicurus lies deep in Dante's 
 hell, wherein we meet with tombs enclosing 
 souls which denied their immortalities. But 
 whether the virtuous heathen, who lived better 
 than he spake, or erring in the principles of 
 himself, yet lived above philosophers of more 
 specious maxims, lie so deep as he is placed ; 
 at least so low as not to rise against Christians, 
 who, believing or knowing that truth, have last- 
 ingly denied it in their practice and conversa- 
 tion, were a query too sad to insist on. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 217 
 
 But all or most apprehensions rested in opin- 
 ions of some future being, which, ignorantly 
 or coldly believed, begat those perverted con- 
 ceptions, ceremonies, sayings, which Christians 
 pity or laugh at. Happy are they which live 
 not in that disadvantage of time, when men 
 could say little for futurity but from reason ; 
 whereby the noblest minds fell often upon 
 doubtful deaths and melancholy dissolutions. 
 With these hopes Socrates warmed his doubt- 
 ful spirits against that cold potion; and Cato, 
 before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part 
 of the night in reading the immortality of Pla- 
 to, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto 
 the animosity of that attempt. 
 
 It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can 
 throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of 
 his nature ; or that there is no farther state to 
 come, unto which this seems progressional, and 
 otherwise made in vain. Without this accom- 
 plishment, the natural expectation and desire 
 of such a state were but a fallacy in nature. 
 Unsatisfied considerators would quarrel at the 
 justice of their constitutions, and rest content 
 that Adam had fallen lower; whereby, by know- 
 ing no other original, and deeper ignorance of 
 themselves, they might have enjoyed the hap- 
 piness of inferior creatures, who in tranquillity 
 possess their constitutions, as having not the 
 
218 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 apprehension to deplore their own natures ; and 
 being framed below the circumference of these 
 hopes, or cognition of better being, the wisdom 
 of God hath necessitated their contentment. 
 But the superior ingredient and obscured part 
 of ourselves, whereto all present felicities afford 
 no resting contentment, will be able at last to 
 tell us we are more than our present selves, and 
 evacuate such hopes in the fruition of their 
 own accomplishments. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 219 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Now, since these dead bones have already 
 outlasted the living ones of Methuselah, and, in 
 a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, 
 outworn all the strong and specious buildings 
 above it, and quietly rested under the drums and 
 tramplings of three conquests ; what prince can 
 promise such diuturnity unto his relics, or 
 might not gladly say, 
 
 Cc Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim." 
 
 Time which antiquates antiquities, and hath an 
 art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared 
 these minor monuments. In vain we hope to 
 be known by open and visible conservatories, 
 when to be unknown was the means of their 
 continuation, and obscurity their protection. 
 
 If they died by violent hands, and were thrust 
 into their urns, these bones become consider- 
 able, and some old philosophers would honor 
 them, whose souls they conceived most pure, 
 which were thus snatched from their bodies,* 
 and to retain a stronger propension unto them ; 
 whereas, they weariedly left a languishing 
 
 * B/JJ *.t*'ovruv tfufAO, fyxiti xetfaeururxt. Vi corpus 
 relinquentium animas purissimee. Oracula Chaldaica 
 cum scholiis Pselli et Phethonis. 
 
220 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 corpse, and with faint desires of reunion. If 
 they fell by long and aged decay, yet wrapped 
 up in the bundle of time, they fall into indis- 
 tinction, and make but one blot with infants. 
 If we begin to die when we live, and long life 
 be but a prolongation of death, our life is a sad 
 composition ; we live with death, and die not 
 in a moment. How many pulses made up the 
 life of Methuselah, were work for Archimedes. 
 Common counters sum up the life of Moses's 
 man.* Our days become considerable, like 
 petty sums by minute accumulations, where nu- 
 merous fractions make up but small round num- 
 bers, and our days of a span long make not 
 one little finger. f 
 
 If the nearness of our last necessity brought 
 a nearer conformity unto it, there were a hap- 
 piness in hoary hairs, and no calamity in half 
 senses. But the long habit of living indisposeth 
 us for dying ; when avarice makes us the sport 
 of death ; when even David grew politically cru- 
 el ; and Solomon could hardly be said to be the 
 wisest of men. But many are too early old, and 
 before the date of age. Adversity stretcheth 
 our days, misery makes Alcmena's nights, \ and 
 
 * In the psalm of Moses. 
 
 t According to the ancient arithmetic of the hand, 
 wherein the little finger of the right hand, contracted, 
 signified a hundred. 
 
 t One night as long as three. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 
 
 time hath no wings unto it. But the most te- 
 dious being is that which can unwish itself, 
 content to be nothing, or never to have been ; 
 which was beyond the malecontent of Job, who 
 cursed not the day of his life, but his nativity, 
 content to have so far been, as to have a title 
 to future being, although he had lived here 
 but in a hidden state of life, and as it were an 
 abortion. 
 
 vWhat song the Syrens sang, or what name 
 Achilles assumed when he hid himself among 
 women, though puzzling questions,* are not 
 beyond all conjecture. What time the persons 
 of these ossuaries entered the famous nations 
 of the dead,f and slept with princes and coun- 
 sellors, might admit a wide solution. But who 
 were the proprietaries of these bones, or what 
 bodies these ashes made up, were a question 
 above antiquarianism ; not to be resolved by 
 man, nor easily perhaps by spirits, except we 
 consult the provincial guardians or tutelary ob- 
 servators. Had they made as good provision 
 for their names as they have done for their 
 relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art 
 of perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and 
 be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in dura- 
 
 * The puzzling questions of Tiberius unto gramma- 
 rians. Marcel. Donatus in Suet, 
 t KAw<r ifom v&xuv. Horn. Job. 
 
222 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 tion. Vain ashes, which in the oblivion of 
 names, persons, times, and sexes, have found 
 unto themselves a fruitless continuation, and 
 only arise unto late posterity, as emblems of 
 mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vain- 
 glory, and madding vices. Pagan vain-glories, 
 which thought the world might last for ever, 
 had encouragement for ambition ; and finding 
 no Atropos unto the immortality of their names, 
 were never damped with the necessity of ob- 
 livion. Even old ambitions had the advantage 
 of ours, in the attempts of their vain-glories, 
 who, acting early, and before the probable me- 
 ridian of time, have by this time found great 
 accomplishment of their designs, whereby the 
 ancient heroes have already outlasted their mon- 
 uments 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 expect to live within two 
 Methuselahs of Hector. t 
 
 And therefore restless inquietude for the diu- 
 turnity of our memories unto present consider- 
 ations, seems a vanity almost out of date, and 
 superannuated piece of folly. We cannot hope 
 
 * That the world may last but six thousand years, 
 t Hector's fame lasting above two lives of Methuselah, 
 before that famous prince, Charles, was extant. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 223 
 
 to live so long in our names as some have done 
 in their persons. One face of Janus holds no 
 proportion unto the other. 'T is too late to be 
 ambitious. The great mutations of the world 
 are acted, or time may be too short for our de- 
 signs. To extend our memories by monu- 
 ments, whose death we daily pray for, and 
 whose duration wje cannot hope, without injury 
 to our expectations, in the advent of the last 
 day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We, 
 whose generations are ordained in this setting 
 part of time, are providentially taken off from 
 such imaginations ; and being necessitated to 
 eye the remaining particle of futurity, are natu- 
 rally constituted unto thoughts of the next 
 world, and cannot excusably decline the con- 
 sideration of that duration, which maketh pyr- 
 amids pillars of snow, and all that 's past a 
 moment. 
 
 Circles and right lines limit and close all 
 bodies, and the mortal right-lined circle * must 
 conclude and shut up all. There is no anti- 
 dote against the opium of time, which tempo- 
 rally considereth all things. Our fathers find 
 their graves in our short memories, and sadly 
 tell us h9*< we may be buried in our survi- 
 
 0, the character of death. 
 
224 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 vors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years.* 
 Generations pass while some trees stand, and 
 old families last not three oaks. To be read 
 by bare inscriptions, like many in Gruter ; t to 
 hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets, or 
 first letters of our names ; to be studied by an- 
 tiquaries, who we were, and have new names 
 given us, like many of the mummies, J are cold 
 consolations unto the students of perpetuity, 
 even by everlasting languages. 
 
 To be content that times to come should 
 only know there was such a man, not caring 
 whether they knew more of him, was a frigid 
 ambition in Cardan, disparaging his horosco- 
 pal inclination and judgment of himself. Who 
 cares to subsist like Hippocrates's patients, or 
 Achilles's horses in Homer, under naked nomi- 
 nations, without deserts and noble acts, which 
 are the balsam of our memories, the " entelechia " 
 and soul of our subsistences ? Yet to be name- 
 less in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous his- 
 
 * Old ones being taken up, and other bodies laid un- 
 der them. 
 
 t Gruteri Inscriptiones Antiquae. 
 
 J Which men show in several countries, giving them 
 what names they please, and unto some the names of 
 the old Egyptian kings out of Herodotus. 
 
 Cuperem notum esse quod sim, non opto ut sciatur 
 qualis sim. Card, in Vita propria. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 225 
 
 tory. The Canaanitish woman lives more hap- 
 pily without a name, than Herodias with one. 
 And who had not rather have been the good 
 thief than Pilate ? 
 
 But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth 
 her poppy, and deals with the memory of men 
 without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who 
 can but pity the founder of the pyramids ? Eros- 
 tratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana ; 
 he is almost lost that built it. Time hath 
 spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confound- 
 ed that of himself. In vain we compute our 
 felicities by the advantage of our good names, 
 since bad have equal durations ; and Thersites 
 is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who 
 knows whether the best of men be known, or 
 whether there be not more remarkable persons 
 forgot than any that stand remembered in the 
 known account of time 1 Without the favor of 
 the everlasting register, the first man had been 
 as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long 
 life had been his only chronicle. 
 
 Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater 
 part must be content to be as though they had 
 not been, to be found in the register of God, 
 not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names 
 make up the first story,* and the recorded 
 
 * Before the flood. 
 15 
 
HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 names ever since contain not one living cen- 
 tury. The number of the dead long exceedeth 
 all that shall live. The night of time far sur- 
 passeth the day ; and who knows when was the 
 equinox ? Every hour adds unto that current 
 arithmetic, which scarce stands one moment. 
 And since death must be the Lucina of life, and 
 even Pagans could doubt whether thus to live 
 were to die ; since our longest sun sets at right 
 declensions, and makes but winter arches, and 
 therefore it cannot be long before we lie down 
 in darkness, and have our light in ashes ; * 
 since the brother of death daily haunts us with 
 dying mementos, and time, that grows old it- 
 self, bids us hope no long duration, diuturnity is 
 a dream and folly of expectation. 
 
 Darkness and light divide the course of time, 
 and oblivion shares with memory a great part 
 even of our living beings. We slightly remem- 
 ber our felicities, and the smartest strokes of 
 affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense 
 endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy 
 us or themselves. To weep into stones are fa- 
 bles. Afflictions induce callosities ; miseries 
 are slippery, or fall like snow upon us, which, 
 notwithstanding, is no unhappy stupidity. To 
 
 * According to the custom of the Jews, who placed a 
 lighted wax candle in a pot of ashes by the corpse. 
 
URN-BURIAL. 227 
 
 be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of ^ 
 evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, 
 whereby we digest the mixture of our few and 
 evil days, and our delivered senses not relaps- 
 ing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are 
 not kept raw by the edge of repetitions. A 
 great part of antiquity contented their hopes of 
 subsistency with a transmigration of their souls ; 
 a good way to continue their memories, while, 
 having the advantage of plural successions, 
 they could not but act something remarkable in 
 such variety of beings, and enjoying the fame 
 of their passed selves, make accumulation of 
 glory unto their last durations. Others, rather 
 than be lost in the uncomfortable night of noth- 
 ing, were content to recede into the common 
 being, and make one particle of the public soul 
 of all things, which was no more than to return 
 into their unknown and divine original again. 
 Egyptian ingenuity was more unsatisfied, con- 
 triving their bodies in sweet consistencies to ) 
 attend the return of their souls. But all was 
 vanity, feeding the wind and folly.* The 
 Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time 
 hath spared, avarice now consumeth. Mum- 
 my is become merchandise, Mizraim cures 
 wounds, arid Pharaoh is sold for balsams. 
 
 * Omnia vanitas et pastio venti, 
 ut olim Aquila et Symmachus. 
 
228 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 In vain do individuals hope for immortality, 
 or any patent from oblivion, in preservations 
 below the moon. Men have been deceived 
 
 even in their flatteries above the sun, and studi- 
 
 \ 
 
 ed conceits to perpetuate their names in heaven. 
 The various cosmography of that part hath al- 
 ready varied the names of contrived constella- 
 tions. Nimrod is lost in Orion, and Osiris in 
 the Dog-star. While we look for incorruption 
 in the heavens, we find they are but like the 
 earth, durable in their main bodies, alterable 
 in their parts ; whereof, beside comets and 
 new stars, perspectives begin to tell tales, and 
 the spots that wander about the sun, with Phae- 
 thon's favor, would make clear conviction. 
 / There is nothing strictly immortal but im- 
 mortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may 
 be confident of no end ; which is the peculiar of 
 that necessary essence that cannot destroy it- 
 self, and the highest strain of omnipotency to 
 be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer 
 even from the power of itself. All others have 
 a dependent being, and within the reach of 
 destruction. But the sufficiency of Christian 
 immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the 
 quality of either state after death, makes a fol- 
 ly of posthumous memory. God, who can only 
 destroy our souls, and hath assured our resur- 
 rection, either of our bodies or names hath di- 
 
URN-BURIAL. 229 
 
 rectly promised no duration. Wherein there is 
 so much of chance, that the boldest expectants 
 have found unhappy frustration ; and to hold long 
 subsistence seems but a scape in oblivion. But 
 man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and 
 pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities 
 and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting cere- 
 monies of bravery in the infamy of his nature. 
 
 Life is a pure flame, and we live by an in-/ 
 visible 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. But the wisdom 
 of funeral laws found the folly of prodigal 
 blazes, and reduced undoing fires unto the rule 
 of sober obsequies, wherein few could be so 
 mean as not to provide wood, pitch, a mourner, 
 and an urn.* 
 
 Five languages t secured not the epitaph of 
 Gordianus. The man of God lives longer with- 
 out a tomb than ajiy by one, invisibly interred 
 
 * According to the epitaph of Rufus and Beronica in 
 Gruterus, 
 
 Nee ex 
 
 Eorum bonis plus inventum est, quam 
 Quod sufficeret ad emendam pyram 
 Et picem quibus corpora cremarentur, 
 Et praefica conducta et olla empta." 
 t Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Egyptian, and Arabic, de-r 
 faced by Licinius the Emperor. 
 
230 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 by angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though 
 not without some marks directing human dis- 
 covery. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb 
 or burial, in an anomalous state of being, are 
 the great examples of perpetuity, in their long 
 and living memory, in strict account being still 
 on this side death, and having a late part yet 
 to act upon this stage of earth. If in the de- 
 cretory term of the world, we shall not all die 
 / but be changed, according to received transla- 
 | tion, the last day will make but few graves ; at 
 least, quick resurrections will anticipate last- 
 ing sepultures. Some graves will be opened 
 before they be quite closed, and Lazarus be no 
 wonder ; when many that feared to die shall 
 groan that they can die but once. The dismal 
 state is the second and living death, when life 
 jt puts despair on the damned, when men shall 
 wish the coverings of mountains, not of monu- 
 ments, and annihilation shall be courted. 
 
 While some have studied monuments, others 
 have studiously declined them ; and some have 
 been so vainly boisterous, that they durst not 
 acknowledge their graves ; wherein Alaricus 
 seems more subtle, who had a river turned to 
 hide his bones at the bottom. Even Sylla, who 
 thought himself safe in his urn, could not pre- 
 vent revenging tongues, and stones thrown at 
 his monument.^. Happy are they whom privacy 
 
URN-BURIAL. 231 
 
 makes innocent, who deal so with men in this 
 world, that they are not afraid to meet them in 
 the next ; who, when they die, make no com- 
 motion among the dead, and are not touched 
 with that poetical taunt of Isaiah.* ,.-< 
 
 Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the ir- 
 regularities of vain-glory and wild enormities of 
 ancient magnanimity. But the most magnani- 
 mous resolution rests in the Christian religion, 
 which trampleth upon pride, and sits on the 
 neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infal- 
 lible perpetuity, unto which all others must 
 diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in 
 angles of contingency.! 
 
 Pious spirits, who passed their days in rap- | 
 tures of futurity, made little more of this world j > 
 than the world that was before it, while they 
 lay obscure in the chaos of preordination and 
 night of their forebeings. And if any have 
 been so happy as truly to understand Christian 
 annihilation, ecstasis, exolution, liquefaction, 
 transformation, the kiss of the spouse, gusta- 
 tion of God, and ingression into the divine 
 shadow, they have already had a handsome 
 anticipation of heaven , the glory of the world 
 is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them. 
 
 * Isaiah xiv, 9, et seq. 
 
 t Angulus contingent!, the least of angles. 
 
232 HYDRIOTAPHIA. 
 
 To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in 
 their productions, to exist in their names and 
 predicament of chimeras, was large satisfac- 
 tion unto old expectations, and made one part 
 of their Elysium. But all this is nothing in 
 the metaphysics of true belief To live in- 
 deed, is to be again ourselves, which being not 
 only a hope but an evidence in noble believers, 
 5 t is all one to lie in St. Innocent's church- 
 yard,* as in the sands of Egypt, t ready to be 
 any thing, in the ecstasy of being ever, and as 
 content with six feet as the " moles " of Adri- 
 anus. | 
 
 " Tabesne cadavera solvat 
 
 " An rogus, haud refert." Lucan. 
 
 * In Paris, where bodies soon consume. 
 
 t Beneath the pyramids. 
 
 t A stately mausoleum, or sepulchral pile, built by 
 Adrianus in Rome, where now standeth the castle of St. 
 Angelo. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
LETTER TO A FRIEND 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF HIS INTIMATE FRIEND, 
 
 GIVE me leave to wonder that news of this 
 nature should have such heavy wings, that you 
 should hear so little concerning your dearest 
 friend, and that I must make that unwilling 
 repetition to tell you, " ad portam rigidos calces 
 extendit," that he is dead and buried, and by 
 this time no puny among the mighty nations of 
 the dead ; for though he left this world not 
 very many days past, yet every hour, you know, 
 largely addeth unto that dark society ; and, 
 considering the incessant mortality of mankind, 
 you cannot conceive there dieth in the whole 
 earth so few as a thousand an hour. 
 
 Although at this distance you had no early 
 account or particular of his death, yet your af- 
 fection may cease to wonder that you had not 
 
236 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 some secret sense or intimation thereof by 
 dreams, thoughtful whisperings, mercurisms, 
 airy nuncios, or sympathetical insinuations, 
 which many seem to have had at the death of 
 their dearest friends ; for since we find in that 
 famous story that spirits themselves were fain 
 to tell their fellows at a distance that the great 
 Antonio was dead, we have a sufficient excuse 
 for our ignorance in such particulars, and must 
 rest content with the common road and Appian 
 way of knowledge, by information. Though 
 the uncertainty of the end of this world hath 
 confounded all human predictions, yet they 
 who shall live to see the sun and moon dark- 
 ened and the stars to fall from heaven, will 
 hardly be deceived in the advent of the last 
 day. And therefore strange it is, that the com- 
 mon fallacy of consumptive persons, who feel 
 not themselves dying, and therefore still hope 
 to live, should also reach their friends in per- 
 fect health and judgment ; that you should 
 be, so little acquainted with Plautus's sick com- 
 plexion, or that almost a Hippocratical face 
 should not alarm you to higher fears, or rather 
 despair of his continuation in such an ema- 
 ciated state ; wherein medical predictions fail 
 not, as sometimes in acute diseases, and where- 
 in J t is as dangerous to be sentenced by a 
 sician as a judge. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 237 
 
 Upon my first visit I was bold to tell them 
 who had not let fall all hopes of his recovery, 
 that, in my sad opinion, he was not like to be- 
 hold a grasshopper, much less to pluck anoth- 
 er fig ; and in no long time after . seemed to 
 discover that odd mortal symptom in him not 
 mentioned by Hippocrates, that is, to lose his 
 own face, and look like some of his near rela- 
 tions ; for he maintained not his proper coun- 
 tenance, but looked like his uncle, the lines of 
 whose face lay deep and invisible in his health- 
 ful visage before. For, as from our beginning 
 we run through variety of looks before we come 
 to consistent and settled faces, so before our 
 end, by sick and languishing alterations, we 
 put on new visages ; and in our retreat to 
 earth, may fall upon such looks, which, from 
 community of seminal originals, were before 
 latent in us. 
 
 He was fruitlessly put in hope of advantage 
 by change of air, and imbibing the pure aerial 
 nitre of these parts ; and therefore, being so 
 far spent, he quickly found Sardinia in Tivoli,* 
 and the most healthful air of little effect, where 
 death had set her broad arrow ; t for he lived 
 not unto the middle of May, and confirmed the 
 
 * Cum mors venerit, in medio Tibure Sardinia est. 
 t In the king's forests they set the figure of a broad 
 arrow upon trees that are to be cut down. 
 
238 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 observation of Hippocrates of that mortal time 
 of the year, when the leaves of the fig-tree re- 
 semble a daw's claw. He is happily seated who 
 lives in places whose air, earth, and water 
 promote not the infirmities of his weaker parts, 
 or is early removed into regions that correct 
 them. He that is tabidly inclined were unwise 
 to pass his days in Portugal ; cholical persons 
 will find little comfort in Austria or Vienna ; 
 he that is weak-legged must not be in love with 
 Rome, nor an infirm head with Venice or Paris. 
 Death hath not only particular stars in heaven, 
 but malevolent places on earth, which single 
 out our infirmities, and strike at our weaker 
 parts ; in which concern, passager and r mi 
 grant birds have the great advantages, who are 
 naturally constituted for distant habitations, 
 whom no seas nor places limit, but in their 
 appointed seasons will visit us from Greenland 
 and Mount Atlas, and, as some think, even 
 from the Antipodes. 
 
 Though we could not have his life, yet we 
 missed not our desires in his soft departure, 
 which was scarce an expiration ; and his end 
 not unlike his beginning, when the salient 
 point scarce affords a sensible motion, and his 
 departure so like unto sleep, that he scarce 
 needed the civil ceremony of closing his eyes ; 
 contrary unto the common way wherein death 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 239 
 
 draws up, sleep lets fall their eye-lids. With 
 what strife and pains we came into the world 
 we know not ; but 't is commonly no easy mat- 
 ter to get out of it. Yet if it could be made 
 out that such who have easy nativities have 
 commonly hard deaths, and contrarily, his de- 
 parture was so easy, that we might justly sus- 
 pect his birth was of another nature, and that 
 some Juno sat cross-legged at his nativity. 
 
 Besides his soft death, the incurable state of 
 his disease might somewhat extenuate your sor- 
 row, who know that monsters but seldom hap- 
 pen, miracles more rarely in physic. Angelus 
 Victorius gives a serious account of a consump- 
 tive, hectical, phthisical woman, who was sud- 
 denly cured by the intercession of Ignatius. 
 We read not of any in Scripture who in this 
 case applied unto our Saviour, though some 
 may be contained in that large expression, that 
 he "went about Galilee, healing all manner of 
 sickness, and all manner of diseases." Amu- 
 lets, spells, sigils, and incantations, practised 
 in other diseases, are seldom pretended in this ; 
 and we find no sigil in the Archidoxis of Para- 
 celsus to cure an extreme consumption or ma- 
 rasmus, which, if other diseases fail, will put a 
 period unto long livers, and at last make dust 
 of all. Arid therefore the Stoics could not but 
 think that the fiery principle would wear out 
 
240 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 all the rest, and at last make an end of the 
 world ; which notwithstanding, without such a 
 lingering period, the Creator may effect at his 
 pleasure ; and to make an end of all things on 
 earth and our planetical system of the world, 
 he need but put out the sun. 
 
 I was not so curious to entitle the stars unto 
 any concern of his death, yet could not but 
 take notice that he died when the moon was in 
 motion from the meridian, at which time an 
 old Italian long ago would persuade me that 
 the greatest part of men died. But herein, I 
 confess, I could never satisfy my curiosity, 
 although from the time of tides in places upon 
 or near the sea, there may be considerable de- 
 ductions ; and Pliny hath an odd and remark- 
 able passage concerning the death of men and 
 animals upon the recess or ebb of the sea.* 
 However, certain it is he died in the dead and 
 deep part of the night, when Nox might be 
 most apprehensibly said to be the daughter of 
 Chaos, the mother of sleep and death, accord- 
 ing to old genealogy ; and so went out of this 
 world about that hour when our blessed Sa- 
 viour entered it, and about what time many 
 conceive he will return again unto it. Cardan 
 
 * Aristoteles nullum animal nisi sestu recedente ex- 
 pirare affirmat : observation id rmiltum in Gallico Oceano, 
 et duntaxat in homine compertum. Lib. ii. cap. 101. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 241 
 
 hath a peculiar and no hard observation from 
 a man's hand to know whether he was born in 
 the day or night, which, I confess, holdeth in 
 my own, and Scaliger * to that purpose hath 
 another from the tip of the ear. Most men 
 are begotten in the night, animals in the day ; 
 but whether more persons have been born in 
 the night or the day, were a curiosity unde- 
 cidable ; though more have perished by violent 
 deaths in the day, yet in natural dissolutions 
 both times may hold an indifferency, at least 
 but contingent inequality. The whole course 
 of time runs out in the nativity and death of 
 things ; which, whether they happen by suc- 
 cession or coincidence, are best computed by 
 the natural, not artificial day. 
 
 That Charles the Fifth was crowned upon 
 the day of his nativity, it being in his own 
 power so to order it, makes no singular ani- 
 madversion ; but that he should also take king 
 Francis prisoner upon that day, was an unex- 
 pected coincidence, which made the same re- 
 markable. Antipater, who had an anniversa- 
 ry feast every year upon his birth-day, needed 
 no astrological revolution to know what day he 
 
 * Auris pars pendula lobus dicitur ; non omnibus ea 
 pars est auribus ; non enim iis qui noctu nati sunt, sed 
 qui interdiu, maxima ex parte. Com. in Aristot. de 
 Animal, lib. i. 
 
 16 
 
242 A LETTER TO A FRIEND.' 
 
 should die on. When the fixed stars have 
 made a revolution unto the points from whence 
 they first set out, some of the ancients thought 
 the world would have an end ; which was a 
 kind of dying upon the day of its nativity. 
 Now, the disease prevailing and swiftly ad- 
 vancing about the time of his nativity, some 
 were of opinion that he would leave the world 
 on the day that he entered it ; but this being 
 a lingering disease, and creeping softly on, 
 nothing critical was found or expected, and he 
 died not before fifteen days after. Nothing is 
 more common with infants than to die on the 
 day of their nativity ; to behold the worldly 
 hours, and but the fractions thereof; and even 
 to perish before their nativity in the hidden 
 world of the womb, and before their good an- 
 gel is conceived to undertake for them. But 
 in persons who outlive many years, and when 
 there are no less than three hundred sixty- 
 five days to determine their lives in every year ; 
 that the first day should make the last, that 
 the tail of the snake should return into its 
 mouth* precisely at that time, and they should 
 wind up upon the day of their nativity, is in- 
 deed a remarkable coincidence, which though 
 astrology hath taken witty pains to salve, yet 
 
 * According to the Egyptian hieroglyphic. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 243 
 
 hath it been very wary in making predictions 
 of it. 
 
 In this consumptive condition and remark- 
 able extenuation, he came to be almost half 
 himself, and left a great part behind him which 
 he carried not to the grave. And though that 
 story of Duke John Ernestus Mansfield be not 
 so easily swallowed, that at his death his heart 
 was found not to be so big as a nut ; yet if the 
 bones of a good skeleton weigh little more than 
 twenty pounds, his inwards and flesh remain- 
 ing could make no bouffage, but a light bit for 
 the grave. I never more lively beheld the 
 starved characters of Dante in any living face ; 
 an Aruspex might have read a lecture upon 
 him without exenteration, his flesh being so 
 consumed, that he might, in a manner, have 
 discerned his bowels without opening of him ; 
 so that to be carried <f sexta cervice," to the 
 grave, was but a civil unnecessity ; and the 
 complements of the coffin might outweigh the 
 subject of it. 
 
 Omnibonus Ferrarius,* in mortal dysenteries 
 of children, looks for a spot behind the ear. In 
 consumptive diseases, some eye the complexion 
 of moles ; Cardan eagerly views the nails ; some 
 the lines of the hand, the thenar, or muscle of 
 
 * De Morbis Puerorum. 
 
244 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 the thumb ; some are so curious as to observe 
 the depth of the throat-pit, how the proportion 
 varieth of the small of the legs unto the calf, or 
 the compass of the neck unto the circumfer- 
 ence of the head. But all these, with many 
 more, were so drowned in a mortal visage and 
 last face of Hippocrates, that a weak physiog- 
 nomist might say at first eye, this was a face of 
 earth, and that Morta* had set her hard seal 
 upon his temples, easily perceiving what " cari- 
 catura" draughts death makes upon pined 
 faces, and unto what an unknown degree a 
 man may live backward. 
 
 Though the beard be only made a distinction 
 of sex, and sign of masculine heat by Ulmus, 
 yet the precocity and early growth thereof in 
 him was not to be liked in reference unto long 
 life. Lewis, that virtuous but unfortunate king 
 of Hungary, who lost his life at the battle of 
 Mohacz, was said to be born without a skin, 
 to have bearded at fifteen, and to have shown 
 some gray hairs about twenty ; from whence the 
 diviners conjectured, that he would be spoiled 
 of his kingdom and have but a short life. But 
 hairs make fallible predictions, and many tem- 
 ples early gray have outlived the Psalmist's pe- 
 riod. Hairs, which have most amused me, have 
 
 * Morta, the deity of death or fate. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 245 
 
 not been in the face or head, but on the back ; 
 and not in men, but children, as I long ago 
 observed in that endemial distemper of little 
 children in Languedoc, called the Morgellons, 
 wherein they critically break out with harsh 
 hairs on their backs, which takes off the un- 
 quiet symptoms of the disease, and delivers 
 them from coughs and convulsions. 
 
 The Egyptian mummies that I have seen, 
 have had their mouths open, and somewhat 
 gaping, which affordeth a good opportunity to 
 view and observe their teeth, wherein 't is not 
 easy to find any wanting or decayed ; and there- 
 fore in Egypt, where one man practised but 
 one operation, or the diseases but of single 
 parts, it must needs be a barren profession to 
 confine unto that of drawing of teeth, and lit- 
 tle better than to have been tooth-drawer unto 
 King Pyrrhus,* who had but two in his head. 
 How the Bannyans of India maintain the in- 
 tegrity of those parts, I find not particularly 
 observed, who, notwithstanding, have an ad- 
 vantage of their preservation by abstaining 
 from all flesh, and employing their teeth in 
 such food unto which they may seem at first 
 framed, from their figure and conformation. 
 But sharp and corroding rheums had so early 
 
 * His upper and lower jaw being solid, and without 
 distinct rows of teeth. 
 
246 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 mouldered those rocks and hardest parts of his 
 fabric, that a man might well conceive that his 
 years were never like to double, or twice tell 
 over his teeth.* Corruption had dealt more se- 
 verely with them than sepulchral fires and 
 smart flames with those of burnt bodies of old ; 
 for in the burnt fragments of urns which I have 
 inquired into, although I seem to find few in- 
 cisors or shearers, yet the dog-teeth and grind- 
 ers do notably resist those fires. 
 
 In the years of his childhood he had lan- 
 guished under the disease of his country, the 
 rickets ; after which, notwithstanding, many 
 have been become strong and active men ; but 
 whether any have attained unto very great 
 years, the disease is scarce so old as to afford 
 good observation. Whether the children of 
 the English plantations be subject unto the 
 same infirmity, may be worth the observing. 
 Whether lameness and halting do still increase 
 among the inhabitants of Rovigno in Istria, I 
 know not ; yet scarce twenty years ago Mon- 
 sieur du Loyr observed, that a third part of 
 that people halted. But too certain it is, that 
 the rickets increaseth among us ; the small- 
 pox grows more pernicious than the great ; the 
 king's purse knows that the king's evil grows 
 
 * Never live to threescore years. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 247 
 
 more common. Quartan agues are become no 
 strangers in Ireland ; more common and mortal 
 in England ; and though the ancients gave that 
 disease very good words,* yet now that bell 
 makes no strange sound which rings out for 
 the effects thereof. 
 
 Some think there were few consumptions in 
 the old world, when men lived much upon 
 milk ; and that the ancient inhabitants of this 
 island were less troubled with coughs when 
 they went naked and slept in caves and woods, 
 than men now in chambers and feather-beds. 
 Plato will tell us, that there was no such dis- 
 ease as a catarrh in Homer's time, and that 
 it was but new in Greece in his age. Polydore 
 Virgil delivereth that pleurisies were rare in 
 England, who lived but in the days of Henry 
 the Eighth. Some will allow no diseases to be 
 new ; others think that many old ones are 
 ceased, and that such which are esteemed 
 new will have but their time. However, the 
 mercy of God hath scattered the great heap of 
 diseases, and not loaded any one country with 
 all. Some may be new in one country which 
 have been old in another. New discoveries of 
 the earth discover new diseases ; for, besides 
 the common swarm, there are endemial and 
 
 * 'AfQettifruros xou pwfros, securissima et facillima. 
 Hippocr. Pro febre quartana raro sonat campana. 
 
248 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 local infirmities proper unto certain regions, 
 which, in the whole earth, make no small num- 
 ber ; and if Asia, Africa, and America should 
 bring in their list, Pandora's box would swell, 
 and there must be a strange pathology. 
 
 Most men expected to find a consumed kell, 
 empty and bladder-like guts, livid and marbled 
 lungs, and a withered pericardium, in this 
 exuccous corps ; but some seemed too much to 
 wonder that two lobes of his lungs adhered 
 unto his side ; for the like I had often found 
 in bodies of no suspected consumptions or dif- 
 ficulty of respiration. And the same more of- 
 ten happeneth in men than in other animals ; 
 and some think in women than in men ; but 
 the most remarkable I have met with was in a 
 man after a cough of almost fifty years, in 
 whom all the lobes adhered unto the pleura, 
 and each lobe unto another ; who, having also 
 been much troubled with the gout, brake the 
 rule of Cardan,* and died of the stone in the 
 bladder. Aristotle makes a query, why some 
 animals cough, as man, some not, as oxen. If 
 coughing be taken as it consisteth of a natural 
 and voluntary motion, including expectoration 
 and spitting out, it may be as proper unto man 
 
 * Cardan, in his Encomium Podagrae, reckoneth this 
 among the " dona podagrse," that they are thereby de- 
 livered from the phthisis and stone in the bladder. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 249 
 
 as bleeding at the nose. Otherwise we find that 
 Vegetius and rural writers have not left so 
 many medicines in vain against the coughs of 
 cattle ; and men who perish by coughs die the 
 death of sheep, cats, and lions ; and though 
 birds have no midriff, yet we meet with divers 
 remedies in Arrianus against the coughs of 
 hawks. And though it might be thought that 
 all animals who have lungs do cough, yet in 
 cetaceous fishes, who have large and strong 
 lungs, the same is not observed ; nor yet in 
 oviparous quadrupeds ; and in the greatest 
 thereof, the crocodile, although we read much 
 of their tears, we find nothing of that motion. 
 From the thoughts of sleep, when the soul 
 was conceived nearest unto the divinity, the 
 ancients erected an art of divination, wherein, 
 while they too widely expatiated in loose and 
 inconsequent conjectures, Hippocrates wisely 
 considered dreams as they presaged alterations 
 in the body, and so afforded hints towards the 
 preservation of health and prevention of dis- 
 eases, and therein was so serious as to advise 
 alteration of diet, exercise, sweating, bathing, 
 and vomiting ; and also so religious as to order 
 prayers and supplications unto respective dei- 
 ties, in good dreams, unto Sol, Jupiter Ccelestis, 
 Jupiter Opulentus, Minerva, Mercurius, and 
 Apollo ; in bad, unto Tellus and the Heroes. 
 
250 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 And therefore I could not but take notice 
 how his female friends were irrationally curious 
 so strictly to examine his dreams, and in this 
 low state to hope for the phantasms of health. 
 He was now past the healthful dreams of the 
 sun, moon, and stars, in their clarity and proper 
 courses. It was too late to dream of flying, of 
 limpid fountains, smooth waters, white vest- 
 ments, and fruitful green trees, which are the 
 visions of healthful sleeps, and at good distance 
 from the grave. 
 
 And they were also too deeply dejected that 
 he should dream of his dead friends, inconse- 
 quently divining, that he would not be long 
 from them ; for strange it was not that he 
 should sometimes dream of the dead, whose 
 thoughts run always upon death. Beside, to 
 dream of the dead, so they appear not in dark 
 habits, and take nothing away from us, in Hip- 
 pocrates' sense was of good signification ; for 
 we live by the dead, and every thing is or 
 must be so before it becomes our nourishment. 
 And Cardan, who dreamed that he discoursed 
 with his dead father in the moon, made there- 
 of no mortal interpretation ; and even to dream 
 that we are dead, was no condemnable phantasm 
 in old Oneirocriticism, as having a significa- 
 tion of liberty, vacuity from cares, exemption 
 and freedom from troubles unknown unto the 
 dead. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 251 
 
 Some dreams, I confess, may admit of easy 
 and feminine exposition. He who dreamed 
 that he could not see his right shoulder, might 
 easily fear to lose the sight of his right eye ; 
 he that before a journey dreamed that his feet 
 were cut off, had a plain warning not to under- 
 take his intended journey. But why to dream 
 of lettuce should presage some ensuing disease, 
 why to eat figs should signify foolish talk, why 
 to eat eggs great trouble, and to dream of 
 blindness should be so highly commended ac- 
 cording to the Oneirocritical verses of Astramp- 
 sychus and Nicephorus, I shall leave unto your 
 divination. 
 
 He was willing to quit the world alone and 
 altogether, leaving no earnest behind him for 
 corruption or after-grave, having small content 
 in that common satisfaction, to survive or live 
 in anotherj but amply satisfied that his disease 
 should die with himself, nor revive in a pos- 
 terity to puzzle physic, and make sad memen- 
 tos of their parent hereditary. Leprosy awakes 
 not sometimes before forty ; the gout and stone 
 often later ; but consumptive and tabid roots 
 spread more early, and at the fairest make 
 seventeen years of our life doubtful before that 
 age.* 
 
 * Tabes maxime contingunt ab anno decimo octavo ad 
 trigesimum quintum. Hippocr. 
 
252 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 They that enter the world with original dis- 
 eases as well as sin, have not only common 
 mortality but sick traductions to destroy them, 
 make commonly short courses, and live not at 
 length but in figures ; so that a sound Caesa- 
 rean nativity may outlast a natural birth, and 
 a knife may sometimes make way for a more 
 lasting fruit than a midwife ; which makes so 
 few infants now able to endure the old test of 
 the river,* and many to have feeble children, 
 who could scarce have been married at Sparta 
 and those provident states who studied strong 
 and healthful generations ; which happen but 
 contingently in mere pecuniary matches, or 
 marriages made by the candle, wherein, not- 
 withstanding, there is little redress to be hoped 
 from an astrologer or a lawyer, and a good dis- 
 cerning physician were like to prove the most 
 successful counsellor. Julius Scaliger, who in 
 a sleepless fit of the gout could make two hun- 
 dred verses in a night, would have but five 
 plain words upon his tomb, t And this serious 
 person, though no minor wit, left the poetry of 
 his epitaph unto others ; either unwilling to 
 commend himself, or to be judged by a distich> 
 
 JNatos ad flumina primum 
 
 Deferimus, saevoque gelu duramus et undis. 
 t Julii Csesaris Scaligeri, quod fuit. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 253 
 
 and perhaps considering how unhappy great j 
 poets have been in versifying their own epi- 
 taphs ; wherein Petrarca, Dante, and Ariosto 
 have so unhappily failed, that if their tombs 
 should outlast their works, posterity would find j 
 so little of Apollo on them, as to mistake them i 
 for Ciceronian poets. 
 
 In this deliberate and creeping progress unto 
 the grave, he was somewhat too young and of 
 too noble a mind to fall upon that stupid symp- 
 tom, observable in divers persons near their 
 journey's end, and which may be reckoned 
 among the mortal symptoms of their last dis- 
 ease ; that is, to become more narrow-minded, 
 miserable, and tenacious, unready to part with 
 any thing, when they are ready to part with 
 all, and afraid to want when they have no time 
 to spend. Meanwhile, physicians, who know 
 that many are mad but in a single depraved 
 imagination and one prevalent decipiency, and 
 that beside and out of such single deliriums a 
 man may meet with sober actions and good 
 sense in Bedlam, cannot but smile to see the 
 heirs and concerned relations gratulating them- 
 selves in the sober departure of their friends ; 
 and though they behold such mad covetous 
 passages, content to think they die in good un- 
 derstanding and in their sober senses. 
 
254 
 
 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Avarice, which is not only infidelity but 
 idolatry, either from covetous progeny or ques- 
 tuary education, had no root in his breast, who 
 made good works the expression of his faith, 
 and was big with desires unto public and last- 
 ing charities ; and surely, where good wishes 
 and charitable intentions exceed abilities, the- 
 oretical beneficiency may be more than a dream. 
 They build not castles in the air who would 
 build churches on earth ; and though they leave 
 no such structures here, may lay good founda- 
 tions in heaven. In brief, his life and death 
 were such, that I could not blame them who 
 wished the like, and almost to have been him- 
 self ; almost, I say, for though we may wish 
 the prosperous appurtenances of others, or to 
 be another in his happy accidents, yet so in- 
 trinsical is every man unto himself, that some 
 doubt may be made, whether any would ex- 
 change his being, or substantially become an- 
 other man. 
 
 He had wisely seen the world at home and 
 abroad, and thereby observed under what va- 
 riety men are deluded into the pursuit of that 
 which is not here to be found. And although 
 he had no opinion of reputed felicities below, 
 and apprehended men widely out in the esti- 
 mate of such happiness, yet his sober contempt 
 of the world wrought no Democritism or Cyni- 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 255 
 
 cism, no laughing or snarling at it, as well un- 
 derstanding there are not felicities in this world 
 to satisfy a serious mind. And therefore to 
 soften the stream of our lives, we are fain to 
 take in the reputed contentations of this world, 
 to unite with the crowd in their beatitudes, 
 and to make ourselves happy by consortion, 
 opinion, or coexistimation ; for strictly to sepa- 
 rate from received and customary felicities 
 and to confine unto the rigor of realities, were 
 to contract the consolation of our beings into 
 too uncomfortable circumscriptions. 
 
 Not to fear death nor desire it,* was short 
 of his resolution : to be dissolved, and be with 
 Christ, was his dying ditty. He conceived his 
 thread long, in no long course of years, and 
 when he had scarce outlived the second life of 
 Lazarus ; f esteeming it enough to approach 
 the years of his Saviour, who so ordered his 
 own human state, as not to be old upon earth. 
 
 But to be content with death may be better 
 than to desire it. A miserable life may make 
 us wish for death, but a virtuous one to rest in 
 it ; which is the advantage of those resolved 
 Christians, who, looking on death not only as 
 
 * Summum nee metuas diem nee optes. 
 
 t Who, upon some accounts and traditions, is said to 
 have lived thirty years after he was raised by our Sa- 
 viour. Baronius. 
 
256 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 the sting, but the period and end of sin, the hori- 
 zon and isthmus between this life and a better, 
 and the death of this world but as the nativity 
 of another, do contentedly submit unto the com- 
 mon necessity, and envy not Enoch nor Elias. 
 
 Not to be content with life, is the unsatisfac- 
 tory state of those which destroy themselves,* 
 who, being afraid to live, run blindly upon their 
 own death, which no man fears by experience. 
 And the Stoics had a notable doctrine to take 
 away the fear thereof, that is, in such extremi- 
 ties to desire that which is not to be avoided, 
 and wish what might be feared ; and so made 
 evils voluntary and to suit with their own de- 
 sires, which took off the terror of them. 
 
 But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged 
 by such fallacies ; who, though they feared not 
 death, were afraid to be their own execution- 
 ers, and therefore thought it more wisdom 
 to crucify their lusts than their bodies, to cir- 
 cumcise than stab their hearts, and to mortify 
 than kill themselves. 
 
 His willingness to leave this world about that 
 age, when most men think they may best enjoy 
 
 * In the speech of Vulteius in Lucan, animating his 
 soldiers in a great struggle to kill one another. 
 
 " Decernite lethum, 
 
 Et metus omnis abest; cupias, quodcunque necesse est." 
 
 (i All fear is over ; do but resolve to die, and make 
 your desires meet necessity." 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 257 
 
 it, though paradoxical unto worldly ears, was 
 not strange unto mine, who have so often ob- 
 served, that many, though old, oft stick fast 
 unto the world, and seem to be drawn, like Ca- 
 cus's oxen, backward, with great struggling 
 and reluctance into the grave. The long habit 
 of living makes mere men more hardly to part 
 with life, and all to be nothing but what is to 
 come. To live at the rate of the old world, 
 when some could scarce remember themselves 
 young, may afford no better-digested death than 
 a more moderate period. Many would have 
 thought it a happiness to have had their lot of 
 life in some notable conjuncture of ages past ; 
 but the uncertainty of future times hath tempt- 
 ed few to make a part in ages to come. And 
 surely he that hath taken the true altitude of 
 things, and rightly calculated the degenerate 
 state of this age, is not likely to envy those that 
 shall live in the next, much less three or four 
 hundred years hence, when no man can com- 
 fortably imagine what face this world will car- 
 ry. And therefore, since every age makes a 
 step unto the end of all things, and the Scrip- 
 ture affords so hard a character of the last 
 times, quiet minds will be content with their 
 generations, and rather bless ages past than be 
 ambitious of those to come. 
 
 17 
 
258 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Though age had set no seal upon his face, 
 yet a dim eye might clearly discover fifty in his 
 actions ; and therefore, since wisdom is the 
 gray hair, and an unspotted life old age, al- 
 though his years came short, he might have 
 been said to have held up with longer livers, 
 and to have been Solomon's old man.* And 
 surely if we deduct all those days of our life 
 which we might wish unlived, and which abate 
 the comfort of those we now live ; if we reck- 
 on up only those days which God hath accept- 
 ed of our lives, a life of good years will hardly 
 be a span long. The son, in this sense, may 
 outlive the father, and none be climacterically 
 old. He that early arriveth unto the parts and 
 prudence of age, is happily old without the un- 
 comfortable attendants of it ; and 't is super- 
 fluous to live unto gray hairs, when in a pre- 
 cocious temper we anticipate the virtues of 
 them. In brief, he cannot be accounted young 
 who outliveth the old man. He that hath 
 early arrived unto the measure of a perfect 
 stature in Christ, hath already fulfilled the 
 prime and longest intention of his being ; and 
 one day lived after the perfect rule of piety, is 
 to be preferred before sinning immortality. 
 
 Although he attained not unto the years of 
 his predecessors, yet he wanted not those pre- 
 
 Wisdom, chap. iv. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 259 
 
 serving virtues which confirm the thread of 
 weaker constitutions. Cautelous chastity and 
 crafty sobriety were far from him ; those jewels 
 were paragon, without flaw, hair, ice, or cloud 
 in him ; which affords me a hint to proceed in 
 these good wishes and few mementos unto you.* 
 
 Tread softly and circumspectly in this fu- 
 nambulous track and narrow path of goodness; 
 pursue virtue virtuously ; be sober and temper- 
 ate, not to preserve your body in a sufficiency 
 to wanton ends, not to spare your purse, not 
 to be free from the infamy of common trans- 
 gressors that way, and thereby to balance or 
 palliate obscurer and closer vices, nor simply 
 to enjoy health, by all which you may leaven 
 good actions and render virtues disputable ; but, 
 in one word, that you may truly serve God, 
 which, every sickness will tell you, you cannot 
 well do without health. The sick man's sacri- 
 fice is but a lame oblation. Pious treasures 
 laid up in healthful days excuse the defect of 
 sick non-performance ; without which we must 
 needs look back with anxiety upon the lost op- 
 portunities of health, and may have cause rath- 
 er to envy than pity the ends of penitent male- 
 
 * The remainder of this Letter was afterwards en- 
 larged by the author, and was published in a posthumous 
 work under the title of l Christian Morals." 
 
260 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 factors, who go with clear parts unto the last 
 act of their lives, and in the integrity of their 
 faculties return their spirit unto God that gave it. 
 
 Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes's ta- 
 ble, or that old philosophical pinax of the life 
 of man ; whether thou art still in the road of 
 uncertainties ; whether thou hast yet entered 
 the narrow gate, got up the hill and asperous 
 way which leadeth unto the house of sanity, or 
 taken that purifying potion from the hand of 
 sincere erudition, which may send thee clear 
 and pure away unto a virtuous and happy life. 
 
 In this virtuous voyage, let not disappoint- 
 ment cause despondency, nor difficulty despair. 
 Think not that you are sailing from Lima* to 
 Manilla, wherein thou mayest tie up the rud- 
 der and sleep before the wind ; but expect rough 
 seas, flaws, and contrary blasts ; and it is well 
 if by many cross tacks and veerings thou ar- 
 rivest at thy port. Sit not down in the popu- 
 lar seats and common level of virtues, but en- 
 deavour to make them heroical. Offer not only 
 peace-offerings but holocausts unto God. To 
 serve him singly to serve ourselves, were too 
 partial a piece of piety, nor likely to place 
 us in the highest mansions of glory. 
 
 * Through the Pacific Ocean, with a constant gale from 
 the east. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 261 
 
 He that is chaste and continent, not to im- 
 pair his strength, or terrified by contagion, 
 will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn 
 not that virtue unto those years when Cato 
 could lend out his wife, and impotent Satyrs 
 write satires against lust ; but be chaste in 
 thy flaming days, when Alexander dared not 
 trust his eyes upon the fair daughters of Da- 
 rius, and when so many men think there is no 
 other way but Origen's. 
 
 Be charitable before wealth makes thee cov- 
 etous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If 
 riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with 
 them ; and think it not enough to be liberal, 
 but munificent. Though a cup of cold water 
 from some hand may not be without its reward, 
 yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the 
 wounds of the distressed ; and treat the poor 
 as our Saviour did the multitude, to the relics 
 of some baskets. 
 
 Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, or say 
 unto it, Thou art my confidence ; kiss not thy 
 hand when thou beholdest that terrestrial sun, 
 nor bore thy ear unto its servitude. A slave 
 unto Mammon makes no servant unto God. 
 Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith, numbs 
 the apprehension of any thing above sense, 
 and, only affected with the certainty of things 
 present, makes a peradventure of things to 
 
262 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 come ; lives but unto one world, nor hopes but 
 fears another ; makes our own death sweet un- 
 to others, bitter unto ourselves ; gives a dry 
 funeral, scenical mourning, and no wet eyes at 
 the grave. 
 
 If avarice be thy vice, yet make it not thy 
 punishment ; miserable men commiserate not 
 themselves, bowelless unto themselves and mer- 
 ciless unto their own bowels. Let the fruition 
 of things bless the possession of them, and take 
 no satisfaction in dying but living rich. For 
 since thy good works, not thy goods, will follow 
 thee ; since riches are an appurtenance of life, 
 and no dead man is rich ; to famish in plenty, 
 and live poorly to die rich, were a multiplying 
 improvement in madness, and use upon use in 
 folly. 
 
 Persons lightly dipped, not grained in gener- 
 ous honesty, are but pale in goodness, and 
 faint-hued in sincerity ; but be thou what thou 
 virtuously art, and let not the ocean wash 
 away thy tincture ; stand magnetically upon 
 that axis where prudent simplicity hath fixed 
 thee, and let no temptation invert the poles of 
 thy honesty ; and that vice may be uneasy and 
 even monstrous unto thee, let iterated good 
 acts and long-confirmed habits make virtue 
 natural or a second nature in thee. And since 
 few or none prove eminently virtuous but from 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 263 
 
 some advantageous foundations in their temper 
 and natural inclinations, study thyself betimes, 
 and early find what nature bids thee to be, or 
 tells thee what thou mayest be. They who 
 thus timely descend into themselves, cultivating 
 the good seeds which nature hath set in them, 
 and improving their prevalent inclinations to 
 perfection, become not shrubs, but cedars in 
 their generation ; and to be in the form of the 
 best of the bad, or the worst of the good, will 
 be no satisfaction unto them. 
 
 Let not the law of thy country be the " non 
 ultra " of thy honesty, nor think that always 
 good enough which the law will make good. 
 Narrow not the law of charity, equity, mercy ; 
 join gospel righteousness with legal right ; be 
 not a mere Gamaliel in the faith, but let the 
 Sermon in the Mount be thy Targum unto the 
 law of Sinai. 
 
 Make not the consequences of virtue the 
 ends thereof; be not beneficent for a name or 
 cymbal of applause, nor exact and punctual in 
 commerce for the advantages of trust and credit 
 which attend the reputation of just and true 
 dealing ; for such rewards, though unsought 
 for, plain virtue will bring with her, whom all 
 men honor, though they pursue not. To have 
 other bye ends in good actions sours laudable 
 performances, which must have deeper roots, 
 
264 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 motions, and instigations, to give them the 
 stamp of virtues. 
 
 Though human infirmity may betray thy 
 heedless days into the popular ways of extrava- 
 gancy, yet let not thine own depravity, or the 
 torrent of vicious times, carry thee into des- 
 perate enormities in opinions, manners, or ac- 
 tions. If thou hast dipped thy foot in the river, 
 yet venture not over Rubicon ; run not into 
 extremities from whence there is no regression, 
 nor be ever so closely shut up within the holds 
 of vice and iniquity, as not to find some escape 
 by a postern of resipiscency. 
 
 Owe not thy humility unto humiliation by 
 adversity, but look humbly down in that state 
 when others look upward upon thee. Be pa- 
 tient in the age of pride and days of will and 
 impatiency, when men live but by intervals of 
 reason, under the sovereignty of humor and 
 passion, when it is in the power of every one 
 to transform thee out of thyself, and put thee 
 into the short madness. If you cannot imitate 
 Job, yet come not short of Socrates and those 
 patient Pagans, who tired the tongues of their 
 enemies while they perceived they spat their 
 malice at brazen walls and statues. 
 
 Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy 
 cheeks ; be content to be envied, but envy not. 
 Emulation may be plausible, and indignation 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 265 
 
 allowable ; but admit no treaty with that pas- 
 sion, which no circumstance can make good. 
 A displacency at the good of others, because 
 they enjoy it, although we do not want it, is an 
 absurd depravity, sticking fast unto human na- 
 ture from its primitive corruption ; which he 
 that can well subdue were a Christian of the 
 first magnitude, and, for aught I know, may 
 have one foot already in heaven. 
 
 While thou so hotly disclaimest the devil, 
 be not guilty of diabolism ; fall not into one 
 name with that unclean spirit, nor act his na- 
 ture whom thou so much abhorrest ; that is, to 
 accuse, calumniate, backbite, whisper, detract, 
 or sinistrously interpret others ; degenerous de- 
 pravities and narrow-minded vices, not only be- 
 low St. Paul's noble Christian, but Aristotle's * 
 true gentleman. Trust not with some, that the 
 Epistle of St. James is apocryphal, and so read 
 with less fear that stabbing truth, that in com- 
 pany with this vice thy religion is in vain. 
 Moses broke the tables without breaking of the 
 law ; but where charity is broke, the law itself 
 is shattered, which cannot be whole without 
 love, that is the fulfilling of it. Look humbly 
 upon thy virtues, and though thou art rich in 
 some, yet think thyself poor and naked without 
 
 * See Arist. Ethics. Chapter of Magnanimity. 
 
266 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 that crowning grace, which thinketh no evil, 
 which envieth not, which beareth, believeth, 
 hopeth, endureth all things. With these sure 
 graces, while busy tongues are crying out for 
 a drop of cold water, mutes may be in happi- 
 ness, and sing the Trisagium * in heaven. 
 
 Let not the sun in Capricorn t go down upon 
 thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in water ; 
 draw the curtain of night upon injuries ; shut 
 them up in the tower of oblivion, J and let 
 them be as though they had not been. For- 
 give thine enemies totally, and without any re- 
 serve of hope that, however, God will revenge 
 thee. 
 
 Be substantially great in thyself, and more 
 than thou appearest unto others ; and let the 
 world be deceived in thee, as they are in the 
 lights of heaven. Hang early plummets upon 
 the heels of pride, and let ambition have but 
 an epicycle or narrow circuit in thee. Measure 
 not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by the 
 extent of thy grave ; and reckon thyself above 
 
 * Holy, holy, holy. 
 
 t Even when the days are shortest. 
 
 t Alluding to the Tower of Oblivion mentioned by 
 Procopius, which was the name of a tower of imprison- 
 ment among the Persians. Whoever was put therein, 
 he was, as it were, buried alive, and it was death for 
 any but to name it. 
 
A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 267 
 
 the earth by the line thou must be contented 
 with under it. Spread not into boundless ex- 
 pansions either to designs or desires. Think 
 not that mankind liveth but for a few, and that 
 the rest are born but to serve the ambition of 
 those who make but flies of men and wilder- 
 nesses of whole nations. Swell not into ac- 
 tions which embroil and confound the earth ; 
 but be one of those violent ones which force 
 the kingdom of heaven. If thou must needs 
 reign, be Zeno's king, and enjoy that empire 
 which every man gives himself. Certainly the 
 iterated injunctions of Christ unto humility, 
 meekness, patience, and that despised train of 
 virtues, cannot but make pathetical impressions 
 upon those who have well considered the af- 
 fairs of all ages, wherein pride, ambition, and 
 vain-glory, have led up the worst of actions, 
 and whereunto confusion, tragedies, and acts 
 denying all religion, do owe their originals. 
 
 Rest not in an ovation, but a triumph over 
 thy passions ; chain up the unruly legion of thy 
 breast ; behold thy trophies within thee, not 
 without thee ; lead thine own captivity cap- 
 tive, and be Csesar unto thyself. 
 
 Give no quarter unto those vices which are 
 of thine inward family, and having a root in 
 thy temper, plead a right and property in thee. 
 Examine well thy complexional inclinations. 
 
268 A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 Raise early batteries against those strong-holds 
 built upon the rock of nature, and make this a 
 great part of the militia of thy life. The politic 
 nature of vice must be opposed by policy, and 
 therefore wiser honesties project and plot 
 against sin ; wherein, notwithstanding, we are 
 not to rest in generals, or the trite stratagems 
 of art. That may succeed with one temper 
 which may prove successless with another. 
 There is no community or commonwealth of 
 virtue ; every man must study his own economy, 
 and erect those rules unto the figure of himself. 
 Lastly, if length of days be thy portion, make 
 it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long 
 life, but live always beyond thy account. He 
 that so often surviveth his expectation, lives 
 many lives, and will hardly complain of the 
 shortness of his days. Time past is gone like 
 a shadow ; make times to come present ; con- 
 ceive that near which may be far off; approx- 
 imate thy last times by present apprehensions 
 of them ; live like a neighbour unto death, and 
 think there is but little to come. And since 
 there is something in us that must still live on, 
 join both lives together ; unite them in thy 
 thoughts and actions, 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. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
[The following passages are selected as specimens 
 from different parts of the " Enquiries into Vulgar 
 and Common Errors."] 
 
U.ffl SIT 
 
 VULGAR ERRORS- 
 
 ADAM'S ERROR. 
 
 ADAM, upon the expostulation of God, re- 
 plied, " I heard thy voice in the garden, and 
 because I was naked I hid myself." In which 
 reply there was included a very gross mistake, 
 and if with pertinacity maintained, a high and 
 capital error. For thinking by this retirement 
 to obscure himself from God, he infringed 
 the omnisciency and essential ubiquity of his 
 Maker ; who, as he created all things, so is he 
 beyond and in them all, not only in power, as 
 under his subjection, or in his presence, as be- 
 ing in his cognition, but in his very essence, 
 as being the soul of their causalities and the 
 essential cause of their existences. Certainly 
 his posterity, at this distance and after so per- 
 petuated an impairment, cannot but condemn 
 the poverty of his conception, that thought to 
 obscure himself from his Creator in the shade 
 
272 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 of the garden, who had beheld him before in 
 the darkness of his chaos and the great ob- 
 scurity of nothing ; that thought to fly from 
 God which could not fly himself; or imagined 
 that one tree should conceal his nakedness 
 from God's eye, as another had revealed it un- 
 to his own. Those tormented spirits, that wish 
 the mountains to cover them, have fallen upon 
 desires of minor absurdity, and chosen ways of 
 less improbable concealment. Though this be 
 also as ridiculous unto reason as fruitless unto 
 their desires ; for he that laid the foundations 
 of the earth cannot be excluded the secrecy of 
 the mountains ; nor can there any thing escape 
 the perspicacity of those eyes which were be- 
 fore light, and in whose optics there is no 
 opacity. This is the consolation of all good 
 men, unto whom his ubiquity afforded! con- 
 tinual comfort and security ; and this is the 
 affliction of hell, unto whom it affordeth despair 
 and remediless calamity. For those restless 
 spirits that fly the face of the Almighty, being 
 deprived of the fruition of his eye, would also 
 avoid the extent of his hand ; which being im- 
 possible, their sufferings are desperate and their 
 afflictions without evasion, until they can get 
 out of Trismegistus's circle, that is, to extend 
 their wings above the universe and pitch be- 
 yond ubiquity. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 273 
 
 OF ADHERENCE UNTO AN- 
 TIQUITY. 
 
 BUT the mortalest enemy unto knowledge, 
 and that which hath done the greatest execu- 
 tion upon truth, hath been a peremptory adhe- 
 sion unto authority, and more especially the 
 establishing of our belief upon the dictates of 
 antiquity. For (as every capacity may observe) 
 most men of ages present so superstitiously do 
 look on ages past, that the authorities of the 
 one exceed the reasons of the other ; whose 
 persons indeed, being far removed from our 
 times, their works, which seldom with us pass 
 uncontrolled either by contemporaries or im- 
 mediate successors, are now become out of the 
 distance of envies ; and the farther removed 
 from present times, are conceived to approach 
 the nearer unto truth itself. Now hereby me- 
 thinks we manifestly delude ourselves, and 
 widely walk out of the track of truth. 
 
 For, first, men hereby impose a thraldom on 
 their times, which the ingenuity of no age 
 should endure, or indeed the presumption of 
 any did ever yet enjoin. Thus Hippocrates, 
 about two thousand years ago, conceived it no 
 injustice either to examine or refute the doc- 
 trines of his predecessors ; Galen the like, and 
 18 
 
274 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 Aristotle most of any. Yet did not any of these 
 conceive themselves infallible, or set down their 
 dictates as verities irrefragable ; but when they 
 either deliver their own inventions or reject 
 other men's opinions, they proceed with judg- 
 ment and ingenuity, establishing their asser- 
 tions, not only with great solidity, but submit- 
 ting them also unto the correction of future 
 discovery. 
 
 Secondly, men that adore times past, con- 
 sider not that those times were once present ; 
 that is, as our own are at this instant, and we 
 ourselves unto those to come as they unto 
 us at present. As we rely on them, even so 
 will those on us, and magnify us hereafter, who 
 at present condemn ourselves ; which very ab- 
 surdity is daily committed amongst us even in 
 the esteem and censure of our own times. And, 
 to speak impartially, old men, from whom we 
 should expect the greatest example of wisdom, 
 do most exceed in this point of folly ; com- 
 mending the days of their youth they scarce 
 remember, at least well understood not ; extoll- 
 ing those times their younger years have heard 
 their fathers condemn, and condemning those 
 times the gray heads of their posterity shall 
 commend. And thus is it the humor of many 
 heads to extol the days of their forefathers and 
 declaim against the wickedness of times pres- 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 275 
 
 ent ; which notwithstanding they cannot hand- 
 somely do, without the borrowed help and satires 
 of times past, condemning the vices of their 
 times by the expressions of vices in times which 
 they commend, which cannot but argue the 
 community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, 
 Juvenal, and Persius were no prophets, although 
 their lines did seem to indigitate and point at 
 our times. There is a certain list of vices com- 
 mitted in all ages and declaimed against by all 
 authors, which will last as long as human na- 
 ture ; or digested into common-places may serve 
 for any theme, and never be out of date until 
 doomsday. 
 
 THE ERRONEOUS DISPOSITION 
 OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 As for popular errors, they are more nearly 
 founded upon an erroneous inclination of the 
 people, as being the most deceptible part of 
 mankind, and ready with open arms to receive 
 the encroachments of error ; which condition of 
 theirs, although deducible from many grounds, 
 yet shall we evidence it but from a few, and 
 such as most nearly and undeniably declare 
 their natures. 
 
276 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 How unequal discerners of truth they are, 
 and openly exposed unto error, will first ap- 
 pear from their unqualified intellectuals, unable 
 to umpire the difficulty of its dissensions. For 
 error, to speak largely, is a false judgment of 
 things, or an assent unto falsity. Now whether 
 the object whereunto they deliver up their as- 
 sent be true or false, they are incompetent 
 judges. 
 
 For the assured truth of things is derived 
 from the principles of knowledge, and causes 
 which determine their verities ; whereof their 
 uncultivated understandings scarce holding any 
 theory, they are but bad discerners of verity, 
 and in the numerous track of error but casual- 
 ly do hit the point and unity of truth. 
 
 Their understanding is so feeble in the dis- 
 cernment of falsities and averting the errors of 
 reason, that it submitteth unto the fallacies of 
 sense, and is unable to rectify the error of its 
 sensations. Thus the greater part of mankind, 
 having but one eye of sense and reason, con- 
 ceive the earth far bigger than the sun, the fixed 
 stars lesser than the moon, their figures plain, 
 and their spaces from earth equidistant. For 
 thus their sense informeth them, and herein 
 their reason cannot rectify them; and there- 
 fore hopelessly continuing in mistakes, they live 
 and die in their absurdities, passing their days 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 277 
 
 ill perverted apprehensions and conceptions of 
 the world, derogatory unto God and the wis- 
 dom of the creation. 
 
 Again, being so illiterate in the point of in- 
 tellect and their sense so incorrected, they are 
 farther indisposed ever to attain unto truth, as 
 commonly proceeding in those ways which 
 have most reference unto sense, and wherein 
 there lieth most notable and popular delusion. 
 For being unable to wield the intellectual 
 arms of reason, they are fain to betake them- 
 selves unto wasters and the blunter weapons of 
 truth, affecting the gross and sensible ways of 
 doctrine, and such as will not consist with 
 strict and subtile reason. Thus unto them a 
 piece of rhetoric is a sufficient argument of 
 logic, an apologue of ^Esop beyond a syllogism 
 in Barbara ; parables than propositions, and 
 proverbs more powerful than demonstrations. 
 And therefore are they led rather by example 
 than precept, receiving persuasions from visible 
 inducements before intellectual instructions. 
 And therefore also they judge of human actions 
 by the event ; for being uncapable of operable 
 circumstances or rightly to judge the pruden- 
 tiality of affairs, they only gaze upon the visible 
 success, and thereafter condemn or cry up the 
 whole progression. And so from this ground 
 in the lecture of Holy Scripture, their appre- 
 
278 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 hensions are commonly confined unto the lite^ 
 raL-Sfijas-_0f the text ; from whence have en- 
 sued the gross and duller sort of heresies. For 
 not attaining the deuteroscopy and second in- 
 tention of the words, they are fain to omit their 
 superconsequences, coherencies, figures, or tro- 
 pologies, and are not sometimes persuaded by 
 fire beyond their literacies. And therefore all 
 things invisible but unto intellectual discern- 
 
 O 
 
 ments, to humor the grossness of their compre- 
 hensions, have been degraded from their proper 
 forms, and God himself dishonored into manual 
 expressions. And so likewise, being unpro- 
 vided or unsufficient for higher speculations, 
 they will always betake themselves unto sen- 
 sible representations, and can hardly be re- 
 strained the dulness of idolatry ; a sin or folly 
 not only derogatory unto God, but men ; over- 
 throwing their reason as well as his divinity ; 
 in brief, a reciprocation, or rather an inversion 
 of the creation, making God one way, as he 
 made us another ; that is, after our image, as 
 he made us after his own. 
 
 Moreover, their understanding, thus weak in 
 itself, and perverted by sensible delusions, is 
 yet farther impaired by the dominion of their 
 appetite, that is, the irrational ^and brutajjiart 
 of the soul ; which, lording it over the sovereign 
 "faculty, interrupts the actions of that noble 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 279 
 
 part, and chokes those tender sparks which 
 Adam hath left them of reason ; and therefore 
 they do not only swarm with errors, but vices 
 depending thereon. Thus they commonly af- 
 fect no man any farther than he deserts his rea- 
 son or complies with their aberrancies. Hence 
 they embrace not virtue for itself, but its re- 
 ward ; and the argument from pleasure or utili- 
 ty is far more powerful than that from virtuous 
 honesty ; which Mahomet and his contrivers 
 well understood, when he set out the felicity of 
 his heaven by the contentments of flesh and 
 the delights of sense, slightly passing over the 
 accomplishment of the soul and the beatitude 
 of that part which earth and visibilities too 
 weakly affect. But the wisdom of our Saviour 
 and the simplicity of his truth proceeded anoth- 
 er way, defying the popular provisions of hap- 
 piness from sensible expectations, placing his 
 felicity in things removed from sense, and the 
 intellectual enjoyment of God. Arid therefore 
 the doctrine of the one was never afraid of uni- 
 versities, or endeavoured the banishment of 
 learning like the other. And though Galen 
 doth sometimes nibble at Moses, and beside 
 the Apostate Christian, some heathens have 
 questioned his philosophical part or treatise of 
 the creation ; yet is there surely no reasonable 
 Pagan that will not admire the rational and 
 
280 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 well-grounded precepts of Christ, whose life, 
 as it was conformable unto his doctrine, so was 
 that unto the highest rules of reason, and must 
 therefore flourish in the advancement of learn- 
 ing, and the perfection of parts best able to 
 comprehend it. 
 
 Again, their individual imperfections being 
 great, they are moreover enlarged by their ag- 
 gregation ; and being erroneous in their single 
 numbers, once huddled together they will be 
 error itself. For being a confusion of knaves 
 and fools and a farraginous concurrence of all 
 conditions, tempers, sexes, and ages, it is but 
 natural if their determinations be monstrous 
 and many ways inconsistent with truth. And 
 therefore wise men have always applauded their 
 own judgment in the contradiction of that of 
 the people ; and their soberest adversaries have 
 ever afforded them the style of fools and mad- 
 men ; and to speak impartially, their actions 
 have often made good these epithets. Had 
 Orestes been judge, he would not have acquit- 
 ted that Lystrian rabble of madness, who, up- 
 on a visible miracle, falling into so high a con- 
 ceit of Paul and Barnabas, that they termed 
 the one Jupiter, the other Mercurius ; that they 
 brought oxen and garlands, and were hardly 
 restrained from sacrificing unto them ; did not- 
 withstanding suddenly after fall upon Paul, and 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 281 
 
 having stoned him, drew him for dead out of 
 the city. It might have hazarded the sides of 
 Democritus had he been present at that tumult 
 of Demetrius, when, the people flocking togeth- 
 er in great numbers, some cried one thing and 
 some another, and the assembly was confused, 
 and the most part knew not wherefore they 
 were come together ; notwithstanding, all with 
 one voice for the space of two hours cried out, 
 " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." It had 
 overcome the patience of Job, as it did the 
 meekness of Moses, and would surely have 
 mastered any but the longanimity and lasting 
 sufferance of God, had they beheld the mutiny 
 in the wilderness, when, after ten great mira- 
 cles in Egypt and some in the same place, 
 they melted down their stolen ear-rings into a 
 calf, and monstrously cried out, " These be 
 thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of 
 the land of Egypt." It much accuseth the im- 
 patience of Peter, who could not endure the 
 staves of the multitude, and is the greatest ex- 
 ample of lenity in our Saviour, when he de- 
 sired of God forgiveness unto those, who having 
 one day brought him into the city in triumph, 
 did presently after act all dishonor upon him, 
 and nothing could be heard but " Crucifige " in 
 their courts. Certainly he that considereth 
 these things in God's peculiar people will easi- 
 
282 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 ly discern howjjttle of truth there, is in the 
 wjtjs_ofthe multitude ; and though sometimes 
 they are flattered with that aphorism, will hard- 
 ly believe the voice of the people to be the voice 
 of God. 
 
 Lastly, being thus divided from truth in them- 
 selves, they are yet farther removed by adve- 
 nient deception. For true it is, (and I hope I 
 shall not offend their vulgarities if I say,) they 
 are daily mocked into error by subtler devisors, 
 and have been expressly deluded by all pro- 
 fessions and ages. Thus the priests of elder 
 time have put upon them many incredible con- 
 ceits, not only deluding their apprehensions 
 with ariolation, soothsaying, and such oblique 
 idolatries, but winning their credulities unto 
 the literal and downright adorement of cats, 
 lizards, and beetles. And thus also in some 
 Christian churches, wherein is presumed an ir- 
 reprovable truth, if all be true that is suspected, 
 or half what is related, there have not wanted 
 many strange deceptions, and some thereof are 
 still confessed by the name of pious frauds. 
 Thus Theudas, an impostor, was able to lead 
 away four thousand into the wilderness, and 
 the delusions of Mahomet almost the fourth 
 part of mankind. Thus all heresies, how gross 
 soever, have found a welcome with the people. 
 For thus many of the Jews were wrought into 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 283 
 
 the belief that Herod was the Messias ; and 
 David George of Leyden, and Arden, were not 
 without a party amongst the people, who main- 
 tained the same opinion of themselves almost in 
 our days. 
 
 Saltinbancoes, quacksalvers, and charla- 
 tans deceive them in lower degrees. Were 
 ^Esop alive, the Piazza and Pont-Neuf could 
 not but speak their fallacies,- meanwhile there 
 are too many, whose cries cannot conceal their 
 mischief. For their impostures are full of cru- 
 elty and worse than any other, deluding not 
 only unto pecuniary defraudations, but the irre- 
 parable deceit of death. 
 
 Astrologers, which pretend to be of Cabala 
 with the stars, (such I mean as abuse that 
 worthy inquiry,) have not been wanting in their 
 deceptions ; who, having won their belief un- 
 to principles whereof they make great doubt 
 themselves, have made them believe that ar- 
 bitrary events below have necessary causes 
 above ; whereupon their credulities assent un- 
 to any prognostics, and daily swallow the pre- 
 dictions of men, which, considering the inde- 
 pendency of their causes and contingency in 
 their events, are only in the prescience of God. 
 
 Fortunetellers, jugglers, geomancers, and the 
 like incantatory impostors, though commonly 
 men of inferior rank, and from whom without 
 
284 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 illumination they can expect no more than from 
 themselves, do daily and professedly delude 
 them ; unto whom (what is deplorable in men 
 and Christians) too many applying themselves, 
 betwixt jest and earnest, betray the cause of 
 truth, and insensibly make up theTegionary 
 body of error. 
 
 Statists and politicians, unto whom " ragione 
 di stato " is the first considerable, as though 
 it were their business to deceive the people, 
 as a maxim do hold that truth is to be con- 
 cealed from them ; unto whom although they 
 reveal the visible design, yet do they commonly 
 conceal the capital intention. And therefore 
 have they ever been the instruments of great 
 designs, yet seldom understood the true inten- 
 tion of any ; accomplishing the drifts of wiser 
 heads, as inanimate and ignorant agents the 
 general design of the world ; who though in 
 some latitude of sense and in a natural cog- 
 nition perform their proper actions, yet do they 
 unknowingly concur unto higher ends and 
 blindly advance the great intention of nature. 
 Now how far they may be kept in ignorance, 
 a great example there is in the people of Rome, 
 who never knew the true and proper name of 
 their own city. For beside that common ap- 
 pellation received by the citizens, it had a 
 proper and secret name concealed from them. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 285 
 
 " Cujus alterum nomen dicere secretis cere- 
 moniarum nefas habetur," says Pliny ; lest the 
 name thereof being discovered unto their ene- 
 mies, their penates and patronal gods might 
 be called forth by charms and incantations. 
 For according unto the tradition of magicians, 
 the tutelary spirits will not remove at common 
 appellations, but at the proper names of things 
 whereunto they are protectors. 
 
 Thus having been deceived by themselves, 
 and continually deluded by others, they must 
 needs be stuffed with errors, and even over-run 
 with these inferior falsities ; whereunto whoso- 
 ever shall resign their reasons, either from the 
 root of deceit in themselves, or inability to re- 
 sist such trivial ingannations from others, al- 
 though their condition and fortunes may place 
 them many spheres above the multitude, yet 
 are they still within the line of vulgarity, and 
 democratical enemies of truth. 
 
 OF THE FALLING OF SALT. 
 
 THE falling of salt is an authentic presage- 
 ment of ill luck, nor can every temper contemn 
 it ; from whence notwithstanding nothing can 
 be naturally feared ; nor was the same a gene- 
 
286 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 ral prognostic of future evil among the an- 
 cients, but a particular omination concerning 
 the breach. T of friendship. For salt, as incor- 
 ruptible, was the symbol of friendship^ and, be- 
 fore the other service, was offered unto their 
 guests ; which, if it casually fell, was accounted 
 ominous, and their amity of no duration. But 
 whether salt were not only a symbol of friend- 
 ship with man, but also a figure of amity and 
 reconciliation with God, and was therefore ob- 
 served in sacrifices, is a higher speculation. 
 
 OF BREAKING THE EGG-SHELL. 
 
 To break the egg-shell after the meat is out, 
 we are taught in our childhood, and practise it 
 all our lives ; which nevertheless is but a su- 
 perstitious relic, according to the judgment of 
 Pliny, " Hue pertinet ovorum, ut exsorbuerit 
 quisque, calices protinus frangi, aut eosdem co- 
 chlearibus perforari ; " and the intent hereof 
 was to prevent withcraft ; for lest witches should 
 draw or prick their names therein, and vene- 
 ficiously mischief their persons, they broke the 
 shell, as Dalecampius hath observed. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 287 
 
 OF THE TRUE LOVER'S KNOT. 
 
 THE true lover's knot is very much magni- 
 fied, and still retained in presents of love among 
 us ; which, though in all points it doth not 
 make out, had perhaps its original from " No- 
 dus Herculanus," or that which was called Her^ 
 cule^s_Jcnot ; resembling the snaky complication 
 in the caduceus or rod of Hermes ; and in 
 which form the zone or wooHj^ghv^jQfJtlie 
 bride was fastened, as Turnebus observeth in 
 his " Adversaria." 
 
 OF THE CHEEK BURNING OR 
 EAR TINGLING. 
 
 WHEN our cheek burneth or ear tingleth, we 
 usually say that somebody is talking of us, 
 which is an ancient conceit, and ranked among 
 superstitious opinions by Pliny. " Absentes 
 tinnitu aurium proesentire sermones de se re- 
 ceptum est," according to that distich noted by 
 Dalecampius. 
 
 " Garrula, quid totis resonas mihi noctibus, auris ? 
 Nescio quern dicis nunc meminisse mei." 
 
 Which is a conceit hardly to be made out with- 
 out the concession of a signifying Genius, or 
 
288 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 universal Mercury, conducting sounds unto 
 their distant subjects, and teaching us to hear 
 by touch. 
 
 OF SPEAKING UNDER THE ROSE. 
 
 "HEN we desire to confine our words, we 
 commonly say they are spoken under the rose ; 
 which expression is commendable, if the rose, 
 from any natural property, may be the symbol 
 of silence, as Nazianzen seems to imply in 
 these translated verses ; 
 
 " Utque latet rosa verna suo putamine clausa, 
 Sic os vincla ferat, validisque arctetur habenis, 
 Indicatque suis prolixa silentia labris." 
 
 And is also tolerable, if by desiring a secrecy 
 to words spoke under the rose, we only mean 
 in society and compotation, from the ancient 
 custom in symposiac meetings to wear chaplets 
 of roses about their heads; and so we condemn 
 not the German custom, which over the table 
 describeth a rose in the ceiling. But more 
 considerable it is, if the original were such as 
 Lemnius and others have recorded, that the 
 rose was the flower of JVenus, which Cupid 
 consecrated unto Harpocrates, the god of si- 
 lence, and was therefore an emblem thereof, 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 289 
 
 to conceal the pranks of venery; as is declared 
 in this tetrastich : 
 
 " Est rosa flos Veneris, cujus quo facta laterent, 
 
 Harpocrati matris, dona dicavit Amor ; 
 Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendit amicis, 
 Convivae ut sub ea dicta tacenda sciant." 
 
 OF SMOKE FOLLOWING THE 
 FAIR. 
 
 THAT smoke doth follow the fairest, is a 
 usual saying with us and in many parts of Eu- 
 rope ; whereof although there seem no natural 
 ground, yet is it the continuation of a very 
 ancient opinion, as Petrus Victorius and Ca- 
 saubon have observed from a passage in Athe- 
 naeus ; wherein a parasite thus describeth him- 
 self: 
 
 " To every table first I come, 
 Whence Porridge I am called by some ; 
 A Capaneus at stairs I am, 
 To enter any room a ram ; 
 Like whips and thongs to all I ply, 
 Like smoke unto the fair I fly." 
 
 19 
 
290 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 OF SITTING CROSS-LEGGED. 
 
 To sit cross-legged, or with our fingers pec- 
 tinated or shut together, is accounted bad, and 
 friends will persuade us from it. The same 
 conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as 
 is observable from Pliny, " Poplites alternis 
 genibus imponere nefas olim " ; and also from 
 Athenaeus, that it was an old veneficious prac- 
 tice, and Juno is made in this posture to hin- 
 der the delivery of Alcmsena. And therefore, 
 as Pierius observeth, in the medal of Julia Pia, 
 the right hand of Venus was made extended, 
 with the inscription of Venus Genetrix ; for the 
 complication or pectination of the fingers was 
 a hieroglyphic of impediment, as in that place 
 he declareth. 
 
 OF THE PARING OF NAILS. 
 
 THE set and statary time of paring of nails 
 and cutting of hair is thought by many a point 
 of consideration ; which is perhaps but the con- 
 tinuation of an ancient superstition. For pi- 
 aculous it was unto the Romans to pare their 
 nails upon the Nundinse, observed every ninth 
 day ; and was also feared by others in certain 
 days of the week, according to that of Auso- 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 291 
 
 nius, " Ungues Mercuric, barbam Jove, Cypride 
 crines," and was one part of the wickedness 
 that filled up the measure of Manasses, when 
 't is delivered that " he observed times." * 
 
 OF HAIR UPON MOLES. 
 
 A COMMON fashion it is to nourish hair upon 
 the moles of the face ; which is the perpetua- 
 tion of a very ancient custom, and though in- 
 nocently practised among us, may have a su- 
 perstitious original, according to that of Pliny, 
 " Naevos in facie tondere religiosum habent 
 nunc multi." From the like might proceed 
 the fears of polling elvelocks, or complicated 
 hairs of the head, and also of locks longer than 
 the other hair ; they being votary at first, and 
 dedicated upon occasion, preserved with great 
 care, and accordingly esteemed by others, as 
 appears by that of Apuleius, " Adjuro per dul- 
 cem capilli tui nodulum." 
 
 OF LIONS' HEADS UPON SPOUTS. 
 
 A CUSTOM there is in most parts of Europe 
 to adorn aqueducts, spouts, and cisterns with li- 
 
 * 2 Chronicles, xxxiii. 6. 
 
292 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 ons 5 heads ; which though no illaudable orna- 
 ment, is of an Egyptian genealogy, who prac- 
 tised the same under a symbolical illation, 
 For because^ the sun befofl in Leo, the flood 
 of^Nilus was at the full^and water became 
 conveyed into every part, they made Hie SPOUTS 
 of their aqueducts through the head of_aj ion. 
 And upon some celestial respects it is not im- 
 probable the great Mogul or Indian king doth 
 bear for his arms a lion and the sun. 
 
 OF THE PICTURE OF GOD. 
 
 THE picture of the Creator, or God the 
 Father, in the shape of an old man, is a dan- 
 gerous piece, and in this fecundity of sects may 
 revive the Anthropomorphites ; which, although 
 maintained from the expression of Daniel, " I 
 beheld where the Ancient of days did sit, whose 
 hair of his head was like the pure wool," yet 
 may it be also derivative from the hieroglyphi- 
 cal description of the Egyptians, who, to ex- 
 press their Eneph, or Creator of the world, de- 
 scribed an old man in a blue mantle, with an 
 egg in his mouth, which was the emblem of the 
 world. Surely those heathens, that, notwith- 
 standing the exemplary advantage in heaven, 
 would endure no pictures of sun or moon, as 
 being visible unto all the world, and needing 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 293 
 
 DO representation, do evidently accuse the prac- 
 tice of those pencils that will describe invis- 
 ibles. . And he that challenged the boldest 
 hand unto the picture of an echo, must laugh 
 at this attempt, not only in the description of 
 invisibility, but circumscription of ubiquity, and 
 fetching under lines incomprehensible circu- 
 larity. 
 
 The pictures of the Egyptians were more 
 tolerable, and in their sacred letters more ve- 
 niably expressed the apprehension of Divinity. 
 For though they implied the same by an eye 
 upon a sceptre, by an eagle's head, a crocodile, 
 and the like, yet did these manual descriptions 
 pretend no corporal representations ; nor could 
 the people misconceive the same unto real cor- 
 respondencies. So though the Cherub carried 
 some apprehension of Divinity, yet was it not 
 conceived to be the shape thereof; and so per- 
 haps, because it is metaphorically predicated 
 of God that he is a consuming fire, he may be 
 harmlessly described by a flaming representa- 
 tion. Yet if, as some will have it, all mediocrity 
 of folly is foolish, and because an unrequitable 
 evil may ensue, an indifferent convenience 
 must be omitted, we shall not urge such repre- 
 sentments ; we could spare the holy lamb for 
 the picture of our Saviour, and the dove or fiery 
 tongues to represent the Holy Ghost. 
 
294 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 OF THE SUN, MOON, AND WINDS. 
 
 THE sun and moon are usually described 
 with human faces. Whether herein there be 
 not a Pagan imitation, and those visages at first 
 implied Apollo and Diana, we may make some 
 doubt ; and we find the statue of the sun was 
 framed with rays about the head, which were 
 the indeciduous and unshaven locks of Apollo. 
 We should be too iconomachal * to question the 
 pictures of the winds, as commonly drawn in 
 human heads, and with their cheeks distended ; 
 which notwithstanding we find condemned by 
 Minucius, as answering poetical fancies, and 
 the gentile description of ^Eolus, Boreas, and 
 the feigned deities of the winds. 
 
 OF THE SUN DANCING. 
 
 WE shall not, I hope, disparage the resur- 
 rection of our Redeemer, if we say the sun 
 doth not dance on Easter day. And though 
 we would willingly assent unto any sympatheti- 
 cal exultation, yet cannot conceive therein any 
 more than a tropical expression. Whether any 
 such motion there were in that day wherein 
 Christ arose, Scripture hath not revealed, which 
 
 * Quarrelsome with pictures. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 295 
 
 hath been punctual in other records concerning 
 solary miracles ; and the Areopagite that was 
 amazed at the eclipse, took no notice of this. 
 And if metaphorical expressions go so far, we 
 may be bold to affirm, not only that one sun 
 danced, but two arose that day; that light 
 appeared at his nativity, and darkness at his 
 death, and yet a light at both ; for even that 
 darkness was a light unto the Gentiles, illumi- 
 nated by that obscurity ; that 't was the first 
 time the sun set above the horizon ; that al- 
 though there were darkness above the earth, 
 there was light beneath it ; nor dare we say that 
 hell was dark if he were in it. 
 
 OF THE DEVIL. 
 
 A CONCEIT there is, that the devil commonly 
 appeareth with a cloven hoof; wherein although 
 it seem excessively ridiculous, there may be 
 somewhat of truth ; and the ground thereof at 
 first might be his frequent appearing in the 
 shape of a goat, which answers that descrip- 
 tion. This was the opinion of ancient Chris- 
 tians concerning the apparition of Panites, 
 Fauns, and Satyrs ; and in this form we read 
 of one that appeared unto Antony in the wil- 
 
296 
 
 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 derness. The same is also confirmed from ex- 
 positions of Holy Scripture ; for whereas it is 
 said, " Thou shalt not offer unto devils," the 
 original word is " seghnirim," that is, rough 
 and hairy goats, because in that shape the devil 
 most often appeared ; as is expounded by the 
 rabbins, as Tremellius hath also explained, 
 and as the word Ascimah, the god of Emath, 
 is by some conceived. Nor did he only as- 
 sume this shape in elder times, but commonly 
 in later days, especially in the place of his wor- 
 ship, if there be any truth in the confession of 
 witches, and as in many stories it stands con- 
 firmed by Bodinus. And therefore a goat is 
 not improperly made the hieroglyphic of the 
 devil, as Pierius hath expressed it. So might 
 it be the emblem of sin, as it was in the sin- 
 ofFering ; and so likewise of wicked and sinful 
 men, according to the expression of Scripture 
 in the method of the last distribution, when our 
 
 Saviour shall spr^rjfp thp shppp f r ^p tbp ornat Sj 
 
 that is, the sons of the Lamb from the children 
 of the devil. 
 
 OF SPOTS ON THE NAILS. 
 
 THAT temperamental dignotions and conjec- 
 ture of prevalent humors may be collected from 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 297 
 
 spots in our nails, we are not averse to con- 
 cede, but yet not ready to admit sundry divi- 
 nations vulgarly raised upon them. Nor do we 
 observe it verified in others, what Cardan dis- 
 covered as a property in himself, to have found 
 therein some signs of most events that ever 
 happened unto him ; or that there is much con- 
 siderable in that doctrine of chiromancy, that 
 spots in the top of the nails do signify things 
 past, in the middle, things present, and at the 
 bottom, events to come ; that white specks pre- 
 sage our felicity, blue ones our misfortunes ; 
 that those in the nail of the thumb have signifi- 
 cations of honor, those in the forefinger of 
 riches, and so respectively in other fingers, 
 (according to planetical relations, from whence 
 they receive their names,) as Tricassus hath 
 taken up, and Picciolus well rejecteth. 
 
 We shall not proceed to query, what truth 
 there is in palmistry, or divination from those 
 lines in our hands of high denomination. Al- 
 though if any thing be therein, it seems not 
 confinable unto man ; but other creatures are 
 also considerable ; as is the forefoot of the 
 mole, and especially of the monkey ; wherein 
 we have observed the table line, that of life, 
 and of the liver. 
 
298 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 OF LIGHTS BURNING BLUE. 
 
 THAT candles and lights burn dim and blue 
 at the apparition of spirits, may be true, if the 
 ambient air be full of sulphurous spirits, as it 
 happeneth oft times in mines, where damps 
 and acid exhalations are able to extinguish 
 them ; and may be also verified, when spirits 
 do make themselves visible by bodies of such 
 effluviums. But of lower consideration is the 
 common foretelling of strangers, from the fun- 
 gus parcels about the wicks of candles ; which 
 only signifieth a moist and pluvious air about 
 them, hindering the avolation of the light and 
 favillous particles ; whereupon they are forced 
 to settle upon the snast. 
 
 OF THE WEARING OF CORAL. 
 
 THOUGH coral doth properly preserve and 
 fasten the teeth in men, yet is it used in chil- 
 dren to make an easier passage for them, and 
 for that intent is worn about their necks. But 
 whether this custom were not superstitiously 
 founded, as presumed an amulet or defensative 
 against fascination, is not beyond all doubt. 
 For the same is delivered by Pliny. " Arus- 
 pices religiosum coralli gestamen amoliendis 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 299 
 
 periculis arbitrantur ; et surculi infantise adalli- 
 gati, tutelam habere creduntur." 
 
 OF THE DIVINING ROD. 
 
 A STRANGE kind of exploration and peculiar 
 way of rhabdomancy is that which is used in 
 mineral discoveries, that is, with a forked ha- 
 zel, commonly called Moses's rod, which, freely 
 held forth, will stir and play if any mine be 
 under it. And though many there are who 
 have attempted to make it good, yet, until bet-, 
 ter information, we are of opinion with Agri- 
 cola, that in itself it is a fruitless exploration, 
 strongly scenting of Pagan derivation and the 
 " virguladivina," proverbially magnified of old. 
 The ground whereof were the magical rods in 
 poets, that of Pallas in Homer, that of Mercury 
 that charmed Argus, and that of Circe which 
 transformed the followers of Ulysses ; too bold- 
 ly usurping the name of Moses's rod, from 
 which notwithstanding, and that of Aaron, 
 were probably occasioned the fables of all the 
 rest. For that of Moses must needs be famous 
 unto the Egyptians, and that of Aaron unto 
 many other nations, as being preserved in the 
 ark until the destruction of the temple built by 
 Solomon. 
 
300 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 OF DISCOVERING MATTERS BY 
 BOOK OR STAFF. 
 
 A PRACTICE there is among us to determine 
 doubtful matters, by the opening of a book, 
 and letting fall a staff; which notwithstanding 
 are ancient fragments of Pagan divinations. 
 The first an imitation of " Sortes Homericas " 
 or " Virodlianae," drawing determinations from 
 
 a 7 o 
 
 verses casually occurring. The same was prac- 
 tised by Severus, who entertained ominous 
 hopes of the empire, from that verse in Virgil, 
 " Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memen- 
 to " ; and Gordianus, who reigned but few 
 days, was discouraged by another, that is, 
 " Ostendent terris huric tantum fata, nee ultra 
 Esse sinunt." Nor was this only performed in 
 heathen authors, but upon the sacred texts of 
 Scripture, as Gregorius Turonensis hath left 
 some account, and as the practice of the em- 
 peror Heraclius, before his expedition into Asia 
 Minor, is delivered by Cedrenus. 
 
 As for the divination or decision from the 
 staff, it is an augurial relic, arid the practice 
 thereof is accused by God himself. " My people 
 ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff de- 
 clareth unto them." * Of this kind of rhabdo- 
 
 * Hosea, iv. 12. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 301 
 
 mancy was that practised by Nabuchadonosor 
 in that Chaldean miscellany delivered by Eze- 
 kiel, " The king of Babylon stood at the part- 
 ing of the way, at the head of two ways, to use 
 divination ; he made his arrows bright, he con- 
 sulted with images, he looked in the liver ; at 
 his right hand was the divination for Jerusa- 
 lem." * That is, as Estius expounded it, the left 
 way leading unto Rabbah, the chief city of the 
 Ammonites, and the right unto Jerusalem, 
 he consulted idols and entrails, he threw up 
 a bundle of arrows to see which way they would 
 light; and falling on the right hand, he march- 
 ed towards Jerusalem. A like way of belo- 
 mancy, or divination by arrows, hath been in 
 request with Scythians, Alanes, Germans, with 
 the Africans and Turks of Algiers. But of 
 another nature was that which was practised 
 by Elisha, when by an arrow shot from an eas- 
 tern window, he presignified the destruction of 
 Syria ; or when, according unto the three 
 strokes of Joash, with an arrow upon the 
 ground, he foretold the number of his victories. 
 For thereby the spirit of God particulared the 
 same, and determined the strokes of the king 
 unto three, which the hopes of the prophet ex- 
 pected in twice that number. 
 
 * Ezekiel, xxi. 21. 
 
302 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 / 
 
 We are unwilling to enlarge concerning 
 many other ; only referring unto sober exami- 
 nation, what natural effects can reasonably 
 be expected, when to prevent the ephialtes or 
 night-mare we hang up a hollow stone in our 
 stables ; when for amulets against agues we use 
 the chips of gallows and places of execution ; 
 when for warts we rub our hands before the 
 moon ; or commit any maculated part unto 
 the touch of the dead. Swarms hereof our 
 learned Selden and critical philologers might 
 illustrate, whose abler performances our adven- 
 tures do but solicit. Meanwhile I hope they 
 will plausibly receive our attempts, or candidly 
 correct our rnisconjectures. 
 
 OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 WE hope it will not be unconsidered, that 
 we find no open tract or constant manuduction 
 in this labyrinth, but are oft-times fain to wan- 
 der in the America and untravelled parts of 
 truth. We are often constrained to stand alone 
 against^ the~~strength of joginion, and to meet 
 the Goliah and giant of authority, with con- 
 temptible pebbles and feeble arguments, drawn 
 from the scrip and slender stock of ourselves. 
 
VULGAR ERRORS. 303 
 
 OF "GARDENS. 
 
 THE earth is the garden of nature, and each 
 fruitful country a paradise. The Turks, who 
 pass their days in gardens here, will have gar- 
 dens also hereafter, and delighting in flowers 
 on earth, must have lilies and roses in heaven. 
 The delightful world comes after death, and 
 paradise succeeds the grave. The verdant 
 state of things is the symbol of the resurrec- 
 tion ; and to flourish in the state of glory, we 
 ^^ "- - ".i jn 1. 1 1 "" *' ., 
 
 musFnrst be sown in corruption. 
 
 OF LIGHT. 
 
 LIGHT that makes things seen, makes some 
 things invisible. Were it not for darkness and 
 the shadow of the earth, the noblest part of the 
 creation had remained unseen, and the stars of 
 heaven as invisible as on the fourth day, when 
 they were created above the horizon with the 
 sun, or there was not an eye to behold them. 
 The greatest mystery of religion is expressed 
 by adumbration, and in the noblest part of 
 Jewish types we find the cherubim shadowing 
 the mercy-seat. Life itself is but the shadow 
 of death, and souls departed but the shadows 
 of the living. All things fall under this name. 
 
304 
 
 VULGAR ERRORS. 
 
 The sun itself is but the dark "simulacrum," 
 and light but the shadow 
 
 OF ORDER. 
 
 NIGHT, which Pagan theology could make 
 the daughter of chaos, affords no advantage to 
 the description of order ; although no lower 
 than that mass can we derive its genealogy. 
 All things began in order ; so shall they end, 
 and so shall they begin again, according to the 
 ordainer of order and mystical mathematics of 
 the city of heaven. 
 
 OF SLEEP. 
 
 THOUGH Somnus in Homer be sent to rouse 
 up Agamemnon, I find no such effects in these 
 drowsy approaches of sleep. To keep our eyes 
 open longer were but to act our antipodes. 
 The huntsmen are up in America, and they are 
 already past their first sleep in Persia. But 
 who can be drowsy at that hour which freed us 
 from everlasting sleep ? or have slumbering 
 thoughts at that time when sleep itself must 
 end, and as some conjecture, all shall awake 
 again ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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