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Transcriber's Note

Footnotes and section headers were both printed in the margins as
sidenotes.

For this text version, numbered marginal footnotes have been moved to
the end of their paragraphs. The headers have been moved to appear on a
separate line at the beginning of each section. Redundant sidenotes
merely indicating Part and Section numbers have been removed. Those
marginal notes which serve as paragraph descriptions, at or near the
head of a paragraph, precede that paragraph. Those which serve to
annotate specific points are inserted parenthetically as [SN: notes].

The Annotator's note which precedes Religio Medici uses marginal notes
as references to the relevant sections and pages in the printed text.

On occasion, the Latin passages employ a scribal abbreviation 'q;' for
'qus', which has been retained.

Descriptive notes have been inserted at the beginning of the sentence to
which they refer, like this: [Sidenote: Use of Italics] Italics are used
freely, and have been rendered using _underscore_ characters.

Please consult the more detailed notes at the end of this text.




                         THE ENGLISH LIBRARY

                            THE WORKS OF
                         SIR THOMAS BROWNE

                              VOLUME I

                          [Illustration]

                            THE WORKS OF
                         SIR THOMAS BROWNE

                             Edited by
                           CHARLES SAYLE

                             VOLUME I

                              LONDON
                          GRANT RICHARDS

                               1904




PREFATORY NOTE


This edition is an endeavour to arrive at a more satisfactory text of
the work of Sir Thomas Browne, and to reproduce the principal part of
it, as faithfully as seems advisable, in the form in which it was
presented to the public at the time of his death. For this purpose, in
the first volume, the text of the _Religio Medici_ follows more
particularly the issue of 1682. The _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_ here given
is based upon the sixth edition of ten years earlier, with careful
revision. In every case in which a spelling or punctuation was dubious,
a comparison was made of nearly all the issues printed during the
lifetime of the writer, and their merits weighed. By this means it is
hoped that the true flavour of the period has been preserved.

The Annotations upon the _Religio Medici_, which were always reprinted
with the text during the seventeenth century, are here restored. They
will appeal to a certain class of readers which has a right to be
considered. It is to be regretted that every quotation given in these
pages has not been verified. Several have been corrected; but to have
worked through them all, in these busy days, would have been a labour
of some years, which it is not possible to devote to the purpose. It has
been thought best to leave these passages therefore, in the main, as
they stand.[1]

The portrait of Sir Thomas Browne here prefixed is reproduced from the
engraving published in 1672 with the edition of the _Religio Medici_ and
_Pseudodoxia Epidemica_.

                                                                  C.S.

_August, 1903._

  [1] The quotation, now corrected, from Montaigne, on p. xxii, is a
      typical example of the pitfall into which one is liable to stumble.
      The passage there cited is in chapter xl. of the French author's
      later arrangement: a clear indication of the edition of the _Essais_
      used by the author of the Annotations. What is one to make of the
      readings in Lucretius on p. xxv? No light is thrown upon these
      difficulties by the edition of Browne's works published in 1686.
      Wilkin did not reprint the Annotations, except in selection.




CONTENTS

                                                                 PAGE

PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR,                                       v

ANNOTATIONS UPON 'RELIGIO MEDICI,'                                 ix

A LETTER SENT UPON THE INFORMATION OF ANIMADVERSIONS,               1

TO THE READER.                                                      3

RELIGIO MEDICI,                                                     7

PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA,                                            113

TO THE READER,                                                    115

  THE FIRST BOOK:

    1. Of the Causes of Common Errors,                            121
    2. A further Illustration of the same,                        127
    3. Of the second cause of Popular Errors; the
       erroneous disposition of the People,                       132
    4. Of the nearer and more Immediate Causes
       of Popular Errors,                                         140
    5. Of Credulity and Supinity,                                 147
    6. Of Adherence unto Antiquity,                               152
    7. Of Authority,                                                                                                           161
    8. A brief enumeration of Authors,                            168
    9. Of the Same,                                               178
   10. Of the last and common Promoter of false
       Opinions, the endeavours of Satan,                         182
   11. A further Illustration,                                    193

  THE SECOND BOOK:

    1. Of Crystal,                                                202
    2. Concerning the Loadstone,                                  216
    3. Concerning the Loadstone,                                  233
    4. Of Bodies Electrical,                                      254
    5. Compendiously of sundry other common
       Tenents, concerning Mineral and Terreous
       Bodies,                                                    262
    6. Of sundry Tenets concerning Vegetables or
       Plants,                                                    285
    7. Of some Insects, and the Properties of
       several Plants,                                            299

  THE THIRD BOOK, CHAPTERS I.-X.:

    1. Of the Elephant,                                           308
    2. Of the Horse,                                              314
    3. Of the Dove,                                               317
    4. Of the Bever,                                              321
    5. Of the Badger,                                             326
    6. Of the Bear,                                               328
    7. Of the Basilisk,                                           331
    8. Of the Wolf,                                               338
    9. Of the Deer,                                               340
   10. Of the King-fisher,                                        348



                            ANNOTATIONS UPON
                             RELIGIO MEDICI


                   _Nec satis est vulgasse fidem._--
                   Pet. Arbit. fragment.




THE ANNOTATOR TO THE READER


A. Gellius (noct. Attic. l. 20. cap. _ult._) _notes some Books that had
strange Titles_; Pliny (Prefat. Nat. Hist.) _speaking of some such,
could not pass them over without a jeer: So strange (saith he) are the
Titles of some Books_, Ut multos ad vadimonium deferendum compellant.
_And_ Seneca _saith, some such there are_, Qui patri obstetricem
parturienti filiae accersenti moram injicere possint. _Of the same fate
this present Tract_ Religio Medici _hath partaken: Exception by some
hath been taken to it in respect of its Inscription, which say they,
seems to imply that_ Physicians _have a Religion by themselves, which is
more than Theologie doth warrant: but it is their Inference, and not the
Title that is to blame; for no more is meant by that, or endeavoured to
be prov'd in the_ Book _then that (contrary to the opinion of the
unlearned_) Physitians _have Religion as well as other men_.

_For the Work it self, the present Age hath produced none that has had
better Reception amongst the learned; it has been received and fostered
by almost all, there having been but one that I knew of_ (_to verifie_
that Books have their Fate from the Capacity of the Reader) _that has
had the face to appear against it; that is_ Mr. Alexander[2] Rosse; _but
he is dead, and it is uncomely to skirmish with his shadow. It shall be
sufficient to remember to the_ Reader, _that the noble and most learned_
Knight, _Sir_ Kenelm Digby, _has delivered his opinion of it in another
sort, who though in some things he differ from the_ Authors _sense, yet
hath he most candidly and ingeniously allow'd it to be a_ very learned
and excellent Piece; _and I think no Scholar will say there can be an
approbation more authentique. Since the time he Published his
Observations upon it, one_ Mr. Jo. Merryweather, _a_ Master _of_ Arts
_of the_ University _of_ Cambridge, _hath deem'd it worthy to be put
into the universal Language, which about the year_ 1644 _he performed;
and that hath carried the Authors name not only into the_ Low-Countries
_and_ France (_in both which places the Book in_ Latin _hath since been
printed_) _but into_ Italy _and_ Germany; _and in_ Germany _it hath
since fallen into the hands of a Gentleman