No More Learning

Think not there is a lion in the way, nor walk with
leaden sandals in the paths of goodness; but in all virtuous
motions let prudence determine thy measures. Strive not to
run, like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove
precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and
slowness no slothfulness.
Despise not the obliquities of younger ways, nor despair of
better things whereof there is yet no prospect. Who would
imagine that Diogenes, who in his younger days was a falsifier
of money, should, in the after course of his life, be so great a
contemner of metal? Some negroes, who believe the resurrection,
think that they shall rise white. Even in this life regeneration
may imitate resurrection; our black and vicious tinctures may
wear off, and goodness clothe us with candor, Good admoni-
tions knock not always in vain. There will be signal examples
of God's mercy, and the angels must not want their charitable
rejoices for the conversion of lost sinners. Figures of most
angles do nearest approach unto circles, which have no angles at
all. Some may be near unto goodness who are conceived far
from it; and many things happen not likely to ensue from any
promises of antecedencies. Culpable beginnings have found com-
mendable conclusions, and infamous courses pious retractations.
Detestable sinners have proved exemplary converts on earth, and
may be glorious in the apartment of Mary Magdalen in heaven.
Men are not the same through all divisions of their ages: time,
experience, self-reflections, and God's mercies, make in some
well-tempered minds a kind of translation before death, and men
to differ from themselves as well as from other persons. Hereof
the old world afforded many examples to the infamy of latter
ages, wherein men too often live by the rule of their inclina-
tions; so that, without any astral prediction, the first day gives
the last: men are commonly as they were; or rather, as bad
V-157


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2498
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
|
1
1
dispositions run into worser habits, the evening doth not crown,
but sourly conclude, the day.
If the Almighty will not spare us according to his merciful
capitulation at Sodom; if his goodness please not to pass over a
great deal of bad for a small pittance of good, or to look upon
us in the lump, there is slender hope for mercy, or sound pre-
sumption of fulfilling half his will, either in persons or nations:
they who excel in some virtues being so often defective in
others; few men driving at the extent and amplitude of good-
ness, but computing themselves by their best parts, and others
by their worst, are content to rest in those virtues which others
commonly want. Which makes this speckled face of honesty in
the world; and which was the imperfection of the old philoso-
phers and great pretenders unto virtue; who, well declining the
gaping vices of intemperance, incontinency, violence, and oppres-
sion, were yet blindly peccant in iniquities of closer faces; were
envious, malicious, contemners, scoffers, censurers, and stuffed
with vizard vices, no less depraving the ethereal particle and
diviner portion of man. For envy, malice, hatred, are the qual-
ities of Satan, close and dark like himself; and where such
brands smoke, the soul cannot be white. Vice may be had at
all prices; expensive and costly iniquities, which make the noise,
cannot be every man's sins; but the soul may be foully inqui-
nated at a very low rate, and a man may be cheaply vicious to
the perdition of himself.
Having been long tossed in the ocean of the world, he will
by that time feel the in-draught of another, unto which this
seems but preparatory and without it of no high value. He will
experimentally find the emptiness of all things, and the noth-
ing of what is past; and wisely grounding upon true Christian
expectations, finding so much past, will wholly fix upon what is
to come. He will long for perpetuity, and live as though he .
made haste to be happy. The last may prove the prime part of
his life, and those his best days which he lived nearest heaven.
Live happy in the Elysium of a virtuously composed mind,
and let intellectual contents exceed the delights wherein mere
pleasurists place their paradise. Bear not too slack reins upon
pleasure, nor let complexion or contagion betray thee unto the
exorbitancy of delight. Make pleasure thy recreation or inter-
missive relaxation, not thy Diana, life, and profession. Volup-
tuousness is as insatiable as covetousness. Tranquillity is better
1
1


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SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2499
we
a
race
than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent pleasure. Our
hard entrance into the world, our miserable going out of it, our
sicknesses, disturbances, and sad rencounters in it, do clamor-
ously tell us came not into the world to run
of
delight, but to perform the sober acts and serious purposes of
man; which to omit were foully to miscarry in the advantage
of humanity, to play away an uniterable life, and to have lived
in vain. Forget not the capital end, and frustrate not the oppor-
tunity of once living. Dream not of any kind of metempsychosis
or transanimation, but into thine own body, and that after a
long time; and then also unto wail or bliss, according to thy first
and fundamental life. Upon a curricle in this world depends a
long course of the next, and upon a narrow scene here an end-
less expansion hereafter. In vain some think to have an end of
their beings with their lives. Things cannot get out of their
natures, or be, or not be, in despite of their constitutions. .
Rational existences in heaven perish not at all, and but partially
on earth; that which is thus once, will in some way be always;
the first living human soul is still alive, and all Adam hath
found no period.
Since the stars of heaven do differ in glory; since it hath ·
pleased the Almighty hand to honor the north pole with lights
above the south; since there are some stars so bright that they
can hardly be looked upon, some so dim that they can scarcely
be seen, and vast numbers not to be seen at all even by arti-
ficial eyes; read thou the earth in heaven and things below
from above. Look contentedly upon the scattered difference of
things, and expect not equality in lustre, dignity, or perfection,
in regions or persons below; where numerous numbers must
be content to stand like lacteous or nebulous stars, little taken
notice of, or dim in their generations. All which may be con-
tentedly allowable in the affairs and ends of this world, and in
suspension unto what will be in the order of things hereafter,
and the new system of mankind which will be in the world to
come; when the last may be the first, and the first the last;
when Lazarus may sit above Cæsar, and the just, obscure on
earth, shall shine like the sun in heaven; when personations shall
cease, and histrionism of happiness be over; when reality shall
rule, and all shall be as they shall be forever.


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2500
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
1
FROM HYDRIOTAPHIA, OR URN-BURIAL)
IN
1
THE Jewish Hypogæum 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; but the cemeterial cells of ancient Christians and martyrs
were filled with draughts of Scripture stories; not declining the
flourishes of cypress, palms, and olive, and the mystical figures
of peacocks, doves, and cocks; but iterately affecting the por-
traits of Enoch, Lazarus, 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.
The particulars 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 concerning the state of this world, might handsomely
illustrate our ignorance of the next, whereof 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 Socrates, Cato is to be found in no lower place than Pur-
gatory. Among all the set, Epicurus is most considerable,
whom men make honest without an Elysium, who contemned
life without 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 as 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 applaud not the judgments 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 exalted;
but rather regulated the wildness of audacities, in the attempts,
grounds, and eternal sequels of death, wherein men of the boldest


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SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2501
we
exten-
spirits are often prodigiously temerarious. Nor can
uate the valor of ancient martyrs, who contemned death in the
uncomfortable scene of their lives, and in their decrepit martyr-
doms 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 naturally makes men fearful, and complexionally
superannuated from the bold and courageous thoughts of youth
and fervent years. But the contempt of death from corporal
animosity promoteth not our felicity.
our felicity. They may sit in the
orchestra and noblest seats of heaven who have held up shaking
hands in the fire, and humanly contended for glory.
Meanwhile, Epicurus lies deep in Dante's hell, wherein we
meet with tombs inclosing souls which denied their immortal-
ities. 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 lastingly denied it in their
practice and conversation -
were a query too sad to insist on.
But all or most apprehensions rested in opinions of some
future being, which, ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those
perverted conceptions, 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 those hopes Socrates warmed his
doubtful spirits against that cold potion; and Cato, before he
durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the
immortality of Plato, 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 accomplishment, 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 knowing no other original, and deeper igno-
rance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happiness of


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2502
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
1
1
inferior creatures, who in tranquillity possess their constitutions,
as having not the 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 con-
tentment, 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.
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 ?
Erostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana; he is almost
lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's
horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felici-
ties 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 re-
membered in the known account of time? 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 names ever since contain not one
living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that
shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day; and who
knows when was the equinox ? Every hour adds unto that cur-
rent 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 itself, 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
* According to the custom of the Jews, who placed a lighted wax candle
in a pot of ashes by the corpse.
1
1
1
1


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SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2503
slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of afflic-
tion leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extrem-
ities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones
are fables.
Afflictions induce callosities; miseries are slippery,
or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy
stupidity. To 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
relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept
raw by the edge of repetitions. A great part of antiquity con-
tented 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, making accumulation of glory unto their last
durations. Others, rather than be lost in the uncomfortable night
of nothing, 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, contriving 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.
Mummy is become merchandise, Mizraim cures wounds, and
Pharaoh is sold for balsams.
There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever
hath no beginning may be confident of no end, which is the
peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, 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 folly of
posthumous memory. God, who can only destroy our souls, and
hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath
directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of
chance, that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustra-
tion; 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 ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.


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SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2 504
us.
1
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within
A small fire sufficeth for life; great flames seemed too little
after death, while men vainly affected pyres, and to burn like
Sardanapalus. But the wisdom of funeral laws found the folly
of prodigal blazes, and reduced undoing fires into the rule of
sober obsequies, wherein few could be so mean as not to provide
wood, pitch, a mourner, and an urn.
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 prevent revenging tongues, and stones thrown at his monu-
ment. Happy are they whom privacy 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 commotion among the
dead, and are not touched with that poetical taunt of Isaiah.
Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of
vainglory and wild enormities of ancient magnanimity. But the
most magnanimous resolution rests in the Christian religion,
which trampleth upon pride and sits on the neck of ambition,
humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity unto which all others
must diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in angles of
contingency.
Pious spirits, who passed their days in raptures of futurity,
made little more of this world 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, liquefac-
tion, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, gustation 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.
1
1
1
1
1


## p. 2505 (#65) ############################################

SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2505
FROM CA FRAGMENT ON MUMMIES).
ISE Egypt, prodigal of her embalmments, wrapped up her
princes and great commanders in aromatical folds, and,
studiously extracting from corruptible bodies their cor-
ruption, ambitiously looked forward to immortality; from which
vainglory we have become acquainted with many remnants of
the old world, who could discourse unto us of the great things
of yore, and tell us strange tales of the sons of Mizraim and
ancient braveries of Egypt. Wonderful indeed are the preserves
of time, which openeth unto us mummies from crypts and pyra-
mids, and mammoth bones from caverns and excavations; whereof
man hath found the best preservation, appearing unto us in some
sort fleshly, while beasts must be fain of an osseous continuance.
In what original this practice of the Egyptians had root,
divers authors dispute; while some place the origin hereof in the
desire to prevent the separation of the soul by keeping the body
untabified, and alluring the spiritual part to remain by sweet and
precious odors. But all this was but fond inconsideration. The
soul, having broken its
is not stayed by bands and
cerecloths, nor to be recalled by Sabæan odors, but fleeth to the
place of invisibles, the ubi of spirits, and needeth a surer than
Hermes's seal to imprison it to its medicated trunk, which yet
subsists anomalously in its indestructible case, and, like a widow
looking for her husband, anxiously awaits its return.
That mummy is medicinal, the Arabian Doctor Haly deliver-
eth, and divers confirms; but of the particular uses thereof, there
is much discrepancy of opinion. While Hofmannus prescribes
the same to epileptics, Johan de Muralto commends the use
thereof to gouty persons; Bacon likewise extols it as a stiptic,
and Junkenius considers it of efficacy to resolve coagulated blood.
Meanwhile, we hardly applaud Francis the First of France, who
always carried mummies with him as a panacea against all dis-
orders; and were the efficacy thereof more clearly made out,
scarce conceive the use thereof allowable in physic, exceeding
the barbarities of Cambyses, and turning old heroes unto un-
worthy potions. Shall Egypt lend out her ancients unto chirur-
geons and apothecaries, and Cheops and Psammitticus be weighed
unto us for drugs? Shall we eat of Chamnes and Amosis in
electuaries and pills, and be cured by cannibal mixtures? Surely,
such diet is dismal vampirism, and exceeds in horror the black


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2506
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled except in those Ara-
bian feasts, wherein Ghoules feed horribly.
But the common opinion of the virtues of mummy bred great
consumption thereof, and princes and great men contended for
this strange panacea, wherein Jews dealt largely, manufacturing
mummies from dead carcasses and giving them the names of
kings, while specifics were compounded from crosses and gibbet
leavings. There wanted not a set of Arabians who counterfeited
mummies so accurately that it needed great skill to distinguish
the false from the true. Queasy stomachs would hardly fancy
the doubtful potion, wherein one might so easily swallow a cloud
for his Juno, and defraud the fowls of the air while in conceit
enjoying the conserves of Canopus.
For those dark caves and mummy repositories are Satan's
abodes, wherein he speculates and rejoices on human vainglory,
and keeps those kings and conquerors, whom alive he bewitched,
whole for that great day when he will claim his own, and
marshal the kings of Nilus and Thebes in sad procession unto
the pit.
Death, that fatal necessity which so many would overlook or
blinkingly survey, the old Egyptians held continually before their
eyes. Their embalmed ancestors they carried about at their ban-
quets, as holding them still a part of their families, and not
thrusting them from their places at feasts, They wanted not
likewise a sad preacher at their tables to admonish them daily of
death, --surely an unnecessary discourse while they banqueted in
sepulchres. Whether this were not making too much of death,
as tending to assuefaction, some reason there is to doubt; but
certain it is that such practices would hardly be embraced by
our modern gourmands, who like not to look on faces of mortua,
or be elbowed by mummies.
Yet in those huge structures and pyramidal immensities, of
the builders whereof so little is known, they seemed not so much
to raise sepulchres or temples to death as to contemn and dis-
dain it, astonishing heaven with their audacities, and looking
forward with delight to their interment in those eternal piles.
Of their living habitations they made little account, conceiving of
them but as hospitia, or inns, while they adorned the sepulchres
of the dead, and, planting thereon lasting bases, defied the crum-
bling touches of time and the misty vaporousness of oblivion. Yet
all were but Babel vanities. Time sadly overcometh all things,
1


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SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2507
and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh
unto Memphis and old Thebes, while his sister Oblivion reclineth
semisomnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puz-
zles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams.
History sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveler, as he paceth
amazedly through those deserts, asketh of her, Who builded them?
and she mumbleth something, but what it is he heareth not.
Egypt itself is now become the land of obliviousness, and
doteth. Her ancient civility is gone, and her glory hath van-
ished as a phantasma. Her youthful days are over, and her
face hath become wrinkled and tetric. She poreth not upon the
heavens; astronomy is dead unto her, and knowledge maketh
other cycles. Canopus is afar off, Memnon resoundeth not to the
sun, and Nilus heareth strange voices. Her monuments are but
hieroglyphically sempiternal. Osiris and Anubis, her averruncous
deities, have departed, while Orus yet remains dimly shadowing
the principle of vicissitude and the effluxion of things, but re-
ceiveth little oblation.
FROM A LETTER TO A FRIEND)
HE
E 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 another, but amply satisfied that his disease should die
with himself, nor revive in a posterity to puzzle physic, and
make sad mementos of their parent hereditary.
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 symptom observable in divers persons near their
journey's end, and which may be reckoned among the mortal
symptoms of their last disease; that is, to become more narrow-
minded, miserable, and tenacious, unready to part with anything
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 themselves on the sober departure of their


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2508
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
1
friends; and though they behold such mad covetous passages, con-
tent to think they die in good understanding, and in their sober
senses.
Avarice, which is not only infidelity but idolatry, either from
covetous progeny or questuary education, had no root in his
breast, who made good works the expression of his faith, and
was big with desires unto public and lasting charities; and surely,
where good wishes and charitable intentions exceed abilities, the-
orical beneficency 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 foundations
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
himself: almost, I say; for though we may wish the prosperous
appurtenances of others, or to be another in his happy accidents,
yet so intrinsical is every man unto himself that some doubt
may be made whether any would exchange his being, or sub-
stantially become another man.
He had wisely seen the world at home and abroad, and
thereby observed under what variety men are deluded in 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 estimate of such happiness, yet his sober con-
tempt of the world wrought no Democritism or Cynicism, no
laughing or snarling at it, as well understanding 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 re-
puted contentions of this world, to unite with the crowd in their
beatitudes, and to make ourselves happy by consortion, opinion,
or co-existimation: for strictly to separate from received and
customary felicities, and to confine unto the rigor of realities,
were to contract the consolation of our beings unto too uncom-
fortable circumscriptions.
Not to be content with life is the unsatisfactory state of those
who 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 extremities, to desire that which is not to be
avoided, and wish what might be feared; and so made evils vol.
untary and to suit with their own desires, which took off the
terror of them.
1


## p. 2509 (#69) ############################################

SIR THOMAS BROWNE
2509
But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged by such falla-
cies, who, though they feared not death, were afraid to be their
own executioners; and therefore thought it more wisdom to
crucify their lusts than their bodies, to circumcise 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 it, though paradoxical unto
worldly ears, was not strange unto mine, who have so often
observed that many, though old, oft stick fast unto the world,
and seem to be drawn like Cacus's oxen, backward with great
struggling and reluctancy unto 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 an happiness to have had their lot
of life in some notable conjunctures of ages past; but the uncer-
tainty of future times hath tempted 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 like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less
three or four hundred years hence, when no man can comfort-
ably imagine what face this world will carry; and therefore, since
every age makes a step unto the end of all things, and the Script-
ure 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.
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, although
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 reckon up only those days which God hath accepted 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 climac-
terically old. He that early arriveth unto the parts and prudence
of age is happily old without the uncomfortable attendants of it;
and 'tis superfluous to live unto gray hairs, when in a precocious
temper we anticipate the virtues of them. In brief, he cannot


## p. 2510 (#70) ############################################

2510
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
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 preserving 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 pro-
ceed in these good wishes and few mementos unto you.
SOME RELATIONS WHOSE TRUTH WE FEAR
From (Pseudoxia Epidemica'
M*
1
ANY other accounts like these we meet sometimes in history,
scandalous unto Christianity, and even unto humanity;
whose verities not only, but whose relations, honest minds
do deprecate. For of sins heteroclital, and such as want either
name or precedent, there is ofttimes a sin even in their histories.
We desire no records of such enormities; sins should be accounted
new, that so they may be esteemed monstrous. They amit of
monstrosity as they fall from their rarity; for men count it
venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they
divide a sin in its society. The pens of men may sufficiently
expatiate without these singularities of villainy; for as they
increase the hatred of vice in some, so do they enlarge the
theory of wickedness in all. And this is one thing that may
make latter ages worse than were the former; for the vicious
examples of ages past poison the curiosity of these present,
affording a hint of sin unto seducible spirits, and soliciting those
unto the imitation of them, whose heads were
so per-
versely principled as to invent them. In this kind we commend
the wisdom and goodness of Galen, who would not leave unto
the world too subtle a theory of poisons; unarming thereby the
malice of venomous spirits, whose ignorance must be contented
with sublimate and arsenic.
For surely there are subtler ven-
erations, such as will invisibly destroy, and like the basilisks of
heaven. In things of this nature silence commendeth history:
'tis the veniable part of things lost; wherein there must never
rise a Pancirollus, nor remain any register but that of hell
never
1
1
1


## p. 2511 (#71) ############################################

2511
WILLIAM BROWNE
(1591-1643)
MONG the English poets famous for their imaginative interpre-
tation of nature, high rank must be given to William
Browne, who belongs in the list headed by Spenser, and
including Thomas Lodge, Michael Drayton, Nicholas Breton, George
Wither, and Phineas Fletcher. Although he shows skill and charm
of style in various kinds of verse, his name rests chiefly upon his
largest work, Britannia's Pastorals. This is much wider in
scope
than the title suggests, if one follows the definition given by Pope in
his Discourse on Pastoral Poetry. ' He says:— “A Pastoral is an
imitation of the action of a shepherd or one considered under that
character. The form of this imitation is dramatic, or , narrated, or
mixed of both; the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too
rustic; the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and pas-
sion.
If we would copy Nature, it may be useful to take this
Idea along with us: that Pastoral is an image of what they call the
Golden Age. So that we are not to describe our shepherds as shep-
herds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to
have been when the best of men followed the employment.
We must therefore use some illusion to render a Pastoral delightful,
and this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd's life,
and in concealing its miseries. ”
In his (Shepherd's Pipe, a series of Eclogues,' Browne follows
this plan; but Britannia's Pastorals) contains rambling stories of
Hamadryads and Oreads; figures which are too shadowy to seem
real, yet stand in exquisite woodland landscapes. When the story
passes to the yellow sands and «froth-girt rocks,” washed by the
crisped and curling waves from Neptune's silver, ever-shaking
breast, or when it touches the mysteries of the ocean world, over
which «Thetis drives her silver throne,” the poet's fancy is as deli-
cate as when he revels in the earthy smell of the woods, where the
leaves, golden and green, hide from sight the feathered choir; where
glow the hips of scarlet berries; where is heard the dropping of
nuts; and where the active bright-eyed squirrels leap from tree to
tree.
The loves, hardships, and adventures of Marina, Celadyne, Red-
mond, Fida, Philocel, Aletheia, Metanoia, and Amintas do not hold
the reader from delight in descriptions of the blackbird and dove


## p. 2512 (#72) ############################################

2512
WILLIAM BROWNE
calling from the dewy branches; crystal streams lisping through
banks purple with violets, rosy with eglantine, or sweet with wild
thyme; thickets where the rabbits hide; sequestered nooks on which
the elms and alders throw long shadows; circles of green grass
made by dancing elves; rounded hills shut in by oaks, pines, birches,
and laurel, where shepherds pipe on oaten straws, or shag-haired
satyrs frolic and sleep; and meadows, whose carpets of cowslip and
mint are freshened daily by nymphs pouring out gentle streams
from crystal urns. Every now and then, huntsmen in green dash
through his sombre woods with their hounds in full cry; anglers are
seated by still pools, shepherds dance around the May-pole, and
shepherdesses gather flowers for garlands. Gloomy caves appear,
surrounded by hawthorn and holly that "outdares cold winter's ire,”
and sheltering old hermits, skilled in simples and the secret power
of herbs. Sometimes the poet describes a choir where the tiny wren
sings the treble, Robin Redbreast the mean, the thrush the tenor,
and the nightingale the counter-tenor, while droning bees fill in the
bass; and shows us fairy haunts and customs with a delicacy only
equaled by Drayton and Herrick.
Several lyric songs of high order are scattered through the Pas-
torals, and the famous Palinode on Man' is imbedded in the Third
Book as follows:
1
1
“I truly know
How men are born and whither they shall go;
I know that like to silkworms of one year,
Or like a kind and wrongèd lover's tear,
Or on the pathless waves a rudder's dint,
Or like the little sparkles of a flint,
Or like to thin round cakes with cost perfum'd,
Or fireworks only made to be consum'd:
I know that such is man, and all that trust
In that weak piece of animated dust.
The silkworm droops, the lover's tears soon shed,
The ship's way quickly lost, the sparkle dead;
The cake burns out in haste, the firework's done,
And man as soon as these as quickly gone. "
5
Little is known of Browne's life. He was a native of Tavistock,
Devonshire; born, it is thought, in 1591, the son of Thomas Browne,
who is supposed by Prince in his 'Worthies of Devon' to have be-
longed to a knightly family.
According to Wood, who says he had
a great mind in a little body,” he was sent to Exeter College, Oxford,
«about the beginning of the reign of James I. Leaving Oxford
without a degree, he was admitted in 1612 to the Inner Temple,
London, and a little later he is discovered at Oxford, engaged as


## p. 2513 (#73) ############################################

WILLIAM BROWNE
2513
He ap-
private tutor to Robert Dormer, afterward Earl of Carnarvon. In
1624 he received his degree of Master of Arts from Oxford.
pears to have settled in Dorking, and after 1640 nothing more is
heard of him. Wood thinks he died in 1645, but there is an entry in
the Tavistock register, dated March 27th, 1643, and reading “William
Browne was buried” on that day. That he was devoted to the
streams, dales, and downs of his native Devonshire is shown in the
Pastorals, where he sings:
“Hail, thou my native soil! thou blessed plot
Whose equal all the world affordeth not!
Show me who can, so many crystal rills,
Such sweet-cloth'd valleys or aspiring hills;
Such wood-ground, pastures, quarries, wealthy mines;
Such rocks in whom the diamond fairly shines. ”
And in another place he says:-
«And Tavy in my rhymes
Challenge a due; let it thy glory be
That famous Drake and I were born by thee. ”
The First Book of Britannia's Pastorals) was written before its
author was twenty, and was published in 1631. The Second Book
appeared in 1616, and both were reprinted in 1625. The Third Book
was not published during Browne's life. The (Shepherd's Pipe was
published in 1614, and The Inner Temple Masque,' written on the
story of Ulysses and Circe, for representation in 1614, was first pub-
lished in Thomas Davies's edition of Browne's works (3 vols. , 1772).
Two critical editions of value have been brought out in recent years:
one by W. Carew Hazlitt (London, 1868-69); and the other by Gordon
Goodwin and A. H. Bullen (1894).
"In the third song of the Second Book,” says Mr. Bullen in his
preface, -
« There is a description of a delightful grove, perfumed with Codoriferous
buds and herbs of price,' where fruits hang in gallant clusters from the trees,
and birds tune their notes to the music of running water; so fair a pleas-
aunce
(that you are fain
Where you last walked to turn and walk again. ”
A generous reader might apply that description to Browne's poetry; he might
urge that the breezes which blew down these leafy alleys and over those trim
parterres were not more grateful than the fragrance exhaled from the Pas-
torals) ; that the brooks and birds babble and twitter in the printed page
not less blithely than in that western Paradise. What so pleasant as to read
of May-games, true-love knots, and shepherds piping in the shade ? of pixies
and fairy-circles ? of rustic bridals and junketings? of angling, hunting the
V-158


## p. 2514 (#74) ############################################

2514
WILLIAM BROWNE
squirrel, nut-gathering? Of such subjects William Browne treats, singing
like the shepherd in the Arcadia,' as though he would never grow old. He
was a happy poet. It was his good fortune to grow up among wholesome
surroundings whose gracious influences sank into his spirit. He loved the
hills and dales round Tavistock, and lovingly described them in his verse.
Frequently he indulges in descriptions of sunrise and sunset; they leave no
vivid impression, but charm the reader by their quiet beauty. It cannot be
denied that his fondness for simple, homely images sometimes led him into
sheer fatuity; and candid admirers must also admit that, despite his study
of simplicity, he could not refrain from hunting (as the manner was) after
far-fetched outrageous conceits. ”
1
Browne is a poet's poet. Drayton, Wither, Herbert, and John
Davies of Hereford, wrote his praises. Mrs. Browning includes him
in her "Vision of Poets,' where she says:-
1
«Drayton and Browne,— with smiles they drew
From outward Nature, still kept new
From their own inward nature true. ”
$
Milton studied him carefully, and just as his influence is per-
ceived in the work of Keats, so is it found in Comus' and in
Lycidas. Browne acknowledges Spenser and Sidney as his masters,
and his work shows that he loved Chaucer and Shakespeare.
CIRCE'S CHARM
Song from the Inner Temple Masque)
SM
On of Erebus and night,
Hie away; and aim thy flight
Where consort none other fowl
Than the bat and sullen owl;
Where upon thy limber grass,
Poppy and mandragoras,
With like simples not a few,
Hang forever drops of dew;
Where flows Lethe without coil
Softly like a stream of oil.
Hie thee hither, gentle sleep:
With this Greek no longer keep.
Thrice I charge thee by my wand,
Thrice with moly froin my hand
Do I touch Ulysses's eyes,
And with the jaspis: then arise,
Sagest Greek!
1


## p. 2515 (#75) ############################################

WILLIAM BROWNE
2515
THE HUNTED SQUIRREL
From Britannia's Pastorals)
WHEN as a nimble squirrel from the wood
T Ranging the hedges for this fiber food
Sits pertly on a bough. his brown nuts cracking,
And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking;
Till with their crooks and bags a sort of boys
To share with him come with so great a noise
That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke,
And for his life leap to a neighbor oak,
Thence to a beach, thence to a row of ashes;
Whilst through the quagmires and red water plashes
The boys run dabbling through thick and thin;
One tears his hose, another breaks his shin;
This, torn and tattered, hath with much ado
Got by the briars; and that hath lost his shoe;
This drops his band; that headlong falls for haste;
Another cries behind for being last:
With sticks and stones and many a sounding holloa
The little fool with no small sport they follow,
Whilst he from tree to tree, from spray to spray
Gets to the woods and hides him in his dray.
AS CAREFUL MERCHANTS DO EXPECTING STAND
From Britannia's Pastorals)
A
S CAREFUL merchants do expecting stand,
After long time and merry gales of wind,
Upon the place where their brave ships must land,
So wait I for the vessel of my mind.
Upon a great adventure is it bound,
Whose safe return will valued be at more
Than all the wealthy prizes which have crowned
The golden wishes of an age before.
Out of the East jewels of worth she brings;
The unvalued diamond of her sparkling eye
Wants in the treasures of all Europe's kings;
And were it mine, they nor their crowns should buy.
The sapphires ringed on her panting breast
Run as rich veins of ore about the mold,


## p. 2516 (#76) ############################################

2516
WILLIAM BROWNE
And are in sickness with a pale possessed;
So true for them I should disvalue gold.
The melting rubies on her cherry lip
Are of such power to hold, that as one day
Cupid flew thirsty by, he stooped to sip:
And, fastened there, could never get away.
The sweets of Candy are no sweets to me
Where hers I taste: nor the perfumes of price,
Robbed from the happy shrubs of Araby,
As her sweet breath so powerful to entice.
O hasten then! and if thou be not gone
Unto that wicked traffic through the main,
My powerful sigh shall quickly drive thee on,
And then begin to draw thee back again.
If, in the mean, rude waves have it opprest,
It shall suffice, I ventured at the best.
SONG OF THE SIRENS
From "The Inner Temple Masque)
STEF
TEER hither, steer your winged pines,
All beaten mariners!
Here lie love's undiscovered mines,
A prey to passengers:
Perfumes far sweeter than the best
Which make the Phoenix's urn and nest.
Fear not your ships,
Nor any to oppose you save our lips,
But come on shore,
Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.
For swelling waves our panting breasts,
Where never storms arise,
Exchange, and be awhile our guests:
For stars, gaze on our eyes.
The compass love shall hourly sing,
And as he goes about the ring,
We will not miss
To tell each point he nameth with a kiss.
Then come on shore,
Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.
1


## p. 2517 (#77) ############################################

WILLIAM BROWNE
2517
AN EPISTLE ON PARTING
From Epistles!
D“
EAR soul, the time is come, and we must part;
Yet, ere I go, in these lines read my heart:
A heart so just, so loving, and so true,
So full of sorrow and so full of you,
That all I speak or write or pray or mean, —
And, which is all I can, all that I dream,-
Is not without a sigh, a thought of you,
And as your beauties are, so are they true.
Seven summers now are fully spent and gone,
Since first I loved, loved you, and you alone;
And should mine eyes as many hundreds see,
Yet none but you should claim a right in me;
A right so placed that time shall never hear
Of one so vowed, or any loved so dear.
When I am gone, if ever prayers moved you,
Relate to none that I so well have loved you:
For all that know your beauty and desert,
Would swear he never loved that knew to part.
Why part we then ? That spring, which but this day
Met some sweet river, in his bed can play,
And with a dimpled cheek smile at their bliss,
Who never know what separation is.
The amorous vine with wanton interlaces
Clips still the rough elm in her kind embraces:
Doves with their doves sit billing in the groves,
And woo the lesser birds to sing their loves:
Whilst hapless we in griefful absence sit,
Yet dare not ask a hand to lessen it.
SONNETS TO CÆLIA
F
AIREST, when by the rules of palmistry,
You took my hand to try if you could guess,
By lines therein, if any wight there be
Ordained to make me know some happiness:
I wished that those characters could explain,
Whom I will never wrong with hope to win;
Or that by them a copy might be ta'en,
By you alone what thoughts I have within.


## p. 2518 (#78) ############################################

2518
WILLIAM BROWNE
Put since the hand of nature did not set
(As providently loath to have it known)
The means to find that hidden alphabet,
Mine eyes shall be the interpreters alone:
By them conceive my thoughts, and tell me, fair,
If now you see her that doth love me, there.
.
WERE 't not for you, here should my pen have rest,
And take a long leave of sweet poesy;
Britannia's swains, and rivers far by west,
Should hear no more my oaten melody.
Yet shall the song I sung of them awhile
L'nperfect lie, and make no further known
The happy loves of this our pleasant Isle,
Till I have left some record of mine own.
You are the subject now, and, writing you,
I well may versify, not poetize:
Here needs no fiction; for the graces true
And virtues clip not with base flatteries.
Here should I write what you deserve of praise;
Others might wear, but I should win, the bays.
1
FAIREST, when I am gone, as now the glass
Of Time is marked how long I have to stay,
Let me entreat you, ere from hence I pass,
Perhaps from you for ever more away,-
Think that no common love hath fired my breast,
No base desire, but virtue truly known,
Which I may love, and wish to have possessed,
Were you the highest as fairest of any one.
'Tis not your lovely eye enforcing flames,
Nor beauteous red beneath a snowy skin,
That so much binds me yours, or makes your fame's,
As the pure light and beauty shrined within:
Yet outward parts I must affect of duty,
As for the smell we like the rose's beauty.


## p. 2519 (#79) ############################################

2519
HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL
(1820-1872)
His poet,
prominent among those who gained their chief
inspiration from the stirring events of the Civil War, was
born in Providence, Rhode Island, February 6th, 1820, and
died in East Hartford, Connecticut, October 31st, 1872.
He was
graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, studied law, and was admitted
to the bar; but instead of the legal profession adopted that of a
teacher, and made his home in Hartford, which was the residence of
his uncle, the Bishop of Connecticut. Although Mr. Brownell soon
became known as a writer of verse, both grave and humorous, it
was not till the coming on of the Civil War that his muse found
truest and noblest expression. With a poet's sensitiveness he fore-
saw the coming storm, and predicted it in verse that has the ring of
an ancient prophet; and when the crash came he sang of the great
deeds of warriors in the old heroic strain. Many of these poems,
like (Annus Memorabilis) and (Coming,' were born of the great pas-
sion of patriotism which took possession of him, and were regarded
only as the visions of a heated imagination. But when the storm
burst it was seen that he had the true vision. As the dreadful
drama unrolled, Brownell rose to greater issues, and became the war-
poet par excellence, the vigorous chronicler of great actions.
He was fond of the sea, and ardently longed for the opportunity
to witness, if not to participate in, a sea-fight. His desire was
gratified in a singular way. He had printed in a Hartford paper a
very felicitous versification of Farragut's General Orders in the
fight at the mouth of the Mississippi. This attracted Farragut's
attention, and he took steps to learn the name of the author. When
it was given, Commodore Farragut (he was not then Admiral) offered
Mr. Brownell the position of master's-mate on board the Hartford,
and attached the poet to him in the character of a private secretary.
Thus he was present at the fight of Mobile Bay. After the war he
accompanied the Admiral in his cruise in European waters.
Although Brownell was best known to the country by his descript-
ive poems, The River Fight) and (The Bay Fight, which appear
in his volume of collected works, War Lyrics,' his title to be consid-
ered a true poet does not rest upon these only. He was unequal in
his performance and occasionally was betrayed by a grotesque humor
into disregard of dignity and finish; but he had both the vision and
the lyric grace of the builder of lasting verse.


## p. 2520 (#80) ############################################

2520
HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL
ANNUS MEMORABILIS
STA
(CONGRESS, 1860-61)
TAND strong and calm as Fate! not a breath of scorn or hate —
Of taunt for the base, or of menace for the strong –
Since our fortunes must be sealed on that old and famous Field
Where the Right is set in battle with the Wrong.
'Tis coming, with the loom of Khamsin or Simoom,
The tempest that shall try if we are of God or no
Its roar is in the sky, — and they there be which cry,
“Let us cower, and the storm may over-blow. ”
Now, nay! stand firm and fast! (that was a spiteful blast! )
This is not a war of men, but of Angels Good and I11 –
'Tis hell that storms at heaven -- 'tis the black and deadly Seven,
Sworn 'gainst the Shining Ones to work their damned will!
How the Ether glooms and burns, as the tide of combat turns,
And the smoke and dust above it whirl and float!
It eddies and it streams — and, certes, oft it seems
As the Sins had the Seraphs fairly by the throat.
But we all have read in that Legend grand and dread),
How Michael and his host met the Serpent and his crew
Naught has reached us of the Fight -- but if I have dreamed aright,
'Twas a loud one and a long, as ever thundered through!
Right stiffly, past a doubt, the Dragon fought it out,
And his Angels, each and all, did for Tophet their devoir —
There was creak of iron wings, and whirl of scorpion stings,
Hiss of bifid tongues, and the Pit in full uproar!
But, naught thereof enscrolled, in one brief line 'tis told
(Calm as dew the Apocalyptic Pen),
That on the Infinite Shore their place was found no more.
God send the like on this our earth! Amen.
Copyrighted by Houghton, Miffin and Company, Boston.
1
1
WORDS FOR THE (HALLELUJAH CHORUS)
O"
LD John Brown lies a-moldering in the grave,
Old John Brown lies slumbering in his grave
But John Brown's soul is marching with the brave,
His soul is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.
1


## p. 2521 (#81) ############################################

HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL
2521
He has gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord;
He is sworn as a private in the ranks of the Lord, –
He shall stand at Armageddon with his brave old sword,
When Heaven is marching on.
He shall file in front where the lines of battle form,
He shall face to front when the squares of battle form -
Time with the column, and charge in the storm,
Where men are marching on.
Ah, foul Tyrants! do ye hear him where he comes ?
Ah, black traitors! do ye know him as he comes,
In thunder of the cannon and roll of the drums,
As we go marching on?
Men may die, and molder in the dust
Men may die, and arise again from dust,
Shoulder to shoulder, in the ranks of the Just,
When Heaven is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.
COMING
(APRIL, 1861)
WOR
ORLD, are thou 'ware a storm ?
Hark to the ominous sound;
How the far-off gales their battle form,
And the great sea-swells feel ground!
It comes, the Typhoon of Death --
Nearer and nearer it comes!
The horizon thunder of cannon-breath
And the roar of angry drums!
Hurtle, Terror sublime !
Swoop o'er the Land to-day —
So the mist of wrong and crime,
The breath of our Evil Time
Be swept, as by fire, away!


## p. 2522 (#82) ############################################

2522
HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL
PSYCHAURA
THE
He wind of an autumn midnight
Is moaning around my door -
The curtains wave at the window,
The carpet lifts on the floor.
There are sounds like startled footfalls
In the distant chambers now,
And the touching of airy fingers
Is busy on hand and brow.
'Tis thus, in the Soul's dark dwelling –
By the moody host unsought-
Through the chambers of memory wander
The invisible airs of thought.
For it bloweth where it listeth,
With a murmur loud or low;
Whence it cometh - whither it goeth -
None tell us, and none may know.
Now wearying round the portals
Of the vacant, desolate mind —
As the doors of a ruined mansion,
That creak in the cold night wind.
And anon an awful memory
Sweeps over it fierce and high-
Like the roar of a mountain forest
When the midnight gale goes by.
Then its voice subsides in wailing,
And, ere the dawning of day,
Murmuring fainter and fainter,
In the distance dies away.
SUSPIRIA NOCTIS
EADING, and reading -- little is the gain
R. Long dwelling with the minds of dead men leaves.
List rather to the melancholy rain,
Drop-dropping from the eaves.
Still the old tale - how hardly worth the telling!
Hark to the wind ! - again that mournful sound,
That all night long, around this lonely dwelling,
Moans like a dying hound.


## p. 2523 (#83) ############################################

2523
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
(1809-1861)
is interesting to step back sixty years into the lives of
Miss Mitford and her “dear young friend Miss Barrett,
when the -esses of "authoresses” and “poetesses” and “edi-
tresses” and “hermitesses” make the pages sibilant; when Books of
Beauty,' and Keepsakes, and the extraordinary methods of “Fin-
den's Tableaux” make us wonder that literature survived; when Mr.
Kenyon, taking Miss Mitford “to the giraffes and the Diorama,”
called for “Miss Barrett, a hermitess in Gloucester Place, who reads
Greek as I do French, who has published
some translations from Æschylus, and some
most striking poems,” « Our sweet Miss
Barrett! to think of virtue and genius is
to think of her. » Of her own life Mrs.
Browning writes:-“As to stories, my story
amounts to the knife-grinder's, with noth-
ing at all for a catastrophe. A bird in a
cage would have as good a story; most of
my events and nearly all my intense pleas-
ure have passed in my thoughts. ”
She was born at Burn Hall, Durham,
on March 6th, 1809, and passed a happy MRS. BROWNING
childhood and youth in her father's coun-
try house at Hope End, Herefordshire. She was remarkably pre-
cocious, reading Homer in the original at eight years of age. She
said that in those days “the Greeks were her demigods. She
dreamed more of Agamemnon than of Moses, her black pony. ” I
wrote verses very early, at eight years old and earlier. But what
is less common, the early fancy turned into a will, and remained
with me. ” At seventeen years of age she published the “Essay on
Mind,' and translated the Prometheus) of Æschylus.
later the family removed to London, and here Elizabeth, on account
of her continued delicate health, was kept in her room for months
at a time. The shock following on the death of her brother, who
was drowned before her eyes in Torquay, whither she had gone for
rest, completely shattered her physically. Now her life of seclusion in
her London home began. For years she lay upon a couch in a large,
comfortably darkened room, seeing only the immediate members

Some years


## p. 2524 (#84) ############################################

2524
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
of her family and a few privileged friends, and spending her days
in writing and study, “reading,” Miss Mitford says, “almost every
book worth reading in almost every language. ” Here Robert Brown-
ing met her. They were married in 1846, against the will of her
father. Going abroad immediately, they finally settled in Florence
at the Casa Guidi, made famous by her poem bearing the same
name. Their home became the centre of attraction to visitors in
Florence, and many of the finest minds in the literary and artistic
world were among their friends. Hawthorne, who visited them,
describes Mrs. Browning as "a pale, small person, scarcely embodied
at all, at any rate only substantial enough to put forth her slender
fingers to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill yet sweet tenuity
of voice. It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her
cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another
figure in the world, and her black ringlets cluster down in her neck
and make her face look whiter. ” She died in Florence on the 30th
of June, 1861, and the citizens of Florence placed a tablet to her
memory on the walls of Casa Guidi.
The life and personality of Elizabeth Barrett Browning seem to
explain her poetry. It is a life “without a catastrophe,” except per-
haps to her devoted father. And it is to this father's devotion that
some of Mrs. Browning's poetical sins are due; for by him she was
so pampered and shielded from every outside touch, that all the
woes common to humanity grew for her into awful tragedies. Her
life was abnormal and unreal,- an unreality that passed more or less
into everything she did. Indeed, her resuscitation after meeting
Robert Browning would mount into a miracle, unless it were real-
ized that nothing in her former life had been quite as wofuļ as it
seemed. That Mrs. Browning was "a woman of real genius,” even
Edward Fitzgerald allowed; and in speaking of Shelley, Walter Sav-
age Landor said, “With the exception of Burns, he (Shelley) and
Keats were inspired with a stronger spirit of poetry than any other
poet since Milton. I sometimes fancy that Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
ing comes next. ” This is very high praise from very high authority,
but none too high for Mrs. Browning, for her best work has the true
lyric ring, that spontaneity of thought and expression which comes
when the singer forgets himself in his song and becomes tuneful
under the stress of the moment's inspiration. All of Mrs. Browning's
work is buoyed up by her luxurious and overflowing imagination.
With all its imperfections of technique, its lapses of taste and faults
of expression, it always remains poetry, throbbing with passion and
emotion and rich in color and sound. She wrote because she must.
Her own assertions notwithstanding, one cannot think of Mrs. Brown-
ing as sitting down in cold blood to compose a poem according to


## p. 2527 (#85) ############################################

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
2527
Tennyson's own. ” The fine thought and haunting beauty of A
Musical Instrument,' with its matchless climax, need not be dwelt on.
During her fifteen years' residence in Florence she threw herself
with great enthusiasm into Italian affairs, and wrote some political
poems of varying merit, whose interest necessarily faded away when
the occasion passed. But among those poems inspired by the strug-
gle for freedom, Casa Guidi Windows' comes close to the Sonnets
from the Portuguese' and Aurora Leigh,' and holds an enduring
place for its high poetry, its musical, sonorous verse, and the sus-
tained intellectual vigor of composition.