Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend
- Pages
- about 215
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3.9 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
SIR THOMAS BROWNE (whose works occupy so prominent a position in the
literary history of the seventeenth century) is an author who is now
little known and less read. This comparative oblivion to which he has
been consigned is the more remarkable, as, if for nothing else, his
writings deserve to be studied as an example of the English language
in what may be termed a transition state. The prose of the Elizabethan
age was beginning to pass away and give place to a more inflated style
of writing--a style which, after passing through various stages of
development, culminated in that of Johnson.
Browne is one of the best early examples of this school; his style,
to quote Johnson himself, “is vigorous but rugged, it is learned but
pedantick, it is deep but obscure, it strikes but does not please, it
commands but does not allure. . . . It is a tissue of many languages, a
mixture of heterogeneous words brought together from distant regions.”
Yet in spite of this qualified censure, there are passages in Browne’s
works not inferior to any in the English language; and though his
writings may not be “a well of English undefiled,” yet it is the very
defilements that add to the beauty of the work.
But it is not only as an example of literary style that Browne deserves
to be studied. The matter of his works, the grandeur of his ideas, the
originality of his thoughts, the greatness of his charity, amply make
up for the deficiencies (if deficiencies there be) in his style. An
author who combined the wit of Montaigne with the learning of Erasmus,
and of whom even Hallam could say that “his varied talents wanted
nothing but the controlling supremacy of good sense to place him in the
highest rank of our literature,” should not be suffered to remain in
obscurity.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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