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Sir Thomas Browne and His Reading
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It was Coleridge who so definitively characterized Sir Thomas Browne as “a hunter of oddities and strangenesses.” There is no key which fits his temper so perfectly. He was, his life long, an indefatigable searcher after what was unusual, in his reading, in his friends' experience, and in his own. Clearly it is this penchant for the exceptional, this probing for the bizarre, the exotic, which accounts for his lively interest in foreign countries, notably those which were least like his own—an interest attested by the fact that so generous a portion of his reading concerned other lands.
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References
1 In some marginalia published under title of “Character of Sir Thomas Brown as a Writer,” Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vi (1819-20), 197–198.
2 Sir Thomas Browne's Works, Including His Life and Correspondence, edited by Simon Wilkin F.L.S., 4 vol. (London, 1835–36), i, xlv.
3 Browne says himself (Works, ii, 103–104): “Besides the jargon and patois of several provinces, I understand no less than six languages.” He probably means modern languages. French, of course, is taken for granted; reading a book like Les Voyages du Sieur Du Loir was for him like reading English. He quotes the Italian of Botero and translates accurately (Works, iii, 334). He records having consulted “Pinedas Monarchia Ecclesiastica” “in Spanish” (Works, i, 204). With German he was apparently less familiar: “I could make a shift to understand the Duch writing in it. [the fountain in Salzburg]” (Works, i, 177). We should not, however, forget Whitefoot's testimony about Hutter's Bible. Gosse refers (Sir Thomas Browne, New York, 1905, p. 115) to his quoting Danish. Greek and Hebrew, we can assume on Whitefoot's authority. And Latin, like French, is taken for granted. For fuller discussion of this subject, see A. C. Howell's “A Note on Sir Thomas Browne's Knowledge of Languages,” Studies in Philology, vol. xxii, pp. 412–417.
4 Works, i, 442. Cf. also i, 246: “It was brought from the East Indies by order from Mr. Tho. Peirce, who liveth near Norwich, 1663, who gave mee some divers yeares agoe.”
5 It seems likely Browne took from L'Escaillot hints about the annual overflow of various rivers. Cf. that gentleman's letter at Works, i, 440–441, with Browne's discussion, Works, iii, 252.
6 Works, iv, 375.
7 Works, i, 369–370 and note 6. He was the father of Sir Roger L'Estrange, the first journalist.
8 His particular friend was Sir Robert Paston. They corresponded between 1662 and 1674. For specimens of their letters, see Works, i, 409–413. Blomefield (Norfolk, vol. iii, p. 699) describes Paston as “a person of good learning, who, travelling into foreign countrys, collected many considerable rarities and curiosities.”
9 Works, iv, 256–269.
10 W. P. Dunn in Sir Thomas Browne: A Study in Religious Philosophy (Menasha, Wis., 1926), pp. 11–12 unaccountably maintains that Browne had fewer personal contacts than we might expect. There is much evidence that his contacts were many and close. White-foot, who claims in Some Minutes for the Life of Sir Thomas Browne in Posthumous Works, (London, 1712), p. xxvii to have known Browne more intimately “than any other Man, that is now left alive,” speaks (p. xxv) of the greatest men of this nation “by whom also he was frequently and personally visited.” And there is somehow a ring of conviction about his own statement (Works, ii, 99), “I have loved my friend, as I do virtue, my soul, my God. … When I am from him, I am dead till I be with him.” He was doctor and close friend to Bishop Hall and to Arthur Dee “who resided for many years on terms of the kindest friendship with Browne at Norwich” (Works, i, xcv). Expressions of affection on both sides in his correspondence indicate a relation warm and personal. L'Escaillot, for example, is “my loving friend” and Sir Thomas is “deare Browne” (an address indicating far more intimacy than today). His dedications are full of such addresses as “my worthy and honoured friend Nicholas Bacon” (Works, iii, 381), a neighbor of his; “my worthy friend M. Goodier” (p. 382); “Sir Edmund Bacon prime baronet, my true and noble friend” (p. 384); and “that true gentleman, Sir Horatio Townshend, my honoured friend” (p. 452). These can hardly all have been flourishes.
11 Sir Thomas refers in one place (Works, iv, 285) to a gold medallion worth a thousand pounds “as I am informed by an ocular witness, who had a sight thereof, at Vienna, in 1669.” When we consult Sloan 1827, the MS. which contains this passage, we find that Browne has scribbled on the page opposite (53 verso), “my sonne Dr. Ed. Browne.” Wilkin was usually careful to include such references in footnotes; in this case he failed to do so.
12 “Beleeve it,” Browne had written (Works, i, 166), “no excursion into Pol. Hung. or Turkey addes advantage or reputation unto a schollar.” And the bad boy apologized abjectly (Works, i, 194), “i would willingly set downe something more of my Turkish journey; but the consideration of my rashnesse and obstinate folly in undertaking it, renders my thoughts of it unpleasing.”
13 Long extracts from Edward's letters are to be found copied out in Sir Thomas' handwriting. Sloan 1849, for example, contains (p. 13) a whole page of notes about the unicorn, obviously taken from Edward. See the latter's A Brief Account of Some Travels (London, 1685), p. 101. Browne used parts of this information in his chapter “Of the Unicorn's Horn” (Works, ii, 498–503). There is much valuable material from Edward's letters, particularly in Sloan 1911–13, which Wilkin left unprinted.
14 Works, i, 177.
15 Works, i, xliii.
16 Works, i, 251.
17 Works, i, 281.
18 The book is an octavo of 58 pages, containing 2377 lots. For full description, see Geoffrey Keynes' A Bibliography of Sir Thomas Browne (Cambridge, 1924), pp. 182–184.
19 This fact accounts for his having fitted perfectly into the Royal Society whereas his far more versatile father knocked at its doors in vain. Some of the letters which best illustrate this narrowness were not printed by Wilkin. Edward was quite capable of setting down long lists of things observed, uninterpreted and untransformed by his imagination (Sloan 1911–13 contains several such lists).
20 Keynes (Bibliography, p. 182) surmises that “the greater part of the collection had been formed by Sir Thomas himself.”
21 Printed by Adam Islip, 1621.
22 London, 1646.
23 De Medicina Aegyptiorum. Paris, 1645.
24 Works, i, xciv.
25 Works, ii, 21.
26 Works, i, 356. “And be sure you make yourself master of Dr. Harvey's piece De Circul. Sang.; which discovery I prefer to that of Columbus.”
27 Works, ii, 298–299. “And this was the invention of D. Gilbert, not many years past, a physician in London. And therefore, although some assume the invention of its direction, and other have had the glory of the card, yet in the experiments, grounds, and causes thereof, England produced the father philosopher, and discovered more in it, than Columbus or Americus did ever by it.”
28 Works, i, xcvi and 409–413.
29 Works, i, 462–463.
30 Works, iv, 231–238. “A Prophecy Concerning the Future State of Several Nations.”
31 Few subjects interested him more. Besides the complete chapter (Works, iii, 148–152) which he has devoted to the “Hieroglyphical Pictures of the Egyptians,” there are references, among others, at ii, 422, 427, 434, 437, 440, 452, 458, and 465. The books which Browne appears to have consulted most frequently were: Horapollo's Hieroglyphics (written originally in Egyptian at beginning of fifth century and translated into Greek, probably a century or two later); J. Pierius' Hieroglyphica Sive de Sacris Aegyptiorum Literis Commentarli (Basileae, 1556); and A. Kircherus' Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Hoc est Universalis Hieroglyphicae Veterum Doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae Instauratio, (Rome, 1652). All of these contain illustrations which Browne had carefully studied. Wilkin, in a long note (Works, ii, 415, note 1), is at some pains to show that most of the lore thus taken over was erroneous.
From Horapollo he seems to have lifted the following (Works, iii, 168): “A custom there is in some parts of Europe to adorn aqueducts, spouts and cisterns with lions' heads; which though no illaudable ornament, is of an Egyptian genealogy, who practised the same under a symbolical illation. For because, the sun being in Leo, the flood of Nilus was at the full, and water became conveyed into every part, they made the spouts of their aqueducts through the head of a lion.” Cf. The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous, trans. by Alexander T. Cory (London, 1840), p. 42: “And they depict a lion [for the rising of Nile] because when the sun is in Leo it augments the rising of the Nile so that oftentimes while the sun remains in that sign of the zodiac, half of the new water is supplied; and hence it is, that those who anciently presided over the sacred works, have made the spouts and passages of the sacred fountains in the form of lions.”
Again, cf. the following passages: “The Egyptians hereby [by basilisk] implied eternity, and the awful power of the supreme deity; and therefore described a crowned asp or basilisk upon the heads of their gods” (Works, ii, 422). “When they would represent Eternity differently, they delineate a serpent with its tail covered by the rest of its body: the Egyptians call this Ouraius, which in the Greek language signifies Basilisk: And they place golden figures of it round the Gods … Inasmuch as it thus appears to have power over life and death, they place it upon the head of the Gods.” (Hieroglyphics, 5–6).
Compare also: “A woman that hath but one child, they express by a lioness; for that conceiveth but once” (Works, iii, 151). “When they would symbolise a woman that has brought forth once, they depict a Lioness; for she never conceives twice.” (Hieroglyphics, p. 136).
Besides his use of such standard books on the subject, Browne picked up stray allusions from others. “Hee [Vansleb] speakes of the hieroglyphicall cave in Upper Aegypt, the walls whereof full of hieroglyphicall and other old writing, butt much defaced” (Works, I, 222). Cf. Vansleb's Present State of Egypt (London, 1678), p. 231: “The only thing that pleas'd me among these Caves, was a Monastery, with a Church, all cut in a firm Rock. … The Walls were painted in an antick fashion, with the Histories of the New Testament, with Images of Heremites, and Saints, whose names were written underneath in Coptick Letters.”
From Le Blanc he takes a detail which is perfectly incidental and which has no marginal notice to advertize its existence. Browne has recorded it in that snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, the Musaeum Clausum: “Stones of strange and illegible inscriptions, found about the great ruins which Vincent le Blanc describeth about Cephala in Africa, where he opinioned that the Hebrews raised some buildings of old, and that Solomon brought from thereabout a good part of his gold” (Works, iv, 247–248).
Cf. The World Surveyed or the Famous Voyages and Travailes of Vincent le Blanc (London, 1660), pp. 194–195:
“In like manner we finde there Remainders of walls of above twenty five handfulls thick, with certain hieroglyphick characters engraved, not to be read, as the like is observed in Persia among the ruines of the town Persepolis. Many do conceive 'twas from hence Salomon fetcht his gold, as I said elsewhere; and these great ruines to have been of that Ages building, and by the same King.” The passage referred back to by Le Blanc is as follows (p. 192): “Some say this country in times past depended upon Ethiopia, and 'twas hither Salomon sent his Fleets for gold. … Though to speak truth, 'tis more likelihood Salomon fetched his gold from the mines of Sefala, which are not farre thence.”
Even the famous image of the snake's tail returning into its mouth is doubtless derived from hieroglyphics. Thus, “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” (Works, iv, 41). Cf. John Greaves' Pyramidographia (London, 1646), pp. 50–51: “As by a serpent with the taile in his mouth, the revolution of the yeare.”
32 When a friend of Wilkin, J. Crossley, wished to write something which he thought most likely to be accepted as Browne's, he wrote the spurious “Fragment on Mummies” (Works, iv, 273–276). Aside from the fact that it was, perhaps, the lowest literary trick ever perpetrated, the forgery is a brilliantly clever one.
Browne took much of his information about mummies from the book above-mentioned, Greaves' Pyramidographia. Cf. “The Egyptian embalmers imitated this texture, yet in their linen folds the same is still observable among their neatest mummies” (Works, iii, 418); and, “on the feet was a linnen cover (and so were all the scroles before mentioned of linnen)” (Pyramidographia, p. 50, note e). Cf. also, “The Statuae Isiacae, and little idols, found about the mummies, do make a decussation of Jacob's cross, with their arms” (Works, iii, 418); and Greaves' description of a woman's face in the bend at the coffin's top “with her arms expanded … by the signe of the crosse they did denote spem venturae salutis. … Of these crosses I have seen severall amongst their Hieroglyphicks; some painted, and some ingraven in this manner and some others amongst their mummies formed of stone (or baked earth) in this figure ≢. At Rome on the statue of Osiris it is ingraven thus. .” (Pyr., 51).
Cf., “The learned describer of the pyramids observeth, that the old Egyptians made coffins of this wood [sycamore], which he found yet fresh and undecayed among divers of their mummies” (Works, iv, 144); and, “this coffine (if it be lawfull for me to conjecture after the revolution of three thousand yeares) I conceive to have been of sycamore … of which sort there are many found in the Mummies, very faire, intire, and free from corruption to this day” (Pyr., 57).
Vansleb was also drawn upon. Cf., “Hee went into divers caves of the mummies, and in one hee sayth hee found many sorts of birds, embalmed, and included in potts, one whereof hee sent into France. Hee also sayth, that he found empty eggs, whole and unbroaken, butt light and without anything in them” (Works, i, 222); and “in these [earthen] Pots were Embalmed Birds of all kinds … And as I thought that the remembrance of a Custom so ancient, and superstitious, was worthy of our notice, I brought about half a dozen with me; some I have sent to the King's Library. We found also some Hens Eggs, empty, but entire without any ill smell or crack” (Present State, p. 89).
33 3 vol. (Hak. Soc). London, 1896. I shall refer both to that edition (Pory's translation) and to the Latin version, Joannis Leonis Africani, Africae Descriptio IX. lib. absoluta. 2 vol. Lugd. Batav., 1632.
34 Greaves was professor of Astronomy at Oxford from 1643 to 1648.
35 Prosper Alpinus was a Venetian physician and botanist, who held the chair of Botany at Padua, 1593–1617. He spent three years in Egypt. His book, of 150 folios, is in the form of a dialogue between Alpinus and Guilandinus, who discuss first the general state of medicine in Egypt, then such matters as phlebotomy and scarifications. Browne also used another of Alpinus' books, De Balsamo (Venice, 1591). Alpinus is said to be the first to have discussed the coffee plant in print.
36 Translated from the Italian of P. Pigafetta's selections, by Abraham Hartwell. London, 1597.
37 London, 1617.
38 “Made English by J. P., Gent.” London, 1682.
39 Works, i, 221–222 and 340.
40 Geographiae Universae Turn Veteris, Turn Novae Absolutissimum Opus. By Jo. Ant. Magino. 1597 [date changed in ink to 1548].
41 Atlas or a Geographicke Description of the Regions, Countries and Kingdomes of the World. 2 vol. Amsterdam, 1636.
42 The Geography of Strabo. Trans. by Hamilton and Falconer. 3 vol. London, 1889–93.
43 Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Antwerp, 1612.
44 Joannis Antonii Magini … Geographiae, Tum Veteris, Turn Novae, Volumina Duo, Arnheim, 1617. This was the edition in Browne's library. See A Catalogue, Libri Historici, Quart., 2.
45 A Relation of a Journey begun An. Dom. 1610. London, 1621.
46 Itinerario, di Ludovico De Varthema. See Scelta di Curiosità Letterarie Inedite O Rare. No. 207. Bologna, 1885. The work has been trans, in Hak. Soc. Publications as The Travels of Ludovico Di Varthema. London, 1863.
47 Les Observations de Plusieurs Singularitez et choses memorables, trouvées en Grece, Asie, Judée, Egypte, Arabie, et autres pays estranges, par Pierre Belon. Paris, 1553.
48 Far and away the best study of this side has been made by W. P. Dunn in his brilliant thesis. See note 10.
49 P. 2.
50 Works, iv, 394.
51 Les Voyages du Sieur Du Loir. Paris, 1654. The book is in the form of letters addressed to various people, and recounting his experiences in Smyrna, Constantinople, Greece, and Italy, a large part being devoted to the Turks and their customs. He troubles to describe in great detail the Turks' religious ceremonies, and near the end (p. 153) he says, “Celuy qui presche prend pour texte quelque verset de l'Alcoran, et je vous asseure que les plus devots Chrestiens pourraient profiter de la Morale de son Sermon.” This alone would have been enough to have fixed Browne's interest. He translated a Turkish hymn out of Du Loir's French and sent it to a friend to whom he explained the service: “After the sermon ended, which was made upon a verse in the Alcoran containing much morality, the Dervises in a gallery apart sung this hymn, accompanied with instrumental music, which so affected the ears of Monsieur du Loir, that he would not omit to set it down, together with the musical notes” (Works, iv, 192). Du Loir's version was as follows: “La Predication estant finie, les Chantres [just previously he had called them ”Dervichs“] qui sont dans une galerie, … accordant leurs voix avec des fluttes, qui pour estre merveilleusement harmonieuses sont deffenduës à tout autre sorte d'usage, commencent un Hymne à la cadance d'un tambour de biscaye.” (Voyages, p. 153.) The hymn together with the musical notes is given at pp. 154–155.
52 Valencia, 1611. Urreta's Historia Eclesiastica … de los Grandes y Remotos Reynos de la Etiopia had been published at Valencia the previous year. Browne nowhere specifically mentions it, but it appears in the Catalogue (p. 42 no. 2), and is distinctly the kind of book which Edward would not have added to the collection.
53 Works, iv, 220.
54 Les Observations, p. 83.
55 Op. cit., p. 83 verso.
56 Works, ii, 236.
57 Naturall Historie or The Historie of the World (trans. by P. Holland). 2 vol. London, 1601. I shall refer also to the Latin version, Historia Mundi Naturalis C. Plinii Secundi. Frankfort, 1582.
58 Works, ii, 238.
59 Cf. Works, iii, 320. “That the Ethiopians … did commonly eat them, is testified by Diodorus … and Pliny.”
60 Works, ii, 235. “Aristotle … gives him [Ctesias] the lie no less than twice concerning the seed of elephants.” Also, Works, iii, 274. “Although we conceive this blackness to be seminal, yet are we not of Herodotus' conceit, that their [negroes'] seed is black.” Cf. Aristotle's Works, trans. by T. Taylor, 9 vol., London, 1812, vol. viii, 300: “For Ctesias the Cnidian is evidently wrong in what he says about the seed of elephants. … For the assertion of Herodotus is not true, that the genital seed of the Ethiopians is black.” Aristotle has another allusion at vi, 105: “The assertion, therefore, of Herodotus is false, that the Ethiopians emit black seed.” Browne (Works, ii, 235) also quotes Strabo's rejection of Ctesias and Herodotus. Cf. Strabo's Geog., ii, 241.
61 Works, iii, 188. He speaks of Egypt's being a depository from Nile “according as is expressed by Strabo, and more at large by Herodotus, both from the Egyptian tradition and probable inducements from reason.”
62 Similarly Vansleb's Present State of Egypt, whereof the sub-title is, “Wherein you have an exact and true Account of many Rare and Wonderful Particulars of that Ancient Kingdom.” Cf. also C. J. Solinus' Polyhistor, vel, Rerum Toto Orbe Memorabilium Thesaurus.
63 He alludes to Purchas only twice and to Hakluyt not at all. Neither collection is mentioned in A Catalogue. He may have refrained from buying them because of the expense. He was forever complaining about the costliness of books—and forever buying them. He owned four volumes of Moses Pit's New English Atlas, one of the most expensive books of the time.
64 Antwerp, 1567. Garcia was a Portuguese physician and botanist of the sixteenth century, for more than thirty years doctor to the viceroy of the Indies at Goa. His general method in the book is to take up the various drugs, give a short description of each, and then the opinions about it of famous writers such as Avicenna, Dioscorides, Pliny. As Malcolm Letts conjectures, (Notes and Queries, 11th S., x, 343), Browne may have used Garcia in Clusius' abridged translation. Letts' statement that he “had hoped to be able to show that he was familiar with this work in the original” is incomprehensible because there were numerous translations in Latin from 1567 to 1605, as well as a French translation, Histoire des Drogues, Lyon, 1619.
65 Cf. Works, iii, 224–225 and Aromatum, p. 68.
66 Cf. Works, ii, 392–393 and Aromatum, p. 70.
67 De Medica Materia, Libri Sex Pedanii Dioscori. Paris, 1537. Cf. Works, ii, 455.
68 Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus seu Plantarum Animalium Mineralium Mexicanorum Historia ex Francisci Hernandez Novi Orbis Medici Primarii Relationibus. Rome, 1649. On p. 797 there appears a picture representing a two-headed monster. Browne's reference is at ii, 458.
69 Cf. Works, iii, 256–257 and De Med., p. 11 verso.
70 Cf. Works, iv, 131 and De Med., p. 14 verso.
71 Cf. Works, iv, 131 and De Med., p. 16.
72 Cf. Works, iv, 168 and Aristotle, vi, 335: “In Syria, also, the sheep have tails a cubit in breadth.”
73 Cf. Les Observations, p. 150: “Les moutons de Syrie n'ont pas la queue si longue que ceux d'Egypte, mais ilz l'ont bien aussi grosse et large.”
74 Works, iii, 367. “The tail of an African wether out-weigheth the body of a good calf, that is, an hundred pounds, according unto Leo Africanus.” Cf. History and Description, iii, 945: “I my selfe sawe … one of the saide rams tailes that weighed fower-score pounds, and others affirmed that they had seene one of those tailes of an hundred and fiftie pounds weight.”
75 History and Description, iii, 945.
76 “Voyage to Goa, and Observations of the East Indies.” Printed in Purchas His Pilgrimes, 20 vol., Glasgow, 1905–7, x, 222 ff. See p. 310, and cf. Works, iv, 249. It is of interest to observe that the Royal Society was not above inquiring into this phenomenon. Cf. Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society (London, 1667), p. 161: “What ground there may be for that Relation, concerning Horns taking root, and growing about Goa?” They got the answer they deserved.
77 Athanasii Kircheri, China Monumentis Qua Sacris Qua Profanis … Illustrata (Amstelodami, 1667), p. 178.
78 Works, i, 236.
79 Les Voyages, pp. 357–358. Browne has one allusion to the rare circumstance in his Commonplace Books (Works, iv, 395) and another in the “Letter to a Friend” (Works, iv, 44).
80 Della Ragion Di Stato, Libri Dieci. Con tre Libri delle cause della Grandezza, e Magnificenza delle Città. Di Giovanni Botero (Ferrara, 1589). The book has been translated into English by Robert Peterson, A Treatise Concerning the … Greatnes of Cities (London, 1606).
81 Works, iiii, 252.
82 Novus Orbis seu Descriptionis Indiae Occidentalis Libri XVIII. Authore Joanne de Laet (Lugd. Batav., 1633), pp. 569–570.
83 Works, iii, 443.
84 He did once scribble “J. de Laet” on the off-page of his Commonplace Book. See MS. Sloan 1869, folio 61 verso. This custom of jotting down his source was practised by him all too infrequently.
85 He would naturally be interested, among other strange things, in the unicorn. “Nor is it to be omitted, what hath been formerly suspected, but now confirmed by Olaus Wormius, and Thomas Bartholinus, and others, that those long horns, preserved as precious rarities in many places, are but the teeth of narwhals, to be found about Iceland, Greenland, and other northern regions, of many feet long, commonly wreathed, very deeply fastened in the upper jaw, and standing directly forward, graphically described in Bartholinus, according unto one sent from a bishop of Iceland, not separated from the crany” (Works, ii, 501). Cf. Thomas Bartholinus' De Unicornu Observationes Novae (Patavii, 1645), p. 95: “Animal Marinum circa Islandiam nostram, Groenlandiam, et reliquas Septentrioni viciniores Insulas frequens est et usitatum, nomine vulgari Narhval a cadaveribus quibus vesci solet appellatum Islandis, Balenae specie et magnitudine, quod anteriori dentium serie inter reliquos dentem effert eximiae quantitatis et vulgatis cornubus longitudine crassitieque parem Ingyros volvitur et striatos flexus ex majori radice ad extremum obliterates.” And again (p. 103): “Restat ut dentati piscis porro hostorię insistamus cuius antea specimen accepimus Summi Wormii beneficio, cui deinde animalis istius ad balaenam propius accedentis figuram, sed rudiorem transmisit Episcopus Islandiae Borealis D. Thorlacus Scutonius, qui eum cum glacie Groenlandica eo appulsum vidit. Nos vero eius accuratiorem hic damus ideam non antea visam.” Underneath this passage there is a picture of a wreathed horn and just below that, what looks like the same horn sticking directly forward out of a skull. The De Unicornu is a book of 304 pages, divided into 37 chapters, each treating an animal ordinarily considered to be the unicorn. This arrangement may have given Browne the idea in his own chapter, “Of the Unicorn's Horn,” of accepting many kinds instead of trying to determine on one. “We are so far from denying there is any unicorn at all, that we affirm there are many kinds thereof” (Works, ii, 498).
86 Cf. p. 438.
87 Knolles' Generali Historie, p. 549. Cf. pp. 446–7.
88 Op. cit., p. 212. Cf. Works, iii, 351.
89 Venetia, 1572, p. 35: “Negroponte Isola dell' Arcipelago è separata dalla Beotia da un lungo canale, che con un ponte la congiugne dalla parte di Ponente con terra ferma. … Il canale ha due volte il giorno tanto gran flusso d'acque impetuose, ch'è cosa mirabile.” Cf. Works, iii, 334: “Thomaso Porrchachi affirmeth in his description of famous islands, that twice a day it hath such an impetuous flood, as is not without wonder.”
90 Isaaci Vossii Observationes ad Pomponium Melam De Situ Orbis (Hagae-Comitis, 1658), p. 43. Browne's allusion is at iii, 334.
91 Les Voyages, p. 301. Cf. Works, iii, 335. Browne's version, drawn almost word for word from Du Loir, is as follows: “A later and experimental testimony is to be found in the travels of Monsieur Duloir; who about twenty years ago, remained sometime at Negroponte, or old Chalcis, and also passed and repassed this Euripus; who thus expresseth himself. ‘I wonder much at the error concerning the flux and reflux of Euripus; and I assure you that opinion is false. I gave a boatman a crown, to set me in a convenient place, where for a whole day I might observe the same. It ebbeth and floweth by six hours, even as it doth at Venice, but the course thereof is vehement’.” In the same discussion, Browne speaks (p. 334) of Strabo's opinion thereon. Cf. Geography, ii, 96. He also refers to Maginus, and quotes from him, quite accurately. Cf. Geographia, f. 176 verso.
92 Works, ii, 432.
93 Knowing Browne's habits, we must always allow for the possibility that this mention of Mela by Du Loir was alone sufficient to have made Browne use him as additional authority.
94 Works, iii, 289.
95 Vandalia, Sive Historia De Vandalorum Vera Origine. (Cologne, 1518).
96 He picked up the following information on the subject from Bellonius: “That they are no Egyptians, Bellonius maketh evident: who met great droves of Gypsies in Egypt, about Grand Cairo, Mataerea, and the villages on the banks of Nilus, who notwithstanding were accounted strangers unto that nation, and wanderers from foreign parts, even as they are esteemed with us” (Works, iii, 289). Cf. Les Observations, p. 113: “Estants entre la Materée et le Caire, nous en [Baumiens] trouvions de grandes compagnies, et aussi le long du Nil, en plusieurs villages d'Egypte. … qui estoient aussi bien estrangers en ce pays la comme ilz sont aux nostres.” And cf. also “Bellonius [deduces gypsies] no further than Wallachia and Bulgaria” (Works, iii, 289) with “Et pource que leur origine est de Valachie, ilz sçavent parler plusieurs langues” (Observations, p. 113).
97 Isaaci Vossii Observationes, p. 28.
98 Works, i, 220.
99 Works, ii, 179. Dr. James Primrose published in 1639 his De Vulgi Erroribus in Medicina, which was translated by Robert Witty in 1651. There was also Laur. Joubertus' De Vulgi Erroribus Medicinae (Antwerp, 1600).
100 He notes this extraordinary circumstance in his Commonplace Book (Works, iv, 423), and then returns to it in a “Letter to a Friend” (Works, IV, 41). The allusion occurs in Knolles' History (ed. 1631) at pp. 1482–83.
101 Works, iv, 424. Cf. Knolles' History, pp. 1364–65.
102 The History of the Warres Betweene the Turkes and the Persians. Written in Italian by John-Thomas Minadoi, and translated into English by Abraham Hartwell. London, 1595. The passage in Minadoi (p. 311) follows: “The miserable wretch [Macademo of Manogli] (having been too credulous) was stripped, and three great slashes made on his back, where they began to flea him. … And then the barbarous soldiers, pursuing their cruell action, made certaine other gashes upon his brest, and upon his stomake, and so drawing his skinne downeward, they could not bring it to his Navel, before he was dead, with most dolorous paines.” The account is given quite incidentally, and Minadoi is not discussing methods of flaying in general but only this one particular case.
103 Works, iv, 245.
104 MS. Sloan 1914, f. 8. “To excoriate men alive is still a practise in Turkie and Persia, where they begin first to take of the skin at the back, and so proceede as Sigr. Tomaso Minadoi an Italian Physitian hath described it in his relation of the Persian warres. To flay men when they are dead is a custome in these parts.” Sir Thomas was apparently in the habit of supplying Edward with ammunition for his lectures. He sent him, for example, elaborate notes on the ostrich (Works, iv, 337–339), with such paternal asides as, “Then you mention what you know more.”
In a chapter of Pseudodoxia (Works, ii, 494), Browne said about the same animal: “Leo Africanus, who lived in those countries wherein they most abound, speaketh diminutively, and but half way into this assertion, Surdum ac simplex animal est, quicquid invenit, absque delectu, usque ad ferrum devorat.” (See Descriptio, ii, 766). Edward was, however, enough of a Cartesian not to accept anything on authority. He fed his ostrich “a peece of iron which weighed two ounces and a half, which we found in the first stomack again not at all altered”; and then seemed surprised that “ours died of a soden.” (See Works, i, 329).
105 Works, iii, 256, 257; iv, 129, 131, 143, and 151.
106 Pp. 11–16.
107 Practically all references are taken from pp. 82–148.
108 Works, iii, 248 (twice), 249, 250, 274, 334.
109 Works, iii, 248–250.
110 Works, i, 268, 272, 275, 276.
111 Nov. 24, 1679–Jan. 19, 1680.
112 Works, iii, 290.
113 The comparison occurs in line 7: “assimilis fundae.”
114 Works, iii, 244: “For on the mountains of Ararat, this is, part of the hill Taurus, between the East Indies and Scythia, as Sir W. Raleigh accounts it, the ark of Noah rested.” Cf. The Works of Sir Walter Raleigh, 8 vol. (Oxford, 1829), ii, 217, “That the ark rested upon part of the hill Taurus, or Caucasus, between the East Indies and Scythia.”
115 Works, iv, 424.
116 Generali Historie, pp. 1364–65.
117 Venice, 1591, p. 26. This is the only allusion to that book I found in Browne.
118 Works, iv, 151.
119 Works, ii, 528.
120 iii, 836.
121 Works, iv, 395.
122 Les Voyages, pp. 357–358.
123 De Natura et Incremento Nili Libri Duo, … Authore P. Joanne Baptista Scortia. London, 1617. The book contains such chapter headings as “De Variis Nili nominibus,” “De Nili Ostiis,” “De Nili Origine,” “De Nili Magnitudine,” “De Tempore Incrementi Nili,” and “An Incrementum Nili fiat ab eliquatis nivibus in Aethiopia?” These are just the matters discussed by Browne at Works, iii, 246–259. Urreta's Historia Eclesiastica is a book of the same kind. In its chapter, “Del Rio Nilo,” there are such marginal notices as “Nombres de Nilo,” “Corriente y discurso del Nilo,” “Causas de las crecientes del Nilo,” and “La Verdadera causa de la creciente del Nilo.”
124 The following descriptive sentences are reproduced from the title page of Lopez' book:
“2. That the blacke colour which is in the skinnes of the Ethiopians and Negroes etc. proceedeth not from the Sunne.” Cf. Works, iii, 263–287.
“3. And that the River Nilus springeth not out of the mountains of the Moone, as hath beene heretofore beleeved: Together with the true cause of the rising and increasing thereof.”
Bartholinus' book on the Unicorn may have given him an idea for his general scheme of treatment of that subject. See note 85.
125 Works, iii, 261.
126 He has done the same with Maginus. Cf. pp. 460–461.
127 Raleigh's Works, iii, 82.
128 Op. cit., iii, 83.
129 Op. cit., iii, 84.
130 Cf. Les Observations, f. 124 verso: “Quelques uns qui ont ouy parler de ceste mer, pensent que l'eau en est rouge, mais il n'en est rien.”
131 Works, iii, 84.
132 Da Asia de Joāo de Barros (Lisboa, 1777), iv, 261.
133 Browne may have confused limo (= “mud,” “slime”) with Sp. limón (=“lemon”), and so derived his “yellow.” Alaranjada (= “orange color”) may also have suggested it to him.
134 Works, ii, 178.
135 MS. Sloan 1910, ff. 33–35.
136 Works, iii, 250.
137 Knolles' History, p. 549.
138 Works, iv, 287–289.
139 Generali Historie, 873–887.
140 P. 288.
141 He may have been confused by mention of “eight gallies of Sicilie” just below (p. 873). He makes other slips such as spelling Auria, Doria. Caracoza, whom Knolles (p. 875) calls “a famous pyrat,” is apparently elevated to a position in command of the Turkish fleet since Browne (p. 287) implies he was to give the orders for attack. He was indeed “of great account amongst the Turks,” but he was used in this case only for reconnoitering purposes. Sir Thomas makes other small changes which seem to indicate either that he was using notes in his Commonplace Book or that he was reviewing the account itself but hastily. He (p. 288) has Don John erecting Ali Bassa's bloody head “on the top of a pole” whereas it was “set upon the point of a speare” (p. 881). And he (p. 288) has John repulsed thrice before calling up his reinforcements; Knolles (p. 881) says merely, “the Spaniards attempting sundrie times to have entered the Turkes gallies.”
142 P. 873. “The Christians had reposed great hope in six galeasses. … These galeasses conducted by Franciscus Dodus, a most expert captaine.”
143 One picture of horror does seem to have impressed him. He records it in Musaeum Clausum (Works, iv, 247): “A noble picture of the famous duel between Paul Manessi and Caragusa the Turk, in the time of Amurath the Second; the Turkish army and that of Scanderbeg looking on; wherein Manessi slew the Turk, cut off his head, and carried away the spoils of his body.” Cf. Knolles' History, p. 312: “Caragusa was by Manessi, at the first encounter stroke through the head and slaine. Manessi alighting, disarmed the dead bodie, and stroke off his head: and so loaded with the armour and head of the proud challenger, returned with victory to the armie.” Browne's delight to conceive scenes in pictures (it will be recalled that practically one whole book, the fifth, of Pseudodoxia is devoted to them) is connected with his fondness for poring over others' pictures. We have already seen how he probably examined with great care the hieroglyphical designs in such books as Pierius and Horapollo (see note 31); and also how he studied the pictures of the amphisbaena europaea (see note 68), and the unicorn (see note 85). When he alludes (Works, iii, 479) to the “metamorphosis of Ortelius,” he is referring to a design in one of Ortelius' maps. (The wrong one is given by Wilkin in his note to that passage. It is clearly the inscription in the shield, reading “metamorphosi.” See Theatrum, p. 107.) He instructs Edward (Works, i, 168) to “learne the most authentic account how the half moone was set upon St. Stephen's; which, in Brawne's Booke of Citties, seemes a very noble one.” He has been examining the splendid colored illustrations in Braun, particularly map 21 in the sixth volume, of “Vienna Austriae.” In that, the “Templum D. Stephani” is No. 1 on the chart and in the picture the church stands out prominently, with a good-sized ring decorating the top of the spire. (See Civitates Orbis Terrarum. By G. Braun and Francis Hogenbergius. Coloniae Agrippiane, 1582—[1618].) The phalangium monstrosum Brasilianum (Works, iii, 443) he has seen represented in de Laet's Novus Orbis (p. 570). In Ludolphus' New History, he is particularly interested (Works, i, 340) in “some cutts in it, especially of some animals, as apes, elephants, etc.” And Tavernier has made plain to him the Arabian coin, larin. Browne says (Works, i, 286), “Tis the oddest shaped coyne that Tavernier hath in all his figures, and better to bee taken in a good summe by wayght then tale, his figure hath one foot a litle shorter then the other as yours hath.” It is quite true; Tavernier'e figure does have the lower prong of the queerly bifurcated coin shorter than the upper, but only very slightly. See Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier (London, 1678), interleaf between pp. 2–3, part two.
144 P. 288.
145 Sir Thomas grew familiar also with the sequel to Knolles, Paul Ricaut's History of the Turkish Empire From the Year 1623 to the Year 1677 (London, 1680). He wrote to Edward (Works, i, 272): “Your sister Betty hath read unto mee Mr. Ricaut's historie of the three last Turkish empereurs, Morat or Amurah the Fourth, Ibrahim, and Mahomet the Fourth, and is a very good historie, and a good addition unto Knolls his Turkish historie, which will then make one of the best histories that wee have in English.” Previously (Works, i, 268) he had written: “In this are delivered the taking of Newhewzell, the battail at St. Goddard, the fights between count Souches and the visier of Buda, actions of Nicholas Serini, his burning the bridge of Esseck, the Grand Signors being at Larissa, the seidge of Candia, etc.” Most of these references, it should be noted, are to highly restricted parts of Ricaut's History, the part doubtless which the filial Betty was reading to him in those late fall days when his own poor eyes no longer served. Neuhäusel was “taken” on p. 142; the actions of Nicholas Serini, particularly the burning of the Esseg bridge, are described on page 147, and Count Souches' skirmishes with Husaein Pasha of Buda, on pages 162–164. One detail that stood out for Browne in the siege of Candia was the Grand Seignior's absence from the post of duty, “the Grand Signors being at Larissa.” “During these Troubles,” writes Ricaut (p. 260), “the Grand Signior passed his time in hunting near Larissa.” Twice more (pp. 241 and 254–255) he mentions the sojourn at Larissa. It may have been Browne's way of protesting against cruelty, for the monarch drove his hunters, as he had done in connection with Don John's exultantly waving the gory head of Ali Bassa; or he may be implying contempt for a leader who is not in the thick of it, as he did in the case of Andreas Auria. Sir Thomas takes over the material quite accurately except for his usual orthographic liberties. His Newhewzell regularly appears in the source as Newhausel, and Souches, as Soisé or Susa.
146 A section of one Commonplace Book has just such headings as we might expect Browne to have made (See MS. Sloan 1833, near the end). But unfortunately they are in Edward's handwriting.
147 Examples are innumerable. Cf. Sandys (A Relation, pp. 148–149), “They are generally fat, and ranke of the savours which attend upon sluttish corpulency,” and Browne, Works, iii, 41, where he reproduces word for word. The passage (Works, iii, 128), “Of the vulgar .., three horses,” is exactly quoted from Raleigh (Works, iv, pp. 456–457). Another Raleigh passage (Works, ii, 221), “If the nations … valley of Mesopotamia” is used verbatim (Works, iii, 312). Cf. Sandys' Relation, p. 94, “Two other branches there be that runne betweene these, but poore in waters,” with Works, iii, 248, “the other two [branches] do run between these, but poor in water.” In this case Browne pretends to be paraphrasing. Often when he seems to be only paraphrasing, he falls into almost the precise phraseology of his source. Cf. Sandys' Relation, p. 139, “Of those [ostriches] there are store in the desarts. They keepe in flocks, and oft affright the stranger passenger with their fearefull shreeches,” with Works, i, 331, “There are great flocks of ostridges in the deserts, they keepe in flocks and often fright stranger passengers with their fearfull screeches.” Cf. also Knolles' History, p. 886, “I thinke this present misfortune to bee rather imputed unto some fatali cause to us unkriowne, than to the valour of the Christians,” with Works, iv, 288, “he told him the battle was not lost by the valour of the Christians, but by some fatal and unknown cause unto them.” Finally, cf. Strabo's Geography, iii, 231, “She also put an end to her life … by the bite of an asp, or (for there are two accounts) by the application of a poisonous ointment,” with Works, iii, 126, “Strabo … hath also two opinions; that she died by the bite of an asp, or else a poisonous ointment.” I suspect that these cases could be infinitely multiplied, that they are numerous enough to have a very considerable bearing on his famed style.
148 Works, iii, 249.
149 Theatrum, p. 113 (Turkey) and p. 115 (Egypt).
150 Works, iii, 249.
151 Geographia, f. 202 verso.
152 Works, i, 220.
153 Works, i, 187.
154 Works, i, 220.
155 Works, iii, 243.
156 He shows similar acquaintance with the African tribes. See Works, iii, 267.
157 Works, iv, 180.
158 Works, iv, 379.
159 Works, iv, 405–408.
160 Works, iii, 429.
161 Works, iii, 345.
162 Works, i, 7.
163 Works, iii, 80.
164 P. 214.
165 In general, Browne used Ptolemy with great accuracy. He asks (Works, iv, 408), “how to salve that of Ptolemy who placeth the mouth of Rhenus in the latitude of 54, which is rather agreable unto the mouth of the river Elbe or Albis.” Cf. Geographia, Third Map of Europe. The “Rhenus fl.” is there represented as having three mouths into the “Mare Germanicum,” and they pour in between lat. 53 and 54.
166 Browne was always quite ready to subject the Ancients to tests. See Works, ii, 224. “Having thus totally relinquished them in some things, it may not be presumptuous to examine them in others; but surely most unreasonable to adhere to them in all, as though they were infallible, or could not err in any.”
167 Works, iii, 246–259.
168 P. 250.
169 P. 252.
170 Works, ii, 179.
171 Although A. C. Howell is doubtless overstating the case when he says (Studies in Philology, xxii, 79) that “The Vulgar Errors was on every bookshelf and was a sort of Popular Science magazine of its day,” the extent of its influence has, without any question, been underestimated.
172 Geographia, p. 283.
173 Another Latin edition (1608) also has “70. leucas.” The Italian edition (Venice, 1598) has (f. 205) “settanta leuche.”
174 Works, iii, 250.
175 Africae Descriptio, ii, 403–404. In Pory's translation (Description, ii, 504–505), “the Mahumetans wan it in the yeere of the Hegeira 94. and helde the same for two hundred and twenty yeeres, till such time as the English at the persuasion of the Goths besieged it with an huge armie. … The English having good successe tooke the citie, and so wasted it with fire and sword, that scarce one citizen escaped.”
176 Works, iv, 241.
177 Works, i, 288.
178 Thomas Gage's A New Survey of the West-Indies (London, 1655), p. 56.
179 Les Voyages, pp. 357–358.
180 Works, iv, 395.
181 Works, ii, 528.
182 Descriptio, ii, 661. Pory's version (Description, iii, 836) follows: “Heere is also a most strong and deadly poison, one graine whereof being divided amongst ten persons, will kill them all within lesse then a quarter of an hower: but if one man taketh a graine, he dieth thereof out of hand.”
183 Works, iii, 36–43.
184 P. 41.
185 Relation, pp. 148–149.
186 Works, iii, 245.
187 Strabonis Geographia. Printed at Rome [no date]. No pagination. This passage is in Book iv. In the English it is at i, 297: “Some of them, though possessing plenty of milk, have not skill enough to make cheese.” We have here another case of the reductio ad absurdum argument through exaggeration. The same kind of mistake is made from Alpinus. Browne speaks (Works, iv, 131) of “the present Egyptians, who are observed by Alpinus to be the fattest nation, and men to have breasts like women.” Alpinus (De Medicina, f. 14 verso) was talking about the people of Cairo: “Nusquam gentium memini me vidisse in tanto numero ita perpingues homines, quales Cayri observantur. Ex viris plurimos usque adeo pingues inspexi, ut mammas haberent longe mulierum maximis mammis maiores, crassiores, ac pinguiores.”
188 Works, iv, 219–220.
189 Les Observations, f. 82 verso and f. 83.
190 Works, ii, 499.
191 Itinerario in Scelta, ccvii, p. 46. At iii, 146, Browne again refers to Varthema: “If it be made bisulcous or cloven-footed, it agreeth unto the description of Vertomannus.” Cf. Itinerario, p. 46: “El pede suo è un poco fesso davanti.”
192 Works, iii, 146.
193 Itinerario, p. 46.
194 Historia, i, 114.
195 Works, iii, 150. “We shall instance but in few, as they stand recorded by Orus. The male sex they expressed by a vulture, because of vultures all are females, and impregnated by the wind.”
196 Cf. Hieroglyphics, p. 23: “They signify by it [a vulture] a mother, because in this race of creatures there is no male. … the eggs of the vultures that are impregnated by the wind possess a vital principle.” Cf. also Pierius' Hieroglyphica, f. 131 verso. On this same page there is a picture headed, “Mater Sive Naturae Genius,” which shows a face (intended to represent the wind) blowing on the tail of a vulture.
197 Works, iv, 418–419. “Yet Herodotus reports the same was done before; that Necho, King of Egypt, by the help of Phoenicians, sailed from the Red Sea, round about Africa, unto Cadiz.” Cf. Herodotus' History, i, 307: “He [Necos] … sent Phenicians with ships, bidding them sail and come back through the Pillars of Heracles to the Northern Sea and so to Egypt.”
198 Works iv, 405. “Strabo delivereth that Nismes exceeded Narbona in dominion but not in populosity.” Cf. Strabonis Geographia (Lib. iv): “Arecomiscorum vero Metropolis Nemausus extat. Alienigena quidem plebe: et mercatorum numero: longe Narbone inferior. Ceterum regende civitatis forma: supior.” The translation is to be found in the Geography at i, 278.
199 Works, iii, 266. “Edvardus Lopez testifieth of the Spanish plantations, that they retained their native complexions unto his days.” Cf. A Report, p. 19: “It is as certaine a thing as may be, that under the Equinoctiall, there are people which are borne almost all white, as … in the Isle of San Thomas which … was at the first inhabited by the Portingalles … and for the space of a hundred yeares and upwardes their children were continually white … And so likewise the children of the Portingals, which are borne of the women of Congo, do incline somewhat towards white.”
200 Works, iii, 224–225. “Garcias ab Horto … who relates that at one venation the King of Siam took four thousand [elephants].” Cf. Aromatum, p. 68. There are three marginal notations, “Rex Sian,” “Rex Pegu,” and “Elephantorum Venatio.” Browne did not notice that the monarch had changed by the time elephant hunting was introduced.
201 Works, iii, 264. The opinion that the sun caused the negroes' blackness “was I perceive rejected by Aristobulus a very ancient geographer, as is discovered by Strabo.” Cf. Geography, iii, 87. Browne was misled by Strabo's “the followers of Aristobulus.” Among them is Onesicritus who takes sharp issue with Theodectes, who believes in the theory.
202 Works, iii, 320.
203 Examples of this tendency could be infinitely multiplied. Cf. Works, ii, 511. “As Solinus reports, the Arabians also and Indians [abstrain from swine flesh].” Solinus (Polyhistor, vel, Rerum Toto Orbe Memorabilium Thesaurus, by C. J. Solinus, p. 148) makes the point about Arabians; but with Indians he is referring to all flesh (p. 183). The Nile, says Browne (Works, iii, 250) is “called therefore Fluviorum pater, and totius Orbis maximus, by (Ortelius.” Ortelius uses the latter term (Theatrum, Africa, p. 4), but not the former. Wormius is mentioned (Works, ii, 501) as having called many of the “unicorns' horns,” narwhales' teeth. It is Bartholinus, not Wormius, who so characterizes them. Wormius makes no such assertion.
204 Works, iii, 246–259.
205 Cf. Works, ii, 32. “They who, to salve 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.”
206 Works, ii, 202.
207 Works, ii, 214.
208 P. 246.
208 Or he might, on occasion, use some such circumlocution as “Egypt's heaven-descended stream” (Odyssey, iv, 581).
210 Geography, iii, 217 ff.
211 P. 247.
212 Works, v, 477.
213 Aristotle, op. cit., pp. 481–482.
214 Herodoli Halicarnassei historiae lib. IX, [no place of pub.], 1566, p. 42.
215 Strabonis Geographia, lib. xvii, 1$frac34 pages from beginning. Geography, iii, 223.
216 Naturali Historie, i, 99. In the Latin version, “xi. enim reperiuntur, superque quatuor.” See Historia i, 61.
217 Wilkin has repeated an obvious misprint without comment. Browne refers (p. 247) to the seven mouths and then, apparently, names eight. “Selenneticum” and “Sebenneticum” are clearly the same. Sayle repeats the error in his edition and so does Keynes.
218 Browne has “Pathmeticum” for “Pathiniticum.” See Geographia, third map of Africa. Naturally there are changes in spelling.
219 Pliny fails to mention Pineptum and Diolcos, and he has “Canopico,” missing in Ptolemy's list. But, as the note explains, “Heracleoticum ostium idem esse cum Canopico, notum est ex Ptolemaeo.” See Historia, i, 61.
220 P. 248.
221 The quotation is perfectly accurate. See Geographia, p. 205. The transition here to the moderns was a natural one because Maginus was Ptolemy's continuator.
222 There were plenty of moderns who still vouched for the traditional seven mouths. Jo. von Watt, Epitome Trium Terrae Partium, Asiae, Africae et Europae (Tiguri, 1548), D 2, shows the seven in his Map of Africa, and explains (p. 154), “septem enim ostiis grandibus effunditur.” J. Honterus, Rudimenta Cosmographica (Tiguri, 1546), pt. 2 d 2, similarly shows seven mouths.
223 P. 205.
224 Among them, Blount. See Voyage into the Levant, … by Master Henry Blunt (London, 1638), D. 57: “Nile had of old seven streames … there now remaine onely three.”
225 Belli Sacri Historia, Basileae [no date], p. 475. Just before, he has mentioned four branches of Nile.
226 Les Observations, i. 92 verso.
227 P. 248.
228 A Relation, p. 94.
229 Pp. 248–249.
230 Hugonis Grotti Opera Omnia Theologica. 4 vol. (Londini, 1679). Grotius' note to Isaiah, xi, 15: “Et percutiet eum in septem rivis.”
231 P. 249.
232 Geographia, Third Map of Africa.
233 Atlas, ii, Map of Africa, following p. 425; i, Map of Europe, following p. 41.
234 Theatrum, Map of Turkey, p. 113; Map of Egypt, p. 115.
235 Geographia, f. 202 verso.
236 P. 250.
237 J. Ludolphus, (Historia Aethiopica, Frankfort, 1581, lib. i, 8, 4) agrees: “At Nilus … caetera Orbis flumina antecellit.”
238 P. 251. Sandys (A Relation, p. 125) says, “than Cairo no Citie can be more populous.” Polo, Travels of Marco Polo (London, 1907), p. 309, has: “the whole city [of Kin-sai] must have contained one million six hundred thousand families.”
239 Sir Thomas has perhaps taken this bit from Purchas, or rather Oviedo whom Purchas quotes (Pilgrimes, xv, 168): “There are found in the firme land certaine birds, so little, that the whole bodie of one of them is no bigger then the top of the biggest finger of a mans hand … This Bird, beside her littlenesse, is of such velositie and swiftnesse in flying, that who so seeth her flying in the aire, cannot see her flap or beate her wings after any other sort then doe the Dorres, or humble Bees, or Beetels.”
240 Theatrum, Map of Africa, p. 4. The Niger is represented there to be just over ten degrees longer than Nilus.
241 Browne may have derived this knowledge from Cardan. Cf. Hieronymi Cardani Mediolanensis Medici De Subtilitate Libri XXI (Basiliae, 1553), p. 93: “Maximus enim fluviorum, ut Arrianus scribit, Ganges.” Cf. Strabo (Geography, iii, 96): “For that the Ganges is the largest of known rivers in the three continents, it is generally agreed; next to this is the Indus; and, thirdly, the Danube; and, fourthly, the Nile.”
242 Arriani De Expedit. Alex. Magni Historiarum Libri VII (Amstelodami, 1668), i, 514.
243 De Natura, p. 33.
244 Scortia has quoted Maffeus accurately. Cf. Jo. Petri Maffeii Bergomatis … Opera Omnia Latine Scripta, 2 vol. (Bergomi, 1747), i, 40–41. The reference is properly given to “Historiarum Indicarum,” lib. 2.
245 De Subtilitate, p. 93.
246 Geographia, p. 283.
247 For Browne's mistake here, cf. p. 461.
248 The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, by Father Joseph De Acosta. Reprinted for Hak. Soc. from trans. of Ed. Grimston (1604). 2 vol. 1880. Vol. i, p. 82.
249 Cf. pp. 446–447.
250 P. 252.
251 P. 254. “Thus crocodiles were thought to be peculiar unto Nile, and the opinion so possessed Alexander, that when he had discovered some in Ganges, he fell upon a conceit he had found the head of Nilus.” Cf. Strabo's Geography, iii, 88: “When Alexander saw crocodiles in the Hydaspes … he thought that he had discovered the sources of the Nile.”
252 For this last, Browne gives as authority Botero. I have in vain searched through Della Ragion and Botero's longer work, Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms and Commonwealths throughout the World (London, 1630).
253 The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, 2 vol. (London, 1814), i, 47. “And that therefore it is no wonder if the mountainous parts of Ethiopia, which lies much higher than Egypt, are soaked with continual rains, wherewith the river being filled, overflows.”
254 Geography, iii, 224. “Persons in later times learnt by experience as eye-witnesses, that the Nile owes its rise to summer rains, which fall in great abundance in Upper Ethiopia.”
255 Senecae Opera (Basel, 1529), p. 452.
266 P. 253.
257 Delle Navigationi et Viaggi nel qual si Contiene La Descrittione Dell' Africa (Venice, 1550), f. 273 verso.
258 P. 254.
259 Pory held this belief. See Leo's Description, i, 17. “Nilus … continueth in his yeerely increase fortie daies, and forty daies in decrease; to wit, from the seventeenth of June to the sixt of October.” This he practically repeats from Leo himself. See Leo, op. cit., iii, 936.
260 History, i, 124.
261 Historical Library, i, 45. On previous page, he says, “it is not so strange for the Nile about summer time to increase.”
262 Opera, p. 451.
263 Cf. The Works of Aristotle (ed. by Smith and Ross), vol. iv, “Historia Animalium” (Oxford, 1910), 547a, “about the rising of the dog-star”; 569a, “about the rising of the Dog-star; 599a, ”about thirty days at the rising of the Dog-star; also 602a, and 633a.
264 The passage in Theodorus is to be found in Aristoteles de Animalibus. In hoc presenti volumine infra scripta habentur Aristotelis Opuscula a Theodoro Gaza de greco in latinum iampridem (?) versa (?), 1525, f. 22. Scaliger's translation is in Aristotelis Historia de Animalibus, Julio Caesare Scaligero Interprete, cum eiusdem Commentariis, (Tolosae, 1619), p. 712: “Thunni, scombríque coëunt mense Februario post Idus: pariunt Junii initio.”
265 Pp. 254–255.
266 A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, 14 vol. (New York, 1892), iv, 205.
267 P. 255.
268 Opera, p. 452.
269 Seneca, loc. cit.
270 P. 255.
271 Socratis Scholastici et Hermiae Sozomeni Historia Ecclesiastica (Moguntiae, 1677), ii, 736.
272 P. 256.
273 Cf. Works (ed. Smith and Ross), iv, 584b. “In these places [Egypt, among others] the eight-months' children live and are brought up.”
274 He was the father of Robert Paston, Browne's particular friend.
276 Greaves' book was published in 1646, the very year of the first edition of Pseudodoxia.
276 Pyramidographia, pp. 74–75 note.
277 The passage is taken from the De Medicina, at f. 11 verso.
278 Alpinus, loc. cit.
279 Cf. p. 458.
280 P. 258.