much inferior to the famous Padre Paolo, the late oracle of the Venetian state. "Though he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty which comes nearest it he excelled, i. e. the stochastic, wherein he was seldom mistaken as to future events, as well public as private, but not apt to discover any presages or superstition." The foregoing character might be confirmed and enlarged by many passages in the "Religio Medici"; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's testimony, that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of himself, has not exceeded the truth with respect to his attainments or visible qualities. But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not easily be deprived while learning shall have any reverence among men ; for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill, and scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success. His exuberance of knowledge and plenitude of ideas sometimes obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his decisions. On whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations. But the spirit and vigor of his pursuit always gives delight; and the reader follows him without reluctance through his mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point originally in view. "To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnæ virtutes nec minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures." This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne. It is vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantic; it is deep, but obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not allure; his tropes are harsh and his combinations uncouth. He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth, and was considered by every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastic skill, by moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this encroaching license, began to introduce the Latin idiom; and Browne, though he gave less disturbance to our structures in phraseology, yet poured in a multitude of exotic words, many indeed useful and significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution, such as "commensality," for the state of many living at the same table ; but many superfluous, as a "paralogical," for an unreasonable doubt; and some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than explain it, as "arthritical analogies," for parts that serve some animals in the place of joints. His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages, a mixture of heterogenous words brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction; and in defence of his uncommon words and expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and was not content to express in many words that idea for which any language could supply a single term. But his innovations are sometimes pleasing and his temerities happy. He has many "verba ardentia," forcible expressions, which he would never have found but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety, and flights which would never have been reached but by one who had very little fear of the shame of falling. There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and others among atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels. It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding; and industriously labor to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a celebrated name.* The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility; men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity. Among these it is too frequently the practice, to make in their heat concessions to atheism, or deism, which their most confident advocates had never dared to claim or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle paradox, an indecent jest, an unseasonable objection, are sufficient, in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of Christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for favorable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenor of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately repented. The infidel knows well what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply, by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause less invidious by showing numbers on his side; he will therefore not change his conduct till he reforms his principles. But the zealot should recollect, that "Therefore no heretics desire to spread DAVIES. xxxii LIFE OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE. he is laboring, by this frequency of excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding strength to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a great part of mankind to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and therefore the addition of every name to infidelity in some degree invalidates that argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded. Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all may retain the essentials of Christianity. Men may sometimes eagerly dispute, and yet not differ much from one another. The rigorous persecutors of error should therefore enlighten their zeal with knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity, without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that "thinketh no evil," but "hopeth all things," and "endureth all things." Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by the fury of its friends or the artifice of its enemies, it is no difficult task to replace him among the most zealous professors of Christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardor of his imagination, have hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; phrase is not to be opposed to volumes. There is scarcely a writer to be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently testified his belief of the sacred writings, has appealed to them with such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried reverence. but a |