son; followed by an (incorrect) extract from his will, bequeathing his Northfleet estate equally between the College of Physicians and Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in the event (which soon happened) of failure of heirs to his son and daughter. There are also inscriptions to his three daughters, Susanna, Henrietta, and Mary. H. S. E. EDVARDUS BROWNE NORDOVICENSIS, M. D. THOME BROWNE MILITIS, ET MEDICI CELEBERRIMI FILIUS PATRE NON INDIGNUS. QUIPPE QUI IN ARTE SUA USQUE ADEO EXCELLUIT UT REGI CAROLO IIDO. E MEDICIS PRIMARIIS FUERIT UNUS. ET COLLEGIO MEDICORUM QUOD EST LONDINI SUMMA CUM LAUDE PRÆFUERIT. QUI ETIAM SCRIPTIS SUIS (IN QUIBUS ITINERA SUA PER PRÆCIPUAS EUROPÆ REGIONES ET RES UBIQUE NOTATU DIGNIORES PULCHRE PARITER AC FIDELITER DESCRIBIT,) MAGNAM AB OMNIBUS LITERATIS INIVIT GRATIAM. DE CÆTERIS ANIMI DOTIBUS SI QUÆRAS CUM SUMMA ERUDITIONE PAREM SEMPER MODESTIAM CONJUNXIT. PECUNIÆ AC DIVITIIS PARUM, AUT NIHIL STUDUIT. OBIIT VICESIMO OCTAVO DIE MENSIS AUGUSTI ETATIS LXIII. HIC ETIAM SITUS EST THOMAS BROWNE, M. D. FILIUS UNICUS. EX HAC VITA MIGRAVIT ANNO ÆTATIS 36тO ANNOQUE DOMINI 1710. [Then follows the passage from Dr. Edward Browne's will.] time one of the elects, and treasurer, succeeded him as president of the Royal College of Physicians, which office he filled with great abilities, and discharged it with universal approbation, to the time of his death, which happened on the twentyeighth of August, 1708, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, after a very short illness, at his seat at North Fleet, near Greenhithe, in the county of Kent. He was extremely regretted by such as were best acquainted with his merits, as appears by The library and manuscripts of Sir Thomas passed into the hands of his son and grandson; on whose decease his library was sold by auction. But the far greater portion of his MSS. together with those added by his son, were sold, I suppose, to Sir Hans Sloane. A catalogue of them is preserved in the Bodleian Library; by means of which, with the help of Sir Hans Sloane's MS. catalogue of his own immense collections, I have succeeded in identifying nearly all the articles, in our National Library at the British Museum. But this memoir has already extended so far beyond my intention, that I must refer my readers to the close of the fourth volume for my Account of the MS. Collections of Sir Thomas and Dr. Edward Browne. a very large character, which (says the writer of the article in the Biographia Britannica) I have been favoured with, and which was drawn up for the use of Dr. Harris, in case he had lived to publish the second part of his history of Kent. It was written by an old clergyman in Kent, out of pure zeal for the honour of that county; after whose death, it fell into the hands of the Rev. Mr. Knipe, from whom I had it several years ago. 'Though this gentleman was no native of Kent, yet having settled, and lived therein many years, and seeming to have fixed his family there, in case God had been pleased to continue it in the male line, he may well deserve a place amongst the Kentish worthies. He received from his father an earnest desire after useful and extensive science, which was the best inheritance he left to his son. It is wonderful, that knowing so many things as he did, he should know them all so thoroughly well. He was well acquainted with Hebrew; he was a critic in Greek; and no man of his age wrote better Latin; High-Dutch, Italian, French, &c. he spoke and wrote with as much ease as his mother-tongue. Physic was his business, and to the promotion thereof, all his other acquisitions were referred. Botany, Pharmacy and Chemistry he knew and practised. As to the latter, he inherited from his father the MSS. of Dr. A. Dee, among which too were some of John's; but his own lights went farther, and taught him, as some have thought, the whole Arcana of that mysterious science. In the company of the learned, his discourses were so academical, that he might be thought to have passed his days in a college. Amongst politer company, his behaviour was so easy and disengaged, you would have judged that he lived all his life in a court. With all this fund of knowledge, he was inquisitive, patient, and modest, heard with great attention, and spoke with much circumspection. In religion, zealous without bigotry, in politics, inflexible but without asperity or rudeness; in private life, affable, beneficent, and cheerful. In a word, he justified what King Charles said of him on a particular occasion, he was as learned as any of the College, and as well bred as any at Court. The nobility were fond of his company, his house was the resort of strangers; and, as he acquired the prudence of age without gray hairs, so when they came he kept up all the cheerfulness of youth.' 2 The following advertisement of the sale is from the Gentleman's Magazine for 1830, pt. i, p. 515:-"Sir Thos. Browne, Dec. 26, 1710. A catalogue of the libraries of the learned Sir Thomas Brown, and his son Dr. Brown, deceased, consisting of many very valuable and uncommon books in most faculties and languages, with choice manuscripts, which will begin to be sold by auction at the Black Boy Coffee-house, in Ave-Mary-Lane, near Ludgate, on Monday, the 8th of January next, beginning every Monday at 4 o'clock till the sale is ended. Catalogues are delivered at most booksellers in London, at the two Universities, and at the place of sale, price 6d." A copy of this catalogue exists in the British Museuni. I shall subjoin, in conclusion, a paper, which was pointed out to me by John Chambers, Esq. of Norwich, and which seems to possess some claim to be regarded as a document of authority. TO THE EDITOR OF THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. SIR, In a copy of the works of Sir Thomas Brown, printed in 1686, which formerly belonged to Dr. White Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, I find the following memorandum, in the hand-writing of that prelate. It contains circumstances not generally known, and may afford some information to the readers of the European Magazine. I am, fc. C. D. "MEMDUM, In the time of my waiting at Windsor, in the latter part of Nov. 1712, Mrs. Littleton, a daughter of Sir Thomas Brown, of Norwich, lent me a short account and character of her father, written by John Whitefoot, a minister well acquainted with him, the same person who preacht and publisht a funeral sermon for Bishop Hall.* It was contained in one sheet, 4to. beginning thus. 'Had my province been only to preach a funeral sermon for this excellent person, &c.' "All the matter of fact contained in the said account were in these words :[I omit the bishop's epitome, having already printed at large, in Johnson's Life, the whole account of Whitefoot, from which it was abridged.] 'This was "Thus ended the account, and after it was written by Mrs. Littleton. part of the life of Sir Thomas Brown, by that learned and good man, Mr. John Whitefoot.' And then follows, in the same hand of Mrs. Littleton. His father dying left him young; his mother took her thirds, which was three thousand pounds, and married Sir Thomas Dutton, a worthy person, who had great places. The executors took care of his education at Winchester school and Oxford. He lived some time in Montpellier and Padua. His father-in-law shewed him all Ireland in some visitation of the forts and castles. He was born Oct. 19, 1605. He died Oct. 19, 1682, 77 years of age. His father used to open his breast when he was asleep, and kiss it in prayers over him, as 'tis said of Origen's father, that the Holy Ghost would take possession there. His picture is at the Duke of Devonshire's house in Piccadilly, in his mother's lap. + His father, mother, brother, and sisters, in it. A family picture, his father being nearly related to that countess of Devonshire whose picture is in the first room with her three sons by her, and very like to Sir Thomas Brown's father, as the servants shew to persons who go to see the picture, which is so good painting, that my lord duke values it at four hundred pounds.' "Memdm, The said Mrs. Littleton reports that the MSS. papers of her father were in the hands of her late brother Dr. Edward Brown, who lent them in a box to Dr. Thomas Tenison, vicar of St. Martin's, in the reign of King James II, and that she herself, at her brother's request, went to fetch home the box, and accordingly brought it back, and delivered it to her brother, who soon after complained that he misst the choicest papers, which were a continuation of his Religio Medici, drawn up in his elder years, and which his son Dr. Brown had now intended to publish. She went back to Dr. Tenison, and desired him to look for those papers, which he could not find, but she hopes they may be still recovered, either as mislaid by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or by her brother, whose only daughter is married to Mr. Brigstock, a member of the House of Commons."-Eur. Mag. vol. xl, p. 89. His funeral sermon on Browne was never printed. In the Br. Mus. I find a MS. discourse of his on the question, "Whether the damned, after the last judgment, shall live in everlasting torments, or be utterly destroyed?"-in which, with great earnestness, he advocates the latter, as the more merciful alternative. It is among the Additional MSS. 6269, No. 31, with this title :-" Arcanum Theologicum. A Sceptical Discourse concerning the Everlasting Torments of Hell, by N. N. (Mr. Whitefoot, of Norwich.)" +"This picture was probably destroyed when Devonshire House was burnt some years afterwards." Grove, in his Lives of the Devonshire family, expressly says that "the library and the admirable collection of pictures, &c." were saved from this fire. I have seen that which is still considered to be the picture, though, through the mistake of Lord Walpole, it is called the portrait of Sir Thomas Browne and Family, by Dobson. It could not have been by that artist; who died before Sir Thomas had such a family, and was but ten years old at the date of the picture, supposing it that of Sir Thomas's father, of which the present paper is a very strong evidence. It might have been by Vansomer, who painted for the Devonshire family at about that period. END OF THE SUPPLEMENTARY MEMOIR. |