naturalized by using it myself; and if the public approves of it, the bill passes.'

When, as in Vulgar Errors, Browne required new expressions for new ideas, he borrowed or coined such words as lapidifical, congelation, supernatation, effluency, stillicidious, australise, while elsewhere in his works are found discruciating, quodlibetically, sollicitudinous, improperations, and so on. The words look worst in a list, but they are bad enough in their context, as in Vulgar Errors, II. I:

"That which is concreted by exsiccation or expression of humidity, will be resolved by humectation, as Earth, Dirt, and Clay; that which is coagulated by a fiery siccity, will suffer colliquation from an aqueous humidity, as Salt and Sugar...."

An examination of other seventeenth-century writers discloses such words as deturpated, digladiation, clancularly, immorigerous, intenerate, vadimonial. The notes to Hydriotaphia show that many of the censured words are also found in contemporary writers. They as well as Browne have in numerous instances failed to secure for their coinages the approval of the public. The age was an age o of experiment. During the whole of Browne's lifetime a sifting of the literary vocabulary was in progress, which resulted in the disappearance of a large number of words, chiefly those derived from Latin in the sixteenth century and the seventeenth.

Browne, however, employed words of Latin origin not merely to express new ideas but also, as Saintsbury puts it, for their pomp and pageantry or for their sonorous qualities; e.g. "the Sun, Moon, and Stars, in their Clarity and proper Courses"; or "to behold this Exantlation of Truth." Even Gosse does not disapprove of "the hill and asperous way, which leadeth unto the House of Sanity." If Browne is blameworthy, why does Shakespeare escape for the famous passage:

"No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine?"

Incarnadine is a Shakespearian coinage which has not come into general use.

Again Browne is charged with employing words, not in their usual sense in English, but in a Latin sense; as when he gives eminently (p. 26) the meaning of aloft in space. But Shakespeare's "extravagant and erring spirit" cannot be interpreted properly except by those acquainted with Latin. What of Jeremy Taylor's insolent =unusual, and extant standing out in relief?

=

A final censure is Browne's injuring of English idiom by the use of Latin constructions; as (p. 13): “Then the time of these Urnes deposited." This was a favourite Latinism with Milton; e.g. Paradise Lost, I. 573, "for never, since created Man." Indeed, in the use of Latin constructions, Browne is less blameworthy than Taylor or Milton. A. W. Ward speaks of "the fact (which I suppose will hardly be disputed) that the Latinism of Milton's style was more marked than that of any other great writer's of this period."

It is a mistake to think that Browne cannot write without a vocabulary of uncouth Latin words. He can be blunt and colloquial: see "rake the bowels of Potosi," p. I. His familiar letters to his sons are models of the plain conversational style. His correspondence with learned contemporaries is naturally in a more elevated key. His other writings show many passages of straightforward idiomatic English; as Religio Medici, 1, § 36 ad finem; § 47. Again, when he rises higher, bursting into mighty organ-tones, as in the last chapter of Hydriotaphia, pp. 43 sqq., there is no excessive Latinism; and where swelling Latin words do appear, they find appropriate place.

Browne's reputation has suffered because some critics have drawn examples from Christian Morals only, and have spoken as if he had no style except its style-the latinised. Christian Morals never received his final revision; and we know that he revised and re-revised.

t

HYDRIOTAPHIA: URNE

BURIAL

Or, a brief Discourse of the Sepul-
chrall Urnes lately found in Norfolk

1. In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfie some enquirers; who, if two or three yards were open about the surface, would not care to rake the bowels of Potosi, and regions towards the Centre. Nature hath furnished one part of the Earth, and man another. The treasures of time lie high, in Urnes, Coynes, and Monuments, scarce below the roots of some vegetables. Time hath endlesse rarities, and shows of all varieties; which reveals old things in heaven, makes new discoveries in earth, and even earth it self a discovery. That great antiquity America lay buried for thousands of years; and a large part of the earth is still in the Urne unto us.

Though if Adam were made out of an extract of the Earth, all parts might challenge a restitution, yet few have returned their bones far lower than they might receive them; not affecting the graves of Giants under hilly and heavy coverings, but content with lesse then their own depth, have wished their bones might lie soft, and the earth be light upon them; Even such as hope to rise again, would not be content with central interrment, or so desperately to place their reliques

M. H.

I

as to lie beyond discovery, and in no way to be seen again; which happy contrivance hath made communication with our forefathers, and left unto our view some parts, which they never beheld themselves.

Though earth hath engrossed the name yet water hath proved the smartest grave; which in fourty dayes swallowed almost mankinde, and the living creation; Fishes not wholly escaping, except the salt Ocean were handsomly contempered by a mixture of the fresh Element.

Many have taken voluminous pains to determine the state of the soul upon disunion; but men have been most phantastical in the singular contrivances of their corporall dissolution: whilest the soberest Nations have rested in two wayes, of simple inhumation and burning.

That carnal interrment or burying, was of the elder date, the old examples of Abraham and the Patriarches are sufficient to illustrate; And were without competition, if it could be made out, that Adam was buried near Damascus, or Mount Calvary, according to some Tradition. God himself that buried but one, was pleased to make choice of this way, collectible from Scripture-expression, and the hot contest between Satan and the Arch-Angel, about discovering the body of Moses. But the practice of Burning was also of great Antiquity, and of no slender extent. For (not to derive the same from Hercules) noble descriptions there are hereof in the Grecian Funerale of Homer, in the formal Obsequies of Patroclus, and Achilles; and somewhat elder in the Theban war, and solemn com

bustion of Meneceus, and Archemorus, contemporary unto Jair the Eighth Judge of Israel. Confirmable also among the Trojans, from the Funeral Pyre of Hector, burnt before the gates of Troy, and the burning of Penthesilea the Amazonian Queen: and long continuance of that practice in the inward Countries of Asia; while as low as the Reign of Julian, we finde that the King of Chionia burnt the body of his Son, and interred the ashes in a silver Urne.

The same practice extended also far West, and besides Herulians, Getes, and Thracians, was in use with most of the Celta, Sarmatians, Germans, Gauls, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians; not to omit some use thereof among Carthaginians and Americans: Of greater antiquity among the Romans then most opinion, or Pliny seems to allow. For (beside the old Table Laws of burning or burying within the City, of making the Funeral fire with plained wood, or quenching the fire with wine) Manlius the Consul burnt the body of his son: Numa by special clause of his will, was not burnt but buried; And Remus was solemnly burned, according to the description of Ovid.

Cornelius Sylla was not the first whose body was burned in Rome, but of the Cornelian Family, which being indifferently, not frequently used before; from that time spread and became the prevalent practice. Not totally pursued in the highest run of Cremation; For when even Crows were funerally burnt, Poppaa the wife of Nero found a peculiar grave enterment. Now as all customs were founded upon some bottom of Reason, so there wanted not grounds for this;