SIR THOMAS BROWNE AND SIR KENELM DIGBY.
Amongst the physicians of the seventeenth century were three
Brownes--father, son, and grandson. The father wrote the "Religio
Medici," and the "Pseudoxia Epidemica"--a treatise on vulgar errors.
The son was the traveller, and author of "Travels in Hungaria, Servia,
Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola,
Friuli &c.," and the translator of the Life of Themistocles in the
English version of "Plutarch's Lives" undertaken by Dryden. He was
also a physician of Bartholomew's, and a favourite physician of
Charles II., who on one occasion said of him, "Doctor Browne is as
learned as any of the college, and as well bred as any of the court."
The grandson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and, like his father
and grandfather, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; but he
was by no means worthy of his distinguished progenitors. Alike unknown
in literature, science, and art, he was a miserable sot, and was
killed by a fall from his horse, between Southfleet and Gravesend,
when in a state of intoxication. He was thus cut off in the July of
1710, having survived his father not quite two years.
The author of the "Religio Medici" enjoys as good a chance of an
immortality of fame as any of his contemporaries. The child of a
London merchant, who left him a comfortable fortune, Thomas Browne was
from the beginning of his life (Oct. 19, 1605) to its close (Oct. 19,
1682), well placed amongst the wealthier of those who occupied the
middle way of life. From Winchester College, where his schoolboy days
were spent, he proceeded to the University of Oxford, becoming a
member of Broadgates Hall, i.e., Pembroke College--the college of
Blackstone, Shenstone, and Samuel Johnson. After taking his B.A. and
M.A. degrees, he turned his attention to medicine, and for some time
practised as a physician in Oxfordshire. Subsequently to this he
travelled over different parts of Europe, visiting France, Italy, and
Holland, and taking a degree of Doctor in Physic at Leyden. Returning
to England, he settled at Norwich, married a rich and beautiful
Norfolk lady, named Mileham; and for the rest of his days resided in
that ancient city, industriously occupied with an extensive practice,
the pursuits of literature, and the education of his children. When
Charles II. visited Norwich in 1671, Thomas Browne, M.D., was knighted
by the royal hand. This honour, little as a man of letters would now
esteem it, was highly prized by the philosopher. He thus alludes to it
in his "Antiquities of Norwich"--"And it is not for some wonder, that
Norwich having been for so long a time so considerable a place, so few
kings have visited it; of which number among so many monarchs since
the Conquest we find but four; viz., King Henry III., Edward I.,
Queen Elizabeth, and our gracious sovereign now reigning, King Charles
II., of which I had a particular reason to take notice."
Amongst the Norfolk people Sir Thomas was very popular, his suave and
unobtrusive manners securing him many friends, and his philosophic
moderation of temper saving him from ever making an enemy. The honour
conferred on him was a subject of congratulation--even amongst his
personal friends, when his back was turned. The Rev. John Whitefoot,
M.A., Rector of Heigham, in Norfolk, in his "Minutes for the Life of
Sir Thomas Browne," says, that had it been his province to preach his
funeral sermon, he should have taken his text from an uncanonical
book--"I mean that of Syracides, or Jesus, the son of Syrach, commonly
called Ecclesiasticus, which, in the 38th chapter, and the first
verse, hath these words, 'Honour a physician with the honour due unto
him; for the uses which you may have of him, for the Lord hath created
him; for of the Most High cometh healing, and he shall receive Honour
of the King' (as ours did that of knighthood from the present King,
when he was in this city). 'The skill of the physician shall lift up
his head, and in the sight of great men shall he be in admiration'; so
was this worthy person by the greatest man of this nation that ever
came into this country, by whom also he was frequently and personally
visited."
Widely and accurately read in ancient and modern literature, and
possessed of numerous accomplishments, Sir Thomas Browne was in
society diffident almost to shyness. "His modesty," says Whitefoot,
"was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was increased upon the
least occasion, and oft discovered without any observable cause. Those
who knew him only by the briskness of his writings were astonished at
his gravity of aspect and countenance, and freedom from loquacity." As
was his manner, so was his dress. "In his habit of cloathing he had an
aversion to all finery, and affected plainness both in fashion and
ornaments."
The monuments of Sir Thomas and his lady are in the church of St.
Peter's, Mancroft, Norwich, where they were buried. Some years since
Sir Thomas Browne's tomb was opened for the purpose of submitting it
to repair, when there was discovered on his coffin a plate, of which
Dr. Diamond, who happened at the time to be in Norwich, took two
rubbings, one of which is at present in the writer's custody. It bears
the following interesting inscription:--"Amplissimus vir Dr. Thomas
Browne Miles Medicinæ Dr. Annos Natus et Denatus 19 Die Mensis Anno
Dmi., 1682--hoc loculo indormiens corporis spagyrici pulvere plumbum
in aurum convertit."
The "Religio Medici" not only created an unprecedented sensation by
its erudition and polished style, but it shocked the nervous guardians
of orthodoxy by its boldness of inquiry. It was assailed for its
infidelity and scientific heresies. According to Coleridge's view of
the "Religio Medici," Sir Thomas Browne, "a fine mixture of humourist,
genius, and pedant," was a Spinosist without knowing it. "Had he,"
says the poet, "lived nowadays, he would probably have been a very
ingenious and bold infidel in his real opinions, though the kindness
of his nature would have kept him aloof from vulgar, prating,
obtrusive infidelity."
Amongst the adverse critics of the "Religio Medici" was the eccentric,
gallant, brave, credulous, persevering, frivolous, Sir Kenelm Digby. A
Mæcenas, a Sir Philip Sydney, a Dr. Dee, a Beau Fielding, and a Dr.
Kitchener, all in one, this man is chief of those extravagant
characters that astonish the world at rare intervals, and are found
nowhere except in actual life. No novelist of the most advanced
section of the idealistic school would dare to create such a personage
as Sir Kenelm. The eldest son of the ill-fated Sir Everard Digby, he
was scarcely three years old when his father atoned on the scaffold
for his share in the gunpowder treason. Fortunately a portion of the
family estate was entailed, so Sir Kenelm, although the offspring of
attainted blood, succeeded to an ample revenue of about £3000 a-year.
In 1618 (when only in his fifteenth year) he entered Gloucester Hall,
now Worcester College, Oxford. In 1621 he commenced foreign travel. He
attended Charles I. (then Prince of Wales) at the Court of Madrid; and
returning to England in 1623, was knighted by James I. at
Hinchinbroke, the house of Lord Montague, on the 23rd of October in
that year. From that period he was before the world as courtier, cook,
lover, warrior, alchemist, political intriguer, and man of letters. He
became a gentleman of the bedchamber, and commissioner of the navy. In
1628 he obtained a naval command, and made his brilliant expedition
against the Venetians and Algerians, whose galleys he routed off
Scanderon. This achievement is celebrated by his client and friend,
Ben Jonson:--
"Though, happy Muse, thou know my Digby well,
Yet read in him these lines: he doth excel
In honour, courtesy, and all the parts
Court can call hero, or man could call his arts.
He's prudent, valiant, just, and temperate;
In him all virtue is beheld in state;
And he is built like some imperial room
For that to dwell in, and be still at home.
His breast is a brave palace, a broad street,
Where all heroic, ample thoughts do meet;
Where nature such a large survey hath ta'en,
As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane:
Witness his action done at Scanderoon
Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June."
Returning from war, he became once more the student, presenting in
1632 the library he had purchased of his friend Allen, to the Bodleian
Library, and devoting his powers to the mastery of controversial
divinity. Having in 1636 entered the Church of Rome, he resided for
some time abroad. Amongst his works at this period were his
"Conference with a Lady about the Choice of Religion," published in
1638, and his "Letters between Lord George Digby and Sir Kenelm Digby,
Knt., concerning Religion," not published till 1651. It is difficult
to say to which he was most devoted--his King, his Church, literature,
or his beautiful and frail wife, Venetia Stanley, whose charms
fascinated the many admirers on whom she distributed her favours, and
gained her Sir Kenelm for a husband when she was the discarded
mistress of Richard, Earl of Dorset. She had borne the Earl children,
so his Lordship on parting settled on her an annuity of £500 per
annum. After her marriage, this annuity not being punctually paid, Sir
Kenelm sued the Earl for it. Well might Mr. Lodge say, "By the
frailties of that lady much of the noblest blood of England was
dishonoured, for she was the daughter of Sir Edward Stanley, Knight
of the Bath, grandson of the great Edward, Earl of Derby, by Lucy,
daughter and co-heir of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland." Such
was her unfair fame. "The _fair fame_ left to Posterity of that Truly
Noble Lady, the Lady Venetia Digby, late wife of Sir Kenelm Digby,
Knight, a Gentleman Absolute in all Numbers," is embalmed in the clear
verses of Jonson. Like Helen, she is preserved to us by the sacred
poet.
"Draw first a cloud, all save her neck,
And out of that make day to break;
Till like her face it do appear,
And men may think all light rose there."
In other and more passionate terms Sir Kenelm painted the same charms
in his "Private Memoirs."
But if Sir Kenelm was a chivalric husband, he was not a less loyal
subject. How he avenged in France the honour of his King, on the body
of a French nobleman, may be learnt in a curious tract, "Sir Kenelme
Digby's Honour Maintained. By a most courageous combat which he fought
with Lord Mount le Ros, who by base and slanderous words reviled our
King. Also the true relation how he went to the King of France, who
kindly intreated him, and sent two hundred men to guard him so far as
Flanders. And now he is returned from Banishment, and to his eternall
honour lives in England."
Sir Kenelm's "Observations upon Religio Medici," are properly
characterized by Coleridge as those of a pedant. They were written
whilst he was kept a prisoner, by order of the Parliament, in
Winchester House; and the author had the ludicrous folly to assert
that he both read the "Religio Medici" through for the first time,
and wrote his bulky criticism upon it, in less than twenty-four hours.
Of all the claims that have been advanced by authors for the
reputation of being rapid workmen, this is perhaps the most audacious.
For not only was the task one that at least would require a month, but
the impudent assertion that it was accomplished in less than a day and
night was contradicted by the title-page, in which "the observations"
are described as "occasionally written." Beckford's vanity induced him
to boast that "Vathek" was composed at one sitting of two days and
three nights; but this statement--outrageous falsehood though it
be--was sober truth compared with Sir Kenelm's brag.
But of all Sir Kenelm's vagaries, his Sympathetic Powder was the
drollest. The composition, revealed after the Knight's death by his
chemist and steward, George Hartman, was effected in the following
manner:--English vitriol was dissolved in warm water; this solution
was filtered, and then evaporated till a thin scum appeared on the
surface. It was then left undisturbed and closely covered in a cool
place for two or three days, when fair, green, and large crystals were
evolved. "Spread these crystals," continues the chemist, "abroad in a
large flat earthen dish, and expose them to the heat of the sun in the
dog-days, turning them often, and the sun will calcine them white;
when you see them all white without, beat them grossly, and expose
them again to the sun, securing them from the rain; when they are well
calcined, powder them finely, and expose this powder again to the sun,
turning and stirring it often. Continue this until it be reduced to a
white powder, which put up in a glass, and tye it up close, and keep
it in a dry place."
The virtues of this powder were unfolded by Sir Kenelm, in a French
oration delivered to "a solemn assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at
Montpellier, in France." It cured wounds in the following manner:--If
any piece of a wounded person's apparel, having on it the stain of
blood that had proceeded from the wound, was dipped in water holding
in solution some of this sympathetic powder, the wound of the injured
person would forthwith commence a healing process. It mattered not how
far distant the sufferer was from the scene of operation. Sir Kenelm
gravely related the case of his friend Mr. James Howel, the author of
the "Dendrologia," translated into French by Mons. Baudoin. Coming
accidentally on two of his friends whilst they were fighting a duel
with swords, Howel endeavoured to separate them by grasping hold of
their weapons. The result of this interference was to show the perils
that
"Environ
The man who meddles with cold iron."
His hands were severely cut, insomuch that some four or five days
afterwards, when he called on Sir Kenelm, with his wounds plastered
and bandaged up, he said his surgeons feared the supervention of
gangrene. At Sir Kenelm's request, he gave the knight a garter which
was stained with his blood. Sir Kenelm took it, and without saying
what he was about to do, dipped it in a solution of his powder of
vitriol. Instantly the sufferer started.
"What ails you?" cried Sir Kenelm.
"I know not what ails me," was the answer; "but I find that I feel no
more pain. Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a
cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the
inflammation that tormented me before."
"Since that you feel," rejoined Sir Kenelm, "already so good an effect
of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your plaisters. Only
keep the wound clean, and in moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold."
Mr. Howel went away, sounding the praises of his physician; and the
Duke of Buckingham, hearing what had taken place, hastened to Sir
Kenelm's house to talk about it. The Duke and Knight dined together;
when, after dinner, the latter, to show his guest the wondrous power
of his powder, took the garter out of the solution, and dried it
before the fire. Scarcely was it dry, when Mr. Howel's servant ran in
to say that his master's hand was worse than ever--burning hot, as if
"it were betwixt coales of fire." The messenger was dismissed with the
assurance that ere he reached home his master would be comfortable
again. On the man retiring, Sir Kenelm put the garter back into the
solution--the result of which was instant relief to Mr. Howel. In six
days the wounds were entirely healed. This remarkable case occurred in
London, during the reign of James the First. "King James," says Sir
Kenelm, "required a punctuall information of what had passed touching
this cure; and, after it was done and perfected, his Majesty would
needs know of me how it was done--having drolled with me first (which
he could do with a very good grace) about a magician and sorcerer." On
the promise of inviolable secrecy, Sir Kenelm communicated the secret
to his Majesty; "whereupon his Majesty made sundry proofs, whence he
received singular satisfaction."
The secret was also communicated by Sir Kenelm to Mayerne, through
whom it was imparted to the Duke of Mayerne--"a long time his friend
and protector." After the Duke's death, his surgeon communicated it to
divers people of quality; so that, ere long, every country-barber was
familiar with the discovery. The mention made of Mayerne in the
lecture is interesting, as it settles a point on which Dr. Aikin had
no information; viz.,--Whether Sir Theodore's Barony of Aubonne was
hereditary or acquired? Sir Kenelm says, "A little while after the
Doctor went to France, to see some fair territories that he had
purchased near Geneva, which was the Barony of Aubonne."
For a time the Sympathetic Powder was very generally believed in; and
it doubtless did as much good as harm, by inducing people to throw
from their wounds the abominable messes of grease and irritants which
were then honoured with the name of plaisters. "What is this?" asked
Abernethy, when about to examine a patient with a pulsating tumour,
that was pretty clearly an aneurism.
"Oh! that is a plaister," said the family doctor.
"Pooh!" said Abernethy, taking it off, and pitching it aside.
"That was all very well," said the physician, on describing the
occurrence; "but that 'pooh' took several guineas out of my pocket."
Fashionable as the Sympathetic Powder was for several years, it fell
into complete disrepute in this country before the death of Sir
Kenelm. Hartman, the Knight's attached servant, could, of his own
experience, say nothing more for it than, when dissolved in water, it
was a useful astringent lotion in cases of bleeding from the nose; but
he mentions a certain "Mr. Smith, in the city of Augusta, in Germany,
who told me that he had a great respect for Sir D. K.'s books, and
that he made his sympatheticall powder every year, and did all his
chiefest cures with it in green wounds, with much greater ease to the
patient than if he had used ointments or plaisters."
In 1643 Sir Kenelm Digby was released from the confinement to which he
had been subjected by the Parliament. The condition of his liberty was
that he forthwith retired to the Continent--having previously pledged
his word as a Christian and a gentleman, in no way to act or plot
against the Parliament. In France he became a celebrity of the highest
order. Returning to England with the Restoration, he resided in "the
last fair house westward in the north portico of Covent Garden," and
became the centre of literary and scientific society. He was appointed
a member of the council of the Royal Society, on the incorporation of
that learned body in the year 1663. His death occurred in his
sixty-second year, on the 11th of June, 1665; and his funeral took
place in Christ's Church, within Newgate, where, several years before,
he had raised a splendid tomb to the memory of the lovely and
abandoned Venetia. His epitaph, by the pen of R. Ferrar, is concise,
and not too eulogistic for a monumental inscription:--
"Under this tomb the matchless Digby lies--
Digby the great, the valiant, and the wise;
This age's wonder for his noble parts,
Skill'd in six tongues, and learned in all the arts.
Born on the day he died--the Eleventh of June--
And that day bravely fought at Scanderoon.
It's rare that one and the same day should be
His day of birth, and death, and victory."
After his death, with the approval of his son, was published (1669),
"The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie, Kt., Opened:
Whereby is discovered Several ways for making of Metheglin, Sider,
Cherry-Wine, &c.; together with excellent Directions for Cookery: as
also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c." The frontispiece of
this work is a portrait of Sir Kenelm, with a shelf over his head,
adorned with his five principal works, entitled, "Plants," "Sym.
Powder," "His Cookery," "Rects. in Physick, &c.," "Sr. K. Digby of
Bodyes."
In Sir Kenelm's receipts for cookery the gastronome would find
something to amuse him, and more to arouse his horror. Minced pies are
made (as they still are amongst the homely of some counties) of
_meat_, raisins, and spices, mixed. Some of the sweet dishes very
closely resemble what are still served on English tables. The potages
are well enough. But the barley-puddings, pear-puddings, and oat-meal
puddings give ill promise to the ear. It is recommended to batter up a
couple of eggs and a lot of brown sugar in a cup of tea;--a not less
impious profanation of the sacred leaves than that committed by the
Highlanders, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, who, ignorant of the
proper mode of treating a pound of fragrant Bohea, served it up
in--melted butter!