INTRODUCTION xxix 



Coleridge, and Walter Pater, who all agree upon this 



subject. 



Johnson writes 



In the production of this sport of fancy, he considers 

 every production of art and nature, in which he could find 

 any decussation or approach to the form of a Quincunx ; 

 and, as a man once resolved upon ideal discoveries seldom 

 searches long in vain, he finds his favourite figure in almost 

 everything, whether natural or invented, ancient or modern, 

 rude or artificial, sacred or civil ; so that a reader not watch- 

 ful against the power of his infusions would imagine that 

 decussation was the great business of the world, and that 

 nature and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and 

 imitate a Quincunx. 



Coleridge says 



Browne's ingenuity discovers Quincunxes in heaven above, 

 Quincunxes in earth below, Quincunxes in the mind of man, 

 Quincunxes in bones, in optic nerves, in roots of trees, in 

 leaves, in everything. 



And Walter Pater, in his urbane and gently guarded 

 way, as if loth to hurt Browne's feelings among the 

 Shades, but no less definitely, strikes the same note in 

 a passage of patrician prose : 



The Garden of Cyrus, though it ends indeed with a 

 passage of wonderful felicity, certainly emphasises (to say 

 the least) the defects of Browne's literary good qualities. 

 His chimeric fancy carries him here into a kind of frivolous- 

 ness, as if he felt almost too safe with his public, and were 

 himself not quite serious, or dealing fairly with it ; and in 

 a writer such as Browne levity must of necessity be a little 



