xxxii INTRODUCTION 



Sir Thomas Browne's work perhaps suffers less by 

 abridgment than that of most great writers. 



His first Editor, Archbishop Tenison, expressly 

 forbears to range his Tract on " Plants " as a studied 

 and formal work, " which is but a collection of 

 Occasional Essays " ; and reminds us that " these 

 essays being letters, men are not wont to set down 

 oracles in every line they write to their acquaint- 

 ance." On one point I venture to differ from most 

 modern critics who look upon " The Garden of 

 Cyrus " as a piece of solemn jesting or deliberate 

 trifling on the part of its author. In my opinion, 

 Browne was in deadly earnest about his Quincunx. 

 His brain on this subject appears to have been fashioned 

 of the same fibre, as I imagine those of the old believers 

 in Astrology and Alchemy to have been. In some 

 respects Browne's ideas belonged rather to the 

 mediaeval than to the post-Baconian period the 

 age in which indistinct ideas of authority, dogmatism 

 and mysticism were so curiously mingled, when the 

 belief in magic and witchcraft was still a prevalent form 

 of superstition, 1 and when, as Whewell says, "men 



1 See Mr. E. Clodd's admirable exposition of the Magic- 

 Problem in his article on "Magic and Religion " (Q. R., 

 July 1907). 



