xxxiv INTRODUCTION 



least we feel that Browne belongs to the breed of the 

 Cyclopes that muscular and monocular race of literary 

 giants, huge of biceps, if deficient in vision and subtlety, 

 of whom Johnson was the last and greatest repre- 

 sentative. But we are mixing our metaphors, and 

 'deranging our epitaphs." 



Browne's interpretation of Scriptural plants may not 

 always be right according to the latest acceptance of 

 modern science and criticism, but he makes us think 

 and question, and thus suggests that nothing is final in 

 science or literature, that there is no literal and verbal 

 infallibility. 



We may learn from him that every age requires to 

 re-investigate and re-discover the truth for itself 

 even scientific truth being for the most part only relative 

 to its age and knowledge and not as so many of its 

 exponents think absolute and final. 



If Browne was credulous in some things, in others 

 he possessed the true and fertile spirit of scientific 

 scepticism let us rather say, of investigation ; and no 

 one has more urbanely expressed the virtue of this 

 spirit as distinguished from the letter of dogmatism : 

 M And so observing this variety of interpretations 

 concerning common and known plants among us, 

 you may more reasonably doubt with what propriety 



