The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Religio Medici^ was written about 1635 as an intimate and private expression of Browne's religious beliefs and temper, and was intended only for himself and one or two friends. At about the same time, according to his own statement, he wrote some other pieces "of afBnitie thereto" which we should like to have, but which he never pubhshed and probably destroyed in consequence of what he seems to have felt was the notoriety of Religio Medici. Although not quite thirty, Browne could risk "calling him selfe a scholler." This unexhilarating phrase throws little light on the quality of a book that still interests its readers most strongly as the clouded revelation of an unusual and enigmatic personality. But it may remind us that the author was a young man of bookish and scholarly interests who, though now a doctor probably waiting for patients, had not long before gone through the still largely scholastic training of Oxford, followed by three years of further study in Europe. According to Browne's own statement, which there is no reason to disbelieve, the piece was "communicated" to a friend, who obviously liked it enough to pass it on, so that "it became common to many." By the time it was printed, piratically, in 1642, seven years after its composition, it had been often transcribed. No autograph version is known, but there are eight surviving manuscript copies, one very incomplete, and none textually satisfactory. Browne himself spoke of successive corruption, as the text was copied and circulated, until a "most depraved" copy was used for the pirated printed texts. He may or must have known that his book was privately circulating, but was very emphatic that any reader could see that it had never been intended for the press. Again we should believe him. Once it had been printed in a bad text, and pubhcly ^FuD titles of books or articles cited briefly will be found in the Selected Bibliography, and further comments on individual works in the Notes and Commentary.