BROWNE, a lady of a good family in Norfolk. His famous work, entitled Religio Medici, first appeared in 1642. It was translated into Latin, and immediately procured for the author a European reputation. It was afterwards translated into almost every language in Europe. This singular work has been censured by some as inclining to infidelity, and even to atheism; while others, with better judgment, have applauded its religious tendency, as well as the ability and learning of the author. His well-known Treatise on Vulgar Errors, entitled Pseudodoxia Epidemica, was first published in 1646, and was received with equal applause. He also wrote a work called Hydriotopia, or a Discourse of Sepulchral Urns found in Norfolk, which appeared in 1658. Browne's reputation as a physician, also, was very high. In 1664 he was elected an honorary member of the Royal College of Physicians; and in 1671 he was knighted at Norwich by Charles II. He died at Norwich, on the anniversary of his birthday, in 1682, and left a considerable number of MSS., which were published under the title of "The Posthumous Works of the learned Sir Thomas Browne, Knt., M.D."
Browne's style has been characterized as vigorous but rugged, learned but pedantic. "It is not on the praises of others," Dr Johnson remarks, "but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity, of which he will not easily be deprived while learning shall have any reverence among men; for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill, and scarce any kind of knowledge, sacred or profane, abstruse or elegant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with success. His exuberance of knowledge and plentitude of ideas sometimes obstruct the tendency of his reasoning and the clearness of his decisions; on whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up immediately so many images before him, that he lost one by grasping another. His memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations; but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives delight; and the reader follows him without reluctance through his mazes, in themselves flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point originally in view."
Browne's entire works were published at London in 1836, by Simon Wilkins, in 4 vols. 8vo.