was proclaimed one of the
greatest books in literature. A few scholars still explore it with delight,
as a mine of classic wealth; but the style is hopelessly involved, and to
the ordinary reader most of his numerous references are now as unmeaning as
a hyper-jacobian surface.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682). Browne was a physician who, after much study
and travel, settled down to his profession in Norwich; but even then he
gave far more time to the investigation of natural phenomena than to the
barbarous practices which largely constituted the "art" of medicine in his
day. He was known far and wide as a learned doctor and an honest man, whose
scientific studies had placed him in advance of his age, and whose
religious views were liberal to the point of heresy. With this in mind, it
is interesting to note, as a sign of the times, that this most scientific
doctor was once called to give "expert" testimony in the case of two old
women who were being tried for the capital crime of witchcraft. He
testified under oath that "the fits were natural, but heightened by the
devil's cooeperating with the witches, at whose instance he [the alleged
devil] did the villainies."

Browne's great work is the _Religio Medici_, i.e. The Religion of a
Physician (1642), which met with most unusual success. "Hardly ever was a
book published in Britain," says Oldys, a chronicler who wrote nearly a
century later, "that made more noise than the _Religio Medici_." Its
success may be due largely to the fact that, among thousands of religious
works, it was one of the few which saw in nature a profound revelation, and
which treated purely religious subjects in a reverent, kindly, tolerant
way, without ecclesiastical bias. It is still, therefore, excellent
reading; but it is not so much the matter as the manner--the charm, the
gentleness, the remarkable prose style--which has established the book as
one of the classics of our literature.

Two other works of Browne are _Vulgar Errors_ (1646), a curious combination
of scientific and credulous research in the matter of popular superstition,
and _Urn Burial_, a treatise suggested by the discovery of Roman burial
urns at Walsingham. It began as an inquiry into the various methods of
burial, but ended in a dissertation on the vanity of earthly hope and
ambitions. From a literary point of view it is Browne's best work, but is
less read than the _Religio Medici_.

THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661). Fuller was a cl