it
is, he mistook for settled resolution.

"That there were not many extant, that, in a noble way, feared the
face of death less than himself," he might, likewise, believe at a
very easy expense, while death was yet at a distance; but the time
will come, to every human being, when it must be known how well he can
bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not
desert him in the great hour of trial.

It was observed, by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
"the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
temptation to flattery.

But it is not on the praises of others, 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, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.

His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude 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.

"To have great excellencies and great faults, 'magnae; virtutes nee
minora vitia,' is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures."
This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne; it is
vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
allure; his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth.

He fell into an age in which our language began to lose the stability
which it had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by
every writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
moulding it according