rm of a quincunx; and, as a man once resolved
upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his
favourite figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented,
ancient or modern, rude or artificial, sacred or civil; so that a
reader, not watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine
that decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature
and art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a quincunx.

To show the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
properties; and finds it in almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
to show how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
be sufficient: "though therein," says he, "we meet not with right
angles, yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right,
it virtually contains two right in every one."

The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have
watched, with great nicety, the evolution of the parts of plants from
their seminal principles.

He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five
kinds of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders
of architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was
the ancient conjugal, or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation,
which I shall give in his own words: "the ancient numerists made out
the conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity,
the active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
generative societies."

These are all the tracts which he published. But many papers were
found in his closet: "some of them," says Whitefoot, "designed for the
press, were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the
fashion of great and curious writers."

Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tenison, the
other, in 1722, by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
selected those pieces, which the author would have preferred, cannot
be known; but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
of lea