, the fragility
of women's beauty and men's strength, the change of the seasons, the
vicissitudes of empires, the impossibility of satisfying desire, the
disgust which follows satiety--these are, if any one chooses, commonplace
enough; yet it is the observation of all who have carefully studied
literature, and the experience of all who have observed their own thoughts,
that it is always in relation to these commonplaces that the most beautiful
expressions and the noblest sentiments arise. The uncommon thought is too
likely if not too certain to be an uncommon conceit, and if not worthless,
yet of inferior worth. Among prose writers Taylor is unequalled for his
touches of this universal material, for the genius with which he makes the
common uncommon. For instance, he has the supreme faculty of always making
the verbal and the intellectual presentation of the thought alike
beautiful, of appealing to the ear and the mind at the same time, of never
depriving the apple of gold of its picture of silver. Yet for all this the
charge of over-elaboration which may justly be brought against Browne very
rarely hits Taylor. He seldom or never has the appearance which ornate
writers of all times, and of his own more especially, so often have, of
going back on a thought or a phrase to try to better it--of being
stimulated by actual or fancied applause to cap the climax. His most
beautiful passages come quite suddenly and naturally as the subject
requires and as the thought strikes light in his mind. Nor are they ever,
as Milton's so often are, marred by a descent as rapid as their rise. He is
never below a certain decent level; he may return to earth from heaven, but
he goes no lower, and reaches even his lower level by a quiet and equable
sinking. As has been fully allowed, he has grave defects, the defects of
his time. But from some of these he was conspicuously free, and on the
whole no one in English prose (unless it be his successor here) has so much
command of the enchanter's wand as Jeremy Taylor.

Sir Thomas Browne was born in the heart of London in 1605, his father (of
whom little is known except one or two anecdotes corresponding with the
character of the son) having been a merchant of some property, and claiming
descent from a good family in Cheshire. This father died when he was quite
young, and Browne is said to have been cheated by his guardians; but he was
evidently at all times of his life in easy circumstances, and see