The Works of Sir Thomas Browne Volume III Part 35

10. A small Viol of Water taken out of the Stones therefore called _Enhydri_, which naturally include a little Water in them, in like manner as the _aet.i.tes_ or _Aegle_ Stone doth another Stone.

11. A neat painted and gilded Cup made out of the _Confiti di Tivoli_ and formed up with powder'd Egg-sh.e.l.ls; as _Nero_ is conceived to have made his _Piscina admirabilis_, singular against Fluxes to drink often therein.

12. The Skin of a Snake bred out of the Spinal Marrow of a Man.

13. Vegetable Horns mentioned by _Linschoten_, which set in the ground grow up like Plants about _Goa_.

14. An extract of the Inck of Cuttle Fishes reviving the old remedy of _Hippocrates_ in Hysterical Pa.s.sions.

15. Spirits and Salt of _Sarga.s.so_ made in the Western Ocean covered with that Vegetable; excellent against the Scurvy.

16. An extract of _Cachunde_ or _Liberans_ that famous and highly magnified Composition in the _East Indies_ against Melancholy.

17. _Diarhizon mirific.u.m_; or an unparallel'd Composition of the most effectual and wonderfull Roots in Nature.

? _Rad. Butuae Cuamensis.

Rad. Moniche Cuamensis.

Rad. Mongus Bazainensis.

Rad. Casei Baizanensis.

Rad. Columbae Mozambiguensis.

Gim Sem Sinicae.

Fo Lim lac Tigridis dictae.

Fo seu.

Cort. Rad. Soldae.

Rad. Ligni Solorani.

Rad. Malacensis madrededios dictae an._ ?ij.

_M. fiat pulvis, qui c.u.m gelatina Cornu cervi Moschati Chinensis formetur in ma.s.sas oviformes._

18. A transcendent Perfume made of the richest Odorates of both the _Indies_, kept in a Box made of the Muschie Stone of _Niarienburg_, with this Inscription,

----_Deos rogato Totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, Nasum._

19. A _Clepselaea_, or Oil Hour-gla.s.s, as the Ancients used those of Water.

20. A Ring found in a Fishes Belly taken about _Gorro_; conceived to be the same wherewith the Duke of _Venice_ had wedded the Sea.

21. A neat Crucifix made out of the cross Bone of a Frogs Head.

22. A large Agath containing a various and careless Figure, which looked upon by a Cylinder representeth a perfect Centaur. By some such advantages King _Pyrrhus_ might find out _Apollo_ and the nine Muses in those Agaths of his whereof _Pliny_ maketh mention.

23. _Batrachomyomachia_, or the Homerican Battel between Frogs and Mice, neatly described upon the Chizel Bone of a large Pike's Jaw.

24. _Pyxis Pandorae_, or a Box which held the _Unguentum Pestiferum_, which by anointing the Garments of several persons begat the great and horrible Plague of _Milan_.

25. A Gla.s.s of Spirits made of aethereal Salt, Hermetically sealed up, kept continually in Quick-silver; of so volatile a nature that it will scarce endure the Light, and therefore onely to be shown in Winter, or by the light of a Carbuncle, or Bononian Stone.

He who knows where all this Treasure now is, is a great _Apollo_. I'm sure I am not He. However, I am,

_Sir, Yours_, etc.

A LETTER to a FRIEND upon occasion of the DEATH OF HIS Intimate Friend 1690

A LETTER TO A FRIEND, Upon Occasion of the Death of his Intimate Friend.

Give me leave to wonder that News of this Nature should have such heavy Wings that you should hear so little concerning your dearest Friend, and that I must make that unwilling Repet.i.tion to tell you, _Ad portam rigidos calces extendit_, that he is Dead and Buried, and by this time no Puny among the mighty Nations of the Dead; for tho' he left this World not very many Days past, yet every Hour you know largely addeth unto that dark Society; and considering the incessant Mortality of Mankind, you cannot conceive there dieth in the whole Earth so few as a thousand an Hour.

Altho' at this distance you had no early Account or Particular of his Death; yet your Affection may cease to wonder that you had not some secret Sense or Intimation thereof by Dreams, thoughtful Whisperings, Mercurisms, Airy Nuncio's, or sympathetical Insinuations, which many seem to have had at the Death of their dearest Friends: for since we find in that famous Story, that Spirits themselves were fain to tell their Fellows at a distance, that the great _Antonio_ was dead; we have a sufficient Excuse for our Ignorance in such Particulars, and must rest content with the common Road, and _Appian_ way of Knowledge by Information. Tho' the uncertainty of the End of this World hath confounded all Human Predictions; yet they who shall live to see the Sun and Moon darkned, and the Stars to fall from Heaven, will hardly be deceiv'd in the Advent of the last Day; and therefore strange it is, that the common Fallacy of consumptive Persons, who feel not themselves dying, and therefore still hope to live, should also reach their Friends in perfect Health and Judgment. That you should be so little acquainted with _Plautus's_ sick Complexion, or that almost an _Hippocratical_ Face should not alarum you to higher fears, or rather despair of his Continuation in such an emaciated State, wherein medical Predictions fail not, as sometimes in acute Diseases, and wherein 'tis as dangerous to be sentenc'd by a Physician as a Judge.

Upon my first Visit I was bold to tell them who had not let fall all Hopes of his Recovery, that in my sad Opinion he was not like to behold a Grashopper, much less to pluck another Fig; and in no long time after seem'd to discover that odd mortal Symptom in him not mention'd by _Hippocrates_, that is, to lose his own Face, and look like some of his near Relations; for he maintain'd not his proper Countenance, but look'd like his Uncle, the Lines of whose Face lay deep and invisible in his healthful Visage before: For as from our beginning we run through Variety of Looks, before we come to consistent and setled Faces; so before our End, by sick and languishing alterations, we put on new Visages: and in our Retreat to Earth, may fall upon such Looks which from Community of seminal Originals were before latent in us.

He was fruitlesly put in hope of advantage by change of Air, and imbibing the pure Aerial Nitre of these Parts; and therefore being so far spent, he quickly found _Sardinia_ in _Tivoli_,[283] and the most healthful Air of little effect, where Death had set her broad Arrow; for he lived not unto the middle of _May_, and confirmed the Observation of _Hippocrates_[284] of that mortal time of the Year when the Leaves of the Fig-tree resemble a Daw's Claw. He is happily seated who lives in Places whose Air, Earth and Water, promote not the Infirmities of his weaker Parts, or is early removed into Regions that correct them. He that is tabidly inclin'd, were unwise to pa.s.s his Days in _Portugal_: Cholical Persons will find little Comfort in _Austria_ or _Vienna_: He that is weak-legg'd must not be in Love with _Rome_, nor an infirm Head with _Venice_ or _Paris_. Death hath not only particular Stars in Heaven, but malevolent Places on Earth, which single out our Infirmities, and strike at our weaker Parts; in which Concern, pa.s.sager and migrant Birds have the great Advantages; who are naturally const.i.tuted for distant Habitations, whom no Seas nor Places limit, but in their appointed Seasons will visit us from _Greenland_ and Mount _Atlas_, and as some think, even from the _Antipodes_.[285]

[283] _c.u.m mors venerit, in medio Tibure Sardinia est._

[284] In the King's Forests they set the Figure of a broad Arrow upon Trees that are to be cut down. _Hippoc. Epidem._

[285] Bellonius _de Avibus_.

Tho' we could not have his Life, yet we missed not our desires in his soft Departure, which was scarce an Expiration; and his End not unlike his Beginning, when the salient Point scarce affords a sensible Motion, and his Departure so like unto Sleep, that he scarce needed the civil Ceremony of closing his Eyes; contrary unto the common way wherein Death draws up, Sleep let fall the Eye-lids. With what Strift and Pains we came into the World we know not; but 'tis commonly no easie matter to get out of it: yet if it could be made out, that such who have easie Nativities have commonly hard Deaths, and contrarily; his Departure was so easie, that we might justly suspect his Birth was of another nature, and that some _Juno_ sat cross-legg'd at his Nativity.

Besides his soft Death, the incurable state of his Disease might somewhat extenuate your Sorrow, who know that Monsters[286] but seldom happen, Miracles more rarely, in Physick. _Angelus Victorius_[287] gives a serious Account of a Consumptive, Hectical, Pthysical Woman, who was suddenly cured by the Intercession of _Ignatius_. We read not of any in Scripture who in this case applied unto our Saviour, tho' some may be contain'd in that large Expression, that he went about _Galilee_ healing all manner of Sickness, and all manner of Diseases. Amulets, Spells, Sigils and Incantations, practised in other Diseases, are seldom pretended in this; and we find no Sigil in the Archidoxis of _Paracelsus_ to cure an extreme Consumption or _Marasmus_, which if other Diseases fail, will put a period unto long Livers, and at last makes Dust of all. And therefore the _Stoicks_ could not but think that the fiery Principle would wear out all the rest, and at last make an end of the World, which notwithstanding without such a lingring period the Creator may effect at his Pleasure: and to make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he need but put out the Sun.

[286] _Monstra contingunt in Medicina Hippoc._