that I regard is myself; it is the microcosme of mine own frame, that I cast mine eye on for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point, not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind; that surface that tells the heavens they have an end, cannot persuade me I have any. I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty. Though the number of the ark do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature tells me I am the image of God, as well as Scripture. He that understands not thus much, hath not his introductions or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any. Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua, salveth all; so that whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content, and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am

And

happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of any thing that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses. Without this I were unhappy; for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me, that I am from my friend; but my friendly dreams in night requite me, and make me think I am in his arms, I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest; for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness, surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams to those of the next, as the phantasms of the night to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my ascendent was the earthly sign of Scorpius; I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can com

pose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I choose for my devotions; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed.

The Religio Medici was, on its publication, much talked of in the literary world. It exhibits various marks of a superior mind, and of a cast of thought strikingly peculiar and original. Having been translated into Latin, and several other languages, it was thus dispersed throughout Europe. By foreigners, in particular, it brought upon him the charge of atheism, though there can be little question that he was a friend both to natural and revealed religion.

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2. In 1646, he published his " Pseudodoxia Epidemica; or, Enquiries into very many received Tenets and commonly presumed Truths.” The more popular title of this book is

"Brown's Vulgar Errors;" it is probably the most known of all his works. He treats his subject very methodically; first considering the general causes of error, and then enquiring into the origin of each in particular. The treatise is divided into seven books; of which the first contains his general principles. In the second, he treats of errors arising from mineral and vegetable bodies; in the third, of errors relative to animals; in the fourth, of those which respect man; in the fifth, of things questionable in pictures; in the sixth, of geographical and philosophical errors; and in the seventh, of errors relating to history. On ac, count of the rather copious extracts from the preceding article, and of those I intend giving from the next, I must decline exhibiting a specimen from this; and shall only observe, that notwithstanding the singularity and quaintness which pervade it, the work displays great learning and penetration.

3. His next production was entitled " Ilydriotaphia-Urn-burial; or, A Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk: together with the Garden of Cyrus; or, The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, artificially, naturally,

mystically, considered; with sundry Observa tions;" 1658. These treatises are extremely curious. In the Hydriotaphia, there is an air of elevated solemnity highly impressive, often awful. It abounds in strange and out-of-theway observations, which betray a very singular texture of mind. On the finding of these sepulchral urns, he takes occasion to tell all he knows or can collect of ancient sepulture. But the origin of the treatise himself shall explain.

In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, not far from one another: not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described; some containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their combustion. Besides, the extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen. nippers, and in one some kind of opal.

Near the same plot of ground, for about six yards compass, were digged up coals and incinerated substances, which begat conjecture that this was the Ustrina, or place of burning their bodies, or some sa