The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 3

And if that were clearly made out which Justin Martyr took for granted, this figure hath had the honour to characterise and notifie our blessed Saviour, as he delivereth in that borrowed expression from Plato: Decussavit eum in universo, the hint whereof he would have Plato derive from the figure of the brazen Serpent, and to have mistaken the Letter X for T, whereas it is not improbable, he learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Ægypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters, the handed crosses, and other mysteries not throughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Ægyptian, and brought into Greece by Cadmus of that Countrey.

CHAPTER V

To enlarge this contemplation unto all the mysteries and secrets, accommodable unto this number, were inexcusable Pythagorisme, yet cannot omit the ancient conceit of five surnamed the number of justice169; as justly dividing between the digits, and hanging in the centre of Nine, described by square numeration, which angularly divided will make the decussated number; and so agreeable unto the Quincunciall Ordination, and rowes divided by Equality, and just decorum, in the whole complantation; And might be the Originall of that common game among us, wherein the fifth place is Soveraigne, and carrieth the chief intention. The Ancients wisely instructing youth, even in their recreations unto virtue, that is, early to drive at the middle point and Central Seat of justice.

Nor can we omit how agreeable unto this number an handsome division is made in Trees and Plants, since Plutarch and the Ancients have named it the Divisive Number, justly dividing the Entities of the world, many remarkable things in it, and also comprehending the generall170 division of Vegetables. And he that considers how most blossomes of Trees, and greatest number of Flowers, consist of five Leaves; and therein doth rest the setled rule of nature; So that in those which exceed there is often found, or easily made a variety; may readily discover how nature rests in this number, which is indeed the first rest and pause of numeration in the fingers, the natural Organs thereof. Nor in the division of the feet of perfect animals doth nature exceed this account. And even in the joynts of feet, which in birds are most multiplied, surpasseth not this number; So progressionally making them out in many, that from five in the foreclaw she descendeth unto two in the hindemost. And so in fower feet makes up the number of joynts, in the five fingers or toes of man.

Not to omit the Quintuple Section of a Cone,171 of handsome practise in Ornamentall Garden-plots, and in some way discoverable in so many works of Nature; In the leaves, fruits, and seeds of Vegetables, and scales of some Fishes, so much considerable in glasses, and the optick doctrine; wherein the learned may consider the Crystalline humour of the eye in the cuttle-fish and Loligo.

He that forgets not how Antiquity named this the Conjugall or wedding Number, and made it the Embleme of the most remarkable conjunction, will conceive it duely appliable unto this handsome Oeconomy, and vegetable combination; May hence apprehend the allegoricall sence of that obscure expression of Hesiod,172 and afford no improbable reason why Plato admitted his Nuptiall guests by fives, in the kindred of the married173 couple.

And though a sharper mystery might be implied in the Number of the five wise and foolish Virgins, which were to meet the Bridegroom, yet was the same agreeable unto the Conjugall Number, which ancient Numerists made out by two and three, the first parity and imparity, the active and passive digits, the materiall and formall principles in generative Societies. And not discordant even from the customes of the Romans, who admitted but five174 Torches in their Nuptiall Solemnities. Whether there were any mystery or not implied, the most generative animals were created on this day, and had accordingly the largest benediction; And under a Quintuple consideration, wanton Antiquity considered the Circumstances of generation, while by this number of five they naturally divided the Nectar of the fifth Planet.

The same number in the Hebrew Mysteries and Cabalistical Accounts was the Character175 of Generation; declared by the Letter He, the fifth in their Alphabet; According to that Cabalisticall Dogma: If Abram had not had this Letter added unto his Name, he had remained fruitlesse, and without the power of Generation: Not onely because hereby the number of his Name attained two hundred fourty eight, the number of the affirmative precepts, but because as in created natures there is a male and female, so in divine and intelligent productions, the mother of Life and Fountain of souls in Cabalisticall Technology is called Binah; whose Seal and Character was He. So that being sterill before, he received the power of generation from that measure and mansion in the Archetype; and was made conformable unto Binah. And upon such involved considerations, the ten176 of Sarai was exchanged into five. If any shall look upon this as a stable number, and fitly appropriable unto Trees, as Bodies of Rest and Station, he hath herein a great Foundation in nature, who observing much variety in legges and motive Organs of Animals, as two, four, six, eight, twelve, fourteen, and more, hath passed over five and ten, and assigned them unto none.177 And for the stability of this Number, he shall not want the sphericity of its nature, which multiplied in it self, will return into its own denomination, and bring up the reare of the account. Which is also one of the Numbers that makes up the mysticall Name of God, which consisting of Letters denoting all the sphæricall Numbers, ten, five, and six; Emphatically sets forth the notion of Trismegistus, and that intelligible Sphear which is the Nature of God.

Many Expressions by this Number occurre in Holy Scripture, perhaps unjustly laden with mysticall Expositions, and little concerning our order. That the Israelites were forbidden to eat the fruit of their new planted Trees, before the fifth yeare, was very agreeable unto the naturall Rules of Husbandry; Fruits being unwholsome, and lash, before the fourth, or fifth Yeare. In the second day or Feminine part of five, there was added no approbation. For in the third or masculine day, the same is twice repeated; and a double benediction inclosed both Creations, whereof the one in some part was but an accomplishment of the other. That the Trespasser178 was to pay a fifth part above the head or principall, makes no secret in this Number, and implied no more then one part above the principall; which being considered in four parts, the additionall forfeit must bear the Name of a fift. The five golden mice had plainly their determination from the number of the Princes; That five should put to flight an hundred might have nothing mystically implyed; considering a rank of Souldiers could scarce consist of a lesser number. Saint Paul had rather speak five words in a known then ten thousand in an unknown tongue: That is as little as could well be spoken. A simple proposition consisting of three words, and a complexed one, not ordinarily short of five.

More considerable there are in this mysticall account, which we must not insist on. And therefore why the radicall Letters in the Pentateuch should equall the number of the Souldiery of the Tribes; Why our Saviour in the Wildernesse fed five thousand persons with five Barley Loaves, and again, but four thousand with no lesse then seven of Wheat? Why Joseph designed five changes of Rayment unto Benjamin? and David took just five pibbles179 out of the Brook against the Pagan Champion? We leave it unto Arithmeticall Divinity, and Theologicall explanation.

Yet if any delight in new Problemes, or think it worth the enquiry, whether the Criticall Physician hath rightly hit the nominall notation of Quinque; Why the Ancients mixed five or three but not four parts of water unto their Wine: And Hippocrates observed a fifth proportion in the mixture of water with milk, as in Dysenteries and bloudy fluxes. Under what abstruse foundation Astrologers do figure the good or bad Fate from our Children, in good Fortune,180 or the fifth house of their Celestial Schemes. Whether the Ægyptians described a Starre by a Figure of five points, with reference unto the five181 Capitall aspects, whereby they transmit their Influences, or abstruser Considerations? Why the Cabalisticall Doctors, who conceive the whole Sephiroth, or divine Emanations to have guided the ten-stringed Harp of David, whereby he pacified the evil spirit of Saul, in strict numeration doe begin with the Perihypate Meson, or ff fa ut, and so place the Tiphereth answering C sol fa ut, upon the fifth string: Or whether this number be oftner applied unto bad things and ends, then good in holy Scripture, and why? He may meet with abstrusities of no ready resolution.

If any shall question the rationality of that Magick, in the cure of the blinde man by Serapis, commanded to place five fingers on his Altar, and then his hand on his Eyes? Why since the whole Comœdy is primarily and naturally comprised in four182 parts; and Antiquity permitted not so many persons to speak in one Scene, yet would not comprehend the same in more or lesse then five acts? Why amongst Sea-starres nature chiefly delighteth in five points? And since there are found some of no fewer then twelve, and some of seven and nine, there are few or none discovered of six or eight? If any shall enquire why the Flowers of Rue properly consist of four Leaves, The first and third Flower have five? Why since many Flowers have one leaf or none,183 as Scaliger will have it, diverse three, and the greatest number consist of five divided from their bottomes; there are yet so few of two: or why nature generally beginning or setting out with two opposite leaves at the Root, doth so seldome conclude with that order and number at the Flower? he shall not passe his hours in vulgar speculations.

If any shall further quæry why magneticall Philosophy excludeth decussations, and needles transversly placed do naturally distract their verticities. Why Geomancers do imitate the Quintuple Figure, in their Mother Characters of Acquisition and Amission, etc. somewhat answering the Figures in the Lady or speckled Beetle? With what Equity, Chiromantical conjecturers decry these decussations in the Lines and Mounts of the hand? What that decussated Figure intendeth in the medall of Alexander the Great? Why the Goddesses sit commonly crosse-legged in ancient draughts, Since Juno is described in the same as a venefical posture to hinder the birth of Hercules? If any shall doubt why at the Amphidromicall Feasts, on the fifth day after the Childe was born, presents were sent from friends, of Polipusses, and Cuttle fishes? Why five must be only left in that Symbolicall mutiny among the men of Cadmus? Why Proteus in Homer the Symbole of the first matter, before he setled himself in the midst of his Sea-Monsters, doth place them out by fives? Why the fifth years Oxe was acceptable Sacrifice unto Jupiter? Or why the Noble Antoninus in some sence doth call the soul it self a Rhombus? He shall not fall on trite or triviall disquisitions. And these we invent and propose unto acuter enquirers, nauseating crambe verities and questions over-queried. Flat and flexible truths are beat out by every hammer; But Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out Achilles his armour. A large field is yet left unto sharper discerners to enlarge upon this order, to search out the quaternio’s and figured draughts of this nature, and moderating the study of names, and meer nomenclature of plants, to erect generalities, disclose unobserved proprieties, not only in the vegetable shop, but the whole volume of nature; affording delightfull Truths, confirmable by sense and ocular Observation, which seems to me the surest path, to trace the Labyrinth of truth. For though discursive enquiry and rationall conjecture, may leave handsome gashes and flesh-wounds; yet without conjunction of this expect no mortal or dispatching blows unto errour.

But the Quincunx184 of Heaven runs low, and ’tis time to close the five ports of knowledge; We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth præcogitations; making Cables of Cobwebbes and Wildernesses of handsome Groves. Beside Hippocrates185 hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters,186 have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed187 of Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose.

Night, which Pagan Theology could make the daughter of Chaos, affords no advantage to the description of order: Although no lower then that Masse can we derive its Genealogy. All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of heaven.

Though Somnus in Homer be sent to rowse up Agamemnon, I finde no such effects in the drowsy approaches of sleep. To keep our eyes open longer were but to act our Antipodes. The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia. But who can be drowsie at that howr which freed us from everlasting sleep? or have slumbring thoughts at that time, when sleep it self must end, and as some conjecture all shall awake again?

FINIS

THE STATIONER TO THE READER

I cannot omit to advertise, that a Book was published not long since, Entituled, Natures Cabinet Unlockt, bearing the Name of this Authour: If any man have been benefited thereby this Authour is not so ambitious as to challenge the honour thereof, as having no hand in that Work. To distinguish of true and spurious Peeces was the Originall Criticisme, and some were so handsomely counterfeited, that the Entitled Authours needed not to disclaime them. But since it is so, that either he must write himself, or Others will write for him, I know no better Prevention then to act his own part with lesse intermission of his Pen.

CERTAIN MISCELLANY TRACTS

Written by THOMAS BROWN, Kt,and Doctour of Physick;late of NORWICH

THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER

The Papers from which these Tracts were printed, were, a while since, deliver’d to me by, those worthy persons, the Lady and Son of the excellent Authour. He himself gave no charge concerning his Manuscripts, either for the suppressing or the publishing of them. Yet, seeing he had procured Transcripts of them, and had kept those Copies by him, it seemeth probable that He designed them for publick use.

Thus much of his Intention being presumed, and many who had tasted of the fruits of his former studies being covetous of more of the like kind; Also these Tracts having been perused and much approv’d of by some Judicious and Learned men; I was not unwilling to be instrumental in fitting them for the Press.

To this end, I selected them out of many disordred Papers, and dispos’d them into such a method as They seem’d capable of; beginning first with Plants, going on to Animals, proceeding farther to things relating to Men, and concluding with matters of a various nature.

Concerning the Plants, I did, on purpose, forbear to range them (as some advised) according to their Tribes and Families; because, by so doing, I should have represented that as a studied and formal work, which is but a Collection of occasional Essaies. And, indeed, both this Tract, and those which follow, were rather the diversions than the Labours of his Pen: and, because He did, as it were, drop down his Thoughts of a sudden, in those little spaces of vacancy which he snatch’d from those very many occasions which gave him hourly interruption; If there appears, here and there, any uncorrectness in the style, a small degree of Candour sufficeth to excuse it.

If there be any such errours in the words, I’m sure the Press has not made them fewer; but I do not hold my self oblig’d to answer for That which I could not perfectly govern. However, the matter is not of any great moment: such errours will not mislead a Learned Reader; and He who is not such in some competent degree, is not a fit Peruser of these LETTERS. Such these Tracts are; but, for the Persons to whom they were written, I cannot well learn their Names from those few obscure marks which the Authour has set at the beginning of them. And these Essaies being Letters, as many as take offence at some few familiar things which the Authour hath mixed with them, find fault with decence. Men are not wont to set down Oracles in every line they write to their Acquaintance.

There, still, remain other brief Discourses written by this most Learned and ingenious Authour. Those, also, may come forth, when some of his Friends shall have sufficient leisure; and at such due distance from these Tracts, that They may follow rather than stifle them.

Amongst these Manuscripts there is one which gives a brief Account of all the Monuments of the Cathedral of Norwich. It was written merely for private use: and the Relations of the Authour expect such Justice from those into whose hands some imperfect Copies of it are fallen; that, without their Consent first obtain’d, they forbear the publishing of It.

The truth is, matter equal to the skill of the Antiquary was not, there, afforded: had a fit Subject of that nature offer’d it self, He would scarce have been guilty of an oversight like to that of Ausonius, who, in the description of his native City of Burdeaux, omitted the two famous Antiquities of it, Palais de Tutele, and, Palais de Galien.

Concerning the Authour himself, I chuse to be silent, though I have had the happiness to have been, for some years, known to him. There is on foot a design of writing his Life: and there are, already, some Memorials collected by one of his ancient Friends. Till that work be perfected, the Reader may content himself with these present Tracts; all which commending themselves by their Learning, Curiosity and Brevity, if He be not pleased with them, he seemeth to me to be distemper’d with such a niceness of Imagination as no wise man is concern’d to humour.

THO. TENISON.

OBSERVATIONS UPON SEVERAL PLANTS MENTION’D IN SCRIPTURE

TRACT I

The Introduction.

Sir,

Though many ordinary Heads run smoothly over the Scripture, yet I must acknowledge, it is one of the hardest Books I ever met with: and therefore well deserveth those numerous Comments, Expositions and Annotations which make up a good part of our Libraries.

However so affected I am therewith, that I wish there had been more of it: and a larger Volume of that Divine Piece which leaveth such welcome impressions, and somewhat more, in the Readers, than the words and sense after it. At least, who would not be glad that many things barely hinted were at large delivered in it? The particulars of the Dispute between the Doctours and our Saviour could not but be welcome to them, who have every word in honour which proceeded from his mouth, or was otherwise delivered by him: and so would be glad to be assured what he wrote with his Finger on the ground: But especially to have a particular of that instructing Narration or Discourse which he made unto the Disciples after his resurrection, where ’tis said: Luke 24. 27. And beginning at Moses, and all the Prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

But to omit Theological obscurities, you must needs observe that most Sciences do seem to have something more nearly to consider in the expressions of the Scripture.

Astronomers find therein the Names but of few Stars, scarce so many as in Achilles his Buckler in Homer, and almost the very same. But in some passages of the Old Testament they think they discover the Zodiacal course of the Sun: and they, also, conceive an Astronomical sense in that elegant expression of S. JamesJam. 1. 17. concerning the father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: and therein an allowable allusion unto the tropical conversion of the Sun, whereby ensueth a variation of heat, light, and also of shadows from it. But whether the Stellæ erraticæ, or wandring Stars in S. Jude, may be referr’d to the celestial Planets, or some meteorological wandring Stars, Ignes fatui, Stellæ cadentes et erraticæ, or had any allusion unto the Impostour Barchochebas, or Stellæ Filius, who afterward appeared, and wandred about in the time of Adrianus, they leave unto conjecture.

Chirurgions may find their whole Art in that one passage, concerning the Rib which God took out of Adam, that is their διαίρεσις in opening the Flesh, ἐξαίρεσις in taking out the Rib, and σύνθεσις in closing and healing the part again.

Rhetoricians and Oratours take singular notice of very many excellent passages, stately metaphors, noble tropes and elegant expressions, not to be found or parallel’d in any other Authour.

Mineralists look earnestly into the twenty eighth of Job, take special notice of the early artifice in Brass and Iron under Tubal-Cain: And find also mention of Gold, Silver, Brass, Tin, Lead, Iron; beside Refining, Sodering, Dross, Nitre, Saltpits, and in some manner also of Antimony.188

Gemmarie Naturalists reade diligently the pretious Stones in the holy City of the Apocalypse: examine the Breast-plate of Aaron, and various Gemms upon it, and think the second Row the nobler of the four: they wonder to find the Art of Ingravery so ancient upon pretious Stones and Signets; together with the ancient use of Ear-rings and Bracelets. And are pleased to find Pearl, Coral, Amber and Crystal in those sacred Leaves, according to our Translation. And when they often meet with Flints and Marbles, cannot but take notice that there is no mention of the Magnet or Loadstone, which in so many similitudes, comparisons, and allusions, could hardly have been omitted in the Works of Solomon: if it were true that he knew either the attractive or directive power thereof, as some have believed.

Navigatours consider the Ark, which was pitched without and within, and could endure the Ocean without Mast or Sails: They take special notice of the twenty seventh of Ezekiel; the mighty Traffick and great Navigation of Tyre, with particular mention of their Sails, their Masts of Cedar, Oars of Oak, their skilfull Pilots, Mariners and Calkers; as also of the long Voyages of the Fleets of Solomon; of Jehosaphat’s Ships broken at Ezion-Geber; of the notable Voyage and Shipwreck of S. Paul, so accurately delivered in the Acts.

Oneirocritical Diviners apprehend some hints of their knowledge, even from Divine Dreams; while they take notice of the Dreams of Joseph, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Angels on Jacob’s Ladder; and find, in Artemidorus and Achmetes, that Ladders signifie Travels, and the Scales thereof Preferment; and that Oxen Lean and Fat naturally denote Scarcity or Plenty, and the successes of Agriculture.

Physiognomists will largely put in from very many passages of Scripture. And when they find in Aristotle, quibus frons quadrangula, commensurata, fortes, referuntur ad leones, cannot but take special notice of that expression concerning the Gadites; mighty men of war, fit for battel, whose faces were as the faces of lyons.