"MOST HONORED FATHER,-I received a letter from you this day, wherein were two heads of cestridges. The bill of ours seems to be more flat than of either of those sent in the letter, and the round eare is not exprest in the figures. Ours died of a soden, and so hindred the drawing or delineating of the head and other parts, or making further experiments. We gave it a peece of iron which weighed two ounces and a half, which we found in the first stomack again not at all altered." them sung. Mr. Wilkin seems to think that Dr. Edward had encroached too much on his father's permission to travel. The correspondence does not impress us with that view. The knight was desirous that his children should derive every advantage from a foreign tour. He advises economy, but is far from stingy, and insists only on industrious observation. To Thomas he writes,-" God bless thee! You may learn handsom songs and aires not by book but by the ear, as you shall hear I see you are mindful of us, and not idle."-i. 16. He only grudges what he deems to be a useless expenditure: "Beleeve it," he writes to Edward, "no excursion into Pol., Hung., or Turkey, addes advantage or reputation unto a schollar" (i. 166), and directs him accordingly. Thomas he orders to be "as good a husband as possible, and enter not upon any cours of superfluous expense. Remember the camell's back, and be not troubled for anything that other ways would trouble your patience here; be courteous and civil to all; put on a decent boldness, and avoid pudor rusticus, not much known in France."-i. 3. A curious contrast of locomotion in 1662 with that of 1851 is afforded by Edward Browne's travels into the "strange, mountainous, misty, moorish, rocky, wild country of Darbishier." What we now. quietly and comfortably do in an easy day by ordinary trains, took his "triumvirat" a hard-working week to traverse. The first day they accomplished much, for they "baited at Licham and layed at the King's Head in Linne. The next day morning, after the towne musick had saluted" them, they saw, ate, and drank all sorts of things. The journal is delight ful from the high glee with which it is written. No adventure comes much amiss. The great affair of that day, however, was the passage of the Wash : "Taking a guide, it being somewhat late, wee desired to bee conducted in the nighest way to Boston. Hee told us there were two waies to passe, either over two short cuts, or else quite over the long Wash, which latter wee chose, partly because it was the nighest, but chiefly for the novelty to us of this manner of travailing at the bottome of the sea; for this passage is not lesse convenient at a flood for navigation than at an ebbe, for riding on horseback out of Norfolk into Lincolnshire. Our convoy made such haste with his fliing horse, that hee landed us on the banks in Lincolnshire in less than two hours, quite crosse this equitable sea, or navigable land-true chip of the old block !]-fourteen miles in length.”—i. 23. Edward, too, notes the dialect of "Nottinghamshiere." Very few let us passe without a good e'en, and were very ready to instruct us on our way. One told us our wy lig'd by youn nooke of oakes, and another that wee mun goe strit forth, which maner of speeches not only directed us, but much pleas'd us with the novelty of its dialect." On they go, undismayed, "up mountaine, downe dale," shaken on the backs of their poore jades," not quite so luxurious as Darwin's " rapid car.' One of their companions was a sort of ancient Mr. Briggs, for "a friendly bough, that had sprouted out beyond his fellows over the rode, gave our file leader such a brush of the jacket as it swept him off his horse." Another Briggs, No. 2, was a "most excellent conductour; who yet, for all his hast, fell over his horse's head as he was plunging into some dirty hole, but by good luck smit hts face into a soft place of mud, where I suppose he had a mouth full both of dirt and rotten stick, for he seemed to us to spit crow's nest a good while after. If his jaws had met with a piece of the rock, I doubt hee would have spit his teeth as fast." Briggs the first, trusting to fine September weather, "came no better armd against it than with an open'd sleev'd doublet, whose misfortune, though wee could doe no otherwise then much pity, as being the greatest of us all, yet it made us some sport to see what pretty waterworkes the rain had made about him; the spouting of his doublet sleeves did so resemble him to a whale that wee-that could think ourself no other than fishes at that time, swimming through the ocean of water that fell-dare never come nigh him." We dare not follow the party much further | among the "mountaineers" and the "natives;" for as they approach "the castle, situated upon the left buttock of the peak-hill," and prepare to see "this place so much talk'd of, called (save your presence) by, in my judgement, no unfit appellation, considering its figure, whose picture I wish were here inserted" in short, as they enter the penetralia, the terms employed become so minutely anatomical, that we must proceed, quicker than they did, to Buxton-where they found the waters "very hot, and judged not inferior to those of Somersetshiere." We would allow no comparison, judging by the hexameter they inspired : "Buxtoniis thermis vix præfero Bathonianas." And so on, and so on, till they had had enough of it. In returning, wee went, in a very blinde rode, very hard to find, to Leister." They "intended to have viewed Ely nearer hand, but, being almost tir'd and discouraged by reason of the bad way, wee tooke over to Wisbich, riding ten mile upon a streight banke of earthe, and four mile more by the side of a made river." At last, when dying for diaculum, "that famous city of Norwich presents itselfe to our viewLet any stranger find mee out so pleasant a county, such good way, large heath, three such places as Norwich, Yar., and Lin. in any county of England, and I'll bee once again a vagabond to visit them." 66 There are two minor characters brought out by the domestic correspondence, with whom we confess to be mightily taken: good Dame Dorothy Browne and her grandson, little Tomey," alias " "Tomy," Tomay," Tome," "Tommy," finally, "Tom." The lady is as lovable as ever was anybody's mother; and her spelling is "ever charming, ever new." Of a good family, as has been already recorded, she was of "such symmetrical proportion to her husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they seemed to come together by a kind of natural magnetism." And although Browne had expressed a wish to become a parent rather in horticultural than in human style, she brought him twelve children, doubtless in the usual way. In these her thoughts were mainly centred. When a child is absent, ever ready that they may see her writing, she slips a postscript into her husband's letter, and contrives to insert therein some bit of good advice or pleasant news. To her son Thomas she writes: Be sure to put your trust in God, and be civill to all that you have to doe withall, and find out all that you can in that place; for in the sommer I beleeve your father will have you goe to some other place." (i. 2.) "All the servants present their loves to you, and are mighty joyd to hear of you, and will observe your commands." (i. 5.) Little maternal kindnesses are uppermost in her mind. "I will send your weg (wig) by the choch (coach), and the buf cotte, if I can get it." (i. 117.) She wishes to keep up appearances, but at the same time insists on frugality. "If you want more money, Mr. Scoltowe will latt you have it; butt bee suer to spand as little as you can. Latt me here from you." (i. 117.) "Bee as good a husband as you can possable, for you know what great charges wee are at." (i. 119.) A request to her daughterin-law, in London, is, "I would desire you to by mee a painted fan; it is for a present: a bought (about) twenty shilens; give rayther under." (i. 232.) The reader is already on terms of intimate acquaintanceship with Lady Browne. As to Master Tom, we are inclined to follow him from the beginning to the end of his story. He was the eldest child of Sir Thomas's eldest son Edward, born in London, 1672-3. Mr. Wilkin does not mention this Little Pickle in his "Memoir," which is supplementary to the "Life" by Dr. Johnson; but we learn (p. cix.) that in the January subsequent to his death in 1710, by which the male line became extinct, the libraries of his father and grandfather were sold by auction, at the Black Boy Coffee-house in AveMary-Lane. On October 17, 1676, Tommy, still in London, "is so well as to goe to schoole today;" but in April, 1677, we find him safely domiciled in Norwich: "Litle Tom is lively, God be thancked. He lyeth with Betty [his aunt, afterwards Mrs. Lyttleton]: shee takes great care of him, and getts him to bed in due time, for hee riseth early. Shee or Franck [Frances, Browne's youngest daughter] is fayne sometimes to play him asleep with a fiddle. When wee send away our letters, hee scribbles a paper, and will have it sent to his sister, and sayth shee doth not know how many fine things there are in Norwich."-i. 219. Grandmamma's visitors soon discover the way to ingratiate themselves : Tomey this day has behaved himselfe so well to on Captain Le Gros, which is now com out of Flanders, as hee has presented him with a pretty picktur in a silver box. . . Wee thincke him a one of the boys of the "free skule." This induced an appetite for luncheon at the Guildhall in the Market Place, and heightened by contrast the pleasures of the day, which concluded with a feast (such a feast!) in St. "Tom is much delighted to thinck of the guild; Andrew's Hall, and a ball at the Assembly the maior, Mr. Davey, of Alderhollands [All-Rooms. But "Tomey" was too young to Saints] intending to live in Surrey House, in St. Stephen's, at that time; and there to make his entertaines; so that he (Tom) contrives what pictures to lend, and what other things to pleasure some of that parish, and his schoolmaster, who lives in that parish."--i. 223. go to the dinner, though his grandfather, we may be sure, occupied an honorable seat; and there were no Assembly Rooms in 1678. Tom would be awed by the superb costumes of the mayor, the aldermen, and the sword-bearer; he might tremble-or not councilmen; but he would enjoy an exciting mixture of terror and delight at the onslaughts of the "Whifflers" and the threatening advances of "Snap." The Whifflers were a set of men, clad in a quaint dress, of similar style to that of the Pope's Swiss guards, whose office it was to clear the crowd from before the carriage of "the Mar." This was effected by means of blunt swords, with which, in stern silence and a fierce countenance, they made apparently the most desperate cuts at the popu lace. Whiffling is, or was, as much a matter of practice and skill as fencing. The whiffler who hit his mark would lose his reputation as completely as the archer who missed it. But we suppose this will soon be catalogued amongst the lost arts. It used to be hereditarily handed down, and taught by the father to the son. A Whiffler still survives under the metamorphosis of a nightwatch; whether his hand has altogether lost its cunning we cannot say. Now, to justify Tommy's delightful anti-at the grave dignity of the common cipations, the reader ought to know something of the humors of Norwich guild at that date. The Guild-day was the mayor's day; the Guild-street was the street in which the mayor lived. Since 1835, when the old corporations were swept off, the antique pageantry, which it has been Mr. Ewing's task to record in the Notices and Illustratrations, has entirely passed away; but in the days of our childhood it yet retained a most respectable appearance. The manner in which the Guild-street was then decorated, depended much on the quarter in which the mayor resided. If his tent were pitched in the "genteel" part of the city, the garniture was more commonplace, consisting of green boughs, triumphal arches, with a battlement of musicians, flags drooping from ropes stretched from roof to roof, &c., &c. But if he abode in the lower wards, amidst weavers, dyers, bombazine-dressers, and the like, then, in addition to the above, the old traditional ornaments were displayed. The irons by which tapestry was suspended are still now and then to be seen; and carpets and rugs were made to serve the turn of tapestry. Pictures, and even gaudy tea-trays, were hung outside the house; sometimes the plate, the family spoons, and punch-ladle glittered among the wreaths of green rushes and "sweet seg," which were supplied in great variety. Effigies of the model couple, old Darby and Joan, emblems of domestic happiness, sat pipe in mouth with the tankard of "ffyne ypocras, ""claret wyne," or perhaps only "dobyll bere," before them. Their stature was of various proportion; colossal here, next door pigmy. Bowers of all shapes, contrived of leaves and flowers, and screening commodious benches, lined the way-side. Through this diversely-colored avenue passed the mayor's procession to go to the "grate chutch" (anglice, cathedral); after which the body corporate had to endure the infliction of a long Latin "orracon" from "Snap" was the undoubted though degenerate descendant of the Dragon, that insulted the Lady, that was righted by St. George, that was patron of the principal Guild. In early days, Mr. Ewing informs us, the knight himself, "clad in complete and glittering armor, well mounted, and attended by his henchman, was ordered by his worship the mayor 'to maintain his estate for two days, and hold conflict with the dragon;' which, after much turmoil, amidst the braying of trumpets, the antics of the whifflers, and shouts of the populace, was conquered and led captive by the Lady Margaret. She, too, mounted on her palfrey, richly caparisoned and led by her henchman, was welcomed from the windows and balconies by the waving of kerchiefs, church bells, the firing of cannon, and the music the fluttering of flags and ancients, the ringing of of the city waits and other minstrels."-Notices, c., p. i. The extracts from Mackarell's MS. History of Norwich tells us that "the last Dragon was made but a few years ago, and was so contrived as to spread and clap his wings, distend or contract its head: it was made of basket-work, and painted cloath over it." Idem, p. 21. In such guise did it make its annual appearance previous to the corporation revolutions of 1835. In our days Snap had acquired the additional right of levying black-mail on the bystanders, and had learned the clever trick of swallowing half-pence in any quantity. Whether the utter suppression of these amusing gauds was quite discreet and in accordance with popular taste, may be surmised from the success attending the late allegorical processions on Lord Mayor's day in London. We suppose the Archbishop of Westminster will do his best to supply the deficiency in the provinces in his way. On which side our Tomay would have voted, is not difficult to guessTomay "much a man" in his new "cott" and brichis," which he "meanes to war 66 carfully," but nevertheless venturing within reach of Snap and the Whifflers. Her Majesty's late fancy ball ought to have been enriched by a Sir Thomas and Lady Browne, attended by their hopeful Tom. workmen broke open with a pick-axe the coffin of "one whose residence within its walls conferred honor on Norwich in olden times. The bones of the skeleton were found to be in good preservation, particularly those of the skull; the forehead was remarkably low and depressed, the head unusually long, the back part exhibiting an uncommon appearance of depth and capaciousness; the brain was considerable in quantity, quite brown and auburn, similar to that in the portrait presentedunctuous; the hair profuse and perfect, of a fine fully presented in the vestry of St Peter's Manto the parish by Dr. Howman, and which is carecroft." Another account adds: "The hair of the beard remained profuse and perfect, though the flesh of the face, as well as every other part, was totally gone." The parishioners may carefully preserve the picture, but they were careless to premoved. It passed into the possession of the serve the original; for the head was relate Dr. Edward Lubbock, and was by him eventually presented (!) to the Museum of the Norwich Hospital, where it remains for the inspection of the curious, and subject to the reverent remarks of medical students who skull were taken, one of which we have seen. dabble in phrenology. A few casts of the As in the case of Byron, so this example by no means tends to further Mr. George Causality, Ideality, Comparison, the PercepCombe's mission. In it, the bumps of tive faculties, and even Benevolence and Ven Tom's sequel was to become an M.D. and an F.R.S., to get married, but to leave no children. Le Neve's pedigree records him as "an ingenious gent.-but who afterwards gave himself up to drinking so much that he died, A.D. 1710, by a fall off his horse, going from Gravesend to his house in Southfleet in Kent, being drunk and up all night." But as Le Neve commits the error of stating that Sir Thomas was buried in Norwich Cathe-eration, are sadly deficient. Browne ought dral and at a wrong date, we may fairly give Tommy's memory the benefit of a doubt as to the truth of the aforesaid story. At any rate, with him the male line ended. Not so either the blood, the whim, or the talent, Sir Thomas's daughter Anne had a daughter Frances, whose eldest son Henry, 10th Earl of Buchan, was the father of the late Earl, David, of picturesque memory; also of Henry Erskine, the elegant and witty Lord Advocate of Scotland under all the talents, and of the inimitable Thomas, Lord Chancellor of England. Other branches of this goodly tree are still flourishing, and may yet put forth both flowers and fruit. The Brownean blood cannot be all turned to water. The latest particulars which the biographer of Sir Thomas is enabled to give are very remarkable. On the occasion of making a vault in the chancel of St. Peter's to receive the remains of a clergyman's wife, the not to have been-he had no business to be -an acute observer, a fanciful speculator, a considerate, thoughtful paterfamilias. brilliant essayist, an amiable physician, a He ought to have been a glutton, a sensualist, idiot, a very every-day sort of a body. He irascible and selfish, and, if not quite an most clearly had no right to enter in his these, being by his organization incapable of commonplace book any such sentences as feeling them: "To pray and magnify God in the night, and my dark bed, when I could not sleep to know no street or passage in this city which may not witness that I have, not forgot God and my Saviour in it. Since the necessities of the sick, and unavoidable diversions of my profession, keep me often from church, yet to take all possible care that I might never miss sacraments upon their accustomed days. Upon sight of beautiful persons, to bless God in his creatures, to pray for the beauty of their souls, and to enrich them with inward graces to be answerable unto the outward. Upon sight of deformed persons, to send them inward graces, and enrich their souls, and give them the beauty of the resurrection.”—-iv. 420-1. After this, what shall we think of phrenological tests? Who, now, will fix upon a wife, a friend, or a confidential servant, by the application of callipers to their crania? But there may have been a mistake; the wrong coffin may have been opened. No; for "The coffin-plate, which was also broken, was of brass, in the form of a shield, and it bore the following quaint inscription : Amplissimus Vir Dns Thomas Browne Miles Medecine Dr Annos Natus 77 Denatus 19 Die Mensis Octobris Anno Dnj 1682 hoc Loculo indormiens Corporis spagyrici Pulvere Plumbum in Aurum convertit." All this happened in August, 1840. We ask not who was the churchwarden-but what were the reverend superiors about? Did they authorize Dr. Lubbock to present the skull to the hospital? Were the noble Buchans left in ignorance as to the rude discovery and still worse after-treatment of their famous ancestor's relics? To conclude with a more pleasant topic: -we beg once more to thank Mr. Wilkin for this excellent edition-the labor of many zealous years. It is probable that Sir T. Browne's works will be even more interesting to future generations of Englishmen, than to the present; and if so, they will be duly grateful to this gentleman for his diligent and able illustration of the old "light of Norwich." From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal. HORACE WALPOLE AND THOMAS GRAY. AN IMAGINARY DIALOGUE. [Paris, A. D. 1739.] Gray. And what sort of evening had you, pray, at Milor Conway's ? Walpole. Mighty dull it would have been called in London; but considering the fate of us poor exiles in a strange land, it passed off well enough. We shook each other by the hand more warmly than we should have done in Whitehall or Leicester Square, and felt comfortable at the flesh-and-blood evidence of every John Bull face that there is such a country as England after all. G. Which one is really in danger of forgetting-one hears so little about it from the quality in Paris. W. Paris mentions England now and then in a proverb-as she alludes to Paradise (of which she knows just as little) or Babylon the Great VOL XXV. NO. L. G. Which she is more familiar with, unless Scripture misleads and my eyesight deceives me. W. You should have been with us last night at his lordship's, for we railed against French things and personages pretty scandalously, I promise you, much as we enjoy ourselves in the naughty heart of them. My Lord George Bentinck and I had a prodigious dispute about the merits of Versailles, which he lauded and I unsparingly abused. G. For my part, I spent an absolutely uninterrupted evening in letter-writing W. To Dick West, I hope, child? G. Yes; and about Versailles too. W. I am infinitely obliged to you for forestalling me. I should only have made 2 |