University of Virginia Library

Browne's Books and MSS

Browne's books and MSS passed into the hands of his son, Dr. Edward Browne, the author and traveler whose reputation as a physician exceeded that of his father, though his writings reveal little of the imaginative power or stylistic brilliance of Religio Medici or Urn-Burial. On Edward's death in 1708, the library became the property of his son, Thomas, the "Tome" whose doings at his grandfather's house enliven the family correspondence.[8] In two years this Thomas, the last male heir, died, and in January, 1711, Thomas Ballard sold the library at auction. The Catalogue printed for the sale, listing well over two thousand items in various languages, is now a very rare book, only four copies being known to exist.[9] In each of the copies are check marks, presumably indicating items the purchasers wished to bid for, but there is no record of the successful buyers at the auction.

The fate of Browne's papers and MSS is more definitely known. The title page of the sale Catalogue mentions "Choice Manuscripts," indicating that they were sold at the same time as the books, though individual items are not

listed. Curll had succeeded in buying the papers printed in Posthumous Works from Owen Brigstock, who also presented Richard Rawlinson with a copy of Browne's diploma from the College of Physicians.[10] Bishop Tanner possessed a MS of Repertorium, now in the Bodleian Library.[11]

The MS of Browne's Christian Morals, which was known to exist, was for some time in the hands of Thomas (later Archbishop) Tenison, having been loaned to him in a box with other MSS by Edward Browne. When the box was returned this MS was missing, and was not found until a special search was made in the presence of the Archbishop. In 1716 it was printed, with a dedication signed by Elizabeth Lyttleton.

Some other MSS found their way into the Bodleian Library through the medium of Dr. Thomas Rawlinson, but Wilkin in 1836 could not discover "how or when he obtained them." One item in the Rawlinson group is a "Catalogue of MSS. &c." listing those formerly in Browne's possession and probably drawn up just before they were sold.[12]

However, the bulk of Sir Thomas Browne's MSS was purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, the physician and bookman whose collections were brought together with the Cottonian and Harleian libraries to form the British Museum. "Sr. H. Sloan has all his [Browne's] & Sons MSS," noted William Stukely in his Commonplace Book.[13] This is not quite accurate, but Sloane did indeed acquire a great many, comprising over a hundred volumes. That he also secured some of Browne's specimens and antiquities is indicated by Curll's having printed, in the Posthumous Works, an engraving of an urn with the acknowledgement: "A Roman Urn . . . Now in ye Possession of Dr Hans Sloane."

Tempted by the possibility that Sloane might have purchased, in addition to MSS, some of Browne's printed books and that they might therefore be in the British Museum, the present writer in 1939 tried to run down some of the marked items in the Museum copy of the Browne sale Catalogue, on the chance that they represented Sloane's purchases. The copy of the Catalogue did prove to be Sloane's, and by good luck in the process of the search part of Sloane's own catalogue of his printed books was discovered.[14] But since the recovered portion of Sloane's catalogue contains few titles acquired as late as 1711 (the date of the sale of Browne's library) and since Browne does not seem to have been in the habit of putting his name in books, none of the

items examined could be positively identified as his. One suspects that a number of volumes now quietly resting in the British Museum were once to be found in the Browne residence in Norwich and were lovingly read by Sir Thomas and perhaps by his son and grandson—but so far, like the ashes in the funeral urns of which the old physician wrote so movingly, their identity remains obscured by the iniquity of oblivion.