Browne, Sir Thomas

(1605-1882)

   London-born physician, poet and author, from a Cheshire family. Educated at Winchester College and Pembroke College, Oxford, he received his medical degree from Leiden, Holland, and lived and died in Norfolk. His famous treatise Religio Medici was published in 1642. He was knighted by Charles II in 1671. Much of what he wrote was published posthumously. His Miscellany Tracts (1684) dealt with such disparate subjects as plants mentioned in Scripture; the fish eaten by Jesus with his disciples after his resurrection from the dead; fishes, birds, and insects; hawks and falconry; cymbals; artificial hills, mounts, or burrows in England; and answers of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphos to Croesus, King of Lydia. He was not a major poet, and many of his poems are of a religious nature. Some of his poems: "A Colloquy with God," "If Thou Could'st Empty All Thyself of Self," "Lars: A Pastoral of Norway," "For a Toe, Such as the Funeral Pyre," "Signs of Spring."

   Sources: A Sacrifice of Praise: An Anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century. James H. Trott, ed. Cumberland House Publishing, 1999. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Poemhunter (www.poemhunter.com). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs. Geoffrey Grigson, ed. Faber & Faber, 1977. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. Alastair Fowler, ed. Oxford University Press, 2004. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.