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“Thomas Browne's works ; including his life and correspondence” (Publication, 1836)

Year

1836

Text

Browne, Thomas. Thomas Browne's works ; including his life and correspondence. Ed. by Simon Wilkin. (London : William Pickering, 1836).
Vol. 1 : Journal of Mr. E. Browne. Correspondence.
http://www.archive.org/details/sirthomasbrownes01brow.

Vol. 2 : Browne, Thomas. Religio medici. (Lugd. Batavorum : Apud Franciscum Hackium, 1644).
Browne, Thomas. Enquiries into vulgar and common errors. In : Browne, Thomas. Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By Thomas Brovvne Dr. of Physick. (London : Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, 1646).
http://www.archive.org/details/sirthomasbrownes02brow.pdf.

Vol. 3 : Browne, Thomas. Of languages, and particularly of the Saxon tongue. Tract VIII. In : Browne, Thomas. Certain miscellany tracts. (London : Printed for Charles Mearn, 1683). (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1277:26).
Browne, Thomas. Enquiries into vulgar and common errors. In : Browne, Thomas. Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By Thomas Brovvne Dr. of Physick. (London : Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, 1646).
http://ia600307.us.archive.org/4/items/certainmiscellan00browrich/certainmiscellan00browrich.pdf.

Vol. 4 : Browne, Thomas. A prophecy, concerning the future state of several nations. Tract XII. In : Browne, Thomas. Certain miscellany tracts. (London : Printed for Charles Mearn, 1683). (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1277:26).
Browne, Thomas. Museum clausum, or, Bibliotheca abscondita : containing some remarkable books, antiquities, pictures, and rarities or several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now liging. Tract XIII.
http://ia600306.us.archive.org/34/items/sirthomasbrownes04brow/sirthomasbrownes04brow.pdf. (BroT1)

Type

Publication

Contributors (1)

Browne, Thomas  (London 1605-1682 Norwich) : Philosoph, Dichter, Schriftsteller, Arzt

Subjects

History : China : General / Philosophy : Europe : Great Britain / References / Sources

Chronology Entries (6)

# Year Text Linked Data
1 1644-1682 Browne, Thomas. Quellen.
Gonzáles de Mendoza, Juan. Historia de las cosas más notables [ID D1627].
Martini, Martino. Sinicae historiae decas prima [ID D1703].
Ramusio, Giovanni Battista. Delle navigationi et viaggi [ID D1618].
Linschoten, Jan Huygen van. Itinerario, voyage ofte schipvaert [ID D1632].
2 1646 Browne, Thomas. Enquiries into vulgar and common errors. In : Browne, Thomas. Pseudodoxia epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. By Thomas Brovvne Dr. of Physick. (London : Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, 1646). Vol. 2-3.
Vol. 2.
We are not thoroughly resolved concerning porcelain or china dishes, that according to common belief they are made of earth, which lieth in preparation about an hundred years under ground ; for the relations thereof are not only diverse but contrary, and authors agree not herein. Guido Pancirollus will have them made of egg-shells, lobster-shells, and gypsum laid up in the earth the space of eighty years : of the same affirmation is Scaliger, and the common opinion of most. Ramuzius, in his Navigations, is of a contrary assertion ; that they are made out of earth, not laid under ground, but hardened in the sun and wind, the space of forty years. But Gonzales de Mendoza, a man employed into China from Philip the second, king of Spain, upon enquiry and ocular experience, delivered a way different from all these. For enquiring into the artifice thereof, he found they were made of a chalky earth ; which, beaten and steeped in water, affordeth a cream or fatness on the top, and a gross subsidence at the bottom ; our of the cream or superfluitance, the finest dishes, saith he, are made ; out of the residence thereof, the coarser ; which being formed, they gild or paint, and, not after an hundred years, but presently, commit unto the furnace. This, saith he, is known by experience, and more probable than what Odoardus Barbosa hath delivered, that they are made of shells, and buried under earth an hundred years. And answerable in all points hereto, is the relation of Linschotten, a diligent enquirer, in his Oriental Navigations. Later confirmation may be had from Alvarez the Jesuit, who lived long in those parts, in his relations of China : that porcelain vessels were made but in one town of the province of Chiamsi ; that the earth was brought out of other provinces, but, for the advantage of water, which makes them more polite and perspicuous, they were only made in this ; that they were wrought and fashioned like those of other countries, whereof some were tinted blue, some red, others yellow, of which colour only they presented unto the king.
The latest account hereof may be found in the voyage of the Dutch ambassador, sent from Batavia unto the emperor of China, printed in French, 1665 ; which plainly informeth, that the earth, whereof porcelain dishes are made, is brought from the mountains of Hoang, and being formed into square loaves, is brought by water, and marked with the emperor's seal ; and that it is prepared and fashioned after the same manner which the Italians observe in the fine earthen vessels of Faventia or Fuenca…

Vol. 2 : S. 36, Fussnote 2 : Of those three great inventions in Germany, there are two which are not without their incommodities. Those two, he means, are printing and gunpowder, which are commonly taken to be German inventions ; but artillery was in China above 1500 years since, and printing long before it was in Germany, if we may believe Juan Gonzales Mendoza, in his History of China, lib. III, cap. 15, 16.

Vol. 3.
For, to speak strictly, there is no East and West in nature, nor are those absolute and invariable, but respective and mutable points, according unto different longitudes, or distant parts of habitation, whereby they suffer many and considerable variations. For first, unto some, the same part will be East or West in respect of one another, that is, unto such as inhabit the same parallel, or differently dwell from East to West. Thus as unto Spain, Italy lyeth East, unto Italy Greece, unto Greece Persia, and unto Persia China; so again unto the Country of China, Persia lyeth West, unto Persia Greece, unto Greece Italy, and unto Italy Spain. So that the same Countrey is sometimes East and sometimes West; and Persia though East unto Greece, yet is it West unto China…
For the Sea lay West unto that Country, and the winds brought rain from that quarter; but this consideration cannot be transferred unto India or China, which have a vast Sea Eastward: and a vaster Continent toward the West. So likewise when it is said in the vulgar Translation, Gold cometh out of the North; it is no reasonable inducement unto us and many other Countries, from some particular mines septentrional unto his situation, to search after that metal in cold and Northern regions, which we most plentifully discover in hot and Southern habitations. ..
So the city of Rome is magnified by the Latins to be the greatest of the earth ; but time and geography inform us that Cairo is bigger, and Quinsay, in China, far exceedeth both…
Thus have the Chinese little feet, most Negroes great lips and flat noeses ; and thus many Spaniards, and Mediterranean inhabitants, which are of the race of Barbary Moors (although after frequent commixture), have not worn out the Camoys nose unto this day…
And though the best of China dishes, and such as the emperor doth use, be thought by some of infallible virtue unto this effect, yet will they not, I fear, be able to elude the mischief of such intentions…
3 1664-1681 Browne, Thomas. Journal / Correspondence 1657-1681.
Thomas Browne’s works ; including his life and correspondence. Ed. By Simon Wilkin. (London : William Pickering, 1836). Vol. 1
Journal.
Jan. 14 1664.
There are one million of soelgers to guard the great wall
of China, which extends from east to west three hundred
leagues : author, Belli Tartarici Martin Martinius.

Correspondence 1657-1681.
John Evelyn, Esq. to Dr. Browne 1657-1658
In Turkey, the East, and other parts.—The grand Signor's
in the Serraglio, the garden at Tunis, and old Carthage ; the garden
at Cairo, at Fez, the pensal garden at Pequin in China, also
at Timplan and Porassen ; St. Thomas's garden in the island neere
M. Hecla, perpetually verdant.

Dr. Browne to his son Edward. 1668.
I wish you would bring ouer some of the red marking stone
for drawinge, if any very good. One told mee hee read in
the French gazette, that the Duch had discovered the northeast
passage to China round about Tartaric I do not care
whether you go into Zeland, but if you should, Flushing and
Middleburgh are only worth the seeing.

Dr. Browne to his son Edward. 1679.
You did well to observe Ginseng. All exotick
rarities, and especially of the east, the East India trade
having encreased, are brought in England, and the best
profitt made thereof. Of this plant Kircherus writeth in his
China illustrata, pag. 178, cap. " De Exoticis Chinee plantis."

Dr. Browne to his son Edward. 1681.
The East India trade hath been great of late, butt how
lone it will bee so is uncertaine, for the commoditie of China
silks and gownes, and the like, is not like to hold allwayes,
with a mutable and changing people ; and how the trade will
bee interrupted I knowe not, when the French growe powerfull
and buisie in the Indies.
4 1683 Browne, Thomas. Of languages, and particularly of the Saxon tongue. Tract VIII. In : Browne, Thomas. Certain miscellany tracts. (London : Printed for Charles Mearn, 1683). (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1277:26). Vol. 3.
The Chinoys, who live at the bounds of the Earth, who have admitted little communication, and suffered successive incursions from one Nation, may possibly give account of a very ancient Language; but consisting of many Nations and Tongues; confusion, admixtion and corruption in length of time might probably so have crept in as without the virtue of a common Character, and lasting Letter of things, they could never probably make out those strange memorials which they pretend, while they still make use of the Works of their great Confutius many hundred years before Christ, and in a series ascend as high as Poncuus, who is conceived our Noah.
5 1683 Browne, Thomas. A prophecy, concerning the future state of several nations. Tract XII. In : Browne, Thomas. Certain miscellany tracts. (London : Printed for Charles Mearn, 1683). (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1277:26). Vol. 4.
When New England shall trouble New Spain.
When Jamaica shall be Lady of the Isles and the Main.
When Spain shall be in America hid,
And Mexico shall prove a Madrid.
When Mahomet’s Ships on the Baltick shall ride,
And Turks shall labour to have Ports on that side,
When Africa shall no more sell out their Blacks
To make Slaves and Drudges to the American Tracts.
When Batavia the Old shall be contemn’d by the New.
When a new Drove of Tartars shall China subdue.
When America shall cease to send out its Treasure,
But employ it at home in American Pleasure.
When the new World shall the old invade,
Nor count them Lords but their fellows in Trade.
When Men shall almost pass to Venice by Land,
Not in deep Water but from Sand to Sand.
When Nova Zembla shall be no stay
Unto those who pass to or from Cathay.
Then think strange things are come to light,
Where but few have had a foresight.

The exposition of the prophecy.
That is, When Spain, either by unexpected disasters, or continued emissions of people into America, which have already thinned the Country, shall be farther exhausted at home: or when, in process of time, their Colonies shall grow by many accessions more than their Originals, then Mexico may become a Madrid, and as considerable in people, wealth and splendour; wherein that place is already so well advanced, that accounts scarce credible are given of it. And it is so advantageously seated, that, by Acapulco and other Ports on the South Sea, they may maintain a communication and commerce with the Indian Isles and Territories, and with China and Japan, and on this side, by Porto Belo and others, hold correspondence with Europe and Africa.

And a new Drove of Tartars shall China subdue.
Which is no strange thing if we consult the Histories of China, and successive Inundations made by Tartarian Nations. For when the Invaders, in process of time, have degenerated into the effeminacy and softness of the Chineses, then they themselves have suffered a new Tartarian Conquest and Inundation. And this hath happened from time beyond our Histories: for, according to their account, the famous Wall of China, built against the irruptions of the Tartars, was begun above a hundred years before the Incarnation.
When Nova Zembla shall be no stay
Unto those who pass to or from Cathay.
That is, When ever that often sought for Northeast passage unto China and Japan shall be discovered, the hindrance whereof was imputed to Nova Zembla; for this was conceived to be an excursion of Land shooting out directly, and so far Northward into the Sea that it discouraged from all Navigation about it. And therefore Adventurers took in at the Southern part at a strait by Waygatz next the Tartarian Shore; and sailing forward they found that Sea frozen and full of Ice, and so gave over the attempt. But of late years, by the diligent enquiry of some Moscovites, a better discovery is made of these parts, and a Map or Chart made of them. Thereby Nova Zembla is found to be no Island extending very far Northward; but, winding Eastward, it joineth to the Tartarian Continent, and so makes a Peninsula: and the Sea between it which they entred at Waygatz, is found to be but a large Bay, apt to be frozen by reason of the great River of Oby, and other fresh Waters, entring into it: whereas the main Sea doth not freez upon the North of Zembla except near unto Shores; so that if the Moscovites were skilfull Navigatours they might, with less difficulties, discover this passage unto China: but however the English, Dutch and Danes are now like to attempt it again.
6 1684 Browne, Thomas. Museum clausum, or, Bibliotheca abscondita : containing some remarkable books, antiquities, pictures, and rarities or several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living. Tract XIII. Vol. 4.
Rare and generally unknown Books. 1684.
[Enthält] :
15. The works of Confutius, the famous philosopher of China, translated into Spanish.
Antiquities and rarities of several sorts.
2. Some ancient ivory and copper crosses found with many others in China ; conceived to have been brought and left there by the Greek soldiers who served unter Tamerlane in his expedition and conquest of that country.

Sources (1)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 2000 [Browne, Thomas]. Weng zang. Tuomasi Bulang zhu ; Mou Zhe yi. (Beijing : Guang ming ri bao chu ban she, 2000). (Guang ming cong yi). Übersetzung von Browne, Thomas. Hydriotaphia, Religio medici, A letter to a friend.
瓮葬 		Publication / BroT2

Cited by (1)

# Year Bibliographical Data Type / Abbreviation Linked Data
1 2007- Worldcat/OCLC Web / WC