nothing.* None will deny the necessity of studying the history and modes of thought of the Japanese if we wish to deal prudently with them; and hence the Letters of the Jesuits, to which we have directed attention in this article, deserve and will repay careful sudy. The Japanese are our antipodes in more things than in geographical position.

"Nowhere," says Sir Rutherford Alcock, "is the present more completely interwoven with the past, or the impress of a nation's history and traditions more indelibly and plainly stamped in the lineaments of an exsting generation than in Japan. The present is heir to the past always and everywhere in the life of nations no less than of individuals; but the present is linked to the past in Japan in a sense so peculiar that it is worthy of special attention.

"This study of the past can alone furnish a key to the character and policy of the nation, in the possession of which lies our best hope of the future, and of turning what it We may have in store to good account. must, indeed, read both the present and future of Japan by the light of the past, for by such reflected light alone can either be rightly understood."

The history of Japan, up to the renewed opening of some of its ports to foreign commerce in 1858, was one of peace and prosperity. Since then it has been full of great and momentous events, presenting many difficult questions to European diplomatists, and giving the greatest concern to every Japanese anxious for the welfare of his country; but this lies beyond our present subject.

"LET me not injure the felicity of others," says Sir Thomas Browne in a suppressed passage of the Religio Medici, "if I say that I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty into riches, adversity into prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me." Perhaps, on second thoughts, Sir Thomas thought that the phrase savored of that presumption which is supposed to provoke the wrath of Nemesis; and at any rate, he, of all men, is the last to be taken too literally at his word. He is a humorist to the core, and is here writing dramatically. There are many things in this book, so he tells us, "delivered rhetorically, many expressions therein merely tropical ..

and therefore many things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be called unto the rigid test of reason." We shall hardly do wrong in reckoning amongst them this audacious claim to surpassing felicity, as we may certainly include his boast that he "could lose an arm without a tear, and with a few groans be quartered into pieces." And yet, if Sir Thomas were to be understood in the most downright literal earnest, perhaps he could have made out as good a case for his asser

*See "Voyage autour du Japon," par Rodolphe Lindau, chap. xii. p. 247. Paris, 1864.

tion as almost any of the troubled race of mankind. For, if we set aside external circumstances of life, what qualities offer a more certain guarantee of happiness than those of which he is an almost typical example? A mind endowed with an insatiable curiosity as to all things knowable and unknowable; an imagination which tinges with poetical hues the vast accumulation of incoherent facts thus stored in a capacious memory; and a strangely vivid humor that is always detecting the quaintest analogies, and, as it were, striking light from the most unexpected collocations of unpromising materials; such talents are by themselves enough to provide a man with work for life, and to make all his work delightful. To them, moreover, we must add a disposition absolutely incapable of controversial bitterness; "a constitution," as he says of himself, "so general that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things;" an absence of all antipathies to loathsome objects in nature-to French "dishes of snails, frogs, and toadstools," or to Jewish repasts on "locusts or grasshoppers; equal toleration-which in the first half of the seventeenth century is something astonishing-for all theological systems; an admiration even of our natural enemies, the French, the Spaniards, the Italians, and the Dutch; a love of all climates, of all countries; and, in short, an utter inca

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pacity to "absolutely detest or hate any essence except the devil." Indeed, his hatred even for that personage has in it so little of bitterness, that no man, we may be sure, would have joined more heartily. in the Scotch minister's petition for the "puir de'il "-a prayer conceived in the very spirit of his writings. A man so endowed-and it is not only from his explicit assertions, but from his unconscious selfrevelation that we may credit him with closely approaching his own ideal-is admirably qualified to discover one great merit of human happiness. No man was ever better prepared to keep not only one, but a whole stableful of hobbies, nor more certain to ride them so as to amuse himself, without loss of temper or dignity, and without rude collisions against his neighbors. That happy art is given to few, and thanks to his skill in it, Sir Thomas reminds us strongly of the two illustrious brothers Shandy combined in one person. To the exquisite kindliness and simplicity of Uncle Toby he unites the omnivorous intellectual appetite and the humorous pedantry of the head of the family. The resemblance, indeed, may not be quite fortuitous. Though it does not appear that Sterne, amidst his multifarious pilferings, laid hands upon Sir Thomas Browne, one may fancy that he took a general hint or two from so congenial an author.

The best mode of approaching so original a writer is to examine the intellectual food on which his mind was nourished. He dwelt by preference in strange literary pastures; and their nature will let us into some secrets as to his tastes and character. We will begin, therefore, by examining the strange furniture of his mind, as described in his longest, though not his most characteristic book-the Inquiry into Vulgar Errors. When we turn over its quaint pages, we feel as though we were entering one of those singular museums of curiosities which existed in the pre-scientific ages. Every corner is filled with a strange, incoherent medley, in which really valuable objects are placed side by side with what is simply grotesque and ludicrous. The modern man of science may find some objects of interest; but they are mixed inextricably with strange rubbish that once delighted the astrologer, the alchemist, or the dealer in apocryphal relics. And the possessor of this miscellaneous collection accompanies us with an unfailing flow of

amusing gossip; at one moment pouring forth a torrent of out-of-the-way learning; at another, making a really acute scientific remark; and then relapsing into an elaborate discussion of some inconceivable absurdity; affecting the air of a grave inquirer, and to all appearance fully believing in his own pretensions, and yet somehow indulging himself in a half-suppressed smile, which indicates that the humorous aspect of a question can never be far removed from his mind. The whole book, indeed, has that quality which is so delightful to the true lover of the humorous, but which, it must be confessed, is generally rather abhorrent to the vulgar, that we never quite know whether the author is serious. The numerous class which insists upon a joke being as unequivocal as a pistol-shot, and serious statements as grave as a Blue-book, should certainly keep clear of Sir Thomas Browne. His most congenial readers are those who take a simple delight in following out any quaint train of reflections, careless whether it may culminate in a smile or a sigh or in some thought in which the two elements of the sad and the ludicrous are inextricably blended. Sir Thomas, however, is in the Inquiry content generally with bringing out the strange curiosities of his museum, and does not care to draw any explicit moral. The quaintness of the objects. unearthed seems to be a sufficient recompense for the labor of the search. Fortunately for his design, he lived in the time when a poet might have spoken without hyperbole of the "fairy tales of science." To us, who have to plod through an arid waste of painful observation and slow piecing together of cautious inferences before reaching the promised land of wondrous discoveries, the expression sometimes appears to be ironical. not science, we may ask with a prima facie resemblance of right, destroy as much poetry as it generates? To him no such doubts could present themselves, for fairy-land was still a province of the empire of science. Strange beings moved through the pages of natural history, which were equally at home in the Arabian Nights or in poetical apologues. The griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon were not yet extinct; the salamander still sported in flames; and the basilisk slew men at a distance with his deadly glance. More commonplace animals indulged in the habits

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which they had learned in fables, and of which only some feeble vestiges now remain in the eloquence of strolling showmen. The elephant had no joints, and was caught by felling the tree against which he rested his stiff limbs in sleep; the pelican pierced its breast for the good of its young; ostriches were regularly painted with a horseshoe in their bills, to indicate their ordinary diet; storks refused to live except in republics and free states; the crowing of a cock put lions to flight, and men were struck dumb in good sober earnest by the sight of a wolf. The curiosity-hunter, in short, found his game still plentiful, and by a few excursions into Aristotle, Pliny, and other more recondite authors, was able still to display a rich bag for the edification of his readers. Sir Thomas Browne sets out on that quest with all imaginable seriousness. He persuaded himself, and he has persuaded some of his editors, that he was a genuine disciple of Bacon, by one of whose suggestions the Inquiry is supposed to have been prompted. Accordingly, as Bacon describes the idols by which the human mind is misled, Sir Thomas sets out with investigating the causes of error; but his introductory remarks immediately diverge into strange paths, from which it is obvious that the discovery of true scientific method was a very subordinate object in his mind. Instead of telling us by what means truth is to be attained, his few perfunctory remarks on logic are lost in an historical narrative, given with infinite zest, of the earliest recorded blunders. The period of history in which he most delighted was the antediluvian-probably because it afforded the widest field for speculation. His books are full of references to the early days of the world. He takes a keen personal interest in our first parents. He discusses the unfortunate lapse of Adam and Eve from every possible point of view. It is not without a visible effort that he declines to settle which of the two was the more guilty, and what would have been the result if they had tasted the fruit of the Tree of Life before applying to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then he passes in review every recorded speech before the Flood, shows that in each of them, with one exception, there is a mixture of falsehood and error, and settles to his own satisfaction that Cain showed less "truth, wisdom, and reverence" than

Satan under similar circumstances. Granting all which to be true, it is impossible to see how we are advanced in settling, for example, whether the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system of astronomy is to be adopted, or in extracting the grains of truth that may be overlaid by masses of error in the writings of alchemists. Nor do we really learn much by being told that ancient authorities sometimes lie, for he evidently enjoys accumulating the fables, and cares little for showing how to discriminate their degree of veracity. He tells us, indeed, that Medea was simply a predecessor of certain modern artists, with an excellent "recipe to make white hair black;" and that Acteon was a spirited master of hounds, who, like too many of his ancestors, went metaphorically, instead of literally, to the dogs. He points out, moreover, that we must not believe on authority that the sea is the sweat of the earth, that the serpent, before the Fall, went erect like man, or that the right eye of a hedge-hog, boiled in oil, and preserved in a brazen vessel, will enable us to see in the dark. Such stories, he moderately remarks, being "neither consonant unto reason nor correspondent unto experiment," are unto us "no axioms." But we may judge of his scepticism by his remarks on "Oppianus, that famous Cilician poet." Of this writer, he says that, "abating the annual mutation of sexes in the hyana, the single sex of the rhinoceros, the antipathy between two drums of a lamb's and a wolf's skin, the informity of cubs, the venation of centaures, and some few others, he may be read with delight and profit." The some "few others" is charming. Obviously, we shall find in Sir Thomas Browne no inexorably severe guide to truth; he will not too sternly reject the amusing because it happens to be slightly improbable, or doubt an authority because he sometimes sanctions a mass of absurd fables. Satan, as he argues at great length, is at the bottom of most errors, from false religion down to a belief that there is another world in the moon ; but Sir Thomas takes little trouble to provide us with an Ithuriel's spear; and, indeed, we have a faint suspicion that he will overlook at times the diabolic agency in sheer enthusiasm at the marvellous results. The logical design is little more than ostensible; and Sir Thomas, though he knew it not himself, is really satisfied

with any line of inquiry that will bring him in sight of some freak of nature or of opinion suitable to his museum of curiosities.

Let us, however, pass from the anteroom, and enter this queer museum. We pause in sheer bewilderment on the threshold, and despair of classifying its contents intelligibly within any moderate space. This much, indeed, is obvious at first sight-that the title "vulgar errors" is to some extent a misnomer. It is not given to vulgar brains to go wrong by such complex methods. There are errors which require more learning and ingenuity than are necessary for discovering truths; and it is in those queer freaks of philosophical minds that Sir Thomas specially delights. Though far, indeed, from objecting to any absurdity which lies on the common highroad, he rejoices in the true spirit of a collector when he can discover some grotesque fancy by rambling into less frequented paths of inquiry. Perhaps it will be best to take down one or two specimens, pretty much at random, and mark their nature and mode of treatment. Here, for example, is that quaint old wonder, the phoenix, 'which, after many hundred years, burneth itself, and from the ashes thereof ariseth up another." Sir Thomas carefully discusses the pros and cons of this remarkable legend. In favor of the phoenix, it may be alleged that he is mentioned "not only by human authors," but also by such "holy writers as Cyril, Epiphanius, and Ambrose. Moreover, allusions are made to him in Job and the Psalms.. "All which notwithstanding," the following grave reasons may be alleged against his existence: First, nobody has ever seen a phoenix. Secondly, those who mention him speak doubtfully, and even Pliny, after telling a story about a particular phoenix which came to Rome in the censorship of Claudius, unkindly turns round and declares the whole story to be a palpable lie. Thirdly, the name phoenix has been applied to many other birds, and those who speak unequivocally of the genuine phoenix, contradict each other in the most flagrant way as to his age and habitat. Fourthly, many writers, such as Ovid, only speak poetically, and others, as Paracelsus, only mystically, whilst the remainder speak rhetorically, emblematically, or hieroglyphically. Fifthly, in the Scriptures, the word translated "phoenix" means a palmNEW SERIES.-VOL. XIV., No. 1.

tree. Sixthly, his existence, if we look closely, is implicitly denied in the Scriptures, because all fowls entered the ark in pairs, and animals were commanded to increase and multiply, neither of which statements are compatible with the solitary nature of the phoenix. Seventhly, nobody could have known by experience whether the phoenix actually lived for a thousand years, and, therefore, "there may be a mistake in the compute." Eighthly, and finally, no animals really spring, or could spring, from the ashes of their predecessors, and it is impossible to believe that they could enter the world in such a fashion. Having carefully summed up this negative evidence-enough, one would have fancied, to blow the poor phoenix into summary annihilation-Sir Thomas finally announces his grave conclusion in these words "How far to rely on this tradition we refer unto consideration." And yet he feels impelled to add a quaint reflection on the improbability of a statement made by Plutarch, that "the brain of a phoenix is a pleasant bit, but that it causeth the headache." Heliogabalus, he observes, could not have slain the phoenix, for it must of necessity be " vain design to destroy any species, or mutilate the great accomplishment of six days." To which it is added, by way of final corollary, that after Cain had killed Abel, he could not have destroyed Eve, supposing her to have been the only woman in existence; for then there must have been another creation, and a second rib of Adam must have been animated.

We must not, however, linger too long: with these singular speculations, for it is. probable that phoenix-fanciers are becoming rare. It is enough to say briefly that if any one wishes to understand the natural history of the basilisk, the griffin, the salamander, the cockatrice, or the amphisboena-if he wishes to know whether a chameleon lives on air, and an ostrich on horseshoes-whether a carbuncle gives light in the dark, whether the Glaston bury thorn bore flowers on Christmas-day,. whether the mandrake "naturally groweth under gallowses," and shrieks" upon eradication"-on these and many other such points he may find grave discussions in Sir Thomas Browne's pages. He lived in the period when it was still held to be. a sufficient proof of a story that it was. written in a book, especially if the book.

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were Latin; and some persons, such as Alexander Ross, whose memory is preserved only by the rhyme in Hudibras, argued gravely against his scepticism.* For Sir Thomas, in spite of his strange excursions into the marvellous, inclines for the most part to the sceptical side of the question. He was not insensible to the growing influence of the scientific spirit, though he believed implicitly in witchcraft, spoke with high respect of alchemy and astrology, and refused to believe that the earth went round the sun. He feels that his favorite creatures are doomed to extinction, and though dealing lovingly with them, speaks rather like an attached mourner at their funerals than a physician endeavoring to maintain their flickering vitality. He tries experiments and has a taste for dissection. He proves by the evidence of his senses, and believes them in spite of the general report, that a dead kingfisher will not turn its breast to the wind. He convinced himself that if two magnetic needles were placed in the centre of rings marked with the alphabet (an odd anticipation of the electric telegraph, minus the wires) they would not point to the same letter by an occult sympathy. His arguments are often to the point, though overlaid with a strange accretion of the fabulous. In discussing the question of the blackness of negroes, he may remind benevolent readers of some of Mr. Darwin's recent speculations. He rejects, and on the same grounds which Mr. Darwin declares to be conclusive, the hypothesis that the blackness is the immediate effect of the climate; and he points out, what is important in regard to "sexual selection," that a negro may admire a flat nose as we admire an aquiline; though, of course, he diverges into extra-scientific questions when discussing the probable effects of the curse of Ham, and rather loses himself in a "digression concerning blackness." We may fancy that this problem pleased Sir Thomas rather because it appeared to be totally insoluble than for any other reason; and in spite of his occasional gleams of scientific observation, he is always most at home when on the borderland which divides the purely marvellous from the region of ascertainable fact. In the last half of his book,

Ross, for example, urges that the invisibility of the phoenix is sufficiently accounted for by the natural desire of a unique animal to keep out of harm's way.

indeed, having exhausted natural history, he plunges with intense delight into questions which bear the same relation to genuine antiquarianism that his phoenixes and salamanders bear to scientific inquiry: whether the sun was created in Libra; what was the season of the year in Paradise; whether the forbidden fruit was an apple; whether Methuselah was the longest-lived of all men (a main argument on the other side being that Adam was created at the perfect age of man, which in those days was fifty or sixty, and thus had a right to add sixty to his natural years); what was the nature of St. John the Baptist's camel's-hair garment; what were the secret motives of the builders of the tower of Babel; whether the three 'kings really lived at Cologne-these and many other profound inquiries are detailed with all imaginable gravity, and the interest of the inquirer is not the less because he generally comes to the satisfactory and sensible conclusion that we cannot possibly know anything whatever about it.

The Inquiry into Vulgar Errors was published in 1646, and Sir Thomas's next publication appeared in 1658. The dates are curiously significant. Whilst all England was in the throes of the first civil war, Sir Thomas had been calmly finishing his catalogue of intellectual oddities. This book was published soon after the crushing victory of Naseby. King, parliament, and army, illustrating a very different kind of vulgar error, continued to fight out their quarrel to the death. Whilst Milton, whose genius was in some way most nearly akin to his own, was raising his voice in favor of the liberty of the press, good Sir Thomas was meditating profoundly on quincunxes. Milton hurled fierce attacks at Salmasius, and meanwhile Sir Thomas, in his quiet country town, was discoursing on "certain sepulchral urns lately found in Norfolk." In the year of Cromwell's death, the result of his labors appeared in a volume containing The Garden of Cyrus and the Hydriotaphia.

The first of these essays deserves notice as the book in which Sir Thomas has most unreservedly laid the reins upon the neck of his fancy. Borne by his strange hobby, he soared away from the troubles that raged in this sublunary sphere. He ransacks heaven and earth, he turns over all his stores of botanical knowledge, he searches all sacred and profane literature