Browne's "Hydriotaphia" with a Reference to Adipocere

Abstract

Sir T1HOMAS BROWNE'S Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or, a Brief Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk has for a long time occupied an important position among the writings of the seventeenth century. It was first printed in I658 and GEOFFREY KEYNES points out that it was written probably in i656 (i). As an example of seventeenth century prose it is excellent and a few of its references to natural phenomena are worth quoting as indicative of ideas prevalent at that time, although for a really instructive and amusing account of BROWNE's knowledge of science and history one should read his Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed Truths, which examined prove but Vulgar and Common Errors. The principal topic of Hydriotaphia is the discovery of a number of burial urns at Walsingham in Norfolk. Around his subject, however, BROWNE weaves a fascinating discussion on the disposal of the body after death as practised in various countries by different sects during different periods of history, on the history of cremation and urn burial, on notable monuments, urns and relics, on burial customs, and on classical ideas regarding a life after death. He closes with a chapter on immortality which, in the words of Professor NEILSON (2), places BROWNE in the first rank of writers of English prose.