72 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. have been content to believe it, without the labour of so hopeless an experiment. Browne might him- self have obtained the same conviction by a method less operose, if he had thrust his needles through corks, and then set them afloat in two basins of wa- ter." It is singular also, that notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errors, he seems not very easy to admit new positions ; for he never mentions the motion of the earth but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion which admits it was then grow- ing popular, and was surely plausible, even before it was confirmed as an estabhshed truth by later observations. Having now twice experienced the delights of authorship, and become callous to the molesta- tions of censure, he took an early opportunity of appearing again before the public. In 1658, the discovery of some ancient urns in Norfolk gave him occasion to write " A Discourse of Sepulchral Urns in which he treats, with his usual learn- ing, on the funeral rites of the ancient nations, exhibits their various treatment of the dead ; and examines the substances found in the urns dis- covered in Norfolk. There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined how many particulars he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been written for the occasion ; and for which, therefore, no materials could have been previously collected. In his epistle dedicatory to his worthy and honoured friend, Thomas Le Gros, of Crostwick, Esquire, he observes, " when the funeral pyre
- Hydriotaphia, as he learnedly calls this treatise.
