Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/94

 76 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. subjects of little importance, as it seems to have been the pride of wit, in all ages, to show how it could exalt the low, and amplify the little. In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, Browne con- siders every production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation or approach to the form of a quincunx * ; and as a man once resolved upon ideal discoveries seldom searches long in vain, he finds his favourite figure in almost every thing, so that a reader might be led to imagine, that decussation was the great business of the world. Though he has, doubtless, carried this notion to a laughable extreme, yet the fanciful sports of great minds are never without some ad- vantage to knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the form of plants, and the laws of vegetation ; and appears to have been a very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have watched with great nicety the evolution of the parts of plants from their seminal principles. The tracts above alluded to are all which he put forth during his lifetime ; but after his death many papers were found in his closet, corrected and transcribed by his own hand, and, to all appearance, intended for the press ; several of which were after- wards published. Of these posthumous treatises, there may be noticed, " Observations upon several Plants mentioned in Scripture." These remarks, though they do not immediately rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties, or
 * A row, or rank, in the form of a five in cards •