Browne, Thomas D.

Hydriotaphia, urne-buriall, or a discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes lately found in Norfolk. Together with The Garden of Cyrus. London: Printed for Hen. Brome a the Signe of the Gun in Ivy-Lane, 1658

8vo (6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.; 160 x 108 mm). 2 plates and an illustration, complete with the 3 final leave including Garden of Cyprus' half title. 18th century English sheepskin; front cover detached, old restorations on corners, spine defected at head, stains on corners of few pages.

H.A. Merewether

First edition. In the Hydriotaphia, Browne takes the excuse of urne-burial discovery to write, in an uncommon literary style, a reflection on death and definitive human faith. The Garden of Cyprus broaches a more esoteric subject, for example the frequency of the number 5 in botany. The contents and the style of the Hydriotaphia influenced many authors including Emerson, Wolf and Borges.

Copy of the laywer and town clerk Henry A. Merewether with annotations on the title page: "Hen. A. Merewether Calne." Long comment on the first blank leaf: "These are both most extraordinary composition the drift of which I can hardly ascertain. The writer sometimes appears to be a sound of believing Christian, at other times he laughs in so loud a strain at the Scriptures and puts in so ridiculous a point way of the limits of Christianity (...) the Ceremonies of the Church that one can not but be inclined to imagine that he is not only an unbeleiver in the Scriptures but a Sceptic, Atheist and heretic."