Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall in The Guardian
Browne was a kind of writer dear to many readers’ – and writers’ – hearts: sceptical, whimsical, keen to stray from the point, capable of baffling and exasperating but then coming up with a great phrase, or a neologism which sticks. Here is a list of some of his coinages, one or two of which I bet you have used from time to time: literary, medical, ambidextrous, hallucination, indigenous, electricity, anomalous, ascetic, carnivorous and fritinancy. (The last means the noise insects make. OK, not all of them stuck – but that one is still in the OED.)
—from Nicholas Lezard’s review of Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici and Urne-Buriall, in The Guardian. He also writes that, “reading Browne is like going for a walk in a country mist and every so often coming up against something looming out of it with astonishing clarity.” We love lyrical book reviews.
