Hawthorn tree

The coldest winter for 50 years followed by the driest ever March and then the  warmest ever April are strong indicators that it's not  just the weather but the  very climate which is changing. I've lived  near to  a specimen of  Hawthorn tree for over 30 years and its the first time I've ever seen  one flower in April, invariably it flowers later in May.  

While cucumber and strawberry growers are reporting an early bumper crop, due to the warm weather, by far the most concerning weather feature at present is the fact that in the East of England it's not rained for almost 3 months. Without water life on Earth is unsustainable. The present-day weather extremes are ominous indicators of  climate change.

Lobster

'Lobsters in great number about Sheringham and Cromer from whence all the country is supplied.'

 Sir Thomas Browne was a  significant  natural historian so it's not too surprising that The Project Gutenberg EBook has recently  reproduced his  'Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk'.

 First published in 1902 by Jarrolds of London, Browne's 'Notes and Letters upon the Natural History of Norfolk more especially on the birds and fishes', is a valuable document  inasmuch as it provides evidence not only of Browne's  keen-sighted observations  and  his willingness to assist  the ornithologist Christopher Merritt, but also to the abundance and decline throughout the intervening centuries of particular species in Norfolk. However, those expecting to read highly-stylized 'vast undulations of sound' as exemplified in  the poetic Discourses of 1658 will be sorely disappointed, for it is Browne at his most scientific  note-book prose encountered in his natural history notes.

The county of Norfolk is described by Browne as having a 'great number of rivers, rivulets & plashes of water', elsewhere in his notes he writes of its 'broad waters' which may well be from where the term 'Norfolk Broads' originates. I've written before upon Browne as an ornithologist here's the link.

Thomas Southwell in the 1902  introduction to Browne's notes, 'emphasises the originality which pervades all  Browne's observations, a characteristic so conspicuously absent in the work of most of his predecessors'.

Southwell also laments-

'It may be truly said of Sir Thomas Browne that a prophet hath no honour in his own country; the writings of this remarkable man are little known in the city of his adoption, and a recent movement to erect a monument to his memory has hitherto met with feeble support'.

Although a statue of Browne was in fact erected in his honour upon the tercentenary of his birth  in 1905 by the citizens of Norwich,  it remains true a full century later that, 'the writings of this remarkable man are little known in the city of his adoption'.

Willows on the Wensum

Now spring has finally arrived there are some very  green and scenic views near to home. The ancient and senile river Wensum winds slowly through Norfolk entering Norwich just a mile or two from my door-step.

Annunciation

I'm lucky to spend time at present as a volunteer at the church of Saint John Maddermarket. Now that the tourist season is under-way I get to meet visitors from all over the world. The window in the North chapel depicts the Annunciation and was designed by James Powell & Sons. It was donated by  parishioners of the church and cost £165 in 1913. Many visitors to the church of  Saint John Maddermarket  have commented on its pre-Raphaelite style, and it's arguably the most popular stained-glass window in the church.  The centre panel depicts lilies, emblematic of the Virgin Mary. On the well which Mary stands beside there can be seen two scenes from Genesis, the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise on the right, the scene thus sharply contrasts Eve's disobedience to Mary's obedience.

I'm technically a little late posting this because March 25th  is the date of the church festival  commemorating Lady Day and the Annunciation in the ecclesiastical calender.

But of all the many beautiful religious artifacts located in Saint John Maddermarket my favourite remains the utterly fascinating  Layer Monument.

Ghosts and Quincunxes

 Frontispiece to 'Urn-Burial' by Paul Nash

In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, 

a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.

It’s testimony to Sir Thomas Browne’s antiquity as well as his originality that throughout the centuries, thinkers, writers, artists and composers have responded to his art and thought, including the English artist Paul Nash (1899 -1946). 

Paul Nash was one of the leading English artists during the first half of the twentieth century. He was recruited as an official war artist during the 1920’s and promoted modernism in Britain as well as the avant-garde styles of surrealism and abstraction. In 1933 he co-founded the influential modern art movement Unit One with Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and the art critic Herbert Read. 

When  in 1932 Nash was invited to illustrate a book of his own choice he unhesitatingly chose Thomas Browne’s Discourses 'Urn-Burial' and  'The Garden of Cyrus', providing the publisher with no less than 30 illustrations to accompany Browne’s text.  Titles included among Nash's thirty designs include - 'Tokens',  'Buried Urn', 'Funeral Pyre', 'Mansions of the Dead', 'Ghosts' and 'Sorrows'.

In his essay ‘Browne and Paul Nash : The Genesis of Form’ Philip Brocklebank notes that Nash studied Browne’s text carefully and had an exact command of it. According to Brocklebank, Nash's art

‘encourages a readers scattered perceptions to coalesce into new orders; and he contrives to create in colortype and watercolour  a visual equivalent to the prolific allusiveness and the aphoristic immediacies of Browne’s style’.

Brocklebank also noted that Nash responded sympathetically to the themes of death and human mortality in ‘Urn-Burial' ; indeed, both Browne and Nash witnessed the slaughter and horror of war in their life-time. Browne's Discourse 'Urn-Burial' itself has been described as a threnody to the waste of human life during the English civil war.

'When the Funeral Pyre was out, and the last valediction over,
men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends'. 

 'the souls of Penelope's Paramours conducted by Mercury chirped like bats and those which followed Hercule's made a noise but like a flock of birds'.

Nash was equally sympathetic to  the themes of optics, the geometry of nature and Browne's perspicacious observations upon sundry subjects in 'The Garden of Cyrus'. Illustration titles include 'Vegetable Creation', 'Poisonous Plantations' and the running title sub-sections of the Discourse 'The Quincunx naturally considered', 'The Quincunx artificially considered',  and 'The Quincunx mystically considered'. 

A like ordination there is in the favaginous Sockets, and Lozenge seeds of the noble flower of the Sunne.

                                                                                                                                                             
Nor is it to be overlooked how Orus, the Hieroglyphick of the world is described in a Network covering from the shoulder to the foot.

And beside this kind of work in Retiarie and hanging textures, in embroideries, and eminent needle-works; the like is obvious unto every eye in glass-windows. Not only in Glassie contrivances, but also in Lattice and Stone-work...

Book consulted -

Approaches to Sir Thomas Browne, The Ann Arbor Tercentenary Lectures and Essays. edited by C.A.Patrides pub. University of Missouri  Press 1982