tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION.

The excellent Memoir of Sir Thomas Browne, in Wilkin's Edition of his works, renders it unnecessary here to repeat what has already been so well done; suffice it to say that he was born in London on the 19th of October, 1605; he was educated at Winchester School and entered at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, in 1623; graduated B.A. 31st January, 1626-7, and M.A. 11th June, 1629. About the year 1633 he was created Doctor of Physick at Leyden. In 1636 he took up his residence in Norwich, in 1637 was incorporated Doctor of Physic in Oxford, and in 1665 was chosen an Honorary Fellow of the College of Physicians. In 1671 Browne was knighted at Norwich by Charles II., and after a useful and honourable career died on his seventy-sixth birthday, the 19th of October, 1682, and his body lies buried in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich.

Browne in early life travelled much and was a voluminous writer; he made many friendships with men celebrated in his day, and his advice and assistance were sought and gratefully acknowledged by Dugdale, Evelyn, Ray and Willughby, Merrett, Sir Robert Paston (afterwards Earl of Yarmouth), Ashmole, Aubrey, and others; but his general correspondence does not now concern us, my object being to supply in a convenient form what I believe will be acceptable to modern naturalists, namely, an accurate transcript of his notes and letters on the "Natural History of the County of Norfolk."

These notes and letters were first published by Simon Wilkin in his Edition of Sir Thomas Browne's Works in 1835, but they were not treated from a naturalist's point of view, and in some places were not correctly transcribed, added to which, in the vast mass of matter contained in Wilkin's four large volumes (or in the closely printed three volumes of Bohn's Edition), these interesting passages are in danger of being overlooked or are inconvenient for reference. Two letters, moreover, were needed to make the correspondence with Merrett complete, and these I have been enabled to supply. I hope also that my explanatory notes, which I trust will not be deemed too voluminous, will be found more useful than the necessarily brief notes furnished by Wilkin and his collaborators. Furthermore, I think that the retention of the original spelling and punctuation may lend a charm to the quaintness of the language which is in a measure destroyed by any attempt at modernising.

There is much that is interesting bearing upon Natural Science scattered throughout Browne's writings, especially in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, first published in 1646, and the reader cannot fail to be impressed not only with the extent of his classical knowledge but also with the shrewdness with which he pursued his original investigations; but here it is only proposed to deal with certain manuscript notes and a series of rough notes for, or copies of, letters addressed to Dr. Christopher Merrett, the author of the Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum. These, as remarked by their editor, with regard to some other manuscripts published[A] in 1684, under the title of "Certain Miscellany Tracts," were doubtless "rather the diversions than the Labours of his Pen; and … He did, as it were, drop down his Thoughts of a sudden, in those spaces of vacancy which he snatch'd from those very many occasions which gave him hourly interruption;" but I cannot in this instance agree with the conclusion arrived at by the same writer that it "seemeth probable that He designed them for publick use," for they appear to be the rough drafts or memoranda used in the production of the finished letters (which are unfortunately not forthcoming), and were never intended for publication in their present crude form, thus rendering pardonable such annotations as I have ventured to add. But before proceeding further it is necessary to consider briefly the time and circumstances under which they were written, and the state of what passed for Natural Science at that period.

Browne wrote early in the second half of the seventeenth century, during a period of great awakening in the study of Nature. Hitherto it could hardly be said that a direct appeal to the works of Nature had been the prevailing method. Aristotle was still the established authority, and commentaries on his works occupied the minds of men to the exclusion of original investigation, notwithstanding that this great philosopher had himself, both by precept and example, urged the importance of direct observation and inquiry; the Mediæval school of thought still prevailed and cramped every effort at progress. How keenly Browne lamented this spirit of slavish adherence to tradition may be judged from