EDITOR'S PREFACE. IN preparing this volume of the Miscellaneous Works of Sir Thomas Browne, the Editor has endeavoured to include in it what are generally esteemed the best productions of that extraordinary writer. At the head of these stand unquestionably the "Religio Medici," and the "Hydriotaphia"; which pieces, as well as the "Letter to a Friend on the Death of his Intimate Friend," are published without omission or variation. The Notes appended to the "Religio Medici," are, for the most part, selected from the Annotations, first published in 1654, the author of which is unknown. With much that is valuable in these Annotations is blended not a little that is irrelevant and superfluous. For the anonymous Annotator has the fault, common to all his tribe, of gliding over the dark and diffi cult places with a most provoking blindness or indifference, whilst he encumbers with erudite explanation those passages that are as clear as the noon-day. In the "Observations" upon the same work, by Sir Kenelm Digby, the Editor could find nothing worth transferring to these pages. A few pages at the close of the volume have, been filled up with miscellaneous selections from various parts of the " Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors," which may serve to give the reader some idea of that singular work. It is to be wished that there was suf ficient taste in the community for such writings to authorize the reprinting of the whole of this book, with such supplemental and emendatory notes as the progress of physical science since the time of Browne, has made necessary. ALEXANDER YOUNG. BOSTON, NOVEMBER 25, 1831. HYDRIOTAPHIA; Urn-Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk A LETTER TO A FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF SIR THOMAS BROWNE.* SIR THOMAS BROWNE was born at London on the nineteenth of October, 1605. His father was a merchant, of an ancient family at Upton in Cheshire. Of his childhood or youth there is little known, except that he lost his father very early, that he was defrauded by one of his guardians, and that he was placed for his education at the school of Winchester. His mother, having taken three thousand pounds as the third part of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand, a large fortune at that time for a man destined to learning. But it happened to him, as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for his mother soon married Sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement of her *The following Memoir is an abstract of Dr. Johnson's Life of Browne. b |