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The text of this edition of Sir Thomas Browne's best-known essays has been carefully revised. short posthumous tract On Dreams' has been added, published originally by Wilkin from the Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. I have to thank my friend Mr. C. W. Sutton for his assist

ance in reading the proof-sheets.

MANCHESTER, November 1897.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

SIR THOMAS BROWNE, in his best-known work, the Religio Medici, speaks of his earlier life as 'a miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a history but a piece of poetry,' yet its actual incidents justify no such description.

This apparent hyperbolism must, therefore, be understood to refer rather to its subjective than its objective development. The following sketch will show that his life, from beginning to end, when the troublous times. that were contemporaneous with it are borne in mind, was almost remarkable for its absolute uneventfulness. In fact, so strangely oblivious does he appear to have been to the stupendous dramas enacted all around him, that scarcely any evidences of their effect upon his quiet and studious life can be found in his writings; he seems to have been almost as undisturbed by 'the drums and tramplings' of the terrible struggle that rent the kingdom in twain, as the peaceful dead who claimed so large a share of his attention.

He was born in the city of London on October 19, 1605-the year of the Gunpowder

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Plot-in the parish of St. Michael, Cheapside. His father, who was of gentle birth, was a presumably successful business man, either merchant or mercer, tracing his descent from 'an ancient and genteel family' belonging to Upton in Cheshire, and it is on record that he was related to a Countess of Devonshire, whom he greatly resembled. He was in the habit of uncovering the breast of his infant son, when he was sleeping, kissing it, and praying over him, in imitation of Origen's father, 'that the Holy Ghost would take possession there.'

Sir Thomas's mother was the daughter of a Paul Garraway of Lewes, Sussex, but of her very little is known. She lost her husband while her son was in his nonage, and she married again; her second husband, Sir Thomas Dutton, being a very worthy gentleman who enjoyed an honourable post in the government of Ireland.'

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There is reason to doubt whether the fortune of about £9000—of which a third was left to the mother-was fairly apportioned between Thomas and his brother and two sisters, for it is stated that he was defrauded by the rapacity of his guardians. Be this as it may, his education was not neglected. He obtained a scholarship at Winchester in 1616-the year of Shakespeare's death; and in the beginning of

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