After his death his widow resided in his house until her death. Then it was occupied by Dr. Howman, who presented the portrait of the knight to St. Peter’s Mancroft. A large portion of his letters and manuscripts passed into the hands of Sir Hans Sloane, and are now in our National Library at the British Museum. During this present century the house has been dismantled and converted to its new purposes, and its fittings dispersed. A handsome carved mantel-piece, removed from one of the rooms by the builder, is now in the possession of Mr. Henry Birkbeck, of Stoke; and the very keys of the house were long treasured as relics by the late Mr. Barker, of Thorpe Hamlet. But I must not dwell longer upon his personality and personal history, interesting though they be, in the light of his being a Norwich man, and the most famous of Norwich authors. If you wish to know more of his biography, you will find it all excellently given in the memoir of him written by Dr. Samuel Johnson, and which, together with a supplemental memoir by Simon Wilkin, is prefaced to the edition of his works in three volumes, published by Bohn in 1852, and edited by Wilkin. We must next consider to what Sir Thomas Browne owes his great literary fame, and upon what his claims rest for being one of this city’s most eminent citizens. Sir Thomas Browne was a very voluminous writer, and he touched a great variety of subjects. The greatest of his works, the one which was published soon after his settling in Norwich, was undoubtedly that to which he gave the name of “_Religio Medici_”—the religion of a physician; implying thereby, not “that physicians have a religion to themselves, but that physicians have religion as well as other men.” It immediately attracted the attention of the most learned in the land, and it is certainly the production upon which his literary fame most largely depends. It is quaintly written, full of odd phrases, original thoughts, and peculiarities of diction, but equally full of fine sentiments and expressions of confident religious faith. It is a work often so quaint in its diction, so stilted in its modes of expression (as indeed was common in those days), and so interlarded with specialized or new-coined words, that it is somewhat difficult to read and understand. But its high qualities and beauties are so great that it richly repays the trouble of mastering its style; and I venture to assert that the greatness of its sentiments and thoughts grows upon one by perusal, and that the oftener it is read the more greatly will it be appreciated. To show what was thought of it from the first, it had, by the year 1736, passed through fourteen editions, and had also been translated into Latin, French, Dutch and German. Now let me briefly quote a few passages from this “_Religio Medici_,” to show the views and opinions upon the Christian religion which are therein set forth.