these drawings, of whose safe return he was assured, both by Ray and by their mutual friend, Sir Philip Skippon, had not been sent back to him."[G] [F] Dr. Robert Plot (1640-1696) was born at Sutton Barne, Kent, in 1640; he graduated M.A. in 1664, and D.C.L. at Oxford in 1671. He was chiefly noted as an antiquary, and was Secretary of the Royal Society from 1682 to 1684, also the first custodian of the Ashmoleian Museum and Professor of Chemistry at Oxford. In 1677 he published his "Natural History of Oxfordshire," the first local work of the kind which appeared; it was illustrated by sixteen plates. In 1686 he also published "The Natural History of Staffordshire," and subsequently many other books and papers. He was evidently acquainted with most of the learned men of his time. Plot died at his family estate Sutton Barne, on the 30th of April, 1696, and was buried at Borden in Kent. Dr. Plot was a friend of Browne's, and his companion in a tour in England in 1693.--"Dict. Nat. Biog." [G] See letter to his son, Dr. Edward Browne (Wilkin, i., p. 337), also Appendix C. I have endeavoured to reproduce as accurately as possible the text of the notes and letters, which, as will be seen from the example photographed for the frontispiece of this volume, was often very difficult to decipher. The originals of the notes and of seven of the nine letters to Merrett, as also the two letters in Appendix A., are in the Sloane Collection of MSS. in the British Museum Library; those numbered vii. and viii., as well as two letters in Appendix D., which have not hitherto been printed, are in the Bodleian Library; and the letter to Dugdale in Appendix B. is extracted from the "Eastern Counties Collectanea." All the MSS. in the Sloane Collection I have transcribed myself; of those in the Bodleian Library, No. vii. is from a photograph, the remainder were copied for me by a person recommended as being highly reliable. I thought it best to retain all the erasures and interlineations in order to show as much as possible what was passing in their author's mind: in the foot-notes I have sought to acknowledge _in situ_ the valuable help I received from numerous correspondents to whom my best thanks are due, but I owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Newton, at whose instigation the work was undertaken, for his kind assistance and for the loan of scarce books which it was necessary to consult in the interesting investigations needful to elucidate, if possible, some of the obscure passages in the text, a task in which if with the best intentions should I have sometimes failed, I must ask the reader's indulgence. 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. T. S. _Norwich, December, 1901._ Notes and Letters ON THE