Produced by Henry Flower and Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska Transcriber's Note The printed text contained both footnotes and endnotes. These have been renumbered in continuous series of letters and Arabic numerals respectively. Corrected errata are listed at the end of the text. The following List of Contents has been added by the transcriber: RELIGIO MEDICI HYDRIOTAPHIA A LETTER TO A FRIEND NOTES TO THE RELIGIO MEDICI NOTES TO HYDRIOTAPHIA NOTES TO LETTER TO A FRIEND RELIGIO MEDICI. _RELIGIO MEDICI_, HYDRIOTAPHIA, AND THE LETTER TO A FRIEND. BY SIR THOMAS BROWNE, KNT. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY J. W. WILLIS BUND, M.A., LL.B., GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, OF LINCOLN’S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 1869. INTRODUCTION. SIR THOMAS BROWNE (whose works occupy so prominent a position in the literary history of the seventeenth century) is an author who is now little known and less read. This comparative oblivion to which he has been consigned is the more remarkable, as, if for nothing else, his writings deserve to be studied as an example of the English language in what may be termed a transition state. The prose of the Elizabethan age was beginning to pass away and give place to a more inflated style of writing--a style which, after passing through various stages of development, culminated in that of Johnson. Browne is one of the best early examples of this school; his style, to quote Johnson himself, “is vigorous but rugged, it is learned but pedantick, it is deep but obscure, it strikes but does not please, it commands but does not allure. . . . It is a tissue of many languages, a mixture of heterogeneous words brought together from distant regions.” Yet in spite of this qualified censure, there are passages in Browne’s works not inferior to any in the English language; and though his writings may not be “a well of English undefiled,” yet it is the very defilements that add to the beauty of the work. But it is not only as an example of literary style that Browne deserves to be studied. The matter of his works, the grandeur of his ideas, the originality of his thoughts, the greatness of his charity, amply make up for the deficiencies (if deficiencies there be) in his style. An author who combined the wit of Montaigne with the learning of Erasmus, and of whom even Hallam could say that “his varied talents wanted nothing but the controlling supremacy of good sense to place him in the highest rank of our literature,” should not be suffered to remain in obscurity. A short account of his life will form the best introduction to his works.