visits to Blickling, Rainham, and Oxnead, in the following lines:

Who the next day at their own houses treat.
Paston to Oxney did his sovereign bring,
And, like Araunah, offered to the king.
Blickling two monarchs and two Queens has seen,
One King fetch'd there, another brought a Queen.
Great Townshend of the treats brought up the rear,
And doubly was my Lord Lieutenant there.
And now with Norwich, for whose sake I writ,
Let me conclude. Norwich did what was fit;
Or what with them was possible at least;
That city does enuff, that does its best.

There the King knighted the so famous Browne,

Whose worth and learning to the world are known." &c.

Early in October, Evelyn went down to the Earl of Arlington's (then Lord Chamberlain) at Euston, in company with Sir Thos. Clifford, to join the royal party. Lord Henry Howard arrived soon after and prevailed on Mr. Evelyn to accompany him to Norwich, promising to convey him back after a day or two.-" This," says he, "as I could not refuse I was not hard to be persuaded to, having a desire to see that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. Browne, author of the 'Religio Medici' and 'Vulgar Errors,' &c., now lately knighted. Thither then went my lord and I alone, in his flying chariot with six horses; and by the way, discoursing with me of severall of his concernes, he acquainted me of his going to marry his eldest sonn to one of the king's natural daughters by the Dutchesse of Cleaveland, by which he reckon'd he should come into mighty favour.

"Being come to the ducal palace, my lord made very much of me; but I had little rest, so exceedingly desirous he was to shew me the contrivance he had made for the entertainment of their majesties and the whole court not long before, and which, tho' much of it was but temporary, apparently fram'd of boards only, were yet standing. As to the palace, it is an old wretched building, and that part of it newly built of brick is very ill understood; so as I was of opinion it had been much better to have demolish'd all, and set it up in a better place, than to proceede any farther; for it stands in the very market place, and tho' neere a river, yet a very narrow muddy one, and without any extent.

"Next morning I went to see Sir Tho. Browne (with whom I had some time corresponded by letter, tho' I had never seen him before). His whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the best collections, especially medails, books, plants, and natural things. Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas had a collection of the eggs of all the foule and birds he could procure, that country (especialy the promontary of Norfolck) being frequented, as he said, by severall kinds, which seldome or never go farther into the land, as cranes, storkes, eagles, and variety of waterfoule. He led me to see all the remarkable places of this ancient citty, being one of the largest, and certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its venerable cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleanesse of the streetes, and buildings of flints, so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much astonished at; but he told me they had lost the art of squaring the flints, in which they once so much excell'd, and of which the churches, best houses, and walls, are built. The castle is an antique extent of ground, which now they call Marsfield, and would have been a fitting area to have placed the ducal palace on. The suburbs are large, the prospects sweete, with other amenities, not omitting the flower gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel. The fabric of stuffs brings a vast trade to this populous towne.

"Being returned to my Lord's, who had ben with me all this morning, he advis'd with me concerning a plot to rebuild his house, having already, as he said, erected a front next the streete, and a left wing, and now resolving to set up another wing and pavilion next the garden, and to convert the bowling-greene into stables. My advice was, to desist from all, and to meditate wholly on rebuilding an handsome palace at Arundell House in the Strand, before he proceeded farther here, and then to place this in the castle, that ground belonging to his lordship.

"I observed that most of the church-yards (tho' some of them large enough) were filled up with earth, or rather the congestion of dead bodys one upon another, for want of earth, even to the very top of the walls, and some above the walls, so as the churches seemed to be built in pitts.

"18 Oct. I returned to Euston in my lord's coach, leaving him at Norwich." 8

In the succeeding year, 1672, the name of Sir Thomas occurs as having given his testimony, in the following terms, to the extraordinary precocity of Wotton, afterwards the friend of Bentley :

"I do hereby declare and certify, that I heard Wm. Wotton, son to Mr. Henry Wotton, of Wrentham, of the age of six years, read a stanza in Spencer very distinctly, and pronounce it properly. As also some verses in the 1st Eclogue of Virgil, which I purposely chose out, and also construe the same truly. Also some verses in Homer, and the Carmina Aurea of Pythagoras, which he read well and construed. As he did also the 1st verse of the 4th ch. of Genesis in Hebrew, which I purposely chose out.

"July 20, 1672.

THO. BROWNE." 9

In the same year, in compliance with the request of Anthony Wood, the Oxford historian, Sir Thomas communicated, through his friend John Aubrey, some information respecting Dr. Lushington, his former tutor, and several other persons, together with those few biographical particulars respecting himself, which have formed the basis of all subsequent notices of him. These letters were detected in the Ashmolean Museum, by Mr. Black, who has had the kindness to transmit them just in time for insertion, with some others: one from Sir Thomas to Lilly, the astrologer, and two to Ashmole, in reference principally to Dr. John Dee and his son, Dr. Arthur Dee, who resided for many years on terms of the kindest friendship with Browne at Norwich, and there died. Sir Thomas, in these letters, bears testimony most unequivocally to the sincerity of Dr. Arthur Dee's belief in the power of alchymy to transmute the baser metals into gold and silver; which he assured Sir Thomas he had "ocularly, undeceivably, and frequently" beheld. He was even on the point of

Memoirs of Evelyn, vol. i, p. 444-6.

9 See An Essay on the Education of Children in the first Rudiments of Learning, together with a Narrative of what Knowledge Wm. Wotton, a child under six years of age, had attained unto, upon the Improvement of those Rudiments in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew Tongues. By Henry Wotton, of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Minister of Wrentham, in Suffolk. London, 1753, 8vo. p. 59.

going to the continent in pursuit of such riches, had not the death of the artist, with whom he was about to hazard his property, most opportunely prevented him.

Sir Thomas had also another zealous alchymist among his correspondents, in the person of one of his earliest friends, Sir Robert Paston, with whom he corresponded from 1663 to 1672, principally on experiments which Sir Robert was making in alchymy. Blomfield speaks of this gentleman as “a person of good learning, who, travelling into foreign countrys, collected many considerable rarities and curiosities, and being an accomplished fine gentleman, entertained King Charles II, his queen, and the Duke of York at Oxnead, with the nobility that attended them." 1

But though Sir Thomas was willing enough to afford all the assistance in his power to those who sought it, in pursuit of astrology and alchymy, (as on every other subject within his range,) it does not follow, nor do his writings justify our supposing, that he placed any reliance on the one, or entertained any hopes from the other, of those pseudo-sciences; which, indeed, ought rather to be regarded as the cradles of astronomy and chemistry. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have been at one time on the hunt after the philosopher's stone: and he himself owned that it was his pursuit of the idle and vain study of astrology which led him into the love of astronomy. Lord Bacon speculated on the making of gold; but this, it is contended, arose from his lofty conceptions of the yet untried resources of experimental science.

Our history now fast approaches its conclusion. The remaining ten years of Sir Thomas's life afford us few incidents of importance or interest. His leisure seems to have been very considerably occupied with rendering professional and literary assistance to his son Edward; with whom he kept up a constant correspondence to the very close of his life.

The marriage of Dr. Edward Browne, in 1672, had settled him in London; and he naturally availed himself of every means, whether derived from his own exertions, or from the celebrity of his father's name, to extend his connexions, which were already considerable. In the summer of 1673 he went

1 Blomfield's Norfolk, vol. iii, p. 699.

over to Germany with Sir Joseph Williamson and Sir Leoline Jenkins, the English plenipotentiaries who were sent over to Cologne to negociate a treaty of peace between England, France, and Holland. This, although but an excursion of pleasure, probably enabled him to make some valuable additions to his circle of influential and ttiled friends.

Having thus terminated his travels, (which he never subsequently resumed,) he soon brought out his first account of them in 4to. under his father's advice, and, four years afterwards, published a second collection. They were very well received; as will appear from a brief sketch of his works. which I have subjoined below.2 In 1675 he was chosen, on

2 During his absence from England, Dr. Edw. Browne had transmitted to the Royal Society, in reply to their inquiries, some curious information, together with a collection of minerals, &c.-See Correspondence, p. 447. These communications were published at different times in the Philosophical Transactions: of which see a list at page 202, note. On his return to England, his first work was a translation of "A Discourse of the Original, Countrey, Manners, Government, and Religion of the Cossacks, with another of the Precopian Tartars. And the History of the Wars of the Cossacks against Poland, London, &c. 1672," 12mo.; with a preface, signed "Edward Brown," in which he informs his readers that "The author of this work was a commander, and employed his sword in foreign countreys, as well as his pen, and his living long in Poland gave him sufficient opportunity to make these observations, &c. &c." The volume is, as its title-page announces, divided into three parts; the first (31 pp.) a sketch of the history, &c. of the Cossacks of the Ukraine; the second (pp. 32-54) on the Præcopian (or Crim) Tartars, the inhabitants of the Lesser Tartary; the third, (pp. 55-195), a history of the first and second wars of the Cossacks against Poland, from 1648 to the Peace of Bialacierkiew, Sep. 28, 1650. In 1673 he published, in 4to., A Brief Account of some Travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Friuli. As also some Observations on the Gold, Silver, Copper, Quicksilver Mines, Baths, and Mineral Waters, in those parts: with the figures of some habits and remarkable places. This work he divided into distinct subjects, which are arranged in the following order :-1. The General Description of Hungary. 2. A Journey from Vienna in Austria to Larissa in Thessaly. 3. The Description of Larissa and Thessaly. 4. Some Occurrences and Observations in this Journey. 5. A Journey from Komara or Gomora to the Mine Towns in Hungary, and from thence to Vienna. 6. A Journey from Vienna into Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Friuli, unto the strange Lake of Zirchnitz, to the Quicksilver Mines at Idria, and to other remarkable places in the Alpes. This arrangement cannot be commended; for the last of the three journies in point of time (having occupied him from Sep. 1, to Oct. 27, 1669) is placed before the visit to Komara, (which took place in March and April,) and the tour through Styria, &c. (which extended from May 31, to July 31, in the same year.) To this collection he was induced, in 1677, to add, An Account of several Travels through a great part of Germany; in four journies. 1. From Norwich to Colen. 2. From Colen to Vienna, with a particular description of that imperial city. 3. From Vienna to Hamburg. 4. From Colen to London, &c. 4to. The first three chapters, together with his former volume, complete the history of his travels from Dec. 1668 to Dec. 1669; The 1st and 2nd recording their commencement, the 3rd their termination. The 4th narrates his short tour in the Netherlands in the summer of 1673. In 1685 he reprinted these volumes in a thin folio, with this title:-A brief Account of some Travels in divers parts of Europe, viz. Hungaria, &c. Through a great part of Germany and the Low Countries. VOL. I.

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