xlii INTRODUCTION 



Browne (see post, p. 13+), quoting the ancient doctrine 

 of Theophrastus, 1 speaks of the system eulogised by 

 Polixenes as " agreeable with our present practice, 

 who graft pears on thorns, and apples upon crab 

 stocks, not using the contrary insition." 



From a sympathetic monograph on Sir Thomas 

 Browne, kindly sent me by its author, Dr. William 

 Osier, the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, and 

 the possessor of the most complete collection of early 

 editions of Browne's works, I learn that he con- 

 tributed liberally to his old school at Winchester, to 

 the rebuilding of the library of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, and to the repairs at Christchurch, Oxford. 

 I also borrow the following account from Dr. Osier 

 of the contemporary portraits of Browne : 



" There are three good portraits of Sir Thomas 

 one in the College of Physicians, London, which is 

 the best known, and has been often reproduced, and 

 from which is taken the frontispiece in Greenhill's 

 edition of the ' Religio Medici ' ; a second is in the 

 Bodleian, and this also has been frequently reproduced ; 

 the third is in the vestry of St. Peter's Mancroft, 

 Norwich. In many ways it is the most pleasing of 



1 De Caus'ts Plant., lib. i., cap. 7. 



