INTRODUCTION. ix 



which I trust will not be deemed too volumi- 

 nous, will be found more useful than the 

 necessarily brief notes furnished by Wilkin and 

 his collaborators. Furthermore, I think that the 

 retention of the original spelling and punctu- 

 ation may lend a charm to the quaintness of 

 the language which is in a measure destroyed 

 by any attempt at modernising. 



There is much that is interesting bearing 

 upon Natural Science scattered throughout 

 Browne's writings, especially in his Pseudo- 

 doxia Epidemica, or inquiries into Vulgar 

 and Common Errors, first published in 

 1646, and the reader cannot fail to be 

 impressed not only with the extent of his 

 classical knowledge but also with the shrewd- 

 ness with which he pursued his original 

 investigations ; but here it is only proposed 

 to deal with certain manuscript notes and a 

 series of rough notes for, or copies of, letters 

 addressed to Dr. Christopher Merrett, the 

 author of the Pinax Rerum Naturalium 

 Britannicarum. These, as remarked by their 

 editor, with regard to some other manuscripts 

 published* in 1684, under the title of "Certain 



* The " Miscellany Tracts" were put forth by " Tho. Tenison " (1636- 

 1715)1 who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, but was then 

 the Rector of a London parish, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He had been a 



