X INTRODUCTION. 



Miscellany Tracts," were doubtless " rather the 

 diversions than the Labours of his Pen ; and 

 . . . He did, as it were, drop down his 

 Thoughts of a sudden, in those spaces of 

 vacancy which he snatch'd from those very 

 many occasions which gave him hourly inter- 

 ruption ; " but I cannot in this instance agree 

 with the conclusion arrived at by the same 

 writer that it "seemeth probable that He de- 

 signed them for publick use," for they appear 

 to be the rough drafts or memoranda used in 

 the production of the finished letters (which are 

 unfortunately not forthcoming), and were never 

 intended for publication in their present crude 

 form, thus rendering pardonable such annota- 

 tions as I have ventured to add. But before 

 proceeding further it is necessary to consider 

 briefly the time and circumstances under which 

 they were written, and the state of what passed 

 for Natural Science at that period. 



Browne wrote early in the second half of 

 the seventeenth century, during a period of 

 great awakening in the study of Nature. 

 Hitherto it could hardly be said that a direct 

 appeal to the works of Nature had been 



Norwich school-boy, and subsequently minister of St. Peter's Mancroft. 

 He was doubtless well acquainted with Browne and his family, and hence 

 his reference in the preface quoted to " the Lady and Son of the excellent 

 Authour," who, he says, " deliver'd " the papers to him. 



