rough Holland,
procured himself to be created doctor of physick at Leyden.

When he began his travels, or when be concluded them, there is no
certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in
his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider,
therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from
the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to
indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish,
which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be
lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very
frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it
is more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because, to
minds naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to
deserve the notice of the publick.

About the year 1634 [72], he is supposed to have returned to London;
and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called
Religio Medici, "the religion of a physician [73]," which he declares
himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only
for his own exercise and entertainment. It, indeed, contains many
passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great
importance to the publick; but when it was written, it happened to him
as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to
think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated
it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause
with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was
not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers,
but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without
his own consent, they were, in 1642, given to a printer.

This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing
to believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely,
some reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of
surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed
without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is
repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble; but a long
treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or
curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it
is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book,
by a distant ha