and afterwards removing to Merton college in Oxford, was
admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
1668 he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
mines and metallurgy. Upon his return, he published an account of the
countries through which he had passed; which I have heard commended by
a learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
with scrupulous and exact veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it, as likely to give
much pleasure to common readers; for, whether it be that the world is
very uniform, and, therefore, he who is resolved to adhere to truth
will have few novelties to relate; or, that Dr. Browne was, by the
train of his studies, led to inquire most after those things by which
the greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his
book seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from
one place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.

Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
first to Charles the second, and afterwards, in 1682, to St.
Bartholomew's hospital. About the same time, he joined his name to
those of many other eminent men, in a translation of Plutarch's lives.
He was first censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of
physicians; of which, in 1705, he was chosen president, and held his
office till, in 1708, he died, in a degree of estimation suitable to a
man so variously accomplished, that king Charles had honoured him with
this panegyrick, that "he was as learned as any of the college, and as
well bred as any of the court."

Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities, which
have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate
every man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom
personal knowledge enables to observe them, are irrecoverably lost.
This mutilation of character must