Volume 1

The works of Sir Thomas Browne : including his unpublished correspondence, and a memoir / edited by Simon Wilkin.

  • Thomas Browne
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne : including his unpublished correspondence, and a memoir / edited by Simon Wilkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    October, 1605.* His father3 was a merchant4 of*a ancient family at Upton in Cheshire. Of the nam or family of his mother, I find no account.5 Of his childhood or youth, there is little known except that he lost his father very early; that he wa according to the common fate of orphans,! defraude by one of his guardians ; and that he was placed fo his education at the school of Winchester.6 His mother, having taken three thousand pounds, as the third part of her husband's property, left hei son, by consequence, six thousand;7 a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time wher commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal | riches. But it happened to him as to many others to be made poorer by opulence; for his mother soon married Sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the induce- ment of her fortune ; and he was left to the rapacitv of his guardian, deprived now of both his parents, au therefore helpless and unprotected. He was removed in the beginning of the year 162 from Winchester to Oxford; § and entered a gentle- man-commoner of Broadgate Hall, which was soo afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembrok College, from the Earl of Pembroke, then Chancello of the University. He was admitted to the degre of bachelor of arts, January8 31, 1626-7, being, as * Life of Sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the Antiquities of Norwich. f Whitefoot's Character of Sir Thomas Browne, in a marginal note. % Life, ^c. § Wood's A'thence Oxonienses. 3 His father.'] Whom Blomfield er- in Sussex. He mentions his grandfather roneously names John Vol. ii. 291. in a letter, p. 323. 4 a merchant.] Mrs. Lyttelton (as we 6 the school, <ye.] Wykeham's school, are informed by Bishop Kennet) says near Winchester.—Posth. Life. that her father was a tradesman, a 7 left her son, S(C.] This would be mercer; but a gentleman of good family correct, had lie been an only child; but in Cheshire.—Europ. Mag. xl, p. 89. he had a brother and two sisters. 5 no account.] From a pedigree in 8 January.] June 31, I62G: half a the College of Arms, (which I have print- year earlier, says Wood,—Fasti i, 42G, ed,) it appears that his mother was Ann, ed. Bliss, the daughter of Paul Garraway, of Lewes,