parish of St Michael le Quern, on the 19th of October
1605. His father was a London merchant, of a good
Cheshire family; and his mother a Sussex lady,
daughter of Mr Paul Garraway of Lewis. His
father died when he was very young, and his mother
marrying again shortly afterwards, Browne was left
to the care of his guardians, one of whom is said to
have defrauded him out of some of his property. He
was educated at Winchester, and afterwards sent to
Oxford, to what is now Pembroke College, where he
took his degree of M.A. in 1629. Thereupon he
commenced for a short time to practise as a physician
in Oxfordshire. But we soon find him growing tired
of this, and accompanying his father-in-law, Sir
Thomas Dutton, on a tour of inspection of the castles
and forts in Ireland. We next hear of Browne in
the south of France, at Montpellier, then a celebrated
school of medicine, where he seems to have studied
some little time. From there he proceeded to Padua,
one of the most famous of the Italian universities,
and noted for the views some of its members
held on the subjects of astronomy and necromancy.
During his residence here, Browne doubtless acquired
some of his peculiar ideas on the science of the
heavens and the black art, and, what was more im-
portant, he learnt to regard the Romanists with that
abundant charity we find throughout his works.
From Padua, Browne went to Leyden, and this sud-
den change from a most bigoted Roman Catholic to
a most bigoted Protestant country was not without