THE PREFACE.

IF any one, after he has read Religio Medici, and the ensuing Discourse, can make doubt, whether the same person was the author of them both, he may be assured by the testimony of Mrs. Littleton, Sir Thomas Brown's daughter, who lived with her father when it was composed by him; and who, at the time, read it written by his own hand: and also by the testimony of others (of whom I am one), who read the manuscript of the author, immediately after his death, and who have since read the same; from which it hath been faithfully and exactly transcribed for the press. The reason why it was not printed sooner is, because it was unhappily lost, by being mislay’d among other 6 manuscripts for which search was lately made in the presence of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, of which his Grace, by letter, informed Mrs. Littleton, when he sent the manuscript to her. There is nothing printed in the discourse, or in the short notes, but what is found in the original manuscript of the author, except only where an oversight had made the addition or transposition of some words necessary.

John Jeffrey,

Arch-Deacon of Norwich