Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82), physician and polymath, wrote on a wide variety of topics in seventeenth-century natural philosophy, natural history, antiquarianism, philology, and religion. His works are particularly notable for a combination of natural investigations with religious reflection, while his sonorous style has been much admired and imitated. Browne was born in London in 1605, on either 19 October or 19 November, the son of a prosperous mercer of the same name who died in 1613. In the following year his mother Anne married Sir Thomas Dutton, a courtier and soldier who squandered much of Browne's father's legacy. Dutton was scoutmaster-general in Ireland, and in 1629 took Browne on a tour of the castles and forts he commanded. Browne had an excellent education: he was sent in 1616 to Winchester College, where he received a thorough grounding in humanist letters. In 1623 he matriculated at Broadgates Hall, Oxford, which in 1624 was incorporated as Pembroke College. Browne…