feminine heterography.

It is noteworthy that Dr. Browne's professional prosperity was not
impaired by the suspicion which early attached to him, and soon
deepened into conviction, that he was addicted to literary pursuits. He
was in high repute as a physician. His practice was extensive, and he
was diligent in it, as also in those works of literature and scientific
investigation which occupied all "snatches of time," he says, "as
medical vacations and the fruitless importunity of uroscopy would
permit." His large family was liberally reared; his hospitality and his
charities were ample.

In 1646 he printed his second book, the largest and most operose of all
his productions: the 'Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Inquiries into Vulgar
and Common Errors' the work evidently of the _horae subsecivae_ of many
years. In 1658 he gave to the public two smaller but important and most
characteristic works, 'Hydriotaphia' and 'The Garden of Cyrus.' Beside
these publications he left many manuscripts which appeared posthumously;
the most important of them, for its size and general interest, being
'Christian Morals.'

When Sir Thomas's long life drew to its close, it was with all the
blessings "which should accompany old age." His domestic life had been
one of felicity. His eldest and only surviving son, Edward Browne, had
become a scholar after his father's own heart; and though not inheriting
his genius, was already renowned in London, one of the physicians to the
King, and in a way to become, as afterward he did, President of the
College of Physicians. All his daughters who had attained womanhood had
been well married. He lived in the society of the honorable and learned,
and had received from the King the honor of knighthood[1].

[Footnote 1: As for this business of the knighting, one hesitates fully
to adopt Dr. Johnson's remark that Charles II. "had skill to discover
excellence and virtue to reward it, at least with such honorary
distinctions as cost him nothing." A candid observer of the walk and
conversation of this illustrious monarch finds room for doubt that he
was an attentive reader or consistent admirer of the 'Religio Medici,'
or 'Christian Morals'; and though his own personal history might have
contributed much to a complete catalogue of Vulgar Errors, Browne's
treatise so named did not include divagations from common decency in its
scope, and so may have failed to impress the royal mind. The fact is
that the King on h