RELIGIO MEDICI,HYDRIOTAPHIA, AND THE LETTER TO A FRIEND.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE (whose works occupy so prominent a position in the literary his- tory of the seventeenth century) is an author who is now little known and less read.  This com- parative oblivion to which he has been consigned is the more remarkable, as, if for nothing else, his  writings deserve to be studied as an example of the English language in what may be termed a transition state.