Sir Thomas Browne appears to have enjoyed for many years a very considerable practice in this city. But he was also an archæologist, a naturalist, a studier of plants and animals. He had as personal friends or literary correspondents such men as Sir Robert Paston, Sir Hamon L’Estrange, Sir Kenelm Digby, John Evelyn, Sir William Dugdale, and Bishop Hall, and he appears to have found time to carry on a very large literary correspondence. He lived in Norwich from 1634 to 1682, which included the dangerous times of the Stuarts, of the Long Parliament, and of the Commonwealth. But he appears to have been a staunch Royalist. He was knighted, as I have said, by King Charles II., on the occasion of his visiting Norwich in 1671.
Later in this year he was visited by the well-known Evelyn, whose oft quoted passage respecting him runs thus—“My Lord Henry Howard . . . would needs have me go with him to Norwich, promising to convey me back after a day or two; this, as I could not refuse, I was not hard to be persuaded to, having a desire to see that famous scholar and physitian, Dr. T. Browne, author of the ‘Religio Medici,’ and ‘Vulgar Errors,’ etc., now lately knighted.” And he adds, “Next morning I went to see Sir Tho. Browne (with whom I had some time corresponded by letter, tho’ I had never seen him before). His whole house and garden being a paradise and cabinet of rarities, and that of the best collections, especially medails, books, plants, and natural things. Amongst other curiosities, Sir Thomas had a collection of the eggs of all the foule and birds he could procure. . . . He led me to see all the remarkable places of this ancient citty being one of the largest, and certainly, after London, one of the noblest of England, for its venerable Cathedrall, number of stately churches, cleanesse of the streetes, and buildings of flints, so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much astonished at. . . . The Castle is an antique extent of ground, which now they call Marsfield, and would have been a fitting area to have placed the ducal palace on. The suburbs are large, the prospects sweete, with other amenities, not omitting the flower gardens, in which all the inhabitants excel. The fabric of stuffs brings a vast trade to this populous towne.”