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songs. We saw there many horrible monsters and were in great fear.
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As the old adage hath it:
When that the ass begins to bray
Be sure we shall have rain that day.
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A maiden strangely fair, but strangely formed,
Rises from out the pool, and by her songs
And heavenly beauty lures to shameful death
The luckless wight who hears her melodies. Kirke.
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Allusive to Mary Queen of Scots and to the Duke of Norfolk, and the Earls of Westmoreland
and Northumberland, who fell from their allegiance to Elizabeth by the witchery of Mary. She was
celebrated for the melody of her singing. The reference to the dolphin alludes to her marriage with
the Dauphin of France.
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See some good figures, too, in the Book of Emblems of Alciatus, 1551.
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A writer in the Gentleman s Magazine in the year 1771, says of Browne s book on Vulgar
Errors, Of all the books recommended to our youth after their academical studies, I do not know
a better than this of Sir Thomas s to excite their curiosity, to put them upon thinking and inquiring,
and to guard them against taking anything upon trust from opinion and authority. His language
has, indeed, a little air of affectation which is apt to disgust young persons, and it would be doing a
very great service to that class if some gentlemen of learning would take the pains to smooth and
adapt it a little more to modern ears, a comment which we do not at all endorse, as the
individual style of the old writer has a quaint charm of its own.
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There is scarce any tradition or popular error but stands also delivered by some good
authors, who though excellent and usefull, yet being merely transcriptive, or following common
relations, their accounts are not to be swallowed at large, or entertained without a prudent
circumspection. In whome the ipse dixit, though it be no powerfull argument in any, is yet lesse
authentick than in many others, because they deliver not their own experiences, but others
affirmations. Browne.
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Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man, and downward, fish. Milton.
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A very similar figure may be seen amongst the designs of the mosaic pavements at the
Roman villa discovered at Brading.
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Agriopas tells a gruesome story of a man who, at the sacrifice of a human being to the gods,
surreptitiously tasted a piece of the flesh and was turned into a wolf. Whether as a punishment for
his cannibalism, or because by abstracting a portion of the victim he was sacrilegiously robbing
the altar, we are not informed.
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Such hallucinations are often very contagious. A nun in a large convent got the idea into her
head that she was a cat, and began to mew. Shortly afterwards other nuns also mewed, until at
last the great majority of them were mewing for hours at a time. The matter got to the ears of the
town authorities, and on the removal of the monomaniac and the promise of a good whipping to
anyone who mewed again, the concert at once died out.
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There is a book, De Mirabilibus narrationibus, written by Antigonus, another also of the
same title by Trallianus, which make good the promise of their titles, and may be read with
caution, which if any man shall likewise observe in the Lecture of Philostratus, or not only in
ancient Writers but shall carry a wary eye on Paulus Venetus, Olaus Magnus, and many another, I
think his circumspection laudable, and he may hereby decline occasion of Error. Browne.
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The first edition of Scot s book was published in the year 1584.
Chapter 3
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The Lion is not so fierce as painted. Thos. Fuller.
The Lion is not so fierce as they paint him. Herbert.
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A lion being sick of a quartane Ague eats and devours Apes, and so is healed; hence we
know that Apes blood is good against an ague. Porta.
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A much later writer, Porta, includes some strange animals in his treatise: thus the leopard is
the offspring, according to him, of the panther and lioness: the crocuta of the hyaena and lioness;
the thoes of the panther and the wolf; the jumar of the bull and ass; the musinus of the goat and
ram; the cinirus of the he-goat and ewe. The figures of these are sufficiently curious.
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However erroneous it may now be considered, the theory of creation held during the Middle
Ages, was both beautiful and noble, and in a fairly accurate manner may be summarized as
follows: On the fall of the tenth legion of the citizens of heaven, God resolved to create man to take
the place of the fallen angels. He evoked this world for the home of the new creation, and all
things that He then made. The celestial bodies, the vegetable and animal kingdoms were formed
solely and entirely for man alone, as the centre round which the whole of creation revolved. There
was no idea then that the world in which man was placed formed only one of many such
inhabited homes, and that our sphere was simply an insignificant fragment of a vast universe. The
celestial bodies, it was held, were created not only to give light and heat to generate metals and
precious stones, but to govern the affairs of men, and enable them to foretell events. The
vegetable kingdom was to furnish food and medicine not only for man s body but likewise for his
mind. Lastly, the animal creation provided him with servants, with food for his bodily wants, and
with moral lessons and examples for those of his soul. This I venture to advance as a tolerably
accurate summary of the theory of creation held during the Middle Ages and until nearly the close
of the seventeenth century, and, if correct, it will appear from it that each part of creation was
viewed not only in an outward and material manner, but also in an interior and spiritual
one. André.
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De leonibus, quaram copia est in Africa. The illustration is a facsimile of the one given in
this section of Munster s book.
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Bussy D Amboise, 1607, writes
An angry unicorne in his full career
Charged with too swift a foot a jeweller
That watch d him for the treasure of his brow,
And ere he could get shelter of a tree
Nail d him with his rich antler to the earth.
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Ctesias says that its flesh is so bitter that it cannot be eaten.
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Topsell nameth two kingdomes in India (the one called Niem, the other Lamber), which he
likewise stored with them. Speculum Mundi.
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As for example: Bacci s book Discorso dell Alicorno, published at Florence in 1573, and the
De Unicornu Observationes novae of Thomas Bartholinus, bearing date 1645. Caspar Bartholinus
had already, in 1628, written De Unicornu ejusque affinibus. Then we have Bereus De
Monoceroti, 1667; Catelan s Histoire de la Licorne, 1624; Frenzel, De Unicornu, 1675; Stolbergk s
Exercitatio de Unicornu, 1652; Sachs Monocerologia, 1676; and the Notice en réfutation de la
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