terms with his conscience, and avoids calling up the indignation as well as the scepticism of his readers. The volume contains six treatises, and in each of these is comprehended much curious and some "mervailous" matter. The information which the book yields, is strained through the mouths of three worthies, Ludovico, Anthonio, and Bernardo; and their dialogue reminds us occasionally, and by no means unpleasantly, of old Izaak Walton. In the first book (in which " are contained many things worthy of admiration, which nature hath wrought and daily worketh in men, contrary to her common and ordinary course of operation with other curiosities strange and delightful") the " Interlocutores" meet. Ludovico and Bernardo are walking together by the side of a pleasant river, and they see Anthonio ("a man both curtious, learned, and wise,") approaching.

:

This is the fashion of their greeting.

"Anthonio. God save you, gentlemen.

"Ludovico. And you, sir, are most welcome, and in the fittest time that may be, unless you have some business which may hinder us from enjoying your company under this tuffet of trees, where, if it please you, after this excessive heat, we may awhile refresh ourselves with the mildness of this sweet air, and the delightful coolness of this fresh river.

"Anthonio. Truly, gentlemen, nothing can let me in any thing wherein I may do you service, for my will is fully bent to follow yours, and therefore, without any excuse, I will obey you in whatsoever it shall please you to command me.

"Bernardo. This curtesy of yours is so great, that I know not by what means we shall be able to deserve it; to the end therefore, that we may the better enjoy the desired fruit of your conversation, let us, if it please you, repose ourselves under this shadow, where covered from the sun, what with the pleasing sound of this clear stream, trickling along the pebble stones, and the sweet murmurings of the green leaves, gently moved with a soft and delicate wind, we shall receive double delight.

taken

"Ludovico. It is true, but not if we remain standing, you having up the best place.

"Bernardo. Indeed, I might have offered you the place, but methinks you are not much amiss, especially because here is room in the midst, between us both, for Signior Anthonio, who, how near soever he be unto me, methinks is never near enough.

“Anthonio. All this, Signior Bernardo, is but to increase the desire I have to do you service, for, in truth, such is the reputation of your wisdom, that wheresoever you are, we ought to seek you out, to the end to be participant of your virtue and knowledge.

"Ludovico. Let us lay apart these friendly ceremonies, and busy ourselves in contemplating the diversity of those things which we see round about this place where we repose, that we may be thankful to the creator and maker of them. In truth, so great is the variety of

flowers and roses which are in this meadow, that beholding narrowly every one apart, methinks I never saw any of them before; so many manners are there of them, their shapes and forms so sundry and divers, their colours so rare and dainty, their branches and flowers placed in such excellent order, that it seemeth that Nature hath endeavoured, with her uttermost industry, to frame, paint, and enamel each of them."

They proceed to talk about certain strange coincidences in nature, certain marvellous resemblances between men, and, among other things, of the fertility of women; and the tales which they recount exceed every thing known in these degenerate days, when not more than one fool is foaled at a time, and seldom more than two wise children are sent as a blessing together. Yet our friend Anthonio speaks of three-of fourof seven (!) at Medina del Campo, "in this our Spain"—of a bookbinder's wife at Salamanca, who was delivered of nine!!— To this Ludovico replies, that it is certain six children may be born at one time, which, however, he adds, is strange, "unless it be in Egypt;" where, it seems, according to Trogus Pompeius, (we shall have an eye to the said Trogus, in future) they are often delivered of seven sons at once! This account is wound up at the last by a statement, from an author who quotes Albertus Magnus, to prove, that a gentlewoman of Almaigne was delivered of one hundred and fifty children at once (!!!)—and, having attained this climax, conversation declines into less remarkable matter. We hear of children singly, now some are born in one fashion, and some in anothersome with teeth, (Hercules, in particular, had three rows) and a few without. It is said that most of these monstrous improbabilities are owing to the imaginations of the mothers, and we believe it. We must take leave, however, to be sceptical, as to the position of the philosopher Algazar.

"Algazar, an ancient philosopher of great authority, affirmeth, the earnest imagination hath not only force and power to imprint divers effects in him which imagineth, but also may work effects in the things imagined; for so intentively may a man imagine that it raineth, that though the weather were fair, it may become cloudy, and rain indeed; and that the stones before him are bread, so great may be the vehemency of his imagination that they may turn into bread."

Nevertheless, we have great faith in the imagination. In fact, our world is a matter more of imagination (taking the word in its ordinary sense) than of any thing else. Colour and shape, hope and fear, good fortune and bad, may be all, in a great measure, traced unto it. It is, perhaps, a great enemy at times, a great deceiver; but it is, also, the sovereign alchemy, which turns whatever it touches into gold,-blazoning

and making beautiful the dust and rubbish of life, and smoothing down the roughnesses of accident, the inequalities of fortune. It is that deep and boundless sea, from which all our visions spring,-all those rich dreams of the brain, more radiant than Hesperian sunsets, more beautiful than the painter's touch, or the sculptor's marble art. It is called a fable, a fancy, a something to be derided and hooted (if possible) from existence, because it is not as tangible as the ground we tread upon. It is as real as ourselves. It is the finest and subtlest portion of the mind; and if ever we make a large stride in knowledge, it will probably be owing to our imagination rather than to our reason. Our intellect, -we mean the mathematical part of our intellect, which proceeds upon established common places, and deals in defined premises and strict conclusions, must always necessarily have the weight and alloy of earth about it, and be bound down by lines and figures. But there is a subtler spirit, a finer instinct, if we may so call it, in the mind, which sometimes defies both analysis and reason, which comes to us through our sensations sometimes, and sometimes-we know not how. And this will, some day or other, we doubt not, go forth, like the winged thought of the poet, through the paradise and wildernesses of creation,-a herald, soaring beyond our "visible diurnal sphere," and bring back to us some wealthy store, which shall redeem the prophecies of the critic, and support the philosophy of poetry; while the men of figures, and mathematicians, and arithmeticians, and utilitarians, (the scorners!)" Parthians, and Medes, and Edomites," shall be shamed and reduced to silence.

But we must proceed with our labour. We will not detain the reader with an account of the many natural marvels which follow in succession in this antique record. We pass by the Orson, who was born near the "citty of Pysa," and the player's son of Germany, who was born in the likeness of the Devil; and the little Franciscan friar, who became a patriarch at ten years of age; and others. There are two or three tribes of people, however, whom we cannot altogether pass over; the more especially, as they may now, by intermarriages with other nations, have lost a portion of their primitive singularity.

"Some they called Monosceli, which have but one leg, with the which they are so light in leaping, that they overtake all other beasts, only in jumping after them; their foot is so great, that in hot weather lying on the ground, they lift it up, and with the shadow thereof defend themselves from the heat of the sun. There are others without either neck or head, having their eyes in their shoulders: others their faces plain without nostrils, instead of which they have two little holes only: others without mouths, maintaining themselves with only the

smell of fruits and herbs, the force of whose scent is such, that they dry and wither up the flowers, in smelling out of them all their substance. The smell of any evil or noisome thing is so contrary to them, that oft-times it putteth them in danger of their lives. Their speech and understanding is by signs.-Besides, they write that there are men in the mountains of Scythia, or Tartaria, with so little mouths, that they cannot eat, but maintain their lives with sucking in only the substance and juice of flesh and fruits. There is another kind of men with dogs' faces and ox-feet, which contain all their speech under two words only, with the which the one understandeth the other. There are others whom they call Phanaces, whose ears are so great, that they cover therewith their whole bodies; they are so strong, that with one pull they tear whole trees up by the roots, using them in their fight with exceeding agility. There are others with one eye only, and that in their forehead; their ears like dogs, and their hair standing stiff up on end. Others they describe with divers and monstrous forms, which if I should rehearse all, I should never make an end; yet, by the way, I will tell you what I have read in one of Ptolemy's tables of Tartaria Major. There is in it, saith he, a country now called Georgia, fast by the kingdom of Ergonil, in the which there are five sorts of people— some black as Ethiopians, some white like us, some having tails like peacocks, some of very little and low stature, with two heads; and others whose face and teeth are in manner of horse-jaws: and, if this be true, it is a wonderful thing that there should be in one land such diversities of men."

We then come to a little discussion touching Satyres, and Faunes, and Egipanes; wherein Pomponius Mela, Sabellicus, (who admits that there are some men "in the mountain Atlas, which runne on four feete"), Plinie, Virgil's Georgics, and Ovid's Metamorphoses (!) are quoted to our somewhat edification. We confess that we were sceptical as to the existence of the Houyhnhnms, until we met with The Spanish Mandevile, when we were cured of our doubts. There can be but little question, we apprehend, that the following race of people and Swift's islanders, must be the same. There is a little difference, it must be admitted, namely, a couple of legs; but cut off these, and here they are!

“Nicolaus Leonicus, in his second book de vana historia, writeth of another sort of Satyrs, much differing in shape from these before rehearsed: he allegeth an author, called Pausanias, whose authority he followeth in his whole work, who saith, that he heard Eufemius, a man of great estimation and credit, affirm, that sailing towards Spain, the ship in which they went, through a great tempest and storm, being driven with a violent western wind to run along the ocean seas, brought them at last upon the coast of certain islands, which seemed to be uninhabited; where they had no sooner landed to take in fresh water, but there appeared certain wild men, of fierce and cruel resemblance, all covered with hair, somewhat reddish, resembling in each other

part, men, but only that they had long tails full of bristled hairs, like unto horses. These monsters discovering the mariners, joined themselves in a great troop and squadron together, making an ill-favoured noise, like the barking, or rather howling of dogs, and at last, of a sudden, set upon them, with such a fury and vehemence, that they drove them back to their ship."

After all, this kind of men are really not so very uncommon; for

"Plinie writeth, alleging the authority of Megasthenes, that there are, towards the East, certain people, which have long bushy tails like foxes: so that they are, in a manner, like unto those which you have said. I partly believe this the rather, because of that which (as I have heard) happened to a lineage of men that brake up a vessel pertaining to S. Toribius, bishop of Astorga, in which he held sacred reliques, with whose delectable savour he sustained himself, putting in place thereof things stinking and unsavoury; for punishment and perpetual mark of which wicked offence, both they and their posterity came to have tails, which race, as it is said, continueth till this day."

We then come to "a strange story of a Pilgrime;" then to a man with two heads; then to another lusus nature; then to Amazons and Pigmies: of these last

-that Pigmian race

Beyond the Indian mount

we have an interesting account; marvellous indeed, but withal amusing, we think; and, as such, we offer it to the reader.

may

be

"Of these, the most part of Cosmographers make mention, describing them to be men of three spans in length. Plinie holdeth, that they exceed not in length three hand-breadths, the thumb being straight out. Juvenal speaking of them, saith, that their whole stature passeth not the height of a foot. Both the one and the other true, for as amongst us there be some men greater than others, so may there be between them difference of statures; though the highest cannot exceed three spans, or very little more. Their habitation is in the utter parts of India, towards the East, near the rising of the river Ganges, in certain mountains, where at such times as it is in other places winter, the cranes come to lay their eggs, and to bring up their young ones about the river sides; whose coming, so soon as the pigmies perceive, because they are so little that the cranes regard them not, but do them much hurt, as well in their persons, as in eating up their victuals and spoiling their fruits, they join themselves (as Homer writeth) in great number to break their eggs; and to prepare themselves to this terrible fight, they mount upon goats and rams, and, in very goodly equipage, go forward to destroy this multiplication of cranes, as to a most dangerous and bloody enterprise.

"Bernardo. This is a fierce people, and of great courage, as it