mentioned; though many have very probably escaped my.

notice.

Espagne John d'. Erreurs Populaires en Points Généraux qui concernent l'intelligence de la Religion. To this work there is no date, nor do I find it in the British Museum, which contains several other of his works. He was a French Protestant divine of the 17th century.

ΠΕΡΙΑΜΜΑ ΕΠΙΔΗΜΙΟΝ: or, Vulgar Errors in practice censured. Also the Art of Oratory, composed for the henefit of young students, cap. 8vo. Lond. Royston, 1659, pp. 112. The Vulgar Errours in practice censured are, 1. That of reproaching red-haired men. 2. That of censuring some professions. 3. That of reproaching the feminine sex. 4. The neglect of many writers to defend the deity of Christ. 5. The vanity of epitaphs. 6. The running from one extreme in religion to another. ~7. The common practice of railing against an adversary.

Ralph Battell. Vulgar Errors in Divinity Removed, Lond. 8vo. 1683, containing, with title, &c. pp. 152. These relate to, 1. Reprobation. 2. Kingly government. 3. God's house and service in it. 4. Man's will. 5. Man's redemption. 6. Praying by the Spirit.

Two works on popular superstitions, viz. Traité des Superstitions, by M. Thiers, published in 1679, and L'Histoire Critique des pratiques superstitieuses qui ont séduit les peuples, et embarrassé les Savans, by Pierre Le Brun, published in 2 vols. at Rouan, in 1702 and 1732,- -were published together in 1733 in one vol. fol. with plates. One of these gives several figures of mandrakes.

Fovargue Stephen. A New Catalogue of Vulgar Errors, 8vo. pp. 202, Camb. 1767. A work of slight pretension, and of slender merit; introduced by a preface somewhat flippant and in bad taste. Two of his errors had been already noticed by Sir Thomas Browne, and many of the rest are by no means generally received opinions.

Vulgar Errors, Lond. Debrett [8vo. 1784.] A political pamphlet against Mr. Pitt, at the time of the coalition between Lord North and Mr. Fox. The "Errors" enumerated are six :1. That the union between Lord North and Mr. Fox was interested, and without any public spirit to support it. 2. That Mr. Fox's India bill was a violation of charters. 3. That it was a confiscation of property. 4. That, in the issue of this contest, the people will take part against the House of Commons. 5. That the king must succeed in the struggle by dissolving edition was in Latin, Amst. 1639 :-it was that which Wittie translated: subsequent editions appeared, and in 1668 one very much enlarged at Rotterdam; it was this which De Rostagny translated.

parliament. 6. That the opposition to the present ministers has been carried on with violence. These six positions the author terms " Vulgar Errors," and professes to disprove.

A notice of some Vulgar Errors, as to points of law, will be found in Barrington on the Statutes, 4to. 1775, p. 474.

London, June 17, 1835.

S. W.

In the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 1839, there is a very neatly-written MS. extending to 85 pages, 4to., of Observations on Ps. Ep. which is proved to have proceeded from the pen of Sir Hamon L'Estrange.

66

The knight commences by thus expressing his admiration of his author: Boterus, magnifying the latitude of the pope's power, sayes that he hath una jurisditione che no conosce oriente,

a command that knows no east,' and another dedicates a booke to the king of Spaine, thus, 'To the great king, to whom the sun never sets.' I cannot but prædicate the vast expanse of the Dr.'s learning, reading, and knowledge, from the cedar to the hyssope." He then begins his observations by pointing out, in Browne's chapter on magnetism and the compass, several remarks which had not been made by previous writers ;-Borough, Norman, or Gilbert. He goes on successively to notice Browne's remarks on electricity, flies in amber, white powder, and the rose of Jericho. After noticing, in connection with this last topic, several marvellous stories of omens, apparitions, and miracles, (among which this one, told to the writer by the old Countess of Arundel, respecting her father, Lord Dacre of the North, that he had a pasture on the scite of an old abbey, and that his sheep never failed, if within that scite, to produce twins :)-he thus proceeds. "And I see no barr against mee to think that in the dayes of darkness and ignorance of popery, some cloysterers might truck with the devil (att a deare rate) for an ape's trick (as witches do) for the shewing, effecting, and continuance of such pranks and toyes, whereby to acquire a stupendous reputation of working miracles (of which they were not a little ambitious,) to drawe affection, respect, and honour, to their religion and profession, and to celebrate the place with a mark and character of extraordinary sanctity for the future," p. 6. After touching upon Deer casting their horns, he mentions, on the subject of Griffins, having seen in Sir Rob. Cotton's library a griffin's claw, p. 7. Discussing the story of the ostrich swallowing iron, he mentions having seen one eat pellets of chewed paper as large as a walnut. He gives also, as a parallel, the following story :-" About 1638, as I walked London streets, I sawe the picture of a strange fowle hang out upon a and my selfe, with one or two more then in company, went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a great

e A burnt hole occurs here in MS.

fowle, somewhat bigger than the largest turkey-cock, and so legged and footed, but shorter and thicker, and of a more erect shape, coulourd before like the breast of yong cock fesan, and on the back of dunn or deare coulour. The keeper called it a Dodo, and in the ende of a chimney in the chamber there lay an heap of large pebble stones, whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg as nutmegs, and the keeper told us shee eate them, conducing unto digestion; and though I remember not how far the keeper was questioned herein, yet I am confident that afterwards he cast them all agayne." He goes on to mention other instances of birds swallowing stones, &c. for the same purpose which he concludes to be the most probable solution of the alleged fact that the ostrich (or estridge, as he calls it,) swallowing iron, pp. 8-12. Then follows a lengthened notice of the five kinds of one-horned animals noticed by Browne ;-the Indian ox and ass, the oryx, rhinoceros, and monoceros. His opinion is that three "might exist; some one or more of several sorts of monsters in nature, through some errour or vitiosity in generation or conception, which might bear one horne; and such a creature once seen might multiply fast enough in report, and (ex traduce) naturalists readily follow one another, as wild geese flye." He concludes the unicorn of Job to be the rhinoceros, after many pages of careful and argumentative examination of his "shape and strength, and the seate, position, and portage of his horne," pp. 13-26. At p. 27, we find the notice (adverted to in his letter to Browne) of the whale, beginning thus: "In June, 1626, a whale was cast up upon my shoare or sea liberty, sometyme parcel of the possessions of the abbey of Ramsey, &c." Notices of the dolphin, the toad and spider, seal, dottrel, basilisk, swallows in mud, &c. occupy from p. 28 to p. 46-from the last of which I must extract the following very lively incident-" About 16 or 20 years since, upon a hot, bright, and cleare daye, (a little before noone,) hapning in the midst of March, as I leaned over my garden wall, and looking steadfastly into my mote, (which is on that syde very cleare, leane, and hungry water,) I espied sundry small creatures (of a dark or dusky coulour, longwise shaped, and of forme of beetle or scarabee) to rise out of the mud from the bottom of the mote to the topp of the water, and some of them to settle themselves speedily downe againe into the mud, others to rayse themselves above the water five or six inches, others a foote, others more, and some some yards, with a slanting or sloaping mount, and a like descent and falling downe hastened to the bottome; and being much pleased with this speculation, I hastily rann unto mine house, and called out mine eldest sonne, (then a man growne and of yeares,) both to participate and bee a witnesse of this discovery; wee observed againe as before, and att last (among sundry essayes of many of these creatures, we perceived

i I must suspect that the Knight was deceived, probably by reflection, as to "these creatures" (which must be supposed the larvæ of libellulæ, or dragon flies,) having mounted out of the water before they acquired their wings or having returned into the water after they had once taken their leave of it.

one of them to rise from the bottom to the top of the water, a found itselfe so full sunned and perfected as it raysed it selfe above water, and after two or three turnes and circinations in the ay it mounted cleane out of sight," p. 40. He proceeds to remark on passenger falcon, (p. 42, 43,) toads found in oaks, shell stones, (Phola p. 44, St. Hierome, p. 46, and last, but not least, Pope Joan, wh existence he believes, and devotes the remaining forty pages of paper to a most learned and ingenious examination of the argume for and against the story-and still further to a discussion of the ser in which those Apocalyptic passages are to be understood-in whi the whore of Babylon is foretold and denounced, concluded by courteous expression of personal respect to many who are of th faith, pp. 47-85.

TO THE READER.

WOULD truth dispense, we could be content, with Plato, that knowledge were but remembrance; that intellectual acquisition were but reminiscential evocation, and new impressions but the colourishing of old stamps which stood pale in the soul before. For (what is worse) knowledge is made by oblivion, and, to purchase a clear and warrantable body of truth, we must forget and part with much we know; -our tender enquiries taking up learning at large, and, together with true and assured notions, receiving many, wherein our reviewing judgments do find no satisfaction. And, therefore, in this encyclopædie and round of knowledge, like the great and exemplary wheels of heaven, we must observe two circles; that, while we are daily carried about and whirled on by the swing and rapt of the one, we may maintain a natural and proper course in the slow and sober wheel of the other. And this we shall more readily perform, if we timely survey our knowledge; impartially singling out those encroachments which junior compliance and popular credulity hath admitted. Whereof at present we have endeavoured a long and serious adviso; proposing not only a large and copious list, but from experience and reason attempting their decisions.

And first we crave exceeding pardon in the audacity of the attempt; humbly acknowledging a work of such concernment unto truth, and difficulty in itself, did well deserve the conjunction of many heads. And surely more advantageous had it been unto truth, to have fallen into the endeavours of 1 the colourishing, &c.] "The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear." -Locke.