flight, and the two laft only be imprifoned. Would it not be enough for a perfon to be fecured in his own houfe, without noife, difgrace, or trouble, till a certain number of Magiftrates met in Guildhall, or fome other very public place, had determined whether an accufation ought at all to be accepted, and how far. But now a citizen accufed is a man undone; the very being fent to Newgate, which any man may be in half an hour, gives him fo bad a complection, that he is already condemned as worthy of the gallows, and difhonoured for ever in vulgar minds.

T

Thefe and many other ameliorations, I ardently with may one time or other take place, as much for the honour, as felicity of my country; till when, it is fafer to dwell in the poorest village, than in London, which is all an oftentation, void of common security, which the burghers of very many other cities out of England enjoy. If our laws were less numerous, a compendium, like a hornbook, fhould be fold at the fmallest expence, and it fhould be taught as a catechifm; for more people tranfgrefs the law, thro' ignorance and forgetfulnefs, than intent. HELVETIUS.

Nature breeds,

AN ESSAY.

Paradife Loft, Book II. line 624.

HE power of imagination in breeding women is a fubject that has employed the pen of the learned in all ages and the fentiments of the learned have been different in all ages with refpect to this queftion. He who has no instructor but nature may eafily decide this point; for his fenfes will fupply him with inftances fufficient to eftablish the affirmative. The learned only can doubt; the learned only can difpute; and the learned only will pretend to difpute against that information, which they receive by their fenfes. Because it was poffible to miftake, the academics difcarded every degree of certainty; and modern philofophers have determined not to be behind hand with them, by denying the existence of any phænomenon, which they cannot account for. Pi

Taffo Jerufal. Cant. IV. Stan. 5. quing themfelves upon fuperior attainments, they declare war again't every opinion of the vulgar, however true; and, rather than yield to the dictates of found reason, they make ufe of argument to fupport the chimeras of fancy. This obfervation has never been verified more than by thofe who have written against the force of imagination in pregnant women. Prefent them with fenfible images of its force, they answer you with arguments against the probability of fuch deviations from the courfe of nature; bid them give credit to their eyes, and they immediately have recourfe to fophiftry; urge them with the opinion of the ancients, and they run immédiately to the glooms of ignorance to prevent affent; and becaufe they cannot account for a thing, they conclude its existence to

be improbable. An opinion that has been exploded by the ancients is revived with a feeming triumph by modern writers, and what was esteemed a fign of ignorance in their days is looked upon as a token of superior wifdom in ours. Our politics, ethics, theology, and natural philosophy, are receiving daily corruptions by daily innovations, and the books compofed by a writer of the present days, may be justly compared to a fink, or a fink, or a common-sewer, which is filled with the congregated filth of a city. To, give a history of thofe who have figured on the negative fide of this queftion, would be as tedious as unprofitable. The triumphs which the late Dr. Turner gained over Blondel, fhould intimidate any perfon from efpoufing an opinion which muft expofe him to ridicule. But notwithftanding future Blondel's will arife, and meet with the chaftifement of fu ture Turner's.

What my opinion on this fubject is, I fhall lea e to the conjecture of the reader; what the opinion of the ancients have been, I fhall reprefent in as concife a manner as I am able. I may, perhaps, deal a little in the marvellous; but I fhall not deviate in the least from the moft rigid truth; and though I would not choose to be credited merely on account of my own veracity, I hope I fhall extort conviction by the characters of thofe

authors from whom I fhall borrow my illuftrations. They who withhold their affent, merely on account of the ftrangenefs or novelty of the phænomena I fhall produce in my vindications, fhould rank themselves under the fame predicament with the foreign prince, who was fhocked at the abfurdity and falfehood of the Europeans, when they told him that water would become hard in the winter, and strong enough to bear carriages.

We may then lay it down as a maxim, that a thing is not the lefs. true for being strange; nor less real, because we cannot account for it upon the modern principles of philofophy. We may advance a step far-, ther; and affure the reader, that there are natural hieroglyphics as well as artificial ones. There has not appeared a stranger affemblage of forms on the Rameffæan Obelisks, or in the Mexican picture of the history of Tenuch, than what has existed in natural fubjects. That I may avoid both prolixity and confufion, I fhall confine myself only to two species; the first are the offspring of the human fpecies, and the fecond that of brutes.

In 1233, a child was born in Epirus, a city of Albania, with tro bodies; one of which refembled a dog, and the other a human form.

In 1496, a moniter was found in the river Tyber, with a body like a man, but covered with fcales; its head was like that of an afs; its right. arm resembled that of a human creature, but its left the foot of an elephant. Its right foot had eagles claws, and the left was like that of an ox.

Ambrofius Pareus informs us, that the wife of one Michael, an engraver," brought forth a child with a bird's head.

And cardinal Peter Damianus, archbishop of Ravenna, relates, that Robert, king of France, had, from an incestuous marriage, a fon with the head and neck of a goofe: and he informs us likewife, that another child was born with a lion's head.

Ariftotle, that great enquirer into nature, as remarkable for his regard to truth, as for the greatnefs of his abilities, in his work De Generat. An. lib. iv. cap. 4. mentions a boy born with a lion's head likewife.

Licofthenes, in his Chronics, fpeaks of a child born at Sinueffa, A. C. 606, M 2 with

with an elephant's head; and Polydore Virgil, the celebrated hiftorian, confirms his account.

We could produce a cloud of authors to prove that children have frequently been born with dog's heads.

The Fafcic Temp. anno 914, mentions a child being born with a dog's head. Vincentius relates, 1. 31. c. 26. that fuch a child was brought to Lewis the king of France. It appears from ancient authors, that the wife of Cornelius Gallicanus was brought to-bed of a child which had the head of Anubis, one of the Egyptian idols, i. e. a dog's head. And Licofthenes informs us of another of the fame kind which was born at Bafil, A. D. 1556.

As the human fpecies have been delivered of infants having the limbs of brutes; fo brutes, on the contrary, have been brought into the world with the members belonging to the human form divine.

We have fupported our opinion with refpect to the human fpecies by the telimony of Aristotle; and fhail place his teftimony at the head of the few inftances we shall produce to ef ablish our opinion with refpect to brutes. In his work, above quoted, de Gen. An. lib. iv. cap. 4. he mentions a colt that had a man's head. Plutarch afferts the fame in his Sympofium. Licofthenes confirms this by his account of a birth at Verona, A. D. 1254. Schenchius, Pareus, and Muffatus, afford us inftances of a fimilar kind.

Albertus Magnus fays the fame of a calf, that had a human head. Fin

celius reports fomething more marvellons: he informs us, that a cow calved a monfter with the four feet like a calf's, a beard on its chin, human ears, and fhort hair.

Gafper Peucer and Licofthenes

mention a monftrous calf at Bitterfield, which had eyes, noftrils, and ́ ears, like a man; the crown of its head reprefented the tonfure of the monks; its mouth, breaft, and forelegs, were like a calf's; the hindlegs were like a man's and fhort, but all four had hoofs.

Calius Rhodiginus Lect. Antiq. lib. xxi. tells us of a goat that was kindled at Sybaris, A. D. 1547, with a human face.

Thefe indeed are wonders whose fcene is placed at a distance from us; but notwithstanding, if we look at home, we shall find that England has been as fruitful in monsters, as any other nation whatever. Polydore Virgil informs us, lib. ii. that a fow pigged a monfter with a human face in England. Licofthenes confirms the pofbility of his relation by a multitude of inftances; and our celebrated historian, Baker, will afford the reader a variety of inftances equally aftonishing.

Having faid enough to demonftrate the exiftence of Natural Hieroglyphics, I have fent you a drawing of as remarkable a groupe, as any that can be met with in Aldrovandus. If your readers recollect, that they once had a real existence, the plate will become no less inftructive than it is entertaining.

Oxon.

I am, yours, PALEOPHILUS.

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