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man.
The flesh salted, dried, beaten to a powder and then drank in vinegar was held
in high repute as a remedy for dropsy, and for  Leprosie, the Crampe, and all
sicknesse in the nerves, and the fat beaten up with honey was deemed an excellent
strengthener for a weak voice.
Topsell states that  the left eie of a Hedgehog being fried with oyle, yealdeth a
liquor which causeth sleep, if it bee infused into the eares with a quill. Warts of al
sorts are likewise taken away by the same. If the right eie be fryed with the oile of
lineseed and put in a vessell of red brasse, and afterward anoint his eies therewith, as
with an eie-salue, he shal see as well in the darke as in the light. The distinction is
often very important one in these old recipes between left or right, hind leg or
front, male or female, and the like, and an error in any of these details completely
upsets all hope of any benefit being derived; thus we see in this last receipt that a
man might fry the left eye for ever, and never get any nearer the gift of nocturnal
vision. In the same way  tenne sprigs of Laurell, seauen graines of Pepper, and
the skin of the ribs of an hedgehog dryed and beaten, cast into three cups of
water and warmed, so being drunk of one that hath the Collicke, and let rest, he
shall be in perfect health; but with this exception, that for a man it must bee the
membrane of a male hedgehog, and for a woman a female.
Porta declares that the ancients made their hair grow by using the ashes of a
land-hedgehog. As no one ever heard of a water-hedgehog this stipulation seems
almost needlessly precise. In another recipe we are told to  take the body of a
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hedgehog burnt to powder,26 and if you adde thereto Beares-grease it will restore
unto a bald man his heade of haire againe, if the place be rubbed vntil it be ready
to bleed. Bear s grease pure and simple has long had a reputation amongst
hair-dressers, and if this be as potent as they would have us believe, the rest of
the prescription can scarcely claim much of the credit. The writer adds that  some
mingle red Snailes, but this is clearly optional, and we should certainly avail
ourselves of the option.
Epilepsy was to be cured by wearing a ring in which a portion of the hoof of a
deer was enclosed. It may interest anyone with a partiality for venison to know
that  Deer s flesh that is catcht in Summer is poyson; because then they feed on
Adders and serpents: these are venemous creatures, and by eating of them they
grow thirsty; and this they know naturally, for if they drink before they have
digested them they are killed by them; wherefore they will abstain from water,
though they burn with thirst. Wherefore Stag s flesh eaten at that time is venemous
and very dangerous. Shakespeare refers to the weeping of the deer, and tells
how
 The big round tears
Cours d one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chace.
It was an old belief that the deer wept every year for the loss of their horns,  a
likeness of those who grieve for the loss of their worldly possessions. So, too,
should a penitent and watchful sinner not cease to weep when he is overtaken.
This straining after a moral, as we have already seen, is a very marked feature
amongst the old writers. Sometimes the moral sentiment flows fairly naturally,
but more often it is terribly laboured. Thus, for example, we read that  the ferret
is a bold and audacious beast (though little), and an enemie to all other, and
when they take a prey their custome and manner is onely to suck the bloud as
they bite it, and not to eat the flesh; and if at any time their prey shall be taken
from them they fall a squeaking and crying. Such are the rich men of this world,
who yell and crie out when they part with their riches, weeping and wailing for
the losse of such things as they have hunted after with as much greedinesse as
want of pitie.
In like manner we learn that  when the Squirrell is hunted she cannot be driven
to the ground, unlesse extremitie of faintnesse cause her to do so through an
unwilling compulsion, for such is the stately mind of this little beast that while her
limbes and strength lasteth she tarrieth and saveth herself in the tops of tall trees,
disdaining to come down for every harm or hurt which she feeleth; knowing,
indeed, her greatest danger to rest below amongst the dogs and busie hunters.
From whence maybe gathered a perfect pattern for us, to be secured from all the
wiles and hungrie chasings of the treacherous devil: namely, that we keep above
in the loftie palaces of heavenlie meditations, for there is small securitie in things
on earth; and greatest ought to be our fear of danger, when we leave to look and
think of heaven.
The fabulists and moralists of ancient and mediaeval days regarded animals
as so much raw material to be modelled into whatever form best suited their
ends. They were little, if at all, concerned in giving a true picture of animal life,
but used the various creatures in such conventional and allegorical way as most
readily adapted itself to the moral or political end in view in their writings. Art has
often pursued much the same course, and instead of giving us the real animal
nature has introduced an entirely foreign element, and represented the creatures
as swayed by purely human considerations. Æsop and La Fontaine make the
animals speak as though they were influenced by human feelings and motives,
while Landseer, for example, in some of his noble pictures employs his dogs and
other animals to simulate humanity, as in  Laying Down the Law,  Alexander
and Diogenes, and other well-known works of the master. The result is quaint,
grotesque, delicious, humorous; but these law-givers, philosophers, and so forth,
are canine m form alone, and are but puppets acting a part that is a good-natured
satire on humanity.
It was a very old belief that when the wild boar was hunted its tusks grew so
hot in its rage and excitement as to actually burn the dogs if they came within the
terrible sweep of them. Xenophon tells us in his description of the chase of the
boar that hairs laid upon the tusks shrivel up even after the brute is slain. This
belief has been handed down from generation to generation of writers on so-called
natural history, and even in a book in our possession, published in London in
1786, we find the statement only very slightly qualified by a preliminary  it is said.
 It is said that when this creature is hunted down his tusks are so inflamed that
they will burn and singe the hair of the dogs. Shakespeare says that the  ireful
boar does not even fear the lion, and Guillim says that  he is counted the most
absolute Champion amongst Beasts, for that he hath weapons to wound his foe,
which are his strong and sharp Tusks, and also his Target to defend himself: for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]