However, the matter is not of any great moment: such errors will not mislead a learned reader; and he who is not such in some competent degree, is not a fit peruser of these letters. Such these Tracts are; but, for the persons to whom they were written, I cannot well learn their names from those few obscure marks which the author has set at the beginning of them. And these essays being letters, as many as take offence at some few familiar things which the author hath mixed with them, find fault with decency. Men are not wont to set down oracles in every line they write to their acquaintance.

There still remain other brief discourses written by this most learned and ingenious author. Those, also, may come forth, when some of his friends shall have sufficient leisure; and at such due distance from these Tracts, that they may follow rather than stifle them.

Amongst these manuscripts there is one which gives a brief account of all the monuments of the cathedral of Norwich. It was written merely for private use: and the relations of the author expect such justice from those into whose hands some imperfect copies of it are fallen, that, without their consent first obtained, they forbear the publishing of it.

The truth is, matter equal to the skill of the antiquary, was not there afforded: had a fit subject of that nature offered itself, he would scarce have been guilty of an oversight like to that of Ausonius, who, in the description of his native city of Bordeaux, omitted the two famous antiquities of it, Palais de Tutele, and Palais de Galien.

Concerning the author himself, I choose to be silent, though I have had the happiness to have been, for some years, known to him. There is on foot a design of writing his life; and there are already, some memorials collected by one of his ancient friends. Till that work be perfected, the reader may content himself with these present Tracts; all which commending themselves by their learning, curiosity, and brevity, if he be not pleased with them, he seemeth to me to be distempered with such a niceness of imagination, as no wise man is concerned to humour.

THOMAS TENISON.

Miscellany Tracts.

TRACT I.1

OBSERVATIONS UPON SEVERAL PLANTS MENTIONED IN

SCRIPTURE.

SIR,

THOUGH many ordinary heads run smoothly over the Scripture, yet I must acknowledge it is one of the hardest books I have met with; and therefore well deserveth those numerous comments, expositions, and annotations, which make up a good part of our libraries.

However, so affected I am therewith, that I wish there had been more of it, and a larger volume of that divine piece, which leaveth such welcome impressions, and somewhat more, in the readers, than the words and sense after it. At least, who would not be glad that many things barely hinted were at large delivered in it? The particulars of the dispute between the doctors and our Saviour could not but be welcome to those who have every word in honour which proceeded from his mouth, or was otherwise delivered by him; and so would be glad to be assured, what he wrote with his finger on the ground: but especially to have a particular of that instructing narration or discourse which he made unto the disciples after his resurrection, where 'tis said: "And

1 TRACT I.] "Most of these letters were written to Sir Nicholas Bacon."— MS. Note, written in pencil, by Evelyn,

in a copy formerly belonging to him, now in the Editor's possession.

beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself."

But, to omit theological obscurities, you must needs observe that most sciences do seem to have something more nearly to consider in the expressions of the Scripture.

Astronomers find herein the names but of few stars, scarce so many as in Achilles's buckler in Homer, and almost the very same. But in some passages of the Old Testament they think they discover the zodiacal course of the sun; and they, also, conceive an astronomical sense in that elegant expression of St. James "concerning the father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning:" and therein an allowable allusion unto the tropical conversion of the sun, whereby ensueth a variation of heat, light, and also of shadows from it. But whether the stella erraticæ, or wandering stars, in St. Jude, may be referred to the celestial planets or some metereological wandering stars, ignes fatui, stella cadentes et erratica, or had any allusion unto the impostor Barchochebas or Stellæ Filius, who afterward appeared, and wandered about in the time of Adrianus, they leave unto conjecture.

Chirurgeons may find their whole art in that one passage, concerning the rib which God took out of Adam; that is, their diagos in opening the flesh; aígens in taking out the rib; and overs in closing and healing the part again.

Rhetoricians and orators take singular notice of very many excellent passages, stately metaphors, noble tropes and elegant expressions, not to be found or paralleled in any other author.

Mineralists look earnestly into the twenty-eighth of Job; take special notice of the early artifice in brass and iron,

2 Barchochebas.] One of the impostors who assumed the character of Messias; he changed his true name, Bar-Coziba, son of a lie, to that of Barchochebas, son of a star! He excited a revolt against the Romans which led to a very sanguinary contest, terminating with his death, at the storming of Bither, by the Romans, under Julius Severus.

Bossuet supposes him to be the star mentioned in the 8th chap. of Revelation.

The apostle Jude more probably alluded to the term 'star,' by which the Jews often designated their teachers, and applied it here to some of the Christian teachers, whose unholy motives, erroneous doctrines, or wandering and unsettled habits exposed them to his rebuke.

under Tubal Cain: and find also mention of gold, silver, brass, tin, lead, iron; beside refining, soldering, dross,3 nitre, salt-pits, and in some manner also of antimony.*

Gemmary naturalists read diligently the precious stones in the holy city of the Apocalypse; examine the breast plate of Aaron, and various gems upon it; and think the second row the nobler of the four. They wonder to find the art of engravery so ancient upon precious stones and signets; together with the ancient use of earrings and bracelets. And are pleased to find pearl, coral, amber, and crystal, in those sacred leaves, according to our translation. And when they often meet with flints and marbles, cannot but take notice that there is no mention of the magnet or loadstone, which in so many similitudes, comparisons, and allusions, could hardly have been omitted in the works of Solomon: if it were true that he knew either the attractive or directive power thereof, as some have believed.

Navigators consider the ark, which was pitched without and within, and could endure the ocean without mast or sails: they take special notice of the twenty-seventh of Ezekiel; the mighty traffic and great navigation of Tyre, with particular mention of their sails, their masts of cedar, oars of oak, their skilful pilots, mariners, and caulkers; as also of the long voyages of the fleets of Solomon; of Jehosaphat's ships broken at Ezion-Geber; of the notable voyage and shipwreck of St. Paul so accurately delivered in the Acts.

Oneirocritical diviners apprehend some hints of their knowledge, even from divine dreams; while they take notice of the dreams of Joseph, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and the angels on Jacob's ladder; and find, in Artemidorus and Achmetes, that ladders signify travels, and the scales thereof preferment; and that oxen lean and fat naturally denote scarcity or plenty, and the successes of agriculture.

Physiognomists will largely put in from very many passages of scripture. And when they find in Aristotle, quibus frons

• Depinxit oculos stibio. 2 Kings ix, 30; Jerem. iv, 30; Ezek. xxiii, 40.

a dross.] MS. Sloan. 1841, adds, "sulphur."

4 second row.] The emerald, sapphire, and diamond.

quadrangula commensurata, fortes, referuntur ad leones, cannot but take special notice of that expression concerning the Gadites; mighty men of war, fit for battle, whose faces were as the faces of lions.

Geometrical and architectonical artists look narrowly upon the description of the ark, the fabric of the temple, and the holy city in the Apocalypse.

But the botanical artist meets every where with vegetables, and from the fig leaf in Genesis to the star wormwood in the Apocalypse, are variously interspersed expressions from plants, elegantly advantaging the significancy of the text: whereof many being delivered in a language proper unto Judæa and neighbour countries, are imperfectly apprehended by the common reader, and now doubtfully made out, even by the Jewish expositor.

And even in those which are confessedly known, the elegancy is often lost in the apprehension of the reader, unacquainted with such vegetables, or but nakedly knowing their natures: whereof holding a pertinent apprehension, you cannot pass over such expressions without some doubt or want of satisfaction in your judgment. Hereof we shall only hint or discourse some few which I could not but take notice of in the reading of holy Scripture.

5

Many plants are mentioned in Scripture which are not distinctly known in our countries, or under such names in the original, as they are fain to be rendered by analogy, or by the name of vegetables of good affinity unto them, and so maintain the textual sense, though in some variation from identity.

1. That plant which afforded a shade unto Jonah, mentioned by the name of kikaion, and still retained, at least marginally, in some translations, to avoid obscurity Jerome rendered hedera or ivy; which notwithstanding (except in

5 want of satisfaction.] tion." MS. Sloan. 1841.

6

Jonah, iv, 6. a gourd.

"Insatisfac

6 Jerome rendereth ivy.] Augustine called it a gourd, and accused Jerome of heresy for the opinion he held. Yet they both seem to have been wrong. It was in all probability the kiki of the Egyptians, a plant of the same family as

the ricinus; and according to Dioscorides, of rapid growth; bearing a berry from which an oil is expressed; rising to the height of ten or twelve feet, and furnished with very large leaves, like those of the plane-tree; so that the people of the East plant it before their shops for the sake of its shade.