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[Jan. ty 
Extracts from the Port-folio of a Man of Lettie : 
[Communications to this Article are always thankfully received. ] 
Sa 
ADAM AND EVE. 
T js curious to trace the legendary ac- 
eounts of our primeval parents. In 
the GoldenLegend, black letter, fol. 2. ed. 
Ja. |. Notary, 2 anav 1503. “ Adam gather 
(Eve) a name like as her lorde, a: id say’d 
she shall be called Virago, * whieli is as 
‘ moche asto say, as made of man.” The 
serpent was erect, and had a woman’s 
countenance; venom was put in his 
mouth, and his voice taken away after 
the fall. Eve talks Latin to Adam. 
Adam expected to find a wile among the 
monkies, or animals like’ man, not that 
any person was to be created on purpose 
for him. ‘The earth was cursed, but not 
the water. Adam was created as a man 
of thirty years of age. He taught his 
sons to pay tithes. Cain was a plough- 
man; and his offerings were weeds and 
thorns. Impotency was Adai’s privi- 
fege, in Paradise. . Our Lorde in cursing 
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, “ began at 
the serpent, repynge an order and con- 
gruc number of curses.” When Adam 
was about to die, he sent Seth, his son, 
into Paradise, to fetch the oil of mercury, 
when he received “certayne graynes of the 
fruite of the tree of mercury, by an angel. 
And when he came agayne, he founde 
his fader Adam, yet alive, and told him, 
what he had’ done, and thenne Adam 
Jawghed first and thenne deyed. And 
thenne he layde the graynes or kernelles 
under his fade:’s tongue, and buryed hym 
in the vale of Eborn, and out of his mouth 
grewe thre trees of the thre granes of 
which the crosse, that our Jorde suffred 
his passyon was made, by the vertue of 
whiche he gat every mercy, and was 
brought out of derkeuess into the very 
light of Heaven.” fol. ii.6. This story is 
Tetold in the Antiquarian Repertory and 
other works: but the Legend has the 
candour to say of this anecdote, “ that it 
is of none authoritye”’ However, it was 
a curious composition to read in the 
church, there being much indelicacy in 
parts of it. The breeches Bible, how- 
ever, outdoes the Legend: that only says, 
they sewed figleaves together “ in maner 
of breeches,” fol. 1. 6;—not absolutely 
made themselves breeches, as the Bible. 
Toe story in Milton, of the Angel’s show- 
ing the future history of the world to 
Adam, is taken from the same events ex- 
hibited to Adam, in his trance, while God 
touk one of his rybbes (voth fleshe and 
bone, carefully, adds the Legend,)vand 
made the woman. Eve, it seems, did 
not believe a word about death being 
the consequence, of eating the forbidden 
fruit “ leest happely we deye, whiche she 
sayd doubtinge,” and then comes her 
character, “ for lyghtly she was flexible 
tu every parte ;” nor is this the worst part 
of it, for when “ our Lord sayde to the 
woman, Why dydest thou so ?—neyther 
she accused herself, but ley Yara sin on ° 
the serpent, and pryvely she leyde the 
faute in the maker of him.” This is not 
the first slander of our general mother: 
many writers gravely aflirming, that the 
devil took the form of a handsome young 
man, and the learned are well acquainted 
with the indelicate etceteras, attached to 
the story. ‘The serpent, according to the 
Legend, was very ill used: for it says, 
that God did‘not demand him, “ for he 
dyde it not of hymself, but the devy!l by 
him ;” not very consistently follows, that 
he synned most in being a very envious 
fellow, and telling stories. The punish- 
ment of child- bearing was inflicted upon 
Eve, because she synned in fruit, and ° 
Adam was to gain his bread by labour, 
because his ‘sin consisted imeating! At 
his expulsion, Adam was sent back to 
Damascus, because God made him at 
that place. After the passage about 
teaching his sons to pay tithes, the Le- 
gend with great care and solemnity, as- 
serts of the passage, “ It isto be byleved.” 
Cain, after he had committed his marder, 
“damned himself,” but the Legend does 
not add, whether in the modern form, as 
a fool, or what. 
In an Arabian manuscript, of which 
an account is given in the Notices des 
MSS. Du Roi. ii. 50 Mahomet puts 
a question, “what quantity Eve ate of 
the fruit of the forbidden tree?” And in 
the same work, xi. p. 128. The Livre des 
Perles says, Adam fell in the Isle of Se-- 
renee; Eve on the sea-shore near Mec- 
ca, but both met on Mount Ararat: that 
they were buried near one another :\ 
Seth and his family making frequent pil- ° 
grimages to their tombs, as did all the 
other branches, except Caine’s, p. 129. 
POPE JOAN. 
This good lady is said to have lived in 
the 9th century, but her existence is not 
by all accredited. Onuphrius, says Bishop 
Jewell, was hired on purpose to falsity 
her existence, which the papists say, was 
first 
