FRANCIS WILLUGHBY. ^^-*1~ ^ 



: m. ID vain, however, do we look into his 

 works for any of the excellencies of Aristotle. 

 Amid the enormous multitude of facts which he 

 has recorded, he could scarcely have avoided the 

 statement of some truths : but compilation was 

 evidently his great object, and the choice of the 

 strange and marvellous his ruling passion. It is 

 an open question, how far his sentiments respect- 

 ing religion may have influenced the composition 

 of his works on natural history ; but those works 

 themselves exhibit an utter absence of discrimi- 

 nation, guided either by an acquaintance with 

 die system of nature, or regard to what was 

 possible in itself. The writings of travellers, 

 historians, geographers, philosophers, and phy- 

 sicians, are all laid under the contribution of his 

 huge drag-net, but on the contents of which he 

 bestows no selection. Hence, amid an immewe 

 congregation of absurdities, he telb stories of 

 men without heads, and men without mouths, or 

 of men having but one foot. Along with de- 

 scriptions of the elephant and the lion he gives 

 accounts of manticores, creatures with the head 

 of a man and the tail of a serpent ; winged hones ; 

 and of dolphins who became attached to children, 

 and carried them on their backs every day to 

 school, through lakes and arms of the sea ; of 

 ravens and cocks that spoke, and recognized by 

 name different important personages. " More 

 than two-thirds of his descriptions are erroneous, 

 felse, or fabulous.** 



