196 History of Nature. [BooK VII. 



so that the Proscriptor, whose mind was enraged and uttered 

 reproaches, was not only appeased, but also induced to be 

 well pleased with his good Fortune. 



CAP. XIII. 

 Quce sit Generandi Ratio. 



EST quaedam privatim dissociatio corporum ; et inter se 

 steriles, ubi cum aliis junxere, gignunt : sicut Augustus et 

 Livia. Item alii aliaeque foeminas tantum generant, aut 

 mares ; plerunque et alternant : sicut Gracchorum mater duo- 

 decies, et Agrippina Germanici novies. Aliis sterilis est 

 juventa, aliis semel in vita datur gignere. Quaedam non 

 perferunt partus : quales, si quando medicina et cura vicere, 

 fceminam fere gignunt. Divus Augustus in reliqua exemplo- 

 rum raritate, neptis suae nepotem vidit genitum quo excessit 

 anno, M. Syllanum ; qui cum Asiam obtineret post Consu- 

 latum, Neronis Principis successione, venerio ejus interemptus 

 est. Q. Metellus Macedonicus, cum sex liberos relinqueret, 

 undecim nepotes reliquit, minis vero generosque et omnes 

 qui se patris appellatione salntarent, viginti septem. In Actis 

 temporum Divi Augusti invenitur, XII. Consulatu ejus L. 

 qnae Sylla Collega, ad III. Idus Aprilis, C. Crispinum Hila- 

 rum ex ingenua plebe Fesulana, cum liberis novem (in quo 

 numero filise duae fuerunt) nepotibus XXVII., pronepotibus 

 XXIX., neptibus IX., praelata pompa, cum omnibus in 

 Capitolio immolasse. 1 



1 These instances are more than equalled by some which are men- 

 tioned in the preface to " Hearne's Edition of Leland," vol. vi. p. 4. 

 Mary, wife of Richard Honiwood, of Charinge, in Kent, died at the age 

 of ninety-eight, in the year 1620, leaving by one husband sixteen children, 

 114 grand-children, 228 great-grand-children, and nine in the fourth de- 

 gree : in all 367 persons. Thomas Urqhart, laird and sheriff of Cromarty, 

 had by one wife twenty-five sons and eleven daughters : all of whom he 

 lived to see of considerable eminence in the world. "In Dunstable 

 church," says Hakewell (Apol.) " is an epitaph on a woman, testifying 

 that she bore three children at a birth three several times, and five at a 

 birth two other times." In the year 1553 the wife of John Gissger, an 

 Italian, had twins, and before the year was out she produced five children, 

 three sons and two daughters. Thomas Fazel writes that " Jane Pancica, 



