PHGENIX. 353 



him feeding ; that in Arabia he is held a sacred bird, 

 dedicated unto the suri ; that he liveth 660 years, and 

 when he groweth old and begins to decay, he builds 

 himself a nest with the twigs and branches of the canel 

 or cinamon, and frankincense trees ; and when he hath 

 filled it with all sort of sweet aromatical spices, 

 yieldeth up his life thereupon. He saith moreover 

 that of his bones and marrow there breeds at first 

 as it were a little worm, which afterwards proveth to 

 be a pretty bird. And the first thing that this young 

 new phoenix doth is to perform the obsequies of the 

 former phoenix late deceased ; to translate and carry 

 away his whole nest into the city of the sun near 

 Panchea, and to bestow it full devoutly there upon 

 the altar. The same Manilius affirmeth that the 

 revolution of the great year so much spoken of, 

 agreeth just with the life of this bird, in which year 

 the stars return again to their first points, and give 

 significations of times and seasons as at the begin- 

 ning ; and withall that this yeare should begin at high 

 noon that very day when the sun entereth the sign 

 Aries : and by his saying, the year of that revolu- 

 tion was by him shewed when P. Licinius and 

 M. Cornelius were consuls. Cornelius Valerianus 

 writeth that whiles Q. Plautius and Sex. Papinius 

 were consuls, the phoenix flew into JSgypt. Brought 

 he was hither also to Rome in the time that Claudius 

 Caesar was censor, to wit in the eight hundredth year 

 from the foundation of Rome; and shewed openly 

 to be seen in a full hall and generall assembly of the 

 people, as appeareth upon the public records : how- 

 beit, no man ever made any doubt but he was a 

 counterfeit phoenix, and no better*." 



We shall not go into the particulars of what is said 

 respecting the phoenix by other ancient authors of 

 inferior name, such as Solinus t, who uses nearly the 



* Holland's Plinie, i. 271. t Polyhist., cap. 46. 



2 H 3 



