DE MONSTRIS. 268 



one point which can hardly fail to strike anyone who 

 has some smattering of physiology, and has taken some 

 interest in ethnology. They are all very odd, not to 

 say ludicrous ; but there is very little invention about 

 them. Nothing is simpler than the notion of enlarging, 

 multiplying, or curtailing the various members of the 

 body ; so that the headless men, the two-headed men, 

 the one-eyed men, and many-eyed men, the six-handed 

 men, the big-footed men, the long-necked men, the large- 

 eared men, and the flap-lipped men, are all oflf-shoots 

 of a single idea. Then all the composite monsters are but 

 off-shoots of the one single idea of grafting parts of other 

 animals upon the human form, and there is really but 

 little invention required in carrying it out. You may 

 boldly join two bodies together, as the Centaur, the 

 harpy, and the mermaid ; or you may tack parts of one 

 body to another, as the satyr, with his goat's legs, the 

 faun, with his pointed ears and little tuft of a tail, or 

 the man with ibex horns on his head. Again, several 

 of these monsters are nothing but exaggerations of 

 actual fact. It has long been suspected that the 

 ancients knew more of the world than has generally 

 been supposed, and this idea is strengthened by ex- 

 amining the monsters of the Nurenberg Chronicle. 

 Take, for example, the men with the enormous under- 

 lip. It is highly probable that the idea was taken 

 from the narration of some traveller, who had seen one 

 of the many savage tribes which distend their lips, 

 either upper or lower, by the insertion of circular 

 pieces of wood in them. The long-eared men can be 



