HISTORICAL NOTES. 



his learning than esteemed and beloved for probity and sweetness 

 of manners; notwithstanding, he laboured under a pressure of 

 poverty to a degree that compelled him to write for sustenance, 

 and that in such haste, that his works, which are very numerous, 

 are not exempt from marks of it. Besides a "Bibliotheca sive 

 Catalogus Scriptorum Lat. Gr. et Heb. tarn extantium quam non 

 extantium, Tig. 1545 48," he wrote "Historia Animalium," and 

 "De Serpentium Natura," to both of which works Walton frequently 

 refers. He died in 1565. H. 



m Guillaume Rondelet, an eminent physician, born in Montpe- 

 lier in Languedoc, 1507. He wrote several books, and a treatise, 

 " De Piscibus Marinis," where all that Walton has taken from him 

 is to be found. He died, very poor, of a surfeit occasioned by 

 eating figs to excess, in 1666. IT. 



n Decius Ausonius, a native of Bordeaux; was a Latin poet, 

 Consul of Rome, and preceptor to the Emperor Gratian. He died 

 about 390. H. 



Guillaume de Saluste, Sieur du Bartas, was a poet of great 

 reputation in Walton's time. He wrote, in French, a poem called 

 " Divine Weeks and Works " (a commentary on the creation of the 

 world), whence the passage in the text, and many others cited in 

 this work, are extracted. This, with his other delightful works, was 

 translated into English by Joshua Sylvester, in folio, which is illus- 

 trated with numerous fine woodcuts. He is facetiously quoted in 

 "Hudibras," in 1605, and is supposed to have given Milton the 

 idea of his " Paradise Lost." H. 



p Claudius ^lianus was born in Praeneste in Italy, in the reign 

 of the Emperor Adrian. He wrote " De Animalium Natura." H. 



q Of swans, it is alsc said, that if either of a pair die, or be 



