APPENDIX IV. 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 



a Gerard Mercator, of Ruremond, in Flanders, a man of so 

 intense application to mathematical studies, that he neglected the 

 necessary refreshments of nature. He engraved with his own hand 

 and coloured the maps to his geographical atlas. He wrote several 

 books of theology, and died 1594. H. 



b Albertus Magnus, a German Dominican, and a very learned 

 man. Urban IV. compelled him to accept of the bishopric of 

 Ratisbon. He wrote a treatise " On the Secrets of Nature," and 

 twenty other volumes in folio, and died at Cologne, 1280. H. 



c See Topsel on " Frogs." Edward Topsel was the author of a 

 " History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents," collected out of the 

 works of Gesner and other authors, folio, Lond., 1658. In this 

 history he describes the several kinds of frogs, and, in page 721 

 thereof, cites from Albertus the fact here related. H. 



d Christopher Marlow was a poet of no small eminence in his 

 day, as may be inferred from the frequent mention of him in the 

 writings of his contemporaries. He was some time a student at 

 Cambridge, and after that an actor on, and a writer for, the stage. 

 There are extant of his writings five tragedies, and a poem that 

 bears his name, entitled " Hero and Leander," possibly a transla- 

 tion from Musceus, which he not living to complete, it was finished 



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