24 BOOKS OF SECRETS. 



for the Booksellers" and in popular circulation for over two hundred 

 years. In fact, the book along with other tracts of similar tenour can be 

 purchased in the year of grace 191 3 in shops which deal in a certain class 

 of literature. One of the other tracts, also ascribed to Aristotle, is known 

 as the " Problemata." It was printed as early as 147 1, went through 

 several editions before 1500 and ever so many after. It is a sort of 

 catechism of the secrets of the human body and questions are asked to 

 which no reasonable answer could be given, nor would it matter whether 

 they could be answered or not. A supplement, or sort of commentary upon 

 it, was written by Alexander Aphrodisiensis and another by Zimara, and as 

 affording insight into the most recondite secrets of nature, secreta secretorum, 

 all these works must have been much esteemed. 



Later writers seem to have adopted its method and copied its matter, for 

 similar productions of equal imbecility appeared in the seventeenth century, 

 such as that by Scipion Dupleix and his translator Robert Bassett. 



Here then is the natural history of at least four hundred and fifty years 

 ago — but it must be far more since the compilation was made — current in 

 the year 191 3, with hardly a change of word or notion, as if our knowledge 

 of the Universe had been stagnant all that time ; and the rest of the book, 

 though it has undergone considerable alteration, is equally unsatisfactory. 

 The ramifications of the bibliography of this book are not without interest, 

 but this is not the time for such divagations. 



It is difficult to get away from books of medical secrets and it must 

 suffice to mention those of Falloppio, the discoverer of the organs which 

 bear his name, Valescus of Taranta, Varignana, author of the " Philonium," 

 Fioravanti, a quack it may be, but a man of strong individuality, several of 

 whose works were translated into English by John Hester, Riverius, 

 Zapata, Bairo, Venturini, Auda, and ever so many more. There are two 

 authors, however, that may be noticed in passing. 



One is an undiscoverable person called Raoul du Mont Verd, whose 

 name is attached to a little book called "Les Fleurs et Secrets de 



