CURIOUS CREATURES. 169 



" His divine WEEKES And WORKES " in his poem of Eden, 

 (the first day of the second week), makes Adam to take 

 a tour of Eden, and describes his wonder at what he 

 sees, especially at the "lamb-plant." 



" Musing, anon through crooked Walks he wanders, 

 Round-winding rings, and intricate Meanders, 

 Fals-guiding paths, doubtfull beguiling strays, 

 And right-wrong errors of an end-less Maze : 

 Not simply hedged with a single border 

 Of Rosemary, cut-out with curious order, 

 In Satyrs, Centaurs, Whales, and half -men- Horses, 

 And thousand other counterfaited corses ; 

 But with true Beasts, fast in the ground still sticking, 

 Feeding on grass, and th' airy moisture licking : 

 Such as those Bonarets, in Scythia bred 

 Of slender seeds, and with green fodder fed ; 

 Although their bodies, noses, mouthes and eys, 

 Of new-yean'd Lambs have full the form and guise ; 

 And should be very Lambs, save that (for foot) 

 Within the ground they fix a living root, 

 Which at their navell growes, and dies that day 

 That they have brouz'd the neighbour grass away. 



O wondrous vertue of God onely good ! 

 The Beast hath root, the Plant hath flesh and blood 

 The nimble Plant can turn it to and fro ; 

 The nummed Beast can neither stir nor go : 

 The Plant is leaf-less, branch-less, void of fruit ; 

 The Beast is lust-less, sex-less, fire-less, mute ; 

 The Plant with Plants his hungry panch doth feed ; 

 Th' admired Beast is sowen a slender seed." 



Of the other kind of " lamb-tree," that which bears 

 lambs in pods, we have an account, in Sir John Maun- 

 deville's Travels. " Whoso goeth from Cathay to Inde, 

 the high and the low, he shal go through a Kingdom 

 that men call Cadissen, and it is a great lande, there 

 groweth a manner of fruite as it were gourdes, and 

 when it is ripe men cut it a sender, and men fynde 



