194 History of Nature. [BooK VII. 



Born, a Membrane growing over the Eye. Some have 

 resembled their Grandfathers : and of Twins, one hath been 

 like the Father, the other the Mother : but he that was 

 Born a year after hath been so like his elder Brother as if he 

 had been one of the Twins. Some Women bring all their 

 Children like themselves ; others again resembling their 

 Husbands, and some like neither the one nor the other. 

 Some Women bring all their Daughters like their Fathers, 

 and their Sons like the Mothers. The Example is undoubted, 

 of NiccBus^ a famous Painter of Byzantium, who having to 

 his Mother a Woman begotten in Adultery by an Ethiopian, 

 and nothing different in Colour from other Women, was 

 himself begotten an Ethiopian. Indeed, the Consideration 

 of the Likenesses is in the Mind ; in which likewise many 

 other Accidents are thought to be very strong, whether they 

 come by Sight, Hearing, and Memory, or Imaginations 

 drunk in in the very instant of Conception. 1 The thought of 

 either Father or Mother flying to and fro transporting the 

 Soul in a moment, is supposed to stamp this Likeness, or to 

 mix it. On this account it is that Men are more unlike one 

 another than other Creatures: for the Quickness of the 

 Thoughts, the Agility of the Mind, the very great variety 

 of our Dispositions, imprint the great Multiplicity of Marks ; 

 whereas the Minds of other Creatures is immovable, being 

 alike in all, and in every one according to its own Kind. 

 Artenon, a Man of the common Rank, was so like in all 

 points to Antiochus King of Syria, that Laodicl the Queen, 

 after Antiochus was killed, effected the Succession of the 

 Kingdom through his acting the part of Recommendation. 

 Vibius, a certain Commoner of Rome, and Publicius, one 

 from a Bondslave made a Freeman, were both of them so 

 like Pompey the Great, that the one could scarcely be 

 discerned from the other : so closely did they represent that 

 open Countenance, and the singular Majesty which appeared 

 in his Forehead. The like cause it was that gave his Father 

 also the Surname of Menogenes, from his Cook ; although he 



1 The reader will scarcely fail to remember Jacob's singular stratagem 

 with Laban's flock Genesis, xxx. and xxxi. Wern. Club. 



