.7i5 



A NATURAL HISTORY 



j^^uleius, and others. And feeing the infpired Apoftle gives them 

 that Name {Magicians) not as a Mark of Infamy, but a Title of 

 Honour, therefore does the Englip Tranflation ftile them Wife- 

 men, inch as the old Greeks called a-o^«t. Sages of their Time *. 

 How, and how far this Art is degenerated, I refer to the Judgment 

 of the Learned : We fee there are Revolutions in Words, as well 

 as in Families and Kingdoms ; 2. Magician being formerly a Wife- 

 man, as well as a Knave an honeft one. Sed tempora mutantur, 



I Shall only add to the Afpick SubjeB, the Tribute of Ve- 

 neration paid to this poifonous Animal in the Land of Egypt. 

 The Hiftorian fpeaks of a certain Perlbn, who, in digging, hap- 

 pened unawares to cut an Afp with his Spade, and went mad up- 

 on it, — was taken into the Houfe of Serapis, an Egyptia?! Idol,— 

 the Relatives of the Patient praying the Spe£lrum of that Serpent 



might be deftroyed, which being accordingly done by Magick 



Art, the Man was cured. By this we fee, how highly ^fps 



were venerated among the Egyptians, who not only fuffer'd them 

 to live, but to live in their Houfes, where they were carefully fed, 

 as Favourites of the Family -f-. And Queen Cleopatra's Cafe was 

 not fingular, for the Pejfian Kings kept an exquifite Poi'fon by 

 them, made of the Dung of an Indian Bird, which would kill 

 without putting them to pain, that they might ufe it themfelves 

 in cafe of any Difafter X. 



DEMOSTHENES, who flew his Soldier, when he was 

 afleep, was a merciful Executioner ; a kind of Punifhment the 

 Mildnefs of no Law has yet invented. It is ftrange that Lucan 

 and Seneca n\3ide. no difcovery of it. 



Sleep is a kind of Death, by which we may literally be 

 faid to die daily-, and in this Senfe, Adam may be iaid to die be- 

 fore his final Lxit. 



VIII. I NOW proceed to the Serpent Scytale ; tlie Name is 

 borrowed from the Greek Word o-xut«a>i, a Staff, or any thing like 

 a Cylinder, of a long fmooth round Form ; the Body of this Ser- 

 pent being in fliape equally round, like a Rolling-Scone, with very 

 little Variation in the Extremities of it. 



It 



* Boerhaave's New Theory, p. 211. 



■\ Circurantur cibo, cum hifantibus vivuvt, dr crepiium dtgitotum vacata ex tavi 

 jprcrfVwvA Jonftonus, p. i<j. % Atlas, A(ta. . ^ 



