2. M. Tullius Cicero is said to have been brought into the world by his mother Helvia (upon the third of the nones of January) without any of those pains that are usual in child-bearing.

3. Such as were born into the world with their feet forward, the Latins were wont to call Agrippe;" and Agrippina," saith Pliny," hath left in writing, that her son Nero, the late emperor (who all the time of his reign was a very enemy to mankind), was born with his feet forwards."

4. Some children are born into the world with teeth; as M. Curius, who thereupon was surnamed Dentatus; and Cn. Papyrius Carbo: both of them great men, and right honourable personages. In women it was looked upon as an ill presage, especially in the days of the kings of Rome; for when Valeria was born with teeth, the soothsayer (being consulted) answered, "That into what ever city she was carried to nurse, she should be the cause of the subversion of it;" whereupon she, was conveyed to Suessa Pomeria, a city at that time flourishing in wealth and riches: and it proved most true in the end, for that city was utterly destroyed.

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5. Some have been cut out of their mothers womb such was Scipio Africanus the elder; so also the first of those who had the surname of Cæsar. "Thus," saith Schenckius, "was Manilius born, who entered Carthage with an army;" "and so," saith Heylm, 66 was Macduffe, earl of Fife, who slew Macbeth, the usurping king of Scotland:" and so was Edward the Sixth of England.

6. Anno 959, Buchardus, earl of Lintzgow, Buchorn, and Montfort, a

person of great bounty to the poor; chosen abbot of Sangal, and confirmed therein by Otho the Great, was vulgarly called Unborn, because he was cut out of his mother's womb.

7. Gebhardus, the son of Otho, earl of Bregentz, was cut out of his mother's womb; and was consecrated bishop of Constantia anno 1001.

8. "I saw," saith Horatius Augenius, a poor woman of a fleshy and good habit of body, who for nine months had an exulceration of the ventricle, and for twenty days space vomited up again all that she eat or drank, as soon as she had taken it. Of this disease she died: and dis. secting her womb, we took out thence a living boy; who, by my direction, had the name of Fortunatus given him at his baptism; and he is yet alive.”

9. "I myself," saith Cornelius Gemma, "have cut out of the womb six living children from six several persons."

10. Johannes Dubravius hath observed of Lewis the Second, king of Hungary and Bohemia, that there were four things wherein he was over-hasty: that he became great in a very little time; that he had a beard too soon; that he had white hairs before he was past severteen years of age; and that he was overforward in his birth; for he came into the world without any of that skin which is called epidermis; which yet he soon got after the physicians lending their assistance to that which nature had not time to finish. He died in the twenty-first year of his age, anno 526, August the twenty-ninth.

11. When Spinola besieged the city of Bergenopzoom, a woman who was near her time, going to draw water, was taken off in the middle by a cannon ballet, so that the lower part of her fell into the water. Those who were by, and beheld that misfortune, ran to her and saw there a child moving itself in the bowels of the mother: they drew it forth, and carried it into the tents of Don Cordua, and kept it with great care being afterwards brought thence to Antwerp, the infanta Isabella caused it to be bag

tized,

tized, and gave it the name of Albertus Ambrosius, one of her father's captains. 12. Anno 1647 Jacobus Fgh, in the city of Sarda, in Belgia, had a bull which he fed, tying him in a close near his house but provoked by the boys, he broke his bonds, and ran to the cows: the herdsman endeavoured with his staff to return him to his former place; the bull, being incensed with his blows, ran upon him, and with his horns bore him to the ground. His wife, being now in the last month of her time, seeing the danger of her husband, ran to his assistance : the bull with his horns hoisted her up into the air the height of one story, and tore the belly of the woman: from the wound in her belly forthwith came the birth, with its secundine, and was thrown at some distance upon a soft place; from whence it was carried home, diligently looked after by a midwife, and upon the first of September baptized; had his father's name given him, and is yet alive. The man lived thirty-six hours, the woman but four. The bull was slain the day after, by the command of the magistrates.

13. Gorgias, a gallant man of Epirus, slipped from the womb at his mother's funeral; and by his unexpected crying, caused them to stand who carried the bier; affording thereby a new spectacle to his country, having his birth and cradle in the coffin of his parent: in one and the same moment a dead woman was delivered, and the other was carried to the grave before he was born.

14. Enecho Arista, the first king of Navarre, being dead, Garsias his son succeeded; who being one day in the village of Larumbe, was surprised by some Moorish robbers, assaulted, and slain: they wounded Urracha his queen in the belly with a lance, and fled. The queen was instantly delivered of a son, and died: the child lived, and was named Sancius Garsia: he was well educated by a noble person; proved a gal Jant man; and succeeded his father in the kingdom anno Dom. 918.

15. The wife of Simon Kneuter, of Weissenburgh, went with child to the ninth month, and then falling in labour, her pains were such, that they occasioned her death; and when the assistants doubted not but that the child was dead also in the womb, they disposed also of the mother as is usual on the like occasion but after some hours they heard a cry, ran, and found the mother indeed dead, but delivered of a little daughter that was in good health, and lay at her fect. Salmuth saith, "he hath seen

three several women who, dying in la bour, were afterwards delivered of the children they went with."

CHAP.-V.

of what Monsters some Women have been delivered, and of preternatural Births.

Ir is the constant design of provident Nature to produce that which is perfect and complete in its kind. But though man is the noblest part of her operation, and that she is busied about the framing of him with singular curiosity and industry, yet there are sundry variations in her mintage, and some human medals come out thence with different errata in their impressions. The best of archers do not always hit the white: the working brains of the ablest politician have sometimes suffered an abortion; nor are we unwilling to bury their accidential misses in the memory of their former skilful performances. If therefore Nature (through a penury, or superfluity of materials, or other causes) hath been so unfortunate as sometimes to miscarry, her dexterity and artifice in the composition of many, ought to procure her a pardon for such oversights as she hath committed in a few. Besides, there is oftentimes so much of ingenuity in her very disorders, that if her more perfect works beget in us much delight, the other ntay affect us with equal wonder.

1. That is strange which is related by Buchanan of a monstrous birth. "It

bad,"

had," said he, "beneath the navel one body, but above it two distinct ones: when hurt beneath the navel, both bodies felt the pain; if above, that body only felt that was hurt. These two would sometimes differ in opinions, and quarrel: the one dying before the other, the surviving pined away by degrees. It lived twenty-eight years; could speak divers languages, and was by the king's command taught music.

2. Anno 1538 there was one born who grew up to the stature of a man; he was double as to the head and shoulders, in such manner as that one face stood opposite to the other: both were of a likeness, and resembled each other in the beard and eyes; both had the same appetite, and both hungered alike; the voice of both was almost the same, and both loved the same wife.

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3. I saw," saith Bartholinus, " Lazarus Colloredo, the Genoese, first at Hasnia, after at Basil, when he was then twenty-eight years of age; but in both places with amazement. This Lazarus had a little brother growing out at his breast, who was in that posture born with him. If I mistake not, the bone called xyphoides, in both of them grew together; his left foot alone hung downwards; he had two arms, but only three fingers upon each hand: some appearance there was of the secret parts: he moved his hands, ears, and lips, and had a little beating in the breast. This little brother voids no excrements but by the mouth, nose, and ears, and is nourished by that which the greater takes: he has distinct animal and vital parts from the greater; since he sleeps, sweats, and moves, when the other wakes, rests, and sweats not. Both received their names at the font: the greater, that of Lazarus; and the other, that of Johannes Baptista. The natural bowels, as the liver, spleen, &c. are the same in both. Johannes Baptista hath his eyes for the most part shut; his breath small, so that holding a feather at his mouth it scarce moves; but holding the hand there, we find a small and warm breath: his mouth is

usually open, and always wet with spittle: his head is bigger than that of Lazarus, but deformed; his hair hanging down while his face is in an upright posture. Both have beards; that of Baptista is neglected, but that of Lazarus very neat. Lazarus is of a just stature, a decent body, courteous deportment, and gallantly attired: he covers the body of his brother with his cloak; nor could. you think a monster lay within at your first discourse with him. He seemed always of a constant mind, unless that now and then he was solicitous as to his end, for he feared the death of his brother; as presaging, that when that came to pass, he should also expire with the stink and putrefaction of his body: and thereupon he took greater care of his brother than of himself.

4. Johannes Naborowsky, a noble Polonian, and my great friend, told me at Basil, "That he had seen in his country two little fishes without scales, which were brought forth by a woman, and as soon as they came out of her womb, did swim in the water as other fish."

5. Not many years ago there lived a woman of good quality at Elsinghorn, who prepared all things for child-birth, hired a midwife, bought a cradle, &c. but her big belly, in the last month, seemed to be much fallen; which yet (not to lessen the report that went of her) she kept up to the former height by the advantage of cloaths which she wore upon it. Her time of travail being come, and the usual pains of labour going before, she was delivered of a creature very like unto a dormouse of the greater size, which (to the amazement of the women who were present) with marvellous celerity sought out and found a hole in the chamber, into which it crept, and was never seen after. I will not render the credit of these women suspected, seeing divers persons have made us relations of very strange and monstrous biths from their own experience..

6. Anno Dom. 1639 Norway afforded us an unheard-of example of a woman,

VOL. II.

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who

who having often before been delivered of human births, and being again big, after strong labour was delivered of two eggs one of them was broken, the other was sent to that excellent person Dr. Olaus Wormius, the ornament of the university; in whose study it is reserved, to be seen of as many as please. I am not ignorant that many will give no credit to this story, who either have not seen the egg, or were not present when the woman was delivered of it. In witness therefore of the truth of this matter, I shall cite the testimonies of religious persons, and such as are worthy of credit; who, by their letters under their seals, have confirmed the truth of that which we have now related. I have thought fit to transcribe the original itself, which in our tongue is preserved by the foresaid Wormius.

"We, whose names are hereunder written, Ericus Westergard, Rotalph Rakestad, and Thor Venes, coadjutors of the pastor, in the parish of Niæss, do certify to all men, That anno 1639, upon the twentieth day of May (by the command of the lord president in Remerige, the lord Paulus Tranius, pastor in Niass), we went to receive an account of the monstrous birth in Sundby, brought forth by an honest woman, Anna the daughter of Amundus, the wife of Gudbrandas Erlandsonius, who already had been the mother of eleven children, the last of which she was delivered of upon the fourth of March 1638. This Anna, in the year 1639, upon the seventh of April, began to grow ill; and being in great pain in her belly, she caused her neighbours to be called in to her assistance: the same day, about the evening, in the presence of her neighbours, she brought forth an egg, in all respects like to that of an hen; which being broken by the women present, Anna Grim, Elen Rudstad, Gyro Rudstad, and Catharina Sunby, they found that in it the yolk and white answered directly to a common egg. Upon the eighteenth day of April, about

noon, in the presence of the same persons, she was delivered of another egg, which in figure was nothing different from the former. The mother reported this to us; the women that assisted at her delivery confirmed the truth of it; as also that the pains of this birth had been more sharp to her than all the rest of the former. That this was the confession as well of the mother as of them that were present, we do attest by our seals, in the presence of the lord president, in the parish of Niæss, the day and year above-said." The great Wormius looks upon this as a diabolical work, since, by the artifice of the devil, many other things are conveyed into, and formed in, the bodies of men and

women.

7. "Anne Tromperin, the wife of a certain porter in our hospital, being about thirty years of age, was delivered of a boy and two serpents upon St. John's day, anno 1576. She told me upon her faith, That in the summer before, in an extreme hot day, she had drunk of a spring in the grove called Brudetholk, a place within a quarter of a mile from Basil, where she suspected that she had drunk of the sperm of serpents.' She afterwards grew so big that she was fain to carry her belly in a swathing band. The child was so lean, that he was scarce any thing but bones. The serpents were each of them an ell long, and as thick as the arm of an infant; both which, alive as they were, were buried by the midwife in the church-yard of St. Elizabeth."

8. The concubine of pope Nicholas the Third was delivered of a monster which resembled a bear. Martin the Fourth, in the first year of his popedom, entertained this lady, and fearing lest she should bring forth other bear-whelps, he caused all the bears which were painted or carved in the pope's palace, whilst the lords of the family of the Ursina bore sway in Rome, to be blotted out and removed; for this pope was not ignorant how the shapes and pictures,

which are conceived in a woman's imagination at the time of her conception, do remain imprinted for the most part in the body of that which is conceived. 9. Margaret, daughter of the emperor Maximilian the First, told the ambassador of Ferdinand, king of Hungary, "That at a city in Brabant, in a procession upon a solemn festival, some of the citizens went disguised according to the custom of the place (some in the habit of angels, and others in the shape of devils, as they are painted): one of these devils having played his gambols a great while, ran home to his house in his devil's attire, took his wife, and threw her upon a bed, saying, That he would get a young devil upon her.' He was not much deceived; for of that copulation there was born a child, such as the wicked spirit is painted, which, at his coming into the world, began to run and skip up and down all over the chamber."

10. Anno Dom. 1578, upon the seventeenth day of January, at eight o'clock in the afternoon, there was (at the little town of Quiero, amongst the Subalpines) an honest matron who was then delivered of a child, which had upon its head five horns, opposite each other, and like unto those of a ram; also from the upper part of his forehead there hung backward a very long piece of flesh that covered most part of his back, in form like a woman's head tire: about his neck there was a double row of flesh, like the collar of a horse at the ends of his fingers were claws like to those talons we see in birds of prey: his knees were in the hinder part of the leg. His right leg and foot were of a shining red colour; the rest of his body all swarthy. He is said to come into the world with a great cry, which so frightened the midwife and the rest of the women then present, that they ran immediately out of the house. When the prince of the Subalpines was informed of this monster, he commanded it should be brought to him, which accordingly

was done and 'tis strange to think what various judgments were passed upon it by the courtiers.

11. Lesina is the biggest isle in all the Adriatic sea, the governor of which was a Venetian, who inviting me to dine with him, told at his table the story of a marvellous mis-shapen monster born in the island, asking if I would go thither to see it; proffering me the honour of his company. We went, and the unnatural child being brought out to us, I was amazed to behold the deformity of nature: for below the middle part there was but one body, and above the middle there were two living souls, separated from each other with several members, their heads being both of one bigness, but different in physiognomy: the belly of the one joined with the posterior part of the other; and their faces looked one way, as if the one had carried the other on his back and often (in our presence) he that was behind would lay his hands about the neck of the foremost. Their eyes were exceeding big, and their hands greater than an infant of three times their age: the excrements of both creatures issued forth at one place; and their thighs and legs were of a great growth, not agreeable to their age, which was but thirty-six days. Their feet were proportionably made like to the foot of a camel, round, and cloven in the midst. They received their food with an insatiable desire, and continually mourned with a pitiful noise: when one slept the other waked, which was a strange disagreement in nature. The mother of them bought dearly that birth with the loss of her life; and, as I was afterwards informed, these lived but a small time after we had seen them.

12. Ser. Fulvius Flaccus and Q. Calphurnius Piso being consuls, there was then in Rome a maid-servant delivered of a child that had four feet, and as many hands, four eyes, four ears, and two members of virility.

13. At Prague, upon the eighteenth day of July, there was born a boy whose

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liver,