or that the right eye of a hedgehog, boiled in oil, and preserved
in a brazen vessel, will enable us to see in the dark. Such stories, he
moderately remarks, being 'neither consonant unto reason nor
correspondent unto experiment,' are unto us 'no axioms.' But we may
judge of his scepticism by his remarks on 'Oppianus, that famous
Cilician poet.' Of this writer he says that 'abating the annual mutation
of sexes in the hyaena, the single sex of the rhinoceros, the antipathy
between two drums of a lamb's and a wolf's skin, the informity of cubs,
the venation of centaurs, and some few others, he may be read with
delight and profit.' Obviously we shall find in Sir Thomas Browne no
inexorably severe guide to truth! he will not too sternly reject the
amusing because it happens to be slightly improbable, or doubt an
authority because he sometimes sanctions a mass of absurd fables. Satan,
as he argues at great length, is at the bottom of most errors, from
false religions down to a belief that there is another world in the
moon; but Sir Thomas takes little trouble to provide us with an
Ithuriel's spear, and, indeed, we have a faint suspicion that he will
overlook at times the diabolic agency in sheer enthusiasm at the
marvellous results. The logical design is little more than ostensible;
and Sir Thomas, though he knew it not himself, is really satisfied with
any line of inquiry that will bring him in sight of some freak of nature
or of opinion suitable to his museum of curiosities.

Let us, however, pass from the anteroom, and enter this queer museum. We
pause in sheer bewilderment on the threshold, and despair of classifying
its contents intelligibly within any moderate space. This much, indeed,
is obvious at first sight--that the title 'vulgar errors' is to some
extent a misnomer. It is not given to vulgar brains to go wrong by such
complex methods. There are errors which require more learning and
ingenuity than are necessary for discovering truths; and it is in those
queer freaks of philosophical minds that Sir Thomas specially delights.
Though far, indeed, from objecting to any absurdity which lies on the
common highroad, he rejoices in the true spirit of a collector when he
can discover some grotesque fancy by rambling into less frequented paths
of inquiry. Perhaps it will be best to take down one or two specimens,
pretty much at random, and mark their nature and mode of treatment.
Here, for example, is that quaint old wonde