open the two folio volumes
penned with greatest care by painstaking Topsell, concerning
"Foure-footed beastes" and "Serpents."[76] We shall then willingly set
Lyly and his followers free from all blame of exaggeration and
improbable inventions. Most often indeed they did not invent; they
knew. Topsell's books are nothing but a careful summary of the then
generally accepted reports concerning animated creation.

His histories are the more curious as his scruples and earnestness are
obvious. His purpose is high, and he means to write only for the
Creator's glory, considering his subject to be a "part of Divinity that
was never known in English. I take my owne conscience to witness, which
is manifest to my Judge and Saviour, I have intended nothing but his
glory, that is the creator of all." Secondly, his serious attention to
his subject is shown by what he says of accessible animals; the
engravings he gives of them, of dogs, for instance, of bulls, asses, and
many others being really excellent. Even rare animals, when by any
chance he had secured a glimpse of them, are represented with the utmost
care; such, for instance, is his chameleon, of which he gives a very
good engraving, not long after careless Robert Greene had been writing
of "this byrd, a camelion."[77]

But, then, nature is full of surprises, and so is Topsell's book. His
antelopes are very dangerous things: "They have hornes ... which are
very long and sharpe; so that Alexander affirmed they pierced through
the sheeldes of his souldiers, and fought with them very irefully: at
which time his companions slew as he travelled to India, 8,550; which
great slaughter may be the occasion why they are so rare and sildome
seene to this day." Undoubtedly.

[Illustration: A HIPPOPOTAMUS TAKING ITS FOOD, 1607.]

The blood of the elephant has a very strange property: "Also it is
reported that the blood of an elephant is the coldest blood in the world
and that Dragons in the scorching heate of summer cannot get anything to
coole them except this blood." The sea-horse, or hippopotamus, "is a
most ugly and filthy beast, so called because in his voice and mane he
resembleth a horsse, but in his head an oxe or a calfe; in the residue
of his body a swine.... It liveth for the most part in rivers; yet it is
of a doubtful life, for it brings forth and breedeth on the land."
According to the accompanying engraving he apparently feeds on
crocodiles. The rhinoceros is remarkable