eration, which
(according to the ancients who have dived into the secrets of nature) is
either in the mother or in the agent, in the seed, or in the womb.

The matter may be in default two ways--by defect or by excess: by
defect, when the child has only one arm; by excess, when it has four
hands or two heads. Some monsters are begotten by a woman's unnatural
lying with beasts; as in the year 1603, there was a monster begotten by
a woman's generating with a dog; which from the navel upwards had the
perfect resemblance of its mother: but from its navel downwards it
resembled a dog.

[Illustration]

The agent or womb may be in fault three ways; firstly, the formative
faculty, which may be too strong or too weak, by which is procured a
depraved figure; secondly, to the instrument or place of conception, the
evil confirmation or the disposition whereof will cause a monstrous
birth; thirdly, in the imaginative power at the time of conception;
which is of such a force that it stamps the character of the thing
imagined on the child. Thus the children of an adulteress may be like
her husband, though begotten by another man, which is caused through the
force of imagination that the woman has of her own husband at the act
of coition. And I have heard of a woman, who, at the time of conception,
beholding the picture of a blackamoor, conceived and brought forth an
Ethiopian. I will not trouble you with more human testimonies, but
conclude with a stronger warrant. We read (Gen. xxx. 31) how Jacob
having agreed with Laban to have all the spotted sheep for keeping his
flock to augment his wages, took hazel rods and peeled white streaks on
them, and laid them before the sheep when they came to drink, which
coupling together there, whilst they beheld the rods, conceived and
brought forth young.

[Illustration:
"Where children thus are born with hairy coats
Heaven's wrath unto the kingdom it denotes"]

Another monster representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair
like a beast. That which made it more frightful was, that its navel was
in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the
mouth should have been, and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the
male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called
Arles in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all that beheld it.
It was looked upon as a forerunner of desolations which soon after
happened to that kingdom, in whi