hemorrhage from the latter. She had tried various medi cines before she applied to me, without the least relief. I ordered the above, and a cure was effected, she having only had two returns of the disorder. The first was much milder than usual, the second, with greater severity; during each of which there appeared a redness behind the ears, and small lumps in the scalp, all over the head, which, however, vanished as the disorder decreased. Should it happen to prove successful upon trial with the person who now applies, it will afford me pleasure to be made acquainted therewith through the channel of your Magazine.

1771, July.

I am, &c.

G. C,

XLVII. Enumeration of Vulgar Errors,

MR. URBAN,

As arts and sciences make very perceptible advances in Europe, after every ten years, an Encyclopædia or Magazine, wherein to register our new stores, becomes, of necessity, a periodical publication. But as these dictionaries contain not only what is new, but generally a system of all that is known both new and old upon every article, they are too bulky and expensive for cominon use. Perhaps a more eligible method to treasure our acquisitions, and to mark the ground we have gained, would be to republish from time to time a book of Vulgar Errors, as fast as new lights, and better knowledge concurred to remove our old prejudices. Having long entertained this thought, my expectations were very greatly raised upon seeing an advertisement not a great while since, promising us a book of Vulgar Errors, by a fellow of one of the colleges in Cambridge, most cele brated for good philosophers and naturalists. I cannot say, however, that I found my knowledge very much advanced by this collection; and though every attempt to increase the fund of science deserves the acknowledgement of its votaries, yet I suppose every gentleman of reading will allow that a more scientific choice of articles might have been made than this of Mr. Fevargues. A collection of Vulgar Errors is not a collection of the errors of the vulgar, that would, indeed, be a large book, but of the errors of the common rate of philosophers and men of science. Such is that of

Sir Thomas Brown, in which you will not find many errors of the common people, except that body was much more learned than it is at present. Of all the books recommended to our youth, after their academical studies, I do not know a better than this of Sir Thomas's to excite their curiosity, to put them upon thinking and inquiring, and to guard them against taking any thing upon trust from opinion or authority. His language has, indeed, a little air of affectation, which is apt to disgust young persons; and it would be doing a very great service to that class, if any gentleman of learning would take the pains to smooth and adapt it a little more to modern ears.

It is near a century and a half since this book, which was the first of the kind that in any degree answered its title, was published. Since that age I know of no other but that above-mentioned, of the gentleman of St. John's. Yet as the growth of science has been so rich and fertile in the last century and this, I have no doubt but the list of errors removed would make a much larger book than even Sir T. Brown's. Out of more than three hundred I find minuted by myself, here follow a few in one part of Natural History only.

I. That the scorpion does not sting itself when surrounded by fire, and that its sting is not even venomous. Keysler's Travels, Maupertuis, Hughes's Barbadoes, Hamilton's Letter in the Philosophical Transactions.

II. That the tarantula is not poisonous, and that music has no particular effect on persons bitten by it, more than on those stung by a wasp. De la Lande's Travels, Naples; Abbé Richard's ditto, Experiments of the Prince of San Severo.

III. That the lizard is not friendly to man in particular, much less does it awaken him on the approach of a serpent, Hughes's Barbadoes, Brook's Natural History.

IV. That the remora has no such power as to retard the sailing of a ship by sticking itself to its bottom. De la Lande, alii passim.

V. That the stroke of the cramp fish is not occasioned by a muscle. Bancroft's Guiana concerning the torporific eel. VI. That the salamander does not live in fire, nor is it ca pable of bearing more heat than other animals. Sir T.Brown suspected it, Keysler, has clearly proved it.

VII. That the bite of the spider is not venomous. Reanmur. That it is found in Ireland too plentifully. That it has no dislike to fixing its web on Irish oak. That it has no

antipathy to the toad. Barrington's Letter, Philosophical Transactions, &c. Swammerda:n.

VIII. It is an error to suppose that a fly has only a microscopic eye. Dragon flies, bees, wasps, flesh flies, &c. will turn off and avoid an object in their way, on the swiftest wing, which shews a very quick and commanding sight. It is probable, that the sight of all animals is in quickness and extent, proportioned to their speed.

IX. The porcupine does not shoot out his quills for annoying his enemy; he only sheds them annually, as other feathered animals do. He has a muscular skin, and can shake the loose ones off at the time of moulting. Hughes, et alii passim.

X. The jackall, commonly called the lion's provider, has no connection at all with the lion. He is a sort of fox, and is hunted in the East as the fox is with us. Shaw, Sandys.

XI. The fable of the fox and grapes is taught us from our childhood, without our ever reflecting that the foxes we are acquainted with, do not eat grapes. This fable came from the East, the fox of Palestine is a great destroyer of grapes. V. Hasselquist, Shaw.

XII. The eye of birds is not more agile than that of other animals, though their sight is more quick. On the contrary, their eye is quite immoveable, as is that of most animals and insects of the quickest sight. British Zoology, &c.

XIII. The tiger, instead of being the swiftest of beasts, is a remarkably sluggish and slow animal. Owen's Dictionary in verbo. Experiment at Windsor Lodge.

XIV. Sir Thomas Brown, who wrote against Vulgar Errors, maintains that apes and elephants may be taught to speak.

I am afraid of trespassing farther on your paper at this time. At some future opportunity I will convey to you a much larger list, under the heads of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, vegetables, and minerals. This common division seems more commodious, than that of Sir Thomas, who has given a Miscellany of Errors in Natural History, Arts, Civil History, Religious Traditions, Paintings, &c. Natural History alone, would furnish a considerable volume, if we add to the heads I have just mentioned, the errors as to the Elements, the Air and Meteors, the Earth, the Waters, the Heavens. Civil History is a very large field also. A French author has lately given us a collection of various articles of Ancient History, which pass current, yet

are many of them demonstrably false. His work has some trifling articles.

1771, June.

I am, yours, &c.

H.

MR. URBAN,

HAVING accidentally been this day a spectator of the funeral procession of Sir Bernard Turner, I was referred, by a learned friend, in consequence of a conversation on the subject of the delay in moving the body, to Mr. Barrington's "Observations on the more Ancient Statutes," p. 474; where it clearly appears, that, whatever was the real cause of the delay, it could not possibly have been from any LEGAL ARREST*. "It is difficult," says the honourable and very learned judge, "to account for many of the prevailing vulgar errors with regard to what is supposed to be law. Such

are, THAT THE BODY OF A DEBTOR MAY BE TAKEN IN EXE

CUTION AFTER HIS DEATH; which, however, was practised in Prussia, before this present king abolished it by the Code Frederique. Other vulgar errors are, that the old statutes have prohibited the planting of vineyards, or the use of sawing-mills; which last notion I should conceive to have been occasioned by 5 and 6 Edw. VI. cap. xxii. forbidding what are called gig-mills, as they were supposed to be prejudicial to the woollen manufacture. There is likewise an act of 23 Eliz. cap. v. which prohibits any ironmills within two and twenty miles of London, to prevent the increasing dearness of wood for fuel. As for sawing-mills, I cannot find any statute which relates to them; they are, however, established in Scotland, to the very great advantage both of the proprietors and the country. It is supposed likewise to be penal to open a coal mine, or to kill a crow, within five miles of London; as also to shoot with a wind gun, or to carry a dark lantern. The first of these I take to arise from a statute of Henry the Seventh, prohibiting the use of a cross-bow; and the other from Guy Fawkes's dark lantern in the powder-plot. To these vulgar errors may be added the supposing that the king signs the death-warrant

Much has been said, on the present occasion, about the Spanish ambassadors in one of the chapels of Westminster Abbey, who are said to have been kept above ground for debt; but this story also, we have no doubt, may be classed among the vulgar errors, and attributed to the ignorance of the vergers, like the old story of the lady who died by pricking her finger in working on a Sunday.

(as it is called) for the execution of a criminal; as also, that there is a statute which obliges the owners of asses to crop their ears, lest the length of them should frighten the horses which they meet on the road. To these vulgar errors may be perhaps added the notion, that a woman's marrying a man under the gallows will save him from the execution. This probably arose from a wife having brought an appeal against the murderer of her husband, who afterwards repenting the prosecution of her lover, not only forgave the offence, but was willing to marry the appellee. It is also a very prevailing error, that those who are born at sea belong to Stepney parish. I may likewise add to these, that any one may be put into the Crown-office for no cause whatsoever, or the most trifling injury. An ingenious correspondent, to whom I have not only this obligation, suggests two additional vulgar errors. When a man designs to marry a woman who is in debt, if he takes her from the hands of a priest clothed only in her shift, it is supposed that he will not be liable to her engagements. The second is, that there was no land-tax before the reign of William the Third."

These curious particulars, Mr. Urban, are from the Observations on stat. 3, Henry VIII. whence, I am persuaded, your readers will not be displeased to see a further extract.

"Not only physicians are intended by this law to be put upon the liberal footing which that most learned and useful profession merits from the public, but surgeons also, who receive a further encouragement from a statute of the fifth of Henry the Eighth, which exempts them from an attendance upon juries. It may, perhaps, be thought singular to suppose that this exemption from serving on juries is the foundation of the vulgar error that a surgeon or butcher (from the barbarity of their business) may be challenged as jurors. A ridicule has been thrown upon surgeons, from their having been incorporated, formerly, with barbers; from which union they have within these few years separated themselves. The ridicule, however, arises from the change in the barber's situation, and not that of the surgeon. Before the invention of perukes, barbers were not

*

"It appears, by Joinville's Life of St. Lewis, that barbers in other countries were anciently the surgeons who attended armies during a campaign. It is believed that there is not, by the laws of any other country, so carly an attention to the promotion of anatomical knowledge as by the thirty-first of Henry the Eighth, which empowers the united companies of barbers and surgeons to dissect, yearly, four of the bodies of condemned malefactors executed at Tyburn."