Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/89

 SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 71 wolf, concerning priority of vision — that a man becomes hoarse, or dumb, if a wolf have the ad- vantage first to eye him. So say Pliny, Theo- critus, and Virgil — and thus is the proverb to be understood, when during the discourse if the party or subject interveneth, and there ensueth a sudden silence, it is usually said, Lupus est in fabula. — The ground, or occasional original hereof, was, probably, the amazement and sudden silence the unexpected appearance of wolves do often put upon travellers ; not by a supposed vapour or veno- mous emanation, but a vehement fear, which na- turally produceth obmutescence ; and sometimes irrecoverable silence. Thus birds are silent in presence of a hawk, and Pliny saith that dogs are mute in the shadow of a hyena." — p. 129. These extracts will serve to show the nature of this curious book ; which exhibits much shrewd- ness and common sense, though the author of it was not himself altogether free from the credulity which he reprehends and exposes in others, as will appear from the following anecdote : — Browne having heard a flying rumour of sympathetic needles, by which, suspended over a circular alpha- bet, distant friends or lovers might correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles ; the result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other, in- stead of taking by sympathy the same direction, son, when relating this story, observes, in his characteristic manner, " that it continued motion- less will be easily believed ; and most men would
 * ' stood like the pillars of Hercules." Dr. John-