Page:Post-Mediaeval Preachers.djvu/105

 in secreta, id est;”—another id est, Meffreth is intent upon being intelligible,—“in interiora hominis quæque reptantium, id est, serpentium, necat introitus.” The construction of this sentence is very confused. “In quo declarat, quod homo est mure debilior, imo parvissimo mure, quia musculus est diminutivum a mure. Iste quidem homo ad instar muris macilentus et nudus intrat in promptuarium hujus mundi. Juxta illud Job i. Nudus ingressus sum in hunc mundum et nudus revertar illuc. Cui alludet Apost., 1 Tim. vi., Nihil intulimus in hunc mundum, haud, id est, non dubium, quia nee auferre quid possumus.”

Having brought us into the larder of this world, Meffreth ought to have followed out the moral application, but he becomes apparently lost over the “lardum, carnes vel caseum et hujusmodi,” and never leaves them throughout his sermon.

An Advent discourse opens with the following statement: “Naturalists say that the Balustia, a certain flower of the pomegranate, is cold and dry, and has astringent and stiptic properties, wherefore it is used against dysentery and bloody flux of the stomach. It also restrains choleric vomiting, if it be cooked in vinegar and laid upon the collar-bone—so say medical men.”

“Expert naturalists say that every irrational animal, when it feels itself becoming weak and helpless, at once seeks a remedy for its languor, which may restore it to health. . . . . In like manner, says Isidorus (lib. xii.), stags, when they feel themselves burdened with infirmity, snuff the serpents from their holes with the