Pseudodoxia Epidemica

Emasculation as empowerment: lessons of beaver lore for two Italian humanists

“…Unlike Jonston, whose dismissal of much beaver lore was emphatic but incidental, and who was silent about emblematic meanings, Thomas Browne (1605 -82) in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica set out to cleanse what he considered legitimate scientific knowledge of nature from the encrustations of legend and foolishness. 97 Among his 'enquiries into vulgar and common errors' is a section specifically on the beaver's supposed self-castration. He traces this conceit to Antiquity, speculating that it was in origin hieroglyphical, then mythical for the Greeks, next being perpetuated by Aesop, 'and by process of tradition, [it] stole into a total verity, which was but partially true, that is in its covert sense and Morality'.…”

Voices of Jewish Converts to Christianity in late Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England

“…This was partly due to centuries of Jewish commixture with other religions, but significantly, Browne could also claim the impossibility of such a stench because "unto the converted Jews who are of the same seed, no man imputeth this unsavourly odour; as though aromatized by their conversion they admitted their sent with their religion, and they smelt no longer." 135 Thus, although Browne rejected the notion of foetor judaicus, he points that there existed a corresponding belief in a peculiar biology of conversion among his contemporaries since "no man" thought converted Jews smelled. Perhaps, then, even in the turbulent mid-seventeenth century, entry into Christian society was less dangerous than the authors of the late sixteenth century had imagined.…”

Nuncius Inanimatus.Seventeenth-Century Telegraphy: the Schemes of Francis Godwin and Henry Reynolds

“…But the paragraph tails off into generalism: 'if this liberty be not taken away from him, that he may be able to do those things which are wont sometimes to be done by Freemen, or may do them without fear or danger' (14). Next Godwin admits that some prior agreement about place (and perhaps time) is needed, and that both transmitter and receiver must 'enjoy a full liberty' (15), something which does not sort well with being bound and hooded. Godwin then makes the apparent boast of time-travel -transmit to him at Bristol, Wells or Exeter at midday, and he will receive even before then -only to spoil the secret: 'Do not rashly pronounce this proposall impossible, for the course of the Sun makes the noone later by some minutes at Bristol than at London: this it is you may wonder at, that this Messenger should exceed the heavenly motions in swiftness' (16).…”

“…14 Sir Thomas Browne had obviously been reading his Burton, because he too listed in the context of a discussion of magnetism Strada's scheme, adding to it 'Baptista Porta, de furtivis literarum notis; Trithemius in his Steganography, Silenus in his Cryptography, or Nuncius inanimatus written of late yeers by D' Godwin Bishop of Herford', incidentally confirming by his correction of Burton's 'animatus' to 'inanimatus' that Burton in 1628 was indeed referring to Godwin's scheme, which therefore had some currency before its publication. 15 Brereton's library, possibly passed to him by his one-time teacher the mathematician John Pell, son-in-law of Henry Reynolds, whose similar efforts we shall later discuss. 16 …”