Omniana/Volume 2/If
203. If.
There is a curious use of this important little word in that learned author Rod. Gocl. Med. D. & Prof. in. Acad. Marp. . .Reader, if this be not a very clear reference to the author in question, it is Rod. Gocl.'s own fault for not being more explicit in his title page. He tells you that if you should find a stone having engraved upon it the figure of a man with a beard, and a long face, and arched eye-brows, sitting upon a plough, and between two bulls, why then you are a happy man, and whether you go to war, or seek for hidden treasures, or turn farmer, good luck will go with you. If you should happen to meet with one of these stones it may be some satisfaction to know to whom you are obliged for it. That most ancient Doctor Chael, who was one of the sons of the children of Israel, made it during the forty years which he and his brethren wandered in the wilderness. . . He made also a great many others, equally curious, and of no less virtue, of all which an account is given in his own works,. . so at least Rod. Gocl. affirms in his trealise De Magneticâ Vulnerum curatione, citra ullam superstitionem, dolorem, & remedii etiam applicationem. 1613. P. 18.
The vermicular philosopher Christianus Franciscus Paullinus, has an exampie of the conjunction if which is not less curious. He says that a Sicilian physician who commented upon Galen affirmed it was possible to make men immortal, and undertook to breed up children to be so, . . if they were fit for the purpose, . . qui ad hoc idonei essent.
Little words are sometimes of great import in cases of history as well as of law. Evagrius tells us (L. 2. C. 13), that in the Emperor Leo's reign, Constantinople was set on fire by a malignant and wicked Devil in the shape of a woman, . . or by a poor woman at the instigation of the Devil. λεγεται γαρ επ αμφοτερα, says the historian, for it is reported both ways.
A thousand instances might be produced, wherein figurative language, as in this case, has been interpreted into a miraculous meaning. I recollect one remarkable instance, on the contrary, in which the words meant what they expressed in the speaker's mouth, and were taken perhaps for less than they were worth by every body else. An English sailor was attacked at the Island of St. Michael's by a fellow who wounded him twice in the arm with a knife, cutting it to the bone above and below. The Englisman however got the better in the fray, and gave this account of his victory to the surgeon of his ship while he was under his hands, "I got the rascal down, and knelt upon his breast with one knee, and I took a case of razors out of my pocket, and opened one of them: The Devil bid me cut his throat, but God would not let me. . . This fine anecdote was told me, many years ago, from his own knowledge, by the master of the Prince Adolphus, Lisbon packet, Mr. Fenner, a man whom I often remember as the perfect model of a good old careful seaman.