66 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. not to me so great a miracle, as that there is not one always. How all the kinds of creatures, not only in their own bulks, but with a competency of food and sustenance, might be preserved in one ark, and within the extent of 300 cubits, to a rea- son that rightly examines, it will appear very fea- sible. There is another secret, not contained in the Scripture, which is more hard to comprehend, and put the honest father (St. Augustin) to the refuge of a miracle ; and that is, not only how the distinct pieces of the world and divided islands should be first planted by men, but inhabited by tigers, panthers, and bears ; — how America abounded with beasts of prey and noxious ani- mals, yet contained not in it that necessary crea- ture, a horse, is very strange." — page 61. Again — " Search all the legends of times past, and the fabulous conceits of those present, and 'twill be hard to find one that deserves to carry the buckler unto Sampson ; yet is all this of an easy possibility, if we conceive a divine concourse, or an influence from the little finger of the Al- mighty." In the Religio Medici, the author speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of himself ; but yet so generally and concisely, as not to afford much light to his biographer ; but what most awakens curiosity, is his solemn assertion, that His life has been a miracle of thirty years ; which to relate, were not history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound hke a fable." The wonders to which he alludes, were proba- bly the visionary transactions of his own mind, the result of self-love operating upon a vigorous
