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adventurers ready in divers ways to take advantage of the credulity of the public,
and a belief in many absurdities has been maintained by the apparent evidence
which the conniving of such persons has from time to time furnished. To say
nothing of the impostures constantly practised at fairs and by travelling show-people,
it was announced in the earlier days of the century that a party had arrived from
abroad with a mermaid, and that it was to be exhibited in one of the leading
streets in the West End of London. A good round fee was demanded for admission,
and the dupes were shown a strange-looking object in a glass case, which was
unblushingly declared to be a mermaid. But the imposture was too gross to last
long; it was ascertained to be the dried skin of the head and shoulders of a monkey
attached to the skin of a fish of the salmon kind, with the head cut off, the whole
being stuffed and highly varnished. This grotesque object was taken by a Dutch
vessel from on board a native Malacca boat, and from the reverence shown it by
the sailors it was probably an idol or fetish, the incarnation of some river-god of
their mythology. Repulsive as the creature was, we have an illustration of it before us
in a newspaper of the year 1836. It achieved a great popularity, and the profits
that accrued from the exhibition were, for some time, considerable, but the
owners presently quarrelled amongst themselves, and the unpoetic ending of
this monkey mermaiden was that she became the subject of a suit in Chancery.
When one remembers the success that Barnum achieved amongst the credulous
in very much more recent times with a stuffed mermaid, we can only feel that
Carlyle was right in his liberal percentage of fools, and though in this case it was
the cute Yankee and not the unsuspecting Britisher that succumbed, the truth of
Southey s assertion that man is a dupeable animal holds equally good, and is of
far-reaching application.
The Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received Tenents
and commonly Presumed Truths, by Thomas Browne, Doctor of Physick, is a
book far in advance of its time, and very interesting in showing what extraordinary
beliefs were held at the time it was written. The copy open before us is the second
edition, and is dated 1650. Some of the ideas combatted are that Crystall is
nothing else but Ice strongly congealed; the legend of the Wandering Jew; that a
diamond is made soft by the blood of a goat; that an elephant hath no joynts; that
a salamander lives in the fire; that storks will only live in republics. To these
fancies many others might be added, and some few of them that deal with the
animal kingdom we shall have occasion to touch upon in the course of our book.
We naturally turn to Browne s remarks upon mermaids, but we scarcely gather
from them any definite idea as to his belief in the matter. Before quoting his
remarks we must premise that his style of composition is somewhat stilted and
pedantic. Few eyes, saith he, have escaped the Picture of Mermaids; that is,
according to Horace, his monster, with woman s head above and fishing extremity
below; and this is conceived to answer the shape of the ancient Syrens that
attempted upon Ulysses. Which notwithstanding were of another description,
containing no fishy composure, but made up of Man and Bird; the human mediety
being variously placed not only above but also below. These pieces so common
among us doe rather derive their originall, and are indeed the very description of
Dagon; which was made with humane figure above and fishy shape below, of the
shape of Atergates or Derceto with the Phoenicians, in whose fishy and feminine
mixture as some conceive, were implied the Moon and the Sun, or the Deity of
the waters, from whence were probably occasioned the pictures of Nereides and
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Tritons among the Grecians. 14
Browne had the wisdom at a period when immense faith was attached to
tradition to investigate matters for himself whenever it was possible, and the
courage to declare the result whether it fell in with the statements of previous
authorities or not. Thus he tells us that the Antipathy between a Toad and a
Spider and that they poisonously destroy each other is very famous, and
Solemne Stories have been written of their combats, wherin most commonly the
Victory is given unto the Spider. This definite statement of antipathy would
appear to be an assertion very capable of proof or disproof, but it never seems to
have occurred to the philosophers to bring the matter to test, it being so much
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simpler to copy throughout the centuries from each other.15 But what we have
observed herein, quoth Browne, we cannot in reason conceale; who having in
a glasse included a Toad with severall Spiders, we beheld the Spiders without
resistance to sit upon his head and passe over all his body, which at last upon
advantage he swallowed down, and that in a few houres unto the number of
seven. Thus in ten minutes of practical observation collapsed a legend that had
held its ground for over a thousand years.
Such results gave him full right to speak out, and he analyses the works of the
ancients very freely, yet withal very justly and temperately. Thus he terms
Dioscorides an Author of good Antiquity, preferred by Galen before all that
attempted the like before him: yet all he delivered therin is not to be conceived
oraculous. Concerning Ælianus he tells us that he was an elegant Author, he
hath left two books which are in the hands of every one his History of Animals
and his Varia Historia, wherein are contained many things suspicious, not a few
false, some impossible. Of Pliny himself, the great holdfast and sheet-anchor of
all previous writers on natural history, he writes: A man of great elegance and
industry indefatigable, as may appear by his writings, which are never like to
perish, not even with learning itself. Now what is very strange, there is scarce a
popular error passant in our daies which is not either directly expressed or
diductively contained in his Natural History, which being in the hands of most
men, hath proved a powerful occasion of their propagation. The labours of
Browne should ever be held in great esteem, as he had the true scientific spirit,
and, regardless of all minor considerations, sought eagerly for the truth.
In fig. 7 we have a representation of the Oannes of the Chaldeans, the
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Philistine Dagon,16 the fish On, as shown on one of the slabs from the Palace of
Khorsabad. While one may readily admit that the mediaeval mermaid is a direct
descendant from the tritons and sea-nymphs of classic mythology and fancy, and
that these in turn may have descended from the yet older civilizations and creeds
of Egypt and Assyria, we can hardly ascribe any close association between the
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