Page 289, ll. 6-7. If every severall Angell bee A kind alone. Ea enim quae conveniunt specie, et differunt numero, conveniunt in formâ sed distinguuntur materialiter. Si ergo Angeli non sunt compositi ex materiâ et formâ ... sequitur quod impossibile sit esse duos Angelos unius speciei: sicut etiam impossibile esset dicere quod essent plures albedines (whitenesses) separatae aut plures humanitates: ... Si tamen Angeli haberent materiam nec sic possent esse plures Angeli unius speciei. Sic enim opporteret quod principium distinctionis unius ab alio esset materia, non quidem secundum divisionem quantitatis, cum sint incorporei, sed secundum diversitatem potentiarum: quae quidem diversitas materiae causat diversitatem non solum speciei sed generis. Aquinas, Summa I. l. 4.
Page 293. INFINITATI SACRUM, &c.
Page 294, l. 11. a Mucheron: i.e. a mushroom, here equivalent to a fungus. Chambers adopts without note the reading of the later editions, 'Maceron', but spells it 'Macaron'. Grosart prints 'Macheron', taking 'Mucheron' as a mis-spelling. Captain Shirley Harris first pointed out, in Notes and Queries, that 'Mucheron' must be correct, for Donne has in view, as so often elsewhere, the threefold division of the soul—vegetal, sensitive, rational. Captain Harris quoted the very apt parallel from Burton, where, speaking of metempsychosis, he says: 'Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a captain:
Ille ego (nam memini Troiani tempore belli)
Panthoides Euphorbus eram,
a horse, a man, a spunge.' Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 1, Sect. 1, Mem. 2, Subs. 10. Donne's order is, a man, a horse, a fungus. But to Burton a sponge was a fungus. The word fungus is cognate with or derived from the Greek σπόγγος.
As for the form 'mucheron' (n. b. 'mushrome' in G) the O.E.D. gives it among different spellings but cites no example of this exact spelling. From the Promptorium Parvulorum it quotes, 'Muscheron, toodys hatte, boletus, fungus.' Captain Harris has supplied me with the following delightful instance of the word in use as late as 1808. It is from a catalogue of Maggs Bros. (No. 263, 1910):
'THE DISAPPOINTED KING OF SPAIN, or the downfall of the Mucheron King Joe Bonaparte, late Pettifogging Attorney's Clerk. Between two stools the Breech comes to the Ground.'
The caricature is etched by G. Cruikshank and is dated 1808.
The 'Maceron' which was inserted in 1635 is not a misprint, but a pseudo-correction by some one who did not recognize 'mucheron' and knew that Donne had elsewhere used 'maceron' for a fop or puppy (see p. [163], l. 117).