[2] Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance.
[3] The angel, who scolded St. Jerome for reading Cicero, as Gratian tells the story in his "concordantia discordantium Canonum," and says, that for this reason bishops were not allowed to read the Classics.
[4] The idea of the Rabbins, respecting the origin of woman, is not a little singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage, and made woman of it.
[5] Scaliger.—Dagon was thought by others to be a certain sea-monster, who came every day out of the Red Sea to teach the Syrians husbandry.
[6] It is much to be regretted that Martin Luther, with all his talents for reforming, should yet be vulgar enough to laugh at Camerarius for writing to him in Greek, "Master Joachim (says he) has sent me some dates and some raisins, and has also written me two letters in Greek. As soon as I am recovered, I shall answer them in Turkish, that he too may have the pleasure of reading what he does not understand."
[7] Or Glass-breaker—Morhofius has given an account of this extraordinary man, in a work, published 1682.
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