De quatre bras, quatre pieds, et deux testes
Estoyent former ces raisonnables bestes.
La reste vaut mieux, pensée que ditte,
Et se verrait plustost peinte qu'escrite.

Chacun estoit de son corps tant aysé,
Qu'en se tournant il se trouvoit baisé :
En estendant ses bras, on l'embrassoit :
Voulant penser, on le contrepensoit :
En soy voyoit tout ce qu'il vouloit veoir,
En soy trouvoit ce qu'il falloit avoir.
Jamais en lieu ses pieds porté ne l'eussent,
Que quand et luy ses passetemps ne feussent.
Si de son bien luy plaisait mal user,
Facile estait envers soy s'excuser.

De luy n'estoit fait ne rapport, ny compte,
Ne congnoissoit honnesteté, ny honte.
Si de son cœur sortoyent simples desirs,
Il y entrait tant de doubles plaisirs,
Qu'en y pensant chacun est incité
A maintenir, que la felicité

Fut de tel temps, et le siecle doré.

In the first age, while mortals still were good,
And herbs and acorns were their only food,
Three sorts of men existed, two of which
In ev'ry point were altogether such
As they are now: the third a double kind
Had in it both the male and female join'd.
The piece, you may suppose, was very fine,
And worthy of the maker's skill divine.

Two heads, four arms, and just as many feet
Did in this rational quadruped meet.
The rest is better far conceiv'd than said,
Better in pictures than in words display'd.

Each in himself was so contriv'd and bless'd,
That if he turn'd, he found that he was kiss'd.
If he but stretch'd his arms, he was embrac'd,
With ev'ry thought a counter-thought was plac'd.
In short, all that he wish'd or wanted, he
Did largely in himself provided see.

He carried his amusements still about him,
Nor could he move a single step without 'em.

If of his goods he made a sinful use,
With ease he could unto himself excuse
VOL. III.

8

The fault for he had no account to give
Of what he did to any man alive.

As for aught else, he did not know the name
Of what is constru'd modesty or shame.
If his heart's wishes pure and simple were,
So many double pleasures enter'd there,
That when we think of these, we are inclin'd
To say that true felicity confin'd

Her short duration to that narrow stage,
That space of time yclep'd the golden age.

It appears from the following memoir that a Franciscan who forsook his order, is the author of the pretended voyage into Terra Australis. It was written to me from Geneva, the 13th of March, 1697.

"You will not be displeased to know the true author of the relation of Terra Australis, which came out under the name of 'James Sadeur,' of which you take notice. His name was Gabriel Foigni, and he was a Franciscan in a convent of Lorrain, his native country. He came into these parts in the year 1667, and embraced our religion; notwithstanding which, he continually led an irregular life. At first he settled in the little town of Morges, where he was chaunter of the church; but one day going to sing, after he had been drinking, he did some indecent things at church, which occasioned his being turned out. He came hither, and to get a livelihood, went from house to house teaching young boys grammar, geography, &c., and instructing Germans in the French tongue. Some time after he married a woman of the dregs of the people, and who was not accounted so scrupulous as Lucretia. Afterwards he took it in his head to publish some small books, and among the rest, an Almanack every year, under the name of the 'Great Garantus,' which was commonly very faulty as to the computation of time; a set of cards for heraldry, and the Psalms of Marot and Beza, with a Prayer of his own composing at the end of each Psalm, containing only some insipid compliments to

the Deity. Lastly, the relations of voyages being very much in vogue at that time, he completed his works by his Australia, as he calls it; he had it printed here privately about the latter end of the year 1676. Our clergy, who thought that book contained several things contrary to the Holy Scripture, and several obscenities, sent for the printer, who declared that Foigni had given him the manuscript. Foigni stoutly maintained that James Sadeur was the true author of it, and that he had received the copy from Bourdeaux; but at last being summoned to appear before the magistrates, he confessed, when he was strictly examined, that he had written that book to get a little money, and that James Sadeur was a supposititious name. As a punishment, he was ordered to leave the town with his family; but some German gentlemen, whom he taught the French tongue, having interceded for him, he was allowed to stay here some time longer. But three or four years after, his maid being with child, and himself prosecuted upon that account, he went away and retired into Savoy, and got into a monastery, where he died five years ago."

I shall recite here what a considerable man told me in the year 1699, viz. "That the relation, printed under the name of James Sadeur, is the work of a gentleman of Bretagne, a great admirer of Lucretius, whom he had translated into French, designing to publish his translation. He published at Vannes, in the year 1676, the relation of James Sadeur. I might reconcile this with the memorial sent to me from Geneva, by supposing that the Monk, who forsook his order, took out of that work the materials of the Australia published by him, or even that he transcribed it word for word, and published it as an original. There are some things in that relation so nicely managed, that I can hardly believe that Foigni was master of so much art. I forgot to desire some of my friends to compare Sadeur's relation with the

Australia. I am apt to think that there is some difference between those two pieces.—Art. SADEUR.

SAINTS.

(Lives of.)

CARDINAL Valerio, bishop of Verona, in his book intitled, "De Rhetorica Christiana," informs us, that "one of the causes of the false legends of the martyrs was the custom formerly observed in several monasteries to exercise the young monks, by Latin exercises proposed to them on the martyrdom of some saint, which giving them the liberty of introducing the tyrants and the persecuted saints, as acting and speaking, in such a manner as appeared to them the most probable, at the same time gave them room to compose on these subjects a sort of histories, rather filled with ornaments and inventions than truth; but though they did not deserve much regard, yet those which seemed most ingenious and best composed were laid up. So that after a long series of years, they, together with other manuscripts, being found in the libraries of the monasteries, it was very difficult to distinguish these exercises of wit from the genuine histories of the saints there also preserved. It is to be confessed that those pious writers are very excusable, they having no other design than to exercise themselves on holy subjects, could not foresee the erroneous consequences, which, in process of time, proceeded from thence; so that if posterity be thereby deceived, it is rather owing to their own want of discernment, than a proof of the ill intentions of those writers. It would be hard to have the same regard for the famous Simeon Metaphrastes, a Greek author of the ninth century, who first gave us the lives of the saints for every day of the month through the whole year, since it is visible they were not written for that purpose, but in a very serious manner, though at

the same time amplified and stuffed with several imaginary events, as Bellarmin himself testifies, who plainly tells us, ' that Metaphrastes wrote several of the lives, as they might be, and not as they really were.' But it is no wonder that such a thing should have been done by some ecclesiastical historians, through a pious zeal to honour the saints, and to render their lives agreeable to the people, commonly more inclined to admire those they reverence, than to imitate them; seeing this liberty crept into the very translation of some books of the Bible, as we are informed by St Jerome, in his Preface to that of Esther, that the vulgar edition of that book of Holy Writ, commonly read in his time, was stuffed with several additions, which I cannot better express than in the words of that father: Quem librum,' saith he, speaking of the book of Esther, 'editio vulgata lacinosis hinc inde verborum finibus trahit, addens ea quæ ex tempore dici potuerant, et audiri, sicut solitum est scholaribus disciplinis sumpto themate, excogitare quibus verbis uti potuit qui injuriam passus, vel qui injuriam fecit.-Which book in the vulgar edition here and there is patched with forgeries, such things being inserted in it as might have been said and heard extempore, as it is usual when a theme is given in schools, to invent what might have been spoken by one that suffered or committed an injury.'

Those who would see a vast number of curious and judicious observations on this head, need only read M. Baillet's discourse on the lives of the saints.

SAPPHO.

Art. VALERIUS.

SAPPHO was one of the most famous women of all antiquity for her verses and her amours: she was a native of Mitylene, in the isle of Lesbos, and lived in the time of Álcæus, her countryman, and in the time