These “errors,” which he treats of in papers or treatises of various lengths, are very numerous, and for even a cursory knowledge of them I must refer you to the book itself. To give you an idea of the subjects, I will only mention a few of the titles of the errors which he proceeds to refute:— That crystal is nothing else but ice strongly congealed, That an elephant hath no joints, That a pigeon hath no gall, Of the Phœnix, Of the Basilisk, That a Salamander lives in the fire, That an ostrich digesteth iron. Or, to take another class of subjects— That snails have no eyes, Of the picture of Moses with horns, That the forbidden fruit was an apple, and so forth. But though his tracts on these “vulgar errors” may, in many instances—and looked at by the light of our present knowledge (and we must never forget the immense difference in the scientific knowledge of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries)—appear not only quaint, but almost trivial, yet even where the conclusion to the question discussed may appear to be self-evident, and the reasoning thrown away, we often see an amount of learning and research displayed which strikes us as quite remarkable. For example, in discussing the “vulgar error,” _that the ostrich digesteth iron_, he quotes the following writers in reference to it:—Rhodiginus, Johannes Langius, Aristotle, Oppianus, Pliny, Œlian, Leo Africanus, Fernelius, Riolanus, Albertus Magnus, and Ulysses Aldrovandus—a list which may well make us stand astonished at the extent of his studies, and cause us to say of him, even in such small matters, “_Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit_.” It is almost needless to add that in this case Sir Thomas arrived at the common-sense conclusion that although ostriches may swallow iron they do not digest it. His greatest works were undoubtedly those which I have already mentioned. But he wrote also a very noted book, entitled the _Garden of Cyrus_, in which he discussed learnedly, and often fancifully, numerous questions connected with the vegetable world. He reviewed the practice of Horticulture, and the arrangements of gardens even from the first garden mentioned—that of Eden in Paradise. He makes reference to the hanging gardens of Babylon; the classical gardens of the Hesperides and of Alcinous; and to the gardens and orchards, with their pools of water, of King Solomon. And he discusses the various forms in which ancient gardens were presumably laid out—dwelling largely upon the quincuncial {135a} arrangements probably adopted. The whole book teems also with allusions, showing his minute acquaintance with vegetable phenomena. As to King Cyrus, he says, “All stories do look upon Cyrus as the splendid and regular planter.”