The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 1Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 1
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
11. Lastly, He must have more heads than _Rome_ had Hills, that makes
out half of those vertues ascribed unto stones, and their not only
Medical, but Magical proprieties, which are to be found in Authors of
great Name. In _Psellus_, _Serapion_, _Evax_, _Albertus_, _Aleazar_,
_Marbodeus_; in _Maiolus_, _Rueus_, _Mylius_, and many more.
That _Lapis Lasuli_ hath in it a purgative faculty we know; [SN:
_Against poison.] that _Bezoar_ is Antidotal, [SN: Provoking Urine._]
_Lapis Judaicus_ diuretical, [SN: _Against the Falling sickness._]
_Coral_ Antepileptical, we will not deny. That _Cornelians_, _Jaspis_,
_Heliotropes_, and Blood-stones, may be of vertue to those intentions
they are implied, experience and visible effects will make us grant. But
that an _Amethyst_ prevents inebriation, that an _Emerald_ will break if
worn in copulation. That a _Diamond_ laid under the pillow, will betray
the incontinency of a wife. That a _Saphire_ is preservative against
inchantments; that the fume of an _Agath_ will avert a tempest, or the
wearing of a _Crysoprase_ make one out love with Gold; as some have
delivered, we are yet, I confess, to believe, and in that infidelity are
likely to end our days. And therefore, they which in the explication of
the two Beryls upon the _Ephod_, or the twelve stones in the Rational or
Brest-plate of _Aaron_, or those twelve which garnished the wall of the
holy City in the Apocalyps, have drawn their significations from such as
these; or declared their symbolical verities from such traditional
falsities, have surely corrupted the sincerity of their Analogies, or
misunderstood the mystery of their intentions.
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