and many other unexpected
"venomous beasts." There is in this book information concerning the
boas: "The Latines call it _Boa_ and _Bossa_ of _Bos_ because by sucking
cowes milke it so encreaseth that in the end it destroyeth all manner of
herdes and cattels." The cockatrice, above named, "seemeth to be the
king of serpents ... because of his stately face and magnanimous mind."
The crocodile is to be carefully avoided, "even the Egyptians themselves
account a crocodile a savage and cruell murthering beast, as may appeare
by their Hieroglyphicks, for when they will decypher a mad man, they
picture a crocodile." And Topsell goes on to relate the particular
hatred which existed between crocodiles and the inhabitants of Tentyris,
that exquisitely charming Denderah which overlooks the valley of the
Nile, and still deserves its old fame as the chief temple of the Goddess
Athor, the Egyptian Aphrodite.

The dipsas, the hydra, the dragon, are also endowed with the most
remarkable qualities; but they seem to have disappeared since Topsell's
day. Not so another very wonderful animal of whom we continue to hear
from time to time, I mean the great sea-serpent; this marvellous beast
is not only described, but depicted in our naturalist's book. Topsell
gives a faithful portrait of it, and we do the same. These animals are
so big that "many a time, they overthrow in the waters a laden vessell
of great quantitie, with all the wares therein contained." The engraving
shows one of them upsetting a three-masted Jacobean ship and swallowing
sailors, apparently with great relish and voracity.[79]

Such being the current belief among students of the natural sciences, we
may be the better prepared to excuse some eccentricities in a novelist.
Lyly, who was well versed in the legendary lore of plants and animals,
is never tired of making a display of his knowledge, but the wonder is
that his readers had never too much of that. A single erudite or
scientific simile never satisfies Lyly; he has always in his hands a
long bead-roll of them, which he complacently pays out: "The foul toade
hath a faire stone in his head, the fine golde is found in the filthy
earth: the sweet kernell lyeth in the hard shell: vertue is harboured in
the heart of him that most men esteeme mishapen ... Doe we not commonly
see that in painted pottes is hidden the deadlyest poyson? that in the
greenest grasse is ye greatest serpent? in the cleerest water the
uglyest toade