He probably alludes to the legends or miraculous stories of the saints; such as walking with their heads off, preaching to the fishes, sailing over the sea on a cloak, &c. &c.

This is a book that contains the Jewish traditions, and the rabbinical explanations of the law. It is replete with wonderful narratives.

This passage not improbably contains the germ of Pope’s famous lines:— “A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”

A philosopher of Abdera; the first who taught the system of atoms, which was afterwards more fully developed by Democritus and Epicurus.

He was a disciple of the last-named philosopher, and held the same principles; he also denied the existence of the soul after death. He is considered to have been the parent of experimental philosophy, and was the first to teach, what is now confirmed by science, that the Milky Way is an accumulation of stars.