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What more do I want to know?" Burton, as we have seen, had for a long time devoted himself particularly to the study of vice and to everything that was bizarre and unnatural: eunuchs, pederasts, hermaphrodites, idiots, Augustus-the-Strongs, monstrosities.
Some cases have been proved by dissection to have been true hermaphrodites, portions or even entire genitalia of both sexes having been found. Numerous accounts, many mythical, but always interesting, are given of these curious persons.
The next Intrigues I shall mention, are of two famous Hermaphrodites, who were more vigorous than common in their Parts, at Urbino.
In his cups they all passed, confusedly, before him; the hermaphrodites whispered to the rose-breathers the secrets of impossible love; the griffons bore to him women with magical eyes; the Albanians danced with elastic feet; he heard the shrill call of the Psyllians, luring the serpents to death; the column of Panchaia unveiled its mysteries; the Hyperboreans the reason of their fear of life, and on the wings of the chimera he set out again in search of that continent which haunted antiquity and which lay beyond the sea.
To this Opinion it is objected, that Nature being nothing but the Power of God in the production of Creatures, it never works but according to his Orders upon the Matter that is given the Female; and of consequence Hermaphrodites depend more upon the Disposition of the Matter for Generation, than upon any previous Design of Nature.
Lawd Chelmsford has suffered himself to be deceived by the bloodless hermaphrodites employed on such papers as Josef Phewlitzer's Verrult and Belo's double-barreled Benedict Arnold. Still it is just as well to know that John Bull considers that he can depend upon the sympathy and assistance of our Anglomaniacs in case of war with this country.
These are the several Sorts of Hermaphrodites, mentioned by Monsieur Venette; and the four first of them, tho' they have the Name, yet Nature has not refus'd them the Advantage to make use of their Genital Parts, and to Engender as others.
Ovid and Virgil both refer to legendary hermaphrodites, and the knowledge of their existence was prevalent in the olden times. The ancients considered the birth of hermaphrodites bad omens, and the Athenians threw them into the sea, the Romans, into the Tiber. Livy speaks of an hermaphrodite being put to death in Umbria, and another in Etruria.
These are the enormous dimensions which sometimes deceive as to the real character of the sex, and which have occasioned a belief in the existence of real hermaphrodites. Women so formed have also a great disposition to usurp the virile functions; they preserve scarcely anything of their sex except their habits and manners.
However, in spite of the revolting nature of this vice, it has been a favourite one with several great men. It was well-known to the Ancients, and those who indulged in it were called Hermaphrodites, which symbolises not a man of two sexes but a man with the passions of the two sexes.