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In 1667 he decided to publish the "Open Entrance," the MS. of which was returned to him by the editor Langius after printing, and was subsequently annotated in the way I have previously mentioned. During the early days of the same year Vaughan converted Helvetius, the celebrated physician of the Hague, who in his turn became Grand Master of the Rosicrucian Fraternity.
"You remember, sir, the story of the baker in Langius? He narrates that a certain woman conceived a violent desire to bite the naked shoulders of a baker who used to pass underneath her window with his wares. The man allowed her two bites, but denied a third, being unable to contain himself for pain.
It is shameful for any person, male or female, however little they may consider their own fair fame, to so far violate the canons of literary honour as to make dogmatic statements concerning a work which they cannot have seen. The preface prefixed to this edition by Langius completely refutes Miss Vaughan.
Agreeable to the list mention'd Opinion, some Naturalists will have it, that an Hermaphrodite, which is very vigorous as to both Sexes, may Engender within himself, without the Company of another Person, having Matter to form a Child, a Place to conceive it, and proper Liquid for Nourishment: In the same manner as Jack Hares engender once in their Lives, and that Stags do the same, which is maintain'd by the learned Langius: But these Generations are both impossible and ridiculous, the Naturalists must certainly be deceiv'd, in taking some Parts of the Female for the Testicles of the Male; and what probability is there that the Seed should come out of one Part and into the other, without losing its Spirits, and altering considerably in changing of Place?
Langius, moreover, laments explicitly the fact that he did not print from an original MS. He printed from a Latin translation, the work of an unknown hand, which had come into his possession, as he tells us, from a man who was learned in such matters. Miss Vaughan's pretended autograph, with its despicable marginal readings, is obviously a Latin copy, whatever be its history otherwise.
The original was in English, and when Langius was regretting its loss, "a transcript, probably written from the author's copy, or very little corrupted," was in possession of the bookseller William Cooper, of Little Saint Bartholomews, near Little Britain, in the city of London, who published it in the year 1669, to correct the imperfections in the edition of Amsterdam.
The source of both dates is "The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King"; but that which Miss Vaughan champions is based upon a corrupt reading in a bad version, and she has evidently never seen the original and best of the Latin impressions, that of Langius, though she has the presumption to cite it.
Another writer, viz., Christianus Langius, says, that this bird when attacked with constipation at some distance from the river, and not able to fly from weakness, would be seen to crawl to the water's edge with drooping wings and there take its rectal treatment, when in a few minutes it would fly away in full vigor of regained strength.
The perverted appetites and peculiar longings of pregnant women furnish curious matter for discussion. From the earliest times there are many such records. Borellus cites an instance, and there are many others, of pregnant women eating excrement with apparent relish. Tulpius, Sennert, Langius, van Swieten, a Castro, and several others report depraved appetites.
The Bible in Chaldaic characters, spoken of by Langius as inestimable, and brought hither, with many other valuable treasures of the same nature, by Lascaris, after the death of Lorenzo de Medici, who had sent him for the second time to Constantinople for the purpose of collecting Greek and Oriental books, but died before his return, is in admirable preservation.
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