Jupiter’s brain in a piece of Cytheridian cheese

The English philosopher-physician Thomas Browne (1605-82) possessed refined senses. Along with his sharp eyesight and acute olfactory sense he also had a keen sense of taste. His notes on cookery in the ancient world, emphasis upon moderation in diet and experiments in cheese-making are all indicative of his interest in food. His notes on coagulation reveal that he experimented with what is now considered to be a taboo ingredient in cheese-making.

Browne's gastronomical inclinations are evident in his 'Notes on the cooking of the ancients' in which he declares his desire to know more about ancient world cuisine while also believing the food of his day to be superior -

'I wish we knew more clearly the aids of the ancients, their sauces, flavours, digestives, tasties, slices, cold meats, and all kinds of pickles. Yet I do not know whether they would have surpassed salted sturgeons’ eggs, anchovy sauce, or our royal pickles'. [1]

By 'aids of the ancients,' Browne is referring to the condiments, seasonings, and preserves used by ancient cultures to enhance the flavour and preservation of their food. These aids would have included garum, a fermented fish sauce used by the Romans, as well as various herbs and spices. In his short essay his taste-buds object to herbs and spices infested by insects, and his 'stomach turned' from reading  in Apicius-

'I certainly, who think it torture to endure fat gnats and put far from my table cumin seed that is musty with bugs, would have had my stomach turned by the sausages, tripe, morsels and coarse greens of Apicius'.  

Apicius was the author of a collection of Roman-era cookery recipes De re culinaria (On Cooking). Compiled in the fifth century CE  it consists of ten books which discuss the role of the butcher and gardener in cuisine, pulse and legumes, four-legged animals and seafood. Its recipes catered for wealthy Romans and included exotic ingredients such as flamingo. 

Favouring once more modern cuisine to that of antiquity Browne also states in his cookery essay-

'Who would not prefer Bologna sausages to a paste of cuttle-fish and squid, or Spanish olla podrida to Apicius’ mince-meat?

Once more consulting his edition of Apicius he noted- 'We are impatient today of the boned chicken Apicius praises and think it food for the toothless'. 

Browne's cookery notes includes one of the earliest mentions in Western literature of the Persian prophet Zoroaster (circa 7th/6th centuries BCE) the founder of the Persian religious movement of Zoroastrianism, when stating-

'Zoroaster’s dinner in the desert was known to the ancients as starvation, for it consisted of honey and cheese. Yet honey and cheese fill the sausages of Parthia and Numidia'.

Its with typical wit that Browne concludes his notes on ancient world cuisine thus -

'But when Ibycus in Athenaeus says that ambrosia was nine times sweeter than honey, let the palates of heaven keep their sweet, I prefer a fig from Chios'.

An edition of De re culinaria by Apicius printed in 1541 is listed as once in Browne's library. [2] (frontispiece below) 

The ancient Greek Athenaeus (late 2nd/early 3rd CE) is another important source of Browne's understanding of ancient world cuisine. In his day Naucratis was a bustling Egyptian harbour and a dynamic melting-pot of Greek and Egyptian art and culture. Its also the setting of his Deipnosophistae or 'The Banquet of the Philosophers' in which physicians, gourmets, philosophers, grammarians and parasites discuss topics such as -  Baths, Wine, invented words, feasts and music, useless philosophers, precious metals, flatterers, gluttony and drunkenness, hedonism and obesity, women and love, mistresses and courtesans, the cooking of fish and cuisine in general, as well as ships, entertainment, luxury and perfumes. Book seven of Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae focuses on an essential part of the healthy Mediterranean diet, sea food, along with methods of cooking various kinds of fish.  In all probability its from his reading of Athenaeus that Browne knew -

'The ancients took great care to keep octopus-head from their tables, while no one in our day would touch it'.

In total the 15 books of  'Banquet  of the  philosophers' mention almost 800 authors. Over 2,500 separate works in total are cited in it, making it a valuable source of numerous works of Greek literature which otherwise would have been lost. Athenaeus must have been one of Browne's favourite reads for he wrote a short essay in which he displays an uncommon familiarity with the ancient Greek author. A 1612 edition of Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae, or 'The Banquet of the Philosophers' edited by the Swiss philologist Isaac Casaubon is listed as once in Browne's library. [3]

Floris van Dyck, Still Life with Fruit, Nuts and Cheese, 1613, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands.

Browne viewed the cultivation of a sophisticated palate along with gluttony as morally reprehensible.  In a combination of morality and medical advice he warns of the danger of developing an over-refined palate in his late advisory Christian Morals-

'The luxurious emperors of old inconsiderately satiated themselves with the dainties of sea and land, till, wearied through all varieties, their reflections became a study unto them, and they were fain to feed by invention: novices in true Epicurism ! which, by mediocrity, paucity, quick and healthful appetite, makes delights smartly acceptable; whereby Epicurus himself found Jupiter’s brain in a piece of Cytheridian cheese, and the tongues of nightingales in a dish of onions'. [4] 

Browne's obscure imagery of 'Jupiter's brain in a piece of Cytheridian cheese' is made clearer in his noting of diet in antiquity- 'They abstained from all heads in which the senses flourish, while yet they called any delicacy ‘Jove’s brain'. His addition of an explanatory footnote - 'Cerebrum Jovis a delicious bit', suggests he may well have had cheese in mind ! 

The Greek philosopher Epicurus who lived from 341-270 BCE in Athens, Greece reputedly once asked a friend to send him some Cythnian cheese, so that when he wishes he may give himself an expensive treat. Browne alludes approvingly to this modestly of diet in the form of low-fat feta cheese in his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica thus-

'Who can but pity the virtuous Epicurus, who is commonly conceived to have placed his chief felicity in pleasure and sensual delights, and hath therefore left an infamous name behind him?........That he was contented with bread and water, and when he would dine with Jove, and pretend unto epulation, he desired no other addition then a piece of Cytheridian cheese'. [5] 

Browne's allusion to 'Cytheridian' cheese (an idiosyncratic spelling of Cytherian) alludes to the  Greek Ionian island of Cytherea, long renowned for its light, sheep's milk cheese known as Feta cheese (top header photo). His interest in Epicurean philosophy, in particular the idea of finding delight in simple pleasures such as a piece of Cytheridian (Cytherian) cheese serves to illustrate the true meaning of Epicureanism. Early Christians however saw the philosophy of Epicurus as threatening to their newly-formed religion, primarily because it rejected divine intervention in human affairs. Christians viewed Epicurus' teachings as hedonistic and atheistic and conflicting to their own beliefs about original sin, divine providence, and the importance of suffering. Browne is one several 17th century European authors  who strived to rehabilitate Epicurus, recognising his emphasis upon moderation as compatible to Christian values. 

Cheese in Literature

The importance of Cheese in human culture is evident in its being mentioned in the World's oldest literature. According to Greek mythology, the art of making cheese was given as a gift to men by the Olympian Gods. In Homer's Odessey the utensils required and the process in making cheese are described thus-

And all his vessels, pails and hammered buckets he used for milking,were brimming full of whey...... Then down he squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats. And half of the fresh white milk he curdled quickly, set aside in wicker racks to press for cheese. [6] 

In the Biblical book of Job (circa 500 BCE) the righteous man who experiences severe trials and afflictions laments to God -

'Remember that you moulded me like clay/Will you now turn me to dust again?/Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese'. [7]  

Coagulation

In his notebook observations on coagulation Browne speculates how to make cheese more nutritional - 'Whereby whey & cheese might be made more medical'. In his notes on coagulation, an essential process in cheese-making, he experiments with an ingredient considered taboo today. Its no vulgar titillation to take a closer look at his experiments with breast milk. Browne's notebooks express clearly his intent was to formulate a 'more medical' cheese', and he endeavoured to do so by experimenting with breast-milk. Although  he correctly knew that breast milk possesses medical benefits he didn't know as we do today, of health hazards associated with sharing body fluids. He noted -

'Many coagulums there are in nature & though we content our selves in one in the running of milk, yet many will perform the same.... The runnett of cows is strong, for it coagulates the milk, but the runnett of cows as we have tried in several woman's milk will not coagulate the same'. [8]

'Womens milk will not coagulate with common runnet. Trie whether the milk of nurses that are conceived may be runne'.

'September. Tried in Mrs. Livist suspected to bee with child & it coagulated indifferently, butt much better than any other cleere woman & this was tried with disadvantage when the conception must be new....' 

His experiment with Mrs. Livist's milk suggests that hormonal changes during pregnancy might have affected its coagulation properties, and he noted that it worked better than milk from other women who weren't pregnant, despite the potential disadvantage of the conception being recent.

'Mrs Kings milk , October 23 (1650) would not runne, but only curdled in small roundles like pin heads, as vinegar will curdle milk'. [9]

Browne encountered varying degrees of success with different women's milk in his experiments. Mrs. King's milk didn't react as expected, producing small curds instead of coagulating properly. His comparison to vinegar's effect on milk suggests he was trying to understand why this happened.

Breakfast Piece with Cheese and Goblet  Jacob Foppens van Es (Flemish, c. 1596 – 1666)

Coagulation in alchemy

Browne's coagulation notes includes a query in which coagulation is viewed as an alchemical stage in the formation of planet Earth, 'the first masse' at the Creation, stating- 

'Whether the first masse were butt a coagulation wherby the water & earth lay awhile together, & the watery or serous part was separated from the sole and continuating substance'.

In alchemy, coagulation represents the process of materializing the subtle, spiritual essence into a tangible form. This stage is often associated with the formation of the Philosophers' Stone, where the alchemist's inner transformation manifests outwardly. Coagulation is also linked to the concept of manifestation, where thoughts and intentions take on physical form, illustrating the alchemical idea that the inner world shapes the outer reality. The alchemical maxim Solve et coagula represents the dual process of breaking down (solve) and reassembling the material and spiritual essence (coagula). This fundamental alchemical maxim may be equated to the symbolism and polarity of Cancer-Capricorn. It's a crucial maxim in understanding the transformative nature of alchemy equal to the commonplace lead to gold quest of both spiritual and proto-chemistry.

Little-known Browne

Remarkably, in chapter z of Pseudodoxia Epidemica  Browne writes of cooking cheese -

'If we provide ourselves with about a Selibra or half pound of the Cheese, entitulated Duplex Glocestrius, or Double Gloucester; and then go on to cut the intrinsic caseous Matter into tenuous Segments or Laminæ; and, positing such Segments within the coquinary commodity distinguished by Culinarians as the Furnus Bataviæ or Dutch Oven, submit the same to the Fire, until by the action of the Caloric they become mollified unto Semiliquidity: whereupon, if we diffuse the caseous fluid on an Offula of Bread, the Superfices whereof hath been previously torrefied, and then Season the same with a slight aspersion of the Sinapine, Piperine, and Saline Condiments, or with Mustard, Pepper, and Salt, we shall find that the Sapor and Fragor thereof differ in no wise from the Gust and Odour of the Edible we had præ-attained from the Covent Garden Coenatorium; and consequentially that the Welsh Rabbit is not, as the Vulgar Pseudodox conceiteth, a species of Cuniculus vernacular to Wales, but as was before predicated, simply a Savoury and Redolent Scitamentum or Rarebit, which is much existimated by the Cymri or Welsh people, who, from time prætermemorial, have been cognized as a Philocaseous or Cheese-loving Nation. [10]

Today,  the most famous promoter of cheese is the the Northern-accented inventor Wallace whose  pet beagle is Gromit. Wallace's favourite cheese is Wensleydale. Wensleydale was originally produced from a monastery of French Cistercian monks once resident in northern England in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire. However, this style of cheese fell to low production during the early 1990s, but its popularity was revitalized by frequent references to it in the Wallace & Gromit series.

Images

Top header: Feta cheese

Next : Frontispiece to De re Culinaria

Next : Floris van Dyck, Still Life with Fruit, Nuts and Cheese, 1613, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands.

Next: Breakfast Piece with Cheese and Goblet  Jacob Foppens van Es (Flemish, c. 1596 – 1666)

Links

Notes on cookery of the ancients

From a reading of Athenaeus

Notes

[1] British Museum Sloane MS no.1827 Latin original Collected Works of Sir Thomas Browne ed. Simon Wilkin pub. Fletcher and Son Norwich 1835-36

[2] 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 22 no. 105

[3] 1711 Catalogue page 7 no.67

[4] Christian Morals Part 2 Section 1

[5] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Book 7 chapter 16 divers other relations 8. 

[6]  Homer The Odyssey trans. Robert Fagles Penguin 1996 Book 9 lines 150-51 and 275-8

[7] Job 10:10

[8] The Miscellaneous Writings of Sir Thomas Browne ed. Geoffrey Keynes pub.Faber and Faber 1931 reissued 1946

[9] Ibid.

[10] In fact a parody of Browne and not by him whatsoever !  See  On Welsh Rabbit

* This essay dedicated to Liddy Mercurius with❤️ from Saturnus *

Why the goddesses sit commonly cross-legged in ancient draughts ?

In the concluding chapter of Thomas Browne's hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) the physician-philosopher fires a rapid volley of tricky questions, including -'Why the goddesses sit commonly cross-legged in ancient draughts, Since Juno is described in the same as a veneficial posture to hinder the birth of Hercules ?'

Its rewarding to explore Browne's obscure question in depth. It originates from his reading of the ancient Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Ovid's long poem the myths of ancient Greece are linked by a common theme of transformation. A chaotic universe is subdued into harmonious order, animals turn into stone, men and women are rewarded and punished by gods and goddesses for their deeds to become trees, birds and stars. One of the most influential works in Western culture, Ovid’s Metamorphoses was a valuable source of information and inspiration to poet, painter and scholar throughout the Renaissance. [1]

The Roman goddess Juno's symbolic body language occurs during the birth of the hero Hercules in which she attempts to prevent the birth of her unfaithful husband Jupiter's child.

'When the time for Hercules difficult birth came, and Capricorn, the tenth sign, was hidden by the sun, the weight of the child stretched my womb: what I carried was so great, you could tell that Jove was the father of my hidden burden. I could not bear my labour pains much longer....Tortured for seven nights and as many days, worn out with agony, stretching my arms to heaven, with a great cry, I called out to Lucina, and her companion gods of birth, the Nixi. Indeed, she came, but committed in advance, determined to surrender my life to unjust Juno. She sat on the altar, in front of the door, and listened to my groans. With her right knee crossed over her left, and clasped with interlocking fingers, she held back the birth, She murmured spells, too, in a low voice, and the spells halted the birth once it began.[2]

The Roman goddess Juno ruled over the primary domains of feminine life in the ancient world, namely, childbirth, marriage and motherhood. She is associated with the peacock and its feathers. As the wife of Jupiter she was one of the most important Roman gods and she is immortalized with the month of June named after her.

Browne's interest in the mystical body language of Juno's crossed-legs is first mentioned in the opening chapter of the Discourse.

'That they sat also crossed legg’d many noble draughts declare; and in this figure the sitting gods and goddesses are drawn in medalls and medallions'.

In ancient depictions, goddesses sitting cross-legged often symbolized their spiritual power. Juno's crossed legs (one imagines the goddesses of antiquity to be long-legged beauties in order to form an elegant, elongated X) is a literal expression of body language, child-birth being impossible with crossed-legs.

Mystical body language also features in the Old Testament book of Genesis in which the patriarch Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh.

'But Jacob crossed his arms as he reached out to lay his hands on the boys’ heads. He put his right hand on the head of Ephraim, though he was the younger boy, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, though he was the firstborn'. [3]

This Biblical episode is alluded to by Browne in The Garden of Cyrus thus-

'the Statuae Isiacae, Teraphims, and little Idols, found about Mummies, do make a decussation or Jacobs Crosse, with their armes, like that on the head of Ephraim and Manasses' [4]

Browne's pioneering comparative religion studies detected that mystical body language is shared by various world religions. His ability to supply Egyptian, Judaic and Roman examples of mystical body language in The Garden of Cyrus demonstrates his ability to find connections between seemingly disparate concepts, and highlights his fascination with hidden patterns underlying human culture and symbolism.

The literary critic Peter Green noted that Browne, 'packs his prose with as much concentrated symbolic meaning as it will stand' and that, 'Every symbol is interrelated with the over-all pattern'.[5]

Browne's inclusion of the Roman goddess Juno in The Garden of Cyrus is exemplary of his methodical usage of proper-name symbolism. Taking his cue from Plato, Browne utilizes proper-name symbolism in order to tentatively sketch primordial patterns of the psyche known as archetypes. Indeed, the very title of the discourse features the archetype of the 'wise ruler' at a time when Britain wasn't ruled by the divine right of a King but during the short-lived proto-Republic of Cromwell. The 'wise ruler' figures of Moses, Solomon, Solon, Alexander the Great and Augustus along with Cyrus are all alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus. 

The archetype of the nurturing figure of the 'Great Mother' is also represented in the Discourse through allusion to Juno, the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Hebrew matriarch Sarah.

X

Received wisdom will claim that The Garden of Cyrus is 'all about' the Quincunx, but in fact the quincunx pattern, the vehicle whereby Browne drives home his message of universal interconnectivity, is quite literally only half of his Hermetic vision. The symbol X (formed by joining the five dots of the Quincunx) features an equal number of times in the Discourse to the quincunx pattern.

The psychologist C.G. Jung noted that symbols can endure paradox and that's just as well because the symbol X is one of the most hard-working and flexible of all symbols and has accumulated many meanings over centuries.

The Roman numeral for ten, the Mosaic code of ten commandments as well as the Pythagorean tetractys (a pyramid of ten dots which Pythagoreans swore by) were all well-known by Browne. The Pythagorean and mathematical aspect of Browne's hermetic vision cannot be overlooked, as his candid confession in Religio Medici reveals-

'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magicke of numbers'. [6]

The art historian J. B. Onians noted - 'The power of the Pythagorean mystery was based largely upon his understanding of the mathematical order of the universe, which could be summed up in visual representation of such numbers as tetractys and Quincunx.' [7]

It was also during Browne's lifetime that the mathematician William Oughtred designated the symbol X to denote the multiplication of number. Browne himself owned an edition of Oughtred's Clavis Mathematica (1648) [8]

Today, the hard-working symbol X can denote invisible X-rays, affection in the form of a kiss, as well as a wrong answer, restrictive viewing or X rated material or an unknown factor. It retains its abbreviated form for Christ in the word Xmas, and in the pattern known as the Criss-cross. Finally, conclusive evidence that all the money in the world cannot buy imagination, the social media platform once known as Twitter was rebranded X by its owner.

Crucially, (a word which itself derives from the Latin of Crux meaning a cross) Browne as a Christian knew that the Greek word for Christ begins with x (Chi) and this interpretation of X as a pre-Christian anticipation of the Coming of Christ is foremost in his hermetic vision.

The crossed-legs of Juno and the Biblical crossed-arms of Jacob are also exemplary of how Browne and other hermetically inclined antiquarians interpreted the ancient pagan world. Hermetic philosophers believed that the mythic Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus (in reality a fusion of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes) was the inventor of number and letter, including the letter X.

It was the Italian Renaissance scholars Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and his prodigy Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) who first advanced and promoted the profile of Hermes Trismegistus as the founder of a priscia theologia. Ficino and Mirandola made Hermes Trismegistus the author of a pagan tradition of divine knowledge, an ancient theology (priscia theologia) which paralleled and confirmed the revealed truth of the Bible and whose Egyptian providence reinforced tales of Plato’s travels in Egypt.

Browne subscribed to Ficino and Mirandola's belief that the Greek philosopher Plato studied in ancient Egypt, the land of Hermes Trismegistus, stating in The Garden of Cyrus -

'.. whereas it is not improbable, he (Plato) learned these and other mystical expressions in his Learned Observations of Egypt, where he might obviously behold the Mercurial characters, the handed crosses, and other mysteries not thoroughly understood in the sacred Letter X, which being derivative from the Stork, one of the ten sacred animals, might be originally Egyptian, and brought into Greece by Cadmus of that Country. [9]

The symbolism of how X was introduced through Hermes Trismegistus's observation of bird's legs is alluded to in The Garden of Cyrus thus-

'And if Egyptian Philosophy may obtain, the scale of influences was thus disposed, and the genial spirits of both worlds, do trace their way in ascending and descending Pyramids, mystically apprehended in the Letter X, and the open Bill and straddling Legs of a Stork, which was imitated by that Character'. [10]

The worthy Norwich philosopher-physician reinforces the symbolic importance of X and its close relationship to Platonic thought, notably Plato's discourse Timaeus stating-

'Of this Figure Plato made choice to illustrate the motion of the soul, both of the world and man; while he delivereth that God divided the whole conjunction length-wise, according to the figure of a Greek X, and then turning it about reflected it into a circle'; [11]

Plato along with Ovid is mentioned in the opening page of The Garden of Cyrus. The ancient Greek philosopher's influence looms large throughout the Discourse, especially his Timaeus which is named by foot-note in the Discourse's opening. Plato's Timaeus is his most Pythagorean writing. It elaborates upon the relationship between geometry, number and mysticism, all of which are primary thematic concerns of Browne's Garden of Cyrus.

Quincunx

In the discourse's dedicatory epistle Browne wittily declares of the Quincunx pattern that, 'we have not affrighted the common Reader with any other Diagrams, then of it self; and have industriously declined illustrations from rare and unknown plants'.

Such is the potency of the Quincunx pattern as seen in the discourse's frontispiece which Browne 'borrowed' from a book by the Italian polymath Della Porta, that the crossing point or X figure of the pattern is occulted and hidden by circles as if  X-rated material too potent to view.

The phantasmagorical procession of art-objects, botany, star constellations, optical theories and mystical religious considerations in The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincuncial (,)Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically considered has been little understood throughout the centuries, so much so that a stray comma erroneously reproduced in the Discourse's full running title has become embedded in almost all subsequent editions since 1658. However, this stray comma in the Discourses title is incompatible with either the syntax, symmetry or artistic message of the Discourse. The five red dots added to the frontispiece illustration (below) highlights how Browne's Lozenges are Quincuncial. [12]

In recent times the American poet and literary critic John Irwin focussed his critical attention on Browne's quincunx in his labyrinthine book The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story (1994). Although Irwin's book is primarily concerned with the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and the early magical realist author Jorge Borges (1899-1986), both of whom greatly admired Browne's writings. Irwin recognised that -

'the idea that there is a necessary (because original) correspondence among numbers, letters and geometric shapes, is a belief found in esoteric alchemy and the cabala'.

Irwin continues with one of the most perceptive remarks ever stated about the quincunx pattern -

‘The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world, i.e. mathematics, language, geometry joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes’. [13]

The Argyle pattern (below) is a neat variant of the frontispiece of The Garden of Cyrus. The central point of decussation, X is visible within each lozenge. Its overlaid diamond or Lozenge pattern creates a 3D perspective, an optical trick which without doubt would have intrigued Thomas Browne

Notes

[1] No less than 8 editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses are listed as once in Thomas Browne and his son Edward's combined libraries in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue.

[2] Ovid Metamorphoses Book 9 lines 290-300

[3] Genesis 48: verse 14

[4] chapter 3 of Cyrus

[5] Sir Thomas Browne by Peter Green pub. Longmans, Green and Co. 1959

[6] Religio Medici Part 1:12

[7] J. Onians Art and thought in the Hellenistic Age Thames and Hudson 1979

[8] 1711 Sales Catalogue page 30 no. 13

[9] Cyrus Chapter 4

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid

[12] A 1658 edition of Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica with the two 1658 Discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus appended does not reproduce the stray comma which is featured in most subsequent editions.

[13] The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story. John T. Irwin pub. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996

* This one for Rosie on Valentine's Day *