Note 25 — Epigrammes.
Reading edition
It is curious to find the article 'the' Elephant. Coriat later gave his own portrait showing himself on the back of an elephant, as a great wonder, in one of his travel title-pages. But query—Is it the famous inn named by Shakespeare: "I could not find him at the Elephant" (Twelfth Night, iv. 3)? Col. Cunningham (as before) assuming it is the animal that is meant, annotates thus: "The Elephant was an object of great wonder and long remembered. A curious illustration of this is found in The Metamorphosis of the Walnut Tree, written about 1645, where the poet [William Basse] brings trees of all descriptions to the funeral, particularly a gigantic oak—
The youth of these our tymes that did behold This motion strange of this unwieldy plant, Now boldly brag with us that are more old, That of our age they no advantage want, Though in our youth we saw an elephant. G.