[The history of Prester John, or of the individuals bearing that
appellation, appears involved in considerable confusion and obscurity.
Most of our Encyclopædias contain notices of this mysterious personage,
especially Rees's, and Collier's _Great Historical Dictionary_. "The
fame of _Prester_ or _Presbyter_ John," says Gibbon, "a khan, whose
power was vainly magnified by the Nestorian missionaries, and who is
said to have received at their hands the rite of baptism, and even of
ordination, has long amused the credulity of Europe. In its long
progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome, &c., the story of Prester John
evaporated into a monstrous fable, of which some features have been
borrowed from the Lama of Thibet (_Hist. Généaologique des Tartares_,
part ii. p. 42.; _Hist. de Gengiscan_, p. 31. &c.), and were ignorantly
transferred by the Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia (Ludolph.
_Hist. Æthop. Comment._ l. ii. c. 1.). Yet is is probable that, in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed
in the horde of the Keraites."]
_Homer's Iliad in a Nut._--On the tomb of those celebrated gardeners,
Tradescant father and son, these lines occur in the course of the
inscription:
"Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut),
A World of Wonders in one closet shut."
Will you explain the comparison implied in the words "as Homer's Iliad in a
nut?"