notably discovered and confuted by Claudius Espenatus a famous Doctor of Sorbone in a Treatise which he purposely composed on that point de Caelorum animatione In as much as what is denied those bodies in Life in Sense in Reason is abundantly supplied in their constant and unchangeable duration arising from that inviolable knot indissoluble Marriage betwixt the Matter and the Form which can never suffer any Divorce but from that hand which first joyned them And howbeit it cannot be denyed that not only the reasonable Soul of Man but the sensitive of the least Gnat that flies in the Air and the vegetative of the basest Plant that springs out of the Earth are in that they are indued with Life more Divine and nearer approaching the Fountain of Life then the Formes of the Heavenly Bodies yet as the Apostle speaketh of Faith Hope and Charity concludes Charity to be the greatest though by Faith we do apprehend and apply the merits of Christ because it is more universal in operation and lassing in duration so though the Formes of the Creatures endued with Life do in that regard come a step nearer to the Deity then the Formes of the Heavenly Bodies which are without Life yet if we regard their purity their beauty their efficacy their indeficiency in moving their universallity and independency in working there is no question but that the Heavens may in that respect be preferred even before Man himself for whose sake they were made Man being indeed Immortal in regard of his Soul but the Heavens in regard of their Bodies as being made of an incorruptible stuff Which cannot well stand with their opinion who held them to be compos'd of Fire or the Waters which in the first of Genesis are said to be above the Firmament and in the hundred forty eight Psalm Above the Heavens are above the Heavens we now treat of for the tempering and qualifying of their heat as did St. Ambrose and St. Augustine hold and many others venerable for their Antiquity Learning and Piety Touching the former of which Opinions we shall have fitter opportunity to discourse when we come to Treat of the warmth caused by the Heavens But touching the Second it seems to have been grounded upon a mistake of the Word Firmament which by the Ancients was commonly appropriated to the eighth Sphere in which are feated the fixed Starrs whereas the Original Hebrew which properly signifies Extention or Expansion In the first of Genesis is not only applied to the Spheres in which the Sun and Moon are planted but to the lowest Region of the Air in which the Birds flie and so do I with Pareus and Pererius take it to be understood in this controversie This Region of the Air being as St. Augustine somewhere speaks Terminus intransgressibilis a firme and irremoveable wall of seperation betwixt the waters that are bred in the bowels of the Earth and those of the Clouds And for the Word Heaven which is used in the hundred fortyeighth Psalm it is likewise applied to the middle Region of the Air by the Prophet Jereâ—y Jer. 10. 13. Which may serve for a Gloss upon the Text alleaged out of the Psalm When he uttereth his voice there is a noise of the waters in the Heavens and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the Earth Now the Schoolmen finding that the placing of the waters above the Starry Heavens was both unnatural and unuseful and yet not being well acquainted with the propriety of the Hebrew Word to salve the matter tell us of a Christaline or glassie Heaven above the eight Sphere which say they is undoubtedly the waters above the firmament mentioned by Moses which exposition of theirs doth cross the course of Moses his Historical Narration his purpose being as it seems only to write the History of things which were visible and sensible as appeareth in part by his omitting the Creation of Angels whereas the Christaline Heaven they speak of is not only invisible and insensible but was not at all discovered to be till the days of Hipparchus or Ptolomy And as for the fresh lustre and brightness wherewith as is commonly thought the Heavens shall be renewed at the last day as a garment by the turning is changed and by changing refreshed it may be well by the making them more resplendent then now they are or ever at any time were since their first Creation not by the scowring of contracted rust but adding a new gloss and augmentation of glory And whereas some Authors have not doubted to make the spots and shadows appearing in the face of the Moon to be unredoubted arguments of that contracted rust if those spots had not been original and native of equal date with the Moon her self but had been contracted by the continuance of time as wrinkles are in the most beautiful faces they had said somewhat but that they were above fifteen hundred years agoe appeareth by Plutarch's discourse de Maculis in facie Lunae and that they have any whit since increased it cannot be sufficiently proved Perchance by the help of the late invented perspective-glass they have been more clearly and distinctly discerned then in former ages but that proves no more that they were not there before then that the Sydera Medcaeo lately discovered by the vertue of the same Instruments were not before in being which the discoverers themselves knew well enough they could not with any colour of reason affirm Howbeit it cannot be denyed but that new Stars have at times appeared in the Firmament as some think that was at our Saviours Birth in as much as it appointed out the very House in which he was born by standing over it and was not for ought we find observed by the Mathematicians of those times I would rather think it to be a blazing Light created in the Region of the Air carrying the resemblance of a Star seated in the Firmament As for that which appeared in Cassiopaea in the year One thousand five hundred and seventy two the very year of the great Massacre in France I think it cannot well be gainsaid to have been a true Star it being observed by the most skillful and famous Astronomers of that time to hold the same Aspect in all places in Christendom to run the same course to keep the same proportion distance and situation every-where and in every point with the fixed Stars for the space of two whole years But this I take not to have been the effect of Nature but the Supernatural and miraculous work of Almighty God the first Author and free disposer of Nature And the like may be said of all such Comets which have at any time evidently appeared if any such evidence can be given to be above the Globe of the Moon St. Augustine in his de Civitate Dei reports of Varro's book entituled de Gente Populi Romani and he out of Castor touching the Planet Venus which to add the greater
Messengers of joyful and happy tidings as at the Birth of our Saviour and another at the Death of Nero Cometes summè bonis apparuit qui praenuntius suit Mortis Magnâ—illius â—yranni pestilintissimi hominis saita Tactius There appeared a favourable and auspicious Comet as an Herauld to Proclaim the Death of that Great Tyrant and most Pestilent Man Though as to some judgments we are sensible they by the Effects have been predictive though the Astronomers have not found them out Now that which hath been said of Comets may also be applied to other Fiery and Watery Meteors as Streamings Swords flying Dragons fighting Armies Gapings two or three Sunns and Moons and the like appearing in the Air many times to the great terrour and astonishment of the beholders of all which and many more of that kind he that desires to read more of I refer him to Vicomercatus Garzaus Pontanus Lycostehenes de prodigiis portentis ab orbe condito asque ad annum 1557 And to other latter writers of Monstrous and Prodigious accidents But the strangest Apparition in the Air that ever I heard or read of was that which I find reported by Mr. Fox in his Acts and Monuments whilst the Spanish Match with Queen Mary was in the heat of treating and neer upon the concluding There appeared in London on the fifteenth of February 1554 a Rainbow reversed the Bow turning downwards and the two ends standing upwards a Prodigious and Supernatural Sign indeed of those miserable and bloudy times which quickly followed after As touching unseasonable Weather for excessive Heat and cold or immoderate Drought and Rain Thunder and Lightning Frost and Snow Hail and Winds yea and Contagious Sicknesses and Pestilential and Epidemical Diseases these arise from the infection of the Air by noisome Mists and Vapours to which we may adde Earthquakes burning in the bowels of the Earth and the like Earthquakes arise also from the distempers of the Air but in another manner They first gave occasion to the composing of that Letany and therein to the Petition against suadain Death which by Publick Authority is used through the Christian Churches at this day By the force of Earthquake contrary to the Proverb Mountains have met the City of Anâ—ioch where the Disciples were first called Christians with a great part of Asia bordering upon it was in Trajans time swallowed with an Earthquake as Dien writes who reports very merveilous things thereof By the same means at one time were Twelve famous Cities of Asia over-turned in the Reign of Tiberius And at another time as many Towns of Campaniae under Constantine And of late times we have not been without such wonderful examples of the dreadfulness of this accident above the Pestilence or any other Miseries incident to Mankind Seneca excellently discourses of them in the Sixth Book of his Natural Question Hostem mure expellaem saith he and so he goes on to avoid prolixity I shall here give you only the English A Wall will repel an Enemy Rampires raised to a great height by the difficulty of their access will keep out powerful Armies An Haven shelters us from a Tempest and the covering of our Houses from the violence of Storms and lasting Rains the Fire doth not follow us if we Fly from it against Thunder and the Threats of Heaven vaults under ground and deep Caves are Remedies those Blastings and Flashes from above do not pierce the Earth but are blunted by a little piece of it opposed against them In the time of Pestilence a Man may change Dwellings there is no mischief but may be shunned the Lightning never struck a whole Nation a Pestilential Air hath emptied Cities not over-turned them but this mischief is large in spreading unavoidably greedy of Destruction generally dangerous For it doth not only depopulate Houses and Families and Towns but layes waste and makes desolate whole Regions and Countries sometimes covering them with their own Ruines and sometimes overwhelming them and burying them in deep Gulfs leaving nothing whereby it may appear so much as to posterity that that which is not sometimes was but the Earth is levelled over most famous Cities without any mark of their former existence so far Seneca As these quakings of the Earth are very terrible so are the burnings of the Bowels thereof no less dreadful the one being as it were the cold and the other the hot fits thereof The Mountain AEtna in Sicile hath flamed in time past so abundantly that by reason of the thick smoak and vapours arising therefrom the Inhabitants thereabout sometimes could not see one another if we may give credit to Sandies relation Lib. 4. I raged so much that Africa was thereof an astonished Witness But Virgils admirable description of it may serve for all Horificis tonat AEtna ruinis Interdumque atram perumpit ad aethera Nubem Turbine fumantem piceo candente favilla Attollitque globos Flammarum Sydâ—ra Lambit Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera Montis Erigit eructans â—â—quefactaque saxa sub auras Cum gemitu glomerat fundoque exaestuat iâ—â—o AEtna here thunders with a horrid noise Sometimes black clouds evaporated to the skies Fuming with pitchy curles and sparkling Fires Tosseth up Globes of Flames to Starrs aspires Now belching Rocks the Mountains entrailes torne And groaning hurles out liquid Stones there born Thorow the Air in showres But rightly did Ovid in the 15â— Met. Devine of this Mountain and the burnings therein Nec quae sulphuriis ardet fornacibus AEtna Ignea semper erit neque enim fuit ignea semper AEtna which flames of Sulphur now doth raise Shall not still burn nor hath it burnt always The like may be said of Vesuvius in the Kingdom of Naples it flamed with the greatest horrour in the first or as some say in the third year of the Emperour Titus where besides Beasts Fishes and Foul it devoured two adjoyning Cities Herculanum and Pompeios with the People in the Theatre Pliny the Natural Historian then Admiral of the Roman Navy desirous to discover the reason was suffocated as his Nephew expressed in an Epistle of his to Cornelius Tacitus the like as to his too strict enquiry of the increase and decrease of the Sea being reported of Aristotle Having thus imployed my Reason as Divinly as I could in presenting my Reader with an explanation of a few Leaves of the great Volume of Nature I shall now with his favour think it convenient before I proceed to treat of the Powers of the Mind in the Arts c. To refute such other Vulgar Errours in their several Classes though less considerable as hitheâ—â—o I have not met withal 1. It is a common received Opinion in Philosophy that the principal faculties of the Soul the Understanding the Imagination and Memory are distinguished by three several Cells or Ventricles in the Brain the imagination as is conceived being confined to the fore-part the Memory to the hinder
weight and credit to the relation being somewhat strange and rare I will set it down in the very words of Varro as I find them quoted by St. Augustine in coelo mirabile extitit portentum nâ—m in Stella Veneris nobilissima quam Plautus vesperuginem Homerus Hisperon appellat pulcherimam dicent Castor scribit tantum portentum exâ—â—tisse ut mutaret colorâ—â— magnitudinam figuram eursum quod factum ita neque antea neque postea â—iâ— hoc factum Ogyge Rege dicebant Adrastus Cyzicenus Dyon Neapolites Mathematici Nobiles saith he appeared a marveilous great wonder the most noted Star cal'd Venus which Plautus calls Vesperugo and Homer Vesperus the fair as Castor hath left upon Record changed both colour and bigness figure and motion which accident was never seen before nor since that time the renouned Mathematicians Adrastus and Dion averring that this fell out during the Reign of King Ogyges which wonder neither Varro nor Augustine ascribe to the changeable matter of the Heavens but to the unchangeable will of the Creator And therefore the one calls it as we see mirabile portentum and the other makes this Comment upon it that it happened quia ille voluit qui summo regit imperio ac potestate quod condidit because he would have it so who governs all things that he hath made with a Soveraign independing Power So that two special reasons may be rendred for these extraordinary unusual Apparitions in Heaven the one that they may declare to the World that they have a Creatour and Commander who can alter and destroy their Natures restrain or suspend their operations at his pleasure which should keep men from worshiping them as Gods since they cannot keep themselves from alteration The other to portend and foreshew his Judgments as did that new Star in Caessopaeia a most unnatural inundation of Blood in France And this change in Venus such a Deluge in Achaia as it overflowed and so wasted the whole Country that for the space of Two hundred years after it was not Inhabited It will next fall to our task to Discover of the Eclipses of which Virgil in his Georg. Lib. 2. Calls Defectus Solis varios Lunaeque Labores Defects and travels of the Sun and Moon As also the manner of the Ancient Romans while such Eclipses lasted who as Tacitus in his Annals saith Lib. 7. Did use to lift up burning Torches towards Heaven and withal to beat pans of Brass and Basons as we do in following of a swarm of Bees So Bâ—etius Lib. 4. Met. Commâ—vâ—t Gentes publicus Error Lassantque crâ—bris pâ—lsibus ara A Common Error through the world doth pass And many a stroke they lay on pans of Brass And Manilius speaking of the appearance of the Moons Eclipse by degrees in diverse parts of the Earth in his Lib. 1. Seraque in extremis quatiuntâ—â— gentibus ara The utmost Coasts do beat their Brass pans Last And Juvenal the Satyrist wittily describing a tatling Gosship in his Lib. 2. Sat. 6. Una lâ—boranti poterit succurrâ—re Lunae She only were enough to help The Labours of the Moon They thought thereby they did the Moon great ease and helped her in her Labour as Plutarch in his Life of AEmilius observeth That AEmilius himself a wise man as the same Author there Witnesseth did congratulate the Moons delivery from an Ecclipse with a solemn Sacrifice as soon as she shined out bright again which action of his that prudent Philosopher and sage Historian doth not only relate but approve and commendeth it as a sign of godliness and devotion yea this Heathenish and Sottish custom of relieving the Moon in this case by noise and out-cries the Christians it seems borrowed from the Gentiles as St Ambrose expresses in his Ser. 83. And Maximus Turriuensis hath a Homile to the same purpose Whereas Aristotle in his eighth Book of his Metaphysicks makes it plainly to appear That the Moon suffereth nothing by her Ecclipse where also he evidenceth by reason that it is caused by the shadow of the Earth interposed betwixt the Sun and the Moon as in exchange or revenge thereof as Pliny speaketh the Ecclipse of the Sun is caused by the Interposition of the Moon betwixt the Earth and it The Moon so depriving the Earth and again the Earth the Moon of the beams of the Sun which is the true cause that in the course of Nature the Moon is never Ecclipsed but when she is Full the Sun and She being then in opposition nor the Sun but when it is New Moon those two Planets being then in Conjunction I say in the course of Nature foâ— the Ecclipse at our Saviours Passion was undoubtedly Supernatural Quam solis obscurationem â—â—â— ex â—â—nico syderâ—â—â— cursu accidisse satis oftenditur quod tune er at Pascha Judeâ—â—â— nam plâ—nae Luna solemniter agitur saith St. Augustin Lib. 3. Civit Dei cap. 15. It is evident that that Ecclipse of the Sun happened not by an ordinary and orderly course of the Starrs it being then the Passover of the Jews which was solemnized at the Full Moon And this was it that gave occasion as is commonly believed to that memorable exclamation of Dennys the Areopagite being then in Egypt Aut Diuâ— Naturâ— patitur aut Machina Mâ—â—â—di dissolvetur Either the God of Nature suffers or the Frame of the World will be dissolved And hereupon too as it is thought by some was erected the Altar at Athens Ignotâ— Deâ— Tâ— the unknown God Act. 17. 23. Though others think that this Eclipse was confined in the borders of Judaea howsoever it cannot be denyed but that it was certainly besides and above the compass of Nature Neither ought it to seem strange That the Sun in the Firmament of Heaven should appear to suffer when the Sun of Righteousness indeed Suffered upon the Earth But for other Ecclipses though the causes be not commonly known yet the ignorance of them was it which caused so much Superstition in former Ages and left that impression in mens minds as even at this day wise men can hardly be perswaded but that those Planets suffer in their Ecclipses which in the Sun is most childish and ridiculous to imagine since in it self it is not so much as deprived of any Light nor in truth can be it being the Fountain of Light from which all other Starrs borrow their Light but pay nothing back again to it by way of retribution Which was well expressed by Pericles as Plutarch in his Life reports it for there happening an Ecclipse of the Sun at the very instant when his Navy was ready to Lanch forth and himself was imbarked his followers began much to be appald at it but especially the Master of his own Gally which Pericles perceiving takes his Cloak and therewith hood winks the Masters eyes and then demands of him what danger was in that he answering none Neither said Pericles is there in this Ecclipse
brought as it were another Cerberus from Darkness to Light Infinite are the significations of Words the Figures and proprieties of speech which unknown to former Ages by the only help of Budaeus studious men are now acquainted with And these so great and admirable things he without the direction of any Teacher learned meerly by his own industry Faelix faecundum ingenium quod in se uno invenit doctorem discipulum docendi viam rationemque â—ujus decimam partem alii sub magnis Magestris vix discunt ipse id totum a se Magistrum edâ—ctus est An happy and fruitful Wit which in himself alone found both a Master and a Scholler and a method of teaching and the tenth part of that which others can hardly attain unto under famous Teachers all that learned he of himself being his own Reader And yet saith he hitherto have I spoken nothing of his knowledg in the Laws which being in a manner ruined seem by him to have been restored nothing of his Philosophy whereof he hath given us a tryal in his Book de Asse that no man could compose them but such a one as was assiduously versed in all the books of the Philosophers and then having highly commended him for his piety his sweet behaviour and many other rare and singular Vertuos added to his greatness he farther adds notwithstanding all this that he was continually conversant in domestick and state Affairs at home and Ambassages abroad for it might truly be said of him As Plixius Caecilus speaks of his Unde Secundur when I consider his State Affairs and the happy dispatch of so many businesses I wonder at the multiplicity of his Reading and Writing and again when I consider this I wonder at that and so leave him wish that happy distick of Buckanâ—â— Galliae quod Graeca est quod Graeca barbara nonest Utraque Budaeo debet utrumque suc That France is turn'd to Greece that Greece is not turnd rude Both oâ—â—e them both to thee their dear great learned Budâ— And if we look over the Peryneeus Metamorus in his Treatise of Universities and learned men of Spain he spares not to write of Testatus Bishop of Abulum si aliâ— quam suâ— seculo vivere câ—ntigâ—sset neque Hipponi Augustinum nique Stvidoni Hieronymuns nec quempiam ex illis prâ—â—eribus Ecclesiae antiquis nunc inviacrimus had he lived any other age save his own we should not have needed now either to envy Hippo for Augustin or Stridon for Hiorom nor any other of those ancient Worthies of the Church To which Possevin in his Appaeratus adds that at the age of two and twenty years he attained to the knowledge of almost all Arts and Sciences For besides Philosophy and Divinity the Canon and Civil Laws History and the Mathematicks he was skill'd in the Greek and Hebrew Tongues so as that it was written of him Hic super est Mundi qui scibile discutit omne The Worlds wonder for that he Knows whatsoever known may be He was so true a student and so constant in fitting oâ— it that with Didymus of Alexandria AEnea â—â—â—uissâ— intestina putarâ—ur he was thought to have a body of Brass and so much he wrote and published that a part of the Epitaph ingraven on his Tomb was Priâ—ae natalis Luci foliae omniae aedaeptans Nondum sic faeerit paegina trina satis The meaning is that of his published Writings we shall allow three leaves to every day of his Life from his very Birth there would be yet some to spare and yet withal he wrot so exactly that Ximenes his Scholler attempting to contract his Commentaries upon Mathew could not well bring it into l ess then a thousand leaves in Folio and that in a very small Print and others have attempted the like in his other works with like success But that which Paesquier hath observed out of Monaesteries Lib. 56. 38. Touching a Young Man who being not above twenty years old came to Paris in the year 1445 and shewed himself so admirably excellent in all Arts Sciences and Languages that if a man of an ordinary good wit and sound constitution should live one hundred years and during that time if it were possibly study incessantly without eating drinking sleeping or any other recreation he could hardly attain to that perfection insomuch that some were of opinion that he was Antichrist begotten of the Devil or somewhat at least above human condition which gave occasion to these verses of Castellanus who lived at the same time and himself saw this Miracle of Wit I'ay veu par excellence Vn jeune de Uinge ans Avoir toute Science les degrees montans Soyse vantant scaevoir dire Cequ ' onques faet escrit Par seule fois le Lire Comme jeune Antichrist A young Man have I seen At twenty years so skill'd That every Art he had and all In all degrees excell'd What ever yet was writ He vaunted to pronounce Like a young Antichrist if he Did read the same but once Not to insit upon Supernaturals were there among us that industry and the union of forces and contribution of helps as was in the Ancients I see no sufficient Reason but the Wits of this present Age might produce as great Effects as theirs did nay greater inasmuch as we have the Light of their Writings to guide and assist us we have books by reason of the Art and Mystery of Printing more familiar and at a cheaper rate most men being now unwilling to give Three hundred pounds for three Books as Plato did for those of Philolaus the Pithagorean And by this means are we freed from a number of gross Errours which by the ignorance or negligence of unskilfull Writers crept into the Text yet on the other side it is as true that we are forced to spend much time in the learning of Languages especially the Latin Greek and Hebrew which the Ancients spent in the study of things their learning being commonly written in their own Language Besides the infinite and bitter controversies amongst Christians in matters of Religion since the Infancie thereof even to these present times hath doubtless not a little hindered the progress and advancement of other Sciences Likewise it cannot be denyed but that the incouragements for the study of Learning were in former times greater What liberal and bountiful allowance did Alexander afford Aristotle Eight hundred Talents for the entertainment of Fishers Faulkners and Hunters to bring him in Beasts Fowls Fishes of all kinds and for the discovery of their several natures and dispositions Nay the daily wages of Roscius the Stage-player as witnesseth Mucrobrius in his Saturnal Lib. 3. Capâ— 14. was a thousand Dexarii which amounteth to Thirty pounds of our Coyn. And AEsop the Tragaedian by the only exercise of the same Trade if we may credit the same Author that he left his Son above One hundred and fifty thousand pounds
Sterling whereunto may be added that the Ancients copying out their Books for the most part with their own hand it could not but work in them a deeper impression of the matter therein contained and being thereby forced to content themselves with fewer Books of neceâ—sity they held themselves more closely to them And it is true what Seneca saith as well in reading as eating Varietas delectat certitudo predest Variety is delightful but certainty more useful and profitable So that upon the matter reckonings cast up on all sides and one thing being set against another as we want some helps which the Ancients had so we are freed from some hindrances wherewith they were incumbred as again it is most certain that they wanted some of our helps and were freed from some of our hindrances if then we come short of their perfections it is not because Nature is generally defective in us but because we are wanting to our selves and do not strive to make use of and improve those abilities wherewith God and Nature hath endowed us Male de Natura censet quicuâ—que unâ— illaâ— aut altero partu effatum esse arbitratur saith Vives He thinks unworthily and irreverently of Nature who conceives her to be barren after one or two Births No no that which the same Authour speaks of places is likewise undoubtedly true of times Ubiquâ— bona nascuntur ingenia excâ—lantur modâ— alibi fortassis frequâ—ntiorae sed ubique nonnulla Every where and in all ages good Wits spring up were they dressed and manured as they ought though happily more frequently in some places and ages then others Scythia it self anciently yielded one Anacharsis And no doubt had they taken the same course as he did more of the same Metal would have been found there There is it seems both in Wits and Arts as in ' all things besides a kind of circular progress they have their Birth their growth their flourishing their falling and fading and within a while after their Resurrection and reflourishing again The Arts flourished for a long time amongst the Persians the Caldeans the AEgypitans and therefore is Moses is said to be learned in all the wisdom of the AEgyptians who well knowing their own strength were bold to object to the Grecians that they were still Children as neither having the knowledge of Antiquity nor the Antiquity of Knowledge But afterwards the Grecians got the start of them and grew so excellent in all kind of Knowledge that the rest of the World in regard of them were reputed Barbarians which reputation of wisdom they held even till the Apostles time I am debter saith St. Paul Both to the Graecians and to the Barbarians both to the wise and to the unwise Rom. 1. 14. And again The Jews require a Signe and the Graecians seek after Wisdom 1 Cor. 1. 22. By reason whereof they relished not the simplicity of the Gospel it seeming foolishness unto them And n the seventeenth of the Acts the Philosophers of Atbens sometimes held the most famous University in the World out of the opinion of their own great Learning scorned St. Paul and his Doctrine terming him a sower of Words a very Babler or trifler yet not long after this these very Graecians declined much and themselves whether through their own inclination or the reason of their Bondage under the â—urk the common Enemy both of Religion and Learning I cannot determine are now become so strangly Barbarous that their Knowledge is converted into a kind of Ignorance as is their Liberty into a contented Slavery yet after the loss both of their Empire and Learning they still retained some spark of their former Wit and Industry As Juvenal hath it Sat. 7. Ingenium â—elox audacia perdita serâ—â—â— Prâ—mptus Isaeo terrentâ—or ede quid illum Esse putas quemvis hominem secum attulit ad nos Grammaticus Rhetâ—r Geometres Picter Aliptes Angur Schaenobates Medicus Magnus â—mnia novis Graeculus â—suriens in Caelum jusseris ibit Quick witted wondrous bold well spoken then Isaeus Pluenter who of all Men Brought with himself a Soothsayer a Physitian Magician Rhetorician Geometrician Grammarian Painter Ropewalker all knows The needy Greekâ— bid goe to Heaven he goes But now they wholly delight in ease in shades in dancing in drinking and for the most part no further endeavour either the enriching of their minds or purses then their bellies compel them The Lamp of Learning being thus neer extinguished in Greece In Latium spretis Accademia â—igrat Athenis Athens forsaken by Philosophy She forthwith travell'd into Italy It began to shine afresh in Italy neer about the time of the Birth of Christ there being a general peace thorow the World and the Roman Empire fully setled and Established Poets Orators Philosophers and Historians never more Excellent From whence the Light spread it self over Christendom and continued bright till the Inundation of the Gothes Hunns and Vandals who ransaked Libraries and defaced almost all the Monuments of Antiquity insomuch as that Lamp seemed again to be put out for the space of almost a Thousand years and had longer so continued had not Mensor King of Africa and Spain raised up and spurred on the Arabian Wits to the restauration of good Letters by proposing great rewards and encouragements to them And afterwards Petarch a man of singular Wit and rare Natural Endowments opened such Libraries as were left undemolished beat off the Dust from the Moth-eaten Books and drew into the Light the best Authors He was seconded by Bâ—ccaâ—e and Jâ—hâ— of Ravenna And soon after by Aretine Philephus Valla Poggius Onimbonus Vergerius Blâ—ndus and others And those again were followed by AEneus Sylvius Angelus Politianus Hermolaâ—s Barbarus Marsilius Ficinus and that Phoeâ—ix of Learning J. Picus Earl of Mirandula who as appears in his entrance of his Apogie proposed openly at Râ—â—â— Nine hundred questions in all kind of Faculties to be disputed inviting all strangers thither from any part of the known World and offering himself to bear the Charges of their Travel both coming and going and during all their abode there so as he deservedly received that Epitaph which after his Death was bestowed on him Joannes hic jacet Miraudula caetera â—â—â—â—nt Et Tagus Ganges forsan Antipodes Here lies Mirandula Tagus the rest doth know And Ganges and perhaps the Antipodes also And rightly might that be verified of him which Lucretius sometimes wrote of Epicurus his Master Hic genus humanum ingenis superavit omnes Praestrinxit stellas exortus us aetherâ—â—â— Sâ—l In Wit all men he far hath overgrown Ecclipsing them like to the rising Sun This Path being thus beaten out by these Heroical Spirits they were backed by Rodulphus Agricola Reucline Melanctâ—on Joachimus Camerarius Musculus Beatus Rhenanus Almains the great Erasmus a Netherlander Lodovicus Vives a Spaniard Bembus Sadoletus Eugubnius Italians Turnebus Muretus Ramus Pithaeus Budaeus Amiot Scaliger Frenchmen Sr. Thomas More and