fruition but rather with the prudent fox in the fable will call those grapes sowre with fortune hath plac'd above his reach 23 If admiration be the daughter of Ignorance as most acknowledge it is the duty of every intelligent person to be diligent in the search of causes that he be not suspris'd with amazement the grandest Indecorum and most unbeseeming garbe of a wise man at any revolutions or alterations that may happen in the body politick since that no lesse than things naturall is subject to change and motion there being nothing permanent under the Sun the greatest change is but a nine daies wonder and that only to the shorter sighted sort of people that are not able to discerne of causes The convulsions and distempers of States spring from as infallible Grounds and Reasons as any disease of the body naturall though perhaps in the one they may be more latent difficult to unridle than in the other For nothing happens either in Nature or Republicks that that may be call'd the Daughter of chance or say'd to owe it's existency to the will of the blind Goddesse fortune but the whole empire of the world is govern'd by the scepter of Gods providence who since the ceasing of miracles hath decreed all things to be produc'd by the midwifry of second causes 24 But beware a too great inquisitivenesse into stare affaires purchase not the odious epithite of a Politician for it is better to be wise than so accounted since according to the opinion of most the time is not yet come wherein we may expect the prudence of the Serpent and innocency of the dove should couch together and therefore as some are thought to inherit too small a stock of wit to set up for Knaves so in others are found too many graines of Serpentine cunning to admit much of the doves simplicity whereby it comes to passe that policy is of most use to those that can best dissemble it as if like the art of jugling or sleight of hand it were nothing worth when once discover'd I remember Solomon hath said It is not good to be over wise and there are many that want not wit that had rather be accounted fools than polititians 25 It I hath been alwayes accounted prudence before a man imbarks himself in any design or enterprise to consider well of the event or issue that it is like to arive unto for the want of this hath often prov'd the ruine of many a glorious undertaking for where one design hath been gravell'd in the sands of delay thousands have been split on the rock of praecipitancy and rashnesse Charybdis doth not triumph in morewracks of ships than this in ruines of great undertakings The Spaniard who is reputed none of the worst Polititians accounts his designes ripened and not rotted by time And therefore it 's usuall for the farther to sow the seed of what the grandchild is to expect the fruit Raw and extemporary plots that discover themselves so soon as ever they are hatcht that like young birds come into the world with the shell on their crownes or like forward Plants bud before the Sun of a good opportunity hath shined upon them are usually nipt before they come to maturity and have their fruit blasted in their first blossoms 26 Learning like dancing or playing on a Fiddle is counted by the proud world a better accomplishment than profession and therefore poor Schollars that have nothing to live on but the Stock of their parts and wits journey-work are commonly entertain'd with as little respect as Dancing-Masters or common Fidlers which brings to my mind that of Solomon that wisdome is good with an Inheritance It 's reported of Cleanthes a poor Philosopher that he drew water by night to maintain himself by day in the Muses service The unworthinesse of this age threatens Schollars with as bad imployment unlesse furnish'd with two Strings to their bowes There are some trades too ingenious for any but the Sons of Minerva as Merchandise Making Watches Limning and Ingraving with some others that depend on Mathematicks in some of which a Schollar might profitably employ some of his afternoon hours not as if I thought not learning a full imployment but because the most industrious are often indispos'd to study 27 Let not a fond conceit of thy name being born on the wings of fame sing lull-aby and rock asleep thy industry for many had arriv'd to a great height in Learning had they not too soon thought their knowledge at the Zenith and with Hercules setting up their pillars wrote their Ne plus Ultra This I am perswaded hath rob'd the world of many a splendent Star of Light but to ballance this consider that by reason of that vayle of obscurity that covers the face of nature together with that night of Ignorance that dwels on mans understanding the highest pitch that the best wing'd industry can soare unto is but a discovery that it knows little or nothing more than the various opinions and fancyes of men To conclude set him that hath dedicated himself to the Muses service study such things as are of use rather than ostentation and as one hath well observ'd rather with the Bee endeavour to gather Honey than like the silly Butterfly paint it his wings Let the consideration of the shortnesse of the day of mans life wherein he is to traverse the long and intricate paths of Learning quicken up our diligence to an indefatigable Industry lest the night of death overtake us and cause the Sun of our life to set before any light of knowledge hath dawn'd on our souls and so we go down to the Earth with the same vaile of Ignorance on our understandings and our Reasonâ— as much hood wink'd as when we came first into the world Sâ—â— Verbum Sapienti Of Death WHat kind of Bug-bear soever Death may be represented through the Sophisticated Glasse of Melancholy apprehensions as that he is the King of terrours the worme's Caterer and natures Sargeant that arrests poor mortalls for the debt due to corruption and gives checkmate not only to life's pleasure but also the pleasant gaire of mans life and may therefore be term'd life's devourer the grand Anthropophagus or man-eater that as it were cracks the shell of the flesh for worms himself preying on the sweet kernell of the soul These and such like are the black colours with which ignorance and guilt paynts a visard and masks the face of death Whereas could we acknowledge the truth we should confesse it as naturall to dye as to be borne Death being but the souls breaking up of house or dismantling it self of the no less cumbersom than dusty Garments of flesh or rather that it is the goal of the souls race the palme of victory the very crown and reward of life Death is not the Jaylor that captivates but the Herauld that proclaimes liberty and reprievs the soul from the confinement and prison of its body that knocks off the Fetters and Shackles of flesh and gives it the desired Exit from off the stage of this trouble some world the traveler in the fable wishd for death but quayling at his approach desir'd his hand to help him up wth his burthen whereas death intended him a greater courtesy to wit the unloading his soul of those heavy clods or earth and bundle of corruption it groaneth under Thus many stand in their own light and will not suffer themselves to be befriended like the little Poet that durst not put off his heavy shoes left the wind committing a rape on his leight Body should carry him away as the Eagle is said to have done Ganymed thus loath are the most of men that death should take off the leaden shoes of their bodies notwithstanding they hinder their souls flight into Elysium Death is so far from being the murderer of life that it rather hatches it by breaking up the Shell of the body in which it was imprison'd or rather seminally conteyn'd for as the chicken or young fowle is excluded from the egge or materiall forme educ'd from the womb of its first matter in which nature had treasur'd it up so springs the Phoenix 〈◊〉 our lives from the ruines and ashes of our bodies Yea it 's impossible the Sun of our true life should shine forth in it 's full glory till the cloud of our flesh be dissipated which occasioned the wisest of Kings to say The day of a mans death is better than the day of his birth Which according to Platoes Philosophy may be digested without a comment for if the glorious lamp of the soul were thrust into the dark lant-horn of its body by way of punishment for crimes committed in her Virgin estate when shee had her mansion among the Stars then certainly when by death she shall be return'd to her heavenly socket she is no way injur'd but restor'd to her primitive lustre and glory Such a notion as this though I confesse erroneous enough as antedating the souls existency yet is of greater Analogy to the immunities and priviledges death puts the soul in possession of than those cloudy and dastard apprehensions that most Christians entertain thereof who in this seem shorter sighted than the Barbarous Scythians who use to celebrate the obsequies of their nighest Relations more after the manner of a triumph than a funerall more rightly accounting that we falsely terme the expiring of of lives lease the haven of rest the period of misery and souls reprieve from the Captivity of flesh whereas their childrens births they solemniz'd with all expressions of grief and sorrow as fore-seeing the miseries that usually accompany the soules entrance on earths theater Nor did the Scythians alone ingrosse this notion for other Heathens were also Masters of it witnesse the facetious end of Augustus Caesar who is reported to have concluded the fable of his life with a consort of Musick and begg'd a Plaudit of his friends at his going off the Stage of the World Mors ultima linea rerum Manners Nosce teipsum Time Meditation Antiquityes Overvaluing former ages Old age Travail Variety of employment Respect Souldiers Passion Pride Charity Discontent Youth Writing Books Vindication Covetousnesse Boasting Ambition Search of causes Policy Deliberation or Festina lenté Learning despised Conceit Conclusion Ars longae vâ—ta brevis
Soveraigne truth on the false and counterfeit coyne of Error That which first hatcht this imposture was the facility that is found in most men to be deceived who like Ixion embrace a cloud instead of Iuno or our Countrymen that if they see a Sophism which is truths Ape in a scarlet Coat are ready to blesse his Worship and take it for the learned Pallas that issued from the Braine of Iupipiter Naturall Phylosophy De Physicâ DISC. 1. NAturall Philosophy brings man acquainted with his Stepmother Nature and the whole family of her Beings by the skilfull displaying their severall Essences the true badges and Cognizances of the worth and eminency of each Ranck Order or Corporation in the Republick of the world and here the Physiologist like a skillfull Herald blazons the natures of things according to their severall dignities either by the various Colours Metals of Accidents or the precious stones of vertues and effects or the Celestiall Planets of their divine influences Now of all Philosophy that which is grounded on experience may justly bear away the palme as being not the Chimaeraes or off-spring of mens Phansies but the reall confession of dying nature tortured on the wrack of some Chymicall experiment But whensoever sullain Natures Pearle of knowledge like that of the Toad may not otherwaies be obtained rather let her bowells like the womb of Caesars Mother be ripped up than that the least truth should miscarry or not be born into the world so perhaps the Anatomists knife may perform what the Alchymists limbeck could not accomplish But as for those that are willing to herd with the common rout of Philosophers must expect no richer banquet than that of the foxes in the fable i. e. instead of feasting their Intellects with the Viands of Knowledge to lick the outside of Natures glasse For since humane industry hath as yet discovered but two Keyes sc. Chymistry and Anatomy that can unlock the Cabinet of natures secrets he that will neither go to the charge of the one nor the trouble of the other is like to enrich his understanding with but few jewells of Philosophicall truth De Materia prima DISC. 2. THe first matter being Natures table-book whensoever the Characters of any form either through the injury of corroding time or some malignant Quality are become so slurred or blotted as to be no longer legible Its natures Custome with the spunge Philosophers terme Corruption to blot it out of her Register and with the pensill of Generation to place some other figure in its Room Therefore Corruption is but as it were the whiting of the table and generation the Drawing a new Picture or if we may borrow a simile from the stage I should call it the re-apparelling the first matter for acting a new part on Natures Theater Therefore the Metempsychosis or rather transmigration that Pythagoras gave to souls may be granted the Materia prima without an Allegory seeing it hath by Natures doome ever since the Creation been running the gantlet of Forms and suffering the Martyrdome of perpetual corruptions which through custome being now become a second nature it hath as naturall an inclination to the embracing of new Forms as heavy things to be receiv'd into the bosome of their Center and therefore not without cause have Philosophers term'd it the grand strumpet or harlot the fire of whose lust is unquenchable and streames of whose desires are alwayes tyding towards new objects ever loathing her old Mates and thirsting after new embraces in coveting whereof she is so impetuous that nature could never knit her in so fast a Gordian knot to any form though of highest perfections that was not in short time deserted and widdowed by the levity and unchastity of her fickle humour For she is more unconstant than the wind more fickle than female levity more slippery than an Eele harder to be fix'd than the Alchymists Mercury more difficult to be retayn'd than the Devil to be exorcis'd or charm'd into a circle She changeth her self into more shapes than the Rainbow decks it self with colours her whole work is to act the fables of Ovids Metamorphosis and is of skill in transformations able to baffle Proteus to whom the Poet hath given this Character Omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum De Formis DISC. 3. IF there be any jewel or pearle of knowledge which nature may seem to have envyed man the enjoyment I should think it were the right understanding of Forms which above all other things may justly be say'd to transcend the Zenith of the most raised Capacity and to be plac'd in a terra incognita to the best travel'd of humane understandings the spring or head of the famous river Nile is not couch'd in a denser cloud of uncertainty and obscurity than that in which the original of forms is invelloped c concealed concerning wch there is as great contention amongst Philosophers as heretofore between the seven Cities that strove for the honour of Homers Birth Some according to the Platonick fiction of the rationall soul do antedate the Existency of all forms with this only diffierence that whereas the Platonist assignes Caelestiall mansions these quarter them with the materia prima as if the first matter like the primitive rude and confused Chaos did actually containe all those various and different forms with which nature hath interwoven checkerd the worlds drapery therefore that Generation is but the discovery producing or bringing into play some new forme that had hitherto hid conceald it self in some obscure cell or remote corner of its matter and by consequence that corruption is the form's retiring and withdrawing it self from the stages view having had its Exit and finish'd the part of nature's Fable that was assign'd unto it There are others who though they hold the praeexistency of forms are more modest then the former therefore correct the harshnesse of actuall praeexistency with the leane tearms of an incompleate and imperfect act as if the infant-plants of forms were in the first matter as in a common Nursery radically and seminally contained that is to say that nature on the first matter as in her table Book had rudely drawn the first lineaments or outward strokes of all forms which are in time to be perfected and compleated by the more accurate pencill of generation These fancyes however ingenious they may seem become a Poet rather than a Philosopher If we consult the Peripatetick he will obtrude as Iupiter did by Ixion a cloud of Aenigmaticall words instead of the Iuno we desire to embrace or cast a mist of insignificant terms before the eyes of the intellect instead of giving us a view of the naked truth telling us how that all forms lye dormant in the lap or bosome of the first matter or are treasured up in the womb of it potentiâ whence by the powerfull influence and charms of naturall generation they are awakened and conjured up and again
buried and entombed by the dissolving power of Corruption A late writer that hath dip'd his pen in this Controversie finding the Gordian knot of this difficulty indissoluble resolv'd rather with Herculean courage to cut it than suffer it any longer to crucify and baffle the weaknesse of humane Intellects and therefore expunging and crossing out of natures Register all materiall forms proscrib'd them the Common-wealth of Beings and substituted in their stead Accidents as being of lesse nicery and greater freedom in giving an account of their Originalls According to wch Philosohpy Generation should be nothing but the re-attiring of the first Matter with a new livery or sute of Accidents when neither Farriers nor Physitians who are broken-natures Bodgers can any longer patch up the Rents of the old garment or otherwise we may terme it the new coyning in Natures mint such rusty pieces as through the injury of all-devouring time or some malignant quality have lost their primitive stamp or impression I was at the first view so pleas'd with this my Countryman Pemble's opinion that I had not only subscrib'd but sung an Io Triumphe thereto had I not met with Windeline who in his admirable treatise of Physick with no lesse modesty then probability of truth hath delivered his opinion that not only those primitive and first-borne forms with which nature in the morning of time and worlds infancy set up house-keeping but al o all others of latter date are indebted to Creation as the Cause of their Existencies De Monstris DISC. 4. MOnsters are the Errata's of natures printing-presse which commonly happen through the misspelling or misplacing the Letters of some externall forme but no more obstruct the legiblenesse of the worlds beauty and perfection than a literall fault the sense of a well-pen'd sentence If deep shaddows and dark colours give the greatest grace to a well-limn'd picture for certain natures landskip had been but rudely drawn were not the bright and orient colours of more perfect forms shaddowed with the deep lines of monstrous productions Were Apelles to draw a beautiful Nymph to the best advantage he would place her bya rough and mis-shapen Satyr And our Ladies who are best skil'd in setting off beauty with the greatest advantage think black spots rather contribute luster than Eclipse the Sun of their beauties and on the same account had rather a Blacke-moore or an Ape should grace their pictures by an Antiperistasis than that their shaddow should be out-shin'd by the splendor of a Brighter Complexion counting two beauties in one table no lesse Monstrous than two Suns in onefirmament Syncopes Epenthese's with the rest of our Grammarian's figures were never counted false Orthography nor may we without great blasphemy to reason think nature the worse scribe for contracting or abbreviating forms in Pigmies or writing in the Capitall Letters of Gygantine Statures since the one as well as the other is of ornament to the worlds Iliads ESSAYE'S OR Characters I. Of a Covetous man A Covetous man is one that never worship'd Iupiter except descending in a showre of Gold the Forme in which he sometime courted Danae He thinks no smell so pleasant as that of Gaine though like the sordid Emperours vectigal it arise from urinalls and therefore spreads his Canvas to no wind that brings not in some profit Had his fingers that Chymicall vertue our Poets report of long-ear'd Midas he would wish a Fathom larger then the Zodiack that he might at once grasp the Universe and by the Alchimy of a touch convert it to a globe of Gold The life of his soul is the true Heliotrope to the Sun of his fortunes springing and withering with the day of his prosperity the whole source of his desires do as naturally tide after riches as the needle of the compasse turns Northwards Nor without cause there being as great a sympathy between his foul and Silver as Iron and the loadstone No Philosophy can perswade him that a greeny glasse is better for the eye sight than white and yellow money And his Divinity informes him that a vision of Iacobus's or yellow Angels is better than those on Iacobs Ladder Finally his god is his Gold which he worships in the temple of his heart and is as careful to secure as the Romans their tutelar Deityes they chayn'd to their temples or the Iews Christs Sepulcher For like Rachel he more fears the stealing of his god then the Pharisees did our Saviour's resurrection 2. Of Love LOve is a burning feavour of the heart generated by a surfeit on ease and luxury or a fire that preys on the soul as the Eagle is layd to do on Prometheus's liver The balls of this wild-fire are usually thrown in at the Casements of the eyes By whose treachery the Citadell of the heart is betray'd to the most merciless of Tyrants which is well hinted by our Poets who make Cupid the feigned god of this frantick passion to levell his shafts at the eyes when he intends to smite the heart wherefore they that would not sacrifice all the joyes of their lives in the flames of this Ignis fatuus that would not shipwrack their felicity on the dangerous rock of this Passion that would not have Cupids Trophies erected on their martyred hearts let them place a faithfull guard at the gates of their Eyes that may take security of all objects they admit to trafficke with their souls especially those that are beautifull For the splendent Rayes of beauty being collected by an amorous eye do as naturally kindle the flames of love in the heart as the beames of the Sun gathered in a burning-glasse fire paper They are our eyes that being captivated with the beauty of objects as the silly Roman maid with the Gaul's Bracelets that betrayes the Capitoll into the Enemies hands 3. Of a Melancholy Man A Melancholy man is like Death in the pot to all amongst whom he converses carrying a Countenance more solemn than an Anatomy lecture or sermon of mortality He may almost without a Metaphor be termed A walking herse a Deaths head or a Skeleton of bones he hath even anticipated Death and praevented destiny by making his body the Coffin of his Soul He is one that by beholding every thing through the false glasse of his magnifying Fancy is cog'd into as ridiculous a belief as that of Don Quixot who supposed windmills Gyants Papermils Enchanted Castles and the bearded Goats of Wales formidable Spaniards with great muschadoes At the sound of a Sow-gelders horne he prepares for an incounter supposing himselfe challenged to a duel by the great Gyant Aldeberoni Fusco Foni If fortune be-friend him in a dark night with vulcan in a lanthorne he relates wonders how he hath been led about pools by Will-a-Wisp or Robin good-fellow Every night presents him either in a dream or vision with a new scene of blew spiders Bugbears Ghosts Hobgoblings ratling chaines raw heads and bloody bones sprights Devils Haggs Nightmares and Witches by