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
which he is so terrifyed that his hair standing an end and pushing off his nightcap he sweares the next morning it was pull'd away by a dead-mans hand and therefore the room 's haunted without all peradventure by these apparitions his countenance grows so pale and ghastly that if he chance to see his image in the water he runs away thinking the Devil would have pulld him into the River or that his Genius like that of Brutus gave him a summons to make his appearance at Plutoes Court The surfeit of which conceits with the help of an hempen string gives his frighted soul an Exit from off the stage of his Body 4. Of Passion PAssion having put out the eyes of reason as the Philistins did Sampson's exposes the wisest of men to the scorn ludibrium of the world This is that rash Phaeton which if it ascend the Chariot of the understanding and have the reins of the souls Goverment committed unto it nothing can be expected but the ruine of the microcosme Never did any poor benighted understanding rejoyce in the false light or commit it self to the guidance of this ignis fatuus that was not bemired in the bogs of errour and indiscretion Moderate anger may be of some use for whetting the blunted edge of the souls motions and oyling the Wheels of action But he that screws up the peggs of his passion beyond the Eâ—a of reason will sing to as sorry a tune as that of the jangling Chimes of Carflax 5. Of a Physitian A Physitian is commonly said to be the Son of Apollo but I should rather think of Prometheus in whose art though he be not so good a proficient as to make yet he can vamp and as it were new translate the bodyes of men and therefore may without injury be called the bodger or patcher up of old decay'd and broken nature For which end he consults much the pispot-Almanacks or urinalls by which as in a learned Kalender he discovers the good or ill weather that shall happen in the Microcosme or I le of Man And if providence once crown his endeavours with successe so that like a skillful Midwife he give his patients a safe delivery of the disease wherewith they were brought to bed he streight thinks he hath cancell'd the decrees of fate and renew'd the leases of his patients life in spight of the three Sisters And will thenceforth undertake to make good the souls title to the ruin'd cottage of her body against the plea of death and irrevocable doome of destiny Thinking his art able not only to reprieve poor mortalls from the arrest of death but to give check to Iupiter himself and is therefore accounted of the Country-people a little God-Almighty here upon earth to whom they supplicate for Galenicall auxiliaries whensoever the Oeconomy of their bodies is disturbed for reducing all rebellious and seditious humors to their pristine harmonies and due allegiance And this intitles him to as great credit amongst women as ghostly fathers and opens a door of as free saccesse to Ladyes beds as to the Priest or confessor To conclude he is of that kind of animals that thrive best in the worst aire and like vermine lives on the soars and putrefactions of corrupted nature 6. Of a Foole or Naturall A Foole is an animal the Organs and Pipes of whose body like a sorry instrument being miserably out of tune his soul cannot play those sweet notes and lofty straines of reason that in better tun'd bodyes she useth to do and therefore he is sayd to have reason only in the seed or root which shoots not forth till death hath broken up the tough clods of his body and his soul be tranplanted to a soyle govern'd by better influences than any earth receives Or in brief he is one whom nature never suffer'd to take his discretion into his own hands and therefore the law trusts not with the management of his own estate 7. Of an Hypocrite AN Hypocrite walkes in a bright could of seeming sanctity like the Devil in a body of condens'd aire or is one that brightens and irradiates the whole course of his life with the splendent beames of a glorious profession but such as dart not from the Sun of righteousnesse arisen in his heart but rather like the Meteor Philosophers call ignis lambens that usually adheres to horses manes being no other than an extrinsecall and borrowed lustre He weares Religion as a cloke for the palliating of bad actions and therefore no wonder he cuts and shapes it according to the mode and fashion of the age and times he lives in which if pâ—râ—hanâ—e they wax hot with the scorching flames of a fiery persecution he will judge the heavy robe of Religion not only a cumbersome but a needlesse and uncongruous garment for so hot a season And therefore thinks them in the highest classe of folly that suffer their religion to prove their winding sheets or like the shirt Deianira sent Hercules cleave so close unto them as not to be put off without sacrificing their lives to the mercilesse flames of devouring fire He esteemes it an admirable decorum to sprinkle bad actions with holy-water to say a long grace before a breakfast of widdows houses but so to espouse any religion as not to admit of a divorce when the Magistrates authority legitmates the act he reckons not only the height of folly but also peevish perversnesse 8. Of Books BOoks though but paper-books are often fraught with the richest treasure of wisdome and knowledge for they are daughters of the intellect or the true off-spring of the spirituall soul as it were embodyed and made corporate And therefore may justly challenge as great a share and interest in the stock of our affections as the naturall off-spring of our bodies As being not only the productions of our more Noble part the soul But also stampt with the more Noble Characters of our perfections and bearing a greater resemblance of our true selves then any Child of the outward lineaments of his parents Now the most masculine intellectuall births are usually produc'd neither in the morning or infancy of our dayes the Sun of Reason having not then broke through the mists and fogs of ignorance that commonly attends the souls first arising in the horizon of flesh Nor also in the evening of old age seeing the day of mans life most commonly sets in a cloud of Dotage But rather at the full Noon of manhood when the Rational Soul that is the Sun of the Microcosme hath climb'd the Zenith or meridian and with the fruitfull rayes of Reason hath compress'd the Intellect Then if ever is the time for Pallas to issue from the Braine of Iupiter The Books of the deceased are as it were the Shrines or Temples of their Souls where they vouchsafe a kind of residence and give forth their oracles after they have quitted the mansion-houses of their bodies Here we may ask counsell of the dead without
be compell'd to make a full restitution it must necessarily be devested of all being dwindle into a non-Entity yet what a stirre doth this Gull make upon the stage of Learning and knowledge this strumpet Fallacy having painted it-self with the fucus of truth being made the very basis and foundation of all Science which should any one desire thorowly to understand and strictly embrace in the armes of his knowledge he shall find it nothing but a condensed body of ayre that deluded the sight of his understanding But were the Maske under which it hath so long cheated the world taken off we should see it no other than the similitude or resemblance that is between Beings Or a Picture drawn in the minde by which the Intellect as the Country-man by the thief's picture shewn him in the Conjurers glasse makes discovery of the things it hath in Quest oâ— Pursuit De 5. Praedicabili Of Common Accidents DISC. 5. THe last and lowest form of the 5. Praedicables containes the Rout of common Accidents which being altogether Aliens and strangers to the essence of their subjects are said adesse abesse sine subjecti interitu as if Accidents like Cyphers added nothing to the sum of any Entities essential worth or dignity But being mixt with essences like chips in Pottage no way alter the nature of their Subjects And therefore saith the Proverb A man 's a man tho but a hose on 's head and Reynard is but Reynard the Fox though commenc'd Priest or stept into a Fryers Cowle Should any thing with the Bird in the Fable deck and adorne it self with the plumes of many various Accidents yet shall it no more change its species than the Asse in the Lions skin was transformed to a Lion For the variation of Accidents is no Metamorphosis of Natures The crow's a crow whether in a black Coat as here in England or a white as travellers report him in other Countryes The fucus therefore or varnish of accidents ads no more to the intrinsecall worth of any Essence than a scarlet Coat to the worship of my Lords Ape The ruine of no essence is portended by the retreat of accidents as the fall of an Old Fabrick by the departure of its vermine nor its life suffocated by the approach of the most malignant as a candle is reported by the presence of an evil spirit nay should all thie troops cohorts of natures accdents muster all their forces together they were not able to expugn or captivate the least and most inconsiderable Essence and therefore it is not without cause Philosophers permit not accidents to suffragat in the court of essences for shold they by the popular breath of giddy fancyes be voyc'd into the saddle of authority they would act no more in the Common-wealth of Entities than Bibulus in his Roman Consulship or the Log's mild Majesty Iupiter made Emperour of the Froggian Territories yea were the Alantick burden of essential differences supported by no greater strength than the pygmy shoulders of common Accidents we might justly expect a ruit Coelum to the whole fabrick of Sciences I confesse some Accidents as those our Philosophers terme inseparable may like old friends hardly be seperated from the strict embraces of their essences or like the shirt Deianeira sent Hercules cleave so fast unto the skin of their subjects as not to be put off without devesting them of their actuall existencies but its impossible they should ever be incorporated or matriculated into the family of the Essence An Accidens migrat de subjecto in subjectum Neg. DISC. 6. ACcidents like Aristotles Intelligences are strictly confined to the Orbs of their peculiar Subjects from which it is as capital to budge a foot as heretofore for a Roman slave to run from his Master We may well grant they are no Straglers or great travellers seeing they were never beyond the Island of their Subjects The snail like a Pedlar with his pack at his back travells no farther than he can carry his house And an accident no farther than his Subject pleaseth to transport it Most friends like leaves of trees desert their Companions in the winter of adversity But Accidents like true Trojans accompany their subjects through thick and thin through all weathers and fortunes the Ivy is not truer to the Oke the Vine to the Elme nor the handmaid-shadow to the body it waits upon than the Accident to its subject which as it was the Cradle of its infancy is also the Urne of its ashes as the womb that gave it birth so the tomb and sepulcher that receives it after death and indeed should it once start from that subject it hath once espous'd it would necessarily drop into the gulfe of Nullity or like a bough divided from its tree strait wither into a non-Entity as having thereby forfeited the Charter of its being De Syllogismis DISC. 7. Syllogisms are the Fetters and Shackles of Reason where the Plea of the Argument cannot be heard for the Jangling of Ergoes I love to see reason the Queen and Empresse of the lesser world triumph in the starely Chariot of a rich similitude and not carted or led Captive in a Rumbling Wheel-barrow by a Rout or band of barbarous Termes As if nothing look'd like reverend truth that is not drest in Aristotle's Ruffe that doth nor dance in Moode and Figure or proceed from the Tripod of a Syllogism But without doubt the ratling of Ergoes contributes no more help to labouring and almost baffled reason than the Irish Kettles to the Moon under an Eclipse Of Disputations DISC. 8. DIsputations are sayd to examine truth by the touchstone of Reason or to be the wind by wch truth is winnowed from the Chaffe of Errour But I doubt with as ill successe as when the maid having much dirt and lime fallen into her meal heaved it against the wind I have seldome known any that filling the sails of their reason with the wind of disputation could ever arrive at the terra incognita of any new discovery And I could assoon beleeve the dropping of Solane geese from Ashen keyes in Scotland as that the productions of truth like the horses of the Sun or Spanish gennets are begotten by the wind of words and therefore should think truth rather lost than found in the Cloud and dust of a wrangling Disputation De Fallaciis DISC. 9. THe Doctrine of Fallacies is the Art of Jugling truth out of Reasons pocket by playing Hocus Pocus with the Understanding Its professors are call'd Sophisters a generation of Mountebanks skillfull in nothing but in casting mists before the eyes of the Intellect and by a sleight of perverse arguing to trip up the heeles of Truth They have learn'd of Ops the cunning wife of old Saturne to obtrude the pebble of falslhood lapt in the swadling-clours of a Syllogism for the Iupiter or legitimate off-spring of divine Reason Or imitating our Coyners set the Regall stamp of
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