make this unhappy Compact So the Devil wicked as he is by his Treaty with this Gnome makes the Soul of a man become Mortal and deprives it of the right of Eternal Life How Sir cryed I These compacts in your opinion of which the Demonographes relate so many examples are they not with the Devil No surely continued the Count has not the Prince of the World been chased out of it Is he not shut up Is he not bound Is he not cursed and damned from off the earth and Throne down to remain at the bottom of the work of the Supreme Architect can he mount up into the Region of Light and there make his concentred Darkness resplendant No He can do nothing against man He can only inspire the Gnomes who are his Neighbours to make these propositions to such men whom he most fears may be saved to the end that their Soul may die with their Body Then do you believe added I that the Souls dye They dye My Child answered he And those who make these compacts pursued I are not they damned They cannot be said he for their Soul dies with their body They are quitted then at an easie rate continued I and are but slightly punished for having committed so Enormous a Crime as renouncing their Baptisme and the death of Christ Do you esteem it replyed the Count a slight punishment to re-re-enter into the Black Abyss of Nothing Know that it is a far greater pain than to be damned for there is still a remainder of Mercy in the Justice which God exercises against sinners in Hell Since it is a great favour not to consume them in the Fire which burns them To be Nothing is a greater Misery than to be in Hell This is the Doctrine which the Sages Preach to the Gnomes when they call them together to make them understand what an Injury they do themselves to prefer Death before Immortality and Nothing before the Hope of Eternal Happyness which they justly might lay claim to if they would ally themselves with men and not Solicite these Criminal Renunciations Some of them who believe we marry to our Daughters Do you preach the Gospel then to these Subteranean people Sir said I to him Why should we not replyed he We are their Doctors as well as of the other People of the Fire of the Air and of the Water For the Philosophick Charity is extended indifferently to all the Children of God For as they are now subtil and more clear than commonly the Children of Men so are they more Docible and more capable of Discipline listen to the Divine Truths with an Attention and Respect which astonishes us It must needs be a Ravishing Sight said I smiling to see a Rosy-Crusian Philosopher in a Chair preaching to all these little Gentle-Folke You shall have the Pleasure of it my Son when you please said the Count. And if you desire it I will assemble them this very Evening and Preach to them at Midnight At Midnight cryed I I have heard say that That is the Hour of their Sabbath At this the Count fell a Laughing You put me in mind said he of all the Fooleries which Demonographers relate concerning this Business of their Imaginary Sabbath I could wish for the rarity of the Conceipt that you would believe them too Alas For those Tales of the Sabbath replyed I I do not believe one of them You do well my Son said he for once more I must tell you the Devil has not the Power to sport himself so with Mankind nor to treat or correspond with them muchless to make himself Adored as the Inquisitors believe That which has given Rise to this Popular Report is That the Sages as I have been telling you assembling the Inhabitants of the Elements to Preach to them the Mysteries of the Secret Sciences and their Morality And as it ordinarily happens that some Gnome being convinced of his gross Error and apprehending the Horror of being reduced to Nothing consents to his Immortalization Then has he a pritty Maid given him is Marryed and the Wedding Celebrated with all the Rejoycing which so great a Conquest as has then newly been made requires These are those Revellings and Tokens of Joy which Aristotle says were heard in certain Islands where nevertheless they could not see any Body The Great Orpheus was the first who convocated the Subterranean People At his first Sermon Sabasius the Antientest of the Gnomes was Immortalized And it was from this Sabasius that this Assembly took its Name in which the Sages addressed their Discourses to him so long as he Lived As it appears in the Hymns of the Divine Orpheus The Ignorant have confounded these Things and taken occasion to make a thousand Impertinent Stories and to describe an Assembly which we convoque not but to the Glory of the Soveraign Being I did never imagine that this Sabbath said I to him had been an Assembly for Devotion Yet it is continued he a most Holy and most Cabalistick one Which the World will not easily be perswaded to But such is the Deplorable Blindness of this unjust Age that Men still do besot themselves with a vulgar Report will not suffer themselves to be undeceived The Sages have a fine time of it that the Sots are believed before them A Philosopher would have a worthy Task to take a Survey of all the absurd Falsities and Chymaeras which have been forged and to give manifest Proofs against them For whatsoever Experience or whatsoever solid Reason he might imploy Should there but come a Man in a Square Cap and write underneath This is False Experience and Demonstration have no more Force and it is no more in the Power of Truth to Re-establish its Empire Men will believe this Square Cap before their own Eyes The Famous Cabalist Zedechias was moved in his Spirit in the Reign of your King Pepin to Convince the World that the Elements are Inhabited by all these People whose Nature I have been describing to you The Expedient to bring all this about was in this manner He advised the Sylphs to shew themselves in the Air to all the World They did it with great Magnificence These Creatures appearing in the Air in Human Shape Sometimes ranged in Battle Marching in good Order or standing to their Arms or Encamped under most Majestick Pavillions At other times on Airy Ships of an Admirable Structure whose Flying Navy was tost about at the Will of the Zephirus's Well and what was the Issue of all this Do you think that this Ignorant Age fell into a Consultation about the Nature of these Marvellous Spectacles The People presently believed that they were Sorcerers who had gotten a Power in the Air there to exercise their Conjurations and to make it Hail upon their Corn-Fields The Learned Men the Divines and the Lawyers were presently of the same Opinion with the Rabble The Emperors also believed and this Ridiculous Chymaera got such Credit
You are mistaken answered he that is the Idea which the ignorant Painters and Sculpters have given them The Wives of the Salamanders are Fair nay rather more Fair than all others seeing they are of a purer Element But I forbear to speak more of that and shall give but a slight Description of these People because you shall see them your self at your Leasure and that very easily too if you have the Curiosity for it You shall see their Habits their Diet their Manners their Policy and their Admirable Laws You will be Charmed more with the Beauty of their Wit than that of their Body Yet you cannot choose but be grieved for these poor Wretches when they shall tell you That their Soul is Mortal and that they have no Hope of enjoying Eternal Happyness and of the Supreme Being which they acknowledge and Religiously adore They will tell us That being Composed of the most pure Parts of the Elements which they inhabit and not having in them any contrary Qualities seeing they are made but of one Element they Dye not but after many Ages But Alas What is such a Time in respect of Eternity They must Eternally resolve into their Nothing This Consideration does sorely afflict them and we have Trouble enough to comfort them concerning it Our Fathers the Philosophers speaking to God Face to Face complained to him of the Unhappyness of these People and God whose Mercy is without bounds revealed to them that it was not impossible to find out a Remedy for this Evil. He inspired them that by the same Means as Man by the Alliance which he Contracted with God has been made Partakers of the Divinity The Sylphs the Gnomes the Nymphs and the Salamanders by the Alliance which they might Contract with Man might be made Partakers of Immortality So a She Nymph or a Sylphide becomes Immortal and capable of the Blessing to which we aspire when they shall be so happy as to be married to a Sage a Gnome or a Sylphe ceases to be Mortal from the moment that he Espouses one of our Daughters Hence arose the Error of the former Ages of Tertullian of Justin Martyr of Lactantius Cyprian Clemens Alexandrinus Athenagoras the Christian Philosopher and generally of all the Writers of that time They had learnt that these Elementary Demimen had endeavored a Commerce with Maids and they have from thence imagined that the Fall of the Angels had not happened but for the Love which they were touched with after Women Certain Gnomes desirous of becoming Immortal had a mind to gain the good Affections of our Daughters and had brought abundance of Precious Stones of which they are the Natural â—uardians And these Authors relying on the Book of Enoch which they mis-understood thought that it was the Attempt which these Amorous Angels had offered to the Chastity of our Wives In the Beginning these Children of Heaven begat Famous Gyants by making themselves beloved by the Daughters of Men And the ill Cabalists Josephus and Philo as all the Jews are ignorant and after them all the other Authors which I have just now named as well as Origen and Macrobius have said that they were Angels and have not known that they were the Sylphes and other People of the Elements that under the Name of the Children of Elohim are distinguished from the Children of Men. Likewise that which the Sage Saint Augustine has had the Modesty to leave undetermined touching the Pursuits which those called Faunes or Satyrs made after the Africans of his time is cleared by that which I have now alledged of the Desire which all these Elementary Inhabitants have of Allying themselves to Men as the only means to attain to the Immortality which they have not No no! Our Sages have never Err'd so as to attribute the Fall of the first Angels to their Love of Women no more than they have put Men under the Power of the Devil by imputing all the Adventures of the Nymphs and Sylphs to him of which the Historians speak so largely There was nothing Criminal in all that They were the Sylphs which endeavoured to become Immortal Their Innocent Pursuits far enough from being able to scandalize the Philosophers have appeared so Just to us that we are all resolved by common Consent utterly to Renounce Women and intirely to give our selves to the Immortalizing of the Nymphs and Sylphs Good Lord cryed I What do I hear Was there ever such marvellous F Yes my Son interrupted the Count Admire the marvellous Felicity of the Sages Instead of Women whose fading Beauty pass away in a short time and are followed with horrible Wrinkles and Uglyness the Philosophers enjoy Beauties which never wax old and whom they have the glory to make Immortal Guess at the Love and Acknowledgment of these invisible Mistresses and with what Ardor they strive to please the Charitable Philosopher who Labours to Immortalize them Ah! Sir cryed I once again I Renounce Yes my Son pursued he without giving me the Leasure to finish Renounce the fading Pleasures which are to be had with Women the Fairest amongst them all is Loathsom in respect of the Homeliest Sylphide No Displeasure ever follows our Sage Embraces Miserable Ignorants How should you complain that ye have not the Power to tast of the Phylosophick Pleasures Miserable Count de Gabalis interrupted I in an Accent mixed with Choler and Compassion Will you give me leave to tell you at last That I Renounce this senseless Wisdom That I find this Visionary Philosophy very Ridiculous That I detest the Abominable Embraces which make you affect these Phantasms and that I tremble for you and wonder that some one of these pretended Sylphides does not hurry you to Hell in the middle of your Transports and Raptures and for fear lest so honest a Man as you should not perceive the End of your foolish Chymerick Zeal and should not Repent of so great a Crime Oh! Oh! answered he Recoyling two or three Paces back and earnestly looking upon me with an Angry Countenance Mischief light on thy indocible Spirit His Action I must confess affrighted me but it was yet worse when I perceived that going further from me he drew out of his Pocket a Paper which I could easily see at that distance to be full of Characters yet I could not well discern it He read them gravely and spake low I guessed that he was invoking some Spirit for my Ruin and Repented me more than a little for my inconsiderate Zeal If I escape this adventure said I I 'le never have to do with a Cabalist more I fixed my eyes upon him as upon a Judge that was ready to condemn me to Death When at last I perceived that his looks became serene 'T is hard said he smiling and coming towards me again 'T is hard for you to kick against the Pricks You are a Vessel of Election Heaven has ordained you to be the greatest Cabalist of your Age. Behold the
Crime What a Barbarity was it to Burn those two Priests which the Prince of Miranda sayes he knew of who had each of them his Sylphide for the space of Forty Years What an Inhuman thing was it to put Joan Herviller to death for having laboured Six and Forty Years to Immortalize a Gnome And What a piece of Ignorance was that of Bodin to represent her as a Witch that from thence he might take advantage to Authorize popular Errors touching pretended Sorcerers in a Book as Impertinent as his Common-Wealth is Reasonable But it is late and I do not consider that you have not yet Dined 'T is your self that you mean Sir said I for as for my part I could listen to you till to Morrow without Inconvenience For me Alas reply'd he Laughing and walking towards the Gate 'T is easily seen that you understand but little what Phylosophy is The Sages Eat but for their Pleasure and never for Necessity I had a quite contrary Idea of Wisdom answered I I had thought that you Wise-men should never Eat but to satisfy Nature You are abused said the Count. How long think you that our Sages can subsist without Eating How can I tell answered I Moses and Elias you know Fasted forty Dayes You Sages I make no doubt may do it some few Dayes less What a great piece of Business would that be Replyed he The most Wise Man that ever was the Divine the almost Adorable Paracelsus affirms that he has seen many of the Sages Fast Twenty Years without Eating any thing whatsoever He himself before he attained to the Monarchy of Wisdom whereof we have justly presented him the Scepter He I say would undertake to Live many Years without Eating by taking but half a Scruple of his Solar Quintescence And if you would have the Pleasure to make any one Live without Victuals you need do no more but prepare the Earth as I told you it must be prepared for the Society of the Gnomes This Earth applyed to the Navle and renewed when it is too dry will cause any one to Live without Eating or Drinking and that without any trouble And the use of this Catholick-Cabalistical-Medicine frees us much better from all the importunate Necessities to which Nature makes the Ignorant subject We Eat not but when it pleases us and all the Superfluity of Food Passing away by an insensible Transpiration we are never ashamed to be Men. Here he held his peace perceiving that we were near our Servants So we went to the Village to take a short Refreshment following the Custom of the Philosophick-Heroes Discourse the Third AFter Dinner we return to to the Labyrinth But I was somewhat Melancholly the Pity which I was Affected with at the Extravagancy of the Count whom I plainly saw incurable hindered me from taking so much Pleasure at all things which he had told me as I should have done If I had hoped to have brought him back to his right Wits I studied for something of Antiquity to puzzle him with which he should not be able to Answer For to alledge to him the Sense of the Church was in vain he having declared that he only adhered to the Antient Religion of his Fathers the Philosophers And to have gone about to Convince a Cabalist by Reason would have been an Enterprize altogether as frivolous Besides I cared not to venture on a Dispute with a Man whose Principles I did not yet understand It came into my Mind that what he had told me concerning the False Gods in whose place he had substituted the Sylphs and the other Elementary People might be Refuted by the Oracles of the Heathens which the Scripture mentions alwayes as Devils not as Sylphs But for as much as I did not know if in the Senâ—e of his Cabal the Count would not attribute the Answers of the Oracles to some Natural Cause I believed that it would not be improper to put him upon Explaining what was his real Opinion herein He gave me a good Opportunity of breaking to him the Matter Just as we were ready to enter into the Labyrinth turning himself about towards the Garden Truly said he it is very Handsom and these Statues make a Noble Show The Cardinal reply'd I who caused them to be set here had an Imagination a little unworthy of his Great Genius He fancied that the greatest part of these Images had formerly yielded Oracles And for this very Conceit he paid a dear Rate for them 'T is the Infirmity of many People said the Count that Ignorance makes them dayly commit a kind of Idolatry which is very Criminal since they preserve with so much Care and put so great an Esteem upon Idols which they believe the Devil has heretofore made use of to make himself Adored O God! Shall it never be known in the World that Thou from the Birth of Times hast precipitated thine Enemies under thy Foot-stool And that Thou keepest the Devils Prisoners under the Earth in Tormenting Darkness This Curiosity somewhat Blame-worthy of collecting on this manner these pretended Organs of the Devils might become Innocent my Son if they would suffer themselves to be perswaded that the Angels of Darkness have never been permitted to speak in Oracles I do not believe interrupted I that it would be an easie Matter to Establish this Maxim amongst the Wits but it might be done with those of solid Parts For it has been not long since decided in a Conference made expressly on this Subject by the Wits of the highest Rank That all these pretended Oracles were nothing but the Subtilty of Avaricious Priests amongst the Gentils or else a Politick Stratagem of Princes Were these said the Count Mahometans sent on an Ambassy to your King who held this Conference and thus decided this Question No Sir answered I. Of what Religion then were these Gentlemen replyed he since they reckon the Holy Scriptures as nothing which in so many Places make mention of so many different Oracles And principally of the Pythons who made their Residence and gave out their Answers by those Parts designed for the Multiplication of the Image of God I alledged replyed I the Examples of those who discours'd from their Bellyes and instanced to the Company that King Saul had Banished them his Kingdom where nevertheless he found one who was the Fore-teller of his Death whose Voyce had the Admirable Power to Raise up Samuel at his Request and to his Ruin Yet would not these Wife-Men decide it otherwise than that there were never any Oracles If the Scriptures did not shew it plainly said the Count they might be convinced by all Antiquity wherein it were an easie thing to bring them a thousand marvellous Proofs So many Virgins big with the Destiny of Mortals who were Deliver'd of the good or ill Fortune of those who consulted them Why did you not alledge to them Chrysostom Origen and Oecumenius who make mention of those Divine Men whom the
to fall in Love with a Woman But as he Dined with his new Mistress and certain of his Friends there was seen in the Air the Loveliest Creature of the World which was the Invisible Lover that had a mind to let her self be seen by the Friends of her unfaithful Gallant that they might Judg how little reason he could have to prefer a Woman before her After which the enraged Nymph struck him dead immediately Ha! Sir cryed I that might give me sufficient Disgust against these so Jealous Lovers I confess pursued he that their Jealousy is a little violent But if amongst our Women we have seen enraged Lovers kill their perjured Gallants we should not wonder that these Lovers so fair and so faithful are transported when they are dealt falsly with So much the more in regard that they require Men but to abstain from Women whose Defects they cannot abide and that they permit us to Love amongst them as many as we please They prefer the Interest and Immortality of their Fellows before their own particular Satisfaction And they are glad that the Sages give to their Republick so many Immortal Children as they are able to give But pray Sir demanded I How comes it to pass that there are so few Examples of all this which you tell me There are a great number my Child answered he But Men make not a true Reflection where they adjoyn not their Faith where I say they explain it ill for want of a true Knowlede of our Principles They attribute to the Devils all that which should be attributed to the People of the Elements A little Gnome got into the Affections of the Famous Magdalen of the Cross Abbess of a Monastery at Cordova in Spain she made him Happy when she was but twelve Years old and they continued their Commerce for the space of thirty Years until an Ignorant Director perswaded Magdalen that her Lover was a Fiend and forced her to demand Absolution of Pope Paul the Third Yet it is impossible that this could be a Daemon For all Europe knew and Cassidorus Renius has made known to all Posterity the great Miracles which dayly were wrought in favor of this Holy Woman which certainly had never come to pass if her Commerce with the Gnome had been so Diabolick as the Venerable Director imagined The same Doctor would have affirmed very positively if I am not mistaken That the Sylphe who Immortalized himself with Gertrude the young Religious Nun at the Monastery of Nazareth in the Dioecess of Cologne was some Devil Truly said I to him so do I too Ah! my Son pursued the Count smiling if that were true the Devil would not be very miserable could he have the Power to entertain a Commerce of Gallantry with a pritty Wench of Thirteen Years old and write her Amorous Letters which were found in her Cabinet No no my Child Believe that the Devil in his Region of Death has Employment more sad and more conformable to the Shame which the God of Purity has ordain'd for him But so it is that Men voluntarily shut their Eyes We find for example in Titus Livius that Romulus was the Son of Mars Your great Wits say 'T is a Fable Your Divines That he was the Son of an Incubus The merry Wags That Mistriss Sylvia had lost her Gloves and for an Excuse to hide her Shame gave out a Report that the God had stoln them We who know Nature and whom God has called from Darkness to this admirable Light we know that this pretended Mars was a Salamander who enamoured with the Young Silvia made her the Mother of Romulus This Heroe who after he had founded his Magnificient City was carryed away by his Father in a Flaming Chariot as Zoroaster was by Oramasis Another Salamander was the Father of Servius Tullius Titus Livius sayes That it was the God of Fire being deceived by the Resemblance and the Ignorants have followed the same Opinion of it as of the Father of Romulus The Famous Hercules the Invincible Alexander were Sons of some of the great Sylphs The Historians not knowing this have said that Jupiter was their Father They said true For as you have learnt These Sylphs Nymphs and Salamanders being made Deities The Historians who believed them so call all those who were born of them Children of the Gods Such was the Divine Plato the more Divine Apollonius Thianeus Theseus Achilles Sarpedon the Pious Aeneas and the Famous Melchisedeck For Do you know who was the Father of Melchisedeck No truly said I to him for St. Paul knew it not Then say that he would not tell it continued the Count and that he was not permitted to reveal the Cabalistick Mysteries He knew well enough that the Father of Milchisedeck was a Sylphe and that the King of Salem was Conceived in the Ark by the Wife of Sem. The manner of this Priests sacrifizing was the same which his Cousin Egeria taught King Numa as also the Adoration of a Sovereign Divinity without Image and without Statue For which reason the Romans becoming Idolaters sometime after burnt the Holy Books of Numa which Egeria had dictated The first God of the Romans was the True God Their Sacrifices were true They offered Bread and Wine to the Soveraign Master of the World But all this was afterwards perverted Nevertheless God was pleased in reward of this first Worship to give to this City which had acknowledged his Soveraignty the Empire of the Universe The same Sacrifice which Melchisedeck I beseech you Sir interrupted I let us leave off this of Melchisedeck the Sylphe that begot him his Cousin Egeria and the Sacrifice of Bread and Wine These Examples are fetcht a far off you would oblige me would you produce some Examples of a fresher Date For I have heard a Doctor say being asked what was become of all the Companions of that Satyre which appeared to Saint Anthony and which you call a Sylphe That all those kind of People now are Dead So all the Elementary People may possibly be perished since you affirm them to be Mortal and that we hear no more News of them Would to God! said the Count in a Fury Would to God that I knew nothing that so I might keep this Ignorant still in his Ignorance who maintains so sottishly what he understands not May God confound him and all such as he is Where has he learnt that the Elements are voyd and that these marvellous People are reduced to their Nothing Would he but give himself the trouble to read a few Histories and not attribute to the Devil what is done by Nature as the good Old Wives do all that which passes their Chymerick Theory There would at all times and in all places be found Proofs enough of what I am telling you What would your Doctor say to this Authentick History which happened not long since in Spain A Beauteous Sylphide made her self be beloved by a Spaniard lived three
Years with him had three pretty Children by him and then dyed Must we say that this was a Devil What a wise Answer would this be According to what Physicks could the Devil organize the Body of a Woman Conceive Bring-forth and give Suck VVhat Proof is there in the Scripture of this Extravagant Power which your Divines are obliged in this Rancounter to give to the Devil And with what probable Reason could their weak Physicks furnish them The Jesuit Delrio being of a large Faith relates at large many of these Adventures and without troubling himself for Physical Reasons dispatches the Business in a word saying That these Sylphides were Daemons So true it is that the greatest Doctors do for the most part know no more of them than simple Women So true it is that God is pleased to retire into his Cloudy Throne and thickning the darkness which encompasseth his Omnipotent Majesty he inhabits an inaccessible Light and lets not his Truths be seen but by the humble of Heart Learn to be Humble my Son if you would penetrate the sacred Clouds which environ Truth Learn of the Sages not to give to the Devil 's any power over nature since the Fatal stone has closed them in the Pits of the Abyss Learn of the Pyhlosophers to search always after Natural causes in any extraordinary Accident and when Natural causes fail have recourse to God and to his Holy Angels but never to the Devil 's who have no power over any thing but to suffer otherwise you will blaspheme many times when you think not on 't and you will attribute to the Devil the Honour of the most marvellous works of nature When you shall be told for example That the Divine Apollonius Thianeus was conceived without the operation of any Man and that one of the most illustrious Salamanders descended to immortalize himself with his Mother Will you say that this Salamander was a Daemon and will you ascribe the Glory to the Devil of generating one of the greatest Men that ever proceeded from our Phylosophick Marriages But Sir interrupted I this Apollonius is reputed amongst us for a great Sorcerer and that is all the good they say of him Behold proceeded the Count one of the most admirable effects of Ignorance and ill Education Because we have heard our Nurses tell us tales of Witches and Conjures whatsoever is done by extraordinary means must needs have the Devil for its Author The great Doctors are at a fine pass they shall not be believed if they spake not as our Nurses do Apollonius was not begot by a Man He understood the Language of Birds He was seen in two divers parts of the World in one day He vanished from before the Emperour Domitian who would have punished him He raised a Maid from the Dead by vertue of Onomancy He told at Ephesus before an Assembly of all Asia that at that very instant the Tyrant was kill'd at Rome How lies the question to Judge of this Man The Nurse says that he is a Sorcerer St. Jerom and St. Justin the Martyr say that he was but a great Philosopher Jerom Justin and our Cabalists they must be Phantasticks and the silly VVoman must carry it Ha! Let the Ignorant perish in his Ignorance But you my Child save your self from the Shipwrack VVhen you shall read that the famous Merlin was born without the operation of any Man of a Religious VVoman the Daughter of the King of Great Brittain and that he foretold what should come to pass more clearly than ever Tyresias did Say not with the People that he was the Son of an Incubus since it was no such thing nor did he ever prophecy by the art of the Devil Because the Devil is the most ignorant of all Creatures according to the Holy Cabal Say with the Sages that the Brittish Princess was comforted in her Solitude by a Sylph who had pitty on her that he took care to divert her that he knew how to please her and that Merlin their Son was Educated by the Sylph in all the Secret Sciences and taught by him to do all the Marvels which the story of England relates of him Nor must you do injury to the Earls of Cleave to say that the Devil is their Father And have a better Opinion of the Sylphe of whom the History sayes that he came to Cleve in a Miraculous Ship drawn by a Swan who was tyed to it by a Silver Chain This Sylphe after he had divers Children by the Heiress of Cleve went away at Noon-day in the sight of a VVorld of People in his Airy Ship VVhat has he done to your Doctors that should make them rank him amongst the Devils But will you likewise handle so roughly the honour of the House of Lusignan And will you give a Diabolick Genealogy to the Earls of Poitiers what will you say to their renowned Mother I Believe Sir interrupted I that you are going about to tell me the tale of Melusina Nay If you deny the History of Melusina replyed he I have done with you If you deny that I say we must burn the Books of the great Paracelsus who maintains in five or six several places that there is nothing more certain than that this Melusina was a Nymph and you must also give your Historians the Lye who say that since her Death or to speak more properly since she disappeared from the eyes of her Husband she has never failed at all times when any of her posterity have been threatned by some misfortune or that some King of France should dye in any extraordinary manner to appear in Mourning upon the great Tower of the Castle of Lusignan which she had caused to be built You will have a quarrel with all those who are descended from this Nymph or who are allied to this Family if you are obstinate to maintain that this was a Devil Think you Sir said I to him that these Lords are any thing more pleased to deduce their Pedigree from the Sylphs They would be better pleased without doubt replyed he if they knew that which I teach you and they would esteem for a great honour these extraordinary Births They would know if they had any Light of the Cabal that this way of Generation being more conformable to the manner by which God intended in the beginning that the World should be multiplyed the Children which should so be born are more happy more valiant more wise more renowned and more blest by God Is it not more Glorious for these Illustrious Men to descend from these Creatures so perfect so prudent and so powerfull than from some foul Fiend or some infamous Asmodeus Sir said I to him our Divines will not say That the Devil is the Father of all those Men who are born without our knowing who put them into the World They acknowledge that the Devil is a Spirit and therefore not able to beget Gregory of Nicene continued the Count sayes not