Motion upwards and downwards from their second qualities of lightness and heaviness and from their first qualities either Active as heat and cold or Passive as dry and moist For as their Motion proceeds from the second qualities so do their second from their first from the Heavenly Bodies next to which as being the Noblest of them all as well in purity as activity is seated the Element of the Fire though many of the Ancients and some later Writers as namely Cardane amongst the rest seemed to make a doubt of it Lib. 1. Subtil And Manilius in his first Book of Astronomy Ignis ad aetbâ—reas volucer se sustulis auras Summaque complexus Stellantis culmina Coeli Flammarum vallo Naturae Maenia fecit The Fire est soones up towards Heaven did flye And compassing the Starry World advanced A wall of Flames to safeguard Nature by Next the Fire is seated the Air divided into Three Regions next the Air the Water and next the Water the Earth so Bartas Who so sometime hath seen rich ingots tride Where forc't by Fire their Treasure they divide How fair and softly Gold to Gold doth pass Silver seeks Silver Brass conforts with Brass And the whole lump of parts unequal severs It self apart in white red yellow Rivers May understand how when the mouth Divine Open'd to each his proper place t' assign Fire flew to Fire Water to Water slid Air clung to Air and Earth with Earth abid The Vail both of the Tabernakle and Temple were made of Blew and Purple and Scarlet or Crimson and fine twisted Linnen by which four as Josephus notech were represented the four Elements Lib. Antiquit. 15. Cap. 14. His words are these Velâ—â—â—â—ec erat Babiloniâ—â—s variegatum ex Hyaecintho bysso ceâ—ecquâ— purpura mirabiliter elaboratum non indignam contemplatione materiae commistionem habent sâ—d velut â—mnium imagineâ—â— praeferens Cocco enim videbatur ignem imitari Bysso terram Hyacintho aerem ac Mare purpura partim quidem coloribus bysso autem purpura Origiâ—e bysso quidâ—â—â— quia de terra Mare autem purpura gignâ—t The Vaile was Babilonisâ— Work most artificially imbrodered with Blew and fine Linnen and Scarlet and Purple having in it a mixture of things not unworthy of our Consideration but carrying a kind of resemblance of the Universe for by the Scarlet seemed the Fire to be represented by the Linnen the Earth by the Blew the Air and by the Purple the Sea partly by reason the Colours of Scarlet and Blew partly by reason of the Original of Linnen and Purple the one coming from the Earth the other from the Sea And St. Hierom in his Epistle to Fabâ—â—la Epist. 128. hath the very same conceit borrowed as it seems from Josephus or from Philo who hath much to the like purpose in his Third Book of the life of Moses or it may be from Wisâ—â— 18. 14. In the long Robe was the whole World As not only the Vulgar Latin and Arias Montanus but out of them and the Greek Original our last English Translation reads it The Fire is dry and hot the Air hot and moist the Water moist and cold the Earth cold and dry thus are they linked and thus do they embrace one another with their Simbolizing qualities the Earth being linked to the Water by coldness the Water to the Air by moistness the Air to the Fire by warmth the Fire to the Earth by drought which are all the combinations of the qualities that can possibly be hot and cold as also dry and moist in the highest Degrees being altogether incompatible in the same subject and though the Earth and the Fire are most opposite in distance to substance and in activity yet they agree in one quality the two middle being therein directly contrary to the two extreams Air to Earth and Water to Fire These four then as they were from the beginning so still they remain the Radical and Fundamental Principles of all Subcoelestial Bodies distinguished by their several and Ancient Situations Properties Actions and Effects and howsoever after their old wont they fight and combate together being single yet in composition they still accord marvellous well as Boethius Lib. 3. Met. 9. Tu numeris Elementa ligaâ— us frigâ—ra fâ—ammis Aridâ— conveniunt Liquidis ne puriâ—r ignis Evâ—let aut mersas deducant pondera terraâ— To Numbers thou the Elements dost tie That cold with heat may symbolize and dry With moist lest purer Fire should soare to high And Earth through too much weight too low should lie The Creator of them hath bound them as it were to their behaviour and made them in every mixed body to stoop and obey one Praedominant whose sway and conduct they willingly follow The Air being Praedominant in some as in Oyl which alwayes swimmes on the top of all other Liquors and the Earth in others which always gather as near the Center as possibly they can And as in these they vary not a joâ— from their nature and wonted properties so neither do they in their other conditions It is still true of them that Niâ— graevitant nec lâ—vitant in suis lâ—eis there is no sense of their weight or lightness in their proper places as appears by this that a Man lying in the bottom of the deepest Ocean he feels no burthen from the weight thereof the Fire shall serve to warm us the Air to maintain our breathing the Water to cleanse and refresh us the Earth to feed and support us and which of them is most necessary for our use is hard to determine Likewise they still hold the same proportion one towards another as they have done For howbeit the Peripeteticks pretending herein the Authority of their Mr. Aristotle tell us that'as they rise above one another in Situation so they exceed one another propertione decupla by a ten-fold proportion yet is this doubtless a foul Errour or at least-wise a gross mistake whether we regard their entire bodies or their parts if their entire bodies it is certain that the Earth exceeds both the Water and the Air by many degrees the depth of the Waters not exceeding two or three miles and for the most part not above halfe a mile as Marriners find by their Line and Plummer whereas the Diameter of the Earth as Mathematicians demonstrate exceeds Seven thousand miles And for the Air taking the height of it from the part of the ordinary Comets it contains by estimation about fifty two miles as Nonius Vitellio and Albâ—â—en shew by Geometrical proofs Whence it plainly appears that there cannot be that proportion betwixt the entire Bodies of the Elements which is pretended nor at any time was since the Creation And for their parts 't is as clear by experience that out of a few drops of Water may be made so much Air as shall exceed them a thousand times at least There is in the Elements a noble compensation of their fourfold
Bodies And true indeed it is that Motion causes Heat by the attenuation and rarefaction of the Air But by this reason should the Moon which is nearer the Earth warm more than the Sun which is many thousand miles farther distant and the higher Regions of the Air should be always hotter than the lower which notwithstanding if we compare the second with the lowest is undoubtedly false Moreover the Motion of the Coelestial Bodies being uniform so should the heat in reason derived from them likewise be and the Motion ceasing the Heat should likewise and yet I shall never believe that when the Sun stood still at the Prayer of Joshua it then ceased to warm these Inferiour Bodies And we find by experience that the Sun works more powerfully upon a Body which stands still then when it moves and the reason seems to be the same in the rest or Motion of a Body warming or warmed that receiveth or imparteth heat The Motion being thus excluded from being the cause of this Effect the Light must of necessity step in and challenge it to its self the Light then it is which is the cause undoubtedly of Coelestial heat in part by a direct beam but more vehemently by a reflexed for which very reason it is that the middle Region of the Air is always colder then the lowest and the lowest hotter in the Summer then in the Winter and at Noon then in the Morning and Evening the beams being then more Perpendicular and consequently in their reflection more narrowly united by which reflexion and union they grow sometimes to that fervency of heat that fire springs out from them as we see in Burning-glasses And by this artificial device it was that Archimedes as Galen reports it in his third Book De temperamentis Cap. 1. Set on fire the Emperours Ships and Proclus a famous Mathematician practised the like at Constantinople as witnesseth Zonarus in the life of Anastatius the Emperour And very reasonable methinks it is That Light the most Divine Affection of the Coelestial Bodies should be the cause of warmth the most noble active and excellent quality of the Subcoelestial These two like Hippocrates Twins Simul oriuntur moriuntur they are born and dye together they increase and decrease both together the greater the Light is the greater the Heat and therefore the Sun as much exceeds the other Starrs in Heat as it doth in Light The Suns continual Declination or nearer approach to the Earth is rather an idle Dream than a sound position grounded rather upon the difference amongst Astronomers arising from the difficulty of their observations then upon any certain or infallible conclusion Ptolomy who lived about the year of Christ one hundred and forty makes the distance of the Sun to be from the Earth One thousand two hundred and ten Semidiameters of the Earth Albategnius about the year Eight hundred and eighty makes it One thousand one hundred and forty six Copernicus about the year One thousand five hundred and twenty makes it One thousand five hundred and seventy nine Tycobrahe about the year One thousand six hundred makes it One thousand one hundred eighty two Now I would demand whether the Sun were more remote in Ptolomies time and nearer in the time of Albategnius and then again more remote in the latter ages of Copernicus and Tychobrahe which if it were so then one of these two must needs follow that either these observations were not grounded upon so certain Principles as they pretend or that the declination of the Sun is uncertain or variable not constant and perpetual as is pretended But what would Bodwin say if he lâ—ved to hear Lansbergius and Kepler and other famous Astronomers of the latter times teaching that the Sun is now remote above Two thousand and eight hundred nay three thousand Semidiameters from the Earth affirming that Copernicus and Tycobrahe neglected to allow for refractions which as the Opticks will demonstrate do much alter the case I will close up this point with the censure of Scaliger in his Exercit. 99. upon the Patrons of this fancy Quae vero nonnulli prodere ausi sunt solis corpus longè proprius nos esse quam quantum ab Antiquis scriptum sit it a ut in ipsa deferentis corpulentia â—â—cum mutasse videatur vel ipsa scripta spongiis vel ipsi Authores scuticis sunt castigandi In as much as some have dared to broach that the body of the Sun is nearer the Earth then by the Ancients was observed to be so that it might seem to have changed place in the very bulk of the Sphear either the Authors of this Opinion deserve themselves to be chastened with stripes or surely their Writings to be razed with Sponges So that as I conceive it may fitly and safely be inferred first that either there is no such removal at all of the Sun as is supposed or if there be as we who are situate more Northerly feel perhaps the effects of the defects of the warmth thereof in the unkindly ripening of our fruits or the like so likewise by the rule of Proportion must it needs follow that they who lye in the same distance from the South Pole as we from the North should enjoy the benefit of the nearer approach thereof and they who dwell in the hoâ—test Climates interjacent of the abating of the immoderate fervency of their heat From hence I again infer that supposing a mutability in the Suns greatest Declination look what dammage we suffer by his further removal from us in the Summer is at least in part recompenced by his nearer approach in Winter and by his Periodical Revolutions fully restored And so I pass from the Consideration of the warmth to those hidden and secret qualities of the Heavens which to Astronomers and Philosophers are known by the name of Influences Howbeit Aristotle thorow all those Works of his which are come to our hands to my remembrance hath not once vouchsafed so much as to take notice of such qualities which we call Influences and though amongst the Ancients Averroes and Avicenne and amongst some of the latter times Picus Mirandula and Georgius Agricola seek to disprove them yet both Scripture and Reason and the weighty Authority of many good Schollars as well Christians as Ethnicks have fully resolved me that such there are They are by Philosophers distinguished into two Ranks the First is that Influence which is derived from the Empyreal Immoveable Heaven the Pallas and Mansion House of Glorifyed Saints and Angels which is gathered from the diversity of Effects as well in regard of Plants as of Beasts and other Commodities under the same Climate within the same Tract and Latitude equally distant from both the Poles which we cannot well originally refer to the inbred nature of the soile since the Author of Nature hath so ordained that the temper of the Inferiour Bodies should ordinarily depend upon the Superiour nor yet the Aspect of the
be he Pagaâ— or Christian that so believeth the only true God of the one and the imaginary God of the other would thereby be despoyled of all worship reverence and respect As therefore I do not consent with them who would make those glorious Creatures of God vertuless so I think that we derogate from his Eternal and Absolute Power to ascribe to them the Dominion over our Immortal Souls which they have over our Bodily Substances and perishable Natures For the Souls of Men loving and fearing God receive Influence from that Divine Light it self whereof the Suns Clarity and that of the Starrs is by Plato called but a shadow Lumen est Umbra Dei Deus est Lumen Luminis Light is the shadow of Gods brightness who is the Light of Lights There have been great talks touching the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter and many ominous conjectures are cast abroad upon it which if perhaps they prove true I should rather ascribe it to our sins then to the Stars they were not created to govern but to serve Man if he serve and be governed by his Creatour so that we need not to search the Cause so far off in the book of Heaven we may find it written nearer home in our own Bosomes And for the Stars I may say as our Saviour Christ doth the Sabboth the Stars were made for Men and not Men for the Stars and if God be on our side and we on his Jupiter and Saturn shall never hurt us But whatsoever the force of the States be upon the persons of private Men or the Stars of Wealpublicks I should rather advise a modest ignorance therein then a curious inquisition hereinto following the witty and pithy counsel of Phaverirus the Philosopher in Gellius Lib. 4. Sect. 1. where he thus speaks Aut adversa evâ—â—tura dicuot aut prospera fidicunt prospera fallunt iniser fies frustra expecta dâ— si adversa dicunt mâ—ntiuntur â—iser fies frustra timendâ— si vera respondent eaque sunt non prospera jâ—m inde ex â—nimâ— miser fies antequam è fatâ— fias si faelicia promitiunt eaque eventura sunt â—â—m plane duâ— gorum inâ—â—moda expectatio te spe suspensum fatigabit futurum gaudii fructum spâ—s tibi deflerâ—vâ—rit Either they portend or bad or good luck if good and they deceive thou wilt become miserable by a vain expectation if bad and they lye thou wilt be miserable by a vain fear if they tell thee true but unfortunate Events thou wilt be miserable in mind before thou art by destiny if they promise fortunate success which shall indeed come to pass these two inconveniences will follow thereupon both expectation by hope will hold thee in suspence and hope will dâ—flâ—ure and devoure the fruit of thy content His conclusion is which is also mine for this point and this discourse touching the Heavenly Bodies Nullo ig tur pacto utendum est istiâ—smodi â—â—minibus resfuturas praesagientibus We ought in no case to have recourse to these kind of Men which undertake the foretelling of careful Events And so I pass from the consideration of the Coelestial Bodies to the Subcoelestial which by Gods ordinance depend upon them and are made subordinate to them touching which and the Coelestial Bodies both together comparing each with the other the Divine Bartas thus sweetly and truly sings Things that consist of th' Elements uniting Are ever tost with an intestine fighting Whence spring in time their Life and their deceasing Their diverse change their waxing and decreasing So that of all that is or may be seen With Mortal Eyes under Nights horned Queen Nothing retaineth the same form and face Hardly the half of half an hours space But the Heavens feel not Fates impartiall rigour Years adde not to their Stature nor their Vigour Use weares them not but their green ever age Is all in all still like their pupillage Sublunary Bodies are such as God and Nature hath planted under the Moon Now the state of these Inferiour being governed by the Superiour as in the Wheels of a Clock or Watch if the first be out of order so are the second and third and the rest that are moved by it for it is more then probable that the first partake with them in the same condition which dependance is very well expressed by Boethius where having spoken of the constant regularity of the Heavenly Bodies de Consol. Lib. 4. Met. 6. He thus goes on Haec concordiae temperat aquis c. Thus Englished The Concord tempers equally Contrary Elements That moist things yield unto the dry And heat with cold conseâ—ts Here Fire to highest place doth flie And Earth doth downward bend And Flowery Spring perpetually Sweet odours forth doth sâ—nâ— Hot Summer Harvest gives and store Of Fruit Autumnus yields And shoures which down from Heaven do poure Each Winter drown'd the Fields What ever in the World doth breath This temper forth hath brought And nourished the same by Death Again it brings to nought Among the Subcoelestial things following Natures Method I will first begin with the consideration of the Elements the most simple and Universal of them all as being the Ingredients of all mixed Bodies either in the whole or in part and into which the mixed are finally resolved again and are again by turnes remade of them the common matter of them all still abiding the same of which â—Barts Here 's nothing constant nothing still doth stay For Birth and Death have still successive sway Here one thing springs not till another dye Only the Maker lives Immortally The Almighty stable Body of this all Of changeful chances common Arcenal All like it self all in it self contain'd Which by times flight hath neither lost nor gain'd Changeless in Essence changeable in face Much more then Proteus or the subtil race Of roving Polypes who to rob the more Transform them hourly on the waving Shore Much like the French or like our selves their Apes Who with strange habits do disguise their shapes Who loving novels full of affectation Receive the manners of each other Nation By consent of Antiquity the Elements are in Number four The Fire the Air the Water and the Earth of which the same Poet thus expresses himself Four Bodies Primitive the World still contains Of which two downwards bend the Earth and Watery planes As many weight do want and nothing forcing higher They mount th' Air and purer streams of Fire Which though they distant be yet all things from them take Their Birth and into them their last returns do make Three of them shew themselves manifestly in Milk the Butter being the Aerial part thereof the Why the Watery and the Cheese the Earthy but all four in the burning of green Wood The Flame being Fire the smoak the Air the Liquid destilling at the ends the Water and the Ashes the Earth Philosophy likewise by reason teaches and proves the same from their
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
qualities dispencing themselves by even turnes and just measures For as the Circle of the Year is distinguished by four quarters one succeeding another the time running about by equal distances In like manner the Four Elements of the VVorld by a reciprocal vicissitude exceed one another and which a man would think to be incredible while they seem to dye as Philo writes they become Immortal running the same race and instantly traveling up and down by the same path From the Earth the way riseth upward it dissolving into VVater the VVater vapours forth into the Air the Air is rarified into Fire and again they descend downward the same way the Fire by quenching being turned into Air the Air thickned itto VVater and the Water into Earth Hitherto Philo wherein after his usual manner he Platonizes the same being in effect to be found in Plato's Timaeus as also in Aristotles Book De Mundo if it be his in Damascen and Gregory Nyssen And most elegantly in the wittiest of Poets Ovid Met. 15. Resolutaque tellus In liquidas rarescit aquâ—s tenuatur in auras Aeraque humor habit dempto qucque pondere rursus In superos aer tenuissimus emicat ignes Inde retro redeunt idemqne retexitur ordâ— Ignis enim densum spissatus in Aera transit Hinc in aquas tellus glomerata cogitur unda The Earth resolved is turned into streames Water to Air the purer Air to Flames From whence they back return the fiery flakes Are turned to Air the Air thickned takes The Liquid form of Water that Earth makes The Four Elements herein resembling an Instrument of Musick with four strings which may be tuned diverse wayes and yet the harmony still remains sweet and so are they compared in the Book of Wisdom Cap. 19. v. 17. The Elements agreed amongst themselves in this change as when one tune is changed upon an Instrumont of Musick and the Melody still remaineth Utque novis facilis signatur cera figuriâ— Nâ—â— manet ut fucrat nec formam servat candem Sed tameâ— ipsa cadem est They are the Verses of Ovid in the 15 Met. touching which several Prints stamped upon one and the same lump of Wax Bartas curiously dilates in one of his weeks Our next subject will be to discourse of Comets and Blazing Starrs he uncertainty of the Predictions of them Some took the Comet to have been a Star Ordained and Created from the first bâ—ginning of the World but appearing only by times and by turnes of this mind was Senâ—cae Cardan likewise in latter times harp's much if not upon the same yet the like string But Aristotle in his Natur. Quest. Lib. 7. Cap. 21. 23. whose weighty reasons and deep judgment I much reverence conceiveth the Matter of the Comet to be a very hot and dry exhalation which being lifted up by the force and vertue of the Sun into the highest Region of the Air is there inflamed partly by the Elements of Fire upon which it bordereth and partly by the motions of the Heavens which hurleth it about so that there is in the same manner of an Earth-quake the Wind the Lightning and a Comet if it be imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth it causeth an Earthquake if it ascend to the Middle Region of the Air and be from thence beaten back Wind if it enter that Region ' and be there environed with a thick Cloud Lightning if it pass that Region a Comet or some other fiery Meteor in case the matter be not sufficiently capable thereof The common Opinion hath been that Comets either as Signes or Causes or both have always Prognosticated some dreadful mishaps to the World as out-ragious Winds extraordinary Drought Deaâ—th Pestilence Warrs the death of Princes and the like Nunquam futilibus excanduit ignibus aether Nere did the Heavens with idle blazes Flame So Manelius hath it But the Lord Privy Seal Earl of Northampton in his Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophesies hath so strongly incountered this Opinion that for my own partâ— must profess he hath perswaded me that there is no certainty of those Predictions in as much as Comets do not always fore run such events neither do these events always follow upon the appearing of Comets Some instances he produceth of Comets which brought with them such abundance of all things and abated their prises to so low an Ebbe as stories have recorded it for Monuments and Miracles to posterity and the like saith he could I say of others Anno Dom. 1555. 1556. 1557. 1558. After all which years nothing chanced that should drive a man to seek out any cause above the common reach and therefore I do allow of the diligence of Gemma-Frisius in taking notice of as many good as bad effects which have succeeded after Comets Moreover he tells us that Peucer a great Mathematician of Germany Prognosticated upon the last Comet before the writing of his Defensative that Mens bodies should be parched and burned up with heat But how fell it out Forsooth saith he we had not a more unkindly Summer for many years in respect of extraordinary cold never less inclination to War No Prince deceased in that time and the Plague in Lombardy as God would have it ceased at the rising of the Comet Besides all this he reports of his own experience as an Eye witness that when divers persons upon greater scrupulosity then cause went about to disswade Queen Elizabeth lying then at Richmond from looking on the Comet which then appeared with a courage answerable to the greatness of her State she caused the Window to be set open and cast out this Word Jacta est alea the Dice are thrown thereby shewing that her stâ—dfast hope and confidence was too firmly planted in the good pleasure and Providence of God as not to be blasted or affrighted with those beams which either had a ground in Nature whereupon to rise or at least-wise no warrant in Scripture to portend the misfortune of Princes Neither have I heard of any Comet that appeared before her Death as at her entrance there did nor that of Prince Henry nor of Henry the Great of France the one being a most peerless Queen the other a most incomparable Prince and the third for Prudence and Valour a matchless King Therefore as Seneca truly notes Natural is magis nova quam magna mirari It is natural unto us to be inquisâ—ived and curious rather about things new and strange than those which are in their own nature truly great yet even amongst the Ancients Charlemaine professed that he feared not the signe of the Blazing-Star but the Great and Potent Creator thereof And Vespasian as Dion reports when the apparition of a Comet was thought to portend his Death replied merrily No said he this bushy Star notes not me but the Parthian King Ipse enim Cometus est ego vero calvus sum for he wares bushy Locks but I am bald Lastly some Comets have been the