Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29858
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Certain miscellany tracts written by Thomas Brown.
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Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing B5151; ESTC R25304
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83,412
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232
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his House the Oracle importing no more than a Smith's Forge expressed by a double Bellows the Hammer and Anvil therein Now why the Oracle should place such consideration upon the Bones of Orestes the Son of Agamemnon a mad man and a murtherer if not to promote the idolatry of the Heathens and maintain a superstitious veneration of things of no activity it may leave no small obscurity Or why in a business so clear in his knowledge he should affect so obscure expressions it may also be wondred if it were not to maintain the wary and evasive method in his answers for speaking obscurely in things beyond doubt within his knowledge he might be more tolerably dark in matters beyond his prescience Though EI were inscribed over the Gate of Delphos yet was there no uniformity in his deliveries Sometimes with that obscurity as argued a fearfull prophecy sometimes so plainly as might confirm a spirit of divinity sometimes morally deterring from vice and villany another time vitiously and in the spirit of bloud and cruelty observably modest in his civil enigma and periphrasis of that part which old Numa would plainly name and Medea would not understand when he advised Aegeus not to draw out his foot before untill he arriv'd upon the Athenian ground whereas another time he seemed too literal in that unseemly epithet unto Cyanus King of * Cyprus and put a beastly trouble upon all Aegypt to find out the Urine of a true Virgin Sometimes more beholding unto memory than invention he delighted to express himself in the bare Verses of Homer But that he principally affected Poetry and that the Priest not onely or always composed his prosal raptures into Verse seems plain from his necromantical Prophecies whilst the dead Head in Phlegon delivers a long Prediction in Verse and at the raising of the Ghost of Commodus unto Caracalla when none of his Ancestours would speak the divining Spirit versified his infelicities corresponding herein to the apprehensions of elder times who conceived not onely a Majesty but something of Divinity in Poetry and as in ancient times the old Theologians delivered their inventions Some critical Readers might expect in his oraculous Poems a more than ordinary strain and true spirit of Apollo not contented to find that Spirits make Verses like Men beating upon the filling Epithet and taking the licence of dialects and lower helps common to humane Poetry wherein since Scaliger who hath spared none of the Greeks hath thought it wisedom to be silent we shall make no excursion Others may wonder how the curiosity of elder times having this opportunity of his Answers omitted Natural Questions or how the old Magicians discovered no more Philosophy and if they had the assistance of Spirits could rest content with the bare assertions of things without the knowledge of their causes whereby they had made their Acts iterable by sober hands and a standing part of Philosophy Many wise Divines hold a reality in the wonders of the Aegyptian Magicians and that those magnalia which they performed before Pharaoh were not mere delusions of Sense Rightly to understand how they made Serpents out of Rods Froggs and Bloud of Water were worth half Porta's Magick Hermolaus Barbarus was scarce in his wits when upon conference with a Spirit he would demand no other question than the explication of Aristotle's Entelecheia Appion the Grammarian that would raise the Ghost of Homer to decide the Controversie of his Country made a frivolous and pedantick use of Necromancy Philostratus did as little that call'd up the Ghost of Achilles for a particular of the Story of Troy Smarter curiosities would have been at the great Elixir the Flux and Reflux of the Sea with other noble obscurities in Nature but probably all in vain in matters cognoscible and framed for our disquisition our Industry must be our Oracle and Reason our Apollo Not to know things without the Arch of our intellectuals or what Spirits apprehend is the imperfection of our nature not our knowledge and rather inscience than ignorance in man Revelation might render a great part of the Creation easie which now seems beyond the stretch of humane indagation and welcome no doubt from good hands might be a true Almagest and great celestial construction a clear Systeme of the planetical Bodies of the invisible and seeming useless Stars unto us of the many Suns in the eighth Sphere what they are what they contain and to what more immediately those stupendious Bodies are serviceable But being not hinted in the authentick Revelation of God nor known how far their discoveries are stinted if they should come unto us from the mouth of evil Spirits the belief thereof might be as unsafe as the enquiry This is a copious Subject but having exceeded the bounds of a Letter I will not now pursue it farther I am Yours c. TRACT XII A PROPHECY Concerning the future state of several NATIONS In a Letter written upon occasion of an old Prophecy sent to the Authour from a Friend with a Request that he would consider it SIR I Take no pleasure in Prophecies so hardly intelligible and pointing at future things from a pretended spirit of Divination of which sort this seems to be which came unto your hand and you were pleased to send unto me And therefore for your easier apprehension divertisement and consideration I present you with a very different kind of prediction not positively or peremptorily telling you what shall come to pass yet pointing at things not without all reason or probability of their events not built upon fatal decrees or inevitable designations but upon conjectural foundations whereby things wished may be promoted and such as are feared may more probably be prevented THE PROPHECY WHen New England shall trouble New Spain When Jamaica shall be Lady of the Isles and the Main When Spain shall be in America hid And Mexico shall prove a Madrid When Mahomet's Ships on the Baltick shall ride And Turks shall labour to have Ports on that side When Africa shall no more sell out their Blacks To make Slaves and Drudges to the American Tracts When Batavia the Old shall be contemn'd by the New When a new Drove of Tartars shall China subdue When America shall cease to send out its Treasure But employ it at home in American Pleasure When the new World shall the old invade Nor count them their Lords but their fellows in Trade When Men shall almost pass to Venice by Land Not in deep Water but from Sand to Sand. When Nova Zembla shall be no stay Unto those who pass to or from Cathay Then think strange things are come to light Whereof but few have had a foresight THE EXPOSITION OF THE PROPHECY WHen New England shall trouble New Spain That is When that thriving Colony which hath so much encreased in our days and in the space of about fifty years that they can as they report raise between twenty and thirty thousand men upon
Hawks of different kinds and not of the same Eyrie or Nest. As for what Aristotle affirmeth that Hawks and Birds of prey drink not although you know that it will not strictly hold yet I kept an Eagle two years which fed upon Kats Kittlings Whelps and Ratts without one drop of Water If any thing may add unto your knowledge in this noble Art you must pick it out of later Writers than those you enquire of You may peruse the two Books of Falconry writ by that renowned Emperour Frederick the Second as also the Works of the noble Duke Belisarius of Tardiffe Francherius of Francisco Sforzino of Vicensa and may not a little inform or recreate your self with that elegant Poem of Thuanus I leave you to divert your self by the perusal of it having at present no more to say but that I am c. TRACT VI. OF Cymbals c. SIR WITH what difficulty if not possibility you may expect satisfaction concerning the Musick or Musical Instruments of the Hebrews you will easily discover if you consult the attempts of learned men upon that Subject but for Cymbals of whose Figure you enquire you may find some described in Bayfius in the Comment of Rhodius upon Scribonius Largus and others As for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by S. Paul and rendred a Tinckling Cymbal whether the translation be not too soft and diminutive some question may be made for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth no small sound but a strained and lofty vociferation or some kind of hollowing sound according to the Exposition of Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A word drawn from the lusty shout of Souldiers crying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the first charge upon their Enemies according to the custom of Eastern Nations and used by Trojans in Homer and is also the Note of the Chorus in Aristophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In other parts of Scripture we reade of loud and high sounding Cymbals and in Clemens Alexandrinus that the Arabians made use of Cymbals in their Wars instead of other military Musick and Polyaenus in his Stratagemes affirmeth that Bacchus gave the signal of Battel unto his numerous Army not with Trumpets but with Tympans and Cymbals And now I take the opportunity to thank you for the new Book sent me containing the Anthems sung in our Cathedral and Collegiate Churches 't is probable there will be additions the Masters of Musick being now active in that affair Beside my naked thanks I have yet nothing to return you but this enclosed which may be somewhat rare unto you and that is a Turkish Hymn translated into French out of the Turkish Metre which I thus render unto you O what praise doth he deserve and how great is that Lord all whose Slaves are as so many Kings Whosoever shall rub his Eyes with the dust of his Feet shall behold such admirable things that he shall fall into an ecstasie He that shall drink one drop of his Beverage shall have his Bosome like the Ocean filled with Gems and pretious Liquours Let not loose the Reins unto thy Passions in this world he that represseth them shall become a true Solomon in the Faith Amuse not thy self to adore Riches nor to build great Houses and Palaces The end of what thou shalt build is but ruine Pamper not thy Body with delicacies and dainties it may come to pass one day that this Body may be in Hell Imagine not that he who findeth Riches findeth Happiness he that findeth Happiness is he that findeth God All who prostrating themselves in humility shall this day believe in Velè if they were Poor shall be Rich and if Rich shall become Kings After the Sermon ended which was made upon a Verse in the Alcoran containing much Morality the Deruices in a Gallery apart sung this Hymn accompanied with Instrumental Musick which so affected the Ears of Monsieur du Loyr that he would not omit to set it down together with the Musical Notes to be found in his first Letter unto Monsieur Bouliau Prior of Magny Excuse my brevity I can say but little where I understand but little I am c. TRACT VII OF ROPALIC OR Gradual Verses c. Mens mea sublimes rationes praemeditatur SIR THough I may justly allow a good intention in this Poem presented unto you yet I must needs confess I have no affection for it as being utterly averse from all affectation in Poetry which either restrains the phancy or fetters the invention to any strict disposure of words A Poem of this nature is to be found in Ausonius beginning thus Spes Deus aeternae stationis conciliator These are Verses Ropalici or Clavales arising gradually like the Knots in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Clubb named also Fistulares by Priscianus as Elias Vinetus hath noted They consist properly of five words each thereof encreasing by one syllable They admit not of a Spondee in the fifth place nor can a Golden or Silver Verse be made this way They run smoothly both in Latin and Greek and some are scatteringly to be found in Homer as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liberè dicam sed in aurem ego versibus hujusmodi Ropalicis longo syrmate protractis Ceraunium affigo He that affecteth such restrained Poetry may peruse the Long Poem of Hugbaldus the Monk wherein every word beginneth with a C penned in the praise of Calvities or Baldness to the honour of Carolus Calvus King of France Carmina clarisonae calvis cantate Camaenae The rest may be seen at large in the adversaria of Barthius or if he delighteth in odd contrived phancies may he please himself with Antistrophes Counterpetories Retrogrades Rebusses Leonine Verses c. to be found in Sieur des Accords But these and the like are to be look'd upon not pursued odd works might be made by such ways and for your recreation I propose these few lines unto you Arcu paratur quod arcui sufficit Misellorum clamoribus accurrere non tam humanum quam sulphureum est Asino teratur quae Asino teritur Ne Asphodelos comedas phaenices manduca Caelum aliquid potest sed quae mira praestat Papilio est Not to put you unto endless amusement the Key hereof is the homonomy of the Greek made use of in the Latin words which rendreth all plain More aenigmatical and dark expressions might be made if any one would speak or compose them out of the numerical Characters or characteristical Numbers set down by Robertus de Fluctibus As for your question concerning the contrary expressions of the Italian and Spaniards in their common affirmative answers the Spaniard answering cy Sennor the Italian Signior cy you must be content with this Distich Why saith the Italian Signior cy the Spaniard cy Sennor Because the one puts that behind the other puts before And because you are so happy in some Translations I pray return me these two Verses in