words and thoughts as you do But when they maintain that by a Heavenly Medicine they have made many great and wonderful Changes turn'd all Mettals into Gold Folly into Wisdome Vice into Virtue Weakness into long Life and all Diseases into sound Health and Age into Lustiness and Youth again how can you disprove them when did you see the contrary You scarcely know the Nature of the Deeds and Effects for they require great Knowledge but the Doing Cause and Workman that is this Medicine you never saw nor can imagine what it is much less conceive the Reason Strength and Nature of it Nay you see nothing but grope and blunder in the dark like blindfold men at all things Else how could these exchanges have escaped and been hid from you in a World so full of all kinde of changes I mean you see great and admirable things albeit you do not so take them because you see them often but you do not throughly see them that is you perceive not the Nature Cause and Reason of them and that makes you so childish to believe nought unseen and count all things Wonders which are not Common amongst you Much like that harmless and silly kinde of People of late discovered which made Miracles and Wonders of many matters that in other Countries are common and ordinary insomuch as to take one for all they could not conceive how two Men asunder could by Letter certifie one another unless a Spirit was wrapt up in the Paper to make report and tell the News But if you and they could once by the edge of Wit cut into the Depth and Nature of the great and marvellous Works of Kinde and Skill which are common and daily among you then and not before you would be ready and easie by comparison to receive almost any thing unseen and brought by Report unto you Let me awake your Wits a little You see daily but not throughly how the Moon by drawing the Ocean after her makes the Ebbe and Flow thereof It is likewise commonly I know not how truly reported that the Loadstone roof of Mahomet his Church draws up his Iron-Tomb from the ground and holds it hanging in the middle way like as the Miners in Germany by chance found their Tools which they had left in such a Vault hanging in the Morning which was accounted for a Miracle before such time as the Cause by the skilful was seen and declared unto them What should I say more of this Stone It is not unknown that there are whole Rocks thereof in India drawing Ships that pass by loaden with Iron unto them and yet we see that this mighty Stone in presence of the Diamond the King of Stones is put out of Office and can do nothing To come abroad it hath been often seen at Sea that the little Stay-fish cleaving to the fore-ship hath stopt his full Course I should now pass over to that other side of Skill and Craft and call to minde many great and wondrous Works there done and performed The curious work of that Italian Ring which held a Clock besides a Dial within it Those three common Feats found out of late passing all the Inventions of Antiquity the Gun Card and Printing and many other dainty Devices of Mans Wit and Cunning if this short and narrow Speech appointed would suffer any such out-ridings Let these few serve to awake you and call your Wits together you see these things I say and are never moved but if you had never seen them but heard the stories onely reported what would you have thought and said And because no man so well judgeth of himself as of another Suppose a plain and harmless People such as those Indians were had from the beginning dwelt in a dark Cave under ground let it be the Centre if you will and at the last one odde man more hardy and wise than the rest had by stealth crept out into the light and here by long travel and traffick with our People had seen and learned the Course and Nature of things which I have rehearsed unto you and then returning home had suddenly start up and begun to recount the Wonders which he had seen and learned first that he found the Earth hanging round in the middle of the Air and in like sort a bright and goodly Cover compassing afar off the same This Cover beset and sprinkled with infinite moving Lights and Candles and among the rest One to be short of a foot in bigness to his sight without all Touching or other means and instruments to be perceived to hale and pull huge heaps of Water after her as she passed up and down continually would they not shout and lift up their hands and begin to suspect the Man of infection with strange and travelling Manners But admit when the noise were done and all husht he went forward and told them of such a Church and Vault where other things as well and more strangely than the Earth for that cannot be otherwise unless heavy things flew up against Nature hanged in the Air alone And of such Hills that as the Moon Waters so drew Ships out of their full courses without any strength or means visible Furthermore if he laid abroad the wonderful might of a little Fish like half a Foot long able to stay the main course of a Ship under sail do you not think with what sowre Countenances and reviling Words and Reproches they would bait him and drive him out of their Company But if the good and painful Man burning with desire to reform the estate of his rude and deformed Country would not be stayed so but espying a calmer time durst come in presence and step forth before them again and say that by his Travel he had learned to make such a Ring as I spake of such warlike Engines as should fall as fearful as Thunder and as hurtful as any Ramme upon the Wall a mile off planted such a kinde of Writing whereby four Men might Record as much in the same time as four thousand of the Common Clerks such a Card wherewith a Countryman that never saw the Sea shall sit in the bottome of a Ship and direct the Course thereof throughout the World without missing Is it not like they would apprehend him for a Cozener and adjudge him to Punishment Then put the case you stood by and saw the Matter I appeal to your own Conscience would you not think the Traveller worthy of Pity and Praise and the People of Reformation Well then let us return to our purpose There is a Nation of Wise-men dwelling in a Soil as much more blessed than yours as yours is than theirs That is As they bide under ground and you upon the face thereof so these Men inhabit the edge skirt of Heaven they daily See and Work many wondrous things which you never saw nor made because you never mounted so high to come
among them If any one chance to fly away from you to those heavenly Places and after like experience to return and make the like Reports you give him like Rewards Compare the rest I say no more But if GOD would give you leave and power to ascend unto those high places I mean to those heavenly Thoughts and Studies you might quickly by view of deep Causes and Divine Secrets and comparison of one to another not onely believe the blessed-Art but also learn and perform the same But they will not be rid so and follow as fast again another way That whereas so many have been and are daily seen to wear their lives in Alchimy and to finde nothing that good is but contrary for the most part to wit untimely and unordinary Death Sickness and Age for Long-life Health and Youth and alwayes Smoke for Gold and Folly for Wisdome and very near as often bad and lewd Conditions for good and honest Natures for by boiling themselves long in such deceitful stuff as though they were burnt in the Pots bottome they carry most commonly for ever after an unsavoury smack thereof It is a plain sign the Trade is vain false and deceitfull This is the third Charge they give unto us let us see how to bear and withstand it The most wise and great Philosophers albeit they knew GOD had made all Mankinde for that happy Life abovesaid and that it was at first enjoyed or else it had been made in vain and that by corruption of ill Custom by his secret appointment our kinde is grown out of kinde and therefore may be restored because it is a mis-leading and no intent of Nature which fore-castings gave them occasion to seek the remedy Yet they thought it unlawful and set straight against the Will of GOD that all should be restored for that he seemed of purpose to have sown Good and Bad and great store of both together in such sort as we see them lest if all were alike and in one state of Happiness the great variety of business and stirring and so the society and Common-wealth among Men should be clean taken away Like as if the four first striving Seeds whereof all things are made and spring were all alike and one friend to another all should be still and quiet without Succession Change and Variety in the World and so there should be no World For GOD when he cast his Minde upon the building of the World he meant to make a goodly and beautiful Work meet for the Power Wisdome and Pleasure of such a Builder and therefore a stirring and changeable Work because there is no might nor cunning shewn no delight taken in one ever-like or still thing But light footing for speed is ever best in such a ground Let us away Wherefore by the example and as it were by the secret blast and motion of GOD after our Men had found this Restorative and used it for the time and meant to leave it as becometh good Men to Posterity they took this way of Counsel to lay it up safe in a strong Castle as it were in the which all the broad Gates and common easie Entries should be fast shut up and barred leaving onely one little and secret back-door open fore-fenced with a winding Maze that the best sort by Wit Pains and Providence might come into the appointed BLISSE the rest stand back forsaken Their Maze and Plot is this first they hide themselves in low and untrodden Places to the end they might be free from the power of Princes and the Eyes of the wicked World And then they wrote their Books with such a wary and well-fenced Style I mean so over-cast with dark and sullen shadows and sly pretence of Likes and Riddles drawn out of the midst of deep knowledge and secret Learning that it is impossible for any but the wise and well-given to approch or come near the Matter And therefore it is when godless and unlearned Men hovering over Gain and Honour presume against Minerva's will to handle their Words when the Things should rather be handled they wrest and wring them a hundred wayes for nothing is so soft and gentle as Speech especially so throughly temper'd and yet all besides the secret meaning thrust up in deep Knowledge Then if these Wayes and Fantasies they practice and set on work as fast as their Fingers itch and miss as fast as they must needs do shall they say they followed our Rules and Precepts and put our Work in practise and found them false That were like as if a cunning Archer and Huntsman had delivered dark Rules of Shooting and Hunting unto his Countrymen and these by chance had fallen into the hands of another wilde and untaught Nation which simply mis-led by mis-taking his Drift and Meaning had made them Ploughs to shoot in and goared their Oxen to the game and then missing of their purpose cried out and blamed the Arts of Shooting and Hunting and sought to blow Envy upon the Man that taught them would not a Wise man judge hold and deem both these and them and all other busie-bodies that so use to myne dig in other Mens dealings to be sent unto their own Trade and Business wherefore they were made and fashioned and to let the rest alone for the right owners And for these of HERMES house do not think they make claim sue and recover their own in open Court as others use that were a way in such a wicked World to lose Land Life and all together quickly but in that secret sort which falleth not within the compass of your Reproof Neither would I have you follow so hard and be so earnest upon the next Reason That albeit our Men had cause to hide their Works and Practise yet they would have shewed the fruit and effect thereof advancing themselves as others do to Honour and Pleasure and not have lived like the refuse of the World in such mean plight and wretchedness for that is the lightest of all other though it seem the greatest If I list to rifle in the Rolls of ancient Records I could easily finde and shew you that although the most part of purpose lived in this harmless and safe Estate which I told you yet some again were Kings and Men of great Place and Dignity and yet I think by Remainder and not by Purchase so but I love not this kinde of reasoning Let them that thirst go to the Fountain and us remember that in the Houshold of BLISSE Riches are made but Servants and not Masters and Rulers because they be for the most part unruly and ambitious and for that cause they have no liberty granted them but are injoyned to serve lowly their Betters and to look no further So that if our Men were Happy or at least lovers of the same their Riches ought to be imployed in their own service that is to purchase and win Wisdome and Vertue and not sent out
in a kinde of Learning to unlearn all as it were and begin again for their own Credit and Virtue yea and Profits sake also if they esteem the best to leave those gilded Pills and sugred Baits and all other crafty Snares wherewith the World hath been so long caught and tormented and to seek this one heavenly plain and to you that be Learned easie ready true and certain way of healing Diseases I think before-times they were not greatly to be blamed and accused but of dulness and weakness in Understanding in not espying and seeing this Perfection and supplying of all their Wants But now since of late they have been so often warned not with Words onely but with Examples of Learned Men Matheolus Gorraeus Fernelius Severinus Danus and other such like which have and do revolt and fly away from them daily yea and by the certain and sufficient both written and living Witness of the Deeds of Paracelsus it were Impiety to stand still Well few words will serve to Wise and Virtuous Physicians such as are of themselves forward But there is another and I am afraid the greater sort less honest more idle and covetous full of windy Pride and Words but empty of all good Learning with whom gentle warning no though the Truth her self should come in person would prevail nothing who care not it seems to behold half Mankinde to perish for want of help and succour rather than they would either blot their Credit increase their Pains or lose their Gains and which not onely speak foully and write foolishly against this over-flourishing Virtue but also like the giddy People where they catch the State banish the Men that hold and possess it Whereas if it were a good Common-wealth saith Aristotle the matter would be so far from Banishment as they would deem such a Man as well as the Laws for he is himself a Law exempt from all Obedience and judge him worthy to be followed and obeyed as a perpetual King This untowardness and crookedness in Men caused all our All-healing Ancestors from time to time never to abide their Sentence but to the great hurt and loss of Mankinde to go into willing Banishment You have established a kinde of Government among you to pursue the same Like a little wherein you rule alone over the weak and sorry Subjects of Mens Bodies Then their Health and Safety you ought to seek onely besides enough to maintain contented estate which Plato allows his Governours and not profit onely that were Tyranny both for Humanity and Religion sake for to omit Religion which they do lightly omit if a Leach begin once to make a prey of Men he is not onely no Man but a most fierce and cruel Beast not so fit to be compared and matched any where if you seek all over as with that mis-shapen Monster of India which Aristotle describes and calls Mantichora which being by Kinde or Custom I know not whether very greedy upon Mans flesh is with manifold and wonderful helps furnished and armed unto it first with a Face like a Man and Voice like a Trumpet two fit things to allure and toll him in and then if he fly with the swiftness of a Hart to overtake him and darts like a Porcupine to wound him afar off and with the Tail of a Scorpion as it were a poisoned shaft near hand to sting him furthermore lest all this might not serve by reason of Armours he hath Feet like a Lion fiercely and stoutly to tear him and three rows of Teeth on each Chap for speed in devouring Apply You and your Apothecaries the rest of your selves in secret for my part as I am sorry to see evil done so am I as loth to speak evil of it and sure were not the great grief and Envy I do bear and always did to see desert trodden down by such unworthiness and some little hope besides to hear of your amendment and so of the return of the Truth and her honours out of banishment you should have found me as I have been long and mean to be longer quite dumb and Tongueless both in this and all other Matters Do not think I speak of Spight or for hope of gain or for any such matter There is no cause God knows I am no Physician never was nor ever mean to be what I am it makes no matter Let us go forward CHAP. III. Of YOUTH ALbeit we live Long and in Health yet if our Bodies be weak and unwieldy as it is in Age it must needs lett and clog us much in this happy Race Wherefore the third help and step to BLISSE that is Youth was not idle nor out of Order Then what is Youth They know best that have lost it It is the most active fruitful and beautiful state of the Body These be the Marks and Differences whereby we may know it from all things else I mean Activity not in deeds of Moving onely but of Life and Sense also This is it which makes up the Nature of Youth The other two Marks are taken in not as needful helps either to Youth or BLISSE and such as may not be spared especially Beauty but because they be very notable Marks as I said to know Youth by and that as we heard of true Honour and Pleasure above so these will also perforce hang on and follow though they be unlooked for and unregarded Then this is the matter under-hand in this place This we must prove possibly to be kept and preserved unto our lives end yea and although it were lost before that it may be gotten again and restored And yet first as our Natural Heat is the cause of our Being so the cause of our best Estate and Youth is the flower and best estate of it that is his chief strength and quickness Then keep or recover this and all is done But we had need be sure of this that the flower of Heat makes us Young and flourishing and sure by proof and experience the best assurance in the World Let us look all over and we shall finde it so To begin with Plants although their life is dark and they be but lame and unperfect Wights for Plato gives them sense yet their flourishing and decay their Youth and Age as I may term them do clearly follow the quickness or dulness of their in bred heat caused by the two Seasons of Summer and Winter as appears in India where for the continual heat and moisture and Summer of the Country no Plant feels Age or fall of the Leaf that word is idle in those parts save Fen-greek because by a strange property besides the rest it hath strange cooling above the rest standing in Water first and then somewhat deeply from the Sun Nay amongst us we see those Plants which are Hot and Dry sound and hardy able to withstand the force of Cold to keep their leaves in Winter Moreover keep off that starving Cold
especially one of them that is Honey have they lifted up above the rest for this the Bee that little cold and bloodless Beast by reason it is both made of and fed with the same liveth so long above that kinde of parted Wights even eight years as they report and because Manna that famous Nourisher unto Man is nothing else but Honey a Dew concocted in Hot Countreys by the heat of Heaven in stead of the Bee and for such like Causes too long to be told in so short a race of Speech as I have throughout appointed But these Men are wide as well though not so far as the former for if you remember well when we spake of things that preserved Life which is nothing else but Heat there were found onely two belonging to that use like Meat and Exercise and that to let pass Exercise although the finer Breaths of the outward Air or of Meat may serve to feed the Aethereal Spirit which carrieth Life yet our heavenly Heat must have finer food an Aethereal Body which is ready and at hand no where in Nature save in our first Moisture of our Body Then this fat and aiery Meat of theirs may help to lengthen Life Youth indeed but not directly by feeding Life maintaining the first Moisture but by another by-way procuring Health Soundness for Sickness and Disease bring Age and Death apace And this is because for their great cleanness whereunto they be wrought by Nature and Art together they neither breed as other Meats doe many any drossy Disease nor stop the Lives and heats free course and passage Sith then there is nothing in the world within the compasse of reach able to maintain and nourish Heat but it must needs faint and wane daily with our first Moysture How falls it out say you that those Indians so kept their Youth without waxing Old as we heard out of Pliny I cannot tell unlesse the Sunne for that great and familiar acquaintance sake hath favoured and blessed them above all People and brought down Aether and given them to nourish them for their Soyle and Meat because it lyeth right under the Suns walk and travel is not through extreme heat uninhabitable as in times past some fondly supposed but of all other the best and most temperate by reason that extreme Heat of Heaven is most equally answered and justly tempered with Cold and Moisture of the Ground proportionable which thing they knew not because their Eyes were set too high to see the lower cause and course of Nature most plain and certain For GOD when he meant to make our changeable World here below by a wonderfull fore-sighted Wisdome stinted the Sun within the known bounds the North and South turns which they call Tropicks lest if he had run round about he should have worn and wasted it every where alike and made it smooth and even in all places and so all either dry Ground or a standing Poole both unfit for the variety of Change which he meant to see play before him But now he is so curbed and restrained within those bounds aforesaid he can wear the Ground no farther then his force can reach nor any otherwise than as his Force serveth So that the Earth must needs be most worn and lowest where it lyeth within the compasse of his Walk and so rise by little and little on both sides without the Turnes untill it come to the top and highest pitch where it is furthest off that is under the Pins which they call Poles of the World Then here for the Coldnesse the Earth is fit to thicken the Ayre and breed Water and for the bent and falling to send it down to the widest and lowest part where by the great strength of Heat it is drawn upon heaps and in great plenty and for this cause and the length of the Night it cannot scatter abroad and vanish away to nought but thickens apace and fals again abundantly raining three or foure times a day whereby we may judge that this middle girdle where our Indians inhabit cannot be so broyled and unsufferable as some have avowed but in all reason very milde and temperate and think that as the Sun meant to favour all parts as much as may be so chiefly and above all that as Reason yea and Necessity bound him with which he is best acquainted And as this is certain by report of all Authors in all other things yea and in Men touching all other Gifts and Blessings so we may guesse this one which we have in hand was not skipt and left out in so large a Charter But for all this and in good sadnesse we have but argued hitherto it is not good to seek dispence against the Law of Nature and it were better to discredit Pliny the Reporter though he be never so good an Author than Nature her self the Author of all things For this Story is set against the whole course and drift of Nature whose Works as they be not woven and made up at once so they decay and wear away by little and little And therefore admit these men of India by speciall Licence from above doe bear their Age fresh and young a long time in respect of other Nations yet we must in no wise think this is for Ever and untill Death as Pliny saith for then they should not dye and depart as other Men doe naturally which is when Age creeping on and changing by little and little is at last made ripe and falling but rather by some sudden force be taken and as it were delivered by and by to the hands of I know not what Hang-man amongst the Destinies to be cut off and put to death by Violence But what Force can that be Nay I assure you farther that if the stock of Sicknesse and Disease were away as saith he it is almost they might live for ever another breach of the never-broken Laws of Kinde Wherefore let this Story goe and us hold this rule of certain that by reason there is no other Food for naturall Heat open in Kinde but our fitst Moisture which because for want of supply it likewise wasteth daily Youth must needs by Nature fail away and cannot last for ever And yet we must also to come to the purpose remember how it was full often above proved that such a supply of due food of Life were to be made by Skill and fetched out of the bottome of Naturall things by the Divine Art of HERMES Wherefore to avoid the jarre and ill sound of our often beating upon one thing our Cure-all and Heaven above declared is it that feeds our hearts that holdeth and perserveth Youth This is it I say that doth the deed for many causes set down before I will send them that cannot come hither along the right way back again to take all before them But there is another thing Motion I mean that helps to bear up the state of Life
our default which may be amended But lest I may happen to deal with some who will neither grant the Justice of GOD nor yet yield to the End of Man with some I say that have so far put off all Humanity I will bring them to Natural Causes I will open and lay before them both the sorts and suits of Wights I mean of Men and Beasts that they being a monstrous and doubtful Kinde between both that is Beasts within cloth'd only with the outward shape of Men may the better judge of both as in like case they feign of the like mis-shapen Monsters The Poets know my meaning it is not worth the flourish of a chaste and modest Pen which had in kinde the more cause to live long That seeing at last the worser Wights to overgo us in Life and to run to the very goal it self and yet to have received less cause from Nature they may be driven by force of Reason to yield that we have a better Kinde and worser Custom and that we did and might live long but for our own fault which may be reformed To begin with the Soul and Natural Heat for his worthiness let us see which of them is endowed with more store of him that is of the chief cause of Long Life If we call to minde a little we shall remember That Man walketh upright when the rest are thrown to the Ground because they lack the force of this ascending Heat to bear up the weight of their Bodies which we have abundantly But if we leave the outward shape and look into them we shall finde that by the great foresight of Nature all Wights which are Hot and full of Blood have against the Root and Spring thereof to cool and temper the same a Contrary in place and property set the Brain I mean some more and some less still according to the behoof and request of the Heart Insomuch as they that have no Blood and small Heat within them as not needing any Cooler have no Brain at all Then by certain race and course of Kinde if that be true which all Philosophers and Leaches hold that a Man hath the greatest Brain of all Wights it must needs follow that he hath the greatest store of Heat also But enter further into them and you shall see Man by how much more he goeth beyond a Beast in Wit so much to burn in Heat above him for Wit springeth out of the clearness of the Body and this out of Heat as I will prove in his place hereafter Now if this first point be done and granted the next is quickly made even as one Match is made by another It standing with the Justice of Nature that makes nought in vain to match this greedy Heat with store of good Meat that is of Fast and Fine first Moisture suitably or else sure saith Heraclitus the Officers of Justice the Furies would soon apprehend her To be short both this and that and the third likewise to wit a close fine Body and all is cleared if it be so that a Man in making is most far and finely mixt and broken of all the lower Creatures as we heard even now Decreed in the Councel of the best Philosophers For if nought makes but Heat then nought makes well but much Heat if there be no other odds in Souls as was said above And if the Beginnings be well and firmly mingled and the Concoction hold they must needs gather themselves in close together also to make another cause yea and the last for what is fast fine Oil and Fatness but Water where with we flow as our Brain declareth throughly mingled and raised into an Aiery or rather into an Aetherial close Substance But if you will not stand to this Decree then once for all Consider and weigh but this one Example That albeit Man be more given to Lust than any other Wight and thereby drying up the Body plainly pareth off more than any other and weakneth all the helps of Long Life together both the Moisture that knits and holds the Frame and that which feeds our Heat and this and all and so that sum of Life which yet is due to Nature he payeth before his Day to his own Wantonness yet he Liveth and holdeth out longer than almost any other that we may easily see that if he lived as Chastly and in other points as Orderly as the rest he might far pass and over-run them all in this Race of Life and Continuance But methinks I hear them whisper that I forget my self and the Bounds of my Long Life when I make Men able to live as long and longer than any Beast for to let pass the Hart and Camel which overtake the longest life of our old Men sure the Elephant as we have heard goeth far beyond the very bounds of Age especially the Raven whom Euripides will have to live Nine of our Ages These may seem sore matters but chiefly the last uncurable and yet they are indeed light and easie and the last most of all I mean the Raven for if there was never yet Man of sound Judgement and Knowledge in the wayes of Nature that allowed the Story and Aristotle by name condemns it when he giveth the Elephant the longest Life of all and Man next to him what should we reckon of a Poets Record Besides doth not one among them confess himself they are not to be believed and held as Witnesses Doth not Plato once a Poet and then a wise Philosopher chase them up and down in all places and in one say They be besides themselves when they sit on their Muses stool and run like a Spring pouring out all that comes Are they not in all wise Mens account the greatest Enemies to GOD good Manners and all right and true Knowledge that ever the World or the Devil bred But I slide too far unawares and if we must of force receive this aged Raven yet perhaps there shall be no great hurt received and I cannot see why we may not match him with Methusalem and some other aged Fathers in Holy Writ reported to have lived as many years as Nine of our Lives come to with advantage It is not enough to say that which some say those Years to be meant for Moneths and not as we account them for albeit I know the Aegyptians reckon so as we may see in Pliny where some of them are said to live a thousand Years apiece that is so many Moneths yet it is agreed among the Divines Men best skill'd in these Matters that the Jews account was otherwise even as we and almost all other Nations make it But if this ancient Story of our old holy Man be a thing in doubt or certainly untrue and to be meant of Moneths yet our Aged Raven may go with it and the Father of that Tale together And we may when we will pass to the
be found even any gentle continual equal and moist that is any rotting Heat But the Seed seemeth hard and unable to be matched because a kinde of strange and hid proportion and temper of our Body which no Man by conceit and knowledge much less by hand and workmanship can reach and counterfeit no not if he boiled all the Mixtures in all the Heats that all the Wits in the World could devise made it thus after his own fashion Then how if we take the same frame and temper not by us but by Kinde proportioned I mean the same Blood Flesh and Seed if we will which the Man of Germany chooseth and commendeth above all and calls it Mummia would it not be very natural for if the Leaches hold it good if any part about us fail in his duty to correct and help him with the like part of some Beast passing in that property as to mend fainting Lust with the Yard of a Lusty Beast the Womb that cannot hold with the Womb of a quick Conceiver Narrow breathing with the Lungs of a long-winded Wight and so forth then consider with how much more kindly consent we might with our own parts finely dressed help our selves in our Diseases But for my part I cannot unwinde the bottom of this great Secret of Germany for we mean not to make a Man which is to be feared in that course if his Rule be true but a first Moisture onely and then sith all things are made of the same Stuff by the same Workman and differ but by Mingling onely it boots not where we begin and upon what Stuff in stead of that Seed if we give him the same Mingling and form at the last which Art is able in time to do because that which Kind is forced to do at once she may do often and so reach the end of Nature What need I say more Is not the Matter clear enough that another fast fine Oyl and first Moisture may be made in all points like to our own and able to maintain or repair it and the natural Heat together and then that by the same though other easie means would serve because it is so temperate the Body may be brought and held in square and temper And so by reason all the Causes meet and flock together that Life may be preserved I dare not say for Ever for fear of the stroke of Destiny which GOD hath made and will have kept but unto that Term and those Bounds above-set and beyond them also if any Man have ever gone beyond them But if it should chance any of our chosen Children to use the phrase of our Family to be unable yet for all this teaching to take and digest this Food of Learning what is to be done shall we cast them off for untoward Changelings as the foolish Women think or else for Bears and Apes as Galen did the Germans No that were Inhumanity Let us rather nourish them still easily and gently hoping that they will one day prove Men and give it out unto them That all the most Wise and Cunning Men in the World I mean all the Hosts of Hermetists have from Age to Age ever held but under Vails and Shadows somewhat covertly and taught for certain that such a first fine Oyl whereof I spake and which they call a Fifth Nature Heaven or by a more fit name Aether is able alone to hold together the brittle state of Man very long above the wonted race both in Life Health and Lustiness Nay for fear there be yet some suspicion left in their Authorities I will go further As many of the other side of Greece as had travelled in these Matters and seen something though not with Eyes but in Minde I think confess the same as besides them which perhaps I know not Fernelius in part and altogether Ficinus and Cardan two as wily and learned Men as any time hath of late brought forth do openly declare in their Writings But if this soft and easie kinde of delivery will not yet serve the turn and they must feed their Eye as well as their Belly as the Proverb goes then let them tell me by what diligence did Plato so order Himself and school his Body to use his own words as he could be able to cause Nature to end his dayes at his pleasure And by Departing upon the same day Eighty one years after his Birth to fulfill of purpose Nine times Ninè the most perfect Number Might he not have had some such Medicine Nay is it not like he had when he was in Aegypt among the Priests and Wise-men and brought home Learning from them and when he speaks so much and often in disgrace of his own Country Physick though Hippocrates himself then reigned But it is for certain written in divers of our Records that many of those wise Aegyptians the Springs of this Water of Life have before and since Plato by the self-same Water kept themselves twice as long as Plato if I might bring in their Witness or if this whole proof which I like full ill were not counted by the Art of proof unskilful Then let this one Example told by Cardan a Man allowed among them serve for all That one Gallus of late Charles the Fifth his Physician by this Heaven of ours beset with Stars as some do term it that is increased with the Spirits of Herbs by an easie feat put into her preserved himself in lusty sort until a hundred and twenty four Years Neither think that Mixture better than our single Oyl though Lully Rupescisse Paracelsus and some others allow it so but rather worse in Reason for too much Heat in a weak and loose Body worse I mean for Long Life by his over-greediness in eating up too fast his own and our first Moisture It may be better because it is stronger against Diseases even as the Leaches judge between a Dunghill and a Garden Herb for the same cause But I think the devise not good in either nor agreeable to the Justice of Nature which more evenly weigheth her Works nor yet to the kindly skill of HERMES who to the great heat of his Medicine hath a most fast tough and lasting Stuff according as we shall shew in that which followeth Now it is time to rest we have made the first a long dayes Journey CHAP. II. Of HEALTH AFter a Man hath ended his desire to Live he begins to wish for Health without which no Life is sweet and savoury Then let us bend our Selves that way next and endevour to shew the Means besides the Way of HERMES how every Man may get and keep his Health that is as I partly told you before the consent and equal I mean agreeable to Kinde temper and dulling of the four first Beginnings the Stuff of our Bodies for if this Knot be broken and they let loose towards their former liberty they wax proud and strong and fight
nameless Matter forty days together and although this answereth not the Question yet it sheweth the truth of the former holy Story for if he in so foul and gross a Diet as the common Diet is could so long want it why not those Men for ever in so clean and fine a Diet almost empty and void of all Leavings for the grosser sort which make up this foul and shameless one were left before as you heard and the finer in that passage from the Stomach through the former Guts were drawn all away to the Liver as the like is ever in us and voided other wayes To close up all Mecaenas Augustus his Minion slept not one wink for his three last years space together as Pliny reporteth And thus we see these strange things fall out in proof But how I cannot stand to shew first Nature suffers them then Use and Custom another Nature brings them in that we may well believe the like in this matter of Meat we have in hand for as the Bear according to the guise of many Beasts that lurk in Winter fasteth forty dayes so Cardan tells of a Scottish young Man in the Popes Court at Rome that by use brought himself to Fast thirty dayes together which by use might have been three Hundred three Thousand as well if he had ordered himself thereafter by slow and creeping Custom and by such Means as I set down before So we see I say great worldly Wonders prove plain and easie Truths in the sight of Wisdome and that by the means aforesaid where are moe than one if this like them not they may take another it is possible for all Men by Kinde and Custom to keep their Health for ever Let us come to the next point that it is as well to be recovered if it were lost and that all Diseases may be cured This is a point much harder than the first even so beset and stopt with all kindes of Letts and Incumbrances that a Man can scarce tell which way to set a Foot forwards First appears Aesculapius Hippocrates and Plato the chief among the Grecians bearing in hand sundry Diseases of both kindes both came by descent and gotten by purchase hopeless and past recovery and giving over the Men that owe them for troublesome to themselves and to the Common-wealth Then you may see Galen and his soft and fine Company with him and those with a long train of Caters and Cooks after them loaden with all kinde of dainty Drugs stand forth and cry They have these many Ages devoured heaps of Books and took endless pains in sâ—arching out the Natures of single Medicines and making Mixtures of the same and yet could hardly cure some Agues and other less Diseases But for the four Stagers to wit the Gout Leprosie Dropsie and Falling-sickness they could never heal them and have for Oracles set them down incurable What were best to be done in this matter What shall we set against the weight of so many great Mens Authorities Marry put them in Ballance as we have done hitherto and weigh them with Truth and Reason But where shall we finde it say they As it is every where as Democritus said drowned in the Deep so in this Matter it is scattered all about and largely spred withall for there be three things and every one full of under-branches belonging to this Art and way of Healing The first is knowledge of the Diseases the second is the Remedies against them and the third of the appliance of Remedies All which should be traversed in this Discourse But it shall not need I hope nay we must take heed how we enter into so large and long a Race in so short and narrow a compass of time appointed Especially being never run before by any of our worthy Ancestors the wise Aegyptians whose steps we strive to follow for when they have once hit the Mark they shoot at and gotten the great and general MEDICINE curing with ease all Diseases they think it straight enough and an empty and needless labour as it is indeed to trouble themselves and their Children with large Rules about innumerable signs and causes of Infinite Diseases and about such other small particulars in appliance Neither would I have you set Paracelsus and his heirs upon me and say they have taken great and goodly pains in this field you will then force me to speak my Fantasie Though this Man to let his Scholars go as too young yet by great Light of Wit wherewith he flowed and by long proling about both with Eyes Ears and Hands in the Mysteries of Aegypt saw and performed many of their Deep Secrets yea and found out some of his own worthy praise albeit I think a number feigned yet his new Art and Rules of Healing are not good in mine Opinion for First against the Example of his Ancestors from whom he had received all things and then in spight and disgrace of Galen for mis-calling his Country-men as you have heard but chiefly carried away with a mad and raging desire of Fame and Honour he took in hand a Man unfit to do it to pull down and rase the old Work of Physick and to set up that strange and famous New one Then see how it is performed He sets down some false Rules some waste and idle and some wanting and all unconstant disordered and unlearned Where he doth well as he doth sometimes he doth no more than was done before him and brings in the same things disguised with new odde cross and unheard-of Names such as may move Wonder at the first but when they be scanned laughter as Tully saith of the Stoicks like device in Philosophy And that I do not slander them for this is no Cause I could easily prove if this place would admit such a Volume Wherefore let us follow the true and right Aegyptians and leave Paracelse in this ill Matter or light one if it were good and spend all our care and thought about that which is all good Medicines and Remedies against Diseases with which old Wives in the Country and simple Men on our side I mean simple in respect of the Graecian Subtilties about Nothing have healed most nay even all Diseases and with which indeed the German let us give him his due praise hath utterly slain the Graecian Physick and herein done much for Mankinde by descrying and dispatching our close and secret Enemy which under colour of friendship and fighting against our Enemies hath this long time betraid us and done us much mischief which thing one of their best Captains and Pillars of their State Fernel by name after he had been a while in Aegypt began to smell at last and to repent him of all his former pains which we know were great bestowed in that kinde of Healing saying it to be but Words and the whole force and weight of this Art to lean upon the Knowledge of the virtues of
and cherish the Life within and you may help and amend Nature and make any Plant flourish and bear in Winter How is that But an easie matter plant it in a Stove and cover the Root with Horse-dung and the rest with Chaff and you shall see the proof if not the profit worth your cost and travel The same is seen in Beasts But let us leave the middle that we come not to the end too late Then why are Children and old Folk less active fruitful and beautiful than the younger sort but for want of heat for let the Sun the first day as Galen saith or before the Birth as I shewed be greatest in store bulk and quantity because it waxeth and waneth still with his food our first Moistner and this from thence decayeth daily yet this quality strength and activity which maketh him worthy the name of Heat is then little as drowned with over-much forreign and strange wetness like as we see in a green Faggot and unable to work his will and shew himself either to knit the Sinews for Strength or concoct the Blood for Seed and Colour before that forreign moisture be spent and gone which is not in long time Now for old Folks what is so clear as this that by reason of the daily decay of the food of Life the fainting heat le ts the strong knot of Strength and Lustiness slack and loose again and the good concoction and colour of Blood which before made Seed and Beauty to decline and grow to waterishness In the same case are sick Men and Women for the same cause And albeit Women have their Seed yet it is not hot and quickning Seed but a dead Stuff onely fit to receive Life and Fashion And admit they be more fair and smooth than Men which are hotter it comes by chance because the foul Leavings the blemish of Beauty by the force of manly heat are driven outwards when the slackness of the heat of Women suffers them to remain within and turn into Menstrues a thing more grievous and noisom in truth than Beauty is delightsome And thereof Aristotle very well calls her a Weak Man which our Tongue more fitly calls a Wombed-man and he makes the Male in all kindes to be that which is able to concoct the Blood and that which is not the Female Then if it be cleared of all doubt that the chief strength of heat is the cause of the flower of Age and Youth and nothing else in the World Let us take and stick to that matter and see how that may be maintained first and then restored I will not urge the way of upholding heat in Plants abovesaid nor yet the witness of the German who hath found out means for the same both in Plants and Wights as he teacheth in his High Opinions Nor yet make Account of those Examples which by course of Nature good Order of Life have done well and drawn near to this matter as of Lucia the Player who pronounced upon the Stage at Rome an hundred years together nor of Cornelia who bare Saturnine the Consul after sixty two years nor yet of King Massâ—nissa who about Ninety got a Childe and ever tâ—avelled both in Frost and Snow bare-headed nor of such other like notably marked with long continued Life and Lustiness I will come to the point at once Pliny such an Autbor reporteth that the whole Nation of India liveth long free from all Diseases well-nigh and grief of Body not once touched with ache of Head Teeth or Eyes nor troubled with spitting all the great Companions as we see of Age that we may gather by likely guess when they know not the Companions the thing it self is unknown to them But what needs any guessing when the same Man sor certain and in plain Terms assureth That in that part of India where the Sun being right over their heads casteth no shadow the Men are five Cubits and two handfuls high and live an hundred and thirty years never waxing Old and being when they Die as in their middle Age and chief Strength and Lustiness what needed more words If this Report be true as we may not easily doubt of such an Author then sure this matter is not impossible as they would have it but all Men if they lived in such an Air and took so good a race of Life as I described I must still fly to that succour might preserve their Youth and never was Old until the term and stint of Life appointed Or if this kinde of teaching be now somewhat stale and bare with wearing yet perhaps some other means may be found for the matter in the Store-house of Skill and Cunning. Let us see much more briefly than we have done before because this part is already well-nigh dispatched so straight is the link of all these helps that one can scarce be loosened without the rest and all must go together Then what means may we finde what preserveth this natural and heavenly Heat of ours the common use taketh hot Meats and Drinks and thinks that these preserveth Heat and Nature as simply as if a Man should put Lime to the Root of a Tree which he loved for as this hastneth the Fruit with Heat but kills the Stock with Drought and soaking up the lively juyce and moisture so in them their hot Meats out of kinde laid to the Root of Life quicken and stir up the Spirits the fruit of Life for a season but withall under-hand drink up and waste the first Moisture that is the whole Stock of Nature and so by softning thus the hardness of Age as if it were Iron in the Fire they make it seem for a time Youthful and Lively yet it is but a vain and empty shew and shadow and as Iron when it comes out of the Fire is the harder for it so they make their Age more unwieldy and draw it on the faster by that means And that is the very cause together with Care and Pleasure why Princes and Nobles by drying up their Bodies in that sort live not so long for the most part nor in so good Health as other Folk and depart especially at such times if the Report be true as those bushed Stars called Comets appear Because whether it be a stedfast Star or an Elemental Flame I am not to dispute such Questions here it is never seen but in very fine and dry Weather which consumes dry Bodies and sends them packing and besides though it be besides my purpose turns good humours into scum called Choler cause of Broil and Sedition and so making as we see the Bush-starr a plain sign of both these matters but causes of neither What then preserveth Heat Learned Men have brought in certain fine fat and aiery Meats as Butter Oyl and Honey and commended them for very great helps and means to preserve Life and Youth for both are done by one way and under one but
and Heat which I scant touched there and yet it should be handled because although it be not so needfull as the former yet it cannot in any case be wanting For as a Martiall People like unto Mars as we term it and Valour it self loseth his Glory and Brightnesse in Peace and Quietnesse So this Heat that rules our Body though he be never so strong and lusty yet he cannot so soon rest as he decayes and as it were rusts with Idlenesse Nay the Body it self being as I shewed above an ayery and fiery temperature must needs have quick Motion as one of the two Pillars of his Estate And therefore Plata by the Example of the great World very well adviseth us still to move both Body and Mind and that together if we mean to have them long to continue And we find his counsell good by daily proof when we see those that move the Memory most as wise and learned Men to hold it longest but because they doe not for the most part exercise their Body to lose that quickly whereas quite contrary the common sort by reason they move this much and that other little are a great while in Body lusty when their Memory is gone as quickly How Moving increaseth Heat appeareth in all places first in the spring of all Heat the Sun above which could in no wise serve to stretch so far as to heat half the World at once if those huge heaps of heavenly Beams and Spirits were shut up fast as they be in stones and metals and such like close and hard lower lodgings and not as we see them most free quick lively and swiftly stirring No more doth any Fire below burn so fiercely as that by a cold blast driven up close together we see to move and stir most lively To passe the Lightning as the swiftest so the strangest fire in the World and a number more such proofs for what should I stand so long upon so plain a matter Motion doth not onely increase Heat where it is but beget and purchase it of nothing and not onely that way which every Man seeth by rubbing two hard things together but also by grating an hard thing against the soft and yielding Ayre which is somewhat rare yet known to the Babylonians in time past when they used to roast Egges by whirling them about in a sling in the same manner And so those Archers that have seen the leaden Heads of their Arrows to melt in flying so great a father of Heat is Motion that we may judge easily he is able to keep it when it is once gotten Now if this be sufficiently shewn and proved we need bestow the less labour in teaching Men how to move their Heat and Spirits because every Childe that can go can do it and it is enough to exhort them that love themselves to do it Then by these two Means of like Heat and Motion we have our Youth still that is our chief Colour Fruitfulness and Activity Is there any thing else These make up all the being and nature of Youth except you fear the loss of his Hang-byes and appurtenances which are Teeth the sweetness of Breath the smoothness of the Skin and of Hair the colour that is natural But it is no danger if you will let me run them over for if our Heat and Moisture remain without decay first the Jaw-bones wherein the Teeth be mortized will be full and moist able to gripe and glew and so to hold the same from falling Then as ill Smell comes of rawness and want of Heat to concoct it Wrinkles of Cold which makes to shrink and gathers that together which heat spreads abroad smoothly and grey Hairs from the same cause for when our Natural Heat faints and fails it withdraws it self from the outmost and coldest parts soonest and leaves the Moisture raw which for lack of inward Heat and Salt to keep it lies open to the force of outward Cold whence comes all rottenness and from this a white Coat and hoariness Therefore we see why Sickness and Sorrow bring grey Hairs so fast yea sometimes presently As to pass by the plainer you shall hear of one strange Example of a sorrowful young Gentleman of Italy that being faln into the hands of Pirats and laid wrapt in a Sail ready to be cast over-board and within four and twenty hours space released and set at liberty by great Grief and Fear forcing his Heat to retire to the Heart his Castle made his Head white and aged in that space and could never get it turn again all his life which was long after And so we have this point briefly and easily dispatched because it was a loose and easie matter But the next that is to recover Young Years spent and blown away seems no such thing nor to be used in that Order for as a new and strong Building by due and daily reparation is kept sound a long time whereas if for lack of care it be once faln to decay it cannot without great cost and time be renewed even so it is of our Body As it is easie if it be taken in time with heed to preserve it so if by Negligence the Weather have once beat in and made it rotten it seems a marvellous work to repair it Although indeed it be much harder not onely than his fellow but then all the rest that went before yet we will not give it over now and like an idle Poet faint in the last Act of Life wherefore let us go forward and with all our endevour strive to shew that Youth long before lost though not easily yet as well may be recovered as it was before preserved There be so many kindes of waxing Young again named in Philosophy and given to the nature of Wights that it were good first to sort them out to say which we mean in this place lest our labour fall into their hands that can quickly mistake One of these wayes is by Name onely and not in deed as when the soft and bark-skinned Beasts use by course of kinde twice a year at the Spring and Fall of the Leaf to cast off their upper Coat and Skin they say they put off Old Age and wax Young again when it is in truth the putting on of Age rather and decay of Nature as appeareth to them that know the Cause that even for very Cold and Drought the two plain Ear-marks of Age their Skins do loosen and wither away There is another kinde as far in extremity that other way and altogether in deed which Alomaean calls joyning of ones End to his Beginning and which he saith Man cannot do and therefore dies And this is and ever was the Opinion not of Poets onely but of Philosophers and not of Greece onely but of all Nations except our old Aegyptians Men alwayes in all rare Wisdom excepted These Men as I said above do not onely use to mark the