VVhen neither Sea nor bind coopt in a ring Keept their conseruatiue place nor any thing Had an essentiall forme or element Circle or Center had true complement Of Art or nature but when heauen and earth Had from confusions bowels knawne the birth Of this faire Child nam'd Cosmos the Mouers eie Distinguisht this faire obiect of the skie From his disordred masse with all this globe And suted it in farre more formall robe Of quantitie and figure Then began All lights to light the Makers darling MAN For which indeer'd creation and respect This Microcosme of man was made errect With vpright speculation lineally To view this rich imbrodred Cannopie Of those Coelestiall bodies and begin 〈◊〉 crie Heauen is my Countrie Earth my Inne But leauing him to Heauen of Earth we sing As being of the world the perfects thing In the Creations wonder and the end Of our aspiring hopes which we ascend 〈◊〉 to our locall blisse and naturall place To end euen there where neuer ended grace Of Heauen THis glorious globe of heauens resplendent ball Trapt richly with his lights pontificall Fountaine of motion by which euery starre Is whirld from East to West orbicular In foure and twentie houres as Shepheards say Trotting the circuite of the naturall day Is of no frame nor forme geometricall But round of body and as Sphericall As the Egyptian Sages did compare The winding Snake vnto the circled yeere For of all figures this doth best appeare Euery way shewing a iust hemis pheare Bending vpon it selfe most capable To comprehend this frame so strong and able To boulster vp this loade and ponderous frame As it hath neither ioynts but still the same Keeping his actiue body aply sound As it is iointlesse pointlesse endlesse round Now whether this pure quintessence of nature Be euerliuing or a dying creature Or whether that diuine intelligence That giues to heau'n his turning excellence Giue essence or assistance as without The soule that moues it it were still from doubt Of what we call it now as ships that scowre The Oceans curled billowes by the powre And cunning of the Pilote eu'n to that clime Where that great idoll gold Saint of the time To whom the Indian Pilgrimes sacrifice Such three yeares Hecatombs of widowes cries Speaking in golden Oracles of drosse The Brusses murmure and the Mariners losse And yet at last returne with crazed slides With grasse-greene ribs furd with tempestuous tides With two or three aliue the Pilotes hand Guiding the sickely vessell to the land By which we see his forme and name he saues Although the Pilotes motion plowes the waues With card and compasse so in naturall sense Heau'n takes no forme from his intelligence Which onely like a Pilote sweetly steeres The harmony of nature in the spheares With powre assistent and their motions carrie With certaine lawes and statutes voluntarie That as when euery element doth striue To moue vnto his place conseruatiue As being so imperfect and so base That they must pine and die without a place And locall conseruation yet is heau'n a creature Of such a perfect quintessense of nature That it esteemes not place for conseruation But to another end of generation Moues with his powerfull influence whence began Our Schooles to ring the sun and man get man But leauing these to treade the thornie maze Of Schoole-cram'd Sophistrie againe we raise Our haughtie Muse to flie with sollid wings And search with starres and subcelestiall things For since we see that by the loadstones might The yron age is drawne where with delight The readers eye doth fansie and mens wits Like Bagpipes sound no sound but pleasant fits We are resolu'd to plucke such fruits from schooles And once to please Physitians knaues and fooles For to all these I know our booke shall come Packe Doctor to thy vrine and be dumbe The sottish Empericke onely fooles haue land And so haue countrey-knights these these command The Muses sonnes with an idolatrous knee To pray to Angels or a noble fee Of some poore Pamphlet Hence bastards to your sire Whilest we reuiue our quicke Promothean fire The number of these turning spheares of heauen Some say but nine others affirme eleuen Which all Diuines more full of holy fire Nam'd sacred Hirarchies where the blest quier Of heauenly Angels and true Martirs rides That with triumphant wreaths shall iudge the tribes The order of the Orbes caelestiall Are numbred thus the first imperiall So called of the Greekes as being a place Most full of holy light and Angels grace Whose blessed soules from passion doe suruiue Their substance onely being definitiue Not circumscriptiue as our bodies be With the aires cincture or concauitie Their bodies free from any locall span Of grose dimensions or precinctes of man And therefore in one bodie spirits dwell All in one place more then large Art can tell For round about the iust mans life and merits Million of Angels and bright flaming spirits Shall at one time and in one place vnite Their most regardant powers infinite And vnextended in our bodies moue With subtill motion from their place aboue Either to saue with a protectors will Heauens glorious darling or by their power distill With whippes of vengeance by their power diuine In Legions name possessing men and swine This Heauen the seate of those most happie soules Whose summum bonum all true blisse enrowles Was that third heauen whose glorious excellence Most sweetly rauisht Pauls admiring sence That steept in Loethe of so blest a trice He prayes to be disolued to Paradice And gorg'd with holy raptures full of grace He sings th' Abysse blisse riches of that place The second is the primum mobile So called by Sages in Philosophie Because as from so cleare and christall spring Proceeds the birth death motion of each thing Being the first that in his iust Carrere Deriues all motion to each second Spheare And yet himselfe in golden meane doth ride Equall in motion like the sacred guide Of some prime reuerent Prelat whose great Sea Is mou'd with hauenly Regularite Diuine in motion and Diuine in place Free of his learned influence rich in grace Oh pardon me dull age if I proclaime His venerable life more then his name Suparlatiuely gratious barke Heriticks to see Such Metropolitan vniformitie VVhilest your great fisherman in Tibers flood Shall moue in purple streames of royall blood And with disorderd orders turne the keyes To locke young fooles in Limbo and with ease Martyr a fond Apostate who reconcild By a graue goate-like father liues exild In some Sulphureous troope of Iesuites Whose powder-treason-Collidges inuites A Tiborne resolution whether sent or come Dies Traitors here and halter Saints at Rome But with a certaine order moues our heau'n Not swift nor slow but paraleld and euen From whence we truly know and can define Her motion heauenly and write it in the line Of Orthodoxall faith which moouing stands
On Peters rocke and not on Peters Sands The third in order of these things Diuine Is that bright heauen transparent Christaline Hauing no twinkling starre or glistering pride But like some waterie body clarified From wheÌ„ce some say that wheÌ„ the world was made And that great Elohim the globes bases laid Dispersing darkenesse and the tenebrous night To formes of beautie and celestiall light That then his mightie Spirit heauen did moue To seperate those waters from aboue From these below and to this element To place his likenesse in the firmament For since we see that seaes with earth compare And heauen with earth in things that likely are The earth brings foorth the dog the foamie maine And Heauen it selfe equiuocates the same When with his singing and canicular beames He bakes the earth and dries the Christall streames And therfore with Harmonious consent Heauen hath proportion to this Element And thus we reade in natures Characters Like liues with like to shun intestine warres The fourth heau'n is that glorious spangled globe Embost with starres and like a gorgeous robe Purl'd ore with natures Ape and Zany-art Trailes downe his starrie traine and doth impart Day to black night and with his groue of starres Like candles shine to wind wrackt Marriners Some fixt some wandring in their tinsell'd Orbe Whose number fixt Philosophers record To be one thousand two and twentie cleare Well knowne vnto the Sea-cuft Maâ—riner By these the iocund Boateson at first sight Soust with the Ruffin seaes and scratch with might Whistle a maine and from the hatches skip The nimble squires of the dancing ship And fearelesse kick the billowes with disdaine Tearing the curled bowels of the maine These giue propension to each mans deffects And by their fatall influence and aspects Besides that vniuersall prouidence On whose great nod depends each consequence Of second causes from their crittick powers At Caesars birth acts Caesars tragick howers But if their kind coniunctions smiling meete Our first natiuitie and with a sweet And Iouiall dalliance in a golden shower Kindly imbrace our first conceptions hower Then shall Augustus though but meane by birth Sway seuen hill'd Rome and taxe the verge of earth Foot-boyes shall pearch with Kings Tanners ride On great Seianus courser side by side With some most Lordly Consull Rearemice flie By daylight with the Eagles maiestie And will not reason mount Agathocles The Potters sonne to the Piramides Of honour and high state what vertue marres And hates in fooles shall prosper by their starres Yet feare not thou whose crabbed fate suspends Thy fortune progresse and whose learned ends Aimes at eternitie though whipt with need And dogged censure and whose wounds doe bleed With times incision sterne authoritie Dissecting Arts like an Anotomie Reading their physick lectures to the eares Of our contempts to greatnesse great in feares And pale suspects who iealious of deserts Doe Sepulcher aliue both Armes and Artes For thou in spight of their maleuolent rage Times simony and furie of the Age Ecclipses and all Planetarie hate Like a Byssextile-yeere shalt leape thy fate Wise men like sluces in the plague of warres Were made to rule those onely rule the starres Nor can base Gypses tell them of their fate Impostors with their figures calculate Of blacke futuritie Astrologie diuine The ascendent fortune of their heauenly signe For wise men are not borne as Midwiues be To waite on luckie howres or for the fee Of Bisket influence their vertue barres The superstition of such gossipping starres But more then man his reason rules the skies His manhood shares a godhead that is wise In this faire starrie Mirrour of the skie Damaskt with beautie and varietie Of thousand constellations whose cleare flames Are knowne in maps by their celestiall names For there the faire Oryon and the Beare Maior and Minor grace this hemispheare Swift Pegasus and Perseus radiant light Burnish the tan'd face of the blackemores night Bright Cassiopeia and Ioues Eagles shines Besides the constellations of the signes Which euery foole in Physicke can make good Their vse in purges pills and letting blood And euery Almanacke druggest poorely read Can tell what witlesse signe raignes in his head But leauing these beyond their yearely date To smoke an Indian sulphure we create Againe our hallowed Altars and in fires Of morrall vowes our sacred Muse aspires Tell me thou graue and mightie Stagerite Oracâ—lous Schocleman whose deluding light The lothsome Epicure and horrid sect Of damned Atheisme follow with direct And eager sent what genius could deuise To spread so large such monstrous heresies That euen besides graue Orpheus and the rest Proclus and Plinie and the learned brest Of sharpe Auerroes Christian Atheists crie The world 's eternall and shall neuer die VVhen by the state of starres we may discrie The world 's firme ruin and mortalitie And Platoes creature hauing life and breath As they decline shall languish vnto death And as a crazed bodie full of howers Renders his siluer head and vitall powers His radicall moisture spent and euery part Gasping for motion from the panting hart To natures disolution so shall passe Both heauen and earth vnto their pristine Mars Although some say that this great Continent And all this glorious guilt-hatcht firmament Shall change his forme and accidentall frame Although the part substantiall be the same Alleaging for their weake Philosophie This sacred place of sweet diuinitie Yet by the fall of starres our reasons prooue A totall wrack of earth and heauen aboue For first we see the Sunne whose bright Carrier Trots through the ring of time and dates the yeer In his diurnall progresse now declines More neere the earth then in the former times When learned Ptolome obserued the starres Their houses signes and different characters Cheering old Ops now doting with long daies VVith cordiall flames and charitable rayes That else in this consumption would exspire VVanting so bright a Nurse whose cheering fire Restores her health with his preseruatiue cure Adding new life to her old temperature Besides infection of each element Corruption of the purest temperament Physitions now turne Satyrs and complain That nature is a stepdame in the frame Of this last Age when croking Rauens sing Their liues large Charter merrier then a king The stately Stag a hundred yeares shall graze But man to wormes meate turnes in fewer dayes Pigmies for Gyants that with Babell power Were wont to scale the high Olympiade Tower And wrastle with the Gods now dwarfes are borne Ne're made to fight but made to natures scorne The Arcadian Kings two hundred yeares did liue But now the thriftie heauens doe scarcely giue Halfe of that pension to the noblest man His graue but sixe foot long his life a span VVhich shewes the world corrupted from his best Declines his setling progresse to the west For since all things from their sincere creation Couet absurdities in generation And euery thing steales to his priuatiue
heu quanta patimur cum musarum alumni fulmine hoc attoniti obstupescimus modulamur lepidè viuimus misere non vbera porrigit mater Academia vae nobis apud ecclesiasticos darivacuum apud philosophos nequaquam clamitant vulgi non esse motum generationis sed corruptionis haec communis glossa populi hinc lachrimae nostrae hinc singultus et gemitus virtutis penè sepultae quae adeo squalida et pannosa apparet vt nulla fides fronti Asylum tuum inter haec efflagito tu qui Atheis strenue effulges obstaculum mihi adsis et opusculo propugnaculum quod scripsi tua venerabili et paterna indulgentia nullam patietur apostasiam aut authorem suum abnegabit lurida aetas suauiorem non meretur fabulam aut cantilenam quà m vitiosam illius corruptelam acctoso plectro profligare cetera sileo supplex pro tua in terris vita in coelis corona militans ego non triumphans musophilos finem impono Gratiae tuae et summae pietati deuotissimus Robertus Anton. THE PHILOSOPHERS SECOND Satyr of Saturne ♄ THe next aboue this kingly Planets place Highest of all is Saturn's fullen face Pale and of ashie colour male content A Catelline to mortall temperament That would blow vp the Capitol of man With enuious influence melencholy wan And much resembling a deepe plodding pate Whose sallow iawbones sinke with wasting hate At others streames of fortunes whil'st alone His shallow current dries with lasting moane And if there hate be in a heauenly brest This Plannet with that furie is possest Suspending our propention with bad fate Inspiring Tragick plots of death and hate Torturing our inclinations like a wrack To dismal proiects ominous and black Prodigious thoughts and deepe-fetcht treacheries Beating the skul with sullen phantasies And marke what downe-cast looks we see in Nature This Planet fathers for a fatall creature And each profound plot drawne from sullen earth From Saturn's spirit is inspir'd with birth And yet Philosophers affirmed thus That Saturnists were most ingenious Who long retaine their great Italian-hate Wittie in nothing but things desperate To glut reuenge with studious memorie Of shallow wrongs or some slight iniurie VVhich if this be his wit to study ill Take my wits mad-man leaue me simple still Vnder this dogged starre th' infected moode Of discontented Graduates hatch their broode Flying like swallowes from the winters frost To warme preferment in a forren coast And there vent all their long digested hate In scandalous volumes gainst the King and State Flying from Tarsus to proud Niniuie Recusants both in faith and loyaltie Apostates in religion when they please Brauely to mount the Crosse they crosse the Seaes These from this humerous Planet suck their birth Leauing deepe wounds vpon their mother earth What cause hath mou'd thee thou deep malecontent To change thy faith with the aires Element If Angli are cald Angeli Oh tell Why hath their pride thrown these frō heauen to hel Is it because thou hast sung sweete in all The liberal Arts and now through want doost fall Or doost thou wonder at pluralities Impropriations or absurdities Of a lay Patron that doth still present An asse before a grand proficient Why maruell not at these preposterous crimes That very Heathen men in former times Haue scoft at in excesse of bitter iest And like true prophets thus these times exprest Giue to thy Cooke saith th' one full twenty pound To thy foole ten but to a man profound As thy Physitian ten groates shall suffice Thus thus appeares a Scholers miseries For should blind Homer come to sing his song With Lyrick sweetnesse or the Muses tongue Had he all languages that first began At the confusion to astonish man Yet with a Coachman he durst not contend For wages though Apollo stood his friend For thriue they cannot by the sacred Arts. A Coachman Taylor or the Faulkeners parts Dwell in the breast of greatnesse but indeed Time must haue changes though all vertue bleede Yet I could wish to turne the sullen tide Of their dull Planet to a rectified And more calme motion and a while restraine The turbulent billowes of their sullen vaine VVith temperat moderation to appease In Halcion-smoothenes all those rougher seaes Of passion and sequesterd discontent No aire so sweet as their owne Element As death to fish torne from their naturall place Expires their waterie spirits in like case That man that from his naturall mother flies Buried in strangers earth his dutie dies Yet time may calme that hot-spur'd violence Of fugitiue Saturnists as in naturall sense We see in heauie bodies throwne by force By strong compulsion thwarting natures course Chasing the aire with strong actiuitie Yet towards his end the moouing facultie Chast with precedent motion faints and dies And in consumption to his center hies VVhich is the cause why motions violent Their spirits spent creepe to their Element Which first were made of motion sith at last That vertue dies by which he first was cast As farre from his beginning So time shall change Their violent passions who are borne to range Transported with a furious discontent When all their Romish witchcrafts hath neere spent Their violent motion then with deere-bought paine They moue vnto their sweete-aire once againe Yet trust not to the mercie of the yeeres To reconcile by time that which appeares Times shame in thy originall despaire Once fall'n heauens may but wondrously repaire For though relapses are not cured with ease He 's safe that meetes his first spice of disease Which to preuent leaue of that surgerie That makes your soule a bare Anatomie And cuts the flesh of your more bleeding land With Lions hearts not with a Ladies hand In poysons counterpoysons doe contend Rather liue here poore then at Rome offend Vse learning as a looking-glasse to see What others are in thy infirmitie But not as burning-glasses gainst the Sunne To force a fire to thy ambition But as Archimedes his cunning plies That by reflection burnt whole Argos eies With artificiall glasses so from each hart His Countries good tithes the most punctuall part Of Art and Nature whose diuided ends Shares euerie man to Countrie Kings and Friends The seuen wise Sages of Philosophie Whom golden pages keepe in memorie In spight of Enuy crownd Art with this praise Their countreys wore the Oliue they the Bayes Which showes that Monarchies or Policy Diuided into this triplicity Then on a sollid base did firmly stand When Art was pure restoratiue to their land And prickt no veine of their owne natiue clime But gaue a temperet dyet to the time Vrging no forraine nations to enforce Their naturall tempers crosse to natures course Then learning florisht without Sophistry Or mixture of selfe-pleasing phantasie Reason did checke an high opinion'd minde And Schollers like some wealthy men definde To be but simplex animall that then Like citizens now were held the
Almanack With golden Epacts and new Moones doe crack The sturdie ioynts of Ephemerides With yeerely Sunnes and annuall compasses Whose merit euen the voice of God proclaimes With voice of all the people in the names Of our most reuerent Senate in which place Our graue Patricians more then th' outward grace Stands like a Center from whose point diuine To Brittanis Circle comes an equal line Of state and conscience which but drawne frō hence Makes vp an honor'd state-circumference 'T is not quick siluer'd-spirits that can run Throughout the vaine of earth with motion Of vnconcockted trauels that can merit The name of a State-mettall till the spirit By which his actiue nature still goes round Betempered with more massie stuffe and sound That in the winding Laberynth of state Iudicious eares may rightly terminate The most large bodies of the ranging time To a confin'd and superficiall line Not trauell but the minds graue residence That like the Sunnes vnited excellence Collected to the center of the glasse With greater vertue doth the obiect passe Makes a true States-man as in natures course Not euery motion can produce a force To be the cause of heate as in the Sunne We feele more heate when his hot beames doe runne vnited not disperst so fit for state Are iudgements setled and most temperate Not errant like a Planet but at rest Like the Polestarre with in his constant brest Then thou that snarl'st at their transcendent ranke And art thy selfe like some poore Mountibanke Made vp of drugges and tongues of euery land More fit for Ordinaries then command In the Abysse of state that with profound And perpendicular iudgements plumbes the ground Of euery scruple with deepe beames diuine Euen to th'vnmeasured bottom of each Mine The infinite thought creates repent thus farre Curse thy Dog-daies and rate thy sullen starre Packe foole to French-Baloone and there at play Consume the progresse of thy sullen day For such light pastimes suite a giddy braine Or if thy muddy and grosse feeding vaine Must needs be spic'd with Saturne walke More-fields The shades of malecontents whose causes yeelds Whole sholes of trauellers there may thine eies Surfet to see thy dull aspect arise And Planet-strike the Organ of thy sence With grosse and melancholly influence Cast here and there with enuious characters On lymping Souldiers and wild trauellers That sit a Sunning vnder some greene tree VVondring what riches are or rich men be But leauing these vnto the silent night Raw aires and hayecockes and the best delight Of such poore Grasshoppers that onely sing The Summer of their yeares with wandring Of fruitlesse voiages Next we present A gratious starre faire and beneuolent Drope Saturne with thy sullens to the earth VVhil'st Ioues bright star gets more auspicious birth Of Iubiter TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTIE PRINCE CHARLES a long life mortall and immortall TO you sweet Prince I sacrifice these lines Princes should liue by princely disciplines 'T is most collaterall Manna Angels foode It 's not so princely to bee great as good Planets rule man but Princes as they are Cald gods sway vs by vertue rule their starre What almanaks haue written in their praise In you haue greater power that oreswaies The doubt of art for certainely we know The full Moones of your vertues how they grow I wish your life may runne as doth your starre Orbd noblie and most nobly regular Or rather more for heauenly things aboue If they but crosse vs haue more hate then loue The teeming plowman thus will curse their powers When starres doe promise more in shew then showers But you are farre more prosprous and shall shine Blest in your influence mortall and diuine Enough is said in fine this booke shall tell T is good to be borne great best to doe well Your graces poore Subiect R. A. THE PHILOSOPHERS THIRD Satyr of Iupiter ♃ NOt Iupiter transform'd to many shapes His transmutations or celestiall scapes Amorous imbracings and adulterate fires Hot scalding passions and vnchast desires Nor of his tri-form'd thunder we describe That mauld th' aspiring Giants for their pride But of a heauenly bodie from whose merit Heroick actions drawe a noble spirit Vnder this stately and maiesticke starre Made happie by the raigne of Iupiter Are all those royall actions sweetly sung By our Welch Bards or the poettick tongue Of rauishing Lyrickes whose high Muses sings Starre-kissing Poems of the state of Kings The swelling tide of time whose mightie flood Like to an Ocean curl'd the streames of blood Of Kings and Worthies with true honour died Vnder this Princely Planet stellified True noble sparkes that can the soule define In honord persons in this Planet shine And giues essentiall formes to royall bloods Eternall to their names more then their goods Or fortunes can distinguish and deriues True honor not in name but in their liues Gentilitie from hence so riches bred That like a silke-worme it spinnes out his web That others might giue armes and weare his good More rich in vertues then blaz'd forth in blood Young Alexander whose triumphant hand Like some great earthquake shooke the sollid land With warlike rufflings of his princely mind By this aspect was at his birth assigned To honord enterprices and from hence Imperiall scepters draw their eminence And euery noble action of high fame That giues to honor an immortall name To Chronicles and times this starre doth blesse With an eternall Trophie of successe Which since his Princely flames scornes common men In a heroicke furie chafes our pen Tell me thou Royall States man to the Sunne Great signior of the worlds perfection High Treasurer for honourable brests That with imperiall wreathes adornes their crests Where are those Heroes whom Iupiter Did canonize euen in their Sepulcher And after death blest with thy influence Enspheard their soules with thy intelligence Crane vp true honor through the horned Moone That now vsurpes the day and shames bright noone With their confused actions where are those That had more honour in their minds then clothes Great Caesars Court did shine with warlick hands Ieer Atlas Ieer and laugh at yellow bands That now do staine the times Tell Iupiter The worlds mad after Safforn and preferre A most sur-reuerence fashion like a purge Before the conquest of the worlds large verge Gentilitie lookes like some painted whoore Whom wise men pittie though times-Bands adore Rather bright starre of heauen drop from thy place And kisse the Chaos then thy smiles disgrace On their natiuities that doe pretend Their linage from the Sunne which loath doth lend His beames to such corruptions purified As that most noisome muckhill of their prides Whose vapors sluffe the organ of mans sense With such mortalitie of peslilence That each phantastick corner of the land Stinkes with infection of a yellow band And yet can boast their gentry from a starre Kinde in coniunction and familiar To their high Fates Laugh Laugh Democritus Heer 's a right Comedie though vicious
looke Like Sculs in Church-yards that but late was tooke From gastly bones as if the world did lust Like Sextons to appeare in deadmens dust As if their periwigs to death they gaue To meale it in some gastly dead mens graue And thus like Ghosts appeare to humane sight As if a resurrection should affright The weakenesse of our natures which indeed Should with diuiner vse the morrall reade Of their owne frailties and like Phillips slaue Ring a memento of their ashy graue Iust of that colour for in such a face I reade the horrors of that deadly place VVhere Golgotha was found this must I tell Nor Schrichowses nor the fatall passing-bell Makes me remember pale necessitie Eternall silence of mortalitie Nore oft then powdred faces oh ther 's grace Th' are liuing graues and haue a sauing face Hence then you horrid drugs that do consume The noble rankes like graues and yet perfume Your vglinesse with pleasure to the sense Chasing their bloods with your hot excellence Of lust and amorous charmes begon growe dull And decke the forehead of one gastly scull That our faire formes may in their beauties rise Admir'd for red and whites simplicities But now from Venus Nunnerie of Loue Vnto the god of shifts our spheare we moue Charme earth great Hermes with thy Snaky rod VVhilest Englands Ioy adores the shifting God TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFVLL AND WORTHY GENTLEMAM Sir Iohn Woodward Knight R. A. wisheth the best temporall happinesse and future riches Of Mercurie ☿ WOrthie Sir me thought I obserued in you a Saintlike adoration of vertue not to her Image but to her substance your actions crownes your worthy intentions and speakes you more then Gentleman like formalitie the eager appetite of her beautie makes me present her to you vnmaskt and vnpainted with adulterate complexion your incouragements are massie and this labour Geometrically proportioned to your person Your onely character is to be ingenious and generous I haue prooued it you may hap finde your natiuitie calculated vnder some of these Planets when their influence shall in some of them answer to your acute conceite I stand bound to you that haue so nobly espoused this labour for your bedfellow as Alexander kept Homers Iliades vnder his pillow this quintessence extracte◠from the Phylosophicall body of art without quacke saluing poetrie may perhaps teach you more then Paracelsian skill in the spirits of vertue and make you more then a bare professor of Alcumie rich and wealthie in the practise of her you know her grounds are infallible seeke her therefore in these Satyrs and proue rich in her Elixar Your worships to the best of art and power Robert Anton. THE PHILOSOPHERS SIXTH Satyr of Mercurie ☿ WHen I obserue how Alcumists disclose The fallacie of art with onely shewes Of Minerall spirits and with cheates present The alterations of each element And with their tricks like some most powerfull iet Draw greedy fooles to kisse the counterfet Of the Elixar as if art had done And made more gold then nature or the sunne Or their purse-purging-misterie of fire Could finde more wealth then Crassus could desire When I behold rich sweating Clownes bemone The losse of lands for the Philosophers stone Men of good worship gulld with oyles and glasses Pawning their plate in hope of gold like asses Oh then thou God of crochets and slie trickes My yerking Muse adores thy politickes When I behold a peasant rich in clothes Clad in a Tirian-die and skarlet hose Obscure in parentage and base in friends Hauing no lands to helpe but fingers ends And a false bale of dice and yet so roares In Ordinaries with his band of scoares And librarie of reckonings brauely payed With a high festiuall-surfet though displayed Then wittie Hermes tell the age permits How many gallants onely liue by wits When I obserue some Lawyer shift a case With Angels from his right from place to place Iuggle with by-clarkes and with counterfees Of either partie stretch their practises Vnto an Ambodexter course of right Smooth vp the weake and fawne on men of might Then winged Mercurie I doe admire The actiue flames of thy most subtill fire When I behold so many slights of men Eu'n from the scraping and rough Citizen Vnto the loftie-climing-dignitie Of some smooth Courtiers crauing subtiltie Then thou deepe charmer of quick Argus eies Thy art with thy bright planet doe arise When I behold a Vsurer ensnare The lauish issue of some hopefull heire Wrapt vp in bonds for some commodities With his damn'd broker by his policies Procures for composition then my braine Adores the Engins of thy wittie traine But tell me thou acute ingenious man That nam'st thy selfe a slie Mercurian Thou that like Scenica in memorie Transcends the vulgar in capacitie Thou whose rare vertues are vnparaleld VVhose words like Delphos Oracles are held Thou that do'st censure Homer to be blind Both in his mole-eied sense and in his minde And call'st thy selfe a wit at euery feast That cares to loose thy friends more then thy iest Keep'st company at Tauernes and canst write A baudie-pamphlet for a baudes delight Art criticall on stages and think'st Art To be diffus'd through euery sencelesse part Of thy weake iudgement like some great mans sonne Sent onely vnto Cambridge to begon Afore he reades his elements aright A great mans learning onely rests in sight Know'st thou not fend vsurper of sharpe man How art defines a true Mercurian Not euery Brazier though his art be rare Can equall skilfull Mirons molten mare VVhose brazen frame liue Stalions vs'd to couer As if to art proud nature were a louer Not euery limmer of phantastick shapes Can weare the name of Zeuxes for his grapes Not euery slash of ayres most subtill spirit Shall weare this planets influence with his merit Not euery brickel Poet that aspires And faine would flie with Sidneys noble fires Into the brest of greatnesse we insert Into the laureat Chor us of quick art And though the Kalends of these daies permits That euery man will companie the wits Scipio will haue his Ennius to indite And great Mecaenas baudy Horrace write A Pamphlet to I dolatrize their name Yet in the passage of immortall fame T is not the stirring motion of the pen Nor the phantasticke humors of those men No nor their flames begot in smoke and wine That can inspire their blockheads with diuine And most inuentions straines of rauishing fits Vnlesse great Hermes charme their apish wits VVith arts and deeper skill then that which wine Brings forth to shame good byrthes with bastard rime Nor euery Almanack-maker that can tell How euery Planet in his house doth dwell The quarters of the Moone and giue the reason To plow to purge to lib in euery season No nor a Gipses trickes in Palmestrie Can merit a true birth from Mercurie No nor a plodding Graduat deepe in art That searches euen the center and the hart Of euery scruple that with Snake-like twinnes