purer Elements and is called the Earth a thick and grosse substance very solid and by no means to be pierced through so that there is no solid and firm body but hath earth in it as also there is no vacant space but hath air in it This Element of earth is situate in the middle and centre of all and is round beset with all the rest and this only stands still and unmoveable whereas all the rest are carried with a circular motion round about it But Hippon and Critias held that the vapours of the Elements were the first beginnings Parmenides held that their qualities were the principles for all things saith he consist of cold and heat The Physitians hold that all things consist of four qualities hear cold moisture drouth and of their predominancy when they meet together for every Element doth embrace as it were with certain armes his neighbour-Element which is next situate to him and yet they have also contrary and sundry qualities whereby they differ for the wisdom of nature hath framed this workmanship of the world by due and set measure and by a wonderful fitnesse and conveniency of one thing with another for whereas every Element had two qualities wherein it agreed with some and disagreed with other Elements nature hath bestowed such a double quality upon every one as finds in other two her like which she cleaves unto as for example the air and the fire this is hot and dry that is hot and moist now dry and moist are contraries and thereby fire and air disagree but because either of them is hot thereby they are reconciled So the Earth is cold and dry and the water cold and moist so that they disagree in that the one is moist the other dry but yet are reconciled in as much as they are both cold otherwise they could hardly agree Thus the fire by little and little is changed into air because either of them is hot the air into the water because either of them is moist the water into the earth because either of them is cold and the earth into fire because either of them is dry and so they succeed each other after a most provident order From thence also they are turned back again into themselves the order being inverted and so they are made mutually of one another for the change is easie in those that agree in any one common quality as fire and air be easily changed into each other by reason of heat but where either of the qualities are opposite in both as in fire and water there this change is not so easie So then heat cold moisture and drouth are the first and principal qualities in as much as they proceed immediately from the Elements and produce certain secondary effects Now two of them namely heat and cold are active qualities fitter to be doing themselves then to suffer of others the other two namely moisture and drouth are passive not because they are altogether idle but because they follow and are preserved by the other There are certain secondary qualities which attend as it were upon the first and these are said to work in a second sort as to soften to ripen to resolve to make lesse or thinner as when heat works into any mixt body it brings out that which is unpure and so whilst it strives to make it fit for his purpose that it may be more simple the body becometh thereby smaller and thinner so cold doth preserve binde and congeal drouth doth thicken or harden and makes uneven for when there is great store of moisture in the utter parts that which the drouth is not able to consume it hardens and so the utter parts become rugged for that part where the moisture is gone sinking down and the other where it is hardened rising up there must needs be great roughnesse and ruggednesse so moisture doth augment corrupt and for the most part works one thing by it self and another by some accident as by ripening binding expelling and such like it brings forth milk urine monethly flowers and sweat which the Physitians call the third qualities that do so wait upon the second as the second upon the first and sometime they have their operations in some certain parts as to strengthen the head to succour the reins and these some call fourth qualities So then these are the foundations as they call them of all mixt bodies and of all wonderful operations and whatsoever experiments they proved the causes hereof rested as they supposed and were to be found in the Elements and their qualities But Empedocles Agrigentinus not thinking that the Elements were sufficient for this purpose added unto them moreover concord and discord as the causes of generation and corruption There be four principal seeds or beginnings of all things Jupiter that is to say fire Pluto that is to say earth Juno that is to say air and Nestis that is to say water all these sometimes love and concord knits together in one and sometimes discord doth sunder them and make them flie apart This concord and discord said he are found in the Elements by reason of their sundry qualities wherein they agree and disagree yea even in heaven it self as Jupiter and Venus love all Planets save Mars and Saturn Venus agrees with Mars whereas no Planet else agrees with him There is also another disagreement amongst them which ariseth from the oppositions and elevations of their houses for even the twelve signs are both at concord and at discord among themselves as Manilius the Poet hath shewed CHAP. V. That divers operations of Nature proceed from the essential forms of things ALl the Peripatericks and most of the latter Philosophers could not see how all operations should proceed from those causes which the Antients have set down for they find that many things work quite contrary to their qualities and therefore they have imagined that there is some other matter in it and that it is the power and properties of essential formes But now that all things may be made more plain we must consider that it will be a great help unto us for the making and finding out of strange things to know what that is from whence the vertues of any thing do proceed that so we may be able to discern and distinguish one thing from another without confounding all order of truth Whereas one and the same compound yeelds many effects of different kinds as we shall find in the processe of this Book yet every man confesseth that there is but one only original cause therein that produceth all these effects And seeing we are about to open plainly this original cause we must begin a little higher Every natural substance I mean a compound body is composed of matter and form as of her principles neither yet do I exclude the principal qualities of the Elements from doing their part herein for they also concur and make up the number of three principles for when
because the air hath no place to get forth when therefore any man drinks when the water is drank up as far as the hole of the spire end by the air pressed within is the water thrust violently forth and flies in the face of him that drinks Also there is a vessel that no man can drink out of it but he who knows the art Make an earthen or metal vessel in form of a Bottle or Flagon and make it full of holes from the neck to the middle of the belly From the bottom let a pipe ascend by the handle of the vessel and the handle being round about it let it come above the brims of the vessel empty under the handle in a place not seen make a little hole that any man holding the vessel by the handle may with his finger stop and unstop this hole when he please under the brim of the vessel where you set it to your mouth let there be another secret hole Then pour water into the vessel if now any man put the bottle to his mouth and raiseth it to drink the water will run forth at the neck that is open and at the belly but he that knows the trick taking the vessel by the handle shuts the hole with his thumb and not moving the vessel he draws the air with his mouth for the water follows the air and so he drinks it all up but if any man suck and shut not the hole the water will not follow CHAP. VI. That we may use the Air in many Arts. VVE may use Air in many Artifices I shall set down some that I may give a hint to others to invent more And chiefly How wind may be made in a chamber that guests may almost freeze Make a deep pit and put in a sufficient quantity of river or running water let the pit be close stopt onely let a pipe convey it through the walls that it may be brought into the chamber Let the water be let down into the pit by a kind of Tunnel lest the air should come forth at the place where it goes in by the water is the air of the pit expelled and comes by the pipe into the chamber that not onely those that sleep there but such as converse there are extream cold and benummed I will shew How Air may serve for Bellows I saw this at Rome Make a little cellar that 's close on all sides pour in by a Tunnel from above a quantity of water on the top of the wall let there be a little hole at which the air may break forth with violence for it will come so forcibly that it will kindle a fire and serve for bellows for Brass and Iron-melting furnaces the Tunnel being so made that when need is it may be turned and water may be put in THE TWENTIETH BOOK OF Natural Magick The Chaos wherein the Experiments are set down without any Classical Order THE PROEME I Determined at the beginning of my Book to write Experiments that are contain'd in all Natural Sciences but by my business that called me off my mind was hindred so that I could not accomplish what I intended Since therefore I could not do what I would I must be willing to do what I can Therefore I shut up in this Book those Experiments that could be included in no Classes which were so diverse and various that they could not make up a Science or a Book and thereupon I have here heaped them altogether confusedly as what I had overpassed and if God please I will another time give you a more perfect Book Now you must rest content with these CHAP. I. How Sea-water may be made potable IT is no small commodity to mankinde if Sea-water may be made potable In long voyages as to the Indies it is of great concernment For whilst Sea men by reason of tempests are forced to stay longer at Sea than they would for want of water they fall into great danger of their lives Galleys are forced all most every ten days to put in for fresh water and therefore they cannot long wander in enemies countries nor go far for enemies stop their passages Moreover in sea Towns and Islands when they want water as in our days in the Island Malta and in the Syrses Souldiers and Inhabitants endured much hardness and Histories relate many such things Hence I thought it necessary to search curiously whether Sea-water might be made potable But it is impossible to finde out any thing for this how it may be done unless we first finde out the cause of its saltness and what our Ancestors have said concerning that matter especially since Aristotle saith That the salt may easily be taken from the Sea because the sea is not salt of its own Nature but by the Sun that heats the water which draws out of it cold and dry earthly exhalations to the top of it and these being there burnt cause it to be salt when the moist subtile parts are resolved into thin vapors We therefore imitating Nature by raising the thin parts by Chymical Instruments may easily make it sweet For so the Nature of the Sea makes sweet waters for the Rivers There are also veins of the Sea in the deep parts of the earth that are heated by the Sun and the vapours are elevated to the tops of the heighest Mountains where by the cold superficies they meet with they congeal into drops and dropping down by the vaulted roots of Caves they run forth in open streams We first fill a hollow vessel like a great Ball with sea-Sea-water it must have a long neck and a cap upon it that live coles being put under the water may resolve into thin vapors and fill all vacuities being carryed aloft this ill sented grossness when it comes to touch the coldness of the head or cap and meets with the Glass gathers like dew about the skirts of it and so running down the arches of the cap it turns to water and a pipe being opened that pertains to it it runs forth largely and the receiver stands to receive it as it drops so will sweet water come from salt and the salt tarryeth at the bottom of the vessel and three pound of salt water will give two pounds of fresh water but if the cap of the limbeck be of Lead it will afford more water yet not so good For Galen saith That water that runs through pipes of Lead if it be drank will cause an excoriation of the intestines But I found a way How to get a greater quantity of fresh water when we distil salt water Make a cap of earth like to a Pyramis all full of holes that through the holes Urinals of Earth or Glass may be brought in Let their mouths stick forth well luâ—ed that the vapor may not exhale the cap after the fashion of the limbeck must have its pipe at the bottom running round and let it crop forth at the nose of it Set this upon a
no windows be made towards the South because the Southern winde will make your fruit full of wrinkles Let us see therefore What places are fittest to lay up Quinces in Marcus Varro saith that they will be preserved well if they be laid up in some place that is cold and dry Columella also layes them up in a cold floor or loft where there cometh no moisture Palladius likewise would have them laid up in some cold and dry place where there cometh no winde So if you would preserve Apples well Columella teaches you to lay them up in a very cold and a very dry loft where neither smoak nor any noisome savour can come at them Palladius would have them laid up in some close and dark places where the winde cannot come at them And Pliny would have them laid very thin one by another that so the air may come equally at every side of them So Pomegranates may be preserved as Columella reporteth out of Magâ— the Carthaginian if first you warm them in sea-Sea-water and then besmear them with some chalk and when they be dry hang them up in some cold place And Palladius out of Columella prescribes the very same course In like manner you may Preserve the fruit called Ziziphum if you hang them up in a dry place as the same Author is of opinion If you would have Figs to last a great whole Columella teacheth you that as soon as they be thoroughly dry you must lay them up in a very dry room and thereby you shall preserve them for a long time So Damosins may be long preserved If you lay them upon hurdles or grates in some dry place where the Sun may come at them Palladius shews that Chest-nuts may be long preserved if they be raked up in the earth where they may lie dry And I my self have seen in Barry Almonds preserved sound a great while three years or four years together shells and all being laid up in a dry place If you would have Wheat long preserved Varro saith that you must lay it up in high Garners which have a thorough air on the East-side and on the North-side But in any case there must no moist air come at them from any waterish places thereabouts Some have their Garners under the ground as Caves as it is in Cappadocia and Thracia others have their Garners in pits and ditches as it is in the neerer part of Spain only they lay the chaffe under it and take special care that no moisture nor air may come at it except it be when they take it out to use some of it for if the air be kept from it the worm cannot breed in it to devour it By this means they keep their wheat good and sweet fifty years and they preserve their Millet above an hundred years as Theophrastus recordeth If you lay up your wheat with any dust in it it will putrifie for the extrinsecal heat of the dust doth as it were lay siege to the natural heat of the grain and so choaks it up because it hath not as it were a breathing place and by this means it is over-heated and so putrifies Florentinus reporteth out of Varro that Corn may be very well preserved above ground if it be laid up in such places as have the Eastern light shining into them they must also be so situate that the Northern and the Western winds may come at them moderately but they must be safe from all Southerly winds and you must make in them a great many of channels whereby both the warm vapours may have issue forth and also the cooling air may have access in The best way whereby you may Preserve Beans is to parch them reasonably well for so there will be less store of moisture in them which will cause them to last the longer Theophrastus writes that in Apollonia and 〈◊〉 they preserve Beans long without any parching at all Pliny makes mention of certain Beans that were laid up in a certain Cave in Ambracia which lasted from the time of King Pyrrhus until the war which Pâ—â—pey the great wageâ— against the Pirates The same Theophrastus writes also that Pease may be long preserved if you lay them up in high places where the wind hath his full force as in Media and the like Countries but the Bean will be kept there much longer So also the Pulse called Lupines may be long preserved if you lay them up in a loft where the smoak may come at them as Columella writeth for if any moisture do settle upon them presently the worm breeds in them and if once the worm have eaten â—ut the navel as it were of the Pulse that which is in them like a little mouth then cannot the other part which is left be over fit for seed Palladius likewise saith that this kind of Pulse will last very long if it be laid up in dry Garners where no moisture can come at it especially if it may be continually perfumed as it were with smoak But now let us shew how to do that which is the most difficult thing of all in this kind namely How to preserve flesh and fish I have seen flesh and fish preserved from putrefaction for a whole moneth together in very cold place without any other art at all besides the coldness of the place In rooms that are made under the ground and very cold where there cometh neither heat nor any Southerly winde but that they are continually cold and dry almost every thing may be preserved without putrefaction In a certain monastery that is upon the Hill Parthenius neer unto Naples I saw the carcases of men kept whole and sound for many years together The Hill is covered over with snow almost continually and in the tops of the Mountains where the snow lies in ditches and pits conveyed thither of purpose to keep it look what Pears and Cervices and Apples and wilde Chest-nuts have been gathered up by chance together with the snow and put into the same pits after the space of a year that the snow was consumed away we have there found the same fruits so moist and fresh and goodly to the eye as if they had been but then pluckt off from their Trees To conclude there is nothing better and more available for the preservation of any thing then is the dryness and the coldness of such places as they are laid up in to be kept CHAP. IV. What special time there must be chosen for the gathering of such fruits as you mean to lay up in store for a great while after THe principal matter which I would have to be observed in this case is the choosing of your time wherein to gather all such fruits as you would lay up in store that they might last long For if we desire to defeat that heat and moisture which will mar our fruit and cause it to putrifie we cannot take any better course against them then by making choice of such a
is reverberated on the top and below too Stop it close and set a large Receiver under it for if it be too narrow the strong Spirits will break out with a great bounce crack the Vessel and frustrate your labour Distil it six hours if you calcine the Alome-fire the VVater will be stronger A Water for Separation of Gold Mix with the equal parts of Salt-Peter and Alom as much Vitriol and distil it as before there will proceed a VVater so strong that it will even corrode the â—iâ—cture of Gold Wherefore if this seem too violent take nine pounds of the former Salts being dissolved in VVater and two ounces of Sal Ammoniacum when they are melted set them two days in Fimo and with hot Ashes you may distil a VVater that will corrode Gold If you refund the VVater upon the Foeces let them macerate and distil it again the VVater will be much stronger How to purge the phlegm from these Waters without which they are of no force cast a little Silver into a litle of this VVater which being overcharged with phlegm will not corrode it But set it to heat over the fire and it will presently do it pour all this VVater into another Pot and leave the Foeces behinde in the former so the VVater will be clarified Oyl of Vitriol Dissolve Vitriol in an earthen Pan with a wide mouth let the phlegm evaporate then encrease the fire and burn it till it be all red and the fourth part be consumed Put it into a Glass-Retort luted all over thrice double and well dried and set in igne reverberationis continually augmenting the fire and continning it for three days until the Vessel melt and an Oyl drop out without any VVater Every three pounds will â—ield one ounce of Oyl Put it into a Glass-bottle and set it in hot Embeâ—s that the VVater if any be in the Oyl may evaporate for so it will be of greater strengh The sign of a perfect extraction is if it make a piece of VVood being cast into it smoak as if it burned it Oyl of Sulphur This is the proper way to extract Oyl of Sulphur Take a Glass with a large mouth in the form of a Bell and hang it up by a wire place a large Receiver under it that it may catch the Oyl as it droppeth out of the Bell. In the middle between these hang an earthen Vessel full of Sulphur kindle the fire and make the Sulphur burn the smoak of which ascendeth up into the Bell condenseth it self and falls down in an oyly substance When the Sulphur is consumed put in more until you have the quantity of Oyl which you desire There is also another way to extract it in a greater quantity Prepare a great Glass-Receiver such as I described in the Extraction of Oyl of Tartar and Aqua Fortis cut a hole thorow it with an Emerauld and indent the edges of it that the smoak may pass out set this upon an earthen Pan in which you burn the Sulphur Above this set another Vessel of a larger size so that it may be about a handful distant from the first cut the edges of the hole in deeper notches that the vapor ascending thorow the first and circulating about the second may distil out of both so you may add a third and fourth Pour this Oyl into another Glass and let the phlegm evaporate over hot Embers it will become of that strength that it will dissolve Silver and I may say Gold also if it be rightly made The fume of Sulphur is congealed in Sal Ammoniacum for I have gathered it in the Mountains of Campania and condensed it into Salt nothing at all differing from that which is brought out of the Eastern Countries Thus Sal Ammoniacus which hath so long lain unknown is discovered in our own Country and is nothing but Salt of Sulphur and this Oyl is the Water of Sal Ammoniac or Salt of Sulphur I would fain know how Learned Men do approve this my Invention I take the Earth thorow which the smoak of Sulphur hath arisen and dissole it in warm Waters and purge it thorow a hanging Receptacle described before then I make the Water evaporate and so finde a Salt nothing different as I hope from Ammoniacum CHAP. XXI Of the Separation of the Elements IN every Compound there are four Elements but for the most part one is predominant the rest are dull and unprofitable Hence when we speak of separating the Elements of a Compound we mean the separating that predominant one In the Water-Lilly the Element of Water is chief Air Earth and Fire are in it but in a small proportion Hence there is but a small quantity of heat and driness in it because VVater overwhelms them all The same must be understood in other things also But do not think that we intend by the separation of the Elements to divide them absolutely the Air from the VVater and the VVater from the Fire and Earth but onely by a certain similitude as what is hotter then the rest we call Fire the moister VVater Stones participate more of Earth VVoods of Fire Herbs of VVater VVe account those Airy which fill the Vessels and Receivers and easily burst them and so flie out VVhen the Elements are thus separated they may afterwards be purified and attenuated The manner of extracting them is various according to the diversity of natural things for some must be calcined some sublimated others distilled I will set down some examples How to separate the Elements of Metals Lay your Metal in Aqua Fortis as I shewed before till it be dissolved then draw out the Aqua Fortis by a Bath and pour it on again and so again until it be turned into an Oyl of a light Red or Ruby-colour Pour two parts of Aqua Fortis unto the Oyl and macerate them in a Glass in Fimo for a month then distil them on Embers till the VVater be all drawn out which you must take and still again in Balneo until it ascend so will you have two Elements By the Bath the Air is elevated the VVater and Earth remain in the bottom the Fire continueth in the bottom of the former Vessel for it is of a fiery substance this Nature and the Affusion of Water and the Distillation in Balneo will reduce into an Oyl again in which you must correct the Fire and it will be perfect You may lay Metal in Embers then by degrees encrease the fire the VVater will first gently ascend next the Earth In Silver the first Oyl is blewish and in perfect separation settleth to the bottom and the VVater ascendeth but in Balneo the Elements of Fire and Earth for the substance of it is cold and moist in Balneo the Elements of Fire and Earth remain first the Earth will come out afterwards the Fire So of Tin the first Oyl is yellow in Balneo the Air will remain in the bottom the Fire Earth and
liquor and after a little time take it out and when it appears a Violet-colour dip it into the liquor again lest the heat yet remaining in the Tool may again spoil the temper yet this we must chiefly regard that the liquors into which the Iron is plunged be extream cold for if they be hot they will work the less and you must never dip an Iron into water that other Iron hath been dipt in before for when it is grown hot it will do nothing but dip it into some other that is fresh and cold and let this in the mean time swim in some glazed Vessel of cold water that it may soon grow cold and you shall have it most cold for your work Yet these are The hardest tempers of Iron If you quench red-hot Iron in distilled Vinegar it will grow hard The same will happen if you do it into distilled Urine by reason of the Salt it contains in it If you temper it with dew that in the month of May is found on Verches Leaves it will grow most hard For what is collected above them is salt as I taught elsewhere out of Theophrastus Vinegar in which Salt Ammoniac is dissolved will make a most strong temper but if you temper Iron with Salt of Urine and Salt-Peter dissolved in water it will be very hard or if you powder Salt-Peter and Salt Ammoniac and shut them up in a Glass Vessel with a long neck in dung or moist places till they resolve into water and quench the red-hot Iron in the water you shall do better Also Iron dipped into a liquor of quick Lime and the Salt of Soda purified with a Spunge will become extream hard All these are excellent things and will do the work yet I shall shew you some that are far better To temper Iron to cut Porphyr Marble Take the fugitive servant once received and then exalted again and shut it in a glazed Vessel till it consume in Fire or water so the Iron Tool will grow hard that you may easily have your desire but if it be too hard that it be too brittle add more liquor or else more Metal yet take care of this alone whilst you have found the measure of your work for the Iron will grow strong and tough The same also will be happily performed by the foul moysture of the Serpent Python and by the wasting thereof for the salt gives force and the fat roughness And these are the best and choicest that I have tried in this kinde CHAP. VII How to grave a Porphyr Marble without an Iron tool SOme have attempted to do this without any Graver but with strong and forcible water and this Argument moved them to it When they saw Vinegar and sharp juices to swell into bubbles being cast upon Marble and to corrode it they supposed that if they should draw very strong sharp liquor from sharp and corroding things they might do the same work without labour At last thus they did it Take a little Mercury sublimate and a little Salt Ammoniac distil these as I shewed in Glass Stills then take a little Verdigrease Tin calcined and of the fire-stone powder all these with Sal Gemmae and common Salt and Salt Ammoniac and distil them and pour the distilled liquor again upon the Foeces and distil it again and do it again the third time then keep the liquor in a Vessel well stopt When you go about your work smeer the Porphyr Marble with Goats suet onely touch not those parts you mean to have engraved you must make a ledge about it that when you pour on your water it may not run off here and there and the liquor poured on will eat most strongly when it ceaseth to eat cast it away and pour on fresh and do this so often till you have graved it so much as you please and you have done CHAP. VIII How Iron may be made hot in the fire to be made tractable for works MAny seek most diligently how by a secret Art Iron may be so tempered that it may neither break not be shot through with Guns But these men do not take care of what they have before them and seek for what they have not for would they consider whilst the Iron heats the thing they seek for so eargerly is before their eyes I say therefore That the reason why Swords break and flie in pieces and brests of Iron are shot through with Guns is because there are flaws in the Iron and it cleaves in divers places and the parts are ill united and because these clefts are scarce visible this is the cause that when they are bended or stricken they break for if you mark well whenever Knives or Swords break in pieces you shall alwayes finde these craks and flames and the solid parts are not broken and being bended resist But when I sought for the cause of these flaws I found at last that in Smiths Shops where Iron is made hot they heap up coals over the Iron and the refuse of coals saying The Iron will not heat so easily if some rubbish of the coals and dust be not heaped over it and with this trumpery-cust there are always mingled small stones chalk and other things gathered together in pieces which when they meet in the fire they cause many knots outwardly or cavities in wardly and cracks that the parts cannot well fasten together Whence though the business be trivial and of small regard yet this is the cause of so great inconveniences that follow Wherefore to avoid this impediment I thought on this course to be taken I cast my coals into a wooden bowl full of water for they will swim on the top but the filth and bricks will fall to the bottom those that swim I take out and dry them and those I use for my works What a blessing of God this profitable Invention is for thus men make Swords Knives Bucklers Coats of Male and all sorts of Armour so perfect that it were long and tedious to relate for I have seen Iron brests that scarce weighed above twelve pound to be Musket-proof And if we should add the temper to them they would come to far greater effects CHAP. IX How Damask Knives may be made NOw whilst I set down these Operations very pleasant namely how Damask Knives may be made to recover their marks that are worn out and how the same marks may be made upon other Knives If then we would Renew the waved marks of Damask Knives that are worn out polish a Poniard Sword or Knite very well with Powder of Emril and Oyl and then cleanse it with Chalk that no part may be dark but that it may glister all over then wet it all with juice of Lemmons mingled with Tanners water that is made with Vitriol for when it is dry the marks will all be seen in their places and wave as they did before And if you will Make marks with Damask Knives And that so acurately
the flesh white Let her be sed with the said grain but severally with them both for twenty days giving to her twice a day a moyst Medicament made thereof so that seven of those meats may be given her for the first five days and by degrees the days following increase the number of these meats until twenty five days be past that the days in the whole may be thirty and when they are over heat Mallows and in the decoction thereof being yet hot give her leaven moystned therewith do so for four days and in the same days give her water and honey changing it thrice every day not using the same again and do this the days following till sixty days mingle dry Figs bruised all this time with the said leaven and after sixty days you may eat the Goose and its liver that will be white and tender Which being taken forth must be put into a large vessel wherein there is hot water that must be changed again and again But the Bodies and Livers of the females are best but let them be Geese not of one year but from two years old to four Horace in Serm. speaks of this Fat Figs do make the Goose white Liver great And Juvenal Satyr 5. A Goose's Liver fed before him stood As big as a Goose and to eat as good And Martial The Liver 's greater then the Goose that 's true But now you l wonder where this Liver grew Athenaus writes That this was of great account at Rome When you kill the Goose take out the Liver quickly and cast it into cold water that it may be solid then fry it in Goose-grease in a frying pan and season it with spices It is a dish for a Prince and highly commended by many So is A Sows Liver fatted Pliny There is art used for Sows Livers as well as for Geese It was the invention of Marcus Apicius when they are fat with dry Figs give them sweet wine to drink and kill them presently Apicius Add to the Liver of a Sow fatted with Figs Wine-pickle Pepper Time Lovage Suet and a little Wine and Oyl Aetius If saith he any man feed that creature with dry Figs the Sows Liver is preferred before all meat I said out of Aristotle that Figs and Chick peason will fat a Sow best Galen As whilst Sows are living their Livers are fed for delight with dry Figs so for Geese I see their meats are moystned with milk that their Livers may be not onely most pleasant meat but may be fed exceedingly and be most delicate If you will That Cattle may be more excellent to eat Cattle that use to feed on Masterwort and to be first cleansed will grow very fat and their flesh will be exceeding sweet Pliny Whence it is that this Benjamin is not for many years to be found in Cyrene because the Farmers that hire the grounds finding more gain by it devour them by their Cattel Moreover in India and chiefly in the Country of the Prasil it rains liquid honey which falling down on the grass and the tops of Reeds in the Lakes is admirable food for Sheep and Oxen and the Shepherds drive them thither where most of this sweet dew falls from the Air and there they are feasted with it as with pleasant bankets and they recompence their Shepherds with a pleasant reward for they milk very sweet milk from them and they have no need as the Grecians do to temper honey with it Aelian But How Pullets are made most white tender and delicate Such as I use to set before my friends The way is I shut them up five days in chambers or cellars and I give them a dish full of chippins of bread wet with milk and sometimes with honey fed thus they will grow as fat as great Sappers in Fig time and so tender that they will melt in your mouth and they taste better by far then Pheasants Heath-cocks or Thrushes And it seems the Antients knew this For saith Pliny when a crammed Hen was forbid to eat at supper by the Laws of the Antients they found out this evasion to feed Hens with meats wet in milk and so they were far more delicate to set on the Table And Columella They that will make Birds not onely fat but tender they sprinkle the foresaid Meal with water and honey new made and so they fat them Some to three parts of water put one of good wine and wet Wheat-bread and fat the Bird which beginning to be fatted the first day of the Moneth will be very fat on the twentieth day CHAP. VII How the Flesh of Animals may be made bitter and not to be eaten AGain if we will that Flesh shall be rejected for the bitterness and ill taste of it we must do contrary to what hath been said Or if we will not take the pains we must wait the times that these creatures feed on such meats as will do it whereby sometimes they become venemous also As if we would have Deers flesh become venemous Simeon Sethi saith That Deers flesh that is catcht in summer is poyson because then they feed on Adders and Serpents these are venemous creatures and by eating of them they grow thirsty and this they know naturally for if they drink before they have digested them they are killed by them wherefore they will abstain from water though they burn with thirst Wherefore Stags-flesh eaten at that time is venemous and very dangerous Sometimes also Partridge are nought Namely when they eat Garlick The Chyrrhaei will eat no Partridge by reason of their food for when they have eaten Garlick they stink and their flesh is stinking meat that the Fowler will not eat them So also Quails and Stares are rejected at that time of the year that black Hellebour is the meat they like onely Wherefore when Quails feed on Hellebour they put those that feed on them into so great danger of their lives that they swell and suffer convulsions and are subject to vertigo's Wherefore Millet-feed must be boil'd with them Also Birds are not to be eaten when the Goose-berries are ripe for their Feathers will grow black thereby and men that eat them fall into scowrings Dioscorides The Eggs of the Barbel or Spawn not to be eaten in May because they are dangerous but the Eggs are not dangerous of themselves nor do they breed such mischiefs For they do not do it always for often you may eat them without danger but they are onely then hurtful when they feed on Willow-flowers that fall into the waters So are Snails to be rejected when they stick fast to briars and shrubs for they trouble the belly and the stomack and cause vomiting Dioscorides And not onely these Animals themselves cause this mischief but their excrements as milk honey and the like For Milk must not be eaten when Goats and Sheep feed on green food because it will loosen the belly the more but Goats-milk doth not try the belly so
Wrap the Egg in wax and with an iron point make letters on it as far as to the shell but break it not for 〈…〉 shell with you iron or point or knife it may be detected So aâ—â—â—our Egg one â—ight in strong 〈…〉 depart which separates gold from 〈◊〉 in the morning take away the wax and take off the Egg-shellâ— cover and hold the shell between your eye and the light and the letters will be seen very clear quite through the 〈…〉 The same is done with the juice of Lemons for it softeneth the 〈…〉 not and you shall 〈◊〉 your desire Will you 〈…〉 the white yellow and better when the Egg is boyl'd 〈…〉 Egg hard and rowl it in wax and engrave the letters on the wax with an iron 〈◊〉 that the marks may lie open put this Egg into liquor with Aâ—om and Galls 〈…〉 then put it into sharp Vinegar and they will 〈…〉 and taking off the 〈◊〉 you shall see them in the white of the Egg. 〈…〉 and alom with vinegar till they be as thick 〈◊〉 with this 〈◊〉 what you will 〈◊〉 in Egg and when the writing is dried in the Sun put it 〈…〉 dry it 〈◊〉 it and 〈◊〉 off the shell and you shall read the writinâ—◠〈◊〉 put it into vinegar and 〈…〉 nothing of it Perhaps he means by pickle 〈…〉 The cause is this the Egg-shell is porous and hath large holes which is 〈◊〉 for being set up the fire it will sweat and water will come forth and looking at it against 〈…〉 will 〈◊〉 clear so then 〈◊〉 being subtile peâ—â—rates by the pâ—res and 〈◊〉 the shell 〈…〉 and when it is mingled with the Alom Galls it 〈…〉 them appear on the white and when it is put into 〈…〉 to be hard as it was But observe it must not 〈◊〉 long in vinegar for that will eat off all the shell and will leave the Egg bare having nothing 〈…〉 to cover it and if you put that into cold water the shell will not come again If 〈◊〉 will know How letters writ with water maybe seen in an Egg Dissolve 〈◊〉 in the 〈◊〉 and writ 〈…〉 dry it and nothing will be seen If you will read 〈◊〉 dissolve Galls 〈…〉 steep the Egg therein or 〈◊〉 with Lime-water 〈◊〉 Egg and 〈…〉 Brasil is infused and so the letters will seem to be 〈…〉 upon the shell and steep it in water 〈◊〉 vitriol 〈…〉 is dry 〈…〉 and nothing will be seen when you afterwards steep it in the 〈◊〉 wine white letters will appear in a black shell I will shew How letters may become visible upon an Egg by the fire Write on the Egg with juice of Lemmons or Onyons or Fig-milkâ— when you put this to the fire the Letters will appear yellow and that must be done on a raw Egg for if you boyl it the letters will be seen That letters may be seen on the Egg shell by dust Make letters on the shell with vinegar suet fig-tree milk or of Tithymal or with gums when you would have them seen rub them with cole-dust or burnt straw or paper and they will seem black There is a way How to put a letter into an Egg. Make your letter that you send narrow and long searce broader then your middle-finger write your minde in short characters and with the edge of a knife make a cut in the Egg and break the inward skin and put in your letter at one end by degrees for it will easily take it in were it ten hands breadth then stop the cut with lime and gum mingled that it may not be seen and with Ceruss and 〈…〉 for then it is impossible to discern it But if you will have this done more neatly put the egge in sharp vinegar three or four hours and when you finde it soft 〈…〉 the shell with the edge of your knife put in your roll of paper then soak it in 〈…〉 and the shell will grow as hard as it was CHAP. V. How you may write in divers places and 〈…〉 I Have shewed you diâ—â—â—s ways of writing invisible now I come to those ways that will teach you to write letters on divers things which though they be visible and intercepted yet the Reader will be deceived by their secret device First How to write 〈…〉 Let us see how they did this in elder times 〈…〉 That when the Lacedemonâ—â—â— writ to their 〈◊〉 that their 〈…〉 being intercepted by the enemies might not be read invented this kinde of writing yet it is referred to Archimedes to be the 〈◊〉 of it Twâ— sticks must be 〈…〉 and polished with the Turners in 〈◊〉 they must be equal for 〈…〉 and thickness One of these was given to the 〈◊〉 when he 〈…〉 and the 〈◊〉 was kept at home 〈…〉 Senate 〈…〉 a page 〈…〉 about the stick as large as 〈◊〉 the matter 〈…〉 might make a round volume and the sides of it were 〈…〉 that they were like a collar that exactly fitted the wood and no 〈…〉 that thus was rolled about the stick they writ letters 〈…〉 collar thus written on being long and narrow 〈…〉 and 〈…〉 the General for they thought if it was â—â—â—â—â—scepted by the 〈…〉 when they 〈◊〉 bits of letters and 〈…〉 of words 〈◊〉 at divided they 〈…〉 discern the thing and they were not deceived 〈…〉 fell among 〈…〉 the enemy did not imagine any thing was 〈…〉 let them 〈…〉 as with a thing done as all adventures and insignificant but he to whom it was writ applied this band and rolled it about as it was 〈…〉 upon and 〈…〉 words lay joyn'd as they should be and so be knew the message The Greeks call this khird of writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch saith 〈…〉 was brought to Lysander by Hellespont But I invenâ—â—◠〈…〉 make two small sticks alike great and round one we give to our friend that 〈◊〉 far from us and hold the other by us let us make them stick so 〈◊〉 together that they may joyn and seem to be as onâ— and the wood not 〈…〉 the 〈…〉 should be and write long-ways on the stick what you please the 〈…〉 more lines will they receive If you first steep 〈…〉 is dissolved the Ink will not spread but the letterâ— will 〈…〉 â—ake your Threed that is about the â—â—ick and 〈…〉 to keep 〈…〉 secret 〈…〉 the edges of napkins or 〈…〉 your 〈…〉 for the curious watch shall discern nothing 〈…〉 our friend winding the Threed about the 〈…〉 to make the points 〈…〉 the tops and agree well shall easily read them I will shew How to write on Parchment that the Letters may not be seen When you have writ on Parchment put it to the light of a candle or to the fire and it will all crumple and run together and be nothing like what it was if a man look on it he will hardly suspect any fraud If he desires to read what is in it let him lay it on moyst places or sprinkle it gently with water and it will be
end of the Pipe and he that is at the other end shall do the like the voice may be intercepted in the middle and be shut up as in a prison and when the mouth is opened the voice will come forth as out of his mouth that spake it but because such long Pipes cannot be made without trouble they may be bent up and down like a Trumpet that a long Pipe may be kept in a small place and when the mouth is open the words may be understood I am now upon trial of it if before my Book be Printed the business take effect I will set it down if not if God please I shall write of it elsewhere CHAP. II. Of Instruments Musical made with water OLd Water-Instruments were of great esteem but in our days the use is worn out Yet we read that Nero took such delight in them that when his Life and Empire were in danger amongst the seditions of Souldiers and Commanders and all was in imminent danger he would not forsake the care of them and pleasure he took in them Vitruvius teacheth us how they were made but so obscurely and mystically that what he says is very little understood I have tryed this by many and sundry ways by mingling air with water which placing in the end of a Pipe or in my mouth where the breath of the mouth strikes against the air and though this made a pleasant noise yet it kept no tune For whilst the water bubbles and trembles or warbles like a Nitingale the voice is changed in divers tunes one note is sweet and pleasant two squele and jar But this way it will make a warbling sound and keep the tune Let there be made a Brass bottom'd Chest for the Organ wherein the wind must be carried let it behalf full of water let the wind be made by bellows or some such way that must run through a neck under the waters but the spirit that breaks forth of the middle of the water is excluded into the empty place when therefore by touching of the keys the stops of the mouths of the Pipes are opened the trembling wind coming into the Pipes makes very pleasant trembling sounds which I have tried and found to be true CHAP. III. Of some Experiments by Wind-Instruments NOw will I proceed to the like Wind-Instruments but of divers sorts that arise by reason of the air and I shall shew how it is dilated contracted rarified by fire condensed by cold If you will That a vessel turned downwards shall draw in the water do thus Make a vessel with a very long neck the longer it is the greater wonder it will seem to be Let it be of transparent Glass that you may see the water running up fill this with boiling water and when it is very hot or setting the bottom of it to the fire that it may not presently wax cold the mouth being turned downwards that it may touch the water it will suck it all in So such as search out the nature of things say That by the Sun beams the water is drawn up from the Concave places of the Earth to the tops of Mountains whence fountains come forth And no small Arts arise from hence for Wind-Instruments as Heron affirms Vitruvius speaks the like concerning the original of Winds but now it is come to be used for houses For so may be made A vessel to cast forth wind You may make Brass Bowles or of some other matter let them be hollow and round with a very small hole in the middle that the water is put in at if this be use the former experiment when this is set at the fire it grows hot and being it hath no other vent it will blow strongly from thence but the blast will be moist and thick and of an ill savour You may also make A vessel that shall cast forth water There is carried about with us a Glass vessel made Pyramidal with a very narrow long mouth with which it casts water verâ— faâ— off That it may draw water suck out the air with your mouth as much as you can and presently thrust the mouth into the water for it will draw the water into it do so until a third part of it be filled with water When you will spouâ— the water afar off fill the vessel with air blowing into it as hard as you can presently take it from your mouth and incline the mouth of the vessel that the water may run to the mouth and stop the air and the air striving to break forth will cast the water out a great way But if you will without attraction of Air make water fly far with it heat the bottom of the vessel a little for the air being rarefied seeks for more place and striving to break forth drives the water before it Thus â—runkard making a little hole in a vessel of wine because the wine will not run out the mouth beinâ— stopt whereby the air might enter they will blow hard into that hole then as they leave off the wine will come forth in as great quantity as the air blowed in was Now I will shew How to make water ascend conveniently We can make water rise to the top of a Tower Let there be a leaden Pipe that may come from the bottom to the top of the Tower and go down again from the top to the bottom as a Conduit let one end stand in the water that we desire should rise the other end that must be longer and hang down lower must be fastned into a vessel of wood or earth that it may take no air at all let it have a hole above the vessel whereby the vessel may be filled with water and then be stopt perfectly Set a vessel on the top of the Tower as capacious as that beneath and the leaden pipe now spoke of must be fastned at one end of the vessel and go forth at the other end and must be in the upper part of the vessel and let the pipe be divided in the middle within the vessel and where the pipe enters and where the pipe goes out they must be joynted that they take no air when therefore we would have the water to ascend fill the vessel beneath with water and â—â—op it close that it take no air then opening the lower hole of the vessel the water will run forth for that part of water that runs out of the vessel will cause as much to rise up at the other end by the other leaden pipe and ascend above the Towâ—r the water drawn forth is filled up again we may make out use of it and the hole being stopt the lower vessel may be filled again with water and so doing we shall make the water to escend a ways We may also By heat alone make the water rise Let there be a vessel above the Tower either of Brass Clay or Wood Brass is best let there be a pipe in the middle of it that may
good thing cometh certainly from the power of the Sun and if we receive any good from any thing else yet the Sun must perfect and finish it Heraclitus calls the Sun the Fountain of heavenly light Orpheus calls it the light of life Plato calls it a heavenly Fire an everliving Creature a star that hath a Soul the greatest and the daily star and the natural Philosophers call it the very heart of heaven And Plotinus shews that in antient times the Sun was honoured in stead of God Neither yet is the Moon lesse powerful but what with her own force and what with the force of the Sun which she borrows she works much by reason of her neernesse to these inferiours Albumasar said That all things had their vertue from the Sun and the Moon and Hermes the learned said that the Sun and the Moon are the life of all things living The Moon is nighest to the Earth of all Planets she rules moist bodies and she hath such affinity with these inferiours that as well things that have souls as they that have none do feel in themselves her waxing and her waining The Seas and Flouds Rivers and Springs do rise and fall do run sometimes swifter sometimes flower as she rules them The surges of the Sea are tost to and fro by continual succession no other cause whereof the Antients could find but the Moon only neither is there any other apparent reason of the ebbing and flowing thereof Living creatures are much at her beck and receive from her great encrease for when she is at the full as Lucilius saith she feeds Oysters Crabs Shelfish and such like which her warm light doth temper kindly in the night season but when she is but the half or the quarter light then she withdraws her nourishment and they wastâ— In like manner Cucumbers Gourds Pompons and such like as have store of 〈◊〉 juice feel the state of the Moon for they wax as she doth and when she 〈◊〉 they waste as Athenaeus writes Likewise the very stems of plants do follow the state of the heavens witnesse the Husband-man who finds it by experience in his graffing and skilful Husbandmen have found the course and season of the year and the monethly race of the Moon so necessary for plants that they have supposed this knowledge to be one chief part of Husbandry So also when the Moon passeth through those signs of the Zodiak which are most peculiar to the earth if you then plant trees they will be strongly rooted in the earth if you plant them when she passeth through the signs of the Air then the tree so planted will be plentiful in branches and leaves and encreaseth more upward then downward But of all other the most pregnant sign hereof is found in the Pome-granate which will bring forth fruit just so many years as many daies as the Moon is old when you plant it And it is a report also that Garlick if it be set when the Moon is beneath the earth and be also plucked up at such a time it will lose its strong savour All cut and lopped Woods as Timber and Fewel are full of much moisture at the new of the Moon and by reason of that moisture they wax soft and so the worm eats them and they wither away And therefore Democritus counselleth and Vitruvius is also of the same minde to cut or lop trees in the waining of the Moon that being cut in season they may last long without rottennesse And that which is more as her age varies so her effects vary according to her age for in her first quarter she maketh hot and moist but especially moist from thence all moist things grow and receive their humidity in that time from that time to the full of the Moon she gives heat and moisture equally as may be seen in Trees and Minerals from that time to the half Moon decaying she is hot and moist but especially hot because she is fuller of light thence the fishes at that time commonly are wont to swim in the top of the water and that the Moon is in this age warm appears by this that it doth extend and enlarge moist bodies and thereby the moisture encreasing it causeth rottennesse and maketh them wither and wâ—â—te away But in her last quarter when she loseth all her light then she is meerly hot and the wises of Chaldea hold that this state of heaven is best of all other So they report that there is a Moon-herb having round twirled leaves of a blewish colour which is well acquainted with the age of the Moon for when the Moon waxeth this herb every day of her age brings forth a leaf and when she waineth the same herb loseth for every day a leaf These variable effects of the Moon we may see more at large and more usually in tame creatures and in plants where we have daily sight and experience thereof The Pismire that little creature hath a sense of the change of the Plantes for she worketh by night about the full of the Moon but she resteth all the space betwixt the old and the new Moon The inwards of mice answer the Moons proportion for they encrease with her and with her they also shrink away If we cut our hair or pair our nailes before the new Moon they will grow again but slowly if at or about the new Moon they will grow again quickly The eyes of Cats are also acquainted with the alterations of the Moon so that they are sometimes broader as the light is lesse and narrower when the light of the Moon is greater The Beetle marketh the ages and seasons of the Planets for he gathering dung out of the mixen rounds it up together and covereth it with earth for eight and twenty daies hiding it so long as the Moon goeth about the Zodiak and when the new Moon cometh he openeth that round ball of dirt and thence yields a young Beetle Onions alone of all other herbs which is most wonderful feels the changeable state of the Planets but quite contrary to their change frameth it self for when the Moon waineth the Onions encrease and when she waxeth they decay for which cause the Priests of Egypt would not eat Onions as Plutark writes in his fourth Commentary upon Hesiode That kinde of spurge which is called Helioscopium because it follows the Sun disposeth of her leaves as the Sun rules them for when the Sun riseth she openeth them as being desirous that the morning should see them rise and shutteth them when the Sun setteth as desiring to have her flower covered and concealed from the night So many other herbs follow the Sun as the herb Turn-sole 〈◊〉 when the Sun riseth she holds down her head all day long that the Sun may never so much as writhe any of her there is such love as it were betwixt them and she stoops still the same way which the Sun goeth so do the flowers of Succory and of Mallows
wherein if a man make a gutter with a staff he shall see Rivers of fire run therein The like things are reported of waters For seeing they passe under the earth through veins of allum pitch brimstone and such like hence it is that they are sometimes hurtful and sometimes wholsome for the body There are also many kinds of water and they have divers properties The River Himera in Sicily is divided into two parts that which runs against Aetna is very sweet that which runneth through the salt vein is very salt In Cappadocia betwixt the Cities Mazaca and Tuava there is a Lake whereinto if you put reeds or timber they become stones by little and little and are not changed from stones again neither can any thing in that water be ever changed In Hierapolis beyond the River Maeander there is a water that becomes gravel so that they which make water-courses raise up whole banks thereof The Rivers Cephises and Melas in Boeotia if cattel drink of them as they do continually to make them conceive though the dams be white yet their young shall be russet or dun or coal-black So the sheep that drink of the River Peneus in Thessaly and Astax in Pontus are thereby made black Some kinds of waters also are deadly which from the poisonous juice of the earth become poisonous as the Well of Terracina called Neptunius which kills as many as drink of it and therefore in old times it was stopt up And the Lake Cychros in Thracia kills all that drink of it and all that wash themselves with it In Nonacris a Country of Arcady there flow very cold waters out of a stone which are called the water of Styx which break to pieces all vessels of silver and brasse and nothing can hold them but a Mules hoof wherein it was brought from Antipater into the Country where Alexander was and there his Son Jolla killed the King with it In the Country about Flascon the way to Campania in the field Cornetum there is a Lake with a Well in it wherein seem to lie the bones of Snakes Lysards and other Serpents but when you would take them out there is no such thing So there are some sharp and sowre veins of water as Lyncesto and Theano in Italy which I sought out very diligently and found it by the way to Rome a mile from Theano and it is exceeding good against the Stone There is a Well in Paphlagonia whosoever drinks of it is presently drunken In Chios is a Well that makes all that drink of it sottish and senslesse In Susa is a Well whoso drinks of it loseth his teeth The water of Nilus is so fertile that it makes the clods of earth to become living creatures In Aethiopia is a Well which is so cold at noon that you cannot drink it and so not at midnight that you cannot touch it There are many other like Wells which Ovid speaks of Ammons Well is cold all day and warm both morning and evening the waters of Athamas set wood on fire at the small of the Moon there is a Well where the Cicones inhabit that turneth into stones all that toucheth it or drinks of it Crathis and Sybaris make hair shew like Amber and Gold the water of Salmax and the Aethiopian Lakes make them mad or in a trance that drink of it he that drinks of the Well Clitorius never cares for wine after the River Lyncestius makes men drunken the Lake Pheneus in Arcady is hurtful if you drink it by night if by day it is wholesome Other properties there are also of places and fountains which he that would know may learn out of Theophrastus Timaeus Possidonius Hegesias Herodotus Aristides Meirodorus and the like who have very diligently sought out and registred the properties of places and out of them Pliny Solinus and such Writers have gathered their books CHAP. XVIII That Compounds work more forcibly and how to compound and mix those Simples which we would use in our mixtures NOw we will shew how to mix and compound many Simples together that the mixture may cause them to be more operative Proclus in his book of Sacrifice and Magick saith That the antient Priests were wont to mix many things together because they saw that divers Simples had some property of a God in them but none of them by it self sufficient to resemble him Wherfore they did attract the heavenly influences by compounding many things into one whereby it might resemble that One which is above many They made images of sundry matters and many odors compounded artificially into one so to expresse the essence of a God who hath in himself very many powers This I thought good to alleadge that we may know the Ancients were wont to use mixtures that a compound might be the more operative And I my self have often compounded a preservative against poison of Dragon-herbs the Dragon-fish Vipers and the stone Ophites being led therein by the likenesse of things The herb Dragon-wort both the greater and smaller have a stalk full of sundry-coloured specks if any man eat their root or rub his hands with their leaves the Viper cannot hurt him The Dragon-fish being cut and opened and laid to the place which he hath stung is a present remedy against his sting as Aetius writes The Viper it self if you flay her and strip off her skin cut off her head and tail cast away all her intrails boil her like an Eele and give her to one that she hath bitten to eat it will cure him or if you cut off her head being alive and lay the part next the neck while it is hot upon the place which she hath bitten it will strangely draw out the poyson Many such compound medicines made of creatures living on the earth in the water in the air together with herbs and stones you may find most wittily devised in the books of Kirannides and Harprocration But now we will shew the way and manner how to compound Simples which the Physitians also do much observe Because we would not bring forth one effect only but sometimes have use of two or three therefore we must use mixtures that they may cause sundry effects Sometime things will not work forcibly enough therefore to make the action effectual we must take unto us many helps Again sometime they work too strongly and here we must have help to abate their force Oft-times we would practice upon some certain member as the head the heart or the bladder here we must mingle some things which are directly operative upon that part and upon none else whereby it falleth out that sometimes we must meddle contraries together But to proceed When you would do any work first consider what is the chief thing which your simple or compound should effect then take the ground or foundation of your mixture that which gives the name to your compound and let there be so much of it as may proportionably work your intent for
History But that we may perform this I shall reduce all those Secrets into their proper places and that nothing may be thrust out of its own rank I shall follow the order of Sciences And I shall first divide them into Natural and Mathematical Sciences and I shall begin with the Natural for I hold that most convenient that all may arise from those things that are simple and not so laborious to Mathematical Sciences I shall from Animals first proceed to Plants and so by steps to Minerals and other works of Nature I shall briefly describe Fountains also whence flow Springs and I shall annex thereto the Reasons and the Causes that Industrious men made acquainted with this may find out more of themselves And because there are two generations of Animals and Plants one of themselves the other by copulation I shall first speak of such as are bred without copulation and next of such as proceed from copulation one with another that we may produce new living Creatures such as the former ages never saw I shall begin therefore with Putrefaction because that is the principle to produce new Creatures not onely from the variety of Simples but of mixed Bodies I thought fit to leave none out though they be of small account since there is nothing in Nature appear it never so small wherein there is not something to be admired CHAP. I. The first Chapter treateth of Putrefaction and of a strange manner of producing living Creatures BEfore we come to shew that new living Creatures are generated of Putrefaction it is meet to rehearse the opinions of antient Philosophers concerning that matter Whereof though we have spoken elsewhere in the description of Plants yet for the Readers ease we will here rehearse some of them to shew that not onely imperfect but perfect living Creatures too are generated of Putrefaction Pâ—rphyry thought that Living creatures were begotten of the bowels of the Earth soaked in water and quickned by the heat of the Sun Of the same mind were Archelaus the Athenian Anaxagoras Clazomenius and Euripides his Scolar Cleodemus and after him Theophrastus thought that they came of putrified water mixt with earth and the colder and fouler the water was the unfitter it was for their generation Diodorus and many other good Philosophers hold that all living Creatures did arise of putrefaction For whereas in the beginning of the world the Heavens and Earth and Elements were setled in their natural places the earth being left slimy and soft in many places and then dried and stricken with the heat of the Sun brought forth certain tumors and swellings in the surface and uppermost parts in these tumors were contained and cherished many putrefactions and rotten clods covered over with certain small skins this putrified stuff being moiâ—â—ened with dew by night and the Sun heating it by day after a certain season became ripe and the skins being broken thence issued all kinds of living Creatures whereof they that had quickest heat became birds the earthy ones became creeping beasts the waterish ones became fishes in the Sea and they which were a mean as it were betwixt all these became walking-creatures But the heat of the Sun still working upon the earth hindered it from begetting and bringing forth any more such creatures but then the creatures before generated coupled together and brought forth others like themselves Avicenna in that work of his which he made of deluges and flouds holds that after the great flouds that drowned the Earth there was no mans seed but then man and all living Creatures else were generated of rotten carcases only by the vertue of the Sun and therefore he supposeth that the womb and such needful places framed by nature for the better fashioning of the infant are not needfull to the procreation of man He proves his assertion by this that mice which arise of putrefaction do couple together and beget store of young yea and serpents are generated chiefly of womans hair And in his book of living Creatures he tels of a friend of his that brought forth Scorpions after a strange manner and those did beget other Scorpions not imperfect or unlike to themselves but such as did also procreate others Averroes held that the stars were sufficient to generate imperfect creatures as mice bats moules and such like but not to generate Men or Lions And daily experience teacheth us that many living creatures come of the putrified matter of the earth And the Ancients supposing all things to be produced out of the earth called it the mother of all and the Greeks called it Dimitera Ovid hath very elegantly set down this generation of putrefaction under the fable of Pytho that the earth brought forth of its own accord many living creatures of divers forms the heat of the Sun enliving those moistures that lay in the tumors of the earth like fertile seeds in the belly of their mother for heat and moisture being tempered together causeth generation So then after the deluge the earth being now moist the Sun working upon it divers kinds of creatures were brought forth some like the former and some of a new shape CHAP. II. Of certain earthly Creatures which are generated of putrefaction PLants and living Creatures agree both in this that some of them are generated of seed and some of them Nature brings forth of her own accord without any seed of the same kind some out of putrified earth and plants as those Creatures that are divided between the head and the belly some out of the dew that lies upon leaves as Canker-worms some out of the mud as shel-creatures and some out of living Creatures themselves and the excrements of their parts as lice We will onely rehearse some which the Ancients have set down that so we may also learn how to procreate new creatures And first let us see how Mice are generated of putrefaction Diodorus saith that neer to the City Thebais in Egypt when Nilus overflowing is past the Sun heating the wet ground the chaps of the earth send forth great store of mice in many places which astonisheth men to see that the fore-part of the mice should live and be moved whereas their hinder parts are not yet shapen Pliny saith that after the swaging of Nilus there are found little mice begun to be made of earth and water their fore-parts living and their hinder parts being nothing but earth Aelianus saith that a little rain in Egypt engenders many mice which being scattered everywhere in their fields eat down their corn and devour it And so it is in Pontus but by their prayers to God they are consumed Macrobius and Avicenna say that the mice so generated do encrease exceedingly by coupling together Aristotle found out that a kind of field-mice encreased wonderfully so that in some places they did suddenly eat up whole fields of corn insomuch that many Husband-men appointing to reap their corn on the morrow when they came with their reapers found
all their corn wasted And as these mice are generated suddenly so they are suddenly consumed in a few dayes the reason whereof cannot be so well assigned Pliny could not find how it should be for neither could they be found dead in the fields neither alive within the earth in the winter time Diodorus and Aelianus write That these field-mice have driven many people of Italy out of their own Countrey they destroyed Cosas a City of Hetruria many came to Troas and thence drove the inhabitants Theophrastus and Varro write That mice also made the inhabitants of the Island Gyarus to forsake their Country and the like is reported of Heraclea in Pontus and of other places Likewise also Frogs are wonderfully generated of rotten dust and rain for a Summer showre lighting upon the putrified sands of the shore and dust of high-wayes engenders frogs Aelianus going from Naples in Italy to Puteoli saw certain frogs that their fore-parts moved and went upon two feet while yet their hinder parts were unfashioned and drawn after like a clot of dirt and Ovid saith one part lives the other is earth still and again mud engenders frogs that sometimes lack feet The generation of them is so easie and sudden that some write it hath rained frogs as if they were gendred in the Air. Phylarchus in Athenaeus writes so and Heraclides Lembus writes that it rained frogs about Dardany and Poeonia so plentifully that the very wayes and houses were full of them and therefore the inhabitants though for a few daies at the first they endured it killing the frogs and shutting up their houses yet afterward when they saw it was to no purpose but they could neither use water nor boil meat but frogs would be in it nor so much as tread upon the ground for them they quite forsook their countries as Diodorus and Eustathius write The people Autharidae in Thesprtaia were driven out of their Country by certain imperfect frogs that fell from heaven But it is a strange thing that Red Toads are generated of dirt and of womens flowers In Dariene a Province of the new world the air is most unwholesome the place being muddy and full of stinking marishes nay the village is it self a marish where Toads are presently gendred of the drops wherewith they water their houses as Peter Martyr writes A Toad is likewise generated of a duck that hath lyen rotting under the mud as the verse shews which is ascribed to the duck When I am rotten in the earth I bring forth Toads happily because they and I both are moist and foul creatures Neither is it hard to generate Toades of womens putrified flowers for women do breed this kind of cattel together with their children as Celius Aurelianus and Platearius call them frogs toads lyzards and such like and the women of Salerium in times past were wont to use the juice of Parsley and Leeks at the beginning of their conception and especially about the time of their quickening thereby to destroy this kind of vermin with them A certain woman lately married being in all mens judgement great with child brought forth in stead of a child four Creatures like to frogs and after had her perfect health But this was a kind of a Moon-calf Paracelsus said that if you cut a serpent in pieces and hide him in a vessel of glasse under the mud there will be gendred many worms which being nourished by the mud will grow every one as big as a Serpent so that of one serpent may be an hundred generated and the like he holds of other creatures I will not gainsay it but only thus that they do not gender the same serpents And so he saith you may make them of a womans flowers and so he saith you may generate a Basilisk that all shall die which look upon him but this is a stark lie It is evident also that Serpents may be generated of mans marrow of the hairs of a menstruous woman and of a horse-tail or mane We read that in Hungary by the River Theisa Serpents and Lyzards did breed in mens bodies so that three thousand men died of it Pliny writes that about the beginning of the wars against the Marsi a maid-servant brought forth a serpent Avicenna in his book of deluges writes that serpents are gendred of womens hairs especially because they are naturally moister and longer then mens We have experienced also that the hairs of a horses mane laid in the waters will become serpents and our friends have tried the same No man denies but that serpents are easily gendred of mans flesh especially of his marrow Aelianus saith that a dead mans back-marrow being putrified becomes a serpent and so of the meekest living Creature arises the most savage and that evil mens back-bones do breed such monsters after death Ovid shews that many hold it for a truth Pliny received it of many reports that Snakes gendred of the marrow of mens backs Writers also shew How a Scorpion may be generated of Basil. Florentinus the Grecian saith That Basil chewed and laid in the Sun will engender serpents Pliny addeth that if you rub it and cover it with a stone it will become a Scorpion and if you chew it and lay it in the Sun it will bring forth worms And some say that if you stamp a handful of Basil together with ten Crabs or Crevises all the Scorpions thereabouts will come unto it Avicenna tells of a strange kind of producing a Scorpion but Galen denies it to be true But the body of a Crab-fish is strangely turned into a Scorpion Pliny saith that while the Sun is in the sign Cancer if the bodies of those fishes lie dead upon the Land they wil be turned into Scorpions Ovid saith if you take of the Crabs arms and hide the rest in the ground it will be Scorpion There is also a Creature that lives but one day bred in vineger as Aelianus writes and it is called Ephemerus because it lives but one day it is gendred of the dregs of sowre wine and as soon as the vessel is open that it comes into the light presently it dies The River Hippanis about the solstitial daies yields certain little husks whence issue forth certain four-footed birds which live and flie about till noon but pine away as the Sun draws downward and die at the Sun-setting and because they live but one day they are called Hemerobion a daies-bird So the Pyrigâ—nes be generated in the fire Certain little flying beasts so called because they live and are nourished in the fire and yet they flie up and down in the Air. This is strange but that is more strange that as soon as ever they come out of the fire into any cold air presently they die Likewise the Salamander is gendred of the water for the Salamander it self genders nothing neither is there any male or female amongst them nor yet amongst Eeels nor any kind else which doth not generate of
day more and more as they multiply their copulations till at length they are scarce in any thing like the former And against their second Position we must not think that the one example of Mules not gendring should prejudice the common course of other creatures The commistions or copulations have divers uses in Physick and in Domestical affairs and in hunting for hereby many properties are conveyed into many Creatures First we will rehearse those experiments which the Antients have described and then those which new Writers have recorded and our selves have seen in divers Countries And by this the ingenious Reader may find out others But first I will relate certain observations which Aristotle and others have prescribed that this kind of generation may be more easily wrought First the creatures thus coupled must be of an equal pitch for if there be great oddes in their bignesse they cannot couple a dog and a wolf a Lion and a Panther an Asse and a Horse a Partridge and a Hen are of one bignesse and therefore may couple together but a Horse and a Dog or a Mare and an Elephant or a Hen and a Sparrow cannot Secondly they must have one and the same space to bring forth in for if one of them bring forth in twelve moneths and the other in six then the young will be ripe by one side when it is but half ripe by the other A dog must have two moneths and a horse must have twelve and the Philosopher saith no creature can be born except he have his full time So then a dog cannot be born of a man nor a Horse of an Elephant because they differ in the time of their bearing Again the creatures which we would thus couple must be one as lustful as the other for a chaste creature that useth coition but once a year if he have not his female at that time he loseth his appetite before he can fancy any other mate but those which are full of lust will eagerly couple with another kind as well as their own Among four-footed beasts a dog a goat a swine an ass be most lascivious among birds partridges quailes doves sparrows Moreover they must be coupled at such a time as is fit for generation for Nature hath prescribed certain times and ages fit for that work The common time is the Spring for then almost all Creatures are prone to lust The ages of them must likewise be fit for the generative power comes to creatures at a set age Neither of them must be barren nor weak nor too young for then their seed is unfit for generation but both of them if it may be in the prime of their best age and strength If any creatures want appetiâ—e thereunto there be many slights whereby we may Make them eager in lust And if the female do cast out the seed there be means to make her hold in it Provokements to lust there are many set down by Writers and some usual with us Aelianus writes that keepers of sheep and goats and Mares do besmear their hands with salt and nitre and then rub the generative parts of them in the time of their coition for their more lustful and eager performance of that action Others besmear them with pepper others with nettles seed others with myrrh and nitre all of them kindle the appetite of the female being well rubbed therewith and make her stand to her male The He-goats if you besmear their chin and their nostrels with sweet ointment are thereby much enclined to lust and contrariwise if you tie a thred about the middle of their tail they are nothing so eager of copulation Absyrtus sheweth that if you wipe off some nature of seed of a mare and therewith besmear the nostrils of a Stallion horse it will make him very lustful Dydimus saith that if Rams or any other beasts feed upon the herb Milk-wort they will become both eager to lust and stronger for the act of copulation Pliny sheweth that Onions encrease desire of copulation in beasts as the herb Rotchet doth in men The She-ass holds the seed within her the better if presently after copulation she be well beaten and her genitories besprinkled with cold water to make her run after it Many such helps are recorded by those who have written the histories of living creatures CHAP. VI. How there may be Dogs of great courage and divers rare properties generated of divers kinds of Beasts WE will first speak of Dogs as being a most familiar creature with us and suiting with many beasts in bignesse in like time of breeding and besides being alwayes ready for copulation and very lecherous oft-times coupling with beasts of a far divers kind and so changeth his shape and fashion leaveth the bad qualities of his own kind and is made fitter to hunt to keep any thing from spoil to play or make sport and for divers other uses And first how A strong Indian-dog may be generated of a Tygre This is called by some a Mastive by others a Warrior or a Hircan-Dog Aristotle calls them Indian-dogs and saith they are generated of a Dog and a Tygre and elsewhere of a dog and another wilde beast but he names it not Pliny writes that the Indians intending to generate dogs of Tygres tie the She-tygres in the woods about rutting time and dogs coupling with them engender young but the first and second births they care not for as being too fierce but the third they bring up as being milder and fitter fot their uses Aelianus relates the story of this kind of Dogs out of Indian Writers that the stoutest Bitches and such as are swiftest to run and best to hunt are by the shepherds tied to certain Trees within the Tygres walk as soon as the Tygres light upon them if they have not before met with their prey they devour them but if they be full of meat and hot in lust then they couple with the Bitches and so generate not a Tygre but a dog their seed degenerating into the mothers kind And these dogs thus gendred scorn to hunt a Boar or an Hart but a Lion they will set gallantly upon A Noble man of India made trial of the valor of these dogs before Alexander the Great on this manner first he set an Hart before him but the Dog scorning the Hart stirred not at him next a Boar but neither stirred he at the Boar after that a Bear but he scorned the Bear too last of all a Lion then the Dog seeing that he had an even match in hand rose up very furiously and run upon the Lion and took him by the throat and stifled him Then the Indian that shewed this sport and knew well this Dogs valour first cut off his tail but the Dog cared not for his tail in comparison of the Lion which he had in his mouth next he cut off one of his legs but the Dog held fast his hold still as if it had been none of his
fruit Africanus likewise affirmeth that if you dig about the stock of a bitter Almond-tree and make a hole into it some four inches above the root whereby it may sweat out the hurtful moisture it will become sweet Pliny saith the same If you dig round about the stock saith he and bore thorough the lower part of it and wipe away the humour which there issueth forth a bitter Almond-tree will become sweet Some there are who after they have made that hole do presently put honey into it that it may not be quite empty for they are of opinion that the relish of the honey is conveyed up into the fruit through the pith as thorough a Conduit-pipe As for example sake If we would procure Sweet Citrons for that kind of fruit was not wont to be eaten in Theophrastus time nor in Athenaeus time as himself reports nor yet in Plinies time Palladius hath shewed how to alter the bitter pith of a Citron-tree into sweet His words are these It is reported that the bitter pithes of Citrons may be made sweet if you take the Citron-seeds and steep them in honey-water or else in Ewes milk for this is better for the space of three dayes before you set them Some do bore a hole sloaping into the body of a Tree but not quite thorough it by which passage the bitter humour drops away This hole they make in it the about February and leave it so till the fruit is fashioned but after the fruit is fashioned then they fill up the hole with morter and by this device the pith is made sweet This hath Pontanuâ— set down in his book called The Gardens of Hesperides What is it saith he that Art will not search into Cut a thick Vine and make it hollow on the the top about thy hand breadth but so that the brims of the hole be brought round and something close together so that the sides be about an inch thick and no more Pour into it and fill it up with liquefied honey and cover it with a broad stone that the Sun may not come at it And when the Vine hath drunk in all that then fill it up again with the like and when that is soaked in too then open the concavity wider and let the Vine grow but you must continually water the tender roots thereof with mans water and you must be sure that you leave no buds or leaves upon the stock that so there may be no other moisture let into it but the whole Vine may grow up as it were in a spring of honey Palladius shews also How to make sweet Almonds of bitter ones even by boring a hole in the middle of the stock and putting into it a woodden wedge besmeared over with honey Sweet Cucumbers may be procured by steeping Cucumber seeds in sweet waters till they have drunk them up for they being planted will produce sweet Cucumbers Theophrastus shews how to make sweet Cucumbers even by the same sleight by steeping their seed in milk or else in water and honey sodden together and so planting them Columella saith that a Cucumber will eat very tender and sweet if you steep the seed thereof in milk before you set it Others because they would have the Cucumber to be the sweeter do steep the seed thereof in honey-water Pliny and Palladius do write the same things of the same fruit out of the same Authors Cassianus hath declared out of Varro how to procure Sweet Artichocks growing You must take the Artichock-seeds and steep them in milk and honey and after you have dryed them again then set them and the fruit will relish of honey So you may procure Sweet Fennel growing For if you steep Fennel-seeds in sweet wine and milk then will the fruit that grows of those seeds be much sweeter Or else if you put the seeds thereof in dry figs and so plant them the like effect will follow So you may procure Sweet Melons as Palladius shews even by steeping the seeds thereof in milk and sweet wine for three dayes together for then if you dry them and set them being so dryed there will grow up a very sweet fruit Likewise you may procure Sweet Lettice for if you water them in the evening with new sweet wine and let them drink for three evenings together as much of that liquor as they will soak up it will cause sweet Lettice as Aristoxenus the Cyrenian hath taught out of Athenaeus So A sweet Radish may be procured by steeping the Radish-seeds for a day and a night in honey or in sodden wine as both Palladius and Florentinus have recorded So you may procure the same by steeping the seeds in new sweet wine or else in the juice of Raisons There is also another device whereby to make sharp or bitter fruits to become sweet and this is by art and cunning in dressing them as by pouring hot water or the Lees of oile or casting soil and such like about their roots As for example when we would make A bitter Almond to become sweet we cast some sharp piercing matter upon the root that by vertue of their heat the Tree may the more easily concoct her moisture and so yield a sweeter fruit Theophrastus saith that if we apply hot and strong soil as Swines-dung or such like to the root of the bitter Almond-tree it will become sweet but it will be three years before the Tree be so changed and for all that time you must use the same husbanding of it Africanus saith If you uncover the roots and apply them still with Urine or with Swines dung then will the fruit be the sweeter The Quintils report of Aristotle that by covering the Almond-tree root with Swines-dung in March of a bitter one it becometh sweet And Palladius useth the very same practise By the same device Sharp and sowre Pomgranate-trees may be made to bring forth a sweet Pomegranate for these also may be changed from sharp and sowre into sweet Aristotle shews in his book of plants that Pomegranate-trees if their roots be applyed with Swins-dung and watered with soom cool sweet liquor the fruit will be the better and the sweeter Theophrastus saith that the roots of a Pomegranate-tree must be applyed with Urine or with the offals and refuse of hides yet not in too great a quantity for the roots of this kind of Tree have need of some sharp matter to knaw upon them and most of all every third year as we said before of the Almond-tree but indeed the Pomegranate-roots are more durable The reason is because of a kind of softnesse in the roots which is peculiar unto them alone Now Swines-dung saith he or somewhat that is of the like operation being cast upon the roots doth sweeten the juice of the Tree as also if you pour on good store of cold water it will work some kind of change thereof Paxamus prescribes this course to dig round about the root of the Tree and to lay
will shew How all things that are shut up may be preserved for many years Fruits are to be laid up in vials of glass as we shewed before and when the pipe or neck of the glass is stopt close up then they are to be drowned in cisterns and they will last good for certain whole years Likewise flowers are to be closed up in a vessel that is somewhat long and the neck of it must be stopt up as we shewed before and then they must be cast into the water for by this means they may be kept fresh for a long time I have also put new wine into an earthen vessel that hath been glazed within and have laid it in the water with a waight upon it to keep it down and a year after I found it in the same taste and goodness as when I put it into the vessel By the like device as this is we may preserve Things that are shut up even for ever if we wrap them up in some commixtion with other things so that the air may not pierce them through but especially if the commixtion it self be such as is not subject to putrefaction I have made trial hereof in Amber first reducing it to a convenient softness and then wrapping up in it that which I desired to preserve For whereas the Amber may be seen thorow it doth therefore represent unto the eye the perfect semblance of that which is within it as if it were living and so sheweth it to be sound and without corruption After this manner I have lapped up Bees and Lyzards in Amber which I have shewed to many and they have been perswaded that they were the Bees and the Lyzards that Martial speaks of We see every where that the hairs of beasts and leaves and fruits being lapped up in this juice are kept for ever the Amber doth eternize them Martial speaks thus of the Bee A Bee doth lie hidden within the Amber and yet she shines in it too as though she were even closed up within her own honey A worthy reward she hath there for all her labours and if she might make choice of her own death it is likely she would have desired to die in Amber And the same Author speaks thus of the Viper being caught as it were in the same juice The Viper comes gliding to the dropping Pine-tree and presently the Amber juice doth overflow her and while she marvails at it how she should be so entangled with that liqour upon the sudden it closeth upon her and waxeth stiff with cold Then let not Cleopatra boast her self in her Princely Tomb seeing the Viper is interred in a Nobler Tomb then she But if you desire to know how to make Amber soft though there be divers ways whereby this may be effected yet let this way alone content you to cast it into hot boiling wax that is scummed and clarified for by this means it will become so soft and pliant that you may easily fashion it with your fingers and make it framable to any use Onely you must bee sure that it be very new CHAP. IX How Fruits may be drenched in Honey to make them last for a long time THe Antients finding by experience that the shutting up of fruits in vessels and the drenching of those vessels in water was a notable preservative against corruption did thence proceed farther and began to drench the fruits themselves in divers kinds of liqours supposing that they might be the longer preserved if they were sowsed in honey wine vineger brine and such like in as much as these liquors have an especial vertue against putrefaction For honey hath an excellent force to preserve not fruits onely but also even the bodies of living creatures from being putrefied as we have elsewhere shewed that Alexanders body and the carkass of the Hippocentaur were preserved in honey Meer water they did not use in this case because that being moist in it self might seem rather to cause putrefaction But of all other liquors honey was most in request for this purpose they supposing it to be a principal preserver against corruption Columella saith That Quinces may be preserved in honey without putrefaction We have nothing more certain by experience saith he then that Quinces are well preserved in honey You must take a new flagon that is very broad brimmed and put your Quuinces into it so that they may have scope within that one may not bruise another then when your pot is full to the neck take some withy twigs and plat them over the pots mouth that they may keep down the Quinces somewhat close least when they should swell with liquor they should float too high then fill up your vessel to the very brimme with excellent good liquefi'd honey so that the Quinces may be quite drowned in it By this means you shall not onely preserve the fruit very well but also you shall procure such a well relished liquor that it will be good to drink of But in any case take heed that your Quinces be through ripe which you would thus preserve for if they were gathered before they were ripe they will be so hard that they cannot be eaten And this is such an excellent way that though the worm have seized upon the Quinces before they were gathered yet this will preserve them from being corrupted any farther for such is the nature of honey that it will suppress any corruption and not suffer it to spread abroad for which cause it will preserve the dead carkass of a man for many years together without putrefaction Palladius saith that Quinces must be gathered when they are ripe and so put into honey whole as they are and thereby they will be long preserved Pliny would have them first to be smeared over with wax and then to be sowsed in honey Apitius saith Quinces must be gathered with their boughes and leaves and they must be without any blemish and so put into a vessel full of honey and new wine The Quinces that were thus dressed were called Melimela that is to say Apples preserved in honey as Martial witnesseth saying Quinces sowsed in pure honey that they have drunk themselves full are called Melimela Likewise Columella sheweth that Other kind of Apples may be so preserved Not onely the Melimela but also the Pome-paradise and the Sestian Apples and other such daiâ—ties may be preserved in honey but because they are made sweeter by the honey and so lose their own proper relish which their nature and kind doth afford therefore he was wont to preserve them by another kind of practise Palladius saith That Pears may be preserved in Honey if a hey be so laid up therein that one of them may not touch another So Africanus reporteth That Figgs may be long preserved in Honey if they be so disposed and placed in it that they neither touch each other nor yet the vessel wherein they be put and when you have so placed them you must make fast
carefully closed up must needs last unputrified even for a whole age nay for all eternity At Rome I saw a fish that was drenched in the water that had been distilled out of the Vine and she was preserved five and twenty years as fresh as while she was alive and at Florence I saw the like of fourty years continuance the vessel was made of glass and made up with the seal of Hermes And I make no question but that all things that are sowced in this kind of liquor will last sound and good for many ages How many sorts of things I have preserved by this one means it were too long here to rehearse CHAP. XI That fruits may be very well preserved in salt-waters NExt after wine salt-water is of special use for preserving from putrefaction for such things as have been drenched therein have lasted long very sound and good The Ancients saw that whatsoever was preserved in salt was kept thereby from putrifying wherefore that they might preserve fruits from corruption they have used to drench them in salt-waters Homer calls salt a divine thing because it hath a special vertue against putrefaction and by it bodies are preserved to all eternity Plato calls it the friend of God because no sacrifices were welcome to him without salt Plutark saith that the Antients were wont to call it a divine influence because the bodies of creatures that were seasoned with salt from above were thereby acquitted from corruption Salt binds and dries and knits together and doth priviledge bodies from putrefaction that in their own nature must needs putrifie as the Aegyptians custome manifestly sheweth who were wont to season their dead bodies with salt as Herodotus writeth But let us come to examples Beritius saith that Pomegranates are preserved in salt-waters You must take sea-water or else brine and make it boil and so put your Pomegranates into it and afterward when they are thorough cold dry them and hang them up in the Sun and whensoever you would use them you must steep them in fresh-water two dayes before Columella rehearses the opinion of a certain Carthaginian touching this matter Mago would have saith he that sea-Sea-water should be made very hot and Pomegranates being tied together with thread or broom-twigs to be drenched in it till they change their colour and then to be taken forth and dried in the Sun for three dayes and afterward to be hanged up and when you would use them you must steep them in fresh and sweet water for the space of four and twenty hours before and so they will be fit for your use Pliny also reports out of the same Author that Pomegranates are first to be hardened in hot Sea-water and then to be dried in the Sun three dayes and so to be hung up that the evening dew come not at them and when you would use them to steep them first in fresh-water Palladius writes the same out of Pliny and he sheweth also that Damosins may be preserved in salt-waters They must be fresh gathered and then drenched either in brine or else in sea-water scalding hot and then taken forth and dried either in the Sun or else in a warm Oven Columella would have them drenched in new wine sodden wine and vineger but he gives a special charge also to cast some salt amongst them lest the worm or any other hurtful vermine do grow in them Palladius likewise sheweth that Pears will last long in salt-water first the water is to be boiled and when it begins to rise in surges you must skim it and after it is cold put into it your Pears which you would preserve then after a while take them forth and put them up in a pitcher and so make up the mouth of it close and by this means they will be well preserved Others let them lie one whole day and night in cold salt-salt-water and afterward steep them two dayes in fresh-water and then drench them in new wine or in sodden wine or in sweet wine to be preserved Others put them in a new earthen pitcher filled with new wine having a little salt in it and so cover the vessel close to preserve them Likewise Modlars may be preserved in salt-water They must be gathered when they are but half ripe with their stalks upon them and steeped in salt-water for five dayes and afterward more salt-water poured in upon them that they may swim in it Didymus sheweth also that Grapes may be preserved long in salt-water You must take some sea-water and make it hot or if you cannot come at that take some brine and put wine amongst it and therein drench your clusters of grapes and then lay them amongst Barley straw Some do boil the ashes of a Fig-tree or of a Vine in water and drench their clusters therein and then take them out to be cooled and so lay them in Barley straw The grape will last a whole year together if you gather them before they be thorough ripe and drench them in hot water that hath Allome boiled in it and then draw them forth again The Antients were wont To put salt to Wine to make it last the longer as Columella sheweth They took new wine and boiled it till the third part was wasted away then they put it into vessels there to preserve it for their use the year following they put a pinte and a half of this liquor thus boiled into nine gallons of new wine unboiled and after two dayes when these liquors are incorporated together they wax hot and begin to spurge then they cast into them half an ounce of salt beaten small and that made the wine last till the next year Theophrastus and Pliny write that The fruits of those Palm-trees which grow in salt places are fittest to be preserved as those which grow in Judaea and Cyrenian Africk because those Countries especially do afford salt and sandy grounds for salt is a great nourisher of these kinds of fruits and they are preserved long even by their own saltnesse so that the salter the places are where they grow the better will the fruit be preserved So likewise that kind of Pulse which is called Cicer is preserved by its own saltness without any other dressing for the nature thereof is to have a saltish juice within it whereby it cometh to pass that whereas all other Pulse are subject to corruption and have some vermine or other breeding in them onely this kind doth not engender any at all because of the bitter and sharp saltish juice that is in it as Theophrastus writeth Didymus likewise writeth that Beans will last long in salt-water for if they be sowced in sea-water they will continue long without any blemish Pliny also sheweth that Garlick may be preserved in salt-water for if you would have Garlick or Onions to last long you must dip the heads thereof in warm salt-water so will they be of longer continuance and of a better taste So Cucumbers are preserved in
brine as the Quintiles affirm for if you preserve either Gourds or Cucumbers in brine they will last long So Apples and Myrtles may be preserved by lapping them up in Sea-weed one by one so that they may be covered all over with it and not touch one another as Apuleius sheweth If you have no Sea-weed then you must lay them up close in Coffers Aristotle is of opinion that the fruits of the Myrtle-tree need not to be lapped up in Sea-weed thereby to keep them from falling off from the Tree because they will stick on of themselves till they be thoroughly ripe but the blades of them are preserved by wrapping Sea-weed about them and the vapour of the Sea-weed thus wrapped about the blades will keep the juice of the fruit from being changed to any further maturity and cause it to continue long at one stay and this is by reason of the saltness of the Sea-weed whereby it doth intercept and dry up that moisture which should be derived into the fruit to ripen it We may learn also to preserve Olives in brine to have them good a year after Marcus Cato saith that those kinds of Olives which are called Orchites may be well preserved if they be laid up in brine while they are green or else if they be powned with Mâ—stick Columella saith that the Olives which are called Orchites and those which are called Pansiae and the little round Olive called Radiolus are to be knocked and beaten and so cast into brine and then to be taken out of the brine and squeezed and so cast into a vessel together with the blanched seeds of Mastick and Fennel then take a good quantity of new wine and half so much strong brine or pickle and put it into the vessel and so the fruit will be preserved Or else you may cast your Olives whole into a vessel and put in strong brine amongst them till the vessel be brim-full and so take them out for your uses when occasion serveth There are a certain kind of black Olives called also Orchites which Cato saith are thus to be preserved When they be dry cast them into salt and there let them lie for the space of two dayes afterward take them forth and shake off the salt and set them in the Sun two dayes together and so they will be preserved Marcus Varro reports the very same experiment out of Cato Columella saith while Olives be yet black and unripe you must tuck them off the Tree with your hand in a fair Sun-shining day and cull out the sound ones from those that have any blemish and into every peck and and an half of Olives put a quart and somewhat more of whole salt then put them into wicker baskets and there let them lie in salt thirty dayes together that the Lees or dregs may be still dropping forth afterward put them into some trey or such like vessel that you may wipe away the salt with a spunge and when you have done so barrel them up into a Hogs-head full of new wine or else of sodden wine and by this means they will be long preserved Didymus teacheth to make condite or preserved Olives on this manner When Olives are almost ripe you must gather them with their stalks and all then wash or steep them a whole day in cold water and afterward lay them a drying upon wicker Lattises handling them very gently then put them in the bottom of a vessel and cast good store of salt amongst them and into five pecks of Olives you must put in four gallons and two quarts of brine and two pints and a half of vineger And when you have filled up the vessel shake them together that the liquor may swim on the pot Columella Palladius and divers others do cast the Olives into Sea-water and there steep them seven dayes together and when they have taken them forth they condite them with brine and so put them up into some other vessel CHAP. XII That things may be specially well preserved in Oyl and Lees of Oyl OYl and especially Lees of Oyl do excellently conserve things defending them both from the injuries of the Air and of Animals Cato doth in short enumerate the faculties of Lees of Oyl he subacts the Barn-flores with Lees of Oyl that Mice may not eat his Corn. That also He may preserve his Grain in his Garner he dawbes the Pavement and Walls thereof with clay confected with Lees of Oyl That also Moths may not eat his clothes he be sprinkles them with Lees of Oyl as also that Seed Corn lying in the fields may be kept from erosion by Animals if it be steeped in Oyl lees as also Whetstones Shoes Brazen-vessels from rust all Woodden-houshold-stuff Potters-vessels and the like The same Cato also saith That Myrtle branches may be preserued with their Berries on in Lees of Oyl Bind these or any of the like Nature into bundles put them into a vessel of Oyl-lees so that the Oyl cover them then cover the vessel Didymus saith That roses may be kept in Oyl-lees fresh and vigorous if they be covered over with this liquor If you would preserve Figtree-branches with their fruits in Oyl-lees bundle them up with their leaves and all and put them in a vessel of Oyl-lees as we said of Myrtle but if you would keep dry Figs from corruption lay them up in a Potters vessel wet with Lees of Oyl decocted Olives may be preserved in Oyl for when they have lost their colour they may be gathered with their stalks preserved in Oyl and a year after they will represent their green colour and if you besprinkle them with common salt they will pass for new ones CHAP. XIII How Apples may belong conserved in Sawdust with leafs and Chaff or straw THe Ancients have invented many Trees whose fruits may be long preserved in their own saw dust because of its dryness Now every fruit is best kept in its own leaves dust and the like as we have said of Olives which are best kept in Oyl Grapes in wine c. Orenges may be kept in Cedar-dust As Palladius asserts who avers that many have experienced it in the like manner Quinces may be long kept in dust because as Democritus avers the dryness of the dust preserves them from putrefaction they may be also kept long in Wooll fine Tow or the like in Chests The fruits of the Fir-tree may be long kept in dust Many diffuse the saw-dust of the Poplar or Fir-tree amongst their fruits for their preservation Apuleius saith You may lay them involved in fine Tow into a vimineous basket and they will keep Pomegranates may be kept from putrefaction in Oak-dust Columella would have the dust first steeped in vinegar and then they laid in it Mago would have us first strew a new potters vessel with the dust then lay in the apples then strew another layer of dust and another of apples till the vessel be full which we must
How the defects of wine may be managed and restored OUr forefathers found out many remedies to preserve wine and in our dayes we have taken no less pains For wine is easily corrupted and takes to it self many strange qualities Paxamus saith wine either grows sowre or dead about the Solstices and when the seven stars set or when the dog star causeth heat and when it is extream cold or hot or rainy or windy or when it thunders We shall shew remedies for all these First we shall lay down out of Africanus the signs to know wines that will last or will corrupt When you have put your wine into a vessel after some time change the vessel and look well on the Lees for thence shall you know what the wine is proving it by smelling to it whether it corrupt or weevils breed in it these are signs it putrifies Others take wine out of the middle of the vessel they heat it and when it is cold they taste of it and they judge of the wine by the favour some by the smell of the cover a strong taste is the best sign a watry the worst sharpness of duration weakness of corrupting The signs must be taken at the times to be feared we mentioned But to come to the remedies we shall shew how To mend weak wine The wine will be weak when it begins to breath forth that force of heat fot when the soul of it is breathed forth the wine grows immediately sowre vineger is the carcasse of wine Then we may presently prevent it by adding aqua vitae to it for by that it may put on a new soul the measure will be the fourth part of a pound for a vessel Another remedy will be That wine may not grow hot In the Summer Solstice wine grows hot by the hot weather and is spoiled then put quick-silver into a glass-viol well stopt and hang it in the middle of the vessel and the coldness of it will keep the wine from heating The quantity is two pound for great vessels for when the air is hot the external heat draws forth the inward heat and when that is gone it is spoiled We That wine may not exhale use this remedy The vessel being full we pour oyle upon it and cover it for oyle keeps the spirits from evaporating which I see is now used for all liquors that they may not be perverted Wines sometimes are troubled But To clear wines Fronto bids us do thus Cast three whites of egges into a large earthen dish and beat them that they may froth put some white salt to them that they may be exceeding white and pour them into a vessel full of wine for salt and the white of an egge will make all thick liquors clear but as many Dolia or such measures as there are in the vessel so many whites of egges must you have to be mingled again with so many ounces of salt but you must stir the mixture with a stick and in four dayes it will grow clear Also it is done That wines may not corrupt I said that salt keeps all things from corrupting wherefore for every Dolium powder one ounce of Allome and put it into the wine vessel with the wine for it will keep it from corrupting The same is done if you put in one ounce of common salt or half one half the other Also brimstone hinders putrefaction Wherefore if you shall adde to eight ounces of Allome or of Salt four ounces of brimstone you shall do well The Antients were wont to peserve wine by adding Salt or sea-water to it and it would continue along time Columella teacheth thus when the winds are quiet you must take water out of the deep sea when it is very calm and boyl it to thirds adding to it if you please some spices There are many ordinary things but we let them pass CHAP. XXIV How Oyl may be made of divers things IT is an excellent thing to shew the diversity of ways to make Oyl That if Olives should ever be scarce yet we might know how to draw Oyl from many kinds of fruits and seeds And some of these ways that came from the Antients yet onely the best and such as are our inventions Wherefore to begin We say that Oyl may be made of Ricinus call'd Cicinum Dioscorides makes it thus Let ripe Ricini as many as you please wither in the hot Sun and be laid upon hurdles let them be so long in the Sun till the outward shell break and fall off Take the flesh of them and bruise it in a morter diligently then put it into a Caldron glazed with Tin that is full of water put fire under and boil them and when they have yielded their inbred juyce take the vessel from the fire and with a shell skim off the Oyl on the top and keep it But in Egypt where the custom of it is more common for they cleanse the Ricini and put them into a Mill and being well grownd they press them in a press through a basket Pliny saith They must be boiled in water and the Oyl that swims on the top must be taken off But in Egypt where there is plenty of it without fire and water sprinkled with Salt it is ill for to eat but good for Candles But we collected them in September for then is the time to gather them with it parts from a prickly cover and a coat that holds the seed in it it is easily cleansed in a hot Caldron The weight of Oyl is half as much as the seed but it must be twice knocked and twice pressed Palladius shews how Oyl of Mastick is made gather many Grains of the Mastick-tree and let them lye in a heap for a day and a night Then put a basket full of those Berries into any vessel and pouring hot water thereto tread them and press them forth Then from that humour that runs forth of them the Oyl of Mastick that swims on the top is poured off But remember lest the cold might hold it there to pour hot water often on For thus we see it made with us and all the Country of Surrentum also so is made Oyl of Turpentine as Damageron teacheth The fruit of Turpentine is grownd in a Mill as the Olives are and is pressed out and so it sends forth Oyl The kernels serve to feed hogs and to burn Likewise Oyl of Bays Boil Bay-berries in water the shels yield a certain fat it is forced out by crushing them in the hands then gather the Oyl into horns Palladius almost as Dioscorides in January boil many Bay-berries that are ripe and full in hot water and when they have boy'ld long the watry oyl that swims on the top that comes from them you shall gently pour off into vessels driving it easily with feathers The Indians make as it is said Oyl of Sesamon It is made as we said before it sends forth excellent Oyl abundantly There is made Oyl of
and be first throughly boiled it turneth into Lead This experiment is observed by Dioscorides who saith That if you take Antimony and burn it exceedingly in the fire it is converted into Lead Galen sheweth another experiment concerning Lead namely How to procure Lead to become heavier then of it self it is For whereas he had found by his experience that Lead hath in it self an aethereal or airy substance he brings this experiment Of all the Mettals saith he that I have been acquainted with only Lead is encreased both in bigness and also in weight for if you lay it up in sellars or such other places of receipt that are under the ground wherein there is a turbulent and gross foggy air so that whatsoever is laid up in such rooms shall straightways gather filth and soil it will be greater and weightier then before it was Yea even the very clamps of Lead which have been fastened into carved Images to knit their parts more strongly together especially those that have been fastened about their feet have been divers times found to have waxed bigger and some of those clamps have been seen to swell so much that whereas in the making of such Images the leaden plates and pins were made level with the Images themselves yet afterwards they have been so swoln as that they have stood forth like hillocks and knobs very unevenly out of the Christal stones whereof the Images were made This Lead is a Mettal that hath in it great store of quick-silver as may appear by this because it is a very easie mastery To extract Quick-silver out of Lead Let your Lead be filed into very small dust and to every two pounds of Lâ—ad thus beaten into powder you must put one ounce of Salt-Peter and one ounce of ordinary common Salt and one ounce of Antimony Let all these be well beaten and powned together and put into a sieve and when they are well sifted put them into a vessel made of glass and you must fence and plaister the glass round about on the outward side with thick loam tempered with chopt straw and it must be laid on very fast and that it may stick upon the vessel the better your glass must not be smooth but full of rigoles as if it were wrested or writhen When your vessel is thus prepared you must settle and apply it to a reflexed fire that is to a fire made in such a place as will reflect and beat back the heat of it with great vehemency to the best advantage and underneath your vessels neck you must place a large pan or some other such vessel of great capacity and receipt which must be half full of cold water then close up all very fast and sure and let your fire burn but a little and give but a small heat for the space of two hours afterward make it greater so that the vessel may be throughly heated by it even to be red hot then set a blower on work and let him not leave off to blow for the space of four whole hours together and you shall see the quick-silver drop down into the vessel that is half full of water being flighted as it were out of the Mettal by the vehement force of the fire Commonly the quick-silver will stick to the sides of the vessels neck and therefore you must give the neck of the vessel a little jolt or blow with your hand that so the quick-silver may fall downward into the water-vessel By this practice I have extracted oftentimes out of every pound of Mettal almost an whole ounce of quick-silver yea sometimes more then an ounce when I have been very diligent and laborious in performing the work Another experiment I have seen which drew me into great admiration Lead converted into quick-silver A counterfeiting practice which is the chief cause that all the quick-silver almost which is usually to be had is but bastard stuff and meerly counterfeit yet it is bought and sold for currant by reason of the neer likeness that it hath with the best Let there be one pound of Lead melted in an earthen vessel and then put unto it also one pound of that Tinny mettal which is usually called by the name of Marchasite and when they are both melted together you must stirre them up and down and temper them to a perfect medley with a wooden ladle In the mean space you must have four pounds of quick-silver warmed in another vessel standing by to cast in upon that compounded Mettal for unless your quick-silver be warm it will not close nor agree well with your Mettals then temper your quick-silver and your Mettal together for a while and presently after cast it into cold water so shall it not congeal into any hard lump but flote on the top of the water and be very quick and lively The onely blemish it hath and that which onely may be excepted against it is this that it is somewhat pale and wan and not all things so nimble and lively as the true quick-silver is but is more slow and slimy drawing as it were a tail after it as other viscous and slimy things are wont to do But put it into a vessel of glass and lay it up for a while for the longer you keep it the quicker and nimbler it will be CHAP. III. Of Brass and how to transform it into a worthier Mettal WE will now alledge certain experiments concerning Brass which though they are but slight and trivial yet we will not omit to speak of them because we would fain satisfie the humour of those who have a great desire to read of and be acquainted with such matters And here we are to speak of such things as are good to stain the bodies of Mettals with some other colour then naturally they are endued withal Yet I must needs confess that these are but fained and counterfeit colourings such as will not last and stick by their bodies for ever neither yet are they able to abide any trial but as soon as ever they come to the touchstone they may easily be discerned to be but counterfeits Howbeit as they are not greatly to be desired because they are but deceivable yet notwithstanding they are not utterly to be rejected as things of no value And because there are very few Books extant which Treat of any Argument of like kind as this is but they are full of such experiments and sleights as here offer themselves to be handled by us for they are very common things and in every mans mouth therefore we will in this place speak onely of those things which are easily to be gotten and yet carry with them a very goodly shew insomuch that the best and sharpest censure may be deluded and mistaken by the beautiful gloss that is cast upon them and it may gravel the quickest and skilfullest judgement to define upon the suddain whether they are true or counterfeit Yet let them be esteemed no better then they deserve
may be red hot take it off and plunge it in urine and it will regain the colour If it shine too much and you would have it of a lower colour the remedy is to wet it in urine and let it stand on a plate red hot to cool But thus you shall make vitriol very red put it into a vessel covered with coles and boil it till it change to a most bright red take it out and lay it aside and do not use it for an ill purpose We may with the fragments of brass Do this business otherwise That shall supply the place of silver and it shall become too weighty Or otherwise melt two parts of brass with silver then make it into small thin plates in the mean while make a powder of the dregs of aqua fortis namely of salt-peter and vitriol and in a strong melting vessel put the plate and the powder to augment gold fill the vessel in a preposterous order Then lure the mouth of it and set it in a gentle fire half a day take it off always renewing the same till it come to the desired weight We have taught how to increase the weight and not hurt the fashion or stamp Now I shall shew how without loss in weight nor yet the stamp being hurâ— Gold and Silver may be diminished Some use to do it with aqua fortis but it makes the work rough with knots and holes you shall do it therefore thus Strew powder of brimstone upon the work and put a candle to it round about or burn it under your work by degrees it will consume by burning strike it with a hammer on the contrary side and the superficies will fall off as much in quantity as you please as you use the brimstone Now shall I shew how To separate gold from silver Cups that are gilded For it is oft-times a custome for Goldsmiths to melt the vessels and cast them away and to make new ones again not knowing how without great trouble to part the gold from the silver and therefore melt both together To part them do thus Take salt Ammoniack brimstone half a part powder them â—ne and anoint the gilded part of the vessel with oyl then strew on the powder and take the vessel in a pair of tongs and put it into the fire when it is very hot strike it with an iron and the powder shaken will fall into the water in a platter under it and the vessel will remain unaltered Also it is done Another way with quick-silver Put quick-silver into an earthen vessel with a very wide mouth and let it heat so long at the fire that you can endure the heat of it with your finger put into it put the gilt plate of silver into it and when the quick-silver sticks to the gold take it out and put it into a Charger into which the gold when it is cold will fall with the quick-silver Going over this work again until no more gold appears in the vessel Then put the gold with the quick-silver that was shaken into the Charger into a linnen clout and press it out with your hands and let the quick-silver fall into some other receiver the gold will stay behind in the rag take it and put it into a cole made with a hole in it blow till it melt make it into a lump and boil it in an earthen vessel with a little Stibium and pour it forth into another vessel that the gold may fall to the bottom and the Stibium stay atop But if you will Part Gold from a vessel of Brass wet the vessel in cold water and set it in the fire when it is red hot quench it in cold water then scrape off the gold with latin wire bound together CHAP. IX To part Metals without aqua fortis BEcause waters are drawn from salts with difficulty with loss of time and great charges I shall shew you how to part gold from silver and brass and silver from brass without aqua fortis but by some easie operations with little cost or loss of time And first I shall shew how To part Gold from Silver Cast a lump of gold mixt with silver into an earthen vessel that will hold fire with the same weight of Antimony thus when the vessel is red hot and the lump is melted and turned about with the force of the fire cast a little Stibium in and in a little time it will melt also and when you see it cast in the rest of the Stibium and cover the vessel with a cover let the mixture boil as long as one may repeat the Lords-prayer take away the vessel with a pair of tongs and cast it into another iron Pyramidal vessel red hot called a Crucible that hath in the bottom of it rams fat shaking it gently that the heavier part of gold separated from the silver may fall to the bottom when the vessel is cold it is shaken off and the part next the bottom will be gold the upper part silver and if it be not well parted refuse not to go over the same work again but take a less quantity of Stibium Let therefore the gold be purged again and let the Stibium be boiled and there will be always at the bottom a little piece of gold And as the dregs remain after the same manner purge them again in the copple and you shall have your silver without any loss of the weight because they are both perfect bodies but the silver onely will lose a little But would you have your silver to lose less do thus adde to two pound and half of Stibium wine-lees two pounds and boil them together in an earthen vessel and the mass will remain in the bottom which must be also boil'd in a copple then adding pieces of lead to it purge it in a copple wherein the other things being consumed by the fire the silver onely will remain but if you do not boil your Stibium in wine-lees as I said part of the silver will be lost and the copple will draw the silver to it The same may be done Another way Take three ounces of brimstone powder them and mingle them with one ounce of common oyl and set them to the fire in a glazed dish of earth let the fire be first gentle then augment it till it run and seem to run over take it from the fire and let it cool then cast it into sharp vinegar so the oyl will swim above the vinegar the brimstone will fall down to the bottom cast away the vinegar and let the brimstone boil in strong vinegar and you shall see the vinegar coloured you shall strain the vinegar through a wisp into a glased vessel to which adde more brimstone boil it again and again strain out the lye into the vessel doing this so oft till the Lixivium comes forth muddy or of a black colour Let the Lixivium settle one night again strain it through a wisp and you shall
find the brimstone almost white at the bottom of the vessel adde that to what you had before and set it again to boil with three parts as much distilled vinegar till the vinegar all evaporate and dry the brimstone take heed it burn not when it is dry put it again into distilled vinegar working the same way so often until putting a little of it upon a red hot plate of iron it will melt without flame or smoke Then cast it on a lump of gold and silver and the gold will sink to the bottom presently but the silver will remain on the top For if brimstone be boil'd in a Lixivium so strong that it will bear an egg until it will not smoke and will melt on a fire-cole if it be projected on a mass of gold and silver mingled when they are melted it will part the gold from the silver Also there is an ingenious and admirable way To part silver from brass with certain powders The best are those are made of powdred lead half so much quick brimstone and arsenick and common salt double as much salt-peter one half powder those fine each by themselves then mingle them Take the mixt metal with half so much more of the powder and in a vessel that will endure fire strew it in by turns and set the vessel fil'd at a strong fire till all melt take it out and cast it into another vessel that is broad atop narrow at bottom and hot as we said and smeered with ram or sowes grease clarified let it cool for you shall find the silver at the bottom and the brass on the top part one from the other with an iron rasp or file if you will you may purge your silver again in a copple But the silver must be made into thin plates that when it is strewed interchangeably with the powders they may come at it on all sides then cover the vessel with its cover and lute it well But the salt must be decrepitated that it leap not out and the brimstone prepared and fixed But we may thus Part gold from brass Make salt of these things that follow namely Vitriol Alom Salt-peter quick Brimstone of each a pound Salt-ammoniack half a pound Powder them all and boil them in a lye made of ashes one part as much quick lime four parts of beech-ashes melt them at the fire and decant them and boil them till the Lixivium be gone then dry it and keep it in a place not moist lest it melt and mingle with it one pound of powder of lead and strew on of this powder six ounces for every pound of brass made not in a melting vessel and let them be shaken and stirred vehemently with an iron thing to stir it with when the vessel is cold break it you shall find a lump of gold in the bottom Do the rest as I said CHAP. X. A compendious way to part gold or silver from other Metals with aqua fortis WE shall teach thus compendiously to part gold from silver and silver from other metals and it is no small gain to be got by it if a man well understood what I write for I have known some by this art that have got great wealth For example take a mixture of brass and silver dissolve it in common aqua fortis when it is consumed cast fountain-water into it to remove the sharpness of the water and that it can no more corrode the metal Put the water into a great mouthed earthen vessel and plunge plates of brass therein for the silver will stick to them like a cloud the brass is best in the water put the water into a glass retort with a large belly and make a soft fire under and the fountain-water will distil forth by degrees When you know that the whole quantity of fountain-water is distilled out or the belly of the retort looks of a yellow colour and the sent of the salts pierceth your nostrils take away the receiver and put another that is empty to it and lure it well that nothing break forth Augment the fire and you shall draw off your aqua fortis as strong as before and the brass will be at the bottom of the retort The aqua fortis will be as good as it was and you may use it oft-times THE SIXTH BOOK OF Natural Magick Of counterfeiting Precious Sones THE PROEME FRom the adulterating of Metals we shall pass to the counterfeiting of Jewels They are by the same reason both Arts are of kin and done by the fire And it is no fraud saith Pliny to get gain to live by and the desire of money hath so kindled the firebrand of luxury that the most cunning artists are sometimes cheated They are counterfeited by divers ways either by cutting Jewels in the middle and putting in the colours and joyning them together or else by giving a tincture to Crystal that is all one piece or counterfeiting Crystal by many ingredients or we shall attempt to make true Jewels to depart from their proper colour and all of them to be so handsomly coloured that they may shew like natural Jewels Lastly I shall shew how to make Smalt of divers colours CHAP. I. Of certain Salts used in the composition of Gems WE wil first set down certain operations which are very necessary in the making of Gems lest we be forced to repeat the same thing over again And first How to make Sal Soda The herb Kali or Saltwort is commonly called Soda grinde this Soda very small and sift it into powder put it into a brass Cauldron and boil it pouring in for every pound of Soda a firkin of water Let it boil for four hours till the water be consumed to a third part Then take it from the fire and let it stand twelve hours while the dregs settle to the bottom and the water becomes clear then drain out the water with a linnen cloth into another vessel and pour fresh water into the Cauldron Boil it again and when it is cold as before and all the dross setled filtrate the clear water out again Do as much the third time still having a care to try with your tongue whether it be still salt At last strain the water and set it in an earthen vessel over the fire keeping a constant fire under it until the moisture being almost consumed the water grow more thick and be condensed into salt which must presently be taken out with an iron ladle and of five pound of Soda you will have one pound of salt How to make Salt of Tartar Take the lees of old wine and dry it carefully it is commonly called Tartar put it into an Alimbeck made in such sort that the flame may be retorted from the top and so augment the heat There let it burn you will see it grow white then turn it with your iron tongs so that the upper part which is white may be at bottom and turn the back up to the
flame when it hath ceas'd smoaking take it out and break part of it to see whether it be white quite through for that is an argument of the sufficient burning because it oftentimes happens that the outside onely is burned and the rest of it remaineth crude Therefore when it hath gained the colour of chalk it must be taken out and when it is cold grinde it and lay it in water in some wide-mouth'd vessel a quarter of a day When the water is grown clear filtrate it and strain it into another vessel and then pour water again unto the settlement observing the same things we spoke before until the water have taken out all the salt which will come to pass in the third or forth time Pour your waters which you saved into a vessel of glass and all things being ready put live coles under it and attend the work until the water be consumed by the force of the fire which being done the salt will stick to the bottom it being thus made preserve it in a dry place lest it turn to oyl CHAP. II. How Flint or Crystal is to be prepared and how Pastils are boiled THe matter of which Gems are made is either Crystal or Flint from whence we strike fire or round pebbles found by river sides those are the best which are taken up by the river Thames white clear and of the bigness of an egge for of those are made best counterfeit Gemms though all will serve in some sort Some think that Crystal is the best for this purpose because of the brightness and transparency of it but they are deceived The way of making Gems is this Take riverpebbles and put them into a fornace in that place where the retorted flame is most intense when they are red hot take them out and fling them into water then dry them and powder them in a mortar or a hand-mill until they are very fine put them into a wide-mouthed vessel full of rain water and shake it well in your hands for so the finest part will rise to the top and the grossest will settle to the bottom to that which swims at top pour fresh water and stir the dust again and do this oftentimes until the gross part be quite separated and sunk down Then take out the water and let it settle and in the bottom there will lie a certain slimy matter gather together and reserve the refined powder But whil'st the stone is ground both the morter and the mill will lose somewhat of themselves which being mixt with the powder will foul the Gem wherefore it will be worth the labâ—r to wash that away to which end let water be often poured into the lavel and stirred about the dust of the morter will rise to the top by reason of its levity and the powder of the pebbles will retire to the bottom by reason of its weight skim the lavel and separate them with a spoon till all that sandy and black dust be taken off then strain out the water and reserve the powder dry These being done we must teach How Pastils are boiled Artificers call those pellets which are made of the salts and the forenamed powder and water Pastils Take five parts of salt of Tartar as many of salt of Soda double the quantity of these of the forespoken powder of pebbles and mix them very well in a stone morter sprinkle them with water wet them so that they may grow into a past and make Pastils of them in bigness of your fist set them in the sun and dry them well Then put them into a fornace of reverbaration the space of six hours encreasing the fire by degrees that at last they may become red hot but not melt wherefore use no bellows when they are baked enough let them cool and they will become so hard that they will endure almost the hammer CHAP. III. Of the Fornace and the Parts thereof NOw the Fornace is to be built which is like to that of glass-makers but less according to the proportion of the work Let your fornace be eight foot high and consist of two vaults the roof of the lower must be a handful and a half thick the vault it self must have a little door by which you may cast in wood to feed the fire there Let it also have on the top and in the middle of its roof a hole about a foot in breadth by which the flame may penetrate into the second vault and reach to the upper roof whence the flame being reverberated doth cause a vehement heat In this upper vault there must be cut out in the wall small holes of a handful in breadth which must open and shut to set the pots and pans in on the floor and to take them out again Artificers call these pots Crucibles they are made of clay which is brought from Valencia and doth very strongly endure fire They must be a finger thick and a foot and a half deep their bottom somewhat thicker lest they should break with the force of the fire All things being thus provided cast in your wood and fire and let the fornace heat by degrees so that it may be perfectly hot in a quarter of a day Your workmen must be diligent to perform their duty then let the Pastils being broken into pieces about the bigness of a wall-nut be put into crucibles and set in the holes of the fornace built for that purpose with a pair of iron tongs to every pot When they melt they will rise up in bubbles and growing greater and greater must be pricked with sharp wires that the vapor passing out the bubbles may sink down again and not run over the mouth of the crucibles Then let other pieces be put in and do as before until the pots be filled to the top and continue the fire for a whole day until the matter be concocted Then put an iron hook into the pots and try whether the matter have obtained a perfect transparency which if it have take it out of the pots with iron instruments for that purpose and cast it into clear water to wash off the filth and stains and to purge out the salt for when the Gems are made on a suddain the salt breaks forth as it were spued out and overcast them like a cloud Yet there must be a great deal of diligence used whilâ—st you draw out this vitrified matter lest it touch the sides of the fornace for it will cleave thereto like birdâ—ime hardly to be pulled off without part of the wall as also lest it fall into the vessels for it is very difficult to separate it and it prejudices the clearness of the glasâ— When it is cold put it again into the crucibles and let it glow for two days until it be concocted into perfect glass When this vitrified matter hath stood so for two days some to make it more fine and bright lest it should be specked with certain little bubbles
copper and melt it in the same manner mix a drachm of silver with it and let it cool take it out of the pot and file the out-side of it smooth for the least crack or chap would spoil the work You may know whether there be any crack within side or without by this sign place it in an even poise upon a piece of iron and strike it with another piece if it sound equally and ring clearly it is whole if it do jar it is cracked somewhere Let your pieces of metal be about a finger in bigness beat them gently upon the anvile lest they break somewhere set them in the fire and season them and when they are cold beat them with the hammer into thin rays as I have said before if they chance to crack file off the flaws and when they have been seasoned twice or thrice in the fire have your pot of water ready prepared with salt and tartar to whiten them that you may more exactly find out the craks To make them of the colour of a Ruby The plates being finished if you would make them of a ruby colour do it with flocks of scarlet as before but then the rags must be of the mixture of copper and gold To make them of the colour of a Saphire or Emerald Let the plates be of copper and silver the Saphire colour is made with goose feathers but the Emerald with box-leaves holding them somewhat longer over the fire And these are the experiments which I have made concerning Gems THE SEVENTH BOOK OF Natural Magick Of the wonders of the Load-stone THE PROEME WE pass from Jewels to Stones the chief whereof and the most admirable is the Load-stone and in it the Majesty of Nature doth most appear and I undertake this work the more willingly because the Ancients left little or nothing of this in writing to posterity In a few days not to say hours when I sought one experiment others offered themselves that I collected almost two hundred of principal note so wonderful is God in all his works But what wiser and learneder men might find out let all men judge I knew at Venice R. M. Paulus the Venetian that was busied in the same study he was Provincial of the Order of servants but now a most worthy Advocate from whom I not onely confess that â— gained something but I gloryâ—â— it because of all the men I ever saw I never knew any man more learned or more ingenious having obtained the whole body of learning and is not onely the Splendor and Ornament of Venice or Italy but of the whole world I shall begin from the most known experiments and pass to higher matters that it may not repent any man of his great study and accurate diligence therein By these the longitude of the world may be found out that is of no small moment for Saylors and wherein the greatest wits have been employed And to a friend that is at a far distance from us and fast shut up in prison we may relate our minds which I doubt not may be done by two Mariners Compasses having the Alphabet writ about them Upon this depends the principles of perpetual motion and more admirable things which I shall here let pass If the Antients left any thing of it I shall put that in by the way I shall mark some false reports of some men not to detest their pains and industry but lest any man should follow them in an error and so errors should be perpetual thereby I shall begin with the Name CHAP. I. What is the Name of this Stone the kind of it and the Countrey where it grows PLato in Ione writes that Empedecles called this stone 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but Lucretius from the countrey Magnesia The Greeks do call it Magnes from the place For that the Magnets Land it doth embrace And the same Plato saith some call it Heraclius Theophrastus in his book of Stones calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Herculeum because he found it about the city Heraclea Others think it denominated from Hercules for as he conquered and subdued all beasts and men so this stone conquers iron which conquers all things Nicander thinks the stone so called and so doth Pliny from him from one Magnes a shepherd for it is reported that he found it by his hobnail'd shooes and his shepherds-crook that it stuck to when he fed his flocks in Ida where he was a shepherd But I think it is called Magnes as you should say Magnus onely one letter changed Others call it Siderites from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in Greek signifies iron and the Latine call it Magnes Heraclius and Siderites Hesâ—hius makes the stone Siderites to be different from Herculeus for he saith one hath an iron colour and the other a silver colour Also Pliny from Sotacus makes five kinds of it The Ethiopian the Magnesian from Magnesia neer Macedonia as the way lies to the Lake Boebis on the right hand the third in Echium of Boeoâ—ia the fourth about Alexandria at Troaderum the fifth in Magnesia of Asia The first difference is whether it be male or female the next in the colour for those that are found in Macedonia and Magnesia are red and black but the Boeotian is more red then black That which is found in Troas is black and of the female kind and hath no force therefore But the worst sort is found in Magnesia of Asia it is white and attracts not iron and is like a Pumice stone It is certain that the bluer they are the better they are The Ethiopian is highly commended and it costs the weight in silver It is found in Ethiopia at Zimirum for so is the sandy country called It is a token of an Ethiopick stone if it will draw another Loadstone to it There is also a mountain in Ethiopia not far off that produceth a stone called Theamedes that drives away all iron from it Dioscorides describes it thus The best Loadstone is that which easily draws iron of a bluish colour thick and not very weighty Pâ—saurensis makes three sorts of them one that draws iron another flesh another that draws and repels iron very ignorantly for the fleshy Loadstone is different from this and one and the same stone draws drives iron from it Marbodeus saith it grows amongst the Proglodites and Indians Olaus Magnus reports that there are mountains of it in the North and they draw so forcibly that they have ships made fast to them by great spikers of wood lest they should draw out the iron nails out of the ships that pass between these rocks of Loadstone There is an Island between Corsica and Italy call'd Ilva commonly Elba where a Loadstone may be cut forth but it hath no vertue It is found in Cantabria in Spain Bohemia and manyother places CHAP. II. The natural reason of the Loadstones attraction BEcause some have written whole Books of the reason of the Loadstones
two ounces of rosemary-flowers and bay-berries as many of betony of chamomil-flowers or the oyl of it three ounces of cinnamon an ounce and a half as much of St Johns wort or the oyl of it two ounces of old oyl Dry the flowers and herbs in the shade and when they are withered beat them and seirce them through a sieve Melt the wax on the fire then pour in the oyls next the powders still stirring them with a stick At length pour it on a marble and cut it into small slices and put it into a glass retort stop it close with straw-mortar and set it on the fire with his receiver stop the joynts and give the inclosed no vent lest the virtue flye out and vanish away First by a gentle fire draw out a water then encreasing it and changing the glass draw a red oyl stop them close and keep them for use the qualities of it are heating by anointing the neck it cureth all creeks that are bred by cold it healeth wounds helpeth the contraction of the nerves caused by cold it moâ—lifieth cold gouts and taketh away the trembling of the hands It may be drank for the Sciatica taken in wine it helpeth the quinsie by anointing the reins of the back and the belly or by drinking the water or oyl in wine it will break the stone and bring it down and asswageth poyson For deafness you must steep some wool in it and stop the ears with it anoint the belly and back in any pain there Being drunk in vinegar it cureth the falling sickness and restoreth lost memory it provoketh the menstrues in women by anointing their privities with it or by drinking some drops of it in wine taken in the same manner it provoketh appetite being taken early in the morning and is good against the bitings of Scorpions Drink it going to bed or when you arise in the morning and it will cure a â—â—inking breath For cold aches Oyl of Herns is excellent to allay and remove all cold aches the gout sciatica griefs of the sinews convulsions pain in the joynts cold defluctions and other diseases of moisture and cold In the Diomedian Isles now called Tremiâ—y in the Adriatique Sea there are birds commonly called Hearns who breed there and continue there and are to be found nowhere else they are a kind of Duck feeding on fish which they catch in the night they are not to be eaten though they be very fat because they savour of the rankness of fish Kill these birds and pluck off their feathers draw them and hang them up by the feet there will drop from them a certain black yellowish oyl very offensive to the nose being of a noisome fishy smell This oyl being applied to any place as much as you can endure will do the effects before mentioned and more but it is very hurtful for any hot maladies There is a water also For old Sores Take lime unkilled and dissolve it in water stir it three or four times in a day then when it is settled and cleared strain it and keep it wet a linnen cloth in it and apply it to a wound or sore and it cureth them I will not omit The vertues of Tobacco Out of the seeds of it is expressed an oyl three ounces out of a pound which allays the cruel tortures of the gout the juyce clarified and boiled into a syrup and taken in the morning maketh the voyce tunable clear and loud very convenient for singing Masters If you bruise the leaves and extract the juyce it killeth lice in childrens heads being rubbed thereon The leaves cure rotten Sores and Ulcers running on the legs being applied unto them The juyce of this herb doth also presently take away and asswage the pain in the codds which happeneth to them who swimming do chance to touch their codds CHAP. XII Of a secret Medicine for wounds THere are certain Potions called Vulnerary Potions because being drunk they cure wounds and it seemeth an admirable thing how those Potions should penetrate to the wounds These are Vulnerary Potions Take Pirole Comfrey Aristolochy Featherfew of each a handful of Agrimony two boil them in the best new Wine digest them in horse-dung Or take two handfuls of Pirole of Sanicle and Sowe-bread one of Ladies Mantel half one Boil them in two measures of Wine and drink it morning and evening Binde the herbs which you have boiled upon the wound having mixt a little salt with them and in the mean while use no other Medicine The Weapon-Salve Given heretofore to Maximilian the Emperor by Paracelsus experimented by him and always very much accounted of by him while he lived It was given to me by a noble man of his Court If the Weapon that wounded him or any stick dipt in his blood be brought it will cure the wound though the Patient be never so far off Take of the moss growing upon a dead man his scull which hath laid unburied two ounces as much of the fat of a man half an ounce of Mummy and man his blood of linseed oyl turpentine and bole-armenick an ounce bray them all together in a mortar and keep them in a long streight glass Dip the Weapon into the oyntment and so leave it Let the Patient in the morning wash the wound with his own water and without adding any thing else tye it up close and he shall be cured without any pain CHAP. XIII How to counterfeit infirmities IT hath been no small advantage to some to have counterfeited sicknesses that they might escape the hands of their enemies or redeem themselves for a small ransom or avoid tortures invented by former ages and used by these latter I will first teach you How to counterfeit a bloody Flux Amphiretus Acantius being taken by Pirates and carried to Lemnos was kept in chains in hope that his ransom would bring them a great sum of money He abstained from meat and drank Minium mixt with salt water Therefore when he went to stool the Pirates thought he was fallen into a bloody Flux and took off his irons lest he should dye and with him their hopes of his ransom He being loose escaped in the night got into a Fisher-boat and arrived safe at Acantum so saith Poliaenus Indian Figs which stain the hands like ripe Mulberries if they be eaten cause the urine to be like blood which hath put many into a fright fearing they should dye presently The fruit of the Mulberry or Hoggs blood boiled and eaten maketh the excrements seem bloody Red Madder maketh the urine red saith Dioscorides We may read also that if you hold it long in your hand it will colour your urine I will teach you also To make any one look pale Cumine taken in drink causeth paleness so it is reported That the Followers of Portius Latro that famous Master of Rhetorick endeavored to imitate that colour which he had contracted by study And Julius Vindex that assertor of liberty from Nero made
until this day and observed by our women to smoke their children and rowl them about in frankincense Keep him in an open air and hang Carbuncles Jacinthes or Saphires about his neck Dioscorides accounteth Christs Thorn wilde Hemp and Valerian hung up in the house an amulet against witchcraft Smell to Hyssope and the sweet Lilly wear a ring made of the hoof of a tame or wilde Ass also Saâ—vâ—ion the male and female are thought the like Aristotle commendeth Rue being smelt to All these do abate the power of witchcraft THE NINTH BOOK OF Natural Magick How to adorn Women and make them Beautiful THE PROEME SInce next to the Art of Physick follows the Art of Adorning our selves we shall set down the Art of Painting and how to beautifie Women from Head to Foot in many Experiments yet lest any man should think it superfluous to interpose those things that belong to the Ornaments of Women I would have them consider that I did not write these things for to give occasion to augment Luxury and for to make people voluptuous But when God the Author of all things would have the Natures of all things to continue he created Male and Female that by fruitful Procreation they might never want Children and to make Man in love with his Wife he made her soft delicate and fair to entice man to embrace her We therefore that Women might be pleasing to their Husbands and that their Husbands might not be offended at their deformities and turn into other womens-chambers have taught Women how by the Art of Decking themselves and Painting if they be ashamed of their foul and swart Complexions they may make themselves Fair and Beautiful Something 's that seemed best to me in the Writings of the antients I have tried and set down here but those that are the best which I and others have of late invented and were never before in Print I shall set down last And first I shall begin with the Hairs CHAP. I. How the Hair may be dyed Yellow or Gold-colour SInce it is the singular care of Women to adorn their Hair and next their Faces First I will shew you to adorn the Hair and next the Countenance For Women hold the Hair to be the greatest Ornament of the Body that if that be taken away all the Beauty is gone and they think it the more beautiful the more yellow shining and radiant it is We shall consider what things are fit for that purpose what are the most yellow things and will not hurt the Head as there are many that will but we shall chuse such things as will do it good But before you dye them Preparing of the Hair must be used to make them fit to receive a tincture Add to the Lees of White-wine as much Honey that they may be soft and like some thin matter smeer your Hair with this let it be wet all night then bruise the Roots of Celandine and of the greater Clivers Madder of each a like quality mingle them being bruised very well with Oyl wherein Cummin-Seed Shavings of Box and a little Saffron are mingled anoynt your Head and let it abide so twenty four hours then wash it with Lye made of Cabbage-Stalks Ashes and Barley-Straw but Rye-Straw is the best for this as Women have often proved will make the Hair a bright yellow But you shall make A Lye to dye the Hair thus Put Barley-Straw into an Earthen-pot with a great mouth Feny-Graec and wilde Cummin mingle between them Quick-lime and Tobacco made into Powder then put them upon the Straw beforementioned and pour on the Powders again I mean by course one under the other over till the whole Vessel be full and when they are thrust close pour on cold water and let them so stand a whole day then open a hole at the bottom and let the Lye run forth and with Sope use it for your Hair I shall teach you Another To five Glasses of Fountain-water add Alume-Foeces one Ounce Sope three Ounces Barley-Straw one Handful let them boyl in Earthen-pots till two thirds be boyled away then let it settle strain the Water with the Ashes adding to every Glass of Water pure Honey one Ounce Set it up for your use You shall prepare for your Hair An Oyntment thus Burn the Foeces of Wine heaped up in a Pit as the manner is so that the fire may go round the Pit when it is burnt pown it and seirce it mingle it well with Oyl let the Woman anoynt her Head with it when she goes to Bed and in the morning let her wash it off with a Lye wherein the most bitter Lupines were boyled Other Women endeavour To make their Hair yellow thus They put into a common Lye the Pills of Citrons Oranges Quinces Barley-Straw dried Lupines Foeny-Graec Broom-Flowers and Tartat coloured a good quantity and they let them there lie and steep to wash their Hair with Others mingle two parts Sope to one part Honey adding Ox-Gall one half part to which they mingle a twelfth part of Garden-Cummin and wilde Saffron and setting them in the Sun for six weeks they stir it daily with a wooden-staff and this they use Also of Vinegar and Gold Litharge there is made a decoction very good to dye the Hair yellow as Gold Some there are that draw out a strong VVater with fire out of Salt-Peter Vitriol Salt-Ammoniac and Cinaber wherewith the Hairs dyed will be presently yellow but this as wont to burn the Hair those that know how to mingle it will have good effects of it But these are but ordinary the most famous way is To make the Hairs yellow draw Oyl from Honey by the Art of Distillation as we shall shew First there will come forth a clear VVater then a Saffron-colour then a Gold-colour use this to anoynt the Hair with a Spunge but let it touch the Skin for it will dye it Saffron-colour and it is not easily washed off This is the principal above others because the Tincture will last many dayes and it will dye Gray-Hairs which few others will Or make a Lye of Oak-Ashes put in the quantity of a Bean of Rheubarb as much Tobacco a handful of Barley-Straw and Foeny-Graec Shells of Oranges the Raspings of Guaiacum a good deal of wilde Saffron and Liquorish put all these in an Earthen-pot and boyl them till the water sink three fingers the Hairs will be washt excellently with this Hold them in the Sun then cast Brimstone on the Coals and fume the Hairs and whilst it burns receive the smoke with a little Tunnel at the bottom and cover your Head all over with a cloth that the smoke flie not away CHAP. II. How to dye the Hair bed BEcause there are many men and women that are ruddy Complexions and have the Hair of their Heads and Bearbs Red which should they make yellow-coloured they would not agree with their Complexions To help those also I set down these Remedies The
their Shells distil all at a gentle fire add to the water a little Camphire and Borax put into a glazed vessel two yong naked Pigeons with their guts taken forth and put in as much Milk as will cover them and add one ounce of Borax Turpentine three ounces Caâ—phire one ounce five whites of Eggs put on the cover and distil them for it is fat things that make the Face soft I shall say more when I come to speak of making the hands white and soft the reason is the same for both CHAP. XII How to make the face clear and shining like silver THe face is not onely made clear but white as silver by those things that I said were white as silver yet not exactly as silver but they shine as clear as silver There is an herb commonly called Argentaria or Argentina or wilde Tansey whose leaves are green above but on the backside they shine of a silver colour the distilled water of it is drank by women against spots in their faces and to make them white as silver The snails that are found in moist places and leave behind them as they creep a silver cord Dioscorides saith will cure the spots in the face women much desire them for they put them in a still and draw out water from them that polisheth the skin exceedingly and makes it contract a silver gloss And the seashell-fish like an ear whose shell is of a silver colour within or pearl colour and many kinds of shells that being steeped in vinegar will grow pure casting off the outward crust as the Oystershel doth that brings forth pearl There are also shells we call the Mothers of pearl that inwardly are shining and of a silver colour like pearls all which women use for their art of beautifying themselves for they make the face smooth and to shine as white as silver But pearls do it best of all things when they are dissolved in sharp juyces and soaked in rotten dung till they send forth a clear oyl that is the best thing to beautifie the face as I shall shew elsewhere For the same use is a glass-stone used that shines like silver But no better water is prepared then from Talk or Quick-silver as I shall shew in that which follows CHAP. XIII How to dissolve Talk for to beautifie women THough I shall speak in a work on purpose more at large how Talk may be dissolved into water or oyl We shall here onely set down how it may be fitted for womens use Of all such ways as are used I shall set forth such as I have tried to be good Beat Talk in a mortar of metal then put it into a pot of the strongest clay and cover it and bind it in with strong iron wyer lute it well all cover and stop the joynts that nothing breathe out and set it in the Sun to dry Then put this stone in an oven that flames strongly or in some other place where the fire is most vehement When the fire of the oven is out take it forth and break the vessel and if it be well calcined it is enough Otherwise do the same again until the calx of it be as white as it ought to be When the calcined body of it is white as it must be grind it on a porphyry-stone and put it into a little bag or upon a marble in a very moist place or deep well or cistern and let it lie there long and with much moisture it will drop forth at last It will more easily and perfectly dissolve into water if it were burnt long enough and turned into a calx For the parts being turn'd to lime and made exceeding dry by force of fire they attract moisture It is also done Another way that is good Calcine the Talk and put it in an earthen pot and set it in the hottest part of a potters oven to stay there six days When the Talk is thus turn'd to a calx put it into a gourd-glass which you shall first make clean and make a hole at the bottom of it and setting a vessel under it you shall have the moisture of it drop forth and the calx will resolve into water put this into a glass vial and let the water evaporate in Balâ—eo take the sediment out for your use I use also Another way Put snails in an earthen vessel in the open air that they may be kept hungry three days and pine for want of meat and be purged then take a silver Loadstone or Talk most finely powdred mingle it with the white of an egge and make an ointment anoint the earthen vessel with it and put the snails into it for they will eat up all the Talk When they have eaten all and voided their excrements bruise the snails with their shells and putting them into a retott draw out their moisture with a gentle fire the humour that drops forth will exceedingly adorn the face CHAP. XIV The preparation of Sublimate I Said that there was nothing better than quick-silver for womens paints and to cleanse their faces and make them shine Wherefore I shall set down many ways to Prepare it that you may have the use of it to your desire Take one ounce and half of pure quick-silver not falsified with lead for if there be lead mingled with it all your labour is lost How it must be purged and known I taught elsewhere Mingle this with half a pound of Mercury sublimate and put it into a marble mortar and with a new wooden pestle stir it well turning it round about First it will be black in six hours it will grow white if you cease not to beat it Then adde one ounce and half of white salt always turning it about with the pâ—stle for the more you grind it the perfecter it will be When it is very well ground it must be washt Sprinkle boiling clear water into the mortar and stir it and then stay a while until the muddy part may sink down and the filth that was lighter and swims on the top laying the vessel on one side pour out the water gently and pour in fresh do this five or six times in the same manner until the pure and onely powder remain without dregs make little cakes of it and dry it in the sun Some whilst they bruise it sprinkle water on lest the powder by grinding should be made so small that it should fly away into the air The chief business is to purge it and grind it well that it be not troubled when it is strain'd forth that which is gone to the bottom and so part of it be lost some open a hole in the belly of a pot that when it is settled the hole being opened the water with the dregs may run forth Others to sublimate adde a third part of quick-silver and grind it in a wooden mortar and in the â—â—an while they chew four grains of mastick in their mouths and they spit the clammy spittle
softness remains which is onely given to fat Hands To make the Hands as white as Milk Take things that are Milk-White as Almonds Pine-Kernels Melon and Gourd-Seeds and the like Therefore bruise bitter Almonds Pine-Kernels and Crums of Bread then make Cakes of them with Barley-water wherein Gum Traganth hath been soaked You may use this for Sope when you wash your Hands for they scowre them and make them white I For the same use oft-times bitter Almonds half a pound put them in hot water to blanch them then beat them in a Marble-Morter Afterwards take the lesser Dragons two ounces Deers Suet and Honey of each as much mingle them all in an earthen Pot with a large mouth set them at the fire and let them be stirred gently with a wooden-stick that they mingle well put it up in Boxes for your use If you will have Your hands white wash fresh Butter nine times in sweet water and last of all in sweet-sented Rose-water to take off the ill smell and that it may look as white as Snow then mingle white wax with it and a good quantity of Oyl of sweet Almonds Then wash your gloves in Greek-Wine as the manner is and smeer on the foresaid mixture put on these when you go to bed that all night they may grow soft by the help of fat things Then take Peach-Kernels with the skins picked off Seeds of Gourds Melons white Poppy Barley-meal of each one ounce and half the juice of two Lemmons rosted in the Embers mingle these with as much Honey as will make them thick as an Oyntment and to make them smell well you may add a little Musk or Civet when you go to bed but in the morning wash them with Fountain-water and for Sope use the Lees of Oyl of Nuts well pressed forth or Lees of Oyl-Olive Others use this Liniment onely Press the Cream out of Lemmon-Seeds with two ounces of it mingle one ounce of Oyl of Tartar and as much Oyl of Almonds When at night you go to bed wash your Hands in Fountain-water dry them and anoynt them with this Liniment and put on your Gloves Take Another For one weeks-time infuse the Marrow of Ox-bones in cold water but change the water four or five times a day and for every pound of Marrow take six excellent Apples and cut them in the middle and cast forth the Seeds and Core then beat them small in a Marble-Morter and put them into a new Morter that they may smell the sweeter adding a few Cloves Cinnamon Spikenard let them boyl in Rose-water When they are all very soft take them forth and strain them and again add a sharp Lixivium and let them boyl at a gentle fire until all the water be washed Then set them up in a Glass-Vessel for your use or make them into morsels That which follows is good For the same Make a hole in a Lemmon and put into it Sugar-Candy and Butter and cover it with the Cover wet Hards of Hemp and wrap it up in and boyl it in hot Embers and that it grow soft by rosting when you go to Bed anoynt your hands with it and put on your Gloves CHAP. XXVIII How to correct the ill sent of the Arm-pits THe stink of the Arm-holes makes some women very hateful especially those that are sat and fleshy To cure this we may use such kinde of Experiments The Ancients against the stink of the Arm-pits used liquid Allome with Myrrh to anoynt them or the Secrets and Arm-holes were strewed with the dry Leaves of Myttles in powder The Roots of Artichoaks smeered on doth not onely cure the ill sent of the Arm-pits but of the whole Body also But Zenocrates promiseth by Experiment That the faultiness of the Arm-pits will pass forth by urine if you take one ounce of the pith of the Root boyled in three Lemina's of Muskadel to thirds and after bathing fasting or after meat drink a cup thereof But I am content with this I dissolve Allome in waters and I wash the Feet and Arm-pits with it and let them dry so in some days we shall correct the strong smell of those parts But it will be done more effectually thus Pown Lytharge of Gold or Silver and boyl it in Vinegar and if you wash those parts well with it you shall keep them a long time sweet and it is a Remedy that there is none better CHAP. XXIX How the Matrix ovar-widened in Child-birth may be made narrower TRotula saith we may honestly speak of this because Conception is sometimes hindred by it if the Matrix be too open and therefore it is fit to lend help for such an impedient For some women have it stand wide-open by reason of their hard labour in Child-birth and if their Husbands be not content with it that the men may not abhor the women it is thus remedied Take Dragons-Blood Bole-Armeniac Pomegranate-shells white of an Egg Mastick Galls of each one ounce powder them and make them all up with hot water Put some of this Confection into the hole that goes into the Matrix Or Galls Sumach Plantain great Comfrey Allome Chamaelaea take equal parts of them all and boyl them in Rain-water and foment the Privities Or beat sowre Galls very finely mingle a little of the Powder of Cloves with them Let them boyl in sharp red Wine wet a woollen cloth in it and apply to the part Or thus may you restrain that part of common whores with Galls Gums whites of Eggs Dragons Blood Acacia Plantain Hypocistis Balanstia Mastick Cypress-nuts Grape-skins Akorn-cups Or in that hollow part where the Glans breaks forth and gaping shews the Nucleus with Mastick and Terra Lemnia If all these be boyled in red Wine or Vinegar and the Matrix be often wet therewith it will come very close and be much straighter Or else powder all these and cast them in through a Reed or make a fume under them Great Comfrey will be excellent for this purpose for flesh boyl'd with it will grow together And the other also if it be boyl'd will very well glew together fresh Wounds The Decoction of Ladies Mantle or the juice or distilled water of it cast into the Matrix will so contract it that Whores can scarce be known from Maids or if they sit in the Decoction of it especially if we mingle other astringent things with it and wet the Secrets therewith The distilled water of Starwort being often injected into the Matrix will make one scarce know which is corrupted and which is not But if you will have A woman deflowred made a virgin again Make little Pills thus Of burnt Allome Mastick with a little Vitriol and Orpiment make them into very fine Powder that you can scarce feel them when you have made them Pills with Rain-water press them close with your fingers and let them dry being pressed thin and lay them on the Mouth of the Matrix where it was first broken open change it every
six hours always fomenting the place with Rain or Cistern-water and that for twenty four hours and it will here and there make little Bladders which being touched will bleed much blood that she can hardly be known from a Maid Midwives that take care of this do it another way They contract the place with the Decoction of the forementioned things then they set a Leech fast on upon the place and so they make a crusty matter or scab which being rub'd will bleed Others when they have straightned the part inject the dried Blood of a Hare or Pigeon which being moistned by the moysture of the Matrix shews like live fresh Blood I found out this noble way I powder Litharge very finely and boyl it in Vinegar till the Vinegar be thick I strain out that and put in more till that be coloured also then I exhale the Vinegar at an easie fire and resolve it into smoak CHAP. XXX Some sports against women THus far I have shewed how to beautifie women now I shall attempt some things against their decking of themselves and make some merriment after those things that I seriously discovered to adorn them To make a painted Face look pale If you would know a painted Face do thus Chew Saffron between you Teeth and stand neer to a woman with your mouth when you talk with her your breath will foul her Face and make it yellowish but if she be not painted the natural colour will continue Or burn Brimstone in the room where she is for if there be Ceruss or Mercury sublimate on her Face the smoak will make her brown or black The painted Women that walk at Puteoli in the Mountains of Phlegra are made so black as Silver-money is shut up in bags We may also know thus Whether she be painted with red Chew Grains of Cummin or a Clove of Garlick and speak close by her if it be natural it will remain but counterfeit with Ceruss or Quick-silver it presently decays To make a woman full of red pimples Of a Stellio is made an ill Medicament for when he is dead in Wine all the Faces of those that drink of it will be red-spotted Wherefore they that would disfigure Whores kill him in an Oyntment The Remedy is the yelk of an Egg Honey and Glass Pliny To make the Face green Avicenna saith That the Decoction of Chamaeleon put into a bath will make him green-coloured that stays long in that bath and then by degrees he will recover his former colour To make the Hair fall off the Head and Beard Touch any part of mans body with a matter white as milk that the Salamander vomits up out of its mouth and the Hairs will fall off and what is touched is changed into the Leprosie Pliny THE TENTH BOOK OF Natural Magick Of Distillation THE PROEME NOw I am come to the Arts and I shall begin from Distillation an Invention of later times a wonderful thing to be praised beyond the power of man not that which the vulgar and unskilful men use for they do but corrupt and destroy what is good but that which is done by skilful Artists This admirable Art teacheth how to make Spirits and sublime gross Bodies and how to condense and make Spirits become gross Bodies and to draw forth of Plants Minerals Stones and Jewels the Strength of them that are involved and overwhelmed with great bulk lying hid as it were in their Chests and to make them more pure and thin and more noble as not being content with their common condition and to lift them up as high as Heaven We can by Chymical Instruments search out the Vertues of Plants and better then the Ancients could do by tasting them What therefore could be thought on that is greater It is Natures part to produce things and give them faculties but Art may ennoble them when they are produced and give them many several qualities Let one that loves Learning and to search Natures Secrets enter upon this for a dull Fellow will never attain to this Art of Distilling First we shall extract Waters and Oyls then the Essences Tinctures Elixirs Salts and such-like then we shall shew how to resolve mix'd Bodies into the Elements and make them all more pure to separate their divers and contrary qualities and draw them forth that we may use them at pleasure and other things that will never repent us to know and do CHAP. I. What Distillation is and of how many sorts WHether the Art of Distillation were known to the Learned Ancients or no I will not undertake to dispute yet there is another kinde of Art to be read in Dioscorides then what we use He saith thus There is an Oyl extracted out of Pitch by separating the watry part which swimmeth on the top like Whey in Milk and hanging clean flocks of Wool in the vapor arising from it while the Pitch boyls and when they are moyst squeezing them into some Vessel This must be done as long as it boyleth Geber defineth it thus Distillation is the Elevation of moist vapors in a proper Vessel but we will declare the true definition of it elsewhere He maketh three sorts of it by Ascent by Descent and by Filtration But I cannot but confess that Filtration is not properly a species of Distillation But I say by Ascent by Descent and by Inclination which is a middle between both and is very necessary for when a thing is unwilling to ascend we teach it by this to rise by degrees by inclining the Vessel and raise it by little and little until it become thinner and know how to ascend The Instructions for Distillation shall be these First Provide a Glass or Brazen Vessel with a Belly swelling out like a Cupping-Glass and sharpened upward like a Top or a Pear fit it to the under-Vessel like a Cap so that the neck of that lower Vessel may come into the belly of the upper A Pipe must run about the Bottom of the Cap which must send forth a Beak under which there must stand another Vessel called the Receiver from receiving the distilling water Stop all the vents close with Stawmortar or rags of Linen that the spirituous Aery matter may not pass out The fire being put under this Stillatory the inclosed matter will be dissolved by the heat of the fire into a dewy vapor and ascendeth to the top where meeting with the cold sides of the Head it sticketh there being condensed by the cold swelleth into little bubbles bedeweth the roof and sides then gathereth into moyst pearls runneth down in drops turneth into water and by the Pipe and Nose is conveyed into the Receiver But both the Vessels and the Receiver must be considered according to the Nature of the things to be distilled For if they be of a flatulent vaporous Nature they will require large and low Vessels and a more capacious Receiver for when the Heat shall have raised up the flatulent matter and that finde
it self straitned in the narrow cavities it will seek some other vent and so tear the Vessels in pieces which will flie about with a great bounce and crack not without endamaging the standers by and being at liberty will save it self from further harm But if the things be hot and thin you must have Vessels with a long and small neck Things of a middle temper require Vessels of a middle size All which the industrious Artificer may easily learn by the imitation of Nature who hath given angry and furious Creatures as the Lion and Bear thick bodies but short necks to shew that flatulent humours would pass out of Vessels of a larger bulk and the thicker part settle to the bottom but then the Stag the Estrich the Camil-Panther gentle Creatures and of thin Spirits have slender bodies and long necks to shew that thin subtile Spirits must be drawn through a much longer and narrower passage and be elevated higher to purifie them There is one thing which I must especially inform you of which is that there may be a threefold moysture extracted out of Plants The Nutritive whereby they live and all dried Herbs want it differeth little from Fountain or Ditch-water The Substantial whereby the parts are joyned together and this is of a more solid Nature And the third is the Radical humor fat and oyly wherein the strength and vertue lieth There is another thing which I cannot pass over in silence it being one of the Principles of the Art which I have observed in divers Experiments which is that some mixt bodies do exhale thin and hot vapors first and afterwards moyst and thick on the contrary others exhale earthy and phlegmatick parts first and then the hot and fiery which being fixed in the inmost parts are expelled at last by the force of the fire But because there can be no constant and certain Rule given for them some I will mark unto you others your own more quick ingenuity must take the pains to observe CHAP. II. Of the Extraction of Waters THe Extraction of Waters because it is common I will dispatch in a few words If you would extract sweet Waters out of hot Plants and such as are earthy and retain a sweet savour in their very substance these being cast into a Stillatory without any Art and a fire made under them yield their odors as you may draw sweet Waters out of Roses Orange-flowers Myrtle and Lavender and such-like either with Cinders or in Balneo Mariae but onely observe to kindle the fire by degrees lest they burn There are also in some Plants sweet Leaves as in Myrtle Lavender Citron and such-like which if you mix with the Flowers will no way hinder the savour of them but add a pleasantness to the Waters and in places where Flowers cannot be gotten I have seen very sweet Waters extracted out of the Tendrils of them especially when they have been set abroad a sunning in a close Vessel for some dayes before There is a Water of no contemptible sent drawn out of the Leaves of Basil gentle especially being aromatized with Citron or Cloves by the heat of a gentle Bath heightened by degrees and then exposing it to the Sun for some time There is an odoriserous Water extracted out of the Flowers of Azadaret or bastard Sicamore very thin and full of savor The way to finde out whether the odor be settled in the substance of a Plant or else in the superficies or outward parts is this Rub the Leaves of Flowers with your fingers if they retain the same sent or cast a more fragrant breath then the odour lieth in the whole substance But on the contrary if after your rubbing they do not onely lose their natural sent but begin to stink it sheweth that their odour resideth onely in their superficies which being mixed with other ill savoured parts are not onely abated but become imperceptible In distilling of these we must use another Art As for example To extract sweet Water out of Gillâ—flowers Musk Roses Violets and Jasmine and Lillies First draw the juice out of some wilde Musk Roses with a gentle heat in Balneo then remove them and add others for if you let them stand too long the sent which residâ—th in the superficies is not onely consumed but the dull stinking vapour which lieth in the inward parts is drawn forth In this water let other Roses be infused for some hours and then taken out and fresh put in which the oftner you do the sweeter it will smell but stop the Vessel close lest the thin sent flie out and be dispersed in the Air and so you will have a most odoriferous Water of Musk-Roses The same I advise to be done with Jasmine Gilliflowers Lillies and Violets and Crows-toes and the like But if you are not willing to macerate them in their own waters the same may be done in Rose-water By this Art I have made Waters out of Flowers of a most fragrant smell to the admiration of Artists of no small account But because it happeneth sometimes by the negligence of the Operator that it is infected with a stink of burning I will teach you How to correct the stink of burning Because that part which lieth at the bottom fâ—eleth more heat then the top whence it cometh to pass that before the one be warm the other is burnt and oftentimes stinketh of the fire and offendeth the nose Therefore distil your Waters in Balneo with a gentle fire that the pure clear Water may ascend and the dregs settle in the bottom with the Oyl a great cause of the ill savour How to draw a great quantity of Water by Distillation Fasten some Plates of Iron or Tin round the top of the Stillatory set them upright and let them be of the same height with it and in the bottom fasten a Spigget When the Stillatory waxeth hot and the elevated vapors are gathered into the Cap if that be hot they fall down again into the bottom and are hardly condensed into drops but if it be cold it presently turneth them into Water Therefore pour cold Water between those plates which by condensing the vapours may drive down larger currents into the Receiver When the Cap and the Water upon it begin to be hot pull out the Spigget that the hot Water may run out and fresh cold Water be put in Thus the Water being often changed that it may always be cold and the warm drawn out by the Spigget you will much augment the quantity of your Water CHAP. III. Of extracting Aqua Vitae IT is thus done Take strong rich Wine growing in dry places as on Viseuvius commonly called Greek-wine or the tears or first running of the Grape Distil this in a Glass-Retort with Cinders or in Balneo or else in a long necked Still Draw out the third part of it and reserve the rest for it is turned into a perfect sharp Vinegar there remaining onely the carcase of
the Wine for the life and tenuous part is taken out Then distil the same again an the third time alwayes drawing off but a third part Then prepare a Vessel with a longer and straighter neck of three cubits and distil it again in this at last put it into the mouth of the Vessel cover it with Parchment and set on the Cap of the Stillatory and kindle the fire the thin spirits of the Wine will pass through all and fall down into the Receiver and the phlegm which cannot get passage will settle to the bottom The note of perfect deputation from phlegm will be if a rag being dipt in it and set on fire do burn quite away or if some of it being dropt on a plain boaâ—â— be kindled into flame doth leave no moysture or mark of it But all the work dependeth on this that the mouth of the Vessel be exactly stopped and closed so that the least Spirit may not finde vent and flie into Air. The fittest thing to stop them with is an Ox's Bladder or some other Beasts for being cut into broad fiâ—â—ets and while they be wet rolled and tied about where the mouths of the Vessels meet it will alone keep in the expiring vapors You may observe this in the Distillation of it The Coals being hot the Vessel boyleth and a most burning Spirit of the Wine ascendeth through the neck of the Vessel it is hot below and cold on the top till it getteth up into the Cap then encountring with cold it turneth into water and runneth down by the nose into the Receiver and what was a long time ascending then in a small interval of time flows down again to the under-placed Glass Then the Cap being cold sendeth down that quality through the neck into the very belly of the Stillatory until the Spirit being separated from the phlegm worketh the same effâ—ct again I use to suffer the Wine to ascend so long as the Spirit runneth invisible into the Receiver for when the phlegm ascendeth there will appear bubbles in the Cap and streams which will run into the water through the nose Then I take away that dead carcase of the Wine and pour in fresh VVine and extract the Spirit out of the same way To do the same a more compendious way Those who desire to do this in a shorter time must make a Brass Vessel of the bigness of an ordinary Barrel in the form of a Gourd but the nose of the Cap must be made of Glass or Brass of fifteen or twenty foot winding about with circling Revolutions or mutual crossings or as it were with the circling of Snakes which they must set in wooden Vessels full of cold water that passing through it may be received into the Receiver For when it hath distilled the third part of the VVine in three hours they must cast out the residue and put that which is distilled into the Stillatory again and the second time diâ—â—ill out a third part so also the third time in the same day At length they put it into a Stillatory with a longer neck and separate the phlegm from it Some make the Cap with three or four heads setting one upon another all being pervious but the uppermost and every one having his nose and his particular Receiver They fit them to the Vessel with a long neck set them on binde them and lute them that they have no vent the water which distilleth out of the uppermost head is cleerest and most perfect that out of the lowest more imperfect and must be reserved asunder for they will be of different estimation the highest will be cleere from all phlegm the lower full of it the middle in a mean between both How to make Aqua Vitae of new Wine It may be done without the charge of Coals and VVood for it may worthily be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither doth it require the attendance of a learned Artist but of an ignorant Clown or a woman for this Spirit is drawn out meerly by the vehement working of Nature to free her self without any other help whatever When the VVine is run out of the press into the Ho shead and other Vessels and beginneth to purge place an earthen neck or one of wood being two cubits in length upon the bung-hole of the Vessel set the Cap upon the neck and lute the joynts very close that there may be no vent set the Receiver under the nose to take the Water which floweth down Thus thine exhaltations being elevated by the working Spirits of the Wine are converted into Water meerly for the work of Nature without the help of fire which therefore hath his particular vertues which we will pass over now and mention them in another place CHAP IV. How to distil with the heat of the Sun WE may distil not onely with fire but with the Sun and Dung But the last tainteth the distilled Waters with a scurvy sent The Sun extracteth the best Water and very useful for many Medicines The heat of the fire changeth the Nature of things and causeth hot and fiery qualities in them Wherefore in all Medicines for the eyes we must use Waters extracted from the Sun for others do fret and corrode the eye these are more gentle and soft The Sun extracteth more Water then the fire because the vapours do presently condense and drop down which they do not over the fire because they are driven up with a force and stick to the sides of the Stillatory and fall down again into the bottom There are other advantages which shall be explicated in their proper places Besides it is good Husbandry for the work is done without wood or coals or labour It is but filling the Vessels with the Ingredients and setting them in the Sun and all the pains is past Therefore to explain the manner in a few words Prepare a Form of three foot in height two in breadth and of a length proportionable to the number of the Vessels you intend to set to Work if many make it longer if a few let it be shorter Board up that side of the Form next the Sun lest the heat do warm the Receivers and make the Water ascend again In the middle of the upper plank of the Form make several holes for the necks of the Glasses to pass down through When the Sun hath passed Gemini for this must be performed in the heat of Summer only set your form abroad in the Sun Gather your Herbs before Sun-rise pick them and cleanse them from dust and durt of mens feet from the urine and ordure of Worms and other Creatures and such kind of fiâ—th and pollutions Then lest they should foul and soil the Water shake them and wipe them with clothes and lastly wash your hands and then them and dry them in the shade when they are dried put them into the Glasses take some wire-Cittern strings and winde them into round clues so that being let go they may
pour as much Fountain-water on as will cover them a handful or five large fingers over then set on the head and stop the joynts very close Put the other end of the Pipe into the other Pot and joynt them exactly then set on the other head and fasten the lower end of its crooked Pipe into that straight one which passing through the Barrel runneth into the Receiver If the joynts be anywhere faulty stop them with Flax and paste them with Wheat-flour and the white of an Egg then rowl them about and tie them close with Fillets cut out of a Bladder for when the vapors are forced by the heat of the fire they are so attenuated that they will break forth through the least rime or chink in spite of all your endeavors Fill the Barrel with cold water and when it beginneth to grow hot draw it out through a Cock at bottom and supply fresh water that the Pipe may always be kept cool At length make the Pot boyl at first with a gentle fire then encrease it by degrees until the vehemency of the heat doth make the vapors hiss as it were ready to break the Pipes as they run thorow them so they will be elevated thorow the retorted Pipes and leave the phlegmatick water in the lower Vessel till passing through the cold Pipe they be condensed into Liquor and fall down into the Receiver If the water do consume away in the boyling pour in more being first warmed thorow a little Pipe which the Pot must have on one side with a Spigget to it for this purpose but be sure to stop the Spigger in very close that there may be no vent Afterwards separate the Oyl from the Water sublime and purifie it in another Vessel Of all the Instruments that ever I saw not any one extracteth a greater quantity of Oyl and with less labour and industry then this Thus you may without any fear of burning draw Oyl out of Flowers Leaves Spices Gums and VVood with the vehementest fires as also out of Juniper and Laurel-Berries CHAP. IX The Description of a Descendatory whereby Oyl is extracted by Descent I Cannot refrain from discovering here an Instrument found out by my own private experience which I hope will be of no small profit to the Ingenious by which they may draw Oyl out of any the least things without any fear of burning For there are many tenuous oyly Flowers as of Rosemary and Juniper and other things as Musk Amber Civet Gum and such-like out of which may be drawn Oyls very sweet and medicinable but they are of so thin a substance that there is a great hazard of burning them when they are forced by the heat of the fire without which neither fat things will be elevated nor Oyl extracted Therefore to remedy these inconveniences I have invented an Instrument by which Oyl shall descend without any labour or danger of burning Let a Vessel be made of Brass in the form of an Egg two foot high and of the same breadth let it be divided towards the top of which the upper part must serve for a cover and be so fitted to be received into the lower part that the joynts may closely fall in one another and be exactly stopt In the lower part towards the middle about half a foot from the mouth let there be a Copper-plate fitted as it were the midriff so that it may easily be put and taken out in which must be made three hollow places to receive the bottom of three retorted Vessels the rest of the plate must be pervious that the boyling VVater and hot Spirits may have passage to rise upwards Out of the sides of the Vessel there must be three holes through the which the necks of the Retorts may pass being glued and fastned to their Pipes with Flax and tied with Fillets of Bladders so that not the least Air much less any VVater may flie out VVhen you prepare to work fill the Glass-Retorts with the things you intend to still thrust the necks thorow the holes outward and lay their bodies in the prepared hollowness of the cross-plate somewhat elevated If there remain any void space between the necks and the sides of the holes they pass through stop it with Flax and tie it about with Fillets of Bladder and fill the Vessel with with water within three fingers up to the cross-plate The Vessel being covered and the joynts well stopt and glued and bound about so that the force of the vapours arising may not burst it open and scald the Faces of the by-standers kindle the fire by degrees until it become very vehement then wil the vapors make a great nose almost sufficient to terrifie one and first VVater then VVater and Oyl will distil out I cannot contain my self from relating also another Instrument invented for the same purpose Make an oval Brass-Vessel as I advised before with a hole bored thorow the bottom to which fasten a pipe that may arise up to the mouth of the Vessel let the mouth of it be wide like a trumpet or tunnel so that the long neck of a Gourd-Glass may pass through the Pipe of it and the wide mouth of the Vessel under may by degrees receive the swelling parts of the neck Adapt a cover to this Vessel that it may be close stopt and luted as we said before You must make a Furnace on purpose for this use for the fire must not be made in the bottom but about the Vessel The use is this Fill the Glass with Flowers or other things put in some wire Lute-strings after them that they may not fall out again when the Glass is inversed Thrust the neck thorow the Brass-Pipe set the Vessel on the Furnace and fill it with Water round about the arising Pipe put on the Cover and plaister it about set the Receiver under the Furnace that it may catch the dropping Water and Oyl then kindle the fire about the sides of the Pot the violence of which will elevate vapors of burning water which beating against the concave part of the Cover will be reverberate upon the bottom of the Gourd-Glass whose fervent heat will turn the Water and Oyl into vapor and drive it down into the Receiver I will set down some examples of those things which I made trial of my self As How to extract Oyl out of Rosemary Flowers Fill the Retorts with the Leaves and Flowers of Rosmary and set them in the Brass-Furnace the fire being kindled will force out first a Water and afterward a yellow Oyl of a very strong and fervent odor a few drops of which I have made use of in great sicknesses and driving away cruel pains You may extract it easier if you macerate the Flowers or Leaves in their own or Fountain-water for a week In the same manner Oyl of Citron-Pill is extracted When Citrons are come to perfect ripeness shave off the peal with a gross Steal-File put the Filings into a Pot
the whole work depended on it let it circulate in Balneo a whole month take off the yellow Oyl or Quintessence of all with a Silver-Spoon and add to it a drachm of Musk and Amber and set it by for your use in a Glass-bottle close stopt Distil the remainder and it will afford a yellow cleer water but you cannot extract the Oyl without a stink of burning I have very exactly extracted Oyl of Gums Roots and Seeds of the forementioned and mixing them together have effected strange things with them Most of their operations are against Poysons and Pestilential Contagions especially those that are apt to seize on the Spirits for a drop of it being anoynted on the Lips or Nostrils reviveth the Soul and keepeth it in perfect Senses at least six hours CHAP. XVIII Of a Clyssus and how it is made THat there may nothing be omitted I will now shew what a Clyssus is and how it may be made A Clyssus is the Extraction of the Spirits of every part of a Plant united in one common entity There are in a Plant the Root Leaf Flower Fruit and Seed and in every one of these parts there is a peculiar Nature The Operation is thus Dig the Roots when they are full of juice the Leaves when they are fresh and green the Flowers when they are blown the Fruit and Seeds in their due time Extract the Spirits or Essences out of all these by Distillation Maceration or Calcination or any other of the former wayes But when they are all extracted severally one in the form of Oyl another of Salt or Liquor then mix them all together so that the may be conjoyned and united in one body which is called a Clyssus Some mix them in Distillation in Vessels made for the purpose in this manner They put the Water Salt and Oyl in three several Curbicles of equal height and bigness and tying their three necks together and put them into one common Head which may be fit to receive them all close them lute them and kindle the fire under The heat will elevate the thinnest substance in all of them which will meet and mix in the Head and run down by the Nose or Spout into the Receiver so set them by for use This Congregation of Essences doth penetrate and search all the remote passages of the Body and is very useful in Physick CHAP. XIX How to get Oyl out of Salts I Have declared many ways of extracting Oyl now I will shew how to draw it out of Salts that they may be more penetrative and work more powerfully which can be done no other way They seem to have some kinde of fat in them yet will not burn so that it cannot be called a perfect Oyl How to extract Oyl of Tartar Burn the Tartar and reduce it into a Salt as I shewed before then lay it on a Marble in a moyst place and in a few days it will turn to Oyl and run down into a dish which you must set underneath to receive it Thus you may easily make it into Salt Beat the Tartar into Powder and mix an equal quantity of Salt-Peter with it when they are mixt in Iron Mortar set them in the fire until they be quite burned grind the remaining Foeces and dissolve them in a Lye strain it and let the Lye evaporate away and the Salt will settle to the bottom then boyl some Eggs hard take ouâ— the yelks and fill up their place with Salt and in a little time it will dissolve into Oyl Oyl of Sal Sodae Dissolve the Salt in Water and strain it through a cloth then dry it lay it on a Marble and set it in a moyst place and it will run down in an Oyl So The famous Oyl of Talk is extracted onely by the vehement heat of fire yet I knew not at first what it was useful for But I perceive it is much accounted of by women in their Fâ—cus Beat it into fine Powder in an Iron-Morter and put it into a very strong thick Pot fasten the cover on with wire plaiâ—â—er it with Potters Clay and set it in the Sun for three days then thrust it into a Potters Furnace where the flames are most violent After three or four days take it out break open the Pot and if you finde it not sufficiently calcined make it up and set it in again When it is burned perfectly white lay it on a Marble and place it in a moyst room or in a hole dug in the earth and there let it stand for a good while until it dissolve into Oyl then reserve it in a Glass-bottle So also is made Red Oyl of Sulphur Grinde live Sulphur into a small Powder and mix it with an equal quantity of the former Oyl of Tartar boyl it three hours in a Glass-bottle and when it is dissolved strain it through a Linnen-cloth into another Glass and set it over a Gentle fire till it thicken like clotted blood and so dry Then powder it and lay it on a Marble in a moist Cellar there it will dissolve and run down into the under-placed dish Set this Liquor being first strained thorow a cloth in a Glass-bottle over warm Ashes until the moysture be consumed and there will remain a red Oyl of Sulphur Oyl of Myrrh Boyl some Eggs hard cut them in the middle take out the yelks and fill their places with Myrrh powdered and seirced lay them in an earthen Pan upon long cross-sticks that the Eggs may not imbibe the Oyl again and shut them in a moist Cellar so the Oyl will drop down into the Pan. CHAP. XX. Of Aqua Fortis NOw I will recite those Distillations which draw out neither Water nor Oyl but a middle between both for the terrene parts are forced up turned into Water by the vehemency of the fire from whence they do acquire so great a heat that corrode and burn most violently They are extracted onely in igne reverberationis and with great care and labour How to draw Aqua Fortis or Oyl out of Salt It is a piece of Art discovered to very few Take Pit-Salt put into a Glass-Retort treble luted over and dried set it in igne reverberationis where the flames do struggle most violently the first time you will get but little moysture Break the Retort and remove the Foeces into another and pour the extracted Water into them and distill them again the second time thou wilt get more Do the same a third time and so to the tenth until the Salt be all turned into Liquor which is a most precious Jewel and worth thy labor Some quench hot Bricks in the liquified Salt and then distil them with a most intense fire as in Oyl of Bricks A Water for the Separation of Silver Take Salt-Peter and Alom in equal quantity beat them in a Morter and put them into a Glass-Retort luted over three double when it is well dried set it in the circulating-fire that is which
either white or black or brown The white is made of Crude Parâ—er washed in Rose-water or other sweet Water and adding Musk Amber Civet and such-like it will smell at a good distance CHAP. VII How to make sweet Compounds THere may be made divers kindes of sweet Compounds of which are made Beads which some use to reckon their Prayers by and others to trim their clothes with also wash-Balls to cleanse and sweeten the hands And first How to make sweet Balls with small charge which yet shall seem to be very costly and sweet Take one ounce of Cyprian Powder and Benjamin of the best mixture which is brought out of Turky half an ounce of Cloves a sufficient quantity of Illyrian Iris. First melt some Gum Tragacantha in Rose-water then with the former powder make it into a Mass and rowl it up in little Balls bore them thorow and fix every one on a several tent upon the Table then take four Grains of Musk dissolve it in Rose-water and wash the outside of the Balls with it then let them dry afterwards wet them again for three or four times so will they cast forth a most pleasant sent round about which they will not quickly lose But if you would bestow more cost and have a greater sent I will shew How to make them another way Take one ounce of Storax of Amber half one a fourth part of Labdanum cleansed one drachm of Lignum aloes and Cinnamon an eighth part of Musk. Beat the Gum Storax and Amber in a Brass Morter with an Iron Pestle being both hot when these are well mixed cast in the other powders and mix them all together at last add the Musk and before they grow cold from what you please of them I will add also Another Compound very necessary in a time of Plague which will not onely refresh the Brains with its sweet odour but will preserve it against infection Take three ounces of Labdanum as much Storax one of Bejamin an ounce and a half of Cloves an ounce of Sanders three of Champhire one of Lignum Aloes Calamus Aromaticus and juice of Valerian a drachm of Amber mix all these in the juice of Balm Rose-water and Storax dissolved But to wash the Face and Hands I will set down a most Noble Composition Of washing Balls or Musk-Balls Take the fat of a Goat and purifie it in this manner Boyl a Lye with the Pills of Citron in a Brass Kettle let the fat remain in it for an hour then strain it thorow a Linen-cloth into cold water and it will be purified Make the Lye of two parts of the Ashes of the Ceruss-Tree one of Lime and half a Porringer of Alom mingle them and put them in a wooden Bowl with two holes in the bottom stopt with Straw then pour in water that it may cover them three fingers over and strain it out thorow the holes when the first is run out add another quantity of water and so the third time whilst the water doth receive any saltness Keep these several runnings asunder and add some of the second third unto the first while a new Egg will swim in it for if it sink and go to the bottom it will be too weak therefore add some of the first running If it swim on the top and lie upon the surface of the Water put in some of the second and third running until it descend so that scarce any part of it be seen above the Water Heat twenty pound of this Water in a Brass Kettle and put into it two of the fat then strain it out into broad Platters and expose it to the hot Sun mixing it often every day When it is grown hard make Pomanders of it and reserve them You may thus perfume them Put two pound of the Pomanders into a Bowl and with a VVooden Spoon mix it with Rose-water till it be very soft when it hath stood still a while and is grown hard add more water and set it in the Sun do this for ten days Then take half a drachm of Musk somewhat less Civet and as much of Cinnamon well beaten mix them and if you add a little Rose-powder it will smell much sweeter then judge of it by your nose If the sent be too weak add more of the Perfumes if too strong more of the Soap How to make Soap and multiply it Since we are fallen upon the discourse of Soap we will not pass it over this Take Soap Geta and reduce it into a small Powder set it on the fire in a Brass Kettle full of Lye of a moderate strength so that in three hundred pound of Lye you may put fourscore of Soap When the Water beginneth to boyl up in bubbles stir it with a wooden Ladle and if the Lye do fail in the boyling add new When the Water is evaporated take the Kettle from the fire and cast in six pound of ordinary Salt well beaten and with an Iron Ladle empty it out and let it cool all night In the mean time prepare a brine so sharp that it will bear an Egg. In the morning cut the Soap into slices and put it into a broad Vessel and pour the brine on it there let it stand one quarter of a day and it will become very hard If you put some Sal Alchali into the brine it will make it much harder CHAP. VIII How to make sweet Perfumes IT remaineth that we speak of Perfumes for they are very necessary for the senting of Skins Clothes and Powders and to enrich Noble mens Chambers with sweet odors in Winter they are made either of Waters or Powders How to make Perfumes of Waters Take four parts of Storax three of Benjamin of Labdanum Lignum Aloes and Cinnamon one an eighth part of Cloves a little Musk and Amber Beat them all grossly and put them in a Brass Pot with an ounce and a half of Rose-water Set the Pot over the fire or hot Ashes that it may be hot but not boyl it will cast forth a pleasant odor when the Water is consumed put in more You may also add what you have reserved in the making Aqua Nanfa for it will send out a very sweet fume Another way Take three parts of Cloves two of Benjamin one of Lignum Aloes as much Cinnamon Orange-Pill and Sanders an eight part of Nutmeg Beat them and put them into a pot and pour into them some Orange-flower-water Lavender and Myrtle-water and so heat it Another way Express and strain the juice of Lemmon into which put Storax Camphire Lignum Aloes and empty Musk-Cods macerate them all in Balneo for a week in a Glass-Bottle close stopt When you would perfume your Chamber cast a drop of this Liquor into a Brass Pot full of Rose-water and let it heat over warm Ashes it will smell most pleasantly Excellent Pomanders for perfuming Take out of the Decoction for Aqua Nanfa Lignum Aloes Sanders Cinnamon and Cloves and of the
that the souls of the dead did always rest in the grave as the ashes do and that they might not lye in the dark they endeavovred all they could to send out this light that their souls might enjoy light continually Therefore we must think on another experiment and make trial of it But this must be held for a rare and firm principle in Natures shop that the cause of wonders is because there can be no vacuum and the frame of the work will sooner break asunder and all things run to nothing then there can be any such thing Wherefore if a flame were shut up in a glass and all vent-holes stopt close if it could last one moment it would last continually and it were not possible for it to be put out There are many wonders declared in this Book and many more shall be set down that have no other cause But how the flame should be lighted within side this is worth the while to know It must be a liquor or some subtile substance and that will evaporate but little and if then it can be shut up in the glass when the glass is shut it will last always which may easily be performed by burning-glasses fire industry and cunning It cannot be extinguished because the Air can come in nowhere to fill up the emptiness of the Vial The Oyl is always turned into smoke and this being it cannot be dissolved into Air it turns to Oyl and kindleth again and so it will always by course afford fuel for the light You have heard the beginnings now search labour and make trial THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF Natural Magick Of tempering Steel THE PROEME I Have taught you concering monstrous Fires and before I part from them I shall treat of Iron Mines for Iron is wrought by Fire not that I intend to handle the Art of it but onely to set down some of the choicest Secrets that are no less necessary for the use of men in those things I have spoken of already besides the things I spake of in my Chymical works Of Iron there are made the best and the worst Instruments for the life of man saith Pliny For we use it for works of Husbandry and building of Houses and we use it for Wars and Slaughters not onely hard by but to shoot with Arrows and Darts and Bullets far off For that man might die the sooner he hath made it swift and hath put wings to Iron I shall teach you the divers tempers of Iron and how to make it soft and hard that it shall not onely cut Iron and other the hardest substances but shall engrave the hardest Porphyr and Marble Stones In brief the force of Iron conquers all things CHAP. I. That Iron by mixture may be made harder IT is apparent by most famous and well-known Experience that Iron will grow more hard by being tempered and be made soft also And when I had sought a long time whether it would grow soft or hard by hot cold moist or dry things I found that hot things would make it hard and soft and so would cold and all the other qualities wherefore somthing else must be thought on to hunt out the causes I found that it will grow hard by its contraries and soft by things that are friendly to it and so I came to Sympathy and Antipathy The Ancients thought it was done by some Superstitious Worship and that there was a Chain of Iron by the River Euphrates that was called Zeugma wherewith Alexander the Great had there bound the Bridge and that the links of it that were new made were grown rusty the other links not being so Pliny and others think That this proceeded from some different qualities it may be some juices or Minerals might run underneath that left some qualities whereby Iron might be made hard or soft He saith But the chief difference is in the water that it is oft plunged into when it is red hot The pre-eminence of Iron that is so profitable hath made some places famous here and there as Bilbilis and Turassio in Spain Comum in Italy yet are there no Iron Mynes there But of all the kindes the Seric Iron bears the Garland in the next place the Parthian nor are there any other kindes of Iron tempered of pure Steel for the rest are mingled Justine the Historian reports That in Gallicia of Spain the chiefest matter for Iron is found but the water there is more fortible then the Iron for the tempering with that makes the Iron more sharp and there is no weapon approved amongst them that is not made of the River Bilbilis or tempered with the water of Chalybes And hence are those people that live neer this River called Chalybes and they are held to have the best Iron Yet Strabo saith That the Chalybes were people in Pontus neer the River Thermodon Virgil speaks And the naked Calybes Iron Then as Pliny saith It is commonly made soft with Oyl and hardened by Water It is a custome to quench thin Bars of Iron in Oyl that they may not grow brittle by being quenched in Water Nothing hath put me forward more to seek higher matters then this certain Experiment That Iron may be made so weak and soft by Oyl that it may be wrested and broken with ones hands and by Water it may be made so hard and stubborn that it will cut Iron like Lead CHAP. II. How Iron will wax soft I Shall first say how Iron may grow soft and become tractable so that one may make Steel like Iron and Iron soft as Lead That which is hard grows soft by fat things as I said and without fat matter by the fire onely as Pliny affirm Iron made red hot in the fire unless you beat it hard it corrupts as if he should say Steel grows soft of it self if it be oft made red hot and left to cool of it self in the fire and so will Iron grow softer I can do the same divers wayes That Iron may grow soft Anoynt Iron with Oyl Wax Asafoetida and lure it over with straw and dung and dry it then let it for one night be made red hot in burning coals When it grows cold of it self you shall finde it soft and tractable Or take Brimstone three parts four parts of Potters Earth powdered mingle these with Oyl to make it soft Then cover the Iron in this well and dry it and bury it in burning coals and as I said you may use Tallow and Butter the same way Iron wire red hot if it cool alone it will be so soft and ductible that you may use them like Flax. There are also soft juices of Herbs and fat as Mallons Bean-Pods and such-like that can soften Iron but they must be hot when the Iron is quenched and Juices not distilled Waters for Iron will grow hard in all cold waters and in liquid Oyl CHAP. III. The temper of Iron must be used upon soft Irons I Have said how Iron may
be made softer now I will shew the tempering of it how it may be made to cut sharper For the temper of it is divers for divers uses For Iron requires several tempers if it be to cut Bread or Wood or Stone or Iron that is of divers liquors and divers ways of firing it and the time of quenching it in these Liquors for on these doth the business depend When the Iron is sparkling red hot that it can be no hotter that it twinkles they call it Silver and then it must not be quenched for it would be consumed But if it be of a yellow or red colour they call it Gold or Rose-colour and then quenched in Liquors it grows the harder this colour requires them to quench it But observe That if all the Iron be tempered the colour must be blew or Violet colour as the edge of a Sword Rasor or Lancet for in these the temper will be lost if they are made hot again Then you must observe the second colours namely when the Iron is quenched and so plunged in grows hard The last is Ash colour and after this if it be quenched it will be the least of all made hard For example The temper of a Knife to cut Bread I have seen many ingenious men that laboured for this temper who having Knives fit to cut all hard substances yet they could scarce fall upon a temper to cut Bread for the Table I fulfilled their desire with such a temper Wherefore to cut Bread let the Steel be softly tempered thus Heat gently Steel that when it s broken seems to be made of very small grains and let it be excellent well purged from Iron then strike it with a Hammer to make a Knife of it then work it with the File and frame it like a Knife and polish it with the Wheel then put it into the Fire till it appear Violet-colour Rub it over with Sope that it may have a better colour from the Fire then take it from the Fire and anoynt the edge of it with a Linen-cloth dipt in Oyl of Oâ—ives until it grow cold so you shall soften the hardness of the Steel by the gentleness of the Oyl and a moderate heat Not much differs from this The temper of Iron for Wood. Something harder temper is fit to cut wood but it must be gentle also therefore let your Iron come to the same Violet-colour and then plunge it into waters take it out and when it appears Ash-colour cast it into cold water Nor is there much difference in The temper for Instruments to let blood It is quenched in Oyl and grows hard because it is tender and subtile for should it be quenched in water it would be wrested and broken The temper of Iron for a Sythe After that the Iron is made into a Sythe let it grow hot to the colour of Gold and then quench it in Oyl or smeer it with Tallow because it is subtile Iron and should it be quenched in waters it would either crumble or be wrested CHAP. IV. How for all mixtures Iron may be tempered most hard NOw I will shew some ways whereby Iron may be made extream hard for that Iron that must be used for an Instrument to hammer and polish and fit other Iron must be much harder then that The temper of Iron for Files It must be made of the best Steel and excellently tempered that it may polish and fit other Iron as it should be Take Ox hoofs and put them into an Oven to dry that they may be powdered fine mingle well one part of this with as much common Salt bearen Glass and â—himney-foot and beat them together and lay them up for your use in a wooden Vessel hanging in the smoak for the Salt will melt with any moisture of the place or Air. The powder being prepared make your Iron like to a file then cut it chequerwise and crosswayes with a sharp edged tool having made the Iron tender and soft as I said then make an Iron chest fit to lay up your files in and put them into it strewing on the powders by course that they may be covered all over then put on the cover and lute well the chinks with clay and raw that the smoak of the powder may not breath out and then lay a heap of burning coals all over it that it may be red-hot about an hour when you think the powder to be burnt and consumed take the chest out from the coals with Iron pinchers and plunge the files into very cold water and so they will become extream hard This is the usual temper for files for we fear not if the files should be wrested by cold waters But I shall teach you to temper them excellently Another way Take the pith out of Goats horns and dry it and powder it then lay your files in a little Chest strewed over with this Powder and do as you did before Yet observe this That two files supernumerary must be laid in so that you may take them forth at pleasure and when you think the Chest covered with burning coals hath taken in the force of the Powder take out one of the supernumerary Files and temper it and break it and if you finde it to be very finely grain'd within and to be pure Steel according to your desire take the Chest from the fire and temper them all the same way or else if it be not to your minde let them stay in longer and resting a little while take out the out the other supernumerary File and try it till you have found it perfect So we may Temper Knives to be most hard Take a new Ox hoof heat it and strike it with a Hammer on the side for the pith will come forth dry it in an Oven and as I said put it into a pot alwayes putting in two supernumeraries that may be taken forth to try if they be come to be pure Steel and doing the same as before they will be most hard I will shew How an Habergeon or Coat of Arms is to be tempered Take soft Iron Armour of small price and put it into a pot strewing upon it the Powders abovesaid cover it and lute it over that it have no vent and make a good Fire about it then at the time fit take the Pot with iron pinchers and striking the Pot with a Hammer quench the whole Herness red hot in the foresaid water for so it becomes most hard that it will easily resist the strokes of Poniards The quantity of the Powder is that if the Harness be ten or twelve pounds weight lay on two pounds and a half of Powder that the Powder may stick all over wet the Armour in water and rowl it in the Powder and lay it in the pot by courses But because it is most hard lest the rings of a Coat of Male should be broken and flie in pieces there must be strength added to the hardness Workmen call it a
Return Taking it out of the Water shake it up and down in Vinegar that it may be polished and the colour be made perspicuous then make red hot a plate of Iron and lay part of the Coat of Male or all of it upon the same when it shews an Ash-colour workmen call it Berotinum cast it again into the water and that hardness abated and will it yield to the stroke more easily so of a base Coat of Male you shall have one that will resist all blows By the mixture of Sharp things iron is made hard and brittle but unless strengh be added it will flie in pieces with every blow therefore it is needful to learn perfectly how to add strength to it CHAP. V. Liquors that will temper Iron to be exceeding hard I Said that by Antipathy Iron is hardened and softened by Sympathy it delights in fat things and the pores are opened by it and it grows soft but on the contrary astringent things and cold that shut up the pores by a contrary quality make it extreme hard they seem therefore to do it yet we must not omit such things as do it by their property If you would have A Saw tempered to saw Iron Make your Saw of the best Steel and arm it well that it be not wrested by extinguishing it Then make a wooden Pipe as long as the Iron of the Saw that may contain a liquor made of Water Alon and Piss Plunge in the red hot Iron and take it out and observe the colours when it comes to be violet put all into the liquor till it grow cold Yet I will not conceal that it may be done by a Brass wire bent like a bow and with Powder of Emril and Oyl for you shall cut Iron like Wood. Also there are tempered Fish-hooks to become extream hard The Hook serves for a part to catch Fish for it must be small and strong if it be great the Fish will see it and will not swallow it if it be too small it will break with great weight and motion if it be soft it will be made straight and the Fish will get off Wherefore that they may be strâ—ng small and not to be bended in the mouth you shall thus temper them Of Mowers Sythes make wire or of the best Steel and make Hooks thereof small and fine heat them not red-hot in the Fire for that will devour them but lay them on a plate of red hot Iron When they grow red cast them into the water when they are cold take them out and dry them Then make the plate of Iron hot again and lay on the Hooks the second time and when an Ash colour or that they commonly call Berotinus appears plunge them into the water again that they may be strong for else they would be brittle So you may make Culters extream hard Albertus from whom others have it saith That Iron is made more strong if it be tempered with juice of Radish and Water of Earth-worms three or four times But I when I had often tempered it with juice of Radish and Horse-Radish and Worms I found it alwayes softer till it became like Lead and it was false as the rest of his Receits are But thus shall you make Steel extream hard that with that onely and no other mixture you may make Culters very hard Divide the Steel into very small pieces like Dice and let them touch one the other binding Iron wires over them fastning all with an Iron wire put them into the Fire till they grow red hot and sparkle at least fifteen times and wrap them in these powders that are made of black Borax one part Oyster-shells Cuttle-bones of each two parts then strike them with a Hammer that they may all unite together and make Culters or Knives or what you will for they will be extream hard For this is the most excellent sort of Steel that onely tempered with waters is made most hard There is another but not so good and unless it be well tempered it alwayes grows worse It is this To temper a Graver to cut Marble Make your Graver of the best Steel let it be red hot in the Fire till it be red or Rose coloured dip it into water then take it away and observe the second colour When it is yellow as Gold cast it into the water So almost is A Tool made to cut Iron When the same red Rose colour appears plunge it into the water or some sharp liquor that we shall shew and you must observe the second yellow colour or wheat colour and then cast it into the water These are the best Tempers for Swords Swords must be tough lest whilst we should make a thrust they should break also they must have a sharp edge that when we cut they may cut off what we cut The way is thus Temper the body of it with Oyl and Butter to make it tough and temper the edge with sharp things that they may be strong to cut and this is done either with wooden Pipes or woollen Cloths wet with Liquor use it wittily and cunningly CHAP. VI. Of the temper of a Tool shall cut a Porphyr Marble Stone OUr Ancestors knew well to temper their Tools wherewith they could easily cut a Porphyr Stone as infinite Works testifie that were left to us but the way was shewed by none and is wholly concealed which is a mighty disgrace to our times when we neglect such rare and useful Inventions and make no account of them That we might be freed from this dishonour with great care and pains and cost I made trial of all things came to my hand or I could think of by divers wayes and experiments that I might attain unto it at last by Gods great blessing I found a far greater passage for to come to these things and what exceeds this And I will not be grieved to relate what I found out by chance whilst I made trial of these things The business consiâ—ed in these difficulties If the temper of the Graver was too strong and stubborn with the vehement blow of the Hammer it flew in piece but if it was soft it bowed and would not touch the stone wherefore it was to be most strong and tough that it might neither yield to the stroke nor flie asunder Moreover the juice or water the Iron must be tempered in muâ— be cleer and pure for if it be troubled the colours coming from heat could not be discerned and so the time to plunge the Tools in would not be known on which the whole Art depends So then cleer and purified juices will shew the time of the temper The colours must be chiefly regarded for they shew the time to plunge it in and take it out and because that the Iron must be made most hard and tough therefore the colour must be a middle colour between silver and gold and when this colour is come plunge the whole edge of the Tool into the
put into it a little musk stop the mouth close that it vent not set it in the summer-Sun two weeks always stirring the water The use is if you put a drop of this into a gallon of wine all the wine will smell of Musk and so for Cinnamon or other Spices So you may make Hippocras Wine Take the sweetest wine we call it commonly Mangiaguâ—rra and into four Vials full of that pour in two pounds of beaten Sugar four ounces of Cinnamon Pepper and grains of Paradise one ounce and half let them infuse one day then strain them adde in the end in a knot a little Musk and it will be excellent Wine or to powdred Sugar we put a little Aqua vitae wherein Cinnamon Pepper Grains of Paradise and musk have been infused as I said and it is presently provided for it draws forth the quintessence I shall shew how Wine may freeze in Glasses Because the chief thing desired at Feasts is that Wine cold as ice may be drunk especially in summer I will teach you how Wine shall presently not onely grow cold but freeze that you cannot drink it but by sucking and drawing in of your breath Put Wine into a Vial and put a little water to it that it may turn to ice the sooner then cast snow into a wooden vessel and strew into it Salt-peter powdred or the cleansing of Salt-peter called vulgarly Salazzo Turn the Vial in the snow and it will congeal by degrees Some keep snow all the summer Let water boil in brass kettles then pour it into great bowls and set them in the frosty cold Air it will freeze and grow harder than snow and last longer CHAP. XII To make men drunk and to make them loath Wine NOw we are come to speak of Wine before we pass from it I will shew you how to make your guests drunk for drunkenness at Feasts increaseth mirth and then how to keep them safe from drunkenness when they are often provoked to drink healths and to strive who shall drink most You may with these fruits Make men drunk The fruits of the Arbute and the Lote-tree being eaten will make men as though they were drunk also Dates eat in too great a quantity cause drunkenness and the pain of the head Sow-bread with Wine makes a man drunk Amber-greese or Musk put in Wine exasperate drunkenness The filth of a Dogs ear mingled with Wine makes one drunk as Albertus saith But Rhases out of whom he took it saith That Wine wherein the seeds of Ricinus are infused if any one drink it it will inebriate them Camels froth drunk with water by a drunken man will make him mad as possessed with a Devil Let these suffice for I said more in my description of Plants But on the contrary these things will Take away drunkenness Because Hemlock with Wine is the cause of death by its venome it hath been invented and found true that Hemlock is the cause of life to others Pliny seems to intimate as much Also venoms are prepared to drink some taking Hemlock before that they may drink and die If a man hath drunk too much Wine that doth him hurt he shall discuss it thus Cato bids that at the beginning and middle of Supper a man should eat four or five tops of raw Coleworts and it will take off his drunkenness and remove the hurt comes by Wine and will make a man as though he had neither eat nor drank The Egyptians before all meat did eat boil'd Coleworts and so provided themselves for drink Many to keep themselves sober take Colewort-seeds first The Tibaritae saith Simaeus before they drank fenced themselves by feeding on Coleworts Alexis Yesterday thou drank'st too much And now thy head doth ake but such Distemper fasting cures then Eat boil'd Coleworts drink agen And Amphis There is no means can half so well As sudden trouble drink dispel For that will wonderfully cure Eat else Radish that 's as sure They were wont in a vessel of Amethyst to make another remedy for drunkenness that they might drink Wine without danger Athenaeus If you would otherwise hinder the vapours of the Wine drink it well tempered with water for they are soonest drunk that drink strongest Wines Africaâ—â—â— saith If thou have drunk too much eat before meat three or four bitter Almonds they are drying and will drink up the moysture and drive away drunkenness Plutarch relates That there was a Physitian with Drâ—sâ—s who when he had first eaten five or six bitter Almonds he always conquered at the duel of drunkenness The powder of Pumex-stone will do as much if the drinker take that first Theophrastus saith it is dangerous unless he drink abundantly So Eâ—deâ—â—â— drank two and twenty Cups at last he went into a Bath and did not vomit and supped so as if he had drank nothing for by its drying quality it consumes all the moysture and being cast into a vessel of new Wine that works the heat of the Wine is strait allayed There are other things prepated by the Antients to extinguish drunkenness as to eat Lettice at the end of Supper for they are very cold we eat it now first to procure appetite whence Martial writes Why do we first our Lettice eat Our Fathers made it their last meat Dioscorides seems to call it Acrepula because it hinders drunkenness Leeks discuss drunkenness and he that takes Saffron before shall feel no drunkenness There are also Herbs and Flowers that if you make Garlands of them they will hinder drunkenness as Violets Roses and Ivy-berries The ashes of the Bill of a Swallow powdred with Myrrhe and strewed into the Wine you drink will keep you secure from being drunk Hâ—rus the King of Assyria found out this invention Pliny I have said how drunkenness may be disposed now I shall shew how men shall abstain That love Wine to refrain it There are many who when they have drank much Wine that is the worst thing in the world for them fall sick and die of it Now if you would refrain and abhor Wine and strong drink because the Fountain Clitorins is too far off let three or four live eels put into the Wine stay there till they die Let one drink of this Wine who is given to drunkenness and he will loath Wine and always hate it and will never drink it again or if he do he will drink but little and with much sobriety Another way wash a Tortois with Wine a good while and give one of that wine to drink privately half a cup full every morning for three days and you shall see a wonderful vertue Myrepsus VVhen one complained before the King of the Indians that he had Sons born to him but when once they began to drink a little wine they all died Jarchus answered him thus It is better for them that they died for had they lived they would have all run mad because they were begot of seed that was too cold Therefore
dilated again and all the wrinkles will be gone and it will appear as it did at frst that you may read the Letters upon it without any hindrance Now I will shew the way How in the Sections of Books the Characters shall be hid When the Book is well bound and cut and coloured black if we open it and turn back the leaves that they may be turned in we may write at the corners of the leaves what we will but when the Book is set back again and the leaves put into their own places nothing is seen or can be imagined to be writ in them but he that would read those Letters must set the Book that way as it was and the Letters will be read So may we write on fly-traps that are made with wrinkles and then draw them forth If need be we may do The same with Cards to play with You may excellent well write on Cards if you put them in some order that one may follow the other and some shall be upright others turned downwards When you have set them right together you may write all things where they divide mingle the Cards together again and turn them and nothing will be seen but some disorderly marks if any man look curiously upon them But he that would read them must set them in order and they will joyn and be read exactly Also we may write in white Pigeons and other white Birds feathers of their wings turning them upwards for when they return to their own places they will shew nothing But if they be brought to their former posture you will read the Letters and this is no small benefit for those that shall use them for messengers There is a way To hide Letters upon wood Any one may make Letters upon wood and not be suspected for they shall not be seen but when we please Let the wood be fleshy and soft of Poplar or Tile-tree or such like and with those iron Markers Printers use when they make stamps upon Brass commonly called Ponzones make Letters in the wood half a finger thick then hew the wood with a Carpenters hatchet as deep as the Letters go when all is made plain and equal send the stick to your friend or board to him that knows the matter he putting the wood into the water the wood will swell out that was beaten in with the marks and the Letters will come forth That we may do in wooden vessels polished by the turner if when they are turned we mark the Letters on them and then turn them again when this is done send it to your friend and let him soke it in water c. CHAP. VI. In what places Letters may be inclosed I Shall speak in what places Letters may be inclosed and not be suspected and I shall speak last of Carriers I shall bring such examples as I have read in Antient Histories and what good a man may learn by them First How to hide Letters in wood Theophrastus's opinion was that if we cut the green bark of a Tree and make it hollow within as much as will contain the Letters and then bind it about in a short time it will grow together again with the Letters shut up within it Thus he saith That by including some religious precepts in wood people may be allured for they will admire at it But I mention this out of Theophrastus rather for a similitude then for to do the thing I would have for that would require a long time But this may be done well in dry wood as in Fir thus the chinks fastning together with common white glew Also the Antients used To conceal Letters in Junkets I will relate the cunning of the Wife of Polycretes for she whilst in the Milesian camps they solemnized a Solemn Feast of their Country when they were all fast asleep and drunk took this opportunity to tell her brothers of it and did thus She desired Diognetus General of the Erythrei that she might send some Junkets to her brothers and when she had leave she put a leaden scrole into a cake and she bad the bearer tell her brothers from her that no man should eat of it but themselves When they heard this they opened the cake and found the Letter and performed the contents of it They came upon the enemy by night that was dead drunk at the Feast and conquered him Also the Antients were wont To shut up Letters in living creatures Herodotus saith That Harpagus sent Letters to Cyrus put into the belly of a Hare whose entrails were taken out by one that counterfeited a shepherd hunting So Letters may be hid in Garments The secret places of clothes are best to avoid suspicion as in your bosom or under the soles of your feet Ovid in his Arte Amandi writes to this purpose Letters may be concealed in your brest Wrapt in a clowt which way is held the best Or else you may under your feet provide A place full closely Letters for to hide To hide Letters in your belt Those of Campania were wont when they would discover any thing to the Carthaginians and the Romans besieged them round they sent a man that seemed to run from them with a Letter concealed in his girdle and he taking occasion to escape brought it to the Carthaginians Others carried Letters in their scabbards and sent them away by messengers and were not found out But we use now adays To hide letters in the Bowels of living creatures For we wrap them in some meat and give them to a Dog or some other creature to swallow that when he is killed the letters may be found in his belly and there is nothing neglected to make this way certain The like was done by Harpagus He as Herodotus saith being to discover to Cyrus some secrets when the ways were stopt that he could do it by no other means he delivered the letters to a faithful servant who went like a Hunter that had catcht a Hare and in her belly were the letters put when the guts were taken forth and so they were brought to Persis We use also To shut up letters in stones Flints are beaten very fine in brazen Mortars and sifted then are they melted in a brass Cauldron by putting two ounces of Colophonia to one pound of the powder of the stone and mingling them put your letters into leaden plates and hide them in the middle of the composition and put the lump into a linnen bag and tye it fast that it may be round then sink it into cold water and it will grow hard and appear like a flint CHAP. VII What secret Messengers may be used THe Antients used the same craft for Messengers for they used men that should be disguised by their habits and some living creatures besides For To counterfeit the shape of a Dog It was the crafty counsel of Josippus that the Messengers should be clad with skins and so they past the enemies guards and
if they sink it is mingled with water But if you seek to know If new wine have any water mingled with it it will be the contrary for the contrary reason For wine that is pure and sincere is thin but new wine at first is thick feculent gross clammy because the feces are not yet sunk down but in time it will grow clear and thin Wherefore if you put Apples or Pears into new wine and the new wine be most pure the Apples will flote above it but if there be water mingled with it â—he Apples will sink to the bottom for freeze-water is thinner than new wiâ—e and lighter iâ—â—â—useth the Apple to sink which is excellent well described by Sotion and very curiously He saith That we may know whether new wine be mingled with water cast wilde Pears that is green ones into new wine and if there be any water they will sink to the bottom For when you fill the vessel with new wine if you cast in Services or Pears they will swim the more water you put to it the more will the Apple sink But we shall adde this for an addition When new wine is mingled with water to know which part is the best the upper or lower part The Country people use after the pressing forth of the wine when the clusters are pressed forth to caâ—â— in a certain quantity of water and so they make drink for laborers in the Countrey This new wine they divide the Country man hath half and the Landlord the other half The question is which part is the best the first or last that runs forth of the press But if you well remember what I said before the wine being the lightest will come uppermost and the water being heaviest will always sink to the bottom Wherefore the first that comes forth is the wine that which remains and is pressed from the clusters is watry When water is cast on the clusters it goes into the inmost parts of the Grapes and draws forth the wine that is in them and so they mingle but being lighter it chooseth the upper place therefore the upper part is best because it contains most wine but if you turn the Cock beneath the water will first run forth and the wine last CHAP. VII Other ways how to part wine from water THere are other ways to do it as by distilling For in distilling the lightest will ascend first then the heaviest when the fire is not too strong and that is but reason wherefore that the liquor may ascend it must first be attenuated into thin vapours and become lighter therefore wine being thinner than water if it be put in a still in Balneo the lightest vapour of wine will ascend by degrees and fall into the receiver You shall observe the Aqua vitae that distills into the vessel and by the quantity of that you may judge of the proportion of water mingled with the wine Also note that when the lightest part of the wine is ascended the heavy feces remain as water or as part of the wine Oft-times in our distillations when Aqua vitae was distilled in Balneo by chance the vessel brake that contain'd the Aqua vitae and mingled with the water in the kettle I put the mingled liquor into a Glass vessel and putting a soft fire to it first came forth the pure Aqua vitae simple without any water the water stayed in the bottom and kept not so much as the smell of the Aqua vitae By the veins running in the cup I knew the water ascended I will not omit though it be for another reason for pleasure and ingenuity to shew The manner to part water from wine that by this means we may know how much water is mingled in the vessel Take the quantity of the wine and put it into a Glass Vial and put the Vial into very cold water that all that is in the Vial may freeze as I shew'd If the wine be sincere and pure it will be the harder to freeze and longer if it have much water it will freeze the sooner When the wine is frozen break the Vial upon a dish the ice must melt by degrees first the wine because that is hotter than the water will remain frozen Part the wine from it for it will be longer thawing by proportion of this you may know what part of water was put into the vessel CHAP. VIII How the levity in the water and the air is different and what cunning may be wrought thereby NOw I will speak of heavy and light otherwise than I spake before namely how it is in the air and how in the water and what speculation or profit may rise from thence And first how we may know whether a Metal be pure or mingled with other Metals as Gold and Silver as in Gilded cups or else in moneys where Silver or Gold is mingled with Brass and what is their several weights which speculation is useful not onely for Bankers but also for Chymists when they desire to try Metals in fixing of Silver or other operations which I will attempt to declare plainly But first I will see whether the Antients speak any thing hereof Vitruvius saith Archimedes did write of this For when Hiero purposed to offer a Golden Crown to the Gods in the Temple he put it to the Goldsmith by weight he made the work curiously and maintain'd it for good to the King and by weight it seemed to be just but afterwards it was said that he had stoln part of the Gold and made up the Crown with Silver to the full weight Hiero enraged at this this bad Archimedes to consider of it He then by chance coming into a Bath when he had descended into it he observed that as much of his body as went into the Bath so much water ran over the Bath when he considered the reason of it he leaped forth for joy running home and crying Eureka Eureka that is I have found it I have found it Then they say he made to lumps of equal weight with the Crown one of Gold the other of Silver then he filled a large vessel to the very brims with water and he put in the lump of Silver the bigness of that thrust into the water made the water run over wherefore taking out the lump what flowed over he put in again having measured a sixt part and he found what certain quantity of water answered to the quantity of the Silver then he put in the lump of Gold into the full vessel and taking that forth by the same reason he found that not so much water ran forth but so much less of the body of the Gold was less than the same weight in Silver Then he filled the vessel with water and put in the Crown and he found that more water ran forth by reason of the Crown than for the mass of Gold of the same weight and from thence because more water run over by reason of
descend down to the water beneath and be set under it but fastned that it take no air let the vessel above be made hot by the Sun or fire for the air that is contained in the vessel rarefies and breathes forth whereupon we shall see the water rise into bubbles when the Sun is gone and the vessel grows cold the air is condensed and because the air included cannot fill up the vacuity the water is called in and ascends thither CHAP. IV. A discription of water Hour-glasses wherein Wind or Water-Instruments for to shew the Hours are described THe Antients had Hour-Dials made by water and Water-Dials were usual and famous Heron of Alexandria writ Books of Water-Dials but they are lost I have writ a Book of them and that this part may not be deficient I shall shew two that are made by contraries one by blowing in the air the other by sucking it out This shall be the first A Water-Dial Take a vessel of Glass like a Urinal it is described by the letters AB On the top is A where there is a very small hole that the point of a needle can scarce enter it at the bottom neer the mouth let there be set a staff EF that in the middle hath a firm Pillar going up to the very top of the vessel let the Pillar be divided with the Hour-lines Let there be also a wooden or earthen vessel GH full of water Upon the superficies of that water place the Glass vessel AB that by its weight will press toward the bottom but the air included within the vessel keeps it from going down then open the little hole A whereby the air going forth by degrees the vessel will gradually descend also Then make by another Dial the marks on the staff CD which descending will afterwards shew the Hourmarks When therefore the vessel goes to the bottom of the wooden vessel the Dial is done and it is the last Hour But when you would have your Dial go again you must have a crooked empty pipe OK the upper mouth K must be stopt with the finger K so K being stopt with the finger that the air may not enter sink it under the water that it may come within the vessel AB then put your mouth to K and blow into it for that will raise the vessel upward and it will come to its former place and work again I shall also describe for my minds sake Another Water-Dial contrary to the former namely by sucking in the air Let there be a Glass vessel like to a Urinal as I said AB and being empty set fast on it the vessel CD that it cannot sink down then fill it with water as far as B Let there be a hole neer the top E wherefore sucking the air by the hole E the water comes into the vessel AB from the vessel CD and will rise as high as FG when therefore AB is full of water stop the hole E that no air enter and the water will fall down again In the top of the vessel AB let there be another very small hole that the air may come in by degrees and so much as there comes in of air so much water will go forth On the superficies of the vessel make Hour-lines that may snew the Hours marked 1 2 3 c. or if you will let the Still fastned to a Cork swim on the top of the water and that will shew the Hours marked on the outside of the vessel CHAP. V. A description of Vessels casting forth water by reason of Air. NOw I will describe some Fountains or Vessels that by reason of air cast forth water and though Heron ingeniously described some yet will I set down some others that are artifically found out by me and other men Here is described A Fountain that casts forth water by compression of the Air Let there be a vessel of water-work close every where AB make a hole through the middle and let a little pipe CD go up from the bottom of the water-work vessel D so far from the bottom that the water may run forth Upon the superficies of the Tympanum let there be C a very little hole with a cover to it or let it have as the Greeks call it Smerismation to shut and open it handsomely and in the upper surface of the Tympanum bore the basis quite through with a little pipe which enters into the hollow of the Tympanum and having in the hole beneath a broad piece of leather or brass that the air coming in may not go back wherefore pour in water at E that it may be three fingers above the bottom then blow in air as vehemently as you can when it is well pressed in shut the mouth then opening the mouth A the water will fly up aloft until the air be weak I at Venice made a Tympanum with pipes of Glass and when the water was cast forth very far the Lord Estens much admired it to see the water fly so high and no visible thing to force it I also made another place neer this Fountain that let in light and when the air was extenuated so long as any light lasted the Fountain threw out water which was a thing of much admiration and yet but little labor To confirm this there is An Artifice whereby a hand-Gun may shoot a bullet without fire For by the air onely pressed is the blast made Let there be a hand Gun that is made hollow and very smooth which may be done with a round instrument of lead and with Emril-powder beaten rubbing all the parts with it Then you must have a round Instrument that is exactly plained on all parts that may perfectly go in at the mouth of the wind Gun and so fill it that no air may come forth let it be all smeer'd with oyl for the oyl by its grossness hinders any air to come forth So this lead Bullet being put into the Guns mouth and thrust down with great force and dexterity then presently take away your hands but you must first shut the little hole that is in the bottom of the hole and the bullet and little stick will fall to the bottom and by the violence of the air pressed together it will cast out the Bullet a great way and the stick too which is very strange Also I will make A Vessel wherewith as you drink the liquor shall be sprinkled about your face Make a vessel of Pewter or Silver like to a Urinal then make another vessel in the fashion of a Tunnel or a round Pyramis let their mouths be equal and joyn'd perfectly together for they must be of the same bredth let the spire of it be distant from the bottom of the Urinal a fingers breadth and let it be open then pour water into the vessel and fill the Urinal unto the hole of the spire end and fill the Tunnel to the top and the rest of the Urinal will be empty
brass Cauldron that will hold much water fill it with salt water after that the Urinals and putting on their caps when fire is put under both the Urinals will drop and the cap that contains others by its pipe will drop out water also for the vapors rising from the Cauldron of hot water will make the Urinals drop and the cap will drop withal But if at Sea the commodity of such a vessel cannot be had We may Distil salt water otherwise though but little Dioscorides shews the old way of distillation we may that way distil sea water in ships which Pliny shews also Fleeces of wool extended about the ship are made wet by the vapors rising from the Sea and sweet water is pressed out of them But let us see whiter Salt water may be made fresh another way Aristotle saith it and Solomon before him That all Rivers came from the Sea and return to the Sea for by the secret passages under ground the waters that are sent forth leave their earthly and dry parts mixed with the earth and they come forth pure and sweet He saith The cause why the salt water comes not forth is because it is ponderous and settles and therefore onely hot-waters of salt-waters can run forth for they have a lightness that oversways the weight of the salt for what is hot is lightest Adde that waters running through the earth are much strained and therefore the heavior and thicker they are the more do they continually sink down and are left behind and the lighter they are the more pure do they come forth and are severed For as Salt is heavy so sweet water is light and so it comes that they are sweet waters that run forth This is the very cause why salt-water when it moves and is changed is made the sweeter for motion makes it lighter and purer Let us see now if we can imitate Nature Fill then great vessels with earth and set them so one above another that one may drean into another and thus salt-water dreaning through many vessels may leave the salt behinde I tried it through ten vessels and it remain'd still salt My friend said that he made it sweet through twenty vessels Yet thus I thought to warn you of that all earth is not fit for this use Solinus saith That sea-water strain'd through clay will grow sweet and it is proved that the salt is taken away if you strain it often through thin sand of a River Earth that lies in covered places and under roots is naught for that is commonly salt as also where Cattle are sâ—alled which Columella saith is naught for Trees for that it makes salt-water what is strain'd from it Black earth is naught for it makes the waters sharp but clay grounds make sweet waters Paxamus Anaxagoras said That the saltness of the sea came from the Rivers running through salt places and communicating that quality to the sea Some approve River-gravel for this use and their reason is because always sweet waters are found by the shores and they say this happens because they are strain'd through the sand and so grow fresh coming from the salt-sea for the sweet water that is found neer the sea is not of the sea but such water as comes from the tops of hills through the secret channels of the earth thither For waters that drean forth sweet are sweet though they lye even with the sea and in plain places as Apuila where the waters drean not from the hills they are salt So on the shores of Africa But Aristotle brings an experiment from a vessel of wax for if one make a Ball of wax that is hollow and shall dip it into the sea it being of a sufficient thickness to contain he shall finde it full of fresh water because the corpulent saltness cannot get in through the pores of the wax And Pliny by letting down little nets into the sea and hollow balls of wax or empty vessels stopt saith they will draw in fresh water for sea-water strain'd through clay will grow fresh But I have found this to be false For I have made pots of clay as fine and well as I could and let them down into salt-water and after some days I found salt-water in them Also if it were true it is of no use when as to sweeten one pound of water a thousand Balls of wax a day were not sufficient But for this many vessels might be invented of porous wood and stones A vessel of Ivy that parts as I said wine from water will not part salt from water if it drean through it But stones are brought from Portingal made into vessels into which sea water put will drean forth sweet if not the first yet the second time they use it to break the stone also for that many pumex and porous stones may be tried Leo Baptista Albertus saith That an earthen pot well stopt and put into the sea will fill with potable water But I have tried all earthen vessels and I always found salt-water Aristotle in his Problems saith It may be done Another way If salt-water cannot be drank cold yet hot and cool again it is better to drink It is because a thing useth to change from contrary to contrary and salt-salt-water is contrary to fresh and when it is boil'd the salt part is boil'd off and when it is cold stays at the bottom This I tried and found it false and more salt for by heat the thin vapors of the water that are sweet exhale and the salt stay behinde and in lesser water the same quantity of salt makes it salter as I said in my distillations I wonder such a wise man would relate such falsities Florentinus borrowing it from him saith If water be not good nor poâ—able but ill let it be boiled till a tenth part of it be consumed then purge it and it will be good For sea-water so boil'd will grow sweet Let me see whether it can be made so Another way and that in great quantity There is a thing that being cast into large vessels filled with sea-water by fastning the salt will make it fall to the bottom or by curdling it and so it frees the water from it Wherefore we must think on things that have a stiptick quality the Antients tried this the Moderns have effected it Pliny Nitrous of bitter waters if you put Barley-flower dried to them they are tempered that you may drink of them in two hours therefore is Barley-flower put into wine sacks and elswhere Those that go to the Red-sea through the Desarts make nitrous and salt and bitter waters fit to drink in two hours by putting in of Barley-meal and they eat Barley-meal The like force hath the Chalk of the Rhodes and our Clay Also Cooks with Catlings and Meal of Wheat will take salt out of very salt meaâ— I tried this oft but found it false yet some of the saltness was taken away Pliny If you must drink ill
waters strew in powder of Penniroyal Leo Baptista Albertus when they take up the water of Nilus muddy if they do but rub the edge of the vessel with an Almond it presently grows clear I tried this to and found it false when common salt is cast into Aqua fortis that parts Gold from Silver the Silver will presently descend We see also that in the making of that they call read Alac casting but Alom into Lye the salt and colour will presently precipitate to the bottom and nothing will remain but clear water We see that milk will curdle with many Herbs which we speak of elsewhere We shall use therefore for this purpose coagulaters and astringents Cooks say That a Spunge put into a pot of salt-water will draw the salt to it but pressed forth again and cast in once more will take it all out So wood wrapt about with fillets of linnen and put into the pot will draw the salt to it Others binde in a clout Wheat-meal and put it into the pot and draw forth the salt Palladius where he speaks of seasoning of wines saith The Greeks bid men keep sea-water that is clean and taken out of the calm sea the year before whose Nature is that in this time it will lose its saltness or bitterness and smell sweet by age It remains to shew How sweet waters may be mended Leo Baptista saith If you place a glazed vessel full of salt and well stopt with lime putting oyl under that no water may penetrate into it that it may hang in the middle of the waters of a Cistern these waters will in no time corrupt Others adde also Quick-silver If water begin to corrupt cast in salt to purge them and if salt be wanting put in some sea-water for so at Venice they draw water from St Nicolas Well for Marriners that go long voyages because it stands so neer the sea and salt lyes hid in it by communicating with those waters We read in Scripture that Elizeus did this who at Jericho or Palestina cast in salt into a Fountain and made it potable water which was before bitter and corrupt If water breeds worms cast in quick Lime and they will dye When we would make wine clear beat the white of an Egge and the troubled wine will descend if you put it in Others cast in the dust that is on the catlings of small nuts and the Spaniards cast in Gyp to make in clear and all these we may use in waters CHAP. II. How to make water of Air. IF all other means fail we may make water of air onely by changing it into air as Nature doth for she makes water of air or vapors Therefore when we want water we may make it of air and do as Nature doth We know when the Sun heats the earth it draws forth the thinnest vapors and carrieth them on high to that region of the air where the cold is those vapors are condensed into drops and fall down in Rain Also we see in summer that in Glass vessels well rinced and that are full of cold water the air by coming to the outermost superficies will presently clow'd the the Glass and make it lose its cleanness a little after it will be all in a dew and swell into bubbles and by degrees these will turn to drops and fall down which have no other reason for them but because the cold air sticking to the Glass grows thick and is changed into water We see also in Chambers at Venice where there windows are made of Glass when a gross and thick vapor sticks to the Glass within and a cold vapor prevails without that within will turn to dew and drop down Again in winter in Brass Guns which are always very cold and are kept in Cellars and vaulted places where men also use to be that the air will grow thick and lighting upon the cold superficies of them they will be all of a dew and drop with water But to say no more Make a large round vessel of Brass and put into it Salt-Peter unrefined what will fill it men call it Solazzo mingled with Ice for these two mixed as I said in this Book make a mighty cold and by shaking them with the wondeful force of the cold they gather air about the vessel and it will presently drop into a vessel underneath A deligent Artist will adde more that he may get a greater quantity of water It sufficeth that I have shewed the way CHAP. III. How one may so alter his face that not so much as his friends shall know him SUch as are taken prisoners or shut up close and desire to escape and such as do business for great men as spies and others that would not be known it is of great moment for them to know how to change their Countenances I will teach them to do it so exactly that their friends and wives shall not know them Great men do not a little enquire for such secrets because those that can dissemble theirown persons have done great matters and lovers have served their Mistresses and Parents have not suspected it Ulisses attempting to know what the Trojans did clothed in counterfeit garments and his face changed did all he would and was not discovered Homer With many scars he did transform his face In servants clothes as from a beggars race He went to Troy And when he desired to know what Penelope and her suters did he transformed himself again I shall shew how this may be done many ways by changing the Garments Hair Countenance Scars Swellings we may so change our Faces that in some places it may rise in bunches in other places it may sink down And first How to dye the Flesh. But to begin with the colouring of the Flesh. The Flesh may be dyed to last so long or to be soon washed out If you will have it soon wash'd off Steep the shells of Walnuts and of Pomegranates in Vinegar four or five days then press them forth by a Press and dye the face for it will make your face as black as an Ethiopian and this will last some days Oyl of honey makes a yellow colour and red and it will last fourteen days or more The fume of Brimstone will discolour the face that it will shew sickly as if one had long kept his bed but it will be soon gone But if you will have it last many days firm and very hardly to come off Use water of Depart that seperates Gold from Silver made of Salt-Peter and Vitriol and especially if it have first corroded any Silver this will last twenty days until the skin be changed But if you will Change the Hair I taught elsewhere how to do this yet I will take the pains to do it again Oyl of honey dyes the Hair of the head and beard of a yellow or red colour and this will hold a moneth But if they be hoary white or yellow we may dye them black with
a strong Lixivium wherein Litharg is boiled Also it will notably alter the Countenance To adde or take off Hair An Unguent used in Stoves and Hot-houses is good for that purpose made of Orpiment and quick Lime for this will presently make the part bald so the eyelids and eyebrows being made smooth will strangely metamorphise a man We can also make the Hair grow suddenly with water of honey and the fat of an eel and horse as I said One may thus Make his face swelled pressed down or full of scars Nothing doth more deform the visage then the stinging of Bees We can make scars with caustick Herbs by applying them and letting them lye on for a little time Tumours and Cavities are made by using to the part milk of Tithymal as to the Mouth Nose Eyes especially where the skin is off that by this remedy alone the face is deformed so you may do the Cods and Testicles water of Cantharides smeered on doth presently cause bladders and humours Turbith beaten and boiled and anointed on makes all swell where it toucheth chiefly the Testicles The powder of the Yew doth so exulcerate the skin that the people will think the man is most miserable and in a sad condition The remedy is the juyce of the Poplar or the oyl of Poplar The fume of Brimstone and burnt straw will discolour the face as Hypocrites do who by such means alter their countenance Mingle together the feces of Aqua fortis one ounce Pickle and Curcuma of each one drachm with Oyl to the form of an unguent and anoint your face it will make it black When you will wash it with cold water it will come to its former complection Comedians and Tragedians when they Act on the Stage they smeer their faces with lees of Oyl to change them that such as are their acquantance may not know them Because the stinging of Bees Wasps Hornets do so change the face making the Nose Mouth and other parts to stand awry and to be full of swellings and depressions If any man wash his skin with the decoction of Hornets or Wasps the place will so swell that it will make men suspect some disease yet it is without pain The remedy is Theriot drank or smeered on the part and this is the fraud that false women use to counterfeit themselves to be with child Beat together Oyl-lees coles of a Vine and Pomegranate Pills and mingle them and if you touch your face with this liniment you shall make it exceeding black but the juyce of sowre Grapes or Milk will wash it off CHAP. IV. That stones may move alone THe Antients say that the stones called Prochites and Astroites laid upon some other plain stone will move of themselves if you put Vinegar to them The way shall be this let a plain well polished on the outward superficies Porphyr Marble stone lye beneath lay upon this the stone Trochites or Astroites whose outward superficies is made smooth also then put to them a little vinegar or juyce of Lemons presently of themselves will the Trochites as well as the Astroites without any thing moving them go to the declining superficies and it is very pleasant to see this Cardan saith That such stones have a thin moisture in them which by the force of the vinegar is turned into a vapor and when it cannot get forth it tumbles the stone up and down There is the beginning of a thin vapor but it comes not forth because it is credible that the passages are very narrow I should think that air is shut up in the veins of it for it is probable where you shall see substances of divers colours Wherefore vinegar because it is subtile of parts goes in and drives out the air which passing out by the vinegar moves the stone Yet I have found that all stones will move themselves that are mingled of divers stones have divers open passages in their veins For the vinegar entring in at the joynts forceth the stone to move it self The Alabaster stone called vulgarly Lodognium moves excellently for it is distinguished by divers veins and varieties of stones and I have seen a piece not onely of one pound but of â—our pounds to move it self and it was like a Tortois and when the stone began to move it seemed like a Tortois crawling That kinde of Marble moves by it self with vinegar which is called Brocadello which is compounded of divers and mingled parts Also with vinegar doth that spotted Marble walk which is spotted with red yellow and brown spots they call it the Lowsie stone and it makes the beholders to wonder at it I must tell you this before I leave off because I would omit nothing If the Marble be spotted underneath and be above all of one colour and hard or beneath all of one colour and hard and above of divers colours when vinegar is poured on or any sharp liquor it runs presently to the declining part sometimes in circles sometimes by jumps and sometimes hastily moving it self CHAP. V. How an Instrument may be made that we may hear by it a great way IN my Opticks I shewed you Spectacles wherewith one might see very fat Now I will try to make an Instrument wherewith we may hear many miles and I will search out a wood wherewith that may be performed better and with more ease Therefore to finde out the form of this Instrument we must consider the ears of all living Creatures that bear best For this is confirmed in the Principles of Natural Philosophy that when any now things are to be invented Nature must be searched and followed Therefore to consider of Animals that have the quickest hearing we must think of those that are the most fearful For Nature takes care for their safety that as they have no great strength yet they might exceed others in hearing and save themselves by flight as the Hare Coney Hart the Ass Ox and the like These Creatures have great ears and always open toward their foreheads and the open passages are to carry the sound from the place whence it comes Haâ—es therefore have long ears standing up high Pollux But Festus calls the Hare Auritum because of its great ears and quickness of hearing The Greeks call the Hare Lagos from the great ears for La in composition augments and Os signifies an ear and it was fit that a fearful creature should hear well that it might perceive dangers farther off and take care for it self in time The Egyptians thought the Hare so quick of hearing that it was their Hieroglyphick for hearing The Coney is of the same Nature and hath the same kinde of ears Cows have great hairy ears she can hear a Bull rore when he seeks to Bull a Cow thirty furlong off as giving this token of his love Aelian A Hart hath greater and longer ears as it is a fearful Creature If he holds his ears right up he perceives sharply and no snares can take
VVater will ascend which is proper onely to Tin for in no other Metal the Air remaineth last but in Tin the VVater is first elevated next the Fire last of all the Earth Of Iron is made a dark ruddish Oyl Of Quick-silver a white Oyl the Fire settleth to the bottom the Earth and Water are elevated and so of the rest How to separate the Elements in Herbs In Herbs there is alwayes one Element which reigneth in chief Take the Leaves of Sage bruise them macerate them in Fimo and then distil them the Fire will first ascend until the colours be changed next the VVater then a part of the Earth the other part will remain in the bottom not being volatile but fixed Set the VVater in the Sun six dayes then put it in Balneo the VVater will ascend first then the colour will alter and the Fire ascendeth next till the taste be changed at length a part of the Earth the rest being mix'd with the Air tarrieth behinde in the Bottom In VVater-Plants the Air ariseth first next the VVater and Fire How to finde out the Vertues of Plants There are no surer Searchers out of the Vertues of the Plants then our Hands and Eyes the Taste is more fallible for if in Distillation the hottest parts evaporate first we may conclude that it consisteth of hot and thin parts and so of the rest You may easily know by the separation of the Elements whether a Plant have more of â—ire or VVater or Earth by weighing the Plant first then afterward when the VVater and Oyl are extracted weighing the Foeces and by their proportion you may judge of the degrees of each Element in the Composition of it and from thence of their Qualities But the narrow limits of this Book will not give me leave to expatiate farther on this Subject Wherefore I will leave the Discourse of it to a particular Treatise which I intend to set out at large on this matter How to extract Gum out of Plants There are some Plants out of which we may extract Gum some Plants I say because many have none in them and nothing can give more then it hath Fennel and all other kindes of it Opoponax and such-like Herbs are full of it Nature is the best Director in extracting them for when the Sun shines very hot and the Stalks of these Plants are swelled with sap by reason of the continual encrease of their juice they open themselves in little clefts like a Woman when her labour approacheth and thence doth the Plant bring forth as it were in travel that Noble Liquor which partly by the heat of the Sun partly by a natural Inclination grows clammy and is condensed into a hard Body Hence we may learn How to extract Gum out of Opoponax In the Summer Solstice gather the Roots in the night-time that the heat of the Sun may not exhaust the moysture slice it long wayes and put it into a well vernished earthen Pipkin then set it upside down in a descending Furnace with a Receiver underneath to catch the falling-Liquor make a Fire about the upper part of the Vessel which will drive down a Noble Gum which must be purged in other Vessels and may be meliorated by Diâ—â—illation The same may be effected on Sagapene wâ—ose Roots must be gathered at the same time and sliced and being put into a Vessel with a gentle fire will drop out a glutinous Liquor into the Receiver which being clarified will harden like Gum and is kept for Medicinal uses How to extract Gum out of Fennel Gather the stalks of Fennel when it is in its vigor and the Flowers begin to blow about the full of the Moon for then they are more succulent slice them into pieces of a hand-long and put them into a Glass-Tub of a hand in wideress and a handful and a half in length fill it full and set the bottom of it being full of little holes into a Tunnel fit to receive it and the lower part of the Tunnel into a Receiver Then make a gentle fire about the Tub at a handful distance which may beat upon the stalkes on every side with its heat like the Sun-beams The Tub thus growing hot will exclude some drops which flying from the violence of the heat slide down thorow the hoâ—es of the bottom into the Tunnel and from thence into the Receiver where they will condense into Gum participating of the Nature of Fennel of no contemptible vertues THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF Natural Magick Of Perfuming THE PROEME AFter Distillation we proceed to Unguents and sweet smells it is an Art next of kin to the other for it provides odors of the same things compounds and mingles Unguents that they may send forth pleasant sents every way very far This Art is Noble and much set by by Kings and great Men. For it teacheth to make Waters Oyls Powders March-panes Fumes and to make sweet Skins that shall hold their sent a long time and may be bought for little money not the common and ordinary way but such as are rare and known to very few CHAP. I. Of perfuming Waters I Have in the former Book shewed how sweet Waters may be distilled out of Flowers and other things as the place dedicated to Distillation did require here now I will teach how to compound sweet Waters and Flowers that may cast forth odoriferous sents as first To make a most sweet perfumed Water Take three pound of Damask-Roses as much of Musk and Red-Roses two of the Flowers of Orange as many of Myrtle half a pound of Garden-Claver an ounce and a half of Cloves three Nutmegs ten Lillies put all these in an Alimbeck in the nose of which you must fasten of Musk three parts of Amber one of Civet half a one tied up together in a clout and put the Nose into the Receiver and tie them close with a cloth dip'd in Bran and the white of an Egg mixed set a gentle fire under it until it be all distilled Another Take two pound of Rose-water of Lavender half one of Certan-Wine thirteen drachms of the Flowers of Gilliflowers Roses Rosemary Jasmine the Leaves of Marjoram wilde Betony Savory Fennel and Basil gentle half a pound an ounce of Lemmon-peel a drachm of Cinnamon Benjamin Storax and Nutmegs mix them and put them in a Glass and set them out in the Sun for four dayes then distil them with a gentle fire and unless you put Musk in the Nose of the Alimbeck tie it up in a rag hang it by a thread in the Water whilst it standeth sunning for a month Set it in the Sun to take away the scurvy savor of the distilling if by chance it conceive any Aqua Nanfa Take four pound of Rose-water two of Orange-Flowers one of Myrtle three ounces of sweet Trifoil one of Lavender add to these two ounces of Benjamin one of Storax the quantity of a Bean of Labdanum as much Mace and Cloves a drachm of Cinnamon
When it is all soft that it is transparent as Crystal they fry them with butter and milk and bring them to the Table So Squils grow tender We must do as we did to Crabs for they cast their shells as Crabs do and Nature did this for some end for when their shells are grown too thick and weighty they can scarce crawl wherefore by the excrements that go into it that are consumed to make a new shell within the former that was made is broken and falls off CHAP. V. That living Creatures may be made more fat and well tasted I Shall endeavour to shew how living Creatures may be made more fat and well tasted that we may set more favory meats before our guests The Antients were not negligent in this matter Wherefore you shall find many ways not onely amongst Cooks but such as write concerning Husbandry Liccorish Gluttons found out the ways to fat Cattle that they might feed on them more plentifully and daintily Hence they called them cram'd because they were full fed and had gross bellies Those were called Bird pens where they fatted all sorts of Birds M. Lelius Strabo was the first that appointed this and he appointed Crammers to take care of them and ordered how much every crammed bird should eat They will fat better in winter than in summer because Birds at that time of the year are best being not so much wasted with yong and Cocks will fat better then Hens and such as never trod nor made eggs In summer when it is at an end and the sowre Grapes hang yet upon the Vines they are at the best I shall therefore teach How Hens and other Birds must be crammed Choose a place that is hot and obscure shut them all up apart and so close in their pens that they cannot come together nor turn and make two holes one for their heads to put forth and the other for their tails that they may both at their meat and shite it out again when it is digested Lay soft hay under them for if they lye hard they will never fat Pull off all the feathers from their heads thighs and 〈◊〉 under their wings there that it may breed no lice here that the dung corrupt it not For meat give them gobbets of Barley-Meal made up with water at the first for some time more sparingly then after give them as much as they can digest and you must give them no new meat till you feel their câ—ops that all the old is digested When the Bird is full let him go a while not to wander abroad but if there be any thing that urgeth him he may pick it off with his bill Let him not be set to fatting before five or after twenty Moneths old Yong Pigeons or Chickens will fat better with their dams if you pull off a few of their feathers and bruise their legs that they may stay in their places and if you give meat plentifully to their dams that they may feed themselves and their yong ones sufficiently Turtles are best fatted in summer give them nothing but meat especially Millet-seed for they much delight to eat that but Geese in winter They must be put up to fat four Moneths you need give them nothing else but Barley-Meal and Wheat-meal three times a day so that you give them water enough to drink and no liberty to walk about thus they will fat in two Moneths But tender Pullers will not be made fat in forty days Ducks will grow fat with all nutriment if it be abundance especially with Wheat Millet-seed Barley and with Water-squils Locusts and Creatures found in Lakes Columella Pheasants Partidges Heath-cocks and Turky-hens will fat being shut up and the first day they eat meat the next set them water or good strong wine to drink Let their meat be raw Barley-Meal made up with water giving them it by degrees or else broken and ground Beans and Barley sod with water and whole Millet-seed Linseed boil'd and dry mingled with Barley-meal to these you may add Oyl and make gobbets of them and give them to eat to the full and they will grow fat at longest in sixty days Now I shall shew how Four-footed Beasts are fatted The Sow will soonest fat for in sixty days she will be far First kept hungry three days as all the rest must be She grows fat with Barley Millet Acorns Figs Pears Cucumbers rest and not wandring But Sows will grow fatter by wallowing in the mire Figs and Chick-peason will fat them soonest and they desire change of meats Varro The Sow is fed with Beans Barley and other Grain for these will not onely fat them but give them a good rellish The Olive wilde Olive Tares Corn in straw Grass and they are all the better sprinkled with brine but the more effectual will they be if she fast three days before Aristotle Bean-husks and Coleworts are pleasant meat for them Salt put to them will make them have a stomack which in summer put into their troughs will season their meat and make them eat it up and by that seasoning of it they will drink and eat the more Colunmella Oxen will grow faâ— with Corn and Grass Tares ground Beans and Beanflalks Also with Barley whole or broken and parted from the hulls also by sweet things as pressed Figs Wine Elm-boughs and with a Lotion of hot water Aristotle We feed them at home with Wine of Surrentum or else we put Calfs to two Cows and thus being fed with abundance of Milk they can scarce go for fat Also in their craâ—ches we strew Salt stones that they may lick them and so drink and they will grow exceeding fat and tender CHAP. VI. How the flesh of Animals is made sweeter NOw shall I shew with some Meats and Arts How not onely the parts of Animals but their whole bodies are made fat tender and more delicate And first How to fat the Livers of Geese Out wise Ancestours saith Pliny who knew the goodness of a Goose liver taught how by cramming to make it grow great also taken forth it is augmented by sweet Milk And it is not without cause demanded who was the first man that found out so profitable a thing Whether it were Scipio Metellus that was Consul or Mar Sejus that in the same age was a Gentleman of Rome Palladius taught the way how when Geese have been fatting thirty days if you desire to have their livers tender you shall bruise old Figs and steep them in water and make gobbets of them and feed the Geese with them twenty days together But Quintilius way is when they grow fat you shall break dry wilde Radish in small pieces and tempering them with water give them this to drink for twenty days Some that the liver may be made great and the Geese fat feed them thus They shut up the Goose and cast to him Wheat sleeped in water or Barley the same way Wheat makes him fat quickly but Barley makes