and put off your vizard and be aperâ— and intelligible or else why do you pretend to lay the Fundamentalls of Science and crave our diligence and attention to a non-significant noise and buâ—ze Unlesse you will be understood it may as well for ought any bodie knows be a plaister for a gauld horses back or a Medicine for a Mad-dog as a receipt of the Philosophers Stone Observation 29. Pag. 27. In this page Magicus prophesies of a vitrification of the Earth and turning of it into a pure diaphanous substance To what end Magicus That the Saints and Angels at each pole of the Earth may play at Boe-peep with one another through this crystallized Globe Magicus has rare imaginations in his noddle Observation 30. Pag. 28. At the end of this page Magicus begins to take to task the explication of mans nature But Magicus you must first learn better to know your self before you attempt to explain the knowledge of man to others Observation 31. Pag. 29. Lin. 10. The Philosophicall Medicine This is the Philosophers stone And they that are ignorant in this point are but Quacks and Pispot Doctours Ho! Dr. H. Dr. P. Dr. R. Dr. T. and as many Doctours more as will stand betwixt London and Oxenford if you have not a sleight of Art to Metamorphize your selves into Triorchises and have one stone more then Nature hath bestowed upon you which is forsooth the Philosophers Stone have amongst you blind Harpers Magicus will not stick to teem Urinals on your heads and crown you all one after another with the Pispot and honour you with the Title of Quack-salvers What Magicus Is it not sufficient that you have no sense nor wit but you will have no good manners neither Observation 32. Pag. 30. This thirtieth page teaches that the Soul of man consists of two parts Ruach and Nephesh one Masculine and the other Feminine And Anthroposophus is so tickled with the Application of the conceit unto Marriage which he very feelingly and savourly pursues that he has not the patience to stay to tell us how these two differ he being taken up so with that powerfull charm and thence accrewing Faculty of Crescite Multiplicamini Observation 33. Pag. 31. This page has the Legend that the Alcoran has concerning the envy of the Angels But all goes down alike with him as if every thing printed were Gospel In so much that I am perswaded that he doubts not but that every syllable of his own Book is true now it has passed the Pâ—esse SECT V. 34. Eugenius broaches an old truth for a new doctrine 35. His errour that the sensitive part in man is a portion of Anima Mundi 36. His rash rejection of Peripateticall forms 37. His odde conceit of blind mens seeing in their sleep 38. And of the flowers of Hearbs framed like eyes having a more subtile perception of heat and cold then other parts of them have 39. His distinguishing the Rationall or Angelicall spirit in man from the Sensitive 40. Mastix commends Eugenius for his generous discourse of the excellency of the Soul 41. Rebukes him for his enmity with the Peripateticks and School-Divines and for his rash swearing and protesting solemnly before God that he wrote onely out of Zeal to the truth of his Creatour 42. Checkâ— his bold entitling of his own writings to the Sacrosanctity of Mysteries 43. Taxes his vain idolizing of Agâ—ippa 44. Shows him the fruitlesse effects of Enthusiastick Poetry without the true knowledge of things 45. Approves of severall collections of his concerning God and the Soul but disallows of his rash censure of Aristotles Philosophy challenging him to show any solution of Philosophick controversies by his Chymicall experiments 46. Sports himself with his solicitude of what acceptance his writings will have in the world 47. As also with his modest pride in disclaiming all affectation of Rhetorick 48. And his lanck excuse in that he wrote in the dayes of his mourning for the death of his brother 49. His ridiculous Tergiversation in not submitting his writings to the censure of any but God alone Observation 34. Pag. 32. THis page ridiculously places Peter Ramus amongst the Schoolmen against all Logick and Method And at the last line thereof bids us arrigere aures and tells he will convey some truth never heretofore discovered viz. That the Sensitive gust in a man is the forbidden fruit with the rest of the circumstances thereof Which Theory is so farre from being new that it is above a thousand years old It is in Origen and every where in the Christian Platonists Observation 35. Pag. 38. Lin. 27. It is part of Anima Mundi Why is Anima Mundi which you say in men and beasts can see feel tast and smell a thing divisible into parts and parcells Take heed of that Anthroposophus lest you crumble your own soul into Atoms indeed make no soul but all body Observation 36. Pag. 39. Lin. 22. Blind Peripateticall forms What impudence is this O Magicus to call them so unlesse you make your Anima Mundi more intelligible This is but to rail at pleasure not to teach or confute Observation 37. Pag. 40. Lin. 2. As it is plain in dreams Blind men then see in their sleep it seems which is more then they can do when they are awake Are you in jest Eugenius or in good earnest If you be I shall suspect you having a faculty to see when you are asleep that you have another trick too that is to dream when you are awake Which you practised I conceive very much in the compâ—lement of this book there being more dreams then truth by farre in it Observation 38. Lin. 11. Represent the eyes How fanciful and poeticall are you Mr. Magicus I suppose you allude to the herb Euphrasia or Eyebright Which yet sees or feels as little light or heat of the Sun as your soul do's of reason or humanity Observation 39. Lin. 27. Angelicall or rationall spirit Do's not this see and hear too in man If it do not how can it judge of what is said or done If it do's then there are two hearing and seeing souls in a man Which I will leave to Anthroposophus his own thoughts to find out how likely that is to be true Observation 40. 46 47 48 49. Pages Truly Anthroposophus these pages are of that nature that though you are so unkind to Aristotle as to acknowlege nothing good in him yet I am not so inveterate a revengefull assertor of him but I will allow you your lucida intervalla What you have delivered in these pages concerning the Soul of man bating a few Hyperboles might become a man of a more settled brain than Anthroposophus But while you oppose so impetuously what may with reason be admitted and propound so magisterially what is not sense I must tell you Anthroposophus that you betray to scorn and derision even those things that are sober in the way that you affect
and hazard the soiling of the highest and most delicate truths by your rude and unskilfull handling of them And now the good breath that guided you for these four pages together is spent you begin to rave again after the old manner and call Galen Antichrist in the fiftieth page Observation 41. Pag. 50. And quarrel again with the Peripateticks and provoke the School-divines And then you fancie that you have so swinged them that in revenge they 'l all fall upon you at once and so twerilug you when as they good men feel not your strokes and find themselves something else to do then to refute such crazy Discourses as this It is I onely it is I your brother Philalethes that am moved with piâ—ie towards youâ— and would if I could by carefully correcting you in your distempers bring you to a sober mind and set you in your right senses again And I beseech you brother Philalethesâ— forbear this swearing An honest mans word is as good as his Oath No body will believe you more for swearing then he would without it but think you more melancholick and distracted Observation 42. Lin. 21. Whiles they contemn mysteries c. In this heat all that Philalethes writes must be termed Holy mysteries His project certainly is now neither Episcopacie nor Presbyterie can be setled to get his book established jure divino A crafty colt Ha ha he Philalethes Are you there with your Bears Observation 43. Lin. 29. Next to God I owe all I have to Agrippa What more then to the Prophets and Apostles Anthroposophus The businesse is for your fame-sake you have more desire to be thought a Conjurer then a Christian. Observation 44. Pag. 53 54. Great glorious penman A piping hot paper of verseâ—â—ndeed Anthroposophus But say truly What can you do in or out of this heat more then other men Can you cure the sick Rule and counsell States and Kingdomes more prudently for the common good Can you find bread for the Poor Give a rationall account of the Phoenomena of Nature more now then at another time or more then other men can do Can you tell me the nature of Light the causes of the Rainbow what makes the flux and reflux of the Sea the operations of the Loadstone and such like Can you tell us in a rationall dependent and coherent way the nature of such things as these or foretell to us what will be hereafter as certainly and evidently as the Prophets of old But if there be neither the evidence of Reason nor the testimony of notable effect you can give us you must give me leave Anthroposophus to conjecture That all this is but a frisk and dance of your agitated spirits and firinesse of your fancie of which you will find no fruit but a palsied unsteddy apprehension and unsound judgement Observation 45. Pag. 55. From this page to the 62. your Theomagicall Nag has been prettie sure-footed Philalethes And it is a good long lucidum intervallum you have ambled out Nay and you have done very well and soberly in not plainly pretending any new thing there For they are both old and well seasoned if the Church be so pleased to esteem of them But what you have toward the latter end of the 62 page that is a word of your self and another oâ— the common Philosophie has in it a spice of the old maladie pride and conâ—â—itâ—dnesse as if you had now finished so famous a piece of work as that all the world would stand amazed and be inquisitive after you asking who is this Philalethes and what is he Presbyterian or Independent Sir may it please you He is neither Papist though he bid fair enough for Purgatorie in his Exposition of St. Peter in the foregoing page nor Sectarie though he had rather style himself a Protestant then a Christian but be he what he will be he is so great in his own conceit that though you have not the opportunitie to ask his judgment yet he thinks it fit unasked to set himself on the seat of Judicature and disgorge his sentence on our ordinary Philosophie He means you may be sure the Aristotelean in use for so many hundred years in all the Universities of Europe And he pronounces of it that it is An inconsistent Hotch-potch of rash conclusions built on meer imagination without the light of Experience You must suppose he means Chymicall experiments for you see no small pretensions to that in all his Treatise And this very Title page the first of the book has the priviledge to be first adorned with this magnificent term of Art Protochymistry But tell me Mr. Alchymist in all your skill and observation in your Experiments if you have hit on any thing that will settle any considerable point controverted amongst Philosophers which may not be done as effectually at lesse charges Nay whether you may not lose Nature sooner then find her by your industrious vexing of her and make her appear something else then what she really is Like men on the rack or overwatched witches that are forced many times to confesse that which they were never guiltie of But it being so unsatisfactorie to talk in generall and of so tedious purpose to descend to particulars I will break off this discourse Onely let me tell you thus much Mr. Philalethes that you are a very unnaturall son to your mother Oxenford and to her sister Universitie for if they were no wiser then you would make them you would hazard them and all their children to be begg'd for fools And there would be a sad consequent of that But your zeal and heated melancholie considers no such things Anthroposophus Observation 46. Pag. 65. Lin. 3. I have now done Reader but how much to my own prejudice I cannot tell Verily nothing at all Philalethes For you have met with a friend that hath impartially set out to you your own follies and faults And has distorted himself often into the deformities of your postures that you may the better see your â—elf in another and so for â—hame amend Observation 47. Lin. 8. Paint and trim of Rhetorick How modest are you grown Philalethes Why this affectation of humour and Rhetorick is the most conspicuous thing in your book And shines as oriently as false gold and silver lace on a linsie-woolsie coat Observation 48. Lin. 22. Of a brothers death Some young man certainly that killed himself by unmercifull studying of Aristotle And Philalethes writ this book to revenge his Death Observation 49. Lin. 18. I â—xpose it not to the mercy of man but to God See the man affects an absolute Tyranny in Philosophie He 'll be accountable to none but God You no Papist Philalethes Why you would be a very Pope in Philosophie if you would not have your Dictates subject to the canvase of mans reason Observations upon his Advertisement to the Reader THe first thing you require is that he that attempts your Book should make a plain
wink at and will deal with you onely about those things that you produce and oppose Observation 2. Pag. 3. Lin. 19. Nature is a Principle Here you cavil that Nature is said to be a Principle because you cannot find out the thing defined by this general intimation But here Philalethes you are a pitiful Logician and know not so much in Logick as every Freshman in our University doth viz. that that part of the Definition which is general do's not lead us directly home unto the thing defined and lay our hand upon it but it is the difference added that do's that As if so be we should say onely that Homo est animal that assertion is so floating and hovering that our mind can settle on nothing which it may safely take for a man for that general notion belongs to a slea or a mite in a chees as well as to a man but adding rationale then it is determined and restrained to the nature of man And your allegation against the difference here annexed in the definition of Nature is as childish For you only alleadge that it tels us what nature do's not what it is My dear Philalethes Certainly thou hast got the knack of seeing further into a millstone then any mortal else Thou hast discovered as thou thinkest Dame Nature stark naked as Actaeon did Diana but for thy rash fancy deservest a pair of Asses ears as well as he did his Bucks-horns for his rash sight Can any substantial form be known otherwise then by what it can do or operate Tell me any one substantial form that thou knowest any better way then this Phillida solus habeto take Phillis to thy self and her black-bag to boot Thou art good Anthroposophus I perceive a very unexperienced novice in the more narrow and serious search and contemplation of things Observation 3. Pag. 4. Lin. 23. This is an expresse of the office and effect of formes but not of their substance or essence Why Philalethes as I said before have you ever discovered the naked substance or Essence of any thing Is colour light hardnesse softnesse c. is any of these or of such like essence substance it selfe if you be so great a Wizard show some one substantial form in your Theomagical glasse Poor Kitling how dost thou dance and play with thine own shadow and understandest nothing of the mystery of substance and truth Observation 4. Pag. 5. Here in the third place you cavil at Aristotles Definition of the Soul and by your slubbering and barbarous translating of the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 smother the fitnesse of the sense What more significant of the nature of a Soul then what this term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is compounded of viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Totamque infâ—sa per artus Mens agitat molem Or if we read the word as Cicero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it wil be more significant as being made up of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And that which do's inwardly pervade and penetrate that which do's hold together and yet move this way and that way and lastly still moving possess and command an organical body c. what is this but a Soul or what better Definition can be given of it then this But here this peremptory opposer do's still inculcate the same cavil that the naked substance or essence of the soul is not set out by this but its operations But still out of the same ignorance supposing that a substantial Form can be better known then by its proper operations And this ignorance of his makes him so proud that he does Fellow at every word if not Sirrah Prince Aristotle because he has not done that which is impossible to doe unbare to us the very substance of the Form What an imperious boy is this a wrangling child in Philosophy that screams and cries after what is impossible as much as peevish babes after what is hurtful Aud in this humorous straining and wrigling bemarres both his Mother and his Aunt both the Universities at once casting dirt and filth upon their education of youth as if they taught nothing because they cannot teach what is impossible to be learned Observation 5. Pag. 8. Here Anthroposophus begins to be something earnest and rude with Nature not content any longer to use his adulterous phansie but to break open with his immodest hands her private closet search her Cabinet and pierce into her very Center What rare extractions he will make thence I leave to himselfe to enjoy Sure I am that if any skilful Cook or Chymist should take out Philalethes brains and shred them as small as mincemeat and tumble them never so much up and down with a trencher-fork he would not discover by this diligent discussion any substantial Form of his brains whereby they may be discovered from what lies in a Calfs head Nay if they were stewed betwixt two dishes or distilled in an Alembek neither would that extraction be any crystalline mirror to see the substantial form stark naked in and discover the very substance of that spirit that has hit upon so many unhappy hallucinations But you are a youth of rare hopes Anthroposophus Observation 6. Pag. 9. Lin. 20. Where by the way I must tell you c. viz. That the Heavens are not moved by Intelligences Who cannot tell us that But indeed you are forward to tell us any thing that do's but seem to sound high or make any show There 's no body now but would laugh to hear that a particular Angell turns about every Orb as so many dogs in wheels turn the spit at the fire So that it seems far below such a grand Theomagician as you are to tell us such incredible fopperies as these to be false Observation 17. Lin. 10. For the Authours credit and benefit of the Reader Good Philalethes What credit do you expect from your scribling though it be the onely thing you aim at in all your Book when yet nothing of truth but this aim of yours is to be understood throughout all this writing Observation 8. Lin. 15. This Anima retain'd in the Matter and missing a vent c. A similitude I suppose taken from the bung-hole of a barrell or more compendiously from bottled bear or it may be from the corking up close the urine of a bewitched party and setting it to the fire For Anthroposophus will not be lesse then a Magician in all things nor seem lesse wise then or witch or devil But me thinks Anthroposophus your expression of the nature of this Anima that must do such fine feats in the world by the efformation of things and organizing the matter into such usefull figuration and proportion in living creatures had been as fitly and as much to your purpose expressed if you had fancied her tied up like a pig in poke that grunting and nudling to get out drove the yielding bag
in good sadnesse Philalethes is not all this that you tattle in this page a mere vapour and tempestuous buzzâ— of yours made out of words you meet in Books you understand not and casuall fancies sprung from an heedlesse Brain Is it any thing but the activitie of your desire to seem some strange mysterious Sophist to the World and so to draw the eyes of men after you Which is all the Attraction of the Star-fire of Nature you aim at or can hope to be able to effect Did your Sculler or shittle Skull ever arrive at that Rock of Crystall you boast of Or did you ever saving in your fancie soil that bright Virgin Earth did your eyes hands or Experience ever reach her Tell me what Gyant could ever so lustily show you Lincoln-Calves or hold you up so high by the eares as to discover that Terra Maga in AEthere Clarificata Till you show your self wise and knowing in effect give me leave to suspect you a mere ignorant boaster from your Airy unsettled words And that you have nothing but fire and winde in your Brains what ever your Magicall Earth has in its belly Observation 35. Pag. 51. Lin. 6. He can repeal in particular Now Anthroposophus you make good what I suspected that is that you do not tell us any thing of this coelestiall naturall Medicine of your own Experience For you being conscious to your self of being no good Christian as you confessed before and God having not given so full a charter to the Creature but he may interpose and stop proceedings surely at least you had so much wit as not to try where there was so just cause of fear of frustration and miscarriage So that you go about to teach the World what you have not to any purpose learned your self Observation 36. Lin. 27. And who is he that will not gladly believe c. A most rare and highly rais'd notion You resolve then that holy expectancy of the Saints of God concerning the life to come into that fond kind of credulity and pleasant self-flattery Facilè credimus quod fieri volumus and yet you seem to unsay it again toward the end of this Period And we will permit you Anthroposophus to say and unsay to do and undo for the day is long enough to you who by your Magick and celestiall Medicine are able to live till all your friends be weary of you Observation 37. Pag. 52. In this whole page Anthroposophus is very Gnomicall and speaks Aphorisms very gracefully But as morall as he would seem to be this is but a prelude to a piece of Poetick ostentation and he winds himself into an occasion of shewing you a Paper of verses of his If you do but trace his steps you shall see him waddle on like some Otter or Water-Rat and at last flounce into the River Vsk. Where notwithstanding afterward he would seem to dresse himself like a Water-Nymph at those Crystall streams and will sing as sweet as any Siren or Mermaid And truly Master Anthroposophus if that heat that enforces you to be a Poet would but permit you in any measure to be prudent cautiously rationall and wise you would in due time prove a very considerable Gentleman But if you will measure the truth of thingâ— by the violence and overbearing of fancy and windy Representations this Amabilis insania will so intoxicate you that to sober men you will seem little better then a refined Bedlam But now to the Poetry it self Observation 38. Pag. 53. 'T is day my Crystall Vsk c. Here the Poet begins to sing which being a sign of joy is intimation enough to us also to be a little merry The four first verses are nothing else but one long-winded good-morrow to his dear Yska Where you may observe the discretion and charity of the Poet who being not resaluted again by this Master of so many virtues the River Vsk yet learns not this ill Lesson of clownishnesse nor upbraids his Tutor for his Rusticiâ—y Was there never an Eccho hard by to make the River seem affable and civil as well as pure patient humble and thankfull Observation 39. Lin. 17. And weary all the Planets with mine eyes A description of the most impudent Star-gazer that ever I heard of that can outface all the Planets in one Night I perceive then Anthroposophus that you have a minde to be thought an Astrologian as well as a Magician But me thinks an Hill had been better for this purpose then a River I rather think that your head is so hot and your minde so ill at ease that you cannot lie quiet in your bed as other Mortals do but you sleeping waking are carryed out like the Noctambuli in their dreams and make up a third with Will with the Wisp and Meg with the Lanthorn whose naturall wandrings are in marish places and near Rivers sides Observation 40. Lin. ultima Sure I will strive to gain as clear a minde Which I dare swear you may do at one stroke would you but wipe at once all your fluttering and fortuitous fancies out of it For you would be then as clearly devoid of all shew of knowledge as Aristotle's Abrasa Tabula or the wind or the flowing water of written characters Observation 41. Pag. 54. Lin. 3. How I admire thy humble banks Why be they lower then the River it self that had been admirable indeed Otherwise I see nothing worthy admiration in it Observation 42. Lin. 4. But the same simple vesture all the year This River Yska then I conceive according to your Geography is to be thought to crawl under the AEquatour or somewhere betwixt the Tropicks For were it in Great Britain or Ireland certainly the palpable difference of seasons there would not permit his banks to be alike clad all the year long The fringe of reed and flagges besides those gayer Ornaments of herbs and flowers cannot grow alike on your Yskaes banks all Summer and Winter So that you fancy him more beggerly then he is that you may afterward conceit him more humble then he ought to be Observation 43. Lin. 5. I 'le learn simplicity of thee c. That 's your modesty Anthroposophus to say so For you are so learned that you may be a Doctour of Simplicity your self and teach others Observation 44. Lin. 9. Let me not live but I 'm amaz'd to see what a clear type thou art of pietie How mightily the man is ravished with the contemplation of an ordinary Water-course A little thing will please you I perceive as it do's children nay amaze you But if you be so much inamoured on your Yska do that out of love that Aristotle did out of indignation embrace his streams nay drown your self and then you will not live You are very hot Antroposophus that all the cool air from the River Yska will not keep you from cursing your self with such mortall imprecations Observation 45. Lin. 11. Why should thy flouds enrich those
of all whymzicall but whymzies more naturally lodge in their brains that are loosly fancifull not in theirs that are Mathematically and severely wise So that this reproach returns upon thine own addle pate O inconsiderate Philalethes But if thou didst never read his Philosophie and yet pronouncest thus boldly of it that is not onely impudently uncivil but extremely and insufferably unjust Observation 50. Pag. 56. Lin. 6. I will now withdraw and leave the Stage to the next Actour Exit Tom Fool in the play Observation 51. Lin. 8. Some Peripatetick perhaps whose Sic probo shall serve me for a Comedie So it seems if a man had seriously argued with you all this time you would onely have returned him laughter in stead of a solid answer and so from Tom Fool in the Play you would have become a naturall Fool. But we have had the good hap to prevent you in stead of Sic probo's to play the Fool for company that is to answer a fool according to his foolishnesse that is to rail and call names and make ridiculous Into which foolish postures as often as I have distorted my self so often have I made my self a fool that you may become wise and amend that in your self that you cannot but dislike in me Nor would I ever meddle with you as merry as I seem but upon this and the like serious intentions And must needs reckon it amongst the rest of your follies that you expected that some severe Peripatetick would have laid batterie against you with syllogisme upon syllogisme and so all confuted your Book that there had not been left one line entire But assure your self Philalethes the Peripateticks are not altogether given so much to scolding that they will contest with a shadow or fight with the winde Nor so good marks-men as to level at a Wilde-goose flying You are so fluttering and unsettled in your notions and obscure in your terms that unlesse you will be more fixt and sit fair and draw your Wood-cocks head out of the bush or thicket they will not be able to hit your meaning Which I suspect you will never be perswaded to do that you may keep your self more secure from Gunshot Observation 52. Lin. 13. And the best way to convince fools c. How wise Anthroposophus is to what is evil Here he makes sure of calling him Fool first who ever shall attempt to write any thing against his Book But it is no such mischief Anthroposophus to be called fool The worst jest is when a man is so indeed And if you had but the skill to winnow away all the chaffe of humorous words and uncouth freaks and fetches of fancie and affected phrases which are neither the signes nor causes of any wisdome in a man all that will be left of this learned discourse of yours will prove such a small moâ—tie of that knowledge your presumptuous mind conceited to be in her self that you would then very sadly of your own accord which would be your first step to become wise indeed confesse your self a Fool. And this I understand of your knowledge in Nature Now for that in Moralitie It is true you often take upon you the gravitie to give precepts of life as especially in the 52 and 55 pages of this Tractate But you do it so conceitedly with such chiming and clinching of words Antithetal Librations and Symphonical rappings that to sober men you cannot but seem rather like some idle boy playing on a pair of Knick-knacks to please his own ear and fancie then a grave Moralist speaking wholesome words and giving weightie counsel of life and manners So that the best that you do is but to make the most solemn things ridiculous by your Apish handling of them I suppose because a Religious Humour has been held on in some Treatises with that skill and judgement or at least good successe that it has won the approbation and applause of most men an eager desire after fame has hurried you out upon the like attempt And though you would not call your Book Religio Magici as that other was Religio Medici yet the favourable conceit you had of your own Worth made you bold to vie with him and in imitation of that you have stuffed your Book here and there with a tuft of Poetrie as a Gammon of Bacon with green hearbs to make it tast more savourly But all will not do poor Magicus For now your designe is discovered you are as contemptible as any Juggler is before him that knows all his tricks aforehand And you run the same fortune that AEsop's Asse who ineptly endeavouring to imitate the Courtship and winning carriage of his Masters fawning and leaping Spaniel in stead of favour found a club for his rude performance But you Magicus do not onely paw ill-favouredly with your fore-feet but kick like mad with your hinder feet as if you would dash out al the Aristoteleans brains And do you think that they are all either so faint-hearted that they dare not or so singularly moralized that Socrates-like if an Asse kick they will not kick again Yes certainly next to your self they are as like as any to play the Asses and to answer you kick for kick if you will but stand fair for them But you hâ—ve got such a Magicall sleight of hiding your head and nipping in your buttocks like the Hob-gobling that in the shape of an Horse dropt the children off one by one off his tail into the water that they cannot finde you out nor feel whereabout you would be else certainly they would set a mark upon your hinder parts For if I my dear Eugenius who am your brother Philalethes am forced out of care and judgement to handle you so seeming harshly and rigidly as I do what do you think would become of you si incideres in ipsas Belluas if you should fall amongst the irefull Aristoteleans themselves would you be able to escape alive out of their hands Wherefore good brother Philalethes hereafter be more discreet and endeavour rather to be wise then to seem so and to quit your self from being a fool then to fancy the Aristoteleans to be such FINIS Upon the Authors generous designe in his Observations of discovering and discountenancing all mysteriously masked non-sense and imposturous fancy the sworn Enemies of Sound-Reason and Truth NObly design'd let not a Sunday sute Make us my Gaffer for my Lord salute Nor his Saints cloathes deceive O comely dresse Like to a Long-lane Doublets wide excesse How like a Sack it sits Less far would fit Did he proportion but his garb and Wit The Wight mistakes his size each wiseman sees His mens Fourteens shrink to a childrens Threes Fill out thy Title man think'st thou canst daunt By pointing to the sword of Iohn of Gaunâ— Thou canst not wield it yet an emptie name Do's no more feats then a meer painted flame Rare Soul whose words refin'd from flesh and blood Are
incorporate into one person And this you have done out of malice Magicus and implacable revenge But I wish you had some black bag or vail to hide your shame from the world That is the worst I wish you One that desires to be a Conjurer more then to be a Christian If you like not Conjurer write Exorcist That 's all I would have meant by it There is a Conjuring out as well as Conjuring up the devil And I wish you were good at the former of these for your own sake But now to apply my Emollient to the other boyl you have made in the body of my little book You have made the sharp humour swell into this second bunch by your unnatural draining A fool in a play a Iack-pudding a Thing wholly set in a posture to make the people laugh a giddy phantastick Conjurer a poor Kitling a Calfshead a Pander a sworn enemy to Reason a shittle scull no good Christian an Otter a water-Rat Will with the wisp and Meg with the Lanâ—horn Tom fool in a play a natural fool A fool in a play a Iack-pudding c. Let the Reader consult the place if there be not a seasonable occasion of reminding you of your over much lightnesse you taking so grave a task upon you as to be a publick professor of Theomagicks A giddy fantastick Conjurer No Conjurer there but a Phantastick I admit in you the lesser fault to discharge you of the greater Is this to revile you or befriend you A poor Kitling Poor Kitling Take it into thy lap Phil. and stroke it gently I warrant thee it will not hurt thee Be not so shie why thou art akin to it Phil. by thy own confession For thou art a Mous-catcher which is neer akin to a Cat which is also a catcher of mice and a Cat is sire to a Kitling A Calfs-head I did not call thee Calfshead Eugenius but said that no Chymist could extract any substantial visible form out of thy brains whereby they may be distinguished from what lies in a Calfshead And there is a vast difference in simply calling you Pander and calling you Pander to Madam Nature who you confesse complains of your prostitutions A sworn enemy to Reason Why Doe you not pray against reason A logicâ libera nos Domine And I think any body would swear you are a real enemy to that you pray against unless your devotions be but a mockerie A shittle scull My words were Did your sculler or shittle skull I hope you do not think that I meant your skull was so flue and shallow that boies might shittle it and make ducks and drakes on the water with it as they do with oyster-shells Or that your self was so Magical that you could row to the crystal rock in it as witches are said to do on the Seas in Egg-shells Excuse me Phil. I meant no such high mysteries It was onely a pitiful dry clinch as light as any nut-shell something like that gingle of thine Nation and Indignation No good Christian. In that place you bad us show you a good Christian and you would c. There I inferre that you being at all other times so ready to show your selfe and here you slinking back you were conscious to your selfe that you were no good Christian. Otter and Water-Rat I said onely that you did waddle on toward the river Vsk like an Otter or Water-Rat Will with the wisp and Meg with the Lanthorn I do not call you Will nor Meg but tell you If you walk by River sides and Marish places you may well meet with such companions there as those to take a turn or two with you Tom-fool in a play Why is not your name Tom They tell me it is Tom Vaughan of Iesus Colledge in Oxford Well then Tom Do not you make your self an Actour in a play For these are your words I will now withdraw and leave the stage to the next Actour So here is Tom in the play But where is the fool say you Where is the wisest man say I. My selfe saies Tom Vaughan I warrant you Why then say I Tom Vaughan is Tom fool in the play For the fool in the play is to be the wisest man according to the known proverb But how will ye wipe off that aspersion of calling me natural fool says wise Tom. That indeed I confess impossible because it was never yet laid on I said only if you had answered the Aristoteleans Sic probo's with meer laughter you would have proved your selfe a natural fool But he hath not done so nor is Tom Vaughan a natural fool I dare swear for him He has too much natural heat to be a natural fool Bless thee from madness Tom and all will be well But there is yet something else behind worse then all this That all these terms of incivilitie must proceed from spight and provocation And this you place betwixt the two bilious tumours you have raised as a ductus communis or common chanel to convey the sharp malignant humour to swell them to the full It is true my words run thus That I have been very fair with you and though provoked c. But this was spoken in the person of an Aristotelean whom your scornfull usage of their Master Aristotle you may be sure did and does provoke But in good truth Philalethes you did not provoke me at all with your book unlesse to laugh at you for your Puerilities I but you have an argument for it that I was provoked viz. Because your Theomagicall discourse has so out done or undone my Ballade of the Soul as you scornfully call it that my ignorance in the Platonick Philosophy has now appeared to the world O rem ridiculam Thou art a merry Greek indeed Philalethes and art set upon 't to make the world sport Thou dost then professe openly to all the world that thou hast so high a conceit of thy Anthroposophia that it may well dash me out of countenance with my Philosophicall Poems and that through envy I being thus wounded I should by my Alazonomastix endeavour for the ease of my grief to abate thy credit What a Suffenus art thou in the esteeming of thy own works O Eugenius and of what a pitifull spirit dost thou take Alazonomastix to be I do professe ex animo that I could heartily wish that my self were the greatest Ignaro in the world upon condition I were really no more ignorant then I am So little am I touched with precellency or out-stripping others But thou judgest me to have wrote out of the same intoxicating Principle that thou thy self hast that is vain glory Or however if there was any thing of that whâ—n I wrote those Poems which I thank God if any was very little yet long ago I praise that power that inabled me I brought it down to a degree far lesse then thy untamed Heat for the pâ—esent can imagine possible But you 'll say This is a mysterie
above all Magick What then was the Impulsive of writing against your book I have told you already but you are loth to beâ—ieve me Mere emnity to immorality and foolery But if it were any thing that might respect my self it was onely this That you so carelesly and confidently adventuring upon the Platonick way with so much tainted heat and distemper that to my better composed spirit you seemed not a little disturbed in your fancie and your bloud to be too hot to be sufficiently rectified by your brain I thought it safe for me to keep those Books I wrote out of a spirit of sobernesse from reprochfull mistake For you pretending the same way that I seem to be in as in your bold and disadvantagious asserting The soul to pre-exist and to come into the bodie open-ey'd as it were that is full fraught with divine notions and making such out-ragiously distorted delineaments of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoicks call it the enlivened Universe with sundry other passages of like grossnesse I was afraid that men judging that this affectation of Platonisme in you might well proceed from some intemperies of bloud and spirit and that there no body else besides us two dealing with these kinds of notions they might yoke me with so disordered a companion as your self Reasoning thus with themselves Vaughan of Iesus in Oxenford holds the pre-existencie of the Soul and other Platonick Paradoxes and we see what a pickle he is in What think you of More of Christ's that writ the Platonicall Poems Nay what think you of Platonisme it self Surely it is all but the fruit of juvenile distemper and intoxicating heat But I say it is the most noble and effectuall Engine to fetch up a mans mind to true virtue and holinesse next to the Bible that is extant in the world And that this may not suffer I have suffered my self to observe upon you what I have observed my young Eugenius This is true my Friend to use your own phrase SECT II. Mastix provoked by the unworthy surmises of Eugenius gives the world a tast of that Spirit that actuated him when he wrote his Poems Eugenius his abuse of Des-Cartes the greatest personall Impulsive to Mastix to write his Observations The Divine accomplishments of the Soul farre beyond all naturall knowledge What is true Deiformitie A vehement Invective against the Deified rout of Ranters and Libertines Mastix magnifies the dominion of his own minde over the passions of the body preferring it before the Empire of the world and all the power of Magick that Eugenius so bankers after ANd now that the World may know that I have not wrote like some bestrid Pythonick or hackneyed Enthusiastick let them look and read under what light I sat and sung that divine Song of the Soul But yet my Muse still take an higher flight Sing of Platonick Faith in the first Good That Faith that doth our souls to God unite So strongly tightly that the rapid stood Of this swift flux of things nor with foul mud Can stain nor strike us off from th' Vnity Wherein we stedfast stand unshak'd unmov'd Engrafted by a deep Vitalitie The prop and stay of things is Gods Benignity Al 's is the rule of His Oeconomie No other cause the creature brought to light But the first Goods pregnant fecundity He to himself is perfect-full delight He wanteth nought With his own beams bedight He glory has enough O blasphemy That envy gives to God or sowre despight Harsh hearts that feign in God a Tyranny Vnder pretense to encrease his soveraign Majesty When nothing can to Gods own self accrew Who 's infinitely happy sure the end Of His Creation simply was to shew His flowing goodnesse which He doth outsend Not for himself for nought can Him amend But to his Creature doth his good impart This infinite Good through all the world doth wâ—nd To fill with Heavenly blisse each willing heart So the free Sun doth light and liven every part This is the measure of Gods providence The Key of knowledge the first fair Idee The eye of Truth the spring of living Sense Whence sprout Gods secrets the sweet mystery Of lasting life eternall Charity c. And elsewhere in my Poems When I my self from mine own self do quit And each thing else then all-spreaden love To the vast Vniverse my soul doth fit Makes me half equall to all-seeing Iove My mighty wings high stretch'd then clapping light I brush the stars and make them shine more bright Then all the works of God with close embrace I dearly hug in my enlarged arms All the hid pathes of heavenly love I trace And boldly listen to his secret charms Then clearly view I where true light doth rise And where eternall Night low-pressed lies c. This Philalethes is that lamp of God in the light whereof my Reason and Fancie have wrought thus many years This is that true Chymicall fire that has purged my soul and purified it and has crystallized it into a bright Throne and shining Habitation of the divine Majesty This free light is that which having held my soul in it self for a time taught me in a very sensible manner â—hat vast difference betwixt the truth and freedome of the Spirit and anxious impostures of this dark Personalïty and earthly bondage of the body This is my Oracle my Counsellour my faithfull Instructer and Guide my Life my Strength my Glory my Joy my communicated God This is that heavenly flame and bright Sun of Righteousnesse that puts out the light and quenches the heat of all worldly imaginations and desires whatsoever All the power and knowledge in Nature that is all the feats and miraculous performances done by Witches Magicians or Devils they be but toyes and tricks and are no solid satisfaction of the soul at all yea though we had that power upon lawfull terms if compared with this And as for divine knowledge there is none truly so called without it He that is come hither God hath taken him to his own familiar friend and though he speak to others aloof off in outward Religions and Parables yet he leads this man by the hand teaching him intelligible documents upon all the objects of his Providence speaks to him plainly in his own language sweetly insinuates himself and possesses all his faculties Understanding Reason and Memory This is the Darling of God and a Prince amongst men farre above the dispensation of either Miracle or Prophesie For him the deep searchers and anxious soliciters of Nature drudge and toyl contenting themselves with the pitifull wages of vain glory or a little wealth Poor Giboonites that how wood and draw water for the Temple This is the Temple of God this is the Son of God whom he hath made heir of all things the right Emanuel the holy mysterie of the living members of Christ Hallelujah From this Principle which I have here expressed have all those Poems I have wrote
make a Cavil Put on thy spectacles and see if there be any comma before of in my Book If you understood common sense you could not but understand that my meaning is this That you tax the Peripateticks for fancying God to have made the world as a Carpenter makes houses of stone and timber Now pitifull Caviller But to the point I say this is a false taxation Eugenius For the parts of the world according to the Peripateticks own doctrine are set in this order they are from an inward principle of motion and their own proper qualities so that they do as the stones and trees are said to have done at the musick of Orpheus and Amphion move of themselves But the stone and timber in the work of a Carpenter do not move themselves into their places they ought to be for the building up of an house But you answer two things to this First that the parts of the world do not move themselves Secondly that if they do then they have infusion of life To the first Why do's not any part of the earth move it self downward if it be in an higher place then is naturall to it and the aire and fire upward c. and this from an inward principle of motion Nay is not the very definition of Nature Principium motûs quietis c. wherefore we see plainly that according to the Aristoteleans all to the very concave of the Moon have an inward principle of motion And for the Heavens themselves the most sober and cautious of the Peripateticks hold them to be moved from an inward Principle their Forma informans as they call it So that though they do not allow life infused into the world yet they allow an inward principle of motion in naturall bodies which is their Substantiall Forms by virtue whereof they are ranged in this order as we see or at least according to which they are thus ranged and ordered And this is not so dead a businesse as the Carpenters building with stone and timber But in the second place you say That if they have this motion from an inward principle then they have also infusion of life But do not you see plainly that according to the mind of the more sober Peripateticks they have motion from an inward Principle Therefore you should have been so farre from taxing them to look upon God as a Carpenter that you should have concluded rather that they held infusion of life Pag. 24. Lin. 1. Thou hast abused me basely Verily if that were true I should be very forrie for it For I would not willingly abuse any man living of what condition soevâ—r But the thing has happened unluckily I read thy Book I knew not thy person nor thy name nor thy nature further then it was exprest in thy Book which did not represent it so ill as now I find it If I had thought my Galenical purge had met with such a constitution I should have tempered it more carefully For I delight not in the vexation of any man The truth is my scope in writing that Book was laudable and honest and such as might become a very good Christian and my mirth and pleasantnesse of mind much and reall but the sharpnesse of my style personated and Aristotelicall and therefore being but affected and fictitious I felt it not there was no corrosion at all but all that was unkind in it if you will call that passion unkindnesse was a certain light indignation that I bore and ever do bear against magnificent folly And there being no name to your Book I thought I had the opportunity of doing it with the least offence as meeting with the thing disjoyned and singled from the person But I verâ—ly think I should not have medled at all if you had spared your incivilities to Des-Carters whose worth and skill-in naturall Philosophy be it fate or judgement that constrains me to it let the world judge I cannot but honour and admire He is rayled at but not confuted by any that I see in his naturall Philosophy and that 's the thing I magnifie him for Though his Metaphysicks have wit and strength enough too and he hath made them good against his opposers Line 21. And assure thy self I will persecute thee so long as there is ink or paper in England Assuredly thou wilt not Philalethes For why I am dead already taken in thy trap and tortured to death will not this suffice thee I am dead and thou thy self but mortall wilt thou entertain immortall enmity against me But how canst thou persecute me being dead Wilt thou raise my soul up O Magicus by thy Necromancy and then combate with me over my grave I hope thou art but in jest Eugenius If thou beest not I must tell thee in good earnest thy present bitternesse will make thee Magus-like as well as thy former boasting O thou confounded and undone thing how hast thou shamed thy self Thy vizard is fallen off and thy sanctimonious clothing torn from about thee even as it was with the Apes and Monkies that being attired like men and wearing vizards over their faces did daunce and cringe and kisse and do all the gestures of men so artificially becomingly that the Countrey people took them to be a lesser size of humane race till a waggish fellow that had more wit then the rest dropt a few nuts amongst them for which they fell a scrambling so earnestly that they tore off their vizards and to the great laughter of the spectatours show'd what manner of creatures they were O Magicus do not dissemble before me For thou dost not know with what eyes I behold thee Were it not better for thee and all the world beside to make it their businesse to be really and fully possest of those things that are undoubtedly good and Christian nay indeed if they be had in the right Principle are the very buds and branches of the tree of Paradise the limbs and members of the Divine nature such as are meeknesse patience and humility discretion freedome from self-interest chastity temperance equity and the like is it not better to seek after these things then to strain at high words and uncertain flatuous notions that do but puff up the mind and make it seem full to it self when it is distended with nothing but unwholsome wind Is not this very true my dear Philalethes SECT IV. The Confutation of Eugenius his World-Animal from the unmercifull disproportion and ugly dissimilitude of the parts thereof compared with a true Animal reinforced and invincibly confirmed Pag. 24. WE are now come to that rare piece of Zoography of thine the world drawn out in the shape of an Animal But let 's view the whole draught as it lies in your book because you make such a foul noise about it in your answer Your words are these Besides the texture of the Vniverse clearly discovers its Animation The Earth which is the visible naturall Basis of it
by this and that Church would look all of them as contemptibly as so many rush-candles in the light of the Sun Line 15. You fall on my person Well I 'le let your person go now and fall on your Poetry Where I believe I shall prove you a notable wagge indeed and one that ha's abused your mother Oxford and all her children very slyly and dryly Dry Punick statues You make your own brothers of Oxford then so many dry Pumices things that have no sap or juice in them at all I wish you had been so too Phil for you have been to me a foul wet Spunge and have squeazed all your filth upon my person as you call it But if thou knewest how reall a friend I am to thy person excesse of kindnesse would make thee lick it all off again Might make a marble weep to bear your verse It seems then by you that those of Oxford make such dull heavy verses that it would make a Monument of Marble like an overladen Asse weep to bear the burden of them Shee heav'd your fancies What heavy leaden fancies are these that want such heaving Up heavy heels But how high did she heave them Phil As high as the other lead was heaved that covers the roof of your Churches and Chappels Nay higher Above the very Pinacles Mastix She heaved your fancies higher then the pride of all her pinnacles A marvellous height but the Jack-Daws of our University sit higher then thus so it seems that the souls of the sonnes of your Mother Oxford are elevated according to your Poetry as high as the bodies of the Jack-daws in the University of Cambridge What large elevated fancies have your Academicks that reach almost as â—arre as the eye and sense of an ordinary Rustick Your phansie's higher then the Pinnacles his sight higher then the Clouds for he may see the Sunne and the Starres too if he be not blind Go thy wayes Phil for an unmercifull wit I perceive thou wilt not spare neither Father Presbyter as thou callest him nor thy Mother nor thine own Brothers but thou wilt break thy jest upon them Well I now forgive thee heartily for all thy abuses upon me I perceive thou wilt not spare thy dearest friends Observation 47. Thou art not well acquainted with Gold thou art not a man of that Mettall Here Magicus thy want of Logick hath made thee a little witty For if thou hadst understood that Comparison doth not alwayes imply any positive degree in the things compared this conceit had been stifled before the birth Thou saist somewhere that I am a thin lean Philosopher but I say I am as fat as a hen is on the forehead Whether do I professe my self lean or fat now As lean as thou dost Now when I say as Orient as false gold do I say that false gold is Orient Thou art a meer Auceps syllabarum Magicus or to look lower a Mouse-catcher in Philosophy Observation 48. Philalethes say you writ this book to revenge his death No Now I think you mention his death onely to bring this latine sentence into your Book Et quis didicit scribere in lucta lacrymarum Atramenti Observation 49. I excluded not thy censure but thy mercy Thy words are I expose it not to the mercy of man but of God But it is no exposall or hardship at all to be exposed to mercy therefore by mercy thou must needs understand censure Page 86. line 2. You skud like a dogge by Nilus Here your fancy is handsome and apposite to what you would expresse but that which you would expresse is false For I fear no Crocodile but the fate of AEsops dog who catching at the shadow lost the substance Because I more then suspect that there is nothing reall in those places I passed by but onely tremulous shadows of an unsettled fancy Page 87. line 21. Did not I bid thee proceed to the censure of each part What is your meaning Philalethes That you would have me confute all right or wrong No Phil I have done as S. George in his combate with the Drogon thrust my spear under the Monsters wing into the parts which are most weak or least scaly What I have excepted against was with judgement and reason and so good that all that I have said hitherto stands as strong and unshaken of thy weak reasonings and impotent raylings as rocks of Adamant and Pillars of Brasse at the shooting off of a Childes Eldern-Gunne against them Let 's now see how like a Man thou hast quit thy self in the ensuing Discourse Anima Magica Abscondita SECT IX The shrimpishnesse of the second part of Eugenius his Answer His maimâ—d definition of Nature That Form is not known otherwise then by its operations Of the union of the Soul with the Body That the Soul is not Intelligent Fire prov'd by sundry arguments WEll Eugenius I have now perused this second part of thy Answer which doth not answer at all in proportion to thy first How lank how little is it Thou hast even wearyed thy self with scolding and now thou art so good natured as to draw to an end Faint Phil Faint let me feel thy pulse Assuredly it strikes a Myurus which is a signe thou art languid at the heart Or is thy book troubled with the Cramp and so hath its leggs twitch'd up to its breech or hath it been on Procrustes his bed and had the lower parts of it cut off Whatever the Cause is the Effect is apparent that thou art wrinkled up at the end like a Pigs tayl and shriveled on heaps like a shred of parchment How many sober passages of Morality How many weighty Arguments of Reason How many Froliâ—ks of wit hast thou slipt over and not so much as mentioned much lesse applyed any sutable answer But I hope thou wilt make good use of them silently with thy self and rectifie thy fancy hereafter by my judgement though thou thinkest it as harsh as standing on the Presbyteriall stool to give me publick thanks In the mean time Reader be contented that I onely reply to what he hath thought good to oppose But what he runnes away from so cowardly I will not run after him with it nor be so cruel as to force him to abide Observation 1. Page 91. line 9. It is plain then that the body and substance of the definition is contained in these few words Principium motûs quietis Why Magicus because you make up the rest with thinking Suppose thy Picture were drawn to the waste thou thoughtest of the rest of thy body Doth that picture therefore contain the full draught of thy body Away thou Bird of Athens Observation 2. You tell me a form cannot be known otherwise then by what it can do or operate I told thee so Phil and do tell thee so again And thou onely deniest it thou dost not disprove it wherefore Phyllis is mine yet and not the willow Garland but the