compassion as the flower of virtue cropped with too sudden a mischance. Neither hath it been often known that men in their green years become so loathsome and odious, as that at their deaths either sorrow is stinted or commiseration moderated: but that lamentation and mourning do not only flutter about their obsequies like those funeral birds, but this pitiful commiseration doth continue for a long space, and specially by occasions and new motions, and beginning of great matters, as it were by the morning rays of the sun, their passions and desires are renewed. TITHONUS, OR SATIETY. Ir is elegantly feigned that Tithonus was the paramour of Aurora who, desirous to enjoy his company, petitioned Jupiter that he might never die, but through womanish oversight, forgetting to insert this clause in her petition, that he might not withal grow old and feeble, it followed that he was only freed from the condition of mortality; but for old age that came upon him in a marvellous and miserable fashion, agreeable to the state of those who cannot die, yet every day grow weaker and weaker with age. Insomuch that Jupiter, in commiseration of that his misery, did at length metamorphose him into a grasshopper. This fable seems to be an ingenious character or description of pleasure, which in the beginning, and as it were in the morning, seems to be pleasant and delightful, that men desire they might enjoy and monopolize it forever unto themselves, unmindful of that satiety and loathing, which, like old age, will come upon them before they be aware. them before they be aware. And so at last, when the use of pleasure leaves men, the desire and affection not yet yielding unto death, it comes to pass that men please themselves only by talking and commemorating those things which brought pleasure unto them in the flower of which brought pleasure unto them in the flower of their age, which may be observed in libidinous persons, and also in men of military professions: the one delighting in beastly talk, the other boastthe one delighting in beastly talk, the other boast ing of their valorous deeds, like grasshoppers, whose vigour consists only in their voice. The success of such intentions being for the most part measured by the nature and disposition of those to whom men sue for grace: who, if of themselves they be endowed with no gifts and ornaments of nature, but are only of haughty and malignant spirits, intimated by the person of Juno, then are suitors to know that it is good policy to omit all kind of appearance that may any way show their own least praise or worth; and that they much deceive themselves in taking any other course. Neither is it enough to show deformity in obsequiousness, unless they also appear even abject and base in their very persons. CUPID, OR AN ATOM. THAT which the poets say of Cupid or Love, cannot properly be attributed to one and the selfrejecting the confusion of persons, the similitude same person, and yet the difference is such that by may be received. They say that Love is the ancientest of all the gods, and of all things else except chaos, which as touching chaos, that by the ancients was never they hold to be a contemporary with it. Now, dignified with divine honour, or with the title of him in without a father; only some are of opinion the god. And as for Love, they absolutely bring that he came of an egg that was laid by Nox, and that on chaos he begat the god and all things else. There are four things attributed to him, perpetual infancy, blindness, nakedness, and an archery. There was also another Love, which was the youngest of the gods, and he, they say, was the son of Venus. On this also they bestow the attributes of the elder Love, as in some sort will apply unto him. This fable tends and looks to the cradle of na ture, Love seeming to be the appetite or desire of the first matter, or, to speak more plain, the natural motion of the atom, which is that ancient and only power that forms and fashions all things out of matter, of which there is no parent, that is to say, no cause, seeing every cause is a parent to its effect. Of this power or virtue there can be no cause in nature, as for God we always except him, for nothing was before it, and therefore no efficient cause of it. Neither was there any thing better known to nature, and therefore neither genus nor form. Wherefore whatsoever it is, positive it is, and but inexpressible. Moreover, if the manner and proceeding of it were to be conceived, yet could it not be by any cause, seeing that, next unto God, it is the cause of causes, itself only without any cause. And perchance there is no likelihood that the manner of it may be contained This fable is wise, and seems to be taken out of or comprehended within the narrow compass of the bowels of morality; the sense of it being this, human search. Not without reason therefore it that men boast not too much of themselves, think- is feigned to come of an egg that was laid by ing by ostentation of their own worth to insinuate Nox. Certainly the divine philosopher grants themselves into estimation and favour with men. | so much JUNO'S SUITOR, OR BASENESS. THE poets say, that Jupiter, to enjoy his lustful delights, took upon him the shape of sundry creatures, as of a bull, of an eagle, of a swan, and of a golden shower: but being a suitor to Juno, he came in a form most ignoble and base, an object full of contempt and scorn, resembling indeed a miserable cuckoo, weather-beaten with rain and tempest, numbed, quaking, and half dead with cold. Eccl. iii. 11: “Cuncta fecit tempesta Concerning his blindness, the allegory is full of wisdom: for this love, or desire, whatsoever it be, seems to have but little providence, as directing his pace and motion by that which it perceives nearest, not unlike blind men, that go by feeling: more admirable then must that chief divine providence be, which, from things empty and destitute of providence, and as it were blind, by a constant and fatal law produceth so excellent an order and beauty of things. The last thing which is attributed unto Love is archery, by which is meant, that his virtue is such, as that it works upon a distant object: because that whatsoever operates afar off, seems were, an arrow. Wherefore whoto shoot, as it were, an arrow. soever holds the being both of atoms and vacuity, must needs infer, that the virtue of the atom reacheth to a distant object; for if it were not so there could be no motion at all, by reason of the interposition of vacuity, but all things would stand stone still, and remain immovable. tibus suis pulchra, et mundum tradidit disputa- | seem to be apparelled and clothed, and nothing tionibus eorum, ita tamen ut non inveniat homo properly naked but the first particles of things. opus, quod operatus est Deus, principio ad finem.” That is, he hath made every thing beautiful in their seasons, also he hath set the world in their meditations, yet man cannot find the work that God hath wrought, from the beginning even to the end. For the principal law of nature, or power of this desire, created by God, in these parcels of things, for concurring and meeting together, from whose repetitions and multiplications all variety of creatures proceeded and were composed, may dazzle the eyes of men's understandings, and comprehended it can hardly be. The Greek philosophers are observed to be very acute and diligent in searching out the material principles of things: but in the beginnings of motion, wherein consists all the efficacy of operation, they are negligent and weak, and in this that we handle, they seem to be altogether blind and stammering: for the opinion of the Peripatetics concerning the appetite of matter caused by privation, is in a manner nothing else but words, which rather sound than signify any reality. And those that refer it unto God do very well, but then they leap up, they ascend not by degrees: for doubtless there is one chief law subordinate to God, in which all natural things concur and meet, the same that in the forecited scripture is demonstrated in these words, "Opus, quod operatus est Deus à principio usque ad finem," the work that God hath wrought from the beginning even to the end. But Democritus, which entered more deeply into the consideration of this point after he had conceived an atom with some small dimension and form, he attributed unto it one only desire, or first motion simply or absolutely, and another comparatively or in respect: for he thought that all things did properly tend to the centre of the world, whereof those bodies which were more material descend with swifter motion, and those that had less matter did on the contrary tend upward. But this meditation was very shallow, containing less than was expedient: for neither the turning of the celestial bodies in a round, nor shutting and opening of things may seem to be reduced or applied to this beginning. And as for that opinion of Epicurus concerning the casual declination and agitation of the atom, it is but a mere toy, and a plain evidence that he was ignorant of that point. It is therefore more apparent than we could wish, that this Cupid, or Love, remains as yet clouded under the shades of night. Now as concerning his attributes: he is elegantly described with perpetual infancy or childhood, because compound bodies they seem greater and more stricken in years; whereas the first seeds of things or atoms, they are little and diminute, and always in their infancy. He is also well feigned to be naked, because all compound bodies to a man rightly judging, Now as touching that other Cupid, or Love, he may well be termed the youngest of the gods, because he could have no being, before the constitution of species. And in his description the allegory may be applied and traduced to manners: nevertheless he holds some kind of conformity with the elder; for Venus doth generally stir up a desire of conjunction and procreation, and Cupid, her son, doth apply this desire to some individual nature; so that the general disposition comes from Venus, the more exact sympathy from Cupid: the one derived from causes more near, the other from beginnings more remote and fatal, and as it were from the elder Cupid, of whom every exquisite sympathy doth depend. DIOMEDES, OR ZEAL. DIOMEDES flourishing with great fame and glory in the Trojan wars, and in high favour with Pallas, was by her instigated, being indeed forwarder than he should have been, not to forbear Venus a jot, if he encountered with her in fight; which very boldly he performed, wounding This presumptuous fact he her in the right arm. carried clear for a while, and being honoured and renowned for his many heroic deeds, at last returned into his own country, where finding himself hard bestead with domestic troubles, fled into Italy, betaking himself to the protection of foreigners, where in the beginning he was fortunate, and royally entertained by King Daunus with sumptuous gifts, raising many statues in honour of him throughout his dominions. But upon the very first calamity that happened unto this nation, whereunto he was fled for succour, King Daunus enters into a conceit with himself condemned, their very names are hateful, and all their glory ends in obloquy. In that Diomedes is said to be murdered by his host, it gives us to understand that the difference of religion breeds deceit and treachery, even among nearest acquaintance. Now in that lamentation and mourning was not tolerated but punished; it puts us in mind, that let there be never so nefarious an act done, yet there is some place left for commiseration and pity, that even those that hate offences should yet in humanity commiserate offenders and pity their distress, it being the extremity of evil when mercy is not suffered to have commerce with misery. Yea, even in the cause as well of religion as impiety, many men may be noted and observed to have been compassionate. But on the contrary the complaints and moans of Dicmedes' followers, that is, of men of the same sect and opinion, are wont to be shrill and loud, like swans, or the birds of Diomedes. In whom also that part of the allegory is excellent, to signify, that the last words of those that suffer death for religion, like the songs of dying swans, do wonderfully work upon the minds of men, and strike and remain a long time in their senses and memories. DEDALUS, OR MECHANIC. that he had entertained a wicked guest into his family, and a man odious to the goddess, and an impunger of their divinity, that had dared, with his sword, to assault and wound that goddess, who, in their religion, they held it sacrilege so much as to touch. Therefore, that he might expiate his country's guilt, nothing respecting the duties of hospitality, when the bonds of religion tied him with a more reverend regard, suddenly slew Diomedes, commanding withal that his trophies and statues should be abolished and destroyed. Neither was it safe to lament this miserable destiny; but even his companions in arms, whilst they mourned at the funeral of their captain, and filled all the places with plaints and lamentations, were suddenly metamorphosed into birds like unto swans, who when their death approacheth, sing melodious and mournful hymns. This fable hath a most rare and singular subject: for in any of the poetical records, wherein the heroes are mentioned, we find not that any one of them, besides Diomedes, did ever with his sword offer violence to any of the deities. And indeed, the fable seems in him to represent the nature and fortune of man, who of himself doth propound and make this as the end of all his actions, to worship some divine power, or to follow some sect of religion, though never so vain and superstitious, and with force and arms to defend the same: for although those bloody quarrels for religion were unknown to the ancients, MECHANICAL Wisdom and industry, and in it the heathen gods not having so much as a touch unlawful science perverted to wrong ends, is of that jealousy, which is an attribute of the true shadowed by the ancients under the person of God, yet the wisdom of the ancient times seems Dædalus, a man ingenious, but execrable. This to be so copious and full, as that, what was not Dædalus, for murdering his fellow servant that known by experience, was yet comprehended by emulated him, being banished, was kindly entermeditations and fictions. They then that en- tained, during his exile, in many cities and prindeavour to reform and convince any sect of ces' courts: for indeed he was the raiser and religion, though vain, corrupt, and infamous, builder of many goodly structures, as well in shadowed by the person of Venus, not by the honour of the gods, as the beauty and magnififorce of argument and doctrine, and holiness of cence of cities, and other public places, but for life, and by the weight of examples and authority, his works of mischief he is most notorious. It but labour to extirpate and root it out by fire and is he that framed the engine which Pasiphaë used sword, and tortures, are encouraged, it may be, to satisfy her lust in company with a bull, so that thereunto by Pallas, that is by the acrity of pru- by his wretched industry and pernicious device, dence, and severity of judgment, by whose vigour that monster Minotaur, the destruction of so many and efficacy, they see into the falsity and vanity hopeful youths, took his accursed and infamous of these errors. And by this their hatred of beginning; and studying to cover and increase pravity, and good zeal to religion, they purchase one mischief with another, for the security and to themselves great glory, and by the vulgar, to preservation of this monster he invented and built whom nothing moderate can be grateful, are es- | a labyrinth, a work for intent and use most nefateemed and honoured as the only supporters of rious and wicked, for skill and workmanship, truth and religion, when others seem to be luke- | famous and excellent. Afterwards, that he might warm and full of fear. Yet this glory and hap- not be noted only for works of mischief, but be piness doth seldom endure to the end, seeing sought after as well for remedies, as for instruevery violent prosperity, if it prevent not altera- ments of destruction, he was the author of that tion by an untimely death, grows to be unpros-ingenious device concerning the clue of thread, perous at last for if it happen that by a change by which the labyrinth was made passable withof government this banished and depressed sect get strength, and so bear up again, then these zealous men, so fierce in opposition before, are out any let. This Dedalus was persecuted by Minos with great severity, diligence, and inquiry, but he always found the means to avoid and escape his tyranny. Lastly, he taught his son | that will always abide in our city, though always Icarus to fly, but the novice, in ostentation of forbidden. And yet notwithstanding unlawful this art, soaring too high, fell into the sea, and was drowned. The parable seems to be thus: in the beginning of it may be noted that kind of envy or emulation that lodgeth, and wonderfully sways and domineers amongst excellent artificers, there being no kind of people more reciprocally tormented with bitter and deadly hatred than they. The banishment also of Dædalus, a punish- | ment inflicted on him against the rules of policy and providence, is worth the noting: for artificers have this prerogative to find entertainment and welcome in all countries, so that exile to an excellent workman can hardly be termed a punishment, whereas other conditions, and states of life can scarce live out of their own country. The admiration of artificers is propagated and increased in foreign and strange nations, seeing it is a natural and inbred disposition of men to value their own countrymen, in respect of mechanical works, less than strangers. Concerning the use of mechanical arts, that which follows is plain. The life of man is much beholden to them, seeing many things, conducing to the ornament of religion, to the grace of civil discipline, and to the beautifying of all human kind, extracted out of their treasuries: and yet notwithstanding, from the same magazine or storehouse are produced instruments both of lust and death; for to omit the wiles of bands, we well know how far exquisite poisons, warlike engines, and such like mischiefs, the effects of mechanical inventions, do exceed the Minotaur himself in malignity and savage cruelty. Moreover that of the labyrinth is an excellent allegory, whereby is shadowed the nature of mechanical sciences, for all such handicraft works as are more ingenious and accurate may be compared to a labyrinth, in respect of subtilty and divers intricate passages, and in other plain resemblances, which by the eye of judgment can hardly be guided and discerned, but only by the line of experience. Neither is it impertinently added, that he which invented the intricate nooks of the labyrinth, did also show the commodity of the clue: for mechanical arts are of ambiguous use, serving as well for hurt as for remedy, and they have in a manner power both to loose and bind themselves. Unlawful trades, and so by consequence arts themselves, are often persecuted by Minos, that is by laws, which do condemn them, and prohibit men to use them. Nevertheless they are hid and retained everywhere, finding lurking holes and places of receipt, which was well observed by Tacitus of the mathematicians and figure-flingers of his time, in a thing not so much unlike; "Genus hominum quod in civitate nostra semper et retinebitur et vetabitur." There is a kind of men and curious arts of what kind soever, in tract of time, when they cannot perform what they promise, do fall from the good opinion that was held of them, no otherwise than Icarus fell down from the skies, they grow to be contemned and scorned, and so perish by too much ostentation. And to say the truth, they are not so happily restrained by the reins of law as bewrayed by their own vanity. ERICTHONIUS, OR IMPOSTURE. THE poets fable that Vulcan solicited Minerva for her virginity, and impatient of denial, with an inflamed desire, offered her violence, but in struggling his seed fell upon the ground, whereof came Ericthonius, whose body from the middle upward was of a comely and apt proportion, but his thighs and legs like the tail of an eel, small and deformed. To which monstrosity, he being conscious, became the first inventor of the use of chariots, whereby that part of his body which was well proportioned might be seen, and the other which was ugly and uncomely might be hid. This strange and prodigious fiction may seem to show that art, which, for the great use it hath of fire, is shadowed by Vulcan, although it labour by much striving with corporeal substances to force nature, and to make her subject to it, she being for her industrious works rightly represented by Minerva, yet seldom or never attains the end it aims at, but with much ado and great pains, wrestling as it were with her, comes short of its purpose, and produceth certain imperfect births, and lame works, fair to the eye but weak and defective in use, which many impostors, with much subtilty and deceit, set to view, and carry about, as it were in triumph, as may for the most part be noted in chemical productions, and other mechanical subtilties and novelties, especially when, rather prosecuting their intent than reclining their errors, they rather strive to overcome nature by force; than sue for her embracements by due obsequiousness and observance. DEUCALION, OR RESTITUTION. THE poets say that the people of the old world being destroyed by a general deluge, Deucalion and Pyrrha were only left alive; who praying with fervent and zealous devotion, that they might know by what means to repair mankind, had answer from an oracle that they should obtain what they desired, if taking the bones of their mother they cast them behind their backs; which at first struck them with great amazement and despair, seeing, all things being defaced by the flood, it would be an endless work to find their mother's sepulchre, but at length they understood that by bones, the stones of the earth, seeing the earth was the mother of all things, were signified by the oracle. This fable seems to reveal a secret of nature, and to correct an error familiar to men's conceits; for through want of knowledge men think that things may take renovation and restoration from their putrefaction and dregs, no otherwise than the phoenix from the ashes, which in no case can be admitted, seeing such kind of materials, when they have fulfilled their periods, are unapt for the beginnings of such things: we must therefore look back to more common principles. NEMESIS, OR THE VICISSITUDE NEMESIS is said to be a goddess venerable unto all, but to be feared of none but potentates and Fortune's favourites. She is thought to be the daughter of Oceanus and Nox. She is portrayed with wings on her shoulders, and on her head a coronet, bear ing in her right hand a javelin of ash, and in her left a pitcher, with the similitudes of Ethiopians engraven on it: and lastly, she is described sitting on a hart. That day, by Greekish force, was Ripheus slain, So just and strict observer of the law, As Troy, within her walls, did not contain A better man: Yet God then good it saw. She is described with wings, because the changes of things are so sudden, as that they are seen, before foreseen; for in the records of all ages, we find it for the most part true, that great potentates and wise men have perished by those misfortunes which they most contemned; as may be observed in Marcus Cicero, who being admonished by Decius Brutus of Octavius Cæsar's hypocritical friendship and hollow-heartedness towards him, returns this answer, "Te autem, mi Brute, sicut debeo, amo, quod istud quicquid est nugarum me scire voluisti." I must ever acknowledge myself, dear Brutus, beholden to thee, in love, for that thou hast been so careful to acquaint me with that which I esteem as a needless trifle to be doubted. Nemesis is also adorned with a coronet, to show the envious and malignant disposition of the vulgar, for when fortune's favourites and great potentates come to ruin, then do the common people rejoice, setting, as it were, a crown upon the head of revenge. The javelin in her right hand points at those whom she actually strikes and pierceth thorough. The parable may be thus unfolded. Her name Nemesis, doth plainly signify revenge or retribuAnd before those whom she destroys not in tion, her office and administration being, like a their calamity and misfortune, she ever presents tribune of the people, to hinder the constant and that black and dismal spectacle in her left hand; perpetual felicity of happy men, and to interpose for questionless to men sitting as it were upon her word, “veto,” I forbid the continuance of it; the pinnacle of prosperity, the thoughts of death, that is not only to chastise insolency, but to inter- and painfulness of sickness and misfortunes, mix prosperity, though harmless, and in a mean, perfidiousness of friends, treachery of foes, with the vicissitudes of adversity, as if it were a change of estate, and such like, seem as ugly to custom, that no mortal man should be admitted to the eye of their meditations as those Ethiopians the table of the gods but for sport. Truly when I pictured in Nemesis's pitcher. Virgil, in describread that chapter, wherein Caius Plinius hath col-ing the battle of Actium, speaks thus elegantly lected his misfortunes and miseries of Augustus Cæsar, whom of all men I thought the most happy, who had also a kind of art to use and enjoy his fortune, and in whose mind might be noted neither pride, nor lightness, nor niceness, nor disorder, nor melancholy, as that he had appointed a time to die of his own accord, I then deemed this goddess to be great and powerful, to whose altar so worthy a sacrifice as this was drawn. of Cleopatra. "Regina in mediis patrio vocat agmina sistro The queen amidst this hurly-burly stands, eyes. The parents of this goddess were Oceanus and Lastly, it is wisely added that Nemesis rides Nox, that is, the vicissitude of things, and divine upon a hart, because a hart is a most lively creajudgment obscure and secret: for the alteration of ture. And albeit, it may be, that such as are cut things are aptly represented by the sea, in respect off by death in their youth prevent and shun the of the continual ebbing and flowing of it, and hidden providence is well set forth by the night: for prosperity and power continue long, are made subpower of Nemesis; yet doubtless such, whose even the nocturnal Nemesis, seeing human judg-ject unto her, and lie, as it were, trodden under her ment differs much from divine, was seriously ob-feet. served by the heathen. Virgil, Æneid, lib. 2. Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus, Qui fuit ex Teucris, et servantissimus æqui. Diis aliter visum ACHELOUS, OR BATTLE. Ir is a fable of antiquity, that when Hercules and Achelous as rivals contended for the marriage |