fore, suspecting that they are shot at, and opportunities watched for their overthrow, do lead their lives like stags, fearful and full of suspicion. And it happens oftentimes that their servants, and those of their household, to insinuate into the prince's favour, do accuse them to their destruction, for against whomsoever the prince's displeasure is known, look how many servants that man hath, and you shall find them for the most part so many traitors unto him, that his end may prove to be like Acteon's. with tumbles back again headlong into hell. Orpheus falling into a deep melancholy, became a contemner of women-kind, and bequeathed himself to a solitary life in the deserts; where, by the same melody of his voice and harp, he first drew all manner of wild beasts unto him, who, forgetful of their savage fierceness, and casting off the precipitate provocations of lust and fury, not caring to satiate their voracity by hunting after prey, as at a theatre, in fawning and reconciled amity one towards another, standing all at the gaze The other is the misery of Pentheus; for that about him, and attentively lend their ears to his by the height of knowledge and nature in philo- music. Neither is this all: for so great was the sophy, having climbed as it were into a tree, do power and alluring force of this harmony, that he with rash attempts, unmindful of their frailty, drew the woods, and moved the very stones to pry into the secrets of divine mysteries, and are come and place themselves in an orderly and justly plagued with perpetual inconstancy, and decent fashion about him. These things succeedwith wavering and perplexed conceits; for seeing happily, and with great admiration for a time; ing the light of nature is one thing and of grace another, it happens so to them as if they saw two suns. And seeing the actions of life and decrees of the will to depend on the understanding, it follows that they doubt, are inconstant no less in will than in opinion; and so in like manner they may be said to see two Thebes; for by Thebes, seeing there was the habitation and refuge of Pentheus, is meant the end of actions. Hence it comes to pass that they know not whither they go, but as distracted and unresolved in the scope of their intentions, are in all things carried about with sudden passions of the mind. ORPHEUS, OR PHILOSOPHY. THE tale of Orpheus, though common, had never the fortune to be fitly applied in every point. It may seem to represent the image of philosophy for the person of Orpheus, a man admirable and divine, and so excellently skilled in all kind of harmony, that with his sweet ravishing music he did, as it were, charm and allure all things to follow him, may carry a singular description of philosophy; for the labours of Orpheus do so far exceed the labours of Hercules in dignity and efficacy, as the works of wisdom excel the works of fortitude. at length certain Thracian women, possessed with the spirit of Bacchus, made such a horrid and strange noise with their cornets, that the sound of Orpheus's harp could no more be heard, insomuch as that harmony, which was the bond of that order, and society being dissolved, all disorder began again, and the beasts returning to their wonted nature, pursued one another unto death as before; neither did the trees and stones remain any longer in their places; and Orpheus himself was by these female Furies torn in pieces, and scattered all over the desert; for whose cruel death the river Helicon, sacred to the Muses, in horrible indignation hid his head underground, and raised it again in another place. The meaning of this fable seems to be thus: Orpheus's music is of two sorts, the one appeasing the infernal powers, the other attracting beasts and trees. The first may be fitly applied to natural philosophy, the second to moral or civil discipline. The most noble work of natural philosophy is the restitution and renovation of things corruptible: the other, as a lesser degree of it, the preservation of bodies in their estates, detaining them from dissolution and putrefaction: and if this gift may be in mortals, certainly it can be done by no other means than by the due and exquisite temper of nature, as by the melody and Orpheus, for the love he bare to his wife, snatch- delicate touch of an instrument; but seeing it is ed, as it were, from him by untimely death, re- of all things most difficult, it is seldom or never solved to go down to hell with his harp, to try if he attained unto; and in all likelihood for no other might obtain her of the infernal power. Neither reason, more than through curious diligence and were his hopes frustrated: for having appeased untimely impatience: and therefore philosophy, them with the melodious sound of his voice and hardly able to produce so excellent an effect in a touch, prevailed at length so far, as that they pensive humour, and that without cause, busies granted him leave to take her away with him; but herself about human objects, and by persuasion on this condition, that she should follow him, and and eloquence insinuating the love of virtue, he look not back upon her till he came to the light equity, and concord, in the minds of men, draws of the upper world; which he, impatient of, out multitudes of people to a society, makes them of love and care, and thinking that he was in a subject to laws, obedient to government, and formanner past all danger, nevertheless violated, in- getful of their unbridled affections, whilst they somuch that the covenant is broken, and she forth-give ear to precepts, and submit themselves to discipline. whence follows the building of houses, which Democritus afterwards laboured to main erecting of towns, planting of fields and orchards with trees, and the like; insomuch, that it would not be amiss to say, that even thereby stones and woods were called together and settled in order. And after serious trial made and frustrated about the restoring of a body mortal, this care of civil affairs follows in his due place; because, by a plain demonstration of the inevitable necessity of death, men's minds are moved to seek eternity by the fame and glory of their merits. It is also wisely said in the fable, that Orpheus was averse from the love of women and marriage, because the delights of wedlock and the love of children do for the most part hinder men from enterprising great and noble designs for the public good, holding posterity a sufficient step to immortality, with out actions. Besides, even the very works of wisdom, although amongst all human things they do most excel, do nevertheless meet with their periods. For it happens that after kingdoms and commonwealths have flourished for a time, even tumults, and seditions, and wars arise; in the midst of which hurly-burlies first laws are silent; men return to the pravity of their natures; fields and towns are wasted and depopulated; and then, if their fury continue, learning and philosophy must needs be dismembered, so that a few fragments only in some places will be found, like the scattered boards of shipwreck, so as a barbarous age must follow; and the streams of Helicon being hid under the earth, until the vicissitude of things passing, they break out again and appear in some other remote nation, though not perhaps in the same climate. COLUM, OR BEGINNINGS. tain, attributing eternity to the first matter and not to the world: in which he comes somewhat near the truth of divine writ, telling us of a huge deformed mass, before the beginning of the six days' work. The meaning of the fable is this: by Cœlum may be understood that vast concavity or vaulted compass that comprehends all matter; and by Saturn may be meant the matter itself, which takes from his parent all power of generating; for the universality or whole bulk of matter always remains the same, neither increasing or diminishing in respect of the quality of its nature; but by the divers agitations and motions of it were first produced imperfect, and ill agreeing compositions of things, making, as it were, certain worlds for proofs or essays, and so in process of time a perfect fabric or structure was framed, which would still retain and keep his form: and therefore the government of the first age was shadowed by the kingdom of Saturn, who for the frequent dissolutions and short continuances of things was aptly feigned to devour his children. The succeding government was deciphered by the reign of Jupiter, who confined those continual mutations unto Tartarus, a place signifying perturbation. This place seems to be all that middle place between the lower superficies of heaven and the centre of the earth, in which all perturbations, and fragility, and mortality or corruption are frequent. During the former generation of things in the time of Saturn's reign Venus was not born: for so long as in the universality of matter, discord was better and more prevalent than concord, it was necessary that there should be a total dissolution or mutation, and that in the whole fabric; and by this kind of generation were creatures produced before Saturn was deprived of his genitals. When this ceased, that other which was wrought by Venus immediately came in, consisting in settled and prevalent concord of things, so that mutation should be only in respect of the parts, the universal fabric remaining whole and inviolate. We have it from the poets by tradition, that Cœlum was the ancientest of the gods, and that his members of generation were cut off by his son Saturn. Saturn had many children, but devoured them as soon as they were born; Jupiter only escaped, who being come to man's estate, thrust Saturn, they say, was deposed and cast down Saturn his father into hell, and so usurped the into hell, but not destroyed and utterly extinkingdom. Moreover, he pared off his father's guished; because there was an opinion that the genitals with the same falchion that Saturn dis-world should relapse into the old chaos and inmembered Cœlum, and cast them into the sea, terregnum again, which Lucretius prayed might whence came Venus. Not long after this, Jupiter, not happen in his time: being scarce settled and confirmed in this kingdom, was invaded by two memorable wars; the first of the Titans, in the suppressing of which Sol, who alone of all the Titans favouring Jupiter's side, took exceeding great pains. The second was of the giants, whom Jupiter himself destroyed with thunderbolts; and so all wars being ended, he reigned secure. This fable seems enigmatically to show from whence all things took their beginning, not much differing from that opinion of philosophers, "Quod procul à nobis flectat fortuna gubernans; That this dooms-day be far removed from us; For afterwards the world should subsist by its own quantity and power: yet from the beginning there was no rest; for in the celestial regions there first followed notable mutations, which by the power of the sun, predominating over superior bodies, were so quieted, that the state of the world for then by the power of that divine word, proshould be conserved; and afterward, in inferior ducat, matter at the Creator's command did conbodies, by the suppressing and dissipating of in-gregate itself, not by ambages or turnings, but undations, tempests, winds, and general earth- instantly, to the production of its work into an act quakes, a more peaceful, durable agreement and tranquillity of things followed, But of this fable it may convertibly be said, that the fable contains philosophy, and philosophy again the fable: for we know by faith, that all these things are nothing else but the long-since ceasing and failing oracles of sense, seeing that both the matter and fabric of the world are most truly referred to a Creator. PROTEUS, OR MATTER. THE poets say that Proteus was Neptune's herdsman; a grave sire, and so excellent a prophet, that he might well be termed thrice excellent for he knew not only things to come, but even things past as well as present: so that besides his skill in divination, he was the messenger and interpreter of all antiquities and hidden mysteries. The place of his abode was a huge vast cave, where his custom was every day at noon to count his flock of sea-calves, and then to go to sleep. Moreover, he that desired his advice in any thing could by no other means obtain it, but by catching him in manacles, and holding him fast therewith: who, nevertheless, to be at liberty, would turn himself into all manner of forms and wonders of nature: sometimes into fire, sometimes into water, sometimes into the shape of beasts, and the like, till at length he was restored to his own form again. This fable may seem to unfold the secrets of nature and the properties of matter. For under the person of Proteus, the first matter, which, next to God, is the ancientest thing, may be represented; for matter dwells in the concavity of heaven as in a cave. He is Neptune's bond-man, because the operations and dispensations of matter are chiefly exercised in liquid bodies. His flock or herd seems to be nothing but the ordinary species of sensible creatures, plants, and metals, in which matter seems to diffuse, and, as it were, spend itself; so that after the forming and perfecting of these kinds, having ended as it were her task, she seems to sleep and take her rest, not attempting the composition of any more species. And this may be the moral of Proteus counting of his flock, and of his sleeping. Now this is said to be done, not in the morning nor in the evening, but at noon: to wit, at such time as is most fit and convenient for the perfecting and bringing forth of species out of matter duly prepared and predisposed; and in the middle, as it were, between their beginnings and declinations, which we know sufficiently, out of the holy history, to be done about the time of the creation; VOL. I.-38 and constitution of species: and thus far have we the narration of Proteus, free and unrestrained, together with his flock complete; for the universality of things, with their ordinary structures and compositions of species, bears the face of matter not limited and constrained, and of the flock also of material beings. Nevertheless, if any expert minister of nature shall encounter matter by main force, vexing and urging her with intent and purpose to reduce her to nothing, she contrariwise, seeing annihilation and absolute destruction cannot be effected by the omnipotency of God, being thus caught in the straits of necessity, doth change and turn herself into divers strange forms and shapes of things, so that at length, by fetching a circuit as it were, she comes to a period, and, if the force continue, betakes herself to her former being. The reason of which constraint or binding will be more facile and expedite, if matter be laid on by manacles, that is, by extremities. Now whereas it is feigned that Proteus was a prophet, well skilled in three differences of times, it hath an excellent agreement with the nature of matter: for it is necessary that he that will know the properties and proceedings of matter, should comprehend in his understanding the sum of all things which have been, which are, or shall be, although no knowledge can extend so far as to singular and individual beings. MEMNON, OR A YOUTH TOO FOR WARD. THE poets say that Memnon was the son of Aurora, who, adorned with beautiful armour, and animated with popular applause, came to the Trojan war: where, in rash boldness, hasting into, and thirsting after glory, he enters into single combat with Achilles, the valiantest of all the Grecians, by whose powerful hand he was there slain. But Jupiter, pitying his destruction, sent birds to modulate certain lamentable and doleful notes at the solemnization of his funeral obsequies. Whose statue also, the sun reflecting on it with his morning beams, did usually, as is reported, send forth a mournful sound. This fable may be applied to the unfortunate destinies of hopeful young men, who, like the sons of Aurora, puffed up with the glittering show of vanity and ostentation, attempt actions above their strength, and provoke and press the most valiant heroes to combat with them, so that meeting with their overmatch, are vanquished and destroyed, whose untimely death is oft accompanied with much pity and commiseration. For among all the disasters that can happen to mortals, there is none so lamentable and so powerful to move 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 marvel 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 lous and miserable fashion, agreeable to the state gods, and of all things else except chaos, which of those who cannot die, yet every day grow as touching chaos, that by the ancients was never they hold to be a contemporary with it. Now, weaker and weaker with age. Insomuch that Jupiter, in commiseration of that his misery, did dignified with divine honour, or with the title of at length metamorphose him into a grasshopper. him in without a father; only some are of opinion the god. And as for Love, they absolutely bring This fable seems to be an ingenious character or description of pleasure, which in the beginning, that on chaos he begat the god and all things else. that he came of an egg that was laid by Nox, and and as it were in the morning, seems to be plea-There are four things attributed to him, perpetual sant 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. 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 their age, which may be observed in libidinous persons, and also in men of military professions: the one delighting in beastly talk, the other boast ing of their valorous deeds, like grasshoppers, whose vigour consists only in their voice. 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. This fabie is wise, and seems to be taken out of the bowels of morality; the sense of it being this, that men boast not too much of themselves, thinking by ostentation of their own worth to insinuate themselves into estimation and favour with men. 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 of matter, of which there is no parent, that is to only power that forms and fashions all things out 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 or comprehended within the narrow compass of human search. Not without reason therefore it is feigned to come of an egg that was laid by Nox. Certainly the divine philosopher grants so much 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 to shoot, as it were, an arrow. Wherefore whosoever 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 her in the right arm. This presumptuous fact he 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 fortu nate, 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 |