A HELP TO DISCOURSE. OR A Miscellany of Merriment. Consisting of witty, Philosophical and Astronomical Questions and Answers.  
As also, Of Epigrams, Epitaphs, Riddles, and jests.  
Together with the COUNTRYMEN Counsellor, next his yearly Oracle or Prognostication to consult with.  
Containing divers necessary Rules and observations of much use and consequence being known.  
By W.B. & E.P.  
Daws' es? huc venias & eris mox Oedipus alter.  
LONDON, Printed by Bernard Alsop for Leonard Becket, and are to be sold at his shop in the Temple near the Church, 1619.   

To the Reader.  

WEre all the depth and goodness can be imposed,  
Or is in all books in one book enclosed,  
Some curious tasters might I think come nigh it,  
That would not though they read, vouchsafe to buy it.  
So on the other side did all the ill,  
Sprinkled in thousands, but one volume fill.  
Some feuered Sectist, would not only like it,  
But offer with his purse-strings for to strike it:  
What should I say of this? I cannot tell,  
But good or bad, I like it if it sell.   Bibliop.  

Ad non emptores istius Libri.  

HE that to save his purse this small expense,  
Forsakes this jewel, leaves it, and packs hence,  
Let opportunity that season fit,  
That he must show his folly or his wit  
Where let his ignorance stamp such disgrace,  
That he dare near approach judicious place,  
Unless with servitude, and cap in hand,  
To wait on such as know, and understand.   H. P.  

In laudem Operis & authoris.  

Look as a stately edifice raised high,  
Pleaseth the builder, feeds his curious eye,  
Yet if within the whole work we furuay,  
The owner's ornaments, adorns his clay,  
Even so is man built up by God to bee●  
A receptacle for the Trinity,  
To beautify which frame nothing more dear  
Than knowledge that's divine, which thou hast here,  
At easy rate: Its balm from Gilead brought,  
Where Canaan's blessed language thou art taught:  
Philosophy that fraughts the Cynics hours  
With knowledge of th'immortal moving powers,  
Is hither brought, discoursing the true use  
Of contemplation: this book doth produce  
A complete Synod, whose authentic words,  
Becomes the sagest: It's like jonas gored,  
Which veiled him from the Sun, for 'twill advance  
The simplest from the vail of ignorance,  
Here the reverend Fathers, Poets, Orators,  
Counsels, Schoolmen, and Philosophers  
In one joint union gravely all agree,  
That thou another Oedipus shalt be.  
Expounding what's most dark: whilst th'vn read swain,  
Envying th'ingenious music of the brain,  
Sits mute to hear thee speak, but thy reward  
Is fame, respect, preferment, and regard,  
Such fate attends that man that will but look  
Friendly to read the good things of this book:  
Seeing men from beasts this little difference have,  
Man can discourse and laugh: then he that gave  
Thee these endowments bettered for to be,  
Take his discourse or wits Monopoly,  
And such sweet profit of it shall ensue,  
(As what indeed is every good man's due,  
Honour & fellowship among the wise,  
From whence this benefit or good doth rise,  
As hearing, reading, or calm conference,  
Where man's most safest, shuns the base expense  
Of hasting time: times only lent to man,  
His weigh'st ' examine, Arts wide depth to sk●n:  
Be then advertisde, this Help to Discourse,  
Bespeaks thy future good, 'twil gently force  
Knowledge into thee, and the generous wise,  
Will know thee fir for all societies.  
If in thee, all or none of these find room:  
Others will speak whilst thou with shame sits dumb.   WILLIAM LORTE.  

ALLIUD  

Look as a statuary on a stone  
Conceits what Image he may form thereon,  
Pencils his thoughts: then his industrious hand  
Drives forth the needle's matters and so scans  
His labour's period, and to all declare,  
A seeming creature, beautiful and fair.   

Even so our Artisan would if he might,  
Polish God's Image, driving forth his sight,  
All immaterial hindrance, that man might appear  
A glorious creature, than the genius rear  
And take what's offered: turn leaves and read,  
Where thou shalt not so seem, but be so indeed.   W. L.  

In praise of this help, and he that hath holp us to it.  

HE that desires, what he should most desire;  
That would with ease, and little cost, acquire  
That's worth much labour, and a large expense,  
May have the goodness of his wish from hence,  
Taught as he'll please to take it, nor let fear  
Make any one turn from it, cause there's here  
A Sphinx, proposing Riddle: 'tis not she  
Propounded only; these expounded be  
By the diviner thing: and by this, thus  
Is simple Daws made an Oedipus.  
An understanding man, a man that knows  
What man is then, when like a beast he goes  
Upon all four; when he but cries and crawls.  
Making a moral, from his many falls,  
Of infancy in manhood, when from grace  
Man's falls so often, in this span-like race  
Run, from his birth, to dying. One that knows  
What man is, man, when he on two legs go  
With circumspection walking, when h'as read  
This world all over, and from thence is led  
To th' end of his creation, thence transcends  
To th' power had near beginning, never ends.  
One, that knows, when he again gins  
To leave to be so; when Times loathed Twins,  
Age and Diseases shake him, when h'as lost  
The spring of youth, wearing a hoary Frost  
Upon his head and beard, and in his blood  
An Icy coldness: when (as having stood  
Out many winters) he's like winter now  
Withered all over; to the ground would bow,  
But that his staff supports him: one thus knows  
What's ' is one four, one two, on three legs goes,  
And what becomes these changes. Thou hast here  
At easy rate, that cost the seller dear,  
Both in expense and labour. Here (I say)  
Thou hast in one, collected, what once lay  
In many volumes: Here the old and young,  
That know no more, than their own mother-tongue,  
Have brought, (as gold from underneath the earth)  
From hidden tongues, a treasure, in its birth  
Than gold more noble, a more worthy prize,  
That, only makes men's rich, this makes men wise.  
Which, if thou know, thou'lt love, if love, thou'lt buy:  
This Guide that leads thee, where these treasures lie.   Tho. Brewer  

Concerning the Errata or faults escaped in printing.  
If by the absence of the Author, difficulty of the hand, misplacing of points, some syllables or words mistaken, the sense in any place be obscured, the judicious Reader may be so pleased to correct such easy faults which by these means have escaped, which though we know are some, yet we hope are not many.   


A HELP TO DISCOURSE. INDUCTIO.  
TO begin in God is the best foundation that can be laid as testifieth both experience, example, & consent of ancient, sacred, & profane writers After which example, in that little I purpose, do I task myself a follower, that I may begin the more safely, proceed more orderly, and end more profitably, wherein thus I proceed.   

1. In Divine Propositions.  
Qu. WHat is the most ancient of all things.  
A. GOD; because he had no beginning.  
Q. Wherein doth he most manifest himself?  
A. In the Scripture, the Heralds of his truth, and the witnesses of his mercies.  
Q. Wherefore are the holy Scriptures, containing the mystery of man's salvation, folded up by God in such obscurity and darkness, as sometimes Maximilian the Emperor in the first of his 8. questions to the learned Abbot Tritemius demanded?  
A. The holy Scriptures (as a Father saith) unless they be read with that Spirit, by which it is believed to be written by the inspiration of Gods ' Siprit, for the direction of man's life, and that with humility, and desire to know and be governed by it, cannot be understood, but remain as a dead letter in the efficacy thereof.  
Concerning whom, yet further S. Gregory saith, though they have in themselves that height and depth, wherein their mystery may exercise the wisdom of the learned, yet have they also that easiness and plainness, that the simple may be comforted & taught, being in themselves that wonderful river, both shallow & deep, wherein as the Lamb may wade, the Elaphant may swim.  
Of whose depth S. Austin thus speaketh further; The holy Scriptures are thus written, saith he, that by their height the proud may be abased; as with their easiness, the simple may be comforted: Adding withal, that it is our dullness of capacity, that they seem so hard unto us, and the vail of our hearts which cannot be removed, unless by him which hath the key of David, which opens where no man's shuts, and shuts, where no man's opens, which only can open that sealed Book.  
And therefore as another father saith, God hath not wrapped up these high mysteries of Scripture in such obscurity, as evying man's knowledge; but that the study and industry of man might be the more profitably exercised, adding withal that no man ought to be too much dejected, that he cannot understand every mystery therein: for that there are some things, that to be ignorant of, though they may somewhat subject thy presumption, will not endanger thy salvation; for that all things are not necessary to be perceived of all. And therefore according to Saint Augustine's rule, if thou lovest the law of God, manifest it in reverencing that which thou understandest, not as in practising that which thou dost understand, and thou shalt have first wherewithal to drink, after stronger meat to eat, and possess thyself patience, knowing that whilst we are in this mortal flesh, we can perceive but as in a mirror, yet that hereafter we shall be translated to a higher Academy, where God himself shall be our Schoolmaster, and then we shall see him as he is, where all shadows vanish, and the substance only is embraced, where being ascended we shall know the truth of all, either argued or debated of in this sublunary religion.  
Q. What were those three coviunctions Saint Barnard so wonderfully wondered at, the like whereof neither can nor shall ever be done again upon the face of the earth?  
A. Three works, three conjunctions hath that omnipotent Majesty made in the assumption of our flesh, wonderfully singular, and singularly wonderful, even such as the very Angels were amazed at: 

1. Conjunction of God and man.  
2. Of a Mother and a Virgin.  
3. Of Faith, and the heart of man to believe this.    
Q. What is the greatest of these conjunctions?  
A. The first conjunction is wonderfully great, wherein is conjoined earth and God, Majesty and infirmity, so much vileness, and so much purity; for nothing is more precious than God nothing more wild than dirt. ●. Nothing less wonderful; for by the ear of man was it never heard, nor by the heart of man ever conceived, that a virgin should bring forth and become a Mother, and that there should be a Mother that should yet remain a vir-Virgin. The third is inferior to both first and second, but not less strong that man's heart should have power to believe this.  
Q. How many several ways since the beginning of the world hath God brought forth man?  
A. Four ways according to Anselmus, which are these: 1. A man without the help of either man or woman, as Adam. 2. A woman out of man, without the help of woman, as Eue. 3. By both man and woman, according to the common course of Nature. 4. Of woman without man as Christ.  
Q. By the conjectures of the learned, for how many thousand of years from the Creation was the world ordained to continue?  
A. Six thousand years, because that as in 6. days the world and all that therein is was created, and so God rested the seventh, so thereupon it is probably collected that in 6000. years, which are but as 6. days in God's account, it shall again be dissolved: after which shall follow an everlasting Sabaoth of rest; of this opinion were many of the Fathers, and also other more modern writers, as that there should be two thousand years before the Law, and two thousand years under the Law, and two thousand years under the Gospel.  
Q. But of this what shall I determine.  
A. Let this Doctrine then suffice thee and all other good Christians, that we are religiously to expect the end of the world, and coming of Christ, and so daily expecting prepare ourselves thereafter, but not curiously to pry into those hidden and unrevealed secrets, not imparted to men or Angels.  
Q. Why almost among all Nations is the name of God expressed in 4 letters.  
A. The learned do agree, that this is done partly from the imitation of the Hebrews, but more especially from the mere providence of God, which otherwise could not be, as among the Latins it is Deus, the Egyptians Theut, the Persians Syro, the Hebrews Adny, the Greeks' Theos, the Arabians Alla, the French Dieu, the Germans Gott. And withal to signify that as his name consists of 4 letters, so his mercy hath a relation thereunto in that he will have his elect gathered unto him from out of the four quarters of the world.  
Q. What are those things that cannot be defined.  
A. The Schoolmen affirm, God for his exceeding formosity and beauty, Sin for the exceeding deformity and loathsomeness, the first matter for the exceeding informity an● inexistency.  
Q. Which number is the most vital among men.  
A. Eight, because 8. souls were only preserved in the Ark, and 8. only in the Scripture mentioned to be raised from death to life.  
Q. Since Adam and Methusalem lived 900. and odd years, why did God never suffer any to accomplish 1000  
A. The most of the learned are of opinion, that this is not without some deep mystery, and which may be partly because a 1000 years hath a type of perfection, God never suffered any to fulfil it, to show that there is no absolute perfection in this world.  
Q. What is man and his perfection in this world.  
A. Man in this world is, as he were the centre or epitome of all creatures; for several creatures live in several elements, as water-fowles and fishes in the water, Birds in the air, Beasts upon the earth: But man enjoys all these; with his head he looks up to Heaven, with his mind he looks into Heaven, with his feet he walks upon the earth, his arms keep the air, as the bird flies, with his eyes he contemplateth heaven and earth, and all sublunary things, he hath an essence as other bodies, produceth his seed as Plants, his bones are like stones, his blood like the springs in the channels of the earth, his hair like the grass the ornament of the earth, etc. he lives as a Plant, flourisheth as a Tree, for a man is a tree turned upward, his feet are like the boughs, his head like the root: Beside, some creatures are only, as Stars; some are and live, as Plants; some are, live, and have sense, as Beasts, some understanding, as Angels: all these concur in man; Est, vivit, sentit, intelligit.  
Q. What three things are those, that he which often remembers shall seldom do amiss.  
A. That above there is an Ear, that hears all; an Eye, that beholds all; a Book, wherein all our offences are written.  
Whereunto may likewise be annexed as a second memento, and not inferior to the first, being S. Anselmes' observation upon the last day.  
Where at thy right hand shall thy sins be accusing.  
At thy left hand infinite Devils expecting.  
Under thee the furnace of hell buruing.  
Above thee an angry judge.  
Within thee thy conscience tormenting.  
Without thee the world flaming.  
Where only the just shall be saved.  
Whence to fly, it will be impossible.  
To continue still intolerable.  
Therefore, while time is, prevent that, that in time will be: for as one saith, If it be not prevented, it will be repent.  
Q. Who was he that never laughed, but sometimes wept, as we read in the Scriptures?  
A. Christ: of whom we read that he three times wept. 

1. When Lazarus was dead.  
2. Over jerusalem.  
3. Upon the Cross, when he delivered up his spirit with cries and tears.    
Q. There be four duties we chief we, and among all other are especially bound to pay, and which be they?  
Debemus 

Deo timorem.  
Patriae amorem.  
Parentibus honorem.  
Proximo favorem.   

To God fear.  
To our Country love.  
To our Parent's Honour.  
To our Neighbour favour.    


A Rule for our Life.  
So Learn as if Thou shouldst live always.  
so Live as if Thou shouldst die to morrow.    
Suspice coelum, despice mundum, respice finem.  
Look up to heaven, despise the world respect thine end.  
Q. There are three especially unhappy in the Law of the Lord, and who are those?  
A. 

1. He that knows & teacheth not.  
2. He that teacheth and doth not.  
3. He that is ignorant, and yet learneth not.    
Q. Was there any writing before the flood preserved, notwithstanding the Deluge after it.  
A. 'tis answered; We have no writing before the flo●d, yet S. Jude, doth somewhat insinuate of the writing of Henoch; and josephus and others writ, that he erected two pillars, the one of brick, and the other of stone, wherein he wrote of the twofold destruction of the world, the one by water, & the other by fire, which by Tradition was preserved to the days of the Apostles.  
Q. What was the sentence according to the opinions of the learned, that Christ wrote with his finger in the dust of the pavement of the Temple.  
A. Some think it was the same that he spoke, He that is innocent, let him throw the first stone at her; others think it was this, Festucam in oculo cernis, trabem in tuo non vides, Thou seest the mote in thy brother's eye, but not the beam in thine own.  
Q. What Book did Samuel write besides those two in Scripture that bear his name.  
A. A Book of the office and institution of a King.  
Q. What Books did Solomon write beside those extant in Canonical writ.  
A. Solomon wrote three thousand Parables, and five thousand songs, besides that ingens opus of the nature ofal Herbs, Trees, and Plants, from the Cedar to the Hyssop upon the wall, all destroyed by the Babylonians at the destruction of the Temple.  
Q. Whether God created hurtful creatures, as Scorpions, Serpents, and such like.  
A. It is answered, there are some that seem evil unto us, which yet are not simply evil of themselves, for no substance is evil of itself, and the Scripture teacheth us, that Serpents were created among other creatures, yet God pronounceth that all were good; but that some creatures are now hurtful to man, that is not to be attributed to the first creation, but to the second after the lapse or fall of man, who if he had persisted in his duty to God, no creature should have been offensive unto him, but over them he should have borne a willing subjection. For God made nothing evil neither doth he make sickness, barrenness lameness, or the like, but they rather have deficient then efficient causes, as the want of health, his good creature, is the cause of sickness, the withdrawing of light, the interposition of darkness, and so of the like.  
Q. What name was that among the jews so highly reverenced, that it was only lawful for the Priests to name it, and that but at the solemn festivals.  
A. The name jehovah a word consisting but of seven letters and yet of all the five vowels, according to this verse: 

Quinque simul iunctis constas vocabilus una,  
Dictio, & est magno maius in orb nihil.   

Five vowels joined together make a name,  
In Heaven or Earth none greater than the same.    
Q. What of all other are held to be things of the greatest difficulty in Scripture to believe, and of the greatest opposition to sense to conceive.  
A. Some think the creation of the world, some the conservation thereof, and all creatures therein; some the Incarnation of the Son of God, others the resurrection of the flesh: Besides these, there are some that think, noah's Ark, and the union and preservation of so many divers creatures in it, so many months fed, ordered, and at last safely delivered out.  
Q. In how many chapters doth consist the Canon of the old Testament?  
A. In 777. The jewish Rabbins have collected to be in the Books of the Law, verses 5845. In the Prophets, 9294. In Haggai, 8064. In the Books of apocrypha, chap. 173. In the new Testament, chap. 260. Malachy which was the last of the Prophets stands as the Porch between the Old and New Testament, whereat as Tertullian saith, judaisme ends and Christianity gins.  
Q. Where was God before he made the world.  
A. Saint Austin notes this as vain curiosity to inquire, as it is to demand what he did before he made the same, and yet to give the curious some satisfaction, to the first he answers, that God dwelled in himself, at himself, and was God to himself: and for the second he was not idle, in that he chose us before the world, and purposed in himself the creation of all things. But he that will farther busy himself to pry into this Ark, how all things could be made by his word, why God made choice of a remnant, and rejected the greatest part, and the like, let such questions, say we, amaze the curious, and humble the wise, and let it be thought a sin in us to have a tongue to speak, or a heart to think, where the Spirit of God had not a pen to write; and let such be answered as Saint Austin answered one curious in such questions: That he ordained a hell for such kind of inquirers, & as Euclid the Philosopher answered one so demanding, what thou asketh (quoth he) I am ignorant, but this I know, God is angry with such kind of inquirers.  
Q. There is a thing which is the Temple itself, the Altar, the Priest, he to whom it was offered, he that was offered, and who was that.  
A. A strange collection proposed and resolved by them that have sweat in the travel of the Scripture, and verified of him, of whom all the Prophets bear witness, that is Christ; for in a Sacrifice four things are to be considered. 1. To whom it it is offered 2. by whom. 3. what is offered. 4. for whom it is offered, which all have their concurrence on him.  
Q. Whether did the Cross bear Christ, or Christ bear the Crosse.  
A. It did both and both at once, and in bearing him it bore all our iniquities; and therefore as a Father prayed so I desire that he may be wholly fastened in my heart, that was wholly fastened on the cross for me. 
Inter carnifices sancto pendente latrone,  
Par est poenatrium sed dispar causa Deorum.  
Hi mundo sunt quip rei pro crimine multo:  
Huic reus est mundu● saluatus sanguine justo.  
Between two thieves, the just condemned to die,  
Did hang where all like punishment did try  
Though for a cause unlike, they both death tried  
Fo● sins i' the world, he for the world's sins died.  Of which one wittily adds, that if ever goodness were in the midst of evil, than it was.  
Q. What were the first and last words that Christ spoke in this world.  
A. The first was fiat, let there be, and after he added increase and multiply: The last words were Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.  
Q. Whether is it more necessary that Christ should be in heaven, or in the Sacrament as the Papists would have him.  
A. In heaven witness Christ himself, when he saith, It is expedient that I go away from you, for unless I go the comforter will not come.  
Q. What wicked man was that, that for a most wild price sold to others what he had not in his power, and yet what was more precious than all the world beside.  
A. judas that sold Christ; of whom as a Father writes, his death was answerable to his life, in that he was hanged being a thief, that he bu●st being a traitor, etc.  
Q. A certain godly man fr●m a wicked, required a gift that was more excellent than all the world, and what was that.  
A. joseph of Arimathea when he begged of pilate Christ's body.  
Q. What part of the body of man doth God chief require for his service.  
A. The heart, that inward triangle of love for which he calls for in these words, My son give me thy heart, and in another place, this people honour me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from me. To which purpose is here annexed a fable of a certain Hermit that in his devotion besought God that he might know what worship he required chief, who was answered by the Oracle in these words: 
Da mediam Lunam, solemn, simul, & Canis iram.  
Give the half Moon, the Sun, and the anger of the Dog.  He good old man hearing this oenigma, began to be perplexed to think of these impossibilities, as how he should be able to pull the Moon from the sky, though the lowest of all the Planets, yet too high for his reach or capacity, much less the Sun in a higher Sphere and more difficult, until it was thus explained to him.  
Give 

the half Moon that is C  
The Sun that is O  
the dogs anger. that is R   And that is the heart a gift that God requires.  
Q. Into how many faiths is the world divided in.  
A. The world is divided into four parts, and four Religions possess the same, and with much diversity in every one, for as the saying is, how many heads so many opinions, which four are judaisme, Christianity, Mahomatism and Paganism: Therefore it was the good counsel of Vincentius, where he said we are not to sway religion to what fancy we would have her, but we must be swayed by her whither she leads us; whereupon we conclude it unadvisedly spoken by an Emperor who walking in his garden, answered one that had endeavoured to root out many sects out of his land, that their diversity delighted him as the diversity of his flowers to look upon, and that seeing every man made a religion to his humour; there would assoon be an unity therein, as a truce between the wind and the Sea.  
Q. To what is an Hypocrite most fitly compared.  
A. To a candle that carries a fair light or show to others, but wastes itself for his vain glory to the socket: Beside every hypocrite is said to have the voice of jacob, but the heart and hands of Esau.  
Q. What was the difference between Cain and Abel's Sacrifice.  
A. Thus much hath been observed by the Poet, where Abel saith, 
Sacram pingue dabo, nec macrum sacrificabo.  

My fat to holy use I'll give,  
And not my lean: they still shall live.    
But every hypocrite saith thus with Caine.  
Sacrificabo macrum, nec dabo pingue sacrum.  

My lean shall to the Altar fly,  
And not my fat that ought to die.   
Q. Whether were the heathen Gods or heathen men more ancient.  
A. Certainly the men that made the Gods.  
Q. In what place was it that the voice of on creature purced all the cares in the world.  
A. In noah's Ark.  
Q. By what precept was it that Philip king of Macedon, became something humbled in his thoughts after his victories when nothing else could admonish him.  
A. By the wise counsel of one of his Captains, who noting his ambition; bade him measure his own shadow and he should find it no longer than it was before.  
Q. By what means came Sesostris a king of the Egyptians somewhat to pull down his ambitious plumes of vanity and pride.  
A. This king Sesostris, as stories mention, having conquered divers kingdoms, and led captive their kings vassailed four of them to the service of his horses, to draw his chariot, where ever as the wheel turned, one of them looking back ever, earnestly noted it, insomuch that Sesostris perceiving it, demanded his reason therefore, who told him that he observed the mutability of fortune, in the present subjecting & sudden advancing of fir●t the one part & then the other, how the highest came presently to be lowest, and the lowest wheeled presently to be highest, and all without intermission or stay, hereupon Sesostris remembering himself, & pondering his saying, presently unyoked his kings, & would no more so be drawn.  
Q. How became the tyrant Hiero some what to contemplate of the majesty of God.  
A. Upon his command to Simonides the wise Poet to discourse what God was, when he required, first for respite one day, after that two days; after that 4. days: whereupon Hiero wondering why he took such pause, required his reason, he told him; the more he entered into consideration thereof to instruct his inability, the more unable he found himself to instruct another or to conceive aright what God was himself.  
Q. Who are those that cannot, will not, may not, do rightly understand.  
A. There are certain, that neither understand God, nor can understand him and those are dead men.  
2 There are others that may understand, but care not, and they are wicked men.  
3 There are another sort that desire to understand but cannot, and these are fools.  
There are a fourth sort that do both understand and make use, and these are godly.  
And therefore it is the wise saying of a father, who asked this question, art thou a Christian? then it behooves thee to contemn that that seems to be & is not, and to embrace that that seems not to be, and yet is.  
Q. One asked a king of the Egyptians what was the most beautiful thing in the world, And he  
A. Answered, The light which distinguisheth all colours, creatures, and and beauties in the world, and is itself the most goodly comfort and object of that most excellent sense the eye, and therefore as one saith: When thou beholdest the light of Heaven that first and blessed creature of God's hand, that in a minute transfuseth itself throughout all this lower Region, think of the testimony of Saint john, that God is light, essential lightness, in whom there is no darkness.  
Q. What day was that that the like was never before, nor ever shall be hereafter  
A. When josuah prayed in the midst of the battle, so that the Sun stood at a stay, and hasted not towards his Western period, so long that, as justin Martyr saith, it made the day thirty six hours long.  
Q. Of what wood was the Temple of Solomon built, dedicated and consecrated unto God.  
A. Of Cedars or Sychim wood, and that by the command of God himself, and some reason thereof may be this: 1. For that the Cedar tree is always green, odorous, and sweet, neither will it bend; but support itself upright with it own strength. 2. For that is truly verified of it that is spoken of Irish wood that neither worms nor moths breed in it, nor live near unto. Thirdly, for that it is neither massy nor ponderous to load or oppress the walls, but strong and light.  
Q. Of what wood was the Cross of Christ made, whether of one entire tree or of several kinds of woods.  
A. The cross of Christ as we have it by tradition, was made of three divers sorts of woods, which were Cypress, Pine, and Cedar, all significant, and not without their mystery: the Cypress being an Emblem of dissolution and death; for being cut, or wounded, it withers and wastes away. The Cedar of immortality, because it withstands the consumption and wastes of time to a dateless perpetuity. The Pine, a navigable wood that floats upon the waters: and therefore the most useful for ships to signify that death should have no power, nay less, to overwhelm him, than the Pine is subject unto drowning by the violence of the waters.  
Q. What is thought to be the occasion that Christ cursed the Figged tree being barren, since it was neither a reasonable creature nor disposed of it own seasons, and especially being not then the time of bearing.  
A. This is thought not to be without many deep mysteries, one whereof especially is conceived, to note out the hatefulness of Hypocrisy that seems to flourish with displayed leaves but wants the true fruits of faith, which are good works and charity.  
Q. Why that same tree in Paradise (without doubt good and very good, for all that God created was very good) was forbidden Adam to taste.  
A. Many wonder hereat, and one of the Fathers in this admiration have brought in Adam thus expostulating the case himself. If it be good, why may not I touch it? if it be evil, what doth it in Paradise. But to this S. Austin and divers of the Fathers do answer, that the command of God in that, was rather for the trial of his obedience, then for any o●her danger that would have grown to Adam by the eating thereof.  
Q What tree was that, that the same day sprang up and perished.  
A. jonas Gourd.  
Q. What trees in the Scripture are especially called the trees of God.  
A. It is thought to be those that grow forth of their own accord, as the Fir tree, the Cedar, and the wild Olive tree.  
Q. Is there a distinction of sexes among trees.  
A. Pliny a most certain Author, attributes both sexes & wedlock unto trees: and first, he instanceth upon the Palm tree, the love between whom is such, that if the female be far disjoined from the masculine it becomes barren and without fruit: if the male have his bows broken by any accident, the female becomes desolate and droops like a widow.  
Q. What part in trees are the most strongest.  
A. Those that grow and shoot towards the North.  
Q. Of the apple of Paradise, or Adam's apples, what is related of them.  
A. That those apples so called are of exceeding sweetness, when they come to their full maturity and ripeness, and are called of some Musi, or musk Apples: and it is thus observed, that what part soever of them you cut, there appears a crucifix in it, and it is reported for a truth, or rather conjectured upon pregnant probabilities, that the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil was of that likeness.  
Q. What apple was it that Adam in eating drew sin and death upon himself and his whole posterity.  
A. It is uncertain & cannot rightly be known, for the Scripture mentions it not, yet some writers to satisfy the curious, thus bring in their arguments, some think it was a Persian apple, that at this day grows in the East where Paradise was situate, some think it was a golden apple that was sweet to taste, and delightful to behold; some think it was a cherry, some a pear, but all these are but uncertain; but this is certain: Adam primus homo damnabat seculo pomo  
Q. How many ribs hath every man and woman.  
A. This question hath bred some controversy among the learned, for there are that affirm, ever since the creation of the woman, that Adam lost a rib from his side, the man hath one rib less than the woman, & less than he had at first: Now there are of the other side that affirm, and that truly, that there are in either side, of either sex as well of the man as of the woman 12. ribs: for that rib of which Eve was form, was peculiarly made by God, to that purpose, neither was it a bare bone but had flesh likewise. And therefore since from earth & the slime of the earth, & from a bone, from that earth all posterities are descended, though some be rich & some be poor, some be noble, and some base, yet they are all but of one metal and descent, as to that purpose followeth, 

Aurea nobilitas, luteam si bestiat ollam,  
Non ideo sequitur, hanc minus esse lutam.   

If golden titles gild an earthen pot,  
That it's less earth for that it follows not.    
And concerning the pride of clothing, this admonisheth us that they should not be abused to that excess, but rather for our humiliation, the sad remembrancers of the fall of man, for Adam in his innocency wore no clothing.  
Pellitus nunc es, fueras sine bestibus ante,  
Mudus eras purus, crimen amictus habes.  
Q. What seed of all other is the least, yet bringeth forth the greatest tree.  
A. Christ himself expresseth this of the Mustard seed, of whom it is reported in some countries to be trees of that bigness, that they yield a shadow to sit under.  
Q. What kind of men are most rare in the kingdom of heaven.  
A. Some say hypocrites, for when Christ threatens destruction to the wicked, he saith, their portion shall be with hypoccrites: some say Usurers. But the Germane proverb saith, Princes which are as rare in heaven, as venison in a poor man's kitchen, but this is always to be understood of wicked and irreligious Princes.  
Q. Who are those that are called the sons of Thunder.  
A. Saint james and Saint john the Apostles, and the reason of their attribute is, for that they affright the wicked rouse up the slothful, drawing al● to an admiration of their highness, from whence it is as Saint Bede writes of Saint john that son of thunder, that he thundered so high, that if he had thundered a little higher, all the world could hardly have comprehended him.  
Q. Who were those that found not a Physician to cure them being living, but to raise them being dead?  
A. Christ, Lazarus, daughters of jayrus, the widows son, Euticus, Dorcas and others.  
Q Who were those that lived in the earth and never died.  
A. Henoch and Elias.  
Q. Who, and how many were those that had their names foretold and spoken of before they were borne.  
A. Ishmael, Isaac, josua, Cyrus, and john the Baptist.  
Q. Who was he that prophesied before he was borne.  
A. john Baptist in the womb of his mother, of whom S. Austin saith, that having not yet seen the heaven, nor the earth, yet he knew the Lord of both.  
Q. What issue was that that was elder than his mo●her.  
A. Christ, to which purpose the Poet thus wittily followeth it.  
Behold the Father is the daughter's son,  
The bird that built the nest is hatched therein  
The old of time an hour hath not out run,  
Eternal life to live doth new begin, etc.  
Q. Who was he that seeking his father's Asses found a kingdom.  
A. Saul.  
Q. Whether of the two companions, the soul or the body have the greater hand in sin, and why for the sin of the one they should be both together jointly punished.  
A. It is thus answered by a Similitude, a Master of a familily committeth his orchard to two keepers, of the which the one is lame, and the other blind, where this cripple that had his eye sight, spies out certain golden Apples hanging upon a tree delightful to his sight & contentive to his taste if he might but obtain them, he not able to pluck them, relates to his fellow how pleasant the fruit seems to him that he looks upon with his eyes, and how willingly he would taste if he had but legs to bear him to them: To whom the blind answers, and I would not stick to pull the apples if I had but thy eyes to see them, and so at last between this debate they agree that he that had his eyes should ride upon the others shoulders that had his legs, this being done, they were able to pluck the fruit and did eat, and having eaten, the master of the orchard enters and finds his damage, inquires by whom it was done, and they both confess their act and furtherance, how the one used his feet, and the other his eyes, and so they did it between them. The master finding it so, punisheth both with one equal punishment as they had both deserved. After which Example doth this more wise Governor exempt neither body nor soul, because they both lend their furtherance to sin, and being thus both guilty, thus he punisheth them inseparably for ever.  
Q. But why should eternity punish that which is committed in time, and oftentimes but a short time.  
A 1. Because the sin though it be committed in time, is against an infinite Majesty. Secondly, because God judges according to the wilful inclination of a sinner, that would sin eternally if he might live eternally, and to his indefatigallibent of wickedness, God answers him with everlasting punishments.  
Q. Whether do fools bring more profit to wise men, or wisemen to fools.  
A. Cato saith, that fools bring more profit to wise men, because wisemen seeing their folly, they endeavour to avoid it: whereas fools on the contrary make no use of the wisdom of the wise by reason of their folly.  
Q. Wherhfore do Serpents since they hate all mankind, yet chief bend their forces against women.  
A. By reason of the perpetual enenmitie put by God between the woman and the serpent, and the seed of the woman, and the seed of the serpent. Of which one thus writes concerning the blessed seed of the woman that broke this head of the Serpent.  
Quos anguis dirus tristi de funere stravit.  
Hos Sanguis mirus Christi de vulnere lavit.  
And as another to the like effect.  

Anguis peccatum & mortem generavit in horto  
Sanguis justitiam & vitam reparavit in ara.   

1  
Where the dire serpent brought in wounds and death:  
Christ his by blood hath healed, restored our breath.   

2  
Both sin and death to our succeeding loss,  
The serpent gave in garden to mankind:  
But Christ restored again upon his cross  
justice and life whereby we ransom find.   
And as another to that purpose, Soluit pendendo quod Adam commisit e dendo.  
Q. How is death proved to be nothing to us  
A. Thus when death is, than we are not, and when we are, than death is not, & therefore death is nothing to us.  
Q. How is our life proved to be a something almost depending upon nothing.  
A. Thus the years that are passed are gone, & those we have not, the future we are not certain of, and therefore boast not of, the ●ime present is but a moment and that is the brittle thread it depends upon. And therefore to this I add with a father, happy is he that in this his short minute lays hold upon Christ's mercies, and even whilst it is called to day, and he may be found that bore all our infirmities upon his cross. O Lord, saith S. Bernard, I may walk about the heaven, and the earth, the sea and the dry land but I shall find thee no where so soon as on the cross, there thou feedest, there thou sleepest, etc. And as he further addeth, so may every sinner in this kind, concerning his unworthiness and his sins, either to seek or find him.  

Non sum laeta seges, lolium sum treste sedero:  
Me tamen in messem, collige christ tuam   

English.  
No fruitful field am I, no blessed wheat,  
But cursed Cockle to weed out, not eat,  
Yet though I am this out cast, lost, & sold  
To sin yet Lord reduce me to thy fold.   
Q. What is the careless liver compared unto, and most fitly.  
A. To him that seeing his face in the glass, goes away and either forgets his deformity, or cares not to amend it.  
A good and short rule to meditate.  
Quid sis, quid fueris, quid eris, semper meditaris.  
Always meditate what thou art, what thou wast, what thou shalt be.  
The young man's question to the old man, concerning life and what it is to live.  Dic venerande senex humanum vivere quid sit. 
The old man answereth.  
Principium vitae dolor est, dolour exitus nigens,  
Sic medium dolour est, vivere quis cupiat.  
English:  
The beginning of man's life is grief and misery, the end of it grief and misery, and the middle noting but grief and misery, which conjoines both the middle and end, and makes one complete mass of sorrow of all, of which we may say, as one saith: 
What joy to live on earth is found,  
Where grief and cares do still abound.  And therefore the more firmly to fix this exhortation, again he saith, young men hear me an old man, that being a young man heard old men, and have both by relation and experience found the truth hereof.  
Q. What sin is that which by making  
Q. What sin is that which by making others contemptible in a man's own eyes, makes his owner contemptible in the eyes of God.  
A. Pride, a sin so much beaten against by the learned of all ages, that it is admired how it hath preserved a life so flourishing to these times of ours.  
A Pithy aenigma whereof to that purpose is here infixed.  O SUPER Be 
 Mors SUPER Te 
 Cur SUPER Bis 
 Deus SUPER Nos 
 Negat SUPER Bis 
 vitam SUPER nam. 
Englished. O proud man 
 Death is above thee 
 Why wilt thou be proud 
 Seeing God above us 
 Denies to the proud 
 The life above.  
Further motives for humility.  
If these deject thee not, then consider a little further with me whither thy life will lead thee which is to death, and whither death will carry thee but to judgement.  
But before we come to speak of the judgement, let us a little consider death.  Mors antror sum retror sum considerata. 
Death considered backwards and forwards.  

Mors solet innumeris morbis abrumpere vita M  
Omnia mors rostro devorat ipsa fu O  
Rex princeps, sapiens, servus, stultus miser, age R  
Sis quicunque belis, paluis et umbra eris S   

Englished.  
The many sorrows that are heirs to breath  
And twins adjoined to it are freed by death  
With whose impartial sith, the wise the just  
Princes & kings are all mowed down to dust   
Q. What is there concerning the last judgement.  

judicabit judices, judex genera lis  
Ibi nihil proderit dignitas papa lis  
Sive sit episcopus, sive Cardina lis  
Reus condennabitur nee dicetur qua lis   

Ibi nihil proderit multa allega re  
Neque accipere neque replica re  
Ne ad Apostolicam sedem appella re  
Reus condemnabitur bene sciens qua re   

Cogitate miseri qui & qualis es 'tis  
Quid in hoc iuditio dicere potes tis  
Quo nec erit codici locus nec diges 'tis  
Christus judex, Demon actor, reustes 'tis   

Englished.  
Before this judge all judges must appear  
Despite their greatness dignity or place  
For to be judged, as they have judged here,  
Where fear nor friendship justice shall out face.   

Excuses there to allege will but vain,  
As to appeal unto the sea of Rome,  
For there the guilty, though he much do fame,  
Shall not pervert his justice nor his doom.   

Weigh then must wretched man thine estate,  
How in this judgement thou-maist stand upright.  
Where shall no book be opened to relate.  
But even the conscience shall itself indight.   
Q. What shall be the last words that shallbe spoken in this world?  
A. Come ye blessed, Go ye cursed, etc. Aspera vox ite, sed vox benedicta venite, Ite malis vox est apta, venite bonis. Fron which bitter word, I pray with S. Bern. Deliver me O Lord in that day.  
Q. What language according to the conjectures of some learned, shall we speak in the world to come.  
A. The Hebrew, a language that Christ himself spoke in this world, and the most ancient & most sacred of all other, and which was not changed at the confusion of Babel; the next whereto is the Greek as most rich, than the Latin, most copious.  
Q. Which of all the Psalms of David is the longest, and which the shortest.  
A. The shortest is the 117. the longest the 119. the one consisting of 175. ver. reckonning 4. lines where the meeter ends to a verse, as the other of 2. stanzes.  
Q. Which of all the Psalms of David is the most mournful & compassionate  
A. The Psalm 77.  
Q. What Psalm is that the wicked, nay the very devils themselves, according as Athanasius writeth, tremble and quake to hear, read or recited.  
A. 68 Psalm, Let God arise and see his enemies scattered.  
How many Inns or lodging did the Son of God use in this world.  

Prima domus Christi, fuit alnus virginis almae,  
Altera praesepe, cruxtertia, quarta sepulchrum.   

Englished.  
Our saviours first house, was the Virgin's womb:  
Second his stall, third cross, and fourth his tomb.   
testifieth unto another, that it waxeth old as doth a Garment, or the birth of a woman, and experience itself finds that both in the fruitfulness, strength, and operation of herbs, plants, and vetigables', the defect and decay whereof is daily seen, and the lessening of the operation and virtue, most sensibly perceived in the languishing dolour of many incurable diseases.  
Q. Wherefore do the jews break the glass, in which the bride and bridegroom drink.  
A. To admonish them that all things are transitory and brittle, as that glass, and therefore they must be moderate in their pleasures.  
Q. Wherefore have all jews a rank smell or savour.  
A. Some think because they are of a bad digestion, others think because they use not labour, nor exercise, but live by usury, some think the wrath of God upon them the immediate cause, howsoever they have been a people strangely dispersed over the face of the earth, slaughtered & tormented in all countries France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and England, some of their offences were washing & clipping the king's coin, circumcising & stealing of christian children, & pricking them full of holes for their blood, which they conceited would cure the leprosy & rank smell both of their breath & skin. In king john's time they were fined at 1000 marks a man, upon penalty of not payment to lose their teeth; an old jew had 6. of his teeth pulled out because he refused to pay his fine. Many 1000 of them were slaughtered in divers kingdoms, upon a rumour spread, that they had poisoned all the wells in those countries, and where ever they live at this day among Christians they live in subjection and slavery to them they most hate.  
Q What country in the world is the most desolate and solitary.  
A. The country of the Sodomites where Satan wan so much ground that whereas according to Strabos description, stood 13. cities, situate upon one of the most fruitful soils in the whole earth; even a second Eden, or garden of Paradise for pleasure & beauty, whence sprung those clustering grapes from those vines of Engeddi, so renowned in Scripture, stands not now one of those cities to magnify herself above her fellows; but all with Sodom, the Lady of them all, desolated and destroyed, not one stone left upon another, nor no other witness of their sometimes being, more than the dry smell of fire & brimstone the heavy justicers of God that destroyed them, & for the fruit of that vine that made glad the heart of man, in them perverted from his true use to sin and drunkenness, are only found now apples of a beauteous appearance, but touch them and they are but ashes, and of a sulphurous savour, an air of so poisonous a vapour above, that as Historiographers writ, stifles the fowls that fly over it, that they fall down dead, and the fishes likewise in that dead sea under it poisoned as they fall in or float from the silver streams of jordan, that thence empty themselves into that sulphurous lake.  
There are four kind of men that lay claim to their own or others, and but one rightly, and these are they. 

1. The first saith that which is mine is thine; and that which is thine, is mine, and this is the Idiot.  
2. The second saith, that which is mine is mine, and that which is thine is thine, and this is the indifferent man.  
3. The third saith, that which is mine is thine, and that which is thine is thine own, and this is the godly man.  
4. The fourth saith that which is thine is mine, & that which is mine is mine own, and this is the wicked man.    
Christ all and without Christ nothing.  
Possidet ille nihil, Christum qui perdidit unum.  
Perdidit ille nihil, Christum qui possidet unum.  
Q. What do we owe unto our neighbour.  
A. Three things, that is to say: 

nostrum nosse in consiliis.  
nostrum posse in subsidiis.  
nostrum velle in desideriis.   To counsel, to assist, to desire his good.  
Three things are most precisely necessary for every Christian man, and what they are. 

Faith without the which we can not please God  
A good name without the which we can not please our neighbour  
A good cons. without the which we can not please ourselves.    
Of the latter which one writes: 
O vita secura ubi est conscientia pura.  
O life secure, that hath the conscience pure   
Q Why do young men many times say they are younger than they are, and old men they are older than they are.  
A. This doth youth, that he may seem to preserve the flower of his youth the longer: this doth age to regain more reverence and authority, but either foolishly.  
Q. He that learns from youth who doth he resemble?  
A. He that eats grapes before they are ripe, & drinks wine before it be settled.  
Q But who doth he resemble that draws his precepts from old men.  
A. He that eats ripe grapes, and drinks old wine, for seniores sunt saniores, incipientes, insipientes. And likewise: Quae laboriosa fuere inventuti studia, ea suntiucunda senectuti otia. Whose studies were not painful in youth, their pleasures are more perfect in age.   

and truly, she lends the more nourishment, when to the other but as Bastards she withdraweth it from them.  
Q. Why are Cats and Whelps brought forth blind?  
A. Because that drawing near to their maturity and ripeness, they wound and pierce the Matrixe with their claws, whereupon by their Dams they are hastily, and imperfectly cast forth before their time.  
Q. Why blood issues afresh from an old member or wound many days before made and dried up, the murderer approaching near unto it?  
A. Our Naturalists observe divers Natural causes to the effecting of the same, which for their uncertainty we meddle not withal, But thus conclude that murder shall not be concealed, or unrevenged, and to that end that blood of the slaughtered cries for vengeance at the hands of God, which God so regarding, by that means answers to approve to man what often seemeth doubtful.  
Q Why doth the affections of Parents run upwards to their children, and not their children run downwards to them?  
A. Even as the sap in the root of a tree ascends into the branches thereof, and from the branches returns not into the root again, but: runs out from thence into seed, so parents love their children, but children so love not their parents, but their affections runs forward to a further procreation: whereby it comes to pass that a father with more willingness brings up ten children, than ten children in his want sustains one father.  
Q How is it that there be many more women in the world than men?  
A. Some think because women are exempted from the wars, from the seas, imprisonment, and many other troubles and dangers of the land to be a reason sufficient: So, others likewise there are that think this may be a reason, because in the whole course of Nature, the worst things are ever most plentiful, to which effect Plynie tells a Story of a certain fieldmouse, that every month brings forth thirty, when the Elephant a creature of use and service, is three years in travel with one.   

Questions of the Earth.  
Q. How many miles is the earth in circuit?  
A. It is uncertain, and cannot rightly be defined, for as the Lord saith, who hath measured the earth? yet the Mathematicians, & Astrologians are of opinion that it is 4. times 5400. miles, but howsoever, in respect of the Heavens they conclude it but a point, where every Star in the eight sphere is esteemed bigger than the whole circumference thereof, where if the body of the earth should be placed in the like splendour, it would hardly appear: yet, as saith a Father, we make this little so great a matter, so admiring this miserable dust, on which not only we that are but dust & worms do creep, but also many other worms & beasts beside, and yet this point is divided among mortals into many points, and with fire & sword contended for and sought, & many are so besotted therewith, that they would exchange for a mote of this point, their part of Heaven, could they meet with a Chapman.  
Q. Where is the Centre or Middlemost part of the earth?  
A. At Delphos as the Ancient would have it, to which purpose Strabo tells a Story of two Eagles sent from jove one from the East, and another from the West, which met at Delphos; some are of opinion that it is near the Mount Taurus; Ptolomeus thought it under the Equinoctial; Strabo at Parnassus a mountain in Graecia; Plutarch was likewise of that opinion; But most of our Ecclesiastical Writers have thought judea to be the middle of the earth, and Jerusalem the very point and Centre, of which opinion, was Saint Hirom, Hillarius, Lyra, and others according to the Psalm, God hath wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. That is, at Jerusalem by his passion: Yet in respect of the whole world, there is no place properly the middle, because it is round.  
Q. What were the names of those two thieves that were crucified with Christ?  
A. The Scripture mentioneth not, yet we have it by tradition, and from history, that they were Dismas and Gesmas, Dismas the happy, and Gesmas the unfortunate, according the Poet.  
Gismas Damnatur, et Dismas ad Astralevatur.  
Q. Wherhfore is the world round?  
A. Because that it and all therein should not fill the heart of man being a Triangle receptacle for the holy Trinity.  
Q. How far is the East distant from the West.  
A. A days journey, for the Sun passeth between them every day.  
Q. Whether is the water or the earth the greater?  
A. It is answered, The water is bigger than the earth, the air bigger than the water, and the fire bigger than the air.  
Q. What comparison is there between the Sun and virtue?  
A. So much that when as the Sun is at the highest, the lesser shadow doth it cast upon the earth, as the nearer thereto the greater; so virtue, the more high & elevate it is, the more it shines unseen, unless to itself and such as participate in the fruition thereof: as that other the more unreal and declining, a greater but a worse light to the World.  
A certain old Doctor of the Church compared the Old Testament and the New to the Sun and the Moon, the Old borrowing light from the New, as the Moon from the Sun, the New being wrapped up in the Old, and the Old revealed in the New.  
Q. What is the highest of all things?  
A. The Sea is higher than the earth, the air higher than the Sea, the fire higher than the air, the Poles higher than the fire, God higher than the Poles, higher than God nothing.  
Q. What may the world most fitly be compared unto.  
A. To a deceitful nut, which if it be opened with the knife of truth, nothing is found within it, but vacuity and vanity.  
Q. Si fugio sequitur, si me fugit illa sequentem, Res mira & varia est, dic mihi queso quid est.  
A. The Rainbow which seems to vary in colours according to the variation of the mind of him that beholds it.  
Q. What times are we chief to select to ourselves for the ordering of our affairs, and as the most convement for that purpose.  
A. The morning and the evening, in the morning to prepose what we have to do. In the evening to consider what we have done, and effected, so that we may husband our time in the early and wise disposal and accomplishment of our affairs, and next,  
That we may also have the first of these golden verses on our side, and the other either frustrated or not strongly against us, which ensue as followeth, and first for our early rising and the morning.  
Sanctificat, ditat, sanat, quoque surgere mane.  

Englished.  
To rise betimes hath still been understood,  
A means to enrich, make wise, preserve pure blood.   
For the second.  

Omnia sireputes transactaetempora vitae,  
Velmale, veltemere vel nihil egit homo.   

Englished.  
Survey all times and there swift progress scan,  
Rash, bad, or nothing in them's done by man.   
Q. Whether throughout the whole year, are there more clear or cloudy days.  
A. The dry are more than the Rayny, clear, more than the cloudy, according to the Poet.  

Si numeres anno soles, & nubila toto  
invenies nitidum saepius esse diem.   

Number the days the cloudy and the clear,  
And thou shalt find more fair than foul in the year.   
Q. Whether are some days to be accounted infortunate, or not, as in our Callend. are set down.  
A. They are not; as in the Countrymen Counsellor here ensuing, is further to that purpose related: And therefore Heracluus not without cause blames Hesiod. for his distinction of days, good and evil, as if he were ignorant that all days were alike. To which purpose is here annexed the noble courage and resolution of Lucullus the Captain who with no less happy event then ripe judgement being endangered by an enemy, and upon an ominous day, as his soldiers termed it surprised, animated them on not withstanding to a famous rescue and victory, with this persuasion that giving the onset with resolution they should change a black day to a white, and the success was answerable.  
Q. Whether is the custom lawful or not, that is commonly used for the celebration of our birth days.  
A. The Heathens in ancient times had this custom in great esteem and reverence, & in some measure we may be imitators of them, but how we should celebrate ours, S. Austen hath given us a Rule that is with thankfulness and rejoicing in God, that he would have us born to be temples consecrate to him, then truly rejoicing when we find in ourselves a willingness and perfection in some measure to go forward and endeavour the end of our creation, which is the service of God, unto the which unless we refer our whole care we shall have small cause of rejoicing, but rather to wish we had never been borne.  
And most of the fathers are of opinion that none of all the Saints thus celebrated their birth days, but Gentiles as Pharaoh, Herod, and the like.  
From Heathens we descend a moment to the Pope and Rome.  
Q. The Pope borrows two prerogatives from the Apostles, and what are they?  
A. Saint Peter's keys, and S. Paul's sword, that what he cannot enter into by the one, he may enforce by the other, after the example of julius the 2. Pope of Rome, who leading his army along by the river Tiber, threw therein his keys, saying, When Peter's keys profit us nothing, then come out Paul's sword, and how it is drawn at this time, the world takes notice as against Venice, France, the Duke of Ferrara, and in an hurly burly, unsheathed throughout all Italy, The dog that with shut eyes barks against all truth.  
Q. Tell me in the virtue of holy obedience what garments wear they that preserved their wearers from the devil.  
A. The garments of S. Francis, as the Papists tell us, as if the devil could not as well know a knave in a friars habit, as in any other.  
Q. What is the reason of all other things, that the Pope christens his Bells, they having many times that pre-eminence before men.  
A. That the sound of them might drive devils out of the air, clear the skies, chase away storms & tempests, quench fires, and give some comfort to the very dead, and the like.  

To which purpose here the Bells ring out their own peal.  
En ego Campana, nunquam denuntio vana,  
Laudo deum verum, plebem voco, congrego elerum.  
Diffunctos plango, vivos voco, fulmina frango,  
Vex mea, vox vitae, voco vos ad sacra venite.  
Sanctos collaudo, tonitrus fugo, funera claudo  
Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabatha pango  
Exicto Lentos, dissipo ventos, paco ceventoes.   

Englished.  
Behold my uses are not small  
That God to praise assemblies call,  
That break the thunder, wail the dead  
And cleanse the air of tempests bred,  
With fear keep off the fiends of hell,  
And all by virtue of my knell.   
Q. What numb was the most fatal to Rome.  
A. The sixth number, according to the verse ensuing.  

Sextus Tarqvinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus & iste scilitet Papa Alexander 6.  
Semper sub sextis perdita Roma suit.   

What other names or numbers to her won.  
In the sixth still she lost, was Rome undone.   
Q. What inscription or motto was that (according to the fiction) which Martin de Asello fixing over his Gate, by reason of the false povating of the Painter, cost him his Bishopric.  
A. Portapatens esto nulli, claudaris honesto.  
Where the Painter mistaking himself made the point at nulli, and so made it: Gate be open to none, but shut out all honest men.  
The Pope riding that way before Martin had corrected his inscription, taking it professed knavery, discarded him of his Bishopric (as it was a wonder) and placed another in his house. Who kept the inscription still but only altered the point and made it thus, Porta patens esto, nulli claudaris honesto.  
Adding thereunto, 
Ob unum punctum caruit Martinus Asello.  

Gate open to the good and shut out none,  
For one poor point is all from Martin gone.    
Q. There is a certain thing that hath not the art of numeration, neither knows the order of time how it passeth, and yet lest we should be ignorant, or the time should deceive us, it instructs us both honestly.  
A. A Clock upon which on thus writeth, 

Qui nescit quo vita modo volat audiat bora,  
Quam sit vitae brevis nos docet ille sonus.   

He that would know how minutes steal away,  
That piece up hours, that patch out the day.  
This trusty watchman to supply our need,  
Proclaims our lives short span in their swift speed.    
Q. What are the natures and dispositions of the four Elements?  
A. The earth is dry, the water cold, the air moist, and the fire hot.  
Q Which is the highest of these Elements?  
A. The fire, whose nature is ever to mount upward, and if you turn it downward, it goes out thereupon. Thence proceeds Saint Chrysostom's admiration, that the Rays of the Sun in nature hot, in quality glorious, doth shoot downward, so contrary to the fire.  
Q What fire is that that sometimes follows, and sometimes flieth away.  
A. An Ignus fatuus, or walking fire (one whereof keeps his station this time near Windsor) the pace of which is caused principally by the motion of the air, for the swifter one runs, the swifter it follows, the motion of the air enforcing it.  
Q. What thing is that most useful and precious in the world, that produceth another of noose nor goodness at all.  
A. Fire, from whence proceeds smoke, of which Lipsius writes, Ita te tolle a humo ut absis a fumo.  
Q. What Coals do longest of all other preserne fire.  
A. The Coals of juniper of whom it is reported that they have kept fire a whole year together, without supply or going out.  
Q. What is that which being the heaviest, & hardest, of all things, yet yields both to the extremity of fire and water.  
A. A Stone.  
Q. What stone of all other is the greatest wonder.  
A. The flint stone that preserves fire within it, a wonderful secret and benefit to man.  
Q. What is that which being first water, afterwards assumed the form of a stone, and still retains it.  
A. The Crystal congealed by frost.  
Q. What stone is that that yields neither to the fire nor to the hammer.  
A. The Adamant, which as our Naturalists observe, is dissolved only by goats blood, whereupon S. Chrysostome writes, though the heart of a Sinner be more harder than the Adamant, yet will the blood of Christ mollify it.  
Q Whether have stones a vegitive life or no.  
A. This if we doubt our pioneers and Mineralists will resolve us, who find out by experience that although Minerals buried deep in the earth, yet through divers veins and channels, suck in moisture and nourishment, as do plants and trees, and that they do likewise increase and grow, though in a slower progression and degree, than other things is probable and certain.  
Q. Is there a difference of prerogative among stones.  
A. 'tis answered there is, 
For the stone in the Altar hath more honour than the stone in the street.  
For the one is kneeled unto with devotion, the other trodden on by the feet.   
Q. Which are the most precious stones for man's use.  
A. The two millstones of the mill,  

Of which the one never stirs, and the other ne'er lies still.   
Q. What birds of all other are the most gentle, the most innocent.  
A. The Dove for gentleness and simplicity, is commended in Scripture; for the Dove is among birds, as the Sheep is among beasts, from whose kind, no hurt proceeds to man, being a sociable creature for his service, of whom it is observed that he yields up his life for the sustenance of man, sobbing it out with a kind of meekness and patience, more than any other creature, and for his use there is nothing unnecessary for our service in the whole composure of him; his flesh being good for meat, his guts for the strings of Instruments, his dung to enrich the field, his wool for cloth, so nothing superfluous: So likewise the Dove, a patiented, not an offensive creature, without beak or talents of oppression; having no other offence against their enemy, the Hawk & such like, more than the swiftness of her wing, according to the Poet, 

Fello columbo caret, rostro non ledit,  
possidet innocuas, puraque grana ledit.   

Her food is grain, her beak doth not offend,  
No gall this creature hath, nor no bad end.  
And therefore they hate the Hawk, as it is said, because of his beak.   
Odimus Accipitrem quia semper vinit in armis.  

We hate the Hawk, and fear him near or far,  
Because his beak still threatens to us War.    
Q. Whence proceeds the mourning of the Dove.  
A. For fear of the miscarrying of her young, which she is so fruitful in, that she brings forth every month, or at least lays eggs, they join their beaks in the way of love, and conceive by billing.  
Q. What birds of all other are the most ravenous.  
A. The Eagle, the King of birds, of whom it is delivered that they never die, by old age or sickness, but by famia and that by reason of the upper part of her beak so inclapsing the under that she cannot open her mouth to receive her food. Eliamus writeth that the feathers of the Eagle, put among the feathers of other birds do consume and waste them away, as do the evil gotten goods of some rich oppressor, not only themselves, but together the whole lump, some whereof were well or much better gotten. To which purpose S. Chrysostome saith, a few riches evil gotten will not only waste themselves, but consume away those that are well gotten.  
Q. Why is the Eagle spread in the emperors Arms.  
A. Some think it was so given upon a compact between the Emperor of Germany and Constantinople, upon an agreement between them, that the succeeders in the German-Empire after Charles the great should be called Emperors of the west, as the Emperors of Constantinople, Emperors of the East, and so the head should look both ways, as the verse seems here to confirm it: 

Puntab ceps, aquila, huic occasum, huic aspicit ortum:  
Alter, ait, nostri est caesaris, alter erit.   

The Eagle spread had this and riper scope,  
To eye both present, and the future hope.    
Q. What bird is that, that hath the fairest feathers, but the most hellish voice of any other.  
A. The Peacock, whom the Poet terms to be 
Angelus in Penna, pede latro, voce geh●nna.  

A bird that hath an Angel's plume,  
A thievish pace, a Hellish tune.    
Pliny writes, that the Peacock envying the profit of man, devonres her own dung, lest he should make use of it.  
Q. What birds in the Scripture doth God prefer before wicked men.  
A. The Kite knows her time, as doth the Turtle, the Swallow and the Stork.  
Q. What birds are most perfect Heralds of the spring.  
A. The Swallow and the Cuckoo.  
Q. Is there any thing more of excellent observation in the Swallow.  
A. There is, and this is very observable of her, the discretion she uses in feeding her young, when having five in her nest, she ever gins at the eldest and so by degrees goeth over the rest, that all may have a like, and none be forgot. In the winter she flies not away, as it is reported of her, but is found to lie in her nest as dead, and to revive again with the approaching warmth of the Summer, which some take to be an Emblem of the resurrection.  
Q. What bird of all other is the most sweetest in voice?  
A. The Nightingale, who as Pliny notes, ever sings sweetest notes in the hearing or presence of man, and the reason is as the fiction leads us; for that the Cuckoo, and the Nightingale two choristers of that season, in some ripeneile of the spring, wherein they both take their tunes, which is most chief from the middle of April, to the end of May, fell into a controversy of the excellency of their voice & note, which dissension grew so far, that it could not be ended without an umpire, unto which the Ass was chosen, as thought a fit judge, by reason of his long ears, quick hearing, and presence, by whose judgement the Cuckoo was preferred, because her note was easy and plain to his capacity: the Nightingale thus cast, appeals to man for her censure, and where ever she sees him attentive, there she runs into the variety of her most excellent Ditties.  
Q. What in times past was the controversy for beauty or excellency between the Crow and the Goose?  The Crow says. 
Altera me in terris non est foecundior ales  
In all the earth no bird than I more white.  The Goose answers. 
Tu me pius loqueris, plus ego scribo tamen.  
though less I speak than thou, yet more I'll write.  
And concerning the Parrot, Aristotle was of opinion, that she would speak more and better than she doth, if she drunk but wine.  
Q. Who were those among men that attempted to fly like birds.  
A. Icarus and Dedalus, & of late an Italian that flew from the top of Sa●nt Mark●s tower in Venice, and did it without hurt: besides an Englishman that offered to undertake to fly over the Thames, but afterwards he flew from his purpose, and did it not: and as I have heard since, he is flown over the sea in a ship.  
Q. Who are the most merry, the most free, the most mad, and the most blessed in the world.  
A. The most merry ●are Popish Priests that sing when others weep, both before they die, and after they are dead.  
The most free are Physicians, that are only licenced to kill without punishment, so that what is death to others, is gain to them.  
The most mad are nice Grammarians, that fight a bout vowels, and for air and sound, and with as much bitterness as the Turk against the Rhodes.  
The fourth are the poor that are blessed, to which I incline, though with Agur I pray to give me neither poverty nor riches, but contentedness.  
Though Ovid could say concerning their blessedness.  
Non tamen hoc tanti est pauper ut esse velim.  

Though blessings be for them in store,  
To be their heir I'd not be poor.   
Q Wherefore have Grammarians form three genders in Art, seeing there are but two in Nature: or why doth not Nature bring forth things of the Neuter gender as well as of the Masculine and the Feminine?  
A. Let him tell the cause of that who can, or if he cannot, let him seek out another Palemon that can untie this knot, for my heyser shall not blow this.  
Q What is that which knows not itself to speak, understands not a voice, yet conceals not, but repeats the voice of him that speaks.  
A. Echo the daughter of the air and tongue.  
Q. What may come into thy mind by recording these five musical vowels.  VT RE MI FA SOL LA. 
A. The custom of drunkards, for when they drink, 

Incipiunt in Vt, & bibunt Vtiliter  
Incipiunt in Re, & bibunt Regulariter  
Incipiunt in mi, & bibunt mirabiliter  
Pergunt in fa & bibunt familiariter  
Pergunt in Sol & bibunt solemniter.   Desinunt in La mi, quia exitus Lamentabilis & miserabilis.  
Englished. 

They begin in Vt, & drink savingly  
They begin in Re, & drink Regularly  
They begin in mi, & drink miracu:  
They hold on in fa drinking familiarly  
They hold on in sol drinking solemnly.   And ending in La mi, because the end is lamentable and miserable.  
Q. What creatures are those, some living, and some dead, that rule all the world?  
A. The sheep, the goose, and the Bee; for the sheep yields parchment, the geose quills to write it, and the Bee wax to seal it.  
Q. What creatures are those that are both in the heavens, in the earth, and in the Sea?  
A. The Dog, and Serpent or Dragon, according to the Poet: 
Latrat in ede Canis, not in equore, fulget astris.  

though more confined creatures more do pine,  
The Dog in house, Sea, Sky, doth bark, swim shine.    
Q. Whether are there more or greater living creatures bred on the earth, or in the Sea.  
A. In the Sea (as all writers testify and agree upon, and this moreover they add) that there is no creature on the earth that hath not his like in the Sea, and yet there are many in the Sea that the earth cannot parallel, nor any other place, and beside, with this good difference, that those creatures that are hurtful on the earth, in the waters are not so, as the snakes and such like there are without their venom, and offenceless.  
Q. What is that which nothing being more heau●er of itself, yet nothing more movable, and if you keep it not within bounds, severs itself into many particulars, yet after runs into one lump and being itself unchangeable, changeth and altereth the form and colour of things?  
A. Quicksilver.  
Q. What herb is that which presents the form of a man?  
A. The root of the Mandrake.  
Q. Whether is it of truth or not, that ●vulgarly reported, that those that dig up this root escape not without death?  
A. Nothing less, yet hath it of itself a soporiferous nature, to procure sleep, drunk, or applied even as Opium to death.  
Q. What creature is that which at once brings forth, nourisheth her young and goeth with young again?  
A. The Hare, that fearful and pursued creature, of whom according to Pliny, the males bring forth as the femaless, unto which no other creature may compare in fruitfulness: but Coneys those cunning pioneers that have undermined and subverted cities, and the money of usury that no sooner is begot itself but it presently engenders.  
Q. Among all beasts, and birds, which are of the most beauteous and various colours.  
A. The Peacock among birds, is as the Panther among beasts, only in this they differ, that whereas the peacocks deformity is his feet, the Panther's his head.  
Q. What kind of men are the● which being as beasts themselves, sit upon beasts, carries beasts on their hands, have beasts running about them, and all to pursue and kill beasts?  
A. Unlettered huntsmen, of which Saint Jerome further addeth, that Esau was a hunter, and Nimrod, and both wicked men, and that he had scarce read in the Scripture of any holy man that was an hunter; not that he thought it impossible to be so, as if they were adjuncts not be separated, nor that they were wicked, because they hunted but that they hunted being wicked men.  
Q. What twice two things are those that are oftentimes said to devour their masters.  
A. Haec bis bina canes, & aves, seruique atque caballi 
Dicantur Dominos, sepe vorare suos.  

Hawks, hounds, and horses, servants, pride and stealth:  
Are ofttimes found to devour their master's wealth.   Unto which may be annexed another distributer of misery and penury, not inferior, if not greater than any of the rest, which is gaming or dice; and therefore as the saying is: 

Ludens taxillis bene respice quid sit in illis,  
Spestua, restua, sorstua, morstua, pen● dit in illis.   

At Dice who plays in this conceit may enter.  
My hope, my health, my life, my wealth to venture.    
And all thereby: and therefore if he would prevent his danger, by cunning let him know the more cunning he is in this art, the more wicked he is in his life.  
A good rule to be observed both for our profit and carriage.  

 Amores. 
 Moors. 
 Oars. 
 Res. 
 Aes.  

Haec tua verbaiubent fugiendos semper amores  
Mores seruandos emnibus essebonis  
Noctes atque dies orando rebus et uti  
Prudenter proprijs, nec Lapidanda bona.   

These words unto us this instruction preach,  
First fly fond loves, of many a good the breach,  
Next keep good manners, and the good embrace,  
For that becomes, then pray in every place,  
Next use thy goods with moderation fit,  
And thou shalt reap both praise and benefit.   
Q. There are two things that cannot be too much trimmed, and what are they.  
A. A ship, and a woman.  
Q. In what places are wives of best use and most fit.  
A. One of Martions scholars answered in Thalamo et in Tumulo, In the bed, and in the tomb.  
Q. By what reasons were the Ancient Poets used to 〈◊〉 marriages.  
A. By comparing the adventure of such a one to the wracked Seaman, that once a shore, will notwithstanding to Sea again; according to the verse.  
The man that once from marriage free yet hasteth to that pain,  
Resembleth much the wracked man that will to sea again.  
Q. What was the young man's answer wherefore he would not marry a widow.  
A. Because according to the old saying, He would not drink in the water that another had died by tasting of, as follows.  In qua quis peri●t non ●ibo dixit aquam. 
Q. How comes it to pass that learned men, wisemen, Churchmen, and such like, choose notwithstanding all their wisdom, many times, wives impatient, contextious, and troublesome.  
A. It is not to be doubted but that marriage is a fate suffered or appointed by God, Gen. 28.48. and therefore not always in the power of every man, to choose according to his wisdom & understanding at all times: but that wise and learned men, should many times if they have not evil & unchaste wives, meet yet with those that are bitter and contentious, unto them, I can give no, reason for it but this fate, unless it be for this cause, that when abroad they reprove other men's faults and errors, they may have at home those that may preach to them their own weaknesses and infirmities. And therefore as one saith, howsoever it must be our wisdoms to love them, since it was fortune to have them, & for their faults we must either seek to remove them, or endeavour to bear them, if we can take them away we make them the fit for ourselves, if not, we become bettered ourselves in our patience.  
Q. Who are those that plough the sands, till another's ground, and leave their own field unhusbanded.  
A. The Adulterer, who is said to want two of his five senses, at least not to have the true use of them. That is his seeing and hearing, for if he could see, he might behold the immediate destruction that waits at the threshold of that sin, if he could not see yet he might hear from the testimony of woeful experiencers, that cry out in each corner, this path I trod, and it brought me to destruction.  
Q. I know thou art diligent in reading the Scriptures, therefore show me in what one Chapter of the Bible all the five senses are described.  
A. Gen. 27. vers. 4. seeing. ver. 18. hearing. ver. 21. touching. ver. 25. tasting. ver. 27. smelling. The 5. windows of the soul, of which one thus writes, 

S Lucem occulis video, & varios discerno colores  
H Consona me iuvat, offendit simphonia discors.  
S Fragranti oblector, visioso offendor ●dore  
T Insipidum & sapidum quid sit me indice constat  
T Sentio quid Callidum aut Gellidum quid molle quid asprum.   

The seeing, light & colours doth descry  
The hearing, tunes and discords doth arraine,  
The smelling, odours, sweet and sour doth try,  
The taste, respects the Cooks both art and pain  
The touching, hard and soft, and hot and cold,  
Through these 5. windows doth the soul behold.    
Q What is the least member in the body, and yet darkens the whole man.  
A. The eye lid.  
Q. Is the most perfect eyesight sometimes deceived.  
A. Oftentimes, and assoon as any other of the senses for example, cast a strait staff into a troubled water, and ●t appears to the eye as crooked and wavering, Stand upon the shore, thou seest the ship go, stand upon the ship, why then thy eye will tell thee, the shore goes, and the ship stands stil. So the head being distempered, thou shalt think fixed things move, and one flame two.  
Q What is the the swiftest of all things in the world?  
A One answered the Sun, because his speed is such that in a day he compasseth the whole circuit of the earth. But another replied, that thought was swifter than that, because it traveled the whole world in a moment.  
Q. What four evils are those that chief trouble a house.  

Sunt mala terna domus, imber, mala femina, fumus,  
Quartum cum mane, surgunt pueri sine pane.   

A smoke, a storm, & a contentious wife  
Three ills are found that tire a husband's life:  
To which a 4. is by the proverb sed,  
When children cry for hunger wanting bread.   
Of Martin Luther and P. Melancthons' eloquence and sweetness.  

Divisae his operae sed mens suit unica, pavit  
o'er Lutherus oves, flore Melancthon apes.   

Twixt Luther and Melancthon so long gone,  
There works were divers, though there faith was one.   
For Luther soundness loaded by degrees His sheep, as did Melanctons' flowers his bees.  
Q. What means this speech, nourish not the whelp of the Lion.  
A. It gives to understand that we are not to cherish any power above the Law, nor to foster that strength that may afterwards oppress zs.  
Q. Why do they that are troubled with the Gout ever love to talk most.  
A. Because they cannot run with with their feet, they love to run with their tongue. For the benefit of any member we are deprived of, having two of them, we esteem the other in the reckoning of them both, as concerning the eye, no man desires to be blind, or to have but one eye, yet if any mischance should befall the one, we esteem the other the dearer, as it follows in the v. 9.  

Non habeo, nec habere velim, quod sitamen ad sit  
Noncarean craesi si mihi dentur opes.   

Mine eye I would not sell for dross,  
Though Croesus' wealth repayrd my loss   
None more blind the Bayard as the saying is, nor none more forward to venture than he that lest knows the dangers that he enterprises, as by this example is made manifest.  
The trees on a time went forth to select them a king, and in their progress they came to the Olive tree, and said unto it reign over us and be king but it refused, saying, shall I forsake my fatness, wherewith I am suppled, and man is nourished, no I will not; & with these and the like reasons refused their offer. Then they came to the fig tree and said, reign over us; who answered shall I leave my sweetness and fruits more delicate than the honey of Hybla. Then they came to the Vine and she refused saying, shall I forego my sweet shade, and comfortable clusters, that comfort and make glad the heart of man, it shall not be. Then spoke the Bramble let me be king over you, that I may curb you with sharp laws, & thus what the good refused, the worst offers to take up and embrace, for none are more ambitious than the underseeming, as in the proposition before declared.  
Q What waters of all other are the most deceitful?  
A. The tears of a woman, the which in the blessed weeper, are called the blood of the soul.  
Q. What creatures of all other are the most wanton.  
A. Insatiate women, according to the Poets: 

Gallin● Gallus ter qui ni sufficit unus,  
At ter quin● viri vix sufficit mulieri.   

One Cock sufficeth twice five hen.  
Scarce one lewd woman twice 5. men.    
Q. What women of all other are the most fruitful?  
A. Beggars wives, that of all other one would think should be most barren.  
Q. Of imperious women what did Cato report?  
A. Cato said, our wives rule the common wealth, for we govern the people, and our wives govern us. To which purpose Themistocles said, O wife the Athenians rule the Grecians, I the Athenians, thou me thy son thee. Therefore in my opinion he spoke not amiss that said, he never knew common wealth, nor private family well governed, where the hen crew, and the cock held his peace; for though it be said of women that they are so able of tongue, that 3. of their clappers will make a reasonable noise for a market, yet though they talk, they should not command or at least wise should not govern.  
Q. Whether was the night or the day first.  
A. Thal. Milesius answereth, the night was before the day as in the creation is manifest, so the evening and the morning were the first day. From which notwithstanding we vary in our opinions, as preferring the day before it: and for because the evening is but the latter part of the day, which must precede it.  
Q. How many colours are there in the Rainbow.  
A. Various colours, but two especially most apparent, a watery, and a fiery colour, which two colours express two judgements, the one of water past, in beginning of the world; and the other of fire to come, in the end thereof.  
Q. Which is the longest day in all the year.  
A. S. Barnaby answereth, that which hath the shortest night.  
Q. How many are the properties of good wine.  
A. As many as there are senses in man's body, for to every sense should good wine have a relation. 

1 To the sight good colour, pureness and clearness.  
2 To the hearing, being powered forth, a sparkling and speaking noise.  
3 To the taste sweetness.  
4 To the touching, coldness.  
5 To the smell sweetness.    
Q. How many are the veins in the body of man?  
A. As many as there are days in the year, of which one thus writeth, 
That every thing we do may vain appear,  
We have a vein for each day in the year.   
Q. How many bones are there in the body of man?  
A. It is answered according to Galen, Hipocrates, and others, that there are in man's body 248. which are thus singly collected, in the head 49. in the breast 67. in the arms and hands, 61. in the feet 60.  
Q. At what years doth a child present half his height?  
A. Between the 3. and 4. year.  
Q. How many teeth hath he according to the Poet's rule?  
A. Sunt homini Dentes, trigenta duo comedentes.  
The grinders which in time are said to cease,  
Are numbered thirty two at best increase.  
Q. How many are the senses of the soul?  
A. Though ●he sensible things of the world be numberless, yet the Organ of the sen●e that coprehends them are but five. 1. Touching. 2. Tasting. 3. Feeling. 4. Hearing. 5. Smelling.  
Q. What is the quickest and best sense of all other.  
A. The eyes.  
Q. Which is their best object and noblest use?  
A. Their use is admirable and excellent in this world. 1. To distinguish and show us the variety and beauty of all things in the world, but yet their chief use shall be, through the effusion of his heavenly light, face to face, to see God in the world to come.  
Q. What sense had the greatest hand in the first transgression?  
A. The eye.  
Q. How showeth it his sorrow.  
A. By shedding tears, which no other sense doth or can.  
Q. From whence proceed tears.  
A. Out of the brains most thin and liquid excrement, of which) being the moistest part of the whole body, and twice as much in quantity as the brain of an Ox) it yieldeth great plenty.  
Q. How do they see?  
A. Not by sending the rays unto the object, but by receiving beams from thence, which ever end with pointed Angels in them, where if the object be far of, it ends in them in a sharp point, and so the thing seems small; if near, in a broader point, and thereby seems greater.  
Q. How many things are required to a perfect sight?  
A. Nine things, viz. 

1 Power to see.  
2 Light.  
3 The visible thing.  
4 Not too small.  
5 Not too thin.  
6 Not too nigh.  
7 Not too far.  
8 Clear space,  
9 Time.    
Q. What four things be those that be grievous to our eye sight?  
A. 

1 Smoke out of the moist wood.  
2 Wind in a storm.  
3 Tears.  
4 To see our enemies fortunate, and our friends unhappy.    
Q. What things doth the eyes most betray that a man would keep secret.  
A. Love, and drunkennessee.  
Q. What it the office of the ears, and and wherefore are they placed on high, with windings and turnings in them.  
A. To receive the sound or air into them, which forms a noise in the mazes, whereof the soul makes a distinction; they are placed on high, because all sounds mount aloft; with turnings and windings in them, that the sound may not too hastily strike the brain: it is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense of all the other; for as those that have no skill in Music, can perceive a discord, & though they know what is good, yet find what is evil; the most delightful ●une they hear is the Music of the Psalms from the voices of men and women.  
Q. Wherefore have we two years and but one tongue.  
A. That we should hear twice as much as we speak.  
Q. Wherefore have our eyes lids to shut them, when our ears are always o● pen, our ears fixed, and our eyes movable?  
A. Our ears are open to hear the proof of every tale, and unmoved to the end that though they quickly hear, they be not quickly moved to censure over rashly, and these two are the chief intelligencers, and servants of the soul, the other three attend upon the body.  
Q. How is the taste discerned?  
A. By veins which spread through the tongue and palate, to distinguish every relish, the abusive pleasing of which sense, as experience teacheth, through Cookery, and Sauces, hath killed more bodies, then either the sword, famine, or pestilence.  
Q. Where is the seat of the smelling?  
A. In the nostrils; for as GOD breathed the breath of life into them, so makes he it their virtue by the sea●e of that sense in them, to distinguish all airs, profitable or hurtful to the body of men.  
Q. What are the benefits of good scents to the body.  
A. To purify the brain, refine the wit, awake the fancy; to which purpose old devotion ordained Incense to make such minds the more apt for heavenly contemplations; yet some are of opinion, these perfumes are but unnecessary furnishments, since as the Proverb is, they smell best that smell of nothing.  
Q. From whence is derived the power of feeling?  
A. The feeling power which is the root of life, spreads itself through every part of the body, by sinews, which descend from the head to the foot, and like a Net spread all over the body, she discerns (even as the Spider sitting in the midst of her web) if aught do touch the outward thread of it, she feels it presently shaking on every side; by this sense we do discern, hot, cold, moist, dry, hard, soft, rough, pleasure, and pain.  
Q. What may the memory be compared unto?  
A. To the Sea and the Land, the part that retaineth all, to the Land, that devoureth all, to the Sea, being likewise the Lay man's table-book, that remembers much, and forgets much, her seat is in the hindermost part of the brain behind.  
All which in manner may be thus varied. 
Q. 
A.  What is the body? 
The dwelling of the soul.  What the eyes? 
The leaders of the soul.  What are the brows? 
The portal of the mind.  What is the ear? 
The interpreters of sounds.  What the lips? 
The leaves of the mouth.  What are the hands? 
The workmen of the body.  What the heart? 
The receptacle of life,  What the lungs? 
The bellows of the air.  What the stomach? 
The orderer of the meats.  What the bones? 
The strength of the body.  What are the legs? 
The Collumes of the body.    
Aliter,  

Cor sapit, & Pulmo lequitur, Felc●m, movet iram,  
Splen●idere facit, cogit amore iccur.   

Wisdom the heart, the lungs the laughter move,  
Gall, spleen, and liver, anger, laughter love.   
Q. How are these following Denominations, distinguished to their particulars as of reason, understanding, opinion, and the like.  
A. 

1. When by moving from ground to ground she sifts things out, she obtains the name of reason.  
2. When by reason she hath found truth and standeth fixed, she is understanding.  
3. When she lightly inclines her assent to either part, she is opinion.    
Q. What is the difference between wit, and will.  
A. Will is the Prince, and Wit is the Counsellor, which sits in counsel for the common good of the man; for what Wit resolves upon, Will executes; Wit is the minds chief justice, which often controls the false judgement of Fancy; Will is as free as an Emperor, cannot be limited, barred of her liberty, or made will by any coaction, when she is unwilling to: and lastly, their chief use is, our Wit being given us to know God, our Will to love him being known.  
Q. Which are the three first members form in the womb after conception.  
A. The heart, the brain, and the liver, the three chief members of life.  
Q. Which is the last made.  
A. The eye. The interpretation of the mind; The last member form in the womb, and the first that loseth his motion in death, for in that exigent, the spirits of the sight betake themselves to the brain, as to their castle of refuge, a sure token of death.  
Q. When a man dies, which is the last part of him that stirs, and which of a woman.  
A. To answer merrily and not altogether impertinently, 'tis said the last part of a man that stirs, is his heart, but of a woman, her tongue.  
Q. A wise man said, that from the most vildest creatures on the earth, just matter might be had whereby to glorify God; to this one answered, what tak'st thou from the Serpent, whereby to glorify him.  
A. To praise him that he made me not such a one: To which purpose is here annexed a story of one, who seeing a Toad lie in the way fell a weeping; two Bishops coming by, inquired his reason, who answered, that the sight of that ugly and loathsome creature had admonished him of his ingratitude to God, that had never given him thanks for the excellency of his creation, being made after his own Image, when he being but as clay in the Potter's hands, it was in his power to have made him a vessel of dishonour, yea even the basest and deformed, such a one as that Toad.  
Q. What is the most beautiful thing in the world.  
A. One answered, the Sun, but another replied, that blind men saw not that, and therefore he concluded that Virtue was much more resplen, dent, which even the blind might perceive perfectly.  
Q. What is the strongest of all things.  
A. One answered, Wine, another a King, a third a Woman, and all these are very powerful, but truth is the strongest of all, which overcomes all things.  
Q. Who is the greatest opposer of this Truth.  
A. One answered, the Pope, who as Baleus recites, is so opposite, that commonly whatsoever he praise●, is worthy of dispraise; for whatsoever he thinks is vain, whatsoever he speaks is false, whatsoever he dislikes, is good, whatsoever he approves is evil, and whatsoever he extols, infamous.  
Q. What seat is ordained for Popes after this life.  
A. Heaven they continually sell, and daily offer to sale, and therefore Hell is their place in reversion according to the Poet, 
Vendidit & coelum Romanus & Astra sacerdos.  
Ad Stigias igitur cogiturire domos.   
Q. What part of speech is Papa, for the Pope.  
A. Part of a participle, because he partakes part from the Clergy, part from the Laity, and part from both without Mo●d or ●e●se, Papa nec D●us, Nec Angelus, Nec Homo● quid tunc. the Pope is neither God, Angel, nor Man; what then? Diabolus.  
Q. Who are those that pray for all, Defend all, Feed all, Devour all?  
A. In an old picture, I found it thus written, The Pope with his Clergy, says, I pray for you all; Caesar with his Electors, I defend you all; The Clown with his sack of Corn, I nourish you all: at last comes Death and says, I devour you all.  
Q. What little fish is that in the Sea that hath the greatest strength?  
A. The Rhemora, a little fish of half a foot long, which but by fastening upon it, will stay a Ship under sail with wind and tide.  
Q. What thing is a Lion most afraid of.  
A. The crowing of a Cock, and the noise of a Cartwheele.  
Q. What difference of Days is there of the Christians, the Turks, and the jews Sabbaoth.  
A. The Christians keep their Sabbaoth on Sunday: The jews on the Saturday: and the Turks on the Friday, in scorn of Christ that was that day crucified.  
Q. What is death very fitly resembled unto.  
A. To a woman or a shadow, for seek it and it flies you, fly it and it seeks you: & so a Woman according to the Poet.  
Fellow a shadow it still flies you,  
Seem to fly, it will pursue you,  
So court a woman she denies you,  
Let her alone, she will court you.  
Q. What is that, which of running becomes stayed, of soft becomes hard, of weak becomes strong, and of that which is infinite becomes but one.  
It is answered, Ice.  
Q. Whether was Christ all ever Ice.  
A. It is answered, that those waters which are congealed with a continual and daily cold, as by the space of ten or twenty years, are called Crystal, by reason of their transparency, and are for the most part found upon the Alpine Mountains, elevated against the face of the North, where they become so hard that sc●rce they ever after yield to the hammer.  
Q. What liquor of all other soonest extinguisheth the fire.  
A. Vinegar, for the exceeding piercing coldness and eagerness it hath.  
Q What is the strongest of all things in the world.  
A. Thal. Mill. answered, Fate; another Death, because it overcomes all things.  
Q. How many letters are there in the holy tongue?  
A. As many as there are books in the old Testament, of which one thus further observes, that as 22. letters form our voice, so 22. books contain our faith.  
Q. What comparison is there between Prophets and Poets?  
A. Thus much according to the old verse: 

Illi de rebus praedicere vera futuris,  
Hi de perteritis dicere falsa solent.   

Englished.  
Of things to come, these truly make us know,  
What the other of things past, doth falsely show.    
Q. Who were those that were seen to eat after their deaths?  
A. Christ, Lazarus, the daughter of jayrus and others.  
Q. Upon what kind of persons according to Diogenes opinion, are not benefits to be bestowed.  
A. 

1 N●t upon old men, because they li●e not to require them.  
2 Upon children, because they forget them.  
3 Upon dishonest folks, because they will never require them.    
Q. Who are those that see many things far off, but little near at hand?  
A. Old men; blind in the present-tense, but for the most part, quick-sighted in the preterimperfect tense.  
Q How comes it that the Husband seeks the wife, and not the contrary, the wife the Husband?  
A. Because the m●n seeks that which he lost, that is his ri●, which was taken from him in the forming of Woman out of his side, and therefore when a man marries a wife, what doth he but fetch back the rib which he first lost.  
Q. What is the choosing of wines fitly compared unto.  
A. Sir Tho. More was wont to say, to the plucking by casualty eels out of a Bag, wherein, for every Eel, are twenty Snakes.  
Q. What is the dearest loss of all others.  
A. The loss of time which cannot be recovered, of which one thus complains.  

Damna fleorerum, sed plus fleo Damna dierum,  
Quisque potest rebus succurere, nemus diebus.   

Thus Englished.  
The loss of wealth, I much lament  
But more what time decay,  
For wealth may be regained that's spent  
But never loss of days.   
Q. It being demanded of Aristotle, whether a fault committed in drunkenness were to be punished or remitted, a man not being the ●● himself.  
A It was answered, He which in drunkenness committed any offence was worthy of double punishment; first, for being drunk; secondly, for his offence therein.  
Q. Who are those that draw death out of that wherewith others preserve life?  
A. The Drunkard and the Glutton.  
Q. What two Monasillables, are those that divide the whole world.  
A. These two Pronownes, Mine and Thine.  
Q. Of Retribution, how many be the sorts, and what are the best or worst degrees therein.  
A. There are four sorts, which are these following, 

1. To repay good for good, fitness.  
2. To repay evil for evil, perverseness.  
3. To repay evil for good, Divellishnesse.  
4. To repay good for evil, Blessedness.    
Q How many things are chief required in a good Chirurgeon?  
A. These three properties. 

1. A Hawks eye.  
2. A lions heart, and  
3. A Lady's hand.    
Q. Cato repent himself of three things, and what were they?  
A. 

1. That ever he believed a woman.  
2. That he ever spent time idly.  
3. That he ever went by water when he might go by land.    
Q What were those three things Saint Austin wished he had lived to have seen.  
Paulum in ore Romam in flore Christum in corpere.  
A. 

1. Rome in her flourishing estate  
2. To hear Saint Paul preach.  
3. To have seen Christ in the flesh.    
But we, saith Lactantius, will give God thanks that we are not Pagans, but Christians, that we live in the time of the new Testament, and not of the Old.  
Q Plato gave thanks to nature for four things, and what were they?  
A. 

1. That he was a man and not a Beast.  
2. That he was a man and not a woman.  
3. That he was a Grecian and not a Barbarian.  
4. That he lived in the time of Socrates.    
Q. In how many forms doth a Physician appear to his Patient.  
A. In these three forms, 

1. In the form of an Angel when he promiseth help.  
2. In the form of a God when he performs it.  
3. In the form of a Devil when he asketh his reward.   And therefore it is the Physicians rule, Accipe dum dolet: Take the sound fee whilst the sick hand giveth it.  
Q. What three things are those that chief preserve life?  
A. A joyful Heart, a quiet Mind, a moderate Diet.  
Q. What two things are those that make equal the Miserable and the Happy.  
A. Sleep and death.  
Q. What passion and disease are those that cannot be hid?  
A. Love and the Chin● cough.  
Q. What is the cause that the Devil above any other beast of the field should assume the form of a Serpent: and that out of the putrefaction of man's body, worms and serpents should be produced?  
A. It is answered, according to Melancthon, because man was puffed up with the Poison of the Serpent in Paradise, the Devil hath ever since delighted in the form of a Serpent, for the conquest then achieved in that shape, and to this day it is reported, that in some part of Africa and Asia, are found Serpents that Devils do inhabit: And that out of man's corruption, Serpents do and should spring; the cause is manifest, that it is from the impurity and filthiness of sin, of which as one implieth, it is not unnecessary, that out of a man's flesh, a substance of the greatest sin against God, should creatures be engendered of the greatest hate and enmity to man.  
Q. What is the wisest of all things?  
A. Tha. Mal. answered, Time; for it finds out all things, teacheth and altereth all things.  
Q. What People are those that have but one Day and Night in the whole year?  
A. Those that live under the Pole Arctic, for to those the Sun never ascends the Horizon 24. degrees, nor comes under it, so that they have six signs above, and six beneath it.  
Q. Whether may the Bat be reckoned amongst the number of birds or Mice?  
A. The Bat possesseth such an evenness betwixt both, that she cannot justly be said to be absolutely either the one or the other, for she hath wings but no feathers, she flies but in the Evening, she hath teeth which no bird hath, and she nourisheth her young with milk, which no bird doth, yet because she hath wings and flies, we reckon her among the Number of Birds.  
Q. What birds are the most wicked, but the shortest lived?  
A. Sparrows, which for their much salacitie and wantonness, live not above two years, Zenocrates tells a story of a Sparrow, which pursued by a Hawk, flew into his bosom for refuge, which he took and kept, and the bird would still attend on him.  
Q. What creatures of all other, are the longest lived?  
A. Man, the Daw, the Hart, and the Phoenix, whereas most other compared with them are short, the Hare living but ten years, the Cat as many, the Goat, but eight, the Ass 30. The Sheep ten, the Dog 14 and sometimes 20. The Bull 15. the Ox because gelded 20. the Sow and Peacock 20. the Horse 20. and sometimes 30. the Dove eight, the Turtle eight, the Partridge twenty and five.  
Q What Creature of all other, sheds Tears at his death.  
A. The Hart, that fearful and dry creature that brays after the water Brookes, Psal. 24.  
Q. What chief fat's a Horse?  
A. The eye of the Master.  
Q. One asked Aristotle what was the fruit of all his Philosophy.  
A. Who answered to do that out of a free disposition, which laws and enforcements do compel others unto.  
Q. What kind of Creatures are those that sleep not with their own faces?  
A. Painted women, for the most part suspicious harlots.  
Q. What is that, that is too hard for one to keep, enough for two, and too much for three?  
A. A Secret.  
Q. To whom may a man best commit his secret.  
A. To a common Liar, for he shall not be believed though he tell truth.  
Q What waters of all others ascend highest.  
A. The Tears of the faithful which God gathers into his Bottle.  
Q. Of all the Fishes in the Sea, which do our Naturalists observe the swiftest.  
A. The Dolphin, which swims faster than either Bird or Arrow flies, which fish of all others, is most dangerous to Mariners.  
Q. What three Letters are those that make us bond men and free.  
A. They are E V A, which inverted are A V E the Angel's salutation.  
Q. What two Letters are those that young Infants first cry out upon.  
A. E A according to the Poet, 
Clamabunt E A quotquot nascuntur ab Eua.  

All cry out of E. and A.  
That are borne of Eua.   The males especially upon A. and the females upon E. except Zoroaster, of whom it is read that he was borne laughing, who as Pliny notes was the first finder out of Magic.  
Q. What is that which being contained in itself, yet from it thousands do daily spring and issue.  
A. The Eglantine from whence are produced, fowls, fishes, birds, and serpents.  
Q. Whether was the Eglantine or the bird first  
A. The reason of this cannot be understood naturally; since the Egg without the Bird, nor the Bird without the Egg could be brought forth, But we are to understand that the first ●a●ke of Creatures were immediately f●om God without any other secondary cause, and this great difference there is between God the first nature, and the second Nature.  
Q. What thinkest thou of this question whether the drunken man drinks up the wine, or the wine drinks up him.  
A. It is either, for when thou hast the Wine in the cup, it is in thy power, but when it is in thy body, thou art in the power of it; when thou drinkest first, thou takest the Wine for thy pleasure, but after thou hast drunk it, it taketh thee; first it is a servant and yields itself unto the drinker, but afterwards spreading itself into the veins, it becomes a Master, and is like fire in the top of the Chimney.  
Q. In a certain Banquet much wine being given to Diogenes, he powered it down on the ground, and being asked the reason, why he spilled it,  
A. Answered, If I drink it, I not only spill it, but it also spills me.  
Q. How many ways doth man fall?  
A. The question is infinite, we die a thousand ways, though we are born but one.  
Sunt hominum morbi mill sed una salus:  
He hath a thousand diseases and but one health.  
Q. The devil asked a holy man these three questions.  
1. What was the greatest wonder that ever God made in a little circuit?  
To which the holy man answered, the face of man, that being all of one substance and form, there should not be found in all the world two men, their faces like in all things, and that in so small a room God had blazed all the sense.  
2. Whether the Earth were higher than the Heavens?  
To which he answered, that the body of Christ which is the substance of the Earth, as from Adam, was exalted above the Heavens, and so the Earth to be higher.  
3. How much was the distance between Heaven and Earth.  
To the which the holy man answered (not containing himself any longer with patience) thou knowest the space better than I, for thou measuredst it when thou fellest from Heaven, so never I, at which speech the Devil vanished away.  
Q. Diogenes being asked what win● of all others he loved best?  
A. Answered, that which he drank of another man's cost.  
Q. What is the heaviest burden that the Earth bears?  
A. Sin, for sin weighs down to Hell.  
Q. What tree in the forest doth the Serpent most hate to come near?  
A. The Ash according to Virgil, the fairest in the wood, which the Serpent neither comes under, nor within the shade, as also the juniper tree.  
Q. What seed is that which joineth together England and France, and many other far distant Countries?  
A. Heempseed, of which is made the sails for ships, which transport them far and near.  
Q. What three ways are they among other that are not to be found out.  
A. Via avis, via Navis, via juvenis, ● The flight of a Bird, the passage of a Ship, and the way of a young man.  
Q. What four things are those that especially pervert justice.  
A. 

1. Fat gifts.  
2. Hatred.  
3. Favour.  
4. Fear.    
Q. What may Law in the abuse thereof most fuly be compared unto.  
A. To a thicke● of Brambles, into which by tempest the poor Sheep being driven from the plains, come there for refuge, and so lose their fleeces.  
Q. What was a great man of this Kingdom used to compare Courtiers unto?  
A. To Ember● weeks or Fasting●Eues; the hungriest and the leanest of themselves, yet bordering still upon great ones.  
Q Who be those that may lie most freely and without control?  
A. 

1. Great men that few men dare reprove.  
2. Old men that few men can gain say.  
3. travelers that may lie by authority.    
Q. What is that which is commendable both to do, and not to do?  
A. To know when to speak, and when to keep silence, according to the Poet.  
Scire loqui laus est, laus est quoque scire tacere,  
Illa magis pulchra est, haec quoque pulchra magis.  
Q. What things are those most virtual and of greatest secrecy and force above other.  
A. Christus vim verbis, vim gemmis, vim dedit herbis: Verbis maiorem, gemmis, herbisque minorem.  
Or thus, 
Stellis ac herbis vis est, sed maxima verbis.  

Englished.  
To herbs, and stones, much virtue Christ affords,  
But more to speech, for life and death are words.    
Q. What is the greatest of all movable things, yet commanded by the least violence or strength?  
A. A Ship commanded by the stern, a little piece of wood.  
Q. Who is the most renowned for memory that stories make mention of.  
A. Seneca, who writes of himself that he was able to recite 2000 names after they were once read unto him.  
Q. What breaks the shell at the coming out of the chicken.  
A. It is answered, and that by a double reason, the one because in that time, the shell by continual heat and sitting upon becometh tender and soft, so that the least stirring effecteth it; another cause of breaking thereof, and that is the principal, is the defect of nourishment, which at the end of the time is wasted in the shell, which the chicken wanting exposeth itself to seek, and so breaketh it, as likewise the defect thereof is the natural cause of all other Birds.  
Q. Whose Cock, whose Dog, and whose servant may be kept at the cheapest rate.  
A. The Miller's Cock, the Butcher's Dog, and the Innkeepers, servant.  
Q. What was that City Aristotle so magnified above others for beauty, largeness and strength.  
A. The City of Babylon, the Walls whereof were fifty cubits thick, 200. cubits high, this City was foursquare 15. miles from corner to corner, 60 miles in compass, it had 100 Gates, with threesholds and posts of Brass, which when it was taken by Darius by drawing the river Euphrates dry, those that dwelled in the farthest parts heard not of it in three days. It was destroyed according to the prophesy of jeremy, and is now a desert for wild beasts.   

Hereafter follow certain Grammatical Questions.  
Q. Which is the best verse in all Virgil?  
A Aeneid, 6. Discite justitiam moniti, & non temnite Divos.  
Q. Which is the worst in all Virgil.  
A. Aeneid. 1 Flectere si nequeo superos, Acherenta movebo.  
Q Which is the worst in all Ovid de arte amandi.  
A. Semibovemque virum semi virumque bovem.  
Q. Which is the best of all Tully's Epistles?  
A. The best and longest of all that is extant, is, ad Q. fratrem propretorem minoris Asiae, most excellent, and worthy the reading of it.  
Q. Which of all the Fathers is the hardest, of all the Poets the most crabbed.  
A. Tertullian and Persius, which Persius when Tertullian read, & found it so craggy and hard, he threw aside; saying, if he would not be understood, he should not be read.  
Q. Expound me this verse.  
Furfur edit Pannum, Panem quoque sustineamus. A. The last word is divided into three, and thus construed, Sus the sow, edit doth eat furfur Bran, Tinea the Moth, edit doth eat Pannum cloth, Must the mouse, edit doth eat Panem Bread.  
Q. What is the difference between os oris for the mouth, and os ossis for a bone.  
A. Devorat os oris quicquid lucratur os ossis: Whatsoever is gotten by os ossis, the bone, is devoured of os oris the mouth.  
Aliter.  
Os oris loquitur, sed os ossis roditurore.  
Os oris, or the mouth doth speak, but os ossis, or the bone is gnawn by the mouth.  
Q. At the confusion of Babel, into how many languages was the world divided.  
A. Epiphanius and others do write into 72. as many as there were work men at the building.  
Others think 72. as many as there were Nations in the world, which Moses recites to be 72.  
Q. What pre-eminence have our best Linguists above others?  
A. The Hebrews, that they drink at the fountains.  
The Grecians at the rivers.  
The Latins at the brooks.  
English, and some others at the Lakes.  
Q How are these 4. letters to be underderstood S P Q R.  
A. Senatus, Populusque Romae; yet one of the Sibyls inverted it thus: Serua populum quem redimisti: Now others have turned them jestingly upon the Pope by way of question and answer, as thus, Sancte Pater, quid rides: Resp. Rideo quod Papa sum.  

Englished.  
Holy Father, why dost thou laugh?  
I laugh because I am Pope.   
Q. Who was that that was reputed an old man among children and yet among old men liue● to be a child?  
A. Hermogenes, who in his youth, was the best Rhetorician of his time; but in his age lost his sense, and forgot his letters, and so became a child in his dotage.  
Q. Who was the most excellent Geometrician of his time?  
A. Archimedes the Syracusian, who held it possible to remove the earth, had he had another earth to fix his instrument upon: He held it also possible to number the sand.  
Q. Why is honos for honour written with h. an aspiration, and onus for a burden without.  
A. Because to the one all men aspire, the other few men desire.  
Q. Amongst all trees, which only is of the neuter gender?  
A. Balsamum, or the Balm tree, found only in judaea.  
Q What debt is that which is always paying, and never paid.  
A. Charity and love, which though we ever pay, yet we must ever owe to pay.  
Q. Why is the form of money round?  
A. Because it is to run from every man.  
Q. Why is Nummus Latin for money.  
A. O● Numa Pompilius second king of the Romans, and first that caused money to be made, and when copper pence, silver pence, and gold pence were made, because every silver penny was worth ten copper pence, every gold penny worth 10 silver, therefore they were called Denarii, of Decem for ten.  
Q By what means may every man be counted an honest man.  
A. By endeavouring to be what he desires to seem.  
Q. By what means should a man quickly become rich: (counsel I say, quickly to be hearkened unto)  
A. To be content with little.  
Q What creature of all other is the worst that the earth nourisheth.  
A. If it be demanded of wild beasts a Tyrant, if of tame the Adulterer: In another place he answered, on mountains Bears and Lions, in Cities, Publicans and flatterers.  
Q. What creature is that which bites with the tongue?  
A. All creatures bite with their teeth, as is commonly known, but the flatterer bites with his tongue, and the wound is mortal.  
Q. Wherein doth man chief differ from beasts  
A. In two things especially, Ratione, & Oratione, in reason and speech.  
Q. Diogenes being asked why he wore his beard so long.  
A. Answered, to the end that when I see it and touch it, I may remember myself to be a man.  
Q. One asked Diogenes what he should give to ●aue a blow at his head?  
A. Answered, a Helmet.  
Q. What good thing is that which is more profitable unto others then to him that hath it?  
A. Beauty, that frail and flying dowry, enjoyed by looking upon by others, being blind to the owner itself.  
Q. Which were the most lasting cloth● that ever were worn?  
A. The Israelites in the wilderness, which in 40 years waxed not old.  
Q. Which is a living word, and which is a dead word?  
A The spoken word is the living, the written word is the dead, of which one thus writes most wittily: 

Sir v●rbum vox vivalicet, vox mortua scriptum,  
Scripta diu viwnt, non ita verba diu.   

Englished.  
Although the speaking word have life  
The written word be dead:  
The written word shall last and be,  
When th'spoken word is fled.    
Q. What Beast is that that is unlike either to his Dam or Sire, and of a mingled kind brought forth by others, & produceth not his shape.  
A. The Mule begot between the Horse and the Ass, according to the Poet.  

Dissimilis Patri, Matris diversa figura,  
Ex alijs nascor, nec quicquam nascitur ex me,   

The Dog in the hunts, is and all keepeth  
The Wolf woods nourished things destroyeth   
Q In what Laws did consist the order of Drunkenness among the Romans. 

1 Not to trip in speech.  
2 Not to vomit.  
3 To drink most at one sup.  
4 Not to breath in the draft.  
5 To leave nothing undrunke, if, to cast on the ground.     

Discourse of wonders domestical and foreign.  
Q. Which are held the most strangest accidents in the Chronicles? 

1 The removing of the earth.  
2 The raining of blood.  
3 The multitude of mice in the Isle of Shepey, that could not be driven away nor the place cleansed, till a flight of Owls came and devoured them.  
4 The Chain of 24. links with lock and key that a flea drew being put about her neck.  
5 The man that slept in the tower 3. days and ●. nights, and could not be wakened during that space, by any noise or violence, by pricking with needles or otherwise.     

A foreign wonder.  
It is recorded by Guicciardine, L. Vives, Erasmus and others, of a certain Countess of Holland that brought forth at one birth, 365. children, as many as there are days in the year, which were all baptised by a Bishop, and after died, which came thus to pass. A certain poor beggar woman laden with children, came to her door, and craved an alms, which the Countess not only denied, but also called her harlot and strumpet, telling her withal, it was impossible she should have so many by one man: which this beggar hearing, besought God, who knew her innocent, to manifest it unto her, by giving her so many at one birth by her husband, as there are days in the year, which fell out accordingly.  
Q. What is the greatest wonder in the Art of Navigation?  
A. The Needle of the Compass, which touched with the head of the loadstone, ever turneth to the north-pole, with the foot thereof to the South pole touched with the one side, turneth Eastward, with the other side, Westward, etc.  
Of the Hermaphrodite.  
Whilst my mother bore me in her womb, she went to the Gods, to know what she had conceived, whether Male or Female: Phoebus said it was a Male, Mars a female, juno neither. Being borne I was an Hermaphrodite. After seeking my destiny from these Gods, juno said, I should be slain with a sword: Mars that I should be hanged: Phoebus, that I should be drowned, which was my fortune.  
Climbing up a tree, from thence I fell upon my sword, my foot hung in a bough, my head in the water, so being neither Male nor Female, but both I was neither hanged, nor drowned, nor slain, but all.  
Q. Seeing the fly is so small a creature, why hath Nature given her 6. feet to go, beside wings to fly withal, when the Elephant so great a Creature, hath no wings, and yet but four feet.  
Another.  
Seeing the wolf brings forth more young than the sheep, afterward wolves eat those sheep, men kill those sheep, and yet how comes it that there be more sheep than wolves.  
Q. What did our ancients hold to be the greatest wonders in the world.  
A. The Pyramids of Egypt built by the Israelites, under the oppression of Pharaoh, which were 50. cubits high, 40. cubits thick, in compass twelve German miles: The tower of Pharaoh, the Walls of Babylon, The Temple of Diana of Ephesus, The tomb of Mausole and others.  
Q. There are three things memorable that Spain boasts of, and what are those? 

1 A Bridge, over which the water flows, that is used to run under all other bridges.  
2 A City compassed with fire which is called Madrill, by reason of the wall that is all of flints, environing it round about.  
3 An other bridge, on which continually 1 0000. cattle are fed, under which the water runs 7. miles under ground, and then breaks forth again. Besides a great mountain of Salt, from which, whatsoever is taken, it presently increaseth to the quantity again.    
Q. In what part of the World is it that trees bread living creatures?  
A. In the Isles of O●chades in Scotland, wherein grows a tree near the sea side, that bears a fruit like unto a fowl, which dropping down into the water, becomes a living creature, like a Duck, if it fall upon the dry land, it pu●rifies and turns to nothing: but this is reported rather by history, then by the people of that Country.  
Q. May it be that without wood an Ox boil itself.  
A. By preconiecture to forerun this Discovery, might lead a man into some conceited admiration, therefore to stop that labour of the brain, the Schythians teach us this secret of their necessity: for living in a Country where grows no wood, they kill an Ox, and then take out all the bones from the flesh, and of the bones make a fire that roasts or boils him, & so it is said the Ox roasts or boils himself.  
Q What was the answer of Bias to one that demanded of him what was done in hell?  
A. That he never was there, nor ever talked with any that came from thence.  
Albertus' Duke of Saxony was wont to say, that he had three Monasteries, three wonders in his City, and what were they? 

1 Predicant Friars which had much corn and no fields.  
2 Franciscans, which had much money, and no rents.  
3 Of the order of S. Thomas, which had store of children and no wives.    
Q. What are the differences between the former and later ages of the World, for length of days, stature of body, beauty, riches, and the like.  
A. The difference in some degrees is very great, in others more small: for first concerning length of days; or long life between the former ages, and the later, there is no comparison: for before the flood men lived 900. and odd years, as Methusal●th, Adam, and others: Now with us the odd years are almost counted long life; and then as the Age was long, so the size was great, large of stature, mighty of strength, which in our times are shrunk up to a handful: For Beauty, the Scriptures make mention of Vashti, Esther, and others, and our Chronicles of Rosamond, Matilda, Shore's wife, and others, all liked and approved of by Kings; yet notwithstanding the blazed features of these, many are of opinion, that some Beauties of our times of less note are not inferior to some of these, if not exceeding: And as for riches, Abraham, Lot, and job are styled for their mightiness in that blessing: to let pass the two former, whose Heardsm●n divided the Countries, and come to job, concerning whom is more particularly expressed, whose substance in cattle, as the Scripture testifieth, was 700. sheep, 3000 Camels, 500 yoke of Oxen and 500 she Asses, and at last, all this was doubled.  
Amongst some others, to produce in parallel near our times, this one: It is found in a Record in the Tower, that Sir Hugh Spencer the elder, who lived in the time of King Edward the second, had in substance, and for the provision of his house 28000. sheep, 1000 Oxen and Steres, 1200 Cows and Calves, 140 Mares and Colts, 160 drawing Horse, 2000 Hogs, 300. Bullocks, 40. Tun of Wine, 600. Bacon's, 600. Muttons in Larder, 10. Tun of Cider; Plate, jewels, and Money 10000 pound. This done, the Censure is suspended: and left to the judicious Readers consideration to give verdict.    

Hereafter follow certain Epigrams, some old revived, and some new published.  

1. Of a Lawyer's absence.  
A Virtuous Dame that saw a Lawyer room,  
justly reproved his stay so long from home,  
Saying to him that in his absence thence,  
His wife might lack her due benevolence:  
But to be quit himself of such disgrace,  
Answered it thus by putting of a Case,  
One owes a hundred pounds, now tell me whether  
Is best, to have such payment altogether,  
Or take it by a shilling, and a shilling,  
Whereby the Bag might be the longer filling:  
Sure, quoth the Dame, I think it were no loss  
If one received such payment all in gross,  
Yet in your absence this may cause your sorrows  
To fear for want your wife should twelve pence borrow.   

Epig. 2. In Getam.  
Geta from Wool and weaving first began,  
Swelling and swelling to a Gentleman:  
When he was Gentleman, & bravely dight,  
He left not swelling till he was a Knight:  
And from a Knight, thus higher to surmount,  
He swelled on bigger till he was a Count,  
And still proceeding careless of his first,  
He swelled to be a Lord, and then he burst.   

Epigr. 3. Proverbs upon Complexions.  
To a Red man read thy Read,  
With a Brown man break thy bread,  
At a Pale man draw thy knife.  
From a black man keep thy wife.  
Exposition.  
The Red wise, The Brown trusty,  
The Pale peevish, the Black lusty.   

Epig. 4. In superbum.  
I took the wall, one thrust me rudely by,  
And told me the King's way did open lie.  
I thanked him, that he did me so much grace,  
To take the worse, leave me the better place;  
For if by th'owners we esteem of things,  
The walls the Subjects, but the way's the kings.   

Epig. 5.  


NIX  
IX  
CorNIX   

Snow.  
9  
A Crow.    

NIX I that the winter's daughter am  
Whil● thus my letters stand,  
Am whiter than the plume of Swan  
Or any Lady's hand.   

IX Take but a way my letter first,  
And then I do incline,  
That stood before for milk whit snow  
To be the figure nine,  
And if that further you desire  
By change to do some tricks,  
As black as any bird I am,   
Cornix By adding Cor to nix.   

Epig. 6. De sanit. & Medico.  
Health is a jewel true, which when we buy,  
Physicians value it accordingly.   

Epig. 8. In Amorosum.  
A Wife you wished me (Sir) rich, fair and young,  
With French Italian, and the Spanish tongue,  
I must confess your kindness very much;  
But yet in truth Sir, I deserve none such,  
For when I wed, as yet I mean to tarry,  
A woman of one Language I'll but marry,  
And with that single portion of her store.  
Expect such plenty I would wish no more.   

Epig. 9 Upon an Usurer and an improp. Parson.  
A Clergy man that oft had Preached,  
From his stopped steeple throat,  
And to his congregation teached  
Full oft this certain note,  
There could no Usurer be saved,  
Unless he did restore  
What he so wrongfully had shaved  
From th'backs of needy poor:  
Upon a time it so fell out,  
This Usurer did meet  
The Parson as he went from Church,  
And thus he did him greet;  
Good Sir (quoth he) I wonder much  
You take such fruitless pain.  
To preach against a sin that's such  
As you yourself maintain;  
But ten in the hundred do I take,  
On good occasion when,  
But you a hundred do reserve,  
Allowing out but ten:  
The Parson hearing him say so  
Began to be afeard,  
And never preached against that sin,  
To this day that I heard.   

Epig. 10. In Aulum West.  
Westminster is a Mill that grinds all Causes,  
But grind his Cause for me there he that list,  
For by Demurs, and Erros, stays and cla●ses,  
The toll is oft made greater than the grist.   

Epig. 11. In jacobum.  
He that doth ask, Saint james doth say shall speed,  
O that King james would answer so my need.   

Epig. 12. Consilium.  
From the Confessor, Lawyer, and physician,  
Hid not thy Case on no condition.   

Epig. 13. Hayw. Rent.  
By lease without writing one once let a Farm.  
The Lesser most lewdly the rent did retain.  
Whereby the lesser wanting writing had harm.  
Wherefore he vowed whilst life did remain,  
Without writing never to let thing again:  
Husband (quoth the wife) that thing again reu●rt,  
Else without writing you cannot let a fart.   

Epigram. 14.  
One time as was my ordinary wont,  
I went abroad into the fields to hunt,  
Started a Hare pursud ' her with full cry  
And had near wearied her, when by and by  
Miso, because I hunted in his grounds  
Let lose his running dogs, and baukt my hounds  
From thence, that sport I utterly forswore,  
Being so unkindly croft by such a Boar  
So shunning the open fields and forests wide,  
My common haunt was by the water side,  
For what thought I, though lands enclosed be,  
Yet Seas and Rivers questionless are free:  
There will I sport me with the scaly fry,  
Fearless though all the world were standing by.  
I had not scarce cast in my bait to take,  
But strait one comes, it seems he hast did make  
That bids me pack when first I did appear;  
Away went I, it was no fishing there:  
Scarce knowing now what sport to entertain,  
Being banished both the earth and watery plain,  
I took a piece next time, and forthwith went,  
To sport me in the airy regiment,  
Where having scarce discharged to kill a Daw,  
Another comes & brings me statute law  
Upon my piece, where I it lost, then swore  
I near would hunt, nor angle, nor shoot more.  
Then took I dice in hand, my heavy fate;  
Thus crossed in all, & lost my whole estate    

HEREAFTER FOLLOWeth certain Epitaphs on sundry persons.  

1. On the Usurer.  
HEre lies as least ten in the hundred,  
Shackled up fast both hands and feet  
That at such as lent money gratis wondered,  
The gain of Vsur●e was so sweet,  
But thus being new of life hereupon,  
'tis 100 to 10. he is scarce gone to heaven.   

Epit. 2. Upon a Spendthrist.  
Here lies jacke careless,  
Without Tomb, without thought, without sheet  
That lived in the Alehouse, the Bowling-Alley  
And died in the street.   

Epit. 3. Upon a riotous Courtier.  
Here lies he now, where no man sees,  
That lived by crooked hams and knees,  
Yet in his heart did boil that lust,  
That nought could quench, but earth and dust,  
Where if he had sooner been laid,  
Less sums his reckoning would have paid.   

In Papam Pium quintum.  

Papa Pius quintus moritur, res mira quod inter  
Pontifices tantum quinque fuere Pii.   

Pius the fist is dead, and understood  
Of some so called, because but five were Good  
In all the line of Popes.—   

Fallar ego nam nemo pius re, nomine tantum,  
Pontifices constat quinque fuisse pios.   

Yet err I do in this to their more shame.  
For none were good indeed though five in name.    

Certain verses fixed upon a child laid in S. T. Hospital.  
Conceive a fault by me conceived  
By my seduced mother.  
Who vows until she be a wife,  
I near shall know a brother;  
And for this hospital is rich;  
And hath a plenteous purse;  
And she is poor and cannot pay,  
She hath put me here to nurse.  
No further she imparts herself,  
Then that she is a sinner,  
Though not the last that so shall err,  
No near then th'first beginner,  
How ere she here hath packed me up  
The witness of her shame,  
And left me unto you to feed,  
To clothe, and give a name.   

Upon the unequal division of the earth, how some have all, and some none.  
Though th'earth's the Lords, and all that is therein,  
And nothing really man's own but sin,  
A● is the sea, the tributer of fountains  
The sheep and cattle on a thousand mountains:  
Though he that all these made, doth all these feed,  
And of no creature, aid doth stand in need,  
Yet doth he from his high exalted throne  
Survey the ways men title these their own;  
He sees his earth, the base of this fair frame  
Entailed to greatness, to their blood and name,  
Meat to the rich, in Acres of such store  
That what makes one too proud, makes ten too poor.  
Some of his walking earth he sees have gold  
That rusts for use too se●dōe being told  
And some again so s●anted in their need  
Their sinews crack before their bellies feed;  
Some choicest dainties sea and land afford,  
To surfeit on served daily to their board:  
And some again are so penurious fed,  
They think they far rich if they purchase bread.  
Another's glory lies upon his back,  
And having plenty there appears no lack  
Velvets & silks, etc. robes of endless waste  
Altering with humour to give fancy taste.  
When as some other whose success more bad,  
Tugs 60. years like leathern Adam clad,  
For skins or fig leaves for to hide his skin,  
Whose heart being plain, he cannot this way sin;  
Whose total substance all his hopes to boot,  
Was never worth the trust of such a shoot.  
What should I say of this unequal lot,  
Would God thus have it? surely I think not:  
Though some distinctions he would have to be,  
Yet not in such a terrible degree:  
He would not have thee see thy brother lack,  
Then flake thy cost, and clothe some naked back;  
He would not have thee see thy brother pine,  
But him sustained from that excess of thine:  
If for thyself thy whole endeavours tend,  
If what thou hast thou wouldst be thine heir and spend,  
Then know like that rich glutton thou mayest crave,  
A drop, and be denied, because he gave  
Not to the needy, crumbs that did belong,  
Drops were denied him for to cool his tongue:   

Upon the late Star.  
This year there hath appeared a streaming star  
Within our native Hemisphere or clime,  
But whether it brings us news of peace or war,  
Of plague, or famine, who is't can divine?  
Though some interpret it to change of State,  
Hostile invasion, or some great man's end:  
Rumours of wars here landed to us late,  
Or like particulars that they intend:  
But since the Character hath such a letter,  
That none can understand but he that writ,  
Let's fear the worst, our sins, and make us better,  
And not to other ends interpret it,  
For in the same there's matter vnderhiled.  
Which shall not to our knowledge be made plain,  
Till the portant and purpose be fulfilled:  
For never came such messengers in vain:  
How ere with meekness, let us kiss the rod:  
Hoping the best, yet leauing●al to God.   

Epit. 4. S●. Tho. Becket.  

Pro Christi sponsa, Christi sub tempore Christi  
In templo, Christi verus amator obit.   

Englished:  
For Christ his Spouse, his Cause, and at Christ tide,  
Within Christ's temple, Christ's true lover died.    

Epit. 5. Written by a Religious Gent: before his death.  
Earth take my earth, Satan my sin I leave,  
The world my substance, Heaven my soul receive   

Upon jonas in the Whale's belly.  
Buried I am, and yet I am not dead,  
Though neither earth enclose, nor stone me keeps,  
I speak, I think, with living airs am fed,  
In living tomb, in vnfaddomed deeps,  
What wight besides myself for shame or grace,  
Ere lived in death, in such a tomb or place.   

Epitaph. 6. In Verolamium. A forgotten City, sometimes near Saint Albon.  
Stay thy foot that passest by,  
Here is wonder to descry,  
Churches that interred the dead,  
Here themselves are sepulchred,  
Houses where men slept and waked,  
Here in ashes vnderraked:  
In a word to allude,  
Here is corn where once Troy stood,  
Or more folly home to have,  
Here's a City in a grave:  
Reader, wonder think it then,  
Cities thus should die like men,  
And yet wonder think it none,  
Many Cities thus are gone.   

Epit: 7. Upon a Chambermaid,  
Underneath this stone is laid,  
A Ladies sometimes Chambermaid,  
Who was young and plump and pretty,  
And yet a Maid, alas 'twas pity.   

Epit. 8. Upon a Love sick youth.  
Here lieth he, he lieth here,  
That bounced and pity cried,  
The Door not oped, fell sick alas,  
Alas, fell sack and died.   

Epit. 9 On a rich covetous Lawyer.  
Within this everlasting Tomb,  
Whose house contains her dead till doom,  
Is one possessed here to abide,  
That yet had lived, and had not died,  
If Death like him would have agreed,  
At any rate to have been feed:  
Or if he could at point of death,  
That sold his wind, have bought but breath:  
This cross to him could near so fall,  
To have wed the Church that wooed the Hall,   

Epit. 10. Upon a Citizen.  
From wares and cares & feigned breath  
Hear I at last am freed by death,  
If that my dealings were not just,  
The more I fear, the less I trust,  
What though 100 Blue coats sing.  
My friend's did● mourn, the bells did ring:  
The earth received me with applause  
All doth not better mend my cause,  
Fed I the hungry, clothed the poor,  
Made I these friends to go before?  
No, I left wealth behind unspent,  
Coins vnreceiued that I had lent,  
And suits unended waged by cost:  
And all I left behind is lost,  
Good deeds I did, and gifts I gave,  
Those went before me, those I have.   

Epit. 11. A memento for mortality.  
Taken from the view of Sepulchres of so many Kings and Nobles, as lie interred in the Abbey of Westminster.  
Mortality, behold and fear  
What a change of flesh is here,  
Think how many royal bones  
Sleep within this heap of stones,  
Hence removed from beds of ease,  
Dainty fare, and what might please,  
Fretted roofs and costly shows,  
To a roof that flats the nose,  
Which proclaims all flesh is grass:  
How the World's fair Glories pass,  
That there is no trust in Health,  
In youth, in age, in greatness, wealth:  
For if such could have repreeued,  
Those had been immortal lived;  
Know from this the World a snare,  
How that greatness is but care,  
How all pleasures are but pain,  
And how short they do remain,  
For here they lie had realms and lands  
That now want strength to stir their hands:  
Where from their Pulpits seeled with dust  
They preach, In Greatness is no trust.  
here's an Acre sown indeed  
With the richest royal'st seed,  
That the earth did ere suck in,  
Since the first man died for sin,  
Here the bones of birth have cried,  
Though Gods they were, as men they died;  
Here are sands (ignoble things)  
Dropped from the ruin'd sides of kings,  
With whom the poor man's earth being shown  
The difference is not easily known,  
Here's a world of pomp and state,  
Forgotten, dead, disconsolate. (Kings,  
Think then, this sith, that mows down  
Exempts no meaner mortal things,  
Then bid the wanton Lady tread,  
Amid ●hese mazes of the dead.  
And these truly understood,  
More shall cool & quench the blood  
Then her many sports aday,  
And her nighty wanton play,  
Bid her paint till day of doom,  
To this favour she must come,  
Bid the Merchant gather wealth,  
The Usurer exact by stealth.  
The proud man beat it from his thought,  
Yet to this shape all must be brought,   

A short addition or memento hereunto annexed upon the death of Queen ANNE.  
See here this plot for all her store,  
With greedy throat still gapes for more:  
Which with our grief, and her success,  
Concludes not now in emptiness,  
For newly now she hath tom'bd in earth,  
One great in good, as high in birth,  
Unto a hopeful Prince the mother,  
Wife to one King, and sister to another,  
A king her father, every way borne high:  
Matched great, lived great, in spear of majesty:  
Yet notwithstanding this blood high descent  
As rich in virtue, and more eminent,  
Respective liber all, with a plenteous hand,  
Where desert craved, or she might understand,  
A needful good, or seasonable supply,  
To such her stream of goodness near was dry,  
Nor could the Labourer (heaven being her desire)  
Who gave their verdict, sigh to want their hire,  
For where that wisdom thought if f●te to pay,  
It was her virtue not to keeped away:  
Yet she with these, and thousands more beside,  
From us was gone the moment that she died:  
Gone like that fat all day of us deplord ',  
As soon to be called back as she restored:  
‛ For though she be from us so lately fled,  
She's as far from life, as Adam so long dead:  
Being gathered to that Sepulchre of Kings,  
That best can show they are but mortal things:  
Gone like that fat all day of us deplord ',  
As soon to be called back as she restored:  
The mixture of whose bones, that n●w not ache,  
Me thinks should mutiny, and the building shake,  
To sympathize the royalty they had,  
How simply there regarded, meanly clad,  
Where they shall sleep until that trump be blown,  
That rends up sepulchres and teareth stone,  
Severes the jointed buildings raisde●● high,  
Confusing all i'th' twinkling of an eye.    

Hereafter follow certain Riddles, or witty Propositions.  

Riddle 1  
SPhinx certain monster of Thebes proposed a Riddle to all that passed by the way, which whosoever could not resolve, he carried to the top of a high rock, and from thence threw headlong down, which Riddle was as followeth: 
Quod pedibus binis, animal meat absque ruinis,  
Mox graditur Ternis, post claudica● atque quaternis.    

Englished more at large.  
What creature is that in the World, that first goes upon 4: feet, afterwards upon ● feet, afterwards upon 3: feet, and last of all upon 4 feet again.  
This after the fall of many, was resolved by Oedipus to be a man, which first in his childhood, creeps upon his hands and knees, as upon 4 feet, afterwards in his better strength walks upon 2 feet, afterwards in declining years walks with a staff, as with 3. feet, and lastly in his second childhood or decrepit age, creepeth upon all 4. again.   

Riddle 2.  
By what strange marriage was that, that this more strange kindred was produced, that two mothers should produce two sons, that should be the sons of their sons, brothers to their husbands, and uncles to each other, and yet both lawfully borne in wedlock, and they their true mothers.   

Resolution.  
These two women had two sons that married crossly one the others mother, and had each of them a son thereby which were thus allied as before mentioned.   

Riddle 3  
What part of man may that part be,  
That is an implement of three,  
And yet a thing of so much sled,  
No woman would without it wed,  
And by which thing, or had or lost,  
Each marriage is made vpo● crossed.   

Resol.  
The heart of a man a triangle figure, the beginning of love, and of every match likely to prosper.   

Rid, 4. Homer's fatal Riddle.  
Certain Fishermen upon the Sea having been freeing themselves from vermin, meeting Homer by the shore side, proposed this Riddle unto him; What is that which having taken, we have lost, and having not taken we have kept, still meaning indeed their vermin, which he, dreaming of their fishing, died for grief, because he could not resolve it.   

Rid: 5.  
First, my mother brought me forth, when shortly after I the Daughter bring forth my mother again.   

Resol.  
Of water is first made ice, which afterwards melts, and brings forth water again, and so the daughter brings forth the mother, as the mother first the daughter.   

Riddle 6.  
What one man was that that slew at once the fourth part of the world,   

Resol.  
Cain that slew his brother when there were but four persons in the world.   

Riddle 7.  
Who were those that fought before they were borne?   

Resol.  
jacob and Esau in their mother's womb,   

Riddle.  
What Sepulchre is that, and where doth it stand,  
That toucheth neither heaven, nor earth, nor sea, nor land.   

Resol.  
The Tomb of Mahomet, being a chest of Iron, drawn up by loadestones, to the top of Mecha, a church belonging to the Persians, whether the Turks go a pilgrimage, as Christians to jerusalem, to the Sepulchre of Christ.   

Riddle. 8.  
There was a man bespoke a thing,  
Which when the owner home did bring,  
He that made it did refuse it,  
And he that bought it, would not use it  
And he that hath it doth not know,  
Whether he hath it, I or no,   

Resol.  
A Coffin bought by another for a dead man.   

Riddle 9  
Two Sisters standing over a Tomb, thus bewailed the dead therein interred. Alas, here lies our mother's husband, our husband and the Father of our children, and our father, how could that be?   

Resol:  
It is meant of Lot's daughters, over the tomb of their Father.   

Riddle 10.  
That which thou lookest on with thy eyes (O traveler) is a Sepulchre, yet without her carcase, is a carcase, yet without her sepulchre● yet both carcase and sepulchre, and how can that be?   

Resol:  
The pillar of salt, Lot's wife was turned into.  
josephus testifies that he saw that pill●● of salt, and went purposely there to behold it.   

Riddle.  
Two Gentlemen Stewards were sent to the Town to buy wine, and the one making more haste than the other, had bought all the wine, which was only 8. gallons, returning homewards met the other, who was going thither, told him he had bought all that there was, nevertheless he would be ●●●tent to let him have half, so he could measure it just in his measures, which were ●3. gallons, and a 5● gallons, and how was that done?   

Resol,  
In this manner, first he filled his measure of three Gallons, puts it into the measure of five gallons, fills the 3, again, put 2. into the 5, then puts the 5. into the 8. then puts the one into the 5. and then fills the measure of 3. and puts it into the 5. having one single gallon before, which so made it 4. and so equally measured it forth.   

Riddle 11,  

In densis siluis venor bis quinque catellis  
Quod capio, perdo, quod non capio mihi servo.   

Englished.  
In thickest woods I hunt with beagles ten  
After the chase, which when I do descry,  
I dispossess me of not useful then,  
And what I take not, only that keep I.    

Resol:  
One scratching his head with both his hands.   

Riddle 12  
Learning hath fed me, yet I know not a letter,  
I have lived among books, yet am never the better:  
I have eaten up the Muses, yet I know not a verse,  
What student this is, I pray you rehearse.   

Resol.  
A worm bred in a book,   

Riddle 13.  
What is that which produceth tears without sorrow, takes his journey to heaven, but dies by the way, is begot by another, yet that other is not begot without it.  
Or thus.  
What is that which if it be seen cannot be taken, if it be taken cannot be held, and when it is thought to be something, by and by it turns into nothing.   

Resol.  
Smoke.   

Rid: 14.  
When I lived I fed the living, now I am dead, I bear the living, & with swift speed walk over the living.   

Resol.  
A ship made of an Oak, growing fed hogs with acorns, now bears men, swims over fishes.   

Rid. 15.  
Christopher bare Christ, Christ bore the world, where then stood Christopher's feet?  
This must be answered by another Oedipius or Palaemon.   

Riddle 16.  
First I was small, and round like a pearl,  
Then long and slender, as brave as an Earl,  
Since like a Hermit I lived in a Cell,  
And now like a rogue in the wide world I dwell,   

Resol.  
First, an Egg, Then a worm called a Silkworm; then enclosed in a husk, and last of all a Butterfly,   

Riddle 17.  
There is a body without a heart  
That hath a tongue, and yet no head,  
Buried it was, ere it was made,  
And loud and speaks, and yet is dead.   

Resol:  
A Bell which when it is cast, is founded in the ground.   

Riddle. 18.  
Far in the West I ●ot not where,  
Are trees men say which oysters beare●  
That oysters should be bred so high,  
Me thinks it soundeth like a lie,  
That female Plants I know that's true,  
In London streets bear oysters new,  
And fish and flesh, and now and then,  
They bear I tell you handsome men.   

Resol.  
Every man or woman is a tree turned upwards, and upon such Trees you know what fruits are borne in London.   

Riddle. 19  
All day like one that's in disgrace,  
He resteth in some secret place,  
And seldom peepeth forth his head  
Until daylight be fully fled;  
When in the Maids or Goodwifes' hand  
The Gallant first hath grace to stand.  
Whence to a hole they him apply,  
Wherein he will both live and die.   

Resol.  
A Candle.   

Riddle. 20.  
One evening as cold as cold might be  
With frost & hail and pinching weather,  
Companions about three times three  
Lay close all in a pound together,  
Yet one after other they took a heat,  
And died that night all in a sweat.   

Resol.  
A pound of Candles.   

Riddle. 21.  
A man and no man, seeing and not seeing, in the light and not in the light, with a stone and no stone, struck a bird and no bird, sitting and not sitting, upon a tree and no tree.   

Resolution.  
Androgius the Eunuch in the twilight struck a Bat, with a pumice stone, sitting upon a mustard tree.    

HEREAFTER FOLLOW certain ceasoning or Jests to laugh out the end of a short Discourse.  

jest. 1.  
Upon a time at a banquet certain friends meeting to be merry, to further their purpose, one began to broach this proposition: What part of the body was the most honestest; to to which one replied, The eyes, another the heart; a third the brain; some one thing, some another. Antonius being bid to speak, said, the mouth because it is kissed in salutation, beheld to be the honestest: another held that to be the honestest part we sit with, because by that the honesty and welfare of the whole body is preserved; and again for a second reason, because that ever was accounted the most honest and worthy part or person which first sits down, and that is the hindermost part to which probability all seemed to consent, and this last resolution for that time carried it, until a second time meeting with Antonius upon a like occasion, Antonius remembering the applause upon his argument held he had received, gratifies him at his first sight, with a crack from the neither most parts, who thereupon he seemed to be very angry. Antonius answered him, he had no reason for it, since he saluted him according to his own argument, with the most worthy part, & that which he had preferred before the mouth, and so with laughter on all sides the controversy ended. And therefore though Claudius Caesar made a law that a escape should be no loss of reputation, and yet we think the contrary, and that Non est urbanus cui retrosibilat ann●.   

jest. 2.  
There was a Gentleman upon a time that from no great reason that he had, took occasion to commend the clearness of his Beer, as another upon a time to Sir Thomas More the well relish of his Hop: To whom the first answered, that if it had been a little more clear, one should hardly have known it from water: The other, if it had hopped a little further, it had hopped into the Thames.   

jest. 3.  
A certain King had a fool, that kept a notebook of all the follies (at least wise those which he thought follies) committed in or about the Court, upon a time an Aethiopian horserider that professed great skill in horseflesh chanced to arrive there, whose qualities being made known to the King, the King employed him with 3000. pound to buy Horses in Barbary, which this fool understanding, put down into his Notebook: which when the King heard of, he seemed offended, and would know of his Lack wit why he had noted that? Because (quoth he) I think he will come no more unto you; but what quoth the king if he come again, then (quoth he) I will put you out, and put him in.   

jest. 4.  
Marcus Tullius Cicero, seeing his brother Quintus Cicero's picture very largely drawn to the middle, he being a man of very little stature, told the Painter his half brother was bigger than his whole.  
To which purpose Lentulus said when he saw his little nephew wear a great sword, who hath tied my kinsman to his weapon.   

jest. 5.  
A certain Philosopher knocking at a great man's door, the Porter espying him but in mean attire, the Door would not be opened, which he perceiving, immediately goes back, and changing himself into rich robes, repairs to the door again and knocks, and was forthwith let in, who entering, ever as he went a long he kissed his garments and made obeisance unto them; the reason being demanded by the Master thereof, he was thus answered, Honorantem honoro, I honour those that honour me; for what virtue could not, clothes could.   

jest. 4.  
A certain Player being sick and lying upon his deathbed, the Priest came unto him, and exhorted him to make his will, which he said he would most willingly do, (For quoth he) I have nothing but two geldings to dispose of, and I give them to the knights and Barons of the Land.  
And when the Priest asked him why he rather gave them not to the poor: answered, I do as Fortune doth, and she hath given all to the rich, and nothing to the poor, and therefore I will follow her in doing the like.   

jest. 5.  
A certain Rustical Clown came to an Archdeacon, and told him he had married a woman, which was poor but heretofore had been rich, ask his advice if he might not put her away and marry a Richer, who answered he might not, why Sir (quoth he?) you have got a divorce from your poor benefice and taken a Richer.   

jest. 6.  
A poor old Woman being sick and weak, bequeathed after her death unto the Priest her Hen, because she had nothing more, Now the Priest came and took her away, she yet living: quoth the woman, now I perceive that our Priest is worst than the Devil, for I have oft times bid the Devil take her, ●nd the Fox take her, and yet they spared her me, But once the Priest, and she is gone.   

jest. 7.  
A certain boisterous Rustic yet prompt and conceited, traveling on the way with a long pike staff on his neck, was suddenly and furiously assaulted by a great Mastiff, which came upon him with open mouth & violence as if he would at once devour him who presently to withstand the danger, by rescue of himself, runs the pike and sharp end thereof into his throat, whereupon he presently died, which the owner thereof seeing, comes earnestly unto him, and between threatening and chiding, asked him why he stro●ke him not rather with the blunt end of the staff, why Sir quoth he, because your dog ran not at me with his tail.   

jest. 8.  
A certain vain glorious Soldier, bragged in all places that he came, of 9 Kings that he had of his kindred, and going about to name them could reckon but six: a Player standing by told him he knew the rest, The three Kings of Colleyne.   

jest. 9  
A certain Astronomer had deuined of king Henry the seventh of England that he should die in such a year, the king hearing of it, sent for him, and questioned if he were an Astronomer, who told him that he did profess that art, the king asked him if he could foretell where he should be in the Easter-holy days; he answered be could not, then quoth the king thou shalt see me divine more certainly, for I tell thee thou shalt be in prison, whither he   

jest. 9  
One asked a prostitute Lady of Florence, how her children so likely resembled her husband, she so usually commersing with others; Andswered, I suffer no other to Board my ship before her carriage be full.   

jest. 10.  
One asked a Painter, why, seeing he could draw such excellent proportions, he begot such deformed children, who answered, In tenebris quidem fingo, sed in die pingo, I make the one in the light, and the other in the dark.   

jest. 11.  
A certain conceited traveler being at a Banquet, there chanced a Fly to fall into his cup, which he being to drink, took out for himself, and afterwards put it in again for his fellow being demanded his reason, answered, that for his own part he affected them not, but it might be some other did.  
There is extant to this jest an Epigram of Sir Thomas Mores, which I have here inserted.  

Muscas ê Cratere tulit Conuina priusqu●  
Ipse bibit: reàdit, rursus ut ipse bibit.  
Addidit & causam, muscas ego non am● dixit.  
Sed tamenè vobis nes●io nunquis amat.   

Thus Englished.  
Out of his glass one took a Fly,  
In earnest or in jest  
I cannot tell, but having drunk  
Returned it to the rest.  
And for he would offenceless seem,  
He showed his reason too,  
Although I love them not myself  
It may be some here do.    

jest. 12.  
One ask a merry blind man in what place he lost his eyes, answered, from either side his Nose. So likewise Diogenes being at dinner with a bald man, thus said, honest friend I will not speak thy contumely, but commend thy hairs that flew from so bad a head.   

jest. 13.  
It is reported of one james de Castello a Bononian, a man of eminent knowledge and learning, but exceeding little stature, sent an Ambassador to Pope Boniface the eight, insomuch that delivering his Embassage the Pope imagining that he kneeled on his knees, made unto him long action with his hands that he should rise up, until one of his Cardinals gave him to understand that he was another Zacheus.   

jests.  
A certain fellow condemned, and at the place of execution, began to disputeth with judge by what conscience he could hang him a poor thief and no malefactor, who asked him by what conscience he could take from another that was not his, and thus the controversy began and continued, till at last the hangman turns him off, and so ends the strife.    

A CONCLUSION TO this book in way of answer to him that demanded what was the perfect use of Books.  
A. To increase knowledge, confirm judgement, compare the times passed with the present, and draw use out of both for the future, to bring forth the dead speaking and conferring their knowledge to the living, according as the Poet to this purpose wittily writeth.  
O blessed letters that combine in one,  
All ages past, and make one live with all,  
By you we do confer with who are gone,  
And the dead living unto counsel call, etc.  
Books the most sweet commendable and delectable household, stuffein the world, the most free and trusty reprovers, for, Nullus amicus magis liber quam. Those dead, yet living companions, those regular obsequies, that speak not but when they are desired, and no longer than they are contentive from their Treasury what continual Physic hath the World received to purge out the dullness of natural capacity, and the very Image of death, as the Poet styles it, Nam sine doctrina vita est quasi mortis Imago. Yet from this sweet and excellent society, what a part of the world are exempted and live in darkness; Therefore thou which enjoyest the use thereof, and art conversant in their Counsels, be more in goodness as thou art in knowledge, and then this conclusion shall well befit thee, thy house, and thy household-stuff.  

Conclusion.  

Tum foelix domus est, & tum numerosa supplex.  
Cum pius est Dominus & bene parta domus.   

Englished.  
Happy the house the goods whereof excel.  
When the owner's Godly, and those gotten well.   
FINIS.    

THE COUNTRYMAN'S COUNSELLOR. OR Necessary addition to his yearly oracle or Prognostication.  
Calculated by Art as a Tutor for their help, that otherwise buy more than they understand.  
Beginning with this year of our Lord God 1619. And so continuing forward as the Benefit and Use shall encourage.  
With many other necessary Rule● and Observations of much profit and use being known.  
By E.P. Philomathem.  
LONDON. Printed by Bern. Alsop for Leonard Becket, and are to be sold at his shop in the Temple near the Church, 1619.   

TO THE BVYERS yearly of Almanacs and Prognostications.  
Prefatio sive Admonitio pia & utilie.  
THou whose short span of life, as plain appears,  
Hangs but upon the waist of some few years  
Which that Arithmetician best of men  
Cast but in his account threescore and ten.  
How soon they will determine dig thy grave,  
Thou mayst observe that seest what wings they have,  
How with no sound they wheel their times about,  
Eating with silence lives and Leases out:  
As here's a date but yesterday renewed,  
Nor more it seems, yet doth a year conclude;  
In which that Dairy of little cost  
Is now run out, and that small value lost  
Wherewith 'twas purchased if thou not extend  
Thy thoughts to make it thus far forth thy friend,  
That every year thy Almanac thou buyest,  
Thou art one year nearer to the year thou diest.  
And from that meditation so prepare  
Thy lise, that death near seize thee unawares.  
One yeaee thus to another yielding room,  
Have filled up many a sepulchre and tomb,  
Fretted out brass with age, marble with rust,  
Converted generations into dust.  
Fron which collect though near so young thou be,  
This may doomsday final year of thee;  
And from that motive such a method borrow  
As thou shouldst live an age, or die to morrow.   

A Brief Chronologie of the times, wherein these famous men lived and died.  
 Anno mundi. Aristotle 3640 Homer 3003 M.T. Cicero 3980 Virgil 3998  
 Anno Domini. S. Augustine. 400 S: Anselme Bishop of Cant. 1080 Agrippa the Magician. 1550 S, Bernard. 1130 S. Chrysostome 400 Erasmus, 1528 Martin Luther. 1520 Melancthon. 1530  
 years Since London and Paris were paved. 416 Since the building of London bridge. 435   

Of a Year, and what it is, and why it is most properly called ANNUS.  
THe word Annus, which most properly signifieth circle or Compass, is here termed for the year, which is properly that space of time that the Sun runs through the whole Signs and Zodiac, and the reason thereof is, for that as little Circles are called Annuli Rings, so the greater circles of time are called Anni, years or circuits, because they ever run round, and with continual compass, environ all things within the verge of Age.  
Q. What are the parts of a year?  
A. 
Ver, estas, Autumnus, hiems sunt quatuor unum,  
Qui si membra simul iunxeris annus erit.   
It containeth 

Months 

Solar. 12  
Lunar. 13    
Weeks. 52  
Days. 365 so many as there are veins in the body of man.  
Hours. 8766   According to the Poet.  
Ter centum, ter viginti, cum quinque diebus,  
Sex horas, neque plus integer annus habet.  
Or thus, 
Lxu. tria, c. capit annus quilibet in sae,  
Addito sex horas anni compleveris oras.   
The year Astronomical, or julian year addeth thereto 6. hours, and 6. minutes, which every fourth year increase to a day, which maketh the Leap year, or his sextil, compounded of bis and sextus, because the 6. day next before the Calends of March is twice repeated, or reckoned, which indeed is the 25. of February, Saint Mathias day, so adding to the month of February one day, from whence proceedeth the difference between us and other foreign accounts.  
Q. Why is it called the julian year?  
A. Because julius Caesar the first Roman Emperor caused the year according to the course of the Sun, to be reduced to the number of days and hours before expressed: and whereas March was the first month of the year with the Hebrews and Romans, as now with us, and july was the fift month, called by the Romans Quintilis, the fift month, March being the first, which julius Caesar borne in that month altered, and called it julius, or july, as August. Caesar (in whose reign Christ was borne) the month Sextilis or 6. month after his own name, Augustus, now August with us; and so reckoning from March the 1. month, September according to his signification, will be the seventh month, October the 8. month, November the 9 month, December the 10. month, which if you reckon from january they cross their names,  
Q. The holy Scriptures make mention of sundry things done at certain hours of the day, not like unto the hours of our account, as in S. john's Gospel, the Ruler's son healed of his sickness, it is said at the 7. hour the Ague left him, and the labourers that came into the vineyard, came at the 11. hour, and Christ in his Passion, 'tis recorded by the Evangelists, that at the 6, hour was darkness over the whole earth, and about the ninth hour be cried with a loud voice, and so ga●e up the Ghost. Now I would know by our account what hours of the day these were, as of the rest.  
A. The jews did divide their Artificial day into 4. quarters, allowing to every quarter 3. hours, accounting the first hour of the first quarter, at the rising of the Sun, and the third hour of the said quarter, they called the third hour, and the third hour of the second quarter they called the 6. hour, which was midday, the third hour of the third quarter the 9 hour and the 2. hour of the 4. quarter, the 11. hour, and they called the 12. and last hour of the day eventide: So the Ruler's son being healed at the 7. hour, it was with us at one of the clock in the afternoon: and the 6. hour when darkness was upon the earth at midday with us: the 9 hour when Christ yielded up the Ghost, 3. a clock in the afternoon; the labourers that came at the 11. hour, came at 5. of the clock in the afternoon, or an hour before Sunset.  
Q. How divided they their night?  
A. They divided their ● artificial night likewise into 4 quarters, called by them the 4. watches of the night; for the first 3. hours was the first watch, during which time all the soldiers both young and old, of any fortified Town or Garrison, were wont to watch; the second third hour they called the second watch, which was about midnight, at which time the young soldiers only watched; and the third quarter of the night containing also 3 hovers; was called the third watch, in that season the soldiers of middle age did watch; and the last 3. hours, called the 4. watch, was about the break of day, in which the old souldiees only watched.  
The day is accounted with us for payments of money between Sun and Sun; but for inditements of murder the day is accounted from midnight to midnight, and so are fasting days.  
Q. How in the more purer and ancient times from the example of the Apostles were the days of the week named, since corrupt by the Heathens, and called after the names of the seven Planets, or their Gods.  
A. One, or the 1. from the Sabbath, two or the 2. from the Sabbath, & three or the 3. from the Saboth: and so of the rest.  
Our yearly Almanacs make mention (which many read but few understand) of the Golden Number, Epact, Circle of the Sun, Roman Indiction, and such like, of which I desire to know some reasons or use.  

And first of the Golden Number, what it is, when it beginneth, and why it is so called.  
THe Golden number is a number of 19 proceeding from 1. to 19 and so begin again at 1. and is so called because it was sent in Golden Letters from Alexandria in Egypt, to Rome, and it is the number of 19 because in 19 years the Moon doth make all her sundry motions, and changes, and returneth again to the place where she first begun: To find out the aforesaid Number, add 1 to the year of our Lord, whereof you inquire, and divide the same by 19 and the remainder shall be the Golden number.   

What is the Epact.  
THe Epact is a Number not exceeding 30. because the Moon between change and change, nueer passeth 20. days.  
The Epact is thus found out, multiply the Golden Number of the year by a 11. the product whereof if it be under 30. is the Epact, but if it be above 30. then divide the product by 30. and the remainder shall be the Epact.  The knowledge of the Epact serveth to find out the Age of the Moon. 
The Golden Number, and Dominical letter, change the first of januarie, and the Epact the first of March. Easter day never falleth lower than the 22. of March, never higher, than the 25. of April.  
Shrove Sunday hath his Range between the first of February, and the seventh of March. Whit●onday, between the 10. of May, and the 13 of june.   

What is the Equinoctial, and wherefore is it ● so called.  
THe Equinoctial is a great Circle, which being in every part equally distant from the two Poles of the World, divideth the Sphere, in the very midst thereof into equal parts, and therefore it is called of some the Cincture, or girdle of the World.  
It is called the Equinoctial, because that when the Sun toucheth this Circle, which is twice in the year, it maketh the day and the night of an equal length, throughout the world, which Equinoctial happeneth in the Spring, and in Autumn, about the 11 of March, and the 13. of September.  
Q. What are those 12. signs or Images placed before our Calendars about the Anatomy of man's body.  
A. Those 12. Signs or Images are 12. stars, every one of them containing many stars, whose influences are very powerful over human bodies.  
Q What makes the full Moon, and whence proceedeth her Eclipse?  
A. Her opposition against the Sun makes her full, but her Eclipse or darkening, caused when the Sun is opposite unto her diametally, and the Earth in the midst between them both, which being thick and not transparent, casting his shadow to that point which is oposit to the place of the Sun, will not suffer the Moon to receive any light from the Sun, without whose supply she is always a dark body, for from it she borroweth all her light.   

Of what substance be the Stars.  
THe stars be of the same substance that the heavens be, wherein they are placed, differing only from them in thickness, which demensitude makes them more apt to receive and retain the light of the Sun, which thereby become visible to our sight, for the heavens themselves being pure, thin, and transparent, and without colour is not visible, as the Stars which shine aswell in the day, as in the night, although not perceived by reason of the suns greater light.  
Q. What motion, have the stars?  
A. The self same motion that the Heavens have wherein they are placed, which is as some say, by the primum mobile or first mover, turned by God himself, as every one of the rest by his proper intelligence, and whereas the 7 Planets or wandering Stars do change their places, now here, now there, that is not by their own proper motion, but by the motion of the heavens, wherein they are placed; for a star being of a round shape, hath no members to walk from one place to another, but only by the motion of the Heaven wherein they are fixed.  
Q. What comparison is therein their greatness between some stars and the earth.  
A. Though their far distance of them from the earth, makes their ray approach our eye in a sharp pointed Angle, whereby they seem to our sight and judgement no brother than our hand breadth.  
Yet is every fixed Star far greater in compass then the whole earth.  
Every wandering star likewise is bigger than the same, Luna, Venus, and Mercury excepted.  


Sol is bigger than the Earth, 166 Times.  
Saturn. is bigger than the Earth, 95 Times.  
jupiter. is bigger than the Earth, 91 Times.  
Mars. is bigger than the Earth, 2 Times.  
Venus' lesser than the Earth, 32 Times.  
Mercury, lest of all and is contained of the Earth. 3143 Times.     

The Nature of these 7. Planets, or wandering stars.  
Saturn is cold and dry, jupiter hot and moist, Mars extreme hot and dry: Sol hot and somewhat dry: Venus temperately cold and moist: Mercury of a changeable Nature, Luna cold & moist,   

Of the seven Ages of Man's life, with the predominancy of these 7. Planets or wandering stars, in every one of them.  
The Astrologians have divided man's life according to the Division of the World into 7. Ages, over every which Age one of these Planets or stars, have their Regiments assigned.  
1 The first Age is called Infancy which beginneth with the first childhood, and hath his continuance for the space of 7. years, over which Luna or the Moon reigneth, as may well appear by their moysture● agreeing with the influence of that Planet, Queen over seas and floods, and children.  
2 The second Age, is Childhood, which goes onward 7. years, more and continueth till the 14. year of their life, over which Mercury is assigned Patron, for then participating of their Regent's influence, Children are inconstant, yet of some comprehending Capacity, some what inclinable to learn.  
3 The third age proceedeth forward 8. years, and is termed I●●entu●, youth, or Stripling age, it wanders between 14. & 22. over which season Venus is predominant, for than they are amorous, lustful, loathsome of childish follies, and inclinable to more dangerous vices.  
4 The fourth Age beginneth at 22. and endeth 34. containing 12. years. In the which station the Epithet or Denomination, is a young man: over this age the Planet Sol is chief Regent, in which season, reason & discretion (like the beams thereof) begin to spread forth to enlighten the understanding, and to exhale and suck up the thick mists of ignorance & folly, and then gins a man to know he is a man.  
5 The fift Age is called Virile, or Man's Age, and that proceeds where the other ends, & continueth forward sixteen years, over which season Mars is chief governor. Now in this time a Man gins to be covetous, churlish, choleric, etc.  
6 The sixth Age runs forward 12. years more, and leaves him not till he hath numbered 62. this age is termed old age, though his toe touch but the heel thereof. Now over this jupiter is predominant, and he inclineth to justice, moderations and Religion, and all other actions of goodness and piety.  
7 The seventh and last age, continueth forward 18 years, it leaves a Man at 80 in the claws of weakness, and infirmity: For age itself, without sickness, which seldom lives at odds there with, is an infirmity: to this decrepit Age few creep to, by reason of the Planet Saturn, which is most melancholy and slow of all other, thereby his evil influence more enforcing a man, to decline and droop, become froward, cold, and melancholy, then otherwise he should, 

Likewise these four divisions of Man's life are compared in this manneer to the 4. Seasons of the year.  
1 His Infancy to the Spring, hot and moist.  
2 His Youth to the summer, hot and dry.  
3 His Manhood to Autumn, cold and moist.  
4 Senectus, or old age to Winter, cold and dry.    
Q. Why did men live longer before the flood then since?  
A. Before that Deluge, the Planets were glorious in their Natures, and sent better influences into human bodies. There were not so many Meteors, Comets & Eclipses seen, from which innumerable defects and diseases do proceed; The earth was more fruitful, wholesome, powerful in her Herbs, Plants, and Vegetables, their effects and virtues better known, which ever since the flood, which was stead away her fatness, have lost much of their operations, and now since with age more enfeebled in these weak and sickly seasons of our times, of which one thus writeth to our purpose.  
And now the springs and Summers which we see,  
Like sons of Women after fifty Bee.  
Lastly, they be more continent in their lives, more satisfied in their desires, which since, Gluttony and her new Cookery, have killed more than the sword, famine, or pestilence.  
Their knowledge in all Arts was more enlarged, the influences of the Planets better known, and how they work upon human bodies, as the s●me Author to the same purpose wittily followeth it.  
Then if a slow paced star had stolen away,  
Fron the Observers marking, he might stay  
Two or three hundred years to see it again  
And so make up his observation plain.  
Q. How is the World divided?  
A. Into two essential parts, the Celestial and Elemental part, of which the Celestial part containeth the 11. Heavens or Spheres, which are thus numbered.  
The 

1 Is the sphere of the Moon.  
2 Of Mercury.  
3 Of Venus.  
4 Of the Sun.  
5 Of Mars.  
6 Of jupiter,  
7 Of Saturn.  
8 Is the Sphere of the fixed stars.  
9 Is the sphere of the second movable.  
10 Of the primum Mobile, or first mover.  
11 The Imperial Heaven, where God & his Angels are said to dwell.    
The Elemental part, doth contain the 4. Elements, viz. 

1 The Element of Fire, next to the Moon, and so downward.  
2 The Element of the Air.  
3 The Element of the Water.  
4 And lowest of all, the Earth.    
Q If there be so many several Heavens, how comes it to pass that all these to the eye seem but as one entire body?  
A The reason hereof is, because they are all so clear and transparent, that though they involve and cover one another, as the skin or scale of an Onion, yet being in their nature more bright, pure, and subtle, than either Crystal, or the most transparent Glass, the sight doth pierce through them all as one, and views them all as one, though they are several and of exceeding great thickness.  
Q. Into how many Regions is the air divided?  
A. The Air is divided into three Regions, by the Natural Philosophers, both of Ancient and modern times, that is to say, into the highest, lowest, and middlemost Region: In the highest Region turned about by the Element of fire, are bred all lightnings, fire-drakes, Comets, Blazing-Starres, and such like.  
In the Middle Region all cold and watery impressions, as Frost, Snow, Ice, hail, etc.  
In the lowest Region, somewhat more hot by reason of the Beams of the Sun, reflecting from the Earth, and therein are bred all clouds, dews rains, and such like.   

A brief discourse of the Natural causes of sundry Meteors; as Snow, hail, Raine, win, things well known in their effects, though darkly in their causes.  
Happy his estate, above the fate of Kings,  
That could but truly know the cause of things.  
You must first understand that all watery Meteors, as Rain, Snow, or such like, are but a moist vapour drawn up by the virtue of the Sun & the rest of the Planets, into the middle Region of the Air, where being first congealed, are afterwards dissolu●d and fall upon the Earth, as hail or Raine.   

Of the Rainbow and the effects thereof.  
If two Rainbows appear at one time, they presage Rain to eusue, But if one Rainbow presently after Rain, it betokeneth fair weather.  
Dianaeus in his Physics saith, the Rainbow is made by reason of the Sun beams, beating upon a hollow cloud, their edge being so repelled and beaten back against the Sun, and thus ariseth variety of colours by the mixture of clouds, Air, and fiery light together, but as he saith, it pretendeth little alteration or change of weather.  Of the Wind, what it is, what the Motion and effect thereof, and from whence it proceedeth, though no man knoweth whence it cometh nor wh●ther it goeth, as testifieth the holy writ. 
First than you have to understand, that Aristotle and the rest of his S●ct, do define the Wind to be an Exhalation, Hot and Dry, engendered in the bowels of the earth, where breaking his prison, and violently rushing thereout, is carried sidelong upon the face thereof.  
Q. Why is not the motion thereof right upward, and downward, as well as always sidelong.  
A. Because that whilst by his heat, he striveth to mount up and carry his course through the 3. Regions of the Air, the middle Region by his extreme doth always beat it back, so that thereby, together with the confluence of other exhalations rising out of the earth, his motion is forced to be rather round than right, and the reason why he bloweth more sharply one time than another, and in one place, more than in another, and sometimes not at all is as fumes that arise out of new exhalations, and out of Floods, Fens, and Marshes may join with it to increase his force, the defect or fullness, whereof may either allay it or increase it; as also the Globe or rotundity of the Earth, may by the cause of the blowing of it, more in one place than in another; or mountains, hills, or woods may hinder his force from blowing in all places equally, whereas upon the plain or broad sea, it bloweth with an equal force; and as for the stillness or ceasing thereof, it cometh to pass divers ways, either by frost, closing and congealing up the pores of the Earth, whence it should issue, or by the heat of the Sun drying up fumes and vapours, that should increase it, and whereof it is engendered.   

The Nature of the 4 principal winds and their effects.  
1 SVbsolanus, or the East wind, is hot and dry, temperate, sweet, pure, subtle and healthful, and especially in the morning ', when the Sun riseth, by whom he is made more pure and subtle, causing no infection to man's body, but expelling it.  
2 Zephyrus, or the West wind, is temperate hot, and moist, and wholesome, especially in the evening, it dissolveth frost, ice, and snow, and maketh flowers and grass to spring, and some write that it produceth Thunder.  
3 Septentrio, or the North wind, is for the most part cold and dry, repelling moisture and rain, and though it cause cold and numbness, so nipping the fruits of the earth, and many times the forward buds of the Spring, yet it driveth away infectious and noisome airs, and so is a means to preserve health.  
4 Auster or Notas, the South wind is hot and moist, breeding thick clouds and sickness.   

Natural causes of Earthquakes.  
PLenty of winds got into the bowels, holes, and crannies of the earth, and violently rushing out, and the earth suddenly closing up again, causeth the shaking or earthquake, which is generally a forerunner of war.   

Of Thunder and Lightning.  
WHen an Exhalation hot and dry, mixed with moisture is attracted into the middle Region, and there enclosed in the body of a cloud, now these two contraries thus included in one place together, fall at variance, and cannot be reconciled, but break the prison wherein they are penned, the violent out-rushing whereof maketh a noise, which we call thunder, and the fire lightning, being both borne at one instant, although the lightning be the first perceived in regard of the quickness of the eye before the ear.   

Of the strange effects of Lightning.  
THat which is dry burneth not at all, that which is moist burneth not likewise, but blasts, and altereth the colour, but that which is clear is of a strange operation, for it draweth vessels dry without hurting the Cask melteth the silver without hurting the bag, breaketh the bones and hurteth not the skin, killeth the child in the womb without hurt to the mother.  
It hurteth not the Law●ell tree, entereth not above a yard into the earth, such as are shadowed with the skins of Seals, Sea calves, and the Eagle, are safe, as Pliny stories it.  
The Ancient Egyptians which were the first and best Astronomers, have observed certain years in a man's life to be very dangerous, and these they name Clymacterical, or stayry years: Now a Clymactericall year is every seventh year of a man's life; the reason is, because then the course of the Planets return to Saturn, who most commonly is ●n enemy to our good, and as the Moon which is the nearest, and next Planet unto us, and swiftest of course of all other, passeth almost every seventh day into the contrary sign of the same quality from whence she came forth, and so by that means bringeth in the Critical days: so Saturn which is the Planet furthest from us, and slowest of course, for he resteth in one sign so many years, as the Moon doth days, bringeth in likewise these Clymactericall years, and causeth sundry mutations to follow; hence it is that in the seventh year children do cast and renew their teeth.   

Hereafter followeth certain Clymactericall and dangerous years of a Man's life.  
TThe 49. year, composed of seven times seven dangerous, 56. year to men especially borne in the night, 63. years to those borne in the day time, by reason of the dryness of Mercury and Venus.  
Whereunto Octavius the Emperor seemeth to con●ent, whereto this effect he writeth to his Nephew, to rejoice with him having passed over that deadly year & enemy to old age 63 in which number the 7 and 9 do concur, as Heffman to that purpose more largely in his Book De diebus & an●nis Criticis reciteth.   

The Critical Days of a Man's life being collected throughout every mo●eth are observed these following.  

1 and 7 of january.  
2 and 4 of Frebruary.  
1 and 4 of March.  
8 and 10 of April.  
3 and 7 of May  
10 and 15 of june  
10 and 13 of july.  
1 and 2 of August.  
3 and 30 of September.  
3 and ●0 of October.  
3 and 5 of November.  
7 and 10 of December.   
There are likewise in the year●more especially to be observed 3 dangerous mondays, to begin any business, fall sick, or undertake any journey.  
First Monday in April, which day Cain was borne and his brother Abel slain.  
Second Monday in August, which day Sodom and Gommorrah were destroyed.  
31 Of December, which day judas was borne that betrayed Christ.   

Of the 4. humours in man's body, and how they reign in their courses, and first What a Humour is.  
A Humour is a Distillation of a moist and running body, into which by the Limbeck of the liver the meats are converted and diffused through the veins and Alleys of the same, for the better nourishmeut thereof, and are thus according to Lemnius described in his Book De quatuor Complectionibus.   

1 Sanguine humour.  
The blood or sanguine humour, is moist and ruddy, and hot, the principal seat, or cistern thereof is the Liver, or Amwell head, that watereth the whole City, or body of man, out of which issue forth the vital spirits, like unto small and gentle winds that arise out of rivers and fountains.   

2 Phlegmatic Humour.  
The Phlegmatic humour is of colour white and brackish, and like unto drops of fat. his seat is chief in the kidneys, which separate to themselves, the water from the blood, dividing the blood into the veins, and expelling the water into urine.   

3 Choler.  
It is hot and fiery, and to the taste bitter●, like unto Herbgrace or Rue, and it serveth not only to cleanse the guts of filth, but also to calify the Liver, and to preserve the blood from putrefaction.   

4. Melancholy.  
The Melancholy Humour is black and earthly, resembling the lees of blood, and hath his seat in the spleen, of which one thus writeth.  
The Sanguine causeth cheerfulness.  
The Melancholy despair.  
The choleric is churlish.  
The Phlegmatic is fair.  
Every one of these Humours reign 6. hours, blood is predominant from 9 of the clock at night, till 3 of the morning; Choler, from 3 of the clock in the morning, till nine of the same day; Melancholy, from nine till three in the afternoon, and Phlegm, from three in the afternoon till nine at night.  
Also blood hath his dominion in the Spring, Choler in the Summer, Melancholy in Autumn, and Phlegm in Winter, as Lemnius thus further in his said Book testifieth.    

Hereunto are annexed certain verses, describing the person and quality of that child of Chase, or Lady PECUNIA, written long since by that Gentleman of quality I.T. and as something pertinent to our purpose hereinto inserted.  
She is a Lady of most matchless carriage,  
Wedded to none, though sought of all in marriage:  
She may be kistt, yet neither washed nar clipped,  
And if you woo not wary, soon o'erslipped,  
She may belong, and yet be honest too,  
To many Merchants, spite they all can do  
Who ere achieves her, speak her north so fair,  
She'll not stay long before she take the air:  
She'll stay with no poor man her states so great,  
A rich man may her for a time entreat,  
She goes in cloth of silver, cloth of gold,  
Off●uer all worths, and values manifold,  
But when she goes in golden robes best doubt  
Than she's suspected most to be most light,  
She needs no Physic to recover health,  
For she's still currant, & as rich in wel●h,  
Some Irish Lady borne, we may suppose:  
Because she runs so fast, and never goes:  
If she be wronged in name, and ill abide it,  
Of all men justice Touchstone must decide it,  
She that thus does, and all do thus to gain her,  
Being so achieved, she is but slippery bold,  
And will be gone, unless by force you strain her,  
Changing her humour to another mould  
By pence and half pence, and such little crumbs,  
Which of themselves so slightly men do prize,  
In time are eaten up those larger sums,  
That did not by such petty parcels rise:  
Like little drops that of themselves not feared,  
Yet doth in time together so much slip,  
That where no danger at the first appeared  
It after comes to bear or drowned a ship.  
Thy pence a day that may be saved from waste,  
When thou dost see in one year there amount,  
Will be by this presentment held more fast,  
And weighed as thrift persuades in more account.  
Which unsuspected thief that all may know it,  
●e waste but few lines more before I show it.   

A brief representation of idle or extraordinary expenses with their amounts to in the year, fit to be regarded of all those that out of a wary disposition intent to thrive.  

The Induction.  
HE that makes conscience of a venial sin,  
Into a mort all seldom falleth in.  
He that not slightly passeth over one day.  
Throws not in thristllesse uses years away.  
He that makes conscience for to speak the truth.  
Seldom forswears himself in age or youth.  
So he that a penny gripeth fast.  
Seldom throws pounds or crowns ' away in waste.  
As contrary he that o'erlooks these small,  
And petty moyties, easily sinks in all,  
A penny is a small regardless sum,  
Yet may in some time to some thing come,  
Therefore observe this Table, thou shalt know,  
How great those little in small time do grow.  
And how with easy steps they do decay,  
Those that near reckon pence, they waste this way.   

By the Day, By the Week. A farthing. 1. d. ob. q. A half penny. 3 d. ob. A penny. 7 d. 2 pence. 14. d. 3 pence. 21. d. 4 pence. 2. s 4. d. 5 pence. 2 s. 21. d. 6 pence. 3 s. 6. d. By the month. By the year. 7. d. 7. s. 8. d. q. 14. d. 15. s. 2. d. ob. 2, s 4. d. 30. s. 5 d. 4. s, 8. d. 3. l. 10. d. ●7. ●. 4. l. 11. s. 3. d. 9 s. 4. 6. l. 2. s. 6. d. 11. s. 8. d. 7. l. 12. s. 1. d. 14 s. 9 l. 2. s. 6. d.   

All which said several Rates, may be thus more easily summed up after the manner of Exchequer reckoning as followeth.  
A penny a day is by the year one pound, one half pound, one groat, one penny.  
Two pence a day by the ear two pound, two half pound, two groats two pence.  
Three pence a day is by the year three pound, three half pound, three groats, three pence.  
Four pence a day is by the year four pound, four half pound, four groats, four pence.  
And so forward of the rest, being a certain and general rule to calculate what sum or quantity you please.  
The mouth of Usury being opened, yet her fangs not pulled out, (as some jews were in King john's time in England) but her teeth discovered that the borrower may beware: To which effect is showed, how much divers principal sums with Interest, and Interest upon Interest amount to in several years.  
  1. l. 2. l. 3. l.   l. s. d. ob. q l. s. d ob q l: s. d. ob q year 1 1. 2. 0. 0, 0, 2, 4, 0, 0, 0 3, 6, 0, 0, 0, 2 1, 4, 2. 0, 3▪ 2. 8. 4. 1 2, 3. 12, 7, 0, 1 3 1, 0, 7, 0, 3, 2, ●3, 2, 1, 3 3, 19, 10, 0, 2, 4 1, 9, 4, 0, 3, 2, 18, 6, 1, 2 4, 7, 10, 0, 1. 7 1, 18, 11, 1, 1, 3 17. 11. 0 2 5 16, 11, 0. 0. 14 3, 15, 11, 0, 3 7. 11, 11, 1 2 11, 7, 10, 0, 1. 21 7, 8, 0, 0, 0, 14 16, 0, 0 0 22, 4, 0. 0, 0, 2   10. l. ●0. l. 40 l. year 1 11, 0, 0, 0, 0 22, 0 0 0 0. 44, 0. 0, 0, 0. 2 12, 2, 0, 0, 0, 24, 4, 0, 0: 0 48, 8, 0. 0, 0 3 13, 6, 2, 0, 3. 26, 12, 4, 1, 2 53, 4, 9, 1, 0 4 14, 12, 9 1, 2, 29. 5. 7. 1. 1 58, 11, 3, 11, 0, 7 19 9 8. 1. 2. 88 19 5: 1, 2 77, 18, 11, 1, 1. 14 37. 9, 6. 0. 0 0 75 19 0 0. 0 151, 18, 0, 0, 0. 21 74. 0. 0, 1, 1, 148. 0. 1. 0, 1 296, 0, 2, 0, 0, 3,   50. l. 100 l. 200 year 1 55, 0, 0, 0, 0 110, 0, 0, ●, 0 220, 0, 0. 0, 0, 2 60, 10. 0● 0. 0. 121, 0, 0, 0, 0, 244. 0. 0, 0, 0. 3 66, 11, 0. 0 0 133, 2, 0, 0, 0 266 4, 0, 0, 0, 4 73, 4, 1. 0. 2. 146, 8, 2, 0, 2 291. 16, 4. 1. 2. 7 97, 8. 8, 1, 0 192 17 5, 0 1 389, 14, 10, 0. 3 14 189, 17, 6, 0 0 379, 15, 0 0 0 752. 10. 0 0. 0 21 370, 0●, 3, 0, 0. 740. 0. 6, 0. 0, 1480. 1, 0. 0. 0,  
By this Table you may easily perceive what the principal, with interest and interest upon interest from many sums amounteth uno, and how in every 7. years (what sum soever) the Interest almost overtaketh the Principal, and which for the easiness thereof needs no further explication.    

ADMIRATIO.  
That money should engender thus & breed,  
Is against nature springing from no seed:  
Yet see this Usury that's ever running,  
Insensibly devours state with cunning:  
See how it eats, and yet no teeth you see,  
It is a monster sure, what should it be?  
In 7. years, a term of time but small,  
The Interest looks as big as principal:  
A forward whelp like to his dame or mother,  
And every year bites deeper still than other.  
Therefore, who ere thou art that meanest to thrive,  
Forbear that jaw that swallows men alive,  
So shalt thou live thy happy days to see,  
And foenus shall not to thee funus be,  
And though this be the gulf that most men fear,  
Yet th'other petty channel come not near,  
For 'tis all one the effect so understood  
To drowned in deepest sea, or shallowest flood,  
And therefore to this ruin if thou haste thee,  
All's one, if first or last, or whether waste thee.  
And therefore if thou mean to live a shore,  
Through Scylla and Charybdis sail no more.   

Certain admonitions to Countrymen.  
He is branded with the name of a sluggard that would not go forth, because. the weather was cold, and a Lion was in the way.  
But he shall be known by the cognizance of a fool that forbears his work or journey because his Almanac saith, it shall rain.  
Sow not the seed of dissension, lest thou reap the harvest of repentance, neither take up Law as thy Instrument or revenge upon every small occasion, lest in the end thou be foiled with thine own weapon; for thus know, that although every Term have her several returns, yet if thou be too conversant herein thy purse shall find more doings out then coming in.  
Poor Countrymen for the most Part, it is your wisdom to follow the direct rules of your Almanac, either for Phlebotomy, or other directions for the health of the body, for sowing and setting of Seeds or Plants, for the cutting of the hair, for the gelding of your Cattle, etc. Yet where the great Doctor both of health and wealth, of Soul and body, shall give you rules, by his word, by his messengers, Hoc fac & vives, this do, and you shall live: or as it was 5000. years since, and upward spoken to our first Parents, Hoc fac, & morieris, do this and thou shalt die: yet it will be more curious with the purblind World to follow your petty Anniversary Oracle, concerning many times there uncertain directions, & but about trash and trumpery, sticks, and shreds, of small availeance, than that matter of all primall importance, and for which many thousands now smart that cannot come here to complain.  
For thy choice of good, and avoiding of evil days for the speed or hindrance of any business thou takest in hand, I advise thee not to be greatly scrupulous therein, though some have been curious to observe them, for to the good all days are good, as to the evil all days are evil.  
Concerning the causes of sundry Meteors, you for the most part think they have none more than the immediate hand of God, To which I answer.  
The Wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof.  
The Thunder roareth where he listeth, that holdeth the waters in his fist, weigheth the Hills and mountains in a balance, and saileth upon the wings of the wind. Yet thou that thinkest and rightly thinkest, and so answerest to him, that demandeth: They came from God, yet with all know they come not so immediately from him that they have no secondary causes as his instruments whereof they proceed and are effected, as hath in this Treatise more largely been declared.  The end of the Countrimant Counsellor. 
FINIS.