MYTHOMYSTES WHEREIN A SHORT SURVEY IS TAKEN OF THE NATURE AND VALVE OF TRUE POESY AND DEPTH OF THE ANCIENTS ABOVE OUR MODERN POETS.  
To which is annexed the Tale of Narcissus briefly mythologized  
LONDON, Printed for Henry Seyle, at the Tigers-head in St. Paul's Churchyard.   

To the Right Honble: and my euer-honored Lord, Henry Lord Matravers.  
MY LORD  
As I have ever been a lover (though ignorant one) of the Art of Painting, a fruit of the Fancy that may be fitly called a silent Poësy, so of necessity must I love her Sister the Art of Poësy, which is no other than a speaking Painting or Picture. And because I presume your Lop:: favouring, and so well understanding the one, cannot but understand, and like the other, I adventure to present a slight draft of her to your Lop:: that as you have daily before your eyes, one of the best surveys of what is, or can be in Picture, you may have likewise limned, though in little, by a creature no less your own than they are (how artfully I dare not avouch, but sure) a true picture of her Sister Poësy. A Birth (my Lord) some months since conceived, and even as soon borne; and which, though now open to other eyes, yet asks no other honour then your acceptance; to whom in grateful acknowledgement of your noble favours, are (no less than this his slight issue is,) for ever dedicated the best of the poor endeavours of the parent  
Your Lops. humble, and most affectionate servant H: R:   

TO THE CANDID AND INGENVOUS READER.  
Look not generous Reader (for such I write to) for more in the few following leaves, than a plain and simple verity; unadorned at all with elocution, or Rhetorical phrase; glosses fitter perhaps to be set upon silken and thin paradoxical semblances, then appertaining to the care of who desires to lay down a naked & unmasked Truth. Nor expect here an Encomium or praise of any such thing as the world ordinarily takes Poësy for; That same thing being (as I conceive) a superficial mere outside of Sense, or gay bark only (without the body) of Reason; Witness so many excellent wits that have taken so much pains in these times to defend her; which sure they would not have done, if what is generally received now a days for Poësy, were not merely a faculty, or occupation of so little consequence, as by the lovers thereof rather to be (in their own favour) excused, then for any good in the thing itself, to be commended. Nor must thou here expect thy solution, if thy curiosity invite thee to a satisfaction in any the under-accidents, but in merely the Essential Form, of true Poësy: Such I call the Accidents or appendices thereto, as conduce somewhat to the Matter, and End, nothing to the real Form and Essence thereof. And these accidents (as I call them) our commenders & defenders of Poësy have chiefly, and indeed sufficiently insisted, and dilated upon; and are first, those flowers (as they are called) of Rhetoric, consisting of their Anaphoras, Epist●…ophes, Metaphors, Metonymyes, Synecdoches and those their other potent Tropes and Figures; helps, (if at all of use to furnish out expressions with,) much properer sure, and more fitly belonging to Poesy then Oratory; yet such helps, as if Nature have not beforehand in his birth, given a Poet, all such forced Art will come behind as lame to the business, and deficient, as the best-taught country Morris d●…uncer with all his bells and napkins, will ill deserve to be in an Inn of Court at Christmas, termed the thing they call a fine reveller. The other Accidents of Poesy, and that are the greater part of the appurtenances thereof, in the account of our Poets of these times, are also here utterly unmencioned, such as are, what sort of Poëme may admit the blank verse, what requires exact rhyme; where the strong line (as they call it) where the gentle, sorts best; what subject must have the verse of so many feet, what of other; where the masculine rhyme, where the feminine, and where the threesillabled (which the Italians call their rhyme sdrucciole) are to be used. These (I say) and the like Adjuncts of Poësy, (elsewhere amply discoursed of by many curious wits) are not here mentioned. Only what I conceived fit to speak (and with what brevity I could) of the Ancient Poets in general, and of the Form and real Essence of true Poësy, considered merely in it own worth and validity, without extrinsic and suppeditative ornament at all, together with the parallel of their foil (our Modern Poets and Poësyes,) I have, (to the end to redeem in some part, and vindicate that excellent Art from the injury it suffers in the world's general misprizion and misconstruction thereof,) here touched, and but touched; the rather to awake some abler understanding than my own, to the pursuit (if they please) of a theme (I conceive) well worthy a greater industry, and happier leisures than I myself possess.   

MYTHOMYSTES.  
WHEREIN A SHORT SURVEY IS TAKEN OF THE NATURE AND VALVE OF TRUE Poesy, and depth of the Ancients above our Modern Poets.  
I Have thought upon the times we live in; and am forced to affirm the world is decrepit, and out of its age & doting estate, subject to all the imperfections that are inseparable from that wrack and maim of Nature, that the young behold with horror, and the sufferers thereof lie under with murmur and languishment. Even the general Soul of this great Creature, whereof every one of ours is a several piece, ●…emes bedrid, as upon her deathbed, and near the time of her dissolution to a second better estate, and being: the years of her strength are past; and she is now nothing but disease for the Souls health is no other than merely the knowledge of the Truth of things. Which health, the world's youth enjoyed; and hath now 
* F●…r 〈◊〉 world 〈◊〉 l●…st 〈◊〉 y●…th, a●… the times b●…in to w●… 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉 ●…d. 〈◊〉. 14.  exchanged for it, all the diseases of all errors, heresies, and different sects and schisms of opinions and understandings in all matter of Arts, Sciences, and Learnings whatsoever. To help on these diseases to incurability, what age hath ever been so fruitful of liberty in all kinds, and of all permission and allowance for this reason of ours, to run wildly all her own hurtfullest ways without bridle, bound, or limit at all? For instance; what books have we of what ever knowledge, or in what mysteries soever, wisely by our Ancients (for avoiding of this present malady the world is now fall'n into) couched, and carefully enfolded, but must be by every illiterate person without exception, deflowered and broke open, or broke in pieces, because beyond his skill to unlock them? Or what Law have we that provides for the restraint of these myriads of hot headed wranglers, & ignorant writers and teachers, which, out of the bare privilege of perhaps but puny graduate in some University, will venture upon all, even the most removed and most abstruse knowledges, as perfect understanders and expounders of them, upon the single warrant of their own brain; or inventors of better themselves, than all Antiquity could deliver down to them; out of the treasonous mint of their own imaginations? What havoc, what mischief to all learn, and how great a multiplicity of poisonous errors and heresies must not of necessity hence ensue, and overspread the face of all Truths whatsoever?  
Among these heresies (to omit those in matter of Divinity, or the right form of worshipping God, which the Doctors of his Church are sitter to make the subjects of their tongues and pens, than I, a Layman, and all-unworthy the task,) among, I say, these, (if I may so call them) heresies, or ridiculous absurdities in matter of humane letters, and their professors in these times, I find none so gross, nor indeed any so great scandal, or maim to humane learning, as in the almost general abuse, and violence offered to the excellent art of 〈◊〉, first, by those learned (as they think themselves) of our days, who call themselves Poets; and next, by such as out of their ignorance, heed not how much they profane that high and sacred title in calling them so.  
From the number of these first mentioned, (for, for the last, I will not mention them; nor yet say as a grave Father, and holy one too, of certain obstinate heretics said; Decipiantur in nomine diaboli; but charitably wish their reformation, and cure of their blindness;) from the multitude (I say) of the common rhymers in these our modern times, and modern tongues, I will exempt some few, as of a better rank and condition than the rest. And first to begin with Spain. I will say it may justly boast to have afforded (but many Ages since) excellent Poets, as Seneca, the Tragedian, Lucan, and Martial the Epigrammatist, with others; and in these latter times, as divers in Prose, some good Theologians also in Rhyme; but for other Poesies in their (now spoke) tongue, of any great name, (not to extol their trifling, though extolled Celestina, nor the second part of their Diana de Monte Major, better much than the first; and these but poetic prosers neither,) I cannot say it affords many, if any at all: The inclination of that people being to spend much more wit, and more happily in those prose Romances they abound in, such as their Lazarillo, Don Quixote, Guzman, and those kind of ●…uenta's of their Picaro's, and Gitanillas, than in Rhyme. The French likewise, more than for a Rensart, or Desportes, but chiefly their Sallust, (who may pass among the best of our moderns,) I can say little of▪ Italy hath in all times, as in all abilities of the mind beside, been much fertiler than either of these, in Poets. Among whom, (to omit a Petrarch, who though he was an excellent rimer in his own tongue, and for his Latin Africa justly deserved the laurel that was given him; yet was a much excellenter Philosopher in prose; and with him, a Bembo, Dante, Ang: Politiano, Caporale, Pietro Aretino, Sannazaro, Guarini, and diverse others, men of rare fancy all) I must prefer chiefly three; as the grave and learned Tasso, in his Set giorni, (a divine work) and his Gierusalem liberata, so far as an excellent pile of merely Moral Philosophy may deserve. Then, Ariosto, for the artful woof of his ingenious, though unmeaning fables; the best, perhaps, have in that kind been sung since Ouid. And lastly, that smoothwrit Adonis of Marino, full of various conception, and diversity of learning. The Dutch I cannot mention, being a stranger to their minds, and manners; therefore I will return home to my Countrymen, and mother tongue: And here, exempt from the rest, a Chaucer, for some of his poems; chiefly his Troilus and Cr●…sside. Then the generous and ingenious Sidney, for his smooth and artful Arcadia (and who I could wish had choze rather to have left us of his pen, an Encomiasticke Poem in honour, than prose-Apology in defence, of his favourite, the excellent Art of Poesy.) Next, I must approve the learned Spencer, in the rest of his Poems, no less than his Fairy Queen, an exact body of the Ethicke doctrine: though some good judgements have wished (and perhaps not without cause) that he had therein been a little freer of his fiction, and not so close ri●…etted to his Moral; no less than many do to daniel's Civil wars, that it were (though otherwise a commendable work) yet somewhat more than a true Chronicle history in rhyme; who, in other less laboured things, 〈◊〉 have indeed more happily, (h●…er, always clearly and smooth●… written. We have among us a late-writ Polyolbion, also and an Agincourte, wherein I will only blame their honest Authors ill fate, in not having laid him out some happier Clime, to have given honour and life to, in some happier language. After these, (besides some late dead) there are others now living, dramatic and liricke writers, that I must deservedly commend for those parts of fancy and imagination they ●…ossesse; and should much more, could we see them somewhat more, force those gifts, and liberal graces of Nature, to the end she gave them; and therewith, work and constantly tyre upon solid knowledges; the which having from the rich fountes of our reverend Ancients, drawn with unwearied, and wholsomely employed industrie●… they might in no less pleasing and profitable fictions than they have done (the very fittest conduit-pipes) derive down to us the understanding of things even farthest removed from us, and most worthy our speculation, and knowledge. But alas, such children of obedience, I must take leave to say, the most of our ordinary pretenders to Poesy now a days, are to their own, and the diseased times ill habits, as the rack will not be able to make the most advised among twenty of them confess, to have farther inquired, or attended to more, in the best of their Authors they have chosen to read and study, than merely his style, phrase, and manner of expression; or scarce suffered themselves to look beyond the dimension of their own brain, for any better counsel or instruction elsewhere. What can we expect then of the Poems they write? Or what can a man me thinks liken them more fitly to, than to Ixion's issue? for he that with merely a natural vein, (and a little vanity of nature, which I can be content to allow a Poet) writes without other grounds of solid learning, than the best of these ungrounded rhymers understand or aim at, what does he more than embrace assembled clouds with Ixion, and beget only Monsters? This might yet be borne with, did not these people as confidently usurp to themselves the title of Scholars, and learned men, as if they possessed the knowledges of all the Magis, the wise East did ever breed; when, let me demand but a reason for security of my judgement in allowing them for such, they straight give me to know they understand the Greek, and Latin; and in conclusion, I discover, the complete crown of all their ambition is but to be styled by others a good Latinist or Grecian, and then they style themselves good Scholars. So would I too, had I not before hand been taught to say: Non quia Graeca scias, vel calles verba Latina, Doctus es aut sapiens, sed quia vera vides; & beside, happened to know a late travailing Odcombian among us; that became (I know not for what mortaller sin than his variety of language) the common scorn, and contempt of all the abusive wits of the time; yet possessed both those languages in great perfection; as his eloquent orations 
●…ortney made him stand, and speak Greek upon his head with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  in both tongues; (and uttered upon his owne* head without prompting) have ever sufficiently testified. Now, finding this to be the greate●… part of the Scholarship these our Poets endeavour to have, and which many of them also have; I find with all, they 〈◊〉 d●…wne as satisfied, as if their vnf●… breasts contained each one the learning and wisdom of an Orpheus, Virgil, H●…sio, 〈◊〉, and Homer altogether. When as, what have they else but the bark and clothing m●…erely wherein their high and profound doctrines lay? Never looking farther into those their golden fictions for any higher sense, or any thing diviner in them enfolded & hid from the vulgar, but lu●…ed with the marvelous expression & artful contexture of their fables- tanquam paruipueri (as one says) per brumam ad ignem s●…ssitantes, aniles nugas fabellásque de Poetis imbibunt, cum interim de utiliore sanctiorèque sententia minime sunt solliciti.  
I have stayed longer, and rubbeth harder me thinks than needs, upon the sore of our now a day Poets. Let me leave them, and look back to the never enough honoured Ancients; and set them before our eyes, who no less deservedly wore the name of Prophets, and Privy-counsellors of the Gods (to use their own 
* H●…m. in Odiss.  phrase, or Sons of the Gods, as Plato 
* 〈◊〉 Repub. lib. 〈◊〉.  calls them) than Poets. To the end we may, if in this declining state of the world we cannot rectify our oblique one, by their perfect and straight line, yet endeavour it: and in the mean time give the awful reverence due to them, for the many regions of distance between their knowledges and ours. And this that we may the better do, let us parallel them with the Poets (if I may so call them) of our times, in three things only, and so carry along together their strait and our crooked line; for our better knowledge of them, and reformation of ourselves. In the first place then, let us take a survey of their natural inclination and propenseness to the acquisition of the knowledge of truth, by what is delivered to us of them; as also, of their willing neglect, and aversion from all worldly business and cogitations that might be hindrances in the way to their desired end.  
1. It is in humane experience found, as well as by all writers determined, that the powerfullest of all the affects of the mind is Love, and therefore the divine Plato 
* In Phaed●….  says, it is justly called Roma; which among the Greeks, is force, potency, or vehemence. Of this Love there be two kinds; Celestial or Intellectual; or else Carnal or Vulgar. Of both these kinds Sal●…mon hath spoken excellently; of the Vulgar, in his Proverbes as a Moral, and in his Ecclesiastes as a Natural Philosopher; and divine-like of the divine and Intellectual Love in his Canticle; for which it is called among all the rest of the holy Scripture Canticum canticorum, as the most sacred and divine. The object of this Celestial or Intellectual Love, (for the other, or vulgar Love it concerns me not to mention,) is the excellency of the Beauty of Supernal and Intellectual things: To the contemplation whereof, rational and wise Spirits are forcibly raised and lifted aloft; yea lifted oftentimes so far (says Plato) 
* In Iöne.  above mortality, as even- in Deum transeunt, and so full fraught with the delight and abondance of the pleasure they feel in those their elevations, raptures, and mental alienations (wherein the sold remains for a time quite separated as it were from the body) do not only sing with the ingenious Ovid: Est D●…us in nobis, agitante calescimus illo, But ●…n an Extaticke manner, and to use Plato's 
* In Iöne.  phrase) divino afflatu concilati, cry out with the intraunced Zoroaster-Ope thine eyes, open them wide; raise and lift them aloft. And of this, the excellent Prince ●…o: Picus-Mirandula, (in a discourse of his upon the doctrine of Plato) gives the reason; saying: Such, whose understanding (being by Philosophical study refined and illuminated) knows this sensible Beauty to be but the image of another more pure and excellent, leaving the love of this, desire to see the other; and persevering in this elevation of the mind, arrive at last to that celestial love; which although it lives in the understanding of the soul of every man, yet they only (says he) make use of it, and they are but few, who separating themselves wholly from the care of the body, seem thence oftentimes extaticke, and as it were quite ravished and exalted above the earth and all earthly amusements. And farther, in another place of that Treatise, 
Fol. 507.  adds that many with the fervent love of the beauty and excellence of intellectual things, have been so razed above all earthly considerations, as they have lost the use of their corporal eyes. Homer (says he) with seeing the ghost of Achilles, which inspired him with that Poetic fury, that who with understanding reads, shall find to contain in it all intellectual contemplation, was thereby deprived (or feigned to be deprived) of his corporal eyesight, as one that seeing all things above, could not attend to the heeding of trivial and meaner things below. And such rapture of the spirit, is expressed (says he) in the fable of 〈◊〉 that Calima●…us sings; who for having seen Pallas naked (which 〈◊〉 no other than that Ideall ●…y, whe●… proceeds all sincere wisdom, and not clothed or covered with corporal matter) became suddenly blind, and was by the same Pallas made a Prophet; so as that which blinded his corporal eyes, opened to him the eyes of his understanding; by which he saw not only all things past, but also all that were to come.  
Lo, these, and such Spirits as these the learned Picus speaks of, such were those of those Ancient Fathers of all learning, and ●…yresia like Prophets, as Poets: such their neglect of the body, and business of the world! Such their blindness to all things of trivial and inferior condition; And such lastly were those extaticke elevations; or that truly - divinus furor of theirs, which Plato speaking of 
* In I●…ne.  says it is a thing so sacred, asnon sine maximo favore Dei comparari queat; cannot be attained to without the wonderful favour of God. And which self thing themselves meant in their fable of that beautiful Ganymede, they sing of, (which interpreted, is the Contemplation of the Soul, or the Rational part of Man) so dear to the God of gods and men, as that he raiseth it up to heaven, there to pour out to him (as they make him his cupbearer) the sovereign Nectar of Sapience and wisdom, the liquor he is only best pleased and delighted with. These were those fathers (as I lately called them) and fountes of knowledge and learning; or nurses of wisdom, from whose pregnant breasts the whole world hath sucked the best part of all the humane knowledge it it hath; And from whose wise and excellent fables (as * one of our late Mythologians truly notes) All those 
Nata●… Comes.  were after them called Philosophers took their grounds and first initia Philosophandi; adding, that their Philosophy was no other than merely- explicata-the senses and meanings of fables taken out and separated from their husks and involuements. With whom the excellent Io: Picus (or rather Phoenix as wisemen 
* Ang●… Politianus, (who likewise calls him- Doctiorum omnium doctissimus,) Pau: jovius, Baroaldus, and our Sir Tho●… Moor, who (among infinite many others) hath voluminously write his praises.  have named him) consenting, says in his Apologia (speaking of the Poesies of Zoroaster and Orpheu●…-Orpheus apud Graecos fermè intiger; Zoroaster apud eos mancus, apud Caldaeos absolutior legitur. Ambo (says he) priscae Sapientiae patres & authores. Both of them fathers and authors of the ancient Wisdom. With these also the most authentic jamblicus, the Caldean, who writes- Pythagoras had- Orphicam Theologiam tanquam exemplar, ad quam ipse suam effingeret formaretque philosophiam; the Theology of Orpheus as his copy and pattern, by which he form and fashioned his philosophy. I will add a word more of the before-cited Picus; who thus far farther of Orpheus in particular 
* In Apolog. fol. 83.  says- Sacreta de Numeris doctrina, & quicquid magnum sublimèque habuit Graeca philosophia, ab Orphei institutis ut a primo fonte manavit; the mystical doctrine of Numbers, and what ever the Greek philosophy had in it great and high, flowed all from the Institutions of Orpheus, as from their first fount. And of the rest of his rank and fraternity, those- Sapientiae patres, ac duces (as Plato 
* In Lyside.  calls those old excellent Poets), I will conclude in general, with the testimony of first, the now-mentioned Plato; who says likewise elsewhere 
* In 〈◊〉.  Nihil aliud sunt quam deorum interprete; they are no other than the Interpreters of the gods. And in another place 
* In Phaedro.  that-their praeclara poemata non hominum sunt inventa, sed caelestia munera. Their excellent Poems are not the inventions of men, but gifts and and graces of heaven. And lastly with Farra the learned Alexandrian, who speaking likewise 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 〈◊〉. 32.  of the old Poets, says. Their fables are all full of most high Mysteries; and have in them that splendour that is shed into the fancy and intellect, ravished, and inflamed with divine fury. And in the same Treatise makes this particular 
fol. 322.  mention of some of them- and in those times flourished Linus, Orpheus, Museus, Homer, Hesiod, and all the other most famous of that truly golden age.  
Now to apply this short view we have taken of these ancient Poets; whither there appears aught in any our students, or writers of our times, be they Poets or Philosophers (I put them together, as who are, or should be both professors of but one, and the same learning, though by the one received and delivered in the apparel of verse, the other of prose,) that may in any degree of coherence suffer a parallel with either the Inclinations or Abilities of such as these before mentioned, I wish we could see cause to grant. but rather, that there is in them (for aught appears) no such inclination to the love or search of any great or high truths (for the Truths sake, merely) nor the like neglect of the world and blindness to the vanities thereof, in respect of it, nor lastly, any fruits from them, savouring of the like Industry, or bearing any shadow scarce of similitude with that of theirs, we may positively affirm; as a truth no less obvious to every man's eye, than the lamentable cause and occasion thereof is to every man's understanding; which is the mean account, or rather contempt and scorn that in these days, all ungaining Sciences, & that conduce not immediately to worldly profit, or popular eminence, are held in the. Poet especially.  

Qual vaghezza di lauro, qual di mirto?  
Povera, e nuda vai filosofia,  
Dice la turba all vil guadagno intesa.   
Whence it is, that much time spent in solid contemplative studies is held vain and unnecessary; and these slight flashes of ungrounded fancy, (ingenious Nothings, & mere embroideries upon copwebbs) that the world swarms with, (like sophisticate alchemy gold that will not abide the first touch, yet glitters more in the eye than the sad weight yer true gold), are only laboured for and attended too; because they take best, and most please the corrupt taste and false appetite of the sordid and barbarous times we live in. And yet to speak a troth, I cannot herein blame the diseased world so much, as I do the infelicity of that sacred Art of Poesy; which like the sovereign prescriptions of a Galen or Hypocrates, ordered and dispensed by illiterate Empyricks or dog-leeches, must needs (as the best physics ill handled) prove but so much variety of poison instead of cure. And such are the mont'ibanke Rhymers of the time, and so faulty, that have so much abused their prefession, and the world; and stuck so general a scandal upon that excellent Physic of the mind; with the poison of their meritricious flatteries, and base servile fawning at the heels of worldly wealth and greatness, as makes it abhorred of all men; and most, of those that are of most understanding. For indeed what can be more contemptible, or breed a greater indignation in wise, and understanding minds, than to see the study of Wisdom made not only a mercenary, but vicious occupation. And that same pu●…icam Palladem, (as a wise Author from the like resentment aptly says) deorum munere inter homines diversantem eijci, explodi exibilari, Non habere qui amet, qui faveat, nisi ipsa quasi prostans, & praefloratae virginitatis accepta mercedula, maleparatum aes in amatoris arculam referat.  
2. The second great disparity, that I find between those ancient Fathers of learning, and our modern writers, is in the price and estimation they held their knowledges in. Which appears in the care they took to conceal them from the unworthy vulgar; and which doth no less commend their wisdom, than conclude (by their contrary course) our Moderns, empty, and barren of any thing rare and precious in them; who in all probability would not prostitute all they know to the rape and spoil of every illiterate reader, were they not conscious to themselves their treasure deserves not many locks to guard it under. But that I may not conclude upon a- non concessum, for I remember I have heard it affirmed, (and by some too that the time calls Scholars), that the Ancients certainly spoke their meanings as plain as they could, and were the honester men for doing so; and there may be more birds beside, of the same feather with these; therefore I will in charity speak a word or two for these people's instruction; and in the mean between the whining Heraclite, and overrigid Democritus (as much as in me lies) comiter erranti monstrare viam.  
Let such then as are to learn whither to conceal their knowledges, was the intent and studied purpose of the Ancient Poets all, and most of the ancient Philosophers also; let such I say, know, that, when in the world's youth & capabler estate, those old wise Egyptian Priests began to search out the Mysteries of Nature, (which was at first the whole world's only divinity) they devized, to the end to retain among themselves what they had found, (lest it should be abused and vilefied by being delivered to the vulgar) certain marks, and characters of things, under which all the precepts of their wisdom were contained; which marks they called Hieroglyphics or sacred graving. And more than thus, they delivered little: or what ever it was, yet always dissimulanter, and in Enigmas and mystical riddles, as their following disciples also did. And this proviso of theirs, those Images of Sphynx they placed before all their Temples did insinuate; and which they set for admonitions, that high and Mystical matters should by riddles and enigmatical knots be kept inviolate from the profane Multitude. I will give instance of one or two of them. The authentic testimony late cited (to other purpose) by me of Orpheus, and his learning, (viz. That he was one of the priscae sapientiae patres, and that the Secreta de numeris doctrina and what ever the Greek Philosophy had in it- Magnum & sublime, did from his Institutions, ut a primo fonte manare,) hath these words immediately following- fimas-but as it was the manner of the Ancient Philosophers, so Orpheus within the foults and involuements of fables, hid the mysteries of his doctrine; and dissembled them under a poetic mask; so as who reads those hymns of his, will not believe any thing to be included under them, but mere tales and trifles. Homer likewise, by the same mouth positively averred to have included in his two Poems of Iliads and Odisses-all intellectual contemplation; and which are called the Sun and Moon of the Earth, for the light they bear (as one well notes) before all Learning; (and of which Democritus speaking, (as Farra 
* In Settena: fol. 259.  the Alexandrian observes) says- it was impossible but Homer, to have composed so wonderful works, must have been endued with a divine and inspired nature; who under a curious, and pleasing veil of fable, hath taught the world how great and excellent the beauty of true wisdom is. no less than Ang: Politianus who says 
* In Ambra. - Omnia in his, & ab his sunt omnia.) yet what appears (I say) in these works of Homer to the mere; or ignorant reader, at all of doctrine or document, or more, than two fictious impossible tales, or lies of many men that never were, and thousands of deeds that never were done? Nor less cautious than these, were most of the Ancient Philosophers also. The divine Plato writing to a friend of his de supremis substantijs-Per aenigmata (says he) intelligantur-we must write in enigmas and riddles; lest if it come to other hands; what we write to thee, be understood by others. Aristotle of those his books, wherein he treats of Supernatural things, says (as Aulus Gellius testifies) 
* In Nect: Attic:  that- they wereediti, & non editi; as much as to say, Mystically or enigmatically written; adding farther- audiunt-they shall be only known to our hearers or disciples. and this closeness Pythagoras also having learned of those his Masters, and taught it his disciples, he was made the Master of Silence. And who, as all the doctrines he delivered were (after the manner of the Hebrews, Egyptians, and most ancient Poets,) laid down in enigmatical and figurative notions, so one among other of his is this- Give not readily thy right hand to every one, by which Precept (says the profound jamblicus 
* In lib: 〈◊〉 Mister: ) that great Master advertiseth that we ought not to communicate to unworthy minds, and not yet practised in the understanding of occulte doctrines, those mysterious instructions that are only to be opened (says he) and taught to sacred and sublime wits, and such as have been a●… long time exercised and versed in them.  
Now, from this means that the first ancients used, of delivering their knowledges thus among themselves by word of mouth; and by successive reception from them down to after ages, That Art of mystical writing by Numbers, wherein they couched under a fabulous attire, those their verbal Instructions, was after, called Scientia Cabalae, or the Science of reception: Cabala among the Hebrews signifying no other than the Latin receptio: A learning by the ancients held in high estimation and reverence and not without great reason; for if God (as the excellent Io: Picus 
* In Apolog. fol. 115.  rehearses)- nihil casu, sed omnia per suam sapientiam ut in pondere & mensura, ita in numero disposuit; did nothing by chance, but through his wisdom disposed all things as in weight and measure, so likewise in number; (and which taught the ingenious Saluste to say, 
* Sig●…. du Bertas in his Columns.  that,—  

—— Sacred harmony  
And law of Number did accompany  
Th'almighty most, when first his ordinance  
Appointed Earth to rest, and Heaven to dance)   
Well might Plato 
* In Epimenide.  consequently affirm that- among all liberal Arts, and contemplative Sciences, the chiefest and most divine was the-Scientia numerandi. and who likewise questioning why Man was the wisest of Animals, answers himself again (as Aristotle in his Problems observes)- novit-because he could number. no less than Auenzoar the Babylonian, whose frequent word by Albumazars' report (as Picus Mirandula 
* In Apolog:  notes) was- numerare-that he knows all things that knows number. But howsoever an Art thus highly cried up by the Ancients; Yet a Learning (I say) now more than half lost; or at least by such as possess any limb of it, rather talked of, thau taught. Rabanus a great Doctor of the Christian Church only excepted, who hath writ a particular book- de Numerorum virtutibus. by divers others, as Ambrose, Nazianzen, Origine, Augustine, and many more, (as the learned Io: Picus at large in his Apology shows) reverendly mentioned, but never published in their writings. And I am fully of opinion (which till I find reason to recant, I will not be ashamed to own) that the Ignorance of this Art, and the world's maim in the want, or not understanding of it, is insinuated in the Poets generally-sung fable of Orpheus: whom they feign to have recovered his Eurydice from Hell, with his Music; that is Truth and Equity, from darkness of Barbarism and Ignorance, with his profound and excellent Doctrines; but, that in the thick caliginous way to the upper-earth, she was lost again; and remains lost to us, that read and understand him not, for want, merely of the knowledge of that Art of Numbers that should unlock and explain his Mystical meanings to us.  
This Learning of the Egyptians (thus concealed by them, as I have showed) being transferred from them to the greeks; was by them from hand to hand delivered still in fabulous riddles among them; and thence down to the Latins. Of which beads, the ingenious Ovid has made a curious and excellent chain; though perhaps he understood not their depth; as our wisest Naturalists doubt not to affirm, his other Country men I ucretius, and that more learned Scholar (I mean Imitater) of Hesiod, the singular Virgil, did; and which are the sinews and marrow, no less than stars and ornaments of his incomparable Poems: And still by them, as by their masters before them, preserved with equal care, from the mischief of diwlgation, or Profanation: a vice by the Ancients in general, no less than by Moses particularly, in the delivering of the Law (according to the opinions of the most learned, both Christian Divines, and jewish Rabines) with singular caution provided against and avoided. Write (said the Angel to Esdras) 
* Lib: 2. ca: ●…2. ver: 37.  all these things that thou hast seen, in a book, and hide them, and teach them only to the wise of the people, whose hearts thou knowest may comprehend and keep these secrets. And since I late mentioned that great Secretary of God, Mos●…s, to whose sacred pen as we cannot attribute too much, so, that we may give the greater reverence to him, and consequently the greater credit to the authority of those Ancient followers and imitaters of his, or (that I may righter say, and not unreverently) those jointrunners with him in the same example of closeness, and care to conceal, I will speak a word or two of him. And upon the warrant of greater understandings than my own, aver That it is the firm opinion of all ancient writers, which (as an indubitable troth), they do all with one mouth confirm●…, that the full and entire knowledge of all wisdom both divine & humane, is included in the five books of the Mosaicke law- dissimulata autem, & occultata (as the excellent Io: Picus in his learned 
In Heptap:  exposition upon him says) sunt-But hidden and disguized even in the letters themselves that form the precepts of the Law. And the same Picus, in 
* In Apolog: fo: 81.  another discourse of his upon the books of Moses more at large to the same purpose says- Scribunt non modo celebres Hebraeorum doctores (whom afterwards he names, 
* Fo: 116.  as) revelaret-the most renowned and authentic not only among the Hebrew Doctors, as Rabi Eliazar, Rabi Moses de Aegypto, Rabi simeon etc. but among ours ●…lso, Esdras, Hillary, and Origine, do write that Moses received from God upon the mount not the Law only, which he hath left in five books exactly delivered to posteri●…y, but the more hidden also, and true explanation of the Law: But with all, was warned and commanded by God, that as he should publish the Law to the People, so the interpretation thereof, he should neither commit to letters nor diwlge; but he to josua only and josua to the other succeeding primaries among the Priests; and that, under a great religion of secrecy. and concludes- Et merito quidem; Nam satis erat vulgaribus, & per simplicem historiam nunc Dei potentiam, nunc in improbos iram, in bonos clementiam, in omnes iustitiam agnoscere, & per divina salutariàque praecepta, ad bene beatèque vivendum & cultum relligionis institui; at misteria secretiora, & sub cortice legis rudique verborum praetextu latitantia altissimae divinitatis arcana plebi palam facere, quid erat aliud quam dare sanctum canibus, & inter porcos spargere margaritas; and not without great reason; for it was enough for the multitude to be by merely the simple story, taught and made to know, now the Power of God, now his Wrath against the wicked, Clemency towards the good, and justice to all; and by divine and wholesome precepts instructed in the ways of religion, and holy life. But those secreter Mysteries, and abstrusities of most high divinity, hidden and concealed under the bark, and rude cover of the words, to have diwlged and laid these open to the vulgar; what had it been other than to give holy things to dogs, and cast pearls among swine? So he. And this little that I have here rehearsed (for in a thing so known to all that are knowers, me thinks I have said rather too much than otherwise) shall serve for instance of Moses his mystical manner of writing. Which I have the rather done for instruction of some ignorant, though stiff opposers of this truth, that I have lately met with; but chiefly in justification of those other wise Ancients of his, and succeeding times, Poets, and Philosophers, that were no less careful than Moses was, not to give- Sanctum canibus, (as before said) nor inter porcos spargere margaritas.  
Now to go about to examine whither it appears our Moderns (Poets especially, for I will exempt divers late prose-writers), have any the like closeness as before mentioned; were a work sure as vain and unnecessary, as it is a truth firm and unquestionable, that they possess the knowledge of no such mysteries as deserve the use of any art at all for their concealing.  
3. The last, and greatest disparity, and wherein above all others, the grossest defect and maim appears, in our Moderns (and especially Poets) in respect of the Ancients; is their general ignorance, even throughout all of them, in any the mysteries and hidden properties of Nature; which as an unconcerning Inquisition it appears not in their writings they have at all troubled their heads with. Poets I said especially (and indeed only) for we have many Prose men excellent natural Philosophers in these late times; and that observe strictly that closeness of their wise Masters the reverend Ancients; So as now a days our Philosophers are all our Poets, or what our Poets should be; and our Poesies grown to be little better than farthels of such small ware as those Merchants the French call pedlars, carry up and down to sell; whissles, painted rattles, and such like Bartholomew-babyes. for what other are our common uninstructing fabulous rhymes than amusements for fools and children? But our Rhymes (say they) are full of Moral doctrine. be it so. But why not delivered then in plain prose and as openly to every man's understanding, as it deserves to be taught, and commonly known by every one. The Ancients (say they) were Authors of Fables, which they sung in measured numbers, as we in imitation of them do. True: but sure enough their meanings were of more high nature, and more difficult to be found out, than any book of Manners we shall readily meet withal affords; else they had not writ them so obscurely, or we should find them out more easily, and make some use of them: whereas not understanding nor seeking to understand them, we make none at all. We live in a mist, blind and benighted; and since our first father's disobedience poisoned himself and his posterity, Man is become the imperfectest and most deficient Animal of all the field: for than he lost that Instinct that the Beast retains; though with him the beast, and with it the whole vegetable and general Terrene nature also suffered, and still groans under the loss of their first purity, occasioned by his fall. What concerns him now so nearly as to attend to the cultivating or refining, & thereby advancing of his rational part, to the purchase & regaining of his first lost felicity? And what means to conduce to this purchase, can there be, but the knowledge first, and love next (for none can love but what he first knows) of his Maker, for whose love and service he was only made? And how can this blind, lame, and utterly imperfect Man, with so great a load to boot of original and actual offence upon his back, hope to approach this supreme altitude, and immensity, which 
—— In quella inaccessibil luce,  
Quafi in alta caligine s'asconde,  (as an excellent Poetess 
* La Sig: ●…a vitto: Colonna.  discribes the inscrutable Being of God) but by two means only: the one, by laying his burden on him that on his Cross bore the burden of all our defects, and interpositions between us and the hope of the vision of his blessed Essence face to face hereafter; and the other, by careful search of him here in this life (according to Saint Paul's instruction), in his works; who tells us 
* Rome cap: 1. ver: 20. - those invifible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; or by the works of his blessed hands? So as, between these two main and only means of acqui●…ing here the knowledge, and hereafter the vision of him wherein all our present and future happiness consists, what middle place (to descend to my former discourse) can these men's Moral Philosophy (trow we) challenge? which in its first Masters and teacher's time, before there was any better divinity known, might well enough pass for a course kind of divinity; but however, such as one, as (with the leave of our Poets) needs no fiction to cloth or conceal it in. And therefore utterly unfit to be the Subject of Poems: since it contains in it but the obvious restraints or impulsions of the Humane Sense and will, to or from what it ynly beforehand (without extrinsicke force or law) feels and knows it ought to shun, or embrace. The other two more removed and harder lessons do certainly more in the affair both of soul and body, concern us. And these (if we be wise enough to love ourselves so well), we must seek and take from the hands of their fittest teachers. As, in the first, we need go no farther (though learned & wise Writers have made mention, and to high purpose, of a Theologia Philosophica, as they call some of the doctrines of the ancient Poets), then to the Doctors, and Doctrines of that Church that God died to plant, and which shall live till the world's death. And for instruction in our next necessary Lesson, to wit, the Mysteries of Nature, we must, if we will follow Plato's advice- inquire of those (and by them be directed) who lived nearest to the time of the gods; meaning the old wise Ethnics: among whom, the best Masters were certainly most, if not all of them, Poets; and from whose fires (as I have formerly touched) the greatest part of all humane knowledges have taken their first light. Among these, I say, and not elsewhere (excepting the sacred Old Law only) must we search for the knowledge of the wise, and hidden ways & workings of our great God's hand maid, Nature. But alas who finds, or who seeks now adays to find them? Nay (what is more strange) there want not of these learned of our times, that will not be entreated to admit those excellent Masters of knowledge to mean (if they allow them any meaning) scarce other at all, then merely Moral doctrine.  
I have known Latin and Greek Interpreters of them in these times; men otherwise of much art, and such as able to render their Author's phrase to the height of their good, in our worse language; yet ask the most, as I have some of them, and I fear they will answer, as one (and the best) of our Greek translators hath ingenuously confessed to me, that for more than matter of Morality, he hath discovered little in his Author's meanings. Yet my old good friend as well as I wish him, (and very well I wish him for those parts of Fancy, Industry, and meritorious Ability that are in him) must pardon me that I affirm, it is not truer that there ever was such a thing as a Musaeus, or Hesiod, or Homer, whom he has taught to speak excellent English; than it is, that the least part of the Doctrine (or their wisest expositors abuse me, and other Ignorants with me) that they meant to lay down in those their wise, though impossible fables, was matter of Manners, but chiefly Nature: No less then in the rest of those few before, and many after them, whom all Antiquity has cried up for excellent Poets, and called their works perfect Poems.  
For proof of which Truth; we will first mention two or three of the best of them; and to omit the multiplicity of less authentic testimonies, that all Authors are full of, allege only the beforecited Mirandula, who speaking of that- Magia naturalis, or natural wisdom, or as he defines it 
* In Apolog: so: 112. - naturalium-the exact and absolute knowledge of all natural things (which the Ancients were Masters of) says, 
* Ibid: s●…. 80.  that in that Art (among some others he mentions) Praestitit Homerus, Homer excelled; and who- dissimulavit-as all other knowledges, so hath hiddenly laid down this also in his Ulysses his travails. As likewise of Orpheus 
* In Conclus. - Nihil efficacius Hymnis Orphei in naturali Magia, si debita musica, animi intentio, & coeterae circumstantiae quas nôrunt sapientes fuerint adhibitae: There is nothing of greater efficacy than the hymns of Orpheus in natural Magic, if the fitting music, intention of the mind, and other circumstances which are known to the wise, be considered and applied. And again 
* Ibid. - that they are of no less power in natural magic, or to the understanding thereof, than the Psalms of David are in the Cabal, or to understand the Cabalistick Science by. And lastly, Zoroaster; who that he was a possessor likewise of that- absoluta cognitio rerum Naturalium before metioned, no less then of that Theological Philosophy his expounders find in him, may appear by that Doctrine of his (in particular) of the- Scala á Tartaro ad primum ignem, which the learned Io: Picus interprets 
* In Conclu: - protensum-the series or concatenation of the universal Natures, from a no degree (as he speaks) of matter, to him that is above or beyond all degree graduately extended; no less than by that Attribute (in general) given him by all the learned of all Ages; viz: that he was one of the greatest (as first) of Natural Magicians, or Masters of the absolute knowledge of all Nature.  
To omit (as I said) the Testimonies of an infinity of other Authors in confirmation of the before-affirmed troth; who knows not, that most, if not all of those fables in all the rest of the Ancients, of their gods and goddesses especially, with the affinities, intercourses, and commerces between themselves, and with others; (of which, as Homer, that Greek Oracle is abundantly full, so the rest, as a Hesiod, Linus the Master, and Musaeus the Scholar of Orpheus, and (as we have said) Zoroaster, and Orpheus himself, and all those most ancient, (if we may believe their best expounders and relaters of most we have of them, made the main grounds and Subjects of their writings;) who knows not (I say) that most, if not all, of those their fables of this kind, and which have of all learned, in all ages, been chiefly termed Poetic, & sittest matter for Poesy; have never been by any wise expounder made to mean other then merely the Generation of the Elements, with their Virtues, and Changes; the Courses of the Stars, with their Powers, and Influences; and all the most important Secrets of Nature, hanging necessarily upon the knowledge of These; which could not suffer so simple a Relation as the Ethick doctrine requires; because by the vulgarity of Those, much mischief must in all reason ensue; being (also) of those tenderer things, that are soon profaned & vilefied by their cheapness; & This, cannot for the general benefit of mankind be among the plainest of lessons too commonly known and openly diwlged to every body.  
I will not deny but the Ancients mingled much doctrine of Morality (yea, high Divinity also) with their Natural Philosophy; as the late mentioned Zoroaster first; who hath divinely sung of the Essence and attributes of God. and was (as the learned Farra avouches), 
* In Settena: fo●… 57 - the first Author of that Religious Philosophy, or Philosophical Religion, that was after followed & amplified by Mercurius Trismegistus, Orpheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, Socrates, Plato, etc. And Orpheus next; who, as he writ particular books; of Astrology, first (as Lucian 
* In Dialog: de Astrol:  tells us) of any man; as also of diseases and their cures; of the natures and qualities of the Elements; of the force of Love or agreement in Natural things; and many more that we read of, besides his Hymns which are perhaps the greatest part of what now remains of him here among us: so his expounders likewise find in him that Theologia Philosophica as they call it, which they give to Zoroaster. Witness Pausanias, who reports 
* In Boeoti●…: - Orpheus multahumanae politicaeque vitae utilia invenit: & universam Theologiam primus aperuit, & nesariorum f●…orum expiationes excogitavit, etc. But let us hear how himself 
* In I●…b: de verbo sacr●….  sings; and which is by Eusebius Pamphilus, in his honour rehearsed 
* Lib: 13. de Praep: Euangel: .  

O you that virtue follow, to my sense  
Bend your attentive minds: Profane ones hence.  
And thou Musaeus, who alone the shine  
Highly contemplat'st of the forms divine,  
Learn my notes; which with thinward eye behold,  
And untouched in thy sacred bosom hold.  
Incline thee by my safe-aduizing verse  
To the high Author of this Universe.  
One only, all immortal, such is he;  
Whose Being I discover thus to thee;  
This alone-perfect, this eternal King  
Raised above all, created every thing,  
And all things governs. with the Spirit alone  
(Not otherwise) to be beheld, or known.  
From him no ill springs. there's no god but he.  
Think now, and look about thee prudently;  
And better to discover him, lo I  
His tracts and footsteps upon earth, and high  
Strong hand behold, but cannot him descry;  
Who (to an unimaginable height  
Raised) in dark clouds conceals him from my sight.  
Only a Caldean 
* Meaning 〈◊〉 Moses; who the holy 〈◊〉 says- 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. unless with Eusebius, we will have him mean the Patriarch Abraham.  saw him; and the grace  
Hath now aloft to view him face to face.  
His sacred right hand grasps the Ocean; and  
Touched with it, the proud mountains trembling stand  
e'en from the deep roots to their utmost height:  
Nor feels at all th'immenseness of their weight,  
He, who above the heaven doth dwell, yet guides  
And governs all that under heaven abides.  
O'er all, through all doth his va●…l power extend;  
Of th'universe beginning, midds, & end.   
And as these two divine Authors in particular, so likewise among the r●… of the Ancient Poets in general, I will grant they have in their Poesies (as I have said) mingled much Morality with their Ethick doctrines. As in their Hercules 〈◊〉, U●…s, Aene●…s and other their Heroes they have given example of all virtues; and punished all vices; as pride and ambition, in their Giants and 〈◊〉, etc. Contempt of the gods, in their Niobe, Ar●…hne, Cass●…ope, M●…dusa, Amphion, Mar●…s, the M●…eides, etc. murder, lust, covetise, and the rest, in their 〈◊〉, Ixion, S●…phus, Mid●…, T●…, T●…, etc. Yet questionless infinite many more of their fables then these,) though even these and the rest of this kind want not among our best Mythologians their Physic, as well as Ethick meanings,) as all those of their gods and goddesses, with their powers and dignies, and all passage of affinity and commerce between themselves, and between them and others, were (as I have said before) made to mean mere matter of Nature; and in no possibility of Sense to be wrested to the doctrine of Manners, unless a man will (withal) be so inhuman as to allow all those riots rapes, murders, a●… ulteries, incests, and those nefaria and nefanda, unnaturally-seeming vices that they tell of them, to be (literally or Morally taken) sit examples of Manners, or wholesome instructions for the lives of men to be leveled and directed by.  
Whereas, on the contrary side, (that I may instance some of them) who can make that Rape of Pro●…rpine, whom her mother Ceres (that under the Species of Corn might include as well the whole Genus of the Vegetable nature) sought so long for in the earth, to mean other, than the putrefaction, and succeeding generation of the Seeds we commit to Pluto, or the earth? whom they make the God o●… weal●…h, calling him also Dis quasi diues (the same in Latin that Pluto is in Greek) rich, or wealthy, because all things have their original from the earth, and return to the earth again. Or what can jupiters' blasting of his beloved Semele, after his having deflowered her, and the wrapping of his son he got on her (Bacchus, or wine) in his thigh after his production mean other than the necessity of the Airs heat to his birth, in the generation; and (after a violent pressure and dilaceration of his mother the Grape) the like close imprisoning of him also, in a fit vessel, till he gain his full maturity, and come to be fit aliment?  
After these two particular scandalous fabl●…s, and which I will call but inferior speculations, yet necessary documents, because, of the Natures of Co●…e, and Wine, the Sustentacula vitae; (To omit the Adultery of Mars and Venus, by which the Chemists will have meant the inseperability of those two Metals that carry their names; witness that exuberance of Venus or copper which we call Vitriole, that is seldom or never found without some mixture more or less of Mars or iron in it; as her husband Vulcan, or material fire finds and shows the practitioners in Chemistry. And with this, other also of the like obuiouser kind of truths in Nature; as Hebe's stumbling and f●…lling with the Nectar bowl in her hand, and thereby discovering her hidden parts to the gods, as she served them at their board; meaning the nakedness of the trees and plants in Autumn, when all their leaves are fall'n from them by the downfall or departure of the Spring, which their H●…be, or goddess of youth as the Ancients called her (because the Spring renews and makes young all things) means. And with these, the Inceste of Myrrha with her father; meaning the Myrrh-tree, which the Sun (father of Plants) inflames, and making overtures in it, there flows thence that odorous Sabaean gum we call Myrrh, (meant by her child Adonis, which interpreted is sweet, pleasant, or delightful.) To omit (I say) these, and the like trivialler (though true) observations in Nature; and th●…t carry also so foul a face to the eye; I would ask who can make those fights and cont●…ntions that the wise Homer feigns between his Gods and Goddesses to mean other than the natural Contrariety of the Elements: and especially of the Fire and Water; which as they are tempered and reconciled by the air, so juno (which signifies the airy region) reconciles, & accords the warring Gods. and next, what in general those frequent, and no less scandalous brawls between jupiter and (his wife and sister) juno, can be made to mean other, than those Meteors occasioned by the upper and lower Region of the Airs differing temperatures; Or what all those his unlawful loves, his compressing so many Dryads, naiads, and Nereiads (woodnymphes, and waternymphes) and the rest, can mean other then merely the Fires power upon the Earth, and waters; (a study of a higher nature and vaster extente than the first alleged) and which jupiters' Inceste with his sister Ceres likewise means; and is the same with the tale of the contention of Phaeton which is Incendium, with the son of Isis which is Terra.  
A Theme too infinite to pursue; and no less a fault here, then (perhaps) a folly at all to mention: For (besides the being a subject utterly unfit to suffer a mixture with a discourse of so light a nature as this of mine, where a slight touch at the general mistake and abuse of Poesy in our times, was only intended) suppose a man should (whereas I have here laid down the fair sense of but two or three of the foulest of them) be at the pains of running through all the Fables of the Ancients, and out of them show the reader, and lead him by the fingar as it were (who yet can discover nothing but matter of Manners in them) to the speculation of the entire Secret of our great God of Nature, in his miraculous fabric of this World, (which, their god Pan, or the universal simple bodies, and seeds of all Nature, gotten by Mercury or the divine Will, by which all things came to be created means;) And (beginning with Moses) show him how the Spirit of God first moving upon the waters (a Mystery perhaps by few of our duller Moderns understood, though a Thales Milefius, or Heraclius the Ephesian, two Heathens, could instruct them) they feign him under the name of jupiter, by compressing Latona (meaning the shades or darkness of the first Chäos) to have begot on her, Apollo and Diana, which is the Sun and Moon, when he said- fiat lux, & lux fuit, and carry him along from this beginning to the end and complete knowledge of all Nature, which as Moses darkly, they no less darkly delivered;) Suppose (I say) a man should take this task upon him, I would fain know who they are that would be perhaps, at least, that were, fit readers now a days of such a Treatise? Because what one of a million of our Scholars or writers among us, understands, or cares to be made understand scarce the lowest and triviallest of Nature's ways? much less seeks to draw (by wisely observing her higher and more hidden workings) any profitabler use or benefit from them, for their own, or the public good, then perhaps to make an Almanac, or a divingbote to take butts or crabs under water with; or else some dutch waterbellowes, by rarefying water into a compressed air to blow the fire withal?  
Whenas if they could, but from that poor step, learn the way to get a little higher up the right scale of Nature, and really indeed accord, and make a firm peace and agreement between all the discordant Elements; and (as the Fable of Cupid's wrassle with Pan, and overcoming him, teaches them the beginning of all Nature's productions are love and strife,) endeavour to irritate also, and force this Pan, or Simple Matter of things to his fit procreative ability, by an industrious and wise strife and colluctation with him; then they might perhaps do somewhat in Philosophy not unworth the talking of. No less than our common practitioners in Physic might better deserve their names then most of them do; (for to be a Physician, what is it but to be a general Naturalist, not mere transcriber and applyer of particular book- recipes?) if they would but practise, by that Rule and Base of Nature the world was built upon, to make likewise and establish that Equality and concord between those warring Elements (which are the Complexions) in Man's body, that one exceed not an other in their Qualities: Or if they could but give better instance of their acquaintance with the ways of Philosophy, then in burdning and oppressing nature, rather than otherwise, as most of them do, with their crude Vegetable and Mineral Physics, for not understanding the necessity, (or though they did, yet not the Art) of exalting and bettering their natures, by correcting or removing their inbred imperfections, with that fit preparation that Nature teaches them.  
The hidden workings of which wise Mistress, could we fully in all her ways comprehend, how much would it clear, and how infinitely ennoble our blind and grovelling conditions, by exalting our understandings to the sight (as I have before touched) of God, or- those invisible things of God (to use S. Paul's words once again) which are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; and thence instructing us, not saucily to leap, but by the links of that golden chain of Homer, that reaches from the foot of jupiters' throne to the Farthe, more knowingly, and consesequently more humbly climb up to him, who ought to be indeed the only end and period of all our knowledge, and understanding. the which in us though but a small faint beam of that our great blessed Sun, yet is that breath of life that he breathed into us, to draw us thereby (fecisti nos Domine propeter te; says the holy S. Augustine) 
* In Confess:  nearer to him, than all irrational Animals of his making; as a no less tenderly loving Father, then immense and omnipotent Creator.  
To whom as we cannot give too much love and reverence; so neither can we with too wary hands approach his sacred Mysteries in Holy Writ. Howbeit I must (to return home to my former discourse) in honour & just praise of the before mentioned wise Ancients (and with the premised befitting caution) not doubt to say, that as his Instructions in the holy Scripture, and especially in the old Law, must of necessity reach as far farther than the bare historical truth (though not in the same manner) as extends the difference in ourselves between Nature alone, and Nature and Grace united; so likewise, that one, and a great portion of the doctrine of that part of holy Writ, the wise Ethnics undoubtedly possessed in all perfection; to wit, the knowledge of all Nature's most high and hidden ways and workings: and though far short in the safer part of wisdom, of their more enlightened successors, yet was the bare light (or rather fire) of nature in them, enough to draw them as high as Reason could help flesh and blood to reach heaven with. Nay which is more, were it not wide of my purpose (though it contradicts it not) to construe them other then mere children of Nature, I might perhaps gain favour of some of our weaker persuaders in their spiritual Cures (if to flank and strengthen the divine letter wi●…h prophaner Authorities, be in this backward and incredulous age, not irrequisite) by paralleling in the Historical part I mean chiefly, and as it lies, the Sacred letter and Ethnic poesies together to a large extension: And beginning with Moses, show them, all those- dij ma●…orum gentium from Saturn to Deucalion's deluge, were but names for Adam, Cain, Lamech and the rest of their successors to Noah's flood: Nor that their Rhaea (or Terra, mother of all the Gods) and Venus, could be other than Moses his Eva and Noem ... What other can He fiod's * Pandora-the 
Lib: 1. Oper: & dier:  first and beautifullest of all women, by whom all evils were dispersed and spread upon the Earth, mean then Moses his Eve? What can Homer's Ate, whom he calls* the first daughter of 
Ilia: lib: 19  jupiter, and a woman pernicious and harmful to all us mortals; and in an other place tells how the wisest of men was cozened and deceived by his wife; what can he I say, mean in these women but Eve? What was the Poets Bacchus but his Noah, or Noachus, first corrupted to Boachu●…, and after, by removing a letter, to Bacchus; who, (as Moses tells us of Noah,) was the first likewise in their account, that planted the vine, and taught men the use of wines soon after the universal deluge? What can be plainer than that by their janus they meant Noah also, whom they give two faces to, for having seen both the old and new world; and which, his name (in Hebrew, jain, or wine) likewise confirms; Noah being (as we late alleged Moses for witness) the first inventor of the use of wines? What could they mean by their Golden-Age, when— 
Nulli subigebant arua coloni;  
—— Ipsaque tellus  
Omnia liberius, nullo poscente ferebat;  But the state of Man before his Sin? and consequently by their Iron age, but the world's infelicity, and miseries that succeeded his fall? when— 
Luctus, & ultrices posuere cubilia curae;  
Pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque senectus,  
Et metus, & malesuada fames, & turpis egestas.  Lastly, (for I have too much already exceeded my commission) what can Adonis horti among the Poets mean other than Moses his Eden, or terrestrial Paradise? the Hebrew Eden being Voluptas or Delitiae, whence the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (or pleasure) seems necessarily derived: The Caldaeans and Perfians (so I am told) called it Pardeis, the Greeks, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Latins altered the Greek name to Paradisus; which as Eden, is (as, 
* In Not: Attic.  Aulus Gellius defines it) Locus amaenissimus, & voluptatis plenissimus; the which self thing the ancient both Poets and Philosophers certainly meant by their- horti Hesperidum likewise.  
Now though we reverence Moses more (as we ought to do) than these his condisciples, because inspired so far above them with the immediate spirit of Almighty God; yet ought we nevertheless to reverence them, and the wisdom of their fables, however not understood by every body: his condisciples I call them, because they read both under their Egyptian teachers one lesson; & were (as Moses of himself says) expert in the learning of the Egyptians: yea many of them (and Poets all) were (to speak fitlyer) the teachers of that Learning themselves, and Masters therein no less than Moses. How can we then indeed attribute too much to their knowledges, though delivered out of wise consideration in riddles and fictious tales?  
But alas (with shame enough may we speak it) so far are we now adays from giving the due to them they deserve, as those their learned and excellent fables seem rather read to be abused, then studied in these times; and even by people too that are, or would be accounted profound men.  
What child of learning or lover of Truth could abide to see great pretenders to learning among us, that doubt, and obstinately too, whether the precious treasure of that wisdom of the Ancients, so carefully by them left sealed up to the use of their true Heirs (the wise and worthy of their posterity) be any more indeed then a legacy of mere old wife's tales to poison the world with. If we will call this but ignorance, let us go farther; and suppose that a man (nor unlearned one neither) shall have taken pains in four or five fables of the Ancients to unfold and deliver us much doctrine and high meanings in them, which he calls their wisdom; and yet the same man in an other Treatise of his, shall say of those ancient Fables.- I think they were first made, and their expositions devised afterward: and a little after- Of Homer himself, notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the latter Schools of the Grecians, yet I should without any difficulty pronounce his fables had in his own meaning no such inwardness, etc. What shall we make of such willing contradictions, when a man to vent a few fancies of his own, shall tell us first, they are the wisdom of the Ancients; and next, that those Ancient fables were but mere fables, and without wisdom or meaning, till their expositors gave them a meaning; & then, scornfully and contemptuously (as if all Poetry were but Play-vanity) shut up that discourse of his of Poetry, with- It is not good to stay too long in the Theatre.  
But let me not stick too long neither in this mire; nor seem over-sensible of wrong to what can suffer none; for- Veritas (says the holy writ) magna es●…, & praevalebit: and such are (nor less great and prevailing then truth itself) those before mentioned Arcana of our wise Ancients; which no Barbarism I know can efface; nor all the damps and thick fogs by dull & dirty Ignorance breathed on them, darken at all, or hide from the quick eye of select and happier understandings; who know full well, the ripest fruits of knowledge grow ever highest; while the lower-hanging boughs (for every ones gripe) are either barren, or their fruit too sour to be worth the gathering. And among such may they ever rest, safe wrapped up in their husks, and involuements: And let our writers write (if it can be no better) and Rime●…s rhyme still after their accustomed and most accepted manner, and still captivate and ravish their like hearers. Though in my own inclination, I could with much juster alacrety, then in person of the Roman Poet, with his- Uilia miretur vulgus; or Roman Orator, with his- Similes habent sua labra lactucas (while he laughed to see a greedy Ass at his suitable thissles,) wish we might each one, according to the measure of his illumination, and by the direction of Gods two great books, that of his law first, and that of the Creature next, (wherein, to use the excellent ●…o: Picus his phrase 
* In Conclus: - Dei-the wonderful things of God are read) run on together in a safe and firm road of Truth: to the end that vindicating some part of our lost Heritage and Beatitude here, we may thence (an advantage the holy Maximus Tyrius 
* In Sermon:  says the more happy spirits have over others) arrive the less Aliens and strangers in the Land of our eternal Heritage, and Beatitude hereafter.   

APPENDIX.  
The before-written Treatise of the dignity of the old Poets and their Poesies, falling into the view of some not iniudicious eyes; Among them, there arose question, how it could be, that Plato, so great a lover and honourer of the Ancient. Poets in general, and of Homer (one of the best of them) in particular; should exclude and banish him nevertheless out of his Commonwealth: To which is easily and briefly answered, that, as there is no City, corporation, or commonwealth in the world, but differs from all others, if not in all, at least in some particular laws, institutions, or customs; so, most reasonable is it, that such a Commonwealth as Plato forms, should more than any other, be differing from all others, in new Laws, rules, and institutions: His intention being to frame an assembly of men, or republic, which consisting only of Reason, was rather the Idea of what a perfect commonwealth should be, then as either being, or easy or possible to be put into Act. He forms all his Citizens, divine, heroic, and perfectly Philosophic and wise spirits, and such as are already arrived to the sum of all intellectual height, and perfection of virtue and Sapience; And therefore can have no need of a Homer or his instructions, to show them the way to be, or make them what they are already made: In all other commonwealth, the case is differing; where Homer's, Hesiods, Orpheusses, and those Fathers of knowledge and learning, are ever necessary, to allure with the sweetness and pleasure of their fictions, the minds of men to the love and knowledge of virtue and wisdom: So as, out of this respect merely, and not that he was at all the less worthy of honour and admiration, (in his fit place of use) was Homer exempt, and shut out from Plato's imaginary assembly, and excellent republic. And therefore I will conclude with Maximus Tyrius, who says (as ●…arra Alexandrinus observes 
* In Sette●…r: )- We ought to give honour to Plato; but yet 〈◊〉, as we rob not the great Homer, nor 〈◊〉 him of his due and deserved praises.  
FINIS.   

THE TALE OF NARCISSUS briefly Mythologised.   

Advertisement to the Reader.  
AFter I had writ the precedent Discourse of the value of true Poesy, and therein given a short general Notion only, of the being (as I conceived) somewhat in the fables of the Ancients, considerable, and to be esteemed above the multitude of the uninstructing works of most of our Modern Poets; I remembered myself of the Fable of their Narcissus, which I had divers years since, put into Euglish: and finding it not void of his meaning, no less than those other the like documents delivered in Fables by the wise Ancients for the world's instruction; I was not unwilliug to annex it (together with a short observation upon it) to the former Treatise: to the end the worthy lover of Truth, finding in but this one among a million of their fables, somewhat he perhaps before, heeded (or understood) not, (though a tale frequently read by every body) he might the less err in his search of humane knowledge; being prompted where it is in an ample manner to be found and approached: to wit, among the wiser expounders of the excellent fictions of those ancient Fathers and masters of learning and wisdom.   


LIriope (fair Nymph, of Thetis borne)  
The god Cephissus loved; and having long  
In vain her maidenly denials borne,  
Forced her at last his silver streams among.  
Between them a buoy was got, fair as the Morn,  
And (if truth were in grave Tiresia's tongue)  
Immortal as his Sire; might he know never,  
But live a stranger to himself for ever.   

No sooner from his birthday bade the Sun  
After three Lustres, in his car of light  
Three yearly rounds more through the Zodiac run,  
When this bright-visadged buoy (Narcissus hight)  
Was grown to that supreme perfection  
Of beauty and grace, combined to breed delight,  
As no degree, no sex, no age are free,  
But all perforce of him enamoured be.   

The winning features of his face were such,  
As the best beauties seemed to his, but bad;  
Sweet, soft, and fresh to look upon, and touch,  
The tender hue was of the lovely lad;  
Widows desired, and married wives as much,  
And every maid a longing for him had;  
No heart so chaste, and free from amo'rous fire,  
But he could taint, and kindle with desire.   

Yet his proud haughty mind had in disdain  
What ever beauty came within his fight;  
Nor car'de the choicest Virgins love to gain,  
Whereto by kind, Nature doth man invite;  
Nor yet of riper women sought to'obtaine  
The used allay of the blood's appetite;  
But only loved, ador'de, and deifi'de  
Himself, dispizing all the world beside.   

One day, that lovely brow, those lively eyes,  
That ruby lip, that alabaster chi●…e  
And crimson cheek of his, a Nymph espies,  
A Nymph that never doth to speak begin,  
But readily to such as speak, replies;  
Though all her words lame and imperfect been,  
While in her mouth confounding all the rest,  
Her last word only comes out perfectest.   

This Nymph which then, and still we Echo name,  
That answers others speech, but speaks to none,  
Was not as now, a mere voice pieced, and lame,  
But form and substance had of flesh and bone;  
When to her tongue that imperfection came  
To vent but half words, and them not her own,  
Through a disdain she in the breast did raise  
Of juno, jealous of her husband's ways.   

E'er which a voice she had, so sweet to th' ear,  
With a discourse so smooth, and full of pleasure,  
As it a heaven was her words to hear,  
Words which the heavyest grievance and displeasure  
Could mitigate, and easier make to bear,  
(Of sweet and sage so equal was their measure;)  
For still she kept them by discretion good,  
Within the seemly bounds of womanhood.   

far was this fair maids fair tongues glory spread,  
Winning the minds of all men, by the sway  
Of her imperious elocution led,  
Where with a thousand brabbles every day  
Among the Nymphs, Silvans, and shepherds bred  
She easily atton'de; but Heaven's queen (aye  
Frying in a jelious fire) refte her of the honour  
Of her smooth speech, for the shrewd turns 't had done her.   

juno, that ever had a jealous head,  
(Her husband did so oft her bed abuse)  
Meaning t'have stolen upon him, where i'bed  
She thought he took the pleasure he did use,  
This Nymph to ' awerte (by good advizement led)  
The mischief that such errors oft ensues,  
Would with smooth stories entertain his queen,  
Till he had time to get away unseen.   

Having been oft beguiled with this deceit,  
juno at length 〈◊〉 aim of ●…er speech perceived,  
And said, You shall (Nymph) with your subtle bait  
Catch me no more, or I am much deceived;  
Your fluent tongue shall have a medicine straight,  
That by ' it I may be never after grieved;  
When you have fewer words to speak, we'll see  
How you can make your wont sport with me.   

And what she threatened, quickly taken effect;  
For, from that time she could speak plain no more,  
Nor but repeat (such was her tongues defect)  
Pieces of words that had been spoke before.  
This Nymph, the buoy whom so much beauty decked  
No sooner viewed, but love assailed sore  
Her breast; she proves to him her thoughts to break  
In words, but cannot first begin to speak.   

Amazed as mute she slands, loath to be seen,  
And to a thicket by, anon she hies;  
Thence, (where he laid was on a flowery green,)  
Conveys about him her attentive eyes  
In many ' a fearful glance, the boughs between,  
Then, how to ' approach him nearer, doth devise;  
S●…ill with new fuel feeding her desire,  
Till all her breast falls of a burning fire.   

While thus th' enkindled maid views him unseen,  
And neither yet, a word to other spoke,  
He hears a noise among the bushes green  
That unawares her foot did (tripping) make,  
And looks if any had about him been,  
But sees not her that languished for his sake.  
Hear I not one? quoth he; One, says the maid:  
Framing a troth from the last word he said.   

Much at this voice began the lad to muse,  
But whence it yssueed could not yet devise;  
And as men oft on such occasion use;  
Now here now there he throws his earnest eyes;  
Then once again he thus his speech renews,  
May not I see thee? she, I see thee, cries;  
He turns, and looks this way, and that again;  
She fears and hides her, and he looks in vain.   

Still more and more amazed he grows, and goes  
Searching each place about him busily,  
But nothing finds: then cries come hither; those  
Words she returns, and cries come hither; he  
Says here I am, do thou thyself disclose,  
For as I hear, fain would I know thee. She  
Replies I know thee: so she did; for none  
Ere came so near her heart as he had done.   

He adds (desirous to hear out the rest)  
If then thou knowst me, come and let's embrace;  
And let's embrace, she soon replies: that blessed  
And sovereign word enforced her from the place  
Where she was hid, and from her maiden breast  
Chase her fear, she ' appears before the face  
Of the fair buoy, whose words assured her clearly,  
She should embrace him whom she loved so dear.   

Her neck to wreath with his, she fair inclined,  
Her arms to meet his arms, extended be;  
But he that was quite of another mind,  
Says, Do not think I love thee; readily  
I love thee, she replies, rudely unkind  
He adds, nor ever will I love thee. She  
Still says, I love thee, as she said before;  
He held his peace, and she could speak no more.   

She hides her shaming eyes, the froward lad  
Pusheth her from him, and then from her flies.  
She ynly raves, well nigh with sorrow mad  
To ' have wooed him so, that doth her love despize;  
And if by such a tongue as erst she had,  
But half the grief that in her bosom lies  
Were vtt'red, she might move with her laments  
The heavens, the Earth, and all the Elements.   

Her pale sick looks the woeful witness bear  
Of her heart's agony, and bitter teen;  
Her flesh she batters, martyrs her fair baire,  
And, shaming ere to be of any seen,  
Hides her in some wild wood or cave, and there  
Answers perhaps if she have questioned been;  
And more and more increaseth every day  
loves flame in her, and meltes her life away.   

That flame eftsoon 'gan all her body blast;  
Th'humor and blood resolved into gross air;  
The flesh to ashes in a moment past,  
That was so sleek to feel, and looked so fair,  
The bones and voice only remained at last;  
But soon the bones to hard stones turned are;  
All that of her now lives is th'empty sound  
That from the caves doth to our ears rebound.   

Beside this Nymph, not the most fair Napaea  
Or Hamadriad that was ever borne,  
Could move Narcissus; no not Cytherea  
Or wise Minerva could his fancy turn.  
'Mong the neglected troop, a Nymph to ' Astraea  
For justice prays, and vengiance on the scorn  
Of this disdainful youth, that doth despise  
Not nymphs alone, but heavenly deities.   

O thou (she cries) whose all-impartiall hand  
The balance of heaven's Equity sustains,  
Do on this haughty head that doth withstand  
Nature, and heaven, and all the world disdains,  
Due justice; o let some avengeing brand  
Teach him by's own to pity others pains,  
And grant he may himself approve the grieves  
He hath to thousands given, and daily gives.   

The just Petition that this Nymph preferred,  
Which she with raining eyes repeated oft,  
The Pours immortal had no sooner heard,  
But they Ramnusia summoned from aloft,  
Whose sad doom was (and was not long deferred)  
That love should render his hard bosom soft;  
But such a love, and of so strange a nature,  
As ne'er before possessed human creature.   

Within a shady grove (under a hill)  
That opes into a meadow fair, and wide,  
Whose ample face a thousand py'ed flowers fill,  
And many ' an odorous herb, and plant beside,  
Riseth a fountain fresh and cool; for still  
The wood of one, and of the other side  
The shady shoulders, of the hill defend it,  
That the warm midday sun cannot offend it.   

The water of this well is ever clear,  
And of that wonderful transparency,  
That his deep bottom seems to rise, and near  
Offer itself to the behoulders eye.  
The hot Sun burns the ground, and every where  
Shepherd and sheep to the cool shadows fly;  
When love, (to ' avenge himself) to this Fount guideth  
This lovely buoy in whom no love abideth.   

Scalt with the Sun, and weary with the chase,  
He seeks to rest himself, and quench his thirst,  
And glad of having found so fit a place,  
Lays by his bow and quiver from him first,  
Then, his impatient drought away to chase,  
Inclines him to the flattering Fount. accursed  
For ever may that trech'erous mirbor be  
Wherein he happed his own fair shade to see.   

While o'er the Fountain's face his fair face lies,  
And greedy lips the cooling liquor draw,  
A greater hea●…e doth in his breast arise,  
Caused by the shade he in the water saw.  
Love finding soon whereon he fixed his eyes,  
'Gan to th●… head his golden arrow draw,  
And all his hart with the vain love infected  
Of what the liquid-christall glass reflected.   

The beauteous image that he sees so clearly,  
And his own shadow in the fountain makes;  
Not for a shadow immaterial merely,  
But for a body palpable, he takes;  
Each part apart, then altogether nearly  
Views, and grows thirstier as his thirst he slakes;  
His eye his own eye sees, and loves the sight,  
While with itself it doth itself delight.   

He ' extols the lip, admires the cheek, where he  
The red and white so aptly mingled finds;  
His either eye a star he deems to be;  
The shining hair that the brow fair imbindes,  
He calls a sunbeam, 'tis so bright to see;  
And his affection so his reason blinds,  
As all this fair for which all eyes adore him,  
He still imputes to what he sees before him.   

Long gazing with this earnest admiration,  
(Which well his every gesture testifies,)  
The shadow seems copartner in his passion,  
And in the same unrest to sympathise;  
His own cach motion in the self same fashion  
Appearing manifestly to his eyes;  
The same expression that he gives his pain,  
The same the shadow renders him again.   

Transported with the silly vain desire  
That the deceitful shadow breeds in him,  
With his enkindled lips he presses nigher  
To kiss the lips that on the water swim;  
Those lips, as if they did his lips require,  
Arise with equal haste to the wells brim;  
But his abused lips their purpose miss,  
And only the deluding water kiss.   

The water (troubled) doth the shade deface  
With many ' a wrinkle, he for fear to looze it,  
Extends with loving haste over the place  
His greedy arms, of either side to ' incloze it;  
But they (beguiled) only vain air embrace;  
He frowing looks again; that frowns, he woos it  
Again with smiles. ah dire and cruel law  
Of thy own frown (poor buoy) to stand in awe.   

Yll-fated wretch, alas what dost thou see  
That in thy breast this mutiny awakes?  
Perceivest thou not that what enamors thee  
Is but the shadow thy own body makes?  
And of how strange, and silly a quality  
The passion is wherewith thy bosom aches,  
That fond flatters thee, 'tis still without thee,  
When what thou seekest, thou ever bearest about thee?   

So near about thee, as thou needst not fear  
But while thou tarriest here, 'twill tarry too;  
And when thou weary art of staying here,  
'Twill go along with thee where ere thou go:  
I see thine eyes blubbered with many'a tear,  
And weary'ed, yet not satisfied with woe;  
Thou mourn'dst at first, to ' allay and ease thy pain,  
And now thou mournest to see that mourn again.   

The tears the shadow shedds, doth this accursed  
Fond lover for a firm assurance take,  
That what he loves, feels no less amorous thirst,  
And in compassion sorrows for his sake.  
He opes his arms to ' embrace it at first;  
The Shade consents, and doth like gesture make:  
He nothing gripes; but turns, and rudely tears  
His hair, and drowns his rosy cheeks in tears.   

Desire of food, nor want of sleep can free  
His thought from prosecuting still the woe  
His tyrannizing Passion breeds, whence be  
Becomes a despe'rate prey to his lou'dfoe;  
Th' enamoured eyes will ne'er awerted be  
From their own splendour, that enthralls him so,  
As (spite of any reason can instruct him)  
They sure will to a speedy death conduct him.   

He rises up at length, and standing by,  
Points to the Fount, as author of the wrong  
His hart received through his unwary eye;  
Then these sad accents the leaved woods among  
Sighs from his breasts impatient agony;  
Ye woods to whom these wailing words belong,  
(For you already have beheld in part  
The wretched plight of my afflicted heart.)   

Ye woods, whose brows to heaven, and feet to hell  
Through th' air and ample earth extended be,  
That have so long held your fair right so well  
Against th' uncivil winter's injury,  
And many ' a lovesick wight have sure heard tell  
The story of his sad captivity  
'Mong your dumb shades, O tell me ' if ever breast  
YE have heard with such a love as mine, possessed.   

What heart ere such a darkness found to ' enfold it,  
To love a false and fleeting thing so dear,  
Which when I think within my arms I hold it,  
Is fled from me, and I am ne'er the near;  
I find my error; somewhat does withhold it,  
And my delusion plainly doth appear;  
Yet can I ne'er the more awerte my mind  
From seeking still what I shall never find.   

But see this woe that doth all woe surmount,  
What is it bars, what is it hinders me?  
Is't either foaming sea, or craggy mount,  
Strong gate, or thick wall reared to ' eternity?  
Alas 'tis but a narrow shallow fount  
That's interposed 'tween my desires and me,  
Where what I seek, appears, & would come to me,  
Did not the jelious waters bold it fro' me.   

For I my head no sooner downwards hold,  
With will to ' impress those ruby lips with mine,  
But with like will (readier than can be told)  
It smiles, and doth the beauteous head incline.  
O thou fair fabric of celestial mould  
Come forth, and let our lips and bosoms join;  
Leave that unfriendly fountain, and come hither,  
And sport we in this flowery meed together.   

Aymee I call, but none will answer me.  
Come yet at last, if but to let me know  
Since I am young, lovely, and fair to see,  
Why thou dost hide thyself, and shun me so;  
Look in my face, and view the harmony  
The various flowers make that there freshly grow,  
And tell me then, wherefore thou dost abhor  
That, that a thousand hearts do languish for.   

I know (wretch that I am) I know thee now:  
The art my own shadow merely; 'tis the shine  
That falls upon the water's crystal brow  
From this bright face, and beauteous limbs of mine,  
And nothing else; I find, alas I know  
'Tis I and only I for which I pine;  
At my own eyes alone (unhappy elf)  
I light the fire wherein I burn myself.   

I know that I am it, and it is I  
That both the loved am, and lover too;  
But to allay my feau'rous malady  
Alas what shall I say, what shall I do?  
Shall I myself, to woo myself, apply,  
Or stay perhaps till other do me woo?  
Aymee, wealth makes me poor; accursed blessing  
To pine in want, with overmuch possessing.   

Ah could I this flesh-frame asunder part  
And take a body from this body free;  
And (having what I love so well, apart,)  
Divide my love between them equally,  
So as they both, one interloving heart  
Possessed; I might perhaps contented be:  
But o alas it never may be done  
To make that two, that Nature made but one.   

Under the cumbrous weight my soul doth bear,  
Wanting the mean itself to satisfy,  
I faint, and feel my death approaching near;  
And more I grieve a thousand fold to dye,  
That in my ruin, that that is more dear  
Than life to me, must fall as well as I;  
Death's face were not so sour to look upon,  
Might that sweet face survive when I were gone.   

He weeps, and to the water turns again,  
Where he the weeping feigned Narcissus views;  
And every tear which the false fair eyes rain,  
Th' impatience of his baleful woe renews;  
He strives to touch the loved cause of his pain,  
Troubling the waters that his eyes abuse;  
Then chafes, and cries if I may neither feel  
Nor hear, at least let me behold thee still.   

He raves impatient of his heart's unrest,  
His garment tears, martyrs his hair and rends it:  
Then with his each bent sister, his inn'ocent breast  
Beats, but the weed he wears somewhat defends it;  
He finds it, and (himself more to molest)  
Remooves the garment, and starknaked offends it  
With many ' a churlish blow, and so betakes him  
Wholly to is woe, as one whose sense forsakes him.   

The battr'ed ivory breast shows to the view  
Like halfe-ripe grapes, apples, half red, or roses  
Strewed on some lily bank, that (blowing nue)  
The virgin leaves to the warm Sun disclozes;  
And such, as though changed from the former hue,  
Yet nought at all of his first beauty loozes,  
But seems (though sore perhaps, and akeing more)  
As fair, or fairer than it was before.   

He stoops against to take an other sight  
Of the beloved occasion of his woe;  
The water shows him soon the evil plight  
The flesh was in had borne so many ' a blow;  
He mourns to see't; and stody'ing how he might  
Heale, and appease what he had injured so,  
His arms (though well he knows the labour vain)  
He needs will plunge into the fount again.   

The water moves, he mourns, the Shadow flies;  
He lets it settle, and then looks again.  
And now the fatal fire wherein he fries,  
His Sense consumes, through too much sense of pain;  
So th'ore, that in a melting furnace lies,  
Grows warm, then hot; nor long doth so remain,  
But meltes, (the fire tiring upon't the while)  
And fusible, ' as the liquid water boiles.   

The white, and fair vermilion faded be  
That late embellished and adorned him so;  
His eye the faint lidd covers heavily;  
Each limb grows slack and powerless. Echo although  
He loathed and used her so disdainfully  
Hath still accompany'de him in his woe,  
And ever would repeat, and answer make  
Well as she could, to whatsoe'er he spoke.   

What sound his hands (beating each other) made,  
Or when his bosom felt their battery,  
She the like sound returns. he to the Shade  
Languishing cries, Behold for thee I die:  
For thee I die, answers th'enamoured maid,  
Remembering her own cruel destiny.  
At length he sadly sighs farewell, and dies.  
Farewell says Echo, and no more replies.   

His ghost is to the shades infernal gone,  
And (carry'ng still his error with him) there  
Looks him in those pale streams of Acheron,  
And woos, & wins himself, and ne'er the near.  
The Nymphs and hamadryads every one  
With the sad naiads who his sisters were,  
With shrieks & cries which they to heaven enforce,  
Strew their fair shorn hairs on the bloodless corpse.   

Echo, (that grieves no less than th' other do)  
Confounds her lamentation loud with theirs;  
And would her tresses tear, and her flesh too,  
Had she them still; but as she may, she bears  
Her part in every sound of grief, and woe,  
That from beat hand, or wailing voice she hears.  
If any (weeping) cry, aymee he's gone,  
She says the same, and multiplies the moan.   

His fun'erall pile rounded with tapers bright,  
The wailing Nymphs prepare without delay;  
But the dead corpse is vanished from their fight;  
And in the place where the pale carcase lay,  
A flower with yellow seed, and leaves milk white  
Appears; a fairer flower April nor May  
Yields; for it keeps much of his beauty still.  
Some call't a Lily, some a Daffodil.    

Observation upon the Tale of Narcissus.  
As not the least of the Fables of the Ancients but had their meanings, and most of them divers meanings also, so no less hath this of Narcissus, which Ovid hath smoothly sung, and I paraphrastically Engglisht after my own way, and for my own pleasure. Wherein I am not unwilling to render (withal) what, as I am taught a little by my own Genius, and more by better understandings than my own, the Fable was by the first devizers thereof made to mean. And first, for the Geographick part; the Sense thereof is 
the Geographick sense.  (I conceive) obvious enough: The Tale tells us, the god Cephissus, a great River in Boeotia, that running through the ager Atticus or Attic field (as the place was anciently called meets, and mingles his streams with the Water-nymphe Liriope, a narrow brook so named; and having between them compassed a flat low ground almost Iland-wise, before their falling together into the Phalerick gulf, they were fitly called the Parents of this Narcissus or Daffodil, being a flower which, (besides the specifical nature it hath to grow, and thrive best in waterish places,) the meadowy grounds those waters encompassed, did chiefly yield and abound in. This Narcissus is feigned to eschew and fly the company 
the Physic sense.  of all women, no less then of the Nymph Echo that is enamoured and dotes upon him; denoting by this awersion of his, the nature of the flower that bears his name; for the daffodil or water-lilly, the seeds thereof especially (as the applyers of them in medicine have observed) do powerfully extinguish the ability and desire of carnal copulation, by overcooling of the Animal seed; no less than does Porcelain, Lettuce, Agnus castus, Calamint, White violets, and the like of that kind. From this his before mentioned quality, and the ill effect it works in man's body, his name Narcissus (which is segnities-slothe, stupidity, laziness) was by the Anncients not unfitly given to this vegetable. And they out of this consideration likewise feigned that Preserpine, when Pluto ravished her away as she was gathering flowers, had her lap full of Narcissusses; because lazy & unbusied women are most subject unto such inconveniences. And because slothful, unactive, and unindustrious minds are for the most part uncapable of producing any permanent, substantial or real effects or fruit in any kind, this frail flower therefore (the symbol of such like imperfect and dificient inclinations,) was among the number of lost, dead, and soone-to-be-forgotten things, by those Ancient investigators of Nature's truths, particularly dedicated to their Infernal gods. The Moral expounders of this Fable will have 
the Moral sense.  it mean thus,- Echo, or Fame, (a fair voice) loves and woos Narcissus, or Philautia; but the self-loving man, enamoured (like this Narcissus) only on himself, and blind to all pleasures but those of the Sense, despises and slights the more to be embraced happiness of a lasting renown, and memory; and therefore dying, his fame, and all of him dies with him, and he becomes only- charus dis inferis. A much higher and nobler meaning 
the Divine sense.  than any of these before delivered, is by excellent Authors given to this Fable: wherein we must know, that as all the first wise Ancients in general, under characters, figures, and symbols of things, laid down the precepts of their wisdom to Posterity, so in particular did Pythagoras, who (as the most autentick jamblicus the Caldaean tells us) delivered also the most part of his doctrines in figurative, tipick, and symbolic Notions: among which, one of his documents is this- While the winds breathe, adore Echo. This Wind is (as the before-mencioned jamblicus, by consent of his other fellow- Cabalists says) the Symbol of the Breath of God; and Echo, the Reflection of this divine breath, or Spirit upon us; or (as they interpret it) - the daughter of the divine voice; which through the beatifying splendour it shedds & diffuses through the Soul, is justly worthy to be reverenced and adored by us. This Echo descending upon a Narcissus, or such a Soul as (impurely and viciously affected) slights, and stops his ears to the Divine voice, or shuts his heart from divine Inspirations, through his being enamoured of not himself, but his own shadow merely, ●…d (buried in the ordures of the Sense) follows corporal shadows, and flies the light and purity of Intellectual Beauty, he becomes thence (being despoiled, (as the great jamblicus speaks) of his proper, native, and celestial virtue, and ability,) an earthy, weak, worthless thing, and fit sacrifice for only eternal oblivion, and the dij inferi; to whom the Ancients (as is before noted) bequeathed and dedicated this their lazy, stupid, and for-ever-famelesse Narcissus.  
FINIS.   

Errata.  

FOl: 2. lin: 7. for than. read then, and so throughout the book.  
fol: 3. lin: 12 for hotheaded read hotheaded.  
fol: 20. lin: 13. forit it hath r. it hath.  
fol: 21. lin: 7. for-intiger, r. integer. in the marginal note ibid. for Baroaldus r. Beroalaus, and for write his praises. r. writ his praises.  
fo: 22. lin: 20. for. and and graces. r. and graces.  
fo: 23. lin: 12. for. whither r. whether.  
fo: 24. lin: ultim: for. are held in the. Poet especially. r. are held in. the Poet espe●…ially.  
fo: 26. lin: 7. for-prefession. r. profession. and 5. lines after for fawning r. fawn.  
ibid. lin: 22. for- publicam r. pudicam.  
fo: 31. lin: 4. for. Homer likewise. r. In Homer likewise.  
fo: 33. lin: 20. for. a liave been as. r. as have been a.  
fo: 36. lin. 2. for than: r. then.  
fo: 40. lin. ultim: for Rabi Moses. r. Rabi Moysi●….  
fo: 43. lin: 4. for knowledge. r. knowledge.  
fo: 55. lin. 11. for of them; made. r. of them) mad●…  
fo: 61. lin: 1. for. digni●…. r. dignities.