A True and admirable History, of a Maiden of Confolens, in the Province of Poitiers: that for the space of three years and more hath lived, and yet doth, without receiving either meat or drink.  
Of whom, his Majesty in person hath had the view, and, (by his command) his best and chiefest Physicians, have tried all means, to find, whether this fast & abstinence be by deceit or no.  
In this History is also discoursed, whether a man may live many days, months or years, without receiving any sustenance.  
¶ Published by the King's especial Privilege. AT LONDON, Printed by I. Roberts, and are to be sold at his house in Barbican. Anno Dom. 1603.   

To the Worshipful, M. Thomas Thorney, Master. M. William Martin, M. Edward Rhodes, and M. Thomas Martin: Governors of the mystery and commonalty of the Barber Chirurgeons. And to the whole Assistants of the clothing▪ happy success in all their actions most heartily wished.  
MAtter of novelty or admiration, hath evermore no greater enemy, then overrash and prejudicate opinion: things likewise (of never so much credit) in other countries, being not bred or borne in our own, do surmount all compass of belief. Wherefore Gentlemen, this wonder, happening in the declining state of the world, and in France, no fat region from outs of England: if the brackish divider of our Continents, make it not unrellish-able in your tastes, the quea●●ie stomachs of others I shall the less care for. You are men of a mysterious profession, exceeding good Anatomists, and skilful searchers into our bodies whole faculties. The Author of this labour in French, as (by reading) I am sure yourselves will say no less, is both an excellent Philosopher, Phi●●●ian, Chirurgeon, and a skilful Anatomiste, and of all these hath made good witness in this discourse▪ I could not bethink me, to bestow my pains any where more desertfullie, then on such as are answerable to the first Authors quality: which neither I would not overboldly presume to do, ●ill (by a kind examen) of some of yourselves, the work was thought worthy your entertaining. It hath cost me good pains, and therefore may merit the kinder acceptance: which if it do find at your hands, as I would be ●orie but it should, I remain yours in any more serious employment.  
Your worships in true affection. A. M.   

To the Reader.  
FRiendly Reader, having seriously read over (& with no mean admiration) this present History: I made stealth of some private hours, from my more weighty employments, to let thee have the same in thine own familiar language. Wherein (I hope) thou wilt thankfully accept, if not my pains, yet (at least) the kind affection I bear thee, in acquainting thee with one of the rarest marvels, which can be found among the histories of elder ages, or those more recent and of later times. And because I would prevent thee, in all occasions of sinister suspicion, over and beside, that it is a matter most public and general in Poitiers, as also thorough the whole country of Poictu: thou hast here the restemonie likewise, of many worthy, grave and credible persons, such, whose truth can no way be excepted against; who have all s●●n● the Maiden now in question, & (by his majesties commandment, they being his best and chiefest Physicians) they have made trial to their very uttermost, to find out the least scruple of deceit herein to be imagined. They have committed her from her Parents, to divers Noble and worthy persons, some of which have kept her close locked up, some four, five, or six weeks, some for as many & more months together, where not so much as the sent of any food was to be● felt: and notwithstanding, they found her in the very same estate, as when they shut her up upon this proof. All which (me thinks) in reason might suffice to content any self-willed conceit whatsoever: if not, as the Maid yet liveth, and long is like to do, let the doubtful (if please them) but bestow their pains, and (by the best means they can devise) freely make trial, and satisfy themselves, for such is the desire of the poor Maiden herself. Farewell.   

Abstinentem hanc vidit anno superiore, alterum iam annum sine alimento trahentem, D. N. Rapinus vir non Irenarchico munere solum, sed varia etiam eruditione illustris, ut testatur hoc elegantissimum de ea carmen.  
De puella duodecenni, que iam biennium perstat fine cibo & potu vivere ad Confluentem Vigennae, an. sal. M. VI C. I.  

QVàm varia exercent hominum miracula mentes.  
Quorum constitui non ratio ulla potest!  
Ecce valens & adulta duos iam virgo per annos.  
Vitam agitat, nullo freta vel usa cibo.  
Obseruata Magistratu, & vicinia ab omn●●  
Quà fluit exiguo tuncta Vigenna Goro.  
I am ieiuna famem tolerat sine fraud biennem,  
Et iam praeclusis faucibus arcta gula est.  
Mireris nullum suspenso à pectore ventrem:  
Mireris nullas inde, vel inde vices.  
Et nihil excernit, stricta ut nil excipit aluo,  
Puraque ab utravis part pudenda latent.  
Illa tamen sentit, loquitur, videt, ambulat, audit:  
Quod nos intentis vid●mus ipsioculis.  
Aut magico fallax in corpore spiritus errat:  
Aut pasta exili lampade flamma subest:  
Iut docet ●stento natur a potentior, iste,  
Maiorem humanis legibus esse Deum.  N. RAPINUS. P.   

RESP.  

NEC nostra fallax in virgine spiritus erra●,  
Carmine nec magico fascinat ille ocu●os.  
Nec, veluti incider it nunc dignus vindice nodus,  
Quas posuit leges transi●it ipse De●s.  
Sed quod 〈◊〉 tua, magne vir, annuit vn●  
M●sa, alita exili lampade flamma subest.  F. CITOIS. D. MED.   


SI quando levibus fama pinnulis vehens,  
Nullis puellam victitare ferculis,  
Sitis arid●, atque tristis exortem famis  
Narravit, omnes commodùm pallescere,  
Omenque lawm deprecari prodigi,  
unus veniret confidenti pectore  
Hygieia jussit Pallas: Ille protinus  
Sibi optiones filias sumens iovis,  
Gnaws removit alta mundi moeni●,  
Auiaque Naturae penetra●it loca,  
Hic unde rerum semina, unde profluant  
Marisque fontes, sluminùmque limpida,  
Animaeque ventûm praepetes, quibus modi●  
Hyemesque, solstitiaque dispernat Deus:  
Qui causa frugum succulentis germinet  
Mandata glebis, quóue sustentans cib●  
Inolescat animal, sive sensibus cluit  
Auctum, negatis sive sensibus caret,  
Hic vidit usquam quicquid est: Quod ut grau●  
Pavore mentis solueret, doctissimis  
Citoeus infit explicare schedijs,  
Quae quisquis olim legerit, caelestium  
Opera videri scripta confitebitur.  M. VIDARD Procurator Regius Pict.   

LE MESME.  

DVn miracle tu fais naistre un rich discours,  
Traictant, Si sans manger on tomb en atrophie,  
Si un corps par trois ans a peu viure s●●s vie,  
Puisque les alimens sont l'ame de nos iours.  
jamais Phoebus ne vit rien semblable en son cours,  
N Aesculape son fils: car si c'est malady,  
Le default d' alimens eut son ame rauie:  
Mais sans boire & manger celuy cy vit tousiours.  
Viure ainsi n'est ce pas un prodige bien rare?  
Ce viure dementant la Nature, & ses lois,  
Qui veulent qu'à momens nostre corps se repare.  
Mass un effect plus beau faict ton liure (Citoys)  
Repa●ssant nos esprits d'vn si precieus viure,  
Qu'il fournit d' alimens, pour en mourant reuiur●.   
FIN.   

The French Sonnet thus Englished.  

A Miracle begets thy rich discourse,  
Disputing; If consumption do ensue  
On want of feeding: Or, if life's right due,  
Be in a body (life-lesse-living) Since, 'tis true,  
Food is the soul, which doth support life's course.  
●●oebus near saw the like, in all his race,  
Nor yet his Physic Son; for, in disease,  
Life fails, if nourishment do not appease:  
Yet (without meat or drink) life here holds place▪  
is't not a wonder then, one thus should live?  
Nature here takes the lie: and those decrees  
That every moment (as the bellies fees,)  
Bids fill the gut, or else our health we lose:  
(Citoys) to us a further rule doth give.  
Feeding our spirits with a precious food,  
Maintaining life in death, more pure, more good▪   
FINIS.   


PEllegis hoc scriptum? suffundere lurco rubor●,  
Ni subis infensi pallidus ora Dei:  
Ah tum te miserum judex cúm venerit ille●  
Vivere neglectis qu●m potes usque cibis.  I. MOR●AV. O●   

LE MESME.  

ROugiventre glouton à l' aboard de ce liur●,  
Si tu ne veux pallir au judgement de Dieu:  
Que feras tu, chetif, en ce terrible am,  
Puss qu'on peut icy has long temps viure sans viure●    

❀ The French thus Englished.  

BLush belly-glutton, to behold this book,  
God's judgements, if they here thee not affright:  
what wilt thou do (wretch) in more dreadful plight?  
On one (long living foodless) thou mayst look.   
FINIS.   

LE MESME.  

I Ecroyois en la foy d'vn erreur populaire,  
Que de ce corps mortel le foible bastiment,  
Priuè du fort soustien d'vn solide aliment,  
Caduc, en peu de temps viendroit à se deffaire.  
Mais le noweau lab●ur de tes doctes escrits▪  
plain de l'air animé d' une bell parole,  
Qui preuue le contrair, & m'enuoye â l'escol●,  
Du choc de ses raisons estonna mes esprits.  
Puis le naïf raport d'vne recente histoire,  
Con●it an doux nectar de ton mielleux discours,  
Puissant de me nourrir, sans manger, plusieurs iours▪  
Renuersant ma creance, establit ta victoire.   
FIN.   

The same French Sonnet, thus Englished.  

A Populare error long time me misled,  
That the weak building of this body's frame:  
(Robbed of foods strong support) would shrink the same▪  
And, in short while, deliver it for dead.  
But this fresh labour of thy flowing wit,  
Full of the soule-breath of most pleasing words:  
Approves the contrary, and to me affords  
Schoole-p●ines again; so powerful is thy writ.  
A ●ecent History, so sprightly told,  
Sweetened with Nectar of thy honny-phrase:  
Foodless, ●eedes me for many, many days,  
And now to change h●leefe, I may be bold.   
FINIS.   


HI● liber hu●●ns d●m tollit corporis escam,  
Ingenio dulc●ns quis neget esse cibum?  Pasch▪ Le Coq M. D.   


FOelix hoc praeco●e tuae, virguncula, vita.  
I am non to siccus succus, ut ante, ●ouet:  
Ipse sed aternam vitam dat & accipit autor▪  
Incertum tu illi, an debeat ille tibi.  A. CITOYS Frater in Curia Patronus.   

LE MESME.  

une humeur dans ce corps estroictement enclose  
Depuis un si long temps ceste fill entretient:  
une meilleure vie en ce liure luy vient:  
Car ce liure & la vie est une mesme chose.   
F J N.   

The French thus Englished.  

AN humour in the body strictly closed,  
Hath so long time this maidens life supplied:  
A better life this book hath her proposed,  
For this book, and her life, are near allied.   
FINIS.   

❧ A MONSIEUR LESCARBOT SUR LA TRADVCTION DE cette histoire.  

L'Autheur qui premier a enfanté cette histoire▪  
Sembloit avoir au peuple en●ié ce bonheur:  
De cogno●stre & scanoir par son docte labeur,  
Ce prodige noweau d'immortelle memoire.  
Toy, Lescarbot, emeu non d'vne vain gloire,  
Ma●s d'vne affection dign d'vn noble coeur,  
As supple ' au default de ce premier autheur,  
Rendant son noble escrit à tous Francois notoire.  
Si le nom de Citoys merit estre immortel,  
Pour a●oir aus h●mains descouuert des mer●●illes,  
Qui leur vont rauissant l'esprit & les oreilles,  
Ton nom certamement merit d'estre tel,  
Qui par ton bean discours fais que la mesme chose▪  
Ore est commune à ce●s à qui elle estoit close.  I. DE LA ROQVE.   

To Monsieur Lescarbot, upon the traducing of this history. (⸫)  

THE Author that first infanted this Book,  
Seemed envious of the people's happiness:  
Loath that in his learned labour, they might look  
On matter of such wondrous worthiness.  
Yet thou Lescarbot, moved by no vainglory,  
But in th'affection of a noble mind:  
The first man's fault hast quitted in true kind,  
And made all France acquainted with the story  
If Citoys name immortally deserve,  
For opening such a marvel to us men:  
As both their cares & minds may sweetly serve  
They name as worthily may merit then.  
Thy quaint discourse imparts the self same right,  
In common now, which he kept out of sight.   
FINIS.   

To his good friend. A: M.  

WOnder, be dumb: And (now) no more prefer,  
(Like to some self loved, boasting travailer)  
Thy past Adventures: for an Age is borne,  
Upon whose forehead, characters are worn  
So strangely, that e'en Admiration stands  
Amazed to read them, (with ●eau'd eyes and hands.)  
Time's oldest Chronicle proves it most clear.  
England near spent such a miraculous year,  
And (France!) thy maiden childbirth, goes (by far)  
Beyond all those, bred in thy civil war:  
The wonder being (by thus much) greater grown,  
Last day she spoke no language but her own,  
Yet now she's understood by Englishmen▪  
Such Magic waits (dear friend) upon thy pen.  Tho. Dekker.   

¶ A true and marvelous History, of a Maiden of Poictou, who for the space of three years and more, hath lived without either meat or drink.  
EVripides desired, that either we might line as dumb, in perpetual silence: or that dumb things, without any ambiguity of words, might speak to us. As for myself, I could wish, that either we were of those Indian people called Astomi, whom Pliny 
Lib. 7. cap. 1.  describeth to live without mouths: or else contented (like them) with the sole benefit of air, without eating or drinking, we might here spend our time. For by this means it might come to pass, that our spirit, (which with a firm eye cannot contemplate things natural, no more than the Owl look on the rays of of the Sun) being freed from those mists & thick vapours, occasioned by the use of meats: would comprehend with a perfect regard, the Ideas and forms of things nakedly, and according as they are indeed▪ 
Heracl.  Chrysippus then should not need, to take Helleborus with such observance, for the purging of his understanding, to the end he might the more subtly see, the strength of his arguments. Our soul (against her nature) would be no heavy burden at all unto us: she should not need to serve herself with the salt of our bodies, to keep her from corrupting▪ but rather she would be like unto a Phar●s, which in our divine navigation, would discover the way for our attaining to the land of heaven.  
But in regard that our life is maintained, by the nourishing of the body, and that by (one mutual assistance) both together do conserve themselves, even while we ourselves do study how to support this life, by continual care for furnishing it with ●oodes: it ensueth, that we altogether abase, & cast down to the earth, that part of the soul, which otherwise (of herself) would covet nothing else, then to elevate herself to high and heavenly things. Notwithstanding, Plato holdeth, that 
In his Timeus.  man is purveyed of store of repletion, and cloying for the intestines, to show, that God hath created him a soul full of reason & council: with out which, as the plants are evermore fastened to their roots, for their feeding, so would he likewise always have meat in his mouth, or else, as the beasts, his mind would be perpetually labouring, in seeking after nothing but fresh pasture. You may see the same thus, while the meat doth convey itself by the passages of the belli●, the spirit naturally sends his strength vegetative & nutritive thorough the body, and by this commixture, life, & the motion of the body is maintained: and as this more sublime part of nature, passeth on further still to show the effects of his force and virtue, so after food hath sustained the body, the spirit is called too the desire of new viands, & constrained to yield itself subject to the bellies appetite▪ 
Lib. 26. cap. 8.  For there is nothing (saith Pliny) that is more painful to a man, than his belly, for the content whereof, the most part of men employ their whole life time. This importuning vessel of the body, evermore is at hand with us, like a greedy creditor summoning us many times in the day: but he is not to be listened to always when he calls, if he have had his duty paid him. No more than one under age, who would not allow his tutor or guardian the expenses for his nourishing, as though he had lived with him only upon wind, and yet continually hath been 
Tit. De alim. pup. praest. C.  by him, and fed with his purse: but whosoever shall or doth deal so, the Emperor hath judged him not receivable, except he can prove he hath had his feeding elsewhere.  
The necessity of the belly, is always in such rigour with us, that the Stoics themselves, who were excluded (in themselves) from all sense of man, constrainedly did yet listen to the bellies murmuring: and did eat, but how? to the end they might shun eating. Quite contrary to certain gourmandes and gluttons, who used then, and yet do, to eat and drink, only to increase their eating and drinking: having no other God but their belly, whereon they bestow whatsoever serves to excite luxury: for which, the Seas are traversed, even so far as to the River Phasis, ransacking her entrails, for contentation agreeing with their insatiable appetites. And this is that part, wherein we come nearest unto brute beasts, who by their proper nature, are led to desire whatsoever their belly demands, and (with whom) we make common this necessity, of eating and drinking.  
For nature hath given to all creatures one instrument of life, which is natural heat, & that (even as our wood in the fire) hath his seat in the triple substance of our body, to ●it, the solid, humoral and spirituous parts, which (without ceasing) he ruinates and consumeth: so that in very small while, all would be wasted, if it were not maintained by a fresh supply of meats and drinks, neither more or less, then as the flame of a Lamp, which is extinct so soon as the Oil is consumed, if no more be put thereinto for longer lasting: And hereupon, Hypocrates 
Lib. 1. Aph. 14.  the Prince of Physicians said, that the bodies of young men have need of more nourishment, than others, because they have much more heat than they: for otherwise (saith he) their bodies would consume themselves. Contrariwise, the bodies of old men, because they have but little store of heat, they have need but of as little nourishing.  

Aph. 13.  Hence may we draw a confirmed atgument, by this which Hypocrates himself hath said, that old men easily endure fasting, but next them, such as are in the strength of their age, yet less than young men, & infants lest of all other, but especially such as are liveliest, and readiest in their bodily functions. For the littleness of heat, the tenacity of the primitive humour, and the density or thickness of the body, impeacheth old● men, that this triple substance canno● waste itself at all: whence proceedeth, that they have nothing at all such need of meats, and the desire or appetite after them (if so I may say) which is hunger, in them is much languishing. As contrariwise in young men, it is so much the more ardent, as the heat natural is abundant, the 〈◊〉 more fluxible, and the composition of the body more thin, and less heaped together. Which three things, as they cause the food received to consume, so by little and little, they repair any defect there arising. For as it should be thus, that the substance of every creature, dissolves itself by the pores of the skin, into the air which environs it 
1. De symtom. caus. 7.  (saith Galen) so follows it of necessity, that the very nearest parts of the skin, should be first destitute of nurture, that by their proper strength & virtue, they might draw the nourishment from the other neighbouring parts, only to repair that, which through default of sustentation is become worst: those there, from the veins, these here, from the liver: the liver from the intestines & ventricle (by the mesentery veins) calling what is most familiar, and convenable to his nature. Then the ventricle, seeing herself empty, by a natural understanding which she hath, of that which is wanting to her: she is incited to desire meat, wherewith she may be sustained.  
But if some body be presented, which hath but small store of heat, and much more natural moisture, whereto the pores and respiracles of of the skin do give place; there is no great evacuation made of this triple substance, and so consequently, there is no need at all of much nourishment. Neither is it altogether necessary (as Galen witnesseth) 
De venae sect. ●duer. Eras.  in those places, where, (beside that already said) the air which encompasseth us, is cold, and the body heavy, benumbed, & not stirring: because the little troughs & openings in the skin, are mouths, and yet little or nothing at all passeth out at them. And this he gives us to understand, by the example of salvage beasts, which (all winter together) will not leave their dens and caverns, and hereupon he calls them Phoolevonta Zooa, such as are Bears, Bats, or 〈◊〉 Serpent's, lizards and divers other. All which having at spring time (by warmth & heat) the convoys of their body released and opened, when they know that inward warmth resolves them, & makes them to wax hungry; they come forth (by their own proper motion) out of their prisons, and (guided by nature only) seek in all parts, the feeding which is aptest for them. Hence he gathereth, that continual breathing, which is occasioned by respiration, procures this defect, & this also provokes the appetite and desire of eatting. For nature hath given this property to the empty part, which thus requireth to be filled. So that if the cause ceased, for which the body hath need of nurture, it would ensue as necessarily, that the self same penury, and his understanding, which is hunger, by little and little would decay: and therefore by this reason, the creatures which are so hidden in the caves of the earth, may live without the use of food. 
S. August. lib. 21. decivit. Chap. 6.  So likewise, by the report of notable men, and well worthy credence, that in the Lanterns and hollow places of old sepulchres, burning Lamps have been found, which the inscriptions on the said Tombs have witnessed, that they were put in there, almost infinite years before their finding: as that whereof Lodovicus Vives speaketh, discovered about the year 1500. which Hermolaus Barbarus saith, was found in the territories of Pavia, without date of day, or of Consul in very deed, but yet notwithstanding, it had been there enclosed above eight hundred years before, as by the written discourse P. Appianus gathered. Such Lamps then, were preserved so long a time with little maintenance, because the moisture there doth strongly support them, and they perish but little: whether it be by the humidity (which the Alchemissts term radical) of the gold (which alone among all natural bodies, is believed, to suffer no diminution at all of his substance) or any other thing thereto belonging, but so it appears by the testification, engraven upon a vessel of earth, which Barbarus before mentioned, delivered written in these words.  

Plutoni sacrum munus ne attingite fures,  
Ignotum est vobis hoc quod in orb latet.  
Namque elementa gravi clausit digesta labour  
Vase sub hoc modico maximus Olybius.  
Adsit foecundo custos sibi copia corn●,  
Ne pretium tanti depereat laticis.   
And this which followeth, was written or carved upon an other vessel of earth, and enclosed within the former, bearing these words.  
ABITE. HINC. PESSUMI. FURES.  
VOS. QVID. VOLTIS. CUM VOSTRIS. OCULIS. EMISSITIIS.  
ABITE. HINC. VOSTRO. CUM. MERCURIO. PETASATO. CADUCEATOQVE.  
MAXUMUS. MAXUMUM. DONUM: PLUTONI HOC SACRUM. FACIT.  
Now in this vessel of earth, wa● and had been kept this Lamp, placed between two Flagons or Bottles, the one of gold, the other of silver, full of the most pure liquor of gold: which was imagined to have given nutriment to the Lamp, that continued burning for so many ages. The same Barbarus called this liquor heavenly water, or rather, the divine water of the Alchemists: which also he noteth, to have been called by Democritus and Mercurius Trismegistus, sometimes divine water, sometime the Scythian drink: sometime spiritual, that is to say, a spirit drawn 
Or Quintessence.  from the celestial nature, & ❀ fift essence of things, whereof is composed Aurum Potabile, and the Philosopher's stone or dust, in the search whereof, so many people have vainly consumed themselves. To this divine liquor of gold, I know not whether I may attribute or no, the 〈◊〉 of a Lamp continually burning, whereof Cedrenus speaketh, 
In the abridgemet of his History.  which from the time of the Emperor justinian, was found in the city of 
* A City of Syria, beyond Euphrates.  Edessa, with an Image of our Saviour jesus Christ. It had been enclosed or hidden, over a certain gate, immediately after the passion of Christ, and yet nevertheless, it had also remained there five hundred years, without extinguishing. Moreover, some of the oil which was found therein, being cast into the nearest fire to that place, it burned entirely all the troops of warriors, of Chosroes King of the Persians, who was an enemy to the Christians. Whatsoever it were, in consideration of the reasons before alleged, I find it not so strange, as an example now to be made, of a thing very rare, & almost incredible, happening within our own quarters of Poict●: to wit, the fast or abstinence of a maiden of Confolans, (or Conflans,) who for the space of 3. years, and even till this day, hath lived, & doth, without any bodily food or sustenance.  
This Maiden is about 14. years of age, and is named jane Balan, her Father john Balan, a Locksmith, and her Mother Laurencia Chambella: her ●●ture is answerable to her age, some what Country-like of behaviour, anative of the Town of Confolans, upon the River of Vienna, in the confines of Limosin, and also of Poictu. In the eleventh year of her age, being seized on by a continual Fever, the 16. day of February, 1599 she hath since then been assailed with the access of divers other sicknesses: and beyond all the rest, with a continual casting or vomiting, for the space of 20. days together. The Fever having somewhat left her, she grew to be speech less, and continued so 28. days▪ without the delivery of any one word: at the end of which time, she came to herself again, and spoke as she had done before (saving that her words were full of fear, and void of good sense.) Now came upon her a weakness, and benumbing of all her senses and bodily movings, from beneath the head, in such sort, that Oesophagus itself, (being that part of the stomach, which serves as conduct for passage of meat and drink, into that which we term the little belly) being dissolved, it lost the force attractive. Since which time, could not any one persuade this Maiden (in any manner) to eat, albeit they made trial, to have her but suck or lick meats delicate, fruits, and sweet things, agreeable to such yo●ig years. Notwithstanding, the use & motion of her members, came to her again about six months after: except in one hip, on which side yet she goes with some difficulty. One only impotency remaineth to her, that she cannot swallow or let down any thing, for she altogether loathes and abhors mightily, both meats & drinks.  
In this time (a thing most strange) the inferior part of the belly, by little & little is in such manner grown lean, and dried up in her, as down from her sides, and so along to her navel, there remaineth nothing of the belly which she had before. There is only in this place (or in stead thereof, to wit, under the ancient belly, where we may say it hath been) a Cartilege or gristle, hanging pointed down from 
* That part of the breast where the ribs meet and join together.  thorax, or sternums, after the manner of an eaves or penthouse, which throws off from the building, all the water that falls on the top or coverture. Here-hence, & from the points of these bastard-sides, the skin underneath doth suffer great pain and feeling, both of extension and diu●lsion, as may easily be perceived by the moans which the Maid herself maketh. From thence comes it, that all the muscles, intestines, bowels, & other parts of the belly, being withdrawn and annihiled by want of food: one would judge that they had been racked or rend away, at least, there remaineth nothing but the lappings & silaments, for all the fleshy substance, which filled those parts there, are perished and gone.  
As concerning the other parts of her body, it behoveth much more, that there should be an answerable diminution: yet she hath a large breast, the paps pretty and round: her arms & thighs fleshy, her face also indifferent round, but brownish: her lips somewhat red: her tongue (indeed) drawn inward a little, but yet her words prompt and ready: her head covered with hair of good length, for her nails and hair, they do increase, in each meet part of the body. There comes not any excrement from her, her belly yields no ordure, neither doth any urine at all pass from her bladder, or is the matrix impeached by her menstrual flowers. Her head is not charged with filth or dandruff, but shows itself very sound and well, as well in the exterior part of the 〈…〉 as in the inward organs of 〈◊〉 for neither doth her nose or 〈◊〉 render any excrements, only from her mouth comes a little spittle, and sometimes from her eyes issues a few tears.  
The whole body over, yields no sweat at all, but we, and such as have touched her, do find all her skin to be cold and dry, and not heated or chafed by any moving, (except the armpits, & those parts which neighbour near to the heart) yet doth she travail about the house, go to the market for victuals; sweep the house; spin at her wheel; reel off her quill; and gives herself (as any other) to all serviceable offices in a family, & seems as if she were not defective, in any part of sense, or moving of her body.  
By all which things, we may gather the rarity, and marvelous novelty of this example: for the accident happeneth in such an age, when as the body receives increasing. And those things which increase, have need of good store of nurture▪ but especially in bodies of such constitution, as this Maidens is, slender, thin, & cold, where the internal parts are accustomed to be most hot. Hence comes it, that our ancients have said, that in Winter our bellies are 
Lib. 1. Aph. 15.  more hot, then at other times, which causeth a much readier concoction, and an appetite less tolerable, especially when it is provoked by exercises: whereof this Maiden maketh no spare, especially, such as her age is capable of, the air and soil also wherein she lives, affords the people to be very hungry. All which occasions of appetite and hunger, were taken from her by the accident of her continual Fever: and in the end, all her natural functions became assuaged, and seized on by a kind of dead Palsy.  
And now to begin with the first & principal, the little belly or maw, (which otherwise is the receptacle of food, and the officer for the first concoction) being lagde & rend by the ordure of crude & raw humours, hath languished in such sort, as it had no power, either to retain the meats therein enclosed, or to receive in any other. Even so in Hypocrates, Hermocrates being surprised with an extreme burning Fever, did evermore cast the food he received: because this faculty had lost his strength, and that was quenched in him (saith Galen in the same place) 
Com. 1.  whereof the office was, to feel lack in health, and to desire what was familiar for him.  
Many would attribute the cause of this Symptom, or passion ensuing sickness, to some bad power in an Apple, which an old woman had given to this young Maiden, two or three months before; because when she had eaten it, she had a distaste of her meats, and felt some alteration of her spirits. But in regard, that (besides this) nothing hath happened to her, which outwardly hath impeached her health, neither her natural functions, until she became surprised by the Fever before mentioned; I see no reason at all, that yields any subject to believe, how the evil power in the Apple, could remain so long time hidden, without yielding any effect. Her vomiting ceasing, she became dumb, by reason of those nerves resolution, which we call recurrent (which happened to her soon after through all her body) the phlegm cold & raw, being liquefied by the heat of the Fever, which by this means wrought a debility in the brain, caused that she could not be sound and well in spirit. Here-hence it hath necessarily followed, that she must needs lose the sense of taste & sucking, and likewise the use of swallowing meat and drink: which only hath procured the abolition of the animal appetite, and by little & little, it hath been followed, by a total privation of the appetite natural, which Hypocrates noteth by these words, Genestai de ouc edunato, if we may give credit to his most grave interpreter Galen. Which casts the cause of this passion, upon the blame of the liver, who being the vegetant and natural soul, so soon as she is wounded, she is constrained, that the auxiliary, or succouring faculties, (to wit, attraction, retention, assimiliation or comparison, and expulsion, in whom lies all the power of nourishing) must needs sink & fall, and so consequently the appetite, which cannot be complete & perfect, but by attraction. The same Author gathers it to be the sickness of the liver in Hermocrates, by this, 
1. Epid. sect. 3.  that the sixth day of his sickness, he was seen to look yellow: & notwithstanding, in all the course of his disease, which was for 27. days, this yellowness never left him (as it had done in Heraclides, to whom the self same passion happened, and on the same day) neither by sweeting, neither by the voiding of much choler; nor by the convoye of the belly; nor by urine, nor yet by vomiting. And therefore it was easy to be seen, that the natural facultic (whereof the liver is the fountain) in very strange manner was overthrown. Which being so, all the 
5. De lo●. aff. Chap. 1.  strength of appetite doth become so weakened, saith Galen; as sick-folke rather desire to die, then receive any thing ●n at their mouths, or have it so much as but touch their lips.  
In the Maiden of whom we speak a● this present, (who hath not been exalte with, by any cunning, or helps to nature), the liver hath been so besieged with the burden of hurtful humours: as her natural heat being broken, and having no more force; by little and little it hath dried up, with all the neither parts of the belly, yea and so, as there is nothing indeed to be marveled at, when we see the functions of the natural Oeconomic to be also abolished. This then is one of the causes, of this distaste of meats, and of the fast or abstinence thereon ensuing, that this drying up of the liver, and of all those parts serving to nouriture▪ from whence attraction being taken, it hath then been followed with a privation of sucking or swallowing, which is the beginning of hunger. In this opinion I have Galen ●or my 
1. De lo●. affect. Chap. 1.  warrant, who saith, that by reason of the livers debility, the body can receive no nourishment: and yet notwithstanding, it may so subsist a long time, to wit, so long as the heart remaineth sound. Nevertheless, Hermocrates died at 27. days end, because the corruption of humours had gained the substance of the heart: which likewise the quality of the Fevers heat (by altering) had consumed, after it had chased away the natural heat. But this Maiden hath been preserved, in regardss, that the Fevers fire being extinct, the natural heat which remained, being but weak, hath yet been detained in a body locked up fast, covered with a skin wrinkled, cold and dry. Of this heat she makes but very small decay in herself, nor hath she 〈◊〉 also of much maintaining the same these may serve as second and third causes of this defect of appetite.  
For all that she exhaleth by the means of respiration, as her breath, and natural heat, the same is repaired and supplied, first of all by the air drawn, as well by inspiration, and received at the heart by the pipes of the lungs or lights: as by this insensible transpiration, (which, according as I can judge by her disposition, is almost utterly wasted in her) received in the whole body by the arteries▪ After this, nature (thus lagde, and scantly vigorous) delights herself with this crude rhumi● humour, which cannot in this young body, but (of itself) it should much abound and increase, according to the quality of her sex and age: and the same more especially may now be discerned, by some little decadence of her body, through the palsy, which is not as yet perfectly cured. Now this humour (in time) doth seethe itself, & converts into food, proper and apt for nourishing of the body. And there is no want of many other things, which have their maintenance in our bodies, wherewith nature may serve herself, when (pressed by hunger) she pleaseth to use them for sustenance: as fat, marrow in the bones, and phlegm, all which things, the despoiled parts of the body, do draw to their natural seating, to furnish well their own expenses withal, and they receive them (like a dispersed dew) thorough their whole substances. 
Symmach. lib. 1. Epist. 33.  So saith one, that the Snails in the air having drought, if no dew do fall to them from heaven, they live by sucking themselves. And thence grew it that Plautus said. 
Captivi.   
Quasi, cum caletur, cochleae in occulto latent,  
Suo sibi succo viwnt, ros si non cadit.  

Arist. Hist. an. lib. 8. Chap. 13.  And so the Snails on the earth, when they will defend themselves against the sharp cold of winter: they make before their shells entrance, a certain white covering, 
Plin. Hist. 〈◊〉 Cap. 39  hard like plaster, and live so within, six months together, under the ground, near to the roots of herbs, sustained only by the internal humour which redoundeth from themselves. Which likewise divers other kinds of creatures do the same, such as are accustommed to decline from the rigour of winter, by withdrawing into dens: at Serpents, Frogs, Flies, Worms, Dormice, Rats of the Mountains, Turtle Dooves, Swallows. etc.▪  
For, in regard of Serpents, almost all (shunning the cold) remain all winter hid within the earth, as saith Aristotle: from whom, 
Hist. an. lib. 8. Chap. 15. Plin. Hist. nat. lib. 8. Chap. 39  albeit Pliny have borrowed, that which he saith concerning Serpents, he hath notwithstanding (against reason) taken Aristotle's intent contrary to sense; there where he saith, that of all the Serpents, the Viper only seeks the places under ground, & the other the hollows of trees and of rocks. Whereas (quite contrary) Aristotle hath written truly, that the Viper is well-nigh alone, who during the winter, withdraws himself under stones or rocks, and the other under ground, for then sleep serves them in stead of food. Nay, and much more, Vipers do endure hunger a whole year together, without counting the time of winter's cold, so saith Pliny: which we have known by eye-experience, we that have abundance of them here, of whom we have kept a year & more, enclosed in bottles of glass, without any food at all.  
As for Frogs, whom Pliny thinks (after a life of six months) to resolve themselves into slime or mud, and are revived again at the coming of the Spring-time waters: they are sound deadened with cold, but yet not reduced to nothing, as Pliny holdeth. For they remain in the caverns on the coasts, where not only they abstain from all nourishment, but are likewise half dead▪ and they may be seen in this estate in your Fens on the Sea-coasts, (which are not subject to freezing) at all seazons of the year. So likewise in the ditches whether they are retired, where you shall not only see their young ones, but also the Frogs of the other year.  
Your Flies, benumbed with the cold of winter, remain hidden in the rifts of planchers and pieces of wood, and come not out, but by fire artificial, or by the renewing heat of the Spring, or of Summer. During this numbness, they live not so much by reason of their body's smallness or littleness (as Aristotle argueth) 
De part. anim. Lib. 4. Cap. 5.  as by the cold which is in them. For that which is hot, desireth food, & digests it very soon: contrariwise, that which is cold, doth very easily let it alone. Among the 
A●ist. Lib ● Cap. 14.  Flies, they that make Honey, do forbear to come forth in the same time, 
Bee●.  but abide close in their little Hives, yet without eating: whereof we may easily make proof, in that, if one bring food, and set it before them, they will not so much as touch it.  
And if it chance, that any one ge●● forth, you shall see the same to have a transparent body, as utterly empty of all nourishment: from the heart of winter, until the years renewing, 
Lib. 11. Chap. 16.  they live in sleep, without any nurture, so saith Pliny.  

Arist. lib. 4. cap. 5. de part. anim.  Above all other kind of creatures, the Grasshopper doth fast the longest: for the moisture which is superabundant in their bodies, doth sufficiently furnish them with store of nourishment.  
Worms growing to be old, their skin doth outwardly wax very hard, and because (that skin) then looks of yellow, or gold colour, the Greeks were wont to call them Chrisalides, & the Latins named them Aurelia. After they have once taken this form, they will receive nothing more into their bodies, neither do they void or cast any thing forth.  
Among these, the silk-worm showeth a miracle in nature, about the midst of Summer (closed up fast within her husk of silk) she lives at the least for forty days together, not only without eating, but employs beside, very much of her substance, in making of silk: and coming forth of her shell or coverture, she becomes a Butterfly, & yet this liberty makes her not to seek any nourishment.  

Arist. lib. 8. cap. 17. Plin. lib. 8. cap. 57  The Bar or Dormouse, remains hidden all Winter in a perpetual sleep, & during all this time, she hath no other nurture than sleep.  

Arist. lib. 8. cap. 17.  The Rats of the Mountains, like unto Dormice, doesleepe hidden all the winter, and for six months' continuance, they are busied in such a profound sleep, as being cast up out of the ground by digging or otherwise: they will not awake at all, until such time as they be brought into the Sun, or laid before the fire, & they begin to feel heat. They carry hay, chaff, & such other like things into their caverns, to keep them from the cold, but yet all this hinders them not from sleeping sound.  
The Tortuise of the earth, all winter lies within the earth, & there passeth that season as the other. And 
I ib. de A●phib.  Rondeletus witnesseth, that not only in winter, but like wise at all times, she can live longest without any food, yea, although she have her head cle●t, or cut off: and this is by the power of the cold moisture within herself.  

Arist. lib. 9 Cap. 29. ●●●. lib. 10. Cap. 24.  The Loriot (a kind of Bird, having this nature, that if a man see her, when he is sick of the laundise, the man shall wax whole, & the bird shall die immediately:) all the winter she lies hidden in the earth, & shows not herself till about the Solstice of Summer.  

Arist. lib. 8. Cap. 16.  Your Swallows, as well those of houses, as they that are wild, to shun the sharpness of winter, when it draweth 
Pl●●. lib. 10▪ Cap. 24.  near, they retire themselves to secret places in the neighbouring Mountains: where you shall find them naked and without any feathers, and you may see them almost in the like condition, even at the Spring-time.  
As for them, which are called Swallows of the Sea-coasts, they withdraw themselves to the sides of Rivers, Lakes, Marshes, and of the Seas, where the Rocks do serve them for a retirement▪ There shall you see them in multitudes together, as newly assembled to chase one another. In such sort, that (as Agricola saith) the Fisher men many times take them out of the waters, so fast joined & tied together, as our new Philosophers may cease henceforward, to forge their new Colonies in Africa, and other places beyond the Seas.  

Arist. lib. 8. cap. 10. hist.  Turtle-dooves, they begin to hide themselves when they are fat, & although that they leave their feathers in their holes, yet notwithstanding, they keep their fatness.  
Some one peradventure, being a more diligent searcher into natural things, may discover a great number of other birds, which might be thought to be strangers, because in winter time they hide themselves thus, & yet nevertheless are of our own country, as Kites, Stock-dooves, Blackbirds, stars, Houpes, Backs, Gripes, Owls, and others, which are sustained and fed by the fat within themselves, in all which time, the 
Gal. 4. usu part. et Com. 2. de rat. vict. acut.  course & office of the belly ceaseth. For Galen holds, that when hunger is not thoroughly contented, the fat, marrow, and phlegm, give nourishment to the natural heat. Whence 
Hip. lib. de carn.  we may also relieve a doubt, which may arise from that which Hypocrates hath written, & maintaineth, that a man can hardly live out the seventh day, without eating, which although he happen to overpass, yet notwithstanding, he will die soon after. For albeit it may be true, and that which he saith, might have been manifested in this Maiden of Confolans, the intestine receiving no food at all, it shut up itself in such sort during this time, that it could not afterward admit the receipt of any: yet notwithstanding, it is not altogether so constrained, that by this restriction of the entrails, death should follow thereon so readily. For it is recorded of the Scythians, that if by any occasion happening them, they are to endure long fasting: they will bind up their bellies strictly with large bands, to the end, that hunger may not charge them so soon, because they have left little or no space at all for the bellies convoye. And moreover, the Maiden of Spire, of whom ran such great report, that she had been three years without eating: yet after the superabounding humour was consumed, she returned (according as they say which wrote thereof) even as one from banishment, to her first right course and use of eating: beginning (as it ●s very likely) with pottages and licquid things, by little and little, if this be true which those authors have said▪ Or rather, if the mother of the maid did not impose it on those good people (as the rumour ran) therefore there hath been some occasion of remaining in doubt, by their own proper writing: for it might be noted, that her nose voided much, her ears wanted no part of their ordure, and that she delivered abundance of tears forth at her eyes, which showeth, that the languishing powers have been often relieved with some food, albeit not solid, whereby these excrements (by a secret strength in nature) were sent into their proper organs.  
And nothing at all against this, makes the Paradox, which M. joubert hath in the second book of his first decade, where among many notable examples of a long fast or abstinence, he produceth as an Hypothesis or argument disputed, that history of the Maiden of Spire. For, besides a great number of observations of the same quality, which he placeth before, and that have been approved by the avouching of many grave Authors: we have also notable confirmations, as well by experience of elder ages, as of newer and later. Plato makes report in his Common Wealth, of a certain man named Herus Pamphilius, who remained ten days together, among the dead bodies of them which had been slain in a battle: & two days after that he was brought thence, as one was laying him on the pile of wood, to be burned among others, 
Lib. 11. Cap. 54.  he was found alive. As for Pliny, he is not persuaded, that thorough lack of eating, a man should be compelled to yield too death, at the seventh days end. Diogenes Laertius reciteth by the testimony of Dicearchus, that Pytha●or as, the chief master of abstinence, continued forty days together without drinking: by whose doctrine also, Apollonius Thyaneus learned (by a long use and custom) to endure fasting for many days, 
Lib. 7. Cap. 18.  Pliny assures us, that drought or thirst may be surmounted, by a constant perseverance, and that the Roman noble Knight julius Viator, having had warning by Physicians in his younger years, not to drink any water at all, by reason of a certain indisposition in him, leaning to the dropsy: he turned the custom of nature in such sort, as he passed his age without drinking. Fresh yet in our memory, and all France hath seen the same, in the person of my Lord marquess of Pisani: who is a man of such merit, as the King himself employs his service, in matters of great importance. There are many books of devout instructions, which do recount marvels, of divers frequent and voluntary abstinences, as of P. Alcantara, a Monk in Spain, and that for eight days and more in every month. But beyond all others, there is an history very famous, of a certain Maiden named Catharine, being in the soil of Colherberg, who hath been known to live seven years together, without drinking, or eating any thing whatsoever. She was carefully tended by Henry Smetius, at this present Professor in Heildeberge, and Ioh● jac. Theod. Physicians. The 24. of November 1584. by the commandment of john Casimir, Count Palatine, and since also to the same effect, four Matrons were appointed to keep her company, as well by night as by day, who with the Physicians, have also acknowledged, this abstinence to be most true. Three years after, this history was traduced into French, & Printed at Francford by john Wechel, in the year 1587. with an advertisement in the end, that the Maiden as yet then lived in that manner, without drinking, eating, sleeping, or delivering any excrements.  
Besides all these, joubert (concerning this argument) hath set down such pregnant & necessary reasons, as I cannot think, that any one needs to make doubt thereof. Nevertheless, being myself afterward to discourse on the same subject, I happened (being in a Booksellers shop) letting mine eyes wander over the books, to be presented at my very entrance with a little book, bearing in the forehead this title: Fieri non posse, ut quis sine cibo et pot● plures dies et annos transigat. At the same instant I took, the Book, which (in regard it was written by I. Haruet a Doctor of Physic, and of the same condition with us, and as we are) I read it very seriously from one end to the other. But coming to the place, where he argues on the negligence, of the Authors of so 
Pag. 74.  many notable examples, who (he saith) have been somewhat deceived, by the inveterate belief of this extraordinary fasting: I thought it good, that he should be satisfied in this point, and passed my promise thereon, in the name of our Maid of Confolans; albeit, during so many months, & years, I could not give myself to consider all her actions and motions; nevertheless it is very likely, by that which is said in all places of her, concerning the three years fast now in question. And yet such as have seen her naked, as we have done, have thought no otherwise, if she be not changed since the last time I saw her, which was in the month of july last, 1602. Some say, that she is now a little more full of flesh, & yet she hath never received any food at all, that could possibly be known. Beside, this truth ought to receive credit generally, by the faithful report of so many persons of honour, and good quality, who (for trials sake) have kept her in their houses, among their Maids & children, some for three, others for four months and more. If any one be further desirous, and would willingly see her, he hath free liberty, & the Maiden herself will not contradict, what other proofs, he or any can make of her. But in my mind, joubert would have received no mean contentment, by the sight of an accident so strange: for, if to so many pertinent reasons, he could have had but an eye-experience, he should not have had now (perhaps) Haruet for his adversary. Who being in the humour, to combat against both sense and reason, it may be, it would then be the harder for him, to undergo the demonstrations of joubert: for they are underpropped with principles sound assured, and drawn from the oracles, even of the great dictator of Nature.  

Lib▪ de vita et mor. et resp.  Aristotle instructs us, that all kinds of creatures, have in them a certain natural heat, which is combined to the soul with so strict a bond, as the one cannot be without the other: and that those creatures, while they live, have this hea●, but death coming, they are cold immediately. And 
Lib. ●. de gen. an. Cap. 3.  in another place, there is (saith he) in the seed of all creatures, the thing that causeth facundity, and that is it which we call heat. And further he saith, in the earth, and in the waters, the creatures and plants do engender, because in the earth there is a moisture, & in the moisture is a spirit, and in this great substance, is the animal heat, to the end that all things should be somewhat full of soul. Thus doth he hold, that all things are made by heat, and that all functions are performed thereby.  

Lib. ●. ad Glauc. Lib. ●. de vsu par.  Galen is also of the same opinion, and saith, that heat is either the substance of the faculties, or at least, the chief, and most necessary instrument of them. It is no marvel then, if Haruet thinks it to be strange, that joubert saith according to Aristotle, that life dependeth upon heat only. For, that it must needs be so, life is nothing else, but an abiding or attendance of the soul with the heat, according to the same Aristotle's judgement: 
Lib. de resp.  and we cannot in this obscurity of things, find any more assured instance of this present life, then by the functions thereof, of all which, heat (as the especial instrument, and without other means) is the author, the cause motive and effecter. And joubert (to no small purpose) hath defined life by heat, in that Aristotle hath consigned death, by the extinction of the same heat: for joubert groundeth on this axiom, that of two contraries, the consequents are contraries. And Galen himself, 
1. De san. tu.  (who holdeth death to arrive then, when heat being weakened and broken by frequent action, becomes faint, and that the temper of the elementary qualities which are in us, being out of square, comes to yield itself under the tyranny of one alone) gives thereby reasonably to understand, that the course of life keeps itself for so long time, as natural heat doth abundantly disperse itself with the radical humour, and that the elementary qualities do hold a good sympathy among themselves, in their harmony & kind accord, which we call temperature. And therefore it is blameless, to define life by these two causes, that is to say, heat and temperature, because it behoveth to take the definition, by the cause which is most near. Now heat is the most near instrument of the soul, the temper (next that) of natural heat, which disposeth, and accommodates it to divers actions. Then this causal definition is well derived, from the chief and principal occasion of life, which here we have alleged by the authoritic of Aristotle.  
Nevertheless, Haruet goes after another fashion, he defines the life of man, to be an action of the reasonable soul, produced into the body of man: but this definition is not subtle enough. For first & foremost, life is no action at all of the soul, otherwise, it should be the soul that liveth, and not the body: but life is an abiding (as hath been said) or an union of the soul with the body (according as Aristotle describeth in another of his books) whereof (soon 
8. Metaph.  after) proceedeth action.  
Hear I add, that the actions of life, being, to understand, to smell, to move, and to nourish: if life be an action, than it were an action of an action, which is most absurd. Or else, if life be an action of the reasonable soul, in so much then as she is reasonable, the corporal parts should then be driven to perform they● operations (as receiving food for nourishment, to beget her like) only by reason and the intellect, & not by any natural sense. But peradventure, Haruet having drawn his definition from others, hath read, that life is an act of the reasonable soul, which word of act, he hath converted into action. Or, act is that which the Greeks call E●telecheia, which is a perfection, efficacy, and moving power of itself: far enough differing from that which they call Ergon. And so one may (to some purpose) define life, an act of the soul in the body, that is to say, a power & virtue of the soul, by the union thereof with the body▪ Whence is easy to be understood, that taking life generally, it should rather be imputed to natural heat, as to the organ of the soul, then unto reason: in case notwithstanding, that this heat still abides always united with the radical moisture, which although that day by day it be consumed by this heat, yet nevertheless, nature provideth a subrogation daily of new, which she borrows from the nouritures we receive, as it hath been said already heretofore. But Haruet imagineth, that these nourishments serve yet to another use, which is (saith he) to relieve & fortify the spirits; the which I●ubert hath omitted: as if under this name of radical moisture, we should comprehend only moisture by itself, & not the spirits likewise. And what is he, who will deny, that the spirits are not restored & strengthened, both by eating and drinking? Ye have (in very truth) great store of things, here chawed, and eaten unprofitably, and to little purpose. And of abounding, that which he proposeth against Hypocrates, in the 14. Aphorism of his 2. Book, is altogether paradoxical, to wit, that he in whom heat is most languishing, hath the more need of nourishment: which he proves by the example of a forty-yeeres aged man, who (saith he) receiveth more food than any infant of two or three days, in whom notwithstanding, there is an advantage of this heat, according to Hypocrates himself.  
Behold, in my judgement, an argument very feeble, if one should bring in all that he fails in, & if also we should oppose the organs of the twain, the one against the other. For, to the end that under this word Infant, no cavillation may be covered, I call all them Infants, which are under 14. years of age, in the same manner as the Greeks' do understand this word Paidi●. They, I say, that according to the proportion of their maw or little belly, do take more food, than men of middle & perfect age: as well by reason of the power of the faculty, which seethes or boils the food (whence proceedeth a speedy riddance thereof,) as by their frequent exercises, during the which time, good store of their substance glides itself thorough the pores into the skin: to the end I may be silent also, in the two necessities alleged by Hypocrates, that infants have of eating, to wit, for nourishing, & to give increasing to the body.  
Now the strength of the faculty, which boils the meat in our stomach, depends much upon temperature and moderation, but that is, when it is excited and provoked on by the heat natural, which although that after one food is digested, she introduceth not then of herself any other nurture, as saith Haruet: nevertheless; because that this first is thus digested by heat, there grows incontinently a feeling of penury and want of food, at the mouth of the ventricle, which we call hunger. For this cause, joubert refers only to heat (as the principal agent) the quantity of those foods, which we take immediately after, and they are ruled by the appetite of hunger. The facility of supporting 
Com. 2. Apho. 13.  hunger (saith Galen) makes itself known thus; when any one hath no appetite at all, and yet nevertheless he feels no endamagement or defect. Which Haruet thus brings in, that such as are restored from sickness, have a good appetite, and yet notwithstanding, no such meats are then given them, as their appetite doth desire: but when advise is given for restoring of the powers, it behoves also to have regard to the 〈…〉 of the natural heat, 〈…〉 is not to be any way injuried, but still supported. This is thus done, because that the temperature being not yet thoroughly reseated, & the natural faculties feel themselves as yet to be diseased: the organs cannot boil the foods received, in too great a quantity. Now joubert in his demonstration, purposed to speak of the healthful▪ not of the sick, or else of them which are neither. And therefore he concludes, that old men have not need of meat often, because they do not desire or appetite often, principally considering, that they have cold bodies: whereto Haruet in no wise will agree, for he saith, that all the action of mixed bodies, comes from the quality; which wins the upper hand in the assembling of the elements. So is it in living bodies, heat ruleth over the other qualities, of which heat, all action hath his original, and not of cold. I willingly admit the proposition with Aristotle, so far forth as to mixed things, inanimate or without soul, & which know the simple forms of the elements, for their principles. But in animate bodies, having souls, & which have a form more noble, wherein are contained those other more ignoble (even as the triangle within the quadrangle) this is not a thing so easy. For they acknowledge (as the principal of their functions) that nature, properly called the soul I say, that is, the moving virtue of the natural body, the organ, living by power.  
And as for that which Haruet placeth in assumption of his argument, that in the living body, heat doth surmount the other elementary qualities: I cannot allow thereof, except he will have this heat to be understood, to be the same which diffuseth itself through the body, governeth and moderateth the whole Oeconomie of same. And this, while it is in essence, maintaineth life, but coming once to quench itself, than death of necessity must follow: and this surmounteth & subjecteth to itself, not only the cold, moist and dry elementary qualities, but even the hot elementary nature also, being (as in herself) truly celestial. For, if he would have to be understood, this heat predominated by the elementary heat, as it seemeth to ensue by his syllogism▪ then let me set the Salamander before him, which (in his mixtion) is composed of a temperature so cold, as his very touch doth no less extinguish the fire, then as if it were ice. He lives notwithstanding, yet not by the heat mixed or elementary, which being weak in itself, cannot surmount the power of this cold: it follows then, that it must needs be by the heat celestial, which likewise maintaineth life in Serpents, whom every one knows to be cold temperately▪ This then which hath been said, that the cold in old men, makes them to hate the abounding of food, it must be, that Haruet means it in such sort, that cold hath no dominion over humane bodies, because actually it can have no part thereof. But for the cold of Hypocrates, it is 
Com. 1. Apho. 14.  the same, which Galen, and all Physicians (by comparison) do call a soft heat, and therefore their weak and little heat, hath need of some small help: even as the slender flame of a Lamp, is maintained by putting in the oil by little & little, but easily is it extinguished, in being smothered by a superabundant effusion.  
Hitherto we have spoken of natural heat, as being the primitive agent: wherein we have defended for M. joubert, that according to the abounding or tenuity thereof, the body hath need of much or little nourishment. Now let us speak of the primitive humour patient, and of his nature, and how it is subjecteth to this heat.  
With the consent of all Physicians, we have constituted heat to be the first essential cause of our life, & have said, that she, of herself, cannot produce any effect of her functions, without a proper nourishment, which is the radical moisture, & the primitive abounding, mingled with heat in the seed and menstrual blood, the principles of our generation. But by the swift flight of years, i● greatly deminisheth and decayeth itself, to our harm, by the continual embracing of the heat: for the slacking or delaying whereof, as we do warily renew the oil in the burning Lamp, even so do we as diligently give feeding to this heat, feeding, I say, which serves to restore this humidity, and deliver it from so strict an embracing. So that if in the body, there be any superabounding humour, which these parts cannot any way disperse, Galen calls the same, Peritton hupoleipomenon. 
In lib▪ 5. Apho. 39  And in Schools, it is termed an unprofitable excrement, as it, which remains (saith he) within little hollow places of the bones, and (as the humidity fumes up to the lungs or lights, the moisture glues the joints, the seed is in the secrets and pipes, whereby it is voided forth, spittle is in the tongue, & milk in the breasts) so this keeps the place for food, and serveth the fomentation & blowing up of the natural heat, as joubert hath very amply written in his Paradox, and we ourselves have heretofore declared. Therefore, so much as remaineth of this humour in the body, & while it there remaineth, there is no need at all of drinking nor eating, and yet notwithstanding, it is in the mean time nourished, & liveth: which Haruet denieth with the like obstinacy, and rejecteth all the reasons of this demonstration. But for our own credit and regard, & without troubling ourselves, to cull out his writings by parcels, where he himself both makes & feigneth objections, whereto also he answereth, as any new Apprentice in Physic might do the like: we will confute those reasons, which seem to be best furnished with appearance, albeit we cannot endure any error, how little so ever it be.  

Page, 47.  In the beginning of this proposition, he imposeth on joubert, who hath written, that not only the smallest heat helpeth to make abstinence or fasting the more easy, but also, that the humour superfluous, and which holds the place of natural heat, might the more abound. This doth Haruet interpret in his sense, as if joubert had said, that the sole smallest heat, not only helps to render abstinence the more easy, but also to the end, that the humour superfluous, & which holds the place of natural heat, might be the more abundant. From whence he draws the proposition following; That the smallest heat causeth the abounding of the superfluous humour: against which proposition he so tires his spirit, and torments himself, even as if it were upon joubert. Let the Reader see, if he have proposed appearance, or no.  
Now he makes it a great case, and 
Page▪ 52.  thinks he hath enterprised an act beseeming an other Hercules, to show, that the excrement sometimes holds the place of food, and that nature serves herself in the same usage or manner, and that it can repair that, which is impaired by the power of heat. In truth, the excrements do not fall altogether under one & the same consideration. For there be some which are quite against nature, and wholly unprofitable, and which have no resemblance at all with us, and therefore can never turn themselves to our use, to be incorporated with us. The Greeks call them by an apt name, Perittoomata, as the ordure, urine, sweat, etc.  
There be others more according to nature, which are profitable to some part of the body: & yet are excrements, not in regard of all, or the whole body, but for some part thereof only. Even so the Chylus or white juice, (coming of the meat digested in the stomach, whereof blood is engendered) after that the ventricle is full, it is sent to the intestines, as an excrement and unprofitable charge. When it is drawn by the liver, then that which was an excrement of the ventricle, is now made a nourishment to the liver. Now there, while of the Chylus or white juice blood is made, the spleen, and the bladder of the gall or choler, do draw from both the one & the other, gall (which are the excrements of the liver) their familiar nurture: and having taken their convenable portion, they send away the rest as an excrement, which can do no more service, nor give contentment to any one part. The spleen sends that which she holds superfluously, by a little vessel at the bottom of the ventricle, and sometimes by the hemorrhoids, & from thence to the intestines. The vessel of the gall or choler, by the Parancholidocum, to Duodenum or Intestinum primum, and other parts.  
By the which demonstration, Galen 
●. De fac. na●.  would induce, that all these two parts of blood, (to wit, the thick and earthy, which the spleen draweth, and the most subtle of all, drawn by the bladder of the gall or choler, which having passed by the examen of the heat, converts itself into choler) are according to nature, & serve her to some use, because that their proper vessels were ordained, for them to be received into. But as concerning the divers kinds of choler, and all the sorts of serosites, because that they are things unprofitable, & out of nature, there hath not been any vessel allowed to them, Only to phlegm, rheum, or spittle, nature failed, in giving it a particular receptacle, although it be beneficial, but rather hath lodged it in the veins with the blood, there to be boiled, and made capable for nourishing of the body. Haruet objecteth, that this rheum or phlegm, holds no part of an excrement, but is natural and elementary, to wit, a fourth humour of blood. I answer, that by conference of other humours, which are of the nature of excrements, it should appear manifestly, that that place of Galen, is understood by excremental phlegm: for so he compares all the excrements. As (saith he) among the divers kinds of gall, one is profitable & natural in the creatures, the other unprofitable & out of nature: even so in the phlegm, that which is sweet, is healthful and natural in the living creature, that which is sharp & salt, is out of nature. Moreover, that it is so, that in all concoction, there is some excrement separated from the food: which then shall be the excrement of the elementary phlegm? For the juice melancholic hath his excrement, the bilious or choleric also hath his, neither is it that which is lodged in the stomach and the intestines: for it is not as yet come so far as the liver, where the office is performed of this concoction.  
In brief, phlegm is not held to have any particular instrument, because that if sometime thorough want of eating, there shall be a defect of blood: the same turning itself on the blood side, shall serve as nutriment to these parts. For the natural phlegm, it nourisheth and maintaineth continually, not by power, and want of meat only: but actually in the parts that are cold and moist. It is then an excrement, but profitable, which Galem, in the place before alleged, saith, that abiding in the body, it may be changed. And the same, in the first of his Prognostics, he doth not any way contrary, where he calleth it, not as he doth here, nourishment half boiled: but an excrement of the nourishment half boiled, whereof the body being filled, 
2. De ac. disc.  it may (so saith Hypocrates) not only pass for food once in the day, but likewise cause to endure more easily, an extraordinary hunger.  

Page▪ 54.  Haruet objecteth two things, the first, in the Dropsy, named Anasarca, (which the Latins call Intercus) all the parts of the body being swollen with phlegm or rheum: and yet notwithstanding, the patient at all times must have food given him, whereof if there by any want, he seems always ready to give up the ghost. I answer, that all phlegm is not proper to nourish the body, but only that which is sweet. Now, that of the dropsy is salt, by reason whereof, it putrefieth, and gives ill sent also to the parts which it toucheth, & Galen calleth it baleful, or murderous: the which, because it is commixed with some other humours, not only changeth his true & natural colour (as Galen saith in the same place) but also his temperature: so that by Hypocrates & Galen, it is more often 
6. Aph. 14. et sect. 4. Aph. 482. coac.  designed by the word water, then of phlegm or rheum. By means whereof, Serenus calleth it Aquosus languor, and Horace he termeth it, Aquosus 
Lib. 2. Od. page. 66.  albo corpore languor.  
This solution may satisfy also the objection which he makes soon after, concerning the excrements of the sick, which (saith he) if they have power to nourish during the time of sickness, wherefore then, (they being consumed,) doth not the sickness itself cease? And if the sickness cease, wherefore are all the parts of the body in themselves so abated? Alas (good man) those excrements are altogether against nature, and the body desires nothing more, then to be delivered of them, as Galen speaks of the yellow fat 
2. De ●at. f●c.  humour. This is more strong, then where he saith a little before, that joubert concludes not well, saying, that if the ventricle be filled with the phlegmatick-humour, it hath no appetite at all; why so in like manner, all the parts of the (body being filled) they cannot have any desire or hunger. For this appetite of the ventricle, whereof here is some question made, it is an animal appetite, which not being so in the other parts, this phlegm cannot communicate herself to them in the same manner. I answer, that there are two sorts of appetite in the ventricle, the animal, and the natural. The animal appetite, is a certain molestation and anguish of the ventricle, proceednig of the sucking, or of the compression of the food, for and by the which, being angry or offended, it desireth meat. And the natural appetite, is a strength, bred and borne in all parts of the body, which desireth evermore what it wanteth, and is thereto agreeable. The one is appeased by the vapour of the meats received, and, by how little soever it be of substance: the other, by the only application he makes of the meats. The animal appetite is particular to the sole ventricle, the natural is common, as well to the ventricle, as to all the other parts, by the which, being brought to the orifice superior of the same ventricle, it exciteth the animal appetite, which serves us as a spur for the desiring of our meats. So long then as the raw humour and phlegmatic remaineth at the ventricle, and that there (by the natural strength thereof,) it is boiled and brought into an estate: the ●unicles, which make the body of the ventricle, in taking their competent portion, and the best thereof, do convert the same to their own profit. So the natural appetite being contented, the animal appetite is not offended at all, or complains at entrance of the ventricle. If all the body were full of one and the same humour, all the parts to whom this appetite is common, and communicateth the strength of this emotion, would borrow thereof, and draw thence what should be serviceable for them.  
These are the arguments, wherewith the learned joubert hath fortified his opinion: arguments, which (in my judgement) until this instant hour, there could be no one found, that did know deservedly how to stand against them. Whereto there are joined many examples, both of plants and other creatures, that not only preserve themselves many days, but also many years, without any nourishment taken outwardly. As in plants, the Onion and the Garlic &c: in grain, Wheat Re, Barley, Oates, Millet and others: in and among beasts, Serpents, lizards, Dormice, Bears, Crocodiles and chameleons▪. Of which examples, Haruet strives to weaken the authority, by opposition of the dissimulitude and great disproportion, which is between the life of brute beasts, (yea, much more of plants,) & that of man: because his principal is referred to the reasonable soul, and theirs to the soul unreasonable, and beside, that heat (the instrument thereof) is much more noble in man, then in the unreasonable soul, and yet more in the unreasonable soul, then in the plant. Whereto I answer, that the similitude of these examples, do very well agree together, in that kind of life whereof we speak in this place, which is, the faculty of nourishing and feeding of the body, which is equally distributed, as well in beasts as in 
2. Deg●●. Cap. 5.  plants, saith Ari●●●tle. And moreover, that they agree in the kind of the cause, to wit, the raw & phlegmatic humour, wherewith their bodies are as well filled, as those of men. But who can (saith Har●et) 
Page, 78.  support such a great abundance of phlegm in Diaphragma, without a palpitation of the heart, sickness of the stomach, pain of the colic & the reins, & who can retain them in the head, without an apoplexy? I answer, that this humour abounding in crudity, seethes itself in the body there, and yet hurts it not at all: for, being according to nature, it cannot create any accidents and diseases against nature. He will object (perhaps) that the sole abounding of phlegm, causeth an apoplexy. But I say, that it is an excrement properly of the brain, which hath not been wont to go lodge itself at the ventricles thereof, nor doth, except it be driven by the spirit, or the vapour. He will say, that in these natures, the spirits are more feeble, and have not power sufficient, to make so great a violence or impetuosity. Whereto I reply, albeit that (otherwise) the exercise of the body is healthful, saith Galen, yet 
Com. 3. Aph. 20.  nevertheless, if you will exercise a man full of phlegm, or of one and the other choler, or else full of blood, you shall forward him (by such exercise) either to an Epilepsy, or Apoplexy.  
Now, where he saith, that our life is differing from that of Plants & beasts, and that her principle, which is our soul, is much more noble than the others: what is he that will deny it? when Aristotle himself believed, that she only was divine, and came from abroad or without, to lodge within our body? But because he encloseth within his objection, the vegetative soul of Plants, and the sensitive of beasts: it behoveth to let him know, that our body hath a vegetative soul, and nourisheth itself as a Plant, senseth or scenteth as a brute beast, and hath the discourse of reason, of which it makes use as a man. For, mark but his beginning (saith the same Aristotle) he liveth as the plant, and hath only then the vegetative soul: afterward, in time, he gains the sensitive, & at length comes the intellectual and reasonable, which bringeth (with it) all perfections. For he is not all at one time both an animal and a man, nor an animal and an horse, (though this reason be scant seemly in the mouth of a Christian Philosopher,) but he● is first of all an herb, a Lettuce, afterward, a dog, a horse, or the like thing, and at length he comes to be Caesar or Cato.  

De prisc● med.  But Haruet continues on yet, and proveth by Hypocrates, that our elders would never have sought out a proper manner of feeding for man, if one self same drinking & eating, might have sufficed for the nourishment both of men and beasts. Nevertheless, he omitteth that which Hypocrates addeth, that in the first age, men used lemma self-same food, as the other creatures did, when the invention of sowing and planting was as yet unknown to them: then they fed on fruits, which nature (on her own good will) brought forth, without any tillage: howbeit notwithstanding, the omnipotent Creator of man, had a will from the beginning, that he should not only feed on the fruits of the earth, but also that he should use the unreasonable creatures for his nourishment.  
What would he have Hypocrates to say more? That which our ancients then did, declared a will to provide for the infirmity of our natural heat, which being sometimes unable to digest those meats, that were too crude & raw: is now better supplied and maintained, by such as are prepared and corrected, by knowledge and experience, in the doing whereof, the health of man is the less subject to peril. Otherwise, a man might take & eat without danger (if he had been thereto accustomed) of Hemlock with the Stare; and of Helleborus with the Quail; or, as Mithridates, use poisons, not to be poisoned: and he being enured to such a custom, they were to him as natural viands. In like manner, an old man of Athens (recorded by Galen) used familiarly 
3. De fimpl. fac. Lib. 9 hist. Plant. cap. 18. Arist▪ de reg. prin.  to eat Hemlock: as thrasia's did the like of Helleborus, by report of Theophrastus. A maiden being sent by the King of the Indias to Alexander, she did a long time feed before every one, of Napellus, called Woolfes-bane, without any prejudice to herself.  
But without all these, the earth (our good Mother) hath not she brought forth from her bosom, many other things necessary to maintain life? yes truly hath she, & (in the estate as she receives us, when we come to arrive in the Inn of this world) she thereafter entertains and feedeth us: showing herself always benign, sweet, indulgent, & ready, to do whatsoever she can devise to serve our use.  
When she is tilled and husbanded, what diversity of foods doth she produce, proper and apt for our nourishing? How plenteously is she furnished without tillage? what odours? what favours? what juices? what colours? And yet (in this while) we will needs exercise our cruelty upon the brute beasts, we will keep those creatures imprisoned, to whom Nature hath given the free wide palace of heaven. Why are not we more careful, to make our banquets in simplicity, and without butchery, after the manner of Pythagoras: rather than to war in the air, adventure life on the Seas and Rivers, and make such spoil of the earth as we 
ovid. 1. Meta.  do? Our elders do report, that the age, which we call the golden age, was happy in this, that it sullied not her mouth with the blood of creatures, or wild beasts.  
The Philosopher Apollonius Thyaneus, being demanded by the Emperor Domitian, why he kept not the common manner of feeding, which consisted in the usage of flesh, but rather did eat roots & fruits, such as the earth yielded? returned this answer. All that the earth bringeth forth unto us, is sound and healthful, what need have I then, to go seek after Fowls in the soil of the River Phasis, or the Francolines in jonia▪ for him, with whom much better agrees (as with Country Horace) the Olive gathered from the fat branches of trees, or Sorrell growing in the field, or Mallows, wholesome for wearied bodies?  
Haruet pursueth to confute the alleged 
Page▪ 67. 68 69.  examples, saying, they are but fables that are reported of Serpents, Dormice, etc. For as concerning Serpents, who all the winter abide in their dens, they nourish themselves with the earth: Bears and Dormice make their provision of victuals in Autumn, whereon they live, like unto the Ant: the Chameleon feeds himself with flies: the Crocodile cannot live long time out of the water, 
●. De ge●es. anim.  according to Aristotle.  
That the Serpent nourisheth himself of the earth only, the reason of the same Philosopher doth repugn, who saith, that a mixed body cannot be nourished with one sole & simple element, whereto also the success in things is conformable. For we have many times noted, that as among Fishes, the great ones eat up the smaller Fry: the self same is in practice among the Vipers, Adders, Snakes, & such others. Now, that Serpents can live very long without any food, Aristotle 
Arist. anl. Lib. 8. cap.▪ 4.  shows the same, by the experience of such as the Apothecaries do ●eepe, whereof we have spoken h●eretofore.  
And as concerning that which is said to the Serpent, in the third of Genesis: Thou shalt eat earth all the days of thy lìfe: this concerneth nothing at all our earthly Serpents, but the ancient enemy to mankind, whose slavish servants do eat the earth, that is to say, they can relish nothing but earthly things, according as the learned Divines have expounded 
D. Aug●▪ 〈◊〉 Gene.  it.  
Aristotle writes, that the Dormouse (in Winter) is not only hid in the caves of the earth, but also in the hollows of Trees, and that during this season, he fattens by sleeping. Haruet thinks, that they eat the provision they have hidden, & labours himself against Aristotle, saying: that sleep evacuates the body, when as the ventricle is emptied, by reason of the heat, which evermore consumeth the moisture.  

Lib. 5. Apho. 27.  But behold here the Aphorism of Hypocrates, which is flatly against him. They (saith Hypocrates) which in the night are thirsty, it is good for them to sleep, even then when they are very dry. For sleep (above all things) doth moisten the body with great store of pleasing: not the body which is wholly empty and dry, but that which is filled with food, or with crude moisture, the natural faculty (in this while) is busying itself to her uttermost power, for the concoction of the meats, and the raw humours. Who will doubt then, that a slothful creature, & full of crudity, may not fatten himself by sleeping?  

Lib. 11. cap. pen.  Pliny saith, that it is better to make concoction, in the time of sleep, for gathering corpulence, that is to say, for fattening of the body▪ then for attaining to any strength thereby. And martial, willing to waken those students, which sleep away (as one saith) the fat of the morning, hath addressed these two verses to them.  
Dormitis nimium, glives, vitulique marini,  
Nil mirum sivos crassa minerva premit.  
We have seen many Beasts, 
●. De temp.  which at Spring-time having left their secret abode, are much fatter than the other, because the time hath been very favourable to them. And Galen saith, that women are more fat than men, by reason that they are more cold, and greater sitters in the house, than men usually are.  

8. Hist. ani. cap. 17.  Aristotle approveth by two reasons, that Bears do not eat any thing, during the time of their winter retirement: the one, because they come not forth at all: the other, in regard they seem to have their bellies restrict, and their intestines empty.  
Haruet beats back the first, because (saith he) they have wherewith to feed on. But, to a beast of such greatness, what store (I pray ye) needs there, of roots, apples, or such like, all those days, & all those months? The second reason, Aristotle justifies the same by eye▪ experience. For one saith, that their intestines by lack of eating, close up in such sort, that they almost touch together. And therefore when they come forth, they feed on a certain herb called 
* Wake won.  Aron, to unlose their entrails. The seven first days that they are hid in their Caves, they be in such sort overcome with sleep, as although one smite upon them, 
●● Lib. 1. Hist. not Chap. 36. Lib. 18. Hist. Sephens.  yet they awake not at all, so saith Pliny and Olaus: Then (say they both) they fatten wondrously by this heavy sleep, and principally by the sucking and licking of their right foot. Which is to be understood in this sort, that after they have passed fourteen days in sleep, they rise upon their buttocks, and live by licking their fore-most feet, until such time as Spring time comes, than they issue forth. In regard of the males, they are very fat, but not the females, because at this time they nourish their whelps: but no such mass or lump of white and deformed flesh, which by little and little (in licking) they bring to a form, as ignorantly hath been credited of antiquity: but a young little Bear, well form, such as great 
Exero. 6. 15.  Scaliger witnesseth, to have been (not long since) found in the belly of a she-Beare, that one rend in pieces.  
The same Scaliger, first (before Haruet) declared, that the Lord john 
Exercit. 196. 4.  des Landes, when he was in Syria, bought a Chameleon: & it was noted, that by prompt mooning of his tongue, (which he can cast and recast out of his mouth in one instant) he took a Fly that was on his breast. Which was news to them, who thought (it only) among all other beasts, to live without food or drinking, & only to nourish himself by the air, evermore fasting, without enduring any languishment, 
De pall.  as also Tertullian saith. Nevertheless, it is not altogether from the purpose, in supposing that he should live by the air, because he hath been seen to pass a whole year together without eating, as the same Scaliger ●aith: and, that after he hath yawnde or gaped, and taken air, he hath shut his jaws, & then his belly became blown full (like a bladder) of this airy substance. There be some that say, that turning himself to the Sun, he seems to swallow in his beams, and so pursues them all about yawning. Tertullian hath avouched as much, in his Lib. De Mant. he nourisheth himself (●aith he, speaking of the Chameleon) in yasking and yawning, he chaws, and blows up himself like a football, 
2. Hist. ani. Chap. 13. ●. Hist. nat. Chap. 25.  the wind is all his food.  
The Crocodile (by the testimony of Aristotle, and Pliny after him) passeth always six months of winter, in her Cave without eating. Aelianus ●aith, that she remaineth three score days only so hidden, during which time she ●areth nothing. Symmachus, a man of good quality, an Orator among the ancient Romans', caused Crocodiles to be brought into the Theatre before the people, after that he had made them to fast fifty days. Long time afterward, he kept two of them without giving them any food, reserving them, to have them seen at 
Symmach, lib. 8. Epist. 44. 8. Hist. an. Ch●p. 2.  the arrival of certain friends of his: Although (saith he) they made show, not to live long time without eating. As for that which Harue● allegeth from Aristotle, that the Crocodile being out of the water, cannot live any long time: this receiveth his interpretation by the same place also, where he writes, that albeit the Crocodile delights herself in the water, in such sort, as she cannot live, being enclosed out of watery places, nevertheless, she dies, if she receive not air as she is wont to do, and in nourishing her young-ones out of the water.  
For so much then, as she is a creature partly watery, and partly earthy, he holds, that she is to be ranked among those creatures called 
That live as well on land, as on water Lib. 2. Cap. 20.  * Amphibii; and which are of a nature not stayed, whom he calleth Epamphoterizonta. Other-wise he should contrary himself, having written before, that she spends the day on the land, and the night in the water, both the one and the other, by reason of the heat she loveth. And this he would have understood of the time, wherein she doth not hide herself at all, by reason that cold is so contrary to her: as when it is fair seasonable weather, she must needs▪ be on the land in the day time, & in the water all the night.  
I might avouch here, the Indian bird without feet, which the sacrifisers to Mahomet, did some time make the King of the Moluques to believe, that it dropped down out Paradise: because she is not found but in unknown places, separate from the troops of the world, by reason whereof, they of that country, call it the Bird of Paradise. She lives evermore in the air, & never at any time toucheth the earth, till after she be dead: whereon she lieth, and preserveth herself a long time without corrupting.  
This Bird doth not nourish herself on muhrooms, or other semblable insect things (as Sparrows & Swallows do) for she liveth in the middle region of the air, where are no creatures (known unto men) whereon she may feed: but upon the air only, or on the vapour arising from the Isles of the Moluques, which do send forth on all sides a very sweet and Aromatical savour. Cardanus holds, that she cannot live of the air alone and perfectly, because it is very subtle in those countries. But he that hath given her the air for food, hath also power so to thicken that air, as to render itself apt enough for her nourishment.  
And no less admirable is the bird 
In vita Ar●oxer.  which Plutarch calleth Rhintaces, very common in Persia, which hath nothing empty in her body, but is within all full of fat, (as are the Bennarics in Languedoc) and yet notwithstanding, this Author saith, that she lives not but of the air, and of the dew therein.  

●ib. 5. hist. ●ni. cap. 19 ●lin. lib. 11. Cap. 36.  Aristotle, the Prince of truth, writes, that in the Furnases, where the Melters & casters of Copper are in Cypress, they have a little creature, of the bigness of a great Fly, which they call Pyrausta, the which hath wings, & sour feet. So long as there is fire in the Furnace, this worm or Fly liveth, but let it be never so little off from it, it presently dies: and yet notwithstanding, this creature is most cold, having no other maintenance than the heat of the fire only.  
But why should I dwell on these examples, whereof Haruet (in every place) holds, that we can draw no consequent by them to men? Peradventure then, some examples deduced from men themselves, may make him to acknowledge a truth. And therefore I will produce one, which is out of all scruple, whereof, Princes worthy of belief, made recital to King Henry the third, being in Poland. He had there many great Lords of France, councillors, etc. He had also divers Physicians in his Court, & among others, Monsieur Piduxius our Dean: skilful not only in Physic, but likewise, in whatsoever concerned the knowledge of the natural history. He was then Physician to my Lord the Duke of Nevers, and called to council with the Kings own Physicians. From him was it, that we verbally heard this History, which also is written by Alexander Guaguinus of Verona, Captain of the footmen in the Citadel of Vitebcka, on the limits of Moscovia, and in his description of the said Country.  
He saith, that there are certain people in Lucomoria (which is a Region, in the utmost confines of the Sarmates towards the North) which die, (or rather remain entraunced, like your Frogs and Swallows) every year, the 27. of the month November, by reason of the extreme cold in that part of the country. Afterward, at the return of Spring-time, the 24. of April, they come to life again. These people make their commerces with the Grustintzians and Sperponomptzians their neighbours, after this manner. When they feel the time of their entrauncing to draw near, they then lock up their merchandises in certain places, and the Grustintzians and Sperponomptzians there take them, and leave other in their stead, of answerable value. The time being come of their reui●ing, they take the merchandises, which were left in exchange of theirs, if they perceive they have profit by them: if not, they demand back their own again, whereby ariseth oftentimes quarrels, and wars between them. By this sleepy trance, the natural heat in these bodies (which otherwise are accustomed to this air, and boiled again, as saith Albertus Cr●●tzius, by the freezing) is no whit extinct▪ because that all the places, ports, passages, and convoys, being locked up and stopped, it gathers itself about the entrails, and by this Antiperistasis or repulsion of every part, she increaseth herself, and makes her power the more vigorous for the Spring-time ensuing.  
Above all other parts of the body, the danger is principally of the brain, which hath great store of large openings, and (among others) the nostrils: were it not, that when they begin to wax stiff with cold, a tart rheum or moisture distilleth from the nostrils, which (by report of the said Lord Piduxius) 
Their eyes, ●ares, nostrils and mouths, are softly frozen up, be●ore they fall into their ●●ance.  even as it flows, congeals itself no less, than the spittle itself doth, and so it waxeth hard before they fall to the ground, according as Sigismond de Herbestein describeth, in the History of Moseovis. By means whereof, the nostrils and other parts being locked up; the malice of the air cannot so easily pierce up unto the brain. And if any one of them, to shun this cold unfreendlines of the air, thinks (by covering himself with skins and other things) to forestall the Icicles hanging at the nostrils and mouth &c: immediately, the air being excessively cold, steps up into the brain, and there extinguisheth the natural heat, so that these Lucomorians, in stead of a temporal entrauncing, do then fall into a perpetual and endless. But the time being come, that the Sun getteth rule over the cold, and brings in again the sweetness of the Spring season: the icy moisture (at the parts before named) melting itself, the heat by little & little insinuates into the bones, the feeling and vigour creeps again into all the members, and then hath the body the same O●conomie, which it had before.  
Haruet concludes his whole discourse, by the fasting of holy personages, Moses, Elias, & our blessed Saviour, the which (saith he) should be held for no miracle at all, if, according to nature, so long an abstinence may be made. joubert hath answered, that in sick persons, and such as are much subject to sickness, a long fast or abstinence is natural: but supernatural in such persons, who otherwise are perfectly well, and of good temperature.  
Harnet objecteth the place of Auice●, cited by joubert: That the same might also happen to healthful men. For our own selves, we will embrace the opinion of Io●bert in such sort, as we do hold, concerning the accident here happening among us, to whom this abstinence is yet so easy: that it hath been occasioned by a sickness against nature, albeit some others (in like manner diseased) have afterward been healthful again. But as for persons of such rare sanctity, we think not their fast to have been by any sickness: but only by the special will of God, and that natural appetite then returned, at the time limited by his providence.  
Last of all, where he exhorteth every one, to imitate a certain Gentleman, who (by care and diligence) discovered the imposture of an Hermit in Savoy, that (by feigned fastings) had long time dece●ued the people's opinion. As for ourselves, not knowing how to go against the authority, of so many rare and clear sighted Physicians, nor yet how to steal into our eyes, the credence of what they have seen: we love rather, to leave it, even to the most curious reseacher, into the causes of the extraordinary works of nature, then like the companions to Ulysses, charmed with the fruit of the 
* A●●ee in Africa called the Lot ●●●.  Alyfier, or fatal tree, to serve, or know no other Gods, than Edusa and Potina.  
FINIS.