THE SURFEIT. TO A B C.  
LONDON, Printed for Edw. Dod at the Gun in Ivy-lane. 1656.   

THE SURFEIT. To A B C.  

§ 1.  
APollo was a Gentleman rather than a Physician, and yet both: I apply to you for counsel in my malady, as a classical compeer with Hermes and Asclepius. A whole autumn of hypocondraical passions and symptoms are fallen upon me, which is a melancholy disease, and must be handled gently with preparatives; for the humour is sturdy, and violence will rent and destroy all the fabric. The cause proceeds from a surfeit: Of reading men and books.  
I have read over your Ovid's Metamorphosis; at first view I took it to be a heap of sand without cement, all independent; but upon the review, I take it to be the best piece of a School boy that hath well laboured and beaten out only two themes. The first, Ante obitum nemo— which takes up the whole first half part of the infelicity of Agenor's progeny. The latter part,— Nihil est toto quod perstet in orbe. Where the mutations and vicissitude of things are summarily enumerate.  
I have lately read Balzac, where I have been set upon the rack and torture, expecting some high conceit, and never more delighted, than when I most failed, admiring with others what I least understood. His Letters to the Cardinal and Bishop seems to be a piece of David's psalms conferred upon man for the most excellent piece; to be a Courtier, is to be something profane. His love letters to Clorinda sound as if they were translated out of some old Ballads, only leaving out the counterpit play, the Ging of rhyme. I do passionately disaffect that trite obsolete valedure; your most humble, your tres humble and affectionate Servant, it seems like the overworne Statute lace of your groom or Footman, and best befits them. In all his Letters like Lipsius, or Sir Henry Wotton, ever grumbling and complaining of his invalitude.  
I have read over Heywoods' Commentaries upon Merlin's, or rather his own prophecies, until Hen. 2. days, speaking of Rosamond; so far good and true out of the Copies of Jeffery of Monmouth and Alanus de Insulis Expositions; all the following is false and feigned, yet a good Poet, but no Prophet. And whatsoever is cited by our late prognostics as pretended from Merlin, is forged & supposititious, making new prophecies to fancy their desires● or sound to the present times and histories.  
Ay, wearied with reading books, began to study Men● I made a survey of all the gentlemen's houses, and without a pack of Cards last christmas played alone. I see one a general good housekeeper for a very age, he keeps hospitality, pays his servants wages quarterly: But what's the Catastrophe? He dies, his servants have spent their Wages for their Master's honour, and their own reputation; when they be dissolved, an habitual idleness brings poverty, misery. An other runs in debt unto his servants; but at the close weakens, almost ruins his own estate; here are objects of piety; pity I can not, I am not yet so weak. An other out of an ample soul, and unbounded liberal Disposition, flies into high exorbitances, vast expenses, but foreseeing the future inconvenience breaks o●● suddenly; and this is least to be lamented, for you shall only find some Pantomimes and Parasites dissheveled, and in short time all redintegrated.  
And who gets the advantage? the Country Farmer will tell you, these great housekeepers bring all the beggars in a Region to his parts, ●and never a one of these beggars, but expect from us some alms, with continual clamours at our doors. Your private Gentleman finds the price of provision raised to a third part, and therein suffers. And for my part, I am as afraid to lie in a great gentleman's house as in an Inn, besides the abatement of my content, for I had rather be observed, then observe the will of an other.  
If I look upon the countryman, he's no other to me than one that's borne some thousand leagues out of Christendom, or rather men moving like trees: and if I breathe a gentle gale of a good morrow, they will move and bend with a soft murmur. If I tread upon a dogs tail by chance, he will turn back and bite.  
In these lumpish passions I have some pleasing Intervals, I can both laugh and sleep. I take a merry book into my hand, say it be that Mortuum Caput, old Aristotle his Organon in the bare Latin text. Oh! how I can chink at his pretty Conceits; the burden of all his merry catches is, Necessarium enim est. I have an other better remedy to my malady; I take a piece of that Astaticke redundance under mine elbow, Galen de temperamentis or his Commentaries upon Hippocrates, I'll undertake he is so tedious, that before you have read one Page and perfectly understand it, you shall fall asleep.  
For Bishop Andrews and Dr. Donne, I could never conceive better of them, then as a voluntary before a lesson to the Lute, which is absolutely the best pleasing to the ear; but after finished absolutely forgotten, nothing to be remembered or repeated.  
I have lately made an Essay to beat out a Them● tending to Papism from the prmitive Fathers, although I am no Romanist; The same on the contrary for the Protestant. I faithfully searched and copied out with mine own eyes and hands the proofs from the Authors themselves. But the term of mine intention was this; I'm thoroughly persuaded that none of the first 600. Centurists knew either Papist or Protestant, as questions not at all questioned at those times. And therefore I will neither appeal to them as judges or advocates or witnesses: But like unto Pigeon feathers of which the optics write, the causes of the variegations and diversity of lustres proceeds from the contrary lights, or lookings through Mediums diversely tincted: diversity of education, and discrepancy of the first principles instilled into each man begets a pertinacy in Paradoxes; In these Controversies, the disputant and Latter writers wrest the Fathers to their own appetite, making them like a Bell to sound as they please to interpret, or like the indented January tablets which represents two several figures at several stations, like changeable taffetas or Marmoles in a decaying fire, every one fancies his own Phantasms.  
Bless me, and far be it from me to derogate from the sanctity integrity and purity of the Ancient Fathers, but that reading of them does conduce to knowledge and holiness; only I aver that in our quarrels in Religion they were neither sticklers or seconds.  
Sir,  
A little slumber beginneth  
to seize upon me,  
and so I take leave  
until I awake  
Your most observant. P. K.   

§. 2.  
HIstory— The reading of the Jews and Romans is superlative for admiration: and what is to be wondered at in all these except two, one David, and one Augustus? The Country of Judea a small Canton, some threescore miles over, and sixscore long, an other Yorke-shire● And for their Kings they walked all in the sins of their Fathers, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of his father: and I know not how many times repeated in walking in the way of Jeroboam; for he walked all the ways of Jeroboam. The reading of these Kings breeds danger; for they are for the most part writ Historically, not exemplarily for imitation. I writ not this to derogate from the power and glory of our Saviour; For the first page of St. Matthews Gospel is sufficient for me to give belief to his descent from David, and to believe the ten Ancestors of Joseph supplied by St. Matthew, rather than if I had them from the Old Testament: or rather upon even terms Saint Luke that hath nothing from the Old Testament until he come to Nathan the son of David, except Salat●i●l and Zorobabel. From the cratch to the cross all our saviour's proceedings argued his humility; and therefore no marvel if he was born in so base degenerous a Nation.  
For the Romans! what people more base, more subdued and enslaved! The first ten or twelve Emperors slain by one another. The other following all strangers; so that they have been subject, I say subdued, by all the barbarous Nations of the world. Trajan a Spaniard, Antony Pius a Frank, Pertinax of base ignoble progeny, Severus an African, that great enemy and emulous● compeer to the Roman Empire; Heliogabalus an Assyriu●, AE●ilian a Mauritane, Probus a Da●matian, Ala●●eus the G●oth s●cked Rome● And at present they will rather suffer the German, the Spaniard, the French, than a native Italian Prince.  
Let us examine the authors; Livy with Holinshed and St●w I compare: Livy sild up with the names of Consuls and Officers; and the other with Lord mayor's feasts & Sheriffs of London. Let Lipsius sum up his syllable, and tell you of his Polybiu●, Herodotus, Xenophon, his Master Tacitus, and others, and give you his Encomiums and Criticisms: As if all the erudition of the World was confined to that former age: You shall find as high Polities, as gallant elegant polite phrase, as ever Livy, or Sueton, or any of the ancient writ, if you peruse Mariana for the Spanish History. Rosiers for the French, Cambden and Polidore for the English, Buchanan for the Scot; of all I commend an obscure man, Egnatius, a sweet compendium of the Empire, with a right elegant Livian phrase.  
The Abbot of Vxsperge: I believe to his age (I mean in his time) writ an elaborate & right elegant stile, though now it seems barbarous. The same I say of Matthew of Westminster, Henry●f Huntington, Paris the French Herald, Hector Boetius, and Mariana the Scot, with the rest of their age. My reason, being now translated into our modern Languages, they make perfect Language; which in their days was dissonant to ours: my conclusion, by how much they differed from the common idiom at those days, they seemed so much the more polite, terse, and gallant.  
Baronius and his Contractor Spondanus for Ecclesiastical History are plain handsome good Latin: But Functius and our renowned Montague, the ligh● and honour of our Nation and age, upon the same subject writ with more grace, magnificence and elegancy. Where I note unto you that Montague to my knowledge had been as voluminous as any (whose pieces I believe are extant still in Manuscripts) did not the disingenuous parsimony of our English people hinder the glory of our Nation in disbursing for the Press.  
The Elzevirian Edition in small manuals of all the kingdoms and Commonweatlths to the number of about forty; Th●se are choice pieces selected from all the best Authors: But I can not tell how the Authors will take it, to be thus shu●●●●d and cut, mutilated, dismembered, and mangled, and thus hashed and made into a●Olla-Podrina, I know not how (if living) they would relish it?  
Speeds Chronicle is incomparable for good; A particoloured Cento (A●soni●s never writ so good) con●ardinated from the only wits of those days; for the compiler was taken from a Manual trade; amongst the rest the life of Hen. was written by Doctor Barkham, in opposition or rather to suppress the same life written by one Mr. Boulton a Roman Catholic, who did too much favour the haughty carriage of Thomas of Becket; poor Mr. Draper had a principal hand in composing and collecting all together.  
But I have read and run over for use all domestic and exotic Authors; I have composed a piece, a work I dare call it, and greater than all envy own it● if the adstipulation of Sir John-beaumont the Father, Mr. Camden and Mr. Selden will take place.  
The Contents a Genealogy to the Protoplast Adam, continued without any intermission, for the most part above twenty lines, at the least with seven or six, digested Cronologically by Centuries, to decline deceit with the generation and lives of all the Emperors, Kings and Princes of the wiversal world, inoculated into my greater stem, provided, if any history have made mention of them. This I have writ in Latin called Eugenia. But o miserable Catastrophe! all this was written for the honour of the late King Charles: And since he hath lost his life and kingdoms, I must lose my labours. And my dear child (for so I call it) begot in the vigour of my virility, which I ever hoped should have been transanimated into an Amaranthus, shall now I fear be Metamorphosed to the fading flower called Filius ante Patrem.  
Adieu History.   

§. 3.  
LAnguages— English I speak, Latin I write. In the Hebrew and Greek, I can beat out a theme and a root; Spanish and Italian I understand; and what must I do with these languages? for the former, if I were a public professor with an annual and life terminal pension, I could chop and change many readings, and perhaps add amongst a thousand some new criticism. For the latter Provincial languages! will you have me a translator? a thing less than myself, and an ingenuous English soul to be a sectary to any foreign Nation; and privately to make use, and assume as mine own invention any of their writings. I scorn to be a Mango and a plagiary. The French language I am wilfully ignorant of, my reason reserved. Take this excursion, the Latin within itself is a very empty and hungry language, borrows all his words both of arts and offices from the Greek. Great Tiberius might have saved its compliment of asking leave when he named the words Monopoly, and an emblem: he might needs have long & tedious Circumquaques to express them, which after so many years are not yet invented. Ay! the Latins are so ignorant, that they knew neither God, father nor mother: and so uncivilized, that they knew not what a pair of gloves was until they had them from the Greeks. And what beggarly, rude, barbarous surnames they ha●e for their Gentry; Fabius Piso, Scipio, Caligula, Asinius, Goodman Bean, and Pease, Mr. cudgel, Giffer small-bre●ks, Goodman Ass. And moreover take notice, it seems the Venetian was bound for the repayment to the Greek. For the Grand-seignior, and the Greeks altogether use in their terms of War and trade the Italian stamp. The Spaniards and we, I find, have no interchange of words either by commerce or conquest. I only find these two words common to both, Mucho and Dozeno, much and a dozen.  
But, I speak to the whole world, I have a new repertion, the Universal Character. Neither will I rake into the great Sealigers urn; his device required more than a Caesar to support it. I cast all up with a few Counters; the labour is already finished; the l●arner, let him be but an ordinary Abcdarian in his own language, may read and w●ite within two hours' space any missive letters. This I dare promise for Ten languages, if not more: The China's have a way, so goes report, sure time and traffic had by this transported it, if either true or seasonable: My way I could express in less than a sheet of paper, which if I should expose to the public view, would seem no bigger than a ballad, which not being annexed to a greater volume, my name (which I have ever studied in an honest way to preserve, and to transmit to posterity) this name would be lost in so small a trifle.  
music— I do not love that one of the Seven liberal Sciences, nay one of the four and none of the Trivials, should be made a prostitute at every door with a fiddler. Vocal, when I was young, I knew, but drawn from it, because those convents begat good Company, but bad husbandry. Instrumental and Cathedral, I have ever been wilfully ignorant of, because I have dearly loved them, and if I had learned them to a perfection, this sa●iety might have bred a nauseous distaste and surfeit, as in other things, and then I had had nothing to delight in. But, alas! this conceit hath failed me, for now all church-music, my highest terrene content, is abandoned amongst us.  
Farewell Delights.   

§. 4.  
BEcause Aristotle and Cicero were wise in some things, must they be demigods in all? perchance I can not be Aristotle if I would, and what if I could? I wou●d not. Thus writes Peter Ramus; and what if I said as much of them, ay! and of Peter too?  
They talk of Catholic doctrines, which every one is bound to believe. I know no universals but these three. Two notional, that there is a God, And number, one, two three, ten, twenty, &c. which hath the same account amongst all men in all nations. Numeri una est & eadem apud omnes ubique gentium ratio. You may add to this a practical universe, your Mummarium minutum, your Gold●miths grain (not a barley corn) which is one and same in all nations of the world inviolate, the same stamp, the same example con●erd.  
The third universal is appetite; every perfect and imperfect living creature acquires sustenance to eat and drink. For existential or sensual, I g●ant many, that there is a Sun that shineth, that the fire heateth, &c. yet a blind man and the paralytic denies both.  
Some talk of the virtue of herbs, others of the influence & effect of stars, Botanology and Astrology: both vain, both false, because man is prone to become like God to divine and work miracles, are these toys or rather pretty conceits thrust upon u●. The Merchant to vend his drugs deviseth large promises by wonders; And always observe, his last invented carries the greatest name for miracle. Your Herbarist to beget a love to the knowledge of plants (which indeed is commendable in itself,) but would perish, except upheld by the vain promises of Cures● The event indeed, which is only by accident or imagination, hath sometimes confirmed the Cure. We might spare an abundance of Mr. johnson's and Mr. parkinson's individual and accidental additons which are only lusus luxuriantis Naturae.  
Astronomy, a noble science of perpetuals, would be neglected. For I could know the day by the rising and setting of the Sun, and Noon by the barn door or Church-wall sufficient for use. But hope of Divination by Astrology does perfect it to every degree and moment. I am not ignorant in the trial of both, and therefore speak with more confidence. Passion a me! see where Mr. Doctor comes Pelting and chasing like his Apothecary? Good Mr. Doctor a word, we know your trade well enough; all is but fast and loose; bowl and Jalap, or plantain and Spurge will do all this. Or● we'll go a little farther and make your whole business Addition and Substraction, both which fasting and feasting will perform; fasting with a little barleywater, and feasting with your Aromatical spices, Cinnamon, Nutmegs and Cloves, wassail powder, perhaps a little black Ambar, which are your chiefest ingredients for cordials. But now reverend Sir, to you that understand without sarcasms; If you be Master of method, which requires long study, great judgement, a few things will suffice; neither need ye that Emperical trash of numerous simples.  
But above all in all, avoid, nay abhor the judgement of the stars; it is abominable false, scandalous to infamy; if you but once erect a Figure for experience, you will hear that word Conjurer, a foul stain, that all the earth of Owburne will not scour out.  
Now comes in the four Elements, fire, air, earth, water, the Principles of which man and all bodies are compounded. M●lum! a pox on't there's no such thing. If indeed I were to plant my self and build a house, I would take special care of all these, wood and coal for fire, the best earth for corn and meadow: fair rivers or springs to have my water without charge; and a good air for the health of my body. I would have my house not composed, but fitted with these Elements: But to example these into the four complexions, and tell me of temperamentum ad pondus & ad justitiam, &c. chips chips, pigeon feathers, tricae apinae quisquiliae. I have seen tall men and low, the bright hair and the black, all constitutions; wise and foolish, valiant and cowardish, sick and healthful; And he that tells me the fish in the Sea have fire in their bellies, I had as lief they told me the Sea burnt. But we must supply you with something in lieu of these; what say you to virtus stellaris? cast off your old obsolete words, occult quality, Sympathy and Antipathy, betake you to Synentebechy and Idiosyncresy, these pucelle you, and make you little the wiser; well, I will give you an account of them the next moo●e at our Gossip sceptics house. But if you talk Greek, you will be discovered; betake you to the Atlantis language for raisins in nature. Say Iliaster Archaeus, that is the internal star, the syderian spirit, faber occultus, and that this sperma primum or ens seminis in a grain or wheat is the 8200 part, proportio anatica. For minerals, you may rant it over thus; concerning their generation, that they have the seeds of Petrification, and Sal in Gorgon within themselves, dilating the terrestrial residence by the hands of their own concretive spirit. Then fall upon the rabbis fifty gates of Intelligence and light. And if you fall upon the extatique fancy of the oplocrism, the Theory of Magnaetisme and doctrine of ef●luxions, that this radical activity s●reames in Semi-immaterial threads of atoms conducted by the Mumial efflux, &c. wonder and amazement! Never Abraham-man or Parico spoke purer language.  
An other talks of reason; I acknowledge none, but that we are governed by sense. One writes that the soul retired unto herself, into herself, and reflexed by the principles of her own divini●y, sees every thing, &c. Toys, vanities, how many thousand chimeras, strange forms phantoms, illusions, does the brain retired present, which presently are vanished, when the eyes do open and fix upon any known object: where is our faith but in our eares● faith comes by hearing: Ob. Yet a mad man hath his sense yet no reason! 'Tis denied, look upon his eyes; they stare, they roll, they are unfixt: place his eyes firm and you rectify that which you call reason. Children have fears and Bugbear● in the dark; a candle does disperse them and rectify their weak eyes. Mopsa and Philoclea have the same or equal souls, only distinguished by breeding or their Organs of sense. I will account him a sublime rational, that can describe his last night's dream with all the scenes, variations, motions, figures, colours, transactions, transcursions: And him a true rational that can ex tempore speak nonsense; no man can do either that is master of his common sense; But it is an other matter if any one will contradict me with his eyes shu●, clausis quod dicitur oculis maledicere.  
But I shall have such a skull of Sophisters pelting at me with their At's and Ergos● Aristotle and Keckerman höoë ëaiäl raönale. Good boys be a little patient, I will rectify your Masters. Logicon and Logica are the derivatives of logos; Logos is sermo as well as ratio, or number, so that you may define a man to be a living creature that can number● where as no other Creature can number except man. But rather homo est animal orationale, man is a creature that can speak. We have no other definition of a dog, but that he is a fourfooted beast that barks; a cock that he is a feathered fowl that crows; a partridge jeukes' &c. The Latins from the Greeks have a more ready expression for the inarticulate voice of every creature and fitter for definition. Cer●us glocitat, Lepus vagit, L●pus ululat, Vulpecula gannit, Mu● mintrat, perdix cacabat, accipiter pipat, Milvus lipit, Passer pipit, Regulus Zinzilulat, &c.  
An other talks of Seven Planets; amongst these Mercury; I acknowledge none such, nay I deny him. I never saw him, though early and late I have waited for him. Nay, no man ever saw him. Origanus and ●rgalus our only two Ephemerists differ twelve degrees in their Calculation, others seven; when as in others they miss not a second third or tenth. Now my merchant Mercury (Mercuricus dicitur à mercibus) is never 27 or 30 degrees from the Sun; and if he be within 15. he is combust and invisible; by this consequence, when and where must I go seek my stilbo? And what a ridiculous thing is it, that Mercury never being above 27 degrees from the Sun (called his maxima distantia) should ever appear, when the Moon a more glorious body, more diaphanous, and more capable of lustre, never appears until the prime, which is about three days after her departure from the Sun, and is near or about 36 degrees. An. Do●. 1652. Ian. 25. 26, 27. Venus and Mercury conjunct, all clear evenings, Venus most full of lustre; no other Star appearing near her by ten yards in the eyes Computation, Anno praedicto May 18 ☉ ♊ 8. ☿ ♋ ●. no appearance of Mercury, their distance 23 degrees. But than you will have me take one of the days out of the week, and mark Wednesday with a black coal, and brand all antiquity with ignorance. No, we will find a supply, neither assume any thing to● our own invention, but revive antiquity; I have found out an other Mercury retired into his far recess. Your stella Crinita, your blazing star, your Comet, he bears the same office of Secretary or Herald to denounce war, never above 60 degrees from the Sun, sometimes before, sometimes after his master; sometimes visible, more oft not appearing, yet always in being. Read with me the part of Albohazen par. 8. lib. compl. in Iudic● stella●um in revolutione annorum mundi, cap. 32. p. 94. Scias etiam quod cu● Comet. &c. Know also that when a Comet shall appear in the ●Revolution of the year, or in any quarter, or in any sign, the occasion will be according to the place of Mercury in that year: if he be oriental, it will be oriental; if occidental, the Comet will be occidental, and it will be removed when Mercury shall be combust: Ptol. tract. 2. c. 9 the Star with a tail is assimilate to Mars and Mercury in nature.  
An other spetious presumption. Hermins amongst the Armorists are derived of Hermae, squared stones which did resemble Mercury, or Hermes without a head to adorn sepulchers, so that every spot should stand, for a Hermae containing the images of Ancestors: our blazing Star or Comet represents this Mercury with his flaming hair thus  
The Israelites knew this indicial Mercury in their passage through the wilderness (Exod. 13.) when the Lord went before them in the night in a pillar of fire; And the Magi in the new Testament were guided by the same. These in memory or in semblance of the Mercuri●l statues, were fixed in all high ways to point the several passages.  
Sir, Still these are directed to you whose absolute dexterity and judgement is able either to create a new opinion in me or perfect our proceedings. I hope I shall take good rest; till morning I humbly take leave.   

§. 4.  
UPon a slumber a rough Su●vay fell upon me, of the fashion of ages, and diversity of Church governments: how sacred and superstitious the ancients were in the number of their prayers, their Pater Nosters; How Idolatrous we are become to the number seven in idolising a Sabbath, with two s●rmons and long conceived prayers. In Q Elizabeth's time when religion was in her purity, even at very Court a few lent Sermons served the turn: But both these in their extremes may be moderated; and if we did well consider the 6. of St. Matthew, we ought not to be Battologists, and Polulogist●, like the Gentiles thinking to be heard for their much babbling: But this mine opinion (God reform me if I think amiss) Our Father, or rather the Lord's prayer once repeated with a true submission to the ordinance and a mental energy, we shall have all things sufficient granted, for so the text promiseth, for the Father knoweth whereof ye have need before ye ask of him. And the particle {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is derived from the primitive {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} quasi {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}, i.e. ipse; the adverb hoc, idem the same, not varied with a periphrase hoc modo, and the Greeks will admit of such adverbs as the Latin do not, you may force one, ipsissimè. The Eucharist in the Primitive Church was celebrated with only repeating the Lord's prayer. St. Luke hath {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} say, and no more.  
The numerous volumes of the primitive Fathers (in this doubt in reverence I spare to name them) but let it be Plutarch or Pliny, I much amaze at them; all the s●eep-skins in a Region will not make Parchment for one foul Copy, 3000 at least. In so much that I believe, that posterity using the Criticisms of comparing styles when the phrase did symphonize, did bestow other men's writings to other Authors Classesses of most renown.  
I could name some in these our very days that have written styles masculine and sinewy; Their method, matter and conceit, rich, pious, reserched: But I find upon every occasion, they are pressing into the Press, and so become exhausted, grow enervate, ●laccide, have not their pristine vigour and vivacity. I'll pass them by, and only meddle with them whose ashes are covered in the Flaminian fields; such in times past was Barnaby Rich the Phi●o●ogist with his Motto Malo me divitem esse, that boasted, this was the 36 book writ by the Author. Or old Mr. Barnard of Odcomb the Theologue, that upon every occasion of controversy offered in those days (which were many) would ever be sure to be bobbing into print. These were accounted in those days rare men, but now an act of oblivion hath passed upon all their works; And what stile and Authors the future age will produce, and whether they will be perpetuate, shall nothing trouble me.  
Bellarmine and our countryman Stapleton with some other Schoolmen, I have read some part of them (though but little) or run over. Voluminous men farced up with authorities, and fathers gathered to their hands, of which if they were devested, they would appear but poor naked Sceletons● Let them lie aside; versing with Papists and Pitch are alike.  
Knox the Scot (an argument drawn from the notation of the name) his Discipline hath begot so many knocks that I absolutely renounce him.  
The Attic Archeologist (full of reading, pains and learning) hath moulded up a piece of Antiquity, extracted for the most part from the Poets, Ly●ophron, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Enripides and the Scholiasts, a●d obtrudes upon us these to be the general customs of the Athenians: As if one in future age should make all England in ages past to be a Bartholomew● fair, because Ben. Johnson hath writ it. Or that the condition of all our English women may be drawn out of Shackespeers merry wives of Windsor; or the religion of the low-Countrimen from Mr. Aminadab in the alchemist. Or from Massingers Mr. Greedy, a hungry Justice of Peace in Nottinghamshire: Or Will-do the Parson of Gotham the Condition of all the County. These may be applied to Rosinus and Goodwins Roman Antiquities.  
Oh! my left side! now I quarrel with mine old shoes Antiquities; for why should I value them better than my new ones? only they will serve to burn by the fire side, and save my shins, rather than walk abroad a la-mode according to the times.  
For armoury and Algebra, I leave them to great men; by the arms in a Church window they may know the tenure of lands; by Algebra the value of their Leases and moneys.  
Hold me not vain glorious; I speak it to my shame; Ptolemy's, Copernicus, Scenerus, Q. Elizabeth's the Prutenick tables, Tycho I have calculated by them all: Vain man that I am, I was not born to that fortune to be a mere contemplative man; And the Period of these Sciences is to make a ridiculous almanac, or calculate a Nativity, full of pains, full of falsehood, docti errores, mendacia deliciis plena, operosi ●ndi, and to the prudent—  
And for Geometry and Trigonometry how ravishing soever in the reading, I was not born to so low a fortune as to lead the devil in a chain.  
The art of shadows I know well, and have added new repertions to find a polarity by the sun's ray, to know the less than a minute by a Horizontal; to take the altitude of the Sun or stars exactly by a house end: Simple man that I am (quoth Caxton) these are fit for none but a brother Squire of the clockhouse to attend Bow-bell.  
I have read some part of the translation de ovo, and the generation of Animals; exquisite bawdry; the man is horrible obscene and scurrilous, yet with the laws and rules of nature, he is mad with reason, and maintains aretinism in the abstract by the highest Philosophy. Had they kept it locked up in the Latin Vestery, and none but the Arch Flamines of AEsculapius his Temple to have entered into it, the piece had been incomparable.  
Your Roman●es and Gazettes are the only harmless useful readings; there is pleasure in the reading, and nothing to burden the memory after: For to speak the Archadias' Phrase, is an affectedness distasted by all, and to relate a story from thence is ridiculous to the prudent; only you may say such is a pretty piece, and such a pretty passage.  
I could save you a great deal of labour in buying and reading your critics or Comments upon any Authors, Servius, Beroaldus, Agellius, Varro, Vitruvius, Julius Pollux,; your Civilians de rerum & verborum significatione, Ulpian, Terentius, Cicilius, Martianus and a 100 more. You may find all these gathered together in a handful in Holyocks Dictionary.  
Oh! how the wind riseth and fumes into my head? your Statute books, your laws civil and common, you may lay them aside: for every quarter we have a repeal; and why should I read them, when they will not serve for practice?  
For your ●hysitians and Philosophers, I find them all to be but Friday mornings, and Sundays in the afternoon, nothing but repetitions and elutriations: Only sometimes varying the method, and sometimes the Phrase, and many times like Plagiaries stealing whole pages without commemoration of his Author. And it will anger a man that within less than an age Burgerdicius should shoulder out my old friend Keckerman, And Sennertus my dear Fernelius, and my illuminate Doctor Leonard; what hopes of eternity shall our best Authors have?  
I compare Virgil and Silvester, and write them absolutely the best Poets in their respective languages: Silvester had all from Dubart●●● Virgil from Homer● if my assertion fail, Macrobius will attest it●Homer from an Egyptian Poet, and Du●bartas from an old Latin Copy which I have seen, composed, as thought, by some religious man in a rhyming hexameter.  
I far prefer Homer's Ulysses before Don Quixot, as the more exquisite piece of Drollery: Besides, the phrase in the bare Latin translation runs like a smooth blank Jambick with a mystic concealed number.  
There's an old School-book lies by there, you may know it to be bound in a sheepsskin by the mouldiness, a neglected thing; But take it up, perhaps it may be the pelt of the Golden-fleece; ●Tis Palingenius. If you aim at the height and pitch of human learning, prefer him before Agrippa, Geber de Fluctibus, Lullius, Libanius or Hermes, to conver●e with Angels, to attain to the philosopher's stone, the universal medicine, the elixir; in his Capricorn and Pisces he excels them all (so by relation given me, and commended to me) But, good faith I confess though I have read them over, I understand none of them.  
Sir,  
A little rest. And I beseech you let your fair white hands be the milken way in this our lower sphere, whereby these may pass to our lesser Gods. If you present it to the illustrious and illuminate, if they but cast one ray of their splendour upon it, it may uncloud all mine enveloped Melancholy, and produce in me better thoughts.   

§. 5.  
OH! now, now comes the torture, now my allegorical head-piece is rent with Scotoms. A relapse of the Surfeit of men. I have exposed myself to all sorts and conversed with them; The illiterate and proselyte in human letters understands me not; the learned will have the same liberty to reject me, or aspire to the same kind of tyranny to usurp over me, or rather a livid passion will possess them; or at least that they know more and better things themselves: Alas! the whole Island of Anticyra brings not forth medicine sufficient for this mischief, though applied by Melampus hands; I must apply to mine own remedies. Abstinence in the first place; hereafter farewell men, farewell books, only some elect and singular reserved.  
The Parergon is past the result follows {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}.  

Postscript.  
Zoïli Collyrium Nardinum and Zoïli Collyrium Nicarium are two of the best washes for dim sighted decaying eyes, and old ulcers.  P. K.    
Written by the Author of this sentence, Philippi Triáconta-Syllabon'; 
Neminis sanguinem pro mea religione effundi cupio, praeter salvatoris nostri Iesu.  
Cognomen aliàs quaere   

The second reading, an additional survey of Men. Of the decay of Learning. A Letter written in an exotic Language to signior Giovanni Junctino, and metaphrased into our modern times.  
MY dearest Junctino, living, in a manner, out of the Pale of Christendom, where I only see men walking like trees, I wearied myself with close scrutiny into the c●use of the decay of Learning and contempt of Learned men.  
In the first place I found this decay to proceed from want of flattery. Mistake me not! Adulation is a general term for complacency, and blandishment (so says our great Master of the sums) To commend a man, if not according to what he is, yet according to that he should be: not so much to praise him, as to provoke him to make himself worthy of such praise. To delight a man disconsolate with a tender collubency lest he faint in tribulation, these are an act of friendship, a laudable virtue which we call Eutrapelia, Candor, affability; Society and conversation cannot subsist without delight. If Eutrapelia after the Ephesian Dialect be taken in the worser sense, let Eucharistia take place, a grateful recordation of good turns  
The Romanist hath a superlative way of exalting his party: if the man be dull and cloudy, slow in expres●ion; oh! he's a sanctified man, wrapped with enthusiasm, drawn into himself with ecstasies, ravished with divine afflation, and struck into a transport. If of more loquacity: he's the sword and target, an Achilles of the Cause; he forms all his notions into a Syllogistick pyramid, and smites with the point; he hath an Herculea● Energy of some chemical Panchreston. If his parts be more eminent; no man speaks more waightily, more concisely; his prevailing eloquence consists in his own grace, an exalted carat: is this all? no! He is the light of his nation and the Christian world; the Exemplar of Sanctity, the Salt of the people, the Doctor of the Church. Nay, if you find him in a Tavern or a Brothel house, Saint Mary Maudlin must be converted: and our Saviour frequented the assemblies of publicans and sinners, Nay! their Region is so full of Deities, that you may find sooner God than a man amongst them. They ascribe larger orisons than their Circumscription requires, and the people receive them with amplification more than a reality will well admit. I have known by experience a renowned Knight sometimes waving or palliating his religion; who when he was a Romanist, was accounted a Vatican of all the faculties, in whom all vigour of invention and judgement had filled up all numbers; But after his revolt was reputed as a fellow full of fungous and empty inflations, a terra damnata, no salt, no nitre in him: But upon his return again to his mother's lap, he became a competitor with Adam in his state of innocency.  
Now review what stigmas they have for the Adversary the Protestant. If a temperate man, you shall find his judgement faint, obscure, imperfect, all his expressions want Sunshine. If of more language, a fellow made up of puffed past and cork; he hath an affected spruceness of speech, an infatuated Salt.  
Run over with me now the other extreme, what a blandishment and Palliation they have for their rude and horrid absurdities. If he have a confident presuming garrulity, such as play a Geneva gigg upon the Scotch small-pipes without a Muzzle; Oh! say they, quench not the Spirit. If he be a Saint new dubbed of the last edition, whose asterisk is this, one that is drunk with the violence of self-action and singularity, of a turbulent spirit, a lunatic conscience and splen, a seminary of seditious motions and reprovings, A Bull of Basan bellowing and beating with his fore-hoof, an Eager from Humber, an Hurrican● and whirlwind storming all before him: what say they? He is a Boanerges, a son of thunder.  
Now how faint and frigid are we amongst ourselves! we quarrel with an Emphasie or letter; whereas these are many times rather voluntary errors, disdaigning pedantic trivials by a generous carelessness. And if he be some eminent man, we discourse his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing his researched conceits, we wind him up with a Periphrase, and transfigure him to some higher region: Then comes in this particle of three letters, but; worse than Plautus his trium literarum, worse than the Hebrew Tau, the Greek Theta, or the Latins black chequer and coal, worse than our Criminal stigmatics at an English arraignment. T.R.F. and disjoints all, dismantles all, blurrs, blots, dashes all out, and at the highest career, like a resty Jade, makes a full stop, and casts his rider. And in this we see how implacable we are in other men's errors, and insensible in our own detractions. I'll give you some instances. If the man be of temper mild, and timorous in his Message from his Maker, that durst not trust his own extemporancy, but consults with his remembrancer, his book, extracted from the best Divines, and digesting his notions into a Congenial coalition, from whom you may hear things choice and pertinent, succinct, and depending, all apted to the occasion, season, auditor, how disingeniously will his friend come off scattering these words, he's a pretty man, but I could read as good a piece out of Dr. Andrews, or Mr. Perkins Sermons: An other thus, If his notes were lost, where was all his learning? If a man have Emphasie and Elocution, whose conceptions and delivery receive Spirit and Lustre from each-other, whose gesture breathes out living passions, and whose vocal hands reign in men's affections, and inspire his auditory; in whom you may find a continued strength without deficiency, without inequality: How comes he of? His classical friend will cry out he is a Drammatist, fitter to personate upon a Theatre a Cassius or a Catiline.  
Will you have me then sum a perfection in one man, and give you an exemplary Idea for all men's imitation? It is impossible, I must borrow an abstract from that Lystrians Mercury that elect vessel, his words: Spiritual gifts are diversely bestowed: The ear is not the eye, the foot the hand; follow after love, it envieth not, it thinketh no evil; in this love (my dearest Junctino) let us concentre: let every one share his part, if not ad pondus, yet at justitiam. He can not be so bad, if he be my friend, but I have something good to say of him: and if we do ●lip in our expressions, let us rather commend his pains then blame his deficiency. To the wise it will seem a friendly error, to intimate, if not what he is, yet to others it will appear what he ought to be. Ever declining the two shelves of detraction and blandishment; blandishment that sinister Genius of flattery, a vice that humours with intent to gain, to nourish vice, or fraudulently to hurt.  
FINIS.