TIme is the most precious com­modity that man doth enjoy; because time past, cannot be re­voked; and time lost, cannot be repaired.

[Page 2] Therefore men should set a due estimate upon this commodity, and expend it thriftily and wisely: to which purpose the ancient Sages of the world have ingeni­ously devised a way to divide even the Natural day (which is one of the least measures of time) into hours, and those into quarters and minutes, and into lesser Fractions then they; that by this Horo­metry, they might mete out and proporti­on business to the time, and time to the business in hand. The name of Horae, Hours, came from Horus Apollo, an Ae­gyptian Sage, who first divided the day into those portions we call hours, as Ma­crobius Saturnal. l. 1. cap. 21. informs us.

In Aegypt there was a Beast of a very strange kinde, called Cynocephalus, kept in the Temple of Serapis, which in the time of the two Aequinoxes, did make water twelve times in a day, and so often in the night, and that regularly, at even spaces of time; from the observation whereof they divided the natural day in­to twenty four hours; and that Beast was their Clock and Dyal, both to divide the day, and reckon the hours by. This gave a hint (belike) to the Clepsydrae, or water­glasses (invented by Ctesibius of Alexan­dria) [Page 3] which distingu [...]shed the hours by the fall or dropping of water, as Clepsammidia or Sand-glasses did by the running of sand: Miro modo in terris aqua peragit, quod Solis flammeus vigor desuper modera­tus excutrit. Cassiod. de Divin. Lection. c. 30. And to shew they owed the inven­tion to this creature, they used to set one carved on the top of these Water glasses, as may be seen in Kirker in Mechanica Ae­gyptiaca. The Heavens are the grand u­niversal clock of the world, from whose incessant and regular motion, all times here below are distinguished and measu­red.

And because time is in continual flux or motion, and passes away with silent feet, insensibly and invisibly, therefore it was necessary to invent a way how to make the motion of time (according to the several divisions thereof) visible to the eye, or audible to the ear, that it should not steal away without our notice, but that we might tell and count its steps and stealth.

Anaximenes the Philosopher was the first that took an account of time by shaddows projected on the ground, and which changed and moved according to [Page 4] the motion of the Sun, from which ob­servation he devised Sun-dyals called Scioterica. Though Vitruvius ascribes the Invention to Berosus the Chaldean, who framed Vasa Horoscopa, and Epicyclia ex cavavata cum stylo (as he terms them) certain hollow Dyals (like dishes) with Stiles or Gnomons erected in the middle. At Rome they counted the day (for a long time) by the shaddow of a brazen Obe­lisk or Pillar: when the shaddow of the pillar did fall in such a place, they did account it Noon or Mid-day, and then a Cryer was appointed to cry it about the Town; So likewise at Evening, when the shaddow fell in such a place, the Cryer proclaimed horam supremam, the last hour of day: other distinctions they had none as yet.

The Nasican Scipio was the first that brought the use of Water-glasses a­mongst them, and distinguished the hours of day and night; until his time, Populo Romano indiscreta lux fuit, saith Pliny, the Roman people had no division of hours; as the Turks (at this day) have no distin­ction of their ways by miles, nor of their days by hours, as Busbequias relates Ep. 1. Legat. Turc. In Plautus his time, there [Page 5] was great store of Sun-dyals in Rome, which he calls Solaria; for in one of his Called Bae­otia, which is lost: but these words are cited by Aul. Gel­lius c [...]p. 3. Comedies, he brings in an hungry ser­vant complaining of the number of them, and cursing the Invention in these expressions.

Among the Persians every ones bel­ly was his Dyal: so it was in Ammianus Marcellinus his time: But these ways of Horometry were rude and imperfect. By Water-glasses the account was not regu­lar: for from the attenuation and con­densation of the water, the hours were shorter or longer, according to the heat or coldness of the weather. Then for the [Page 6] Sun-dyals they did serve but at some times, only by day time, and then not alwaies neither, but when the Sun shined. To remedy these defects, some wits did cast about how to distinguish the hours of the night as well as of the day; and of cloudy days as well as of serene and clear. Hereupon some Engines and con­trivances have been composed by Tro­chilique art, or the artifice of Wheels; which by the motion of several Wheels, and Springs, and Weights, and counter­poizes should give an account of the time, without Sun or Stars; and these were called Horologes.

Severinus Boetius a worthy Patrician of Rome, and a most eminent P [...]iloso­pher and Mathematician, was the first (that I finde) that contrived any Engine of this sort: Theodoricus King of the Goths wrote a Letter to the said Boetius to beg one from him for to bestow on his brother in law Gundibald King of Bur­gundy; in which Letter he calls it, Ma­chinam mundo gravidam, Caelum gestabile, rerum compendium: A portable heaven, and a compendium of the heavenly Sphears, as Cassiodor hath it, who was the penman, in the first book of his variae le­ctiones.

[Page 7] Aaron King of Persia sent such an In­strument for a present to Char [...]s the great King of France, in the year 804. it was made of Copper, & Arte Mechanica mi­rifice compositum, saith Hermannus Con­tractus, who doth describe the same more largely in his history.

Of these Horologes, some are mute, and some vocal: Vocal I call those which by the sound of a Bell striking at just in­tervals and periods of time, do proclaim the hour of the day or night, yea, even half hours and minutes; by the benefit whereof, even blinde men that can see neither Sun nor shaddow, and those that lie in their beds, may know how the time goes, and how long they have bin there, although they slept all the while; and are properly called Clocks, from the French word Cloche, a Bell.

Mute Horologes are such as perform a silent motion, and do not speak the time of the day, but point at it with an Index, such as are Sun-dyals and Watches; the last of which go by springs and wheels, as the others by weights and wheels: yet [Page 8] some of these are vocal too, and carry Bells and Alarums, to signifie unto us the stealth of time. Many carry Watches about them that do little heed the fabrick and contrivance, or the wit and skill of the workmanship; as there be many that dwell in this habitable world, that do lit­tle consider or regard the wheel-work of this great Machin, and the fabrick of the house they dwell in. A King of China upon his first seeing of a Watch, thought it a living creature, because it moved so regularly of it self, and thought it dead when it was run out, and its pulses did not beat.

The wit of man hath been luxuriant and wanton in the Inventions of late years; some have made Watches so small and light, that Ladies hang them at their ears like pendants and jewels; the smalness and variety of the tools that are used about these small Engines, seem to me no less admirable then the Engines themselves; and there is more Art and Dexterity in placing so many Wheels and Axles in so small a compass (for some French Watches do not exceed the com­pass of a farthing) then in making Clocks and greater Machines.

[Page 9]The Emperour Charls the fifth had a Watch made in the Collet or Jewel of a Ring; Causs. Hier. and King James had the like: and one Georgius Caput Blancus, or George Whitehead was expert at making such knacks at Vicenza in Italy, as Schottus tells us in his Itinerary of that Country.

Andrew Alciat the great Civilian of France, had a kinde of a Clock in his chamber, that should awake him at any hour of the night that he determined, and when it struck the determined hour, it struck fire likewise out of a slint, which fell among tinder, to light him a candle: it was the invention of one Caravagio of Sienna in Italy.

In some Towns of Germany and Italy, there are very rare and elaborate Clocks to be seen in their Town-Halls; where­in a man may read Astronomy, and ne­ver look up to the skies.

So Grotius of these Globes.

In the Town-Hall of Prague, there is a Clock that shews the annual and perio­dical motions of the Sun and Moon, the [Page 10] names and numbers of the moneths, days and Festivals of the whole year, the times of the Sun-rising and setting, through­out the year, the Aequinoxes, the length of the days and nights, the rising and setting of the 12 Signes of the Zodiack: The age of the Moon with its several Aspects and Configurations; as George Bruy describes it in Theatro Urbium.

But the Town of Sraesburgh carries the bell of all other steeples (of Germa­ny) in this point. A Scheme of the Stras­burg clock you may finde in Coriats Tra­vels, with a full description thereof: it was made by one Conradus Dasypodius a German, Mich. Ne­ander Greg. and Professor of the Mathema­tiques in that City.

One Linnus a Jesuite of Liege, l. de Ma­gnete. and an Englishman by birth (as Kircher tells me) had a Phial or Glass of water, wherein a little Globe did float, with the four and twenty Letters of the Alphabet descri­bed upon it, and on the inside of the Globe was an Index or Stile, to which the Globe did turn and move it self, at the period of every hour, with that let­ter which denoted the hour of the day successively, as though this little Globe kept pace and time with the heavenly [Page 11] motions, Gassend. de vita Peyresci.

Kircher above mentioned had a Vessel of water, in which, just even with the he [...]ghe and surface of the water, the twen­ty four hours were described; upon the water he set a piece of a Cork, and there­in some seeds of a certain Heliotrope flower, which (like the flower it self) would turn the cork about, according to the course of the Sun, and with its mo­tion point the hour of the day, ibid.

I [...] that famous Stable of the Duke of Saxony at Dresden, there is a Room fur­nished with all manner of Saddles; a­mong the rest, there is one that in the Pommel hath a guilded head, with eyes continually moving; and in the hinder part there of hath a Clock, as M. Morison (an eye witness) relates in his Travels.

But the exactest Clocks and Watches that are, are defective, and want corecti­on; for in Watches, the first half hour goes faster then the last half, and the se­cond hour is slower then the first, and the third then the second; the reason where­of is, because Springs when they are wound up, and then begin their motion, move faster in the beginning then in the ending; as it is with all violent motions [...]. But in Clocks it happens contrary; the last half hour is faster then the first, be­cause [Page 13] the weights by which they move, move slowly at first, as all ponderous things do, but accelerate their motion when they draw nearer to the earth. Be­sides, the lines or cords by which the weights do hand (being drawn out into some length) add some weight to the plummets, and consequently some speed to the motion. Both which inconvenien­ces William Landgrave of Hessen, and Tycho Brahe took into consideration how to rectifie, as Tycho relates; but how they sped in the enterprize, he doth not tell us.

ARCHIMEDES of Syracuse was the greatest Mathematician and the rarest Engineer that was in his time, or hath been ever since (as 'tis be­lieved) both for the Rational and Chirur­gical part, the Theory and the Practick of the Mathematicks. Cicero calls him Divinum ingenium, 2 ^o de natur a Deorum. He was not only, Caeli Syderùmque Spe­ctator assiduus (as Livy speaks of him) a diligent Spectator of the heavenly Orbs and their Motions; but also Cy­clorum & Staticorum indagator acerri­mus, as the same Livy, a great Experi­mentator [Page 15] and devisor of Machanical Motions and Inventions. He was the first, qui stellarum errantium motus in Sphaeram illigavit, saith Cicero, 1 ^o Tusc. that made a Sphear and an artificial hea­ven, wherein he did represent the rota­tions and revolutions of the Planets, and that with as true time and measure as they perform the same above. Of this Sphear Claudian hath an Epigram that acquaints us with some thing of the Fabrick of it.

[Page 17]This is mentioned also by Ov. 6. Fast.

From that description of Claudian, we observe first, That this Machin did move of it self, it was an Automaton, a self­moving device; and which moved re­gularly by certain laws,

As the Poet saith. 2. We learn from him, that these motions were driven and acted by certain Spirits pent within,

About which spirits Kircher hath often beaten his brains, what to make of them, that he might know what was the inward principle of motion in that machin: But after all his study and scruting, he could never find it out, but he contends that the Circles of that Sphear were of brass, and the out-side (only) was of glass or specu­lar stone, (which the Poet might call vi­trum, glass, for the perspicuity of it.

Yet Authors do make mention of a Sphear of glass which Sapor King of Per­sia had, which was so large, that he could enter within it, and sit in the midst of it, and see the Sphears and Planets whirling round about him; which did swell him [Page 18] with such a conceit, that in his Letters he did use this stile, Rex regum Sapor, Par­ticeps Syderum, Frater Solis & Lunae.

We read of a silver Heaven sent by the Emperour Ferdinand for a Present to Soliman the grand Signior, Paul [...] Jo­vius sa­bellicus. which was carried by twelve men with a book along with it that shewed the use of it, and how to order and keep it in perpetual motion. Du Bartas makes mention of both, and concludes his description of them with this Rapture touching humane wit.

Kercher doth highly extol and admire the Artificers of this latter age for ma­king Sphears and Globes, and such re­presentations; who can make them (saith he) with such exactness and perfection in all points, that Jupiter might have juster cause to complain of them, then he did of Archimedes (in Claudian) for their presumptuous emulation of his handy­works.

[Page 19]Among the Moderns, one Cornelius van Drebble a Dutchman of Alcmar, may deserve just admiration: This man lived here in England, and was Regi Jacobo à Mechanicis (as one saith [...] King James his Engineer, he presented the King with a rare Instrument of perpetual motion, without the means of Steel, Springs, or Weights; it was made in the form of a Globe, in the hollow whereof were Wheels of Brass moving about, with two pointers on each side thereof, to propor­tion and shew forth the times of dayes, moneths, and years, like a perpetual Al­manack; it did represent the motions of the heavens, the hours of Rising and Set­ting of the Sun, with the Signe that the Moon was in every 24 hours, and what degree the Sun was distant from it; how many degrees the Sun and Moon are di­stant from us day and night, what Signe of the Zodiack the Sun was in every mo­neth; it had a circumference or ring which being hollow had water in it, re­presenting the Sea, which did rise and fal, as doth the flood, twice in 24 hours, ac­cording to the course of the sides. This Bezaleel was sent for to the Emperour of Germany, who sent him a chain of gold: [Page 20] A rude Scheme of this Instrument may be seen upon paper in M ^r Tho. Tims Phi­losophical Dialogue, Dignus rex Archi­mede isto altero; Dignus Archimedes Ba­tavus mag no illo rege, as Marcellus Vrank­heim (another Dutchman) speaks of King James and his Engineer, in his Epistle to Ernestus Burgravius. Of this Micro­cosme or Representation of the World which we now mentioned, the excellent Grotius hath framed this Epigram fol­lowing.

[Page 22]One Janellus Turrianus a Citizen of Cremona, made brazen heavens in imita­tion of those of Archimedes, and far sur­passing them for Art, saith Gaffarellus in his book of Curiosities; and Ambrose Morinus in his description of Spain. Eras­mus had a golden Ring given him by one of the P [...]inces of Germany, which being explicated, was a perfect celestial sphear, just of that form we call the Armillary sphear, as we read in his life.

Janellus before mentioned did recre­ate the Emperour Charls the fift (when he had resigned up his Empire, and reti­red to a Monastique life in Spain) with ingenious and rare devices: Oftentimes when the cloth was taken away after din­ner, he brought upon the board little armed Figures of Horse and Foot, some beating Drums, other sounding Trum­pets, and others of them charging one another with their Pikes. Somtimes he sent wooden Sparrows into the Empe­rours Dining room, that would fly round about, and back again; so that the Supe­riour of the Monastery coming in by ac­cident, suspected him for a Conjurer. He framed a Mill of Iron that turned it self, of such subtile work and smalness, that [Page 23] a Monk could easily hide it in his sleeve; yet would it daylie grinde so much wheat as would abundantly serve eight persons for their days allowance. This was he who made the Water work, which by a new Miracle of Art, drew up the River Tagus to the top of the Mountain of To­ledo. All this we have from Famianus Strada's excellent History of the Low Country Wars.

GOd framed the world by Geometry (as we may say) that is, Wisd. 7, 10 [...] Plutarch Sympos. l. 8. q. 2. with won­derful Art; he did all things in Number, Weight, and Measure. Aristotle calls him [...], The great Engineer of the world, that tacked this rare Systeme of heaven and earth together, tackt the Center to the Sphears, and made the whole Frame to move in a wonderful order from its first creation to this day. The earth is a rare piece of his Staticks, being hanged upon nothing, as Job saith, Job 26. 7. it hangs in the very Center and middle of the world, like a Ball in the Ayr, but fixt and immovable, being evenly ballanced and counterpoized with its own weight: Ov. Met. l. 1. Ponderibus librata [Page 25] suis. So those pendulous Mountains (the Clouds) whose ballancings that great Philosopher Job admired, Job 37. 16. and those fiery Mountains (the Comets) are Gods Isorropica, and some admirable parcels and pieces of his Mathematiques. But the whole Machin of the world be­ing taken in the entire frame and fabrick of it, is a greater wonder then all other wonders in the world, De Civit. l. 11. as S ^t Augustine gives his judgement. This is a kinde of an Automaton or Engine that moves of it self, much like a great Clock with wheels and poyzes, and counterpoyzes, that is alwaies in motion, though no body moves it.

For I cannot believe that the Angels (those glorious creatures) are tyed to the heavenly bodies (like dogs in a wheel) to give them motion, but that that great Engineer which made them, gave them a seeing or motion at first, that continues to this day, and will continue so long as the Sun and Moon endureth.

As the great world is an Automaton, so is the little world (man) a sort of a self­moving Engine, that performs its several motions by certain Springs, and Wheels, and Chords that are acted by one secret [Page 26] principle of all motions, to wit, the heart and spirits therein contained, and which are from thence dispersed through the whole frame of the work.

Now it is observed, that the wit of man by a diligent and attentive perusal of the world and himself, hath framed sundry useful Machins and artificial motions, after those patterns, after the frame and model of those two primary Automata that God himself made. A Mill was first made after the pattern of a man's mouth, [...]. as Seneca tells us in his ninth E­pistle; An Organ pipe had its pattern from mans weazand, which is inspired with the Lungs, and many other Inven­tions have been hinted unto us from the Organs of mans body, and the actions performed by them.

For Engineers, such as were expert in the practical part of the Mathematiques, these were the most renowned in ancient times. Archimedes of Syracuse, Archi­tas of Tarentum, Severinus Boetius of Rome, Proclus, Heron, and Ctesibius, both of Alexandria, of later times, Regiomon­tanus [Page 27] of Norimberg, Simon Stevinus of lower Germany, Cornelius van Drebble his Countryman, whom we mentioned be­fore, Athanasius Kircher by birth a Ger­man, but living (of late) in Rome, and Marinus Marsennus, a Frier of Paris. These were Magi and Thaumaturgi Mathematici wonder-workers, or such as performed marvellous feats by their great skill in Mathematical Sciences.

Cassiodorus a grave learned man, and Secretary to Theodorick King of the Goths, gives this character of the above­named Boetius in a certain Letter written unto him: You know ( saith he) the secrets of Nature, and can work wonders by your Art, Mettals do bellow and make a noise: Diomedes cast in brass, sounds his Trumpet louder; Here the brazen serpent hisses, and there artificial Birds (that had no voice) sing melodiously; yet these are but trivial things to relate of him, who can imitate the motions of the heavens here on earth.

All art [...]ficial motions (generally) are performed by Ayr, or by Water, and so all Engins, at least such as move of them­selves, are (or may be) divided in spiri­talia & Aquatica. Heron of Alexandria writ books de spiritalibus Machinis, or [Page 28] wind motions or machins moved with the ayr or wind: and Paptista Porta hath some thing de pneumaticis experimentis, or wind-motions, in his fifth book of Natural Magick, and Marinus Mersen­nus hath written Phaenomena pneumatica. I will here produce some instances or ex­amples of both kindes, and first of pneu­matic or wind motions.

AMong all the Inventions and produ­ctions of humane Wit, there is none more admirable and more useful then Writing, by means whereof a man may coppy out & delineate his very thoughts and minde, and make that visible which none can see but he that made it; where­by a man can utter his minde without o­pening his mouth, and signifie his plea­sure at a thousand miles distance, and this by the help of four and twenty letters, and fewer in some places; by various joyning and combining of which letters, as also by the transposing and moving of [Page 47] them to and fro, all words that are utter­able or imaginable may be framed; for the several combinations of these Letters and different ways of joyning them, do amount (as Clavius the Jesuite hath ta­ken the pains to compute and observe) to 5852616738497664000 ways; In sphaer [...] Joh. de Sacro [...]osco c. 1. so that all things that are in heaven or in earth, that are, or were, or shall be, that can be either uttered or imagined, may be ex­pressed and signified by the help of this marvellous Alphabet▪ which may be de­scribed within the compass of a farthing.

The Chinois have 40000 letters at least, as Purchas and others tell us, which makes the language so difficult, that a man cannot learn it in an age, which ren­ders our Alphabet of 24 letters the more admirable.

Though the vulgarity and common­ness of this art hath made it less esteemed and set by, yet wise and considerate men that look upon things erudit is oculis (as Cicero speaks) do much admire the Inven­tion.

The Hebrews call it Dick-Duk, inven­tum subtile, a subtile and ingenious In­vention: Greg. Theolosanus, Divinum Miraculum, l. 16. de Rep. c. 2. a Divine [Page 48] miracle; Cicero speaks of it with admi­ration, Quis sonos vocis, qui infiniti vi­debantur paucis litterarum notis termina­vit? l. 1. Tuscul. The Indians admired it not a little, Purchas l. 8. of Ame­rica. when they saw the Spaniards send Letters to and fro, and maintain a kinde of a dumbe Commerce among themselves by this way; they fancied that these Letters were some Spirits that were the Internuncii or Interpreters between them.

So a modern Poet sings in commendati­on of it.

For the first Invention of Letters, the Phoenicians carry most voices.

[Page 49]Among the Phoenicians Cadmus had the honour of this Invention; whence one calls letters [...], and another, ingellas Cadmi filias, the black and swarthy daughters of Cadmus: Auson. Epigr. But the truth is, they did but borrow them from the Hebrews, as all other Nations did; though perhaps by adding some few, or varying and altering their form and character, they seem now to have different Alphabets, Herm. Hugo.

The Librarians of old, who lived by writing books which others had made, were very admirable in handling the pen as appears by ancient manuscripts, which are so neatly and artificially done as if they were printed. Some of the latter age have been excellent in this Mistery. One Francis Alumnus did write the Apo­stles Creed and the first fourteen verses of S ^t John's Gospel, in the compass of a penny, and in full words, which he did in the presence of the Emperour Charles the 5 ^th, and Pope Clement the 7 ^th, as Ge­nebard relates in his Chronologie, and Sim. Maiolus out of him, who had also in his own possession such a miracle (as he calls it) or the very same I believe, Nos domi idem miraculum servamus, these are [Page 50] his words in his 23 ^d Colloquy. Pliny hath a parallel example of one (whom he doth not name) that wrote all the Iliad of Ho­mer in a piece of Parchment that was so little, that it was conteined in a Nutshel. Cicero and others mention the same, though Lancelotti puts it among his Far­falloni, and reckons it for one of the po­pular errors of Pliny.

I read of one Thomas Sweicker, a Dutchman, who being born without hands and arms, could write with his feet, and that elegantly; he could also make his pen with his feet, and many other feats, which I finde expressed in these verses.

The Duke of Saxony doth keep some Copies of his Writing among his [...], or Rarities, as Fel. Platerus relates in his observations. There was a woman in this Kingdom of late years that could write with her feet, and do many other things to the wonder of the beholders, and went about the Kingdom.

Besides the common way of Writing, there are some misteries and secret ways, and that either by abbreviation, setting a letter for a word, and a word for a sen­tence for brevity sake, as the Hebrews and Romans anciently used to do; or else by using different characters from the common and vulgar ones, such as none can read or understand but the author or deviser of them, and such as he is pleased to impart the mysterie to, and give him a key to decipher and open the secret by; which sort of characters the Ancients used to call Furtivas notas, and Sifras, and Ziglas, and the Art it self Ziglography and Brachygraphy, it is very useful for two respects,

• [Page 52]1. For haste and brevity.
• 2. For privacy and secrecy.

1. For brevity and expedition; it is a good way to take a speech or a sermon, or any thing else that is dictated, as fast as it is spoken; hereby the Notaries hand will keep pace with the speakers tongue, and out-strip it too;

This is scribere [...], as Cicero Ep. 13. l. 5. l. 5. ad Atticum. Dion ascribes the invention to Mecoenas,

He first found (saith he) these Abbrevia­tures and compendious way of Writing for expeditions sake.

2. This Ziglography is useful for se­crecy or privacy ad elusionem examinis; for hereby a man may carry a letter open in his hand, and understand never a word [Page 53] of it; and they that make no Religion of opening letters, finde themselves de­luded; which is of good use in time of war, and at other times against paper­pyrats that lie in wait for such poor boo­ties; Quod ad te de decem legatis scripsi, parum intellexti credo, quia [...] scripseram, saith Cicero to his friend At­ticus, who did not understand all the letter that Cicero had written unto him, because he had written part of it in cha­racters.

Julius Caesar had found out such a de­vice for secrecie, sic structo litterarum or­dine ut nullum verbum effici posset, he did so tumble, invert, and transpose the Al­phabet in his writing, that no man could pick any sense out of it; and this he de­vised when he began to think of the Ro­man Monarchy, and was by him used but to private and tryed friends that were his confederates, and privie to his De­signe.

THis is a divine benefit afforded to mankind, De invent. rerum. saith Polydor Virgil; an Art that is second or inferiour to none; (saith Cardan) either for wit or usefulness: it puts down hand-writing for neatness and expedition; for by this, more work is dispatched in one day, then many Li­brarians or book-writers could do in a year.

[Page 63]This Art by multiplying books, hath multiplyed knowledge, and hath brought to our cognizance both persons and acti­ons remote from us, and long before our time, which otherwise had perished in ob­livion, and never come to our ears.

To whom we owe this Invention, we do not certainly know, it is one of the Inventa Adespota, of the masterless In­ventions.

Ancient Worthies were more studious of doing good then ambitious of Fame or praise for so doing. That it is a Dutch invention is agreed upon by most voices.

But whether higher or lower Germany shall have the honour of it, is yet in strife and undecided; and in the upper Ger­many, whether Mentz, or Basil, or Stras­burg; for all these do chalenge it, and do no less contend for the birth place of this mistery, then the Grecians Cities did for the Cradle of Homer. The general voice is for Mentz, and one John Guttemberg [Page 64] Fust (as others term him) a Knight and Citizen of that City to have been the true Father or Inventor of this Art, about the year 1440. as we have heard it boldly affirmed by the Citizens of that City, saith Polydor, l. 2. de Invent. rerum. c. 7. for a testimony hereof they produce a copie of Tully's Offices printed in parch­ment, and preserved in the Library of Ausburg, bearing this memorandum at the latter end of it, Praesens M. Tullii opus clarissimum Jo. Fust Moguntinus Ci­vis, non Atramento plumali Cannâ, ne [...] ▪ aereâ, sed arte quâ dam per pulchrâ manu Petri Gerskeim pueri mei foeliciter effeci, finitum Anno 1440. die 4 ^o mense Feb. This is cited by Salmuth in his Annotations on Pancirollus, who stands stifly for Germa­ny (his own Country) in this point, and cites another argument from the Library of Francfort, wherein an old copie of the decisions of the Rota are kept; at the latter end thereof it is said, that it was printed in Civitate Moguntiae, artis im­pressoriae inventrice & elimatrice primâ.

But Hadrianus Junius a very learned man of the Low Countries, is as stiff on the other side for Haerlem, and thinks to c [...]ry it clearly from the High Dutch, [Page 65] and make the Town of Haerlem the birth place of this Noble Art: You may see what esteem men do make of it, when they do so zealously strive and contend for the original Invention of it. his Junius tells us (in his History of the Ne­therlands) that one Laurence John, a Burger of good Note and Quality of Haerlem, was the first Inventer of it, and saith that he made Letters first of the barks of Trees, which being set and ranked in order, and clapt with their heels upward upon paper, he made the first essay and experiment of this Art: At first he made but a line or two, then whole pages, and then books, but printed on one side only. Which rudiments of the Art Junius saw in that Town.

After this the said Lawrence made Types or characters of Tin, and brought the Art to [...]urther perfection daylie: but one John Faustus (infaustus to him) whom he had employed for a Composi­tor, and who had now learn'd the myste­ry, stole away by night all the Letters and other Utensils belonging to the Trade, and went away with them to Amsterdam first, thence to Collen▪ and lastly to Mentz, where he set up for him­self, [Page 66] and the first fruit and specimen of his Press there, was the Doctrinal of one Alexander Gallus, which he printed Anno Dom. 1440. Thus far Junius from the relations of sundry grave ancient Burgo­masters of Haerlem. Hegenitz a Travel­ler saith, that the house of Lawrence John is yet standing in the Market place of Haerlem, with this Inscription in golden Letters over the door,

So Petrus Scriverius, who calls it pal­ladium praesidium & tutelam Musarum, & omnis Doctrinae. Joseph Scaliger contends that the first Printing was upon wooden Tables, the Letters being cut or carved [Page 67] in them, and he saith, that he had seen Horologium Beatae Mariae (to wit) our La­dies hours done upon Parchment after such a manner, in his answer against Shci­oppus, called Confutatio Fabulae Burdo­manae. Yet let not the Germans or any others be too proud of this Invention, for the Chinois had such an art long before the Europeans saw or heard any thing of it, as it is affirmed by Parus Maffeus, and sundry others of his fellow-Jesuites that have travelled that Country. One Nicol. Trigault that had been of late years in that Country affirms, that that Nation had this art above 500 years since. But their Printing and ours do very much differ from one another, for they do not print by composing of Letters, but as we use for Maps and such pieces, they make for every leaf a board or table with cha­racters on both sides, which is more la­borious, and less neat then the European way, as Gonsalvo Mendoza a Spanish Frier and others do affirm of it. Now if our Printing surpass for neatness and expedi­tion. and is so far different from that of the Chinois as is before alledged, it is a signe that the Germans did not borrow from them this art; so that the praise and [Page 68] commendation of this Invention remains to them whole and entire without dimi­nution.

Mrs. Joan Elizabeth Weston, one of the Muses of England, hath composed a La­tine Poem (among sundry others of her compositions) in the praise of this art, which is indeed the preserver of all other arts.

AS Printing it self is praise worthy, so some Print-houses deserve here to be remembred, especially that of Chri­stopher Plantin at Antwerp, which a Tra­veller doth not stick to call Octavum orbis miraculum, the eighth wonder of the world. He describes it thus. Over the Gate is Plantine's own Statue, made of Freeze-stone, and of Moret his Son in Law, and Successor in the Office, and also of Justus Lipsius with his Motto,

Here are twelve Presses, and near upon an hundred sorts of Characters: two sorts of Syriac, ten of Hebrew, nine of Greek, forty seven of Latine, and the rest of several other Languages, with Musical characters of sundry sorts, and [Page 69] admirable brass cuts for Frontispieces of books. Here that excellent work called the King of Spain's Bible was done.

The first Printing Press in England was set up in Westminster Abby by Simon Islip Anno 1471. and William Caxton was the first that practised it there, as Stowe in his Survey of London affirms.

PAinting comes near an Artificial Mi­racle, Of Archi­tecture. Elinguis umbrarum & lumi­num elo­quentia; muta line­ [...]rum po­esis. saith Sir Henry Wotton, to make divers distinct eminences appear upon a Flat by force of shaddows, and yet the shaddows themselves not to ap­pear, is the uttermost value and ver­tue of a Painter, saith that Learned Knight.

—miror

This is a lawfull dissembling or coun­terfeiting of natural things; it is a witty [Page 71] and subtile Art, it gives life (in a manner) to the dead; by this wee see those that have lived many ages before us in their true and proper colours, and reade not onely the shape and stature of their Bo­dies but their Attire, Habiliments and Fashions, which no relation of History can so well represent unto us or inform us of. By this wee see our absent Friends, and call to minde what is farr out of sight. By this Apelles shewed to King Ptolomy the servant that brought him to the Kings Dining-Chamber, by drawing his picture on a wall w ^th a coal, when hee could not finde his person. By this, antient Histories are acted (in a dumb shew before us, and every real be­comes a book; wherein the most igno­rant man can reade something, and un­derstand by the pencil what he cannot by the pen. S ^t Gregory spoke right enough in this: quod legentibus Scriptura, haec Idi­otis pictura praestat cernentibus; quia in ipsa etiam ignorantes vident, q [...]od sequi de­beant, in ipsa legunt qui litter as nesciunt.

And because the eye is a better infor­mer than the ear, and conveighs things more effectually to the minde, and im­prints them deeper; therefore some vi­sible [Page 72] Representations are as usefull for our instruction as those things that wee take in at the ear. Upon this considera­tion, that excellent Emblem of Mortali­ty called Chorea Mortuorum, or Deaths­dance, that was pourtrayed on the wall of a Church in the Town of Basil in Germany being decayed with time, Hentzneri Itinera­rium. was thought fit (by the Aedills or publique Surveyors of that City) to be renewed; ut qui vocalis picturae divina monita secu­ri audiunt, mutae saltem Poëseos miserabi­li. spectaculo, ad seriam Philosophiam ex­citentur, as the new Inscription there speaks.

This Art had but rude beginnings, as all others had; the shaddows of men projected upon the ground or the wall, gave it birth; whence p [...]ctures are term­ed shaddows, which very name betrayes their original. A Coal was at first both the pencil and the colour, and a white wall was their table and canvas.

Pictorum Calami carbones, maenia Chartae.

From one colour they rose to ten; they have decem palmarios colores, as Bul­linger saith; ten colours of principal [Page 73] note, besides others. Painters (of old) were desired to set a name on every thing they drew, that men might know what they meant.

Thus it was, when this Art was yet [...] (as Aelian speaks) in its swathes and cradle. At first they pour­trayed but the bare Lineaments and na­tural Representations of things in one solemn posture and scheme called [...], and Aristides the Theban was the first, qui animum pinxit & sensus, saith Pliny; that added the Ethick part of Painting, and expressed the passions with his pencil; that made his mute ta­bles to laugh or weep, smile or frown, as the drift of his fancie suggested unto him.

Apelles brought this Art to perfection, as the same Pliny affirms; for hee sur­passed omnes priùs genitos, l. 35. Hist. Nat. c. 10. futurosque posteà, as hee saith; all that went before him or ever should come after him. He painted things that could not be painted, as Lightening and Thunders, as Pliny re­lates of him, l. 3. 6. 10. Paint mee a voice (saith the Angel in Esdras, and call back yesterday; intimating both to be impossible. His Master-piece was the [Page 74] picture of Venus rising out of the Sea, and wringing the water out of her di­sheveled hair. This was called [...], whereof Ovid makes mention, l. 4. de Pont [...].

When this Apelles came to Rhodes, where Protogenes (another famous Pain­ter) lived, he went to his house, and not finding him within, he drew with a pen­cil a streight line, very small and slender, and left it as a challenge, and went his way. Protogenes coming home and find­ing this line, did guess that Apelles had been there, and thereupon drew another line through the very midst of that line of Apelles with a different colour, which was (in effect) an answer to the chal­lenge; Apelles returning again to Proto­genes his shop, and finding a line most artificially drawn through the midst of his, took the pencil and drew a third line in a different colour, from the two former, nullum relinquens amplius sub­tilitati locum (saith my Author) leaving [Page 75] no room for further art or subtilty, and so was Victor in this invention.

However, Protogenes was esteemed nothing inferior to Apelles, whom Petro­nius mentions; Protogenis Rudimenta cum ipsius naturae veritate certantia, non sine quodam horrore tractavi, saith Pe­tronius Arbiter.

There is a pretty story in the same Pliny to this purpose, touching Zeuxes and Parrhasius, two famous Artizans and Masters of the Pencil in their times: for Quintilian calls this Parrhasius the Legislator among the Painters, that is, one that gave Law to all others in this Art, l. C. 12. C. 10. Zeuxes for his Master­piece hung forth a Table wherein he had drawn a Boy carrying Grapes in his hand, which were so lively done, that the Birds flew to the Table to peck at the Grapes: But Parrhasius painted a Cur­tain upon a Tablet so artificially, that Zeuxes thinking it had been a Curtain indeed, stretcht his hand to draw the Curtain aside, that he might see the pi­cture which he thought to be behinde it; at which error he was so abashed, that he yielded the best to Parrhasius, adding this ingenuous confession, That Zeuxes [Page 76] his piece had deceived but silly Birds, but that of Parrhasius deceived an Ar­tist.

The same Zeuxes painted an Old Woman so lively and so deformed, that he died with extream laughter at the spectacle and his own ridiculous fancy and conceit therein, as Quercetan reports in his Diaetat. Polyhist.

Pliny makes mention of some Wo­men painters; and of one Lala a Vir­gin of Cyzicum, that drew her own pi­cture by a Glass: and Mountaigue in his Essaies speaks of a picture which he had seen at Barleduc that Ren King of Sicily had made of himself and presented to the French King Francis the Second.

It is a pretty Art, that in a pleated paper, and table furrowed or indented, men make one picture to represent seve­ral faces; as one I have seen, that look­ing from one place or standing, represen­ted Edward the Sixth; from another, Queen Elizabeth; and from a third place, King James. Another I read of, that being viewed from one place, did shew the head of a Spaniard, and from another the head of an Ass. This was the conceit of a Frenchmen (I [Page 77] believe) who can neither speak well nor think well of a Spaniard.

One of the late Chancellours of France had in his cabinet a picture w ^ch presented to the common beholder a multitude of little faces, which were the famous An­cestors of that noble man; but if one did look on the said picture through a Perspective, there appeared onely the single pourtraicture of the Chancellour himself: the Painter thereby intimating, that in him alone were contracted all the vertues of his Progenitors. So the in­genious translator of Pastor Fido in his Epistle Dedicatory relates. Mr. Fan­shaw.

Painting in Oyle is a modern Inven­tion, which was wanting to the full com­plement and perfection of this Art; for hereby Colours are kept fresh and lively from fading, and pictures are made to bear against the injuries of time, air, and age; when their Prototypes and originals cannot, notwithstanding all the Fucusses and decorations and Adulteries of Art among our Women-painters, who can never repair the decayes of nature with all their boxes and shops of Minerals.

[Page 78]The Art of Sculpture or Engraving in brass (which the French call de taille Douce) is near of kin to this art, and here­in to be preferred before it; for that when a picture in this kinde is finished upon a table of Brass or Copper, or the like mettal, a thousand Copies may be taken of it (by the help of a Rolling-Press) in a few hours space, as in Printing, when one page of a leaf is set and com­posed, that one form will serve to make a thousand more by it, and that in a trice, whereas a picture in colours is not so soon copied out.

But the highest piece of perfection in this art (in my judgement) are those per­spective pieces which do represent Tem­ples, wherein the vulgar eye discerns no­thing upon the Tablet but arched lines and steps, degrees, or ascents; but with a Perspective glass you may see (as it were) the inside of a Temple at ful length with the arched roofs above, & windows on each side: Some Statues cast in brass do shew much wit and art. The brazen Cow of Myron is made famous by the Epigram of Ausonius translated out of Greek, which was so lively done, that Bulls passing by thought to cover her; as [Page 79] the Poet (if he do not over-reach) informs us.

But the chiefest of this art of Foun­dery or Imagery was Lysippus, Plin. l. 35. cap. 8. who did cast one Image of brass so rare and ex­quisite, that Artificers called it the Canon, that is, the rule or standard from whence all Artists must fetch their Draughts, Symmetries, and Proportions, as from the pattern and most absolute Master­piece.

Of late times the Italians and Germans do surpass in these Arts, Michael Angelo Buonarota of Florence, was both an Ar­chitect, a Painter, and a Sculptor.

So one of his countrymen writes of him.

Albertus Durerus of Norimberg was not inferiour to Apelles, as Wimphelingius tells us; Van Dijk a Dutchman was very famous in London, and attained to very great wealth by his art; Paulus Rubeus of Antwerp is vivum Europae miraculum, (if he be yet alive) as an ingenious Tra­veller styles him, whose Table of the Last Judgement was valued at five thou­sand Florins; Tabulae oppidorum opidus emptae; so Pliny of the Curiosities of his time.

The Art of Painting in Glass, which they call Annealing, is very ingenious: when they have layed the colours upon the Glass, they put the Glass into some hot Furnace for fifteen or twenty days to imbibe the colours: This art was known unto the Ancients, as Bullinger is per­swaded, and cites a Distich of Martial for it;

[Page 81] But the Poet means no such matter there, but he speaks of certain cups made of Christal, or some subtiler and finer sort of Glass which cannot brook hot water, as common glasses can, but crack pre­sently when it is poured into them, as appears by his words in another Epigram which give light to this;

The Aegyptians had a device of ma­king pictures in their fine linnen cloth, which was thus; when they had drawn the colours upon the cloth, and those pi­ctures & fancies they thought fit, nothing would be seen upon the cloth until they had cast it into a c [...]uldron of boyling water, wherein certain herbs and juyces had been boiled, and having sokened them there, in a little while they drew them forth with perfect and lively pi­ctures; so Bulenger de Pictura & Statu­aria, lib. 1. c. 12. out of Pliny.

To work pictures not only upon cl [...]th out in cloth, to inlay and incorporate [Page 82] them (as it were) into the very substance and contexture of the Webb, and that so lively, as the Pencil can scarce mend them, as we have seen in Carpets and Chamber-hangings, which is an art no less subtile and ingenious then any of the rest. These are called Picturae textiles by Tully l. 4. contra Verrem, & by Lucret l. 2. By this Art we have Fountains, Gar­dens, and Forrests in our chambers, Roses that never fade, Flowers that look fresh all the year, also Groves and Forrests that are alwaies green, with all manner of Beasts and Birds therein, with chases and Hounds so lively represented, that there wants nothing but noise and sound to make up the Game, as Martiall said of the carved Fishes made by Phidias so lively, that there wanted nothing but water to make them swim.

The Babylonians were the first that taught this art, as Polydor Virgil acquaints us: But the Artificers of Arras in Flanders whence our rich Arras is fetcht, & called Arras-work, are not thought inferiour [Page 83] to any Nation in this Workmanship. I will conclude this chapter with Mosaick work, which the French call Marhuetrie, the Latines Musaeum, and Musivum opus, the Greeks [...], it's a work wrought with stones of divers colours, mettals, marble, glass, and all wrought into the form of knots, flowers, and other devi­ces, wtih that excellency of cunning, that they seem all one stone, and rather the work of nature then art. The Ancients were not ignorant of this Art, see Pliny lib. 36. Nat. Hist. cap. 25. and more co­piously in Bulenger, de Pict. l. 1. c. 8.

The picture of La [...]co and his two sons with the serpents clasping about their middle, according to Virgil's descripti­on in the 2 ^d of the Aeneis, is now in the Popes Palace at Rome, and is esteemed the most absolute piece of Art in the whole world, and which Mich. Angelo (one that could well judge of such things) did not stick to cal artis miraculum, the miracle of art, as Laurent. Schraderus in l. 2. of the monuments of Italy. It is a piece of anti­quity, mentioned by Pliny, laboured by three Rhodian Sculptors, that were the excellentest in their times, as the said Pli­ny hath recorded.

WEE come now ad Vestificin [...] ingenia (as Tertullian speaks) to the Art of Spinning and Weaving; l. de Pall. which, though they be vulgar Occupa­tions, yet are no vulgar Mysteries and inventions, as appears by the various in­struments that are used for both. The former invention, to wit Spinning, is a­scribed to less Deity than Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom: [...] Hes. Ovid calls it

Hee that considers the Wheel, the Wherve, the Spindle, with other Tack­lings and Accoutrements that belong to Spinning, with the fabrick of the Loom and Shuttle, and other instru­ments of Weaving, will confess that it was no vulgar wit that devised and framed them.

In Dantzick in Poland there was set up a rare invention for weaving of 4 or five Webs at a time without any humane help; it was an Automaton or Engine that moved of it self and would work night and day: which invention was supprest, because it would prejudice the poor people of the Town; and the Ar­tificer was made away secretly (as 'tis conceived) as Lancellotti the Italian Ab­bot relates out of the mouth of one M ^r Muller a Polonian that had seen the device.

The first Garments that wee read of, were made of Figg-leaves sowed together, as our first-parents did, Gen. 3. 7. Paul the Hermite (desirous to take the thriftiest way and simplest to live) made him a suit of the leaves of Palm-trees.

Suits of the primitive fashion were made of the skins of Beasts, which men kil­led for food: cùm antea induviae homi­num, erant brutorum exuviae, H [...]urn. l. 1. Spinning is a subordinate Art to Wea­ving, and therein Arachne was excellent in her time, and presumed so much on her skill that shee challenged Pallas her self to a tryal of skill in this Mystery.

[Page 87]As thread is spun and made of wool, silk, hair, hemp, flax and the like: so cloth is weaved and webs are made of these several sorts. The nettle affords a kinde of thread like hemp, whereof Nettle-cloth is made. I have seen cloth made of the innermost bark of a tree; M ^r Purchas makes often mention of the like; Strabo of the Massagetes hath the same: Massagetae vestiuntur li­bris arborum, quòd lanâ careant, Strabo l. 11. Geogr. And Purchas saith farther, That of certain Palm-trees, Velvets, Sattens, Damasks, and Taffita's are made, in the 6 ^th book of his Pilgrimage and description of Africa: which Art the Europaeans are ignorant of, I sup­pose. The Mexicans make cloth of the bark of the Maguei that famous Tree, which bears the Coco which wee call Coker-nut, and which is a Cornu-copia of it self, as [...]u-Bartas describes it.

Monsieur Peyresc, that great storer and preserver of the rarities of Art and Nature, had a kinde of a Pumpion brought from Mecha, that was thready within like silk; and hee had also a little web of cloth that had been made of that thread, which was very good silk, as D ^r Gassendi relates in the life of the said Peyresc. Besides this, there is no Sericum vegetabile, no vegetable silk, as some have supposed; there is no such deli­cate wool as to make silk of, growing upon the leaves or barks of trees, as Virgil sings of the A [...]thiopian and Ca­thaian Forrests.

Whose mistake Pliny hath followed, speaking of the Seres lanificio sylvarum nobiles, &c. in the 6 ^th book of his nat. hist. c. 17. & Indos suae arbores vestiunt: which Authors Lipsius follows in his [Page 89] Commentaries on Tacitus. But, the truth is, that silk is made and spun out of the bowels of a little Grub or worm, which is called the Silk-worm, which feeds upon lettices and the leaves of Mulberries, and no otherwise, as Julius Scaliger learnedly shews in his Exercita­tions against Cardan. Exer. 159. c. 9. and the Seres or people of Cathaia were the first that made use of this Spinners thread, and keemed it and weaved it into a web, from whence it hath the name of Sericum: from them it came first into Europe, tam multiplici opere, tam longin­quo orbe petitur, ut in publico Matrona transluceat, saith the excellent Pliny, who inserts many a moral lesson among his natural observations: so far these thin aery stuffs, this ventus Textilis (as Petronicus calls it, and [...] as Gr. Nazianzen) is fetched, that it may be fit for Ladies; who delight in such diaphanous weares and foreign wares: it was of high esteem in all ages.

[Page 90] saith the divine Bartas. And in another place;

But not growing naturally upon the trees, but spun by the worm that feeds upon them in the forrest.

One Pamphilia of the Isle of Coos was the first that weaved silks: whence Coa vestis properly is used for silk; the first that wore a garment hereof in Eu­rope, was the Emperour Marcus Aure­lius Antoninus. The worm was first brought into Europe in the Emperour Justinians time, by certain Monks that had travelled Cathaia: They brought the eggs only to Constantinople, and then hatched the worms by putting the eggs in warm dung.

The Spiders lawn or web which he hangs upon the hedges, and (sometimes) in our windows, though it affords matter of wonder to the considerate beholder, that shall observe the accurateness and [...]venness of the thread, and the Geometry and regularity of the work in all points, yet it is of no use, except the sight of it hath (perhaps) given a hint to the art [Page 91] of Weaving. Only in the Summer Islands and in some other parts of the West-Indies there are Spiders that (in Sum­mer) spin perfect raw silk, both in sub­stance and colour; the thread so strong that birds are entangled therein. These spiders are bigger than ours, and of rich, orient colours, as Oviedo the Spaniard hath related, and Captain Smith our Countrey-man in his description of those Islands.

The Prophets of old wore garments made of Hair, whence Elias is called vir pilosus, the hairie man, 2 Reg. 1. 8. S ^t John the Baptist had a garment made of Camels hair, Matth. 3. 4. Grograms are made of Goats hair, pulled from off their backs: which kinde of Goats, B [...]bequius reports that he had seen in Asia, whose hair was very fine and gli­stering, not inferior to silk, and hanging to the very ground: they have four horns, saith Seal, Ex. 199. Camelots or Chamlets are made of Camels hair, which is so fine, especially those of Per­sian race, that they may compare with Milesian wool for fineness, as Aelian reports, and the great ones used to wear thereof in those Countries.

[Page 92]Flax and hemp were first drest in Ae­gypt; Fine linnen, with broydered work, and sails, first came from Aegypt, saith the Prophet Ezek. C. 27. V. 7. and the Aegy­ptians are decyphered by this periphrasis in Isaiah, They that work in fine flax, and weave Net-works, Isa. 19. 9. The Aegy­ptian priests did alwaies weave linnen in the Temples, and therefore are termed linigeri; so did the Jewish Priests, their Ephods, Miters, and other Vestures were linnen; and so the Priests of most Na­tions,

The fine linnen so often mentioned by Moses for the holy garments, is made of the Bombase or Cotton that grows in balls upon certain shrubs; which kind of shrub is termed [...], by Theophrast, the Wool-bearing Tree, and [...]. simply, the Tree; whence Linum Xylinum in Tremellius his Translation is still rendred in the English Bible fine linnen; so that the fine linnen vestments of the Priests were made of Bombase, as the learned Salmasius hath observed in his Exercita­tions [Page 93] upon Solinus: so that the wool­bearing Trees in Aethiopia which Virgil speaks of, and the Eriophori arbores in Theophrastus, are not such trees as have a certain wool or dowl upon the outside of them, as the mall-Cotton, but short trees that bear a ball upon the top, preg­ [...]ant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Grecians Gossypium, the Italians Bombagio, and We Bombase.

But I believe that some part of their vesture was also of Flax, Mundissima lini seges indatui & amictui sanctissimis Aegy­ptiorum Sacerdotibus usurpatur, saith A­puleius in Apologia.

Hadrianus Junius a most learned man in his description of the Netherlands, doth highly extol the fine linnen made by the soft hands of the Belgick Nuns in Holland and the Town of Cambray, called from thence Hollands and Cambricks; qua­rum cum nive certat candor, cum sindone tenuitas, cum bysso pretium; so he speaks of them, and calls them Regum & Regi­narum praecipuas delicias; the chiefest delight of Kings and Queens.

There is a certain Shell-fish in the Sea called pinna, that bears a mossie dowl or wool whereof cloth was spun and made, [Page 94] as Tertullian speaks in his book de pallio. Et Arbusta nos vestiunt, & de mari vellera. These are his words; not only Trees af­ford wool, but also the Sea to clothe us withal; this wool or moss is so soft and delicate, that it is nothing inferiour to silk saith Lacerda, and therefore he calls it Byssum marinum, Sea silk, in his notes upon Tertullian, though the true Byssus be lost, and also the Carbasus, whence Carbasinae vestes, insomuch that great Clerks can scarce tell us what they were, but that fine Stuffs were anciently made of them. One Ferdinand Imperatus, a Drugster of Naples, a great storer of exo­tique and domestique Rarities, had some of this Sea-silk both weaved and unwea­ved, and also the Shell-fish that did bear it. Men have found a way not only ar­bores Nere, sed & lapides, not only to spin threads from Trees, as Tertullian speaks of the Seres, but also from stones. There is a stone called Lapis Caristius, and Lapis Cyprius, from the Countries that this stone or mineral is found, to wit Cyprus as Strabo, and mount Caristus in Attica, as Trallianus and Dioscorides report; it is like Allom in colour, and being beaten with a Mallet, it shews like a small hair, [Page 95] therefore called Trichitis, or the hayrie stone by some Greek Authors, & Alumen Plumaceum, or downy Alom, by the Latinists it is also called for the resem­blance of it, villus Salamandrae, Salaman­ders wool: Langii E­pist. Medi­cin. This hair or dowl is spun into thread, and weaved into cloth, and the cloth so made hath this strange property, that being cast into the fire it will not burn, but if it be foul or stained, comes forth more bright and clean out of the flames; it is therefore called also Amian­tus. Ferdinand Imperatus (before men­tioned) had a piece of this cloth much like white silk. Of this hairy stone some made wick for candles that would not consume or burn out: such a candle was made by Callimachus, and hung up in the Temple of Minerva at Athens, as Salma­sius relates in his Plinianae exercitationes:

There was a vegetable of this kinde, a sort of Flax called by the Grecians Asbe­stos and Asbestinos, that had the like pro­perty with the mineral before mention'd, saith the same Salmasius, whereof Pliny makes mention in l. 9. of his History, c. 1 and calls it Indian flax, and linum v [...]vum, quick inconsumptible flax. Solinus makes mention of some sayls made in Crete of [Page 96] this stuff, quae inter ignes valebant (as he saith) that would not take fire, if it hath this property indeed, it is pity to put it to such vulgar use as to serve for sayls, that would better serve at our tables; for if men had table-clothes and napkins of this stuff, they might prefet them before Dia­pers and Damasks, for it would save some cost & no small trouble in washing and drying such houshold implements, it is but throwing them into the fire, and they are presently washed and dryed at once.

Pliny indeed esteemed it equivalent to pearl and precious stone, for it was hard to be found, and difficult to be weaved, for the shortness of it (as he says) the bodies of Kings were used to be wrapt in this kinde of cloth when they were to be burnt, that the ashes might be preserved unmixt, for to be laid up in urns or pitch­ers, as the manner then was.

Pliny saw some Napkins of this sort in his time, and the experiment of their purifying demonstrated. One Podocattar a Cyprian Knight, and who wrote de rebus Gypriis in the year 1566. had both flax and cloth of this sort with him at Venice, and one Thomas Porcacchius hath [Page 97] seen the same in that Knights house, and many others with him, as he relates in his work concerning the Rites of Funerals. Ludovicus Vives also saw a Towel of that kinde at Louaine in Brabant, as he relates in his Commentary upon S ^t Au­gustine de Civitate Dei, l. 21. c. 6.

Baptista Porta saw the same at Venice with a woman of Cyprus, and calls it Secretum optimum, perpulchrum, perutile, a very useful and profitable secret, Nat. Magia, l. 4. c. 25.

As stones and trees have been spun and weaved into cloth, so some mettals may be wrought to that use; Attalic garments were weav'd all of gold & thread, which sort of Vesture the Italians call Veste di Brocato dioro: Such a garment Mary the wife of the Emperour Honorius was bu­ried in; for her Marble Coffin being digged up at Rome in the year 1544. where the foundation of S ^t Peters Church was laid, all her body was found consu­med save the Teeth and a few bones, but her golden apparel was fresh; out of which (being melted) was extracted 36 pounds weight of pure gold, as Aldou­rand relates in the first book of his Mu­saeum Metallicum. The Sidonians made [Page 98] the like kinde of garments, as appears by these verses in Virg. Aen. xi.

S ^t Hierom in one of his Epistle [...], and and Paulus Diaconus do make mention of a sort of wool that was rained down in the year 1119▪ in the Reign of Valentinian and Valens, which fell most about Atre­batum, or the Province of Artois in Flan­ders, which was spun into cloth, and did much enrich the Country thereabouts.

The heavens rained down meat once for the people of Israel, now it rains down clothing; l. 1. de Pro­vid. as there was coelum esca­tile, as Salvian speaks of the admirable Manna, when men did eat Angels food, so here was coelum textile, as I may so term it; the sky affords both food and [...]ayment! Some of this wool in memo­rial of the miracle, is preserved to this day in the chief Church of Arras; to wit, S ^t Maries Church there.

THere is Musick in heaven and Musick on the way thither, in the sphears, as the Pythagoreans affirm: and therefore the soul of man being de­scended from heaven, & passing through those harmonious sphears, doth naturally delight in Harmony: Anima in corpus defert memoriam Musicae, cujus in coelo conscia fuit, saith Macrob. l. 2. in somn. Sci­pionis. Nay, God made the body of man (wherein this musical soul is to so­journ) a kinde of a living Organ or Musical instrument: Life is an harmo­nious Lesson (as one saith) which the soul [Page 103] playes upon the Organs of the body. There is but one pipe to this Organ (to wit) the Weasand; the Lungs are the bellows to make winde, and to inspire this pipe; yet with this one pipe (being variously stopt) we can express a thousand sorts of notes and tunes, and make most ra­vishing musick; for there is no Harmo­ny that is so delightfull and pleasing to man as vocal, or the musick of man's voice.

In imitation of this musical pipe in the throat of man, men devised to make musick with a Syringe or Reed; which being bored with holes, and stopt with the fingers, and inspired with mans breath, was made to yield various and delightfull sounds. This was Pastoral Musick or Shepherds Delight, and was the invention of Pan the God of Shep­herds, and of the Arcadian plains, in those golden dayes.

Whence the Poets have feigned Pan to be in love wit a Syrinx, Ovid. l. 1. Metam. a Nymph of [Page 104] that name, but (in the moral) in love with that Pastoral musick of the Reed then in use. Lucretius doth ascribe the first hint of this Pastoral musick to the whistling of the winds among the reeds, in his 5 ^th book.

In imitation of the Reed, some have made tunefull pipes of the shank-bone of a Crane, which is called Tibia; from whence the pipe is also called Tibia, or a Flute, and he that playes thereon Tibi­cen, a Flutinist. This was called Manu­los (as Pliny testifieth) that is, single or simple Musick, and therefore probably the first; for men naturally do light upon single or simple notions, before mixt or compound, and begin with plain things before they proceed to finer curi­osities; as plain songs were before de­scants and chromati [...] moods.

There were Musical Instruments in the world before Pans time. Jubal the son of Lamech was pater omnium tra­ctantium citharam & organon, as the holy Spirit speaks, Gen. 4. 21. pater, that is, in Hebrew sense, the Author and Inventor of the Harp and Organ, but what kinde of Instruments these were, Moses doth not inform us.

The Aegyptian Mercury was the first [Page 106] Inventor of the Lyre or Harp. Horace calls him curvae lyrae parentem. The Invention was casual, thus: Finding a Tortoise-shell near the Nile-side, to the which some nerves or strings did hang, reaching from the one end to the other; these strings having been dryed by the sun and well stretched, and being acci­dentally touched with the fingers, gave a shrill sound or twang from the hollow of the shell; which gave him (being saga­cious) a hint of framing the Lyre, or (as others say) the Lute. As du-Bartas (for one) who speaking of this Mercury and the Tortoise-shell, sings thus, in his Handicrafts.

Indeed, the Lute doth much resemble the Tortoise-shell, and from that resem­blance [Page 107] it it called Tostudo. So in Propert. lib. 2.

What some have invented, others have perfected: Terpander made a Lyre or Harp of seven strings which before had but three, answerable to these three principal notes of Treble, Mean, and Base,

Simonides added an eighth string, and Timotheus a ninth, and holy David makes mention of a Decachord or ten-stringed Instrument.

Many Instruments have been inven­ted by K. David for to be used in Gods service. But all sorts of these vafa Can­tici, (as Amos calls them, Am. 6. 5.) of these musical Utensils, are divided into [...] & [...] I may express them in English either Mouth-Instruments or hand-Instruments, sounded either with the breath of the mouth or the touch of [Page 108] the hand: Of the first sort, are all Flutes, Pipes, Trumpets, Cornets, Sacbuts, &c. Of the other sort, are the Lute, Harp, Organ, Psaltery, Virginal, &c. All In­struments of Musick were by the La­tines called Organa, Organs. But that which is more especially called by that name, makes a grave solemn Musick like the sober Doric, and hath been very anciently used (with Psalmodies) in Di­vine Service; the Inventor whereof was King David, as some affirm. Since his time, men have proceeded to marvellous Curiosities both in Musick and Musical Instruments. Not many years since, there was a pair of Organs made in Italy that would sound either Drum or Trumpet, or a full quire of men, as the Organist pleased; so that men would think they heard boyes and men distinct­ly sing their parts in Consort, as Leander Alberti (an eye and ear-witness thereof) relates, in his description of Italy.

A Neapolitan Artizan made a pair of Organs all of Alabaster stone, pipes, keyes and jacks, with a loud lusty sound, which he aftrrward bestowed upon the Duke of Mantua, and which Leander Alberti saw in the said Dukes [Page 109] Court, as he relates in his description of Thuscany.

The same Leander saw a pair of Or­gans at Venice made all of Glass, that made a delectable sound. This is men­tioned also by M ^r Morison in his Travels. Pope Sylvester the Second made in his younger years a pair of Organs that should play without an Organist; Genebr. Chron. ad Ann. 997. he used onely warm water to give them motion and sound. Such Hydraulics are frequent in Italy, that are moved with cold water as well as hot.

Gaudentius Merula in his 5 ^th book de mirabilibus mundi makes mention of an Organ in the Church of S ^t Ambrose in Millain, whereof the pipes were some of wood, some of brass, and some of white Lead; which being played upon did ex­press the sound of Cornets, Flutes, Drums and Trumpets with admirable variety and concord.

Many persons can sing very well na­turally, but this natural Musick may be improved by Art, when they are taught to sing by Rules and Notes, and to go­vern their voices by acquired habits; and so there is an Art of Musick, as there is artificial Logick besides the na­tural: [Page 110] but because these natural Singers are but few and scarce,

therefore to supply this defect, some have musical Instruments for harmless pleasure and delight, to appease the cares of life, and for many other laudable and honest uses, which I shall more largely handle in the ensuing Appendix of the Power and efficacy of Musick.

GLass is made of bright shining sand, and the ashes of a weed called Cazal and Zuhit, —Calices vili de pu [...]v [...]re na­ti. Mart. and the Ferne called by the Arabians Kali Alkali, that is Glass-wort.

The invention was casual, and hinted thus, Certain glebes or large pieces of Nitre being brought out of a ship upon the shore, and taking fire by accident, melted the sand round about, so that it [...]an in a liquid transparent stream, as Pli­ [...]y relates l. 36. Nat. Hist. and Josephus [...]1. de bello Judaico; and the Sidonians [...]vere the first that took the hint or docu­ment therefrom; Sidon artifex vitri, Plin. [...]5. This noble liquor (as Pliny calls it) [...] so obsequious and pliant (while it is [Page 134] hot) that it may be spun into thred, and wrought into any form that a man can fancy; nay Art doth here imitate the Creation; for as God made creatures by the breath of his mouth, so the Artist makes glass with a breath, and blows it into what shape and figure he pleaseth. Vitrarius suo spiritu vitrum in habitus plu­rimos format, qui vix diligenti manu [...]f­fingerentur, as a contemplative Philoso­pher observed of old touching this busi­ness, Sen. Epist. 90.

When it is cooled, it will not yeild to the point of any Iron or Steel, but only the Diamond; and the restless Quick­silver, that which pierces through Iron gold, and brass, will not pierce through this. Cups and Vessels made of gl [...]ss are very neat, clean, and wholsome. For they do not impart any ill tast or tincture to any liquor that is conteined in them.

And they were (no doubt) as precious at first in this Hemisphere of the world as now they are in some parts of the I [...]dies; for in the Kingdom of Tydor and other places, they exchange gold fo [...] glasses, as Pigafetta and sundry others d [...] do relate; so much are they taken wit [...] the aery brightness and transparency [...] [Page 135] them: Moreover glass doth not wear with the using: It admits no poyson, but be­ [...]rays it by breaking; any excessive cold or heat breaks it, especially if it be fine, like that of Venice; so Chrystal is impa­ [...]ient of heats, as Pliny tells us, and Mar­tial the Epigrammist in an Epigram we quoted before,

The best of this kinde are made at th [...] Murano, a place within 2 miles of Venice, so that the Venice glasses do bear the bell from all others: Here to make their glas­ses so clear and transparent, and so like Coristal, they dip it (while it is hot) in clean water, whereby it is clarified, and made like the water it self, wherein it is so tincted and seasoned. Though the glass we now use be brittle ware, and ea­sily shattered in pieces, yet there was an Artist in Rome in the Emperour Tiberius his time, that had found a way to make glass malleable and yeilding, and such as [Page 136] would bow rather then break; for the man bringing a glass-phial for a present to the Emperour to shew his art, he threw the Vessel against the stone pavement, with which blow it was not broken, but dented; then taking his hammer he beat in the dent again, to the no small wonder of the spectators, as Dion relates in the 56 ^th of his History, and Suetonius, with others. The man was secretly made a­way, and so the Art was supprest, lest gold should be discountenanc'd and be­come vile, as the same Suetonius adds in the life of that Emperour.

The use of glass is various and mani­fold, not only for making cups & vessels, but also for Looking-glasses, Telescopes, Microscopes, Thermometers, Sphears, Spectacles, Ocularia. or Lunulets, as the French, and Bis-oculi, as my Lord of S ^t Albans calls them; by the help of glasses, weak eyes are strengthned, & old eyes become young and vigorous; small objects are magnified and represented much bigger, things invisible are made visible, & things that are behinde us, brought before us: Yea, what things are done in our neigh­bours houses, and in our enemies tents, are brought to our knowledge without [Page 137] any Mephistophilus or Magick Art. See Baptista Porta his third book of his Na­tural Magick.

Cornelius van Dreble, a Citizen of Alcmar in Holland, and a rare Engineer, who lived in King James his Court here in England (as we mentioned before) in­vented the Vitra Microscopia, the Micro­scopes or glasses whereby we plainly see and discover the subtilest objects and the smallest, as the distinct colours and members of Flies and Worms and Nits, and the spots and small grains in Gemms, as also in Urine or Blood, w ^ch the eye could not otherwise discern. With these the Anatomists (in dissecting of bodies) discover the smallest veins and strings and fibres in the body of man or beast. There are Glasses called Thermosc [...]pi and Thermometers, which being placed in a mans chamber, will discover the disposition and temper of the air, whether it be hot or cold, moist or dry, or inclining to either, invented by one Sanctorius, a Physitian in Padua.

There are also Glasses called Tele­scopes, from their use in discovering things afarr off. invented first by Jaco­bus Meti [...]s of Alomar, as Des Cartes tells [Page 138] mee, and perfected (since) by Gallileo Gallilei the Florentine, whereby they have discovered many new stars in the firmament, which no mortal eyes had noted before, which will represent ob­jects thirty times bigger than their appa­rent quantity, and a hundred times nea­rer than their apparent distance. By these men have discovered not only new stars, but also new worlds in the stars, brought the moon before them to be better surveyed and perused, which they finde to be another America, full of pleasant rivers, hills and dales, and also well in­habited with people (such as they are) viz. Lunatick people. One Telesius a Dane hath (of late) given us a Selenogra­phia or description of the Countries and Provinces there, with their several maps. Cornelius Drebble before-mentioned had a little glass (but of a hands breadth in Diameter) which he called Fabus Opti­cus, wherewith he could distinctly see all the hills and spacious plains in the Lu­nary world, as also all the forrests, cities and buildings there, as D ^r Gassendi relates it in l. 5. written of the life of Peyresc.

There are Burning-glasses, wherewith (like Prometheus) we fetch fire from hea­ven; [Page 139] to wit, that celestial coal the Sun, by gathering his fiery beams into some narrow compass, and uniting them to that strength, that they can set any com­bustible stuff on fire: With such glas­ses Archimedes fired the Roman ships in the Harbour of Syracuse, Mar [...]ell [...]s be­ing General, as Plutarch reports in the life of Marcellus. With the like glasses Proclus (after him) defended Constanti­nople, by firing the ships of Vitalianus, who was beleaguering the town by sea, as Zonaras hath recorded in the life of Anastasius Dicorus. Roger Bacon out Countrey-man, a Vir tam vastae d [...] ­ctrinae, ut Anglia, imo orbis, ca re nihil haberet si­mile aut secundum Voss. de artibus po­pular Artis magnae, l. 10. great Scholar and an acute man, told the Pope, That if he would be at the charge of making certain Burning-glasses after his direction, he would annoy the Turks more than all the Gallies of Italy, or an Army of an hundred thousand men could do, as Gaffarellus and others relate.

Kircher, a great Scholar (now living in Rome) confesseth that he hath busied his head very much about those glasses of Archimedes and Proclus, and about making the like, but he could never hit upon the experiment; and he saith, that he never saw or heard of any glasses (of [Page 140] late) that would burn above 15 paces di­stance. But Baptista Porta professes a way how to make glasses that would burn and fire things at any distance. And John Dee, an eminent Mathematician of this Na­tion, doth profess (in a preface to a book of his called Monas Hieroglyphica) the Art to make a Glass that should calcine stones and reduce them to impalpable dust: these are magnalia Artis. But these things have been yet but in speculation for ought I finde; not but that very strange and wonderfull things might be done in this kinde and many other waies, if there were any encouragement for Artists, or if any would go to the ex­pence of proving some usefull experi­ments, that are projected and thought feasible by ingenious and rational heads for the publick benefit.

Archimedes, that rare wit of Syracuse, made a Sphear of Glass, which did re­present the perfect order and motions of the Heavenly bodies, which (besides ma­ny others) Claudian makes mention and describes in one of his Epigrams, which is set down before in the 7 ^th Chapter.

But Athanasius Kircher. de Magne­te, l. 1. (whom wee often mentioned) doth affirm, That the [Page 141] Sphear was not all of Glass, but onely the outside of it, that men might the better discern the wheels and motions within; yet Petrus Ramus tells us, that he saw at Paris two Sphears of Glass like those of Archimedes; one brought from the Sicilian, the other from the German spoils.

Marcus Scaurus made an Amphithea­ter of Glass, as Pliny relates in the 36 ^th book cap. 15. But I finde by others that the Pavement was of Marble, and but the middle scene or story of Glass; which Glass was not our com­mon Glass, neither (as I suppose) but ra­ther Obsidian glass, which the same Pliny mentions elsewhere, and is found (or ra­ther was found, for we hear of none now) in Aethiopta, which is very black like jet, and transparent as glass, friable and easy to be wrought with the cheesel; of which sort of glass was the stately Tomb which Ptolomy King of Egypt built at Alexandria for a Monument of Alexander the Great, as Strabo relates: And Herodotus also tells us, l. 17. Geogr. that this na­tural fossil-glass called Obsidian, was wont to be wrought hollow, and placed about dead bodies, as a Case through [Page 142] which they might be seen of the behol­ders. The Specular stone was of this kinde, but that it was brighter and liker to Crystal.

It was (anciently) used for windowes (as Martial shews) to keep out cold.

It ws also used for a defence to some choice fruits, that they might not be nipt in the bud with the cold frosts and Northern windes; but this kinde of Stone is not now extant; Guido Panci­rollus returns it inter non inventa. Tit. 6.

Leander in his description of Italy makes mention of a compleat Galley of Glass that he had seen at Venice, and also a pair of Organs of Glass; to wit, of fusile or common ordinary Glass. M ^r James Howell saw such a Galley at the Murano of late times, as he informs us in his History of Ve­nice.

As Glass is diaphanous, and permits a free passage of species through its bo­dy, as freely as air or water doth, so it is also reflexive, and beats back the said species that fall upon it; if the back side of it be lined with Tinn­foil, [Page 143] that is, the leaf of Tinn, Silver, or or other metal; and thus Looking­glasses are made, whereof there is ma­nifold use, besides what Ladies use them for: for with such kinde of Glasses many strange feats may be performed, so strange, that it hath betrayed some men to a suspicion of Magick and unlaw­full Arts, who have used to shew some representations and apparitions, either in the air or otherwise, when ignorant peo­ple did not understand the Contrivances or art of them.

SAyling was an Invention no less use­full than bold; the Sea is a rough and dangerous Element, yet men have taken the boldness to set their foot upon the back of it, and ride upon the surging billows with a wooden horse: Equo lig­neo vehuntur per vias caeruleas, saith the Comical Plautus. How farr will Art (joyned with courage) carry a man? Illi robur & aes triplex circa pectus erat, &c. That man (saith Horace) had a heart of oak and a breast lined with brass, that did first adventure to confront the winds and waves in a small tottering bark, when [Page 145] at every step he goes, he treads upon his grave.

Which the Author of the book of Wisdome hath expressed thus.

Verily, desire of gain hath devised Ship­ping, and the workman built it by his skill.

But thy Providence, O Father, governs it, for thou hast made a way in the sea and a safe path in the waves.

Shewing that thou caust save from all dangers, yea though a man went to sea with­out Art.

Nevertheless, thou wouldst not that the works of thy wisdome should be idle; and therefore do men commit their lives to a small piece of wood, and passing the rough Sea in a weak vessel, are saved. Wisd. 14. 2, 3, 4, 5.

We shall admire their holdness the more, if we consider what Implements they had in the first ages to sail in, and some people at this time. The Aegyptians used to make boats of Reeds and Bull­rushes, saith Pliny. l. 13. Nat. Hist. and Lucan. l. 4. Phars:

Which kinde of boat or basket Moses was put to swim in, when Pharoah's daughter took him up. The Prophet Esay makes mention of such Utensils, in that Periphrasis of Egypt; Wo to the land shaddowing with wings, that sends Embassa­dors by sea in Bulrushes, Isa. 18. 12. Pa­pyraceis navibus armamentis (que) Nili navi­ga nus, Plin. Nat. Hist. The Indians had the like boats, Indorum rates Scirpeae, at (que) etiam vestes, Herodot. l. 1.

The Brittains of Old had their Naves Vitiles, as Pliny calls them; the Irish and the Natives call them Corraghes, & some Corracles; they were little Vessels of wic­ker, covered w ^th leather, & not much big­ger than a basket, with which they would as proudly bestride the seas as Jason with his Argo. Lucan mentions and de­scribes them thus, l. 4.

They have the like Vessels on the river [...]uphrates to carry commodities to Ba­bylon, [Page 148] and so like to these Brittish ones, that (according to Herodotus his descri­ption of them) a man would think that either the Brittains borrowed the pattern from the Babylonians, or the Ba­bylonians from them: For Herodotus in Clio, that is, the first book of his History, saith, that they had boats made of Osier or Willows of an orbicular for, in fashion of a Buckler, without prow or poop, and covered over on the outside with the hide of a bullock tann'd: In these, be­sides other Countrey-commodities, they used to carry Palm-wines (in tonns) to be sold at Babylon; two men with an oar a piece in their hands guiding the Vessel.

These Vessels were so light, that the owners used to carry them upon their backs to and from the water; the Master would carry his boat by land and the boat would carry it's Master on the wa­ter: As the Arabian Fisher-man useth to do with his Tortoise shell, which is his shallop by sea and his house on the firm land, under which he sleeps; which we have expressed in this Latine Epigram.

This I found expressed (afterwards) by the excellent du-Bartas, and his no less excellent interpreter Sylvester, thus:

Much like these are those which the Aeg­ [...]yptians use (at this day) upon the Nile, [Page 150] which they took upon their backs when they came to the Cataracts and steep falls of that River.

Boterus calls them Naves Plicatiles, De politia illustrium, lib. 4. and which they use in some places of the West-Indies. For in the year 1500, wee reade that there were brought to Roan seven Indians in one small vessel or boat, which was so light that one man could lift it up with his hand, as the same Bote­rus relates.

In some places of the West-Indies they fish with Fagots made of Bulrushes, which they call Balsas; having carried them upon their shoulders to the sea, they cast them in, and then leap upon them▪ & then row into the main sea with small reeds on either side, themselves standing upright like Tritons or Neptunes; and o [...] these Balsas they carry their cords and nets to fish with. Joseph. Acosta, l. 3. c. 15▪

Strabo sailed to Egypt in a small thing like a Basket made of wicker, as himself relates in the seventeenth of his Geogra [...]phy. The Indians have long boats cal­led Canoas, neatly made up of one tre [...] made hollow. In Greenland the Fishe [...]mens boats are made like Weave [...] shuttles, covered outwardly with ski [...] [Page 151] of Seals, and fashioned and strengthened with the bones of the same fishes; which being sewed together with many dou­bles, are so strong, that in foul weather they will shut themselves up in the same secure from the rocks, winde aud wea­ther. Purchas l. 8. of America. These are about 20 foot long, and 2 foot and a half broad, and so swift that no ship is able to keep way with them; and so light, that one man may carry many, and they carry but one oar.

I saw a ship (saith a learned man, and one that spent 40 years in travels, and the onely man that I reade of that out­stript S ^r John Mandevill, who travelled but 33 years (as Balaeus delivers) laden with Arabian Merchandize, which was made up without Iron, but the plancks and ribs weres sewed with cords, and the sutures covered with sweet smelling Ro­sine, which came from the Franckincense tree. The tacklings, sails, and every part of the ship was made of one tree, which bears the Indian Nut. So Petrus Gellius in his description of the Thracian Bos­phorus.

So that pious and Seraphic Poet M ^r George Herbert.

At first, one small tree did serve to make a boat, being made hollow: After this, men stitched large plancks and boards together with Prows and Poops, fit to plow up the liquid plains; then they added Masts and Sails, and gathered the winde in a sheet, for to drive those Hulks on their way. The Tyrians, who were fa­mous Navigators of old, are said to be the first that made such kinde of Ves­sels.

Ovid tells us, that Jason King of Thes­saly was the first contriver of ships;

And that his ships name was Argo, where­with [Page 153] he fetcht the Golden Fleece from Colchos, and which the Astronomers afterwards have stellified or fixed as a Constellation in heaven.

Lucan confirms the same, l. 3.

The Fish called Nautilus, or the Little Mariner, was Navigiorum Arche­typus, the first type or pattern of a Ship; for when he is to swim, he composeth his body and finns into the form of a Galley under sail: from the sight where­of, some (as Pliny conceives) took the first hint of framing a Ship. As from the sight of a Kite flying in the air and turning and steering himself with his tayl (as fishes do in the water) some have devised the stern of a ship, Natura mon­strante in coelo, quod esset opus in pro­fundo, as Pliny l. 10. and Seneca also [Page 154] Epist. 91. Nulla ars intra initium suum steterit: As there is no art but receives addition and perfection by degrees, so hath this: Suet. in Vita. Caligula made a stately Galley of Cedar, with spacious Halls, and cost­ly rooms therein, with gardens also and trees (fresh and green) upon the Decks, like the Pensill gardens of Semiramis; so that it seemed a floating garden, as well as a floating Castle. But Ptolomaeus Philopa­ter outstript him far, who built a Ship (saith my Author) that the like was ne­ver seen before or since; Pancirol. de rebus nuper in­ventis, tit. 38. It was two hun­dred eighty cubits in length, fifty two cubits in height from the bottome to the upper Decks; it had four hundred banks or seats of Rowers, four hundred Mari­ners, and four thousand Rowers, and on the Decks it could contain three thou­sand souldiers; there were also Gardens and Orchards on the top of it, as Plutarch relates in the life of Demetrius.

Thus what was invented at first for necessity, is now improved to Ryot and Luxury.

The Ancients had a way to drive their ships without Oar or Sayl, so that they could never be wind-bound; Vitruv. they had in their ships three wheels on each side, with [Page 155] eight radii of a span long jetting out from every wheel; six Oxen within did turn this Machin and wheels, which casting the water backward, did move the ship with incredible speed and force; they had in these ships an instrument called Gar­rum, which went with wheels in fashion of a Dyal, which at the end of every hour did let fall a stone into a Bason, and so divided the hours of the day.

There have been Boats made here in England to go under water, which my Lord of S ^t Albans seems to touch, No. Orga­num, l. 2. Audi­mus inventam esse Machinam aliquam Na­viculae aut Scaphae, quae subter aquis vehere possit ad spatia non nulla: We are not now content to sail upon the waters, but we must sail under them too.

I know not whether Julius Scaliger was a braggard or no, but he doth confi­dently aver, that he could make a ship that could steer her self as easily as kiss his hand (as we say) Naviculam sponte sua mobilem ac sui remigii authorem faciam nullo negotio; and to frame a flying Dove like that of Archyt [...]s velfacillimè profiteri audeo, saith the same great Scholar, Exer. 326.

In a Naumachia or representation of a [Page 156] Naval fight in the time of Claudius Cae­sar, a Triton (or Sea god) sprung up in the midst of the Lake, sounding aloud with a silver Trumpet, Suet. in vit. Clau­dii. Juvenal makes mention of earthen boats to sail with, used also in Aegypt; for speaking of the deadly feud and fighting between the Towns of Ombos and Tentyra about their gods, he speaks thus, Sat. 15.

WHile I look back upon the title of the Book, which is Historia Naturae subactae, The History of Na­ture subdued and brought under the power of man; I conceive this ensuing Chapter will be no digression or seem impertinent, but will prove pertinent e­nough to the scope and design of the work. In this Theater of mans wit, it will not (a little) illustrate the power of it, if we bring wilde Beasts upon the stage, to shew that the most savage crea­tures have been managed by mans wit and made docile and tractable for all services and emploiments.

The Spirit of God hath spoke it; [Page 165] That every kinde of Beasts and of Birds, and of Serpents, and things in the sea is tamed and hath been tamed of mankinde, Jam. 3. 7. I shall verifie and confirm this position of the Apostle by Exam­ples of several kindes.

1. For BEASTS; l. 2. de Ira Aspice Elephan torum colla jugo submissa, saith Seneca; behold the Elephant, W ^ch is the strongest and biggest beast in the Forrest, yet this hath been tamed and managed and made serviceable for all the offices both of Peace and Warr. It hath been taught to draw and carry; some ride him for the Warrs; some yoke him for the plough; & some make him to draw their Coach, as the Emperour Gordian had some to draw his, as Julius Capitolinus reports of him. Many stories (that seem incredi­ble) of the Officiousness and Docileness of this creature, you may reade amassed together (out of several Authors) by Lipsius in one of his Epistles ad Germa­nos.

The Lion himself, whom some term the King of Beasts, hath been (by the dexterity of mans wit) made tractable and officious for many Menial Offices. Mark Anthony had Lions to draw his [Page 166] Triumphal Chariot, as Pliny reports. Primus Romae Leones ad Currum junxit M. Antonius, non sine quodam ostento tem­porum, generosos spiritus jugum subire illo prodigio significante, Pl. l. 8. c. 16. Hanno the Carthaginian had a Lion so tame and familiar, that he could either ride him or lead him with any carriage for to bring it to Market, as Plin lib. 8. Nat. Hist. cap. 16. and Maximus Tyrius serm. 32. do relate. But this cost him a Banishment; for the jealous Carthaginians began to fear that he m [...]ght soon put the reins in their mouths and ride them too, that had done so by a Lion. It is no Poetical fable (perhaps) that Tygers drew the Coach of Bacchus, which Silius Italicus makes mention of.

For that Monster Heliogabalus had Lions and Tygers (at once) to draw his Coach, as Lampridius relates in his life.

Martial, lib. 8. Epist. 26. mentions the same in Domitians time.

And that the fierce Bysons were taught to draw the Chariot; and also Stags at their publick shews, is affirmed by the same Poet. As I have seen in England by Walton upon Thames 4 Stags drawing a small Coach; and it is no poetical fiction that Stags drew the Coach of Diana, as Claudian the Poet sings of her.

Fabricius Veiento, when he was Praetor of Rome, brought into the Cirque a Chariot drawn by Dogs, as Lipsius tells me in his notes upon Tacitus: nay, Estridges have been taught to draw in a Coach by the Emperour Firmus, as Tex­tor reports in his Officina.

The Count of Stolberg in Germany [Page 168] had a Deer which he bestowed on the Emperour Maximilian the Second, that would receive a rider on his back, and a bridle in his mouth, and would run a race with the fleetest horses that came in the field, and out-strip them too, as Michael Neander relates, Physic. part. 1. Martial, l. 13. Epigr. 96. makes mention of a Deer used to the bridle.

Sir Hierom Bowes at his return from Muscovia (where he had been Embassa­dor) brought over certain Does of admi­rable swiftness, of the nature of the Rangifer, which being yoked and coupled together in a Coach, would carry one man with great speed, as Cambden in the Annals of Q. Elizabeth relates, part. 3.

The King of Cambaia hath tame Pan­thers, Lions & Leopards, which he useth as hunting dogs or Grey-hounds to hunt Deer and Wilde boars withall, as Aelian reports, l. 17. variar. hist. and Scaliger, Excer. 189. At Prague, in the King of Bo­hemia's Pa [...]ace, M ^r Morison saw two tame [Page 169] Leopards that would (either of them) at a call leap behinde the Huntsman, when he went abroad a hunting, and sit like a Dog on the hinder part of the horse, and would soon dispatch a Hart.

These Examples shew forth the excel­lency of mans spirit, which (by a dis­creet managery) can reduce those crea­tures (that have revolted from their Ho­mage to their natural liege Lord and Soveraign, Man) to their primitive obe­dience, which they did once voluntarily and freely pay unto him before the fall of Adam, and before the first man revol­ted (by sin) from his maker; and we may see hereby that saying of Xenophon veri­fied, [...], it is farr easier taming & managing any crea­ture than man; and that of Seneca, Est nullum animal homine morosius, aut majore arte tractandum; there is no crea­ture so wayward and fierce and untra­ctable as man.

2. For Serpents, that have been tamed by man (as the Apostle mentions) wee may vouch Strabo for a tame Croco­dile in Aegypt in the Lake of Myris: and Seneca for a tame Dragon that took meat from the hand of Tiberius; he mentions [Page 170] elsewhere, repentes inter pocula sinus (que) innoxi [...]olapsu Dracones, l. 2. de Ira. Dra­gons that crept upon mens tables among their cups, and harmlesly along their bo­somes: and the four-legged Serpents in Cairo were tame and harmless, that wee spake of before in the Chapter of Mu­sick.

3. For Birds and wilde Fowle, we may instance in the Estridges, that were put to draw a Coach; in Eagles, that are trained in Turky like Hawks to fly at any fowl; Exer. 232. in the Crow, that Scaliger saw in the French Kings Court, that was taught to flye at Partridges, or any other fowl, from the Falconers fist; and lastly, in Wilde- Ducks, that are tamed and made Decoyes, to intice and betray their fel­lows, which is commonly known.

4. Then fourthly, for things in the Sea that have been tamed, we may in­stance in a fish called the Manati, or Sea-Cow, well known about Hispaniola and other places of the West-Indies; it hath the form of a Cow, and hath four feet, and comes often to land to eat grass: Peter Martyr in his Decads speaks of an Indian Cacique or Lord of the Coun­trey that had one of these tame Cows, [Page 171] that would eat meat out of his hands, and was as sportfull as an Ape, & would carry his sons and servants (sometimes ten of them at a time) on his back, and waft them over a great Lake from one shore to another. We may instance al­so in the Sea-Horse that hath been ta­med, and made tractable to carry men on his back, as Leo Afer reports of one he had seen, in his History of Africa; and in the Fish called Reversus, by whose help and admirable industry, the Indians used to catch Fish in the Sea, as Bodin relates in the third book of his Theatrum Natu­rae: He is let loose at the prey, as the Greyhound from the slip, as Purchas saith; and Peter Martyr hath the like sto­ry of it in his Decads: Pliny speaks the same of Dolphins, which he had seen (in some places) to be used for to catch Fish, and to bring them to shore, and upon receiving some part of the prey, to go their ways; and if they failed in some point of service, they suffered themselves patiently to be corrected, as Setting-Dogs, and Qua-Ducks, or Decoy Ducks (as we commonly call them) use to be. This same is affirmed of the Dolphins by Oppianus a learned Writer, in his [Page 172] Halieuticks. Otters have been tamed, and taught to drive Fish into the Net, as Dogs use to drive cattle into the Fold, as Cardan relates.

But this is not all, wilde beasts and birds have been tamed not only for the service, but also for the pleasure and pa­stime of man: As man hath learn'd some Arts from them, so they have learn'd some from man: Camels have been taught to dance, as the African Leo hath seen in his Country. Elephants have also been taught the same; and not only on the earth, but also in the air, ambulare per funem, to dance upon the Ropes: Seneca is my Author for it, Epist. 85. The manner of teaching them to dance is thus, Sands Travels. They bring some young Elephant or Camel upon a floor of earth, that hath been heated underneath, and they play on a Cittern or Tabor, while the poor beast lifts up his stumps from the hot floor very often, more by reason of the heat then any lust to dance; and this they practise so often, until the beast hath got such a habit of it, that when ever he hears any Musique he falls a dancing. Bubsequius saw a dancing Elephant in Constantinople, and the same Elephant [Page 173] playing at ball, tossing it to another man with his Trunk, and receiving it back a­gain.

Michael Neander saw in Germany a bear brought from Poland, that would play upon the Tabor, and dance some measures, yea dance within the compass of a round Cap, which he would after­wards hold up in his paw to the Specta­tors, to receive money (or some other boon) for his pains. There was a dance of Horses presented at the marriage of the Duke of Florence, which Sir Kenelm Digby mentions. Treatise [...] Bodies. An Asse hath not so dull a soul as some suppose; for Leo A­fer saw one in Africa that could vie feats with Bankes his Horse, that rare Master of the Caballistick Art, whose memory is not forgotten in England.

The Sybarites (a people of Italy being given to delicacies) had taught some Horses to dance; The Crotonians hear­ing thereof, and preparing War against them for some former quarrel, brought with them some Flutes and Flutinists to the War, who had direction to pipe it as loud as they could, when the Sybarites were ready to charge with their Horse; whereupon the Sybarites Horses, instead [Page 174] of rushing upon the Enemy, fell a dan­cing, and so gave the victory to the Ene­mies thereby, as three grave Authors have recorded, Diod. Sic. l. 12. Ael. l. 16. c. 23. Plin. l. 8. C. 42.

A Baboon was seen to play upon the Guitta [...]; Baltasar Castilione de Aulico. and a Monky in the King of Spain's Court was very skilful at Chess­play. Some birds have been taught to speak mans language, and to utter whole sentences of Greek and Latine articu­lately; There were seen in Rome Stares, Pyes, and Crows, that could do this to the admiration of all men. Cardinal Ascanio had a Parrot, that could repeat the Apostles Creed verbatim in Latine; and in the Court of Spain there was one that could sing the Gam [...] ut perfectly; and if he was out, he would say, No va bueno, That is not well; but when he was right he would say, Bueno va, Now it is well; as John Barnes an English Frier relates in a most learned Book of his, De Aequivo­catione. What witty feats and tricks Dogs have been taught to do, are so well known, that I may spare instances of this kind. Many of these examples that I have produced to make good the Title of this Chapter, and the Apostles saying [Page 175] above-mentioned, are briefly sum'd up by Martial in his Book of Shows, the 105 ^th Epigr. which I have here annexed, with the Translation of M. Hen. Vaughan Silurist, whose excellent Poems are pub­lique.

Elephants (which are the most docile creatures of all others, and come nearest in sense to man) are taught to understand the language of the Countrey, and to perform all duties by the sole command of their riders. Horses and Mules un­derstand Carters language, who with their tearms of Art, as Gee and Ree, and the like, will make them go or stop, turn on the right hand or on the left, as they please. Clandian observed this pretty [Page 177] discipline in French Mules, which he thought worthy of a cast of his pen.

In France and Italy where they plow with Horses, one man serves to hold the [Page 178] plough, and drive the horses too: Dogs have been trained up for the Wars by the ancient Brittons and Gauls, as Strabo and Cambden relate; so have Bull [...], and Boars, and Lyons, as appears by Lucret. lib. 5.

Which instances have verified that Embleme and Motto of one of the Ger­man Emperours, which was, a Lion in a chain with this word, Ars vincit Natu­ram: and that of the Greek Poet,

And this of another cited by Grotius [...] his Annotations on his excellent Trac [...] de veritate Religionis.

Una ratio omnes omnium animantium vires potestate in se continet. Plut. de Fort. Romanorum.

A summo opifice cunct a animalia serva facta sunt animanti ratione utenti. Orig. contra Celsum, l. 4.

AS Nature hath her ludicra, so Art hath hers too; that is, some pretty knacks that are made, not so much for use, as to shew subtilty of Wit, being made de Gaiete de Ceur, and for pastime as it were; yet the workmanship and elegan­cy of these may justly deserve admirati­on; and I may say of them as Virgil said of his Poem concerning Bees, In tenui labor est, l. 4. C cor. l. 8. de Var. c. 43. at tenuis non gloria: and we may further say of Artificial things, as Cardan spake of Natural things, Non minori mi­raculo in parvis ludit Natura (ludit Ars) quam in magnis: Art (as well as Nature) is never more wonderful then in smaller pi [...]ces.

[Page 181]Saint Augustine saith, That he did not know whether to wonder at more, the tooth of an Elephant, or that of a Teredo or Moth, which eats not only cloth, but consumes posts and pillars, whose tooth is so far from being seen, that the whole body of it is scarce visible. Some ex­amples and instances of this kinde, which I have casually lighted upon in tumbling over books, I have thought fit to annex to this former Rapsody.

One Callicrates a Stone cutter of Sparta, made Ants of Ivory, with all their limbs, so small, that the eye could scarce discern them. Myrmecides the Milesian made a Chariot of Ivory, with Horses and Charioteer in so small a compass, that a Fly could cover them with her wings: He made also a ship w [...]th all her tacklings, that a Bee could hide it, Pl. l. 7. c. 21. & l. 36. c. 5. And Aelian l. 1. var. hist. c. 52. are my Authors.

Ovid speaks of the admirable chains & nets which Vulcan made to apprehend [Page 182] Mars in conjunction with his Venus, which were so fine and subtile,

That the wanton Lovers could not see them till they felt them: Ovid describes them thus, l. 4. Metam.

A VVaggon and Oxen made of glass that might be hidden under a Fly, are mentioned by Cardan, l. 10. var. c. 52.

Leander Alberti in his description of Italy, makes mention of a Lock very neatly and artificially made of VVood, without any Iron in it.

But one Mark Scaliot a Black smith and Citizen of London, for proof of his skill [Page 183] and workmanship, made one hanging lock of Iron, Steel and Brass, of eleven several pieces, and a pipe key, all clean wrought, which weighed but one grain of gold, which is but one wheat corn. He also made at the same time a chain of gold of 43. linkes, to which chain the lock and key being fastened and put about a fleas neck, she drew the same with easo: all which lock and key, chain and flea weighed but one grain and a half: A thing most incredible to believe, but that I my self have seen it, saith M. John Stow, in the Annals of Q. Elizabeth.

Scaliger makes mention of a flea that he had seen with a gold chain about her neck and kept daintily in a box; Exerc. 136. which for her food did suck her mistresses white hand. Leo Afer saw the like flea and chain in Memphis or Grand Cairo, and the Artifi­cer l. 8. Hist. Afric. that made the chain had a suit of cloth of gold bestowed upon him by the Sol­dan after the manner of that Country.

Hadr. Junius saw at Mech in in Bra­bant, a cherry stone cut in the form of a basket, wherein were fourteen pair of d [...]ce distinct, each with their spots and number easily to be discerned with a good eye. l. [...]. Animadvers.

[Page 184] Galen makes mention of a pretious stone enchased in a ring, l. 17. De usu pan­tium. wherein was the picture of Phaeton, most accurately cut, d [...]iving the chariot of the Sun, and being not able to rule his fiery Steeds, tumbling headlong into the River Eridanus (or the Poe) The world being all set on a flame, according to Ovid's description, l. 3. Metam.

George Whitehead whom we mentioned before, made a Ship with all her tacklings to move of its self on a table, with rowers plying the Oars, a woman playing on the Lute, and a little whelp crying on the deck. Schottus in Itinera Italiae.

G [...]fferellus a Frenchman makes menti­on of a clock that he had seen at Legorn, made by a German (for these Germans are said to have their wits at their fingers ends) on which clock a company of shep­herds playd upon the bagpipes, with rare harmony and motion of the fingers, while others danced by couples, keeping time and measure, and some others caper­ed and leaped. Cap. 6. of Unheard of Curiosities.

Cardan speaks of an Artizan at Lions, that made a chain of Glass that was so light and sl [...]nder that if it fell upon a stone [Page 185] pavement, it would not break, Card. l. 10. Var. c. 5 [...].

Amongst these [...], we may reckon an Iron Spider, mentioned by Walchius in his ninth fable, which was ex­actly made to the form and proportion of a Spider, and was also made to imitate his motions; which I confess was a singu­lar piece of Art, if duly considered. And though these knacks are but little useful, and take up more time then needed to be lost, yet they discover a marvelous pre­gnancy of wit in the Artificers; and may be experimenta lucifera, if not frugifera hints of greater matters; of which Iron Spider I may say as Du Bar [...]as speaks of the Iron Fly made by Johannes Regio­montanus, or John of Regensberg, that rare Mathematician of his time,

[Page 186]A Dutchman presented the Landt­grave of Hessen (not many years since) with a Bear, and Lion of gold, that were hollow within, and each of the length of a man's middle finger, and every part and lineament of them answering truly to the proportion of the length, and both these did not exceed the weight of a French crown; but the Prince gave him three thousand Crowns in reward of his invention: A fair and Princely encou­ragement for ingenious Artists. Claudian hath an Epigram de Quadriga Marmorea, like that of Callicrates (mention'd before) made of Ivory; and it is thus,

John Tredeskin's Ark in Lambeth, can afford many more instances of this na­ture; and so can the Archives of sundry Princes and private persons, who have their Pinacotheca's and Technematophylacia for to preserve all rarities; among others, we finde great mention of Bernard Palu­danus a Physitian of Enchuysen in Hol­land; at the sight of whose rarities a Traveller composed this following Epi­gram ex tempore,

Another you may finde touching this business in Grotius his Poems.