580

Quoth Sidrophel, If you suppose,

575 Sir Knight, that I am one of those, I might suspect, and take th’alarm, Your business is but to inform; But if it be, 'tis ne'er the near, You have a wrong sow by the ear; For I assure

you,

for

my part,
I only deal by rules of art;
Such as are lawful, and judge by
Conclusions of astrology;
But for the devil know nothing by him,

585 But only this, that I defy him.

Quoth he, Whatever others deem ye,
I understand your metonymy ;
Your words of second-hand intention,
When things by wrongful names you mention;

590
The mystic sense of all your terms,
That are indeed but magic charms
To raise the devil, and mean one thing,
And that is down-right conjuring;
And in itself more warrantable

595 Than cheat, or canting to a rabble, Or putting tricks upon

the

moon,
Which by confederacy are done.
Your ancient conjurers were wont
To make her from her sphere dismount,

600
And to their incantation stoop;
They scorn’d to pore through telescope,
Or idly play at bo-peep with her,
To find out cloudy or fair weather,

Which

R 3

605

615

Which

every

almanack can tell,
Perhaps as learncdly and well
As you yourself.---Then, friend, I doubt
You go the farthest way about :
Your modern Indian magician
Makes but a hole in th’ earth to piss in,

610
And straight resolves all questions by 't,
And seldom fails to be i' th' right.
The Rosycrucian way 's more sure
To bring the devil to the lure;
Each of them has a several gin,
To catch intelligences in.
Some by the nose, with fumes, trapan them,
As Dunstan did the devil's grannam;
Others with characters and words
Catch them, as men in nets do birds;

620 And some with symbols, signs, and tricks, Engrav’d in planetary nicks, With their own influences will fetch them Down from their orbs, arrest, and catch them; Make them depose and answer to All questions, ere they let them go. Bumbastus kept a devil's bird Shut in the puinmel of his sword,

That Ver. 618.] St. Dunstan was made Archbishop of Canterbury, anno 961. His skill in the liberal arts and sciences (qualifications much above the genius of the age he lived in) gained him first the name of a Conjurer, and then of a Saint: he is revered as such by the i omanists, who keep a holiday in honour of him, yearly, on the 19th of May.

625

635

That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks.

630
Kelly did all his feats upon
The devil's looking-glass, a stone,
Where playing with him at bo-peep,
He folv'd all problems ne'er so deep.
Agrippa kept a Stygian pug,
l'th' garb and habit of a dog,
That was his tutor, and the cur
Read to th' occult philosopher,
And taught him subt’ly to maintain
All other sciences are vain.

640 To this, quoth Sidrophello, Sir, Agrippa was no conjurer, Nor Paracelsus, no, nor Behmen; Nor was the dog a cacodær in,

But Ver 631.] This Kelly was chief seer, or, as Lilly calls him, Speculator to Dr. Dee; was born at Worcester, and bred an apothecary, and was a good proficient in chemistry, and pretended to have the grand elixir, or philosopher's itone, which Lilly tells us he made, or at leaft received ready-made, from a Friar in Germany, on the confines of the Emperor's dominions. He pretended to see apparitions in a crystal or beryl looking-glass (or a round stone like a cryital). Alasco, Palatine of Poland, Pucel, a learned Florentine, and Prince Rosemberg of Germany, the Emperor's Vicercy in Bohemia, were long of the society with him and Dr. Dee, and often present at their apparitions, as was once the King of Poland himself : but Lilly obferves, that he was so wicked that the angels would not appear to him willingly, nor be obedient to him.

645

655

But a true dog, that would shew tricks
For th’Emperor, and leap o'er sticks;
Would fetch and carry, was more civil
Than other dogs, but yet no devil;
And whatsoe'er he's said to do,
He went the self-fame way we go.

650 As for the Rofycross philofophers, Whom

you

will have to be but sorcerers,
What they pretend to is no more
Than Trismegistus did before,
Pythagoras, old Zoroaster,
And Apollonius their master,
To whom they do confess they owe
All that they do, and all they know.

Quoth Hudibras, Alas! what is ’t tus
Whether 'twas said by Trismegistus,

660 If it be nonsense, false, or mystic, Or not intelligible, or sophistic? "Tis not antiquity, nor author, That makes truth Truth, although Time's daughter ; "Twas he that put her in the pit,' Before he pull'd her out of it; And as he eats his sons, just so He feeds upon his daughters too. Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald Can make a gentleman, scarce a year old,

670

To Ver. 669,670.] Such gentry were Thomas Pury the elder, first a weaver in Gloucetter, then an ignorant folicitor. John Blackston, a poor ihopkeeper of New

castle.

665

675

To be descended of a race
Of ancient kings in a small space,
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic, that we can make old.

Quoth Sidrophel, It is no part
Of prudence to cry down an art,
And what it may perform deny,
Because you understand not why;
(As Averrhois play'd but a mean trick,
To damn our whole art for eccentric)

680
For who knows all that knowledge contains ?
Men dwell not on the tops of mountains,
But on their fides, or rising's seat;
So 'tis with knowledge's vast height.
Do not the histories of all ages
Relate miraculous presages
Of strange turns, in the world's affairs,
Foreseen by astrologers, foothsayers,

Chaldeans,

685

man.

castle. John Birch, formerly a carrier, afterwards colonel. Richard Salway, colonel, formerly a grocer's

Thomas Rainsborough, a skipper of Lynn, colonel and vice-admiral of England. Colonel Thomas Scot, a brewer's clerk. Colonel Philip Skippon, originally a waggoner to Sir Francis Vere. Colonel John Jones, a serving-man. Colonel Barkstead, a pitiful thimble and bodkin goldsmith. Colonel Pride, a foundling and drayman. Colonel Hewson, a one-eyed cobler; and Colonel Harrison, a butcher. These, and hundreds more, affected to be thought gentlemen, and lorded it over persons of the first rank and quality.