Endnotes
Poets are born, not made. ↩
I have raised a memorial more lasting than bronze. ↩
For I have raised a work which neither the rage of Jupiter,
Nor fire, nor iron, nor consuming age can destroy.
↩
They do not easily rise whose virtues are held back by the
straitened circumstances of their home
↩
Dudgeon. Who made the alterations in the last Edition of this poem I know not, but they are certainly sometimes for the worse; and I cannot believe the Author would have changed a word so proper in that place as dudgeon for that of fury, as it is in the last Edition. To take in dudgeon, is inwardly to resent some injury or affront; a sort of grumbling in the gizzard, and what is previous to actual fury. ↩
Bind over to the Sessions as being a Justice of the Peace in his County, as well as Colonel of a Regiment of Foot in the Parliament’s army, and a committeeman. ↩
Montaigne, in his Essays, supposes his cat thought him a fool, for losing his time in playing with her. ↩
Here again is an alteration without any amendment; for the following lines,
And truly, so he was, perhaps,
Not as a proselyte, but for claps,
Are thus changed:
And truly so, perhaps, he was;
’Tis many a pious Christian’s case.
The Heathens had an odd opinion, and have a strange reason why Moses imposed the law of circumcision on the Jews, which, how untrue soever, I will give the learned reader an account of without translation, as I find it in the annotations upon Horace, wrote by my worthy and learned friend Mr. William Baxter, the great restorer of the ancient and promoter of modern learning.
Curtis; quia pellicula imminuti sunt; quia Moses Rex Judaeorum, cujus Legibus reguntur, negligentia ⸻ medicinaliter exsectus est, et ne soles esset notabi omnes circumcidi voluit. Vet. Schol. Vocem ⸻ qua inscitia Librarii exciderat reposuimus ex conjectura, uti et medicinaliter exsectus pro medicinalis effectus quae nihil erant. Quis miretur ejusmodi convicia homini Epicureo atque Pagano excidisse? Jure igitur Henrico Glareano Diaboli Organum videtur. Etiam Satyra Quinta haec habet: Constat omnia miracula certa ratione fieri, de quibus Epicurei prudentissime disputant.
Hor. Sat. 9. Sermon. Lib. i
↩
Analytic is a part of logic, that teaches to decline and construe reason, as grammar does words. ↩
A confusion of languages, such as some of our modern virtuosi used to express themselves in. ↩
Cerberus; a name which poets give a dog with three heads, which they feigned doorkeeper of hell, that caressed the unfortunate souls sent thither, and devoured them that would get out again; yet Hercules tied him up, and made him follow. This dog with three heads denotes the past, the present, and the time to come; which receive, and, as it were, devour all things. Hercules got the better of him, which shows that heroic actions are always victorious over time, because they are present in the memory of posterity. ↩
Demosthenes, who is said to have had a defect in his pronunciation, which he cured by using to speak with little stones in his mouth. ↩
Tycho Brahe was an eminent Danish mathematician. Quer. in Collier’s Dictionary, or elsewhere. ↩
Sceptic. Pyrrho was the chief of the sceptic Philosophers, and was at first, as Apollodorus saith, a painter, then became the hearer of Driso, and at last the disciple of Anaxagoras, whom he followed into India, to see the Gymnosophists. He pretended that men did nothing but by custom; there was neither honesty nor dishonesty, justice nor injustice, good nor evil. He was very solitary, lived to be ninety years old, was highly esteemed in his country, and created chief priest. He lived in the time of Epicurus and Theophrastus, about the 120th Olympiad. His followers were called Phyrrhonians; besides which they were named the Ephecticks and Aphoreticks, but more generally sceptics. This sect made their chiefest good to consist in a sedateness of mind, exempt from all passions; in regulating their opinions, and moderating their passions, which they called Ataxia and Metriopathia; and in suspending their judgment in regard of good and evil, truth or falsehood, which they called Epechi. Sextus Empiricus, who lived in the second century, under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, writ ten books against the mathematicians or astrologers, and three of the Phyrrhonian opinion. The word is derived from the Greek σκέπτομαι, quod est, considerare, speculare. ↩
The old philosophers thought to extract notions out of natural things, as chymists do spirits and essences; and, when they had refined them into the nicest subtleties, gave them as insignificant names as those operators do their extractions: But (as Seneca says) the subtler things are they are but the nearer to nothing. So are all their definitions of things by acts the nearer to nonsense. ↩
Some authors have mistaken truth for a real thing, when it is nothing but a right method of putting those notions or images of things (in the understanding of man) into the same and order that their originals hold in nature, and therefore Aristotle says Unumquodque sicut habet secundum esse, ita se habet secundum veritatem. Met. L. ii. [As everything has a secondary essence, therefore it has a secondary truth] ↩
Some report in Nova Zembla, and Greenland, mens’ words are wont to be frozen in the air, and at the thaw may heard. ↩
Here again is another alteration of three or lines, as I think, for the worse.
Some specific epithets were added to the title of some famous doctors, as Angelicus, Irrefragabilis, Subtilis, [Angelic, Unopposable, Discriminating] etc. Vide Vossi Etymolog. Baillet Jugemens de Scavans, & Possevin’s Apparatus ↩
Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican friar, was born in 1224, and studied at Cologne and Paris. He new-modelled the school divinity, and was therefore called the Angelic Doctor, and Eagle of Divines. The most illustrious persons of his time were ambitious of his friendship, and put a high value on his merits, so that they offered him bishoprics, which he refused with as much ardour as others seek after them. He died in the fiftieth year of his age, and was canonized by Pope John XII. We have his works in eighteen volumes, several times printed.
Johannes Dunscotas was a very learned man, who lived about the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century. The English and Scotch strive which of them shall have the honour of his birth. The English say, he was born in Northumberland: the Scots alledge he was born at Duns, in the Mers, the neighbouring county to Northumberland, and hence was called Dunscotas. Moreri, Buchanan, and other Scotch historians, are of this opinion, and for proof cite his epitaph:
Scotia me genuit, Anglia suscepit,
Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet.
Scotland bore me, England reared me,
France instructed me, Germany kept me.
He died at Cologne, November 8, 1308. In the Supplement to Dr. Cave’s Historia Literaria, he is said to be extraordinary learned in physics, metaphysics, mathematics, and astronomy; that his fame was so great when at Oxford, that 30,000 scholars came thither to hear his lectures: that when at Paris, his arguments and authority carried it for the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin; so that they appointed a festival on that account, and would admit us scholars to degrees but such as were of this mind. He was a great opposer of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine; and, for being a very acute logician, was called Doctor Subtilis; [Discriminating (or, literally, Slender) Teacher] which was the reason also, that an old punster always called him the Lathy Doctor. ↩
Sorbon was the first and most considerable college of the university of Paris, founded in time reign of St. Lewis, by Robert Sorbon, which name is sometimes given to the whole University of Paris, which was founded, about the year 741, by Charlemagne, at the persuasion of the learned Alcuinus, who was one of the first professors there; since which time it has been very famous. This college has been rebuilt with an extraordinary magnificence, at the charge of Cardinal Richlieu, and contains lodgings for thirty-six doctors, who are called the Society of Sorbon. Those which are received among them before they have received their doctor’s degree are only said to be of the Hospitality of Sorbon. Claud. Hemeraus de Acad. Paris. Spondan in Annal. ↩
There is nothing more ridiculous than the various opinions of authors about the seat of Paradise. Sir Walter Raleigh has taken a great deal of pains to collect them, in the beginning of his History of the World; where those, who are unsatisfied, may be fully informed. ↩
Goropius Becanus endeavours to prove that High Dutch was the language that Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise. ↩
Adam and Eve being made, and not conceived and formed in the womb had no navels, as some learned men have supposed, because they had no need of them. ↩
Music is said to be invented by Pythagoras, who first found out the proportion of notes from the sounds of hammers upon an anvil. ↩
Muhammad had a tame dove, that used to pick seeds out of his ear that it might be thought to whisper and inspire him. His ass was so intimate with him, that the Muhammadans believed it carried him to heaven, and stays there with him to bring him back again. ↩
He made a vow never to cut his beard until the Parliament had subdued the King; of which order of fanatic votaries there were many in those times. ↩
Taliacotius was an Italian surgeon, that found out a way to repair lost and decayed noses. This Taliacotius was chief surgeon to the Great Duke of Tuscany, and wrote a treatise, De Curtis Membris, [Of Cutoff Parts] which he dedicates to his great master wherein he not only declares the models of his wonderful operations in restoring of lost members, but gives you cuts of the very instruments and ligatures he made use of therein; from hence our Author (cum poetica licentia) has taken his simile. ↩
Aeneas was the son of Anchises and Venus; a Trojan, who, after long travels, came to Italy, and after the death of his father-in-law, Latinus, was made king of Latium, and reigned three years. His story is too long to insert here, and therefore I refer you to Virgil’s Aeneids. Troy being laid in ashes, he took his aged father Anchises upon his back, and rescued him from his enemies. But being too solicitous for his son and household gods, he lost his wife Creusa; which Mr. Dryden, in his excellent translation, thus expresseth:
Haste my dear father (’tis no time to wait,)
And load my shoulders with a willing freight.
Whate’er befalls, your life shall be my care;
One death, or one deliv’rance, we will share.
My hand shall lead our little son; and you,
My faithful consort, shall our steps pursue.
↩
Who this Arthur was and whether any ever reigned in Britain, has been doubted heretofore, and is by some to this very day. However, the history of him, which makes him one of the nine worthies of the world, is a subject, sufficient for the Poet to be pleasant upon. ↩
The capital city of New Castile, in Spain, with an archbishopric and primacy. It was very famous, amongst other things, for tempering the best metal for swords, as Damascus was, and perhaps may be still. ↩
Oliver Cromwell and Colonel Pride had been both brewers. ↩
Julius Caesar had a horse with feet like a man’s. Utebatur equo insigni; pedibus prope humanis, et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis. [He rode a horse with this distinction; it had feet like a man’s, having the hooves split like toes] —Suet., in Jul. Cap. 61 ↩
Dido, Queen of Carthage, who bought as much land as she could compass with an ox’s hide, which she cut into small thongs, and cheated the owner of so much ground as served her to build Carthage upon. ↩
Aeneas, whom Virgil reports to use a golden bough for a pass to hell; and tailors call that place hell where they put all they steal. ↩
Read the great Geographical Dictionary, under that word. ↩
Talisman is a device to destroy any sort of vermin, by casting their images in metal, in a precise minute, when the stars are perfectly inclined to do them all the mischief they can. This has been experienced by some modern virtuosi upon rats, mice, and fleas, and found (as they affirm) to produce the effect with admirable success.
Raymund Lully interprets cabal, out of the Arabic, to signify Scientia superabundans; which his commentator, Cornelius Agrippa, by over-magnifying, has rendered a very superfluous foppery. ↩
The author of Magia Ademica endeavours to prove the learning of the ancient Magi to be derived from that knowledge which God himself taught Adam in Paradise before the fall. ↩
The intelligible world is a kind of Terra Del Fuego, or Psittacorum Regio [Land of Parrots], etc. discovered only by the philosophers, of which they talk, like parrots, what they do not understand. ↩
No nation in the world is more addicted to this occult philosophy than the wild Irish are, as appears by the whole practice of their lives; of which see Camden in his description of Ireland. ↩
They who would know more of Sir Cornelius Agrippa, here meant, may consult the Great Dictionary. ↩
Anthroposophus is only a compound Greek word, which signifies a man that is wise in the knowledge of men, as is used by some anonymous author to conceal his true name.
Dr. Floud was a sort of an English Rosy-crucian, whose works are extant, and as intelligible as those of Jacob Behmen. ↩
The fraternity of the Rosy-crucians is very like the sect of the ancient Gnostici, who called themselves so from the excellent learning they pretended to, although they were really the most ridiculous sots of mankind.
Vere Adeptus is one that has commenced in their fanatic extravagance. ↩
This Vickars was a man of as great interest and authority in the late Reformation as Pryn or Withers, and as able a poet. He translated Virgil’s Aeneids into as horrible travesty in earnest, as the French Scaroon did in burlesque, and was only outdone in his way by the politic author of Oceana. ↩
This speech is set down as it was delivered by the Knight, in his own words: But since it is below the gravity of heroical poetry to admit of humour, but all men are obliged to speak wisely alike, and too much of so extravagant a folly would become tedious and impertinent, the rest of his harangues have only his sense expressed in other words, unless in some few places, where his own words could not be so well avoided. ↩
Cynarctomachy signifies no thing in the world but a fight between dogs and bears; though both the learned and ignorant agree that in such words very great knowledge is contained: and our Knight, as one, or both, of these, was of the same opinion. ↩
Averruncate: Another of the same kind, which, though it appear ever so learned and profound, means nothing else but the weeding of corn. ↩
The History of the White Elephant and the Monkey’s Tooth, which the Indians adored, is written by Mons. le Blanc. This monkey’s tooth was taken by the Portuguese from those that worshipped it; and though they offered a vast ransom for it, yet the Christians were persuaded by their priests rather to burn it. But as soon as the fire was kindled, all the people present were not able to endure the horrible stink that came from it, as if the fire had been made of the same ingredients with which seamen use to compose that kind of granados which they call stinkards. ↩
Boute-feus is a French word, and therefore it were uncivil to suppose any English person (especially of quality) ignorant of it, or so ill-bred as to need an exposition. ↩
Mamaluke is the name of the militia of the Sultans of Egypt. It signified a servant or soldier. They were commonly captives taken from amongst the Christians, and instructed in military discipline, and did not marry. Their power was great; for besides that the Sultans were chosen out of their body, they disposed of the most important offices of the kingdom. They were formidable about 200 years; ’till at last Selim, Sultan of the Turks, routed them, and killed their Sultan, near Aleppo, 1516, and so put an end to the empire of Mamalukes, which had lasted 267 years.
No question but the rhyme to Mamaluke was meant Sir Samuel Luke, of whom in the preface. ↩
Our English proverbs are not impertinent to this purpose:
He that woos a maid, must seldom come in her sight:
But he that woos a Widow, must woo her day and night.
He that woos a maid, must feign, lie, and flatter:
But he that woos a widow, must down with his breeches, and at her.
This proverb being somewhat immodest, Mr. Ray says he would not have inserted it in his collection, but that he met with it in a little book, entitled the Quakers’ Spiritual Court Proclaimed; written by Nathaniel Smith, student in Physic; wherein the author mentions it as counsel given him by Hilkiah Bedford, an eminent Quaker in London, who would have had him to have married a rich widow, in whose house he lodged. In case he could get her, this Nathaniel Smith had promised Hilkiah a chamber gratis. The whole narrative is worth the reading. ↩
Tullulation and succussation are only Latin words for ambling and trotting; though I believe both were natural amongst the old Romans; since I never read they made use of the trammel or any other art, to pace their horses. ↩
The American Indians call a great bird they have, with a white head, a penguin, which signifies the same thing in the British tongue: from whence (with other words of the same kind) some authors have endeavoured to prove, that the Americans are originally derived from the Britons. ↩
Pharsalia is a city of Thessaly, famous for the battle won by Julius Caesar against Pompey the Great, in the neighbouring plains, in the 607th year of Rome, of which read Lucan’s Pharsalia. ↩
Chiron, a Centaur, son to Saturn and Phillyris, living in the mountains, where, being much given to hunting, he became very knowing in the virtues of plants and one of the most famous physicians of his time. He imparted his skill to Aesculapius and was afterwards Apollo’s governor, until being wounded by Hercules, and desiring to die, Jupiter placed him in heaven, where he forms the sign of Sagittarius or the Archer. ↩
The whole history of this ancient ceremony you may read at large in Dr. Plot’s History of Staffordshire, under the town Tutbury. ↩
For the history of Pegu, read Mandelsa and Olearius’s Travels. ↩
Paris Garden, in Southwark, took its name from the possessor. ↩
Promethean fire. Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, and brother of Atlas, concerning whom the poets have feigned, that having first formed men of the earth and water, he stole fire from heaven to put life into them; and that having thereby displeased Jupiter, he commanded Vulcan to tie him to mount Caucasus with iron chains, and that a vulture should prey upon his liver continually: but the truth of the story is, that Prometheus was an astrologer, and constant in observing the stars upon that mountain; and, that, among other things, he found the art of making fire, either by the means of a flint, or by contracting the sunbeams in a glass. Bochart will have Magog, in the Scripture, to be the Prometheus of the Pagans.
He here and before sarcastically derides those who were great admirers of the sympathetic powder and weapon salve, which were in great repute in those days, and much promoted by the great Sir Kenelm Digby, who wrote a treatise ex professo on that subject, and, I believe, thought what he wrote to be true, which since has been almost exploded out of the world. ↩
Cossacks are a people that live near Poland. This name was given them for their extraordinary nimbleness; for cosa, or kosa, in the Polish tongue, signifies a goat. He that would know more of them, may read Le Laboreur and Thuldenus. ↩
This custom of the Huns is described by Ammianus Marcellinus, Hunni semicruda cujusvis Pecoris carne vescuntur, quasi inter femora sua et equorum terga subsertam, calefacient brevi. p. 686. [The Huns stoutheartedly eat half-raw meat, which is warned briefly by being held between their thighs and their horses’ backs.] ↩
The Story in Le Blanc, of a bear that married a king’s daughter, is no more strange than many others, in most travellers, that pass with allowance; for if they should write nothing but what is possible, or probable, they might appear to have lost their labour, and observed nothing but what they might have done as well at home. ↩
Roger Bacon and Merlin. See Collier’s Dictionary. ↩
Two notorious women; the last was known here by the name of Moll Cutpurse. ↩
Penthesile, Queen of the Amazons, succeeded Orythia. She carried succours to the Trojans, and after having given noble proofs of her bravery, was killed by Achilles. Pliny saith, it was she that invented the battle-axe. If anyone desire to know more of the Amazons, let him read Mr. Sanson. ↩
The old Romans had particular oaths for men and women to swear by, and therefore Macrobius says, Viri per Castorum non jurabant antiquitus, nec Mulieres per Herculem; Aedepol autem juramentum erat tum mulieribus, quam viris commune, etc. [Men did not swear by Castor in ancient times, nor women by Hercules; however women swore by Aedepol as much as men did.] ↩
Two formidable women at arms, in romances, that were cudgelled into love by their gallants. ↩
Gundibert is a feigned name, made use of by Sir William d’Avenant in his famous epic poem, so called; wherein you may find also that of his mistress. This poem was designed by the author to be an imitation of the English drama: it being divided into five books, as the other is into five acts; the cantos to be parallel of the scenes, with this difference, that this is delivered narratively, the other dialoguewise. It was ushered into the world by a large preface, written by Mr. Hobbes, and by the pens of two of our best poets, viz. Mr. Waller and Mr. Cowley, which one would have thought might have proved a sufficient defence and protection against snarling critics. Notwithstanding which, four eminent wits of that age (two of which were Sir John Denham and Mr. Donne) published several copies of verses to Sir William’s discredit, under this title, Certain Verses written by several of the Author’s Friends, to be reprinted with the second Edition of Gundibert in 8vo Lond. 1653. These verses were as wittily answered by the author, under this title, The Incomparable Poem of Gundibert Vindicated from the Wit Combat of Four Esquires, Clinias, Damoetas, Sancho, and Jack-Pudding; printed in 8vo Lond. 1665, Vide Langbain’s Account of Dramatic Poets. ↩
Oestrum is not only a Greek word for madness, but signifies also a gad-bee or horsefly, that torments cattle in the summer, and makes them run about as if they were mad. ↩
Some few days after the King had accus’d the five members of treason in the House of Commons, great crowds of the rabble came down to Westminster Hall, with printed copies of the Protestation tied in their hats like favours. ↩
The six members were the Lord Kimbolton, Mr. Pym, Mr. Hollis, Mr. Hampden, Sir Arthur Haslerig, and Mr. Stroud, whom the King ordered to be apprehended, and their papers seized; charging them of plotting with the Scots, and favouring the late tumults; but the House voted against the arrest of their persons or papers; whereupon the King having preferred articles against those Members, he went with his guard to the House to demand them; but they, having notice, withdrew. ↩
Abusive or insulting had been better; but our Knight believed the learned language more convenient to understand in than his own mother-tongue. ↩
The Convocation, in one of the short Parliaments, that ushered in the long one (as dwarfs are wont to do knights-errant,) made an oath to be taken by the clergy for observing canonical obedience; in which they enjoined their brethren, out of the abundance of their consciences, to swear to articles with, etc. ↩
The holy league in France, designed and made for the extirpation of the Protestant religion, was the original out of which the solemn league and covenant here was (with the difference only of circumstances) most faithfully transcribed. Nor did the success of both differ more than the intent and purpose; for after the destruction of vast numbers of people of all sorts, both ended with the murder of two kings, whom they had both sworn to defend: and as our covenanters swore every man to run one before another in the way of reformation, so did the French, in the holy league, to fight to the last drop of blood. ↩
Staving and trailing are terms of art used in the Bear Garden, and signify there only the parting of dogs and bears: though they are used metaphorically in several other professions, for moderating; as law, divinity, hectoring, etc. ↩
Pryn, Bastwick, and Burton, who laid down their ears as proxies for their profession of the godly party, not long after maintained their right and title to the pillory to be as good and lawful as theirs who first of all took possession of it in their names. ↩
Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was the son of Margenus, or Mechres, whom he succeeded, and lived 56 years, whereof he reigned 47. Dido, his sister, was to have governed with him, but it was pretended the subjects thought it not convenient. She married Sichaeus, who was the king’s uncle, and very rich; wherefore he put him to death; and Dido soon after departed the kingdom. Poets say, Pygmalion was punished for the hatred he bore to women with the love he had to a statue. ↩
Pantaloons and port-cannons were some of the fantastic fashions wherein we aped the French.
At quisquis Insula satus Britannica
Sic patria insolens fastidiet suam,
Ut more simiae laboret fingere,
Et aemulari Gallicas ineptias,
Et omni Gallo ego hunc opinor ebrium;
Ergo ex Britanno, ut Gallus esse nititur,
Sic Dii jubete, fiat ex Gallo Capus.
—Thomas More.
Gallus is a river in Phrygia; rising out of the mountains of Celenae, and discharging itself into the river Sanger, the water of which is of that admirable quality, that, being moderately drank, it purges the brain, and cures madness; but largely drank, it makes men frantic. Pliny, Horatius. ↩
A learned divine in King James’s time wrote a polemic work against the Pope, and gave it that unlucky nickname of The Pope’s Bull Baited. ↩
Smectymnuus was a club of five parlimentary holders-forth; the characters of whose names and talents were by themselves expressed in that senseless and insignificant word. They wore handkerchiefs about their necks for a mark of distinction (as the Officers of the Parliament Army then did) which afterwards degenerated into carnal cravats. About the beginning of the long Parliament, in the year 1641, these five wrote a book against Episcopacy and the Common Prayer, to which they all subscribed their names; being Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow, and from thence they and their followers were called Smectymnians. They are remarkable for another pious book, which they wrote some time after that, entitled, The King’s Cabinet Unlocked, wherein all the chaste and endearing expressions, in the letters that passed betwixt his Majesty King Charles I and his Royal Consort are by these painful labourers in the devil’s vineyard turned into burlesque and ridicule. Their books were answered with as much calmness and genteelness of expression, and as much learning and honesty, by the Rev. Mr. Symonds, then a deprived clergyman, as theirs was stuffed with malice, spleen, and rascally invectives. ↩
This relates to the story of Pope Joan, who was called John VIII. Platina saith she was of English extraction, but born at Mentz; who, having disguised herself like a man, travelled with her paramour to Athens, where she made such progress in learning, that coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal her; so that, on the death of Pope Leo IV she was chosen to succeed him; but being got with child by one of her domestics, her travail came upon her between the Colossian Theatre and St. Clement’s, as she was going to the Lateran Church, and died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. He owns that, for the shame of this, the Popes decline going through this street to the Lateran; and that, to avoid the like error, when any Pope is placed in the Porphyry Chair, his genitals are felt by the youngest deacon, through a hole made for that purpose; but he supposes the reason of that to be, to put him in mind that he is a man, and obnoxious to the necessities of nature, whence he will have the seat to be called Sedes Stercoraria. ↩
Vitilitigation is a word the Knight was passionately in love with, and never failed to use it upon all occasions; and therefore to omit it, when it fell in the way, bad argued too great a neglect of his learning and parts; though it means no more than a perverse humour of wrangling. ↩
Disparata are things separate and unlike, from the Latin word dispare. ↩
The beginning of this Second Part may perhaps seem strange and abrupt to those who do not know that it was written on purpose in imitation of Virgil, who begins the IV Book of his Aeneids in the very same manner, “At Regina gravi,” etc. And this is enough to satisfy the curiosity of those who believe that invention and fancy ought to be measured (like cases in law) by precedents, or else they are in the power of the critic. ↩
The history of the Duke of Saxony is not so strange as that of a bishop, his countryman, who was quite eaten up with rats and mice. ↩
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, as Pliny says, had this occult quality in his toe, Pollicis in dextro pede tactu lienosis medebatur, l. 7. c. 11. ↩
Catasta is but a pair of stocks in English. But heroical poetry must not admit of any vulgar word (especially of paltry signification,) and therefore some of our modern authors are fain to import foreign words from abroad, that were never before heard of in our language. ↩
Madam Bennet’s. ↩
The ancient writers of the lives of saints were of the same sort of people who first writ of knight-errantry; and as in the one they rendered the brave actions of some great persons ridiculous, by their prodigious lies, and sottish way of describing them, so they have abused the piety of some devout persons, by imposing such stories on them as this upon St. Francis. ↩
The history of Pasiphae is common enough: only this may be observed, that though she brought the bull a son and heir, yet the husband was fain to father it, as appears by the name; perhaps, because being an island, he was within the four seas when the infant was begotten. ↩
Albertus Magnus was a Swedish bishop, who wrote a very learned work, De Secretis Mulierum. ↩
Pliny in his Natural History, affirms, that, Uni animalium homini oculi depravantur, unde cognomina Strabonum et Paetorum. Lib 2. ↩
The tradition of Friar Bacon and the Brazen Head is very commonly known; and, considering the times he lived in, is not much more strange than what another great philosopher of his name has delivered up of a ring, that being tied in a string, and held like a pendulum in the middle of a silver bowl, will vibrate of itself, and tell exactly against the sides of the divining cup, the same thing with, Time is, time was, etc. ↩
American Indians, among whom (the same authors affirm) there are others whose skulls are so soft, to use their own words, Ut digito perforari possunt. ↩
Jupiter’s oracle in Epirus, near the city of Dodona, Ubi nemus erat Jovis acrum. Querneum totum, in quo Jovis Dodonaei templum fuisse narratur. ↩
Semiramis, queen of Assyria, is said to be the first that invented eunuchs. Semiramis teneros mares castravit omnium prima. Am. Marcel 1. 34. p. 12. Which is something strange in a lady of her constitution, who is said to have received horses into her embraces; but that, perhaps, may be the reason why she afterwards thought men not worth the while. ↩
Sir K. D. in his Book of Bodies, who has this story of the German Boy, which he endeavours to make good by several natural reasons; by which those who have the dexterity to believe what they please may be fully satisfied of the probability of it. ↩
Xerxes, who used to whip the seas and wind. In eorum atque Eurum solitus saevire flagellis. —Juv. Sat. 10 ↩
In porticu (Stoicorum Schola Athenis) Discipulorum Seditionibus mille Quadrigenti triginta Cives interfecti sunt. Diog. Laert. in Vita Zenonis, p. 383. [One thousand four hundred and thirty citizens were killed in the quarrels of the disciples in the porch (of the Stoic School of Athens).] Those old virtuosos were better proficients in those exercises than modern, who seldom improve higher than cuffing and kicking. ↩
Bonum is such a kind of animal as our modern virtuosi from Don Quixote will have windmills under sail to be. The same authors are of opinion, that all ships are fishes while they are afloat; but when they are run on ground, or laid up in the dock, become ships again. ↩
The history of the cobbler had been attested by persons of good credit, who were upon the place when it was done. ↩
The Knight was kept prisoner in Exeter, and, after several exchanges proposed, but none accepted of, was at last released for a barrel of ale, as he often used to declare. ↩
Et sibi Consul
Me placeat, curru servus portatur eodem.
[And it pleased the Consul to have me carried as a slave in his chariot.] ↩
Tunica Coccinia solebat pridie quam dimicandum esset, supra praetorium poni, quasi admonito, et indicium futurae pugnae. [The praetors wore scarlet tunics on the day before the battle, for a warning, and a portent of the future.] —Lipsius in Tacitus p. 56 ↩
That the Roman Emperors were wont to have torches borne before them (by day) appears by Herodian in Pertinace. Lipsius in Tacitus p. 16. ↩
C. Caesar sucensens, propter curam verrendis viis non adhibitam, luto jussit oppleri congesto per milites in praetextae sinum.
—Sueton. in Vespas. c. 5
↩
The witch-finder in Suffolk, who, in the Presbyterian times, had a commission to discover witches, of whom (right or wrong) he caused sixty to be hanged within the compass of year; and, among the rest, the old minister, who been a painful preacher for many years. ↩
In the beginning of the civil wars of Flanders, the common people of Antwerp in a tumult broke open the cathedral church, to demolish images and shrines, and did so much mischief in a small time, that Strada writes, there were several devils seen very busy among them, otherwise it had been impossible. ↩
This devil at Mascon delivered all his oracles, like his forefathers, in verse, which he sung to tunes. He made several lampoons upon the Huguenots, and foretold them many things which afterwards came to pass; as may be seen his Memoirs, written in French. ↩
The History of Dr. Dee and the Devil, published by Mer Casaubon, Isaac Fil, prebendary of Canterbury, has a large account of all those passages, in which the stile of the true and false angels appears to be penned by one and the same person. The Nun of Loudon, in France, and all her tricks, have been seen by many persons of quality of this nation yet living, who have made very good observations upon the French book written on that occasion. ↩
A committee of the Long Parliament, sitting in the king’s house in Woodstock Park, were terrified with several apparitions, the particulars whereof were then the news of the whole nation. ↩
Withers has a long story, in doggerel, of a soldier in the king’s army, who being a prisoner at Salisbury, and drinking a health to the devil upon his knees, was carried away by him through a single pane of glass. ↩
Roger Bacon, commonly called Friar Bacon, lived in the reign of Edward I and, for some little skill he had in the mathematics, was by the rabble accounted a conjurer, and had the sottish story of the brazen head fathered upon him by the ignorant monks of those days. Robert Grosthead was bishop of Lincoln in the of Henry III. He was a learned man for those times, and for that reason suspected by the clergy to be a conjurer; for which crime, being degraded by Pope Innocent IV and summoned to appear at Rome, he appealed to the tribunal of Christ; which our lawyers say is illegal, if not a praemunire, for offering to sue in a Foreign Court. ↩
Aristophanes, in his comedy of The Clouds, brings in Socrates and Chaerephon, measuring the leap of a flea from the one’s beard to the other’s. ↩
This Fisk was a famous astrologer, who flourished about the time of Subtile and Face, and was equally celebrated by Ben Jonson. ↩
This experiment was tried by some foreign virtuosos, who planted a piece of ordnance point-blank against the zenith, and having fired it, the bullet never rebounded back again; which made them all conclude that it sticks in the mark: but Descartes was of opinion that it does but hang in the air. ↩
This Sedgwick had many persons (and some of quality) that believed in him, and prepared to keep the day of judgment with him, but were disappointed; for which the false prophet was afterwards called by the name of Doomsday Sedgwick. ↩
This compendious new way of magic is affirmed by Monsieur Le Blanc (in his travels) to be used in the East Indies. ↩
Paracelsus is said to have kept a small devil prisoner in the pummel of his sword, which was the reason, perhaps, why he was so valiant in his drink. Howsoever, it was to better purpose than Hannibal carried poison in his, to dispatch himself; for the sword alone would have done the feat much better, and more soldier-like; and it was below the honour of so great a commander, to go out of the world like a rat. ↩
Cornelius Agrippa had a dog which was suspected to be a spirit, for some tricks he was wont to do beyond the capacity of a dog, as it was thought; but the author of Magia Ademica has taken a great deal of pains to vindicate both the doctor and the dog from the aspersion, in which he has shown a very great respect and kindness for them both. ↩
Averrhois Astronomium propter excentricos contempsit. [Averroes despised the eccentriciticites of astronomy]. —Phil. Melanchthon in Elem. Phil. p. 781 ↩
Astyages, king of Media, had this dream of his daughter Mandane, and the interpretation of the Magi, wherefore he married her to a Persian of mean quality, by whom she had Cyrus, who conquered all Asia, and translated the empire from the Medes to the Persians. Cf. Herodot. l. 1. ↩
Fiant aliquando prodigiosi, et longiores solus defectus, quales occisa dictatore Caesare et Antoniano bello, totius anni pallore continuo. [Other miracles occurred, and the sun was dimmed for a longer time, for example, at the death of the Dictator Caesar, and the Antonine war, its dimness continued for a whole year] —Phil. ↩
Divus Augustus laevum sibi prodidit calceum praepostere indutum, qua die seditione militum prope afflictus est. [The Divine Augustus put on his left boot before the right one, that same day he was afflicted by a mutiny of the soldiers] —Phil., l. 2 ↩
Romani L. Crasso et C. Mario Coss. Bubone viso orbem lustrabant. [The Romans L. Crasso and Mario Coss. ritually purified the country from (the evil influence caused by) seeing the owl.] ↩
Anaxagoras affirmabat solem candens ferrum esse, et Peloponneso majorem: lunam habitacula in se habere, et Colles, et valles. Fertur dixisse coelum omne ex lapidibus esse compositum; Damnatus et in exilium pulsus est, quod impie solem candentem luminam esse dixisset. [Anaxogaras stated that the sun was made of white-hot iron, and bigger than the Peloponnese: the moon had buildings, and hills, and valleys. He was so carried away that he said that the whole sky was made of stone. He was condemned and driven into exile, for speaking impiously about the pure white light of the sun] —Diog. Laert. in Anaxag. p. 11, 13 ↩
Egyptii decem millia annorum et amplius recensent; et observatum est in hoc tanto spatio, bis mutata esse loca ortuum et occasuum solis, ita ut sol bis ortus sit ubi nunc occidit, et bis descenderit ubi nunc oritur. [The Egyptians have records for ten thousand years and more, and it has been observed that during this space of time, the rising and setting places of the sun have changed twice, so that twice the sun has risen where it now sets, and twice set where it now rises] —Phil. Melanct. Lib. 1, p. 60 ↩
Causa quare coelum non cadit (secundem Empedoclem) est velocitas sui motus. [The reason the sky does not fall is (according to Empedocles) the speed it is moving at.] —Comment. in lib. 2, Arist. de Coelo ↩
Plato solem et lunam caeteris planetis inferiores esse putavit. [Plato believed that the Sun and Moon were lower than the other planets.] —G. Gunnin in Cosmog. L. 1, p. 11 ↩
Copernicus in Libris Revolutionem, deinde Reinholdus, post etiam Stadius mathematici nobiles perspicuis demonstrationibus docuerunt, solis apsida terris esse propiorem, quam Ptolemaei aetate duodecem partibus, i.e. uno et triginta terrae semidiameteris. [Copernicus in his Book of Revolutions, and afterwards Reinholdus, very cleverly showed by mathematical means that the perihelion of the earth was (become) nearer in the twelve centuries since Ptolemy, that is, thirty-one times the radius of the earth.] —Jo. Bod. Met. Hist. p. 455 ↩
Putat Cardanus, ab extrema cauda Halices seu Majoris Ursae omne magnum Imperium pendere. [Cardanus believed that the fate of every great empire depended on the end of the tail of the Thumb or Great Bear] —Jo. Bod. Met. Hist. p. 325 ↩
Chaldaei jactant se quadringinta septuaginta annorum millia in periclitandis, experiundisque puerorum animis possuisse. [The Chaldeans alleged that they were forty or seventy thousand years in experiments to possess the souls of boys] —Cicero ↩
Druidae pecuniam mutuo accipiebant in posteriore vita reddituri. [The Druids accepted money from one another to be repaid in the next life.] —Patricius, tom. 2, p. 9 ↩
There was a notorious idiot (that is here described by the name and character of Whachum) who counterfeited a second part of Hudibras, as untowardly as Captain Po, who could not write himself, and yet made a shift to stand on the pillory for forging other men’s hands, as his fellow Whachum no doubt deserved; in whose abominable doggerel this story of Hudibras and a French mountebank at Brentford fair is as properly described. ↩
The device of the vibration of a pendulum was intended to settle a certain measure of ells and yards, etc. (that should have its foundation in nature) all the world over: for by swinging a weight at the end of a string, and calculating by the motion of the sun, or any star, how long the vibration would last, in proportion to the length of the string, and the weight of the pendulum, they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time to compute the exact length of any string that must necessarily vibrate into so much space of time; so that if a man should ask in China for a quarter of an hour of satin, or taffeta, they would know perfectly what it meant; and all mankind learn a new way to measure things, no more by the yard, foot or inch, but by the hour, quarter, and minute. ↩
As the devil is the spiritual prince of darkness, so is the constable the secular, who governs the night with as great authority as his colleague, but far more imperiously. ↩
Caligula was one of the emperors of Rome, son of Germanicus and Agrippina. He would needs pass for a god, and had the heads of the ancient statues of the gods taken off; and his own placed on in their stead; and used to stand between the statues of Castor and Pollux to be worshipped; and often bragged of lying with the moon. ↩
Philtres were love potions, reported to be much in request in former ages; but our true knight-errant hero made use of no other but what his noble achievements by his sword produced. ↩
Ordeal trials were, when supposed criminals, to discover their innocence, went over several red-hot coulter irons. These were generally such whose chastity was suspected, as the vestal virgins, etc. ↩
The young Spaniards signalize their valour before the Spanish ladies at bull feasts, which often prove very hazardous, and sometimes fatal to them. It is performed by attacking of a wild bull, kept on purpose, and let loose at the combatant; and he that kills most, carries the laurel, and dwells highest in the ladies’ favour. ↩
His exterior ears were gone before, and so out of danger; but by inward ears is here meant his conscience. ↩
Stentrophon: A speaking trumpet, by which the voice may be heard at a great distance, very useful at sea. ↩
This alludes to some abject lechers, who used to be disciplined with amorous lashes by their mistresses. ↩
Hermes Trismegistus, an Egyptian Philosopher, and said to have lived Anno Mundi 2076, in the reign of Ninus, after Moses. He was a wonderful philosopher and proved that there was but one God, the creator of all things; and was the author of several most excellent and useful inventions. But those Hermetic men here mentioned, though the pretended sectators of this great man, are nothing else but a wild and extravagant sort of enthusiasts, who make a hodgepodge of religion and philosophy, and produce nothing but what is the object of every considering person’s contempt. ↩
Potosi is a city of Peru, the mountains whereof afford great quantities of the finest silver in all the Indies. ↩
Villainage was an ancient tenure, by which the tenants were obliged to perform the most abject and slavish services for their lords. ↩
The Indian women, richly attired, are carried in a splendid and pompous machine to the funeral pile where the bodies of their deceased husbands are to be consumed, and there voluntarily throw themselves into it, and expire; and such as refuse, their virtue is ever after suspected, and they live in the utmost contempt. ↩
It was the opinion of Pythagoras and his followers, that, the soul transmigrated (as they termed it) into all the diverse species of animals; and so was differently disposed and affected, according to their different natures and constitutions. ↩
The Chinese men of quality, when their wives are brought to bed, are nursed and tended with as much care as women here, and are supplied with the best strengthening and nourishing diet, in order to qualify them for future services. ↩
The Sirens according to the poets, were three sea-monsters, half women and half fish; their names were Parthenope, Lignea and Leucosia. Their usual residence was about the island of Sicily, where, by the charming melody of their voices, they used to detain those that heard them, and then transform them into some sort of brute animals. ↩
Naturalists report, that if a male and female Mandrake lie near each other, there will often be heard a sort of murmuring noise. ↩
The equinoctial divides the globe into north and south. ↩
The Amazons were women of Scythia, of heroic and great achievements. They suffered no men to live among them; but once every year used to have conversation with men, of the neighbouring countries, by which if they had a male child, they presently either killed or crippled it; but if a female, they brought it up to the use of arms, and burnt off one breast, leaving the other to suckle girls. ↩
Diana’s nymphs, all of whom vowed perpetual virginity, and were much celebrated for the exact observation of their vow. ↩
Lewkner’s Lane some years ago swarmed with notoriously lascivious and profligate strumpets. ↩
Demanding the clergy of her belly, which, for the reasons aforesaid, is pleaded in excuse by those who take the liberty to oblige themselves and friends. ↩
Two famous and valiant princes of this country; the one a Saxon, the other a Dane. ↩
The Lapland Magi. The Laplanders are an idolatrous people, far north: and it is very credibly reported, by authors and persons that have travelled in their country, that they do perform things incredible by what is vulgarly called magic. ↩
An allusion to cauterizing in apoplexies, etc. ↩
The moon influences the tides, and predominates over all humid bodies; and persons distempered in mind are called lunatics. ↩
The Centaurs were a people of Thessaly, and supposed to be the first managers of horses; and the neighbouring inhabitants never having seen any such thing before, fabulously reported them monsters, half men and half horses. ↩
Sophi is at present the name of the kings of Persia, not superadded, as Pharaoh was to the kings of Egypt, but the name of the family itself, and religion of Hali; whose descendants by Fatimas, Muhammad’s daughter, took the name of Sophi. ↩
Peccadillos were stiff pieces that went about the neck; and round about the shoulders, to pin the band, worn by persons nice in dressing; but his wooden one is a pillory. ↩
Criminals, in their indictments, are charged with not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being led by the instigation of the devil. ↩
When they return the excommunication into the Chancery, there is issued out a writ against the person. ↩
Excommunication, which deprives men from being members of the visible church, and formally delivers them up to the devil. ↩
An insect breeze. Breezes often bring along with them great quantities of insects, which some are of opinion, are generated from viscous exhalations in the air; but our Author makes them proceed from a cow’s dung, and afterwards become a plague to that whence it received its original. ↩
The Magi were priests and philosophers among the Persians, entrusted with the government both civil and ecclesiastic, much addicted to the observation of the stars. Zoroaster is reported to be their first author. They had this custom amongst them, to preserve and continue their families by incestuous copulation with their own mothers. Some are of opinion, that the three wise men that came out of the East to worship our Saviour were some of these. ↩
St. Michael, an archangel; mentioned in St. Jude’s Epistle, verse 9. ↩
William Prynne, of Lincoln’s Inn, Esq. born at Swanswick, who styled himself Utter Barrister, a very warm person, and voluminous writer; and after the Restoration, keeper of the records in the Tower. ↩
It is reported of the Dutch women, that making so great use of stoves, and often putting them under their petticoats, they engender a kind of ugly monster, which is called a Sooterkin. ↩
At the building of the Tower of Babel, when God made the confusion of languages. ↩
At Oliver’s death was a most furious tempest, such as had not been known in the memory of man, or hardly ever recorded to have been in this nation.
This Sterry reported something ridiculously fabulous concerning Oliver, not unlike what Proculus did of Romulus. ↩
After the Restoration, Oliver’s body was dug up, and his head set at the farther end of Westminster Hall, near which place there is an house of entertainment, which is commonly known by the name of Heaven. ↩
A Roman senator, whose name was Proculus, and much beloved by Romulus, made oath before the senate, that this prince appeared to him after his death, and predicted the future grandeur of that city, promising to be protector of it; and expressly charged him, that he should be adored there under the name of Quirinus; and he had his temple on Mount Quirinale. ↩
Oliver’s eldest son Richard was, by him before his death, declared his successor; and, by order of privy-council, proclaimed Lord Protector, and received the compliments of congratulation and condolence, at the same time, from the lord mayor and court of aldermen: and addresses were presented to him from all parts of the nation, promising to stand by him with their lives and fortunes. He summoned a parliament to meet at Westminster, which recognized him Lord Protector: yet, notwithstanding, Fleetwood, Desborough, and their partisans, managed affairs so, that he was obliged to resign. ↩
John of Leyden, whose name was Buckhold, was a butcher of the same place, but a crafty, eloquent, and seditious fellow and one of those called Anabaptists. He went and set up at Munster, where, with Knipperdoling, and others of the same faction, they spread their abominable errors, and run about the streets in enthusiastical raptures, crying, “Repent and be baptized,” pronouncing dismal woes against all those that would not embrace their tenets. About the year 1533 they broke out into an open insurrection, and seized the palace and magazines, and grew so formidable that it was very dangerous for those who were not of their persuasion to dwell in Munster; but at length he and his associates being subdued and taken, he was executed at Munster, had his flesh pulled off by two executioners with red-hot pincers for the space of an hour, and then run through with a sword. ↩
This was the famous E. of S. who was endued with a particular faculty of undermining and subverting all sorts of government. ↩
The famous Lord Napier, of Scotland, the first inventor of logarithms, contrived also a set of square pieces, with numbers on them, made generally of ivory, (which perform arithmetical and geometrical calculations,) and are commonly called Napier’s Bones. ↩
The great Colonel John Lilbourn, whose trial is so remarkable, and well known at this time. ↩
After the Grecians had spent ten years in the siege of Troy, without the least prospect of success, they bethought of a stratagem, and made a wooden horse capable of containing a considerable number of armed men: this they filled with the choicest of their army, and then pretended to raise the siege; upon which the credulous Trojans made a breach in the walls of the city to bring in this fatal plunder; but when it was brought in, the enclosed heroes soon appeared, and surprising the city, the rest entered in at the breach. ↩
That parliament used to have public fasts kept in St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, as is done to this present time. ↩
It is reported of Muhammad the great impostor, that having built a mosque, the roof whereof was of loadstone, and ordering his corpse, when he was dead, to be put into an iron coffin, and brought into that place, the loadstone soon attracted it near the top, where it still hangs in the air.
No less fabulous is what the legend says of Ignatius Loyola, that his zeal and devotion transported him so, that at his prayers he has been seen to be raised from the ground for some considerable time together. ↩
Naturalists report, that snakes, serpents, etc. cast their skins every year. ↩
It is said that in the Islands of the Orcades, in Scotland, there are trees which bear those barnacles, which dropping off into the water, receive life, and become those birds called Soland geese. ↩
The poets feign the dog Cerberus, that is the porter of hell, to have three heads. ↩
Two great factions in Italy, distinguished by those names, miserably distracted and wasted it about the year 1130. ↩
Burton, Prynn, and Bastwick, three notorious ringleaders of the factious, just at the beginning of the late horrid rebellion. ↩
Fisher’s Folly, was where Devonshire-Square now stands, and was a great place of consultation in those days. ↩
Plato’s year, or the grand revolution of the entire machine of the world, was accounted 4,000 years. ↩
General Fairfax, who was soon laid aside after he had done some of their drudgery for them. ↩
Two ridiculous scribblers, that were often pestering the world with nonsense. ↩
The one a brewer, the other a shoemaker, and both colonels in the rebels’ army. ↩
This is an accurate description of the mob’s burning rumps upon the admission of the secluded members, in contempt of the Rump Parliament. ↩
The hangman’s name at that time was Dun. ↩
Cook acted as solicitor-general against King Charles the First at his trial; and afterwards received his just reward for the same. Pride, a colonel in the Parliament’s army. ↩
Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the society of the Jesuits, was a gentleman of Biscay, in Spain, and bred a soldier; was at Pampelune when it was besieged by the French in the year 1521, and was so very lame in both feet, by the damage he sustained there, that he was forced to keep his bed. ↩
Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, hath wrote largely on the Egyptian mystical learning. ↩
The Egyptians represented their kings, (many of whose names were Ptolemy) under the hieroglyphic of a bee, dispensing honey to the good and virtuous, and having a sting for the wicked and dissolute. ↩
Alluding to the vulgar opinion, that witches have their imps, or familiar spirits, that are employed in their diabolical practices, and suck private teats they have about them. ↩
The Rosicrucians were a sect that appeared in Germany in the beginning of the 17th age. They are also called the enlightened, immortal, and invisible. They are a very enthusiastical sort of men, and hold many wild and extravagant opinions. ↩
He used to preach, as if they might expect legions to drop down from heaven, for the propagation of the good old cause. ↩
A most Reverend Prelate, A. B. of Y. who sided with the disaffected party. ↩
The Romans highly honoured, and nobly rewarded, those persons that were instrumental in the preservation of the lives of their citizens, either in battle or otherwise. ↩
The author compares the arbitrary actings of the ungovernable mob to the Sultan or Grand Signior, who very seldom fails to sacrifice any of his chief commanders, called Bassas, if they prove unsuccessful in battle. ↩
Homer wrote a poem of the war between the mice and the frogs. ↩
A story in Tasso, an Italian Poet, of a hero that gained his mistress by conquering her party. ↩
Prideux, a justice of peace, a very pragmatical busy person in those times, and a mercenary and cruel magistrate, infamous for the following methods of getting of money among many others. ↩
There was a gaol for puny offenders. ↩
He extorted money from those that kept shows. ↩
John a Nokes, and John a Stiles, are two fictitious names made use of in stating cases of law only. ↩
Bongey was a Franciscan, and lived towards the end of the thirteenth century, a doctor of divinity in Oxford; and a particular acquaintance of Friar Bacon’s. In that ignorant age, everything that seemed extraordinary was reputed magic; and so both Bacon and Bongey went under the imputation of studying the black art. Bongey also, publishing a treatise of Natural Magic, confirmed some well-meaning credulous people in this opinion; but it was altogether groundless; for Bongey was chosen provincial of his order, being a person of most excellent parts and piety. ↩
Metaphysicians are of opinion, that angels and souls departed, being divested of all gross matter, understand each other’s sentiments by intuition, and consequently maintain a sort of conversation without the organs of speech. ↩
In regard children are capable of being inhabitants of heaven, therefore it should not resent it as a crime to supply store of inhabitants for it. ↩
Parthians are the inhabitants of a province in Persia: They were excellent horsemen, and very exquisite at their bows; and it is reported of them, that they generally slew more on their retreat than they did in the engagement. ↩
One of the assembly of divines, very remarkable for the singularity of his beard. ↩
When Romulus had built Rome, he made it an asylum, or place of refuge, for all malefactors, and others obnoxious to the laws to retire to; by which means it soon came to be very populous; but when he began to consider, that, without propagation, it would soon be destitute of inhabitants, he invented several fine shows, and invited the young Sabine women, then neighbours to them; and when they had them secure, they ravished them; from whence proceeded so numerous an offspring. ↩
Alimony is an allowance that the law gives the woman for her separate maintenance upon living from her husband. That and death are reckoned the only separations in a married state. ↩
The poets feign Cupid to have two sorts of arrows; the one tipped with gold, and the other with lead. The golden always inspire and inflame love in the persons he wounds with them: but, on the contrary, the leaden create the utmost aversion and hatred. With the first of these he shot Apollo, and with the other Daphne, according to Ovid. ↩
Prester John, an absolute prince, emperor of Abyssinia or Ethiopia. One of them is reported to have had seventy kings for his vassals, and so superb and arrogant, that none durst look upon him without his permission. ↩
Joan of Arc, called also the Pucelle, or Maid of Orleans. She was born at the town of Damremi, on the Meuse, daughter of James de Arc, and Isabella Romée; and was bred up a shepherdess in the country. At the age of eighteen or twenty she pretended to an express commission from God to go to the relief of Orleans, then besieged by the English, and defended by John Compte de Dennis, and almost reduced to the last extremity. She went to the coronation of Charles the Seventh, when he was almost ruined. She knew that prince in the midst of his nobles; though meanly habited. The doctors of divinity, and members of parliament, openly declared that there was some thing supernatural in her conduct. She sent for a sword, which lay in the tomb of a knight, which was behind the great altar of the church of St. Katharine de Forbois, upon the blade of which the cross and flower-de-luces were engraven, which put the king in a very great surprise, in regard none besides himself knew of it. Upon this he sent her with the command of some troops, with which she relieved Orleans, and drove the English from it, defeated Talbot at the battle of Pattai, and recovered Champagne. At last she was unfortunately taken prisoner in a sally at Champagne in 1430, and tried for a witch or sorceress, condemned, and burnt in Rouen marketplace in May, 1430. ↩
The Salique law is a law in France, whereby it is enacted, that no female shall inherit that crown. ↩