make a Pythagorean, then let the head of Capricorn, Aries, or Taurus, be ascendant. When you would put your son to school, be sure that Mercury behold the increasing moon with a benign aspect. When you make an address to a prince, be careful that the moon be consociated with the sun, or Lord of the tenth house, in a sextile or trine aspect. When you would go a hunting, choose a moveable sign for the ascendant, and let no planet be retrograde either in that sign or in any other angle. When you put on new clothes, let a moveable sign ascend, and let not the moon be in a fixt, lest your clothes should last longer than stands with the growth of your body, or the dignity of your state; with a thousand the like trivial niceties, which I am ashamed to repeat."

V. 265. Tell what her dimeter tan inch is.] Harris, in his Astronomical Dialogues, observes, that the moon's diameter is almost two thousand two hundred miles.

V. 266. And prove that she's not made of green cheese.] A banter upon the Welch. Taylor, the water poet, has the following lines on the same subject:

"The way to make a Welchman thirst for bliss,

And say his prayers daily on his knees,

Is to persuade him that most certain 'tis

The moon is made of nothing but green cheese.

And he'll desire of God no better boon,

Than place in heav'n to feed upon the moon." V. 283-4. Quote moles and spots on any place

O' th' body by the index face.] Lilly, speaking of teaching his art to one Humphreys, a pretender to astrology, says, "as we were at supper, a client came to speak with him, and so up into his closet he went with his client, called him in before he set his figure, or resolved the question, and instantly acquainted him how he should discover the marks or moles of his client. He set his figure, and presently discovered four moles the querist bad, and was so overjoyed therewith, that he came tumbling down stairs, crying four by G! four by ! I will not take one hundred pounds for this one rule. In six weeks time, and tarrying with him three days in a week, he became a most judicious person."

V. 285. Detect, &c.] Democritus, the laughing philosopher, is said to have possessed this faculty.

Of medicines to th' imagination.] Webster, in his Display of supposed Witchcraft, treating of the force or efficacy of words or charms, says, "it hath sometimes been a question, whether a rational physician, in the curing of melancholy persons, or others, in some odd diseases, ought to grant the use of characters or charms, and such ridiculous administrations; which is decided in the affirmative, that it is lawful and necessary to use them, by that able and learned physician Gregorius Horstius, by eight strong and convincing reasons. And we ourselves having practised the art of medicine in all its parts in the North of England, where ignorance, popery, and superstition do much abound, and where, for the most part, the common people, if they chance to have any sort of the epilepsy, palsy, convulsions, or the like, do presently persuade themselves that they are bewitched, forespoken, blasted, fairy taken, or haunted with some evil spirit, and the like; and if you should by plain reason shew them that they are deceived, and that there is no such matter, but that it is a natural disease, say what you can they will not believe you, but account you a physician of small value, and whatsoever you do to them, it will hardly do them any good at all, because of the fixedness of their depraved and prepossessed imaginations. But if you indulge their fancy, and seem to concur in opinion with them, and hang any insignificant thing about their necks, assuring them that it is a most efficacious and powerful charm, you may then easily settle their imaginations, and then give them that which is proper to eradicate the cause of their disease, and so you may cure them, as we have done great numbers." Dr. Grey, in his note upon the same passage, says, "I have heard of a merry ba

ronet, Sir R. B. who had great success in the cure of agues this way. A gentleman of his acquaintance applying to him for the cure of a stubborn quartan, which had puzzled the bark, he told him he was sure he had no faith, and would be prying into the secret; and then, notwithstanding he staved off a fit or two, it would certainly return again. He promised him, upon his word

and honor, he would not look into it; but when he had escaped a second fit, he had the curiosity, notwithstanding his promise, to open the paper, and he found nothing in it but these words, “Kiss mine ——" Very remarkable was Mr. Selden's cure of a hypochondriacal person of quality, who complained to him that he had devils in his head, but was assured he could cure him. Mr. Selden trusting to the great opinion the gentleman had of him, wrapped a card in silk, advising him to wear it about his neck, and live regularly in all respects, and he doubted not the success of his remedy: with which, and a little variation of the form a second time, he was in a small time perfectly well, and never relapsed into that disorder.

No less remarkable is the account of Kiopruli Numan Pasha, prime vizier to Achmet III. who, though a man of great learning, had contracted so ridiculous a fancy, as to imagine that there was a fly sitting continually upon his nose. "All the physicians in Constantinople (says Prince Cantemir) were consulted upon that occasion, and after they had long in vain used all their endeavours, one Le Duc, a French physician, found means to apply a suitable remedy to the distemper; for he did not go about as the rest to argue with him, that it was all a fancy, but when he was brought to the sick man, and asked by him, whether he saw the fly that was sitting upon his nose? he said he did, and by that prudent dissimulation induced the disordered person to place the utmost confidence in him. After which he ordered him several innocent juleps, under the name of purging and opening medicines; at last he drew a knife gently along his nose, as if he was going to cut off the fly, which he kept in his hand for that purpose: whereupon Newman Pasha immediately cried out, 'This is the very fly that has so plagued me!' and thus he was perfectly cured of that whimsical fancy."

Bartholin, the

With rhymes, the tooth-ach, &c.] famous physician and anatomist, was of opinion, “That distempers, particularly the epilepsy, might be removed by rhymes." Taylor, the water poèt, banters such pretenders in the following lines,

"He can release or else increase all harms,
About the neck or wrist, by tying charms:
He has a trick to kill the ague's force,

And make the patient better or much worse.
To the great toe three letters he can tie,
Shall make the gout to tarry or to fly :

With two words, and three leaves of four-leav'd-grass,
He makes the tooth-ach stay, repass, or pass.”

V. 291-2. Chace evil spirits away by dint

Of sickle, horse-shoe, hollow flint.] Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, says; "That to prevent or cure all mischiefs wrought by charms or witchcraft, according to the opinion of M. Mal, and others, one principal way is to nail a horse-shoe at the inside of the outmost threshold of your house, and so you shall be sure no witch shall have power to enter thereunto. And if you mark it, you shall find that rule observed in many a country-house. "Hollow stones are hung up in stables to preserve the cattle in them from diseases. In the north of England, where the custom prevails to the present day, they are usnally called holy stones."

V. 293-4. Spit fire out of a walnut-shell,

Which made the Roman slaves rebel.] Alluding to the servile war, which was raised by Eunus, a Lyrian slave, who inflamed the minds of the servile multitude by pretended inspiration and enthusiasm. He filled a nut with sulphur in his mouth, and by artfully conveying fire into it, he breathed out flames to the astonishment of the people, who believed him to be a god, or something more than human. Oppression and misery compelled 2,000 slaves to join his cause, and he soon saw himself at the head of 60,000 men. With such a force he defeated the Roman armies, till Perpenna obliged him to surrender by famine, and exposed on a cross the greatest part of his followers.

V. 299-300. What med'cine 't was that Paracelsus

Could make a man with, as he tells us.] Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, p. 490, gives us the following account of Paracelsus' secret. "Paracelsus (says he) boasts, that he had received this secret of secrets from God; affirming, that if the sperm

1

of a man do putrify in a sealed cucurbite to the highest putrifaction of horse-dung, forty days, or so long until it begin to live and to move, and be stirred, which is easy to be seen, after that, it will be in some time like unto a man, yet pellucid, and without à body. Now if afterwards it be daily, warily, and prudently nourished, and fed with the secret of man's blood, and conserved for forty weeks in a perpetual and equal heat of horse-dung, it will thence become a true infant, but it will be far less. Then it is to be brought up until it grow a stripling, and begin to understand and be wise. And this secret is known to the nymphs of the wood, and the giants which are sprung from thence."

V. 301-2. What figured slates are best to make,

On wal'ry surface duck or drake.] Of what mathematical figure. A ridicule of the trifling labours of certain philo sophers. In the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus it is said, “Neither cross and pile, nor ducks and drakes, are quite so ancient as handy-dandy, though Macrobius and St. Austin take notice of the first, and Minutius Felix describes the latter."

V. 305-6. Whether a pulse beat in the black

List of a dappled louse's back.] A sheer on Dr. Hooke's Micrographia, or Wonderful Discoveries by the Microscope, in which there is a plate representing a louse nearly as large as a lobster.

V: 307. If systole or diastole move.] The contraction and dilation of the heart.

V. 311-12. How many scores a flea will jump,

Of his own length, from head to rump.] In the Micrographia there is likewise a delineation of a flea; but Butler probably intended a banter upon some other authors. Dr. Grey observes in his note, “That Dr. Giles Fletcher informs us, that Basilowitz, the Grand Duke, (or rather tyrant of Muscovy,) sent to the city of Muscow, to provide for him a measure full of live fleas, for a medicine. They answered, the thing was impossible; and if they could get them, they could not measure them, because of their leaping out. Upon which he set a mulct upon them of seven thousand rubles." And yet as difficult as this was, something of this kind was undertaken by the friend of a jealous husband, (see L'Estrange's Fables,) to whose care he had committed his wife for some time; but he desired to be released: "If (says he) it were to