I ragguagli di Parnasso, or, Advertisements from Parnassus in two centuries : with the politick touch-stone / written originally in Italian by that famous Roman Trajano Bocalini ; and now put into English by the Right Honourable Henry, Earl of Monmouth.

The XCVII. ADVERTISEMENT.

Apollo wakes a general hunting of Pismires and Tortoises, as being both of them Beasts of evil example to man∣kind.

YEsterday morning Zenofon, Apollos Master-Hunt, gave order to Acteon, Adonis, and to the other chiefest hunters of this State, that they should be ready with their dogs the next day, for that his Ma∣jesty was resolved to make then a general hunting; and every one thinking that Apollo, according to his custom, would have gon to the Mountain Ida, or to the Hill of Helicon, w•…•…ere were great store of Gotes, Stags, Wild Bores, and other wild beasts; his Majesty, as he came forth of the Gate, declared the intended Chase to be against Pismires and Tortoises; which he said he intended to rout out of the earth, for the great benifit of mankind.

Then many of the Vertuosi, desirous to know why his Majesty had conceived such anger against those animals, told him, that they thought the Tortoise was not only the emblem of mature delay, but the very type of those poor Vertuosi, who carried the houses of their patrimony, and the whole substance of Learning about with them; and that Pismires, which taught men to labour in the summer of their youth, to lay up food for the winter of their age, ought rather be assisted then pursued by his Majesty, as an admirable example of Providence. To these Apollo answered, That what they had said, was true; but that all men being more inclined to vice then to vertue, had learnt most scanda∣lous examples from those animals', and did not imitate them in their good things: for some passionately given to avarice, and being shame∣fully inslayed to their own Interests, had learnt the wicked custom of keeping continually with their head, feet, hands, and with all their mem∣bers, hid within the husk of their interest, and to carry about them the houses of their own commodities, with so much sordidness and obstina∣cy never to come out of them, as that they had made the sole interest of peculiar utility their Idol, only from the Tortoise: Whence it hap∣pened that such as these, when they wer made use of to take upon them

the care of widows and orphans, they presently turned them to their own advantage; and that the same men, if they were imployed by Princes in publick affairs, the very first day of their Magistracy they be∣gan to draw the water to their own Mill. And that as for the Pis∣mires, many had learnt from them the unhappy example of toyling and moyling both day and night, not ever taking so much as one hour of lawfull recreation, to the end that they may heap up by all, yea though unlawful means, the grain of that wealth, which was afterwards mar'd by the rain of Gods anger, or stolne away by mice, by thieves, Serje∣ants, Judges, Atorneys, who alwaies lie in wait for the wealth of these avaritious wretches, who like Pismires, not caring (though they abound in all things) to be lean and ill-favoured, suffering like dogs in their life and reputation, did so drown themselves in their sordid scraping, as they cared not though they were persecuted, ill treated, and troad upon by all conditions of men, even as Pismires were. And that God ha∣ving placed that vertuous providence which is void of all defect, in the miraculous Bees, men should look upon those, and imitate them, who with the love of all men, and without doing any the least harm, build their houses full of honey taken from flowres; whereas with the gene∣ral hatred of all men, Pismires stole grain from others grainaries; and that the Bees made both honey and wax, not only for their own accom∣modation, but for the general good of mankind: A most pretious in∣struction; that those exercises, and those imployments are holiest and most blest by God, which have the publick benefit joyned to their own advantage; whereas Pismires accumulated riches stolne from others, only for their own use.