§ 1.

APollo was a Gentle∣man rather then a Physician, and yet both: I apply to you for coun∣sell in my malady, as a Clas∣sicall Compeere with Hermes Page  2 and Asclepius. A whole au∣tumne of hypocondraical passions and symptomes are fallen upon me, which is a melancholy disease, and must be handled gently with preparatives; for the humour is sturdy, and violence will rent and destroy all the fa∣brick. The cause proceeds from a surfeit: Of reading men and books.

I have read over your O∣vids Metamorphosis; at first view I took it to be a heape of sand without cement, all independent; but upon the review, I take it to be the best piece of a School boy that hath well laboured and Page  3 beaten out only two theams. The first, Ante obitum nemo—which takes up the whole first half part of the infelicity of Agenors Progenie. The lat∣ter part,—Nihil est toto quod perstet in orbe. Where the mutations and vicissitude of things are summarily enu∣merate.

I have lately read Balzac, where I have been set upon the rack and torture, expe∣cting some high conceit, and never more delighted, then when I most failed, admiring with others what I least understood. His Letters to the Cardinall and Bishop seems to be a piece of Davids Page  4 Psalmes conferd upon man for the most excellent piece; to be a Courtier, is to be something prophane. His love letters to Clorinda sound as if they were translated out of some old Ballads, only lea∣ving out the counterpit play, the Ging of Rime. I do passio∣nately disaffect that trite ob∣solete valedure; your most humble, your tres humble and affectionate Servant, it seemes like the overworne Statute lace of your Groome or Footman, and best befits them. In all his Letters like Lipsius, or Sir Henry Wotton, ever grumbling and com∣plaining of his invalitude.

Page  5I have read over Heywoods Commentaries upon Merlins, or rather his own propehsies, until Hen. 2. dayes, speaking of Rosamond; so far good and true out of the Copies of Ief∣fery of Monmouth and Alanus de Insulis Expositions; all the following is false and faig∣ned, yet a good Poet, but no Prophet. And whatsoever is cited by our late Progno∣sticks as pretented from Merlin, is forged & suppositi∣tious, making new Prophesies to fancie their desires• or sound to the present times and histories.

I, wearied with reading books, began to study Men• I Page  6 made a Survay of all the Gentlemens houses, and without a pack of Cards last christmas plaid alone. I see one a general good house-keeper for a very age, he keeps hospitality, payes his servants wages quarterly: But what's the Catastrophe? He dies, his servants have spent their Wages for their Masters honour, and their own reputation; when they be dissolved, an habitual idle∣ness brings povertie, miserie. An other runns in debt unto his servants; but at the close weakens, almost ruines his own estate; here are objects of piety; pitie I can not, I am Page  7 not yet so weak. An other out of an ample soul, and un∣bounded liberal Disposition, flies into high exorbitances, vast expenses, but fore-seeing the future inconvenience breaks o•• suddenly; and this is least to be lamented, for you shall only find some Pan∣tomimes and Parasites disshe∣vel'd, and in short time all redintegrated.

And who gets the advan∣tage? the Country Farmer will tell you, these great house-keepers bring all the beggars in a Region to his parts, •and never a one of these beggars, but expect from us some Almes, with Page  8 continual clamours at our doores. Your private Gen∣tleman finds the price of provision raised to a third part, and therein suffers. And for my part, I am as a∣fraid to lie in a great Gentle∣mans house as in an Inn, be∣sides the abatement of my content, for I had rather be observed, then observe the will of an other.

If I look upon the Coun∣trieman, he's no other to me then one that's borne some thousand leagues out of Christendome, or rather men moving like trees: and if I breath a gentle gale of a good morrow, they will move and Page  9 bend with a soft murmur. If I tread upon a doggs taile by chance, he will turne back and bite.

In these lumpish passions I have some pleasing Intervals, I can both laugh and sleepe. I take a merry book into my hand, say it be that Mortuum Caput, old Aristotle his Organon in the bare Latine text. Oh! how I can chink at his pretty Conceits; the burden of all his merry catches is, Necessa∣rium enim est. I have an o∣ther better remedie to my malady; I take a piece of that Astaticke redundance under mine elbow, Galen de tempera∣mentis or his Commentaries Page  10 upon Hippocrates, Ile under∣take he is so tedious, that before you have read one Page and perfectly under∣stand it, you shall fall asleep.

For Bishop Andrews and Dr. Donne, I could never con∣ceive better of them, then as a voluntarie before a lesson to the Lute, which is abso∣lutely the best pleasing to the eare; but after finished abso∣lutely forgotten, nothing to be remembred or repeated.

I have lately made an Essay to beat out a Them• tending to Papisme from the prmitive Fathers, although I am no Romanist; The same on the contrary for the Page  11 Protestant. I faithfully sear∣ched and copied out with mine own eyes and hands the proofes from the Authors themselves. But the terme of mine intention was this; I'me thoroughly perswaded that none of the first 600. Centurists knew either Papist or Protestant, as questions not at all questioned at those times. And therefore I will neither appeal to them as judges or advocates or wit∣nesses: But like unto Pige∣on feathers of which the Op∣ticks write, the causes of the variegations and diversity of lustres proceeds from the contrary lights, or lookings Page  12 through Mediums diversly tincted: diversity of educa∣tion, and discrepancie of the first principles instilled into each man begets a pertinacy in Paradoxes; In these Con∣troversies, the disputant and Latter writers wrest the Fa∣thers to their own appetite, making them like a Bell to sound as they please to inter∣pret, or like the indented Ianuary tablets which repre∣sents two several figures at several stations, like change∣able taffeties or Marmoles in a decaying fire, every one phansies his own Phantasms.

Bless me, and far be it from me to derogate from the Page  13 sanctity integrity and purity of the Ancient Fathers, but that reading of them does conduce to knowledge and holinesse; only I averr that in our quarrels in Religion they were neither sticklers or seconds.