by the omnipotency of God, being thus caught in the straits of necessity, doth change and turn herself into divers strange forms and shapes of things, so that at length, by fetching a circuit as it were, she comes to a period, and, if the force continue, betakes herself to her former being. The reason of which constraint or binding will be more facile and expedite, if matter be laid on by manacles, that is, by extremities.

Now whereas it is feigned that Proteus was a prophet, well skilled in three differences of times, it hath an excellent agreement with the nature of matter for it is necessary that he that will know the properties and proceedings of matter, should comprehend in his understanding the sum of all things which have been, which are, or shall be, although no knowledge can extend so far as to singular and individual beings.

MEMNON, OR A YOUTH TOO FORWARD.

The poets say that Memnon was the son of Aurora, who, adorned with beautiful armour, and animated with popular applause, came to the Trojan war: where, in rash boldness, hasting into, and thirsting after glory, he enters into single combat with Achilles, the valiantest of all the Grecians, by whose powerful hand he was there slain. But Jupiter pitying his destruction, sent birds to modulate certain lamentable and doleful notes at the solemnization of his funeral obsequies. Whose statue also, the sun reflecting on it with his morning

beams, did usually, as is reported, send forth a mournful sound.

This fable may be applied to the unfortunate destinies of hopeful young men, who like the sons of Aurora, puffed up with the glittering shew of vanity and ostentation, attempt actions above their strength, and provoke and press the most valiant heroes to combat with them, so that meeting with their overmatch, are vanquished and destroyed, whose untimely death is oft accompanied with much pity and commiseration. For among all the disasters that can happen to mortals, there is none so lamentable and so powerful to move compassion as the flower of virtue cropped with too sudden a mischance. Neither hath it been often known that men in their green years become so loathsome and odious, as that at their deaths either sorrow is stinted, or commiseration moderated: but that lamentation and mourning do not only flutter about their obsequies like those funeral birds, but this pitiful commiseration doth continue for a long space, and specially by occasions and new motions, and beginning of great matters, as it were by the morning rays of the sun, their passions and desires are renewed.

TITHONUS, OR SATIETY.

It is elegantly feigned that Tithonus was the paramour of Aurora, who, desirous to enjoy his company, petitioned Jupiter that he might never die, but, through womanish oversight, forgetting to insert this clause in her petition, that he might not

withal grow old and feeble, it followed, that he was only freed from the condition of mortality; but for old age, that came upon him in a marvellous and miserable fashion, agreeable to the state of those who cannot die, yet every day grow weaker and weaker with age. Insomuch that Jupiter, in commiseration of that his misery, did at length metamorphose him into a grass-hopper.

This fable seems to be an ingenious character or description of pleasure, which in the beginning, and as it were in the morning, seems to be pleasant and delightful, that men desire they might enjoy and monopolize it for ever unto themselves, unmindful of that satiety and loathing, which, like old age, will come upon them before they be aware. And so at last, when the use of pleasure leaves men, the desire and affection not yet yielding unto death, it comes to pass that men please themselves only by talking and commemorating those things which brought pleasure unto them in the flower of their age, which may be observed in libidinous persons, and also in men of military professions: the one delighting in beastly talk, the other boasting of their valourous deeds, like grass-hoppers, whose vigour consists only in their voice.

JUNO'S SUITOR, OR BASENESS.

The poets say, that Jupiter, to enjoy his lustful delights, took upon him the shape of sundry creatures, as of a bull, of an eagle, of a swan, and of a golden shower: but being a suitor to Juno he came

in a form most ignoble and base, an object full of contempt and scorn, resembling indeed a miserable cuckoo, weather-beaten with rain and tempest, numbed, quaking, and half dead with cold.

This fable is wise, and seems to be taken out of the bowels of morality; the sense of it being this, that men boast not too much of themselves, thinking by ostentation of their own worth to insinuate themselves into estimation and favour with men. The success of such intentions being for the most part measured by the nature and disposition of those to whom men sue for grace: who, if of themselves they be endowed with no gifts and ornaments of nature, but are only of haughty and malignant spirits, intimated by the person of Juno, then are suitors to know that it is good policy to omit all kind of appearance that may any way shew their own least praise or worth; and that they much deceive themselves in taking any other course. any other course. Neither is it enough to shew deformity in obsequiousness, unless they also appear even abject and base in their very persons.

CUPID, OR AN ATOM.

That which the poets say of Cupid, or Love, cannot properly be attributed to one and the self same person, and yet the difference is such, that, by rejecting the confusion of persons, the similitude may be received.

They say that Love is the ancientest o gods, and of all things else except chaos, w

hold to be a contemporary with it. Now, as touching chaos, that by the ancients was never dignified with divine honour, or with the title of the god. And as for Love, they absolutely bring him in without a father; only some are of opinion, that he came of an egg that was laid by Nox, and that on chaos he begat the god and all things else. There are four things attributed to him, perpetual infancy, blindness, nakedness, and an archery. There was also another Love, which was the youngest of the gods, and he, they say, was the son of Venus. On this also they bestow the attributes of the elder Love, as in some sort we will apply unto him.

This fable tends and looks to the cradle of na ture, Love seeming to be the appetite or desire of the first matter, or, to speak more plain, the natural motion of the atom, which is that ancient and only power that forms and fashions all things out of matter, of which there is no parent, that is to say, no cause, seeing every cause is as a parent to its effect. Of this power or virtue there can be no cause in nature, as for God we always except him, for nothing was before it, and therefore no efficient cause of it. Neither was there any thing better known to nature, and therefore neither genus nor form. Wherefore whatsoever it is, positive it is, and but inexpressible. Moreover, if the manner and proceeding of it were to be conceived, yet could it not be by any cause, seeing that, next unto God, it is the cause of causes, itself only without any cause And perchance there is no likelihood that the