As you yourself. Then, friend, I doubt

You go the farthest way about.

Your modern Indian magician

Makes but a hole in th' earth to piss in,

610

And straight resolves all questions by 't,

And seldom fails to be i' th' right.

The Rosycrucian way's more sure

To bring the devil to the lure;
Each of 'em has a sevʼral gin
To catch intelligences in.

Some by the nose with fumes trepan 'em,
As Dunstan did the devil's grannam;
Others with characters and words

Catch 'em as men in nets do birds;

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And some with symbols, signs, and tricks,

Engrav'd in planetary nicks,

With their own influences will fetch 'em

Down from their orbs, arrest, and catch 'em :

Make 'em depose and answer to

625

All questions ere they let them go.

Bumbastus kept a devil's bird

Shut in the pummel of his sword,

That taught him all the cunning pranks

Of past and future mountebanks.

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Kelly did all his feats upon
The devil's looking-glass, a stone,
Where, playing with him at bo-peep,
He solv'd all problems, ne'er so deep.
Agrippa kept a Stygian pug

I' th' garb and habit of a dog,
That was his tutor, and the cur
Read to th' occult philosopher,

And taught him subt'ly to maintain

All other sciences are vain.

To this, quoth Sidrophello, Sir,

Agrippa was no conjurer,

Nor Paracelsus, no, nor Behmen ;

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Nor was the dog a cacodæmon,

But a true dog, that would shew tricks
For th' Emperour, and leap o'er sticks;
Would fetch and carry, was more civil
Than other dogs, but yet no devil;
And whatsoe'er he's said to do,

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He went the self-same way we go.

650

As for the Rosycross philosophers,

Whom you will have to be but sorcerers,

What they pretend to is no more

Than Trismegistus did before,

655

Pythagoras, old Zoroaster,

And Apollonius their master,

To whom they do confess they owe

All that they do, and all they know.

Quoth Hudibras, Alas! what is't t'us
Whether 'twas said by Trismegistus,
If it be nonsense, false, or mystic,
Or not intelligible, or sophistic?
"Tis not antiquity, nor author,

660

That makes truth Truth, altho Time's daughter

Twas he that put her in the pit

Before he pull'd her out of it;

And as he eats his sons, just so

1665

He feeds upon his daughters too. This Fals up

Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald

Can make a gentleman, scarce a year old,

To be descended of a race

Of ancient kings in a small space,
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic that we can make old.

Quoth Sidrophel, It is no part
Of prudence to cry down an art,
And what it may perform deny,
Because you understand not why.

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(As Averrhois play'd but a mean trick,

To damn our whole art for eccentric);
For who knows all that knowledge contains?
Men dwell not on the tops of mountains,

But on their sides or rising's seat;

So 'tis with knowledge's vast height.

Do not the hist❜ries of all ages

Relate miraculous presages

Of strange turns in the world's affairs,
Foreseen b' astrologers, soothsayers,
Chaldeans, learn'd Genethliacks,

And some that have writ almanacks?

The Median Emp'rour dream'd his daughter

Had piss'd all Asia under water,

And that a vine sprung from her haunches,
O'erspread its empire with its branches;
And did not soothsayers expound it,
As after by th' event he found it ?
When Cæsar in the senate fell,
Did not the sun eclips'd foretel,
And in resentment of his slaughter,
Look'd pale for almost a year after?
Augustus having, by' oversight,
Put on his left shoe 'fore his right,

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700

Had like to have been slain that day
By soldiers mutin'ing for pay.

Are there not myriads of this sort

705

Which stories of all times report ?

Is it not ominous in all countries

When crows and ravens croak upon trees?
The Roman senate, when within

And if an owl have so much pow'r,

Why should not planets have much more,

That in a region far above

715

Inferior fowls of the air move,

And should see further, and foreknow

More than their augury below?

720

Though that once serv'd the polity
Of mighty states to govern by ;

And this is what we take in hand

By pow'rful Art to understand;

Which how we have perform'd, all ages
Can speak th' events of our presages.

725