A City saythsays Plato subsists not by PhysitianPhysician and PhysitianPhysician, but by PhysitianPhysician and
husbandman, that is, men of diversdiverse functions, but heehe mentions the Husbandman
and PhysitianPhysician first, because their works are very conspicuous in the imitation, -
emendation, and perfection of nature: for they both take a naturallnatural subject,
in which they according to art add some certainecertain things necessary being wanting,
or allsoalso remove those things which are superfluous: soeso that the art of both may
(as medicine by Hippocrates) be defined by the addition of defect, and subtract=
tionsubtraction of superfluity: for what dosdoes the Husbandman more than add ploughing, ridging
furrowing, harrowing, dunging or manuring, sowing, etc. to land left by nature, that
is, commit the increase and good successesuccess to nature, which administrethadministers the heat
of the SunneSun, and rainerain, and multiplyesmultiplies the seeds by them, and promotes them to
standing cornecorn soon after to be reaped: in the meanemean time whilst the herbeherb is -
Springing the husbandman weeds out thistles and all impediments, gathers -
the cornecorn being ripe, takes away things superfluous from it being reaped, namely,
straw, chaffechaff, and such other things: SoeSo allsoalso a PhysitianPhysician (as allsoalso a Chymist in
a different respect) teachethteaches how to præservepreserve præsentpresent health to mans body, being
wanting to recover it by severallseveral remedyesremedies, takes away the morbifickemorbific cause,
cures the disease, asswagethassuages symptoms, abates superfluous blood by opening
a veynevein, being wanting restores it by apointingappointing good order of dyetdiet, evacu=
ates noxious humors by purgation, and soeso imitates, supplyessupplies, and amends
nature a thousand ways by the works of the understanding and art; which
being notorious, ChymicallChymical things are rather to be considered by us: for Chy=
mistry dothdoes first declare the operations of agriculture by its secret bounds -
and wayesways of operating: Husbandmen have land, wherein to sow seed, soeso allsoalso
the Chymists: They have dung wherewith to manure their ground, soeso -
allsoalso these, without which nothing could be done, nor any successe expected:
They have seed, the multiplication of which they desire: if Chymists -
had not the like, they would (as Lully saythsays) imitate the painter, that -
endeavouresendeavors to expresseexpress the face of a certainecertain man, whomewhom heehe had never
seen, nor the image of him: Husbandmen expect rainerain, and heat of the -
SunneSun, soeso allsoalso doedo the Chymists truelytruly administer heat convenient to
their workework, and rainerain: I need say noeno more: *From hence the Ancients pro=
duced Ceres, Triptolemus, Osiris, Dionysus, the golden Gods, as relating to Chy=
mistry,

teaching as it were men how to cast the seeds of fruits into their -
earth, shewingshowing tillage, with the propagation of vines, and use of wine, -
all which things the ignorant have interpreted to rusticallrustical operations, but
erroneously: for those things, which are absconded from the vulgar, and -
declared to the Learned under these veils of agriculture, are most abstruse -
mysteryesmysteries of nature: To this end say the Philosophers that their gold must -
be sowed upon white foliated earth, as if they meant that the Sowing of cornecorn
Should be observed and imitated for example, which the author of the trea *

*?

=
tise of cornecorn and Jodoc. Greverus have most excellently performed in their -
descriptions, for they have both most elegantly accomodatedaccommodated every operation of
agriculture in the producing of cornecorn to the semination of gold, or generation of
the tincture: White earth, because sandy, yeildsyields little fruit to the countrymen, by
whomewhom that which is blackeblack and fattfat is more desired, but the white principally
conducethconduces to the Philosophers, if it be foliated, that is well præparedprepared, because -
they know how to enrich it with their dung, the other not at all: Now sowing is
the propagation of the world, whereby that, which cannot long endure in an
individuallindividual, is caused to persist in the Species: This is in man, animallsanimals, and
plants, in these hermaphroditically, in them under two distinct sexes: but in
metallsmetals farrefar otherwise: for in them a line is made of the flux of a point, a -
superficies of the flux of a line, a body of the flux of a superficies: But -
the StarrsStars produced that point before the line, superficies, and body, because -
it is the principle of them all: Nature added the flux a long time after, that is, -
the cœlestiallcelestial SunneSun did in the earth generate a SonneSon, whomewhom Mercury coḿittedcommitted
to Vulcan and Chiron to be educated, that is, to manuallmanual artifice, to be instructed,
even as they write of Achilles, who was held and hardened in fire by his mother
Thetys: heehe, amongst other things, learned MusickeMusic, and the art of playing on the *
Harp from Chiron: but Achilles being noeno other than the PhilosphicallPhilosophical subject
(whose SonneSon was Pyrrhus with red hairehair, without which two Troy could not be -
taken and subdued, as weewe have abundantly demonstrated in our HieroglyphicksHieroglyphics -
booke 6.) therefore doedo weewe not without reason touch (though cursorily) upon MusickeMusic
in this our workework, where weewe describe Achilles, and his heroickeheroic virtues and en=
terprises: For if MusickeMusic adorned soeso great a HeroeHero, why may it not allsoalso -
make this our workework more complete and acceptable: For the AngellsAngels sing (as the
sacred scriptures attest[)]), the heavens sing, as Pythagoras affirmesaffirms, and, as the -
Psalmist saythsays, declare the glory of God, the Muses and Apollo sing, as -
the PoettsPoets, men even infants sing, birds sing, Sheep and geese sing in -
musicallmusical instruments, if therefore weewe allsoalso sing, there is reason for it . . .