hid; if the contents please thee, [9]"and be for thy use, suppose the Man in the Moon, or whom thou wilt to be the author;” I would not willingly be known.  Yet in some sort to give thee satisfaction, which is more than I need, I will show a reason, both of this usurped name, title, and subject.  And first of the name of Democritus; lest any man, by reason of it, should be deceived, expecting a pasquil, a satire, some ridiculous treatise (as I myself should have done), some prodigious tenet, or paradox of the earth’s motion, of infinite worlds, in infinito vacuo, ex fortuita atomorum collisione, in an infinite waste, so caused by an accidental collision of motes in the sun, all which Democritus held, Epicurus and their master Lucippus of old maintained, and are lately revived by Copernicus, Brunus, and some others.  Besides, it hath been always an ordinary custom, as [10]Gellius observes, “for later writers and impostors, to broach many absurd and insolent fictions, under the name of so noble a philosopher as Democritus, to get themselves credit, and by that means the more to be respected,” as artificers usually do, Novo qui marmori ascribunt Praxatilem suo.  ’Tis not so with me.

[11] “Non hic Centaurus, non Gorgonas, Harpyasque
        Invenies, hominem pagina nostra sapit.”

       “No Centaurs here, or Gorgons look to find,
        My subject is of man and human kind.”

Thou thyself art the subject of my discourse.

[12] “Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
        Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli.”

       “Whate’er men do, vows, fears, in ire, in sport,
        Joys, wand’rings, are the sum of my report.”

My intent is no otherwise to use his name, than Mercurius Gallobelgicus, Mercurius Britannicus, use the name of Mercury, [13]Democritus Christianus, &c.; although there be some other circumstances for which I have masked myself under this vizard, and some peculiar respect which I cannot so well express, until I have set down a brief character of this our Democritus, what he was, with an epitome of his life.

Democritus, as he is described by [14]Hippocrates and [15]Laertius, was a little wearish old man, very melancholy by nature, averse from company in his latter days, [16]and much given to solitariness, a famous philosopher in his age, [17]_coaevus_ with Socrates, wholly addicted to his studies at the last, and to a private life:  wrote many excellent works, a great divine, according to the divinity of those times, an expert physician, a politician, an excellent mathematician, as [18]Diacosmus and the rest of his works do witness.  He was much delighted with the studies of husbandry, saith [19]Columella, and often I find him cited by [20]Constantinus and others treating of that subject.  He knew the natures, differences of all beasts, plants, fishes, birds; and, as some say, could [21]understand the tunes and voices of them.  In a word, he was