out of order?  In all other things nature is equal, proportionable, and constant; there be justae dimensiones, et prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabric of man, his eyes, ears, nose, face, members are correspondent, cur non idem coelo opere omnium pulcherrimo?  Why are the heavens so irregular, neque paribus molibus, neque paribus intervallis, whence is this difference? Diversos (he concludes) efficere locorum Genios, to make diversity of countries, soils, manners, customs, characters, and constitutions among us, ut quantum vicinia ad charitatem addat, sidera distrahant ad perniciem, and so by this means fluvio vel monte distincti sunt dissimiles, the same places almost shall be distinguished in manners.  But this reason is weak and most insufficient.  The fixed stars are removed since Ptolemy’s time 26. gr. from the first of Aries, and if the earth be immovable, as their site varies, so should countries vary, and diverse alterations would follow.  But this we perceive not; as in Tully’s time with us in Britain, coelum visu foedum, et in quo facile generantur nubes, &c., ’tis so still.  Wherefore Bodine Theat. nat. lib. 2. and some others, will have all these alterations and effects immediately to proceed from those genii, spirits, angels, which rule and domineer in several places; they cause storms, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, ruins, tempests, great winds, floods, &c., the philosophers of Conimbra, will refer this diversity to the influence of that empyrean heaven:  for some say the eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in Ptolemy’s time, the virtue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, [3068]men grow less, &c.  There are that observe new motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call them what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off, together, asunder; as he that plays upon a sackbut by pulling it up and down alters his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive) diverse alterations.  Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures.  About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a [3069]Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in promptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountains quod inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, praecipites, horroris et mortis speciem prae se ferentes, “uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all green trees, plants, and fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured, ’tis evident.”  Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north.  But why should