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PDFCatch ’em, as men in nets do birds; 620
And some with symbols, signs, and tricks,
Engrav’d with 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 e’re they let them go.
Shut in the pummel of his sword,
That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks. 630
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, 635
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. 640
To this, quoth SIDROPHELLO, Sir,
Agrippa was no conjurer,
Nor Paracelsus, no, nor Behmen;
Nor was the dog a Cacodaemon,
But a true dog, that would shew tricks
645
For th’ emperor, 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,
He went the self-same way we go.
650
As for the Rosy-Cross Philosophers,
Whom you will have to be but sorcerers,
What they pretend to is no more,
Than trismegistus did before,
Pythagoras, old Zoroaster,
655
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,
660
If it be nonsense, false, or mystick,
Or not intelligible, or sophistick?
’Tis not antiquity, nor author,
That makes Truth Truth, altho’ Times daughter;
’Twas he that put her in the pit
665
Before he pull’d her out of it;
And as he eats his sons, just so
He feeds upon his daughters too.
Nor does it follow, ’cause a herald,
Can make a gentleman, scarce a year old,
670
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
675
Of prudence to cry down an art,
And what it may perform deny,
Because you understand not why
(As
To damn our whole art for eccentrick:)
680
For Who knows all that knowledge contains
Men dwell not on the tops of mountains,
But on their sides, or rising’s seat
