161 Sing catches, &c.] This Devil at Mascon delivered
all his oracles, like his forefathers, in verse, which
he sung to tunes. He made several lampoons upon
the Hugonots, and foretold them many things which
afterwards came to pass; as may be seen his Memoirs,
written in French.
163 Appear’d in divers, &c.] The History
of Dee and the Devil, published by Mer. Casaubon,
Isaac Fil. Prebendary of Canterbury, has a large
account of all those passages, in which the stile
of the true and false angels appears to be penned by
one and the same person. The Nun of Loudon,
in France, and all her tricks, have been seen by many
persons of quality of this nation yet living, who
have made very good observations upon the French book
written on that occasion.
165 Met with, &c] A Committee of the Long Parliament,
sitting in the King’s-house in Woodstock Park,
were terrified with several apparitions, the particulars
whereof were then the news of the whole nation.
157 At Sarum, &c.] Withers has a long story, in
doggerel, of a soldier in the King’s army, who
being a prisoner at Salisbury, and drinking a health
to the Devil upon his knees, was carried away by him
through a single pane of glass.
224 Since old Hodge Bacon, &c.] Roger Bacon, commonly
called Friar Bacon, lived in the reign of Edward I.
and, for some little skill he had in the mathematicks,
was by the rabble accounted a conjurer, and had the
sottish story of the Brazen Head fathered upon him
by the ignorant Monks of those days. Robert Grosthead
was Bishop of Lincoln in the of Henry III. He
was a learned man for those times, and for that reason
suspected by the Clergy to be a Conjurer; for which
crime, being degraded by Innocent IV. and summoned
to appear at Rome, appealed to the tribunal of Christ;
which our lawyers say is illegal, if not a Praemunire,
for offering to sue in a Foreign Court.
513 Which Socrates, &c.] Aristophanes, in his
comedy of the Clouds, brings in Socrates and Chaerephon,
measuring the leap of a flea from the one’s
beard to the other’s.
404 Was rais’d by him, &c.] This Fisk was
a famous astrologer, who flourished about the time
of Subtile and Face, and was equally celebrated by
Ben Jonson.
436 Unless it be, &c.] This experiment was tried
by some foreign Virtuosos, who planted a piece of
ordnance point-blank against the Zenith, and having
fired it, the bullet never rebounded back again; which
made them all conclude that it sticks in the mark:
but Des Cartes was of opinion, that it does but hang
in the air.
477 As lately ’t was, &c.] This Sedgwick
had many persons (and some of quality) that believed
in him, and prepared to keep the day of judgment with
him, but were disappointed; for which the false prophet
was afterwards called by the name of Dooms-day Sedgwick.
609 Your modern Indian &c.] This compendious new
way of magick is affirmed by Monsieur Le Blanc (in
his travels) to be used in the East Indies.
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