520 h In Magick, &c.] Talisman is a device to destroy any sort of vermin, by casting their images in metal, in a precise minute, when the stars are perfectly inclined to do them all the mischief they can.  This has been experienced by some modern Virtuosi upon rats, mice, and fleas, and found (as they affirm) to produce the effect with admirable success.

Raymund Lully interprets cabal, out of the Arabic, to signify Scientia superabundans; which his commentator, Cornelius Agrippa, by over-magnifying, has rendered a very superfluous foppery.

532 i As far as, &c.] The author of Magia Adamica endeavours to prove the learning of the ancient Magi to be derived from that knowledge which God himself taught Adam in Paradise before the fall.

535 And much of Terra Incognita,
    The intelligible World cou’d say. 
The intelligible world is a kind of Terra Del Fuego, or Psittacorum Regio[Land of Parrots], &c. discovered only by the philosophers; of which they talk, like parrots, what they do not understand.

538 k learned &c.] No nation in the world is more addicted to this occult philosophy than the Wild-Irish are, as appears by the whole practice of their lives; of which see Camden in his description of Ireland.

539 l Or Sir Agrippa, &c.] They who would know more of Sir Cornelius Agrippa, here meant, may consult the Great Dictionary.

541 m He Anthroposophus and Floud,
      And Jacob Behmen understood. 
Anthroposophus is only a compound Greek word, which signifies a man that is wise in the knowledge of men, as is used by some anonymous author to conceal his true name.  Dr. Floud was a sort of an English Rosy-crucian, whose works are extant, and as intelligible as those of Jacob Behmen.

545 n In Rosy-crucian Lore as learned
      As he that Vere Adeptus earned. 
The fraternity of the Rosy-crucians is very like the sect of the ancient Gnostici, who called them selves so from the excellent learning they pretended to, although they were really the most ridiculous sots of mankind.  Vere Adeptus is one that has commenced in their phanatick extravagance.

646 o Thou that with Ale or viler Liquors,
      Didst inspire Withers, Pryn, and Vicars. 
This Vicars was a man of as great interest and authority in the late Reformation as Pryn or Withers, and as able a poet.  He translated Virgil’s AEneids into as horrible Travesty, in earnest, as the French Scaroon did in burlesque, and was only outdone in his way by the politic author of Oceana.

714 p We that are, &c.] This speech is set down as it was delivered by the Knight, in his own words:  But since it is below the gravity of heroical poetry to admit of humour, but all men are obliged to speak wisely alike, and too much of so extravagant a folly would become tedious and impertinent, the rest of his harangues have only his sense expressed in other words, unless in some few places, where his own words could not be so well avoided.