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For having three times fhook his Head
To ftir his Wit up, thus he said:
Art has no mortal Enemies
Next Ignorance, but Owls and Geefe;
Those confecrated Geefe in Orders,
That to the Capital were Warders,
And being then upon Patrol

With Noife alone beat off the Gaul.
Or thofe Athenian Sceptick Owls,
That will not credit their own Souls
Or any Science understand,

Beyond the Reach of Eye or Hand:
But meas'ring all things by their own
Knowledge, hold Nothing's to be known,
Those Whole-fale Criticks, that in Coffee-
Houfes cry down all Philofophy,
And will not know upon what Ground
In Nature we our Doctrine found,
Although with pregnant Evidence
We can demonstrate it to Senfe,
As I juft now have done to you,
Foretelling what you came to know.

Where

Where the Stars only made to light
Robbers and Burglarers by Night?

To wait on Drunkards, Thieves, Gold-finders,
And Lovers folacing behind Doors,
Or giving one another Pledges
Of Matrimony under Hedges?
Or Witches fimpling, and on Gibbets
Cutting from Malefactors Snippets;
Or from the Pill'ry Tips of Ears
Of Rebel-Saints and Perjurers?
Only to ftand by, and look on,

But not know what is faid or done?
Is there a Conftellation there,

That was not born and bred up

And therefore cannot be to learn,

In any inferiour Concern.

here?

Were they not during all their Lives,

Moft of 'em Pyrates, Whores, and Thieves?

And is it like they have not still

In their old Practices fome Skill?

Is there a Planet that by Birth

Does not derive its Houfe from Earth ?

And

And therefore probably must know

What is, and hath been done below

Who made the Balance, or whence came
The Bull, the Lion and the Ram?

Did not we here the Argo rig,
Make Berenice's Perriwig:

Whofe Liv'ry does the Coachman wear?
Or who made Caffiopeia's Chair?

And therefore as they came from hence,
With us may hold Intelligence.

Plato deny'd, The World can te
Govern'd without Geometrie ;

(For Money b'ing the common Scale
Of things by Measure, Weight, and Tale;
In all th' Affairs of Church and State,
'Tis both the Balance and the Weight)
Then much lefs can it be without
Divine Aftrology made out;

That puts the other down in Worth,

As far as Heaven's above the Earth.

Thefe Reafons (quoth the Knight) I grant

Are fomething more fignificant

Than

Than any

that the Learned use

Upon this Subject to produce;
And yet th' are far from fatisfactory,
T'establish, and keep up your Factory.
Th' Egyptians fay,The Sun has twice,
Shifted his Setting and his Rife ;
Twice has he rifen in the Weft,
As many times fet in the East:
But whether that be true, or no,
The Devil any of you know.

Some hold the Heavens, like a Top,

Are kept by Circulation up ;

And, were't not for their wheeling round,

They'd inftantly fall to the Ground:

As fage Empedocles of old,

And, from him Modern Authors hold,
Plato believ'd the Sun and Moon,

Below all other Planets run.

Some Mercury, fome Venus feat,

Above the Sun himself in height,
The learned Scaliger complain'd
'Gainft what Copernicus maintain'd,

That

That in twelve hundred Years and odd,
The Sun had left its ancient Road,

And nearer to the Earth is come

'Bove Fifty Thousand Miles from home:
Swore 'twas a moft notoriotis Flam,

And he that had fo little Shame
To vent fuch Fopperies abroad,
Deferv'd to have his Rump well claw'd i
Which Monfieur Bodin hearing, fwore
That he deferv'd the Rod much more,
That durft upon a Truth give doom,
He knew lefs than the Pope of Rome.
Cardan believ'd great States depend
Upon the Tipo' th' Bear's Tail's End;
That as fhe whisk'd it t'wards the Sun,
Strow'd mighty Empires up and down;
Which others fay must needs be false,
Because your true Bears have no Tails.
Some fay the Zodiack-Conftellations

Have long fince chang'd their antique Stations.
Above a Sign, and prove the fame.

In Taurus now, once in the Ram: