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. ↩
Roger Bacon, commonly called Friar Bacon, lived in the reign of Edward I and, for some little skill he had in the mathematics, 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 Pope Innocent IV and summoned to appear at Rome, he appealed to the tribunal of Christ; which our lawyers say is illegal, if not a praemunire, for offering to sue in a Foreign Court. ↩
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. ↩
This Fisk was a famous astrologer, who flourished about the time of Subtile and Face, and was equally celebrated by Ben Jonson. ↩
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 Descartes was of opinion that it does but hang in the air. ↩
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 Doomsday Sedgwick. ↩
This compendious new way of magic is affirmed by Monsieur Le Blanc (in his travels) to be used in the East Indies. ↩
Paracelsus is said to have kept a small devil prisoner in the pummel of his sword, which was the reason, perhaps, why he was so valiant in his drink. Howsoever, it was to better purpose than Hannibal carried poison in his, to dispatch himself; for the sword alone would have done the feat much better, and more soldier-like; and it was below the honour of so great a commander, to go out of the world like a rat. ↩
Cornelius Agrippa had a dog which was suspected to be a spirit, for some tricks he was wont to do beyond the capacity of a dog, as it was thought; but the author of Magia Ademica has taken a great deal of pains to vindicate both the doctor and the dog from the aspersion, in which he has shown a very great respect and kindness for them both. ↩
Averrhois Astronomium propter excentricos contempsit.
[Averroes despised the eccentriciticites of astronomy]. —Phil. Melanchthon in Elem. Phil. p. 781 ↩
Astyages, king of Media, had this dream of his daughter Mandane, and the interpretation of the Magi, wherefore he married her to a Persian of mean quality, by whom she had Cyrus, who conquered all Asia, and translated the empire from the Medes to the Persians. Cf. Herodot. l. 1. ↩
Fiant aliquando prodigiosi, et longiores solus defectus, quales occisa dictatore Caesare et Antoniano bello, totius anni pallore continuo.
[Other miracles occurred, and the sun was dimmed for a longer time, for example, at the death of the Dictator Caesar, and the Antonine war, its dimness continued for a whole year] —Phil. ↩
Divus Augustus lævum sibi prodidit calceum præpostere indutum, qua die seditione militum prope afflictus est.
[The Divine Augustus put on his left boot before the right one, that same day he was afflicted by a mutiny of the soldiers] —Phil., l. 2 ↩
Romani L. Crasso et C. Mario Coss. Bubone viso orbem lustrabant.
[The Romans L. Crasso and Mario Coss. ritually purified the country from (the evil influence caused by) seeing the owl.] ↩
Anaxagoras affirmabat solem candens ferrum esse, et Peloponneso majorem: lunam habitacula in se habere, et Colles, et valles. Fertur dixisse cœlum omne ex lapidibus esse compositum; Damnatus et in exilium pulsus est, quod impie solem candentem luminam esse dixisset.
[Anaxogaras stated that the sun was made of white-hot iron, and bigger than the Peloponnese: the moon had buildings, and hills, and valleys. He was so carried away that he said that the whole sky was made of stone. He was condemned and driven into exile, for speaking impiously about the pure white light of the sun] —Diog. Laert. in Anaxag. p. 11, 13 ↩
Egyptii decem millia annorum et amplius recensent; et observatum est in hoc tanto spatio, bis mutata esse loca ortuum et occasuum solis, ita ut sol bis ortus sit ubi nunc occidit, et bis descenderit ubi nunc oritur.
[The Egyptians have records for ten thousand years and more, and it has been observed that during this space of time, the rising and setting places of the sun have changed twice, so that twice the sun has risen where it now sets, and twice set where it now rises] —Phil. Melanct. Lib. 1, p. 60 ↩
Causa quare cœlum non cadit (secundem Empedoclem) est velocitas sui motus.
[The reason the sky does not fall is (according to Empedocles) the speed it
