He'd extract numbers out of matter,[1]
And keep them in a glass, like water,
Of sov'reign power to make men wise:[2] 555
For, dropt in blear, thick-sighted eyes,
They'd make them see in darkest night,
Like owls, tho' purblind in the light.
By help of these, as he profest,
He had first matter seen undrest: 560
He took her naked, all alone,
Before one rag of form was on.[3]
The chaos too he had descry'd,
And seen quite thro', or else he lied:
Not that of pasteboard, which men shew 565
For groats, at fair of Barthol'mew;[4]
But its great grandsire, first o' th' name,
Whence that and Reformation came,
Both cousin-germans, and right able
T'inveigle and draw in the rabble: 570
But Reformation was, some say,
O' th' younger house to puppet-play.[5]
He could foretell wbats'ever was,
By consequence, to come to pass:
As death of great men, alterations, 575
Diseases, battles, inundations:
All this without th' eclipse of th' sun,
- ↑ Every absurd notion, that could be picked up from the ancients, was adopted by the wild enthusiasts of our author's days. Plato, as Aristotle informs us, Metaph. lib. i. c. 6, conceived numbers to exist by themselves, beside the sensibles, like accidents without a substance. Pythagoras maintained that sensible things consisted of numbers. Ib. lib. xi. c. 6. And see Plato in his Cratylus.
- ↑ The Pythagorean philosophy held that there were certain mystical charms in certain numbers.
Plato held whatsoe'er encumbers
Or strengthens empire, comes from numbers.Butler's MS.
- ↑ Thus Cleveland, page 110. "The next ingredient of a diurnal is plots, horrible plots, which with wonderful sagacity it hunts dry foot, while they are yet in their causes, before materia prima can put on her smock."
- ↑ The puppet-shows, sometimes called Moralities or Mysteries, exhibited Chaos, the Creation, Flood, Nativity, and other subjects of sacred history, on pasteboard scenery. These induced many to read the Old and New Testament; and is therefore called the Elder Brother of the Reformation.
- ↑ That is, the Sectaries, in their pretence to inspiration, assumed to be passive instruments of the Holy Spirit, directed like puppets.
