the length; and I have chosen for it as proper a place as I could readily find. If the judicious reader can assign a fitter, I do here empower him to remove it into any other corner he pleases. And so I return, with great alacrity, to pursue a more important con

cern.

SECTION VIII.

A TALE OF A TUB.

THE learned Æolists* maintain the original cause of all things to be wind, from which principle this whole universe was at first produced, and into which it must at last be resolved: that the same breath which had kindled and blown up the flame of nature should one day blow it out:

Quod procul a nobis flectat fortuna gubernans.

This is what the adepti understand by their anima mundi: that is to say, the spirit, or breath, or wind, of the world. For examine the whole system by the particulars of nature, and you will find it is not to be disputed. For whether you please to call the forma informans of man by the name of spiritus, animus afflatus, or anima, what are all these but several appellations for wind, which is the ruling element in every compound, and into which they all resolve upon

* All pretenders to inspiration whatsoever.

their corruption? Farther, what is life itself but, as as it is commonly called, the breath of our nostrils? Whence it is very justly observed by naturalists, that wind still continues of great emolument in certain mysteries not to be named, giving occasion for those happy epithets of turgidus and inflatus, applied either to the emittent or recipient organs.

By what I have gathered out of ancient records, I find the compass of their doctrine took in two-andthirty points, wherein it would be tedious to be very particular. However, a few of their most important precepts, deducible from it, are by no means to be omitted, among which the following maxim was of much weight. That since wind had the master-share as well as operation in every compound, by consequence those beings must be of chief excellence wherein that primordium appears most prominently to abound; and therefore man is in highest perfection of all created things, as having, by the great bounty of philosophers, been endued with three distinct animas or winds, to which the sage Æolists, with much liberality, have added a fourth, of equal necessity, as well as ornament, with the other three, by this quartum principium taking in our four corners of the world, which gave occasion for that renowned cabalist, Bumbastus,* of placing the body of men in due position to the four cardinal points.

* This is one of the names of Paracelsus. He was called Christophorus Theophrastus Paracelsus Bumbastus.

In consequence of this, their next principle was that man brings with him into the world a peculiar portion or grain of wind, which may be called a quinta essentia, extracted from the other four. The quintessence is of a catholic use upon all emergencies of life, is improvable into all arts and sciences, and may be wonderfully refined, as well as enlarged, by certain methods in education. This, when blown up to its perfection, ought not to be covetously hoarded up, stifled, or hid under a bushel, but freely communicated to mankind. Upon these reasons, and others of equal weight, the wise Æolists affirm the gift of belching to be the noblest act of a rational creature. To cultivate which art, and render it more serviceable to mankind, they made use of several methods. At certain seasons of the year you might behold the priests among them in vast numbers, with their mouths gaping wide enough against a storm. * At other times were to be seen several hundreds linked together in a circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his neighbour's breech, by which they blew up each other to the shape and size of a tun, and for that reason, with great propriety of speech, did usually call their bodies their vessels. When, by these and the like performances, they were grown sufficiently replete, they would immediately depart and disembogue, for the public good, a plenti

* This is meant of those seditious preachers who blow up the seeds of rebellion, &c.

ful share of the acquirements into their disciples' chaps. For we must here observe, that all learning was esteemed among them to be compounded from the same principle; because, first, it is generally affirmed or confessed that learning puffeth men up: and, secondly, they proved it by the following syllogism: "Words are but wind, and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind." For this reason, the philosophers among them did, in their schools, deliver to their pupils all their doctrines and opinions by eructation, wherein they had acquired a wonderful eloquence and of incredible variety. But the great characteristic by which their chief sages were best distinguished was a certain position of countenance, which gave undoubted intelligence to what degree of proportion the spirit agitated the inward mass. For after certain gripings the wind and vapours issuing forth, having first, by their turbulence and convulsions within caused an earthquake in man's little world, distorted the mouth, bloated the cheeks, and given the eyes a terrible kind of relievo, at which juncture all their belches were received for sacred, the sourer the better, and swallowed with infinite consolation by their meagre devotees. And to render these yet more complete, because the breath of man's life is in his nostrils, therefore the choicest, most edifying, and most enlivening belches were very wisely conveyed through that vehicle, to give them a tincture as they passed.

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