into three classes; the superficial, the ignorant, and the learned; and I have with much felicity fitted my pen to the genius and advantage of each. The superficial reader will be strangely provoked to laughter, which clears the breast and the lungs, sovereign against the spleen, and the most innocent of all diuretirs. The ignorant reader (between whom and the former the distinction is extremely nice) will find himself disposed to share; which is an admirable remedy for ill eyes, serves to raise and enliven the spirits, and wonderfully helps perspiration. But the reader, truly learned, chiefly for whose benefit I wake when others sleep, and sleep when others wake, will here find sufficient matter to employ his speculations for the rest of his life. It were much to be wished, and I do here humbly propose for an experiment, that every prince in Christendom will take seven of the deepest scholars in his dominions, and shut them up close for seven years, in seven chambers, with a command to write seven ample commentaries on this comprehensive discourse. I shall venture to affirm, that whatever difference may be found in their several conjectures, they will be all, without the least distortion, manifestly deducible from the text. Meantime, it is my earnest request, that so useful an undertaking may be entered upon, if their majesties please, with all convenient speed; because I have a strong inclination, before I leave the world, to taste a blessing, which we mysterious writers can seldom reach, till we have got into our graves; whether it is that fame, being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow, and much less ripen, till the stock is in the earth; or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest, to pursue after the scent of a carcase; or whether she conceives her trumpet sounds best and farthest, when she stands on a tomb, by the advantage of a rising ground, and the echo of a hollow vault. It is true, indeed, the republic of dark authors, after they once found out this excellent expedient of dying, have been peculiarly happy in the variety, as well as extent of their reputation. For, night being the universal mother of things, wise philosophers hold all writings to be fruitful in the proportions they are dark; and therefore the true illuminated 13) (that is to say, the darkest of all) have met with such numberless commentators, whose scholastic midwifery hath delivered them of meanings, that the authors themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may very justly be allowed the lawful parents of them; the words of such writer being like seed, which, however scattered at raudom, when they light upon a fruitful ground, will multiply far beyond either the hopes or imagination of the sower 11). And therefore, in order to promote so useful a work, I will here take leave to glance a few innuendos, that may be of great assistance to those sublime spirits who shall be appointed to labour in an universal comment upon this wonderful discourse. And, first, I have couched a very profound mystery in the number of O's multiplied by seven, and divided by nine 15). Also, if a devout brother of the Rosy Cross will pray fervently for sixtythree mornings, with a lively faith, and then transpose certain letters and syllables according to prescription, in the second and fifth sections; they will certainly reveal into a full receipt of the opus magnum. Lastly, whoever will be at the pains to calculate the whole number of each letter in this treatise, and sum up the difference exactly between the several numbers, assigning the true natural cause for every such difference; the discoveries in the product will plentifully reward his labour. But then he must beware of bythus and sige 16), and be sure not to forget the qua 13) D. i. eine Secte der Rosenkreuzer, diese waren fanatische Alchemisten. Vgl. Pope's Rape of the Lock. 14) Nichts ist häufiger, als dass den Autoren Erklärungen aufgedrungen werden, an die sie nie gedacht haben. Man betrachte nur die Stock - Philologen, die, wenn sie über irgend eine Partikel reden, ihre ganze Gelehrsamkeit auskramen, und sprechen, der Autor brauche die Partikel in der und der Bedeutung, wenn auch dieser gar nicht daran gedacht hat. 15) Auf diese Art gingen die Kabbalisten mit der Bibel um, und behaupteten, wunderliche Geheimnisse darin gefunden zu haben. 16) bythus and sige, der Name Bythus (ẞõýos), vom unbegreiflichen Wesen der Gottheit, kommt nicht nur bei Irenaeus, sondern auch bei Synesius Hymn. 1. v. 116. vor. Von Buos kamen nach den Gnostikern voũs und àlýðɛ‹ her. Die Ophiten nannten den lities of acamoth 17); a cujus lacrymis humecta prodit substantia, a risu lucida, a tristitia solida, et a timore mobilis: wherein Eugenius Philalethes 18) hath committed an unpardonable mistake. Bythos das Urlicht, den Urquell alles andern Lichts, den Allvater, auch den ersten Menschen; von diesem emanirt zuerst seine Evvola (die Sige) das zweite Princip, der zweite Mensch. Vgl. Neander's gnostische Systeme, S. 94. 176. 231. Rössler's Bibliothek der Kirchenväter 1r Theil, S. 304 ff. 17) Die Achamoth (an, 1 Zošča) liessen die Valentinianer von der oogía erzeugt werden, und sie soll vom Aeon Christus mit Erkenntniss unterstützt worden seyn. Vgl. Neander a. a. O. Ephraemi Syri Opera. Tom. II, S. 444 ff. — 18) Die schon oben angeführte Anthroposophia Theomagica hatte noch einen Anhang mit dem Titel: Anima magica abscondita; beides schrieb Vaughan unter dem Namen Eugenius Philalethes. Auf diese kabbalistischen Werke wird hier angespielt; aber in keiner von dieser Abhandlung ist eine Erwähnung der Achamoth; es ist hier blos Spott über dunkle Schriftseller. 99 SECTION XI. A TALE O F A TUB. After so wide a compass 1), as I have wandered, I do now gladly overtake, and close in with 2) my subject; and shall henceforth hold on with it an even pace to the end of my journey, except some beautiful prospect appears within sight of my way; whereof though at present I have neither warning nor expectation, yet, upon such an accident, come when it will, I shall beg my reader's favour and company, allowing me to conduct him through it along with myself. For in writing 3) it is as in travelling; if a man is in haste to be at home (which I acknowledge to be none 4) of my case, having never so little business as when I am there), if his horse be tired with long riding and ill ways, or be naturally a jade, I advise him clearly to make the straitest and the commonest road, be it ever so dirty 5). But then, surely, we must own such a man to be a scurvy companion at best; he spatters himself and his fellow - travellers at every step; all their thoughts, and wishes, and conversation turn entirely upon the subject of their journey's end; and at every splash"), and plunge 7), and stumble ), they heartily wish one another at the devil. On the other side, when a traveller and his horse are in heart and plight'); when his purse is full, and the day before him; he takes the road only where it is clean or convenient; entertains his company there as agreeably as he can; but, upon der Schriftstellerei. 1) compass, Umweg. 2) to close in with, sich an jemand anschliessen, sich mit jemandem vereinigen. 3) in writing, mit 4) none wird absolut oder in Beziehung auf ein Substantiv gebraucht, no dagegen ist unter die allgemeinen Zahlwörter zu rechnen, und muss immer sein Substantiv bei sich haben. 5) be it ever so dirty, wenn er auch noch so kothig ist. 6) splash, Pfütze. plötzliche Starz, hier wohl so viel als - pern. 9) to be in heart and plight, 7) plunge, Eintauchen, Fall. 8) stumble, Stol munter und gesund seyn. the first occasion, carries them along with him to every delightful scene in view, whether of art, of nature, or of both; and if they chance to refuse out of stupidity or weariness, let them jog 10) on by themselves and be d-n'd. He'll overtake them at the next town; at which arriving, he rides furiously through; the men, women, and children run out to gaze; a hundred noisy curs ) run barking after him; of which 12) if he honours the boldest with a lash of his whip, it is rather out of sport than revenge; but should some sourer mongrel dare too near an approach, he receives a salute on the chaps, by an accidental stroke from the courser's heels (nor is any ground lost by the blow) which sends him yelping and limping home. I now proceed to sum up the singular adventures of my renowned Jack; the state of whose dispositions and fortunes the careful reader does, no doubt, most exactly remember, as I last parted with them in the conclusion of a former section. Therefore his next care must be, from two of the foregoing, to extract a scheme of notions that may best fit his understanding for a true relish of what is to ensue. Jack had not only calculated the first revolution of his brain so prudently, as to give rise to that epidemic sect of Aeolists, but succeeding also into a new and strange variety of conceptions, the fruitfulness of his imagination led him into certain notions, which, although in appearance very unaccountable, were not without their mysteries and their meanings, nor wanted followers to countenance and improve them. I shall therefore be extremely careful and exact in recounting such material passages of this nature, as I have been able to collect, either from undoubted tradition, or indefatigable reading; and shall describe them as graphically as it is possible, and as far as notions of that height and latitude can be brought within the compass of a pen. Nor do I at all question, but they will furnish plenty of noble matter for such, whose converting imaginations dispose them to reduce all things into types; who can make shadows, no thanks 10) to jog, im Trabe sich (auf und nieder) bewegen. |