lifted up into the middle Region by the Sun beams, as * Baracellus the Physitian disputes, and thence let fall with showres, or there ingendred? + Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by celestial influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or prodigies raised by art and illusions of spirits, which are Princes of the ayre; to whom Bodin lib. 2. Theat. Nat. subscribes. In fine, of Meteors in generall, Aristotle's reasons are exploded by Bernardinus Telesius, by Paracelsus his principles confuted, and other causes assigned, Sal, Sulphur, Mercury, in which his Disciples are so expert, that they can alter Elements, and separate at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, not as Cardan, Tasneir, Peregrinus, by some magneticall vertue, but by mixture of elements; imitate thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the sea's ebbing and flowing, give life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? P. Nonius Saluciensis, and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate, that no Meteors, Clouds, Fogges, Vapors, arise higher than 50, or 80. miles, and all the rest to be purer aire or Element of fire which Cardan, Tycho, and John Pena manifestly confute by refractions, and many other arguments, there is no such element of fire at all. If, as Tycho proves, the Moon be distant from us 50. and 60. Semidiameters of the earth: and as Peter Nonius will have it, the aire be so angust, what proportion is there betwixt the other three Elements and it? to what use serves it? is it full of spirits which inhabit it, as the Paracelsians and Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, full of birds, or a meer vacuum to no purpose? It is much controverted betwixt Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman the Lantsgrave of Hassia's Mathematician, in their Astronomicall Epistles, whether it be the same Diaphanum, cleerness, matter of aire and heavens, or two distinct essences? Christopher Rotman, John Pena, Jordanus Brunus, with many other late Mathematicians, contend it is the same, and one matter throughout, saving that the higher still the purer it is, and more subtile; as they finde by experience in the top of some hills in America; if a man ascend, he faints instantly for want of thicker ayre to refrigerate the heart. Acosta l. 3. c. 9. calls this mountain Periacaca in Peru, it makes men cast and vomit, he saith, that climb it, as some other of those Andes do in the desarts of Chila for 500. miles together, and for extre

Tam ominosus proventus in naturales causas referri vix potest. + Cosmog. c. 6. • Cardan saith vapours rise 288. miles from the earth, Eratosthenes 48. miles, P De subtil. 1. 2. In progymnas. * Præfat. ad Euclid. Catop. Manucodiatæ, Birds that live continually in the Ayre,

and are never seen on ground but dead: See Ulysses Alderovand. Ornithol, Scal exerc. cap. 229.

Lact. descrip. Amer,

X

mity of cold to lose their fingers and toes. Tycho will have two distinct matters of Heaven and Ayre; but to say truth, with some small qualification, they have one and the self same opinion about the Essence and matter of Heavens; that it is not hard and impenetrable, as Peripateticks hold, transparent, of a quinta essentia, "but that it is penetrable and soft as the ayre it self is, and that the planets move in it, as Birds in the ayre, Fishes in the sea." This they prove by motion of Comets, and otherwise (though Claremontius in his Antitycho stiffly oppose) which are not generated, as Aristotle teacheth, in the aeriall Region, of an hot and dry exhalation, and so consumed but as Anaxagoras and Democritus held of old, of a celestiall matter: and as "Tycho, Eliseus, Roeslin, Thaddeus, Haggesius, Pena, Rotman, Fracastorius, demonstrate by their progress, parallaxes, refractions, motions of the Planets, which enterfeire and cut one another's orbs, now higher, and then lower, as amongst the rest, which sometimes, as Kepler confirms by his own, and Ticho's accurate observations, comes nearer the earth than the O, and is again eftsoons aloft in Jupiter's orbe; and other sufficient reasons, far above the Moon : exploding in the mean time that element of fire, those fictitious first watry movers, those Heavens I mean above the Firmament, which Del-rio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius, and many of the Fathers affirm; those monstrous Orbes of Eccentricks, and Eccentre Epicycles deserentes. Which howsoever Ptolomy, Alhasen, Vitellio, Purbachius, Maginus, Clavius, and many of their associates, stiffly maintain to be reall orbes, excentrick, concentrick, circles æquant, &c. are absurd and ridiculous. For who is so mad to think, that there should be so many circles, like subordinate wheels in a clock, all impenetrable and hard, as they fain, adde and subtract at their pleasure. Maginus makes eleven Heavens, subdivided into their orbes and circles, and all too litle to serve those particular appearances: Fracastorius 72. Homocentricks; Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Ramerus, Heliseus, Roeslin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own inventions; and they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we admit of Æquators, Tropicks, Colures, Circles, Artique and Antartique, for doctrine's sake (though Ramus think them all unnecessary) they will have them supposed

t

Epist lib. 1. p. 83. Ex quibus constat nec diversa aëris & ætheris diaphana esse, nec refractiones aliunde quàm à crasso aëre causari-Non dura aut impervia, sed liquida, subtilis, motuiq; Planerarum facilè cedens. "In Progymn. lib. 2. exempl. quinq. * In Theoriâ novâ Met. cœlestium 1578. * Epit. Astron. lib. 4. y Multa sanè hinc consequuntur absurda, et si nihil aliud, tot Cometa in æthere animadversi, qui nullius orbis ductum comitantur, id ipsum sufficienter refellunt. Tycho astr. epist. pag. 107. 2 In Theoricis planetarum, three above the Firmament, which all wise men reject.

onely for method and order. Tycho hath fained I know not how many subdivisions of Epicycles in Epicycles, &c. to calculate and express the Moon's motion: But when all is done, as a supposition, and no otherwise; not (as he holds) hard, impenetrable, subtile, transparent, &c. or making musick, as Pythagoras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, dut still quiet, liquid, open, &c.

b

a

If the Heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it were not amiss in this aereall progress, to make wings, and fly up, which that Turk in Busbequius made his fellow-citizens in Constantinople beleeve he would perform: and some new-fangled wits, me thinks, should some time or other finde out: or if that may not be, yet with a Galilie's glass, or Icaromenippus wings in Lucian, command the Spheres and Heavens, and see what is done amongst them. Whether there be generation and corruption, as some think, by reason of aethereall Comets, that in Cassiopea 1572. that in Cygno 1600. that in Sagittarius 1604. and many like, which by no means Jul. Cæsar la Galla, that Italian Philosopher, in his physicall disputation with Galileus de phænomenis in orbe Lune, cap. 9. will admit: or that they were created ab initio, and shew themselves at set times: and as Helisæus Roslin contends, have Poles, Axeltrees, Circles of their own, and regular motions, For non pereunt, sed minuuntur & disparent, Blancanus holds, they come and go by fits, casting their tailes still from the Sun: some of them, as a burning glass, projects the Sun beams from it; though not alwaies neither: for sometimes a Comet casts his taile from Venus, as Ticho observes. And as C Helisæus Roslin of some others, from the Moon, with little stars about them ad stuporem Astronomorum; cum multis aliis in cœlo miraculis, all which argue, with those Medicean, Austrian, and Burboninan Stars, that the Heaven of the Planets is indistinct, pure, and open, in which the Planets move certis legibus ac metis. Examine likewise, An cælum sit coloratum? Whether the Stars be of that bigness, distance, as Astronomers relate, so many in number, 1026. or 1725. as J. Bayerus; or as some Rabbins 29000. Myriades; or as Galilie discovers by his glasses, infinite, and that via lactea, a confused light of sinal Stars, like so many nailes in a door: or all in a row, like those 12000. Isles of the Maldives, in the Indie Ocean? whether the least visible Star in the eighth Sphere be 18. times bigger

Cometis.

An sit crux et nubecula in cœlis ad Polum Antarticnm, quod ex Corsalio refert Patritius,

than

than the earth; and as Ticho calculates, 14000. semidiameters distant from it? Whether they be thicker parts of the Orbes, as Aristotle delivers: or so many habitable worlds, as Democritus? whether they have light of their own, or from the Sun, or give light round, as Patritius discourseth? An æquè distent à centro mundi? Whether light be of their essence; and that light be a substance or an accident? whether they be hot by themselves, or by accident cause heat? whether there be such a precession of the Eqninoxes, as Copernicus holds, or that the eighth Sphere move? An benè philosophentur, R. Bacon, and J. Dee, Aphorism. de multiplicatione specierum? Whether there be any such Images ascending with each degree of the Zodiack in the East, as Aliacensis feignes? An aqua super calum? as Patritius and the Schoolmen will, a Crystalline watry heaven, which is certainly to be understood of that in the middle Region? for otherwise, if at Noah's floud the water came from thence, it must be above an hundred yeeres falling down to us, as some calculate. Besides, An terra sit animata? which some so confidently beleeve, with Orpheus, Hermes, Averroes, from which all other souls of men, beasts, diveis, plants, fishes, &c. are derived, and into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timeus, Plotinus in his Enneades more largely discusse, they return (See Chalcidius and Bennius, Plato's Commentators) as all Philosophicall matter in materiam primam. Keplerus, Patritius, and some other Neotericks, have in part revived this opinion. And that every Star in heaven hath a soul, angel, or intelligence to animate or move it, &c. Or to omit all smaller controversies, as matters of less moment, and examine that main paradox, of the Earth's motion, now so much in question: Aristarchus Samius, Pythagoras maintained it of old, Democritus, and many of their Schollers, Didacus Astunica, Anthony Fascarinus, a Carmelite, and some other Commentators, will have Job to insinuate as much, cap. 9. ver. 4. Qui commovet terram de loco suo, &c. and that this one place of Scripture makes more for the Earth's motion, than all the other prove against it; whom Pineda confutes, most contradict. Howsoever, it is revived since by Copernicus, not as a truth, but a supposition, as he himself confesseth in the Preface to Pope Nicholas, but now maintained in good earnest by *Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileus, Campanella, and especially by + Lansbergius, naturæ, rationi, &

f See this discussed in Sir Walter Raleigh's history, 8 Vid Fromundum de Meteoris, lib. 5. artic. 5. et Peculiari libello. + Comment. in motum terræ Mid

• Gilbertus Origanus. in Zanch. ad Casman. Lansbergium. dlebergi 1630. 4.

veritati

i

veritati consentaneum, by Origanus, and some others of his followers. For if the Earth be the Center of the World, stand still, and the Heavens move, as the most received topinion is, which they call inordinatam cali dispositionem, though stifly maintained by Tycho, Ptolomeus, and their adherents, quis ille furor? &c. what fury is that, saith Dr. Gilbert, satis animosè, as Cabeus notes, that shall drive the Heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity in 24. houres, when as every point of the Firmament, and in the Æquator, must needs move (so Clavius calculates) 176660. in one 246th part of an houre: and an arrow out of a bow must goe seven times about the earth, whilest a man can say an Ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth 1884. times in an houre, which is supra humanam cogitationem, beyond human conceit: Ocyor & jaculo, & ventos, quante sagitta. A man could not ride so much ground, going 40. miles a day, in 2901. yeeres, as the Firmament goes in 23. houres; or so much in 203. yeeres, as the Firmament in one minute; quod incredible videtur: And the Pole star, which to our thinking scarce moveth out of his place, goeth a bigger circuit than the Sun, whose Diameter is much larger than the Diameter of the Heaven of the Sun, and 20000. Šemidiameters of the earth from us, with the rest of the fixed stars, as Tycho proves. To avoid therefore these impossibilities, they ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the Sun immoveable in the Center of the whole world, the earth Center of the Moon, alone, above? and ?, beneath h, 4, o, (or as Origanus and others wil, one single motion to the earth, still placed in the Center of the world, which is more probable) a single motion to the Firmament, which moves in 30. or 26. thousand yeeres; and so the Planets, Saturne in 30. yeeres absolves his sole and proper motion, Jupiter in 12. Mars in 3. &c. and so solve all appearances better than any way whatsoever : calculate all motions, be they in longum or latum, direct, stationary, retrogade, ascent or descent, without Epicycles, intricate Eccentricks, &c. rectius commodiusque per unicum motum terræ, saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other suppositions. And 'tis true they say, according to optick principles, the visible appearances of the Planets do so indeed answer to their magnitudes and orbes, and come neerest to Mathematicall observations, and precedent calculations, there is no repugnancy to physicall axiomes, because no penetration

h De

* Peculiari libello. + See Mr. Carpenter's Geogr. cap. 4. lib. 1. Campanella et Origanus præf. Ephemer. where Scripture places are answered. Magnete. Comment. in 2. cap. sphær. Jo. de Sacr. Bosc. Præf. Ephem.

gr. 1. à Pulo.

* Dist. S.

of