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XIV.

The whole ISLE, parted in three regiments*,
By three metropolis's jointly sway'd;
Ord'ring in peace and war their governments,

With loving concord, and with mutual aid:
The lowest hath the worst, but largest see;
The middle less, of greater dignity:

The highest least, but holds the greatest soy'reignty.
XV.

Deep in a vale doth that first province lie,

With many a city grac'd, and fairly town'd; And for a fence from foreign enmity,

With five strong builded walls† encompass'd round; Which my rude pencil will in limning stain ;

A work, more curious than which poets feign
Neptune and Phoebus built, and pulled down again‡.
XVI.

The first of these, is that round spreading fences,
Which like a sea, girts th' Isle in every part;
Of fairest building, quick, and nimble sense,
Of common matter, fram'd with special art;
Of middle temper, outwardest of all,

To warn of ev'ry chance that may befall :
The

same, a fence and spy; a watchman and a wall.

*The whole body may be parted into three regions: the lowest, or belly; the middle, or breast; the highest, or head. In the lowest the liver is sovereign, whose region is the widest, but meanest. In the middle, the heart reigns. The brain obtains the highest place, and is the least in compass, but the greatest in dignity.

The skin, the fat, the fleshy panicle, the muscles, and the Peritoneum,
Neptune and Phoebus are related to have built the walls of Troy.

§ The skin covers almost the whole body, and is formed of whitish fibres, intermixed with numberless branches of nerves, veins, and arteries,

XVII.

His native beauty is a lily white* ;

Which still some other colour'd stream infecteth, Least like itself; with divers stainings dight,

The inward disposition it detecteth:

If white, it argues wet; if purple, fire;

If black, a heavy cheer, and fix'd desire;
Youthful and blithe, if suited in a rosy tire.
XVIII.

It cover'd stands with silken flourishing†,
Which as it oft decays, renews again,
The other's sense and beauty perfecting;

Which else would feel, but with unusual pain:

Whose pleasing sweetness, and resplendent shine, Soft'ning the wanton touch, and wand'ring eyn, Doth oft the Prince himself with witch'ries undermine. XIX.

The second §rampier's of a softer matter,

Made by the purple rivers overflowing:

Whose airy wave and swelling waters, fatter,
(For want of heat, congeal'd,) and thicker growing,
The wand'ring heat||, which quiet ne'er subsisteth
Sends back again to what confine it listeth;

And outward enemies by yielding, most resisteth.

*The native colour of the skin is white, but (as Hippocrates) it is changed into the colour of the predominant humour. Where melancholy abounds, it is dark ; where phlegm, it is white and pale; where choler reigns, it is red and fiery,&c.

The cuticle or scarf-skin, is an extremely thin and transparent membrane, void of sense, and covering the skin all over. It consists of several layers of exceeding small scales, which cover one another.

The mind.

§ The fat is a whitish, oily substance, void of sense, is secreted from the blood, and lodged in small, oval, membranous bags, which shoot out of the arteries. The fat increases inward heat, by keeping it from outward parts; and defends the parts subject to it from bruises.

XX.

The third more inward, firmer than the best,
May seem at first, but thinly built, and slight ;
But yet of more defence than all the rest;

Of thick and stubborn substance strongly dight.

These three (three common fences round impile)
This regiment, and all the other Isle ;

And saving inward friends, their outward foes beguile.
XXI.

Beside these three, two† more appropriate guards,
With constant watch compass this government:
The first eight companies in several wards,
(To each his station in this regiment)

On each side, four continual watch observe,
And under one great captain jointly serve;

Two fore-right stand, two cross, and four obliquely

swerve.

XXII.

The other fram'd of common matter, all

This lower region girts with strong defence; More long than round, with double-builded wall, Though single often seems to slighter sense; With many gates, whose strangest properties Protect this coast from all conspiracies; Admitting welcome friends, excluding enemies.

* The fleshy panicle, is a membrane very thick, sinewy, interwoven with little veins, and lies just under the fat.

The proper parts infolding this lower region, are two; the first, the muscles of the belly, which are eight; four side-long, two right, and two across.

The Peritoneum (called the rim of the belly) is a thin membrane, taking its name from compassing the bowels; round, but longer; every where double, yet so thin that it seems but single.

XXIII.

Between this fence's double-walled sides*,

Four slender brooks run softly o'er the lea;
The first is call'd the nurse, and rising slides
From this low region's metropolie :

Two from th' heart-city bend their silent pace;
The third from urine-lake with waters base,
In the tallantoid sea empties his flowing race.
XXIV.

Down in a ‡vale where these two parted walls
Differ from each with wide distending space,
Into a lake the urine river falls,

Which at the §Nephros hill begins his race:
Crooking his banks he often runs astray,

Lest his ill streams might backward find a way:
Thereto, some say, was built a curious framed bay.
XXV.

The urine-lake drinking his colour'd brook,
By little swells, and fills his stretching sides :
But when the stream the brink 'gins overlook,
A sturdy groom empties the swelling tides;

The double tunicle of the rim, is parted into a large space, that with a double wall it might fence the bladder, where the vessels of the navel are contained. These are four, first the nurse, which is a vein nourishing the iufant in the womb; second, two arteries, in which the infant breathes; the fourth, the Ourachos, a pipe whereby (whilst the child is in the womb) the urine is carried into the allantoid.

A membrane receiving sweat and urine.

The passages carrying the urine from the kidneys to the bladder,

§ Nephros---Greek (☀ NEQpos) the kidneys.

The bladder is composed of three coats; the first is an extension of the Peritoneum the second consists of muscular fibres; the third is both glandulous and nervous, and full of wrinkles, that it may be capable of contraction and dilatation.

Sphincter some call; who, if he loosed be,
Or stiff with cold, out flows the senseless sea,
And rushing unawares, covers the drowned lea.
XXVI.

From thence with blinder passage (flying name)
These noisome streams a secret pipe conveys;
Which though we term the hidden parts of shame,
Yet for the skill deserves no lesser praise

Than they, to which we honour'd names impart.
O, POWERFUL WISDOM! with what wond'rous art
Mad'st thou the best, who thus hast fram'd the vilest part.
XXVII.

Six +goodly cities, built with suburbs round,

Do fair adorn this lower region;

The first Koilia, whose extremest bound

On this side's border'd by the Splenion§,

On that by sovereign Hepar's|| large commands,
The merry Diazome¶ above it stands,

To both these join'd in league, and never failing bands.

* A name common to several muscles, which bind, strengthen, or draw together any part. Its glands separate a slimy matter, which defends the bladder from the acrimony of the urine. The involuntary emission of this, is prevented by a small muscle, which goes round the neck of the bladder.

+ Besides the bladder there are six special parts contained in this lower region; the liver, the stomach, and the guts; the gall, the spleen or milt; the kidneys and parts for generation.

+ The stomach (or Koilia Koña ) is the first in order though not in dignity, which is long and round, made to receive and concoct the meat, and to perfect the chyle.

§ Splenion, the spleen from Σλ Hepar, the liver, from to Hrap.

¶ Piazome, from to Ala?wμa.

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