27.08.2013 Views

PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site

PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site

PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY<br />

MEMB. III. Air rectified. With a digression of the Air.<br />

As a long-winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his<br />

pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his<br />

full pitch, and in the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a<br />

sudden: so will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of air, wherein I may freely<br />

expatiate and exercise myself for my recreation, awhile rove, wander round about the world,<br />

mount aloft to those ethereal orbs and celestial spheres, and so descend to my former elements<br />

again. In which progress I will first see whether that relation of the friar of Oxford be true,<br />

concerning those northern parts under the pole (if I meet obiter with the wandering Jew, Elias<br />

Artifex, or Lucian's Icaromenippus, they shall be my guides) whether there be such 4. Euripes,<br />

and a great rock of loadstones, which may cause the needle in the compass still to bend that way,<br />

and what should be the true cause of the variation of the compass, is it a magnetical rock, or the<br />

pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other star in the bear, as Marsilius Ficinus; or a magnetical<br />

meridian, as Maurolieus; Vel situs in vena terræ, as Agricola; or the nearness of the next<br />

continent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as Scaliger, Cortesius, Conimbricenses,<br />

Peregrinus contend; why at the Azores it looks directly north, otherwise not? In the<br />

Mediterranean or Levant (as some observe) it varies 7. grad. by and by 12. and then 22. In the<br />

Baltic Seas, near Rasceburg in Finland, the needle runs round, if any ships come that way,<br />

though Martin Ridley write otherwise, that the needle near the Pole will hardly be forced from<br />

his direction. 'Tis fit to be inquired whether certain rules may be made of it, as 11. grad. Lond.<br />

variat. alibi 36. &c. and that which is more prodigious, the variation varies in the same place,<br />

now taken accurately, 'tis so much after a few years quite altered from that it was: till we have<br />

better intelligence, let our Dr. Gilbert, and Nicholas Cabeus the Jesuit, that have both written<br />

great volumes of this subject, satisfy these inquisitors. Whether the sea be open and navigable by<br />

the Pole arctic, and which is the likeliest way, that of Bartison the Hollander, under the Pole<br />

itself, which for some reasons I hold best: or by Fretum Davis, or Nova Zembla. Whether<br />

Hudson's discovery be true of a new found ocean, any likelihood of Button's Bay in 50. degrees,<br />

Hubberd's Hope in 60. that of ut ultra near Sir Thomas Roe's welcome in Northwest Fox, being<br />

that the sea ebbs and flows constantly there 15. foot in 12. hours, as our new cards inform us that<br />

California is not a cape, but an island, and the west winds make the neap tides equal to the<br />

spring, or that there be any probability to pass by the straits of Anian to China, by the<br />

promontory of Tabin. If there be, I shall soon perceive whether Marcus Polus the Venetian's<br />

narration be true or false, of that great city of Quinsay and Cambalu; whether there be any such<br />

places, or that as Matth. Riccius the Jesuit hath written, China and Cataia be all one, the great<br />

Cham of Tartary and the king of China be the same; Xuntain and Quinsay, and the city of<br />

Cambalu be that new Peking, or such a wall 400 leagues long to part China from Tartary:<br />

whether Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus Venetus puts him in Asia, the most<br />

received opinion is, that he is emperor of the Abyssines, which of old was Ethiopia, now Nubia,<br />

under the equator in Africa. Whether Guinea be an island or part of the continent, or that hungry<br />

Spaniard's discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius<br />

-38-

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!