A. Since your volatile head

By one piot's thus mised,
And your grammar does suffer fo plainly,

To the glass be not prone,

But let tippling alone,
Or 'twill shatter your poetry mainly;

For the fumes of your wine

To the spirits affign
Perverse and inordinate motions,

Whence the pervous default

Makes your clapper thus halt,
And express such impalpable notions.

Q. Ye happy fons of God. Apollo,
Pray solve the query that does follow ;
Why Ærna's mountain vomits flame,
And whence that dreadful fire first came ?

A. Those tow'ring flames' are daily fed
By sulph'rous mines in Ærna bred;
Whose fiery parts fisst kindled were
By their inteftine motion there.

Q. Worthy wifemen, I'afüre ye;'
I've a wife that fcolds like fury;
When I fatter, then she huffs me:
When I kiss her, ftill she cuffs me:
Faith I'm weary of my life, Sir,
And would fain divide the strife, Sir ::
Tell me therefore, great pretender,
Is it possible to mend. her,
For she's stiff, and I can't bend her:

4. Let her talk herself quite dumb, Sir,
After that she’H hold her tongue, Sir;
Or if you would use her rougher,
When she cuffs you, tightly cuff her ;
If this will not bring the vixen
From the temper me is fixt in,
Brace a drum up with her hide, Sir,
Thunder on it when the chides, Sir,
Surely this The'll not abide, Sir.

a

Pray let

Q. Since to Rome I must go,

(Whether willing or no) As you British Apollo declare,

your next fay, Who for paffage must pay, Unless I mufl fly in the air.

I told you at first,

I'm with poverty cursi, And I vow it is wondrous civil

You Mould be so mad

More curses to add,
In sending me post to the devil?
A. Alas! there's no need

Of wings or of steed,
St. Christopher's staff 'tis but mounting,

You'll fly like a witch

With broom at her breech, Nor fear any tempests rencountring.

Take Loyola's cowl,

If the weather be foul,
And by land you your journey intend;

Or St. Clement's old boot,'

Tho' with ne'er a sole to't, It will carry you dry to the end.

Victoria's thin smock,

Tho' but down to your nock, Were armour all rogues to withstand;

St. Denys could come

Twice as far as from Rome,
With his head all the way in his hand;

Adipit the worst evil,

You meet with the devil,
It is but encountring the rascal;

Your fame all around

With glory will sound, And be subject for every pasquil.

Q. Whether the hope or expectance of reward ( not excluding the love of God, &c.) be not a good and lawful (tho' not the only) motive to charity ?

4. What God himself proposes as a motive, must

of

of consequence be a lawful one, since we can no ways imagine, that an infinitely perfect being can persuade to any thing but what is entirely innocent; and yet when he enforces religion in general with inestimable rewards, with what reason can we exclude the duty of charity ? Nay, is not charity it self recommended to us under the pleasing allurement of such an hope as maketh not asham’d? does not our blessed Lord encourage our secrecy in the necessary performance of so excellent a work, with the inviting prospect of a future recompence, Thy Father which

feeth in secret, himself thall reward thee openly ?

Q. Some mens spirits are visibly masters over those of others. The question is, whether this' does proceed from the excellency of education, or mens diversity of fortunes, or the real priority of fouls.

A. What priority there is in the innate faculties of fouls, human reason's incapable of judging, lince whether those faculties be equal or unequal, a difference in the actual exertion of them may arise from the causes you have mention'd, to which we may prefix another.

1. That the natural contextures of our bodies may cause no inconsiderable difference in the actings of our souls, is undeniably evident from undoubted instances. The capacities of lome have been wonderfully impair'd by accidental alterations in their bodies; and there have not been wanting those, who, tho' of very eminent endowments, have yet by some acute distemper been unhappily reduc'd below the very level of common

And this is further prov'd from the different genius's in different countries, according to the difference in the nature of the climates.

2. The difference arising from education is so very palpable, that we need not insist upon it. Some men, who for natural abilities were once look'd upon as of a common size, have by industrious application, and the best opportunities of improvement, arriv'd to a quickness of understanding, and been in great esteem,

not

1

men.

not only for their studied acquirements, but also for the uncommon reach of their great capacities.

3. That the difference may arise also from the diversity of mens fortunes, we have a noted instance in the poet Ovid, who justly attributes the want of that sprightliness of thought he had formerly been master of, To conspicuous in his last compofures, to his very unhappy circumstances, which itrangely enfeebles the natural vigour of aspiring fouls.

Q: Wherein confifts the specifick quality of Jesuit's-bark in curing quartan agues ?

A. The use of the bark, in brief, is to give an allay and stop to the over-much fermentation of the blood, which being transmitted to the heart, produceth intermittent fevers.

Q. What is the reason of different appearances of colours in the clouds ?

A. The different dispositions of the air imprint divers colours in the clouds.

Q. Why the phenomenon of a red sky in the evening is a sign of a fair day following ?

A. Å red sky in the evening proceeds from the driness of the air, intercepting the clouds, which else would diffolve into showers of rain, which are nothing else but an innumerable company of continued fruitful drops, derived from nitrous particles of air, besprinkling the surface of the earth: The driness of the air also in a red sky may hinder the attraction of a great quantity of the sea-water, which being diffused into the adjacent territories of the air produce foul weather.

Q. What is the reason a heg fees the wind, when a Christian cannot, and puts his fnout between his legs, and away when a great puff of wind is coming ?

A. It is a mistake, he does not see it, but scents it; the reason is, because he hath a more acute sensation in the olfactory nerves (expanded into membranes, cloathing or lining the noftrils) and thence can sooner perceive an approaching blaft of wind than man, who

is

runs

pure blood.

is endued with less acute nerves ; whereupon he claps his head between his legs to defend it from the blaft.

Q. What is the use of the Spleen?

Ā. It is to prepare the ferment in the blood, proceeding from faline particles, adhering to the inside of the coars of the vessels, which pafseth thro' the fplenick branches of the port into the substance of the liver, wherein the blood is prepared as by a ferment, to make a separation of cholerick particles from the more

Q. Your opinion, Gentlemen, wherefore we like one better shan another (tho altogether strangers) and at forft fight, and of our own sex ?

A. Some particles of the vital Aame being callid up into the eyes on fight of a person that pleases us, dart themselves in emanations from thence to the object which is so agreeable, where meeting with particles of the same nature, they are together communicated to that fountain of life, the heart, and cause there that pleasing sensation we term friendship; which being all the work but of one instant is the "Teason why the mutual pleasure is felt at sight, it being too quick and exquisite for the organs of speech to express.

This often happens without diftinction of sex, where the perfons are of the fame constitution, or dispos'd to the fame passions and sensations.

Q. Pray, Apollo, tell me, if 'tis not better never to contract a friendship than to break it, and if the uneasiness of the loss of a friend be not greater than the satisfaction we find in having a friend?

A. Friendship seems to be the supreames felicity of the foul, as to its conversation in this life, and consequently the pleasures which arise from it are above expression, where it is fincere, and plac'd on a deserving object: The breaking such a friendship therefore must be the greatest uneasiness that can happen to any person: but as we ought never to take up a friendship without the greatest consideration and perfect knowledge of one another, so ought we never

to