g and ever
mutable _Lampas_, me seemeth, is man's destinie to follow, she
praecurseth, she guideth him, before his uncapable eyes she frisketh
her tender lights, which entertayne the child-man, untill what time
his sight be strong to endure the vision of _Very Truth_, which is in
the heavens, the vision beatifical, as _Anianus_ expounds in his
argument against certain mad wits which helde God to be corporeous;
these were dizzards, fools, _gothamites_. * * * * but and if _Very
Truth_ be extant indeede on earth, as some hold she it is which
actuates men's deeds, purposes, ye may in vaine look for her in the
learned universities, halls, colleges. Truth is no Doctoresse, she
takes no degrees at Paris or Oxford, amongst great clerks,
disputants, subtile Aristotles, men _nodosi ingenii, able to take
Lully by the chin_, but oftentimes to such an one as myself, an
_Idiota_ or common person, _no great things_, melancholizing in woods
where waters are, quiet places by rivers, fountains, whereas the
silly man expecting no such matter, thinketh only how best to
delectate and refresh his mynde continually with _Natura_ her
pleasaunt scenes, woods, water-falls, or Art her statelie gardens,
parks, terraces, _Belvideres_, on a sudden the goddesse herself
_Truth_ has appeared, with a shyning lyghte, and a sparklyng
countenance, so as yee may not be able lightly to resist her. * * * *

EXTRACT III.

This morning, May 2, 1662, having first broken my fast upon eggs and
cooling salades, mallows, water-cresses, those herbes, according to
_Villanovus_ his prescription, who disallows the use of meat in a
morning as gross, fat, hebetant, _feral_, altogether fitter for wild
beasts than men, _e contra_ commendeth this herb-diete for gentle,
humane, active, conducing to contemplation in most men, I betook
myselfe to the nearest fields. (Being in London I commonly dwell in
the _suburbes_, as airiest, quietest, _loci musis propriores_, free
from noises of caroches, waggons, mechanick and base workes,
workshoppes, also sights, pageants, spectacles of outlandish birds,
fishes, crocodiles, _Indians_, mermaids; adde quarrels, fightings,
wranglings of the common sort, _plebs_, the rabble, duelloes with
fists, proper to this island, at which the stiletto'd and secrete
_Italian_ laughs.) Withdrawing myselfe from these buzzing and
illiterate vanities, with a _bezo las manos_ to the city, I begin to
inhale, draw in, snuff up, as horses _dilatis naribus_