hich devoureth, consumeth, and
destroyeth all such things else, should cleanse, purge, and whiten this
sole Pantagruelion Carpasian Asbeston! If you mistrust the verity of this
relation, and demand for further confirmation of my assertion a visible
sign, as the Jews and such incredulous infidels use to do, take a fresh
egg, and orbicularly, or rather ovally, enfold it within this divine
Pantagruelion. When it is so wrapped up, put it in the hot embers of a
fire, how great or ardent soever it be, and having left it there as long as
you will, you shall at last, at your taking it out of the fire, find the
egg roasted hard, and as it were burnt, without any alteration, change,
mutation, or so much as a calefaction of the sacred Pantagruelion. For
less than a million of pounds sterling, modified, taken down, and
amoderated to the twelfth part of one fourpence halfpenny farthing, you are
able to put it to a trial and make proof thereof.

Do not think to overmatch me here, by paragoning with it in the way of a
more eminent comparison the Salamander. That is a fib; for, albeit a
little ordinary fire, such as is used in dining-rooms and chambers,
gladden, cheer up, exhilarate, and quicken it, yet may I warrantably enough
assure that in the flaming fire of a furnace it will, like any other
animated creature, be quickly suffocated, choked, consumed, and destroyed.
We have seen the experiment thereof, and Galen many ages ago hath clearly
demonstrated and confirmed it, Lib. 3, De temperamentis, and Dioscorides
maintaineth the same doctrine, Lib. 2. Do not here instance in competition
with this sacred herb the feather alum or the wooden tower of Pyraeus,
which Lucius Sylla was never able to get burnt; for that Archelaus,
governor of the town for Mithridates, King of Pontus, had plastered it all
over on the outside with the said alum. Nor would I have you to compare
therewith the herb which Alexander Cornelius called Eonem, and said that it
had some resemblance with that oak which bears the mistletoe, and that it
could neither be consumed nor receive any manner of prejudice by fire nor
by water, no more than the mistletoe, of which was built, said he, the so
renowned ship Argos. Search where you please for those that will believe
it. I in that point desire to be excused. Neither would I wish you to
parallel therewith--although I cannot deny but that it is of a very
marvellous nature--that sort of tree which groweth alongst the