52 Transactions of the 



words, aBd the latter are often much contracted. At the 

 beginning of the first volume of the ' Medicina Catholica ' 

 (which is dedicated to the then Archbishop of Canterbury), 

 there is another of the emblematical figures of which Fludd 

 was so fond. In it a healthy man (' Homo sanus ') is seen 

 kneeling in the midst of a kind of citadel, the four corners of 

 which are guarded by Raphael, Uriel, Michael, and Gabriel, 

 each with a drawn sword. From the north is let loose upon 

 him the demon Mahazael, riding upon a gigantic frog, and 

 poising an arrow aloft in his hand ; from the south appears 

 Azazel, a demon riding upon a dragon ; from the east, 

 Sammael (the messenger of death), astride upon a winged 

 dragon, and holding a torch in his hands ; while from the 

 west comes Azael, riding upon a dolphin. The first volume 

 contains a great collection of medical facts ; but, as we pass 

 on to the second and third, the matter becomes weaker and 

 weaker, until it culminates in the most arrant puerility. In 

 the chapter ' De nomandia sive onomantia,' rules are given 

 in great detail for finding out the priority of death in the 

 case of two relations, and some of these rules are as arbitrary 

 as, and somewhat of the nature of, the divination we practise 

 when we count our cherry-stones, and say, ' This year, next 

 year, sometime, never.' Again, what shall we say to ninety- 

 three pages devoted to divination, by feeling the pulse under 

 different planetary conditions. But the crowning point of 

 folly and superstition remains : will it be credited that any 

 man, much less a man of Fludd's capability, could devote 180 

 folio pages to ' Ouromantia hoc est divinatio per — ovpov9' 

 Imagine a vast system of vaticination based upon the obser- 

 vation of ovpov, under various stellar and other conditions. 

 Can anything be more infinitely pitiful than this ? Did any 

 act attributed to the Laputan philosoi^hers exceed this for 

 folly ? We can but regret that the infinite care and inge- 

 nuity exercised in these pursuits could not have been 

 legitimately applied. The same minute habits of observa- 

 tion, which in one age could only produce a treatise on 

 Ouromantia, might in a later age have produced an elaborate 

 treatise on some refined manipulation. Nature piped unto 

 the men of that day as she pipes unto us, but their minds 

 were not attuned to the sound ; hence they danced not. We 

 all know how many years elapsed before we rightly appre- 

 ciated that joyous harmony. 



Fludd wrote a few other works of minor importance, 

 among them a ' Clavis philosophicae et alchymise,' a treatise 

 addressed to the Eosicrucians (of which fraternity he was a 



