THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. 93 



is hardly able to defend us from the violence of the 

 chemists, if in this regard they set upon us, seeing 

 they promise by that their elixir to effect golden 

 mountains, and the restoring of natural bodies, as it 

 were from the portal of hell. But, concerning che 

 mistry, and those perpetual suitors for that philoso 

 phical elixir, we know certainly that their theory is 

 without grounds, and we suspect that their practice 

 also is without certain reward. And therefore, 

 omitting these, of this last part of the parable, this 

 is my opinion, I am induced to believe by many 

 figures of the ancients, that the conservation and 

 restoration k of natural bodies, in some sort, was not 

 esteemed by them as a thing impossible to be at 

 tained, but as a thing abstruse and full of difficul 

 ties, and so they seem to intimate in this place, 

 when they report that this one only sprig was found 

 among infinite other trees in a huge and thick wood, 

 which they feigned to be of gold, because gold is 

 the badge of perpetuity, and to be artificially as it 

 were inserted, because this effect is to be rather 

 hoped for from art, than from any medicine, or sim 

 ple or natural means. 



METIS, OR COUNSEL. 



The ancient poets report that Jupiter took Me 

 tis to wife, whose name doth plainly signify coun 

 sel, and that she by him conceived. Which when 

 he found, not tarrying the time of her deliverance, 

 devours both her and that which she went withal, 



