24 A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 



On the 17th of Dec. 1660, Hartlib had expressed 

 his own opinion of Olbia very plainly, confessing his 

 chagrin on seeing it. And well he might on reading 

 such a farrago of learned nonsense. But the first 

 perusal of it seems actually to have perplexed Dr. 

 Worthington as well as Mr. Beal, the former speaking 

 but hesitatingly and doubtingly about this spasmodi- 

 cally written performance. It consists of 15 leaves 

 without paging, printed in large type, in double 

 columns, except a poetical rhapsody at the end, on 

 two pages and a half. It is a wild burlesque, which 

 reads like heads for a strange cabalistic but extremely 

 incoherent discourse. The last paragraph runs : — 

 " Some of the Hymns, that could be taken, but abrupt, 

 and lost by translation, seemed thus : — 



* Divine Sophia ! though I sprawl in clay ; 

 Yet thou art neer ally'd : and for a day 

 Of wo, made of Woman. 



***** 



'Tis little love, to love our like, or friend ; 

 And less, to love our lovely ; Fair and Pride; 

 All sinners may do this, and hypocrites.' " 



Mr. Beal's serious treatment of such a production 

 reminds one of an instance of similar credence given to 

 Gulliver's Travels. The very title-page of Olbia is 

 sufficient to stamp it as a mere satire ; Wodenothe, one 

 oi' Hartlib's publishers, had for his sign the " Golden 



