When I obserue how Alcumists disclose
The fallacie of art, with onely shewes
Of Minerall spirits, and with cheates present,
The alterations of each element,
And with their tricks like some most powerfull iet,
Draw greedy fooles to kisse the counterfet,
Of the Elixar, as if art had done,
And made more gold, then nature or the sunne:
Or their purse--purging--misterie of fire,
Could finde more wealth, then Crassus could desire,
When I behold rich sweating Clownes bemone,
The losse of lands for the Philosophers stone:
Men of good worship gulld with oyles and glasses,
Pawning their plate in hope of gold like asses:
Oh then, thou God of crochets, and slie trickes.
My yerking Muse adores thy politickes,
When I behold a peasant rich in clothes
Clad in a Tirian--die, and skarlet hose,
Obscure in parentage, and base in friends,
Hauing no lands to helpe, but fingers ends,
And a false bale of dice, and yet so roares
In Ordinaries with his band of scoares
And librarie of reckonings brauely payed
With a high festiuall--surfet, though displayed.
Then wittie Hermes, tell, the age permits,
How many gallants onely liue by wits,
When I obserue some Lawyer shift a case,
With Angels from his right from place to place,
Iuggle with by--clarkes, and with counterfees,
Of either partie, stretch their practises
Vnto an Ambodexter course of right,
Smooth vp the weake, and fawne on men of might,
Then winged Mercurie I doe admire,
The actiue flames of thy most subtill fire,
When I behold so many slights of men,
Eu'n from the scraping and rough Citizen,
Vnto the loftie--climing--dignitie
Of some smooth Courtiers crauing subtiltie:
Then thou deepe charmer of quick Argus eies,
Thy art with thy bright planet doe arise,
When I behold a Vsurer ensnare,
The lauish issue of some hopefull heire,
Wrapt vp in bonds for some commodities,
With his damn'd broker by his policies,
Procures for composition, then my braine
Adores the Engins of thy wittie traine,
But tell me (thou acute ingenious man)
That nam'st thy selfe a slie Mercurian:
Thou that like Scenica in memorie,
Transcends the vulgar in capacitie.
Thou whose rare vertues are vnparaleld,
VVhose words, like Delphos Oracles are held)
Thou that do'st censure Homer to be blind,
Both in his mole--eied sense, and in his minde,
And call'st thy selfe a wit at euery feast,
That cares to loose thy friends more then thy iest,
Keep'st company at Tauernes, and canst write
A baudie--pamphlet for a baudes delight,
Art criticall on stages, and think'st Art,
To be diffus'd through euery sencelesse part
Of thy weake iudgement, like some great mans sonne,
Sent onely vnto Cambridge to begon,
Afore he reades his elements aright,
A great mans learning onely rests in sight.
Know'st thou not fond vsurper of sharpeman,
How art defines a true Mercurian:
Not euery Brazier (though his art be rare)
Can equall skilfull Mirons molten mare,
VVhose brazen frame liue Stalions vs'd to couer,
As if to art proud nature were a louer:
Not euery limmer of phantastick shapes
Can weare the name of Zeuxes for his grapes:

Not euery slash of ayres most subtill spirit,
Shall weare this planets influence with his merit:
Not euery brickel Poet, that aspires,
And faine would flie with Sidneys noble fires
Into the brest of greatnesse, we insert
Into the laureat Chorus of quick art.
And though the Kalends of these daies permits,
That euery man will companie the wits;
Scipio will haue his Ennius to indite,
And great Mecaenas baudy Horrace write
A Pamphlet to Idolatrize their name.
Yet in the passage of immortall fame,
Tis not the stirring motion of the pen,
Nor the phantasticke humors of those men,
No, nor their flames begot in smoke and wine,
That can inspire their blockheads with diuine,
And most inuentions straines of rauishing fits:
Vnlesse great Hermes charme their apish wits
VVith arts and deeper skill, then that which wine,
Brings forth to shame good byrthes with bastard rime:
Nor euery Almanack--maker, that can tell,
How euery Planet in his house doth dwell,
The quarters of the Moone, and giue the reason
To plow, to purge, to lib in euery season:
No, nor a Gipses trickes in Palmestrie,
Can merit a true birth from Mercurie.
No, nor a plodding Graduat, deepe in art,
That searches euen the center and the hart
Of euery scruple, that with Snake--like twinnes,
Circles the earth with winding disciplines,
We call a right Mercurian, that so lookes,
As if his soule were nail'd vnto his bookes,
Except his practick studies well doe show,
Experience in the age more then to know
The literall sense of arts: for out of schooles,
Your meerest scholers are the meerest fooles.
Not he, that taken from his Colledge teates,
And wean'd from schooles vnto the nobler seates
Of Lordly houses: can sharpe Hermes boast
The God of wits to be his sire and hoast:
If to his formall and more sollid vaine,
He ioyne not sprightfull carriage to his braine
To apprehend the times grosse ignorance,
By application of each circumstance
Vnto his noble charge he takes in hand,
That not a tricke, but he can vnderstand
Within his actiue spirit, and still tries
With his owne Test the best of subtilties,
That can prooue fatall: as for others then
They may teach scholers, but not Gentlemen,
Monastick--walkes, and circumscriptiue walls,
Are fit for plodding wits; when Lordly Halls
And noble Pupils, fit men of those parts,
That know the world, and are more then the arts:

For singularities best please our sense,
But vniuersals giue intelligence
In the whole kinde of learning: such as these
Are right Mercurians in their practises,
That ioyne with nature, art; and with their art
Experience, as a quintessentiall part:
Nor nature, nor experience ioyn'd in one,
Giues a Mercurian true perfection:
Except deepe art doe helpe to loade his braine:
For both without some learning are in vaine,
And farre from politicke influence: but he's best
That hath all three ioyn'd in a compleate breast:
For if instinct of nature make a man
With subtill trickes a right Mercurian:
I see not but the Ichnumon, Memphis God,

Should challenge in his kinde slie Hermes rod:
For in his naturall guifts, he doth excell
All other slights that men or stories tell:
For on his coate he wraps an earthen cake,
Which by reflection of the sunne doth bake
His hardned armor, and with such a slight,
Impenetrable he begins to fight
Against the Crocodile, and with a Wren
He showes more craft then most Fox--like men
Can patterne in the triumph of their foe:
For both with conquest ioyne in ouerthrow
Of Nylus monsier, and if onely art,
Architas wooden Doue shall beare a part,
Of a most slie Mercurian; or that Flie,
That late a German made most curiously,
With busie motion and with yron wings,
Venting forth buzzing, and lowd whisperings:
And if alone experience make such men.
I see no reason, but our saylers then,
Such as haue towsde the seas with change of land,
And seene all fashions: but should vnderstand
The Mazes of slie Mercurie, who on shore
Are ruder then the winds their Sayles haue bore:
No, all those three ioyn'd in their sweete consents:
Like the sweet Musicke of the elements,
That do agree together in the frame
Of a sound constitution giues the name,
Of a most right Mercurian: and not fier,
Or water by themselues, without the quier
Of their sweet harmony distinctly fixt:
Can giue a forme vnto a body mixt:
As neither Autumne, nor the spring alone
Can make a full yeares reuolution:
Vnlesse the frostie winter do conspire
To make it perfect with the Summers fire.
Nor art, nor nature makes our subtlest wits,
Except in one triplicitie it fits
Experience to them both: for in the minde
Those two like tougher Diamonds are resignd,
And pollisht by experience: and all three must
Like Diamonds cut themselues with their owne dust:
Which nothing else can perfect but their owne:
Diamonds being parted, neuer cut alone
Their proper bodies: and thus mans perfection:
Shines like a full--pact constellation:
Inuention is an action of the soule,
Whose essence starres nor influence can controule:
Which Mercurie himselfe can neuer carrie,
Or take away but prosperously may varie:
In giuing inclinations to our vaines,
But art and ripe experience quicks our braines,
Or rather all three, like three faculties
Of sense increase: and reasons properties:
As in a foure--square figure may be wrought,
A triangle from the same bodie brought:
Rests so in man, and do include each other,
Nature with art, experience as their mother:
All which, if euer they did iumpe in one.
Or blest mans reason with infusion:
Great Iulius Scaliger in thy spectacle
I reade no wonder but a miracle,
That with these three so blest thy subtilties.
Scilfull in thirteene seuerall languages,
That time shall sing thy sharpe natiuitie,
Not vnder, but beyond bright Mercurie.
Besides the mixture of the elements,
That sweetly play vpon our temperaments.
Either in higher, or in base degrees
Of actiue or their passiue qualities,
May adde vnto the temper of the scull.
Quicke winding Sceanes or plots more grosse and dull:
The airie sanguine temper quickly stirrs,
And apprehends, like busie Scribelers,
That in a Tearme time, like to vintners lads,
Vp staires and downe with nimble motion gads,
Subiect to agitation, yet consumes
His slight impressions in his ayerie fumes:
Such are the idle motion of those men,
That with poetick furie of their pen.
Snatch at each shadow of a sodaine wit,
Like Esops dog; that in the sun--shine bit
The shadow of the flesh: like Oares or Souls
That crie the first man, and so drags and puls
At sight of a conceite: that scare their sense.
Losing their fare by offring violence.
The chollericke complexion hot and drie,
Writes with a Seriants hand most gripingly.
The Phlegmaticke in such a waterie vaine,
As if some (riming--Sculler) got his straine.
But the sound melancholicke mixt of earth,
Plowes with his wits, and brings a sollid birth:
The labor'd lines of some deepe reaching Scull,
Is like some Indian ship or stately hull,
That three yeares progresse furrows vp the maine,
Bringing rich Ingots from his loaden braine:
His art the sunne, his labors are the mines,
His sollid stuffe the treasure of his lines:
Mongst which most massiue Mettals I admire
The most iudicious Beaumont, and his fire.
The euer Colum builder of his fame,
Sound searching--Spencer with his Faierie--frame:
The labor'd Muse of Iohnson, in whose loome
His silke--worme stile shall build an honor'd toombe
In his owne worke: though his long curious twins
Hang in the roofe of time with daintie lines:
Greeke--thundring Chapman beaten to the age
With a deepe furie and a sollid rage.
And Morrall Daniell with his pleasing phrase,
Filing the rockie methode of these daies.
As for those Dromidarie wits, that flie
With swifter motion, then swift Time can tie
To a more snaile--like progresse, slow and sure,
May their bold becham Muse the curse indure,
Of a waste--paper Pesthouse, and so rise,
As like the sunnes proud flower it daily dies.
Besides, another cause of wits rarieties,
Consists vpon the climates form'd varieties.
That from the Articke, to the southerne Cape,
Alters our humors to a diuerse shape,
The Northerne Tike is faire, grosse, dull and hard.
The Southerne man more pliant doth regard
The witty layes, and madrigals of arts:
But from the North, are men of tuffer parts,
Brawnie labourious Hinds for labour fit,
Come from that Pole, from tother men of wit:
Rough--hewne vntutord Groomes come from the North,
But vertues fro the South of milder worth.
And from each Climates variation,
Proceedes the changes of both men and nation.
The Alman rutter in his wit more cold,
The French more sudden, and the Italian bold,
The Spaniard subtill, though with much delay,
Craftie in vengeance, wittie to betray.
The Dutch potwittie, and the Irish man,
A most dissembling politician:
The Scotch man poore in wit, yet very thriuing,
Of a broad speech, yet subtill in contriuing.
The Englishman more poore then he is knowne
For wit and clothes, for neither are his owne.
But here from Mercurie againe I runne,
Bearing the pillers of Alemenaes sonne
With ne plus vltra, in this planets praise,
Leauing the learned trophees of greene Bayes
To Ioues owne nuncius winged Mercurie,
To crowne more worthier browes in memorie
Of a more curious modell, then my pen
Can limme out to the life in other men:
For not like Phoeton I doe aspire,
To melt my selfe in this coelestiall fire,
Or like vaine Poets, listen to the aire
Of fond opinion, what it holds for rare:
But if this Satyr haue err'd ought in matter,
May his tongue blister, that will speake to flatter,
Yet thus much boldly to the contrary
I boldly speake, by leaue of Mercury,
That though no wayes, I can his influence merit,
My Muse beyond his starres shall mount in spirit.
And to a holier Hierarchie flie,
To sing a more diuiner hystorie:
But now of Cynthia and her beames I writ,
Tis now full--Moone, Apes daunce in such a night.