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The PREFACE.

was convicted by manifeſt experience; and indeed is wonderful, and may well be thought incredible unto moſt, yet is maintained and aſſerted by Sennertus De Febribus; and in his ſixth book (as I remember) De Morbis à faſcino, incantatione, & veneficiis inductis. I will forbear the names of many men of fame and credit, Phyſicians too, becauſe moſt of them are named (and commonly enough known) by Sennertus upon this occaſion. There is one, whom I think interiour to none, though perchance not ſo commonly known or read, and that is, Georgius Raquſaius a Venetian, who by his firſt education and profeſſion was an Aſtrologer, caſt many Nativities, and took upon him to Prognoſticate; but afterwards conſcious to himſelf of the vanity of the Art (that is, when the Divel doth not intermeddle, as alwayes muft be underſtood: for ſome Aſtrologers have been Magicians withall, and have done ſtrange things) gave it over, and hath written againſt it very Learnedly and Solidly. Read him, if you pleaſe, in his Chapters De Magis, De Oraculis; yea, through his whole Book De Divinatione, and you may be ſatisfied what he thought of theſe things: he alſo was a Phyſician. But I muſt not omit the Learned Author that ſet out Muſarum Veronenſe, a great Naturaliſt and a Phyſician too; he handles it at the end of that work ſomewhat roundly and to the quick, I muſt confeſſe, but very Rationally and Solidly, in my judgment, againſt thoſe pretended Peripateticians, that would be thought to defend the opinion of Ariſtotle herein. I could ſay ſomewhat of ancienter Phyſicians too, and give ſome account of thoſe many Spels and Charmes that are in Irallienus, in all his books an ancient Phyſician, in high eſteeme with ſome eminent Phyſicians of theſe late times, as they themſelves have told me; though not for his Charms, but for his other learning and excellent experience, which they had found good uſe of But this I reſerve for another place & work. And this mention of that eminent Phyſician who commended Irallienus unto me, puts me in mind of what he imparted himſelf, not long before his death, of his own knowledge and experience; and particularly of the account he gave me of the examination of a Conjurer in Salisbury, at which, he ſaid, none were preſent but King James, (of moſt Bleſſed Memory) the Duke of Buckingham, and himſelf: It is likely ſome others may have heard the ſame, and I had rather any body ſhould tell it then I, who was then a patient under him, and durſt not, were I put to it, truſt to my memory for every circumſtance.

Hitherto I have gone by Authorities rather then Arguments, partly becauſe I thought that the ſhorteſt and the cleareſt way for every bodies capacity, and partly, becauſe ſuch Arguments (if any beſides theſe we have here) as have been uſed againſt this opinion, may be found fully anſwered in thoſe I have cited. The truth is, it is a Subject of that nature as doth not admit of many Arguments, ſuch eſpecially as may pretend to ſubtilty of Reaſon, Sight, Senſe, and Experience (upon which moſt Humane Knowledge is grounded) generally approved aud certain, is our beſt Argument. But before I give over, I will uſe one Argument which perchance may prove of ſome force and validity, and that is, A conſideration of the ſtranges ſliſes and evaſions and notorious abſurdities that theſe men are putto,