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HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
jects, purposely to put them in the Marshalsey, or other
Houses of Hell to be destroyed in prison, or starved, or
killed by the keepers, and then two or three poore old
women for as many shillings shall perswade the Crowner and
the people to believe the men dyed of consumptions. It is
a barbarous part in humanity to add unto any afflicted
parties' misery, or endeavour to multiply in any man a
passion whose single nature is already above his patience.
"The Ascendent to the Quartile of Saturn, and part of
Fortune to the Sextile of the Moon came next ; and it is
true I had loved a lady in Devonshire, but when I
seriously perused my nativity,
I found the seventh House
afflicted, and therefore never resolve to marry ; for, behold,
I am a man, and I know not how : I was so proportioned
and have something in me that can be without me, and
will be after me, and here is the misery of a man's life ;
eats, drinks, and sleeps to-day that he may do so to-
morrow, and this breeds diseases, which bring death, *
all flesh is grass.' And all these creatures we behold are
but the herbs of the field digested into flesh in them, or
more remotely carnified in ourselves ;
he
for
we are devourers not
onely of men but of ourselves, and that not in an allegory
but a positive truth, for all this masse of flesh which we
behold came in at our mouths ; this frame we look upon
hath been upon our trenchers, and we have devoured our-
selves, and what are we? I could be content that we
raise each other from death to life as Eosie Crucians
might
doe without conjunction, or that there were any way to
perpetuate the world without this trivial and vain way of
coition as Dr Brown calls it. It is the foolishest act a wise
man commits all his life, nor is there anything that will more
deject his cold imagination than to consider what an odd