Pan is alfo faid to be the God of the CountryClowns, because men of this condition lead lives more agreeable unto Nature, than those that live in the Cities and Courts of Prince, where Nature by too much Art is corrupted: So as the faying of the Poet (though in the fenfe of Love) might be here verified:

Pars minima eft ipfa puella fui.

The Maid fo trickt her felf with Art,
That of her felf she is leaft part.

He was held to be Lord Prefident of the Mountains, because in the high Mountains and Hills, Nature lays her felf moft open and men most apt to view and contemplation.

Whereas Pan is faid to be (next unto Mercury) the Meffenger of the Gods, there is in that a Divine Mystery contained, for next to the Word of God, the Image of the World proclaims the Power and Wisdom Divine, as fings the facred Poet. Pfal. xix. 1. Cæli enarrant gloriam Dei, atque opera manuum ejus indicat firmamentum. The Heavens declare the glory of God, and Firmament fheweth the Works of his Hands.

The Nymphs, that is, the Souls of living things take great delight in Pan. For these Souls are the delights or minions of Nature, and the direction or conduct of thefe Nymphs is with great reafon attributed unto Pan, because the Souls of all things living do follow their natural difpofiti

ons as their guides, and with infinite variety every one of them after his own fashion, doth leap, and frisk and dance with inceffant motions about her. The Satyrs and Sileni alfo, to wit, youth and old age, are fome of Pans followers: For of all natural things, there is a lively, jocund, and (as I may fay) a dancing age, and an age again that is dull, bibling and reeling. The carriages and difpofitions of both which ages to fome fuch as Democritus was (that would obferve them duly) might peradventure feem as ridiculous and deformed, as the gambols of the Satyrs, or the geftures of the Sileni.

Of those fears and terrors which Pan is faid to be the Author, there may be this wise conftruction made: Namely, That Nature hath bred in every living thing a kind of care and fear, tending to the preservation of its own life and being, and to the repelling and fhunning of all things hurtful. And yet Nature knows not how to keep a mean, but always intermixes vain and empty fears with fuch as are difcreet and profitable: So that all things (if their infides might be feen) would appear full of Panick frights: But men especially in hard, fearful, and diverse times, are wonderfully infatuated with fuperftition, which indeed is nothing elfe but a Panick

terror.

Concerning the audacity of Pan in challenging Cupid at wrestling: The meaning of it is, that Matter wants not inclination and defire to the relapfing and diffolution of the World into the

old

old Chaos, if her malice and violence were not reftrained and kept in order, by the prepotent unity and agreement of things fignified by Cupid, or the God of Love; and therefore it was a happy turn for men, and all things elfe, that in that conflict Pan was found too weak and

overcome.

To the fame effect may be interpreted his catching of Typhon in a Net: For howsoever there may fometimes happen vaft and unwonted Tumors (as the name of Typhon imports) either in the Sea, or in the Air, or in the Earth, or elsewhere; yet Nature doth intangle it in an intricate toil, and curb and restrain it, as it were with a Chain of Adamant, the exceffes and infolencies of thefe kind of Bodies.

But forafmuch as it was Pans good fortune to find out Ceres as he was Hunting, and thought little of it, which none of the other Gods could do, though they did nothing else but seek her, and that very feriously; it gives us this true and grave admonition, That we expect not to receive things neceffary for life and manners from Philofophical Abftractions,as from the greater Gods; albeit they applied themselves to no other study, but from Pans that is, from the discreet obfervation and experience, and the universal knowledg of the things of this World; whereby (oftentimes even by chance, and as it were going a Hunting) fuch inventions are lighted

upon.

The

The quarrel he made with Apollo about Mufick, and the event thereof contains a wholfom inftruction, which may serve to restrain mens Reasons and Judgments with Reins of Sobriety, from boafting and glorying in their gifts. For there feems to be a twofold Harmony, or Mufick; the one of Divine Providence, and the other of Human Reafon. Now to the Ears of Mortals, that is to Human Judgment, the Administration of the World and Creatures therein, and the more fecret Judgments of God, found very hard and harth; which folly, albeit it be well set out with Affes Ears; yet notwithstanding these Ears are fecret, and do not openly appear, neither is it perceived or noted as a deformity by the vulgar.

Laftly, It is not to be wondred at, that there is nothing attributed unto Pan concerning Loves, but only of his marriage with Eccho: For the World or Nature doth enjoy it self, and in it felf all things elfe. Now he that loves would enjoy fomething, but where there is enough, there is no place left to defire. Therefore there can be no wanting love in Pan, or the World, nor defire to obtain any thing (feeing he is contented with himself) but only Speeches, which (if plain) may be intimated by the Nymph Eccho, or if more quaint by Syrinx. It is an excellent invention that Pan, or the World is faid to make choice of Eccho only (above all other Speeches or Voices) for his Wife: For that alone is true Philofophy, which doth faithfully render

the

the very words of the World; and it is written no otherwise than the World doth dictate, it being nothing else but the Image or reflection of it, not adding any thing of its own, but only iterates and refounds. It belongs also to the fufficiency or perfection of the World, that he begets no Iffue; for the World doth generate in refpect of its parts, but in refpect of the whole, how can it generate, feeing without it there is no Body? Notwithstanding all this, the Tale of that tatling Girl faltred upon Pan, may in very deed, with great Reafon, be added to this Fable: For by her are reprefented those vain and idle Paradoxes concerning the Nature of things which have been frequent in all Ages, and have filled the World with Novelties; Fruitless, if you respect the matter; Changlings if you refpect the kind, fometimes creating Pleasure, fometimes tediousness with their overmuch pratling. *

PERSEUS, or War.

ERSEUS is faid to have been employed by Pallas, for the destroying of Medufa, who was very infeftuous to the Weltern Parts of the World,and especially about the utmost Coasts of Hiberia. A Monster so dire and horrid, that by her only afpect the turned men into Stones.

Medufa alone of all the Gorgons was mortal,

the