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the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have all means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in
strange lines and distances.
"We have also perfume-houses, wherewith we join also practices of taste. We multiply smells which may seem
strange: we imitate smells, making all smells to breathe out of other mixtures than those that give them. We make
divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they will deceive any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a
confiture-house, where we make all sweatmeats, dry and moist, and divers pleasant wines, milks, broths, and salads,
far in greater variety than you have.
"We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate
and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have; and
to make them and multiply them more easily and with small force, by wheels and other means, and to make them
stronger and more violent than yours are, exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance
and instruments of war and engines of all kinds; and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gunpowder, wild-
fires burning in water and unquenchable, also fire-works of all variety, both for pleasure and use. We imitate also
flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats for going under water and
brooking of seas, also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have divers curious clocks and other like motions of
return, and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures by images of men, beasts, birds,
fishes, and serpents; we have also a great number of other various motions, strange for equality, fineness, and
subtilty.
"We have also a mathematical-house, where are represented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy,
exquisitely made.
"We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions,
impostures and illusions, and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that we, that have so many things
truly natural which induce admiration, could in a world of particulars deceive the senses if we would disguise those
things, and labor to make them more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures and lies, insomuch as we have
severely forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not show any natural work or
thing adorned or swelling, but only pure as it is, and without all affectation of strangeness.
"These are, my son, the riches of Salomon's House.
"For the several employments and offices of our fellows, we have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the
names of other nations (for our own we conceal), who bring us the books and abstracts, and patterns of experiments
of all other parts. These we call merchants of light.
"We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call depredators.
"We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices
which are not brought into arts. These we call mystery-men.
"We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call pioneers or miners.
"We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the
drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call compilers. We have three that bend themselves,
looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for
man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and
the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call dowry-men or benefactors.
"Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labors and collections, we
have three that take care out of them to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than
the former. These we call lamps.
"We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call inoculators.
"Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and
aphorisms. These we call interpreters of nature.
"We have also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former employed men do not
fail; besides a great number of servants and attendants, men and women. And this we do also: we have
consultations, which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not;
and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret; though some of those
we do reveal sometime to the State, and some not.
"For our ordinances and rites we have two very long and fair galleries. In one of these we place patterns and samples
of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors.
There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies, also the inventor of ships, your monk
that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder, the inventor of music, the inventor of letters, the inventor of
printing, the inventor of observations of astronomy, the inventor of works in metal, the inventor of glass, the
inventor of silk of the worm, the inventor of wine, the inventor of corn and bread, the inventor of sugars; and all
these by more certain tradition than you have. Then we have divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which,
since you have not seen) it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of
those descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give
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