These reasons (quoth the Knight) I grant Are something more significant 860 Than any that the learned use Upon this subject to produce; And yet th' are far from satisfactory, T' establish and keep up your factory. Th' Egyptians say, the Sun has twice 865 Shifted his setting and his rise Twice has he risen in the west, As many times set in the east; But whether that be true or no, The Dev'l any of you know. 870 <r> Some hold the heavens like a top, And kept by circulation. up; And, were't not for their wheeling round, They'd instantly fall to the ground: As sage EMPEDOCLES of old, And from him modern authors hold. 875 <s> PLATO believ'd the Sun and Moon Below all other Planets run. Some MERCURY, some VENUS, seat Above the Sun himself in height. <t> The learned SCALIGER complain'd, 880 Gainst what COPERNICUS maintain'd, That, in twelve hundred years and odd, The Sun had left its ancient road, And nearer to time earth is come 'Bove fifty thousand miles from home: 885 Swore 'twas a most notorious flam; And he that had so little shame To vent such fopperies abroad, Deserv'd to have his rump well claw'd; Which Monsieur BODIN hearing, swore 890 That he deserv'd the rod much more, That durst upon a truth give doom; He knew less than the Pope of Rome. <u> CARDAN believ'd great states depend Upon the tip o' th' Bear's tail's end; 895 That, as she whisk'd it t'wards the Sun, Strow'd mighty empires up and down; Which others say must needs be false, Because your true bears have no tails. Some say the Zodiack Constellations 900 Have long since chang'd their antique stations Above a sign, and prove the same In Taurus now once in the Ram; Affirm the trigons chop'd and chang'd, The wat'ry with the fiery rang'd: 905 Then how can their effects still hold To be the same they were of old? This, though the art were true, would make Our modern soothsayers mistake: 910 And in one cause they tell more lies, In figures and nativities, Than th' old <w> Chaldean conjurers In so many hundred thousand years Beside their nonsense in translating, 915 For want of accidence and Latin, Like Idus, and Calendae, Englisht The quarter-days by skilful linguist; And yet with canting, sleight and, cheat, 'Twill serve their turn to do the feat; 920 Make fools believe in their foreseeing Of things before they are in being To swallow gudgeons ere th' are catch'd; And count their chickens ere th' are hatch'd Make them the constellations prompt, 925 And give 'em back their own accompt But still the best to him that gives The best price for't, or best believes. Some towns and cities, some, for brevity,