[13]And for that Opinion of the famous _Kirchir_, about animated Worms, (says _Hodges_) 'I must confess I could never come at any such Discovery with the Help of the best Glasses, nor ever found the same discovered by any other; but perhaps in our cloudy Island we are not so sharp-sighted as in the serene Air of _Italy_; and with Submission to so great a Name, it seems to me very disconsonant to Reason, that such a pestilential Seminium, which is both of a nitrous and poisonous Nature, should produce a living Creature.' And he is well assured, that he is in the right, when he says, '[14]Every one of those Particulars are as clear as the Light at Noon-Day; and those Explications are so obvious to be met with in the Writings of the Learned, that it would be lost Labour to insist upon any such Thing here.' [15]Dr. _Mead_ chimes in here very tuneably with _Hodges_, and is pleased to say, 'That some Authors have imagined Infection to be performed by the Means of Insects, the Eggs of which may be conveyed from Place to Place, and make the Disease when it comes to be hatch'd. As this is a Supposition grounded upon no Manner of Observation, so I think there is no need to have Recourse to it.' Dr. _Bradley_, who hatches this Distemper by the smaller Kind of Insects floating in the Air, is greatly jealous of his favourite Egg, from which that fatal Cockatrice breaks forth and disperses Death in every Quarter: He may be seen to promote this Hypothesis in that Discourse of his new Improvement of Planting, _&c._ and with no less Pursuit in his late Pamphlet on the Plague at _Marseilles_; where in his Preface, _p._ 13, he tells you, 'That to suppose this malignant Distemper is occasioned by Vapours only arising from the Earth, is to lay aside our Reason, _&c._' And it may be farther observed, That they are as remote from their Consent to one another, as in the distant Place from whence they would trace its Origin. [16]Dr. _Mead_, from a bare Transcription of _Matthaeus Villanus_, does affirm, That the Plague in the Year 1346, had its first Rise in _China_, advancing through the _East-Indies_, _Syria_, _Turkey_, _&c._ and by Shipping from the _Levant_, brought into _Europe_, which in the Year 1349. seized _England_. This is directly against Dr. _Bradley_,[17] who suggests the Plague is no where to be found in _India_, _China_, the South Parts of _Africa_ and _America_, and has taken the Pains in filling up three Pages in the Defence of this Assertion. It would be well if their Opposition ended here; but when it affects us more near, when their Difference becomes more wide in the very Means of our Preservation, and what by one is laid down as a soveraign and real Good, to be returned by another as the most fatal and destructive, is a Weight of no small Consequence, nor a less melancholly Reflection, if it should please God to inflict us with the same Calamities.