Fancy, says Fuller, runs riot when spurred with superstition. This is his marginal remark upon a characteristic paragraph concerning the Chambers about Solomon's Temple, with which I will here recreate the reader. “As for the mystical meaning of these chambers, Bede no doubt, thought he hit the very mark—when finding therein the three conditions of life, all belonging to God's Church: in the ground chamber, such as live in marriage; in the middle chamber such as contract; but in the _excelsis_ or third story, such as have attained to the sublimity of perpetual virginity. Rupertus in the lowest chamber lodgeth those of practical lives with Noah; in the middle—those of mixed lives with Job; and in the highest—such as spend their days with Daniel in holy speculations. But is not this rather _lusus_, than _allusio_, sporting with, than expounding of scriptures? Thus when the gates of the Oracle are made _five square_, Ribera therein reads our conquest over the five senses, and when those of the door of the Temple are said to be _four square_, therein saith he is denoted the _quaternion_ of Evangelists. After this rate, Hiram (though no doubt dexterous in his art) could not so soon fit a pillar with a fashion as a Friar can fit that fashion with a mystery. If made three square, then the Trinity of Persons: four square, the cardinal virtues: five square, the _Pentateuch of Moses_: six square, the _Petitions_ or the _Lord's Prayer_: seven square, their _Sacraments_: eight square, the _Beatitudes_: nine square, the Orders of Angels: ten square, the Commandments: eleven square, the moral virtues: twelve square, the articles of the creed are therein contained. In a word—for matter of numbers—fancy is never at a loss—like a beggar, never out of her way, but hath some haunts where to repose itself. But such as in expounding scriptures reap more than God did sow there, never eat what they reap themselves, because such grainless husks, when seriously thrashed out, vanish all into chaff.”[2] [Footnote 2: Pisgah Sight of Palestine, Book iii. c. vii.] CLXXVIII. THE MYSTERY OF NUMBERS PURSUED, AND CERTAIN CALCULATIONS GIVEN WHICH MAY REMIND THE READER OF OTHER CALCULATIONS EQUALLY CORRECT—ANAGRAMMATIZING OF NAMES, AND THE DOCTOR'S SUCCESS THEREIN. “There is no efficacy in numbers, said the wiser Philosophers; and very truly,”—saith Bishop Hacket in repeating this sentence; but he continues,—“some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards them, by considering miraculous occurrences which fell out in _holy Scripture_ on such and such a number.—_Non potest fortuitò fieri, quod tam sæpe fit_, says Maldonatus whom I never find superstitious in this matter. It falls out too often to be called contingent; and the oftener it falls out, the more to be attended.”[1] [Footnote 1: On referring to Bishop Hacket's Sermons I find this Motto it not copied out _Verbatim_. See p. 245.]