_Some difficulties against what we have said, drawn out of ~Nostradamus~ his own Epistles._ We have (thanks be to God) sheltered this famous man from the back-biting of _Calumny_, but that we may clear wholly the Heaven of this reputation, we add this Chapter more for the clearing of some words that are in his Epistles, which seem to contradict some of those things we have said; the Author in his Epistles to his Son _Cæsar_, after he had said that God had disposed him to receive thy impression of supernatural lights, not by a _Bacchant furor_, nor by a _Lymphatical motion_, but by _Astronomical assertions_, he saith in the same Epistle towards the end; _That sometimes in the Week being surprised by a Lymphatick humor, and making his Nocturnal Studies sweet by his calculations, he made Books of Prophecies, each one containing a hundred Astronomical Stanza’s, which he endeavoured to set out something obscurely_, from which words it might be gathered, that he made his Prophecies by a Lymphatical Spirit, and by the only judicial Astrology. And in the Epistle to King _Henry_ the II. he seemeth to confess, that his Prophecie is nothing but a natural Genius, which he had by Inheritance from his Ancestors. To these difficulties I answer, supposing first that anciently those were called Lymphaticks, who were mad for Love; because the first that was observed among the Ancients to be mad with that passion, threw himself into the water, which in Latine is called _Lympha_, whence all those that were afterwards transported with the excess of any passion, either of Love, Melancholy, Choler or Envy, have been called Lymphaticks. So that in this place a Lymphatical motion is nothing properly but a deep Melancholy, which separating us from all Earthly things, doth transport the mind to extraordinary thoughts either good or bad. This being suposed, I say that the Author confesseth, that his retreat, solitariness, nocturnal Watchings, and Melancholy, have disposed him much to the receiving of that Heavenly flame, which is the cause of Vaticination and Prophecie. And because he did often spend the whole nights in this study, this Nocturnal retreat caused in him a retirement from all worldly things, at which time he felt a Divine elevating Virtue, that raised his understanding to those Divine Knowledges. And because this elevating Vertue was caused in him by Divine operation, he doth attribute always his Prophecies to God alone; and by reason that this elevation hath some resemblance with that of the Lymphaticks, he saith, that sometimes he did Lymphatise not properly speaking, but by resemblance. So that it is true, our Author did not receive his Prophecies by Lymphatical motion, or _Bacchant furie_, but from God himself, who did work in him while he observed his Astronomical assertions; and it is also true, that he felt this Divine operation by a kind of a Lymphatical motion.