the right eye of an Hedge-hog boiled in oyl, and preserved in a brazen vessel effect. As strange it is, and unto vicious inclinations were worth a nights lodging with _Lais_, what is delivered in _Kiranides_; that the left stone of a Weesel, wrapt up in the skin of a she Mule, is able to secure incontinency from conception. [SN: _Ten thousand drachms._] These with swarms of others have men delivered in their Writings, whose verities are onely supported by their authorities: But being neither consonant unto reason, nor correspondent unto experiment, their affirmations are unto us no axioms: We esteem thereof as things unsaid, and account them but in the list of nothing. I wish herein the _Chymists_ had been more sparing: who over-magnifying their preparations, inveigle the curiosity of many, and delude the security of most. For if experiments would answer their encomiums, the Stone and Quartane Agues were not opprobrious unto Physitians: we might contemn that first and most uncomfortable Aphorism of _Hippocrates_, [SN: _Ars longa vita brevis._] for surely that Art were soon attained, that hath so general remedies; and life could not be short, were there such to prolong it. CHAPTER VIII A brief enumeration of Authors. Now for as much as we have discoursed of Authority, and there is scarce any tradition or popular error but stands also delivered by some good Author; we shall endeavour a short discovery of such, as for the major part have given authority hereto: who though excellent and useful Authors, yet being either transcriptive, or following common relations, their accounts are not to be swallowed at large, or entertained without all circumspection. In whom the _ipse dixit_, although it be no powerful argument in any, is yet less authentick then in many other, because they deliver not their own experiences, but others affirmations, and write from others, as later pens from them. [Sidenote: _The Authors judgement, or a character given of some eminent Authors._]