_I cannot think that_ Homer _pin'd away upon the Riddle of the Fishermen._] The History out of _Plutarch_ is thus: Sailing from _Thebes_ to the Island _Ion_, being landed and set down upon the shore, there happen'd certain Fishermen to pass by him, and he asking them what they had taken, they made him this Enigmatical answer, That what they had taken, they had left behind them; and what they had not taken, they had with them: meaning, that because they could take no Fish, they went to loose themselves; and that all which they had taken, they had killed, and left behind them, and all which they had not taken, they had with them in their clothes: and that _Homer_ being struck with a deep sadness because he could not interpret this, pin'd away, and at last dyed. _Pliny_ alludes to this Riddle, in his _Ep._ to his Friend _Fuscus_, where giving an account of spending his time in the Country, he tells him, _Venor aliquando, sed non sine pugilluribus, ut quamvis nihil ceperim, non nihil referam._ Plin. _Ep. lib. 9, Ep. 36_. _Or that_ Aristot.----_did ever drown himself upon the flux or reflux of_ Euripus.] _Laertius_ reports that _Aristotle_ dyed of a disease at 63 years of age. For this and the last, see the Author in _Pseudodox_. Aristotle _doth but instruct us as_ Plato _did him, to confute himself_.] In the matter of _Idea's_, Eternity of the world, _etc._ _Sec. 9. Pag. 100._ _I could be content that we might procreate like trees without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of Coition: It is the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life._] There was a Physitian long before the Author, that was of the same opinion, _Hippocrates_; for which _vide A. Gel. l. 19. Noct. Attic. c. 2_. And so of late time was _Paracelsus_, who did undertake to prescribe a way for the generation of a man without coition. _Vide Campanel. de sensu rerum, in Append. ad _cap. 19._ l. 4._ _Monsieur Montaignes_ words on this subject, are worth the reading; these they are: _Je trouve apres tout, que l'amour n'est autre chose que la fame de cette jouyssance, et considerant maintes fois la ridicule titillation de ce plaiser par on il nous tient, les absurdes movements escervelez et estourdis dequoy il agite Zenon et Cratippus, ceste rage indiscrete, ce visage inflamme de fureur et de cruaute au plus doux effect de l'amour, et puis cette morgue grare severe et extatique en une action si folle, et que la supreme volupte aye du trainsy et du plaintiff commer la douleur, je croye qu'on se joue de nous, et que c'est par industrie que nature nous a laisse la plus trouble de nos actions les plus communes pour nous esgaller par la et apparier les fols et les sayes, et nous et les bestes. Le plus contemplatif et prudent homme quand je l'imagin en cette assiette je le tien pour un affronteur, de faire le prudent et le contemplatif: et sont les pieds du paon qui abbatent son orgueil.