6. When our cheek burneth or ear tingleth, we usually say that some body is talking of us, which is an ancient conceit, and ranked among superstitious opinions by _Pliny_. _Absentes tinnitu aurium præsentire sermones de se receptum est_, according to that distick noted by _Dalecampius_. _Garrula quid totis resonas mihi noctibus auris? Nescio quem dicis nunc meminisse mei._ Which is a conceit hardly to be made out without the concession of a signifying _Genius_, or universal _Mercury_; conducting sounds unto their distant subjects, and teaching us to hear by touch. [Sidenote: _The original of the proverb_, Under the Rose be it, _etc._] 7. When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the Rose; which expression is commendable, if the Rose from any natural property may be the Symbole of silence, as _Nazianzene_ seems to imply in these translated verses: _Utq; latet Rosa Verna suo putamine clausa, Sic os vincla ferat, validisq; arctetur habenis, Indicatq; suis prolixa silentia labris:_ And is also tolerable, if by desiring a secrecy to words spoke under the Rose, we only mean in society and compotation, from the ancient custom in Symposiack meetings, to wear chaplets of Roses about their heads: and so we condemn not the _German_ custom, which over the Table describeth a Rose in the cieling. But more considerable it is, if the original were such as _Lemnius_, and others have recorded; that the Rose was the flower of _Venus_, which _Cupid_ consecrated unto _Harpocrates_ the God of silence, and was therefore an Emblem thereof, to conceal the pranks of Venery; as is declared in this Tetrastick; _Est Rosa flos veneris, cujus quo facta laterent, Harpocrati matris, dona dicavit Amor; Inde Rosam mensis hospes suspendit Amicis. Convivæ ut sub eâ dicta tacenda sciant._ 8. That smoak doth follow the fairest, is an usual saying with us, and in many parts of _Europe_; whereof although there seem no natural ground, yet it is the continuation of a very ancient opinion, as _Petrus Victorius_ and _Causabon_ have observed from a passage in _Athenæus_: wherein a _Parasite_ thus describeth himself: _To every Table first I come, Whence Porridge I am cal'd by some: A Capaneus at Stares I am, To enter any Room a Ram; Like whips and thongs to all I ply, Like smoake unto the Fair I fly._