tivate which art, and render it more ferviceable to mankind, they made ufe of feveral methods. At certain feasons of the year, you might behold the priests among them in vaft numbers with their mouths gaping wide enough against a storm. At other times were to be feen feveral hundreds linked together in a circular chain, with every man a pair of bellows applied to his neighbour's breech, by which they blew up each other to the shape and fize of a tun; and for that reason, with great propriety of speech, did ufually call their bodies, their veffels. When by these and the like performances they were grown fufficiently replete, they would immediately depart, and disembogue, for the public good, a plentiful fhare of their acquirements into their difciples chaps. For we must here observe, that all learning was esteemed among them to be compounded from the fame principle. Becaufe, firft, it is generally affirmed, or confeffed, that learning puffeth men up : and fecondly, they proved it by the fol

This is meant of those feditious preachers, who blow up the feeds of rebellion, &.

lowing fyllogifm; words are but wind; and learning is nothing but words; ergo, learning is nothing but wind. For this reafon the philofophers among them did in their fchools deliver to their pupils all their doctrines and opinions by eructation, wherein they had acquired a wonderful eloquence, and of incredible variety. But the great characteristic, by which their chief fages were beft diftinguished, was a certain pofition of countenance, which gave undoubted intelligence to what degree or proportion the spirit agitated the inward mass. For after certain gripings, the wind and vapours iffuing forth, having firft by their turbulence and convulfions within caufed an earthquake in man's little world, distorted the mouth, bloated the cheeks, and gave the eyes a terrible kind of relievo. At which junctures, all their belches were received for facred, the fourer the better, and fwallowed with infinite confolation by their meager devotees. And, to render thefe yet more complete, because the breath of man's life is in his noftrils, therefore the choiceft, moft edifying, and most enlivening belches were very wifely

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wifely conveyed through that vehicle, to give them a tincture as they paffed.

Their gods were the four winds, whom they worshipped, as the fpirits that pervade and enliven the universe, and as thofe from whom alone all infpiration can properly be faid to proceed. However, the chief of these, to whom they performed the adoration of latria, was the almighty North; an ancient deity, whom the inhabitants of Megalopolis in Greece had likewife in the highest reverence: om nium deorum Boream maxime celebrant. This god, though endued with ubiquity, was yet fuppofed by the profounder Æolifts to poffefs one peculiar habitation, or (to fpeak in form) a cœlum empyræum, wherein he was more intimately prefent. This was fituated in a certain region, well known to the ancient Greeks, by them called, Exoría, or the land of darkness. And although many controverfies have arifen upon that matter; yet fo much is undif puted, that from a region of the like denomination the most refined Æolifts have

Latria is that worship which is paid only to the fupreme Deity. Paufan. L. 8.

bor

borrowed their original; from whence in every age the zealous among their priesthood have brought over their choicest inSpiration, fetching it with their own hands from the fountain-head in certain bladders, and difploding it among the fectaries in all nations, who did, and do, and ever will, daily gafp and pant after it.

Now, their myfteries and rites were performed in this manner. It is well known among the learned, that the virtuofo's of former ages had a contrivance for carrying and preferving winds in cafks or barrels, which was of great affistance upon long sea voyages; and the lofs of fo useful an art at present is very much to be lamented, although, I know not how, with great negligence omitted by Pancirollus. It was an invention afcribed to Eolus himself, from whom this fect is denominated, and who, in honour of their founder's memory, have to this day preferved great numbers of those barrels, whereof they fix one in each of their temples, firft beating out the top; into this

An author who writ De Artibus perditis, &c. of arts loft, and of arts invented.

barrel, upon folemn days, the priest enters; where, having before duly prepared himself by the methods already described, a fecret funnel is alfo conveyed from his pofteriors to the bottom of the barrel, which admits new fupplies of infpiration from a northern chink or crany. Whereupon, you behold him fwell immediately to the fhape and fize of his vessel. In this posture he difembogues whole tempefts upon his auditory, as the fpirit from beneath gives him utterance; which, iffuing ex adytis et penetralibus, is not performed without much pain and gripings. And, the wind in breaking forth deals with his face as it does with that of the sea, firft blackening, then wrinkling, and, at last, bursting it into a foam. It is in this guife, the facred Eolift delivers his oracular belches to his panting difciples; of whom, fome are greedily gaping after the sanctified breath; others are all the while hymn, ing out the praises of the winds; and, gently wafted to and fro by their own humming, do thus reprefent the foft breezes of their deities appeased.

• This is an exact defcrip- face by enthusiastic preachers. tion of the changes made in the

It