24
LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.
but informed by others, then they reporte falsly; and therefore men behouldinge the moone in the horizon, through and by the meane of the moist and vaperous aier, the eies reporte to the minde the moone to be bigger then it is 2 howers after: and an ower to be broken in the waves that is whole;
a penny in a boule of water to be a grote for bignes: or, if theise ballifes meet with an artificiall object, then as with a suptill sophisler, beinge deluded, they err in there arrant likewise; and that is the reason why Zeuxis' painted grapes dasled the sighte of the birdes, and whye Parrhasius coortine deceaved Zeuxis the painter; that Pigmalion^s handes, in beinge in love with his owne picture, deceaved his eyes; and to applie it to this present example, this seameth to me the reason why this artificiall tower deceaveth the behoulder.
In the fabricke of the clocke which standeth in the church, nature for geavinge sutch an excellent subject to woork on, the will of the devisor for his invention and disposition, and the handes of the artificers for there exquisitenes in gravinge, carvinge and paintinge, and all three for the consent they had in the perfettinge this rare devise, are so much to be wondered at, that the behoulder remaineth douptfull to which he shoold geave the glory or praise, for it should seem they all contended for the highest point of wonderfull admiration. Nature hath geaven a kinde of woode, called Zilly, which hardly can be discerned from stone. The devisor hath placed in this, besides divers incredible motions, the best instruments of astronomy; and the painters hath bestowed thereon the summe of their cunninge and the perfection of there arte. To retoorne to the devise, therein is to be seen a shoe of eternitie; the beginninge of Tyme and a vewe of Age; the periods of the planetes; the yearly and dailie motion of the soonne in the zodiake; the convertion of the moone in her cycle, and a more particular distinction of tyme by motions artificiall of weakes, dales, howers, quarters and minutes: adorned also it is with beautifull pictures of holly and prophane stories, and with admirable motions of men, beastes and birdes. To entreat of theis partes in order doth cause me to be preposterous, for first I must describe the heele and after, last of all, the heade. Eternitie is partly figured by the begininge, and partly also by the laste parte of the fabricke. The pellican that supporteth the globe dooth represent the poet's Atlas, whome they fained to beare the woorld on his shouldiers; but Christians do resemble it to our Saviour, by whome all thinges have there life, as the globe hath hir motion by the instrumentes conveyed in the belly of the pellican. Tyme is figured