marmori ascribunt Praxatilem suo_. 'Tis not so with me.

[11] "Non hic Centaurus, non Gorgonas, Harpyasque
Invenies, hominem pagina nostra sapit."

"No Centaurs here, or Gorgons look to find,
My subject is of man and human kind."

Thou thyself art the subject of my discourse.

[12] "Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri farrago libelli."

"Whate'er men do, vows, fears, in ire, in sport,
Joys, wand'rings, are the sum of my report."

My intent is no otherwise to use his name, than Mercurius Gallobelgicus,
Mercurius Britannicus, use the name of Mercury, [13]Democritus Christianus,
&c.; although there be some other circumstances for which I have masked
myself under this vizard, and some peculiar respect which I cannot so well
express, until I have set down a brief character of this our Democritus,
what he was, with an epitome of his life.

Democritus, as he is described by [14]Hippocrates and [15]Laertius, was a
little wearish old man, very melancholy by nature, averse from company in
his latter days, [16]and much given to solitariness, a famous philosopher
in his age, [17]_coaevus_ with Socrates, wholly addicted to his studies at
the last, and to a private life: wrote many excellent works, a great
divine, according to the divinity of those times, an expert physician, a
politician, an excellent mathematician, as [18]Diacosmus and the rest of