Chymist of Truth and Gospel;"--

are, also, evidently Webster's, and their quality is not such as to
make us unreasonably impatient for any further manifestations of his
poetical skill. In the year 1654 he published another tract of
singular interest and curiosity, in which he attacks the Universities
and the received system of education there, always with vigour and
various learning, and frequently with success. It is entitled
"Academiarum Examen, or the Examination of Academies; wherein is
discussed and examined the matter, method, and customes of academick
and scholastic learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and
laid open; as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of
schools, and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science;
offered to the judgment of all those that love the proficiencie of
arts and sciences and the advancement of learning. By Jo. Webster. In
moribus et institutis academiarum, collegiorum et similium conventium
quo ad doctorum hominum sedes et operas mutuas destinata sunt, omnia
progressui scientiarum in ulterius adversa inveniri. Franc. Bacon de
Verulamio lib. de cogitat. et vis. pag. mihi. 14. London: Printed for
Giles Calvert, and are to be sold at the sign of the Black
Spread-Eagle, at the west end of Paul's. 1654." 4to. In this tract,
which, like some other attacks upon the seats of learning, displays
more power in objection than in substitution, in pulling down than in
building up again, he shews the same fondness for the philosophers of
the Hermetic school, for Paracelsus, Dee, Fludd and Van Helmont, and
the same adhesion to planetary sigils, astrology, and the doctrine of
sympathies and primæval signatures, which is perceptible in the
deliberate performance of his old age. Of himself he observes: "I owe
little to the advantages of those things called the goods of fortune,
but most (next under the goodness of God) to industry: however, I am a