you might be treated as a philosopher; which I desire some certain
gentlemen of my acquaintance to lay up in their hearts as a very
seasonable innuendo.

This, indeed, was the fatal mistake of that worthy gentleman, my
most ingenious friend Mr. Wotton, a person in appearance ordained
for great designs as well as performances, whether you will consider
his notions or his looks. Surely no man ever advanced into the
public with fitter qualifications of body and mind for the
propagation of a new religion. Oh, had those happy talents,
misapplied to vain philosophy, been turned into their proper
channels of dreams and visions, where distortion of mind and
countenance are of such sovereign use, the base, detracting world
would not then have dared to report that something is amiss, that
his brain hath undergone an unlucky shake, which even his brother
modernists themselves, like ungrates, do whisper so loud that it
reaches up to the very garret I am now writing in.

Lastly, whoever pleases to look into the fountains of enthusiasm,
from whence in all ages have eternally proceeded such fattening
streams, will find the spring-head to have been as troubled and
muddy as the current. Of such great emolument is a tincture of this
vapour, which the world calls madness, that without its help the
world would not only be deprived of those two great blessings,
conquests and systems, but even all mankind would unhappily be
reduced to the same belief in things invisible. Now the former
postulatum being held, that it is of no import from what originals
this vapour proceeds, but either in what angles it strikes and
spreads over the understanding, or upon what species of brain it
ascends, it will be a very delicate point to cut the feather and