can hardly grow and much less ripen till the stock is in the earth,
or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest to
pursue after the scent of a carcass, or whether she conceives her
trumpet sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb, by the
advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a hollow vault.

It is true, indeed, the republic of dark authors, after they once
found out this excellent expedient of dying, have been peculiarly
happy in the variety as well as extent of their reputation. For
night being the universal mother of things, wise philosophers hold
all writings to be fruitful in the proportion they are dark, and
therefore the true illuminated (that is to say, the darkest of all)
have met with such numberless commentators, whose scholiastic
midwifery hath delivered them of meanings that the authors
themselves perhaps never conceived, and yet may very justly be
allowed the lawful parents of them, the words of such writers being
like seed, which, however scattered at random, when they light upon
a fruitful ground, will multiply far beyond either the hopes or
imagination of the sower.

And therefore, in order to promote so useful a work, I will here
take leave to glance a few innuendos that may be of great assistance
to those sublime spirits who shall be appointed to labour in a
universal comment upon this wonderful discourse. And first, I have
couched a very profound mystery in the number of 0's multiplied by
seven and divided by nine. Also, if a devout brother of the Rosy
Cross will pray fervently for sixty-three mornings with a lively
faith, and then transpose certain letters and syllables according to
prescription, in the second and fifth section they will certainly
reveal into a full receipt of the opus magnum. Lastly, whoever will