Madam,
Your Faithful Friend
and Servant.
[XXIV.]
MADAM,
I have heard that Artists do glory much in their Glasses, Tubes, Engines, and Stills, and hope by their Glasses and Tubes to see invisible things, and by their Engines to produce incredible effects, and by their Stills, Fire, and Furnaces, to create as Nature doth; but all this is impossible to be done: For Art cannot arrive to that degree, as to know perfectly Natures secret and fundamental actions, her purest matter, and subtilest motions; and it is enough if Artists can but produce such things as are for mans conveniencies and use, although they never can see the smallest or rarest bodies, nor great and vast bodies at a great distance, nor make or create a Vegetable, Animal, or the like, as Nature doth; for Nature being Infinite, has also Infinite degrees of figures, sizes, motions, densities, rarities, knowledg, &c. as you may see in my Book of Philosophy, as also in my book of Poems, especially that part that treats of little, minute Creatures, which I there do name, for want of other expressions, Fairies; for I have considered much the several sizes of Creatures, although I gave it out but for a fancy in the mentioned book, lest I should be thought extravagant to declare that conception of mine for a rational truth: But if some small bodies cannot be perfectly seen but by the help of magnifying glasses, and such as they call Microscopia; I pray, Nature being Infinite, What figures and sizes may there not be, which our eyes with all the help of Art are not capable to see? for certainly, Nature hath more curiosities then our exterior senses, helped by Art, can perceive: Wherefore I cannot wonder enough at those that pretend to know the least or greatest parts or creatures in Nature, since no particular Creature is able to do it. But concerning Artists, you would fain know, Madam, whether the Artist be beholden to the conceptions of the Student? To which I return this short answer: That, in my judgment, without the Students conceptions, the Artist could not tell how to make experiments: The truth is, the conceptions of studious men set the Artists on work, although many Artists do ungratefully attribute all to their own industry. Neither doth it always belong to the studious Concepter to make trials or experiments, but he leaves that work to others, whose time is not so much imployed with thoughts or speculations, as with actions; for the the Contemplator is the Designer, and the Artist the Workman, or Labourer, who ought to acknowledg him his Master, as I do your Ladiship, for I am in all respects,
Madam,
Your Ladiships
humble and faithful Servant.