It makes the parties gratious,
and mightie too that have it,
And noysome fansies (as they write
that ment not to deprave it)
It dooth displace out of the mind:
the force thereof is stronger,
In silver if the same be set,
and will endure the longer.
But (as I said) VincentiusVincent. lib. 9. cap. 77.
Dioscor. lib. 5. cap. 100.
Aristot. in Lapidario. making mention of the Jasper stone, touching which (by the waie of a parenthesis) I have inferred Marbodeus his verses, he saith that some Jasper stones are found having in them the livelie image of a naturall man, with a sheeld at his necke and a speare in his/212. hand, and under his feete a serpent: which stones so marked and signed, he preferreth before all the rest, bicause they are antidotaries or remedies notablie resisting poison. Othersome also are found figured and marked with the forme of a man bearing on his necke a bundle of hearbs and flowres, with the estimation and value of them noted, that they have in them a facultie or power restrictive, and will in an instant or moment of time stanch bloud. Such a kind of stone (as it is reported) Galen wore on his finger. Othersome are marked with a crosse, as the same author writeth, and these be right excellent against inundations or overflowings of waters. I could hold you long occupied in declarations like unto these, wherein I laie before you what other men have published and set foorth to the world, choosing rather to be an academicall discour/ser,301. than an universall determiner: but I am desirous of brevitie.