The morall of the præmisses.This storie dooth teach us into what follie and madnes vaine hope may drive undiscreete and unexpert men. And therefore no mervell though Alcumysters dreame and dote after double advantage, faring like Aesops dog, who greedilie coveting to catch and snatch at the shadowe of the flesh which he carried in his mouth over the water, lost both the one and the other: as they doo their increase and their principall. But to breake off abruptlie from this matter, and to leave these hypocrits (for whie may they not be so named, who as Homer, speaking in detestation of such rakehelles, saith verie divinelie and trulie;
Homer.Odi etenim seu claustra Erebi, quicúnque loquuntur
Ore aliud, tacitóque aliud sub pectore claudunt:/
375. Englished by Abraham Fleming.I hate even as the gates of hell,
Those that one thing with toong doo tell,
And notwithstanding closelie keepe,
Another thing in hart full deepe)
To leave these hypocrits (I saie) in the dregs of their dishonestie, I will conclude against them peremptorilie, that they, with the rable above rehearsed, and the rowt hereafter to be mentioned, are ranke couseners, and consuming cankers to the common wealth, and therefore to be rejected and excommunicated from the fellowship of all honest men. For now their art, which turneth all kind of metals that they can come by into mist and smoke, is no lesse apparent to the world, than the cleere sunnie raies at noone sted; in so much that I may saie with the poet,
Aul. Persius, satyr. 3. Hos populus ridet, multúmque torosa juventus
Ingeminat tremulos naso crispante cachinnos: