Enter Friar Bacon, and Miles with books under his arm; with them Burden, Mason and Clement.
Bacon. Miles, where are you?
Miles. Hic sum, doctissime et reverendissime doctor.
Bacon. Attulisti nos libros meos de necromantia?
Miles. Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare libros in unum!
Bacon. Now, masters of our academic state,
That rule in Oxford, viceroys in your place,
Whose heads contain maps of the liberal arts,
Spending your time in depth of learnèd skill,
Why flock you thus to Bacon's secret cell,
A friar newly stall'd in Brazen-nose?
Say what's your mind, that I may make reply.
Burd. Bacon, we hear, that long we have suspect,
That thou art read in magic's mystery;
In pyromancy, to divine by flames;
To tell, by hydromantic, ebbs and tides;
By aeromancy to discover doubts,
To plain out questions, as Apollo did.
Bacon. Well, Master Burden, what of all this?
Miles. Marry, sir, he doth but fulfil, by rehearsing of these names, the fable of the Fox and the Grapes: that which is above us pertains nothing to us.
Burd. I tell thee, Bacon, Oxford makes report,
Nay, England, and the court of Henry says
Thou'rt making of a brazen head by art,
Which shall unfold strange doubts and aphorisms,
And read a lecture in philosophy;
And, by the help of devils and ghastly fiends,
Thou mean'st, ere many years or days be past,
To compass England with a wall of brass.
Bacon. And what of this?