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but wind." For this reason the philosophers among them did in their
schools deliver to their pupils all their doctrines and opinions by
eructation, wherein they had acquired a wonderful eloquence, and of
incredible variety. But the great characteristic by which their
chief sages were best distinguished was a certain position of
countenance, which gave undoubted intelligence to what degree or
proportion the spirit agitated the inward mass. For after certain
gripings, the wind and vapours issuing forth, having first by their
turbulence and convulsions within caused an earthquake in man's
little world, distorted the mouth, bloated the cheeks, and gave the
eyes a terrible kind of relievo. At which junctures all their
belches were received for sacred, the sourer the better, and
swallowed with infinite consolation by their meagre devotees. And
to render these yet more complete, because the breath of man's life
is in his nostrils, therefore the choicest, most edifying, and most
enlivening belches were very wisely conveyed through that vehicle to
give them a tincture as they passed.
Their gods were the four winds, whom they worshipped as the spirits
that pervade and enliven the universe, and as those from whom alone
all inspiration can properly be said to proceed. However, the chief
of these, to whom they performed the adoration of Latria, was the
Almighty North, an ancient deity, whom the inhabitants of
Megalopolis in Greece had likewise in highest reverence. "Omnium
deorum Boream maxime celebrant." {120} This god, though endued with
ubiquity, was yet supposed by the profounder AEolists to possess one
peculiar habitation, or (to speak in form) a caelum empyraeum,
wherein he was more intimately present. This was situated in a
certain region well known to the ancient Greeks, by them called
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced], the Land of Darkness. And
although many controversies have arisen upon that matter, yet so
much is undisputed, that from a region of the like denomination the
most refined AEolists have borrowed their original, from whence in
every age the zealous among their priesthood have brought over their
choicest inspiration, fetching it with their own hands from the
fountain-head in certain bladders, and disploding it among the
sectaries in all nations, who did, and do, and ever will, daily gasp
and pant after it.
Now their mysteries and rites were performed in this manner. It is
well known among the learned that the virtuosos of former ages had a
contrivance for carrying and preserving winds in casks or barrels,
which was of great assistance upon long sea-voyages, and the loss of
so useful an art at present is very much to be lamented, though, I
know not how, with great negligence omitted by Pancirollus.
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