Book II.

Moreover, that thing doth as yet far more manifeftly appear in ale or beer : when, in times paft, our anceflors had feen that of barley, after whatfoever manner it was boiled, nothing but an empty ptrfana or barley-broth, or alfo a pulp was cooked ; they meditated, that the barley firft ought to bud (which then they called malt) and next, they nakedly boiled their ales, imitating wines : wherein, firft of all, fome remarkable things do meet in one ; to wit, there is ftirred up in barley, a vegetable bud, the which when the barley is dried, doth afterwards die, and lofeth the hope of growing, and fo much the more by its changing into meal, and afterwards by an after-boiling, it defpairs of a growing virtue ; yet thefe things nothing hindering, it retains the winey and intoxicat- ing fpirit of aqua vitae, the which notwithftanding it doth not yet actually pof- fefs : but at length, in number of days, it attaineth it by virtue of a ferment : to wit, in the one only bofom of one grain one only fpirit is made famous with diverfe powers, and one power is gelded, another being left: which thing indeed, doth as yet more wonderfully fhine forth ; when as the ale or beer of malt difturbs itfelf while the barley flowereth, no otherwife than as wine is elfewhere wont to do : and fo a power at a far abfent diftance is from hence plain to be feen : for truly there are cities from whom pleafant meadows do ex- pel the growing of barley for many miles ; and by £o much the more power- fully do ales prove their agreement with the abfent flowering barley ; in as much as the gelding of their power hath withdrawn the hopes of budding and in- creaflng : and at length the aqua vitae being detained and fhut up within the ale, hogfhead, and prifon of the cellar, cannot with the fafety of the ale or beer wandering for fome leagues unto the flowering ear of barley, that thereby, as a ftormy returner, it may trouble the remaining ale with much confuflon. Certainly there is a far more quiet paflage for a magnetical or attractive agree- ment among fome agents at a far diftance from each other, than there is to dream an aqua vitas wandering out of the ale of a cellar, unto the flowering barley, and from thence to return unto the former receptacles of its pen-cafe, and ale : But the flgn imprinted by the appetite of a woman great with child, on her young, doth fitly, and alike clearly confirm a magnetifm or attractive faculty and its operation at a diftance : to wit, let there be a woman great with child,
which