izraim and
ancient braveries of Egypt. Wonderful indeed are the preserves of time,
which openeth unto us mummies from crypts and pyramids, and mammoth
bones from caverns and excavations; whereof man hath found the best
preservation, appearing unto us in some sort fleshly, while beasts must
be fain of an osseous continuance.

In what original this practice of the Egyptians had root, divers authors
dispute; while some place the origin hereof in the desire to prevent the
separation of the soul by keeping the body untabified, and alluring the
spiritual part to remain by sweet and precious odors. But all this was
but fond inconsideration. The soul, having broken its ..., is not stayed
by bands and cerecloths, nor to be recalled by Sabaean odors, but fleeth
to the place of invisibles, the _ubi_ of spirits, and needeth a surer
than Hermes's seal to imprison it to its medicated trunk, which yet
subsists anomalously in its indestructible case, and, like a widow
looking for her husband, anxiously awaits its return....

That mummy is medicinal, the Arabian Doctor Haly delivereth, and divers
confirms; but of the particular uses thereof, there is much discrepancy
of opinion. While Hofmannus prescribes the same to epileptics, Johan de
Muralto commends the use thereof to gouty persons; Bacon likewise extols
it as a stiptic, and Junkenius considers it of efficacy to resolve
coagulated blood. Meanwhile, we hardly applaud Francis the First of
France, who always carried mummies with him as a panacea against all
disorders; and were the efficacy thereof more clearly made out, scarce
conceive the use thereof allowable in physic, exceeding the barbarities
of Cambyses, and turning old heroes unto unworthy potions. Shall Egypt
lend out her ancients unto chirurgeons and apothecaries, and Cheops and
Psammitticus be weighed unto us for drugs? Shall we eat of Chamnes and
Amosis in electuaries and pills, and be cured by cannibal mixtures?
Surely, such diet is dismal vampirism, and exceeds in horror the black
banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled except in those Arabian
feasts, wherein Ghoules feed horribly.

But the common opinion of the virtues of mummy bred great consumption
thereof, and princes and great men contended for this strange panacea,
wherein Jews dealt largely, manufacturing mummies from dead carcasses
and giving them the names of kings, while specifics were compounded from
crosses and gibbet leavings. There wanted not a set of Ar