, _lib. 10. perspect._ hath such
another instance of a familiar acquaintance of his, that after the want of
three or four nights sleep, as he was riding by a river side, saw another
riding with him, and using all such gestures as he did, but when more light
appeared, it vanished. Eremites and anchorites have frequently such absurd
visions, revelations by reason of much fasting, and bad diet, many are
deceived by legerdemain, as Scot hath well showed in his book of the
discovery of witchcraft, and Cardan, _subtil. 18._ suffites, perfumes,
suffumigations, mixed candles, perspective glasses, and such natural
causes, make men look as if they were dead, or with horse-heads,
bull's-horns, and such like brutish shapes, the room full of snakes,
adders, dark, light, green, red, of all colours, as you may perceive in
Baptista Porta, Alexis, Albertus, and others, glow-worms, fire-drakes,
meteors, _Ignis fatuus_, which Plinius, _lib. 2. cap. 37._ calls Castor and
Pollux, with many such that appear in moorish grounds, about churchyards,
moist valleys, or where battles have been fought, the causes of which read
in Goclenius, Velouris, Fickius, &c. such fears are often done, to frighten
children with squibs, rotten wood, &c. to make folks look as if they were
dead, [2703]_solito majores_, bigger, lesser, fairer, fouler, _ut astantes
sine capitibus videantur; aut toti igniti, aut forma daemonum, accipe pilos
canis nigri_, &c. saith Albertus; and so 'tis ordinary to see strange
uncouth sights by catoptrics: who knows not that if in a dark room, the
light be admitted at one only little hole, and a paper or glass put upon
it, the sun shining, will represent on the opposite wall all such objects
as are illuminated by his rays? with concave and cylinder glasses, we may
reflect any shape of men, devils, antics, (as magicians most part do, to
gull a silly spectator in a dark room), we will ourselves, and that hanging
in the air, when 'tis nothing but such an horrible image as [2704]Agrippa
demonstrates, placed in another room. Roger Bacon of old is said to have
represented his own image walking in the air by this art, though no such
thing appear in his perspectives. But most part it is in the brain that
deceives them, although I may not deny, but that oftentimes the devil
deludes them, takes his opportunity to suggest, and represent vain objects
to melancholy men, and such as are ill affected. To these you may add the
knavish impostures of juggl