the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to
the five upper planets, to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion,
eccentrics, and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly
exploded; and so, _Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt_, [3122]as
a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse
himself: reforms some, and mars all. In the mean time, the world is tossed
in a blanket amongst them, they hoist the earth up and down like a ball,
make it stand and go at their pleasures: one saith the sun stands, another
he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there
should any paradox be wanting, he [3123]finds certain spots and clouds in
the sun, by the help of glasses, which multiply (saith Keplerus) a thing
seen a thousand times bigger _in plano_, and makes it come thirty-two times
nearer to the eye of the beholder: but see the demonstration of this glass
in [3124]Tarde, by means of which, the sun must turn round upon his own
centre, or they about the sun. Fabricius puts only three, and those in the
sun: Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like the Cyanean Isles
in the Euxine sea. [3125]Tarde, the Frenchman, hath observed thirty-three,
and those neither spots nor clouds, as Galileo, _Epist. ad Valserum_,
supposeth, but planets concentric with the sun, and not far from him with
regular motions. [3126]Christopher Shemer, a German Suisser Jesuit, _Ursica
Rosa_, divides them _in maculas et faculas_, and will have them to be fixed
_in Solis superficie_: and to absolve their periodical and regular motion
in twenty-seven or twenty-eight days, holding withal the rotation of the
sun upon his centre; and all are so confident, that they have made schemes
and tables of their motions. The [3127]Hollander, in his _dissertatiuncula
cum Apelle_, censures all; and thus they disagree amongst themselves, old
and new, irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus
Hipparchus, thus Ptolemeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus Tycho,
thus Ramerus, thus Roeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and his
adherents, thus Clavius and Maginus, &c., with their followers, vary and
determine of these celestial orbs and bodies: and so whilst these men
contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is to
be feared, the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much offended
as [3128]she was with those, and send another messenger to