Two Treatises on the Nature of the Elements and the Fifth Essence

...what remains of the argument concerns the natures of the Elements (Elementorum), transmutations, rains, thunders, lightnings, and winds. For to deduce all these things, even word-for-word, from Aristotle (Aristotele) and his Greek, Latin, and Barbarian interpreters can be an easy task for one who does not hold the writings of those Heroes in too much dislike or ignorance.

Yet this matter can be less a source of disgrace than of glory for Drebbel (Drebelio): not only because the things he proposes harmonize with ancient, solid, and genuine Philosophy (Philosophia); but much more because he himself, by the excellence of his own genius, through meditating and experimenting (meditando atque experiundo), has attained that which many others, despite employing the aids of numerous teachers and books, reach only rarely and with difficulty.

Whatever of mine is here, most excellent Schumacher (Schumachere), I desire to be offered to you deservedly and dutifully. Even from that time when both of us, conducting public affairs, were present at a solemn act of the Academy (Academiae) at Rostock (Rostochij), that excellent generosity of your heart fixed a deep impression (aculeum defixit) in my mind and left a grateful memory of friendship and esteem, which I shall preserve unharmed and unbroken as long as [...]