Suitable Interjection.

but also at what happens to please them greatly. They are not unlike cats, which usually growl more sharply at someone the more luxurious a morsel they feel has been presented to them. Because, as the affections of men are now, no matter, no business, or no small work is undertaken for such just causes without there being those who belittle it and prick it with their stings.

No one will walk more safely than Antimachus, nor Homer,

Envious Fate carps even at the great Gods.

4. It happened not long ago, about a year ago, that that treatise on universal medicine, which is subjoined here at the end of the book and which I translated in London, England, from German into Latin, was shown to some men most instructed in both the matters of nature and art, so that they might give their judgment and vote on whether it was worthy to be produced in type or not. And among them, the greater part were Doctors, some even theologians, and they were no less conspicuous for their prudence than for their birth.

5. I had decided in my mind to pin a dedication of that aforementioned treatise to one of them who was very sickly and is now entirely dead (but otherwise a great Philomagus lover of magic and a patron of the muses, and almost an equal to Hermes). Because he had known me somewhat, and I him, I had composed for that purpose another more secret little note, in which I had communicated my own mind regarding the Invention of the Philosophers in plain and not long speeches (for some special reason known only to God and myself). Therefore, I imagined deeply that the matter would turn out entirely according to my wish.

6. But alas, how often the firm hopes of mortals tend to the contrary! For three or four days later, when I asked the printer if he had any resolution regarding that work, he replied that the "black bean" a classical symbol for a negative vote or rejection had intervened, the opinion had been reached, and it was finished: the translation was not good Latin, but teemed with barbarisms and lacked flavor. Yet in that work (although it was finished within more or less the deadline), aside from the title and a very few words—perhaps not so common, but most appropriate to the matter—not even a letter was changed. I, however, hanging my ears and at the same time being exceedingly stunned by such a sinister consensus, immediately met these Attic judges, one today, another tomorrow, and asked each one most humbly not to obstruct my lights, but to favor me a little and deign to offer their fair censure. For three or four of them were men not unlearned, and they had judged the matter quite rightly.

7. To deaf ears, nothing was accomplished; everyone seemed to exist as if in a ferment. Many, listening to me superciliously and hastily, did not blush in the end to say to my face (for what do the self-important not utter?): namely, that the interpreter, whoever he might be, did not understand the Chymical art Alchemy at all, and that I was not of enough authority to be able to "archaicize" or reveal my genius, and that the version, made from German into Latin, was done childishly. Behold the blind, have you ever seen colors? And with these words, they humanely showed me their backsides several times.

8. But while I was once, as if at the door, most recently supplicated by a certain one of them to weigh the matter fraternally and judiciously, he added still, remissly and lightly, at the very moment of departure, that when the printer returned, he would see what he had to say. And above all these things mentioned, some had lectured me much about shoulders, and if it had occurred to them, or they had held that sentiment of Horace:

You who write, choose a subject equal to your

Strengths, and weigh for a long time what you refuse to bear.

There is no doubt that they would have chanted that as well, because they seemed to wish to indicate by this that I would be far unequal to covering such a great task, namely that I should translate something from one language to another, especially Roman.

9. And although I acknowledge my power to be of little account and nothing here,