SUPPLEMENT VIII.

A

SPECIMEN

OF THE

PERSIAN MAGICK:

OR,

An ESSAY towards deriving POLITICAL from NATURAL KNOWLEDGE; on occafion of an UNION betwixt ENGLAND and SCOTLAND.

Dedicated, in private, to King JAMES I.

VOL. II.

B

PREFAC E.

T

HE primary View of the following Piece was, doubtlefs, indirectly to convey Inftruction to the King, in his Design of uniting the two Kingdoms: A Subject afterwards thoroughly digefted, and closely ftudied by the Author, in all its Branches, under the Title of Certain Articles, or Confiderations, touching the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, collected and dispersed, for his Majesty's better Service a

To gain the more favourable audience of a Prince who valued himself for his Learning, the Author seems to have chose this learned Expedient; and under pretence of reviving the Perfian Magick, reads a political Lecture upon the proper method of uniting Kingdoms. Yet this primary Intention did not over-rule the Author's Design of giving a Specimen of what may, both from the nature of the thing, and the ancient accounts, be rationally conceived a part of the Perfian Magick; viz. the drawing Rules and Maxims of Government from Phyfical Obfervations: Which is also faid to be done, with great Exactness, by the Chinese. The Subject is profecuted by the Author in the Same manner as he interprets the Heathen Mythology, in his Sapientia Veterum. And in that manner it had been easy for a perfon of his extenfive Knowledge in Phyficks and Politicks, to have wrote a Syftem of this kind of Perfian Magick: A Work referved for fome other eminent Philofopher and Politician, to finish upon this Plan.

a See Mr. Blackbourne's Edition of the Author's Works, VOL. IV. p. 234.

b For more particular Informations in this refpect confult the De Augmentis Scientiarum, Sect. III & VI. and Dr. Hyde's Hifloria Religionis Veterum Perfarum, eorumq; Magorum, &c. p. 374, &c.