"AMOR ex Oculo": Love is from the eye: but (as the Lord Bacon saith)
more by glances than by full gazings; and so for envy and malice.
Tell me dearest, what is Love ?
'Tis a Lightning from above:
'Tis an Arrow, 'tis a Fire,
'Tis a Boy they call Desire.*
* Mr. Fletcher in Cupid's Revenge.
'Tis something divine and inexplicable. It is strange, that as one
walks the streets sometimes one shall meet with an aspect (of male or
female) that pleases our souls; and whose natural sweetness of nature,
we could boldly rely upon. One never saw the other before, and so
could neither oblige or disoblige each other. Gaze not on a maid,
saith Ecclus. 9, 5.
The Glances of envy and malice do shoot also subtilly; the eye of the
malicious person, does really infect and make sick the spirit of the
other. The Lord Bacon saith it hath been observed, that after
triumphs, the triumphants have been sick in spirit.
The chymist can draw subtile spirits, that will work upon one another
at some distance, viz. spirits of alkalies and acids, e.g. spirits
coelestial (sal armoniac and spirits of C. C. will work on each other
at half a yard distance, and smoke;) but the spirits above mentioned
are more subtile than they.
"Non amo te Sabati, nece possum dicere quare,
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te".
Fellow, I love thee not, I can't tell why,
But this, I'll tell thee, I could sooner die.
But if an astrologer had their nativities, he would find a great
disagreement in the schemes. These are hyper-physical opticks, and
drawn from the heavens.
Infants are very sensible of these irradiations of the eyes. In Spain,
France, &c. southern countries, the nurses and parents are very shy to
let people look upon their young children, for fear of fascination. In
Spain, they take it ill if one looks on a child, and make one say, God
bless it. They talk of "mal de ojos". We usually say, witches have
evil eyes.
AN ACCURATE ACCOUNT OF SECOND-
SIGHTED MEN IN SCOTLAND.
**In Two Letters from a learned friend of mine in Scotland.