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CHAPTER I.

Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana the fourth clay after their nativities, according to Gentile theology, may pass for no blind apprehension of the creation of the sun and moon, in the work of the fourth day: when the diffused light contracted into orbs, and shooting rays of those luminaries. Plainer descriptions there are from Pagan pens, of the creatures of the fourth day. While the divine philosopher unhappily omitteth the noblest part of the third, and Ovid (whom many conceive to have borrowed his description from Moses), coldly deserting the remarkable account of the text, in three words describeth this work of the third day,—the vegetable creation, and first ornamental scene of nature,—the primitive food of animals, and first story of physick in dietetical conservation.

For though physick may plead high, from that medical act of God, in casting so deep a sleep upon our first parent, and chirurgery find its whole art, in that one passage concerning