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The inward activity of their nature, and the barrenness of their native soil, combined in teaching our forefathers to form bolder plans, and invented for them a house wherein, under conduct of the stars, they could safely move upon rivers and seas, and sail toward regions new: Fluctibus ignotis insultavere carinae.
The waves were heaving in broken and foaming masses, and reverberated along the rocky shores, finely illustrating the accuracy of Virgil's descriptive line: "Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens marino." I retired immediately to rest, not having slept for the preceding twenty-four hours; while Colonna preferred a morning walk, and wandered out to view the environs.
He Latinized his name from Robert Fludd into Robertus a Fluctibus, and began the promulgation of many strange doctrines. He avowed his belief in the philosopher's stone, the water of life, and the universal alkahest; and maintained that there were but two principles of all things, which were, condensation, the boreal or northern virtue; and rarefaction, the southern or austral virtue.
But it would task my abilities to the utmost, and occupy more time than is left me, to do anything like justice to the fluent fiery eloquence of Colt, Q. C., when he got a great chance like this. Tonat, fulgurat, et rapidis eloquentiae fluctibus cuncia proruit et proturbat.
The weapon salve continued to be much spoken of on the Continent, and many eager claimants appeared for the honour of the invention. Dr. Fludd, or A Fluctibus, the Rosicrucian, who has been already mentioned in a previous part of this volume, was very zealous in introducing it into England.
The famous Fludde or de Fluctibus, an Englishman, once wrote a book De Vita, Morte et Resurrectione under the name of R. Otreb, wherein he maintained that the fruit of the forbidden tree was a poison: but we cannot enter into this detail.
Baptista Porta, who, in the whimsical genealogy of the weapon-salve, given by Parson Foster in his attack upon Dr. a Fluctibus, is mentioned as one of its fathers, had also great faith in the efficacy of the magnet, and operated upon the imagination of his patients in a manner which was then considered so extraordinary that he was accused of being a magician, and prohibited from practising by the Court of Rome.
Fluctibus wrote a long reply, in which he called Mersenne an ignorant calumniator, and reiterated that alchymy was a profitable science, and the Rosicrucians worthy to be the regenerators of the world. This book was published at Frankfort, and was entitled "Summum Bonum, quod est Magiae, Cabalae, Alchimiae, Fratrum Roseae-Crucis verorum, et adversus Mersenium Calumniatorem."
It is odd therefore, that the one apposite passage which recurred to me in its entirety was in hexameters and pentameters: Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum! Jam jam tacturos sidera summa putes. Quantae diducto subsidunt aequore valles! Jam jam tacturas Tartara nigra putes. Quocunque adspicio, nihil est nisi pontus et aether; Fluctibus hic tumidis, nubibus ille minax....
Et iactati fluctibus et procellis innumeris tandem Brundusium, et prospero itinere per Apulium Romam petentes, sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli limina, et copiosissima sanctorum martyrum monumenta per omnes stationes osculati sumus.
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