_Lacy._ God send your honour your heart's desire. [_Exeunt._
SCENE II.--FRIAR BACON'S _cell at Brazen-nose._
_Enter_ FRIAR BACON, _and_ MILES _with books under his arm; with them_ BURDEN, MASON _and_ CLEMENT.
_Miles. Hic sum, doctissime et reverendissime doctor._
_Bacon. Attulisti nos libros meos de necromantia?_
_Miles. Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare libros in unum!_
_Bacon._ Now, masters of our academic state, That rule in Oxford, viceroys in your place, Whose heads contain maps of the liberal arts, Spending your time in depth of learnèd skill, Why flock you thus to Bacon's secret cell, A friar newly stall'd in Brazen-nose? Say what's your mind, that I may make reply.
_Burd._ Bacon, we hear, that long we have suspect, That thou art read in magic's mystery; In pyromancy, to divine by flames; To tell, by hydromantic, ebbs and tides; By aeromancy to discover doubts, To plain out questions, as Apollo did.
_Bacon._ Well, Master Burden, what of all this?
_Miles._ Marry, sir, he doth but fulfil, by rehearsing of these names, the fable of the Fox and the Grapes: that which is above us pertains nothing to us.
_Burd._ I tell thee, Bacon, Oxford makes report, Nay, England, and the court of Henry says Thou'rt making of a brazen head by art, Which shall unfold strange doubts and aphorisms, And read a lecture in philosophy; And, by the help of devils and ghastly fiends, Thou mean'st, ere many years or days be past, To compass England with a wall of brass.
_Miles._ What of this, master! why he doth speak mystically; for he knows, if your skill fail to make a brazen head, yet Mother Waters' strong ale will fit his turn to make him have a copper nose.
_Clem._ Bacon, we come not grieving at thy skill, But joying that our académy yields A man suppos'd the wonder of the world; For if thy cunning work these miracles, England and Europe shall admire thy fame, And Oxford shall in characters of brass, And statues, such as were built up in Rome, Etérnize Friar Bacon for his art.
_Mason._ Then, gentle friar, tell us thy intent.
_Bacon._ Seeing you come as friends unto the friar, Resolve[183] you, doctors, Bacon can by books Make storming Boreas thunder from his cave, And dim fair Luna to a dark eclipse. The great arch-ruler, potentate of hell, Trembles when Bacon bids him, or his fiends, Bow to the force of his pentageron.[184] What art can work, the frolic friar knows; And therefore will I turn my magic books, And strain out necromancy to the deep. I have contriv'd and fram'd a head of brass (I made Belcephon hammer out the stuff), And that by art shall read philosophy: And I will strengthen England by my skill, That if ten Cæsars liv'd and reign'd in Rome, With all the legions Europe doth contain, They should not touch a grass of English ground: The work that Ninus rear'd at Babylon, The brazen walls fram'd by Semiramis, Carv'd out like to the portal of the sun, Shall not be such as rings the English strand From Dover to the market-place of Rye.