The purple island : a poem / by Phineas Fletcher ; with the critical remarks of the late Henry Headley, and a biographical sketch by William Jaques.

Fletcher, Phineas, 1582-1650.

Date:: 1816

Credit: The purple island : a poem / by Phineas Fletcher ; with the critical remarks of the late Henry Headley, and a biographical sketch by William Jaques. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Thou who first mad’st, and never wilt forsake it: Else how shall Bay weak hand dare undertake it, When thou thyself ask’st counsel of thyself to make it. V. Next to Koiiia, on the right side stands, Fairly dispread in large dominion, Th’ *arch city Hepar, stretching her commands, To all within this lower region ; Fenc’d with such bars and strongest situation; So never fearing foreigners’ invasion : Hence are the f walls, slight, thin ; built but for sight and fashion. VI. To th’ heart and to th’ head-city surely tied]; With firmest league and mutual reference: His lieges there, theirs ever here abide, To take up strife and casual difference : Built § all alike, seeming like rubies sheen |j, Of some peculiar matter; such I ween, As over all the world, may no where else be seem VII. Much like a **mount, it easily ascendeth; The upper parts all smooth as slipp’ry glass: But on the lower many a crag dependeth, Like to the hangings of some rocky mass : * Of all this lower region, the Hepar, or liver, is the principal, Th© situation strong, and safe walled in by the ribs. f It is covered with one single tunicle, and that very thin and slight. \ The liver is tied to the heart by arteries, to the head by nerves, and to both by veins, dispersed to both. § The liver consists of no ordinary flesh, but of a kind proper to itself. || i. e. Fair, shining. ** The liver’s upper part rises, and swells gently ; is very smobth and even ; the lower on the outside like to a hollow rock, rugged and craggy. F$