and received several intelligences from their several employments; at last had a mind to divert herself after her serious discourses, and therefore she sent for the Spider-men, which were her mathematicians, the Lice-men which were here geometricians, and the Magpie- Parrot- and Jackdaw-men, which were her orators and logicians. The Spider-men came first, and presented her Majesty with a table full of mathematical points, lines, and figures of all sorts, of squares, circles, triangles, and the like; which the Empress, notwithstanding that she had a very ready wit, and quick apprehension, could not understand; but the more she endeavoured to learn, the more was she confounded: Whether they did ever square the circle, I cannot exactly tell, nor whether they could make imaginary points and lines; but this I dare say, that their points and lines were so slender, small and thin, that they seemed next to imaginary. The mathematicians were in great esteem with the Empress, as being not only the chief tutors and instructors in many arts, but some of them excellent magicians and informers of spirits, which was the reason their characters were so abstruse and intricate, that the Empress knew not what to make of them.