History of Literature











Robert Burton




"The Anatomy of Melancholy"

"The Anatomy of Melancholy" THE FIRST PARTITION. THE FIRST SECTION, MEMBER, SUBSECTION. Man's Excellency, Fall, Miseries, Infirmities; The causes of them. Man's Excellency.] Man the most excellent and noble creature of the world, the principal and mighty work of God, wonder of Nature, as Zoroaster calls him; audacis naturae miraculum, the [820]marvel of marvels, as Plato; the [821]abridgment and epitome of the world, as Pliny; microcosmus, a little world, a model of the world, [822]sovereign lord of the earth, viceroy of the world, sole commander and governor of all the creatures in it; to whose empire they are subject in particular, and yield obedience; far surpassing all the rest, not in body only, but in soul; [823]imaginis imago, [824]created to God's own [825]image, to that immortal and incorporeal substance, with all the faculties and powers belonging unto it; was at first pure, divine, perfect, happy, [826] created after God in true holiness and righteousness; Deo congruens, free from all manner of infirmities, and put in Paradise, to know God, to praise and glorify him, to do his will, Ut diis consimiles parturiat deos (as an old poet saith) to propagate the church. Man's Fall and Misery.] But this most noble creature, Heu tristis, et lachrymosa commutatio ([827]one exclaims) O pitiful change! is fallen from that he was, and forfeited his estate, become miserabilis homuncio, a castaway, a caitiff, one of the most miserable creatures of the world, if he be considered in his own nature, an unregenerate man, and so much obscured by his fall that (some few relics excepted) he is inferior to a beast, [828]Man in honour that understandeth not, is like unto beasts that perish, so David esteems him: a monster by stupend metamorphoses, [829]a fox, a dog, a hog, what not? Quantum mutatus ab illo? How much altered from that he was; before blessed and happy, now miserable and accursed; [830]He must eat his meat in sorrow, subject to death and all manner of infirmities, all kind of calamities. A Description of Melancholy.] [831]Great travail is created for all men, and an heavy yoke on the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb, unto that day they return to the mother of all things. Namely, their thoughts, and fear of their hearts, and their imagination of things they wait for, and the day of death. From him that sitteth in the glorious throne, to him that sitteth beneath in the earth and ashes; from him that is clothed in blue silk and weareth a crown, to him that is clothed in simple linen. Wrath, envy, trouble, and unquietness, and fear of death, and rigour, and strife, and such things come to both man and beast, but sevenfold to the ungodly. All this befalls him in this life, and peradventure eternal misery in the life to come. Impulsive Cause of Man's Misery and Infirmities.] The impulsive cause of these miseries in man, this privation or destruction of God's image, the cause of death and diseases, of all temporal and eternal punishments, was the sin of our first parent Adam, [832]in eating of the forbidden fruit, by the devil's instigation and allurement. His disobedience, pride, ambition, intemperance, incredulity, curiosity; from whence proceeded original sin, and that general corruption of mankind, as from a fountain, flowed all bad inclinations and actual transgressions which cause our several calamities inflicted upon us for our sins. And this belike is that which our fabulous poets have shadowed unto us in the tale of [833] Pandora's box, which being opened through her curiosity, filled the world full of all manner of diseases. It is not curiosity alone, but those other crying sins of ours, which pull these several plagues and miseries upon our heads. For Ubi peccatum, ibi procella, as [834]Chrysostom well observes. [835]Fools by reason of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. [836]Fear cometh like sudden desolation, and destruction like a whirlwind, affliction and anguish, because they did not fear God. [837]Are you shaken with wars? as Cyprian well urgeth to Demetrius, are you molested with dearth and famine? is your health crushed with raging diseases? is mankind generally tormented with epidemical maladies? 'tis all for your sins, Hag. i. 9, 10; Amos i.; Jer. vii. God is angry, punisheth and threateneth, because of their obstinacy and stubbornness, they will not turn unto him. [838]If the earth be barren then for want of rain, if dry and squalid, it yield no fruit, if your fountains be dried up, your wine, corn, and oil blasted, if the air be corrupted, and men troubled with diseases, 'tis by reason of their sins: which like the blood of Abel cry loud to heaven for vengeance, Lam. v. 15. That we have sinned, therefore our hearts are heavy, Isa. lix. 11, 12. We roar like bears, and mourn like doves, and want health, &c. for our sins and trespasses. But this we cannot endure to hear or to take notice of, Jer. ii. 30. We are smitten in vain and receive no correction; and cap. v. 3. Thou hast stricken them, but they have not sorrowed; they have refused to receive correction; they have not returned. Pestilence he hath sent, but they have not turned to him, Amos iv. [839]Herod could not abide John Baptist, nor [840]Domitian endure Apollonius to tell the causes of the plague at Ephesus, his injustice, incest, adultery, and the like. To punish therefore this blindness and obstinacy of ours as a concomitant cause and principal agent, is God's just judgment in bringing these calamities upon us, to chastise us, I say, for our sins, and to satisfy God's wrath. For the law requires obedience or punishment, as you may read at large, Deut. xxviii. 15. If they will not obey the Lord, and keep his commandments and ordinances, then all these curses shall come upon them. [841]Cursed in the town and in the field, &c. [842]Cursed in the fruit of the body, &c. [843]The Lord shall send thee trouble and shame, because of thy wickedness. And a little after, [844]The Lord shall smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with emerods, and scab, and itch, and thou canst not be healed; [845]with madness, blindness, and astonishing of heart. This Paul seconds, Rom. ii. 9. Tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man that doeth evil. Or else these chastisements are inflicted upon us for our humiliation, to exercise and try our patience here in this life to bring us home, to make us to know God ourselves, to inform and teach us wisdom. [846]Therefore is my people gone into captivity, because they had no knowledge; therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them. He is desirous of our salvation. [847]Nostrae salutis avidus, saith Lemnius, and for that cause pulls us by the ear many times, to put us in mind of our duties: That they which erred might have understanding, (as Isaiah speaks xxix. 24) and so to be reformed. [848]I am afflicted, and at the point of death, so David confesseth of himself, Psal. lxxxviii. v. 15, v. 9. Mine eyes are sorrowful through mine affliction: and that made him turn unto God. Great Alexander in the midst of all his prosperity, by a company of parasites deified, and now made a god, when he saw one of his wounds bleed, remembered that he was but a man, and remitted of his pride. In morbo recolligit se animus,[849]as [850]Pliny well perceived; In sickness the mind reflects upon itself, with judgment surveys itself, and abhors its former courses; insomuch that he concludes to his friend Marius,[851] that it were the period of all philosophy, if we could so continue sound, or perform but a part of that which we promised to do, being sick. Whoso is wise then, will consider these things, as David did (Psal. cxliv., verse last); and whatsoever fortune befall him, make use of it. If he be in sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity, seriously to recount with himself, why this or that malady, misery, this or that incurable disease is inflicted upon him; it may be for his good, [852]sic expedit as Peter said of his daughter's ague. Bodily sickness is for his soul's health, periisset nisi periisset, had he not been visited, he had utterly perished; for [853]the Lord correcteth him whom he loveth, even as a father doth his child in whom he delighteth. If he be safe and sound on the other side, and free from all manner of infirmity; [854]et cui Gratia, forma, valetudo contingat abunde Et mundus victus, non deficiente crumena. And that he have grace, beauty, favour, health, A cleanly diet, and abound in wealth. Yet in the midst of his prosperity, let him remember that caveat of Moses, [855]Beware that he do not forget the Lord his God; that he be not puffed up, but acknowledge them to be his good gifts and benefits, and [856]the more he hath, to be more thankful, (as Agapetianus adviseth) and use them aright. Instrumental Causes of our Infirmities.] Now the instrumental causes of these our infirmities, are as diverse as the infirmities themselves; stars, heavens, elements, &c. And all those creatures which God hath made, are armed against sinners. They were indeed once good in themselves, and that they are now many of them pernicious unto us, is not in their nature, but our corruption, which hath caused it. For from the fall of our first parent Adam, they have been changed, the earth accursed, the influence of stars, altered, the four elements, beasts, birds, plants, are now ready to offend us. The principal things for the use of man, are water, fire, iron, salt, meal, wheat, honey, milk, oil, wine, clothing, good to the godly, to the sinners turned to evil, Ecclus. xxxix. 26. Fire, and hail, and famine, and dearth, all these are created for vengeance, Ecclus. xxxix. 29. The heavens threaten us with their comets, stars, planets, with their great conjunctions, eclipses, oppositions, quartiles, and such unfriendly aspects. The air with his meteors, thunder and lightning, intemperate heat and cold, mighty winds, tempests, unseasonable weather; from which proceed dearth, famine, plague, and all sorts of epidemical diseases, consuming infinite myriads of men. At Cairo in Egypt, every third year, (as it is related by [857]Boterus, and others) 300,000 die of the plague; and 200,000, in Constantinople, every fifth or seventh at the utmost. How doth the earth terrify and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, which are most frequent in [858]China, Japan, and those eastern climes, swallowing up sometimes six cities at once? How doth the water rage with his inundations, irruptions, flinging down towns, cities, villages, bridges, &c. besides shipwrecks; whole islands are sometimes suddenly overwhelmed with all their inhabitants in [859]Zealand, Holland, and many parts of the continent drowned, as the [860]lake Erne in Ireland? [861]Nihilque praeter arcium cadavera patenti cernimus freto. In the fens of Friesland 1230, by reason of tempests, [862]the sea drowned multa hominum millia, et jumenta sine numero, all the country almost, men and cattle in it. How doth the fire rage, that merciless element, consuming in an instant whole cities? What town of any antiquity or note hath not been once, again and again, by the fury of this merciless element, defaced, ruinated, and left desolate? In a word, [863]Ignis pepercit, unda mergit, aeris Vis pestilentis aequori ereptum necat, Bello superstes, tabidus morbo perit. Whom fire spares, sea doth drown; whom sea, Pestilent air doth send to clay; Whom war 'scapes, sickness takes away. To descend to more particulars, how many creatures are at deadly feud with men? Lions, wolves, bears, &c. Some with hoofs, horns, tusks, teeth, nails: How many noxious serpents and venomous creatures, ready to offend us with stings, breath, sight, or quite kill us? How many pernicious fishes, plants, gums, fruits, seeds, flowers, &c. could I reckon up on a sudden, which by their very smell many of them, touch, taste, cause some grievous malady, if not death itself? Some make mention of a thousand several poisons: but these are but trifles in respect. The greatest enemy to man, is man, who by the devil's instigation is still ready to do mischief, his own executioner, a wolf, a devil to himself, and others. [864]We are all brethren in Christ, or at least should be, members of one body, servants of one lord, and yet no fiend can so torment, insult over, tyrannise, vex, as one man doth another. Let me not fall therefore (saith David, when wars, plague, famine were offered) into the hands of men, merciless and wicked men: [865]———Vix sunt homines hoc nomine digni, Quamque lupi, saevae plus feritatis habent. We can most part foresee these epidemical diseases, and likely avoid them; Dearths, tempests, plagues, our astrologers foretell us; Earthquakes, inundations, ruins of houses, consuming fires, come by little and little, or make some noise beforehand; but the knaveries, impostures, injuries and villainies of men no art can avoid. We can keep our professed enemies from our cities, by gates, walls and towers, defend ourselves from thieves and robbers by watchfulness and weapons; but this malice of men, and their pernicious endeavours, no caution can divert, no vigilancy foresee, we have so many secret plots and devices to mischief one another. Sometimes by the devil's help as magicians, [866]witches: sometimes by impostures, mixtures, poisons, stratagems, single combats, wars, we hack and hew, as if we were ad internecionem nati, like Cadmus' soldiers born to consume one another. 'Tis an ordinary thing to read of a hundred and two hundred thousand men slain in a battle. Besides all manner of tortures, brazen bulls, racks, wheels, strappadoes, guns, engines, &c. [867]Ad unum corpus humanum supplicia plura, quam membra: We have invented more torturing instruments, than there be several members in a man's body, as Cyprian well observes. To come nearer yet, our own parents by their offences, indiscretion and intemperance, are our mortal enemies. [868]The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. They cause our grief many times, and put upon us hereditary diseases, inevitable infirmities: they torment us, and we are ready to injure our posterity; [869]———mox daturi progeniem vitiosiorem. And yet with crimes to us unknown, Our sons shall mark the coming age their own; and the latter end of the world, as [870]Paul foretold, is still like to be the worst. We are thus bad by nature, bad by kind, but far worse by art, every man the greatest enemy unto himself. We study many times to undo ourselves, abusing those good gifts which God hath bestowed upon us, health, wealth, strength, wit, learning, art, memory to our own destruction, [871]Perditio tua ex te. As [872]Judas Maccabeus killed Apollonius with his own weapons, we arm ourselves to our own overthrows; and use reason, art, judgment, all that should help us, as so many instruments to undo us. Hector gave Ajax a sword, which so long as he fought against enemies, served for his help and defence; but after he began to hurt harmless creatures with it, turned to his own hurtless bowels. Those excellent means God hath bestowed on us, well employed, cannot but much avail us; but if otherwise perverted, they ruin and confound us: and so by reason of our indiscretion and weakness they commonly do, we have too many instances. This St. Austin acknowledgeth of himself in his humble confessions, promptness of wit, memory, eloquence, they were God's good gifts, but he did not use them to his glory. If you will particularly know how, and by what means, consult physicians, and they will tell you, that it is in offending in some of those six non-natural things, of which I shall [873]dilate more at large; they are the causes of our infirmities, our surfeiting, and drunkenness, our immoderate insatiable lust, and prodigious riot. Plures crapula, quam gladius, is a true saying, the board consumes more than the sword. Our intemperance it is, that pulls so many several incurable diseases upon our heads, that hastens [874]old age, perverts our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death. And last of all, that which crucifies us most, is our own folly, madness (quos Jupiter perdit, dementat; by subtraction of his assisting grace God permits it) weakness, want of government, our facility and proneness in yielding to several lusts, in giving way to every passion and perturbation of the mind: by which means we metamorphose ourselves and degenerate into beasts. All which that prince of [875]poets observed of Agamemnon, that when he was well pleased, and could moderate his passion, he was—os oculosque Jovi par: like Jupiter in feature, Mars in valour, Pallas in wisdom, another god; but when he became angry, he was a lion, a tiger, a dog, &c., there appeared no sign or likeness of Jupiter in him; so we, as long as we are ruled by reason, correct our inordinate appetite, and conform ourselves to God's word, are as so many saints: but if we give reins to lust, anger, ambition, pride, and follow our own ways, we degenerate into beasts, transform ourselves, overthrow our constitutions, [876]provoke God to anger, and heap upon us this of melancholy, and all kinds of incurable diseases, as a just and deserved punishment of our sins. SUBSECT. II.—The Definition, Number, Division of Diseases. What a disease is, almost every physician defines. [877]Fernelius calleth it an affection of the body contrary to nature. [878]Fuschius and Crato, an hindrance, hurt, or alteration of any action of the body, or part of it. [879]Tholosanus, a dissolution of that league which is between body and soul, and a perturbation of it; as health the perfection, and makes to the preservation of it. [880]Labeo in Agellius, an ill habit of the body, opposite to nature, hindering the use of it. Others otherwise, all to this effect. Number of Diseases.] How many diseases there are, is a question not yet determined; [881]Pliny reckons up 300 from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot: elsewhere he saith, morborum infinita multitudo, their number is infinite. Howsoever it was in those times, it boots not; in our days I am sure the number is much augmented: [882]———macies, et nova febrium Terris incubit cohors. For besides many epidemical diseases unheard of, and altogether unknown to Galen and Hippocrates, as scorbutum, small-pox, plica, sweating sickness, morbus Gallicus, &c., we have many proper and peculiar almost to every part. No man free from some Disease or other.] No man amongst us so sound, of so good a constitution, that hath not some impediment of body or mind. Quisque suos patimur manes, we have all our infirmities, first or last, more or less. There will be peradventure in an age, or one of a thousand, like Zenophilus the musician in [883]Pliny, that may happily live 105 years without any manner of impediment; a Pollio Romulus, that can preserve himself [884]with wine and oil; a man as fortunate as Q. Metellus, of whom Valerius so much brags; a man as healthy as Otto Herwardus, a senator of Augsburg in Germany, whom [885]Leovitius the astrologer brings in for an example and instance of certainty in his art; who because he had the significators in his geniture fortunate, and free from the hostile aspects of Saturn and Mars, being a very cold man, [886]could not remember that ever he was sick. [887]Paracelsus may brag that he could make a man live 400 years or more, if he might bring him up from his infancy, and diet him as he list; and some physicians hold, that there is no certain period of man's life; but it may still by temperance and physic be prolonged. We find in the meantime, by common experience, that no man can escape, but that of [888]Hesiod is true: Πλείη μὲν γὰρ γαῖα κακῶν, πλειη δὲ θάλασσα, Νοῦσοιδ' ἄνθρωποι ἐιν ἐφ' ἡμέρη, ἠδ' ἐπὶ νυκτὶ Ἁυτοματοι φοιτῶσι.——— Th' earth's full of maladies, and full the sea, Which set upon us both by night and day. Division of Diseases.] If you require a more exact division of these ordinary diseases which are incident to men, I refer you to physicians; [889]they will tell you of acute and chronic, first and secondary, lethals, salutares, errant, fixed, simple, compound, connexed, or consequent, belonging to parts or the whole, in habit, or in disposition, &c. My division at this time (as most befitting my purpose) shall be into those of the body and mind. For them of the body, a brief catalogue of which Fuschius hath made, Institut. lib. 3, sect. 1, cap. 11. I refer you to the voluminous tomes of Galen, Areteus, Rhasis, Avicenna, Alexander, Paulus Aetius, Gordonerius: and those exact Neoterics, Savanarola, Capivaccius, Donatus Altomarus, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Victorius Faventinus, Wecker, Piso, &c., that have methodically and elaborately written of them all. Those of the mind and head I will briefly handle, and apart. SUBSECT. III.—Division of the Diseases of the Head. These diseases of the mind, forasmuch as they have their chief seat and organs in the head, which are commonly repeated amongst the diseases of the head which are divers, and vary much according to their site. For in the head, as there be several parts, so there be divers grievances, which according to that division of [890]Heurnius, (which he takes out of Arculanus,) are inward or outward (to omit all others which pertain to eyes and ears, nostrils, gums, teeth, mouth, palate, tongue, weezle, chops, face, &c.) belonging properly to the brain, as baldness, falling of hair, furfur, lice, &c. [891]Inward belonging to the skins next to the brain, called dura and pia mater, as all headaches, &c., or to the ventricles, caules, kells, tunicles, creeks, and parts of it, and their passions, as caro, vertigo, incubus, apoplexy, falling sickness. The diseases of the nerves, cramps, stupor, convulsion, tremor, palsy: or belonging to the excrements of the brain, catarrhs, sneezing, rheums, distillations: or else those that pertain to the substance of the brain itself, in which are conceived frenzy, lethargy, melancholy, madness, weak memory, sopor, or Coma Vigilia et vigil Coma. Out of these again I will single such as properly belong to the phantasy, or imagination, or reason itself, which [892]Laurentius calls the disease of the mind; and Hildesheim, morbos imaginationis, aut rationis laesae, (diseases of the imagination, or of injured reason,) which are three or four in number, frenzy, madness, melancholy, dotage, and their kinds: as hydrophobia, lycanthropia, Chorus sancti viti, morbi daemoniaci, (St. Vitus's dance, possession of devils,) which I will briefly touch and point at, insisting especially in this of melancholy, as more eminent than the rest, and that through all his kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics, cures: as Lonicerus hath done de apoplexia, and many other of such particular diseases. Not that I find fault with those which have written of this subject before, as Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, Montaltus, T. Bright, &c., they have done very well in their several kinds and methods; yet that which one omits, another may haply see; that which one contracts, another may enlarge. To conclude with [893]Scribanius, that which they had neglected, or perfunctorily handled, we may more thoroughly examine; that which is obscurely delivered in them, may be perspicuously dilated and amplified by us: and so made more familiar and easy for every man's capacity, and the common good, which is the chief end of my discourse. SUBSECT. IV.—Dotage, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropia, Chorus sancti Viti, Extasis. Delirium, Dotage.] Dotage, fatuity, or folly, is a common name to all the following species, as some will have it. [894]Laurentius and [895] Altomarus comprehended madness, melancholy, and the rest under this name, and call it the summum genus of them all. If it be distinguished from them, it is natural or ingenite, which comes by some defect of the organs, and overmuch brain, as we see in our common fools; and is for the most part intended or remitted in particular men, and thereupon some are wiser than others: or else it is acquisite, an appendix or symptom of some other disease, which comes or goes; or if it continue, a sign of melancholy itself. Frenzy.] Phrenitis, which the Greeks derive from the word φρην, is a disease of the mind, with a continual madness or dotage, which hath an acute fever annexed, or else an inflammation of the brain, or the membranes or kells of it, with an acute fever, which causeth madness and dotage. It differs from melancholy and madness, because their dotage is without an ague: this continual, with waking, or memory decayed, &c. Melancholy is most part silent, this clamorous; and many such like differences are assigned by physicians. Madness.] Madness, frenzy, and melancholy are confounded by Celsus, and many writers; others leave out frenzy, and make madness and melancholy but one disease, which [896]Jason Pratensis especially labours, and that they differ only secundam majus or minus, in quantity alone, the one being a degree to the other, and both proceeding from one cause. They differ intenso et remisso gradu, saith [897]Gordonius, as the humour is intended or remitted. Of the same mind is [898]Areteus, Alexander Tertullianus, Guianerius, Savanarola, Heurnius; and Galen himself writes promiscuously of them both by reason of their affinity: but most of our neoterics do handle them apart, whom I will follow in this treatise. Madness is therefore defined to be a vehement dotage; or raving without a fever, far more violent than melancholy, full of anger and clamour, horrible looks, actions, gestures, troubling the patients with far greater vehemency both of body and mind, without all fear and sorrow, with such impetuous force and boldness, that sometimes three or four men cannot hold them. Differing only in this from frenzy, that it is without a fever, and their memory is most part better. It hath the same causes as the other, as choler adust, and blood incensed, brains inflamed, &c. [899]Fracastorius adds, a due time, and full age to this definition, to distinguish it from children, and will have it confirmed impotency, to separate it from such as accidentally come and go again, as by taking henbane, nightshade, wine, &c. Of this fury there be divers kinds; [900]ecstasy, which is familiar with some persons, as Cardan saith of himself, he could be in one when he list; in which the Indian priests deliver their oracles, and the witches in Lapland, as Olaus Magnus writeth, l. 3, cap. 18. Extasi omnia praedicere, answer all questions in an ecstasis you will ask; what your friends do, where they are, how they fare, &c. The other species of this fury are enthusiasms, revelations, and visions, so often mentioned by Gregory and Bede in their works; obsession or possession of devils, sibylline prophets, and poetical furies; such as come by eating noxious herbs, tarantulas stinging, &c., which some reduce to this. The most known are these, lycanthropia, hydrophobia, chorus sancti Viti. Lycanthropia.] Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls cucubuth, others lupinam insaniam, or wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves, or some such beasts. [901]Aetius and [902]Paulus call it a kind of melancholy; but I should rather refer it to madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it whether there be any such disease. [903]Donat ab Altomari saith, that he saw two of them in his time: [904]Wierus tells a story of such a one at Padua 1541, that would not believe to the contrary, but that he was a wolf. He hath another instance of a Spaniard, who thought himself a bear; [905]Forrestus confirms as much by many examples; one amongst the rest of which he was an eyewitness, at Alcmaer in Holland, a poor husbandman that still hunted about graves, and kept in churchyards, of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such belike, or little better, were king Praetus' [906]daughters, that thought themselves kine. And Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel, as some interpreters hold, was only troubled with this kind of madness. This disease perhaps gave occasion to that bold assertion of [907]Pliny, some men were turned into wolves in his time, and from wolves to men again: and to that fable of Pausanias, of a man that was ten years a wolf, and afterwards turned to his former shape: to [908]Ovid's tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to hear of this disease, or more examples, let him read Austin in his 18th book de Civitate Dei, cap. 5. Mizaldus, cent. 5. 77. Sckenkius, lib. 1. Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de Mania. Forrestus lib. 10. de morbis cerebri. Olaus Magnus, Vincentius Bellavicensis, spec. met. lib. 31. c. 122. Pierius, Bodine, Zuinger, Zeilger, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger, &c. This malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in February, and is nowadays frequent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to [909]Heurnius. Scheretzius will have it common in Livonia. They lie hid most part all day, and go abroad in the night, barking, howling, at graves and deserts; [910]they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs and thighs, very dry and pale, [911]saith Altomarus; he gives a reason there of all the symptoms, and sets down a brief cure of them. Hydrophobia is a kind of madness, well known in every village, which comes by the biting of a mad dog, or scratching, saith [912]Aurelianus; touching, or smelling alone sometimes as [913]Sckenkius proves, and is incident to many other creatures as well as men: so called because the parties affected cannot endure the sight of water, or any liquor, supposing still they see a mad dog in it. And which is more wonderful; though they be very dry, (as in this malady they are) they will rather die than drink: [914]de Venenis Caelius Aurelianus, an ancient writer, makes a doubt whether this Hydrophobia be a passion of the body or the mind. The part affected is the brain: the cause, poison that comes from the mad dog, which is so hot and dry, that it consumes all the moisture in the body. [915] Hildesheim relates of some that died so mad; and being cut up, had no water, scarce blood, or any moisture left in them. To such as are so affected, the fear of water begins at fourteen days after they are bitten, to some again not till forty or sixty days after: commonly saith Heurnius, they begin to rave, fly water and glasses, to look red, and swell in the face, about twenty days after (if some remedy be not taken in the meantime) to lie awake, to be pensive, sad, to see strange visions, to bark and howl, to fall into a swoon, and oftentimes fits of the falling sickness. [916] Some say, little things like whelps will be seen in their urine. If any of these signs appear, they are past recovery. Many times these symptoms will not appear till six or seven months after, saith [917]Codronchus; and sometimes not till seven or eight years, as Guianerius; twelve as Albertus; six or eight months after, as Galen holds. Baldus the great lawyer died of it: an Augustine friar, and a woman in Delft, that were [918]Forrestus' patients, were miserably consumed with it. The common cure in the country (for such at least as dwell near the seaside) is to duck them over head and ears in sea water; some use charms: every good wife can prescribe medicines. But the best cure to be had in such cases, is from the most approved physicians; they that will read of them, may consult with Dioscorides, lib. 6. c. 37, Heurnius, Hildesheim, Capivaccius, Forrestus, Sckenkius and before all others Codronchus an Italian, who hath lately written two exquisite books on the subject. Chorus sancti Viti, or St. Vitus's dance; the lascivious dance, [919] Paracelsus calls it, because they that are taken from it, can do nothing but dance till they be dead, or cured. It is so called, for that the parties so troubled were wont to go to St. Vitus for help, and after they had danced there awhile, they were [920]certainly freed. 'Tis strange to hear how long they will dance, and in what manner, over stools, forms, tables; even great bellied women sometimes (and yet never hurt their children) will dance so long that they can stir neither hand nor foot, but seem to be quite dead. One in red clothes they cannot abide. Music above all things they love, and therefore magistrates in Germany will hire musicians to play to them, and some lusty sturdy companions to dance with them. This disease hath been very common in Germany, as appears by those relations of [921]Sckenkius, and Paracelsus in his book of Madness, who brags how many several persons he hath cured of it. Felix Plateras de mentis alienat. cap. 3, reports of a woman in Basil whom he saw, that danced a whole month together. The Arabians call it a kind of palsy. Bodine in his 5th book de Repub. cap. 1, speaks of this infirmity; Monavius in his last epistle to Scoltizius, and in another to Dudithus, where you may read more of it. The last kind of madness or melancholy, is that demoniacal (if I may so call it) obsession or possession of devils, which Platerus and others would have to be preternatural: stupend things are said of them, their actions, gestures, contortions, fasting, prophesying, speaking languages they were never taught, &c. Many strange stories are related of them, which because some will not allow, (for Deacon and Darrel have written large volumes on this subject pro and con.) I voluntarily omit. [922]Fuschius, Institut. lib. 3. sec. 1. cap. 11, Felix Plater, [923]Laurentius, add to these another fury that proceeds from love, and another from study, another divine or religious fury; but these more properly belong to melancholy; of all which I will speak [924]apart, intending to write a whole book of them. SUBSECT. V.—Melancholy in Disposition, improperly so called, Equivocations. Melancholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or habit. In disposition, is that transitory melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causeth anguish, dullness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing frowardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal and improper sense, we call him melancholy that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. And from these melancholy dispositions, [925]no man living is free, no stoic, none so wise, none so happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can vindicate himself; so well composed, but more or less, some time or other he feels the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of mortality. [926]Man that is born of a woman, is of short continuance, and full of trouble. Zeno, Cato, Socrates himself, whom [927]Aelian so highly commends for a moderate temper, that nothing could disturb him, but going out, and coming in, still Socrates kept the same serenity of countenance, what misery soever befell him, (if we may believe Plato his disciple) was much tormented with it. Q. Metellus, in whom [928]Valerius gives instance of all happiness, the most fortunate man then living, born in that most flourishing city of Rome, of noble parentage, a proper man of person, well qualified, healthful, rich, honourable, a senator, a consul, happy in his wife, happy in his children, &c. yet this man was not void of melancholy, he had his share of sorrow. [929]Polycrates Samius, that flung his ring into the sea, because he would participate of discontent with others, and had it miraculously restored to him again shortly after, by a fish taken as he angled, was not free from melancholy dispositions. No man can cure himself; the very gods had bitter pangs, and frequent passions, as their own [930]poets put upon them. In general, [931]as the heaven, so is our life, sometimes fair, sometimes overcast, tempestuous, and serene; as in a rose, flowers and prickles; in the year itself, a temperate summer sometimes, a hard winter, a drought, and then again pleasant showers: so is our life intermixed with joys, hopes, fears, sorrows, calumnies: Invicem cedunt dolor et voluptas, there is a succession of pleasure and pain. [932]———medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, in ipsis floribus angat. Even in the midst of laughing there is sorrow, (as [933]Solomon holds): even in the midst of all our feasting and jollity, as [934]Austin infers in his Com. on the 41st Psalm, there is grief and discontent. Inter delicias semper aliquid saevi nos strangulat, for a pint of honey thou shalt here likely find a gallon of gall, for a dram of pleasure a pound of pain, for an inch of mirth an ell of moan; as ivy doth an oak, these miseries encompass our life. And it is most absurd and ridiculous for any mortal man to look for a perpetual tenure of happiness in his life. Nothing so prosperous and pleasant, but it hath [935]some bitterness in it, some complaining, some grudging; it is all γλυκύπικρον, a mixed passion, and like a chequer table black and white: men, families, cities, have their falls and wanes; now trines, sextiles, then quartiles and oppositions. We are not here as those angels, celestial powers and bodies, sun and moon, to finish our course without all offence, with such constancy, to continue for so many ages: but subject to infirmities, miseries, interrupted, tossed and tumbled up and down, carried about with every small blast, often molested and disquieted upon each slender occasion, [936]uncertain, brittle, and so is all that we trust unto. [937] And he that knows not this is not armed to endure it, is not fit to live in this world (as one condoles our time), he knows not the condition of it, where with a reciprocalty, pleasure and pain are still united, and succeed one another in a ring. Exi e mundo, get thee gone hence if thou canst not brook it; there is no way to avoid it, but to arm thyself with patience, with magnanimity, to [938]oppose thyself unto it, to suffer affliction as a good soldier of Christ; as [939]Paul adviseth constantly to bear it. But forasmuch as so few can embrace this good council of his, or use it aright, but rather as so many brute beasts give away to their passion, voluntary subject and precipitate themselves into a labyrinth of cares, woes, miseries, and suffer their souls to be overcome by them, cannot arm themselves with that patience as they ought to do, it falleth out oftentimes that these dispositions become habits, and many affects contemned (as [940]Seneca notes) make a disease. Even as one distillation, not yet grown to custom, makes a cough; but continual and inveterate causeth a consumption of the lungs; so do these our melancholy provocations: and according as the humour itself is intended, or remitted in men, as their temperature of body, or rational soul is better able to make resistance; so are they more or less affected. For that which is but a flea-biting to one, causeth insufferable torment to another; and which one by his singular moderation, and well-composed carriage can happily overcome, a second is no whit able to sustain, but upon every small occasion of misconceived abuse, injury, grief, disgrace, loss, cross, humour, &c. (if solitary, or idle) yields so far to passion, that his complexion is altered, his digestion hindered, his sleep gone, his spirits obscured, and his heart heavy, his hypochondries misaffected; wind, crudity, on a sudden overtake him, and he himself overcome with melancholy. As it is with a man imprisoned for debt, if once in the gaol, every creditor will bring his action against him, and there likely hold him. If any discontent seize upon a patient, in an instant all other perturbations (for—qua data porta ruunt) will set upon him, and then like a lame dog or broken-winged goose he droops and pines away, and is brought at last to that ill habit or malady of melancholy itself. So that as the philosophers make [941]eight degrees of heat and cold, we may make eighty-eight of melancholy, as the parts affected are diversely seized with it, or have been plunged more or less into this infernal gulf, or waded deeper into it. But all these melancholy fits, howsoever pleasing at first, or displeasing, violent and tyrannizing over those whom they seize on for the time; yet these fits I say, or men affected, are but improperly so called, because they continue not, but come and go, as by some objects they aye moved. This melancholy of which we are to treat, is a habit, mosbus sonticus, or chronicus, a chronic or continuate disease, a settled humour, as [942] Aurelianus and [943]others call it, not errant, but fixed; and as it was long increasing, so now being (pleasant, or painful) grown to an habit, it will hardly be removed. SECT. I. MEMB. II. SUBSECT. I.—Digression of Anatomy. Before I proceed to define the disease of melancholy, what it is, or to discourse farther of it, I hold it not impertinent to make a brief digression of the anatomy of the body and faculties of the soul, for the better understanding of that which is to follow; because many hard words will often occur, as mirach, hypocondries, emerods, &c., imagination, reason, humours, spirits, vital, natural, animal, nerves, veins, arteries, chylus, pituita; which by the vulgar will not so easily be perceived, what they are, how cited, and to what end they serve. And besides, it may peradventure give occasion to some men to examine more accurately, search further into this most excellent subject, and thereupon with that royal [944]prophet to praise God, (for a man is fearfully and wonderfully made, and curiously wrought) that have time and leisure enough, and are sufficiently informed in all other worldly businesses, as to make a good bargain, buy and sell, to keep and make choice of a fair hawk, hound, horse, &c. But for such matters as concern the knowledge of themselves, they are wholly ignorant and careless; they know not what this body and soul are, how combined, of what parts and faculties they consist, or how a man differs from a dog. And what can be more ignominious and filthy (as [945]Melancthon well inveighs) than for a man not to know the structure and composition of his own body, especially since the knowledge of it tends so much to the preservation, of his health, and information of his manners? To stir them up therefore to this study, to peruse those elaborate works of [946]Galen, Bauhines, Plater, Vesalius, Falopius, Laurentius, Remelinus, &c., which have written copiously in Latin; or that which some of our industrious countrymen have done in our mother tongue, not long since, as that translation of [947]Columbus and [948] Microcosmographia, in thirteen books, I have made this brief digression. Also because [949]Wecker, [950]Melancthon, [951]Fernelius, [952] Fuschius, and those tedious Tracts de Anima (which have more compendiously handled and written of this matter,) are not at all times ready to be had, to give them some small taste, or notice of the rest, let this epitome suffice. SUBSECT. II.—Division of the Body, Humours, Spirits. Of the parts of the body there may be many divisions: the most approved is that of [953]Laurentius, out of Hippocrates: which is, into parts contained, or containing. Contained, are either humours or spirits. Humours.] A humour is a liquid or fluent part of the body, comprehended in it, for the preservation of it; and is either innate or born with us, or adventitious and acquisite. The radical or innate, is daily supplied by nourishment, which some call cambium, and make those secondary humours of ros and gluten to maintain it: or acquisite, to maintain these four first primary humours, coming and proceeding from the first concoction in the liver, by which means chylus is excluded. Some divide them into profitable and excrementitious. But [954]Crato out of Hippocrates will have all four to be juice, and not excrements, without which no living creature can be sustained: which four, though they be comprehended in the mass of blood, yet they have their several affections, by which they are distinguished from one another, and from those adventitious, peccant, or [955]diseased humours, as Melancthon calls them. Blood.] Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humour, prepared in the mesaraic veins, and made of the most temperate parts of the chylus in the liver, whose office is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and colour, being dispersed by the veins through every part of it. And from it spirits are first begotten in the heart, which afterwards by the arteries are communicated to the other parts. Pituita, or phlegm, is a cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder part of the chylus (or white juice coming out of the meat digested in the stomach,) in the liver; his office is to nourish and moisten the members of the body, which as the tongue are moved, that they be not over dry. Choler, is hot and dry, bitter, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, and gathered to the gall: it helps the natural heat and senses, and serves to the expelling of excrements. Melancholy.] Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones. These four humours have some analogy with the four elements, and to the four ages in man. Serum, Sweat, Tears.] To these humours you may add serum, which is the matter of urine, and those excrementitious humours of the third concoction, sweat and tears. Spirits.] Spirit is a most subtle vapour, which is expressed from the blood, and the instrument of the soul, to perform all his actions; a common tie or medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as [956]Paracelsus, a fourth soul of itself. Melancthon holds the fountain of those spirits to be the heart, begotten there; and afterward conveyed to the brain, they take another nature to them. Of these spirits there be three kinds, according to the three principal parts, brain, heart, liver; natural, vital, animal. The natural are begotten in the liver, and thence dispersed through the veins, to perform those natural actions. The vital spirits are made in the heart of the natural, which by the arteries are transported to all the other parts: if the spirits cease, then life ceaseth, as in a syncope or swooning. The animal spirits formed of the vital, brought up to the brain, and diffused by the nerves, to the subordinate members, give sense and motion to them all. SUBSECT. III.—Similar Parts. Similar Parts] Containing parts, by reason of their more solid substance, are either homogeneal or heterogeneal, similar or dissimilar; so Aristotle divides them, lib. 1, cap. 1, de Hist. Animal.; Laurentius, cap. 20, lib. 1. Similar, or homogeneal, are such as, if they be divided, are still severed into parts of the same nature, as water into water. Of these some be spermatical, some fleshy or carnal. [957]Spermatical are such as are immediately begotten of the seed, which are bones, gristles, ligaments, membranes, nerves, arteries, veins, skins, fibres or strings, fat. Bones.] The bones are dry and hard, begotten of the thickest of the seed, to strengthen and sustain other parts: some say there be 304, some 307, or 313 in man's body. They have no nerves in them, and are therefore without sense. A gristle is a substance softer than bone, and harder than the rest, flexible, and serves to maintain the parts of motion. Ligaments are they that tie the bones together, and other parts to the bones, with their subserving tendons: membranes' office is to cover the rest. Nerves, or sinews, are membranes without, and full of marrow within; they proceed from the brain, and carry the animal spirits for sense and motion. Of these some be harder, some softer; the softer serve the senses, and there be seven pair of them. The first be the optic nerves, by which we see; the second move the eyes; the third pair serve for the tongue to taste; the fourth pair for the taste in the palate; the fifth belong to the ears; the sixth pair is most ample, and runs almost over all the bowels; the seventh pair moves the tongue. The harder sinews serve for the motion of the inner parts, proceeding from the marrow in the back, of whom there be thirty combinations, seven of the neck, twelve of the breast, &c. Arteries.] Arteries are long and hollow, with a double skin to convey the vital spirit; to discern which the better, they say that Vesalius the anatomist was wont to cut up men alive. [958]They arise in the left side of the heart, and are principally two, from which the rest are derived, aorta and venosa: aorta is the root of all the other, which serve the whole body; the other goes to the lungs, to fetch air to refrigerate the heart. Veins.] Veins are hollow and round, like pipes, arising from the liver, carrying blood and natural spirits; they feed all the parts. Of these there be two chief, Vena porta and Vena cava, from which the rest are corrivated. That Vena porta is a vein coming from the concave of the liver, and receiving those mesaraical veins, by whom he takes the chylus from the stomach and guts, and conveys it to the liver. The other derives blood from the liver to nourish all the other dispersed members. The branches of that Vena porta are the mesaraical and haemorrhoids. The branches of the cava are inward or outward. Inward, seminal or emulgent. Outward, in the head, arms, feet, &c., and have several names. Fibrae, Fat, Flesh.] Fibrae are strings, white and solid, dispersed through the whole member, and right, oblique, transverse, all which have their several uses. Fat is a similar part, moist, without blood, composed of the most thick and unctuous matter of the blood. The [959]skin covers the rest, and hath cuticulum, or a little skin tinder it. Flesh is soft and ruddy, composed of the congealing of blood, &c. SUBSECT. IV.—Dissimilar Parts. Dissimilar parts are those which we call organical, or instrumental, and they be inward or outward. The chiefest outward parts are situate forward or backward:—forward, the crown and foretop of the head, skull, face, forehead, temples, chin, eyes, ears, nose, &c., neck, breast, chest, upper and lower part of the belly, hypocondries, navel, groin, flank, &c.; backward, the hinder part of the head, back, shoulders, sides, loins, hipbones, os sacrum, buttocks, &c. Or joints, arms, hands, feet, legs, thighs, knees, &c. Or common to both, which, because they are obvious and well known, I have carelessly repeated, eaque praecipua et grandiora tantum; quod reliquum ex libris de anima qui volet, accipiat. Inward organical parts, which cannot be seen, are divers in number, and have several names, functions, and divisions; but that of [960]Laurentius is most notable, into noble or ignoble parts. Of the noble there be three principal parts, to which all the rest belong, and whom they serve—brain, heart, liver; according to whose site, three regions, or a threefold division, is made of the whole body. As first of the head, in which the animal organs are contained, and brain itself, which by his nerves give sense and motion to the rest, and is, as it were, a privy counsellor and chancellor to the heart. The second region is the chest, or middle belly, in which the heart as king keeps his court, and by his arteries communicates life to the whole body. The third region is the lower belly, in which the liver resides as a Legat a latere, with the rest of those natural organs, serving for concoction, nourishment, expelling of excrements. This lower region is distinguished from the upper by the midriff, or diaphragma, and is subdivided again by [961]some into three concavities or regions, upper, middle, and lower. The upper of the hypocondries, in whose right side is the liver, the left the spleen; from which is denominated hypochondriacal melancholy. The second of the navel and flanks, divided from the first by the rim. The last of the water course, which is again subdivided into three other parts. The Arabians make two parts of this region, Epigastrium and Hypogastrium, upper or lower. Epigastrium they call Mirach, from whence comes Mirachialis Melancholia, sometimes mentioned of them. Of these several regions I will treat in brief apart; and first of the third region, in which the natural organs are contained. De Anima.—The Lower Region, Natural Organs.] But you that are readers in the meantime, Suppose you were now brought into some sacred temple, or majestical palace (as [962]Melancthon saith), to behold not the matter only, but the singular art, workmanship, and counsel of this our great Creator. And it is a pleasant and profitable speculation, if it be considered aright. The parts of this region, which present themselves to your consideration and view, are such as serve to nutrition or generation. Those of nutrition serve to the first or second concoction; as the oesophagus or gullet, which brings meat and drink into the stomach. The ventricle or stomach, which is seated in the midst of that part of the belly beneath the midriff, the kitchen, as it were, of the first concoction, and which turns our meat into chylus. It hath two mouths, one above, another beneath. The upper is sometimes taken for the stomach itself; the lower and nether door (as Wecker calls it) is named Pylorus. This stomach is sustained by a large kell or caul, called omentum; which some will have the same with peritoneum, or rim of the belly. From the stomach to the very fundament are produced the guts, or intestina, which serve a little to alter and distribute the chylus, and convey away the excrements. They are divided into small and great, by reason of their site and substance, slender or thicker: the slender is duodenum, or whole gut, which is next to the stomach, some twelve inches long, saith [963] Fuschius. Jejunum, or empty gut, continuate to the other, which hath many mesaraic veins annexed to it, which take part of the chylus to the liver from it. Ilion the third, which consists of many crinkles, which serves with the rest to receive, keep, and distribute the chylus from the stomach. The thick guts are three, the blind gut, colon, and right gut. The blind is a thick and short gut, having one mouth, in which the ilium and colon meet: it receives the excrements, and conveys them to the colon. This colon hath many windings, that the excrements pass not away too fast: the right gut is straight, and conveys the excrements to the fundament, whose lower part is bound up with certain muscles called sphincters, that the excrements may be the better contained, until such time as a man be willing to go to the stool. In the midst of these guts is situated the mesenterium or midriff, composed of many veins, arteries, and much fat, serving chiefly to sustain the guts. All these parts serve the first concoction. To the second, which is busied either in refining the good nourishment or expelling the bad, is chiefly belonging the liver, like in colour to congealed blood, the shop of blood, situate in the right hypochondry, in figure like to a half-moon, generosum membrum Melancthon styles it, a generous part; it serves to turn the chylus to blood, for the nourishment of the body. The excrements of it are either choleric or watery, which the other subordinate parts convey. The gall placed in the concave of the liver, extracts choler to it: the spleen, melancholy; which is situate on the left side, over against the liver, a spongy matter, that draws this black choler to it by a secret virtue, and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomach, to stir up appetite, or else to the guts as an excrement. That watery matter the two kidneys expurgate by those emulgent veins and ureters. The emulgent draw this superfluous moisture from the blood; the two ureters convey it to the bladder, which, by reason of his site in the lower belly, is apt to receive it, having two parts, neck and bottom: the bottom holds the water, the neck is constringed with a muscle, which, as a porter, keeps the water from running out against our will. Members of generation are common to both sexes, or peculiar to one; which, because they are impertinent to my purpose, I do voluntarily omit. Middle Region.] Next in order is the middle region, or chest, which comprehends the vital faculties and parts; which (as I have said) is separated from the lower belly by the diaphragma or midriff, which is a skin consisting of many nerves, membranes; and amongst other uses it hath, is the instrument of laughing. There is also a certain thin membrane, full of sinews, which covereth the whole chest within, and is called pleura, the seat of the disease called pleurisy, when it is inflamed; some add a third skin, which is termed mediastinus, which divides the chest into two parts, right and left; of this region the principal part is the heart, which is the seat and fountain of life, of heat, of spirits, of pulse and respiration—the sun of our body, the king and sole commander of it—the seat and organ of all passions and affections. Primum vivens, ultimum moriens, it lives first, dies last in all creatures. Of a pyramidical form, and not much unlike to a pineapple; a part worthy of [964] admiration, that can yield such variety of affections, by whose motion it is dilated or contracted, to stir and command the humours in the body. As in sorrow, melancholy; in anger, choler; in joy, to send the blood outwardly; in sorrow, to call it in; moving the humours, as horses do a chariot. This heart, though it be one sole member, yet it may be divided into two creeks right and left. The right is like the moon increasing, bigger than the other part, and receives blood from vena cava, distributing some of it to the lungs to nourish them; the rest to the left side, to engender spirits. The left creek hath the form of a cone, and is the seat of life, which, as a torch doth oil, draws blood unto it, begetting of it spirits and fire; and as fire in a torch, so are spirits in the blood; and by that great artery called aorta, it sends vital spirits over the body, and takes air from the lungs by that artery which is called venosa; so that both creeks have their vessels, the right two veins, the left two arteries, besides those two common anfractuous ears, which serve them both; the one to hold blood, the other air, for several uses. The lungs is a thin spongy part, like an ox hoof, (saith [965]Fernelius) the town-clerk or crier, ([966]one terms it) the instrument of voice, as an orator to a king; annexed to the heart, to express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice, is manifest, in that no creature can speak, or utter any voice, which wanteth these lights. It is, besides, the instrument of respiration, or breathing; and its office is to cool the heart, by sending air unto it, by the venosal artery, which vein comes to the lungs by that aspera arteria which consists of many gristles, membranes, nerves, taking in air at the nose and mouth, and by it likewise exhales the fumes of the heart. In the upper region serving the animal faculties, the chief organ is the brain, which is a soft, marrowish, and white substance, engendered of the purest part of seed and spirits, included by many skins, and seated within the skull or brain pan; and it is the most noble organ under heaven, the dwelling-house and seat of the soul, the habitation of wisdom, memory, judgment, reason, and in which man is most like unto God; and therefore nature hath covered it with a skull of hard bone, and two skins or membranes, whereof the one is called dura mater, or meninx, the other pia mater. The dura mater is next to the skull, above the other, which includes and protects the brain. When this is taken away, the pia mater is to be seen, a thin membrane, the next and immediate cover of the brain, and not covering only, but entering into it. The brain itself is divided into two parts, the fore and hinder part; the fore part is much bigger than the other, which is called the little brain in respect of it. This fore part hath many concavities distinguished by certain ventricles, which are the receptacles of the spirits, brought hither by the arteries from the heart, and are there refined to a more heavenly nature, to perform the actions of the soul. Of these ventricles there are three—right, left, and middle. The right and left answer to their site, and beget animal spirits; if they be any way hurt, sense and motion ceaseth. These ventricles, moreover, are held to be the seat of the common sense. The middle ventricle is a common concourse and cavity of them both, and hath two passages—the one to receive pituita, and the other extends itself to the fourth creek; in this they place imagination and cogitation, and so the three ventricles of the fore part of the brain are used. The fourth creek behind the head is common to the cerebel or little brain, and marrow of the backbone, the last and most solid of all the rest, which receives the animal spirits from the other ventricles, and conveys them to the marrow in the back, and is the place where they say the memory is seated. SUBSECT. V.—Of the Soul and her Faculties. According to [967]Aristotle, the soul is defined to be ἐντελέχεια, perfectio et actus primus corporis organici, vitam habentis in potentia: the perfection or first act of an organical body, having power of life, which most [968]philosophers approve. But many doubts arise about the essence, subject, seat, distinction, and subordinate faculties of it. For the essence and particular knowledge, of all other things it is most hard (be it of man or beast) to discern, as [969]Aristotle himself, [970]Tully, [971]Picus Mirandula, [972]Tolet, and other neoteric philosophers confess:—[973]We can understand all things by her, but what she is we cannot apprehend. Some therefore make one soul, divided into three principal faculties; others, three distinct souls. Which question of late hath been much controverted by Picolomineus and Zabarel. [974] Paracelsus will have four souls, adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual soul: which opinion of his, Campanella, in his book de sensu rerum [975]much labours to demonstrate and prove, because carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer; with many such arguments And [976]some again, one soul of all creatures whatsoever, differing only in organs; and that beasts have reason as well as men, though, for some defect of organs, not in such measure. Others make a doubt whether it be all in all, and all in every part; which is amply discussed in Zabarel amongst the rest. The [977]common division of the soul is into three principal faculties—vegetal, sensitive, and rational, which make three distinct kinds of living creatures—vegetal plants, sensible beasts, rational men. How these three principal faculties are distinguished and connected, Humano ingenio inaccessum videtur, is beyond human capacity, as [978] Taurellus, Philip, Flavins, and others suppose. The inferior may be alone, but the superior cannot subsist without the other; so sensible includes vegetal, rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) ut trigonus in tetragono as a triangle in a quadrangle. Vegetal Soul.] Vegetal, the first of the three distinct faculties, is defined to be a substantial act of an organical body, by which it is nourished, augmented, and begets another like unto itself. In which definition, three several operations are specified—altrix, auctrix, procreatrix; the first is [979]nutrition, whose object is nourishment, meat, drink, and the like; his organ the liver in sensible creatures; in plants, the root or sap. His office is to turn the nutriment into the substance of the body nourished, which he performs by natural heat. This nutritive operation hath four other subordinate functions or powers belonging to it—attraction, retention, digestion, expulsion. Attraction.] [980]Attraction is a ministering faculty, which, as a loadstone doth iron, draws meat into the stomach, or as a lamp doth oil; and this attractive power is very necessary in plants, which suck up moisture by the root, as, another mouth, into the sap, as a like stomach. Retention.] Retention keeps it, being attracted unto the stomach, until such time it be concocted; for if it should pass away straight, the body could not be nourished. Digestion.] Digestion is performed by natural heat; for as the flame of a torch consumes oil, wax, tallow, so doth it alter and digest the nutritive matter. Indigestion is opposite unto it, for want of natural heat. Of this digestion there be three differences—maturation, elixation, assation. Maturation.] Maturation is especially observed in the fruits of trees; which are then said to be ripe, when the seeds are fit to be sown again. Crudity is opposed to it, which gluttons, epicures, and idle persons are most subject unto, that use no exercise to stir natural heat, or else choke it, as too much wood puts out a fire. Elixation.] Elixation is the seething of meat in the stomach, by the said natural heat, as meat is boiled in a pot; to which corruption or putrefaction is opposite. Assation.] Assation is a concoction of the inward moisture by heat; his opposite is semiustulation. Order of Concoction fourfold.] Besides these three several operations of digestion, there is a fourfold order of concoction:—mastication, or chewing in the mouth; chilification of this so chewed meat in the stomach; the third is in the liver, to turn this chylus into blood, called sanguification; the last is assimilation, which is in every part. Expulsion.] Expulsion is a power of nutrition, by which it expels all superfluous excrements, and relics of meat and drink, by the guts, bladder, pores; as by purging, vomiting, spitting, sweating, urine, hairs, nails, &c. Augmentation.] As this nutritive faculty serves to nourish the body, so doth the augmenting faculty (the second operation or power of the vegetal faculty) to the increasing of it in quantity, according to all dimensions, long, broad, thick, and to make it grow till it come to his due proportion and perfect shape; which hath his period of augmentation, as of consumption; and that most certain, as the poet observes:— Stat sua cuique dies, breve et irreparabile tempus Omnibus est vitae.——— A term of life is set to every man, Which is but short, and pass it no one can. Generation.] The last of these vegetal faculties is generation, which begets another by means of seed, like unto itself, to the perpetual preservation of the species. To this faculty they ascribe three subordinate operations:—the first to turn nourishment into seed, &c. Life and Death concomitants of the Vegetal Faculties.] Necessary concomitants or affections of this vegetal faculty are life and his privation, death. To the preservation of life the natural heat is most requisite, though siccity and humidity, and those first qualities, be not excluded. This heat is likewise in plants, as appears by their increasing, fructifying, &c., though not so easily perceived. In all bodies it must have radical [981]moisture to preserve it, that it be not consumed; to which preservation our clime, country, temperature, and the good or bad use of those six non-natural things avail much. For as this natural heat and moisture decays, so doth our life itself; and if not prevented before by some violent accident, or interrupted through our own default, is in the end dried up by old age, and extinguished by death for want of matter, as a lamp for defect of oil to maintain it. SUBSECT. VI.—Of the sensible Soul. Next in order is the sensible faculty, which is as far beyond the other in dignity, as a beast is preferred to a plant, having those vegetal powers included in it. 'Tis defined an Act of an organical body by which it lives, hath sense, appetite, judgment, breath, and motion. His object in general is a sensible or passible quality, because the sense is affected with it. The general organ is the brain, from which principally the sensible operations are derived. This sensible soul is divided into two parts, apprehending or moving. By the apprehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal. By the moving, the body is outwardly carried from one place to another; or inwardly moved by spirits and pulse. The apprehensive faculty is subdivided into two parts, inward or outward. Outward, as the five senses, of touching, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, to which you may add Scaliger's sixth sense of titillation, if you please; or that of speech, which is the sixth external sense, according to Lullius. Inward are three—common sense, phantasy, memory. Those five outward senses have their object in outward things only, and such as are present, as the eye sees no colour except it be at hand, the ear sound. Three of these senses are of commodity, hearing, sight, and smell; two of necessity, touch, and taste, without which we cannot live. Besides, the sensitive power is active or passive. Active in sight, the eye sees the colour; passive when it is hurt by his object, as the eye by the sunbeams. According to that axiom, visibile forte destruit sensum. [982]Or if the object be not pleasing, as a bad sound to the ear, a stinking smell to the nose, &c. Sight.] Of these five senses, sight is held to be most precious, and the best, and that by reason of his object, it sees the whole body at once. By it we learn, and discern all things, a sense most excellent for use: to the sight three things are required; the object, the organ, and the medium. The object in general is visible, or that which is to be seen, as colours, and all shining bodies. The medium is the illumination of the air, which comes from [983]light, commonly called diaphanum; for in dark we cannot see. The organ is the eye, and chiefly the apple of it, which by those optic nerves, concurring both in one, conveys the sight to the common sense. Between the organ and object a true distance is required, that it be not too near, or too far off! Many excellent questions appertain to this sense, discussed by philosophers: as whether this sight be caused intra mittendo, vel extra mittendo, &c., by receiving in the visible species, or sending of them out, which [984]Plato, [985]Plutarch, [986]Macrobius, [987]Lactantius and others dispute. And, besides, it is the subject of the perspectives, of which Alhazen the Arabian, Vitellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, Guidus Ubaldus, Aquilonius, &c., have written whole volumes. Hearing.] Hearing, a most excellent outward sense, by which we learn and get knowledge. His object is sound, or that which is heard; the medium, air; organ, the ear. To the sound, which is a collision of the air, three things are required; a body to strike, as the hand of a musician; the body struck, which must be solid and able to resist; as a bell, lute-string, not wool, or sponge; the medium, the air; which is inward, or outward; the outward being struck or collided by a solid body, still strikes the next air, until it come to that inward natural air, which as an exquisite organ is contained in a little skin formed like a drum-head, and struck upon by certain small instruments like drum-sticks, conveys the sound by a pair of nerves, appropriated to that use, to the common sense, as to a judge of sounds. There is great variety and much delight in them; for the knowledge of which, consult with Boethius and other musicians. Smelling.] Smelling is an outward sense, which apprehends by the nostrils drawing in air; and of all the rest it is the weakest sense in men. The organ in the nose, or two small hollow pieces of flesh a little above it: the medium the air to men, as water to fish: the object, smell, arising from a mixed body resolved, which, whether it be a quality, fume, vapour, or exhalation, I will not now dispute, or of their differences, and how they are caused. This sense is an organ of health, as sight and hearing, saith [988]Agellius, are of discipline; and that by avoiding bad smells, as by choosing good, which do as much alter and affect the body many times, as diet itself. Taste.] Taste, a necessary sense, which perceives all savours by the tongue and palate, and that by means of a thin spittle, or watery juice. His organ is the tongue with his tasting nerves; the medium, a watery juice; the object, taste, or savour, which is a quality in the juice, arising from the mixture of things tasted. Some make eight species or kinds of savour, bitter, sweet, sharp, salt, &c., all which sick men (as in an ague) cannot discern, by reason of their organs misaffected. Touching.] Touch, the last of the senses, and most ignoble, yet of as great necessity as the other, and of as much pleasure. This sense is exquisite in men, and by his nerves dispersed all over the body, perceives any tactile quality. His organ the nerves; his object those first qualities, hot, dry, moist, cold; and those that follow them, hard, soft, thick, thin, &c. Many delightsome questions are moved by philosophers about these five senses; their organs, objects, mediums, which for brevity I omit. SUBSECT. VII.—Of the Inward Senses. Common Sense.] Inner senses are three in number, so called, because they be within the brainpan, as common sense, phantasy, memory. Their objects are not only things present, but they perceive the sensible species of things to come, past, absent, such as were before in the sense. This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, but by my common sense, who judgeth of sounds and colours: they are but the organs to bring the species to be censured; so that all their objects are his, and all their offices are his. The fore part of the brain is his organ or seat. Phantasy.] Phantasy, or imagination, which some call estimative, or cogitative, (confirmed, saith [989]Fernelius, by frequent meditation,) is an inner sense which doth more fully examine the species perceived by common sense, of things present or absent, and keeps them longer, recalling them to mind again, or making new of his own. In time of sleep this faculty is free, and many times conceive strange, stupend, absurd shapes, as in sick men we commonly observe. His organ is the middle cell of the brain; his objects all the species communicated to him by the common sense, by comparison of which he feigns infinite other unto himself. In melancholy men this faculty is most powerful and strong, and often hurts, producing many monstrous and prodigious things, especially if it be stirred up by some terrible object, presented to it from common sense or memory. In poets and painters imagination forcibly works, as appears by their several fictions, antics, images: as Ovid's house of sleep, Psyche's palace in Apuleius, &c. In men it is subject and governed by reason, or at least should be; but in brutes it hath no superior, and is ratio brutorum, all the reason they have. Memory.] Memory lays up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when they are called for by phantasy and reason. His object is the same with phantasy, his seat and organ the back part of the brain. Affections of the Senses, sleep and waking.] The affections of these senses are sleep and waking, common to all sensible creatures. Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common sense, for the preservation of body and soul (as Scaliger [990]defines it); for when the common sense resteth, the outward senses rest also. The phantasy alone is free, and his commander reason: as appears by those imaginary dreams, which are of divers kinds, natural, divine, demoniacal, &c., which vary according to humours, diet, actions, objects, &c., of which Artemidorus, Cardanus, and Sambucus, with their several interpretators, have written great volumes. This litigation of senses proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which they should come; this stopping is caused of vapours arising out of the stomach, filling the nerves, by which the spirits should be conveyed. When these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits perform their accustomed duties: so that waking is the action and motion of the senses, which the spirits dispersed over all parts cause. SUBSECT. VIII.—Of the Moving Faculty. Appetite] This moving faculty is the other power of the sensitive soul, which causeth all those inward and outward animal motions in the body. It is divided into two faculties, the power of appetite, and of moving from place to place. This of appetite is threefold, so some will have it; natural, as it signifies any such inclination, as of a stone to fall downward, and such actions as retention, expulsion, which depend not on sense, but are vegetal, as the appetite of meat and drink; hunger and thirst. Sensitive is common to men and brutes. Voluntary, the third, or intellective, which commands the other two in men, and is a curb unto them, or at least should be, but for the most part is captivated and overruled by them; and men are led like beasts by sense, giving reins to their concupiscence and several lusts. For by this appetite the soul is led or inclined to follow that good which the senses shall approve, or avoid that which they hold evil: his object being good or evil, the one he embraceth, the other he rejecteth; according to that aphorism, Omnia appetunt bonum, all things seek their own good, or at least seeming good. This power is inseparable from sense, for where sense is, there are likewise pleasure and pain. His organ is the same with the common sense, and is divided into two powers, or inclinations, concupiscible or irascible: or (as one [991] translates it) coveting, anger invading, or impugning. Concupiscible covets always pleasant and delightsome things, and abhors that which is distasteful, harsh, and unpleasant. Irascible, quasi [992] aversans per iram et odium, as avoiding it with anger and indignation. All affections and perturbations arise out of these two fountains, which, although the stoics make light of, we hold natural, and not to be resisted. The good affections are caused by some object of the same nature; and if present, they procure joy, which dilates the heart, and preserves the body: if absent, they cause hope, love, desire, and concupiscence. The bad are simple or mixed: simple for some bad object present, as sorrow, which contracts the heart, macerates the soul, subverts the good estate of the body, hindering all the operations of it, causing melancholy, and many times death itself; or future, as fear. Out of these two arise those mixed affections and passions of anger, which is a desire of revenge; hatred, which is inveterate anger; zeal, which is offended with him who hurts that he loves; and ἐπικαιρεκακία, a compound affection of joy and hate, when we rejoice at other men's mischief, and are grieved at their prosperity; pride, self-love, emulation, envy, shame, &c., of which elsewhere. Moving from place to place, is a faculty necessarily following the other. For in vain were it otherwise to desire and to abhor, if we had not likewise power to prosecute or eschew, by moving the body from place to place: by this faculty therefore we locally move the body, or any part of it, and go from one place to another. To the better performance of which, three things are requisite: that which moves; by what it moves; that which is moved. That which moves, is either the efficient cause, or end. The end is the object, which is desired or eschewed; as in a dog to catch a hare, &c. The efficient cause in man is reason, or his subordinate phantasy, which apprehends good or bad objects: in brutes imagination alone, which moves the appetite, the appetite this faculty, which by an admirable league of nature, and by meditation of the spirit, commands the organ by which it moves: and that consists of nerves, muscles, cords, dispersed through the whole body, contracted and relaxed as the spirits will, which move the muscles, or [993]nerves in the midst of them, and draw the cord, and so per consequens the joint, to the place intended. That which is moved, is the body or some member apt to move. The motion of the body is divers, as going, running, leaping, dancing, sitting, and such like, referred to the predicament of situs. Worms creep, birds fly, fishes swim; and so of parts, the chief of which is respiration or breathing, and is thus performed. The outward air is drawn in by the vocal artery, and sent by mediation of the midriff to the lungs, which, dilating themselves as a pair of bellows, reciprocally fetch it in, and send it out to the heart to cool it; and from thence now being hot, convey it again, still taking in fresh. Such a like motion is that of the pulse, of which, because many have written whole books, I will say nothing. SUBSECT. IX.—Of the Rational Soul. In the precedent subsections I have anatomised those inferior faculties of the soul; the rational remaineth, a pleasant, but a doubtful subject (as [994]one terms it), and with the like brevity to be discussed. Many erroneous opinions are about the essence and original of it; whether it be fire, as Zeno held; harmony, as Aristoxenus; number, as Xenocrates; whether it be organical, or inorganical; seated in the brain, heart or blood; mortal or immortal; how it comes into the body. Some hold that it is ex traduce, as Phil. 1. de Anima, Tertullian, Lactantius de opific. Dei, cap. 19. Hugo, lib. de Spiritu et Anima, Vincentius Bellavic. spec. natural. lib. 23. cap. 2. et 11. Hippocrates, Avicenna, and many [995] late writers; that one man begets another, body and soul; or as a candle from a candle, to be produced from the seed: otherwise, say they, a man begets but half a man, and is worse than a beast that begets both matter and form; and, besides, the three faculties of the soul must be together infused, which is most absurd as they hold, because in beasts they are begot, the two inferior I mean, and may not be well separated in men. [996] Galen supposeth the soul crasin esse, to be the temperature itself; Trismegistus, Musaeus, Orpheus, Homer, Pindarus, Phaerecides Syrus, Epictetus, with the Chaldees and Egyptians, affirmed the soul to be immortal, as did those British [997]Druids of old. The [998]Pythagoreans defend Metempsychosis; and Palingenesia, that souls go from one body to another, epota prius Lethes unda, as men into wolves, bears, dogs, hogs, as they were inclined in their lives, or participated in conditions: [999]———inque ferinas Possumus ire domus, pecudumque in corpora condi. [1000]Lucian's cock was first Euphorbus, a captain: Ille ego (nam memini) Trojani tempore belli, Panthoides Euphorbus eram, a horse, a man, a sponge. [1001]Julian the Apostate thought Alexander's soul was descended into his body: Plato in Timaeo, and in his Phaedon, (for aught I can perceive,) differs not much from this opinion, that it was from God at first, and knew all, but being enclosed in the body, it forgets, and learns anew, which he calls reminiscentia, or recalling, and that it was put into the body for a punishment; and thence it goes into a beast's, or man's, as appears by his pleasant fiction de sortitione animarum, lib. 10. de rep. and after [1002]ten thousand years is to return into the former body again, [1003]———post varios annos, per mille figuras, Rursus ad humanae fertur primordia vitae. Others deny the immortality of it, which Pomponatus of Padua decided out of Aristotle not long since, Plinias Avunculus, cap. 1. lib. 2, et lib. 7. cap. 55; Seneca, lib. 7. epist. ad Lucilium, epist. 55; Dicearchus in Tull. Tusc. Epicurus, Aratus, Hippocrates, Galen, Lucretius, lib. 1. (Praeterea gigni pariter cum corpore, et una Cresere sentimus, pariterque senescere mentem.)[1004] Averroes, and I know not how many Neoterics. [1005]This question of the immortality of the soul, is diversely and wonderfully impugned and disputed, especially among the Italians of late, saith Jab. Colerus, lib. de immort. animae, cap. 1. The popes themselves have doubted of it: Leo Decimus, that Epicurean pope, as [1006]some record of him, caused this question to be discussed pro and con before him, and concluded at last, as a profane and atheistical moderator, with that verse of Cornelius Gallus, Et redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil. It began of nothing, and in nothing it ends. Zeno and his Stoics, as [1007]Austin quotes him, supposed the soul so long to continue, till the body was fully putrified, and resolved into materia prima: but after that, in fumos evanescere, to be extinguished and vanished; and in the meantime, whilst the body was consuming, it wandered all abroad, et e longinquo multa annunciare, and (as that Clazomenian Hermotimus averred) saw pretty visions, and suffered I know not what. [1008]Errant exangues sine corpore et ossibus umbrae. Others grant the immortality thereof, but they make many fabulous fictions in the meantime of it, after the departure from the body: like Plato's Elysian fields, and that Turkey paradise. The souls of good men they deified; the bad (saith [1009]Austin) became devils, as they supposed; with many such absurd tenets, which he hath confuted. Hierome, Austin, and other Fathers of the church, hold that the soul is immortal, created of nothing, and so infused into the child or embryo in his mother's womb, six months after the [1010]conception; not as those of brutes, which are ex traduce, and dying with them vanish into nothing. To whose divine treatises, and to the Scriptures themselves, I rejourn all such atheistical spirits, as Tully did Atticus, doubting of this point, to Plato's Phaedon. Or if they desire philosophical proofs and demonstrations, I refer them to Niphus, Nic. Faventinus' tracts of this subject. To Fran. and John Picus in digress: sup. 3. de Anima, Tholosanus, Eugubinus, To. Soto, Canas, Thomas, Peresius, Dandinus, Colerus, to that elaborate tract in Zanchius, to Tolet's Sixty Reasons, and Lessius' Twenty-two Arguments, to prove the immortality of the soul. Campanella, lib. de sensu rerum, is large in the same discourse, Albertinus the Schoolman, Jacob. Nactantus, tom. 2. op. handleth it in four questions, Antony Brunus, Aonius Palearius, Marinus Marcennus, with many others. This reasonable soul, which Austin calls a spiritual substance moving itself, is defined by philosophers to be the first substantial act of a natural, humane, organical body, by which a man lives, perceives, and understands, freely doing all things, and with election. Out of which definition we may gather, that this rational soul includes the powers, and performs the duties of the two other, which are contained in it, and all three faculties make one soul, which is inorganical of itself, although it be in all parts, and incorporeal, using their organs, and working by them. It is divided into two chief parts, differing in office only, not in essence. The understanding, which is the rational power apprehending; the will, which is the rational power moving: to which two, all the other rational powers are subject and reduced. SUBSECT. X.—Of the Understanding. Understanding is a power of the soul, [1011]by which we perceive, know, remember, and judge as well singulars, as universals, having certain innate notices or beginnings of arts, a reflecting action, by which it judgeth of his own doings, and examines them. Out of this definition (besides his chief office, which is to apprehend, judge all that he performs, without the help of any instruments or organs) three differences appear betwixt a man and a beast. As first, the sense only comprehends singularities, the understanding universalities. Secondly, the sense hath no innate notions. Thirdly, brutes cannot reflect upon themselves. Bees indeed make neat and curious works, and many other creatures besides; but when they have done, they cannot judge of them. His object is God, ens, all nature, and whatsoever is to be understood: which successively it apprehends. The object first moving the understanding, is some sensible thing; after by discoursing, the mind finds out the corporeal substance, and from thence the spiritual. His actions (some say) are apprehension, composition, division, discoursing, reasoning, memory, which some include in invention, and judgment. The common divisions are of the understanding, agent, and patient; speculative, and practical; in habit, or in act; simple, or compound. The agent is that which is called the wit of man, acumen or subtlety, sharpness of invention, when he doth invent of himself without a teacher, or learns anew, which abstracts those intelligible species from the phantasy, and transfers them to the passive understanding, [1012] because there is nothing in the understanding, which was not first in the sense. That which the imagination hath taken from the sense, this agent judgeth of, whether it be true or false; and being so judged he commits it to the passible to be kept. The agent is a doctor or teacher, the passive a scholar; and his office is to keep and further judge of such things as are committed to his charge; as a bare and rased table at first, capable of all forms and notions. Now these notions are twofold, actions or habits: actions, by which we take notions of, and perceive things; habits, which are durable lights and notions, which we may use when we will. Some reckon up eight kinds of them, sense, experience, intelligence, faith, suspicion, error, opinion, science; to which are added art, prudency, wisdom: as also [1013]synteresis, dictamen rationis, conscience; so that in all there be fourteen species of the understanding, of which some are innate, as the three last mentioned; the other are gotten by doctrine, learning, and use. Plato will have all to be innate: Aristotle reckons up but five intellectual habits; two practical, as prudency, whose end is to practise; to fabricate; wisdom to comprehend the use and experiments of all notions and habits whatsoever. Which division of Aristotle (if it be considered aright) is all one with the precedent; for three being innate, and five acquisite, the rest are improper, imperfect, and in a more strict examination excluded. Of all these I should more amply dilate, but my subject will not permit. Three of them I will only point at, as more necessary to my following discourse. Synteresis, or the purer part of the conscience, is an innate habit, and doth signify a conversation of the knowledge of the law of God and Nature, to know good or evil. And (as our divines hold) it is rather in the understanding than in the will. This makes the major proposition in a practical syllogism. The dictamen rationis is that which doth admonish us to do good or evil, and is the minor in the syllogism. The conscience is that which approves good or evil, justifying or condemning our actions, and is the conclusion of the syllogism: as in that familiar example of Regulus the Roman, taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, and suffered to go to Rome, on that condition he should return again, or pay so much for his ransom. The synteresis proposeth the question; his word, oath, promise, is to be religiously kept, although to his enemy, and that by the law of nature. [1014]Do not that to another which thou wouldst not have done to thyself. Dictamen applies it to him, and dictates this or the like: Regulus, thou wouldst not another man should falsify his oath, or break promise with thee: conscience concludes, therefore, Regulus, thou dost well to perform thy promise, and oughtest to keep thine oath. More of this in Religious Melancholy. SUBSECT. XI.—Of the Will. Will is the other power of the rational soul, [1015]which covets or avoids such things as have been before judged and apprehended by the understanding. If good, it approves; if evil, it abhors it: so that his object is either good or evil. Aristotle calls this our rational appetite; for as, in the sensitive, we are moved to good or bad by our appetite, ruled and directed by sense; so in this we are carried by reason. Besides, the sensitive appetite hath a particular object, good or bad; this an universal, immaterial: that respects only things delectable and pleasant; this honest. Again, they differ in liberty. The sensual appetite seeing an object, if it be a convenient good, cannot but desire it; if evil, avoid it: but this is free in his essence, [1016]much now depraved, obscured, and fallen from his first perfection; yet in some of his operations still free, as to go, walk, move at his pleasure, and to choose whether it will do or not do, steal or not steal. Otherwise, in vain were laws, deliberations, exhortations, counsels, precepts, rewards, promises, threats and punishments: and God should be the author of sin. But in [1017] spiritual things we will no good, prone to evil (except we be regenerate, and led by the Spirit), we are egged on by our natural concupiscence, and there is ἀταξία, a confusion in our powers, [1018]our whole will is averse from God and his law, not in natural things only, as to eat and drink, lust, to which we are led headlong by our temperature and inordinate appetite, [1019]Nec nos obniti contra, nec tendere tantum Sufficimus,— we cannot resist, our concupiscence is originally bad, our heart evil, the seat of our affections captivates and enforceth our will. So that in voluntary things we are averse from God and goodness, bad by nature, by [1020]ignorance worse, by art, discipline, custom, we get many bad habits: suffering them to domineer and tyrannise over us; and the devil is still ready at hand with his evil suggestions, to tempt our depraved will to some ill-disposed action, to precipitate us to destruction, except our will be swayed and counterpoised again with some divine precepts, and good motions of the spirit, which many times restrain, hinder and check us, when we are in the full career of our dissolute courses. So David corrected himself, when he had Saul at a vantage. Revenge and malice were as two violent oppugners on the one side; but honesty, religion, fear of God, withheld him on the other. The actions of the will are velle and nolle, to will and nill: which two words comprehend all, and they are good or bad, accordingly as they are directed, and some of them freely performed by himself; although the stoics absolutely deny it, and will have all things inevitably done by destiny, imposing a fatal necessity upon us, which we may not resist; yet we say that our will is free in respect of us, and things contingent, howsoever in respect of God's determinate counsel, they are inevitable and necessary. Some other actions of the will are performed by the inferior powers, which obey him, as the sensitive and moving appetite; as to open our eyes, to go hither and thither, not to touch a book, to speak fair or foul: but this appetite is many times rebellious in us, and will not be contained within the lists of sobriety and temperance. It was (as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and there was an excellent consent and harmony between them, but that is now dissolved, they often jar, reason is overborne by passion: Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas, as so many wild horses run away with a chariot, and will not be curbed. We know many times what is good, but will not do it, as she said, [1021]Trahit invitum nova vis, aliudque cupido, Mens aliud suadet,——— Lust counsels one thing, reason another, there is a new reluctancy in men. [1022]Odi, nec possum, cupiens non esse, quod odi. We cannot resist, but as Phaedra confessed to her nurse, [1023]quae loqueris, vera sunt, sed furor suggerit sequi pejora: she said well and true, she did acknowledge it, but headstrong passion and fury made her to do that which was opposite. So David knew the filthiness of his fact, what a loathsome, foul, crying sin adultery was, yet notwithstanding he would commit murder, and take away another man's wife, enforced against reason, religion, to follow his appetite. Those natural and vegetal powers are not commanded by will at all; for who can add one cubit to his stature? These other may, but are not: and thence come all those headstrong passions, violent perturbations of the mind; and many times vicious habits, customs, feral diseases; because we give so much way to our appetite, and follow our inclination, like so many beasts. The principal habits are two in number, virtue and vice, whose peculiar definitions, descriptions, differences, and kinds, are handled at large in the ethics, and are, indeed, the subject of moral philosophy.   MEMB. III. SUBSECT. I.—Definition of Melancholy, Name, Difference. Having thus briefly anatomised the body and soul of man, as a preparative to the rest; I may now freely proceed to treat of my intended object, to most men's capacity; and after many ambages, perspicuously define what this melancholy is, show his name and differences. The name is imposed from the matter, and disease denominated from the material cause: as Bruel observes, Μελανχολία quasi Μελαιναχόλη, from black choler. And whether it be a cause or an effect, a disease or symptom, let Donatus Altomarus and Salvianus decide; I will not contend about it. It hath several descriptions, notations, and definitions. [1024]Fracastorius, in his second book of intellect, calls those melancholy, whom abundance of that same depraved humour of black choler hath so misaffected, that they become mad thence, and dote in most things, or in all, belonging to election, will, or other manifest operations of the understanding. [1025] Melanelius out of Galen, Ruffus, Aetius, describe it to be a bad and peevish disease, which makes men degenerate into beasts: Galen, a privation or infection of the middle cell of the head, &c. defining it from the part affected, which [1026]Hercules de Saxonia approves, lib. 1. cap. 16. calling it a depravation of the principal function: Fuschius, lib. 1. cap. 23. Arnoldus Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Guianerius, and others: By reason of black choler, Paulus adds. Halyabbas simply calls it a commotion of the mind. Aretaeus, [1027]a perpetual anguish of the soul, fastened on one thing, without an ague; which definition of his, Mercurialis de affect. cap. lib. 1. cap. 10. taxeth: but Aelianus Montaltus defends, lib. de morb. cap. 1. de Melan. for sufficient and good. The common sort define it to be a kind of dotage without a fever, having for his ordinary companions, fear and sadness, without any apparent occasion. So doth Laurentius, cap. 4. Piso. lib. 1. cap. 43. Donatus Altomarus, cap. 7. art. medic. Jacchinus, in com. in lib. 9. Rhasis ad Almansor, cap. 15. Valesius, exerc. 17. Fuschius, institut. 3. sec. 1. c. 11. &c. which common definition, howsoever approved by most, [1028]Hercules de Saxonia will not allow of, nor David Crucius, Theat. morb. Herm. lib. 2. cap. 6. he holds it insufficient: as [1029]rather showing what it is not, than what it is: as omitting the specific difference, the phantasy and brain: but I descend to particulars. The summum genus is dotage, or anguish of the mind, saith Aretaeus; of the principal parts, Hercules de Saxonia adds, to distinguish it from cramp and palsy, and such diseases as belong to the outward sense and motions [depraved] [1030]to distinguish it from folly and madness (which Montaltus makes angor animi, to separate) in which those functions are not depraved, but rather abolished; [without an ague] is added by all, to sever it from frenzy, and that melancholy which is in a pestilent fever. (Fear and sorrow) make it differ from madness: [without a cause] is lastly inserted, to specify it from all other ordinary passions of [fear and sorrow.] We properly call that dotage, as [1031]Laurentius interprets it, when some one principal faculty of the mind, as imagination, or reason, is corrupted, as all melancholy persons have. It is without a fever, because the humour is most part cold and dry, contrary to putrefaction. Fear and sorrow are the true characters and inseparable companions of most melancholy, not all, as Her. de Saxonia, Tract. de posthumo de Melancholia, cap. 2. well excepts; for to some it is most pleasant, as to such as laugh most part; some are bold again, and free from all manner of fear and grief, as hereafter shall be declared. SUBSECT. II.—Of the part affected. Affection. Parties affected. Some difference I find amongst writers, about the principal part affected in this disease, whether it be the brain, or heart, or some other member. Most are of opinion that it is the brain: for being a kind of dotage, it cannot otherwise be but that the brain must be affected, as a similar part, be it by [1032]consent or essence, not in his ventricles, or any obstructions in them, for then it would be an apoplexy, or epilepsy, as [1033]Laurentius well observes, but in a cold, dry distemperature of it in his substance, which is corrupt and become too cold, or too dry, or else too hot, as in madmen, and such as are inclined to it: and this [1034] Hippocrates confirms, Galen, the Arabians, and most of our new writers. Marcus de Oddis (in a consultation of his, quoted by [1035]Hildesheim) and five others there cited are of the contrary part; because fear and sorrow, which are passions, be seated in the heart. But this objection is sufficiently answered by [1036]Montaltus, who doth not deny that the heart is affected (as [1037]Melanelius proves out of Galen) by reason of his vicinity, and so is the midriff and many other parts. They do compati, and have a fellow feeling by the law of nature: but forasmuch as this malady is caused by precedent imagination, with the appetite, to whom spirits obey, and are subject to those principal parts, the brain must needs primarily be misaffected, as the seat of reason; and then the heart, as the seat of affection. [1038]Capivaccius and Mercurialis have copiously discussed this question, and both conclude the subject is the inner brain, and from thence it is communicated to the heart and other inferior parts, which sympathise and are much troubled, especially when it comes by consent, and is caused by reason of the stomach, or mirach, as the Arabians term it, whole body, liver, or [1039]spleen, which are seldom free, pylorus, mesaraic veins, &c. For our body is like a clock, if one wheel be amiss, all the rest are disordered; the whole fabric suffers: with such admirable art and harmony is a man composed, such excellent proportion, as Ludovicus Vives in his Fable of Man hath elegantly declared. As many doubts almost arise about the [1040]affection, whether it be imagination or reason alone, or both, Hercules de Saxonia proves it out of Galen, Aetius, and Altomarus, that the sole fault is in [1041]imagination. Bruel is of the same mind: Montaltus in his 2 cap. of Melancholy confutes this tenet of theirs, and illustrates the contrary by many examples: as of him that thought himself a shellfish, of a nun, and of a desperate monk that would not be persuaded but that he was damned; reason was in fault as well as imagination, which did not correct this error: they make away themselves oftentimes, and suppose many absurd and ridiculous things. Why doth not reason detect the fallacy, settle and persuade, if she be free? [1042]Avicenna therefore holds both corrupt, to whom most Arabians subscribe. The same is maintained by [1043]Areteus, [1044]Gorgonius, Guianerius, &c. To end the controversy, no man doubts of imagination, but that it is hurt and misaffected here; for the other I determine with [1045] Albertinus Bottonus, a doctor of Padua, that it is first in imagination, and afterwards in reason; if the disease be inveterate, or as it is more or less of continuance; but by accident, as [1046]Herc. de Saxonia adds; faith, opinion, discourse, ratiocination, are all accidentally depraved by the default of imagination. Parties affected.] To the part affected, I may here add the parties, which shall be more opportunely spoken of elsewhere, now only signified. Such as have the moon, Saturn, Mercury misaffected in their genitures, such as live in over cold or over hot climes: such as are born of melancholy parents; as offend in those six non-natural things, are black, or of a high sanguine complexion, [1047]that have little heads, that have a hot heart, moist brain, hot liver and cold stomach, have been long sick: such as are solitary by nature, great students, given to much contemplation, lead a life out of action, are most subject to melancholy. Of sexes both, but men more often; yet [1048]women misaffected are far more violent, and grievously troubled. Of seasons of the year, the autumn is most melancholy. Of peculiar times: old age, from which natural melancholy is almost an inseparable accident; but this artificial malady is more frequent in such as are of a [1049]middle age. Some assign 40 years, Gariopontus 30. Jubertus excepts neither young nor old from this adventitious. Daniel Sennertus involves all of all sorts, out of common experience, [1050]in omnibus omnino corporibus cujuscunque constitutionis dominatar. Aetius and Aretius [1051]ascribe into the number not only [1052]discontented, passionate, and miserable persons, swarthy, black; but such as are most merry and pleasant, scoffers, and high coloured. Generally, saith Rhasis, [1053]the finest wits and most generous spirits, are before other obnoxious to it; I cannot except any complexion, any condition, sex, or age, but [1054]fools and stoics, which, according to [1055]Synesius, are never troubled with any manner of passion, but as Anacreon's cicada, sine sanguine et dolore; similes fere diis sunt. Erasmus vindicates fools from this melancholy catalogue, because they have most part moist brains and light hearts; [1056]they are free from ambition, envy, shame and fear; they are neither troubled in conscience, nor macerated with cares, to which our whole life is most subject. SUBSECT. III.—Of the Matter of Melancholy. Of the matter of melancholy, there is much question betwixt Avicen and Galen, as you may read in [1057]Cardan's Contradictions, [1058]Valesius' Controversies, Montanus, Prosper Calenus, Capivaccius, [1059]Bright, [1060]Ficinus, that have written either whole tracts, or copiously of it, in their several treatises of this subject. [1061]What this humour is, or whence it proceeds, how it is engendered in the body, neither Galen, nor any old writer hath sufficiently discussed, as Jacchinus thinks: the Neoterics cannot agree. Montanus, in his Consultations, holds melancholy to be material or immaterial: and so doth Arculanus: the material is one of the four humours before mentioned, and natural. The immaterial or adventitious, acquisite, redundant, unnatural, artificial; which [1062] Hercules de Saxonia will have reside in the spirits alone, and to proceed from a hot, cold, dry, moist distemperature, which, without matter, alter the brain and functions of it. Paracelsus wholly rejects and derides this division of four humours and complexions, but our Galenists generally approve of it, subscribing to this opinion of Montanus. This material melancholy is either simple or mixed; offending in quantity or quality, varying according to his place, where it settleth, as brain, spleen, mesaraic veins, heart, womb, and stomach; or differing according to the mixture of those natural humours amongst themselves, or four unnatural adust humours, as they are diversely tempered and mingled. If natural melancholy abound in the body, which is cold and dry, so that it be more [1063]than the body is well able to bear, it must needs be distempered, saith Faventius, and diseased; and so the other, if it be depraved, whether it arise from that other melancholy of choler adust, or from blood, produceth the like effects, and is, as Montaltus contends, if it come by adustion of humours, most part hot and dry. Some difference I find, whether this melancholy matter may be engendered of all four humours, about the colour and temper of it. Galen holds it may be engendered of three alone, excluding phlegm, or pituita, whose true assertion [1064]Valesius and Menardus stiffly maintain, and so doth [1065]Fuschius, Montaltus, [1066] Montanus. How (say they) can white become black? But Hercules de Saxonia, lib. post. de mela. c. 8, and [1067]Cardan are of the opposite part (it may be engendered of phlegm, etsi raro contingat, though it seldom come to pass), so is [1068]Guianerius and Laurentius, c. 1. with Melanct. in his book de Anima, and Chap. of Humours; he calls it asininam, dull, swinish melancholy, and saith that he was an eyewitness of it: so is [1069]Wecker. From melancholy adust ariseth one kind; from choler another, which is most brutish; another from phlegm, which is dull; and the last from blood, which is best. Of these some are cold and dry, others hot and dry, [1070]varying according to their mixtures, as they are intended, and remitted. And indeed as Rodericus a Fons. cons. 12. l. 1. determines, ichors, and those serous matters being thickened become phlegm, and phlegm degenerates into choler, choler adust becomes aeruginosa melancholia, as vinegar out of purest wine putrified or by exhalation of purer spirits is so made, and becomes sour and sharp; and from the sharpness of this humour proceeds much waking, troublesome thoughts and dreams, &c. so that I conclude as before. If the humour be cold, it is, saith [1071]Faventinus, a cause of dotage, and produceth milder symptoms: if hot, they are rash, raving mad, or inclining to it. If the brain be hot, the animal spirits are hot; much madness follows, with violent actions: if cold, fatuity and sottishness, [1072]Capivaccius. [1073]The colour of this mixture varies likewise according to the mixture, be it hot or cold; 'tis sometimes black, sometimes not, Altomarus. The same [1074]Melanelius proves out of Galen; and Hippocrates in his Book of Melancholy (if at least it be his), giving instance in a burning coal, which when it is hot, shines; when it is cold, looks black; and so doth the humour. This diversity of melancholy matter produceth diversity of effects. If it be within the [1075]body, and not putrified, it causeth black jaundice; if putrified, a quartan ague; if it break out to the skin, leprosy; if to parts, several maladies, as scurvy, &c. If it trouble the mind; as it is diversely mixed, it produceth several kinds of madness and dotage: of which in their place. SUBSECT. IV.—Of the species or kinds of Melancholy. When the matter is divers and confused, how should it otherwise be, but that the species should be divers and confused? Many new and old writers have spoken confusedly of it, confounding melancholy and madness, as [1076] Heurnius, Guianerius, Gordonius, Salustius Salvianus, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, that will have madness no other than melancholy in extent, differing (as I have said) in degrees. Some make two distinct species, as Ruffus Ephesius, an old writer, Constantinus Africanus, Aretaeus, [1077] Aurelianus, [1078]Paulus Aegineta: others acknowledge a multitude of kinds, and leave them indefinite, as Aetius in his Tetrabiblos, [1079]Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 18. Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rasis. Montanus, med. part. 1. [1080]If natural melancholy be adust, it maketh one kind; if blood, another; if choler, a third, differing from the first; and so many several opinions there are about the kinds, as there be men themselves. [1081]Hercules de Saxonia sets down two kinds, material and immaterial; one from spirits alone, the other from humours and spirits. Savanarola, Rub. 11. Tract. 6. cap. 1. de aegritud. capitis, will have the kinds to be infinite; one from the mirach, called myrachialis of the Arabians; another stomachalis, from the stomach; another from the liver, heart, womb, haemorrhoids, [1082]one beginning, another consummate. Melancthon seconds him, [1083]as the humour is diversely adust and mixed, so are the species divers; but what these men speak of species I think ought to be understood of symptoms; and so doth [1084] Arculanus interpret himself: infinite species, id est, symptoms; and in that sense, as Jo. Gorrheus acknowledgeth in his medicinal definitions, the species are infinite, but they may be reduced to three kinds by reason of their seat; head, body, and hypochrondries. This threefold division is approved by Hippocrates in his Book of Melancholy, (if it be his, which some suspect) by Galen, lib. 3. de loc. affectis, cap. 6. by Alexander, lib. 1. cap. 16. Rasis, lib. 1. Continent. Tract. 9. lib. 1. cap. 16. Avicenna and most of our new writers. Th. Erastus makes two kinds; one perpetual, which is head melancholy; the other interrupt, which comes and goes by fits, which he subdivides into the other two kinds, so that all comes to the same pass. Some again make four or five kinds, with Rodericus a Castro, de morbis mulier. lib. 2. cap. 3. and Lod. Mercatus, who in his second book de mulier. affect. cap. 4. will have that melancholy of nuns, widows, and more ancient maids, to be a peculiar species of melancholy differing from the rest: some will reduce enthusiasts, ecstatical and demoniacal persons to this rank, adding [1085] love melancholy to the first, and lycanthropia. The most received division is into three kinds. The first proceeds from the sole fault of the brain, and is called head melancholy; the second sympathetically proceeds from the whole body, when the whole temperature is melancholy: the third ariseth from the bowels, liver, spleen, or membrane, called mesenterium, named hypochondriacal or windy melancholy, which [1086]Laurentius subdivides into three parts, from those three members, hepatic, splenetic, mesaraic. Love melancholy, which Avicenna calls ilishi: and Lycanthropia, which he calls cucubuthe, are commonly included in head melancholy; but of this last, which Gerardus de Solo calls amoreus, and most knight melancholy, with that of religious melancholy, virginum et viduarum, maintained by Rod. a Castro and Mercatus, and the other kinds of love melancholy, I will speak of apart by themselves in my third partition. The three precedent species are the subject of my present discourse, which I will anatomise and treat of through all their causes, symptoms, cures, together and apart; that every man that is in any measure affected with this malady, may know how to examine it in himself, and apply remedies unto it. It is a hard matter, I confess, to distinguish these three species one from the other, to express their several causes, symptoms, cures, being that they are so often confounded amongst themselves, having such affinity, that they can scarce be discerned by the most accurate physicians; and so often intermixed with other diseases, that the best experienced have been plunged. Montanus consil. 26, names a patient that had this disease of melancholy and caninus appetitus both together; and consil. 23, with vertigo, [1087]Julius Caesar Claudinus with stone, gout, jaundice. Trincavellius with an ague, jaundice, caninus appetitus, &c. [1088]Paulus Regoline, a great doctor in his time, consulted in this case, was so confounded with a confusion of symptoms, that he knew not to what kind of melancholy to refer it. [1089]Trincavellius, Fallopius, and Francanzanus, famous doctors in Italy, all three conferred with about one party, at the same time, gave three different opinions. And in another place, Trincavellius being demanded what he thought of a melancholy young man to whom he was sent for, ingenuously confessed that he was indeed melancholy, but he knew not to what kind to reduce it. In his seventeenth consultation there is the like disagreement about a melancholy monk. Those symptoms, which others ascribe to misaffected parts and humours, [1090]Herc. de Saxonia attributes wholly to distempered spirits, and those immaterial, as I have said. Sometimes they cannot well discern this disease from others. In Reinerus Solenander's counsels, (Sect, consil. 5,) he and Dr. Brande both agreed, that the patient's disease was hypochondriacal melancholy. Dr. Matholdus said it was asthma, and nothing else. [1091]Solenander and Guarionius, lately sent for to the melancholy Duke of Cleve, with others, could not define what species it was, or agree amongst themselves. The species are so confounded, as in Caesar Claudinus his forty-fourth consultation for a Polonian Count, in his judgment [1092]he laboured of head melancholy, and that which proceeds from the whole temperature both at once. I could give instance of some that have had all three kinds semel et simul, and some successively. So that I conclude of our melancholy species, as [1093]many politicians do of their pure forms of commonwealths, monarchies, aristocracies, democracies, are most famous in contemplation, but in practice they are temperate and usually mixed, (so [1094]Polybius informeth us) as the Lacedaemonian, the Roman of old, German now, and many others. What physicians say of distinct species in their books it much matters not, since that in their patients' bodies they are commonly mixed. In such obscurity, therefore, variety and confused mixture of symptoms, causes, how difficult a thing is it to treat of several kinds apart; to make any certainty or distinction among so many casualties, distractions, when seldom two men shall be like effected per omnia? 'Tis hard, I confess, yet nevertheless I will adventure through the midst of these perplexities, and, led by the clue or thread of the best writers, extricate myself out of a labyrinth of doubts and errors, and so proceed to the causes. SECT. II. MEMB. I. SUBSECT. I.—Causes of Melancholy. God a cause. It is in vain to speak of cures, or think of remedies, until such time as we have considered of the causes, so [1095]Galen prescribes Glauco: and the common experience of others confirms that those cures must be imperfect, lame, and to no purpose, wherein the causes have not first been searched, as [1096]Prosper Calenius well observes in his tract de atra bile to Cardinal Caesius. Insomuch that [1097]Fernelius puts a kind of necessity in the knowledge of the causes, and without which it is impossible to cure or prevent any manner of disease. Empirics may ease, and sometimes help, but not thoroughly root out; sublata causa tollitur effectus as the saying is, if the cause be removed, the effect is likewise vanquished. It is a most difficult thing (I confess) to be able to discern these causes whence they are, and in such [1098]variety to say what the beginning was. [1099]He is happy that can perform it aright. I will adventure to guess as near as I can, and rip them all up, from the first to the last, general and particular, to every species, that so they may the better be described. General causes, are either supernatural, or natural. Supernatural are from God and his angels, or by God's permission from the devil and his ministers. That God himself is a cause for the punishment of sin, and satisfaction of his justice, many examples and testimonies of holy Scriptures make evident unto us, Ps. cvii, 17. Foolish men are plagued for their offence, and by reason of their wickedness. Gehazi was stricken with leprosy, 2 Reg. v. 27. Jehoram with dysentery and flux, and great diseases of the bowels, 2 Chron. xxi. 15. David plagued for numbering his people, 1 Par. 21. Sodom and Gomorrah swallowed up. And this disease is peculiarly specified, Psalm cxxvii. 12. He brought down their heart through heaviness. Deut. xxviii. 28. He struck them with madness, blindness, and astonishment of heart. [1100]An evil spirit was sent by the Lord upon Saul, to vex him. [1101]Nebuchadnezzar did eat grass like an ox, and his heart was made like the beasts of the field. Heathen stories are full of such punishments. Lycurgus, because he cut down the vines in the country, was by Bacchus driven into madness: so was Pentheus and his mother Agave for neglecting their sacrifice. [1102]Censor Fulvius ran mad for untiling Juno's temple, to cover a new one of his own, which he had dedicated to Fortune, [1103]and was confounded to death with grief and sorrow of heart. When Xerxes would have spoiled [1104]Apollo's temple at Delphos of those infinite riches it possessed, a terrible thunder came from heaven and struck four thousand men dead, the rest ran mad. [1105]A little after, the like happened to Brennus, lightning, thunder, earthquakes, upon such a sacrilegious occasion. If we may believe our pontifical writers, they will relate unto us many strange and prodigious punishments in this kind, inflicted by their saints. How [1106]Clodoveus, sometime king of France, the son of Dagobert, lost his wits for uncovering the body of St. Denis: and how a [1107]sacrilegious Frenchman, that would have stolen a silver image of St. John, at Birgburge, became frantic on a sudden, raging, and tyrannising over his own flesh: of a [1108]Lord of Rhadnor, that coming from hunting late at night, put his dogs into St. Avan's church, (Llan Avan they called it) and rising betimes next morning, as hunters use to do, found all his dogs mad, himself being suddenly strucken blind. Of Tyridates an [1109]Armenian king, for violating some holy nuns, that was punished in like sort, with loss of his wits. But poets and papists may go together for fabulous tales; let them free their own credits: howsoever they feign of their Nemesis, and of their saints, or by the devil's means may be deluded; we find it true, that ultor a tergo Deus, [1110]He is God the avenger, as David styles him; and that it is our crying sins that pull this and many other maladies on our own heads. That he can by his angels, which are his ministers, strike and heal (saith [1111]Dionysius) whom he will; that he can plague us by his creatures, sun, moon, and stars, which he useth as his instruments, as a husbandman (saith Zanchius) doth a hatchet: hail, snow, winds, &c. [1112]Et conjurati veniunt in classica venti: as in Joshua's time, as in Pharaoh's reign in Egypt; they are but as so many executioners of his justice. He can make the proudest spirits stoop, and cry out with Julian the Apostate, Vicisti Galilaee: or with Apollo's priest in [1113]Chrysostom, O coelum! o terra! unde hostis hic? What an enemy is this? And pray with David, acknowledging his power, I am weakened and sore broken, I roar for the grief of mine heart, mine heart panteth, &c. Psalm xxxviii. 8. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chastise me in thy wrath, Psalm xxxviii. 1. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken, may rejoice, Psalm li. 8. and verse 12. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and stablish me with thy free spirit. For these causes belike [1114]Hippocrates would have a physician take special notice whether the disease come not from a divine supernatural cause, or whether it follow the course of nature. But this is farther discussed by Fran. Valesius, de sacr. philos. cap. 8. [1115] Fernelius, and [1116]J. Caesar Claudinus, to whom I refer you, how this place of Hippocrates is to be understood. Paracelsus is of opinion, that such spiritual diseases (for so he calls them) are spiritually to be cured, and not otherwise. Ordinary means in such cases will not avail: Non est reluctandum cum Deo (we must not struggle with God.) When that monster-taming Hercules overcame all in the Olympics, Jupiter at last in an unknown shape wrestled with him; the victory was uncertain, till at length Jupiter descried himself, and Hercules yielded. No striving with supreme powers. Nil juvat immensos Cratero promittere montes, physicians and physic can do no good, [1117]we must submit ourselves unto the mighty hand of God, acknowledge our offences, call to him for mercy. If he strike us una eademque manus vulnus opemque feret, as it is with them that are wounded with the spear of Achilles, he alone must help; otherwise our diseases are incurable, and we not to be relieved. SUBSECT. II.—A Digression of the nature of Spirits, bad Angels, or Devils, and how they cause Melancholy. How far the power of spirits and devils doth extend, and whether they can cause this, or any other disease, is a serious question, and worthy to be considered: for the better understanding of which, I will make a brief digression of the nature of spirits. And although the question be very obscure, according to [1118]Postellus, full of controversy and ambiguity, beyond the reach of human capacity, fateor excedere vires intentionis meae, saith [1119]Austin, I confess I am not able to understand it, finitum de infinito non potest statuere, we can sooner determine with Tully, de nat. deorum, quid non sint, quam quid sint, our subtle schoolmen, Cardans, Scaligers, profound Thomists, Fracastoriana and Ferneliana acies, are weak, dry, obscure, defective in these mysteries, and all our quickest wits, as an owl's eyes at the sun's light, wax dull, and are not sufficient to apprehend them; yet, as in the rest, I will adventure to say something to this point. In former times, as we read, Acts xxiii., the Sadducees denied that there were any such spirits, devils, or angels. So did Galen the physician, the Peripatetics, even Aristotle himself, as Pomponatius stoutly maintains, and Scaliger in some sort grants. Though Dandinus the Jesuit, com. in lib. 2. de anima, stiffly denies it; substantiae separatae and intelligences, are the same which Christians call angels, and Platonists devils, for they name all the spirits, daemones, be they good or bad angels, as Julius Pollux Onomasticon, lib. 1. cap. 1. observes. Epicures and atheists are of the same mind in general, because they never saw them. Plato, Plotinus, Porphyrius, Jamblichus, Proclus, insisting in the steps of Trismegistus, Pythagoras and Socrates, make no doubt of it: nor Stoics, but that there are such spirits, though much erring from the truth. Concerning the first beginning of them, the [1120]Talmudists say that Adam had a wife called Lilis, before he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but devils. The Turks' [1121]Alcoran is altogether as absurd and ridiculous in this point: but the Scripture informs us Christians, how Lucifer, the chief of them, with his associates, [1122]fell from heaven for his pride and ambition; created of God, placed in heaven, and sometimes an angel of light, now cast down into the lower aerial sublunary parts, or into hell, and delivered into chains of darkness (2 Pet. ii. 4.) to be kept unto damnation. Nature of Devils.] There is a foolish opinion which some hold, that they are the souls of men departed, good and more noble were deified, the baser grovelled on the ground, or in the lower parts, and were devils, the which with Tertullian, Porphyrius the philosopher, M. Tyrius, ser. 27 maintains. These spirits, he [1123]saith, which we call angels and devils, are nought but souls of men departed, which either through love and pity of their friends yet living, help and assist them, or else persecute their enemies, whom they hated, as Dido threatened to persecute Aeneas: Omnibus umbra locis adero: dabis improbe poenas. My angry ghost arising from the deep, Shall haunt thee waking, and disturb thy sleep; At least my shade thy punishment shall know, And Fame shall spread the pleasing news below. They are (as others suppose) appointed by those higher powers to keep men from their nativity, and to protect or punish them as they see cause: and are called boni et mali Genii by the Romans. Heroes, lares, if good, lemures or larvae if bad, by the stoics, governors of countries, men, cities, saith [1124]Apuleius, Deos appellant qui ex hominum numero juste ac prudenter vitae curriculo gubernato, pro numine, postea ab hominibus praediti fanis et ceremoniis vulgo admittuntur, ut in Aegypto Osyris, &c. Praestites, Capella calls them, which protected particular men as well as princes, Socrates had his Daemonium Saturninum et ignium, which of all spirits is best, ad sublimes cogitationes animum erigentem, as the Platonists supposed; Plotinus his, and we Christians our assisting angel, as Andreas Victorellus, a copious writer of this subject, Lodovicus de La-Cerda, the Jesuit, in his voluminous tract de Angelo Custode, Zanchius, and some divines think. But this absurd tenet of Tyreus, Proclus confutes at large in his book de Anima et daemone. Psellus [1125], a Christian, and sometimes tutor (saith Cuspinian) to Michael Parapinatius, Emperor of Greece, a great observer of the nature of devils, holds they are corporeal [1126], and have aerial bodies, that they are mortal, live and die, (which Martianus Capella likewise maintains, but our Christian philosophers explode) that they [1127]are nourished and have excrements, they feel pain if they be hurt (which Cardan confirms, and Scaliger justly laughs him to scorn for; Si pascantur aere, cur non pugnant ob puriorem aera? &c.) or stroken: and if their bodies be cut, with admirable celerity they come together again. Austin, in Gen. lib. iii. lib. arbit., approves as much, mutata casu corpora in deteriorem qualitatem aeris spissioris, so doth Hierome. Comment. in epist. ad Ephes. cap. 3, Origen, Tertullian, Lactantius, and many ancient Fathers of the Church: that in their fall their bodies were changed into a more aerial and gross substance. Bodine, lib. 4, Theatri Naturae and David Crusius, Hermeticae Philosophiae, lib. 1. cap. 4, by several arguments proves angels and spirits to be corporeal: quicquid continetur in loco corporeum est; At spiritus continetur in loco, ergo. [1128]Si spiritus sunt quanti, erunt corporei: At sunt quanti, ergo. sunt finiti, ergo. quanti, &c. Bodine [1129]goes farther yet, and will have these, Animae separatae genii, spirits, angels, devils, and so likewise souls of men departed, if corporeal (which he most eagerly contends) to be of some shape, and that absolutely round, like Sun and Moon, because that is the most perfect form, quae nihil habet asperitatis, nihil angulis incisum, nihil anfractibus involutem, nihil eminens, sed inter corpora perfecta est perfectissimum; [1130]therefore all spirits are corporeal he concludes, and in their proper shapes round. That they can assume other aerial bodies, all manner of shapes at their pleasures, appear in what likeness they will themselves, that they are most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant, and so likewise [1131]transform bodies of others into what shape they please, and with admirable celerity remove them from place to place; (as the Angel did Habakkuk to Daniel, and as Philip the deacon was carried away by the Spirit, when he had baptised the eunuch; so did Pythagoras and Apollonius remove themselves and others, with many such feats) that they can represent castles in the air, palaces, armies, spectrums, prodigies, and such strange objects to mortal men's eyes, [1132]cause smells, savours, &c., deceive all the senses; most writers of this subject credibly believe; and that they can foretell future events, and do many strange miracles. Juno's image spake to Camillus, and Fortune's statue to the Roman matrons, with many such. Zanchius, Bodine, Spondanus, and others, are of opinion that they cause a true metamorphosis, as Nebuchadnezzar was really translated into a beast, Lot's wife into a pillar of salt; Ulysses' companions into hogs and dogs, by Circe's charms; turn themselves and others, as they do witches into cats, dogs, hares, crows, &c. Strozzius Cicogna hath many examples, lib. iii. omnif. mag. cap. 4 and 5, which he there confutes, as Austin likewise doth, de civ. Dei lib. xviii. That they can be seen when and in what shape, and to whom they will, saith Psellus, Tametsi nil tale viderim, nec optem videre, though he himself never saw them nor desired it; and use sometimes carnal copulation (as elsewhere I shall [1133]prove more at large) with women and men. Many will not believe they can be seen, and if any man shall say, swear, and stiffly maintain, though he be discreet and wise, judicious and learned, that he hath seen them, they account him a timorous fool, a melancholy dizzard, a weak fellow, a dreamer, a sick or a mad man, they contemn him, laugh him to scorn, and yet Marcus of his credit told Psellus that he had often seen them. And Leo Suavius, a Frenchman, c. 8, in Commentar. l. 1. Paracelsi de vita longa, out of some Platonists, will have the air to be as full of them as snow falling in the skies, and that they may be seen, and withal sets down the means how men may see them; Si irreverberatus oculis sole splendente versus caelum continuaverint obtutus, &c., [1134]and saith moreover he tried it, praemissorum feci experimentum, and it was true, that the Platonists said. Paracelsus confesseth that he saw them divers times, and conferred with them, and so doth Alexander ab [1135]Alexandro, that he so found it by experience, when as before he doubted of it. Many deny it, saith Lavater, de spectris, part 1. c. 2, and part 2. c. 11, because they never saw them themselves; but as he reports at large all over his book, especially c. 19. part 1, they are often seen and heard, and familiarly converse with men, as Lod. Vives assureth us, innumerable records, histories, and testimonies evince in all ages, times, places, and [1136]all travellers besides; in the West Indies and our northern climes, Nihil familiarius quam in agris et urbibus spiritus videre, audire qui vetent, jubeant, &c. Hieronymus vita Pauli, Basil ser. 40, Nicephorus, Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomenus, [1137]Jacobus Boissardus in his tract de spirituum apparitionibus, Petrus Loyerus l. de spectris, Wierus l. 1. have infinite variety of such examples of apparitions of spirits, for him to read that farther doubts, to his ample satisfaction. One alone I will briefly insert. A nobleman in Germany was sent ambassador to the King of Sweden (for his name, the time, and such circumstances, I refer you to Boissardus, mine [1138]Author). After he had done his business, he sailed to Livonia, on set purpose to see those familiar spirits, which are there said to be conversant with men, and do their drudgery works. Amongst other matters, one of them told him where his wife was, in what room, in what clothes, what doing, and brought him a ring from her, which at his return, non sine omnium admiratione, he found to be true; and so believed that ever after, which before he doubted of. Cardan, l. 19. de subtil, relates of his father, Facius Cardan, that after the accustomed solemnities, An. 1491, 13 August, he conjured up seven devils, in Greek apparel, about forty years of age, some ruddy of complexion, and some pale, as he thought; he asked them many questions, and they made ready answer, that they were aerial devils, that they lived and died as men did, save that they were far longer lived (700 or 800 [1139]years); they did as much excel men in dignity as we do juments, and were as far excelled again of those that were above them; our [1140]governors and keepers they are moreover, which [1141]Plato in Critias delivered of old, and subordinate to one another, Ut enim homo homini sic daemon daemoni dominatur, they rule themselves as well as us, and the spirits of the meaner sort had commonly such offices, as we make horse-keepers, neat-herds, and the basest of us, overseers of our cattle; and that we can no more apprehend their natures and functions, than a horse a man's. They knew all things, but might not reveal them to men; and ruled and domineered over us, as we do over our horses; the best kings amongst us, and the most generous spirits, were not comparable to the basest of them. Sometimes they did instruct men, and communicate their skill, reward and cherish, and sometimes, again, terrify and punish, to keep them in awe, as they thought fit, Nihil magis cupientes (saith Lysius, Phis. Stoicorum) quam adorationem hominum. [1142]The same Author, Cardan, in his Hyperchen, out of the doctrine of Stoics, will have some of these genii (for so he calls them) to be [1143]desirous of men's company, very affable and familiar with them, as dogs are; others, again, to abhor as serpents, and care not for them. The same belike Tritemius calls Ignios et sublunares, qui nunquam demergunt ad inferiora, aut vix ullum habent in terris commercium: [1144]Generally they far excel men in worth, as a man the meanest worm; though some of them are inferior to those of their own rank in worth, as the blackguard in a prince's court, and to men again, as some degenerate, base, rational creatures, are excelled of brute beasts. That they are mortal, besides these testimonies of Cardan, Martianus, &c., many other divines and philosophers hold, post prolixum tempus moriuntur omnes; The [1145]Platonists, and some Rabbins, Porphyrius and Plutarch, as appears by that relation of Thamus: [1146]The great God Pan is dead; Apollo Pythius ceased; and so the rest. St. Hierome, in the life of Paul the Hermit, tells a story how one of them appeared to St. Anthony in the wilderness, and told him as much. [1147]Paracelsus of our late writers stiffly maintains that they are mortal, live and die as other creatures do. Zozimus, l. 2, farther adds, that religion and policy dies and alters with them. The [1148]Gentiles' gods, he saith, were expelled by Constantine, and together with them. Imperii Romani majestas, et fortuna interiit, et profligata est; The fortune and majesty of the Roman Empire decayed and vanished, as that heathen in [1149]Minutius formerly bragged, when the Jews were overcome by the Romans, the Jew's God was likewise captivated by that of Rome; and Rabsakeh to the Israelites, no God should deliver them out of the hands of the Assyrians. But these paradoxes of their power, corporeity, mortality, taking of shapes, transposing bodies, and carnal copulations, are sufficiently confuted by Zanch. c. 10, l. 4. Pererius in his comment, and Tostatus questions on the 6th of Gen. Th. Aquin., St. Austin, Wierus, Th. Erastus, Delrio, tom. 2, l. 2, quaest. 29; Sebastian Michaelis, c. 2, de spiritibus, D. Reinolds Lect. 47. They may deceive the eyes of men, yet not take true bodies, or make a real metamorphosis; but as Cicogna proves at large, they are [1150]Illusoriae, et praestigiatrices transformationes, omnif. mag. lib. 4. cap. 4, mere illusions and cozenings, like that tale of Pasetis obulus in Suidas, or that of Autolicus, Mercury's son, that dwelt in Parnassus, who got so much treasure by cozenage and stealth. His father Mercury, because he could leave him no wealth, taught him many fine tricks to get means, [1151]for he could drive away men's cattle, and if any pursued him, turn them into what shapes he would, and so did mightily enrich himself, hoc astu maximam praedam est adsecutus. This, no doubt, is as true as the rest; yet thus much in general. Thomas, Durand, and others, grant that they have understanding far beyond men, can probably conjecture and [1152]foretell many things; they can cause and cure most diseases, deceive our senses; they have excellent skill in all Arts and Sciences; and that the most illiterate devil is Quovis homine scientior (more knowing than any man), as [1153]Cicogna maintains out of others. They know the virtues of herbs, plants, stones, minerals, &c.; of all creatures, birds, beasts, the four elements, stars, planets, can aptly apply and make use of them as they see good; perceiving the causes of all meteors, and the like: Dant se coloribus (as [1154] Austin hath it) accommodant se figuris, adhaerent sonis, subjiciunt se odoribus, infundunt se saporibus, omnes sensus etiam ipsam intelligentiam daemones fallunt, they deceive all our senses, even our understanding itself at once. [1155]They can produce miraculous alterations in the air, and most wonderful effects, conquer armies, give victories, help, further, hurt, cross and alter human attempts and projects (Dei permissu) as they see good themselves. [1156]When Charles the Great intended to make a channel betwixt the Rhine and the Danube, look what his workmen did in the day, these spirits flung down in the night, Ut conatu Rex desisteret, pervicere. Such feats can they do. But that which Bodine, l. 4, Theat. nat. thinks (following Tyrius belike, and the Platonists,) they can tell the secrets of a man's heart, aut cogitationes hominum, is most false; his reasons are weak, and sufficiently confuted by Zanch. lib. 4, cap. 9. Hierom. lib. 2, com. in Mat. ad cap. 15, Athanasius quaest. 27, ad Antiochum Principem, and others. Orders.] As for those orders of good and bad devils, which the Platonists hold, is altogether erroneous, and those Ethnics boni et mali Genii, are to be exploded: these heathen writers agree not in this point among themselves, as Dandinus notes, An sint [1157]mali non conveniunt, some will have all spirits good or bad to us by a mistake, as if an Ox or Horse could discourse, he would say the Butcher was his enemy because he killed him, the grazier his friend because he fed him; a hunter preserves and yet kills his game, and is hated nevertheless of his game; nec piscatorem piscis amare potest, &c. But Jamblichus, Psellus, Plutarch, and most Platonists acknowledge bad, et ab eorum maleficiis cavendum, and we should beware of their wickedness, for they are enemies of mankind, and this Plato learned in Egypt, that they quarrelled with Jupiter, and were driven by him down to hell. [1158]That which [1159]Apuleius, Xenophon, and Plato contend of Socrates Daemonium, is most absurd: That which Plotinus of his, that he had likewise Deum pro Daemonio; and that which Porphyry concludes of them all in general, if they be neglected in their sacrifice they are angry; nay more, as Cardan in his Hipperchen will, they feed on men's souls, Elementa sunt plantis elementum, animalibus plantae, hominibus animalia, erunt et homines aliis, non autem diis, nimis enim remota est eorum natura a nostra, quapropter daemonibus: and so belike that we have so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast, and their sole delight: but to return to that I said before, if displeased they fret and chafe, (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their bodies) and send many plagues amongst us; but if pleased, then they do much good; is as vain as the rest and confuted by Austin, l. 9. c. 8. de Civ. Dei. Euseb. l. 4. praepar. Evang. c. 6. and others. Yet thus much I find, that our schoolmen and other [1160]divines make nine kinds of bad spirits, as Dionysius hath done of angels. In the first rank are those false gods of the gentiles, which were adored heretofore in several idols, and gave oracles at Delphos, and elsewhere; whose prince is Beelzebub. The second rank is of liars and equivocators, as Apollo, Pythius, and the like. The third are those vessels of anger, inventors of all mischief; as that Theutus in Plato; Esay calls them [1161]vessels of fury; their prince is Belial. The fourth are malicious revenging devils; and their prince is Asmodaeus. The fifth kind are cozeners, such as belong to magicians and witches; their prince is Satan. The sixth are those aerial devils that [1162]corrupt the air and cause plagues, thunders, fires, &c.; spoken of in the Apocalypse, and Paul to the Ephesians names them the princes of the air; Meresin is their prince. The seventh is a destroyer, captain of the furies, causing wars, tumults, combustions, uproars, mentioned in the Apocalypse; and called Abaddon. The eighth is that accusing or calumniating devil, whom the Greeks call Διαβολος, that drives men to despair. The ninth are those tempters in several kinds, and their prince is Mammon. Psellus makes six kinds, yet none above the Moon: Wierus in his Pseudo-monarchia Daemonis, out of an old book, makes many more divisions and subordinations, with their several names, numbers, offices, &c., but Gazaeus cited by [1163]Lipsius will have all places full of angels, spirits, and devils, above and beneath the Moon,[1164]ethereal and aerial, which Austin cites out of Varro l. 7. de Civ. Dei, c. 6. The celestial devils above, and aerial beneath, or, as some will, gods above, Semi-dei or half gods beneath, Lares, Heroes, Genii, which climb higher, if they lived well, as the Stoics held; but grovel on the ground as they were baser in their lives, nearer to the earth: and are Manes, Lemures, Lamiae, &c. [1165]They will have no place but all full of spirits, devils, or some other inhabitants; Plenum Caelum, aer, aqua terra, et omnia sub terra, saith [1166]Gazaeus; though Anthony Rusca in his book de Inferno, lib. v. cap. 7. would confine them to the middle region, yet they will have them everywhere. Not so much as a hair-breadth empty in heaven, earth, or waters, above or under the earth. The air is not so full of flies in summer, as it is at all times of invisible devils: this [1167]Paracelsus stiffly maintains, and that they have every one their several chaos, others will have infinite worlds, and each world his peculiar spirits, gods, angels, and devils to govern and punish it. Singula [1168]nonnulli credunt quoque sidera posse Dici orbes, terramque appellant sidus opacum, Cui minimus divum praesit.——— Some persons believe each star to be a world, and this earth an opaque star, over which the least of the gods presides. [1169]Gregorius Tholsanus makes seven kinds of ethereal spirits or angels, according to the number of the seven planets, Saturnine, Jovial, Martial, of which Cardan discourseth lib. 20. de subtil. he calls them substantias primas, Olympicos daemones Tritemius, qui praesunt Zodiaco, &c., and will have them to be good angels above, devils beneath the Moon, their several names and offices he there sets down, and which Dionysius of Angels, will have several spirits for several countries, men, offices, &c., which live about them, and as so many assisting powers cause their operations, will have in a word, innumerable, as many of them as there be stars in the skies. [1170]Marcilius Ficinus seems to second this opinion, out of Plato, or from himself, I know not, (still ruling their inferiors, as they do those under them again, all subordinate, and the nearest to the earth rule us, whom we subdivide into good and bad angels, call gods or devils, as they help or hurt us, and so adore, love or hate) but it is most likely from Plato, for he relying wholly on Socrates, quem mori potius quam mentiri voluisse scribit, whom he says would rather die than tell a falsehood, out of Socrates' authority alone, made nine kinds of them: which opinion belike Socrates took from Pythagoras, and he from Trismegistus, he from Zoroastes, first God, second idea, 3. Intelligences, 4. Arch-Angels, 5. Angels, 6. Devils, 7. Heroes, 8. Principalities, 9. Princes: of which some were absolutely good, as gods, some bad, some indifferent inter deos et homines, as heroes and daemons, which ruled men, and were called genii, or as [1171]Proclus and Jamblichus will, the middle betwixt God and men. Principalities and princes, which commanded and swayed kings and countries; and had several places in the spheres perhaps, for as every sphere is higher, so hath it more excellent inhabitants: which belike is that Galilaeus a Galileo and Kepler aims at in his nuncio Syderio, when he will have [1172]Saturnine and Jovial inhabitants: and which Tycho Brahe doth in some sort touch or insinuate in one of his epistles: but these things [1173]Zanchius justly explodes, cap. 3. lib. 4. P. Martyr, in 4. Sam. 28. So that according to these men the number of ethereal spirits must needs be infinite: for if that be true that some of our mathematicians say: if a stone could fall from the starry heaven, or eighth sphere, and should pass every hour an hundred miles, it would be 65 years, or more, before it would come to ground, by reason of the great distance of heaven from earth, which contains as some say 170 millions 800 miles, besides those other heavens, whether they be crystalline or watery which Maginus adds, which peradventure holds as much more, how many such spirits may it contain? And yet for all this [1174]Thomas Albertus, and most hold that there be far more angels than devils. Sublunary devils, and their kinds.] But be they more or less, Quod supra nos nihil ad nos (what is beyond our comprehension does not concern us). Howsoever as Martianus foolishly supposeth, Aetherii Daemones non curant res humanas, they care not for us, do not attend our actions, or look for us, those ethereal spirits have other worlds to reign in belike or business to follow. We are only now to speak in brief of these sublunary spirits or devils: for the rest, our divines determine that the devil had no power over stars, or heavens; [1175]Carminibus coelo possunt deducere lunam, &C., (by their charms (verses) they can seduce the moon from the heavens). Those are poetical fictions, and that they can [1176]sistere aquam fluviis, et vertere sidera retro, &c., (stop rivers and turn the stars backward in their courses) as Canadia in Horace, 'tis all false. [1177] They are confined until the day of judgment to this sublunary world, and can work no farther than the four elements, and as God permits them. Wherefore of these sublunary devils, though others divide them otherwise according to their several places and offices, Psellus makes six kinds, fiery, aerial, terrestrial, watery, and subterranean devils, besides those fairies, satyrs, nymphs, &c. Fiery spirits or devils are such as commonly work by blazing stars, fire-drakes, or ignes fatui; which lead men often in flumina aut praecipitia, saith Bodine, lib. 2. Theat. Naturae, fol. 221. Quos inquit arcere si volunt viatores, clara voce Deum appellare aut pronam facie terram contingente adorare oportet, et hoc amuletum majoribus nostris acceptum ferre debemus, &c., (whom if travellers wish to keep off they must pronounce the name of God with a clear voice, or adore him with their faces in contact with the ground, &c.); likewise they counterfeit suns and moons, stars oftentimes, and sit on ship masts: In navigiorum summitatibus visuntur; and are called dioscuri, as Eusebius l. contra Philosophos, c. xlviii. informeth us, out of the authority of Zenophanes; or little clouds, ad motum nescio quem volantes; which never appear, saith Cardan, but they signify some mischief or other to come unto men, though some again will have them to pretend good, and victory to that side they come towards in sea fights, St. Elmo's fires they commonly call them, and they do likely appear after a sea storm; Radzivilius, the Polonian duke, calls this apparition, Sancti Germani sidus; and saith moreover that he saw the same after in a storm, as he was sailing, 1582, from Alexandria to Rhodes. [1178]Our stories are full of such apparitions in all kinds. Some think they keep their residence in that Hecla, a mountain in Iceland, Aetna in Sicily, Lipari, Vesuvius, &c. These devils were worshipped heretofore by that superstitious Pyromanteia [1179]and the like. Aerial spirits or devils, are such as keep quarter most part in the [1180] air, cause many tempests, thunder, and lightnings, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses, strike men and beasts, make it rain stones, as in Livy's time, wool, frogs, &c. Counterfeit armies in the air, strange noises, swords, &c., as at Vienna before the coming of the Turks, and many times in Rome, as Scheretzius l. de spect. c. 1. part 1. Lavater de spect. part. 1. c. 17. Julius Obsequens, an old Roman, in his book of prodigies, ab urb. cond. 505. [1181]Machiavel hath illustrated by many examples, and Josephus, in his book de bello Judaico, before the destruction of Jerusalem. All which Guil. Postellus, in his first book, c. 7, de orbis concordia, useth as an effectual argument (as indeed it is) to persuade them that will not believe there be spirits or devils. They cause whirlwinds on a sudden, and tempestuous storms; which though our meteorologists generally refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodine's mind, Theat. Nat. l. 2. they are more often caused by those aerial devils, in their several quarters; for Tempestatibus se ingerunt, saith [1182] Rich. Argentine; as when a desperate man makes away with himself, which by hanging or drowning they frequently do, as Kommanus observes, de mirac. mort. part. 7, c. 76. tripudium agentes, dancing and rejoicing at the death of a sinner. These can corrupt the air, and cause plagues, sickness, storms, shipwrecks, fires, inundations. At Mons Draconis in Italy, there is a most memorable example in [1183]Jovianus Pontanus: and nothing so familiar (if we may believe those relations of Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus Magnus, Damianus A. Goes) as for witches and sorcerers, in Lapland, Lithuania, and all over Scandia, to sell winds to mariners, and cause tempests, which Marcus Paulus the Venetian relates likewise of the Tartars. These kind of devils are much [1184]delighted in sacrifices (saith Porphyry), held all the world in awe, and had several names, idols, sacrifices, in Rome, Greece, Egypt, and at this day tyrannise over, and deceive those Ethnics and Indians, being adored and worshipped for [1185] gods. For the Gentiles' gods were devils (as [1186]Trismegistus confesseth in his Asclepius), and he himself could make them come to their images by magic spells: and are now as much respected by our papists (saith [1187] Pictorius) under the name of saints. These are they which Cardan thinks desire so much carnal copulation with witches (Incubi and Succubi), transform bodies, and are so very cold, if they be touched; and that serve magicians. His father had one of them (as he is not ashamed to relate), [1188]an aerial devil, bound to him for twenty and eight years. As Agrippa's dog had a devil tied to his collar; some think that Paracelsus (or else Erastus belies him) had one confined to his sword pummel; others wear them in rings, &c. Jannes and Jambres did many things of old by their help; Simon Magus, Cinops, Apollonius Tianeus, Jamblichus, and Tritemius of late, that showed Maximilian the emperor his wife, after she was dead; Et verrucam in collo ejus (saith [1189]Godolman) so much as the wart in her neck. Delrio, lib. 2. hath divers examples of their feats: Cicogna, lib. 3. cap. 3. and Wierus in his book de praestig. daemonum. Boissardus de magis et veneficis. Water-devils are those Naiads or water nymphs which have been heretofore conversant about waters and rivers. The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their chaos, wherein they live; some call them fairies, and say that Habundia is their queen; these cause inundations, many times shipwrecks, and deceive men divers ways, as Succuba, or otherwise, appearing most part (saith Tritemius) in women's shapes. [1190]Paracelsus hath several stories of them that have lived and been married to mortal men, and so continued for certain years with them, and after, upon some dislike, have forsaken them. Such a one as Aegeria, with whom Numa was so familiar, Diana, Ceres, &c. [1191]Olaus Magnus hath a long narration of one Hotherus, a king of Sweden, that having lost his company, as he was hunting one day, met with these water nymphs or fairies, and was feasted by them; and Hector Boethius, or Macbeth, and Banquo, two Scottish lords, that as they were wandering in the woods, had their fortunes told them by three strange women. To these, heretofore, they did use to sacrifice, by that ὑδρομαντέια, or divination by waters. Terrestrial devils are those [1192]Lares, genii, fauns, satyrs, [1193] wood-nymphs, foliots, fairies, Robin Goodfellows, trulli, &c., which as they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. Some think it was they alone that kept the heathen people in awe of old, and had so many idols and temples erected to them. Of this range was Dagon amongst the Philistines, Bel amongst the Babylonians, Astartes amongst the Sidonians, Baal amongst the Samaritans, Isis and Osiris amongst the Egyptians, &c.; some put our [1194]fairies into this rank, which have been in former times adored with much superstition, with sweeping their houses, and setting of a pail of clean water, good victuals, and the like, and then they should not be pinched, but find money in their shoes, and be fortunate in their enterprises. These are they that dance on heaths and greens, as [1195] Lavater thinks with Tritemius, and as [1196]Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle, which we commonly find in plain fields, which others hold to proceed from a meteor falling, or some accidental rankness of the ground, so nature sports herself; they are sometimes seen by old women and children. Hierom. Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino in Spain, relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about fountains and hills; Nonnunquam (saith Tritemius) in sua latibula montium simpliciores homines ducant, stupenda mirantibus ostentes miracula, nolarum sonitus, spectacula, &c. [1197]Giraldus Cambrensis gives instance in a monk of Wales that was so deluded. [1198]Paracelsus reckons up many places in Germany, where they do usually walk in little coats, some two feet long. A bigger kind there is of them called with us hobgoblins, and Robin Goodfellows, that would in those superstitious times grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work. They would mend old irons in those Aeolian isles of Lipari, in former ages, and have been often seen and heard. [1199]Tholosanus calls them trullos and Getulos, and saith, that in his days they were common in many places of France. Dithmarus Bleskenius, in his description of Iceland, reports for a certainty, that almost in every family they have yet some such familiar spirits; and Felix Malleolus, in his book de crudel. daemon. affirms as much, that these trolli or telchines are very common in Norway, and [1200] seen to do drudgery work; to draw water, saith Wierus, lib. 1. cap. 22, dress meat, or any such thing. Another sort of these there are, which frequent forlorn [1201]houses, which the Italians call foliots, most part innoxious, [1202]Cardan holds; They will make strange noises in the night, howl sometimes pitifully, and then laugh again, cause great flame and sudden lights, fling stones, rattle chains, shave men, open doors and shut them, fling down platters, stools, chests, sometimes appear in the likeness of hares, crows, black dogs, &c. of which read [1203]Pet Thyraeus the Jesuit, in his Tract, de locis infestis, part. 1. et cap. 4, who will have them to be devils or the souls of damned men that seek revenge, or else souls out of purgatory that seek ease; for such examples peruse [1204] Sigismundus Scheretzius, lib. de spectris, part 1. c. 1. which he saith he took out of Luther most part; there be many instances. [1205]Plinius Secundus remembers such a house at Athens, which Athenodorus the philosopher hired, which no man durst inhabit for fear of devils. Austin, de Civ. Dei. lib. 22, cap. 1. relates as much of Hesperius the Tribune's house, at Zubeda, near their city of Hippos, vexed with evil spirits, to his great hindrance, Cum afflictione animalium et servorum suorum. Many such instances are to be read in Niderius Formicar, lib. 5. cap. xii. 3. &c. Whether I may call these Zim and Ochim, which Isaiah, cap. xiii. 21. speaks of, I make a doubt. See more of these in the said Scheretz. lib. 1. de spect. cap. 4. he is full of examples. These kind of devils many times appear to men, and affright them out of their wits, sometimes walking at [1206]noonday, sometimes at nights, counterfeiting dead men's ghosts, as that of Caligula, which (saith Suetonius) was seen to walk in Lavinia's garden, where his body was buried, spirits haunted, and the house where he died, [1207]Nulla nox sine terrore transacta, donec incendio consumpta; every night this happened, there was no quietness, till the house was burned. About Hecla, in Iceland, ghosts commonly walk, animas mortuorum simulantes, saith Joh. Anan, lib. 3. de nat. daem. Olaus. lib. 2. cap. 2. Natal Tallopid. lib. de apparit. spir. Kornmannus de mirac. mort. part. 1. cap. 44. such sights are frequently seen circa sepulchra et monasteria, saith Lavat. lib. 1. cap. 19. in monasteries and about churchyards, loca paludinosa, ampla aedificia, solitaria, et caede hominum notata, &c. (marshes, great buildings, solitary places, or remarkable as the scene of some murder.) Thyreus adds, ubi gravius peccatum est commissum, impii, pauperum oppressores et nequiter insignes habitant (where some very heinous crime was committed, there the impious and infamous generally dwell). These spirits often foretell men's deaths by several signs, as knocking, groanings, &c. [1208]though Rich. Argentine, c. 18. de praestigiis daemonum, will ascribe these predictions to good angels, out of the authority of Ficinus and others; prodigia in obitu principum saepius contingunt, &c. (prodigies frequently occur at the deaths of illustrious men), as in the Lateran church in [1209]Rome, the popes' deaths are foretold by Sylvester's tomb. Near Rupes Nova in Finland, in the kingdom of Sweden, there is a lake, in which, before the governor of the castle dies, a spectrum, in the habit of Arion with his harp, appears, and makes excellent music, like those blocks in Cheshire, which (they say) presage death to the master of the family; or that [1210]oak in Lanthadran park in Cornwall, which foreshows as much. Many families in Europe are so put in mind of their last by such predictions, and many men are forewarned (if we may believe Paracelsus) by familiar spirits in divers shapes, as cocks, crows, owls, which often hover about sick men's chambers, vel quia morientium foeditatem sentiunt, as [1211]Baracellus conjectures, et ideo super tectum infirmorum crocitant, because they smell a corse; or for that (as [1212]Bernardinus de Bustis thinketh) God permits the devil to appear in the form of crows, and such like creatures, to scare such as live wickedly here on earth. A little before Tully's death (saith Plutarch) the crows made a mighty noise about him, tumultuose perstrepentes, they pulled the pillow from under his head. Rob. Gaguinus, hist. Franc. lib. 8, telleth such another wonderful story at the death of Johannes de Monteforti, a French lord, anno 1345, tanta corvorum multitudo aedibus morientis insedit, quantam esse in Gallia nemo judicasset (a multitude of crows alighted on the house of the dying man, such as no one imagined existed in France). Such prodigies are very frequent in authors. See more of these in the said Lavater, Thyreus de locis infestis, part 3, cap. 58. Pictorius, Delrio, Cicogna, lib. 3, cap. 9. Necromancers take upon them to raise and lay them at their pleasures: and so likewise, those which Mizaldus calls ambulones, that walk about midnight on great heaths and desert places, which (saith [1213]Lavater) draw men out of the way, and lead them all night a byway, or quite bar them of their way; these have several names in several places; we commonly call them Pucks. In the deserts of Lop, in Asia, such illusions of walking spirits are often perceived, as you may read in M. Paulus the Venetian his travels; if one lose his company by chance, these devils will call him by his name, and counterfeit voices of his companions to seduce him. Hieronym. Pauli, in his book of the hills of Spain, relates of a great [1214]mount in Cantabria, where such spectrums are to be seen; Lavater and Cicogna have variety of examples of spirits and walking devils in this kind. Sometimes they sit by the highway side, to give men falls, and make their horses stumble and start as they ride (if you will believe the relation of that holy man Ketellus in [1215]Nubrigensis), that had an especial grace to see devils, Gratiam divinitus collatam, and talk with them, Et impavidus cum spiritibus sermonem miscere, without offence, and if a man curse or spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily rejoice at it; with many such pretty feats. Subterranean devils are as common as the rest, and do as much harm. Olaus Magnus, lib. 6, cap. 19, make six kinds of them; some bigger, some less. These (saith [1216]Munster) are commonly seen about mines of metals, and are some of them noxious; some again do no harm. The metal-men in many places account it good luck, a sign of treasure and rich ore when they see them. Georgius Agricola, in his book de subterraneis animantibus, cap. 37, reckons two more notable kinds of them, which he calls [1217]getuli and cobali, both are clothed after the manner of metal-men, and will many times imitate their works. Their office, as Pictorius and Paracelsus think, is to keep treasure in the earth, that it be not all at once revealed; and besides, [1218]Cicogna avers that they are the frequent causes of those horrible earthquakes which often swallow up, not only houses, but whole islands and cities; in his third book, cap. 11, he gives many instances. The last are conversant about the centre of the earth to torture the souls of damned men to the day of judgment; their egress and regress some suppose to be about Etna, Lipari, Mons Hecla in Iceland, Vesuvius, Terra del Fuego, &c., because many shrieks and fearful cries are continually heard thereabouts, and familiar apparitions of dead men, ghosts and goblins. Their Offices, Operations, Study.] Thus the devil reigns, and in a thousand several shapes, as a roaring lion still seeks whom he may devour, 1 Pet. v., by sea, land, air, as yet unconfined, though [1219] some will have his proper place the air; all that space between us and the moon for them that transgressed least, and hell for the wickedest of them, Hic velut in carcere ad finem mundi, tunc in locum funestiorum trudendi, as Austin holds de Civit. Dei, c. 22, lib. 14, cap. 3 et 23; but be where he will, he rageth while he may to comfort himself, as [1220] Lactantius thinks, with other men's falls, he labours all he can to bring them into the same pit of perdition with him. For [1221]men's miseries, calamities, and ruins are the devil's banqueting dishes. By many temptations and several engines, he seeks to captivate our souls. The Lord of Lies, saith [1222]Austin, as he was deceived himself, he seeks to deceive others, the ringleader to all naughtiness, as he did by Eve and Cain, Sodom and Gomorrah, so would he do by all the world. Sometimes he tempts by covetousness, drunkenness, pleasure, pride, &c., errs, dejects, saves, kills, protects, and rides some men, as they do their horses. He studies our overthrow, and generally seeks our destruction; and although he pretend many times human good, and vindicate himself for a god by curing of several diseases, aegris sanitatem, et caecis luminis usum restituendo, as Austin declares, lib. 10, de civit Dei, cap. 6, as Apollo, Aesculapius, Isis, of old have done; divert plagues, assist them in wars, pretend their happiness, yet nihil his impurius, scelestius, nihil humano generi infestius, nothing so impure, nothing so pernicious, as may well appear by their tyrannical and bloody sacrifices of men to Saturn and Moloch, which are still in use among those barbarous Indians, their several deceits and cozenings to keep men in obedience, their false oracles, sacrifices, their superstitious impositions of fasts, penury, &c. Heresies, superstitious observations of meats, times, &c., by which they [1223] crucify the souls of mortal men, as shall be showed in our Treatise of Religious Melancholy. Modico adhuc tempore sinitur malignari, as [1224] Bernard expresseth it, by God's permission he rageth a while, hereafter to be confined to hell and darkness, which is prepared for him and his angels, Mat. xxv. How far their power doth extend it is hard to determine; what the ancients held of their effects, force and operations, I will briefly show you: Plato in Critias, and after him his followers, gave out that these spirits or devils, were men's governors and keepers, our lords and masters, as we are of our cattle. [1225]They govern provinces and kingdoms by oracles, auguries, dreams, rewards and punishments, prophecies, inspirations, sacrifices, and religious superstitions, varied in as many forms as there be diversity of spirits; they send wars, plagues, peace, sickness, health, dearth, plenty, [1226]Adstantes hic jam nobis, spectantes, et arbitrantes, &c. as appears by those histories of Thucydides, Livius, Dionysius Halicarnassus, with many others that are full of their wonderful stratagems, and were therefore by those Roman and Greek commonwealths adored and worshipped for gods with prayers and sacrifices, &c. [1227]In a word, Nihil magis quaerunt quam metum et admirationem hominum; [1228]and as another hath it, Dici non potest, quam impotenti ardore in homines dominium, et Divinos cultus maligni spiritus affectent. [1229]Tritemius in his book de septem secundis, assigns names to such angels as are governors of particular provinces, by what authority I know not, and gives them several jurisdictions. Asclepiades a Grecian, Rabbi Achiba the Jew, Abraham Avenezra, and Rabbi Azariel, Arabians, (as I find them cited by [1230]Cicogna) farther add, that they are not our governors only, Sed ex eorum concordia et discordia, boni et mali affectus promanant, but as they agree, so do we and our princes, or disagree; stand or fall. Juno was a bitter enemy to Troy, Apollo a good friend, Jupiter indifferent, Aequa Venus Teucris, Pallas iniqua fuit; some are for us still, some against us, Premente Deo, fert Deus alter opem. Religion, policy, public and private quarrels, wars are procured by them, and they are [1231]delighted perhaps to see men fight, as men are with cocks, bulls and dogs, bears, &c., plagues, dearths depend on them, our bene and male esse, and almost all our other peculiar actions, (for as Anthony Rusea contends, lib. 5, cap. 18, every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular, all his life long, which Jamblichus calls daemonem,) preferments, losses, weddings, deaths, rewards and punishments, and as [1232]Proclus will, all offices whatsoever, alii genetricem, alii opificem potestatem habent, &c. and several names they give them according to their offices, as Lares, Indegites, Praestites, &c. When the Arcades in that battle at Cheronae, which was fought against King Philip for the liberty of Greece, had deceitfully carried themselves, long after, in the very same place, Diis Graeciae, ultoribus (saith mine author) they were miserably slain by Metellus the Roman: so likewise, in smaller matters, they will have things fall out, as these boni and mali genii favour or dislike us: Saturni non conveniunt Jovialibus, &c. He that is Saturninus shall never likely be preferred. [1233]That base fellows are often advanced, undeserving Gnathoes, and vicious parasites, whereas discreet, wise, virtuous and worthy men are neglected and unrewarded; they refer to those domineering spirits, or subordinate Genii; as they are inclined, or favour men, so they thrive, are ruled and overcome; for as [1234]Libanius supposeth in our ordinary conflicts and contentions, Genius Genio cedit et obtemperat, one genius yields and is overcome by another. All particular events almost they refer to these private spirits; and (as Paracelsus adds) they direct, teach, inspire, and instruct men. Never was any man extraordinary famous in any art, action, or great commander, that had not familiarem daemonem to inform him, as Numa, Socrates, and many such, as Cardan illustrates, cap. 128, Arcanis prudentiae civilis, [1235] Speciali siquidem gratia, se a Deo donari asserunt magi, a Geniis caelestibus instrui, ab iis doceri. But these are most erroneous paradoxes, ineptae et fabulosae nugae, rejected by our divines and Christian churches. 'Tis true they have, by God's permission, power over us, and we find by experience, that they can [1236]hurt not our fields only, cattle, goods, but our bodies and minds. At Hammel in Saxony, An. 1484. 20 Junii, the devil, in likeness of a pied piper, carried away 130 children that were never after seen. Many times men are [1237]affrighted out of their wits, carried away quite, as Scheretzius illustrates, lib. 1, c. iv., and severally molested by his means, Plotinus the Platonist, lib. 14, advers. Gnos. laughs them to scorn, that hold the devil or spirits can cause any such diseases. Many think he can work upon the body, but not upon the mind. But experience pronounceth otherwise, that he can work both upon body and mind. Tertullian is of this opinion, c. 22. [1238]That he can cause both sickness and health, and that secretly. [1239]Taurellus adds by clancular poisons he can infect the bodies, and hinder the operations of the bowels, though we perceive it not, closely creeping into them, saith [1240]Lipsius, and so crucify our souls: Et nociva melancholia furiosos efficit. For being a spiritual body, he struggles with our spirits, saith Rogers, and suggests (according to [1241]Cardan, verba sine voce, species sine visu, envy, lust, anger, &c.) as he sees men inclined. The manner how he performs it, Biarmannus in his Oration against Bodine, sufficiently declares. [1242]He begins first with the phantasy, and moves that so strongly, that no reason is able to resist. Now the phantasy he moves by mediation of humours; although many physicians are of opinion, that the devil can alter the mind, and produce this disease of himself. Quibusdam medicorum visum, saith [1243]Avicenna, quod Melancholia contingat a daemonio. Of the same mind is Psellus and Rhasis the Arab. lib. 1. Tract. 9. Cont. [1244]That this disease proceeds especially from the devil, and from him alone. Arculanus, cap. 6. in 9. Rhasis, Aelianus Montaltus, in his 9. cap. Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 11. confirm as much, that the devil can cause this disease; by reason many times that the parties affected prophesy, speak strange language, but non sine interventu humoris, not without the humour, as he interprets himself; no more doth Avicenna, si contingat a daemonio, sufficit nobis ut convertat complexionem ad choleram nigram, et sit causa ejus propinqua cholera nigra; the immediate cause is choler adust, which [1245] Pomponatius likewise labours to make good: Galgerandus of Mantua, a famous physician, so cured a demoniacal woman in his time, that spake all languages, by purging black choler, and thereupon belike this humour of melancholy is called balneum diaboli, the devil's bath; the devil spying his opportunity of such humours drives them many times to despair, fury, rage, &c., mingling himself among these humours. This is that which Tertullian avers, Corporibus infligunt acerbos casus, animaeque repentinos, membra distorquent, occulte repentes, &c. and which Lemnius goes about to prove, Immiscent se mali Genii pravis humoribus, atque atrae, bili, &c. And [1246]Jason Pratensis, that the devil, being a slender incomprehensible spirit, can easily insinuate and wind himself into human bodies, and cunningly couched in our bowels vitiate our healths, terrify our souls with fearful dreams, and shake our minds with furies. And in another place, These unclean spirits settled in our bodies, and now mixed with our melancholy humours, do triumph as it were, and sport themselves as in another heaven. Thus he argues, and that they go in and out of our bodies, as bees do in a hive, and so provoke and tempt us as they perceive our temperature inclined of itself, and most apt to be deluded. [1247] Agrippa and [1248]Lavater are persuaded, that this humour invites the devil to it, wheresoever it is in extremity, and of all other, melancholy persons are most subject to diabolical temptations and illusions, and most apt to entertain them, and the Devil best able to work upon them. But whether by obsession, or possession, or otherwise, I will not determine; 'tis a difficult question. Delrio the Jesuit, Tom. 3. lib. 6. Springer and his colleague, mall. malef. Pet. Thyreus the Jesuit, lib. de daemoniacis, de locis infestis, de Terrificationibus nocturnis, Hieronymus Mengus Flagel. daem. and others of that rank of pontifical writers, it seems, by their exorcisms and conjurations approve of it, having forged many stories to that purpose. A nun did eat a lettuce [1249]without grace, or signing it with the sign of the cross, and was instantly possessed. Durand. lib. 6. Rationall. c. 86. numb. 8. relates that he saw a wench possessed in Bononia with two devils, by eating an unhallowed pomegranate, as she did afterwards confess, when she was cured by exorcisms. And therefore our Papists do sign themselves so often with the sign of the cross, Ne daemon ingredi ausit, and exorcise all manner of meats, as being unclean or accursed otherwise, as Bellarmine defends. Many such stories I find amongst pontifical writers, to prove their assertions, let them free their own credits; some few I will recite in this kind out of most approved physicians. Cornelius Gemma, lib. 2. de nat. mirac. c. 4. relates of a young maid, called Katherine Gualter, a cooper's daughter, an. 1571. that had such strange passions and convulsions, three men could not sometimes hold her; she purged a live eel, which he saw, a foot and a half long, and touched it himself; but the eel afterwards vanished; she vomited some twenty-four pounds of fulsome stuff of all colours, twice a day for fourteen days; and after that she voided great balls of hair, pieces of wood, pigeon's dung, parchment, goose dung, coals; and after them two pounds of pure blood, and then again coals and stones, or which some had inscriptions bigger than a walnut, some of them pieces of glass, brass, &c. besides paroxysms of laughing, weeping and ecstasies, &c. Et hoc (inquit) cum horore vidi, this I saw with horror. They could do no good on her by physic, but left her to the clergy. Marcellus Donatus, lib. 2. c. 1. de med. mirab. hath such another story of a country fellow, that had four knives in his belly, Instar serrae dentatos, indented like a saw, every one a span long, and a wreath of hair like a globe, with much baggage of like sort, wonderful to behold: how it should come into his guts, he concludes, Certe non alio quam daemonis astutia et dolo, (could assuredly only have been through the artifice of the devil). Langius, Epist. med. lib. 1. Epist. 38. hath many relations to this effect, and so hath Christophorus a Vega: Wierus, Skenkius, Scribanius, all agree that they are done by the subtlety and illusion of the devil. If you shall ask a reason of this, 'tis to exercise our patience; for as [1250]Tertullian holds, Virtus non est virtus, nisi comparem habet aliquem, in quo superando vim suam ostendat 'tis to try us and our faith, 'tis for our offences, and for the punishment of our sins, by God's permission they do it, Carnifices vindictae justae Dei, as [1251]Tolosanus styles them, Executioners of his will; or rather as David, Ps. 78. ver. 49. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, indignation, wrath, and vexation, by sending out of evil angels: so did he afflict Job, Saul, the Lunatics and demoniacal persons whom Christ cured, Mat. iv. 8. Luke iv. 11. Luke xiii. Mark ix. Tobit. viii. 3. &c. This, I say, happeneth for a punishment of sin, for their want of faith, incredulity, weakness, distrust, &c. SUBSECT. III.—Of Witches and Magicians, how they cause Melancholy. You have heard what the devil can do of himself, now you shall hear what he can perform by his instruments, who are many times worse (if it be possible) than he himself, and to satisfy their revenge and lust cause more mischief, Multa enim mala non egisset daemon, nisi provocatus a sagis, as [1252]Erastus thinks; much harm had never been done, had he not been provoked by witches to it. He had not appeared in Samuel's shape, if the Witch of Endor had let him alone; or represented those serpents in Pharaoh's presence, had not the magicians urged him unto it; Nec morbos vel hominibus, vel brutis infligeret (Erastus maintains) si sagae quiescerent; men and cattle might go free, if the witches would let him alone. Many deny witches at all, or if there be any they can do no harm; of this opinion is Wierus, lib. 3. cap. 53. de praestig. daem. Austin Lerchemer a Dutch writer, Biarmanus, Ewichius, Euwaldus, our countryman Scot; with him in Horace, Somnia, terrores Magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos Lemures, portentaque Thessala risu Excipiunt.——— Say, can you laugh indignant at the schemes Of magic terrors, visionary dreams, Portentous wonders, witching imps of Hell, The nightly goblin, and enchanting spell? They laugh at all such stories; but on the contrary are most lawyers, divines, physicians, philosophers, Austin, Hemingius, Danaeus, Chytraeus, Zanchius, Aretius, &c. Delrio, Springer, [1253]Niderius, lib. 5. Fornicar. Guiatius, Bartolus, consil. 6. tom. 1. Bodine, daemoniant. lib 2. cap. 8. Godelman, Damhoderius, &c. Paracelsus, Erastus, Scribanius, Camerarius, &c. The parties by whom the devil deals, may be reduced to these two, such as command him in show at least, as conjurors, and magicians, whose detestable and horrid mysteries are contained in their book called [1254]Arbatell; daemonis enim advocati praesto sunt, seque exorcismis et conjurationibus quasi cogi patiuntur, ut miserum magorum genus, in impietate detineant. Or such as are commanded, as witches, that deal ex parte implicite, or explicite, as the [1255]king hath well defined; many subdivisions there are, and many several species of sorcerers, witches, enchanters, charmers, &c. They have been tolerated heretofore some of them; and magic hath been publicly professed in former times, in [1256]Salamanca, [1257]Krakow, and other places, though after censured by several [1258]Universities, and now generally contradicted, though practised by some still, maintained and excused, Tanquam res secreta quae non nisi viris magnis et peculiari beneficio de Coelo instructis communicatur (I use [1259]Boesartus his words) and so far approved by some princes, Ut nihil ausi aggredi in politicis, in sacris, in consiliis, sine eorum arbitrio; they consult still with them, and dare indeed do nothing without their advice. Nero and Heliogabalus, Maxentius, and Julianus Apostata, were never so much addicted to magic of old, as some of our modern princes and popes themselves are nowadays. Erricus, King of Sweden, had an [1260]enchanted cap, by virtue of which, and some magical murmur or whispering terms, he could command spirits, trouble the air, and make the wind stand which way he would, insomuch that when there was any great wind or storm, the common people were wont to say, the king now had on his conjuring cap. But such examples are infinite. That which they can do, is as much almost as the devil himself, who is still ready to satisfy their desires, to oblige them the more unto him. They can cause tempests, storms, which is familiarly practised by witches in Norway, Iceland, as I have proved. They can make friends enemies, and enemies friends by philters; [1261]Turpes amores conciliare, enforce love, tell any man where his friends are, about what employed, though in the most remote places; and if they will, [1262]bring their sweethearts to them by night, upon a goat's back flying in the air. Sigismund Scheretzius, part. 1. cap. 9. de spect. reports confidently, that he conferred with sundry such, that had been so carried many miles, and that he heard witches themselves confess as much; hurt and infect men and beasts, vines, corn, cattle, plants, make women abortive, not to conceive, [1263]barren, men and women unapt and unable, married and unmarried, fifty several ways, saith Bodine, lib. 2. c. 2. fly in the air, meet when and where they will, as Cicogna proves, and Lavat. de spec. part. 2. c. 17. steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio daemonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings, saith [1264]Scheretzius, part. 1. c. 6. make men victorious, fortunate, eloquent; and therefore in those ancient monomachies and combats they were searched of old, [1265]they had no magical charms; they can make [1266]stick frees, such as shall endure a rapier's point, musket shot, and never be wounded: of which read more in Boissardus, cap. 6. de Magia, the manner of the adjuration, and by whom 'tis made, where and how to be used in expeditionibus bellicis, praeliis, duellis, &c., with many peculiar instances and examples; they can walk in fiery furnaces, make men feel no pain on the rack, aut alias torturas sentire; they can stanch blood, [1267]represent dead men's shapes, alter and turn themselves and others into several forms, at their pleasures. [1268]Agaberta, a famous witch in Lapland, would do as much publicly to all spectators, Modo Pusilla, modo anus, modo procera ut quercus, modo vacca, avis, coluber, &c. Now young, now old, high, low, like a cow, like a bird, a snake, and what not? She could represent to others what forms they most desired to see, show them friends absent, reveal secrets, maxima omnium admiratione, &c. And yet for all this subtlety of theirs, as Lipsius well observes, Physiolog. Stoicor. lib. 1. cap. 17. neither these magicians nor devils themselves can take away gold or letters out of mine or Crassus' chest, et Clientelis suis largiri, for they are base, poor, contemptible fellows most part; as [1269]Bodine notes, they can do nothing in Judicum decreta aut poenas, in regum concilia vel arcana, nihil in rem nummariam aut thesauros, they cannot give money to their clients, alter judges' decrees, or councils of kings, these minuti Genii cannot do it, altiores Genii hoc sibi adservarunt, the higher powers reserve these things to themselves. Now and then peradventure there may be some more famous magicians like Simon Magus, [1270]Apollonius Tyaneus, Pasetes, Jamblichus, [1271]Odo de Stellis, that for a time can build castles in the air, represent armies, &c., as they are [1272]said to have done, command wealth and treasure, feed thousands with all variety of meats upon a sudden, protect themselves and their followers from all princes' persecutions, by removing from place to place in an instant, reveal secrets, future events, tell what is done in far countries, make them appear that died long since, and do many such miracles, to the world's terror, admiration and opinion of deity to themselves, yet the devil forsakes them at last, they come to wicked ends, and raro aut nunquam such impostors are to be found. The vulgar sort of them can work no such feats. But to my purpose, they can, last of all, cure and cause most diseases to such as they love or hate, and this of [1273]melancholy amongst the rest. Paracelsus, Tom. 4. de morbis amentium, Tract. 1. in express words affirms; Multi fascinantur in melancholiam, many are bewitched into melancholy, out of his experience. The same saith Danaeus, lib. 3. de sortiariis. Vidi, inquit, qui Melancholicos morbos gravissimos induxerunt: I have seen those that have caused melancholy in the most grievous manner, [1274]dried up women's paps, cured gout, palsy; this and apoplexy, falling sickness, which no physic could help, solu tactu, by touch alone. Ruland in his 3 Cent. Cura 91. gives an instance of one David Helde, a young man, who by eating cakes which a witch gave him, mox delirare coepit, began to dote on a sudden, and was instantly mad: F. H. D. in [1275]Hildesheim, consulted about a melancholy man, thought his disease was partly magical, and partly natural, because he vomited pieces of iron and lead, and spake such languages as he had never been taught; but such examples are common in Scribanius, Hercules de Saxonia, and others. The means by which they work are usually charms, images, as that in Hector Boethius of King Duffe; characters stamped of sundry metals, and at such and such constellations, knots, amulets, words, philters, &c., which generally make the parties affected, melancholy; as [1276]Monavius discourseth at large in an epistle of his to Acolsius, giving instance in a Bohemian baron that was so troubled by a philter taken. Not that there is any power at all in those spells, charms, characters, and barbarous words; but that the devil doth use such means to delude them. Ut fideles inde magos (saith [1277]Libanius) in officio retineat, tum in consortium malefactorum vocet. SUBSECT. IV.—Stars a cause. Signs from Physiognomy, Metoposcopy, Chiromancy. Natural causes are either primary and universal, or secondary and more particular. Primary causes are the heavens, planets, stars, &c., by their influence (as our astrologers hold) producing this and such like effects. I will not here stand to discuss obiter, whether stars be causes, or signs; or to apologise for judical astrology. If either Sextus Empericus, Picus Mirandula, Sextus ab Heminga, Pererius, Erastus, Chambers, &c., have so far prevailed with any man, that he will attribute no virtue at all to the heavens, or to sun, or moon, more than he doth to their signs at an innkeeper's post, or tradesman's shop, or generally condemn all such astrological aphorisms approved by experience: I refer him to Bellantius, Pirovanus, Marascallerus, Goclenius, Sir Christopher Heidon, &c. If thou shalt ask me what I think, I must answer, nam et doctis hisce erroribus versatus sum, (for I am conversant with these learned errors,) they do incline, but not compel; no necessity at all: [1278]agunt non cogunt: and so gently incline, that a wise man may resist them; sapiens dominabitur astris: they rule us, but God rules them. All this (methinks) [1279]Joh. de Indagine hath comprised in brief, Quaeris a me quantum in nobis operantur astra? &c. Wilt thou know how far the stars work upon us? I say they do but incline, and that so gently, that if we will be ruled by reason, they have no power over us; but if we follow our own nature, and be led by sense, they do as much in us as in brute beasts, and we are no better. So that, I hope, I may justly conclude with [1280]Cajetan, Coelum est vehiculum divinae virtutis, &c., that the heaven is God's instrument, by mediation of which he governs and disposeth these elementary bodies; or a great book, whose letters are the stars, (as one calls it,) wherein are written many strange things for such as can read, [1281]or an excellent harp, made by an eminent workman, on which, he that can but play, will make most admirable music. But to the purpose. [1282]Paracelsus is of opinion, that a physician without the knowledge of stars can neither understand the cause or cure of any disease, either of this or gout, not so much as toothache; except he see the peculiar geniture and scheme of the party effected. And for this proper malady, he will have the principal and primary cause of it proceed from the heaven, ascribing more to stars than humours, [1283]and that the constellation alone many times produceth melancholy, all other causes set apart. He gives instance in lunatic persons, that are deprived of their wits by the moon's motion; and in another place refers all to the ascendant, and will have the true and chief cause of it to be sought from the stars. Neither is it his opinion only, but of many Galenists and philosophers, though they do not so peremptorily maintain as much. This variety of melancholy symptoms proceeds from the stars, saith [1284]Melancthon: the most generous melancholy, as that of Augustus, comes from the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Libra: the bad, as that of Catiline's, from the meeting of Saturn and the moon in Scorpio. Jovianus Pontanus, in his tenth book, and thirteenth chapter de rebus coelestibus, discourseth to this purpose at large, Ex atra bile varii generantur morbi, &c., [1285]many diseases proceed from black choler, as it shall be hot or cold; and though it be cold in its own nature, yet it is apt to be heated, as water may be made to boil, and burn as bad as fire; or made cold as ice: and thence proceed such variety of symptoms, some mad, some solitary, some laugh, some rage, &c. The cause of all which intemperance he will have chiefly and primarily proceed from the heavens, [1286]from the position of Mars, Saturn, and Mercury. His aphorisms be these, [1287]Mercury in any geniture, if he shall be found in Virgo, or Pisces his opposite sign, and that in the horoscope, irradiated by those quartile aspects of Saturn or Mars, the child shall be mad or melancholy. Again, [1288]He that shall have Saturn and Mars, the one culminating, the other in the fourth house, when he shall be born, shall be melancholy, of which he shall be cured in time, if Mercury behold them. [1289]If the moon be in conjunction or opposition at the birth time with the sun, Saturn or Mars, or in a quartile aspect with them, (e malo coeli loco, Leovitius adds,) many diseases are signified, especially the head and brain is like to be misaffected with pernicious humours, to be melancholy, lunatic, or mad, Cardan adds, quarta luna natos, eclipses, earthquakes. Garcaeus and Leovitius will have the chief judgment to be taken from the lord of the geniture, or where there is an aspect between the moon and Mercury, and neither behold the horoscope, or Saturn and Mars shall be lord of the present conjunction or opposition in Sagittarius or Pisces, of the sun or moon, such persons are commonly epileptic, dote, demoniacal, melancholy: but see more of these aphorisms in the above-named Pontanus. Garcaeus, cap. 23. de Jud. genitur. Schoner. lib. 1. cap. 8, which he hath gathered out of [1290]Ptolemy, Albubater, and some other Arabians, Junctine, Ranzovius, Lindhout, Origen, &c. But these men you will reject peradventure, as astrologers, and therefore partial judges; then hear the testimony of physicians, Galenists themselves. [1291]Carto confesseth the influence of stars to have a great hand to this peculiar disease, so doth Jason Pratensis, Lonicerius praefat. de Apoplexia, Ficinus, Fernelius, &c. [1292]P. Cnemander acknowledgeth the stars an universal cause, the particular from parents, and the use of the six non-natural things. Baptista Port. mag. l. 1. c. 10, 12, 15, will have them causes to every particular individium. Instances and examples, to evince the truth of those aphorisms, are common amongst those astrologian treatises. Cardan, in his thirty-seventh geniture, gives instance in Matth. Bolognius. Camerar. hor. natalit. centur. 7. genit. 6. et 7. of Daniel Gare, and others; but see Garcaeus, cap. 33. Luc. Gauricus, Tract. 6. de Azemenis, &c. The time of this melancholy is, when the significators of any geniture are directed according to art, as the hor: moon, hylech, &c. to the hostile beams or terms of &♄ and ♂ especially, or any fixed star of their nature, or if &♄ by his revolution or transitus, shall offend any of those radical promissors in the geniture. Other signs there are taken from physiognomy, metoposcopy, chiromancy, which because Joh. de Indagine, and Rotman, the landgrave of Hesse his mathematician, not long since in his Chiromancy; Baptista Porta, in his celestial Physiognomy, have proved to hold great affinity with astrology, to satisfy the curious, I am the more willing to insert. The general notions [1293]physiognomers give, be these; black colour argues natural melancholy; so doth leanness, hirsuteness, broad veins, much hair on the brows, saith [1294]Gratanarolus, cap. 7, and a little head, out of Aristotle, high sanguine, red colour, shows head melancholy; they that stutter and are bald, will be soonest melancholy, (as Avicenna supposeth,) by reason of the dryness of their brains; but he that will know more of the several signs of humour and wits out of physiognomy, let him consult with old Adamantus and Polemus, that comment, or rather paraphrase upon Aristotle's Physiognomy, Baptista Porta's four pleasant books, Michael Scot de secretis naturae, John de Indagine, Montaltus, Antony Zara. anat. ingeniorum, sect. 1. memb. 13. et lib. 4. Chiromancy hath these aphorisms to foretell melancholy, Tasneir. lib. 5. cap. 2, who hath comprehended the sum of John de Indagine: Tricassus, Corvinus, and others in his book, thus hath it; [1295]The Saturnine line going from the rascetta through the hand, to Saturn's mount, and there intersected by certain little lines, argues melancholy; so if the vital and natural make an acute angle, Aphorism 100. The saturnine, hepatic, and natural lines, making a gross triangle in the hand, argue as much; which Goclenius, cap. 5. Chiros. repeats verbatim out of him. In general they conclude all, that if Saturn's mount be full of many small lines and intersections, [1296]such men are most part melancholy, miserable and full of disquietness, care and trouble, continually vexed with anxious and bitter thoughts, always sorrowful, fearful, suspicious; they delight in husbandry, buildings, pools, marshes, springs, woods, walks, &c. Thaddaeus Haggesius, in his Metoposcopia, hath certain aphorisms derived from Saturn's lines in the forehead, by which he collects a melancholy disposition; and [1297]Baptista Porta makes observations from those other parts of the body, as if a spot be over the spleen; [1298]or in the nails; if it appear black, it signifieth much care, grief, contention, and melancholy; the reason he refers to the humours, and gives instance in himself, that for seven years space he had such black spots in his nails, and all that while was in perpetual lawsuits, controversies for his inheritance, fear, loss of honour, banishment, grief, care, &c. and when his miseries ended, the black spots vanished. Cardan, in his book de libris propriis, tells such a story of his own person, that a little before his son's death, he had a black spot, which appeared in one of his nails; and dilated itself as he came nearer to his end. But I am over tedious in these toys, which howsoever, in some men's too severe censures, they may be held absurd and ridiculous, I am the bolder to insert, as not borrowed from circumforanean rogues and gipsies, but out of the writings of worthy philosophers and physicians, yet living some of them, and religious professors in famous universities, who are able to patronise that which they have said, and vindicate themselves from all cavillers and ignorant persons. SUBSECT. V.—Old age a cause. Secondary peculiar causes efficient, so called in respect of the other precedent, are either congenitae, internae, innatae, as they term them, inward, innate, inbred; or else outward and adventitious, which happen to us after we are born: congenite or born with us, are either natural, as old age, or praeter naturam (as [1299]Fernelius calls it) that distemperature, which we have from our parent's seed, it being an hereditary disease. The first of these, which is natural to all, and which no man living can avoid, is [1300]old age, which being cold and dry, and of the same quality as melancholy is, must needs cause it, by diminution of spirits and substance, and increasing of adust humours; therefore [1301] Melancthon avers out of Aristotle, as an undoubted truth, Senes plerunque delirasse in senecta, that old men familiarly dote, ob atram bilem, for black choler, which is then superabundant in them: and Rhasis, that Arabian physician, in his Cont. lib. 1. cap. 9, calls it [1302]a necessary and inseparable accident, to all old and decrepit persons. After seventy years (as the Psalmist saith) [1303]all is trouble and sorrow; and common experience confirms the truth of it in weak and old persons, especially such as have lived in action all their lives, had great employment, much business, much command, and many servants to oversee, and leave off ex abrupto; as [1304]Charles the Fifth did to King Philip, resign up all on a sudden; they are overcome with melancholy in an instant: or if they do continue in such courses, they dote at last, (senex bis puer,) and are not able to manage their estates through common infirmities incident in their age; full of ache, sorrow and grief, children again, dizzards, they carl many times as they sit, and talk to themselves, they are angry, waspish, displeased with every thing, suspicious of all, wayward, covetous, hard (saith Tully,) self-willed, superstitious, self-conceited, braggers and admirers of themselves, as [1305]Balthazar Castilio hath truly noted of them.[1306]This natural infirmity is most eminent in old women, and such as are poor, solitary, live in most base esteem and beggary, or such as are witches; insomuch that Wierus, Baptista Porta, Ulricus Molitor, Edwicus, do refer all that witches are said to do, to imagination alone, and this humour of melancholy. And whereas it is controverted, whether they can bewitch cattle to death, ride in the air upon a cowl-staff out of a chimney-top, transform themselves into cats, dogs, &c., translate bodies from place to place, meet in companies, and dance, as they do, or have carnal copulation with the devil, they ascribe all to this redundant melancholy, which domineers in them, to [1307] somniferous potions, and natural causes, the devil's policy. Non laedunt omnino (saith Wierus) aut quid mirum faciunt, (de Lamiis, lib. 3. cap. 36), ut putatur, solam vitiatam habent phantasiam; they do no such wonders at all, only their [1308]brains are crazed. [1309]They think they are witches, and can do hurt, but do not. But this opinion Bodine, Erastus, Danaeus, Scribanius, Sebastian Michaelis, Campanella de Sensu rerum, lib. 4. cap. 9. [1310]Dandinus the Jesuit, lib. 2. de Animae explode; [1311]Cicogna confutes at large. That witches are melancholy, they deny not, but not out of corrupt phantasy alone, so to delude themselves and others, or to produce such effects. SUBSECT. VI.—Parents a cause by Propagation. That other inward inbred cause of Melancholy is our temperature, in whole or part, which we receive from our parents, which [1312]Fernelius calls Praeter naturam, or unnatural, it being an hereditary disease; for as he justifies [1313]Quale parentum maxime patris semen obtigerit, tales evadunt similares spermaticaeque paries, quocunque etiam morbo Pater quum generat tenetur, cum semine transfert, in Prolem; such as the temperature of the father is, such is the son's, and look what disease the father had when he begot him, his son will have after him; [1314]and is as well inheritor of his infirmities, as of his lands. And where the complexion and constitution of the father is corrupt, there ([1315]saith Roger Bacon) the complexion and constitution of the son must needs be corrupt, and so the corruption is derived from the father to the son. Now this doth not so much appear in the composition of the body, according to that of Hippocrates, [1316]in habit, proportion, scars, and other lineaments; but in manners and conditions of the mind, Et patrum in natos abeunt cum semine mores. Seleucus had an anchor on his thigh, so had his posterity, as Trogus records, lib. 15. Lepidus, in Pliny l. 7. c. 17, was purblind, so was his son. That famous family of Aenobarbi were known of old, and so surnamed from their red beards; the Austrian lip, and those Indian flat noses are propagated, the Bavarian chin, and goggle eyes amongst the Jews, as [1317] Buxtorfius observes; their voice, pace, gesture, looks, are likewise derived with all the rest of their conditions and infirmities; such a mother, such a daughter; their very [1318]affections Lemnius contends to follow their seed, and the malice and bad conditions of children are many times wholly to be imputed to their parents; I need not therefore make any doubt of Melancholy, but that it is an hereditary disease. [1319] Paracelsus in express words affirms it, lib. de morb. amentium to. 4. tr. 1; so doth [1320]Crato in an Epistle of his to Monavius. So doth Bruno Seidelius in his book de morbo incurab. Montaltus proves, cap. 11, out of Hippocrates and Plutarch, that such hereditary dispositions are frequent, et hanc (inquit) fieri reor ob participatam melancholicam intemperantiam (speaking of a patient) I think he became so by participation of Melancholy. Daniel Sennertus, lib. 1. part 2. cap. 9, will have his melancholy constitution derived not only from the father to the son, but to the whole family sometimes; Quandoque totis familiis hereditativam, [1321]Forestus, in his medicinal observations, illustrates this point, with an example of a merchant, his patient, that had this infirmity by inheritance; so doth Rodericus a Fonseca, tom. 1. consul. 69, by an instance of a young man that was so affected ex matre melancholica, had a melancholy mother, et victu melancholico, and bad diet together. Ludovicus Mercatus, a Spanish physician, in that excellent Tract which he hath lately written of hereditary diseases, tom. 2. oper. lib. 5, reckons up leprosy, as those [1322]Galbots in Gascony, hereditary lepers, pox, stone, gout, epilepsy, &c. Amongst the rest, this and madness after a set time comes to many, which he calls a miraculous thing in nature, and sticks for ever to them as an incurable habit. And that which is more to be wondered at, it skips in some families the father, and goes to the son, [1323]or takes every other, and sometimes every third in a lineal descent, and doth not always produce the same, but some like, and a symbolizing disease. These secondary causes hence derived, are commonly so powerful, that (as [1324]Wolfius holds) saepe mutant decreta siderum, they do often alter the primary causes, and decrees of the heavens. For these reasons, belike, the Church and commonwealth, human and Divine laws, have conspired to avoid hereditary diseases, forbidding such marriages as are any whit allied; and as Mercatus adviseth all families to take such, si fieri possit quae maxime distant natura, and to make choice of those that are most differing in complexion from them; if they love their own, and respect the common good. And sure, I think, it hath been ordered by God's especial providence, that in all ages there should be (as usually there is) once in [1325]600 years, a transmigration of nations, to amend and purify their blood, as we alter seed upon our land, and that there should be as it were an inundation of those northern Goths and Vandals, and many such like people which came out of that continent of Scandia and Sarmatia (as some suppose) and overran, as a deluge, most part of Europe and Africa, to alter for our good, our complexions, which were much defaced with hereditary infirmities, which by our lust and intemperance we had contracted. A sound generation of strong and able men were sent amongst us, as those northern men usually are, innocuous, free from riot, and free from diseases; to qualify and make us as those poor naked Indians are generally at this day; and those about Brazil (as a late [1326]writer observes), in the Isle of Maragnan, free from all hereditary diseases, or other contagion, whereas without help of physic they live commonly 120 years or more, as in the Orcades and many other places. Such are the common effects of temperance and intemperance, but I will descend to particular, and show by what means, and by whom especially, this infirmity is derived unto us. Filii ex senibus nati, raro sunt firmi temperamenti, old men's children are seldom of a good temperament, as Scoltzius supposeth, consult. 177, and therefore most apt to this disease; and as [1327]Levinus Lemnius farther adds, old men beget most part wayward, peevish, sad, melancholy sons, and seldom merry. He that begets a child on a full stomach, will either have a sick child, or a crazed son (as [1328]Cardan thinks), contradict. med. lib. 1. contradict. 18, or if the parents be sick, or have any great pain of the head, or megrim, headache, (Hieronymus Wolfius [1329]doth instance in a child of Sebastian Castalio's); if a drunken man get a child, it will never likely have a good brain, as Gellius argues, lib. 12. cap. 1. Ebrii gignunt Ebrios, one drunkard begets another, saith [1330]Plutarch, symp. lib. 1. quest. 5, whose sentence [1331]Lemnius approves, l. 1. c. 4. Alsarius Crutius, Gen. de qui sit med. cent. 3. fol. 182. Macrobius, lib. 1. Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 21. Tract 1. cap. 8, and Aristotle himself, sect. 2. prob. 4, foolish, drunken, or hair-brain women, most part bring forth children like unto themselves, morosos et languidos, and so likewise he that lies with a menstruous woman. Intemperantia veneris, quam in nautis praesertim insectatur [1332] Lemnius, qui uxores ineunt, nulla menstrui decursus ratione habita nec observato interlunio, praecipua causa est, noxia, pernitiosa, concubitum hunc exitialem ideo, et pestiferum vocat. [1333]Rodoricus a Castro Lucitanus, detestantur ad unum omnes medici, tum et quarta luna concepti, infelices plerumque et amentes, deliri, stolidi, morbosi, impuri, invalidi, tetra lue sordidi minime vitales, omnibus bonis corporis atque animi destituti: ad laborem nati, si seniores, inquit Eustathius, ut Hercules, et alii. [1334]Judaei maxime insectantur foedum hunc, et immundum apud Christianas Concubitum, ut illicitum abhorrent, et apud suos prohibent; et quod Christiani toties leprosi, amentes, tot morbili, impetigines, alphi, psorae, cutis et faciei decolorationes, tam multi morbi epidemici, acerbi, et venenosi sint, in hunc immundum concubitum rejiciunt, et crudeles in pignora vocant, qui quarta, luna profluente hac mensium illuvie concubitum hunc non perhorrescunt. Damnavit olim divina Lex et morte mulctavit hujusmodi homines, Lev. 18, 20, et inde nati, siqui deformes aut mutili, pater dilapidatus, quod non contineret ab [1335] immunda muliere. Gregorius Magnus, petenti Augustino nunquid apud [1336]Britannos hujusmodi concubitum toleraret, severe prohibuit viris suis tum misceri foeminas in consuetis suis menstruis, &c. I spare to English this which I have said. Another cause some give, inordinate diet, as if a man eat garlic, onions, fast overmuch, study too hard, be over-sorrowful, dull, heavy, dejected in mind, perplexed in his thoughts, fearful, &c., their children (saith [1337]Cardan subtil. lib. 18) will be much subject to madness and melancholy; for if the spirits of the brain be fuzzled, or misaffected by such means, at such a time, their children will be fuzzled in the brain: they will be dull, heavy, timorous, discontented all their lives. Some are of opinion, and maintain that paradox or problem, that wise men beget commonly fools; Suidas gives instance in Aristarchus the Grammarian, duos reliquit Filios Aristarchum et Aristachorum, ambos stultos; and which [1338]Erasmus urgeth in his Moria, fools beget wise men. Card. subt. l. 12, gives this cause, Quoniam spiritus sapientum ob studium resolvuntur, et in cerebrum feruntur a corde: because their natural spirits are resolved by study, and turned into animal; drawn from the heart, and those other parts to the brain. Lemnius subscribes to that of Cardan, and assigns this reason, Quod persolvant debitum languide, et obscitanter, unde foetus a parentum generositate desciscit: they pay their debt (as Paul calls it) to their wives remissly, by which means their children are weaklings, and many times idiots and fools. Some other causes are given, which properly pertain, and do proceed from the mother: if she be over-dull, heavy, angry, peevish, discontented, and melancholy, not only at the time of conception, but even all the while she carries the child in her womb (saith Fernelius, path. l. 1, 11) her son will be so likewise affected, and worse, as [1339]Lemnius adds, l. 4. c. 7, if she grieve overmuch, be disquieted, or by any casualty be affrighted and terrified by some fearful object, heard or seen, she endangers her child, and spoils the temperature of it; for the strange imagination of a woman works effectually upon her infant, that as Baptista Porta proves, Physiog. caelestis l. 5. c. 2, she leaves a mark upon it, which is most especially seen in such as prodigiously long for such and such meats, the child will love those meats, saith Fernelius, and be addicted to like humours: [1340]if a great-bellied woman see a hare, her child will often have a harelip, as we call it. Garcaeus, de Judiciis geniturarum, cap. 33, hath a memorable example of one Thomas Nickell, born in the city of Brandeburg, 1551, [1341]that went reeling and staggering all the days of his life, as if he would fall to the ground, because his mother being great with child saw a drunken man reeling in the street. Such another I find in Martin Wenrichius, com. de ortu monstrorum, c. 17, I saw (saith he) at Wittenberg, in Germany, a citizen that looked like a carcass; I asked him the cause, he replied, [1342]His mother, when she bore him in her womb, saw a carcass by chance, and was so sore affrighted with it, that ex eo foetus ei assimilatus, from a ghastly impression the child was like it. So many several ways are we plagued and punished for our father's defaults; insomuch that as Fernelius truly saith, [1343]It is the greatest part of our felicity to be well born, and it were happy for human kind, if only such parents as are sound of body and mind should be suffered to marry. An husbandman will sow none but the best and choicest seed upon his land, he will not rear a bull or a horse, except he be right shapen in all parts, or permit him to cover a mare, except he be well assured of his breed; we make choice of the best rams for our sheep, rear the neatest kine, and keep the best dogs, Quanto id diligentius in procreandis liberis observandum? And how careful then should we be in begetting of our children? In former times some [1344]countries have been so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a child were crooked or deformed in body or mind, they made him away; so did the Indians of old by the relation of Curtius, and many other well-governed commonwealths, according to the discipline of those times. Heretofore in Scotland, saith [1345]Hect. Boethius, if any were visited with the falling sickness, madness, gout, leprosy, or any such dangerous disease, which was likely to be propagated from the father to the son, he was instantly gelded; a woman kept from all company of men; and if by chance having some such disease, she were found to be with child, she with her brood were buried alive: and this was done for the common good, lest the whole nation should be injured or corrupted. A severe doom you will say, and not to be used amongst Christians, yet more to be looked into than it is. For now by our too much facility in this kind, in giving way for all to marry that will, too much liberty and indulgence in tolerating all sorts, there is a vast confusion of hereditary diseases, no family secure, no man almost free from some grievous infirmity or other, when no choice is had, but still the eldest must marry, as so many stallions of the race; or if rich, be they fools or dizzards, lame or maimed, unable, intemperate, dissolute, exhaust through riot, as he said, [1346]jura haereditario sapere jubentur; they must be wise and able by inheritance: it comes to pass that our generation is corrupt, we have many weak persons, both in body and mind, many feral diseases raging amongst us, crazed families, parentes, peremptores; our fathers bad, and we are like to be worse.   MEMB. II. SUBSECT. I.—Bad Diet a cause. Substance. Quality of Meats. According to my proposed method, having opened hitherto these secondary causes, which are inbred with us, I must now proceed to the outward and adventitious, which happen unto us after we are born. And those are either evident, remote, or inward, antecedent, and the nearest: continent causes some call them. These outward, remote, precedent causes are subdivided again into necessary and not necessary. Necessary (because we cannot avoid them, but they will alter us, as they are used, or abused) are those six non-natural things, so much spoken of amongst physicians, which are principal causes of this disease. For almost in every consultation, whereas they shall come to speak of the causes, the fault is found, and this most part objected to the patient; Peccavit circa res sex non naturales: he hath still offended in one of those six. Montanus, consil. 22, consulted about a melancholy Jew, gives that sentence, so did Frisemelica in the same place; and in his 244 counsel, censuring a melancholy soldier, assigns that reason of his malady, [1347]he offended in all those six non-natural things, which were the outward causes, from which came those inward obstructions; and so in the rest. These six non-natural things are diet, retention and evacuation, which are more material than the other because they make new matter, or else are conversant in keeping or expelling of it. The other four are air, exercise, sleeping, waking, and perturbations of the mind, which only alter the matter. The first of these is diet, which consists in meat and drink, and causeth melancholy, as it offends in substance, or accidents, that is, quantity, quality, or the like. And well it may be called a material cause, since that, as [1348]Fernelius holds, it hath such a power in begetting of diseases, and yields the matter and sustenance of them; for neither air, nor perturbations, nor any of those other evident causes take place, or work this effect, except the constitution of body, and preparation of humours, do concur. That a man may say, this diet is the mother of diseases, let the father be what he will, and from this alone, melancholy and frequent other maladies arise. Many physicians, I confess, have written copious volumes of this one subject, of the nature and qualities of all manner of meats; as namely, Galen, Isaac the Jew, Halyabbas, Avicenna, Mesue, also four Arabians, Gordonius, Villanovanus, Wecker, Johannes Bruerinus, sitologia de Esculentis et Poculentis, Michael Savanarola, Tract 2. c. 8, Anthony Fumanellus, lib. de regimine senum, Curio in his comment on Schola Salerna, Godefridus Steckius arte med., Marcilius Cognatus, Ficinus, Ranzovius, Fonseca, Lessius, Magninus, regim. sanitatis, Frietagius, Hugo Fridevallius, &c., besides many other in [1349]English, and almost every peculiar physician, discourseth at large of all peculiar meats in his chapter of melancholy: yet because these books are not at hand to every man, I will briefly touch what kind of meats engender this humour, through their several species, and which are to be avoided. How they alter and change the matter, spirits first, and after humours, by which we are preserved, and the constitution of our body, Fernelius and others will show you. I hasten to the thing itself: and first of such diet as offends in substance. Beef.] Beef, a strong and hearty meat (cold in the first degree, dry in the second, saith Gal. l. 3. c. 1. de alim. fac.) is condemned by him and all succeeding Authors, to breed gross melancholy blood: good for such as are sound, and of a strong constitution, for labouring men if ordered aright, corned, young, of an ox (for all gelded meats in every species are held best), or if old, [1350]such as have been tired out with labour, are preferred. Aubanus and Sabellicus commend Portugal beef to be the most savoury, best and easiest of digestion; we commend ours: but all is rejected, and unfit for such as lead a resty life, any ways inclined to melancholy, or dry of complexion: Tales (Galen thinks) de facile melancholicis aegritudinibus capiuntur. Pork.] Pork, of all meats, is most nutritive in his own nature, [1351] but altogether unfit for such as live at ease, are any ways unsound of body or mind: too moist, full of humours, and therefore noxia delicatis, saith Savanarola, ex earum usu ut dubitetur an febris quartana generetur: naught for queasy stomachs, insomuch that frequent use of it may breed a quartan ague. Goat.] Savanarola discommends goat's flesh, and so doth [1352]Bruerinus, l. 13. c. 19, calling it a filthy beast, and rammish: and therefore supposeth it will breed rank and filthy substance; yet kid, such as are young and tender, Isaac accepts, Bruerinus and Galen, l. 1. c. 1. de alimentorum facultatibus. Hart.] Hart and red deer [1353]hath an evil name: it yields gross nutriment: a strong and great grained meat, next unto a horse. Which although some countries eat, as Tartars, and they of China; yet [1354] Galen condemns. Young foals are as commonly eaten in Spain as red deer, and to furnish their navies, about Malaga especially, often used; but such meats ask long baking, or seething, to qualify them, and yet all will not serve. Venison, Fallow Deer.] All venison is melancholy, and begets bad blood; a pleasant meat: in great esteem with us (for we have more parks in England than there are in all Europe besides) in our solemn feasts. 'Tis somewhat better hunted than otherwise, and well prepared by cookery; but generally bad, and seldom to be used. Hare.] Hare, a black meat, melancholy, and hard of digestion, it breeds incubus, often eaten, and causeth fearful dreams, so doth all venison, and is condemned by a jury of physicians. Mizaldus and some others say, that hare is a merry meat, and that it will make one fair, as Martial's epigram testifies to Gellia; but this is per accidens, because of the good sport it makes, merry company and good discourse that is commonly at the eating of it, and not otherwise to be understood. Conies.] [1355]Conies are of the nature of hares. Magninus compares them to beef, pig, and goat, Reg. sanit. part. 3. c. 17; yet young rabbits by all men are approved to be good. Generally, all such meats as are hard of digestion breed melancholy. Areteus, lib. 7. cap. 5, reckons up heads and feet, [1356]bowels, brains, entrails, marrow, fat, blood, skins, and those inward parts, as heart, lungs, liver, spleen, &c. They are rejected by Isaac, lib. 2. part. 3, Magninus, part. 3. cap. 17, Bruerinus, lib. 12, Savanarola, Rub. 32. Tract. 2. Milk.] Milk, and all that comes of milk, as butter and cheese, curds, &c., increase melancholy (whey only excepted, which is most wholesome): [1357]some except asses' milk. The rest, to such as are sound, is nutritive and good, especially for young children, but because soon turned to corruption, [1358]not good for those that have unclean stomachs, are subject to headache, or have green wounds, stone, &c. Of all cheeses, I take that kind which we call Banbury cheese to be the best, ex vetustis pessimus, the older, stronger, and harder, the worst, as Langius discourseth in his Epistle to Melancthon, cited by Mizaldus, Isaac, p. 5. Gal. 3. de cibis boni succi. &c. Fowl.] Amongst fowl, [1359]peacocks and pigeons, all fenny fowl are forbidden, as ducks, geese, swans, herons, cranes, coots, didappers, water-hens, with all those teals, curs, sheldrakes, and peckled fowls, that come hither in winter out of Scandia, Muscovy, Greenland, Friesland, which half the year are covered all over with snow, and frozen up. Though these be fair in feathers, pleasant in taste, and have a good outside, like hypocrites, white in plumes, and soft, their flesh is hard, black, unwholesome, dangerous, melancholy meat; Gravant et putrefaciant stomachum, saith Isaac, part. 5. de vol., their young ones are more tolerable, but young pigeons he quite disapproves. Fishes.] Rhasis and [1360]Magninus discommend all fish, and say, they breed viscosities, slimy nutriment, little and humorous nourishment. Savanarola adds, cold, moist: and phlegmatic, Isaac; and therefore unwholesome for all cold and melancholy complexions: others make a difference, rejecting only amongst freshwater fish, eel, tench, lamprey, crawfish (which Bright approves, cap. 6), and such as are bred in muddy and standing waters, and have a taste of mud, as Franciscus Bonsuetus poetically defines, Lib. de aquatilibus. Nam pisces omnes, qui stagna, lacusque frequentant, Semper plus succi deterioris habent. All fish, that standing pools, and lakes frequent, Do ever yield bad juice and nourishment. Lampreys, Paulus Jovius, c. 34. de piscibus fluvial., highly magnifies, and saith, None speak against them, but inepti et scrupulosi, some scrupulous persons; but [1361]eels, c. 33, he abhorreth in all places, at all times, all physicians detest them, especially about the solstice. Gomesius, lib. 1. c. 22, de sale, doth immoderately extol sea-fish, which others as much vilify, and above the rest, dried, soused, indurate fish, as ling, fumados, red-herrings, sprats, stock-fish, haberdine, poor-John, all shellfish. [1362]Tim. Bright excepts lobster and crab. Messarius commends salmon, which Bruerinus contradicts, lib. 22. c. 17. Magninus rejects conger, sturgeon, turbot, mackerel, skate. Carp is a fish of which I know not what to determine. Franciscus Bonsuetus accounts it a muddy fish. Hippolitus Salvianus, in his Book de Piscium natura et praeparatione, which was printed at Rome in folio, 1554, with most elegant pictures, esteems carp no better than a slimy watery meat. Paulus Jovius on the other side, disallowing tench, approves of it; so doth Dubravius in his Books of Fishponds. Freitagius [1363]extols it for an excellent wholesome meat, and puts it amongst the fishes of the best rank; and so do most of our country gentlemen, that store their ponds almost with no other fish. But this controversy is easily decided, in my judgment, by Bruerinus, l. 22. c. 13. The difference riseth from the site and nature of pools, [1364]sometimes muddy, sometimes sweet; they are in taste as the place is from whence they be taken. In like manner almost we may conclude of other fresh fish. But see more in Rondoletius, Bellonius, Oribasius, lib. 7. cap. 22, Isaac, l. 1, especially Hippolitus Salvianus, who is instar omnium solus, &c. Howsoever they may be wholesome and approved, much use of them is not good; P. Forestus, in his medicinal observations, [1365]relates, that Carthusian friars, whose living is most part fish, are more subject to melancholy than any other order, and that he found by experience, being sometimes their physician ordinary at Delft, in Holland. He exemplifies it with an instance of one Buscodnese, a Carthusian of a ruddy colour, and well liking, that by solitary living, and fish-eating, became so misaffected. Herbs.] Amongst herbs to be eaten I find gourds, cucumbers, coleworts, melons, disallowed, but especially cabbage. It causeth troublesome dreams, and sends up black vapours to the brain. Galen, loc. affect. l. 3. c. 6, of all herbs condemns cabbage; and Isaac, lib. 2. c. 1. Animae gravitatem facit, it brings heaviness to the soul. Some are of opinion that all raw herbs and salads breed melancholy blood, except bugloss and lettuce. Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2, speaks against all herbs and worts, except borage, bugloss, fennel, parsley, dill, balm, succory. Magninus, regim. sanitatis, part. 3. cap. 31. Omnes herbae simpliciter malae, via cibi; all herbs are simply evil to feed on (as he thinks). So did that scoffing cook in [1366]Plautus hold: Non ego coenam condio ut alii coqui solent, Qui mihi condita prata in patinis proferunt, Boves qui convivas faciunt, herbasque aggerunt. Like other cooks I do not supper dress, That put whole meadows into a platter, And make no better of their guests than beeves, With herbs and grass to feed them fatter. Our Italians and Spaniards do make a whole dinner of herbs and salads (which our said Plautus calls coenas terrestras, Horace, coenas sine sanguine), by which means, as he follows it, [1367]Hic homines tam brevem vitam colunt— Qui herbas hujusmodi in alvum suum congerunt, Formidolosum dictu, non esu modo, Quas herbas pecudes non edunt, homines edunt. Their lives, that eat such herbs, must needs be short, And 'tis a fearful thing for to report, That men should feed on such a kind of meat, Which very juments would refuse to eat. [1368]They are windy, and not fit therefore to be eaten of all men raw, though qualified with oil, but in broths, or otherwise. See more of these in every [1369]husbandman, and herbalist. Roots.] Roots, Etsi quorundam gentium opes sint, saith Bruerinus, the wealth of some countries, and sole food, are windy and bad, or troublesome to the head: as onions, garlic, scallions, turnips, carrots, radishes, parsnips: Crato, lib. 2. consil. 11, disallows all roots, though [1370] some approve of parsnips and potatoes. [1371]Magninus is of Crato's opinion, [1372]They trouble the mind, sending gross fumes to the brain, make men mad, especially garlic, onions, if a man liberally feed on them a year together. Guianerius, tract. 15. cap. 2, complains of all manner of roots, and so doth Bruerinus, even parsnips themselves, which are the best, Lib. 9. cap. 14. Fruits.] Pastinacarum usus succos gignit improbos. Crato, consil. 21. lib. 1, utterly forbids all manner of fruits, as pears, apples, plums, cherries, strawberries, nuts, medlars, serves, &c. Sanguinem inficiunt, saith Villanovanus, they infect the blood, and putrefy it, Magninus holds, and must not therefore be taken via cibi, aut quantitate magna, not to make a meal of, or in any great quantity. [1373]Cardan makes that a cause of their continual sickness at Fessa in Africa, because they live so much on fruits, eating them thrice a day. Laurentius approves of many fruits, in his Tract of Melancholy, which others disallow, and amongst the rest apples, which some likewise commend, sweetings, pearmains, pippins, as good against melancholy; but to him that is any way inclined to, or touched with this malady, [1374]Nicholas Piso in his Practics, forbids all fruits, as windy, or to be sparingly eaten at least, and not raw. Amongst other fruits, [1375]Bruerinus, out of Galen, excepts grapes and figs, but I find them likewise rejected. Pulse.] All pulse are naught, beans, peas, vetches, &c., they fill the brain (saith Isaac) with gross fumes, breed black thick blood, and cause troublesome dreams. And therefore, that which Pythagoras said to his scholars of old, may be for ever applied to melancholy men, A fabis abstinete, eat no peas, nor beans; yet to such as will needs eat them, I would give this counsel, to prepare them according to those rules that Arnoldus Villanovanus, and Frietagius prescribe, for eating, and dressing. fruits, herbs, roots, pulse, &c. Spices.] Spices cause hot and head melancholy, and are for that cause forbidden by our physicians to such men as are inclined to this malady, as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, mace, dates, &c. honey and sugar. [1376] Some except honey; to those that are cold, it may be tolerable, but [1377] Dulcia se in bilem vertunt, (sweets turn into bile,) they are obstructive. Crato therefore forbids all spice, in a consultation of his, for a melancholy schoolmaster, Omnia aromatica et quicquid sanguinem adurit: so doth Fernelius, consil. 45. Guianerius, tract 15. cap. 2. Mercurialis, cons. 189. To these I may add all sharp and sour things, luscious and over-sweet, or fat, as oil, vinegar, verjuice, mustard, salt; as sweet things are obstructive, so these are corrosive. Gomesius, in his books, de sale, l. 1. c. 21, highly commends salt; so doth Codronchus in his tract, de sale Absynthii, Lemn. l. 3. c. 9. de occult. nat. mir. yet common experience finds salt, and salt-meats, to be great procurers of this disease. And for that cause belike those Egyptian priests abstained from salt, even so much, as in their bread, ut sine perturbatione anima esset, saith mine author, that their souls might be free from perturbations. Bread.] Bread that is made of baser grain, as peas, beans, oats, rye, or [1378]over-hard baked, crusty, and black, is often spoken against, as causing melancholy juice and wind. Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his History of Scotland, contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread: it was objected to him then living at Paris in France, that his countrymen fed on oats, and base grain, as a disgrace; but he doth ingenuously confess, Scotland, Wales, and a third part of England, did most part use that kind of bread, that it was as wholesome as any grain, and yielded as good nourishment. And yet Wecker out of Galen calls it horsemeat, and fitter for juments than men to feed on. But read Galen himself, Lib. 1. De cibis boni et mali succi, more largely discoursing of corn and bread. Wine.] All black wines, over-hot, compound, strong thick drinks, as Muscadine, Malmsey, Alicant, Rumney, Brownbastard, Metheglen, and the like, of which they have thirty several kinds in Muscovy, all such made drinks are hurtful in this case, to such as are hot, or of a sanguine choleric complexion, young, or inclined to head-melancholy. For many times the drinking of wine alone causeth it. Arculanus, c. 16. in 9. Rhasis, puts in [1379]wine for a great cause, especially if it be immoderately used. Guianerius, tract. 15. c. 2, tells a story of two Dutchmen, to whom he gave entertainment in his house, that [1380]in one month's space were both melancholy by drinking of wine, one did nought but sing, the other sigh. Galen, l. de causis morb. c. 3. Matthiolus on Dioscorides, and above all other Andreas Bachius, l. 3. 18, 19, 20, have reckoned upon those inconveniences that come by wine: yet notwithstanding all this, to such as are cold, or sluggish melancholy, a cup of wine is good physic, and so doth Mercurialis grant, consil. 25, in that case, if the temperature be cold, as to most melancholy men it is, wine is much commended, if it be moderately used. Cider, Perry.] Cider and perry are both cold and windy drinks, and for that cause to be neglected, and so are all those hot spiced strong drinks. Beer.] Beer, if it be over-new or over-stale, over-strong, or not sodden, smell of the cask, sharp, or sour, is most unwholesome, frets, and galls, &c. Henricus Ayrerus, in a [1381]consultation of his, for one that laboured of hypochondriacal melancholy, discommends beer. So doth [1382] Crato in that excellent counsel of his, Lib. 2. consil. 21, as too windy, because of the hop. But he means belike that thick black Bohemian beer used in some other parts of [1383]Germany. ———nil spissius illa Dum bibitur, nil clarius est dum mingitur, unde Constat, quod multas faeces in corpore linquat. Nothing comes in so thick, Nothing goes out so thin, It must needs follow then The dregs are left within. As that [1384]old poet scoffed, calling it Stygiae monstrum conforme paludi, a monstrous drink, like the river Styx. But let them say as they list, to such as are accustomed unto it, 'tis a most wholesome (so [1385] Polydore Virgil calleth it) and a pleasant drink, it is more subtle and better, for the hop that rarefies it, hath an especial virtue against melancholy, as our herbalists confess, Fuchsius approves, Lib. 2. sec. 2. instit. cap. 11, and many others. Waters] Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured, such as come forth of pools, and moats, where hemp hath been steeped, or slimy fishes live, are most unwholesome, putrefied, and full of mites, creepers, slimy, muddy, unclean, corrupt, impure, by reason of the sun's heat, and still-standing; they cause foul distemperatures in the body and mind of man, are unfit to make drink of, to dress meat with, or to be [1386]used about men inwardly or outwardly. They are good for many domestic uses, to wash horses, water cattle, &c., or in time of necessity, but not otherwise. Some are of opinion, that such fat standing waters make the best beer, and that seething doth defecate it, as [1387]Cardan holds, Lib. 13. subtil. It mends the substance, and savour of it, but it is a paradox. Such beer may be stronger, but not so wholesome as the other, as [1388]Jobertus truly justifieth out of Galen, Paradox, dec. 1. Paradox 5, that the seething of such impure waters doth not purge or purify them, Pliny, lib. 31. c. 3, is of the same tenet, and P. Crescentius, agricult. lib. 1. et lib. 4. c. 11. et c. 45. Pamphilius Herilachus, l. 4. de not. aquarum, such waters are naught, not to be used, and by the testimony of [1389]Galen, breed agues, dropsies, pleurisies, splenetic and melancholy passions, hurt the eyes, cause a bad temperature, and ill disposition of the whole body, with bad colour. This Jobertus stiffly maintains, Paradox, lib. 1. part. 5, that it causeth blear eyes, bad colour, and many loathsome diseases to such as use it: this which they say, stands with good reason; for as geographers relate, the water of Astracan breeds worms in such as drink it. [1390] Axius, or as now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, makes all cattle black that taste of it. Aleacman now Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turns cattle most part white, si polui ducas, L. Aubanus Rohemus refers that [1391]struma or poke of the Bavarians and Styrians to the nature of their waters, as [1392]Munster doth that of Valesians in the Alps, and [1393]Bodine supposeth the stuttering of some families in Aquitania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause, and that the filth is derived from the water to their bodies. So that they that use filthy, standing, ill-coloured, thick, muddy water, must needs have muddy, ill-coloured, impure, and infirm bodies. And because the body works upon the mind, they shall have grosser understandings, dull, foggy, melancholy spirits, and be really subject to all manner of infirmities. To these noxious simples, we may reduce an infinite number of compound, artificial, made dishes, of which our cooks afford us a great variety, as tailors do fashions in our apparel. Such are [1394]puddings stuffed with blood, or otherwise composed; baked, meats, soused indurate meats, fried and broiled buttered meats; condite, powdered, and over-dried, [1395]all cakes, simnels, buns, cracknels made with butter, spice, &c., fritters, pancakes, pies, sausages, and those several sauces, sharp, or over-sweet, of which scientia popinae, as Seneca calls it, hath served those [1396] Apician tricks, and perfumed dishes, which Adrian the sixth Pope so much admired in the accounts of his predecessor Leo Decimus; and which prodigious riot and prodigality have invented in this age. These do generally engender gross humours, fill the stomach with crudities, and all those inward parts with obstructions. Montanus, consil. 22, gives instance, in a melancholy Jew, that by eating such tart sauces, made dishes, and salt meats, with which he was overmuch delighted, became melancholy, and was evil affected. Such examples are familiar and common. SUBSECT. II.—Quantity of Diet a Cause. There is not so much harm proceeding from the substance itself of meat, and quality of it, in ill-dressing and preparing, as there is from the quantity, disorder of time and place, unseasonable use of it, [1397] intemperance, overmuch, or overlittle taking of it. A true saying it is, Plures crapula quam gladius. This gluttony kills more than the sword, this omnivorantia et homicida gula, this all-devouring and murdering gut. And that of [1398]Pliny is truer, Simple diet is the best; heaping up of several meats is pernicious, and sauces worse; many dishes bring many diseases. [1399]Avicen cries out, That nothing is worse than to feed on many dishes, or to protract the time of meats longer than ordinary; from thence proceed our infirmities, and 'tis the fountain of all diseases, which arise out of the repugnancy of gross humours. Thence, saith [1400] Fernelius, come crudities, wind, oppilations, cacochymia, plethora, cachexia, bradiopepsia, [1401]Hinc subitae, mortes, atque intestata senectus, sudden death, &c., and what not. As a lamp is choked with a multitude of oil, or a little fire with overmuch wood quite extinguished, so is the natural heat with immoderate eating, strangled in the body. Pernitiosa sentina est abdomen insaturabile: one saith, An insatiable paunch is a pernicious sink, and the fountain of all diseases, both of body and mind. [1402]Mercurialis will have it a peculiar cause of this private disease; Solenander, consil. 5. sect. 3, illustrates this of Mercurialis, with an example of one so melancholy, ab intempestivis commessationibus, unseasonable feasting. [1403]Crato confirms as much, in that often cited counsel, 21. lib. 2, putting superfluous eating for a main cause. But what need I seek farther for proofs? Hear [1404]Hippocrates himself, lib. 2. aphor. 10, Impure bodies the more they are nourished, the more they are hurt, for the nourishment is putrefied with vicious humours. And yet for all this harm, which apparently follows surfeiting and drunkenness, see how we luxuriate and rage in this kind; read what Johannes Stuckius hath written lately of this subject, in his great volume De Antiquorum Conviviis, and of our present age; Quam [1405]portentosae coenae, prodigious suppers, [1406]Qui dum invitant ad coenam efferunt ad sepulchrum, what Fagos, Epicures, Apetios, Heliogables, our times afford? Lucullus' ghost walks still, and every man desires to sup in Apollo; Aesop's costly dish is ordinarily served up. [1407]Magis illa juvant, quae pluris emuntur. The dearest cates are best, and 'tis an ordinary thing to bestow twenty or thirty pounds on a dish, some thousand crowns upon a dinner: [1408]Mully-Hamet, king of Fez and Morocco, spent three pounds on the sauce of a capon: it is nothing in our times, we scorn all that is cheap. We loathe the very [1409]light (some of us, as Seneca notes) because it comes free, and we are offended with the sun's heat, and those cool blasts, because we buy them not. This air we breathe is so common, we care not for it; nothing pleaseth but what is dear. And if we be [1410]witty in anything, it is ad gulam: If we study at all, it is erudito luxu, to please the palate, and to satisfy the gut. A cook of old was a base knave (as [1411]Livy complains), but now a great man in request; cookery is become an art, a noble science: cooks are gentlemen: Venter Deus: They wear their brains in their bellies, and their guts in their heads, as [1412]Agrippa taxed some parasites of his time, rushing on their own destruction, as if a man should run upon the point of a sword, usque dum rumpantur comedunt, They eat till they burst: [1413]All day, all night, let the physician say what he will, imminent danger, and feral diseases are now ready to seize upon them, that will eat till they vomit, Edunt ut vomant, vomut ut edant, saith Seneca; which Dion relates of Vitellius, Solo transitu ciborum nutriri judicatus: His meat did pass through and away, or till they burst again. [1414]Strage animantium ventrem onerant, and rake over all the world, as so many [1415]slaves, belly-gods, and land-serpents, Et totus orbis ventri nimis angustus, the whole world cannot satisfy their appetite. [1416]Sea, land, rivers, lakes, &c., may not give content to their raging guts. To make up the mess, what immoderate drinking in every place? Senem potum pota trahebat anus, how they flock to the tavern: as if they were fruges consumere nati, born to no other end but to eat and drink, like Offellius Bibulus, that famous Roman parasite, Qui dum vixit, aut bibit aut minxit; as so many casks to hold wine, yea worse than a cask, that mars wine, and itself is not marred by it, yet these are brave men, Silenus Ebrius was no braver. Et quae fuerunt vitia, mores sunt: 'tis now the fashion of our times, an honour: Nunc vero res ista eo rediit (as Chrysost. serm. 30. in v. Ephes. comments) Ut effeminatae ridendaeque ignaviae loco habeatur, nolle inebriari; 'tis now come to that pass that he is no gentleman, a very milk-sop, a clown, of no bringing up, that will not drink; fit for no company; he is your only gallant that plays it off finest, no disparagement now to stagger in the streets, reel, rave, &c., but much to his fame and renown; as in like case Epidicus told Thesprio his fellow-servant, in the [1417]Poet. Aedipol facinus improbum, one urged, the other replied, At jam alii fecere idem, erit illi illa res honori, 'tis now no fault, there be so many brave examples to bear one out; 'tis a credit to have a strong brain, and carry his liquor well; the sole contention who can drink most, and fox his fellow the soonest. 'Tis the summum bonum of our tradesmen, their felicity, life, and soul, Tanta dulcedine affectant, saith Pliny, lib. 14. cap. 12. Ut magna pars non aliud vitae praemium intelligat, their chief comfort, to be merry together in an alehouse or tavern, as our modern Muscovites do in their mead-inns, and Turks in their coffeehouses, which much resemble our taverns; they will labour hard all day long to be drunk at night, and spend totius anni labores, as St. Ambrose adds, in a tippling feast; convert day into night, as Seneca taxes some in his times, Pervertunt officia anoctis et lucis; when we rise, they commonly go to bed, like our antipodes, Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis, Illis sera rubens ascendit lumina vesper. So did Petronius in Tacitus, Heliogabalus in Lampridius. [1418]———Noctes vigilibat ad ipsum Mane, diem totum stertebat?——— ———He drank the night away Till rising dawn, then snored out all the day. Snymdiris the Sybarite never saw the sun rise or set so much as once in twenty years. Verres, against whom Tully so much inveighs, in winter he never was extra tectum vix extra lectum, never almost out of bed, [1419] still wenching and drinking; so did he spend his time, and so do myriads in our days. They have gymnasia bibonum, schools and rendezvous; these centaurs and Lapithae toss pots and bowls as so many balls; invent new tricks, as sausages, anchovies, tobacco, caviar, pickled oysters, herrings, fumados, &c.: innumerable salt meats to increase their appetite, and study how to hurt themselves by taking antidotes [1420]to carry their drink the better; [1421]and when nought else serves, they will go forth, or be conveyed out, to empty their gorge, that they may return to drink afresh. They make laws, insanas leges, contra bibendi fallacias, and [1422]brag of it when they have done, crowning that man that is soonest gone, as their drunken predecessors have done, —[1423]quid ego video? Ps. Cum corona Pseudolum ebrium tuum—. And when they are dead, will have a can of wine with [1424]Maron's old woman to be engraven on their tombs. So they triumph in villainy, and justify their wickedness; with Rabelais, that French Lucian, drunkenness is better for the body than physic, because there be more old drunkards than old physicians. Many such frothy arguments they have, [1425]inviting and encouraging others to do as they do, and love them dearly for it (no glue like to that of good fellowship). So did Alcibiades in Greece; Nero, Bonosus, Heliogabalus in Rome, or Alegabalus rather, as he was styled of old (as [1426]Ignatius proves out of some old coins). So do many great men still, as [1427]Heresbachius observes. When a prince drinks till his eyes stare, like Bitias in the Poet, [1428]———(ille impiger hausit Spumantem vino pateram.) ———a thirsty soul; He took challenge and embrac'd the bowl; With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceased to draw Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw. and comes off clearly, sound trumpets, fife and drums, the spectators will applaud him, the [1429]bishop himself (if he belie them not) with his chaplain will stand by and do as much, O dignum principe haustum, 'twas done like a prince. Our Dutchmen invite all comers with a pail and a dish, Velut infundibula integras obbas exhauriunt, et in monstrosis poculis, ipsi monstrosi monstrosius epotant, making barrels of their bellies. Incredibile dictu, as [1430]one of their own countrymen complains: [1431]Quantum liquoris immodestissima gens capiat, &c. How they love a man that will be drunk, crown him and honour him for it, hate him that will not pledge him, stab him, kill him: a most intolerable offence, and not to be forgiven. [1432]He is a mortal enemy that will not drink with him, as Munster relates of the Saxons. So in Poland, he is the best servitor, and the honestest fellow, saith Alexander Gaguinus, [1433] that drinketh most healths to the honour of his master, he shall be rewarded as a good servant, and held the bravest fellow that carries his liquor best, when a brewer's horse will bear much more than any sturdy drinker, yet for his noble exploits in this kind, he shall be accounted a most valiant man, for [1434]Tam inter epulas fortis vir esse potest ac in bello, as much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains, and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it. Thus they many times wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, and degenerate into beasts. Some again are in the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their heads by too ceremonious and strict diet, being over-precise, cockney-like, and curious in their observation of meats, times, as that Medicina statica prescribes, just so many ounces at dinner, which Lessius enjoins, so much at supper, not a little more, nor a little less, of such meat, and at such hours, a diet-drink in the morning, cock-broth, China-broth, at dinner, plum-broth, a chicken, a rabbit, rib of a rack of mutton, wing of a capon, the merry-thought of a hen, &c.; to sounder bodies this is too nice and most absurd. Others offend in overmuch fasting: pining adays, saith [1435] Guianerius, and waking anights, as many Moors and Turks in these our times do. Anchorites, monks, and the rest of that superstitious rank (as the same Guianerius witnesseth, that he hath often seen to have happened in his time) through immoderate fasting, have been frequently mad. Of such men belike Hippocrates speaks, l. Aphor. 5, when as he saith, [1436]they more offend in too sparing diet, and are worse damnified, than they that feed liberally, and are ready to surfeit. SUBSECT. III.—Custom of Diet, Delight, Appetite, Necessity, how they cause or hinder. No rule is so general, which admits not some exception; to this, therefore, which hath been hitherto said, (for I shall otherwise put most men out of commons,) and those inconveniences which proceed from the substance of meats, an intemperate or unseasonable use of them, custom somewhat detracts and qualifies, according to that of Hippocrates, 2 Aphoris. 50. [1437] Such things as we have been long accustomed to, though they be evil in their own nature, yet they are less offensive. Otherwise it might well be objected that it were a mere [1438]tyranny to live after those strict rules of physic; for custom [1439]doth alter nature itself, and to such as are used to them it makes bad meats wholesome, and unseasonable times to cause no disorder. Cider and perry are windy drinks, so are all fruits windy in themselves, cold most part, yet in some shires of [1440]England, Normandy in France, Guipuscoa in Spain, 'tis their common drink, and they are no whit offended with it. In Spain, Italy, and Africa, they live most on roots, raw herbs, camel's [1441]milk, and it agrees well with them: which to a stranger will cause much grievance. In Wales, lacticiniis vescuntur, as Humphrey Llwyd confesseth, a Cambro-Briton himself, in his elegant epistle to Abraham Ortelius, they live most on white meats: in Holland on fish, roots, [1442]butter; and so at this day in Greece, as [1443]Bellonius observes, they had much rather feed on fish than flesh. With us, Maxima pars victus in carne consistit, we feed on flesh most part, saith [1444]Polydore Virgil, as all northern countries do; and it would be very offensive to us to live after their diet, or they to live after ours. We drink beer, they wine; they use oil, we butter; we in the north are [1445]great eaters; they most sparing in those hotter countries; and yet they and we following our own customs are well pleased. An Ethiopian of old seeing an European eat bread, wondered, quomodo stercoribus vescentes viverimus, how we could eat such kind of meats: so much differed his countrymen from ours in diet, that as mine [1446]author infers, si quis illorum victum apud nos aemulari vellet; if any man should so feed with us, it would be all one to nourish, as Cicuta, Aconitum, or Hellebore itself. At this day in China the common people live in a manner altogether on roots and herbs, and to the wealthiest, horse, ass, mule, dogs, cat-flesh, is as delightsome as the rest, so [1447]Mat. Riccius the Jesuit relates, who lived many years amongst them. The Tartars eat raw meat, and most commonly [1448]horse-flesh, drink milk and blood, as the nomades of old. Et lac concretum cum sanguine potat equino. They scoff at our Europeans for eating bread, which they call tops of weeds, and horse meat, not fit for men; and yet Scaliger accounts them a sound and witty nation, living a hundred years; even in the civilest country of them they do thus, as Benedict the Jesuit observed in his travels, from the great Mogul's Court by land to Pekin, which Riccius contends to be the same with Cambulu in Cataia. In Scandia their bread is usually dried fish, and so likewise in the Shetland Isles; and their other fare, as in Iceland, saith [1449]Dithmarus Bleskenius, butter, cheese, and fish; their drink water, their lodging on the ground. In America in many places their bread is roots, their meat palmettos, pinas, potatoes, &c., and such fruits. There be of them too that familiarly drink [1450]salt seawater all their lives, eat [1451]raw meat, grass, and that with delight. With some, fish, serpents, spiders: and in divers places they [1452]eat man's flesh, raw and roasted, even the Emperor [1453]Montezuma himself. In some coasts, again, [1454]one tree yields them cocoanuts, meat and drink, fire, fuel, apparel; with his leaves, oil, vinegar, cover for houses, &c., and yet these men going naked, feeding coarse, live commonly a hundred years, are seldom or never sick; all which diet our physicians forbid. In Westphalia they feed most part on fat meats and worts, knuckle deep, and call it [1455]cerebrum Iovis: in the Low Countries with roots, in Italy frogs and snails are used. The Turks, saith Busbequius, delight most in fried meats. In Muscovy, garlic and onions are ordinary meat and sauce, which would be pernicious to such as are unaccustomed to them, delightsome to others; and all is [1456]because they have been brought up unto it. Husbandmen, and such as labour, can eat fat bacon, salt gross meat, hard cheese, &c., (O dura messorum illa), coarse bread at all times, go to bed and labour upon a full stomach, which to some idle persons would be present death, and is against the rules of physic, so that custom is all in all. Our travellers find this by common experience when they come in far countries, and use their diet, they are suddenly offended, [1457]as our Hollanders and Englishmen when they touch upon the coasts of Africa, those Indian capes and islands, are commonly molested with calentures, fluxes, and much distempered by reason of their fruits. [1458]Peregrina, etsi suavia solent vescentibus perturbationes insignes adferre, strange meats, though pleasant, cause notable alterations and distempers. On the other side, use or custom mitigates or makes all good again. Mithridates by often use, which Pliny wonders at, was able to drink poison; and a maid, as Curtius records, sent to Alexander from King Porus, was brought up with poison from her infancy. The Turks, saith Bellonius, lib. 3. c. 15, eat opium familiarly, a dram at once, which we dare not take in grains. [1459]Garcias ab Horto writes of one whom he saw at Goa in the East Indies, that took ten drams of opium in three days; and yet consulto loquebatur, spake understandingly, so much can custom do. [1460] Theophrastus speaks of a shepherd that could eat hellebore in substance. And therefore Cardan concludes out of Galen, Consuetudinem utcunque ferendam, nisi valde malam. Custom is howsoever to be kept, except it be extremely bad: he adviseth all men to keep their old customs, and that by the authority of [1461]Hippocrates himself, Dandum aliquid tempori, aetati regioni, consuetudini, and therefore to [1462]continue as they began, be it diet, bath, exercise, &c., or whatsoever else. Another exception is delight, or appetite, to such and such meats: though they be hard of digestion, melancholy; yet as Fuchsius excepts, cap. 6. lib. 2. Instit. sect. 2, [1463]The stomach doth readily digest, and willingly entertain such meats we love most, and are pleasing to us, abhors on the other side such as we distaste. Which Hippocrates confirms, Aphoris. 2. 38. Some cannot endure cheese, out of a secret antipathy; or to see a roasted duck, which to others is a [1464]delightsome meat. The last exception is necessity, poverty, want, hunger, which drives men many times to do that which otherwise they are loath, cannot endure, and thankfully to accept of it: as beverage in ships, and in sieges of great cities, to feed on dogs, cats, rats, and men themselves. Three outlaws in [1465]Hector Boethius, being driven to their shifts, did eat raw flesh, and flesh of such fowl as they could catch, in one of the Hebrides for some few months. These things do mitigate or disannul that which hath been said of melancholy meats, and make it more tolerable; but to such as are wealthy, live plenteously, at ease, may take their choice, and refrain if they will, these viands are to be forborne, if they be inclined to, or suspect melancholy, as they tender their healths: Otherwise if they be intemperate, or disordered in their diet, at their peril be it. Qui monet amat, Ave et cave. He who advises is your friend Farewell, and to your health attend. SUBSECT. IV.—Retention and Evacuation a cause, and how. Of retention and evacuation, there be divers kinds, which are either concomitant, assisting, or sole causes many times of melancholy. [1466] Galen reduceth defect and abundance to this head; others [1467]All that is separated, or remains. Costiveness.] In the first rank of these, I may well reckon up costiveness, and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which as it often causeth other diseases, so this of melancholy in particular. [1468]Celsus, lib. 1. cap. 3, saith, It produceth inflammation of the head, dullness, cloudiness, headache, &c. Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra bile, will have it distemper not the organ only, [1469]but the mind itself by troubling of it: and sometimes it is a sole cause of madness, as you may read in the first book of [1470]Skenkius's Medicinal Observations. A young merchant going to Nordeling fair in Germany, for ten days' space never went to stool; at his return he was [1471]grievously melancholy, thinking that he was robbed, and would not be persuaded but that all his money was gone; his friends thought he had some philtrum given him, but Cnelius, a physician, being sent for, found his [1472]costiveness alone to be the cause, and thereupon gave him a clyster, by which he was speedily recovered. Trincavellius, consult. 35. lib. 1, saith as much of a melancholy lawyer, to whom he administered physic, and Rodericus a Fonseca, consult. 85. tom. 2, [1473]of a patient of his, that for eight days was bound, and therefore melancholy affected. Other retentions and evacuations there are, not simply necessary, but at some times; as Fernelius accounts them, Path. lib. 1. cap. 15, as suppression of haemorrhoids, monthly issues in women, bleeding at nose, immoderate or no use at all of Venus: or any other ordinary issues. [1474]Detention of haemorrhoids, or monthly issues, Villanovanus Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis, Vittorius Faventinus, pract. mag. tract. 2. cap. 15. Bruel, &c. put for ordinary causes. Fuchsius, l. 2. sect. 5. c. 30, goes farther, and saith, [1475]That many men unseasonably cured of the haemorrhoids have been corrupted with melancholy, seeking to avoid Scylla, they fall into Charybdis. Galen, l. de hum. commen. 3. ad text. 26, illustrates this by an example of Lucius Martius, whom he cured of madness, contracted by this means: And [1476] Skenkius hath two other instances of two melancholy and mad women, so caused from the suppression of their months. The same may be said of bleeding at the nose, if it be suddenly stopped, and have been formerly used, as [1477]Villanovanus urgeth: And [1478]Fuchsius, lib. 2. sect. 5. cap. 33, stiffly maintains, That without great danger, such an issue may not be stayed. Venus omitted produceth like effects. Mathiolus, epist. 5. l. penult., [1479]avoucheth of his knowledge, that some through bashfulness abstained from venery, and thereupon became very heavy and dull; and some others that were very timorous, melancholy, and beyond all measure sad. Oribasius, med. collect. l. 6. c. 37, speaks of some, [1480]That if they do not use carnal copulation, are continually troubled with heaviness and headache; and some in the same case by intermission of it. Not use of it hurts many, Arculanus, c. 6. in 9. Rhasis, et Magninus, part. 3. cap. 5, think, because it [1481]sends up poisoned vapours to the brain and heart. And so doth Galen himself hold, That if this natural seed be over-long kept (in some parties) it turns to poison. Hieronymus Mercurialis, in his chapter of melancholy, cites it for an especial cause of this malady, [1482]priapismus, satyriasis, &c. Haliabbas, 5. Theor. c. 36, reckons up this and many other diseases. Villanovanus Breviar. l. 1. c. 18, saith, He knew [1483]many monks and widows grievously troubled with melancholy, and that from this sole cause. [1484]Ludovicus Mercatus, l. 2. de mulierum affect. cap. 4, and Rodericus a Castro, de morbis mulier. l. 2. c. 3, treat largely of this subject, and will have it produce a peculiar kind of melancholy in stale maids, nuns, and widows, Ob suppressionem mensium et venerem omissam, timidae, moestae anxiae, verecundae, suspicioscae, languentes, consilii inopes, cum summa vitae et rerum meliorum desperatione, &c., they are melancholy in the highest degree, and all for want of husbands. Aelianus Montaltus, cap. 37. de melanchol., confirms as much out of Galen; so doth Wierus, Christophorus a Vega de art. med. lib. 3. c. 14, relates many such examples of men and women, that he had seen so melancholy. Felix Plater in the first book of his Observations, [1485]tells a story of an ancient gentleman in Alsatia, that married a young wife, and was not able to pay his debts in that kind for a long time together, by reason of his several infirmities: but she, because of this inhibition of Venus, fell into a horrible fury, and desired every one that came to see her, by words, looks, and gestures, to have to do with her, &c. [1486]Bernardus Paternus, a physician, saith, He knew a good honest godly priest, that because he would neither willingly marry, nor make use of the stews, fell into grievous melancholy fits. Hildesheim, spicel. 2, hath such another example of an Italian melancholy priest, in a consultation had Anno 1580. Jason Pratensis gives instance in a married man, that from his wife's death abstaining, [1487]after marriage, became exceedingly melancholy, Rodericus a Fonseca in a young man so misaffected, Tom. 2. consult. 85. To these you may add, if you please, that conceited tale of a Jew, so visited in like sort, and so cured, out of Poggius Florentinus. Intemperate Venus is all but as bad in the other extreme. Galen, l. 6. de mortis popular. sect. 5. text. 26, reckons up melancholy amongst those diseases which are [1488]exasperated by venery: so doth Avicenna, 2, 3, c. 11. Oribasius, loc. citat. Ficinus, lib. 2. de sanitate tuenda. Marsilius Cognatus, Montaltus, cap. 27. Guianerius, Tract. 3. cap. 2. Magninus, cap. 5. part. 3. [1489]gives the reason, because [1490]it infrigidates and dries up the body, consumes the spirits; and would therefore have all such as are cold and dry to take heed of and to avoid it as a mortal enemy. Jacchinus in 9 Rhasis, cap. 15, ascribes the same cause, and instanceth in a patient of his, that married a young wife in a hot summer, [1491]and so dried himself with chamber-work, that he became in short space from melancholy, mad: he cured him by moistening remedies. The like example I find in Laelius a Fonte Eugubinus, consult. 129, of a gentleman of Venice, that upon the same occasion was first melancholy, afterwards mad. Read in him the story at large. Any other evacuation stopped will cause it, as well as these above named, be it bile, [1492]ulcer, issue, &c. Hercules de Saxonia, lib. 1. c. 16, and Gordonius, verify this out of their experience. They saw one wounded in the head who as long as the sore was open, Lucida habuit mentis intervalla, was well; but when it was stopped, Rediit melancholia, his melancholy fit seized on him again. Artificial evacuations are much like in effect, as hot houses, baths, bloodletting, purging, unseasonably and immoderately used. [1493]Baths dry too much, if used in excess, be they natural or artificial, and offend extreme hot, or cold; [1494]one dries, the other refrigerates overmuch. Montanus, consil. 137, saith, they overheat the liver. Joh. Struthius, Stigmat. artis. l. 4. c. 9, contends, [1495]that if one stay longer than ordinary at the bath, go in too oft, or at unseasonable times, he putrefies the humours in his body. To this purpose writes Magninus, l. 3. c. 5. Guianerius, Tract. 15. c. 21, utterly disallows all hot baths in melancholy adust. [1496]I saw (saith he) a man that laboured of the gout, who to be freed of this malady came to the bath, and was instantly cured of his disease, but got another worse, and that was madness. But this judgment varies as the humour doth, in hot or cold: baths may be good for one melancholy man, bad for another; that which will cure it in this party, may cause it in a second. Phlebotomy.] Phlebotomy, many times neglected, may do much harm to the body, when there is a manifest redundance of bad humours, and melancholy blood; and when these humours heat and boil, if this be not used in time, the parties affected, so inflamed, are in great danger to be mad; but if it be unadvisedly, importunely, immoderately used, it doth as much harm by refrigerating the body, dulling the spirits, and consuming them: as Joh. [1497]Curio in his 10th chapter well reprehends, such kind of letting blood doth more hurt than good: [1498]The humours rage much more than they did before, and is so far from avoiding melancholy, that it increaseth it, and weakeneth the sight. [1499]Prosper Calenus observes as much of all phlebotomy, except they keep a very good diet after it; yea, and as [1500]Leonartis Jacchinus speaks out of his own experience, [1501]The blood is much blacker to many men after their letting of blood than it was at first. For this cause belike Salust. Salvinianus, l. 2. c. 1, will admit or hear of no bloodletting at all in this disease, except it be manifest it proceed from blood: he was (it appears) by his own words in that place, master of an hospital of mad men, [1502]and found by long experience, that this kind of evacuation, either in head, arm, or any other part, did more harm than good. To this opinion of his, [1503]Felix Plater is quite opposite, though some wink at, disallow and quite contradict all phlebotomy in melancholy, yet by long experience I have found innumerable so saved, after they had been twenty, nay, sixty times let blood, and to live happily after it. It was an ordinary thing of old, in Galen's time, to take at once from such men six pounds of blood, which now we dare scarce take in ounces: sed viderint medici; great books are written of this subject. Purging upward and downward, in abundance of bad humours omitted, may be for the worst; so likewise as in the precedent, if overmuch, too frequent or violent, it [1504]weakeneth their strength, saith Fuchsius, l. 2. sect., 2 c. 17, or if they be strong or able to endure physic, yet it brings them to an ill habit, they make their bodies no better than apothecaries' shops, this and such like infirmities must needs follow. SUBSECT. V.—Bad Air, a cause of Melancholy. Air is a cause of great moment, in producing this, or any other disease, being that it is still taken into our bodies by respiration, and our more inner parts. [1505]If it be impure and foggy, it dejects the spirits, and causeth diseases by infection of the heart, as Paulus hath it, lib. 1. c. 49. Avicenna, lib. 1. Gal. de san. tuenda. Mercurialis, Montaltus, &c. [1506]Fernelius saith, A thick air thickeneth the blood and humours. [1507]Lemnius reckons up two main things most profitable, and most pernicious to our bodies; air and diet: and this peculiar disease, nothing sooner causeth [1508](Jobertus holds) than the air wherein we breathe and live. [1509]Such as is the air, such be our spirits; and as our spirits, such are our humours. It offends commonly if it be too [1510]hot and dry, thick, fuliginous, cloudy, blustering, or a tempestuous air. Bodine in his fifth Book, De repub. cap. 1, 5, of his Method of History, proves that hot countries are most troubled with melancholy, and that there are therefore in Spain, Africa, and Asia Minor, great numbers of mad men, insomuch that they are compelled in all cities of note, to build peculiar hospitals for them. Leo [1511]Afer, lib. 3. de Fessa urbe, Ortelius and Zuinger, confirm as much: they are ordinarily so choleric in their speeches, that scarce two words pass without railing or chiding in common talk, and often quarrelling in their streets. [1512]Gordonius will have every man take notice of it: Note this (saith he) that in hot countries it is far more familiar than in cold. Although this we have now said be not continually so, for as [1513]Acosta truly saith, under the Equator itself, is a most temperate habitation, wholesome air, a paradise of pleasure: the leaves ever green, cooling showers. But it holds in such as are intemperately hot, as [1514]Johannes a Meggen found in Cyprus, others in Malta, Aupulia, and the [1515]Holy Land, where at some seasons of the year is nothing but dust, their rivers dried up, the air scorching hot, and earth inflamed; insomuch that many pilgrims going barefoot for devotion sake, from Joppa to Jerusalem upon the hot sands, often run mad, or else quite overwhelmed with sand, profundis arenis, as in many parts of Africa, Arabia Deserta, Bactriana, now Charassan, when the west wind blows [1516]Involuti arenis transeuntes necantur. [1517]Hercules de Saxonia, a professor in Venice, gives this cause why so many Venetian women are melancholy, Quod diu sub sole degant, they tarry too long in the sun. Montanus, consil. 21, amongst other causes assigns this; Why that Jew his patient was mad, Quod tam multum exposuit se calori et frigori: he exposed himself so much to heat and cold, and for that reason in Venice, there is little stirring in those brick paved streets in summer about noon, they are most part then asleep: as they are likewise in the great Mogol's countries, and all over the East Indies. At Aden in Arabia, as [1518] Lodovicus Vertomannus relates in his travels, they keep their markets in the night, to avoid extremity of heat; and in Ormus, like cattle in a pasture, people of all sorts lie up to the chin in water all day long. At Braga in Portugal; Burgos in Castile; Messina in Sicily, all over Spain and Italy, their streets are most part narrow, to avoid the sunbeams. The Turks wear great turbans ad fugandos solis radios, to refract the sunbeams; and much inconvenience that hot air of Bantam in Java yields to our men, that sojourn there for traffic; where it is so hot, [1519]that they that are sick of the pox, lie commonly bleaching in the sun, to dry up their sores. Such a complaint I read of those isles of Cape Verde, fourteen degrees from the Equator, they do male audire: [1520]One calls them the unhealthiest clime of the world, for fluxes, fevers, frenzies, calentures, which commonly seize on seafaring men that touch at them, and all by reason of a hot distemperature of the air. The hardiest men are offended with this heat, and stiffest clowns cannot resist it, as Constantine affirms, Agricult. l. 2. c. 45. They that are naturally born in such air, may not [1521]endure it, as Niger records of some part of Mesopotamia, now called Diarbecha: Quibusdam in locis saevienti aestui adeo subjecta est, ut pleraque animalia fervore solis et coeli extinguantur, 'tis so hot there in some places, that men of the country and cattle are killed with it; and [1522]Adricomius of Arabia Felix, by reason of myrrh, frankincense, and hot spices there growing, the air is so obnoxious to their brains, that the very inhabitants at some times cannot abide it, much less weaklings and strangers. [1523]Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 1. curat. 45, reports of a young maid, that was one Vincent a currier's daughter, some thirteen years of age, that would wash her hair in the heat of the day (in July) and so let it dry in the sun, [1524]to make it yellow, but by that means tarrying too long in the heat, she inflamed her head, and made herself mad. Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot, and so doth Montaltus esteem of it, c. 11, if it be dry withal. In those northern countries, the people are therefore generally dull, heavy, and many witches, which (as I have before quoted) Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus, Baptista Porta ascribe to melancholy. But these cold climes are more subject to natural melancholy (not this artificial) which is cold and dry: for which cause [1525]Mercurius Britannicus belike puts melancholy men to inhabit just under the Pole. The worst of the three is a [1526]thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air, or such as come from fens, moorish grounds, lakes, muck-hills, draughts, sinks, where any carcasses, or carrion lies, or from whence any stinking fulsome smell comes: Galen, Avicenna, Mercurialis, new and old physicians, hold that such air is unwholesome, and engenders melancholy, plagues, and what not? [1527]Alexandretta, an haven-town in the Mediterranean Sea, Saint John de Ulloa, an haven in Nova-Hispania, are much condemned for a bad air, so are Durazzo in Albania, Lithuania, Ditmarsh, Pomptinae Paludes in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Ferrara, &c. Romney Marsh with us; the Hundreds in Essex, the fens in Lincolnshire. Cardan, de rerum varietate, l. 17, c. 96, finds fault with the sight of those rich, and most populous cities in the Low Countries, as Bruges, Ghent, Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, &c. the air is bad; and so at Stockholm in Sweden; Regium in Italy, Salisbury with us, Hull and Lynn: they may be commodious for navigation, this new kind of fortification, and many other good necessary uses; but are they so wholesome? Old Rome hath descended from the hills to the valley, 'tis the site of most of our new cities, and held best to build in plains, to take the opportunity of rivers. Leander Albertus pleads hard for the air and site of Venice, though the black moorish lands appear at every low water: the sea, fire, and smoke (as he thinks) qualify the air; and [1528]some suppose, that a thick foggy air helps the memory, as in them of Pisa in Italy; and our Camden, out of Plato, commends the site of Cambridge, because it is so near the fens. But let the site of such places be as it may, how can they be excused that have a delicious seat, a pleasant air, and all that nature can afford, and yet through their own nastiness, and sluttishness, immund and sordid manner of life, suffer their air to putrefy, and themselves to be chocked up? Many cities in Turkey do male audire in this kind: Constantinople itself, where commonly carrion lies in the street. Some find the same fault in Spain, even in Madrid, the king's seat, a most excellent air, a pleasant site; but the inhabitants are slovens, and the streets uncleanly kept. A troublesome tempestuous air is as bad as impure, rough and foul weather, impetuous winds, cloudy dark days, as it is commonly with us, Coelum visu foedum, [1529]Polydore calls it a filthy sky, et in quo facile generantur nubes; as Tully's brother Quintus wrote to him in Rome, being then quaestor in Britain. In a thick and cloudy air (saith Lemnius) men are tetric, sad, and peevish: And if the western winds blow, and that there be a calm, or a fair sunshine day, there is a kind of alacrity in men's minds; it cheers up men and beasts: but if it be a turbulent, rough, cloudy, stormy weather, men are sad, lumpish, and much dejected, angry, waspish, dull, and melancholy. This was [1530]Virgil's experiment of old, Verum ubi tempestas, et coeli mobilis humor Mutavere vices, et Jupiter humidus Austro, Vertuntur species animorum, et pectore motus Concipiunt alios——— But when the face of Heaven changed is To tempests, rain, from season fair: Our minds are altered, and in our breasts Forthwith some new conceits appear. And who is not weather-wise against such and such conjunctions of planets, moved in foul weather, dull and heavy in such tempestuous seasons? [1531] Gelidum contristat Aquarius annum: the time requires, and the autumn breeds it; winter is like unto it, ugly, foul, squalid, the air works on all men, more or less, but especially on such as are melancholy, or inclined to it, as Lemnius holds, [1532]They are most moved with it, and those which are already mad, rave downright, either in, or against a tempest. Besides, the devil many times takes his opportunity of such storms, and when the humours by the air be stirred, he goes in with them, exagitates our spirits, and vexeth our souls; as the sea waves, so are the spirits and humours in our bodies tossed with tempestuous winds and storms. To such as are melancholy therefore, Montanus, consil. 24, will have tempestuous and rough air to be avoided, and consil. 27, all night air, and would not have them to walk abroad, but in a pleasant day. Lemnius, l. 3. c. 3, discommends the south and eastern winds, commends the north. Montanus, consil. 31. [1533]Will not any windows to be opened in the night. Consil. 229. et consil. 230, he discommends especially the south wind, and nocturnal air: So doth [1534]Plutarch. The night and darkness makes men sad, the like do all subterranean vaults, dark houses in caves and rocks, desert places cause melancholy in an instant, especially such as have not been used to it, or otherwise accustomed. Read more of air in Hippocrates, Aetius, l. 3. a c. 171. ad 175. Oribasius, a c. 1. ad 21. Avicen. l. 1. can. Fen. 2. doc. 2. Fen. 1. c. 123 to the 12, &c. SUBSECT. VI.—Immoderate Exercise a cause, and how. Solitariness, Idleness. Nothing so good but it may be abused: nothing better than exercise (if opportunely used) for the preservation of the body: nothing so bad if it be unseasonable. violent, or overmuch. Fernelius out of Galen, Path. lib. 1. c. 16, saith, [1535]That much exercise and weariness consumes the spirits and substance, refrigerates the body; and such humours which Nature would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up and makes them rage: which being so enraged, diversely affect and trouble the body and mind. So doth it, if it be unseasonably used, upon a full stomach, or when the body is full of crudities, which Fuchsius so much inveighs against, lib. 2. instit. sec. 2. c. 4, giving that for a cause, why schoolboys in Germany are so often scabbed, because they use exercise presently after meats. [1536]Bayerus puts in a caveat against such exercise, because it [1537]corrupts the meat in the stomach, and carries the same juice raw, and as yet undigested, into the veins (saith Lemnius), which there putrefies and confounds the animal spirits. Crato, consil. 21. l. 2, [1538]protests against all such exercise after meat, as being the greatest enemy to concoction that may be, and cause of corruption of humours, which produce this, and many other diseases. Not without good reason then doth Salust. Salvianus, l. 2. c. 1, and Leonartus Jacchinus, in 9. Rhasis, Mercurialis, Arcubanus, and many other, set down [1539]immoderate exercise as a most forcible cause of melancholy. Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies, the devil's cushion, as [1540]Gualter calls it, his pillow and chief reposal. For the mind can never rest, but still meditates on one thing or other, except it be occupied about some honest business, of his own accord it rusheth into melancholy. [1541]As too much and violent exercise offends on the one side, so doth an idle life on the other (saith Crato), it fills the body full of phlegm, gross humours, and all manner of obstructions, rheums, catarrhs, &c. Rhasis, cont. lib. 1. tract. 9, accounts of it as the greatest cause of melancholy. [1542]I have often seen (saith he) that idleness begets this humour more than anything else. Montaltus, c. 1, seconds him out of his experience, [1543]They that are idle are far more subject to melancholy than such as are conversant or employed about any office or business. [1544]Plutarch reckons up idleness for a sole cause of the sickness of the soul: There are they (saith he) troubled in mind, that have no other cause but this. Homer, Iliad. 1, brings in Achilles eating of his own heart in his idleness, because he might not fight. Mercurialis, consil. 86, for a melancholy young man urgeth, [1545]it as a chief cause; why was he melancholy? because idle. Nothing begets it sooner, increaseth and continueth it oftener than idleness.[1546]A disease familiar to all idle persons, an inseparable companion to such as live at ease, Pingui otio desidiose agentes, a life out of action, and have no calling or ordinary employment to busy themselves about, that have small occasions; and though they have, such is their laziness, dullness, they will not compose themselves to do aught; they cannot abide work, though it be necessary; easy as to dress themselves, write a letter, or the like; yet as he that is benumbed with cold sits still shaking, that might relieve himself with a little exercise or stirring, do they complain, but will not use the facile and ready means to do themselves good; and so are still tormented with melancholy. Especially if they have been formerly brought up to business, or to keep much company, and upon a sudden come to lead a sedentary life; it crucifies their souls, and seizeth on them in an instant; for whilst they are any ways employed, in action, discourse, about any business, sport or recreation, or in company to their liking, they are very well; but if alone or idle, tormented instantly again; one day's solitariness, one hour's sometimes, doth them more harm, than a week's physic, labour, and company can do good. Melancholy seizeth on them forthwith being alone, and is such a torture, that as wise Seneca well saith, Malo mihi male quam molliter esse, I had rather be sick than idle. This idleness is either of body or mind. That of body is nothing but a kind of benumbing laziness, intermitting exercise, which, if we may believe [1547]Fernelius, causeth crudities, obstructions, excremental humours, quencheth the natural heat, dulls the spirits, and makes them unapt to do any thing whatsoever. [1548]Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris. ———for, a neglected field Shall for the fire its thorns and thistles yield. As fern grows in untilled grounds, and all manner of weeds, so do gross humours in an idle body, Ignavum corrumpunt otia corpus. A horse in a stable that never travels, a hawk in a mew that seldom flies, are both subject to diseases; which left unto themselves, are most free from any such encumbrances. An idle dog will be mangy, and how shall an idle person think to escape? Idleness of the mind is much worse than this of the body; wit without employment is a disease [1549]Aerugo animi, rubigo ingenii: the rust of the soul, [1550]a plague, a hell itself, Maximum animi nocumentum, Galen, calls it. [1551]As in a standing pool, worms and filthy creepers increase, (et vitium capiunt ni moveantur aquae, the water itself putrefies, and air likewise, if it be not continually stirred by the wind) so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an idle person, the soul is contaminated. In a commonwealth, where is no public enemy, there is likely civil wars, and they rage upon themselves: this body of ours, when it is idle, and knows not how to bestow itself, macerates and vexeth itself with cares, griefs, false fears, discontents, and suspicions; it tortures and preys upon his own bowels, and is never at rest. Thus much I dare boldly say; he or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy, let them have all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire, all contentment, so long as he or she or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in body and mind, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else earned away with some foolish phantasy or other. And this is the true cause that so many great men, ladies, and gentlewomen, labour of this disease in country and city; for idleness is an appendix to nobility; they count it a disgrace to work, and spend all their days in sports, recreations, and pastimes, and will therefore take no pains; be of no vocation: they feed liberally, fare well, want exercise, action, employment, (for to work, I say, they may not abide,) and Company to their desires, and thence their bodies become full of gross humours, wind, crudities; their minds disquieted, dull, heavy, &c. care, jealousy, fear of some diseases, sullen fits, weeping fits seize too [1552]familiarly on them. For what will not fear and phantasy work in an idle body? what distempers will they not cause? when the children of [1553] Israel murmured against Pharaoh in Egypt, he commanded his officers to double their task, and let them get straw themselves, and yet make their full number of bricks; for the sole cause why they mutiny, and are evil at ease, is, they are idle. When you shall hear and see so many discontented persons in all places where you come, so many several grievances, unnecessary complaints, fears, suspicions, [1554]the best means to redress it is to set them awork, so to busy their minds; for the truth is, they are idle. Well they may build castles in the air for a time, and sooth up themselves with fantastical and pleasant humours, but in the end they will prove as bitter as gall, they shall be still I say discontent, suspicious, [1555]fearful, jealous, sad, fretting and vexing of themselves; so long as they be idle, it is impossible to please them, Otio qui nescit uti, plus habet negotii quam qui negotium in negotio, as that [1556]Agellius could observe: He that knows not how to spend his time, hath more business, care, grief, anguish of mind, than he that is most busy in the midst of all his business. Otiosus animus nescit quid volet: An idle person (as he follows it) knows not when he is well, what he would have, or whither he would go, Quum illuc ventum est, illinc lubet, he is tired out with everything, displeased with all, weary of his life: Nec bene domi, nec militiae, neither at home nor abroad, errat, et praeter vitam vivitur, he wanders and lives besides himself. In a word, What the mischievous effects of laziness and idleness are, I do not find any where more accurately expressed, than in these verses of Philolaches in the [1557]Comical Poet, which for their elegancy I will in part insert. Novarum aedium esse arbitror similem ego hominem, Quando hic natus est: Ei rei argumenta dicam. Aedes quando sunt ad amussim expolitae, Quisque laudat fabrum, atque exemplum expetit, &c. At ubi illo migrat nequam homo indiligensque, &c. Tempestas venit, confringit tegulas, imbricesque, Putrifacit aer operam fabri, &c. Dicam ut homines similes esse aedium arbitremini, Fabri parentes fundamentum substruunt liberorum, Expoliunt, docent literas, nec parcunt sumptui, Ego autem sub fabrorum potestate frugi fui, Postquam autem migravi in ingenium meum, Perdidi operam fabrorum illico oppido, Venit ignavia, ea mihi tempestas fuit, Adventuque suo grandinem et imbrem attulit, Illa mihi virtutem deturbavit, &c. A young man is like a fair new house, the carpenter leaves it well built, in good repair, of solid stuff; but a bad tenant lets it rain in, and for want of reparation, fall to decay, &c. Our parents, tutors, friends, spare no cost to bring us up in our youth, in all manner of virtuous education; but when we are left to ourselves, idleness as a tempest drives all virtuous motions out of our minds, et nihili sumus, on a sudden, by sloth and such bad ways, we come to nought. Cousin german to idleness, and a concomitant cause, which goes hand in hand with it, is [1558]nimia solitudo, too much solitariness, by the testimony of all physicians, cause and symptom both; but as it is here put for a cause, it is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary. Enforced solitariness is commonly seen in students, monks, friars, anchorites, that by their order and course of life must abandon all company, society of other men, and betake themselves to a private cell: Otio superstitioso seclusi, as Bale and Hospinian well term it, such as are the Carthusians of our time, that eat no flesh (by their order), keep perpetual silence, never go abroad. Such as live in prison, or some desert place, and cannot have company, as many of our country gentlemen do in solitary houses, they must either be alone without companions, or live beyond their means, and entertain all comers as so many hosts, or else converse with their servants and hinds, such as are unequal, inferior to them, and of a contrary disposition: or else as some do, to avoid solitariness, spend their time with lewd fellows in taverns, and in alehouses, and thence addict themselves to some unlawful disports, or dissolute courses. Divers again are cast upon this rock of solitariness for want of means, or out of a strong apprehension of some infirmity, disgrace, or through bashfulness, rudeness, simplicity, they cannot apply themselves to others' company. Nullum solum infelici gratius solitudine, ubi nullus sit qui miseriam exprobret; this enforced solitariness takes place, and produceth his effect soonest in such as have spent their time jovially, peradventure in all honest recreations, in good company, in some great family or populous city, and are upon a sudden confined to a desert country cottage far off, restrained of their liberty, and barred from their ordinary associates; solitariness is very irksome to such, most tedious, and a sudden cause of great inconvenience. Voluntary solitariness is that which is familiar with melancholy, and gently brings on like a Siren, a shoeing-horn, or some sphinx to this irrevocable gulf, [1559]a primary cause, Piso calls it; most pleasant it is at first, to such as are melancholy given, to lie in bed whole days, and keep their chambers, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject, which shall affect them most; amabilis insania, et mentis gratissimus error: a most incomparable delight it is so to melancholise, and build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose and strongly imagine they represent, or that they see acted or done: Blandae quidem ab initio, saith Lemnius, to conceive and meditate of such pleasant things, sometimes, [1560]present, past, or to come, as Rhasis speaks. So delightsome these toys are at first, they could spend whole days and nights without sleep, even whole years alone in such contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which are like unto dreams, and they will hardly be drawn from them, or willingly interrupt, so pleasant their vain conceits are, that they hinder their ordinary tasks and necessary business, they cannot address themselves to them, or almost to any study or employment, these fantastical and bewitching thoughts so covertly, so feelingly, so urgently, so continually set upon, creep in, insinuate, possess, overcome, distract, and detain them, they cannot, I say, go about their more necessary business, stave off or extricate themselves, but are ever musing, melancholising, and carried along, as he (they say) that is led round about a heath with a Puck in the night, they run earnestly on in this labyrinth of anxious and solicitous melancholy meditations, and cannot well or willingly refrain, or easily leave off, winding and unwinding themselves, as so many clocks, and still pleasing their humours, until at last the scene is turned upon a sudden, by some bad object, and they being now habituated to such vain meditations and solitary places, can endure no company, can ruminate of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects. Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrusticus pudor, discontent, cares, and weariness of life surprise them in a moment, and they can think of nothing else, continually suspecting, no sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, representing some dismal object to their minds, which now by no means, no labour, no persuasions they can avoid, haeret lateri lethalis arundo, (the arrow of death still remains in the side), they may not be rid of it, [1561]they cannot resist. I may not deny but that there is some profitable meditation, contemplation, and kind of solitariness to be embraced, which the fathers so highly commended, [1562] Hierom, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Austin, in whole tracts, which Petrarch, Erasmus, Stella, and others, so much magnify in their books; a paradise, a heaven on earth, if it be used aright, good for the body, and better for the soul: as many of those old monks used it, to divine contemplations, as Simulus, a courtier in Adrian's time, Diocletian the emperor, retired themselves, &c., in that sense, Vatia solus scit vivere, Vatia lives alone, which the Romans were wont to say, when they commended a country life. Or to the bettering of their knowledge, as Democritus, Cleanthes, and those excellent philosophers have ever done, to sequester themselves from the tumultuous world, or as in Pliny's villa Laurentana, Tully's Tusculan, Jovius' study, that they might better vacare studiis et Deo, serve God, and follow their studies. Methinks, therefore, our too zealous innovators were not so well advised in that general subversion of abbeys and religious houses, promiscuously to fling down all; they might have taken away those gross abuses crept in amongst them, rectified such inconveniences, and not so far to have raved and raged against those fair buildings, and everlasting monuments of our forefathers' devotion, consecrated to pious uses; some monasteries and collegiate cells might have been well spared, and their revenues otherwise employed, here and there one, in good towns or cities at least, for men and women of all sorts and conditions to live in, to sequester themselves from the cares and tumults of the world, that were not desirous, or fit to marry; or otherwise willing to be troubled with common affairs, and know not well where to bestow themselves, to live apart in, for more conveniency, good education, better company sake, to follow their studies (I say), to the perfection of arts and sciences, common good, and as some truly devoted monks of old had done, freely and truly to serve God. For these men are neither solitary, nor idle, as the poet made answer to the husbandman in Aesop, that objected idleness to him; he was never so idle as in his company; or that Scipio Africanus in [1563]Tully, Nunquam minus solus, quam cum solus; nunquam minus otiosus, quam quum esset otiosus; never less solitary, than when he was alone, never more busy, than when he seemed to be most idle. It is reported by Plato in his dialogue de Amore, in that prodigious commendation of Socrates, how a deep meditation coming into Socrates' mind by chance, he stood still musing, eodem vestigio cogitabundus, from morning to noon, and when as then he had not yet finished his meditation, perstabat cogitans, he so continued till the evening, the soldiers (for he then followed the camp) observed him with admiration, and on set purpose watched all night, but he persevered immovable ad exhortim solis, till the sun rose in the morning, and then saluting the sun, went his ways. In what humour constant Socrates did thus, I know not, or how he might be affected, but this would be pernicious to another man; what intricate business might so really possess him, I cannot easily guess; but this is otiosum otium, it is far otherwise with these men, according to Seneca, Omnia nobis mala solitudo persuadet; this solitude undoeth us, pugnat cum vita sociali; 'tis a destructive solitariness. These men are devils alone, as the saying is, Homo solus aut Deus, aut Daemon: a man alone, is either a saint or a devil, mens ejus aut languescit, aut tumescit; and [1564]Vae soli in this sense, woe be to him that is so alone. These wretches do frequently degenerate from men, and of sociable creatures become beasts, monsters, inhumane, ugly to behold, Misanthropi; they do even loathe themselves, and hate the company of men, as so many Timons, Nebuchadnezzars, by too much indulging to these pleasing humours, and through their own default. So that which Mercurialis, consil. 11, sometimes expostulated with his melancholy patient, may be justly applied to every solitary and idle person in particular. [1565]Natura de te videtur conqueri posse, &c. Nature may justly complain of thee, that whereas she gave thee a good wholesome temperature, a sound body, and God hath given thee so divine and excellent a soul, so many good parts, and profitable gifts, thou hast not only contemned and rejected, but hast corrupted them, polluted them, overthrown their temperature, and perverted those gifts with riot, idleness, solitariness, and many other ways, thou art a traitor to God and nature, an enemy to thyself and to the world. Perditio tua ex te; thou hast lost thyself wilfully, cast away thyself, thou thyself art the efficient cause of thine own misery, by not resisting such vain cogitations, but giving way unto them. SUBSECT. VII.—Sleeping and Waking, Causes. What I have formerly said of exercise, I may now repeat of sleep. Nothing better than moderate sleep, nothing worse than it, if it be in extremes, or unseasonably used. It is a received opinion, that a melancholy man cannot sleep overmuch; Somnus supra modum prodest, as an only antidote, and nothing offends them more, or causeth this malady sooner, than waking, yet in some cases sleep may do more harm than good, in that phlegmatic, swinish, cold, and sluggish melancholy which Melancthon speaks of, that thinks of waters, sighing most part, &c. [1566]It dulls the spirits, if overmuch, and senses; fills the head full of gross humours; causeth distillations, rheums, great store of excrements in the brain, and all the other parts, as [1567]Fuchsius speaks of them, that sleep like so many dormice. Or if it be used in the daytime, upon a full stomach, the body ill-composed to rest, or after hard meats, it increaseth fearful dreams, incubus, night walking, crying out, and much unquietness; such sleep prepares the body, as [1568]one observes, to many perilous diseases. But, as I have said, waking overmuch, is both a symptom, and an ordinary cause. It causeth dryness of the brain, frenzy, dotage, and makes the body dry, lean, hard, and ugly to behold, as [1569]Lemnius hath it. The temperature of the brain is corrupted by it, the humours adust, the eyes made to sink into the head, choler increased, and the whole body inflamed: and, as may be added out of Galen, 3. de sanitate tuendo, Avicenna 3. 1. [1570]It overthrows the natural heat, it causeth crudities, hurts, concoction, and what not? Not without good cause therefore Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2; Hildesheim, spicel. 2. de delir. et Mania, Jacchinus, Arculanus on Rhasis, Guianerius and Mercurialis, reckon up this overmuch waking as a principal cause.   MEMB. III. SUBSECT. I.—Passions and Perturbations of the Mind, how they cause Melancholy. As that gymnosophist in [1571]Plutarch made answer to Alexander (demanding which spake best), Every one of his fellows did speak better than the other: so may I say of these causes; to him that shall require which is the greatest, every one is more grievous than other, and this of passion the greatest of all. A most frequent and ordinary cause of melancholy, [1572] fulmen perturbationum (Picolomineus calls it) this thunder and lightning of perturbation, which causeth such violent and speedy alterations in this our microcosm, and many times subverts the good estate and temperature of it. For as the body works upon the mind by his bad humours, troubling the spirits, sending gross fumes into the brain, and so per consequens disturbing the soul, and all the faculties of it, [1573]———Corpus onustum, Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una, with fear, sorrow, &c., which are ordinary symptoms of this disease: so on the other side, the mind most effectually works upon the body, producing by his passions and perturbations miraculous alterations, as melancholy, despair, cruel diseases, and sometimes death itself. Insomuch that it is most true which Plato saith in his Charmides, omnia corporis mala ab anima procedere; all the [1574]mischiefs of the body proceed from the soul: and Democritus in [1575]Plutarch urgeth, Damnatam iri animam a corpore, if the body should in this behalf bring an action against the soul, surely the soul would be cast and convicted, that by her supine negligence had caused such inconveniences, having authority over the body, and using it for an instrument, as a smith doth his hammer (saith [1576]Cyprian), imputing all those vices and maladies to the mind. Even so doth [1577]Philostratus, non coinquinatur corpus, nisi consensuanimae; the body is not corrupted, but by the soul. Lodovicus Vives will have such turbulent commotions proceed from ignorance and indiscretion. [1578]All philosophers impute the miseries of the body to the soul, that should have governed it better, by command of reason, and hath not done it. The Stoics are altogether of opinion (as [1579]Lipsius and [1580]Picolomineus record), that a wise man should be ἀπαθής, without all manner of passions and perturbations whatsoever, as [1581]Seneca reports of Cato, the [1582] Greeks of Socrates, and [1583]Io. Aubanus of a nation in Africa, so free from passion, or rather so stupid, that if they be wounded with a sword, they will only look back. [1584]Lactantius, 2 instit., will exclude fear from a wise man: others except all, some the greatest passions. But let them dispute how they will, set down in Thesi, give precepts to the contrary; we find that of [1585]Lemnius true by common experience; No mortal man is free from these perturbations: or if he be so, sure he is either a god, or a block. They are born and bred with us, we have them from our parents by inheritance. A parentibus habemus malum hunc assem, saith [1586]Pelezius, Nascitur una nobiscum, aliturque, 'tis propagated from Adam, Cain was melancholy, [1587]as Austin hath it, and who is not? Good discipline, education, philosophy, divinity (I cannot deny), may mitigate and restrain these passions in some few men at some times, but most part they domineer, and are so violent, [1588]that as a torrent (torrens velut aggere rupto) bears down all before, and overflows his banks, sternit agros, sternit sata, (lays waste the fields, prostrates the crops,) they overwhelm reason, judgment, and pervert the temperature of the body; Fertur [1589] equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas. Now such a man (saith [1590]Austin) that is so led, in a wise man's eye, is no better than he that stands upon his head. It is doubted by some, Gravioresne morbi a perturbationibus, an ab humoribus, whether humours or perturbations cause the more grievous maladies. But we find that of our Saviour, Mat. xxvi. 41, most true, The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, we cannot resist; and this of [1591]Philo Judeus, Perturbations often offend the body, and are most frequent causes of melancholy, turning it out of the hinges of his health. Vives compares them to [1592]Winds upon the sea, some only move as those great gales, but others turbulent quite overturn the ship. Those which are light, easy, and more seldom, to our thinking, do us little harm, and are therefore contemned of us: yet if they be reiterated, [1593]as the rain (saith Austin) doth a stone, so do these perturbations penetrate the mind: [1594]and (as one observes) produce a habit of melancholy at the last, which having gotten the mastery in our souls, may well be called diseases. How these passions produce this effect, [1595]Agrippa hath handled at large, Occult. Philos. l. 11. c. 63. Cardan, l. 14. subtil. Lemnius, l. 1. c. 12, de occult. nat. mir. et lib. 1. cap. 16. Suarez, Met. disput. 18. sect. 1. art. 25. T. Bright, cap. 12. of his Melancholy Treatise. Wright the Jesuit, in his Book of the Passions of the Mind, &c. Thus in brief, to our imagination cometh by the outward sense or memory, some object to be known (residing in the foremost part of the brain), which he misconceiving or amplifying presently communicates to the heart, the seat of all affections. The pure spirits forthwith flock from the brain to the heart, by certain secret channels, and signify what good or bad object was presented; [1596]which immediately bends itself to prosecute, or avoid it; and withal, draweth with it other humours to help it: so in pleasure, concur great store of purer spirits; in sadness, much melancholy blood; in ire, choler. If the imagination be very apprehensive, intent, and violent, it sends great store of spirits to, or from the heart, and makes a deeper impression, and greater tumult, as the humours in the body be likewise prepared, and the temperature itself ill or well disposed, the passions are longer and stronger; so that the first step and fountain of all our grievances in this kind, is [1597]laesa imaginatio, which misinforming the heart, causeth all these distemperatures, alteration and confusion of spirits and humours. By means of which, so disturbed, concoction is hindered, and the principal parts are much debilitated; as [1598]Dr. Navarra well declared, being consulted by Montanus about a melancholy Jew. The spirits so confounded, the nourishment must needs be abated, bad humours increased, crudities and thick spirits engendered with melancholy blood. The other parts cannot perform their functions, having the spirits drawn from them by vehement passion, but fail in sense and motion; so we look upon a thing, and see it not; hear, and observe not; which otherwise would much affect us, had we been free. I may therefore conclude with [1599]Arnoldus, Maxima vis est phantasiae, et huic uni fere, non autem corporis intemperiei, omnis melancholiae causa est ascribenda: Great is the force of imagination, and much more ought the cause of melancholy to be ascribed to this alone, than to the distemperature of the body. Of which imagination, because it hath so great a stroke in producing this malady, and is so powerful of itself, it will not be improper to my discourse, to make a brief digression, and speak of the force of it, and how it causeth this alteration. Which manner of digression, howsoever some dislike, as frivolous and impertinent, yet I am of [1600]Beroaldus's opinion, Such digressions do mightily delight and refresh a weary reader, they are like sauce to a bad stomach, and I do therefore most willingly use them. SUBSECT. II.—Of the Force of Imagination. What imagination is, I have sufficiently declared in my digression of the anatomy of the soul. I will only now point at the wonderful effects and power of it; which, as it is eminent in all, so most especially it rageth in melancholy persons, in keeping the species of objects so long, mistaking, amplifying them by continual and [1601]strong meditation, until at length it produceth in some parties real effects, causeth this, and many other maladies. And although this phantasy of ours be a subordinate faculty to reason, and should be ruled by it, yet in many men, through inward or outward distemperatures, defect of organs, which are unapt, or otherwise contaminated, it is likewise unapt, or hindered, and hurt. This we see verified in sleepers, which by reason of humours and concourse of vapours troubling the phantasy, imagine many times absurd and prodigious things, and in such as are troubled with incubus, or witch-ridden (as we call it), if they lie on their backs, they suppose an old woman rides, and sits so hard upon them, that they are almost stifled for want of breath; when there is nothing offends, but a concourse of bad humours, which trouble the phantasy. This is likewise evident in such as walk in the night in their sleep, and do strange feats: [1602]these vapours move the phantasy, the phantasy the appetite, which moving the animal spirits causeth the body to walk up and down as if they were awake. Fracast. l. 3. de intellect, refers all ecstasies to this force of imagination, such as lie whole days together in a trance: as that priest whom [1603]Celsus speaks of, that could separate himself from his senses when he list, and lie like a dead man, void of life and sense. Cardan brags of himself, that he could do as much, and that when he list. Many times such men when they come to themselves, tell strange things of heaven and hell, what visions they have seen; as that St. Owen, in Matthew Paris, that went into St. Patrick's purgatory, and the monk of Evesham in the same author. Those common apparitions in Bede and Gregory, Saint Bridget's revelations, Wier. l. 3. de lamiis, c. 11. Caesar Vanninus, in his Dialogues, &c. reduceth (as I have formerly said), with all those tales of witches' progresses, dancing, riding, transformations, operations, &c. to the force of [1604] imagination, and the [1605]devil's illusions. The like effects almost are to be seen in such as are awake: how many chimeras, antics, golden mountains and castles in the air do they build unto themselves? I appeal to painters, mechanicians, mathematicians. Some ascribe all vices to a false and corrupt imagination, anger, revenge, lust, ambition, covetousness, which prefers falsehood before that which is right and good, deluding the soul with false shows and suppositions. [1606]Bernardus Penottus will have heresy and superstition to proceed from this fountain; as he falsely imagineth, so he believeth; and as he conceiveth of it, so it must be, and it shall be, contra gentes, he will have it so. But most especially in passions and affections, it shows strange and evident effects: what will not a fearful man conceive in the dark? What strange forms of bugbears, devils, witches, goblins? Lavater imputes the greatest cause of spectrums, and the like apparitions, to fear, which above all other passions begets the strongest imagination (saith [1607]Wierus), and so likewise love, sorrow, joy, &c. Some die suddenly, as she that saw her son come from the battle at Cannae, &c. Jacob the patriarch, by force of imagination, made speckled lambs, laying speckled rods before his sheep. Persina, that Ethiopian queen in Heliodorus, by seeing the picture of Persius and Andromeda, instead of a blackamoor, was brought to bed of a fair white child. In imitation of whom belike, a hard-favoured fellow in Greece, because he and his wife were both deformed, to get a good brood of children, Elegantissimas imagines in thalamo collocavit, &c. hung the fairest pictures he could buy for money in his chamber, That his wife by frequent sight of them, might conceive and bear such children. And if we may believe Bale, one of Pope Nicholas the Third's concubines by seeing of [1608]a bear was brought to bed of a monster. If a woman (saith [1609] Lemnius), at the time of her conception think of another man present or absent, the child will be like him. Great-bellied women, when they long, yield us prodigious examples in this kind, as moles, warts, scars, harelips, monsters, especially caused in their children by force of a depraved phantasy in them: Ipsam speciem quam animo effigiat, faetui inducit: She imprints that stamp upon her child which she [1610]conceives unto herself. And therefore Lodovicus Vives, lib. 2. de Christ, faem., gives a special caution to great-bellied women, [1611]that they do not admit such absurd conceits and cogitations, but by all means avoid those horrible objects, heard or seen, or filthy spectacles. Some will laugh, weep, sigh, groan, blush, tremble, sweat, at such things as are suggested unto them by their imagination. Avicenna speaks of one that could cast himself into a palsy when he list; and some can imitate the tunes of birds and beasts that they can hardly be discerned: Dagebertus' and Saint Francis' scars and wounds, like those of Christ's (if at the least any such were), [1612]Agrippa supposeth to have happened by force of imagination: that some are turned to wolves, from men to women, and women again to men (which is constantly believed) to the same imagination; or from men to asses, dogs, or any other shapes. [1613]Wierus ascribes all those famous transformations to imagination; that in hydrophobia they seem to see the picture of a dog, still in their water, [1614]that melancholy men and sick men conceive so many fantastical visions, apparitions to themselves, and have such absurd apparitions, as that they are kings, lords, cocks, bears, apes, owls; that they are heavy, light, transparent, great and little, senseless and dead (as shall be showed more at large, in our [1615] sections of symptoms), can be imputed to nought else, but to a corrupt, false, and violent imagination. It works not in sick and melancholy men only, but even most forcibly sometimes in such as are sound: it makes them suddenly sick, and [1616]alters their temperature in an instant. And sometimes a strong conceit or apprehension, as [1617]Valesius proves, will take away diseases: in both kinds it will produce real effects. Men, if they see but another man tremble, giddy or sick of some fearful disease, their apprehension and fear is so strong in this kind, that they will have the same disease. Or if by some soothsayer, wiseman, fortune-teller, or physician, they be told they shall have such a disease, they will so seriously apprehend it, that they will instantly labour of it. A thing familiar in China (saith Riccius the Jesuit), [1618]If it be told them they shall be sick on such a day, when that day comes they will surely be sick, and will be so terribly afflicted, that sometimes they die upon it. Dr. Cotta in his discovery of ignorant practitioners of physic, cap. 8, hath two strange stories to this purpose, what fancy is able to do. The one of a parson's wife in Northamptonshire, An. 1607, that coming to a physician, and told by him that she was troubled with the sciatica, as he conjectured (a disease she was free from), the same night after her return, upon his words, fell into a grievous fit of a sciatica: and such another example he hath of another good wife, that was so troubled with the cramp, after the same manner she came by it, because her physician did but name it. Sometimes death itself is caused by force of phantasy. I have heard of one that coming by chance in company of him that was thought to be sick of the plague (which was not so) fell down suddenly dead. Another was sick of the plague with conceit. One seeing his fellow let blood falls down in a swoon. Another (saith [1619]Cardan out of Aristotle), fell down dead (which is familiar to women at any ghastly sight), seeing but a man hanged. A Jew in France (saith [1620]Lodovicus Vives), came by chance over a dangerous passage or plank, that lay over a brook in the dark, without harm, the next day perceiving what danger he was in, fell down dead. Many will not believe such stories to be true, but laugh commonly, and deride when they hear of them; but let these men consider with themselves, as [1621]Peter Byarus illustrates it, If they were set to walk upon a plank on high, they would be giddy, upon which they dare securely walk upon the ground. Many (saith Agrippa), [1622]strong-hearted men otherwise, tremble at such sights, dazzle, and are sick, if they look but down from a high place, and what moves them but conceit? As some are so molested by phantasy; so some again, by fancy alone, and a good conceit, are as easily recovered. We see commonly the toothache, gout, falling-sickness, biting of a mad dog, and many such maladies cured by spells, words, characters, and charms, and many green wounds by that now so much used Unguentum Armarium, magnetically cured, which Crollius and Goclenius in a book of late hath defended, Libavius in a just tract as stiffly contradicts, and most men controvert. All the world knows there is no virtue in such charms or cures, but a strong conceit and opinion alone, as [1623]Pomponatius holds, which forceth a motion of the humours, spirits, and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from the parts affected. The like we may say of our magical effects, superstitious cures, and such as are done by mountebanks and wizards. As by wicked incredulity many men are hurt (so saith [1624]Wierus of charms, spells, &c.), we find in our experience, by the same means many are relieved. An empiric oftentimes, and a silly chirurgeon, doth more strange cures than a rational physician. Nymannus gives a reason, because the patient puts his confidence in him, [1625] which Avicenna prefers before art, precepts, and all remedies whatsoever. 'Tis opinion alone (saith [1626]Cardan), that makes or mars physicians, and he doth the best cures, according to Hippocrates, in whom most trust. So diversely doth this phantasy of ours affect, turn, and wind, so imperiously command our bodies, which as another [1627]Proteus, or a chameleon, can take all shapes; and is of such force (as Ficinus adds), that it can work upon others, as well as ourselves. How can otherwise blear eyes in one man cause the like affection in another? Why doth one man's yawning [1628]make another yawn? One man's pissing provoke a second many times to do the like? Why doth scraping of trenchers offend a third, or hacking of files? Why doth a carcass bleed when the murderer is brought before it, some weeks after the murder hath been done? Why do witches and old women fascinate and bewitch children: but as Wierus, Paracelsus, Cardan, Mizaldus, Valleriola, Caesar Vanninus, Campanella, and many philosophers think, the forcible imagination of the one party moves and alters the spirits of the other. Nay more, they can cause and cure not only diseases, maladies, and several infirmities, by this means, as Avicenna, de anim. l. 4. sect. 4, supposeth in parties remote, but move bodies from their places, cause thunder, lightning, tempests, which opinion Alkindus, Paracelsus, and some others, approve of. So that I may certainly conclude this strong conceit or imagination is astrum hominis, and the rudder of this our ship, which reason should steer, but, overborne by phantasy, cannot manage, and so suffers itself, and this whole vessel of ours to be overruled, and often overturned. Read more of this in Wierus, l. 3. de Lamiis, c. 8, 9, 10. Franciscus Valesius, med. controv. l. 5. cont. 6. Marcellus Donatus, l. 2. c. 1. de hist. med. mirabil. Levinus Lemnius, de occult. nat. mir. l. 1. c. 12. Cardan, l. 18. de rerum var. Corn. Agrippa, de occult. plilos. cap. 64, 65. Camerarius, 1 cent. cap. 54. horarum subcis. Nymannus, morat. de Imag. Laurentius, and him that is instar omnium, Fienus, a famous physician of Antwerp, that wrote three books de viribus imaginationis. I have thus far digressed, because this imagination is the medium deferens of passions, by whose means they work and produce many times prodigious effects: and as the phantasy is more or less intended or remitted, and their humours disposed, so do perturbations move, more or less, and take deeper impression. SUBSECT. III.—Division of Perturbations. Perturbations and passions, which trouble the phantasy, though they dwell between the confines of sense and reason, yet they rather follow sense than reason, because they are drowned in corporeal organs of sense. They are commonly [1629]reduced into two inclinations, irascible and concupiscible. The Thomists subdivide them into eleven, six in the coveting, and five in the invading. Aristotle reduceth all to pleasure and pain, Plato to love and hatred, [1630]Vives to good and bad. If good, it is present, and then we absolutely joy and love; or to come, and then we desire and hope for it. If evil, we absolute hate it; if present, it is by sorrow; if to come fear. These four passions [1631]Bernard compares to the wheels of a chariot, by which we are carried in this world. All other passions are subordinate unto these four, or six, as some will: love, joy, desire, hatred, sorrow, fear; the rest, as anger, envy, emulation, pride, jealousy, anxiety, mercy, shame, discontent, despair, ambition, avarice, &c., are reducible unto the first; and if they be immoderate, they [1632]consume the spirits, and melancholy is especially caused by them. Some few discreet men there are, that can govern themselves, and curb in these inordinate affections, by religion, philosophy, and such divine precepts, of meekness, patience, and the like; but most part for want of government, out of indiscretion, ignorance, they suffer themselves wholly to be led by sense, and are so far from repressing rebellious inclinations, that they give all encouragement unto them, leaving the reins, and using all provocations to further them: bad by nature, worse by art, discipline, [1633]custom, education, and a perverse will of their own, they follow on, wheresoever their unbridled affections will transport them, and do more out of custom, self-will, than out of reason. Contumax voluntas, as Melancthon calls it, malum facit: this stubborn will of ours perverts judgment, which sees and knows what should and ought to be done, and yet will not do it. Mancipia gulae, slaves to their several lusts and appetite, they precipitate and plunge [1634]themselves into a labyrinth of cares, blinded with lust, blinded with ambition; [1635]They seek that at God's hands which they may give unto themselves, if they could but refrain from those cares and perturbations, wherewith they continually macerate their minds. But giving way to these violent passions of fear, grief, shame, revenge, hatred, malice, &c., they are torn in pieces, as Actaeon was with his dogs, and [1636]crucify their own souls. SUBSECT. IV.—Sorrow a Cause of Melancholy. Sorrow. Insanus dolor.] In this catalogue of passions, which so much torment the soul of man, and cause this malady, (for I will briefly speak of them all, and in their order,) the first place in this irascible appetite, may justly be challenged by sorrow. An inseparable companion, [1637]The mother and daughter of melancholy, her epitome, symptom, and chief cause: as Hippocrates hath it, they beget one another, and tread in a ring, for sorrow is both cause and symptom of this disease. How it is a symptom shall be shown in its place. That it is a cause all the world acknowledgeth, Dolor nonnullis insaniae causa fuit, et aliorum morborum insanabilium, saith Plutarch to Apollonius; a cause of madness, a cause of many other diseases, a sole cause of this mischief, [1638]Lemnius calls it. So doth Rhasis, cont. l. 1. tract. 9. Guianerius, Tract. 15. c. 5, And if it take root once, it ends in despair, as [1639]Felix Plater observes, and as in [1640]Cebes' table, may well be coupled with it. [1641]Chrysostom, in his seventeenth epistle to Olympia, describes it to be a cruel torture of the soul, a most inexplicable grief, poisoned worm, consuming body and soul, and gnawing the very heart, a perpetual executioner, continual night, profound darkness, a whirlwind, a tempest, an ague not appearing, heating worse than any fire, and a battle that hath no end. It crucifies worse than any tyrant; no torture, no strappado, no bodily punishment is like unto it. 'Tis the eagle without question which the poets feigned to gnaw [1642]Prometheus' heart, and no heaviness is like unto the heaviness of the heart, Eccles. xxv. 15, 16. [1643]Every perturbation is a misery, but grief a cruel torment, a domineering passion: as in old Rome, when the Dictator was created, all inferior magistracies ceased; when grief appears, all other passions vanish. It dries up the bones, saith Solomon, cap. 17. Prov., makes them hollow-eyed, pale, and lean, furrow-faced, to have dead looks, wrinkled brows, shrivelled cheeks, dry bodies, and quite perverts their temperature that are misaffected with it. As Eleonara, that exiled mournful duchess (in our [1644]English Ovid), laments to her noble husband Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Sawest thou those eyes in whose sweet cheerful look Duke Humphrey once such joy and pleasure took, Sorrow hath so despoil'd me of all grace, Thou couldst not say this was my Elnor's face. Like a foul Gorgon, &c. [1645]It hinders concoction, refrigerates the heart, takes away stomach, colour, and sleep, thickens the blood, ([1646]Fernelius, l. 1. c. 18. de morb. causis,) contaminates the spirits. ([1647]Piso.) Overthrows the natural heat, perverts the good estate of body and mind, and makes them weary of their lives, cry out, howl and roar for very anguish of their souls. David confessed as much, Psalm xxxviii. 8, I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart. And Psalm cxix. 4, part 4 v. My soul melteth away for very heaviness, v. 38. I am like a bottle in the smoke. Antiochus complained that he could not sleep, and that his heart fainted for grief, [1648]Christ himself, vir dolorum, out of an apprehension of grief, did sweat blood, Mark xiv. His soul was heavy to the death, and no sorrow was like unto his. Crato, consil. 24. l. 2, gives instance in one that was so melancholy by reason of [1649]grief; and Montanus, consil. 30, in a noble matron, [1650]that had no other cause of this mischief. I. S. D. in Hildesheim, fully cured a patient of his that was much troubled with melancholy, and for many years, [1651]but afterwards, by a little occasion of sorrow, he fell into his former fits, and was tormented as before. Examples are common, how it causeth melancholy, [1652]desperation, and sometimes death itself; for (Eccles. xxxviii. 15,) Of heaviness comes death; worldly sorrow causeth death. 2 Cor. vii. 10, Psalm xxxi. 10, My life is wasted with heaviness, and my years with mourning. Why was Hecuba said to be turned to a dog? Niobe into a stone? but that for grief she was senseless and stupid. Severus the Emperor [1653] died for grief; and how [1654]many myriads besides? Tanta illi est feritas, tanta est insania luctus. [1655]Melancthon gives a reason of it, [1656]the gathering of much melancholy blood about the heart, which collection extinguisheth the good spirits, or at least dulleth them, sorrow strikes the heart, makes it tremble and pine away, with great pain; and the black blood drawn from the spleen, and diffused under the ribs, on the left side, makes those perilous hypochondriacal convulsions, which happen to them that are troubled with sorrow. SUBSECT. V.—Fear, a Cause. Cousin german to sorrow, is fear, or rather a sister, fidus Achates, and continual companion, an assistant and a principal agent in procuring of this mischief; a cause and symptom as the other. In a word, as [1657] Virgil of the Harpies, I may justly say of them both, Tristius haud illis monstrum, nec saevior ulla Pestis et ira Deum stygiis sese extulit undis. A sadder monster, or more cruel plague so fell, Or vengeance of the gods, ne'er came from Styx or Hell. This foul fiend of fear was worshipped heretofore as a god by the Lacedaemonians, and most of those other torturing [1658]affections, and so was sorrow amongst the rest, under the name of Angerona Dea, they stood in such awe of them, as Austin, de Civitat. Dei, lib. 4. cap. 8, noteth out of Varro, fear was commonly [1659]adored and painted in their temples with a lion's head; and as Macrobius records, l. 10. Saturnalium; [1660]In the calends of January, Angerona had her holy day, to whom in the temple of Volupia, or goddess of pleasure, their augurs and bishops did yearly sacrifice; that, being propitious to them, she might expel all cares, anguish, and vexation of the mind for that year following. Many lamentable effects this fear causeth in men, as to be red, pale, tremble, sweat, [1661]it makes sudden cold and heat to come over all the body, palpitation of the heart, syncope, &c. It amazeth many men that are to speak, or show themselves in public assemblies, or before some great personages, as Tully confessed of himself, that he trembled still at the beginning of his speech; and Demosthenes, that great orator of Greece, before Philippus. It confounds voice and memory, as Lucian wittily brings in Jupiter Tragoedus, so much afraid of his auditory, when he was to make a speech to the rest of the Gods, that he could not utter a ready word, but was compelled to use Mercury's help in prompting. Many men are so amazed and astonished with fear, they know not where they are, what they say, [1662]what they do, and that which is worst, it tortures them many days before with continual affrights and suspicion. It hinders most honourable attempts, and makes their hearts ache, sad and heavy. They that live in fear are never free, [1663]resolute, secure, never merry, but in continual pain: that, as Vives truly said, Nulla est miseria major quam metus, no greater misery, no rack, nor torture like unto it, ever suspicious, anxious, solicitous, they are childishly drooping without reason, without judgment, [1664]especially if some terrible object be offered, as Plutarch hath it. It causeth oftentimes sudden madness, and almost all manner of diseases, as I have sufficiently illustrated in my [1665] digression of the force of imagination, and shall do more at large in my section of [1666]terrors. Fear makes our imagination conceive what it list, invites the devil to come to us, as [1667]Agrippa and Cardan avouch, and tyranniseth over our phantasy more than all other affections, especially in the dark. We see this verified in most men, as [1668]Lavater saith, Quae metuunt, fingunt; what they fear they conceive, and feign unto themselves; they think they see goblins, hags, devils, and many times become melancholy thereby. Cardan, subtil. lib. 18, hath an example of such an one, so caused to be melancholy (by sight of a bugbear) all his life after. Augustus Caesar durst not sit in the dark, nisi aliquo assidente, saith [1669]Suetonius, Nunquam tenebris exigilavit. And 'tis strange what women and children will conceive unto themselves, if they go over a churchyard in the night, lie, or be alone in a dark room, how they sweat and tremble on a sudden. Many men are troubled with future events, foreknowledge of their fortunes, destinies, as Severus the Emperor, Adrian and Domitian, Quod sciret ultimum vitae diem, saith Suetonius, valde solicitus, much tortured in mind because he foreknew his end; with many such, of which I shall speak more opportunely in another place.[1670] Anxiety, mercy, pity, indignation, &c., and such fearful branches derived from these two stems of fear and sorrow, I voluntarily omit; read more of them in [1671]Carolus Pascalius, [1672]Dandinus, &c. SUBSECT. VI.—Shame and Disgrace, Causes. Shame and disgrace cause most violent passions and bitter pangs. Ob pudorem et dedecus publicum, ob errorum commissum saepe moventur generosi animi (Felix Plater, lib. 3. de alienat mentis.) Generous minds are often moved with shame, to despair for some public disgrace. And he, saith Philo, lib. 2. de provid. dei, [1673]that subjects himself to fear, grief, ambition, shame, is not happy, but altogether miserable, tortured with continual labour, care, and misery. It is as forcible a batterer as any of the rest: [1674]Many men neglect the tumults of the world, and care not for glory, and yet they are afraid of infamy, repulse, disgrace, (Tul. offic. l. 1,) they can severely contemn pleasure, bear grief indifferently, but they are quite [1675]battered and broken, with reproach and obloquy: (siquidem vita et fama pari passu ambulant) and are so dejected many times for some public injury, disgrace, as a box on the ear by their inferior, to be overcome of their adversary, foiled in the field, to be out in a speech, some foul fact committed or disclosed, &c. that they dare not come abroad all their lives after, but melancholise in corners, and keep in holes. The most generous spirits are most subject to it; Spiritus altos frangit et generosos: Hieronymus. Aristotle, because he could not understand the motion of Euripus, for grief and shame drowned himself: Caelius Rodigimus antiquar. lec. lib. 29. cap. 8. Homerus pudore consumptus, was swallowed up with this passion of shame [1676] because he could not unfold the fisherman's riddle. Sophocles killed himself, [1677]for that a tragedy of his was hissed off the stage: Valer. max. lib. 9. cap. 12. Lucretia stabbed herself, and so did [1678]Cleopatra, when she saw that she was reserved for a triumph, to avoid the infamy. Antonius the Roman, [1679]after he was overcome of his enemy, for three days' space sat solitary in the fore-part of the ship, abstaining from all company, even of Cleopatra herself, and afterwards for very shame butchered himself, Plutarch, vita ejus. Apollonius Rhodius [1680]wilfully banished himself, forsaking his country, and all his dear friends, because he was out in reciting his poems, Plinius, lib. 7. cap. 23. Ajax ran mad, because his arms were adjudged to Ulysses. In China 'tis an ordinary thing for such as are excluded in those famous trials of theirs, or should take degrees, for shame and grief to lose their wits, [1681]Mat Riccius expedit. ad Sinas, l. 3. c. 9. Hostratus the friar took that book which Reuclin had writ against him, under the name of Epist. obscurorum virorum, so to heart, that for shame and grief he made away with himself, [1682]Jovius in elogiis. A grave and learned minister, and an ordinary preacher at Alcmar in Holland, was (one day as he walked in the fields for his recreation) suddenly taken with a lax or looseness, and thereupon compelled to retire to the next ditch; but being [1683]surprised at unawares, by some gentlewomen of his parish wandering that way, was so abashed, that he did never after show his head in public, or come into the pulpit, but pined away with melancholy: (Pet. Forestus med. observat. lib. 10. observat. 12.) So shame amongst other passions can play his prize. I know there be many base, impudent, brazenfaced rogues, that will [1684] Nulla pallescere culpa, be moved with nothing, take no infamy or disgrace to heart, laugh at all; let them be proved perjured, stigmatised, convict rogues, thieves, traitors, lose their ears, be whipped, branded, carted, pointed at, hissed, reviled, and derided with [1685]Ballio the Bawd in Plautus, they rejoice at it, Cantores probos; babe and Bombax, what care they? We have too many such in our times, ———Exclamat Melicerta perisse ———Frontem de rebus.[1686] Yet a modest man, one that hath grace, a generous spirit, tender of his reputation, will be deeply wounded, and so grievously affected with it, that he had rather give myriads of crowns, lose his life, than suffer the least defamation of honour, or blot in his good name. And if so be that he cannot avoid it, as a nightingale, Que cantando victa moritur, (saith [1687]Mizaldus,) dies for shame if another bird sing better, he languisheth and pineth away in the anguish of his spirit. SUBSECT. VII.—Envy, Malice, Hatred, Causes. Envy and malice are two links of this chain, and both, as Guianerius, Tract. 15. cap. 2, proves out of Galen, 3 Aphorism, com. 22, [1688] cause this malady by themselves, especially if their bodies be otherwise disposed to melancholy. 'Tis Valescus de Taranta, and Felix Platerus' observation, [1689]Envy so gnaws many men's hearts, that they become altogether melancholy. And therefore belike Solomon, Prov. xiv. 13, calls it, the rotting of the bones, Cyprian, vulnus occultum; [1690]———Siculi non invenere tyranni Majus tormentum——— The Sicilian tyrants never invented the like torment. It crucifies their souls, withers their bodies, makes them hollow-eyed, [1691]pale, lean, and ghastly to behold, Cyprian, ser. 2. de zelo et livore. [1692]As a moth gnaws a garment, so, saith Chrysostom, doth envy consume a man; to be a living anatomy: a skeleton, to be a lean and [1693]pale carcass, quickened with a [1694]fiend, Hall in Charact. for so often as an envious wretch sees another man prosper, to be enriched, to thrive, and be fortunate in the world, to get honours, offices, or the like, he repines and grieves. [1695]———intabescitque videndo Successus hominum—suppliciumque suum est. He tortures himself if his equal, friend, neighbour, be preferred, commended, do well; if he understand of it, it galls him afresh; and no greater pain can come to him than to hear of another man's well-doing; 'tis a dagger at his heart every such object. He looks at him as they that fell down in Lucian's rock of honour, with an envious eye, and will damage himself, to do another a mischief: Atque cadet subito, dum super hoste cadat. As he did in Aesop, lose one eye willingly, that his fellow might lose both, or that rich man in [1696]Quintilian that poisoned the flowers in his garden, because his neighbour's bees should get no more honey from them. His whole life is sorrow, and every word he speaks a satire: nothing fats him but other men's ruins. For to speak in a word, envy is nought else but Tristitia de bonis alienis, sorrow for other men's good, be it present, past, or to come: et gaudium de adversis, and [1697]joy at their harms, opposite to mercy, [1698]which grieves at other men's mischances, and misaffects the body in another kind; so Damascen defines it, lib. 2. de orthod. fid. Thomas, 2. 2. quaest. 36. art. 1. Aristotle, l. 2. Rhet. c. 4. et 10. Plato Philebo. Tully, 3. Tusc. Greg. Nic. l. de virt. animae, c. 12. Basil, de Invidia. Pindarus Od. 1. ser. 5, and we find it true. 'Tis a common disease, and almost natural to us, as [1699]Tacitus holds, to envy another man's prosperity. And 'tis in most men an incurable disease. [1700]I have read, saith Marcus Aurelius, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee authors; I have consulted with many wise men for a remedy for envy, I could find none, but to renounce all happiness, and to be a wretch, and miserable for ever. 'Tis the beginning of hell in this life, and a passion not to be excused. [1701]Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse; envy alone wants both. Other sins last but for awhile; the gut may be satisfied, anger remits, hatred hath an end, envy never ceaseth. Cardan, lib. 2. de sap. Divine and humane examples are very familiar; you may run and read them, as that of Saul and David, Cain and Abel, angebat illum non proprium peccatum, sed fratris prosperitas, saith Theodoret, it was his brother's good fortune galled him. Rachel envied her sister, being barren, Gen. xxx. Joseph's brethren him, Gen. xxxvii. David had a touch of this vice, as he confesseth, [1702]Psal. 37. [1703]Jeremy and [1704]Habakkuk, they repined at others' good, but in the end they corrected themselves, Psal. 75, fret not thyself, &c. Domitian spited Agricola for his worth, [1705]that a private man should be so much glorified. [1706]Cecinna was envied of his fellow-citizens, because he was more richly adorned. But of all others, [1707]women are most weak, ob pulchritudinem invidae sunt foeminae (Musaeus) aut amat, aut odit, nihil est tertium (Granatensis.) They love or hate, no medium amongst them. Implacabiles plerumque laesae mulieres, Agrippina like, [1708]A woman, if she see her neighbour more neat or elegant, richer in tires, jewels, or apparel, is enraged, and like a lioness sets upon her husband, rails at her, scoffs at her, and cannot abide her; so the Roman ladies in Tacitus did at Solonina, Cecinna's wife, [1709]because she had a better horse, and better furniture, as if she had hurt them with it; they were much offended. In like sort our gentlewomen do at their usual meetings, one repines or scoffs at another's bravery and happiness. Myrsine, an Attic wench, was murdered of her fellows, [1710] because she did excel the rest in beauty, Constantine, Agricult. l. 11. c. 7. Every village will yield such examples. SUBSECT. VIII.—Emulation, Hatred, Faction, Desire of Revenge, Causes. Out of this root of envy [1711]spring those feral branches of faction, hatred, livor, emulation, which cause the like grievances, and are, serrae animae, the saws of the soul, [1712]consternationis pleni affectus, affections full of desperate amazement; or as Cyprian describes emulation, it is [1713]a moth of the soul, a consumption, to make another man's happiness his misery, to torture, crucify, and execute himself, to eat his own heart. Meat and drink can do such men no good, they do always grieve, sigh, and groan, day and night without intermission, their breast is torn asunder: and a little after, [1714]Whomsoever he is whom thou dost emulate and envy, he may avoid thee, but thou canst neither avoid him nor thyself; wheresoever thou art he is with thee, thine enemy is ever in thy breast, thy destruction is within thee, thou art a captive, bound hand and foot, as long as thou art malicious and envious, and canst not be comforted. It was the devil's overthrow; and whensoever thou art thoroughly affected with this passion, it will be thine. Yet no perturbation so frequent, no passion so common. [1715]Καὶ κεραμεὺς κεραμεῖ κοτέει καὶ τεκτονι τέκτων, Καὶ πτωχὸς πτωχῷ φθονέει καὶ ἀοίδος ἀοιδῶ. A potter emulates a potter: One smith envies another: A beggar emulates a beggar; A singing man his brother. Every society, corporation, and private family is full of it, it takes hold almost of all sorts of men, from the prince to the ploughman, even amongst gossips it is to be seen, scarce three in a company but there is siding, faction, emulation, between two of them, some simultas, jar, private grudge, heart-burning in the midst of them. Scarce two gentlemen dwell together in the country, (if they be not near kin or linked in marriage) but there is emulation betwixt them and their servants, some quarrel or some grudge betwixt their wives or children, friends and followers, some contention about wealth, gentry, precedency, &c., by means of which, like the frog in [1716]Aesop, that would swell till she was as big as an ox, burst herself at last; they will stretch beyond their fortunes, callings, and strive so long that they consume their substance in lawsuits, or otherwise in hospitality, feasting, fine clothes, to get a few bombast titles, for ambitiosa paupertate laboramus omnes, to outbrave one another, they will tire their bodies, macerate their souls, and through contentions or mutual invitations beggar themselves. Scarce two great scholars in an age, but with bitter invectives they fall foul one on the other, and their adherents; Scotists, Thomists, Reals, Nominals, Plato and Aristotle, Galenists and Paracelsians, &c., it holds in all professions. Honest [1717]emulation in studies, in all callings is not to be disliked, 'tis ingeniorum cos, as one calls it, the whetstone of wit, the nurse of wit and valour, and those noble Romans out of this spirit did brave exploits. There is a modest ambition, as Themistocles was roused up with the glory of Miltiades; Achilles' trophies moved Alexander, [1718]Ambire semper stulta confidentia est, Ambire nunquam deses arrogantia est. 'Tis a sluggish humour not to emulate or to sue at all, to withdraw himself, neglect, refrain from such places, honours, offices, through sloth, niggardliness, fear, bashfulness, or otherwise, to which by his birth, place, fortunes, education, he is called, apt, fit, and well able to undergo; but when it is immoderate, it is a plague and a miserable pain. What a deal of money did Henry VIII. and Francis I. king of France, spend at that [1719]famous interview? and how many vain courtiers, seeking each to outbrave other, spent themselves, their livelihood and fortunes, and died beggars? [1720]Adrian the Emperor was so galled with it, that he killed all his equals; so did Nero. This passion made [1721]Dionysius the tyrant banish Plato and Philoxenus the poet, because they did excel and eclipse his glory, as he thought; the Romans exile Coriolanus, confine Camillus, murder Scipio; the Greeks by ostracism to expel Aristides, Nicias, Alcibiades, imprison Theseus, make away Phocion, &c. When Richard I. and Philip of France were fellow soldiers together, at the siege of Acon in the Holy Land, and Richard had approved himself to be the more valiant man, insomuch that all men's eyes were upon him, it so galled Philip, Francum urebat Regis victoria, saith mine [1722]author, tam aegre ferebat Richardi gloriam, ut carpere dicta, calumniari facta; that he cavilled at all his proceedings, and fell at length to open defiance; he could contain no longer, but hasting home, invaded his territories, and professed open war. Hatred stirs up contention, Prov. x. 12, and they break out at last into immortal enmity, into virulency, and more than Vatinian hate and rage; [1723]they persecute each other, their friends, followers, and all their posterity, with bitter taunts, hostile wars, scurrile invectives, libels, calumnies, fire, sword, and the like, and will not be reconciled. Witness that Guelph and Ghibelline faction in Italy; that of the Adurni and Fregosi in Genoa; that of Cneius Papirius, and Quintus Fabius in Rome; Caesar and Pompey; Orleans and Burgundy in France; York and Lancaster in England: yea, this passion so rageth[1724]many times, that it subverts not men only, and families, but even populous cities. [1725]Carthage and Corinth can witness as much, nay, flourishing kingdoms are brought into a wilderness by it. This hatred, malice, faction, and desire of revenge, invented first all those racks and wheels, strappadoes, brazen bulls, feral engines, prisons, inquisitions, severe laws to macerate and torment one another. How happy might we be, and end our time with blessed days and sweet content, if we could contain ourselves, and, as we ought to do, put up injuries, learn humility, meekness, patience, forget and forgive, as in [1726]God's word we are enjoined, compose such final controversies amongst ourselves, moderate our passions in this kind, and think better of others, as [1727]Paul would have us, than of ourselves: be of like affection one towards another, and not avenge ourselves, but have peace with all men. But being that we are so peevish and perverse, insolent and proud, so factious and seditious, so malicious and envious; we do invicem angariare, maul and vex one another, torture, disquiet, and precipitate ourselves into that gulf of woes and cares, aggravate our misery and melancholy, heap upon us hell and eternal damnation. SUBSECT. IX.—Anger, a Cause. Anger, a perturbation, which carries the spirits outwards, preparing the body to melancholy, and madness itself: Ira furor brevis est, anger is temporary madness; and as [1728]Picolomineus accounts it, one of the three most violent passions. [1729]Areteus sets it down for an especial cause (so doth Seneca, ep. 18. l. 1,) of this malady. [1730]Magninus gives the reason, Ex frequenti ira supra modum calefiunt; it overheats their bodies, and if it be too frequent, it breaks out into manifest madness, saith St. Ambrose. 'Tis a known saying, Furor fit Iaesa saepius palienlia, the most patient spirit that is, if he be often provoked, will be incensed to madness; it will make a devil of a saint: and therefore Basil (belike) in his Homily de Ira, calls it tenebras rationis, morbum animae, et daemonem pessimum; the darkening of our understanding, and a bad angel. [1731]Lucian, in Abdicato, tom. 1, will have this passion to work this effect, especially in old men and women. Anger and calumny (saith he) trouble them at first, and after a while break out into madness: many things cause fury in women, especially if they love or hate overmuch, or envy, be much grieved or angry; these things by little and little lead them on to this malady. From a disposition they proceed to an habit, for there is no difference between a mad man, and an angry man, in the time of his fit; anger, as Lactantius describes it, L. de Ira Dei, ad Donatum, c. 5, is [1732]saeva animi tempestas, &c., a cruel tempest of the mind; making his eye sparkle fire, and stare, teeth gnash in his head, his tongue stutter, his face pale, or red, and what more filthy imitation can be of a mad man? [1733]Ora tument ira, fervescunt sanguine venae, Lumina Gorgonio saevius angue micant. They are void of reason, inexorable, blind, like beasts and monsters for the time, say and do they know not what, curse, swear, rail, fight, and what not? How can a mad man do more? as he said in the comedy, [1734] Iracundia non sum apud me, I am not mine own man. If these fits be immoderate, continue long, or be frequent, without doubt they provoke madness. Montanus, consil. 21, had a melancholy Jew to his patient, he ascribes this for a principal cause: Irascebatur levibus de causis, he was easily moved to anger. Ajax had no other beginning of his madness; and Charles the Sixth, that lunatic French king, fell into this misery, out of the extremity of his passion, desire of revenge and malice, [1735]incensed against the duke of Britain, he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep for some days together, and in the end, about the calends of July, 1392, he became mad upon his horseback, drawing his sword, striking such as came near him promiscuously, and so continued all the days of his life, Aemil., lib. 10. Gal. hist. Aegesippus de exid. urbis Hieros, l. 1. c. 37, hath such a story of Herod, that out of an angry fit, became mad, [1736]leaping out of his bed, he killed Jossippus, and played many such bedlam pranks, the whole court could not rule him for a long time after: sometimes he was sorry and repented, much grieved for that he had done, Postquam deferbuit ira, by and by outrageous again. In hot choleric bodies, nothing so soon causeth madness, as this passion of anger, besides many other diseases, as Pelesius observes, cap. 21. l. 1. de hum. affect. causis; Sanguinem imminuit, fel auget: and as [1737]Valesius controverts, Med. controv., lib. 5. contro. 8, many times kills them quite out. If this were the worst of this passion, it were more tolerable, [1738]but it ruins and subverts whole towns, [1739]cities, families, and kingdoms; Nulla pestis humano generi pluris stetit, saith Seneca, de Ira, lib. 1. No plague hath done mankind so much harm. Look into our histories, and you shall almost meet with no other subject, but what a company [1740]of harebrains have done in their rage. We may do well therefore to put this in our procession amongst the rest; From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations, good Lord deliver us. SUBSECT. X.—Discontents, Cares, Miseries, &c. Causes. Discontents, cares, crosses, miseries, or whatsoever it is, that shall cause any molestation of spirits, grief, anguish, and perplexity, may well be reduced to this head, (preposterously placed here in some men's judgments they may seem,) yet in that Aristotle in his [1741]Rhetoric defines these cares, as he doth envy, emulation, &c. still by grief, I think I may well rank them in this irascible row; being that they are as the rest, both causes and symptoms of this disease, producing the like inconveniences, and are most part accompanied with anguish and pain. The common etymology will evince it, Cura quasi cor uro, Dementes curae, insomnes curae, damnosae curae, tristes, mordaces, carnifices, &c. biting, eating, gnawing, cruel, bitter, sick, sad, unquiet, pale, tetric, miserable, intolerable cares, as the poets [1742]call them, worldly cares, and are as many in number as the sea sands. [1743]Galen, Fernelius, Felix Plater, Valescus de Taranta, &c., reckon afflictions, miseries, even all these contentions, and vexations of the mind, as principal causes, in that they take away sleep, hinder concoction, dry up the body, and consume the substance of it. They are not so many in number, but their causes be as divers, and not one of a thousand free from them, or that can vindicate himself, whom that Ate dea, [1744]Per hominum capita molliter ambulans, Plantas pedum teneras habens: Over men's heads walking aloft, With tender feet treading so soft, Homer's Goddess Ate hath not involved into this discontented [1745]rank, or plagued with some misery or other. Hyginus, fab. 220, to this purpose hath a pleasant tale. Dame Cura by chance went over a brook, and taking up some of the dirty slime, made an image of it; Jupiter eftsoons coming by, put life to it, but Cura and Jupiter could not agree what name to give him, or who should own him; the matter was referred to Saturn as judge; he gave this arbitrement: his name shall be Homo ab humo, Cura eum possideat quamdiu vivat, Care shall have him whilst he lives, Jupiter his soul, and Tellus his body when he dies. But to leave tales. A general cause, a continuate cause, an inseparable accident, to all men, is discontent, care, misery; were there no other particular affliction (which who is free from?) to molest a man in this life, the very cogitation of that common misery were enough to macerate, and make him weary of his life; to think that he can never be secure, but still in danger, sorrow, grief, and persecution. For to begin at the hour of his birth, as [1746]Pliny doth elegantly describe it, he is born naked, and falls [1747]a whining at the very first: he is swaddled, and bound up like a prisoner, cannot help himself, and so he continues to his life's end. Cujusque ferae pabulum, saith [1748]Seneca, impatient of heat and cold, impatient of labour, impatient of idleness, exposed to fortune's contumelies. To a naked mariner Lucretius compares him, cast on shore by shipwreck, cold and comfortless in an unknown land: [1749]no estate, age, sex, can secure himself from this common misery. A man that is born of a woman is of short continuance, and full of trouble, Job xiv. 1, 22. And while his flesh is upon him he shall be sorrowful, and while his soul is in him it shall mourn. All his days are sorrow and his travels griefs: his heart also taketh not rest in the night. Eccles. ii. 23, and ii. 11. All that is in it is sorrow and vexation of spirit. [1750]Ingress, progress, regress, egress, much alike: blindness seizeth on us in the beginning, labour in the middle, grief in the end, error in all. What day ariseth to us without some grief, care, or anguish? Or what so secure and pleasing a morning have we seen, that hath not been overcast before the evening? One is miserable, another ridiculous, a third odious. One complains of this grievance, another of that. Aliquando nervi, aliquando pedes vexant, (Seneca) nunc distillatio, nunc epatis morbus; nunc deest, nunc superest sanguis: now the head aches, then the feet, now the lungs, then the liver, &c. Huic sensus exuberat, sed est pudori degener sanguis, &c. He is rich, but base born; he is noble, but poor; a third hath means, but he wants health peradventure, or wit to manage his estate; children vex one, wife a second, &c. Nemo facile cum conditione sua concordat, no man is pleased with his fortune, a pound of sorrow is familiarly mixed with a dram of content, little or no joy, little comfort, but [1751]everywhere danger, contention, anxiety, in all places: go where thou wilt, and thou shalt find discontents, cares, woes, complaints, sickness, diseases, encumbrances, exclamations: If thou look into the market, there (saith [1752] Chrysostom) is brawling and contention; if to the court, there knavery and flattery, &c.; if to a private man's house, there's cark and care, heaviness, &c. As he said of old, [1753]Nil homine in terra spirat miserum magis alma? No creature so miserable as man, so generally molested, [1754]in miseries of body, in miseries of mind, miseries of heart, in miseries asleep, in miseries awake, in miseries wheresoever he turns, as Bernard found, Nunquid tentatio est vita humana super terram? A mere temptation is our life, (Austin, confess. lib. 10. cap. 28,) catena perpetuorum malorum, et quis potest molestias et difficultates pati? Who can endure the miseries of it? [1755]In prosperity we are insolent and intolerable, dejected in adversity, in all fortunes foolish and miserable. [1756]In adversity I wish for prosperity, and in prosperity I am afraid of adversity. What mediocrity may be found? Where is no temptation? What condition of life is free? [1757]Wisdom hath labour annexed to it, glory, envy; riches and cares, children and encumbrances, pleasure and diseases, rest and beggary, go together: as if a man were therefore born (as the Platonists hold) to be punished in this life for some precedent sins. Or that, as [1758]Pliny complains, Nature may be rather accounted a stepmother, than a mother unto us, all things considered: no creature's life so brittle, so full of fear, so mad, so furious; only man is plagued with envy, discontent, griefs, covetousness, ambition, superstition. Our whole life is an Irish sea, wherein there is nought to be expected but tempestuous storms and troublesome waves, and those infinite, [1759]Tantum malorum pelagus aspicio, Ut non sit inde enatandi copia, no halcyonian times, wherein a man can hold himself secure, or agree with his present estate; but as Boethius infers, [1760]there is something in every one of us which before trial we seek, and having tried abhor: [1761] we earnestly wish, and eagerly covet, and are eftsoons weary of it. Thus between hope and fear, suspicions, angers, [1762]Inter spemque metumque, timores inter et iras, betwixt falling in, falling out, &c., we bangle away our best days, befool out our times, we lead a contentious, discontent, tumultuous, melancholy, miserable life; insomuch, that if we could foretell what was to come, and it put to our choice, we should rather refuse than accept of this painful life. In a word, the world itself is a maze, a labyrinth of errors, a desert, a wilderness, a den of thieves, cheaters, &c., full of filthy puddles, horrid rocks, precipitiums, an ocean of adversity, an heavy yoke, wherein infirmities and calamities overtake, and follow one another, as the sea waves; and if we scape Scylla, we fall foul on Charybdis, and so in perpetual fear, labour, anguish, we run from one plague, one mischief, one burden to another, duram servientes servitutem, and you may as soon separate weight from lead, heat from fire, moistness from water, brightness from the sun, as misery, discontent, care, calamity, danger, from a man. Our towns and cities are but so many dwellings of human misery. In which grief and sorrow ([1763]as he right well observes out of Solon) innumerable troubles, labours of mortal men, and all manner of vices, are included, as in so many pens. Our villages are like molehills, and men as so many emmets, busy, busy still, going to and fro, in and out, and crossing one another's projects, as the lines of several sea-cards cut each other in a globe or map. Now light and merry, but ([1764]as one follows it) by-and-by sorrowful and heavy; now hoping, then distrusting; now patient, tomorrow crying out; now pale, then red; running, sitting, sweating, trembling, halting, &c. Some few amongst the rest, or perhaps one of a thousand, may be Pullus Jovis, in the world's esteem, Gallinae filius albae, an happy and fortunate man, ad invidiam felix, because rich, fair, well allied, in honour and office; yet peradventure ask himself, and he will say, that of all others [1765]he is most miserable and unhappy. A fair shoe, Hic soccus novus, elegans, as he [1766]said, sed nescis ubi urat, but thou knowest not where it pincheth. It is not another man's opinion can make me happy: but as [1767]Seneca well hath it, He is a miserable wretch that doth not account himself happy, though he be sovereign lord of a world: he is not happy, if he think himself not to be so; for what availeth it what thine estate is, or seem to others, if thou thyself dislike it? A common humour it is of all men to think well of other men's fortunes, and dislike their own: [1768]Cui placet alterius, sua nimirum est odio sors; but [1769]qui fit Mecoenas, &c., how comes it to pass, what's the cause of it? Many men are of such a perverse nature, they are well pleased with nothing, (saith [1770] Theodoret,) neither with riches nor poverty, they complain when they are well and when they are sick, grumble at all fortunes, prosperity and adversity; they are troubled in a cheap year, in a barren, plenty or not plenty, nothing pleaseth them, war nor peace, with children, nor without. This for the most part is the humour of us all, to be discontent, miserable, and most unhappy, as we think at least; and show me him that is not so, or that ever was otherwise. Quintus Metellus his felicity is infinitely admired amongst the Romans, insomuch that as [1771]Paterculus mentioneth of him, you can scarce find of any nation, order, age, sex, one for happiness to be compared unto him: he had, in a word, Bona animi, corporis et fortunae, goods of mind, body, and fortune, so had P. Mutianus, [1772]Crassus. Lampsaca, that Lacedaemonian lady, was such another in [1773]Pliny's conceit, a king's wife, a king's mother, a king's daughter: and all the world esteemed as much of Polycrates of Samos. The Greeks brag of their Socrates, Phocion, Aristides; the Psophidians in particular of their Aglaus, Omni vita felix, ab omni periculo immunis (which by the way Pausanias held impossible;) the Romans of their [1774] Cato, Curius, Fabricius, for their composed fortunes, and retired estates, government of passions, and contempt of the world: yet none of all these were happy, or free from discontent, neither Metellus, Crassus, nor Polycrates, for he died a violent death, and so did Cato; and how much evil doth Lactantius and Theodoret speak of Socrates, a weak man, and so of the rest. There is no content in this life, but as [1775]he said, All is vanity and vexation of spirit; lame and imperfect. Hadst thou Sampson's hair, Milo's strength, Scanderbeg's arm, Solomon's wisdom, Absalom's beauty, Croesus' wealth, Pasetis obulum, Caesar's valour, Alexander's spirit, Tully's or Demosthenes' eloquence, Gyges' ring, Perseus' Pegasus, and Gorgon's head, Nestor's years to come, all this would not make thee absolute; give thee content, and true happiness in this life, or so continue it. Even in the midst of all our mirth, jollity, and laughter, is sorrow and grief, or if there be true happiness amongst us, 'tis but for a time, [1776]Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne: A handsome woman with a fish's tail, a fair morning turns to a lowering afternoon. Brutus and Cassius, once renowned, both eminently happy, yet you shall scarce find two (saith Paterculus) quos fortuna maturius destiturit, whom fortune sooner forsook. Hannibal, a conqueror all his life, met with his match, and was subdued at last, Occurrit forti, qui mage fortis erit. One is brought in triumph, as Caesar into Rome, Alcibiades into Athens, coronis aureis donatus, crowned, honoured, admired; by-and-by his statues demolished, he hissed out, massacred, &c. [1777]Magnus Gonsalva, that famous Spaniard, was of the prince and people at first honoured, approved; forthwith confined and banished. Admirandas actiones; graves plerunque sequuntur invidiae, et acres calumniae: 'tis Polybius his observation, grievous enmities, and bitter calumnies, commonly follow renowned actions. One is born rich, dies a beggar; sound today, sick tomorrow; now in most flourishing estate, fortunate and happy, by-and-by deprived of his goods by foreign enemies, robbed by thieves, spoiled, captivated, impoverished, as they of [1778]Rabbah put under iron saws, and under iron harrows, and under axes of iron, and cast into the tile kiln, [1779]Quid me felicem toties jactastis amici, Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu. He that erst marched like Xerxes with innumerable armies, as rich as Croesus, now shifts for himself in a poor cock-boat, is bound in iron chains, with Bajazet the Turk, and a footstool with Aurelian, for a tyrannising conqueror to trample on. So many casualties there are, that as Seneca said of a city consumed with fire, Una dies interest inter maximum civitatem et nullam, one day betwixt a great city and none: so many grievances from outward accidents, and from ourselves, our own indiscretion, inordinate appetite, one day betwixt a man and no man. And which is worse, as if discontents and miseries would not come fast enough upon us: homo homini daemon, we maul, persecute, and study how to sting, gall, and vex one another with mutual hatred, abuses, injuries; preying upon and devouring as so many, [1780]ravenous birds; and as jugglers, panders, bawds, cozening one another; or raging as [1781]wolves, tigers, and devils, we take a delight to torment one another; men are evil, wicked, malicious, treacherous, and [1782]naught, not loving one another, or loving themselves, not hospitable, charitable, nor sociable as they ought to be, but counterfeit, dissemblers, ambidexters, all for their own ends, hard-hearted, merciless, pitiless, and to benefit themselves, they care not what mischief they procure to others. [1783]Praxinoe and Gorgo in the poet, when they had got in to see those costly sights, they then cried bene est, and would thrust out all the rest: when they are rich themselves, in honour, preferred, full, and have even that they would, they debar others of those pleasures which youth requires, and they formerly have enjoyed. He sits at table in a soft chair at ease, but he doth remember in the mean time that a tired waiter stands behind him, an hungry fellow ministers to him full, he is athirst that gives him drink (saith [1784]Epictetus) and is silent whilst he speaks his pleasure: pensive, sad, when he laughs. Pleno se proluit auro: he feasts, revels, and profusely spends, hath variety of robes, sweet music, ease, and all the pleasure the world can afford, whilst many an hunger-starved poor creature pines in the street, wants clothes to cover him, labours hard all day long, runs, rides for a trifle, fights peradventure from sun to sun, sick and ill, weary, full of pain and grief, is in great distress and sorrow of heart. He loathes and scorns his inferior, hates or emulates his equal, envies his superior, insults over all such as are under him, as if he were of another species, a demigod, not subject to any fall, or human infirmities. Generally they love not, are not beloved again: they tire out others' bodies with continual labour, they themselves living at ease, caring for none else, sibi nati; and are so far many times from putting to their helping hand, that they seek all means to depress, even most worthy and well deserving, better than themselves, those whom they are by the laws of nature bound to relieve and help, as much as in them lies, they will let them caterwaul, starve, beg, and hang, before they will any ways (though it be in their power) assist or ease: [1785]so unnatural are they for the most part, so unregardful; so hard-hearted, so churlish, proud, insolent, so dogged, of so bad a disposition. And being so brutish, so devilishly bent one towards another, how is it possible but that we should be discontent of all sides, full of cares, woes, and miseries? If this be not a sufficient proof of their discontent and misery, examine every condition and calling apart. Kings, princes, monarchs, and magistrates seem to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall [1786]find them to be most encumbered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, suspicion, jealousy: that, as [1787]he said of a crown, if they knew but the discontents that accompany it, they would not stoop to take it up. Quem mihi regent dabis (saith Chrysostom) non curis plenum? What king canst thou show me, not full of cares? [1788]Look not on his crown, but consider his afflictions; attend not his number of servants, but multitude of crosses. Nihil aliud potestas culminis, quam tempestas mentis, as Gregory seconds him; sovereignty is a tempest of the soul: Sylla like they have brave titles, but terrible fits: splendorem titulo, cruciatum animo: which made [1789]Demosthenes vow, si vel ad tribunal, vel ad interitum duceretur: if to be a judge, or to be condemned, were put to his choice, he would be condemned. Rich men are in the same predicament; what their pains are, stulti nesciunt, ipsi sentiunt: they feel, fools perceive not, as I shall prove elsewhere, and their wealth is brittle, like children's rattles: they come and go, there is no certainty in them: those whom they elevate, they do as suddenly depress, and leave in a vale of misery. The middle sort of men are as so many asses to bear burdens; or if they be free, and live at ease, they spend themselves, and consume their bodies and fortunes with luxury and riot, contention, emulation, &c. The poor I reserve for another [1790]place and their discontents. For particular professions, I hold as of the rest, there's no content or security in any; on what course will you pitch, how resolve? to be a divine, 'tis contemptible in the world's esteem; to be a lawyer, 'tis to be a wrangler; to be a physician, [1791]pudet lotii, 'tis loathed; a philosopher, a madman; an alchemist, a beggar; a poet, esurit, an hungry jack; a musician, a player; a schoolmaster, a drudge; an husbandman, an emmet; a merchant, his gains are uncertain; a mechanician, base; a chirurgeon, fulsome; a tradesman, a [1792]liar; a tailor, a thief; a serving-man, a slave; a soldier, a butcher; a smith, or a metalman, the pot's never from his nose; a courtier a parasite, as he could find no tree in the wood to hang himself; I can show no state of life to give content. The like you may say of all ages; children live in a perpetual slavery, still under that tyrannical government of masters; young men, and of riper years, subject to labour, and a thousand cares of the world, to treachery, falsehood, and cozenage, [1793]———Incedit per ignes, Suppositos cineri doloso, ———you incautious tread On fires, with faithless ashes overhead. [1794]old are full of aches in their bones, cramps and convulsions, silicernia, dull of hearing, weak sighted, hoary, wrinkled, harsh, so much altered as that they cannot know their own face in a glass, a burthen to themselves and others, after 70 years, all is sorrow (as David hath it), they do not live but linger. If they be sound, they fear diseases; if sick, weary of their lives: Non est vivere, sed valere vita. One complains of want, a second of servitude, [1795]another of a secret or incurable disease; of some deformity of body, of some loss, danger, death of friends, shipwreck, persecution, imprisonment, disgrace, repulse, [1796] contumely, calumny, abuse, injury, contempt, ingratitude, unkindness, scoffs, flouts, unfortunate marriage, single life, too many children, no children, false servants, unhappy children, barrenness, banishment, oppression, frustrate hopes and ill-success, &c. [1797]Talia de genere hoc adeo sunt multa, loquacem ut Delassare valent Fabium.——— But, every various instance to repeat, Would tire even Fabius of incessant prate. Talking Fabius will be tired before he can tell half of them; they are the subject of whole volumes, and shall (some of them) be more opportunely dilated elsewhere. In the meantime thus much I may say of them, that generally they crucify the soul of man, [1798]attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them as so many anatomies ([1799]ossa atque pellis est totus, ita curis macet) they cause tempus foedum et squalidum, cumbersome days, ingrataque tempora, slow, dull, and heavy times: make us howl, roar, and tear our hairs, as sorrow did in [1800]Cebes' table, and groan for the very anguish of our souls. Our hearts fail us as David's did, Psal. xl. 12, for innumerable troubles that compassed him; and we are ready to confess with Hezekiah, Isaiah lviii. 17, behold, for felicity I had bitter grief; to weep with Heraclitus, to curse the day of our birth with Jeremy, xx. 14, and our stars with Job: to hold that axiom of Silenus, [1801]better never to have been born, and the best next of all, to die quickly: or if we must live, to abandon the world, as Timon did; creep into caves and holes, as our anchorites; cast all into the sea, as Crates Thebanus; or as Theombrotus Ambrociato's 400 auditors, precipitate ourselves to be rid of these miseries. SUBSECT. XI.—Concupiscible Appetite, as Desires, Ambition, Causes. These concupiscible and irascible appetites are as the two twists of a rope, mutually mixed one with the other, and both twining about the heart: both good, as Austin, holds, l. 14. c. 9. de civ. Dei, [1802]if they be moderate; both pernicious if they be exorbitant. This concupiscible appetite, howsoever it may seem to carry with it a show of pleasure and delight, and our concupiscences most part affect us with content and a pleasing object, yet if they be in extremes, they rack and wring us on the other side. A true saying it is, Desire hath no rest; is infinite in itself, endless; and as [1803]one calls it, a perpetual rack, [1804]or horse-mill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring. They are not so continual, as divers, felicius atomos denumerare possem, saith [1805]Bernard, quam motus cordis; nunc haec, nunc illa cogito, you may as well reckon up the motes in the sun as them. [1806]It extends itself to everything, as Guianerius will have it, that is superfluously sought after:' or to any [1807]fervent desire, as Fernelius interprets it; be it in what kind soever, it tortures if immoderate, and is (according to [1808] Plater and others) an especial cause of melancholy. Multuosis concupiscentiis dilaniantur cogitationes meae, [1809]Austin confessed, that he was torn a pieces with his manifold desires: and so doth [1810] Bernard complain, that he could not rest for them a minute of an hour: this I would have, and that, and then I desire to be such and such. 'Tis a hard matter therefore to confine them, being they are so various and many, impossible to apprehend all. I will only insist upon some few of the chief, and most noxious in their kind, as that exorbitant appetite and desire of honour, which we commonly call ambition; love of money, which is covetousness, and that greedy desire of gain: self-love, pride, and inordinate desire of vainglory or applause, love of study in excess; love of women (which will require a just volume of itself), of the other I will briefly speak, and in their order. Ambition, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of honour, a great torture of the mind, composed of envy, pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one [1811]defines it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, a canker of the soul, an hidden plague: [1812]Bernard, a secret poison, the father of livor, and mother of hypocrisy, the moth of holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying and disquieting all that it takes hold of. [1813]Seneca calls it, rem solicitam, timidam, vanam, ventosam, a windy thing, a vain, solicitous, and fearful thing. For commonly they that, like Sisyphus, roll this restless stone of ambition, are in a perpetual agony, still [1814] perplexed, semper taciti, tritesque recedunt (Lucretius), doubtful, timorous, suspicious, loath to offend in word or deed, still cogging and colloguing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering, visiting, waiting at men's doors, with all affability, counterfeit honesty and humility. [1815]If that will not serve, if once this humour (as [1816]Cyprian describes it) possess his thirsty soul, ambitionis salsugo ubi bibulam animam possidet, by hook and by crook he will obtain it, and from his hole he will climb to all honours and offices, if it be possible for him to get up, flattering one, bribing another, he will leave no means unessay'd to win all. [1817]It is a wonder to see how slavishly these kind of men subject themselves, when they are about a suit, to every inferior person; what pains they will take, run, ride, cast, plot, countermine, protest and swear, vow, promise, what labours undergo, early up, down late; how obsequious and affable they are, how popular and courteous, how they grin and fleer upon every man they meet; with what feasting and inviting, how they spend themselves and their fortunes, in seeking that many times, which they had much better be without; as [1818]Cyneas the orator told Pyrrhus: with what waking nights, painful hours, anxious thoughts, and bitterness of mind, inter spemque metumque, distracted and tired, they consume the interim of their time. There can be no greater plague for the present. If they do obtain their suit, which with such cost and solicitude they have sought, they are not so freed, their anxiety is anew to begin, for they are never satisfied, nihil aliud nisi imperium spirant, their thoughts, actions, endeavours are all for sovereignty and honour, like [1819]Lues Sforza that huffing Duke of Milan, a man of singular wisdom, but profound ambition, born to his own, and to the destruction of Italy, though it be to their own ruin, and friends' undoing, they will contend, they may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so [1820]Budaeus compares them; [1821]they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top. A knight would be a baronet, and then a lord, and then a viscount, and then an earl, &c.; a doctor, a dean, and then a bishop; from tribune to praetor; from bailiff to major; first this office, and then that; as Pyrrhus in [1822]Plutarch, they will first have Greece, then Africa, and then Asia, and swell with Aesop's frog so long, till in the end they burst, or come down with Sejanus, ad Gemonias scalas, and break their own necks; or as Evangelus the piper in Lucian, that blew his pipe so long, till he fell down dead. If he chance to miss, and have a canvass, he is in a hell on the other side; so dejected, that he is ready to hang himself, turn heretic, Turk, or traitor in an instant. Enraged against his enemies, he rails, swears, fights, slanders, detracts, envies, murders: and for his own part, si appetitum explere non potest, furore corripitur; if he cannot satisfy his desire (as [1823]Bodine writes) he runs mad. So that both ways, hit or miss, he is distracted so long as his ambition lasts, he can look for no other but anxiety and care, discontent and grief in the meantime, [1824]madness itself, or violent death in the end. The event of this is common to be seen in populous cities, or in princes' courts, for a courtier's life (as Budaeus describes it) is a [1825]gallimaufry of ambition, lust, fraud, imposture, dissimulation, detraction, envy, pride; [1826]the court, a common conventicle of flatterers, time-servers, politicians, &c.; or as [1827] Anthony Perez will, the suburbs of hell itself. If you will see such discontented persons, there you shall likely find them. [1828]And which he observed of the markets of old Rome, Qui perjurum convenire vult hominem, mitto in Comitium; Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cluasinae sacrum; Dites, damnosos maritos, sub basilica quaerito, &c. Perjured knaves, knights of the post, liars, crackers, bad husbands, &c. keep their several stations; they do still, and always did in every commonwealth. SUBSECT. XII.—Φιλαργυρία, Covetousness, a Cause. Plutarch, in his [1829]book whether the diseases of the body be more grievous than those of the soul, is of opinion, if you will examine all the causes of our miseries in this life, you shall find them most part to have had their beginning from stubborn anger, that furious desire of contention, or some unjust or immoderate affection, as covetousness, &c. From whence are wars and contentions amongst you? [1830]St. James asks: I will add usury, fraud, rapine, simony, oppression, lying, swearing, bearing false witness, &c. are they not from this fountain of covetousness, that greediness in getting, tenacity in keeping, sordidity in spending; that they are so wicked, [1831]unjust against God, their neighbour, themselves; all comes hence. The desire of money is the root of all evil, and they that lust after it, pierce themselves through with many sorrows, 1 Tim. vi. 10. Hippocrates therefore in his Epistle to Crateva, an herbalist, gives him this good counsel, that if it were possible, [1832] amongst other herbs, he should cut up that weed of covetousness by the roots, that there be no remainder left, and then know this for a certainty, that together with their bodies, thou mayst quickly cure all the diseases of their minds. For it is indeed the pattern, image, epitome of all melancholy, the fountain of many miseries, much discontented care and woe; this inordinate, or immoderate desire of gain, to get or keep money, as [1833]Bonaventure defines it: or, as Austin describes it, a madness of the soul, Gregory a torture; Chrysostom, an insatiable drunkenness; Cyprian, blindness, speciosum supplicium, a plague subverting kingdoms, families, an [1834]incurable disease; Budaeus, an ill habit, [1835]yielding to no remedies: neither Aesculapius nor Plutus can cure them: a continual plague, saith Solomon, and vexation of spirit, another hell. I know there be some of opinion, that covetous men are happy, and worldly, wise, that there is more pleasure in getting of wealth than in spending, and no delight in the world like unto it. 'Twas [1836]Bias' problem of old, With what art thou not weary? with getting money. What is most delectable? to gain. What is it, trow you, that makes a poor man labour all his lifetime, carry such great burdens, fare so hardly, macerate himself, and endure so much misery, undergo such base offices with so great patience, to rise up early, and lie down late, if there were not an extraordinary delight in getting and keeping of money? What makes a merchant that hath no need, satis superque domi, to range all over the world, through all those intemperate [1837]Zones of heat and cold; voluntarily to venture his life, and be content with such miserable famine, nasty usage, in a stinking ship; if there were not a pleasure and hope to get money, which doth season the rest, and mitigate his indefatigable pains? What makes them go into the bowels of the earth, an hundred fathom deep, endangering their dearest lives, enduring damps and filthy smells, when they have enough already, if they could be content, and no such cause to labour, but an extraordinary delight they take in riches. This may seem plausible at first show, a popular and strong argument; but let him that so thinks, consider better of it, and he shall soon perceive, that it is far otherwise than he supposeth; it may be haply pleasing at the first, as most part all melancholy is. For such men likely have some lucida intervalla, pleasant symptoms intermixed; but you must note that of [1838]Chrysostom, 'Tis one thing to be rich, another to be covetous: generally they are all fools, dizzards, madmen, [1839]miserable wretches, living besides themselves, sine arte fruendi, in perpetual slavery, fear, suspicion, sorrow, and discontent, plus aloes quam mellis habent; and are indeed, rather possessed by their money, than possessors: as [1840]Cyprian hath it, mancipati pecuniis; bound prentice to their goods, as [1841]Pliny; or as Chrysostom, servi divitiarum, slaves and drudges to their substance; and we may conclude of them all, as [1842]Valerius doth of Ptolomaeus king of Cyprus, He was in title a king of that island, but in his mind, a miserable drudge of money: [1843]———potiore metallis libertate carens——— wanting his liberty, which is better than gold. Damasippus the Stoic, in Horace, proves that all mortal men dote by fits, some one way, some another, but that covetous men [1844]are madder than the rest; and he that shall truly look into their estates, and examine their symptoms, shall find no better of them, but that they are all [1845]fools, as Nabal was, Re et nomine (1. Reg. 15.) For what greater folly can there be, or [1846] madness, than to macerate himself when he need not? and when, as Cyprian notes, [1847]he may be freed from his burden, and eased of his pains, will go on still, his wealth increasing, when he hath enough, to get more, to live besides himself, to starve his genius, keep back from his wife [1848]and children, neither letting them nor other friends use or enjoy that which is theirs by right, and which they much need perhaps; like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it, because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and others: and for a little momentary pelf, damn his own soul? They are commonly sad and tetric by nature, as Achab's spirit was because he could not get Naboth's vineyard, (1. Reg. 22.) and if he lay out his money at any time, though it be to necessary uses, to his own children's good, he brawls and scolds, his heart is heavy, much disquieted he is, and loath to part from it: Miser abstinet et timet uti, Hor. He is of a wearish, dry, pale constitution, and cannot sleep for cares and worldly business; his riches, saith Solomon, will not let him sleep, and unnecessary business which he heapeth on himself; or if he do sleep, 'tis a very unquiet, interrupt, unpleasing sleep: with his bags in his arms, ———congestis undique sacc indormit inhians,——— And though he be at a banquet, or at some merry feast, he sighs for grief of heart (as [1849]Cyprian hath it) and cannot sleep though it be upon a down bed; his wearish body takes no rest, [1850]troubled in his abundance, and sorrowful in plenty, unhappy for the present, and more unhappy in the life to come. Basil. He is a perpetual drudge, [1851]restless in his thoughts, and never satisfied, a slave, a wretch, a dust-worm, semper quod idolo suo immolet, sedulus observat Cypr. prolog. ad sermon still seeking what sacrifice he may offer to his golden god, per fas et nefas, he cares not how, his trouble is endless, [1852]crescunt divitiae, tamen curtae nescio quid semper abest rei: his wealth increaseth, and the more he hath, the more [1853]he wants: like Pharaoh's lean kine, which devoured the fat, and were not satisfied. [1854]Austin therefore defines covetousness, quarumlibet rerum inhonestam et insatiabilem cupiditatem a dishonest and insatiable desire of gain; and in one of his epistles compares it to hell; [1855]which devours all, and yet never hath enough, a bottomless pit, an endless misery; in quem scopulum avaritiae cadaverosi senes utplurimum impingunt, and that which is their greatest corrosive, they are in continual suspicion, fear, and distrust, He thinks his own wife and children are so many thieves, and go about to cozen him, his servants are all false: Rem suam periisse, seque eradicarier, Et divum atque hominum clamat continuo fidem, De suo tigillo si qua exit foras. If his doors creek, then out he cries anon, His goods are gone, and he is quite undone. Timidus Plutus, an old proverb, As fearful as Plutus: so doth Aristophanes and Lucian bring him in fearful still, pale, anxious, suspicious, and trusting no man, [1856]They are afraid of tempests for their corn; they are afraid of their friends lest they should ask something of them, beg or borrow; they are afraid of their enemies lest they hurt them, thieves lest they rob them; they are afraid of war and afraid of peace, afraid of rich and afraid of poor; afraid of all. Last of all, they are afraid of want, that they shall die beggars, which makes them lay up still, and dare not use that they have: what if a dear year come, or dearth, or some loss? and were it not that they are both to [1857]lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges, and make away themselves, if their corn and cattle miscarry; though they have abundance left, as [1858]Agellius notes. [1859]Valerius makes mention of one that in a famine sold a mouse for 200 pence, and famished himself: such are their cares, [1860]griefs and perpetual fears. These symptoms are elegantly expressed by Theophrastus in his character of a covetous man; [1861]lying in bed, he asked his wife whether she shut the trunks and chests fast, the cap-case be sealed, and whether the hall door be bolted; and though she say all is well, he riseth out of his bed in his shirt, barefoot and barelegged, to see whether it be so, with a dark lantern searching every corner, scarce sleeping a wink all night. Lucian in that pleasant and witty dialogue called Gallus, brings in Mycillus the cobbler disputing with his cock, sometimes Pythagoras; where after much speech pro and con, to prove the happiness of a mean estate, and discontents of a rich man, Pythagoras' cock in the end, to illustrate by examples that which he had said, brings him to Gnyphon the usurer's house at midnight, and after that to Encrates; whom, they found both awake, casting up their accounts, and telling of their money, [1862]lean, dry, pale and anxious, still suspecting lest somebody should make a hole through the wall, and so get in; or if a rat or mouse did but stir, starting upon a sudden, and running to the door to see whether all were fast. Plautus, in his Aulularia, makes old Euclio [1863]commanding Staphyla his wife to shut the doors fast, and the fire to be put out, lest anybody should make that an errand to come to his house: when he washed his hands, [1864]he was loath to fling away the foul water, complaining that he was undone, because the smoke got out of his roof. And as he went from home, seeing a crow scratch upon the muck-hill, returned in all haste, taking it for malum omen, an ill sign, his money was digged up; with many such. He that will but observe their actions, shall find these and many such passages not feigned for sport, but really performed, verified indeed by such covetous and miserable wretches, and that it is, [1865]———manifesta phrenesis Ut locuples moriaris egenti vivere fato. A mere madness, to live like a wretch, and die rich. SUBSECT. XIII.—Love of Gaming, &c. and pleasures immoderate; Causes. It is a wonder to see, how many poor, distressed, miserable wretches, one shall meet almost in every path and street, begging for an alms, that have been well descended, and sometimes in flourishing estate, now ragged, tattered, and ready to be starved, lingering out a painful life, in discontent and grief of body and mind, and all through immoderate lust, gaming, pleasure and riot. 'Tis the common end of all sensual epicures and brutish prodigals, that are stupefied and carried away headlong with their several pleasures and lusts. Cebes in his table, St. Ambrose in his second book of Abel and Cain, and amongst the rest Lucian in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia, whom he feigns to dwell on the top of a high mount, much sought after by many suitors; at their first coming they are generally entertained by pleasure and dalliance, and have all the content that possibly may be given, so long as their money lasts: but when their means fail, they are contemptibly thrust out at a back door, headlong, and there left to shame, reproach, despair. And he at first that had so many attendants, parasites, and followers, young and lusty, richly arrayed, and all the dainty fare that might be had, with all kind of welcome and good respect, is now upon a sudden stripped of all, [1866]pale, naked, old, diseased and forsaken, cursing his stars, and ready to strangle himself; having no other company but repentance, sorrow, grief, derision, beggary, and contempt, which are his daily attendants to his life's end. As the [1867]prodigal son had exquisite music, merry company, dainty fare at first; but a sorrowful reckoning in the end; so have all such vain delights and their followers. [1868]Tristes voluptatum exitus, et quisquis voluptatum suarum reminisci volet, intelliget, as bitter as gall and wormwood is their last; grief of mind, madness itself. The ordinary rocks upon which such men do impinge and precipitate themselves, are cards, dice, hawks, and hounds, Insanum venandi studium, one calls it, insanae substructiones: their mad structures, disports, plays, &c., when they are unseasonably used, imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes. Some men are consumed by mad fantastical buildings, by making galleries, cloisters, terraces, walks, orchards, gardens, pools, rillets, bowers, and such like places of pleasure; Inutiles domos, [1869]Xenophon calls them, which howsoever they be delightsome things in themselves, and acceptable to all beholders, an ornament, and benefiting some great men: yet unprofitable to others, and the sole overthrow of their estates. Forestus in his observations hath an example of such a one that became melancholy upon the like occasion, having consumed his substance in an unprofitable building, which would afterward yield him no advantage. Others, I say, are [1870] overthrown by those mad sports of hawking and hunting; honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person; whilst they will maintain their falconers, dogs, and hunting nags, their wealth, saith [1871]Salmutze, runs away with hounds, and their fortunes fly away with hawks. They persecute beasts so long, till in the end they themselves degenerate into beasts, as [1872]Agrippa taxeth them, [1873]Actaeon like, for as he was eaten to death by his own dogs, so do they devour themselves and their patrimonies, in such idle and unnecessary disports, neglecting in the mean time their more necessary business, and to follow their vocations. Over-mad too sometimes are our great men in delighting, and doting too much on it. [1874]When they drive poor husbandmen from their tillage, as [1875]Sarisburiensis objects, Polycrat. l. 1. c. 4, fling down country farms, and whole towns, to make parks, and forests, starving men to feed beasts, and [1876]punishing in the mean time such a man that shall molest their game, more severely than him that is otherwise a common hacker, or a notorious thief. But great men are some ways to be excused, the meaner sort have no evasion why they should not be counted mad. Poggius the Florentine tells a merry story to this purpose, condemning the folly and impertinent business of such kind of persons. A physician of Milan, saith he, that cured mad men, had a pit of water in his house, in which he kept his patients, some up to the knees, some to the girdle, some to the chin, pro modo insaniae, as they were more or less affected. One of them by chance, that was well recovered, stood in the door, and seeing a gallant ride by with a hawk on his fist, well mounted, with his spaniels after him, would needs know to what use all this preparation served; he made answer to kill certain fowls; the patient demanded again, what his fowl might be worth which he killed in a year; he replied 5 or 10 crowns; and when he urged him farther what his dogs, horse, and hawks stood him in, he told him 400 crowns; with that the patient bad be gone, as he loved his life and welfare, for if our master come and find thee here, he will put thee in the pit amongst mad men up to the chin: taxing the madness and folly of such vain men that spend themselves in those idle sports, neglecting their business and necessary affairs. Leo Decimus, that hunting pope, is much discommended by [1877]Jovius in his life, for his immoderate desire of hawking and hunting, in so much that (as he saith) he would sometimes live about Ostia weeks and months together, leave suitors [1878]unrespected, bulls and pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private men's loss. [1879]And if he had been by chance crossed in his sport, or his game not so good, he was so impatient, that he would revile and miscall many times men of great worth with most bitter taunts, look so sour, be so angry and waspish, so grieved and molested, that it is incredible to relate it. But if he had good sport, and been well pleased, on the other side, incredibili munificentia, with unspeakable bounty and munificence he would reward all his fellow hunters, and deny nothing to any suitor when he was in that mood. To say truth, 'tis the common humour of all gamesters, as Galataeus observes, if they win, no men living are so jovial and merry, but [1880]if they lose, though it be but a trifle, two or three games at tables, or a dealing at cards for two pence a game, they are so choleric and testy that no man may speak with them, and break many times into violent passions, oaths, imprecations, and unbeseeming speeches, little differing from mad men for the time. Generally of all gamesters and gaming, if it be excessive, thus much we may conclude, that whether they win or lose for the present, their winnings are not Munera fortunae, sed insidiae as that wise Seneca determines, not fortune's gifts, but baits, the common catastrophe is [1881]beggary, [1882]Ut pestis vitam, sic adimit alea pecuniam, as the plague takes away life, doth gaming goods, for [1883] omnes nudi, inopes et egeni; [1884]Alea Scylla vorax, species certissima furti, Non contenta bonis animum quoque perfida mergit, Foeda, furax, infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina. For a little pleasure they take, and some small gains and gettings now and then, their wives and children are ringed in the meantime, and they themselves with loss of body and soul rue it in the end. I will say nothing of those prodigious prodigals, perdendae pecuniae, genitos, as he [1885] taxed Anthony, Qui patrimonium sine ulla fori calumnia amittunt, saith [1886]Cyprian, and [1887]mad sybaritical spendthrifts, Quique una comedunt patrimonia coena; that eat up all at a breakfast, at a supper, or amongst bawds, parasites, and players, consume themselves in an instant, as if they had flung it into [1888]Tiber, with great wages, vain and idle expenses, &c., not themselves only, but even all their friends, as a man desperately swimming drowns him that comes to help him, by suretyship and borrowing they will willingly undo all their associates and allies. [1889] Irati pecuniis, as he saith, angry with their money: [1890]what with a wanton eye, a liquorish tongue, and a gamesome hand, when they have indiscreetly impoverished themselves, mortgaged their wits, together with their lands, and entombed their ancestors' fair possessions in their bowels, they may lead the rest of their days in prison, as many times they do; they repent at leisure; and when all is gone begin to be thrifty: but Sera est in fundo parsimonia, 'tis then too late to look about; their [1891]end is misery, sorrow, shame, and discontent. And well they deserve to be infamous and discontent. [1892]Catamidiari in Amphitheatro, as by Adrian the emperor's edict they were of old, decoctores bonorum suorum, so he calls them, prodigal fools, to be publicly shamed, and hissed out of all societies, rather than to be pitied or relieved. [1893]The Tuscans and Boetians brought their bankrupts into the marketplace in a bier with an empty purse carried before them, all the boys following, where they sat all day circumstante plebe, to be infamous and ridiculous. At [1894]Padua in Italy they have a stone called the stone of turpitude, near the senate-house, where spendthrifts, and such as disclaim non-payment of debts, do sit with their hinder parts bare, that by that note of disgrace others may be terrified from all such vain expense, or borrowing more than they can tell how to pay. The [1895]civilians of old set guardians over such brain-sick prodigals, as they did over madmen, to moderate their expenses, that they should not so loosely consume their fortunes, to the utter undoing of their families. I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together. [1896]Qui vino indulget, quemque aloa decoquit, ille In venerem putret——— To whom is sorrow, saith Solomon, Pro. xxiii. 39, to whom is woe, but to such a one as loves drink? it causeth torture, (vino tortus et ira) and bitterness of mind, Sirac. 31. 21. Vinum furoris, Jeremy calls it, 15. cap. wine of madness, as well he may, for insanire facit sanos, it makes sound men sick and sad, and wise men [1897]mad, to say and do they know not what. Accidit hodie terribilis casus (saith [1898]S. Austin) hear a miserable accident; Cyrillus' son this day in his drink, Matrem praegnantem nequiter oppressit, sororem violare voluit, patrem occidit fere, et duas alias sorores ad mortem vulneravit, would have violated his sister, killed his father, &c. A true saying it was of him, Vino dari laetitiam et dolorem, drink causeth mirth, and drink causeth sorrow, drink causeth poverty and want, (Prov. xxi.) shame and disgrace. Multi ignobiles evasere ob vini potum, et (Austin) amissis honoribus profugi aberrarunt: many men have made shipwreck of their fortunes, and go like rogues and beggars, having turned all their substance into aurum potabile, that otherwise might have lived in good worship and happy estate, and for a few hours' pleasure, for their Hilary term's but short, or [1899]free madness, as Seneca calls it, purchase unto themselves eternal tediousness and trouble. That other madness is on women, Apostatare facit cor, saith the wise man, [1900]Atque homini cerebrum minuit. Pleasant at first she is, like Dioscorides Rhododaphne, that fair plant to the eye, but poison to the taste, the rest as bitter as wormwood in the end (Prov. v. 4.) and sharp as a two-edged sword, (vii. 27.) Her house is the way to hell, and goes down to the chambers of death. What more sorrowful can be said? they are miserable in this life, mad, beasts, led like [1901]oxen to the slaughter: and that which is worse, whoremasters and drunkards shall be judged, amittunt gratiam, saith Austin, perdunt gloriam, incurrunt damnationem aeternam. They lose grace and glory; [1902]———brevis illa voluptas Abrogat aeternum caeli decus——— they gain hell and eternal damnation. SUBSECT. XIV.—Philautia, or Self-love, Vainglory, Praise, Honour, Immoderate Applause, Pride, overmuch Joy, &c., Causes. Self-love, pride, and vainglory, [1903]caecus amor sui, which Chrysostom calls one of the devil's three great nets; [1904]Bernard, an arrow which pierceth the soul through, and slays it; a sly, insensible enemy, not perceived, are main causes. Where neither anger, lust, covetousness, fear, sorrow, &c., nor any other perturbation can lay hold; this will slyly and insensibly pervert us, Quem non gula vicit, Philautia, superavit, (saith Cyprian) whom surfeiting could not overtake, self-love hath overcome. [1905]He hath scorned all money, bribes, gifts, upright otherwise and sincere, hath inserted himself to no fond imagination, and sustained all those tyrannical concupiscences of the body, hath lost all his honour, captivated by vainglory. Chrysostom, sup. Io. Tu sola animum mentemque peruris, gloria. A great assault and cause of our present malady, although we do most part neglect, take no notice of it, yet this is a violent batterer of our souls, causeth melancholy and dotage. This pleasing humour; this soft and whispering popular air, Amabilis insania; this delectable frenzy, most irrefragable passion, Mentis gratissimus error, this acceptable disease, which so sweetly sets upon us, ravisheth our senses, lulls our souls asleep, puffs up our hearts as so many bladders, and that without all feeling, [1906]insomuch as those that are misaffected with it, never so much as once perceive it, or think of any cure. We commonly love him best in this [1907]malady, that doth us most harm, and are very willing to be hurt; adulationibus nostris libentur facemus (saith [1908] Jerome) we love him, we love him for it: [1909]O Bonciari suave, suave fuit a te tali haec tribui; 'Twas sweet to hear it. And as [1910]Pliny doth ingenuously confess to his dear friend Augurinus, all thy writings are most acceptable, but those especially that speak of us. Again, a little after to Maximus, [1911]I cannot express how pleasing it is to me to hear myself commended. Though we smile to ourselves, at least ironically, when parasites bedaub us with false encomiums, as many princes cannot choose but do, Quum tale quid nihil intra se repererint, when they know they come as far short, as a mouse to an elephant, of any such virtues; yet it doth us good. Though we seem many times to be angry, [1912] and blush at our own praises, yet our souls inwardly rejoice, it puffs us up; 'tis fallax suavitas, blandus daemon, makes us swell beyond our bounds, and forget ourselves. Her two daughters are lightness of mind, immoderate joy and pride, not excluding those other concomitant vices, which [1913]Iodocus Lorichius reckons up; bragging, hypocrisy, peevishness, and curiosity. Now the common cause of this mischief, ariseth from ourselves or others, [1914]we are active and passive. It proceeds inwardly from ourselves, as we are active causes, from an overweening conceit we have of our good parts, own worth, (which indeed is no worth) our bounty, favour, grace, valour, strength, wealth, patience, meekness, hospitality, beauty, temperance, gentry, knowledge, wit, science, art, learning, our [1915] excellent gifts and fortunes, for which, Narcissus-like, we admire, flatter, and applaud ourselves, and think all the world esteems so of us; and as deformed women easily believe those that tell them they be fair, we are too credulous of our own good parts and praises, too well persuaded of ourselves. We brag and venditate our [1916]own works, and scorn all others in respect of us; Inflati scientia, (saith Paul) our wisdom, [1917]our learning, all our geese are swans, and we as basely esteem and vilify other men's, as we do over-highly prize and value our own. We will not suffer them to be in secundis, no, not in tertiis; what, Mecum confertur Ulysses? they are Mures, Muscae, culices prae se, nits and flies compared to his inexorable and supercilious, eminent and arrogant worship: though indeed they be far before him. Only wise, only rich, only fortunate, valorous, and fair, puffed up with this tympany of self-conceit; [1918]as that proud Pharisee, they are not (as they suppose) like other men, of a purer and more precious metal: [1919]Soli rei gerendi sunt efficaces, which that wise Periander held of such: [1920]meditantur omne qui prius negotium, &c. Novi quendam (saith [1921]Erasmus) I knew one so arrogant that he thought himself inferior to no man living, like [1922]Callisthenes the philosopher, that neither held Alexander's acts, or any other subject worthy of his pen, such was his insolency; or Seleucus king of Syria, who thought none fit to contend with him but the Romans. [1923]Eos solos dignos ratus quibuscum de imperio certaret. That which Tully writ to Atticus long since, is still in force. [1924]There was never yet true poet nor orator, that thought any other better than himself. And such for the most part are your princes, potentates, great philosophers, historiographers, authors of sects or heresies, and all our great scholars, as [1925]Hierom defines; a natural philosopher is a glorious creature, and a very slave of rumour, fame, and popular opinion, and though they write de contemptu gloriae, yet as he observes, they will put their names to their books. Vobis et famae, me semper dedi, saith Trebellius Pollio, I have wholly consecrated myself to you and fame. 'Tis all my desire, night and day, 'tis all my study to raise my name. Proud [1926]Pliny seconds him; Quamquam O! &c. and that vainglorious [1927]orator is not ashamed to confess in an Epistle of his to Marcus Lecceius, Ardeo incredibili cupididate, &c. I burn with an incredible desire to have my [1928]name registered in thy book. Out of this fountain proceed all those cracks and brags,—[1929]speramus carmina fingi Posse linenda cedro, et leni servanda cupresso—[1930]Non usitata nec tenui ferar penna.—nec in terra morabor longius. Nil parvum aut humili modo, nil mortale loquor. Dicar qua violens obstrepit Ausidus.—Exegi monumentum aere perennius. Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, &c. cum venit ille dies, &c. parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis astra ferar, nomenque erit indelebile nostrum. (This of Ovid I have paraphrased in English.) And when I am dead and gone, My corpse laid under a stone My fame shall yet survive, And I shall be alive, In these my works for ever, My glory shall persever, &c. And that of Ennius, Nemo me lachrymis decoret, neque funera fletu Faxit, cur? volito docta per ora virum. Let none shed tears over me, or adorn my bier with sorrow—because I am eternally in the mouths of men. With many such proud strains, and foolish flashes too common with writers. Not so much as Democharis on the [1931] Topics, but he will be immortal. Typotius de fama, shall be famous, and well he deserves, because he writ of fame; and every trivial poet must be renowned,—Plausuque petit clarescere vulgi. He seeks the applause of the public. This puffing humour it is, that hath produced so many great tomes, built such famous monuments, strong castles, and Mausolean tombs, to have their acts eternised,—Digito monstrari, et dicier hic est; to be pointed at with the finger, and to have it said 'there he goes,' to see their names inscribed, as Phryne on the walls of Thebes, Phryne fecit; this causeth so many bloody battles,—Et noctes cogit vigilare serenas; and induces us to watch during calm nights. Long journeys, Magnum iter intendo, sed dat mihi gloria vires, I contemplate a monstrous journey, but the love of glory strengthens me for it, gaining honour, a little applause, pride, self-love, vainglory. This is it which makes them take such pains, and break out into those ridiculous strains, this high conceit of themselves, to [1932]scorn all others; ridiculo fastu et intolerando contemptu; as [1933]Palaemon the grammarian contemned Varro, secum et natas et morituras literas jactans, and brings them to that height of insolency, that they cannot endure to be contradicted, [1934]or hear of anything but their own commendation, which Hierom notes of such kind of men. And as [1935]Austin well seconds him, 'tis their sole study day and night to be commended and applauded. When as indeed, in all wise men's judgments, quibus cor sapit, they are [1936]mad, empty vessels, funges, beside themselves, derided, et ut Camelus in proverbio quaerens cornua, etiam quas habebat aures amisit, [1937]their works are toys, as an almanac out of date, [1938]authoris pereunt garrulitate sui, they seek fame and immortality, but reap dishonour and infamy, they are a common obloquy, insensati, and come far short of that which they suppose or expect. [1939]O puer ut sis vitalis metuo, ———How much I dread Thy days are short, some lord shall strike thee dead. Of so many myriads of poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, sophisters, as [1940]Eusebius well observes, which have written in former ages, scarce one of a thousand's works remains, nomina et libri simul cum corporibus interierunt, their books and bodies are perished together. It is not as they vainly think, they shall surely be admired and immortal, as one told Philip of Macedon insultingly, after a victory, that his shadow was no longer than before, we may say to them, Nos demiramur, sed non cum deside vulgo, Sed velut Harpyas, Gorgonas, et Furias. We marvel too, not as the vulgar we, But as we Gorgons, Harpies, or Furies see. Or if we do applaud, honour and admire, quota pars, how small a part, in respect of the whole world, never so much as hears our names, how few take notice of us, how slender a tract, as scant as Alcibiades' land in a map! And yet every man must and will be immortal, as he hopes, and extend his fame to our antipodes, when as half, no not a quarter of his own province or city, neither knows nor hears of him—but say they did, what's a city to a kingdom, a kingdom to Europe, Europe to the world, the world itself that must have an end, if compared to the least visible star in the firmament, eighteen times bigger than it? and then if those stars be infinite, and every star there be a sun, as some will, and as this sun of ours hath his planets about him, all inhabited, what proportion bear we to them, and where's our glory? Orbem terrarum victor Romanus habebat, as he cracked in Petronius, all the world was under Augustus: and so in Constantine's time, Eusebius brags he governed all the world, universum mundum praeclare admodum administravit,—et omnes orbis gentes Imperatori subjecti: so of Alexander it is given out, the four monarchies, &c. when as neither Greeks nor Romans ever had the fifteenth part of the now known world, nor half of that which was then described. What braggadocios are they and we then? quam brevis hic de nobis sermo, as [1941]he said, [1942]pudebit aucti nominis, how short a time, how little a while doth this fame of ours continue? Every private province, every small territory and city, when we have all done, will yield as generous spirits, as brave examples in all respects, as famous as ourselves, Cadwallader in Wales, Rollo in Normandy, Robin Hood and Little John, are as much renowned in Sherwood, as Caesar in Rome, Alexander in Greece, or his Hephestion, [1943] Omnis aetas omnisque populus in exemplum et admirationem veniet, every town, city, book, is full of brave soldiers, senators, scholars; and though [1944]Bracyclas was a worthy captain, a good man, and as they thought, not to be matched in Lacedaemon, yet as his mother truly said, plures habet Sparta Bracyda meliores, Sparta had many better men than ever he was; and howsoever thou admirest thyself, thy friend, many an obscure fellow the world never took notice of, had he been in place or action, would have done much better than he or he, or thou thyself. Another kind of mad men there is opposite to these, that are insensibly mad, and know not of it, such as contemn all praise and glory, think themselves most free, when as indeed they are most mad: calcant sed alio fastu: a company of cynics, such as are monks, hermits, anchorites, that contemn the world, contemn themselves, contemn all titles, honours, offices: and yet in that contempt are more proud than any man living whatsoever. They are proud in humility, proud in that they are not proud, saepe homo de vanae gloriae contemptu, vanius gloriatur, as Austin hath it, confess. lib. 10, cap. 38, like Diogenes, intus gloriantur, they brag inwardly, and feed themselves fat with a self-conceit of sanctity, which is no better than hypocrisy. They go in sheep's russet, many great men that might maintain themselves in cloth of gold, and seem to be dejected, humble by their outward carriage, when as inwardly they are swollen full of pride, arrogancy, and self-conceit. And therefore Seneca adviseth his friend Lucilius, [1945]in his attire and gesture, outward actions, especially to avoid all such things as are more notable in themselves: as a rugged attire, hirsute head, horrid beard, contempt of money, coarse lodging, and whatsoever leads to fame that opposite way. All this madness yet proceeds from ourselves, the main engine which batters us is from others, we are merely passive in this business: from a company of parasites and flatterers, that with immoderate praise, and bombast epithets, glossing titles, false eulogiums, so bedaub and applaud, gild over many a silly and undeserving man, that they clap him quite out of his wits. Res imprimis violenta est, as Hierom notes, this common applause is a most violent thing, laudum placenta, a drum, fife, and trumpet cannot so animate; that fattens men, erects and dejects them in an instant. [1946] Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum. It makes them fat and lean, as frost doth conies. [1947]And who is that mortal man that can so contain himself, that if he be immoderately commended and applauded, will not be moved? Let him be what he will, those parasites will overturn him: if he be a king, he is one of the nine worthies, more than a man, a god forthwith,—[1948]edictum Domini Deique nostri: and they will sacrifice unto him, [1949]———divinos si tu patiaris honores, Ultro ipsi dabimus meritasque sacrabimus aras. If he be a soldier, then Themistocles, Epaminondas, Hector, Achilles, duo fulmina belli, triumviri terrarum, &c., and the valour of both Scipios is too little for him, he is invictissimus, serenissimus, multis trophaeus ornatissimus, naturae, dominus, although he be lepus galeatus, indeed a very coward, a milk-sop, [1950]and as he said of Xerxes, postremus in pugna, primus in fuga, and such a one as never durst look his enemy in the face. If he be a big man, then is he a Samson, another Hercules; if he pronounce a speech, another Tully or Demosthenes; as of Herod in the Acts, the voice of God and not of man: if he can make a verse, Homer, Virgil, &c., And then my silly weak patient takes all these eulogiums to himself; if he be a scholar so commended for his much reading, excellent style, method, &c., he will eviscerate himself like a spider, study to death, Laudatas ostendit avis Junonia pennas, peacock-like he will display all his feathers. If he be a soldier, and so applauded, his valour extolled, though it be impar congressus, as that of Troilus and Achilles, Infelix puer, he will combat with a giant, run first upon a breach, as another [1951]Philippus, he will ride into the thickest of his enemies. Commend his housekeeping, and he will beggar himself; commend his temperance, he will starve himself. ———laudataque virtus Crescit, et immensum gloria calcar habet.[1952] he is mad, mad, mad, no woe with him:—impatiens consortis erit, he will over the [1953]Alps to be talked of, or to maintain his credit. Commend an ambitious man, some proud prince or potentate, si plus aequo laudetur (saith [1954]Erasmus) cristas erigit, exuit hominem, Deum se putat, he sets up his crest, and will be no longer a man but a God. [1955]———nihil est quod credere de se Non audet quum laudatur diis aequa potestas.[1956] How did this work with Alexander, that would needs be Jupiter's son, and go like Hercules in a lion's skin? Domitian a god, [1957](Dominus Deus noster sic fieri jubet,) like the [1958]Persian kings, whose image was adored by all that came into the city of Babylon. Commodus the emperor was so gulled by his flattering parasites, that he must be called Hercules. [1959]Antonius the Roman would be crowned with ivy, carried in a chariot, and adored for Bacchus. Cotys, king of Thrace, was married to [1960] Minerva, and sent three several messengers one after another, to see if she were come to his bedchamber. Such a one was [1961]Jupiter Menecrates, Maximinus, Jovianus, Dioclesianus Herculeus, Sapor the Persian king, brother of the sun and moon, and our modern Turks, that will be gods on earth, kings of kings, God's shadow, commanders of all that may be commanded, our kings of China and Tartary in this present age. Such a one was Xerxes, that would whip the sea, fetter Neptune, stulta jactantia, and send a challenge to Mount Athos; and such are many sottish princes, brought into a fool's paradise by their parasites, 'tis a common humour, incident to all men, when they are in great places, or come to the solstice of honour, have done, or deserved well, to applaud and flatter themselves. Stultitiam suam produnt, &c., (saith [1962]Platerus) your very tradesmen if they be excellent, will crack and brag, and show their folly in excess. They have good parts, and they know it, you need not tell them of it; out of a conceit of their worth, they go smiling to themselves, a perpetual meditation of their trophies and plaudits, they run at last quite mad, and lose their wits.[1963]Petrarch, lib. 1 de contemptu mundi, confessed as much of himself, and Cardan, in his fifth book of wisdom, gives an instance in a smith of Milan, a fellow-citizen of his, [1964]one Galeus de Rubeis, that being commended for refining of an instrument of Archimedes, for joy ran mad. Plutarch in the life of Artaxerxes, hath such a like story of one Chamus, a soldier, that wounded king Cyrus in battle, and grew thereupon so [1965]arrogant, that in a short space after he lost his wits. So many men, if any new honour, office, preferment, booty, treasure, possession, or patrimony, ex insperato fall unto them for immoderate joy, and continual meditation of it, cannot sleep [1966]or tell what they say or do, they are so ravished on a sudden; and with vain conceits transported, there is no rule with them. Epaminondas, therefore, the next day after his Leuctrian victory, [1967]came abroad all squalid and submiss, and gave no other reason to his friends of so doing, than that he perceived himself the day before, by reason of his good fortune, to be too insolent, overmuch joyed. That wise and virtuous lady, [1968]Queen Katherine, Dowager of England, in private talk, upon like occasion, said, that [1969]she would not willingly endure the extremity of either fortune; but if it were so, that of necessity she must undergo the one, she would be in adversity, because comfort was never wanting in it, but still counsel and government were defective in the other: they could not moderate themselves. SUBSECT. XV.—Love of Learning, or overmuch study. With a Digression of the misery of Scholars, and why the Muses are Melancholy. Leonartus Fuchsius Instit. lib. iii. sect. 1. cap. 1. Felix Plater, lib. iii. de mentis alienat. Herc. de Saxonia, Tract. post. de melanch. cap. 3, speak of a [1970]peculiar fury, which comes by overmuch study. Fernelius, lib. 1, cap. 18, [1971]puts study, contemplation, and continual meditation, as an especial cause of madness: and in his 86 consul. cites the same words. Jo. Arculanus, in lib. 9, Rhasis ad Alnansorem, cap. 16, amongst other causes reckons up studium vehemens: so doth Levinus Lemnius, lib. de occul. nat. mirac. lib. 1, cap. 16. [1972]Many men (saith he) come to this malady by continual [1973]study, and night-waking, and of all other men, scholars are most subject to it: and such Rhasis adds, [1974]that have commonly the finest wits. Cont. lib. 1, tract. 9, Marsilius Ficinus, de sanit. tuenda, lib. 1. cap. 7, puts melancholy amongst one of those five principal plagues of students, 'tis a common Maul unto them all, and almost in some measure an inseparable companion. Varro belike for that cause calls Tristes Philosophos et severos, severe, sad, dry, tetric, are common epithets to scholars: and [1975]Patritius therefore, in the institution of princes, would not have them to be great students. For (as Machiavel holds) study weakens their bodies, dulls the spirits, abates their strength and courage; and good scholars are never good soldiers, which a certain Goth well perceived, for when his countrymen came into Greece, and would have burned all their books, he cried out against it, by no means they should do it, [1976] leave them that plague, which in time will consume all their vigour, and martial spirits. The [1977]Turks abdicated Cornutus the next heir from the empire, because he was so much given to his book: and 'tis the common tenet of the world, that learning dulls and diminisheth the spirits, and so per consequens produceth melancholy. Two main reasons may be given of it, why students should be more subject to this malady than others. The one is, they live a sedentary, solitary life, sibi et musis, free from bodily exercise, and those ordinary disports which other men use: and many times if discontent and idleness concur with it, which is too frequent, they are precipitated into this gulf on a sudden: but the common cause is overmuch study; too much learning (as [1978]Festus told Paul) hath made thee mad; 'tis that other extreme which effects it. So did Trincavelius, lib. 1, consil. 12 and 13, find by his experience, in two of his patients, a young baron, and another that contracted this malady by too vehement study. So Forestus, observat. l. 10, observ. 13, in a young divine in Louvain, that was mad, and said [1979]he had a Bible in his head: Marsilius Ficinus de sanit. tuend. lib. 1, cap. 1, 3, 4, and lib. 2, cap. 16, gives many reasons, [1980] why students dote more often than others. The first is their negligence; [1981]other men look to their tools, a painter will wash his pencils, a smith will look to his hammer, anvil, forge; a husbandman will mend his plough-irons, and grind his hatchet if it be dull; a falconer or huntsman will have an especial care of his hawks, hounds, horses, dogs, &c.; a musician will string and unstring his lute, &c.; only scholars neglect that instrument, their brain and spirits (I mean) which they daily use, and by which they range overall the world, which by much study is consumed. Vide (saith Lucian) ne funiculum nimis intendendo aliquando abrumpas: See thou twist not the rope so hard, till at length it [1982]break. Facinus in his fourth chap. gives some other reasons; Saturn and Mercury, the patrons of learning, they are both dry planets: and Origanus assigns the same cause, why Mercurialists are so poor, and most part beggars; for that their president Mercury had no better fortune himself. The destinies of old put poverty upon him as a punishment; since when, poetry and beggary are Gemelli, twin-born brats, inseparable companions; [1983]And to this day is every scholar poor; Gross gold from them runs headlong to the boor: Mercury can help them to knowledge, but not to money. The second is contemplation, [1984]which dries the brain and extinguisheth natural heat; for whilst the spirits are intent to meditation above in the head, the stomach and liver are left destitute, and thence come black blood and crudities by defect of concoction, and for want of exercise the superfluous vapours cannot exhale, &c. The same reasons are repeated by Gomesius, lib. 4, cap. 1, de sale [1985]Nymannus orat. de Imag. Jo. Voschius, lib. 2, cap. 5, de peste: and something more they add, that hard students are commonly troubled with gouts, catarrhs, rheums, cachexia, bradiopepsia, bad eyes, stone and colic, [1986]crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and all such diseases as come by overmuch sitting; they are most part lean, dry, ill-coloured, spend their fortunes, lose their wits, and many times their lives, and all through immoderate pains, and extraordinary studies. If you will not believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and Thomas Aquinas's works, and tell me whether those men took pains? peruse Austin, Hierom, &c., and many thousands besides. Qui cupit optatam cursu contingere metam, Multa tulit, fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit. He that desires this wished goal to gain, Must sweat and freeze before he can attain, and labour hard for it. So did Seneca, by his own confession, ep. 8. [1987]Not a day that I spend idle, part of the night I keep mine eyes open, tired with waking, and now slumbering to their continual task. Hear Tully pro Archia Poeta: whilst others loitered, and took their pleasures, he was continually at his book, so they do that will be scholars, and that to the hazard (I say) of their healths, fortunes, wits, and lives. How much did Aristotle and Ptolemy spend? unius regni precium they say, more than a king's ransom; how many crowns per annum, to perfect arts, the one about his History of Creatures, the other on his Almagest? How much time did Thebet Benchorat employ, to find out the motion of the eighth sphere? forty years and more, some write: how many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizzards, neglecting all worldly affairs and their own health, wealth, esse and bene esse, to gain knowledge for which, after all their pains, in this world's esteem they are accounted ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, asses, and (as oft they are) rejected, contemned, derided, doting, and mad. Look for examples in Hildesheim spicel. 2, de mania et delirio: read Trincavellius, l. 3. consil. 36, et c. 17. Montanus, consil. 233. [1988]Garceus de Judic. genit. cap. 33. Mercurialis, consil. 86, cap. 25. Prosper [1989]Calenius in his Book de atra bile; Go to Bedlam and ask. Or if they keep their wits, yet they are esteemed scrubs and fools by reason of their carriage: after seven years' study ———statua, taciturnius exit, Plerumque et risum populi quatit.——— He becomes more silent than a statue, and generally excites people's laughter. Because they cannot ride a horse, which every clown can do; salute and court a gentlewoman, carve at table, cringe and make conges, which every common swasher can do, [1990]hos populus ridet, &c., they are laughed to scorn, and accounted silly fools by our gallants. Yea, many times, such is their misery, they deserve it: [1991]a mere scholar, a mere ass. [1992]Obstipo capite, et figentes lumine terram, Murmura cum secum, et rabiosa silentia rodunt, Atque experrecto trutinantur verba labello, Aegroti veteris meditantes somnia, gigni De nihilo nihilum; in nihilum nil posse reverti. [1993]———who do lean awry Their heads, piercing the earth with a fixt eye; When, by themselves, they gnaw their murmuring, And furious silence, as 'twere balancing Each word upon their out-stretched lip, and when They meditate the dreams of old sick men, As, 'Out of nothing, nothing can be brought; And that which is, can ne'er be turn'd to nought.' Thus they go commonly meditating unto themselves, thus they sit, such is their action and gesture. Fulgosus, l. 8, c. 7, makes mention how Th. Aquinas supping with king Lewis of France, upon a sudden knocked his fist upon the table, and cried, conclusum est contra Manichaeos, his wits were a wool-gathering, as they say, and his head busied about other matters, when he perceived his error, he was much [1994]abashed. Such a story there is of Archimedes in Vitruvius, that having found out the means to know how much gold was mingled with the silver in king Hieron's crown, ran naked forth of the bath and cried ἕυρηκα, I have found: [1995]and was commonly so intent to his studies, that he never perceived what was done about him: when the city was taken, and the soldiers now ready to rifle his house, he took no notice of it. St. Bernard rode all day long by the Lemnian lake, and asked at last where he was, Marullus, lib. 2, cap. 4. It was Democritus's carriage alone that made the Abderites suppose him to have been mad, and send for Hippocrates to cure him: if he had been in any solemn company, he would upon all occasions fall a laughing. Theophrastus saith as much of Heraclitus, for that he continually wept, and Laertius of Menedemus Lampsacus, because he ran like a madman, [1996]saying, he came from hell as a spy, to tell the devils what mortal men did. Your greatest students are commonly no better, silly, soft fellows in their outward behaviour, absurd, ridiculous to others, and no whit experienced in worldly business; they can measure the heavens, range over the world, teach others wisdom, and yet in bargains and contracts they are circumvented by every base tradesman. Are not these men fools? and how should they be otherwise, but as so many sots in schools, when (as [1997]he well observed) they neither hear nor see such things as are commonly practised abroad? how should they get experience, by what means? [1998]I knew in my time many scholars, saith Aeneas Sylvius (in an epistle of his to Gasper Scitick, chancellor to the emperor), excellent well learned, but so rude, so silly, that they had no common civility, nor knew how to manage their domestic or public affairs. Paglarensis was amazed, and said his farmer had surely cozened him, when he heard him tell that his sow had eleven pigs, and his ass had but one foal. To say the best of this profession, I can give no other testimony of them in general, than that of Pliny of Isaeus; [1999]He is yet a scholar, than which kind of men there is nothing so simple, so sincere, none better, they are most part harmless, honest, upright, innocent, plain-dealing men. Now because they are commonly subject to such hazards and inconveniences as dotage, madness, simplicity, &c. Jo. Voschius would have good scholars to be highly rewarded, and had in some extraordinary respect above other men, to have greater [2000]privileges than the rest, that adventure themselves and abbreviate their lives for the public good. But our patrons of learning are so far nowadays from respecting the muses, and giving that honour to scholars, or reward which they deserve, and are allowed by those indulgent privileges of many noble princes, that after all their pains taken in the universities, cost and charge, expenses, irksome hours, laborious tasks, wearisome days, dangers, hazards, (barred interim from all pleasures which other men have, mewed up like hawks all their lives) if they chance to wade through them, they shall in the end be rejected, contemned, and which is their greatest misery, driven to their shifts, exposed to want, poverty, and beggary. Their familiar attendants are, [2001]Pallentes morbi, luctus, curaeque laborque Et metus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas, Terribiles visu formae——— Grief, labour, care, pale sickness, miseries, Fear, filthy poverty, hunger that cries, Terrible monsters to be seen with eyes. If there were nothing else to trouble them, the conceit of this alone were enough to make them all melancholy. Most other trades and professions, after some seven years' apprenticeship, are enabled by their craft to live of themselves. A merchant adventures his goods at sea, and though his hazard be great, yet if one ship return of four, he likely makes a saving voyage. An husbandman's gains are almost certain; quibus ipse Jupiter nocere non potest (whom Jove himself can't harm) ('tis [2002]Cato's hyperbole, a great husband himself); only scholars methinks are most uncertain, unrespected, subject to all casualties, and hazards. For first, not one of a many proves to be a scholar, all are not capable and docile, [2003]ex omniligno non fit Mercurius: we can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars: kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed; universities can give degrees; and Tu quod es, e populo quilibet esse potest; but he nor they, nor all the world, can give learning, make philosophers, artists, orators, poets; we can soon say, as Seneca well notes, O virum bonum, o divitem, point at a rich man, a good, a happy man, a prosperous man, sumptuose vestitum, Calamistratum, bene olentem, magno temporis impendio constat haec laudatio, o virum literarum, but 'tis not so easily performed to find out a learned man. Learning is not so quickly got, though they may be willing to take pains, to that end sufficiently informed, and liberally maintained by their patrons and parents, yet few can compass it. Or if they be docile, yet all men's wills are not answerable to their wits, they can apprehend, but will not take pains; they are either seduced by bad companions, vel in puellam impingunt, vel in poculum (they fall in with women or wine) and so spend their time to their friends' grief and their own undoings. Or put case they be studious, industrious, of ripe wits, and perhaps good capacities, then how many diseases of body and mind must they encounter? No labour in the world like unto study. It may be, their temperature will not endure it, but striving to be excellent to know all, they lose health, wealth, wit, life and all. Let him yet happily escape all these hazards, aereis intestinis with a body of brass, and is now consummate and ripe, he hath profited in his studies, and proceeded with all applause: after many expenses, he is fit for preferment, where shall he have it? he is as far to seek it as he was (after twenty years' standing) at the first day of his coming to the University. For what course shall he take, being now capable and ready? The most parable and easy, and about which many are employed, is to teach a school, turn lecturer or curate, and for that he shall have falconer's wages, ten pound per annum, and his diet, or some small stipend, so long as he can please his patron or the parish; if they approve him not (for usually they do but a year or two) as inconstant, as [2004]they that cried Hosanna one day, and Crucify him the other; serving-man-like, he must go look a new master; if they do, what is his reward? [2005]Hoc quoque te manet ut pueros elementa docentem Occupet extremis in vicis alba senectus. At last thy snow-white age in suburb schools, Shall toil in teaching boys their grammar rules. Like an ass, he wears out his time for provender, and can show a stump rod, togam tritam et laceram saith [2006]Haedus, an old torn gown, an ensign of his infelicity, he hath his labour for his pain, a modicum to keep him till he be decrepit, and that is all. Grammaticus non est felix, &c. If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house, as it befell [2007] Euphormio, after some seven years' service, he may perchance have a living to the halves, or some small rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a cracked chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life. But if he offend his good patron, or displease his lady mistress in the mean time, [2008]Ducetur Planta velut ictus ab Hercule Cacus, Poneturque foras, si quid tentaverit unquam Hiscere——— as Hercules did by Cacus, he shall be dragged forth of doors by the heels, away with him. If he bend his forces to some other studies, with an intent to be a secretis to some nobleman, or in such a place with an ambassador, he shall find that these persons rise like apprentices one under another, and in so many tradesmen's shops, when the master is dead, the foreman of the shop commonly steps in his place. Now for poets, rhetoricians, historians, philosophers, [2009]mathematicians, sophisters, &c.; they are like grasshoppers, sing they must in summer, and pine in the winter, for there is no preferment for them. Even so they were at first, if you will believe that pleasant tale of Socrates, which he told fair Phaedrus under a plane-tree, at the banks of the river Iseus; about noon when it was hot, and the grasshoppers made a noise, he took that sweet occasion to tell him a tale, how grasshoppers were once scholars, musicians, poets, &c., before the Muses were born, and lived without meat and drink, and for that cause were turned by Jupiter into grasshoppers. And may be turned again, In Tythoni Cicadas, aut Lyciorum ranas, for any reward I see they are like to have: or else in the mean time, I would they could live, as they did, without any viaticum, like so many [2010]manucodiatae, those Indian birds of paradise, as we commonly call them, those I mean that live with the air and dew of heaven, and need no other food; for being as they are, their [2011]rhetoric only serves them to curse their bad fortunes, and many of them for want of means are driven to hard shifts; from grasshoppers they turn humble-bees and wasps, plain parasites, and make the muses, mules, to satisfy their hunger-starved paunches, and get a meal's meat. To say truth, 'tis the common fortune of most scholars, to be servile and poor, to complain pitifully, and lay open their wants to their respectless patrons, as [2012]Cardan doth, as [2013]Xilander and many others: and which is too common in those dedicatory epistles, for hope of gain, to lie, flatter, and with hyperbolical eulogiums and commendations, to magnify and extol an illiterate unworthy idiot, for his excellent virtues, whom they should rather, as [2014]Machiavel observes, vilify, and rail at downright for his most notorious villainies and vices. So they prostitute themselves as fiddlers, or mercenary tradesmen, to serve great men's turns for a small reward. They are like [2015]Indians, they have store of gold, but know not the worth of it: for I am of Synesius's opinion, [2016]King Hieron got more by Simonides' acquaintance, than Simonides did by his; they have their best education, good institution, sole qualification from us, and when they have done well, their honour and immortality from us: we are the living tombs, registers, and as so many trumpeters of their fames: what was Achilles without Homer? Alexander without Arian and Curtius? who had known the Caesars, but for Suetonius and Dion? [2017]Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona Multi: sed omnes illachrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. Before great Agamemnon reign'd, Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave, Whose huge ambition's now contain'd In the small compass of a grave: In endless night, they sleep, unwept, unknown, No bard they had to make all time their own. they are more beholden to scholars, than scholars to them; but they undervalue themselves, and so by those great men are kept down. Let them have that encyclopaedian, all the learning in the world; they must keep it to themselves, [2018]live in base esteem, and starve, except they will submit, as Budaeus well hath it, so many good parts, so many ensigns of arts, virtues, be slavishly obnoxious to some illiterate potentate, and live under his insolent worship, or honour, like parasites, Qui tanquam mures alienum panem comedunt. For to say truth, artes hae, non sunt Lucrativae, as Guido Bonat that great astrologer could foresee, they be not gainful arts these, sed esurientes et famelicae, but poor and hungry. [2019]Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores, Sed genus et species cogitur ire pedes: The rich physician, honour'd lawyers ride, Whilst the poor scholar foots it by their side. Poverty is the muses' patrimony, and as that poetical divinity teacheth us, when Jupiter's daughters were each of them married to the gods, the muses alone were left solitary, Helicon forsaken of all suitors, and I believe it was, because they had no portion. Calliope longum caelebs cur vixit in aevum? Nempe nihil dotis, quod numeraret, erat. Why did Calliope live so long a maid? Because she had no dowry to be paid. Ever since all their followers are poor, forsaken and left unto themselves. Insomuch, that as [2020]Petronius argues, you shall likely know them by their clothes. There came, saith he, by chance into my company, a fellow not very spruce to look on, that I could perceive by that note alone he was a scholar, whom commonly rich men hate: I asked him what he was, he answered, a poet: I demanded again why he was so ragged, he told me this kind of learning never made any man rich. [2021]Qui Pelago credit, magno se faenore tollit, Qui pugnas et rostra petit, praecingitur auro: Vilis adulator picto jacet ebrius ostro, Sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis. A merchant's gain is great, that goes to sea; A soldier embossed all in gold; A flatterer lies fox'd in brave array; A scholar only ragged to behold. All which our ordinary students, right well perceiving in the universities, how unprofitable these poetical, mathematical, and philosophical studies are, how little respected, how few patrons; apply themselves in all haste to those three commodious professions of law, physic, and divinity, sharing themselves between them, [2022]rejecting these arts in the mean time, history, philosophy, philology, or lightly passing them over, as pleasant toys fitting only table-talk, and to furnish them with discourse. They are not so behoveful: he that can tell his money hath arithmetic enough: he is a true geometrician, can measure out a good fortune to himself; a perfect astrologer, that can cast the rise and fall of others, and mark their errant motions to his own use. The best optics are, to reflect the beams of some great man's favour and grace to shine upon him. He is a good engineer that alone can make an instrument to get preferment. This was the common tenet and practice of Poland, as Cromerus observed not long since, in the first book of his history; their universities were generally base, not a philosopher, a mathematician, an antiquary, &c., to be found of any note amongst them, because they had no set reward or stipend, but every man betook himself to divinity, hoc solum in votis habens, opimum sacerdotium, a good parsonage was their aim. This was the practice of some of our near neighbours, as [2023]Lipsius inveighs, they thrust their children to the study of law and divinity, before they be informed aright, or capable of such studies. Scilicet omnibus artibus antistat spes lucri, et formosior est cumulus auri, quam quicquid Graeci Latinique delirantes scripserunt. Ex hoc numero deinde veniunt ad gubernacula reipub. intersunt et praesunt consiliis regum, o pater, o patria? so he complained, and so may others. For even so we find, to serve a great man, to get an office in some bishop's court (to practise in some good town) or compass a benefice, is the mark we shoot at, as being so advantageous, the highway to preferment. Although many times, for aught I can see, these men fail as often as the rest in their projects, and are as usually frustrate of their hopes. For let him be a doctor of the law, an excellent civilian of good worth, where shall he practise and expatiate? Their fields are so scant, the civil law with us so contracted with prohibitions, so few causes, by reason of those all-devouring municipal laws, quibus nihil illiteratius, saith [2024] Erasmus, an illiterate and a barbarous study, (for though they be never so well learned in it, I can hardly vouchsafe them the name of scholars, except they be otherwise qualified) and so few courts are left to that profession, such slender offices, and those commonly to be compassed at such dear rates, that I know not how an ingenious man should thrive amongst them. Now for physicians, there are in every village so many mountebanks, empirics, quacksalvers, Paracelsians, as they call themselves, Caucifici et sanicidae so [2025]Clenard terms them, wizards, alchemists, poor vicars, cast apothecaries, physicians' men, barbers, and good wives, professing great skill, that I make great doubt how they shall be maintained, or who shall be their patients. Besides, there are so many of both sorts, and some of them such harpies, so covetous, so clamorous, so impudent; and as [2026]he said, litigious idiots, Quibus loquacis affatim arrogantiae est Pentiae parum aut nihil, Nec ulla mica literarii salis, Crumenimulga natio: Loquuteleia turba, litium strophae, Maligna litigantium cohors, togati vultures, Lavernae alumni, Agyrtae, &c. Which have no skill but prating arrogance, No learning, such a purse-milking nation: Gown'd vultures, thieves, and a litigious rout Of cozeners, that haunt this occupation, that they cannot well tell how to live one by another, but as he jested in the Comedy of Clocks, they were so many, [2027]major pars populi arida reptant fame, they are almost starved a great part of them, and ready to devour their fellows, [2028]Et noxia callidilate se corripere, such a multitude of pettifoggers and empirics, such impostors, that an honest man knows not in what sort to compose and behave himself in their society, to carry himself with credit in so vile a rout, scientiae nomen, tot sumptibus partum et vigiliis, profiteri dispudeat, postquam, &c. Last of all to come to our divines, the most noble profession and worthy of double honour, but of all others the most distressed and miserable. If you will not believe me, hear a brief of it, as it was not many years since publicly preached at Paul's cross, [2029]by a grave minister then, and now a reverend bishop of this land: We that are bred up in learning, and destinated by our parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the grammar-school, which Austin calls magnam tyrannidem, et grave malum, and compares it to the torments of martyrdom; when we come to the university, if we live of the college allowance, as Phalaris objected to the Leontines, παν τῶν ἐνδεῖς πλὴν λιμοὺ καὶ φόβου, needy of all things but hunger and fear, or if we be maintained but partly by our parents' cost, do expend in unnecessary maintenance, books and degrees, before we come to any perfection, five hundred pounds, or a thousand marks. If by this price of the expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our substance and patrimonies, we cannot purchase those small rewards, which are ours by law, and the right of inheritance, a poor parsonage, or a vicarage of 50l. per annum, but we must pay to the patron for the lease of a life (a spent and out-worn life) either in annual pension, or above the rate of a copyhold, and that with the hazard and loss of our souls, by simony and perjury, and the forfeiture of all our spiritual preferments, in esse and posse, both present and to come. What father after a while will be so improvident to bring up his son to his great charge, to this necessary beggary? What Christian will be so irreligious, to bring up his son in that course of life, which by all probability and necessity, cogit ad turpia, enforcing to sin, will entangle him in simony and perjury, when as the poet said, Invitatus ad haec aliquis de ponte negabit: a beggar's brat taken from the bridge where he sits a begging, if he knew the inconvenience, had cause to refuse it. This being thus, have not we fished fair all this while, that are initiate divines, to find no better fruits of our labours, [2030] hoc est cur palles, cur quis non prandeat hoc est? do we macerate ourselves for this? Is it for this we rise so early all the year long? [2031]Leaping (as he saith) out of our beds, when we hear the bell ring, as if we had heard a thunderclap. If this be all the respect, reward and honour we shall have, [2032]frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia libellos: let us give over our books, and betake ourselves to some other course of life; to what end should we study? [2033]Quid me litterulas stulti docuere parentes, what did our parents mean to make us scholars, to be as far to seek of preferment after twenty years' study, as we were at first: why do we take such pains? Quid tantum insanis juvat impallescere chartis? If there be no more hope of reward, no better encouragement, I say again, Frange leves calamos, et scinde Thalia libellos; let's turn soldiers, sell our books, and buy swords, guns, and pikes, or stop bottles with them, turn our philosopher's gowns, as Cleanthes once did, into millers' coats, leave all and rather betake ourselves to any other course of life, than to continue longer in this misery. [2034]Praestat dentiscalpia radere, quam literariis monumentis magnatum favorem emendicare. Yea, but methinks I hear some man except at these words, that though this be true which I have said of the estate of scholars, and especially of divines, that it is miserable and distressed at this time, that the church suffers shipwreck of her goods, and that they have just cause to complain; there is a fault, but whence proceeds it? If the cause were justly examined, it would be retorted upon ourselves, if we were cited at that tribunal of truth, we should be found guilty, and not able to excuse it That there is a fault among us, I confess, and were there not a buyer, there would not be a seller; but to him that will consider better of it, it will more than manifestly appear, that the fountain of these miseries proceeds from these griping patrons. In accusing them, I do not altogether excuse us; both are faulty, they and we: yet in my judgment, theirs is the greater fault, more apparent causes and much to be condemned. For my part, if it be not with me as I would, or as it should, I do ascribe the cause, as [2035]Cardan did in the like case; meo infortunio potius quam illorum sceleri, to [2036]mine own infelicity rather than their naughtiness: although I have been baffled in my time by some of them, and have as just cause to complain as another: or rather indeed to mine own negligence; for I was ever like that Alexander in [2037]Plutarch, Crassus his tutor in philosophy, who, though he lived many years familiarly with rich Crassus, was even as poor when from, (which many wondered at) as when he came first to him; he never asked, the other never gave him anything; when he travelled with Crassus he borrowed a hat of him, at his return restored it again. I have had some such noble friends' acquaintance and scholars, but most part (common courtesies and ordinary respects excepted) they and I parted as we met, they gave me as much as I requested, and that was—And as Alexander ab Alexandro Genial. dier. l. 6. c. 16. made answer to Hieronymus Massainus, that wondered, quum plures ignavos et ignobiles ad dignitates et sacerdotia promotos quotidie videret, when other men rose, still he was in the same state, eodem tenore et fortuna cui mercedem laborum studiorumque deberi putaret, whom he thought to deserve as well as the rest. He made answer, that he was content with his present estate, was not ambitious, and although objurgabundus suam segnitiem accusaret, cum obscurae sortis homines ad sacerdotia et pontificatus evectos, &c., he chid him for his backwardness, yet he was still the same: and for my part (though I be not worthy perhaps to carry Alexander's books) yet by some overweening and well-wishing friends, the like speeches have been used to me; but I replied still with Alexander, that I had enough, and more peradventure than I deserved; and with Libanius Sophista, that rather chose (when honours and offices by the emperor were offered unto him) to be talis Sophista, quam tails Magistratus. I had as lief be still Democritus junior, and privus privatus, si mihi jam daretur optio, quam talis fortasse Doctor, talis Dominus.—Sed quorsum haec? For the rest 'tis on both sides facinus detestandum, to buy and sell livings, to detain from the church, that which God's and men's laws have bestowed on it; but in them most, and that from the covetousness and ignorance of such as are interested in this business; I name covetousness in the first place, as the root of all these mischiefs, which, Achan-like, compels them to commit sacrilege, and to make simoniacal compacts, (and what not) to their own ends, [2038]that kindles God's wrath, brings a plague, vengeance, and a heavy visitation upon themselves and others. Some out of that insatiable desire of filthy lucre, to be enriched, care not how they come by it per fas et nefas, hook or crook, so they have it. And others when they have with riot and prodigality embezzled their estates, to recover themselves, make a prey of the church, robbing it, as [2039]Julian the apostate did, spoil parsons of their revenues (in keeping half back, [2040]as a great man amongst us observes:) and that maintenance on which they should live: by means whereof, barbarism is increased, and a great decay of Christian professors: for who will apply himself to these divine studies, his son, or friend, when after great pains taken, they shall have nothing whereupon to live? But with what event do they these things? [2041]Opesque totis viribus venamini At inde messis accidit miserrima. They toil and moil, but what reap they? They are commonly unfortunate families that use it, accursed in their progeny, and, as common experience evinceth, accursed themselves in all their proceedings. With what face (as [2042]he quotes out of Aust.) can they expect a blessing or inheritance from Christ in heaven, that defraud Christ of his inheritance here on earth? I would all our simoniacal patrons, and such as detain tithes, would read those judicious tracts of Sir Henry Spelman, and Sir James Sempill, knights; those late elaborate and learned treatises of Dr. Tilslye, and Mr. Montague, which they have written of that subject. But though they should read, it would be to small purpose, clames licet et mare coelo Confundas; thunder, lighten, preach hell and damnation, tell them 'tis a sin, they will not believe it; denounce and terrify, they have [2043]cauterised consciences, they do not attend, as the enchanted adder, they stop their ears. Call them base, irreligious, profane, barbarous, pagans, atheists, epicures, (as some of them surely are) with the bawd in Plautus, Euge, optime, they cry and applaud themselves with that miser, [2044]simul ac nummos contemplor in arca: say what you will, quocunque modo rem: as a dog barks at the moon, to no purpose are your sayings: Take your heaven, let them have money. A base, profane, epicurean, hypocritical rout: for my part, let them pretend what zeal they will, counterfeit religion, blear the world's eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their greatness with church spoils, shine like so many peacocks; so cold is my charity, so defective in this behalf, that I shall never think better of them, than that they are rotten at core, their bones are full of epicurean hypocrisy, and atheistical marrow, they are worse than heathens. For as Dionysius Halicarnassaeus observes, Antiq. Rom. lib. 7. [2045]Primum locum, &c. Greeks and Barbarians observe all religious rites, and dare not break them for fear of offending their gods; but our simoniacal contractors, our senseless Achans, our stupefied patrons, fear neither God nor devil, they have evasions for it, it is no sin, or not due jure divino, or if a sin, no great sin, &c. And though they be daily punished for it, and they do manifestly perceive, that as he said, frost and fraud come to foul ends; yet as [2046]Chrysostom follows it Nulla ex poena sit correctio, et quasi adversis malitia hominum provocetur, crescit quotidie quod puniatur: they are rather worse than better,—iram atque animos a crimine sumunt, and the more they are corrected, the more they offend: but let them take their course, [2047]Rode caper vites, go on still as they begin, 'tis no sin, let them rejoice secure, God's vengeance will overtake them in the end, and these ill-gotten goods, as an eagle's feathers, [2048] will consume the rest of their substance; it is [2049]aurum Tholosanum, and will produce no better effects. [2050]Let them lay it up safe, and make their conveyances never so close, lock and shut door, saith Chrysostom, yet fraud and covetousness, two most violent thieves are still included, and a little gain evil gotten will subvert the rest of their goods. The eagle in Aesop, seeing a piece of flesh now ready to be sacrificed, swept it away with her claws, and carried it to her nest; but there was a burning coal stuck to it by chance, which unawares consumed her young ones, nest, and all together. Let our simoniacal church-chopping patrons, and sacrilegious harpies, look for no better success. A second cause is ignorance, and from thence contempt, successit odium in literas ab ignorantia vulgi; which [2051]Junius well perceived: this hatred and contempt of learning proceeds out of [2052]ignorance; as they are themselves barbarous, idiots, dull, illiterate, and proud, so they esteem of others. Sint Mecaenates, non deerunt Flacce Marones: Let there be bountiful patrons, and there will be painful scholars in all sciences. But when they contemn learning, and think themselves sufficiently qualified, if they can write and read, scramble at a piece of evidence, or have so much Latin as that emperor had, [2053]qui nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere, they are unfit to do their country service, to perform or undertake any action or employment, which may tend to the good of a commonwealth, except it be to fight, or to do country justice, with common sense, which every yeoman can likewise do. And so they bring up their children, rude as they are themselves, unqualified, untaught, uncivil most part. [2054]Quis e nostra juventute legitime instituitur literis? Quis oratores aut Philosophos tangit? quis historiam legit, illam rerum agendarum quasi animam? praecipitant parentes vota sua, &c. 'twas Lipsius' complaint to his illiterate countrymen, it may be ours. Now shall these men judge of a scholar's worth, that have no worth, that know not what belongs to a student's labours, that cannot distinguish between a true scholar and a drone? or him that by reason of a voluble tongue, a strong voice, a pleasing tone, and some trivially polyanthean helps, steals and gleans a few notes from other men's harvests, and so makes a fairer show, than he that is truly learned indeed: that thinks it no more to preach, than to speak, [2055]or to run away with an empty cart; as a grave man said: and thereupon vilify us, and our pains; scorn us, and all learning. [2056] Because they are rich, and have other means to live, they think it concerns them not to know, or to trouble themselves with it; a fitter task for younger brothers, or poor men's sons, to be pen and inkhorn men, pedantical slaves, and no whit beseeming the calling of a gentleman, as Frenchmen and Germans commonly do, neglect therefore all human learning, what have they to do with it? Let mariners learn astronomy; merchants, factors study arithmetic; surveyors get them geometry; spectacle-makers optics; land-leapers geography; town-clerks rhetoric, what should he do with a spade, that hath no ground to dig; or they with learning, that have no use of it? thus they reason, and are not ashamed to let mariners, apprentices, and the basest servants, be better qualified than themselves. In former times, kings, princes, and emperors, were the only scholars, excellent in all faculties. Julius Caesar mended the year, and writ his own Commentaries, [2057]———media inter prealia semper, Stellarum coelique plagis, superisque vacavit. [2058]Antonius, Adrian, Nero, Seve. Jul. &c. [2059]Michael the emperor, and Isacius, were so much given to their studies, that no base fellow would take so much pains: Orion, Perseus, Alphonsus, Ptolomeus, famous astronomers; Sabor, Mithridates, Lysimachus, admired physicians: Plato's kings all: Evax, that Arabian prince, a most expert jeweller, and an exquisite philosopher; the kings of Egypt were priests of old, chosen and from thence,—Idem rex hominum, Phoebique sacerdos: but those heroical times are past; the Muses are now banished in this bastard age, ad sordida tuguriola, to meaner persons, and confined alone almost to universities. In those days, scholars were highly beloved, [2060]honoured, esteemed; as old Ennius by Scipio Africanus, Virgil by Augustus; Horace by Meceanas: princes' companions; dear to them, as Anacreon to Polycrates; Philoxenus to Dionysius, and highly rewarded. Alexander sent Xenocrates the philosopher fifty talents, because he was poor, visu rerum, aut eruditione praestantes viri, mensis olim regum adhibiti, as Philostratus relates of Adrian and Lampridius of Alexander Severus: famous clerks came to these princes' courts, velut in Lycaeum, as to a university, and were admitted to their tables, quasi divum epulis accumbentes; Archilaus, that Macedonian king, would not willingly sup without Euripides, (amongst the rest he drank to him at supper one night, and gave him a cup of gold for his pains) delectatus poetae suavi sermone; and it was fit it should be so; because as [2061]Plato in his Protagoras well saith, a good philosopher as much excels other men, as a great king doth the commons of his country; and again, [2062]quoniam illis nihil deest, et minime egere solent, et disciplinas quas profitentur, soli a contemptu vindicare possunt, they needed not to beg so basely, as they compel [2063]scholars in our times to complain of poverty, or crouch to a rich chuff for a meal's meat, but could vindicate themselves, and those arts which they professed. Now they would and cannot: for it is held by some of them, as an axiom, that to keep them poor, will make them study; they must be dieted, as horses to a race, not pampered, [2064]Alendos volunt, non saginandos, ne melioris mentis flammula extinguatur; a fat bird will not sing, a fat dog cannot hunt, and so by this depression of theirs [2065]some want means, others will, all want [2066]encouragement, as being forsaken almost; and generally contemned. 'Tis an old saying, Sint Mecaenates, non deerunt Flacce Marones, and 'tis a true saying still. Yet oftentimes I may not deny it the main fault is in ourselves. Our academics too frequently offend in neglecting patrons, as [2067]Erasmus well taxeth, or making ill choice of them; negligimus oblatos aut amplectimur parum aptos, or if we get a good one, non studemus mutuis officiis favorem ejus alere, we do not ply and follow him as we should. Idem mihi accidit Adolescenti (saith Erasmus) acknowledging his fault, et gravissime peccavi, and so may [2068]I say myself, I have offended in this, and so peradventure have many others. We did not spondere magnatum favoribus, qui caeperunt nos amplecti, apply ourselves with that readiness we should: idleness, love of liberty, immodicus amor libertatis effecit ut diu cum perfidis amicis, as he confesseth, et pertinaci pauperate colluctarer, bashfulness, melancholy, timorousness, cause many of us to be too backward and remiss. So some offend in one extreme, but too many on the other, we are most part too forward, too solicitous, too ambitious, too impudent; we commonly complain deesse Maecenates, of want of encouragement, want of means, when as the true defect is in our own want of worth, our insufficiency: did Maecenas take notice of Horace or Virgil till they had shown themselves first? or had Bavius and Mevius any patrons? Egregium specimen dent, saith Erasmus, let them approve themselves worthy first, sufficiently qualified for learning and manners, before they presume or impudently intrude and put themselves on great men as too many do, with such base flattery, parasitical colloguing, such hyperbolical elogies they do usually insinuate that it is a shame to hear and see. Immodicae laudes conciliant invidiam, potius quam laudem, and vain commendations derogate from truth, and we think in conclusion, non melius de laudato, pejus de laudante, ill of both, the commender and commended. So we offend, but the main fault is in their harshness, defect of patrons. How beloved of old, and how much respected was Plato to Dionysius? How dear to Alexander was Aristotle, Demeratus to Philip, Solon to Croesus, Auexarcus and Trebatius to Augustus, Cassius to Vespasian, Plutarch to Trajan, Seneca to Nero, Simonides to Hieron? how honoured? [2069]Sed haec prius fuere, nunc recondita Senent quiete, those days are gone; Et spes, et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum: [2070] as he said of old, we may truly say now, he is our amulet, our [2071]sun, our sole comfort and refuge, our Ptolemy, our common Maecenas, Jacobus munificus, Jacobus pacificus, mysta Musarum, Rex Platonicus: Grande decus, columenque nostrum: a famous scholar himself, and the sole patron, pillar, and sustainer of learning: but his worth in this kind is so well known, that as Paterculus of Cato, Jam ipsum laudare nefas sit: and which [2072] Pliny to Trajan. Seria te carmina, honorque aeternus annalium, non haec brevis et pudenda praedicatio colet. But he is now gone, the sun of ours set, and yet no night follows, Sol occubuit, nox nulla sequuta est. We have such another in his room, [2073]aureus alter. Avulsus, simili frondescit virga metallo, and long may he reign and flourish amongst us. Let me not be malicious, and lie against my genius, I may not deny, but that we have a sprinkling of our gentry, here and there one, excellently well learned, like those Fuggeri in Germany; Dubartus, Du Plessis, Sadael, in France; Picus Mirandula, Schottus, Barotius, in Italy; Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. But they are but few in respect of the multitude, the major part (and some again excepted, that are indifferent) are wholly bent for hawks and hounds, and carried away many times with intemperate lust, gaming and drinking. If they read a book at any time (si quod est interim otii a venatu, poculis, alea, scortis) 'tis an English Chronicle, St. Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de Gaul, &c., a play-book, or some pamphlet of news, and that at such seasons only, when they cannot stir abroad, to drive away time, [2074]their sole discourse is dogs, hawks, horses, and what news? If some one have been a traveller in Italy, or as far as the emperor's court, wintered in Orleans, and can court his mistress in broken French, wear his clothes neatly in the newest fashion, sing some choice outlandish tunes, discourse of lords, ladies, towns, palaces, and cities, he is complete and to be admired: [2075]otherwise he and they are much at one; no difference between the master and the man, but worshipful titles; wink and choose betwixt him that sits down (clothes excepted) and him that holds the trencher behind him: yet these men must be our patrons, our governors too sometimes, statesmen, magistrates, noble, great, and wise by inheritance. Mistake me not (I say again) Vos o Patritius sanguis, you that are worthy senators, gentlemen, I honour your names and persons, and with all submissiveness, prostrate myself to your censure and service. There are amongst you, I do ingenuously confess, many well-deserving patrons, and true patriots, of my knowledge, besides many hundreds which I never saw, no doubt, or heard of, pillars of our commonwealth, [2076]whose worth, bounty, learning, forwardness, true zeal in religion, and good esteem of all scholars, ought to be consecrated to all posterity; but of your rank, there are a debauched, corrupt, covetous, illiterate crew again, no better than stocks, merum pecus (testor Deum, non mihi videri dignos ingenui hominis appellatione) barbarous Thracians, et quis ille thrax qui hoc neget? a sordid, profane, pernicious company, irreligious, impudent and stupid, I know not what epithets to give them, enemies to learning, confounders of the church, and the ruin of a commonwealth; patrons they are by right of inheritance, and put in trust freely to dispose of such livings to the church's good; but (hard taskmasters they prove) they take away their straw, and compel them to make their number of brick: they commonly respect their own ends, commodity is the steer of all their actions, and him they present in conclusion, as a man of greatest gifts, that will give most; no penny, [2077]no paternoster, as the saying is. Nisi preces auro fulcias, amplius irritas: ut Cerberus offa, their attendants and officers must be bribed, feed, and made, as Cerberus is with a sop by him that goes to hell. It was an old saying, Omnia Romae venalia (all things are venal at Rome,) 'tis a rag of Popery, which will never be rooted out, there is no hope, no good to be done without money. A clerk may offer himself, approve his [2078]worth, learning, honesty, religion, zeal, they will commend him for it; but [2079]probitas laudatur et alget. If he be a man of extraordinary parts, they will flock afar off to hear him, as they did in Apuleius, to see Psyche: multi mortales confluebant ad videndum saeculi decus, speculum gloriosum, laudatur ab omnibus, spectatur ob omnibus, nec quisquam non rex, non regius, cupidus ejus nuptiarium petitor accedit; mirantur quidem divinam formam omnes, sed ut simulacrum fabre politum mirantur; many mortal men came to see fair Psyche the glory of her age, they did admire her, commend, desire her for her divine beauty, and gaze upon her; but as on a picture; none would marry her, quod indotato, fair Psyche had no money. [2080]So they do by learning; [2081]———didicit jam dives avarus Tantum admirari, tantum laudare disertos, Ut pueri Junonis avem——— Your rich men have now learn'd of latter days T'admire, commend, and come together To hear and see a worthy scholar speak, As children do a peacock's feather. He shall have all the good words that may be given, [2082]a proper man, and 'tis pity he hath no preferment, all good wishes, but inexorable, indurate as he is, he will not prefer him, though it be in his power, because he is indotatus, he hath no money. Or if he do give him entertainment, let him be never so well qualified, plead affinity, consanguinity, sufficiency, he shall serve seven years, as Jacob did for Rachel, before he shall have it. [2083]If he will enter at first, he must get in at that Simoniacal gate, come off soundly, and put in good security to perform all covenants, else he will not deal with, or admit him. But if some poor scholar, some parson chaff, will offer himself; some trencher chaplain, that will take it to the halves, thirds, or accepts of what he will give, he is welcome; be conformable, preach as he will have him, he likes him before a million of others; for the host is always best cheap: and then as Hierom said to Cromatius, patella dignum operculum, such a patron, such a clerk; the cure is well supplied, and all parties pleased. So that is still verified in our age, which [2084]Chrysostom complained of in his time, Qui opulentiores sunt, in ordinem parasitorum cogunt eos, et ipsos tanquam canes ad mensas suas enutriunt, eorumque impudentes. Venires iniquarum coenarum reliquiis differtiunt, iisdem pro arbitro abulentes: Rich men keep these lecturers, and fawning parasites, like so many dogs at their tables, and filling their hungry guts with the offals of their meat, they abuse them at their pleasure, and make them say what they propose. [2085]As children do by a bird or a butterfly in a string, pull in and let him out as they list, do they by their trencher chaplains, prescribe, command their wits, let in and out as to them it seems best. If the patron be precise, so must his chaplain be; if he be papistical, his clerk must be so too, or else be turned out. These are those clerks which serve the turn, whom they commonly entertain, and present to church livings, whilst in the meantime we that are University men, like so many hidebound calves in a pasture, tarry out our time, wither away as a flower ungathered in a garden, and are never used; or as so many candles, illuminate ourselves alone, obscuring one another's light, and are not discerned here at all, the least of which, translated to a dark room, or to some country benefice, where it might shine apart, would give a fair light, and be seen over all. Whilst we lie waiting here as those sick men did at the Pool of [2086] Bethesda, till the Angel stirred the water, expecting a good hour, they step between, and beguile us of our preferment. I have not yet said, if after long expectation, much expense, travel, earnest suit of ourselves and friends, we obtain a small benefice at last; our misery begins afresh, we are suddenly encountered with the flesh, world, and devil, with a new onset; we change a quiet life for an ocean of troubles, we come to a ruinous house, which before it be habitable, must be necessarily to our great damage repaired; we are compelled to sue for dilapidations, or else sued ourselves, and scarce yet settled, we are called upon for our predecessor's arrearages; first-fruits, tenths, subsidies, are instantly to be paid, benevolence, procurations, &c., and which is most to be feared, we light upon a cracked title, as it befell Clenard of Brabant, for his rectory, and charge of his Beginae; he was no sooner inducted, but instantly sued, cepimusque [2087](saith he) strenue litigare, et implacabili bello confligere: at length after ten years' suit, as long as Troy's siege, when he had tired himself, and spent his money, he was fain to leave all for quietness' sake, and give it up to his adversary. Or else we are insulted over, and trampled on by domineering officers, fleeced by those greedy harpies to get more fees; we stand in fear of some precedent lapse; we fall amongst refractory, seditious sectaries, peevish puritans, perverse papists, a lascivious rout of atheistical Epicures, that will not be reformed, or some litigious people (those wild beasts of Ephesus must be fought with) that will not pay their dues without much repining, or compelled by long suit; Laici clericis oppido infesti, an old axiom, all they think well gotten that is had from the church, and by such uncivil, harsh dealings, they make their poor minister weary of his place, if not his life; and put case they be quiet honest men, make the best of it, as often it falls out, from a polite and terse academic, he must turn rustic, rude, melancholise alone, learn to forget, or else, as many do, become maltsters, graziers, chapmen, &c. (now banished from the academy, all commerce of the muses, and confined to a country village, as Ovid was from Rome to Pontus), and daily converse with a company of idiots and clowns. Nos interim quod, attinet (nec enim immunes ab hac noxa sumus) idem realus manet, idem nobis, et si non multo gravius, crimen objici potest: nostra enim culpa sit, nostra incuria, nostra avaritia, quod tam frequentes, foedaeque fiant in Ecclesia nundinationes, (templum est vaenale, deusque) tot sordes invehantur, tanta grassetur impietas, tanta nequitia, tam insanus miseriarum Euripus, et turbarum aestuarium, nostro inquam, omnium (Academicorum imprimis) vitio sit. Quod tot Resp. malis afficiatur, a nobis seminarium; ultro malum hoc accersimus, et quavis contumelia, quavis interim miseria digni, qui pro virili non occurrimus. Quid enim fieri posse speramus, quum tot indies sine delectu pauperes alumni, terrae filii, et cujuscunque ordinis homunciones ad gradus certatim admittantur? qui si definitionem, distinctionemque unam aut alteram memoriter edidicerint, et pro more tot annos in dialectica posuerint, non refert quo profectu, quales demum sint, idiotae, nugatores, otiatores, aleatores, compotores, indigni, libidinis voluptatumque administri, Sponsi Penelopes, nebulones, Alcinoique, modo tot annos in academia insumpserint, et se pro togatis venditarint; lucri causa, et amicorum intercessu praesentantur; addo etiam et magnificis nonnunquam elogiis morum et scientiae; et jam valedicturi testimonialibus hisce litteris, amplissime conscriptis in eorum gratiam honorantur, abiis, qui fidei suae et existimationis jacturam proculdubio faciunt. Doctores enim et professores (quod ait [2088]ille) id unum curant, ut ex professionibus frequentibus, et tumultuariis potius quam legitimis, commoda sua promoverant, et ex dispendio publico suum faciant incrementum. Id solum in votis habent annui plerumque magistratus, ut ab incipientium numero [2089]pecunias emungant, nec multum interest qui sint, literatores an literati, modo pingues, nitidi, ad aspectum speciosi, et quod verbo dicam, pecuniosi sint. [2090]Philosophastri licentiantur in artibus, artem qui non habent, [2091]Eosque sapientes esse jubent, qui nulla praediti sunt sapientia, et nihil ad gradum praeterquam velle adferunt. Theologastri (solvant modo) satis superque docti, per omnes honorum gradus evehuntur et ascendunt. Atque hinc fit quod tam viles scurrae, tot passim idiotae, literarum crepusculo positi, larvae pastorum, circumforanei, vagi, barbi, fungi, crassi, asini, merum pecus in sacrosanctos theologiae aditus, illotis pedibus irrumpant, praeter inverecundam frontem adferentes nihil, vulgares quasdam quisquilias, et scholarium quaedam nugamenta, indigna quae vel recipiantur in triviis. Hoc illud indignum genus hominum et famelicum, indigum, vagum, ventris mancipium, ad stivam potius relegandum, ad haras aptius quam ad aras, quod divinas hasce literas turpiter prostituit; hi sunt qui pulpita complent, in aedes nobilium irrepunt, et quum reliquis vitae destituantur subsidiis, ob corporis et animi egestatem, aliarum in repub. partium minime capaces sint; ad sacram hanc anchoram confugiunt, sacerdotium quovis modo captantes, non ex sinceritate, quod [2092]Paulus ait, sed cauponantes verbum Dei. Ne quis interim viris bonis detractum quid putet, quos habet ecclesia Anglicana quamplurimos, eggregie doctos, illustres, intactae famae, homines, et plures forsan quam quaevis Europae provincia; ne quis a florentisimis Academiis, quae viros undiquaque doctissimos, omni virtutum genere suspiciendos, abunde producunt. Et multo plures utraque habitura, multo splendidior futura, si non hae sordes splendidum lumen ejus obfuscarent, obstaret corruptio, et cauponantes quaedam harpyae, proletariique bonum hoc nobis non inviderent. Nemo enim tam caeca mente, qui non hoc ipsum videat: nemo tam stolido ingenio, qui non intelligat; tam pertinaci judicio, qui non agnoscat, ab his idiotis circumforaneis, sacram pollui Theologiam, ac caelestes Musas quasi prophanum quiddam prostitui. Viles animae et effrontes (sic enim Lutherus [2093] alicubi vocat) lucelli causa, ut muscae ad mulctra, ad nobilium et heroum mensas advolant, in spem sacerdotii, cujuslibet honoris, officii, in quamvis aulam, urbem se ingerunt, ad quodvis se ministerium componunt.— Ut nervis alienis mobile lignum—Ducitur—Hor. Lib. II. Sat. 7. [2094] offam sequentes, psittacorum more, in praedae spem quidvis effutiunt: obsecundantes Parasiti [2095](Erasmus ait) quidvis docent, dicunt, scribunt, suadent, et contra conscientiam probant, non ut salutarem reddant gregem, sed ut magnificam sibi parent fortunam. [2096]Opiniones quasvis et decreta contra verbum Dei astruunt, ne non offendant patronum, sed ut retineant favorem procerum, et populi plausum, sibique ipsis opes accumulent. Eo etenim plerunque animo ad Theologiam accedunt, non ut rem divinam, sed ut suam facient; non ad Ecclesiae bonum promovendum, sed expilandum; quaerentes, quod Paulus ait, non quae Jesu Christi, sed quae sua, non domini thesaurum, sed ut sibi, suisque thesaurizent. Nec tantum iis, qui vilirrie fortunae, et abjectae, sortis sunt, hoc in usu est: sed et medios, summos elatos, ne dicam Episcopos, hoc malum invasit. [2097] Dicite pontifices, in sacris quid facit aurum? [2098]summos saepe viros transversos agit avaritia, et qui reliquis morum probitate praelucerent; hi facem praeferunt ad Simoniam, et in corruptionis hunc scopulum impingentes, non tondent pecus, sed deglubunt, et quocunque se conferunt, expilant, exhauriunt, abradunt, magnum famae suae, si non animae naufragium facientes; ut non ab infimis ad summos, sed a summis ad infimos malum promanasse videatur, et illud verum sit quod ille olim lusit, emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest. Simoniacus enim (quod cum Leone dicam) gratiam non accepit, si non accipit, non habet, et si non habet, nec gratus potest esse; tantum enim absunt istorum nonnulli, qui ad clavum sedent a promovendo reliquos, ut penitus impediant, probe sibi conscii, quibus artibus illic pervenerint. [2099]Nam qui ob literas emersisse illos credat, desipit; qui vero ingenii, eruditionis, experientiae, probitatis, pietatis, et Musarum id esse pretium putat (quod olim revera fuit, hodie promittitur) planissime insanit. Utcunque vel undecunque malum hoc originem ducat, non ultra quaeram, ex his primordiis caepit vitiorum colluvies, omnis calamitas, omne miseriarum agmen in Ecclesiam invehitur. Hinc tam frequens simonia, hinc ortae querelae, fraudes, imposturae, ab hoc fonte se derivarunt omnes nequitiae. Ne quid obiter dicam de ambitione, adulatione plusquam aulica, ne tristi domicaenio laborent, de luxu, de foedo nonnunquam vitae exemplo, quo nonnullos offendunt, de compotatione Sybaritica, &c. hinc ille squalor academicus, tristes hac tempestate Camenae, quum quivis homunculus artium ignarus, hic artibus assurgat, hunc in modum promoveatur et ditescat, ambitiosis appellationibus insignis, et multis dignitatibus augustus vulgi oculos perstringat, bene se habeat, et grandia gradiens majestatem quandam ac amplitudinem prae se ferens, miramque sollicitudinem, barba reverendus, toga nitidus, purpura coruscus, supellectilis splendore, et famulorum numero maxime conspicuus. Quales statuae (quod ait [2100]ille) quae sacris in aedibus columnis imponuntur, velut oneri cedentes videntur, ac si insudarent, quum revera sensu sint carentes, et nihil saxeam adjuvent firmitatem: atlantes videri volunt, quum sint statuae lapideae, umbratiles revera homunciones, fungi, forsan et bardi, nihil a saxo differentes. Quum interim docti viri, et vilae sanctioris ornamentis praediti, qui aestum diei sustinent, his iniqua sorte serviant, minimo forsan salario contenti, puris nominibus nuncupati, humiles, obscuri, multoque digniores licet, egentes, inhonorati vitam privam privatam agant, tenuique sepulti sacerdotio, vel in collegiis suis in aeternum incarcerati, inglorie delitescant. Sed nolo diutius hanc movere sentinam, hinc illae lachrymae, lugubris musarum habitus, [2101]hinc ipsa religio (quod cum Secellio dicam) in ludibrium et contemptum adducitur, abjectum sacerdotium (atque haec ubi fiunt, ausim dicere, et pulidum [2102] putidi dicterium de clero usurpare) putidum vulgus, inops, rude, sordidum, melancholicum, miserum, despicabile, contemnendum.[2103] MEMB. IV. SUBSECT. I—Non-necessary, remote, outward, adventitious, or accidental causes: as first from the Nurse. Of those remote, outward, ambient, necessary causes, I have sufficiently discoursed in the precedent member, the non-necessary follow; of which, saith [2104]Fuchsius, no art can be made, by reason of their uncertainty, casualty, and multitude; so called not necessary because according to [2105]Fernelius, they may be avoided, and used without necessity. Many of these accidental causes, which I shall entreat of here, might have well been reduced to the former, because they cannot be avoided, but fatally happen to us, though accidentally, and unawares, at some time or other; the rest are contingent and inevitable, and more properly inserted in this rank of causes. To reckon up all is a thing impossible; of some therefore most remarkable of these contingent causes which produce melancholy, I will briefly speak and in their order. From a child's nativity, the first ill accident that can likely befall him in this kind is a bad nurse, by whose means alone he may be tainted with this [2106]malady from his cradle, Aulus Gellius l. 12. c. 1. brings in Phavorinus, that eloquent philosopher, proving this at large, [2107] that there is the same virtue and property in the milk as in the seed, and not in men alone, but in all other creatures; he gives instance in a kid and lamb, if either of them suck of the other's milk, the lamb of the goat's, or the kid of the ewe's, the wool of the one will be hard, and the hair of the other soft. Giraldus Cambrensis Itinerar. Cambriae, l. 1. c. 2. confirms this by a notable example which happened in his time. A sow-pig by chance sucked a brach, and when she was grown [2108]would miraculously hunt all manner of deer, and that as well, or rather better, than any ordinary hound. His conclusion is, [2109]that men and beasts participate of her nature and conditions by whose milk they are fed. Phavorinus urges it farther, and demonstrates it more evidently, that if a nurse be [2110]misshapen, unchaste, dishonest, impudent, [2111]cruel, or the like, the child that sucks upon her breast will be so too; all other affections of the mind and diseases are almost engrafted, as it were, and imprinted into the temperature of the infant, by the nurse's milk; as pox, leprosy, melancholy, &c. Cato for some such reason would make his servants' children suck upon his wife's breast, because by that means they would love him and his the better, and in all likelihood agree with them. A more evident example that the minds are altered by milk cannot be given, than that of [2112]Dion, which he relates of Caligula's cruelty; it could neither be imputed to father nor mother, but to his cruel nurse alone, that anointed her paps with blood still when he sucked, which made him such a murderer, and to express her cruelty to a hair: and that of Tiberius, who was a common drunkard, because his nurse was such a one. Et si delira fuerit ([2113]one observes) infantulum delirum faciet, if she be a fool or dolt, the child she nurseth will take after her, or otherwise be misaffected; which Franciscus Barbarus l. 2. c. ult. de re uxoria proves at full, and Ant. Guivarra, lib. 2. de Marco Aurelio: the child will surely participate. For bodily sickness there is no doubt to be made. Titus, Vespasian's son, was therefore sickly, because the nurse was so, Lampridius. And if we may believe physicians, many times children catch the pox from a bad nurse, Botaldus cap. 61. de lue vener. Besides evil attendance, negligence, and many gross inconveniences, which are incident to nurses, much danger may so come to the child. [2114]For these causes Aristotle Polit. lib. 7. c. 17. Phavorinus and Marcus Aurelius would not have a child put to nurse at all, but every mother to bring up her own, of what condition soever she be; for a sound and able mother to put out her child to nurse, is naturae intemperies, so [2115]Guatso calls it, 'tis fit therefore she should be nurse herself; the mother will be more careful, loving, and attendant, than any servile woman, or such hired creatures; this all the world acknowledgeth, convenientissimum est (as Rod. a Castro de nat. mulierum. lib. 4. c. 12. in many words confesseth) matrem ipsam lactare infantem, It is most fit that the mother should suckle her own infant—who denies that it should be so?—and which some women most curiously observe; amongst the rest, [2116]that queen of France, a Spaniard by birth, that was so precise and zealous in this behalf, that when in her absence a strange nurse had suckled her child, she was never quiet till she had made the infant vomit it up again. But she was too jealous. If it be so, as many times it is, they must be put forth, the mother be not fit or well able to be a nurse, I would then advise such mothers, as [2117]Plutarch doth in his book de liberis educandis and [2118]S. Hierom, li. 2. epist. 27. Laetae de institut. fil. Magninus part 2. Reg. sanit. cap. 7. and the said Rodericus, that they make choice of a sound woman, of a good complexion, honest, free from bodily diseases, if it be possible, all passions and perturbations of the mind, as sorrow, fear, grief, [2119]folly, melancholy. For such passions corrupt the milk, and alter the temperature of the child, which now being [2120] Udum et molle lutum, a moist and soft clay, is easily seasoned and perverted. And if such a nurse may be found out, that will be diligent and careful withal, let Phavorinus and M. Aurelius plead how they can against it, I had rather accept of her in some cases than the mother herself, and which Bonacialus the physician, Nic. Biesius the politician, lib. 4. de repub. cap. 8. approves, [2121]Some nurses are much to be preferred to some mothers. For why may not the mother be naught, a peevish drunken flirt, a waspish choleric slut, a crazed piece, a fool (as many mothers are), unsound as soon as the nurse? There is more choice of nurses than mothers; and therefore except the mother be most virtuous, staid, a woman of excellent good parts, and of a sound complexion, I would have all children in such cases committed to discreet strangers. And 'tis the only way; as by marriage they are engrafted to other families to alter the breed, or if anything be amiss in the mother, as Ludovicus Mercatus contends, Tom. 2. lib. de morb. haered. to prevent diseases and future maladies, to correct and qualify the child's ill-disposed temperature, which he had from his parents. This is an excellent remedy, if good choice be made of such a nurse. SUBSECT. II.—Education a Cause of Melancholy. Education, of these accidental causes of melancholy, may justly challenge the next place, for if a man escape a bad nurse, he may be undone by evil bringing up. [2122]Jason Pratensis puts this of education for a principal cause; bad parents, stepmothers, tutors, masters, teachers, too rigorous, too severe, too remiss or indulgent on the other side, are often fountains and furtherers of this disease. Parents and such as have the tuition and oversight of children, offend many times in that they are too stern, always threatening, chiding, brawling, whipping, or striking; by means of which their poor children are so disheartened and cowed, that they never after have any courage, a merry hour in their lives, or take pleasure in anything. There is a great moderation to be had in such things, as matters of so great moment to the making or marring of a child. Some fright their children with beggars, bugbears, and hobgoblins, if they cry, or be otherwise unruly: but they are much to blame in it, many times, saith Lavater, de spectris, part. 1, cap. 5. ex metu in morbos graves incidunt et noctu dormientes clamant, for fear they fall into many diseases, and cry out in their sleep, and are much the worse for it all their lives: these things ought not at all, or to be sparingly done, and upon just occasion. Tyrannical, impatient, hair-brain schoolmasters, aridi magistri, so [2123]Fabius terms them, Ajaces flagelliferi, are in this kind as bad as hangmen and executioners, they make many children endure a martyrdom all the while they are at school, with bad diet, if they board in their houses, too much severity and ill-usage, they quite pervert their temperature of body and mind: still chiding, railing, frowning, lashing, tasking, keeping, that they are fracti animis, moped many times, weary of their lives, [2124]nimia severitate deficiunt et desperant, and think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a grammar scholar. Praeceptorum ineptiis discruciantur ingenia puerorum, [2125] saith Erasmus, they tremble at his voice, looks, coming in. St. Austin, in the first book of his confess. et 4 ca. calls this schooling meliculosam necessitatem, and elsewhere a martyrdom, and confesseth of himself, how cruelly he was tortured in mind for learning Greek, nulla verba noveram, et saevis terroribus et poenis, ut nossem, instabatur mihi vehementer, I know nothing, and with cruel terrors and punishment I was daily compelled. [2126]Beza complains in like case of a rigorous schoolmaster in Paris, that made him by his continual thunder and threats once in a mind to drown himself, had he not met by the way with an uncle of his that vindicated him from that misery for the time, by taking him to his house. Trincavellius, lib. 1. consil. 16. had a patient nineteen years of age, extremely melancholy, ob nimium studium, Tarvitii et praeceptoris minas, by reason of overmuch study, and his [2127]tutor's threats. Many masters are hard-hearted, and bitter to their servants, and by that means do so deject, with terrible speeches and hard usage so crucify them, that they become desperate, and can never be recalled. Others again, in that opposite extreme, do as great harm by their too much remissness, they give them no bringing up, no calling to busy themselves about, or to live in, teach them no trade, or set them in any good course; by means of which their servants, children, scholars, are carried away with that stream of drunkenness, idleness, gaming, and many such irregular courses, that in the end they rue it, curse their parents, and mischief themselves. Too much indulgence causeth the like, [2128]inepta patris lenitas et facilitas prava, when as Mitio-like, with too much liberty and too great allowance, they feed their children's humours, let them revel, wench, riot, swagger, and do what they will themselves, and then punish them with a noise of musicians; [2129]Obsonet, potet, oleat unguenta de meo; Amat? dabitur a me argentum ubi erit commodum. Fores effregit? restituentur: descidit Vestem? resarcietur.—Faciat quod lubet, Sumat, consumat, perdat, decretum est pati. But as Demeo told him, tu illum corrumpi sinis, your lenity will be his undoing, praevidere videor jam diem, illum, quum hic egens profugiet aliquo militatum, I foresee his ruin. So parents often err, many fond mothers especially, dote so much upon their children, like [2130]Aesop's ape, till in the end they crush them to death, Corporum nutrices animarum novercae, pampering up their bodies to the undoing of their souls: they will not let them be [2131]corrected or controlled, but still soothed up in everything they do, that in conclusion they bring sorrow, shame, heaviness to their parents (Ecclus. cap. xxx. 8, 9), become wanton, stubborn, wilful, and disobedient; rude, untaught, headstrong, incorrigible, and graceless; they love them so foolishly, saith [2132]Cardan, that they rather seem to hate them, bringing them not up to virtue but injury, not to learning but to riot, not to sober life and conversation, but to all pleasure and licentious behaviour. Who is he of so little experience that knows not this of Fabius to be true? [2133]Education is another nature, altering the mind and will, and I would to God (saith he) we ourselves did not spoil our children's manners, by our overmuch cockering and nice education, and weaken the strength of their bodies and minds, that causeth custom, custom nature, &c. For these causes Plutarch in his book de lib. educ. and Hierom. epist. lib. 1. epist. 17. to Laeta de institut. filiae, gives a most especial charge to all parents, and many good cautions about bringing up of children, that they be not committed to indiscreet, passionate, bedlam tutors, light, giddy-headed, or covetous persons, and spare for no cost, that they may be well nurtured and taught, it being a matter of so great consequence. For such parents as do otherwise, Plutarch esteems of them [2134]that are more careful of their shoes than of their feet, that rate their wealth above their children. And he, saith [2135]Cardan, that leaves his son to a covetous schoolmaster to be informed, or to a close Abbey to fast and learn wisdom together, doth no other, than that he be a learned fool, or a sickly wise man. SUBSECT. III.—Terrors and Affrights, Causes of Melancholy. Tully, in the fourth of his Tusculans, distinguishes these terrors which arise from the apprehension of some terrible object heard or seen, from other fears, and so doth Patritius lib. 5. Tit. 4. de regis institut. Of all fears they are most pernicious and violent, and so suddenly alter the whole temperature of the body, move the soul and spirits, strike such a deep impression, that the parties can never be recovered, causing more grievous and fiercer melancholy, as Felix Plater, c. 3. de mentis alienat. [2136]speaks out of his experience, than any inward cause whatsoever: and imprints itself so forcibly in the spirits, brain, humours, that if all the mass of blood were let out of the body, it could hardly be extracted. This horrible kind of melancholy (for so he terms it) had been often brought before him, and troubles and affrights commonly men and women, young and old of all sorts. [2137]Hercules de Saxonia calls this kind of melancholy (ab agitatione spirituum) by a peculiar name, it comes from the agitation, motion, contraction, dilatation of spirits, not from any distemperature of humours, and produceth strong effects. This terror is most usually caused, as [2138]Plutarch will have, from some imminent danger, when a terrible object is at hand, heard, seen, or conceived, [2139]truly appearing, or in a [2140]dream: and many times the more sudden the accident, it is the more violent. [2141]Stat terror animis, et cor attonitum salit, Pavidumque trepidis palpitat venis jecur. Their soul's affright, their heart amazed quakes, The trembling liver pants i' th' veins, and aches. Arthemedorus the grammarian lost his wits by the unexpected sight of a crocodile, Laurentius 7. de melan. [2142]The massacre at Lyons, 1572, in the reign of Charles IX., was so terrible and fearful, that many ran mad, some died, great-bellied women were brought to bed before their time, generally all affrighted aghast. Many lose their wits [2143]by the sudden sight of some spectrum or devil, a thing very common in all ages, saith Lavater part 1. cap. 9. as Orestes did at the sight of the Furies, which appeared to him in black (as [2144]Pausanias records). The Greeks call them μορμολύχεια, which so terrify their souls, or if they be but affrighted by some counterfeit devils in jest, [2145]———ut pueri trepidant, atque omnia caecis In tenebris metuunt——— as children in the dark conceive hobgoblins, and are so afraid, they are the worse for it all their lives. Some by sudden fires, earthquakes, inundations, or any such dismal objects: Themiscon the physician fell into a hydrophobia, by seeing one sick of that disease: (Dioscorides l. 6. c. 33.) or by the sight of a monster, a carcase, they are disquieted many months following, and cannot endure the room where a corpse hath been, for a world would not be alone with a dead man, or lie in that bed many years after in which a man hath died. At [2146]Basil many little children in the springtime went to gather flowers in a meadow at the town's end, where a malefactor hung in gibbets; all gazing at it, one by chance flung a stone, and made it stir, by which accident, the children affrighted ran away; one slower than the rest, looking back, and seeing the stirred carcase wag towards her, cried out it came after, and was so terribly affrighted, that for many days she could not rest, eat, or sleep, she could not be pacified, but melancholy, died. [2147]In the same town another child, beyond the Rhine, saw a grave opened, and upon the sight of a carcase, was so troubled in mind that she could not be comforted, but a little after departed, and was buried by it. Platerus observat. l. 1, a gentlewoman of the same city saw a fat hog cut up, when the entrails were opened, and a noisome savour offended her nose, she much misliked, and would not longer abide: a physician in presence, told her, as that hog, so was she, full of filthy excrements, and aggravated the matter by some other loathsome instances, insomuch, this nice gentlewoman apprehended it so deeply, that she fell forthwith a-vomiting, was so mightily distempered in mind and body, that with all his art and persuasions, for some months after, he could not restore her to herself again, she could not forget it, or remove the object out of her sight, Idem. Many cannot endure to see a wound opened, but they are offended: a man executed, or labour of any fearful disease, as possession, apoplexies, one bewitched; [2148]or if they read by chance of some terrible thing, the symptoms alone of such a disease, or that which they dislike, they are instantly troubled in mind, aghast, ready to apply it to themselves, they are as much disquieted as if they had seen it, or were so affected themselves. Hecatas sibi videntur somniare, they dream and continually think of it. As lamentable effects are caused by such terrible objects heard, read, or seen, auditus maximos motus in corpore facit, as [2149]Plutarch holds, no sense makes greater alteration of body and mind: sudden speech sometimes, unexpected news, be they good or bad, praevisa minus oratio, will move as much, animum obruere, et de sede sua dejicere, as a [2150]philosopher observes, will take away our sleep and appetite, disturb and quite overturn us. Let them bear witness that have heard those tragical alarms, outcries, hideous noises, which are many times suddenly heard in the dead of the night by irruption of enemies and accidental fires, &c., those [2151]panic fears, which often drive men out of their wits, bereave them of sense, understanding and all, some for a time, some for their whole lives, they never recover it. The [2152] Midianites were so affrighted by Gideon's soldiers, they breaking but every one a pitcher; and [2153]Hannibal's army by such a panic fear was discomfited at the walls of Rome. Augusta Livia hearing a few tragical verses recited out of Virgil, Tu Marcellus eris, &c., fell down dead in a swoon. Edinus king of Denmark, by a sudden sound which he heard, [2154] was turned into fury with all his men, Cranzius, l. 5, Dan. hist. and Alexander ab Alexandro l. 3. c. 5. Amatus Lusitanus had a patient, that by reason of bad tidings became epilepticus, cen. 2. cura 90, Cardan subtil. l. 18, saw one that lost his wits by mistaking of an echo. If one sense alone can cause such violent commotions of the mind, what may we think when hearing, sight, and those other senses are all troubled at once? as by some earthquakes, thunder, lightning, tempests, &c. At Bologna in Italy, anno 1504, there was such a fearful earthquake about eleven o'clock in the night (as [2155]Beroaldus in his book de terrae motu, hath commended to posterity) that all the city trembled, the people thought the world was at an end, actum de mortalibus, such a fearful noise, it made such a detestable smell, the inhabitants were infinitely affrighted, and some ran mad. Audi rem atrocem, et annalibus memorandam (mine author adds), hear a strange story, and worthy to be chronicled: I had a servant at the same time called Fulco Argelanus, a bold and proper man, so grievously terrified with it, that he [2156]was first melancholy, after doted, at last mad, and made away himself. At [2157]Fuscinum in Japona there was such an earthquake, and darkness on a sudden, that many men were offended with headache, many overwhelmed with sorrow and melancholy. At Meacum whole streets and goodly palaces were overturned at the same time, and there was such a hideous noise withal, like thunder, and filthy smell, that their hair stared for fear, and their hearts quaked, men and beasts were incredibly terrified. In Sacai, another city, the same earthquake was so terrible unto them, that many were bereft of their senses; and others by that horrible spectacle so much amazed, that they knew not what they did. Blasius a Christian, the reporter of the news, was so affrighted for his part, that though it were two months after, he was scarce his own man, neither could he drive the remembrance of it out of his mind. Many times, some years following, they will tremble afresh at the [2158]remembrance or conceit of such a terrible object, even all their lives long, if mention be made of it. Cornelius Agrippa relates out of Gulielmus Parisiensis, a story of one, that after a distasteful purge which a physician had prescribed unto him, was so much moved, [2159]that at the very sight of physic he would be distempered, though he never so much as smelled to it, the box of physic long after would give him a purge; nay, the very remembrance of it did effect it; [2160]like travellers and seamen, saith Plutarch, that when they have been sanded, or dashed on a rock, for ever after fear not that mischance only, but all such dangers whatsoever. SUBSECT. IV.—Scoffs, Calumnies, bitter Jests, how they cause Melancholy. It is an old saying, [2161]A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword: and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever. Princes and potentates, that are otherwise happy, and have all at command, secure and free, quibus potentia sceleris impunitatem fecit, are grievously vexed with these pasquilling libels, and satires: they fear a railing [2162]Aretine, more than an enemy in the field, which made most princes of his time (as some relate) allow him a liberal pension, that he should not tax them in his satires. [2163]The Gods had their Momus, Homer his Zoilus, Achilles his Thersites, Philip his Demades: the Caesars themselves in Rome were commonly taunted. There was never wanting a Petronius, a Lucian in those times, nor will be a Rabelais, an Euphormio, a Boccalinus in ours. Adrian the sixth pope [2164]was so highly offended, and grievously vexed with pasquillers at Rome, he gave command that his statue should be demolished and burned, the ashes flung into the river Tiber, and had done it forthwith, had not Ludovicus Suessanus, a facete companion, dissuaded him to the contrary, by telling him, that pasquil's ashes would turn to frogs in the bottom of the river, and croak worse and louder than before,—genus irritabile vatum, and therefore [2165]Socrates in Plato adviseth all his friends, that respect their credits, to stand in awe of poets, for they are terrible fellows, can praise and dispraise as they see cause. Hinc quam sit calamus saevior ense patet. The prophet David complains, Psalm cxxiii. 4. that his soul was full of the mocking of the wealthy, and of the despitefulness of the proud, and Psalm lv. 4. for the voice of the wicked, &c., and their hate: his heart trembled within him, and the terrors of death came upon him; fear and horrible fear, &c., and Psal. lxix. 20. Rebuke hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. Who hath not like cause to complain, and is not so troubled, that shall fall into the mouths of such men? for many are of so [2166]petulant a spleen; and have that figure Sarcasmus so often in their mouths, so bitter, so foolish, as [2167]Balthazar Castilio notes of them, that they cannot speak, but they must bite; they had rather lose a friend than a jest; and what company soever they come in, they will be scoffing, insulting over their inferiors, especially over such as any way depend upon them, humouring, misusing, or putting gulleries on some or other till they have made by their humouring or gulling [2168]ex stulto insanum, a mope or a noddy, and all to make themselves merry: [2169]———dummodo risum Excutiat sibi; non hic cuiquam parcit amico; Friends, neuters, enemies, all are as one, to make a fool a madman, is their sport, and they have no greater felicity than to scoff and deride others; they must sacrifice to the god of laughter, with them in [2170] Apuleius, once a day, or else they shall be melancholy themselves; they care not how they grind and misuse others, so they may exhilarate their own persons. Their wits indeed serve them to that sole purpose, to make sport, to break a scurrile jest, which is levissimus ingenii fructus, the froth of wit, as [2171]Tully holds, and for this they are often applauded, in all other discourse, dry, barren, stramineous, dull and heavy, here lies their genius, in this they alone excel, please themselves and others. Leo Decimus, that scoffing pope, as Jovius hath registered in the Fourth book of his life, took an extraordinary delight in humouring of silly fellows, and to put gulleries upon them, [2172]by commending some, persuading others to this or that: he made ex stolidis stultissimos, et maxime ridiculos, ex stultis insanos; soft fellows, stark noddies; and such as were foolish, quite mad before he left them. One memorable example he recites there, of Tarascomus of Parma, a musician that was so humoured by Leo Decimus, and Bibiena his second in this business, that he thought himself to be a man of most excellent skill, (who was indeed a ninny) they [2173]made him set foolish songs, and invent new ridiculous precepts, which they did highly commend, as to tie his arm that played on the lute, to make him strike a sweeter stroke, [2174]and to pull down the arras hangings, because the voice would be clearer, by reason of the reverberation of the wall. In the like manner they persuaded one Baraballius of Caieta, that he was as good a poet as Petrarch; would have him to be made a laureate poet, and invite all his friends to his instalment; and had so possessed the poor man with a conceit of his excellent poetry, that when some of his more discreet friends told him of his folly, he was very angry with them, and said [2175]they envied his honour, and prosperity: it was strange (saith Jovius) to see an old man of 60 years, a venerable and grave old man, so gulled. But what cannot such scoffers do, especially if they find a soft creature, on whom they may work? nay, to say truth, who is so wise, or so discreet, that may not be humoured in this kind, especially if some excellent wits shall set upon him; he that mads others, if he were so humoured, would be as mad himself, as much grieved and tormented; he might cry with him in the comedy, Proh Jupiter tu homo me, adigas ad insaniam. For all is in these things as they are taken; if he be a silly soul, and do not perceive it, 'tis well, he may haply make others sport, and be no whit troubled himself; but if he be apprehensive of his folly, and take it to heart, then it torments him worse than any lash: a bitter jest, a slander, a calumny, pierceth deeper than any loss, danger, bodily pain, or injury whatsoever; leviter enim volat, (it flies swiftly) as Bernard of an arrow, sed graviter vulnerat, (but wounds deeply), especially if it shall proceed from a virulent tongue, it cuts (saith David) like a two-edged sword. They shoot bitter words as arrows, Psal. lxiv. 5. And they smote with their tongues, Jer. xviii. 18, and that so hard, that they leave an incurable wound behind them. Many men are undone by this means, moped, and so dejected, that they are never to be recovered; and of all other men living, those which are actually melancholy, or inclined to it, are most sensible, (as being suspicious, choleric, apt to mistake) and impatient of an injury in that kind: they aggravate, and so meditate continually of it, that it is a perpetual corrosive, not to be removed, till time wear it out. Although they peradventure that so scoff, do it alone in mirth and merriment, and hold it optimum aliena frui insania, an excellent thing to enjoy another man's madness; yet they must know, that it is a mortal sin (as [2176]Thomas holds) and as the prophet [2177]David denounceth, they that use it, shall never dwell in God's tabernacle. Such scurrilous jests, flouts, and sarcasms, therefore, ought not at all to be used; especially to our betters, to those that are in misery, or any way distressed: for to such, aerumnarum incrementa sunt, they multiply grief, and as [2178]he perceived, In multis pudor, in multis iracundia, &c., many are ashamed, many vexed, angered, and there is no greater cause or furtherer of melancholy. Martin Cromerus, in the Sixth book of his history, hath a pretty story to this purpose, of Vladislaus, the second king of Poland, and Peter Dunnius, earl of Shrine; they had been hunting late, and were enforced to lodge in a poor cottage. When they went to bed, Vladislaus told the earl in jest, that his wife lay softer with the abbot of Shrine; he not able to contain, replied, Et tua cum Dabesso, and yours with Dabessus, a gallant young gentleman in the court, whom Christina the queen loved. Tetigit id dictum Principis animum, these words of his so galled the prince, that he was long after tristis et cogitabundus, very sad and melancholy for many months; but they were the earl's utter undoing: for when Christina heard of it, she persecuted him to death. Sophia the empress, Justinian's wife, broke a bitter jest upon Narsetes the eunuch, a famous captain then disquieted for an overthrow which he lately had: that he was fitter for a distaff and to keep women company, than to wield a sword, or to be general of an army: but it cost her dear, for he so far distasted it, that he went forthwith to the adverse part, much troubled in his thoughts, caused the Lombards to rebel, and thence procured many miseries to the commonwealth. Tiberius the emperor withheld a legacy from the people of Rome, which his predecessor Augustus had lately given, and perceiving a fellow round a dead corse in the ear, would needs know wherefore he did so; the fellow replied, that he wished the departed soul to signify to Augustus, the commons of Rome were yet unpaid: for this bitter jest the emperor caused him forthwith to be slain, and carry the news himself. For this reason, all those that otherwise approve of jests in some cases, and facete companions, (as who doth not?) let them laugh and be merry, rumpantur et illa Codro, 'tis laudable and fit, those yet will by no means admit them in their companies, that are any way inclined to this malady: non jocandum cum iis qui miseri sunt, et aerumnosi, no jesting with a discontented person. 'Tis Castilio's caveat, [2179]Jo. Pontanus, and [2180]Galateus, and every good man's. Play with me, but hurt me not: Jest with me, but shame me not. Comitas is a virtue between rusticity and scurrility, two extremes, as affability is between flattery and contention, it must not exceed; but be still accompanied with that [2181]ἀβλάβεια or innocency, quae nemini nocet, omnem injuriae, oblationem abhorrens, hurts no man, abhors all offer of injury. Though a man be liable to such a jest or obloquy, have been overseen, or committed a foul fact, yet it is no good manners or humanity, to upbraid, to hit him in the teeth with his offence, or to scoff at such a one; 'tis an old axiom, turpis in reum omnis exprobratio.[2182] I speak not of such as generally tax vice, Barclay, Gentilis, Erasmus, Agrippa, Fishcartus, &c., the Varronists and Lucians of our time, satirists, epigrammists, comedians, apologists, &c., but such as personate, rail, scoff, calumniate, perstringe by name, or in presence offend; [2183]Ludit qui stolida procacitate Non est Sestius ille sed caballus: 'Tis horse-play this, and those jests (as he [2184]saith) are no better than injuries, biting jests, mordentes et aculeati, they are poisoned jests, leave a sting behind them, and ought not to be used. [2185]Set not thy foot to make the blind to fall; Nor wilfully offend thy weaker brother: Nor wound the dead with thy tongue's bitter gall, Neither rejoice thou in the fall of other. If these rules could be kept, we should have much more ease and quietness than we have, less melancholy, whereas on the contrary, we study to misuse each other, how to sting and gall, like two fighting boors, bending all our force and wit, friends, fortune, to crucify [2186]one another's souls; by means of which, there is little content and charity, much virulency, hatred, malice, and disquietness among us. SUBSECT. V.—Loss of Liberty, Servitude, Imprisonment, how they cause Melancholy. To this catalogue of causes, I may well annex loss of liberty, servitude, or imprisonment, which to some persons is as great a torture as any of the rest. Though they have all things convenient, sumptuous houses to their use, fair walks and gardens, delicious bowers, galleries, good fare and diet, and all things correspondent, yet they are not content, because they are confined, may not come and go at their pleasure, have and do what they will, but live [2187]aliena quadra, at another man's table and command. As it is [2188]in meats so it is in all other things, places, societies, sports; let them be never so pleasant, commodious, wholesome, so good; yet omnium rerum est satietas, there is a loathing satiety of all things. The children of Israel were tired with manna, it is irksome to them so to live, as to a bird in his cage, or a dog in his kennel, they are weary of it. They are happy, it is true, and have all things, to another man's judgment, that heart can wish, or that they themselves can desire, bona si sua norint: yet they loathe it, and are tired with the present: Est natura hominum novitatis avida; men's nature is still desirous of news, variety, delights; and our wandering affections are so irregular in this kind, that they must change, though it must be to the worst. Bachelors must be married, and married men would be bachelors; they do not love their own wives, though otherwise fair, wise, virtuous, and well qualified, because they are theirs; our present estate is still the worst, we cannot endure one course of life long, et quod modo voverat, odit, one calling long, esse in honore juvat, mox displicet; one place long, [2189]Romae Tibur amo, ventosus Tybure Romam, that which we earnestly sought, we now contemn. Hoc quosdam agit ad mortem, (saith [2190]Seneca) quod proposita saepe mutando in eadem revolvuntur, et non relinquunt novitati locum: Fastidio caepit esse vita, et ipsus mundus, et subit illud rapidissimarum deliciarum, Quousque eadem? this alone kills many a man, that they are tied to the same still, as a horse in a mill, a dog in a wheel, they run round, without alteration or news, their life groweth odious, the world loathsome, and that which crosseth their furious delights, what? still the same? Marcus Aurelius and Solomon, that had experience of all worldly delights and pleasure, confessed as much of themselves; what they most desired, was tedious at last, and that their lust could never be satisfied, all was vanity and affliction of mind. Now if it be death itself, another hell, to be glutted with one kind of sport, dieted with one dish, tied to one place; though they have all things otherwise as they can desire, and are in heaven to another man's opinion, what misery and discontent shall they have, that live in slavery, or in prison itself? Quod tristius morte, in servitute vivendum, as Hermolaus told Alexander in [2191]Curtius, worse than death is bondage: [2192]hoc animo scito omnes fortes, ut mortem servituti anteponant, All brave men at arms (Tully holds) are so affected. [2193]Equidem ego is sum, qui servitutem extremum omnium malorum esse arbitror: I am he (saith Boterus) that account servitude the extremity of misery. And what calamity do they endure, that live with those hard taskmasters, in gold mines (like those 30,000 [2194]Indian slaves at Potosi, in Peru), tin-mines, lead-mines, stone-quarries, coal-pits, like so many mouldwarps under ground, condemned to the galleys, to perpetual drudgery, hunger, thirst, and stripes, without all hope of delivery? How are those women in Turkey affected, that most part of the year come not abroad; those Italian and Spanish dames, that are mewed up like hawks, and locked up by their jealous husbands? how tedious is it to them that live in stoves and caves half a year together? as in Iceland, Muscovy, or under the [2195]pole itself, where they have six months' perpetual night. Nay, what misery and discontent do they endure, that are in prison? They want all those six non-natural things at once, good air, good diet, exercise, company, sleep, rest, ease, &c., that are bound in chains all day long, suffer hunger, and (as [2196]Lucian describes it) must abide that filthy stink, and rattling of chains, howlings, pitiful outcries, that prisoners usually make; these things are not only troublesome, but intolerable. They lie nastily among toads and frogs in a dark dungeon, in their own dung, in pain of body, in pain of soul, as Joseph did, Psal. cv. 18, they hurt his feet in the stocks, the iron entered his soul. They live solitary, alone, sequestered from all company but heart-eating melancholy; and for want of meat, must eat that bread of affliction, prey upon themselves. Well might [2197]Arculanus put long imprisonment for a cause, especially to such as have lived jovially, in all sensuality and lust, upon a sudden are estranged and debarred from all manner of pleasures: as were Huniades, Edward, and Richard II., Valerian the Emperor, Bajazet the Turk. If it be irksome to miss our ordinary companions and repast for once a day, or an hour, what shall it be to lose them for ever? If it be so great a delight to live at liberty, and to enjoy that variety of objects the world affords; what misery and discontent must it needs bring to him, that shall now be cast headlong into that Spanish inquisition, to fall from heaven to hell, to be cubbed up upon a sudden, how shall he be perplexed, what shall become of him? [2198] Robert Duke of Normandy being imprisoned by his youngest brother Henry I., ab illo die inconsolabili dolore in carcere contabuit, saith Matthew Paris, from that day forward pined away with grief. [2199]Jugurtha that generous captain, brought to Rome in triumph, and after imprisoned, through anguish of his soul, and melancholy, died. [2200]Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the second man from King Stephen (he that built that famous castle of [2201]Devizes in Wiltshire,) was so tortured in prison with hunger, and all those calamities accompanying such men, [2202]ut vivere noluerit, mori nescierit, he would not live, and could not die, between fear of death, and torments of life. Francis King of France was taken prisoner by Charles V., ad mortem fere melancholicus, saith Guicciardini, melancholy almost to death, and that in an instant. But this is as clear as the sun, and needs no further illustration. SUBSECT. VI.—Poverty and Want, Causes of Melancholy. Poverty and want are so violent oppugners, so unwelcome guests, so much abhorred of all men, that I may not omit to speak of them apart. Poverty, although (if considered aright, to a wise, understanding, truly regenerate, and contented man) it be donum Dei, a blessed estate, the way to heaven, as [2203]Chrysostom calls it, God's gift, the mother of modesty, and much to be preferred before riches (as shall be shown in his [2204]place), yet as it is esteemed in the world's censure, it is a most odious calling, vile and base, a severe torture, summum scelus, a most intolerable burden; we [2205]shun it all, cane pejus et angue (worse than a dog or a snake), we abhor the name of it, [2206]Paupertas fugitur, totoque arcessitur orbe, as being the fountain of all other miseries, cares, woes, labours, and grievances whatsoever. To avoid which, we will take any pains,—extremos currit mercator ad Indos, we will leave no haven, no coast, no creek of the world unsearched, though it be to the hazard of our lives, we will dive to the bottom of the sea, to the bowels of the earth, [2207]five, six, seven, eight, nine hundred fathom deep, through all five zones, and both extremes of heat and cold: we will turn parasites and slaves, prostitute ourselves, swear and lie, damn our bodies and souls, forsake God, abjure religion, steal, rob, murder, rather than endure this insufferable yoke of poverty, which doth so tyrannise, crucify, and generally depress us. For look into the world, and you shall see men most part esteemed according to their means, and happy as they are rich: [2208]Ubique tanti quisque quantum habuit fuit. If he be likely to thrive, and in the way of preferment, who but he? In the vulgar opinion, if a man be wealthy, no matter how he gets it, of what parentage, how qualified, how virtuously endowed, or villainously inclined; let him be a bawd, a gripe, an usurer, a villain, a pagan, a barbarian, a wretch, [2209]Lucian's tyrant, on whom you may look with less security than on the sun; so that he be rich (and liberal withal) he shall be honoured, admired, adored, reverenced, and highly [2210]magnified. The rich is had in reputation because of his goods, Eccl. x. 31. He shall be befriended: for riches gather many friends, Prov. xix. 4,—multos numerabit amicos, all [2211]happiness ebbs and flows with his money. He shall be accounted a gracious lord, a Mecaenas, a benefactor, a wise, discreet, a proper, a valiant, a fortunate man, of a generous spirit, Pullus Jovis, et gallinae, filius albae: a hopeful, a good man, a virtuous, honest man. Quando ego ie Junonium puerum, et matris partum vere aureum, as [2212]Tully said of Octavianus, while he was adopted Caesar, and an heir [2213]apparent of so great a monarchy, he was a golden child. All [2214]honour, offices, applause, grand titles, and turgent epithets are put upon him, omnes omnia bona dicere; all men's eyes are upon him, God bless his good worship, his honour; [2215]every man speaks well of him, every man presents him, seeks and sues to him for his love, favour, and protection, to serve him, belong unto him, every man riseth to him, as to Themistocles in the Olympics, if he speak, as of Herod, Vox Dei, non hominis, the voice of God, not of man. All the graces, Veneres, pleasures, elegances attend him, [2216] golden fortune accompanies and lodgeth with him; and as to those Roman emperors, is placed in his chamber. [2217]———Secura naviget aura, Fortunamque suo temperet arbitrio: he may sail as he will himself, and temper his estate at his pleasure, jovial days, splendour and magnificence, sweet music, dainty fare, the good things, and fat of the land, fine clothes, rich attires, soft beds, down pillows are at his command, all the world labours for him, thousands of artificers are his slaves to drudge for him, run, ride, and post for him: [2218]Divines (for Pythia Philippisat) lawyers, physicians, philosophers, scholars are his, wholly devote to his service. Every man seeks his [2219]acquaintance, his kindred, to match with him, though he be an oaf, a ninny, a monster, a goose-cap, uxorem ducat Danaen, [2220]when, and whom he will, hunc optant generum Rex et Regina—he is an excellent [2221]match for my son, my daughter, my niece, &c. Quicquid calcaverit hic, Rosa fiet, let him go whither he will, trumpets sound, bells ring, &c., all happiness attends him, every man is willing to entertain him, he sups in [2222]Apollo wheresoever he comes; what preparation is made for his [2223]entertainment? fish and fowl, spices and perfumes, all that sea and land affords. What cookery, masking, mirth to exhilarate his person? [2224]Da Trebio, pone ad Trebium, vis frater ab illia Ilibus?——— What dish will your good worship eat of? [2225]———dulcia poma, Et quoscunque feret cultus tibi fundus honores, Ante Larem, gustet venerabilior Lare dives. Sweet apples, and whate'er thy fields afford, Before thy Gods be serv'd, let serve thy Lord. What sport will your honour have? hawking, hunting, fishing, fowling, bulls, bears, cards, dice, cocks, players, tumblers, fiddlers, jesters, &c., they are at your good worship's command. Fair houses, gardens, orchards, terraces, galleries, cabinets, pleasant walks, delightsome places, they are at hand: [2226]in aureis lac, vinum in argenteis, adolescentulae ad nutum speciosae, wine, wenches, &c. a Turkish paradise, a heaven upon earth. Though he be a silly soft fellow, and scarce have common sense, yet if he be borne to fortunes (as I have said) [2227]jure haereditario sapere jubetur, he must have honour and office in his course: [2228]Nemo nisi dives honore dignus (Ambros. offic. 21.) none so worthy as himself: he shall have it, atque esto quicquid Servius aut Labeo. Get money enough and command [2229]kingdoms, provinces, armies, hearts, hands, and affections; thou shalt have popes, patriarchs to be thy chaplains and parasites: thou shalt have (Tamerlane-like) kings to draw thy coach, queens to be thy laundresses, emperors thy footstools, build more towns and cities than great Alexander, Babel towers, pyramids and Mausolean tombs, &c. command heaven and earth, and tell the world it is thy vassal, auro emitur diadema, argento caelum panditur, denarius philosophum conducit, nummus jus cogit, obolus literatum pascit, metallum sanitatem conciliat, aes amicos conglutinat.[2230]And therefore not without good cause, John de Medicis, that rich Florentine, when he lay upon his death-bed, calling his sons, Cosmo and Laurence, before him, amongst other sober sayings, repeated this, animo quieto digredior, quod vos sanos et divites post me relinquam, It doth me good to think yet, though I be dying, that I shall leave you, my children, sound and rich: for wealth sways all. It is not with us, as amongst those Lacedaemonian senators of Lycurgus in Plutarch, He preferred that deserved best, was most virtuous and worthy of the place, [2231]not swiftness, or strength, or wealth, or friends carried it in those days: but inter optimos optimus, inter temperantes temperantissimus, the most temperate and best. We have no aristocracies but in contemplation, all oligarchies, wherein a few rich men domineer, do what they list, and are privileged by their greatness. [2232]They may freely trespass, and do as they please, no man dare accuse them, no not so much as mutter against them, there is no notice taken of it, they may securely do it, live after their own laws, and for their money get pardons, indulgences, redeem their souls from purgatory and hell itself,—clausum possidet arca Jovem. Let them be epicures, or atheists, libertines, Machiavellians, (as they often are) [2233]Et quamvis perjuris erit, sine gente, cruentus, they may go to heaven through the eye of a needle, if they will themselves, they may be canonised for saints, they shall be [2234]honourably interred in Mausolean tombs, commended by poets, registered in histories, have temples and statues erected to their names,—e manibus illis—nascentur violae.—If he be bountiful in his life, and liberal at his death, he shall have one to swear, as he did by Claudius the Emperor in Tacitus, he saw his soul go to heaven, and be miserably lamented at his funeral. Ambubalarum collegia, &c. Trimalcionis topanta in Petronius recta in caelum abiit, went right to heaven: a, base quean, [2235]thou wouldst have scorned once in thy misery to have a penny from her; and why? modio nummos metiit, she measured her money by the bushel. These prerogatives do not usually belong to rich men, but to such as are most part seeming rich, let him have but a good [2236]outside, he carries it, and shall be adored for a god, as [2237]Cyrus was amongst the Persians, ob splendidum apparatum, for his gay attires; now most men are esteemed according to their clothes. In our gullish times, whom you peradventure in modesty would give place to, as being deceived by his habit, and presuming him some great worshipful man, believe it, if you shall examine his estate, he will likely be proved a serving man of no great note, my lady's tailor, his lordship's barber, or some such gull, a Fastidius Brisk, Sir Petronel Flash, a mere outside. Only this respect is given him, that wheresoever he comes, he may call for what he will, and take place by reason of his outward habit. But on the contrary, if he be poor, Prov. xv. 15, all his days are miserable, he is under hatches, dejected, rejected and forsaken, poor in purse, poor in spirit; [2238]prout res nobis fluit, ita et animus se habet; [2239]money gives life and soul. Though he be honest, wise, learned, well-deserving, noble by birth, and of excellent good parts; yet in that he is poor, unlikely to rise, come to honour, office, or good means, he is contemned, neglected, frustra sapit, inter literas esurit, amicus molestus. [2240]If he speak, what babbler is this? Ecclus, his nobility without wealth, is [2241]projecta vilior alga, and he not esteemed: nos viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis, if once poor, we are metamorphosed in an instant, base slaves, villains, and vile drudges; [2242]for to be poor, is to be a knave, a fool, a wretch, a wicked, an odious fellow, a common eyesore, say poor and say all; they are born to labour, to misery, to carry burdens like juments, pistum stercus comedere with Ulysses' companions, and as Chremilus objected in Aristophanes, [2243] salem lingere, lick salt, to empty jakes, fay channels, [2244]carry out dirt and dunghills, sweep chimneys, rub horse-heels, &c. I say nothing of Turks, galley-slaves, which are bought [2245]and sold like juments, or those African Negroes, or poor [2246]Indian drudges, qui indies hinc inde deferendis oneribus occumbunt, nam quod apud nos boves et asini vehunt, trahunt, &c. [2247]Id omne misellis Indis, they are ugly to behold, and though erst spruce, now rusty and squalid, because poor, [2248]immundas fortunas aquum est squalorem sequi, it is ordinarily so. [2249]Others eat to live, but they live to drudge, [2250]servilis et misera gens nihil recusare audet, a servile generation, that dare refuse no task.—[2251]Heus tu Dromo, cape hoc flabellum, ventulum hinc facito dum lavamus, sirrah blow wind upon us while we wash, and bid your fellow get him up betimes in the morning, be it fair or foul, he shall run fifty miles afoot tomorrow, to carry me a letter to my mistress, Socia ad pistrinam, Socia shall tarry at home and grind malt all day long, Tristan thresh. Thus are they commanded, being indeed some of them as so many footstools for rich men to tread on, blocks for them to get on horseback, or as [2252]walls for them to piss on. They are commonly such people, rude, silly, superstitious idiots, nasty, unclean, lousy, poor, dejected, slavishly humble: and as [2253]Leo Afer observes of the commonalty of Africa, natura viliores sunt, nec apud suos duces majore in precio quam si canes essent: [2254]base by nature, and no more esteemed than dogs, miseram, laboriosam, calamitosam vitam agunt, et inopem, infelicem, rudiores asinis, ut e brutis plane natos dicas: no learning, no knowledge, no civility, scarce common, sense, nought but barbarism amongst them, belluino more vivunt, neque calceos gestant, neque vestes, like rogues and vagabonds, they go barefooted and barelegged, the soles of their feet being as hard as horse-hoofs, as [2255]Radzivilus observed at Damietta in Egypt, leading a laborious, miserable, wretched, unhappy life, [2256]like beasts and juments, if not worse: (for a [2257]Spaniard in Incatan, sold three Indian boys for a cheese, and a hundred Negro slaves for a horse) their discourse is scurrility, their summum bonum, a pot of ale. There is not any slavery which these villains will not undergo, inter illos plerique latrinas evacuant, alii culinariam curant, alii stabularios agunt, urinatores et id genus similia exercent, &c. like those people that dwell in the [2258]Alps, chimney-sweepers, jakes-farmers, dirt-daubers, vagrant rogues, they labour hard some, and yet cannot get clothes to put on, or bread to eat. For what can filthy poverty give else, but [2259]beggary, fulsome nastiness, squalor, contempt, drudgery, labour, ugliness, hunger and thirst; pediculorum, et pulicum numerum? as [2260] he well followed it in Aristophanes, fleas and lice, pro pallio vestem laceram, et pro pulvinari lapidem bene magnum ad caput, rags for his raiment, and a stone for his pillow, pro cathedra, ruptae caput urnae, he sits in a broken pitcher, or on a block for a chair, et malvae, ramos pro panibus comedit, he drinks water, and lives on wort leaves, pulse, like a hog, or scraps like a dog, ut nunc nobis vita afficitur, quis non putabit insaniam esse, infelicitatemque? as Chremilus concludes his speech, as we poor men live nowadays, who will not take our life to be [2261] infelicity, misery, and madness? If they be of little better condition than those base villains, hunger-starved beggars, wandering rogues, those ordinary slaves, and day-labouring drudges; yet they are commonly so preyed upon by [2262] polling officers for breaking the laws, by their tyrannising landlords, so flayed and fleeced by perpetual [2263]exactions, that though they do drudge, fare hard, and starve their genius, they cannot live in [2264]some countries; but what they have is instantly taken from them, the very care they take to live, to be drudges, to maintain their poor families, their trouble and anxiety takes away their sleep, Sirac. xxxi. 1, it makes them weary of their lives: when they have taken all pains, done their utmost and honest endeavours, if they be cast behind by sickness, or overtaken with years, no man pities them, hard-hearted and merciless, uncharitable as they are, they leave them so distressed, to beg, steal, murmur, and [2265] rebel, or else starve. The feeling and fear of this misery compelled those old Romans, whom Menenius Agrippa pacified, to resist their governors: outlaws, and rebels in most places, to take up seditious arms, and in all ages hath caused uproars, murmurings, seditions, rebellions, thefts, murders, mutinies, jars and contentions in every commonwealth: grudging, repining, complaining, discontent in each private family, because they want means to live according to their callings, bring up their children, it breaks their hearts, they cannot do as they would. No greater misery than for a lord to have a knight's living, a gentleman a yeoman's, not to be able to live as his birth and place require. Poverty and want are generally corrosives to all kinds of men, especially to such as have been in good and flourishing estate, are suddenly distressed, [2266]nobly born, liberally brought up, and, by some disaster and casualty miserably dejected. For the rest, as they have base fortunes, so have they base minds correspondent, like beetles, e stercore orti, e stercore victus, in stercore delicium, as they were obscurely born and bred, so they delight in obscenity; they are not thoroughly touched with it. Angustas animas angusto in pectore versant. [2267]Yet, that which is no small cause of their torments, if once they come to be in distress, they are forsaken of their fellows, most part neglected, and left unto themselves; as poor [2268]Terence in Rome was by Scipio, Laelius, and Furius, his great and noble friends. Nil Publius Scipio profuit, nil ei Laelius, nil Furius, Tres per idem tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillime, Horum ille opera ne domum quident habuit conductitiam.[2269] 'Tis generally so, Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris, he is left cold and comfortless, nullas ad amissas ibit amicus opes, all flee from him as from a rotten wall, now ready to fall on their heads. Prov. xix. 1. Poverty separates them from their [2270]neighbours. [2271]Dum fortuna favet vultum servatis amici, Cum cecidit, turpi vertitis ora fuga. Whilst fortune favour'd, friends, you smil'd on me, But when she fled, a friend I could not see. Which is worse yet, if he be poor [2272]every man contemns him, insults over him, oppresseth him, scoffs at, aggravates his misery. [2273]Quum caepit quassata domus subsidere, partes In proclinatas omne recumbit onus. When once the tottering house begins to shrink, Thither comes all the weight by an instinct. Nay they are odious to their own brethren, and dearest friends, Pro. xix. 7. His brethren hate him if he be poor, [2274]omnes vicini oderunt, his neighbours hate him, Pro. xiv. 20, [2275]omnes me noti ac ignoti deserunt, as he complained in the comedy, friends and strangers, all forsake me. Which is most grievous, poverty makes men ridiculous, Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, quam quod ridiculos homines facit, they must endure [2276]jests, taunts, flouts, blows of their betters, and take all in good part to get a meal's meat: [2277]magnum pauperies opprobrium, jubet quidvis et facere et pati. He must turn parasite, jester, fool, cum desipientibus desipere; saith [2278]Euripides, slave, villain, drudge to get a poor living, apply himself to each man's humours, to win and please, &c., and be buffeted when he hath all done, as Ulysses was by Melanthius [2279]in Homer, be reviled, baffled, insulted over, for [2280]potentiorum stultitia perferenda est, and may not so much as mutter against it. He must turn rogue and villain; for as the saying is, Necessitas cogit ad turpia, poverty alone makes men thieves, rebels, murderers, traitors, assassins, because of poverty we have sinned, Ecclus. xxvii. 1, swear and forswear, bear false witness, lie, dissemble, anything, as I say, to advantage themselves, and to relieve their necessities: [2281] Culpae scelerisque magistra est, when a man is driven to his shifts, what will he not do? [2282]———si miserum fortuna Sinonem Finxit, vanum etiam mendacemque improba finget. he will betray his father, prince, and country, turn Turk, forsake religion, abjure God and all, nulla tam horrenda proditio, quam illi lucri causa (saith [2283]Leo Afer) perpetrare nolint. [2284]Plato, therefore, calls poverty, thievish, sacrilegious, filthy, wicked, and mischievous: and well he might. For it makes many an upright man otherwise, had he not been in want, to take bribes, to be corrupt, to do against his conscience, to sell his tongue, heart, hand, &c., to be churlish, hard, unmerciful, uncivil, to use indirect means to help his present estate. It makes princes to exact upon their subjects, great men tyrannise, landlords oppress, justice mercenary, lawyers vultures, physicians harpies, friends importunate, tradesmen liars, honest men thieves, devout assassins, great men to prostitute their wives, daughters, and themselves, middle sort to repine, commons to mutiny, all to grudge, murmur, and complain. A great temptation to all mischief, it compels some miserable wretches to counterfeit several diseases, to dismember, make themselves blind, lame, to have a more plausible cause to beg, and lose their limbs to recover their present wants. Jodocus Damhoderius, a lawyer of Bruges, praxi rerum criminal. c. 112. hath some notable examples of such counterfeit cranks, and every village almost will yield abundant testimonies amongst us; we have dummerers, Abraham men, &c. And that which is the extent of misery, it enforceth them through anguish and wearisomeness of their lives, to make away themselves; they had rather be hanged, drowned, &c., than to live without means. [2285]In mare caetiferum, ne te premat aspera egestas, Desili, et a celsis corrue Cerne jugis. Much better 'tis to break thy neck, Or drown thyself i' the sea, Than suffer irksome poverty; Go make thyself away. A Sybarite of old, as I find it registered in [2286]Athenaeus, supping in Phiditiis in Sparta, and observing their hard fare, said it was no marvel if the Lacedaemonians were valiant men; for his part, he would rather run upon a sword point (and so would any man in his wits,) than live with such base diet, or lead so wretched a life. [2287]In Japonia, 'tis a common thing to stifle their children if they be poor, or to make an abortion, which Aristotle commends. In that civil commonwealth of China, [2288]the mother strangles her child, if she be not able to bring it up, and had rather lose, than sell it, or have it endure such misery as poor men do. Arnobius, lib. 7, adversus gentes, [2289]Lactantius, lib. 5. cap. 9. objects as much to those ancient Greeks and Romans, they did expose their children to wild beasts, strangle, or knock out their brains against a stone, in such cases. If we may give credit to [2290]Munster, amongst us Christians in Lithuania, they voluntarily mancipate and sell themselves, their wives and children to rich men, to avoid hunger and beggary; [2291] many make away themselves in this extremity. Apicius the Roman, when he cast up his accounts, and found but 100,000 crowns left, murdered himself for fear he should be famished to death. P. Forestus, in his medicinal observations, hath a memorable example of two brothers of Louvain that, being destitute of means, became both melancholy, and in a discontented humour massacred themselves. Another of a merchant, learned, wise otherwise and discreet, but out of a deep apprehension he had of a loss at seas, would not be persuaded but as [2292]Ventidius in the poet, he should die a beggar. In a word, thus much I may conclude of poor men, that though they have good [2293]parts they cannot show or make use of them: [2294]ab inopia ad virtutem obsepta est via, 'tis hard for a poor man to [2295] rise, haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat res angusta domi. [2296]The wisdom of the poor is despised, and his words are not heard. Eccles. vi. 19. His works are rejected, contemned, for the baseness and obscurity of the author, though laudable and good in themselves, they will not likely take. Nulla placere diu, neque vivere carmina possunt, Quae scribuntur atquae potoribus.——— No verses can please men or live long that are written by water-drinkers. Poor men cannot please, their actions, counsels, consultations, projects, are vilified in the world's esteem, amittunt consilium in re, which Gnatho long since observed. [2297]Sapiens crepidas sibi nunquam nec soleas fecit, a wise man never cobbled shoes; as he said of old, but how doth he prove it? I am sure we find it otherwise in our days, [2298] pruinosis horret facundia pannis. Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did [2299]go from door to door, and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him. This common misery of theirs must needs distract, make them discontent and melancholy, as ordinarily they are, wayward, peevish, like a weary traveller, for [2300] Fames et mora bilem in nares conciunt, still murmuring and repining: Ob inopiam morosi sunt, quibus est male, as Plutarch quotes out of Euripides, and that comical poet well seconds, [2301]Omnes quibus res sunt minus secundae, nescio quomodo Suspitiosi, ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis, Propter suam impotentiam se credunt negligi. If they be in adversity, they are more suspicious and apt to mistake: they think themselves scorned by reason of their misery: and therefore many generous spirits in such cases withdraw themselves from all company, as that comedian [2302]Terence is said to have done; when he perceived himself to be forsaken and poor, he voluntarily banished himself to Stymphalus, a base town in Arcadia, and there miserably died. [2303]———ad summam inopiam redactus, Itaque e conspectu omnium abiit Graeciae in terram ultimam. Neither is it without cause, for we see men commonly respected according to their means, ([2304]an dives sit omnes quaerunt, nemo an bonus) and vilified if they be in bad clothes. [2305]Philophaemen the orator was set to cut wood, because he was so homely attired, [2306]Terentius was placed at the lower end of Cecilius' table, because of his homely outside. [2307] Dante, that famous Italian poet, by reason his clothes were but mean, could not be admitted to sit down at a feast. Gnatho scorned his old familiar friend because of his apparel, [2308]Hominem video pannis, annisque obsitum, hic ego illum contempsi prae me. King Persius overcome sent a letter to [2309]Paulus Aemilius, the Roman general; Persius P. Consuli. S. but he scorned him any answer, tacite exprobrans fortunam suam (saith mine author) upbraiding him with a present fortune. [2310]Carolus Pugnax, that great duke of Burgundy, made H. Holland, late duke of Exeter, exiled, run after his horse like a lackey, and would take no notice of him: [2311] 'tis the common fashion of the world. So that such men as are poor may justly be discontent, melancholy, and complain of their present misery, and all may pray with [2312]Solomon, Give me, O Lord, neither riches nor poverty; feed me with food convenient for me. SUBSECT. VII.—A heap of other Accidents causing Melancholy, Death of Friends, Losses, &c. In this labyrinth of accidental causes, the farther I wander, the more intricate I find the passage, multae ambages, and new causes as so many by-paths offer themselves to be discussed: to search out all, were an Herculean work, and fitter for Theseus: I will follow mine intended thread; and point only at some few of the chiefest. Death of Friends.] Amongst which, loss and death of friends may challenge a first place, multi tristantur, as [2313]Vives well observes, post delicias, convivia, dies festos, many are melancholy after a feast, holiday, merry meeting, or some pleasing sport, if they be solitary by chance, left alone to themselves, without employment, sport, or want their ordinary companions, some at the departure of friends only whom they shall shortly see again, weep and howl, and look after them as a cow lows after her calf, or a child takes on that goes to school after holidays. Ut me levarat tuus adventus, sic discessus afflixit, (which [2314]Tully writ to Atticus) thy coming was not so welcome to me, as thy departure was harsh. Montanus, consil. 132. makes mention of a country woman that parting with her friends and native place, became grievously melancholy for many years; and Trallianus of another, so caused for the absence of her husband: which is an ordinary passion amongst our good wives, if their husband tarry out a day longer than his appointed time, or break his hour, they take on presently with sighs and tears, he is either robbed, or dead, some mischance or other is surely befallen him, they cannot eat, drink, sleep, or be quiet in mind, till they see him again. If parting of friends, absence alone can work such violent effects, what shall death do, when they must eternally be separated, never in this world to meet again? This is so grievous a torment for the time, that it takes away their appetite, desire of life, extinguisheth all delights, it causeth deep sighs and groans, tears, exclamations, (O dulce germen matris, o sanguis meus, Eheu tepentes, &c.—o flos tener.)[2315] howling, roaring, many bitter pangs, [2316]lamentis gemituque et faemineo ululatu Tecta fremunt) and by frequent meditation extends so far sometimes, [2317]they think they see their dead friends continually in their eyes, observantes imagines, as Conciliator confesseth he saw his mother's ghost presenting herself still before him. Quod nimis miseri volunt, hoc facile credunt, still, still, still, that good father, that good son, that good wife, that dear friend runs in their minds: Totus animus hac una cogitatione defixus est, all the year long, as [2318]Pliny complains to Romanus, methinks I see Virginius, I hear Virginius, I talk with Virginius, &c. [2319]Te sine, vae misero mihi, lilia nigra videntur, Pallentesque rosae, nec dulce rubens hyacinthus, Nullos nec myrtus, noc laurus spirat odores. They that are most staid and patient, are so furiously carried headlong by the passion of sorrow in this case, that brave discreet men otherwise, oftentimes forget themselves, and weep like children many months together, [2320]as if that they to water would, and will not be comforted. They are gone, they are gone; what shall I do? Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo, Quis dabit in lachrymas fontem mihi? quis satis altos Accendet gemitus, et acerbo verba dolori? Exhaurit pietas oculos, et hiantia frangit Pectora, nec plenos avido sinit edere questus, Magna adeo jactura premit, &c. Fountains of tears who gives, who lends me groans, Deep sighs sufficient to express my moans? Mine eyes are dry, my breast in pieces torn, My loss so great, I cannot enough mourn. So Stroza Filius, that elegant Italian poet, in his Epicedium, bewails his father's death, he could moderate his passions in other matters, (as he confesseth) but not in this, lie yields wholly to sorrow, Nunc fateor do terga malis, mens illa fatiscit, Indomitus quondam vigor et constantia mentis. How doth [2321]Quintilian complain for the loss of his son, to despair almost: Cardan lament his only child in his book de libris propriis, and elsewhere in many of his tracts, [2322]St. Ambrose his brother's death? an ego possum non cogitare de te, aut sine lachrymis cogitare? O amari dies, o flebiles noctes, &c. Can I ever cease to think of thee, and to think with sorrow? O bitter days, O nights of sorrow, &c. Gregory Nazianzen, that noble Pulcheria! O decorem, &c. flos recens, pullulans, &c. Alexander, a man of most invincible courage, after Hephestion's death, as Curtius relates, triduum jacuit ad moriendum obstinatus, lay three days together upon the ground, obstinate, to die with him, and would neither eat, drink, nor sleep. The woman that communed with Esdras (lib. 2. cap. 10.) when her son fell down dead. fled into the field, and would not return into the city, but there resolved to remain, neither to eat nor drink, but mourn and fast until she died. Rachel wept for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not. Matt. ii. 18. So did Adrian the emperor bewail his Antinous; Hercules, Hylas; Orpheus, Eurydice; David, Absalom; (O my dear son Absalom) Austin his mother Monica, Niobe her children, insomuch that the [2323]poets feigned her to be turned into a stone, as being stupefied through the extremity of grief. [2324]Aegeas, signo lugubri filii consternatus, in mare se proecipitatem dedit, impatient of sorrow for his son's death, drowned, himself. Our late physicians are full of such examples. Montanus consil. 242. [2325]had a patient troubled with this infirmity, by reason of her husband's death, many years together. Trincavellius, l. 1. c. 14. hath such another, almost in despair, after his [2326]mother's departure, ut se ferme proecipitatem daret; and ready through distraction to make away himself: and in his Fifteenth counsel, tells a story of one fifty years of age, that grew desperate upon his mother's death; and cured by Fallopius, fell many years after into a relapse, by the sudden death of a daughter which he had, and could never after be recovered. The fury of this passion is so violent sometimes, that it daunts whole kingdoms and cities. Vespasian's death was pitifully lamented all over the Roman empire, totus orbis lugebat, saith Aurelius Victor. Alexander commanded the battlements of houses to be pulled down, mules and horses to have their manes shorn off, and many common soldiers to be slain, to accompany his dear Hephestion's death; which is now practised amongst the Tartars, when [2327]a great Cham dieth, ten or twelve thousand must be slain, men and horses, all they meet; and among those the [2328]Pagan Indians, their wives and servants voluntarily die with them. Leo Decimus was so much bewailed in Rome after his departure, that as Jovius gives out, [2329]communis salus, publica hilaritas, the common safety of all good fellowship, peace, mirth, and plenty died with him, tanquam eodem sepulchro cum Leone condita lugebantur: for it was a golden age whilst he lived, [2330]but after his decease an iron season succeeded, barbara vis et foeda vastitas, et dira malorum omnium incommoda, wars, plagues, vastity, discontent. When Augustus Caesar died, saith Paterculus, orbis ruinam timueramus, we were all afraid, as if heaven had fallen upon our heads. [2331]Budaeus records, how that, at Lewis the Twelfth his death, tam subita mutatio, ut qui prius digito coelum attingere videbantur, nunc humi derepente serpere, sideratos esse diceres, they that were erst in heaven, upon a sudden, as if they had been planet-strucken, lay grovelling on the ground; [2332]Concussis cecidere animis, seu frondibus ingens Sylva dolet lapsis——— they looked like cropped trees. [2333]At Nancy in Lorraine, when Claudia Valesia, Henry the Second French king's sister, and the duke's wife deceased, the temples for forty days were all shut up, no prayers nor masses, but in that room where she was. The senators all seen in black, and for a twelvemonth's space throughout the city, they were forbid to sing or dance. [2334]Non ulli pastos illis egre diebus Frigida (Daphne) boves ad flumina, nulla nec amnem Libavit quadrupes, nec graminis attigit herbam. The swains forgot their sheep, nor near the brink Of running waters brought their herds to drink; The thirsty cattle, of themselves, abstained From water, and their grassy fare disdain'd. How were we affected here in England for our Titus, deliciae, humani generis, Prince Henry's immature death, as if all our dearest friends' lives had exhaled with his? [2335]Scanderbeg's death was not so much lamented in Epirus. In a word, as [2336]he saith of Edward the First at the news of Edward of Caernarvon his son's birth, immortaliter gavisus, he was immortally glad, may we say on the contrary of friends' deaths, immortaliter gementes, we are diverse of us as so many turtles, eternally dejected with it. There is another sorrow, which arises from the loss of temporal goods and fortunes, which equally afflicts, and may go hand in hand with the preceding; loss of time, loss of honour, office, of good name, of labour, frustrate hopes, will much torment; but in my judgment, there is no torture like unto it, or that sooner procureth this malady and mischief: [2337]Ploratur lachrymis amissa pecunia veris: Lost money is bewailed with grief sincere. it wrings true tears from our eyes, many sighs, much sorrow from our hearts, and often causes habitual melancholy itself, Guianerius tract. 15. 5. repeats this for an especial cause: [2338]Loss of friends, and loss of goods, make many men melancholy, as I have often seen by continual meditation of such things. The same causes Arnoldus Villanovanus inculcates, Breviar. l. 1. c. 18. ex rerum amissione, damno, amicorum morte, &c. Want alone will make a man mad, to be Sans argent will cause a deep and grievous melancholy. Many persons are affected like [2339] Irishmen in this behalf, who if they have a good scimitar, had rather have a blow on their arm, than their weapon hurt: they will sooner lose their life, than their goods: and the grief that cometh hence, continueth long (saith [2340]Plater) and out of many dispositions, procureth an habit. [2341]Montanus and Frisemelica cured a young man of 22 years of age, that so became melancholy, ab amissam pecuniam, for a sum of money which he had unhappily lost. Sckenkius hath such another story of one melancholy, because he overshot himself, and spent his stock in unnecessary building. [2342]Roger that rich bishop of Salisbury, exutus opibus et castris a Rege Stephano, spoiled of his goods by king Stephen, vi doloris absorptus, atque in amentiam versus, indecentia fecit, through grief ran mad, spoke and did he knew not what. Nothing so familiar, as for men in such cases, through anguish of mind to make away themselves. A poor fellow went to hang himself, (which Ausonius hath elegantly expressed in a neat [2343]Epigram) but finding by chance a pot of money, flung away the rope, and went merrily home, but he that hid the gold, when he missed it, hanged himself with that rope which the other man had left, in a discontented humour. At qui condiderat, postquam non reperit aurum, Aptavit collo, quem reperit laqueum. Such feral accidents can want and penury produce. Be it by suretyship, shipwreck, fire, spoil and pillage of soldiers, or what loss soever, it boots not, it will work the like effect, the same desolation in provinces and cities, as well as private persons. The Romans were miserably dejected after the battle of Cannae, the men amazed for fear, the stupid women tore their hair and cried. The Hungarians, when their king Ladislaus and bravest soldiers were slain by the Turks, Luctus publicus, &c. The Venetians when their forces were overcome by the French king Lewis, the French and Spanish kings, pope, emperor, all conspired against them, at Cambray, the French herald denounced open war in the senate: Lauredane Venetorum dux, &c., and they had lost Padua, Brixia, Verona, Forum Julii, their territories in the continent, and had now nothing left, but the city of Venice itself, et urbi quoque ipsi (saith [2344]Bembus) timendum putarent, and the loss of that was likewise to be feared, tantus repente dolor omnes tenuit, ut nunquam, alias, &c., they were pitifully plunged, never before in such lamentable distress. Anno 1527, when Rome was sacked by Burbonius, the common soldiers made such spoil, that fair [2345]churches were turned to stables, old monuments and books made horse-litter, or burned like straw; relics, costly pictures defaced; altars demolished, rich hangings, carpets, &c., trampled in the dirt. [2346]Their wives and loveliest daughters constuprated by every base cullion, as Sejanus' daughter was by the hangman in public, before their fathers and husbands' faces. Noblemen's children, and of the wealthiest citizens, reserved for princes' beds, were prostitute to every common soldier, and kept for concubines; senators and cardinals themselves dragged along the streets, and put to exquisite torments, to confess where their money was hid; the rest, murdered on heaps, lay stinking in the streets; infants' brains dashed out before their mothers' eyes. A lamentable sight it was to see so goodly a city so suddenly defaced, rich citizens sent a begging to Venice, Naples, Ancona, &c., that erst lived in all manner of delights. [2347]Those proud palaces that even now vaunted their tops up to heaven, were dejected as low as hell in an instant. Whom will not such misery make discontent? Terence the poet drowned himself (some say) for the loss of his comedies, which suffered shipwreck. When a poor man hath made many hungry meals, got together a small sum, which he loseth in an instant; a scholar spent many an hour's study to no purpose, his labours lost, &c., how should it otherwise be? I may conclude with Gregory, temporalium amor, quantum afficit, cum haeret possessio, tantum quum subtrahitur, urit dolor; riches do not so much exhilarate us with their possession, as they torment us with their loss. Next to sorrow still I may annex such accidents as procure fear; for besides those terrors which I have [2348]before touched, and many other fears (which are infinite) there is a superstitious fear, one of the three great causes of fear in Aristotle, commonly caused by prodigies and dismal accidents, which much trouble many of us, (Nescio quid animus mihi praesagit mali.) As if a hare cross the way at our going forth, or a mouse gnaw our clothes: if they bleed three drops at nose, the salt falls towards them, a black spot appear in their nails, &c., with many such, which Delrio Tom. 2. l. 3. sect. 4. Austin Niphus in his book de Auguriis. Polydore Virg. l. 3. de Prodigas. Sarisburiensis Polycrat. l. 1. c. 13. discuss at large. They are so much affected, that with the very strength of imagination, fear, and the devil's craft, [2349]they pull those misfortunes they suspect, upon their own heads, and that which they fear, shall come upon them, as Solomon fortelleth, Prov. x. 24. and Isaiah denounceth, lxvi. 4. which if [2350]they could neglect and contemn, would not come to pass, Eorum vires nostra resident opinione, ut morbi gravitas ?grotantium cogitatione, they are intended and remitted, as our opinion is fixed, more or less. N. N. dat poenas, saith [2351]Crato of such a one, utinam non attraheret: he is punished, and is the cause of it [2352] himself: [2353]Dum fata fugimus fata stulti incurrimus, the thing that I feared, saith Job, is fallen upon me. As much we may say of them that are troubled with their fortunes; or ill destinies foreseen: multos angit praecientia malorum: The foreknowledge of what shall come to pass, crucifies many men: foretold by astrologers, or wizards, iratum ob coelum, be it ill accident, or death itself: which often falls out by God's permission; quia daemonem timent (saith Chrysostom) Deus ideo permittit accidere. Severus, Adrian, Domitian, can testify as much, of whose fear and suspicion, Sueton, Herodian, and the rest of those writers, tell strange stories in this behalf. [2354]Montanus consil. 31. hath one example of a young man, exceeding melancholy upon this occasion. Such fears have still tormented mortal men in all ages, by reason of those lying oracles, and juggling priests. [2355]There was a fountain in Greece, near Ceres' temple in Achaia, where the event of such diseases was to be known; A glass let down by a thread, &c. Amongst those Cyanean rocks at the springs of Lycia, was the oracle of Thrixeus Apollo, where all fortunes were foretold, sickness, health, or what they would besides: so common people have been always deluded with future events. At this day, Metus futurorum maxime torquet Sinas, this foolish fear, mightily crucifies them in China: as [2356]Matthew Riccius the Jesuit informeth us, in his commentaries of those countries, of all nations they are most superstitious, and much tormented in this kind, attributing so much to their divinators, ut ipse metus fidem faciat, that fear itself and conceit, cause it to [2357]fall out: If he foretell sickness such a day, that very time they will be sick, vi metus afflicti in aegritudinem cadunt; and many times die as it is foretold. A true saying, Timor mortis, morte pejor, the fear of death is worse than death itself, and the memory of that sad hour, to some fortunate and rich men, is as bitter as gall, Eccl. xli. 1. Inquietam nobis vitam facit mortis metus, a worse plague cannot happen to a man, than to be so troubled in his mind; 'tis triste divortium, a heavy separation, to leave their goods, with so much labour got, pleasures of the world, which they have so deliciously enjoyed, friends and companions whom they so dearly loved, all at once. Axicchus the philosopher was bold and courageous all his life, and gave good precepts de contemnenda morte, and against the vanity of the world, to others; but being now ready to die himself, he was mightily dejected, hac luce privabor? his orbabor bonis?[2358]he lamented like a child, &c. And though Socrates himself was there to comfort him, ubi pristina virtutum jactatio O Axioche? where is all your boasted virtue now, my friend? yet he was very timorous and impatient of death, much troubled in his mind, Imbellis pavor et impatientia, &c. O Clotho, Megapetus the tyrant in Lucian exclaims, now ready to depart, let me live a while longer. [2359]I will give thee a thousand talents of gold, and two boles besides, which I took from Cleocritus, worth a hundred talents apiece. Woe's me, [2360] saith another, what goodly manors shall I leave! what fertile fields! what a fine house! what pretty children! how many servants! who shall gather my grapes, my corn? Must I now die so well settled? Leave all, so richly and well provided? Woe's me, what shall I do? [2361]Animula vagula, blandula, qua nunc abibis in loca? To these tortures of fear and sorrow, may well be annexed curiosity, that irksome, that tyrannising care, nimia solicitudo, [2362]superfluous industry about unprofitable things, and their qualities, as Thomas defines it: an itching humour or a kind of longing to see that which is not to be seen, to do that which ought not to be done, to know that [2363]secret which should not be known, to eat of the forbidden fruit. We commonly molest and tire ourselves about things unfit and unnecessary, as Martha troubled herself to little purpose. Be it in religion, humanity, magic, philosophy, policy, any action or study, 'tis a needless trouble, a mere torment. For what else is school divinity, how many doth it puzzle? what fruitless questions about the Trinity, resurrection, election, predestination, reprobation, hell-fire, &c., how many shall be saved, damned? What else is all superstition, but an endless observation of idle ceremonies, traditions? What is most of our philosophy but a labyrinth of opinions, idle questions, propositions, metaphysical terms? Socrates, therefore, held all philosophers, cavillers, and mad men, circa subtilia Cavillatores pro insanis habuit, palam eos arguens, saith [2364]Eusebius, because they commonly sought after such things quae nec percipi a nobis neque comprehendi posset, or put case they did understand, yet they were altogether unprofitable. For what matter is it for us to know how high the Pleiades are, how far distant Perseus and Cassiopeia from us, how deep the sea, &c., we are neither wiser, as he follows it, nor modester, nor better, nor richer, nor stronger for the knowledge of it. Quod supra nos nihil ad, nos, I may say the same of those genethliacal studies, what is astrology but vain elections, predictions? all magic, but a troublesome error, a pernicious foppery? physic, but intricate rules and prescriptions? philology, but vain criticisms? logic, needless sophisms? metaphysics themselves, but intricate subtleties, and fruitless abstractions? alchemy, but a bundle of errors? to what end are such great tomes? why do we spend so many years in their studies? Much better to know nothing at all, as those barbarous Indians are wholly ignorant, than as some of us, to be so sore vexed about unprofitable toys: stultus labor est ineptiarum, to build a house without pins, make a rope of sand, to what end? cui bono? He studies on, but as the boy told St. Austin, when I have laved the sea dry, thou shalt understand the mystery of the Trinity. He makes observations, keeps times and seasons; and as [2365]Conradus the emperor would not touch his new bride, till an astrologer had told him a masculine hour, but with what success? He travels into Europe, Africa, Asia, searcheth every creek, sea, city, mountain, gulf, to what end? See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all. An alchemist spends his fortunes to find out the philosopher's stone forsooth, cure all diseases, make men long-lived, victorious, fortunate, invisible, and beggars himself, misled by those seducing impostors (which he shall never attain) to make gold; an antiquary consumes his treasure and time to scrape up a company of old coins, statues, rules, edicts, manuscripts, &c., he must know what was done of old in Athens, Rome, what lodging, diet, houses they had, and have all the present news at first, though never so remote, before all others, what projects, counsels, consultations, &c., quid Juno in aurem insusurret Jovi, what's now decreed in France, what in Italy: who was he, whence comes he, which way, whither goes he, &c. Aristotle must find out the motion of Euripus; Pliny must needs see Vesuvius, but how sped they? One loseth goods, another his life; Pyrrhus will conquer Africa first, and then Asia: he will be a sole monarch, a second immortal, a third rich; a fourth commands. [2366] Turbine magno spes solicitae in urbibus errant; we run, ride, take indefatigable pains, all up early, down late, striving to get that which we had better be without, (Ardelion's busybodies as we are) it were much fitter for us to be quiet, sit still, and take our ease. His sole study is for words, that they be—Lepidae lexeis compostae, ut tesserulae omnes, not a syllable misplaced, to set out a stramineous subject: as thine is about apparel, to follow the fashion, to be terse and polite, 'tis thy sole business: both with like profit. His only delight is building, he spends himself to get curious pictures, intricate models and plots, another is wholly ceremonious about titles, degrees, inscriptions: a third is over-solicitous about his diet, he must have such and such exquisite sauces, meat so dressed, so far-fetched, peregrini aeris volucres, so cooked, &c., something to provoke thirst, something anon to quench his thirst. Thus he redeems his appetite with extraordinary charge to his purse, is seldom pleased with any meal, whilst a trivial stomach useth all with delight and is never offended. Another must have roses in winter, alieni temporis flores, snow-water in summer, fruits before they can be or are usually ripe, artificial gardens and fishponds on the tops of houses, all things opposite to the vulgar sort, intricate and rare, or else they are nothing worth. So busy, nice, curious wits, make that insupportable in all vocations, trades, actions, employments, which to duller apprehensions is not offensive, earnestly seeking that which others so scornfully neglect. Thus through our foolish curiosity do we macerate ourselves, tire our souls, and run headlong, through our indiscretion, perverse will, and want of government, into many needless cares, and troubles, vain expenses, tedious journeys, painful hours; and when all is done, quorsum haec? cui bono? to what end? [2367]Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est. Unfortunate marriage.] Amongst these passions and irksome accidents, unfortunate marriage may be ranked: a condition of life appointed by God himself in Paradise, an honourable and happy estate, and as great a felicity as can befall a man in this world, [2368]if the parties can agree as they ought, and live as [2369]Seneca lived with his Paulina; but if they be unequally matched, or at discord, a greater misery cannot be expected, to have a scold, a slut, a harlot, a fool, a fury or a fiend, there can be no such plague. Eccles. xxvi. 14, He that hath her is as if he held a scorpion, &c. xxvi. 25, a wicked wife makes a sorry countenance, a heavy heart, and he had rather dwell with a lion than keep house with such a wife. Her [2370]properties Jovianus Pontanus hath described at large, Ant. dial. Tom. 2, under the name of Euphorbia. Or if they be not equal in years, the like mischief happens. Cecilius in Agellius lib. 2. cap. 23, complains much of an old wife, dum ejus morti inhio, egomet mortuus vivo inter vivos, whilst I gape after her death, I live a dead man amongst the living, or if they dislike upon any occasion, [2371]Judge who that are unfortunately wed What 'tis to come into a loathed bed. The same inconvenience befalls women. [2372]At vos o duri miseram lugete parentes, Si ferro aut laqueo laeva hac me exsolvere sorte Sustineo:——— Hard hearted parents both lament my fate, If self I kill or hang, to ease my state. [2373]A young gentlewoman in Basil was married, saith Felix Plater, observat. l. 1, to an ancient man against her will, whom she could not affect; she was continually melancholy, and pined away for grief; and though her husband did all he could possibly to give her content, in a discontented humour at length she hanged herself. Many other stories he relates in this kind. Thus men are plagued with women; they again with men, when they are of divers humours and conditions; he a spendthrift, she sparing; one honest, the other dishonest, &c. Parents many times disquiet their children, and they their parents. [2374]A foolish son is an heaviness to his mother. Injusta noverca: a stepmother often vexeth a whole family, is matter of repentance, exercise of patience, fuel of dissension, which made Cato's son expostulate with his father, why he should offer to marry his client Solinius' daughter, a young wench, Cujus causa novercam induceret; what offence had he done, that he should marry again? Unkind, unnatural friends, evil neighbours, bad servants, debts and debates, &c., 'twas Chilon's sentence, comes aeris alieni et litis est miseria, misery and usury do commonly together; suretyship is the bane of many families, Sponde, praesto noxa est: he shall be sore vexed that is surety for a stranger, Prov. xi. 15, and he that hateth suretyship is sure. Contention, brawling, lawsuits, falling out of neighbours and friends.—discordia demens (Virg. Aen. 6,) are equal to the first, grieve many a man, and vex his soul. Nihil sane miserabilius eorum mentibus, (as [2375]Boter holds) nothing so miserable as such men, full of cares, griefs, anxieties, as if they were stabbed with a sharp sword, fear, suspicion, desperation, sorrow, are their ordinary companions. Our Welshmen are noted by some of their [2376]own writers, to consume one another in this kind; but whosoever they are that use it, these are their common symptoms, especially if they be convict or overcome, [2377]cast in a suit. Arius put out of a bishopric by Eustathius, turned heretic, and lived after discontented all his life. [2378]Every repulse is of like nature; heu quanta de spe decidi! Disgrace, infamy, detraction, will almost effect as much, and that a long time after. Hipponax, a satirical poet, so vilified and lashed two painters in his iambics, ut ambo laqueo se suffocarent, [2379]Pliny saith, both hanged themselves. All oppositions, dangers, perplexities, discontents, [2380]to live in any suspense, are of the same rank: potes hoc sub casu ducere somnos? Who can be secure in such cases? Ill-bestowed benefits, ingratitude, unthankful friends, much disquiet and molest some. Unkind speeches trouble as many; uncivil carriage or dogged answers, weak women above the rest, if they proceed from their surly husbands, are as bitter as gall, and not to be digested. A glassman's wife in Basil became melancholy because her husband said he would marry again if she died. No cut to unkindness, as the saying is, a frown and hard speech, ill respect, a browbeating, or bad look, especially to courtiers, or such as attend upon great persons, is present death: Ingenium vultu statque caditque suo, they ebb and flow with their masters' favours. Some persons are at their wits' ends, if by chance they overshoot themselves, in their ordinary speeches, or actions, which may after turn to their disadvantage or disgrace, or have any secret disclosed. Ronseus epist. miscel. 2, reports of a gentlewoman 25 years old, that falling foul with one of her gossips, was upbraided with a secret infirmity (no matter what) in public, and so much grieved with it, that she did thereupon solitudines quaerere omnes ab se ablegare, ac tandem in gravissimam incidens melancholiam, contabescere, forsake all company, quite moped, and in a melancholy humour pine away. Others are as much tortured to see themselves rejected, contemned, scorned, disabled, defamed, detracted, undervalued, or [2381]left behind their fellows. Lucian brings in Aetamacles, a philosopher in his Lapith. convivio, much discontented that he was not invited amongst the rest, expostulating the matter, in a long epistle, with Aristenetus their host. Praetextatus, a robed gentleman in Plutarch, would not sit down at a feast, because he might not sit highest, but went his ways all in a chafe. We see the common quarrelings, that are ordinary with us, for taking of the wall, precedency, and the like, which though toys in themselves, and things of no moment, yet they cause many distempers, much heart-burning amongst us. Nothing pierceth deeper than a contempt or disgrace, [2382]especially if they be generous spirits, scarce anything affects them more than to be despised or vilified. Crato, consil. 16, l. 2, exemplifies it, and common experience confirms it. Of the same nature is oppression, Ecclus. 77, surely oppression makes a man mad, loss of liberty, which made Brutus venture his life, Cato kill himself, and [2383]Tully complain, Omnem hilaritatem in perpetuum amisi, mine heart's broken, I shall never look up, or be merry again, [2384]haec jactura intolerabilis, to some parties 'tis a most intolerable loss. Banishment a great misery, as Tyrteus describes it in an epigram of his, Nam miserum est patria amissa, laribusque vagari Mendicum, et timida voce rogare cibos: Omnibus invisus, quocunque accesserit exul Semper erit, semper spretus egensque jacet, &c. A miserable thing 'tis so to wander, And like a beggar for to whine at door, Contemn'd of all the world, an exile is, Hated, rejected, needy still and poor. Polynices in his conference with Jocasta in [2385]Euripides, reckons up five miseries of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough to deject some pusillanimous creatures. Oftentimes a too great feeling of our own infirmities or imperfections of body or mind, will shrivel us up; as if we be long sick: O beata sanitas, te praesente, amaenum Ver florit gratiis, absque te nemo beatus: O blessed health! thou art above all gold and treasure, Ecclus. xxx. 15, the poor man's riches, the rich man's bliss, without thee there can be no happiness: or visited with some loathsome disease, offensive to others, or troublesome to ourselves; as a stinking breath, deformity of our limbs, crookedness, loss of an eye, leg, hand, paleness, leanness, redness, baldness, loss or want of hair, &c., hic ubi fluere caepit, diros ictus cordi infert, saith [2386]Synesius, he himself troubled not a little ob comae defectum, the loss of hair alone, strikes a cruel stroke to the heart. Acco, an old woman, seeing by chance her face in a true glass (for she used false flattering glasses belike at other times, as most gentlewomen do,) animi dolore in insaniam delapsa est, (Caelius Rhodiginus l. 17, c. 2,) ran mad. [2387]Brotheus, the son of Vulcan, because he was ridiculous for his imperfections, flung himself into the fire. Lais of Corinth, now grown old, gave up her glass to Venus, for she could hot abide to look upon it. [2388]Qualis sum nolo, qualis eram nequeo. Generally to fair nice pieces, old age and foul linen are two most odious things, a torment of torments, they may not abide the thought of it, [2389]———o deorum Quisquis haec audis, utinam inter errem Nuda leones, Antequam turpis macies decentes Occupet malas, teneraeque succus Defluat praedae, speciosa quaerro Pascere tigres. Hear me, some gracious heavenly power, Let lions dire this naked corse devour. My cheeks ere hollow wrinkles seize. Ere yet their rosy bloom decays: While youth yet rolls its vital flood, Let tigers friendly riot in my blood. To be foul, ugly, and deformed, much better be buried alive. Some are fair but barren, and that galls them. Hannah wept sore, did not eat, and was troubled in spirit, and all for her barrenness, 1 Sam. 1. and Gen. 30. Rachel said in the anguish of her soul, give me a child, or I shall die: another hath too many: one was never married, and that's his hell, another is, and that's his plague. Some are troubled in that they are obscure; others by being traduced, slandered, abused, disgraced, vilified, or any way injured: minime miror eos (as he said) qui insanire occipiunt ex injuria, I marvel not at all if offences make men mad. Seventeen particular causes of anger and offence Aristotle reckons them up, which for brevity's sake I must omit. No tidings troubles one; ill reports, rumours, bad tidings or news, hard hap, ill success, cast in a suit, vain hopes, or hope deferred, another: expectation, adeo omnibus in rebus molesta semper est expectatio, as [2390]Polybius observes; one is too eminent, another too base born, and that alone tortures him as much as the rest: one is out of action, company, employment; another overcome and tormented with worldly cares, and onerous business. But what [2391]tongue can suffice to speak of all? Many men catch this malady by eating certain meats, herbs, roots, at unawares; as henbane, nightshade, cicuta, mandrakes, &c. [2392]A company of young men at Agrigentum in Sicily, came into a tavern; where after they had freely taken their liquor, whether it were the wine itself, or something mixed with it 'tis not yet known, [2393]but upon a sudden they began to be so troubled in their brains, and their phantasy so crazed, that they thought they were in a ship at sea, and now ready to be cast away by reason of a tempest. Wherefore to avoid shipwreck and present drowning, they flung all the goods in the house out at the windows into the street, or into the sea, as they supposed; thus they continued mad a pretty season, and being brought before the magistrate to give an account of this their fact, they told him (not yet recovered of their madness) that what was done they did for fear of death, and to avoid imminent danger: the spectators were all amazed at this their stupidity, and gazed on them still, whilst one of the ancientest of the company, in a grave tone, excused himself to the magistrate upon his knees, O viri Tritones, ego in imo jacui, I beseech your deities, &c. for I was in the bottom of the ship all the while: another besought them as so many sea gods to be good unto them, and if ever he and his fellows came to land again, [2394]he would build an altar to their service. The magistrate could not sufficiently laugh at this their madness, bid them sleep it out, and so went his ways. Many such accidents frequently happen, upon these unknown occasions. Some are so caused by philters, wandering in the sun, biting of a mad dog, a blow on the head, stinging with that kind of spider called tarantula, an ordinary thing if we may believe Skeuck. l. 6. de Venenis, in Calabria and Apulia in Italy, Cardan, subtil. l. 9. Scaliger exercitat. 185. Their symptoms are merrily described by Jovianus Pontanus, Ant. dial. how they dance altogether, and are cured by music. [2395]Cardan speaks of certain stones, if they be carried about one, which will cause melancholy and madness; he calls them unhappy, as an [2396]adamant, selenites, &c. which dry up the body, increase cares, diminish sleep: Ctesias in Persicis, makes mention of a well in those parts, of which if any man drink, [2397]he is mad for 24 hours. Some lose their wits by terrible objects (as elsewhere I have more [2398]copiously dilated) and life itself many times, as Hippolitus affrighted by Neptune's seahorses, Athemas by Juno's furies: but these relations are common in all writers. [2399]Hic alias poteram, et plures subnectere causas, Sed jumenta vocant, et Sol inclinat, Eundum est. Many such causes, much more could I say, But that for provender my cattle stay: The sun declines, and I must needs away. These causes if they be considered, and come alone, I do easily yield, can do little of themselves, seldom, or apart (an old oak is not felled at a blow) though many times they are all sufficient every one: yet if they concur, as often they do, vis unita fortior; et quae non obsunt singula, multa nocent, they may batter a strong constitution; as [2400]Austin said, many grains and small sands sink a ship, many small drops make a flood, &c., often reiterated; many dispositions produce an habit. MEMB. V. SUBSECT. I.—Continent, inward, antecedent, next causes and how the body works on the mind. As a purlieu hunter, I have hitherto beaten about the circuit of the forest of this microcosm, and followed only those outward adventitious causes. I will now break into the inner rooms, and rip up the antecedent immediate causes which are there to be found. For as the distraction of the mind, amongst other outward causes and perturbations, alters the temperature of the body, so the distraction and distemper of the body will cause a distemperature of the soul, and 'tis hard to decide which of these two do more harm to the other. Plato, Cyprian, and some others, as I have formerly said, lay the greatest fault upon the soul, excusing the body; others again accusing the body, excuse the soul, as a principal agent. Their reasons are, because [2401]the manners do follow the temperature of the body, as Galen proves in his book of that subject, Prosper Calenius de Atra bile, Jason Pratensis c. de Mania, Lemnius l. 4. c. 16. and many others. And that which Gualter hath commented, hom. 10. in epist. Johannis, is most true, concupiscence and originals in, inclinations, and bad humours, are [2402]radical in every one of us, causing these perturbations, affections, and several distempers, offering many times violence unto the soul. Every man is tempted by his own concupiscence (James i. 14), the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and rebelleth against the spirit, as our [2403]apostle teacheth us: that methinks the soul hath the better plea against the body, which so forcibly inclines us, that we cannot resist, Nec nos obniti contra, nec tendere tantum sufficimus. How the body being material, worketh upon the immaterial soul, by mediation of humours and spirits, which participate of both, and ill-disposed organs, Cornelius Agrippa hath discoursed lib. 1. de occult. Philos. cap. 63, 64, 65. Levinus Lemnius lib. 1. de occult. nat. mir. cap. 12. et 16. et 21. institut. ad opt. vit. Perkins lib. 1. Cases of Cons. cap. 12. T. Bright c. 10, 11, 12. in his treatise of melancholy, for as, [2404] anger, fear, sorrow, obtrectation, emulation, &c. si mentis intimos recessus occuparint, saith [2405]Lemnius, corpori quoque infesta sunt, et illi teterrimos morbos inferunt, cause grievous diseases in the body, so bodily diseases affect the soul by consent. Now the chiefest causes proceed from the [2406]heart, humours, spirits: as they are purer, or impurer, so is the mind, and equally suffers, as a lute out of tune, if one string or one organ be distempered, all the rest miscarry, [2407]corpus onustum hesternis vitiis, animum quoque praegravat una. The body is domicilium animae, her house, abode, and stay; and as a torch gives a better light, a sweeter smell, according to the matter it is made of; so doth our soul perform all her actions, better or worse, as her organs are disposed; or as wine savours of the cask wherein it is kept; the soul receives a tincture from the body, through which it works. We see this in old men, children, Europeans; Asians, hot and cold climes; sanguine are merry, melancholy sad, phlegmatic dull, by reason of abundance of those humours, and they cannot resist such passions which are inflicted by them. For in this infirmity of human nature, as Melancthon declares, the understanding is so tied to, and captivated by his inferior senses, that without their help he cannot exercise his functions, and the will being weakened, hath but a small power to restrain those outward parts, but suffers herself to be overruled by them; that I must needs conclude with Lemnius, spiritus et humores maximum nocumentum obtinent, spirits and humours do most harm in [2408]troubling the soul. How should a man choose but be choleric and angry, that hath his body so clogged with abundance of gross humours? or melancholy, that is so inwardly disposed? That thence comes then this malady, madness, apoplexies, lethargies, &c. it may not be denied. Now this body of ours is most part distempered by some precedent diseases, which molest his inward organs and instruments, and so per consequens cause melancholy, according to the consent of the most approved physicians. [2409]This humour (as Avicenna l. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. c. 18. Arnoldus breviar. l. 1. c. 18. Jacchinus comment. in 9 Rhasis, c. 15. Montaltus, c. 10. Nicholas Piso c. de Melan. &c. suppose) is begotten by the distemperature of some inward part, innate, or left after some inflammation, or else included in the blood after an [2410]ague, or some other malignant disease. This opinion of theirs concurs with that of Galen, l. 3. c. 6. de locis affect. Guianerius gives an instance in one so caused by a quartan ague, and Montanus consil. 32. in a young man of twenty-eight years of age, so distempered after a quartan, which had molested him five years together; Hildesheim spicel. 2. de Mania, relates of a Dutch baron, grievously tormented with melancholy after a long [2411]ague: Galen, l. de atra bile, c. 4. puts the plague a cause. Botaldus in his book de lue vener. c. 2. the French pox for a cause, others, frenzy, epilepsy, apoplexy, because those diseases do often degenerate into this. Of suppression of haemorrhoids, haemorrhagia, or bleeding at the nose, menstruous retentions, (although they deserve a larger explication, as being the sole cause of a proper kind of melancholy, in more ancient maids, nuns and widows, handled apart by Rodericus a Castro, and Mercatus, as I have elsewhere signified,) or any other evacuation stopped, I have already spoken. Only this I will add, that this melancholy which shall be caused by such infirmities, deserves to be pitied of all men, and to be respected with a more tender compassion, according to Laurentius, as coming from a more inevitable cause. SUBSECT. II.—Distemperature of particular Parts, causes. There is almost no part of the body, which being distempered, doth not cause this malady, as the brain and his parts, heart, liver, spleen, stomach, matrix or womb, pylorus, mirach, mesentery, hypochondries, mesaraic veins; and in a word, saith [2412]Arculanus, there is no part which causeth not melancholy, either because it is adust, or doth not expel the superfluity of the nutriment. Savanarola Pract. major. rubric. 11. Tract. 6. cap. 1. is of the same opinion, that melancholy is engendered in each particular part, and [2413]Crato in consil. 17. lib. 2. Gordonius, who is instar omnium, lib. med. partic. 2. cap. 19. confirms as much, putting the [2414]matter of melancholy, sometimes in the stomach, liver, heart, brain, spleen, mirach, hypochondries, when as the melancholy humour resides there, or the liver is not well cleansed from melancholy blood. The brain is a familiar and frequent cause, too hot, or too cold, [2415] through adust blood so caused, as Mercurialis will have it, within or without the head, the brain itself being distempered. Those are most apt to this disease, [2416]that have a hot heart and moist brain, which Montaltus cap. 11. de Melanch. approves out of Halyabbas, Rhasis, and Avicenna. Mercurialis consil. 11. assigns the coldness of the brain a cause, and Salustius Salvianus med. lect. l. 2. c. 1. [2417]will have it arise from a cold and dry distemperature of the brain. Piso, Benedictus Victorius Faventinus, will have it proceed from a [2418]hot distemperature of the brain; and [2419]Montaltus cap. 10. from the brain's heat, scorching the blood. The brain is still distempered by himself, or by consent: by himself or his proper affection, as Faventinus calls it, [2420]or by vapours which arise from the other parts, and fume up into the head, altering the animal facilities. Hildesheim spicel. 2. de Mania, thinks it may be caused from a [2421] distemperature of the heart; sometimes hot; sometimes cold. A hot liver, and a cold stomach, are put for usual causes of melancholy: Mercurialis consil. 11. et consil. 6. consil. 86. assigns a hot liver and cold stomach for ordinary causes. [2422]Monavius, in an epistle of his to Crato in Scoltzius, is of opinion, that hypochondriacal melancholy may proceed from a cold liver; the question is there discussed. Most agree that a hot liver is in fault; [2423]the liver is the shop of humours, and especially causeth melancholy by his hot and dry distemperature. [2424]The stomach and mesaraic veins do often concur, by reason of their obstructions, and thence their heat cannot be avoided, and many times the matter is so adust and inflamed in those parts, that it degenerates into hypochondriacal melancholy. Guianerius c. 2. Tract. 15. holds the mesaraic veins to be a sufficient [2425]cause alone. The spleen concurs to this malady, by all their consents, and suppression of haemorrhoids, dum non expurget alter a causa lien, saith Montaltus, if it be [2426]too cold and dry, and do not purge the other parts as it ought, consil. 23. Montanus puts the [2427] spleen stopped for a great cause. [2428]Christophorus a Vega reports of his knowledge, that he hath known melancholy caused from putrefied blood in those seed-veins and womb; [2429]Arculanus, from that menstruous blood turned into melancholy, and seed too long detained (as I have already declared) by putrefaction or adustion. The mesenterium, or midriff, diaphragma, is a cause which the [2430]Greeks called φρένας: because by his inflammation, the mind is much troubled with convulsions and dotage. All these, most part, offend by inflammation, corrupting humours and spirits, in this non-natural melancholy: for from these are engendered fuliginous and black spirits. And for that reason [2431]Montaltus cap. 10. de causis melan. will have the efficient cause of melancholy to be hot and dry, not a cold and dry distemperature, as some hold, from the heat of the brain, roasting the blood, immoderate heat of the liver and bowels, and inflammation of the pylorus. And so much the rather, because that, as Galen holds, all spices inflame the blood, solitariness, waking, agues, study, meditation, all which heat: and therefore he concludes that this distemperature causing adventitious melancholy is not cold and dry, but hot and dry. But of this I have sufficiently treated in the matter of melancholy, and hold that this may be true in non-natural melancholy, which produceth madness, but not in that natural, which is more cold, and being immoderate, produceth a gentle dotage. [2432]Which opinion Geraldus de Solo maintains in his comment upon Rhasis. SUBSECT. III.—Causes of Head-Melancholy. After a tedious discourse of the general causes of melancholy, I am now returned at last to treat in brief of the three particular species, and such causes as properly appertain unto them. Although these causes promiscuously concur to each and every particular kind, and commonly produce their effects in that part which is most ill-disposed, and least able to resist, and so cause all three species, yet many of them are proper to some one kind, and seldom found in the rest. As for example, head-melancholy is commonly caused by a cold or hot distemperature of the brain, according to Laurentius cap. 5 de melan. but as [2433]Hercules de Saxonia contends, from that agitation or distemperature of the animal spirits alone. Salust. Salvianus, before mentioned, lib. 2. cap. 3. de re med. will have it proceed from cold: but that I take of natural melancholy, such as are fools and dote: for as Galen writes lib. 4. de puls. 8. and Avicenna, [2434]a cold and moist brain is an inseparable companion of folly. But this adventitious melancholy which is here meant, is caused of a hot and dry distemperature, as [2435]Damascen the Arabian lib. 3. cap. 22. thinks, and most writers: Altomarus and Piso call it [2436]an innate burning intemperateness, turning blood and choler into melancholy. Both these opinions may stand good, as Bruel maintains, and Capivaccius, si cerebrum sit calidius, [2437]if the brain be hot, the animal spirits will be hot, and thence comes madness; if cold, folly. David Crusius Theat. morb. Hermet. lib. 2. cap. 6. de atra bile, grants melancholy to be a disease of an inflamed brain, but cold notwithstanding of itself: calida per accidens, frigida per se, hot by accident only; I am of Capivaccius' mind for my part. Now this humour, according to Salvianus, is sometimes in the substance of the brain, sometimes contained in the membranes and tunicles that cover the brain, sometimes in the passages of the ventricles of the brain, or veins of those ventricles. It follows many times [2438]frenzy, long diseases, agues, long abode in hot places, or under the sun, a blow on the head, as Rhasis informeth us: Piso adds solitariness, waking, inflammations of the head, proceeding most part [2439]from much use of spices, hot wines, hot meats: all which Montanus reckons up consil. 22. for a melancholy Jew; and Heurnius repeats cap. 12. de Mania: hot baths, garlic, onions, saith Guianerius, bad air, corrupt, much [2440]waking, &c., retention of seed or abundance, stopping of haemorrhagia, the midriff misaffected; and according to Trallianus l. 1. 16. immoderate cares, troubles, griefs, discontent, study, meditation, and, in a word, the abuse of all those six non-natural things. Hercules de Saxonia, cap. 16. lib. 1. will have it caused from a [2441]cautery, or boil dried up, or an issue. Amatus Lusitanus cent. 2. cura. 67. gives instance in a fellow that had a hole in his arm, [2442]after that was healed, ran mad, and when the wound was open, he was cured again. Trincavellius consil. 13. lib. 1. hath an example of a melancholy man so caused by overmuch continuance in the sun, frequent use of venery, and immoderate exercise: and in his cons. 49. lib. 3. from a [2443]headpiece overheated, which caused head-melancholy. Prosper Calenus brings in Cardinal Caesius for a pattern of such as are so melancholy by long study; but examples are infinite. SUBSECT. IV.—Causes of Hypochondriacal, or Windy Melancholy. In repeating of these causes, I must crambem bis coctam apponere, say that again which I have formerly said, in applying them to their proper species. Hypochondriacal or flatuous melancholy, is that which the Arabians call mirachial, and is in my judgment the most grievous and frequent, though Bruel and Laurentius make it least dangerous, and not so hard to be known or cured. His causes are inward or outward. Inward from divers parts or organs, as midriff, spleen, stomach, liver, pylorus, womb, diaphragma, mesaraic veins, stopping of issues, &c. Montaltus cap. 15. out of Galen recites, [2444]heat and obstruction of those mesaraic veins, as an immediate cause, by which means the passage of the chilus to the liver is detained, stopped or corrupted, and turned into rumbling and wind. Montanus, consil. 233, hath an evident demonstration, Trincavelius another, lib. 1, cap. 1, and Plater a third, observat. lib. 1, for a doctor of the law visited with this infirmity, from the said obstruction and heat of these mesaraic veins, and bowels; quoniam inter ventriculum et jecur venae effervescunt, the veins are inflamed about the liver and stomach. Sometimes those other parts are together misaffected; and concur to the production of this malady: a hot liver and cold stomach, or cold belly: look for instances in Hollerius, Victor Trincavelius, consil. 35, l. 3, Hildesheim Spicel. 2, fol. 132, Solenander consil. 9, pro cive Lugdunensi, Montanus consil. 229, for the Earl of Montfort in Germany, 1549, and Frisimelica in the 233 consultation of the said Montanus. I. Caesar Claudinus gives instance of a cold stomach and over-hot liver, almost in every consultation, con. 89, for a certain count; and con. 106, for a Polonian baron, by reason of heat the blood is inflamed, and gross vapours sent to the heart and brain. Mercurialis subscribes to them, cons. 89, [2445]the stomach being misaffected, which he calls the king of the belly, because if he be distempered, all the rest suffer with him, as being deprived of their nutriment, or fed with bad nourishment, by means of which come crudities, obstructions, wind, rumbling, griping, &c. Hercules de Saxonia, besides heat, will have the weakness of the liver and his obstruction a cause, facultatem debilem jecinoris, which he calls the mineral of melancholy. Laurentius assigns this reason, because the liver over-hot draws the meat undigested out of the stomach, and burneth the humours. Montanus, cons. 244, proves that sometimes a cold liver may be a cause. Laurentius c. 12, Trincavelius lib. 12, consil., and Gualter Bruel, seems to lay the greatest fault upon the spleen, that doth not his duty in purging the liver as he ought, being too great, or too little, in drawing too much blood sometimes to it, and not expelling it, as P. Cnemiandrus in a [2446]consultation of his noted tumorem lienis, he names it, and the fountain of melancholy. Diocles supposed the ground of this kind of melancholy to proceed from the inflammation of the pylorus, which is the nether mouth of the ventricle. Others assign the mesenterium or midriff distempered by heat, the womb misaffected, stopping of haemorrhoids, with many such. All which Laurentius, cap. 12, reduceth to three, mesentery, liver, and spleen, from whence he denominates hepatic, splenetic, and mesaraic melancholy. Outward causes, are bad diet, care, griefs, discontents, and in a word all those six non-natural things, as Montanus found by his experience, consil. 244. Solenander consil. 9, for a citizen of Lyons, in France, gives his reader to understand, that he knew this mischief procured by a medicine of cantharides, which an unskilful physician ministered his patient to drink ad venerem excitandam. But most commonly fear, grief, and some sudden commotion, or perturbation of the mind, begin it, in such bodies especially as are ill-disposed. Melancthon, tract. 14, cap. 2, de anima, will have it as common to men, as the mother to women, upon some grievous trouble, dislike, passion, or discontent. For as Camerarius records in his life, Melancthon himself was much troubled with it, and therefore could speak out of experience. Montanus, consil. 22, pro delirante Judaeo, confirms it, [2447]grievous symptoms of the mind brought him to it. Randolotius relates of himself, that being one day very intent to write out a physician's notes, molested by an occasion, he fell into a hypochondriacal fit, to avoid which he drank the decoction of wormwood, and was freed. [2448]Melancthon (being the disease is so troublesome and frequent) holds it a most necessary and profitable study, for every man to know the accidents of it, and a dangerous thing to be ignorant, and would therefore have all men in some sort to understand the causes, symptoms, and cures of it. SUBSECT. V.—Causes of Melancholy from the whole Body. As before, the cause of this kind of melancholy is inward or outward. Inward, [2449]when the liver is apt to engender such a humour, or the spleen weak by nature, and not able to discharge his office. A melancholy temperature, retention of haemorrhoids, monthly issues, bleeding at nose, long diseases, agues, and all those six non-natural things increase it. But especially [2450]bad diet, as Piso thinks, pulse, salt meat, shellfish, cheese, black wine, &c. Mercurialis out of Averroes and Avicenna condemns all herbs: Galen, lib. 3, de loc. affect. cap. 7, especially cabbage. So likewise fear, sorrow, discontents, &c., but of these before. And thus in brief you have had the general and particular causes of melancholy. Now go and brag of thy present happiness, whosoever thou art, brag of thy temperature, of thy good parts, insult, triumph, and boast; thou seest in what a brittle state thou art, how soon thou mayst be dejected, how many several ways, by bad diet, bad air, a small loss, a little sorrow or discontent, an ague, &c.; how many sudden accidents may procure thy ruin, what a small tenure of happiness thou hast in this life, how weak and silly a creature thou art. Humble thyself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, 1 Peter, v. 6, know thyself, acknowledge thy present misery, and make right use of it. Qui stat videat ne cadat. Thou dost now flourish, and hast bona animi, corporis, et fortunae, goods of body, mind, and fortune, nescis quid serus secum vesper ferat, thou knowest not what storms and tempests the late evening may bring with it. Be not secure then, be sober and watch, [2451]fortunam reverenter habe, if fortunate and rich; if sick and poor, moderate thyself. I have said. SECT. III. MEMB. I. SUBSECT. I.—Symptoms, or Signs of Melancholy in the Body. Parrhasius, a painter of Athens, amongst those Olynthian captives Philip of Macedon brought home to sell, [2452]bought one very old man; and when he had him at Athens, put him to extreme torture and torment, the better by his example to express the pains and passions of his Prometheus, whom he was then about to paint. I need not be so barbarous, inhuman, curious, or cruel, for this purpose to torture any poor melancholy man, their symptoms are plain, obvious and familiar, there needs no such accurate observation or far-fetched object, they delineate themselves, they voluntarily betray themselves, they are too frequent in all places, I meet them still as I go, they cannot conceal it, their grievances are too well known, I need not seek far to describe them. Symptoms therefore are either [2453]universal or particular, saith Gordonius, lib. med. cap. 19, part. 2, to persons, to species; some signs are secret, some manifest, some in the body, some in the mind, and diversely vary, according to the inward or outward causes, Capivaccius: or from stars, according to Jovianus Pontanus, de reb. caelest. lib. 10, cap. 13, and celestial influences, or from the humours diversely mixed, Ficinus, lib. 1, cap. 4, de sanit. tuenda: as they are hot, cold, natural, unnatural, intended, or remitted, so will Aetius have melancholica deliria multiformia, diversity of melancholy signs. Laurentius ascribes them to their several temperatures, delights, natures, inclinations, continuance of time, as they are simple or mixed with other diseases, as the causes are divers, so must the signs be, almost infinite, Altomarus cap. 7, art. med. And as wine produceth divers effects, or that herb Tortocolla in [2454]Laurentius, which makes some laugh, some weep, some sleep, some dance, some sing, some howl, some drink, &c. so doth this our melancholy humour work several signs in several parties. But to confine them, these general symptoms may be reduced to those of the body or the mind. Those usual signs appearing in the bodies of such as are melancholy, be these cold and dry, or they are hot and dry, as the humour is more or less adust. From [2455]these first qualities arise many other second, as that of [2456]colour, black, swarthy, pale, ruddy, &c., some are impense rubri, as Montaltus cap. 16 observes out of Galen, lib. 3, de locis affectis, very red and high coloured. Hippocrates in his book [2457]de insania et melan. reckons up these signs, that they are [2458] lean, withered, hollow-eyed, look old, wrinkled, harsh, much troubled with wind, and a griping in their bellies, or bellyache, belch often, dry bellies and hard, dejected looks, flaggy beards, singing of the ears, vertigo, light-headed, little or no sleep, and that interrupt, terrible and fearful dreams, [2459]Anna soror, quae, me suspensam insomnia terrent? The same symptoms are repeated by Melanelius in his book of melancholy collected out of Galen, Ruffus, Aetius, by Rhasis, Gordonius, and all the juniors, [2460]continual, sharp, and stinking belchings, as if their meat in their stomachs were putrefied, or that they had eaten fish, dry bellies, absurd and interrupt dreams, and many fantastical visions about their eyes, vertiginous, apt to tremble, and prone to venery. [2461]Some add palpitation of the heart, cold sweat, as usual symptoms, and a leaping in many parts of the body, saltum in multis corporis partibus, a kind of itching, saith Laurentius, on the superficies of the skin, like a flea-biting sometimes. [2462]Montaltus cap. 21. puts fixed eyes and much twinkling of their eyes for a sign, and so doth Avicenna, oculos habentes palpitantes, trauli, vehementer rubicundi, &c., lib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 18. They stut most part, which he took out of Hippocrates' aphorisms. [2463]Rhasis makes headache and a binding heaviness for a principal token, much leaping of wind about the skin, as well as stutting, or tripping in speech, &c., hollow eyes, gross veins, and broad lips. To some too, if they be far gone, mimical gestures are too familiar, laughing, grinning, fleering, murmuring, talking to themselves, with strange mouths and faces, inarticulate voices, exclamations, &c. And although they be commonly lean, hirsute, uncheerful in countenance, withered, and not so pleasant to behold, by reason of those continual fears, griefs, and vexations, dull, heavy, lazy, restless, unapt to go about any business; yet their memories are most part good, they have happy wits, and excellent apprehensions. Their hot and dry brains make them they cannot sleep, Ingentes habent et crebras vigilias (Arteus) mighty and often watchings, sometimes waking for a month, a year together. [2464]Hercules de Saxonia faithfully averreth, that he hath heard his mother swear, she slept not for seven months together: Trincavelius, Tom. 2. cons. 16. speaks of one that waked 50 days, and Skenkius hath examples of two years, and all without offence. In natural actions their appetite is greater than their concoction, multa appetunt pauca digerunt as Rhasis hath it, they covet to eat, but cannot digest. And although they [2465]do eat much, yet they are lean, ill-liking, saith Areteus, withered and hard, much troubled with costiveness, crudities, oppilations, spitting, belching, &c. Their pulse is rare and slow, except it be of the [2466]Carotides, which is very strong; but that varies according to their intended passions or perturbations, as Struthius hath proved at large, Spigmaticae. artis l. 4. c. 13. To say truth, in such chronic diseases the pulse is not much to be respected, there being so much superstition in it, as [2467]Crato notes, and so many differences in Galen, that he dares say they may not be observed, or understood of any man. Their urine is most part pale, and low coloured, urina pauca acris, biliosa (Areteus), not much in quantity; but this, in my judgment, is all out as uncertain as the other, varying so often according to several persons, habits, and other occasions not to be respected in chronic diseases. [2468]Their melancholy excrements in some very much, in others little, as the spleen plays his part, and thence proceeds wind, palpitation of the heart, short breath, plenty of humidity in the stomach, heaviness of heart and heartache, and intolerable stupidity and dullness of spirits. Their excrements or stool hard, black to some and little. If the heart, brain, liver, spleen, be misaffected, as usually they are, many inconveniences proceed from them, many diseases accompany, as incubus, [2469]apoplexy, epilepsy, vertigo, those frequent wakings and terrible dreams, [2470]intempestive laughing, weeping, sighing, sobbing, bashfulness, blushing, trembling, sweating, swooning, &c. [2471]All their senses are troubled, they think they see, hear, smell, and touch that which they do not, as shall be proved in the following discourse. SUBSECT. II.—Symptoms or Signs in the Mind. Fear.] Arculanus in 9. Rhasis ad Almansor. cap. 16. will have these symptoms to be infinite, as indeed they are, varying according to the parties, for scarce is there one of a thousand that dotes alike, [2472] Laurentius c. 16. Some few of greater note I will point at; and amongst the rest, fear and sorrow, which as they are frequent causes, so if they persevere long, according to Hippocrates [2473]and Galen's aphorisms, they are most assured signs, inseparable companions, and characters of melancholy; of present melancholy and habituated, saith Montaltus cap. 11. and common to them all, as the said Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, and all Neoterics hold. But as hounds many times run away with a false cry, never perceiving themselves to be at a fault, so do they. For Diocles of old, (whom Galen confutes,) and amongst the juniors, [2474]Hercules de Saxonia, with Lod. Mercatus cap. 17. l. 1. de melan., takes just exceptions, at this aphorism of Hippocrates, 'tis not always true, or so generally to be understood, fear and sorrow are no common symptoms to all melancholy; upon more serious consideration, I find some (saith he) that are not so at all. Some indeed are sad, and not fearful; some fearful and not sad; some neither fearful nor sad; some both. Four kinds he excepts, fanatical persons, such as were Cassandra, Nanto, Nicostrata, Mopsus, Proteus, the sibyls, whom [2475]Aristotle confesseth to have been deeply melancholy. Baptista Porta seconds him, Physiog. lib. 1, cap. 8, they were atra bile perciti: demoniacal persons, and such as speak strange languages, are of this rank: some poets, such as laugh always, and think themselves kings, cardinals, &c., sanguine they are, pleasantly disposed most part, and so continue. [2476]Baptista Portia confines fear and sorrow to them that are cold; but lovers, Sibyls, enthusiasts, he wholly excludes. So that I think I may truly conclude, they are not always sad and fearful, but usually so: and that [2477]without a cause, timent de non timendis, (Gordonius,) quaeque momenti non sunt, although not all alike (saith Altomarus), [2478]yet all likely fear, [2479]some with an extraordinary and a mighty fear, Areteus. [2480]Many fear death, and yet in a contrary humour, make away themselves, Galen, lib. 3. de loc. affec. cap. 7. Some are afraid that heaven will fall on their heads: some they are damned, or shall be. [2481]They are troubled with scruples of consciences, distrusting God's mercies, think they shall go certainly to hell, the devil will have them, and make great lamentation, Jason Pratensis. Fear of devils, death, that they shall be so sick, of some such or such disease, ready to tremble at every object, they shall die themselves forthwith, or that some of their dear friends or near allies are certainly dead; imminent danger, loss, disgrace still torment others, &c.; that they are all glass, and therefore will suffer no man to come near them: that they are all cork, as light as feathers; others as heavy as lead; some are afraid their heads will fall off their shoulders, that they have frogs in their bellies, &c. [2482]Montanus consil. 23, speaks of one that durst not walk alone from home, for fear he should swoon or die. A second [2483]fears every man he meets will rob him, quarrel with him, or kill him. A third dares not venture to walk alone, for fear he should meet the devil, a thief, be sick; fears all old women as witches, and every black dog or cat he sees he suspecteth to be a devil, every person comes near him is maleficiated, every creature, all intend to hurt him, seek his ruin; another dares not go over a bridge, come near a pool, rock, steep hill, lie in a chamber where cross beams are, for fear he be tempted to hang, drown, or precipitate himself. If he be in a silent auditory, as at a sermon, he is afraid he shall speak aloud at unawares, something indecent, unfit to be said. If he be locked in a close room, he is afraid of being stifled for want of air, and still carries biscuit, aquavitae, or some strong waters about him, for fear of deliquiums, or being sick; or if he be in a throng, middle of a church, multitude, where he may not well get out, though he sit at ease, he is so misaffected. He will freely promise, undertake any business beforehand, but when it comes to be performed, he dare not adventure, but fears an infinite number of dangers, disasters, &c. Some are [2484] afraid to be burned, or that the [2485]ground will sink under them, or [2486]swallow them quick, or that the king will call them in question for some fact they never did (Rhasis cont.) and that they shall surely be executed. The terror of such a death troubles them, and they fear as much and are equally tormented in mind, [2487]as they that have committed a murder, and are pensive without a cause, as if they were now presently to be put to death. Plater, cap. 3. de mentis alienat. They are afraid of some loss, danger, that they shall surely lose their lives, goods, and all they have, but why they know not. Trincavelius, consil. 13. lib. 1. had a patient that would needs make away himself, for fear of being hanged, and could not be persuaded for three years together, but that he had killed a man. Plater, observat. lib. 1. hath two other examples of such as feared to be executed without a cause. If they come in a place where a robbery, theft, or any such offence hath been done, they presently fear they are suspected, and many times betray themselves without a cause. Lewis XI., the French king, suspected every man a traitor that came about him, durst trust no officer. Alii formidolosi omnium, alii quorundam (Fracatorius lib. 2. de Intellect.) [2488]some fear all alike, some certain men, and cannot endure their companies, are sick in them, or if they be from home. Some suspect [2489]treason still, others are afraid of their [2490]dearest and nearest friends. (Melanelius e Galeno, Ruffo, Aetio,) and dare not be alone in the dark for fear of hobgoblins and devils: he suspects everything he hears or sees to be a devil, or enchanted, and imagineth a thousand chimeras and visions, which to his thinking he certainly sees, bugbears, talks with black men, ghosts, goblins, &c., [2491]Omnes se terrent aurae, sonus excitat omnis. Another through bashfulness, suspicion, and timorousness will not be seen abroad, [2492]loves darkness as life, and cannot endure the light, or to sit in lightsome places, his hat still in his eyes, he will neither see nor be seen by his goodwill, Hippocrates, lib. de Insania et Melancholia. He dare not come in company for fear he should be misused, disgraced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches, or be sick; he thinks every man observes him, aims at him, derides him, owes him malice. Most part [2493]they are afraid they are bewitched, possessed, or poisoned by their enemies, and sometimes they suspect their nearest friends: he thinks something speaks or talks within him, and he belcheth of the poison. Christophorus a Vega, lib. 2. cap. 1. had a patient so troubled, that by no persuasion or physic he could be reclaimed. Some are afraid that they shall have every fearful disease they see others have, hear of, or read, and dare not therefore hear or read of any such subject, no not of melancholy itself, lest by applying to themselves that which they hear or read, they should aggravate and increase it. If they see one possessed, bewitched, an epileptic paroxysm, a man shaking with the palsy, or giddy-headed, reeling or standing in a dangerous place, &c., for many days after it runs in their minds, they are afraid they shall be so too, they are in like danger, as Perkins c. 12. sc. 12. well observes in his Cases of Conscience and many times by violence of imagination they produce it. They cannot endure to see any terrible object, as a monster, a man executed, a carcase, hear the devil named, or any tragical relation seen, but they quake for fear, Hecatas somniare sibi videntur (Lucian) they dream of hobgoblins, and may not get it out of their minds a long time after: they apply (as I have said) all they hear, see, read, to themselves; as [2494]Felix Plater notes of some young physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be sick, and appropriate all symptoms they find related of others, to their own persons. And therefore (quod iterum moneo, licet nauseam paret lectori, malo decem potius verba, decies repetita licet abundare, quam unum desiderari) I would advise him that is actually melancholy not to read this tract of Symptoms, lest he disquiet or make himself for a time worse, and more melancholy than he was before. Generally of them all take this, de inanibus semper conqueruntur et timent, saith Aretius; they complain of toys, and fear [2495]without a cause, and still think their melancholy to be most grievous, none so bad as they are, though it be nothing in respect, yet never any man sure was so troubled, or in this sort. As really tormented and perplexed, in as great an agony for toys and trifles (such things as they will after laugh at themselves) as if they were most material and essential matters indeed, worthy to be feared, and will not be satisfied. Pacify them for one, they are instantly troubled with some other fear; always afraid of something which they foolishly imagine or conceive to themselves, which never peradventure was, never can be, never likely will be; troubled in mind upon every small occasion, unquiet, still complaining, grieving, vexing, suspecting, grudging, discontent, and cannot be freed so long as melancholy continues. Or if their minds be more quiet for the present, and they free from foreign fears, outward accidents, yet their bodies are out of tune, they suspect some part or other to be amiss, now their head aches, heart, stomach, spleen, &c. is misaffected, they shall surely have this or that disease; still troubled in body, mind, or both, and through wind, corrupt fantasy, some accidental distemper, continually molested. Yet for all this, as [2496]Jacchinus notes, in all other things they are wise, staid, discreet, and do nothing unbeseeming their dignity, person, or place, this foolish, ridiculous, and childish fear excepted; which so much, so continually tortures and crucifies their souls, like a barking dog that always bawls, but seldom bites, this fear ever molesteth, and so long as melancholy lasteth, cannot be avoided. Sorrow is that other character, and inseparable companion, as individual as Saint Cosmus and Damian, fidus Achates, as all writers witness, a common symptom, a continual, and still without any evident cause, [2497]moerent omnes, et si roges eos reddere causam, non possunt: grieving still, but why they cannot tell: Agelasti, moesti, cogitabundi, they look as if they had newly come forth of Trophonius' den. And though they laugh many times, and seem to be extraordinary merry (as they will by fits), yet extreme lumpish again in an instant, dull and heavy, semel et simul, merry and sad, but most part sad: [2498]Si qua placent, abeunt; inimica tenacius haerent: sorrow sticks by them still continually, gnawing as the vulture did [2499]Titius' bowels, and they cannot avoid it. No sooner are their eyes open, but after terrible and troublesome dreams their heavy hearts begin to sigh: they are still fretting, chafing, sighing, grieving, complaining, finding faults, repining, grudging, weeping, Heautontimorumenoi, vexing themselves, [2500]disquieted in mind, with restless, unquiet thoughts, discontent, either for their own, other men's or public affairs, such as concern them not; things past, present, or to come, the remembrance of some disgrace, loss, injury, abuses, &c. troubles them now being idle afresh, as if it were new done; they are afflicted otherwise for some danger, loss, want, shame, misery, that will certainly come, as they suspect and mistrust. Lugubris Ate frowns upon them, insomuch that Areteus well calls it angorem animi, a vexation of the mind, a perpetual agony. They can hardly be pleased, or eased, though in other men's opinion most happy, go, tarry, run, ride, [2501]—post equitem sedet atra cura: they cannot avoid this feral plague, let them come in what company they will, [2502]haeret leteri lethalis arundo, as to a deer that is struck, whether he run, go, rest with the herd, or alone, this grief remains: irresolution, inconstancy, vanity of mind, their fear, torture, care, jealousy, suspicion, &c., continues, and they cannot be relieved. So [2503]he complained in the poet, Domum revertor moestus, atque animo fere Perturbato, atque incerto prae aegritudine, Assido, accurrunt servi: succos detrahunt, Video alios festinare, lectos sternere, Coenam apparare, pro se quisque sedulo Faciebant, quo illam mihi lenirent miseriam. He came home sorrowful, and troubled in his mind, his servants did all they possibly could to please him; one pulled off his socks, another made ready his bed, a third his supper, all did their utmost endeavours to ease his grief, and exhilarate his person, he was profoundly melancholy, he had lost his son, illud angebat, that was his Cordolium, his pain, his agony which could not be removed. Taedium vitae.] Hence it proceeds many times, that they are weary of their lives, and feral thoughts to offer violence to their own persons come into their minds, taedium vitae is a common symptom, tarda fluunt, ingrataque tempora, they are soon tired with all things; they will now tarry, now be gone; now in bed they will rise, now up, then go to bed, now pleased, then again displeased; now they like, by and by dislike all, weary of all, sequitur nunc vivendi, nunc moriendi cupido, saith Aurelianus, lib. 1. cap. 6, but most part [2504]vitam damnant, discontent, disquieted, perplexed upon every light, or no occasion, object: often tempted, I say, to make away themselves: [2505]Vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt: they cannot die, they will not live: they complain, weep, lament, and think they lead a most miserable life, never was any man so bad, or so before, every poor man they see is most fortunate in respect of them, every beggar that comes to the door is happier than they are, they could be contented to change lives with them, especially if they be alone, idle, and parted from their ordinary company, molested, displeased, or provoked: grief, fear, agony, discontent, wearisomeness, laziness, suspicion, or some such passion forcibly seizeth on them. Yet by and by when they come in company again, which they like, or be pleased, suam sententiam rursus damnant, et vitae solatia delectantur, as Octavius Horatianus observes, lib. 2. cap. 5, they condemn their former mislike, and are well pleased to live. And so they continue, till with some fresh discontent they be molested again, and then they are weary of their lives, weary of all, they will die, and show rather a necessity to live, than a desire. Claudius the emperor, as [2506] Sueton describes him, had a spice of this disease, for when he was tormented with the pain of his stomach, he had a conceit to make away himself. Julius Caesar Claudinus, consil. 84. had a Polonian to his patient, so affected, that through [2507]fear and sorrow, with which he was still disquieted, hated his own life, wished for death every moment, and to be freed of his misery. Mercurialis another, and another that was often minded to despatch himself, and so continued for many years. Suspicion, Jealousy.] Suspicion, and jealousy, are general symptoms: they are commonly distrustful, apt to mistake, and amplify, facile irascibiles, [2508]testy, pettish, peevish, and ready to snarl upon every [2509]small occasion, cum amicissimis, and without a cause, datum vel non datum, it will be scandalum acceptum. If they speak in jest, he takes it in good earnest. If they be not saluted, invited, consulted with, called to counsel, &c., or that any respect, small compliment, or ceremony be omitted, they think themselves neglected, and contemned; for a time that tortures them. If two talk together, discourse, whisper, jest, or tell a tale in general, he thinks presently they mean him, applies all to himself, de se putat omnia dici. Or if they talk with him, he is ready to misconstrue every word they speak, and interpret it to the worst; he cannot endure any man to look steadily on him, speak to him almost, laugh, jest, or be familiar, or hem, or point, cough, or spit, or make a noise sometimes, &c. [2510]He thinks they laugh or point at him, or do it in disgrace of him, circumvent him, contemn him; every man looks at him, he is pale, red, sweats for fear and anger, lest somebody should observe him. He works upon it, and long after this false conceit of an abuse troubles him. Montanus consil. 22. gives instance in a melancholy Jew, that was Iracundior Adria, so waspish and suspicious, tam facile iratus, that no man could tell how to carry himself in his company. Inconstancy.] Inconstant they are in all their actions, vertiginous, restless, unapt to resolve of any business, they will and will not, persuaded to and fro upon every small occasion, or word spoken: and yet if once they be resolved, obstinate, hard to be reconciled. If they abhor, dislike, or distaste, once settled, though to the better by odds, by no counsel, or persuasion, to be removed. Yet in most things wavering, irresolute, unable to deliberate, through fear, faciunt, et mox facti poenitent (Areteus) avari, et paulo post prodigi. Now prodigal, and then covetous, they do, and by-and-by repent them of that which they have done, so that both ways they are troubled, whether they do or do not, want or have, hit or miss, disquieted of all hands, soon weary, and still seeking change, restless, I say, fickle, fugitive, they may not abide to tarry in one place long. [2511]Romae rus optans, absentem rusticus urbem Tollit ad astra——— no company long, or to persevere in any action or business. [2512]Et similis regum pueris, pappare minutum Poscit, et iratus mammae lallare recusat, eftsoons pleased, and anon displeased, as a man that's bitten with fleas, or that cannot sleep turns to and fro in his bed, their restless minds are tossed and vary, they have no patience to read out a book, to play out a game or two, walk a mile, sit an hour, &c., erected and dejected in an instant; animated to undertake, and upon a word spoken again discouraged. Passionate.] Extreme passionate, Quicquid volunt valde volunt; and what they desire, they do most furiously seek; anxious ever, and very solicitous, distrustful, and timorous, envious, malicious, profuse one while, sparing another, but most part covetous, muttering, repining, discontent, and still complaining, grudging, peevish, injuriarum tenaces, prone to revenge, soon troubled, and most violent in all their imaginations, not affable in speech, or apt to vulgar compliment, but surly, dull, sad, austere; cogitabundi still, very intent, and as [2513] Albertus Durer paints melancholy, like a sad woman leaning on her arm with fixed looks, neglected habit, &c., held therefore by some proud, soft, sottish, or half-mad, as the Abderites esteemed of Democritus: and yet of a deep reach, excellent apprehension, judicious, wise, and witty: for I am of that [2514]nobleman's mind, Melancholy advanceth men's conceits, more than any humour whatsoever, improves their meditations more than any strong drink or sack. They are of profound judgment in some things, although in others non recte judicant inquieti, saith Fracastorius, lib. 2. de Intell. And as Arculanus, c. 16. in 9. Rhasis, terms it, Judicium plerumque perversum, corrupti, cum judicant honesta inhonesta, et amicitiam habent pro inimicitia: they count honesty dishonesty, friends as enemies, they will abuse their best friends, and dare not offend their enemies. Cowards most part et ad inferendam injuriam timidissimi, saith Cardan, lib. 8. cap. 4. de rerum varietate: loath to offend, and if they chance to overshoot themselves in word or deed: or any small business or circumstance be omitted, forgotten, they are miserably tormented, and frame a thousand dangers and inconveniences to themselves, ex musca elephantem, if once they conceit it: overjoyed with every good rumour, tale, or prosperous event, transported beyond themselves: with every small cross again, bad news, misconceived injury, loss, danger, afflicted beyond measure, in great agony, perplexed, dejected, astonished, impatient, utterly undone: fearful, suspicious of all. Yet again, many of them desperate harebrains, rash, careless, fit to be assassinates, as being void of all fear and sorrow, according to [2515]Hercules de Saxonia, Most audacious, and such as dare walk alone in the night, through deserts and dangerous places, fearing none. Amorous.] They are prone to love, and [2516]easy to be taken; Propensi ad amorem et excandescentiam (Montaltus cap. 21.) quickly enamoured, and dote upon all, love one dearly, till they see another, and then dote on her, Et hanc, et hanc, et illam, et omnes, the present moves most, and the last commonly they love best. Yet some again Anterotes, cannot endure the sight of a woman, abhor the sex, as that same melancholy [2517]duke of Muscovy, that was instantly sick, if he came but in sight of them; and that [2518]Anchorite, that fell into a cold palsy, when a woman was brought before him. Humorous.] Humorous they are beyond all measure, sometimes profusely laughing, extraordinarily merry, and then again weeping without a cause, (which is familiar with many gentlewomen,) groaning, sighing, pensive, sad, almost distracted, multa absurda fingunt, et a ratione aliena (saith [2519]Frambesarius), they feign many absurdities, vain, void of reason: one supposeth himself to be a dog, cock, bear, horse, glass, butter, &c. He is a giant, a dwarf, as strong as an hundred men, a lord, duke, prince, &c. And if he be told he hath a stinking breath, a great nose, that he is sick, or inclined to such or such a disease, he believes it eftsoons, and peradventure by force of imagination will work it out. Many of them are immovable, and fixed in their conceits, others vary upon every object, heard or seen. If they see a stage-play, they run upon that a week after; if they hear music, or see dancing, they have nought but bagpipes in their brain: if they see a combat, they are all for arms. [2520]If abused, an abuse troubles them long after; if crossed, that cross, &c. Restless in their thoughts and actions, continually meditating, Velut aegri somnia, vanae finguntur species; more like dreams, than men awake, they fain a company of antic, fantastical conceits, they have most frivolous thoughts, impossible to be effected; and sometimes think verily they hear and see present before their eyes such phantasms or goblins, they fear, suspect, or conceive, they still talk with, and follow them. In fine, cogitationes somniantibus similes, id vigilant, quod alii somniant cogitabundi, still, saith Avicenna, they wake, as others dream, and such for the most part are their imaginations and conceits, [2521]absurd, vain, foolish toys, yet they are [2522]most curious and solicitous, continual, et supra modum, Rhasis cont. lib. 1. cap. 9. praemeditantur de aliqua re. As serious in a toy, as if it were a most necessary business, of great moment, importance, and still, still, still thinking of it: saeviunt in se, macerating themselves. Though they do talk with you, and seem to be otherwise employed, and to your thinking very intent and busy, still that toy runs in their mind, that fear, that suspicion, that abuse, that jealousy, that agony, that vexation, that cross, that castle in the air, that crotchet, that whimsy, that fiction, that pleasant waking dream, whatsoever it is. Nec interrogant (saith [2523]Fracastorius) nec interrogatis recte respondent. They do not much heed what you say, their mind is on another matter; ask what you will, they do not attend, or much intend that business they are about, but forget themselves what they are saying, doing, or should otherwise say or do, whither they are going, distracted with their own melancholy thoughts. One laughs upon a sudden, another smiles to himself, a third frowns, calls, his lips go still, he acts with his hand as he walks, &c. 'Tis proper to all melancholy men, saith [2524]Mercurialis, con. 11. What conceit they have once entertained, to be most intent, violent, and continually about it. Invitas occurrit, do what they may they cannot be rid of it, against their wills they must think of it a thousand times over, Perpetuo molestantur nec oblivisci possunt, they are continually troubled with it, in company, out of company; at meat, at exercise, at all times and places, [2525]non desinunt ea, quae, minime volunt, cogitare, if it be offensive especially, they cannot forget it, they may not rest or sleep for it, but still tormenting themselves, Sysiphi saxum volvunt sibi ipsis, as [2526]Brunner observes, Perpetua calamitas et miserabile flagellum. Bashfulness.] [2527]Crato, [2528]Laurentius, and Fernelius, put bashfulness for an ordinary symptom, sabrusticus pudor, or vitiosus pudor, is a thing which much haunts and torments them. If they have been misused, derided, disgraced, chidden, &c., or by any perturbation of mind, misaffected, it so far troubles them, that they become quite moped many times, and so disheartened, dejected, they dare not come abroad, into strange companies especially, or manage their ordinary affairs, so childish, timorous, and bashful, they can look no man in the face; some are more disquieted in this kind, some less, longer some, others shorter, by fits, &c., though some on the other side (according to [2529]Fracastorius) be inverecundi et pertinaces, impudent and peevish. But most part they are very shamefaced, and that makes them with Pet. Blesensis, Christopher Urswick, and many such, to refuse honours, offices, and preferments, which sometimes fall into their mouths, they cannot speak, or put forth themselves as others can, timor hos, pudor impedit illos, timorousness and bashfulness hinder their proceedings, they are contented with their present estate, unwilling to undertake any office, and therefore never likely to rise. For that cause they seldom visit their friends, except some familiars: pauciloqui, of few words, and oftentimes wholly silent. [2530] Frambeserius, a Frenchman, had two such patients, omnino taciturnos, their friends could not get them to speak: Rodericus a Fonseca consult. tom. 2. 85. consil. gives instance in a young man, of twenty-seven years of age, that was frequently silent, bashful, moped, solitary, that would not eat his meat, or sleep, and yet again by fits apt to be angry, &c. Solitariness.] Most part they are, as Plater notes, desides, taciturni, aegre impulsi, nec nisi coacti procedunt, &c. they will scarce be compelled to do that which concerns them, though it be for their good, so diffident, so dull, of small or no compliment, unsociable, hard to be acquainted with, especially of strangers; they had rather write their minds than speak, and above all things love solitariness. Ob voluptatem, an ob timorem soli sunt? Are they so solitary for pleasure (one asks,) or pain? for both; yet I rather think for fear and sorrow, &c. [2531]Hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent fugiuntque, nec auras Respiciunt, clausi tenebris, et carcere caeco. Hence 'tis they grieve and fear, avoiding light, And shut themselves in prison dark from sight. As Bellerophon in [2532]Homer, Qui miser in sylvis moerens errabat opacis, Ipse suum cor edens, hominum vestigia vitans. That wandered in the woods sad all alone, Forsaking men's society, making great moan. They delight in floods and waters, desert places, to walk alone in orchards, gardens, private walks, back lanes, averse from company, as Diogenes in his tub, or Timon Misanthropus [2533], they abhor all companions at last, even their nearest acquaintances and most familiar friends, for they have a conceit (I say) every man observes them, will deride, laugh to scorn, or misuse them, confining themselves therefore wholly to their private houses or chambers, fugiunt homines sine causa (saith Rhasis) et odio habent, cont. l. 1. c. 9. they will diet themselves, feed and live alone. It was one of the chiefest reasons why the citizens of Abdera suspected Democritus to be melancholy and mad, because that, as Hippocrates related in his Epistle to Philopaemenes, [2534]he forsook the city, lived in groves and hollow trees, upon a green bank by a brook side, or confluence of waters all day long, and all night. Quae quidem (saith he) plurimum atra bile vexatis et melancholicis eveniunt, deserta frequentant, hominumque congressum aversantur; [2535]which is an ordinary thing with melancholy men. The Egyptians therefore in their hieroglyphics expressed a melancholy man by a hare sitting in her form, as being a most timorous and solitary creature, Pierius Hieroglyph. l. 12. But this, and all precedent symptoms, are more or less apparent, as the humour is intended or remitted, hardly perceived in some, or not all, most manifest in others. Childish in some, terrible in others; to be derided in one, pitied or admired in another; to him by fits, to a second continuate: and howsoever these symptoms be common and incident to all persons, yet they are the more remarkable, frequent, furious and violent in melancholy men. To speak in a word, there is nothing so vain, absurd, ridiculous, extravagant, impossible, incredible, so monstrous a chimera, so prodigious and strange, [2536]such as painters and poets durst not attempt, which they will not really fear, feign, suspect and imagine unto themselves: and that which [2537]Lod. Vives said in a jest of a silly country fellow, that killed his ass for drinking up the moon, ut lunam mundo redderet, you may truly say of them in earnest; they will act, conceive all extremes, contrarieties, and contradictions, and that in infinite varieties. Melancholici plane incredibilia sibi persuadent, ut vix omnibus saeculis duo reperti sint, qui idem imaginati sint (Erastus de Lamiis), scarce two of two thousand that concur in the same symptoms. The tower of Babel never yielded such confusion of tongues, as the chaos of melancholy doth variety of symptoms. There is in all melancholy similitudo dissimilis, like men's faces, a disagreeing likeness still; and as in a river we swim in the same place, though not in the same numerical water; as the same instrument affords several lessons, so the same disease yields diversity of symptoms. Which howsoever they be diverse, intricate, and hard to be confined, I will adventure yet in such a vast confusion and generality to bring them into some order; and so descend to particulars. SUBSECT. III.—Particular Symptoms from the influence of Stars, parts of the Body, and Humours. Some men have peculiar symptoms, according to their temperament and crisis, which they had from the stars and those celestial influences, variety of wits and dispositions, as Anthony Zara contends, Anat. ingen. sect. 1. memb. 11, 12, 13, 14. plurimum irritant influentiae, caelestes, unde cientur animi aegritudines et morbi corporum. [2538]One saith, diverse diseases of the body and mind proceed from their influences, [2539]as I have already proved out of Ptolemy, Pontanus, Lemnius, Cardan, and others as they are principal significators of manners, diseases, mutually irradiated, or lords of the geniture, &c. Ptolomeus in his centiloquy, Hermes, or whosoever else the author of that tract, attributes all these symptoms, which are in melancholy men, to celestial influences: which opinion Mercurialis de affect, lib. cap. 10. rejects; but, as I say, [2540]Jovianus Pontanus and others stiffly defend. That some are solitary, dull, heavy, churlish; some again blithe, buxom, light, and merry, they ascribe wholly to the stars. As if Saturn be predominant in his nativity, and cause melancholy in his temperature, then [2541]he shall be very austere, sullen, churlish, black of colour, profound in his cogitations, full of cares, miseries, and discontents, sad and fearful, always silent, solitary, still delighting in husbandry, in woods, orchards, gardens, rivers, ponds, pools, dark walks and close: Cogitationes sunt velle aedificare, velle arbores plantare, agros colere, &c. To catch birds, fishes, &c. still contriving and musing of such matters. If Jupiter domineers, they are more ambitious, still meditating of kingdoms, magistracies, offices, honours, or that they are princes, potentates, and how they would carry themselves, &c. If Mars, they are all for wars, brave combats, monomachies, testy, choleric, harebrain, rash, furious, and violent in their actions. They will feign themselves victors, commanders, are passionate and satirical in their speeches, great braggers, ruddy of colour. And though they be poor in show, vile and base, yet like Telephus and Peleus in the [2542]poet, Ampullas jactant et sesquipedalia verba, forget their swelling and gigantic words, their mouths are full of myriads, and tetrarchs at their tongues' end. If the sun, they will be lords, emperors, in conceit at least, and monarchs, give offices, honours, &c. If Venus, they are still courting of their mistresses, and most apt to love, amorously given, they seem to hear music, plays, see fine pictures, dancers, merriments, and the like. Ever in love, and dote on all they see. Mercurialists are solitary, much in contemplation, subtle, poets, philosophers, and musing most part about such matters. If the moon have a hand, they are all for peregrinations, sea voyages, much affected with travels, to discourse, read, meditate of such things; wandering in their thoughts, diverse, much delighting in waters, to fish, fowl, &c. But the most immediate symptoms proceed from the temperature itself, and the organical parts, as head, liver, spleen, mesaraic veins, heart, womb, stomach, &c., and most especially from distemperature of spirits (which, as [2543]Hercules de Saxonia contends, are wholly immaterial), or from the four humours in those seats, whether they be hot or cold, natural, unnatural, innate or adventitious, intended or remitted, simple or mixed, their diverse mixtures, and several adustions, combinations, which may be as diversely varied, as those [2544]four first qualities in [2545] Clavius, and produce as many several symptoms and monstrous fictions as wine doth effect, which as Andreas Bachius observes, lib. 3. de vino, cap. 20. are infinite. Of greater note be these. If it be natural melancholy, as Lod. Mercatus, lib. 1. cap. 17. de melan. T. Bright. c. 16. hath largely described, either of the spleen, or of the veins, faulty by excess of quantity, or thickness of substance, it is a cold and dry humour, as Montanus affirms, consil. 26 the parties are sad, timorous and fearful. Prosper Calenus, in his book de atra bile, will have them to be more stupid than ordinary, cold, heavy, solitary, sluggish. Si multam atram bilem et frigidam habent. Hercules de Saxonia, c. 19. l. 7. [2546]holds these that are naturally melancholy, to be of a leaden colour or black, and so doth Guianerius, c. 3. tract. 15. and such as think themselves dead many times, or that they see, talk with black men, dead men, spirits and goblins frequently, if it be in excess. These symptoms vary according to the mixture of those four humours adust, which is unnatural melancholy. For as Trallianus hath written, cap. 16. l. 7. [2547]There is not one cause of this melancholy, nor one humour which begets, but divers diversely intermixed, from whence proceeds this variety of symptoms: and those varying again as they are hot or cold. [2548]Cold melancholy (saith Benedic. Vittorius Faventinus pract. mag.) is a cause of dotage, and more mild symptoms, if hot or more adust, of more violent passions, and furies. Fracastorius, l. 2. de intellect. will have us to consider well of it, [2549]with what kind of melancholy every one is troubled, for it much avails to know it; one is enraged by fervent heat, another is possessed by sad and cold; one is fearful, shamefaced; the other impudent and bold; as Ajax, Arma rapit superosque furens inpraelia poscit: quite mad or tending to madness. Nunc hos, nunc impetit illos. Bellerophon on the other side, solis errat male sanus in agris, wanders alone in the woods; one despairs, weeps, and is weary of his life, another laughs, &c. All which variety is produced from the several degrees of heat and cold, which [2550]Hercules de Saxonia will have wholly proceed from the distemperature of spirits alone, animal especially, and those immaterial, the next and immediate causes of melancholy, as they are hot, cold, dry, moist, and from their agitation proceeds that diversity of symptoms, which he reckons up, in the [2551]thirteenth chap. of his Tract of Melancholy, and that largely through every part. Others will have them come from the diverse adustion of the four humours, which in this unnatural melancholy, by corruption of blood, adust choler, or melancholy natural, [2552]by excessive distemper of heat turned, in comparison of the natural, into a sharp lye by force of adustion, cause, according to the diversity of their matter, diverse and strange symptoms, which T. Bright reckons up in his following chapter. So doth [2553]Arculanus, according to the four principal humours adust, and many others. For example, if it proceed from phlegm, (which is seldom and not so frequently as the rest) [2554]it stirs up dull symptoms, and a kind of stupidity, or impassionate hurt: they are sleepy, saith [2555]Savanarola, dull, slow, cold, blockish, ass-like, Asininam melancholiam, [2556] Melancthon calls it, they are much given to weeping, and delight in waters, ponds, pools, rivers, fishing, fowling, &c. (Arnoldus breviar. 1. cap. 18.) They are [2557]pale of colour, slothful, apt to sleep, heavy; [2558]much troubled with headache, continual meditation, and muttering to themselves; they dream of waters, [2559]that they are in danger of drowning, and fear such things, Rhasis. They are fatter than others that are melancholy, of a muddy complexion, apter to spit, [2560] sleep, more troubled with rheum than the rest, and have their eyes still fixed on the ground. Such a patient had Hercules de Saxonia, a widow in Venice, that was fat and very sleepy still; Christophorus a Vega another affected in the same sort. If it be inveterate or violent, the symptoms are more evident, they plainly denote and are ridiculous to others, in all their gestures, actions, speeches; imagining impossibilities, as he in Christophorus a Vega, that thought he was a tun of wine, [2561]and that Siennois, that resolved within himself not to piss, for fear he should drown all the town. If it proceed from blood adust, or that there be a mixture of blood in it, [2562]such are commonly ruddy of complexion, and high-coloured, according to Salust. Salvianus, and Hercules de Saxonia. And as Savanarola, Vittorius Faventinus Emper. farther adds, [2563]the veins of their eyes be red, as well as their faces. They are much inclined to laughter, witty and merry, conceited in discourse, pleasant, if they be not far gone, much given to music, dancing, and to be in women's company. They meditate wholly on such things, and think [2564]they see or hear plays, dancing, and suchlike sports (free from all fear and sorrow, as [2565]Hercules de Saxonia supposeth.) If they be more strongly possessed with this kind of melancholy, Arnoldus adds, Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Like him of Argos in the Poet, that sate laughing [2566]all day long, as if he had been at a theatre. Such another is mentioned by [2567]Aristotle, living at Abydos, a town of Asia Minor, that would sit after the same fashion, as if he had been upon a stage, and sometimes act himself; now clap his hands, and laugh, as if he had been well pleased with the sight. Wolfius relates of a country fellow called Brunsellius, subject to this humour, [2568]that being by chance at a sermon, saw a woman fall off from a form half asleep, at which object most of the company laughed, but he for his part was so much moved, that for three whole days after he did nothing but laugh, by which means he was much weakened, and worse a long time following. Such a one was old Sophocles, and Democritus himself had hilare delirium, much in this vein. Laurentius cap. 3. de melan. thinks this kind of melancholy, which is a little adust with some mixture of blood, to be that which Aristotle meant, when he said melancholy men of all others are most witty, which causeth many times a divine ravishment, and a kind of enthusiasmus, which stirreth them up to be excellent philosophers, poets, prophets, &c. Mercurialis, consil. 110. gives instance in a young man his patient, sanguine melancholy, [2569]of a great wit, and excellently learned. If it arise from choler adust, they are bold and impudent, and of a more harebrain disposition, apt to quarrel, and think of such things, battles, combats, and their manhood, furious; impatient in discourse, stiff, irrefragable and prodigious in their tenets; and if they be moved, most violent, outrageous, [2570]ready to disgrace, provoke any, to kill themselves and others; Arnoldus adds, stark mad by fits, [2571]they sleep little, their urine is subtle and fiery. (Guianerius.) In their fits you shall hear them speak all manner of languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, that never were taught or knew them before. Apponensis in com. in Pro. sec. 30. speaks of a mad woman that spake excellent good Latin: and Rhasis knew another, that could prophecy in her fit, and foretell things truly to come. [2572]Guianerius had a patient could make Latin verses when the moon was combust, otherwise illiterate. Avicenna and some of his adherents will have these symptoms, when they happen, to proceed from the devil, and that they are rather demoniaci, possessed, than mad or melancholy, or both together, as Jason Pratensis thinks, Immiscent se mali genii, &c. but most ascribe it to the humour, which opinion Montaltus cap. 21. stiffly maintains, confuting Avicenna and the rest, referring it wholly to the quality and disposition of the humour and subject. Cardan de rerum var. lib. 8. cap. 10. holds these men of all others fit to be assassins, bold, hardy, fierce, and adventurous, to undertake anything by reason of their choler adust. [2573]This humour, saith he, prepares them to endure death itself, and all manner of torments with invincible courage, and 'tis a wonder to see with what alacrity they will undergo such tortures, ut supra naturam res videatur: he ascribes this generosity, fury, or rather stupidity, to this adustion of choler and melancholy: but I take these rather to be mad or desperate, than properly melancholy; for commonly this humour so adust and hot, degenerates into madness. If it come from melancholy itself adust, those men, saith Avicenna, [2574] are usually sad and solitary, and that continually, and in excess, more than ordinarily suspicious more fearful, and have long, sore, and most corrupt imaginations; cold and black, bashful, and so solitary, that as [2575]Arnoldus writes, they will endure no company, they dream of graves still, and dead men, and think themselves bewitched or dead: if it be extreme, they think they hear hideous noises, see and talk [2576]with black men, and converse familiarly with devils, and such strange chimeras and visions, (Gordonius) or that they are possessed by them, that somebody talks to them, or within them. Tales melancholici plerumque daemoniaci, Montaltus consil. 26. ex Avicenna. Valescus de Taranta had such a woman in cure, [2577]that thought she had to do with the devil: and Gentilis Fulgosus quaest. 55. writes that he had a melancholy friend, that [2578] had a black man in the likeness of a soldier still following him wheresoever he was. Laurentius cap. 7. hath many stories of such as have thought themselves bewitched by their enemies; and some that would eat no meat as being dead. [2579]Anno 1550 an advocate of Paris fell into such a melancholy fit, that he believed verily he was dead, he could not be persuaded otherwise, or to eat or drink, till a kinsman of his, a scholar of Bourges, did eat before him dressed like a corse. The story, saith Serres, was acted in a comedy before Charles the Ninth. Some think they are beasts, wolves, hogs, and cry like dogs, foxes, bray like asses, and low like kine, as King Praetus' daughters. [2580]Hildesheim spicel. 2. de mania, hath an example of a Dutch baron so affected, and Trincavelius lib. 1. consil. 11. another of a nobleman in his country, [2581]that thought he was certainly a beast, and would imitate most of their voices, with many such symptoms, which may properly be reduced to this kind. If it proceed from the several combinations of these four humours, or spirits, Herc. de Saxon. adds hot, cold, dry, moist, dark, confused, settled, constringed, as it participates of matter, or is without matter, the symptoms are likewise mixed. One thinks himself a giant, another a dwarf. One is heavy as lead, another is as light as a feather. Marcellus Donatus l. 2. cap. 41. makes mention out of Seneca, of one Seneccio, a rich man, [2582]that thought himself and everything else he had, great: great wife, great horses, could not abide little things, but would have great pots to drink in, great hose, and great shoes bigger than his feet. Like her in [2583]Trallianus, that supposed she could shake all the world with her finger, and was afraid to clinch her hand together, lest she should crush the world like an apple in pieces: or him in Galen, that thought he was [2584]Atlas, and sustained heaven with his shoulders. Another thinks himself so little, that he can creep into a mouse-hole: one fears heaven will fall on his head: a second is a cock; and such a one, [2585]Guianerius saith he saw at Padua, that would clap his hands together and crow. [2586]Another thinks he is a nightingale, and therefore sings all the night long; another he is all glass, a pitcher, and will therefore let nobody come near him, and such a one [2587]Laurentius gives out upon his credit, that he knew in France. Christophorus a Vega cap. 3. lib. 14. Skenkius and Marcellus Donatus l. 2. cap. 1. have many such examples, and one amongst the rest of a baker in Ferrara that thought he was composed of butter, and durst not sit in the sun, or come near the fire for fear of being melted: of another that thought he was a case of leather, stuffed with wind. Some laugh, weep; some are mad, some dejected, moped, in much agony, some by fits, others continuate, &c. Some have a corrupt ear, they think they hear music, or some hideous noise as their phantasy conceives, corrupt eyes, some smelling, some one sense, some another. [2588]Lewis the Eleventh had a conceit everything did stink about him, all the odoriferous perfumes they could get, would not ease him, but still he smelled a filthy stink. A melancholy French poet in [2589]Laurentius, being sick of a fever, and troubled with waking, by his physicians was appointed to use unguentum populeum to anoint his temples; but he so distasted the smell of it, that for many years after, all that came near him he imagined to scent of it, and would let no man talk with him but aloof off, or wear any new clothes, because he thought still they smelled of it; in all other things wise and discreet, he would talk sensibly, save only in this. A gentleman in Limousin, saith Anthony Verdeur, was persuaded he had but one leg, affrighted by a wild boar, that by chance struck him on the leg; he could not be satisfied his leg was sound (in all other things well) until two Franciscans by chance coming that way, fully removed him from the conceit. Sed abunde fabularum audivimus,—enough of story-telling. SUBSECT. IV.—Symptoms from Education, Custom, continuance of Time, our Condition, mixed with other Diseases, by Fits, Inclination, &c. Another great occasion of the variety of these symptoms proceeds from custom, discipline, education, and several inclinations, [2590]this humour will imprint in melancholy men the objects most answerable to their condition of life, and ordinary actions, and dispose men according to their several studies and callings. If an ambitious man become melancholy, he forthwith thinks he is a king, an emperor, a monarch, and walks alone, pleasing himself with a vain hope of some future preferment, or present as he supposeth, and withal acts a lord's part, takes upon him to be some statesman or magnifico, makes conges, gives entertainment, looks big, &c. Francisco Sansovino records of a melancholy man in Cremona, that would not be induced to believe but that he was pope, gave pardons, made cardinals, &c. [2591]Christophorus a Vega makes mention of another of his acquaintance, that thought he was a king, driven from his kingdom, and was very anxious to recover his estate. A covetous person is still conversant about purchasing of lands and tenements, plotting in his mind how to compass such and such manors, as if he were already lord of, and able to go through with it; all he sees is his, re or spe, he hath devoured it in hope, or else in conceit esteems it his own: like him in [2592]Athenaeus, that thought all the ships in the haven to be his own. A lascivious inamorato plots all the day long to please his mistress, acts and struts, and carries himself as if she were in presence, still dreaming of her, as Pamphilus of his Glycerium, or as some do in their morning sleep. [2593] Marcellus Donatus knew such a gentlewoman in Mantua, called Elionora Meliorina, that constantly believed she was married to a king, and [2594] would kneel down and talk with him, as if he had been there present with his associates; and if she had found by chance a piece of glass in a muck-hill or in the street, she would say that it was a jewel sent from her lord and husband. If devout and religious, he is all for fasting, prayer, ceremonies, alms, interpretations, visions, prophecies, revelations, [2595] he is inspired by the Holy Ghost, full of the spirit: one while he is saved, another while damned, or still troubled in mind for his sins, the devil will surely have him, &c. more of these in the third partition of love-melancholy. [2596]A scholar's mind is busied about his studies, he applauds himself for that he hath done, or hopes to do, one while fearing to be out in his next exercise, another while contemning all censures; envies one, emulates another; or else with indefatigable pains and meditation, consumes himself. So of the rest, all which vary according to the more remiss and violent impression of the object, or as the humour itself is intended or remitted. For some are so gently melancholy, that in all their carriage, and to the outward apprehension of others it can hardly be discerned, yet to them an intolerable burden, and not to be endured. [2597]Quaedam occulta quaedam manifesta, some signs are manifest and obvious to all at all times, some to few, or seldom, or hardly perceived; let them keep their own council, none will take notice or suspect them. They do not express in outward show their depraved imaginations, as [2598]Hercules de Saxonia observes, but conceal them wholly to themselves, and are very wise men, as I have often seen; some fear, some do not fear at all, as such as think themselves kings or dead, some have more signs, some fewer, some great, some less, some vex, fret, still fear, grieve, lament, suspect, laugh, sing, weep, chafe, &c. by fits (as I have said) or more during and permanent. Some dote in one thing, are most childish, and ridiculous, and to be wondered at in that, and yet for all other matters most discreet and wise. To some it is in disposition, to another in habit; and as they write of heat and cold, we may say of this humour, one is melancholicus ad octo, a second two degrees less, a third halfway. 'Tis superparticular, sesquialtera, sesquitertia, and superbipartiens tertias, quintas Melancholiae, &c. all those geometrical proportions are too little to express it. [2599]It comes to many by fits, and goes; to others it is continuate: many (saith [2600]Faventinus) in spring and fall only are molested, some once a year, as that Roman [2601] Galen speaks of: [2602]one, at the conjunction of the moon alone, or some unfortunate aspects, at such and such set hours and times, like the sea-tides, to some women when they be with child, as [2603]Plater notes, never otherwise: to others 'tis settled and fixed; to one led about and variable still by that ignis fatuus of phantasy, like an arthritis or running gout, 'tis here and there, and in every joint, always molesting some part or other; or if the body be free, in a myriad of forms exercising the mind. A second once peradventure in his life hath a most grievous fit, once in seven years, once in five years, even to the extremity of madness, death, or dotage, and that upon, some feral accident or perturbation, terrible object, and for a time, never perhaps so before, never after. A third is moved upon all such troublesome objects, cross fortune, disaster, and violent passions, otherwise free, once troubled in three or four years. A fourth, if things be to his mind, or he in action, well pleased, in good company, is most jocund, and of a good complexion: if idle, or alone, a la mort, or carried away wholly with pleasant dreams and phantasies, but if once crossed and displeased, Pectore concipiet nil nisi triste suo; He will imagine naught save sadness in his heart; his countenance is altered on a sudden, his heart heavy, irksome thoughts crucify his soul, and in an instant he is moped or weary of his life, he will kill himself. A fifth complains in his youth, a sixth in his middle age, the last in his old age. Generally thus much we may conclude of melancholy; that it is [2604]most pleasant at first, I say, mentis gratissimus error, [2605]a most delightsome humour, to be alone, dwell alone, walk alone, meditate, lie in bed whole days, dreaming awake as it were, and frame a thousand fantastical imaginations unto themselves. They are never better pleased than when they are so doing, they are in paradise for the time, and cannot well endure to be interrupt; with him in the poet, [2606]pol me occidistis amici, non servastis ait? you have undone him, he complains, if you trouble him: tell him what inconvenience will follow, what will be the event, all is one, canis ad vomitum, [2607]'tis so pleasant he cannot refrain. He may thus continue peradventure many years by reason of a strong temperature, or some mixture of business, which may divert his cogitations: but at the last laesa imaginatio, his phantasy is crazed, and now habituated to such toys, cannot but work still like a fate, the scene alters upon a sudden, fear and sorrow supplant those pleasing thoughts, suspicion, discontent, and perpetual anxiety succeed in their places; so by little and little, by that shoeing-horn of idleness, and voluntary solitariness, melancholy this feral fiend is drawn on, [2608]et quantum vertice ad auras Aethereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit, extending up, by its branches, so far towards Heaven, as, by its roots, it does down towards Tartarus; it was not so delicious at first, as now it is bitter and harsh; a cankered soul macerated with cares and discontents, taedium vitae, impatience, agony, inconstancy, irresolution, precipitate them unto unspeakable miseries. They cannot endure company, light, or life itself, some unfit for action, and the like. [2609]Their bodies are lean and dried up, withered, ugly, their looks harsh, very dull, and their souls tormented, as they are more or less entangled, as the humour hath been intended, or according to the continuance of time they have been troubled. To discern all which symptoms the better, [2610]Rhasis the Arabian makes three degrees of them. The first is, falsa cogitatio, false conceits and idle thoughts: to misconstrue and amplify, aggravating everything they conceive or fear; the second is, falso cogitata loqui, to talk to themselves, or to use inarticulate incondite voices, speeches, obsolete gestures, and plainly to utter their minds and conceits of their hearts, by their words and actions, as to laugh, weep, to be silent, not to sleep, eat their meat, &c.: the third is to put in practice [2611]that which they think or speak. Savanarola, Rub. 11. tract. 8. cap. 1. de aegritudine, confirms as much, [2612]when he begins to express that in words, which he conceives in his heart, or talks idly, or goes from one thing to another, which [2613]Gordonius calls nec caput habentia, nec caudam, (having neither head nor tail,) he is in the middle way: [2614] but when he begins to act it likewise, and to put his fopperies in execution, he is then in the extent of melancholy, or madness itself. This progress of melancholy you shall easily observe in them that have been so affected, they go smiling to themselves at first, at length they laugh out; at first solitary, at last they can endure no company: or if they do, they are now dizzards, past sense and shame, quite moped, they care not what they say or do, all their actions, words, gestures, are furious or ridiculous. At first his mind is troubled, he doth not attend what is said, if you tell him a tale, he cries at last, what said you? but in the end he mutters to himself, as old women do many times, or old men when they sit alone, upon a sudden they laugh, whoop, halloo, or run away, and swear they see or hear players, [2615]devils, hobgoblins, ghosts, strike, or strut, &c., grow humorous in the end; like him in the poet, saepe ducentos, saepe decem servos, (at one time followed by two hundred servants, at another only by ten) he will dress himself, and undress, careless at last, grows insensible, stupid, or mad. [2616]He howls like a wolf, barks like a dog, and raves like Ajax and Orestes, hears music and outcries, which no man else hears. As [2617]he did whom Amatus Lusitanus mentioneth cent. 3, cura. 55, or that woman in [2618]Springer, that spake many languages, and said she was possessed: that farmer in [2619]Prosper Calenius, that disputed and discoursed learnedly in philosophy and astronomy, with Alexander Achilles his master, at Bologna, in Italy. But of these I have already spoken. Who can sufficiently speak of these symptoms, or prescribe rules to comprehend them? as Echo to the painter in Ausonius, vane quid affectas, &c., foolish fellow; what wilt? if you must needs paint me, paint a voice, et similem si vis pingere, pinge sonum; if you will describe melancholy, describe a fantastical conceit, a corrupt imagination, vain thoughts and different, which who can do? The four and twenty letters make no more variety of words in diverse languages, than melancholy conceits produce diversity of symptoms in several persons. They are irregular, obscure, various, so infinite, Proteus himself is not so diverse, you may as well make the moon a new coat, as a true character of a melancholy man; as soon find the motion of a bird in the air, as the heart of man, a melancholy man. They are so confused, I say, diverse, intermixed with other diseases. As the species be confounded (which [2620]I have showed) so are the symptoms; sometimes with headache, cachexia, dropsy, stone; as you may perceive by those several examples and illustrations, collected by [2621] Hildesheim spicel. 2. Mercurialis consil. 118. cap. 6 and 11. with headache, epilepsy, priapismus. Trincavelius consil. 12. lib. 1. consil. 49. with gout: caninus appetitus. Montanus consil. 26, &c. 23, 234, 249, with falling-sickness, headache, vertigo, lycanthropia, &c. J. Caesar Claudinus consult. 4. consult. 89 and 116. with gout, agues, haemorrhoids, stone, &c., who can distinguish these melancholy symptoms so intermixed with others, or apply them to their several kinds, confine them into method? 'Tis hard I confess, yet I have disposed of them as I could, and will descend to particularise them according to their species. For hitherto I have expatiated in more general lists or terms, speaking promiscuously of such ordinary signs, which occur amongst writers. Not that they are all to be found in one man, for that were to paint a monster or chimera, not a man: but some in one, some in another, and that successively or at several times. Which I have been the more curious to express and report; not to upbraid any miserable man, or by way of derision, (I rather pity them,) but the better to discern, to apply remedies unto them; and to show that the best and soundest of us all is in great danger; how much we ought to fear our own fickle estates, remember our miseries and vanities, examine and humiliate ourselves, seek to God, and call to Him for mercy, that needs not look for any rods to scourge ourselves, since we carry them in our bowels, and that our souls are in a miserable captivity, if the light of grace and heavenly truth doth not shine continually upon us: and by our discretion to moderate ourselves, to be more circumspect and wary in the midst of these dangers. MEMB. II. SUBSECT. I.—Symptoms of Head-Melancholy. If [2622]no symptoms appear about the stomach, nor the blood be misaffected, and fear and sorrow continue, it is to be thought the brain itself is troubled, by reason of a melancholy juice bred in it, or otherwise conveyed into it, and that evil juice is from the distemperature of the part, or left after some inflammation, thus far Piso. But this is not always true, for blood and hypochondries both are often affected even in head-melancholy. [2623]Hercules de Saxonia differs here from the common current of writers, putting peculiar signs of head-melancholy, from the sole distemperature of spirits in the brain, as they are hot, cold, dry, moist, all without matter from the motion alone, and tenebrosity of spirits; of melancholy which proceeds from humours by adustion, he treats apart, with their several symptoms and cures. The common signs, if it be by essence in the head, are ruddiness of face, high sanguine complexion, most part rubore saturato, [2624]one calls it, a bluish, and sometimes full of pimples, with red eyes. Avicenna l. 3, Fen. 2, Tract. 4, c. 18. Duretus and others out of Galen, de affect. l. 3, c. 6. [2625]Hercules de Saxonia to this of redness of face, adds heaviness of the head, fixed and hollow eyes. [2626]If it proceed from dryness of the brain, then their heads will be light, vertiginous, and they most apt to wake, and to continue whole months together without sleep. Few excrements in their eyes and nostrils, and often bald by reason of excess of dryness, Montaltus adds, c. 17. If it proceed from moisture: dullness, drowsiness, headache follows; and as Salust. Salvianus, c. 1, l. 2, out of his own experience found, epileptical, with a multitude of humours in the head. They are very bashful, if ruddy, apt to blush, and to be red upon all occasions, praesertim si metus accesserit. But the chiefest symptom to discern this species, as I have said, is this, that there be no notable signs in the stomach, hypochondries, or elsewhere, digna, as [2627] Montaltus terms them, or of greater note, because oftentimes the passions of the stomach concur with them. Wind is common to all three species, and is not excluded, only that of the hypochondries is [2628]more windy than the rest, saith Hollerius. Aetius tetrab. l. 2, sc. 2, c. 9 and 10, maintains the same, [2629]if there be more signs, and more evident in the head than elsewhere, the brain is primarily affected, and prescribes head-melancholy to be cured by meats amongst the rest, void of wind, and good juice, not excluding wind, or corrupt blood, even in head-melancholy itself: but these species are often confounded, and so are their symptoms, as I have already proved. The symptoms of the mind are superfluous and continual cogitations; [2630]for when the head is heated, it scorcheth the blood, and from thence proceed melancholy fumes, which trouble the mind, Avicenna. They are very choleric, and soon hot, solitary, sad, often silent, watchful, discontent, Montaltus, cap. 24. If anything trouble them, they cannot sleep, but fret themselves still, till another object mitigate, or time wear it out. They have grievous passions, and immoderate perturbations of the mind, fear, sorrow, &c., yet not so continuate, but that they are sometimes merry, apt to profuse laughter, which is more to be wondered at, and that by the authority of [2631]Galen himself, by reason of mixture of blood, praerubri jocosis delectantur, et irrisores plerumque sunt, if they be ruddy, they are delighted in jests, and oftentimes scoffers themselves, conceited: and as Rodericus a Vega comments on that place of Galen, merry, witty, of a pleasant disposition, and yet grievously melancholy anon after: omnia discunt sine doctore, saith Aretus, they learn without a teacher: and as [2632]Laurentius supposeth, those feral passions and symptoms of such as think themselves glass, pitchers, feathers, &c., speak strange languages, a colore cerebri (if it be in excess) from the brain's distempered heat. SUBSECT. II.—Symptoms of windy Hypochondriacal Melancholy. In this hypochondriacal or flatuous melancholy, the symptoms are so ambiguous, saith [2633]Crato in a counsel of his for a noblewoman, that the most exquisite physicians cannot determine of the part affected. Matthew Flaccius, consulted about a noble matron, confessed as much, that in this malady he with Hollerius, Fracastorius, Falopius, and others, being to give their sentence of a party labouring of hypochondriacal melancholy, could not find out by the symptoms which part was most especially affected; some said the womb, some heart, some stomach, &c., and therefore Crato, consil. 24. lib. 1. boldly avers, that in this diversity of symptoms, which commonly accompany this disease, [2634]no physician can truly say what part is affected. Galen lib. 3. de loc. affect., reckons up these ordinary symptoms, which all the Neoterics repeat of Diocles; only this fault he finds with him, that he puts not fear and sorrow amongst the other signs. Trincavelius excuseth Diocles, lib. 3. consil. 35. because that oftentimes in a strong head and constitution, a generous spirit, and a valiant, these symptoms appear not, by reason of his valour and courage. [2635]Hercules de Saxonia (to whom I subscribe) is of the same mind (which I have before touched) that fear and sorrow are not general symptoms; some fear and are not sad; some be sad and fear not; some neither fear nor grieve. The rest are these, beside fear and sorrow, [2636]sharp belchings, fulsome crudities, heat in the bowels, wind and rumbling in the guts, vehement gripings, pain in the belly and stomach sometimes, after meat that is hard of concoction, much watering of the stomach, and moist spittle, cold sweat, importunus sudor, unseasonable sweat all over the body, as Octavius Horatianus lib. 2. cap. 5. calls it; cold joints, indigestion, [2637]they cannot endure their own fulsome belchings, continual wind about their hypochondries, heat and griping in their bowels, praecordia sursum convelluntur, midriff and bowels are pulled up, the veins about their eyes look red, and swell from vapours and wind. Their ears sing now and then, vertigo and giddiness come by fits, turbulent dreams, dryness, leanness, apt they are to sweat upon all occasions, of all colours and complexions. Many of them are high-coloured especially after meals, which symptom Cardinal Caecius was much troubled with, and of which he complained to Prosper Calenus his physician, he could not eat, or drink a cup of wine, but he was as red in the face as if he had been at a mayor's feast. That symptom alone vexeth many. [2638]Some again are black, pale, ruddy, sometimes their shoulders and shoulder blades ache, there is a leaping all over their bodies, sudden trembling, a palpitation of the heart, and that cardiaca passio, grief in the mouth of the stomach, which maketh the patient think his heart itself acheth, and sometimes suffocation, difficultas anhelitus, short breath, hard wind, strong pulse, swooning. Montanus consil. 55. Trincavelius lib. 3. consil. 36. et 37. Fernelius cons. 43. Frambesarius consult. lib. 1. consil. 17. Hildesheim, Claudinus, &c., give instance of every particular. The peculiar symptoms which properly belong to each part be these. If it proceed from the stomach, saith [2639]Savanarola, 'tis full of pain wind. Guianerius adds, vertigo, nausea, much spitting, &c. If from the mirach, a swelling and wind in the hypochondries, a loathing, and appetite to vomit, pulling upward. If from the heart, aching and trembling of it, much heaviness. If from the liver, there is usually a pain in the right hypochondry. If from the spleen, hardness and grief in the left hypochondry, a rumbling, much appetite and small digestion, Avicenna. If from the mesaraic veins and liver on the other side, little or no appetite, Herc. de Saxonia. If from the hypochondries, a rumbling inflation, concoction is hindered, often belching, &c. And from these crudities, windy vapours ascend up to the brain which trouble the imagination, and cause fear, sorrow, dullness, heaviness, many terrible conceits and chimeras, as Lemnius well observes, l. 1. c. 16. as [2640]a black and thick cloud covers the sun, and intercepts his beams and light, so doth this melancholy vapour obnubilate the mind, enforce it to many absurd thoughts and imaginations, and compel good, wise, honest, discreet men (arising to the brain from the [2641] lower parts, as smoke out of a chimney) to dote, speak, and do that which becomes them not, their persons, callings, wisdoms. One by reason of those ascending vapours and gripings, rumbling beneath, will not be persuaded but that he hath a serpent in his guts, a viper, another frogs. Trallianus relates a story of a woman, that imagined she had swallowed an eel, or a serpent, and Felix Platerus, observat. lib. 1. hath a most memorable example of a countryman of his, that by chance, falling into a pit where frogs and frogs' spawn was, and a little of that water swallowed, began to suspect that he had likewise swallowed frogs' spawn, and with that conceit and fear, his phantasy wrought so far, that he verily thought he had young live frogs in his belly, qui vivebant ex alimento suo, that lived by his nourishment, and was so certainly persuaded of it, that for many years afterwards he could not be rectified in his conceit: He studied physic seven years together to cure himself, travelled into Italy, France and Germany to confer with the best physicians about it, and A.D. 1609, asked his counsel amongst the rest; he told him it was wind, his conceit, &c., but mordicus contradicere, et ore, et scriptis probare nitebatur: no saying would serve, it was no wind, but real frogs: and do you not hear them croak? Platerus would have deceived him, by putting live frog's into his excrements; but he, being a physician himself, would not be deceived, vir prudens alias, et doctus a wise and learned man otherwise, a doctor of physic, and after seven years' dotage in this kind, a phantasia liberatus est, he was cured. Laurentius and Goulart have many such examples, if you be desirous to read them. One commodity above the rest which are melancholy, these windy flatuous have, lucidia intervalla, their symptoms and pains are not usually so continuate as the rest, but come by fits, fear and sorrow, and the rest: yet in another they exceed all others; and that is, [2642]they are luxurious, incontinent, and prone to venery, by reason of wind, et facile amant, et quamlibet fere amant. (Jason Pratensis) [2643]Rhasis is of opinion, that Venus doth many of them much good; the other symptoms of the mind be common with the rest. SUBSECT. III.—Symptoms of Melancholy abounding in the whole body. Their bodies that are affected with this universal melancholy are most part black, [2644]the melancholy juice is redundant all over, hirsute they are, and lean, they have broad veins, their blood is gross and thick [2645] Their spleen is weak, and a liver apt to engender the humour; they have kept bad diet, or have had some evacuation stopped, as haemorrhoids, or months in women, which [2646]Trallianus, in the cure, would have carefully to be inquired, and withal to observe of what complexion the party is of, black or red. For as Forrestus and Hollerius contend, if [2647]they be black, it proceeds from abundance of natural melancholy; if it proceed from cares, agony, discontents, diet, exercise, &c., they may be as well of any other colour: red, yellow, pale, as black, and yet their whole blood corrupt: praerubri colore saepe sunt tales, saepe flavi, (saith [2648] Montaltus cap. 22.) The best way to discern this species, is to let them bleed, if the blood be corrupt, thick and black, and they withal free from those hypochondriacal symptoms, and not so grievously troubled with them, or those of the head, it argues they are melancholy, a toto corpore. The fumes which arise from this corrupt blood, disturb the mind, and make them fearful and sorrowful, heavy hearted, as the rest, dejected, discontented, solitary, silent, weary of their lives, dull and heavy, or merry, &c., and if far gone, that which Apuleius wished to his enemy, by way of imprecation, is true in them; [2649]Dead men's bones, hobgoblins, ghosts are ever in their minds, and meet them still in every turn: all the bugbears of the night, and terrors, fairy-babes of tombs, and graves are before their eyes, and in their thoughts, as to women and children, if they be in the dark alone. If they hear, or read, or see any tragical object, it sticks by them, they are afraid of death, and yet weary of their lives, in their discontented humours they quarrel with all the world, bitterly inveigh, tax satirically, and because they cannot otherwise vent their passions or redress what is amiss, as they mean, they will by violent death at last be revenged on themselves. SUBSECT. IV.—Symptoms of Maids, Nuns, and Widows' Melancholy. Because Lodovicus Mercatus in his second book de mulier. affect. cap. 4. and Rodericus a Castro de morb. mulier. cap. 3. lib. 2. two famous physicians in Spain, Daniel Sennertus of Wittenberg lib. 1. part 2. cap. 13. with others, have vouchsafed in their works not long since published, to write two just treatises de Melancholia virginum, Monialium et Viduarum, as a particular species of melancholy (which I have already specified) distinct from the rest; [2650](for it much differs from that which commonly befalls men and other women, as having one only cause proper to women alone) I may not omit in this general survey of melancholy symptoms, to set down the particular signs of such parties so misaffected. The causes are assigned out of Hippocrates, Cleopatra, Moschion, and those old Gynaeciorum Scriptores, of this feral malady, in more ancient maids, widows, and barren women, ob septum transversum violatum, saith Mercatus, by reason of the midriff or Diaphragma, heart and brain offended with those vicious vapours which come from menstruous blood, inflammationem arteriae circa dorsum, Rodericus adds, an inflammation of the back, which with the rest is offended by [2651]that fuliginous exhalation of corrupt seed, troubling the brain, heart and mind; the brain, I say, not in essence, but by consent, Universa enim hujus affectus causa ab utero pendet, et a sanguinis menstrui malitia, for in a word, the whole malady proceeds from that inflammation, putridity, black smoky vapours, &c., from thence comes care, sorrow, and anxiety, obfuscation of spirits, agony, desperation, and the like, which are intended or remitted; si amatorius accesserit ardor, or any other violent object or perturbation of mind. This melancholy may happen to widows, with much care and sorrow, as frequently it doth, by reason of a sudden alteration of their accustomed course of life, &c. To such as lie in childbed ob suppressam purgationem; but to nuns and more ancient maids, and some barren women for the causes abovesaid, 'tis more familiar, crebrius his quam reliquis accidit, inquit Rodericus, the rest are not altogether excluded. Out of these causes Rodericus defines it with Areteus, to be angorem animi, a vexation of the mind, a sudden sorrow from a small, light, or no occasion, [2652]with a kind of still dotage and grief of some part or other, head, heart, breasts, sides, back, belly, &c., with much solitariness, weeping, distraction, &c., from which they are sometimes suddenly delivered, because it comes and goes by fits, and is not so permanent as other melancholy. But to leave this brief description, the most ordinary symptoms be these, pulsatio juxta dorsum, a beating about the back, which is almost perpetual, the skin is many times rough, squalid, especially, as Areteus observes, about the arms, knees, and knuckles. The midriff and heart-strings do burn and beat very fearfully, and when this vapour or fume is stirred, flieth upward, the heart itself beats, is sore grieved, and faints, fauces siccitate praecluduntur, ut difficulter possit ab uteri strangulatione decerni, like fits of the mother, Alvus plerisque nil reddit, aliis exiguum, acre, biliosum, lotium flavum. They complain many times, saith Mercatus, of a great pain in their heads, about their hearts, and hypochondries, and so likewise in their breasts, which are often sore, sometimes ready to swoon, their faces are inflamed, and red, they are dry, thirsty, suddenly hot, much troubled with wind, cannot sleep, &c. And from hence proceed ferina deliramenta, a brutish kind of dotage, troublesome sleep, terrible dreams in the night, subrusticus pudor et verecundia ignava, a foolish kind of bashfulness to some, perverse conceits and opinions, [2653]dejection of mind, much discontent, preposterous judgment. They are apt to loath, dislike, disdain, to be weary of every object, &c., each thing almost is tedious to them, they pine away, void of counsel, apt to weep, and tremble, timorous, fearful, sad, and out of all hope of better fortunes. They take delight in nothing for the time, but love to be alone and solitary, though that do them more harm: and thus they are affected so long as this vapour lasteth; but by-and-by, as pleasant and merry as ever they were in their lives, they sing, discourse, and laugh in any good company, upon all occasions, and so by fits it takes them now and then, except the malady be inveterate, and then 'tis more frequent, vehement, and continuate. Many of them cannot tell how to express themselves in words, or how it holds them, what ails them, you cannot understand them, or well tell what to make of their sayings; so far gone sometimes, so stupefied and distracted, they think themselves bewitched, they are in despair, aptae ad fletum, desperationem, dolores mammis et hypocondriis. Mercatus therefore adds, now their breasts, now their hypochondries, belly and sides, then their heart and head aches, now heat, then wind, now this, now that offends, they are weary of all; [2654]and yet will not, cannot again tell how, where or what offends them, though they be in great pain, agony, and frequently complain, grieving, sighing, weeping, and discontented still, sine causa manifesta, most part, yet I say they will complain, grudge, lament, and not be persuaded, but that they are troubled with an evil spirit, which is frequent in Germany, saith Rodericus, amongst the common sort: and to such as are most grievously affected, (for he makes three degrees of this disease in women,) they are in despair, surely forespoken or bewitched, and in extremity of their dotage, (weary of their lives,) some of them will attempt to make away themselves. Some think they see visions, confer with spirits and devils, they shall surely be damned, are afraid of some treachery, imminent danger, and the like, they will not speak, make answer to any question, but are almost distracted, mad, or stupid for the time, and by fits: and thus it holds them, as they are more or less affected, and as the inner humour is intended or remitted, or by outward objects and perturbations aggravated, solitariness, idleness, &c. Many other maladies there are incident to young women, out of that one and only cause above specified, many feral diseases. I will not so much as mention their names, melancholy alone is the subject of my present discourse, from which I will not swerve. The several cures of this infirmity, concerning diet, which must be very sparing, phlebotomy, physic, internal, external remedies, are at large in great variety in [2655] Rodericus a Castro, Sennertus, and Mercatus, which whoso will, as occasion serves, may make use of. But the best and surest remedy of all, is to see them well placed, and married to good husbands in due time, hinc illae, lachrymae, that is the primary cause, and this the ready cure, to give them content to their desires. I write not this to patronise any wanton, idle flirt, lascivious or light housewives, which are too forward many times, unruly, and apt to cast away themselves on him that comes next, without all care, counsel, circumspection, and judgment. If religion, good discipline, honest education, wholesome exhortation, fair promises, fame and loss of good name cannot inhibit and deter such, (which to chaste and sober maids cannot choose but avail much,) labour and exercise, strict diet, rigour and threats may more opportunely be used, and are able of themselves to qualify and divert an ill-disposed temperament. For seldom should you see an hired servant, a poor handmaid, though ancient, that is kept hard to her work, and bodily labour, a coarse country wench troubled in this kind, but noble virgins, nice gentlewomen, such as are solitary and idle, live at ease, lead a life out of action and employment, that fare well, in great houses and jovial companies, ill-disposed peradventure of themselves, and not willing to make any resistance, discontented otherwise, of weak judgment, able bodies, and subject to passions, (grandiores virgines, saith Mercatus, steriles et viduae plerumque melancholicae,) such for the most part are misaffected, and prone to this disease. I do not so much pity them that may otherwise be eased, but those alone that out of a strong temperament, innate constitution, are violently carried away with this torrent of inward humours, and though very modest of themselves, sober, religious, virtuous, and well given, (as many so distressed maids are,) yet cannot make resistance, these grievances will appear, this malady will take place, and now manifestly show itself, and may not otherwise be helped. But where am I? Into what subject have I rushed? What have I to do with nuns, maids, virgins, widows? I am a bachelor myself, and lead a monastic life in a college, nae ego sane ineptus qui haec dixerim,) I confess 'tis an indecorum, and as Pallas a virgin blushed, when Jupiter by chance spake of love matters in her presence, and turned away her face; me reprimam though my subject necessarily require it, I will say no more. And yet I must and will say something more, add a word or two in gratiam virginum et viduarum, in favour of all such distressed parties, in commiseration of their present estate. And as I cannot choose but condole their mishap that labour of this infirmity, and are destitute of help in this case, so must I needs inveigh against them that are in fault, more than manifest causes, and as bitterly tax those tyrannising pseudopoliticians, superstitious orders, rash vows, hard-hearted parents, guardians, unnatural friends, allies, (call them how you will,) those careless and stupid overseers, that out of worldly respects, covetousness, supine negligence, their own private ends (cum sibi sit interim bene) can so severely reject, stubbornly neglect, and impiously contemn, without all remorse and pity, the tears, sighs, groans, and grievous miseries of such poor souls committed to their charge. How odious and abominable are those superstitious and rash vows of Popish monasteries, so to bind and enforce men and women to vow virginity, to lead a single life, against the laws of nature, opposite to religion, policy, and humanity, so to starve, to offer violence, to suppress the vigour of youth, by rigorous statutes, severe laws, vain persuasions, to debar them of that to which by their innate temperature they are so furiously inclined, urgently carried, and sometimes precipitated, even irresistibly led, to the prejudice of their soul's health, and good estate of body and mind: and all for base and private respects, to maintain their gross superstition, to enrich themselves and their territories as they falsely suppose, by hindering some marriages, that the world be not full of beggars, and their parishes pestered with orphans; stupid politicians; haeccine fieri flagilia? ought these things so to be carried? better marry than burn, saith the Apostle, but they are otherwise persuaded. They will by all means quench their neighbour's house if it be on fire, but that fire of lust which breaks out into such lamentable flames, they will not take notice of, their own bowels oftentimes, flesh and blood shall so rage and burn, and they will not see it: miserum est, saith Austin, seipsum non miserescere, and they are miserable in the meantime that cannot pity themselves, the common good of all, and per consequens their own estates. For let them but consider what fearful maladies, feral diseases, gross inconveniences, come to both sexes by this enforced temperance, it troubles me to think of, much more to relate those frequent abortions and murdering of infants in their nunneries (read [2656]Kemnitius and others), and notorious fornications, those Spintrias, Tribadas, Ambubeias, &c., those rapes, incests, adulteries, mastuprations, sodomies, buggeries of monks and friars. See Bale's visitation of abbeys, [2657]Mercurialis, Rodericus a Castro, Peter Forestus, and divers physicians; I know their ordinary apologies and excuses for these things, sed viderint Politici, Medici, Theologi, I shall more opportunely meet with them [2658]elsewhere. [2659]Illius viduae, aut patronum Virginis hujus, Ne me forte putes, verbum non amplius addam. MEMB. III. Immediate cause of these precedent Symptoms. To give some satisfaction to melancholy men that are troubled with these symptoms, a better means in my judgment cannot be taken, than to show them the causes whence they proceed; not from devils as they suppose, or that they are bewitched or forsaken of God, hear or see, &c. as many of them think, but from natural and inward causes, that so knowing them, they may better avoid the effects, or at least endure them with more patience. The most grievous and common symptoms are fear and sorrow, and that without a cause to the wisest and discreetest men, in this malady not to be avoided. The reason why they are so, Aetius discusseth at large, Tetrabib. 2. 2. in his first problem out of Galen, lib. 2. de causis sympt. 1. For Galen imputeth all to the cold that is black, and thinks that the spirits being darkened, and the substance of the brain cloudy and dark, all the objects thereof appear terrible, and the [2660]mind itself, by those dark, obscure, gross fumes, ascending from black humours, is in continual darkness, fear, and sorrow; divers terrible monstrous fictions in a thousand shapes and apparitions occur, with violent passions, by which the brain and fantasy are troubled and eclipsed. [2661]Fracastorius, lib. 2. de intellect, will have cold to be the cause of fear and sorrow; for such as are cold are ill-disposed to mirth, dull, and heavy, by nature solitary, silent; and not for any inward darkness (as physicians think) for many melancholy men dare boldly be, continue, and walk in the dark, and delight in it: solum frigidi timidi: if they be hot, they are merry; and the more hot, the more furious, and void of fear, as we see in madmen; but this reason holds not, for then no melancholy, proceeding from choler adust, should fear. [2662]Averroes scoffs at Galen for his reasons, and brings five arguments to repel them: so doth Herc. de Saxonia, Tract. de Melanch. cap. 3. assigning other causes, which are copiously censured and confuted by Aelianus Montaltus, cap. 5 and 6. Lod. Mercatus de Inter. morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17. Altomarus, cap. 7. de mel. Guianerius, tract. 15. c. 1. Bright cap. 37. Laurentius, cap. 5. Valesius, med. cont. lib. 5, con. 1. [2663]Distemperature, they conclude, makes black juice, blackness obscures the spirits, the spirits obscured, cause fear and sorrow. Laurentius, cap. 13. supposeth these black fumes offend specially the diaphragma or midriff, and so per consequens the mind, which is obscured as [2664]the sun by a cloud. To this opinion of Galen, almost all the Greeks and Arabians subscribe, the Latins new and old, internae, tenebrae offuscant animum, ut externae nocent pueris, as children are affrighted in the dark, so are melancholy men at all times, [2665]as having the inward cause with them, and still carrying it about. Which black vapours, whether they proceed from the black blood about the heart, as T. W. Jes. thinks in his treatise of the passions of the mind, or stomach, spleen, midriff, or all the misaffected parts together, it boots not, they keep the mind in a perpetual dungeon, and oppress it with continual fears, anxieties, sorrows, &c. It is an ordinary thing for such as are sound to laugh at this dejected pusillanimity, and those other symptoms of melancholy, to make themselves merry with them, and to wonder at such, as toys and trifles, which may be resisted and withstood, if they will themselves: but let him that so wonders, consider with himself, that if a man should tell him on a sudden, some of his especial friends were dead, could he choose but grieve? Or set him upon a steep rock, where he should be in danger to be precipitated, could he be secure? His heart would tremble for fear, and his head be giddy. P. Byaras, Tract. de pest. gives instance (as I have said) [2666]and put case (saith he) in one that walks upon a plank, if it lie on the ground, he can safely do it: but if the same plank be laid over some deep water, instead of a bridge, he is vehemently moved, and 'tis nothing but his imagination, forma cadendi impressa, to which his other members and faculties obey. Yea, but you infer, that such men have a just cause to fear, a true object of fear; so have melancholy men an inward cause, a perpetual fume and darkness, causing fear, grief, suspicion, which they carry with them, an object which cannot be removed; but sticks as close, and is as inseparable as a shadow to a body, and who can expel or overrun his shadow? Remove heat of the liver, a cold stomach, weak spleen: remove those adust humours and vapours arising from them, black blood from the heart, all outward perturbations, take away the cause, and then bid them not grieve nor fear, or be heavy, dull, lumpish, otherwise counsel can do little good; you may as well bid him that is sick of an ague not to be a dry; or him that is wounded not to feel pain. Suspicion follows fear and sorrow at heels, arising out of the same fountain, so thinks [2667]Fracastorius, that fear is the cause of suspicion, and still they suspect some treachery, or some secret machination to be framed against them, still they distrust. Restlessness proceeds from the same spring, variety of fumes make them like and dislike. Solitariness, avoiding of light, that they are weary of their lives, hate the world, arise from the same causes, for their spirits and humours are opposite to light, fear makes them avoid company, and absent themselves, lest they should be misused, hissed at, or overshoot themselves, which still they suspect. They are prone to venery by reason of wind. Angry, waspish, and fretting still, out of abundance of choler, which causeth fearful dreams and violent perturbations to them, both sleeping and waking: That they suppose they have no heads, fly, sink, they are pots, glasses, &c. is wind in their heads. [2668]Herc. de Saxonia doth ascribe this to the several motions in the animal spirits, their dilation, contraction, confusion, alteration, tenebrosity, hot or cold distemperature, excluding all material humours. [2669]Fracastorius accounts it a thing worthy of inquisition, why they should entertain such false conceits, as that they have horns, great noses, that they are birds, beasts, &c., why they should think themselves kings, lords, cardinals. For the first, [2670] Fracastorius gives two reasons: One is the disposition of the body; the other, the occasion of the fantasy, as if their eyes be purblind, their ears sing, by reason of some cold and rheum, &c. To the second, Laurentius answers, the imagination inwardly or outwardly moved, represents to the understanding, not enticements only, to favour the passion or dislike, but a very intensive pleasure follows the passion or displeasure, and the will and reason are captivated by delighting in it. Why students and lovers are so often melancholy and mad, the philosopher of [2671]Conimbra assigns this reason, because by a vehement and continual meditation of that wherewith they are affected, they fetch up the spirits into the brain, and with the heat brought with them, they incend it beyond measure: and the cells of the inner senses dissolve their temperature, which being dissolved, they cannot perform their offices as they ought. Why melancholy men are witty, which Aristotle hath long since maintained in his problems; and that [2672]all learned men, famous philosophers, and lawgivers, ad unum fere omnes melancholici, have still been melancholy, is a problem much controverted. Jason Pratensis will have it understood of natural melancholy, which opinion Melancthon inclines to, in his book de Anima, and Marcilius Ficinus de san. tuend. lib. 1. cap. 5. but not simple, for that makes men stupid, heavy, dull, being cold and dry, fearful, fools, and solitary, but mixed with the other humours, phlegm only excepted; and they not adust, [2673]but so mixed as that blood he half, with little or no adustion, that they be neither too hot nor too cold. Aponensis, cited by Melancthon, thinks it proceeds from melancholy adust, excluding all natural melancholy as too cold. Laurentius condemns his tenet, because adustion of humours makes men mad, as lime burns when water is cast on it. It must be mixed with blood, and somewhat adust, and so that old aphorism of Aristotle may be verified, Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae, no excellent wit without a mixture of madness. Fracastorius shall decide the controversy, [2674]phlegmatic are dull: sanguine lively, pleasant, acceptable, and merry, but not witty; choleric are too swift in motion, and furious, impatient of contemplation, deceitful wits: melancholy men have the most excellent wits, but not all; this humour may be hot or cold, thick, or thin; if too hot, they are furious and mad: if too cold, dull, stupid, timorous, and sad: if temperate, excellent, rather inclining to that extreme of heat, than cold. This sentence of his will agree with that of Heraclitus, a dry light makes a wise mind, temperate heat and dryness are the chief causes of a good wit; therefore, saith Aelian, an elephant is the wisest of all brute beasts, because his brain is driest, et ob atrae, bilis capiam: this reason Cardan approves, subtil. l. 12. Jo. Baptista Silvaticus, a physician of Milan, in his first controversy, hath copiously handled this question: Rulandus in his problems, Caelius Rhodiginus, lib. 17. Valleriola 6to. narrat. med. Herc. de Saxonia, Tract. posth. de mel. cap. 3. Lodovicus Mercatus, de inter. morb. cur. lib. cap. 17. Baptista Porta, Physiog. lib. 1. c. 13. and many others. Weeping, sighing, laughing, itching, trembling, sweating, blushing, hearing and seeing strange noises, visions, wind, crudity, are motions of the body, depending upon these precedent motions of the mind: neither are tears, affections, but actions (as Scaliger holds) [2675]the voice of such as are afraid, trembles, because the heart is shaken (Conimb. prob. 6. sec. 3. de som.) why they stutter or falter in their speech, Mercurialis and Montaltus, cap. 17. give like reasons out of Hippocrates, [2676]dryness, which makes the nerves of the tongue torpid. Fast speaking (which is a symptom of some few) Aetius will have caused [2677] from abundance of wind, and swiftness of imagination: [2678]baldness comes from excess of dryness, hirsuteness from a dry temperature. The cause of much waking in a dry brain, continual meditation, discontent, fears and cares, that suffer not the mind to be at rest, incontinency is from wind, and a hot liver, Montanus, cons. 26. Rumbling in the guts is caused from wind, and wind from ill concoction, weakness of natural heat, or a distempered heat and cold; [2679]Palpitation of the heart from vapours, heaviness and aching from the same cause. That the belly is hard, wind is a cause, and of that leaping in many parts. Redness of the face, and itching, as if they were flea-bitten, or stung with pismires, from a sharp subtle wind. [2680]Cold sweat from vapours arising from the hypochondries, which pitch upon the skin; leanness for want of good nourishment. Why their appetite is so great, [2681]Aetius answers: Os ventris frigescit, cold in those inner parts, cold belly, and hot liver, causeth crudity, and intention proceeds from perturbations, [2682]our souls for want of spirits cannot attend exactly to so many intentive operations, being exhaust, and overswayed by passion, she cannot consider the reasons which may dissuade her from such affections. [2683]Bashfulness and blushing, is a passion proper to men alone, and is not only caused for [2684]some shame and ignominy, or that they are guilty unto themselves of some foul fact committed, but as [2685]Fracastorius well determines, ob defectum proprium, et timorem, from fear, and a conceit of our defects; the face labours and is troubled at his presence that sees our defects, and nature willing to help, sends thither heat, heat draws the subtlest blood, and so we blush. They that are bold, arrogant, and careless, seldom or never blush, but such as are fearful. Anthonius Lodovicus, in his book de pudore, will have this subtle blood to arise in the face, not so much for the reverence of our betters in presence, [2686]but for joy and pleasure, or if anything at unawares shall pass from us, a sudden accident, occurse, or meeting: (which Disarius in [2687] Macrobius confirms) any object heard or seen, for blind men never blush, as Dandinus observes, the night and darkness make men impudent. Or that we be staid before our betters, or in company we like not, or if anything molest and offend us, erubescentia turns to rubor, blushing to a continuate redness. [2688]Sometimes the extremity of the ears tingle, and are red, sometimes the whole face, Etsi nihil vitiosum commiseris, as Lodovicus holds: though Aristotle is of opinion, omnis pudor ex vitio commisso, all shame for some offence. But we find otherwise, it may as well proceed [2689]from fear, from force and inexperience, (so [2690]Dandinus holds) as vice; a hot liver, saith Duretus (notis in Hollerium:) from a hot brain, from wind, the lungs heated, or after drinking of wine, strong drink, perturbations, &c. Laughter what it is, saith [2691]Tully, how caused, where, and so suddenly breaks out, that desirous to stay it, we cannot, how it comes to possess and stir our face, veins, eyes, countenance, mouth, sides, let Democritus determine. The cause that it often affects melancholy men so much, is given by Gomesius, lib. 3. de sale genial. cap. 18. abundance of pleasant vapours, which, in sanguine melancholy especially, break from the heart, [2692]and tickle the midriff, because it is transverse and full of nerves: by which titillation the sense being moved, and arteries distended, or pulled, the spirits from thence move and possess the sides, veins, countenance, eyes. See more in Jossius de risu et fletu, Vives 3 de Anima. Tears, as Scaliger defines, proceed from grief and pity, [2693]or from the heating of a moist brain, for a dry cannot weep. That they see and hear so many phantasms, chimeras, noises, visions, &c. as Fienus hath discoursed at large in his book of imagination, and [2694] Lavater de spectris, part. 1. cap. 2. 3. 4. their corrupt phantasy makes them see and hear that which indeed is neither heard nor seen, Qui multum jejunant, aut noctes ducunt insomnes, they that much fast, or want sleep, as melancholy or sick men commonly do, see visions, or such as are weak-sighted, very timorous by nature, mad, distracted, or earnestly seek. Sabini quod volunt somniant, as the saying is, they dream of that they desire. Like Sarmiento the Spaniard, who when he was sent to discover the straits of Magellan, and confine places, by the Prorex of Peru, standing on the top of a hill, Amaenissimam planitiem despicere sibi visus fuit, aedificia magnifica, quamplurimos Pagos, alias Turres, splendida Templa, and brave cities, built like ours in Europe, not, saith mine [2695]author, that there was any such thing, but that he was vanissimus et nimis credulus, and would fain have had it so. Or as [2696]Lod. Mercatus proves, by reason of inward vapours, and humours from blood, choler, &c. diversely mixed, they apprehend and see outwardly, as they suppose, divers images, which indeed are not. As they that drink wine think all runs round, when it is in their own brain; so is it with these men, the fault and cause is inward, as Galen affirms, [2697]mad men and such as are near death, quas extra se videre putant Imagines, intra oculos habent, 'tis in their brain, which seems to be before them; the brain as a concave glass reflects solid bodies. Senes etiam decrepiti cerebrum habent concavum et aridum, ut imaginentur se videre (saith [2698]Boissardus) quae non sunt, old men are too frequently mistaken and dote in like case: or as he that looketh through a piece of red glass, judgeth everything he sees to be red; corrupt vapours mounting from the body to the head, and distilling again from thence to the eyes, when they have mingled themselves with the watery crystal which receiveth the shadows of things to be seen, make all things appear of the same colour, which remains in the humour that overspreads our sight, as to melancholy men all is black, to phlegmatic all white, &c. Or else as before the organs corrupt by a corrupt phantasy, as Lemnius, lib. 1. cap. 16. well quotes, [2699]cause a great agitation of spirits, and humours, which wander to and fro in all the creeks of the brain, and cause such apparitions before their eyes. One thinks he reads something written in the moon, as Pythagoras is said to have done of old, another smells brimstone, hears Cerberus bark: Orestes now mad supposed he saw the furies tormenting him, and his mother still ready to run upon him, [2700]O mater obsecro noli me persequi His furiis, aspectu anguineis, horribilibus, Ecce ecce me invadunt, in me jam ruunt; but Electra told him thus raving in his mad fit, he saw no such sights at all, it was but his crazed imagination. [2701]Quiesce, quiesce miser in linteis tuis, Non cernis etenim quae videre te putas. So Pentheus (in Bacchis Euripidis) saw two suns, two Thebes, his brain alone was troubled. Sickness is an ordinary cause of such sights. Cardan, subtil. 8. Mens aegra laboribus et jejuniis fracta, facit eos videre, audire, &c. And, Osiander beheld strange visions, and Alexander ab Alexandro both, in their sickness, which he relates de rerum varietat. lib. 8. cap. 44. Albategnius that noble Arabian, on his death-bed, saw a ship ascending and descending, which Fracastorius records of his friend Baptista Tirrianus. Weak sight and a vain persuasion withal, may effect as much, and second causes concurring, as an oar in water makes a refraction, and seems bigger, bended double, &c. The thickness of the air may cause such effects, or any object not well-discerned in the dark, fear and phantasy will suspect to be a ghost, a devil, &c. [2702]Quod nimis miseri timent, hoc facile credunt, we are apt to believe, and mistake in such cases. Marcellus Donatus, lib. 2. cap. 1. brings in a story out of Aristotle, of one Antepharon which likely saw, wheresoever he was, his own image in the air, as in a glass. Vitellio, lib. 10. perspect. hath such another instance of a familiar acquaintance of his, that after the want of three or four nights sleep, as he was riding by a river side, saw another riding with him, and using all such gestures as he did, but when more light appeared, it vanished. Eremites and anchorites have frequently such absurd visions, revelations by reason of much fasting, and bad diet, many are deceived by legerdemain, as Scot hath well showed in his book of the discovery of witchcraft, and Cardan, subtil. 18. suffites, perfumes, suffumigations, mixed candles, perspective glasses, and such natural causes, make men look as if they were dead, or with horse-heads, bull's-horns, and such like brutish shapes, the room full of snakes, adders, dark, light, green, red, of all colours, as you may perceive in Baptista Porta, Alexis, Albertus, and others, glow-worms, fire-drakes, meteors, Ignis fatuus, which Plinius, lib. 2. cap. 37. calls Castor and Pollux, with many such that appear in moorish grounds, about churchyards, moist valleys, or where battles have been fought, the causes of which read in Goclenius, Velouris, Fickius, &c. such fears are often done, to frighten children with squibs, rotten wood, &c. to make folks look as if they were dead, [2703]solito majores, bigger, lesser, fairer, fouler, ut astantes sine capitibus videantur; aut toti igniti, aut forma daemonum, accipe pilos canis nigri, &c. saith Albertus; and so 'tis ordinary to see strange uncouth sights by catoptrics: who knows not that if in a dark room, the light be admitted at one only little hole, and a paper or glass put upon it, the sun shining, will represent on the opposite wall all such objects as are illuminated by his rays? with concave and cylinder glasses, we may reflect any shape of men, devils, antics, (as magicians most part do, to gull a silly spectator in a dark room), we will ourselves, and that hanging in the air, when 'tis nothing but such an horrible image as [2704]Agrippa demonstrates, placed in another room. Roger Bacon of old is said to have represented his own image walking in the air by this art, though no such thing appear in his perspectives. But most part it is in the brain that deceives them, although I may not deny, but that oftentimes the devil deludes them, takes his opportunity to suggest, and represent vain objects to melancholy men, and such as are ill affected. To these you may add the knavish impostures of jugglers, exorcists, mass-priests, and mountebanks, of whom Roger Bacon speaks, &c. de miraculis naturae et artis. cap. 1. [2705]they can counterfeit the voices of all birds and brute beasts almost, all tones and tunes of men, and speak within their throats, as if they spoke afar off, that they make their auditors believe they hear spirits, and are thence much astonished and affrighted with it. Besides, those artificial devices to overhear their confessions, like that whispering place of Gloucester [2706]with us, or like the duke's place at Mantua in Italy, where the sound is reverberated by a concave wall; a reason of which Blancanus in his Echometria gives, and mathematically demonstrates. So that the hearing is as frequently deluded as the sight, from the same causes almost, as he that hears bells, will make them sound what he list. As the fool thinketh, so the bell clinketh. Theophilus in Galen thought he heard music, from vapours which made his ears sound, &c. Some are deceived by echoes, some by roaring of waters, or concaves and reverberation of air in the ground, hollow places and walls. [2707]At Cadurcum, in Aquitaine, words and sentences are repeated by a strange echo to the full, or whatsoever you shall play upon a musical instrument, more distinctly and louder, than they are spoken at first. Some echoes repeat a thing spoken seven times, as at Olympus, in Macedonia, as Pliny relates, lib. 36. cap. 15. Some twelve times, as at Charenton, a village near Paris, in France. At Delphos, in Greece, heretofore was a miraculous echo, and so in many other places. Cardan, subtil. l. 18, hath wonderful stories of such as have been deluded by these echoes. Blancanus the Jesuit, in his Echometria, hath variety of examples, and gives his reader full satisfaction of all such sounds by way of demonstration. [2708]At Barrey, an isle in the Severn mouth, they seem to hear a smith's forge; so at Lipari, and those sulphureous isles, and many such like, which Olaus speaks of in the continent of Scandia, and those northern countries. Cardan de rerum var. l. 15, c. 84, mentioneth a woman, that still supposed she heard the devil call her, and speaking to her, she was a painter's wife in Milan: and many such illusions and voices, which proceed most part from a corrupt imagination. Whence it comes to pass, that they prophesy, speak several languages, talk of astronomy, and other unknown sciences to them (of which they have been ever ignorant): [2709]I have in brief touched, only this I will here add, that Arculanus, Bodin. lib. 3, cap. 6, daemon. and some others, [2710] hold as a manifest token that such persons are possessed with the devil; so doth [2711]Hercules de Saxonia, and Apponensis, and fit only to be cured by a priest. But [2712]Guianerius, [2713]Montaltus, Pomporiatius of Padua, and Lemnius lib. 2. cap. 2, refer it wholly to the ill-disposition of the [2714]humour, and that out of the authority of Aristotle prob. 30. 1, because such symptoms are cured by purging; and as by the striking of a flint fire is enforced, so by the vehement motion of spirits, they do elicere voces inauditas, compel strange speeches to be spoken: another argument he hath from Plato's reminiscentia, which all out as likely as that which [2715]Marsilius Ficinus speaks of his friend Pierleonus; by a divine kind of infusion he understood the secrets of nature, and tenets of Grecian and barbarian philosophers, before ever he heard of, saw, or read their works: but in this I should rather hold with Avicenna and his associates, that such symptoms proceed from evil spirits, which take all opportunities of humours decayed, or otherwise to pervert the soul of man: and besides, the humour itself is balneum diaboli, the devil's bath; and as Agrippa proves, doth entice him to seize upon them.   SECT. IV. MEMB. I. Prognostics of Melancholy. Prognostics, or signs of things to come, are either good or bad. If this malady be not hereditary, and taken at the beginning, there is good hope of cure, recens curationem non habet difficilem, saith Avicenna, l. 3, Fen. 1, Tract. 4, c. 18. That which is with laughter, of all others is most secure, gentle, and remiss, Hercules de Saxonia. [2716]If that evacuation of haemorrhoids, or varices, which they call the water between the skin, shall happen to a melancholy man, his misery is ended, Hippocrates Aphor. 6, 11. Galen l. 6, de morbis vulgar. com. 8, confirms the same; and to this aphorism of Hippocrates, all the Arabians, new and old Latins subscribe; Montaltus c. 25, Hercules de Saxonia, Mercurialis, Vittorius Faventinus, &c. Skenkius, l. 1, observat. med. c. de Mania, illustrates this aphorism, with an example of one Daniel Federer a coppersmith that was long melancholy, and in the end mad about the 27th year of his age, these varices or water began to arise in his thighs, and he was freed from his madness. Marius the Roman was so cured, some, say, though with great pain. Skenkius hath some other instances of women that have been helped by flowing of their mouths, which before were stopped. That the opening of the haemorrhoids will do as much for men, all physicians jointly signify, so they be voluntary, some say, and not by compulsion. All melancholy are better after a quartan; [2717]Jobertus saith, scarce any man hath that ague twice; but whether it free him from this malady, 'tis a question; for many physicians ascribe all long agues for especial causes, and a quartan ague amongst the rest. [2718]Rhasis cont. lib. 1, tract. 9. When melancholy gets out at the superficies of the skin, or settles breaking out in scabs, leprosy, morphew, or is purged by stools, or by the urine, or that the spleen is enlarged, and those varices appear, the disease is dissolved. Guianerius, cap. 5, tract. 15, adds dropsy, jaundice, dysentery, leprosy, as good signs, to these scabs, morphews, and breaking out, and proves it out of the 6th of Hippocrates' Aphorisms. Evil prognostics on the other part. Inveterata melancholia incurabilis, if it be inveterate, it is [2719]incurable, a common axiom, aut difficulter curabilis as they say that make the best, hardly cured. This Galen witnesseth, l. 3, de loc. affect. cap. 6, [2720]be it in whom it will, or from what cause soever, it is ever long, wayward, tedious, and hard to be cured, if once it be habituated. As Lucian said of the gout, she was [2721]the queen of diseases, and inexorable, may we say of melancholy. Yet Paracelsus will have all diseases whatsoever curable, and laughs at them which think otherwise, as T. Erastus par. 3, objects to him; although in another place, hereditary diseases he accounts incurable, and by no art to be removed. [2722]Hildesheim spicel. 2, de mel. holds it less dangerous if only [2723]imagination be hurt, and not reason, [2724]the gentlest is from blood. Worse from choler adust, but the worst of all from melancholy putrefied. [2725]Bruel esteems hypochondriacal least dangerous, and the other two species (opposite to Galen) hardest to be cured. [2726]The cure is hard in man, but much more difficult in women. And both men and women must take notice of that saying of Montanus consil. 230, pro Abate Italo, [2727]This malady doth commonly accompany them to their grave; physicians may ease, and it may lie hid for a time, but they cannot quite cure it, but it will return again more violent and sharp than at first, and that upon every small occasion or error: as in Mercury's weather-beaten statue, that was once all over gilt, the open parts were clean, yet there was in fimbriis aurum, in the chinks a remnant of gold: there will be some relics of melancholy left in the purest bodies (if once tainted) not so easily to be rooted out. [2728] Oftentimes it degenerates into epilepsy, apoplexy, convulsions, and blindness: by the authority of Hippocrates and Galen, [2729]all aver, if once it possess the ventricles of the brain, Frambesarius, and Salust. Salvianus adds, if it get into the optic nerves, blindness. Mercurialis, consil. 20, had a woman to his patient, that from melancholy became epileptic and blind. [2730]If it come from a cold cause, or so continue cold, or increase, epilepsy; convulsions follow, and blindness, or else in the end they are moped, sottish, and in all their actions, speeches, and gestures, ridiculous. [2731]If it come from a hot cause, they are more furious, and boisterous, and in conclusion mad. Calescentem melancholiam saepius sequitur mania. [2732]If it heat and increase, that is the common event, [2733]per circuitus, aut semper insanit, he is mad by fits, or altogether. For as [2734]Sennertus contends out of Crato, there is seminarius ignis in this humour, the very seeds of fire. If it come from melancholy natural adust, and in excess, they are often demoniacal, Montanus. [2735]Seldom this malady procures death, except (which is the greatest, most grievous calamity, and the misery of all miseries,) they make away themselves, which is a frequent thing, and familiar amongst them. 'Tis [2736]Hippocrates' observation, Galen's sentence, Etsi mortem timent, tamen plerumque sibi ipsis mortem consciscunt, l. 3. de locis affec. cap. 7. The doom of all physicians. 'Tis [2737]Rabbi Moses' Aphorism, the prognosticon of Avicenna, Rhasis, Aetius, Gordonius, Valescus, Altomarus, Salust. Salvianus, Capivaccius, Mercatus, Hercules de Saxonia, Piso, Bruel, Fuchsius, all, &c. [2738]Et saepe usque adeo mortis formidine vitae Percipit infelix odium lucisque videndae, Ut sibi consciscat maerenti pectore lethum. And so far forth death's terror doth affright, He makes away himself, and hates the light To make an end of fear and grief of heart, He voluntary dies to ease his smart. In such sort doth the torture and extremity of his misery torment him, that he can take no pleasure in his life, but is in a manner enforced to offer violence unto himself, to be freed from his present insufferable pains. So some (saith [2739]Fracastorius) in fury, but most in despair, sorrow, fear, and out of the anguish and vexation of their souls, offer violence to themselves: for their life is unhappy and miserable. They can take no rest in the night, nor sleep, or if they do slumber, fearful dreams astonish them. In the daytime they are affrighted still by some terrible object, and torn in pieces with suspicion, fear, sorrow, discontents, cares, shame, anguish, &c. as so many wild horses, that they cannot be quiet an hour, a minute of time, but even against their wills they are intent, and still thinking of it, they cannot forget it, it grinds their souls day and night, they are perpetually tormented, a burden to themselves, as Job was, they can neither eat, drink or sleep. Psal. cvii. 18. Their soul abhorreth all meat, and they are brought to death's door, [2740]being bound in misery and iron: they [2741]curse their stars with Job, [2742]and day of their birth, and wish for death: for as Pineda and most interpreters hold, Job was even melancholy to despair, and almost [2743]madness itself; they murmur many times against the world, friends, allies, all mankind, even against God himself in the bitterness of their passion, [2744]vivere nolunt, mori nesciunt, live they will not, die they cannot. And in the midst of these squalid, ugly, and such irksome days, they seek at last, finding no comfort, [2745]no remedy in this wretched life, to be eased of all by death. Omnia appetunt bonum, all creatures seek the best, and for their good as they hope, sub specie, in show at least, vel quia mori pulchrum putant (saith [2746]Hippocrates) vel quia putant inde se majoribus malis liberari, to be freed as they wish. Though many times, as Aesop's fishes, they leap from the frying-pan into the fire itself, yet they hope to be eased by this means: and therefore (saith Felix [2747]Platerus) after many tedious days at last, either by drowning, hanging, or some such fearful end, they precipitate or make away themselves: many lamentable examples are daily seen amongst us: alius ante, fores se laqueo suspendit (as Seneca notes), alius se praecipitavit a tecto, ne dominum stomachantem audiret, alius ne reduceretur a fuga ferrum redegit in viscera, one hangs himself before his own door,—another throws himself from the house-top, to avoid his master's anger,—a third, to escape expulsion, plunges a dagger into his heart,—so many causes there are—His amor exitio est, furor his—love, grief, anger, madness, and shame, &c. 'Tis a common calamity, [2748]a fatal end to this disease, they are condemned to a violent death, by a jury of physicians, furiously disposed, carried headlong by their tyrannising wills, enforced by miseries, and there remains no more to such persons, if that heavenly Physician, by his assisting grace and mercy alone do not prevent, (for no human persuasion or art can help) but to be their own butchers, and execute themselves. Socrates his cicuta, Lucretia's dagger, Timon's halter, are yet to be had; Cato's knife, and Nero's sword are left behind them, as so many fatal engines, bequeathed to posterity, and will be used to the world's end, by such distressed souls: so intolerable, insufferable, grievous, and violent is their pain, [2749]so unspeakable and continuate. One day of grief is an hundred years, as Cardan observes: 'Tis carnificina hominum, angor animi, as well saith Areteus, a plague of the soul, the cramp and convulsion of the soul, an epitome of hell; and if there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart. For that deep torture may be call'd an hell, When more is felt, than one hath power to tell. Yea, that which scoffing Lucian said of the gout in jest, I may truly affirm of melancholy in earnest. [2750]O triste nomen! o diis odibile Melancholia lacrymosa, Cocyti filia, Tu Tartari specubus opacis edita Erinnys, utero quam Megara suo tulit, Et ab uberibus aluit, cuique parvidae Amarulentum in os lac Alecto dedit, Omnes abominabilem te daemones Produxere in lucem, exitio mortalium. Et paulo post Non Jupiter ferit tale telum fulminis, Non ulla sic procella saevit aequoris, Non impetuosi tanta vis est turbinis. An asperos sustineo morsus Cerberi? Num virus Echidnae membra mea depascitur? Aut tunica sanie tincta Nessi sanguinis? Illacrymabile et immedicabile malum hoc. O sad and odious name! a name so fell, Is this of melancholy, brat of hell. There born in hellish darkness doth it dwell, The Furies brought it up, Megara's teat, Alecto gave it bitter milk to eat. And all conspir'd a bane to mortal men, To bring this devil out of that black den. Jupiter's thunderbolt, not storm at sea, Nor whirlwind doth our hearts so much dismay. What? am I bit by that fierce Cerberus? Or stung by [2751]serpent so pestiferous? Or put on shirt that's dipt in Nessus' blood? My pain's past cure; physic can do no good. No torture of body like unto it, Siculi non invenere tyranni majus tormentum, no strappadoes, hot irons, Phalaris' bulls, [2752]Nec ira deum tantum, nec tela, nec hostis, Quantum sola noces animis illapsa. Jove's wrath, nor devils can Do so much harm to th' soul of man. All fears, griefs, suspicions, discontents, imbonites, insuavities are swallowed up, and drowned in this Euripus, this Irish sea, this ocean of misery, as so many small brooks; 'tis coagulum omnium aerumnarum: which [2753]Ammianus applied to his distressed Palladins. I say of our melancholy man, he is the cream of human adversity, the [2754] quintessence, and upshot; all other diseases whatsoever, are but flea-bitings to melancholy in extent: 'Tis the pith of them all, [2755] Hospitium est calamitatis; quid verbis opus est? Quamcunque malam rem quaeris, illic reperies: What need more words? 'tis calamities inn, Where seek for any mischief, 'tis within; and a melancholy man is that true Prometheus, which is bound to Caucasus; the true Titius, whose bowels are still by a vulture devoured (as poets feign) for so doth [2756]Lilius Geraldus interpret it, of anxieties, and those griping cares, and so ought it to be understood. In all other maladies, we seek for help, if a leg or an arm ache, through any distemperature or wound, or that we have an ordinary disease, above all things whatsoever, we desire help and health, a present recovery, if by any means possible it may be procured; we will freely part with all our other fortunes, substance, endure any misery, drink bitter potions, swallow those distasteful pills, suffer our joints to be seared, to be cut off, anything for future health: so sweet, so dear, so precious above all other things in this world is life: 'tis that we chiefly desire, long life and happy days, [2757]multos da Jupiter annos, increase of years all men wish; but to a melancholy man, nothing so tedious, nothing so odious; that which they so carefully seek to preserve [2758]he abhors, he alone; so intolerable are his pains; some make a question, graviores morbi corporis an animi, whether the diseases of the body or mind be more grievous, but there is no comparison, no doubt to be made of it, multo enim saevior longeque est atrocior animi, quam corporis cruciatus (Lem. l. 1. c. 12.) the diseases of the mind are far more grievous.—Totum hic pro vulnere corpus, body and soul is misaffected here, but the soul especially. So Cardan testifies de rerum var. lib. 8. 40. [2759]Maximus Tyrius a Platonist, and Plutarch, have made just volumes to prove it. [2760]Dies adimit aegritudinem hominibus, in other diseases there is some hope likely, but these unhappy men are born to misery, past all hope of recovery, incurably sick, the longer they live the worse they are, and death alone must ease them. Another doubt is made by some philosophers, whether it be lawful for a man in such extremity of pain and grief, to make away himself: and how these men that so do are to be censured. The Platonists approve of it, that it is lawful in such cases, and upon a necessity; Plotinus l. de beatitud. c. 7. and Socrates himself defends it, in Plato's Phaedon, if any man labour of an incurable disease, he may despatch himself, if it be to his good. Epicurus and his followers, the cynics and stoics in general affirm it, Epictetus and [2761]Seneca amongst the rest, quamcunque veram esse viam ad libertatem, any way is allowable that leads to liberty, [2762]let us give God thanks, that no man is compelled to live against his will; [2763] quid ad hominem claustra, career, custodia? liberum ostium habet, death is always ready and at hand. Vides illum praecipitem locum, illud flumen, dost thou see that steep place, that river, that pit, that tree, there's liberty at hand, effugia servitutis et doloris sunt, as that Laconian lad cast himself headlong (non serviam aiebat puer) to be freed of his misery: every vein in thy body, if these be nimis operosi exitus, will set thee free, quid tua refert finem facias an accipias? there's no necessity for a man to live in misery. Malum est necessitati vivere; sed in necessitate vivere, necessitas nulla est. Ignavus qui sine causa moritur, et stultus qui cum dolore vivit. Idem epi. 58. Wherefore hath our mother the earth brought out poisons, saith [2764]Pliny, in so great a quantity, but that men in distress might make away themselves? which kings of old had ever in a readiness, ad incerta fortunae venenum sub custode promptum, Livy writes, and executioners always at hand. Speusippes being sick was met by Diogenes, and carried on his slaves' shoulders, he made his moan to the philosopher; but I pity thee not, quoth Diogenes, qui cum talis vivere sustines, thou mayst be freed when thou wilt, meaning by death. [2765]Seneca therefore commends Cato, Dido, and Lucretia, for their generous courage in so doing, and others that voluntarily die, to avoid a greater mischief, to free themselves from misery, to save their honour, or vindicate their good name, as Cleopatra did, as Sophonisba, Syphax's wife did, Hannibal did, as Junius Brutus, as Vibius Virus, and those Campanian senators in Livy (Dec. 3. lib. 6.) to escape the Roman tyranny, that poisoned themselves. Themistocles drank bull's blood, rather than he would fight against his country, and Demosthenes chose rather to drink poison, Publius Crassi filius, Censorius and Plancus, those heroical Romans to make away themselves, than to fall into their enemies' hands. How many myriads besides in all ages might I remember, qui sibi lethum Insontes pepperere manu, &c. [2766]Rhasis in the Maccabees is magnified for it, Samson's death approved. So did Saul and Jonas sin, and many worthy men and women, quorum memoria celebratur in Ecclesia, saith [2767]Leminchus, for killing themselves to save their chastity and honour, when Rome was taken, as Austin instances, l. 1. de Civit. Dei, cap. 16. Jerome vindicateth the same in Ionam and Ambrose, l. 3. de virginitate commendeth Pelagia for so doing. Eusebius, lib. 8. cap. 15. admires a Roman matron for the same fact to save herself from the lust of Maxentius the Tyrant. Adelhelmus, abbot of Malmesbury, calls them Beatas virgines quae sic, &c. Titus Pomponius Atticus, that wise, discreet, renowned Roman senator, Tully's dear friend, when he had been long sick, as he supposed, of an incurable disease, vitamque produceret ad augendos dolores, sine spe salutis, was resolved voluntarily by famine to despatch himself to be rid of his pain; and when as Agrippa, and the rest of his weeping friends earnestly besought him, osculantes obsecrarent ne id quod natura cogeret, ipse acceleraret, not to offer violence to himself, with a settled resolution he desired again they would approve of his good intent, and not seek to dehort him from it: and so constantly died, precesque eorum taciturna sua obstinatione depressit. Even so did Corellius Rufus, another grave senator, by the relation of Plinius Secundus, epist. lib. 1. epist. 12. famish himself to death; pedibus correptus cum incredibiles cruciatus et indignissima tormenta pateretur, a cibis omnino abstinuit; [2768]neither he nor Hispilla his wife could divert him, but destinatus mori obstinate magis, &c. die he would, and die he did. So did Lycurgus, Aristotle, Zeno, Chrysippus, Empedocles, with myriads, &c. In wars for a man to run rashly upon imminent danger, and present death, is accounted valour and magnanimity, [2769]to be the cause of his own, and many a thousand's ruin besides, to commit wilful murder in a manner, of himself and others, is a glorious thing, and he shall be crowned for it. The [2770] Massegatae in former times, [2771]Barbiccians, and I know not what nations besides, did stifle their old men, after seventy years, to free them from those grievances incident to that age. So did the inhabitants of the island of Choa, because their air was pure and good, and the people generally long lived, antevertebant fatum suum, priusquam manci forent, aut imbecillitas accederet, papavere vel cicuta, with poppy or hemlock they prevented death. Sir Thomas More in his Utopia commends voluntary death, if he be sibi aut aliis molestus, troublesome to himself or others, ([2772] especially if to live be a torment to him,) let him free himself with his own hands from this tedious life, as from a prison, or suffer himself to be freed by others. [2773]And 'tis the same tenet which Laertius relates of Zeno, of old, Juste sapiens sibi mortem consciscit, si in acerbis doloribus versetur, membrorum mutilatione aut morbis aegre curandis, and which Plato 9. de legibus approves, if old age, poverty, ignominy, &c. oppress, and which Fabius expresseth in effect. (Praefat. 7. Institut.) Nemo nisi sua culpa diu dolet. It is an ordinary thing in China, (saith Mat. Riccius the Jesuit,) [2774]if they be in despair of better fortunes, or tired and tortured with misery, to bereave themselves of life, and many times, to spite their enemies the more, to hang at their door. Tacitus the historian, Plutarch the philosopher, much approve a voluntary departure, and Aust. de civ. Dei, l. 1. c. 29. defends a violent death, so that it be undertaken in a good cause, nemo sic mortuus, qui non fuerat aliquando moriturus; quid autem interest, quo mortis genere vita ista finiatur, quando ille cui finitur, iterum mori non cogitur? &c. [2775]no man so voluntarily dies, but volens nolens, he must die at last, and our life is subject to innumerable casualties, who knows when they may happen, utrum satius est unam perpeti moriendo, an omnes timere vivendo, [2776] rather suffer one, than fear all. Death is better than a bitter life, Eccl. xxx. 17. [2777]and a harder choice to live in fear, than by once dying, to be freed from all. Theombrotus Ambraciotes persuaded I know not how many hundreds of his auditors, by a luculent oration he made of the miseries of this, and happiness of that other life, to precipitate themselves. And having read Plato's divine tract de anima, for example's sake led the way first. That neat epigram of Callimachus will tell you as much, [2778]Jamque vale Soli cum diceret Ambrociotes, In Stygios fertur desiluisse lacus, Morte nihil dignum passus: sed forte Platonis Divini eximum de nece legit opus. [2779]Calenus and his Indians hated of old to die a natural death: the Circumcellians and Donatists, loathing life, compelled others to make them away, with many such: [2780]but these are false and pagan positions, profane stoical paradoxes, wicked examples, it boots not what heathen philosophers determine in this kind, they are impious, abominable, and upon a wrong ground. No evil is to be done that good may come of it; reclamat Christus, reclamat Scriptura, God, and all good men are [2781]against it: He that stabs another, can kill his body; but he that stabs himself, kills his own soul. [2782]Male meretur, qui dat mendico, quod edat; nam et illud quod dat, perit; et illi producit vitam ad miseriam: he that gives a beggar an alms (as that comical poet said) doth ill, because he doth but prolong his miseries. But Lactantius l. 6. c. 7. de vero cultu, calls it a detestable opinion, and fully confutes it, lib. 3. de sap. cap. 18. and S. Austin, epist. 52. ad Macedonium, cap. 61. ad Dulcitium Tribunum: so doth Hierom to Marcella of Blesilla's death, Non recipio tales animas, &c., he calls such men martyres stultae Philosophiae: so doth Cyprian de duplici martyrio; Si qui sic moriantur, aut infirmitas, aut ambitio, aut dementia cogit eos; 'tis mere madness so to do, [2783]furore est ne moriare mori. To this effect writes Arist. 3. Ethic. Lipsius Manuduc. ad Stoicam Philosophiaem lib. 3. dissertat. 23. but it needs no confutation. This only let me add, that in some cases, those [2784]hard censures of such as offer violence to their own persons, or in some desperate fit to others, which sometimes they do, by stabbing, slashing, &c. are to be mitigated, as in such as are mad, beside themselves for the time, or found to have been long melancholy, and that in extremity, they know not what they do, deprived of reason, judgment, all, [2785]as a ship that is void of a pilot, must needs impinge upon the next rock or sands, and suffer shipwreck. [2786]P. Forestus hath a story of two melancholy brethren, that made away themselves, and for so foul a fact, were accordingly censured to be infamously buried, as in such cases they use: to terrify others, as it did the Milesian virgins of old; but upon farther examination of their misery and madness, the censure was [2787]revoked, and they were solemnly interred, as Saul was by David, 2 Sam. ii. 4. and Seneca well adviseth, Irascere interfectori, sed miserere interfecti; be justly offended with him as he was a murderer, but pity him now as a dead man. Thus of their goods and bodies we can dispose; but what shall become of their souls, God alone can tell; his mercy may come inter pontem et fontem, inter gladium et jugulum, betwixt the bridge and the brook, the knife and the throat. Quod cuiquam contigit, quivis potest: Who knows how he may be tempted? It is his case, it may be thine: [2788]Quae sua sors hodie est, eras fore vestra potest. We ought not to be so rash and rigorous in our censures, as some are; charity will judge and hope the best: God be merciful unto us all.