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.

THE SYNOPSIS OF THE SECOND PARTITION.

Cure of melancholy is either

Sect 1. General to all, which contains

Unlawful means forbidden,

Memb. 1. From the devil, magicians, witches, &c., by charms, spells, incantations, &c.

Quest. 1. Whether they can cure this, or other such like diseases?

Quest. 2. Whether, if they can so cure, it be lawful to seek to them for help?

or Lawful means, which are

Memb. 2. Immediately from God, a Jove principium by prayer &c.

Memb. 3. Quest. 1. Whether saints and their relics can help this infirmity?

Quest. 2. Whether it be lawful to sue to them for aid.

or Memb. 4. Mediately by Nature which concerns and works by

Subsect. 1. Physician, in whom is required science, confidence, honesty, &c.

Subsect. 2. Patient, in whom is required obedience, constancy, willingness, patience, confidence, bounty, &c., not to practise on himself.

Subsect. 3. Physic, which consists of

Dietetical ♈

Pharmaceutical ♉

Chirurgical ♊

or Particular to the three distinct species, ♋ ♌ ♍

♈ Sect. 2. Dietetical, which consists in reforming those six non-natural things, as in

Diet rectified 1. Memb.

Matter and quality 1 Subs.

Such meats as are easy of digestion, well-dressed, hot, sod, &c., young, moist, of good nourishment, &c.

Bread of pure wheat, well-baked.

Water clear from the fountain.

Wine and drink not too strong, &c.

Flesh

Mountain birds, partridge, pheasant, quails, &c. Hen, capon, mutton, veal, kid, rabbit, &c.

Fish

That live in gravelly waters, as pike, perch, trout, sea-fish, solid, white, &c.

Herbs

Borage, bugloss, balm, succory, endive, violets, in broth, not raw, &c.

Fruits and roots.

Raisins of the sun, apples corrected for wind, oranges, &c., parsnips, potatoes, &c.

or Subs. 2. Quantity.

At seasonable and unusual times of repast, in good order, not before the first be concocted, sparing, not overmuch of one dish.

Memb. 2. Rectification of retention and evacuation, as costiveness, venery, bleeding at nose, months stopped, baths, &c.

Memb. 3. Air rectified, with a digression of the air

Naturally in the choice and site of our country, dwelling-place, to be hot and moist, light, wholesome, pleasant &c.

Artificially, by often change of air, avoiding winds, fogs, tempests, opening windows, perfumes, &c.

Memb. 4. Exercise

Of body and mind, but moderate, as hawking, hunting, riding, shooting, bowling, fishing, fowling, walking in fair fields, galleries, tennis, bar.

Of mind, as chess, cards, tables &c., to see plays, masks, &c., serious studies, business, all honest recreations.

Memb. 5. Rectification of waking and terrible dreams, &c.

Memb. 6. Rectification of passions and perturbations of the mind. ♎

Memb. 6. Passions and perturbations of the mind rectified.

From himself

Subsect. 1. By using all good means of help, confessing to a friend, &c.

Avoiding all occasions of his infirmity.

Not giving way to passions, but resisting to his utmost.

or from his friends.

Subsect. 2. By fair and foul means, counsel, comfort, good persuasion, witty devices, fictions, and, if it be possible, to satisfy his mind.

Subsect. 3. Music of all sorts aptly applied.

Subsect. 4. Mirth and merry company. Sect. 3. A consolatory digression, containing remedies to all discontents and passions of the mind.

Memb. 1. General discontents and grievances satisfied.

Memb. 2. Particular discontents, as deformity of body, sickness, baseness of birth, &c.

Memb. 3. Poverty and want, such calamites and adversities.

Memb. 4. Against servitude, loss of liberty, imprisonment, banishment, &c.

Memb. 5. Against vain fears, sorrows for death of friends, or otherwise.

Memb. 6. Against envy, livor, hatred, malice, emulation, ambition, and self-love, &c.

Memb. 7. Against repulses, abuses, injuries, contempts, disgraces, contumelies, slanders, and scoffs, &c.

Memb. 8. Against all other grievous and ordinary symptoms of this disease of melancholy.

♉ Sect. 4. Pharmaceutics, or Physic which cureth with medicines, with a digression of this kind of physic, is either Memb. 1. Subsect. 1.

General to all

Alterative

Simples altering melancholy, with a digression of exotic simples 2. Subs.

Herbs. 3. Subs.

To the heart; borage, bugloss, scorzonera, &c.

To the head; balm, hops, nenuphar, &c.

Liver; eupatory, artemisia, &c.

Stomach; wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal.

Spleen; ceterache, ash, tamarisk.

To Purify the blood; endive, succory, &c.

Against wind; origan, fennel, aniseed, &c.

4. Subs Precious stones; as smaragdes, chelidonies, &c. Minerals;

or compounds altering melancholy, with a digression of compounds. 5. Subs.

Inwardly taken

Liquid

fluid

Wines; as of hellebore, bugloss, tamarisk, &c.

Syrups of borage, bugloss, hops, epithyme, endive, succory, &c.

or consisting.

Conserves of violets, maidenhair, borage, bugloss, roses, &c.

Confections; treacle, mithridate, eclegms or linctures.

or solid, as those aromatical confections.

hot

Diambra, dianthos.

Diamargaritum calidum.

Diamoscum dulce.

Electuarium de gemmis.

Laetificans Galeni et Rhasis.

or cold

Diamargaritum frigidum.

Diarrhodon abbatis.

Diacorolli, diacodium with their tables.

Condites of all sorts, &c.

or Outwardly used, as

Oils of camomile, violets, roses, &c.

Ointments, alablastritum, populeum, &c.

Liniments, plasters, cerotes, cataplasms, frontals, fomentations, epithymes, sacks, bags, odoraments, posies, &c.

or Purging ☾

or Particular to three distinct species, ♋ ♌ ♍.

Medicines purging melancholy are either Memb. 2.

Simples purging melancholy

1. Subs. Upward, as vomits

Asrabecca, laurel, white hellebore, scilla, or sea-onion, antimony, tobacco

or Downward. 2. Subs.

More gentle; as senna, epithyme, polypody, mirobalanes, fumitory, &c.

Stronger; aloes, lapis Armenus, lapis lazuli, black hellebore.

or 3. Subs. Compounds purging melancholy

Superior parts

Mouth

swallowed

Liquid, as potions, juleps, syrups, wine of hellebore, bugloss, &c.

Solid, as lapis Armenus, and lazuli, pills of Indie, pills of fumitory, &c.

Electuaries, diasena, confection of hamech, hierologladium, &c.

or Not swallowed, as gargarisms, masticatories, &c.

or Nostrils, sneezing powders, odoraments, perfumes, &c.

or Inferior parts, as clysters strong and weak, and suppositories of Castilian soap, honey boiled, &c.

♊ Chirurgical physic, which consists of Memb. 3.

Phlebotomy, to all parts almost, and all the distinct species.

With knife, horseleeches.

Cupping-glasses.

Cauteries, and searing with hot irons, boring.

Dropax and sinapismus.

Issues to several parts, and upon several occasions.

♋ Sect. 5. Cure of head-melancholy. Memb. 1.

1. Subsect. Moderate diet, meat of good juice, moistening, easy of digestion.

Good air.

Sleep more than ordinary.

Excrements daily to be voided by art or nature.

Exercise of body and mind not too violent, or too remiss, passions of the mind, and perturbations to be avoided.

Subsect. 2. Bloodletting, if there be need, or that the blood be corrupt, in the arm, forehead, &c., or with cupping-glasses.

Subsect. 3. Preparatives and purgers.

Preparatives; as syrup of borage, bugloss, epithyme, hops, with their distilled waters, &c.

Purgers; as Montanus, and Matthiolus _helleborismus, Quercetanus_, syrup of hellebore, extract of hellebore, pulvis Hali, antimony prepared, _Rulandi aqua mirabilis_; which are used, if gentler medicines will not take place, with Arnoldus, _vinum buglossatum_, senna, cassia, mirobalanes, _aurum potabile_, or before Hamech, Pil. Indae, Hiera, Pil. de lap. Armeno, lazuli.

Subsect. 4. Averters.

Cardan's nettles, frictions, clysters, suppositories, sneezings, masticatories, nasals, cupping-glasses.

To open the haemorrhoids with horseleeches, to apply horseleeches to the forehead without scarification, to the shoulders, thighs.

Issues, boring, cauteries, hot irons in the suture of the crown.

Subsect. 5. Cordials, resolvers, hinderers.

A cup of wine or strong drink.

Bezars stone, amber, spice.

Conserves of borage, bugloss, roses, fumitory.

Confection of Alchermes.

_Electuarium laetificans Galeni et Rhasis_, &c.

_Diamargaritum frig. diaboraginatum_, &c.

Subsect. 6. Correctors of accidents, as,

Odoraments of roses, violets.

Irrigations of the head, with the decoctions of nymphea, lettuce, mallows, &c.

Epithymes, ointments, bags to the heart.

Fomentations of oil for the belly.

Baths of sweet water, in which were sod mallows, violets, roses, water-lilies, borage flowers, ramsheads, &c.

To procure sleep, and are

Inwardly taken,

Simples

Poppy, nymphea, lettuce, roses, purslane, henbane, mandrake, nightshade, opium, &c.

or Compounds.

Liquid, as syrups of poppy, verbasco, violets, roses.

Solid, as _requies Nicholai, Philonium, Romanum, Laudanum Paracelsi_.

or Outwardly used, as

Oil of nymphea, poppy, violets, roses, mandrake, nutmegs.

Odoraments of vinegar, rosewater, opium.

Frontals of rose-cake, rose-vinegar, nutmeg.

Ointments, alablastritum, unguentum populeum, simple or mixed with opium.

Irrigations of the head, feet, sponges, music, murmur and noise of waters.

Frictions of the head and outward parts, sacculi of henbane, wormwood at his pillow, &c.

Against terrible dreams; not to sup late, or eat peas, cabbage, venison, meats heavy of digestion, use balm, hart's-tongue, &c.

Against ruddiness and blushing, inward and outward remedies.

♌ 2. Memb. Cure of melancholy over the body.

Diet, preparatives, purges, averters, cordials, correctors, as before.

Phlebotomy in this kind more necessary, and more frequent.

To correct and cleanse the blood with fumitory, senna, succory, dandelion, endive, &c.

♍ Cure of hypochondriacal or windy melancholy. 3. Memb.

Subsect. 1 Phlebotomy, if need require.

Diet, preparatives, averters, cordials, purgers, as before, saving that they must not be so vehement.

Use of pennyroyal, wormwood, centaury sod, which alone hath cured many.

To provoke urine with aniseed, daucus, asarum, &c., and stools, if need be, by clysters and suppositories.

To respect the spleen, stomach, liver, hypochondries.

To use treacle now and then in winter.

To vomit after meals sometimes, if it be inveterate.

Subsect. 2. To expel wind.

Inwardly Taken,

Simples,

Roots,

Galanga, gentian, enula, angelica, calamus aromaticus, zedoary, china, condite ginger, &c.

Herbs,

Pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay leaves, and berries, scordium, bethany, lavender, camomile, centaury, wormwood, cumin, broom, orange pills.

Spices,

Saffron, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, pepper, musk, zedoary with wine, &c.

Seeds,

Aniseed, fennel-seed, ammi, cary, cumin, nettle, bays, parsley, grana paradisi.

or Compounds, as

Dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, diacalaminthes, electuarium de baccis lauri, benedicta laxativa, &c. pulvia carminativus, and pulvis descrip. Antidotario Florentine, aromaticum, rosatum, Mithridate.

or Outwardly used, as cupping-glasses to the hypochonries without scarification, oil of camomile, rue, aniseed, their decoctions, &c.

THE SECOND PARTITION.

THE CURE OF MELANCHOLY.

THE FIRST SECTION, MEMBER, SUBSECTION.

_Unlawful Cures rejected_.

Inveterate Melancholy, howsoever it may seem to be a continuate, inexorable disease, hard to be cured, accompanying them to their graves, most part, as [2789]Montanus observes, yet many times it may be helped, even that which is most violent, or at least, according to the same [2790]author, it may be mitigated and much eased. Nil desperandum. It may be hard to cure, but not impossible for him that is most grievously affected, if he but willing to be helped. Upon this good hope I will proceed, using the same method in the cure, which I have formerly used in the rehearsing of the causes; first general, then particular; and those according to their several species. Of these cures some be lawful, some again unlawful, which though frequent, familiar, and often used, yet justly censured, and to be controverted. As first, whether by these diabolical means, which are commonly practised by the devil and his ministers, sorcerers, witches, magicians, &c., by spells, cabilistical words, charms, characters, images, amulets, ligatures, philters, incantations, &c., this disease and the like may be cured? and if they may, whether it be lawful to make use of them, those magnetical cures, or for our good to seek after such means in any case? The first, whether they can do any such cures, is questioned amongst many writers, some affirming, some denying. Valesius, cont. med. lib. 5. cap. 6. Malleus Maleficar, Heurnius, lib. 3. pract. med. cap. 28. Caelius lib. 16. c. 16. Delrio Tom. 3. Wierus lib. 2. de praestig. daem. Libanius Lavater de spect. part. 2. cap. 7. Holbrenner the Lutheran in Pistorium, Polydore Virg. l. 1. de prodig. Tandlerus, Lemnius, (Hippocrates and Avicenna amongst the rest) deny that spirits or devils have any power over us, and refer all with Pomponatius of Padua to natural causes and humours. Of the other opinion are Bodinus Daemonamantiae, lib. 3, cap. 2. Arnoldus, Marcellus Empyricus, I. Pistorius, Paracelsus Apodix. Magic. Agrippa lib. 2. de occult. Philos. cap. 36. 69. 71. 72. et l. 3, c. 23, et 10. Marcilius Ficinus de vit. coelit. compar. cap. 13. 15. 18. 21. &c. Galeottus de promiscua doct. cap. 24. Jovianus Pontanus Tom. 2. Plin. lib. 28, c. 2. Strabo, lib. 15. Geog. Leo Suavius: Goclenius de ung. armar. Oswoldus Crollius, Ernestus Burgravius, Dr. Flud, &c. Cardan de subt. brings many proofs out of Ars Notoria, and Solomon's decayed works, old Hermes, Artefius, Costaben Luca, Picatrix, &c. that such cures may be done. They can make fire it shall not burn, fetch back thieves or stolen goods, show their absent faces in a glass, make serpents lie still, stanch blood, salve gouts, epilepsies, biting of mad dogs, toothache, melancholy, et omnia mundi mala, make men immortal, young again as the [2791]Spanish marquis is said to have done by one of his slaves, and some, which jugglers in [2792]China maintain still (as Tragaltius writes) that they can do by their extraordinary skill in physic, and some of our modern chemists by their strange limbecks, by their spells, philosopher's stones and charms. [2793]Many doubt, saith Nicholas Taurellus, whether the devil can cure such diseases he hath not made, and some flatly deny it, howsoever common experience confirms to our astonishment, that magicians can work such feats, and that the devil without impediment can penetrate through all the parts of our bodies, and cure such maladies by means to us unknown. Daneus in his tract de Sortiariis subscribes to this of Taurellus; Erastus de lamiis, maintaineth as much, and so do most divines, out of their excellent knowledge and long experience they can commit [2794]agentes cum patientibus, colligere semina rerum, eaque materiae applicare, as Austin infers de Civ. Dei et de Trinit. lib. 3. cap. 7. et 8. they can work stupendous and admirable conclusions; we see the effects only, but not the causes of them. Nothing so familiar as to hear of such cures. Sorcerers are too common; cunning men, wizards, and white-witches, as they call them, in every village, which if they be sought unto, will help almost all infirmities of body and mind, Servatores in Latin, and they have commonly St. Catherine's wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some other part about them, resistunt incantatorum praestigiis ([2795]Boissardus writes) morbos a sagis motos propulsant &c., that to doubt of it any longer, [2796]or not to believe, were to run into that other sceptical extreme of incredulity, saith Taurellus. Leo Suavius in his comment upon Paracelsus seems to make it an art, which ought to be approved; Pistorius and others stiffly maintain the use of charms, words, characters, &c. Ars vera est, sed pauci artifices reperiuntur; the art is true, but there be but a few that have skill in it. Marcellius Donatus lib. 2. de hist, mir. cap. 1. proves out of Josephus' eight books of antiquities, that [2797]Solomon so cured all the diseases of the mind by spells, charms, and drove away devils, and that Eleazer did as much before Vespasian. Langius in his med. epist. holds Jupiter Menecrates, that did so many stupendous cures in his time, to have used this art, and that he was no other than a magician. Many famous cures are daily done in this kind, the devil is an expert physician, as Godelman calls him, lib. 1. cap. 18. and God permits oftentimes these witches and magicians to produce such effects, as Lavater cap. 3. lib. 8. part. 3. cap. 1. Polid. Virg. lib. 1. de prodigiis, Delrio and others admit. Such cures may be done, and as Paracels. Tom. 4. de morb. ament. stiffly maintains, [2798]they cannot otherwise be cured but by spells, seals, and spiritual physic. [2799]Arnoldus, lib. de sigillis, sets down the making of them, so doth Rulandus and many others. Hoc posito, they can effect such cures, the main question is, whether it be lawful in a desperate case to crave their help, or ask a wizard's advice. 'Tis a common practice of some men to go first to a witch, and then to a physician, if one cannot the other shall, Flectere si nequeant superos Acheronta movebunt. [2800]It matters not, saith Paracelsus, whether it be God or the devil, angels, or unclean spirits cure him, so that he be eased. If a man fall into a ditch, as he prosecutes it, what matter is it whether a friend or an enemy help him out? and if I be troubled with such a malady, what care I whether the devil himself, or any of his ministers by God's permission, redeem me? He calls a [2801] magician, God's minister and his vicar, applying that of vos estis dii profanely to them, for which he is lashed by T. Erastus part. 1. fol. 45. And elsewhere he encourageth his patients to have a good faith, [2802] a strong imagination, and they shall find the effects: let divines say to the contrary what they will. He proves and contends that many diseases cannot otherwise be cured. Incantatione orti incantatione curari debent; if they be caused by incantation, [2803]they must be cured by incantation. Constantinus lib. 4. approves of such remedies: Bartolus the lawyer, Peter Aerodius rerum Judic. lib. 3. tit. 7. Salicetus Godefridus, with others of that sect, allow of them; modo sint ad sanitatem quae a magis fiunt, secus non, so they be for the parties good, or not at all. But these men are confuted by Remigius, Bodinus, daem. lib. 3. cap 2. Godelmanus lib. 1. cap. 8, Wierus, Delrio lib. 6. quaest. 2. tom. 3. mag. inquis. Erastus de Lamiis; all our [2804]divines, schoolmen, and such as write cases of conscience are against it, the scripture itself absolutely forbids it as a mortal sin, Levit. cap. xviii. xix. xx. Deut. xviii. &c. Rom. viii. 19. Evil is not to be done, that good may come of it. Much better it were for such patients that are so troubled, to endure a little misery in this life, than to hazard their souls' health for ever, and as Delrio counselleth, [2805]much better die, than be so cured. Some take upon them to expel devils by natural remedies, and magical exorcisms, which they seem to approve out of the practice of the primitive church, as that above cited of Josephus, Eleazer, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Austin. Eusebius makes mention of such, and magic itself hath been publicly professed in some universities, as of old in Salamanca in Spain, and Krakow in Poland: but condemned anno 1318, by the chancellor and university of [2806]Paris. Our pontifical writers retain many of these adjurations and forms of exorcisms still in the church; besides those in baptism used, they exorcise meats, and such as are possessed, as they hold, in Christ's name. Read Hieron. Mengus cap. 3. Pet. Tyreus, part. 3. cap. 8. What exorcisms they prescribe, besides those ordinary means of [2807]fire suffumigations, lights, cutting the air with swords, cap. 57. herbs, odours: of which Tostatus treats, 2. Reg. cap. 16. quaest. 43, you shall find many vain and frivolous superstitious forms of exorcisms among them, not to be tolerated, or endured.

MEMB. II.

_Lawful Cures, first from God_.

Being so clearly evinced, as it is, all unlawful cures are to be refused, it remains to treat of such as are to be admitted, and those are commonly such which God hath appointed, [2808]by virtue of stones, herbs, plants, meats, and the like, which are prepared and applied to our use, by art and industry of physicians, who are the dispensers of such treasures for our good, and to be [2809]honoured for necessities' sake, God's intermediate ministers, to whom in our infirmities we are to seek for help. Yet not so that we rely too much, or wholly upon them: a Jove principium, we must first begin with [2810]prayer, and then use physic; not one without the other, but both together. To pray alone, and reject ordinary means, is to do like him in Aesop, that when his cart was stalled, lay flat on his back, and cried aloud help Hercules, but that was to little purpose, except as his friend advised him, rotis tute ipse annitaris, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel. God works by means, as Christ cured the blind man with clay and spittle: Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. As we must pray for health of body and mind, so we must use our utmost endeavours to preserve and continue it. Some kind of devils are not cast out but by fasting and prayer, and both necessarily required, not one without the other. For all the physic we can use, art, excellent industry, is to no purpose without calling upon God, nil juvat immensos Cratero promittere montes: it is in vain to seek for help, run, ride, except God bless us. [2811]———non Siculi dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem. Non animum cytheraeve cantus.

[2812]Non domus et fundus, non aeris acervus et auri Aegroto possunt domino deducere febres.

[2813]With house, with land, with money, and with gold, The master's fever will not be controll'd.

We must use our prayer and physic both together: and so no doubt but our prayers will be available, and our physic take effect. 'Tis that Hezekiah practised, 2 King. xx. Luke the Evangelist: and which we are enjoined, Coloss. iv. not the patient only, but the physician himself. Hippocrates, a heathen, required this in a good practitioner, and so did Galen, lib. de Plat. et Hipp. dog. lib. 9. cap. 15. and in that tract of his, an mores sequantur temp. cor. ca. 11.. 'tis a rule which he doth inculcate, [2814] and many others. Hyperius in his first book de sacr. script. lect. speaking of that happiness and good success which all physicians desire and hope for in their cures, [2815]tells them that it is not to be expected, except with a true faith they call upon God, and teach their patients to do the like. The council of Lateran, Canon 22. decreed they should do so: the fathers of the church have still advised as much: whatsoever thou takest in hand (saith [2816]Gregory) let God be of thy counsel, consult with him; that healeth those that are broken in heart, (Psal. cxlvii. 3.) and bindeth up their sores. Otherwise as the prophet Jeremiah, cap. xlvi. 11. denounced to Egypt, In vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt have no health. It is the same counsel which [2817]Comineus that politic historiographer gives to all Christian princes, upon occasion of that unhappy overthrow of Charles Duke of Burgundy, by means of which he was extremely melancholy, and sick to death: insomuch that neither physic nor persuasion could do him any good, perceiving his preposterous error belike, adviseth all great men in such cases, [2818]to pray first to God with all submission and penitency, to confess their sins, and then to use physic. The very same fault it was, which the prophet reprehends in Asa king of Judah, that he relied more on physic than on God, and by all means would have him to amend it. And 'tis a fit caution to be observed of all other sorts of men. The prophet David was so observant of this precept, that in his greatest misery and vexation of mind, he put this rule first in practice. Psal. lxxvii. 3. When I am in heaviness, I will think on God. Psal. lxxxvi. 4. Comfort the soul of thy servant, for unto thee I lift up my soul: and verse 7. In the day of trouble will I call upon thee, for thou hearest me. Psal. liv. 1. Save me, O God, by thy name, &c. Psal. lxxxii. Psal. xx. And 'tis the common practice of all good men, Psal. cvii. 13. when their heart was humbled with heaviness, they cried to the Lord in their troubles, and he delivered them from their distress. And they have found good success in so doing, as David confesseth, Psal. xxx. 12. Thou hast turned my mourning into joy, thou hast loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness. Therefore he adviseth all others to do the like, Psal. xxxi. 24. All ye that trust in the Lord, be strong, and he shall establish your heart. It is reported by [2819]Suidas, speaking of Hezekiah, that there was a great book of old, of King Solomon's writing, which contained medicines for all manner of diseases, and lay open still as they came into the temple: but Hezekiah king of Jerusalem, caused it to be taken away, because it made the people secure, to neglect their duty in calling and relying upon God, out of a confidence on those remedies. [2820]Minutius that worthy consul of Rome in an oration he made to his soldiers, was much offended with them, and taxed their ignorance, that in their misery called more on him than upon God. A general fault it is all over the world, and Minutius's speech concerns us all, we rely more on physic, and seek oftener to physicians, than to God himself. As much faulty are they that prescribe, as they that ask, respecting wholly their gain, and trusting more to their ordinary receipts and medicines many times, than to him that made them. I would wish all patients in this behalf, in the midst of their melancholy, to remember that of Siracides, Ecc. i. 11. and 12. The fear of the Lord is glory and gladness, and rejoicing. The fear of the Lord maketh a merry heart, and giveth gladness, and joy, and long life: and all such as prescribe physic, to begin in nomine Dei, as [2821]Mesue did, to imitate Laelius a Fonte Eugubinus, that in all his consultations, still concludes with a prayer for the good success of his business; and to remember that of Creto one of their predecessors, fuge avaritiam, et sine oratione et invocations Dei nihil facias avoid covetousness, and do nothing without invocation upon God.

MEMB. III.

_Whether it be lawful to seek to Saints for Aid in this Disease_.

That we must pray to God, no man doubts; but whether we should pray to saints in such cases, or whether they can do us any good, it may be lawfully controverted. Whether their images, shrines, relics, consecrated things, holy water, medals, benedictions, those divine amulets, holy exorcisms, and the sign of the cross, be available in this disease? The papists on the one side stiffly maintain how many melancholy, mad, demoniacal persons are daily cured at St. Anthony's Church in Padua, at St. Vitus' in Germany, by our Lady of Loretto in Italy, our Lady of Sichem in the Low Countries: [2822]Quae et caecis lumen, aegris salutem, mortuis vitam, claudis gressum reddit, omnes morbos corporis, animi, curat, et in ipsos daemones imperium exercet; she cures halt, lame, blind, all diseases of body and mind, and commands the devil himself, saith Lipsius. twenty-five thousand in a day come thither, [2823]quis nisi numen in illum locum sic induxit; who brought them? in auribus, in oculis omnium gesta, novae novitia; new news lately done, our eyes and ears are full of her cures, and who can relate them all? They have a proper saint almost for every peculiar infirmity: for poison, gouts, agues, Petronella: St. Romanus for such as are possessed; Valentine for the falling sickness; St. Vitus for madmen, &c. and as of old [2824]Pliny reckons up Gods for all diseases, (Febri fanum dicalum est) Lilius Giraldus repeats many of her ceremonies: all affections of the mind were heretofore accounted gods, [2825]love, and sorrow, virtue, honour, liberty, contumely, impudency, had their temples, tempests, seasons, Crepitus Ventris, dea Vacuna, dea Cloacina, there was a goddess of idleness, a goddess of the draught, or jakes, Prema, Premunda, Priapus, bawdy gods, and gods for all [2826] offices. Varro reckons up 30,000 gods: Lucian makes Podagra the gout a goddess, and assigns her priests and ministers: and melancholy comes not behind; for as Austin mentioneth, lib. 4. de Civit. Dei, cap. 9. there was of old Angerona dea, and she had her chapel and feasts, to whom (saith [2827]Macrobius) they did offer sacrifice yearly, that she might be pacified as well as the rest. 'Tis no new thing, you see this of papists; and in my judgment, that old doting Lipsius might have fitter dedicated his [2828]pen after all his labours, to this our goddess of melancholy, than to his Virgo Halensis, and been her chaplain, it would have become him better: but he, poor man, thought no harm in that which he did, and will not be persuaded but that he doth well, he hath so many patrons, and honourable precedents in the like kind, that justify as much, as eagerly, and more than he there saith of his lady and mistress: read but superstitious Coster and Gretser's Tract de Cruce, Laur. Arcturus Fanteus de Invoc. Sanct. Bellarmine, Delrio dis. mag. tom. 3. l. 6. quaest. 2. sect. 3. Greg. Tolosanus tom. 2. lib. 8. cap. 24. Syntax. Strozius Cicogna lib. 4. cap. 9. Tyreus, Hieronymus Mengus, and you shall find infinite examples of cures done in this kind, by holy waters, relics, crosses, exorcisms, amulets, images, consecrated beads, &c. Barradius the Jesuit boldly gives it out, that Christ's countenance, and the Virgin Mary's, would cure melancholy, if one had looked steadfastly on them. P. Morales the Spaniard in his book de pulch. Jes. et Mar. confirms the same out of Carthusianus, and I know not whom, that it was a common proverb in those days, for such as were troubled in mind to say, eamus ad videndum filium Mariae, let us see the son of Mary, as they now do post to St. Anthony's in Padua, or to St. Hilary's at Poitiers in France. [2829] In a closet of that church, there is at this day St. Hilary's bed to be seen, to which they bring all the madmen in the country, and after some prayers and other ceremonies, they lay them down there to sleep, and so they recover. It is an ordinary thing in those parts, to send all their madmen to St. Hilary's cradle. They say the like of St. Tubery in [2830] another place. Giraldus Cambrensis Itin. Camb. c. 1. tells strange stories of St. Ciricius' staff, that would cure this and all other diseases. Others say as much (as [2831]Hospinian observes) of the three kings of Cologne; their names written in parchment, and hung about a patient's neck, with the sign of the cross, will produce like effects. Read Lippomanus, or that golden legend of Jacobus de Voragine, you shall have infinite stories, or those new relations of our [2832]Jesuits in Japan and China, of Mat. Riccius, Acosta, Loyola, Xaverius's life, &c. Jasper Belga, a Jesuit, cured a mad woman by hanging St. John's gospel about her neck, and many such. Holy water did as much in Japan, &c. Nothing so familiar in their works, as such examples. But we on the other side seek to God alone. We say with David, Psal. xlvi. 1. God is our hope and strength, and help in trouble, ready to be found. For their catalogue of examples, we make no other answer, but that they are false fictions, or diabolical illusions, counterfeit miracles. We cannot deny but that it is an ordinary thing on St. Anthony's day in Padua, to bring diverse madmen and demoniacal persons to be cured: yet we make a doubt whether such parties be so affected indeed, but prepared by their priests, by certain ointments and drams, to cozen the commonalty, as [2833] Hildesheim well saith; the like is commonly practised in Bohemia as Mathiolus gives us to understand in his preface to his comment upon Dioscorides. But we need not run so far for examples in this kind, we have a just volume published at home to this purpose. [2834]A declaration of egregious popish impostures, to withdraw the hearts of religious men under the pretence of casting out of devils, practised by Father Edmunds, alias Weston, a Jesuit, and divers Romish priests, his wicked associates, with the several parties' names, confessions, examinations, &c. which were pretended to be possessed. But these are ordinary tricks only to get opinion and money, mere impostures. Aesculapius of old, that counterfeit God, did as many famous cures; his temple (as [2835]Strabo relates) was daily full of patients, and as many several tables, inscriptions, pendants, donories, &c. to be seen in his church, as at this day our Lady of Loretto's in Italy. It was a custom long since, ———suspendisse potenti Vestimenta maris deo.[2836] Hor. Od. 1. lib. 5. Od.

To do the like, in former times they were seduced and deluded as they are now. 'Tis the same devil still, called heretofore Apollo, Mars, Neptune, Venus, Aesculapius, &c. as [2837]Lactantius lib. 2. de orig. erroris, c. 17. observes. The same Jupiter and those bad angels are now worshipped and adored by the name of St. Sebastian, Barbara, &c. Christopher and George are come in their places. Our lady succeeds Venus (as they use her in many offices), the rest are otherwise supplied, as [2838]Lavater writes, and so they are deluded. [2839]And God often winks at these impostures, because they forsake his word, and betake themselves to the devil, as they do that seek after holy water, crosses, &c. Wierus, lib. 4. cap. 3. What can these men plead for themselves more than those heathen gods, the same cures done by both, the same spirit that seduceth; but read more of the Pagan god's effects in Austin de Civitate Dei, l. 10. cap. 6. and of Aesculapius especially in Cicogna l. 3. cap. 8. or put case they could help, why should we rather seek to them, than to Christ himself, since that he so kindly invites us unto him, Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I will ease you, Mat. xi. and we know that there is one God, one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ, (1 Tim. ii. 5) who gave himself a ransom for all men. We know that we have an [2840] advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ (1 Joh. ii. 1.) that there is no other name under heaven, by which we can be saved, but by his, who is always ready to hear us, and sits at the right hand of God, and from [2841] whom we can have no repulse, solus vult, solus potest, curat universos tanquam singulos, et [2842]unumquemque nostrum et solum, we are all as one to him, he cares for us all as one, and why should we then seek to any other but to him.

MEMB. IV.

SUBSECT. I.—_Physician, Patient, Physic_.

Of those diverse gifts which our apostle Paul saith God hath bestowed on man, this of physic is not the least, but most necessary, and especially conducing to the good of mankind. Next therefore to God in all our extremities (for of the most high cometh healing, Ecclus. xxxviii. 2.) we must seek to, and rely upon the Physician, [2843]who is Manus Dei, saith Hierophilus, and to whom he hath given knowledge, that he might be glorified in his wondrous works. With such doth he heal men, and take away their pains, Ecclus. xxxviii. 6. 7. when thou hast need of him, let him not go from thee. The hour may come that their enterprises may have good success, ver. 13. It is not therefore to be doubted, that if we seek a physician as we ought, we may be eased of our infirmities, such a one I mean as is sufficient, and worthily so called; for there be many mountebanks, quacksalvers, empirics, in every street almost, and in every village, that take upon them this name, make this noble and profitable art to be evil spoken of and contemned, by reason of these base and illiterate artificers: but such a physician I speak of, as is approved, learned, skilful, honest, &c., of whose duty Wecker, Antid. cap. 2. and Syntax. med. Crato, Julius Alexandrinus medic. Heurnius prax. med. lib. 3. cap. 1. &c. treat at large. For this

## particular disease, him that shall take upon him to cure it,

[2844]Paracelsus will have to be a magician, a chemist, a philosopher, an astrologer; Thurnesserus, Severinus the Dane, and some other of his followers, require as much: many of them cannot be cured but by magic. [2845]Paracelsus is so stiff for those chemical medicines, that in his cures he will admit almost of no other physic, deriding in the mean time Hippocrates, Galen, and all their followers: but magic, and all such remedies I have already censured, and shall speak of chemistry [2846]elsewhere. Astrology is required by many famous physicians, by Ficinus, Crato, Fernelius; [2847]doubted of, and exploded by others: I will not take upon me to decide the controversy myself, Johannes Hossurtus, Thomas Boderius, and Maginus in the preface to his mathematical physic, shall determine for me. Many physicians explode astrology in physic (saith he), there is no use of it, unam artem ac quasi temerarium insectantur, ac gloriam sibi ab ejus imperitia, aucupari: but I will reprove physicians by physicians, that defend and profess it, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicen. &c., that count them butchers without it, homicidas medicos Astrologiae ignaros, &c. Paracelsus goes farther, and will have his physician [2848]predestinated to this man's cure, this malady; and time of cure, the scheme of each geniture inspected, gathering of herbs, of administering astrologically observed; in which Thurnesserus and some iatromathematical professors, are too superstitious in my judgment. [2849]Hellebore will help, but not alway, not given by every physician, &c. but these men are too peremptory and self-conceited as I think. But what do I do, interposing in that which is beyond my reach? A blind man cannot judge of colours, nor I peradventure of these things. Only thus much I would require, honesty in every physician, that he be not over-careless or covetous, harpy-like to make a prey of his patient; Carnificis namque est (as [2850]Wecker notes) inter ipsos cruciatus ingens precium exposcere, as a hungry chirurgeon often produces and wire-draws his cure, so long as there is any hope of pay, Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirudo. [2851]Many of them, to get a fee, will give physic to every one that comes, when there is no cause, and they do so irritare silentem morbum, as [2852]Heurnius complains, stir up a silent disease, as it often falleth out, which by good counsel, good advice alone, might have been happily composed, or by rectification of those six non-natural things otherwise cured. This is Naturae bellum inferre, to oppugn nature, and to make a strong body weak. Arnoldus in his 8 and 11 Aphorisms gives cautions against, and expressly forbiddeth it. [2853]A wise physician will not give physic, but upon necessity, and first try medicinal diet, before he proceed to medicinal cure. [2854]In another place he laughs those men to scorn, that think longis syrupis expugnare daemones et animi phantasmata, they can purge fantastical imaginations and the devil by physic. Another caution is, that they proceed upon good grounds, if so be there be need of physic, and not mistake the disease; they are often deceived by the [2855]similitude of symptoms, saith Heurnius, and I could give instance in many consultations, wherein they have prescribed opposite physic. Sometimes they go too perfunctorily to work, in not prescribing a just [2856]course of physic: To stir up the humour, and not to purge it, doth often more harm than good. Montanus consil. 30. inveighs against such perturbations, that purge to the halves, tire nature, and molest the body to no purpose. 'Tis a crabbed humour to purge, and as Laurentius calls this disease, the reproach of physicians: Bessardus, flagellum medicorum, their lash; and for that cause, more carefully to be respected. Though the patient be averse, saith Laurentius, desire help, and refuse it again, though he neglect his own health, it behoves a good physician not to leave him helpless. But most part they offend in that other extreme, they prescribe too much physic, and tire out their bodies with continual potions, to no purpose. Aetius tetrabib. 2. 2. ser. cap. 90. will have them by all means therefore [2857]to give some respite to nature, to leave off now and then; and Laelius a Fonte Eugubinus in his consultations, found it (as he there witnesseth) often verified by experience, [2858]that after a deal of physic to no purpose, left to themselves, they have recovered. 'Tis that which Nic. Piso, Donatus Altomarus, still inculcate, dare requiem naturae, to give nature rest.

SUBSECT. II.—_Concerning the Patient_.

When these precedent cautions are accurately kept, and that we have now got a skilful, an honest physician to our mind, if his patient will not be conformable, and content to be ruled by him, all his endeavours will come to no good end. Many things are necessarily to be observed and continued on the patient's behalf: First that he be not too niggardly miserable of his purse, or think it too much he bestows upon himself, and to save charges endanger his health. The Abderites, when they sent for [2859]Hippocrates, promised him what reward he would, [2860]all the gold they had, if all the city were gold he should have it. Naaman the Syrian, when he went into Israel to Elisha to be cured of his leprosy, took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment, (2 Kings v. 5.) Another thing is, that out of bashfulness he do not conceal his grief; if aught trouble his mind, let him freely disclose it, Stultorum incurata pudor malus ulcera celat: by that means he procures to himself much mischief, and runs into a greater inconvenience: he must be willing to be cured, and earnestly desire it. Pars sanitatis velle sanare fuit, (Seneca). 'Tis a part of his cure to wish his own health, and not to defer it too long. [2861]Qui blandiendo dulce nutrivit malum, Soro recusat ferre quod subiit jugum.

He that by cherishing a mischief doth provoke, Too late at last refuseth to cast off his yoke,

[2862]Helleborum frustra cum jam cutis aegra tumebit, Poscentes videas; venienti occurrite morbo.

When the skin swells, to seek it to appease With hellebore, is vain; meet your disease.

By this means many times, or through their ignorance in not taking notice of their grievance and danger of it, contempt, supine negligence, extenuation, wretchedness and peevishness; they undo themselves. The citizens, I know not of what city now, when rumour was brought their enemies were coming, could not abide to hear it; and when the plague begins in many places and they certainly know it, they command silence and hush it up; but after they see their foes now marching to their gates, and ready to surprise them, they begin to fortify and resist when 'tis too late; when, the sickness breaks out and can be no longer concealed, then they lament their supine negligence: 'tis no otherwise with these men. And often out of prejudice, a loathing, and distaste of physic, they had rather die, or do worse, than take any of it. Barbarous immanity ([2863]Melancthon terms it) and folly to be deplored, so to contemn the precepts of health, good remedies, and voluntarily to pull death, and many maladies upon their own heads. Though many again are in that other extreme too profuse, suspicious, and jealous of their health, too apt to take physic on every small occasion, to aggravate every slender passion, imperfection, impediment: if their finger do but ache, run, ride, send for a physician, as many gentlewomen do, that are sick, without a cause, even when they will themselves, upon every toy or small discontent, and when he comes, they make it worse than it is, by amplifying that which is not. [2864]Hier. Capivaccius sets it down as a common fault of all melancholy persons to say their symptoms are greater than they are, to help themselves. And which [2865]Mercurialis notes, consil. 53. to be more troublesome to their physicians, than other ordinary patients, that they may have change of physic. A third thing to be required in a patient, is confidence, to be of good cheer, and have sure hope that his physician can help him. [2866]Damascen the Arabian requires likewise in the physician himself, that he be confident he can cure him, otherwise his physic will not be effectual, and promise withal that he will certainly help him, make him believe so at least. [2867]Galeottus gives this reason, because the form of health is contained in the physician's mind, and as Galen, holds [2868]confidence and hope to be more good than physic, he cures most in whom most are confident. Axiocus sick almost to death, at the very sight of Socrates recovered his former health. Paracelsus assigns it for an only cause, why Hippocrates was so fortunate in his cures, not for any extraordinary skill he had; [2869]but because the common people had a most strong conceit of his worth. To this of confidence we may add perseverance, obedience, and constancy, not to change his physician, or dislike him upon every toy; for he that so doth (saith [2870]Janus Damascen) or consults with many, falls into many errors; or that useth many medicines. It was a chief caveat of [2871]Seneca to his friend Lucilius, that he should not alter his physician, or prescribed physic: Nothing hinders health more; a wound can never be cured, that hath several plasters. Crato consil. 186. taxeth all melancholy persons of this fault: [2872]'Tis proper to them, if things fall not out to their mind, and that they have not present ease, to seek another and another; (as they do commonly that have sore eyes) twenty one after another, and they still promise all to cure them, try a thousand remedies; and by this means they increase their malady, make it most dangerous and difficult to be cured. They try many (saith [2873] Montanus) and profit by none: and for this cause, consil. 24. he enjoins his patient before he take him in hand, [2874]perseverance and sufferance, for in such a small time no great matter can be effected, and upon that condition he will administer physic, otherwise all his endeavour and counsel would be to small purpose. And in his 31. counsel for a notable matron, he tells her, [2875]if she will be cured, she must be of a most abiding patience, faithful obedience, and singular perseverance; if she remit, or despair, she can expect or hope for no good success. Consil. 230. for an Italian Abbot, he makes it one of the greatest reasons why this disease is so incurable, [2876]because the

## parties are so restless, and impatient, and will therefore have him

that intends to be eased, [2877]to take physic, not for a month, a year, but to apply himself to their prescriptions all the days of his life. Last of all, it is required that the patient be not too bold to practise upon himself, without an approved physician's consent, or to try conclusions, if he read a receipt in a book; for so, many grossly mistake, and do themselves more harm than good. That which is conducing to one man, in one case, the same time is opposite to another. [2878]An ass and a mule went laden over a brook, the one with salt, the other with wool: the mule's pack was wet by chance, the salt melted, his burden the lighter, and he thereby much eased: he told the ass, who, thinking to speed as well, wet his pack likewise at the next water, but it was much the heavier, he quite tired. So one thing may be good and bad to several parties, upon diverse occasions. Many things (saith [2879] Penottus) are written in our books, which seem to the reader to be excellent remedies, but they that make use of them are often deceived, and take for physic poison. I remember in Valleriola's observations, a story of one John Baptist a Neapolitan, that finding by chance a pamphlet in Italian, written in praise of hellebore, would needs adventure on himself, and took one dram for one scruple, and had not he been sent for, the poor fellow had poisoned himself. From whence he concludes out of Damascenus 2 et 3. Aphoris. [2880]that without exquisite knowledge, to work out of books is most dangerous: how unsavoury a thing it is to believe writers, and take upon trust, as this patient perceived by his own peril. I could recite such another example of mine own knowledge, of a friend of mine, that finding a receipt in Brassivola, would needs take hellebore in substance, and try it on his own person; but had not some of his familiars come to visit him by chance, he had by his indiscretion hazarded himself: many such I have observed. These are those ordinary cautions, which I should think fit to be noted, and he that shall keep them, as [2881] Montanus saith, shall surely be much eased, if not thoroughly cured.

SUBSECT. III.—_Concerning Physic_.

Physic itself in the last place is to be considered; for the Lord hath created medicines of the earth, and he that is wise will not abhor them. Ecclus. xxxviii. 4. ver. 8. of such doth the apothecary make a confection, &c. Of these medicines there be diverse and infinite kinds, plants, metals, animals, &c., and those of several natures, some good for one, hurtful to another: some noxious in themselves, corrected by art, very wholesome and good, simples, mixed, &c., and therefore left to be managed by discreet and skilful physicians, and thence applied to man's use. To this purpose they have invented method, and several rules of art, to put these remedies in order, for their

## particular ends. Physic (as Hippocrates defines it) is nought else but

[2882]addition and subtraction; and as it is required in all other diseases, so in this of melancholy it ought to be most accurate, it being (as [2883]Mercurialis acknowledgeth) so common an affection in these our times, and therefore fit to be understood. Several prescripts and methods I find in several men, some take upon them to cure all maladies with one medicine, severally applied, as that panacea, aurum potabile, so much controverted in these days, herba solis, &c. Paracelsus reduceth all diseases to four principal heads, to whom Severinus, Ravelascus, Leo Suavius, and others adhere and imitate: those are leprosy, gout, dropsy, falling-sickness. To which they reduce the rest; as to leprosy, ulcers, itches, furfurs, scabs, &c. To gout, stone, colic, toothache, headache, &c. To dropsy, agues, jaundice, cachexia, &c. To the falling-sickness, belong palsy, vertigo, cramps, convulsions, incubus, apoplexy, &c. [2884]If any of these four principal be cured (saith Ravelascus) all the inferior are cured, and the same remedies commonly serve: but this is too general, and by some contradicted: for this peculiar disease of melancholy, of which I am now to speak, I find several cures, several methods and prescripts. They that intend the practic cure of melancholy, saith Duretus in his notes to Hollerius, set down nine peculiar scopes or ends; Savanarola prescribes seven especial canons. Aelianus Montaltus cap. 26. Faventinus in his empirics, Hercules de Saxonia, &c., have their several injunctions and rules, all tending to one end. The ordinary is threefold, which I mean to follow. Διαιτητικὴ, _Pharmaceutica_, and _Chirurgica_, diet, or living, apothecary, chirurgery, which Wecker, Crato, Guianerius, &c., and most, prescribe; of which I will insist, and speak in their order.

SECT. II. MEMB. I.

SUBSECT. I.—_Diet rectified in substance_.

Diet, Διαιτητικὴ, victus, or living, according to [2885] Fuchsius and others, comprehends those six non-natural things, which I have before specified, are especial causes, and being rectified, a sole or chief part of the cure. [2886]Johannes Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis, accounts the rectifying of these six a sufficient cure. Guianerius, tract. 15, cap. 9. calls them, propriam et primam curam, the principal cure: so doth Montanus, Crato, Mercurialis, Altomarus, &c., first to be tried, Lemnius, instit. cap. 22, names them the hinges of our health, [2887]no hope of recovery without them. Reinerus Solenander, in his seventh consultation for a Spanish young gentlewoman, that was so melancholy she abhorred all company, and would not sit at table with her familiar friends, prescribes this physic above the rest, [2888]no good to be done without it. [2889]Aretus, lib. 1. cap. 7. an old physician, is of opinion, that this is enough of itself, if the party be not too far gone in sickness. [2890]Crato, in a consultation of his for a noble patient, tells him plainly, that if his highness will keep but a good diet, he will warrant him his former health. [2891]Montanus, consil. 27. for a nobleman of France, admonisheth his lordship to be most circumspect in his diet, or else all his other physic will [2892]be to small purpose. The same injunction I find verbatim in J. Caesar Claudinus, Respon. 34. Scoltzii, consil. 183. Trallianus, cap. 16. lib. 1. Laelius a Fonte Aeugubinus often brags, that he hath done more cures in this kind by rectification of diet, than all other physic besides. So that in a word I may say to most melancholy men, as the fox said to the weasel, that could not get out of the garner, Macra cavum repetes, quem macra subisti, [2893]the six non-natural things caused it, and they must cure it. Which howsoever I treat of, as proper to the meridian of melancholy, yet nevertheless, that which is here said with him in [2894]Tully, though writ especially for the good of his friends at Tarentum and Sicily, yet it will generally serve [2895]most other diseases, and help them likewise, if it be observed. Of these six non-natural things, the first is diet, properly so called, which consists in meat and drink, in which we must consider substance, quantity, quality, and that opposite to the precedent. In substance, such meats are generally commended, which are [2896]moist, easy of digestion, and not apt to engender wind, not fried, nor roasted, but sod (saith Valescus, Altomarus, Piso, &c.) hot and moist, and of good nourishment; Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2. admits roast meat, [2897]if the burned and scorched superficies, the brown we call it, be pared off. Salvianus, lib. 2. cap. 1. cries out on cold and dry meats; [2898]young flesh and tender is approved, as of kid, rabbits, chickens, veal, mutton, capons, hens, partridge, pheasant, quails, and all mountain birds, which are so familiar in some parts of Africa, and in Italy, and as [2899]Dublinius reports, the common food of boors and clowns in Palestine. Galen takes exception at mutton, but without question he means that rammy mutton, which is in Turkey and Asia Minor, which have those great fleshy tails, of forty-eight pounds weight, as Vertomannus witnesseth, navig. lib. 2. cap. 5. The lean of fat meat is best, and all manner of broths, and pottage, with borage, lettuce, and such wholesome herbs are excellent good, especially of a cock boiled; all spoon meat. Arabians commend brains, but [2900]Laurentius, c. 8. excepts against them, and so do many others; [2901]eggs are justified as a nutritive wholesome meat, butter and oil may pass, but with some limitation; so [2902]Crato confines it, and to some men sparingly at set times, or in sauce, and so sugar and honey are approved. [2903]All sharp and sour sauces must be avoided, and spices, or at least seldom used: and so saffron sometimes in broth may be tolerated; but these things may be more freely used, as the temperature of the party is hot or cold, or as he shall find inconvenience by them. The thinnest, whitest, smallest wine is best, not thick, nor strong; and so of beer, the middling is fittest. Bread of good wheat, pure, well purged from the bran is preferred; Laurentius, cap. 8. would have it kneaded with rain water, if it may be gotten. _Water_.] Pure, thin, light water by all means use, of good smell and taste, like to the air in sight, such as is soon hot, soon cold, and which Hippocrates so much approves, if at least it may be had. Rain water is purest, so that it fall not down in great drops, and be used forthwith, for it quickly putrefies. Next to it fountain water that riseth in the east, and runneth eastward, from a quick running spring, from flinty, chalky, gravelly grounds: and the longer a river runneth, it is commonly the purest, though many springs do yield the best water at their fountains. The waters in hotter countries, as in Turkey, Persia, India, within the tropics, are frequently purer than ours in the north, more subtile, thin, and lighter, as our merchants observe, by four ounces in a pound, pleasanter to drink, as good as our beer, and some of them, as Choaspis in Persia, preferred by the Persian kings, before wine itself. [2904]Clitorio quicunque sitim de fonte levarit Vina fugit gaudetque meris abstemius undis.

Many rivers I deny not are muddy still, white, thick, like those in China, Nile in Egypt, Tiber at Rome, but after they be settled two or three days, defecate and clear, very commodious, useful and good. Many make use of deep wells, as of old in the Holy Land, lakes, cisterns, when they cannot be better provided; to fetch it in carts or gondolas, as in Venice, or camels' backs, as at Cairo in Egypt, [2905]Radzivilius observed 8000 camels daily there, employed about that business; some keep it in trunks, as in the East Indies, made four square with descending steps, and 'tis not amiss, for I would not have any one so nice as that Grecian Calis, sister to Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople, and [2906]married to Dominitus Silvius, duke of Venice, that out of incredible wantonness, communi aqua uti nolebat, would use no vulgar water; but she died tanta (saith mine author) foetidissimi puris copia, of so fulsome a disease, that no water could wash her clean. [2907]Plato would not have a traveller lodge in a city that is not governed by laws, or hath not a quick stream running by it; illud enim animum, hoc corrumpit valetudinem, one corrupts the body, the other the mind. But this is more than needs, too much curiosity is naught, in time of necessity any water is allowed. Howsoever, pure water is best, and which (as Pindarus holds) is better than gold; an especial ornament it is, and very commodious to a city (according to [2908]Vegetius) when fresh springs are included within the walls, as at Corinth, in the midst of the town almost, there was arx altissima scatens fontibus, a goodly mount full of fresh water springs: if nature afford them not they must be had by art. It is a wonder to read of those [2909]stupend aqueducts, and infinite cost hath been bestowed in Rome of old, Constantinople, Carthage, Alexandria, and such populous cities, to convey good and wholesome waters: read [2910]Frontinus, Lipsius de admir. [2911]Plinius, lib. 3. cap. 11, Strabo in his Geogr. That aqueduct of Claudius was most eminent, fetched upon arches fifteen miles, every arch 109 feet high: they had fourteen such other aqueducts, besides lakes and cisterns, 700 as I take it; [2912]every house had private pipes and channels to serve them for their use. Peter Gillius, in his accurate description of Constantinople, speaks of an old cistern which he went down to see, 336 feet long, 180 feet broad, built of marble, covered over with arch-work, and sustained by 336 pillars, 12 feet asunder, and in eleven rows, to contain sweet water. Infinite cost in channels and cisterns, from Nilus to Alexandria, hath been formerly bestowed, to the admiration of these times; [2913]their cisterns so curiously cemented and composed, that a beholder would take them to be all of one stone: when the foundation is laid, and cistern made, their house is half built. That Segovian aqueduct in Spain, is much wondered at in these days, [2914]upon three rows of pillars, one above another, conveying sweet water to every house: but each city almost is full of such aqueducts. Amongst the rest [2915]he is eternally to be commended, that brought that new stream to the north side of London at his own charge: and Mr. Otho Nicholson, founder of our waterworks and elegant conduit in Oxford. So much have all times attributed to this element, to be conveniently provided of it: although Galen hath taken exceptions at such waters, which run through leaden pipes, ob cerussam quae in iis generatur, for that unctuous ceruse, which causeth dysenteries and fluxes; [2916]yet as Alsarius Crucius of Genna well answers, it is opposite to common experience. If that were true, most of our Italian cities, Montpelier in France, with infinite others, would find this inconvenience, but there is no such matter. For private families, in what sort they should furnish themselves, let them consult with P. Crescentius, de Agric. l. 1. c. 4, Pamphilius Hirelacus, and the rest. Amongst fishes, those are most allowed of, that live in gravelly or sandy waters, pikes, perch, trout, gudgeon, smelts, flounders, &c. Hippolitus Salvianus takes exception at carp; but I dare boldly say with [2917] Dubravius, it is an excellent meat, if it come not from [2918]muddy pools, that it retain not an unsavoury taste. Erinacius Marinus is much commended by Oribatius, Aetius, and most of our late writers. [2919]Crato, consil. 21. lib. 2. censures all manner of fruits, as subject to putrefaction, yet tolerable at sometimes, after meals, at second course, they keep down vapours, and have their use. Sweet fruits are best, as sweet cherries, plums, sweet apples, pearmains, and pippins, which Laurentius extols, as having a peculiar property against this disease, and Plater magnifies, omnibus modis appropriata conveniunt, but they must be corrected for their windiness: ripe grapes are good, and raisins of the sun, musk-melons well corrected, and sparingly used. Figs are allowed, and almonds blanched. Trallianus discommends figs, [2920]Salvianus olives and capers, which [2921]others especially like of, and so of pistick nuts. Montanus and Mercurialis out of Avenzoar, admit peaches, [2922]pears, and apples baked after meals, only corrected with sugar, and aniseed, or fennel-seed, and so they may be profitably taken, because they strengthen the stomach, and keep down vapours. The like may be said of preserved cherries, plums, marmalade of plums, quinces, &c., but not to drink after them. [2923]Pomegranates, lemons, oranges are tolerated, if they be not too sharp. [2924]Crato will admit of no herbs, but borage, bugloss, endive, fennel, aniseed, baum; Callenius and Arnoldus tolerate lettuce, spinach, beets, &c. The same Crato will allow no roots at all to be eaten. Some approve of potatoes, parsnips, but all corrected for wind. No raw salads; but as Laurentius prescribes, in broths; and so Crato commends many of them: or to use borage, hops, baum, steeped in their ordinary drink. [2925]Avenzoar magnifies the juice of a pomegranate, if it be sweet, and especially rose water, which he would have to be used in every dish, which they put in practice in those hot countries, about Damascus, where (if we may believe the relations of Vertomannus) many hogsheads of rose water are to be sold in the market at once, it is in so great request with them.

SUBSECT. II.—_Diet rectified in quantity_.

Man alone, saith [2926]Cardan, eats and drinks without appetite, and useth all his pleasure without necessity, animae vitio, and thence come many inconveniences unto him. For there is no meat whatsoever, though otherwise wholesome and good, but if unseasonably taken, or immoderately used, more than the stomach can well bear, it will engender crudity, and do much harm. Therefore [2927]Crato adviseth his patient to eat but twice a day, and that at his set meals, by no means to eat without an appetite, or upon a full stomach, and to put seven hours' difference between dinner and supper. Which rule if we did observe in our colleges, it would be much better for our healths: but custom, that tyrant, so prevails, that contrary to all good order and rules of physic, we scarce admit of five. If after seven hours' tarrying he shall have no stomach, let him defer his meal, or eat very little at his ordinary time of repast. This very counsel was given by Prosper Calenus to Cardinal Caesius, labouring of this disease; and [2928] Platerus prescribes it to a patient of his, to be most severely kept. Guianerius admits of three meals a day, but Montanus, consil. 23. pro. Ab. Italo, ties him precisely to two. And as he must not eat overmuch, so he may not absolutely fast; for as Celsus contends, lib. 1. Jacchinus 15. in 9. Rhasis, [2929]repletion and inanition may both do harm in two contrary extremes. Moreover, that which he doth eat, must be well [2930]chewed, and not hastily gobbled, for that causeth crudity and wind; and by all means to eat no more than he can well digest. Some think (saith [2931] Trincavelius, lib. 11. cap. 29. de curand. part. hum.) the more they eat the more they nourish themselves: eat and live, as the proverb is, not knowing that only repairs man, which is well concocted, not that which is devoured. Melancholy men most part have good [2932]appetites, but ill digestion, and for that cause they must be sure to rise with an appetite; and that which Socrates and Disarius the physicians in [2933]Macrobius so much require, St. Hierom enjoins Rusticus to eat and drink no more than, will [2934]satisfy hunger and thirst. [2935]Lessius, the Jesuit, holds twelve, thirteen, or fourteen ounces, or in our northern countries, sixteen at most, (for all students, weaklings, and such as lead an idle sedentary life) of meat, bread, &c., a fit proportion for a whole day, and as much or little more of drink. Nothing pesters the body and mind sooner than to be still fed, to eat and ingurgitate beyond all measure, as many do. [2936] By overmuch eating and continual feasts they stifle nature, and choke up themselves; which, had they lived coarsely, or like galley slaves been tied to an oar, might have happily prolonged many fair years. A great inconvenience comes by variety of dishes, which causeth the precedent distemperature, [2937]than which (saith Avicenna) nothing is worse; to feed on diversity of meats, or overmuch, Sertorius-like, in lucem caenare, and as commonly they do in Muscovy and Iceland, to prolong their meals all day long, or all night. Our northern countries offend especially in this, and we in this island (ampliter viventes in prandiis et caenis, as [2938]Polydore notes) are most liberal feeders, but to our own hurt. [2939]Persicos odi puer apparatus: Excess of meat breedeth sickness, and gluttony causeth choleric diseases: by surfeiting many perish, but he that dieteth himself prolongeth his life, Ecclus. xxxvii. 29, 30. We account it a great glory for a man to have his table daily furnished with variety of meats: but hear the physician, he pulls thee by the ear as thou sittest, and telleth thee, [2940]that nothing can be more noxious to thy health than such variety and plenty. Temperance is a bridle of gold, and he that can use it aright, [2941]ego non summis viris comparo, sed simillimum Deo judico, is liker a God than a man: for as it will transform a beast to a man again, so will it make a man a God. To preserve thine honour, health, and to avoid therefore all those inflations, torments, obstructions, crudities, and diseases that come by a full diet, the best way is to [2942]feed sparingly of one or two dishes at most, to have ventrem bene moratum, as Seneca calls it, [2943]to choose one of many, and to feed on that alone, as Crato adviseth his patient. The same counsel [2944]Prosper Calenus gives to Cardinal Caesius, to use a moderate and simple diet: and though his table be jovially furnished by reason of his state and guests, yet for his own part to single out some one savoury dish and feed on it. The same is inculcated by [2945]Crato, consil. 9. l. 2. to a noble personage affected with this grievance, he would have his highness to dine or sup alone, without all his honourable attendance and courtly company, with a private friend or so, [2946]a dish or two, a cup of Rhenish wine, &c. Montanus, consil. 24. for a noble matron enjoins her one dish, and by no means to drink between meals. The like, consil. 229. or not to eat till he be an hungry, which rule Berengarius did most strictly observe, as Hilbertus, Cenomecensis Episc. writes in his life, ———cui non fuit unquam Ante sitim potus, nec cibus ante famem,

and which all temperate men do constantly keep. It is a frequent solemnity still used with us, when friends meet, to go to the alehouse or tavern, they are not sociable otherwise: and if they visit one another's houses, they must both eat and drink. I reprehend it not moderately used; but to some men nothing can be more offensive; they had better, I speak it with Saint [2947]Ambrose, pour so much water in their shoes. It much avails likewise to keep good order in our diet, [2948]to eat liquid things first, broths, fish, and such meats as are sooner corrupted in the stomach; harder meats of digestion must come last. Crato would have the supper less than the dinner, which Cardan, Contradict. lib. 1. tract. 5. contradict. 18. disallows, and that by the authority of Galen. 7. art. curat. cap. 6. and for four reasons he will have the supper biggest: I have read many treatises to this purpose, I know not how it may concern some few sick men, but for my part generally for all, I should subscribe to that custom of the Romans, to make a sparing dinner, and a liberal supper; all their preparation and invitation was still at supper, no mention of dinner. Many reasons I could give, but when all is said pro and con, [2949]Cardan's rule is best, to keep that we are accustomed unto, though it be naught, and to follow our disposition and appetite in some things is not amiss; to eat sometimes of a dish which is hurtful, if we have an extraordinary liking to it. Alexander Severus loved hares and apples above all other meats, as [2950]Lampridius relates in his life: one pope pork, another peacock, &c.; what harm came of it? I conclude our own experience is the best physician; that diet which is most propitious to one, is often pernicious to another, such is the variety of palates, humours, and temperatures, let every man observe, and be a law unto himself. Tiberius, in [2951]Tacitus, did laugh at all such, that thirty years of age would ask counsel of others concerning matters of diet; I say the same. These few rules of diet he that keeps, shall surely find great ease and speedy remedy by it. It is a wonder to relate that prodigious temperance of some hermits, anchorites, and fathers of the church: he that shall but read their lives, written by Hierom, Athanasius, &c., how abstemious heathens have been in this kind, those Curii and Fabritii, those old philosophers, as Pliny records, lib. 11. Xenophon, lib. 1. de vit. Socrat. Emperors and kings, as Nicephorus relates, Eccles. hist. lib. 18. cap. 8. of Mauritius, Ludovicus Pius, &c., and that admirable [2952]example of Ludovicus Cornarus, a patrician of Venice, cannot but admire them. This have they done voluntarily and in health; what shall these private men do that are visited with sickness, and necessarily [2953]enjoined to recover, and continue their health? It is a hard thing to observe a strict diet, et qui medice vivit, misere vivit, [2954]as the saying is, quale hoc ipsum erit vivere, his si privatus fueris? as good be buried, as so much debarred of his appetite; excessit medicina malum, the physic is more troublesome than the disease, so he complained in the poet, so thou thinkest: yet he that loves himself will easily endure this little misery, to avoid a greater inconvenience; e malis minimum better do this than do worse. And as [2955]Tully holds, better be a temperate old man than a lascivious youth. 'Tis the only sweet thing (which he adviseth) so to moderate ourselves, that we may have senectutem in juventute, et in juventute senectutem, be youthful in our old age, staid in our youth, discreet and temperate in both.

MEMB. II.

_Retention and Evacuation rectified_.

I have declared in the causes what harm costiveness hath done in procuring this disease; if it be so noxious, the opposite must needs be good, or mean at least, as indeed it is, and to this cure necessarily required; maxime conducit, saith Montaltus, cap. 27. it very much avails. [2956] Altomarus, cap. 7, commends walking in a morning, into some fair green pleasant fields, but by all means first, by art or nature, he will have these ordinary excrements evacuated. Piso calls it, Beneficium ventris, the benefit, help or pleasure of the belly, for it doth much ease it. Laurentius, cap. 8, Crato, consil. 21. l. 2. prescribes it once a day at least: where nature is defective, art must supply, by those lenitive electuaries, suppositories, condite prunes, turpentine, clysters, as shall be shown. Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra bile, commends clysters in hypochondriacal melancholy, still to be used as occasion serves; [2957] Peter Cnemander in a consultation of his pro hypocondriaco, will have his patient continually loose, and to that end sets down there many forms of potions and clysters. Mercurialis, consil. 88. if this benefit come not of its own accord, prescribes [2958]clysters in the first place: so doth Montanus, consil. 24. consil. 31 et 229. he commends turpentine to that purpose: the same he ingeminates, consil. 230. for an Italian abbot. 'Tis very good to wash his hands and face often, to shift his clothes, to have fair linen about him, to be decently and comely attired, for sordes vitiant, nastiness defiles and dejects any man that is so voluntarily, or compelled by want, it dulleth the spirits. Baths are either artificial or natural, both have their special uses in this malady, and as [2959]Alexander supposeth, lib. 1. cap. 16. yield as speedy a remedy as any other physic whatsoever. Aetius would have them daily used, assidua balnea, Tetra. 2. sect. 2. c. 9. Galen cracks how many several cures he hath performed in this kind by use of baths alone, and Rufus pills, moistening them which are otherwise dry. Rhasis makes it a principal cure, Tota cura sit in humectando, to bathe and afterwards anoint with oil. Jason Pratensis, Laurentius, cap. 8. and Montanus set down their peculiar forms of artificial baths. Crato, consil. 17. lib. 2. commends mallows, camomile, violets, borage to be boiled in it, and sometimes fair water alone, and in his following counsel, Balneum aquae dulcis solum saepissime profuisse compertum habemus. So doth Fuchsius, lib. 1. cap. 33. Frisimelica, 2. consil. 42. in Trincavelius. Some beside herbs prescribe a ram's head and other things to be boiled. [2960] Fernelius, consil. 44. will have them used ten or twelve days together; to which he must enter fasting, and so continue in a temperate heat, and after that frictions all over the body. Lelius Aegubinus, consil. 142. and Christoph. Aererus, in a consultation of his, hold once or twice a week sufficient to bathe, the [2961]water to be warm, not hot, for fear of sweating. Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1. for a melancholy lawyer, [2962] will have lotions of the head still joined to these baths, with a ley wherein capital herbs have been boiled. [2963]Laurentius speaks of baths of milk, which I find approved by many others. And still after bath, the body to be anointed with oil of bitter almonds, of violets, new or fresh butter, [2964]capon's grease, especially the backbone, and then lotions of the head, embrocations, &c. These kinds of baths have been in former times much frequented, and diversely varied, and are still in general use in those eastern countries. The Romans had their public baths very sumptuous and stupend, as those of Antoninus and Diocletian. Plin. 36. saith there were an infinite number of them in Rome, and mightily frequented; some bathed seven times a day, as Commodus the emperor is reported to have done; usually twice a day, and they were after anointed with most costly ointments: rich women bathed themselves in milk, some in the milk of five hundred she-asses at once: we have many ruins of such, baths found in this island, amongst those parietines and rubbish of old Roman towns. Lipsius, de mag. Urb. Rom. l. 3, c. 8, Rosinus, Scot of Antwerp, and other antiquaries, tell strange stories of their baths. Gillius, l. 4. cap. ult. Topogr. Constant. reckons up 155 public [2965]baths in Constantinople, of fair building; they are still [2966]frequented in that city by the Turks of all sorts, men and women, and all over Greece, and those hot countries; to absterge belike that fulsomeness of sweat, to which they are there subject. [2967]Busbequius, in his epistles, is very copious in describing the manner of them, how their women go covered, a maid following with a box of ointment to rub them. The richer sort have private baths in their houses; the poorer go to the common, and are generally so curious in this behalf, that they will not eat nor drink until they have bathed, before and after meals some, [2968]and will not make water (but they will wash their hands) or go to stool. Leo Afer. l. 3. makes mention of one hundred several baths at Fez in Africa, most sumptuous, and such as have great revenues belonging to them. Buxtorf. cap. 14, Synagog. Jud. speaks of many ceremonies amongst the Jews in this kind; they are very superstitious in their baths, especially women. Natural baths are praised by some, discommended by others; but it is in a divers respect. [2969]Marcus, de Oddis in Hip. affect. consulted about baths, condemns them for the heat of the liver, because they dry too fast; and yet by and by, [2970]in another counsel for the same disease, he approves them because they cleanse by reason of the sulphur, and would have their water to be drunk. Areteus, c. 7. commends alum baths above the rest; and [2971]Mercurialis, consil. 88. those of Lucca in that hypochondriacal passion. He would have his patient tarry there fifteen days together, and drink the water of them, and to be bucketed, or have the water poured on his head. John Baptista, Sylvaticus cont. 64. commends all the baths in Italy, and drinking of their water, whether they be iron, alum, sulphur; so doth [2972]Hercules de Saxonia. But in that they cause sweat and dry so much, he confines himself to hypochondriacal melancholy alone, excepting that of the head and the other. Trincavelius, consil. 14. lib. 1. refers those [2973]Porrectan baths before the rest, because of the mixture of brass, iron, alum, and consil. 35. l. 3. for a melancholy lawyer, and consil. 36. in that hypochondriacal passion, the [2974]baths of Aquaria, and 36. consil. the drinking of them. Frisimelica, consulted amongst the rest in Trincavelius, consil. 42. lib. 2. prefers the waters of [2975]Apona before all artificial baths whatsoever in this disease, and would have one nine years affected with hypochondriacal passions fly to them as to a [2976]holy anchor. Of the same mind is Trincavelius himself there, and yet both put a hot liver in the same party for a cause, and send him to the waters of St. Helen, which are much hotter. Montanus, consil. 230. magnifies the [2977]Chalderinian baths, and consil 237. et 239. he exhorteth to the same, but with this caution, [2978]that the liver be outwardly anointed with some coolers that it be not overheated. But these baths must be warily frequented by melancholy persons, or if used, to such as are very cold of themselves, for as Gabelius concludes of all Dutch baths, and especially of those of Baden, they are good for all cold diseases, [2979]naught for choleric, hot and dry, and all infirmities proceeding of choler, inflammations of the spleen and liver. Our English baths, as they are hot, must needs incur the same censure: but D. Turner of old, and D. Jones have written at large of them. Of cold baths I find little or no mention in any physician, some speak against them: [2980]Cardan alone out of Agathinus commends bathing in fresh rivers, and cold waters, and adviseth all such as mean to live long to use it, for it agrees with all ages and complexions, and is most profitable for hot temperatures. As for sweating, urine, bloodletting by haemrods, or otherwise, I shall elsewhere more opportunely speak of them. Immoderate Venus in excess, as it is a cause, or in defect; so moderately used to some parties an only help, a present remedy. Peter Forestus calls it aptissimum remedium, a most apposite remedy, [2981]remitting anger, and reason, that was otherwise bound. Avicenna Fen. 3. 20. Oribasius med. collect. lib. 6. cap. 37. contend out of Ruffus and others, [2982] that many madmen, melancholy, and labouring of the falling sickness, have been cured by this alone. Montaltus cap. 27. de melan. will have it drive away sorrow, and all illusions of the brain, to purge the heart and brain from ill smokes and vapours that offend them: [2983]and if it be omitted, as Valescus supposeth, it makes the mind sad, the body dull and heavy. Many other inconveniences are reckoned up by Mercatus, and by Rodericus a Castro, in their tracts de melancholia virginum et monialium; ob seminis retentionem saviunt saepe moniales et virgines, but as Platerus adds, si nubant sanantur, they rave single, and pine away, much discontent, but marriage mends all. Marcellus Donatus lib. 2. med. hist. cap. 1. tells a story to confirm this out of Alexander Benedictus, of a maid that was mad, ob menses inhibitos, cum in officinam meritoriam incidisset, a quindecem viris eadem nocte compressa, mensium largo profluvio, quod pluribus annis ante constiterat, non sine magno pudore mane menti restituta discessit. But this must be warily understood, for as Arnoldus objects, lib. 1. breviar. 18. cap. Quid coitus ad melancholicum succum? What affinity have these two? [2984]except it be manifest that superabundance of seed, or fullness of blood be a cause, or that love, or an extraordinary desire of Venus, have gone before, or that as Lod. Mercatus excepts, they be very flatuous, and have been otherwise accustomed unto it. Montaltus cap. 27. will not allow of moderate Venus to such as have the gout, palsy, epilepsy, melancholy, except they be very lusty, and full of blood. [2985]Lodovicus Antonius lib. med. miscet. in his chapter of Venus, forbids it utterly to all wrestlers, ditchers, labouring men, &c. [2986]Ficinus and [2987]Marsilius Cognatus puts Venus one of the five mortal enemies of a student: it consumes the spirits, and weakeneth the brain. Halyabbas the Arabian, 5. Theor. cap. 36. and Jason Pratensis make it the fountain of most diseases, [2988]but most pernicious to them who are cold and dry: a melancholy man must not meddle with it, but in some cases. Plutarch in his book de san. tuend. accounts of it as one of the three principal signs and preservers of health, temperance in this kind: [2989]to rise with an appetite, to be ready to work, and abstain from venery, tria saluberrima, are three most healthful things. We see their opposites how pernicious they are to mankind, as to all other creatures they bring death, and many feral diseases: Immodicis brevis est aetas et rara senectus. Aristotle gives instance in sparrows, which are parum vivaces ob salacitatem, [2990]short lived because of their salacity, which is very frequent, as Scoppius in Priapus will better inform you. The extremes being both bad, [2991]the medium is to be kept, which cannot easily be determined. Some are better able to sustain, such as are hot and moist, phlegmatic, as Hippocrates insinuateth, some strong and lusty, well fed like [2992]Hercules, [2993] Proculus the emperor, lusty Laurence, [2994]prostibulum faeminae Messalina the empress, that by philters, and such kind of lascivious meats, use all means to [2995]enable themselves: and brag of it in the end, confodi multas enim, occidi vero paucas per ventrem vidisti, as that Spanish [2996]Celestina merrily said: others impotent, of a cold and dry constitution, cannot sustain those gymnics without great hurt done to their own bodies, of which number (though they be very prone to it) are melancholy men for the most part.

MEMB. III.

_Air rectified. With a digression of the Air_.

As a long-winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden: so will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of air, wherein I may freely expatiate and exercise myself for my recreation, awhile rove, wander round about the world, mount aloft to those ethereal orbs and celestial spheres, and so descend to my former elements again. In which progress I will first see whether that relation of the friar of [2997] Oxford be true, concerning those northern parts under the pole (if I meet obiter with the wandering Jew, Elias Artifex, or Lucian's Icaromenippus, they shall be my guides) whether there be such 4. Euripes, and a great rock of loadstones, which may cause the needle in the compass still to bend that way, and what should be the true cause of the variation of the compass, [2998]is it a magnetical rock, or the pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other star in the bear, as Marsilius Ficinus; or a magnetical meridian, as Maurolieus; Vel situs in vena terrae, as Agricola; or the nearness of the next continent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as Scaliger, Cortesius, Conimbricenses, Peregrinus contend; why at the Azores it looks directly north, otherwise not? In the Mediterranean or Levant (as some observe) it varies 7. grad. by and by 12. and then 22. In the Baltic Seas, near Rasceburg in Finland, the needle runs round, if any ships come that way, though [2999]Martin Ridley write otherwise, that the needle near the Pole will hardly be forced from his direction. 'Tis fit to be inquired whether certain rules may be made of it, as 11. grad. Lond. variat. alibi 36. &c. and that which is more prodigious, the variation varies in the same place, now taken accurately, 'tis so much after a few years quite altered from that it was: till we have better intelligence, let our Dr. Gilbert, and Nicholas [3000]Cabeus the Jesuit, that have both written great volumes of this subject, satisfy these inquisitors. Whether the sea be open and navigable by the Pole arctic, and which is the likeliest way, that of Bartison the Hollander, under the Pole itself, which for some reasons I hold best: or by Fretum Davis, or Nova Zembla. Whether [3001]Hudson's discovery be true of a new found ocean, any likelihood of Button's Bay in 50. degrees, Hubberd's Hope in 60. that of ut ultra near Sir Thomas Roe's welcome in Northwest Fox, being that the sea ebbs and flows constantly there 15. foot in 12. hours, as our [3002]new cards inform us that California is not a cape, but an island, and the west winds make the neap tides equal to the spring, or that there be any probability to pass by the straits of Anian to China, by the promontory of Tabin. If there be, I shall soon perceive whether [3003]Marcus Polus the Venetian's narration be true or false, of that great city of Quinsay and Cambalu; whether there be any such places, or that as [3004]Matth. Riccius the Jesuit hath written, China and Cataia be all one, the great Cham of Tartary and the king of China be the same; Xuntain and Quinsay, and the city of Cambalu be that new Peking, or such a wall 400 leagues long to part China from Tartary: whether [3005]Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus Venetus puts him in Asia, [3006]the most received opinion is, that he is emperor of the Abyssines, which of old was Ethiopia, now Nubia, under the equator in Africa. Whether [3007]Guinea be an island or part of the continent, or that hungry [3008]Spaniard's discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius Britannius, or his of Utopia, or his of Lucinia. And yet in likelihood it may be so, for without all question it being extended from the tropic of Capricorn to the circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in the temperate zone, cannot choose but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America did unto the Spaniards. Shouten and Le Meir have done well in the discovery of the Straits of Magellan, in finding a more convenient passage to Mare pacificum: methinks some of our modern argonauts should prosecute the rest. As I go by Madagascar, I would see that great bird [3009]ruck, that can carry a man and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix described by [3010]Adricomius; see the pelicans of Egypt, those Scythian gryphes in Asia: and afterwards in Africa examine the fountains of Nilus, whether Herodotus, [3011]Seneca, Plin. lib. 5. cap. 9. Strabo. lib. 5. give a true cause of his annual flowing, [3012]Pagaphetta discourse rightly of it, or of Niger and Senegal; examine Cardan, [3013]Scaliger's reasons, and the rest. Is it from those Etesian winds, or melting of snow in the mountains under the equator (for Jordan yearly overflows when the snow melts in Mount Libanus), or from those great dropping perpetual showers which are so frequent to the inhabitants within the tropics, when the sun is vertical, and cause such vast inundations in Senegal, Maragnan, Oronoco and the rest of those great rivers in Zona Torrida, which have all commonly the same passions at set times: and by good husbandry and policy hereafter no doubt may come to be as populous, as well tilled, as fruitful, as Egypt itself or Cauchinthina? I would observe all those motions of the sea, and from what cause they proceed, from the moon (as the vulgar hold) or earth's motion, which Galileus, in the fourth dialogue of his system of the world, so eagerly proves, and firmly demonstrates; or winds, as [3014] some will. Why in that quiet ocean of Zur, in mari pacifico, it is scarce perceived, in our British seas most violent, in the Mediterranean and Red Sea so vehement, irregular, and diverse? Why the current in that Atlantic Ocean should still be in some places from, in some again towards the north, and why they come sooner than go? and so from Moabar to Madagascar in that Indian Ocean, the merchants come in three weeks, as [3015]Scaliger discusseth, they return scarce in three months, with the same or like winds: the continual current is from east to west. Whether Mount Athos, Pelion, Olympus, Ossa, Caucasus, Atlas, be so high as Pliny, Solinus, Mela relate, above clouds, meteors, ubi nec aurae nec venti spirant (insomuch that they that ascend die suddenly very often, the air is so subtile,) 1250 paces high, according to that measure of Dicearchus, or 78 miles perpendicularly high, as Jacobus Mazonius, sec. 3. et 4. expounding that place of Aristotle about Caucasus; and as [3016]Blancanus the Jesuit contends out of Clavius and Nonius demonstrations de Crepusculis: or rather 32 stadiums, as the most received opinion is; or 4 miles, which the height of no mountain doth perpendicularly exceed, and is equal to the greatest depths of the sea, which is, as Scaliger holds, 1580 paces, Exer. 38, others 100 paces. I would see those inner parts of America, whether there be any such great city of Manoa, or Eldorado, in that golden empire, where the highways are as much beaten (one reports) as between Madrid and Valadolid in Spain; or any such Amazons as he relates, or gigantic Patagones in Chica; with that miraculous mountain [3017]Ybouyapab in the Northern Brazil, cujus jugum sternitur in amoenissimam planitiem, &c. or that of Pariacacca so high elevated in Peru. [3018]The peak of Tenerife how high it is? 70 miles, or 50 as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius demonstrates in his Eratosthenes: see that strange [3019]Cirknickzerksey lake in Carniola, whose waters gush so fast out of the ground, that they will overtake a swift horseman, and by and by with as incredible celerity are supped up: which Lazius and Wernerus make an argument of the Argonauts sailing under ground. And that vast den or hole called [3020]Esmellen in Muscovia, quae visitur horriendo hiatu, &c. which if anything casually fall in, makes such a roaring noise, that no thunder, or ordnance, or warlike engine can make the like; such another is Gilber's Cave in Lapland, with many the like. I would examine the Caspian Sea, and see where and how it exonerates itself, after it hath taken in Volga, Jaxares, Oxus, and those great rivers; at the mouth of Oby, or where? What vent the Mexican lake hath, the Titicacan in Peru, or that circular pool in the vale of Terapeia, of which Acosta l. 3. c. 16. hot in a cold country, the spring of which boils up in the middle twenty foot square, and hath no vent but exhalation: and that of Mare mortuum in Palestine, of Thrasymene, at Peruzium in Italy: the Mediterranean itself. For from the ocean, at the Straits of Gibraltar, there is a perpetual current into the Levant, and so likewise by the Thracian Bosphorus out of the Euxine or Black Sea, besides all those great rivers of Nile, Po, Rhone, &c. how is this water consumed, by the sun or otherwise? I would find out with Trajan the fountains of Danube, of Ganges, Oxus, see those Egyptian pyramids, Trajan's bridge, Grotto de Sybilla, Lucullus's fishponds, the temple of Nidrose, &c. (And, if I could, observe what becomes of swallows, storks, cranes, cuckoos, nightingales, redstarts, and many other kind of singing birds, water-fowls, hawks, &c. some of them are only seen in summer, some in winter; some are observed in the [3021]snow, and at no other times, each have their seasons. In winter not a bird is in Muscovy to be found, but at the spring in an instant the woods and hedges are full of them, saith [3022]Herbastein: how comes it to pass? Do they sleep in winter, like Gesner's Alpine mice; or do they lie hid (as [3023]Olaus affirms) in the bottom of lakes and rivers, spiritum continentes? often so found by fishermen in Poland and Scandia, two together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing; and when the spring comes they revive again, or if they be brought into a stove, or to the fireside. Or do they follow the sun, as Peter Martyr legat Babylonica l. 2. manifestly convicts, out of his own knowledge; for when he was ambassador in Egypt, he saw swallows, Spanish kites, [3024]and many such other European birds, in December and January very familiarly flying, and in great abundance, about Alexandria, ubi floridae tunc arbores ac viridaria. Or lie they hid in caves, rocks, and hollow trees, as most think, in deep tin-mines or sea-cliffs, as [3025]Mr. Carew gives out? I conclude of them all, for my part, as [3026]Munster doth of cranes and storks; whence they come, whither they go, incompertum adhuc, as yet we know not. We see them here, some in summer, some in winter; their coming and going is sure in the night: in the plains of Asia (saith he) the storks meet on such a set day, he that comes last is torn in pieces, and so they get them gone. Many strange places, Isthmi, Euripi, Chersonesi, creeks, havens, promontories, straits, Lakes, baths, rocks, mountains, places, and fields, where cities have been ruined or swallowed, battles fought, creatures, sea-monsters, remora, &c. minerals, vegetals. Zoophytes were fit to be considered in such an expedition, and amongst the rest that of [3027]Harbastein his Tartar lamb, [3028]Hector Boethius goosebearing tree in the orchards, to which Cardan lib. 7. cap. 36. de rerum varietat. subscribes: [3029]Vertomannus wonderful palm, that [3030] fly in Hispaniola, that shines like a torch in the night, that one may well see to write; those spherical stones in Cuba which nature hath so made, and those like birds, beasts, fishes, crowns, swords, saws, pots, &c. usually found in the metal mines in Saxony about Mansfield, and in Poland near Nokow and Pallukie, as [3031]Munster and others relate. Many rare creatures and novelties each part of the world affords: amongst the rest, I would know for a certain whether there be any such men, as Leo Suavius, in his comment on Paracelsus de sanit. tuend. and [3032]Gaguinus records in his description of Muscovy, that in Lucomoria, a province in Russia, lie fast asleep as dead all winter, from the 27 of November, like frogs and swallows, benumbed with cold, but about the 24 of April in the spring they revive again, and go about their business. I would examine that demonstration of Alexander Picolomineus, whether the earth's superficies be bigger than the seas: or that of Archimedes be true, the superficies of all water is even? Search the depth, and see that variety of sea-monsters and fishes, mermaids, seamen, horses, &c. which it affords. Or whether that be true which Jordanus Brunus scoffs at, that if God did not detain it, the sea would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and which Josephus Blancanus the Jesuit in his interpretation on those mathematical places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract proves by many circumstances, that in time the sea will waste away the land, and all the globe of the earth shall be covered with waters; risum teneatis amici? what the sea takes away in one place it adds in another. Methinks he might rather suspect the sea should in time be filled by land, trees grow up, carcasses, &c. that all-devouring fire, omnia devorans et consumens, will sooner cover and dry up the vast ocean with sand and ashes. I would examine the true seat of that terrestrial [3033]paradise, and where Ophir was whence Solomon did fetch his gold: from Peruana, which some suppose, or that Aurea Chersonesus, as Dominicus Niger, Arias Montanus, Goropius, and others will. I would censure all Pliny's, Solinus', Strabo's, Sir John Mandeville's, Olaus Magnus', Marcus Polus' lies, correct those errors in navigation, reform cosmographical charts, and rectify longitudes, if it were possible; not by the compass, as some dream, with Mark Ridley in his treatise of magnetical bodies, cap. 43. for as Cabeus magnet philos. lib. 3. cap. 4. fully resolves, there is no hope thence, yet I would observe some better means to find them out. I would have a convenient place to go down with Orpheus, Ulysses, Hercules, [3034]Lucian's Menippus, at St. Patrick's purgatory, at Trophonius' den, Hecla in Iceland, Aetna in Sicily, to descend and see what is done in the bowels of the earth: do stones and metals grow there still? how come fir trees to be [3035]digged out from tops of hills, as in our mosses, and marshes all over Europe? How come they to dig up fish bones, shells, beams, ironworks, many fathoms under ground, and anchors in mountains far remote from all seas? [3036]Anno 1460 at Bern in Switzerland 50 fathom deep a ship was digged out of a mountain, where they got metal ore, in which were 48 carcasses of men, with other merchandise. That such things are ordinarily found in tops of hills, Aristotle insinuates in his meteors, [3037]Pomponius Mela in his first book, c. de Numidia, and familiarly in the Alps, saith [3038]Blancanus the Jesuit, the like is to be seen: came this from earthquakes, or from Noah's flood, as Christians suppose, or is there a vicissitude of sea and land, as Anaximenes held of old, the mountains of Thessaly would become seas, and seas again mountains? The whole world belike should be new moulded, when it seemed good to those all-commanding powers, and turned inside out, as we do haycocks in harvest, top to bottom, or bottom to top: or as we turn apples to the fire, move the world upon his centre; that which is under the poles now, should be translated to the equinoctial, and that which is under the torrid zone to the circle arctic and antarctic another while, and so be reciprocally warmed by the sun: or if the worlds be infinite, and every fixed star a sun, with his compassing planets (as Brunus and Campanella conclude) cast three or four worlds into one; or else of one world make three or four new, as it shall seem to them best. To proceed, if the earth be 21,500 miles in [3039]compass, its diameter is 7,000 from us to our antipodes, and what shall be comprehended in all that space? What is the centre of the earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as [3040] Paracelsus thinks) with creatures, whose chaos is the earth: or with fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with nymphs, or as the air with spirits? Dionisiodorus, a mathematician in [3041]Pliny, that sent a letter, ad superos after he was dead, from the centre of the earth, to signify what distance the same centre was from the superficies of the same, viz. 42,000 stadiums, might have done well to have satisfied all these doubts. Or is it the place of hell, as Virgil in his Aenides, Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others poetically describe it, and as many of our divines think? In good earnest, Anthony Rusca, one of the society of that Ambrosian College, in Milan, in his great volume de Inferno, lib. 1. cap. 47. is stiff in this tenet, 'tis a corporeal fire tow, cap. 5. I. 2. as he there disputes. Whatsoever philosophers write (saith [3042]Surius) there be certain mouths of hell, and places appointed for the punishment of men's souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living: God would have such visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that there be such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God. Kranzius Dan. hist. lib. 2. cap. 24. subscribes to this opinion of Surius, so doth Colerus cap. 12. lib. de immortal animae (out of the authority belike of St. Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the schoolmen, who derive as much from Aetna in Sicily, Lipari, Hiera, and those sulphureous vulcanian islands) making Terra del Fuego, and those frequent volcanoes in America, of which Acosta lib. 3. cap. 24. that fearful mount Hecklebirg in Norway, an especial argument to prove it, [3043]where lamentable screeches and howlings are continually heard, which strike a terror to the auditors; fiery chariots are commonly seen to bring in the souls of men in the likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily go in and out. Such another proof is that place near the Pyramids in Egypt, by Cairo, as well to confirm this as the resurrection, mentioned by [3044]Kornmannus mirac. mort. lib. 1. cap. 30. Camerarius oper. suc. cap. 37. Bredenbachius pereg. ter. sanct. and some others, where once a year dead bodies arise about March, and walk, after awhile hide themselves again: thousands of people come yearly to see them. But these and such like testimonies others reject, as fables, illusions of spirits, and they will have no such local known place, more than Styx or Phlegethon, Pluto's court, or that poetical Infernus, where Homer's soul was seen hanging on a tree, &c., to which they ferried over in Charon's boat, or went down at Hermione in Greece, compendiaria ad Infernos via, which is the shortest cut, quia nullum a mortuis naulum eo loci exposcunt, (saith [3045]Gerbelius) and besides there were no fees to be paid. Well then, is it hell, or purgatory, as Bellarmine: or Limbus patrum, as Gallucius will, and as Rusca will (for they have made maps of it) [3046]or Ignatius parler? Virgil, sometimes bishop of Saltburg (as Aventinus _anno_ 745 relates) by Bonifacius bishop of Mentz was therefore called in question, because he held antipodes (which they made a doubt whether Christ died for) and so by that means took away the seat of hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to heaven, and contradicted that opinion of Austin, Basil, Lactantius that held the earth round as a trencher (whom Acosta and common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball; and Jerusalem where Christ died the middle of it; or Delos, as the fabulous Greeks feigned: because when Jupiter let two eagles loose, to fly from the world's ends east and west, they met at Delos. But that scruple of Bonifacius is now quite taken away by our latter divines: Franciscus Ribera, in cap. 14. Apocalyps. will have hell a material and local fire in the centre of the earth, 200 Italian miles in diameter, as he defines it out of those words, Exivit sanguis de terra—per stadia mille sexcenta, &c. But Lessius lib. 13. de moribus divinis, cap. 24. will have this local hell far less, one Dutch mile in diameter, all filled with fire and brimstone: because, as he there demonstrates, that space, cubically multiplied, will make a sphere able to hold eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body six foot square) which will abundantly suffice; Cum cerium sit, inquit, facta subductione, non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum. But if it be no material fire (as Sco. Thomas, Bonaventure, Soncinas, Voscius, and others argue) it may be there or elsewhere, as Keckerman disputes System. Theol. for sure somewhere it is, certum est alicubi, etsi definitus circulus non assignetur. I will end the controversy in [3047]Austin's words, Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend about uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire: [3048]Vix a mansuetis, a contentiosis nunquam invenitur; scarce the meek, the contentious shall never find. If it be solid earth, 'tis the fountain of metals, waters, which by his innate temper turns air into water, which springs up in several chinks, to moisten the earth's superficies, and that in a tenfold proportion (as Aristotle holds) or else these fountains come directly from the sea, by [3049]secret passages, and so made fresh again, by running through the bowels of the earth; and are either thick, thin, hot, cold, as the matter or minerals are by which they pass; or as Peter Martyr Ocean. Decad. lib. 9. and some others hold, from [3050] abundance of rain that falls, or from that ambient heat and cold, which alters that inward heat, and so per consequens the generation of waters. Or else it may be full of wind, or a sulphureous innate fire, as our meteorologists inform us, which sometimes breaking out, causeth those horrible earthquakes, which are so frequent in these days in Japan, China, and oftentimes swallow up whole cities. Let Lucian's Menippus consult with or ask of Tiresias, if you will not believe philosophers, he shall clear all your doubts when he makes a second voyage. In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and find out a true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, meteors, alterations, as happen above ground. Whence proceed that variety of manners, and a distinct character (as it were) to several nations? Some are wise, subtile, witty; others dull, sad and heavy; some big, some little, as Tully de Fato, Plato in Timaeo, Vegetius and Bodine prove at large, method. cap. 5. some soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civil, black, dun, white, is it from the air, from the soil, influence of stars, or some other secret cause? Why doth Africa breed so many venomous beasts, Ireland none? Athens owls, Crete none? [3051]Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swallows (so Pausanius informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, [3052]Ithaca no hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, [3053]metals, peculiar almost to every place? Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta demands lib. 4. cap. 36. were they created in the six days, or ever in Noah's ark? if there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries? It is a thing (saith he) hath long held me in suspense; no Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a chestnut: and which is more, kine, horses, sheep, &c., till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in those parts? How comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one latitude, to such as are Perioeci, there should be such difference of soil, complexion, colour, metal, air, &c. The Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when as the inhabitants about [3054]Caput bonae spei are blackamoors, and yet both alike distant from the equator: nay they that dwell in the same parallel line with these Negroes, as about the Straits of Magellan, are white coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John's country in Ethiopia are dun; they in Zeilan and Malabar parallel with them again black: Manamotapa in Africa, and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both under the line, coal black their inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are quite opposite in colour, very temperate, or rather cold, and yet both alike elevated. Moscow in 53. degrees of latitude extreme cold, as those northern countries usually are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter long; and in 52. deg. lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as Button's Bay, &c., or by fits; and yet [3055]England near the same latitude, and Ireland, very moist, warm, and more temperate in winter than Spain, Italy, or France. Is it the sea that causeth this difference, and the air that comes from it: Why then is [3056]Ister so cold near the Euxine, Pontus, Bithynia, and all Thrace; frigidas regiones Maginus calls them, and yet their latitude is but 42. which should be hot: [3057] Quevira, or Nova Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so cold in July, that our [3058]Englishmen could hardly endure it. At Noremberga in 45. lat. all the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude than ours. New England, and the island of Cambrial Colchos, which that noble gentleman Mr. Vaughan, or Orpheus junior, describes in his Golden Fleece, is in the same latitude with little Britain in France, and yet their winter begins not till January, their spring till May; which search he accounts worthy of an astrologer: is this from the easterly winds, or melting of ice and snow dissolved within the circle arctic; or that the air being thick, is longer before it be warm by the sunbeams, and once heated like an oven will keep itself from cold? Our climes breed lice, [3059] Hungary and Ireland male audiunt in this kind; come to the Azores, by a secret virtue of that air they are instantly consumed, and all our European vermin almost, saith Ortelius. Egypt is watered with Nilus not far from the sea, and yet there it seldom or never rains: Rhodes, an island of the same nature, yields not a cloud, and yet our islands ever dropping and inclining to rain. The Atlantic Ocean is still subject to storms, but in Del Zur, or Mare pacifico, seldom or never any. Is it from tropic stars, apertio portarum, in the dodecotemories or constellations, the moon's mansions, such aspects of planets, such winds, or dissolving air, or thick air, which causeth this and the like differences of heat and cold? Bodin relates of a Portugal ambassador, that coming from [3060]Lisbon to [3061]Danzig in Spruce, found greater heat there than at any time at home. Don Garcia de Sylva, legate to Philip III., king of Spain, residing at Ispahan in Persia, 1619, in his letter to the Marquess of Bedmar, makes mention of greater cold in Ispahan, whose lat. is 31. gr. than ever he felt in Spain, or any part of Europe. The torrid zone was by our predecessors held to be uninhabitable, but by our modern travellers found to be most temperate, bedewed with frequent rains, and moistening showers, the breeze and cooling blasts in some parts, as [3062]Acosta describes, most pleasant and fertile. Arica in Chile is by report one of the sweetest places that ever the sun shined on, Olympus terrae, a heaven on earth: how incomparably do some extol Mexico in Nova Hispania, Peru, Brazil, &c., in some again hard, dry, sandy, barren, a very desert, and still in the same latitude. Many times we find great diversity of air in the same [3063]country, by reason of the site to seas, hills or dales, want of water, nature of soil, and the like: as in Spain Arragon is aspera et sicca, harsh and evil inhabited; Estremadura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his plains; Andalusia another paradise; Valencia a most pleasant air, and continually green; so is it about [3064]Granada, on the one side fertile plains, on the other, continual snow to be seen all summer long on the hill tops. That their houses in the Alps are three quarters of the year covered with snow, who knows not? That Tenerife is so cold at the top, extreme hot at the bottom: Mons Atlas in Africa, Libanus in Palestine, with many such, tantos inter ardores fidos nivibus, [3065]Tacitus calls them, and Radzivilus epist. 2. fol. 27. yields it to be far hotter there than in any part of Italy: 'tis true; but they are highly elevated, near the middle region, and therefore cold, ob paucam solarium radiorum refractionem, as Serrarius answers, com. in. 3. cap. Josua quaest. 5. Abulensis quaest. 37. In the heat of summer, in the king's palace in Escurial, the air is most temperate, by reason of a cold blast which comes from the snowy mountains of Sierra de Cadarama hard by, when as in Toledo it is very hot: so in all other countries. The causes of these alterations are commonly by reason of their nearness (I say) to the middle region; but this diversity of air, in places equally situated, elevated and distant from the pole, can hardly be satisfied with that diversity of plants, birds, beasts, which is so familiar with us: with Indians, everywhere, the sun is equally distant, the same vertical stars, the same irradiations of planets, aspects like, the same nearness of seas, the same superficies, the same soil, or not much different. Under the equator itself, amongst the Sierras, Andes, Lanos, as Herrera, Laet, and [3066]Acosta contend, there is tam mirabilis et inopinata varietas, such variety of weather, ut merito exerceat ingenia, that no philosophy can yet find out the true cause of it. When I consider how temperate it is in one place, saith [3067]Acosta, within the tropic of Capricorn, as about Laplata, and yet hard by at Potosi, in that same altitude, mountainous alike, extreme cold; extreme hot in Brazil, &c. Hic ego, saith Acosta, philosophiam Aristotelis meteorologicam vehementer irrisi, cum, &c., when the sun comes nearest to them, they have great tempests, storms, thunder and lightning, great store of rain, snow, and the foulest weather: when the sun is vertical, their rivers overflow, the morning fair and hot, noonday cold and moist: all which is opposite to us. How comes it to pass? Scaliger poetices l. 3. c. 16. discourseth thus of this subject. How comes, or wherefore is this temeraria siderum dispositio, this rash placing of stars, or as Epicurus will, fortuita, or accidental? Why are some big, some little, why are they so confusedly, unequally situated in the heavens, and set so much out of order? In all other things nature is equal, proportionable, and constant; there be justae dimensiones, et prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabric of man, his eyes, ears, nose, face, members are correspondent, cur non idem coelo opere omnium pulcherrimo? Why are the heavens so irregular, neque paribus molibus, neque paribus intervallis, whence is this difference? Diversos (he concludes) efficere locorum Genios, to make diversity of countries, soils, manners, customs, characters, and constitutions among us, ut quantum vicinia ad charitatem addat, sidera distrahant ad perniciem, and so by this means fluvio vel monte distincti sunt dissimiles, the same places almost shall be distinguished in manners. But this reason is weak and most insufficient. The fixed stars are removed since Ptolemy's time 26. gr. from the first of Aries, and if the earth be immovable, as their site varies, so should countries vary, and diverse alterations would follow. But this we perceive not; as in Tully's time with us in Britain, coelum visu foedum, et in quo facile generantur nubes, &c., 'tis so still. Wherefore Bodine Theat. nat. lib. 2. and some others, will have all these alterations and effects immediately to proceed from those genii, spirits, angels, which rule and domineer in several places; they cause storms, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, ruins, tempests, great winds, floods, &c., the philosophers of Conimbra, will refer this diversity to the influence of that empyrean heaven: for some say the eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in Ptolemy's time, the virtue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, [3068]men grow less, &c. There are that observe new motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call them what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off, together, asunder; as he that plays upon a sackbut by pulling it up and down alters his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive) diverse alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures. About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a [3069]Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in promptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountains quod inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, praecipites, horroris et mortis speciem prae se ferentes, uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all green trees, plants, and fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured, 'tis evident. Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north. But why should it be so hot in Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those [3070]etesian and northeastern winds blow continually and constantly so long together, in some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only: here perpetual drought, there dropping showers; here foggy mists, there a pleasant air; here [3071]terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the year, there open in the same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found? Sometimes (as in [3072]Peru) on the one side of the mountains it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there wind, with infinite such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or solve all this by the sun's motion, but when there is such diversity to such as Perioeci or very near site, how can that position hold? Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain [3073]stones, frogs, mice, &c. Rats, which they call _lemmer_ in Norway, and are manifestly observed (as [3074]Munster writes) by the inhabitants, to descend and fall with some feculent showers, and like so many locusts, consume all that is green. Leo Afer speaks as much of locusts, about Fez in Barbary there be infinite swarms in their fields upon a sudden: so at Aries in France, 1553, the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass and fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione et consternatione (as Valleriola obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1. relates) coelum subito obumbrabant, &c. he concludes, [3075]it could not be from natural causes, they cannot imagine whence they come, but from heaven. Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c. lifted up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as [3076]Baracellus the physician disputes, and thence let fall with showers, or there engendered? [3077]Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by celestial influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or prodigies raised by art and illusions of spirits, which are princes of the air; to whom Bodin. lib. 2. Theat. Nat. subscribes. In fine, of meteors in general, Aristotle's reasons are exploded by Bernardinus Telesius, by Paracelsus his principles confuted, and other causes assigned, sal, sulphur, mercury, in which his disciples are so expert, that they can alter elements, and separate at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, not as Cardan, Tasneir, Peregrinus, by some magnetical virtue, but by mixture of elements; imitate thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the sea's ebbing and flowing, give life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? P. Nonius Saluciensis and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate that no meteors, clouds, fogs, [3078]vapours, arise higher than fifty or eighty miles, and all the rest to be purer air or element of fire: which [3079]Cardan, [3080]Tycho, and [3081]John Pena manifestly confute by refractions, and many other arguments, there is no such element of fire at all. If, as Tycho proves, the moon be distant from us fifty and sixty semi-diameters of the earth: and as Peter Nonius will have it, the air be so angust, what proportion is there betwixt the other three elements and it? To what use serves it? Is it full of spirits which inhabit it, as the Paracelsians and Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, [3082]full of birds, or a mere vacuum to no purpose? It is much controverted between Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman, the landgrave of Hesse's mathematician, in their astronomical epistles, whether it be the same Diaphanum clearness, matter of air and heavens, or two distinct essences? Christopher Rotman, John Pena, Jordanus Brunus, with many other late mathematicians, contend it is the same and one matter throughout, saving that the higher still the purer it is, and more subtile; as they find by experience in the top of some hills in [3083]America; if a man ascend, he faints instantly for want of thicker air to refrigerate the heart. Acosta, l. 3. c. 9. calls this mountain Periacaca in Peru; it makes men cast and vomit, he saith, that climb it, as some other of those Andes do in the deserts of Chile for five hundred miles together, and for extremity of cold to lose their fingers and toes. Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven and air; but to say truth, with some small qualification, they have one and the self-same opinion about the essence and matter of heavens; that it is not hard and impenetrable, as peripatetics hold, transparent, of a quinta essentia, [3084]but that it is penetrable and soft as the air itself is, and that the planets move in it, as birds in the air, fishes in the sea. This they prove by motion of comets, and otherwise (though Claremontius in his Antitycho stiffly opposes), which are not generated, as Aristotle teacheth, in the aerial region, of a hot and dry exhalation, and so consumed: but as Anaxagoras and Democritus held of old, of a celestial matter: and as [3085] Tycho, [3086]Eliseus, Roeslin, Thaddeus, Haggesius, Pena, Rotman, Fracastorius, demonstrate by their progress, parallaxes, refractions, motions of the planets, which interfere and cut one another's orbs, now higher, and then lower, as ♂ amongst the rest, which sometimes, as [3087]Kepler confirms by his own, and Tycho's accurate observations, comes nearer the earth than the ☉ and is again eftsoons aloft in Jupiter's orb; and [3088]other sufficient reasons, far above the moon: exploding in the meantime that element of fire, those fictitious first watery movers, those heavens I mean above the firmament, which Delrio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius, and many of the fathers affirm; those monstrous orbs of eccentrics, and Eccentre Epicycles deserentes. Which howsoever Ptolemy, Alhasen, Vitellio, Purbachius, Maginus, Clavius, and many of their associates, stiffly maintain to be real orbs, eccentric, concentric, circles aequant, &c. are absurd and ridiculous. For who is so mad to think that there should be so many circles, like subordinate wheels in a clock, all impenetrable and hard, as they feign, add and subtract at their pleasure. [3089]Maginus makes eleven heavens, subdivided into their orbs and circles, and all too little to serve those particular appearances: Fracastorius, seventy-two homocentrics; Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Ramerus, Heliseus Roeslin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own inventions; and they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we admit of equators, tropics, colures, circles arctic and antarctic, for doctrine's sake (though Ramus thinks them all unnecessary), they will have them supposed only for method and order. Tycho hath feigned I know not how many subdivisions of epicycles in epicycles, &c., to calculate and express the moon's motion: but when all is done, as a supposition, and no otherwise; not (as he holds) hard, impenetrable, subtile, transparent, &c., or making music, as Pythagoras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, but still, quiet, liquid, open, &c. If the heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it were not amiss in this aerial progress, to make wings and fly up, which that Turk in Busbequius made his fellow-citizens in Constantinople believe he would perform: and some new-fangled wits, methinks, should some time or other find out: or if that may not be, yet with a Galileo's glass, or Icaromenippus' wings in Lucian, command the spheres and heavens, and see what is done amongst them. Whether there be generation and corruption, as some think, by reason of ethereal comets, that in Cassiopea, 1572, that in Cygno, 1600, that in Sagittarius, 1604, and many like, which by no means Jul. Caesar la Galla, that Italian philosopher, in his physical disputation with Galileis de phenomenis in orbe lunae, cap. 9. will admit: or that they were created ab initio, and show themselves at set times. and as [3090]Helisaeus Roeslin contends, have poles, axle-trees, circles of their own, and regular motions. For, non pereunt, sed minuuntur et disparent, [3091]Blancanus holds they come and go by fits, casting their tails still from the sun: some of them, as a burning-glass, projects the sunbeams from it; though not always neither: for sometimes a comet casts his tail from Venus, as Tycho observes. And as [3092]Helisaeus Roeslin of some others, from the moon, with little stars about them ad stuporem astronomorum; cum multis aliis in coelo miraculis, all which argue with those Medicean, Austrian, and Burbonian stars, that the heaven of the planets is indistinct, pure, and open, in which the planets move certis legibus ac metis. Examine likewise, An coelum sit coloratum? Whether the stars be of that bigness, distance, as astronomers relate, so many in [3093]number, 1026, or 1725, as J. Bayerus; or as some Rabbins, 29,000 myriads; or as Galileo discovers by his glasses, infinite, and that via lactea, a confused light of small stars, like so many nails in a door: or all in a row, like those 12,000 isles of the Maldives in the Indian ocean? Whether the least visible star in the eighth sphere be eighteen times bigger than the earth; and as Tycho calculates, 14,000 semi-diameters distant from it? Whether they be thicker parts of the orbs, as Aristotle delivers: or so many habitable worlds, as Democritus? Whether they have light of their own, or from the sun, or give light round, as Patritius discourseth? An aeque distent a centra mundi? Whether light be of their essence; and that light be a substance or an accident? Whether they be hot by themselves, or by accident cause heat? Whether there be such a precession of the equinoxes as Copernicus holds, or that the eighth sphere move? An bene philosophentur, R. Bacon and J. Dee, Aphorism. de multiplicatione specierum? Whether there be any such images ascending with each degree of the zodiac in the east, as Aliacensis feigns? An aqua super coelum? as Patritius and the schoolmen will, a crystalline [3094]watery heaven, which is [3095] certainly to be understood of that in the middle region? for otherwise, if at Noah's flood the water came from thence, it must be above a hundred years falling down to us, as [3096]some calculate. Besides, An terra sit animata? which some so confidently believe, with Orpheus, Hermes, Averroes, from which all other souls of men, beasts, devils, plants, fishes, &c. are derived, and into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timaeus, Plotinus in his Enneades more largely discuss, they return (see Chalcidius and Bennius, Plato's commentators), as all philosophical matter, in materiam primam. Keplerus, Patritius, and some other Neoterics, have in part revived this opinion. And that every star in heaven hath a soul, angel or intelligence to animate or move it, &c. Or to omit all smaller controversies, as matters of less moment, and examine that main paradox, of the earth's motion, now so much in question: Aristarchus Samius, Pythagoras maintained it of old, Democritus and many of their scholars, Didacus Astunica, Anthony Fascarinus, a Carmelite, and some other commentators, will have Job to insinuate as much, cap. 9. ver. 4. Qui commovet terram de loco suo, &c., and that this one place of scripture makes more for the earth's motion than all the other prove against it; whom Pineda confutes most contradict. Howsoever, it is revived since by Copernicus, not as a truth, but a supposition, as he himself confesseth in the preface to pope Nicholas, but now maintained in good earnest by [3097] Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileo, Campanella, and especially by [3098]Lansbergius, naturae, rationi, et veritati consentaneum, by Origanus, and some [3099]others of his followers. For if the earth be the centre of the world, stand still, and the heavens move, as the most received [3100]opinion is, which they call inordinatam coeli dispositionem, though stiffly maintained by Tycho, Ptolemeus, and their adherents, quis ille furor? &c. what fury is that, saith [3101]Dr. Gilbert, satis animose, as Cabeus notes, that shall drive the heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity in twenty-four hours, when as every point of the firmament, and in the equator, must needs move (so [3102]Clavius calculates) 176,660 in one 246th part of an hour, and an arrow out of a bow must go seven times about the earth, whilst a man can say an Ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth 1884 times in an hour, which is supra humanam cogitationem, beyond human conceit: ocyor et jaculo, et ventos, aequante sagitta. A man could not ride so much ground, going 40 miles a day, in 2904 years, as the firmament goes in 23 hours: or so much in 203 years, as the firmament in one minute: quod incredibile videtur: and the [3103]pole-star, which to our thinking scarce moveth out of his place, goeth a bigger circuit than the sun, whose diameter is much larger than the diameter of the heaven of the sun, and 20,000 semi-diameters of the earth from us, with the rest of the fixed stars, as Tycho proves. To avoid therefore these impossibilities, they ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the sun immovable in the centre of the whole world, the earth centre of the moon, alone, above ♂ and ☿, beneath ♄, ♃, ♂ (or as [3104]Origanus and others will, one single motion to the earth, still placed in the centre of the world, which is more probable) a single motion to the firmament, which moves in 30 or 26 thousand years; and so the planets, Saturn in 30 years absolves his sole and proper motion, Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, &c. and so solve all appearances better than any way whatsoever: calculate all motions, be they in longum or latum, direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without epicycles, intricate eccentrics, &c. rectius commodiusque per unicum motum terrae, saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other suppositions. And 'tis true they say, according to optic principles, the visible appearances of the planets do so indeed answer to their magnitudes and orbs, and come nearest to mathematical observations and precedent calculations, there is no repugnancy to physical axioms, because no penetration of orbs; but then between the sphere of Saturn and the firmament, there is such an incredible and vast [3105]space or distance (7,000,000 semi-diameters of the earth, as Tycho calculates) void of stars: and besides, they do so enhance the bigness of the stars, enlarge their circuit, to solve those ordinary objections of parallaxes and retrogradations of the fixed stars, that alteration of the poles, elevation in several places or latitude of cities here on earth (for, say they, if a man's eye were in the firmament, he should not at all discern that great annual motion of the earth, but it would still appear punctum indivisibile and seem to be fixed in one place, of the same bigness) that it is quite opposite to reason, to natural philosophy, and all out as absurd as disproportional (so some will) as prodigious, as that of the sun's swift motion of heavens. But hoc posito, to grant this their tenet of the earth's motion: if the earth move, it is a planet, and shines to them in the moon, and to the other planetary inhabitants, as the moon and they do to us upon the earth: but shine she doth, as Galileo, [3106] Kepler, and others prove, and then per consequens, the rest of the planets are inhabited, as well as the moon, which he grants in his dissertation with Galileo's Nuncius Sidereus, [3107]that there be Jovial and Saturn inhabitants, &c., and those several planets have their several moons about them, as the earth hath hers, as Galileo hath already evinced by his glasses: [3108]four about Jupiter, two about Saturn (though Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius Licetus, and Jul. Caesar le Galla cavil at it) yet Kepler, the emperor's mathematician, confirms out of his experience, that he saw as much by the same help, and more about Mars, Venus, and the rest they hope to find out, peradventure even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have already averred. Then (I say) the earth and they be planets alike, moved about the sun, the common centre of the world alike, and it may be those two green children which [3109] Nubrigensis speaks of in his time, that fell from heaven, came from thence; and that famous stone that fell from heaven in Aristotle's time, olymp. 84, anno tertio, ad Capuas Fluenta, recorded by Laertius and others, or Ancile or buckler in Numa's time, recorded by Festus. We may likewise insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Leucippus maintained in their ages, there be [3110]infinite worlds, and infinite earths or systems, in infinito aethere, which [3111]Eusebius collects out of their tenets, because infinite stars and planets like unto this of ours, which some stick not still to maintain and publicly defend, sperabundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in aeternitate per ambulationem, &c. (Nic. Hill. Londinensis philos. Epicur.) For if the firmament be of such an incomparable bigness, as these Copernical giants will have it, infinitum, aut infinito proximum, so vast and full of innumerable stars, as being infinite in extent, one above another, some higher, some lower, some nearer, some farther off, and so far asunder, and those so huge and great, insomuch that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in it, totum aggregatum (as Fromundus of Louvain in his tract, de immobilitate terrae argues) evehatur inter stellas, videri a nobis non poterat, tam immanis est distantia inter tellurem et fixas, sed instar puncti, &c. If our world be small in respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars visible in the firmament to be so many suns, with

## particular fixed centres; to have likewise their subordinate planets,

as the sun hath his dancing still round him? which Cardinal Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some others have held, and some still maintain, Animae, Aristotelismo innutritae, et minutis speculationibus assuetae, secus forsan, &c. Though they seem close to us, they are infinitely distant, and so per consequens, there are infinite habitable worlds: what hinders? Why should not an infinite cause (as God is) produce infinite effects? as Nic. Hill. Democrit. philos. disputes: Kepler (I confess) will by no means admit of Brunus's infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so many suns, with their compassing planets, yet the said [3112]Kepler between jest and earnest in his perspectives, lunar geography, [3113] & somnio suo, dissertat. cum nunc. sider. seems in part to agree with this, and partly to contradict; for the planets, he yields them to be inhabited, he doubts of the stars; and so doth Tycho in his astronomical epistles, out of a consideration of their vastity and greatness, break out into some such like speeches, that he will never believe those great and huge bodies were made to no other use than this that we perceive, to illuminate the earth, a point insensible in respect of the whole. But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, earths, worlds, [3114] if they be inhabited? rational creatures? as Kepler demands, or have they souls to be saved? or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do? Are we or they lords of the world? And how are all things made for man? Difficile est nodum hunc expedire, eo quod nondum omnia quae huc pertinent explorata habemus: 'tis hard to determine: this only he proves, that we are in praecipuo mundi sinu, in the best place, best world, nearest the heart of the sun. [3115]Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, in his second

## book de sensu rerum, cap. 4, subscribes to this of Kepler; that they

are inhabited he certainly supposeth, but with what kind of creatures he cannot say, he labours to prove it by all means: and that there are infinite worlds, having made an apology for Galileo, and dedicates this tenet of his to Cardinal Cajetanus. Others freely speak, mutter, and would persuade the world (as [3116]Marinus Marcenus complains) that our modern divines are too severe and rigid against mathematicians; ignorant and peevish, in not admitting their true demonstrations and certain observations, that they tyrannise over art, science, and all philosophy, in suppressing their labours (saith Pomponatius), forbidding them to write, to speak a truth, all to maintain their superstition, and for their profit's sake. As for those places of Scripture which oppugn it, they will have spoken ad captum vulgi, and if rightly understood, and favourably interpreted, not at all against it; and as Otho Gasman, Astrol. cap. 1. part. 1. notes, many great divines, besides Porphyrius, Proclus, Simplicius, and those heathen philosophers, doctrina et aetate venerandi, Mosis Genesin mundanam popularis nescio cujus ruditatis, quae longa absit a vera Philosophorum eruditione, insimulant: for Moses makes mention but of two planets, ☉ and ☾, no four elements, &c. Read more on him, in [3117]Grossius and Junius. But to proceed, these and such like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious paradoxes, inferences must needs follow, if it once be granted, which Rotman, Kepler, Gilbert, Diggeus, Origanus, Galileo, and others, maintain of the earth's motion, that 'tis a planet, and shines as the moon doth, which contains in it [3118]both land and sea as the moon doth: for so they find by their glasses that Maculae in facie Lunae, the brighter parts are earth, the dusky sea, which Thales, Plutarch, and Pythagoras formerly taught: and manifestly discern hills and dales, and such like concavities, if we may subscribe to and believe Galileo's observations. But to avoid these paradoxes of the earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately [3119]condemned as heretical, as appears by Blancanus and Fromundus's writings) our latter mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred: and to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own Dedalaean heads. Fracastorius will have the earth stand still, as before; and to avoid that supposition of eccentrics and epicycles, he hath coined seventy-two homocentrics, to solve all appearances. Nicholas Ramerus will have the earth the centre of the world, but movable, and the eighth sphere immovable, the five upper planets to move about the sun, the sun and moon about the earth. Of which orbs Tycho Brahe puts the earth the centre immovable, the stars immovable, the rest with Ramerus, the planets without orbs to wander in the air, keep time and distance, true motion, according to that virtue which God hath given them. [3120]Helisaeus Roeslin censureth both, with Copernicus (whose hypothesis de terrae motu, Philippus Lansbergius hath lately vindicated, and demonstrated with solid arguments in a just volume, Jansonius Caesins [3121]hath illustrated in a sphere.) The said Johannes Lansbergius, 1633, hath since defended his assertion against all the cavils and calumnies of Fromundus his Anti-Aristarchus, Baptista Morinus, and Petrus Bartholinus: Fromundus, 1634, hath written against him again, J. Rosseus of Aberdeen, &c. (sound drums and trumpets) whilst Roeslin (I say) censures all, and Ptolemeus himself as insufficient: one offends against natural philosophy, another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as not answering to astronomical observations: one puts a great space between Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five upper planets, to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion, eccentrics, and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly exploded; and so, Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt, [3122]as a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself: reforms some, and mars all. In the mean time, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their pleasures: one saith the sun stands, another he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he [3123]finds certain spots and clouds in the sun, by the help of glasses, which multiply (saith Keplerus) a thing seen a thousand times bigger in plano, and makes it come thirty-two times nearer to the eye of the beholder: but see the demonstration of this glass in [3124]Tarde, by means of which, the sun must turn round upon his own centre, or they about the sun. Fabricius puts only three, and those in the sun: Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like the Cyanean Isles in the Euxine sea. [3125]Tarde, the Frenchman, hath observed thirty-three, and those neither spots nor clouds, as Galileo, Epist. ad Valserum, supposeth, but planets concentric with the sun, and not far from him with regular motions. [3126]Christopher Shemer, a German Suisser Jesuit, Ursica Rosa, divides them in maculas et faculas, and will have them to be fixed in Solis superficie: and to absolve their periodical and regular motion in twenty-seven or twenty-eight days, holding withal the rotation of the sun upon his centre; and all are so confident, that they have made schemes and tables of their motions. The [3127]Hollander, in his dissertatiuncula cum Apelle, censures all; and thus they disagree amongst themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus Tycho, thus Ramerus, thus Roeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and his adherents, thus Clavius and Maginus, &c., with their followers, vary and determine of these celestial orbs and bodies: and so whilst these men contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is to be feared, the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much offended as [3128]she was with those, and send another messenger to Jupiter, by some new-fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of all those curious controversies, and scatter them abroad. But why should the sun and moon be angry, or take exceptions at mathematicians and philosophers? when as the like measure is offered unto God himself, by a company of theologasters: they are not contented to see the sun and moon, measure their site and biggest distance in a glass, calculate their motions, or visit the moon in a poetical fiction, or a dream, as he saith, [3129]Audax facinus et memorabile nunc incipiam, neque hoc saeculo usurpatum prius, quid in Lunae regno hac nocte gestum sit exponam, et quo nemo unquam nisi somniando pervenit, [3130]but he and Menippus: or as [3131]Peter Cuneus, Bona fide agam, nihil eorum quae scripturus sum, verum esse scitote, &c. quae nec facta, nec futura sunt, dicam, [3132]stili tantum et ingenii causa, not in jest, but in good earnest these gigantical Cyclops will transcend spheres, heaven, stars, into that Empyrean heaven; soar higher yet, and see what God himself doth. The Jewish Talmudists take upon them to determine how God spends his whole time, sometimes playing with Leviathan, sometimes overseeing the world, &c., like Lucian's Jupiter, that spent much of the year in painting butterflies' wings, and seeing who offered sacrifice; telling the hours when it should rain, how much snow should fall in such a place, which way the wind should stand in Greece, which way in Africa. In the Turks' Alcoran, Mahomet is taken up to heaven, upon a Pegasus sent on purpose for him, as he lay in bed with his wife, and after some conference with God is set on ground again. The pagans paint him and mangle him after a thousand fashions; our heretics, schismatics, and some schoolmen, come not far behind: some paint him in the habit of an old man, and make maps of heaven, number the angels, tell their several [3133]names, offices: some deny God and his providence, some take his office out of his hands, will [3134]bind and loose in heaven, release, pardon, forgive, and be quarter-master with him: some call his Godhead in question, his power, and attributes, his mercy, justice, providence: they will know with [3135]Cecilius, why good and bad are punished together, war, fires, plagues, infest all alike, why wicked men flourish, good are poor, in prison, sick, and ill at ease. Why doth he suffer so much mischief and evil to be done, if he be [3136]able to help? why doth he not assist good, or resist bad, reform our wills, if he be not the author of sin, and let such enormities be committed, unworthy of his knowledge, wisdom, government, mercy, and providence, why lets he all things be done by fortune and chance? Others as prodigiously inquire after his omnipotency, an possit plures similes creare deos? an ex scarcibaeo deum? &c., et quo demum ruetis sacrificuli? Some, by visions and revelations, take upon them to be familiar with God, and to be of privy council with him; they will tell how many, and who shall be saved, when the world shall come to an end, what year, what month, and whatsoever else God hath reserved unto himself, and to his angels. Some again, curious fantastics, will know more than this, and inquire with [3137]Epicurus, what God did before the world was made? was he idle? Where did he bide? What did he make the world of? why did he then make it, and not before? If he made it new, or to have an end, how is he unchangeable, infinite, &c. Some will dispute, cavil, and object, as Julian did of old, whom Cyril confutes, as Simon Magus is feigned to do, in that [3138]dialogue betwixt him and Peter: and Ammonius the philosopher, in that dialogical disputation with Zacharias the Christian. If God be infinitely and only good, why should he alter or destroy the world? if he confound that which is good, how shall himself continue good? If he pull it down because evil, how shall he be free from the evil that made it evil? &c., with many such absurd and brain-sick questions, intricacies, froth of human wit, and excrements of curiosity, &c., which, as our Saviour told his inquisitive disciples, are not fit for them to know. But hoo! I am now gone quite out of sight, I am almost giddy with roving about: I could have ranged farther yet; but I am an infant, and not [3139]able to dive into these profundities, or sound these depths; not able to understand, much less to discuss. I leave the contemplation of these things to stronger wits, that have better ability, and happier leisure to wade into such philosophical mysteries; for put case I were as able as willing, yet what can one man do? I will conclude with [3140]Scaliger, Nequaquam nos homines sumus, sed partes hominis, ex omnibus aliquid fieri potest, idque non magnum; ex singulis fere nihil. Besides (as Nazianzen hath it) Deus latere nos multa voluit; and with Seneca, cap. 35. de Cometis, Quid miramur tam rara mundi spectacula non teneri certis legibus, nondum intelligi? multae sunt gentes quae tantum de facie sciunt coelum, veniet, tempus fortasse, quo ista quae, nunc latent in lucem dies extrahat longioris aevi diligentia, una aetas non sufficit, posteri, &c., when God sees his time, he will reveal these mysteries to mortal men, and show that to some few at last, which he hath concealed so long. For I am of [3141]his mind, that Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him at that time to discover it: it was contingent to him, but necessary to God; he reveals and conceals to whom and when he will. And which [3142]one said of history and records of former times, God in his providence, to check our presumptuous inquisition, wraps up all things in uncertainty, bars us from long antiquity, and bounds our search within the compass of some few ages: many good things are lost, which our predecessors made use of, as Pancirola will better inform you; many new things are daily invented, to the public good; so kingdoms, men, and knowledge ebb and flow, are hid and revealed, and when you have all done, as the Preacher concluded, Nihil est sub sole novum (nothing new under the sun.) But my melancholy spaniel's quest, my game is sprung, and I must suddenly come down and follow. Jason Pratensis, in his book de morbis capitis, and chapter of Melancholy, hath these words out of Galen, [3143]Let them come to me to know what meat and drink they shall use, and besides that, I will teach them what temper of ambient air they shall make choice of, what wind, what countries they shall choose, and what avoid. Out of which lines of his, thus much we may gather, that to this cure of melancholy, amongst other things, the rectification of air is necessarily required. This is performed, either in reforming natural or artificial air. Natural is that which is in our election to choose or avoid: and 'tis either general, to countries, provinces; particular, to cities, towns, villages, or private houses. What harm those extremities of heat or cold do in this malady, I have formerly shown: the medium must needs be good, where the air is temperate, serene, quiet, free from bogs, fens, mists, all manner of putrefaction, contagious and filthy noisome smells. The [3144]Egyptians by all geographers are commended to be hilares, a conceited and merry nation: which I can ascribe to no other cause than the serenity of their air. They that live in the Orcades are registered by [3145]Hector Boethius and [3146]Cardan, to be of fair complexion, long-lived, most healthful, free from all manner of infirmities of body and mind, by reason of a sharp purifying air, which comes from the sea. The Boeotians in Greece were dull and heavy, crassi Boeoti, by reason of a foggy air in which they lived, [3147]Boeotum in crasso jurares aere natum, Attica most acute, pleasant, and refined. The clime changes not so much customs, manners, wits (as Aristotle Polit. lib. 6. cap. 4. Vegetius, Plato, Bodine, method. hist. cap. 5. hath proved at large) as constitutions of their bodies, and temperature itself. In all particular provinces we see it confirmed by experience, as the air is, so are the inhabitants, dull, heavy, witty, subtle, neat, cleanly, clownish, sick, and sound. In [3148]Perigord in France the air is subtle, healthful, seldom any plague or contagious disease, but hilly and barren: the men sound, nimble, and lusty; but in some parts of Guienne, full of moors and marshes, the people dull, heavy, and subject to many infirmities. Who sees not a great difference between Surrey, Sussex, and Romney Marsh, the wolds in Lincolnshire and the fens. He therefore that loves his health, if his ability will give him leave, must often shift places, and make choice of such as are wholesome, pleasant, and convenient: there is nothing better than change of air in this malady, and generally for health to wander up and down, as those [3149]Tartari Zamolhenses, that live in hordes, and take opportunity of times, places, seasons. The kings of Persia had their summer and winter houses; in winter at Sardis, in summer at Susa; now at Persepolis, then at Pasargada. Cyrus lived seven cold months at Babylon, three at Susa, two at Ecbatana, saith [3150]Xenophon, and had by that means a perpetual spring. The great Turk sojourns sometimes at Constantinople, sometimes at Adrianople, &c. The kings of Spain have their Escurial in heat of summer, [3151]Madrid for a wholesome seat, Valladolid a pleasant site, &c., variety of secessus as all princes and great men have, and their several progresses to this purpose. Lucullus the Roman had his house at Rome, at Baiae, &c. [3152]When Cn. Pompeius, Marcus Cicero (saith Plutarch) and many noble men in the summer came to see him, at supper Pompeius jested with him, that it was an elegant and pleasant village, full of windows, galleries, and all offices fit for a summer house; but in his judgment very unfit for winter: Lucullus made answer that the lord of the house had wit like a crane, that changeth her country with the season; he had other houses furnished, and built for that purpose, all out as commodious as this. So Tully had his Tusculan, Plinius his Lauretan village, and every gentleman of any fashion in our times hath the like. The [3153]bishop of Exeter had fourteen several houses all furnished, in times past. In Italy, though they bide in cities in winter, which is more gentlemanlike, all the summer they come abroad to their country-houses, to recreate themselves. Our gentry in England live most part in the country (except it be some few castles) building still in bottoms (saith [3154]Jovius) or near woods, corona arborum virentium; you shall know a village by a tuft of trees at or about it, to avoid those strong winds wherewith the island is infested, and cold winter blasts. Some discommend moated houses, as unwholesome; so Camden saith of [3155]Ew-elme, that it was therefore unfrequented, ob stagni vicini halitus, and all such places as be near lakes or rivers. But I am of opinion that these inconveniences will be mitigated, or easily corrected by good fires, as [3156]one reports of Venice, that graveolentia and fog of the moors is sufficiently qualified by those innumerable smokes. Nay more, [3157]Thomas Philol. Ravennas, a great physician, contends that the Venetians are generally longer-lived than any city in Europe, and live many of them 120 years. But it is not water simply that so much offends, as the slime and noisome smells that accompany such overflowed places, which is but at some few seasons after a flood, and is sufficiently recompensed with sweet smells and aspects in summer, Ver pinget vario gemmantia prata colore, and many other commodities of pleasure and profit; or else may be corrected by the site, if it be somewhat remote from the water, as Lindley, [3158]Orton super montem, [3159]Drayton, or a little more elevated, though nearer, as [3160]Caucut, [3161]Amington, [3162]Polesworth, [3163]Weddington (to insist in such places best to me known, upon the river of Anker, in Warwickshire, [3164] Swarston, and [3165]Drakesly upon Trent). Or howsoever they be unseasonable in winter, or at some times, they have their good use in summer. If so be that their means be so slender as they may not admit of any such variety, but must determine once for all, and make one house serve each season, I know no men that have given better rules in this behalf than our husbandry writers. [3166]Cato and Columella prescribe a good house to stand by a navigable river, good highways, near some city, and in a good soil, but that is more for commodity than health. The best soil commonly yields the worst air, a dry sandy plat is fittest to build upon, and such as is rather hilly than plain, full of downs, a Cotswold country, as being most commodious for hawking, hunting, wood, waters, and all manner of pleasures. Perigord in France is barren, yet by reason of the excellency of the air, and such pleasures that it affords, much inhabited by the nobility; as Nuremberg in Germany, Toledo in Spain. Our countryman Tusser will tell us so much, that the fieldone is for profit, the woodland for pleasure and health; the one commonly a deep clay, therefore noisome in winter, and subject to bad highways: the other a dry sand. Provision may be had elsewhere, and our towns are generally bigger in the woodland than the fieldone, more frequent and populous, and gentlemen more delight to dwell in such places. Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire (where I was once a grammar scholar), may be a sufficient witness, which stands, as Camden notes, loco ingrato et sterili, but in an excellent air, and full of all manner of pleasures. [3167]Wadley in Berkshire is situate in a vale, though not so fertile a soil as some vales afford, yet a most commodious site, wholesome, in a delicious air, a rich and pleasant seat. So Segrave in Leicestershire (which town [3168]I am now bound to remember) is situated in a champaign, at the edge of the wolds, and more barren than the villages about it, yet no place likely yields a better air. And he that built that fair house, [3169]Wollerton in Nottinghamshire, is much to be commended (though the tract be sandy and barren about it) for making choice of such a place. Constantine, lib. 2. cap. de Agricult. praiseth mountains, hilly, steep places, above the rest by the seaside, and such as look toward the [3170]north upon some great river, as [3171] Farmack in Derbyshire, on the Trent, environed with hills, open only to the north, like Mount Edgecombe in Cornwall, which Mr. [3172]Carew so much admires for an excellent seat: such is the general site of Bohemia: serenat Boreas, the north wind clarifies, [3173]but near lakes or marshes, in holes, obscure places, or to the south and west, he utterly disproves, those winds are unwholesome, putrefying, and make men subject to diseases. The best building for health, according to him, is in [3174] high places, and in an excellent prospect, like that of Cuddeston in Oxfordshire (which place I must honoris ergo mention) is lately and fairly [3175]built in a good air, good prospect, good soil, both for profit and pleasure, not so easily to be matched. P. Crescentius, in his lib. 1. de Agric. cap. 5. is very copious in this subject, how a house should be wholesomely sited, in a good coast, good air, wind, &c., Varro de re rust. lib. 1. cap. 12. [3176]forbids lakes and rivers, marshy and manured grounds, they cause a bad air, gross diseases, hard to be cured: [3177]if it be so that he cannot help it, better (as he adviseth) sell thy house and land than lose thine health. He that respects not this in choosing of his seat, or building his house, is mente captus, mad, [3178]Cato saith, and his dwelling next to hell itself, according to Columella: he commends, in conclusion, the middle of a hill, upon a descent. Baptista, Porta Villae, lib. 1. cap. 22. censures Varro, Cato, Columella, and those ancient rustics, approving many things, disallowing some, and will by all means have the front of a house stand to the south, which how it may be good in Italy and hotter climes, I know not, in our northern countries I am sure it is best: Stephanus, a Frenchman, praedio rustic. lib. 1. cap. 4. subscribes to this, approving especially the descent of a hill south or south-east, with trees to the north, so that it be well watered; a condition in all sites which must not be omitted, as Herbastein inculcates, lib. 1. Julius Caesar Claudinus, a physician, consult. 24, for a nobleman in Poland, melancholy given, adviseth him to dwell in a house inclining to the [3179]east, and [3180]by all means to provide the air be clear and sweet; which Montanus, consil. 229, counselleth the earl of Monfort, his patient, to inhabit a pleasant house, and in a good air. If it be so the natural site may not be altered of our city, town, village, yet by artificial means it may be helped. In hot countries, therefore, they make the streets of their cities very narrow, all over Spain, Africa, Italy, Greece, and many cities of France, in Languedoc especially, and Provence, those southern parts: Montpelier, the habitation and university of physicians, is so built, with high houses, narrow streets, to divert the sun's scalding rays, which Tacitus commends, lib. 15. Annat., as most agreeing to their health, [3181]because the height of buildings, and narrowness of streets, keep away the sunbeams. Some cities use galleries, or arched cloisters towards the street, as Damascus, Bologna, Padua, Berne in Switzerland, Westchester with us, as well to avoid tempests, as the sun's scorching heat. They build on high hills, in hot countries, for more air; or to the seaside, as Baiae, Naples, &c. In our northern countries we are opposite, we commend straight, broad, open, fair streets, as most befitting and agreeing to our clime. We build in bottoms for warmth: and that site of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, in the Aegean sea, which Vitruvius so much discommends, magnificently built with fair houses, sed imprudenter positam unadvisedly sited, because it lay along to the south, and when the south wind blew, the people were all sick, would make an excellent site in our northern climes. Of that artificial site of houses I have sufficiently discoursed: if the plan of the dwelling may not be altered, yet there is much in choice of such a chamber or room, in opportune opening and shutting of windows, excluding foreign air and winds, and walking abroad at convenient times. [3182]Crato, a German, commends east and south site (disallowing cold air and northern winds in this case, rainy weather and misty days), free from putrefaction, fens, bogs, and muck—hills. If the air be such, open no windows, come not abroad. Montanus will have his patient not to [3183]stir at all, if the wind be big or tempestuous, as most part in March it is with us; or in cloudy, lowering, dark days, as in November, which we commonly call the black month; or stormy, let the wind stand how it will, consil. 27. and 30. he must not [3184]open a casement in bad weather, or in a boisterous season, consil. 299, he especially forbids us to open windows to a south wind. The best sites for chamber windows, in my judgment, are north, east, south, and which is the worst, west. Levinus Lemnius, lib. 3. cap. 3. de occult. nat. mir. attributes so much to air, and rectifying of wind and windows, that he holds it alone sufficient to make a man sick or well; to alter body and mind. [3185]A clear air cheers up the spirits, exhilarates the mind; a thick, black, misty, tempestuous, contracts, overthrows. Great heed is therefore to be taken at what times we walk, how we place our windows, lights, and houses, how we let in or exclude this ambient air. The Egyptians, to avoid immoderate heat, make their windows on the top of the house like chimneys, with two tunnels to draw a thorough air. In Spain they commonly make great opposite windows without glass, still shutting those which are next to the sun: so likewise in Turkey and Italy (Venice excepted, which brags of her stately glazed palaces) they use paper windows to like purpose; and lie, sub dio, in the top of their flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of heaven. In some parts of [3186]Italy they have windmills, to draw a cooling air out of hollow caves, and disperse the same through all the chambers of their palaces, to refresh them; as at Costoza, the house of Caesareo Trento, a gentleman of Vicenza, and elsewhere. Many excellent means are invented to correct nature by art. If none of these courses help, the best way is to make artificial air, which howsoever is profitable and good, still to be made hot and moist, and to be seasoned with sweet perfumes, [3187]pleasant and lightsome as it may be; to have roses, violets, and sweet-smelling flowers ever in their windows, posies in their hand. Laurentius commends water-lilies, a vessel of warm water to evaporate in the room, which will make a more delightful perfume, if there be added orange-flowers, pills of citrons, rosemary, cloves, bays, rosewater, rose-vinegar, benzoin, laudanum, styrax, and such like gums, which make a pleasant and acceptable perfume. [3188]Bessardus Bisantinus prefers the smoke of juniper to melancholy persons, which is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers. [3189]Guianerius prescribes the air to be moistened with water, and sweet herbs boiled in it, vine, and sallow leaves, &c., [3190] to besprinkle the ground and posts with rosewater, rose-vinegar, which Avicenna much approves. Of colours it is good to behold green, red, yellow, and white, and by all means to have light enough, with windows in the day, wax candles in the night, neat chambers, good fires in winter, merry companions; for though melancholy persons love to be dark and alone, yet darkness is a great increaser of the humour. Although our ordinary air be good by nature or art, yet it is not amiss, as I have said, still to alter it; no better physic for a melancholy man than change of air, and variety of places, to travel abroad and see fashions. [3191]Leo Afer speaks of many of his countrymen so cured, without all other physic: amongst the Negroes, there is such an excellent air, that if any of them be sick elsewhere, and brought thither, he is instantly recovered, of which he was often an eyewitness. [3192]Lipsius, Zuinger, and some others, add as much of ordinary travel. No man, saith Lipsius, in an epistle to Phil. Lanoius, a noble friend of his, now ready to make a voyage, [3193]can be such a stock or stone, whom that pleasant speculation of countries, cities, towns, rivers, will not affect. [3194] Seneca the philosopher was infinitely taken with the sight of Scipio Africanus' house, near Linternum, to view those old buildings, cisterns, baths, tombs, &c. And how was [3195]Tully pleased with the sight of Athens, to behold those ancient and fair buildings, with a remembrance of their worthy inhabitants. Paulus Aemilius, that renowned Roman captain, after he had conquered Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, and now made an end of his tedious wars, though he had been long absent from Rome, and much there desired, about the beginning of autumn (as [3196]Livy describes it) made a pleasant peregrination all over Greece, accompanied with his son Scipio, and Atheneus the brother of king Eumenes, leaving the charge of his army with Sulpicius Gallus. By Thessaly he went to Delphos, thence to Megaris, Aulis, Athens, Argos, Lacedaemon, Megalopolis, &c. He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage, as who doth not that shall attempt the like, though his travel be ad jactationem magis quam ad usum reipub. (as [3197]one well observes) to crack, gaze, see fine sights and fashions, spend time, rather than for his own or public good? (as it is to many gallants that travel out their best days, together with their means, manners, honesty, religion) yet it availeth howsoever. For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, [3198]that some count him unhappy that never travelled, and pity his case, that from his cradle to his old age beholds the same still; still, still the same, the same. Insomuch that [3199]Rhasis, cont. lib. 1. Tract. 2. doth not only commend, but enjoin travel, and such variety of objects to a melancholy man, and to lie in diverse inns, to be drawn into several companies: Montaltus, cap. 36. and many neoterics are of the same mind: Celsus adviseth him therefore that will continue his health, to have varium vitae genus, diversity of callings, occupations, to be busied about, [3200] sometimes to live in the city, sometimes in the country; now to study or work, to be intent, then again to hawk or hunt, swim, run, ride, or exercise himself. A good prospect alone will ease melancholy, as Comesius contends, lib. 2. c. 7. de Sale. The citizens of [3201]Barcino, saith he, otherwise penned in, melancholy, and stirring little abroad, are much delighted with that pleasant prospect their city hath into the sea, which like that of old Athens besides Aegina Salamina, and many pleasant islands, had all the variety of delicious objects: so are those Neapolitans and inhabitants of Genoa, to see the ships, boats, and passengers go by, out of their windows, their whole cities being situated on the side of a hill, like Pera by Constantinople, so that each house almost hath a free prospect to the sea, as some part of London to the Thames: or to have a free prospect all over the city at once, as at Granada in Spain, and Fez in Africa, the river running betwixt two declining hills, the steepness causeth each house almost, as well to oversee, as to be overseen of the rest. Every country is full of such [3202]delightsome prospects, as well within land, as by sea, as Hermon and [3203]Rama in Palestina, Colalto in Italy, the top of Magetus, or Acrocorinthus, that old decayed castle in Corinth, from which Peloponessus, Greece, the Ionian and Aegean seas were semel et simul at one view to be taken. In Egypt the square top of the great pyramid, three hundred yards in height, and so the Sultan's palace in Grand Cairo, the country being plain, hath a marvellous fair prospect as well over Nilus, as that great city, five Italian miles long, and two broad, by the river side: from mount Sion in Jerusalem, the Holy Land is of all sides to be seen: such high places are infinite: with us those of the best note are Glastonbury tower, Box Hill in Surrey, Bever castle, Rodway Grange, [3204]Walsby in Lincolnshire, where I lately received a real kindness, by the munificence of the right honourable my noble lady and patroness, the Lady Frances, countess dowager of Exeter: and two amongst the rest, which I may not omit for vicinity's sake, Oldbury in the confines of Warwickshire, where I have often looked about me with great delight, at the foot of which hill [3205]I was born: and Hanbury in Staffordshire, contiguous to which is Falde, a pleasant village, and an ancient patrimony belonging to our family, now in the possession of mine elder brother, William Burton, Esquire. [3206]Barclay the Scot commends that of Greenwich tower for one of the best prospects in Europe, to see London on the one side, the Thames, ships, and pleasant meadows on the other. There be those that say as much and more of St. Mark's steeple in Venice. Yet these are at too great a distance: some are especially affected with such objects as be near, to see passengers go by in some great roadway, or boats in a river, in subjectum forum despicere, to oversee a fair, a marketplace, or out of a pleasant window into some thoroughfare street, to behold a continual concourse, a promiscuous rout, coming and going, or a multitude of spectators at a theatre, a mask, or some such like show. But I rove: the sum is this, that variety of actions, objects, air, places, are excellent good in this infirmity, and all others, good for man, good for beast. [3207]Constantine the emperor, lib. 18. cap. 13. ex Leontio, holds it an only cure for rotten sheep, and any manner of sick cattle. Laelius a Fonte Aegubinus, that great doctor, at the latter end of many of his consultations (as commonly he doth set down what success his physic had,) in melancholy most especially approves of this above all other remedies whatsoever, as appears consult. 69. consult. 229. &c. [3208]Many other things helped, but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and did most good.

MEMB. IV.

_Exercise rectified of Body and Mind_.

To that great inconvenience, which comes on the one side by immoderate and unseasonable exercise, too much solitariness and idleness on the other, must be opposed as an antidote, a moderate and seasonable use of it, and that both of body and mind, as a most material circumstance, much conducing to this cure, and to the general preservation of our health. The heavens themselves run continually round, the sun riseth and sets, the moon increaseth and decreaseth, stars and planets keep their constant motions, the air is still tossed by the winds, the waters ebb and flow to their conservation no doubt, to teach us that we should ever be in action. For which cause Hieron prescribes Rusticus the monk, that he be always occupied about some business or other, [3209]that the devil do not find him idle. [3210]Seneca would have a man do something, though it be to no purpose. [3211]Xenophon wisheth one rather to play at tables, dice, or make a jester of himself (though he might be far better employed) than do nothing. The [3212]Egyptians of old, and many flourishing commonwealths since, have enjoined labour and exercise to all sorts of men, to be of some vocation and calling, and give an account of their time, to prevent those grievous mischiefs that come by idleness: for as fodder, whip, and burthen belong to the ass: so meat, correction, and work unto the servant, Ecclus. xxxiii. 23. The Turks enjoin all men whatsoever, of what degree, to be of some trade or other, the Grand Signior himself is not excused. [3213]In our memory (saith Sabellicus) Mahomet the Turk, he that conquered Greece, at that very time when he heard ambassadors of other princes, did either carve or cut wooden spoons, or frame something upon a table. [3214]This present sultan makes notches for bows. The Jews are most severe in this examination of time. All well-governed places, towns, families, and every discreet person will be a law unto himself. But amongst us the badge of gentry is idleness: to be of no calling, not to labour, for that's derogatory to their birth, to be a mere spectator, a drone, fruges consumere natus, to have no necessary employment to busy himself about in church and commonwealth (some few governors exempted), but to rise to eat, &c., to spend his days in hawking, hunting, &c., and such like disports and recreations ([3215]which our casuists tax), are the sole exercise almost, and ordinary actions of our nobility, and in which they are too immoderate. And thence it comes to pass, that in city and country so many grievances of body and mind, and this feral disease of melancholy so frequently rageth, and now domineers almost all over Europe amongst our great ones. They know not how to spend their time (disports excepted, which are all their business), what to do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves: like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour. Every man almost hath something or other to employ himself about, some vocation, some trade, but they do all by ministers and servants, ad otia duntaxat se natos existimant, imo ad sui ipsius plerumque et aliorum perniciem, [3216]as one freely taxeth such kind of men, they are all for pastimes, 'tis all their study, all their invention tends to this alone, to drive away time, as if they were born some of them to no other ends. Therefore to correct and avoid these errors and inconveniences, our divines, physicians, and politicians, so much labour, and so seriously exhort; and for this disease in particular, [3217]there can be no better cure than continual business, as Rhasis holds, to have some employment or other, which may set their mind awork, and distract their cogitations. Riches may not easily be had without labour and industry, nor learning without study, neither can our health be preserved without bodily exercise. If it be of the body, Guianerius allows that exercise which is gentle, [3218]and still after those ordinary frications which must be used every morning. Montaltus, cap. 26. and Jason Pratensis use almost the same words, highly commending exercise if it be moderate; a wonderful help so used, Crato calls it, and a great means to preserve our health, as adding strength to the whole body, increasing natural heat, by means of which the nutriment is well concocted in the stomach, liver, and veins, few or no crudities left, is happily distributed over all the body. Besides, it expels excrements by sweat and other insensible vapours; insomuch, that [3219]Galen prefers exercise before all physic, rectification of diet, or any regimen in what kind soever; 'tis nature's physician. [3220]Fulgentius, out of Gordonius de conserv. vit. hom. lib. 1. cap. 7. terms exercise, a spur of a dull, sleepy nature, the comforter of the members, cure of infirmity, death of diseases, destruction of all mischiefs and vices. The fittest time for exercise is a little before dinner, a little before supper, [3221]or at any time when the body is empty. Montanus, consil. 31. prescribes it every morning to his patient, and that, as [3222]Calenus adds, after he hath done his ordinary needs, rubbed his body, washed his hands and face, combed his head and gargarised. What kind of exercise he should use, Galen tells us, lib. 2. et 3. de sanit. tuend. and in what measure, [3223] till the body be ready to sweat, and roused up; ad ruborem, some say, non ad sudorem, lest it should dry the body too much; others enjoin those wholesome businesses, as to dig so long in his garden, to hold the plough, and the like. Some prescribe frequent and violent labour and exercises, as sawing every day so long together (epid. 6. Hippocrates confounds them), but that is in some cases, to some peculiar men; [3224]the most forbid, and by no means will have it go farther than a beginning sweat, as being [3225]perilous if it exceed. Of these labours, exercises, and recreations, which are likewise included, some properly belong to the body, some to the mind, some more easy, some hard, some with delight, some without, some within doors, some natural, some are artificial. Amongst bodily exercises, Galen commends ludum parvae pilae, to play at ball, be it with the hand or racket, in tennis-courts or otherwise, it exerciseth each part of the body, and doth much good, so that they sweat not too much. It was in great request of old amongst the Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, mentioned by Homer, Herodotus, and Plinius. Some write, that Aganella, a fair maid of Corcyra, was the inventor of it, for she presented the first ball that ever was made to Nausica, the daughter of King Alcinous, and taught her how to use it. The ordinary sports which are used abroad are hawking, hunting, hilares venandi labores, [3226]one calls them, because they recreate body and mind, [3227]another, the [3228]best exercise that is, by which alone many have been [3229]freed from all feral diseases. Hegesippus, lib. 1. cap. 37. relates of Herod, that he was eased of a grievous melancholy by that means. Plato, 7. de leg. highly magnifies it, dividing it into three parts, by land, water, air. Xenophon, in Cyropaed. graces it with a great name, Deorum munus, the gift of the gods, a princely sport, which they have ever used, saith Langius, epist. 59. lib. 2. as well for health as pleasure, and do at this day, it being the sole almost and ordinary sport of our noblemen in Europe, and elsewhere all over the world. Bohemus, de mor. gent. lib. 3. cap. 12. styles it therefore, studium nobilium, communiter venantur, quod sibi solis licere contendunt, 'tis all their study, their exercise, ordinary business, all their talk: and indeed some dote too much after it, they can do nothing else, discourse of naught else. Paulus Jovius, descr. Brit. doth in some sort tax our [3230] English nobility for it, for living in the country so much, and too frequent use of it, as if they had no other means but hawking and hunting to approve themselves gentlemen with. Hawking comes near to hunting, the one in the air, as the other on the earth, a sport as much affected as the other, by some preferred. [3231]It was never heard of amongst the Romans, invented some twelve hundred years since, and first mentioned by Firmicus, lib. 5. cap. 8. The Greek emperors began it, and now nothing so frequent: he is nobody that in the season hath not a hawk on his fist. A great art, and many [3232]books written of it. It is a wonder to hear [3233]what is related of the Turks' officers in this behalf, how many thousand men are employed about it, how many hawks of all sorts, how much revenues consumed on that only disport, how much time is spent at Adrianople alone every year to that purpose. The [3234]Persian kings hawk after butterflies with sparrows made to that use, and stares: lesser hawks for lesser games they have, and bigger for the rest, that they may produce their sport to all seasons. The Muscovian emperors reclaim eagles to fly at hinds, foxes, &c., and such a one was sent for a present to [3235]Queen Elizabeth: some reclaim ravens, castrils, pies, &c., and man them for their pleasures. Fowling is more troublesome, but all out as delightsome to some sorts of men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, gins, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, stalking-horses, setting-dogs, decoy-ducks, &c., or otherwise. Some much delight to take larks with day-nets, small birds with chaff-nets, plovers, partridge, herons, snipe, &c. Henry the Third, king of Castile (as Mariana the Jesuit reports of him, lib. 3. cap. 7.) was much affected [3236]with catching of quails, and many gentlemen take a singular pleasure at morning and evening to go abroad with their quail-pipes, and will take any pains to satisfy their delight in that kind. The [3237]Italians have gardens fitted to such use, with nets, bushes, glades, sparing no cost or industry, and are very much affected with the sport. Tycho Brahe, that great astronomer, in the chorography of his Isle of Huena, and Castle of Uraniburge, puts down his nets, and manner of catching small birds, as an ornament and a recreation, wherein he himself was sometimes employed. Fishing is a kind of hunting by water, be it with nets, weels, baits, angling, or otherwise, and yields all out as much pleasure to some men as dogs or hawks; [3238]When they draw their fish upon the bank, saith Nic. Henselius Silesiographiae, cap. 3. speaking of that extraordinary delight his countrymen took in fishing, and in making of pools. James Dubravius, that Moravian, in his book de pisc. telleth, how travelling by the highway side in Silesia, he found a nobleman, [3239]booted up to the groins, wading himself, pulling the nets, and labouring as much as any fisherman of them all: and when some belike objected to him the baseness of his office, he excused himself, [3240]that if other men might hunt hares, why should not he hunt carps? Many gentlemen in like sort with us will wade up to the arm-holes upon such occasions, and voluntarily undertake that to satisfy their pleasures, which a poor man for a good stipend would scarce be hired to undergo. Plutarch, in his

## book de soler. animal. speaks against all fishing, [3241]as a filthy,

base, illiberal employment, having neither wit nor perspicacity in it, nor worth the labour. But he that shall consider the variety of baits for all seasons, and pretty devices which our anglers have invented, peculiar lines, false flies, several sleights, &c. will say, that it deserves like commendation, requires as much study and perspicacity as the rest, and is to be preferred before many of them. Because hawking and hunting are very laborious, much riding, and many dangers accompany them; but this is still and quiet: and if so be the angler catch no fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk to the brookside, pleasant shade by the sweet silver streams; he hath good air, and sweet smells of fine fresh meadow flowers, he hears the melodious harmony of birds, he sees the swans, herons, ducks, water-horns, coots, &c., and many other fowl, with their brood, which he thinketh better than the noise of hounds, or blast of horns, and all the sport that they can make. Many other sports and recreations there be, much in use, as ringing, bowling, shooting, which Ascam recommends in a just volume, and hath in former times been enjoined by statute, as a defensive exercise, and an [3242]honour to our land, as well may witness our victories in France. Keelpins, tronks, quoits, pitching bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, wasters, foils, football, balloon, quintain, &c., and many such, which are the common recreations of the country folks. Riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, horse races, wild-goose chases, which are the disports of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by that means gallop quite out of their fortunes. But the most pleasant of all outward pastimes is that of [3243]Areteus, deambulatio per amoena loca, to make a petty progress, a merry journey now and then with some good companions, to visit friends, see cities, castles, towns, [3244]Visere saepe amnes nitidos, per amaenaque Tempe, Et placidas summis sectari in montibus auras.

To see the pleasant fields, the crystal fountains, And take the gentle air amongst the mountains.

[3245]To walk amongst orchards, gardens, bowers, mounts, and arbours, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like pleasant places, like that Antiochian Daphne, brooks, pools, fishponds, between wood and water, in a fair meadow, by a river side, [3246]ubi variae, avium cantationes, florum colores, pratorum frutices, &c. to disport in some pleasant plain, park, run up a steep hill sometimes, or sit in a shady seat, must needs be a delectable recreation. Hortus principis et domus ad delectationem facia, cum sylva, monte et piscina, vulgo la montagna: the prince's garden at Ferrara [3247]Schottus highly magnifies, with the groves, mountains, ponds, for a delectable prospect, he was much affected with it: a Persian paradise, or pleasant park, could not be more delectable in his sight. St. Bernard, in the description of his monastery, is almost ravished with the pleasures of it. A sick [3248]man (saith he) sits upon a green bank, and when the dog-star parcheth the plains, and dries up rivers, he lies in a shady bower, Fronde sub arborea ferventia temperat astra, and feeds his eyes with variety of objects, herbs, trees, to comfort his misery, he receives many delightsome smells, and fills his ears with that sweet and various harmony of birds: good God (saith he), what a company of pleasures hast thou made for man! He that should be admitted on a sudden to the sight of such a palace as that of Escurial in Spain, or to that which the Moors built at Granada, Fontainebleau in France, the Turk's gardens in his seraglio, wherein all manner of birds and beasts are kept for pleasure; wolves, bears, lynxes, tigers, lions, elephants, &c., or upon the banks of that Thracian Bosphorus: the pope's Belvedere in Rome, [3249]as pleasing as those horti pensiles in Babylon, or that Indian king's delightsome garden in [3250]Aelian; or [3251]those famous gardens of the Lord Cantelow in France, could, not choose, though he were never so ill paid, but be much recreated for the time; or many of our noblemen's gardens at home. To take a boat in a pleasant evening, and with music [3252]to row upon the waters, which Plutarch so much applauds, Elian admires, upon the river Pineus: in those Thessalian fields, beset with green bays, where birds so sweetly sing that passengers, enchanted as it were with their heavenly music, omnium laborum et curarum obliviscantur, forget forthwith all labours, care, and grief: or in a gondola through the Grand Canal in Venice, to see those goodly palaces, must needs refresh and give content to a melancholy dull spirit. Or to see the inner rooms of a fair-built and sumptuous edifice, as that of the Persian kings, so much renowned by Diodorus and Curtius, in which all was almost beaten gold, [3253]chairs, stools, thrones, tabernacles, and pillars of gold, plane trees, and vines of gold, grapes of precious stones, all the other ornaments of pure gold, [3254]Fulget gemma floris, et jaspide fulva supellex, Strata micant Tyrio———

With sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, opiparous fare, &c., besides the gallantest young men, the fairest [3255]virgins, puellae scitulae ministrantes, the rarest beauties the world could afford, and those set out with costly and curious attires, ad stuporem usque spectantium, with exquisite music, as in [3256]Trimaltion's house, in every chamber sweet voices ever sounding day and night, incomparabilis luxus, all delights and pleasures in each kind which to please the senses could possibly be devised or had, convives coronati, delitiis ebrii, &c. Telemachus, in Homer, is brought in as one ravished almost at the sight of that magnificent palace, and rich furniture of Menelaus, when he beheld [3257]Aeris fulgorem et resonantia tecta corusco Auro, atque electro nitido, sectoque elephanto, Argentoque simul. Talis Jovis ardua sedes, Aulaque coelicolum stellans splendescit Olympo.

Such glittering of gold and brightest brass to shine, Clear amber, silver pure, and ivory so fine: Jupiter's lofty palace, where the gods do dwell, Was even such a one, and did it not excel.

It will laxare animos, refresh the soul of man to see fair-built cities, streets, theatres, temples, obelisks, &c. The temple of Jerusalem was so fairly built of white marble, with so many pyramids covered with gold; tectumque templi fulvo coruscans auro, nimio suo fulgore obcaecabat oculos itinerantium, was so glorious, and so glistened afar off, that the spectators might not well abide the sight of it. But the inner parts were all so curiously set out with cedar, gold, jewels, &c., as he said of Cleopatra's palace in Egypt,—[3258]Crassumque trabes absconderat aurum, that the beholders were amazed. What so pleasant as to see some pageant or sight go by, as at coronations, weddings, and such like solemnities, to see an ambassador or a prince met, received, entertained with masks, shows, fireworks, &c. To see two kings fight in single combat, as Porus and Alexander; Canute and Edmund Ironside; Scanderbeg and Ferat Bassa the Turk; when not honour alone but life itself is at stake, as the [3259]poet of Hector, ———nec enim pro tergore Tauri, Pro bove nec certamen erat, quae praemia cursus Esse solent, sed pro magni viraque animaque—Hectoris.

To behold a battle fought, like that of Crecy, or Agincourt, or Poitiers, qua nescio (saith Froissart) an vetustas ullam proferre possit clariorem. To see one of Caesar's triumphs in old Rome revived, or the like. To be present at an interview, [3260]as that famous of Henry the Eighth and Francis the First, so much renowned all over Europe; ubi tanto apparatu (saith Hubertus Veillius) tamque triumphali pompa ambo reges com eorum conjugibus coiere, ut nulla unquam aetas tam celebria festa viderit aut audieriti, no age ever saw the like. So infinitely pleasant are such shows, to the sight of which oftentimes they will come hundreds of miles, give any money for a place, and remember many years after with singular delight. Bodine, when he was ambassador in England, said he saw the noblemen go in their robes to the parliament house, summa cum jucunditate vidimus, he was much affected with the sight of it. Pomponius Columna, saith Jovius in his life, saw thirteen Frenchmen, and so many Italians, once fight for a whole army: Quod jucundissimum spectaculum in vita dicit sua, the pleasantest sight that ever he saw in his life. Who would not have been affected with such a spectacle? Or that single combat of [3261] Breaute the Frenchman, and Anthony Schets a Dutchman, before the walls of Sylvaducis in Brabant, anno 1600. They were twenty-two horse on the one side, as many on the other, which like Livy's Horatii, Torquati and Corvini fought for their own glory and country's honour, in the sight and view of their whole city and army. [3262]When Julius Caesar warred about the banks of Rhone, there came a barbarian prince to see him and the Roman army, and when he had beheld Caesar a good while, [3263]I see the gods now (saith he) which before I heard of, nec feliciorem ullam vitae meae aut optavi, aut sensi diem: it was the happiest day that ever he had in his life. Such a sight alone were able of itself to drive away melancholy; if not for ever, yet it must needs expel it for a time. Radzivilus was much taken with the pasha's palace in Cairo, and amongst many other objects which that place afforded, with that solemnity of cutting the banks of the Nile by Imbram Pasha, when it overflowed, besides two or three hundred gilded galleys on the water, he saw two millions of men gathered together on the land, with turbans as white as snow; and 'twas a goodly sight. The very reading of feasts, triumphs, interviews, nuptials, tilts, tournaments, combats, and monomachies, is most acceptable and pleasant. [3264] Franciscus Modius hath made a large collection of such solemnities in two great tomes, which whoso will may peruse. The inspection alone of those curious iconographies of temples and palaces, as that of the Lateran church in Albertus Durer, that of the temple of Jerusalem in [3265]Josephus, Adricomius, and Villalpandus: that of the Escurial in Guadas, of Diana at Ephesus in Pliny, Nero's golden palace in Rome, [3266]Justinian's in Constantinople, that Peruvian Jugo's in [3267]Cusco, ut non ab hominibus, sed a daemoniis constructum videatur; St. Mark's in Venice, by Ignatius, with many such; priscorum artificum opera (saith that [3268]interpreter of Pausanias), the rare workmanship of those ancient Greeks, in theatres, obelisks, temples, statues, gold, silver, ivory, marble images, non minore ferme quum leguntur, quam quum cernuntur, animum delectatione complent, affect one as much by reading almost as by sight. The country hath his recreations, the city his several gymnics and exercises, May games, feasts, wakes, and merry meetings, to solace themselves; the very being in the country; that life itself is a sufficient recreation to some men, to enjoy such pleasures, as those old patriarchs did. Diocletian, the emperor, was so much affected with it, that he gave over his sceptre, and turned gardener. Constantine wrote twenty books of husbandry. Lysander, when ambassadors came to see him, bragged of nothing more than of his orchard, hi sunt ordines mei. What shall I say of Cincinnatus, Cato, Tully, and many such? how they have been pleased with it, to prune, plant, inoculate and graft, to show so many several kinds of pears, apples, plums, peaches, &c. [3269]Nunc captare feras laqueo, nunc fallere visco, Atque etiam magnos canibus circundare saltus Insidias avibus moliri, incendere vepres.

Sometimes with traps deceive, with line and string To catch wild birds and beasts, encompassing The grove with dogs, and out of bushes firing.

———et nidos aviumscrutari, &c.

Jucundus, in his preface to Cato, Varro, Columella, &c., put out by him, confesseth of himself, that he was mightily delighted with these husbandry studies, and took extraordinary pleasure in them: if the theory or speculation can so much affect, what shall the place and exercise itself, the practical part do? The same confession I find in Herbastein, Porta, Camerarius, and many others, which have written of that subject. If my testimony were aught worth, I could say as much of myself; I am vere Saturnus; no man ever took more delight in springs, woods, groves, gardens, walks, fishponds, rivers, &c. But [3270]Tantalus a labris sitiens fugientia captat Flumina;

And so do I; Velle licet, potiri non licet.[3271] Every palace, every city almost hath its peculiar walks, cloisters, terraces, groves, theatres, pageants, games, and several recreations; every country, some professed gymnics to exhilarate their minds, and exercise their bodies. The [3272]Greeks had their Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean games, in honour of Neptune, Jupiter, Apollo; Athens hers: some for honour, garlands, crowns; for [3273]beauty, dancing, running, leaping, like our silver games. The [3274]Romans had their feasts, as the Athenians, and Lacedaemonians held their public banquets, in Pritanaeo, Panathenaeis, Thesperiis, Phiditiis, plays, naumachies, places for sea-fights, [3275]theatres, amphitheatres able to contain 70,000 men, wherein they had several delightsome shows to exhilarate the people; [3276] gladiators, combats of men with themselves, with wild beasts, and wild beasts one with another, like our bull-baitings, or bear-baitings (in which many countrymen and citizens amongst us so much delight and so frequently use), dancers on ropes. Jugglers, wrestlers, comedies, tragedies, publicly exhibited at the emperor's and city's charge, and that with incredible cost and magnificence. In the Low-Countries (as [3277]Meteran relates) before these wars, they had many solemn feasts, plays, challenges, artillery gardens, colleges of rhymers, rhetoricians, poets: and to this day, such places are curiously maintained in Amsterdam, as appears by that description of Isaacus Pontanus, rerum Amstelrod. lib. 2. cap. 25. So likewise not long since at Friburg in Germany, as is evident by that relation of [3278]Neander, they had Ludos septennales, solemn plays every seven years, which Bocerus, one of their own poets, hath elegantly described: [3279]At nunc magnifico spectacula structa paratu Quid memorem, veteri non concessura Quirino, Ludorum pompa, &c.

In Italy they have solemn declamations of certain select young gentlemen in Florence (like those reciters in old Rome), and public theatres in most of their cities, for stage-players and others, to exercise and recreate themselves. All seasons almost, all places, have their several pastimes; some in summer, some in winter; some abroad, some within: some of the body, some of the mind: and diverse men have diverse recreations and exercises. Domitian, the emperor, was much delighted with catching flies; Augustus to play with nuts amongst children; [3280]Alexander Severus was often pleased to play with whelps and young pigs. [3281]Adrian was so wholly enamoured with dogs and horses, that he bestowed monuments and tombs of them, and buried them in graves. In foul weather, or when they can use no other convenient sports, by reason of the time, as we do cock-fighting, to avoid idleness, I think, (though some be more seriously taken with it, spend much time, cost and charges, and are too solicitous about it) [3282]Severus used partridges and quails, as many Frenchmen do still, and to keep birds in cages, with which he was much pleased, when at any time he had leisure from public cares and businesses. He had (saith Lampridius) tame pheasants, ducks, partridges, peacocks, and some 20,000 ring-doves and pigeons. Busbequius, the emperor's orator, when he lay in Constantinople, and could not stir much abroad, kept for his recreation, busying himself to see them fed, almost all manner of strange birds and beasts; this was something, though not to exercise his body, yet to refresh his mind. Conradus Gesner, at Zurich in Switzerland, kept so likewise for his pleasure, a great company of wild beasts; and (as he saith) took great delight to see them eat their meat. Turkey gentlewomen, that are perpetual prisoners, still mewed up according to the custom of the place, have little else beside their household business, or to play with their children to drive away time, but to dally with their cats, which they have in delitiis, as many of our ladies and gentlewomen use monkeys and little dogs. The ordinary recreations which we have in winter, and in most solitary times busy our minds with, are cards, tables and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, shuttlecock, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, Yule-games, frolics, jests, riddles, catches, purposes, questions and commands, [3283]merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, friars, &c., such as the old woman told Psyche in [3284]Apuleius, Boccace novels, and the rest, quarum auditione pueri delectantur, senes narratione, which some delight to hear, some to tell; all are well pleased with. Amaranthus, the philosopher, met Hermocles, Diophantus and Philolaus, his companions, one day busily discoursing about Epicurus and Democritus' tenets, very solicitous which was most probable and came nearest to truth: to put them out of that surly controversy, and to refresh their spirits, he told them a pleasant tale of Stratocles the physician's wedding, and of all the particulars, the company, the cheer, the music, &c., for he was new come from it; with which relation they were so much delighted, that Philolaus wished a blessing to his heart, and many a good wedding,[3285] many such merry meetings might he be at, to please himself with the sight, and others with the narration of it. News are generally welcome to all our ears, avide audimus, aures enim hominum novitate laetantur ([3286]as Pliny observes), we long after rumour to hear and listen to it, [3287]densum humeris bibit aure vulgus. We are most part too inquisitive and apt to hearken after news, which Caesar, in his [3288]Commentaries, observes of the old Gauls, they would be inquiring of every carrier and passenger what they had heard or seen, what news abroad? ———quid toto fiat in orbe, Quid Seres, quid Thraces agant, secreta novercae, Et pueri, quis amet, &c.

as at an ordinary with us, bakehouse or barber's shop. When that great Gonsalva was upon some displeasure confined by King Ferdinand to the city of Loxa in Andalusia, the only, comfort (saith [3289]Jovius) he had to ease his melancholy thoughts, was to hear news, and to listen after those ordinary occurrences which were brought him cum primis, by letters or otherwise out of the remotest parts of Europe. Some men's whole delight is, to take tobacco, and drink all day long in a tavern or alehouse, to discourse, sing, jest, roar, talk of a cock and bull over a pot, &c. Or when three or four good companions meet, tell old stories by the fireside, or in the sun, as old folks usually do, quae aprici meminere senes, remembering afresh and with pleasure ancient matters, and such like accidents, which happened in their younger years: others' best pastime is to game, nothing to them so pleasant. [3290]Hic Veneri indulget, hunc decoquit alea—many too nicely take exceptions at cards, [3291]tables, and dice, and such mixed lusorious lots, whom Gataker well confutes. Which though they be honest recreations in themselves, yet may justly be otherwise excepted at, as they are often abused, and forbidden as things most pernicious; insanam rem et damnosam, [3292]Lemnius calls it. For most part in these kind of disports 'tis not art or skill, but subtlety, cony-catching, knavery, chance and fortune carries all away: 'tis ambulatoria pecunia, [3293]———puncto mobilis horae Permutat dominos, et cedit in altera jura.

They labour most part not to pass their time in honest disport, but for filthy lucre, and covetousness of money. In foedissimum lucrum et avaritiam hominum convertitur, as Daneus observes. Fons fraudum et maleficiorum, 'tis the fountain of cozenage and villainy. [3294]A thing so common all over Europe at this day, and so generally abused, that many men are utterly undone by it, their means spent, patrimonies consumed, they and their posterity beggared; besides swearing, wrangling, drinking, loss of time, and such inconveniences, which are ordinary concomitants: [3295]for when once they have got a haunt of such companies, and habit of gaming, they can hardly be drawn from it, but as an itch it will tickle them, and as it is with whoremasters, once entered, they cannot easily leave it off: Vexat mentes insania cupido, they are mad upon their sport. And in conclusion (which Charles the Seventh, that good French king, published in an edict against gamesters) unde piae et hilaris vitae, suffugium sibi suisque liberis, totique familiae, &c. That which was once their livelihood, should have maintained wife, children, family, is now spent and gone; maeror et egestas, &c., sorrow and beggary succeeds. So good things may be abused, and that which was first invented to [3296] refresh men's weary spirits, when they come from other labours and studies to exhilarate the mind, to entertain time and company, tedious otherwise in those long solitary winter nights, and keep them from worse matters, an honest exercise is contrarily perverted. Chess-play is a good and witty exercise of the mind for some kind of men, and fit for such melancholy, Rhasis holds, as are idle, and have extravagant impertinent thoughts, or troubled with cares, nothing better to distract their mind, and alter their meditations: invented (some say) by the [3297]general of an army in a famine, to keep soldiers from mutiny: but if it proceed from overmuch study, in such a case it may do more harm than good; it is a game too troublesome for some men's brains, too full of anxiety, all out as bad as study; besides it is a testy choleric game, and very offensive to him that loseth the mate. [3298]William the Conqueror, in his younger years, playing at chess with the Prince of France (Dauphine was not annexed to that crown in those days) losing a mate, knocked the chess-board about his pate, which was a cause afterward of much enmity between them. For some such reason it is belike, that Patritius, in his 3. book, tit. 12. de reg. instit. forbids his prince to play at chess; hawking and hunting, riding, &c. he will allow; and this to other men, but by no means to him. In Muscovy, where they live in stoves and hot houses all winter long, come seldom or little abroad, it is again very necessary, and therefore in those parts, (saith [3299]Herbastein) much used. At Fez in Africa, where the like inconvenience of keeping within doors is through heat, it is very laudable; and (as [3300]Leo Afer relates) as much frequented. A sport fit for idle gentlewomen, soldiers in garrison, and courtiers that have nought but love matters to busy themselves about, but not altogether so convenient for such as are students. The like I may say of Col. Bruxer's philosophy game, D. Fulke's Metromachia and his Ouronomachia, with the rest of those intricate astrological and geometrical fictions, for such especially as are mathematically given; and the rest of those curious games. Dancing, singing, masking, mumming, stage plays, howsoever they be heavily censured by some severe Catos, yet if opportunely and soberly used, may justly be approved. Melius est foedere, quam saltare, [3301]saith Austin: but what is that if they delight in it? [3302]Nemo saltat sobrius. But in what kind of dance? I know these sports have many oppugners, whole volumes writ against them; when as all they say (if duly considered) is but ignoratio Elenchi; and some again, because they are now cold and wayward, past themselves, cavil at all such youthful sports in others, as he did in the comedy; they think them, illico nasci senes, &c. Some out of preposterous zeal object many times trivial arguments, and because of some abuse, will quite take away the good use, as if they should forbid wine because it makes men drunk; but in my judgment they are too stern: there is a time for all things, a time to mourn, a time to dance, Eccles. iii. 4. a time to embrace, a time not to embrace, (verse 5.) and nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, verse 22; for my part, I will subscribe to the king's declaration, and was ever of that mind, those May games, wakes, and Whitsun ales, &c., if they be not at unseasonable hours, may justly be permitted. Let them freely feast, sing and dance, have their puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bagpipes, &c., play at ball, and barley-breaks, and what sports and recreations they like best. In Franconia, a province of Germany, (saith [3303]Aubanus Bohemus) the old folks, after evening prayer, went to the alehouse, the younger sort to dance: and to say truth with [3304]Salisburiensis, satius fuerat sic otiari, quam turpius occupari, better to do so than worse, as without question otherwise (such is the corruption of man's nature) many of them will do. For that cause, plays, masks, jesters, gladiators, tumblers, jugglers, &c., and all that crew is admitted and winked at: [3305]Tota jocularium scena procedit, et ideo spectacula admissa sunt, et infinita tyrocinia vanitatum, ut his occupentur, qui perniciosius otiari solent: that they might be busied about such toys, that would otherwise more perniciously be idle. So that as [3306]Tacitus said of the astrologers in Rome, we may say of them, genus hominum est quod in civitate nostra et vitabitur semper et retinebitur, they are a debauched company most part, still spoken against, as well they deserve some of them (for I so relish and distinguish them as fiddlers, and musicians), and yet ever retained. Evil is not to be done (I confess) that good may come of it: but this is evil per accidens, and in a qualified sense, to avoid a greater inconvenience, may justly be tolerated. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopian Commonwealth, [3307]as he will have none idle, so will he have no man labour over hard, to be toiled out like a horse, 'tis more than slavish infelicity, the life of most of our hired servants and tradesmen elsewhere (excepting his Utopians) but half the day allotted for work, and half for honest recreation, or whatsoever employment they shall think fit for themselves. If one half day in a week were allowed to our household servants for their merry meetings, by their hard masters, or in a year some feasts, like those Roman Saturnals, I think they would labour harder all the rest of their time, and both parties be better pleased: but this needs not (you will say), for some of them do nought but loiter all the week long. This which I aim at, is for such as are fracti animis, troubled in mind, to ease them, over-toiled on the one part, to refresh: over idle on the other, to keep themselves busied. And to this purpose, as any labour or employment will serve to the one, any honest recreation will conduce to the other, so that it be moderate and sparing, as the use of meat and drink; not to spend all their life in gaming, playing, and pastimes, as too many gentlemen do; but to revive our bodies and recreate our souls with honest sports: of which as there be diverse sorts, and peculiar to several callings, ages, sexes, conditions, so there be proper for several seasons, and those of distinct natures, to fit that variety of humours which is amongst them, that if one will not, another may: some in summer, some in winter, some gentle, some more violent, some for the mind alone, some for the body and mind: (as to some it is both business and a pleasant recreation to oversee workmen of all sorts, husbandry, cattle, horses, &c. To build, plot, project, to make models, cast up accounts, &c.) some without, some within doors; new, old, &c., as the season serveth, and as men are inclined. It is reported of Philippus Bonus, that good duke of Burgundy (by Lodovicus Vives, in Epist. and Pont. [3308]Heuter in his history) that the said duke, at the marriage of Eleonora, sister to the king of Portugal, at Bruges in Flanders, which was solemnised in the deep of winter, when, as by reason of unseasonable weather, he could neither hawk nor hunt, and was now tired with cards, dice, &c., and such other domestic sports, or to see ladies dance, with some of his courtiers, he would in the evening walk disguised all about the town. It so fortuned, as he was walking late one night, he found a country fellow dead drunk, snorting on a bulk; [3309]he caused his followers to bring him to his palace, and there stripping him of his old clothes, and attiring him after the court fashion, when he waked, he and they were all ready to attend upon his excellency, persuading him he was some great duke. The poor fellow admiring how he came there, was served in state all the day long; after supper he saw them dance, heard music, and the rest of those court-like pleasures: but late at night, when he was well tippled, and again fast asleep, they put on his old robes, and so conveyed him to the place where they first found him. Now the fellow had not made them so good sport the day before as he did when he returned to himself; all the jest was, to see how he [3310]looked upon it. In conclusion, after some little admiration, the poor man told his friends he had seen a vision, constantly believed it, would not otherwise be persuaded, and so the jest ended. [3311]Antiochus Epiphanes would often disguise himself, steal from his court, and go into merchants', goldsmiths', and other tradesmen's shops, sit and talk with them, and sometimes ride or walk alone, and fall aboard with any tinker, clown, serving man, carrier, or whomsoever he met first. Sometimes he did ex insperato give a poor fellow money, to see how he would look, or on set purpose lose his purse as he went, to watch who found it, and withal how he would be affected, and with such objects he was much delighted. Many such tricks are ordinarily put in practice by great men, to exhilarate themselves and others, all which are harmless jests, and have their good uses. But amongst those exercises, or recreations of the mind within doors, there is none so general, so aptly to be applied to all sorts of men, so fit and proper to expel idleness and melancholy, as that of study: Studia, senectutem oblectant, adolescentiam, alunt, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium et solatium praebent, domi delectant, &c., find the rest in Tully pro Archia Poeta. [3312]What so full of content, as to read, walk, and see maps, pictures, statues, jewels, marbles, which some so much magnify, as those that Phidias made of old so exquisite and pleasing to be beheld, that as [3313]Chrysostom thinketh, if any man be sickly, troubled in mind, or that cannot sleep for grief, and shall but stand over against one of Phidias' images, he will forget all care, or whatsoever else may molest him, in an instant? There be those as much taken with Michael Angelo's, Raphael de Urbino's, Francesco Francia's pieces, and many of those Italian and Dutch painters, which were excellent in their ages; and esteem of it as a most pleasing sight, to view those neat architectures, devices, escutcheons, coats of arms, read such books, to peruse old coins of several sorts in a fair gallery; artificial works, perspective glasses, old relics, Roman antiquities, variety of colours. A good picture is falsa veritas, et muta poesis: and though (as [3314]Vives saith) artificialia delectant, sed mox fastidimus, artificial toys please but for a time; yet who is he that will not be moved with them for the present? When Achilles was tormented and sad for the loss of his dear friend Patroclus, his mother Thetis brought him a most elaborate and curious buckler made by Vulcan, in which were engraven sun, moon, stars, planets, sea, land, men fighting, running, riding, women scolding, hills, dales, towns, castles, brooks, rivers, trees, &c., with many pretty landscapes, and perspective pieces: with sight of which he was infinitely delighted, and much eased of his grief. [3315]Continuo eo spectaculo captus delenito maerore Oblectabatur, in manibus tenens dei splendida dona.

Who will not be affected so in like case, or see those well-furnished cloisters and galleries of the Roman cardinals, so richly stored with all modern pictures, old statues and antiquities? Cum se—spectando recreet simul et legendo, to see their pictures alone and read the description, as [3316]Boisardus well adds, whom will it not affect? which Bozius, Pomponius, Laetus, Marlianus, Schottus, Cavelerius, Ligorius, &c., and he himself hath well performed of late. Or in some prince's cabinets, like that of the great dukes in Florence, of Felix Platerus in Basil, or noblemen's houses, to see such variety of attires, faces, so many, so rare, and such exquisite pieces, of men, birds, beasts, &c., to see those excellent landscapes, Dutch works, and curious cuts of Sadlier of Prague, Albertus Durer, Goltzius Vrintes, &c., such pleasant pieces of perspective, Indian pictures made of feathers, China works, frames, thaumaturgical motions, exotic toys, &c. Who is he that is now wholly overcome with idleness, or otherwise involved in a labyrinth of worldly cares, troubles and discontents, that will not be much lightened in his mind by reading of some enticing story, true or feigned, whereas in a glass he shall observe what our forefathers have done, the beginnings, ruins, falls, periods of commonwealths, private men's actions displayed to the life, &c. [3317] Plutarch therefore calls them, secundas mensas et bellaria, the second course and junkets, because they were usually read at noblemen's feasts. Who is not earnestly affected with a passionate speech, well penned, an elegant poem, or some pleasant bewitching discourse, like that of [3318] Heliodorus, ubi oblectatio quaedam placide fuit, cum hilaritate conjuncta? Julian the Apostate was so taken with an oration of Libanius, the sophister, that, as he confesseth, he could not be quiet till he had read it all out. Legi orationem tuam magna ex parte, hesterna die ante prandium, pransus vero sine ulla intermissione totam absolvi.[3319]O argumenta! O compositionem! I may say the same of this or that pleasing tract, which will draw his attention along with it. To most kind of men it is an extraordinary delight to study. For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader? In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, optics, astronomy, architecture, sculpture, painting, of which so many and such elaborate treatises are of late written: in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation, [3320]riding of horses, [3321]fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry, hunting, fishing, fowling, &c., with exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not? In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, philology, in policy, heraldry, genealogy, chronology, &c., they afford great tomes, or those studies of [3322]antiquity, &c., et [3323]quid subtilius Arithmeticis inventionibus, quid jucundius Musicis rationibus, quid divinius Astronomicis, quid rectius Geometricis demonstrationibus? What so sure, what so pleasant? He that shall but see that geometrical tower of Garezenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburg, will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes, to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument: Archimedes Coclea, and rare devices to corrivate waters, musical instruments, and tri-syllable echoes again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, &c.! their names alone are the subject of whole volumes, we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them. Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages wherein these books are written, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, &c. Methinks it would please any man to look upon a geographical map, [3324]sauvi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibilem rerum varietatem et jucunditatem, et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare, chorographical, topographical delineations, to behold, as it were, all the remote provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the limits of his study, to measure by the seale and compass their extent, distance, examine their site. Charles the Great, as Platina writes, had three fair silver tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of Constantinople, in the second Rome neatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of the whole world, and much delight he took in them. What greater pleasure can there now be, than to view those elaborate maps of Ortelius, [3325]Mercator, Hondius, &c.? To peruse those books of cities, put out by Braunus and Hogenbergius? To read those exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula, Boterus, Leander, Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, Nic. Gerbelius, &c.? Those famous expeditions of Christoph. Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Marcus Polus the Venetian, Lod. Vertomannus, Aloysius Cadamustus, &c.? Those accurate diaries of Portuguese, Hollanders, of Bartison, Oliver a Nort, &c. Hakluyt's voyages, Pet. Martyr's Decades, Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's relations, those Hodoeporicons of Jod. a Meggen, Brocard the monk, Bredenbachius, Jo. Dublinius, Sands, &c., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of the world? those pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentzerus, Jodocus Sincerus, Dux Polonus, &c., to read Bellonius' observations, P. Gillius his surveys; those parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres a Bry. To see a well-cut herbal, herbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetables expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of Beslar of Nuremberg, wherein almost every plant is to his own bigness. To see birds, beasts, and fishes of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, &c., all creatures set out by the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an exact description of their natures, virtues, qualities, &c., as hath been accurately performed by Aelian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonius, Rondoletius, Hippolitus Salvianus, &c. [3326]Arcana coeli, naturae secreta, ordinem universi scire majoris felicitatis et dulcedinis est, quam cogitatione quis assequi possit, aut mortalis sperare. What more pleasing studies can there be than the mathematics, theoretical or practical parts? as to survey land, make maps, models, dials, &c., with which I was ever much delighted myself. Tails est Mathematum pulchritudo (saith [3327] Plutarch) ut his indignum sit divitiarum phaleras istas et bullas, et puellaria spectacula comparari; such is the excellency of these studies, that all those ornaments and childish bubbles of wealth, are not worthy to be compared to them: credi mihi ( [3328]saith one) extingui dulce erit Mathematicarum artium studio, I could even live and die with such meditation, [3329]and take more delight, true content of mind in them, than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, how rich soever thou art. And as [3330]Cardan well seconds me, Honorificum magis est et gloriosum haec intelligere, quam provinciis praeesse, formosum aut ditem juvenem esse. [3331]The like pleasure there is in all other studies, to such as are truly addicted to them, [3332]ea suavitas (one holds) ut cum quis ea degustaverit, quasi poculis Circeis captus, non possit unquam ab illis divelli; the like sweetness, which as Circe's cup bewitcheth a student, he cannot leave off, as well may witness those many laborious hours, days and nights, spent in the voluminous treatises written by them; the same content. [3333]Julius Scaliger was so much affected with poetry, that he brake out into a pathetical protestation, he had rather be the author of twelve verses in Lucan, or such an ode in [3334]Horace, than emperor of Germany. [3335]Nicholas Gerbelius, that good old man, was so much ravished with a few Greek authors restored to light, with hope and desire of enjoying the rest, that he exclaims forthwith, Arabibus atque Indis omnibus erimus ditiores, we shall be richer than all the Arabic or Indian princes; of such [3336]esteem they were with him, incomparable worth and value. Seneca prefers Zeno and Chrysippus, two doting stoics (he was so much enamoured of their works), before any prince or general of an army; and Orontius, the mathematician, so far admires Archimedes, that he calls him Divinum et homine majorem, a petty god, more than a man; and well he might, for aught I see, if you respect fame or worth. Pindarus, of Thebes, is as much renowned for his poems, as Epaminondas, Pelopidas, Hercules or Bacchus, his fellow citizens, for their warlike actions; et si famam respicias, non pauciores Aristotelis quam Alexandri meminerunt (as Cardan notes), Aristotle is more known than Alexander; for we have a bare relation of Alexander's deeds, but Aristotle, totus vivit in monumentis, is whole in his works: yet I stand not upon this; the delight is it, which I aim at, so great pleasure, such sweet content there is in study. [3337]King James, 1605, when he came to see our University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley, in imitation of Alexander, at his departure brake out into that noble speech, If I were not a king, I would be a university man: [3338] and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors et mortuis magistris. So sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, and the last day is prioris discipulus; harsh at first learning is, radices amarcae, but fractus dulces, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year long: and that which to thy thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. [3339]I no sooner (saith he) come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance, and melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat, with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that know not this happiness. I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwithstanding this which I have said) how barbarously and basely, for the most part, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as Aesop's cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education. And 'tis a wonder, withal, to observe how much they will vainly cast away in unnecessary expenses, quot modis pereant (saith [3340]Erasmus) magnatibus pecuniae, quantum absumant alea, scorta, compotationes, profectiones non necessariae, pompae, bella quaesita, ambitio, colax, morio, ludio, &c., what in hawks, hounds, lawsuits, vain building, gormandising, drinking, sports, plays, pastimes, &c. If a well-minded man to the Muses, would sue to some of them for an exhibition, to the farther maintenance or enlargement of such a work, be it college, lecture, library, or whatsoever else may tend to the advancement of learning, they are so unwilling, so averse, that they had rather see these which are already, with such cost and care erected, utterly ruined, demolished or otherwise employed; for they repine many and grudge at such gifts and revenues so bestowed: and therefore it were in vain, as Erasmus well notes, vel ab his, vel a negotiatoribus qui se Mammonae dediderunt, improbum fortasse tale officium exigere, to solicit or ask anything of such men that are likely damned to riches; to this purpose. For my