THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
BY
ROBERT BURTON
THE SECOND PARTITION
THE CURE OF MELANCHOLY
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 A
* Pharmaceutical B
* Chirurgical C
* or Particular to the three distinct species, D, E, F
A 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.
* 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 calamities 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.
B. 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 H
* or Particular to three distinct species, I; J; K
H. 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.
C Chirurgical physic, which consists of Memb. 3.
* Phlebotomy, to all parts almost, and all the distinct
species.
* With knife, horse-leeches.
* Cupping-glasses.
* Cauteries, and searing with hot irons, boring.
* Dropax and sinapismus.
* Issues to several parts, and upon several occasions.
D 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 horse-leeches, to apply
horse-leeches 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.
* Bezoars 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.
E. 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.
F. 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, betony, 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
hypochonrdies 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 Montanus observes, yet many times it
may be helped, even that which is most violent, or at least,
according to the same 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,
cabalistical 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, Artelius, 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 Spanish marquis is
said to have done by one of his slaves, and some, which jugglers in
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. "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 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 ( Boissardus writes) morbos a sagis motos
propulsant &c., that to doubt of it any longer, "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 "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, "they cannot otherwise be cured but by spells, seals, and
spiritual physic." 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. "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 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, "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, 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 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, "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 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 "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, 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 "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 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.
------"non Siculi dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem.
Non animum cytheraeve cantus."
"Non domus et fundus, non aeris acervus et auri
Aegroto possunt domino deducere febres."
"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, 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, "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 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 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, "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 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. 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 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: 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," 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 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, 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 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
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 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. 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 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 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 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 drachms , to cozen the commonalty,
as 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. "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 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."
("To offer the sailors' garments to the deity of the deep.")
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 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 Lavater writes, and so they are deluded. "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 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 whom we can have no repulse,
solus vult, solus potest, curat universos tanquam singulos, et
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, 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, 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." 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 elsewhere. Astrology is required by
many famous physicians, by Ficinus, Crato, Fernelius; 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 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. "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 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.
("The leech never releases the skin until he is filled with blood.")
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 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. "A
wise physician will not give physic, but upon necessity, and first
try medicinal diet, before he proceed to medicinal cure." 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 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 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 "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, "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 Hippocrates, promised him what reward
he would, "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.
"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,"
"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" (
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. 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
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. 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. Galeottus gives this reason,
because the form of health is contained in the physician's mind, and
as Galen, holds "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; 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 Janus Damascen) "or consults with
many, falls into many errors; or that useth many medicines." It was
a chief caveat of 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: "'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 Montanus) "and
profit by none:" and for this cause, consil. 24. he enjoins his
patient before he take him in hand, "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, "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, "because the parties are so restless, and impatient, and
will therefore have him that intends to be eased," "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. 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
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. "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 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. 7. "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 "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
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. "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. ??a?t?t??? [Diaitaetike], 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, ??a?t?t??? [Diaitaetike], victus, or living, according
to 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. 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, 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, no good to be done without
it. 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. 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. 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 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, ("When you are again lean, seek an exit through
that hole by which lean you entered.") 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 Tully, though writ especially for the good
of his friends at Tarentum and Sicily, yet it will generally serve
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 "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, 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; 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 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 Laurentius, c. 8. excepts against them, and so do many
others; eggs are justified as a nutritive wholesome meat, butter and
oil may pass, but with some limitation; so Crato confines it, and
"to some men sparingly at set times, or in sauce," and so sugar and
honey are approved. 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.
"Clitorio quicunque sitim de fonte levarit
Vina fugit gaudetque meris abstemius undis."
(Ovid. Met. lib. 15. "Whoever has allayed his thirst with the
water of the Clitorius, avoids wine, and abstemious delights
in pure water only.")
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, 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 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. 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 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 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 Frontinus, Lipsius de admir.
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; 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; 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, 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 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; 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 Dubravius, it is an excellent meat, if it come
not from muddy pools, that it retain not an unsavoury taste.
Erinacius Marinus is much commended by Oribatius, Aetius, and most
of our late writers.
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, Salvianus olives and capers,
which others especially like of, and so of pistick nuts. Montanus
and Mercurialis out of Avenzoar, admit peaches, 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. Pomegranates, lemons, oranges are
tolerated, if they be not too sharp.
Crato will admit of no herbs, but borage, bugloss, endive,
fennel, aniseed, balm; 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, balm, steeped
in their ordinary drink. 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 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 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 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, repletion and
inanition may both do harm in two contrary extremes. Moreover, that
which he doth eat, must be well 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 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 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 Macrobius so much
require, St. Hierom enjoins Rusticus to eat and drink no more than,
will satisfy hunger and thirst. 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. "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, "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 Polydore notes) are most
liberal feeders, but to our own hurt. 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, "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, 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 feed sparingly of one or two
dishes at most, to have ventrem bene moratum, as Seneca calls it,
"to choose one of many, and to feed on that alone," as Crato
adviseth his patient. The same counsel 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 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, 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 Ambrose, pour
so much water in their shoes.
It much avails likewise to keep good order in our diet, "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,
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 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 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 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 enjoined to recover,
and continue their health? It is a hard thing to observe a strict
diet, et qui medice vivit, misere vivit, 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 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. 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;
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 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 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.
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 "water to be
warm, not hot, for fear of sweating." Felix Plater, observ. lib. 1.
for a melancholy lawyer, "will have lotions of the head still
joined to these baths, with a lee wherein capital herbs have been
boiled." 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, 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 baths in
Constantinople, of fair building; they are still 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. 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, "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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Chalderinian baths, and consil 237. et 239. he exhorteth to the
same, but with this caution, "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, 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: 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,
"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, "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: "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? "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. Lodovicus Antonius lib. med. miscet. in
his chapter of Venus, forbids it utterly to all wrestlers, ditchers,
labouring men, &c. Ficinus and 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, "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: "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, short lived because of their salacity, which
is very frequent, as Scoppius in Priapus will better inform you. The
extremes being both bad, 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 Hercules, Proculus the emperor, lusty
Laurence, prostibulum faeminae Messalina the empress, that by
philters, and such kind of lascivious meats, use all means to enable
themselves: and brag of it in the end, confodi multas enim, occidi
vero paucas per ventrem vidisti, as that Spanish 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus Venetus puts
him in Asia, 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 Guinea be an island or part of the continent, or
that hungry 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 ruck, that can carry a man
and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix described by
Adricomius; see the pelicans of Egypt, those Scythian gryphes in
Asia: and afterwards in Africa examine the fountains of Nilus,
whether Herodotus, Seneca, Plin. lib. 5. cap. 9. Strabo. lib. 5.
give a true cause of his annual flowing, Pagaphetta discourse
rightly of it, or of Niger and Senegal; examine Cardan, 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 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 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 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 Ybouyapab in the Northern Brazil, cujus jugum sternitur in
amoenissimam planitiem, &c. or that of Pariacacca so high elevated in
Peru. 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 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 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 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 Herbastein: how comes it to pass?
Do they sleep in winter, like Gesner's Alpine mice; or do they lie
hid (as 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, 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
Mr. Carew gives out? I conclude of them all, for my part, as 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 Harbastein his Tartar lamb, Hector
Boethius goosebearing tree in the orchards, to which Cardan lib. 7.
cap. 36. de rerum varietat. subscribes: Vertomannus wonderful palm,
that 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 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 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 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, 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 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? 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, Pomponius
Mela in his first book, c. de Numidia, and familiarly in the Alps,
saith 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 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 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 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
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, "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 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 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) 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 Austin's words, "Better doubt of things
concealed, than to contend about uncertainties, where Abraham's
bosom is, and hell fire:" 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 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
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? Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swallows (so Pausanius
informeth us) as well as the rest of Greece, Ithaca no hares, Pontus
asses, Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of complexions,
colours, plants, birds, beasts, 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 Caput bonae spei [Cape of
Good Hope] 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 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
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: Quevira, or Nova Albion in America,
bordering on the sea, was so cold in July, that our 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, 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 Lisbon to 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, 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
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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 stones, frogs, mice, &c. rats, which they call Lemmer in
Norway, and are manifestly observed (as 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, 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 Baracellus the
physician disputes, and thence let fall with showers, or there
engendered? 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, vapours, arise
higher than fifty or eighty miles, and all the rest to be purer air
or element of fire: which Cardan, Tycho, and 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, 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 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, "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
Tycho, 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 Mars amongst the
rest, which sometimes, as Kepler confirms by his own, and Tycho's
accurate observations, comes nearer the earth than the Sun and is
again eftsoons aloft in Jupiter's orb; and 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. 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 Helisaeus Roeslin contends, have
poles, axle-trees, circles of their own, and regular motions. For,
non pereunt, sed minuuntur et disparent, 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 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 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 watery heaven, which is 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 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 Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert,
Digges, Galileo, Campanella, and especially by Lansbergius, naturae,
rationi, et veritati consentaneum, by Origanus, and some others of
his followers. For if the earth be the centre of the world, stand
still, and the heavens move, as the most received 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 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 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 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 [Symbol: Mars] and [Symbol:
Mercury], beneath [Symbol: Saturn], [Symbol: Jupiter], [Symbol:
Mars] (or as 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 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, 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, "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: 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 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 infinite worlds, and infinite
earths or systems, in infinito aethere, which 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
Kepler between jest and earnest in his perspectives, lunar
geography, & 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, "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. 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
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, [Symbol:
Sun] and [Symbol: Moon-3/4], no four elements, &c. Read more on him,
in 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 "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 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. 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 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, 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 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
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. 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. 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 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 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, 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, but he and Menippus: or as Peter Cuneus, Bona
fide agam, nihil eorum quae scripturus sum, verum esse scitote, &c.
quae nec facta, nec futura sunt, dicam, 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 names, offices: some deny God
and his providence, some take his office out of his hands, will 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
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 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 scarabaeo 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, "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 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 Hector
Boethius and 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, 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 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 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
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, 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. 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 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
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 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 one reports of Venice, that graveolentia and fog of
the moors is sufficiently qualified by those innumerable smokes. Nay
more, 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, Orton
super montem, Drayton, or a little more elevated, though nearer, as
Caucut, Amington, Polesworth, Weddington (to insist in such places
best to me known, upon the river of Anker, in Warwickshire,
Swarston, and 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. 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. 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 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, 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 north
upon some great river, as Farmack in Derbyshire, on the Trent,
environed with hills, open only to the north, like Mount Edgecombe
in Cornwall, which Mr. Carew so much admires for an excellent seat:
such is the general site of Bohemia: serenat Boreas, the north wind
clarifies, "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 "high places, and in
an excellent prospect," like that of Cuddeston in Oxfordshire (which
place I must honoris ergo mention) is lately and fairly 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. forbids lakes and rivers, marshy and
manured grounds, they cause a bad air, gross diseases, hard to be
cured: "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, 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 east, and 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, "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. 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 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 "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.
"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 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, 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. Bessardus
Bisantinus prefers the smoke of juniper to melancholy persons, which
is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers.
Guianerius prescribes the air to be moistened with water, and sweet
herbs boiled in it, vine, and sallow leaves, &c., 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. 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." 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, "can be
such a stock or stone, whom that pleasant speculation of countries,
cities, towns, rivers, will not affect." 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 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 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 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, 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 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, "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 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 delightsome prospects, as well within
land, as by sea, as Hermon and 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,
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 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. 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. 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. "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, "that the devil do not
find him idle." Seneca would have a man do something, though it be
to no purpose. 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 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. "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." 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 ( 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, 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,
"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, "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 Galen prefers exercise before all physic,
rectification of diet, or any regimen in what kind soever; 'tis
nature's physician. 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, or
at any time when the body is empty. Montanus, consil. 31. prescribes
it every morning to his patient, and that, as 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, "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; the most forbid, and by no means
will have it go farther than a beginning sweat, as being 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, one calls them, because they
recreate body and mind, another, the "best exercise that is, by
which alone many have been 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 "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. 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 books written of it. It is a wonder to hear 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 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 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 "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 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,
weeles, baits, angling, or otherwise, and yields all out as much
pleasure to some men as dogs or hawks; "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, "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, "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, "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 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
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,
"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."
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, 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 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 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, as pleasing as those horti
pensiles in Babylon, or that Indian king's delightsome garden in
Aelian; or 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 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, 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,
"Fulget gemma floris, et jaspide fulva supellex,
Strata micant Tyrio"------
(Lucan. "The furniture glitters with brilliant gems, with
yellow jasper, and the couches dazzle with their purple dye.")
With sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, opiparous fare, &c.,
besides the gallantest young men, the fairest 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 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
"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,-- 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
poet of Hector,
------"nec enim pro tergore Tauri,
Pro bove nec certamen erat, quae praemia cursus
Esse solent, sed pro magni viraque animaque -- Hectoris."
(Iliad. 10. "For neither was the contest for the hide of a
bull, nor for a beeve, which are the usual prizes in the race,
but for the life and soul of the great Hector.")
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, 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 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. 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, "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. 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 Josephus, Adricomius, and Villalpandus:
that of the Escurial in Guadas, of Diana at Ephesus in Pliny, Nero's
golden palace in Rome, Justinian's in Constantinople, that Peruvian
Jugo's in 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 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.
"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
"Tantalus a labris sitiens fugientia captat
Flumina;"
("thirsting Tantalus gapes for the water that eludes his
lips.")
And so do I; Velle licet, potiri non licet.
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 Greeks had their
Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean games, in honour of Neptune,
Jupiter, Apollo; Athens hers: some for honour, garlands, crowns; for
beauty, dancing, running, leaping, like our silver games. The Romans
had their feasts, as the Athenians, and Lacedaemonians held their
public banquets, in Pritanaeo, Panathenaeis, Thesperiis, Phiditiis,
plays, naumachies, places for sea-fights, theatres, amphitheatres
able to contain 70,000 men, wherein they had several delightsome
shows to exhilarate the people; 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 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 Neander, they had Ludos
septennales, solemn plays every seven years, which Bocerus, one of
their own poets, hath elegantly described:
"At nunc magnifico spectacula structa paratu
Quid memorem, veteri non concessura
Quirino, Ludorum pompa," &c.
("What shall I say of their spectacles produced with the most
magnificent decorations,-- a degree of costliness never
indulged in even by the Romans.")
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; Alexander Severus was often pleased to play with
whelps and young pigs. 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) 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, 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
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, 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 ( as Pliny observes), we long after rumour
to hear and listen to it, densum humeris bibit aure vulgus. We are
most part too inquisitive and apt to hearken after news, which
Caesar, in his 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 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. Hic Veneri indulget, hunc decoquit alea -- many
too nicely take exceptions at cards, 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, 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,
------"puncto mobilis horae
Permutat dominos, et cedit in altera jura."
("In a moment of fleeting time it changes masters and submits
to new control.")
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. "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: "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 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 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. 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
Herbastein) much used. At Fez in Africa, where the like
inconvenience of keeping within doors is through heat, it is very
laudable; and (as 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, ("It is better to dig than to dance.") saith Austin: but
what is that if they delight in it? Nemo saltat sobrius. (Tullius.
"No sensible man dances.") 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 Aubanus Bohemus) the old
folks, after evening prayer, went to the alehouse, the younger sort
to dance: and to say truth with 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: 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
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, "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. 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; 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 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. 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. ("Study is
the delight of old age, the support of youth, the ornament of
prosperity, the solace and refuge of adversity, the comfort of
domestic life," &c.) 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 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 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.
"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 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. 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
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. 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, riding of horses, 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
antiquity, &c., et quid subtilius Arithmeticis inventionibus, quid
jucundius Musicis rationibus, quid divinius Astronomicis, quid
rectius Geometricis demonstrationibus? (Cardan. "What is more subtle
than arithmetical conclusions; what more agreeable than musical
harmonies; what more divine than astronomical, what more certain
than geometrical demonstrations?") 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,
sauvi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibilem rerum varietatem
et jucunditatem, et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare, (Hondius
praefat. Mercatoris. "It allures the mind by its agreeable
attraction, on account of the incredible variety and pleasantness of
the subjects, and excites to a further step in knowledge.")
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,
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. Arcana coeli, naturae secreta, ordinem universi scire majoris
felicitatis et dulcedinis est, quam cogitatione quis assequi possit,
aut mortalis sperare. (Cardan. "To learn the mysteries of the
heavens, the secret workings of nature, the order of the universe,
is a greater happiness and gratification than any mortal can think
or expect to obtain.") 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 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 (saith one) extingui dulce erit
Mathematicarum artium studio, I could even live and die with such
meditation, 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 Cardan well seconds me, Honorificum magis est et
gloriosum haec intelligere, quam provinciis praeesse, formosum aut
ditem juvenem esse.( "It is more honourable and glorious to
understand these truths than to govern provinces, to be beautiful or
to be young.") The like pleasure there is in all other studies, to
such as are truly addicted to them, 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. 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 Horace, than emperor of Germany. 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 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. 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: "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. "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 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 part I pity these men, stultos jubeo
esse libenter, let them go as they are, in the catalogue of
Ignoramus. How much, on the other side, are all we bound that are
scholars, to those munificent Ptolemies, bountiful Maecenases,
heroical patrons, divine spirits,
------"qui nobis haec otio fecerunt, namque erit ille mihi
semper Deus"------
"These blessings, friend, a Deity bestow'd,
For never can I deem him less than God."
that have provided for us so many well-furnished libraries, as well
in our public academies in most cities, as in our private colleges?
How shall I remember Sir Thomas Bodley, amongst the rest, Otho
Nicholson, and the Right Reverend John Williams, Lord Bishop of
Lincoln (with many other pious acts), who besides that at St. John's
College in Cambridge, that in Westminster, is now likewise in Fieri
with a library at Lincoln (a noble precedent for all corporate towns
and cities to imitate), O quam te memorem (vir illustrissime) quibus
elogiis? But to my task again.
Whosoever he is therefore that is overrun with solitariness,
or carried away with pleasing melancholy and vain conceits, and for
want of employment knows not how to spend his time, or crucified
with worldly care, I can prescribe him no better remedy than this of
study, to compose himself to the learning of some art or science.
Provided always that this malady proceed not from overmuch study;
for in such case he adds fuel to the fire, and nothing can be more
pernicious: let him take heed he do not overstretch his wits, and
make a skeleton of himself; or such inamoratos as read nothing but
play-books, idle poems, jests, Amadis de Gaul, the Knight of the
Sun, the Seven Champions, Palmerin de Oliva, Huon of Bordeaux, &c.
Such many times prove in the end as mad as Don Quixote. Study is
only prescribed to those that are otherwise idle, troubled in mind,
or carried headlong with vain thoughts and imaginations, to distract
their cogitations (although variety of study, or some serious
subject, would do the former no harm) and divert their continual
meditations another way. Nothing in this case better than study;
semper aliquid memoriter ediscant, saith Piso, let them learn
something without book, transcribe, translate, &c. Read the
Scriptures, which Hyperius, lib. 1. de quotid. script. lec. fol. 77.
holds available of itself, "the mind is erected thereby from all
worldly cares, and hath much quiet and tranquillity." For as Austin
well hath it, 'tis scientia scientiarum, omni melle dulcior, omni
pane suavior, omni vino, hilarior: 'tis the best nepenthe, surest
cordial, sweetest alterative, presentest diverter: for neither as
Chrysostom well adds, "those boughs and leaves of trees which are
plashed for cattle to stand under, in the heat of the day, in
summer, so much refresh them with their acceptable shade, as the
reading of the Scripture doth recreate and comfort a distressed
soul, in sorrow and affliction." Paul bids "pray continually;" quod
cibus corpori, lectio animae facit, saith Seneca, as meat is to the
body, such is reading to the soul. "To be at leisure without books
is another hell, and to be buried alive." Cardan calls a library the
physic of the soul; "divine authors fortify the mind, make men bold
and constant; and (as Hyperius adds) godly conference will not
permit the mind to be tortured with absurd cogitations." Rhasis
enjoins continual conference to such melancholy men, perpetual
discourse of some history, tale, poem, news, &c., alternos sermones
edere ac bibere, aeque jucundum quam cibus, sive potus, which feeds
the mind as meat and drink doth the body, and pleaseth as much: and
therefore the said Rhasis, not without good cause, would have
somebody still talk seriously, or dispute with them, and sometimes
"to cavil and wrangle" (so that it break not out to a violent
perturbation), "for such altercation is like stirring of a dead fire
to make it burn afresh," it whets a dull spirit, "and will not
suffer the mind to be drowned in those profound cogitations, which
melancholy men are commonly troubled with." Ferdinand and Alphonsus,
kings of Arragon and Sicily, were both cured by reading the history,
one of Curtius, the other of Livy, when no prescribed physic would
take place. Camerarius relates as much of Lorenzo de Medici. Heathen
philosophers are so full of divine precepts in this kind, that, as
some think, they alone are able to settle a distressed mind. Sunt
verba et voces, quibus liunc lenire dolorem, &c. Epictetus,
Plutarch, and Seneca; qualis ille, quae tela, saith Lipsius, adversus
omnes animi casus administrat, et ipsam mortem, quomodo vitia
eripit, infert virtutes? when I read Seneca, "methinks I am beyond
all human fortunes, on the top of a hill above mortality." Plutarch
saith as much of Homer, for which cause belike Niceratus, in
Xenophon, was made by his parents to con Homer's Iliads and Odysseys
without book, ut in virum bonum evaderet, as well to make him a good
and honest man, as to avoid idleness. If this comfort be got from
philosophy, what shall be had from divinity? What shall Austin,
Cyprian, Gregory, Bernard's divine meditations afford us?
"Qui quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicunt."
"Who explain what is fair, foul, useful, worthless, more fully
and faithfully than Chrysippus and Crantor?"
Nay, what shall the Scripture itself? Which is like an apothecary's
shop, wherein are all remedies for all infirmities of mind,
purgatives, cordials, alteratives, corroboratives, lenitives, &c.
"Every disease of the soul," saith Austin, "hath a peculiar medicine
in the Scripture; this only is required, that the sick man take the
potion which God hath already tempered." Gregory calls it "a glass
wherein we may see all our infirmities," ignitum colloquium, Psalm
cxix. 140, Origen a charm. And therefore Hierom prescribes Rusticus
the monk, "continually to read the Scripture, and to meditate on
that which he hath read; for as mastication is to meat, so is
meditation on that which we read." I would for these causes wish him
that, is melancholy to use both human and divine authors,
voluntarily to impose some task upon himself, to divert his
melancholy thoughts: to study the art of memory, Cosmus Rosselius,
Pet. Ravennas, Scenkelius' Detectus, or practise brachygraphy, &c.,
that will ask a great deal of attention: or let him demonstrate a
proposition in Euclid, in his five last books, extract a square
root, or study Algebra: than which, as Clavius holds, "in all human
disciplines nothing can be more excellent and pleasant, so abstruse
and recondite, so bewitching, so miraculous, so ravishing, so easy
withal and full of delight," omnem humanum captum superare videtur.
By this means you may define ex ungue leonem, as the diverb is, by
his thumb alone the bigness of Hercules, or the true dimensions of
the great Colossus, Solomon's temple, and Domitian's amphitheatre
out of a little part. By this art you may contemplate the variation
of the twenty-three letters, which may be so infinitely varied, that
the words complicated and deduced thence will not be contained
within the compass of the firmament; ten words may be varied 40,320
several ways: by this art you may examine how many men may stand one
by another in the whole superficies of the earth, some say
148,456,800,000,000, assignando singulis passum quadratum (assigning
a square foot to each), how many men, supposing all the world as
habitable as France, as fruitful and so long-lived, may be born in
60,000 years, and so may you demonstrate with Archimedes how many
sands the mass of the whole world might contain if all sandy, if you
did but first know how much a small cube as big as a mustard-seed
might hold, with infinite such. But in all nature what is there so
stupendous as to examine and calculate the motion of the planets,
their magnitudes, apogees, perigees, eccentricities, how far distant
from the earth, the bigness, thickness, compass of the firmament,
each star, with their diameters and circumference, apparent area,
superficies, by those curious helps of glasses, astrolabes,
sextants, quadrants, of which Tycho Brahe in his mechanics, optics (
divine optics) arithmetic, geometry, and such like arts and
instruments? What so intricate and pleasing withal, as to peruse and
practise Heron Alexandrinus's works, de spiritalibus, de machinis
bellicis, de machina se movente, Jordani Nemorarii de ponderibus
proposit. 13, that pleasant tract of Machometes Bragdedinus de
superficierum divisionibus, Apollonius's Conics, or Commandinus's
labours in that kind, de centro gravitatis, with many such
geometrical theorems and problems? Those rare instruments and
mechanical inventions of Jac. Bessonus, and Cardan to this purpose,
with many such experiments intimated long since by Roger Bacon, in
his tract de Secretis artis et naturae, as to make a chariot to move
sine animali, diving boats, to walk on the water by art, and to fly
in the air, to make several cranes and pulleys, quibus homo trahat
ad se mille homines, lift up and remove great weights, mills to move
themselves, Archita's dove, Albertus's brazen head, and such
thaumaturgical works. But especially to do strange miracles by
glasses, of which Proclus and Bacon writ of old, burning glasses,
multiplying glasses, perspectives, ut unus homo appareat exercitus,
to see afar off, to represent solid bodies by cylinders and
concaves, to walk in the air, ut veraciter videant, (saith Bacon)
aurum et argentum et quicquid aliud volunt, et quum veniant ad locum
visionis, nihil inveniant, which glasses are much perfected of late
by Baptista Porta and Galileo, and much more is promised by Maginus
and Midorgius, to be performed in this kind. Otocousticons some
speak of, to intend hearing, as the other do sight; Marcellus
Vrencken, a Hollander, in his epistle to Burgravius, makes mention
of a friend of his that is about an instrument, quo videbit quae in
altero horizonte sint. But our alchemists, methinks, and
Rosicrucians afford most rarities, and are fuller of experiments:
they can make gold, separate and alter metals, extract oils, salts,
lees, and do more strange works than Geber, Lullius, Bacon, or any
of those ancients. Crollius hath made after his master Paracelsus,
aurum fulminans, or aurum volatile, which shall imitate thunder and
lightning, and crack louder than any gunpowder; Cornelius Drible a
perpetual motion, inextinguishable lights, linum non ardens, with
many such feats; see his book de natura elementorum, besides hail,
wind, snow, thunder, lightning, &c., those strange fireworks,
devilish petards, and such like warlike machinations derived hence,
of which read Tartalea and others. Ernestus Burgravius, a disciple
of Paracelsus, hath published a discourse, in which he specifies a
lamp to be made of man's blood, Lucerna vitae et mortis index, so he
terms it, which chemically prepared forty days, and afterwards kept
in a glass, shall show all the accidents of this life; si lampus hic
clarus, tunc homo hilaris et sanus corpore et animo; si nebulosus et
depressus, male afficitur, et sic pro statu hominis variatur, unde
sumptus sanguis; ("If the lamp burn brightly, then the man is
cheerful and healthy in mind and body; if, on the other hand, he
from whom the blood is taken be melancholic or a spendthrift, then
it will burn dimly, and flicker in the socket.") and which is most
wonderful, it dies with the party, cum homine perit, et evanescit,
the lamp and the man whence the blood was taken, are extinguished
together. The same author hath another tract of Mumia (all out as
vain and prodigious as the first) by which he will cure most
diseases, and transfer them from a man to a beast, by drawing blood
from one, and applying it to the other, vel in plantam derivare, and
an Alexi-pharmacum, of which Roger Bacon of old in his Tract. de
retardanda senectute, to make a man young again, live three or four
hundred years. Besides panaceas, martial amulets, unguentum
armarium, balsams, strange extracts, elixirs, and such like magico-
magnetical cures. Now what so pleasing can there be as the
speculation of these things, to read and examine such experiments,
or if a man be more mathematically given, to calculate, or peruse
Napier's Logarithms, or those tables of artificial sines and
tangents, not long since set out by mine old collegiate, good
friend, and late fellow-student of Christ Church in Oxford, Mr.
Edmund Gunter, which will perform that by addition and subtraction
only, which heretofore Regiomontanus's tables did by multiplication
and division, or those elaborate conclusions of his sector,
quadrant, and cross-staff. Or let him that is melancholy calculate
spherical triangles, square a circle, cast a nativity, which
howsoever some tax, I say with Garcaeus, dabimus hoc petulantibus
ingeniis, we will in some cases allow: or let him make an
ephemerides, read Suisset the calculator's works, Scaliger de
emendatione temporum, and Petavius his adversary, till he understand
them, peruse subtle Scotus and Suarez's metaphysics, or school
divinity, Occam, Thomas, Eutisberus, Durand, &c. If those other do
not affect him, and his means be great, to employ his purse and fill
his head, he may go find the philosopher's stone; he may apply his
mind, I say, to heraldry, antiquity, invent impresses, emblems; make
epithalamiums, epitaphs, elegies, epigrams, palindroma epigrammata,
anagrams, chronograms, acrostics, upon his friends' names; or write
a comment on Martianus Capella, Tertullian de pallio, the Nubian
geography, or upon Aelia Laelia Crispis, as many idle fellows have
essayed; and rather than do nothing, vary a verse a thousand ways
with Putean, so torturing his wits, or as Rainnerus of Luneburg,
2150 times in his Proteus Poeticus, or Scaliger, Chrysolithus,
Cleppissius, and others, have in like sort done. If such voluntary
tasks, pleasure and delight, or crabbedness of these studies, will
not yet divert their idle thoughts, and alienate their imaginations,
they must be compelled, saith Christophorus a Vega, cogi debent, l.
5. c. 14, upon some mulct, if they perform it not, quod ex officio
incumbat, loss of credit or disgrace, such as our public University
exercises. For, as he that plays for nothing will not heed his game;
no more will voluntary employment so thoroughly affect a student,
except he be very intent of himself, and take an extraordinary
delight in the study, about which he is conversant. It should be of
that nature his business, which volens nolens he must necessarily
undergo, and without great loss, mulct, shame, or hindrance, he may
not omit.
Now for women, instead of laborious studies, they have curious
needleworks, cut-works, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devices
of their own making, to adorn their houses, cushions, carpets,
chairs, stools, ("for she eats not the bread of idleness," Prov.
xxxi. 27. quaesivit lanam et linum) confections, conserves,
distillations, &c., which they show to strangers.
"Ipsa comes praesesque operis venientibus ultro
Hospitibus monstrare solet, non segniter horas
Contestata suas, sed nec sibi depertisse."
"Which to her guests she shows, with all her pelf,
Thus far my maids, but this I did myself."
This they have to busy themselves about, household offices,
&c., neat gardens, full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied,
sweet-smelling flowers, and plants in all kinds, which they are most
ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keep, proud to possess,
and much many times brag of. Their merry meetings and frequent
visitations, mutual invitations in good towns, I voluntarily omit,
which are so much in use, gossiping among the meaner sort, &c., old
folks have their beads: an excellent invention to keep them from
idleness, that are by nature melancholy, and past all affairs, to
say so many paternosters, avemarias, creeds, if it were not profane
and superstitious. In a word, body and mind must be exercised, not
one, but both, and that in a mediocrity; otherwise it will cause a
great inconvenience. If the body be overtired, it tires the mind.
The mind oppresseth the body, as with students it oftentimes falls
out, who (as Plutarch observes) have no care of the body, "but
compel that which is mortal to do as much as that which is immortal:
that which is earthly, as that which is ethereal. But as the ox
tired, told the camel, (both serving one master) that refused to
carry some part of his burden, before it were long he should be
compelled to carry all his pack, and skin to boot (which by and by,
the ox being dead, fell out), the body may say to the soul, that
will give him no respite or remission: a little after, an ague,
vertigo, consumption, seizeth on them both, all his study is
omitted, and they must be compelled to be sick together:" he that
tenders his own good estate, and health, must let them draw with
equal yoke, both alike, "that so they may happily enjoy their
wished health."
MEMB. V.
Waking and terrible Dreams rectified.
As waking that hurts, by all means must be avoided, so sleep,
which so much helps, by like ways, "must be procured, by nature or
art, inward or outward medicines, and be protracted longer than
ordinary, if it may be, as being an especial help." It moistens and
fattens the body, concocts, and helps digestion (as we see in
dormice, and those Alpine mice that sleep all winter), which Gesner
speaks of, when they are so found sleeping under the snow in the
dead of winter, as fat as butter. It expels cares, pacifies the
mind, refresheth the weary limbs after long work:
Somne quies rerum, placidissime somne deorum,
Pax animi, quem cura fugit, qui corpora duris
Fessa ministeriis mulces reparasque labori."
"Sleep, rest of things, O pleasing deity,
Peace of the soul, which cares dost crucify,
Weary bodies refresh and mollify."
The chiefest thing in all physic, Paracelsus calls it, omnia
arcana gemmarum superans et metallorum. The fittest time is "two or
three hours after supper, when as the meat is now settled at the
bottom of the stomach, and 'tis good to lie on the right side first,
because at that site the liver doth rest under the stomach, not
molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth a kettle, that is
put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not amiss to lie on the left
side, that the meat may the better descend;" and sometimes again on
the belly, but never on the back. Seven or eight hours is a
competent time for a melancholy man to rest, as Crato thinks; but as
some do, to lie in bed and not sleep, a day, or half a day together,
to give assent to pleasing conceits and vain imaginations, is many
ways pernicious. To procure this sweet moistening sleep, it's best
to take away the occasions (if it be possible) that hinder it, and
then to use such inward or outward remedies, which may cause it.
Constat hodie (saith Boissardus in his tract de magia, cap. 4.)
multos ita fascinari ut noctes integras exigant insomnes, summa,
inquietudine animorum et corporum; many cannot sleep for witches and
fascinations, which are too familiar in some places; they call it,
dare alicui malam noctem. But the ordinary causes are heat and
dryness, which must first be removed: a hot and dry brain never
sleeps well: grief, fears, cares, expectations, anxieties, great
businesses, In aurum utramque otiose ut dormias, (Ter. "That you may
sleep calmly on either ear.") and all violent perturbations of the
mind, must in some sort be qualified, before we can hope for any
good repose. He that sleeps in the daytime, or is in suspense, fear,
any way troubled in mind, or goes to bed upon a full stomach, may
never hope for quiet rest in the night; nec enim meritoria somnos
admittunt, as the poet saith; inns and such like troublesome places
are not for sleep; one calls ostler, another tapster, one cries and
shouts, another sings, whoops, halloos,
------"absentem cantat amicam,
Multa prolutus vappa nauta atque viator."
(Hor. Scr. lib. 1. Sat. 5. "The tipsy sailor and his
travelling companion sing the praises of their absent
sweethearts.")
Who not accustomed to such noises can sleep amongst them? He
that will intend to take his rest must go to bed animo securo,
quieto et libero, with a secure and composed mind, in a quiet place:
omnia noctes erunt placida composta quiete: and if that will not
serve, or may not be obtained, to seek then such means as are
requisite. To lie in clean linen and sweet; before he goes to bed,
or in bed, to hear "sweet music," which Ficinus commends, lib. 1.
cap. 24, or as Jobertus, med. pract. lib. 3. cap. 10. "to read some
pleasant author till he be asleep, to have a basin of water still
dropping by his bedside," or to lie near that pleasant murmur, lene
sonantis aquae. Some floodgates, arches, falls of water, like London
Bridge, or some continuate noise which may benumb the senses, lenis
motus, silentium et tenebra, tum et ipsa voluntas somnos faciunt; as
a gentle noise to some procures sleep, so, which Bernardinus
Tilesius, lib. de somno, well observes, silence, in a dark room, and
the will itself, is most available to others. Piso commends
frications, Andrew Borde a good draught of strong drink before one
goes to bed; I say, a nutmeg and ale, or a good draught of
Muscadine, with a toast and nutmeg, or a posset of the same, which
many use in a morning, but methinks, for such as have dry brains,
are much more proper at night; some prescribe a sup of vinegar as
they go to bed, a spoonful, saith Aetius Tetrabib. lib. 2. ser. 2.
cap. 10. lib. 6. cap. 10. Aegineta, lib. 3. cap. 14. Piso, "a little
after meat," "because it rarefies melancholy, and procures an
appetite to sleep." Donat. ab Altomar. cap. 7. and Mercurialis
approve of it, if the malady proceed from the spleen. Salust.
Salvian. lib. 2. cap. 1. de remed. Hercules de Saxonia in Pan.
Aelinus, Montaltus de morb. capitis, cap. 28. de Melan. are
altogether against it. Lod. Mercatus, de inter. Morb. cau. lib. 1.
cap. 17. in some cases doth allow it. Rhasis seems to deliberate of
it, though Simeon commend it (in sauce peradventure) he makes a
question of it: as for baths, fomentations, oils, potions, simples
or compounds, inwardly taken to this purpose, I shall speak of them
elsewhere. If, in the midst of the night, when they lie awake, which
is usual to toss and tumble, and not sleep, Ranzovius would have
them, if it be in warm weather, to rise and walk three or four turns
(till they be cold) about the chamber, and then go to bed again.
Against fearful and troublesome dreams, Incubus and such
inconveniences, wherewith melancholy men are molested, the best
remedy is to eat a light supper, and of such meats as are easy of
digestion, no hare, venison, beef, &c., not to lie on his back, not
to meditate or think in the daytime of any terrible objects, or
especially talk of them before he goes to bed. For, as he said in
Lucian after such conference, Hecates somniare mihi videor, I can
think of nothing but hobgoblins: and as Tully notes, "for the most
part our speeches in the daytime cause our fantasy to work upon the
like in our sleep," which Ennius writes of Homer: Et canis in somnis
leporis vestigia latrat: as a dog dreams of a hare, so do men on
such subjects they thought on last.
"Somnia quae mentes ludunt volitantibus umbris,
Nec delubra deum, nec ab aethere numina mittunt,
Sed sibi quisque facit," &c.
(Aristae hist. "Neither the shrines of the gods, nor the
deities themselves, send down from the heavens those dreams
which mock our minds with those flitting shadows,-- we cause
them to ourselves.")
For that cause when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the
seventy interpreters in order, and asked the nineteenth man what
would make one sleep quietly in the night, he told him, "the best
way was to have divine and celestial meditations, and to use honest
actions in the daytime." Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen could
sleep quietly, and were not terrified in the night, or walk in the
dark, they had such monstrous questions, and thought of such
terrible matters all day long. They had need, amongst the rest, to
sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom Philostratus paints in a white and
black coat, with a horn and ivory box full of dreams, of the same
colours, to signify good and bad. If you will know how to interpret
them, read Artemidorus, Sambucus and Cardan; but how to help them, I
must refer you to a more convenient place.
MEMB. VI.
SUBSECT. I.-- Perturbations of the mind rectified. From himself, by
resisting to the utmost, confessing his grief to a friend, &c.
Whosoever he is that shall hope to cure this malady in himself
or any other, must first rectify these passions and perturbations of
the mind: the chiefest cure consists in them. A quiet mind is that
voluptas, or summum bonum of Epicurus, non dolere, curis vacare,
animo tranquillo esse, not to grieve, but to want cares, and have a
quiet soul, is the only pleasure of the world, as Seneca truly
recites his opinion, not that of eating and drinking, which
injurious Aristotle maliciously puts upon him, and for which he is
still mistaken, male audit et vapulat, slandered without a cause,
and lashed by all posterity. "Fear and sorrow, therefore, are
especially to be avoided, and the mind to be mitigated with mirth,
constancy, good hope; vain terror, bad objects are to be removed,
and all such persons in whose companies they be not well pleased."
Gualter Bruel. Fernelius, consil. 43. Mercurialis, consil. 6. Piso,
Jacchinus, cap. 15. in 9. Rhasis, Capivaccius, Hildesheim, &c., all
inculcate this as an especial means of their cure, that their "minds
be quietly pacified, vain conceits diverted, if it be possible, with
terrors, cares," "fixed studies, cogitations, and whatsoever it is
that shall any way molest or trouble the soul," because that
otherwise there is no good to be done. "The body's mischiefs," as
Plato proves, "proceed from the soul: and if the mind be not first
satisfied, the body can never be cured." Alcibiades raves (saith
Maximus Tyrius) and is sick, his furious desires carry him from
Lyceus to the pleading place, thence to the sea, so into Sicily,
thence to Lacedaemon, thence to Persia, thence to Samos, then again
to Athens; Critias tyranniseth over all the city; Sardanapalus is
lovesick; these men are ill-affected all, and can never be cured,
till their minds be otherwise qualified. Crato, therefore, in that
often-cited Counsel of his for a nobleman his patient, when he had
sufficiently informed him in diet, air, exercise, Venus, sleep,
concludes with these as matters of greatest moment, Quod reliquum
est, animae accidentia corrigantur, from which alone proceeds
melancholy; they are the fountain, the subject, the hinges whereon
it turns, and must necessarily be reformed. "For anger stirs choler,
heats the blood and vital spirits; sorrow on the other side
refrigerates the body, and extinguisheth natural heat, overthrows
appetite, hinders concoction, dries up the temperature, and perverts
the understanding:" fear dissolves the spirits, infects the heart,
attenuates the soul: and for these causes all passions and
perturbations must, to the uttermost of our power and most
seriously, be removed. Aelianus Montaltus attributes so much to
them, "that he holds the rectification of them alone to be
sufficient to the cure of melancholy in most patients." Many are
fully cured when they have seen or heard, &c., enjoy their desires,
or be secured and satisfied in their minds; Galen, the common master
of them all, from whose fountain they fetch water, brags, lib. 1. de
san. tuend., that he, for his part, hath cured divers of this
infirmity, solum animis ad rectum institutis, by right settling
alone of their minds.
Yea, but you will here infer, that this is excellent good
indeed if it could be done; but how shall it be effected, by whom,
what art, what means? hic labor, hoc opus est. 'Tis a natural
infirmity, a most powerful adversary, all men are subject to
passions, and melancholy above all others, as being distempered by
their innate humours, abundance of choler adust, weakness of parts,
outward occurrences; and how shall they be avoided? The wisest men,
greatest philosophers of most excellent wit, reason, judgment,
divine spirits, cannot moderate themselves in this behalf; such as
are sound in body and mind, Stoics, heroes, Homer's gods, all are
passionate, and furiously carried sometimes; and how shall we that
are already crazed, fracti animis, sick in body, sick in mind,
resist? we cannot perform it. You may advise and give good precepts,
as who cannot? But how shall they be put in practice? I may not deny
but our passions are violent, and tyrannise of us, yet there be
means to curb them; though they be headstrong, they may be tamed,
they may be qualified, if he himself or his friends will but use
their honest endeavours, or make use of such ordinary helps as are
commonly prescribed.
He himself (I say); from the patient himself the first and
chiefest remedy must be had; for if he be averse, peevish, waspish,
give way wholly to his passions, will not seek to be helped, or be
ruled by his friends, how is it possible he should be cured? But if
he be willing at least, gentle, tractable, and desire his own good,
no doubt but he may magnam morbi deponere partem, be eased at least,
if not cured. He himself must do his utmost endeavour to resist and
withstand the beginnings. Principiis obsta, "Give not water passage,
no not a little," Ecclus. xxv. 27. If they open a little, they will
make a greater breach at length. Whatsoever it is that runneth in
his mind, vain conceit, be it pleasing or displeasing, which so much
affects or troubleth him, "by all possible means he must withstand
it, expel those vain, false, frivolous imaginations, absurd
conceits, feigned fears and sorrows; from which," saith Piso, "this
disease primarily proceeds, and takes his first occasion or
beginning, by doing something or other that shall be opposite unto
them, thinking of something else, persuading by reason, or howsoever
to make a sudden alteration of them." Though he have hitherto run in
a full career, and precipitated himself, following his passions,
giving reins to his appetite, let him now stop upon a sudden, curb
himself in; and as Lemnius adviseth, "strive against with all his
power, to the utmost of his endeavour, and not cherish those fond
imaginations, which so covertly creep into his mind, most pleasing
and amiable at first, but bitter as gall at last, and so headstrong,
that by no reason, art, counsel, or persuasion, they may be shaken
off." Though he be far gone, and habituated unto such fantastical
imaginations, yet as Tully and Plutarch advise, let him oppose,
fortify, or prepare himself against them, by premeditation, reason,
or as we do by a crooked staff, bend himself another way.
"Tu tamen interea effugito quae tristia mentem
Solicitant, procul esse jube curasque metumque
Pallentum, ultrices iras, sint omnia laeta."
"In the meantime expel them from thy mind,
Pale fears, sad cares, and griefs which do it grind,
Revengeful anger, pain and discontent,
Let all thy soul be set on merriment."
Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum. If it be idleness
hath caused this infirmity, or that he perceive himself given to
solitariness, to walk alone, and please his mind with fond
imaginations, let him by all means avoid it; 'tis a bosom enemy,
'tis delightsome melancholy, a friend in show, but a secret devil, a
sweet poison, it will in the end be his undoing; let him go
presently, task or set himself a work, get some good company. If he
proceed, as a gnat flies about a candle, so long till at length he
burn his bodv, so in the end he will undo himself: if it be any
harsh object, ill company, let him presently go from it. If by his
own default, through ill diet, bad air, want of exercise, &c., let
him now begin to reform himself. "It would be a perfect remedy
against all corruption, if," as Roger Bacon hath it, "we could but
moderate ourselves in those six non-natural things." "If it be any
disgrace, abuse, temporal loss, calumny, death of friends,
imprisonment, banishment, be not troubled with it, do not fear, be
not angry, grieve not at it, but with all courage sustain it."
(Gordonius, lib. 1. c. 15. de conser. vit.) Tu contra audentior ito.
If it be sickness, ill success, or any adversity that hath caused
it, oppose an invincible courage, "fortify thyself by God's word, or
otherwise," mala bonis persuadenda, set prosperity against
adversity, as we refresh our eyes by seeing some pleasant meadow,
fountain, picture, or the like: recreate thy mind by some contrary
object, with some more pleasing meditation divert thy thoughts.
Yea, but you infer again, facile consilium damus aliis, we can
easily give counsel to others; every man, as the saying is, can tame
a shrew but he that hath her; si hic esses, aliter sentires; if you
were in our misery, you would find it otherwise, 'tis not so easily
performed. We know this to be true; we should moderate ourselves,
but we are furiously carried, we cannot make use of such precepts,
we are overcome, sick, male sani, distempered and habituated to
these courses, we can make no resistance; you may as well bid him
that is diseased not to feel pain, as a melancholy man not to fear,
not to be sad: 'tis within his blood, his brains, his whole
temperature, it cannot be removed. But he may choose whether he will
give way too far unto it, he may in some sort correct himself. A
philosopher was bitten with a mad dog, and as the nature of that
disease is to abhor all waters, and liquid things, and to think
still they see the picture of a dog before them: he went for all
this, reluctante se, to the bath, and seeing there (as he thought)
in the water the picture of a dog, with reason overcame this
conceit, quid cani cum balneo? what should a dog do in a bath? a
mere conceit. Thou thinkest thou hearest and seest devils, black
men, &c., 'tis not so, 'tis thy corrupt fantasy; settle thine
imagination, thou art well. Thou thinkest thou hast a great nose,
thou art sick, every man observes thee, laughs thee to scorn;
persuade thyself 'tis no such matter: this is fear only, and vain
suspicion. Thou art discontent, thou art sad and heavy; but why?
upon what ground? consider of it: thou art jealous, timorous,
suspicious; for what cause? examine it thoroughly, thou shalt find
none at all, or such as is to be contemned; such as thou wilt surely
deride, and contemn in thyself, when it is past. Rule thyself then
with reason, satisfy thyself, accustom thyself, wean thyself from
such fond conceits, vain fears, strong imaginations, restless
thoughts. Thou mayst do it; Est in nobis assuescere (as Plutarch
saith), we may frame ourselves as we will. As he that useth an
upright shoe, may correct the obliquity, or crookedness, by wearing
it on the other side; we may overcome passions if we will. Quicquid
sibi imperavit animus obtinuit (as Seneca saith) nulli tam feri
affectus, ut non disciplina perdomentur, whatsoever the will
desires, she may command: no such cruel affections, but by
discipline they may be tamed; voluntarily thou wilt not do this or
that, which thou oughtest to do, or refrain, &c., but when thou art
lashed like a dull jade, thou wilt reform it: fear of a whip will
make thee do, or not do. Do that voluntarily then which thou canst
do, and must do by compulsion; thou mayst refrain if thou wilt, and
master thine affections. "As in a city" (saith Melancthon) "they do
by stubborn rebellious rogues, that will not submit themselves to
political judgment, compel them by force; so must we do by our
affections. If the heart will not lay aside those vicious motions,
and the fantasy those fond imaginations, we have another form of
government to enforce and refrain our outward members, that they be
not led by our passions." If appetite will not obey, let the moving
faculty overrule her, let her resist and compel her to do otherwise.
In an ague the appetite would drink; sore eyes that itch would be
rubbed; but reason saith no, and therefore the moving faculty will
not do it. Our fantasy would intrude a thousand fears, suspicions,
chimeras upon us, but we have reason to resist, yet we let it be
overborne by our appetite; "imagination enforceth spirits, which, by
an admirable league of nature, compel the nerves to obey, and they
our several limbs:" we give too much way to our passions. And as to
him that is sick of an ague, all things are distasteful and
unpleasant, non ex cibi vitio saith Plutarch, not in the meat, but
in our taste: so many things are offensive to us, not of themselves,
but out of our corrupt judgment, jealousy, suspicion, and the like:
we pull these mischiefs upon our own heads.
If then our judgment be so depraved, our reason overruled,
will precipitated, that we cannot seek our own good, or moderate
ourselves, as in this disease commonly it is, the best way for ease
is to impart our misery to some friend, not to smother it up in our
own breast: aliter vitium crescitque tegendo, &c., and that which
was most offensive to us, a cause of fear and grief, quod nunc te
coquit, another hell; for strangulat inclusus dolor atque exaestuat
intus, grief concealed strangles the soul; but when as we shall but
impart it to some discreet, trusty, loving friend, it is instantly
removed, by his counsel happily, wisdom, persuasion, advice, his
good means, which we could not otherwise apply unto ourselves. A
friend's counsel is a charm, like mandrake wine, curas sopit; and as
a bull that is tied to a fig-tree becomes gentle on a sudden (which
some, saith Plutarch, interpret of good words), so is a savage,
obdurate heart mollified by fair speeches. "All adversity finds ease
in complaining" (as Isidore holds), "and 'tis a solace to relate
it," ??a?? de pa?a?fas?? est?? eta???? [Agathe de paraiphasis estin
etairou]. Friends' confabulations are comfortable at all times, as
fire in winter, shade in summer, quale sopor fessis in gramine, meat
and drink to him that is hungry or athirst; Democritus's collyrium
is not so sovereign to the eyes as this is to the heart; good words
are cheerful and powerful of themselves, but much more from friends,
as so many props, mutually sustaining each other like ivy and a
wall, which Camerarius hath well illustrated in an emblem. Lenit
animum simplex vel saepe narratio, the simple narration many times
easeth our distressed mind, and in the midst of greatest
extremities; so diverse have been relieved, by exonerating
themselves to a faithful friend: he sees that which we cannot see
for passion and discontent, he pacifies our minds, he will ease our
pain, assuage our anger; quanta inde voluptas, quanta securitas,
Chrysostom adds, what pleasure, what security by that means!
"Nothing so available, or that so much refresheth the soul of man."
Tully, as I remember, in an epistle to his dear friend Atticus, much
condoles the defect of such a friend. "I live here" (saith he) "in a
great city, where I have a multitude of acquaintance, but not a man
of all that company with whom I dare familiarly breathe, or freely
jest. Wherefore I expect thee, I desire thee, I send for thee; for
there be many things which trouble and molest me, which had I but
thee in presence, I could quickly disburden myself of in a walking
discourse." The like, peradventure, may he and he say with that old
man in the comedy,
"Nemo est meorum amicorum hodie,
Apud quem expromere occulta mea audeam."
("I have not a single friend this day, to whom I dare to
disclose my secrets.")
and much inconvenience may both he and he suffer in the
meantime by it. He or he, or whosoever then labours of this malady,
by all means let him get some trusty friend, Semper habens
Pylademque aliquem qui curet Orestem, a Pylades, to whom freely and
securely he may open himself. For as in all other occurrences, so it
is in this, Si quis in coelum ascendisset, &c. as he said in Tully,
if a man had gone to heaven, "seen the beauty of the skies," stars
errant, fixed, &c., insuavis erit admiratio, it will do him no
pleasure, except he have somebody to impart what he hath seen. It is
the best thing in the world, as Seneca therefore adviseth in such a
case, "to get a trusty friend, to whom we may freely and sincerely
pour out our secrets; nothing so delighteth and easeth the mind, as
when we have a prepared bosom, to which our secrets may descend, of
whose conscience we are assured as our own, whose speech may ease
our succourless estate, counsel relieve, mirth expel our mourning,
and whose very sight may be acceptable unto us." It was the counsel
which that politic Comineus gave to all princes, and others
distressed in mind, by occasion of Charles Duke of Burgundy, that
was much perplexed, "first to pray to God, and lay himself open to
him, and then to some special friend, whom we hold most dear, to
tell all our grievances to him; nothing so forcible to strengthen,
recreate, and heal the wounded soul of a miserable man."
SUBSECT. II.--Help from friends by counsel, comfort, fair and foul
means, witty devices, satisfaction, alteration of his course of
life, removing objects, &c.
When the patient of himself is not able to resist, or overcome
these heart-eating passions, his friends or physician must be ready
to supply that which is wanting. Suae erit humanitatis et sapientiae
(which Tully enjoineth in like case) siquid erratum, curare, aut
improvisum, sua diligentia corrigere. They must all join; nec satis
medico, saith Hippocrates, suum fecisse officium, nisi suum quoque
aegrotus, suum astantes, &c. First, they must especially beware, a
melancholy discontented person (be it in what kind of melancholy
soever) never be left alone or idle: but as physicians prescribe
physic, cum custodia, let them not be left unto themselves, but with
some company or other, lest by that means they aggravate and
increase their disease; non oportet aegros humjusmodi esse solos vel
inter ignotos, vel inter eos quos non amant aut negligunt, as Rod. a
Fonseca, tom. 1. consul. 35. prescribes. Lugentes custodire solemus
(saith Seneca) ne solitudine male utantur; we watch a sorrowful
person, lest he abuse his solitariness, and so should we do a
melancholy man; set him about some business, exercise or recreation,
which may divert his thoughts, and still keep him otherwise intent;
for his fantasy is so restless, operative and quick, that if it be
not in perpetual action, ever employed, it will work upon itself,
melancholise, and be carried away instantly, with some fear,
jealousy, discontent, suspicion, some vain conceit or other. If his
weakness be such that he cannot discern what is amiss, correct, or
satisfy, it behoves them by counsel, comfort, or persuasion, by fair
or foul means, to alienate his mind, by some artificial invention,
or some contrary persuasion, to remove all objects, causes,
companies, occasions, as may any ways molest him, to humour him,
please him, divert him, and if it be possible, by altering his
course of life, to give him security and satisfaction. If he conceal
his grievances, and will not be known of them, "they must observe by
his looks, gestures, motions, fantasy, what it is that offends," and
then to apply remedies unto him: many are instantly cured, when
their minds are satisfied. Alexander makes mention of a woman, "that
by reason of her husband's long absence in travel, was exceeding
peevish and melancholy, but when she heard her husband was returned,
beyond all expectation, at the first sight of him, she was freed
from all fear, without help of any other physic restored to her
former health." Trincavellius, consil. 12. lib. 1. hath such a story
of a Venetian, that being much troubled with melancholy, "and ready
to die for grief, when he heard his wife was brought to bed of a
son, instantly recovered." As Alexander concludes, "If our
imaginations be not inveterate, by this art they may be cured,
especially if they proceed from such a cause." No better way to
satisfy, than to remove the object, cause, occasion, if by any art
or means possible we may find it out. If he grieve, stand in fear,
be in suspicion, suspense, or any way molested, secure him, Solvitur
malum, give him satisfaction, the cure is ended; alter his course of
life, there needs no other physic. If the party be sad, or otherwise
affected, "consider" (saith Trallianus) "the manner of it, all
circumstances, and forthwith make a sudden alteration," by removing
the occasions, avoid all terrible objects, heard or seen, "monstrous
and prodigious aspects," tales of devils, spirits, ghosts, tragical
stories; to such as are in fear they strike a great impression,
renewed many times, and recall such chimeras and terrible fictions
into their minds. "Make not so much as mention of them in private
talk, or a dumb show tending to that purpose: such things" (saith
Galateus) "are offensive to their imaginations." And to those that
are now in sorrow, Seneca "forbids all sad companions, and such as
lament; a groaning companion is an enemy to quietness." "Or if there
be any such party, at whose presence the patient is not well
pleased, he must be removed: gentle speeches, and fair means, must
first be tried; no harsh language used, or uncomfortable words; and
not expel, as some do, one madness with another; he that so doth, is
madder than the patient himself:" all things must be quietly
composed; eversa non evertenda, sed erigenda, things down must not
be dejected, but reared, as Crato counselleth; "he must be quietly
and gently used," and we should not do anything against his mind,
but by little and little effect it. As a horse that starts at a drum
or trumpet, and will not endure the shooting of a piece, may be so
manned by art, and animated, that he cannot only endure, but is much
more generous at the hearing of such things, much more courageous
than before, and much delighteth in it: they must not be reformed ex
abrupto, but by all art and insinuation, made to such companies,
aspects, objects they could not formerly away with. Many at first
cannot endure the sight of a green wound, a sick man, which
afterward become good chirurgeons, bold empirics: a horse starts at
a rotten post afar off, which coming near he quietly passeth. 'Tis
much in the manner of making such kind of persons, be they never so
averse from company, bashful, solitary, timorous, they may be made
at last with those Roman matrons, to desire nothing more than in a
public show, to see a full company of gladiators breathe out their
last.
If they may not otherwise be accustomed to brook such
distasteful and displeasing objects, the best way then is generally
to avoid them. Montanus, consil. 229. to the Earl of Montfort, a
courtier, and his melancholy patient, adviseth him to leave the
court, by reason of those continual discontents, crosses, abuses,
"cares, suspicions, emulations, ambition, anger, jealousy, which
that place afforded, and which surely caused him to be so melancholy
at the first:" Maxima quaeque domus servis est plena superbis; a
company of scoffers and proud jacks are commonly conversant and
attend in such places, and able to make any man that is of a soft,
quiet disposition (as many times they do) ex stulto insanum, if once
they humour him, a very idiot, or stark mad. A thing too much
practised in all common societies, and they have no better sport
than to make themselves merry by abusing some silly fellow, or to
take advantage of another man's weakness. In such cases as in a
plague, the best remedy is cito longe tarde: (for to such a party,
especially if he be apprehensive, there can be no greater misery) to
get him quickly gone far enough off, and not to be overhasty in his
return. If he be so stupid that he do not apprehend it, his friends
should take some order, and by their discretion supply that which is
wanting in him, as in all other cases they ought to do. If they see
a man melancholy given, solitary, averse from company, please
himself with such private and vain meditations, though he delight in
it, they ought by all means seek to divert him, to dehort him, to
tell him of the event and danger that may come of it. If they see a
man idle, that by reason of his means otherwise will betake himself
to no course of life, they ought seriously to admonish him, he makes
a noose to entangle himself, his want of employment will be his
undoing. If he have sustained any great loss, suffered a repulse,
disgrace, &c., if it be possible, relieve him. If he desire aught,
let him be satisfied; if in suspense, fear, suspicion, let him be
secured: and if it may conveniently be, give him his heart's
content; for the body cannot be cured till the mind be satisfied.
Socrates, in Plato, would prescribe no physic for Charmides'
headache, "till first he had eased his troubled mind; body and soul
must be cured together, as head and eyes."
"Oculum non curabis sine toto capite,
Nec caput sine toto corpora,
Nec totum corpus sine anima."
(E graeco. "You shall not cure the eye, unless you cure the
whole head also; nor the head, unless the whole body; nor the
whole body, unless the soul besides.")
If that may not be hoped or expected, yet ease him with
comfort, cheerful speeches, fair promises, and good words, persuade
him, advise him. "Many," saith Galen, "have been cured by good
counsel and persuasion alone." "Heaviness of the heart of man doth
bring it down, but a good word rejoiceth it," Prov. xii. 25. "And
there is he that speaketh words like the pricking of a sword, but
the tongue of a wise man is health," ver. 18. Oratio, namque saucii
animi est remedium, a gentle speech is the true cure of a wounded
soul, as Plutarch contends out of Aeschylus and Euripides: "if it be
wisely administered it easeth grief and pain, as diverse remedies do
many other diseases." 'Tis incantationis instar, a charm, aestuantis
animi refrigerium, that true Nepenthe of Homer, which was no Indian
plant, or feigned medicine, which Epidamna, Thonis' wife, sent
Helena for a token, as Macrobius, 7. Saturnal. Goropius Hermat. lib.
9. Greg. Nazianzen, and others suppose, but opportunity of speech:
for Helena's bowl, Medea's unction, Venus's girdle, Circe's cup,
cannot so enchant, so forcibly move or alter as it doth. A letter
sent or read will do as much; multum allevor quum tuas literas lego,
I am much eased, as Tully wrote to Pomponius Atticus, when I read
thy letters, and as Julianus the Apostate once signified to Maximus
the philosopher; as Alexander slept with Homer's works, so do I with
thine epistles, tanquam Paeoniis medicamentis, easque assidue
tanquam, recentes et novas iteramus; scribe ergo, et assidue scribe,
or else come thyself; amicus ad amicum venies. Assuredly a wise and
well- spoken man may do what he will in such a case; a good orator
alone, as Tully holds, can alter affections by power of his
eloquence, "comfort such as are afflicted, erect such as are
depressed, expel and mitigate fear, lust, anger," &c. And how
powerful is the charm of a discreet and dear friend? Ille regit
dictis animos et temperat iras. What may not he effect? As Chremes
told Menedemus, "Fear not, conceal it not, O friend! but tell me
what it is that troubles thee, and I shall surely help thee by
comfort, counsel, or in the matter itself." Arnoldus, lib. 1.
breviar. cap. 18. speaks of a usurer in his time, that upon a loss,
much melancholy and discontent, was so cured. As imagination, fear,
grief, cause such passions, so conceits alone, rectified by good
hope, counsel, &c., are able again to help: and 'tis incredible how
much they can do in such a case, as Trincavellius illustrates by an
example of a patient of his; Porphyrius, the philosopher, in
Plotinus's life (written by him), relates, that being in a
discontented humour through insufferable anguish of mind, he was
going to make away himself: but meeting by chance his master
Plotinus, who perceiving by his distracted looks all was not well,
urged him to confess his grief: which when he had heard, he used
such comfortable speeches, that he redeemed him e faucibus Erebi,
pacified his unquiet mind, insomuch that he was easily reconciled to
himself, and much abashed to think afterwards that he should ever
entertain so vile a motion. By all means, therefore, fair promises,
good words, gentle persuasions, are to be used, not to be too
rigorous at first, "or to insult over them, not to deride, neglect,
or contemn," but rather, as Lemnius exhorteth, "to pity, and by all
plausible means to seek to redress them:" but if satisfaction may
not be had, mild courses, promises, comfortable speeches, and good
counsel will not take place; then as Christophorus a Vega
determines, lib. 3. cap. 14. de Mel. to handle them more roughly, to
threaten and chide, saith Altomarus, terrify sometimes, or as
Salvianus will have them, to be lashed and whipped, as we do by a
starting horse, that is affrighted without a cause, or as Rhasis
adviseth, "one while to speak fair and flatter, another while to
terrify and chide, as they shall see cause."
When none of these precedent remedies will avail, it will not
be amiss, which Savanarola and Aelian Montaltus so much commend,
clavum clavo pellere, "to drive out one passion with another, or by
some contrary passion," as they do bleeding at nose by letting blood
in the arm, to expel one fear with another, one grief with another.
Christophorus a Vega accounts it rational physic, non alienum a
ratione: and Lemnius much approves it, "to use a hard wedge to a
hard knot," to drive out one disease with another, to pull out a
tooth, or wound him, to geld him, saith Platerus, as they did
epileptical patients of old, because it quite alters the
temperature, that the pain of the one may mitigate the grief of the
other; "and I knew one that was so cured of a quartan ague, by the
sudden coming of his enemies upon him." If we may believe Pliny,
whom Scaliger calls mendaciorum patrem, the father of lies, Q.
Fabius Maximus, that renowned consul of Rome, in a battle fought
with the king of the Allobroges, at the river Isaurus, was so rid of
a quartan ague. Valesius, in his controversies, holds this an
excellent remedy, and if it be discreetly used in this malady,
better than any physic.
Sometimes again by some feigned lie, strange news, witty
device, artificial invention, it is not amiss to deceive them. "As
they hate those," saith Alexander, "that neglect or deride, so they
will give ear to such as will soothe them up. If they say they have
swallowed frogs or a snake, by all means grant it, and tell them you
can easily cure it;" 'tis an ordinary thing. Philodotus, the
physician, cured a melancholy king, that thought his head was off,
by putting a leaden cap thereon; the weight made him perceive it,
and freed him of his fond imagination. A woman, in the said
Alexander, swallowed a serpent as she thought; he gave her a vomit,
and conveyed a serpent, such as she conceived, into the basin; upon
the sight of it she was amended. The pleasantest dotage that ever I
read, saith Laurentius, was of a gentleman at Senes in Italy, who
was afraid to piss, lest all the town should be drowned; the
physicians caused the bells to be rung backward, and told him the
town was on fire, whereupon he made water, and was immediately
cured. Another supposed his nose so big that he should dash it
against the wall if he stirred; his physician took a great piece of
flesh, and holding it in his hand, pinched him by the nose, making
him believe that flesh was cut from it. Forestus, obs. lib. 1. had a
melancholy patient, who thought he was dead, "he put a fellow in a
chest, like a dead man, by his bedside, and made him rear himself a
little, and eat: the melancholy man asked the counterfeit, whether
dead men use to eat meat? He told him yea; whereupon he did eat
likewise and was cured." Lemnius, lib. 2. cap. 6. de 4. complex,
hath many such instances, and Jovianus Pontanus, lib. 4. cap. 2. of
Wisd. of the like; but amongst the rest I find one most memorable,
registered in the French chronicles of an advocate of Paris before
mentioned, who believed verily he was dead, &c. I read a multitude
of examples of melancholy men cured by such artificial inventions.
SUBSECT. III.--Music a remedy.
Many and sundry are the means which philosophers and
physicians have prescribed to exhilarate a sorrowful heart, to
divert those fixed and intent cares and meditations, which in this
malady so much offend; but in my judgment none so present, none so
powerful, none so apposite as a cup of strong drink, mirth, music,
and merry company. Ecclus. xl. 20. "Wine and music rejoice the
heart." Rhasis, cont. 9. Tract. 15. Altomarus, cap. 7. Aelianus
Montaltus, c. 26. Ficinus, Bened. Victor. Faventinus are almost
immoderate in the commendation of it; a most forcible medicine
Jacchinus calls it: Jason Pratensis, "a most admirable thing, and
worthy of consideration, that can so mollify the mind, and stay
those tempestuous affections of it." Musica est mentis medicina
moestae, a roaring-meg against melancholy, to rear and revive the
languishing soul; "affecting not only the ears, but the very
arteries, the vital and animal spirits, it erects the mind, and
makes it nimble." Lemnius, instit, cap. 44. This it will effect in
the most dull, severe and sorrowful souls, "expel grief with mirth,
and if there be any clouds, dust, or dregs of cares yet lurking in
our thoughts, most powerfully it wipes them all away," Salisbur.
polit. lib. 1. cap. 6. and that which is more, it will perform all
this in an instant: "Cheer up the countenance, expel austerity,
bring in hilarity" (Girald. Camb. cap. 12. Topog. Hiber.) "inform
our manners, mitigate anger;" Athenaeus (Dipnosophist. lib. 14. cap.
10.) calleth it an infinite treasure to such as are endowed with it:
Dulcisonum reficit tristia corda melos, Eobanus Hessus. Many other
properties Cassiodorus, epist. 4. reckons up of this our divine
music, not only to expel the greatest griefs, but "it doth extenuate
fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty, abateth heaviness, and to such
as are watchful it causeth quiet rest; it takes away spleen and
hatred," be it instrumental, vocal, with strings, wind, Quae, a
spiritu, sine manuum dexteritate gubernetur, &c. it cures all
irksomeness and heaviness of the soul. Labouring men that sing to
their work, can tell as much, and so can soldiers when they go to
fight, whom terror of death cannot so much affright, as the sound of
trumpet, drum, fife, and such like music animates; metus enim
mortis, as Censorinus informeth us, musica depellitur. "It makes a
child quiet," the nurse's song, and many times the sound of a
trumpet on a sudden, bells ringing, a carman's whistle, a boy
singing some ballad tune early in the streets, alters, revives,
recreates a restless patient that cannot sleep in the night, &c. In
a word, it is so powerful a thing that it ravisheth the soul, regina
sensuum, the queen of the senses, by sweet pleasure (which is a
happy cure), and corporal tunes pacify our incorporeal soul, sine
ore loquens, dominatum in animam exercet, and carries it beyond
itself, helps, elevates, extends it. Scaliger, exercit. 302, gives a
reason of these effects, "because the spirits about the heart take
in that trembling and dancing air into the body, are moved together,
and stirred up with it," or else the mind, as some suppose
harmonically composed, is roused up at the tunes of music. And 'tis
not only men that are so affected, but almost all other creatures.
You know the tale of Hercules Gallus, Orpheus, and Amphion, felices
animas Ovid calls them, that could saxa movere sono testudinis, &c.
make stocks and stones, as well as beasts and other animals, dance
after their pipes: the dog and hare, wolf and lamb; vicinumque lupo
praebuit agna latus; clamosus graculus, stridula cornix, et Jovis
aquila, as Philostratus describes it in his images, stood all gaping
upon Orpheus; and trees pulled up by the roots came to hear him, Et
comitem quercum pinus amica trahit.
Arion made fishes follow him, which, as common experience
evinceth, are much affected with music. All singing birds are much
pleased with it, especially nightingales, if we may believe
Calcagninus; and bees amongst the rest, though they be flying away,
when they hear any tingling sound, will tarry behind. "Harts, hinds,
horses, dogs, bears, are exceedingly delighted with it." Scal,
exerc. 302. Elephants, Agrippa adds, lib. 2. cap. 24. and in Lydia
in the midst of a lake there be certain floating islands (if ye will
believe it), that after music will dance.
But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise of divine
music, I will confine myself to my proper subject: besides that
excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a
sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy, and will drive
away the devil himself. Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, in Philostratus,
when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his
pipe, told him, "That he would make a melancholy man merry, and him
that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a
religious man more devout." Ismenias the Theban, Chiron the centaur,
is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone:
as now they do those, saith Bodine, that are troubled with St.
Vitus's Bedlam dance. Timotheus, the musician, compelled Alexander
to skip up and down, and leave his dinner (like the tale of the
Friar and the Boy), whom Austin, de civ. Dei, lib. 17. cap. 14. so
much commends for it. Who hath not heard how David's harmony drove
away the evil spirits from king Saul, 1 Sam. xvi. and Elisha when he
was much troubled by importunate kings, called for a minstrel, "and
when he played, the hand of the Lord came upon him," 2 Kings iii.
Censorinus de natali, cap. 12. reports how Asclepiades the physician
helped many frantic persons by this means, phreneticorum mentes
morbo turbatas -- Jason Pratensis, cap. de Mania, hath many
examples, how Clinias and Empedocles cured some desperately
melancholy, and some mad by this our music. Which because it hath
such excellent virtues, belike Homer brings in Phemius playing, and
the Muses singing at the banquet of the gods. Aristotle, Polit. l.
8. c. 5, Plato 2. de legibus, highly approve it, and so do all
politicians. The Greeks, Romans, have graced music, and made it one
of the liberal sciences, though it be now become mercenary. All
civil Commonwealths allow it: Cneius Manlius (as Livius relates)
anno ab urb. cond. 567. brought first out of Asia to Rome singing
wenches, players, jesters, and all kinds of music to their feasts.
Your princes, emperors, and persons of any quality, maintain it in
their courts; no mirth without music. Sir Thomas More, in his
absolute Utopian commonwealth, allows music as an appendix to every
meal, and that throughout, to all sorts. Epictetus calls mensam
mutam praesepe, a table without music a manger: for "the concert of
musicians at a banquet is a carbuncle set in gold; and as the signet
of an emerald well trimmed with gold, so is the melody of music in a
pleasant banquet." Ecclus. xxxii. 5, 6. Louis the Eleventh, when he
invited Edward the Fourth to come to Paris, told him that as a
principal part of his entertainment, he should hear sweet voices of
children, Ionic and Lydian tunes, exquisite music, he should have a
--, and the cardinal of Bourbon to be his confessor, which he used
as a most plausible argument: as to a sensual man indeed it is.
Lucian in his book, de saltatione, is not ashamed to confess that he
took infinite delight in singing, dancing, music, women's company,
and such like pleasures: "and if thou" (saith he) "didst but hear
them play and dance, I know thou wouldst be so well pleased with the
object, that thou wouldst dance for company thyself, without doubt
thou wilt be taken with it." So Scaliger ingenuously confesseth,
exercit. 274. "I am beyond all measure affected with music, I do
most willingly behold them dance, I am mightily detained and allured
with that grace and comeliness of fair women, I am well pleased to
be idle amongst them." And what young man is not? As it is
acceptable and conducing to most, so especially to a melancholy man.
Provided always, his disease proceed not originally from it, that he
be not some light inamarato, some idle fantastic, who capers in
conceit all the day long, and thinks of nothing else, but how to
make jigs, sonnets, madrigals, in commendation of his mistress. In
such cases music is most pernicious, as a spur to a free horse will
make him run himself blind, or break his wind; Incitamentum enim
amoris musica, for music enchants, as Menander holds, it will make
such melancholy persons mad, and the sound of those jigs and
hornpipes will not be removed out of the ears a week after. Plato
for this reason forbids music and wine to all young men, because
they are most part amorous, ne ignis addatur igni, lest one fire
increase another. Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it
is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth; and therefore to such as
are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most
present remedy: it expels cares, alters their grieved minds, and
easeth in an instant. Otherwise, saith Plutarch, Musica magis
dementat quam vinum; music makes some men mad as a tiger; like
Astolphos' horn in Ariosto; or Mercury's golden wand in Homer, that
made some wake, others sleep, it hath divers effects: and
Theophrastus right well prophesied, that diseases were either
procured by music, or mitigated.
SUBSECT. IV.--Mirth and merry company, fair objects, remedies.
Mirth and merry company may not be separated from music, both
concerning and necessarily required in this business. "Mirth,"
(saith Vives) "purgeth the blood, confirms health, causeth a fresh,
pleasing, and fine colour," prorogues life, whets the wit, makes the
body young, lively and fit for any manner of employment. The merrier
the heart the longer the life; "A merry heart is the life of the
flesh," Prov. xiv. 30. "Gladness prolongs his days," Ecclus. xxx.
22; and this is one of the three Salernitan doctors, Dr. Merryman,
Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, which cure all diseases -- Mens hilaris,
requies, moderata dieta. Gomesius, praefat. lib. 3. de sal. gen. is a
great magnifier of honest mirth, by which (saith he) "we cure many
passions of the mind in ourselves, and in our friends;" which
Galateus assigns for a cause why we love merry companions: and well
they deserve it, being that as Magninus holds, a merry companion is
better than any music, and as the saying is, comes jucundus in via
pro vehiculo, as a wagon to him that is wearied on the way. Jucunda
confabulatio, sales, joci, pleasant discourse, jests, conceits,
merry tales, melliti verborum globuli, as Petronius, Pliny,
Spondanus, Caelius, and many good authors plead, are that sole
Nepenthes of Homer, Helena's bowl, Venus's girdle, so renowned of
old to expel grief and care, to cause mirth and gladness of heart,
if they be rightly understood, or seasonably applied. In a word,
"Amor, voluptas, Venus, gaudium,
Jocus, ludus, sermo suavis, suaviatio."
"Gratification, pleasure, love, joy,
Mirth, sport, pleasant words and no alloy,"
are the true Nepenthes. For these causes our physicians generally
prescribe this as a principal engine to batter the walls of
melancholy, a chief antidote, and a sufficient cure of itself. "By
all means" (saith Mesue) "procure mirth to these men in such things
as are heard, seen, tasted, or smelled, or any way perceived, and
let them have all enticements and fair promises, the sight of
excellent beauties, attires, ornaments, delightsome passages to
distract their minds from fear and sorrow, and such things on which
they are so fixed and intent." "Let them use hunting, sports, plays,
jests, merry company," as Rhasis prescribes, "which will not let the
mind be molested, a cup of good drink now and then, hear music, and
have such companions with whom they are especially delighted;"
"merry tales or toys, drinking, singing, dancing, and whatsoever
else may procure mirth:" and by no means, saith Guianerius, suffer
them to be alone. Benedictus Victorius Faventinus, in his empirics,
accounts it an especial remedy against melancholy, "to hear and see
singing, dancing, maskers, mummers, to converse with such merry
fellows and fair maids." "For the beauty of a woman cheereth the
countenance," Ecclus. xxxvi. 22. Beauty alone is a sovereign remedy
against fear, grief, and all melancholy fits; a charm, as Peter de
la Seine and many other writers affirm, a banquet itself; he gives
instance in discontented Menelaus, that was so often freed by
Helena's fair face: and Tully, 3 Tusc. cites Epicurus as a chief
patron of this tenet. To expel grief, and procure pleasure, sweet
smells, good diet, touch, taste, embracing, singing, dancing,
sports, plays, and above the rest, exquisite beauties, quibus oculi
jucunde moventur et animi, are most powerful means, obvia forma, to
meet or see a fair maid pass by, or to be in company with her. He
found it by experience, and made good use of it in his own person,
if Plutarch belie him not; for he reckons up the names of some more
elegant pieces; Leontia, Boedina, Hedieia, Nicedia, that were
frequently seen in Epicurus' garden, and very familiar in his house.
Neither did he try it himself alone, but if we may give credit to
Atheneus, he practised it upon others. For when a sad and sick
patient was brought unto him to be cured, "he laid him on a down
bed, crowned him with a garland of sweet-smelling flowers, in a fair
perfumed closet delicately set out, and after a portion or two of
good drink, which he administered, he brought in a beautiful young
wench that could play upon a lute, sing, and dance," &c. Tully, 3.
Tusc. scoffs at Epicurus, for this his profane physic (as well he
deserved), and yet Phavorinus and Stobeus highly approve of it; most
of our looser physicians in some cases, to such parties especially,
allow of this; and all of them will have a melancholy, sad, and
discontented person, make frequent use of honest sports, companies,
and recreations, et incitandos ad Venerem, as Rodericus a Fonseca
will, aspectu et contactu pulcherrimarum foeminarum, to be drawn to
such consorts, whether they will or no. Not to be an auditor only,
or a spectator, but sometimes an actor himself. Dulce est desipere
in loco, to play the fool now and then is not amiss, there is a time
for all things. Grave Socrates would be merry by fits, sing, dance,
and take his liquor too, or else Theodoret belies him; so would old
Cato, Tully by his own confession, and the rest. Xenophon, in his
Sympos. brings in Socrates as a principal actor, no man merrier than
himself, and sometimes he would "ride a cockhorse with his
children."--equitare in arundine longa. (Though Alcibiades scoffed
at him for it) and well he might; for now and then (saith Plutarch)
the most virtuous, honest, and gravest men will use feasts, jests,
and toys, as we do sauce to our meats. So did Scipio and Laelius,
"Qui ubi se a vulgo et scena in secreta remorant,
Virtus Scipiadae et mitis sapientia Laeli,
Nugari cum illo, et discincti ludere, donec
Decoqueretur olus, soliti"------
"Valorous Scipio and gentle Laelius,
Removed from the scene and rout so clamorous,
Were wont to recreate themselves their robes laid by,
Whilst supper by the cook was making ready."
Machiavel, in the eighth book of his Florentine history, gives this
note of Cosmo de Medici, the wisest and gravest man of his time in
Italy, that he would "now and then play the most egregious fool in
his carriage, and was so much given to jesters, players and childish
sports, to make himself merry, that he that should but consider his
gravity on the one part, his folly and lightness on the other, would
surely say, there were two distinct persons in him." Now methinks he
did well in it, though Salisburiensis be of opinion, that
magistrates, senators, and grave men, should not descend to lighter
sports, ne respublica ludere videatur: but as Themistocles, still
keep a stern and constant carriage. I commend Cosmo de Medici and
Castruccius Castrucanus, than whom Italy never knew a worthier
captain, another Alexander, if Machiavel do not deceive us in his
life: "when a friend of his reprehended him for dancing beside his
dignity," (belike at some cushion dance) he told him again, qui
sapit interdiu, vix unquam noctii desipit, he that is wise in the
day may dote a little in the night. Paulus Jovius relates as much of
Pope Leo Decimus, that he was a grave, discreet, staid man, yet
sometimes most free, and too open in his sports. And 'tis not
altogether unfit or misbeseeming the gravity of such a man, if that
decorum of time, place, and such circumstances be observed. Misce
stultitiam consiliis brevem--and as he said in an epigram to his
wife, I would have every man say to himself, or to his friend,
"Moll, once in pleasant company by chance,
I wished that you for company would dance:
Which you refus'd, and said, your years require,
Now, matron-like, both manners and attire.
Well, Moll, if needs you will be matron-like,
Then trust to this, I will thee matron-like:
Yet so to you my love, may never lessen,
As you for church, house, bed, observe this lesson:
Sit in the church as solemn as a saint,
No deed, word, thought, your due devotion taint:
Veil, if you will, your head, your soul reveal
To him that only wounded souls can heal:
Be in my house as busy as a bee.
Having a sting for every one but me;
Buzzing in every corner, gath'ring honey:
Let nothing waste, that costs or yieldeth money.
And when thou seest my heart to mirth incline,
Thy tongue, wit, blood, warm with good cheer and wine:
Then of sweet sports let no occasion scape,
But be as wanton, toying as an ape."
Those old Greeks had their Lubentiam Deam, goddess of
pleasure, and the Lacedaemonians, instructed from Lycurgus, did Deo
Risui sucrificare, after their wars especially, and in times of
peace, which was used in Thessaly, as it appears by that of
Apuleius, who was made an instrument of their laughter himself:
"Because laughter and merriment was to season their labours and
modester life." Risus enim divum atque; hominum est aeterna voluptas.
Princes use jesters, players, and have those masters of revels in
their courts. The Romans at every supper (for they had no solemn
dinner) used music, gladiators, jesters, &c. as Suetonius relates of
Tiberius, Dion of Commodus, and so did the Greeks. Besides music, in
Xenophon's Sympos. Philippus ridendi artifex, Philip, a jester, was
brought to make sport. Paulus Jovius, in the eleventh book of his
history, hath a pretty digression of our English customs, which
howsoever some may misconstrue, I, for my part, will interpret to
the best. "The whole nation beyond all other mortal men, is most
given to banqueting and feasts; for they prolong them many hours
together, with dainty cheer, exquisite music, and facete jesters,
and afterwards they fall a dancing and courting their mistresses,
till it be late in the night." Volateran gives the same testimony of
this island, commending our jovial manner of entertainment and good
mirth, and methinks he saith well, there is no harm in it; long may
they use it, and all such modest sports. Ctesias reports of a
Persian king, that had 150 maids attending at his table, to play,
sing, and dance by turns; and Lil. Geraldus of an Egyptian prince,
that kept nine virgins still to wait upon him, and those of most
excellent feature, and sweet voices, which afterwards gave occasion
to the Greeks of that fiction of the nine Muses. The king of
Ethiopia in Africa, most of our Asiatic princes have done so and do;
those Sophies, Mogors, Turks, &c. solace themselves after supper
amongst their queens and concubines, quae jucundioris oblectamenti
causa ( saith mine author) coram rege psallere et saltare
consueverant, taking great pleasure to see and hear them sing and
dance. This and many such means to exhilarate the heart of men, have
been still practised in all ages, as knowing there is no better
thing to the preservation of man's life. What shall I say, then, but
to every melancholy man,
"Utere convivis, non tristibus utere amicis,
Quos nugae et risus, et joca salsa juvant."
"Feast often, and use friends not still so sad,
Whose jests and merriments may make thee glad."
Use honest and chaste sports, scenical shows, plays, games;
Accedant juvenumque Chori, mistaeque puellae. And as Marsilius Ficinus
concludes an epistle to Bernard Canisianus, and some other of his
friends, will I this tract to all good students, "Live merrily, O my
friends, free from cares, perplexity, anguish, grief of mind, live
merrily," laetitia caelum vos creavit: "Again and again I request you
to be merry, if anything trouble your hearts, or vex your souls,
neglect and contemn it, let it pass. And this I enjoin you, not as a
divine alone, but as a physician; for without this mirth, which is
the life and quintessence of physic, medicines, and whatsoever is
used and applied to prolong the life of man, is dull, dead, and of
no force." Dum fata sinunt, vivite laeti (Seneca), I say be merry.
"Nec lusibus virentem Viduemus hanc juventam."
It was Tiresias the prophet's council to Menippus, that
travelled all the world over, even down to hell itself to seek
content, and his last farewell to Menippus, to be merry. "Contemn
the world" (saith he) "and count that is in it vanity and toys; this
only covet all thy life long; be not curious, or over solicitous in
anything, but with a well composed and contented estate to enjoy
thyself, and above all things to be merry."
"Si Numerus uti censet sine amore jocisque,
Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque."
("If the world think that nothing can be happy without love
and mirth, then live in love and jollity.")
Nothing better (to conclude with Solomon, Eccles. iii. 22),
"than that a man should rejoice in his affairs." 'Tis the same
advice which every physician in this case rings to his patient, as
Capivaccius to his, "avoid overmuch study and perturbations of the
mind, and as much as in thee lies live at heart's-ease:" Prosper
Calenus to that melancholy Cardinal Caesius, "amidst thy serious
studies and business, use jests and conceits, plays and toys, and
whatsoever else may recreate thy mind." Nothing better than mirth
and merry company in this malady. "It begins with sorrow" (saith
Montanus), "it must be expelled with hilarity."
But see the mischief; many men, knowing that merry company is
the only medicine against melancholy, will therefore neglect their
business; and in another extreme, spend all their days among good
fellows in a tavern or an alehouse, and know not otherwise how to
bestow their time but in drinking; malt-worms, men-fishes, or water-
snakes, Qui bibunt solum ranarum more, nihil comedentes, like so
many frogs in a puddle. 'Tis their sole exercise to eat, and drink;
to sacrifice to Volupia, Rumina, Edulica, Potina, Mellona, is all
their religion. They wish for Philoxenus' neck, Jupiter's
trinoctium, and that the sun would stand still as in Joshua's time,
to satisfy their lust, that they might dies noctesque pergraecari et
bibere. Flourishing wits, and men of good parts, good fashion, and
good worth, basely prostitute themselves to every rogue's company,
to take tobacco and drink, to roar and sing scurrilous songs in base
places.
"Invenies aliquem cum percussore jacentem,
Permistum nautis, aut furibus, aut fugitivis."
(Juven. sat. 8. "You will find him beside some cutthroat,
along with sailors, or thieves, or runaways.")
Which Thomas Erastus objects to Paracelsus, that he would be
drinking all day long with carmen and tapsters in a brothel-house,
is too frequent among us, with men of better note: like Timocreon of
Rhodes, multa bibens, et multa vorans, &c. They drown their wits,
seethe their brains in ale, consume their fortunes, lose their time,
weaken their temperatures, contract filthy diseases, rheums,
dropsies, calentures, tremor, get swollen jugulars, pimpled red
faces, sore eyes, &c.; heat their livers, alter their complexions,
spoil their stomachs, overthrow their bodies; for drink drowns more
than the sea and all the rivers that fall into it (mere funges and
casks), confound their souls, suppress reason, go from Scylla to
Charybdis, and use that which is a help to their undoing. Quid
refert morbo an ferro pereamve ruina?( Hor. "What does it signify
whether I perish by disease or by the sword?") When the Black Prince
went to set the exiled king of Castile into his kingdom, there was a
terrible battle fought between the English and the Spanish: at last
the Spanish fled, the English followed them to the river side, where
some drowned themselves to avoid their enemies, the rest were
killed. Now tell me what difference is between drowning and killing?
As good be melancholy still, as drunken beasts and beggars. Company
a sole comfort, and an only remedy to all kind of discontent, is
their sole misery and cause of perdition. As Hermione lamented in
Euripides, malae mulieres me fecerunt malam. Evil company marred her,
may they justly complain, bad companions have been their bane. For,
malus malum vult ut sit sui similis; one drunkard in a company, one
thief, one whoremaster, will by his goodwill make all the rest as
bad as himself,
------"Et si Nocturnos jures te formidare vapores,"
(Hor "Although you swear that you dread the night air.")
be of what complexion you will, inclination, love or hate, be
it good or bad, if you come amongst them, you must do as they do;
yea, though it be to the prejudice of your health, you must drink
venenum pro vino. And so like grasshoppers, whilst they sing over
their cups all summer, they starve in winter; and for a little vain
merriment shall find a sorrowful reckoning in the end.
SECT. III. MEMB. I.
A Consolatory Digression, containing the Remedies of all manner of
Discontents.
Because in the preceding section I have made mention of good
counsel, comfortable speeches, persuasion, how necessarily they are
required to the cure of a discontented or troubled mind, how present
a remedy they yield, and many times a sole sufficient cure of
themselves; I have thought fit in this following section, a little
to digress (if at least it be to digress in this subject), to
collect and glean a few remedies, and comfortable speeches out of
our best orators, philosophers, divines, and fathers of the church,
tending to this purpose. I confess, many have copiously written of
this subject, Plato, Seneca, Plutarch, Xenophon, Epictetus,
Theophrastus, Xenocrates, Grantor, Lucian, Boethius: and some of
late, Sadoletus, Cardan, Budaeus, Stella, Petrarch, Erasmus, besides
Austin, Cyprian, Bernard, &c. And they so well, that as Hierome in
like case said, si nostrum areret ingenium, de illorum posset
fontibus irrigari, if our barren wits were dried up, they might be
copiously irrigated from those well-springs: and I shall but actum
agere; yet because these tracts are not so obvious and common, I
will epitomise, and briefly insert some of their divine precepts,
reducing their voluminous and vast treatises to my small scale; for
it were otherwise impossible to bring so great vessels into so
little a creek. And although (as Cardan said of his book de consol.)
"I know beforehand, this tract of mine many will contemn and reject;
they that are fortunate, happy, and in flourishing estate, have no
need of such consolatory speeches; they that are miserable and
unhappy, think them insufficient to ease their grieved minds, and
comfort their misery:" yet I will go on; for this must needs do some
good to such as are happy, to bring them to a moderation, and make
them reflect and know themselves, by seeing the inconstancy of human
felicity, others' misery; and to such as are distressed, if they
will but attend and consider of this, it cannot choose but give some
content and comfort. "'Tis true, no medicine can cure all diseases,
some affections of the mind are altogether incurable; yet these
helps of art, physic, and philosophy must not be contemned."
Arrianus and Plotinus are stiff in the contrary opinion, that such
precepts can do little good. Boethius himself cannot comfort in some
cases, they will reject such speeches like bread of stones, Insana
stultae mentis haec solatia.
"Words add no courage," which Catiline once said to his
soldiers, "a captain's oration doth not make a coward a valiant
man:" and as Job feelingly said to his friends, "you are but
miserable comforters all." 'Tis to no purpose in that vulgar phrase
to use a company of obsolete sentences, and familiar sayings: as
Plinius Secundus, being now sorrowful and heavy for the departure of
his dear friend Cornelius Rufus, a Roman senator, wrote to his
fellow Tiro in like case, adhibe solatia, sed nova aliqua, sed
fortia, quae audierim nunquam, legerim nunquam: nam quae audivi, quae
legi omnia, tanto dolore superantur, either say something that I
never read nor heard of before, or else hold thy peace. Most men
will here except trivial consolations, ordinary speeches, and known
persuasions in this behalf will be of small force; what can any man
say that hath not been said? To what end are such paraenetical
discourses? you may as soon remove Mount Caucasus, as alter some
men's affections. Yet sure I think they cannot choose but do some
good, and comfort and ease a little, though it be the same again, I
will say it, and upon that hope I will adventure. Non meus hic
sermo, 'tis not my speech this, but of Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus,
Austin, Bernard, Christ and his Apostles. If I make nothing, as
Montaigne said in like case, I will mar nothing; 'tis not my
doctrine but my study, I hope I shall do nobody wrong to speak what
I think, and deserve not blame in imparting my mind. If it be not
for thy ease, it may for mine own; so Tully, Cardan, and Boethius
wrote de consol. as well to help themselves as others; be it as it
may I will essay.
Discontents and grievances are either general or particular;
general are wars, plagues, dearths, famine, fires, inundations,
unseasonable weather, epidemical diseases which afflict whole
kingdoms, territories, cities; or peculiar to private men, as cares,
crosses, losses, death of friends, poverty, want, sickness,
orbities, injuries, abuses, &c. Generally all discontent, homines
quatimur fortunae, salo. No condition free, quisque suos patimur
manes. Even in the midst of our mirth and jollity, there is some
grudging, some complaint; as he saith, our whole life is a
glycypicron, a bitter sweet passion, honey and gall mixed together,
we are all miserable and discontent, who can deny it? If all, and
that it be a common calamity, an inevitable necessity, all
distressed, then as Cardan infers, "who art thou that hopest to go
free? Why dost thou not grieve thou art a mortal man, and not
governor of the world?" Ferre quam sortem patiuntur omnes, Nemo
recuset, "If it be common to all, why should one man be more
disquieted than another?" If thou alone wert distressed, it were
indeed more irksome, and less to be endured; but when the calamity
is common, comfort thyself with this, thou hast more fellows,
Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris; 'tis not thy sole case, and
why shouldst thou be so impatient? "Aye, but alas we are more
miserable than others, what shall we do? Besides private miseries,
we live in perpetual fear and danger of common enemies: we have
Bellona's whips, and pitiful outcries, for epithalamiums; for
pleasant music, that fearful noise of ordnance, drums, and warlike
trumpets still sounding in our ears; instead of nuptial torches, we
have firing of towns and cities; for triumphs, lamentations; for
joy, tears." "So it is, and so it was, and so it ever will be. He
that refuseth to see and hear, to suffer this, is not fit to live in
this world, and knows not the common condition of all men, to whom
so long as they live, with a reciprocal course, joys and sorrows are
annexed, and succeed one another." It is inevitable, it may not be
avoided, and why then shouldst thou be so much troubled? Grave nihil
est homini quod fert necessitas, as Tully deems out of an old poet,
"that which is necessary cannot be grievous." If it be so, then
comfort thyself in this, "that whether thou wilt or no, it must be
endured:" make a virtue of necessity, and conform thyself to undergo
it. Si longa est, levis est; si gravis est, brevis est. If it be
long, 'tis light; if grievous, it cannot last. It will away, dies
dolorem minuit, and if nought else, time will wear it out; custom
will ease it; oblivion is a common medicine for all losses,
injuries, griefs, and detriments whatsoever, "and when they are once
past, this commodity comes of infelicity, it makes the rest of our
life sweeter unto us:" Atque haec olim meminisse juvabit,
"recollection of the past is pleasant:" "the privation and want of a
thing many times makes it more pleasant and delightsome than before
it was." We must not think the happiest of us all to escape here
without some misfortunes,
------"Usque adeo nulla est sincera voluptas,
Solicitumque aliquid laetis intervenit."------
(Ovid. "For there is no pleasure perfect, some anxiety always
intervenes.")
Heaven and earth are much unlike: "Those heavenly bodies
indeed are freely carried in their orbs without any impediment or
interruption, to continue their course for innumerable ages, and
make their conversions: but men are urged with many difficulties,
and have diverse hindrances, oppositions still crossing,
interrupting their endeavours and desires, and no mortal man is free
from this law of nature." We must not therefore hope to have all
things answer our own expectation, to have a continuance of good
success and fortunes, Fortuna nunquam perpetuo est bona. And as
Minutius Felix, the Roman consul, told that insulting Coriolanus,
drunk with his good fortunes, look not for that success thou hast
hitherto had; "It never yet happened to any man since the beginning
of the world, nor ever will, to have all things according to his
desire, or to whom fortune was never opposite and adverse." Even so
it fell out to him as he foretold. And so to others, even to that
happiness of Augustus; though he were Jupiter's almoner, Pluto's
treasurer, Neptune's admiral, it could not secure him. Such was
Alcibiades's fortune, Narsetes, that great Gonsalvus, and most
famous men's, that as Jovius concludes, "it is almost fatal to great
princes, through their own default or otherwise circumvented with
envy and malice, to lose their honours, and die contumeliously."
'Tis so, still hath been, and ever will be, Nihil est ab omni parte
beatum,
"There's no perfection is so absolute,
That some impurity doth not pollute."
Whatsoever is under the moon is subject to corruption,
alteration; and so long as thou livest upon earth look not for
other. "Thou shalt not here find peaceable and cheerful days, quiet
times, but rather clouds, storms, calumnies, such is our fate." And
as those errant planets in their distinct orbs have their several
motions, sometimes direct, stationary, retrograde, in apogee,
perigee, oriental, occidental, combust, feral, free, and as our
astrologers will, have their fortitudes and debilities, by reason of
those good and bad irradiations, conferred to each other's site in
the heavens, in their terms, houses, case, detriments, &c. So we
rise and fall in this world, ebb and flow, in and out, reared and
dejected, lead a troublesome life, subject to many accidents and
casualties of fortunes, variety of passions, infirmities as well
from ourselves as others.
Yea, but thou thinkest thou art more miserable than the rest,
other men are happy but in respect of thee, their miseries are but
flea- bitings to thine, thou alone art unhappy, none so bad as
thyself. Yet if, as Socrates said, "All men in the world should come
and bring their grievances together, of body, mind, fortune, sores,
ulcers, madness, epilepsies, agues, and all those common calamities
of beggary, want, servitude, imprisonment, and lay them on a heap to
be equally divided, wouldst thou share alike, and take thy portion?
or be as thou art? Without question thou wouldst be as thou art." If
some Jupiter should say, to give us all content,
"Jam faciam quod vultis; eris tu, qui modo miles,
Mercator; tu consultus modo, rusticus; hinc vos,
Vos hinc mutatis discedite partibus; eia
Quid slatis? nolint."
"Well be't so then; you master soldier
Shall be a merchant; you sir lawyer
A country gentlemen; go you to this,
That side you; why stand ye? it's well as 'tis."
"Every man knows his own, but not others' defects and
miseries; and 'tis the nature of all men still to reflect upon
themselves, their own misfortunes," not to examine or consider other
men's, not to compare themselves with others: To recount their
miseries, but not their good gifts, fortunes, benefits, which they
have, or ruminate on their adversity, but not once to think on their
prosperity, not what they have, but what they want: to look still on
them that go before, but not on those infinite numbers that come
after. "Whereas many a man would think himself in heaven, a pretty
prince, if he had but the least part of that fortune which thou so
much repinest at, abhorrest and accountest a most vile and wretched
estate." How many thousands want that which thou hast? how many
myriads of poor slaves, captives, of such as work day and night in
coal-pits, tin-mines, with sore toil to maintain a poor living, of
such as labour in body and mind, live in extreme anguish, and pain,
all which thou art free from? O fortunatos nimium bona si sua
norint: Thou art most happy if thou couldst be content, and
acknowledge thy happiness; Rem carendo, non fruendo cognoscimus,
("You know the value of a thing from wanting more than from enjoying
it.") when thou shalt hereafter come to want that which thou now
loathest, abhorrest, and art weary of, and tired with, when 'tis
past thou wilt say thou wert most happy: and after a little miss,
wish with all thine heart thou hadst the same content again, mightst
lead but such a life, a world for such a life: the remembrance of it
is pleasant. Be silent then, rest satisfied, desine, intuensque in
aliorum infortunia solare mentem, comfort thyself with other men's
misfortunes, and as the mouldwarp in Aesop told the fox, complaining
for want of a tail, and the rest of his companions, tacete, quando
me occulis captum videtis, you complain of toys, but I am blind, be
quiet. I say to thee be thou satisfied. It is recorded of the hares,
that with a general consent they went to drown themselves, out of a
feeling of their misery; but when they saw a company of frogs more
fearful than they were, they began to take courage, and comfort
again. Compare thine estate with others. Similes aliorum respice
casus, mitius ista feres. Be content and rest satisfied, for thou
art well in respect to others: be thankful for that thou hast, that
God hath done for thee, he hath not made thee a monster, a beast, a
base creature, as he might, but a man, a Christian, such a man;
consider aright of it, thou art full well as thou art. Quicquid vult
habere nemo potest, no man can have what he will, Illud potest nolle
quod non habet, he may choose whether he will desire that which he
hath not. Thy lot is fallen, make the best of it. "If we should all
sleep at all times," (as Endymion is said to have done) "who then
were happier than his fellow?" Our life is but short, a very dream,
and while we look about immortalitas adest, eternity is at hand:
"Our life is a pilgrimage on earth, which wise men pass with great
alacrity." If thou be in woe, sorrow, want, distress, in pain, or
sickness, think of that of our apostle, "God chastiseth them whom he
loveth: they that sow in tears, shall reap in joy," Psal. cxxvi. 6.
"As the furnace proveth the potter's vessel, so doth temptation try
men's thoughts," Eccl. xxv. 5, 'tis for thy good, Periisses nisi
periisses: hadst thou not been so visited, thou hadst been utterly
undone: "as gold in the fire," so men are tried in adversity.
Tribulatio ditut: and which Camerarius hath well shadowed in an
emblem of a thresher and corn,
"Si tritura absit paleis sunt abdita grana,
Nos crux mundanis separat a paleis:"
"As threshing separates from straw the corn,
By crosses from the world's chaff are we born."
'Tis the very same which Chrysostom comments, hom. 2. in 3
Mat. "Corn is not separated but by threshing, nor men from worldly
impediments but by tribulation." 'Tis that which Cyprian
ingeminates, Ser. 4. de immort. 'Tis that which Hierom, which all
the fathers inculcate, "so we are catechised for eternity." 'Tis
that which the proverb insinuates. Nocumentum documentum; 'tis that
which all the world rings in our ears. Deus unicum habet filium sine
peccato, nullum sine flagello: God, saith Austin, hath one son
without sin, none without correction. "An expert seaman is tried in
a tempest, a runner in a race, a captain in a battle, a valiant man
in adversity, a Christian in tentation and misery." Basil, hom. 8.
We are sent as so many soldiers into this world, to strive with it,
the flesh, the devil; our life is a warfare, and who knows it not?
Non est ad astra mollis e terris via: "and therefore peradventure
this world here is made troublesome unto us," that, as Gregory
notes, "we should not be delighted by the way, and forget whither we
are going."
"Ite nunc fortes, ubi celsa magni
Ducit exempli via, cur inerti
Terga nudatis? superata tellus
Sidera donat."
(Boethius l. 5. met. ult, "Go now, brave fellows, whither the
lofty path of a great example leads. Why do you stupidly
expose your backs? The earth brings the stars to subjection.")
Go on then merrily to heaven. If the way be troublesome, and
you in misery, in many grievances: on the other side you have many
pleasant sports, objects, sweet smells, delightsome tastes, music,
meats, herbs, flowers, &c. to recreate your senses. Or put case thou
art now forsaken of the world, dejected, contemned, yet comfort
thyself, as it was said to Agar in the wilderness, "God sees thee,
he takes notice of thee:" there is a God above that can vindicate
thy cause, that can relieve thee. And surely Seneca thinks he takes
delight in seeing thee. "The gods are well pleased when they see
great men contending with adversity," as we are to see men fight, or
a man with a beast. But these are toys in respect, "Behold," saith
he, "a spectacle worthy of God; a good man contented with his
estate." A tyrant is the best sacrifice to Jupiter, as the ancients
held, and his best object "a contented mind." For thy part then rest
satisfied, "cast all thy care on him, thy burthen on him," "rely on
him, trust on him, and he shall nourish thee, care for thee, give
thee thine heart's desire;" say with David, "God is our hope and
strength, in troubles ready to be found," Psal. xlvi. 1. "for they
that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be
removed," Psal. cxxiv. 1. 2. "as the mountains are about Jerusalem,
so is the Lord about his people, from henceforth and for ever."
MEMB. II.
Deformity of body, sickness, baseness of birth, peculiar
discontents.
Particular discontents and grievances, are either of body,
mind, or fortune, which as they wound the soul of man, produce this
melancholy, and many great inconveniences, by that antidote of good
counsel and persuasion may be eased or expelled. Deformities and
imperfections of our bodies, as lameness, crookedness, deafness,
blindness, be they innate or accidental, torture many men: yet this
may comfort them, that those imperfections of the body do not a whit
blemish the soul, or hinder the operations of it, but rather help
and much increase it. Thou art lame of body, deformed to the eye,
yet this hinders not but that thou mayst be a good, a wise, upright,
honest man. "Seldom," saith Plutarch, "honesty and beauty dwell
together," and oftentimes under a threadbare coat lies an excellent
understanding, saepe sub attrita latitat sapientia veste. Cornelius
Mussus, that famous preacher in Italy, when he came first into the
pulpit in Venice, was so much contemned by reason of his outside, a
little lean, poor, dejected person, they were all ready to leave the
church; but when they heard his voice they did admire him, and happy
was that senator could enjoy his company, or invite him first to his
house. A silly fellow to look to, may have more wit, learning,
honesty, than he that struts it out Ampullis jactans, &c. grandia
gradiens, and is admired in the world's opinion: Vilis saepe cadus
nobile nectar habet, the best wine comes out of an old vessel. How
many deformed princes, kings, emperors, could I reckon up,
philosophers, orators? Hannibal had but one eye, Appius Claudius,
Timoleon, blind, Muleasse, king of Tunis, John, king of Bohemia, and
Tiresias the prophet. "The night hath his pleasure;" and for the
loss of that one sense such men are commonly recompensed in the
rest; they have excellent memories, other good parts, music, and
many recreations; much happiness, great wisdom, as Tully well
discourseth in his Tusculan questions: Homer was blind, yet who
(saith he) made more accurate, lively, or better descriptions, with
both his eyes? Democritus was blind, yet as Laertius writes of him,
he saw more than all Greece besides, as Plato concludes, Tum sane
mentis oculus acute incipit cernere, quum primum corporis oculus
deflorescit, when our bodily eyes are at worst, generally the eyes
of our soul see best. Some philosophers and divines have evirated
themselves, and put out their eyes voluntarily, the better to
contemplate. Angelus Politianus had a tetter in his nose continually
running, fulsome in company, yet no man so eloquent and pleasing in
his works. Aesop was crooked, Socrates purblind, long-legged, hairy;
Democritus withered, Seneca lean and harsh, ugly to behold, yet show
me so many flourishing wits, such divine spirits: Horace a little
blear-eyed contemptible fellow, yet who so sententious and wise?
Marcilius Picinus, Faber Stapulensis, a couple of dwarfs, Melancthon
a short hard-favoured man, parvus erat, sed magnus erat, &c., yet of
incomparable parts all three. Ignatius Loyola the founder of the
Jesuits, by reason of a hurt he received in his leg, at the siege of
Pampeluna, the chief town of Navarre in Spain, unfit for wars and
less serviceable at court, upon that accident betook himself to his
beads, and by those means got more honour than ever he should have
done with the use of his limbs, and properness of person: Vulnus non
penetrat animum, a wound hurts not the soul. Galba the emperor was
crook-backed, Epictetus lame: that great Alexander a little man of
stature, Augustus Caesar of the same pitch: Agesilaus despicabili
forma; Boccharis a most deformed prince as ever Egypt had, yet as
Diodorus Siculus records of him, in wisdom and knowledge far beyond
his predecessors. A. Dom. 1306. Uladeslaus Cubitalis that pigmy
king of Poland reigned and fought more victorious battles than any
of his long-shanked predecessors. Nullam virtus respuit staturam,
virtue refuseth no stature, and commonly your great vast bodies, and
fine features, are sottish, dull, and leaden spirits. What's in
them? Quid nisi pondus iners stolidaeque ferocia memtis, What in Osus
and Ephialtes (Neptune's sons in Homer), nine acres long?
"Qui ut magnus Orion,
Cum pedes incedit, medii per maxima Nerei
Stagna, viam findens humero supereminet undas."
"Like tall Orion stalking o'er the flood:
When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves,
His shoulder scarce the topmost billow laves."
What in Maximinus, Ajax, Caligula, and the rest of those great
Zanzummins, or gigantical Anakims, heavy, vast, barbarous lubbers?
------"si membra tibi dant grandia Parcae,
Mentis eges?"
Their body, saith Lemnius, "is a burden to them, and their
spirits not so lively, nor they so erect and merry:" Non est in
magno corpore mica salis: a little diamond is more worth than a
rocky mountain: which made Alexander Aphrodiseus positively
conclude, "The lesser, the wiser, because the soul was more
contracted in such a body." Let Bodine in his 5. c. method. hist.
plead the rest; the lesser they are, as in Asia, Greece, they have
generally the finest wits. And for bodily stature which some so much
admire, and goodly presence, 'tis true, to say the best of them,
great men are proper, and tall, I grant,-- caput inter nubila
condunt, (hide their heads in the clouds); but belli pusilli little
men are pretty: Sed si bellus homo est Cotta, pusillus homo est.
Sickness, diseases, trouble many, but without a cause; "It may be
'tis for the good of their souls:" Pars fati fuit, the flesh rebels
against the spirit; that which hurts the one, must needs help the
other. Sickness is the mother of modesty, putteth us in mind of our
mortality; and when we are in the full career of worldly pomp and
jollity, she pulleth us by the ear, and maketh us know ourselves.
Pliny calls it, the sum of philosophy, "If we could but perform that
in our health, which we promise in our sickness." Quum infirmi
sumus, optimi sumus; for what sick man (as Secundus expostulates
with Rufus) was ever "lascivious, covetous, or ambitious? he envies
no man, admires no man, flatters no man, despiseth no man, listens
not after lies and tales," &c. And were it not for such gentle
remembrances, men would have no moderation of themselves, they would
be worse than tigers, wolves, and lions: who should keep them in
awe? "princes, masters, parents, magistrates, judges, friends,
enemies, fair or foul means cannot contain us, but a little
sickness," (as Chrysostom observes) "will correct and amend us." And
therefore with good discretion, Jovianus Pontanus caused this short
sentence to be engraven on his tomb in Naples: "Labour, sorrow,
grief, sickness, want and woe, to serve proud masters, bear that
superstitious yoke, and bury your clearest friends, &c., are the
sauces of our life." If thy disease be continuate and painful to
thee, it will not surely last: "and a light affliction, which is but
for a moment, causeth unto us a far more excellent and eternal
weight of glory," 2 Cor. iv. 17. bear it with patience; women endure
much sorrow in childbed, and yet they will not contain; and those
that are barren, wish for this pain; "be courageous, there is as
much valour to be shown in thy bed, as in an army, or at a sea
fight:" aut vincetur, aut vincet, thou shalt be rid at last. In the
mean time, let it take its course, thy mind is not any way disabled.
Bilibaldus Pirkimerus, senator to Charles the Fifth, ruled all
Germany, lying most part of his days sick of the gout upon his bed.
The more violent thy torture is, the less it will continue: and
though it be severe and hideous for the time, comfort thyself as
martyrs do, with honour and immortality. That famous philosopher
Epicurus, being in as miserable pain of stone and colic, as a man
might endure, solaced himself with a conceit of immortality; "the
joy of his soul for his rare inventions, repelled the pain of his
bodily torments."
Baseness of birth is a great disparagement to some men,
especially if they be wealthy, bear office, and come to promotion in
a commonwealth; then (as he observes) if their birth be not
answerable to their calling, and to their fellows, they are much
abashed and ashamed of themselves. Some scorn their own father and
mother, deny brothers and sisters, with the rest of their kindred
and friends, and will not suffer them to come near them, when they
are in their pomp, accounting it a scandal to their greatness to
have such beggarly beginnings. Simon in Lucian, having now got a
little wealth, changed his name from Simon to Simonides, for that
there were so many beggars of his kin, and set the house on fire
where he was born, because no body should point at it. Others buy
titles, coats of arms, and by all means screw themselves into
ancient families, falsifying pedigrees, usurping scutcheons, and all
because they would not seem to be base. The reason is, for that this
gentility is so much admired by a company of outsides, and such
honour attributed unto it, as amongst Germans, Frenchmen, and
Venetians, the gentry scorn the commonalty, and will not suffer them
to match with them; they depress, and make them as so many asses, to
carry burdens. In our ordinary talk and fallings out, the most
opprobrious and scurrile name we can fasten upon a man, or first
give, is to call him base rogue, beggarly rascal, and the like:
Whereas in my judgment, this ought of all other grievances to
trouble men least. Of all vanities and fopperies, to brag of
gentility is the greatest; for what is it they crack so much of, and
challenge such superiority, as if they were demigods? Birth? Tantane
vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri? ("Does such presumption in your
origin possess you?") It is non ens, a mere flash, a ceremony, a
toy, a thing of nought. Consider the beginning, present estate,
progress, ending of gentry, and then tell me what it is.
"Oppression, fraud, cozening, usury, knavery, bawdry, murder, and
tyranny, are the beginning of many ancient families:" "one hath been
a bloodsucker, a parricide, the death of many a silly soul in some
unjust quarrels, seditions, made many an orphan and poor widow, and
for that he is made a lord or an earl, and his posterity gentlemen
for ever after. Another hath been a bawd, a pander to some great
men, a parasite, a slave," "prostituted himself, his wife,
daughter," to some lascivious prince, and for that he is exalted.
Tiberius preferred many to honours in his time, because they were
famous whoremasters and sturdy drinkers; many come into this
parchment-row (so one calls it) by flattery or cozening; search your
old families, and you shall scarce find of a multitude (as Aeneas
Sylvius observes) qui sceleratum non habent ortum, that have not a
wicked beginning; aut qui vi et dolo eo fastigii non ascendunt, as
that plebeian in Machiavel in a set oration proved to his fellows,
that do not rise by knavery, force, foolery, villainy, or such
indirect means. "They are commonly able that are wealthy; virtue and
riches seldom settle on one man: who then sees not the beginning of
nobility? spoils enrich one, usury another, treason a third,
witchcraft a fourth, flattery a fifth, lying, stealing, bearing
false witness a sixth, adultery the seventh," &c. One makes a fool
of himself to make his lord merry, another dandles my young master,
bestows a little nag on him, a third marries a cracked piece, &c.
Now may it please your good worship, your lordship, who was the
first founder of your family? The poet answers, Aut Pastor fuit, aut
illud quod dicere nolo. Are he or you the better gentleman? If he,
then we have traced him to his form. If you, what is it of which
thou boastest so much? That thou art his son. It may be his heir,
his reputed son, and yet indeed a priest or a serving man may be the
true father of him; but we will not controvert that now; married
women are all honest; thou art his son's son's son, begotten and
born infra quatuor maria, &c. Thy great great great grandfather was
a rich citizen, and then in all likelihood a usurer, a lawyer, and
then a -- a courtier, and then a -- a country gentleman, and then he
scraped it out of sheep, &c. And you are the heir of all his
virtues, fortunes, titles; so then, what is your gentry, but as
Hierom saith, Opes antiquae, inveteratae divitiae, ancient wealth? that
is the definition of gentility. The father goes often to the devil,
to make his son a gentleman. For the present, what is it? "It began"
(saith Agrippa) "with strong impiety, with tyranny, oppression," &c.
and so it is maintained: wealth began it (no matter how got), wealth
continueth and increaseth it. Those Roman knights were so called, if
they could dispend per annum so much. In the kingdom of Naples and
France, he that buys such lands, buys the honour, title, barony,
together with it; and they that can dispend so much amongst us, must
be called to bear office, to be knights, or fine for it, as one
observes, nobiliorum ex censu judicant, our nobles are measured by
their means. And what now is the object of honour? What maintains
our gentry but wealth? Nobilitas sine re projecta vilior alga. (Hor.
"Nobility without wealth is more worthless than seaweed.") Without
means gentry is naught worth, nothing so contemptible and base.
Disputare de nobilitate generis, sine divitiis, est disputare de
nobilitate stercoris, saith Nevisanus the lawyer, to dispute of
gentry without wealth, is (saving your reverence) to discuss the
original of a merd. So that it is wealth alone that denominates,
money which maintains it, gives esse to it, for which every man may
have it. And what is their ordinary exercise? "sit to eat, drink,
lie down to sleep, and rise to play:" wherein lies their worth and
sufficiency? in a few coats of arms, eagles, lions, serpents, bears,
tigers, dogs, crosses, bends, fesses, &c., and such like baubles,
which they commonly set up in their galleries, porches, windows, on
bowls, platters, coaches, in tombs, churches, men's sleeves, &c. "If
he can hawk and hunt, ride a horse, play at cards and dice, swagger,
drink, swear," take tobacco with a grace, sing, dance, wear his
clothes in fashion, court and please his mistress, talk big fustian,
insult, scorn, strut, contemn others, and use a little mimical and
apish compliment above the rest, he is a complete, (Egregiam vero
laudem) a well-qualified gentleman; these are most of their
employments, this their greatest commendation. What is gentry, this
parchment nobility then, but as Agrippa defines it, "a sanctuary of
knavery and naughtiness, a cloak for wickedness and execrable vices,
of pride, fraud, contempt, boasting, oppression, dissimulation,
lust, gluttony, malice, fornication, adultery, ignorance, impiety?"
A nobleman therefore in some likelihood, as he concludes, is an
"atheist, an oppressor, an epicure, a gull, a dizzard, an illiterate
idiot, an outside, a glowworm, a proud fool, an arrant ass," Ventris
et inguinis mancipium, a slave to his lust and belly, solaque
libidine fortis. And as Salvianus observed of his countrymen the
Aquitanes in France, sicut titulis primi fuere, sic et vitiis (as
they were the first in rank so also in rottenness); and Cabinet du
Roy, their own writer, distinctly of the rest. "The nobles of Berry
are most part lechers, they of Touraine thieves, they of Narbonne
covetous, they of Guienne coiners, they of Provence atheists, they
of Rheims superstitious, they of Lyons treacherous, of Normandy
proud, of Picardy insolent," &c. We may generally conclude, the
greater men, the more vicious. In fine, as Aeneas Sylvius adds,
"they are most part miserable, sottish, and filthy fellows, like the
walls of their houses, fair without, foul within." What dost thou
vaunt of now? "What dost thou gape and wonder at? admire him for his
brave apparel, horses, dogs, fine houses, manors, orchards, gardens,
walks? Why? a fool may be possessor of this as well as he; and he
that accounts him a better man, a nobleman for having of it, he is a
fool himself." Now go and brag of thy gentility. This is it belike
which makes the Turks at this day scorn nobility, and all those
huffing bombast titles, which so much elevate their poles: except it
be such as have got it at first, maintain it by some supereminent
quality, or excellent worth. And for this cause, the Ragusian
commonwealth, Switzers, and the united provinces, in all their
aristocracies, or democratical monarchies, (if I may so call them,)
exclude all these degrees of hereditary honours, and will admit of
none to bear office, but such as are learned, like those Athenian
Areopagites, wise, discreet, and well brought up. The Chinese
observe the same customs, no man amongst them noble by birth; out of
their philosophers and doctors they choose magistrates: their
politic nobles are taken from such as be moraliter nobiles, virtuous
noble; nobilitas ut olim ab officio, non a natura, as in Israel of
old, and their office was to defend and govern their country in war
and peace, not to hawk, hunt, eat, drink, game alone, as too many
do. Their Loysii, Mandarini, literati, licentiati, and such as have
raised themselves by their worth, are their noblemen only, though
fit to govern a state: and why then should any that is otherwise of
worth be ashamed of his birth? why should not he be as much
respected that leaves a noble posterity, as he that hath had noble
ancestors? nay why not more? for plures solem orientem we adore the
sun rising most part; and how much better is it to say, Ego meis
majoribus virtute praeluxi, (I have outshone my ancestors in
virtues), to boast himself of his virtues, than of his birth?
Cathesbeius, sultan of Egypt and Syria, was by his condition a
slave, but for worth, valour, and manhood second to no king, and for
that cause (as, Jovius writes) elected emperor of the Mamelukes.
That poor Spanish Pizarro for his valour made by Charles the fifth
marquess of Anatillo; the Turkey Pashas are all such. Pertinax,
Philippus Arabs, Maximinus, Probus, Aurelius, &c., from common
soldiers, became emperors, Cato, Cincinnatus, &c. consuls. Pius
Secundus, Sixtus Quintus, Johan, Secundus, Nicholas Quintus, &c.
popes. Socrates, Virgil, Horace, libertino parte natus. The kings of
Denmark fetch their pedigree, as some say, from one Ulfo, that was
the son of a bear. E tenui casa saepe vir magnus exit, many a worthy
man comes out of a poor cottage. Hercules, Romulus, Alexander (by
Olympia's confession), Themistocles, Jugurtha, King Arthur, William
the Conqueror, Homer, Demosthenes, P. Lumbard, P. Comestor,
Bartholus, Adrian the fourth Pope, &c., bastards; and almost in
every kingdom, the most ancient families have been at first princes'
bastards: their worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars,
bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base. Cardan, in his
subtleties, gives a reason why they are most part better able than
others in body and mind, and so, per consequens, more fortunate.
Castruccius Castrucanus, a poor child, found in the field, exposed
to misery, became prince of Lucca and Senes in Italy, a most
complete soldier and worthy captain; Machiavel compares him to
Scipio or Alexander. "And 'tis a wonderful thing" ( saith he) "to
him that shall consider of it, that all those, or the greatest part
of them, that have done the bravest exploits here upon earth, and
excelled the rest of the nobles of their time, have been still born
in some abject, obscure place, or of base and obscure abject
parents." A most memorable observation, Scaliger accounts it, et non
praetereundum, maximorum virorum plerosque patres ignoratos, matres
impudicas fuisse. "I could recite a great catalogue of them," every
kingdom, every province will yield innumerable examples: and why
then should baseness of birth be objected to any man? Who thinks
worse of Tully for being Arpinas, an upstart? Or Agathocles, that
Silician king, for being a potter's son? Iphicrates and Marius were
meanly born. What wise man thinks better of any person for his
nobility? as he said in Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's
sons, conceived all and born in sin, &c. "We are by nature all as
one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs and they our
clothes, and what is the difference?" To speak truth, as Bale did of
P. Schalichius, "I more esteem thy worth, learning, honesty, than
thy nobility; honour thee more that thou art a writer, a doctor of
divinity, than Earl of the Huns, Baron of Skradine, or hast title to
such and such provinces," &c. "Thou art more fortunate and great"
(so Jovius writes to Cosmo de Medici, then Duke of Florence) "for
thy virtues, than for thy lovely wife, and happy children, friends,
fortunes, or great duchy of Tuscany." So I account thee; and who
doth not so indeed? Abdolominus was a gardener, and yet by Alexander
for his virtues made King of Syria. How much better is it to be born
of mean parentage, and to excel in worth, to be morally noble, which
is preferred before that natural nobility, by divines, philosophers,
and politicians, to be learned, honest, discreet, well- qualified,
to be fit for any manner of employment, in country and commonwealth,
war and peace, than to be Degeneres Neoptolemi, as many brave nobles
are, only wise because rich, otherwise idiots, illiterate, unfit for
any manner of service? Udalricus, Earl of Cilia, upbraided John
Huniades with the baseness of his birth, but he replied, in te
Ciliensis comitatus turpiter extinguitur, in me gloriose
Bistricensis exoritur, thine earldom is consumed with riot, mine
begins with honour and renown. Thou hast had so many noble
ancestors; what is that to thee? Vix ea nostra voco, when thou art a
dizzard thyself: quod prodest, Pontice, longo stemmate censeri? &c.
I conclude, hast thou a sound body, and a good soul, good bringing
up? Art thou virtuous, honest, learned, well-qualified, religious,
are thy conditions good?--thou art a true nobleman, perfectly noble,
although born of Thersites -- dum modo tu sis -- Aeacidae similis, non
natus, sed factus, noble ?at e????? [chat exochen], "for neither
sword, nor fire, nor water, nor sickness, nor outward violence, nor
the devil himself can take thy good parts from thee." Be not ashamed
of thy birth then, thou art a gentleman all the world over, and
shalt be honoured, when as he, strip him of his fine clothes,
dispossess him of his wealth, is a funge (which Polynices in his
banishment found true by experience, gentry was not esteemed) like a
piece of coin in another country, that no man will take, and shall
be contemned. Once more, though thou be a barbarian, born at
Tontonteac, a villain, a slave, a Saldanian Negro, or a rude
Virginian in Dasamonquepec, he a French monsieur, a Spanish don, a
signor of Italy, I care not how descended, of what family, of what
order, baron, count, prince, if thou be well qualified, and he not,
but a degenerate Neoptolemus, I tell thee in a word, thou art a man,
and he is a beast.
Let no terrae filius, or upstart, insult at this which I have
said, no worthy gentleman take offence. I speak it not to detract
from such as are well deserving, truly virtuous and noble: I do much
respect and honour true gentry and nobility; I was born of
worshipful parents myself, in an ancient family, but I am a younger
brother, it concerns me not: or had I been some great heir, richly
endowed, so minded as I am, I should not have been elevated at all,
but so esteemed of it, as of all other human happiness, honours,
&c., they have their period, are brittle and inconstant. As he said
of that great river Danube, it riseth from a small fountain, a
little brook at first, sometimes broad, sometimes narrow, now slow,
then swift, increased at last to an incredible greatness by the
confluence of sixty navigable rivers, it vanisheth in conclusion,
loseth his name, and is suddenly swallowed up of the Euxine sea: I
may say of our greatest families, they were mean at first, augmented
by rich marriages, purchases, offices, they continue for some ages,
with some little alteration of circumstances, fortunes, places, &c.,
by some prodigal son, for some default, or for want of issue they
are defaced in an instant, and their memory blotted out.
So much in the mean time I do attribute to Gentility, that if
he be well-descended, of worshipful or noble parentage, he will
express it in his conditions,
------"nec enim feroces
Progenerant aquilae columbas."
("For fierce eagles do not procreate timid ring-doves.")
And although the nobility of our times be much like our coins,
more in number and value, but less in weight and goodness, with
finer stamps, cuts, or outsides than of old; yet if he retain those
ancient characters of true gentry, he will be more affable,
courteous, gently disposed, of fairer carriage, better temper, or a
more magnanimous, heroical, and generous spirit, than that vulgus
hominum, those ordinary boors and peasants, qui adeo improbi,
agrestes, et inculti plerumque sunt, ne dicam maliciosi, ut nemini
ullum humanitatis officium praestent, ne ipsi Deo si advenerit, as
one observes of them, a rude, brutish, uncivil, wild, a currish
generation, cruel and malicious, incapable of discipline, and such
as have scarce common sense. And it may be generally spoken of all,
which Lemnius the physician said of his travel into England, the
common people were silly, sullen, dogged clowns, sed mitior
nobilitas, ad omne humanitatis officium paratissima, the gentlemen
were courteous and civil. If it so fall out (as often it doth) that
such peasants are preferred by reason of their wealth, chance,
error, &c., or otherwise, yet as the cat in the fable, when she was
turned to a fair maid, would play with mice; a cur will be a cur, a
clown will be a clown, he will likely savour of the stock whence he
came, and that innate rusticity can hardly be shaken off.
"Licet superbus ambulet pecunia,
Fortuna non mutat genus."
(Hor. ep. Od. 2. "And although he boast of his wealth,
Fortune has not changed his nature.")
And though by their education such men may be better
qualified, and more refined; yet there be many symptoms by which
they may likely be descried, an affected fantastical carriage, a
tailor-like spruceness, a peculiar garb in all their proceedings;
choicer than ordinary in his diet, and as Hierome well describes
such a one to his Nepotian; "An upstart born in a base cottage, that
scarce at first had coarse bread to fill his hungry guts, must now
feed on kickshaws and made dishes, will have all variety of flesh
and fish, the best oysters," &c. A beggar's brat will be commonly
more scornful, imperious, insulting, insolent, than another man of
his rank: "Nothing so intolerable as a fortunate fool," as Tully
found out long since out of his experience; Asperius nihil est
humili cum surgit in altum, set a beggar on horseback, and he will
ride a gallop, a gallop, &c.
------"desaevit in omnes
Dum se posse putat, nec bellua saevior ulla est,
Quam servi rabies in libera colla furentis;"
he forgets what he was, domineers, &c., and many such other
symptoms he hath, by which you may know him from a true gentleman.
Many errors and obliquities are on both sides, noble, ignoble,
factis, natis; yet still in all callings, as some degenerate, some
are well deserving, and most worthy of their honours. And as
Busbequius said of Suleiman the Magnificent, he was tanto dignus
imperio, worthy of that great empire. Many meanly descended are most
worthy of their honour, politice nobiles, and well deserve it. Many
of our nobility so born (which one said of Hephaestion, Ptolemeus,
Seleucus, Antigonus, &c., and the rest of Alexander's followers,
they were all worthy to be monarchs and generals of armies) deserve
to be princes. And I am so far forth of Sesellius's mind, that they
ought to be preferred (if capable) before others, "as being nobly
born, ingenuously brought up, and from their infancy trained to all
manner of civility." For learning and virtue in a nobleman is more
eminent, and, as a jewel set in gold is more precious, and much to
be respected, such a man deserves better than others, and is as
great an honour to his family as his noble family to him. In a word,
many noblemen are an ornament to their order: many poor men's sons
are singularly well endowed, most eminent, and well deserving for
their worth, wisdom, learning, virtue, valour, integrity; excellent
members and pillars of a commonwealth. And therefore to conclude
that which I first intended, to be base by birth, meanly born is no
such disparagement. Et sic demonstratur, quod erat demonstrandum.
MEMB. III.
Against Poverty and Want, with such other Adversities.
One of the greatest miseries that can befall a man, in the
world's esteem, is poverty or want, which makes men steal, bear
false witness, swear, forswear, contend, murder and rebel, which
breaketh sleep, and causeth death itself. ??de? pe??a? ?a??t????
est? f??t??? [oyden penias Baruteron esti phortion], no burden
(saith Menander) so intolerable as poverty: it makes men desperate,
it erects and dejects, census honores, census amicitias; money
makes, but poverty mars, &c. and all this in the world's esteem: yet
if considered aright, it is a great blessing in itself, a happy
estate, and yields no cause of discontent, or that men should
therefore account themselves vile, hated of God, forsaken,
miserable, unfortunate. Christ himself was poor, born in a manger,
and had not a house to hide his head in all his life, "lest any man
should make poverty a judgment of God, or an odious estate." And as
he was himself, so he informed his Apostles and Disciples, they were
all poor, Prophets poor, Apostles poor, (Act. iii. "Silver and gold
have I none.") "As sorrowing" (saith Paul) "and yet always
rejoicing; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things," 1 Cor.
vi. 10. Your great Philosophers have been voluntarily poor, not only
Christians, but many others. Crates Thebanus was adored for a God in
Athens, "a nobleman by birth, many servants he had, an honourable
attendance, much wealth, many manors, fine apparel; but when he saw
this, that all the wealth of the world was but brittle, uncertain
and no whit availing to live well, he flung his burden into the sea,
and renounced his estate." Those Curii and Fabricii will be ever
renowned for contempt of these fopperies, wherewith the world is so
much affected. Amongst Christians I could reckon up many kings and
queens, that have forsaken their crowns and fortunes, and wilfully
abdicated themselves from these so much esteemed toys; many that
have refused honours, titles, and all this vain pomp and happiness,
which others so ambitiously seek, and carefully study to compass and
attain. Riches I deny not are God's good gifts, and blessings; and
honor est in honorante, honours are from God; both rewards of
virtue, and fit to be sought after, sued for, and may well be
possessed: yet no such great happiness in having, or misery in
wanting of them. Dantur quidem bonis, saith Austin, ne quis mala
aestimet: malis autem ne quis nimis bona, good men have wealth that
we should not think it evil; and bad men that they should not rely
on or hold it so good; as the rain falls on both sorts, so are
riches given to good and bad, sed bonis in bonum, but they are good
only to the godly. But compare both estates, for natural parts they
are not unlike; and a beggar's child, as Cardan well observes, "is
no whit inferior to a prince's, most part better;" and for those
accidents of fortune, it will easily appear there is no such odds,
no such extraordinary happiness in the one, or misery in the other.
He is rich, wealthy, fat; what gets he by it? pride, insolency,
lust, ambition, cares, fears, suspicion, trouble, anger, emulation,
and many filthy diseases of body and mind. He hath indeed variety of
dishes, better fare, sweet wine, pleasant sauce, dainty music, gay
clothes, lords it bravely out, &c., and all that which Misillus
admired in Lucian; but with them he hath the gout, dropsies,
apoplexies, palsies, stone, pox, rheums, catarrhs, crudities,
oppilations, melancholy, &c., lust enters in, anger, ambition,
according to Chrysostom, "the sequel of riches is pride, riot,
intemperance, arrogancy, fury, and all irrational courses."
------"turpi fregerunt saecula luxu
Divitiae molles"- -----
(Juven. Sat. 6. "Effeminate riches have destroyed the age by
the introduction of shameful luxury.")
with their variety of dishes, many such maladies of body and mind
get in, which the poor man knows not of. As Saturn in Lucian
answered the discontented commonalty, (which because of their
neglected Saturnal feasts in Rome, made a grievous complaint and
exclamation against rich men) that they were much mistaken in
supposing such happiness in riches; "you see the best" (said he)
"but you know not their several gripings and discontents:" they are
like painted walls, fair without, rotten within: diseased, filthy,
crazy, full of intemperance's effects; "and who can reckon half? if
you but knew their fears, cares, anguish of mind and vexation, to
which they are subject, you would hereafter renounce all riches."
"O si pateant pectora divitum,
Quantos intus sublimis agit
Fortuna metus? Brutia
Coro Pulsante fretum mitior unda est."
"O that their breasts were but conspicuous,
How full of fear within, how furious?
The narrow seas are not so boisterous."
Yea, but he hath the world at will that is rich, the good
things of the earth: suave est de magno tollere acervo, (it is sweet
to draw from a great heap) he is a happy man, adored like a god, a
prince, every man seeks to him, applauds, honours, admires him. He
hath honours indeed, abundance of all things; but (as I said) withal
"pride, lust, anger, faction, emulation, fears, cares, suspicion
enter with his wealth;" for his intemperance he hath aches,
crudities, gouts, and as fruits of his idleness, and fullness, lust,
surfeiting and drunkenness, all manner of diseases: pecuniis augetur
improbitas, the wealthier, the more dishonest. "He is exposed to
hatred, envy, peril and treason, fear of death, degradation," &c.
'tis lubrica statio et proxima praecipitio, and the higher he climbs,
the greater is his fall.
------"celsae graviore casu
Decidunt turres,feriuntque summos"
Fulgura montes, the lightning commonly sets on fire the highest
towers; in the more eminent place he is, the more subject to fall.
"Rumpitur innumeris arbos uberrima pomis,
Et subito nimiae praecipitantur opes."
As a tree that is heavy laden with fruit breaks her own boughs, with
their own greatness they ruin themselves: which Joachimus Camerarius
hath elegantly expressed in his 13 Emblem cent. 1. Inopem se copia
fecit. Their means is their misery, though they do apply themselves
to the times, to lie, dissemble, collogue and flatter their lieges,
obey, second his will and commands as much as may be, yet too
frequently they miscarry, they fat themselves like so many hogs, as
Aeneas Sylvius observes, that when they are full fed, they may be
devoured by their princes, as Seneca by Nero was served, Sejanus by
Tiberius, and Haman by Ahasuerus: I resolve with Gregory, potestas
culminis, est tempestas mentis; et quo dignitas altior, casus
gravior, honour is a tempest, the higher they are elevated, the more
grievously depressed. For the rest of his prerogatives which wealth
affords, as he hath more his expenses are the greater. "When goods
increase, they are increased that eat them; and what good cometh to
the owners, but the beholding thereof with the eyes?" Eccles. iv.
10.
"Millia frumenti tua triverit area centum,
Non tuus hinc capiet venter plus quam meus"------
Hor. "Although a hundred thousand bushels of wheat may have
been threshed in your granaries, your stomach will not contain
more than mine."
"an evil sickness," Solomon calls it, "and reserved to them for an
evil," 12 verse. "They that will be rich fall into many fears and
temptations, into many foolish and noisome lusts, which drown men in
perdition." 1 Tim. vi. 9. "Gold and silver hath destroyed many,"
Ecclus. viii. 2. divitia saeculi sunt laquei diaboli: so writes
Bernard; worldly wealth is the devil's bait: and as the Moon when
she is fuller of light is still farthest from the Sun, the more
wealth they have, the farther they are commonly from God. (If I had
said this of myself, rich men would have pulled me to pieces; but
hear who saith, and who seconds it, an Apostle) therefore St. James
bids them "weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon them;
their gold shall rust and canker, and eat their flesh as fire,"
James v. 1, 2, 3. I may then boldly conclude with Theodoret,
quotiescunque divitiis affluentem, &c. "As often as you shall see a
man abounding in wealth," qui gemmis bibit et Serrano dormit in
ostro, "and naught withal, I beseech you call him not happy, but
esteem him unfortunate, because he hath many occasions offered to
live unjustly; on the other side, a poor man is not miserable, if he
be good, but therefore happy, that those evil occasions are taken
from him."
"Non possidentem multa vocaveris
Recte beatum; rectius occupat
Nomen beati, qui deorum
Muneribus sapienter uti,
Duramque callet pauperiem pati,
Pejusque laetho flagitium timet."
"He is not happy that is rich,
And hath the world at will,
But he that wisely can God's gifts
Possess and use them still:
That suffers and with patience
Abides hard poverty,
And chooseth rather for to die;
Than do such villainy."
Wherein now consists his happiness? what privileges hath he
more than other men? or rather what miseries, what cares and
discontents hath he not more than other men?
"Non enim gazae, neque consularis
Summovet lictor miseros tumultus
Mentis, et curas laqueata circum
Tecta volantes."
("Nor treasures, nor majors officers remove
The miserable tumults of the mind:
Or cares that lie about, or fly above
Their high-roofed houses, with huge beams combin'd.")
'Tis not his wealth can vindicate him, let him have Job's
inventory, sint Croesi et Crassi licet, non hos Pactolus aureas undas
agens, eripiat unquum e miseriis, Croesus or rich Crassus cannot now
command health, or get himself a stomach. "His worship," as Apuleius
describes him, "in all his plenty and great provision, is forbidden
to eat, or else hath no appetite," (sick in bed, can take no rest,
sore grieved with some chronic disease, contracted with full diet
and ease, or troubled in mind) "when as, in the meantime, all his
household are merry, and the poorest servant that he keeps doth
continually feast." 'Tis Bracteata felicitas, as Seneca terms it,
tinfoiled happiness, infelix felicitas, an unhappy kind of
happiness, if it be happiness at all. His gold, guard, clattering of
harness, and fortifications against outward enemies, cannot free him
from inward fears and cares.
"Reveraque metus hominum, curaeque sequaces
Nec metuunt fremitus armorum, aut ferrea tela,
Audacterque inter reges, regumque potentes
Versantur, neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro."
("Indeed men still attending fears and cares
Nor armours clashing, nor fierce weapons fears:
With kings converse they boldly, and kings peers,
Fearing no flashing that from gold appears.")
Look how many servants he hath, and so many enemies he
suspects; for liberty he entertains ambition; his pleasures are no
pleasures; and that which is worst, he cannot be private or enjoy
himself as other men do, his state is a servitude. A countryman may
travel from kingdom to kingdom, province to province, city to city,
and glut his eyes with delightful objects, hawk, hunt, and use those
ordinary disports, without any notice taken, all which a prince or a
great man cannot do. He keeps in for state, ne majestatis dignitas
evilescat, as our China kings, of Borneo, and Tartarian Chams, those
aurea mancipia, are said to do, seldom or never seen abroad, ut
major sit hominum erga se observantia, which the Persian kings so
precisely observed of old. A poor man takes more delight in an
ordinary meal's meat, which he hath but seldom, than they do with
all their exotic dainties and continual viands; Quippe voluptatem
commendat rarior usus, 'tis the rarity and necessity that makes a
thing acceptable and pleasant. Darius, put to flight by Alexander,
drank puddle water to quench his thirst, and it was pleasanter, he
swore, than any wine or mead. All excess, as Epictetus argues, will
cause a dislike; sweet will be sour, which made that temperate
Epicurus sometimes voluntarily fast. But they being always
accustomed to the same dishes, (which are nastily dressed by
slovenly cooks, that after their obscenities never wash their bawdy
hands) be they fish, flesh, compounded, made dishes, or whatsoever
else, are therefore cloyed; nectar's self grows loathsome to them,
they are weary of all their fine palaces, they are to them but as so
many prisons. A poor man drinks in a wooden dish, and eats his meat
in wooden spoons, wooden platters, earthen vessels, and such homely
stuff: the other in gold, silver, and precious stones; but with what
success? in auro bibitur venenum, fear of poison in the one,
security in the other. A poor man is able to write, to speak his
mind, to do his own business himself; locuples mittit parasitum,
saith Philostratus, a rich man employs a parasite, and as the major
of a city, speaks by the town clerk, or by Mr. Recorder, when he
cannot express himself. Nonius the senator hath a purple coat as
stiff with jewels as his mind is full of vices; rings on his fingers
worth 20,000 sesterces, and as Perox the Persian king, an union in
his ear worth one hundred pounds weight of gold: Cleopatra hath
whole boars and sheep served up to her table at once, drinks jewels
dissolved, 40,000 sesterces in value; but to what end?
"Num tibi cum fauces urit sitis, aurea quaeris
Pocula?"------
Doth a man that is adry desire to drink in gold? Doth not a
cloth suit become him as well, and keep him as warm, as all their
silks, satins, damasks, taffeties and tissues? Is not homespun cloth
as great a preservative against cold, as a coat of Tartar lamb's-
wool, died in grain, or a gown of giant's beards? Nero, saith
Sueton., never put on one garment twice, and thou hast scarce one to
put on? what's the difference? one's sick, the other sound: such is
the whole tenor of their lives, and that which is the consummation
and upshot of all, death itself makes the greatest difference. One
like a hen feeds on the dunghill all his days, but is served up at
last to his Lord's table; the other as a falcon is fed with
partridge and pigeons, and carried on his master's fist, but when he
dies is flung to the muck-hill, and there lies. The rich man lives
like Dives jovially here on earth, temulentus divitiis, make the
best of it; and "boasts himself in the multitude of his riches,"
Psalm xlix. 6. 11. he thinks his house "called after his own name,"
shall continue for ever; "but he perisheth like a beast," verse 20.
"his way utters his folly," verse 13. male parta, male dilabuntur;
"like sheep they lie in the grave," verse 14. Puncto descendunt ad
infernum, "they spend their days in wealth, and go suddenly down to
hell," Job xxi. 13. For all physicians and medicines enforcing
nature, a swooning wife, families' complaints, friends' tears,
dirges, masses, naenias, funerals, for all orations, counterfeit
hired acclamations, eulogiums, epitaphs, hearses, heralds, black
mourners, solemnities, obelisks, and Mausolean tombs, if he have
them, at least, he, like a hog, goes to hell with a guilty
conscience (propter hos dilatavit infernos os suum), and a poor
man's curse; his memory stinks like the snuff of a candle when it is
put out; scurrilous libels, and infamous obloquies accompany him.
When as poor Lazarus is Dei sacrarium, the temple of God, lives and
dies in true devotion, hath no more attendants, but his own
innocency, the heaven a tomb, desires to be dissolved, buried in his
mother's lap, and hath a company of Angels ready to convey his soul
into Abraham's bosom, he leaves an everlasting and a sweet memory
behind him. Crassus and Sylla are indeed still recorded, but not so
much for their wealth as for their victories: Croesus for his end,
Solomon for his wisdom. In a word, "to get wealth is a great
trouble, anxiety to keep, grief to lose it."
"Quid dignum stolidis mentibus imprecer?
Opes, honores ambiant:
Et cum falsa gravi mole paraverint,
Tum vera cognoscant bona."
(Boethius de consol. phil. l. 3. "How contemptible stolid
minds! They covet riches and titles, and when they have
obtained these commodities of false weight and measures, then,
and not before, they understand what is truly valuable.")
But consider all those other unknown, concealed happinesses,
which a poor man hath (I call them unknown, because they be not
acknowledged in the world's esteem, or so taken) O fortunatos nimium
bona si sua norint: happy they are in the meantime if they would
take notice of it, make use, or apply it to themselves. "A poor man
wise is better than a foolish king," Eccles. ii. 13. "Poverty is the
way to heaven," "the mistress of philosophy," "the mother of
religion, virtue, sobriety, sister of innocency, and an upright
mind." How many such encomiums might I add out of the fathers,
philosophers, orators? It troubles many that are poor, they account
of it as a great plague, curse, a sign of God's hatred, ipsum
scelus, damned villainy itself, a disgrace, shame and reproach; but
to whom, or why? "If fortune hath envied me wealth, thieves have
robbed me, my father have not left me such revenues as others have,"
that I am a younger brother, basely born,-- cui sine luce genus,
surdumque parentum -- nomen, of mean parentage, a dirt-dauber's son,
am I therefore to be blamed? "an eagle, a bull, a lion is not
rejected for his poverty, and why should a man?" 'Tis fortunae telum,
non culpae, fortune's fault, not mine. "Good Sir, I am a servant,"
(to use Seneca's words) "howsoever your poor friend; a servant, and
yet your chamber-fellow, and if you consider better of it, your
fellow-servant." I am thy drudge in the world's eyes, yet in God's
sight peradventure thy better, my soul is more precious, and I
dearer unto him. Etiam servi diis curae sunt, as Evangelus at large
proves in Macrobius, the meanest servant is most precious in his
sight. Thou art an epicure, I am a good Christian; thou art many
parasangs before me in means, favour, wealth, honour, Claudius's
Narcissus, Nero's Massa, Domitian's Parthenius, a favourite, a
golden slave; thou coverest thy floors with marble, thy roofs with
gold, thy walls with statues, fine pictures, curious hangings, &c.,
what of all this? calcas opes, &c., what's all this to true
happiness? I live and breathe under that glorious heaven, that
august capitol of nature, enjoy the brightness of stars, that clear
light of sun and moon, those infinite creatures, plants, birds,
beasts, fishes, herbs, all that sea and land afford, far surpassing
all that art and opulentia can give. I am free, and which Seneca
said of Rome, culmen liberos texit, sub marmore et auro postea
servitus habitavit, thou hast Amaltheae cornu, plenty, pleasure, the
world at will, I am despicable and poor; but a word overshot, a blow
in choler, a game at tables, a loss at sea, a sudden fire, the
prince's dislike, a little sickness, &c., may make us equal in an
instant; howsoever take thy time, triumph and insult awhile, cinis
aequat, as Alphonsus said, death will equalise us all at last. I live
sparingly, in the mean time, am clad homely, fare hardly; is this a
reproach? am I the worse for it? am I contemptible for it? am I to
be reprehended? A learned man in Nevisanus was taken down for
sitting amongst gentlemen, but he replied, "my nobility is about the
head, yours declines to the tail," and they were silent. Let them
mock, scoff and revile, 'tis not thy scorn, but his that made thee
so; "he that mocketh the poor, reproacheth him that made him," Prov.
xi. 5. "and he that rejoiceth at affliction, shall not be
unpunished." For the rest, the poorer thou art, the happier thou
art, ditior est, at non melior, saith Epictetus, he is richer, not
better than thou art, not so free from lust, envy, hatred, ambition.
"Beatus ille qui procul negotiis
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis."
Happy he, in that he is freed from the tumults of the world, he
seeks no honours, gapes after no preferment, flatters not, envies
not, temporiseth not, but lives privately, and well contented with
his estate;
"Nec spes corde avidas, nec curam pascit inanem
Securus quo fata cadant."
He is not troubled with state matters, whether kingdoms thrive
better by succession or election; whether monarchies should be
mixed, temperate, or absolute; the house of Ottomon's and Austria is
all one to him; he inquires not after colonies or new discoveries;
whether Peter were at Rome, or Constantine's donation be of force;
what comets or new stars signify, whether the earth stand or move,
there be a new world in the moon, or infinite worlds, &c. He is not
touched with fear of invasions, factions or emulations;
"Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis,
Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco
Solicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus,
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies, et paupere cultu
Exigit innocuae tranquilla silentia vitae.
"A happy soul, and like to God himself,
Whom not vain glory macerates or strife.
Or wicked joys of that proud swelling pelf,
But leads a still, poor, and contented life."
A secure, quiet, blissful state he hath, if he could
acknowledge it. But here is the misery, that he will not take notice
of it; he repines at rich men's wealth, brave hangings, dainty fare,
as Simonides objected to Hieron, he hath all the pleasures of the
world, in lectis eburneis dormit, vinum phialis bibit, optimis
unguentis delibuitur, "he knows not the affliction of Joseph,
stretching himself on ivory beds, and singing to the sound of the
viol." And it troubles him that he hath not the like: there is a
difference (he grumbles) between Laplolly and Pheasants, to tumble
i' th' straw and lie in a down bed, betwixt wine and water, a
cottage and a palace. "He hates nature" (as Pliny characterised him)
"that she hath made him lower than a god, and is angry with the gods
that any man goes before him;" and although he hath received much,
yet (as Seneca follows it) "he thinks it an injury that he hath no
more, and is so far from giving thanks for his tribuneship, that he
complains he is not praetor, neither doth that please him, except he
may be consul." Why is he not a prince, why not a monarch, why not
an emperor? Why should one man have so much more than his fellows,
one have all, another nothing? Why should one man be a slave or
drudge to another? One surfeit, another starve, one live at ease,
another labour, without any hope of better fortune? Thus they
grumble, mutter, and repine: not considering that inconstancy of
human affairs, judicially conferring one condition with another, or
well weighing their own present estate. What they are now, thou
mayst shortly be; and what thou art they shall likely be. Expect a
little, compare future and times past with the present, see the
event, and comfort thyself with it. It is as well to be discerned in
commonwealths, cities, families, as in private men's estates. Italy
was once lord of the world, Rome the queen of cities, vaunted
herself of two myriads of inhabitants; now that all-commanding
country is possessed by petty princes, Rome a small village in
respect. Greece of old the seat of civility, mother of sciences and
humanity; now forlorn, the nurse of barbarism, a den of thieves.
Germany then, saith Tacitus, was incult and horrid, now full of
magnificent cities: Athens, Corinth, Carthage, how flourishing
cities, now buried in their own ruins! Corvorum, ferarum, aprorum et
bestiarum lustra, like so many wildernesses, a receptacle of wild
beasts. Venice a poor fisher-town; Paris, London, small cottages in
Caesar's time, now most noble emporiums. Valois, Plantagenet, and
Scaliger how fortunate families, how likely to continue! now quite
extinguished and rooted out. He stands aloft today, full of favour,
wealth, honour, and prosperity, in the top of fortune's wheel:
tomorrow in prison, worse than nothing, his son's a beggar. Thou art
a poor servile drudge, Foex populi, a very slave, thy son may come to
be a prince, with Maximinus, Agathocles, &c. a senator, a general of
an army; thou standest bare to him now, workest for him, drudgest
for him and his, takest an alms of him: stay but a little, and his
next heir peradventure shall consume all with riot, be degraded,
thou exalted, and he shall beg of thee. Thou shalt be his most
honourable patron, he thy devout servant, his posterity shall run,
ride, and do as much for thine, as it was with Frisgobald and
Cromwell, it may be for thee. Citizens devour country gentlemen, and
settle in their seats; after two or three descents, they consume all
in riot, it returns to the city again.
------"Novus incola venit;
Nam propriae telluris herum natura, neque illum.
Nec me, nec quenquam statuit; nos expulit ille:
Illum aut nequities, aut vafri inscitia juris."
------"have we liv'd at a more frugal rate,
Since this new stranger seiz'd on our estate?
Nature will no perpetual heir assign,
Or make the farm his property or mine.
He turn'd us out: but follies all his own,
Or lawsuits and their knaveries yet unknown,
Or, all his follies and his lawsuits past,
Some long-liv'd heir shall turn him out at last."
A lawyer buys out his poor client, after a while his client's
posterity buy out him and his; so things go round, ebb and flow.
"Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli
Dictus erat, nulli proprius, sed cedit in usum
Nunc mihi, nunc aliis;"------
"The farm, once mine, now bears Umbrenus' name;
The use alone, not property, we claim;
Then be not with your present lot depressed,
And meet the future with undaunted breast;"
as he said then, ager cujus, quot habes Dominos? So say I of land,
houses, movables and money, mine today, his anon, whose tomorrow? In
fine, (as Machiavel observes) "virtue and prosperity beget rest;
rest idleness; idleness riot; riot destruction from which we come
again to good laws; good laws engender virtuous actions; virtue,
glory, and prosperity;" "and 'tis no dishonour then" (as
Guicciardine adds) "for a flourishing man, city, or state to come to
ruin," "nor infelicity to be subject to the law of nature." Ergo
terrena calcanda, sitienda coelestia, (therefore I say) scorn this
transitory state, look up to heaven, think not what others are, but
what thou art: Qua parte locatus es in re: and what thou shalt be,
what thou mayst be. Do (I say) as Christ himself did, when he lived
here on earth, imitate him as much as in thee lies. How many great
Caesars, mighty monarchs, tetrarchs, dynasties, princes lived in his
days, in what plenty, what delicacy, how bravely attended, what a
deal of gold and silver, what treasure, how many sumptuous palaces
had they, what provinces and cities, ample territories, fields,
rivers, fountains, parks, forests, lawns, woods, cells, &c.? Yet
Christ had none of all this, he would have none of this, he
voluntarily rejected all this, he could not be ignorant, he could
not err in his choice, he contemned all this, he chose that which
was safer, better, and more certain, and less to be repented, a mean
estate, even poverty itself; and why dost thou then doubt to follow
him, to imitate him, and his apostles, to imitate all good men: so
do thou tread in his divine steps, and thou shalt not err eternally,
as too many worldlings do, that run on in their own dissolute
courses, to their confusion and ruin, thou shalt not do amiss.
Whatsoever thy fortune is, be contented with it, trust in him, rely
on him, refer thyself wholly to him. For know this, in conclusion,
Non est volentis nec currentis, sed miserentis Dei, 'tis not as men,
but as God will. "The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, bringeth
low, and exalteth" (1 Sam. ii. ver. 7. 8), "he lifteth the poor from
the dust, and raiseth the beggar from the dunghill, to set them
amongst princes, and make them inherit the seat of glory;" 'tis all
as he pleaseth, how, and when, and whom; he that appoints the end
(though to us unknown) appoints the means likewise subordinate to
the end.
Yea, but their present estate crucifies and torments most
mortal men, they have no such forecast, to see what may be, what
shall likely be, but what is, though not wherefore, or from whom,
hoc anget, their present misfortunes grind their souls, and an
envious eye which they cast upon other men's prosperities,
Vicinumque pecus grandius uber habet, how rich, how fortunate, how
happy is he? But in the meantime he doth not consider the other
miseries, his infirmities of body and mind, that accompany his
estate, but still reflects upon his own false conceived woes and
wants, whereas if the matter were duly examined, he is in no
distress at all, he hath no cause to complain.
------"tolle querelas,
Pauper enim non est cui rerum suppetit usus,"
"Then cease complaining, friend, and learn to live.
He is not poor to whom kind fortune grants,
Even with a frugal hand, what Nature wants."
he is not poor, he is not in need. "Nature is content with bread and
water; and he that can rest satisfied with that, may contend with
Jupiter himself for happiness." In that golden age, somnos dedit
umbra salubres, potum quoque lubricus amnis, the tree gave wholesome
shade to sleep under, and the clear rivers drink. The Israelites
drank water in the wilderness; Samson, David, Saul, Abraham's
servant when he went for Isaac's wife, the Samaritan woman, and how
many besides might I reckon up, Egypt, Palestine, whole countries in
the Indies, that drank pure water all their lives. The Persian kings
themselves drank no other drink than the water of Chaospis, that
runs by Susa, which was carried in bottles after them, whithersoever
they went. Jacob desired no more of God, but bread to eat, and
clothes to put on in his journey, Gen. xxviii. 20. Bene est cui deus
obtulit Parca quod satis est manu; bread is enough "to strengthen
the heart." And if you study philosophy aright, saith Maudarensis,
"whatsoever is beyond this moderation, is not useful, but
troublesome." Agellius, out of Euripides, accounts bread and water
enough to satisfy nature, "of which there is no surfeit, the rest is
not a feast, but a riot." S. Hierome esteems him rich "that hath
bread to eat, and a potent man that is not compelled to be a slave;
hunger is not ambitious, so that it have to eat, and thirst doth not
prefer a cup of gold." It was no epicurean speech of an epicure, he
that is not satisfied with a little will never have enough: and very
good counsel of him in the poet, "O my son, mediocrity of means
agrees best with men; too much is pernicious."
"Divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce,
Aequo animo."------
And if thou canst be content, thou hast abundance, nihil est, nihil
deest, thou hast little, thou wantest nothing. 'Tis all one to be
hanged in a chain of gold, or in a rope; to be filled with dainties
or coarser meat.
"Si ventri bene, si lateri, pedibusque tuis, nil
Divitiae poterunt regales addere majus."
"If belly, sides and feet be well at ease,
A prince's treasure can thee no more please."
Socrates in a fair, seeing so many things bought and sold,
such a multitude of people convented to that purpose, exclaimed
forthwith, "O ye gods! what a sight of things do not I want?" 'Tis
thy want alone that keeps thee in health of body and mind, and that
which thou persecutest and abhorrest as a feral plague is thy
physician and chiefest friend, which makes thee a good man, a
healthful, a sound, a virtuous, an honest and happy man. For when
virtue came from heaven (as the poet feigns) rich men kicked her up,
wicked men abhorred her, courtiers scoffed at her, citizens hated
her, and that she was thrust out of doors in every place, she came
at last to her sister Poverty, where she had found good
entertainment. Poverty and Virtue dwell together.
------"O vitae tuta facultas
Pauperis, angustique lares, o munera nondum
Intellecta deum."
(Lucan. "O protecting quality of a poor man's life, frugal
means, gifts scarce yet understood by the gods themselves.")
How happy art thou if thou couldst be content. "Godliness is a
great gain, if a man can be content with that which he hath," 1 Tim.
vi. 6. And all true happiness is in a mean estate. I have a little
wealth, as he said, sed quas animus magnas facit, a kingdom in
conceit;
------"nil amplius opto
Maia nate, nisi ut propria haec mihi munera faxis;"
I have enough and desire no more.
"Dii bene fecerunt inopis me quodque pusilli
Fecerunt animi"------
'tis very well, and to my content. Vestem et fortunam concinnam
potius quam laxam probo, let my fortune and my garments be both
alike fit for me. And which Sebastian Foscarinus, sometime Duke of
Venice, caused to be engraven on his tomb in St. Mark's Church,
"Hear, O ye Venetians, and I will tell you which is the best thing
in the world: to contemn it." I will engrave it in my heart, it
shall be my whole study to contemn it. Let them take wealth,
Stercora stercus amet so that I may have security: bene qui latuit,
bene vixit; though I live obscure, yet I live clean and honest; and
when as the lofty oak is blown down, the silky reed may stand. Let
them take glory, for that's their misery; let them take honour, so
that I may have heart's ease. Duc me O Jupiter et tu fatum, &c. Lead
me, O God, whither thou wilt, I am ready to follow; command, I will
obey. I do not envy at their wealth, titles, offices;
"Stet quicunque volet potens
Aulae culmine lubrico,
Me dulcis saturet quies."
("Let whosoever covets it, occupy the highest pinnacle of
fame, sweet tranquillity shall satisfy me.")
let me live quiet and at ease. Erimus fortasse (as he comforted
himself) quando illi non erunt, when they are dead and gone, and all
their pomp vanished, our memory may flourish:
------"dant perennes
Stemmata non peritura Musae."
(Marullus. "The immortal Muses confer imperishable pride of
origin.")
Let him be my lord, patron, baron, earl, and possess so many
goodly castles, 'tis well for me that I have a poor house, and a
little wood, and a well by it, &c.
"His me consolor victurum suavius, ac si
Quaestor avus pater atque meus, patruusque fuissent."
"With which I feel myself more truly blest
Than if my sires the quaestor's power possess'd."
I live, I thank God, as merrily as he, and triumph as much in
this my mean estate, as if my father and uncle had been lord
treasurer, or my lord mayor. He feeds of many dishes, I of one: qui
Christum curat, non multum curat quam de preciosis cibis stercus
conficiat, what care I of what stuff my excrements be made? "He that
lives according to nature cannot be poor, and he that exceeds can
never have enough," totus non sufficit orbis, the whole world cannot
give him content. "A small thing that the righteous hath, is better
than the riches of the ungodly," Psal. xxxvii. 19; "and better is a
poor morsel with quietness, than abundance with strife," Prov. xvii.
7. Be content then, enjoy thyself, and as Chrysostom adviseth, "be
not angry for what thou hast not, but give God hearty thanks for
what thou hast received."
"Si dat oluscula
Mensa minuscula
pace referta,
Ne pete grandia,
Lautaque prandia
lite repleta."
("If your table afford frugal fare with peace, seek not, in
strife, to load it lavishly.")
But what wantest thou, to expostulate the matter? or what hast
thou not better than a rich man? "health, competent wealth,
children, security, sleep, friends, liberty, diet, apparel, and what
not," or at least mayst have (the means being so obvious, easy, and
well known) for as he inculcated to himself,
"Vitam quae faciunt beatiorem,
Jucundissime Martialis, haec sunt;
Res non parta labore, sed relicta,
Lis nunquam," &c.
I say again thou hast, or at least mayst have it, if thou wilt
thyself, and that which I am sure he wants, a merry heart. "Passing
by a village in the territory of Milan," saith St. Austin, "I saw a
poor beggar that had got belike his bellyful of meat, jesting and
merry; I sighed, and said to some of my friends that were then with
me, what a deal of trouble, madness, pain and grief do we sustain
and exaggerate unto ourselves, to get that secure happiness which
this poor beggar hath prevented us of, and which we peradventure
shall never have? For that which he hath now attained with the
begging of some small pieces of silver, a temporal happiness, and
present heart's ease, I cannot compass with all my careful windings,
and running in and out," "And surely the beggar was very merry, but
I was heavy; he was secure, but I timorous. And if any man should
ask me now, whether I had rather be merry, or still so solicitous
and sad, I should say, merry. If he should ask me again, whether I
had rather be as I am, or as this beggar was, I should sure choose
to be as I am, tortured still with cares and fears; but out of
peevishness, and not out of truth." That which St. Austin said of
himself here in this place, I may truly say to thee, thou
discontented wretch, thou covetous niggard, thou churl, thou
ambitious and swelling toad, 'tis not want but peevishness which is
the cause of thy woes; settle thine affection, thou hast enough.
"Denique sit finis quaerendi, quoque habeas plus,
Pauperiem metuas minus, et finire laborem
Incipias; parto, quod avebas, utere."
Make an end of scraping, purchasing this manor, this field,
that house, for this and that child; thou hast enough for thyself
and them:
------"Quod petis hic est,
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus."
'Tis at hand, at home already, which thou so earnestly
seekest. But
------"O si angulus ille
Proximus accedat, qui nunc denormat agellum,"
O that I had but that one nook of ground, that field there,
that pasture, O si venam argenti fors quis mihi monstret -- O that I
could but find a pot of money now, to purchase, &c., to build me a
new house, to marry my daughter, place my son, &c. "O if I might but
live a while longer to see all things settled, some two or three
years, I would pay my debts," make all my reckonings even: but they
are come and past, and thou hast more business than before. "O
madness, to think to settle that in thine old age when thou hast
more, which in thy youth thou canst not now compose having but a
little." Pyrrhus would first conquer Africa, and then Asia, et tum
suaviter agere, and then live merrily and take his ease: but when
Cyneas the orator told him he might do that already, id jam posse
fieri, rested satisfied, condemning his own folly. Si parva licet
componere magnis, thou mayst do the like, and therefore be composed
in thy fortune. Thou hast enough: he that is wet in a bath, can be
no more wet if he be flung into Tiber, or into the ocean itself: and
if thou hadst all the world, or a solid mass of gold as big as the
world, thou canst not have more than enough; enjoy thyself at
length, and that which thou hast; the mind is all; be content, thou
art not poor, but rich, and so much the richer as Censorinus well
writ to Cerellius, quanto pauciora optas, non quo plura possides, in
wishing less, not having more. I say then, Non adjice opes, sed
minue cupiditates ('tis Epicurus' advice), add no more wealth, but
diminish thy desires; and as Chrysostom well seconds him, Si vis
ditari, contemne divitias; that's true plenty, not to have, but not
to want riches, non habere, sed non indigere, vera abundantia: 'tis
more glory to contemn, than to possess; et nihil agere, est deorum,
"and to want nothing is divine." How many deaf, dumb, halt, lame,
blind, miserable persons could I reckon up that are poor, and withal
distressed, in imprisonment, banishment, galley slaves, condemned to
the mines, quarries, to gyves, in dungeons, perpetual thraldom, than
all which thou art richer, thou art more happy, to whom thou art
able to give an alms, a lord, in respect, a petty prince: be
contented then I say, repine and mutter no more, "for thou art not
poor indeed but in opinion."
Yea, but this is very good counsel, and rightly applied to
such as have it, and will not use it, that have a competency, that
are able to work and get their living by the sweat of their brows,
by their trade, that have something yet; he that hath birds, may
catch birds; but what shall we do that are slaves by nature,
impotent, and unable to help ourselves, mere beggars, that languish
and pine away, that have no means at all, no hope of means, no trust
of delivery, or of better success? as those old Britons complained
to their lords and masters the Romans oppressed by the Picts. mare
ad barbaros, barbari ad mare, the barbarians drove them to the sea,
the sea drove them back to the barbarians: our present misery
compels us to cry out and howl, to make our moan to rich men: they
turn us back with a scornful answer to our misfortune again, and
will take no pity of us; they commonly overlook their poor friends
in adversity; if they chance to meet them, they voluntarily forget
and will take no notice of them; they will not, they cannot help us.
Instead of comfort they threaten us, miscall, scoff at us, to
aggravate our misery, give us bad language, or if they do give good
words, what's that to relieve us? According to that of Thales,
Facile est alios monere; who cannot give good counsel? 'tis cheap,
it costs them nothing. It is an easy matter when one's belly is full
to declaim against fasting, Qui satur est pleno laudat jejunia
ventre; "Doth the wild ass bray when he hath grass, or loweth the ox
when he hath fodder?" Job vi. 5. Neque enim populo Romano quidquam
potest esse laetius, no man living so jocund, so merry as the people
of Rome when they had plenty; but when they came to want, to be
hunger-starved, "neither shame, nor laws, nor arms, nor magistrates
could keep them in obedience." Seneca pleadeth hard for poverty, and
so did those lazy philosophers: but in the meantime he was rich,
they had wherewithal to maintain themselves; but doth any poor man
extol it? "There are those" (saith Bernard) "that approve of a mean
estate, but on that condition they never want themselves: and some
again are meek so long as they may say or do what they list; but if
occasion be offered, how far are they from all patience?" I would to
God (as he said) "No man should commend poverty, but he that is
poor," or he that so much admires it, would relieve, help, or ease
others.
"Nunc si nos audis, atque es divinus Apollo,
Dic mihi, qui nummos non habet, unde petat:"
"Now if thou hear'st us, and art a good man,
Tell him that wants, to get means, if you can."
But no man hears us, we are most miserably dejected, the scum
of the world. Vix habet in nobis jam nova plaga locum. (Ovid. "There
is no space left on our bodies for a fresh stripe.") We can get no
relief, no comfort, no succour, Et nihil inveni quod mihi ferret
opem. We have tried all means, yet find no remedy: no man living can
express the anguish and bitterness of our souls, but we that endure
it; we are distressed, forsaken, in torture of body and mind, in
another hell: and what shall we do? When Crassus the Roman consul
warred against the Parthians, after an unlucky battle fought, he
fled away in the night, and left four thousand men, sore, sick, and
wounded in his tents, to the fury of the enemy, which, when the poor
men perceived, clamoribus et ululatibus omnia complerunt, they made
lamentable moan, and roared downright, as loud as Homer's Mars when
he was hurt, which the noise of 10,000 men could not drown, and all
for fear of present death. But our estate is far more tragical and
miserable, much more to be deplored, and far greater cause have we
to lament; the devil and the world persecute us, all good fortune
hath forsaken us, we are left to the rage of beggary, cold, hunger,
thirst, nastiness, sickness, irksomeness, to continue all torment,
labour and pain, to derision and contempt, bitter enemies all, and
far worse than any death; death alone we desire, death we seek, yet
cannot have it, and what shall we do? Quod male fers, assuesce;
feres bene -- accustom thyself to it, and it will be tolerable at
last. Yea, but I may not, I cannot, In me consumpsit vires fortuna
nocendo, I am in the extremity of human adversity; and as a shadow
leaves the body when the sun is gone, I am now left and lost, and
quite forsaken of the world. Qui jacet in terra, non habet unde
cadat; comfort thyself with this yet, thou art at the worst, and
before it be long it will either overcome thee or thou it. If it be
violent, it cannot endure, aut solvetur, aut solvet: let the devil
himself and all the plagues of Egypt come upon thee at once, Ne tu
cede malis, sed contra audentior ito, be of good courage; misery is
virtue's whetstone.
"--serpens, sitis, ardor, arenae,
Dulcia virtuti,"
as Cato told his soldiers marching in the deserts of Libya, "Thirst,
heat, sands, serpents, were pleasant to a valiant man;" honourable
enterprises are accompanied with dangers and damages, as experience
evinceth: they will make the rest of thy life relish the better. But
put case they continue; thou art not so poor as thou wast born, and
as some hold, much better to be pitied than envied. But be it so
thou hast lost all, poor thou art, dejected, in pain of body, grief
of mind, thine enemies insult over thee, thou art as bad as Job; yet
tell me (saith Chrysostom) "was Job or the devil the greater
conqueror? surely Job; the devil had his goods, he sat on the muck-
hill and kept his good name; he lost his children, health, friends,
but he kept his innocency; he lost his money, but he kept his
confidence in God, which was better than any treasure." Do thou then
as Job did, triumph as Job did, and be not molested as every fool
is. Sed qua ratione potero? How shall this be done? Chrysostom
answers, facile si coelum cogitaveris, with great facility, if thou
shalt but meditate on heaven. Hannah wept sore, and troubled in
mind, could not eat; "but why weepest thou," said Elkanah her
husband, "and why eatest thou not? why is thine heart troubled? am
not I better to thee than ten sons?" and she was quiet. Thou art
here vexed in this world; but say to thyself, "Why art thou
troubled, O my soul?" Is not God better to thee than all
temporalities, and momentary pleasures of the world? be then
pacified. And though thou beest now peradventure in extreme want, it
may be 'tis for thy further good, to try thy patience, as it did
Job's, and exercise thee in this life: trust in God, and rely upon
him, and thou shalt be crowned in the end. What's this life to
eternity? The world hath forsaken thee, thy friends and fortunes all
are gone: yet know this, that the very hairs of thine head are
numbered, that God is a spectator of all thy miseries, he sees thy
wrongs, woes, and wants. "'Tis his goodwill and pleasure it should
be so, and he knows better what is for thy good than thou thyself.
His providence is over all, at all times; he hath set a guard of
angels over us, and keeps us as the apple of his eye," Ps. xvii. 8.
Some he doth exalt, prefer, bless with worldly riches, honours,
offices, and preferments, as so many glistering stars he makes to
shine above the rest: some he doth miraculously protect from
thieves, incursions, sword, fire, and all violent mischances, and as
the poet feigns of that Lycian Pandarus, Lycaon's son, when he shot
at Menelaus the Grecian with a strong arm, and deadly arrow, Pallas,
as a good mother keeps flies from her child's face asleep, turned by
the shaft, and made it hit on the buckle of his girdle; so some he
solicitously defends, others he exposeth to danger, poverty,
sickness, want, misery, he chastiseth and corrects, as to him seems
best, in his deep, unsearchable and secret judgment, and all for our
good. "The tyrant took the city" (saith Chrysostom), "God did not
hinder it; led them away captives, so God would have it; he bound
them, God yielded to it: flung them into the furnace, God permitted
it: heat the oven hotter, it was granted: and when the tyrant had
done his worst, God showed his power, and the children's patience;
he freed them:" so can he thee, and can help in an instant, when it
seems to him good. "Rejoice not against me, O my enemy; for though
I fall, I shall rise: when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall lighten
me." Remember all those martyrs what they have endured, the utmost
that human rage and fury could invent, with what patience they have
borne, with what willingness embraced it. "Though he kill me," saith
Job, "I will trust in him." Justus inexpugnabilis, as Chrysostom
holds, a just man is impregnable, and not to be overcome. The gout
may hurt his hands, lameness his feet, convulsions may torture his
joints, but not rectam mentem his soul is free.
------"nempe pecus, rem,
Lectos, argentum tollas licet; in manicis, et
Compedibus saevo teneas custode"------
"Perhaps, you mean,
My cattle, money, movables or land,
Then take them all.--But, slave, if I command,
A cruel jailor shall thy freedom seize."
"Take away his money, his treasure is in heaven: banish him his
country, he is an inhabitant of that heavenly Jerusalem: cast him
into bands, his conscience is free; kill his body, it shall rise
again; he fights with a shadow that contends with an upright man:"
he will not be moved.
------"si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinae."
Though heaven itself should fall on his head, he will not be
offended. He is impenetrable, as an anvil hard, as constant as Job.
"Ipse deus simul atque volet me solvet opinor."
"A God shall set me free whene'er I please."
Be thou such a one; let thy misery be what it will, what it can,
with patience endure it; thou mayst be restored as he was. Terris
proscriptus, ad coelum propera; ab hominibus desertus, ad deum fuge.
"The poor shall not always be forgotten, the patient abiding of the
meek shall not perish for ever," Psal. x. 18. ver. 9. "The Lord will
be a refuge of the oppressed, and a defence in the time of trouble."
"Servus Epictetus, multilati corporis, Irus
Pauper: at haec inter charus erat superis."
"Lame was Epictetus, and poor Irus,
Yet to them both God was propitious."
Lodovicus Vertomannus, that famous traveller, endured much
misery, yet surely, saith Scaliger, he was vir deo carus, in that he
did escape so many dangers, "God especially protected him, he was
dear unto him:" Modo in egestate, tribulatione, convalle
deplorationis, &c. "Thou art now in the vale of misery, in poverty,
in agony," "in temptation; rest, eternity, happiness, immortality,
shall be thy reward," as Chrysostom pleads, "if thou trust in God,
and keep thine innocency." Non si male nunc, et olim sic erit
semper; a good hour may come upon a sudden; expect a little.
Yea, but this expectation is it which tortures me in the mean
time; futura expectans praesentibus angor, whilst the grass grows
the horse starves: despair not, but hope well,
"Spera Batte, tibi melius lux Crastina ducet;
Dum spiras spera"------
(Theocritus. "Hope on, Battus, tomorrow may bring better luck;
while there's life there's hope.")
Cheer up, I say, be not dismayed; Spes alit agricolas: "he that sows
in tears, shall reap in joy," Psal. cxxvi. 7.
"Si fortune me tormente,
Esperance me contente."
Hope refresheth, as much as misery depresseth; hard beginnings have
many times prosperous events, and that may happen at last which
never was yet. "A desire accomplished delights the soul," Prov.
xiii. 19.
"Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora:"
"Which makes m'enjoy my joys long wish'd at last,
Welcome that hour shall come when hope is past:"
a lowering morning may turn to a fair afternoon, Nube solet pulsa
candidus ire dies. "The hope that is deferred, is the fainting of
the heart, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life," Prov.
xiii. 12, suavissimum est voti compos fieri. Many men are both
wretched and miserable at first, but afterwards most happy: and
oftentimes it so falls out, as Machiavel relates of Cosmo de Medici,
that fortunate and renowned citizen of Europe, "that all his youth
was full of perplexity, danger, and misery, till forty years were
past, and then upon a sudden the sun of his honour broke out as
through a cloud." Huniades was fetched out of prison, and Henry the
Third of Portugal out of a poor monastery, to be crowned kings.
"Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra,"
"Many things happen between the cup and the lip,"
beyond all hope and expectation many things fall out, and who knows
what may happen? Nondum omnium dierum Soles occiderunt, as Philippus
said, all the suns are not yet set, a day may come to make amends
for all. "Though my father and mother forsake me, yet the Lord will
gather me up," Psal. xxvii. 10. "Wait patiently on the Lord, and
hope in him," Psal. xxxvii. 7. "Be strong, hope and trust in the
Lord, and he will comfort thee, and give thee thine heart's desire,"
Psal. xxvii. 14.
"Sperate et vosmet rebus servate secundis."
"Hope, and reserve yourself for prosperity."
Fret not thyself because thou art poor, contemned, or not so
well for the present as thou wouldst be, not respected as thou
oughtest to be, by birth, place, worth; or that which is a double
corrosive, thou hast been happy, honourable, and rich, art now
distressed and poor, a scorn of men, a burden to the world, irksome
to thyself and others, thou hast lost all: Miserum est fuisse,
felicem, and as Boethius calls it, Infelicissimum genus infortunii;
this made Timon half mad with melancholy, to think of his former
fortunes and present misfortunes: this alone makes many miserable
wretches discontent. I confess it is a great misery to have been
happy, the quintessence of infelicity, to have been honourable and
rich, but yet easily to be endured: security succeeds, and to a
judicious man a far better estate. The loss of thy goods and money
is no loss; "thou hast lost them, they would otherwise have lost
thee." If thy money be gone, "thou art so much the lighter," and as
Saint Hierome persuades Rusticus the monk, to forsake all and follow
Christ: "Gold and silver are too heavy metals for him to carry that
seeks heaven."
"Vel nos in mare proximum,
Gemmas et lapides, aurum et inutile,
Summi materiam mali
Mittamus, scelerum si hene poenitet."
(Hor. "Let us cast our jewels and gems, and useless gold, the
cause of all vice, into the sea, since we truly repent of our
sins.")
Zeno the philosopher lost all his goods by shipwreck, he might
like of it, fortune had done him a good turn: Opes a me, animum
auferre non potest: she can take away my means, but not my mind. He
set her at defiance ever after, for she could not rob him that had
nought to lose: for he was able to contemn more than they could
possess or desire. Alexander sent a hundred talents of gold to
Phocion of Athens for a present, because he heard he was a good man:
but Phocion returned his talents back again with a permitte me in
posterum virum bonum esse to be a good man still; let me be as I am:
Non mi aurum posco, nec mi precium ("I do not desire riches, nor
that a price should be set upon me.") -- That Theban Crates flung of
his own accord his money into the sea, abite nummi, ego vos mergam,
ne mergar, a vobis, I had rather drown you, than you should drown
me. Can stoics and epicures thus contemn wealth, and shall not we
that are Christians? It was mascula vox et praeclara, a generous
speech of Cotta in Sallust, "Many miseries have happened unto me at
home, and in the wars abroad, of which by the help of God some I
have endured, some I have repelled, and by mine own valour overcome:
courage was never wanting to my designs, nor industry to my intents:
prosperity or adversity could never alter my disposition." A wise
man's mind, as Seneca holds, "is like the state of the world above
the moon, ever serene." Come then what can come, befall what may
befall, infractum invictumque animum opponas: Rebus angustis
animosus atque fortis appare. (Hor. Od. 11. lib. 2.) Hope and
patience are two sovereign remedies for all, the surest reposals,
the softest cushions to lean on in adversity:
"Durum sed levius fit patientia,
Quicquid corrigere est nefas."
"What can't be cured must be endured."
If it cannot be helped, or amended, make the best of it;
necessitati qui se accommodat, sapit, he is wise that suits himself
to the time. As at a game at tables, so do by all such inevitable
accidents.
"Ita vita est hominum quasi cum ludas tesseris,
Si illud quod est maxime opus jactu non cadit,
Illud quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas;"
If thou canst not fling what thou wouldst, play thy cast as well as
thou canst. Everything, saith Epictetus, hath two handles, the one
to be held by, the other not: 'tis in our choice to take and leave
whether we will (all which Simplicius's Commentator hath illustrated
by many examples), and 'tis in our power, as they say, to make or
mar ourselves. Conform thyself then to thy present fortune, and cut
thy coat according to thy cloth, Ut quimus (quod aiunt) quando quod
volumus non licet, "Be contented with thy loss, state, and calling,
whatsoever it is, and rest as well satisfied with thy present
condition in this life:"
"Este quod es; quod sunt alii, sine quamlibet esse;
Quod non es, nolis; quod potus esse, velis."
"Be as thou art; and as they are, so let
Others be still; what is and may be covert."
And as he that is invited to a feast eats what is set before him,
and looks for no other, enjoy that thou hast, and ask no more of God
than what he thinks fit to bestow upon thee. Non cuivis contingit
adire Corinthum, we may not be all gentlemen, all Catos, or Laelii,
as Tully telleth us, all honourable, illustrious, and serene, all
rich; but because mortal men want many things, "therefore," saith
Theodoret, "hath God diversely distributed his gifts, wealth to one,
skill to another, that rich men might encourage and set poor men at
work, poor men might learn several trades to the common good." As a
piece of arras is composed of several parcels, some wrought of silk,
some of gold, silver, crewel of diverse colours, all to serve for
the exornation of the whole: music is made of diverse discords and
keys, a total sum of many small numbers, so is a commonwealth of
several unequal trades and callings. If all should be Croesi and
Darii, all idle, all in fortunes equal, who should till the land? As
Menenius Agrippa well satisfied the tumultuous rout of Rome, in his
elegant apologue of the belly and the rest of the members. Who
should build houses, make our several stuffs for raiments? We should
all be starved for company, as Poverty declared at large in
Aristophanes' Plutus, and sue at last to be as we were at first. And
therefore God hath appointed this inequality of states, orders, and
degrees, a subordination, as in all other things. The earth yields
nourishment to vegetables, sensible creatures feed on vegetables,
both are substitutes to reasonable souls, and men are subject
amongst themselves, and all to higher powers, so God would have it.
All things then being rightly examined and duly considered as they
ought, there is no such cause of so general discontent, 'tis not in
the matter itself, but in our mind, as we moderate our passions and
esteem of things. Nihil aliud necessarium ut sis miser (saith
Cardan) quam ut te miserum credas, let thy fortune be what it will,
'tis thy mind alone that makes thee poor or rich, miserable or
happy. Vidi ego (saith divine Seneca) in villa hilari et amaena
maestos, et media solitudine occupatos; non locus, sed animus facit
ad tranquillitatem. I have seen men miserably dejected in a pleasant
village, and some again well occupied and at good ease in a solitary
desert. 'Tis the mind not the place causeth tranquillity, and that
gives true content. I will yet add a word or two for a corollary.
Many rich men, I dare boldly say it, that lie on down beds, with
delicacies pampered every day, in their well-furnished houses, live
at less heart's ease, with more anguish, more bodily pain, and
through their intemperance, more bitter hours, than many a prisoner
or galley-slave; Maecenas in pluma aeque vigilat ac Regulus in dolio:
those poor starved Hollanders, whom Bartison their captain left in
Nova Zembla, anno 1596, or those eight miserable Englishmen that
were lately left behind, to winter in a stove in Greenland, in 77
deg. of lat., 1630, so pitifully forsaken, and forced to shift for
themselves in a vast, dark, and desert place, to strive and struggle
with hunger, cold, desperation, and death itself. 'Tis a patient and
quiet mind (I say it again and again) gives true peace and content.
So for all other things, they are, as old Chremes told us, as we use
them.
"Parentes, patriam, amicos, genus, cognates, divitias,
Haec perinde sunt ac illius animus qui ea possidet;
Qui uti scit, ei bona; qui utitur non recte, mala."
"Parents, friends, fortunes, country, birth, alliance, &c., ebb and
flow with our conceit; please or displease, as we accept and
construe them, or apply them to ourselves." Faber quisque fortunae
suae, and in some sort I may truly say, prosperity and adversity are
in our own hands. Nemo laeditur nisi a seipso, and which Seneca
confirms out of his judgment and experience. "Every man's mind is
stronger than fortune, and leads him to what side he will; a cause
to himself each one is of his good or bad life." But will we, or
nill we, make the worst of it, and suppose a man in the greatest
extremity, 'tis a fortune which some indefinitely prefer before
prosperity; of two extremes it is the best. Luxuriant animi rebus
plerumque secundis, men in prosperity forget God and themselves,
they are besotted with their wealth, as birds with henbane:
miserable if fortune forsake them, but more miserable if she tarry
and overwhelm them: for when they come to be in great place, rich,
they that were most temperate, sober, and discreet in their private
fortunes, as Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Heliogabalus (optimi imperatores
nisi imperassent) degenerate on a sudden into brute beasts, so
prodigious in lust, such tyrannical oppressors, &c., they cannot
moderate themselves, they become monsters, odious, harpies, what
not? Cum triumphos, opes, honores adepti sunt, ad voluptatem et
otium deinceps se convertunt: 'twas Cato's note, "they cannot
contain." For that cause belike
"Eutrapilus cuicunque nocere volebat,
Vestimenta dabat pretiosa: beatus enim jam,
Cum pulchris tunicis sumet nova consilia et spes,
Dormiet in lucem scorto, postponet honestum Officium"------
"Eutrapilus when he would hurt a knave,
Gave him gay clothes and wealth to make him brave:
Because now rich he would quite change his mind,
Keep whores, fly out, set honesty behind."
On the other side, in adversity many mutter and repine, despair,
&c., both bad, I confess,
------"ut calceus olim
Si pede major erit, subvertet: si minor, uret."
"As a shoe too big or too little, one pincheth, the other sets the
foot awry," sed e malis minimum. If adversity hath killed his
thousand, prosperity hath killed his ten thousand: therefore
adversity is to be preferred; haec froeno indiget, illa solatio: illa
fallit, haec instruit: the one deceives, the other instructs; the one
miserably happy, the other happily miserable; and therefore many
philosophers have voluntarily sought adversity, and so much commend
it in their precepts. Demetrius, in Seneca, esteemed it a great
infelicity, that in his lifetime he had no misfortune, miserum cui
nihil unquam accidisset, adversi. Adversity then is not so heavily
to be taken, and we ought not in such cases so much to macerate
ourselves: there is no such odds in poverty and riches. To conclude
in Hierom's words, "I will ask our magnificoes that build with
marble, and bestow a whole manor on a thread, what difference
between them and Paul the Eremite, that bare old man? They drink in
jewels, he in his hand: he is poor and goes to heaven, they are rich
and go to hell."
MEMB. IV.
Against Servitude, Loss of Liberty, Imprisonment, Banishment.
Servitude, loss of liberty, imprisonment, are no such miseries
as they are held to be: we are slaves and servants the best of us
all: as we do reverence our masters, so do our masters their
superiors: gentlemen serve nobles, and nobles subordinate to kings,
omne sub regno graviore regnum, princes themselves are God's
servants, reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis. They are subject to
their own laws, and as the kings of China endure more than slavish
imprisonment, to maintain their state and greatness, they never come
abroad. Alexander was a slave to fear, Caesar of pride, Vespasian to
his money (nihil enim refert, rerum sis servus an hominum) ("It
matters little whether we are enslaved by men or things.") ,
Heliogabalus to his gut, and so of the rest. Lovers are slaves to
their mistresses, rich men to their gold, courtiers generally to
lust and ambition, and all slaves to our affections, as Evangelus
well discourseth in Macrobius, and Seneca the philosopher, assiduam
servitutem extremam et ineluctabilem he calls it, a continual
slavery, to be so captivated by vices; and who is free? Why then
dost thou repine? Satis est potens, Hierom saith, qui servire non
cogitur. Thou carriest no burdens, thou art no prisoner, no drudge,
and thousands want that liberty, those pleasures which thou hast.
Thou art not sick, and what wouldst thou have? But nitimur in
vetitum, we must all eat of the forbidden fruit. Were we enjoined to
go to such and such places, we would not willingly go: but being
barred of our liberty, this alone torments our wandering soul that
we may not go. A citizen of ours, saith Cardan, was sixty years of
age, and had never been forth of the walls of the city of Milan; the
prince hearing of it, commanded him not to stir out: being now
forbidden that which all his life he had neglected, he earnestly
desired, and being denied, dolore confectus mortem, obiit, he died
for grief.
What I have said of servitude, I again say of imprisonment, we
are all prisoners. What is our life but a prison? We are all
imprisoned in an island. The world itself to some men is a prison,
our narrow seas as so many ditches, and when they have compassed the
globe of the earth, they would fain go see what is done in the moon.
In Muscovy and many other northern parts, all over Scandia, they are
imprisoned half the year in stoves, they dare not peep out for cold.
At Aden in Arabia they are penned in all day long with that other
extreme of heat, and keep their markets in the night. What is a ship
but a prison? And so many cities are but as so many hives of bees,
anthills; but that which thou abhorrest, many seek: women keep in
all winter, and most part of summer, to preserve their beauties;
some for love of study: Demosthenes shaved his beard because he
would cut off all occasions from going abroad: how many monks and
friars, anchorites, abandon the world. Monachus in urbe, piscis in
arido. Art in prison? Make right use of it, and mortify thyself;
"Where may a man contemplate better than in solitariness," or study
more than in quietness? Many worthy men have been imprisoned all
their lives, and it hath been occasion of great honour and glory to
them, much public good by their excellent meditation. Ptolomeus king
of Egypt, cum viribus attenuatis infirma valetudine laboraret, miro
descendi studio affectus, &c. now being taken with a grievous
infirmity of body that he could not stir abroad, became Strato's
scholar, fell hard to his book, and gave himself wholly to
contemplation, and upon that occasion (as mine author adds),
pulcherrimum regiae opulentiae monumentum, &c., to his great honour
built that renowned library at Alexandria, wherein were 40,000
volumes. Severinus Boethius never writ so elegantly as in prison,
Paul so devoutly, for most of his epistles were dictated in his
bands: "Joseph," saith Austin, "got more credit in prison, than when
he distributed corn, and was lord of Pharaoh's house." It brings
many a lewd, riotous fellow home, many wandering rogues it settles,
that would otherwise have been like raving tigers, ruined themselves
and others.
Banishment is no grievance at all, Omne solum forti patria,
&c. et patria est ubicunque bene est, that's a man's country where
he is well at ease. Many travel for pleasure to that city, saith
Seneca, to which thou art banished, and what a part of the citizens
are strangers born in other places? Incolentibus patria, 'tis their
country that are born in it, and they would think themselves
banished to go to the place which thou leavest, and from which thou
art so loath to depart. 'Tis no disparagement to be a stranger, or
so irksome to be an exile. "The rain is a stranger to the earth,
rivers to the sea, Jupiter in Egypt, the sun to us all. The soul is
an alien to the body, a nightingale to the air, a swallow in a
house, and Ganymede in heaven, an elephant at Rome, a Phoenix in
India;" and such things commonly please us best, which are most
strange and come the farthest off. Those old Hebrews esteemed the
whole world Gentiles; the Greeks held all barbarians but themselves;
our modern Italians account of us as dull Transalpines by way of
reproach, they scorn thee and thy country which thou so much
admirest. 'Tis a childish humour to hone after home, to be
discontent at that which others seek; to prefer, as base islanders
and Norwegians do, their own ragged island before Italy or Greece,
the gardens of the world. There is a base nation in the north, saith
Pliny, called Chauci, that live amongst rocks and sands by the
seaside, feed on fish, drink water: and yet these base people
account themselves slaves in respect, when they come to Rome. Ita
est profecto (as he concludes) multis fortuna parcit in poenam, so it
is, fortune favours some to live at home, to their further
punishment: 'tis want of judgment. All places are distant from
heaven alike, the sun shines happily as warm in one city as in
another, and to a wise man there is no difference of climes; friends
are everywhere to him that behaves himself well, and a prophet is
not esteemed in his own country. Alexander, Caesar, Trajan, Adrian,
were as so many land-leapers, now in the east, now in the west,
little at home; and Polus Venetus, Lod. Vertomannus, Pinzonus,
Cadamustus, Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Vascus Gama, Drake,
Candish, Oliver Anort, Schoutien, got all their honour by voluntary
expeditions. But you say such men's travel is voluntary; we are
compelled, and as malefactors must depart; yet know this of Plato to
be true, ultori Deo summa cura peregrinus est, God hath an especial
care of strangers, "and when he wants friends and allies, he shall
deserve better and find more favour with God and men." Besides the
pleasure of peregrination, variety of objects will make amends; and
so many nobles, Tully, Aristides, Themistocles, Theseus, Codrus, &c.
as have been banished, will give sufficient credit unto it. Read
Pet. Alcionius his two books of this subject.
MEMB. V.
Against Sorrow for Death of Friends or otherwise, vain Fear, &c.
Death and departure of friends are things generally grievous,
Omnium quae in humana vita contingunt, luctus atque mors sunt
acerbissima, the most austere and bitter accidents that can happen
to a man in this life, in aeternum valedicere, to part for ever, to
forsake the world and all our friends, 'tis ultimum terribilium, the
last and the greatest terror, most irksome and troublesome unto us,
Homo toties moritur, quoties amittit suos. And though we hope for a
better life, eternal happiness, after these painful and miserable
days, yet we cannot compose ourselves willingly to die; the
remembrance of it is most grievous unto us, especially to such who
are fortunate and rich: they start at the name of death, as a horse
at a rotten post. Say what you can of that other world, Montezuma
that Indian prince, Bonum est esse hic, they had rather be here. Nay
many generous spirits, and grave staid men otherwise, are so tender
in this, that at the loss of a dear friend they will cry out, roar,
and tear their hair, lamenting some months after, howling "O Hone,"
as those Irish women and Greeks at their graves, commit many
indecent actions, and almost go beside themselves. My dear father,
my sweet husband, mine only brother's dead, to whom shall I make my
moan? O me miserum! Quis dabit in lachrymas fontem, &c. What shall I
do?
"Sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors
Abstulit, hei misero frater adempte mihi?"
"My brother's death my study hath undone,
Woe's me, alas my brother he is gone."
Mezentius would not live after his son:
"Nunc vivo, nec adhuc homines lucemque relinquo,
Sed linquam"------
(Virgil. "I live now, nor as yet relinquish society and life,
but I shall resign them.")
And Pompey's wife cried out at the news of her husband's death,
"Turpe mori post te solo non posse dolore,
Violenta luctu et nescia tolerandi,"
(Lucan. "Overcome by grief, and unable to endure it, she
exclaimed, 'Not to be able to die through sorrow for thee were
base.'")
as Tacitus of Agrippina, not able to moderate her passions. So when
she heard her son was slain, she abruptly broke off her work,
changed countenance and colour, tore her hair, and fell a roaring
downright.
------"subitus miserae color ossa reliquit,
Excussi manibus radii, revolutaque pensa:
Evolat infelix et foemineo ululatu
Scissa comam"------
"The colour suddenly fled her cheek, the distaff forsook her
hand, the reel revolved, and with dishevelled locks she broke
away, wailing as a woman."
Another would needs run upon the sword's point after Euryalus'
departure,
"Figite me, si qua est pietas, in me omnia tela
Conjicite o Rutili;"------
Virg. Aen. 10. "Transfix me, O Rutuli, if you have any piety:
pierce me with your thousand arrows."
O let me die, some good man or other make an end of me. How did
Achilles take on for Patroclus' departure? A black cloud of sorrows
overshadowed him, saith Homer. Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth
about his loins, sorrowed for his son a long season, and could not
be comforted, but would needs go down into the grave unto his son,
Gen. xxxvii. 37. Many years after, the remembrance of such friends,
of such accidents, is most grievous unto us, to see or hear of it,
though it concern not ourselves but others. Scaliger saith of
himself, that he never read Socrates' death, in Plato's Phaedon, but
he wept: Austin shed tears when he read the destruction of Troy. But
howsoever this passion of sorrow be violent, bitter, and seizeth
familiarly on wise, valiant, discreet men, yet it may surely be
withstood, it may be diverted. For what is there in this life, that
it should be so dear unto us? or that we should so much deplore the
departure of a friend? The greatest pleasures are common society, to
enjoy one another's presence, feasting, hawking, hunting, brooks,
woods, hills, music, dancing, &c. all this is but vanity and loss of
time, as I have sufficiently declared.
------"dum bibimus, dum serta, unguenta, puellas
Poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus."
"Whilst we drink, prank ourselves, with wenches dally,
Old age upon's at unawares doth sally."
As alchemists spend that small modicum they have to get gold,
and never find it, we lose and neglect eternity, for a little
momentary pleasure which we cannot enjoy, nor shall ever attain to
in this life. We abhor death, pain, and grief, all, yet we will do
nothing of that which should vindicate us from, but rather
voluntarily thrust ourselves upon it. "The lascivious prefers his
whore before his life, or good estate; an angry man his revenge: a
parasite his gut; ambitious, honours; covetous, wealth; a thief his
booty; a soldier his spoil; we abhor diseases, and yet we pull them
upon us." We are never better or freer from cares than when we
sleep, and yet, which we so much avoid and lament, death is but a
perpetual sleep; and why should it, as Epicurus argues, so much
affright us? "When we are, death is not: but when death is, then we
are not:" our life is tedious and troublesome unto him that lives
best; "'tis a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die:"
death makes an end of our miseries, and yet we cannot consider of
it; a little before Socrates drank his portion of cicuta, he bid the
citizens of Athens cheerfully farewell, and concluded his speech
with this short sentence; "My time is now come to be gone, I to my
death, you to live on; but which of these is best, God alone knows."
For there is no pleasure here but sorrow is annexed to it,
repentance follows it. "If I feed liberally, I am likely sick or
surfeit: if I live sparingly my hunger and thirst is not allayed; I
am well neither full nor fasting; if I live honest, I burn in lust;"
if I take my pleasure, I tire and starve myself, and do injury to my
body and soul. "Of so small a quantity of mirth, how much sorrow?
after so little pleasure, how great misery?" 'Tis both ways
troublesome to me, to rise and go to bed, to eat and provide my
meat; cares and contentions attend me all day long, fears and
suspicions all my life. I am discontented, and why should I desire
so much to live? But a happy death will make an end of all our woes
and miseries; omnibus una meis certa medela malis; why shouldst not
thou then say with old Simeon since thou art so well affected, "Lord
now let thy servant depart in peace:" or with Paul, "I desire to be
dissolved, and to be with Christ"? Beata mors quae ad beatam vitam
aditum aperit, 'tis a blessed hour that leads us to a blessed life,
and blessed are they that die in the Lord. But life is sweet, and
death is not so terrible in itself as the concomitants of it, a
loathsome disease, pain, horror, &c. and many times the manner of
it, to be hanged, to be broken on the wheel, to be burned alive.
Servetus the heretic, that suffered in Geneva, when he was brought
to the stake, and saw the executioner come with fire in his hand,
homo viso igne tam horrendum exclamavit, ut universum populum
perterrefecerit, roared so loud, that he terrified the people. An
old stoic would have scorned this. It troubles some to be unburied,
or so:
------"non te optima mater
Condet humi, patriove onerabit membra sepulchro;
Alitibus linguere feris, et gurgite mersum
Unda feret, piscesque impasti vulnera lambent."
"Thy gentle parents shall not bury thee,
Amongst thine ancestors entomb'd to be,
But feral fowl thy carcass shall devour,
Or drowned corps hungry fish maws shall scour."
As Socrates told Crito, it concerns me not what is done with me when
I am dead; Facilis jactura sepulchri: I care not so long as I feel
it not; let them set mine head on the pike of Tenerife, and my
quarters in the four parts of the world,--pascam licet in cruce
corvos, let wolves or bears devour me;-- Caelo tegitur qui non habet
urnam, the canopy of heaven covers him that hath no tomb. So
likewise for our friends, why should their departure so much trouble
us? They are better as we hope, and for what then dost thou lament,
as those do whom Paul taxed in his time, 1 Thes. iv. 13. "that have
no hope"? 'Tis fit there should be some solemnity.
"Sed sepelire decet defunctum, pectore forti,
Constantes, unumque diem fletui indulgentes."
(Il. 9 Homer. "It is proper that, having indulged in becoming
grief for one whole day, you should commit the dead to the
sepulchre.")
Job's friends said not a word to him the first seven days, but let
sorrow and discontent take their course, themselves sitting sad and
silent by him. When Jupiter himself wept for Sarpedon, what else did
the poet insinuate, but that some sorrow is good
"Quis matrem nisi mentis inops in funere nati
Flere vetat?"------
who can blame a tender mother if she weep for her children? Beside,
as Plutarch holds, 'tis not in our power not to lament, Indolentia
non cuivis contingit, it takes away mercy and pity, not to be sad;
'tis a natural passion to weep for our friends, an irresistible
passion to lament and grieve. "I know not how" (saith Seneca) "but
sometimes 'tis good to be miserable in misery: and for the most part
all grief evacuates itself by tears,"
------"est quaedam flere voluptas,
Expletur lachrymis egeriturque dolor:"
"yet after a day's mourning or two, comfort thyself for thy
heaviness," Eccles. xxxviii. 17. Non decet defunctum ignavo quaestu
prosequi; 'twas Germanicus' advice of old, that we should not dwell
too long upon our passions, to be desperately sad, immoderate
grievers, to let them tyrannise, there's indolentiae, ars, a medium
to be kept: we do not (saith Austin) forbid men to grieve, but to
grieve overmuch. "I forbid not a man to be angry, but I ask for what
cause he is so? Not to be sad, but why is he sad? Not to fear, but
wherefore is he afraid?" I require a moderation as well as a just
reason. The Romans and most civil commonwealths have set a time to
such solemnities, they must not mourn after a set day, "or if in a
family a child be born, a daughter or son married, some state or
honour be conferred, a brother be redeemed from his bands, a friend
from his enemies," or the like, they must lament no more. And 'tis
fit it should be so; to what end is all their funeral pomp,
complaints, and tears? When Socrates was dying, his friends
Apollodorus and Crito, with some others, were weeping by him, which
he perceiving, asked them what they meant: "for that very cause he
put all the women out of the room, upon which words of his they were
abashed, and ceased from their tears." Lodovicus Cortesius, a rich
lawyer of Padua (as Bernardinus Scardeonius relates) commanded by
his last will, and a great mulct if otherwise to his heir, that no
funeral should be kept for him, no man should lament: but as at a
wedding, music and minstrels to be provided; and instead of black
mourners, he took order, "that twelve virgins clad in green should
carry him to the church." His will and testament was accordingly
performed, and he buried in St. Sophia's church. Tully was much
grieved for his daughter Tulliola's death at first, until such time
that he had confirmed his mind with some philosophical precepts,
"then he began to triumph over fortune and grief, and for her
reception into heaven to be much more joyed than before he was
troubled for her loss." If a heathen man could so fortify himself
from philosophy, what shall a Christian from divinity? Why dost thou
so macerate thyself? 'Tis an inevitable chance, the first statute in
Magna Charta, an everlasting Act of Parliament, all must die.
"Constat aeterna positumque lege est,
Ut constet genitum nihil."
It cannot be revoked, we are all mortal, and these all commanding
gods and princes "die like men:" -- involvit humile pariter et
celsum caput, aquatque summis infima. "O weak condition of human
estate," Sylvius exclaims: Ladislaus, king of Bohemia, eighteen
years of age, in the flower of his youth, so potent, rich, fortunate
and happy, in the midst of all his friends, amongst so many
physicians, now ready to be married, in thirty-six hours sickened
and died. We must so be gone sooner or later all, and as Calliopeius
in the comedy took his leave of his spectators and auditors, Vos
valete et plaudite, Calliopeius recensui, must we bid the world
farewell (Exit Calliopeius), and having now played our parts, for
ever be gone. Tombs and monuments have the like fate, data sunt
ipsis quoque fata sepulchris, kingdoms, provinces, towns, and cities
have their periods, and are consumed. In those flourishing times of
Troy, Mycenae was the fairest city in Greece, Graeciae cunctae
imperitabat, but it, alas, and that "Assyrian Nineveh are quite
overthrown:" the like fate hath that Egyptian and Boeotian Thebes,
Delos, commune Graeciae, conciliabulum, the common council-house of
Greece, and Babylon, the greatest city that ever the sun shone on,
hath now nothing but walls and rubbish left. Quid Pandioniae restat
nisi nomen Athenae? (Ovid. "What of ancient Athens but the name
remains?") Thus Pausanias complained in his times. And where is Troy
itself now, Persepolis, Carthage, Cizicum, Sparta, Argos, and all
those Grecian cities? Syracuse and Agrigentum, the fairest towns in
Sicily, which had sometimes 700,000 inhabitants, are now decayed:
the names of Hieron, Empedocles, &c., of those mighty numbers of
people, only left. One Anacharsis is remembered amongst the
Scythians; the world itself must have an end; and every part of it.
Caeterae igitur urbes sunt mortales, as Peter Gillius concludes of
Constantinople, haec sane quamdiu erunt homines, futura mihi videtur
immortalis; but 'tis not so: nor site, nor strength, nor sea nor
land, can vindicate a city, but it and all must vanish at last. And
as to a traveller great mountains seem plains afar off, at last are
not discerned at all; cities, men, monuments decay,--nec solidis
prodest sua machina terris, the names are only left, those at length
forgotten, and are involved in perpetual night.
"Returning out of Asia, when I sailed from Aegina toward
Megara, I began" (saith Servius Sulpicius, in a consolatory epistle
of his to Tully) "to view the country round about. Aegina was behind
me, Megara before, Piraeus on the right hand, Corinth on the left,
what flourishing towns heretofore, now prostrate and overwhelmed
before mine eyes? I began to think with myself, alas, why are we men
so much disquieted with the departure of a friend, whose life is
much shorter? When so many goodly cities lie buried before us.
Remember, O Servius, thou art a man; and with that I was much
confirmed, and corrected myself." Correct then likewise, and comfort
thyself in this, that we must necessarily die, and all die, that we
shall rise again: as Tully held; Jucundiorque multo congressus
noster futurus, quam insuavis et acerbus digressus, our second
meeting shall be much more pleasant than our departure was grievous.
Aye, but he was my most dear and loving friend, my sole
friend,
"Quis deciderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam chari capitis?"------
"And who can blame my woe?"
Thou mayst be ashamed, I say with Seneca, to confess it, "in such a
tempest as this to have but one anchor," go seek another: and for
his part thou dost him great injury to desire his longer life. "Wilt
thou have him crazed and sickly still," like a tired traveller that
comes weary to his inn, begin his journey afresh, "or to be freed
from his miseries; thou hast more need rejoice that he is gone."
Another complains of a most sweet wife, a young wife, Nondum
sustulerat flavum Proserpina crinem, such a wife as no mortal man
ever had, so good a wife, but she is now dead and gone, laethaeoque
jacet condita sarcophago. I reply to him in Seneca's words, if such
a woman at least ever was to be had, "He did either so find or make
her; if he found her, he may as happily find another;" if he made
her, as Critobulus in Xenophon did by his, he may as good cheap
inform another, et bona tam sequitur, quam bona prima fuit; he need
not despair, so long as the same master is to be had. But was she
good? Had she been so tried peradventure as that Ephesian widow in
Petronius, by some swaggering soldier, she might not have held out.
Many a man would have been willingly rid of his: before thou wast
bound, now thou art free; "and 'tis but a folly to love thy fetters
though they be of gold." Come into a third place, you shall have an
aged father sighing for a son, a pretty child;
"Impube pectus quale vel impia
Molliret Thracum pectora."
------"He now lies asleep,
Would make an impious Thracian weep."
Or some fine daughter that died young, Nondum experta novi gaudia
prima tori. Or a forlorn son for his deceased father. But why? Prior
exiit, prior intravit, he came first, and he must go first. Tu
frustra pius, heu, &c. What, wouldst thou have the laws of nature
altered, and him to live always? Julius Caesar, Augustus,
Alcibiades, Galen, Aristotle, lost their fathers young. And why on
the other side shouldst thou so heavily take the death of thy little
son?
"Num quia nec fato, merita nec morte peribat,
Sed miser ante diem"------
he died before his time, perhaps, not yet come to the solstice of
his age, yet was he not mortal? Hear that divine Epictetus, "If thou
covet thy wife, friends, children should live always, thou art a
fool." He was a fine child indeed, dignus Apollineis lachrymis, a
sweet, a loving, a fair, a witty child, of great hope, another
Eteoneus, whom Pindarus the poet and Aristides the rhetorician so
much lament; but who can tell whether he would have been an honest
man? He might have proved a thief, a rogue, a spendthrift, a
disobedient son, vexed and galled thee more than all the world
beside, he might have wrangled with thee and disagreed, or with his
brothers, as Eteocles and Polynices, and broke thy heart; he is now
gone to eternity, as another Ganymede, in the flower of his youth,
"as if he had risen," saith Plutarch, "from the midst of a feast"
before he was drunk, "the longer he had lived, the worse he would
have been," et quo vita longior, (Ambrose thinks) culpa numerosior,
more sinful, more to answer he would have had. If he was naught,
thou mayst be glad he is gone; if good, be glad thou hadst such a
son. Or art thou sure he was good? It may be he was an hypocrite, as
many are, and howsoever he spake thee fair, peradventure he prayed,
amongst the rest that Icaro Menippus heard at Jupiter's whispering
place in Lucian, for his father's death, because he now kept him
short, he was to inherit much goods, and many fair manors after his
decease. Or put case he was very good, suppose the best, may not thy
dead son expostulate with thee, as he did in the same Lucian, "why
dost thou lament my death, or call me miserable that am much more
happy than thyself? what misfortune is befallen me? Is it because I
am not so bald, crooked, old, rotten, as thou art? What have I lost,
some of your good cheer, gay clothes, music, singing, dancing,
kissing, merry-meetings, thalami lubentias, &c., is that it? Is it
not much better not to hunger at all than to eat: not to thirst than
to drink to satisfy thirst: not to be cold than to put on clothes to
drive away cold? You had more need rejoice that I am freed from
diseases, agues, cares, anxieties, livor, love, covetousness,
hatred, envy, malice, that I fear no more thieves, tyrants, enemies,
as you do." Ad cinerem et manes credis curare sepultos? "Do they
concern us at all, think you, when we are once dead?" Condole not
others then overmuch, "wish not or fear thy death." Summum nec
optes diem nec metuas; 'tis to no purpose.
"Excessi e vitae aerumnis facilisque lubensque
Ne perjora ipsa morte dehinc videam."
"I left this irksome life with all mine heart,
Lest worse than death should happen to my part."
Cardinal Brundusinus caused this epitaph in Rome to be
inscribed on his tomb, to show his willingness to die, and tax those
that were so both to depart. Weep and howl no more then, 'tis to
small purpose; and as Tully adviseth us in the like case, Non quos
amisimus, sed quantum lugere par sit cogitemus: think what we do,
not whom we have lost. So David did, 2 Sam. xxii., "While the child
was yet alive, I fasted and wept; but being now dead, why should I
fast? Can I bring him again? I shall go to him, but he cannot return
to me." He that doth otherwise is an intemperate, a weak, a silly,
and indiscreet man. Though Aristotle deny any part of intemperance
to be conversant about sorrow, I am of Seneca's mind, "he that is
wise is temperate, and he that is temperate is constant, free from
passion, and he that is such a one, is without sorrow," as all wise
men should be. The Thracians wept still when a child was born,
feasted and made mirth when any man was buried: and so should we
rather be glad for such as die well, that they are so happily freed
from the miseries of this life. When Eteoneus, that noble young
Greek, was so generally lamented by his friends, Pindarus the poet
feigns some god saying, Silete homines, non enim miser est, &c. be
quiet good folks, this young man is not so miserable as you think;
he is neither gone to Styx nor Acheron, sed gloriosus et senii
expers heros, he lives for ever in the Elysian fields. He now enjoys
that happiness which your great kings so earnestly seek, and wears
that garland for which ye contend. If our present weakness is such,
we cannot moderate our passions in this behalf, we must divert them
by all means, by doing something else, thinking of another subject.
The Italians most part sleep away care and grief, if it unseasonably
seize upon them, Danes, Dutchmen, Polanders and Bohemians drink it
down, our countrymen go to plays: do something or other, let it not
transpose thee, or by "premeditation make such accidents familiar,"
as Ulysses that wept for his dog, but not for his wife, quod paratus
esset animo obfirmato, (Plut. de anim. tranq.) "accustom thyself,
and harden beforehand by seeing other men's calamities, and applying
them to thy present estate;" Praevisum est levius quod fuit ante
malum. I will conclude with Epictetus, "If thou lovest a pot,
remember 'tis but a, pot thou lovest, and thou wilt not be troubled
when 'tis broken: if thou lovest a son or wife, remember they were
mortal, and thou wilt not be so impatient." And for false fears and
all other fortuitous inconveniences, mischances, calamities, to
resist and prepare ourselves, not to faint is best: Stultum est
timere quod vitari non potest, 'tis a folly to fear that which
cannot be avoided, or to be discouraged at all.
"Nam quisquis trepidus pavet vel optat,
Objecit clypeum, locoque motus
Nectit qua valeat trahi catenam."
"For he that so faints or fears, and yields to his passion,
flings away his own weapons, makes a cord to bind himself, and
pulls a beam upon his own head."
MEMB. VI.
Against Envy, Livor, Emulation, Hatred, Ambition, Self-love, and all
other Affections.
Against those other passions and affections, there is no
better remedy than as mariners when they go to sea, provide all
things necessary to resist a tempest: to furnish ourselves with
philosophical and Divine precepts, other men's examples, Periculum
ex aliis facere, sibi quod ex usu siet: To balance our hearts with
love, charity, meekness, patience, and counterpoise those irregular
motions of envy, livor, spleen, hatred, with their opposite virtues,
as we bend a crooked staff another way, to oppose "sufferance to
labour, patience to reproach," bounty to covetousness, fortitude to
pusillanimity, meekness to anger, humility to pride, to examine
ourselves for what cause we are so much disquieted, on what ground,
what occasion, is it just or feigned? And then either to pacify
ourselves by reason, to divert by some other object, contrary
passion, or premeditation. Meditari secum oportet quo pacto adversam
aerumnam ferat, Paricla, damna, exilia peregre rediens semper
cogitet, aut filii peccatum, aut uxoris mortem, aut morbum filiae,
communia esse haec: fieri posse, ut ne quid animo sit novum. To make
them familiar, even all kind of calamities, that when they happen
they may be less troublesome unto us. In secundis meditare, quo
pacto feras adversa: or out of mature judgment to avoid the effect,
or disannul the cause, as they do that are troubled with toothache,
pull them quite out.
"Ut vivat castor, sibi testes amputat ipse;
Tu quoque siqua nocent, abjice, tutus eris."
"The beaver bites off's stones to save the rest:
Do thou the like with that thou art opprest."
Or as they that play at wasters, exercise themselves by a few
cudgels how to avoid an enemy's blows: let us arm ourselves against
all such violent incursions, which may invade our minds. A little
experience and practice will inure us to it; vetula vulpes, as the
proverb saith, laqueo haud capitur, an old fox is not so easily
taken in a snare; an old soldier in the world methinks should not be
disquieted, but ready to receive all fortunes, encounters, and with
that resolute captain, come what may come, to make answer,
------"non ulla laborum
O virgo nova mi facies inopinaque surgit,
Omnia percepi atque animo mecum ante peregi."
"No labour comes at unawares to me,
For I have long before cast what may be."
------"non hoc primum mea pectora vulnus
Senserunt, graviora tuli"------
"My breast was not conscious of this first wound, for I have
endured still greater."
The commonwealth of Venice in their armoury have this inscription,
"Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war," a fit
motto for every man's private house; happy is the man that provides
for a future assault. But many times we complain, repine and mutter
without a cause, we give way to passions we may resist, and will
not. Socrates was bad by nature, envious, as he confessed to Zophius
the physiognomer, accusing him of it, froward and lascivious: but as
he was Socrates, he did correct and amend himself. Thou art
malicious, envious, covetous, impatient, no doubt, and lascivious,
yet as thou art a Christian, correct and moderate thyself. 'Tis
something, I confess, and able to move any man, to see himself
contemned, obscure, neglected, disgraced, undervalued, "left
behind;" some cannot endure it, no not constant Lipsius, a man
discreet otherwise, yet too weak and passionate in this, as his
words express, collegas olim, quos ego sine fremitu non intueor,
nuper terrae filios, nunc Maecenates et Agrippas habeo,-- summo jam
monte potitos. But he was much to blame for it: to a wise staid man
this is nothing, we cannot all be honoured and rich, all Caesars; if
we will be content, our present state is good, and in some men's
opinion to be preferred. Let them go on, get wealth, offices,
titles, honours, preferments, and what they will themselves, by
chance, fraud, imposture, simony, and indirect means, as too many
do, by bribery, flattery, and parasitical insinuation, by impudence
and time-serving, let them climb up to advancement in despite of
virtue, let them "go before, cross me on every side," me non
offendunt modo non in, oculos incurrant, as he said, correcting his
former error, they do not offend me, so long as they run not into
mine eyes. I am inglorious and poor, composita paupertate, but I
live secure and quiet: they are dignified, have great means, pomp,
and state, they are glorious; but what have they with it? "Envy,
trouble, anxiety, as much labour to maintain their place with
credit, as to get it at first." I am contented with my fortunes,
spectator e longinquo, and love Neptunum procul a terra spectare
furentem: he is ambitious, and not satisfied with his: "but what
gets he by it? to have all his life laid open, his reproaches seen:
not one of a thousand but he hath done more worthy of dispraise and
animadversion than commendation; no better means to help this than
to be private." Let them run, ride, strive as so many fishes for a
crumb, scrape, climb, catch, snatch, cozen, collogue, temporise and
fleer, take all amongst them, wealth, honour, and get what they can,
it offends me not:
-----"me mea tellus
Lare secreto tutoque tegat,"
"I am well pleased with my fortunes," Vivo et regno simul ista
relinquens. (Hor. "I live like a king without any of these
acquisitions.")
I have learned "in what state soever I am, therewith to be
contented," Philip, iv 11. Come what can come, I am prepared. Nave
ferar magna an parva, ferar unus et idem. I am the same. I was once
so mad to bustle abroad, and seek about for preferment, tire myself,
and trouble all my friends, sed nihil labor tantus profecit nam dum
alios amicorum mors avocat, aliis ignotus sum, his invisus, alii
large promittunt, intercedunt illi mecum soliciti, hi vana spe
lactant; dum alios ambio, hos capto, illis innotesco, aetas perit,
anni defluunt, amici fatigantur, ego deferor, et jam, mundi taesus,
humanaeque satur infidelitatis acquiesco. ("But all my labour was
unprofitable; for while death took off some of my friends, to others
I remain unknown, or little liked, and these deceive me with false
promises. Whilst I am canvassing one party, captivating another,
making myself known to a third, my age increases, years glide away,
I am put off, and now tired of the world, and surfeited with human
worthlessness. I rest content.") And so I say still; although I may
not deny, but that I have had some bountiful patrons, and noble
benefactors, ne sim interim ingratus, and I do thankfully
acknowledge it, I have received some kindness, quod Deus illis
beneficium rependat, si non pro votis, fortasse pro meritis, more
peradventure than I deserve, though not to my desire, more of them
than I did expect, yet not of others to my desert; neither am I
ambitious or covetous, for this while, or a Suffenus to myself; what
I have said, without prejudice or alteration shall stand. And now as
a mired horse that struggles at first with all his might and main to
get out, but when he sees no remedy, that his beating will not
serve, lies still, I have laboured in vain, rest satisfied, and if I
may usurp that of Prudentius,
"Inveni portum; spes et fortuna valete,
Nil mihi vobiscum, ludite nunc alios."
"Mine haven's found, fortune and hope adieu,
Mock others now, for I have done with you."
MEMB. VII.
Against Repulse, Abuses, Injuries, Contempts, Disgraces,
Contumelies, Slanders, Scoffs, &c.
I may not yet conclude, think to appease passions, or quiet
the mind, till such time as I have likewise removed some other of
their more eminent and ordinary causes, which produce so grievous
tortures and discontents: to divert all, I cannot hope; to point
alone at some few of the chiefest, is that which I aim at.
Repulse.] Repulse and disgrace are two main causes of
discontent, but to an understanding man not so hardly to be taken.
Caesar himself hath been denied, and when two stand equal in
fortune, birth, and all other qualities alike, one of necessity must
lose. Why shouldst thou take it so grievously? It hath a familiar
thing for thee thyself to deny others. If every man might have what
he would, we should all be deified, emperors, kings, princes; if
whatsoever vain hope suggests, insatiable appetite affects, our
preposterous judgment thinks fit were granted, we should have
another chaos in an instant, a mere confusion. It is some
satisfaction to him that is repelled, that dignities, honours,
offices, are not always given by desert or worth, but for love,
affinity, friendship, affection, great men's letters, or as commonly
they are bought and sold. "Honours in court are bestowed not
according to men's virtues and good conditions" (as an old courtier
observes), "but as every man hath means, or more potent friends, so
he is preferred." With us in France ( for so their own countryman
relates) "most part the matter is carried by favour and grace; he
that can get a great man to be his mediator, runs away with all the
preferment." Indignissimus plerumque praefertur, Vatinius Catoni,
illaudatus laudatissimo;
------"servi dominantur; aselli
Ornantur phaleris, dephalerantur equi."
"Slaves govern; asses are decked with trappings; horses are
deprived of them."
An illiterate fool sits in a man's seat, and the common people
hold him learned, grave and wise. "One professeth" ( Cardan well
notes) "for a thousand crowns, but he deserves not ten, when as he
that deserves a thousand cannot get ten." Solarium non dat multis
salem. As good horses draw in carts, as coaches. And oftentimes,
which Machiavel seconds, Principes non sunt qui ob insignem
virtutem principatu digni sunt, he that is most worthy wants
employment; he that hath skill to be a pilot wants a ship, and he
that could govern a commonwealth, a world itself, a king in conceit,
wants means to exercise his worth, hath not a poor office to manage,
and yet all this while he is a better man that is fit to reign, etsi
careat regno, though he want a kingdom, "than he that hath one, and
knows not how to rule it:" a lion serves not always his keeper, but
oftentimes the keeper the lion, and as Polydore Virgil hath it,
multi reges ut pupilli ob inscitiam non regunt sed reguntur. Hieron
of Syracuse was a brave king, but wanted a kingdom; Perseus of
Macedon had nothing of a king, but the bare name and title, for he
could not govern it: so great places are often ill bestowed, worthy
persons unrespected. Many times, too, the servants have more means
than the masters whom they serve, which Epictetus counts an eyesore
and inconvenient. But who can help it? It is an ordinary thing in
these days to see a base impudent ass, illiterate, unworthy,
insufficient, to be preferred before his betters, because he can put
himself forward, because he looks big, can bustle in the world, hath
a fair outside, can temporise, collogue, insinuate, or hath good
store of friends and money, whereas a more discreet, modest, and
better-deserving man shall lie hid or have a repulse. 'Twas so of
old, and ever will be, and which Tiresias advised Ulysses in the
poet,-- Accipe qua ratione queas ditescere, &c., is still in use;
lie, flatter, and dissemble: if not, as he concludes,-- Ergo pauper
eris, then go like a beggar as thou art. Erasmus, Melancthon,
Lipsius, Budaeus, Cardan, lived and died poor. Gesner was a silly
old man, baculo innixus, amongst all those huffing cardinals,
swelling bishops that flourished in his time, and rode on foot-
clothes. It is not honesty, learning, worth, wisdom, that prefers
men, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,"
but as the wise man said, Chance, and sometimes a ridiculous chance.
Casus plerumque ridiculus multos elevavit. 'Tis fortune's doings, as
they say, which made Brutus now dying exclaim, O misera virtus, ergo
nihil quam verba eras, atqui ego te tanquam rem exercebam, sed tu
serviebas fortunae. ("O wretched virtue! you are therefore nothing
but words, and I have all this time been looking upon you as a
reality, while you are yourself the slave of fortune.") Believe it
hereafter, O my friends! virtue serves fortune. Yet be not
discouraged (O my well deserving spirits) with this which I have
said, it may be otherwise, though seldom I confess, yet sometimes it
is. But to your farther content, I'll tell you a tale. In Maronia
pia, or Maronia felix, I know not whether, nor how long since, nor
in what cathedral church, a fat prebend fell void. The carcass
scarce cold, many suitors were up in an instant. The first had rich
friends, a good purse, and he was resolved to outbid any man before
he would lose it, every man supposed he should carry it. The second
was my lord Bishop's chaplain (in whose gift it was), and he thought
it his due to have it. The third was nobly born, and he meant to get
it by his great parents, patrons, and allies. The fourth stood upon
his worth, he had newly found out strange mysteries in chemistry,
and other rare inventions, which he would detect to the public good.
The fifth was a painful preacher, and he was commended by the whole
parish where he dwelt, he had all their hands to his certificate.
The sixth was the prebendary's son lately deceased, his father died
in debt (for it, as they say), left a wife and many poor children.
The seventh stood upon fair promises, which to him and his noble
friends had been formerly made for the next place in his lordship's
gift. The eighth pretended great losses, and what he had suffered
for the church, what pains he had taken at home and abroad, and
besides he brought noblemen's letters. The ninth had married a
kinswoman, and he sent his wife to sue for him. The tenth was a
foreign doctor, a late convert, and wanted means. The eleventh would
exchange for another, he did not like the former's site, could not
agree with his neighbours and fellows upon any terms, he would be
gone. The twelfth and last was (a suitor in conceit) a right honest,
civil, sober man, an excellent scholar, and such a one as lived
private in the university, but he had neither means nor money to
compass it; besides he hated all such courses, he could not speak
for himself, neither had he any friends to solicit his cause, and
therefore made no suit, could not expect, neither did he hope for,
or look after it. The good bishop amongst a jury of competitors thus
perplexed, and not yet resolved what to do, or on whom to bestow it,
at the last, of his own accord, mere motion, and bountiful nature,
gave it freely to the university student, altogether unknown to him
but by fame; and to be brief, the academical scholar had the prebend
sent him for a present. The news was no sooner published abroad, but
all good students rejoiced, and were much cheered up with it, though
some would not believe it; others, as men amazed, said it was a
miracle; but one amongst the rest thanked God for it, and said, Nunc
juvat tandem studiosum esse, et Deo integro corde servire. You have
heard my tale: but alas it is but a tale, a mere fiction, 'twas
never so, never like to be, and so let it rest. Well, be it so then,
they have wealth and honour, fortune and preferment, every man
(there's no remedy) must scramble as he may, and shift as he can;
yet Cardan comforted himself with this, "the star Fomahant would
make him immortal," and that after his decease his books should be
found in ladies' studies: Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori. (Hor.
"The muse forbids the praiseworthy man to die.") But why shouldst
thou take thy neglect, thy canvas so to heart? It may be thou art
not fit; but a child that puts on his father's shoes, hat,
headpiece, breastplate, breeches, or holds his spear, but is neither
able to wield the one, or wear the other; so wouldst thou do by such
an office, place, or magistracy: thou art unfit: "And what is
dignity to an unworthy man, but (as Salvianus holds) a gold ring in
a swine's snout?" Thou art a brute. Like a bad actor (so Plutarch
compares such men in a tragedy, diadema fert, at vox non auditur:
Thou wouldst play a king's part, but actest a clown, speakest like
an ass. Magna petis Phaeton et quae non viribus istis, &c., as James
and John, the sons of Zebedee, did ask they knew not what: nescis
temerarie nescis; thou dost, as another Suffenus, overween thyself;
thou art wise in thine own conceit, but in other more mature
judgment altogether unfit to manage such a business. Or be it thou
art more deserving than any of thy rank, God in his providence hath
reserved thee for some other fortunes, sic superis visum. Thou art
humble as thou art, it may be; hadst thou been preferred, thou
wouldst have forgotten God and thyself, insulted over others,
contemned thy friends, been a block, a tyrant, or a demigod,
sequiturque superbia formam: "Therefore," saith Chrysostom, "good
men do not always find grace and favour, lest they should be puffed
up with turgent titles, grow insolent and proud."
Injuries, abuses, are very offensive, and so much the more in
that they think veterem ferendo invitant novam, "by taking one they
provoke another:" but it is an erroneous opinion, for if that were
true, there would be no end of abusing each other; lis litem
generat; 'tis much better with patience to bear, or quietly to put
it up. If an ass kick me, saith Socrates, shall I strike him again?
And when his wife Xantippe struck and misused him, to some friends
that would have had him strike her again, he replied, that he would
not make them sport, or that they should stand by and say, Eia
Socrates, eia Xantippe, as we do when dogs fight, animate them the
more by clapping of hands. Many men spend themselves, their goods,
friends, fortunes, upon small quarrels, and sometimes at other men's
procurements, with much vexation of spirit and anguish of mind, all
which with good advice, or mediation of friends, might have been
happily composed, or if patience had taken place. Patience in such
cases is a most sovereign remedy, to put up, conceal, or dissemble
it, to forget and forgive, "not seven, but seventy-seven times, as
often as he repents forgive him;" Luke xvii. 3. as our Saviour
enjoins us, stricken, "to turn the other side:" as our Apostle
persuades us, "to recompense no man evil for evil, but as much as is
possible to have peace with all men: not to avenge ourselves, and we
shall heap burning coals upon our adversary's head." "For if you put
up wrong" (as Chrysostom comments), "you get the victory; he that
loseth his money, loseth not the conquest in this our philosophy."
If he contend with thee, submit thyself unto him first, yield to
him. Durum et durum non faciunt murum, as the diverb is, two
refractory spirits will never agree, the only means to overcome is
to relent, obsequio vinces. Euclid in Plutarch, when his brother had
angered him, swore he would be revenged; but he gently replied, "Let
me not live if I do not make thee to love me again," upon which meek
answer he was pacified.
"Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus,
Frangis si vires experire tuas."
"A branch if easily bended yields to thee,
Pull hard it breaks: the difference you see."
The noble family of the Colonni in Rome, when they were
expelled the city by that furious Alexander the Sixth, gave the
bending branch therefore as an impress, with this motto, Flecti
potest, frangi non potest, to signify that he might break them by
force, but so never make them stoop, for they fled in the midst of
their hard usage to the kingdom of Naples, and were honourably
entertained by Frederick the king, according to their callings.
Gentleness in this case might have done much more, and let thine
adversary be never so perverse, it may be by that means thou mayst
win him; favore et benevolentia etiam immanis animus mansuescit,
soft words pacify wrath, and the fiercest spirits are so soonest
overcome; a generous lion will not hurt a beast that lies prostrate,
nor an elephant an innocuous creature, but is infestus infestis, a
terror and scourge alone to such as are stubborn, and make
resistance. It was the symbol of Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy,
and he was not mistaken in it, for
"Quo quisque est major, magis est placabilis irae,
Et faciles motus mens generosa capit."
"A greater man is soonest pacified,
A noble spirit quickly satisfied."
It is reported by Gualter Mapes, an old historiographer of
ours (who lived 400 years since), that King Edward senior, and
Llewellyn prince of Wales, being at an interview near Aust upon
Severn, in Gloucestershire, and the prince sent for, refused to come
to the king; he would needs go over to him; which Llewellyn
perceiving, "went up to the arms in water, and embracing his boat,
would have carried him out upon his shoulders, adding that his
humility and wisdom had triumphed over his pride and folly," and
thereupon he was reconciled unto him and did his homage. If thou
canst not so win him, put it up, if thou beest a true Christian, a
good divine, an imitator of Christ, ("for he was reviled and put it
up, whipped and sought no revenge,") thou wilt pray for thine
enemies, "and bless them that persecute thee;" be patient, meek,
humble, &c. An honest man will not offer thee injury, probus non
vult; if he were a brangling knave, 'tis his fashion so to do; where
is least heart is most tongue; quo quisque stultior, eo magis
insolescit, the more sottish he is, still the more insolent: "Do not
answer a fool according to his folly." If he be thy superior, bear
it by all means, grieve not at it, let him take his course; Anitus
and Melitus "may kill me, they cannot hurt me;" as that generous
Socrates made answer in like case. Mens immota manet, though the
body be torn in pieces with wild horses, broken on the wheel,
pinched with fiery tongs, the soul cannot be distracted. 'Tis an
ordinary thing for great men to vilify and insult, oppress, injure,
tyrannise, to take what liberty they list, and who dare speak
against? Miserum est ab eo laedi, a quo non possis queri, a miserable
thing 'tis to be injured of him, from whom is no appeal: and not
safe to write against him that can proscribe and punish a man at his
pleasure, which Asinius Pollio was aware of, when Octavianus
provoked him. 'Tis hard I confess to be so injured: one of Chilo's
three difficult things: "To keep counsel; spend his time well; put
up injuries:" but be thou patient, and leave revenge unto the Lord.
"Vengeance is mine and I will repay, saith the Lord"--"I know the
Lord," saith David, "will avenge the afflicted and judge the poor."-
-"No man" (as Plato farther adds) "can so severely punish his
adversary, as God will such as oppress miserable men."
"Iterum ille rem judicatam judicat,
Majoreque mulcta mulctat."
Arcturus in Plaut. "He adjudicates judgment again, and
punishes with a still greater penalty."
If there be any religion, any God, and that God be just, it shall be
so; if thou believest the one, believe the other: Erit, erit, it
shall be so. Nemesis comes after, sero sed serio, stay but a little
and thou shalt see God's just judgment overtake him.
"Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede poena claudo."
"Yet with sure steps, though lame and slow,
Vengeance o'ertakes the trembling villain's speed."
Thou shalt perceive that verified of Samuel to Agag, 1 Sam.
xv. 33. "Thy sword hath made many women childless, so shall thy
mother be childless amongst other women." It shall be done to them
as they have done to others. Conradinus, that brave Suevian prince,
came with a well-prepared army into the kingdom of Naples, was taken
prisoner by king Charles, and put to death in the flower of his
youth; a little after (ultionem Conradini mortis, Pandulphus
Collinutius Hist. Neap. lib. 5. calls it), King Charles's own son,
with two hundred nobles, was so taken prisoner, and beheaded in like
sort. Not in this only, but in all other offences, quo quisque
peccat in eo punietur, they shall be punished in the same kind, in
the same part, like nature, eye with or in the eye, head with or in
the head, persecution with persecution, lust with effects of lust;
let them march on with ensigns displayed, let drums beat on,
trumpets sound taratantarra, let them sack cities, take the spoil of
countries, murder infants, deflower virgins, destroy, burn,
persecute, and tyrannise, they shall be fully rewarded at last in
the same measure, they and theirs, and that to their desert.
"Ad generum Cereris sine caede et sanguine pauci
Descendunt reges et sicca morte tyranni."
"Few tyrants in their beds do die,
But stabb'd or maim'd to hell they hie."
Oftentimes too a base contemptible fellow is the instrument of
God's justice to punish, to torture, and vex them, as an ichneumon
doth a crocodile. They shall be recompensed according to the works
of their hands, as Haman was hanged on the gallows he provided for
Mordecai; "They shall have sorrow of heart, and be destroyed from
under the heaven," Thre. iii. 64, 65, 66. Only be thou patient:
vincit qui patitur: and in the end thou shalt be crowned. Yea, but
'tis a hard matter to do this, flesh and blood may not abide it;
'tis grave, grave! no (Chrysostom replies) non est grave, o homo!
'tis not so grievous, "neither had God commanded it, if it had been
so difficult." But how shall it be done? "Easily," as he follows it,
"if thou shalt look to heaven, behold the beauty of it, and what God
hath promised to such as put up injuries." But if thou resist and go
about vim vi repellere, as the custom of the world is, to right
thyself, or hast given just cause of offence, 'tis no injury then
but a condign punishment; thou hast deserved as much: A te
principium, in te recredit crimen quod a te fuit; peccasti, quiesce,
as Ambrose expostulates with Cain, lib. 3. de Abel et Cain.
Dionysius of Syracuse, in his exile, was made to stand without door,
patienter ferendum, fortasse nos tale quid fecimus, quum in honore
essemus, he wisely put it up, and laid the fault where it was, on
his own pride and scorn, which in his prosperity he had formerly
showed others. 'Tis Tully's axiom, ferre ea molestissime homines
non debent, quae ipsorum culpa contracta sunt, self do, self have, as
the saying is, they may thank themselves. For he that doth wrong
must look to be wronged again; habet et musca splenem, et formicae
sua bills inest. The least fly hath a spleen, and a little bee a
sting. An ass overwhelmed a thistlewarp's nest, the little bird
pecked his galled back in revenge; and the humble-bee in the fable
flung down the eagle's eggs out of Jupiter's lap. Bracides, in
Plutarch, put his hand into a mouse's nest and hurt her young ones,
she bit him by the finger: I see now (saith he) there is no creature
so contemptible, that will not be revenged. 'Tis lex talionis, and
the nature of all things so to do: if thou wilt live quietly
thyself, do no wrong to others; if any be done thee, put it up, with
patience endure it, for "this is thankworthy," saith our apostle,
"if any man for conscience towards God endure grief, and suffer
wrong undeserved; for what praise is it, if when ye be buffeted for
you faults, ye take it patiently? But if when you do well, ye suffer
wrong, and take it patiently, there is thanks with God; for hereunto
verily we are called." Qui mala non fert, ipse sibi testis est per
impatientiam quod bonus non est, "he that cannot bear injuries,
witnesseth against himself that he is no good man," as Gregory
holds. "'Tis the nature of wicked men to do injuries, as it is the
property of all honest men patiently to bear them." Improbitas nullo
flectitur obsequio. The wolf in the emblem sucked the goat (so the
shepherd would have it), but he kept nevertheless a wolf's nature; a
knave will be a knave. Injury is on the other side a good man's
footboy, his fidus Achates, and as a lackey follows him wheresoever
he goes. Besides, misera est fortuna quae caret inimico, he is in a
miserable estate that wants enemies: it is a thing not to be
avoided, and therefore with more patience to be endured. Cato
Censorius, that upright Cato of whom Paterculus gives that
honourable eulogium, bene fecit quod aliter facere non potuit, was
fifty times indicted and accused by his fellow citizens, and as
Ammianus well hath it, Quis erit innocens si clam vel palam
accusasse sufficiat? if it be sufficient to accuse a man openly or
in private, who shall be free? If there were no other respect than
that of Christianity, religion and the like, to induce men to be
long-suffering and patient, yet methinks the nature of injury itself
is sufficient to keep them quiet, the tumults, uproars, miseries,
discontents, anguish, loss, dangers that attend upon it might
restrain the calamities of contention: for as it is with ordinary
gamesters, the gains go to the box, so falls it out to such as
contend; the lawyers get all; and therefore if they would consider
of it, aliena pericula cantos, other men's misfortunes in this kind,
and common experience might detain them. The more they contend, the
more they are involved in a labyrinth of woes, and the catastrophe
is to consume one another, like the elephant and dragon's conflict
in Pliny; the dragon got under the elephant's belly, and sucked his
blood so long, till he fell down dead upon the dragon, and killed
him with the fall, so both were ruined. 'Tis a hydra's head,
contention; the more they strive, the more they may: and as
Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, brake
it in pieces: but for that one he saw many more as bad in a moment:
for one injury done they provoke another cum foenore, and twenty
enemies for one. Noli irritare crabrones, oppose not thyself to a
multitude: but if thou hast received a wrong, wisely consider of it,
and if thou canst possibly, compose thyself with patience to bear
it. This is the safest course, and thou shalt find greatest ease to
be quiet.
I say the same of scoffs, slanders, contumelies, obloquies,
defamations, detractions, pasquilling libels, and the like, which
may tend any way to our disgrace: 'tis but opinion; if we could
neglect, contemn, or with patience digest them, they would reflect
on them that offered them at first. A wise citizen, I know not
whence, had a scold to his wife: when she brawled, he played on his
drum, and by that means madded her more, because she saw that he
would not be moved. Diogenes in a crowd when one called him back,
and told him how the boys laughed him to scorn, Ego, inquit, non
rideor, took no notice of it. Socrates was brought upon the stage by
Aristophanes, and misused to his face, but he laughed as if it
concerned him not: and as Aelian relates of him, whatsoever good or
bad accident or fortune befel him going in or coming out, Socrates
still kept the same countenance; even so should a Christian do, as
Hierom describes him, per infamiam et bonam famam grassari ad
immortalitatem, march on through good and bad reports to
immortality, not to be moved: for honesty is a sufficient reward,
probitas sibi, praemium; and in our times the sole recompense to do
well, is, to do well: but naughtiness will punish itself at last,
Improbis ipsa nequitia supplicium. As the diverb is,
"Qui bene fecerunt, illi sua facta sequentur;
Qui male fecerunt, facta sequentur eos:"
"They that do well, shall have reward at last:
But they that ill, shall suffer for that's past."
Yea, but I am ashamed, disgraced, dishonoured, degraded,
exploded: my notorious crimes and villainies are come to light
(deprendi miserum est), my filthy lust, abominable oppression and
avarice lies open, my good name's lost, my fortune's gone, I have
been stigmatised, whipped at post, arraigned and condemned, I am a
common obloquy, I have lost my ears, odious, execrable, abhorred of
God and men. Be content, 'tis but a nine days' wonder, and as one
sorrow drives out another, one passion another, one cloud another,
one rumour is expelled by another; every day almost, come new news
unto our ears, as how the sun was eclipsed, meteors seen in the air,
monsters born, prodigies, how the Turks were overthrown in Persia,
an earthquake in Helvetia, Calabria, Japan, or China, an inundation
in Holland, a great plague in Constantinople, a fire at Prague, a
dearth in Germany, such a man is made a lord, a bishop, another
hanged, deposed, pressed to death, for some murder, treason, rape,
theft, oppression, all which we do hear at first with a kind of
admiration, detestation, consternation, but by and by they are
buried in silence: thy father's dead, thy brother robbed, wife runs
mad, neighbour hath killed himself; 'tis heavy, ghastly, fearful
news at first, in every man's mouth, table talk; but after a while
who speaks or thinks of it? It will be so with thee and thine
offence, it will be forgotten in an instant, be it theft, rape,
sodomy, murder, incest, treason, &c., thou art not the first
offender, nor shalt not be the last, 'tis no wonder, every hour such
malefactors are called in question, nothing so common, Quocunque in
populo, quocunque sub axe (Amongst people in every climate). Comfort
thyself, thou art not the sole man. If he that were guiltless
himself should fling the first stone at thee, and he alone should
accuse thee that were faultless, how many executioners, how many
accusers wouldst thou have? If every man's sins were written in his
forehead, and secret faults known, how many thousands would
parallel, if not exceed thine offence? It may be the judge that gave
sentence, the jury that condemned thee, the spectators that gazed on
thee, deserved much more, and were far more guilty than thou
thyself. But it is thine infelicity to be taken, to be made a public
example of justice, to be a terror to the rest; yet should every man
have his desert, thou wouldst peradventure be a saint in comparison;
vexat censura columbas, poor souls are punished; the great ones do
twenty thousand times worse, and are not so much as spoken of.
"Non rete accipitri tenditur neque milvio,
Qui male faciunt nobis; illis qui nil faciunt tenditur."
"The net's not laid for kites or birds of prey,
But for the harmless still our gins we lay."
Be not dismayed then, humanum est errare, we are all sinners,
daily and hourly subject to temptations, the best of us is a
hypocrite, a grievous offender in God's sight, Noah, Lot, David,
Peter, &c., how many mortal sins do we commit? Shall I say, be
penitent, ask forgiveness, and make amends by the sequel of thy
life, for that foul offence thou hast committed? recover thy credit
by some noble exploit, as Themistocles did, for he was a most
debauched and vicious youth, sed juventae maculas praeclaris factis
delevit, but made the world amends by brave exploits; at last become
a new man, and seek to be reformed. He that runs away in a battle,
as Demosthenes said, may fight again; and he that hath a fall may
stand as upright as ever he did before. Nemo desperet meliora
lapsus, a wicked liver may be reclaimed, and prove an honest man; he
that is odious in present, hissed out, an exile, may be received
again with all men's favours, and singular applause; so Tully was in
Rome, Alcibiades in Athens. Let thy disgrace then be what it will,
quod fit, infectum non potest esse, that which is past cannot be
recalled; trouble not thyself, vex and grieve thyself no more, be it
obloquy, disgrace, &c. No better way, than to neglect, contemn, or
seem not to regard it, to make no reckoning of it, Deesse robur
arguit dicacitas: if thou be guiltless it concerns thee not:
"Irrita vaniloquae quid curas spicula linguae,
Latrantem curatne alta Diana canem?"
(Camerar. emb. 61. cent. 3. "Why should you regard the
harmless shafts of a vain-speaking tongue--does the exalted
Diana care for the barking of a dog?")
Doth the moon care for the barking of a dog? They detract,
scoff and rail, saith one, and bark at me on every side, but I, like
that Albanian dog sometimes given to Alexander for a present,
vindico me ab illis solo contemptu, I lie still and sleep, vindicate
myself by contempt alone. Expers terroris Achilles armatus: as a
tortoise in his shell, virtute mea me involvo, or an urchin round,
nil moror ictus a lizard in camomile, I decline their fury and am
safe.
"Integritas virtusque suo munimine tuta,
Non patet adversae morsibus invidiae:"
"Virtue and integrity are their own fence,
Care not for envy or what comes from thence."
Let them rail then, scoff, and slander, sapiens contumelia non
afficitur, a wise man, Seneca thinks, is not moved, because he
knows, contra Sycophantae morsum non est remedium, there is no remedy
for it: kings and princes, wise, grave, prudent, holy, good men,
divine, are all so served alike. O Jane a tergo quem nulla ciconia
pinsit, Antevorta and Postvorta, Jupiter's guardians, may not help
in this case, they cannot protect; Moses had a Dathan, a Corath,
David a Shimei, God himself is blasphemed: nondum felix es si te
nondum turba deridet. It is an ordinary thing so to be misused.
Regium est cum bene faceris male audire, the chiefest men and most
understanding are so vilified; let him take his course. And as that
lusty courser in Aesop, that contemned the poor ass, came by and by
after with his bowels burst, a pack on his back, and was derided of
the same ass: contemnentur ab iis quos ipsi prius contempsere, et
irridebuntur ab iis quos ipsi prius irrisere, they shall be
contemned and laughed to scorn of those whom they have formerly
derided. Let them contemn, defame, or undervalue, insult, oppress,
scoff, slander, abuse, wrong, curse and swear, feign and lie, do
thou comfort thyself with a good conscience, in sinu gaudeas, when
they have all done, "a good conscience is a continual feast,"
innocency will vindicate itself: and which the poet gave out of
Hercules, diis fruitur iratis, enjoy thyself, though all the world
be set against thee, contemn and say with him, Elogium mihi prae,
foribus, my posy is, "not to be moved, that my palladium, my
breastplate, my buckler, with which I ward all injuries, offences,
lies, slanders; I lean upon that stake of modesty, so receive and
break asunder all that foolish force of liver and spleen." And
whosoever he is that shall observe these short instructions, without
all question he shall much ease and benefit himself.
In fine, if princes would do justice, judges be upright,
clergymen truly devout, and so live as they teach, if great men
would not be so insolent, if soldiers would quietly defend us, the
poor would be patient, rich men would be liberal and humble,
citizens honest, magistrates meek, superiors would give good
example, subjects peaceable, young men would stand in awe: if
parents would be kind to their children, and they again obedient to
their parents, brethren agree amongst themselves, enemies be
reconciled, servants trusty to their masters, virgins chaste, wives
modest, husbands would be loving and less jealous: if we could
imitate Christ and his apostles, live after God's laws, these
mischiefs would not so frequently happen amongst us; but being most
part so irreconcilable as we are, perverse, proud, insolent,
factious, and malicious, prone to contention, anger and revenge, of
such fiery spirits, so captious, impious, irreligious, so opposite
to virtue, void of grace, how should it otherwise be? Many men are
very testy by nature, apt to mistake, apt to quarrel, apt to provoke
and misinterpret to the worst, everything that is said or done, and
thereupon heap unto themselves a great deal of trouble, and
disquietness to others, smatterers in other men's matters, tale-
bearers, whisperers, liars, they cannot speak in season, or hold
their tongues when they should, Et suam partem itidem tacere cum
aliena est oratio: they will speak more than comes to their shares,
in all companies, and by those bad courses accumulate much evil to
their own souls (qui contendit, sibi convicium facit) their life is
a perpetual brawl, they snarl like so many dogs, with their wives,
children, servants, neighbours, and all the rest of their friends,
they can agree with nobody. But to such as are judicious, meek,
submissive, and quiet, these matters are easily remedied: they will
forbear upon all such occasions, neglect, contemn, or take no notice
of them, dissemble, or wisely turn it off. If it be a natural
impediment, as a red nose, squint eyes, crooked legs, or any such
imperfection, infirmity, disgrace, reproach, the best way is to
speak of it first thyself, and so thou shalt surely take away all
occasions from others to jest at, or contemn, that they may perceive
thee to be careless of it. Vatinius was wont to scoff at his own
deformed feet, to prevent his enemies' obloquies and sarcasms in
that kind; or else by prevention, as Cotys, king of Thrace, that
brake a company of fine glasses presented to him, with his own
hands, lest he should be overmuch moved when they were broken by
chance. And sometimes again, so that it be discreetly and moderately
done, it shall not be amiss to make resistance, to take down such a
saucy companion, no better means to vindicate himself to purchase
final peace: for he that suffers himself to be ridden, or through
pusillanimity or sottishness will let every man baffle him, shall be
a common laughing stock to flout at. As a cur that goes through a
village, if he clap his tail between his legs, and run away, every
cur will insult over him: but if he bristle up himself, and stand to
it, give but a counter-snarl, there's not a dog dares meddle with
him: much is in a man's courage and discreet carriage of himself.
Many other grievances there are, which happen to mortals in
this life, from friends, wives, children, servants, masters,
companions, neighbours, our own defaults, ignorance, errors,
intemperance, indiscretion, infirmities, &c., and many good remedies
to mitigate and oppose them, many divine precepts to counterpoise
our hearts, special antidotes both in Scriptures and human authors,
which, whoso will observe, shall purchase much ease and quietness
unto himself: I will point out a few. Those prophetical, apostolical
admonitions are well known to all; what Solomon, Siracides, our
Saviour Christ himself hath said tending to this purpose, as "fear
God: obey the prince: be sober and watch: pray continually: be angry
but sin not: remember thy last: fashion not yourselves to this
world, &c., apply yourselves to the times: strive not with a mighty
man: recompense good for evil, let nothing be done through
contention or vainglory, but with meekness of mind, every man
esteeming of others better than himself: love one another;" or that
epitome of the law and the prophets, which our Saviour inculcates,
"love God above all, thy neighbour as thyself:" and "whatsoever you
would that men should do unto you, so do unto them," which Alexander
Severus writ in letters of gold, and used as a motto, Hierom
commends to Celantia as an excellent way, amongst so many
enticements and worldly provocations, to rectify her life. Out of
human authors take these few cautions, "know thyself. Be contented
with thy lot. Trust not wealth, beauty, nor parasites, they will
bring thee to destruction. Have peace with all men, war with vice.
Be not idle. Look before you leap. Beware of 'had I wist.' Honour
thy parents, speak well of friends. Be temperate in four things,
lingua, locis, oculis, et poculis. Watch thine eye. Moderate thine
expenses. Hear much, speak little, sustine et abstine. If thou seest
ought amiss in another, mend it in thyself. Keep thine own counsel,
reveal not thy secrets, be silent in thine intentions. Give not ear
to tale-tellers, babblers, be not scurrilous in conversation: jest
without bitterness: give no man cause of offence: set thine house in
order: take heed of suretyship. Fide et diffide, as a fox on the
ice, take heed whom you trust. Live not beyond thy means. Give
cheerfully. Pay thy dues willingly. Be not a slave to thy money;
omit not occasion, embrace opportunity, lose no time. Be humble to
thy superiors, respective to thine equals, affable to all, but not
familiar. Flatter no man. Lie not, dissemble not. Keep thy word and
promise, be constant in a good resolution. Speak truth. Be not
opiniative, maintain no factions. Lay no wagers, make no
comparisons. Find no faults, meddle not with other men's matters.
Admire not thyself. Be not proud or popular. Insult not. Fortunam
reverentur habe. Fear not that which cannot be avoided. Grieve not
for that which cannot be recalled. Undervalue not thyself. Accuse no
man, commend no man rashly. Go not to law without great cause.
Strive not with a greater man. Cast not off an old friend, take heed
of a reconciled enemy. If thou come as a guest stay not too long. Be
not unthankful. Be meek, merciful, and patient. Do good to all. Be
not fond of fair words. Be not a neuter in a faction; moderate thy
passions. Think no place without a witness. Admonish thy friend in
secret, commend him in public. Keep good company. Love others to be
beloved thyself. Ama tanquam osurus. Amicus tardo fias. Provide for
a tempest. Noli irritare crabrones. Do not prostitute thy soul for
gain. Make not a fool of thyself to make others merry. Marry not an
old crony or a fool for money. Be not over solicitous or curious.
Seek that which may be found. Seem not greater than thou art. Take
thy pleasure soberly. Ocymum ne terito. Live merrily as thou canst.
Take heed by other men's examples. Go as thou wouldst be met, sit as
thou wouldst be found, yield to the time, follow the stream. Wilt
thou live free from fears and cares? Live innocently, keep thyself
upright, thou needest no other keeper," &c. Look for more in
Isocrates, Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus, &c., and for defect, consult
with cheese-trenchers and painted cloths.
MEMB. VIII.
Against Melancholy itself.
"Every man," saith Seneca, "thinks his own burthen the
heaviest," and a melancholy man above all others complains most;
weariness of life, abhorring all company and light, fear, sorrow,
suspicion, anguish of mind, bashfulness, and those other dread
symptoms of body and mind, must needs aggravate this misery; yet
compared to other maladies, they are not so heinous as they be
taken. For first this disease is either in habit or disposition,
curable or incurable. If new and in disposition, 'tis commonly
pleasant, and it may be helped. If inveterate, or a habit, yet they
have lucida intervalla, sometimes well, and sometimes ill; or if
more continuate, as the Vejentes were to the Romans, 'tis hostis
magis assiduus quam gravis, a more durable enemy than dangerous: and
amongst many inconveniences, some comforts are annexed to it. First
it is not catching, and as Erasmus comforted himself, when he was
grievously sick of the stone, though it was most troublesome, and an
intolerable pain to him, yet it was no whit offensive to others, not
loathsome to the spectators, ghastly, fulsome, terrible, as plagues,
apoplexies, leprosies, wounds, sores, tetters, pox, pestilent agues
are, which either admit of no company, terrify or offend those that
are present. In this malady, that which is, is wholly to themselves:
and those symptoms not so dreadful, if they be compared to the
opposite extremes. They are most part bashful, suspicious, solitary,
&c., therefore no such ambitious, impudent intruders as some are, no
sharkers, no cony-catchers, no prowlers, no smell-feasts, praters,
panders, parasites, bawds, drunkards, whoremasters; necessity and
defect compel them to be honest; as Mitio told Demea in the comedy,
"Haec si neque ego neque tu fecimus,
Non sinit egestas facere nos."
"If we be honest 'twas poverty made us so:"
if we melancholy men be not as bad as he that is worst, 'tis our
dame melancholy kept us so: Non deerat voluntas sed facultas.
("'Twas not the will but the way that was wanting.")
Besides they are freed in this from many other infirmities,
solitariness makes them more apt to contemplate, suspicion wary,
which is a necessary humour in these times, Nam pol que maxime
cavet, is saepe cautor captus est, "he that takes most heed, is often
circumvented, and overtaken." Fear and sorrow keep them temperate
and sober, and free them from any dissolute acts, which jollity and
boldness thrust men upon: they are therefore no sicarii, roaring
boys, thieves or assassins. As they are soon dejected, so they are
as soon, by soft words and good persuasions, reared. Wearisomeness
of life makes them they are not so besotted on the transitory vain
pleasures of the world. If they dote in one thing, they are wise and
well understanding in most other. If it be inveterate, they are
insensati, most part doting, or quite mad, insensible of any wrongs,
ridiculous to others, but most happy and secure to themselves.
Dotage is a state which many much magnify and commend: so is
simplicity, and folly, as he said, sic hic furor o superi, sit mihi
perpetuus. Some think fools and dizzards live the merriest lives, as
Ajax in Sophocles, Nihil scire vita jucundissima, "'tis the
pleasantest life to know nothing;" iners malorum remedium
ignorantia, "ignorance is a downright remedy of evils." These
curious arts and laborious sciences, Galen's, Tully's, Aristotle's,
Justinian's, do but trouble the world some think; we might live
better with that illiterate Virginian simplicity, and gross
ignorance; entire idiots do best, they are not macerated with cares,
tormented with fears, and anxiety, as other wise men are: for as he
said, if folly were a pain, you should hear them howl, roar, and cry
out in every house, as you go by in the street, but they are most
free, jocund, and merry, and in some countries, as amongst the
Turks, honoured for saints, and abundantly maintained out of the
common stock. They are no dissemblers, liars, hypocrites, for fools
and madmen tell commonly truth. In a word, as they are distressed,
so are they pitied, which some hold better than to be envied, better
to be sad than merry, better to be foolish and quiet, quam sapere et
ringi, to be wise and still vexed; better to be miserable than
happy: of two extremes it is the best.
SECT. IV. MEMB. I.
SUBSECT. I.--Of Physic which cureth with Medicines.
After a long and tedious discourse of these six non-natural
things and their several rectifications, all which are comprehended
in diet, I am come now at last to Pharmaceutice, or that kind of
physic which cureth by medicines, which apothecaries most part make,
mingle, or sell in their shops. Many cavil at this kind of physic,
and hold it unnecessary, unprofitable to this or any other disease,
because those countries which use it least, live longest, and are
best in health, as Hector Boethius relates of the isles of Orcades,
the people are still sound of body and mind, without any use of
physic, they live commonly 120 years, and Ortelius in his itinerary
of the inhabitants of the Forest of Arden, "they are very painful,
long-lived, sound," &c. Martianus Capella, speaking of the Indians
of his time, saith, they were (much like our western Indians now)
"bigger than ordinary men, bred coarsely, very long-lived, insomuch,
that he that died at a hundred years of age, went before his time,"
&c. Damianus A-Goes, Saxo Grammaticus, Aubanus Bohemus, say the like
of them that live in Norway, Lapland, Finmark, Biarmia, Corelia, all
over Scandia, and those northern countries, they are most healthful,
and very long-lived, in which places there is no use at all of
physic, the name of it is not once heard. Dithmarus Bleskenius in
his accurate description of Iceland, 1607, makes mention, amongst
other matters, of the inhabitants, and their manner of living,
"which is dried fish instead of bread, butter, cheese, and salt
meats, most part they drink water and whey, and yet without physic
or physician, they live many of them 250 years." I find the same
relation by Lerius, and some other writers, of Indians in America.
Paulus Jovius in his description of Britain, and Levinus Lemnius,
observe as much of this our island, that there was of old no use of
physic amongst us, and but little at this day, except it be for a
few nice idle citizens, surfeiting courtiers, and stall-fed
gentlemen lubbers. The country people use kitchen physic, and common
experience tells vis, that they live freest from all manner of
infirmities, that make least use of apothecaries' physic. Many are
overthrown by preposterous use of it, and thereby get their bane,
that might otherwise have escaped: some think physicians kill as
many as they save, and who can tell, Quot Themison aegros autumno
occiderit uno? "How many murders they make in a year," quibus impune
licet hominem occidere, "that may freely kill folks," and have a
reward for it, and according to the Dutch proverb, a new physician
must have a new churchyard; and who daily observes it not? Many that
did ill under physicians' hands, have happily escaped, when they
have been given over by them, left to God and nature, and
themselves; 'twas Pliny's dilemma of old, "every disease is either
curable or incurable, a man recovers of it or is killed by it; both
ways physic is to be rejected. If it be deadly, it cannot be cured;
if it may be helped, it requires no physician, nature will expel it
of itself." Plato made it a great sign of an intemperate and corrupt
commonwealth, where lawyers and physicians did abound; and the
Romans distasted them so much that they were often banished out of
their city, as Pliny and Celsus relate, for 600 years not admitted.
It is no art at all, as some hold, no not worthy the name of a
liberal science (nor law neither), as Pet. And. Canonherius a
patrician of Rome and a great doctor himself, "one of their own
tribe," proves by sixteen arguments, because it is mercenary as now
used, base, and as fiddlers play for a reward. Juridicis, medicis,
fisco, fas vivere rapto, 'tis a corrupt trade, no science, art, no
profession; the beginning, practice, and progress of it, all is
naught, full of imposture, uncertainty, and doth generally more harm
than good. The devil himself was the first inventor of it: Inventum
est medicina meum, said Apollo, and what was Apollo, but the devil?
The Greeks first made an art of it, and they were all deluded by
Apollo's sons, priests, oracles. If we may believe Varro, Pliny,
Columella, most of their best medicines were derived from his
oracles. Aesculapius his son had his temples erected to his deity,
and did many famous cures; but, as Lactantius holds, he was a
magician, a mere impostor, and as his successors, Phaon, Podalirius,
Melampius, Menecrates, (another God), by charms, spells, and
ministry of bad spirits, performed most of their cures. The first
that ever wrote in physic to any purpose, was Hippocrates, and his
disciple and commentator Galen, whom Scaliger calls Fimbriam
Hippocratis; but as Cardan censures them, both immethodical and
obscure, as all those old ones are, their precepts confused, their
medicines obsolete, and now most part rejected. Those cures which
they did, Paracelsus holds, were rather done out of their patients'
confidence, and good opinion they had of them, than out of any skill
of theirs, which was very small, he saith, they themselves idiots
and infants, as are all their academical followers. The Arabians
received it from the Greeks, and so the Latins, adding new precepts
and medicines of their own, but so imperfect still, that through
ignorance of professors, impostors, mountebanks, empirics,
disagreeing of sectaries, (which are as many almost as there be
diseases) envy, covetousness, and the like, they do much harm
amongst us. They are so different in their consultations,
prescriptions, mistaking many times the parties' constitution,
disease, and causes of it, they give quite contrary physic; "one
saith this, another that," out of singularity or opposition, as he
said of Adrian, multitudo medicorum principem interfecit, "a
multitude of physicians hath killed the emperor;" plus a medico quam
a morbo periculi, "more danger there is from the physician, than
from the disease." Besides, there is much imposture and malice
amongst them. "All arts" (saith Cardan) "admit of cozening, physic,
amongst the rest, doth appropriate it to herself;" and tells a story
of one Curtius, a physician in Venice: because he was a stranger,
and practised amongst them, the rest of the physicians did still
cross him in all his precepts. If he prescribed hot medicines they
would prescribe cold, miscentes pro calidis frigida, pro frigidis
humida, pro purgantibus astringentia, binders for purgatives, omnia
perturbabant. If the party miscarried, Curtium damnabant, Curtius
killed him, that disagreed from them: if he recovered, then they
cured him themselves. Much emulation, imposture, malice, there is
amongst them: if they be honest and mean well, yet a knave
apothecary that administers the physic, and makes the medicine, may
do infinite harm, by his old obsolete doses, adulterine drugs, bad
mixtures, quid pro quo, &c. See Fuchsius lib. 1. sect. 1. cap. 8.
Cordus' Dispensatory, and Brassivola's Examen simpl., &c. But it is
their ignorance that doth more harm than rashness, their art is
wholly conjectural, if it be an art, uncertain, imperfect, and got
by killing of men, they are a kind of butchers, leeches, men-
slayers; chirurgeons and apothecaries especially, that are indeed
the physicians' hangman, carnifices, and common executioners; though
to say truth, physicians themselves come not far behind; for
according to that facete epigram of Maximilianus Urentius, what's
the difference?
"Chirurgicus medico quo differt? scilicet isto,
Enecat hic succis, enecat ille manu:
Carnifice hoc ambo tantum differre videntur,
Tardius hi faciunt, quod facit ille cito."
("How does the surgeon differ from the doctor? In this
respect: one kills by drugs, the other by the hand; both only
differ from the hangman in this way, they do slowly what he
does in an instant.")
But I return to their skill; many diseases they cannot cure at
all, as apoplexy, epilepsy, stone, strangury, gout, Tollere nodosam
nescit medicina Podagram; ("Medicine cannot cure the knotty gout.")
quartan agues, a common ague sometimes stumbles them all, they
cannot so much as ease, they know not how to judge of it. If by
pulses, that doctrine, some hold, is wholly superstitious, and I
dare boldly say with Andrew Dudeth, "that variety of pulses
described by Galen, is neither observed nor understood of any." And
for urine, that is meretrix medicorum, the most deceitful thing of
all, as Forestus and some other physicians have proved at large: I
say nothing of critic days, errors in indications, &c. The most
rational of them, and skilful, are so often deceived, that as
Tholosanus infers, "I had rather believe and commit myself to a mere
empiric, than to a mere doctor, and I cannot sufficiently commend
that custom of the Babylonians, that have no professed physicians,
but bring all their patients to the market to be cured:" which
Herodotus relates of the Egyptians: Strabo, Sardus, and Aubanus
Bohemus of many other nations. And those that prescribed physic,
amongst them, did not so arrogantly take upon them to cure all
diseases, as our professors do, but some one, some another, as their
skill and experience did serve; "One cured the eyes, a second the
teeth, a third the head, another the lower parts," &c., not for
gain, but in charity, to do good, they made neither art, profession,
nor trade of it, which in other places was accustomed: and therefore
Cambyses in Xenophon told Cyrus, that to his thinking, physicians
"were like tailors and cobblers, the one mended our sick bodies, as
the other did our clothes." But I will urge these cavilling and
contumelious arguments no farther, lest some physician should
mistake me, and deny me physic when I am sick: for my part, I am
well persuaded of physic: I can distinguish the abuse from the use,
in this and many other arts and sciences: Alliud vinum, aliud
ebrietas, wine and drunkenness are two distinct things. I
acknowledge it a most noble and divine science, in so much that
Apollo, Aesculapius, and the first founders of it, merito pro diis
habiti, were worthily counted gods by succeeding ages, for the
excellency of their invention. And whereas Apollo at Delos, Venus at
Cyprus, Diana at Ephesus, and those other gods were confined and
adored alone in some peculiar places: Aesculapius and his temple and
altars everywhere, in Corinth, Lacedaemon, Athens, Thebes,
Epidaurus, &c. Pausanius records, for the latitude of his art,
deity, worth, and necessity. With all virtuous and wise men
therefore I honour the name and calling, as I am enjoined "to honour
the physician for necessity's sake. The knowledge of the physician
lifteth up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be
admired. The Lord hath created medicines of the earth, and he that
is wise will not abhor them," Eccles. lviii 1. But of this noble
subject, how many panegyrics are worthily written? For my part, as
Sallust said of Carthage, praestat silere, quam pauca dicere; I have
said, yet one thing I will add, that this kind of physic is very
moderately and advisedly to be used, upon good occasion, when the
former of diet will not take place. And 'tis no other which I say,
than that which Arnoldus prescribes in his 8. Aphoris. "A discreet
and goodly physician doth first endeavour to expel a disease by
medicinal diet, than by pure medicine:" and in his ninth, "he that
may be cured by diet, must not meddle with physic." So in 11.
Aphoris. "A modest and wise physician will never hasten to use
medicines, but upon urgent necessity, and that sparingly too:"
because (as he adds in his 13. Aphoris.) "Whosoever takes much
physic in his youth, shall soon bewail it in his old age:" purgative
physic especially, which doth much debilitate nature. For which
causes some physicians refrain from the use of purgatives, or else
sparingly use them. Henricus Ayrerus in a consultation for a
melancholy person, would have him take as few purges as he could,
"because there be no such medicines, which do not steal away some of
our strength, and rob the parts of our body, weaken nature, and
cause that cacochymia," which Celsus and others observe, or ill
digestion, and bad juice through all the parts of it. Galen himself
confesseth, "that purgative physic is contrary to nature, takes away
some of our best spirits, and consumes the very substance of our
bodies:" But this, without question, is to be understood of such
purges as are unseasonably or immoderately taken: they have their
excellent use in this, as well as most other infirmities. Of
alteratives and cordials no man doubts, be they simples or
compounds. I will amongst that infinite variety of medicines, which
I find in every pharmacopoeia, every physician, herbalist, &c.,
single out some of the chiefest.
SUBSECT. II.-- Simples proper to Melancholy, against Exotic Simples.
Medicines properly applied to melancholy, are either simple or
compound. Simples are alterative or purgative. Alteratives are such
as correct, strengthen nature, alter, any way hinder or resist the
disease; and they be herbs, stones, minerals, &c. all proper to this
humour. For as there be diverse distinct infirmities continually
vexing us,
"???s?? d'a????p??s? ef ?�e?? ?d' ep? ???t?
??t?�at?? f??t?s? ?a?a ???t??s? fe???sa?
S???, epe? f???? e?e??et? �?t?eta ?e??."
"[Noysoi d' anthropoisi eph emere ed' epi nykti
Aytomatoi phoitosi kaka thnaetoisi pheroysai
Sige, epei phonen exeileto metieta Zeus.]"
"Diseases steal both day and night on men,
For Jupiter hath taken voice from them."
So there be several remedies, as he saith, "each disease a
medicine, for every humour;" and as some hold, every clime, every
country, and more than that, every private place hath his proper
remedies growing in it, peculiar almost to the domineering and most
frequent maladies of it, As one discourseth, "wormwood grows
sparingly in Italy, because most part there they be misaffected with
hot diseases: but henbane, poppy, and such cold herbs: with us in
Germany and Poland, great store of it in every waste." Baracellus
Horto geniali, and Baptista Porta Physiognomicae, lib. 6. cap. 23,
give many instances and examples of it, and bring many other proofs.
For that cause belike that learned Fuchsius of Nuremberg, "when he
came into a village, considered always what herbs did grow most
frequently about it, and those he distilled in a silver alembic,
making use of others amongst them as occasion served." I know that
many are of opinion, our northern simples are weak, imperfect, not
so well concocted, of such force, as those in the southern parts,
not so fit to be used in physic, and will therefore fetch their
drugs afar off: senna, cassia out of Egypt, rhubarb from Barbary,
aloes from Socotra; turbith, agaric, mirabolanes, hermodactils, from
the East Indies, tobacco from the west, and some as far as China,
hellebore from the Anticyrae, or that of Austria which bears the
purple flower, which Mathiolus so much approves, and so of the rest.
In the kingdom of Valencia, in Spain, Maginus commends two
mountains, Mariola and Renagolosa, famous for simples; Leander
Albertus, Baldus a mountain near the Lake Benacus in the territory
of Verona, to which all the herbalists in the country continually
flock; Ortelius one in Apulia, Munster Mons major in Istria; others
Montpelier in France; Prosper Altinus prefers Egyptian simples,
Garcias ab Horto Indian before the rest, another those of Italy,
Crete, &c. Many times they are over- curious in this kind, whom
Fuchsius taxeth, Instit. l. 1. sec. 1. cap. 1. "that think they do
nothing, except they rake all over India, Arabia, Ethiopia for
remedies, and fetch their physic from the three quarters of the
world, and from beyond the Garamantes. Many an old wife or country
woman doth often more good with a few known and common garden herbs,
than our bombast physicians, with all their prodigious, sumptuous,
far-fetched, rare, conjectural medicines:" without all question if
we have not these rare exotic simples, we hold that at home, which
is in virtue equivalent unto them, ours will serve as well as
theirs, if they be taken in proportionable quantity, fitted and
qualified aright, if not much better, and more proper to our
constitutions. But so 'tis for the most part, as Pliny writes to
Gallus, "We are careless of that which is near us, and follow that
which is afar off, to know which we will travel and sail beyond the
seas, wholly neglecting that which is under our eyes." Opium in
Turkey doth scarce offend, with us in a small quantity it stupefies;
cicuta or hemlock is a strong poison in Greece, but with us it hath
no such violent effects: I conclude with I. Voschius, who as he much
inveighs against those exotic medicines, so he promiseth by our
European, a full cure and absolute of all diseases; a capite ad
calcem, nostrae regionis herbae nostris corporibus magis conducunt,
our own simples agree best with us. It was a thing that Fernelius
much laboured in his French practice, to reduce all his cure to our
proper and domestic physic; so did Janus Cornarius, and Martin
Rulandus in Germany. T. B. with us, as appeareth by a treatise of
his divulged in our tongue 1615, to prove the sufficiency of English
medicines, to the cure of all manner of diseases. If our simples be
not altogether of such force, or so apposite, it may be, if like
industry were used, those far fetched drugs would prosper as well
with us, as in those countries whence now we have them, as well as
cherries, artichokes, tobacco, and many such. There have been
diverse worthy physicians, which have tried excellent conclusions in
this kind, and many diligent, painful apothecaries, as Gesner,
Besler, Gerard, &c., but amongst the rest those famous public
gardens of Padua in Italy, Nuremberg in Germany, Leyden in Holland,
Montpelier in France, (and ours in Oxford now in fieri, at the cost
and charges for the Right Honourable the Lord Danvers Earl of Danby)
are much to be commended, wherein all exotic plants almost are to be
seen, and liberal allowance yearly made for their better
maintenance, that young students may be the sooner informed in the
knowledge of them: which as Fuchsius holds, "is most necessary for
that exquisite manner of curing," and as great a shame for a
physician not to observe them, as for a workman not to know his axe,
saw, square, or any other tool which he must of necessity use.
SUBSECT. III.-- Alteratives, Herbs, other Vegetables, &c.
Amongst these 800 simples, which Galeottus reckons up, lib. 3.
de promisc. doctor. cap. 3, and many exquisite herbalists have
written of, these few following alone I find appropriated to this
humour: of which some be alteratives; "which by a secret force,"
saith Renodeus, "and special quality expel future diseases,
perfectly cure those which are, and many such incurable effects."
This is as well observed in other plants, stones, minerals, and
creatures, as in herbs, in other maladies as in this. How many
things are related of a man's skull? What several virtues of corns
in a horse-leg, of a wolf's liver, &c. Of diverse excrements of
beasts, all good against several diseases? What extraordinary
virtues are ascribed unto plants? Satyrium et eruca penem erigunt,
vitex et nymphea semen extinguunt, some herbs provoke lust, some
again, as agnus castus, water-lily, quite extinguisheth seed; poppy
causeth sleep, cabbage resisteth drunkenness, &c., and that which is
more to be admired, that such and such plants should have a peculiar
virtue to such particular parts, as to the head aniseeds, foalfoot,
betony, calamint, eye-bright, lavender, bays, roses, rue, sage,
marjoram, peony, &c. For the lungs calamint, liquorice, ennula
campana, hyssop, horehound, water germander, &c. For the heart,
borage, bugloss, saffron, balm, basil, rosemary, violet, roses, &c.
For the stomach, wormwood, mints, betony, balm, centaury, sorrel,
purslain. For the liver, darthspine or camaepitis, germander,
agrimony, fennel, endive, succory, liverwort, barberries. For the
spleen, maidenhair, finger-fern, dodder of thyme, hop, the rind of
ash, betony. For the kidneys, grumel, parsley, saxifrage, plaintain,
mallow. For the womb, mugwort, pennyroyal, fetherfew, savine, &c.
For the joints, camomile, St. John's wort, organ, rue, cowslips,
centaury the less, &c. And so to peculiar diseases. To this of
melancholy you shall find a catalogue of herbs proper, and that in
every part. See more in Wecker, Renodeus, Heurnius lib. 2. cap. 19.
&c. I will briefly speak of them, as first of alteratives, which
Galen, in his third book of diseased parts, prefers before
diminutives, and Trallianus brags, that he hath done more cures on
melancholy men by moistening, than by purging of them.
Borage.] In this catalogue, borage and bugloss may challenge
the chiefest place, whether in substance, juice, roots, seeds,
flowers, leaves, decoctions, distilled waters, extracts, oils, &c.,
for such kind of herbs be diversely varied. Bugloss is hot and
moist, and therefore worthily reckoned up amongst those herbs which
expel melancholy, and exhilarate the heart, Galen, lib. 6. cap. 80.
de simpl. med. Dioscorides, lib. 4. cap. 123. Pliny much magnifies
this plant. It may be diversely used; as in broth, in wine, in
conserves, syrups, &c. It is an excellent cordial, and against this
malady most frequently prescribed; a herb indeed of such
sovereignty, that as Diodorus, lib. 7. bibl. Plinius, lib. 25. cap.
2. et lib. 21. cap. 22. Plutarch, sympos. lib. 1. cap. 1.
Dioscorides, lib. 5. cap. 40. Caelius, lib. 19. c. 3. suppose it was
that famous Nepenthes of Homer, which Polydaenna, Thonis's wife
(then king of Thebes in Egypt), sent Helena for a token, of such
rare virtue, "that if taken steeped in wine, if wife and children,
father and mother, brother and sister, and all thy dearest friends
should die before thy face, thou couldst not grieve or shed a tear
for them."
"Qui semel id patera mistum Nepenthes Iaccho
Hauserit, hic lachrymam, non si suavissima proles,
Si germanus ei charus, materque paterque
Oppetat, ante oculos ferro confossus atroci."
Helena's commended bowl to exhilarate the heart, had no other
ingredient, as most of our critics conjecture, than this of borage.
Balm.] Melissa balm hath an admirable virtue to alter
melancholy, be it steeped in our ordinary drink, extracted, or
otherwise taken. Cardan, lib. 8. much admires this herb. It heats
and dries, saith Heurnius, in the second degree, with a wonderful
virtue comforts the heart, and purgeth all melancholy vapours from
the spirits, Matthiol. in lib. 3. cap. 10. in Dioscoridem. Besides
they ascribe other virtues to it, "as to help concoction, to cleanse
the brain, expel all careful thoughts, and anxious imaginations:"
the same words in effect are in Avicenna, Pliny, Simon Sethi,
Fuchsius, Leobel, Delacampius, and every herbalist. Nothing better
for him that is melancholy than to steep this and borage in his
ordinary drink.
Mathiolus, in his fifth book of Medicinal Epistles, reckons up
scorzonera, "not against poison only, falling sickness, and such as
are vertiginous, but to this malady; the root of it taken by itself
expels sorrow, causeth mirth and lightness of heart."
Antonius Musa, that renowned physician to Caesar Augustus, in
his book which he writ of the virtues of betony, cap. 6. wonderfully
commends that herb, animas hominum et corpora custodit, securas de
metu reddit, it preserves both body and mind, from fears, cares,
griefs; cures falling sickness, this and many other diseases, to
whom Galen subscribes, lib. 7. simp. med. Dioscorides, lib. 4. cap.
1. &c.
Marigold is much approved against melancholy, and often used
therefore in our ordinary broth, as good against this and many other
diseases.
Hop.] Lupulus, hop, is a sovereign remedy; Fuchsius, cap. 58.
Plant. hist. much extols it; "it purgeth all choler, and purifies
the blood." Matthiol. cap. 140. in 4. Dioscor. wonders the
physicians of his time made no more use of it, because it rarefies
and cleanseth: we use it to this purpose in our ordinary beer, which
before was thick and fulsome.
Wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, are likewise magnified and
much prescribed (as I shall after show), especially in hypochondriac
melancholy, daily to be used, sod in whey: and as Ruffus Ephesias,
Areteus relate, by breaking wind, helping concoction, many
melancholy men have been cured with the frequent use of them alone.
And because the spleen and blood are often misaffected in
melancholy, I may not omit endive, succory, dandelion, fumitory,
&c., which cleanse the blood, Scolopendria, cuscuta, ceterache,
mugwort, liverwort, ash, tamarisk, genist, maidenhair, &c., which
must help and ease the spleen.
To these I may add roses, violets, capers, featherfew,
scordium, staechas, rosemary, ros solis, saffron, ochyme, sweet
apples, wine, tobacco, sanders, &c. That Peruvian chamico, monstrosa
facultate &c., Linshcosteus Datura; and to such as are cold, the
decoction of guiacum, China sarsaparilla, sassafras, the flowers of
carduus benedictus, which I find much used by Montanus in his
Consultations, Julius Alexandrinus, Lelius, Egubinus, and others.
Bernardus Penottus prefers his herba solis, or Dutch sindaw, before
all the rest in this disease, "and will admit of no herb upon the
earth to be comparable to it." It excels Homer's moly, cures this,
falling sickness, and almost all other infirmities. The same
Penottus speaks of an excellent balm out of Aponensis, which, taken
to the quantity of three drops in a cup of wine, "will cause a
sudden alteration, drive away dumps, and cheer up the heart." Ant.
Guianerius, in his Antidotary, hath many such. Jacobus de Dondis the
aggregator, repeats ambergris, nutmegs, and allspice amongst the
rest. But that cannot be general. Amber and spice will make a hot
brain mad, good for cold and moist. Garcias ab Horto hath many
Indian plants, whose virtues he much magnifies in this disease.
Lemnius, instit. cap. 58. admires rue, and commends it to have
excellent virtue, "to expel vain imaginations, devils, and to ease
afflicted souls." Other things are much magnified by writers, as an
old cock, a ram's head, a wolf's heart borne or eaten, which
Mercurialis approves; Prosper Altinus the water of Nilus; Gomesius
all seawater, and at seasonable times to be seasick: goat's milk,
whey, &c.
SUBSECT. IV.-- Precious Stones, Metals, Minerals, Alteratives.
Precious stones are diversely censured; many explode the use
of them or any minerals in physic, of whom Thomas Erastus is the
chief, in his tract against Paracelsus, and in an epistle of his to
Peter Monavius, "That stones can work any wonders, let them believe
that list, no man shall persuade me; for my part, I have found by
experience there is no virtue in them." But Matthiolus, in his
comment upon Dioscorides, is as profuse on the other side, in their
commendation; so is Cardan, Renodeus, Alardus, Rueus, Encelius,
Marbodeus, &c. Matthiolus specifies in coral: and Oswaldus Crollius,
Basil. Chym. prefers the salt of coral. Christoph. Encelius, lib. 3.
cap. 131. will have them to be as so many several medicines against
melancholy, sorrow, fear, dullness, and the like; Renodeus admires
them, "besides they adorn kings' crowns, grace the fingers, enrich
our household stuff, defend us from enchantments, preserve health,
cure diseases, they drive away grief, cares, and exhilarate the
mind." The particulars be these.
Granatus, a precious stone so called, because it is like the
kernels of a pomegranate, an imperfect kind of ruby, it comes from
Calecut; "if hung about the neck, or taken in drink, it much
resisteth sorrow, and recreates the heart." The same properties I
find ascribed to the hyacinth and topaz. They allay anger, grief,
diminish madness, much delight and exhilarate the mind. "If it be
either carried about, or taken in a potion, it will increase
wisdom," saith Cardan, "expel fear; he brags that he hath cured many
madmen with it, which, when they laid by the stone, were as mad
again as ever they were at first." Petrus Bayerus, lib. 2. cap. 13.
veni mecum, Fran. Rueus, cap. 19. de geminis, say as much of the
chrysolite, a friend of wisdom, an enemy to folly. Pliny, lib. 37.
Solinus, cap. 52. Albertus de Lapid. Cardan. Encelius, lib. 3. cap.
66. highly magnifies the virtue of the beryl, "it much avails to a
good understanding, represseth vain conceits, evil thoughts, causeth
mirth," &c. In the belly of a swallow there is a stone found called
chelidonius, "which if it be lapped in a fair cloth, and tied to the
right arm, will cure lunatics, madmen, make them amiable and merry."
There is a kind of onyx called a chalcedony, which hath the
same qualities, "avails much against fantastic illusions which
proceed from melancholy," preserves the vigour and good estate of
the whole body.
The Eban stone, which goldsmiths use to sleeken their gold
with, borne about or given to drink, hath the same properties, or
not much unlike.
Levinus Lemnius, Institui. ad vit. cap. 58. amongst other
jewels, makes mention of two more notable; carbuncle and coral,
"which drive away childish fears, devils, overcome sorrow, and hung
about the neck repress troublesome dreams," which properties almost
Cardan gives to that green-coloured emmetris if it be carried about,
or worn in a ring; Rueus to the diamond.
Nicholas Cabeus, a Jesuit of Ferrara, in the first book of his
Magnetical Philosophy, cap. 3. speaking of the virtues of a
loadstone, recites many several opinions; some say that if it be
taken in parcels inward, si quis per frustra voret, juventutem
restituet, it will, like viper's wine, restore one to his youth; and
yet if carried about them, others will have it to cause melancholy;
let experience determine.
Mercurialis admires the emerald for its virtues in pacifying
all affections of the mind; others the sapphire, which is "the
fairest of all precious stones, of sky colour, and a great enemy to
black choler, frees the mind, mends manners," &c. Jacobus de Dondis,
in his catalogue of simples, hath ambergris, os in corde cervi, the
bone in a stag's heart, a monocerot's horn, bezoar's stone (of which
elsewhere), it is found in the belly of a little beast in the East
Indies, brought into Europe by Hollanders, and our countrymen
merchants. Renodeus, cap. 22. lib. 3. de ment. med. saith he saw two
of these beasts alive, in the castle of the Lord of Vitry at
Coubert.
Lapis lazuli and armenus, because they purge, shall be
mentioned in their place.
Of the rest in brief thus much I will add out of Cardan,
Renodeus, cap. 23. lib. 3. Rondoletius, lib. 1. de Testat. c. 15.
&c. "That almost all jewels and precious stones have excellent
virtues" to pacify the affections of the mind, for which cause rich
men so much covet to have them: "and those smaller unions which are
found in shells amongst the Persians and Indians, by the consent of
all writers, are very cordial, and most part avail to the
exhilaration of the heart."
Minerals.] Most men say as much of gold and some other
minerals, as these have done of precious stones. Erastus still
maintains the opposite part. Disput. in Paracelsum. cap. 4. fol.
196. he confesseth of gold, "that it makes the heart merry, but in
no other sense but as it is in a miser's chest:" at mihi plaudo
simul ac nummos contemplor in arca, as he said in the poet, it so
revives the spirits, and is an excellent recipe against melancholy,
For gold in physic is a cordial,
Therefore he loved gold in special.
Aurum potabile, he discommends and inveighs against it, by
reason of the corrosive waters which are used in it: which argument
our Dr. Guin urgeth against D. Antonius. Erastus concludes their
philosophical stones and potable gold, &c. "to be no better than
poison," a mere imposture, a non ens; dug out of that broody hill
belike this golden stone is, ubi nascetur ridiculus mus. Paracelsus
and his chemistical followers, as so many Promethei, will fetch fire
from heaven, will cure all manner of diseases with minerals,
accounting them the only physic on the other side. Paracelsus calls
Galen, Hippocrates, and all their adherents, infants, idiots,
sophisters, &c. Apagesis istos qui Vulcanias istas metamorphoses
sugillant, inscitiae soboles, supinae pertinaciae alumnos, &c., not
worthy the name of physicians, for want of these remedies: and brags
that by them he can make a man live 160 years, or to the world's
end, with their Alexipharmacums, Panaceas, Mummias, unguentum
Armarium, and such magnetical cures, Lampas vitae et mortis, Balneum
Dianae, Balsamum, Electrum Magico-physicum, Amuleta Martialia, &c.
What will not he and his followers effect? He brags, moreover, that
he was primus medicorum, and did more famous cures than all the
physicians in Europe besides, "a drop of his preparations should go
farther than a dram, or ounce of theirs," those loathsome and
fulsome filthy potions, heteroclitical pills (so he calls them),
horse medicines, ad quoram aspectum Cyclops Polyphemus
exhorresceret. And though some condemn their skill and magnetical
cures as tending to magical superstition, witchery, charms, &c., yet
they admire, stiffly vindicate nevertheless, and infinitely prefer
them. But these are both in extremes, the middle sort approve of
minerals, though not in so high a degree. Lemnius lib. 3. cap. 6. de
occult. nat. mir. commends gold inwardly and outwardly used, as in
rings, excellent good in medicines; and such mixtures as are made
for melancholy men, saith Wecker, antid. spec. lib. 1. to whom
Renodeus subscribes, lib. 2. cap. 2. Ficinus, lib. 2. cap. 19.
Fernel. meth. med. lib. 5. cap. 21. de Cardiacis. Daniel Sennertus,
lib. 1. part. 2. cap. 9. Audernacus, Libavius, Quercetanus, Oswaldus
Crollius, Euvonymus, Rubeus, and Matthiolus in the fourth book of
his Epistles, Andreas a Blawen epist. ad Matthiolum, as commended
and formerly used by Avicenna, Arnoldus, and many others: Matthiolus
in the same place approves of potable gold, mercury, with many such
chemical confections, and goes so far in approbation of them, that
he holds "no man can be an excellent physician that hath not some
skill in chemistical distillations, and that chronic diseases can
hardly be cured without mineral medicines:" look for antimony among
purgers.
SUBSECT. V.-- Compound Alteratives; censure of Compounds, and mixed
Physic.
Pliny, lib. 24. c. 1, bitterly taxeth all compound medicines,
"Men's knavery, imposture, and captious wits, have invented those
shops, in which every man's life is set to sale: and by and by came
in those compositions and inexplicable mixtures, far-fetched out of
India and Arabia; a medicine for a botch must be had as far as the
Red Sea." And 'tis not without cause which he saith; for out of
question they are much to blame in their compositions, whilst they
make infinite variety of mixtures, as Fuchsius notes. "They think
they get themselves great credit, excel others, and to be more
learned than the rest, because they make many variations; but he
accounts them fools, and whilst they brag of their skill, and think
to get themselves a name, they become ridiculous, betray their
ignorance and error." A few simples well prepared and understood,
are better than such a heap of nonsense, confused compounds, which
are in apothecaries' shops ordinarily sold. "In which many vain,
superfluous, corrupt, exolete, things out of date are to be had"
(saith Cornarius); "a company of barbarous names given to syrups,
juleps, an unnecessary company of mixed medicines;" rudis
indigestaque moles. Many times (as Agrippa taxeth) there is by this
means "more danger from the medicine than from the disease," when
they put together they know not what, or leave it to an illiterate
apothecary to be made, they cause death and horror for health. Those
old physicians had no such mixtures; a simple potion of hellebore in
Hippocrates' time was the ordinary purge; and at this day, saith
Mat. Riccius, in that flourishing commonwealth of China, "their
physicians give precepts quite opposite to ours, not unhappy in
their physic; they use altogether roots, herbs, and simples in their
medicines, and all their physic in a manner is comprehended in a
herbal: no science, no school, no art, no degree, but like a trade,
every man in private is instructed of his master." Cardan cracks
that he can cure all diseases with water alone, as Hippocrates of
old did most infirmities with one medicine. Let the best of our
rational physicians demonstrate and give a sufficient reason for
those intricate mixtures, why just so many simples in mithridate or
treacle, why such and such quantity; may they not be reduced to half
or a quarter? Frustra fit per plura (as the saying is) quod fieri
potest per pauciora; 300 simples in a julep, potion, or a little
pill, to what end or purpose? I know not what Alkindus, Capivaccius,
Montagna, and Simon Eitover, the best of them all and most rational,
have said in this kind; but neither he, they, nor any one of them,
gives his reader, to my judgment, that satisfaction which he ought;
why such, so many simples? Rog. Bacon hath taxed many errors in his
tract de graduationibus, explained some things, but not cleared.
Mercurialis in his book de composit. medicin. gives instance in
Hamech, and Philonium Romanum, which Hamech an Arabian, and
Philonius a Roman, long since composed, but crasse as the rest. If
they be so exact, as by him it seems they were, and those mixtures
so perfect, why doth Fernelius alter the one, and why is the other
obsolete? Cardan taxeth Galen for presuming out of his ambition to
correct Theriachum Andromachi, and we as justly may carp at all the
rest. Galen's medicines are now exploded and rejected; what Nicholas
Meripsa, Mesue, Celsus, Scribanius, Actuarius, &c. writ of old, are
most part contemned. Mellichius, Cordus, Wecker, Quercetan,
Renodeus, the Venetian, Florentine states have their several
receipts, and magistrals: they of Nuremberg have theirs, and
Augustana Pharmacopoeia, peculiar medicines to the meridian of the
city: London hers, every city, town, almost every private man hath
his own mixtures, compositions, receipts, magistrals, precepts, as
if he scorned antiquity, and all others in respect of himself. But
each man must correct and alter to show his skill, every
opinionative fellow must maintain his own paradox, be it what it
will; Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi: they dote, and in the
meantime the poor patients pay for their new experiments, the
commonalty rue it.
Thus others object, thus I may conceive out of the weakness of
my apprehension; but to say truth, there is no such fault, no such
ambition, no novelty, or ostentation, as some suppose; but as one
answers, this of compound medicines, "is a most noble and profitable
invention found out, and brought into physic with great judgment,
wisdom, counsel and discretion." Mixed diseases must have mixed
remedies, and such simples are commonly mixed as have reference to
the part affected, some to qualify, the rest to comfort, some one
part, some another. Cardan and Brassavola both hold that Nullum
simplex medicamentum sine noxa, no simple medicine is without hurt
or offence; and although Hippocrates, Erasistratus, Diocles of old,
in the infancy of this art, were content with ordinary simples: yet
now, saith Aetius, "necessity compelleth to seek for new remedies,
and to make compounds of simples, as well to correct their harms if
cold, dry, hot, thick, thin, insipid, noisome to smell, to make them
savoury to the palate, pleasant to taste and take, and to preserve
them for continuance, by admixtion of sugar, honey, to make them
last months and years for several uses." In such cases, compound
medicines may be approved, and Arnoldus in his 18. aphorism, doth
allow of it. "If simples cannot, necessity compels us to use
compounds;" so for receipts and magistrals, dies diem docet, one day
teacheth another, and they are as so many words or phrases, Que nunc
sunt in honore vocabula si volet usus, ebb and flow with the season,
and as wits vary, so they may be infinitely varied. Quisque suum
placitum quo capiatur habet. "Every man as he likes, so many men so
many minds," and yet all tending to good purpose, though not the
same way. As arts and sciences, so physic is still perfected amongst
the rest; Horae musarum nutrices, and experience teacheth us every
day many things which our predecessors knew not of. Nature is not
effete, as he saith, or so lavish, to bestow all her gifts upon an
age, but hath reserved some for posterity, to show her power, that
she is still the same, and not old or consumed. Birds and beasts can
cure themselves by nature, naturae usu ea plerumque cognoscunt quae
homines vix longo labore et doctrina assequuntur, but "men must use
much labour and industry to find it out." But I digress.
Compound medicines are inwardly taken, or outwardly applied.
Inwardly taken, be either liquid or solid: liquid, are fluid or
consisting. Fluid, as wines and syrups. The wines ordinarily used to
this disease are wormwood wine, tamarisk, and buglossatum, wine made
of borage and bugloss, the composition of which is specified in
Arnoldus Villanovanus, lib. de vinis, of borage, balm, bugloss,
cinnamon, &c. and highly commended for its virtues: "it drives away
leprosy, scabs, clears the blood, recreates the spirits, exhilarates
the mind, purgeth the brain of those anxious black melancholy fumes,
and cleanseth the whole body of that black humour by urine. To which
I add," saith Villanovanus, "that it will bring madmen, and such
raging bedlamites as are tied in chains, to the use of their reason
again. My conscience bears me witness, that I do not lie, I saw a
grave matron helped by this means; she was so choleric, and so
furious sometimes, that she was almost mad, and beside herself; she
said, and did she knew not what, scolded, beat her maids, and was
now ready to be bound till she drank of this borage wine, and by
this excellent remedy was cured, which a poor foreigner, a silly
beggar, taught her by chance, that came to crave an alms from door
to door." The juice of borage, if it be clarified, and drunk in
wine, will do as much, the roots sliced and steeped, &c. saith Ant.
Mizaldus, art. med. who cities this story verbatim out of
Villanovanus, and so doth Magninus a physician of Milan, in his
regimen of health. Such another excellent compound water I find in
Rubeus de distill. sect. 3. which he highly magnifies out of
Savanarola, "for such as are solitary, dull, heavy or sad without a
cause, or be troubled with trembling of heart." Other excellent
compound waters for melancholy, he cites in the same place. "If
their melancholy be not inflamed, or their temperature over-hot."
Evonimus hath a precious aquavitae to this purpose, for such as are
cold. But he and most commend aurum potabile, and every writer
prescribes clarified whey, with borage, bugloss, endive, succory,
&c. of goat's milk especially, some indefinitely at all times, some
thirty days together in the spring, every morning fasting, a good
draught. Syrups are very good, and often used to digest this humour
in the heart, spleen, liver, &c. As syrup of borage (there is a
famous syrup of borage highly commended by Laurentius to this
purpose in his tract of melancholy), de pomis of king Sabor, now
obsolete, of thyme and epithyme, hops, scolopendria, fumitory,
maidenhair, bizantine, &c. These are most used for preparatives to
other physic, mixed with distilled waters of like nature, or in
juleps otherwise.
Consisting, are conserves or confections; conserves of borage,
bugloss, balm, fumitory, succory, maidenhair, violets, roses,
wormwood, &c. Confections, treacle, mithridate, eclegms, or
linctures, &c. Solid, as aromatical confections: hot, diambra,
diamargaritum calidum, dianthus, diamoschum dulce, electuarium de
gemmis, laetificans Galeni et Rhasis, diagalanga, diaciminum,
dianisum, diatrion piperion, diazinziber, diacapers, diacinnamonum:
Cold, as diamargaritum frigidum, diacorolli, diarrhodon abbatis,
diacodion, &c. as every pharmacopoeia will show you, with their
tables or losings that are made out of them: with condites and the
like.
Outwardly used as occasion serves, as amulets, oils hot and
cold, as of camomile, staechados, violets, roses, almonds, poppy,
nymphea, mandrake, &c. to be used after bathing, or to procure
sleep.
Ointments composed of the said species, oils and wax, &c., as
Alablastritum Populeum, some hot, some cold, to moisten, procure
sleep, and correct other accidents.
Liniments are made of the same matter to the like purpose:
emplasters of herbs, flowers, roots, &c., with oils, and other
liquors mixed and boiled together.
Cataplasms, salves, or poultices made of green herbs, pounded,
or sod in water till they be soft, which are applied to the
hypochondries, and other parts, when the body is empty.
Cerotes are applied to several parts and frontals, to take
away pain, grief, heat, procure sleep. Fomentations or sponges, wet
in some decoctions, &c., epithemata, or those moist medicines, laid
on linen, to bathe and cool several parts misaffected.
Sacculi, or little bags of herbs, flowers, seeds, roots, and
the like, applied to the head, heart, stomach, &c., odoraments,
balls, perfumes, posies to smell to, all which have their several
uses in melancholy, as shall be shown, when I treat of the cure of
the distinct species by themselves.
MEMB. II.
SUBSECT. I.-- Purging Simples upward.
Melanagoga, or melancholy purging medicines, are either simple
or compound, and that gently, or violently, purging upward or
downward. These following purge upward. Asarum, or Asrabecca, which,
as Mesue saith, is hot in the second degree, and dry in the third,
"it is commonly taken in wine, whey," or as with us, the juice of
two or three leaves or more sometimes, pounded in posset drink
qualified with a little liquorice, or aniseed, to avoid the
fulsomeness of the taste, or as Diaserum Fernelii. Brassivola in
Catart. reckons it up amongst those simples that only purge
melancholy, and Ruellius confirms as much out of his experience,
that it purgeth black choler, like hellebore itself. Galen, lib. G.
simplic. and Matthiolus ascribe other virtues to it, and will have
it purge other humours as well as this.
Laurel, by Heurnius's method, ad prax. lib. 2. cap. 24. is put
amongst the strong purgers of melancholy; it is hot and dry in the
fourth degree. Dioscorides, lib. 11. cap. 114. adds other effects to
it. Pliny sets down fifteen berries in drink for a sufficient
potion: it is commonly corrected with his opposites, cold and moist,
as juice of endive, purslane, and is taken in a potion to seven
grains and a half. But this and asrabecca, every gentlewoman in the
country knows how to give, they are two common vomits.
Scilla, or sea-onion, is hot and dry in the third degree.
Brassivola in Catart. out of Mesue, others, and his own experience,
will have this simple to purge melancholy alone. It is an ordinary
vomit, vinum scilliticum mixed with rubel in a little white wine.
White hellebore, which some call sneezing-powder, a strong
purger upward, which many reject, as being too violent: Mesue and
Averroes will not admit of it, "by reason of danger of suffocation,"
"great pain and trouble it puts the poor patient to," saith
Dodonaeus. Yet Galen, lib. 6. simpl. med. and Dioscorides, cap. 145.
allow of it. It was indeed "terrible in former times," as Pliny
notes, but now familiar, insomuch that many took it in those days,
"that were students, to quicken their wits," which Persius Sat. 1.
objects to Accius the poet, Illas Acci ebria veratro. "It helps
melancholy, the falling sickness, madness, gout, &c., but not to be
taken of old men, youths, such as are weaklings, nice, or
effeminate, troubled with headache, high-coloured, or fear
strangling," saith Dioscorides. Oribasius, an old physician, hath
written very copiously, and approves of it, "in such affections
which can otherwise hardly be cured." Hernius, lib. 2. prax. med. de
vomitoriis, will not have it used "but with great caution, by reason
of its strength, and then when antimony will do no good," which
caused Hermophilus to compare it to a stout captain (as Codroneus
observes cap. 7. comment. de Helleb.) that will see all his soldiers
go before him and come post principia, like the bragging soldier,
last himself; when other helps fail in inveterate melancholy, in a
desperate case, this vomit is to be taken. And yet for all this, if
it be well prepared, it may be securely given at first. Matthiolus
brags, that he hath often, to the good of many, made use of it, and
Heurnius, "that he hath happily used it, prepared after his own
prescript," and with good success. Christophorus a Vega, lib. 3. c.
41, is of the same opinion, that it may be lawfully given; and our
country gentlewomen find it by their common practice, that there is
no such great danger in it. Dr. Turner, speaking of this plant in
his Herbal, telleth us, that in his time it was an ordinary receipt
among good wives, to give hellebore in powder to ii.d. weight, and
he is not much against it. But they do commonly exceed, for who so
bold as blind Bayard, and prescribe it by pennyworths, and such
irrational ways, as I have heard myself market folks ask for it in
an apothecary's shop: but with what success God knows; they smart
often for their rash boldness and folly, break a vein, make their
eyes ready to start out of their heads, or kill themselves. So that
the fault is not in the physic, but in the rude and indiscreet
handling of it. He that will know, therefore, when to use, how to
prepare it aright, and in what dose, let him read Heurnius lib. 2.
prax. med. Brassivola de Catart. Godefridus Stegius the emperor
Rudolphus' physician, cap. 16. Matthiolus in Dioscor. and that
excellent commentary of Baptista Codroncus, which is instar omnium
de Helleb. alb. where we shall find great diversity of examples and
receipts.
Antimony or stibium, which our chemists so much magnify, is
either taken in substance or infusion, &c., and frequently
prescribed in this disease. "It helps all infirmities," saith
Matthiolus, "which proceed from black choler, falling sickness, and
hypochondriacal passions;" and for farther proof of his assertion,
he gives several instances of such as have been freed with it: one
of Andrew Gallus, a physician of Trent, that after many other
essays, "imputes the recovery of his health, next after God, to this
remedy alone." Another of George Handshius, that in like sort, when
other medicines failed, "was by this restored to his former health,
and which of his knowledge others have likewise tried, and by the
help of this admirable medicine, been recovered." A third of a
parish priest at Prague in Bohemia, "that was so far gone with
melancholy, that he doted, and spake he knew not what; but after he
had taken twelve grains of stibium, (as I myself saw, and can
witness, for I was called to see this miraculous accident) he was
purged of a deal of black choler, like little gobbets of flesh, and
all his excrements were as black blood (a medicine fitter for a
horse than a man), yet it did him so much good, that the next day he
was perfectly cured." This very story of the Bohemian priest,
Sckenkius relates verbatim, Exoter. experiment. ad. var. morb. cent.
6. observ. 6. with great approbation of it. Hercules de Saxonia
calls it a profitable medicine, if it be taken after meat to six or
eight grains, of such as are apt to vomit. Rodericus a Fonseca the
Spaniard, and late professor of Padua in Italy, extols it to this
disease, Tom. 2. consul. 85. so doth Lod. Mercatus de inter. morb.
cur. lib. 1. cap. 17. with many others. Jacobus Gervinus a French
physician, on the other side, lib. 2. de venemis confut. explodes
all this, and saith he took three grains only upon Matthiolus and
some others' commendation, but it almost killed him, whereupon he
concludes, "antimony is rather poison than a medicine." Th. Erastus
concurs with him in his opinion, and so doth Aelian Montaltus cap. 30
de melan. But what do I talk? 'tis the subject of whole books; I
might cite a century of authors pro and con. I will conclude with
Zuinger, antimony is like Scanderbeg's sword, which is either good
or bad, strong or weak, as the party is that prescribes, or useth
it: "a worthy medicine if it be rightly applied to a strong man,
otherwise poison." For the preparing of it, look in Evonimi
thesaurus, Quercetan, Oswaldus Crollius, Basil. Chim. Basil.
Valentius, &c.
Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes far
beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, a
sovereign remedy to all diseases. A good vomit, I confess, a
virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken, and
medicinally used; but as it is commonly abused by most men, which
take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a violent
purger of goods, lands, health, hellish, devilish and damned
tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.
SUBSECT. II.-- Simples purging Melancholy downward.
Polypody and epithyme are, without all exceptions, gentle
purgers of melancholy. Dioscorides will have them void phlegm; but
Brassivola out of his experience averreth, that they purge this
humour; they are used in decoction, infusion, &c. simple, mixed, &c.
Mirabolanes, all five kinds, are happily prescribed against
melancholy and quartan agues; Brassivola speaks out "of a thousand"
experiences, he gave them in pills, decoctions, &c., look for
peculiar receipts in him.
Staechas, fumitory, dodder, herb mercury, roots of capers,
genista or broom, pennyroyal and half-boiled cabbage, I find in this
catalogue of purgers of black choler, origan, featherfew, ammoniac
salt, saltpetre. But these are very gentle; alyppus, dragon root,
centaury, ditany, colutea, which Fuchsius cap. 168 and others take
for senna, but most distinguish. Senna is in the middle of violent
and gentle purgers downward, hot in the second degree, dry in the
first. Brassivola calls it "a wonderful herb against melancholy, it
scours the blood, lightens the spirits, shakes off sorrow, a most
profitable medicine," as Dodonaeus terms it, invented by the
Arabians, and not heard of before. It is taken diverse ways, in
powder, infusion, but most commonly in the infusion, with ginger, or
some cordial flowers added to correct it. Actuarius commends it
sodden in broth, with an old cock, or in whey, which is the common
conveyor of all such things as purge black choler; or steeped in
wine, which Heurnius accounts sufficient, without any farther
correction.
Aloes by most is said to purge choler, but Aurelianus lib. 2.
c. 6. de morb. chron. Arculanus cap. 6. in 9. Rhasis Julius
Alexandrinus, consil. 185. Scoltz. Crato consil 189. Scoltz.
prescribe it to this disease; as good for the stomach and to open
the haemorrhoids, out of Mesue, Rhasis, Serapio, Avicenna: Menardus
ep. lib. 1. epist. 1. opposeth it, aloes "doth not open the veins,"
or move the haemorrhoids, which Leonhartus Fuchsius paradox. lib. 1.
likewise affirms; but Brassivola and Dodonaeus defend Mesue out of
their experience; let Valesius end the controversy.
Lapis armenus and lazuli are much magnified by Alexander lib.
1. cap. 16. Avicenna, Aetius, and Actuarius, if they be well washed,
that the water be no more coloured, fifty times some say. "That good
Alexander" (saith Guianerus) "puts such confidence in this one
medicine, that he thought all melancholy passions might be cured by
it; and I for my part have oftentimes happily used it, and was never
deceived in the operation of it." The like may be said of lapis
lazuli, though it be somewhat weaker than the other. Garcias ab
Horto, hist. lib. 1. cap. 65. relates, that the physicians of the
Moors familiarly prescribe it to all melancholy passions, and
Matthiolus ep. lib. 3. brags of that happy success which he still
had in the administration of it. Nicholas Meripsa puts it amongst
the best remedies, sect. 1. cap. 12. in Antidotis; "and if this will
not serve" (saith Rhasis) "then there remains nothing but lapis
armenus and hellebore itself." Valescus and Jason Pratensis much
commend pulvis hali, which is made of it. James Damascen. 2. cap.
12. Hercules de Saxonia, &c., speaks well of it. Crato will not
approve this; it and both hellebores, he saith, are no better than
poison. Victor Trincavelius, lib. 2. cap. 14, found it in his
experience, "to be very noisome, to trouble the stomach, and hurt
their bodies that take it overmuch."
Black hellebore, that most renowned plant, and famous purger
of melancholy, which all antiquity so much used and admired, was
first found out by Melanpodius a shepherd, as Pliny records, lib.
25. cap. 5. who, seeing it to purge his goats when they raved,
practised it upon Elige and Calene, King Praetus' daughters, that
ruled in Arcadia, near the fountain Clitorius, and restored them to
their former health. In Hippocrates's time it was in only request,
insomuch that he writ a book of it, a fragment of which remains yet.
Theophrastus, Galen, Pliny, Caelius Aurelianus, as ancient as Galen,
lib. 1, cap. 6. Aretus lib. 1. cap. 5. Oribasius lib. 7. collect. a
famous Greek, Aetius ser. 3. cap. 112 & 113 p. Aegineta, Galen's Ape,
lib. 7. cap. 4. Actuarius, Trallianus lib. 5. cap. 15. Cornelius
Celsus only remaining of the old Latins, lib. 3. cap. 23, extol and
admire this excellent plant; and it was generally so much esteemed
of the ancients for this disease amongst the rest, that they sent
all such as were crazed, or that doted, to the Anticyrae, or to
Phocis in Achaia, to be purged, where this plant was in abundance to
be had. In Strabo's time it was an ordinary voyage, Naviget
Anticyras; a common proverb among the Greeks and Latins, to bid a
dizzard or a mad man go take hellebore; as in Lucian, Menippus to
Tantalus, Tantale desipis, helleboro epoto tibi opus est, eoque sane
meraco, thou art out of thy little wit, O Tantalus, and must needs
drink hellebore, and that without mixture. Aristophanes in Vespis,
drink hellebore, &c. and Harpax in the Comedian, told Simo and
Ballio, two doting fellows, that they had need to be purged with
this plant. When that proud Menacrates ? ???? [O Zeus], had writ an
arrogant letter to Philip of Macedon, he sent back no other answer
but this, Consulo tibi ut ad Anticyram te conferas, noting thereby
that he was crazed, atque ellebore indigere, had much need of a good
purge. Lilius Geraldus saith, that Hercules, after all his mad
pranks upon his wife and children, was perfectly cured by a purge of
hellebore, which an Anticyrian administered unto him. They that were
sound commonly took it to quicken their wits, (as Ennis of old, Qui
non nisi potus ad arma--prosiluit dicenda, and as our poets drink
sack to improve their inventions (I find it so registered by
Agellius lib. 17. cap. 15.) Cameades the academic, when he was to
write against Zeno the stoic, purged himself with hellebore first,
which Petronius puts upon Chrysippus. In such esteem it continued
for many ages, till at length Mesue and some other Arabians began to
reject and reprehend it, upon whose authority for many following
lustres, it was much debased and quite out of request, held to be
poison and no medicine; and is still oppugned to this day by Crato
and some junior physicians. Their reasons are, because Aristotle l.
1. de plant. c. 3. said, henbane and hellebore were poison; and
Alexander Aphrodiseus, in the preface of his problems, gave out,
that (speaking of hellebore) "Quails fed on that which was poison to
men." Galen. l. 6. Epid. com. 5. Text. 35. confirms as much:
Constantine the emperor in his Geoponicks, attributes no other
virtue to it, than to kill mice and rats, flies and mouldwarps, and
so Mizaldus, Nicander of old, Gervinus, Sckenkius, and some other
Neoterics that have written of poisons, speak of hellebore in a
chief place. Nicholas Leonicus hath a story of Solon, that
besieging, I know not what city, steeped hellebore in a spring of
water, which by pipes was conveyed into the middle of the town, and
so either poisoned, or else made them so feeble and weak by purging,
that they were not able to bear arms. Notwithstanding all these
cavils and objections, most of our late writers do much approve of
it. Gariopontus lib. 1. cap. 13. Codronchus com. de helleb.
Fallopius lib. de med. purg. simpl. cap. 69. et consil. 15.
Trincavelii, Montanus 239. Frisemelica consil. 14. Hercules de
Saxonia, so that it be opportunely given. Jacobus de Dondis, Agg.
Amatus, Lucet. cent. 66. Godef. Stegius cap. 13. Hollerius, and all
our herbalists subscribe. Fernelius meth. med. lib. 5. cap. 16.
"confesseth it to be a terrible purge and hard to take, yet well
given to strong men, and such as have able bodies." P. Forestus and
Capivaccius forbid it to be taken in substance, but allow it in
decoction or infusion, both which ways P. Monavius approves above
all others, Epist. 231. Scoltzii, Jacchinus in 9. Rhasis, commends a
receipt of his own preparing; Penottus another of his chemically
prepared, Evonimus another. Hildesheim spicel. 2. de mel. hath many
examples how it should be used, with diversity of receipts. Heurnius
lib. 7. prax. med. cap. 14. "calls it an innocent medicine
howsoever, if it be well prepared." The root of it is only in use,
which may be kept many years, and by some given in substance, as by
Fallopius and Brassivola amongst the rest, who brags that he was the
first that restored it again to its use, and tells a story how he
cured one Melatasta, a madman, that was thought to be possessed, in
the Duke of Ferrara's court, with one purge of black hellebore in
substance: the receipt is there to be seen; his excrements were like
ink, he perfectly healed at once; Vidus Vidius, a Dutch physician,
will not admit of it in substance, to whom most subscribe, but as
before, in the decoction, infusion, or which is all in all, in the
extract, which he prefers before the rest, and calls suave
medicamentum, a sweet medicine, an easy, that may be securely given
to women, children, and weaklings. Baracellus, horto geniali, terms
it maximae praestantiae medicamentum, a medicine of great worth and
note. Quercetan in his Spagir. Phar. and many others, tell wonders
of the extract. Paracelsus, above all the rest, is the greatest
admirer of this plant; and especially the extract, he calls it
Theriacum, terrestre Balsamum, another treacle, a terrestrial balm,
instar omnium, "all in all, the sole and last refuge to cure this
malady, the gout, epilepsy, leprosy," &c. If this will not help, no
physic in the world can but mineral, it is the upshot of all.
Matthiolus laughs at those that except against it, and though some
abhor it out of the authority of Mesue, and dare not adventure to
prescribe it, "yet I" (saith he) "have happily used it six hundred
times without offence, and communicated it to divers worthy
physicians, who have given me great thanks for it." Look for
receipts, dose, preparation, and other cautions concerning this
simple, in him, Brassivola, Baracelsus, Codronchus, and the rest.
SUBSECT. III.-- Compound Purgers.
Compound medicines which purge melancholy, are either taken in
the superior or inferior parts: superior at mouth or nostrils. At
the mouth swallowed or not swallowed: If swallowed liquid or solid:
liquid, as compound wine of hellebore, scilla or sea-onion, senna,
Vinum Scilliticum, Helleboratum, which Quercetan so much applauds
"for melancholy and madness, either inwardly taken, or outwardly
applied to the head, with little pieces of linen dipped warm in it."
Oxymel. Scilliticum, Syrupus Helleboratus major and minor in
Quercetan, and Syrupus Genistae for hypochondriacal melancholy in the
same author, compound syrup of succory, of fumitory, polypody, &c.
Heurnius his purging cock-broth. Some except against these syrups,
as appears by Udalrinus Leonoras his epistle to Matthiolus, as most
pernicious, and that out of Hippocrates, cocta movere, et medicari,
non cruda, no raw things to be used in physic; but this in the
following epistle is exploded and soundly confuted by Matthiolus:
many juleps, potions, receipts, are composed of these, as you shall
find in Hildesheim spicel. 2. Heurnius lib. 2. cap. 14. George
Sckenkius Ital. med. prax. &c.
Solid purges are confections, electuaries, pills by
themselves, or compound with others, as de lapide lazulo, armeno,
pil. indae, of fumitory, &c. Confection of Hamech, which though most
approve, Solenander sec. 5. consil. 22. bitterly inveighs against,
so doth Rondoletius Pharmacop. officina, Fernelius and others;
diasena, diapolypodium, diacassia, diacatholicon, Wecker's electuary
de Epithymo, Ptolemy's hierologadium, of which divers receipts are
daily made.
Aetius 22. 23. commends Hieram Ruffi. Trincavelius consil. 12.
lib. 4. approves of hiera; non, inquit, invenio melius medicamentum,
I find no better medicine, he saith. Heurnius adds pil. aggregat.
pills de Epithymo. pil. Ind. Mesue describes in the Florentine
Antidotary, Pilulae sine quibus esse nolo, Pilulae, Cochics, cum
Helleboro, Pil. Arabicae, Faetida, de quinque generibus mirabolanorum,
&c. More proper to melancholy, not excluding in the meantime,
turbith, manna, rhubarb, agaric, elescophe, &c. which are not so
proper to this humour. For, as Montaltus holds cap. 30. and Montanus
cholera etiam purganda, quod atrae, sit pabulum, choler is to be
purged because it feeds the other: and some are of an opinion, as
Erasistratus and Asclepiades maintained of old, against whom Galen
disputes, "that no physic doth purge one humour alone, but all alike
or what is next." Most therefore in their receipts and magistrals
which are coined here, make a mixture of several simples and
compounds to purge all humours in general as well as this. Some
rather use potions than pills to purge this humour, because that as
Heurnius and Crato observe, hic succus a sicco remedio agre
trahitur, this juice is not so easily drawn by dry remedies, and as
Montanus adviseth 25 cons. "All drying medicines are to be repelled,
as aloe, hiera," and all pills whatsoever, because the disease is
dry of itself.
I might here insert many receipts of prescribed potions,
boles, &c. The doses of these, but that they are common in every
good physician, and that I am loath to incur the censure of
Forestus, lib. 3. cap. 6. de urinis, "against those that divulge and
publish medicines in their mother-tongue," and lest I should give
occasion thereby to some ignorant reader to practise on himself,
without the consent of a good physician.
Such as are not swallowed, but only kept in the mouth, are
gargarisms used commonly after a purge, when the body is soluble and
loose. Or apophlegmatisms, masticatories, to be held and chewed in
the mouth, which are gentle, as hyssop, origan, pennyroyal, thyme,
mustard; strong, as pellitory, pepper, ginger, &c.
Such as are taken into the nostrils, errhina are liquid or
dry, juice of pimpernel, onions, &c., castor, pepper, white
hellebore, &c. To these you may add odoraments, perfumes, and
suffumigations, &c.
Taken into the inferior parts are clysters strong or weak,
suppositories of Castilian soap, honey boiled to a consistence; or
stronger of scammony, hellebore, &c.
These are all used, and prescribed to this malady upon several
occasions, as shall be shown in its place.
MEMB. III.
Chirurgical Remedies.
In letting of blood three main circumstances are to be
considered, "Who, how much, when." That is, that it be done to such
a one as may endure it, or to whom it may belong, that he be of a
competent age, not too young, nor too old, overweak, fat, or lean,
sore laboured, but to such as have need, are full of bad blood,
noxious humours, and may be eased by it.
The quantity depends upon the party's habit of body, as he is
strong or weak, full or empty, may spare more or less.
In the morning is the fittest time: some doubt whether it be
best fasting, or full, whether the moon's motion or aspect of
planets be to be observed; some affirm, some deny, some grant in
acute, but not in chronic diseases, whether before or after physic.
'Tis Heurnius' aphorism a phlebotomia auspicandum esse curiationem,
non a pharmacia, you must begin with bloodletting and not physic;
some except this peculiar malady. But what do I? Horatius Augenius,
a physician of Padua, hath lately writ 17 books of this subject,
Jobertus, &c.
Particular kinds of bloodletting in use are three, first is
that opening a vein in the arm with a sharp knife, or in the head,
knees, or any other parts, as shall be thought fit.
Cupping-glasses with or without scarification, ocyssime
compescunt, saith Fernelius, they work presently, and are applied to
several parts, to divert humours, aches, winds, &c.
Horse-leeches are much used in melancholy, applied especially
to the haemorrhoids. Horatius Augenius, lib. 10. cap. 10. Platerus
de mentis alienat. cap. 3. Altomarus, Piso, and many others, prefer
them before any evacuations in this kind.
Cauteries, or searing with hot irons, combustions, borings,
lancings, which, because they are terrible, Dropax and Sinapismus
are invented by plasters to raise blisters, and eating medicines of
pitch, mustard-seed, and the like.
Issues still to be kept open, made as the former, and applied
in and to several parts, have their use here on divers occasions, as
shall be shown.
SECT. V. MEMB. I.
SUBSECT. I.-- Particular Cure of the three several Kinds; of Head-
Melancholy.
The general cures thus briefly examined and discussed, it
remains now to apply these medicines to the three particular species
or kinds, that, according to the several parts affected, each man
may tell in some sort how to help or ease himself. I will treat of
head-melancholy first, in which, as in all other good cures, we must
begin with diet, as a matter of most moment, able oftentimes of
itself to work this effect. I have read, saith Laurentius, cap. 8.
de Melanch. that in old diseases which have gotten the upper hand or
a habit, the manner of living is to more purpose, than whatsoever
can be drawn out of the most precious boxes of the apothecaries.
This diet, as I have said, is not only in choice of meat and drink,
but of all those other non-natural things. Let air be clear and
moist most part: diet moistening, of good juice, easy of digestion,
and not windy: drink clear, and well brewed, not too strong, nor too
small. "Make a melancholy man fat," as Rhasis saith, "and thou hast
finished the cure." Exercise not too remiss, nor too violent. Sleep
a little more than ordinary. Excrements daily to be voided by art or
nature; and which Fernelius enjoins his patient, consil. 44, above
the rest, to avoid all passions and perturbations of the mind. Let
him not be alone or idle (in any kind of melancholy), but still
accompanied with such friends and familiars he most affects, neatly
dressed, washed, and combed, according to his ability at least, in
clean sweet linen, spruce, handsome, decent, and good apparel; for
nothing sooner dejects a man than want, squalor, and nastiness,
foul, or old clothes out of fashion. Concerning the medicinal part,
he that will satisfy himself at large (in this precedent of diet)
and see all at once the whole cure and manner of it in every
distinct species, let him consult with Gordonius, Valescus, with
Prosper Calenius, lib. de atra bile ad Card. Caesium, Laurentius,
cap. 8. et 9. de mela. Aelian Montaltus, de mel. cap. 26. 27. 28. 29.
30. Donat. ab Altomari, cap. 7. artis med. Hercules de Saxonia, in
Panth. cap. 7. et Tract. ejus peculiar. de melan. per Bolzetam,
edit. Venetiis 1620. cap. 17. 18. 19. Savanarola, Rub. 82. Tract. 8.
cap. 1. Sckenkius, in prax. curat. Ital. med. Heurnius, cap. 12. de
morb. Victorius Faventius, pract. Magn. et Empir. Hildesheim,
Spicel. 2. de man. et mel. Fel. Plater, Stockerus, Bruel. P.
Baverus, Forestus, Fuchsius, Capivaccius, Rondoletius, Jason
Pratensis, Sullust. Salvian. de remed. lib. 2. cap. 1. Jacchinus, in
9. Rhasis, Lod. Mercatus, de Inter. morb. cur. lib. 1. cap. 17.
Alexan. Messaria, pract. med. lib. 1. cap. 21. de mel. Piso.
Hollerius, &c. that have culled out of those old Greeks, Arabians,
and Latins, whatsoever is observable or fit to be used. Or let him
read those counsels and consultations of Hugo Senensis, consil. 13.
et 14. Reinerus Solenander, consil. 6. sec. 1. et consil. 3. sec. 3.
Crato, consil. 16. lib. 1. Montanus 20. 22. and his following
counsels, Laelius a Fonte Egubinus, consult. 44. 69. 77. 125. 129.
142. Fernelius, consil. 44. 45. 46. Jul. Caesar Claudinus,
Mercurialis, Frambesarius, Sennertus, &c. Wherein he shall find
particular receipts, the whole method, preparatives, purgers,
correctors, averters, cordials in great variety and abundance: out
of which, because every man cannot attend to read or peruse them, I
will collect for the benefit of the reader, some few more notable
medicines.
SUBSECT. II.-- Bloodletting.
Phlebotomy is promiscuously used before and after physic,
commonly before, and upon occasion is often reiterated, if there be
any need at least of it. For Galen, and many others, make a doubt of
bleeding at all in this kind of head-melancholy. If the malady,
saith Piso, cap. 23. and Altomarus, cap. 7. Fuchsius, cap. 33.
"shall proceed primarily from the misaffected brain, the patient in
such case shall not need at all to bleed, except the blood otherwise
abound, the veins be full, inflamed blood, and the party ready to
run mad." In immaterial melancholy, which especially comes from a
cold distemperature of spirits, Hercules de Saxonia, cap. 17. will
not admit of phlebotomy; Laurentius, cap. 9, approves it out of the
authority of the Arabians; but as Mesue, Rhasis, Alexander appoint,
"especially in the head," to open the veins of the forehead, nose
and ears is good. They commonly set cupping-glasses on the party's
shoulders, having first scarified the place, they apply horse-
leeches on the head, and in all melancholy diseases, whether
essential or accidental, they cause the haemorrhoids to be opened,
having the eleventh aphorism of the sixth book of Hippocrates for
their ground and warrant, which saith, "That in melancholy and mad
men, the varicose tumour or haemorrhoids appearing doth heal the
same." Valescus prescribes bloodletting in all three kinds, whom
Sallust. Salvian follows. "If the blood abound, which is discerned
by the fullness of the veins, his precedent diet, the party's
laughter, age, &c., begin with the median or middle vein of the arm;
if the blood be ruddy and clear, stop it, but if black in the spring
time, or a good season, or thick, let it run, according to the
party's strength: and some eight or twelve days after, open the head
vein, and the veins in the forehead, or provoke it out of the
nostrils, or cupping-glasses," &c. Trallianus allows of this, "If
there have been any suppression or stopping of blood at nose, or
haemorrhoids, or women's months, then to open a vein in the head or
about the ankles." Yet he doth hardly approve of this course, if
melancholy be situated in the head alone, or in any other dotage,
"except it primarily proceed from blood, or that the malady be
increased by it; for bloodletting refrigerates and dries up, except
the body be very full of blood, and a kind of ruddiness in the
face." Therefore I conclude with Areteus, "before you let blood,
deliberate of it," and well consider all circumstances belonging to
it.
SUBSECT. III.-- Preparatives and Purgers.
After bloodletting we must proceed to other medicines; first
prepare, and then purge, Augeae stabulum purgare, make the body clean
before we hope to do any good. Walter Bruel would have a
practitioner begin first with a clyster of his, which he prescribes
before bloodletting: the common sort, as Mercurialis, Montaltus cap.
30. &c. proceed from lenitives to preparatives, and so to purgers.
Lenitives are well known, electuarium lenitivum, diaphenicum,
diacatholicon, &c. Preparatives are usually syrups of borage,
bugloss, apples, fumitory, thyme and epithyme, with double as much
of the same decoction or distilled water, or of the waters of
bugloss, balm, hops, endive, scolopendry, fumitory, &c. or these
sodden in whey, which must be reiterated and used for many days
together. Purges come last, "which must not be used at all, if the
malady may be otherwise helped," because they weaken nature and dry
so much, and in giving of them, "we must begin with the gentlest
first." Some forbid all hot medicines, as Alexander, and Salvianus,
&c. Ne insaniores inde fiant, hot medicines increase the disease "by
drying too much." Purge downward rather than upward, use potions
rather than pills, and when you begin physic, persevere and continue
in a course; for as one observes, movere et non educere in omnibus
malum est; to stir up the humour (as one purge commonly doth) and
not to prosecute, doth more harm than good. They must continue in a
course of physic, yet not so that they tire and oppress nature,
danda quies naturae, they must now and then remit, and let nature
have some rest. The most gentle purges to begin with, are senna,
cassia, epithyme, myrabolanea, catholicon: if these prevail not, we
may proceed to stronger, as the confection of hamech, pil. Indae,
fumitoriae, de assaieret, of lapis armenus and lazuli, diasena. Or
if pills be too dry; some prescribe both hellebores in the last
place, amongst the rest Aretus, "because this disease will resist a
gentle medicine." Laurentius and Hercules de Saxonia would have
antimony tried last, "if the party be strong, and it warily given."
Trincavelius prefers hierologodium, to whom Francis Alexander in his
Apol. rad. 5. subscribes, a very good medicine they account it. But
Crato in a counsel of his, for the duke of Bavaria's chancellor,
wholly rejects it.
I find a vast chaos of medicines, a confusion of receipts and
magistrals, amongst writers, appropriated to this disease; some of
the chiefest I will rehearse. To be seasick first is very good at
seasonable times. Helleborismus Matthioli, with which he vaunts and
boasts he did so many several cures, "I never gave it" (saith he),
"but after once or twice, by the help of God, they were happily
cured." The manner of making it he sets down at large in his third
book of Epist. to George Hankshius a physician. Walter Bruel, and
Heurnius, make mention of it with great approbation; so doth
Sckenkius in his memorable cures, and experimental medicines, cen.
6. obser. 37. That famous Helleborisme of Montanus, which he so
often repeats in his consultations and counsels, as 28. pro. melan.
sacerdote, et consil. 148. pro hypochondriaco, and cracks, "to be a
most sovereign remedy for all melancholy persons, which he hath
often given without offence, and found by long experience and
observations to be such."
Quercetan prefers a syrup of hellebore in his Spagirica
Pharmac. and Hellebore's extract cap. 5. of his invention likewise
("a most safe medicine and not unfit to be given children") before
all remedies whatsoever.
Paracelsus, in his book of black hellebore, admits this
medicine, but as it is prepared by him. "It is most certain" (saith
he) "that the virtue of this herb is great, and admirable in effect,
and little differing from balm itself; and he that knows well how to
make use of it, hath more art than all their books contain, or all
the doctors in Germany can show."
Aelianus Montaltus in his exquisite work de morb. capitis, cap.
31. de mel. sets a special receipt of his own, which, in his
practice "he fortunately used; because it is but short I will set it
down."
"Rx. Syrupe de pomis ounces ij, aquae borag. ounces iiij.
Ellebori nigri per noctem infusi in ligatura 6 vel 8 gr. mane
facta collatura exhibe."
Other receipts of the same to this purpose you shall find in
him. Valescus admires pulvis Hali, and Jason Pratensis after him:
the confection of which our new London Pharmacopoeia hath lately
revived. "Put case" (saith he) "all other medicines fail, by the
help of God this alone shall do it, and 'tis a crowned medicine
which must be kept in secret."
"Rx.. Epithymi semunc., lapidis lazuli, agarici ana ounces ij.
Scammnonii. drachms j, Chariophillorum numero 20
pulverisentur Omnia, et ipsius pulveris scrup. 4. singulis
septimanis assumat."
To these I may add Arnoldi vinum Buglossalum, or borage wine
before mentioned, which Mizaldus calls vinum mirabile, a wonderful
wine, and Stockerus vouchsafes to repeat verbatim amongst other
receipts. Rubeus his compound water out of Savanarola; Pinetus his
balm; Cardan's Pulvis Hyacinthi, with which, in his book de curis
admirandis, he boasts that he had cured many melancholy persons in
eight days, which Sckenkius puts amongst his observable medicines;
Altomarus his syrup, with which he calls God so solemnly to witness,
he hath in his kind done many excellent cures, and which Sckenkius
cent. 7. observ. 80. mentioneth, Daniel Sennertus lib. 1. part. 2.
cap. 12. so much commends; Rulandus' admirable water for melancholy,
which cent. 2. cap. 96. he names Spiritum vitae aureum, Panaceam,
what not, and his absolute medicine of 50 eggs, curat. Empir. cent.
1. cur. 5. to be taken three in a morning, with a powder of his.
Faventinus prac. Emper. doubles this number of eggs, and will have
101 to be taken by three and three in like sort, which Sallust
Salvian approves de red. med. lib. 2. c. 1. with some of the same
powder, till all be spent, a most excellent remedy for all
melancholy and mad men.
"Rx.. Epithymi, thymi, ana drachmas duas, sacchari albi unciam
unam, croci grana tria, Cinamomi drachmam unam; misce, fiat
pulvis."
All these yet are nothing to those chemical preparatives of
Aqua Chalidonia, quintessence of hellebore, salts, extracts,
distillations, oils, Aurum potabile, &c. Dr. Anthony in his book de
auro potab. edit. 1600. is all in all for it. "And though all the
schools of Galenists, with a wicked and unthankful pride and scorn,
detest it in their practice, yet in more grievous diseases, when
their vegetals will do no good," they are compelled to seek the help
of minerals, though they "use them rashly, unprofitably, slackly,
and to no purpose." Rhenanus, a Dutch chemist, in his book de Sale e
puteo emergente, takes upon him to apologise for Anthony, and sets
light by all that speak against him. But what do I meddle with this
great controversy, which is the subject of many volumes? Let
Paracelsus, Quercetan, Crollius, and the brethren of the rosy cross,
defend themselves as they may. Crato, Erastus, and the Galenists
oppugn Paracelsus, he brags on the other side, he did more famous
cures by this means, than all the Galenists in Europe, and calls
himself a monarch; Galen, Hippocrates, infants, illiterate, &c. As
Thessalus of old railed against those ancient Asclepiadean writers,
"he condemns others, insults, triumphs, overcomes all antiquity"
(saith Galen as if he spake to him) "declares himself a conqueror,
and crowns his own doings. One drop of their chemical preparatives
shall do more good than all their fulsome potions." Erastus, and the
rest of the Galenists vilify them on the other side, as heretics in
physic; "Paracelsus did that in physic, which Luther in Divinity. A
drunken rogue he was, a base fellow, a magician, he had the devil
for his master, devils his familiar companions, and what he did, was
done by the help of the devil." Thus they contend and rail, and
every mart write books pro and con, et adhuc sub judice lis est: let
them agree as they will, I proceed.
SUBSECT. IV.-- Averters.
Averters and purgers must go together, as tending all to the
same purpose, to divert this rebellious humour, and turn it another
way. In this range, clysters and suppositories challenge a chief
place, to draw this humour from the brain and heart, to the more
ignoble parts. Some would have them still used a few days between,
and those to be made with the boiled seeds of anise, fennel, and
bastard saffron, hops, thyme, epithyme, mallows, fumitory, bugloss,
polypody, senna, diasene, hamech, cassia, diacatholicon,
hierologodium, oil of violets, sweet almonds, &c. For without
question, a clyster opportunely used, cannot choose in this, as most
other maladies, but to do very much good; Clysteres nutriunt,
sometimes clysters nourish, as they may be prepared, as I was
informed not long since by a learned lecture of our natural
philosophy reader, which he handled by way of discourse, out of some
other noted physicians. Such things as provoke urine most commend,
but not sweat. Trincavellius consil. 16. cap. 1. in head-melancholy
forbids it. P. Byarus and others approve frictions of the outward
parts, and to bathe them with warm water. Instead of ordinary
frictions, Cardan prescribes rubbing with nettles till they blister
the skin, which likewise Basardus Visontinus so much magnifies.
Sneezing, masticatories, and nasals are generally received.
Montaltus c. 34. Hildesheim spicel. 3. fol. 136 and 238. give
several receipts of all three. Hercules de Saxonia relates of an
empiric in Venice "that had a strong water to purge by the mouth and
nostrils, which he still used in head-melancholy, and would sell for
no gold."
To open months and haemorrhoids is very good physic, "If they
have been formerly stopped." Faventinus would have them opened with
horse-leeches, so would Hercul. de Sax. Julius Alexandrinus consil.
185. Scoltzii thinks aloes fitter: most approve horse-leeches in
this case, to be applied to the forehead, nostrils, and other
places.
Montaltus cap. 29. out of Alexander and others, prescribes
"cupping-glasses, and issues in the left thigh." Aretus lib. 7. cap.
5. Paulus Regolinus, Sylvius will have them without scarification,
"applied to the shoulders and back, thighs and feet:" Montaltus cap.
34. "bids open an issue in the arm, or hinder part of the head."
Piso enjoins ligatures, frictions, suppositories, and cupping-
glasses, still without scarification, and the rest.
Cauteries and hot irons are to be used "in the suture of the
crown, and the seared or ulcerated place suffered to run a good
while. 'Tis not amiss to bore the skull with an instrument, to let
out the fuliginous vapours." Sallus. Salvianus de re medic. lib. 2.
cap. 1. "because this humour hardly yields to other physic, would
have the leg cauterised, or the left leg, below the knee, and the
head bored in two or three places," for that it much avails to the
exhalation of the vapours; "I saw" (saith he) "a melancholy man at
Rome, that by no remedies could be healed, but when by chance he was
wounded in the head, and the skull broken, he was excellently
cured." Another, to the admiration of the beholders, "breaking his
head with a fall from on high, was instantly recovered of his
dotage." Gordonius cap. 13. part. 2. would have these cauteries
tried last, when no other physic will serve. "The head to be shaved
and bored to let out fumes, which without doubt will do much good. I
saw a melancholy man wounded in the head with a sword, his brainpan
broken; so long as the wound was open he was well, but when his
wound was healed, his dotage returned again." But Alexander Messaria
a professor in Padua, lib. 1. pract. med. cap. 21. de melanchol.
will allow no cauteries at all, 'tis too stiff a humour and too
thick as he holds, to be so evaporated.
Guianerius c. 8. Tract. 15. cured a nobleman in Savoy, by
boring alone, "leaving the hole open a month together," by means of
which, after two years' melancholy and madness, he was delivered.
All approve of this remedy in the suture of the crown; but Arculanus
would have the cautery to be made with gold. In many other parts,
these cauteries are prescribed for melancholy men, as in the thighs,
(Mercurialis consil. 86.) arms, legs. Idem consil. 6. & 19. & 25.
Montanus 86. Rodericus a Fonseca tom. 2. cousult. 84. pro hypochond.
coxa dextra, &c., but most in the head, "if other physic will do no
good."
SUBSECT. V.-- Alteratives and Cordials, corroborating, resolving the
Reliques, and mending the Temperament.
Because this humour is so malign of itself, and so hard to be
removed, the reliques are to be cleansed, by alteratives, cordials,
and such means: the temper is to be altered and amended, with such
things as fortify and strengthen the heart and brain, "which are
commonly both affected in this malady, and do mutually misaffect one
another:" which are still to be given every other day, or some few
days inserted after a purge, or like physic, as occasion serves, and
are of such force, that many times they help alone, and as Arnoldus
holds in his Aphorisms, are to be "preferred before all other
medicines, in what kind soever."
Amongst this number of cordials and alteratives, I do not find
a more present remedy, than a cup of wine or strong drink, if it be
soberly and opportunely used. It makes a man bold, hardy,
courageous, "whetteth the wit," if moderately taken, (and as
Plutarch saith, Symp. 7. quaest. 12.) "it makes those which are
otherwise dull, to exhale and evaporate like frankincense, or
quicken" (Xenophon adds) as oil doth fire. "A famous cordial"
Matthiolus in Dioscoridum calls it, "an excellent nutriment to
refresh the body, it makes a good colour, a flourishing age, helps
concoction, fortifies the stomach, takes away obstructions, provokes
urine, drives out excrements, procures sleep, clears the blood,
expels wind and cold poisons, attenuates, concocts, dissipates all
thick vapours, and fuliginous humours." And that which is all in all
to my purpose, it takes away fear and sorrow. Curas edaces dissipat
Evius. "It glads the heart of man," Psal. civ. 15. hilaritatis dulce
seminarium. Helena's bowl, the sole nectar of the gods, or that true
nepenthes in Homer, which puts away care and grief, as Oribasius 5.
Collect, cap. 7. and some others will, was nought else but a cup of
good wine. "It makes the mind of the king and of the fatherless both
one, of the bond and freeman, poor and rich; it turneth all his
thoughts to joy and mirth, makes him remember no sorrow or debt, but
enricheth his heart, and makes him speak by talents," Esdras iii.
19, 20, 21. It gives life itself, spirits, wit, &c. For which cause
the ancients called Bacchus, Liber pater a liberando, and sacrificed
to Bacchus and Pallas still upon an altar. "Wine measurably drunk,
and in time, brings gladness and cheerfulness of mind, it cheereth
God and men," Judges ix. 13. laetitiae Bacchus dator, it makes an old
wife dance, and such as are in misery to forget evil, and be merry.
"Bacchus et afflictis requiem mortalibus affert,
Crura licet duro compede vincta forent."
"Wine makes a troubled soul to rest,
Though feet with fetters be opprest."
Demetrius in Plutarch, when he fell into Seleucus's hands, and
was prisoner in Syria, "spent his time with dice and drink that he
might so ease his discontented mind, and avoid those continual
cogitations of his present condition wherewith he was tormented."
Therefore Solomon, Prov. xxxi. 6, bids "wine be given to him that is
ready to perish, and to him that hath grief of heart, let him drink
that he forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."
Sollicitis animis onus eximit, it easeth a burdened soul, nothing
speedier, nothing better; which the prophet Zachariah perceived,
when he said, "that in the time of Messias, they of Ephraim should
be glad, and their heart should rejoice as through wine." All which
makes me very well approve of that pretty description of a feast in
Bartholomeus Anglicus, when grace was said, their hands washed, and
the guests sufficiently exhilarated, with good discourse, sweet
music, dainty fare, exhilarationis gratia, pocula iterum atque
iterum offeruntur, as a corollary to conclude the feast, and
continue their mirth, a grace cup came in to cheer their hearts, and
they drank healths to one another again and again. Which as I.
Fredericus Matenesius, Crit. Christ. lib. 2. cap. 5, 6, & 7, was an
old custom in all ages in every commonwealth, so as they be not
enforced, bibere per violentiam, but as in that royal feast of
Ahasuerus, which lasted 180 days, "without compulsion they drank by
order in golden vessels," when and what they would themselves. This
of drink is a most easy and parable remedy, a common, a cheap, still
ready against fear, sorrow, and such troublesome thoughts, that
molest the mind; as brimstone with fire, the spirits on a sudden are
enlightened by it. "No better physic" (saith Rhasis) "for a
melancholy man: and he that can keep company, and carouse, needs no
other medicines," 'tis enough. His countryman Avicenna, 31. doc. 2.
cap. 8. proceeds farther yet, and will have him that is troubled in
mind, or melancholy, not to drink only, but now and then to be
drunk: excellent good physic it is for this and many other diseases.
Magninus Reg. san. part. 3. c. 31. will have them to be so once a
month at least, and gives his reasons for it, "because it scours the
body by vomit, urine, sweat, of all manner of superfluities, and
keeps it clean." Of the same mind is Seneca the philosopher, in his
book de tranquil. lib. 1. c. 15. nonnunquam ut in aliis morbis ad
ebrietatem usque veniendum; Curas deprimit, tristitiae medetur, it is
good sometimes to be drunk, it helps sorrow, depresseth cares, and
so concludes this tract with a cup of wine: Habes, Serene
charissime, quae ad, tranquillitatem animae, pertinent. But these are
epicureal tenets, tending to looseness of life, luxury and atheism,
maintained alone by some heathens, dissolute Arabians, profane
Christians, and are exploded by Rabbi Moses, tract. 4. Guliel,
Placentius, lib. 1. cap. 8. Valescus de Taranta, and most accurately
ventilated by Jo. Sylvaticus, a late writer and physician of Milan,
med. cont. cap. 14. where you shall find this tenet copiously
confuted.
Howsoever you say, if this be true, that wine and strong drink
have such virtue to expel fear and sorrow, and to exhilarate the
mind, ever hereafter let's drink and be merry.
"Prome reconditum, Lyde strenua, caecubum,
Capaciores puer huc affer Scyphos,
Et Chia vina aut Lesbia."
"Come, lusty Lyda, fill's a cup of sack,
And, sirrah drawer, bigger pots we lack,
And Scio wines that have so good a smack."
I say with him in A. Gellius, "let us maintain the vigour of
our souls with a moderate cup of wine," Natis in usum laetitiae
scyphis, "and drink to refresh our mind; if there be any cold sorrow
in it, or torpid bashfulness, let's wash it all away."-- Nunc vino
pellite curas; so saith Horace, so saith Anacreon,
?e????ta ?a? �e ?e?s?a?
???? ??e?ss?? ? ?a???ta.
"[Methyonta gar me keisthai
Poly kreisson e thanonta.]"
Let's drive down care with a cup of wine: and so say I too,
(though I drink none myself) for all this may be done, so that it be
modestly, soberly, opportunely used: so that "they be not drunk with
wine, wherein is excess," which our Apostle forewarns; for as
Chrysostom well comments on that place, ad laetitiam datum est vinum,
non ad ebrietatem, 'tis for mirth wine, but not for madness: and
will you know where, when, and how that is to be understood? Vis
discere ubi bonum sit vinum? Audi quid dicat Scriptura, hear the
Scriptures, "Give wine to them that are in sorrow," or as Paul bid
Timothy drink wine for his stomach's sake, for concoction, health,
or some such honest occasion. Otherwise, as Pliny telleth us; if
singular moderation be not had, "nothing so pernicious, 'tis mere
vinegar, blandus daemon, poison itself." But hear a more fearful
doom, Habac. ii. 15. and 16. "Woe be to him that makes his neighbour
drunk, shameful spewing shall be upon his glory." Let not good
fellows triumph therefore (saith Matthiolus) that I have so much
commended wine, if it be immoderately taken, "instead of making
glad, it confounds both body and soul, it makes a giddy head, a
sorrowful heart." And 'twas well said of the poet of old, "Vine
causeth mirth and grief," nothing so good for some, so bad for
others, especially as one observes, qui a causa calida male habent,
that are hot or inflamed. And so of spices, they alone, as I have
showed, cause head-melancholy themselves, they must not use wine as
an ordinary drink, or in their diet. But to determine with
Laurentius, c. 8. de melan. wine is bad for madmen, and such as are
troubled with heat in their inner parts or brains; but to
melancholy, which is cold (as most is), wine, soberly used, may be
very good.
I may say the same of the decoction of China roots, sassafras,
sarsaparilla, guaiacum: China, saith Manardus, makes a good colour
in the face, takes away melancholy, and all infirmities proceeding
from cold, even so sarsaparilla provokes sweat mightily, guaiacum
dries, Claudinus, consult. 89. & 46. Montanus, Capivaccius, consult.
188. Scoltzii, make frequent and good use of guaiacum and China, "so
that the liver be not incensed," good for such as are cold, as most
melancholy men are, but by no means to be mentioned in hot.
The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine),
so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter, (like that
black drink which was in use amongst the Lacedaemonians, and perhaps
the same,) which they sip still of, and sup as warm as they can
suffer; they spend much time in those coffeehouses, which are
somewhat like our alehouses or taverns, and there they sit chatting
and drinking to drive away the time, and to be merry together,
because they find by experience that kind of drink, so used, helpeth
digestion, and procureth alacrity. Some of them take opium to this
purpose.
Borage, balm, saffron, gold, I have spoken of; Montaltus, c.
23. commends scorzonera roots condite. Garcius ab Horto, plant.
hist. lib. 2. cap. 25. makes mention of an herb called datura,
"which, if it be eaten for twenty-four hours following, takes away
all sense of grief, makes them incline to laughter and mirth:" and
another called bauge, like in effect to opium, "which puts them for
a time into a kind of ecstasy," and makes them gently to laugh. One
of the Roman emperors had a seed, which he did ordinarily eat to
exhilarate himself. Christophorus Ayrerus prefers bezoar stone, and
the confection of alkermes, before other cordials, and amber in some
cases. "Alkermes comforts the inner parts;" and bezoar stone hath an
especial virtue against all melancholy affections, "it refresheth
the heart, and corroborates the whole body." Amber provokes urine,
helps the body, breaks wind, &c. After a purge, 3 or 4 grains of
bezoar stone, and 3 grains of ambergris, drunk or taken in borage or
bugloss water, in which gold hot hath been quenched, will do much
good, and the purge shall diminish less (the heart so refreshed) of
the strength and substance of the body.
"Rx.. confect. Alkermes ounces one-half lap. Bezor. scruples
j. Succini albi subtiliss. pulverisat. scruples jj. cum Syrup,
de cort. citri; fiat electuarium."
To bezoar stone most subscribe, Manardus, and many others; "it
takes away sadness, and makes him merry that useth it; I have seen
some that have been much diseased with faintness, swooning, and
melancholy, that taking the weight of three grains of this stone, in
the water of oxtongue, have been cured." Garcias ab Horto brags how
many desperate cures he hath done upon melancholy men by this alone,
when all physicians had forsaken them. But alkermes many except
against; in some cases it may help, if it be good and of the best,
such as that of Montpelier in France, which Iodocus Sincerus,
Itinerario Galliae, so much magnifies, and would have no traveller
omit to see it made. But it is not so general a medicine as the
other. Fernelius, consil. 49, suspects alkermes, by reason of its
heat, "nothing" (saith he) "sooner exasperates this disease, than
the use of hot working meats and medicines, and would have them for
that cause warily taken." I conclude, therefore, of this and all
other medicines, as Thucydides of the plague at Athens, no remedy
could be prescribed for it, Nam quod uni profuit, hoc aliis erat
exitio: there is no catholic medicine to be had: that which helps
one, is pernicious to another.
Diamargaritum frigidum, diambra, diaboraginatum, electuarium
laetificans Galeni et Rhasis, de gemmis, dianthos, diamoscum dulce et
amarum, electuarium conciliatoris, syrup. Cidoniorum de pomis,
conserves of roses, violets, fumitory, enula campana, satyrion,
lemons, orange-pills, condite, &c., have their good use.
"Rx.. Diamoschi dulcis et amari ana drachms jj.
Diabuglossati, Diaboraginati, sacchari violacei ana j. misce
cum syrupo de pomis."
Every physician is full of such receipts: one only I will add
for the rareness of it, which I find recorded by many learned
authors, as an approved medicine against dotage, head-melancholy,
and such diseases of the brain. Take a ram's head that never meddled
with an ewe, cut off at a blow, and the horns only take away, boil
it well, skin and wool together; after it is well sod, take out the
brains, and put these spices to it, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, mace,
cloves, ana ounces one-half, mingle the powder of these spices with
it, and heat them in a platter upon a chafing-dish of coals
together, stirring them well, that they do not burn; take heed it be
not overmuch dried, or drier than a calf's brains ready to be eaten.
Keep it so prepared, and for three days give it the patient fasting,
so that he fast two hours after it. It may be eaten with bread in an
egg or broth, or any way, so it be taken. For fourteen days let him
use this diet, drink no wine, &c. Gesner, hist. animal. lib. 1. pag.
917. Caricterius, pract. 13. in Nich. de metri. pag. 129. Iatro:
Wittenberg. edit. Tubing. pag. 62, mention this medicine, though
with some variation; he that list may try it, and many such.
Odoraments to smell to, of rosewater, violet flowers, balm,
rose- cakes, vinegar, &c., do much recreate the brains and spirits,
according to Solomon. Prov. xxvii. 9. "They rejoice the heart," and
as some say, nourish; 'tis a question commonly controverted in our
schools, an odores nutriant; let Ficinus, lib. 2. cap. 18. decide
it; many arguments he brings to prove it; as of Democritus, that
lived by the smell of bread alone, applied to his nostrils, for some
few days, when for old age he could eat no meat. Ferrerius, lib. 2.
meth. speaks of an excellent confection of his making, of wine,
saffron, &c., which he prescribed to dull, weak, feeble, and dying
men to smell to, and by it to have done very much good, aeque fere
profuisse olfactu, et potu, as if he had given them drink. Our noble
and learned Lord Verulam, in his book de vita et morte, commends,
therefore, all such cold smells as any way serve to refrigerate the
spirits. Montanus, consil. 31, prescribes a form which he would have
his melancholy patient never to have out of his hands. If you will
have them spagirically prepared, look in Oswaldus Crollius, basil.
Chymica.
Irrigations of the head shaven, "of the flowers of water
lilies, lettuce, violets, camomile, wild mallows, wether's-head,
&c.," must be used many mornings together. Montan. consil. 31, would
have the head so washed once a week. Laelius a Fonte Eugubinus
consult. 44, for an Italian count, troubled with head- melancholy,
repeats many medicines which he tried, "but two alone which did the
cure; use of whey made of goat's milk, with the extract of
hellebore, and irrigations of the head with water lilies, lettuce,
violets, camomile, &c., upon the suture of the crown." Piso commends
a ram's lungs applied hot to the fore part of the head, or a young
lamb divided in the back, exenterated, &c.; all acknowledge the
chief cure in moistening throughout. Some, saith Laurentius, use
powders and caps to the brain; but forasmuch as such aromatical
things are hot and dry, they must be sparingly administered.
Unto the heart we may do well to apply bags, epithems,
ointments, of which Laurentius, c. 9. de melan. gives examples.
Bruel prescribes an epithem for the heart, of bugloss, borage,
water-lily, violet waters, sweet-wine, balm leaves, nutmegs, cloves,
&c.
For the belly, make a fomentation of oil, in which the seeds
of cumin, rue, carrots, dill, have been boiled.
Baths are of wonderful great force in this malady, much
admired by Galen, Aetius, Rhasis, &c., of sweet water, in which is
boiled the leaves of mallows, roses, violets, water-lilies,
wether's- head, flowers of bugloss, camomile, melilot, &c. Guianer,
cap. 8. tract. 15, would have them used twice a day, and when they
came forth of the baths, their back bones to be anointed with oil of
almonds, violets, nymphea, fresh capon grease, &c.
Amulets and things to be borne about, I find prescribed, taxed
by some, approved by Renodeus, Platerus, (amuleta inquit non
negligenda) and others; look for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus,
&c. Bassardus Viscontinus, ant. philos. commends hypericon, or St.
John's wort gathered on a Friday in the hour of "Jupiter, when it
comes to his effectual operation (that is about the full moon in
July); so gathered and borne, or hung about the neck, it mightily
helps this affection, and drives away all fantastical spirits."
Philes, a Greek author that flourished in the time of Michael
Paleologus, writes that a sheep or kid's skin, whom a wolf worried,
Haedus inhumani raptus ab ore lupi, ought not at all to be worn about
a man, "because it causeth palpitation of the heart," not for any
fear, but a secret virtue which amulets have. A ring made of the
hoof of an ass's right fore foot carried about, &c. I say with
Renodeus, they are not altogether to be rejected. Paeony doth cure
epilepsy; precious stones most diseases; a wolf's dung borne with
one helps the colic, a spider an ague, &c. Being in the country in
the vacation time not many years since, at Lindley in
Leicestershire, my father's house, I first observed this amulet of a
spider in a nut-shell lapped in silk, &c., so applied for an ague by
my mother; whom, although I knew to have excellent skill in
chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, &c., and such experimental medicines,
as all the country where she dwelt can witness, to have done many
famous and good cures upon diverse poor folks, that were otherwise
destitute of help: yet among all other experiments, this methought
was most absurd and ridiculous, I could see no warrant for it. Quid
aranea cum febre? For what antipathy? till at length rambling
amongst authors (as often I do) I found this very medicine in
Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Alderovandus, cap.
de Aranea, lib. de insectis, I began to have a better opinion of it,
and to give more credit to amulets, when I saw it in some parties
answer to experience. Some medicines are to be exploded, that
consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no
good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves; or
the devil's policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them.
SUBSECT. VI.-- Correctors of Accidents to procure Sleep. Against
fearful Dreams, Redness, &c.
When you have used all good means and helps of alteratives,
averters, diminutives, yet there will be still certain accidents to
be corrected and amended, as waking, fearful dreams, flushing in the
face to some ruddiness, &c.
Waking, by reason of their continual cares, fears, sorrows,
dry brains, is a symptom that much crucifies melancholy men, and
must therefore be speedily helped, and sleep by all means procured,
which sometimes is a sufficient remedy of itself without any other
physic. Sckenkius, in his observations, hath an example of a woman
that was so cured. The means to procure it, are inward or outward.
Inwardly taken, are simples, or compounds; simples, as poppy,
nymphea, violets, roses, lettuce, mandrake, henbane, nightshade or
solanum, saffron, hemp-seed, nutmegs, willows, with their seeds,
juice, decoctions, distilled waters, &c. Compounds are syrups, or
opiates, syrup of poppy, violets, verbasco, which are commonly taken
with distilled waters.
"Rx. diacodii ounces j. diascordii drachms one-half aquae
lactucae ounces iij & one-half mista fiat potio ad horam somni
sumenda."
Requies Nicholai, Philonium Romanum, Triphera magna, pilulae,
de Cynoglossa, Dioscordium, Laudanum Paracelsi, Opium, are in use,
&c. Country folks commonly make a posset of hemp-seed, which
Fuchsius in his herbal so much discommends; yet I have seen the good
effect, and it may be used where better medicines are not to be had.
Laudanum Paracelsi is prescribed in two or three grains, with
a dram of Diascordium, which Oswald. Crollius commends. Opium itself
is most part used outwardly, to smell to in a ball, though commonly
so taken by the Turks to the same quantity for a cordial, and at Goa
in, the Indies; the dose 40 or 50 grains.
Rulandus calls Requiem Nicholai ultimum refugium, the last
refuge; but of this and the rest look for peculiar receipts in
Victorius Faventinus, cap. de phrensi. Heurnius cap. de mania.
Hildesheim spicel. 4. de somno et vigil. &c. Outwardly used, as oil
of nutmegs by extraction, or expression with rosewater to anoint the
temples, oils of poppy, nenuphar, mandrake, purslain, violets, all
to the same purpose.
Montan. consil. 24 & 25. much commends odoraments of opium,
vinegar, and rosewater. Laurentius cap. 9. prescribes pomanders and
nodules; see the receipts in him; Codronchus wormwood to smell to.
Unguentum Alabastritum, populeum are used to anoint the
temples, nostrils, or if they be too weak, they mix saffron and
opium. Take a grain or two of opium, and dissolve it with three or
four drops of rosewater in a spoon, and after mingle with it as much
Unguentum populeum as a nut, use it as before: or else take half a
dram of opium, Unguentum populeum, oil of nenuphar, rosewater, rose-
vinegar, of each half an ounce, with as much virgin wax as a nut,
anoint your temples with some of it, ad horam somni.
Sacks of wormwood, mandrake, henbane, roses made like pillows
and laid under the patient's head, are mentioned by Cardan and
Mizaldus, "to anoint the soles of the feet with the fat of a
dormouse, the teeth with ear wax of a dog, swine's gall, hare's
ears:" charms, &c.
Frontlets are well known to every good wife, rosewater and
vinegar, with a little woman's milk, and nutmegs grated upon a rose-
cake applied to both temples.
For an emplaster, take of castorium a dram and a half, of
opium half a scruple, mixed both together with a little water of
life, make two small plasters thereof, and apply them to the
temples.
Rulandus cent. 1. cur. 17. cent. 3. cur. 94. prescribes
epithemes and lotions of the head, with the decoction of flowers of
nymphea, violet-leaves, mandrake roots, henbane, white poppy. Herc.
de Saxonia, stillicidia, or droppings, &c. Lotions of the feet do
much avail of the said herbs: by these means, saith Laurentius, I
think you may procure sleep to the most melancholy man in the world.
Some use horse-leeches behind the ears, and apply opium to the
place.
Bayerus lib. 2. c. 13. sets down some remedies against
fearful dreams, and such as walk and talk in their sleep. Baptista
Porta Mag. nat. l. 2. c. 6. to procure pleasant dreams and quiet
rest, would have you take hippoglossa, or the herb horsetongue,
balm, to use them or their distilled waters after supper, &c. Such
men must not eat beans, peas, garlic, onions, cabbage, venison,
hare, use black wines, or any meat hard of digestion at supper, or
lie on their backs, &c.
Rusticus pudor, bashfulness, flushing in the face, high
colour, ruddiness, are common grievances, which much torture many
melancholy men, when they meet a man, or come in company of their
betters, strangers, after a meal, or if they drink a cup of wine or
strong drink, they are as red and flet, and sweat as if they had
been at a mayor's feast, praesertim si metus accesserit, it exceeds,
they think every man observes, takes notice of it: and fear alone
will effect it, suspicion without any other cause. Sckenkius observ.
med. lib. 1. speaks of a waiting gentlewoman in the Duke of Savoy's
court, that was so much offended with it, that she kneeled down to
him, and offered Biarus, a physician, all that she had to be cured
of it. And 'tis most true, that Antony Ludovicus saith in his book
de Pudore, "bashfulness either hurts or helps," such men I am sure
it hurts. If it proceed from suspicion or fear, Felix Plater
prescribes no other remedy but to reject and contemn it: Id populus
curat scilicet, as a worthy physician in our town said to a friend
of mine in like case, complaining without a cause, suppose one look
red, what matter is it, make light of it, who observes it?
If it trouble at or after meals, (as Jobertus observes med.
pract. l. 1. c. 7.) after a little exercise or stirring, for many
are then hot and red in the face, or if they do nothing at all,
especially women; he would have them let blood in both arms, first
one, then another, two or three days between, if blood abound; to
use frictions of the other parts, feet especially, and washing of
them, because of that consent which is between the head and the
feet. And withal to refrigerate the face, by washing it often with
rose, violet, nenuphar, lettuce, lovage waters, and the like: but
the best of all is that lac virginale, or strained liquor of
litargy: it is diversely prepared; by Jobertus thus; Rx. lithar.
argent. unc. j cerussae candidissimae, drachms jjj. caphurae, scruples
jj. dissolvantur aquarum solani, lactucae, et nenupharis ana unc.
jjj. aceti vini albi. unc. jj. aliquot horas resideat, deinde
transmittatur per philt. aqua servetur in vase vitreo, ac ea bis
terve facies quotidie irroretur. Quercetan spagir. phar. cap. 6.
commends the water of frog's spawn for ruddiness in the face. Crato
consil. 283. Scoltzii would fain have them use all summer the
condite flowers of succory, strawberry water, roses (cupping-glasses
are good for the time), consil. 285. et 286. and to defecate impure
blood with the infusion of senna, savory, balm water. Hollerius knew
one cured alone with the use of succory boiled, and drunk for five
months, every morning in the summer. It is good overnight to anoint
the face with hare's blood, and in the morning to wash it with
strawberry and cowslip water, the juice of distilled lemons, juice
of cucumbers, or to use the seeds of melons, or kernels of peaches
beaten small, or the roots of Aron, and mixed with wheat bran to
bake it in an oven, and to crumble it in strawberry water, or to
put fresh cheese curds to a red face.
If it trouble them at meal times that flushing, as oft it
doth, with sweating or the like, they must avoid all violent
passions and actions, as laughing, &c., strong drink, and drink very
little, one draught, saith Crato, and that about the midst of their
meal; avoid at all times indurate salt, and especially spice and
windy meat.
Crato prescribes the condite fruit of wild rose, to a
nobleman his patient, to be taken before dinner or supper, to the
quantity of a chestnut. It is made of sugar, as that of quinces. The
decoction of the roots of sowthistle before meat, by the same author
is much approved. To eat of a baked apple some advice, or of a
preserved quince, cumin-seed prepared with meat instead of salt, to
keep down fumes: not to study or to be intentive after meals.
"Rx. Nucleorum persic. seminis melonum ana unc. scruples one-
half aquae fragrorum l. ij. misce, utatur mane."
To apply cupping glasses to the shoulders is very good. For
the other kind of ruddiness which is settled in the face with
pimples, &c., because it pertains not to my subject, I will not
meddle with it. I refer you to Crato's counsels, Arnoldus lib. 1.
breviar. cap. 39. 1. Rulande, Peter Forestus de Fuco, lib. 31.
obser. 2. To Platerus, Mercurialis, Ulmus, Rondoletius, Heurnius,
Menadous, and others that have written largely of it.
Those other grievances and symptoms of headache, palpitation
of heart, Vertigo deliquium, &c., which trouble many melancholy men,
because they are copiously handled apart in every physician, I do
voluntarily omit.
MEMB. II.
Cure of Melancholy over all the Body.
Where the melancholy blood possesseth the whole body with the
brain, it is best to begin with bloodletting. The Greeks prescribe
the median or middle vein to be opened, and so much blood to be
taken away as the patient may well spare, and the cut that is made
must be wide enough. The Arabians hold it fittest to be taken from
that arm on which side there is more pain and heaviness in the head:
if black blood issue forth, bleed on; if it be clear and good, let
it be instantly suppressed, "because the malice of melancholy is
much corrected by the goodness of the blood." If the party's
strength will not admit much evacuation in this kind at once, it
must be assayed again and again: if it may not be conveniently taken
from the arm, it must be taken from the knees and ankles, especially
to such men or women whose haemorrhoids or months have been stopped.
If the malady continue, it is not amiss to evacuate in a part in the
forehead, and to virgins in the ankles, who are melancholy for love
matters; so to widows that are much grieved and troubled with sorrow
and cares: for bad blood flows in the heart, and so crucifies the
mind. The haemorrhoids are to be opened with an instrument or horse-
leeches, &c. See more in Montaltus, cap. 29. Sckenkius hath an
example of one that was cured by an accidental wound in his thigh,
much bleeding freed him from melancholy. Diet, diminutives,
alteratives, cordials, correctors as before, intermixed as occasion
serves, "all their study must be to make a melancholy man fat, and
then the cure is ended." Diuretics, or medicines to procure urine,
are prescribed by some in this kind, hot and cold: hot where the
heat of the liver doth not forbid; cold where the heat of the liver
is very great: amongst hot are parsley roots, lovage, fennel, &c.:
cold, melon seeds, &c., with whey of goat's milk, which is the
common conveyer.
To purge and purify the blood, use sowthistle, succory, senna,
endive, carduus benedictus, dandelion, hop, maidenhair, fumitory,
bugloss, borage, &c., with their juice, decoctions, distilled
waters, syrups, &c.
Oswaldus, Crollius, basil Chym. much admires salt of corals in
this case, and Aetius, tetrabib. ser. 2. cap. 114. Hieram Archigenis,
which is an excellent medicine to purify the blood, "for all
melancholy affections, falling sickness, none to be compared to it."
MEMB. III.
SUBSECT. I.-- Cure of Hypochondriacal Melancholy.
In this cure, as in the rest, is especially required the
rectification of those six non-natural things above all, as good
diet, which Montanus, consil. 27. enjoins a French nobleman, "to
have an especial care of it, without which all other remedies are in
vain." Bloodletting is not to be used, except the patient's body be
very full of blood, and that it be derived from the liver and spleen
to the stomach and his vessels, then to draw it back, to cut the
inner vein of either arm, some say the salvatella, and if the malady
be continuate, to open a vein in the forehead.
Preparatives and alteratives may be used as before, saving
that there must be respect had as well to the liver, spleen,
stomach, hypochondries, as to the heart and brain. To comfort the
stomach and inner parts against wind and obstructions, by Areteus,
Galen, Aetius, Aurelianus, &c., and many latter writers, are still
prescribed the decoctions of wormwood, centaury, pennyroyal, betony
sodden in whey, and daily drunk: many have been cured by this
medicine alone.
Prosper Altinus and some others as much magnify the water of
Nile against this malady, an especial good remedy for windy
melancholy. For which reason belike Ptolemeus Philadelphus, when he
married his daughter Berenice to the king of Assyria (as Celsus,
lib. 2. records), magnis impensis Nili aquam afferri jussit, to his
great charge caused the water of Nile to be carried with her, and
gave command, that during her life she should use no other drink. I
find those that commend use of apples, in splenetic and this kind of
melancholy (lamb's-wool some call it), which howsoever approved,
must certainly be corrected of cold rawness and wind.
Codronchus in his book de sale absyn. magnifies the oil and
salt of wormwood above all other remedies, "which works better and
speedier than any simple whatsoever, and much to be preferred before
all those fulsome decoctions and infusions, which must offend by
reason of their quantity; this alone in a small measure taken,
expels wind, and that most forcibly, moves urine, cleanseth the
stomach of all gross humours, crudities, helps appetite," &c.
Arnoldus hath a wormwood wine which he would have used, which every
pharmacopoeia speaks of.
Diminutives and purges may be taken as before, of hiera,
manna, cassia, which Montanus consil. 230. for an Italian abbot, in
this kind prefers before all other simples, "And these must be often
used, still abstaining from those which are more violent, lest they
do exasperate the stomach, &c., and the mischief by that means be
increased." Though in some physicians I find very strong purgers,
hellebore itself prescribed in this affection. If it long continue,
vomits may be taken after meat, or otherwise gently procured with
warm water, oxymel, &c., now and then. Fuchsius cap. 33. prescribes
hellebore; but still take heed in this malady, which I have often
warned, of hot medicines, "because" (as Salvianus adds) "drought
follows heat, which increaseth the disease:" and yet Baptista
Sylvaticus controv. 32. forbids cold medicines, "because they
increase obstructions and other bad symptoms." But this varies as
the parties do, and 'tis not easy to determine which to use. "The
stomach most part in this infirmity is cold, the liver hot; scarce
therefore" (which Montanus insinuates consil. 229. for the Earl of
Manfort) "can you help the one and not hurt the other:" much
discretion must be used; take no physic at all he concludes without
great need. Laelius Aegubinus consil. for an hypochondriacal German
prince, used many medicines; "but it was after signified to him in
letters, that the decoction of China and sassafras, and salt of
sassafras wrought him an incredible good." In his 108 consult, he
used as happily the same remedies; this to a third might have been
poison, by overheating his liver and blood.
For the other parts look for remedies in Savanarola,
Gordonius, Massaria, Mercatus, Johnson, &c. One for the spleen,
amongst many other, I will not omit, cited by Hildesheim, spicel. 2,
prescribed by Mat. Flaccus, and out of the authority of Benevenius.
Antony Benevenius in a hypochondriacal passion, "cured an exceeding
great swelling of the spleen with capers alone, a meat befitting
that infirmity, and frequent use of the water of a smith's forge; by
this physic he helped a sick man, whom all other physicians had
forsaken, that for seven years had been splenetic." And of such
force is this water, "that those creatures as drink of it, have
commonly little or no spleen." See more excellent medicines for the
spleen in him and Lod. Mercatus, who is a great magnifier of this
medicine. This Chalybs praeparatus, or steel-drink, is much likewise
commended to this disease by Daniel Sennertus l. 1. part. 2. cap.
12. and admired by J. Caesar Claudinus Respons. 29. he calls steel
the proper alexipharmacum of this malady, and much magnifies it;
look for receipts in them. Averters must be used to the liver and
spleen, and to scour the mesaraic veins: and they are either too
open or provoke urine. You can open no place better than the
haemorrhoids, "which if by horse-leeches they be made to flow, there
may be again such an excellent remedy," as Plater holds. Sallust.
Salvian will admit no other phlebotomy but this; and by his
experience in an hospital which he kept, he found all mad and
melancholy men worse for other bloodletting. Laurentius cap. 15.
calls this of horse-leeches a sure remedy to empty the spleen and
mesaraic membrane. Only Montanus consil. 241. is against it; "to
other men" (saith he) "this opening of the haemorrhoids seems to be
a profitable remedy; for my part I do not approve of it, because it
draws away the thinnest blood, and leaves the thickest behind."
Aetius, Vidus Vidius, Mercurialis, Fuchsius, recommend
diuretics, or such things as provoke urine, as aniseeds, dill,
fennel, germander, ground pine, sodden in water, or drunk in powder:
and yet P. Bayerus is against them: and so is Hollerius; "All
melancholy men" (saith he) "must avoid such things as provoke urine,
because by them the subtile or thinnest is evacuated, the thicker
matter remains."
Clysters are in good request. Trincavelius lib. 3. cap. 38.
for a young nobleman, esteems of them in the first place, and
Hercules de Saxonia Panth. lib. 1. cap. 16. is a great approver of
them. "I have found (saith he) by experience, that many
hypochondriacal melancholy men have been cured by the sole use of
clysters," receipts are to be had in him.
Besides those fomentations, irrigations, inunctions,
odoraments, prescribed for the head, there must be the like used for
the liver, spleen, stomach, hypochondries, &c. "In crudity" (saith
Piso) "'tis good to bind the stomach hard" to hinder wind, and to
help concoction.
Of inward medicines I need not speak; use the same cordials as
before. In this kind of melancholy, some prescribe treacle in
winter, especially before or after purges, or in the spring, as
Avicenna, Trincavellius mithridate, Montaltus paeony seed,
unicorn's horn; os de corde cervi, &c.
Amongst topics or outward medicines, none are more precious
than baths, but of them I have spoken. Fomentations to the
hypochondries are very good, of wine and water in which are sodden
southernwood, melilot, epithyme, mugwort, senna, polypody, as also
cerotes, plaisters, liniments, ointments for the spleen, liver, and
hypochondries, of which look for examples in Laurentius, Jobertus
lib. 3. c. pra. med. Montanus consil. 231. Montaltus cap. 33.
Hercules de Saxonia, Faventinus. And so of epithems, digestive
powders, bags, oils, Octavius Horatianus lib. 2. c. 5. prescribes
calastic cataplasms, or dry purging medicines; Piso dropaces of
pitch, and oil of rue, applied at certain times to the stomach, to
the metaphrene, or part of the back which is over against the heart,
Aetius sinapisms; Montaltus cap. 35. would have the thighs to be
cauterised, Mercurialis prescribes beneath the knees; Laelius
Aegubinus consil. 77. for a hypochondriacal Dutchman, will have the
cautery made in the right thigh, and so Montanus consil. 55. The
same Montanus consil. 34. approves of issues in the arms or hinder
part of the head. Bernardus Paternus in Hildesheim spicel 2. would
have issues made in both the thighs; Lod. Mercatus prescribes them
near the spleen, aut prope ventriculi regimen, or in either of the
thighs. Ligatures, frictions, and cupping-glasses above or about the
belly, without scarification, which Felix Platerus so much approves,
may be used as before.
SUBSECT. II.-- Correctors to expel Wind. Against Costiveness, &c.
In this kind of melancholy one of the most offensive symptoms
is wind, which, as in the other species, so in this, hath great need
to be corrected and expelled.
The medicines to expel it are either inwardly taken, or
outwardly. Inwardly to expel wind, are simples or compounds: simples
are herbs, roots, &c., as galanga, gentian, angelica, enula, calamus
aromaticus, valerian, zeodoti, iris, condite ginger, aristolochy,
cicliminus, China, dittander, pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay-
berries, and bay-leaves, betony, rosemary, hyssop, sabine, centaury,
mint, camomile, staechas, agnus castus, broom-flowers, origan,
orange-pills, &c.; spices, as saffron, cinnamon, bezoar stone,
myrrh, mace, nutmegs, pepper, cloves, ginger, seeds of annis,
fennel, amni, cari, nettle, rue, &c., juniper berries, grana
paradisi; compounds, dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, diacalaminth,
electuarium de baccis lauri, benedicta laxativa, pulvis ad status.
antid. florent. pulvis carminativus, aromaticum rosatum, treacle,
mithridate &c. This one caution of Gualter Bruell is to be observed
in the administering of these hot medicines and dry, "that whilst
they covet to expel wind, they do not inflame the blood, and
increase the disease; sometimes" (as he saith) "medicines must more
decline to heat, sometimes more to cold, as the circumstances
require, and as the parties are inclined to heat or cold."
Outwardly taken to expel winds, are oils, as of camomile, rue,
bays, &c.; fomentations of the hypochondries, with the decoctions of
dill, pennyroyal, rue, bay leaves, cumin, &c., bags of camomile
flowers, aniseed, cumin, bays, rue, wormwood, ointments of the oil
of spikenard, wormwood, rue, &c. Areteus prescribes cataplasms of
camomile flowers, fennel, aniseeds, cumin, rosemary, wormwood-
leaves, &c.
Cupping-glasses applied to the hypochondries, without
scarification, do wonderfully resolve wind. Fernelius consil. 43.
much approves of them at the lower end of the belly; Lod. Mercatus
calls them a powerful remedy, and testifies moreover out of his own
knowledge, how many he hath seen suddenly eased by them. Julius
Caesar Claudinus respons. med. resp. 33. admires these cupping-
glasses, which he calls out of Galen, "a kind of enchantment, they
cause such present help."
Empirics have a myriad of medicines, as to swallow a bullet of
lead, &c., which I voluntarily omit. Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 4.
curat. 54. for a hypochondriacal person, that was extremely
tormented with wind, prescribes a strange remedy. Put a pair of
bellows end into a clyster pipe, and applying it into the fundament,
open the bowels, so draw forth the wind, natura non admittit vacuum.
He vaunts he was the first invented this remedy, and by means of it
speedily eased a melancholy man. Of the cure of this flatuous
melancholy, read more in Fienus de Flatibus, cap. 26. et passim
alias.
Against headache, vertigo, vapours which ascend forth of the
stomach to molest the head, read Hercules de Saxonia, and others.
If costiveness offend in this, or any other of the three
species, it is to be corrected with suppositories, clysters or
lenitives, powder of senna, condite prunes, &c. Rx. Elect. lenit, e
succo rosar. ana ounces j. misce. Take as much as a nutmeg at a
time, half an hour before dinner or supper, or pil. mastichin.
ounces j. in six pills, a pill or two at a time. See more in
Montan. consil. 229. Hildesheim spicel. 2. P. Cnemander, and
Montanus commend "Cyprian turpentine, which they would have
familiarly taken, to the quantity of a small nut, two or three hours
before dinner and supper, twice or thrice a week if need be; for
besides that it keeps the belly soluble, it clears the stomach,
opens obstructions, cleanseth the liver, provokes urine."
These in brief are the ordinary medicines which belong to the
cure of melancholy, which if they be used aright, no doubt may do
much good; Si non levando saltem leniendo valent, peculiaria bene
selecta, saith Bessardus, a good choice of particular receipts must
needs ease, if not quite cure, not one, but all or most, as occasion
serves. Et quae non prosunt singula, multa juvant.
GLOSSARY
Of obsolete words, or words used in an obsolete sense
Abraham Man: A wandering beggar, originally a crippled or
insane person supported by a monastery who was turned out at
the Dissolution.
Absterge: To wipe clean
Adust: Dried up or thicker than normal
Alablastritum: A valuable ointment (of the kind usually kept
in an alabaster box, hence the name)
Alexipharmacum: An antidote
Alkermes: An insect containing a red dye, related to cochineal
Alterative: A medicine which improves the digestion
Alyppus: An unidentified analgesic plant
Ammi: Bishop-weed
Antevorta & Postvorta: Two goddesses in Roman mythology;
Antevorta (The one turned forward) saw all future things but
knew nothing of the past; Postvorta (the one turned behind)
knew all past things
Apologue: An allegorical fable
Apophlemgatism: A medicine which clears phlegm form the head
Aristolochy: Birthwort
Asarum: Wild ginger
Asrabecca: Wild ginger
Bangle Away: Fritter away, squander
Barley-breaks: A game of chasing played by couples
Benedicta laxativa: A mild laxative medicine
Bezoar: A stone or hard mass found in the stomachs of certain
ruminant animals
Bole: A large pill
Brach: A hound
Bradiopepsia: Slowness of digestion
Brangling: Quarrelsome
Brownbastard: A sweet Spanish wine
Bulk: A bench or trestle outside a shop, where goods are
displayed during the day, but often used as a sleeping-place
by beggars etc. at night.
Cachexia: A disease in which all the bodily parts are corrupt
or deprived of nourishment
Cacochymia: Corruption of bodily humours
Calamus aromaticus: Sweet rush
Calastic: Laxative
Calenture: A delirious fever or sunstroke
Cantharides: Spanish fly
Carcase: The framework of a building
Cardiaca: Heartburn or angina
Cark (N.): Anxiety, trouble
Carle (V.): To snarl or growl
Carniola: Slovenia
Carpet Knight: A knight whose accomplishments are more in the
boudoir than the battle-field
Cary: Caraway
Castorium: A strong-smelling substance extracted from the anal
glands of the beaver
Castril: A kestrel
Cataplasm: A plaster or poultice
Cates: Dainty foods
Catoptrics: The optical science of reflection
Cerote: An ointment of a very stiff consistency, based on
beeswax
Ceruse: White lead
Ceterach(e): Scale-fern or Miltwaste
Chamico : Chamiso (Adenostoma fasciculatum)
Cheese-trencher: A cheese platter
Chelidony: A stone supposed to be found in the belly of a
swallow
Chersonesi: Peninsulas
China root: Sarsaparilla
Choler: Bile
Chuff (N): A boor
Chylus, Chilus: Digested food, as passed from the stomach to
the gut
Cicuta: Hemlock
Circumforanean: Wandering, vagabond
Civilian: A lawyer specialising in civil cases
Clancular: Secret, underhand
Clyster: An enema
Cock-Boat: A small rowing-boat
Cocker (V.): To indulge or pamper
Colure: One of two great circles which divide the ecliptic
into four equal parts at the equinox and solstice points
Colutea: Bladder-senna
Combust: (Of the moon or a planet) Invisible because near the
sun in the sky
Compellations: Words addressed to someone
Concoction: Digestion of food; generation and development of
the humours(q.v)
Condites: Preserves or pickles
Constringed: Compressed or condensed
Constuprate: To rape
Contemn: To despise
Cony-catcher: A swindler
Corath: One of the leaders of a rebellion against Moses's
rule. See Numbers Ch. 16
Corography, Chorography: An account of a particular country or
district
Corrivate: Two channel two streams into one, or vice versa.
Corroborative: A strengthening or invigorating medicine
Coulstaff: A pole used to carry heavy objects, which were
slung from it, and the coulstaff supported on the shoulders of
two men
Crudity: Imperfect concoction (q.v) of the humours (q.v.)
Cubbed Up: Cooped up
Cullion: A ballocks (in both senses)
Currier: A tanner or leather-dresser
Cushion dance: A dance in which the women and men alternately
knelt on a cushion to be kissed.
Dathan: One of the leaders of a rebellion against Moses's
rule. See Numbers Ch. 16
Datura: Strammony or thorn-apple
Daucus: Wild carrot
Defecate: To cleanse of filth
Dehort: Dissuade
Deliquium: A fainting fit
Dia- : Prefix meaning a medicine whose principal ingredient is
the following part of the word, which is the Latin or Greek
name of the substance
Diacalaminthes: A medicine whose principal ingredient is
calamint
Diacassia: A medicine whose principal ingredient is cassia
Diacatholicon: A medicine compounded of senna, cassia,
tamarinds, roots of male fern, rhubarb, liquorice, aniseed,
sweet fennel, and sugar.
Diaciminum: A medicine whose principal ingredient is cumin
Diacodium, diacodion: A medicine whose principal ingredient is
poppies (i.e. opium)
Diacorolli: A medicine whose principal ingredient is coral
Diacydonium: A medicine whose principal ingredient is quinces
Diagalanga: A medicine whose principal ingredient is galingale
Diamargaritum calidum: A hot medicine whose principal
ingredient is pearl
Diamargaritum frigidum: A cold medicine whose principal
ingredient is pearl
Diambra: A medicine whose principal ingredient is ambergris
Diamoscum Dulce: A medicine whose principal ingredient is
sweet musk
Dianisum: A medicine whose principal ingredient is aniseed
Diaphenicum: A medicine whose principal ingredient is dates
Diapolypodion: A medicine whose principal ingredient is
polypody fern
Diarrhodon: A medicine whose principal ingredient is roses
Diatrion piperion: A medicine compounded form three kinds of
pepper
Distemperature: A disordered condition or ailment of the body
Diverb: A proverb in two contrasting parts
Dodecotemories: The signs of the Zodiac
Dragon root: The root of dragonwort, (Dracunculus vulgaris)
Dram, Drachm: 60 grains, or one-eighth of an ounce (3.6 grams
approx)
Dropax (pl.) Dropaces: A plaster made from pitch
Dummerer: A beggar who pretends to be dumb
Eben Stone: A very hard black stone
Eclegm: A medicine of a thick consistency, which has to be
licked off the spoon
Electuarium de baccis lauri: A compound of bayleaves and honey
Electuarium de gemmis: A compound of powdered gems and honey
Emmet: An ant
Emmetris: Emerald
Empiric (N.): A quack doctor
Emulgent (Blood Vessels): The blood vessels of the kidneys
Enula: Elecampane
Epitheme, (pl.) Epithemata: A moist plaster or poultice
Epithyme: Dodder
Errhine, (pl) Errhina : A plug of lint soaked in medicine, for
insertion into the nose
Etesian wind: A North-Western wind which blows in the
Mediterranean regions during the Summer
Eupatory: Hemp Agrimony
Euripi: Sea channels with turbulent and unpredictable currents
Evirate: Castrate
Exenterated: Dismebowelled
Exolete: Faded, worn out, out-of-date
Facete: Amusing
Feculent: Filthy, polluted
Fieldon: Tillage land
Flaggy: Flabby, limp
Fleer: To grimace
Flet: Flushed
Foalfoot: Either coltsfoot or wild ginger
Frications: Massage
Frontal, frontlet: A plaster applied to the forehead
Fuliginous: Sooty
Fumados : Smoked pilchards
Funge: A soft-headed person
Furfurs: Dandruff or scurf
Fusled: Confused, muddled
Gargarise: To gargle
Gargarism: A gargle
Genethliacal: Astrological
Genist: Broom
Geniture: Horoscope
Gloze: To flatter, explain away, "spin"
Glycypicron: Something both sweet and bitter
Goosecap: A fool
Grain: One-480th of an ounce (60 milligrams approx)
Grana paradisi: "Grains of Paradise" -- the seeds of amomum or
bastard cardamom
Gripe (N.): A miser
Grumel: Gromwell
Gryphe: A griffin or a vulture
Gull: A gullible person
Gymnics: Gymnastics
Haberdine : Salt cod
Hamech: A very powerful laxative made from colocynth
Hermodactil: Colchicum.
Heteroclitical: Irregular; deviating from the standard or norm
Homocentrics: The heavenly spheres
Hone: To whine or moan
Humour: One of the four fluids of the body governing health
etc: Blood, Bile, Phlegm, Black bile
Hypochondries: The upper abdomen, between the breast-bone and
navel
Iatromathematical: Concerned with the mathematics of medicine
Ichneumon: An African mongoose, noted for raiding crocodile
nests and eating the eggs
Imbonity: Unkindness
Incondite: (of speech) Sudden cries without meaning, as "Oh!"
"Ah!" "Grr!" etc.
Incult: Barren, uncultivated
Indurate: Hardened
Ingeminate: To repeat
Insuavity: Surliness
Intempestive: Inappropriate
Irrefragable: Undeniable
Ister: The river Danube
Jument: A beast of burden
Keelpins: Skittles
Kell: A caul
Laetificans Galeni et Rhasis: "Galen and Rhasis' euphoriant
medecine"
Landleaper: A vagabond or fugitive
Lapis Armenus: Armenian stone, a blue carbonate of copper
Lapithae: A people of Thessaly
Laplolly: Gruel or broth
Lee: A soapy or alkaline solution used fro washing
Lenitive: A soothing or gently laxative medicine
Linctures: A linctus, medicine of a thick consistency, which
has to be licked off the spoon
Livor: A bruise or similar discoloration of the skin; also,
malice or spite
Luculent: Brilliant, shining
Lusorious: Used in a game
Magistral: A medicine recommended by an authority which is not
in the official pharmacopoeia
Malificated: Evil-intentioned
Manamotapa: An ancient African kingdom in what is now Zimbabwe
Maragnan: Maranh�o, an island near the coast of Brazil
Masticatory: A medicine meant to be chewed but not swallowed
Mastupration: Masturbation
Mediately: Through an intermediary
Merry-Thought: A wishbone
Meseraical, Mesaraic: Of the mesentery, the membranes of the
abdomen.
Metoposcopy: Telling a person's fortune or character by the
appearance of his forehead, or face generally
Mewed up: Imprisoned
Minim: One-480th of a fluid ounce i.e. the fluid equivalent of
a grain (60 microlitres approx)
Mithridate: A mixture of various ingredients, believed to be a
universal antidote to poisons
Moabar: Malabar, in India
Mogor: Mogul, or Mughal; the emperor of India
Monocerot: A Rhinoceros
Monomachy: Duel, single combat
Morphew: An ailment which causes scaling of the skin
Mouldwarp: A mole (the burrowing animal)
Mulct: A fine or financial penalty
Myrache, Mirach: The abdomen, esp. the part around the stomach
Naumachy: A mock sea-battle presented as a public spectacle
Nenuphar: Water-lily
Nepenthes: An unidentified drug, said to banish grief and
sorrow
Nodule: A small bag filled with aromatic herbs, spices etc.
Noremberga: Nuremberg, Gramany
Nova Albion: An unidentified place on the West coast of North
America visited by Sir Francis Drake in 1579.
Nymphea: Water-lily
Obnubilate: Cloud over
Opiparous: Sumptuous
Oppilations: Obstructions
Oppugner: An adversary
Orbity: Bereavement
Organ: Pennyroyal
Oxymel: Vinegar and honey mixed
Painful: Painstaking
Pairmain: A variety of apple
Palladium: A thing which protects against harm (originally the
statue of the goddess Pallas in Troy, which was believed to
protect the city from all dangers)
Parable (A.): Accessible, Easily obtained,
Paraenetical: Containing advice or exhortations
Parietines: Ruins
Pasquil: A lampoon. It was the custom in Rome to affix
lampoons to the statue of Pasquil St. Mark's Day.
Peckled: Spotted, speckled
Perioeci: People who live at the same parallel of latitude
Perstringe: To criticise or find fault.
Philosophastic: Of or relating to a philosophaster, a shallow
or pseudo-philosopher
Pistick nuts: Pistachios
Pituita: Phlegm
Poke (Bavarian): Goitre
Polyanthean: (a.) Relating to an anthology; (n.) the compiler
or user of one
Pomander: A ball of aromatic herbs etc.
Populeum: An ointment made of the buds of the Black Poplar.
Precipitium: A precipice
Pugil: A three-finger pinch
Purley: Purlieu, land around the edges of a forest
Quean: A slut or prostitute
Quevira: A mythical city believed to be in what is now the US
state of Kansas
Ramsheads: Some medicinal plant (OED says chick-peas, but I
can find no reference to medicinal use of these)
Roaring-meg: A very large cannon
Rose-cake: A cake of compressed rose-petals
Ruck: The roc, a mythical giant bird
Rumney: A sweet wine believed to be from Romania (actually
Greece)
Sabine: Juniper
Sackbut: A kind of trombone
Salvatella: A vein in the back of the hand
Sanders: Sandalwood
Satyrion: Orchid
Scammony: The resin of the plant Convolvulus Scammonia
Scolopendria: Hart's-tongue Fern
Scordium: Water germander
Scrub (N.): An insignificant or contemptible person
Scruple: 20 grains, or one-third of a dram. (1.2 grams approx)
Semiustulation: Half-burning
Serves: The fruit of the service-tree (Sorbus)
Sharker: A swindler
Shimei: A relative of King Saul, who cursed David and threw
stones at him. See II Samuel, Ch. 16
Sinapismus: A mustard plaster
Sindaw: Sundew
Six Non-Natural Things: Diet; retention and evacuation; air;
exercise; sleeping and waking; perturbations of the mind (See
Part. 1 Sec. 2 Memb 1. Subsect 1.)
Smaragdes: Emeralds
Smell-feast: A gatecrasher or sponger
Sod, Sodden: Boiled
Sophy: The Shah of Persia
Spagirically: Alchemically
Spectrum: A ghost
Spruce: Prussia
Staechas, staechados: French Lavender
Stick Free: (A person) immune to injury by a weapon
Stramineous: Made of straw, worthless
Strangury: Retention of urine
Struma: Scrofula or goitre
Stupend: Extraordinary
Stut: Stutter
Suffite: A perfume burned or smoked as a medicinal remedy
Suffumigation: Perfuming a room with herbs etc. whose aroma is
medicinal
Superficies: Surface
Table: A tablet
Tetric: Bitter, morose
Tetter: A running sore or skin disease
Theologastic: Of or relating to a theologaster, a shallow or
pseudo-theologian
Thistlewarp: A goldfinch
Trencher Chaplain: A chaplain who is one of a rich man's
household servants
Trinoctium: A festival lasting for three nights
Tully: Cicero
Turbith: Jalap
Turgent: Swollen with pride
Typmany: A swelling or tumour
Union: A large pearl
Vastity: Desolation
Venditate: To display for sale, or as if for sale
Venery: Sex or the pursuit of it; hunting in general
Verbasco: Mullein
Wasters: Stick-fencing
Weele: An eddy or whirlpool
Wourts: Worts, i.e. plants, vegetables
Zeilan: Ceylon, Sri Lanka
Zur, Del Zur: The Pacific Ocean