d which a Plato commends, out of him b Lipsius approves and furthers, as fit to be imprinted in all curious wits, not to be a slave of one science, or dwell altogether in one subject, as most do, but to rove abroad, centum puer artium, to have an oar in every mans boat, to taste of every dish, and to sip of every cup; which, saith Montaigne, was well performed by Aristotle, and his learned countrey-man Adrian Turnebus. This roving humour (though not with like success) I have ever had, and, like a ranging spaniel, that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his game, I have followed all, saving that which I should, and may justly complain, and truly, qui ubique est, nusquam est, which Gesner did in modesty; that I have read many bookes, but to little purpose, for want of good method, I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our libraries with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgement. I never travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with the study of cosmography. f Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminating, &c. and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile conjunction with mine ascendant; both fortunate in their houses, &c. I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest; I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it. I have a competency (laus Deo) from my noble and munificent patrons. Though I live still a collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastique life, ipse mihi theatrum, sequestred from those tumults and troubles of the world, et tamquam in speculá positus (5 as he said), in some high place above you all, like Stoicus sapiens, omnia sæcula preterita præsentiaque videns, uno velut intuitu, I hear and see what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and countrey. Far from those wrangling law-suits, aulæ vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo: I laugh at all, only secure, lest my suit go amiss, my ships perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay, I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for; a meer spectator of other mens fortunes and adventures and how they act their parts, which me thinks are diversely presented unto i h • In Theat. Phil. Stoic. li. diff. 8. Dogma cupidis et curiosis ingeniis imprimendum, ut sit talis qui nulli rei serviat, aut exacte unum aliquid elaboret, alia negligens, ut artifices, &c. • Delibare gratum de quocunque cibo, et pitissare d Essays, lib. 3. Præfat. bibiliothec. de quocunque dolio jucundum. f Ambo fortes et fortunati, Mars idem magisterii dominus juxta primam Leovitii regulam Heinsius. b Calide ambientes, solicite litigantes, aut misere excidentes, voces, strepitum, contentiones, &c. i Cyp. ad. Donat. Unice securus, ne excidam in foro, aut in mari Indico bonis eluam, de dote filiæ, patrimonio filii non sum solicitus. I hear new news me, as from a common theater or scene. every day: and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turky, Persia, Poland, &c. dayly musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwracks, piracies, and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms-a vast confusion of vowes, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, law-suits, pleas, lawes, proclamations, complaints, grievances-are dayly brought to our ears: new bookes every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubiles, embassies, tilts, and tornaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, playes: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating trickes, robberies, enormous villanies in all kindes, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comicall, then tragicall matters. To day we hear of new lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred: one is let loose, another imprisoned: one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c. Thus I dayly hear, and such like, both private and publike news. Amidst the gallantry and misery of the world, jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villany, subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, mutually mixt and offering themselves, I rub on, privus privatus: as I have still lived, so I now continue statu quo prius, left to a solitary life, and mine own domestick discontents; saving that sometimes, ne quidmentiar, as Diogenes went into the city and Democritus to the haven, to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose but make some little observation, non tam sagax observator, ac simplex recitator, not, as they did, to scoffe or laugh at all, but with a mixt passion. b a Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movere tumultus. I did sometime laugh and scoffe with Lucian, and satyrically tax with Menippus, lament with Heraclitus, sometimes again I was petulanti splene cachinno, and then again, Curere bilis jecur, I was much moved to see that abuse which I could not amend: in which passion howsoever I may sympathize a with him or them, 'tis for no such respect I shroud my self under his name, but either, in an unknown habit, to assume a little more liberty and freedom of speech, or if you will needs know, for that reason and only respect which Hippocrates relates at large in his epistle to Damegetus, wherein he doth express, how, coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden at Abdera, in the suburbs, under a shady bower, with a book on his knees, busie at his study, sometime writing, sometime walking. The subject of his book was melancholy and madness: about him lay the carkasses of many severall beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomized; not that he did contemn God's creatures, as he told Hippocrates, but to find out the seat of this atru bilis, or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it was engendred in mens bodies, to the intent he might better cure it in himself by his writings and observations teach others how to prevent and avoid it. Which good intent of his Hippocrates highly commended; Democritus Junior is therefore bold to imitate, and, because he left it imperfect and it is now lost, quasi succenturiator Democriti, to revive again, prosecute, and finish in this treatise. You have had a reason of the name. If the title and inscription offend your gravity, were it a sufficient justification to accuse others, I could produce many sober treatises, even sermons themselves, which in their fronts carry more phantastical names. Howsoever, it is a kinde of policy in these dayes, to prefix a phantastical title to a book which is to be sold: for as larks come down to a day-net, many vain readers will tarry and stand gazing, like silly passengers, at an antick picture in a painters shop, that will not look at a judicious piece. And indeed, as Scaliger observes, nothing more invites a reader than an argument unlooked for, unthought of, and sells better than a scurrile pamphlet, tum maxime cum novitas excitat palatum. Many men, saith Gellius, are very conceited in their inscriptions, and able, (as Pliny quotes out of Seneca) to make him loyter by the way, that went in haste to fetch a mid-wife for his daughter, now ready to lye down. For my part, I have honourable precedents for this I have done: I will cite one for all, Anthony Zara Pap. Episc. his e Secundum monia locus erat frondosis populis opacus, vitibusque sponte natis: tenuis prope aqua deflurebat, placide murmurans, ubi sedile et domus Democriti conspiciebatur. Ipse composite considebat, super genua volumen habens, et utrinque alia patentia parata, dissectaque animalia cumulatim strata, quorum viscera rimabatur. Cum mundus extra se sit, et mente captus sit, et nesciat se languere, ut medelam adhibeat. it Scaliger, Ep. ad Patisonem. Nihil magis lectorem invitat quam inopinatum argumentum; neque vendibilior merx est quam petulans liber. Lib. xx. c. 11. Miras sequuntur inscriptionum festivitates. Hist. Patri obstetricem parturienti filiæ accersenti moram injicere possunt. somy of popery. Anatomy of immortality. Angelus Scalas, Anatomy of antimony, &c. Præfat. Nat. & Ana Anatomy of wit, in four sections, members, subsections, &c. to be read in our libraries. If any man except against the matter or manner of treating of this my subject, and will demand a reason of it, I can allege inore than one. I write of melancholy, by being busie, to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business, as a Rhasis holds and howbeit, stultus tabor est ineptiarum, to be busied in toyes is to small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca, better aliud agere quam nihil, better do to no end, than nothing. I writ therefore, and busied myself in this playing labour, otiosáque diligentia, ut vitarem torporem feriandi, with Vectius in Macrobius, atque otium in utile verterem negotium; Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitæ, d To this end I write, like them, saith Lucian, that recite to trees, and declaim to pillars, for want of auditors; as Paulus Egineta ingenuously confesseth, not that any thing was unknown or omitted, but to exercise myself, (which course if some took, I think it would be good for their bodies, and much better for their soules); or peradventure, as others do, for fame to shew myself (Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter). I might be of Thucydides opinion, to know a thing and not to express it, is all one as if he knew it not. When I first took this task in hand, et quod ait eille, impellente genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at f vel ut lenirem animum scribendo, to ease my minde by writing, for I had gravidum cor, fætum caput, a kinde of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this. Besides, I might not well refrain; for ubi dolor, ibi digitus, one must needs scratch where it itches. I was not a little offended with this malady, shall I say my mistris melancholy, my Egeria, or my malus genius; and for that cause, as he that is stung with a scorpion, I would expel clavum clavo, & comfort one sorrow with another, idleness with idleness, ut ex vipera theriacum, make an antidote out of that which was the prime cause of my disease. Or as he did, of whom Felix Plater speaks, that thought he had some of Aristophanes frogs in his belly, still crying Brecc' ekex, coax, oop, oop, and for that cause studied physick seven yeares, and travelled Hor. • Non quod Cont. 1. 4. c. 9. Non est cura melior quam labor. de novo quid addere, aut a veteribus prætermissum, sed propriæ exercitationis caussâ. Qui novit, neque id quod sentit exprimit, perinde est ac si f Erasmus. 8 Otium otio, dolorem dolore, nesciret. sum solatus. Jovius, Præf. Hist. b over most part of Europe, to ease himself; to do my self good, I turned over such physitians as our libraries would afford, or my private friends impart, and have taken this pains. And why not? Cardan professeth he writ his book De consolatione after his sons death, to comfort himself; so did Tully write of the same subject with like intent after his daughters departure, if it be his at least, or some impostors put out in his name, which Lipsius probably suspects. Concerning myself I can peradventure affirm with Marius in Sallust, that which others hear or read of, I felt and practised my self: they get their knowledge by bookes, 1 mine by melancholizing: experto crede Roberto. Something I can speak out of experience, ærumnabilis experientia me docuit; and with her in the poet, Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco. I would help others out of a fellow-feeling, and as that vertuous lady did of old being a leper herself, bestow all her portion to build an hospital for lepers, I will spend my time and knowledge, which are my greatest fortunes, for the common good of all. d g f Yea, but you will inferr that this is actum agere, an unnecessary work, cramben bis coctam apponere, the same again and again in other words. To what purpose? Nothing is omitted that may well be said: so thought Lucian in the like theam. How many excellent physitians have written just volumes and elaborate tracts of this subject? no news here: that which I have is stolen from others; & dicitque mihi mea pagina, fur es. If that severe doom of h Synesius be true, it is a greater offence to steal dead mens labours than their cloaths, what shall become of most writers? I hold up my hand at the bar amongst others, and am guilty of felony in this kinde, habes confitentem reum, I am content to be pressed with the rest. "Tis most true, tenet insanabile multos scribendi cacoëthes; and there is no end of writing of bookes, as the wise man found of old, in this scribling age especially, wherein the number of bookes is without number, (as a worthy man saith) presses be oppressed, and out of an itching humour, that every man hath to shew himself m desirous of fame and honour, (scribimus indocti doctique) he will write, no matter what, and scrape together, it boots not whence. k b M. Jh. Rous. our Protobib. Oxon. Mr. Hopper, M. Guthridge, &c. Quæ illi audire et legere solent, eorum partim vidi egomet, alia gessi: quæ illi literis, ego militando didici. Nunc vos existimate, facta an dicta pluris sint. C Dido Virg. & Cambden, ipsa elephantiasi correpta elephantiasis hospitium construxit. Iliada post Homerum. Nihil prætermissum quod a quovis dici possit. h Magis impium mortuorum lucubrationes quam vestes furari. i Eccl ult * Libros eunuchi gignunt, steriles pariunt, D. King, præfat. lect. Jonas, the late right reverend lord bishop of London. m Homines famelici gloria ad ostentationem eruditionis undique congerunt. Buchananus. ■ Martialis. |