I might say the like of angry, peevish, envious, ambitious; Anticyras melior sorbere meracas; Epicures, Atheists, Schismaticks, Hereticks; hi omnes habent imaginationem lasam (saith Nymannus)" and their madnesse shall be evident," 2 Tim. 3. 9. Fabatus, an Italian, holds sea-faring men all mad; "the ship is mad, for it never stands still the mar riners are mad, to expose themselves to such imminent dangers: the waters are raging mad, in perpetual motion: the winds are as mad as the rest, they know not whence they come, whither they would go: and those men are maddest of all that go to sea; for one fool at home, they finde forty abroad." He was a mad man that said it, and thou peradventure as mad to reade it. Fælix Platerus is of opinion all Alchemists are mad, out of their wits; Atheneus saith as much of Fidlers, & musarum luscinias, Musicians, omnes tibicines insaniunt, ubi semel efflant, avolat illico mens, in comes musick at one ear, out goes wit at another. Proud and vain glorious persons are certainly mad; and so are lascivious; I can feel their pulses beat hither; horn mad some of them, to let others lie with their wives, and wink at it. To insist in all particulars, were an Herculean task, to i reckon up insanas substructiones, insanos labores, insanum luxum, mad labors, mad books, endeavors, cariages, grosse ignorance, ridiculous actions, absurd gestures; insanam guTam, insaniam villarum, insana jurgia, as Tully terms them, madnesse of villages, stupend structures; as those Ægyptian Pyramids, Labyrinths and Sphinges, which a company of crowned asses, ad ostentationem opum, vainly built, when neither the Architect nor King that made them, or to what use and purpose, are yet known: To insist in their hypocrisie, inconstancie, blindenesse, rashnesse, dementem temeritatë, fraud, cosenage, malice, anger, impudence, ingratitude, ambition, grosse superstition, tempora infecta & adulationé sordida, as in Tiberius' times, such base flattery, stupend, parasitical fawning and colloguing, &c. brawles, conflicts, desires, contentions, it would ask an expert Vesalius to anatomise every member. Shall I say? Jupiter himself, Apollo, Mars, &c. doted; and monster-conquering Hercules that subdued the world, and a Orat. de imag. ambitiosus & audax naviget Anticyras. Navis stulta, quæ continuo movetur, nautæ stulti qui se periculis exponunt, aqua insana quæ sic fremit, &c. aër jactatur, &c. qui mari se committit stolidum unum terra fugiens, 40. mari invenit. Gaspar Ens. Moros. d Cap. de alien. mentis. Dipnosophist. lib. 8. f Tibicines mente Capti. Erasm. Chil. 4. cer. 7. Prov. 30. Insana libido, Hic rogo non furor est, non est hæc mentula demens. Mille puellarum & puerorum mille jurores. i Uter Hor. Ovid. Virg. Plin. Mart. ep. 74. 1. 3. est insanior horum. 3. Annal. Plin. lib. 36. * Tacitus helped d b helped others, could not reliev himself in this, but mad he was at last. And where shall a man walk, converse with whom, in what Province, City, and not meet with Signior Deliro, or Hercules Furens, Manades, and Corybantes? Their speeches say no lesse. E fungis nati homines, or else they fetched their pedigree from those that were struck by Sampson with the jawbone of an asse. Or from Deucalion and Pyrrha's stones, for durum genus sumus, marmorei sumus, we are stoney hearted, and savour too much of the stock, as if they had a heard that inchanted horn of Astolpho that English Duke in Ariosto, which never sounded but all his auditors were mad, and for fear ready to make away themselvs; or landed in the mad haven in the Euxine sea of Daphnis insana, which had a secret quality to dementate; they are a company of giddy-heads, afternoon men, it is Midsomer moon stil, and the dogdais last all the year long, they are all mad. Whom shall I then except? Ulricus Huttenus nemo, nam, nemo omnibus horis sapit, Nemo nascitur sine vitiis, Crimine Nemo caret, Nemo sorte sua vivit contentus, Nemo in amore sapit, Nemo bonus, Nemo sapiens, Nemo, est ex omni parti beatus, &c. and therefore Nicholas Nemo, or Monsieur No-body shall go free, Quid veleat nemo, Nemo referre potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; no better way to avoid folly and madnesse, then by taciturnity. Whom in a third? all Senators, Magistrates; for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office and place, his licet impune pessimos esse, (some say) we must not speak of them, neither is it fit; per me sint omnia protinus alba, I will not think amisse of them. Whom next? Stoicks? Sapiens Stoicus, and he alone is subject to no perturbations, as Plutarch scoffs at him," he is not vexed with torments, or burnt with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy: though he be wrinckled, sand blinde, toothlesse, and deformed; yet he is most beautifull, and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a groat. He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, be e f Ovid. 7. met. E fungis nati homines ut olim Corinthi primævi illius loci accolæ, quia stolidi & fatui fungis nati dicebantur, idem & alibi dicas. Famian. Strade de bajulis, de marmore semisculpti. Arianus periplo maris Euxini portus ejus meminit, & Gillius 1. 3. de Bospher. Thracio & laurus insana quæ aliata in convivium convivas omnes insania affecit. Guliel. Stucchius comment, &c. Lepidum pocma sic inscriptum. e Stultitiam simulare non potes nisi taciturnitate. f Extortus non cruciatur, ambustus non læditur, prostratus in lucta, non vincitur; non fit captivus ab hoste venundatus. Et si rugosus, senex edentulus, luscus, deformis, formosus tamen, & deo similis, felix, dives, rex nullius egens, et si denario non sit dignus. cause, i cause vertue cannot be taken away," as "Zeno holds, “by reason of strong apprehension," but he was mad to say so. ň Anticyre cælo kuic est opus aut dolabrá, he had need to be bored, and so had al his fellows, as wise as they would seem to be. Chrysippus himself liberally grants them to be fools as wel as others, at certain times, upon some occasions, amitti virtutē ait per ebrietatem, aut atribilariu morbu, it may be lost by drunkenness or melancholy, he may be sometimes crased as well as the rest: ad sumũ sapiens nisi quum pituita molesta. I should here except some Cynicks, Menippus, Diogenes, that Theban Crates; or to descend to these times, that omniscious, only wise fraternity of the Rosie Crosse, those great Theologues, Politicians, Philosophers, Physitians, Philologers, Artists, &c. of whom S. Bridget, Albas Joacchimus, Leicenbergius, and such divine spirits have prophesied, and made promise to the world, if at least there be any such (Hen. 'Neuhusius makes a doubt of it, " Valentinus Andreas and others) or an Elias artifex their Theophrastian master; whom though Libavius and many deride and carp at, yet some wil have to be "the" renewer of all arts and sciences, reformer of the world, and now living, for so Johannes Montanus Strigoniensis, that great Patron of Paracelsus, contends, and certainly avers" a most divine man," and the quintesence of wisdom wheresoever he is; for he, his fraternity, friends, &c. are all "betrothed. to wisdom," if we may believe their disciples and followers. I must needs except Lipsius and the Pope, and expunge their name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that parasitical testimony of Dousa, "A Sole exoriente Mæotidas usq; paludes, Nemo est qui justo se æquiparare queat." Lipsius saith of himself, that he was humani generis quidem pedagogus voce & stylo, a grand Signior, a Master, a Tutor of us all, and for 13 years he brags how he sowed wisdom in the Low countries, as Ammonius the philosopher sometimes did in Alexandria, cum humanitate literas & sapientiam cum prudentia: antistes sapientiæ, he shall be Sapientu Octavus. The Pope is more then a man, as his parats often make him, a demigod, and besides his holinesse cannot erre, in Cathedrá belike: S Illu contendunt non injuria affici, non insania, non inebriari, quia virtus non eripitur ob constantes comprehensiones. Lips. phys. Stoic. lib. 3. diffi. 18. Tarreus Hebus epig. 102. 1. 8. Fratres sanct. Roseæ crucis. i Hor. An sint, quales sin, unde nomen illud asciverint. m Turri Babel. " Om- epist. Rog. Bacon. ed. Hambur. 1608. lus hic est sapiens alii volitant velut umbræ. In ep ad Balthas. Moretum. and and yet some of them have been magicians, Hereticks, Atheists, children, and as Platina saith of John 22. Et si vir literatus, multa stoliditatem & levitatem præ se ferentia egit, stolidi & socordis vir ingenii, a scholar sufficient, yet many things he did foolishly, lightly. I can say no more then in particular, but in general terms to the rest, they are all mad, their wits are evaporated, and as Ariosto faigns 1. 34. kept in jars above the Moon. "Some lose their wits with love, some with ambition, t Some following Lords and men of high condition. Some in fair jewels rich and costly set, Others in Poetry their wits forget. Till all be spent, and that his number's mist." Convict fools they are, mad men upon record; and I am afraid past cure many of them, crepunt inguina, the Symptomes are manifest, they are all of Gotam parish: "Quum furor haud dubius, quum sit manifesta phrenesis," what remains then but to send for Lorarios, those Officers to carry them all together for company to Bedlam, and set Rablais to be their physitian. If any man shall ask in the mean time, who I am that so boldly censure others, tu nullane habes vitia? have I no faults? Yes more than thou hast, whatsoever thou art. Nos numerus sumus, I confesse it again, I am as foolish, as mad as any one. "Insanus vobis videor, non deprecor ipse, Quo minus insanus,” I do not deny it, demens de populo dematur. My comfort is, I have more fellows, and those of excellent note. And though I be not so right or so discreet as I should be, yet not so mad, so bad neither as thou perhaps takest me to be. To conclude, this being granted, that all the world is melancholy, or mad, dotes, and every member of it, I have ended my task, and sufficiently illustrated that which I took upon me to demonstrate at first. At this present I have no more to say; His sanam mentem Democritus, I can but wish my self and them a good Physician, and all of us a better minde. Magnum virum sequi est sapere, some think; others desipere. Catul. *Plaut. Menec. "In Sat. 14. * Or to send for a cook to the Anticyre to make Hellebor pottage, settle-brain pottage. y Aliquantulum tamen inde me salabor, quod unà cum multis & sapientibus & celeberrimis viris ipse insipiens sim, quod se Menippus Luciani in Necyomantia. * Petronius in Catalect. And And although for the abovenamed reasons, I had a just cause to undertake this subject, to point at these particular species of dotage, that so men might acknowledg their imperfections, and seek to reform what is amiss; yet I have a more serious intent at this time; and to omit al impertinent digressions, to say no more of such as are improperly melancholy, or metaphorically mad, lightly mad, or in disposition, as stupid, angry, drunken, silly, sottish, sullen, proud, vain-glorious, ridiculous, beastly, peevish, obstinate, impudent, extravagant, dry, doting, dull, desperate, harebrain, &c. mad, frantick, foolish, heteroclites, which no new Hospital can hold, no physick help: my purpose and endeavor is, in the following discourse to anatomize this humor of melancholy, through all his parts and species, as it is an habit, or an ordinary disease, and that philosophically, medicinally, to shew the causes, symptoms, and several cures of it, that it may be the better avoyded. Moved thereunto for the generality of it, and to do good, it being a disease so frequent, as Mercurialis observes, in these our dayes; so often happening," saith Laurentius, "in our miserable times," as few there are that feel not the smart of it. Of the same minde is Ælian Montalius, Melancton, and others; "Julius Cæsar Claudinus cals it the "fountain of all other diseases, and so common in this crased age of ours, that scarce one of a thousand is free from it:" and that Splenetick Hypocondriacal winde especially, which proceeds from the spleen and short ribs. Being then it is a disease so grievous, so common, I know not wherein to do a more generall service, and spend my time better, then to prescribe means how to prevent and cure so universall a malady, an Epidemical disease, that so often, so much crucifies the body and minde. d If I have overshot myself in this which hath been hitherto said, or that it is, which I am sure some will object, too phantastical, "too light and comicall for a Divine, too satyrical for one of my profession, I will presume to answer with Erasmus, in like case, 'Tis not I, but Democritus, Democritus dixit: you must consider what it is to speak in one's own or another's person, an assumed habit and name; a difference betwixt him that affects or acts a prince's, a philosopher's, a magistrate's, a fool's part, and him that is so indeed; and what t Hæc d De That I mean of Andr. Vale. Apolog. manip. 1. 1. & 26. Apol. affectio nostris temporibus frequentissima. Cap. 15. de Mel. e Consult. 98. adeo nos anima. nostro hoc sæculo morbus frequentissimus. tris temporibus frequenter ingruit ut nullus fere ab ejus labe immunis reperiatur & omnium fere morborum occasio existat. f Mor. Encom. si quis calumnietur levius esse quam decet Theologum, aut mordacius quam deceat Christianum. liberty |