صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

many duplications, triplications, and swarms of questions. In sacro bello hoc quod stili mucrone agitur, that having once begun, I should never make an end. One had much better, as "Alexander, the sixth pope, long since observed, provoke a great prince than a begging friar, a Jesuit, or a seminary priest, I will add, for inexpugnabile genus hoc hominum, they are an irrefragable society, they must and will have the last word; and that with such eagerness, impudence, abominable lying, falsifying, and bitterness in their questions they proceed, that as he said, furorne cæcus, an rapit vis acrior, an culpa, responsum date? Blind fury, or error, or rashness, or what it is that eggs them, I know not, I am sure many times, which Austin perceived long since, tempestate contentionis serenitas charitatis obnubilatur, with this tempest of contention, the serenity of charity is overclouded, and there be too many spirits conjured up already in this kind in all sciences, and more than we can tell how to lay, which do so furiously rage, and keep such a racket, that as "Fabius said, "It had been much better for some of them to have been born dumb, and altogether illiterate, than so far to dote to their own destruction.” At melius fuerat non scribere, namque tacere * Tutum semper erit,

d

'Tis a general fault, so Severinus the Dane complains in physic, "unhappy men as we are, we spend our days in unprofitable questions and disputations," intricate subtleties, de lanâ caprinâ, about moonshine in the water, "leaving in the meantime those chiefest treasures of nature untouched, wherein the best medicines for all manner of diseases are to be found, and do not only neglect them ourselves, but hinder, condemn, forbid, and scoff at others, that are willing to inquire after them." These motives at this present have induced me to make choice of this medicinal subject.

If any physician in the mean time shall infer, Ne sutor ultra crepidam, and find himself grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I will tell him in brief, I do not otherwise by them, than they do by us. If it be for their advantage, I know many of their sect which have taken orders, in hope of a benefice, 'tis a common transition, and why may not a melancholy divine, that can get nothing but by simory, profess physic? Drusianus an Italian (Crusianus, but corruptly, Trithemius calls him) "because he was not fortunate in his practice, forsook his profession, and writ afterwards in divinity." Marcilius Ficinus was semel et simul; a priest and a physician at once, and T. Linacer in his old age took orders. The Jesuits profess both at this time, divers of them permissu superiorum, chirurgeons, panders, bawds, and midwives, &c. Many poor country-vicars, for want of other means, are driven to their shifts; to turn mountebanks, quacksal vers, empirics, and if our greedy patrons hold us to such hard conditions, as commonly they do, they will make most of us work at some trade, as Paul did, at last turn taskers, maltsters, costermongers, graziers, sell ale as some have done, or worse. Howsoever in undertaking this task, I hope I shall commit no great error or indecorum, if all be considered aright, I can vindicate myself with Georgius, Braunus, and Hieronymus Hemingius, those two learned divines; who (to borrow a line or two of mine 'elder brother) drawn by a "natural love, the one of pictures and maps, prospectives and corographical delights, writ that ample theatre of cities; the other to the study of genealogies, penned theatrum

Malle se bellum cum magno principe gerere, quam cum uno ex fratrum mendicantium ordine. Hor. epod. lib. od. 7. d Epist. 86, ad Casulam presb. Lib. 12. cap. 1. Mutos nasci, et omni scientis egere satius fuisset, quàm sic in propriam perniciem insanire. *But it would be better not to write, for silence is the safer course. Infelix mortalitas inutilibus quæstionibus ac disceptationibus vitam traduci. mus, naturæ principes thesanros, in quibus gravissimæ morborum medicinæ collocatæ sunt, interim intactos relinquimus. Nec ipsi solum relinquimus, sed et alios prohibemus, impedimus, condemnamus, ludibriisque afficimus. * Quod in praxi minime fortunatus esset, medicinam reliquit, et ordinibus initiatus In Theologia postmodum scripsit. Gesner Bibliotheca. P. Jovius. M. W. Burton, preface

to his description of Leicestershire, printed at London by W Jaggard, for J. White, 1622.

genealogicum." Or else I can excuse my studies with Lessius the Jesuit in like case. It is a disease of the soul on which I am to treat, and as much appertaining to a divine as to a physician, and who knows not what an agreement there is betwixt these two professions? A good divine either is or ought to be a good physician, a spiritual physician at least, as our Saviour calls himself, and was indeed, Mat. iv. 23; Luke, v. 18; Luke, vii. 8. They differ but in object, the one of the body, the other of the soul, and use divers medicines to cure: one amends animam per corpus, the other corpus per animam, as 'our Regius Professor of physic well informed us in a learned lecture of his not long since. One helps the vices and passions of the soul, anger, lust, desperation, pride, presumption, &c., by applying that spiritual physic; as the other uses proper remedies in bodily diseases. Now this being a common infirmity of body and soul, and such a one that hath as much need of spiritual as a corporal cure, I could not find a fitter task to busy myself about, a more apposite theme, so necessary, so commodious, and generally concerning all sorts of men, that should so equally participate of both, and require a whole physician. A divine in this compound mixed malady can do little alone, a physician in some kinds of melancholy much less, both make an absolute cure.

Alterius sic altera poscit opem.

-when in friendship join'd A mutual succour in each other find

And 'tis proper to them both, and I hope not unbeseeming me, who am by my profession a divine, and by mine inclination a physician. I had Jupiter in my sixth house; I say with "Beroaldus, non sum medicus, nec medicinæ prorsus expers, in the theory of physic I have taken some pains, not with an intent to practice, but to satisfy myself, which was a cause likewise of the first undertaking of this subject.

If these reasons do not satisfy thee, good reader, as Alexander Munificus that bountiful prelate, sometimes bishop of Lincoln, when he had built six castles, ad invidiam operis eluendam, saith Mr. Cambden, to take away the envy of his work (which very words Nubrigensis hath of Roger the rich bishop of Salisbury, who in king Stephen's time built Shirburn castle, and that of Devizes), to divert the scandal or imputation, which might be thence inferred, built so many religious houses. If this my discourse be overmedicinal, or savour too much of humanity, I promise thee that I will hereafter make thee amends in some treatise of divinity. But this I hope shall suffice, when you have more fully considered of the matter of this my subject, rem substratam, melancholy, madness, and of the reasons following, which were my chief motives: the generality of the disease, the necessity of the cure, and the commodity or common good that will arise to all men by the knowledge of it, as shall at large appear in the ensuing preface. And I doubt not but that in the end you will say with me, that to anatomise this humour aright, through all the members of this our Microcosmus, is as great a task, as to reconcile those chronological errors in the Assyrian monarchy, find out the quadrature of a circle, the creeks and sounds of the north-east, or northwest passages, and all but as good a discovery as that hungry Spaniard's of Terra Australis Incognita, as great trouble as to perfect the motion of Mars and Mercury, which so crucifies our astronomers, or to rectify the Gregorian Kalender. I am so affected for my part, and hope as Theophrastus did by

P

In Hygiasticon, neque enim hæc tractatio anena videri debet à theologo, &c., agitur de morbo animæ. ID. Clayton in comitiis, anno 1621. m Hor. n Lib. de pestil. In Newark in Nottinghamshire. Cum duo edificasset castella, ad tollendam structionis invidiam, et expiandam maculam, duo instituit eœnobia, et collegis religiosis implevit. Ferdinando de Quir. anno 1612. Amsterdami impress. Præfat. ad Characteres: Spero enim (0 Policles) libros nostros meliores inde futuros, quod istiusmodi menuriæ mandata reliquerimus, ex preceptis et exemplis nostris ad vitam accommodatis, ut se inde corrigant.

his characters, "That our posterity, O friend Policles, shall be the better for this which we have written, by correcting and rectifying what is amiss in themselves by our examples, and applying our precepts and cautions to their own use." And as that great captain Zisca would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight, I doubt not but that these following lines, when they shall be recited, or hereafter read, will drive away melancholy, (though I be gone) as much as Zisca's drum could terrify his foes. Yet one caution let me give by the way to my present, or my future reader, who is actually melancholy, that he read not the 'svmptoms or prognostics in this following tract, lest by applying that which he reads to himself, aggravating, appropriating things generally spoken, to his own person (as melancholy men for the most part do), he trouble or hurt himself, and get in conclusion more harm than good. I advise them therefore warily to peruse that tract, Lapides loquitur (so said Agrippa de occ. Phil.) et caveant lectores ne cerebrum iis excutiat. The rest I doubt not they may securely read, and to their benefit. But I am overtedious, I proceed.

Of the necessity and generality of this which I have said, if any man doubt, I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as 'Cyprian adviseth Donat, "supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering world, he cannot chuse but either laugh at, or pity it." S. Hierom out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived with himself, that he then saw them dancing in Rome; and if thou shalt either conceive, or climb to see, thou shalt soon perceive that all the world is mad, that it is melancholy, dotes; that it is (which Epichthonius Cosmopolites expressed not many years since in a map) made like a fool's head (with that motto, Caput helleboro dignum) a crazed head, cavea stultorum, a fool's paradise, or as Apollonius, a common prison of gulls, cheaters, flatterers, &c., and needs to be reformed. Strabo in the ninth book of his geography, compares Greece to the picture of a man, which comparison of his, Nic. Gerbelius in his exposition of Sophianus' map, approves; the breast lies open from those A croceraunian hills in Epirus, to the Sunian promontory in Attica; Page and Magæra are the two shoulders; that Isthmus of Corinth the neck; and Peloponnesus the head. If this allusion holds 'tis sure a mad head; Morea may be Moria, and to speak what I think, the inhabitants of modern Greece swerve as much from reason and true religion at this day, as that Morea doth from the picture of a man. Examine the rest in like sort, and you shall find that kingdoms and provinces are melancholy, cities and families, all creatures, vegetal, sensible, and rational, that all sorts, sects, ages, conditions, are out of tune, as in Cebes' table, omnes errorem bibunt, before they come into the world, they are intoxicated by error's cup, from the highest to the lowest have need of physic, and those particular actions in "Seneca, where father and son prove one another mad, may be general; Porcius Latro shall plead against us all. For indeed who is not a fool, melancholy, mad? Qui nil molitur inepte, who is not brain-sick? Folly, melancholy, madness, are but one disease, Delirium is a common name to all. Alexander, Gordonius, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Guianerius, Montaltus, confound them as differing secundum magis et minus; so doth David, Psal. xxxvii. 5. 66 I said unto the fools, deal not so madly," and 'twas an old Stoical paradox, omnes stultos insanire, all fools are mad, though some madder than others. And who is not a fool, who is free from melancholy?

Part 1. sect. 3. Præf. lectori. Ep. 2. 1. 2. ad Donatum. Paulisper te crede subduci în ardui montis verticem celsiorem, speculare inde rerum jacentium facies, et oculis in diversa porrectis, fluctuantis mundi turbines intueri, jam simul aut ridebis aut misereberis, &c. Controv. 1. 2. cont. 7. & 1. 6. cont. * Horatius Idem, Hor. 1. 2. Satyra 3. Damasippus Stoicus probat omnes stultos insanire.

Who is not touched more or less in habit or disposition? If in disposition, "ill dispositions beget habits, if they persevere," saith Plutarch, habits either are, or turn to diseases. 'Tis the same which Tully maintains in the second of his Tusculans, omnium insipientum animi in morbo sunt, et perturbatorum, fools are sick, and all that are troubled in mind: for what is sickness, but as Gregory Tholosanus defines it, "A dissolution or perturbation of the bodily league, which health combines:" and who is not sick, or ill-disposed? in whom doth not passion, anger, envy, discontent, fear and sorrow reign? Who labours not of this disease? Give me but a little leave, and you shall see by what testimonies, confessions, arguments, I will evince it, that most men are mad, that they had as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyre (as in "Strabo's time they did) as in our days they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichem, or Lauretta, to seek for help; that it is like to be as prosperous a voyage as that of Guiana, and that there is much more need of hellebore than of tobacco.

That men are so misaffected, melancholy, mad, giddy-headed, hear the testimony of Solomon, Eccl. ii. 12. “And I turned to behold wisdom, madness and folly," &c. And ver. 23: "All his days are sorrow, his travel grief, and his heart taketh no rest in the night." So that take melancholy in what sense you will, properly or improperly, in disposition or habit, for pleasure or for pain, dotage, discontent, fear, sorrow, madness, for part, or all, truly, or metaphorically, 'tis all one. Laughter itself is madness according to Solomon, and as St. Paul hath it, "Worldly sorrow brings death." "The hearts of the sons of men are evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live," Eccl. ix. 3. "Wise men themselves are no better," Eccl. i. 18. "In the multitude of wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow," chap. ii. 17. He hated life itself, nothing pleased him: he hated his labour, all, as he concludes, is "sorrow, grief, vanity, vexation of spirit." And though he were the wisest man in the world, sanctuarium sapientiæ, and had wisdom in abundance, he will not vindicate himself, or justify his own actions. "Surely I am more foolish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man in me," Prov. xxx. 2. Be they Solomon's words, or the words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, they are canonical. David, a man after God's own heart, confesseth as much of himself, Psal. xxxvii. 21, 22. "So foolish was I and ignorant, I was even as a beast before thee." And condemns all for fools, Psal. liii.; xxxii. 9; xlix. 20. He compares them to "beasts, horses, and mules, in which there is no understanding." The Apostle Paul accuseth himself in like sort, 2 Cor. xi. 21. "I would you would suffer a little my foolishness, I speak foolishly." "The whole head is sick," saith Esay, "and the heart is heavy," cap. i. 5. And makes lighter of them than of oxen and asses, "the ox knows his owner," &c.: read Deut. xxxii. 6; Jer. iv.; Amos, iii. 1; Ephes. v. 6. "Be not mad, be not deceived, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?" How often are they branded with this epithet of madness and folly? No word so frequent amongst the fathers of the Church and divines; you may see what an opinion they had of the world, and how they valued men's action.

I know that we think far otherwise, and hold them most part wise men that are in authority, princes, magistrates, rich men, they are wise men born, aii politicians and statesmen must needs be so, for who dare speak against them? And on the other, so corrupt is our judgment, we esteem wise and honest

• Tom. 2. Sympos. lib. 5. c. 6. Animi affectiones, si dintins inhæreant, pravos generant habitus. . Lib. 2. cap. 1. Synt. art. mir. Morbus nihil est aliud quam dissolutio quædam ac perturbatio fœderis in cores existentis, sicut et sanitas est consentientis bene corporis consummatio quædam. Lib. 9. Geogr. Plures olim gentes navigabant illuc sanitatis causâ. Eccles. i. 24. Jure hæreditario sapere jubentur. Euphormio Satyr.

men fools. Which Democritus well signified in an epistle of his to Hippocrates: "the" Abderites account virtue madness," and so do most men living. Shall I tell you the reason of it? 'Fortune and Virtue, Wisdom and Folly, their seconds, upon a time contended in the Olympics; every man thought tha Fortune and Folly would have the worst, and pitied their cases; but it fell out otherwise. Fortune was blind and cared not where she stroke, nor whom without laws, Andabatarum instar, &c. Folly, rash and inconsiderate esteemed as little what she said or did. Virtue and Wisdom gave place were hissed out, and exploded by the common people; Folly and Fortune admired, and so are all their followers ever since: knaves and fools commonly fare and deserve best in worldlings' eyes and opinions. Many good men have no better fate in their ages: Achish, 1 Sam. xxi. 14, held David for a mad. man. Elisha and the rest were no otherwise esteemed. David was derided. of the common people, Ps. ix. 7, "I am become a monster to many." And generally we are accounted fools for Christ, 1 Cor. xiv. "We fools thought his life madness, and his end without honour,” Wisd. v. 4. Christ and his Apostles were censured in like sort, John x.; Mark iii.; Acts xxvi. And so were all Christians in 'Pliny's time, fuerunt et alii similis dementia, &c. And called not long after, Vesania sectatores, eversores hominum, polluti novatores, fanatici, canes, malefici, venefici, Galilæi homunciones, &c. 'Tis an ordinary thing with us, to account honest, devout, orthodox, divine, religious, plaindealing men, idiots, asses, that cannot, or will not lie and dissemble, shift, flatter, accommodare se ad eum locum ubi nati sunt, make good bargains, supplant, thrive, patronis inservire; solennes ascendendi modos apprehendere, leges, mores, consuetudines rectè observare, candidè laudare, fortiter defendere, sententias amplecti, dubitare de nullis, credere omnia, accipere omnia, nihil reprehendere, cæteraque quæ promotionem ferunt et securitatem, quae sine ambage fælicem reddunt hominem, et verè sapientem apud nos; that cannot temporise as other men do, 'hand and take bribes, &c. but fear God, and make a conscience of their doings. But the Holy Ghost that knows better how to judge, he calls them fools. "The fool hath said in his heart," Psal. liii. 1. "And their ways utter their folly," Psal. xlix. 14. m For what can be more mad, than for a little worldly pleasure to procure unto themselves eternal punishment?" As Gregory and others inculcate unto us.

[ocr errors]

Yea even all those great philosophers the world hath ever had in admiration, whose works we do so much esteem, that gave precepts of wisdom to others, inventors of Arts and Sciences, Socrates the wisest man of his time by the Oracle of Apollo, whom his two scholars, "Plato and Xenophon, so much extol and magnify with those honourable titles, "best and wisest of all morta. men, the happiest, and most just;" and as † Alcibiades incomparably commends him; Achilles was a worthy man, but Bracides and others were as worthy as himself; Antenor and Nestor were as good as Pericles, and so o. the rest; but none present, before, or after Socrates, nemo veterum neque eorum qui nunc sunt, were ever such, will match, or come near him. Those seven wise men of Greece, those Britain Druids, Indian Brachmanni, Æthio pian Gymnosophists, Magi of the Persians, Apollonius, of whom Philostratus, Non doctus, sed natus sapiens, wise from his cradle, Epicurus so much admired by his scholar Lucretius:

• Apud quos virtus, insania & furor esse Cicitur. Calcagninus Apol. oinnes mirabantur, putantes illisum iri stultitiam. Sed præter expectationem res evenit, Audax stultitia in eam irruit, &c. illa cedit irrisa, & plures hinc habet sectatores stultitia. * Non est respondendum stulto secundum stultitiam. 2 Reg. 7. Lib. 10. ep. 97. Aug. ep. 178. Quis nisi mentis inops, &c. m Quid insanius quam pro momentanea fœlicitate æternis te mancipare suppliciis? n In fine Phædonis. Hic finis fuit amici nostri, d Eucrates, nostro quidem judicio omnium quos experti sumus optimi & apprime sapientissimi, & justissimi Xenop. 1. 4. de dictis Socratis ad finem, talis fuit Socrates quem omnium optimum & fœlicissimum statuam.

Lib. 25. Platonis Co vivio

« السابقةمتابعة »