these miseries upon our own heads. Nay more, tis justly to be feared, which Josephus once said of his Countrymen Jewes, "If the Romans had not come when they did to sack their City, surely it had been swallowed up with some earthquake, deluge, or fired from Heaven as Sodome and Gomorrah: their desperate malice, wickedness and peevishness was such." "Tis to be suspected, if we continue these wretched waies, we may look for the like heavy visitations to come upon us. If we had any sense or feeling of these things, surely we should not go on as we do, in such irregular courses, practise all manner of impieties; our whole carriage would not be so averse from God. If a man would but consider, when he is in the midst and full career of such prodigious and uncharitable actions, how displeasing they are in God's sight, how noxious to himself, as Solomon told Joab, 1 King. 2. "The Lord shall bring this bloud upon their heads," Prov. 1. 27. sudden desolation and destruction shall come like a whirlwinde upon them: affliction, anguish, the reward of his hand shall be given him," Isa. 3. 11, &c. "they shall fall into the pit they have digged for others," and when they are scraping, tyrannizing, getting, wallowing in their wealth, "This night, O fool, I will take away thy soul," what a severe account they must make; and how gracious on the other side a charitable man is in God's eys, haurit sibi gratiam. Matth. 5. 7. Blessed are the mercifull, for they shall obtain mercy: He that lendeth to the poor, gives to God," and how it shall be restored to them again; "how by their patience and long suffering they shall heap coals on their enemies heads," Rom. 12. " and he that followeth after righteousness and mercy, shall finde righteousness and glory;" surely they would check their desires, curb in their unnaturall, inordinate affections, agree amongst themselves, abstain from doing evil, amend their lives, and learn to do well. "Behold how comely and good a thing it is for brethren to live together in union: it is like the pretious ointment, &c. How odious to contend one with the other! Miseri quid luctatiunculis hisce volumus? ecce mors supra caput est, & supremum illud tribunal, ubi & dicta & facta nostra examinanda sunt: Sapiamus!" Why do we contend and vex one another? behold death is over our heads, and we must shortly give an account of all our uncharitable words and actions: think upon it: and be wise. De bello Judaico lib. 6. c. 16. Puto si Romani contra nos venire tardassent, ant hiatu terræ devorandam tuișse civitatem, aut diluvio perituram, aut fulmina, ac Sodoma cum incendio passüram, ob desperatum populi, &c. f Benefacit animæ suæ vir misericors. Concordia magna res crescunt, discordia maxime dilabuiättir. Lipsius. SECT. SECT. II. MEMB. I. SUBSECT. I. Heroical love causing Melancholy. His Pedegree, Power, and Extent. IN the precedent Section mention was made, amongst other pleasant objects, of this comeliness and beauty which proceeds from women, that causeth Heroicall, or love-melancholy, is more eminent above the rest, and properly called Love. The part affected in men is the liver, and therefore called Heroicall, because commonly Gallants. Noblemen, and the most generous spirits are possessed with it. His power and extent is very large, and in that twofold division of Love, Qaïv and ¿põv *those two Veneries which Plato and some other make mention of, it is most eminent, and xal' ox called Venus, as I have said,, or Love itself. Which although it be denominated from men, and most evident in them, yet it extends and shews it self in vegetall and sensible creatures, those incorporeall substances (as shall be specified) and hath a large dominion of sovereignty over them. His pedigree is very ancient, derived from the beginning of the world, as Phaedrus contends, and his "parentage of such antiquity, that no Poet could ever finde it out. Hesiod makes Terra and Chaos to be Love's parents, before the Gods were born: "Ante deos omnes primum generavit Amorem." Some think it is the self same fire Prometheus fetched from heaven. Plutarch amator. libello, will have Love to be the son of Iris and Favonius; but Socrates in that pleasant Dialogue of Plato, when it came to his turn to speak of Love, (of which subject Agatho the Rhetoritian, magniloquus Agatho, that Chanter Agatho, had newly given occasion) in a poeticall strain, telleth this tale: When Venus was born, all the Gods were invited to a banquet, and amongst the rest, Porus the God of bounty and wealth; Penia or poverty came a begging to the door; Porus well whitled with Nectar (for there was no wine in those daies) walking in Jupiter's garden, in a Bowre met with Penia, and in his drink got her with child, of whom was born Love; and because he was begotten on Venus's birth n See 1 Phædrus orat. in laudem m Vide Boccas. de Genial deorum. • Affluentiæ Deus. the morall in Plut. of that fiction. day, 9 66 t day, Venus still attends upon him. The morall of this is in P Ficinus. Another tale is there borrowed out of Aristophanes: In the beginning of the world, men had four armes and four feet, but for their pride because they compared themselves with the Gods, were parted into halfes, and now peradventure by love they hope to be united again and made one. Otherwise thus, Vulcan met two lovers, and bid them aske what they would and they should have it; but they made answer, O Vulcane faber Deorum, &c. "O Vulcan the Gods' great Smith, we beseech thee to work us anew in thy furnace, and of two make us one; which he presently did, and ever since true lovers are either all one, or else desire to be united." Many such tales you shall finde in Leon Hebræus, dial. 3. and their morall to them. The reason why Love was still painted yong, fas Phornutus and others will)" is because yong men are nost apt to love, 'soft, fair, and fat, because such folks are soonest taken: naked, because all true affection is simple and open : he smiles, because merry and given to delights: hath a quiver, to shew his power, none can escape: is blinde, because he sees not where he strikes, whom he hits, &c." His power and soverainty is expressed by the "Poets, in that he is held to be a God, and a great commanding God, above Jupiter himself; Magnus Dæmon, as Plato calls him, the strongest and merriest of all the Gods according to Alcinous and Athenæus. Amor virorum rex, amor rex & deúm, as Euripides, the God of Gods and governor of men; for we must all do homage to him, keep an holy day for his Deity, adore in his Temples, worship his image, (numen enim hoc non est nudum nomen) and sacrifice to his altar, that conquers all, and rules all: "Mallem cum icone, cervo & apro Æolico, Cum Anteo & Stymphalicis avibus luctari I had rather contend with Bulls, Lions, Bears, and Giants, then with Love; he is so powerfull, enforceth all to pay tribute to him, domineers over all, and can make mad and sober whom he list; insomuch that Cæcilius in Tullie's Tusculanes, holds him P Cap. 7. Comment. in Plat. convivium. See more in Valesius lib. 3. cont. med. & cont. 13. Vives 3. de anima: oramus te ut tuis artibus & caminis nos refingas, & ex duobus unum facias; quod & fecit, & exinde amatores unum sunt & unum esse petunt, • See more in Natalis Comes Imagin. Deorum. Philostratus de Imaginibus. Lilius Giraldus Syntag, de diis. Phornutus, &c. Juvenis pingitur quod amore plerumq; juvenes capiuntur; sic & mollis, formosus, nudus, quod simplex & apertus hic affectus i ridet quod oblectamentum præ se ferat, cum pharetra, &c. claves habet superorum & inferorum, as Orpheus, &c. Dyphnoso. t "A petty Pope * Lib. 13. cap. 5. * Regnat & in superos jus habet ille deos. Ovid. 1 Plautus. to to be no better than a fool or an idiot, that doth not acknowledge Love to be a great God. "Cui in manu sit quem esse dementem velit, That can make sick and cure whom he list. Homer and Stesichorus were both made blind, if you will believe a Leon Hebreus, for speaking against his godhead: And though Aristophanes degrade him, and say that he was scornfully rejected from the councell of the Gods, had his wings clipped besides, that he might come no more amongst them, and to his farther disgrace banished heaven for ever, and confined to dwell on earth, yet he is of that power, majesty, omnipotency, and dominion, that no creature can withstand him. "Imperat Cupido etiam diis pro arbitrio, Et ipsum arcere ne armipotens potest Jupiter." He is more than quarter Master with the Gods, "Tenet Thetide æquor, umbras aco, cœlum Jove:" and hath not so much possession, as dominion. Jupiter himself was turned into a Satyre, Shepheard, a Bull, a Swan, a golden showre, and what not, for love; that as Lucian's Juno right well objected to him, ludus amoris tu es, thou art Cupid's wherlegigg: how did he insult over all the other Gods, Mars, Neptune, Pan, Mercury, Bacchus, and the rest? Lucian brings in Jupiter complaining of Cupid that he could not be quiet for him; and the Moon lamenting that she was so impotently besotted on Endymion, even Venus her self confessing as much, how rudely and in what sort her own son Cupid had used her being his mother," Now drawing her to mount Ida, for the love of that Trojan Anchises, now to Libanus for that Assyrian youth's sake. And although she threatened to break his bow and arrows, to clip his wings, and whipped him besides on the bare buttocks with her phantophle, yet all would not serve, he was too head strong and unruly." That monster-conquering Hercules was tamed by him: "Quem non mille feræ, quem non Sthenelejus hsotis, - Selden pro leg. 3. cap. de diis Syris. • Dial. 3: Deorum rejectus & ad majorem ejus ignominiam, &c. tatior. Sophocles, Tom. 4. * A concilio Fulmine conci Dial. deorum. Tom. 3. § Quippe matrem ipsius quibus modis me afficit, nunc in Idam adigens Anchise causa &c. Jampridem & plagas ipsi in nates incussi sandalio. Whom Whom neither beasts nor enemies could tame, Nor Juno's might subdue, Love quell'd the same. Your bravest souldiers and most generous spirits are enervated with it, ubi mulieribus blanditiis permittunt fe, & inquinantur amplexibus. Apollo, that took upon him to cure all diseases, could not help himself of this; and therefore Socrates calls Love a tyrant, and brings him triumphing in a Chariot, whom Petrache imitates in his triumph of Love, and Fracastorius in an elegant Poem expresseth at large, Cupid riding, Mars and Apollo following his Chariot, Psyche weeping, &c. In vegetall creatures what soveraignty Love hath, by many pregnant proofs and familiar examples may be proved, especially, of palme trees, which are both he and she, and express not a sympathy but a love-passion, and by many observations have been confirmed. "+ Vivunt in venerem frondes, omnisq; vicissim Et Platano Platanus, alnoque assibilat alnus.” Constantine de Agric. lib. 10. cap. 4. gives an instance out of Florentius his Georgicks, of a Palm tree that loved most fervently," and would not be comforted untill such time her Love applied her self unto her; you might see the two trees bend, and of their own accords stretch out their boughs to embrace and kiss each other: They will give manifest signs of mutuall-love." Ammianus Marcellinus lib. 24. reports, that they marry one another, and fall in love if they grow in sight; and when the winde brings the smell to them, they are marvelously affected. Philostratus in Imaginibus, observes as much, and Galen lib. 6. de locis affectis cap. 5. they will be sick for love; ready to dye and pine away, which the husbandmen perceiving, saith Constantine, "stroke many Palms that grow together, and so stroking again the Palm that is enamoured, they carry kisses from the one to the other :" or tying the leaves and branches of the one to the stem of the other, will make them both flourish and prosper a great deal better: "h which are enamoured, they can perceive by the bending of boughs, and inclination of their bodies." If any man think this which I say to be a tale, let • Plutarch. *Altopilus. fol. 79. d Nullis amor est medicabilis herbis. in Amatorio. Dictator quo creato cessant reliqui magistratus. + Claudian. descript vener. aulæ. f Neq; prius in iis desiderium cessat dum dejectus consoletur; videre enim est ipsam arborem incurvatam, ultro ramis ab utrisq; vi. cissim ad osculum exporrectis. Manifesta dant mutui desiderii signa. & Mul tas palmas contingens quæ simul crescunt, rursusq; ad amantem regrediens, eamq; manu attingens, quasi osculum mutuo ministrare videtur, & expediti concubitus gratiam facit. Quam vero ipsa desideret affectu ramorum significat, & adullam respicit; amantur, &c. VOL. II. him |