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eyes, and was in his old age voluntarily blind, yet saw more than all Greece besides, and writ of every subject: Nihi lin toto opificio naturæ, de quo non scripsit: a man of an excellent wit, profound conceit; and, to attain knowledge the better in his younger years, he travelled to Egypt and Athens, to confer with learned men, admired of some, despised of others. After a wandring life, he setled at Abdera, a town in Thrace, and was sent for thither to be their law-maker, recorder, or town-clerk, as some will; or as others, he was there bred and born. Howsoever it was, there he lived at last in a garden in the suburbs, wholly betaking himself to his studies, and a private life, usaving that sometimes he would walk down to the haven, and laugh heartily at such variety of ridiculous objects, which there he saw. Such a one was

Democritus.

But, in the mean time, how doth this concern me, or upon what reference do I usurp his habit? I confess, indeed, that to compare my self unto him for ought I have yet said, were both impudency and arrogancy. I do not presume to make any parallel. Antistat mihi millibus trecentis: parvus sum; nullus sum; altum nec spiro, nec spero. Yet thus much I will say of my self, and that I hope without all suspicion of pride, or self-conceit, I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life, mihi et Musis, in the university, as long almost as Xenocrates in Athens, ad senectam fere, to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in my study: for I have been brought up a student in the most flourishing college of Europe, augustissimo collegio, and can brag with *Jovius, almost, in eâ luce domicilii Vaticani, totius orbis celeberrimi, per 37 annos multa opportunaque didici; for thirty years I have continued (having the use of as good libraries as ever he had) a scholar, and would be therefore loth, either, by living as a drone, to be an unprofitable or unworthy member of so learned and noble a society, or to write that which should be any way dishonourable to such a royal and ample foundation. Something I have done: though by my profession a divine, yet turbine raptus ingenii, as he said, out of a running wit, an unconstant, unsetled mind, I had a great desire (not able to attain to a superficial skill in any) to have some smattering in all, to be aliquis in omnibus, nullus in singulis;

et admirationi habitus. Dameg.

x

Naturalia, moralia, mathematica, liberales disciplinas, artiumque omnium peritiam, callebat • Veni Athenas; et nemo me novit. Idein contemptui "Solebat ad portam ambulare, et inde, &c. Hip. Ep. Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat Democritus. Juv. Sat. 7. Non sum dignus præstare matellam. Mart. Christ Church in Oxford. Præfat. hist. a Keeper of our college library lately revived by Otho Nicolson, Esquire. Scaliger,

which Plato commends, out of him 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 books, 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. Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminating, &c. and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile conjunction with mine ascendent; 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 collegiat 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 speculâ positus (i as he said), in some high place above you all, like Stoïcus sapiens, omnia sæcula præterita 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 vanilatem, 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

In Theat. 4 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 Præfat bibliothec.

de quocunque dolio jucundum. fEssays, lib. 3. Ambo fortes et fortunati. Mars idem magisterii dominus juxta primam Leoviti requlam. Heinsius. * Calide ambientes, solicite litigantes, aut misere exci dentes, voces, strepitum, contentiones, &c. Cyp. ad. Donat. Unice securus, ne excidam in foro, aut in mari Indico bonis eluam, de dote filie, patrimonio filii, not sum solicitus.

me, as from a common theatre or scene. I hear new news 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. daily 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 vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, law-suits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances—are daily brought to our ears: new books 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 tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical, then tragical 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 daily hear, and such like, both private and publick 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 quid mentiar, 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 scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixt passion:

"Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movere tamultus.

I did sometime laugh and scoff with Lucian, and satyrically tax with Menippus, lament with Heraclitus, sometimes again I was npetidunti splene cachinno, and then again, 0urere bilis jecur, I was much moved to see that abuse which I could not amend: in which passion howsoever I may sympathize

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, punder a shady bower, 9 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 several 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 atra 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, Demoeritus 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 phantas tical names. Howsoever, it is a kind 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 painter's 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 uprecedents for this I have done: I will cite one for all, Anthonie Zara Pap. Episc. his

P Secundum meenia locus erat frondosis populis opacus, vitibusque sponte natis: tenuis prope aqua defluebat, placide murmurans, ubi sedile et domus Democriti conspiciebatur. q 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. 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. Præfat. Nat. Hist. Patri obstetricem parturienti filiæ accersenti moram injicere possunt. u Anatomy of popery. Anatomy of immortality. Angelus Scalas, Anatomy of antimony. &c,

Anatomy of wit, in four sections, members, subsections, c. to be read in our libraries.

X

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 more 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 * Rhasis holds and howbeit, stultus labor 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, otiosâque diligentiâ, ut vitarem torporem feriandi, with Vectius in Macrobius, atque otium in utile verterem negotium;

y—Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitæ,

Lectorem delectando simul atque monendo.

To this end I write, like them, saith Lucian, that recite to trees, and declaim to pillars, for want of auditors; as zPaulus Ægineta ingenuously confesseth, not that any thing was unknown or omitted, but to exercise my self (which course if some took, I think it would be good for their bodies, and much better for their souls); 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, a 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 bille, impellente genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at, vel ut lenirem animum scribendo, to ease my mind by writing, for I had gravidum cor, fetum caput, a kind 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 viperâ 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 years, and travelled

y Hor.

* Cont. 1. 4. c. 9. Non est cura melior quam labor. 2 Non quod de novo quid addere, aut a veteribus prætermissum, sed propriæ exercitationis caussa. a Qui novit, neque id quod sentit exprimit, perinde est ac si b Jovius, Præf. Hist. ⚫ Erasmus. Otium otio, dolorem dolore,

nesciret.

sum solatus.

Observat. 1. 1.