THE CURE OF MELANCHOLY. (continued 3)

[3287]

densum humeris bibit aure vulgus

. We are most part too inquisitive and apt to hearken after news, which Caesar, in his

[3288]

Commentaries, observes of the old Gauls, they would be inquiring of every carrier and passenger what they had heard or seen, what news abroad?

as at an ordinary with us, bakehouse or barber's shop. When that great Gonsalva was upon some displeasure confined by King Ferdinand to the city of Loxa in Andalusia, the only, comfort (saith

[3289]

Jovius) he had to ease his melancholy thoughts, was to hear news, and to listen after those ordinary occurrences which were brought him

cum primis

, by letters or otherwise out of the remotest parts of Europe. Some men's whole delight is, to take tobacco, and drink all day long in a tavern or alehouse, to discourse, sing, jest, roar, talk of a cock and bull over a pot, &c. Or when three or four good companions meet, tell old stories by the fireside, or in the sun, as old folks usually do,

quae aprici meminere senes

, remembering afresh and with pleasure ancient matters, and such like accidents, which happened in their younger years: others' best pastime is to game, nothing to them so pleasant.

[3290]

Hic Veneri indulget, hunc decoquit alea

—many too nicely take exceptions at cards,

[3291]

tables, and dice, and such mixed lusorious lots, whom Gataker well confutes. Which though they be honest recreations in themselves, yet may justly be otherwise excepted at, as they are often abused, and forbidden as things most pernicious;

insanam rem et damnosam

,

[3292]

Lemnius calls it. “For most part in these kind of disports 'tis not art or skill, but subtlety, cony-catching, knavery, chance and fortune carries all away:” 'tis

ambulatoria pecunia

,

They labour most part not to pass their time in honest disport, but for filthy lucre, and covetousness of money.

In foedissimum lucrum et avaritiam hominum convertitur

, as Daneus observes.

Fons fraudum et maleficiorum

, 'tis the fountain of cozenage and villainy.

[3294]

“A thing so common all over Europe at this day, and so generally abused, that many men are utterly undone by it,” their means spent, patrimonies consumed, they and their posterity beggared; besides swearing, wrangling, drinking, loss of time, and such inconveniences, which are ordinary concomitants:

[3295]

“for when once they have got a haunt of such companies, and habit of gaming, they can hardly be drawn from it, but as an itch it will tickle them, and as it is with whoremasters, once entered, they cannot easily leave it off:”

Vexat mentes insania cupido

, they are mad upon their sport. And in conclusion (which Charles the Seventh, that good French king, published in an edict against gamesters)

unde piae et hilaris vitae, suffugium sibi suisque liberis, totique familiae

, &c. “That which was once their livelihood, should have maintained wife, children, family, is now spent and gone;”

maeror et egestas

, &c., sorrow and beggary succeeds. So good things may be abused, and that which was first invented to

[3296]

refresh men's weary spirits, when they come from other labours and studies to exhilarate the mind, to entertain time and company, tedious otherwise in those long solitary winter nights, and keep them from worse matters, an honest exercise is contrarily perverted.

Chess-play is a good and witty exercise of the mind for some kind of men, and fit for such melancholy, Rhasis holds, as are idle, and have extravagant impertinent thoughts, or troubled with cares, nothing better to distract their mind, and alter their meditations: invented (some say) by the [3297]general of an army in a famine, to keep soldiers from mutiny: but if it proceed from overmuch study, in such a case it may do more harm than good; it is a game too troublesome for some men's brains, too full of anxiety, all out as bad as study; besides it is a testy choleric game, and very offensive to him that loseth the mate. [3298]William the Conqueror, in his younger years, playing at chess with the Prince of France (Dauphine was not annexed to that crown in those days) losing a mate, knocked the chess-board about his pate, which was a cause afterward of much enmity between them. For some such reason it is belike, that Patritius, in his 3. book, tit. 12. de reg. instit. forbids his prince to play at chess; hawking and hunting, riding, &c. he will allow; and this to other men, but by no means to him. In Muscovy, where they live in stoves and hot houses all winter long, come seldom or little abroad, it is again very necessary, and therefore in those parts, (saith [3299]Herbastein) much used. At Fez in Africa, where the like inconvenience of keeping within doors is through heat, it is very laudable; and (as [3300]Leo Afer relates) as much frequented. A sport fit for idle gentlewomen, soldiers in garrison, and courtiers that have nought but love matters to busy themselves about, but not altogether so convenient for such as are students. The like I may say of Col. Bruxer's philosophy game, D. Fulke's Metromachia and his Ouronomachia, with the rest of those intricate astrological and geometrical fictions, for such especially as are mathematically given; and the rest of those curious games.

Dancing, singing, masking, mumming, stage plays, howsoever they be heavily censured by some severe Catos, yet if opportunely and soberly used, may justly be approved. Melius est foedere, quam saltare, [3301]saith Austin: but what is that if they delight in it? [3302]Nemo saltat sobrius. But in what kind of dance? I know these sports have many oppugners, whole volumes writ against them; when as all they say (if duly considered) is but ignoratio Elenchi; and some again, because they are now cold and wayward, past themselves, cavil at all such youthful sports in others, as he did in the comedy; they think them, illico nasci senes, &c. Some out of preposterous zeal object many times trivial arguments, and because of some abuse, will quite take away the good use, as if they should forbid wine because it makes men drunk; but in my judgment they are too stern: there “is a time for all things, a time to mourn, a time to dance,” Eccles. iii. 4. “a time to embrace, a time not to embrace,” (verse 5.) “and nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works,” verse 22; for my part, I will subscribe to the king's declaration, and was ever of that mind, those May games, wakes, and Whitsun ales, &c., if they be not at unseasonable hours, may justly be permitted. Let them freely feast, sing and dance, have their puppet-plays, hobby-horses, tabors, crowds, bagpipes, &c., play at ball, and barley-breaks, and what sports and recreations they like best. In Franconia, a province of Germany, (saith [3303]Aubanus Bohemus) the old folks, after evening prayer, went to the alehouse, the younger sort to dance: and to say truth with [3304]Salisburiensis, satius fuerat sic otiari, quam turpius occupari, better to do so than worse, as without question otherwise (such is the corruption of man's nature) many of them will do. For that cause, plays, masks, jesters, gladiators, tumblers, jugglers, &c., and all that crew is admitted and winked at: [3305]Tota jocularium scena procedit, et ideo spectacula admissa sunt, et infinita tyrocinia vanitatum, ut his occupentur, qui perniciosius otiari solent: that they might be busied about such toys, that would otherwise more perniciously be idle. So that as [3306]Tacitus said of the astrologers in Rome, we may say of them, genus hominum est quod in civitate nostra et vitabitur semper et retinebitur, they are a debauched company most part, still spoken against, as well they deserve some of them (for I so relish and distinguish them as fiddlers, and musicians), and yet ever retained. “Evil is not to be done (I confess) that good may come of it:” but this is evil per accidens, and in a qualified sense, to avoid a greater inconvenience, may justly be tolerated. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopian Commonwealth, [3307]“as he will have none idle, so will he have no man labour over hard, to be toiled out like a horse, 'tis more than slavish infelicity, the life of most of our hired servants and tradesmen elsewhere” (excepting his Utopians) “but half the day allotted for work, and half for honest recreation, or whatsoever employment they shall think fit for themselves.” If one half day in a week were allowed to our household servants for their merry meetings, by their hard masters, or in a year some feasts, like those Roman Saturnals, I think they would labour harder all the rest of their time, and both parties be better pleased: but this needs not (you will say), for some of them do nought but loiter all the week long.

This which I aim at, is for such as are fracti animis, troubled in mind, to ease them, over-toiled on the one part, to refresh: over idle on the other, to keep themselves busied. And to this purpose, as any labour or employment will serve to the one, any honest recreation will conduce to the other, so that it be moderate and sparing, as the use of meat and drink; not to spend all their life in gaming, playing, and pastimes, as too many gentlemen do; but to revive our bodies and recreate our souls with honest sports: of which as there be diverse sorts, and peculiar to several callings, ages, sexes, conditions, so there be proper for several seasons, and those of distinct natures, to fit that variety of humours which is amongst them, that if one will not, another may: some in summer, some in winter, some gentle, some more violent, some for the mind alone, some for the body and mind: (as to some it is both business and a pleasant recreation to oversee workmen of all sorts, husbandry, cattle, horses, &c. To build, plot, project, to make models, cast up accounts, &c.) some without, some within doors; new, old, &c., as the season serveth, and as men are inclined. It is reported of Philippus Bonus, that good duke of Burgundy (by Lodovicus Vives, in Epist. and Pont. [3308]Heuter in his history) that the said duke, at the marriage of Eleonora, sister to the king of Portugal, at Bruges in Flanders, which was solemnised in the deep of winter, when, as by reason of unseasonable weather, he could neither hawk nor hunt, and was now tired with cards, dice, &c., and such other domestic sports, or to see ladies dance, with some of his courtiers, he would in the evening walk disguised all about the town. It so fortuned, as he was walking late one night, he found a country fellow dead drunk, snorting on a bulk; [3309]he caused his followers to bring him to his palace, and there stripping him of his old clothes, and attiring him after the court fashion, when he waked, he and they were all ready to attend upon his excellency, persuading him he was some great duke. The poor fellow admiring how he came there, was served in state all the day long; after supper he saw them dance, heard music, and the rest of those court-like pleasures: but late at night, when he was well tippled, and again fast asleep, they put on his old robes, and so conveyed him to the place where they first found him. Now the fellow had not made them so good sport the day before as he did when he returned to himself; all the jest was, to see how he [3310]looked upon it. In conclusion, after some little admiration, the poor man told his friends he had seen a vision, constantly believed it, would not otherwise be persuaded, and so the jest ended. [3311]Antiochus Epiphanes would often disguise himself, steal from his court, and go into merchants', goldsmiths', and other tradesmen's shops, sit and talk with them, and sometimes ride or walk alone, and fall aboard with any tinker, clown, serving man, carrier, or whomsoever he met first. Sometimes he did ex insperato give a poor fellow money, to see how he would look, or on set purpose lose his purse as he went, to watch who found it, and withal how he would be affected, and with such objects he was much delighted. Many such tricks are ordinarily put in practice by great men, to exhilarate themselves and others, all which are harmless jests, and have their good uses.

But amongst those exercises, or recreations of the mind within doors, there is none so general, so aptly to be applied to all sorts of men, so fit and proper to expel idleness and melancholy, as that of study: Studia, senectutem oblectant, adolescentiam, alunt, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium et solatium praebent, domi delectant, &c., find the rest in Tully pro Archia Poeta. [3312]What so full of content, as to read, walk, and see maps, pictures, statues, jewels, marbles, which some so much magnify, as those that Phidias made of old so exquisite and pleasing to be beheld, that as [3313]Chrysostom thinketh, “if any man be sickly, troubled in mind, or that cannot sleep for grief, and shall but stand over against one of Phidias' images, he will forget all care, or whatsoever else may molest him, in an instant?” There be those as much taken with Michael Angelo's, Raphael de Urbino's, Francesco Francia's pieces, and many of those Italian and Dutch painters, which were excellent in their ages; and esteem of it as a most pleasing sight, to view those neat architectures, devices, escutcheons, coats of arms, read such books, to peruse old coins of several sorts in a fair gallery; artificial works, perspective glasses, old relics, Roman antiquities, variety of colours. A good picture is falsa veritas, et muta poesis: and though (as [3314]Vives saith) artificialia delectant, sed mox fastidimus, artificial toys please but for a time; yet who is he that will not be moved with them for the present? When Achilles was tormented and sad for the loss of his dear friend Patroclus, his mother Thetis brought him a most elaborate and curious buckler made by Vulcan, in which were engraven sun, moon, stars, planets, sea, land, men fighting, running, riding, women scolding, hills, dales, towns, castles, brooks, rivers, trees, &c., with many pretty landscapes, and perspective pieces: with sight of which he was infinitely delighted, and much eased of his grief.

Who will not be affected so in like case, or see those well-furnished cloisters and galleries of the Roman cardinals, so richly stored with all modern pictures, old statues and antiquities?

Cum se—spectando recreet simul et legendo

, to see their pictures alone and read the description, as

[3316]

Boisardus well adds, whom will it not affect? which Bozius, Pomponius, Laetus, Marlianus, Schottus, Cavelerius, Ligorius, &c., and he himself hath well performed of late. Or in some prince's cabinets, like that of the great dukes in Florence, of Felix Platerus in Basil, or noblemen's houses, to see such variety of attires, faces, so many, so rare, and such exquisite pieces, of men, birds, beasts, &c., to see those excellent landscapes, Dutch works, and curious cuts of Sadlier of Prague, Albertus Durer, Goltzius Vrintes, &c., such pleasant pieces of perspective, Indian pictures made of feathers, China works, frames, thaumaturgical motions, exotic toys, &c. Who is he that is now wholly overcome with idleness, or otherwise involved in a labyrinth of worldly cares, troubles and discontents, that will not be much lightened in his mind by reading of some enticing story, true or feigned, whereas in a glass he shall observe what our forefathers have done, the beginnings, ruins, falls, periods of commonwealths, private men's actions displayed to the life, &c.

[3317]

Plutarch therefore calls them,

secundas mensas et bellaria

, the second course and junkets, because they were usually read at noblemen's feasts. Who is not earnestly affected with a passionate speech, well penned, an elegant poem, or some pleasant bewitching discourse, like that of

[3318]

Heliodorus,

ubi oblectatio quaedam placide fuit, cum hilaritate conjuncta

? Julian the Apostate was so taken with an oration of Libanius, the sophister, that, as he confesseth, he could not be quiet till he had read it all out.

Legi orationem tuam magna ex parte, hesterna die ante prandium, pransus vero sine ulla intermissione totam absolvi

.

[3319]

O argumenta! O compositionem!

I may say the same of this or that pleasing tract, which will draw his attention along with it. To most kind of men it is an extraordinary delight to study. For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader? In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, optics, astronomy, architecture, sculpture, painting, of which so many and such elaborate treatises are of late written: in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation,

[3320]

riding of horses,

[3321]

fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry, hunting, fishing, fowling, &c., with exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not? In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, philology, in policy, heraldry, genealogy, chronology, &c., they afford great tomes, or those studies of

[3322]

antiquity, &c.,

et

[3323]

quid subtilius Arithmeticis inventionibus, quid jucundius Musicis rationibus, quid divinius Astronomicis, quid rectius Geometricis demonstrationibus

? What so sure, what so pleasant? He that shall but see that geometrical tower of Garezenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburg, will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes, to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument: Archimedes Coclea, and rare devices to corrivate waters, musical instruments, and tri-syllable echoes again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, &c.! their names alone are the subject of whole volumes, we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat, served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them. Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages wherein these books are written, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, &c. Methinks it would please any man to look upon a geographical map,

[3324]

sauvi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibilem rerum varietatem et jucunditatem, et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare

, chorographical, topographical delineations, to behold, as it were, all the remote provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the limits of his study, to measure by the seale and compass their extent, distance, examine their site. Charles the Great, as Platina writes, had three fair silver tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of Constantinople, in the second Rome neatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of the whole world, and much delight he took in them. What greater pleasure can there now be, than to view those elaborate maps of Ortelius,

[3325]

Mercator, Hondius, &c.? To peruse those books of cities, put out by Braunus and Hogenbergius? To read those exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula, Boterus, Leander, Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, Nic. Gerbelius, &c.? Those famous expeditions of Christoph. Columbus, Americus Vespucius, Marcus Polus the Venetian, Lod. Vertomannus, Aloysius Cadamustus, &c.? Those accurate diaries of Portuguese, Hollanders, of Bartison, Oliver a Nort, &c. Hakluyt's voyages, Pet. Martyr's Decades, Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's relations, those Hodoeporicons of Jod. a Meggen, Brocard the monk, Bredenbachius, Jo. Dublinius, Sands, &c., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of the world? those pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentzerus, Jodocus Sincerus, Dux Polonus, &c., to read Bellonius' observations, P. Gillius his surveys; those parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres a Bry. To see a well-cut herbal, herbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetables expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of Beslar of Nuremberg, wherein almost every plant is to his own bigness. To see birds, beasts, and fishes of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, &c., all creatures set out by the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an exact description of their natures, virtues, qualities, &c., as hath been accurately performed by Aelian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonius, Rondoletius, Hippolitus Salvianus, &c.

[3326]

Arcana coeli, naturae secreta, ordinem universi scire majoris felicitatis et dulcedinis est, quam cogitatione quis assequi possit, aut mortalis sperare

. What more pleasing studies can there be than the mathematics, theoretical or practical parts? as to survey land, make maps, models, dials, &c., with which I was ever much delighted myself.

Tails est Mathematum pulchritudo

(saith

[3327]

Plutarch)

ut his indignum sit divitiarum phaleras istas et bullas, et puellaria spectacula comparari

; such is the excellency of these studies, that all those ornaments and childish bubbles of wealth, are not worthy to be compared to them:

credi mihi

(

[3328]

saith one)

extingui dulce erit Mathematicarum artium studio

, I could even live and die with such meditation,

[3329]

and take more delight, true content of mind in them, than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, how rich soever thou art. And as

[3330]

Cardan well seconds me,

Honorificum magis est et gloriosum haec intelligere, quam provinciis praeesse, formosum aut ditem juvenem esse

.

[3331]

The like pleasure there is in all other studies, to such as are truly addicted to them,

[3332]

ea suavitas

(one holds)

ut cum quis ea degustaverit, quasi poculis Circeis captus, non possit unquam ab illis divelli

; the like sweetness, which as Circe's cup bewitcheth a student, he cannot leave off, as well may witness those many laborious hours, days and nights, spent in the voluminous treatises written by them; the same content.

[3333]

Julius Scaliger was so much affected with poetry, that he brake out into a pathetical protestation, he had rather be the author of twelve verses in Lucan, or such an ode in

[3334]

Horace, than emperor of Germany.

[3335]

Nicholas Gerbelius, that good old man, was so much ravished with a few Greek authors restored to light, with hope and desire of enjoying the rest, that he exclaims forthwith,

Arabibus atque Indis omnibus erimus ditiores

, we shall be richer than all the Arabic or Indian princes; of such

[3336]

esteem they were with him, incomparable worth and value. Seneca prefers Zeno and Chrysippus, two doting stoics (he was so much enamoured of their works), before any prince or general of an army; and Orontius, the mathematician, so far admires Archimedes, that he calls him

Divinum et homine majorem

, a petty god, more than a man; and well he might, for aught I see, if you respect fame or worth. Pindarus, of Thebes, is as much renowned for his poems, as Epaminondas, Pelopidas, Hercules or Bacchus, his fellow citizens, for their warlike actions;

et si famam respicias, non pauciores Aristotelis quam Alexandri meminerunt

(as Cardan notes), Aristotle is more known than Alexander; for we have a bare relation of Alexander's deeds, but Aristotle,

totus vivit in monumentis

, is whole in his works: yet I stand not upon this; the delight is it, which I aim at, so great pleasure, such sweet content there is in study.

[3337]

King James, 1605, when he came to see our University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley, in imitation of Alexander, at his departure brake out into that noble speech, If I were not a king, I would be a university man:

[3338]

“and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors

et mortuis magistris

.” So sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, and the last day is

prioris discipulus

; harsh at first learning is,

radices amarcae

, but

fractus dulces

, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year long: and that which to thy thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking.

[3339]

“I no sooner” (saith he) “come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance, and melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat, with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that know not this happiness.” I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwithstanding this which I have said) how barbarously and basely, for the most part, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as Aesop's cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education. And 'tis a wonder, withal, to observe how much they will vainly cast away in unnecessary expenses,

quot modis pereant

(saith

[3340]

Erasmus)

magnatibus pecuniae, quantum absumant alea, scorta, compotationes, profectiones non necessariae, pompae, bella quaesita, ambitio, colax, morio, ludio

, &c., what in hawks, hounds, lawsuits, vain building, gormandising, drinking, sports, plays, pastimes, &c. If a well-minded man to the Muses, would sue to some of them for an exhibition, to the farther maintenance or enlargement of such a work, be it college, lecture, library, or whatsoever else may tend to the advancement of learning, they are so unwilling, so averse, that they had rather see these which are already, with such cost and care erected, utterly ruined, demolished or otherwise employed; for they repine many and grudge at such gifts and revenues so bestowed: and therefore it were in vain, as Erasmus well notes,

vel ab his, vel a negotiatoribus qui se Mammonae dediderunt, improbum fortasse tale officium exigere

, to solicit or ask anything of such men that are likely damned to riches; to this purpose. For my part I pity these men,

stultos jubeo esse libenter

, let them go as they are, in the catalogue of Ignoramus. How much, on the other side, are all we bound that are scholars, to those munificent Ptolemies, bountiful Maecenases, heroical patrons, divine spirits,

[3341]———qui nobis haec otio fecerunt, namque erit ille mihi semper Deus———

that have provided for us so many well-furnished libraries, as well in our public academies in most cities, as in our private colleges? How shall I remember

[3342]

Sir Thomas Bodley, amongst the rest,

[3343]

Otho Nicholson, and the Right Reverend John Williams, Lord Bishop of Lincoln (with many other pious acts), who besides that at St. John's College in Cambridge, that in Westminster, is now likewise in

Fieri

with a library at Lincoln (a noble precedent for all corporate towns and cities to imitate),

O quam te memorem (vir illustrissime) quibus elogiis

? But to my task again.

Whosoever he is therefore that is overrun with solitariness, or carried away with pleasing melancholy and vain conceits, and for want of employment knows not how to spend his time, or crucified with worldly care, I can prescribe him no better remedy than this of study, to compose himself to the learning of some art or science. Provided always that this malady proceed not from overmuch study; for in such case he adds fuel to the fire, and nothing can be more pernicious: let him take heed he do not overstretch his wits, and make a skeleton of himself; or such inamoratos as read nothing but play-books, idle poems, jests, Amadis de Gaul, the Knight of the Sun, the Seven Champions, Palmerin de Oliva, Huon of Bordeaux, &c. Such many times prove in the end as mad as Don Quixote. Study is only prescribed to those that are otherwise idle, troubled in mind, or carried headlong with vain thoughts and imaginations, to distract their cogitations (although variety of study, or some serious subject, would do the former no harm) and divert their continual meditations another way. Nothing in this case better than study; semper aliquid memoriter ediscant, saith Piso, let them learn something without book, transcribe, translate, &c. Read the Scriptures, which Hyperius, lib. 1. de quotid. script. lec. fol. 77. holds available of itself, [3344]“the mind is erected thereby from all worldly cares, and hath much quiet and tranquillity.” For as [3345]Austin well hath it, 'tis scientia scientiarum, omni melle dulcior, omni pane suavior, omni vino, hilarior: 'tis the best nepenthe, surest cordial, sweetest alterative, presentest diverter: for neither as [3346]Chrysostom well adds, “those boughs and leaves of trees which are plashed for cattle to stand under, in the heat of the day, in summer, so much refresh them with their acceptable shade, as the reading of the Scripture doth recreate and comfort a distressed soul, in sorrow and affliction.” Paul bids “pray continually;” quod cibus corpori, lectio animae facit, saith Seneca, as meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul. [3347]“To be at leisure without books is another hell, and to be buried alive.” [3348]Cardan calls a library the physic of the soul; [3349]“divine authors fortify the mind, make men bold and constant; and (as Hyperius adds) godly conference will not permit the mind to be tortured with absurd cogitations.” Rhasis enjoins continual conference to such melancholy men, perpetual discourse of some history, tale, poem, news, &c., alternos sermones edere ac bibere, aeque jucundum quam cibus, sive potus, which feeds the mind as meat and drink doth the body, and pleaseth as much: and therefore the said Rhasis, not without good cause, would have somebody still talk seriously, or dispute with them, and sometimes [3350]“to cavil and wrangle” (so that it break not out to a violent perturbation), “for such altercation is like stirring of a dead fire to make it burn afresh,” it whets a dull spirit, “and will not suffer the mind to be drowned in those profound cogitations, which melancholy men are commonly troubled with.” [3351]Ferdinand and Alphonsus, kings of Arragon and Sicily, were both cured by reading the history, one of Curtius, the other of Livy, when no prescribed physic would take place. [3352]Camerarius relates as much of Lorenzo de' Medici. Heathen philosophers arc so full of divine precepts in this kind, that, as some think, they alone are able to settle a distressed mind. [3353]Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem, &c. Epictetus, Plutarch, and Seneca; qualis ille, quae tela, saith Lipsius, adversus omnes animi casus administrat, et ipsam mortem, quomodo vitia eripit, infert virtutes? when I read Seneca, [3354]“methinks I am beyond all human fortunes, on the top of a hill above mortality.” Plutarch saith as much of Homer, for which cause belike Niceratus, in Xenophon, was made by his parents to con Homer's Iliads and Odysseys without book, ut in virum bonum evaderet, as well to make him a good and honest man, as to avoid idleness. If this comfort be got from philosophy, what shall be had from divinity? What shall Austin, Cyprian, Gregory, Bernard's divine meditations afford us?

Nay, what shall the Scripture itself? Which is like an apothecary's shop, wherein are all remedies for all infirmities of mind, purgatives, cordials, alteratives, corroboratives, lenitives, &c. “Every disease of the soul,” saith

[3356]

Austin, “hath a peculiar medicine in the Scripture; this only is required, that the sick man take the potion which God hath already tempered.”

[3357]

Gregory calls it “a glass wherein we may see all our infirmities,”

ignitum colloquium

,

Psalm cxix. 140

.

[3358]

Origen a charm. And therefore Hierom prescribes Rusticus the monk,

[3359]

“continually to read the Scripture, and to meditate on that which he hath read; for as mastication is to meat, so is meditation on that which we read.” I would for these causes wish him that, is melancholy to use both human and divine authors, voluntarily to impose some task upon himself, to divert his melancholy thoughts: to study the art of memory, Cosmus Rosselius, Pet. Ravennas, Scenkelius' Detectus, or practise brachygraphy, &c., that will ask a great deal of attention: or let him demonstrate a proposition in Euclid, in his five last books, extract a square root, or study Algebra: than which, as

[3360]

Clavius holds, “in all human disciplines nothing can be more excellent and pleasant, so abstruse and recondite, so bewitching, so miraculous, so ravishing, so easy withal and full of delight,”

omnem humanum captum superare videtur

. By this means you may define

ex ungue leonem

, as the diverb is, by his thumb alone the bigness of Hercules, or the true dimensions of the great

[3361]

Colossus, Solomon's temple, and Domitian's amphitheatre out of a little part. By this art you may contemplate the variation of the twenty-three letters, which may be so infinitely varied, that the words complicated and deduced thence will not be contained within the compass of the firmament; ten words may be varied 40,320 several ways: by this art you may examine how many men may stand one by another in the whole superficies of the earth, some say 148,456,800,000,000,

assignando singulis passum quadratum

(assigning a square foot to each), how many men, supposing all the world as habitable as France, as fruitful and so long-lived, may be born in 60,000 years, and so may you demonstrate with

[3362]

Archimedes how many sands the mass of the whole world might contain if all sandy, if you did but first know how much a small cube as big as a mustard-seed might hold, with infinite such. But in all nature what is there so stupendous as to examine and calculate the motion of the planets, their magnitudes, apogees, perigees, eccentricities, how far distant from the earth, the bigness, thickness, compass of the firmament, each star, with their diameters and circumference, apparent area, superficies, by those curious helps of glasses, astrolabes, sextants, quadrants, of which Tycho Brahe in his mechanics, optics (

[3363]

divine optics) arithmetic, geometry, and such like arts and instruments? What so intricate and pleasing withal, as to peruse and practise Heron Alexandrinus's works,

de spiritalibus, de machinis bellicis, de machina se movente

, Jordani Nemorarii

de ponderibus proposit. 13

, that pleasant tract of Machometes Bragdedinus

de superficierum divisionibus

, Apollonius's Conics, or Commandinus's labours in that kind,

de centro gravitatis

, with many such geometrical theorems and problems? Those rare instruments and mechanical inventions of Jac. Bessonus, and Cardan to this purpose, with many such experiments intimated long since by Roger Bacon, in his tract

de

[3364]

Secretis artis et naturae

, as to make a chariot to move

sine animali

, diving boats, to walk on the water by art, and to fly in the air, to make several cranes and pulleys,

quibus homo trahat ad se mille homines

, lift up and remove great weights, mills to move themselves, Archita's dove, Albertus's brazen head, and such thaumaturgical works. But especially to do strange miracles by glasses, of which Proclus and Bacon writ of old, burning glasses, multiplying glasses, perspectives,

ut unus homo appareat exercitus

, to see afar off, to represent solid bodies by cylinders and concaves, to walk in the air,

ut veraciter videant

, (saith Bacon)

aurum et argentum et quicquid aliud volunt, et quum veniant ad locum visionis, nihil inveniant

, which glasses are much perfected of late by Baptista Porta and Galileo, and much more is promised by Maginus and Midorgius, to be performed in this kind.

Otocousticons

some speak of, to intend hearing, as the other do sight; Marcellus Vrencken, a Hollander, in his epistle to Burgravius, makes mention of a friend of his that is about an instrument,

quo videbit quae in altero horizonte sint

. But our alchemists, methinks, and Rosicrucians afford most rarities, and are fuller of experiments: they can make gold, separate and alter metals, extract oils, salts, lees, and do more strange works than Geber, Lullius, Bacon, or any of those ancients. Crollius hath made after his master Paracelsus,

aurum fulminans

, or

aurum volatile

, which shall imitate thunder and lightning, and crack louder than any gunpowder; Cornelius Drible a perpetual motion, inextinguishable lights,

linum non ardens

, with many such feats; see his book

de natura elementorum

, besides hail, wind, snow, thunder, lightning, &c., those strange fireworks, devilish petards, and such like warlike machinations derived hence, of which read Tartalea and others. Ernestus Burgravius, a disciple of Paracelsus, hath published a discourse, in which he specifies a lamp to be made of man's blood,

Lucerna vitae et mortis index

, so he terms it, which chemically prepared forty days, and afterwards kept in a glass, shall show all the accidents of this life;

si lampus hic clarus, tunc homo hilaris et sanus corpore et animo; si nebulosus et depressus, male afficitur, et sic pro statu hominis variatur, unde sumptus sanguis

;

[3365]

and which is most wonderful, it dies with the party,

cum homine perit, et evanescit

, the lamp and the man whence the blood was taken, are extinguished together. The same author hath another tract of Mumia (all out as vain and prodigious as the first) by which he will cure most diseases, and transfer them from a man to a beast, by drawing blood from one, and applying it to the other,

vel in plantam derivare

, and an Alexi-pharmacum, of which Roger Bacon of old in his

Tract. de retardanda senectute

, to make a man young again, live three or four hundred years. Besides panaceas, martial amulets,

unguentum armarium

, balsams, strange extracts, elixirs, and such like magico-magnetical cures. Now what so pleasing can there be as the speculation of these things, to read and examine such experiments, or if a man be more mathematically given, to calculate, or peruse Napier's Logarithms, or those tables of artificial

[3366]

sines and tangents, not long since set out by mine old collegiate, good friend, and late fellow-student of Christ Church in Oxford,

[3367]

Mr. Edmund Gunter, which will perform that by addition and subtraction only, which heretofore Regiomontanus's tables did by multiplication and division, or those elaborate conclusions of his

[3368]

sector, quadrant, and cross-staff. Or let him that is melancholy calculate spherical triangles, square a circle, cast a nativity, which howsoever some tax, I say with

[3369]

Garcaeus,

dabimus hoc petulantibus ingeniis

, we will in some cases allow: or let him make an

ephemerides

, read Suisset the calculator's works, Scaliger

de emendatione temporum

, and Petavius his adversary, till he understand them, peruse subtle Scotus and Suarez's metaphysics, or school divinity, Occam, Thomas, Entisberus, Durand, &c. If those other do not affect him, and his means be great, to employ his purse and fill his head, he may go find the philosopher's stone; he may apply his mind, I say, to heraldry, antiquity, invent impresses, emblems; make epithalamiums, epitaphs, elegies, epigrams, palindroma epigrammata, anagrams, chronograms, acrostics, upon his friends' names; or write a comment on Martianus Capella, Tertullian

de pallio

, the Nubian geography, or upon Aelia Laelia Crispis, as many idle fellows have essayed; and rather than do nothing, vary a

[3370]

verse a thousand ways with Putean, so torturing his wits, or as Rainnerus of Luneburg,

[3371]

2150 times in his

Proteus Poeticus

, or Scaliger, Chrysolithus, Cleppissius, and others, have in like sort done. If such voluntary tasks, pleasure and delight, or crabbedness of these studies, will not yet divert their idle thoughts, and alienate their imaginations, they must be compelled, saith Christophorus a Vega,

cogi debent

,

l. 5. c. 14

, upon some mulct, if they perform it not,

quod ex officio incumbat

, loss of credit or disgrace, such as our public University exercises. For, as he that plays for nothing will not heed his game; no more will voluntary employment so thoroughly affect a student, except he be very intent of himself, and take an extraordinary delight in the study, about which he is conversant. It should be of that nature his business, which

volens nolens

he must necessarily undergo, and without great loss, mulct, shame, or hindrance, he may not omit.

Now for women, instead of laborious studies, they have curious needleworks, cut-works, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devices of their own making, to adorn their houses, cushions, carpets, chairs, stools, (“for she eats not the bread of idleness,” Prov. xxxi. 27. quaesivit lanam et linum) confections, conserves, distillations, &c., which they show to strangers.

This they have to busy themselves about, household offices, &c.,

[3373]

neat gardens, full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied, sweet-smelling flowers, and plants in all kinds, which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keep, proud to possess, and much many times brag of. Their merry meetings and frequent visitations, mutual invitations in good towns, I voluntarily omit, which are so much in use, gossiping among the meaner sort, &c., old folks have their beads: an excellent invention to keep them from idleness, that are by nature melancholy, and past all affairs, to say so many paternosters, avemarias, creeds, if it were not profane and superstitious. In a word, body and mind must be exercised, not one, but both, and that in a mediocrity; otherwise it will cause a great inconvenience. If the body be overtired, it tires the mind. The mind oppresseth the body, as with students it oftentimes falls out, who (as

[3374]

Plutarch observes) have no care of the body, “but compel that which is mortal to do as much as that which is immortal: that which is earthly, as that which is ethereal. But as the ox tired, told the camel, (both serving one master) that refused to carry some part of his burden, before it were long he should be compelled to carry all his pack, and skin to boot (which by and by, the ox being dead, fell out), the body may say to the soul, that will give him no respite or remission: a little after, an ague, vertigo, consumption, seizeth on them both, all his study is omitted, and they must be compelled to be sick together:” he that tenders his own good estate, and health, must let them draw with equal yoke, both alike,

[3375]

“that so they may happily enjoy their wished health.”

MEMB. V.

Waking and terrible Dreams rectified.

As waking that hurts, by all means must be avoided, so sleep, which so much helps, by like ways, [3376]“must be procured, by nature or art, inward or outward medicines, and be protracted longer than ordinary, if it may be, as being an especial help.” It moistens and fattens the body, concocts, and helps digestion (as we see in dormice, and those Alpine mice that sleep all winter), which Gesner speaks of, when they are so found sleeping under the snow in the dead of winter, as fat as butter. It expels cares, pacifies the mind, refresheth the weary limbs after long work:

The chiefest thing in all physic,

[3378]

Paracelsus calls it,

omnia arcana gemmarum superans et metallorum

. The fittest time is

[3379]

“two or three hours after supper, when as the meat is now settled at the bottom of the stomach, and 'tis good to lie on the right side first, because at that site the liver doth rest under the stomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth a kettle, that is put to it. After the first sleep 'tis not amiss to lie on the left side, that the meat may the better descend;” and sometimes again on the belly, but never on the back. Seven or eight hours is a competent time for a melancholy man to rest, as Crato thinks; but as some do, to lie in bed and not sleep, a day, or half a day together, to give assent to pleasing conceits and vain imaginations, is many ways pernicious. To procure this sweet moistening sleep, it's best to take away the occasions (if it be possible) that hinder it, and then to use such inward or outward remedies, which may cause it.

Constat hodie

(saith Boissardus in his tract

de magia, cap. 4.

)

multos ita fascinari ut noctes integras exigant insomnes, summa, inquietudine animorum et corporum

; many cannot sleep for witches and fascinations, which are too familiar in some places; they call it,

dare alicui malam noctem

. But the ordinary causes are heat and dryness, which must first be removed:

[3380]

a hot and dry brain never sleeps well: grief, fears, cares, expectations, anxieties, great businesses,

[3381]

In aurum utramque otiose ut dormias

, and all violent perturbations of the mind, must in some sort be qualified, before we can hope for any good repose. He that sleeps in the daytime, or is in suspense, fear, any way troubled in mind, or goes to bed upon a full

[3382]

stomach, may never hope for quiet rest in the night;

nec enim meritoria somnos admittunt

, as the

[3383]

poet saith; inns and such like troublesome places are not for sleep; one calls ostler, another tapster, one cries and shouts, another sings, whoops, halloos,

Who not accustomed to such noises can sleep amongst them? He that will intend to take his rest must go to bed

animo securo, quieto et libero

, with a

[3385]

secure and composed mind, in a quiet place:

omnia noctes erunt placida composta quiete

: and if that will not serve, or may not be obtained, to seek then such means as are requisite. To lie in clean linen and sweet; before he goes to bed, or in bed, to hear

[3386]

“sweet music,” which Ficinus commends,

lib. 1. cap. 24

, or as Jobertus,

med. pract. lib. 3. cap. 10.

[3387]

“to read some pleasant author till he be asleep, to have a basin of water still dropping by his bedside,” or to lie near that pleasant murmur,

lene sonantis aquae

. Some floodgates, arches, falls of water, like London Bridge, or some continuate noise which may benumb the senses,

lenis motus, silentium et tenebra, tum et ipsa voluntas somnos faciunt

; as a gentle noise to some procures sleep, so, which Bernardinus Tilesius,

lib. de somno

, well observes, silence, in a dark room, and the will itself, is most available to others. Piso commends frications, Andrew Borde a good draught of strong drink before one goes to bed; I say, a nutmeg and ale, or a good draught of Muscadine, with a toast and nutmeg, or a posset of the same, which many use in a morning, but methinks, for such as have dry brains, are much more proper at night; some prescribe a

[3388]

sup of vinegar as they go to bed, a spoonful, saith Aetius

Tetrabib. lib. 2. ser. 2. cap. 10. lib. 6. cap. 10.

Aegineta,

lib. 3. cap. 14.

Piso, “a little after meat,”

[3389]

“because it rarefies melancholy, and procures an appetite to sleep.”

Donat. ab Altomar. cap. 7.

and Mercurialis approve of it, if the malady proceed from the

[3390]

spleen. Salust. Salvian.

lib. 2. cap. 1. de remed.

Hercules de Saxonia

in Pan. Aelinus

, Montaltus

de morb. capitis, cap. 28. de Melan.

are altogether against it. Lod. Mercatus,

de inter. Morb. cau. lib. 1. cap. 17.

in some cases doth allow it.

[3391]

Rhasis seems to deliberate of it, though Simeon commend it (in sauce peradventure) he makes a question of it: as for baths, fomentations, oils, potions, simples or compounds, inwardly taken to this purpose,

[3392]

I shall speak of them elsewhere. If, in the midst of the night, when they lie awake, which is usual to toss and tumble, and not sleep,

[3393]

Ranzovius would have them, if it be in warm weather, to rise and walk three or four turns (till they be cold) about the chamber, and then go to bed again.

Against fearful and troublesome dreams, Incubus and such inconveniences, wherewith melancholy men are molested, the best remedy is to eat a light supper, and of such meats as are easy of digestion, no hare, venison, beef, &c., not to lie on his back, not to meditate or think in the daytime of any terrible objects, or especially talk of them before he goes to bed. For, as he said in Lucian after such conference, Hecates somniare mihi videor, I can think of nothing but hobgoblins: and as Tully notes, [3394] “for the most part our speeches in the daytime cause our fantasy to work upon the like in our sleep,” which Ennius writes of Homer: Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat: as a dog dreams of a hare, so do men on such subjects they thought on last.

For that cause when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had posed the seventy interpreters in order, and asked the nineteenth man what would make one sleep quietly in the night, he told him,

[3396]

“the best way was to have divine and celestial meditations, and to use honest actions in the daytime.

[3397]

Lod. Vives wonders how schoolmen could sleep quietly, and were not terrified in the night, or walk in the dark, they had such monstrous questions, and thought of such terrible matters all day long.” They had need, amongst the rest, to sacrifice to god Morpheus, whom

[3398]

Philostratus paints in a white and black coat, with a horn and ivory box full of dreams, of the same colours, to signify good and bad. If you will know how to interpret them, read Artemidorus, Sambucus and Cardan; but how to help them,

[3399]

I must refer you to a more convenient place.

MEMB. VI.

SUBSECT. I.—Perturbations of the mind rectified. From himself, by resisting to the utmost, confessing his grief to a friend, &c.

Whosoever he is that shall hope to cure this malady in himself or any other, must first rectify these passions and perturbations of the mind: the chiefest cure consists in them. A quiet mind is that voluptas, or summum bonum of Epicurus, non dolere, curis vacare, animo tranquillo esse, not to grieve, but to want cares, and have a quiet soul, is the only pleasure of the world, as Seneca truly recites his opinion, not that of eating and drinking, which injurious Aristotle maliciously puts upon him, and for which he is still mistaken, male audit et vapulat, slandered without a cause, and lashed by all posterity. [3400]“Fear and sorrow, therefore, are especially to be avoided, and the mind to be mitigated with mirth, constancy, good hope; vain terror, bad objects are to be removed, and all such persons in whose companies they be not well pleased.” Gualter Bruel. Fernelius, consil. 43. Mercurialis, consil. 6. Piso, Jacchinus, cap. 15. in 9. Rhasis, Capivaccius, Hildesheim, &c., all inculcate this as an especial means of their cure, that their [3401]“minds be quietly pacified, vain conceits diverted, if it be possible, with terrors, cares,” [3402] “fixed studies, cogitations, and whatsoever it is that shall any way molest or trouble the soul,” because that otherwise there is no good to be done. [3403]“The body's mischiefs,” as Plato proves, “proceed from the soul: and if the mind be not first satisfied, the body can never be cured.” Alcibiades raves (saith [3404]Maximus Tyrius) and is sick, his furious desires carry him from Lyceus to the pleading place, thence to the sea, so into Sicily, thence to Lacedaemon, thence to Persia, thence to Samos, then again to Athens; Critias tyranniseth over all the city; Sardanapalus is lovesick; these men are ill-affected all, and can never be cured, till their minds be otherwise qualified. Crato, therefore, in that often-cited Counsel of his for a nobleman his patient, when he had sufficiently informed him in diet, air, exercise, Venus, sleep, concludes with these as matters of greatest moment, Quod reliquum est, animae accidentia corrigantur, from which alone proceeds melancholy; they are the fountain, the subject, the hinges whereon it turns, and must necessarily be reformed. [3405]“For anger stirs choler, heats the blood and vital spirits; sorrow on the other side refrigerates the body, and extinguisheth natural heat, overthrows appetite, hinders concoction, dries up the temperature, and perverts the understanding:” fear dissolves the spirits, infects the heart, attenuates the soul: and for these causes all passions and perturbations must, to the uttermost of our power and most seriously, be removed. Aelianus Montaltus attributes so much to them, [3406]“that he holds the rectification of them alone to be sufficient to the cure of melancholy in most patients.” Many are fully cured when they have seen or heard, &c., enjoy their desires, or be secured and satisfied in their minds; Galen, the common master of them all, from whose fountain they fetch water, brags, lib. 1. de san. tuend., that he, for his part, hath cured divers of this infirmity, solum animis ad rectum institutis, by right settling alone of their minds.

Yea, but you will here infer, that this is excellent good indeed if it could be done; but how shall it be effected, by whom, what art, what means? hic labor, hoc opus est. 'Tis a natural infirmity, a most powerful adversary, all men are subject to passions, and melancholy above all others, as being distempered by their innate humours, abundance of choler adust, weakness of parts, outward occurrences; and how shall they be avoided? The wisest men, greatest philosophers of most excellent wit, reason, judgment, divine spirits, cannot moderate themselves in this behalf; such as are sound in body and mind, Stoics, heroes, Homer's gods, all are passionate, and furiously carried sometimes; and how shall we that are already crazed, fracti animis, sick in body, sick in mind, resist? we cannot perform it. You may advise and give good precepts, as who cannot? But how shall they be put in practice? I may not deny but our passions are violent, and tyrannise of us, yet there be means to curb them; though they be headstrong, they may be tamed, they may be qualified, if he himself or his friends will but use their honest endeavours, or make use of such ordinary helps as are commonly prescribed.

He himself (I say); from the patient himself the first and chiefest remedy must be had; for if he be averse, peevish, waspish, give way wholly to his passions, will not seek to be helped, or be ruled by his friends, how is it possible he should be cured? But if he be willing at least, gentle, tractable, and desire his own good, no doubt but he may magnam morbi deponere partem, be eased at least, if not cured. He himself must do his utmost endeavour to resist and withstand the beginnings. Principiis obsta, “Give not water passage, no not a little,” Ecclus. xxv. 27. If they open a little, they will make a greater breach at length. Whatsoever it is that runneth in his mind, vain conceit, be it pleasing or displeasing, which so much affects or troubleth him, [3407]“by all possible means he must withstand it, expel those vain, false, frivolous imaginations, absurd conceits, feigned fears and sorrows; from which,” saith Piso, “this disease primarily proceeds, and takes his first occasion or beginning, by doing something or other that shall be opposite unto them, thinking of something else, persuading by reason, or howsoever to make a sudden alteration of them.” Though he have hitherto run in a full career, and precipitated himself, following his passions, giving reins to his appetite, let him now stop upon a sudden, curb himself in; and as [3408]Lemnius adviseth, “strive against with all his power, to the utmost of his endeavour, and not cherish those fond imaginations, which so covertly creep into his mind, most pleasing and amiable at first, but bitter as gall at last, and so headstrong, that by no reason, art, counsel, or persuasion, they may be shaken off.” Though he be far gone, and habituated unto such fantastical imaginations, yet as [3409]Tully and Plutarch advise, let him oppose, fortify, or prepare himself against them, by premeditation, reason, or as we do by a crooked staff, bend himself another way.

Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum

. If it be idleness hath caused this infirmity, or that he perceive himself given to solitariness, to walk alone, and please his mind with fond imaginations, let him by all means avoid it; 'tis a bosom enemy, 'tis delightsome melancholy, a friend in show, but a secret devil, a sweet poison, it will in the end be his undoing; let him go presently, task or set himself a work, get some good company. If he proceed, as a gnat flies about a candle, so long till at length he burn his bodv, so in the end he will undo himself: if it be any harsh object, ill company, let him presently go from it. If by his own default, through ill diet, bad air, want of exercise, &c., let him now begin to reform himself. “It would be a perfect remedy against all corruption, if,” as

[3411]

Roger Bacon hath it, “we could but moderate ourselves in those six non-natural things.”

[3412]

“If it be any disgrace, abuse, temporal loss, calumny, death of friends, imprisonment, banishment, be not troubled with it, do not fear, be not angry, grieve not at it, but with all courage sustain it.” (Gordonius,

lib. 1. c. 15. de conser. vit.

)

Tu contra audentior ito

.

[3413]

If it be sickness, ill success, or any adversity that hath caused it, oppose an invincible courage, “fortify thyself by God's word, or otherwise,”

mala bonis persuadenda

, set prosperity against adversity, as we refresh our eyes by seeing some pleasant meadow, fountain, picture, or the like: recreate thy mind by some contrary object, with some more pleasing meditation divert thy thoughts.

Yea, but you infer again, facile consilium damus aliis, we can easily give counsel to others; every man, as the saying is, can tame a shrew but he that hath her; si hic esses, aliter sentires; if you were in our misery, you would find it otherwise, 'tis not so easily performed. We know this to be true; we should moderate ourselves, but we are furiously carried, we cannot make use of such precepts, we are overcome, sick, male sani, distempered and habituated to these courses, we can make no resistance; you may as well bid him that is diseased not to feel pain, as a melancholy man not to fear, not to be sad: 'tis within his blood, his brains, his whole temperature, it cannot be removed. But he may choose whether he will give way too far unto it, he may in some sort correct himself. A philosopher was bitten with a mad dog, and as the nature of that disease is to abhor all waters, and liquid things, and to think still they see the picture of a dog before them: he went for all this, reluctante se, to the bath, and seeing there (as he thought) in the water the picture of a dog, with reason overcame this conceit, quid cani cum balneo? what should a dog do in a bath? a mere conceit. Thou thinkest thou hearest and seest devils, black men, &c., 'tis not so, 'tis thy corrupt fantasy; settle thine imagination, thou art well. Thou thinkest thou hast a great nose, thou art sick, every man observes thee, laughs thee to scorn; persuade thyself 'tis no such matter: this is fear only, and vain suspicion. Thou art discontent, thou art sad and heavy; but why? upon what ground? consider of it: thou art jealous, timorous, suspicious; for what cause? examine it thoroughly, thou shalt find none at all, or such as is to be contemned; such as thou wilt surely deride, and contemn in thyself, when it is past. Rule thyself then with reason, satisfy thyself, accustom thyself, wean thyself from such fond conceits, vain fears, strong imaginations, restless thoughts. Thou mayst do it; Est in nobis assuescere (as Plutarch saith), we may frame ourselves as we will. As he that useth an upright shoe, may correct the obliquity, or crookedness, by wearing it on the other side; we may overcome passions if we will. Quicquid sibi imperavit animus obtinuit (as [3414]Seneca saith) nulli tam feri affectus, ut non disciplina perdomentur, whatsoever the will desires, she may command: no such cruel affections, but by discipline they may be tamed; voluntarily thou wilt not do this or that, which thou oughtest to do, or refrain, &c., but when thou art lashed like a dull jade, thou wilt reform it: fear of a whip will make thee do, or not do. Do that voluntarily then which thou canst do, and must do by compulsion; thou mayst refrain if thou wilt, and master thine affections. [3415]“As in a city” (saith Melancthon) “they do by stubborn rebellious rogues, that will not submit themselves to political judgment, compel them by force; so must we do by our affections. If the heart will not lay aside those vicious motions, and the fantasy those fond imaginations, we have another form of government to enforce and refrain our outward members, that they be not led by our passions.” If appetite will not obey, let the moving faculty overrule her, let her resist and compel her to do otherwise. In an ague the appetite would drink; sore eyes that itch would be rubbed; but reason saith no, and therefore the moving faculty will not do it. Our fantasy would intrude a thousand fears, suspicions, chimeras upon us, but we have reason to resist, yet we let it be overborne by our appetite; [3416]“imagination enforceth spirits, which, by an admirable league of nature, compel the nerves to obey, and they our several limbs:” we give too much way to our passions. And as to him that is sick of an ague, all things are distasteful and unpleasant, non ex cibi vitio saith Plutarch, not in the meat, but in our taste: so many things are offensive to us, not of themselves, but out of our corrupt judgment, jealousy, suspicion, and the like: we pull these mischiefs upon our own heads.

If then our judgment be so depraved, our reason overruled, will precipitated, that we cannot seek our own good, or moderate ourselves, as in this disease commonly it is, the best way for ease is to impart our misery to some friend, not to smother it up in our own breast: aliter vitium crescitque tegendo, &c., and that which was most offensive to us, a cause of fear and grief, quod nunc te coquit, another hell; for [3417] strangulat inclusus dolor atque exaestuat intus, grief concealed strangles the soul; but when as we shall but impart it to some discreet, trusty, loving friend, it is [3418]instantly removed, by his counsel happily, wisdom, persuasion, advice, his good means, which we could not otherwise apply unto ourselves. A friend's counsel is a charm, like mandrake wine, curas sopit; and as a [3419]bull that is tied to a fig-tree becomes gentle on a sudden (which some, saith [3420]Plutarch, interpret of good words), so is a savage, obdurate heart mollified by fair speeches. “All adversity finds ease in complaining” (as [3421]Isidore holds), “and 'tis a solace to relate it,” [3422]Ἀγαθὴ δε παραίφασις ἐστὶν ἐταίρου. Friends' confabulations are comfortable at all times, as fire in winter, shade in summer, quale sopor fessis in gramine, meat and drink to him that is hungry or athirst; Democritus's collyrium is not so sovereign to the eyes as this is to the heart; good words are cheerful and powerful of themselves, but much more from friends, as so many props, mutually sustaining each other like ivy and a wall, which Camerarius hath well illustrated in an emblem. Lenit animum simplex vel saepe narratio, the simple narration many times easeth our distressed mind, and in the midst of greatest extremities; so diverse have been relieved, by [3423]exonerating themselves to a faithful friend: he sees that which we cannot see for passion and discontent, he pacifies our minds, he will ease our pain, assuage our anger; quanta inde voluptas, quanta securitas, Chrysostom adds, what pleasure, what security by that means! [3424]“Nothing so available, or that so much refresheth the soul of man.” Tully, as I remember, in an epistle to his dear friend Atticus, much condoles the defect of such a friend. [3425]“I live here” (saith he) “in a great city, where I have a multitude of acquaintance, but not a man of all that company with whom I dare familiarly breathe, or freely jest. Wherefore I expect thee, I desire thee, I send for thee; for there be many things which trouble and molest me, which had I but thee in presence, I could quickly disburden myself of in a walking discourse.” The like, peradventure, may he and he say with that old man in the comedy,

and much inconvenience may both he and he suffer in the meantime by it. He or he, or whosoever then labours of this malady, by all means let him get some trusty friend,

[3427]

Semper habens Pylademque aliquem qui curet Orestem

, a Pylades, to whom freely and securely he may open himself. For as in all other occurrences, so it is in this,

Si quis in coelum ascendisset

, &c. as he said in

[3428]

Tully, if a man had gone to heaven, “seen the beauty of the skies,” stars errant, fixed, &c.,

insuavis erit admiratio

, it will do him no pleasure, except he have somebody to impart what he hath seen. It is the best thing in the world, as

[3429]

Seneca therefore adviseth in such a case, “to get a trusty friend, to whom we may freely and sincerely pour out our secrets; nothing so delighteth and easeth the mind, as when we have a prepared bosom, to which our secrets may descend, of whose conscience we are assured as our own, whose speech may ease our succourless estate, counsel relieve, mirth expel our mourning, and whose very sight may be acceptable unto us.” It was the counsel which that politic

[3430]

Comineus gave to all princes, and others distressed in mind, by occasion of Charles Duke of Burgundy, that was much perplexed, “first to pray to God, and lay himself open to him, and then to some special friend, whom we hold most dear, to tell all our grievances to him; nothing so forcible to strengthen, recreate, and heal the wounded soul of a miserable man.”

SUBSECT. II.—Help from friends by counsel, comfort, fair and foul means, witty devices, satisfaction, alteration of his course of life, removing objects, &c.

When the patient of himself is not able to resist, or overcome these heart-eating passions, his friends or physician must be ready to supply that which is wanting. Suae erit humanitatis et sapientiae (which [3431] Tully enjoineth in like case) siquid erratum, curare, aut improvisum, sua diligentia corrigere. They must all join; nec satis medico, saith [3432] Hippocrates, suum fecisse officium, nisi suum quoque aegrotus, suum astantes, &c. First, they must especially beware, a melancholy discontented person (be it in what kind of melancholy soever) never be left alone or idle: but as physicians prescribe physic, cum custodia, let them not be left unto themselves, but with some company or other, lest by that means they aggravate and increase their disease; non oportet aegros humjusmodi esse solos vel inter ignotos, vel inter eos quos non amant aut negligunt, as Rod. a Fonseca, tom. 1. consul. 35. prescribes. Lugentes custodire solemus (saith [3433]Seneca) ne solitudine male utantur; we watch a sorrowful person, lest he abuse his solitariness, and so should we do a melancholy man; set him about some business, exercise or recreation, which may divert his thoughts, and still keep him otherwise intent; for his fantasy is so restless, operative and quick, that if it be not in perpetual action, ever employed, it will work upon itself, melancholise, and be carried away instantly, with some fear, jealousy, discontent, suspicion, some vain conceit or other. If his weakness be such that he cannot discern what is amiss, correct, or satisfy, it behoves them by counsel, comfort, or persuasion, by fair or foul means, to alienate his mind, by some artificial invention, or some contrary persuasion, to remove all objects, causes, companies, occasions, as may any ways molest him, to humour him, please him, divert him, and if it be possible, by altering his course of life, to give him security and satisfaction. If he conceal his grievances, and will not be known of them, [3434]“they must observe by his looks, gestures, motions, fantasy, what it is that offends,” and then to apply remedies unto him: many are instantly cured, when their minds are satisfied. [3435]Alexander makes mention of a woman, “that by reason of her husband's long absence in travel, was exceeding peevish and melancholy, but when she heard her husband was returned, beyond all expectation, at the first sight of him, she was freed from all fear, without help of any other physic restored to her former health.” Trincavellius, consil. 12. lib. 1. hath such a story of a Venetian, that being much troubled with melancholy, [3436]“and ready to die for grief, when he heard his wife was brought to bed of a son, instantly recovered.” As Alexander concludes, [3437]“If our imaginations be not inveterate, by this art they may be cured, especially if they proceed from such a cause.” No better way to satisfy, than to remove the object, cause, occasion, if by any art or means possible we may find it out. If he grieve, stand in fear, be in suspicion, suspense, or any way molested, secure him, Solvitur malum, give him satisfaction, the cure is ended; alter his course of life, there needs no other physic. If the party be sad, or otherwise affected, “consider” (saith [3438]Trallianus) “the manner of it, all circumstances, and forthwith make a sudden alteration,” by removing the occasions, avoid all terrible objects, heard or seen, [3439]“monstrous and prodigious aspects,” tales of devils, spirits, ghosts, tragical stories; to such as are in fear they strike a great impression, renewed many times, and recall such chimeras and terrible fictions into their minds. [3440]“Make not so much as mention of them in private talk, or a dumb show tending to that purpose: such things” (saith Galateus) “are offensive to their imaginations.” And to those that are now in sorrow, [3441]Seneca “forbids all sad companions, and such as lament; a groaning companion is an enemy to quietness.” [3442]“Or if there be any such party, at whose presence the patient is not well pleased, he must be removed: gentle speeches, and fair means, must first be tried; no harsh language used, or uncomfortable words; and not expel, as some do, one madness with another; he that so doth, is madder than the patient himself:” all things must be quietly composed; eversa non evertenda, sed erigenda, things down must not be dejected, but reared, as Crato counselleth; [3443] “he must be quietly and gently used,” and we should not do anything against his mind, but by little and little effect it. As a horse that starts at a drum or trumpet, and will not endure the shooting of a piece, may be so manned by art, and animated, that he cannot only endure, but is much more generous at the hearing of such things, much more courageous than before, and much delighteth in it: they must not be reformed ex abrupto, but by all art and insinuation, made to such companies, aspects, objects they could not formerly away with. Many at first cannot endure the sight of a green wound, a sick man, which afterward become good chirurgeons, bold empirics: a horse starts at a rotten post afar off, which coming near he quietly passeth. 'Tis much in the manner of making such kind of persons, be they never so averse from company, bashful, solitary, timorous, they may be made at last with those Roman matrons, to desire nothing more than in a public show, to see a full company of gladiators breathe out their last.

If they may not otherwise be accustomed to brook such distasteful and displeasing objects, the best way then is generally to avoid them. Montanus, consil. 229. to the Earl of Montfort, a courtier, and his melancholy patient, adviseth him to leave the court, by reason of those continual discontents, crosses, abuses, [3444]“cares, suspicions, emulations, ambition, anger, jealousy, which that place afforded, and which surely caused him to be so melancholy at the first:” Maxima quaeque domus servis est plena superbis; a company of scoffers and proud jacks are commonly conversant and attend in such places, and able to make any man that is of a soft, quiet disposition (as many times they do) ex stulto insanum, if once they humour him, a very idiot, or stark mad. A thing too much practised in all common societies, and they have no better sport than to make themselves merry by abusing some silly fellow, or to take advantage of another man's weakness. In such cases as in a plague, the best remedy is cito longe tarde: (for to such a party, especially if he be apprehensive, there can be no greater misery) to get him quickly gone far enough off, and not to be overhasty in his return. If he be so stupid that he do not apprehend it, his friends should take some order, and by their discretion supply that which is wanting in him, as in all other cases they ought to do. If they see a man melancholy given, solitary, averse from company, please himself with such private and vain meditations, though he delight in it, they ought by all means seek to divert him, to dehort him, to tell him of the event and danger that may come of it. If they see a man idle, that by reason of his means otherwise will betake himself to no course of life, they ought seriously to admonish him, he makes a noose to entangle himself, his want of employment will be his undoing. If he have sustained any great loss, suffered a repulse, disgrace, &c., if it be possible, relieve him. If he desire aught, let him be satisfied; if in suspense, fear, suspicion, let him be secured: and if it may conveniently be, give him his heart's content; for the body cannot be cured till the mind be satisfied. [3445] Socrates, in Plato, would prescribe no physic for Charmides' headache, “till first he had eased his troubled mind; body and soul must be cured together, as head and eyes.”

If that may not be hoped or expected, yet ease him with comfort, cheerful speeches, fair promises, and good words, persuade him, advise him. “Many,” saith

[3447]

Galen, “have been cured by good counsel and persuasion alone.” “Heaviness of the heart of man doth bring it down, but a good word rejoiceth it,”

Prov. xii. 25.

“And there is he that speaketh words like the pricking of a sword, but the tongue of a wise man is health,”

ver. 18.

Oratio, namque saucii animi est remedium

, a gentle speech is the true cure of a wounded soul, as

[3448]

Plutarch contends out of Aeschylus and Euripides: “if it be wisely administered it easeth grief and pain, as diverse remedies do many other diseases.” 'Tis

incantationis instar

, a charm,

aestuantis animi refrigerium

, that true Nepenthe of Homer, which was no Indian plant, or feigned medicine, which Epidamna, Thonis' wife, sent Helena for a token, as Macrobius,

7. Saturnal.

Goropius

Hermat. lib. 9.

Greg. Nazianzen, and others suppose, but opportunity of speech: for Helena's bowl, Medea's unction, Venus's girdle, Circe's cup, cannot so enchant, so forcibly move or alter as it doth. A letter sent or read will do as much;

multum allevor quum tuas literas lego

, I am much eased, as

[3449]

Tully wrote to Pomponius Atticus, when I read thy letters, and as Julianus the Apostate once signified to Maximus the philosopher; as Alexander slept with Homer's works, so do I with thine epistles,

tanquam Paeoniis medicamentis, easque assidue tanquam, recentes et novas iteramus; scribe ergo, et assidue scribe

, or else come thyself;

amicus ad amicum venies

. Assuredly a wise and well-spoken man may do what he will in such a case; a good orator alone, as

[3450]

Tully holds, can alter affections by power of his eloquence, “comfort such as are afflicted, erect such as are depressed, expel and mitigate fear, lust, anger,” &c. And how powerful is the charm of a discreet and dear friend?

Ille regit dictis animos et temperat iras

. What may not he effect? As

[3451]

Chremes told Menedemus, “Fear not, conceal it not, O friend! but tell me what it is that troubles thee, and I shall surely help thee by comfort, counsel, or in the matter itself.”

[3452]

Arnoldus,

lib. 1. breviar. cap. 18.

speaks of a usurer in his time, that upon a loss, much melancholy and discontent, was so cured. As imagination, fear, grief, cause such passions, so conceits alone, rectified by good hope, counsel, &c., are able again to help: and 'tis incredible how much they can do in such a case, as

[3453]

Trincavellius illustrates by an example of a patient of his; Porphyrius, the philosopher, in Plotinus's life (written by him), relates, that being in a discontented humour through insufferable anguish of mind, he was going to make away himself: but meeting by chance his master Plotinus, who perceiving by his distracted looks all was not well, urged him to confess his grief: which when he had heard, he used such comfortable speeches, that he redeemed him

e faucibus Erebi

, pacified his unquiet mind, insomuch that he was easily reconciled to himself, and much abashed to think afterwards that he should ever entertain so vile a motion. By all means, therefore, fair promises, good words, gentle persuasions, are to be used, not to be too rigorous at first,

[3454]

“or to insult over them, not to deride, neglect, or contemn,” but rather, as Lemnius exhorteth, “to pity, and by all plausible means to seek to redress them:” but if satisfaction may not be had, mild courses, promises, comfortable speeches, and good counsel will not take place; then as Christophorus a Vega determines,

lib. 3. cap. 14. de Mel.

to handle them more roughly, to threaten and chide, saith

[3455]

Altomarus, terrify sometimes, or as Salvianus will have them, to be lashed and whipped, as we do by a starting horse,

[3456]

that is affrighted without a cause, or as

[3457]

Rhasis adviseth, “one while to speak fair and flatter, another while to terrify and chide, as they shall see cause.”

When none of these precedent remedies will avail, it will not be amiss, which Savanarola and Aelian Montaltus so much commend, clavum clavo pellere, [3458]“to drive out one passion with another, or by some contrary passion,” as they do bleeding at nose by letting blood in the arm, to expel one fear with another, one grief with another. [3459] Christophorus a Vega accounts it rational physic, non alienum a ratione: and Lemnius much approves it, “to use a hard wedge to a hard knot,” to drive out one disease with another, to pull out a tooth, or wound him, to geld him, saith [3460]Platerus, as they did epileptical patients of old, because it quite alters the temperature, that the pain of the one may mitigate the grief of the other; [3461]“and I knew one that was so cured of a quartan ague, by the sudden coming of his enemies upon him.” If we may believe [3462]Pliny, whom Scaliger calls mendaciorum patrem, the father of lies, Q. Fabius Maximus, that renowned consul of Rome, in a battle fought with the king of the Allobroges, at the river Isaurus, was so rid of a quartan ague. Valesius, in his controversies, holds this an excellent remedy, and if it be discreetly used in this malady, better than any physic.

Sometimes again by some [3463]feigned lie, strange news, witty device, artificial invention, it is not amiss to deceive them. [3464]“As they hate those,” saith Alexander, “that neglect or deride, so they will give ear to such as will soothe them up. If they say they have swallowed frogs or a snake, by all means grant it, and tell them you can easily cure it;” 'tis an ordinary thing. Philodotus, the physician, cured a melancholy king, that thought his head was off, by putting a leaden cap thereon; the weight made him perceive it, and freed him of his fond imagination. A woman, in the said Alexander, swallowed a serpent as she thought; he gave her a vomit, and conveyed a serpent, such as she conceived, into the basin; upon the sight of it she was amended. The pleasantest dotage that ever I read, saith [3465]Laurentius, was of a gentleman at Senes in Italy, who was afraid to piss, lest all the town should be drowned; the physicians caused the bells to be rung backward, and told him the town was on fire, whereupon he made water, and was immediately cured. Another supposed his nose so big that he should dash it against the wall if he stirred; his physician took a great piece of flesh, and holding it in his hand, pinched him by the nose, making him believe that flesh was cut from it. Forestus, obs. lib. 1. had a melancholy patient, who thought he was dead, [3466]“he put a fellow in a chest, like a dead man, by his bedside, and made him rear himself a little, and eat: the melancholy man asked the counterfeit, whether dead men use to eat meat? He told him yea; whereupon he did eat likewise and was cured.” Lemnius, lib. 2. cap. 6. de 4. complex, hath many such instances, and Jovianus Pontanus, lib. 4. cap. 2. of Wisd. of the like; but amongst the rest I find one most memorable, registered in the [3467]French chronicles of an advocate of Paris before mentioned, who believed verily he was dead, &c. I read a multitude of examples of melancholy men cured by such artificial inventions.

SUBSECT. III.—Music a remedy.

Many and sundry are the means which philosophers and physicians have prescribed to exhilarate a sorrowful heart, to divert those fixed and intent cares and meditations, which in this malady so much offend; but in my judgment none so present, none so powerful, none so apposite as a cup of strong drink, mirth, music, and merry company. Ecclus. xl. 20. “Wine and music rejoice the heart.” [3468]Rhasis, cont. 9. Tract. 15. Altomarus, cap. 7. Aelianus Montaltus, c. 26. Ficinus, Bened. Victor. Faventinus are almost immoderate in the commendation of it; a most forcible medicine [3469]Jacchinus calls it: Jason Pratensis, “a most admirable thing, and worthy of consideration, that can so mollify the mind, and stay those tempestuous affections of it.” Musica est mentis medicina moestae, a roaring-meg against melancholy, to rear and revive the languishing soul; [3470]“affecting not only the ears, but the very arteries, the vital and animal spirits, it erects the mind, and makes it nimble.” Lemnius, instit, cap. 44. This it will effect in the most dull, severe and sorrowful souls, [3471]“expel grief with mirth, and if there be any clouds, dust, or dregs of cares yet lurking in our thoughts, most powerfully it wipes them all away,” Salisbur. polit. lib. 1. cap. 6. and that which is more, it will perform all this in an instant: [3472]“Cheer up the countenance, expel austerity, bring in hilarity” (Girald. Camb. cap. 12. Topog. Hiber.) “inform our manners, mitigate anger;” Athenaeus (Dipnosophist. lib. 14. cap. 10.) calleth it an infinite treasure to such as are endowed with it: Dulcisonum reficit tristia corda melos, Eobanus Hessus. Many other properties [3473]Cassiodorus, epist. 4. reckons up of this our divine music, not only to expel the greatest griefs, but “it doth extenuate fears and furies, appeaseth cruelty, abateth heaviness, and to such as are watchful it causeth quiet rest; it takes away spleen and hatred,” be it instrumental, vocal, with strings, wind, [3474]Quae, a spiritu, sine manuum dexteritate gubernetur, &c. it cures all irksomeness and heaviness of the soul. [3475]Labouring men that sing to their work, can tell as much, and so can soldiers when they go to fight, whom terror of death cannot so much affright, as the sound of trumpet, drum, fife, and such like music animates; metus enim mortis, as [3476]Censorinus informeth us, musica depellitur. “It makes a child quiet,” the nurse's song, and many times the sound of a trumpet on a sudden, bells ringing, a carman's whistle, a boy singing some ballad tune early in the streets, alters, revives, recreates a restless patient that cannot sleep in the night, &c. In a word, it is so powerful a thing that it ravisheth the soul, regina sensuum, the queen of the senses, by sweet pleasure (which is a happy cure), and corporal tunes pacify our incorporeal soul, sine ore loquens, dominatum in animam exercet, and carries it beyond itself, helps, elevates, extends it. Scaliger, exercit. 302, gives a reason of these effects, [3477]“because the spirits about the heart take in that trembling and dancing air into the body, are moved together, and stirred up with it,” or else the mind, as some suppose harmonically composed, is roused up at the tunes of music. And 'tis not only men that are so affected, but almost all other creatures. You know the tale of Hercules Gallus, Orpheus, and Amphion, felices animas Ovid calls them, that could saxa movere sono testudinis, &c. make stocks and stones, as well as beasts and other animals, dance after their pipes: the dog and hare, wolf and lamb; vicinumque lupo praebuit agna latus; clamosus graculus, stridula cornix, et Jovis aquila, as Philostratus describes it in his images, stood all gaping upon Orpheus; and [3478]trees pulled up by the roots came to hear him, Et comitem quercum pinus amica trahit.

Arion made fishes follow him, which, as common experience evinceth, [3479] are much affected with music. All singing birds are much pleased with it, especially nightingales, if we may believe Calcagninus; and bees amongst the rest, though they be flying away, when they hear any tingling sound, will tarry behind. [3480]“Harts, hinds, horses, dogs, bears, are exceedingly delighted with it.” Scal, exerc. 302. Elephants, Agrippa adds, lib. 2. cap. 24. and in Lydia in the midst of a lake there be certain floating islands (if ye will believe it), that after music will dance.

But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise [3481]of divine music, I will confine myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against [3482] despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself. Canus, a Rhodian fiddler, in [3483]Philostratus, when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him, “That he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout.” Ismenias the Theban, [3484]Chiron the centaur, is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone: as now they do those, saith [3485]Bodine, that are troubled with St. Vitus's Bedlam dance. [3486]Timotheus, the musician, compelled Alexander to skip up and down, and leave his dinner (like the tale of the Friar and the Boy), whom Austin, de civ. Dei, lib. 17. cap. 14. so much commends for it. Who hath not heard how David's harmony drove away the evil spirits from king Saul, 1 Sam. xvi. and Elisha when he was much troubled by importunate kings, called for a minstrel, “and when he played, the hand of the Lord came upon him,” 2 Kings iii. Censorinus de natali, cap. 12. reports how Asclepiades the physician helped many frantic persons by this means, phreneticorum mentes morbo turbatas—Jason Pratensis, cap. de Mania, hath many examples, how Clinias and Empedocles cured some desperately melancholy, and some mad by this our music. Which because it hath such excellent virtues, belike [3487]Homer brings in Phemius playing, and the Muses singing at the banquet of the gods. Aristotle, Polit. l. 8. c. 5, Plato 2. de legibus, highly approve it, and so do all politicians. The Greeks, Romans, have graced music, and made it one of the liberal sciences, though it be now become mercenary. All civil Commonwealths allow it: Cneius Manlius (as [3488]Livius relates) anno ab urb. cond. 567. brought first out of Asia to Rome singing wenches, players, jesters, and all kinds of music to their feasts. Your princes, emperors, and persons of any quality, maintain it in their courts; no mirth without music. Sir Thomas More, in his absolute Utopian commonwealth, allows music as an appendix to every meal, and that throughout, to all sorts. Epictetus calls mensam mutam praesepe, a table without music a manger: for “the concert of musicians at a banquet is a carbuncle set in gold; and as the signet of an emerald well trimmed with gold, so is the melody of music in a pleasant banquet.” Ecclus. xxxii. 5, 6. [3489]Louis the Eleventh, when he invited Edward the Fourth to come to Paris, told him that as a principal part of his entertainment, he should hear sweet voices of children, Ionic and Lydian tunes, exquisite music, he should have a —, and the cardinal of Bourbon to be his confessor, which he used as a most plausible argument: as to a sensual man indeed it is. [3490] Lucian in his book, de saltatione, is not ashamed to confess that he took infinite delight in singing, dancing, music, women's company, and such like pleasures: “and if thou” (saith he) “didst but hear them play and dance, I know thou wouldst be so well pleased with the object, that thou wouldst dance for company thyself, without doubt thou wilt be taken with it.” So Scaliger ingenuously confesseth, exercit. 274. [3491]“I am beyond all measure affected with music, I do most willingly behold them dance, I am mightily detained and allured with that grace and comeliness of fair women, I am well pleased to be idle amongst them.” And what young man is not? As it is acceptable and conducing to most, so especially to a melancholy man. Provided always, his disease proceed not originally from it, that he be not some light inamorato, some idle fantastic, who capers in conceit all the day long, and thinks of nothing else, but how to make jigs, sonnets, madrigals, in commendation of his mistress. In such cases music is most pernicious, as a spur to a free horse will make him run himself blind, or break his wind; Incitamentum enim amoris musica, for music enchants, as Menander holds, it will make such melancholy persons mad, and the sound of those jigs and hornpipes will not be removed out of the ears a week after. [3492]Plato for this reason forbids music and wine to all young men, because they are most part amorous, ne ignis addatur igni, lest one fire increase another. Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth; and therefore to such as are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most present remedy: it expels cares, alters their grieved minds, and easeth in an instant. Otherwise, saith [3493]Plutarch, Musica magis dementat quam vinum; music makes some men mad as a tiger; like Astolphos' horn in Ariosto; or Mercury's golden wand in Homer, that made some wake, others sleep, it hath divers effects: and [3494]Theophrastus right well prophesied, that diseases were either procured by music, or mitigated.

SUBSECT. IV.—Mirth and merry company, fair objects, remedies.

Mirth and merry company may not be separated from music, both concerning and necessarily required in this business. “Mirth,” (saith [3495]Vives) “purgeth the blood, confirms health, causeth a fresh, pleasing, and fine colour,” prorogues life, whets the wit, makes the body young, lively and fit for any manner of employment. The merrier the heart the longer the life; “A merry heart is the life of the flesh,” Prov. xiv. 30. “Gladness prolongs his days,” Ecclus. xxx. 22; and this is one of the three Salernitan doctors, Dr. Merryman, Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, [3496]which cure all diseases—Mens hilaris, requies, moderata dieta. [3497]Gomesius, praefat. lib. 3. de sal. gen. is a great magnifier of honest mirth, by which (saith he) “we cure many passions of the mind in ourselves, and in our friends;” which [3498]Galateus assigns for a cause why we love merry companions: and well they deserve it, being that as [3499]Magninus holds, a merry companion is better than any music, and as the saying is, comes jucundus in via pro vehiculo, as a wagon to him that is wearied on the way. Jucunda confabulatio, sales, joci, pleasant discourse, jests, conceits, merry tales, melliti verborum globuli, as Petronius, [3500] Pliny, [3501]Spondanus, [3502]Caelius, and many good authors plead, are that sole Nepenthes of Homer, Helena's bowl, Venus's girdle, so renowned of old [3503]to expel grief and care, to cause mirth and gladness of heart, if they be rightly understood, or seasonably applied. In a word,

are the true Nepenthes. For these causes our physicians generally prescribe this as a principal engine to batter the walls of melancholy, a chief antidote, and a sufficient cure of itself. “By all means” (saith

[3505]

Mesue) “procure mirth to these men in such things as are heard, seen, tasted, or smelled, or any way perceived, and let them have all enticements and fair promises, the sight of excellent beauties, attires, ornaments, delightsome passages to distract their minds from fear and sorrow, and such things on which they are so fixed and intent.”